The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Trump Declares Iran Ceasefire "Over" & Goes No-Contact with Spain | Mayor Aftab Pureval

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

Ronny Chieng dives into Trump's appearance at the NATO summit "love-fest," where he picked new fights with Spain and Denmark, converted Japan into an Islamic Republic, and bemoaned his on-again, off-again ceasefire with Iran. Sen. Mitch McConnell's three-week absence has led many to wonder if he's even alive, but CNN's Scott Jennings put that question to rest with a totally believable claim that he chatted with the senator for an oddly specific 17 minutes. (tag)Michael Kosta went to the hospital where McConnell is staying to get the truth from the man himself, and defends the perfectly not-dead senator against a skeptical Ronny. Mayor Aftab Pureval, Cincinnati’s 70th mayor, joins Ronny Chieng to discuss the unique position of mayors in enacting local change. They talk about being a mayor of color of a Democratic city in a red state, balancing long- and short-term solutions as a politician and a statesman, distinguishing the no-nonsense nature of local vs. federal politics, and feeling frustrated with the Democratic establishment and calling for “a new generation of leadership.” -- CarShield is offering our listeners 20% off with the code TDS at https://CarShield.com/TDS Go to https://Quince.com/dailyshow for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, Hair Loss, Weight Loss, and more, visit https://Hims.com/dailyshow -- The Daily Show airs weeknights at 11/10c on Comedy Central. Stream full episodes on Paramount+ Follow TDS: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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about tonight. America is much pissed at Spain. Trump continues his on-again, off-again relationship with Iran, and Mitch McConnell continues his on-again, off-again, relationship with being alive. So let's get into it of ongoing coverage of Trump meets world.

International humiliation, one after another. President Trump flew to Turkey this week for the NATO summit, which means he's surrounded by allies. And I don't mean the kind of ally who tells you he's not racist because as he has an Asian wife.

I mean geopolitical allies. And if you listen to Trump, it seems like the meetings have gone really well. If you could have seen the respect and the love in the room, there was tremendous love in that room. It's too bad the press couldn't have seen what we were doing in that room. The, yeah, really a love. It was kind of pretty wild.

It's pretty wild. I wish the press could have seen all the tremendous love. What the f*** was going on in that room? I mean, I don't want to be gross, but it sounds like they were having a big circle jerk in there. It's too bad the press could not see what's happening in this room. You saw the big round circle with all of the leaders of all of those countries. Gross.

This whole time I thought he was dancing. It turns out it was practice. You know what? Maybe it's good that Trump is getting in sync with NATO, because right now he really needs that support with the big issue that's looming over the entire summit. Overnight Iran and the U.S. trading fire, Tehran launching attacks across the region,

targeting U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait. Just hours earlier, the U.S. hitting over 80 targets. President Trump said the ceasefire with Iran is now over, calling into question the future of these negotiations and whether America will fully be brought back into this war. What do you mean brought back into the war? What the one's doing the war? It's like a tornado being like, oh, wow, why is it so wind?

So, yeah, the sea spire may be over, but lucky for us, we got dealmaker in chief as our president. And when he's in charge, it's never over. To me, I think it's over. They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people. Vicious, violent people. They're cuckoo.

As far as I'm concerned, they're a bunch of lying guys. They're liars, they're cheats, they're sick people. They're scum. You know what scum is? It's the thing covering your reflecting pool, right? But, Mr. President, take a step back, okay? You've only been negotiating for three weeks. What made you so mad at them?

You know, they asked for a timeout. They wanted to go to the funeral of Comini, and they said, give it to them. And they start shooting missiles. I mean, it's a crazy thing. Yeah, it's so crazy. It's crazy. I mean, look, I get what you're saying.

Iran asked for a timeout for a funeral, and then they shot missiles at oil tankers. You're not supposed to shoot during a timeout. Okay, you got respect playground rules. But, Mr. President, is there any possible reason you think they might want to launch missiles during their leader's funeral? I mean, it's a crazy thing.

Now, we did kill him. So I guess you have to look at it that way. I think we make a breakthrough here, okay? Because that's what I love about Trump. He sees things from other people's perspective sometimes. But whoever started the war, it doesn't matter, although it was you. The important thing, the important thing now is getting help. And again, it's great that he's at the NATO Sex Summit because he could, he can use all the allies he can get.

I spoke to Germany, I spoke to France, spoke to UK. spoke to Italy I spoke to I didn't speak to Spain Spain is a wasted cause Wait Spain Where did that come from Did I miss an episode or something Because I don't remember Spain

Being a character in the show But I guess Trump Has some kind of problem with Spain They're hopeless Bad people because You know they have everybody else going And paying and working in Spain, in particular Spain.

There are a couple of others, but in particular Spain. We don't want to do any trade business with Spain anymore, by the way. I'd like you to cut it up. Holy shit, they're cutting trade off. Wait, are you confusing Spain with Mexico? You know, you know, Spain is white, right? They're the white people. I mean, they're tan, but they're still white people.

You can't just cut off trade with Spain. I mean, how are we going to get our... What the fuck do these guys make again? Cathedrals, croquettas, Paiaz? Why is Spain causing you so much pain? Explain. Spain is a terrible partner in NATO.

They don't participate. They don't pay. I don't want anything to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain, please. including visits. Okay, now I'm causing a timeout. What do you mean including visits? Does he mean diplomatic, or am I not allowed to go to Spain now?

Because I had a whole eat prey love plant. The eat was in Mallorca. Can you at least talk to Spain first? I don't want to do any more trade with them, all right? Take it immediately. Don't even talk to them. Don't even talk to them. You can look at their stories, but don't like them.

All right, fine. Are there any other fights you want to pick with NATO while you're at it? Denmark doesn't spend money to really help Greenland, but it's an important part for the United States. That should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark. Okay, here we... Shit again. I guess we're going to war with Iran and Spain and Greenland.

All I ask is, before we invade Greenland, can we at least triple check that Greenland doesn't also control some vital choke point for the entire planet. Because I don't want to find out that all the world's oxygen comes from some volcano in Nook. Listen, Trump, you got to get over this shit and get NATO on board with the war, okay?

Because it sounds like Iran is getting some new allies. Two months ago, we had 100, I told the story yesterday, we had 111 missile shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan. Oh my God. were losing the war with Iran so bad it converted Japan to Islam. And I know it sounds stupid when Trump says it, but if someone told you

the Islamic Republic of Japan was a new fusion restaurant in Bushwick, you fucking hipsters would be lining up for it. So basically on this NATO trip, Trump managed to restart the war of Iran, pissed off our allies, threatened to kidnap Greenland, and again,

and now no one is allowed to visit Spain. This would be considered a catastrophic failure for any president. But for Donald Trump, solid B-minus. It's not his worst outing. When we come back, we find out where Mitch McConnell is, so don't go away. Picture this. It's the middle of summer. The family is packed into the car for a road trip.

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What Donald Trump wants you to think, he doesn't run the government all by himself. There's a whole other legislative branch with 435 Congresspeople and 100 senators, or maybe 99. Tonight, growing concern about the health of Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and former majority leader is 84 years old,

and he's been hospitalized for three weeks now. It's still unclear why he was admitted or when he'll be released. I think it's pretty clear why he was admitted. He's an incredibly old man. He's half the age of America, all right? Look at him. He's probably diagnosed with, uh, sound of being extremely 84.

But apparently, people don't like a majority senator disappearing with no explanation for three weeks. So the governor of Kentucky contacted him in a way that old people love, male. Kentucky Governor Andy Bashir has sent a letter to Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, requesting an update on his health. Dear Senator McConnell, over the last several weeks, Kentuckians have grown increasingly concerned about the current state of your health and well-being and ability to hold office in the United States Senate. We wish you a safe and speedy recovery.

The fact that this letter exists is not a great sign, okay? It's like, hey kids, grandpa is doing great. Now let's all write him a nice letter asking him to breathe on a mirror. And ending with, we wish you a safe and speedy recovery. almost sounds like trolling for a letter like this. Although, honestly, I'm not sure how you sign off on a letter asking, where you're asking someone to prove that they're not dead.

It's like writing thanks in advance, no worries if not. But it's nice of the governor of Kentucky to write a letter because other people are not being as polite. There have been this growing chorus of rumors, of speculation of just what is Senator Mitch McConnell's condition. We still haven't seen a photo of Mitch McConnell. He should be able to shoot a 60-second proof-of-life video to show us that he's okay.

You're asking for a proof-of-life video from the hospital? 84-year-olds have trouble shooting video when they're perfectly healthy, okay? If he can shoot a video without his thumb covering the camera, we should make him king of America. Besides, what good is a proof-of-life video? We're talking about Mitch McConnell. For the past two years, we've been watching him in videos

where I have no idea if he's alive. I mean, look at this. Look at this. Is this a picture or video? You have no idea. But hey, maybe all this isn't even necessary because yesterday a whole bunch of Mitch's friends all came out at the same time and said,

it's fine. We totally talked to him. Republican leaders in the Senate said that they had spoken to McConnell. We're going to just show someone on screen, all saying, I talked to him, I talked to him for 20 minutes. Yeah. That's right. He's doing that totally normal. live person thing where you spend your day calling multiple guys for 20 minutes. It's all very legit.

We need real proof. Scott Jennings, you used to work with Mitch McConnell. Is he all right? Yeah, he called me this morning before I did my radio show. We talked for about 17 minutes. Yeah, okay. No, no. No, I'm sorry, I got a call bullshit.

17 minutes is way too specific of a number. When you describe phone calls, you say 15 minutes or 20 minutes. 20 minutes. Anything else is like a deposition. But okay, Scott Jennings, tell us more about this extremely real conversation you had with a very alive person. He talked a lot about the situation with Iran. Talked a little bit about Ukraine and what's going on in Europe. I told him I'd been to the Teddy Roosevelt Library. We talked a little bit about the history of the vice presidency and how Roosevelt had transformed that in the modern presidency.

A little history of the Senate. Yeah, of course you did. Yeah, yeah. We talked about Teddy Roosevelt's contributions to our national park system, and then Senator McConnell said, actually, Teddy's right here with me. He's hovering beside my bed. Wow, should I put him on real quick? For more, let's go live to our senior political correspondent Michael Costa.

Michael. The latest. Ronnie, I'm here at the hospital, and I just got a chance to speak to Senator McConnell for roughly 43.3 minutes. Ronnie, he's doing great. That is an oddly specific number. Well, that's just how long living human friends talk for. I wanted to talk longer, but he had five more phone calls he had to get in before leading a Zoom trivia night.

Michael, with all due respect, is that really true? Ronnie, with all due respect, shut up. Mitch McConnell's health is none of your business. Yes, it is. He's a sitting U.S. Senator. He's a sitting U.S. Senator. Do you even hear yourself? Let me break it down for you.

A senator is better than us. This is the system our founding fathers envisioned, representation by an elite group of quasi-corpses who owe us nothing and cling to power even through rigamortis. God, they nailed it. Okay, no, no, don't applaud that. You, you psychos, that's not the system.

Well, well, you weren't there. Mitch was. So maybe show him a little respect. And your obsession with him, honestly, it's embarrassing. And that's the same thing I told Mitch earlier when we were surfing. That's no way you went surfing with him. I couldn't believe it either. I thought he'd be tired after Pilates, but this dude, he's a machine.

I think you're just covering for him, Costa, and the American people deserve transparency from our senators. American people, transparency, senators. With all due respect, Ronnie, eat shit and die. If we get rid of Mitch, where does it end? We get rid of all the other aging, cognitively impaired, technically dead senators? That's called discrimination, and it would be illegal if Mitch McConnell's Supreme Court hadn't overturned it. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. I want to discriminate against people who are too old to be senators. That's so bigoted you make me sick.

Metaphorically, not sick like all the old senators. And worst of all, your attitude around it's going to bum Mitch out. He's not even going to be excited for our volcano hike later. If he's doing volcano hikes, then why can't you show him to us? I would. But I can't. Why not? Because, look, I shouldn't say, but if you want the honest truth,

he's in a hospital room right now, in his bed, absolutely given it to his wife. Are you happy now? Huh? I mean, you can hear him going at it. Clear. Sex words. Maybe not for you. They're not, but you don't do it like Mitch. He and his misses have been at it for 46.8 minutes. And they're not slowing down, Ronnie. Oh, God. Forget it. Michael Koss, everybody. Join me on the show, so don't go away. The peak of the summer season brings a much more relaxed pace to daily routines.

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Please welcome Mayor Aftab. Here of all. Standing ovation in New York City. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for coming on the show. Oh, it's my pleasure. My pleasure. This is very exciting.

Thank you. I'm sorry, it couldn't be John Stewart. No, no, this is even better. A couple of Asians on national television. Let's go. I don't know if you know this, but you are not white. That's news flash. Thank you.

Newsflash. You're not a white guy. And you are mayor in a city that's extremely red. The state is red. My city is bright blue. Sure. We are, yeah. We are very much a, we are very much, we are very much, we are very much a democratic city.

Right, but how did you do that? It's a very important question. Yeah. No, seriously, how did you do that? Well, look, it is really the honor of my life to be mayor of Cincinnati. And the fact that Cincinnati voters gave me a chance, I think, really reflects the values and priorities of my beloved city. Ronnie, I know that you're a coastal... You're a coastal Asian, but...

Yeah. But we are very proud to be... Cincinnati's proud to be the destination for the Underground Railroad. The same city of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the same city of reforming, our problem-solving, oriented policing. Okay. We get it. Cincinnati's awesome. It is awesome. Okay, yeah, great. Have you been to Cincinnati?

I've been that many times. We're talking about. I do showtale all the time. I'm not even saying this. Surprisingly Great City. Thank you. Surprisingly, I get expected. I'm going to ignore the surprisingly, and I'm just going to focus on the positive. I went there. I was at low expectations. I was like, this is going to be bullshit.

And then I went there. And then I was beautiful. It was clean. People were super friendly. It was clean. I was like, what's going? on here, who's in charge of this? Then I find out this guy.

And I'm like, nah. How did you do it? Can you answer the fucking quiet? We get it. Since that's good. How did you, a non-white guy, despite your best efforts, you're not white? How did you convince these white people to let you fucking run this city? Yeah, look, there's no secret.

Just hard work. Going to voters, knocking on their door, asking what the mayor or the city can do to improve their lives. And over and over again, we heard issues around public safety, around housing, around, you know, affording grocery and health care costs. And our first term, we're really focused on that. We invested a million dollars to wipe out medical debt for over 100,000 people. A third of the city, Ronnie, has now been relieved of their medical debt. We tripled affordable housing. Yeah, but that's half of Ohio issue for some reason. Look, that's after you got in office. How did you...

First of all, what kind of non-white are you specifically? Yeah. Thank you. I am half Tibetan and half Indian. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So... So first and foremost, how I won is being in this country, which I put entirely

that the courage, the risk to move to this country at my parents. And I'm very proud of the fact that I'm the son of a refugee. My mom is from... My mom, Ronnie, my mom's in the audience, so let's keep it. Where's your mom? Let's keep it PG.

With this unearned love fest, I don't know what the fuck this guy has done yet, okay? Hello, auntie, I'm it too far. But look, look, look, look. The reason that we were able to be successful is part of the reason why my parents came here. As I mentioned, my mom grew up in a refugee camp in southern India. She met my Punjabi father, because against all odds, she got an education. They got married. And of all places in 1980, they moved to Beaver Creek, Ohio.

And so what I learned as an American, particularly in a place like Beaver Creek, Ohio, where I'm half Tibetan and half Indian, was empathy. Being able to connect with people and put myself in their shoes, yes, to make them comfortable with me, but also for me to get comfortable with them and understand their issues. I really do think that that has been part of the secret to our success of actually listening to folks and really providing results for their challenges. I understand. Listening to folks, okay, blah, blah, blah. We get it. Okay. I'm just saying that, yes, you are incredibly good-looking. So you listen to people, blah, blah, blah. I'm just saying that this is a very divisive time. And you're running as a, you're not a white person, and you are presumably a little bit progressive, which I'm stereotyping. based on your political affiliation.

In this time when, like, the democratic grant is very toxic. Yeah, yeah. Kind of this progressive stuff is very toxic in the middle of the country. So how did you get elected, how did you convince these white people to get you in charge?

And don't tell about your mom, okay? Your mom, your parents are awesome, blah, blah. They are awesome. Okay, they are awesome. For the record, they are awesome. Hello, Auntie, Army Toeufo. Thank you. She's, I know.

Give me, it's, I think it's important because, because you are, again, you are, how did you convince these people get on board of what you're trying to do? Yeah, again, I, you know, I, the only answer I have for you is politics is about empathy, particularly at the local level, you probably have 30 seconds or a minute in front of someone, and you're probably never going to see them again. You probably don't have the resources to get on TV and have a big, you know, campaign. And so this time in front of that person is critically important. And in order to earn that person's vote, in a very short amount of time, you have to convince them that you understand their issues, that you're passionate about their issues, and that you're going to fight like hell to fight for the things that they care about.

We have been successful in doing that, not just through rhetoric, but also through actually delivering results. And that's the different, I know that you guys are more focused on the federal level, but that's the difference between federal politics and local politics. That federal nonsense doesn't work at the local level. You can't just run for office and blame other people for the issues. You can't just spin and obfuscate your way out of these problems. When you're mayor, if there's a mass shooting in my city, if I hold a press conference or give a speech or hold a hearing, people are going to think, what is wrong with you?

They expect their mayor to go after the bad guys, put them in jail, hold them accountable, and make sure that that doesn't happen again. This nonsense at the federal level doesn't work locally, and we understand that in Cincinnati and are delivering for our citizens. Okay, that's cool. So, for the idiots at home,

I know the answer to this, but just so you could educate the people at home, what exactly does a mayor do? What does a mayor do? We all think we know, but nobody actually could tell me what the fuck a mayor actually is supposed to do. So if you could just explain

what the mayor is Cincinnati? Yeah, first it's important to understand that it's a real job. The mayor is responsible for running for running the city, right? Nobody believes that. Nobody believes that. But people believe that if you turn on the water and it's too dirty to drink. People believe that if you call 911 and no one shows up.

So that's you. People believe that if you don't plow the snow or if you don't pick up the trash. All of that gets done because of city services, the 6,000 public servants that work for the city that make sure that it runs on a very elemental level. So of course the mayor is, is leaving. but there's also an important aspect of the job where you're the moral voice for your city. When things are going well for your city, it's your job to encourage and build a coalition to make sure that that continues and to share credit. When things are going poorly, it's on you. You're the one that takes responsibility.

You own it to try and fix it. That is the difference, in my view, between mayoral leadership and what's happening at the federal level. Mayors don't have the luxury to avoid hard issues. We have to deal with the difficult issues in front of us and deliver results for our citizens. Okay, so let's talk about dealing with real issues. He said nothing. He said nothing. You guys are so gullible.

You guys are so gullible. Let me ask, yeah, let's be nice and yeah, yeah, it's important to be nice and do good stuff. Yeah, that's all he said. So let's talk about real stuff. Okay. You talk about solutions. Yes. So let's talk about housing.

Yeah. Housing in Cincinnati. Yeah. When we got into office, we unfortunately didn't. have a housing strategy in Cincinnati. And as a result, our home prices and housing costs have gone through the roof. In fact, Redfin does a national survey almost every year. And Cincinnati is often at the top of that list for percentage of rent increases year over year. Okay. The good news is we're growing as a city, so more people are coming to Cincinnati.

So indication that the city is getting better when the rent increases? So the good news is because the population is growing, that means we have the resources to do the big things that we want to do. But the challenge is our housing stock at the same time as that population increase, you'd expect it to go up proportionally. It's the worst case scenario where we've actually lost housing stock at that time. So there's more people living in my city and fewer houses for them to live in. So we have to do hard things like preserve the housing that we have and build new housing. Yeah.

So we're doing about it. We're building new housing. So we have rezoned our city, the first city in the state of Ohio to comprehensively rezone our city to legalize housing, to legalize duplexes and triplexes and quads, row homes and townhomes, which are naturally more affordable. In addition to that, we put over $100 million into our affordable housing trust fund and have tripled the rate of affordable housing construction in our time and office. So is this as simple as just deregulating? Because this is kind of the abundance as a climb theory right now. Yeah. It's like Democrats are too, there's

too much regulation, well-intentioned or not, and we can't get stuff down underground because of all this stuff that's happening. So is this part of that or? This is absolutely part of it. And that's why mayor's the one leading the charge. Because in American politics, there really are three parties, Republicans, Democrats, and mayors. Mayors don't care if your idea is conservative or liberal

as long as it's effective. And what we do have is over-regulation of housing construction, particularly with zoning. Look, zoning is incredibly exclusionary in a lot of the country. It's also incredibly boring. It's so boring. Look, you were asking earlier how we get elected

and how we actually deliver results, and now I'm explaining to you, and you're still yelling at me. No, I'm not, no, no, no. I'm empathizing with you. I'm saying that it's a boring subject, so to get people to care about it is tough. I'm empathizing with you. I just, I'm not yelling.

This is how I talk normally. Fair enough. Thank you for letting you know. Yeah. I didn't know that. So how the fuck are you going to fix? But here's a thing. But here's a thing, it's not boring.

Zoning is incredibly controversial in communities because people have this idea that you want to build like a skyscraper on their residential cul-de-sac, and that's why zoning is so exclusionary. A majority of Cincinnati neighborhoods were zoned single-family exclusive, detached single-family,

which, in another way to put it, were zoned for the most expensive type of housing. You could not live in most of these neighborhoods unless you could afford a detached single-family house. And 50 years of that has led to a city that has concentrations of poverty and is far too segregated. This is not just a housing problem that we're trying to fix. This is a problem of how we grow as a city,

how we design our cities in order to be diverse, be multi-ethnic, be dense and walkable. So I know there's no one-sentence answer to this, but essentially you're deregulating it so it's easier to zone things. Is that what you're doing? Yeah, yes, that is part of what we're doing. Is it working? Yes, we are. We've tripled affordable housing construction

and the time we've been in office. But it's not just... I mean, if you really want to talk about it, zoning is part of it, but that's not gonna... I really don't want to talk about it, but... I know you do, but I think the other point I want to get to is you clearly have solutions and they're working with the zoning.

The other thing with these problems is that, I mean, what I read in your fake briefing notes that you gave me that, I don't even... No, I'm joking, you didn't give me... In my own research, it's that the... this zoning issue, that you essentially got started with in your first term.

And it led into your second term. And you kind of saw results in your second term. So I want to bring this a more broader issue in politics in general, in democracies, is that sometimes the solutions take more than a term. And you have to be comfortable with either someone else getting the credit for it or running for re-election before the solutions kick in that people can feel it. So how do you square that circle? You've put your finger on a really interesting challenge for,

modern politics because people really want solutions right now. They want their rent, stabilized, they want their health care costs, you know, push down and made more affordable immediately. And at the local level in particular, it's not that easy. There's no secret button to push to fix all of these things. It takes dedicated public servants, particularly at the local level, to have those hard conversations and iteratively work to reform systems, which over time will deliver big results. But at the same time, you've got to be focused on the quick wins that you can do, like relieving a third of the city of medical debt

or the baby bonds program that we've started to send more kids to higher education or to a trade school. Okay, so if it's so, if the solutions are so easy, why didn't the other guy do it? Before you. Which guy? I don't know, the guy, whoever the guy before you was. Oh, gotcha.

You know, he tried. We all, we look, generational challenges with poverty and gun violence take time. They take courage, and it's important to lean into innovative solutions like zoning reform that have been ignored for too long because they were too hard and controversial. But look, what I love about being mayor is I'm the one person in our government that's not focused on two or four years or reelection, but what are the decisions I'm making right now as mayor that's going to impact the city for the next two generations? That's what we're focused on, and that's why we're changing at the systems level to unlock some of this abundance and growth.

Like, what do you mean systems level? So rezoning is a systems like... Okay, let's not talk about. But I guess I'm very interested in like... I'm such a political history nerd, you know, and we admire these statesmen in politics. And I'm always interested in that dynamic between the fight between being a statesman

and being a politician. And the way it was defined to me was a statesman is someone who thinks in generations as a leader. And a politician is someone who thinks in election cycles. And so in America, you're trying to be a good leader. Yeah. But you've got to get elected to do your next thing for the next term to continue the plan. So how do you square that circle?

But I think that's good, right? Because we can't have just high-minded people thinking about 100 years from now when people can't afford their rent and are getting evicted or when we have just massive wealth disparities in our country, we also need to be focusing on acute challenges on the ground level. And that's why mayors, I think, are uniquely positioned to do that, particularly when we see the toxicity at the federal level. You know, mayors don't have the luxury of being in silos

and only talking to people who they agree with. I have to build broad coalitions across the city in order to get things done, not just at the statesman level that's generational thinking, which is important, but also to drive results for the people living in my city who need help right now. That's the fundamental balance. It's not in either or. Sure. You're talking about practical bipartisanship in a lot of situations.

So you're the man on the ground in Ohio right now. You are seeing the elections play out local elections, hyper-local elections. What is the vibe on the ground as an actual human on the internet and not in the comment section? So what are the people like that? What's the vibe? Is it, are people, is there like a sense of there's conservatives and then there's mega people? Are they the same? Are the mega people disillusioned? What is your vibe of the middle of the country in your... I think regardless of your political affiliation, people are angry. They're angry with the political establishment. They're angry that these same challenges continue to face their families. I mean, look, if you're in organized labor and your grandfather was in a union, it's three generations later and you're still on the edges of our economy, you'd be pissed off too and looking for something to change. I think a lot of what we're seeing in our politics right now

are people who are fed up with the same old politicians and the same faces going to D.C. every year with the same solutions. And so people are fed up, which is why I'm so excited about the state of Ohio this year because we have two extraordinary candidates running for both U.S. Senate and the governor. Sherrod Brown for Senate and Dr. Acton will be our next governor in the state of Ohio. And that's a huge opportunity. How do you, how are you so popular when you disdain your audience so much? You could never be mayor.

That doesn't work. Good. Thank you. I'll have you know the audience finds my disdain for them surprisingly charming. Yeah, they do. Have these people come from a cruise ship around the corner. They're not even American. Yeah.

They're here for the World Cup. There's no game today. They came to this. They don't even know what Cincinnati is and they're wondering why two fucking Asians are talking on camera. But, yeah, so you're talking about there's anger on the ground, okay? No shit. I think that's pretty obvious. You ask the question.

I know. I just say it's a pretty obvious point. Okay, so you're confirming the vibe. The vibe is that there's anger on the ground. We're not imagining it in our coastal elite cities, the greatest city in the world, New York City. We're not imagining the anger that's happening. So how do you bridge that gap, I guess, you know? By meeting them where they are.

I mean, you know, I'm as frustrated with the Democratic. establishment as anybody else. I mean, you know, 2024 better be a wake-up call to us. We lost to Donald Trump again. And we did it because the Democratic Party establishment failed the American people by running the same kinds of candidates over and over again

and focusing on the wrong things like wealthy donors rather than everyday American citizens, like the ones in my city. And look, your previous segment did, I think, a really good job of talking about one of the fundamental problems in our institutions, and that is there are way too many old people at these top levels.

It's true. And look, it's not, it's because, substantively, they are so far removed from what's happening on the ground in cities like mine. Look, 50 years ago, median home prices in Cincinnati was $40,000, and it constituted a fraction of your income. Now it's $400,000, and it's a huge portion of your income. So it's no wonder that young

young people and vulnerable communities no longer believe that the American dream applies to them. They don't think they're going to be able to afford a home or a car. And we need elected officials who are a new generation of leadership who are closer to these issues. You know, when you're that old, you're just so, you're so, you're so far removed from it. And so I think we need age limits for both Congress and the Supreme Court. Go, sure, sure. I relate to this game. I've been

I've been shitting on old people for almost 15 years now, okay? I was way ahead of this old people shitting me now. I'm with you completely. Well, anyway, yeah, well, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for right of great city. Thank you for representing

a local level and national level. I really appreciate it. Everybody, in Cincinnati, Maine and Aftap, Perilible. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back after this. Starting a business is a massive milestone, but Shopify makes the execution simpler.

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