The Iced Coffee Hour - Ana Kasparian on Debating Ben Shapiro, Toxic Trumpism, Rising Prices, and Evil Landlords

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

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Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com.

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And I actually love a lot of the so-called trad wife duties. How equal do you think men and women are in 2024? This is what no one wants to talk about and it's super uncomfortable, but it's the truth and I'm going to say it. Anna Kasparian, host of the Young Turks podcast with just over 5 million subscribers on YouTube. Thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee hour. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I'm glad we made this happen.

Me too. Us to. We've been listening to a lot of your debates. You debated Ben Shapiro twice. You're on the Patrick Bet David podcast. and we really enjoy your insights. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.

Yeah, it was fun debating them. I mean, I debated one person on the Patrick Bet David podcast, and that was Adam. But with Ben Shapiro, it was actually pleasantly surprising how civil and nice he is. You know, you kind of like build up a character in your head based on like little snippets and little clips that are posted online about them. And then you meet them in real life and you realize just how different they really are. And so we disagree deeply on a lot of different issues, but what those two debates kind of taught me was that you can still have like a civil conversation and you can avoid it devolving into nonsense as long as it's like two good faith actors who are having that conversation, you know.

So how was Ben different in person than he was online? Because we had him on the podcast and he was very much different than what I thought he was like. He was so chill. He was so chilling and very respectful. Like he showed up right on time to the minute. Right. Said he had an hour and a half. It gave us exactly an hour and a half.

And then was kind enough to kind of chit chat afterwards. Yeah, he's very polite. What I was surprised by was his warmth. Like he's actually a pretty warm guy in person, which, you know, you see this caricature of him. And honestly, like even if you watch an entire episode of his show, he's just very to the point and you don't see that warmth. So meeting people in real life.

I think just gives you a different sense of who they are and what their personalities like. And also to understand if they're a good faith or a bad faith person, I heard you talking to Ben about this actually, where like some people you feel like they're in it as a bad faith actor, where they're just puppeting or being puppeted by somebody who's just kind of like inserting their agenda in them and they're just doing it for clout, for fame, for money, et cetera. Some people, they feel very genuine in their beliefs. And Ben, I feel like, is definitely a good faith person. Oh, 100%. He believes what he's saying. He's not in any way a grifter.

I think that even with the most good faith people, though, in the world of politics, because things have become so tribal, whether you want to believe it or not, there is some element of audience capture and you feel this pressure to kind of go along with the default talking points on your political side or your political group. So I see a little bit of that maybe happening with him. I can tell that he's not a big supporter of Donald Trump's. In fact, in 2016, during the Republican primaries, he endorsed, I can't even believe this, but Ted Cruz. And then this time around, he was a big fan of Ron DeSantis, but he ultimately had to tuck tail and recently put out an endorsement video for Trump. But I would be shocked if he's genuinely a big supporter of Trump's. And not to make this about Ben, but just curious. Yeah, I know. Because to me, there's nothing that I would like less than to be on the other side of a debate.

between Ben and me. Like that sounds like... Terrifying. Horrified. It's not. I mean, he's totally normal. Like, he speaks quickly. But you could end up in one of those compilations, you know?

True, but I think there's a difference. Okay, so I think there's a difference between someone who's more interested in defending their political group versus someone who's willing to concede on issues or areas where concessions make sense. So I'll give you an example without naming names, you know, someone who identifies as a leftist, recently, fairly recently, like goes on Tim Poole's podcast and debates him on a number of issues. And during that debate, there were just obvious concessions. Like, for instance, no, you don't allow abortions of a healthy fetus like a minute before the woman is about to give birth.

Like, that's a ridiculous hypothetical. I get that it's a ridiculous hypothetical. but don't play into that hypothetical by creating this caricature of what the left is. No one on the left is in favor of aborting a perfectly healthy fetus a minute before it's about to be born. So just say that. You know what I'm saying? But there's like this effort to like provide cover and defend the left or the right,

depending on who the person is. And I just got to a point where I'm like, I'm not going to do that. So as long as you're willing to be honest and as long as you've actually thought through why it is you believe what you believe, these debates aren't scary at all, I don't think. Look, we talk a lot about financial success here on the channel, but what's even more important is the mental aspect along the way. So I've mentioned this before, but I have had ADHD for my entire life, and it has always been a constant struggle of mine trying to learn how to better leverage it in my day to day. So when the sponsor of today's video better help reached out,

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To get started, all you have to do is fill out a questionnaire to assess your specific needs, and then from there, you'll get matched with a therapist often in 48 hours or less. And plus, if for any reason your therapist is in the right fit, you can switch to a new therapist at no additional cost. So if you're interested in getting started with BetterHelp, click the link down below in the description or visit BetterHelp.com slash iced coffee hour to get 10% off your first month of therapy. Thanks again to BetterHelp for sponsoring this episode and back to the podcast. As long as you're willing to be honest and as long as you've actually thought through why it is you believe what you believe, these debates aren't scary at all, I don't think. Yeah, I feel like in these days it's worse. The feeling is worse to be wrong. than the benefit of finding truth.

Unfortunately, in a lot of debates. Yeah. And people try to be philosophically consistent, but it ends up just kind of like winding them into this weird thing where they're defending a position. They don't really feel. Isn't it sometimes you want to win in the court of public opinion, though? Like, even if you might be wrong, if you say the right things,

then people are going to be like, you know, they won. They said the right things. Well, so the reason why I agree to debate Ben was because I saw it as an opportunity to display, my values and where I stand on certain policy issues, and like introduce that to an audience that otherwise wouldn't hear that perspective, right? I mean, you don't see a lot of people on the left go on Ben Shapiro's show. So I didn't go on his program for me.

I'm super busy and like doing interviews and debates. Like it can become overwhelming with my schedule. But I saw it as an opportunity to reach out to people who otherwise are unfamiliar what I actually believe, have been misled to think I believe things I don't believe. And I wanted to see if there was any possibility in persuading members of his audience to maybe, even if they don't change their political values or anything, to at least reconsider their perspective and perceptions of the other side.

And the thing that I've become increasingly interested in doing, although it's been incredibly difficult because there's a lot of resistance to it, is finding ways to bring the two sides together assuming that we're talking about good faith people who want a better like society, better country to live in, I think there are a ton of people who are just kind of politically homeless. And right now the discourse is represented by two extremes. And so I'm trying to figure out how I can uplift people and speak to the concerns of people who are more politically

homeless. Why do you think people should listen to you? I think people should listen to whoever makes compelling arguments, right? And my goal is to just try to make those compelling arguments, to be fair, to be as accurate as I can, to correct myself when I realized, damn, I got that story wrong. And I'm hoping that that integrity attracts people to the message that I have on my show.

But ultimately, it really boils down to everyone's values. And if they have values that are just completely different from mine, I don't begrudge them for not wanting to watch the show. When's last time you changed your mind on a big idea? I have changed my mind on a lot of things recently, to be honest with you. But I would say the biggest thing would be the direction the left is going in with alleged criminal justice reform. And I say alleged because a lot of what I've seen them carry out wasn't really about reforming the system, meaning reforming the way we do policing and reforming our prison system. so it's more focused on rehabilitating people so we reduce recidivism.

What I did see following the 2020 protests that summer was a more hands-off approach in regard to violent criminals that should absolutely be taken out of society because they pose a risk to public safety. Do you see this anecdotally in your own life, like living here in Los Angeles? Oh, I mean, I see it anecdotally, but I also see it in terms of the broader picture. if you look at overall trends. So California has shut down. I believe too, and they're set to shut down their third state prison.

And I think there's a huge misconception. And I bought into this misconception that like everyone who's in prison is like low level drug possession, you know, that's all they're in prison for. That's actually not the truth. The reality is when they shut down those prisons without no real plan in place, basically they assume that those, inmates would be taken in by county prisons, but the county prisons are too full. And so they're just releasing, like, violent offenders well before their sentence is over. What percentage are violent offenders versus drug, low level of crime? So I don't have the exact percentages in front of me. I didn't even realize we're going to get into this conversation. Yeah, Jack is skipping way ahead.

Yeah. Yeah. So if you are of the belief that the majority of people who are behind bar, right now are simply there for drug possession and nothing more, you're just mistaken. Like, that is a very tiny percentage. You know, there's other crimes might be robbery. A lot of violent crime is represented in the inmate population. And so that doesn't mean that I think they should be locked away for the rest of their lives, but I don't agree with just releasing them without them serving their sentence and without them getting any rehabilitation so they're no longer a risk to public safety. And so that's, that's the issue that I've been having recently. I'll give you, I'll give you more specific examples of what I'm witnessing and what we're seeing,

especially on the streets of like Los Angeles. You know, I have no problem with legalizing drugs. You want to snort, whatever you want to snort or, you know, smoke whatever you want to smoke. By all means, do it. I don't think you should be allowed to just do it on our sidewalks. It's wild to me that we have stricter laws in place and we enforce stricter laws in regard to smoking cigarettes, but people can just, you know, shoot up on the metro system or smoke fentanyl out in the open. And I think that's unacceptable. And I think that needs to stop. Like the whole point was to legalize and regulate. But what we're seeing in a lot of liberal cities across the country is the weakest way of responding to, you know, the drug epidemic and the drug war,

which was a failure. And it's a hands-off decriminalization approach. When you sit simply decriminalize, you just disempower the authorities to do anything in regard to drug crimes. When you legalize and regulate, you allow for, you know, people who want to use recreationally to do so, but you can't be breaking other laws to get your fix or you can't be, you know, shooting up out in public in front of a school. You know, that has led to a decay in Los Angeles that I think is pretty undeniable and people want to deny it, but it's ridiculous. Like, we all see it. And it's not okay. It's not okay for kids to witness that.

I remember growing up and hearing about what it was like in Compton or South Los Angeles and how, you know, these kids had a really tough life because there was a drug dealer on the street corner, you know, selling dope and people, you know, very clearly high out of their minds on the streets. And now we've just allowed that to spread all throughout Los Angeles County. And by the way, other cities, you know, in this country. And I think it's a failing model. I think people need help.

If they're addicted to drugs, I don't want to simply throw them in prison. I think that's the wrong response to it. But they need help. Rehabilitation is super expensive. And rather than focusing on offering rehabilitative services for people who are struggling with drug addiction, I feel like some of the policies we've implemented only help to continue their drug addiction. Because it's more about so-called harm reduction and preventing overdoses. which is important, but that's not really helping them out.

I think there are a lot of people addicted to these hard drugs, certainly things like fentanyl, who want help, but they can't afford it. And I personally know people, you know, good friends of mine who have had family members, just like dive overdoses, and they did everything that they had in, you know, their assets, their bank accounts to get their loved ones,

the rehabilitative services they needed. and it's expensive, you know, and it's something that I feel like a lot of people are struggling with and they're not getting the help that they need. This episode is brought to you by Tell Us Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season?

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Business with FedEx, the new power move. What was your life like growing up? I grew up in Reseda, California, which is a wonder, and I still think it's wonderful. It's a wonderful working class community in the San Fernando Valley. And I was the only Armenian in my entire school, my elementary school. The community, especially when I was growing up, was like 98% Latino. know, and I really grew a deep appreciation and love for various, like, Latin American cultures. And I had a great childhood.

I feel very lucky because there were definitely times, there were years where my family struggled, my dad lost his job, and as a result of outsourcing. And so financially speaking, I knew that the family was struggling when I was a kid. What was the job that he lost from outsourcing? Yeah, he worked as an engineer at a welding company, and it was a unionized job, too. So he had great benefits. He felt at the time some job security, but it was outsourced to another country, and he was unwilling to move. And so after that, he just decided, all right, well, I'm going to be a handyman and just do various jobs for anyone who needs jobs in their homes or their properties. And that was during a time when someone could make a decent living and survive by being a handyman. he was able to do that while, you know, he had, my dad's kind of funny. He doesn't trust the stock market, which I wish wasn't the case because he instilled that in me and I didn't realize how bad that was until, I don't want to say recently, but fairly

recently. I didn't start. Was there a reason that he didn't trust it? There's got to be some sort of catalyst. He's like, okay, because of that, it's on, I can't trust it. So my, my grandfather, his father was a social Democrat. and my dad grew up in like Soviet era Armenia. He hated communism.

So it's not that he's a communist, but I think some of the anti-market teachings that he was experiencing growing up stayed with him. And so he just didn't trust the stock market. He just thought the stock market is rigged. Rigged. I hear a lot of people say that. You know, I think that he has a deep passion for workers.

and he saw how, you know, the fiduciary responsibility to shareholders ends up screwing over a lot of workers because you're going to cut costs and usually the biggest cost is labor and labor gets screwed over when you're trying to maximize profit. So he saw that. And in his mind, the best thing to do for retirement was to invest in like a little apartment building with like four units, right? So that's what he did. He worked as a handyman. He, you know, invested in an apartment building and that was going to be his retirement. and then he retires. COVID happens. And being a landlord, a small time landlord in L.A.

is the worst. I mean, I can't tell you how hard COVID was for my family. Did his tenants pay rent? None of them? He had one tenant that was paying. One tenant moved out. So he had basically three tenants left. One was paying rent.

The two others refused. And then once the moratorium was lifted, one of them just booked it. And so he's out. Look, he lost a lot of money and that sucks, but the hardest part was he still needed to maintain the building. Of course. Right? And property taxes.

And property. It was rough. It was rough. And so that was an eye-opener to me because I feel like all landlords kind of got lumped together with like the big corporate landlords and the private equity firms that have been buying up residential, you know, real estate and turning them into rental properties. Like that's not my dad. My dad's the guy who didn't want to invest in the stock market because he thought it was ultimately evil to workers and instead thought the more moral thing to do would to be to invest in an apartment building. So he'd have something to retire on, right? And he's made to be some sort of like devil. And that's the thing that's anyway, I don't want to get into it too much. It's upsetting. It's upsetting because he's a 78 year old like elderly man who worked his entire life for that and to see the city just like, financially rape them like that is so wrong. I really appreciate your transparency when it comes to stuff like that and your ability to take jabs at people who most people would probably loop you in with.

They'd probably say, oh, you know, you're progressive. You probably think similar to these sorts of people, this sort of ideology and you're willing to take jabs and it'd be like, no, it's not necessarily been my experience. I appreciate that. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate that too. And I think part of the problem is people don't want to look at issues in a more nuanced way. They like to generalizations and just see things as black and white. But I'll give you a perfect example of a more recent situation or story that I just wish people thought about a little more deeply. They might still have the same thought about it, but at least understand the other side in their concerns. So, you know, the Houthi rebels that are capturing various cargo ships in the Red Sea,

and they're doing it, they say, in order to hold Israel accountable so they stop carrying out this war in Gaza. Now, I am sympathetic to that point of view. I don't know for sure whether they're being honest or whether they're lying, but let's say you take them and what they say at face value, that they're basically holding innocent, you know, workers captive and these cargo ships captive in order to apply pressure to Israel and they're doing it for the right reasons. Well, you have to also acknowledge that you could be against bombing. Houthis in Yemen, and I honestly am. I don't want to drag, you know, the United States in the West into a broader regional war. And I think that's what we're in the middle of right now, which is awful.

But, and you can also advocate for, you know, the United States, which supplies the weaponry and the funds to Israel to carry out this war, like get them to pressure Israel to rein it in a little bit and instead do targeted strikes on Hamas. But at the same time, don't minimize the impact that disrupting global trade will have on ordinary people. In the UK, certainly, we're talking about ordinary people who might experience shortages in the pharmaceutical drugs they need to stay alive or healthy. It's way more nuanced and complicated than Houthi's good or Houthi's bad. That's simple-minded thinking.

And I want to kind of dig a little bit deeper and consider all the different factors and perspectives that will eventually lead to my overall opinion. of the story. Have you always been this curious? Like, where did that start for you? So there is no better sound than if you're running your own business. And if you want to hear a lot more, then it's time to get started with their sponsor Shopify. Shopify is a global e-commerce platform that has already helped transform millions of businesses worldwide.

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Have you always been this curious? Like, where did that start for you? When I was a kid, I've always been super curious. And it's both good and bad because, So I work on this show all day. We air two and a half hours, Monday through Friday. That is a monster of a program to research and produce and host. So when I'm done with work, and I work from 5 a.m.

till like 5.30 p.m. when I wrap the show, so it's 12 straight hours. When I wrap the show, I should probably stop listening to political podcasts or reading books. It's all political stuff, right? But I want to know. Like I want to know more about what I'm talking about. I want to make sure that I have considered all the perspectives. I listen to a wide range of political podcasts. What political podcast do you listen to?

So I just started listening to, it's actually a radio show in the UK, but it's called LBC. I don't know if you guys are familiar with it. Just came across it. James O'Brien is one of the hosts on this LBC network. And he's definitely more liberal. In terms of conservative content, I will listen to Ben Shapiro's podcast. Joe Rogan here and there, although some will argue he's not conservative.

I don't really think he has a set political ideology, to be honest. Yeah. There's a YouTube show that I've been on twice that I actually really love, and I think they're more centrist, but it's called The Sitch and Adam Show. Are you guys familiar with that? Yeah, so I listen to like mainstream stuff, a lot of independent stuff, but different perspectives. Another conservative thing I'll listen to.

it used to be the John and Ken show, Ken retired. Now it's just the John show. And it's a Los Angeles-based radio show that's definitely conservative. And I don't agree with them on everything. But every once in a while, one of the hosts would make an argument that would make me want to dig a little deeper. And then I would realize, no, they've got a point. I think I agree with them on this matter, right? This one matter. So when did you realize politics is something that you want to get involved in? After 9-11, I would say, I was in high school, a freshman at the time, and obviously what happened on 9-11 was terrible. But then similar to what I think Israel is experiencing right now, suddenly you have the people in charge making some pretty irresponsible decisions that obviously did drag us into wars that we shouldn't have been fighting in for as long as we fought in them. invading Iraq was outrageous to me.

I remember in English class, I would have like a newspaper. I would hide my newspaper in like my binder or a book. And as the class was doing whatever assignment, I found high school like not challenging and super boring. So I was reading the New York Times and I remember this one article I was reading in English class was quoting Bill Crystal and he was a huge war. I mean, continues to be a huge war hawk. But back then, he was really pushing for us to invade Iraq.

rock. And I just remember being like so like irritated by him and frustrated by him and feeling like I have no voice. And then fast forward to, I believe it was like 2018 or 2019, I had an opportunity to debate to debate him at like Politicon, which was nice. So I've always been into politics as soon as I was like old enough to even understand what politics is. But when did you decide to turn that into a career? I had never really thought I was going to have a career specifically in political news, but I wanted to be in media and journalism starting from like middle school. My mom asked me, like, what do you want to be? And I thought I wanted to be an actress. And she's like, nope, you're not, we're not going to let that happen, right? And my parents are, you know,

there are Armenian immigrants and they're very conservative in some ways. And that's one of the ways they were very conservative. They're like, you'll be putchats. It's called putchatsats, which means like ruined, right? You'll be a ruined woman. Like, if you become a actress, so they're like, no, we're not going to allow that. So then I was talking to my mom more about like what kind of careers I might be interested in. She mentioned that I loved watching ABC's 2020 when Barbara Walters was a host. And once she said that, I was like, oh yeah, journalist. I want to do journalism. And from that moment on, that was what I pursued. And then, you know, that all manifested in ways that I didn't expect. But ultimately, I guess I'm happy

doing what I'm doing. So what was your first gig in journalism? First gig in journalism was for K&X 1070, which at the time was a news radio station. I remember that. Yeah. My mom would listen to that. On the way to school. My God. K&X 1070, news radio, whatever.

I still remember that. They hired me out of college as like an assistant producer. It was awful. It was an awful job. No, no. It was terrible. It was like $10 an hour. 10 bucks an hour.

When was this? This was in two, I guess at the time it wasn't that bad. but it was 2007. Okay. Yeah. So $10 an hour, but the worst part about it was I always got the night shifts.

So I would have to be in at three and I'd work from like three to about 10 in the morning. Wait, 3 a.m.? 3 a.m. Yeah. Wow. It was bad. And like the editor that I had to work with was really mean

and like would like curse me out over any little thing. He'd asked me to print something for him, which of course I'll oblige. But in the middle of that, I'm taking a live feed from a reporter who's on the field. So I have to finish that before I print out his papers. And I remember one time, I guess I took too long, you started to like cussing me out in the middle of the newsroom.

And I emailed the news director about it. I was like, hey, you know, I don't really like being treated like this. And she's like, you need to be an adult. This is an adult workplace. You know, this is a newsroom. And I was like, okay, I thought that's what it was supposed to be like. then I find out that this show called The Young Turks needs like a temporary fill-in for one of their producers.

One of my colleagues at KNX reached out to me about it, asked me if I was interested. I was planning on like a month-long trip to Europe and then after that I was going to go to grad school and try to figure out what I wanted to do after that because my experience at K&X was so awful. I didn't think I wanted to do journalism anymore. But then I decided to take that temp job at TYT

because it was just two weeks and I needed a little bit of extra money for my trip. And I loved it. I really, really enjoyed it and I didn't want to leave after that. So what was the difference working with TYT than K&X? Well, it was creative. The news coverage was more honest. There were no scripts, which I appreciated. You know, at K&X, you have a team of newswriters who take stories from AP or Reuters,

the wire services. they just rewrite it for broadcast. And then like 15 minutes before the broadcast, the anchor shows up and just regurgitates, reads. Does the anchor note anything about what they're saying? I don't want to throw the anchors under the bus. They might be super knowledgeable, but they don't need to do any of that grunt work

of actually writing what they're going to be reading themselves. What happens if they disagree with something that they're given to say? Well, at that time, remember, opinion journalism was a lot more rare. So there was no opinion or analysis. It was just straight news, like a straight news broadcast, which I also found kind of boring because at that time, especially, no one was willing to outright criticize what Bush was doing. This was during the Bush administration. And I was like, there are war crimes being committed.

Also, there's a legal wiretapping into Americans that shouldn't be happening. Like, there were all sorts of crazy things happening. And I feel like if it got any coverage in the media, it would be in print news and no one would read it. Or it would just be like a straight news broadcast type situation where it was presented as if it was normal. Right. Like, you know, the Bush administration is doing this and all right, next story, that kind of thing. It just felt hollow. All of it felt hollow and boring.

No creativity, nothing to look forward to or work toward. Like the best thing that I could hope for is that I would work really hard, move up the ladder, and be that anchor who shows up 15 minutes before the broadcast and just reads on a microphone. Like, I don't want that. So, TYT was totally different. It was irreverent. It was so unique at the time. And I was treated really well.

I was treated as a human being. Like my opinions mattered from the beginning. I was a temp. And there was none of this, oh, you have to pay your dues before you go on. air. Like the first day I was there, uh, Jank Yugar, who's the founder of the young Turks and he was also, you know, the main host. He's like, oh, we have a new intern. Let's bring her on. And I was like, I haven't paid my dues. I can't be on air. But it was great. I really enjoyed it. In the beginning, it was just a tiny crew of people, five in total. And it was a, it really did feel like a

loyal family that looked out for each other. And I didn't make much money those days, but I miss those days big time. I'm curious if you think people need to gain more experience and authority before they start showing their opinion to a bunch of people because I know Ben Shapiro, not to bring him up again, but he always says that the dumbest stuff that he ever wrote was when he was young and in college at UCLA and he was writing articles for the UCLA newspaper. Like he was saying some stuff that if he could go back in time, he would remove all of that stuff. And I know a lot of young people like when I was between the ages of like 16 and probably 20, I thought I knew everything. And I was a hundred 100% happy to share that information with anybody that would listen to me.

And I think it's a little bit concerning now that anybody can go and purport to be an expert on anything and talk to thousands or hundreds. That has been a problem. And there is a distinction between people who might think they know it all and they're opining on things in a ignorant way versus those who are just like literal scammers. And they're presenting themselves as experts when they're really not. And how do you tell the difference between the two for a viewer? I'm a big fan of APA research, so I'll research the hell out of someone before I trust them or trust what they're saying.

And what I mean by that is, okay, well, what's your background? What is your experience that gives you the expertise necessary to comment on these things? Oftentimes you'll see various people quoted in print reports on various stories. And I'm like, this person certainly has a take. I wonder who they are and who they work for. because unfortunately today's journalism doesn't disclose some of the conflicts of interest involved with the sources that they rely on. So a lot of times people from think tanks get quoted and it's like, okay, well, this think tank has a partisan bent and the audience or the reader should be aware of that.

So I look into that. Like what are the affiliations? What are the associations? Does this person have a take that's informed from a political ideology? doesn't mean that what they're saying should be thrown out the window, but at least you know that it's coming from a very specific perspective, and you should look out for opposing perspectives to have a more holistic approach to the story or understanding of the story. Do you ever feel like you need to subscribe to some of the ideologies that the young Turks, like the organization as a whole, subscribes to?

You don't feel like that at all? I mean, there's been pressure. By the way, let me just be clear about this. in terms of TYT's leadership and management, absolutely not. I love how hands off they are in that regard. I have never been told by anyone in a position of power at TYT that I need to believe something or I need to say something. I feel so deeply respected there, which is why I've been loyal to TYT.

I've been there for 17 years. And a lot of people are like, oh, why don't you leave and do your own thing? I just, I don't know if you guys are familiar with Jonathan Haidt. My moral foundations certainly include loyalty. I score very high in the loyalty area. So like I feel very loyal to TYT given how wonderful the leadership and management has been to me. But they are different from some of the past employees we've had who want to force me to believe certain things that I don't believe. So I'm a, you know, I'm obviously a woman, female.

And I think I should be allowed to engage in conversations about how language changes in order to be. more inclusive to any community, but certainly lately it's more about like the transgender community. I have no ill will towards the transgender community at all. In fact, if you look at my body of work, I've always been pretty vociferous in defending them and calling for them to be treated equal to anyone else in society. But I think sometimes you'll have those who those who want to like push the limits and it's never about the important stuff. It's more about things like language, right? And they were turning a lot of people off, including people who were on their side. So let's get specific about what you're talking about. Yeah. We know what you're talking

about, but I'm sure a lot of the viewers are. So like just really goofy rhetoric like birthing people and right. So someone called, did someone call you a birthing person? That was the. Yeah. Okay. So yes. Okay. It happened. Yes, in a medical setting, but I don't care. Like I don't need to be called a birthing person. Is that from a doctor? Yeah. And it's on medical forms too now. Like in Cal, I don't know if it's all throughout California. Did you have to put your gender anywhere on this sheet? Or was it just birthing person checkbox or no? No, no.

It wasn't a checkbox situation. It was a form that I had to fill out. And in the language of the form, rather than using the word woman, birthing person was used. Another form used a person with a uterus. And it's just like, I just felt like it was awkward and I didn't like it. That's all I was saying, by the way. Like, I don't like this. And I think it's goofy.

and I think it turns people off. And that led to like an insane firestorm that I did not expect. Who is getting upset at you for saying that? We always talk about this massive cohort of people that will just attack you if you say the wrong thing. But I feel like honestly, they hardly exist. Maybe that's not true. They're very loud. They're very loud.

It's a loud minority. One has the voice of a hundred, I feel like. But to call you a birthing person rather that. That just sounds like something that I would have like done in like kins. their garden. Like, not trying to offend anybody. I don't want them to come after me. What would be the male equivalent of that?

Does that exist? Penis-wielding person. No, it's got to be some... Ejaculating person. I am an ejaculating person. But it is interesting because none of that conversation exists when it comes to inclusive language in the male realm. Like, a lot of that is to say, it's not really a male equivalent.

It's really interesting and I don't know why it is. But anyway, like, at this point, I don't know. don't, I don't care. Like, I don't care about any of it. Like, I don't care about any of that stuff. I don't care about the criticism I'm getting. But the reason why I bring it up is we had a transgender fill-in host at TYT. Her name's Benny. When Benny began at TYT, she hadn't transitioned yet. And so I met Benny before the transition and before Benny was even out about her identity. And I was always super nice to Benny. We never had any problems. Honestly, I barely, even hosted the show with Benny.

I think I might have done it once. Never really had any personal conversations. Remember, this is during COVID. So a lot of us were working from home. A lot of us didn't come into the office. I've never met Benny in person. And because of what I had shared with, you know, the public about how I feel about some of this inclusive language, Benny felt, I don't know why Benny felt like it was a slight

on her, but it wasn't. And there was a group of people on Twitter, and I knew this was going to happen, people on Twitter who like take up a cause and then they become like weirdly obsessive with the cause. And they were just in Benny's ear about how, oh, you got, you have to hold Anna accountable. And TYT is not the place for you. It's a transphobic community. You need to leave.

You need to leave. And they were like urging Benny to leave. And I just knew to my side. I thought to myself, if Benny takes their. advice, she will have no platform and she will disappear. And none of these people who are encouraging her to leave give a damn about her. They're not going to follow her to wherever she's going to do a show or launch a YouTube channel. They're just, this is their little cause right now. They think they're in a war and they're pretending like they give a damn about Benny. They don't give a damn about Benny. They give a

damn about presenting themselves as people who purport to care about transgender people. But as soon as Benny's gone. As soon as she makes that decision to leave TYT, Benny's gone for real from their consciousness, you know, from the media in general. And I think it's just, they did damage to Benny. And I don't know if Benny realizes it right now, but these people don't care at all, at all. They don't care about making society better in regard to, like, all my focus would be is how can we ensure that we improve our health care system so people who, who, do decide to make that transition. Because remember, once you transition

and if you go through the surgeries and everything, it's not a one-time thing. You need medical attention for the rest of your life. The priorities should be if you actually give a damn about transgender people. How do we reform our health care system? So someone who does choose to transition doesn't go into bankruptcy

because of the medical attention he or she is going to need for the rest of their lives. I've always been curious who pays for that. Does that come out of pocket? Or is that something insurance? We pay insanely high taxes. Now here's the thing. If you manage your own solo small business,

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Again, that's collective.com slash ICH and tell them ICH sent you. Thanks again to Collective for sponsoring today's episode and let's get back to the podcast. We pay insanely high taxes. Like, I mean, look, let me just be clear. Right now, the way it gets paid is through private insurance. If you're lucky to have it, 20 million Americans don't have any insurance, no cover. at all. I think our health care system is broken and a lot of times, you know, you might get stuck with insurance. Let's say you get insured through your employer. You might get insurance that

won't authorize a ton of your medical needs. So it really depends on what your specific situation is. But, you know, when you think about transgender youth, a lot of them do get disowned by family members. A lot of them do end up homeless, you know. And so my priority or my top concern in terms of improving their lives would be, okay, what kind of safety net are we going to have in place to catch them if and when they fall, you know? And I always thought like, obviously I'm good faith about that. And these are things that I've been talking about not just this year, not just last year, but like almost the entirety of my career. And I was just under the assumption that people know that I don't have an anti-trans bone in my body,

but some of this stuff, some of this language stuff is a little goofy. How do you not get overly defensive over something like that? Somebody calling you transphobic. How do you not just explode or want to like counter that and say, no, that's ridiculous. How do you develop a thick skin? Well, in the beginning, I was defensive.

And then this job is already really difficult. It's incredibly difficult. It would be impossible for, for me to enjoy any of this if I were just sucking up to people bullying me and saying things I don't actually believe. So whether the audience likes it or not, I'm going to tell them what I really believe. And we lost like some paying members to TYT over this whole drama. And that's okay. God bless. I mean, do you? You know, you don't need to be supporting the show financially if you think, you know, the biggest injustice is that I don't want to be called a birthing person.

But I just don't want, I have a tough time lying about what I really think. That's like the hardest thing for me to do. Well, that's good. But how do you not take these comments to heart? How do you not let that affect your day? I have a lot of inner peace and I know who I am. And I think since I know exactly who I am, the opinions of others that I know are inaccurate, I just don't let them get to me.

I can't control what other people believe about me. I can control my own behavior. I can control how I feel about myself. And I don't want to say that I love myself or feel great about myself. I think I'm a flawed person, just like anyone else. And I look back at some of the things that I've done and said in my career, and I, like, deeply regret some of it. But I have slowly but surely, like, made an effort to correct some of my previous errors.

A lot of them were, like, during the pandemic. and I kind of got like wrapped up in some of the narratives that were coming from the left during that time that turned out to not be so accurate. And so to me, what's like the most important thing to me is getting my audience accurate information, then being honest with them about what I actually feel and genuinely feel about these stories. And if I get something wrong, ensuring that I correct those errors and do so as loudly as I can and openly as I can because I want to do good in the world through the work I do. And I don't think you can do that if you mislead people or misinformed people.

You've been very open about the times you have gotten some stories wrong. Right. And over extended periods of time as well. Like I see you continue to reference from things you've gotten wrong years ago, which I also deeply appreciate it. Speaking of sharing how you feel, how do you feel about California? Because we were talking earlier and we were like, we drove in from Vegas because we left. On the way here.

I mean, we were off of a freeway for maybe 10 minutes, and we saw how many tents? Oh, gosh. I mean, like, and here's the thing, too, in this neighborhood that we shoot this podcast studio in, there has been like this colossal-sized tent, like a tent mansion, not to make a joke out of it, but like a big tent, and it's been there for probably two years. And it takes up the entirety of the sidewalk. Right. So you can't walk on the sidewalk.

You'd have to go into the street where a car is parked and then walk around it if you're... Same exact tent. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so let me just start off by saying, as someone who was born and raised in Los Angeles, I actually, politics aside, failed policies aside, if I just think about the landscape here, the nature, the mountains, you know, the beaches, I love California. I think California is the most beautiful and wonderful. We pay very high taxes in California.

We get very little as like working people. in return. It's full stop. Okay. The amount of money, I mean, even with the gases, right, we pay a higher gas tax in California and what is that money supposed to be used for? Roads. We're for roads. They're going to. Oh my God. The potholes are horrible. They don't fix them. The roads are in, like, they're just terrible, right? There's potholes everywhere. You're correct. There's trash everywhere. Um, you know, I think the Department of Sanitation is in need of more workers and that's like playing into it. But what's also playing into it is this,

honestly, the homeless issue, yes, and the fact that the city just allows them to like hoard garb, like literal garbage. And they say, no, no, no, it's not garbage, it's their belongings. But I'm sorry, like fast food bags from a month ago is, those are not belongings. It's literal trash. These are people who have mental health issues.

And you're just allowing them to wallow away, and die on massive piles of garbage. And I say they allow it because this is what no one wants to talk about and it's super uncomfortable, but it's the truth and I'm going to say it. When there is housing and shelter available and they're offered the housing and shelter, no is not an answer. No is not an acceptable answer. You have to take the housing, period.

I'm not allowed to do whatever the hell I want to my own property. Right? I have to take out permits. I need to get permission from the city. I can't just do whatever I want. It's amazing to me how when it comes to working Americans in this state, when it comes to people who pay their taxes, have worked hard, have done everything right, a whole host of rules for them.

Okay. But for some reason, it's a hands-off, no-rules approach for people who are living on the streets. And the reason why, the reason why they've gotten away with it for so long is because some of these people are really struggling, right? and you feel bad for them, and I certainly feel bad for them. But a lot of these people are struggling with severe mental health issues, or in some cases, they, you know, are addicted to drugs, they don't want to take the housing, they like the freedom of living outdoors, not everyone.

But we have a massive homeless population that's actually staying with loved ones or their couch surfing. Those are the people who we don't see. The homeless people we do see, for the most part, on the streets are those battling with addiction and mental illness. And so this idea of like, oh, well, we offered them housing and they said no, so now we're just going to leave them on the streets. I don't agree with that. So I've always believed this should be a federal issue and not a state issue because it seems as though a lot of states, their solution, including Las Vegas, is simply we'll give you a bus ticket anywhere you want to go.

And that's our solution. And so a lot of homeless people in Vegas, for instance, will say, I want to go to Santa Monica. A lot of people come here from all over the place. Right. So to me it doesn't seem like it should be a state issue because you look at California and you say, why should California bear the brink? burden for all the other states where people migrate to. Totally what's happening right now. By the way, that's happening because, I mean, if you're homeless in another state and you're dealing with lawmakers there making it very difficult for you to camp wherever

you want, you're going to want to go to the state where they allow you to camp wherever you want, and that's California. Also the weather. And the weather, of course. But weather is warm and nice in Florida, too. They don't have the same issue we have here. So what's the difference between Florida and California? Is it that Florida enforces stricter policies on sleeping overnight?

Yes. And how do they combat that in terms of, let's say, is someone going to go to jail because they don't have a place to sleep? No, let me be clear about something. I don't want to put anyone in jail because they have nowhere to sleep. Like, that's ridiculous. I'm specifically talking about instance, instance where they're offered housing and they deny it.

And people think that that's a myth. That doesn't happen. Remember, California, or Los Angeles specifically, under the leadership of Mayor Karen Bass has been purchasing like old hotel buildings and the whole point is to shelter and house homeless people in those hotel rooms. And I remember reading a story by the Los Angeles Times

just a few months ago about one of these hotels in downtown L.A. That's like sitting vacant. And it's like, why is it sitting vacant? That's what happened in Venice. Remember they did that thing in Venice? And I think it was at the peak, it was like 60% occupied. But there were hundreds of people around it.

Yes. And I remember reading something. Someone didn't interview with these people. And they were asking people, why aren't you going and using it? And they say, there's no alcohol, no drug policy. Yeah, tough luck. I can't comply with that. I don't want to comply with that.

And I think there was also something about no pets, which that to me, I feel like, you know. That one makes a little bit of sense, but I bet you that's not the biggest percentage of the pie. No. The something part is it's. not sympathetic at all to let people just sit on the streets. And people are saying like, oh, you know, they can come here and they can live for free and they can do all of the, like it's like the worst possible thing, unethical to be. No one lives for free. Let's be clear about that. No one lives for free. Okay. We pay for that. We pay for that in every way. Oh, yeah. So I'm not, that's the problem that I've been having because we pay insanely high taxes in this state. Our schools are garbage.

Okay, our communities are falling apart. We spend literally billions of dollars every year in this state on the homelessness issue, and it's only gotten worse. So these policies are failing. And so the idea that they're living for free, no, we're subsidizing what's going on. Where's the money going? I don't know. Oh, well, actually, I do not.

Let's talk about where the money is going. It's my favorite topic. My absolute favorite topic. Money's going to these garbage, and I mean it in every sense of that word and meaning, okay? Garbage nonprofits. A lot of these nonprofits are run by friends and family of elected lawmakers in this state

and they just pad their pockets with millions in government grants and do nothing to fix the homelessness problem. Wasn't there the case of the place downtown L.A. They were renting $60,000 a month. It's been vacant since like 2011. Yep. Because they claimed there was like a foundational issue or something like that.

So it wasn't safe. But they were doing all this like investigation for the foundation for a decade. And the city was paying $60,000. a month for shelter never got used. And then it came out that he was a friend of somebody on the board or something like that. Maybe they made a handshake agreement or something, but nothing has happened. Yeah, these policies and the failure of these policies is it could always be traced to the corruption,

to the fact that the people making the decisions are less interested in solving the problem and certainly more interested in, you know, giving handouts to their buddies who run these gross nonprofits. I remember one of these nonprofits, there have been a number of investigations into them. It's just that no one takes the investigation seriously because it's conservative outlets that do the investigations. And it really pisses me off because some of the reporting has been fantastic and they show their receipts. And so one of those investigations into an LA-based nonprofit dealing with homelessness followed them around in downtown to see like what do their workers actually do. And they were literally just handing out crack pipes to people who are struggling

with addiction. I get the need and I'm in favor of safe injection sites because you don't want to spread AIDS and diseases. That makes all the sense in the world. Why are we, why are we spending taxpayer money on crack pipes exactly? Like what was the point of that? And why are we like just, you know, spreading them out onto the streets? Like that's not, that's not what I wanted my tax money to go to. Is there a solution? Because it doesn't seem as though anybody has any reasonable solution that could actually take place. I've always been in favor of mental health treatment because from my experience in Santa Monica,

90 plus percent of it seems to be mental health related just from what I've anecdotally seen. Of course. I mean, yes. That's what you see on the streets. There's no long-term treatment. You can't necessarily force someone to seek treatment that they don't want. But you can't put them in jail. But you can't quite just up and.

Yeah. Again, I want to really reiterate. I don't want to throw, I don't want to throw homeless people in jail. That's crazy. Yeah, we're on the same page. But if someone refuses to leave, they don't want to seek treatment,

but you can't have them on the street in a position where they could be in danger. What's the solution? I don't know any solution. To say that it's one thing, it would be wrong because this is a more complex issue. You know, I think the left minimizes it and simplifies it

by saying it's just merely a housing issue. It's not merely a housing issue. I mean, clearly. I do think that we need to build more housing. I think the way the L.A. City Council has been doing that so far, has been pretty disastrous. For instance, they approved a seven-story apartment building in a single-story residential home neighborhood in Sherman Oaks.

I went to a neighborhood council. Well, it wasn't really a neighborhood council meeting. Nithia Rahman, who's the council member representing that district, was debating her opponent. And so I believe it was last week. I went to that debate and it was being hosted by the neighborhood council. So that issue came up. And I'm like, why would they say no to a proposal that I think makes all the sense in the world that would build apartment buildings along Sepulveda Boulevard, right?

The busy corridors. So along Sepulveda Boulevard and along. Ventura. That was one of the proposals that was sent into the city council. I don't know why, but the city council did not approve that and instead approved like this weird construction project that consists of a seven-story apartment building. Do you have any idea why? Could that be that maybe there's some back deals going on. I don't know for sure. So please take that with a grain of salt. It's something that needs to be investigated. But there are decisions being made that make no sense. But going back to your question about homelessness,

we do need to build more housing. I totally agree with that. But simply doing that is not going to solve the problem because there is a crisis in regard to mental health and drug addiction. Those are two issues that are driving the increase in homelessness. And those two issues need to be dealt with appropriately. And so Gavin Newsom, who I have no love for at all,

had basically put out his proposal to institutionalize severely mentally ill people who can't care for themselves and basically do it in rare instances against their will. But you have, unfortunately, organizations like the ACLU, which used to focus their energy on free speech. Now they're focusing their energy on pushing back against any policy that could help people that are like struggling on the streets, including those with mental health issues. They argue that it's a civil liberties issue to force people into mental health care.

But I disagree. I think that it's one of the most inhumane things to watch people have these episodes publicly on our streets, waste away and oftentimes die on our streets. And if they don't die on our streets, usually what will end up happening is they'll commit a crime that's so gruesome that they'll end up in prison for the rest of their lives.

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So I have a quick question about squatters rights because this is something I have never understood. And I would assume that it's more of the progressives, the liberals that would be in favor of such a thing. there was something that was going viral on X today, which was this guy in New York who went out of town for three weeks. He got a water bill, and when called to turn off the water, the company told him that he couldn't. Turns out random squatters moved into his house.

New York law forbids a homeowner from shutting off utilities or locking out the squatters. After 30 days, unwatted squatters in New York become classified as tenants. Yeah, that's insane. Who is in support of squatters rights? Is there a single person on this planet aside from squatters that are in favor of that?

I think young people on the left probably, and then you grow up and you realize what property rights mean and what being stolen from actually entails. Because remember, when someone's stealing from you, they're not merely stealing a material object. They're stealing all of the time, energy and hard work that went into acquiring that material

good. And in this case we're talking about, you know, a property. Now, look, they, I think, we'll probably think of the private equity type people or the corporate landlords and think like F them, who cares. But a lot of times that's not the case. And I, I look, I don't have a lot of love for squatters. I just don't. My thought, and I have tenants and I am a landlord, I think there's a lot of overlap between squatters and tenants because you could have a squatter that says, no, I have a signed lease. And you could have a landlord with a tenant and say,

I don't like them. They're a squatter. Let's get them out of there. Oh, interesting. If someone just moves in and they're there for five days, but they signed a year-long lease, the landlord gets a higher offer, how do you not call those people?

They're squatters. I want them out. So I think... That's a really interesting perspective. Yeah. So I kind of think that, you have to prove their squatters to begin with, which means going through the court system

and differentiating between a squatter and a tenant. That's the problem that you have to go through the court system. But the police aren't the ones to say they're a squatter or they're a tenant. But the problem is the cost. Right. And that's in and of itself will be a disincentive, enough for a landlord to be like,

all right, I'm going to go belly up, share your squad. But to do that, I think you have to make it easier to evict tenants. And instead of having it be a 90-day process or up to it like six months, it has to be a lot quicker. Because right now, squatters, when they move in, they could draft a police agreement themselves and say, no, this is it.

What are you talking about? This is it. They signed it. And they could download free forms online, just sign it. The police aren't going to enforce it. And automatically, that's six months. And just from what I've seen, a lot of them have the free resources for public defendants.

And they're happy to go after landlords because everyone deserves equal representation. So they assume the benefit of the doubt. These people aren't squatters. they deserve the same rights to be defended. But that's a six-month process. So that's where I see the difference. Yeah.

Yeah, look, when I think of squatters, I'm not thinking about tenants who are getting screwed over by their landlords. And we might disagree. It really depends on like the details, but in terms of like making it easier to evict people, I think that right now, L.A. is making it very difficult for all landlords to evict,

even more difficult than what landlords have experienced historically here. And some of that, I think, goes a little too far because, again, you can't discount, you know, the mom and pop landlords who put all of their investment into an apartment building for their retirement. There are more people like that than people realize. But in terms of squatters, I just, I always just think of, and maybe this is wrong and I need to reconsider what squatter means. I just think of someone who's on the streets,

probably addicted to something, breaking into someone's unit or home, and just hanging out and like refusing to leave. That's what I think of. Yeah, there was a story on YouTube that went mega viral because a lady just closed on her home and had the moving trucks out front and she goes in and she sees a couple in there.

And she's like, I'm moving in. I just closed on the home and they say, nope, we're living here. I know. I know that story. And it was a wild. Because look, I can't help but I guess I'm a bit of an empath because I can't help but think about how I would feel. I put myself in the shoes of the woman who worked really hard to be able to afford a home in this like unbelievably difficult market. I would be furious.

Like I don't know how I wouldn't get like violent to be honest. Like I'd be very upset. So I think that right now the ways the laws are written could potentially. lead to some unsafe situations because how being stolen from like right in front of you and it's like so brazen and they don't care and then you don't really get much help from your elected officials like it's kind of messed up what are your thoughts on rent control i think that rent control to some extent has been really important but i do think it kind of um it creates this perverse market to some extent as well because if you have a rent controlled unit, you're not going to want to leave it, right? And I think that it limits your opportunities. Like if you're more willing to move around

and chase a job that's going to give you better benefits and better pay, I think that's a better situation. At the same time, though, in a state like Florida that has no rent control at all and like very few protections for tenants, you see your rent go up out of nowhere to the tune of like $500, $800, $800. I have family in Florida, and my cousin actually just experienced that. And she loved her apartment, had no issues, like, you know, paying on time, had a good relationship with her landlord. But as soon as COVID was over, they raised her rent by $500.

And she was expecting a baby. And so she had no choice but to leave. And being forced to leave your home, right, whether you're renting it or whatever, it's very difficult. So I think that there should be some regulations in place that apply to all rental units, not just like a certain slice of rental units while it doesn't apply to others. But I honestly, I don't know and I'm not an expert on it and I need to read into it a little more. Because I see the downsides, but I also see the benefits.

Yeah. From my perspective, it just rewards people who have been in the unit for a very long time. And it's not based on income. Yeah. I've seen some people make $200,000 a year, and they got lucky because they rented the right place in 1994 in Santa Monica by the beach. They rents $800 a month, and no one could kick them out. The market rent could be $5,000 a month.

They never want to leave. So what ends up happening is that everyone who's rent-controlled tends to want to stay there because they got a good deal, regardless of how much money they make. And that limits the inventory of rental units. And so those that are not rent-controlled, you see the prices go up and it gets inflated. Yeah. Yeah.

But the other issue that I see is that landlords with rent-controlled units really don't have any incentive to fix it up because they almost want the tenants to leave. They'll do the bare minimum just so that the tenants could kind of like scare because why invest more money when you're not going to get a higher return? So there's an area in West Adams where one street is rent-controlled because all the buildings are pre-19, you know, 28 or whenever it was and they're all older, multifamily. And then another street is not rent controlled. Same year built, but there's single family homes. And you see a stark difference between the two in terms of upkeep, the area, cleanliness. I mean, it's wild that these landlords on the one side do not put any money in the property whatsoever. Yeah.

And just seeing that stark difference between the two. I'm not saying that's 100% rent control. But when you have tenants in there, sometimes you just can't afford to pay more. If you buy the building on a certain cap rate, and you're just earning enough to pay the mortgage. and like the bare minimum, you don't really have anything extra to fix up the building with. Yeah, that's a good point too. And I've certainly, I've seen stories of landlords that not only refuse to improve their buildings and maintain it well, but in some cases, and this is extreme, they'll like try

to get their tenants to move out by like releasing rats into the unit. Like, have you seen those stories? The New York ones are crazy. There's one where like one tenant held out from the entire building. So what they did, they renovated the entire. entire building and she was on like the one of the top floors and they made the elevator inaccessible. Oh, come on.

Because it was constantly under construction because they wanted her to move. See, like that kind of stuff is not right. In fairness, they offered her hundreds of thousands of dollars to leave. And she didn't take it. That's crazy. She didn't take it. She wanted to prove a point that she wasn't going to get kicked out. Now, she had been there for a long time, but they offered her a lot of money to leave.

Yeah. But they're saying, well, I'm in my legal right to renovate the unit and you don't have a legal right to an elevator. So you have to walk up and down the stairs. It's crazy. That is wild. But you hear crazy stories. A lot of them are New York because you're dealing with such immense wealth.

And some people who have been there since like the 1960s or 70s who have lived in the same unit their entire life. So it's been a while since I've thought about or talked about rent control. So I'm now recalling some of the things that I've read that I think are interesting in this topic. So one of the other downsides to rent control that I think we've experienced. first hand in Los Angeles is if you are a landlord, a mom and pop landlord for a rent controlled building in L.A., and you're approached by a developer who's like, look, I'll give

you definitely more than what the building is worth because they want to buy the building and what do they want to do? They want to demolish it. And they want to build a completely new building where the units will not be rent controlled. They get to rent them at market rate. And so that ends up actually decreasing, you know, rent-controlled units because it's very tempting. I mean, if you're a landlord, you've been schlepping around, like maintaining this building, you, you know, really do feel like your margins are like very low and you are fighting. By the way, being a landlord, I can't think of a worst job. Like, I can't believe, like, do you enjoy it? It's so awful. Listen, I enjoyed it a lot more when I first got into it. Because I was really involved. I was working

full time as a real estate agent. I would look every day, properties, I'd go and see them. I was, and I'd be very hands-on. Like, I did some of the work myself. I'd be in there, like, painting myself. I tried to do anything. I love that kind of stuff. Like, I'm very handy. I loved it. Now that I moved, it, I have a property manager. So I try to be a little more hands-off. But in the beginning, it was something I took so much pride in. I would be posting on Instagram, like, what do you think of this fixture? And I'd do the polls. And if one got more votes than the other, I'd buy that one. I told my dad, like, if you, because he, my dad's very old school. And so he's like, I want to leave something for my kids, you know, before I died.

He thinks like, we're looking forward to inheriting an apartment building. I am not. And I, like, I looked him in the eye and I was like, I will sell it. You know, because I've seen the health. Do you see that? The new tax basis. Do you see that? The new tax. Yeah. There was a property tax thing that went into effect. I had no idea. Now, I voted in favor of this, believe it or not. Oh. The whole thing was that it was to keep the same property tax for. for people who have lost their homes to fire or damage or earthquake. And it makes sense. Imagine you lose your home to a fire.

You have to rebuild. You don't want your property tax being reassessed because you built a new home because your house burned down because an earthquake. And I was like, this is really great. And I voted for it. And I didn't realize there's all these provisions in that that in order to do that, you give up the stepped up property tax basis for kids who inherit the properties from their parents. In order to get the stepped up tax basis, you have to live there full-time as your full-time residence. Rental properties are exempt,

and there's all these limitations in terms of what you can transfer from a parent to a child. And that was never in place before. So I think the benefits were there. I look at it, and I think who wouldn't vote for this? But they left out all the convenient stuff of like, here's how it's going to affect everybody else. Well, I mean, God, the ballot initiatives,

it's frustrating because people don't have all the information and the way that they're written can be misleading. Oh, it's so confusing. I'm looking through these balance and I'm reading them and it's like one is so much better than the other. I'm like, it seems obvious. Yeah, pick the better one. You have to, if I don't know,

if I haven't like read deeply into what the ballot initiative is, I just don't vote on it at all at this point because I voted in favor of some ballot initiatives that I now very much regret. Prop 47 was one of them, which was, written in a way to make the voter think that it would just ensure that low-level offenders and people with like drug possession don't end up in prison.

I don't think they should end up in prison. So I was like, what year was this? This was. Was this 2020? No, it was, I think, a few years prior to that. Okay. Because this sounds very familiar to something that I remember reading. You probably voted in favor of it.

Probably. Because again, it was written in a way that would reform the criminal justice system in a way that makes sense. Yeah, but this was a $1,000 cap, right? Or it's like, oh, that was a different. That was actually a different one. Yeah, but I think I voted in favor of that too. I didn't realize that like all shoplifting would be like allowed.

Like all smash and grabs. It doesn't matter. Like, what limit? Like people like rob entire jewelry stores with these smash and grabs. They get booked if they get caught. Yeah. They get booked if they get caught. And then like release the next day.

Like it's anyway. No, but Prop 47, what ended up happening? is as soon as it passed, they reclassified a bunch of violent crimes as nonviolent, unsurious crimes. And child sex trafficking was one of them. And I'm like, what the? How was that a nonviolent crime? I don't know. I don't know. But why did they want? What is the incentive to do that? I don't know. It's the craziest thing. Believe it or not, the state legislature has been struggling to pass legislation that would reclassify it. it as a violent crime.

I don't know why. He's voting against it. Oh, I'll tell you. There's, um, Assemblyman weiner. Okay, literally. Oh, that's, that's surprising. Yeah. That's, I mean, he got in trouble for that, didn't he?

No, no, that was, um, that was a different weiner. That was a federal. We got to get rid of the weaners, honestly. That's the problem. Be suspicious of the weanors. I forget, um, the state lawmaker. I forget his first name. But he actually just proposed legislation that would put speed governor.

on people's cars, or any newly manufactured vehicle would have them. So you would not be able to drive like any higher or any faster than 10 miles per hour above the speed limit. So he's pushing for that kind of nanny state BS while simultaneously consistently voting no. But why is he doing? I don't know. I don't know. Best friend group or something like that.

It's so funny. I like to feel like there's got to be a reason. Like he's got to have some. night actually because I read about the new proposal about the cars and the speed limits and I was like, I wonder if this MFer like voted against classifying child sex trafficking as a violent offense. And sure enough, I read that he voted against it multiple times because it kept coming up. And I think the very last time because of pressure he voted yes to reclassifying, but the previous times he voted no, he argued that the penalties as a misdemeanor,

as a nonviolent crime, were stiff enough. I'm like, I don't agree with that. If something's a misdemeanor is going to be treated very differently from a felony. When you get charged with a crime, what tends to happen is it gets pled down.

So if child sex trafficking is considered a misdemeanor and they get prosecuted for it and they take some sort of plea deal, they're not going to serve any time behind bars. Child sex traffickers should be in prison for the rest of their lives, period. Okay? No conversation about it.

I don't want to hear an argument about how people praying on kids in the worst possible ways should be let out into society. It's disgusting. But there was that and, you know, I mean, look, you see these examples, like bail reform I'm in favor of

because I don't think that if you're poor and you're unable to pay bail, until your, you know, court date. If you're innocent, it's like so unfair and unjust, right? Like, if you're wealthy, obviously you pay the bail and you're done. You could show up to your court date. You're good.

So it creates like a two-tier justice system where the people who are privileged get all these like benefits and then those who don't have the money end up sitting in a jail cell, even if they're innocent waiting for their court date. However, the way it was implemented, I don't agree with, right? you need to give judges discretion. And those judges, like in New York when they passed their bail reform, judges were not allowed to have any discretion at all. So if the judge felt, no, this person is a risk to society

and they should be behind bars, they weren't able to make that decision. And so bail reform, I think, is a good idea. It just depends on how it's implemented. RBC Training Ground has discovered potential in over 20,000 Canadian athletes and county. Your story could be next. If you've got the drive, they'll help you find your path to the Olympics.

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Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today. I want to talk about the cultural political shift because you see people like Joe Rogan, like Elon Musk, and other people have influence seemingly moving a little bit towards more conservative principles. You see Elon replying to end-wokeness on Twitter,

which is a popular conservative publication, which is interesting, he's interacting with very conservative things. Elon recently collaborated for an hour with Ben Shapiro. More people appear to be aligning with conservative views, how many people are moving to the left these days, do you think? I think the left is in a really bad place right now. And I think it's because they kind of lost the plot. And rather than focusing on the genuine economic concerns that I think we have some proposals to improve, a lot of the focus ended up being, and unfortunately, it's just

representative of what you experience on social media. It's a small group. of people who I think have hijacked the, for lack of a better word, branding of the left and what the left represents. And all they do all day is scold. Skold, scold, scold, scold, scold, right? We're super pure. We're the best. We're the kindest. We have the biggest hearts. You have to use this rhetoric. You have to use this language. You have to believe this, that. And if you question anything, if you ask the wrong questions, you're a bad person. Everyone's a right winger, by the way. Like, I'm a right winger, according to the online left. It's absurd.

So I've seen that picture Elon tweeted where he was like right in the middle. You have like the right and the left. But then all of a sudden the left moves like way far down. And then he's staying in the exact same spot. But it seems like he's more conservative just because the left is moved this way. Do you find that to be accurate or true? I find Elon to be a marker of any political ideology, a big mistake. I like don't even really know how to answer that question by thinking about Elon Musk.

Like Elon Musk. I think a lot of people seem to relate to that where, you know, they always say, I'm right in the middle. But lately I've been aligning a little bit more because the left has moved so here. And I've stayed in the middle. It seems like I'm more conservative than I am. You're called things that are like alt-right conservative things for saying the same thing you've been saying for the last 25 years of your life.

I just think the left needs to focus on the issues that have brought appeal. And those issues tend to involve economic anxieties, stress about our financial. system, stress about our health care system, those are issues that appeal to people across the board, including, by the way, Trump supporters who found his pro-labor messaging, however hollow it might be, very appealing. And so if you focus on the issues that would help to build a broad coalition as opposed to sitting behind a computer and just scolding people all day, I think you're going to do a better job, you know, building support for your movement. And there hasn't been a lot of focus on that. There's also been like a little bit of a war within the left

where you have identitarians who want to make everything about personal identity. And then the so-called, you know, economic essentialists who just want to focus on economic issues without getting too bogged down by, you know, allegations of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, of that stuff. Now, those isms exist, and I do find them to be a problem, but I think that the way the left talks about that problem would have you believe that it's like so widespread and it's like destroying everything. I think that they over-emphasize those things. I think that they're also very quick to call people racist, sexes, homophobic, transphobic, and then you end up losing the meaning of those words. And I've gotten to a point where if I see the online left accused someone of

being one of the isms. I'm like, but are they? Like, I'm way more skeptical now. Why does it seem like both sides are getting more extreme? Like, you have the right just going crazy right and the left going crazy left.

Why do you think that is? Is it just an echo chamber? I think the extremes are overrepresented on social media. Everyone else, all the normies, all the critical thinkers, all the people who haven't bought into extremism on either side,

and I think that's representative the majority of the country, they're not engaging, on Twitter because they don't want to be dogpiled. They see what the rhetoric is like. They see what the discourse is like. So they just stay out of it. But if you talk to normal everyday people,

they've got some views that are conservative, some views that are definitely like on the left. People tend to be a mix of both, which is why I think most Americans, if they stop and think about it and they're not forced to take a side or feel pressure to take a side, they're probably somewhere in the middle. Let's talk about feeling forced or pressured to take a side.

My concern with a lot of these media publications is that they are financially incentivized to make the other side look as evil as possible because that's how you make money. That's how you stay alive. And a business is a grower die type thing. You have to be growing. And unfortunately, it's gotten to the point where you have to make the other side look like the most vile, inhuman type stuff. And I'm concerned that when I see titles from the Young Turks,

that are just like ad hominem attacks at certain people. The same thing that I see on the right, it's not actually helping the problem. It's more so now I feel like for a lot of these publications focused on lining the pockets and getting views and making money than it is actually about like pursuing truth. Well, the, as I'm sure you all know, the titles of videos have a huge impact on how many people end up

clicking on that video and watching it. I really make an effort to not get upset at video titles because our publishing team is doing what they're supposed to do. You know, by the way, like people think hosts title and choose thumbnails for videos. We don't. Like that would be a full-time job. In fact, it is a full-time job. We have a whole publishing team. There's no one who knows better than us on titles thumbnails.

Yeah. It's, I couldn't do that job. I would be the worst at it. But anyway, um, they were. work really hard and they're doing what they're supposed to do and their performance is judged on how well those videos perform based on the titles and the thumbnails. So I think that there is a problem with those kinds of extreme views being rewarded by the algorithm. I don't think most people have that in their hearts naturally, right? Like where they want to just demonize the other side.

but I do think that there's something about the way YouTube, Facebook, you know, these platforms work where that kind of divisive content for some reason or another rises to the top and I hate that. And like if you click on the videos and you watch it, like certainly years ago I like played into it but it wasn't a strategy. It was what I actually believed and I was totally ignorant and I was an unhappy person because I totally bought into this notion that like everyone on the other side is a fascist and they're all evil and they're all coming for us. I was so wrong about that. And so I try to focus

on people as individuals and even within, you know, the MAGA crowd, there are gradations, there are differences. So it's awkward because sometimes when we cover stories about Trump supporters, Sometimes I feel like the audience doesn't like that I'm trying to be, like, fair to them and try to consider where they're coming from. So you'll click on the video and you'll think you're going to get, like, a very hardcore anti-Magaview. And, you know, sometimes that is the case. But a lot of times, especially fairly recently, it's not the case.

I'm usually kind of, like, disagreeing with my co-host and trying to provide a more fair perspective, because I want to understand what drives people. What changed? What caused that? Honestly, the cruelty that I've personally experienced from the left and how it was so incredibly hypocritical to, on one hand, claim that like all the horrific treatment of others comes from Trump supporters when they themselves were engaging in pretty awful behavior. When I was sexually assaulted by a homeless guy in my own neighborhood, one of these leftists who worked on AOC's campaign, quote tweeted me and basically made fun of the assault. Like, I was sexually assaulted and he just made fun of it. And I'm like, oh, like, these are the people that I had been identifying

with and I was totally blind to the fact that they engage in the very behavior that they find so disgusting on the other side. They might believe in different policies, but the behavior is similar. You know what I'm saying? So that woke me up. And it made me think, wait, do I really have a fair perspective of every side? And so it made me want to be a little more skeptical and investigate things more than just go along with a tribe. Where have you noticed, if you've noticed it at all, yourself sliding on that political spectrum? Have you recognized maybe you're getting a little bit closer to the middle, or do you think that you've stayed solidified and similar to what Graham was saying? the left has just pushed so far that way that it feels like you're in the middle,

but you're still where you were? I don't know where I am. That's the hard part, right? Like one of my really good friends, Ben Burgess, he's, you know, he's a socialist. We agree on a lot of like economic policy and stuff like that. And I was on a podcast once last July and I said, I don't know what my label is. And he's like, you know what you're on the left. It's just that you reject some of this, you know, for lack of a better word, some of like

the woke stuff that we're seeing on social media, which is true. But the truth is, I have some views that are pretty far left. And then I have some views that are, you know, relative to where the left is today, kind of conservative. I don't know. It's, I don't know. I think that's, yeah, that's good because we had someone on the podcast recently that said that you should never look at things through an ideological lens, which I think is exactly that. And we had another, I think is Chris Williamson said, if you know, let's say five things about somebody and then you can pinpoint every single other belief that they have, they're an ideological thinker. And they just subscribe to something. And I think that's really good. And it makes your words have a lot more weight when you say something.

And I'm like, wow, I didn't really think that she would have thought that. Yeah. And like there is truth to, oh, the left has gone further left and the right has gone further right. There is truth to that. But I think ultimately the biggest thing that has been like a phenomenal. and political discourse is the tribal mentality and how you're kind of expected to be an ideologue. But if you're an honest thinker and if you're really searching for truth, it's impossible to be an ideologue because it would be ridiculous for one side to always be right and to know the right policies in response to societal issues. That's a ridiculous. Like when you stop and think about it, that's a ridiculous thing to think. But there's,

You know, there are things about the right wing that really bother me, you know, the rhetoric that I hear on the daily wire, typically from, you know, I know you guys had Matt Walsh on. You know, I think Matt Walsh goes way too far in demonizing pretty powerless people. Like the transgender community, sure, culturally speaking, they have some power, but they're still dealing with horrific discrimination. they're still dealing with, you know, on a personal level, families that might disown them, depending on what state they're living in, a medical system that doesn't respect their medical needs. So I don't like dehumanizing people, and I see a lot of that taking place, and I don't subscribe to it at all. And so I can't, I don't really fall, I definitely don't fall on the right. I don't identify with leftists at all anymore. I just have very left-wing economic policies,

and on some social issues, I've become a little more conservative. Let's talk about gender roles, switch the topic for a second since you just mentioned Matt Walsh. Do you believe that gender roles exist? I think increasingly gender roles have changed and probably will continue to change and I'm fine with that as long as people are able to identify with gender roles that make them comfortable. So I can talk about my personal experience and my personal preferences. On some level, obviously, as a person who has a career and I enjoy being an independent woman, that is not a traditional gender role. But at the same time, I love being a wife, I love coming home from work and cooking a warm dinner for my husband.

I love cleaning. Like I actually love a lot of the so-called trad wife duties and I do them on a regular basis. It's a huge part of my life. It's a huge part of my identity. I love femininity. I deeply, deeply, you know, identify as someone who's feminine and I love it.

But it's not for everyone. So if you're a woman and you reject all that, I think you should have the right to reject all that and live your life in a way that makes you comfortable and happy. In terms of, you know, the traditional male gender role, I like it a lot, you know, I like the idea of a man who wants to protect his family. The whole thing about a man needing to provide, I'm less concerned with that, for lack of a better word. I mean, it's nice. My husband does provide, but when I met him, he was couch surfing. He came to L.A. to be an actor.

He had been a professional baseball player. That career ended. And he was kind of lost. He didn't know what he wanted to do. And he was still lost and didn't know what he wanted to do when we got married. He was working as a bartender. And what I love is that we have been building a life together. And now he has a career.

What drew you to him when you guys like first met? That ass. It was the ass. Okay. No, he was a baseball player. So, I mean, the classic, you know, they have big butts. He does have a big butt. And he's Cuban.

Like, it's a, I don't know if it's a Cuban thing. I do not. Mine is. No, you got a big butt. No, I do not. Oh my God. I'm so inappropriate. Okay, but no, obviously what first drew me to him was the fact that I was attracted to him.

Okay. But then I got to know him and he's just, I thought he was lying about who he is because he's like so good looking. I was like, no, you're probably a massive. You know. Yeah. But no, he ended up being so kind and he's definitely on some level more sensitive than I am, which you would never expect. But he, his personality traits complement mine.

And we work really well together as a team and we understand each other and deeply respect each other. And that's what ultimately convinced me like this is the guy I want to marry. We had a divorce attorney on the podcast recently that said the most. most successful relationships he sees are complementary opposites. Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's funny because when we first met, I asked him what he's into, like, what are your interests? Do you like news and politics? He's like, no, I don't follow the news at all. And I was like, okay, what are you interested in? And I'm thinking in the back of

my head, please don't say sports, please don't say sports. And then immediately he says sports. And I'm like, this isn't going to work out. So, like, we have different interests. We definitely have different characteristics and personality traits, but we also have some commonality. Like we have some similarities. And, you know, he loves to go dancing. I love to go, I was a dancer. I trained in ballet for like 17 years. And now we're taking salsa classes together. So there are things that we share together as well, interests and things like that. You can't be completely different. But in terms of like our temperament and our personality traits, I do think we're opposites. and I do think that helps.

How equal do you think men and women are in 2024? I think they're perfectly equal at this point. Like, I know I'll probably regret saying that, but I don't think that there's a problem with women getting discriminated against. I know there's like a big controversy at the moment about Margo Robbie not getting nominated for an Oscar for Barbie. Barbie was like Ken. Yeah, and Ken did.

Yeah. But I just, who cares? Like to me, matters is are women not getting hired simply because they're women? And I don't think that's the case. Women have been moving up the economic ladder. They're moving up to executive roles at some of these major Fortune 500 companies. There's been a lot of progress for women. And if there's any indication that we're sliding back, obviously I'll speak out against it. But I don't really see that happening. I actually see a different crisis happening that's impacting.

men that I'm worried about. And what is that? It's the loneliness crisis, the education. They call it the friend session. What's that? Meaning that men are becoming more and more atomized. They're lacking any friends or personal relationships. That worries me.

It really does. And I also have seen that men are graduating at lower rates. So I was never one of these people, and I think this is also rare, to be clear. I was never one of these like feminists who cares about improving the lives of women or fairness toward women and doesn't really care at all about, you know, the opposite sex. I care about everyone. I want everyone to live good lives. I want everyone to thrive.

I want people to be treated with dignity. And I don't want men to be lonely or in crisis. Why do you think that is the case? Why are men lonely? Honestly, I don't know. I'm not an expert on that. There have been some theories that I think make sense. and I think it should be studied a little more.

But one of the things that's come up is the fact that with changing gender roles and with women being able to provide for themselves and not needing a man to provide for them, it's been a little bit disorienting for some guys because they don't know what their role in society is. So I think there might be some truth to that. I think that while it was important to draw attention to the treatment of women, especially in the workplace during the whole Me Too phenomenon, there might have been some unintended consequences to it in that, and I kind of hated this,

there were some women who were kind of speaking out on behalf of all women, and I disagreed with what they were saying. So I know that I personally don't want, and I'm so happy I'm not dating anymore, I'm married, I don't have to deal with this, but the idea that a guy needs to ask me permission for, like, everything, like, may I kiss you, may I, no, I don't, you need to feel the vibes, you know?

But that's what I think is lacking. Yeah. I hate to say it, but like I agree with you, but I also think social awareness disappeared. It seems as though a lot of the common sense things, you could kind of sense by body language. This person's not into it. They're not interested in me.

They're bored. They're not into the conversation. I feel like it's lacking. But also that's true. And I think it's part of the atomization, the fact that we're all like behind computer screens all day or on our phones. And so you really do need. to make an effort to connect with people in person

and put the technology away. And I make an effort to do that. And it has definitely made my life better. But I think that the other thing that ended up being a little bit disastrous is if a guy went for a kiss and you weren't into it, back in the day, okay, you're not into it. You reject the kiss.

It's a little awkward, but you all move on with your lives. Now with some, it's not all women, not even half of women or a huge portion of women, but some of the more outspoken ones during the Me Too era, they would make that out to be like a sexual assault. And it's like, no, that was not a sexual assault. Like, that scares guys. Like, that scares guys in trying to date or trying to get to know women.

And that's, look, based on anecdotes, based on conversations I've had with male friends, that has come up. And I think there might be truth to it. I don't know how broadly that, you know, opinion is held among men. But I just want people to consider, maybe it'd be better to be kinder

and more understanding to each other and not assume ill intent by everybody. I think that's the biggest issue. Everyone assumes ill intent by everyone else, whether it be the opposite sex, political opponents. People aren't necessarily out to cause harm. There might be a misunderstanding.

So try to be more generous, I guess. I think I agree with your husband. I know you're talking about this, that I like to believe there's good in everybody and that somebody has good intentions, even though on the surface it might seem, what on earth are they doing? But I think deep down,

they truly want to improve the situation. I think so too. I like to believe. Yeah, I didn't used to believe that. And that was when I was a pretty miserable person. But once I made an effort to get to know people who disagreed with me, I realized, no, I was being a little too paranoid,

and I think I might have bought into narratives that aren't true. And also people don't get ideas out of, nowhere, like malicious ideas out of nowhere. It's usually extraneous situations impressing those ideas into them. We got to end this. Yeah, we do. But before we end it, we want to do one quick game of word association with you. So we're going to say some names and you're going to tell us the first thing that comes to mind when you hear them. Okay. Okay. Elon Musk. Annoying. AOC. AOC. Disappointing. Vivek Ramoswamy. Super annoying.

Joe Biden. Sleepy weak. Patrick Bet David. Hustler Bernie Sanders Fighter Ben Shapiro Misunderstood Wow Thank you so much

Anna for coming on the ice coffee We'll have to do this again This has been amazing This is great I really enjoyed it And I'd be happy to do it again So we'll link to your information down below in the description

Thank you guys so much for watching And until next time