The Joe Rogan Experience - #1485 - Krystal & Saagar

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

Krystal & Saagar are the hosts of Rising, an American daily news and opinion web series produced by Washington, D.C. political newspaper The Hill.

Here we go. We're rolling. What's up? Good to see you guys. Good to see you too. Thanks for having us. It's always weird to meet somebody when you watch a lot of their YouTube content or TV content.

Then you're like, you're real. I can touch your hands. That's how I feel about you. We all feel about each other that way. It's very odd. It is a strange dynamic. I love you guys. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, same. We feel the same. For sure. You guys are honest. Thank you. Thank you. Well, same. We feel the same. For sure. You guys are honest. I mean, we were talking about that earlier. Like, it's so rare that someone is just calling it like it is, like what you see. And obviously, you guys don't agree on everything.

And no one does. But right. We all have varying opinions. But you say what you feel. And that is so valuable today. It's so unusual. It's just such a weird partisan time. It is a weird partisan time.

Like it's never been harder to actually just do that thing. And I can't say, I mean, we don't get it right all the time. But the whole idea was to try to have this conversation between kind of the new left and the new right. That wasn't happening anywhere in a way that was valuing people's humanity, that was trying to deal in the land of the honest, not cheerleading a team or the other, but actually trying to like be straightforward about what we think and evaluating the facts as we find them. And I mean, I have to say, like you've somewhat created that space where that can happen. So I think we're in part indebted to you. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's crazy. I think the reason it works is because we both

kind of came up in quasi traditional background, right? Like Crystal came from the MSNBC world. Like I was a White House correspondent. Like I worked with a lot of these traditional reporters and like, you know, I would do Fox News and all these other things. And it's just, it's always so frustrating when you're on TV. You get three and a half minutes to talk, right? Like I once did a segment on, you know, nationalism, which was two and a half minutes with three people on a panel. Like, how are you supposed to get your point across? And so when you're doing that, and you see, like, so you can make an entire career in DC just sticking to the party line, no matter what these people believe, and you just spit out the talkers that they literally send you,

they will send you talking points. They just say over and over again pull that yeah go ahead pull this sucker up what is what is that like what is what is the talking but like you get a sheet yeah we would like you to discuss what like what message of the day here's the message of the day here are your talking points top line then you go and you turn on fox news you can hear it come out of their voice literally word for word turn on msnb. You can hear it word for word from the Biden campaign to their surrogates. It's all planned, man. Like it's all from nobody actually thinks for themselves. And that when we came together, like we were hosting a show, that's what set us apart. I mean, I think that's why it's caught on. What's the incentive?

Like, is it the incentive access money for you to stay with the party line with whatever? It's a lot safer i mean you know it's not easy to sort of be out there on your own you know and i don't want to paint just sort of trying to be honest as a more noble act than it actually is but it's very safe if you're within the party structure if you're saying the things that they want you to say there's a whole system set up for that there's a career system set up for that. There's a career system set up for that. There's a system of protection. So you're allowed to be dramatically wrong on things like the Iraq War or things like the financial crisis if you're wrong in the approved ways. Right.

If you're wrong in the non-approved ways, then you can get destroyed, canceled, all of those things. So it's a lot safer to stay within the bounds. And look, like we're living that in real time right now. Oh my God. I mean, it's never been just with how fraught, you know, you have pandemic where people are dying, you have great depression. So it's like the Spanish flu and the great depression.

And then you layer on top of that, like all the chaos of the 60s. The lines have never been more drawn, at least in the time that we've been doing the show as they are right now. And so it's not an easy dynamic to navigate because most of the country is just completely coming apart. Yeah. And I want to, I mean, picking up, you're like, why do you do it? If you do it, you hop on establishment campaign to establishment campaign. Campaign cycles over. You go work at a think tank, which is all your former buddies from the campaign.

Then you go and you do the talking points. You will always have a job. You will never suffer. You'll never – even if nobody likes what you have to say, even if Republican voters or Democratic voters have rejected your message, six out of seven popular vote elections, doesn't matter because the money is there. And the people who have the money have an interest in propping up that infrastructure. So when you get your talking points, you know that if you say them, you're an X's good graces. And then that person has to hire you. They'll throw you a consulting contract. They'll throw you this. They'll put your name forward whenever it's time to staff up an administration. That's how the system of the grift in the city actually works. And that's how they keep dissenting voices in their own party down.

Because how do you even get on TV? Or how do you even become an authoritative voice in your party? You need credentials, right? Everything is credentialism. Well, how do you get those credentials? They control who enters the programs and they control who they push. They control who they push forward. And so that's how they try to keep people who have dissenting opinions out. And it's like we said, it's because of the space that you opened up where nobody knew that somebody wanted to listen to a guy talk about chimps for three hours and millions of people. Did you know that? Yeah, I don't know. And like that happened, that created a space where it's like, no, no, no. There's a lot of people who are fed up with this shit.

But can I say also it's not just that like direct career grift trajectory. It's also that we're at this point in the nation's history, which, again, has never been more obvious than right now, where the stakes feel really existential. And, you know, and that's that's a real thing. I mean, before Trump's election, there was this Flight 93 essay where the argument was, look, if you're a social conservative, if you're not sure that this Trump guy is for you, this election is existential. You have to grab the controls or else our way of life is going to die. Now, I don't agree with that assessment. I think that is hyperbolic. I think it's over the top. You know, the conservative way of life is going to continue in their churches and

people can do what they want to do. But that's the that was a legitimate sense among the Trump base. And of course, we see it with the Democrats on the left right now. And I would say at this moment, it has probably never been more true in terms of that existential nature as we see the president calling for potentially military activation in American cities. And we see him using tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful protesters. sides make it very, very difficult to engage in a way that is thoughtful, honest, non-hyperbolic, and where everyone's not just basically mad at you all the time. How did you guys start your show? Well, I mean, it's a crazy story. So Crystal was co-hosting previously,

and this was before kind of the show was on YouTube. And I think, fair to say, it was more like standard. Yeah, it was sort of more of a standard left-right kind of dynamic. Our politics didn't have, this was just, you know. Two years ago. So I started on the, I think I took on the show June. Last year. Yeah, about exactly a year ago. Yeah, so before that, for about a year before that, I'd been co-hosting with another guy,

great guy, Buck Sexton, and we had sort of a more standard left-right dynamic. Sounds like a porn star. Crystal Ball and Buck Sexton. Yeah, for real. Imagine that, yeah. Kind of hilarious. Anyway. But I used to fill in for Buck kind of when he was gone.

And Crystal and I, like, we, I mean, we found, like, we would click on certain issues, right? Like, especially on, these are the things you see on the show, like on economics, on the indictment of the economic system. Right. Even on Trump. Like, I'm not a Trump toady, right? I'm not. If they give me the talking points,

if I think something is good, I'll say it's good. And if I think something is bad, then it's bad. And it gets me into trouble. It gets Crystal into trouble, too. Define trouble. I mean, you know,

people are pissed off at what you say. They'll tweet it. They'll be like, how dare you? Do you read that stuff? Yeah, I read it. That's the problem. He reads it more than I do. I read every single one. I probably shouldn't. I would read more of it. It's not that I am smarter to not read. How dare you do you read that stuff? Yeah, that's the

Probably should I would read more of it. It's not that I haven't like smarter to not read. I just said like have kids That actually helps a lot great satellite internet and it sucks really hard. It's actually great. So yeah, I recommend it Yeah, it's good for the kids to helps if you're trying to upload something. It's virtually impossible You have to drive to the Starbucks is 20 minutes away I would recommend it. Yeah, it's good for the kids, too. It also helps if you're trying to upload something. It's virtually impossible. No, you're fucked. You have to drive to the Starbucks, which is 20 minutes away. So if you're thinking about uploading something really ridiculous, you know, all the way, it cancels out, it times out. You're like, it's probably for the best. You've got to really have some time to, like, think it over before you get there. So, yeah, so when Buck wanted to focus on his radio show and, you know, one of the one of the expectations of The Hill, which is, you know, the corporate news brand that sponsors us, is that this would be a left right show.

But I thought, let's do a left right show in a way that no one has done before, where normally the consensus, the sort of left right consensus is like this. consensus, the sort of left-right consensus is like this, we're all moderates, we're all corporatists, we believe in unity, we believe in like low taxes, we believe in free trade deals. That's the, in wars and those sorts of things, that's the sort of standard bipartisan consensus that you're allowed to have. So we thought, what if we did it in a different left-right dynamic where we actually have more overlap on some of these economic issues and the dissent is around more of the cultural issues and what does that look like? Because that's actually more representative of where the two parties are headed. If you look at where young people are, it's also more representative of where more Americans are. I mean, you know,

Sager says, and I think this is true, there is very little representation, and has been historically at least, for people who are like economically more left and culturally more right. All of the elite conversation is this very like economically liberal, but on social cultural issues, economically more conservative, like balance the budget and low taxes and stuff but on social cultural issues more liberal is more the elite conversation that

is commonly happening on cable news even though that's reflective of like teeny tiny portion of the system of america that's 10 of the population and they all live in like new york city la san francisco it's like the like america, I would say, pretty culturally right. Not like super right, but like center right. And economically, you could say cultural left. I mean, a little bit left. It depends on how you define those things. But one of the ethos of the show, Crystal actually said this, I think, to the Times,

was what if we hated each other less and the elites more? And I think that that's what the show was about. It's a little simplistic, but that's kind of how we boil it down. Did you guys have a conversation before you started working together? Yeah. We talked a lot about that. Sit down. How do you feel about this?

How do you feel about that? Yeah. I mean, because he'd filled in before. And, I mean, you know, when you have guests on, when you work with someone, especially in a media space, you get a vibe right away. And you can tell right away, you know, number one, is this person, like, ready to hold the chair, ready to do this thing? Do they have the sort of fully formed coherent ideas or things they want to explore that's going to make sense? So just on that, like, surface level, is that going to work? But you also get a real vibe for not even where are you ideologically, but are you willing to be honest when your team is fucking up? And look, everyone looks at cable news, even if you are, you know, a kind of standard

down the line Democrat or a standard Trump Republican, no one believes that these people are really shooting straight with them. Everyone sees the partisan cheerleading that is going on in the normal cable news networks. And so it was very easy to see right away that Sagar was a person who was willing to, you know, to be honest where his own team was concerned. And to me, that was kind of the most important piece. Yeah, I mean, and same, right? Like, which is that it's when you're talking to somebody or on cable, or just even in an argument, it's just standard talking. And you can catch them in one of those like, what about isms? It's just so frustrating. It's just, and it's so unproductive. And that's the thing I hated the most about, you know, my time when I was in the White House Press

Corps, it was very much just like, the quote, you could predict every single question before the briefing even began, every single one. And it just used to drive me nuts, because you'd see these people, and they care a lot more about getting cable news contracts, and all that than they ever do, like actually asking legitimate questions, or like real questions about what you think of this program, or whatever. It's all in, I mean, just standard issue crap and like it was like every single day and with crystal was like fine like somebody is willing to call out the problems on their side and i was willing to do the same thing i kind of have always been like that and that's that's where we were like we have something here and you know i mean and then it just started to take off we i mean it was like we just put it

out into the ether and all of a sudden it just started to take off. I mean, it was like we just put it out into the ether. And all of a sudden, it just started, like, catching on. So you know what was the – you'll actually relate to this. Yeah, he'll love this. The first thing that really caught was we did an interview with Andrew Yang. Yep. And I've actually known – I've known Andrew for a long time. Love that guy. Great guy.

Just, you know, like, trying to be honest. Yes. Trying to, like, really figure things out. And his answer may not always be my answer, but I feel like he's really trying to figure it out and come to a good place and see the best in people also. And so we did this long form interview with him where, I mean, there was nothing crazy about it. We just actually asked him policy focused substantive questions for, I don't know, 30 minutes. Yes. I think it was like 30 minutes. And it blew up and people loved it. And people loved it.

And we're like, whoa. And I'm talking, I mean, before that, we were getting like 100 views on it. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm serious. I went and I looked at some of the stats. It was like, oh my God, we got 1,000 views on that one, right? And then we post this Andrew Yang video,

and it just like blows up. And we thought, wow, this is really, really interesting. Well, it was because of the questions we asked. It was like you were asking him about not just UBI, which is what he's known for, about like Medicare for all and all that. And I was asking about drug legalization. I asked him about the China trade deal and about intellectual property and tariffs. And people loved that. We just asked that we were willing to ask. Yeah. Yeah. And then it wasn't and that they weren't stupid. I mean that's the thing too.

At that point in his campaign, from everybody basically except you, he was getting these really stupid questions about like, oh, is it just white nationalists who are supporting you? And, you know, I really surfaced – Oh, yeah. That was the whole thing. A bunch of white nationalists picked up Yang as like a meme thing. Like they were like – I don't even really remember what the context was. But he obviously disavowed it. But people were picking it up.

Like, why are all these white nationalists supporting? It's like they're obviously trolling, dude. Like that's what the whole thing is about. Isn't that crazy, though, that you can get in trouble for the people that like you? Like you can't. If you're a public figure, you have no control over that. Like how could he know that there's white nationals that even have him on the radar? But it's and it's not even that.

Like, you see this with any candidate who comes from outside the sort of established channels. I mean, you see the same thing with with Tulsi. You saw the same thing with Bernie. You saw the same thing in some ways with Trump is like they use who is supporting you. They find like the worst person that's supporting you. And then they use that to dismiss the whole thing. Like that way they don't have to engage with your arguments or your policy ideas or who you are, what you're doing as a person. It's like this person associated with you is bad.

Ergo, you are bad. Ergo, we don't have to deal with that at all. I think some of that has to do with this quality of posting things on social media. this quality of posting things on social media, like this 140 character, now 280 character quality of Twitter, where you're just kind of condensing things and this reductionist view of stuff and then just put it out there. Oh, he's racist. Oh, he's sexist. Oh, he's supported by white nationalists.

So and then that's the narrative. Stick with it. There's no nuance. Run. Yeah. Think then that's the narrative. Stick with it. There's no nuance. Run. Yeah. Think about that, right? The cause, the, the, just like the sheer amount of arrogance it takes to just sum up somebody in like 280 characters and just be like, this person is a racist.

I think they don't even acknowledge the, I mean, do they know what it means to call somebody that? Right. I don't think it's a real statement. It's just like, you're saying it right. But it's one person talking to the ether, right? There's no one saying, like, says who? So Andrew Yang is not a fucking white nationalist.

Like, what are you talking about, man? Like, you need someone in front of you going, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, oh, he knows those guys are supporting him? And so he's going out of his way to court them? Is that what you're saying? Right, right. So stupid. But no one gets to say that to them so they get to put those tweeting is one of the worst ways to get out information right it's one of the worst ways to have a dialogue because especially when you're defining something or someone and i feel the same way about sometimes

occasionally about really self-righteous blogs when and they write an evil blog about someone, that person doesn't get a chance to respond. You're just sort of saying it out there, your perception of that person, and you can make all these horrible distortions, whether it's about Andrew Yang or Tulsi Gabbard or whoever. You can make these horrible distortions, and then someone reads it, and you're putting out this distorted, unchallenged perception of someone. Whereas if you were having a conversation with either them or someone who, you know, who has a more rational point of view, they could say, well, that's not really true because

she actually said this. Right. And this is what she meant. And this is the greater context of the conversation. We're constantly trying to draw lines around, like, who are the good people and who are the bad people? And like, where's that bright line? and which side of the line are you on and you're not allowed to associate with the people on the the bad line yeah and i think like social media obviously exacerbates all of that

makes a million times worse no doubt about it because it's also simplistic it's also like sensationalist driven it's all like keys into your sort of like basic instincts and your adrenaline and your dopamine response and all of that. But there's also been a sort of strategy from, you know, the political and media elites in the country where if you pit people against each other. And this is something Matt Taibbi, who's, you know, one of the great guy. You had him on here. He's fantastic. He's amazing. Wrote this great book, Hate Inc.

And his thesis is essentially that once the Cold War ended and we didn't have Russia to be the bad guy, that the new ratings innovation was to make each other the bad guys. And what does that do? First of all, it's great for ratings because you got an easy villain. You know, on Fox, it's people like me. On MSNBC, it's people like Sagar, right? It's easy villains, easy ratings. You can find stories all day long that support that narrative, no problem. But it also saves any sort of accountability from the people that are in power.

Because if, you know, people who are out there in the country, if the voters are the problem, if they are bad, if they are evil, if they are deplorable, then it's not the fault of the people in power that things are going wrong. It's not their fault that these terrible, evil, sexist, racist, horrible people voted the wrong way. It's those people's fault. And so it saves them from ever having to do any self-reflection or make any adjustments in what they're doing. And I think it's a big part of why we are where we are. Yeah. I mean, that's just such a huge part of the show, which is just trying to draw compassion

for people, trying to understand what motivates 65. I don't know the numbers. I think it's 60 something million to pull the lever for Trump. What happened there? Right. And that's just something that the media has not spent any introspection trying to understand what would compel a person to do that understand what would compel a person to do that. What would compel a person to vote for Bernie Sanders? It's I mean, you know, they're

like, oh, Bernie bros, it's all why I mean, if you look at the data, which we talked about on our show constantly, it's just absolutely false. And it's it's in that way that you can begin to understand and actually even respond. Right. And that's actually the thing I love the most about the show is sometimes I have friends, you know, like on the right and they'll say something about the left thinks this. I'm like, no, man, like I have a left co-host. I'm like, that's not what she says. Her response is X, Y, and Z.

I'm sure the same thing happens with Crystal, which is that, you know, as you said, with Twitter, condensing our rhetoric and our politics to 280 characters and trying to condense hyper complex and multifaceted ideas and multifaceted discussions and deep conversations down to that level helps nobody. And actually, all it does is help split people apart for a pretty explicit reason, which is that part of the things that we talk about on the show is the reason why, you know, the elites, the cultural elites right and and left, kind of want everybody split. It's because they don't want people to have the uncomfortable conversation around how the economy is structured. Every day that we talk, we have some cultural debate in the

country, is every day that we're not talking about how many million people in this country are unemployed right now, about the political choice, the political choice is something I talk a lot on the show about, to allow people to be forced off their payroll and to go on to unemployment, to allow businesses to fail, to allow people to suffer. When we have the explicit choice of allowing them to keep their payroll, I mean, it's something we've been focused on so, because the implications of that, when you're also making the explicit choice in order to, you know, cap the amount of money that goes to a small business program, when you're doing, you know, big checks in order to corporate or to the airlines, which are firing people anyway, despite the fact that they got like $50 billion. You don't have a conversation about that,

that they will never want to have that one because they want people to hate each other more. Yeah. I think there's something about using social media that also facilitates mental illness. And this is what I mean. We all have varying degrees of health, right? Some days you run down, some days you feel great. Some days you're coming down with a cold. Some days you're in bed with the flu. We all vary. I think that there's something about the kind of interactions that people are having when they're arguing

with shit on Twitter that you could make a real, I think you could draw a graph on human beings, on their mental health. And how much are you using social media and how many interactions are you having where you're arguing with people? And how do you feel?

Well, it's funny, Joe. That actually happened to me. Look, I spend all day on Twitter. I absolutely shouldn't. I spend literally hours and hours. We need to have an intervention. I stop myself from getting into tweet. I stop myself from getting into most Twitter fights.

Please stay off of it the few days after this podcast comes out. Because a fucking tsunami is coming your way. A lot of shit is coming. But I took like a vacation right before I started taking over the show. I spent like 10 days off Twitter. And that's when the Mueller report came out. And I was like, I'm not, no Twitter.

And I just read it in the paper. Or I actually went, found the link, read the whole. It was amazing. Yeah. It was amazing. Feels great, found the link, read the whole, it was amazing. Yeah. It was amazing. Feels great, right? I had all these like nuanced thoughts like this. I was like, oh, well, the Mueller report,

you know, this shows this. Oh, this person was full of shit the whole time. But you don't need to go out there and tweet it. Whereas if I'd been in my office, I'd have been like this idiot, you know, but it was great. And I should probably go back to that. I've incorporated some of it.

I broke my phone once on vacation. I was in Hawaii. And, you know, if you want to order a phone, it took, like, I ordered it from Apple. It took, like, three days to get there. Something like that. So for four days, no phone. Right? And it was amazing.

Yeah. It was amazing. I was like, I feel so much more relaxed. No, I mean, these are like. I'm not checking shit. They're like Skinnerian like you know reflex devices i don't know what that word is skinner like the you know push the lever and get rewarded and i mean you see it with like i see it with my kids too if i let them have the device too much

they get all irritated and agitated truly yeah because it's the it is the exact same neural pathways those like dopamine response systems, as with any addiction. I mean, you have engineers who are making their living trying to figure out how to program your brain to not ever get off Twitter and not ever get off whatever it is that you're obsessed with on your phone or your device. And like that's what you're up against. So be a little humble about that. I just love so many friends that have that problem. Like sometimes I'll text them and then I'll get back a green bubble. And I'm like, did you switch to Android?

No, man, I switched to a flip phone. I'm trying to wean myself off social media. Trying to get off. But I mean, I've talked about like, I mean, we don't have good broadband access where we live. And it's sort of a pain in the ass sometimes. But it actually is like on the weekends. I'm sure it's great. I have to be off of it.

I'm forced to. And I wouldn't have the willpower to do that myself. And it actually really is great. You know, one of my friends, J.D. Vance, he wrote this book, Hillbilly Elegy. And one of the things he talks about is he's like, you know, we have our best scientists, neuroscientists, and all these other people in the world trying to figure out how to make you and I spend more micro and milliseconds and kids on their phones than trying to change the world or invent medicine. Like that is kind of the profit incentive, right? For so many of these things. That's something, I mean, this is a big like new right conversation, actually, like Senator Josh Hawley introduced legislate. I mean, he got it,

took a lot of shit for it because they're like, he's trying to be the product manager of the internet. But like, there's something there, right? Like there's something, there's something about how these systems are designed and the people who are working to try and spend you to make all this time on the phone yeah i don't know if i mean that's that's not great like we had the surgeon general on our show and he's like yeah i'm pretty concerned about not only is it not great but it's also really difficult to avoid oh yeah like once you get to doing it it's a harder kick than sugar it's it's right up there with caffeine and nicotine. It makes you feel like you're really doing something.

It does. It makes you feel like you're really like, oh, this tweet, this one's going to be the one that really, you know, and you watch the numbers go up and it makes you feel like you are engaged in some sort of like minor battle of winning these minor victories. Go to Sam Tripoli's Instagram page and pull that thing that he said, what white people feel like when they virtue signal. It's an amazing photograph. This to me epitomizes and embodies the feeling that I get when I see silly people tweet things. Yeah.

It's Khaleesi from Game of Thrones, and she's being carried by all these... Oh, that's so good, man. That's amazing. That is amazing. It's this thing where people just... I mean, virtue signal is a fucking fantastic phrase, because it really is what it is. Nailed it. It's just perfect, and it's a little overused, but I like it is what it is. Nailed it. It's just perfect.

And, you know, it's a little overused, but I like it. I'm going to keep using it. Well, it's an important term, too, because it explains a lot of like the ineffectiveness of our politics. Like it's all rhetorical. It's all like rhetorically signaling which side you're on and the sort of illusion of disagreement in Washington when actually, you know, they're unanimously passed things like this $4 trillion for big business and push everybody mass unemployment for the masses.

My favorite example on that is there was a like a 10 year birthday party for AIG, which is, you know, the big insurance giant that we bailed out in 2008 in the committee room for the House Ways and Means, which is the committee in charge of taxing in the United States. So in the committee room, they held a birthday party for the company that they bailed out. Democrats and Republicans all showed up, man. They had fucking specialty cocktails at this thing. Like what kind of specialty cocktails? It was like, oh, like the energy special.

I don't even know what it was. I was like, this is unbelievable. I don't even know what it was. I was like, this is unbelievable. In the committee room, in the very room to decide, where they decided to bail these companies out to the tune of billions, during Wall Street and so much more. They're throwing birthday parties. It's never been more out in the open.

We were trying to figure out how Nancy Pelosi made all her money. It's her husband, right? Is that it? I think so. How did he make his money? I don't know. It has to be something. One of her dad was like a Baltimore mayor his money? I don't know. There has to be some shenanigans going on there. Well, her dad was like a Baltimore mayor or something. I don't know.

But just the amount of money that's involved in these decisions, the amount of money that's involved in influence and sharing influence and getting people to like your perspective. And then the really gross thing is when they leave office, when politicians, particularly the president, leaves office and then they get these fantastic paydays to just speak. Would anybody really want to pay to hear Hillary Clinton speak? Just fucking imagine being the type of person that's like, I got some

fucking hot $1,500 tickets to hear old Hill. 250 grand, right? My favorite example of this we covered recently, the former U.S. ambassador to China, Max Baucus, he was on also Senate Banking Commission, is now on the board for Alibaba, which is one of the biggest Chinese companies. And then in the middle of all this stuff around Chinese tariffs and the coronavirus and all that stuff, is out there on CNN and on Chinese state media being like, Trump is Hitler, do

what he's doing. And I'm like He was the ambassador to China and now he's getting paid by one of the largest Chinese companies I mean which you know in China, there's no such thing really as a private business the government and it's like it's just the it's out In the open. I mean Obama's another great example Obama's I think is a former NSC director for Cybersecurity went to go work for ZTE, which is a Chinese technology. I mean, for cybersecurity. Went to go lobby.

Is now a lobbyist on behalf of ZTE. It's naked. We were talking back during Ukraine gate when we were talking about Hunter Biden earning these big paychecks on this Ukrainian. Hey, he deserved it. Natural gas. He's a genius. He's a natural gas expert. $90,000 a month is nothing.

No one is saying that this is illegal. But that's exactly the point. So we have Congressman Ted Lieu on, who's a Democrat from California, and we're like, you know, is this okay? It's like, people sit on boards. They earn money. This is just because this is, they really

think about it that way. This is just the way that the town operates. And it's, you know, it's easy to look at these individual examples and be disgusted by them. But the bottom line is it's a much deeper problem than that. We covered a poll recently that was actually done by The Hill and Harris X. People said their number one political issue was corruption, like beyond climate change or health care or whatever. The one the number one thing that they were most concerned about was political corruption. And you look at what is

happening in the country right now and the fact that our institutions have no credibility, that there's no expectation that you could affect change through traditional channels. I mean, that feeds into exactly the rage that's exploding across the country. We covered before coronavirus, right, and 40 million plus Americans unemployed and hundreds of, you know, 100,000 plus dead and before riots broke out and before George Floyd was killed and before all of that, we covered this poll where 40 percent of Americans, I think it's 43 percent, said when they think of our cultural and social institutions, they just want to burn it all down. 40%.

Like, what does that mean in a context of a democracy? How did they all come to that phrase? That was the question. Do you agree with this? That was the question. Do you agree with this? Well, that seems a little leading on, isn't it? Because most people are just so –

Even if they say they agree with it. But think about – True, but what are the options? I would like to see if there's a multiple choice test. What's the other? But think of it another – Suck off all the politicians. Give your money and ask no questions or burn it all down.

It is good to be skeptical of polling questions. Very true. It is good to be skeptical. But on the other hand, when you consider the fact that the largest pool of citizens in the country aren't Trump voters or Hillary voters or Biden voters or whatever, they're non-voters. These people have said, like, this isn't worth it. This doesn't reflect my – this is not going to mean jack shit for me in my life. And then you consider what you see happening across the country where people, again, they feel like they are so disgusted with what's going on. And they're restless and masked and have had all of their normal tools of being numbed with infotainment and sugar and all those things and sports sort of taken away from them. You start to understand what we're seeing.

It's really a perfect storm. Completely. to understand what we're seeing. It's really a perfect storm. Completely. We've never experienced anything like this before, and it's fascinating to see how the thin veneer of civilization can be chipped through, and you just see the really deep pool of despair that's underneath it.

There's so much madness going on in the streets today, and it's so hard to get a bead on how this is all playing out, like how it's all being organized, how these cops feel like they can just shoot people with rubber bullets and tear gas out in the open in front of everybody. When people are, I mean, you know. Warning the death of a guy who was murdered by a bad cop. And where it's on. I mean, that's what we saw on CNN. We're watching live peaceful protesters.

How about reporters getting shot? Reporters getting shot, getting arrested. Yes. And to think, oh, it's just rubber bullets. I mean, have you seen these wounds? Listen, horrible. This is tear gas, rubber bullets, flashbang grenades. People losing eyes.

That was terrible. Photojournalism. Absolutely. She's actually a friend of mine, Linda. She really lost her eye? Yeah. Blind in that eye. Horrific.

And just a beat on her because she's actually a really important voice. She came to prominence because she wrote a piece about the struggle that she had experienced as a low-income, working-class person, like just really raw and honest. And that went viral. And she, from that, was able to write a book and become a journalist. went viral and she from that was able to write a book and become a journalist. So she's one of the few journalist voices who actually has any connectivity to what regular people go through day to day. So, you know, I mean, it's just like awful to see that sort of thing happening to her and to so many others. Yeah. And I mean, Joe, one of the things I always appreciated about your commentary was about about talking about human violence violence and the propensity to violence and how thin kind of the veneer of social order and so much of what that is and what it actually means to live in a society whenever you see something like that break down.

And I've just been thinking about that so much in the context of what we see right now. Because, I mean, it's also crazy to see footage of people just like, they feel like they can just loot with impunity, right? I mean, last night in New York City, it's total destruction. I mean, there's police. Well, that's a giant failure on de Blasio's part. He's incorporating this ancient strategy

of letting people burn out. This is a strategy that they employed in the 1960s. And in fact, Giuliani was just talking about this in an interview, the difference between when he ran New York City. You can say what you want about Giuliani, but one thing he did do is he made it safer. He made New York City a safer place to be. But probably, you know. The crime rates did go down across the country in all cities, though, not just in New York during that time. That's good.

But in New York particularly, it was a crime-ridden city, and it went down while he was there. I'm sure across the country it helped as well. But what happened in New York City was he's letting these people loot. He's telling the cops to stand down. So these businesses that are all supporting the mayor, supporting with taxes, supporting the police officers, they're watching their businesses get smashed and looted. Fifth Avenue is destroyed. Yeah.

Sixth Avenue destroyed hundreds and hundreds of buildings with smashed windows and all their products gone. And then you see. But then you also see like, you know, police SUVs driving into protesters and, you know, tear gassing indiscriminately. So to me, it's not a question of harder or more aggressive policing. It's the tactics that make no sense. Here's where I disagree. Protesters should be allowed to protest. There's a giant difference between what those people are doing when they're saying,

this is outrageous. We need change. We need a radical overhaul of the system because there's too many corrupt cops. Let those people do what they're doing. But they're not looting. The looters are different people. This has been the hardest thing for Crystal and I to cover.

It's funny because we were coming on here and we were like and we know all the attention is coming. And it's like this, there is nothing else that where the battle lines are so drawn where frankly there's probably the biggest difference in our philosophy on this. Because I agree with you, Joe. I mean, I think, and I've told this to Crystal, which is that the beacon was sent out when that Minneapolis mayor let that target go, and they let those affordable housing complexes burn, and they let the policing

burn. That was it. And it was just all across the city. And this was an intentional choice. This was out of political correctness They're like we don't want to deploy the police because that would seem like we're impugning upon these protesters And we're we know we're and they allowed I mean they allowed this target in this and it just went and it caught fire And that's why like and as he said look if people want people should be able to protest in this country And if they're a piece of shit cops who kick him in the face You know I've seen terrible videos some of these, some of the things that they're doing, awful. But you can't allow looting.

You can't allow these businesses. I mean, and this is the thing I want to emphasize. I mean, these, look, people are like, oh, you know, it's just property. But sometimes it's corporate property. But sometimes this is a whole guy's life. You think that guy has insurance? This is a whole guy's life. You think that guy has insurance? But you know, here's the thing

and why that where there's such hypocrisy, not from Sagar who's been consistent on this, but from the right in general is like the response to coronavirus lit 40% of small businesses on fire. They didn't give a fuck. They didn't care. It's opportunistic caring about it now, mostly from the right.

And there's also, look, if you think about rule of law, right, you think about law and order and how do you get to a place where – I disagree with you. I don't think it is all different people. It's very easy to be like, oh, it's all Antifa or outside agitators or whatever. I don't think that's all true. There are certainly criminals who are opportunistically using the breakdown of the moment to loot, to vandalize, to do whatever that they're going to do. But I think what is harder to reckon with is that you have actually, quote unquote,

ordinary, typically law abiding people who feel like the moment has broken down to the extent that they would also engage in those kinds of acts. That's a harder thing to deal with. But when you think about the moment that we're living in, like the rules and the laws that have been set have never been that far from like that disconnected from what is unemployment and small businesses destroyed. When you look at the fact that of those officers who murdered George Floyd, only one of them has been charged. The other three are still free. They haven't been arrested. They haven't been charged. They haven't been anything. And meanwhile, you've got, you know, 4,000 protesters. You've got journalists on TV who are being charged. If you go back even farther than that, like the financial collapse, and you're allowed if you're rich, to collapse the entire economy with zero consequence.

And so again, this isn't like morally justifying things that are morally unjustifiable, which is what you're talking about. But you also have to understand that that doesn't happen in a vacuum. There is a systemic breakdown of the legitimacy of rule of law and law and order that leads to not just outside agitators or white nationalists or Russia or Antifa or whoever it is that people are pretending that this is doing all of this to where you have regular citizens who are like, fuck this. I am going to be out there among them. I'm going to be defacing. I walk up, you know, in D.C., I walk by the Department of the Treasury and it's got Black Lives Matter scrawled on it. Right. They're intentionally going in the high end parts of town like this is actually in many cases, very political and very specific. I think that's a

harder thing to have to reckon with that dividing line between these are the good law abiding ones and these are the bad ones. And let's just crack down on the bad ones. That line has become very blurry. And that's why it's such an incredibly hard situation. I agree with a lot of what you said. But when we're talking about protesters and the cops shooting and attacking protesters, you're really talking about people just standing there protesting.

What I'm talking about is people actually in the act of looting. When they cross that line, there's no justification for smashing into someone's business and stealing their goods. I understand that people are upset that $4 trillion went to these corporations. I think the logic from the right about this was if you fund the corporations and keep them running, they'll employ these people and keep the society running as smoothly as possible during this unprecedented Pandemic let me pick up on that Joe because what it is is that you're right That was the philosophy but it's often a mistaken one and that there is actually a better option Which is what we talked about so much and what crystal said, which is you're right from the right

There's a lot of concern trolling around small businesses when let's be honest They allowed a cap to the White House. I mean, advisors, Senate Republicans allowed a cap to be put on the Paycheck Protection Program, which was for small businesses. They allowed that to go capped and allowed it to go dry and had political fights about it. There has always been an option to put, you know, this is a right-left thing, Senator Josh Hawley, Senator Cory Gardner, and I think it's Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. They have plans to put americans on their payroll to have the federal government subsidize that payroll up until until the end of this

great depression and in that way you keep businesses together right you keep businesses you have they have the paycheck protection program you have the workers they don't go on unemployment or anything and you can scale that up and no business has to go out they don't have out, they don't have to fail. They don't have to do all this. So for me, this whole crisis... And you don't have 40 million plus unemployed. We had an intentional government policy of unemployment. That was our policy. It was like, let's have millions, mass unemployment where you lose your health insurance as well. What would you rather them do if you have a pandemic that... Look, what it turned out to be was a big difference from what we thought it was going to be.

It was very different. We thought it was going to kill 10 percent of the people. We thought it was going to be a devastating pandemic that was going to sweep through the country and all our friends were going to die. That's what we thought. Right. Turns out to not be the case. We're lucky. Well in some ways.

When you ask that. But hold on a second. When they were trying to figure out a way to mitigate this situation. Yeah. They decided we're going to shut down society because we want to protect lives over money. What would you have done? Well, the alternative, look, there was always going to be pain. There's no doubt about that.

And you can't legislate away from that. But other countries did it much better and they spent less money where they essentially nationalized payroll. So people stay attached to their jobs, but they aren't going in. It is still shut down. What countries did that? Denmark and the UK. Denmark did it. Much smaller countries, right?

Yeah, certainly. But actually in terms of their percentage GDP and all that. They spent less. So it could have been done. Yeah, it could have been done. It could have been done much, much cheaper. They did it for the airlines. So the airline bailout, which was custom written, included a provision that you have to keep your workers. And so we're going to give you this money and basically backstop payroll. And so, look, I mean, they're messing around. And then as soon as this ends, they want to still lay people off. But if you backstop the payroll

and essentially nationalize it, especially in our country where your health insurance is tied to your job. So now not only do we have people who are unemployed, but they're losing their health insurance during a pandemic. That just compounds everything and is absolutely uncautionable. Meanwhile, you know, lots of big corporations got like custom written legislation for themselves. And 40 percent of small businesses told the Chamber of Commerce that they will be closing their doors in the next six months. In terms of the cost, I'm fairly certain that Pramila Jayapal won over three months with $600 billion. So, yeah, it's a lot of money.

But $2.3 trillion was the first one, extra couple hundred billion for the Paycheck Protection Program. In the scale of what we did, especially if you include the $4 trillion with the Federal Reserve. The money was not the problem. Yeah, money is not the issue. This is an issue of political will. Is this something that could have been agreed upon by both parties? Is this something that could have gone through? No.

By the corporate left and the corporate right, no way. So what would you have done, say if you had a magic wand and you were the president? Like how do you mitigate this? How do you- This is my biggest frustration with the White House, which is that you have this populous president who like actually understands

like very much why he got elected, but you have so many of the people- Crystal's not buying this. Crystal doesn't like it. Crystal doesn't like it. She's rolling her eyes. She's bobbing her head. She's got a lot of movement. A lot of movement.

But he has all these people who work for him from kind of the old regime. Basically was allowed to staff up. And those are the people who were like, let's cap the Paycheck Protection Program. Who were like, hey, you know, we just passed this $2.3 trillion plan. Let's wait and see how it goes as the unemployment numbers begin to take up,

mass small business failure, all these other things. And that's the fundamental tension of the Trump administration is that there was no like there were no professional populists, so to speak. Right. Like there was no professional apparatus of people on the right who actually held and understood why Donald Trump is president of the United States. And this is like, this is what gets back to what I talked about earlier about the incentive structure, about that system, the think tank, the revolving door. That is an effort to maintain power over the policy sphere, because if you control that, it doesn't matter what the people think. Yeah. It only matters what happens. Here's why I was making this face.

Because, I mean, look, he's the president and he makes his own choices. And if he understood, like, that there was this need to go more economically left and do it, then he could do it. But the reality is he spent his whole – most of his political capital in his first term, like, giving away tax cuts to corporations, same thing any other Republican would have done. So that's why I sort of roll my eyes. I don't think he cares about anything outside of like winning the day's news cycle. I really don't think he gives a shit about anything other than that. You know, I mean, see, this is the thing, though. I mean, I've met Trump.

I've interviewed him a couple of times, four times, I think. What is he like? Exactly what you see. Exactly what you see on TV. Same guy. Do you feel like you got through the layers to talk to a human? No, because he's always on. I don't think there's anything else.

You don't think there's anything in there? You know, my favorite thing I ever asked Trump, I was like, what are people going to remember you for in 100 years? And he was like, Veterans Choice. And I was like, I'm going to go out on a limb and say, that's probably not it, right? Jesus Christ. I'm like sitting in there. It occurred with me with Trump. Like, I'm in the Oval, and you're like, man, that's probably not it, right? Jesus Christ. I'm like sitting in there. It occurred with me with Trump. Like I'm in the Oval and like you're like, man, that's where like Kissinger was sitting.

Like, man, that's the JFK picture and like Eisenhower. I don't think he thinks about any of that. What did he mean by veterans choice? That he was the veterans choice? No, that he was taking care of veterans through like a veterans health care. It was like a health care program. He just started rattling off like why he would, you know, like all his basically like the talking points and like why he's great. care program. He just started rattling off like why he would, you know, like all his, basically like the talking

points and like why he's great. But I realize, I'm like Trump lives completely in the moment and he doesn't really have that like, he doesn't really think about things in that historical context. Well, they say that during the briefings he only pays attention if his name's brought up. They throw his name

in there every now and again. It's so odd. Sagar has to do the same thing with me when we're getting ready for the show in the morning he's just like that i feel like we deserve him i feel like we asked for him and we deserve him and he's the perfect president for this time think about i think you're so right and to to make it like a not a partisan thing. Our politics are so shallow, hollow, theater, cable news based. They're like Twitter politics. And you can see it not just with Trump,

who's like the ultimate incarnation of that. But during this pandemic, Andrew Cuomo is like this celebrity governor. Democrats are like, God, we got to get him in there. He's amazing. He's doing... New York had the worst outbreak of any state.

And that's not all on him, but it is partly on him. How is it on him though? Because of the dynamics of the city itself? Let me tell you a couple of things. Yes, in part, yes. But also they shut down later, right? Than other places like Washington, like California, which had a much lower outbreak. He mandated that nursing homes take back in. And 43% of coronavirus deaths are nursing homes. This is a nursing home pandemic. Mandated that they take back in recovering COVID patients.

And he happens that he got a million-dollar-plus campaign check for his re-election through an affiliated committee before he got re-elected. And so he also made sure to put into place a liability for all their executives so that if they don't do a good job, they can't be held liable. And that data shows is correlated with increased COVID death and infection rates because they know that they're not going to be held responsible. So there's a lower threshold there. So there were very specific decisions that were really bad and fueled the worst outbreak in the entire country. But because you can get on TV and give a commanding press conference, that's all people really care about. He's got like 80 percent approval rating.

Yeah. Has he spoken about the recovering covid patients being readmitted to the nursing homes? Not much because his brother on CNN is primetime anchor Chris Cuomo and they do these ridiculous interviews where they like joke around about how big his nose is rather than asking questions like that and look it'd be one thing if you were going to have your brother on once or twice like I get it fine

you know but no night after night after night it's the show of the two brothers chumming it up while people are dying. This is a politician who's supposed to be held to account. That is supposed to be your role as a journalist. He's fucking around with his brother, joking about the size of their nose in the swab, where there are like literally thousands of elderly people who died explicitly because of this decision.

Now, we're not saying he knew the decision, but there needs to be some scrutiny and accountability of that. Nobody at CNN wants to touch it because Chris Cuomo is the anchor. Nobody at MSNBC wants to touch it. Because he's a Democrat. Because he's the biggest Democrat and they all live in New York and they all probably have dinner with each other. And of course, I mean, people on the right are talking about it because he's a Democrat. But there's no, I mean, outside of Crystal and a few others on the left. And on the right, they're total hypocrites too. Fox News picks it up with this like liability story and how he gets this through. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell's proposing the same thing at a national level. And they're like, OK, with that. So, I mean, this gets back to the sort. If it's a Republican, we're going to do the same thing.

And that's the way, I mean, on a basic level, that's the way it's supposed to be. And it's a big, big problem. Again, going back to this moment that we're living in. Because no one trusts anyone. And for good reason. Even if you are an MSNBC watcher and you know it and you love it and you love Rachel Maddow and whatever, you know you're getting spun. You know that they're picking certain stories that are going to like pique your interest and they're ignoring everything.

The end of every, the lesson of every single news story cannot be ergo Trump is bad. Like that cannot be the conclusion of literally every news story. And over on Fox News, the end and conclusion of every news story cannot be, ergo, Democrats are evil and un-American, right? We all know this. No, people are not that stupid. No, they're not. And I couldn't agree more. And that's one of the things I find very refreshing about your show is that you guys don't exhibit that kind of partisanship.

You just say what you think. And you think people are fucking up. You say it. We try. You have no idea, like I said, how much pushback we get from the institutional elements. You can't stop reading. No, but these are people who have my phone number. Change your number, bro.

Powerful people, man. I change my number every six months. I saw what you said about the boss. I'm not joking. Really? I love that. Yeah, just keep moving. You should. Do you ever get random texts from people that are just like... Not when you change it every six months. Really? It's a good strategy. Yeah.

I have one old phone that I check every like four or five days. Yeah. And then my phone that I connect with with friends. Just that fucking thing moves around. That's a good strategy. Smart. Very wise. I just think that you have to develop strategies to protect your consciousness.

You know, you really do. Well, especially at your level. I can't even imagine. It's unmanageable. So I don't manage it. You just opt out altogether. Yeah, just keep moving. Just keep moving.

Stay busy. Stay busy and don't take yourself seriously and just keep moving. Yeah. I feel like there's a real movement towards what you guys are doing, though. I feel like it's the future. Because I feel like people are fed up with that Chris Cuomo shit. They're fed up with that Rachel Maddow shit. And no disrespect to either one of those people.

But Chris Cuomo was doing something the other day, and I was watching him where he's basically justifying riots. And I was like, oh, man, did someone write this for you? Is this how you really feel? Did you think this out? I think all I could get from that is Trump needs to be removed from office So let's come up with some sort of a reason why he's responsible for these riots and these riots are good and these riots have Been historically done when people feel powerless and weak. That's all true.

Look, it's a terrible position to be a young person right now. And this is what you see when you're seeing looting. You see a lot of these fucking young white kids that have probably not a political thought in their fucking dopey heads. And they're just running to get free Nikes. And that's really what's going on. I've watched about 100 videos of people looting. I might have seen four black people.

It's all these white kids stealing sneakers. It's kind of amazing, right? And this is, I mean, this is what really gets me, which is that this is a pro, George Floyd's family has come out and said, please stop violence. I mean, how many times do you see that? Well, you remember Rodney King after when the riots were going on, he's like, please, can we all get along? Right.

And it was him personally. And I think, I think that's like that piece, understanding who and why is important to understanding what to do. Right. Because if it's just what I've seen hasn't just been, you know, in terms of looting, I don't know specifically. But I think it's very easy to say, oh, it's just this type of person. It's just that type of person. oh, it's just this type of person. It's just that type of person. And to take out of it any of the sort of like more radical, not just smashing up stores and that kind of stuff, but like graffiti and more, you know, defying curfews and those sorts of things. And so if you view the problem

as just like violent protest, like the problem is violent protesters, we have to deal with that, then that merits one response. And that's the direction that Trump is going in is like call in the military, which I think is fucking scary, like calling in active duty military in every city in the country. is scary. And frankly, the fact that Democrats and quote unquote journalists on TV have acted like the world is ending every time Trump does anything, when he does do something like invoke the Insurrection Act and say, we're looking at sending the military into American cities, there is no more language of this is unprecedented. This is outrageous. This is, you know, different than what we've seen in the past left because they burned that up on every single thing that Trump has ever done. They have cried. That's exactly the case, because I do think that this is a very different and very dangerous and volatile moment. But if you think that the

protests are about the structure of a system that doesn't allow any redress for, you know, problems that people have been peacefully protesting about for a long fucking time and not a thing has been done. If you think the protests are about, you know, political system that will offer you the quote unquote choice of Donald Trump, who's like the Central Park five dude and redlining with his daddy and denying black people housing and Charlottesville's fine people on both sides versus Joe Biden, who wrote the 94 crime bill is unrepentant for it, was justifying it with Charlemagne just recently

and saying Hillary's wrong to apologize for it, et cetera, et cetera, who as part of this whole thing went out and said, you know, police shouldn't be shooting people in the heart. Instead, they should shoot them in the leg, like train them to do that. Like when you look at those two choices, you go, what kind of a fucking choice is this? Right. If you understand that as the legitimate part of the protest, then your response is going to be very different than it's just like, oh, these are bad people. These are people we should deem as terrorists. We have to crack down on them.

Let's call in the military. That shit ultimately never works because look at 19 years in Afghanistan. What do we learn? Yeah, you can take the ground. You can't hold it. You can't hold a society together with an aggressive militarized response. That's not going to work over time. So if that's your only strategy, it's like, OK, then what? Then what are you going to do? Are we going to have curfews at 1 p.m. every day? Are you going to have militaries holding down American cities every day? Because you have a significant chunk of the population that will no longer consent. So I think that I think on this particular one, this is probably where we disagree the most because and she pointed this out, which is that to me, it's about the restoration of law and order.

And look, I mean, this is why you saw these Joy Reid, right? I mean, these people were putting out conspiracy theories that actually – so here's what happened. I don't know what that is. We'll begin with the timeline, which is that the timeline was, you know, at first the Minneapolis, the Target got looted. You know, the affordable housing complex went down. Everybody decided, OK, violence, looting, everything is fine. So they're basically justifying it on cable. Then what happened is a second night happened.

A lot more violence and protests weren't police and firefighters were visible. So Minnesota authorities started lying about how actually every single person arrested was out of state. Not true. Local news went and they found the arrest. The St. Paul mayor said that on camera. And said every one of the people that was arrested did not have a Minnesota address. That was a blatant fucking lie. 80% of them were from the town. So why is that? Because then they start laundering through Joy Reid at MSNBC that it's actually a bunch of Russians and white nationalists.

What? I shit you not. You can pull up her Twitter thread. How is that lady still on TV? Especially with her blog post yes but the real this is that's the thing again if you are wrong in the right ways then it's okay like the reason i'm bringing up reed is because the legitimacy for the use of force for these people it only applies if it's Russians or white nationalists. You're allowed to crack down on that. So look, on the military front, let's think about our history. Eisenhower, 1957, calls in the 101st Airborne Division in order to forcibly integrate

Little Rock High School to allow the Little Rock Nine to enter that school because a white supremacist violent mob and the local authorities could not be trusted to do so. I think that's a legitimate use. 1967, LBJ calls in the military to quash riots in Detroit. I think that's legitimate. Rodney King, George H.W. Bush, calls in the Marines in order to restore order. You have to restore and crack down exactly on the people we're talking about. These criminals, a lot of them are sociopathic criminals, just taking advantage of the situation. And from that forward, we have to move and act within the political system. Now, Crystal seems to think, I think, that acting within the political system is just not a choice at this point.

But I disagree because, I mean, even if you're on the left, like Joe Biden out today saying he endorses this Hakeem Jeffries bill on banning police chokeholds. Right. But why? But why is anyone paying attention right now? I don't think it's because of violence. That's what's uncomfortable. I just reject the idea. I'm not talking about violence. And by the way, the majority of the violence I've been seeing has been coming from the cops. And there's never as much focus.

The example of, you know. I could send you some videos. I mean, I've seen some stuff, too. And I'm not justifying anything. But I've also seen some unconscionable tactics from the police. A hundred percent. And there's no focus any time on that. I've seen the police inciting and creating the dangerous situation.

we saw on TV with the military police coming in and tear gassing and rubber bullets, peaceful populations that this is going to, they're going to go come in as peacekeepers in these cities. Absolutely not. If you bring the military in, you are starting a war. You're not ending violence. You're escalating violence. And that's the thing. Let me ask you this. How do you stop the looters? Yeah. Well, I think local law enforcement. I mean, if the cities aren't up to it, fine. They can call in the National Guard. But that's the military police. For the president to bring in the American military into cities across the country without local consent, I think is insane. But he's only saying that if they don't use the National Guard.

Think about the context of if you saw this happening in another country, right? It's hard to like look at our own country through, you know, neutral lens. If you looked at a foreign country and you heard that their president was bringing in the military to quash protesters, would you be like, oh, this is going to go great? No. Usually what happens next. Hold on. Hold on. He's not bringing in the military to quash protesters.

He's bringing in the military to stop rioters and looters. How can you say that? There's a difference. But how can you say that when we see military police on TV shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at peaceful protesters? Okay, but we're not supporting that, right? We're talking about what's going on in New York City. You stop people from breaking into law-abiding people's stores. Yes, do that.

Absolutely. But that's what we're saying. So we're in agreement. But the military police aren't. But we're in agreement then, even if using the National Guard. But the military isn't trained to do that. That isn't what the— No, but they are trained to do that – that's why we don't have the military do local law enforcement. I mean, one of the big problems of local law enforcement has actually been the militarization, which occurred after 9-11, which occurred under Barack Obama as well.

When you roll tanks into American streets and you treat the citizens like this is a war, you escalate the violence. So my point is if you are opposed to the violence, sending in the military is exactly the wrong thing to do. Yes, people should have their property protected. But you're not saying what the right thing to do is. Better policing. But that's the right thing. But the police are going to have to do the same thing that the National Guard would do, arrest people for smashing windows and breaking into buildings. They just might not have the resources to handle something on the scale that you're seeing in Manhattan.

See, I think this is the issue, which is that when people like you and I who are against police violence, who are against and acknowledge this action, we have a solution. These people should be fired and there should be inquiries on that. Yes. But there's no solution that I hear from the left on how do you stop rioting and looting when the governor of the state of New York refuses to act. I'll give you a solution. OK. But there's in the immediate term, there's no solution. There is a solution.

Stop looting. You can de-escalate the situation. All that Trump is doing right now by calling for the military and creating this into a war zone is escalating the violence and radicalizing people. How do you de-escalate it? So, for example, and I know this sounds hokey, but this is true. If he had come out last night and instead of having military police shooting tear gas and rubber bullets and flashbang grenades and crushing these protesters, if he had come

out with that same cast of characters, Bill Barr and whoever else was with him, and taken a knee for eight minutes and 45 seconds, the amount of time that, you know, George Floyd had that knee on his neck until he died. He's got arthritis. He can't do that. And then if he had, instead of saying, I'm going to send the military in and crush these protesters. And by the way, he's deeming them terrorists, right? Our fellow citizens, he's saying these are terrorists. If he had instead offered actual, like, no one's going to solve this problem overnight, but you can offer a few pieces of legislation that are at least an olive branch. Then you start to deescalate rather than radicalizing, rather than going the police state, military state way,

which never ends well. I mean, give me an example. When does this ever end well? Okay. Hold on. We've never had this before. We've never had people smashing windows all down ever ends well i mean give me an example over when does this ever end well okay hold on we've never had this before we've never had people smashing windows all down manhattan you look at fifth avenue is insane right now it looks like a bomb went off and shattered every window within five six blocks i go back to our history joe because we have done this before mlk and dc called in 13 000 troops in order to right but it's never been Nash. Oh, no, no, of course. But I'm saying it has like used again, like the military does enforce law whenever these local authorities refuse to do it.

And look, in the immediate term, like, first of all, I mean, I don't think the left would have given him any credit whatsoever if he did do any of what was just suggested there. But second, which is that this is just the fundamental difference, conservative and liberal disposition, which is that there are some bad people out there who you can show them as much compassion as you want. They're still going to loot and follow. They're still going to loot. They're still going to criminalize. There's no such thing as like de-escalation in the most near term when people are actively, as you said, looting the streets of New York. And so if the governor of the state of New York refuses to call these, if these states and these, like I said, police departments- It's not the governor, it's the mayor.

So the mayor, and I think the governor is in charge of the National Guard. The governor actually wants to remove the mayor. Displace the mayor, that's what he said. Yeah, which is fucking amazing. This is the thing about the Minnesota police and all of that, which is that they refused out of political correctness in order to crack down immediately upon people who were the very small group of people who are violent criminals. That's what allowed this thing to go national.

And now people are and this is it's part of our history. We have done it before. And again, look, after the after the El Paso shooting, I heard all from the left, all this. We need the FBI in order to crack down on the end. I agree. I think that these violent white supremacist organizations should be taken down. And if they're out there marching and they're committing violence, they should absolutely be knocked out. And this is the point, which is where I pointed to why they started to blame Russians and white nationalists because they realized this was going against them. They only view it as legitimate whenever they're using force to quash a side which is not which is that they agree with and that they don't do it whenever it's a political cause they do. But see I

think the opposite thing is happening from the right though. Which is the one second is this is selective application of justice and this is exactly what they're worried about which is that I have a better idea. You enforce the rule of law and law and order against violent white supremacists and against violent looting criminals who take advantage of a legitimate protest against the horrific death of George Floyd. I think that's part of where the breakdown in our views occurs, because I think it's fantasy. I think it's fantasy to imagine that you could trust this president to deploy force in a responsible way.

And we've already seen that. Like, that's not it's not a debatable point because we've already seen him abuse that force with peaceful protesters. And by the way, the First Amendment is also a sacred right that is part of why I love this country that should be protected, which is being overwhelmingly quashed by force right now in this country by bad policing, by, you know, this president and what he did with those peaceful protesters. And the idea that bringing the military in is going to deescalate is going to solve the problem. I think that's just a fantasy. Look, I don't know that the response to the Rodney King riots or to the 68 riots is really the thing to emulate either. And the question again is not, is it good to lewd?

Is it good to – of course not. No one is saying that. My question is what then? Let's say you bring in the quash and like you put it. What then? What then? And that's the piece is there's no there is no plan for how do we we've had these debates. We've had these marches. We've had the outrage. We've had all of it. And it never, ever changes. And so you've got a lot of people out there doing shit that they shouldn't be doing. But they feel like finally, y'all are paying attention. And that's an ugly place to be in the country.

Statistically, it is changing. Statistically, there's less people getting shot and killed by cops than ever before. Statistically, I believe that all these protests and all these people that have been talking more so. But I'm not just talking about police brutality, because I see the policing issue as existing within a much larger problem, which is a society that dehumanizes, which is a society that is cruel. I mean, it's sort of like what we're talking about on social media, the good people and

the bad people. And we've divided society into like the worthy people who are treated like human beings, people like us, whoever needs catered to and are like emotionally like coddled and all of that. And people who are treated like less than. And those people are disproportionately black and brown. But that's the underclass of America. That is more what I'm talking to.

And the policing system that we have is to protect this group and to police that group. And that's the part that has not changed. I mean, we see. We see the vast inequality. We see the people who are now laid off, who don't have hope in their life that things are going to be better for their kids than it is for them. And that's the piece that I'm talking about. of their head, you know, put a curfew at 1 p.m., lock down the country, you might solve the problem of looting the Gucci outlet. Right. But what then? Where do you go from there?

And that's the part. And on the piece with Trump, he's doing the same thing in terms of saying, oh, this is all Antifa and they're all terrorists. And that justifies these kinds of actions. And to me, that is what is truly scary because if you really were saying let's just go after the bad ones and you had someone that you really tried okay maybe that's one thing but that you're trying to paint everyone who is involved in these protests as essentially other as essentially terrorists that to me is what is terrifying well i think he actually addressed it saying that there's people that are protesting

that have a legitimate concern and that this is a real issue and there's a real problem that happened and he wants people to stop the lawless behavior where it has nothing to do with George Floyd. They're just smashing windows and stealing things. On a split screen with, like he's saying those words,

on a split screen with military police cracking down on regular, peaceful, 100% peaceful protesters. So how do you believe that? You and I are in agreement with peaceful protesting. We're all in agreement. Peaceful protesting should take place. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think it's a great thing.

And I think that just the high-profile nature of this should raise awareness. And hopefully these police administrators and the people that are in charge are going to get their shit together and get rid of these bad cops. When you see this guy who did this as George Floyd, you realize this guy's had a decade plus of complaints against him that are similar, shooting people, assaulting people. Let's think about this too, which is that from the very beginning, I think the left has blown this so badly. Let's think about this too, which is that from the very beginning, I think the left has blown this so badly. Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Donald Trump all universally agreed that what happened to George Floyd was that that cop was a criminal.

I've never seen one person say anything else. Exactly. And yet immediately it devolves into a protest. And protest, fine. Because that county prosecutor did not file a charge against George Floyd, the cop who killed George Floyd immediately. And that is what sparked the initial protest. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that protest. But then the line became, let's justify the rioting and the looting. Let's say we're not necessarily okay with it, but as part of a broader systemic critique. And then, of course, America revolted against that. Right now, the polling just came out right before we were here. 58% of Americans say they support using the military to supplement police force.

This, you know, I mean, I'm a populist. One of the things I think about so much more in my politics, 50 plus one solutions. What are 50 plus one solutions that we can get to on economics, that we can get to about our immigration system, about trade, about the way we order our society? about our immigration system, about trade, about the way we order our society. And I'm against the elites who push down upon the majority and use their corporate influence in order to pass against that. 58% of Americans right now are basically completely support using the military in order to supplement police effort because they understand that what is happening right now is unconscionable. And even let's take a purely working class issue of this, which is that I saw a video of a crying elderly black American woman talking about these

protesters burned down my grocery store. They burned down everywhere, our shop. She even said, I would rather be where George is right now, talking about George Floyd because of what happened to her. I mean, we have seen a homeless man in Austin whose mattress was just needlessly burned by these criminals just to taunt him. We've seen business owners who have been beaten, savagely beaten by looting criminals with no police presence. This shows you that the establishment of law and order and keeping law and order is one of the ways that we protect the most vulnerable in our population. And the most vulnerable in our population are working class Americans. They're the ones who have to clean this shit up, by the way.

Like I drove through D.C. I ride my scooter going around there. And I see all these working class Americans. They have to take the glass. They have to put the boards up. Who are the people who are not being able to go to work right now after we just had the worst economic crisis or still in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression? So justification of rioting and looting and the destruction of the small businesses and not having a way in order to deal with that is anti-working class. But beyond that, Crystal asked a great question, which is, OK, so after what do we do?

And this is where you're right, which is the right does not agree. The right just wants to stop it. Just shut it down and that's that. But no, 50 percent of black Americans right now do not have a job in this country because of the explicit choice made by Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans not to adopt the payroll program that we are right now. by Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans not to adopt the payroll program that we are right now. It's never been a better time in America to go and to look at that payroll production program. And I really encourage people in order to go and to look at that proposal because I don't think it's gotten nearly enough attention and not enough Republicans and Democrats are being pressed on whether they support something like that. So here's my solution. Yeah, we have the, you know,

we restore order in America and then we need to make sure that people are taken care of, not through just distributed non-unemployment benefits, but through actually having, putting these businesses, making them whole through a paycheck protection program, using, you know, the Holly plan in order to do 80% of American workers payroll so they can go back and remain intact. And then we can scale that up with the reopening. Because I think you were talking about this here on the podcast, like these restaurants, right, like restaurant businesses, even in the best of times, 100% capacity, it's fucking hard to run a restaurant, right? And the problem is,

the problem is that shit's not going to happen. I mean, Mitch McConnell's already like, we're not coming back. We're not doing anything else. I mean, Mitch McConnell's already like, we're not coming back. We're not doing anything else. I mean, and that's really where we're stuck. Like, I'm not trying to justify, like, that sort of stuff is absolutely unconscionable. Like, smashing up someone's small business that they've worked on, absolutely unacceptable. Violence, anyone against each other, absolutely unacceptable. I don't want to ignore the fact that much of the violence I have seen has come from cops, which is why I think bringing in the military only increases the level of violence. But that's where things are so stuck. I think Dr. Cornel West, who I know you had on, I love that program, by the way, that you did with him. He said, we are living in America as a failed social experiment is failed to provide for the economic, health, and dignity needs of its citizens.

And so, yes, figure out how to deal with the violent elements and get it peaceful, et cetera. But the idea that you're going to crack down and take the pressure off and then the change is going to happen, that's not going to happen. And it's why we are truly stuck, because you have such a large percent of the population, which does feel that nihilistic, which does feel like the choices on the ballot, you know, go vote. Like President Obama used to always say, don't boo, vote. Like they've been doing that, and it hasn't really changed their material outcomes for their life. outcomes for their life. That's a part of the show that I think we more or less agree on is like how little choice is offered to people in terms of actually improving their material well-being and having their interests looked out for by Washington, D.C. And so, yeah, when you push people that far where 40% say burn it all down, it's you are asking for exactly the tinderbox that we're seeing right now. 40% of people willing to answer polls.

I had a bit about that. What kind of people answer polls? I'm going to send you the poll. Fucking morons. But if someone calls you up and says, I'd like you to fill out this poll, most people are like, I'm busy. Yeah, right. I have shit to do. But the people that are like, oh, I'm very interested in this.

But the people that are like, oh, I'm very interested in this. One thing I do think, though, is that that nihilism that I see from so much of that element of the left in particular, like Cornel West, dramatically increased support for the civil rights movement and that whenever it would turn violent, that it would turn against them. And that in one study in particular showed that it led to the election of Richard Nixon, which is something leftists would disagree on. But I don't think that the protesters are violent. Sorry, sorry. This is where there's – I meant the – like the association of the violence with the protest movement. But I think it's just opportunists. I think there's a giant percentage of what's going on

is opportunists taking advantage of this movement and the chaos. I totally agree with you. I feel like what Cornel West is saying, one of the reasons why it resonates is if they have so much money for the bailouts, they have so much money to take care of people during COVID for these corporations, so much money to deal with this. Why didn't they invest that money in fixing all these problems that have happened in these inner cities that have had a long, deep history of economic problems? Yeah. And not just the inner cities. Yes.

I mean, you know, I lived in Kentucky and Appalachia. Sure. Like, make it universal so everybody buys in. But that's exactly when we had this whole Democratic primary. And every debate, it was like, well, how are you going to pay for it? But then the moment that the stock market crashed, it was like, here's $4 trillion. Good luck. And so it just exposes, that's part of the moment that we have to understand. It just exposes the fact that all of this idea that we can't do anything to help you and I'm so sorry and there's not money and that the system is fundamentally fair has been completely exposed as a lie.

The system has never been fundamentally fair, but people have tried their best to make it as fair as possible while supporting the special interest group that put them into power, while trying to keep up with the demands of their constituents. It's a mess. One of my favorite things I talk about is what Crystal and I really want to try and do, especially for me, is I want to make it the cynical choice in order to do the right thing. That's the hardest game in politics because that's what the special interest did, right? It's the cynical choice in order to pass the subsidy or do the bailout for X and not for Y because you know you're going to get a job out on the other side or you know that you're going to benefit politically. That's what we need to do. We need to make it so that it's the cynical choice to show up for working class people.

And right now, I mean that's one of the things I really took note of, which is this Hawley plan I'm talking about. Cory Gardner from Colorado is the most vulnerable Republican in the United States Senate. And he signed on to that plan. Now, he's running for reelection. He was vulnerable before all of this even happened. And that's what you can try and capitalize on. You can show people, even if they're the most cynical act, I don't know anything about Cory. I don't know why he signed on. I just want to make it clear. But like, if you can make it so that it's the cynical choice to try and show up. Now, that is an extraordinarily hard thing to do. I'm not going to sit here and pretend as if I don't talk about every single day about how the system is rigged and the political system in particular and who owns who. But this is part of what I think we're on to about what – like what the heterodox kind of space, which is that there is an extraordinary support for efforts like this.

And if you can show these politicians, if you do something like this, you will get praise from Kristalln Sager. You will get an electoral benefit. You will have the media. This is the key, is you need to build alternative ecosystems, centers of power, which are able to elevate that so that they know that they have somebody who's going to have their back. Because right now, if you go the standard line, you're always going to have the right or the left to back you up in a time of crisis. You'll have the money. People will fundraise. You have to show people that by doing the right thing, that that's where the best politics are.

And that's what we focus on in terms of the economic solutions and so much of what we advocate for on the show is to show people, like I said, 50 plus one solutions exist. There is political opportunism to be had by just doing the right thing. This was Trump. I mean, Trump's like innovation more than anything was running against standard GOP ideology in the 2016 primary run, you know, running on trade, saying, no, maybe trade's not always a good thing, running hard on immigration, which is something GOP voters have always wanted. Those two issues in particular went completely against Paul Ryan and so much of what they were advocating for. But you could never say it because if you said it, not going to get on Fox. If you said it,

you're not going to be in leadership. The Republicans aren't going to fundraise money for you. The think tank scholars are going to be in leadership. The Republicans aren't going to fundraise money for you. The think tank scholars are going to write fake studies and fake papers about how you're a liar. That's exactly what he exposed that there's opportunity to be had there. What we got to do is build up media and alternative organizations which show people that there is a way to be cynical. There is a way to – because people are cynical, politicians in particular. There is a way to act in your own self-interest and to do the right thing. And I think that that's why I look at it as much more of a – I don't look at it in that nihilistic way. I look at it in a much more positive way, which is that this did happen.

I mean something broke through. And I don't think it's been perfect, but it's something which we can capitalize on and build over decades. Because I think God knows, I mean, people need it right now. It's the worst economic crisis is the Great Depression. Well, I think where you and I agree is that law and order needs to be reestablished. And one of the reasons why I think that it needs to be reestablished is there's a fire of consciousness. And this fire is you're allowed to loot and smash and steal, and people are doing that now. And I don't think they're doing it in the memory of George Floyd. And I think you've got to put that fire out,

because once you allow people to do it like de Blasio did in New York City and force the police to stand back, people know they can get away with it. I've seen some horrific things, people running over people with cars and smashing into buildings, and it's fucking madness. When madness happens, you have to crack down. You have to do something about it.

That's where I support, whether it's the National Guard or if the police have the resources, use the police. But something has to be done. When you're saying like President Trump de-escalating on television, that is not going to do a goddamn thing about those kids smashing windows. It's not going to change their attitude. They're not watching the news. They're not paying attention. They know they have a very simplistic perspective. George Floyd, this is bad.

Black Lives Matter, chaos. Smash that window. Take that shit. They're not going to say, hey, you know, when Trump got on his knees, I was going to Luke Gucci, but I'm not going to do that anymore. They're not thinking like that. There's fake bullshit on both sides. But you've got to do something to stop the fire.

You've got to put that fire out. Then de-escalate. But first the fire has to stop because it's an obvious mob mentality thing. Because no one's ever seen this before. There was a Santa Monica. It was a guy running around with a gun pointing it at people. People were driving into fucking people and knocking them over. It's crazy.

It is. And it's not something that anyone expected seven days ago. And it is a sign of like a breakdown of a society. It's a perfect storm. There's no doubt about that. The economic despair from three months of not working is unprecedented. You've never had a time where through no fault of your own, you are broke. You can't pay for food.

You can't pay your mortgage. You can't pay your rent. You're fucked. And there's no jobs to be had. It's not like there's anything these kids can go out and do to better their position. The amount of jobs that existed just three months ago, it's drastically reduced. So there are opportunities which are already slim to none. We're talking about people getting out of college in 2020, how bad their economic opportunities are before all this in comparison

to the past. How about if you're coming out of high school and aren't going to go to college? I mean, most people don't go to college. Right. And so my only point is that the military is not a solution for that. What is the solution, though? Well, the solution is to actually do something about the material condition, ultimately. No, no, no.

But right now, the solution about the fire. How do you put out the fire? Because there's a fire. When these people are smashing windows all down Fifth Avenue, that's a fire. Right. You've got to stop that. I think where we view it differently is that, in my view, the tactics, the aggressive tactics that the police have used have only made that worse.

No, no. We agree on that. Right. And so my view is if you bring in the military, first of all, I find it I find all of I think we are getting far too comfortable. And this is partly part of the perfect storm with the pandemic. Like we've become very comfortable with all these extreme limitations on our actions, behavior, wearing the masks in public, which creates a level of anonymity, like all of that goes into this. So when we have a curfew imposed of 1 p.m. or 5 p.m. or 6 p.m., we're just good to go with that. But that should be taken in and of itself very seriously as an infringement on First Amendment rights. I agree. So my point is that if you bring in the military, it is frightening in terms of our liberties, our ability to protest our First Amendment rights, which are incredibly important. And I think ultimately only leads to additional violence. Yeah, I think we're going around in

circles here, because I agree with you on all those things. And I am 100% in support of the people protesting, right, people that are walking down the street with signs about George Floyd and Black Lives Matter. I'm 100% in favor of that. It's the looting. So how do you stop the looting? You've got to do something to stop the looting. If you don't stop the looting, it is going to fucking continue. Well, stop focusing on tear gassing protesters and start focusing on protecting stores.

I don't think so. Because they started tear gassing protesters after the looting. After all that shit got crazy, that's when they started cracking down on the protest. I think it's a mistake because I don't think they're connected. I think the people that are doing all the looting

and the smashing are not the people that are peacefully protesting. And there's a ton of videos of people who were screaming. There's one video of this girl who's yelling at these girls in front of a Starbucks that are spray painting Black Lives Matter. It's an African American girl,

and these white girls are spraying, she's like, why the fuck are you doing that? They're gonna blame us, exactly. And she's white. Look, that's a huge part of this whole thing, which is that there's just upper middle class white liberalism and their inability, I mean, just as a whole element of white guilt

and so much more. There's an entire industrial complex set up to make white people and upper middle class white people in particular feel uncomfortable condemning looting and violence in this particular scenario, even though everybody agrees with you, Joe. I mean, pretty much everybody is like, yeah, protests are fine. Looting is bad. Protests are great. Right. And what happened to George Floyd was fucked up. That's like one, two, three. 95% of people in this country would agree with something like that. And so that's why I think that that, I mean, look, that shows you that there is, again, a political way to be forged here, which is like, like you said, nobody thinks that this is, nobody was defending George Floyd. No one.

Right. I mean, like Rush Limbaugh and Sean. I saw this whole thing about Sean Hannity was like, you know, as a martial artist, like putting his name on the neck. Stop. Don't say that. Don't say he's a martial artist. Sorry. He said as a martial artist.

I know. I shouldn't have brought that up. Have you watched that? It's actually hilarious. It's offensive. No. I should have known better talking to you. No.

That's like calling me a basketball player. I mean, I've played basketball a couple times. Have you watched these? He's like, I've been studying for seven years. It's offensive. What would you recommend for kids when they get into it? Jiu-jitsu. Jiu-jitsu.

Because there's no head trauma or very little. Is CT like a thing? No, it's a thing. I got it, for sure. I just have it mild. I'm functional. Wow. Yeah, if you've been hit in the head a bunch of times, you most likely have it.

I mean, from the time I was 15 until I was 21, 22, I was hit in the head almost every day. There's no getting around it. You're going to get some form of brain damage. How come there's not a backlash backlash against it like with the NFL? Well, there is. I mean, it's more internal. It's like, I feel like the NFL, it's more prevalent

and I think that the impacts are more devastating. When I watch those huge super athletes running at full clip and slamming into each other, it's a fucking car accident. And it's a car accident multiple times a week. And these guys are doing,

well, they were taking those big hits and training as well. But there was a study on football players that found that between, they tested high school all the way up to NFL and they said there was some staggering number of people that had CTE, including high school kids. Wow.

So if you had a son, would you let him play football? No fucking way, but I'd let him fight. I'd let him fight. I'd teach him how to fight correctly. I would say, look, if you want to do this, this is dangerous as fuck, but you can do it, and there's great benefit in knowing how to fight. There's a giant benefit if someone's trying to assault you, and they don't know how to fight, and you do.

It's huge. Isn't there a UFC fighter who was helping out with some of the looting? John Jones. The greatest of all time. John Jones grabbed these fucking dipshit kids that were about to spray paint. He goes, give me that.

And they're like, holy fuck, it's John Jones. And he took their fucking spray paint cans. Oh my God. And they're just like, yes sir, sorry. These dopey fucking white kids. And he just snatched their spray paint can. But John's out there boarding up smashed windows. He's really trying to help.

Did you see that guy? It's an ESPN reporter or something, Chris Palmer, who was cheering on looting and rioting. And then right after, someone was like, our neighboring gated community is being targeted. Like, y'all get the fuck away. And it's just like a perfect thing on Twitter of like the right and the, and just look, that gets to what I think I was talking about.

Life comes at you fast. White liberalism. This is like so many of these people would be freaked out, call the police if any of this thing ever happened. But if it happens in an affordable housing complex in Minneapolis, then we can land burn.

But you know what has been interesting is that these riots have not just been in the poor neighborhood or in the black neighborhood. I mean, they have been all I think that's part of why people are so freaked out is they've been sort of intentionally in the wealthy parts of town is part of what makes it so unsettling for everyone across the board. And so, you know, look, I my only point is, you know, yes, looting, bad, violence, bad, absolutely all of that. But you can't imagine that the military is an answer to the situation that led to this moment. I don't know what the answer is.

But when people see the chaos and the randomness of it all, that's what's really frightening. When people saw what was happening in Minneapolis as a direct result of a bad cop killing a man that was handcuffed and not a threat whatsoever, then people say, okay, I get these people. But then when you see them smashing windows in Beverly Hills, you're like, what the fuck does this have to do with George Floyd? Like, what is going on here? And how are you justifying this? And they're not.

But that's the thing is, it's not just a bad, one bad cop or even just policing. Right. I mean, let's remember. Right. It wasn't just one bad cop. There are three other guys just standing around. 100%. But that has nothing to do with Louis Vuitton.

Sure. But what I'm saying is that's why this spread across the country is because the grievances aren't specific. That was the flashpoint. But the grievances are not just specific to that one thing. Marches and protests, not smashing the windows of Target. And they did a Target right down the street from here. What the fuck does that have to do with anything?

It has to do with nothing. It has to do with lawlessness. It has to do with people taking advantage of the situation and escalating. Also, it's probably exciting. People have been locked up and bored as fuck, and now all of a sudden they've got something. Look, it is in many ways similar to war, and this is why. Because when people are, they have a real cause, and when war is going on, there's a lot of people that I know that have served overseas. And one of the hard, kind of scary truths is it's some of the best times of their life.

Sebastian Younger wrote a great book about it called Tribe. It's a fantastic book that really gets to the psychology of it. And this is a guy who was over there for long periods of time as a journalist. When you are involved in this and you feel like you're fighting the good fight and you're like, fuck corporate America. But you're

fucking 20 years old. You believe that shit. My friend Bridget Phetasy, she's a brilliant writer and she's really hilarious and she was talking about some papers that she found that she wrote when she was 24 and she was like, I was reading this like, holy fuck,

I was so dumb. She was like, I was such a radical. I was like AOC. I sounded like AOC. But I'm looking back at it now as a grown ass woman going, what the fuck was I doing? What was I thinking? I think that's what you're dealing with a lot of these idealistic kids. They think they're going to tear it all down and burn it to the ground.

But they don't know where the fuck their cell phone comes from. They don't know who makes their sneakers. They don't know what it costs to keep the electricity on. They have no shoe in the game. I don't know. But a lot of those young people, though, I mean, look, what has their life been? They're graduating from high school. They're graduating from college.

They know very well what the cost is and what the rent is and what it looks like for them in their life going forward. And that's exactly where that hopelessness and nihilism comes from. And that's what really where that hopelessness and nihilism comes from. And that's what's that's what really scares me is there's this idea. I mean, like, I know it's easy to say, but it really is true. We've never seen anything like this moment we're living through

with mass unemployment, Great Depression, with pandemic, with these polarized politics where nobody feels like any any hope of getting anything really accomplished through Washington. where nobody feels like any hope of getting anything really accomplished through Washington. You add to it the chaos in the streets. And then there's no sign that this is all just going to snap back to normal anytime soon. It doesn't seem like it's going to snap back at all. And this all happened like a snap. That's what's really fucked up. So quick because it seemed like, okay, things were getting sort of off the rails, off the rails, off the rails.

And then all of a sudden it's just – Well, from March. Everything has accelerated. From March when they shut down New York City, they shut down Los Angeles first, and then it was like, holy fuck, we're locked down at home. But we were worried about a disease. And I was actually encouraged during the early days because it seemed like people, although scared, were at least – it seemed like they were being nicer to each other.

And all the bullshit on Twitter seemed to have subsided because people were dealing with a real live pandemic and they were really worried about their own life and the lives of their loved ones. Then as time dragged on, as the pandemic was going into the second month and people were really desperate now to work, economic despair kicks in, anxiety kicks in, and then people got shittier than ever. People were mean and, you said something to me in 1984, you fuckhead.

Sorry, that was me. Madness. But it ramped up to a higher level than it was before. This goes, you know, just the way the lockdown was all handled, right? Terrible. Exactly. It's like there was never any benchmarks.

There was never any real understanding. And you know, it's funny, because if you go back, we were one of the only people to be like sympathetic to the lockdown protesters. We were like, hey, man, like somebody steals your job like all or somebody takes your job, says you can't work and all this and then not necessarily giving you the economic benefits that you deserve. That was something that we were very compassionate about. I mean, like I'm not saying we agreed at the time. We didn't really know. But it was like extending that level of compassion to people who are put in that situation i think it's really important and that's just something the media i mean this is the thing we were just talking about before it's like corona's over right like nobody's talking about it or maybe it's not

i don't know but like i haven't seen anybody on cable news be like these terrible people trying to bring it up i know yeah everybody's like, shut the fuck up. No one cares anymore. No, it's over. It happened like that. The sense of threat in the story of the day shifted and changed that quickly. And yeah, I mean, where do we go from here? I think that's the thing that no one knows. And we have this presidential election looming in November and politics has never felt sort of more irrelevant and sidelined.

Well, that's where people are really cynical because I don't think Joe Biden's got a solution to this. And Joe Biden's fucking bailing out protesters. Are you sure? Are you sure? If he's got a solution, he already forgot it. And this is part of the problem with the way that the coalitions have broken down between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party is basically the Republican Party has this affluent portion that they cater to. And then they have white working class that they sort of culturally signal to. And the Democratic Party has an affluent portion like the pussy hat, like Women's March type suburban affluent white women. Like that's who they cater to along with sort of business interest in Silicon Valley interest. And then they culturally pander and signal to

the black and brown working class. And the incentive is always to keep everybody divided, because if you actually had like a multiracial working class put together, then that's where the real power would be. So it's you know, it's you have two parties basically that don't are very much invested in things staying as they are. Look, riots in the streets, pandemic, mass unemployment and the stock market goes up. Right. Like, I mean, that's that's where we are, that the people who already have wealth and power and position benefit no matter what happens. Right. If there's a pandemic, they benefit. If there's mass unemployment, they benefit. Doesn't it just show you the horseshit of what the stock market is, though?

Crystal likes to say it's a graph of rich people's feelings. Which I've always loved. That's a brilliant quote. I didn't come up. I don't want to take credit. I saw it randomly on Twitter. Whoever wrote that, thank you. They're brilliant.

Thank you. That's amazing. That's it randomly on Twitter. Whoever wrote that, thank you. They're brilliant. Thank you. That's amazing. That's the thing about – And they feel good. Yeah. I mean if you look at – this is where I want to try and reclaim some level of positivity that's coming out of this thing, which is that, look, I mean we are in the – it's only in these huge moments that you have an opportunity to actually do something. There's that like great Lennon quote, which is like something about like in a week, 10 years can happen.

10 years can feel like a week. And then in a week, 10 years where the change can happen. I'm butchering it. Somebody can look it up. Or Rahm Emanuel, don't let a good crisis go to waste. But there is something to be said for that. And I think that this is why I'm more optimistic from like the right than the left. I mean, the left just made this like a kind of explicit decision to like, you know, like

kill the Bernie Sanders movement, realign around the white, the left. I mean, the left just made this like a kind of explicit decision to like, you know, like kill the Bernie Sanders movement, realign around the white, the white upper middle class suburbanites. Like Joe Biden is doing yoga events, like literally yoga events for women. What? You're going to pay to attend one of those, Joe?

What? I'll pay money to watch him do yoga. No, no, he's not doing the yoga. It's like, if that dude can touch his toes, I'll give him a thousand dollars.

But on the right, like, like things are still very like up in the air, right? Like you still have people who are like people like Holly, who are like posing. Trump is kind of the populist president. And I mean, look, I have my, I have a podcast called the realignment with my friend, Marshall Kosloff. Like, this is literally what we try and do. And like, we're working on a few more interesting things here, but like what we try and do on the podcast is work through what are the actual policy positions that like a populist right would look like, like a new trading relationship with China, everyone's like, oh, decoupling, like, we got to stop doing trade with China. Well, what does that actually mean? Or like on immigration? Like, what does it actually mean to like, restrict immigration

in America? Like, what levels? Like, how does it does it even affect wages? I would say yes, and that's something that a lot of people have tried very hard to prove otherwise. But it's about working with... It's about you can realign the Republican Party to not just have the white working class, but you can have significant portions of the black and brown, people of color, all working class Americans. That is a huge winning coalition for the right in order to move forward. It only requires them to, I wouldn't say move left on economics, but to move back to the center on economics, away from this more libertarian-minded right.

And to stop using racist rhetoric and actions. But that is part of it. That's why the left can't do it is because they're always going to call you a racist. They can't move it is because it's always – they're always going to call you a racist. They can't say – they can't move right on – or they can't move right on cultural issues because to them, they're like shibboleths, right? Like you have to have the cultural issues. That's what stops them from winning elections. What was the term you used? It's like a biblical term.

Like it's like a – I saw it in a West Wing episode once. It's honest. Real talk right there. I mean I have to tell you, I was more depressed, I guess, during the phase of the pandemic when it just seemed like everyone was crushed and everyone was apathetic and everybody was just like in their basement or in their apartment wondering how they're going to make rent next month. Or they were one of those frontline workers who was, you know, out on the front lines making $7.25 to risk their life at,

you know, at CVS or whatever it was. The fact that people are in the streets, especially, of course, the people who are peaceful and who are enraged and who are actually taking matters into their own hands in that way. Like, I actually find that to be the most hopeful thing. Like, imagine if someone's life could be casually snuffed out like George Floyd's was and there wasn't a reaction and there wasn't rage. Like, to me, that would be a profoundly more troubling state of affairs than, frankly, what we're seeing right now. You know what's most troubling about that footage is that he knew he was being filmed new and the bystanders are there saying what are you doing like does he have a pulse and it's so his hands in his pocket it's just so casual and he's well i don't think i think he had his hand like this yeah he had black gloves

on it looked like his hand was in his pocket it's hard to tell but the point is he was nonchalant about having his knee on this guy's neck also he's in like a drain so there's a divot there so there's like an edge that's pressed against his neck so he's got on one side he's got a knee on his neck on the other side he's got this cement drain the whole thing is horrific i mean the fact that those three cops just sat there and let him do that and didn't, I don't understand. I mean, the only thing that makes sense to me. And they haven't been charged. That doesn't make sense. Outrageous.

It also means that they probably do that shit all the time. That wasn't an unusual thing. We actually looked at the data, and the reality is they do do that shit all the time. And three-fifths of the time that they use that particular hold to unconsciousness three-fifths of the time is with african-american men they use that when they knee on your neck to unconscious unconsciousness i think it's chokehold is what it is chokehold to unconsciousness over five years 245 times to unconsciousness and three-fifths of them were african-american men so yeah it's it's the casual the video itself and how casual it was and how standard it was the guy passed a forged $20

bill like that's it's insane and so if people didn't work because of covid right and if people didn't feel something from that moment and weren't in the streets right that is what to me would be more troubling well it's one of the worst videos we've ever seen because it's like this prolonged first of all it's completely unjustified right it's not like this guy's in a fight for his life against this guy no no and there was no evidence at all that he was doing anything to merit any brutality there was nothing I mean even he's talking he like, as they're leading him across this tree, he's not resisting. He's not trying to run away.

I don't know how it got to the point where that guy was on his neck. But the fact that those other cops just sat there, it's like, fucking what is happening? And, you know, this is probably going to tank Amy Klobuchar's chances. We did a whole video on that. Which is kind of crazy

because Biden had just vetted her for VP and then all of a sudden out of nowhere this happens and it turns out in 2006 that fucking cop was doing that shit

way back then and she didn't do anything about it. Same cop. He had many, many civilian complaints against I can't remember it was like 17 or 19

different civilian complaints against him and nothing ever happened. There's so many good cops out there. There's so many good cops and when you see one like that it just there's there's a great video, and I've talked about this before, but I'll say it again, of a Flint sheriff from Flint, Michigan, talking to these

people and saying, look, I'm going to put the baton down. We're going to march with you. But see, you ask what the answer is. That is the answer, as opposed to military. Because that, and what did that lead to? That de-escalated. That led to less violence. You're right. But that's not looting. That doesn? That de-escalated. That led to less violence. You're right.

But that's not looting. That doesn't stop looting. That's not while there's looting. He's meeting these peaceful protesters. But as a result of that approach, rather than crack down tear gas, rubber bullets, you know, and this contentious us versus them and the militarization, all of that, that approach led to less violence. I agree with you.

But all that approach, the crackdown tear gas, happened after the looting. That's the impetus for it. It's not like they saw these people protesting, they're just going to start shooting tear gas into the first people protesting. But we have seen that. That's not what we saw here. The first people we saw were burning down things in Minneapolis, and they allowed that.

And as Sagar was talking about, that's really where it all took place. Seeing people get away with shit like that is like, okay, now there's a fire of the mind. And that fire needs to be put out. People understand this in a war context, right? Like free fires. That's why we have very strong rules of engagement. People understand that the way the psychology of taking on this can happen. And that Minneapolis looting, that target,

it was a beacon. It was a message to any of these shitheads that you're talking about. Be like, hey, we can get away with this. And then night after night after night after night. That's how Fifth Avenue, I mean, you saw, I'm sure the same videos I did. You had like organized gangs,

like people with car, getaway cars, lookouts posted on the corner, all that. Where's the NYPD? And that breakdown is a very precious thing. And this is on the riots. I mean, look, Baltimore, 2015, they had these level of riots. What happened? Massive economic destruction.

But worse than that is that police and many of the others have took a much more risk-averse approach to the way that they were going in that community. The community is screaming for police specifically for this reason, which is that in the aftermath, we know from many of these riots, from the MLK times and after Baltimore, it caused massive economic destruction to these cities. It is not a noble thing to allow this to continue. It's actually your job as a city. I mean, there's a whole movement. I mean, underground, nobody wants to say this. A lot of people don't want to live in cities now because of what happened. First of all, I live in an 800-square-foot

apartment. You know how fucking terrible it is to be locked down in an 800-square-foot apartment, and the only thing you do is go to the grocery store and you can't go out to eat or do anything, and now I've got shit being blown up in the streets a couple blocks from my house. Like, I don't really know if that's,

the city life is all that enticing. You can get out there with Crystal out into the desert. I just need to go out. Get your internet from the sky. Get you off Twitter too. But I think there's a lot of people who are thinking that,

which is like, hey, you know, fuck this. Why am I paying all this rent to live in a soulless box and then maybe get, you know, maybe have my shit get broken. Working remotely, you know, there's a good argument for that now, too. So many people are realizing, I mean, maybe there's one good thing that's going to come out of this is that people won't be stuck in cubicles and maybe they can work from home

more often. I'm concerned for the future, but I think that there needs to be some national address that is about law enforcement and about the rules of engagement and about the way we treat people that are our citizens. That's our community, especially with nonviolent crimes like a fucking forged dollar bill. And that's where it's – I mean those individual cops should be held accountable. A hundred percent. And the fact that the three that just stood by like nothing has happened. They haven't been fired?

No, they were fired. They were fired. Yeah. But I mean, to me, that is just unconscionable. But it's it also speaks to the fact that it was casual, the fact that it was repeated, the fact that there were these complaints and nothing was ever done. It speaks to a larger systemic problem that the data backs up. And so part of, you know, the challenge of this moment is also the fact that we are essentially leaderless. Like there is no trusted national. There's no trust in our institutions.

There's no trust in the media. There's no trust invested in any sort of a national unifying figure. And so it's it's another reason why this moment is so incredibly fraught. Because who would even give that address that anyone would really listen to? Yeah, it's such a strange time. It's up to you, Joe. You got to do it. That's when you know things are off the rails. Hey, get the Fear Factor guy.

He's going to handle everything. That's all my dad knew about you. We tried it with the apprentice the guy who did celebrity apprentice it didn't work out fear factor guy he's gonna help us through this he's really good at talking you through things my dad was like fear factor he swears a lot right

that's me he's on your dad's right he's read a lot of shit I mean there's gotta be some sort of gigantic change the way um and and you were talking about there has been some change in baltimore because of the riots that happened there and there's been a response and there has to be some sort of national response and you know one good one thing to come out of it is there needs to be a better system for vetting people for law enforcement. It can't just be you want the job.

Okay, can you do 10 chin-ups? Do you have a criminal record? Have you ever sold heroin? No. Okay, you're a cop. It can't be that. It's got to be very difficult to be a cop because it's one of the most difficult jobs. It's an insanely difficult job.

It's crazy that some of the most difficult jobs that we's an insanely difficult job. It's crazy that some of the most difficult jobs that we have are the least paying. They pay the least like teacher, right? Sanitation. The people who literally, they were all deemed essential now during the pandemic, like who literally allow the country to function, make the least of anyone and are treated like they aren't human i mean that's the other thing like they're fungible goods to be fired and disposed with and thrown onto the front lines in a pandemic and not given any protection like that is the way that they are treated day to day you know about the ones in new orleans right yeah with the prison labor it was fucking insane they said oh we're gonna replace you with slaves

yeah like that's what they did get out that's actually one thing we haven't plugged i haven't on the show with the prison labor. It was fucking crazy. They said, oh, we're going to replace you with slaves. Yeah. That's what they did. Get out. That's actually one thing we haven't plugged. I haven't plugged enough, which is hazard pay. That is something

that I cannot believe that it hasn't gotten done. I mean, actually, Mitt Romney proposed $12 extra per hour to any, you know, Patriot pay. Mitt Romney's in a cult,

but he's a very reasonable guy. Right? Outside of that? Well, and think about like these workers in the pork processing plants with massive outbreaks. But you know what's crazy? A lot of those people are asymptomatic. It's really weird. Yeah.

Yeah. And also in prisons. You know, there's a lot of prison outbreaks and they found that they're asymptomatic. And contrary to the way, and actually I talked about this with Kyle Kalinske. He was saying, well, looked at it this way like those are the people that have the strong immune systems because they're constantly on top of each other and it's true it could be but it is i mean it's also that's also how it's spread through them i mean these people i think high stress terrible diet you're locked in a cage boy how the fuck are these people asymptomatic but this is a weird

disease and that's that's also part of the problem is that this is a novel coronavirus that's what gets me about it it's just like i don't know what the fuck to believe about it right like there's all this information oh this study's been debunked actually no antibody everybody's got antibodies no nobody has antibodies what the antibody test doesn't work the mortality rate is one percent point on one like i don't know what to trust i mean i think one of the things you brought up which actually i thought was a great point i was like why is nobody talking about immunity here like how to boost your immune system not a single word from all these politicians wash your hands wear a mask stay away from everybody but not vitamin d you know when they're dealing with these people in new orleans and i

think it was a study in indonesia the percentage, like more than 80% of the people that are in the ICU have a vitamin D deficiency. 4% didn't. 4% of the people in the ICU had sufficient levels of vitamin D. And how many people in general have a vitamin D deficiency? Massive. 70% just in this country. Not in California. I don't know why I said that.

I'm just trying to talk. 70% of people in this country have insufficient vitamin D. And 29% are deficient, meaning they're in dangerously low levels. Now, when you add COVID to something like that, I think that speaks to one of the problems where we're dealing with this mortality rate. Obesity. People with insulin resistance, people with real underlying health problems.

And you could say that, well, we still have to protect those folks and this is the reason why we locked down the country. Okay, maybe, but you didn't do anything about immunity. You didn't tell anybody to do things differently. There was no public service announcement telling people, hey, if you cut down on sugar and cut down on alcohol and take cigarettes out of your life, you have a radically increased

chance of beating this fucking thing. Joe, how are we supposed to survive in quarantine without alcohol, sugar? Actually, alcohol went up. Are you kidding? Alcohol use went up. It did during this whole thing. You know what's crazy? Liquor stores redeemed essential businesses and Alcoholics Anonymous was not.

They shut down Alcoholics Anonymous, but they kept liquor stores open. I mean, I don't know how many people fell off the wagon during this time. A lot. A lot. I'm sure. I'm sure. I mean, if you're an anxious person, I saw some study about the number of Americans who were showing signs of anxiety and depression during this time.

I mean, it's completely, you've been cut off from all of your coping mechanisms, basically. And if you've lost your job, you've lost, you know, a central point of meaning in your life and ability to provide for yourself and your family. It's unreal. And, you know, the fact that basically early on, who was it? Was it a Steny Hoyer in the house who was like, we'll come back and work some more if there's a national emergency. In case of national emergency, we'll come back earlier. There's a pandemic and millions of people lost their jobs. What are you talking about?

But that's been the blasé attitude. That's the problem is their career does not depend. Look at the stock market. They're fine. Gavin Newsom, our governor, one of the more ridiculous quotes he said, if we keep our masks on, we can get back some of our freedoms. You fuck.

You motherfucker. They really fucked with you in LA too because first they were like three months. And then it just took away. And I'm like, wait, what happened? Did they learn something? My friend Janet, who owns this fantastic restaurant in Venice, they just, Felix, they just told her out of nowhere you can reopen. No preparation.

No preparation at all. That's what I mean. She was like, I need 10 days. She goes, I got to fucking hire all these people back. I have to set everything up. All of a sudden, with no warning, they said, uh, we're just going to open. I think because they're dealing with this unprecedented economic despair, where someone's like, hey, you know,

you've only had 2,000 deaths in the whole state. There's 40 million fucking people. How many people have died of heart attacks during that time? More. How many people have died of cancer? More. How many people have died of obesity and all the interrelated health problems that come with that? A lot more. There's a lot of fucking people dying.

2,000 is a good number. It sucks that those 2,000 people died of this disease. But you can't just shut down the whole country. You can't shut down the economy because there is a direct correlation between a dip in the economy and an increase in deaths due to suicide, due to drug overdoses, due to all sorts of problems, even starvation. And that we've been living like that now for 10 years. I mean, you know, since 2008, basically. Like we had a wipeout of homeownership, actually black homeownership wealth, black wealth and black homeownership under President Obama's presidency.

And it was during that time that, you know, when the economy was coming back, it was all underemployment. It was all like in the gig economy. It was all like in a way that just – it was all not in a more secure way than it was before the crisis. And that is actually part of why this makes this economic crisis so bad. Right. Because it even gets rid of those types of jobs. Because going into the Great Recession, we lost majority middle income jobs.

And coming out, we gained majority lower income jobs and coming out, we gained majority lower income jobs. And that's when the gig economy crops up. And so people are pushed even more to the edge than they were before and, you know, may not have health insurance, don't have savings, like are piecing it together with a couple different gig jobs. And there's an author who calls it the precariat, that group of workers who, you know, they're piecing it together. They don't have any sort of net below them. And then you layer on top of that, like that's a group of people who is either out on the front lines in the, you know, the processing plan or delivering the packages or doing the Uber Eats for lucky folks like us who

can just order in, no problem, don't worry about it, or they lost their job altogether and are just like no certainty that it's ever going to come back. How am I going to make rent this month? Like a lot of rent forbearance is ending right now and nothing has been done to help them. And it's all going to be in full total chaos after this rioting and no one knows what to happen. I want to ask both of you guys this. If you had a magic wand, if you're the king of the world, how do we come out of this? We'll start with you.

What do you mean by this? How do we, all of it, how do we come out of the riots? This is what everybody's wondering, right? The big question everybody has right now is how does this end? How do we come out of the economic despair caused by the pandemic? How do we come out of the riots? How do we come out of all of this? I mean, I think you have to do a UBI and you have to do some sort of mass federal jobs program to get people back, to get them back working, to get them back on their feet, to rebalance the playing field. I think you have to do those two things.

And I would also say universal health care. How many of those $1,200 checks went out? Did only one set of them? One set. Yeah, one set. That's fucking preposterous. Yeah, one time. That was it.

And they're like, okay, good luck. But weren't they supposed to keep doing that? No, that was never part of the thing. Hilarious. Yeah. So how do we get out of this whole riot thing? I mean, I think these things go together. I also think that you have to have some sort of systemic policing reform like what you're talking about in terms of the training, in terms of chokeholds being illegal in order for people to feel like there's some real progress being made.

Well, I don't think you should make chokeholds illegal. I think if you're trying – if someone's trying to kill someone, someone's trying to stop someone, look, if you're a cop and you're in a fight for your life against someone who's done something horrible, you should be able to use jujitsu. And one of the best techniques in jujitsu is choking people unconscious. And it's not that dangerous. It's not as dangerous as beating someone. It's not as dangerous as head trauma.

What that guy did was just torture. That's what he did. It has nothing to do with utilizing a good martial art technique to subdue some sort of perpetrator. Well, and here's the other piece that is a whole other can of worms. But you know, a lot of this policing has to do with the drug war. I mean, a lot of the militarization and the racism within policing comes back to the drug war and the way that we handle all of that. For sure. Yeah. I mean, but, you know, it has to do with PTSD as well.

I mean, I think there's a ton of cops out there running around with just unmanageable PTSD. Many served in the military, too. Yes. There's a lot of citizens out there who have PTSD. Oh, for sure but they're not pulling people over i think the problem they're getting pulled over right but i mean pulling people over every day with ptsd leads to terrible choices i think there's a lot of these cops that have seen too much violence they've seen too much death um i was actually talking to a friend of mine about it yesterday and someone who she grew up with who had, oh, sorry, it was a different friend he grew up with,

had a friend who lives in a small town of 9,000 people and thought that where they lived was, you know, it was fine, normal place, and became a cop. And over the course of 10 years of being a cop, has a completely jaded and fucked up attitude about human beings now because they've walked in on people with their brains blown out and stabbed to death and raped and just every fucking day they find some new

reason to hate everyone and they're just broken yeah and and i think this is a thing that cops and every time they pull somebody over this could be the last day of their life this guy's got a tinted window you know and who knows what's going on inside this car? Who knows if this is a fugitive? Who knows? Well, and that's a deeper question about our society because it's not like that everywhere. I mean, it's not. First of all, you don't have the level of violence everywhere that we have here. You don't have the level of cop to citizen animosity and violence that we have here.

I mean, that's a really deeper question about what we're doing in society to lead to those outcomes. I don't have all the answers on that. You're right. Yeah, it is. It's an effect that has accumulated over time, too. And to bring it back in the other direction and to have some sort of a positive relationship between the police officers and the communities that they serve. One thing that my friend Immortal Technique brought up about that sheriff in Flint, he said Flint has a very unique relationship with the police and the people in the community because they're all dealing with that water problem. They're all in it together.

And a lot of the people that are police officers there also live in the community. So they and their kids were poisoned too? Yes. Right. I think people living in the community that they police is also a great benefit. Wasn't that a big problem here in Los Angeles? Oh, yeah. Back in the day, a lot of the cops didn't actually live in L.A., so it was very much like a trend.

Yeah. Yeah, they're all in Simi Valley. Don't go robbing a house in Simi Valley. A lot of those thin blue-lined American flags hanging up. It was a problem in New York City as well because it's so expensive, too, that it makes makes it impossible for working class people to be able to live in the city that they are actually policing. I mean, look, there's an ugly history around policing in America. If you go back to a lot of the police departments in the South were put in place to enforce Jim Crow style laws. I mean, there has been a long history of basically there being a community that is protected and a

community that is policed. And so those are deep problems to solve. You're not going to solve them overnight. You're not going to pick one piece of legislation that's going to fix it like that. But I think if you have that context and that understanding and that you're not just saying, oh, it's just this one bad person or that one bad person that we have a bigger structural issue, then you can start to move forward. And people just need to feel like progress can be made. I mean, I think that's one of the biggest problems in this moment is there's this sense of nothing is going to change. Nothing has changed. They had body cameras. They didn't have them on. They were being filmed and

they didn't fucking care. It didn't matter. It didn't make a difference. And so if you can at least give people that sense that, no, the political system can work on your behalf, then you start to move in the right direction. Isn't it amazing that one person in one horrific act in one part of Minneapolis can start this explosion that lights the whole country on fire? Unbelievable. Protests. There are protests overseas, too. It's not just here country on fire. Unbelievable. Protests, there are protests overseas too. Yeah. It's not just here. Right.

I mean, it's weird. In New Zealand, I saw protests in New Zealand. Stylebender was in a protest. Same question to you. How do you fix this? So I'll start with the riots because I think my view is clear. Reestablish law and order. I agree with you.

Reuse that opportunity to seize upon, again, the 50 plus one things. What do we all learn through this pandemic? It's pretty stupid that our corporate elites and our political elites allowed many of our most critical jobs and industries in order to go over to China. That's an empirically stupid thing. Reshoring American supply chains makes us safer in the long run, both from an economic perspective, from national security perspective, health perspective, etc. The China thing is like a 90-10 issue. And right now, I want to make sure I call this out, which is that there are elements in the White House, more corporate friendly ones, who are trying to quash a

buy American order that was put forward within the Trump administration that doesn't even call for mandatory like onshoring of medical supply chains, but just like wants to use tax rebates and all that other stuff to encourage over 10 years. And I think it's pretty unconscionable that something like that 90-10 issue after something like this hasn't been passed. I think on trade, it's the same thing. This is a broader question of so much of what we have. It's not just China. I mean, that's an overwhelming thing in our trading relationship. But it's like a great nation makes things for itself. There's a great essay I read. It was like, make America autarkic again. And autarky is like making everything here. And I'm not saying that all the libertarians are going to get very upset about me and start sending me comparative advantage memes. But look,

there is a real benefit to be able to make things in America. And that if just because it's cheaper, the the altar of globalization, the altar of cheap prices has made us make horrific political choices over the last four decades. And going on that and praying towards that altar has made it so that we are less safe, less, less robust, less – I mean socially, to live in a town and to have a factory which is producing something and to feel pride in your work and get paid a good wage and to know that at the explicit decision of Congress in order to let China join the – or China joining the WTO, restoring permanent normal trade relationship with China and watching that factory go away like this. You know why that went away. And people made that choice because they said, fuck you. You're better off.

You have a cheaper TV. They said not better off. GDP will go up. And GDP did go up. And it did. And it was great for a few people. I think that you have to acknowledge that there's like a deeper rot in the society where the fundamental promise has been like if you have cheaper stuff and you can buy more like cheap chinese crap you're going to be

happy right that's going to be the key to happiness and so everything has been used to justify those ends and it hasn't made us happy it hasn't made us satisfied It hasn't brought us any sort of spiritual nourishment or community. And community worthy, that they have dignity, that they have rights that should be secured. model and actually implement it into place where people feel that they are valued and seen and heard and have agency and power in the society, then you are not going to have to call in the military to American cities. You're not going to end up with a situation like we see right now that's spiraling and spiraling and spiraling out of control. That's another thing, you know, in terms of what I would do. It's like we have to reorient our economic life and our economic policies in order to incentivize the building of communities and the building of institutions that exist outside of just a direct check from the government or a direct check from your workforce. It needs to be about – I mean the way that America was – like probably the most united we ever were was around like in the 1960s.

Now, look, I know everyone's going to – there were terrible things that happened. They were exposed in the civil rights era and all that. But broadly, what was it? It was like unions. It was about higher wages and it was about the strength of the American family. And that's something that – I mean every data we see. Lowest marriage rate on record in 2018. And what's the number one reason that people cited not being able to get married?

I think it's tender. That's what I think. It's not, though. I think it's too easy to get laid. No, man. People still want to get married. It's just that they can't afford to. Marriage is a luxury good now.

They'll be like, honey, I really wish we could. Yeah, just don't have enough in the old bank account. I think we need to reorient our economic life in order to bolster the American family. And this is something very much part of like the new right movement. There's this new organization called American Compass run by a friend of mine, Oren Kass. He used to work for Mitt Romney. And now what he's trying to do is move the GOP on these issues towards centering economic – restoring like economic conservatism from economic libertarianism. And what I mean by that is free market fundamentalists, that the free market is always good.

Look, like the free market, was it – is it a good thing? Once again, that we couldn't make ventilators in our country when we thought we needed them? Like was it a good thing that we couldn't manufacture our own medical supplies? And then broadly, like in terms of the immediacy, what I would do, it's this payroll plan. It's so critical that we restore Americans payroll and that we try to make it so that these businesses don't become failed, distressed assets that get rolled up into these huge private equity conglomerates that buy them all off for cheap, that fucks over workers, it fucks businesses. And do you want to live in a world where there's no mom and pop businesses or no dive bars

anymore? That's where we're headed right now. We have to make sure we prevent that. I think, too, people will put up with a lot of shit and they will persist and they will invest in the community, they'll invest in their lives, they'll invest in a productive civil society if they feel that they have, they believe that life will get better for themselves and their kids. And I really think that's kind of the core breakdown is that people no longer have that confidence that for their kids, they're going to be able

to have it better than they had. And when you lose that sense of hope, that's when things go off the rails. I think there's also a real problem with this election in that you either are a pro Trump person in which you're happy that Trump's going to run again. But if you're a Democrat, you're really settling. We all know it. You're really, really settling. You're making this. You're speaking to me right now, Joe. I'm speaking to everyone who's on the left that has any sense.

Sentient. Well, and it also, it so clearly highlights the people that are full of shit that are just supporting the fact that, you know, you're going to vote left no matter what. And you hear this thing, like, I'm just voting for the cabinet. I'm voting for the one thing that I keep hearing over and over again is I'm voting for a woman's right to choose. And I'm like, okay, I agree with the woman's right to choose. But is that the number one thing for running the country is a person's ability to abort a baby? Is that really what because that really is what it boils down to. And I'm not, you know, I'm not saying that lightly. But what it's,

it's very sad that we're in this position in 2020. That we, we have to say, I'm just voting for the cabinet. I just want to vote left. I'm voting for the Supreme Court. Vote blue, no matter who. Doesn't matter. Blue across the board. We covered this on the show. I'm a cult member. There was a, and this was, Democrats made fun of Trump voters for being cultists last time around. Trump came out and said, I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue. They'd still vote for me. And we're like, you're an idiot, right? That's ridiculous.

A woman at the nation, a writer at the nation just wrote this piece that she started off. If Joe Biden boiled and ate babies, I would still vote for him. Now, look, is she being hyperbolic? Of course. But the central concept of like it doesn't matter what he does. It doesn't matter. I will justify it if it's just a hair's breadth better in my view than Trump. And look, I mean, ultimately, maybe the election is that existential and maybe things are going off.

You're like, OK, well, at least Joe is going to be that you're like okay well at least joe is going to be you know somewhat normal and do some sort of normal presidential things but that type of politics is deeply destructive because if if everything can be justified if you're just like slightly better than the other side this lesser two evils dynamic is a hell that you can never escape from. Isn't he? He's 78? Yeah. So he'll be 86?

Wait a second. Is he 78 or 77? I think he's 77. Yeah. What the fuck ever. That's the same shit. Not to split hairs here. That's the end of the line, baby.

I mean, Bernie was 78. Yeah. Bernie seemed much more vibrant for whatever reason. Even though his head is in the middle of his chest for some strange reason. Biden just feels like he's falling apart. And the idea that he's going to be here in eight years because this is the problem. You're voting for him, not just for now. You're voting for him.

If he wins, you're hoping he lasts two terms. Well, you're also you're also voting for whoever his vice president is, who not only maybe, you know, will be the next Democratic nominee and then, you know, eight years of them, but also because of his decline may have a lot more influence and power, maybe pulling the strings depending on who it is. And look, he's already said he wants to pick someone he's consulting with Wall Street as to who he should pick. His donor class is like having a lot of say over who he should pay he's going to pick someone who's basically just like him ideologically so you're looking at maybe 12 years of essentially being like well i guess this is guess i'm voting for the cabinet whoever is vice president is going to be like a democratic it's going to be some sort of a

dick cheney situation we have heard that one my My favorite quote from Biden is he wants to make the Democratic Party a bridge to Pete Buttigieg. Did he really say that? He was like, people like Pete. And I was like, oh, I'm so comfortable with him right now. If that's the bridge. I was ready to riot in the streets after that one, too. Yeah. I don't know if

he's a nice guy, but he just seems so plastic. It seems so rehearsed. It's empty. It's just about his... He's a young guy, too he just seems so plastic. It seems so rehearsed. It's empty. It's just about his... He's a young guy too, which is part of the problem. You're thrusting someone into the national spotlight that was just a mayor and running while he was a mayor. I don't

understand that. When you're a mayor, isn't it really fucking important to take care of your city? And his city wasn't doing all that well either. How does that work though? We were one of the only people in the primary who even covered how the city of South Bend itself felt about Pete Buttigieg.

There's this like celebrity culture around politicians now. It's kind of like we were talking about earlier, like Cuomo's, oh, he does a great press conference and that's all that matters. There's this Stacey Abrams, who's also been talking about for a vice presidential pick. She sort of created this brand image of being very much on the left, very progressive, a very different sort of politician.

But if you actually look at her record in Georgia, she was – and this is not like maybe if you're a centrist, this is a good thing. It's not my politics. But she was very centrist, corporate friendly. That was the type of politician that she was. And no one ever actually covers her record, which is kind of fundamentally disrespectful to her. She's a politician. She did things. She has a record. Instead, it's this like Kardashian type coverage. She checks all the diversity boxes. That's exactly right. Yeah. I was talking about the mayor of Chicago when I was there. I was like, she's a woman, she's black, and she's gay. If she just was a transgender and a Muslim, she would have all the infinity stones. And she'd be the wokest person that ever existed.

Her dreadlocks would glow and whoa. She's got every box covered. Have you seen a video where she's talking about- We interviewed her. We've interviewed her. We did, yeah. We're like, she's been on the show. There's a video where she's talking about the New World Order.

There's this video that's being passed around in conspiracy theory Twitter. No. Enlighten me. I have not seen this. Do you know the video? Jamie? Jamie can find the video. I think Eddie Bravo put it on his Twitter page, which says a lot, or his Instagram page.

I think Eddie Bravo put it on his Twitter page, which says a lot, or his Instagram page. But it's essentially she was talking about picking leaders that will comply with the New World Order. I don't know what the context of what she was saying, but then it got passed around like, look, she's a New World Order shill. Oh, God. Like all the tinfoil. A New World Order shill? Yeah.

That's all these Illuminati people need. New World Order shills? All these Illuminati people need. The 5G. Cover your't know? 5G! Cover your head! Fucking 5G, man. It's everywhere. Be careful. Right. Yeah.

She's, you know, a very popular politician for a lot of good reasons, but it's also one of those things where when someone says something like New World Order, you say just that phrase alone. Like that's a hot button phrase for all the conspiracy people. Right.

Well, and when you have Chicago, though, when you have no one who's trusted in the media and when you have this sort of general societal breakdown in general, then that stuff flourishes more than it would in normal times. But there's all those these echo chambers of conspiracyists and left-wing people who are pundits and right-wing people. These echo chambers are some of the most disturbing parts of interaction with people online because you can always find someone that agrees with you. And, you know, if you're not a person that likes to challenge your thoughts and

ideas, you can just bounce those fucking things around with all these other knuckleheads that believe the same shit you do. I found the clip, but just you know it's been fact-checked to be out of context of course I just want to know what the hell she's saying otherwise it doesn't work so you gotta eliminate that compliance and you make a mandate and then you you do training, particularly in the city, I'll call them licensing departments, whether it's zoning, buildings, housing will be impacted by it, planning certainly.

And you pick the people that run those agencies and the deputies that are pledging allusions to the new world order and good governance. And then I think you have the inspector general. That's good. I get what she was trying to say, I think, which is like a new era of city government. Is that what the fact check says? No, she's saying Lord Vader.

She's saying pledge allegiance to Lord Vader. Open your eyes, Zogger. And 5G is mandatory. Everyone get your 5G. See, he's covering for them, Joe. I'm a member of, what's that club? Bill Gates is the devil. Get your microchips.

Fucking Bill Gates is the bad guy now. How did that happen? Did you see Trump standing in front of the church holding that Bible like it was a dirty diaper? He was like, look, I got the Bible in my hand. Take it. They thought that all went really well. They thought that was great. That is hilarious.

First of all, they tear gas all the fucking protesters to get them off the street. You clear the street out, and then Trump walks across the street like, there's never been a president so bold to walk. There it is. He's walking. So he walks across the street to this boarded-down church.

It's hilarious. I mean, they probably had snipers all over the roof. They did. Look, it's a dirty diaper. He's holding that thing like, look, I've got my Bible. Motherfucker, read me one passage. They asked if it was his Bible. He's like, it's a Bible.

He said, it's a Bible. It's a Bible. It's a Bible. Thank you, sir. I got it at a hotel I was staying. Yeah, I mean, what is that? Why is he holding a Bible. It's a Bible. It's a Bible. Thank you, sir. I got it at a hotel I was staying in. Yeah, I mean, what is that? Why is he holding a Bible? That is the most ill-conceived PR stunt that I've ever seen.

I mean, maybe. I actually thought about this, too, because, look, I mean, the main reason Trump has such a solid hold on the right, like on the Republican base, so to speak, is because actually of the judges thing, of the Supreme Court thing, which you were talking about, of selecting Mike Pence, who has a lot of credibility in the evangelical community. So I think that, I mean, a lot of people were outraged. I saw this, this was a very like right thing, when that, you know, the St. John's Church,

that church that you were seeing, that was set on fire. And so like it was set on fire and there was a lot of people, like, first of all, I think it was Brian Stelter over at CNN was like, actually, no, it's not on fire. And they a lot of people like first of all there i think it was brian stelter over at cnn was like actually no it's not on fire they deleted all his tweets saying it on twitter that guy's adorable he's adorable little shill he's he's something else but so like there was all that and there look there wasn't a lot of outrage around the fact that the church got set on fire so i get what he was signaling to do look i agree i told crystal this morning on the show, tear gassing the protesters

and then going out there for the Photoshop on like that. I don't think it was the best move. Can you imagine being so insecure that you're the president of the United States? Like you have nuclear arsenal and military at your disposal

and you're so insecure that you have to show your strength in that moment by walking across the park. And reportedly he was upset because it had come out that they had like had to go down into the bunker on Friday or Saturday night or whatever when there were protesters. And so this was his way to reassert his manhood. But I think that's why I say I don't think that he has like a real I think he has instincts.

I don't think he has a real ideology. I don't think he has like a goal or a mission or a project he's trying to accomplish. I think he's just all it. I think it's all just about like, how do I reclaim this news cycle? How do I win the day? I actually interviewed him back before he was an official candidate at the White House Correspondents Dinner. I was doing like I was like on the rope line doing like the celebrity interviews,

like sticking a mic in people's face or whatever. It was ridiculous. But so he comes in and this is at the time when everyone's like, oh, this is just a publicity stunt. He's not going to run. Right. And he comes in with Melania. It wasn't the one. It was maybe the one after when Barack Obama made fun of him like that. And so he comes up to me and this is when I was at MSNBC.

And, you know, I wasn't, like, particularly prominent there. I was one of four on a panel show. And he locks eyes with me, and he's like, Crystal, oh, my God, it is so great to meet you. Like, even then, he was like, Ari and Abby and Tori, you guys are so great together on the cycle. Like, he knew the show. Clearly he was already obsessed with cable news and all the ins and outs of cable news.

And he was genuinely like, oh, my God, I can't believe I get to meet Crystal. I'm like, how do you know who I am? It's just bizarre. But it was such a little insight into his whole wiring. bizarre. But it was such a little insight into his whole wiring. And so he knows more than anyone, like what is going to be provocative to these stupid talking heads on cable? What is going to capture their attention? What is going to be outrageous? What's going to win the day? And I don't think that there's much beyond that thinking of like, how do I win this news cycle? How do I change the topic on this news cycle? So there's certainly part of that. But the thing is, that wouldn't explain why Trump has been skeptical of the global financial system since

like 1978. Right? Like, there's that old clip of him on Oprah in like 1980s, talking about Japan and trade. I mean, he's, he's even I heard this from a friend, he was citing like, one of my friends, Michael Lind, who's like, very, you know, like a nationalist on trade policy in the mid 2000s was like, Michael Lind is right about trade. Like he was he's clearly been thinking about this for a long time. And on immigration in particular, I mean, I think that's another one where he's always kind of been there. He's always had the instinct. I mean, his real genius was looking at what did the base of the Republican Party actually want?

They want better trade deals and they want less immigration. And for decades now, all the professional right has been able to give them is, well, cut your taxes. That's a priority. It will never actually happen. And then that is – but you still have to vote for us because we're good on abortion and we're good on gun control. And that wasn't enough for a lot of people. on gun control. And that wasn't enough for a lot of people. And you can see too, and this is what I meant about making it the cynical choice, when you adjust your position on immigration and on trade, you win all of these Obama Trump voters all throughout the Midwest, and you become the

president. I mean, and even then, I'm not saying it was enough. There's still a lot more work to be done. I think it needs to realign more to the issues of what I'm talking about. But to say that it's all just it is just I mean, that's not his his driving force. Like if you see the way I interacted with him, and just like how he how he reacts to certain things, there isn't condensed ideology behind what he is. Otherwise, he wouldn't have run the way he was, he wouldn't have had those positions for such a long time on the core issues that actually matter to why he was elected. positions for such a long time on the core issues that actually matter to why he was elected. And so the real issue, and I think the criticism, a valid criticism, is he wasn't able to enact those political instincts into the actual staffing of the White House. Because in the White House,

personnel is policy. And there's a great book called The Years of Lyndon Johnson. It's about the history of LBJ. It's four volumes and all that. Robert A. Carroll, one of the best biographers of all time. And he quotes a guy named Tommy Corcoran, who was FDR's kind of right-hand man. He's like, what is a government? Government's not one man. Government is the first hundred men, first thousand. They all have to be united in a common purpose in order to actually get shit done in a bureaucracy. The truth is, and we have to acknowledge this, is that on the right, after Trump's election, the RNC and all these professional right-wingers, this conservative establishment, they were the thousand.

And so that's why you get something like the tax cuts bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It's because a guy like Paul Ryan has been fantasizing about pushing that for such a long time. He didn't agree with Trump on trade. He blatantly disagreed. He didn't agree with Trump on immigration completely. And these guys were masters. Oh, Mr. President, you're going to get that, but you've got to pass this tax cut first.

Oh, you'll get what you want in your spending, but you've just got to put this in the spending bill first. And they snookered. Basically, they snookered him because Trump is – I mean, look, he was a political novice. He didn't actually know about how policy was made in Washington, D.C. It's fucking complicated. It matters a lot who the deputy secretary of commerce is. Like you and I aren't going to know that person's name. That person certifies like steel tariffs.

Yeah, I still think that's letting him off the hook too much, though, because like, I mean, you see in this in this crisis, right? If he may he may have some instincts, he may have some ideological leanings. And you're right. He's been talking about this, some of this stuff, especially on trade, for a long time. But when it came down to it, you know, he was the first people he called in the coronavirus crisis for economic response were corporate CEOs, Wall Street executives. Like that's who he went to to get his advice. That's who he trusted. And that's how you end up, you know, floating ideas like we're going to have a capital gains tax cut as a response to crisis or we're going to have a payroll tax cut, which, OK, if you have a range of responses, maybe that's part of it.

But when you've got 40 million people aren't on a payroll anymore, that's not going to do a whole heck of a lot of good. So I just don't see that there's any maybe he has the ideology, but it doesn't really matter if you're not willing to push for it. And you see who's organized in the town because immediately, once this crisis hit, immediately the first multi-trillion dollar bill gets passed very, very quickly with all the goodies for big business, the stuff that was custom written, got their goodies. There was a massive tax break for real estate developers that they tried to get into the corporate bailout that they had all ready to go. Like those are the forces that are all completely organized, locked and loaded and ready to

go in a crisis. And so they basically won. I mean, they rolled everyone. They tied the little bit of paltry small business and worker stuff to the massive corporate piece and held the workers and the small businesses hostage and said, if you don't vote for it, then you're voting against workers. And it was all ready to go like that. And that is what you were overcoming in the town, that sort of bipartisan consensus. 98-0. 98-0. Not one person voted against it.

They all voted for it. All voted for it. I think when you're talking about Trump and his history of understanding trade and business decisions, I think it's all stuff that benefited him. That's why he was concentrating on them. And I think now you're dealing with him spread so thin because now he has to deal with the environment. He has to deal with international politics. And there's so much. And that's why you catch him. And I think what you said, too, that he lives off the id. I mean, I think that's very true.

And he's always in the moment, right? He famously said he just lives off of his instincts. He trusts his instincts. Yeah. Which is great. But he had preparation when he was dealing with those things before, when he was talking about those things before he was president. That's why he had a deeper understanding of them because they meant something to him.

But now you're dealing with the entire broad spectrum of duties of being the president. And he says shit like inject people with Lysol and sick dogs on protesters. He's saying nutty things, right? I agree with you, too. Because he's the strong man, right? He's always been the strong man. He's always been the you're fired guy. Right.

And he's still playing a type yes so he's that guy now but he's that guy with global thermonuclear consequences and so that even more to the point on that which is that when you don't have this is this is another kind of establishment always wins point is that when you don't have very firm beliefs because like trade and immigration are two things with like hundreds of billions of dollars behind the neoliberal trade and immigration policy that we have right now in this country. When you don't have that, a very well-formed ideology around how it should be like you were saying on the environment or anything else, that is how they win because status quo always continues in DC unless you make the very concerted effort of like, no, you are not doing this anymore.

And I'm appointing your boss and your boss's boss and your boss's boss's boss's boss in order to make sure that you don't actually do that. That's actually what the hardest way to fight back is you actually need a coherent ideology on every single one of these things. But more important, you got to understand how government works. And I think that so many people don't seem to grasp that it's not just like putting a guy in the Oval Office. Like, look, by the time it's reached the Oval Office, it's so fucked, right, that 10 levels down, they would have made the decision. So that's the power, right? Like, you got to make sure that what you want is being reflected 10 layers down in the bureaucracy. And you look

at the way, you know, like Russiagate and all this other stuff, and you can just see like how arrogant some of the people within the bureaucracy behave just blatantly, you know, disregarding the will of a president or blatantly just thinking he's illegitimate, trying to delegitimize him. And from that perspective, that's fucking scary because they're not even accountable to the person that we all voted for that is what what I like why you why conservatives have to care more about government that's something I like one of my pet causes is look like we are living in a society where the culture is against you like we are living in a society where you know the cultural elite the commanding heights of American culture and you're living in a society

where you don't have real power there. And you're also living in a society where you have corporate America. Look at these protests right now. Amazon supports the protests, right? Amazon supports the protests. Citibank's CEO. The people with the most accumulated capital in America are also on the side of this protest. Why? Because in my view, they use identity politics and racial politics. They want to split the country along those lines. Every single day that we're talking about identity politics and having debates about race, we're not talking about that.

Do you think they really want to split the country along the lines? I think they just want support for their company. And they think that it's a good PR move. It's a good brand. It's a brand new move. And here's the thing is, and this goes back to the coalitions of the parties, right? So the Democratic Party caters largely to these like white affluent women, basically, is like the base that they mostly.

Right. I know this base well. I'm closely affiliated with this base. I want to see Joe Biden be yoga. The yoga base. I'll pay for that. And so, you know, for those, for people who are more or less doing well, as things are, right? I'll pay for that. on identity issues. And if you only confine the conversation on policing to like, let's deal with this, let's have more body cameras, like if you keep it in that lane, that's very comfortable

for them, right? If you have a broader conversation about a society that, you know, has decimated unions, has decimated working class power, about who has power in the society and why. Like that's more of a threat to them. So yes, for corporate brands, it's very comfortable to have like, let's have a diversity initiative. It's less comfortable to say, no, no, let's actually value the worth of everyone. Let's actually have a different set of power. Let's actually not have corporations able to give unlimited money and buy off our politicians

and then be able to go work on your boards, et cetera, et cetera. Like that's a very non-threatening conversation. That's how you end up with, was it Bank of America who sponsored the movement continues? Yes. Like Black Lives Matter. The movement continues with DeRay McKesson, who's a prominent activist. To be cynical, is there another reason why Amazon would support this protest that this is kind of the death of retail? I mean, this is one of this is kind of the death of retail. I mean, this is one of the final nails in the coffin of retail. When you think about investing your money in a brick and mortar store with a glass window after all this horseshit.

Look, I won't cite who told me this was a very prominent person in the field of economics and was like, my conspiracy theory is that Jeff Bezos wants 10 to 15 percent unemployment because then what's the best job in the world, Joe, in a rural place? Amazon Warehouse. He's the guy dropping off those bricks. Who's better at delivering shit than Amazon? There you go. Amazon Prime delivering pallets of bricks. You should be more cynical because that – I mean, look. How else do we get to a point where like the Shell Gas Company sponsors a 1619 Project event with Nicole Hannah-Jones?

I don't know what that is. So the 1619 Project – oh, man. This is a real rabbit hole. So this is like – this is the New York Times put out this thing. The 1619 Project is the year that the first slaves were brought to America. And it was about reforming the way that we talk about race and slavery in America. And so the very first essay which she wrote, which is very controversial, is when she claimed that the reason for the American Revolution was because people wanted to keep their slaves, not because of control from England and all that. What happened is that a bunch of very prominent historians around the American Revolution,

the Civil War, and much more panned the essay. They said, this thing needs to be corrected. They corrected it. Even then, she still won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism or for commentary, I want to say, for that specific essay, which was there. And they partnered, I think it was with the Pulitzer Center, in order to create curriculum that schools are now using to teach. Now, this was attacked, the 1619 Project, not at first by conservatives. Of course, conservatives were pissed off. It was attacked by the world socialist website, by Trotskyites, by Marxists and socialists. And the reason why is because they saw it for what I see it, which is that it's a cynical attempt in order to say America is an irredeemably racist nation,

that that is the only single and most pressing problem that we have in our society. And if you hold that frame, then you don't ask questions about corporate power in America. You don't ask questions even of leaders. A friend of our show, Zed Jelani, had a fantastic appearance on our show. I really encourage everybody to go watch it, where he talks about, if you look at the black community in America, which is what had the most pressing impact on their life economically and destroyed so much of are where we are today, absolves current political leaders and recent political leaders like Barack Obama himself, or like leaders in the city of Atlanta, or leaders in the city of Baltimore, and that it absolves public policy, which is non-racial. And so when I say that, why does Shell Gas Company feel comfortable sponsoring an event

in which the main message is that is that america is an irredeemably racist nation because they that is one more event which is being talked about in the political zeitgeist by the cultural elite which is not talking about their own power in the marketplace and if you look at who what is the the predominant control in your life in America? It is about capital. It's not about race. It's about class. Class, but class disproportionately affects people of color in America.

And so the way I look at it is that identity politics is so cynically grafted on by the billionaire and the corporate class. There's a reason they're all super woke. It's because they want it to be this way so that we don't talk about their power in our society. And I think this was a very, like the way this all happened is kind of crazy because it started out in the sociology departments

in the 1970s of all of these crazy, from the post, in the 60s era, they were in these sociology departments and they started cranking out all these absolutely crazy papers around feminism and identity politics, racial politics, all of that. And then what happened is, is that corporate America and other cultural elites, first of all, were being indoctrinated in the university system. They were going to go work at places like McKinsey and others, and they brought their racial politics and their identity politics with them. But that there had to be a recognition from the top, from people like Goldman Sachs.

If Goldman Sachs, if the pressure on them is to stop the way that they trade derivatives or to put a black person on their board while they continue to do the derivatives trading, they're going to choose that every single time. So they want to direct the conversation in that direction. It absolves them for the sins, both towards the economically disenfranchised in America, but it's also a very cynical tool, which is that why is it that you see all these corporations tweeting out Black Lives Matter,

Instagram blackout, all that stuff? How is it that you see like, Nike, isn't this the great irony that Nike went and did the whole Colin Kaepernick thing, the ad campaign, and they still got all their shit looted in this most recent thing in Chicago, right? I mean I think that is – that's the perfect example of they try to cynically use identity politics in America, split people apart to protect their power. And if we start to understand that it's a lot more about class in America than it is about race, I'm not saying that there is not racial problems in America, racism, all of this, but that if you focus on these class issues, it's the best way to help

people who are disenfranchised, who are disproportionately people of color, but to help everybody. I just don't know how else we can live in a multifaceted nation like this, which is economically heterogeneous, ethnically. So many people of different ethnicities, so many people of different religions. I mean, I am the son of Indian immigrants. I feel fully and completely American. That's an amazing thing. That didn't just happen. It was the product of a result of very specific political choices that we made over time. And it's moving towards that that we need to go towards. But by doing so, what you've talked about many times about economic, not just distribution, but about who has power in society, working class or not, which is the corporate America can use the identity politics in order to make sure the working class doesn't continue to have power.

And so you can't separate class and race because it's not an accident, of course, that black and brown people are disproportionately the lower income and poor and working class in society. I mean, I see it much more simply sort of like what you were saying. It's it's it's like a branding exercise. Right. And there's this whole idea. branding exercise, right? And there's this whole idea, I always think it's hilarious on the right of like Facebook and Twitter are progressive or they're liberal companies or Amazon's a liberal company. I'm like, what are you talking about? Amazon treats their workers like shit.

They bust unions. Like this is not a left company, right? But because they use those sort of branding tools and tweet out Black Lives Matter, which is no threat to them. And in fact, as you're pointing out, may very much benefit their bottom line. Ultimately, they're sort of they get all the benefits of being for progress and being for this rising coalition in America without actually having to do anything that's going to benefit their bottom line.

Yeah. Listen, we just did three hours. Just flew by. What? Yes. Are you serious? Wow, dude. Yeah. It just flew by. What? Yes. Are you serious? Wow, dude. Yeah.

I really enjoyed it. I really appreciate you guys. I really appreciate your perspective. Thank you. I really appreciate the fact that you guys are putting out your honest, informed opinions. And it really helps people like me that are way too lazy to look the shit up on their own. I don't have the time. I'm not interested that much.

That's alright. That's our job. It is your job and you're great at it. You guys are awesome and I love the fact that you disagree but you do so intelligently and respectfully and you cut through all the nonsense that's on most of these political shows. There's just so much

nonsense and I think the world's sick of it and I think that's one of the reasons why you guys are gaining in popularity. Well, thank you, Joe. Thank you. It means a lot to us. Yeah, seriously. I mean, when we found out we were coming here, it was just so crazy. I've been listening to you for years. I started buying elk meat because of you. Give you some! Yeah, yeah, yeah. My girlfriend has a lot of problems. I bought some of that Four Sigmatic coffee and all this stuff.

Thank you for everything, Joe. You created the space for people like us and our politics and for us to thrive. And we can't ever underestimate that. I think that's why you are so popular and you've really invented the medium for a new discussion. It's a revolutionary age in media and there's never been more exciting times. It's a complete accident. I had no idea how I stumbled onto it. I just keep doing it. But you guys are very valuable. I appreciate you very much.

Thank you, Joe. So thank you. Tell people how to get a hold of you on social media. Yes. So subscribe at The Hill and our show is rising. And then I'm on Twitter at Crystal Ball, Instagram at Crystal M Ball. And that's Crystal with a K, by the way. I know it's just, it's so weird. The Hill, you can also, so at E Sager,

E S A A G A R on Twitter, same on Instagram. Also, you can go to rising.substack.com. We'll just have a list of all the links, everything you need in order to check out. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you, Joe. Thanks, Joe. Bye, everybody.