The Problem With Jon Stewart - Debating Reality with Mehdi Hasan

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

As mainstream media finds itself outplayed by Trump, Jon is joined by Mehdi Hasan, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Zeteo. Together, they discuss his experience debating far-right conservatives, explore how Democrats could match Republican ruthlessness and tactics, and examine how America’s failure to stop the crisis in Gaza has undermined both U.S. credibility and Democratic moral authority. Plus, Jon talks Jay Leno and vindictive pricks. Unrelated. This podcast episode is brought to you by: SAILY - Get an exclusive 15% discount on Saily data plans when you use code STEWART at checkout. Download the Saily app or go to Saily.com/stewart. Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more:  > YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast> TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast  > X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod   > BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/theweeklyshowpodcast.com Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Lead Producer – Lauren Walker Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic  Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Researcher & Associate Producer – Gillian Spear Music by Hansdle Hsu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the weekly show podcast. My name is John Stewart. We're taping this. It's July 30th, which is a, what is that? Like a Wednesday? It's got to be a Wednesday. There's so much going on. I don't want to talk. For those you who are probably listening to this and not viewing it, you might not realize, I have a giant like divot in my forehead, red and all that. And if you're watching it on YouTube, you probably do see it. I just want to let people know nothing to worry about. As you get older, You find that you have to go into the dermatologist on a regular basis, and he takes out like a freezy ray, and he just points it at your face, a variety of different ways, to try and keep your face from being consumed by metastasizing skin condition. So for those who might be watching this and think of herself, hey, does he know his face appears to be imploding? on his forehead. I do know because this morning somebody shot liquid nitrogen at a wide variety of scaly things that are growing on an old man's head. But we're not going to talk about that today. Today is going to be a really a pot-perie with just, I think, one of the best communicators that I see in the was in the cable world now in the independent media world. And I'm just going to get to him because we've got so much to get to within the world from him.

So I'm just going to jump in on that. So we'll get right into it. Very excited to have our guest today. You've seen him from his work on MSNBC, but also now the founder and editor-in-chief of Ziteo. Medi Hassan is here. Medi. John, thanks for having me.

Oh, my goodness. It's so nice to see you. How are things at Zateo? Things in Zateo very well. well, in this horrific media climate that we're in, where the media is falling apart, those of us who are taking a stab at independent journalism, I'm glad to report, are thriving. We just crossed a million subscribers on YouTube, which was a big amount for us a year in. Yeah.

No, I think this might officially make you an influencer, if that's possible. I have to tell you, I was so like everyone else in the universe, was incredibly struck by your Jubilee episode. Now, I'm not so familiar with Jubilee, but I am familiar with Medi, so I tuned in, obviously, because I always love a good Medi debate.

Medi goes hard and he goes fast. It was you in the center of what appeared to be a circular firing squad of the cast of footloose. Like, they all appeared to be these lovely, you know, Midwestern. And when they began to open their mouths, you know, I understood, you know, it's going to be Medi Hassan and it's going to be against conservatives.

I did not in any way expect what I saw and heard, which was seemed to be very focused on the fact that you don't belong in this country and are not a citizen. And it was, was there a moment when you were in that environment where you thought, oh, this is not what I. had expected. Yeah, I think that moment was minute one. I think it was all the way through. I mean, I went thinking as well, it would be some bag of folks, some Trump cheerleaders, some people are like tariffs are great and Donald Trump's a wonderful leader and we hate Joe Biden. I didn't expect, you know, the second or third guy saying, well, where were you born in a discussion about crime? And I'm like, what does I got to do with the crime rate? I didn't expect the guy just saying, I'm a fascist and I love General Francon, I don't believe in democracy. I didn't expect the woman

who said, well, immigrants can't be Americans, except my parents who are immigrants, they are Americans, just you're not. I didn't expect the guy saying, get the hell out of my country, you'll be the first to go. No, I didn't expect any of that. And maybe I should have done. Maybe when they pitched it as 20 far right conservatives, that should have been a giveaway. Who self describes as far right, John, and this same? And it was, you know, and there couldn't have been more pleasant-looking, sounding folks. but when they started to get into that sort of, I'm not so worried about fascism

because I don't think they're going to kill me. Yeah. I thought, I'm a good Catholic boy. I'm a good Catholic boy. I don't like the Nazis because they were mean to Catholics. I was like, what about the Jews? Listen, that, of course, you could find some justifications in there for those types of actions.

But I thought in the middle of it, there was a switch flipped in your mind which says, oh, this is not a debate. This is a gang beat in. And I'm just going to have to survive the bananas nature of, like, how do you debate somebody who just says, oh, no, I think fascism, I think that might be the way to go because you'll, you know, the people will vote it in. And then from then on, we'll be fine.

Yeah, it very much was they were trying to do a beat down. As someone who loves action movies and comedy action movies, it did feel a little Jackie Chan-esque, where he's kind of running up an alleyway, running up the wall, and they're all coming at you at the same time. Although they did come one by one. So it was one of those classic fight scenes where you wonder, why do they go one by one? But in this, the rules meant that they had to come one by one. You were Van Dam. You were Van Dam. You got in position. I'll take Vadam. I'll take Vadam. I can't do the splits like Vandam. Rhetorical splits. But 20 to one was the, you know, look, John, I like a good argument. I literally wrote a book about arguing.

So when Judy said, hey, do you want to come and take on 20 people? I'm like, I like those odds, 20 to 1, bring it. What I didn't expect was that they weren't interested in debating at all. I'd watch some of the other jubilees with Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk and my friend Sam Cedar on the left. And in those debates, some of the folks did want to debate and a few of them were crazy. In mine, it was the other way around, like two of them wanted to debate and 18 were crazy. And that's what I didn't see coming to ratcheting up. I went with like, one of my claims, John, was Donald Trump is defying the Constitution. That was one of my four claims. And I went prepped with the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment,

the Fifth Amendment, I had it all, 22nd Amendment, I'm good to go, I've got every amendment. Right. At first guy's like, I don't care about the Constitution. Who can't? Where do you go with that? What do you do next? I'm like, I don't have a chapter in my book for that. How wonderful, though, Mattie, that is what this has become.

It's such an interesting metastasizing of the movement on the right, which is, as you know, it's always steeped in kind of the fetishizing of the constitution we the people they've got you know the all the buses are wrapped with that constitution picture and it's the flags and it's steeped in uh kind of the rhetoric of we are the minute men and the revolutionaries and it's morphed into actually now that i think about it now that we are in charge uh fuck the constitution and we don't Not need like watching them. Fuck the Constitution with a little asterisk, John, that says, but we love the Second Amendment. But we've, the Second Amendment to the second amendment.

As a matter of fact, that might be the only amendment that was even put in there. If you really look at it. But it's such a shocking change. Have you seen in your experience in debating the right that this has shifted? What was any of that constitutional fetishization good faith? Is this just a subtle shift now that Donald Trump has exposed how much authoritarianism appeals to them? Look, I think it was good faith amongst a minority of them, but that's the minority that has since become never Trumpers or mild Trump critics. So you've got a kind of a Rand Paul in the Senate who will make some noises about, oh, you can't bomb countries without congressional authorization.

But he really got offended recently when Trump didn't invite him to a party at the White House. So even for him, Rand Paul, it was like, the Constitution. Step too far. Yeah, the party invite and then the Constitution. But you know, you're Justin Amashas, who was a congressman from Michigan libertarian. He's been very outspoken, but he's no longer in the party or in Congress. The people who were in Congress and talked endlessly about the Constitution, they were clearly in bad faith. Mike Lee from Utah, the senator from Utah.

This guy was the constitutional. He never stopped talking about the Constitution and Liberty. And then it turns out he was involved allegedly in the attempt to, you know, overturned the 2020 election with the fake electors. We know now that he defends anything Trump says online. These people clearly were in bad faith. They just confirmed this week, John, a manifestly unqualified, unfit judge to the federal judiciary. Emil Boeveh, who was the president's personal lawyer. President and allegedly told staff, according to whistleblowers, to fuck the judges,

tell the judges to fuck off when they get rulings they don't like. He's now being confirmed to the bench. And there are some, like, I think there's a guy called Greg Nunziata, I think his name is, former Marco Rubio staffer, who has been very powerful. principled on this and spoken out. And he said on Twitter this week, if you're a conservative who claims to care about the Constitution, this is it. It's over by confirming this guy never pretend again that you care about the Constitution or about due process. So I don't think it was in good faith. And even this stick about we don't care about the Constitution, the guy who said

I'm a fascist to me on Jubilee, he was very explicit that he loves the Second Amendment. It's just the other amendments he doesn't love. And then he goes on a little sympathy tour last week apparently on far right TV saying he lost his job apparently he didn't lose his job he lost his job earlier but he tried to say he lost it because of this to get a fundraiser don't forget the key part of the modern conservative movement is go fund me and he interestingly he says well you know my free speech was violated by being fired as I thought you don't believe in the first amendment I thought it was only the second amendment like that's right it's so cynical and self-serving and convenient the victimization you know I almost think that the right for all their

It's, did you ever meet Roger Ailes? Had you ever had any? Thankfully, I did not. Oh, Medi, you missed out on one of the lovelier. I had one of those bananas-type meetings at Fox News in the bowels of Fox News behind. When you were trying to get your prime time show? I, exactly. I wanted to work there so bad if he would only let me.

I used to go on Bill O'Reilly's show. Every now and again, they would bring in the clownish liberal myself. And I would go on there and one day, one of the people came down and said, Mr. Ayles would like to see you. And I thought, well, geez, I don't even know he lived in the building. So we had to walk through the kinds of like get smart, like doors would open and you didn't really know where you were until you got into this one part of the building that was colder than the other parts of the building. You almost felt the hair on the back of your neck and the chill. and you could see everybody's breath in this one part.

And he and I yelled at each other in the office for about an hour. He wanted me to show appreciation to him because without him, I have no career. And I wanted him to stop poisoning the atmosphere around the country that was killing. But what struck me about Ailes was, he meant all of it he meant every word of it yes but the strategy was cynical so the good faith wasn't what he believed it was the methodology that he would employ and his methodology was i am going to discredit all of the institutions or any of the voices that may in any way harm my movement, I'm going to make sure that editorial authority is seen as elitism.

Yes. I'm going to make, and yet I am going to exercise authoritarian control over my message machine. And that's, I think, the genius of that movement. Yes. They don't play by the rules that they ask you to play by. No, not at all. And this is why, and, you know, I can go on a long rant here about why liberals and Democrats and leftists have done.

got to understand that you are not on some ridiculous even playing field where everyone, you know, I've been hearing this since Donald Trump came down the escalator in 2015. I've been hearing this since he won in 2016. I've been hearing this since last year. You know, just because they don't play by the rules doesn't mean we shouldn't. And it's like, no, that's exactly what it means, right? If you are playing a football match or a soccer game, as we say here, if you're playing on the pitch and the other team picks up the ball and just runs with it in the middle of a soccer game,

and you carry on just playing with the ball on the ground, you will lose. I mean, there's no debate about that. At some point, you either have to accept that you're going to lose, honorably, or you're going to say, I'm going to pick up the ball as well and run with it. Now, for those of listening at home, when you said pitch, he means the field. For those, I'm going to translate this into suburban American. The pitch was. I've already confused everyone by saying football at soccer.

Of course you can carry the ball in football. People have no idea what's happening now. I've never understood why you call it football if you carry it. I just don't understand. Well, we don't. There's so many more things we have to get to. the States that don't make that much sense before we get to the names of our games. But now I'll be told I don't belong here again by surrounding people.

That was when you were saying, I'm a citizen. They're like, no, that's not. My favorite was when he said, white people are Native Americans. And everybody starts applauding. And he's like, I got applause. And you just go to say to the guy like, well, they're all so fascists. Like, that's, yes. And then they voted them out.

And I couldn't help but dig it out. I think the people who clapped for you have just voted you out. They just voted. But that was the guy who was like in a green t-shirt and going, his opening room up was, I've got this thing where I have to stay calm. I'm like, where the fuck am I? Like, how much security did I need to bring with me?

And then it turns out, according to the Guardian, this guy allegedly was involved in all sorts of violent protests a few years back in California. So I'm like, okay, makes more sense now. Makes more sense. I like that he said, you know, my family's native here in the 1500s. And I was like, I think wasn't Jamestown,

16th, like the first settlement. I was like, did you come with the Vikings? I was going to say, how could you have been here for the 1500s? Unless maybe it was the Spanish, he came up from the West Indies. Maybe he was, his people were with Cortez, which doesn't make him. I think you're putting far too much effort into fact-checking

the white supremacist. You're probably wondering there, what's today's episode sponsored by? What is it? Clouds, sandwiches, gelatin? No. Saly. You ever had to deal with Simcard hassles? outrageous roaming fees waiting in airport lines for a Wi-Fi box. You got to love this.

Saly, it's a new SIM app. Let's you stay connected wherever you go. You don't have a physical SIM card required. Have you ever tried to get a SIM card out of you? Phone. I'm still using a hammer and a chisel to do that. It's not the proper way. But if you've ever been abroad or badly needed an internet connection,

no Wi-Fi spot in sight, you really understand a difference. A local SIM card can make. there is one download. ESIM provides an internet connection wherever you travel and saves you money on roaming fees with SAILI, an ESIM can be installed just once and it eliminates the need for users to install

a new ESIM for each country. Once connected, you'll have internet access immediately, making it easy to book Uber, search for maps or message your loved ones or message people you don't care for at all.

You'll have that kind of opportunity as well because it'll be that easy. Get an exclusive 50% discount on Saley data plans. When you use code Stewart at checkout, download the Saley app or go to sally.com slash steward. It brings up, though, kind of that interesting point of how does the media handle this moment? You've been a part of those institutes.

You know, MSNBC was going, to be the liberal answer to Fox. But I don't think they had any idea what they were up against. Yeah. You know, Fox News was absolutely strategically managed and controlled. Top down, they understood the assignment, every day part working with every other day part to create a messaging machine that would make sure that if any Republican fucked up the way Nixon had, nothing bad would happen to them again. Yeah. What was your sense of what MSNBC was, or what those are?

When I worked there, look, my thing is, wherever I've worked in my career, I've probably been the most lefty person at that institution. And there was no different when I joined, maybe with the exception of the intercept. But when I joined MSNBC, that was the case. I think Chris Hayes was probably the most progressive host there until I joined, and I was probably to the left of Chris. And, you know, I had a great time at MSNBC and I did some great shows. But what's interesting is I always found that critique both from the left and the right.

By the way, it's on the left and the right, you know, oh, this idea that MSNBC is the liberal version of Fox. It's an insane because to say that you have to not understand what Fox is, which you understand, which is a organized propaganda arm of the Republican Party, always has been, and certainly in the Trump era of the Mago Wing of the Republican Party. And when people say, oh, well, you've got Fox on the right and MSNBC on the left and CNN in the center. It's a complete misreading of our landscape. First of all, they're all corporate-owned entities which have corporate agendas. Let's just be very clear about that. So this idea that you're left when you're owned by Comcast is insane, right? That's just ridiculous. When CNN now has its major shareholder, John Malone, a big Trump donor. Right. And then there's the issue of like,

well, hold on, Fox is not just the right. Fox is a propaganda arm. Sean Hannity used to call Donald Trump up after his show every night and chew the fat. Rachel Maddow, whatever you think of Richard Bale did not call up Joe Biden to chat with him after her show. MSNBC anchors, some of them are ex-Biden officials, but MSNBC serving anchors did not turn up at Biden rallies and introduce Biden in the same way that Fox anchors have done. We've seen 20-odd Fox hosts reporters become members of this administration. Like there is a merger between Fox and the Republican Party and especially the Trump administration, which doesn't exist in any other part of our media.

And as for MSNBC, look, it obviously has liberal bent. It had liberal hosts. It was good on liberal issues like abortion. But there was no organized agenda. Nobody sat around going, today, how do all the shows make the case for universal health care? Just never happened. I wish. I wish that happened.

It never happened. We did our own thing, the host. I pushed my thing. Chris pushed his thing. Joe Scarborough pushes his thing, et cetera, et cetera. Sure. The liberal host of five hours of MSNBC program. Some of the most prominent hosts on MSNBC are ex-Republicans like Nicole Wallace and Joe Scarborough.

That doesn't exist on Fox. Prominent hosts on Fox are not ex-democratic members of Congress or administration members. So I just found this equalizing so ridiculous because it, A, doesn't understand what Fox is doing, which is pure propaganda. B, it doesn't understand how corporate media works, which is in the interests of corporations. And C, it just, it also kind of, it's the banality of evil. It makes what Fox does seem normal, and what Fox does is sui generous. I've worked in the UK. I've worked around the world.

There is no media outlet I know of anywhere on the planet, with the exception of maybe India, where cable news is insane. Really? Yeah, cable news there is like pure Modi propaganda, and they incite violence openly against Muslims, Pakistan, etc. And it's really jingoistic. Arundati Roy, the award-winning novel, she said to me once, you know, our media makes, is Fox on steroids, is Fox, you know.

times 100. But Fox, in the Western world that I know of, I know of nothing else like Fox, that pushes the kind of conspiracy theories hate and government propaganda in a way that I just never seen it anywhere else. And is able to pivot so agilely whenever there is, you know, so just as you said, imagine this organization that makes its bones morning to night, every single day part with a real directionality about Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, I'm sorry, I didn't pronounce his full name. You got to have all three names. Is born in Kenya, you know, they make their bones on the conspiratorial nature and sort of very cynically infused Q&on into their programming and get it all. The Fox Cinematic Universe. The Fox Cinematic Universe and all of its tentacles.

And then the minute that the bomb that they planted needs to be diffused to watch them pivot so quickly on especially something like this Epstein case is they are really good at what they do. Yes. In a way that I think is shocking. Is the idea, so here's here's the question. It's quite, we know it's going to be corporate media. there is nothing right now that has the power of those cable channels to amplify and continue to spin sort of the circadian rhythms of social media so social media is the thing that first you know it's incentivized for these really hateful really difficult conspiracy theories right

that's how those things the algorithm is to that but cable The cable news is the thing that infuses it into the mainstream of American society. Yes. And the clips. How do you battle that? And maybe it's not a right-left issue. Maybe it's the thing you talked about earlier. Good faith, bad faith.

Oh, 100%. And I think, well, not just good-faced, bad faith, but, you know, reality versus non-reality, decency versus indecency. This is not about kind of left versus right. there is a sense of my critique of Trump, Maga Fox, is not about conservatism. I mean, I have my issues with conservatism, but like when I object to what Trump and Fox are doing, it's not because I'm arguing about what is the best marginal rate of taxation. It's not about what is the best crime reduction policy in major cities.

Like, those are old debates. Conservatives abandoned that a few years ago. Yeah, like this is, like when I turned up at Jubilee, I didn't think I was going to be having like a debate about the Laffer curve. Like, I'm not that naive. you, but it is now fundamentally about do you want a strong man or not? Do you believe in equality or not? Do you think the media should be free or not? Like that is the essential questions which you're tackling. And that's why it's not just about right-wing propaganda. It's about who here actually believes in the same stuff that we all used to believe in or tried to believe in. And I think

that's what's so dangerous in this moment. I'm not expecting a left-wing fox. For many reasons, I don't think such a thing could exist or should exist. What I do hope for is a media that still has some kind of independence, some kind of diversity of thought, some kind of adherence to basic journalistic principles of independence, of holding power to account. That's what we're losing right now. I'm not some huge defender of CBS News, right? I have my criticisms of CBS like I do of all corporate media, but do I want to see CBS News become another Fox? No, I don't. And that's where it's heading to right now with the recent FCC deal, with the merger deal, with the Trump settlement. Like when I see what's happening to ABC and CBS and maybe soon NBC, CNN, that is worrying because, as I say, India, we've seen this show before, John.

This is a global playbook that Trump is borrowing from. India, Turkey, Hungary. What have all these countries done? Orban, Erdogan, Modi. They've all taken over the media in their respective countries. And they didn't take over the media by sending tanks and armed men into newsrooms. They took over the media the exact same way that Trump is doing right now. through lawsuits, through economic harassment, through defaming and smearing journalists,

through violently attacking journalists who are covering protests, through all of these methods, through hollowing out public media, NPR, PBS, defunding. This is the playbook in India, in Hungary, in Turkey, in Russia, in Israel, and here in the United States now. This is a very, very clear global playbook, and I think we need to wake up to that fast. I think you're absolutely right, Maddie. And I think part of it is what Trump understands. And you have to give, and I have to give credit to him, and I don't know if you've ever interviewed him or anything. Steve Bannon, who I think is, in many ways, you know, they always just call Carl Rove, the architect.

I think he's the arch. He understood this melding of populist rhetoric with kind of the more authoritarian, anti-woke Christian nationalist, melding those movements together strategically to gain the political advantage there was the way that they went. People always thought, oh, Russia must have something on Trump. He doesn't have anything on Trump because they agree with each other on how to govern and what you would want to do. You want less gay. You want more Jesus, even if you don't believe in Jesus at all, which I don't think Trump is a religious person, but he understands it as a really wonderful force amplifier of power. And it's almost as though those discussions,

You know, you were just saying the laffer curve and all that. All those discussions, I think, are out the window. It's no longer capitalism versus socialism or communism or any of this. No, it's, do you agree with daddy or not? That's right. And the framework of it is woke versus unwoke. That's how they framed it, yes. And more than Steve Bannon, of course, who's now kind of on the outside is the guy on

the inside is our de facto vice president, Stephen Miller. Boy, that dude, he's dark. He's the guy who's pushing this. He's got his hand in every person. pot. I think he wants to be national security advisor now, too, once Rubio stops acting as national security advisor. He's obviously the guy pushing the deportation agenda. He's pushing the attacks on the media. The irony of being Jewish and being part of a Christian nationalist white supremacist administration, Stephen Miller has been kind of cozing up to white supremacists for years. That is

very much the agenda. And again, they didn't hide this stuff. They said it very plainly. Donald Trump said, I want to be a dictator for day one because of dictators are only ever for 24 hours. Do you remember in his first time he did an interview with Steve Ducey on the White House Law and he said, I just came back from North Korea. And the way they stand up straight for Kim, why can't my people do that? He loves it. He loves it. Donald Trump, you know, he's a liar, but occasionally he tells the truth. And that was a very truthful statement. He does wish for his people to stand up straight and salute him. He got his crappy military parade this summer. It was deeply disappointing that he got that he was desperate for. He was angry about his military parade in that

He didn't realize that the tanks were all going to be lined up with like safe stopping distance in case it was rainy. Like he wanted the, I want all my weapons within two feet of each other. I was like, I want bumper to bumper. Yeah. And he wanted the goose stepping, you know, military authoritarian displays and all that. And it turned out to be kind of a nice maybe grade eight to grade 10 little military history parade. And you had soldiers dragging their feet and not goostepping. Thankfully, some of them showing their own acts of resistance.

They were waving. When was the last time you saw North Korea parade where the guys would pop out of the tanks and be like, hey, everybody. I mean, it looked like Disney. So the good news is we're not there yet. The bad news is, as the Jubilee debate showed, there's an aspiration to be there very soon. And the authoritarianism on the right is off the charts. This desperation for a strong leader, for canceling the Constitution, for getting rid of judges. You look at the polling now amongst Republicans. Republicans who say there should be no checks on the president. Congress should not be able to

block the president. The judiciary should not be able to block the president. That is a very worrying sign. And again, there was this complacency in the United States of America. I came here 10 years ago. I became a citizen five years ago. I have a little bit of an outsider perspective and I have to remind my fellow Americans, it can happen here. This idea that the United States of America is immune to authoritarian global authoritarian trends, especially when you have a tribune like Trump, who with Teflon when it comes to scandal and controversy, that makes it doubly worse for the U.S. He has understood that some of the guardrails that were, you know, people always think like,

oh, well, the businesses will save us because they don't want the trouble. They don't want the volatility. What Trump understands is people don't want friction. And if I can create enough friction in their world, it's the same way you ran as businesses, by the way. Like what he would do to contractors, he would pay them about 80. percent, 75 percent to 80 percent of what he owed them, knowing that the hassle and the friction that they would need to go through to get that last bit. So he got himself a savings. And that's

the way he's approaching this entire country. The thing I still can't. And he's settling. Look, he's calling for a settlement with Fox. You've seen that this week, right? He said, he said this week, oh, I hope they settle. No, he said Fox wants to settle with him. Yes, which is planting the idea that that is out there. He's very good at kind of testing the water. Rupert Murdoch is an old pal of his, so he's obviously put him on the spot. We saw what happened in the Dominion case where they settled immediately when they realized Tucker Carlson's texts were going to come out in droves. And look, this is what he's, corporate America, this idea that corporate America is going to save us is the most insane one of all.

Fascism is indeed an alliance between the strong man and big business. Always has been, going back to Italy, Germany, etc. And that's what's so depressing about some of these corporations bending the knee. This idea that they're all being bullied into it isn't actually true. A lot of them are happy to go along with the anti-executive. diversity stuff. They're happy to go along with the crackdowns on campuses if you're a university leader. They're happy to go along with kind of ending any kind of initiatives to fight racism. And of course, he rewards them with massive tax cuts, right? We just passed this big, beautiful

or ugly bill. And who's going to benefit from that? The owners of the big tech companies and the social media giants, the owners of the corporate media outlets and the boards of those major networks. So he knows how to reward them and also how to bully them. It's a mixture of fear and greed on that part. That's right. Look, you know, the holidays are over. Let's face facts. Christmas gifts, you got crushed. Why? Why do you have to buy a favorite? You just bought them last year. And it all adds up. Luckily, MidMobil is here to help you cut back on overspending on wireless this January. I didn't even want to say it. I don't even want to tell you. It's too good. 50% off unlimited premium wireless. Midmobile's end of the year sale still going on, but only until the end of the month.

which is January. So get on it. Cut out big wireless, exploded plans and unnecessary monthly charges with 50% off. Three, six, 12 months of unlimited.

Nation's largest 5G network, high speed data, unlimited talk and text. You could use your own phone. God, how much more do you people want? How demanding. What is wrong with you?

In mobile plan, bring your phone number. This January, quit over spending on wireless with 50% off unlimited premium wireless. Plan start at $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash TWS. That's mintmobile.com slash TWS.

Limited time offer. Upfront payments of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months, plan required, $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra, initial plan term only. Over 35 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com.

You know, as we look at this and we think like, okay, this is a function of Donald Trump, but it's not. There's this ethno-nationalism that is arising. You know, you mention Modi and you mention Orban and Putin. It really feels like we move from, and it was never particularly stable. There was always conflagration wherever you went. But it's a new world order that goes back to the idea of and to quote Thomas. Shelby from the Piki Blinders, big fuck small,

that this is about what you can get away with through your coercion and power and what limits. And now you're seeing him apply it mostly to former allies. The EU, you know, he is much more willing to, as you said,

lionized North Korea and Russia and these other authoritarian governments and much less, To him, the EU is just too gay. It's too gay for Trump. He likes those heterosexual countries like North Korea. The classic example of that was, of course, Ukraine and Zelensky in the Oval Office, where he and Vance ganged up to berate Zelenskyy. But they would never dare to behave in that way in Putin's presence or speak about Putin when he's not in the room. Like Trump has said more vicious things about Justin Trudeau than he's ever said about Xi Jinping. That's just a fact,

right? It's a demonstrable fact. And you have to ask the question, why? Why? Why? is this US president? I'm not saying previous US presidents were great defenders of liberal democracy. All US presidents have cozyed up to authoritarian and tyrants. But I don't remember one that's done so as enthusiastically, as gleefully as Donald Trump, in the belief that he too should have those authoritarian powers at home. Why can't I have what they have? And I think Netanyahu's cut from the same cloth, I think Orban is cut from all of these in illiberal democracies, people who are notionally elected, but would love to be dictators like your Xi Jinping's. Well, sure. And you see in different ways that they go about. I mean, Netanyahu, they try and get it so that there's no

Supreme Court now. And, you know, they try and maneuver any of those. It reminds me of the real triumph of this is Trump has shown us where the cracks are in our democratic system. And I think that one of the things that's difficult, and I wonder your opinion about this, for us constitutionally, is to realize a lot of these excesses and abuses are built into the system. Yes, 100%. He's going out and he basically, he's got a couple of historians that sit in the back and go, hey, man, I just wanted to let you know, like, in 1803, there was an emergency power we used on immigration. You might as well just declare that because you get to do whatever you want. I mean, look, the most progressive president supposedly we'd ever had in this country's FDR. And he basically

suspended habeas corpus on, you know, anybody of Asian descent and interned them in camps. Like this, this darkness has always been in the system. Yes. And the second most progressive president, LBJ, just did a mass genocide in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Right. So there's precedent for all this shit at home and abroad.

Look, I 100% agree with you, John. I've been ranting and raving about constitutional reform, political reform in this country for a long time. Again, as an outsider, you come in and you think, this shit doesn't work and no one else does it like this. Electoral College, what the fuck is that? Like no one else uses this stuff. You know, the whole gerrymandering, which right now that Texas is doing and now Gavin Newsom says he'll do for the Democrats, no other Western democracy allows politicians to draw their own boundaries.

None. Only the U.S. allows politicians to pick their voters rather than voters picking their politicians. That's a problem. There are so many issues. And the problem is the Democrats left this space open, right? And I say this about both wings of the Democratic Party are guilty of this. The liberal, centrist wing, the what if you want to call it, the Biden wing, and the, the Bernie wing, right? So Bernie Sanders, bless him. I agree with him on universal health care.

I agree with them on taxing the rich and minimum wage. But I've never heard from that wing of the party about constitutional reform, political reform, because they're also institutionalists. Bernie loves the Senate. The Senate's got to go. The Senate is a huge problem. We've got to reform. We've got to reform the Senate. You cannot have a state situation going forward where Wyoming has two senators. Well, if you want to get rid of DEI, the Senate is affirmative action. Affirmative action for Wyoming. Old white rural. dudes. Like, there's no question. Two senators and like 50 million people in California get two senators.

Like the whole thing is insane. And I think there's so many things at the Supreme Court. What we've seen this week is another reminder that the Republicans game the system, rigged the judiciary, packed the courts after accusing the Democrats of wanting to pack the courts. Every accusation is a confession. And meanwhile, Joe Biden, he did a report in his first year. He commissioned an independent report from the great and the good on what to do about the Supreme Court. They came up with a bunch of milk toast recommendations. He ignored them all and kicked it into the long grass. And here we are with a 6-3 Supreme Court, maybe 7-2, God forbid, if Trump gets another one, is lucky enough to get four, which would be insane. So that complete vacating of the field,

the pitch on constitutional and political reform is a huge problem. Don't go back. Don't go back to Europe. I'm going to go to the pitch, the pitch, the pitch. My pitch is that on the pitch of reform, we need to fix that. And the next Democratic president cannot simply say, oh, I don't know. I will be, you know, remember Harris, we're not going back was her thing, right? You cannot just be we're going to move beyond Trump and go back to business as usual. It has to be, we're going to prevent future authoritarian's from trying to destroy the system from within. Like the idea that, for example, you know, basic conflict of interest laws don't apply to the president when you have a president like Trump. Like the founding fathers did not anticipate the guy from home alone to becoming president in the United States.

They just didn't. It's a fact. You want to my intent. Their intent was not to build a system for Donald Trump. I have to take it. If you look at Federalist Paper 37, Hamilton said there will be a sequel of a very famous. It really speaks to, I mean, think about when we talk about sort of representative democracy, and again, this gets us back to the spirit of the revolution, the people, taxation without representation.

So we live in a country that is, by all measures, very closely divided politically. but there is one side that has 78 million voters, a lot of people that do it, and zero power. And I'm talking about, like, can't call a witness, can't hold a committee meeting, can't do, there is zero power invested right now in the 70 some million people that vote for Democrats. They have, and I'm talking on the federal level, obviously within state systems, it it's slightly different. I don't recall that power sharing agreement. We really are in a joint custody agreement right now.

And right now, the country is living with dad. And it really does. But the problem is the country is living with dad, John. Yeah. But dad is offering the kids all sorts of fake gifts. Maybe he'll never give them those gifts, but he's offering them. Oh, sure. He's pretending to be the greatest dad of all.

They like living with dad. They like living. He may beat them a little, but they like being beaten by dad. And I think the problem is, is mum, to use a British phrase or mom, going to offer, what is she going to offer to get the kids back? And I think the problem is the Democrats have had power, John. They may not have power right now, but they had power. They controlled all three branches of government, right? They controlled, well, the three branches.

They had it during the Obama administration. They had the House to Senate, not the Supreme Court, but the House of the Senate and the White House. And they had it during Obama. They had it to an extent under Biden. And they just didn't use it in the way they should have used it. And the question is, can they promise the American people that next time we get those gavels, next time we're in the Oval Office, we are going to fight A, on your behalf, but also B, against those corrupt fools. And I think that is a fundamental problem.

You know, the person I blame most for Donald Trump's existence in the White House right now is not Stephen Miller. It's not Steve Bannon. He's not the fascist on Jubilee. It is a man named Merrick Garland, who sat on his ass for three years. Oh, thank God. I thought you were going to say me. No, I don't believe. Betty, I'm so pleased that you do.

So really, Merrick Gar, by his timidity. Yes. But it's, don't you think it's deeper than, doesn't that let too many Democrats off the hook? Of course it's deeper than that. It was a rhetorical flourish. But my point is, if I'm going to identify a symbol of a symbol, a symbol, a human symbol of the wider fecklessness of the Democratic Party, then it is Merrick Garland. Yes, Merrick Garland is just.

tribune and symbol of that. He's the guy who don't forget, they didn't just make him attorney general when he was manifestly not the right person in that moment, but they cheered him. They were like, wow, this is a, this is a FU to Maga. They wouldn't put him on the Supreme Court. We put him in the DOJ. Maybe he wasn't appropriate for the DOJ, right? They should have put in someone, an Elizabeth Warren figure, someone who would go into the DOJ and prosecute all these authoritarian. January 6th happened and he dragged his feet. Donald Trump never saw the inside of a courtroom for January the 6th. That is, I will never get over that. I will never, to my dying days, I'll be on the death, but I'll say, damn you, Merrick Garland.

Donald Trump never saw the inside of a courtroom. That is a scandal. For that, they tried to capone him. We can't get you on sedition and overthrowing the government, but. By the way, that wasn't Merrick Garland, right? Even New York wasn't Merrick Garland. It was local. Exactly. No, that's Letitia James and it's, you know, everybody else. It wasn't the federal government. Federal government had to be dragged kicking and screaming. The funny thing is I heard Republicans before you say, they're weaponizing the government against us. I wish they'd weaponized the government against you. They did the exact opposite.

Joe Biden said, I've got to stay above the fray and not say anything about these cases. Merrick Garland wouldn't say anything. His deputy wouldn't say anything. And the federal cases came from Jack Smith. He outsourced that to a special counsel. It was just insanity to see the past. The next Democratic administration has to run on a platform of we are going to prosecute the people who did these crimes. You know all those masked ice agents committing crimes on our streets?

They need to be prosecuted by the next Democratic administration, the next Democratic Congress. But that's letting the leaders of it off the hook. That's going after the Reagan file. Of course, and the leaders. I'm taking for granted the leaders. I'm saying top to bottom. Exactly. We can't have a Barack Obama coming in in 2008 and saying,

hey, we tortured some folks, but I want to look forward, not back. That's a great point. But the other issue with that era of democratic politics was they ran on the audacity of what was possible, and they governed on the timidity of what they think they might be able to get through with the checks and balances. And you can't have that dichotomy. But isn't there an opportunity then, Medi, in the way that Donald Trump showed the cracks in the Democratic system and that he weaponized our own excesses against us in terms of emergency powers and all the things that were possible, hasn't he also shown the Democrats? And here are the levers

of power that you can use for coercion. Yes. That you can actually say, oh, do you really think Democrats are the only people that have tax exemptions that can be threatened? Are you fucking kidding me? Do you really think there are no education that you can't bend the will of corporations who don't want friction to do your bidding? So I'll just give you a couple of quick examples.

Number one, Elon Musk, right? Donald Trump and Elon Musk went to war. most richest man in the world. Donald Trump says, I'm going to cancel his contracts. And immediately, Musk deleted his tweet saying he was in the Epstein files and has gone pretty quiet by must standards. Why didn't Joe Biden do that? In fact, the opposite, Chuck Schumer hosted Elon Musk in his office in the Senate a couple of years ago. This guy declared war on the Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party said, would you like some more contracts, sir? That was an insane approach to Elon Musk. Trump showed that you can actually take on the richest

man in the world if you're president in the United States. He did it. There is a template for it. Another example for Senate Democrats, when they were trying to get the minimum wage rise through, the parliamentarian said, you can't put it in the bill. I was on MSNBC at the time. We had did multiple segments about the freaking parliamentarian. No one knows who she is. She wasn't elected by anyone. Chuck Schumer said, can't do it. Parliamentarian said no. This time round, the parliamentarian said, well, you can't do some stuff in this big, beautiful bill. The Republican said, get lost. They wouldn't even meet with the parliamentarian. Right. So the template is there. If you want to get shit done, you can. The problem is, Democrats don't want to

get shit done and they hide behind institutional excuses. They say we can't do it because of the parliamentarian, but really they don't want to. No, that's interesting though, because that says something different. So in your mind, they don't actually want it. Because my feeling is, let's not make sweeping statements. Some do. Right. And some are beholden to their donors. But this is where we get into the like, Merrick Garland is at fault or the way that Democrats govern. I still, you know, as much as the ACA got some more people some health insurance. It never addressed the rot at the basis of our health care system that allowed, you know, these insurance companies to make. So basically what the Democrats said was we understand that one of the greatest threats to liberty and freedom in this country is

poverty and not having health care and it limits your choices and you can't leave jobs and all these other things. But instead of dealing with that, here's what we think we can do, convince insurance companies that if we guarantee you billions of dollars in a fire hose of money, that you'll pretend to offer people a good alternative. Not just insurance companies. The plan was to win over Republicans, right? Barack Obama was bent on winning over Republicans. And that's why he borrowed a Mitt Romney plan.

ObamaCare was fundamentally a version of Romney Care in Massachusetts. And he thought this will win over moderate Republicans. Instead, they spent the next 10 years obsessing over Obamacare. It became a dirty word for Republicans. They never gave him any credit for doing a very moderate conservative-style proposal for health care reform. And this is the problem. They will never give you credit.

Stop trying to appease them. I think that any Democrat who in this current moment says the word bipartisanship should be immediately primaryed. It just shows you're not prepared for this moment we're in. This current modern Republican body will never credit you for anything. Joe Biden bent over backwards to his old friends in the Senate who he hung out in the gym with for decades. They all went against him.

No one gave him any credit. All of them voted against his. major legislation, which was bipartisan legislation, apart from the infrastructure one. So it was, it was a fool's mission to do that. By the way, you said something earlier about exposing the cracks. The fundamental thing Donald Trump has shown us is that the rules of American politics don't have to apply if you don't want them to apply. And therefore, you can be ambitious, overambitious. Roe Conner, who I know you know, who is probably going to run for president as a left in 2020. He gave a speech recently and he said, look, our ambitions, Democrats, we always limit our

ambitions, as you just point out, ACA. We can't go there. We'll go here. Meanwhile, Republicans are like, well, they negotiate against themselves. Meanwhile, Republicans are like, well, we're just going to annex Greenland. Huh? Did you poll test that? Did you focus group it? Democrats are sitting there getting every focus group, every policy consulted to check, every policy for like costings and how is it going to be received.

And Donald Trump's like, I'm going to invade Greenland. That is the difference right now. And I think the next Democratic presidential candidate, and I say this only half seriously or only half jokingly, depending on how you want to view it, The next Democratic candidate has to be able to stand up and say, I'm going to give you a $30 minimum wage. And when the press say, well, how are you going to pay for that? Oh, I fucking will. Believe me, it's going to be amazing.

I'll do it in day one. 24 hours, you will have a $30 minimum wage. Right. You have to be able to say this stuff. You got to take that same rhetoric and flip it on its head. Yeah, I think there's no question now. And I think because one of the things that it exposed is that sort of the pace of democracy is not keeping up with the pace of technology and it's not keeping up with the pace of modern life.

And whatever we want to say about Donald Trump, even when he's going off the rails, the people believe he's doing shit. Yes. And they want shit to be done and almost to the point where, and now we're stuck with the remnants of these sort of sclerotic institutions that the Democrats have built, not on principle, but on sort of what they thought might be possible. Yes. And the inability to run on your record, which of course, Joe Biden was a very poor messenger for his own record. I thought his domestic record was pretty good, relatively speaking. I thought his foreign policy was horrific. Although even on foreign policy, in 2021, Joe Biden ended America's longest war, the war in Afghanistan. It was a hugely popular move. You wouldn't have believed it from the media coverage where it was only sold as a disastrous departure and everything in the departure and the departure was not non-cautic, I agree. But he ended the war in Afghanistan, something that Bush, Obama, Trump could not. do. It was a hugely popular move. Isn't it interesting that Democrats went into the last year's

election looking at like the warmongering party while the Republicans sold themselves as the anti-war party? Donald Trump went to Michigan and said, I'm the peace candidate. I am peace. I didn't hear any Democrats say we ended America's longest war. None of these wars would have started if I were here. But the interesting thing is when that gets exposed, again, nothing damages. You know, nothing permeates it. I've always said, you know, the Democrats are Wiley Coyote and Donald Trump is roadrunner. And they keep thinking we got him now. So I want to push back, John.

Can I push back mildly? Please. I agree with you to, I agree with you to a certain extent. And we'll see how this Epstein thing pans out. But I don't think we should fall into the trap of just giving him the inevitability of immunity. I don't mean that like he's, you know, manned. So one example I often give is immigration, right? That's the issue he's supposed to be strong on.

He came in. I'm going to cut the border. And Americans apparently anti-migrant. Look at the polls. he's cratered on immigration. New York Times, Sienopold a couple of months ago, found that his most unpopular issue, the single most unpopular issue for Trump

in his first hundred days was his handling of Kilmer Abrago Garcia and the deportation to El Salvador. We were told by Republicans, that's an 80-20 issue. Democrats are on the wrong side of it. Nobody wants to be on the side of MS-13. In fact, no, the American public said, no, we don't want people being deported who haven't committed any crimes.

We don't want judges being ignored. We don't want people being sent to a gulag in El Salvador. We don't want our American Latino citizens being picked up outside of Home Depot just because they're brown. He's hugely unpopular on the immigration issue. And Hakeem Jeffries, allegedly, he denies this, allegedly told Democrats, stop talking about this,

stop going to El Salvador. Actually, Senator Chris Van Holland and Congressman Maxwell Frost and Democrats who went to El Salvador, they were on the right side of that issue, and they did politically hurt Trump. Yeah, I guess my point with that is you can politically hurt him. You can drive down his numbers, but nothing changes. You can, you know, like you say,

he can poll at 35% on immigration, but he doesn't give a fuck. He just goes out there. and he continues to raid home depots. He's never been a particularly popular president. Probably the peak of his popularity was during that second inauguration where there was even some level of like he might be above 50 or 51% in terms of pot. He's always been a low 40s, sometimes dips into 30s guy.

My point is, even with all that, there's nothing he hasn't been able to do that he wants to ultimately do. And the Democrats have not figured out a way how to effectively manage that. And I guess that was- Or replicate it, John. Or replicate it. That's right. Democrats remain scared of their own shadows and in hop to their consultants. You know, well, Trump just does what he's got to do. And sometimes it works out for him. Sometimes it doesn't. I mean, Kamala Harris, we know now from all the reporting with the election. She started off strong. She had a lead. She said some popular stuff. She had a great convention. And then thought, what if I hold hands with Liz Cheney and we just, we do, we walk across the country.

What if I hold hands with Liz Cheney? What if I go on the view and say nothing will change? There'll be no difference between me and Joe Biden. What if I listen to my brother-in-law from Uber and stop talking about big corporations and greedflation? Yeah, that worked out well. And I wonder too now, you know, all the talk of I'm the peace candidate and I'm doing this. And as we watch the bombings in Ukraine, the horrific tragedy that's happening in Gaza, you know, all that stuff clearly. was nonsensical.

But what institutions do we have now that have any viability to try and stop these terrible, like the Israel-Gaza situation to me to have that go on and the world seemingly shrug? I mean, now you're seeing a little bit of like, hey, are those people starving? Like starvation doesn't happen in a week. this is months and years of a seat. Like, what mechanisms do we have in the world now? Not many. And the few that we had have been undermined by Netanyahu, Trump, Biden, Stama, Sunak. I mean, for me, what's so astonishing is we spent decades building a post-war, quote-unquote, rules-based order, which as a lefty, I was far from happy with, a deeply flawed

system. But we had some kind of system, a UN Security Council, a Geneva, conventions, international court of justice, an international criminal court, which America didn't sign up to, but most of the world did. And all of that has been burned down in the interest of protecting one nation, one government, one prime minister. And I think historians will look back and think, what an astonishing sight to see all of it burned down, all of those institutions. Anytime they've spoken out, they have been accused of being Hamas, accused of being anti-Semitic, accused of being anti-American. The United States government has sanctioned the international criminal court judges and prosecutor. threatened foreign governments for doing anything to help the Palestinians. They've gone after South

Africa for bringing that case to the International Court of Justice. It is really, really problematic. This is much wider than Gaza. Gaza is a tragedy and a horror show, perhaps the worst of our lifetime. But going forward, this is going to have ripple effects that will affect conflicts and peoples all across the world. Good luck to any Western government ever lecturing another government about human rights or it's just insane. Oh, it sets a per se. It sets a per se. permission structure for any other bad actors to basically, that's what I said earlier, about sort of this, you know, big, fuck, small. But there is a-

The law of the jungle. The law of the jungle, that's right. And a permission structure. I guess my question even in that part of the world is, you know, why hasn't there been, you know, Erdogan will say, Israel can't do this. I'm going to attack. And then, like, nothing. And there's never any sense that there is a coalition of the willing for the world to step in and at least separate the combatants.

Yeah, do you remember you're old enough, John, like I am, to remember kind of the late 90s when we were all talked about the responsibility to protect liberal interventionism, Kosovo, Clinton, Blair, all of that. It was all about peacekeeping forces. It was all about the United Nations peacekeeping forces. Yeah, and that was going into national sovereign countries. This is going into an occupied territory. No, the inability, remember the first couple of years of Ukraine? I spent arguing on my show at MSNBC with people like, should we have a no-fly zone?

That was the big debate. Like, should the US impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine to protect the people of Ukraine? I mean, the people in Gaza have never had the benefits of a no-fly zone. The people in Gaza have never had the benefits of peacekeepers. And the people in America don't know what's going on. I mean, that's the other thing you have to remember is we're seeing a very different, we don't see the images in the same way that the rest of the world is watching a very different show than we're watching. I think a lot of Americans, thankfully, are watching it on social media.

And as much as I loathe Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram has been invaluable for Palestinians getting their voices out. And I think people who have seen stuff on social media different from people who haven't. And I think that's very clear. I think people aren't seeing the scenes, obviously, that you see on Al Jazeera or anywhere else. But most people by now do recognize what's going on. I think the real problem, John, is not ignorance. It is the inability to do anything about the knowledge that we have. And I think the real democratic, I just, I just, talked earlier about the international repercussions of Gaza and what it's done to international law and the Geneva Convention and human rights groups, all of whom have been discredited. Every dictator in

the world will say, I can bomb hospitals, Israel did. I can ignore human rights groups, Israel did. I can keep foreign journalists out. Israel did. All those precedents. But worse than that at home, democratically, it has exposed the United States democratic dysfunction. That you have huge numbers, majorities of Americans, big majorities of Democrats saying ceasefire now, restrict arms to Israel. And that is not reflected in. in Congress at all. There's polling out this week about how unpopular the war in Gaza is. I think it's only got a 32% approval rate amongst the American public. In Congress, it's got a 90% approval rate. So how do you explain that disconnect? That 90% of legislators support something that only 30% of

Americans do. At what point does that become intolerable? At what point do people wake up and say, we're just not represented here by the people in power? There's such a massive disconnect. But that is in a weird way. And that's on the Republican side too, by the way, John. you're seeing Republicans under the age of 50 rapidly turning on Israel. But the dynamic that you're talking about, about the consent of the government is also, though, what drove these right-wing populist movements. The only difference is it's not Gaza, it's immigration or migration. And as you're seeing that takeover in the world, you know, these are the competing things.

We keep thinking about, well, you know, like I think all the time about 90% of the people in this country believe sensible gun restrictions are a necessity to keep us from every time you hear a pop running out of malls. All of those things that people want. But it doesn't seem to hold the power that loss of national identity seems to be holding around the world. There's no matter what issue you want to pick on and where the public sentiment is and where the polling, is it all pales into the comparison to the feeling of we're going to lose our Americanness. We're going to lose our, you know. It is a very powerful trend.

And you saw it not to wrap it back around to Jubilee, but that's what you faced down that day. Well, I'm glad you brought it back to Jubilee because I was about to bring it back to Jubilee. It was interesting was not just the power of that identity and the obsession. They don't want to debate anything but immigration. They didn't care about any of my other claims. They only came to talk about immigration. But what was interesting is I had a claim on Gaza.

I said Trump's plan for Gaza's ethnic cleansing. A lot of those white supremacists refuse to come up and debate me on that. Why? Because they're anti-Israel. And they're not anti-Israel because they care about the Palestinian people. They're anti-Israel because of the people in Israel, right. There's a massive anti-Semitic street on the right. And when you talk about loss of identity.

I have Twitter. I'm aware of the massive antisysmite. Yeah. But what's interesting is how it's being mainstreamed through Gaza. And this is why I say to Jewish friends of mine who are supporters of Israel, be careful of the alliances you make, the folks on the right, a lot of them are using the same MAGA, America First, national identity argument to actually try and disconnect from Israel. And a lot of people are left like, great, isn't it great that Tucker Carlson and Marjor Taylor

Green and all these folks are on our side now? And I'm like, I'm not sure I want them on our side because they're not on our side because they're not on our side because we're Palestinian human rights and dignity and self-determination, not because we're anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic. Unfortunately, a lot of these younger MAGA supporters are driven by this idea of national identity, Christian national, and therefore Muslims and Jews have no role in America. And I would say this, when the pro-Israel lobby is canceling people, getting people fired, pressuring members of Congress, supporting people like Randy Fine from Florida who says, yeah, let them starve. Let's nuke Gaza. By the way, you know what? Randy Fine actually went too far.

For AIBAC. For AIBAC. Abac was like, hey. You can't say that out loud. Actually, that part, I think we may have to. Yeah, that part. That part you shouldn't say on Twitter. But my point being is a lot of these, you know, Trump MAGA folks are like, well, we don't

want Israel controlling our politics. We don't want all these Jews telling us what to do. There's a dangerous trend there, which, I mean, there's so many different fallouts and threads from Gaza. And I think that is one of them that a lot of people aren't paying enough attention to. Medi, where do you see the energy, you know, what is going to be the way that this sort of idea that you're talking about on the left. How is that going to coalesce?

Do you think it's a function of, you know, if you look at the Democratic autopsy, they're all like, oh, I think the way, you know, the Democrats can do this is that you just go on Theo Vaughn. And that should take care of everything. Which Pete Buttigieg is doing. Pete Buttigieg is doing. And you see them all sort of positioning now strategically

for all this, you know, the variety of things. What I love about what you do is there's a tenacious moral principle to everything that you put out there. And you do it in a way that is, you know, when you argue with people, there has to be a relentlessness to it. I don't think that the Democrats have the foundational right now moral and principled stand to be able to be relentless in a, in a very directional way, because the only way to battle these is you have to match there. You know, the one thing that I always gave ails was like 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Like that dude was the great white shark of making his political identity, the ruling identity of this country. I think you're a, first of all, thank you for your kind words.

Second of all, I 100% agree with you on the 24-7 nature of this. The problem we have, and I mentioned Buttigieg a moment ago, is Buttigieg went on a podcast where he saw a clip on my social media where he said, he was asked about Mamdani, Iran Mamdani, who's doing a fantastic job of actually doing everything Democrats need to be doing in New York right now in terms of energy, in terms of messaging, in terms of authenticity, in terms of winning over young men and all these groups

that Democrats struggle with. And he said, oh, well, you know, we need to borrow, I'm paraphrasing, but Buttiget's something along the lines and we need to borrow his style. I don't necessarily agree with all his policies, which is kind of missing the wood from the trees, or the forest from the trees. I'm getting my British Americanisms mixed up.

You go back to the pitch. You'll find it. The pitch. I'll find it on the pitch. And I think the key point there is, no, you need the substance and the style. You can't just pick and choose. Mundani is not just doing well because he has slick, savvy social videos, which he does. It's because he's also pushing authentic messages about affordability, about standing up for the little guy.

He's the guy who went and screamed at Tom Homan. People forget this. Like, he was there as an activist screaming at Tom Homan, the border chief a few months ago. Like, that authentic rage and anger and moral outrage has to be there on the part of the Democratic Party. and you can't switch it on and off cynically, depending on where and when you are. Cory Booker being a classic example from your great state of New Jersey.

This is a guy who stands for 24 hours, gives this amazing speech, gets us all pumped up. And then he's like, next day, he's voting for arms to Israel. Day after that, he's voting to confirm Jared Kushner's dad as ambassador to France. It cannot be on-off switch when it comes to, I mean, it's not authentic by definition if there's an on-off switch. That's right.

And it has to also, I think, be smartly litigated. And that maybe gets us to our, and cognizant of your time and I really appreciate the conversation. But I think what's been lost here is, you know, the Fox News and the Republicans, they've been, this is a 60-year plan that they have had to basically roll back the New Deal and, you know, the naturalization acts and everything that they felt changed the tenor of this country into something that they don't want anymore. as sort of a nostalgia for an America that never actually was.

And they're trying to rebuild that into an America that they think. And I've always said, you know, make America great again is a demotion. We're supposed to be exceptional. So if you just make us great, you're actually, you know, giving us a demotion. But what the Democrats have been unable to do is to prosecute their case, is to litigate it. And in some ways, I think the news media has to take a lesson in it. Where is the one place MAGA really usually falls apart, forgetting about the Supreme Court? It's in court where there are evidentiary standards, where there is a process by which you have to litigate the bonds of our shared reality.

The Democrat, that's, I think, what they don't understand, that this is about prosecuting and litigating of vision for the future that has evidentiary standards and that people can find that find something to hold on to and are there people that you've seen out there that you think and it can't be fiefdoms

it has to be there has to be a unity to it and it has to work together with your think tanks and every you know you have to have a federalist society you have to have groups that understand that once you get into a position where you can actualize that vision, you have to do it competently and you have to do it quickly. I think I sign off on all of that, especially kind of the Federalist Society and the long-term vision of the Republican Party.

Yeah, I mean, Democrats are not playing the same game. They're not in the same league when it comes to kind of long-term planning, what they did to the judiciary, et cetera, over decades to get the six-three majority. What I would say, though, the problem with, again, it goes back to the whole, is the MSNBC the left-wing fox. The same issue, the same reason why MSNBC can't be a left-wing fox, and the same reason why the Democrats can't behave like the Republicans, is money.

Fundamentally it comes back to money. MSNBC and all these CNN and all of these outlets are corporate owned, and therefore they will always have a corporate agenda in terms of profit maximization, in terms of returns, in terms of making sure. But Fox is corporate-owned. Corporate-owned, but also, you know, has a particular ideological bent. But purposeful. That is on steroids.

And it turns out their purpose is actually a moneymaker. It's a money maker. Yeah, they get fascism with the side benefit of actually making money off of it. Profitable fascism. Profitable white supremacy. That's right. And the same applies to the Democrats. I could come up with a wonderful plan of action.

A project 2029, all sorts of things. But the problem is that as long as they are beholden to corporate donors, they're not going to take that step forward. You can get rid of the Senate parliamentarian tomorrow. You can get rid of the filibus. You can give Democrats a. It's an open playing field slash pitch to do what they want to do, and they still won't do it because they don't want to piss off their donors, a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them. And until we deal with money in politics, we're simply not going to have a proper opposition. We are going to have, you know, Coke and Diet Coke.

We are going to have kind of fascists and, dare I say, in some Democrats, fascists light. And I think that is a fundamental problem in our system right now. It does all go back to money in politics. It does go back to Citizens United. It does go back to the ability of Rupert Murdoch and Roger. and Elon Musk and Bill Akman and all of these people to influence our politics, our media, our culture. And that fundamentally, sorry to sound all biblical, but money is the root of all American evil right now. And it is. And it has empowered this hostile takeover of we the people.

And again, rolling back around to that idea of fetishizing the little guy and we the people, when in fact the opposite has occurred and the Supreme Court has empowered really, this kind of much more authoritative processing of all those avenues. And in some respects, then, it comes down to, is the answer, the Democratic Party's ripe for a takeover? And they just need to find the right reality host that can get in there and start lining up all of those interests. Please, please.

No reality hosts. I beg of you. Unless, John, you're thinking of throwing your hat in the ring, which I know. Jeff Probst. Maybe Jeff Probst, Survivor. I know many people want you to throw your hat in the ring. If that's what you're suggesting, we can talk about that. But please, otherwise, no TV show hosts.

But look, I think New York in November will be a very, very interesting result. Is Zeran Mundani wins? It will be earth-shattering on so many levels, on multiple levels. And I think he has a very, very, I think he's got the energy is there. What I would say that Zoran has, that's really, remarkable in this moment. He has an opportunity to credit the entire

sort of progressive agenda. But I think the way that it has to be done is, he's got to do the boring shit well. If he can make... Agreed. His vision, I think, is really smart focusing on affordability and a much more

equality of economic opportunity, all those things. If he can make the city competent, if that can be his focus, if he can bring that feeling of it, I think progressives actually forget this sometimes. Everybody deserves the kind of safety and security that the rich Manhattan neighborhoods get. Everybody deserves that. If that's his focus, holy shit, could this be a rebirth of a much more, I think, fair-minded, society that people feel confident will not the big fear in New York is chaos always if he can do

both holy shit does that guy have an opportunity I agree and I think it's much bigger than New York I think it's going to be national and global I think the impact of that election in November if he wins will be national and international it will it will be the biggest boost the left has had I'm trying to think in my lifetime I'm trying to think of when was the last time something this earth-shattering occurred. I mean, AOC winning that primary was big. I mean, I think people thought Obama was the boost. I think wrongly thought that, but yes, 2008. I think what they didn't realize is what an institutionalist he turned out to be and how that damaged the prospects of getting to the finish line. But bigger than that, it will also be, you know,

to go back to your point about Wiley Coyote, the Republican media machine is going to throw everything, already is at Mamdani. By the way, so is the Democratic. Exactly. They're going after him too. Let's not give Gillibrand a pass on my horrifically Islamophobic comments about Mamdani. But my point is the right wing machine, including some right wing Democrats, are throwing

everything at Mundani. If he wins, it will also be a reminder that you don't have to compromise. You don't have to bend the knee. You don't have to roll over. You don't have to triangulate to win. You can win authentically. And I think that will be a very scary message for the right. Medi, just a pleasure talking to you.

I really appreciate it. Medihausen, founder and editor-in-chief of Zateo, now with, and I hate to throw this out there, a million YouTube subscribers, which is, I think, you get some, I don't know if they give you a platinum. I want a plaque. YouTube, send me a plaque. All right, we'll do everything we can. Medi, it's great to talk to you.

Appreciate it. Why do you get rid of a guy like that on MS? Like, what are they thinking? He's so good. I was saying during, like, I need whatever coffee he's drinking. I've never been that awake and alert in my life. And his specificity and his ability of recall and the way that he is able to be present, you know, seeing him surrounded by that odd group of sort of right-wing influence and just like a turret, just spinning. and hiring back at each one until he ultimately decided like, oh, this isn't a debate.

Why am I even talking to you, idiots? It was the one man fighting 100 guerrillas of debate. Yes. I would love to know the process Jubilee went through to find those people. Like, what forum did they just like match their messages? Like, seriously. Here's my feeling is you don't have to do much of a deep dive. Like, that's not one of those.

If you skim any pond in any of the recesses on the internet, you will have. scoop up hundreds of those tadpoles because they're everywhere. It really is like it's not an unusual you know, they're feeling their alt-right joy. It's it's discord chats come to life. Absolutely. And it's encouraged. Incentivized, algorithmically incentivized. I'm not even sure it would exist if it wasn't, you know, at a certain point, getting attention for that on social media becomes, no, I really believe this. They get podcasts. I see Oroboros.

Yeah, that's exactly right. But I do think that idea of tenacity and relentlessness built upon a foundation of moral principle is kind of the only way out of this. And I think that the authenticity he comes in with is why his independent media is doing well is because not just with politicians, I think, across the board, people are looking for truth and authenticity and challenge to the establishment. And I do think, you know, his point about corporate media, I think is certainly well taken. And I also think the point of, you know, is it even right and left anymore or is it just good faith, bad faith? And I think there is an opportunity within media to create a relentless 24-7 good-faith.

machine. Yeah. That could still be entertaining. God, I hope so. Yeah, but we shall see. Brittany, what do the people want as the summer is going into its last month? Oh, boy. Do you think the FCC will also be going after shows with a conservative bias? Right now? No. Wait, what? Who wrote that? No. No. Have you met the chairman of the FCC?

He's like shit posting. Colbert, there's no way. No, he's not going to be. He is going to, he is probably right now on a search for more right-wing billionaires that can buy up some more of these properties because there's going to be, you know, an acquisition and merger spree for these kinds of things. He wants to add more, go after conservative bias. Yeah.

What? I also. noticed like Fox News is getting in on the party now by counting how many conservative guests are on shows versus how many liberal guests are on shows. The entire bullshit of the, again, this is them trying to police and create rules that they would never follow. The idea that by having what may be a more left-leaning or progressive bent or just bringing in, that's how Fox is popular. That's how any of these people, you know, they all talk about Gutfeld. it's the most popular yet he's not popular because he's a both sides guy he's not you know a fair

use like you know the fairness doctrine says like he's relentless and you know after a day of watching fox news and being bathed in their very purposeful uh propaganda it's a great way to top off the night but it's not the j leno like i don't understand why you want to thank your audience Why not just do a show about, you know, why do you have to talk about things you believe? Why would you, why do you have to make jokes about things you actually think? And you fucking, I'll just, you know, I'm just going to go throw myself down a hill and see if I can get a concussion. I mean, the whole thing is fucking ridiculous. And it's, if you look at the social media profile of all the people that complain about the left-wing bias, they're all right-wing influence.

They all make their money. Their entire economy is based on how willing they are to attack and defame and to crush liberals. The whole thing is bullshit. Anyway, what's next? Pivoting from that. Pivoting from that. This is one is a follow up from last week's podcast. Oh.

John, do you think Democrats are capable of electing a vindictive prick? I do. I absolutely think they're capable. But when will a vindictive prick rise? A vindictive prick must rise from the East. I think for the Democrats, the vindictive prick must die. And then the new one is reincarnated. And then we have to wait 35 years. It's like a Dalai Lama situation. The vindictive dick is just a little baby right now. That's right. Oh, cute. It's not even about what they're incapable of. is using that idea of friction to get real concessions. I always go back to, you know, Donald Trump is like, if I catch you transferring the money you're paying for tariffs onto customers, like, I'll shut your business down.

And the Democrats are like, great news. We can negotiate the price of five drugs. Now, it's not the five that you use. But we got five of them and we've got a whole plan that over the next 25 years, we're going to add 12 more. I'll be dead in 25 years. Right. And then Trump said he's going to lower the cost of drugs by a thousand percent. Trump's not even following the basic laws of math.

Yeah. They're going to give you money along with your drugs. Sounds good, though. Pizza for everyone. But the Democrats are like, what does the parliamentarian think? And Donald Trump is like, drug companies are going to pay you $1,000 to Take OSMPIC. Congrats. What are we going to do?

How do they keep sending those questions in there, Brittany? Twitter, we are weekly show pod, Instagram threads, TikTok, Blue Sky. We are weekly show podcast. And you can like, subscribe and comment on our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show with John Stewart. Boom. Thanks, guys. As always, in the dog days of summer, you guys continue. Kick crazy ass. Lead producer Lauren Walker, producer Brittany Mehmetabek, video editor and engineer Rob Vitola,

audio editor and engineer Nicole Boy's researcher and associate producer, Jillian Spear, executive producers, Chris McShane, Katie Gray. We'll see you next week. The weekly show with John Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Bus Boy Productions.