The Problem With Jon Stewart - Rep. Katie Porter Can Explain Anything: Inflation, GO!

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

This week we’re talking to Rep. Katie Porter, the Democratic congresswoman from California’s 47th district, who wields her whiteboard like a weapon. She explains (in plain English!) what we’ve got wrong about inflation and why Congress isn’t jumping at the chance to fix it. She updates us on the midterm elections, breaks down the hypocrisy of Republican rhetoric on crime, and blows our minds about why political ads never show members of Congress doing actual work. Plus, we’ve got writers Jay Jurden and Alexa Loftus here talking about Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. Stream our newest episode, “Allies: Friends Without Benefits, ” starting November 4 on Apple TV+!Credits:Hosted by: Jon StewartFeaturing, in order of appearance: Jay Jurden, Alexa Loftus, Rep. Katie PorterExecutive Produced by Jon Stewart, Brinda Adhikari, James Dixon, Chris McShane, and Richard Plepler.Lead Producer: Sophie EricksonProducers: Zach Goldbaum, Caity Gray, Robby SlowikAssoc. Producer: Andrea BetanzosSound Engineer & Editor: Miguel CarrascalSenior Digital Producer: Freddie MorganDigital Coordinator: Norma HernandezSupervising Producer: Lorrie BaranekHead Writer: Kris AcimovicElements: Kenneth Hull, Daniella PhilipsonTalent: Brittany Mehmedovic, Margorie McCurry, Lukas ThimmResearch: Susan Helvenston, Andy Crystal, Cassie MurdochTheme Music by: Gary Clark Jr.The Problem with Jon Stewart podcast is an Apple TV+ podcast, produced by Busboy Productions.https://apple.co/-JonStewart

I really do believe that though about like everybody's like, oh Twitter's so horrible now and you're like wasn't it always I Think it's just slightly more hate speech buzzwords, right? The fact that Elon Musk has it now He basically to me he bought a toilet and you said the problem with this toilet is people don't shit enough in Hello everybody welcome once again to the podcast. It's called the problem with me John Stewart The show is currently on Apple TV plus season two. We are joined as always by a couple of our writers today We've got Jay Jordan and Alexa Loftus are gonna be joining us. Hello today. We're gonna be talking to Congresswoman Katie Porter California the podcast who is Just such a clear and concise and effective communicator

There I say a star a star I've never seen someone whose choice of weaponry is a whiteboard and a dry-race marker and she slays Those things are sharp. By the way, Marvel has that superhero coming out. Oh, yeah board. It's incredible They whiteboard. Well, I'm glad they finally got back from all the woke superheroes Unfortunately, the whiteboard superhero is being played by a lesbian Sufi Muslim Yeah, so they're really they're they're digging in as all things go along guys What's going down? Okay, so

Did you hear that collective side that was that was really like a what's going on and I just heard so Well, I don't know if you heard but Papa Pelosi Nancy Pelosi's husband was attacked. Yeah in a beautiful neighborhood in San Francisco of all places You got a view of the bridge the bay the stunning island of Alcatraz Alexa, are you moving? Right. Are you going into real estate? What's happening here? Well, we're talking about the escalation of violence in this country. We're talking about escalation of political ideology like

Strongly becoming like acts of violence against political figures in such a brazen fashion And then the spin afterwards like it's so fucked up That's the part that I think is so difficult is that everything has to be a bellwether and I think now no matter what story you watch You you think to yourself like don't let it be one of our guys It's gotta be one of the other guys if it's one of the other guys then we're gonna jump in But how are we gonna, you know Defang it if it is one of our guys and then, you know, it's this really bizarre calculation that even that even Violence and deviance against a public figure has to be seen as a bellwether of

Something leading to you know, is is it about crime? Is it about terrorism? Is it about? The one thing that I will say is this though Wouldn't it be nice because this clearly this is a person with Deep deep mental issues. Yeah, sure But wouldn't it be nice if the online rantings of a mentally ill or deranged individual Didn't sound so much like the talking points of certain media outlets It's basically verbatim Tucker Carlson, right and it's not even Removed it's not even like oh, this is a escalation. It's not the rhetoric through a diseased mind

It's not even synonyms. It's exact and how fucked up is that? It's super fucked up because like you said it turns into team sports really. Oh, it can't be one of our guys like that's wild That's crazy. We're talking about an 80-something year old man getting hit in the head with the hammer having his skull fractured this is one degree of separation from the person third in line to be the president and The the other side of this is people go Oh, isn't it kind of funny that now we can turn into like a gay conspiracy rumor, right? And that goes like lightning and as soon as the truth comes out the whole temperature of it comes down because it can no Longer be used as a fulcrum in the culture war. It's no longer a pivot point anymore

To allow anyone to score. Yeah, and as soon as that's gone Well, then it's just an older gentleman In a hospital ICU trying to recover from a hammer attack and and who cares about that terrible at a minimum I just wish everyone could be like, yes This is fucked up, but you know what Don Jr. Had to say all his my Halloween costume. Oh, here's a funny gay joke I'll say this as a queer person. We were busy this weekend. It was Halloween. We had to dress up a slutty spider man We had a lot of things wait slutty spider man He's already kind of slutty because the costume is so tight Jay that that is redundant. Yeah, I don't think more holes

I'll see you some links We have shit to do is so and it's like hoisin this because then you're just Laughing but I will say this though That their life is so myopic at this point that that is all it is focused on and that's the danger of it is it has subsumed everything that could have been good about their lives and it's all consumed by this Battle that they're waging that like you say so many other people are just looking around at Spider-man's crotch. That's I didn't want a bad way to go and it's disseminated and it's disseminated on Twitter

That's that's the other part of this like okay. Well, that's now the I mean the Twitter is the methodology by which all of this gets disseminated in an instant and we still haven't yet adjusted to what That social media maelstrom is doing to our foundational brains. I think it's bad right I'm starting to think it's bad I don't think we're well What let me ask you guys this because there's a lot of talk now about Elon musk has taken over twitter and my god

It's already happening And it does strike me a little bit of how dare Elon musk Turn this shithole into a cesspool like John before he got that I hate to say it but twitter is a shithole It's a cesspool to begin with would you pay 44 billion dollars for like? I don't know a bathroom stall at a rest stop Depends so I would pay 38 to 40. You know my ceiling on when I was trying to buy twitter

I said to them 38 billion is kind of It's already over my budget. I had budgeted 37 billion Uh, so it was yeah, I think musk he wants to turn twitter into his own fight club Well, I I think it's to a certain extent Uh, what what he suffers from is is I think what kanya is suffering from and all that which is I don't know if it's sexism orism, but it's certainly narcissism And there is I think what he enjoys the most about it Is the hallelujahs

This there was the next day on twitter. There was a lot of hallelujah Finally, and I was looking through and I was like nope same shitty people that were there Like it's always been shitty. I don't understand. He's a cornball I'll say this because he wants to be a bastion of free speech. He's a fucking corny Loser he wants to be a hero. He wants to be Uh talked about he wants to control things, but I don't think he wants to be Uh a bastion of free speech that's never there's nothing that he's demonstrated in his career Other than trolling on twitter that demonstrates an allegiance to free speech

Certainly tesla's not his companies are not bastions of free speech So why would people who think that free speech means governance by trolling that like this sort of like a lie? That's what it is to them free speech is uh the use of the inword jumped up I don't know how many percentages when he was brought on. It's him But there was use of it Already like I got to tell you within I joined twitter and 20 seconds later. It was like hey man. Welcome. What's up? What took you so long and then like the fifth comment was love. Hey lebowitz right

But it was john those people are happy or because of this they're not happy I didn't say happy. They're miserable. I said happy. You're because of elan musk Yes, well that well that was the thing there was that gleeful like oh my god Now we can finally be shitty on twitter and you're like, we've been shitty You know, he keeps saying like I want it to be the town square and you're like it's time square It's not the town square It's a couple of people saying nice things maybe trying to go get tickets to kinky boots And then it's a a grown man dressed as elmo kicking the shit out a guy from nebraska

Who's just coming out of the m&m store like that's And bad news elmo has bed bugs like it's you're taking them back to nebraska with you, but it it was always To some extent that because That's who we are the internet is just a place for people to make sure that no one Is happier than its least happy person So it is have you john I don't know if you know about this there was literally a tweet where one was like me and my husband like to have coffee in the morning

We take our time. We enjoy our space and this is like a very benign positive Happy marriage tweet every tweet under it was like how dare you showcase your privilege by having mornings off Do you know there are people that don't have this time? Like it's that are you this is a real this is a real story. This is a 100% real story Somebody posted like i'm having coffee with my husband. Yeah, we love to have coffee in our garden and we love to do that And everybody was like fuck you Yes Get out. I can't make that shit up. That's what he per he spent 44 billion dollars on that

But when are we going to realize that this is what every time there is a leap in a Sort of a communications technology the world falls apart until it adjusts to it it happened when radio came out It happened with tv it happened with the Gutenberg press for god's sakes It changes the dynamic of the human brain and its ability to take in Twitter is not a bastion of woke politics. It's a bastion of people waiting to pounce of all stripes Of all persuasions, whether it's liberal right wing

uh, whether it's bts fans Style stands like it is just a place. Don't you get us in trouble with the army? Sean if you get me in south korea in trouble Well, finally ilana put a stop to all that guys, uh speaking of all that, you know, uh in terms of communication We're gonna be talking to right now if i could brand it's congresswoman Katie porter who i don't know if you saw The other day she did a presentation on inflation that finally broke down some of the information about what's

Behind some of this and i think do we do we have that can we can we show that? According to this chart, what is the biggest driver of inflation during the pandemic? The blue is the the dark blue is the recent period It would be corporate profits and what is that percentage? It is 54 and that number does stay that level of high if you update that number to more recent numbers as well So over half of the increased prices people are paying Are coming from increases in corporate profits. Yes Now inflation has covered 24 hours a day as it should be you've got the fed saying the only thing that can stop it is interest rates

And then you have congresswoman. Katie porter comes out and goes well if you actually If you break it down Company and company it's corporate profits play not the whole thing, but nobody fucking covered it Right because if you just say the buzzword inflation people go. Oh, yeah inflation. Oh, yeah Oh, yeah inflation right when someone says it's corporate profits. You go wait a second, right? So maybe we don't have to cause a catastrophic recession To get it under control, but god forbid anybody discusses that so let's we've got katie porter She's gonna come in and the congresswoman's been nice enough to come and talk to us

You know what if you guys live tweet it because you could do that now because hallelujah, it's been freed I'm gonna say whatever I want the dumpster fire is now a forest fire All right Well, first of all congresswoman welcome Thank you We're delighted to to be able to speak with you before we even get started Uh, tuesday is is election day in in your district. How are things Out there for you. What's what's the situation? This race is a dead heat

It's going to be a toss-up and I think that people are sometimes surprised to hear that I am surprised to hear that Well, we have seen this happening around the country some of these suburban districts in bluer states So places in washington and oregon and jersey and california These are really going to be battlegrounds So my race was just moved to a toss-up which is not the news you want to wake up to one week before election day But I was also out this morning You know putting up flyers and getting ready to canvas and knock doors

So I am going to work my butt off to make sure that we win in a week from now Here's here's why I find that incredibly surprising you are and have been one of the most effective communicators and legislators for economic issues that I have seen In in the last 20 years in congress the the clarity in which you are able to

illustrate the different points of Our economy and how it's skewed and corrupt. I'm always really impressed by so let me ask you a question Do your voters have c-span? So this is a great point. There's two points. I want to make here one is sure at that sort of a simple point nine million dollars in republican super PAC ads that have been answered by

$300,000 of democratic mailers That's a big gulf. That's 8.7 million dollars in negative messaging that they're hearing about me This is the national the national committee and republicans and and other SPACs and PACs so the national republican committees have spent nine million dollars and the democrats have answered that With 300,000 so that's going to have an effect any which way you cut it straight up Could the democratic committee get you that money? Sure they could sure they could but they're having they're making decisions all over the map They're prioritizing different people and different races and there's a complex map to do that so look

I Always want to make sure that I can do my part to help elect democrats everywhere That there are good democrats on the ballot and so I'm I'm working to stand on my own two feet here and deliver this race myself With the help by the way of all of my grassroots supporters and people who knock doors for me and chip in But the second point I want to make which I think is a really interesting one is you said do your viewers have c-span And the answer of course is sure But they're not sitting at home all day watching it because they have jobs and kids and parents and commutes So one of the things that I think people don't know about politics that I

Really struggle with is we are not allowed under the house ethics rules to use footage of us doing our jobs In our campaigns so I can't show viewers wait what yes so if I question a witness about inflation if I Push the cdc director and get us free testing if I hold jayme diamonds feet to the fire about employee pay Just to name a few I can't use those clips that footage of me actually doing my job well To get elected and of course the only reason people should vote for anyone Democrat republican or otherwise is if they think they're going to do a good job

But I'm not allowed to show people me actually doing a good job Instead the commercials have to be filled with you know footage of me walking through a happy meadow or whatever So that is one of the real burdens we face congressman. Let me just see if I can get a handle on this You're not allowed to show footage of yourself doing a job But representatives in the house and senators are allowed to use insider information To trade stocks That is allowed the house committee on ethics is not a committee on morality. Let's just be clear Ethics in this sense are a set of rules that someone put together

Often solving one problem at a time not in a holistic complete way not updated to deal with Kind of modern realities Yes, you know my frustration is I want to earn people's votes because they think I'm fighting for them And they think I'm delivering for them But I'm not allowed to show them that What what what would be the reasoning behind that? Has anybody ever asked what that might be? What would be the reason of not being allowed to use footage of yourself doing a job? I mean I can use footage of it on our show for jokes. Why can't you use it for?

Persuasion the reason we're given is that the capital building and the cameras on us Our government resources and we can't use taxpayer resources to get reelected Even wait wait wait wait wait wait You can't use taxpayer resources to get elected And yet incumbency in and of itself is probably the largest advantage that you could possibly have Correct. So I think the argument that they would make is that if they let us use this footage It would give us an even bigger incumbency advantage, which I understand I actually you know, I beat an incumbent. So I I get it

I actually think we have too many people sitting around Washington who have been there too long in both parties So I want to see challengers win not my challenger, but other people's challengers sometimes But I do think there is a kind of problem here, which is that You know Anybody can shoot a commercial that shows this hero shot, right? You know what? I just all of a sudden I wanted to move to california and vote for you. That hero shot doesn't put money in your pocket It doesn't make for a fair economy. It doesn't get you health care when you need it That's the work that we do

And and so I think part of it is you know passing bills you can talk about that But I think it comes from this idea that that the footage that the speaking to the american public Isn't part of our work Our work is just legislation and I'm here to tell you it's both because when you talk to american straight About what's at stake right build support for the legislation that we're trying to pass Well, that so that brings up the next point, which is you know, you went on the floor And you did I thought a really effective presentation about the complexity of inflation And the fact that there were profits driving

Not all of inflation. There's certainly supply chain issues. There's certainly other things that are going on the pandemic But you showed that corporate profit taking Was up drastically and that that was a significant driver of inflation The news covers inflation 24 hours a day seven days a week and not without reason But what I was shocked about is that piece of information that you laid out so effectively Made it to two shows. I think medi hassan showed it Lawrence of donnell showed it and I think there was an article in salon

And other than that It's just the fear mongering over inflation and none of the Let's look at its component parts And is that frustrating to you and why does that happen? Well, it's super frustrating that we're not trying to break down the actual problem To show voters that we understand it. You can't solve a problem very well that you don't understand So I think part one we have to do is we have to show voters one

We accept inflation as a problem Two here's where it's coming from. We have access to experts That was a hearing where I had an expert who had done a research study on inflation And so my job there was to take his academic study I used to be an academic and I know that most academics can't talk to regular people So I was there to help translate things like Non-unit input cost into real english for people My favorite kind of cost is the non-unit input

Yeah, exactly and show them what he was really talking about and what his study found Is that this he compared this inflationary period to past periods of inflation Which is important. We can't use the same tools of the past If this inflation is different than the past inflation, right? Correct. And so he looked he compared and he said this inflationary period Over half of the increase in what you're paying for stuff is coming from corporate profits And in the past that was about 10 percent of what was going on in inflation And so the solutions to this inflation are going to have to include some new and different tools Then we've used to fight past inflation. It's complex. It's complex inflation is always complex anyone who says and this is the republicans all day long

Inflation is bad. No shit Sherlock. Of course inflation is bad. I told them the grocery store So that is not a policy statement by the way congresswoman put that in your commercial that you're allowed to use this footage This was not paid for by taxpayers. I want to see you right now congresswoman katie porter No, shit. Sherlock. Let's get this done I mean, that's all republicans have to say which is inflation is bad. Well, yes folks We we get that I just bought fritos for four dollars and ninety nine cents I spent ten dollars to feed these children fritos for crying out loud Yeah, so I get it but the point is what are you going to do about it?

And you can't figure out what you're going to do about it unless you understand it And I think part of the reason that republicans and others don't want to look at what's really driving this inflation is they don't Want to stand up to big corporations and here's the part of that study that didn't get as much attention But it's really important The companies the areas the industries where there's the biggest profit margin The biggest price gouging being tacked on to what we're paying Our industries where there's almost no competition So the more consolidated an industry is

The less competition the more they're tacking on that profit margin and gouging us So we have a competition problem in our economy. No question. That means that we need to break up monopolies We need to incentivize pathways for smaller businesses and mid-sized businesses to compete I mean, we have a bred monopoly in this country for crying out loud. We have a serial monopoly. It's not just Gas it's actually hard to think of an industry Where we don't have a monopoly when you really start digging into the data And the crazy thing is, you know, everybody likes to talk about this idea that we have a free market economy But we clearly don't we have an interventionist economy and the government picks winners and losers all the time

And meanwhile the fed turns a Money hose on corporate problems. But as soon as you give stimulus checks to people Everybody starts running around and talking about oh, this can't happen. You know, larry summers. God bless this guy He's talking about we need 10 unemployment to really get this under control and and Along the lines of your no shit. Sure. Look, I would say this. Fuck that like in the idea I'm so glad you said that so I didn't have to for god's sakes The idea that the only way to get inflation under control is to make working people suffer

To 10% and I want to ask you their only reference point is the 70s We had stagflation. There were issues the fed Apparently raised interest rates that didn't raise it fast and a paul vulker came in and saved the day by plunging us into a a recession How in god's name can a complex problem such as inflation? Only be solved by this one dial. We have on the stereo called interest rates And how is it that you don't go sector to sector or anything else? What is this? So so I think part of this is that congress

Has and even the white house I would say although this white house better than some others But has this tendency politicians have this tendency to say oh the economy That that's someone else's problem. That's That's uh, just the free, you know, the invisible hand of the market. I don't I don't I can't do anything about that or they say Oh, that's the fed Not us Well, here's the thing I can think of very little that I am in charge of other than people's core constitutional rights

Which by the way are also under attack Right that is more important to what voters ask me to do than to deliver a strong stable globally competitive economy I have never met the voter who didn't want that now I was a bankruptcy attorney before I ran for congress So I do just find in a crappy economy, but everybody else has trouble So the strong stable globally competitive economy is a core mission of our congress We need to take that under advice, but we need to do something about that And so I think what a lot of people say is well, that's the fed

Well, if you say inflation is only the responsibility of the fed Then the only tool the fed really has is the interest rate dial The other tools like stimulating competition cracking down on price scouting building a better supply chain Those tools are with congress and I want to say president biden and this congress have deployed some of those tools They're not fast. They're not as fast as the interest rate dial Things like investing in infrastructure. You have to actually build it You can't build it in one second. You can you know rejuvenate our supply chains and start building chips here in the united states And those things are underway. They're not as fast as the interest rate dial

Um, and you know, so I think you have to use an approach of both But this is not the 1970s. It's not and interest rates are just a giant cudgel and our economy is really different then So my question would be then why isn't there more of a concerted effort? between government and industry To publicly get together to address what is a national security issue inflation and and poverty And our currency is a national security issue when that goes awry We lose power and strength Industry doesn't want to solve this problem

They don't want to solve inflation. They would rather see a recession big corporations Want to wreak every bit of profit and that's who's benefiting big corporations small businesses are having to hold the line And try to absorb this extra cost. It's because all their costs are going up They don't have a cushion right the bigger the company the bigger the market power The more they're writing this trend and we've seen this don't believe me Listen to earnings calls in your spare time. Listen to ceo's on earnings calls Yes, we have said things like if a little bit of inflation is good for us We think inflation means we can continue to find our price point at a higher and higher place

What does this mean for the rest of us who are paying? It means we're stretching our dollars farther and farther and farther So industry isn't going they don't want a recession They want to take every dollar a profit right up to the tipping point And by the way, if we do push into a recession, they will be the first ones in line to congress With their hands out for help the very first ones But that's my point How is it that they always are allowed to get away with? privatizing profit and socializing losses

Everybody else pays the price for their losses, but in the in the times where they're you know profit taking That's privatized. That's shareholders or even the fed turns on that quantitative easing money pump And allows them zero percent interest at the window and lets them do and turn it around and buy treasuries You know that they turn around and get a 1.5 Uh profit on the whole system is geared to them and it's interesting. I was talking to one of your colleagues rosa delor Who is the head of the appropriations committee? congresswoman from canada kett And she was discussing how congress holds the line on you know, for instance when they were doing medicare advantage

And they were fighting with the Republicans and there were 600 lobbyists in the building But I think she was not cognizant of what that sounded like that Oh, right When you're working, you're not surrounded by those taxpayers that you talk about you're not surrounded by those families that are struggling You're surrounded By corporate lobbyists day in and day out knocking on the door Greasing the skids for more and more profit and more and more consolidation

Yeah, well speaking personally I don't have any time for those guys and by the way, they are mostly guys I don't take corporate PAC money. I also don't take lobbyist money So I tell lobbyists the same thing I tell everybody you want to meet with me come with an idea Come with something to teach me come with a problem that you want to show me That you think that you have a solution for that we can work together on a solution for so You know, I live in orange county. I fly back and forth when I'm in washington I do probably my best campaigning in my grocery store

I don't think I've gotten more votes anywhere than I have walking the aisles of my albertson's talking to people Um, so I do think about everyday voters all the time But there are a lot of forces in washington that are very very noisy For the bigs big health big pharma big oil Big ag if you could put a big in front of it You can also add lobbying to that and all of those forces make a lot of noise You know, we we spend billions of dollars to subsidize these oil companies And then the shit hits the fan and saudi arabia says they're going to cut production

And then all this, you know, and they all talk about I saw the bit you did on the Land that they have leased that they're not drilling on because they don't want to spend the money to To refine because they're worried about when a commodity goes down But it's a manipulated commodity by a cartel called opac No, it's not a real market We have lots of things that are are not real markets. Let me give you another example. Yeah, health care You can't choose who you want to go see it's it's controlled and constrained by your health care company When you go you can't find out what it costs

Right, so you can't shop on cost. You can't get any data on quality So you can't shop on quality So there is no real market for health care at the consumer level And yet what we hear is Everyone should you know, we should we don't want to have nationalized health care. We don't want to have government in our health care. Well Look at the alternative health care can't follow a free market economy because if you have a heart attack You're not gonna sir. Can I help you? I'm browsing. I'm just I'm browsing hospitals right now. What's going on? A little bit of a heart attack right now, but I want to make sure that I comparison shop like you health care is one of those industries that

Can't follow market structure because there's too many contingencies that don't follow supply and demand Absolutely, and it's too easily manipulated and so we we have to quit pretending and instead we have to say right These are the guardrails we need In this market. So, you know, I used to teach business law So I am not afraid to go toe-to-toe with Republicans To talk about the economy or corporate leaders, which I've seen you know or corporate leaders Like I mean one of my favorite things that a witness ever said to me Was when I was questioning Steve Mnuchin about his interpretation

Former secretary of the treasury about his interpretation of a treasury policy That they were using to lift up banks during the pandemic. Yes, and He was saying no, that's not what the policy says and I was pushing back on him and he said Well, are you a lawyer? Yes Yes, Steve I am a harvard train lawyer You on the other hand are a trump appointee. So let's go bring it on

So let's bring it on, you know, I I just think that democrats need to really lean into the economy because here's the straight facts Democrats every single Election every single cycle that we're in power We set the table and do the work of building a strong economy And the corporate interests scream as we're doing it They help elect republicans and and democrats who a handful of democrats who will stand with them And then they take it all back

So think about the things that democrats have done that are at risk in this election And what they would do to our economy if we lost that what if we stopped all that infrastructure work? We've begun right people would be thrown out of work Bridges and roads would crumble we would fall farther behind our global competitors and finally tame inflation Katie you're brilliant. What if we stopped the chips and science act? What if we stopped building all those semiconductors? That would be terrible. We would lose jobs We would have worse supply chain problems. It would threaten our national security All of that military equipment runs on semiconductors

But why is that case not being made? Look I This election season. I have a television like everybody else And if you're following the election in any way in between the you know jeopardy tournament of champion commercial breaks it's either for prescription drugs because I the elderly am watching television at that time of night and two It's republican attacks on crime It is all about I mean footage from youtube of guys with guns shooting people And the democratic ads that

Are in any way answering to either inflation or crime Are non-existent and they have a case to be made. Let's move into this because this is something that really bothers me Republicans talk about crime and the fact that it's out of control in these cities And they have never mentioned once That the reason is our cities are flooded with illegal guns And republican legislators have made it impossible for police

To in any way enforce the gun laws that even i'm not talking about home ownership. I'm not talking about any of that I'm talking about the iron pipeline. You know, the republicans are so concerned about The border. Well, what about the border from florida and indiana that are flooding? Illegal guns into our cities and making it more dangerous for cops and more dangerous for everybody You want to get to The source of these crimes? It ain't democrats It's republicans making it much harder to track illegal gun sales making it much harder to stop illegal gun sales

What the hell is going on and how do they take the moral high ground on that? Well, they shouldn't be They should not be taking the moral high ground for a couple reasons one The bills that they are attacking democrats for passing in the last two years Contains significant funding for first responders for police departments the resources that we gave to counties and to cities Most police departments saw an increase a significant increase in their budget in the last couple years That was done because democrats voted for those bills We literally have been the party of trying to make sure that our law enforcement has the tools that it needs

But you are right. They are battling uphill When we see gun laws being loosened that allow dangerous criminals To possess guns and to use guns to carry guns without a permit That's right You cannot be the party of crime at the same time that you're arming criminals. No, they're allowing it They're allowing these pipelines. They're making it so you can't sue these gun manufacturers I think there's five manufacturers that are responsible for like half the guns that are used in crimes And again, I can't stress this enough

This is not about legal gun ownership, but in their zeal to protect legal gun ownership They've removed the tools of law enforcement To get illegal guns off the streets. There was a case recently I think they said that it was unconstitutional for you to penalize somebody for removing serial numbers off of guns imagine trying to solve crimes And and a political party came in and said but you can't use fingerprinting

And you can't use dna and none of this Camera footage can be used either. That's what they've done with enforcing the flood of guns There is an arms race in america Yeah, right when you when you talk to police officers in law enforcement They will tell you that this getting harder and harder to prosecute these crimes It's getting more difficult and it's getting more difficult because of the rise in unchecked and Unlawful gun sales. So that's right, you know, there's no problem with someone going through a process getting a permit Right taking the time getting the background now. They're making it that you don't even need a process

But now they're making it that you don't need to permit So they're literally taking away the very best tools we have to keep our community safe to keep our police officers safe Right as they do their job So how do they have the balls to come out and say we're the ones that are going to stop crime? You're the ones That escalated the violence in our streets Yeah Well, and one of the things that we see at the border too by the way is I think that doesn't get talked about a lot

Is we actually see significant flow of guns from the united states Into our southern border. So we are actually supplying They say 70 of the cartel weaponry is from the united states. That's right. So we are supplied. We're we're saying people shouldn't come here They should you know, we don't want violence the border We're we're arming those cartels that are then committing violence In the golden triangle in central america in mexico And so we need when I talk about border security, I talk about it being in both directions We don't want to have

fentanyl or dangerous weapons Come to the united states. We also don't want to be sending them down there Because we're we're just deepening the border crisis and causing more of a humanitarian crisis and the border crisis inside the united states, maybe if the If we talked about undocumented guns, maybe if we talked about stopping the flow of undocumented guns across the border of georgia Of alien guns that are that are coming across. I mean, they're talking about 50 percent of the guns Come from just 10 states. Yeah, and and these are illegal

I mean you see it in the streets all the time and cops have to deal with the fact that Everybody's got a gun now and they don't know where it's coming from So they have to militarize and this is a cycle That we've gotten this country into Not from bail reform But from the laxity. There's no atf commissioner for god knows how long. I mean It it just shocks me that the narrative is never put out there That their inability to allow this country to police the flow of the legal guns over our borders

Is on them. Yeah, and the other thing I'll point out is by the way when we talk about crime Is they're not telling you the whole story. They're telling you the part of the story That that they want to tell which is that we're actually seeing crime go up some kinds of crime are going up Some kinds of crime are going down And so It's actually I think the the kind of republicans leaning into crime is more of a playing on anxiety That people feel after the pandemic. There are areas There are types of crime that are going up, but it is going I mean

I think you'd be hard pressed to convince people There are also areas of crime that are going down. Why look at this in range county before I before we've had this conversation I did some looking so we're actually seeing property crimes falling significantly Really, but we have seen an uptick in violent crime. It's it's about balancing it out now Obviously violent crime is the is the most dangerous upsetting kind of crime Um, but our police officers, you know, they are doing a very very good job And I I think we need to recognize that that they are working really really hard to keep us we've made their lives a lot more dangerous I don't think there's any question

We make their lives more dangerous when we allow Illegal guns to flourish. We make it harder. We make it more dangerous That's right a police officer and that is shameful because these people are putting their lives on the line for us Why do you think that you know as far as I can tell the only issue that democrats are running on our abortion? And not that it's not an incredibly important issue But I haven't seen one commercial in my area from democrats that makes those points that says How dare you? talk about

Crime when you've enabled this Terrible scourge to affect our cities. Yeah, how dare you? Yeah, no, I think it's really important that we hold them to account for their position on on guns And we talk a lot about gun violence prevention In orange county people, you know, I always say this jokingly, but it's true. I mean nobody moves to urvine for the night life nobody I mean you move here for the quality of life you move here because your kids are safe you move here because We are a community that cares about each other because it is a safe community

And when neighboring states places like arizona or you know, nevada or wherever if they change their gun laws If the federal government doesn't enforce federal gun law It makes californians less safe And I think people need to to see that that's part of what's at stake in the control of congress I think on some of these issues including abortion And I think guns can be another one You know here in states like california people say well Abortions legal in california. We have good thoughtful gun violence prevention laws here in california

And that gives voters an excuse To not lean in to what's going on politically around the country But federal laws supreme There is nothing that the governor of california or the legislature of california can do on guns On abortion on a whole host of other issues lgbtq rights if we elect a congress that passes federal laws That take away those protections So if congress passes a nationwide abortion ban, it will be just that john nationwide and it will prevent

californians from having the right to an abortion for example same thing on guns We have some good thoughtful gun violence prevention laws here in california If we elect a congress that goes the other direction and enables gun violence Those laws in california will no longer be enforced because of the supremacy clause federal law Taking precedence over state law and so I do think we have an issue in our in frankly our quote unquote I don't like this blue state red state thing But let me just say in states that have democratic legislatures or democratic governors Oregon, washington, california, new jersey these folks need to wake up and understand

That the republicans are threatening at the federal level to go and undo The will of the voters and the work of the state legislators in keeping communities safe And if this independent state legislature gets passed through the the supreme court, it's it's going to be even worse But do you think we also don't talk about enough? The idea that because you just said it not red states not blue states, but The real divide in the country seems to be between urban areas ex-urban areas and rural areas and to be frank Those areas do have different concerns and sets of

Reasonable distinctions when it comes to crime or gun violence or those different things each area has you know a different set of circumstances and A larger piece of that isn't about just talking about Just the state versus another state. It's city versus rural It's it's all the different divides that come together and how do we make our democracy more agile to be able to address things? Like you said earlier on you said it. I thought really really well First you've got to decide if you have a problem And you've got to find clarity on that problem. And I think that first step

Feels like it's so missing from our from our discourse Well, so I think part of this starts with electing people who actually listen To their communities rather than listen to big corporations And so whether it's rural or urban or suburban if you're electing people who are listening to their communities And they take those concerns to washington you will see policy that reflects that So, you know congress spends an awful lot of time passing bills that give tax subsidies to big oil A lawful lot of time You know years and years and years went by before congress did things that the vast majority of american support

Congressional ban on stock trading beep beep beep everybody supports that Of course work you did on making sure that we were doing right by 9 11 and people who were hurting that Americans support that We are very very sometimes I think slow To deliver on things that americans do agree on because we're too busy fighting about the stuff where they don't agree And that stuff matters too, but I I just think the bigger issue is people not Coming to washington with a clear sense of who they're working for Yeah, if you don't come to washington with a backbone, you sure as hell are not going to find it in the halls of congress

That's right. Nobody's going to hand it to you. You have to bring that fight to capitol hill, right? Well, listen, uh, uh, it's it's been incredible talking to you. I've really enjoyed it. I wish you the best in that race congresswoman katey ported Thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Thank you Oh She's got the goods Okay Just such an effective communicator and also For me having spent a lot of time down there. There's very few people that I meet that haven't bought into

The kool-aid down there to some extent totally that haven't Truly become part of this weird machine that's disassociated from people boy It's refreshing to hear someone go these people are fucking In an ivory tower and I'm down here buying five dollar bags of fritos And I want this to stop the backbone statement I say this andy co and have a real house wives Have a real house people have a real congress members of orange county because that was so Clear it was so clear it was so direct when she said the democrats seem to be the party of a good economy

And they're scared to talk about inflation, but she's not scared to talk about it No one else is saying that they're scared to talk about everything and especially when You have real information That is not exculpatory Certainly if you control the house and the senate and and the executive you're gonna be responsible For whatever the economic conditions are, but you can certainly do a better job of explaining Why those conditions exist and it's like when she says it it seems like oh very easy to understand It was like I think we could all be talking like this

Why don't they just call everybody up like fucking? Why don't you make a show of like sit down with exxon and and and all these sort of more monopolistic Sectors and say hey, I got an idea Why don't you guys just say like we're gonna cut our profits 10 percent right now because the american people are in pain And rather than force a recession on them You know rather than a attack inflation by just making sure no one needs anything and no one can afford to demand anything We're gonna do that across the board For america. Yes, we could call the show. Hey knock it off

Well, john this sounds too much that sounds too close to right like it you're making too much sense sense It's unbelievable. Was there anything else she said that that caught your eye that caught your We can't use the c-span footage in our ads. That is so weird I mean imagine you're not allowed to use like the security footage at a 7-11 like that's well and yet people can use fake Footage for their own commercials or footage. That's not even in their state of crimes happening that are like Oh, this is happening in your town or have you ever seen those where they're like? It's it's stock footage of like children in ukraine that they're calling like

Locals in california. Yeah. Yeah, they can't even feed themselves. It's like that's a war-torn country half around the world And yet you can't use your own It's very when she said that Everyone that was listening including you was like that can't be right. She even clarified that she was like yes The ethics committee not the moral committee But even the idea and and again we sort of related it to and but you guys can still trade stocks on information You got right. Yeah, but yeah, no that that they won't touch But c-span footage come on

It does kind of make sense then because I used to wonder like why are all these commercials dudes with like ar-15s? Shooting leaflets about obama care and you're like, oh because they can't use themselves at work Saying the dumb shit on the floor of the senate or the house. It's upsetting Alexid is upsetting. I want you guys to know That the footage that we are using right now Yeah, you can use to run for Writer of the year. Oh my gosh writer of the year. This footage is yours. No, no Do you understand john? But my twitter footprint as we discussed earlier. I can never run for anything

Ever ever look at the likes. Don't find my bookmarks. Don't look at my retweets Just for those out there, please don't cancel jay jay When we when we talked about the n-word jumping up on twitter. That was also me. I'm sorry That was me just tweeting out. Fuck this nigga A lot So this has been good for you jay. Fuck elon musk. Fuck his dad his fuck His dad fucked his stepdaughter. He's weird What

What did you just say john elon elon musk's dad had sex with his stepdaughter had a baby with her and the response was Yeah, things happen Well, when you're when you're billionaire, I think that's that's I believe that's just called a family complication What when you own emerald mines? I think, you know, oh, yeah, fuck him for ruining my birthstone. Fuck him Oh, this is this goes way deeper than I even thought this is astrological I know Taurus gang, what up? No, I hate it. He fucked his own, you know His step his own stepdaughter now. Let me ask you this

See a filmmaker All right guys, uh as always familiar pleasure To talk to everybody. I want to thank congresswoman katie porter of california For talking with us. Thanks to jay jordan elect salaf. Just check out the problem. It's on apple tv plus We're back next week. I think on friday after the election to discuss the election and we're gonna have a not live election special but a Show that we're gonna tape

After the election to see if we can turn it around quickly on It's really it's really just uh, it's a test It's just a test Have you ever tried to clean up a mess with a paper towel that then is soaked with the liquid from the mess and you go They didn't do this in the commercial. That's what it is You're just like, uh, that's exactly that's exactly what we're gonna try and do Uh, but great stuff guys, uh, and we'll see you all next week. Well, boy Bye

All right The prime of john stewart podcast is an apple tv plus podcast and a joint bus boy production