The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Raging Moderates: Is Israel the Superpower of the Middle East?

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Scott and Jessica unpack the rapidly escalating war between Israel and Iran under Trump’s leadership. As civilian casualties rise and Trump teeters on the edge of deeper U.S. involvement, millions of Americans take to the streets in the historic “No Kings” protests—pushing back against what many see as his authoritarian power grab. Meanwhile, the NYC mayoral race is turning into a defining battle for the soul of the Democratic Party, with progressive rising star Zohran Mamdani facing off against political heavyweight Andrew Cuomo in a generational showdown that could reshape the party’s direction. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We have a favor to ask you. The ProfG Pod team is planning for the future of the show, and we want our listeners to be a part of the conversation. That's why we're hoping you'll help us by filling out a brief survey. Your feedback will help us figure out what's working, what's not. Please visit us at voxmedia.com slash survey. Again, that's voxmedia.com slash survey to provide us with feedback. We do take it seriously. We're thinking about new product extensions and want to know what we can do better. More dick jokes. More dick jokes. Read your mind. Do you feel like you have a clear sense of what that goal is? I mean, do you really think it's regime change? Yeah. I think it's full consolidation of power in his own hands. The ability to act unfettered, the ability to control and corral the opposition,

and the opposition here is broadly construed. It's not just the Democratic Party. It's the press. It's cultural liberals. I mean, he recently called for an investigation into Bruce Springsteen. This week on The Gray Area, how much has President Trump changed America? Listen to The Gray Area with me, Sean Elling. New episodes every Monday, available everywhere. Hey there, this is Peter Kafka, the host of Channels. And this week I'm talking to Scott Frank, the writer and director who moved from movies to Netflix,

which is where you can see Department Q, his newest hit. And we talked about how no one knows what the future of Hollywood is gonna be like, except that it won't be like the past. This business hasn't landed where it's gonna land yet. And people keep looking backwards and saying, No one knows what the future of Hollywood is going to be like, except that it won't be like the past. This business hasn't landed where it's going to land yet. And people keep looking backwards and saying, no, we just need to get movie going back to where it was.

That boat sailed. That's not going to happen anymore. That's This Week on Channels, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarlev. Jessica, how are you? I mean, let's talk about you. You're in France.

Oh, you know me. I don't like to talk about me. Yes, I'm on the closet at Can Lyons, where we try to decide which is the best Pepsi ad that no one is going to watch. Whereas I call it the we're still relevant desperate yelp for relevance as American companies invade the beaches of France for the second time in order to push back against the Axis powers of traditional media. I'm taking this metaphor too far. You would love it here.

We should come here together. Well, we should go next year. I have gone a few times in my old job and it's always less glam than you expect it to be because you're in meetings from like eight to 10 p.m. and then maybe you get in to see Lil Jon or something like that afterwards. But it's tightly scheduled.

I hope you're having more fun than I did when I went. So just a little FYI, when you come with daddy, it's gonna be glam, glam central. All right. Especially you, everyone that'll stop you when you come with daddy, it's gonna be glam central. Especially you, everyone that'll stop you, you're famous now, everyone will stop you for selfies and be like, oh, thank God you're there on the five. And you're saying everyone would love you here because they're French, so they're total lefties.

Now, you would really enjoy it here. All right, well, next summer. You're in. We'll be in that palm tree room together. You're in. All right, in today's episode of Raging Moderates, we're discussing the new unfolding war between Israel and Iran under Trump's watch and the race to become New York City's next mayor. All right. Ten years ago, Donald Trump descended that golden escalator and launched what many thought would be a fleeting campaign. God, he showed us, didn't he?

Totally. A decade later, he's not only reshaped American politics, he's at the center of a chaotic week marked by protests, violence, and a growing war overseas. As Trump flexes power with a military parade, ordered mass deportations in democratic cities, millions took to the streets in the No Kings protest across the country. Meanwhile, violence erupted in Minnesota where a gunman killed two Democratic lawmakers and had a hit list of others. And overseas, a new war is unfolding

between Israel and Iran. Now five days in, with rising civilian casualties and attacks on critical infrastructure, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu claims that strikes have severely set back Iran's nuclear program, though we offered no specifics. Trump for his part warned Iranians on social media to evacuate Tehran and abruptly cut his time at the G7 summit short to return to the U.S. and manage a crisis. He reportedly rejected an Israeli proposal to assassinate Iran's supreme leader, but hasn't ruled out U.S. involvement in the conflict. All of this is unfolding as world leaders, especially from the EU,

urged him to cool global tensions and use his influence to help broker peace in both the Middle East and Ukraine. Just a lot to get to here. Where do you want to start? You're always so good with actual polls and data. Where do you want to start here? I guess we should maybe start with perhaps heading to world war three, which is not what I think is going to happen.

Yep. But it seems like it is the big storyline and I imagine people are discussing it there as well. I want to get to some data that I think is interesting, but kind of top line when I saw, and I understand that Trump puts a lot out on truth social that is meaningless. But when he said everybody evacuate Tehran, I stopped. And I looked at it and thought, if this is the one truth social post, that's true. We're in a world of trouble.

And it's been fascinating to follow this over the last five days. And we're recording this on Tuesday, it'll come out on Wednesday, and to try to understand the backroom dealings that went on between Bibi and Trump and Rubio. Trump, he does want a deal, and now he's saying, I don't just want a ceasefire,

I want an end to their program. And we know that a peace prize is on his mind constantly. And if he does get rid of the Iranian nuclear program beyond just even getting a deal that directly mirrors what we had in 2015, so he really shouldn't have ripped that up, then I think it should strongly be considered by the committee.

But you're watching, to my mind, Bibi get to do 99% of what he wants to, save for taking out the Supreme Leader. It seems like Israel is really firmly in control of what's going on here. And I understand that Trump and Witkoff had said, you have 60 days to take the deal. And on the 61st day is when they started

carrying out Operation Rising Lion. But you can tell that the defenses that the administration are giving, like Pete Hegseth was on with Jesse Waters last night, and he said, you know, this is Israel's self-defense, and this is what peace through strength looks like. So yes, it is self-defense in that Iran wants to eradicate Israel from the earth,

but this was a preemptive strike, and Bibi has admitted as much. And so they're trying to find the right language to describe the fact that BB Netanyahu is the one who's in charge. But that's how I see it. What are your thoughts? Look, I think there is a bad piece and I think the world is safer today than it was on Thursday. I mean, if you look at ice raids of Home Depot in Westlake, California, that's upsetting

and it's meaningful. If you look at ice raids of Home Depot in Westlake, California, that's upsetting and it's meaningful. I think the violence in Minnesota against two very decent lawmakers, that's meaningful. I think what's happened in Iran is profound. I think that the Middle East power dynamic has been reshaped in the last 24 months. Essentially, Iran was seen as the superpower, supporting its proxies, Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah. And in the last 18 months, the IDF and the superior intelligence and military war machine

of Israel has, I think, just cemented Israel as the superpower in the Middle East. And I would argue that effectively, Israel and specifically the IDF and also the Ukrainian army continued to do the West's dirty hard work through courage and excellence. You know, I just have a difficult time. I was so infuriated, Jess, I listened to the Daily, which I love, and they made it sound as if we were on the brink of a peace deal or a de-escalation of the nuclear program of Iran

and that Israel had somehow thrown it into chaos and that oil prices were spiking and consumers are gonna be paying $7 a gallon for gasoline in America and that Israel had ruined chances of peace. And I just find that such extraordinary bullshit. The Atomic International Agency just last week issued a statement that all evidence pointed to the following.

Iran was engaged in massive deception and was barreling towards enrichment of uranium with the sole motive of getting to a bomb. And when you have a clock in the middle of Tehran counting down the eradication of Israel. And when you say, debt to Israel is American say amen, you know, in my view, this is a good war. And Israel has effectively taken out their proxies, Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah, and now has basically overrun Iranian airspace. The skies of Iran belong to Israel right now.

And what was most impressive about this operation, which was reportedly years in the making, was not only does Israel control the skies, Israel clearly controls the ground. I mean, just, I don't know if you saw this, but there were several very, the most senior military leaders. I mean, the equivalent would be if the American Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of the Navy, the head of the Army, and the top four or five stellar generals were all murdered or killed within minutes of each other such that there was no one available to provide an order to fire surface-to-air missiles. And then they took out two or three of the top scientists.

they took out two or three of the top scientists. This was just, it's clear that whoever you are in Iran, if Israel gives them Mossad to take you out, you're gone. And so I gotta think if you're a mid-level officer in the IRGC, you're thinking, okay, what did I sign up for here? Because clearly their security apparatus has been totally, totally penetrated. Now along those lines, what was also interesting was who did they not kill?

They did not kill Khomeini. They did not take out serious oil infrastructure. And they could have. It's clear no one is out of their reach right now. So I see this as essentially a very hopeful sign and that the world is safer. I just have trouble listening to any argument that Iran with a nuclear weapon was better for the world. And the fulcrum of the decision comes down to the risk of going to war with Iran. Any time there's a war in the Middle East, there are unintended consequences. Let's be honest, it's just a risky proposition that you would rather avoid. Are those risks greater than the risks of a nuclear capable Iran?

And when I would argue that the latter, those risks far outweigh the former. So I'm a bit of a war hawk here. I think there is a bad piece in a good war. I think this is a good war. And I think the Middle East and the world and the West are safer today than it was on Thursday. And again, I'll just finish where I started. I think America and the West, oh, Israel and the Ukrainian army are real dead here. Israel took out more terrorists

from the US's most wanted list in six weeks than we took out in 20 years, and they have set Iran around nuclear capability back dramatically. The question I would have for you, and it's not a comment, it's an actual question. I can't figure out the extent to which the US cooperated and coordinated, or if Netanyahu basically said, we're doing this, we hope you're on board.

And now Trump is trying to step into the light of the macho and the military victory here, or what appears so far to be an incredible military operation thus far, or if in fact they were very coordinated with a kind of a PR head fake, you know, we're going to have a talk on Sunday. Do you have any thoughts on the level of integration or cooperation between the president and Israel? I think that it was a lot of the Israelis notifying the Americans as to what they were going to do so that the Americans weren't caught flat-footed. And let's be clear, everything that Mossad and the IDF is able to accomplish, and it is tremendous. I was talking about this on the five, I actually got to speak for two and a half minutes straight,

which I think was a record, but it was probably because I was praising Israel. So they took a break and let me go for it. You just have to take a step back and be in awe of the pinpoint precision with which they executed this particular mission. And same thing with Operation Grim Beeper from last year, that you have minimal civilian casualties. I think as far as I know,

at least from the opening operation, there were none when it came to what happened last week. And that they know, like you were saying, where all the Joint Chiefs are sitting and they can just blow up that conference room or they can get a nuclear scientist while he sleeps. You know, that's the kind of stuff that makes the best television or movies

that anyone has ever seen. So hats off to them for that. But I do think that it was really a case of Bibi notifying the Americans of what he was going to do and that in pursuit of being a quote, peacetime president, which is what Donald Trump wants and campaigned on and wanting this Nobel Prize, that he did want to continue on the diplomatic path. And they were going to sell us a nuclear deal that was no better than what we had before.

Let's be very clear when you go through the steps that were part of this and what the Iranians had agreed to. And the reason that you also know that to be true is they have exactly the same negotiator that negotiated in 2015. It's not like he woke up and said, oh, I have a totally different idea of how I want to acquiesce to the Americans or the international community. So I think that Bibi put the American president and Secretary Rubio in a really tough spot because we stand with our ally in the region.

We agree with your point that the world is better off when Iran doesn't have a nuclear bomb. But this might not have been the route that we wanted to take to get there. with your point that the world is better off when Iran doesn't have a nuclear bomb, but this might not have been the route that we wanted to take to get there. And Netanyahu saw an opening and he took it and his people appreciate it. Even the left that are no fans of him and his government, and we should note as well that he was facing a resolution

to dissolve the government last week, right, six days ago, and has survived that again, but even the left approves of this because this feels like just a tremendous sigh of relief that they don't have to think about this daily. Well, I shouldn't say that. They do think about this daily because they're all in bomb shelters right now because of the Iranian response, but that this will be better for their children and their children's children if Iran's nuclear program ends up being decimated. What I think is important to highlight and where some people find themselves who just want to oppose Israel no matter what is that they're not separating what may be going on in Gaza with what happened in Iran.

And those things are very different to me. And I believe that every single hostage should be returned. There are about 50 left. Half of them expected that they have already been murdered. Return the hostages. I think after the terrorist attack on October 7th, that Israel deserves nothing less than getting all of their people back

and that we should do everything we can to support them in that. But you do see thousands of innocent civilians that have died in Gaza. There are issues with getting humanitarian aid in. This is not something that there's disagreement on. Even people who support the president have been speaking out about this. And I feel like people looked at what happened in Iran

and they just said Israel bad, no matter what, because of how they feel about Gaza or how they feel about the history of Israel and actions that they've taken over the last several decades. And I think that that is making people miss the point about what an incredible achievement this would be if the Iranian nuclear program was ended. So those are my thoughts on that.

I assume that you are supportive of the US giving Israel the B-2 bombers that they need to go after the nuclear site of Fordow, I think it's called, that's buried in the mountain. Yeah, like you raise a number of really valid points. Saturday morning I woke up and I had trouble getting what I thought was really good information. CNN and the self-hating New York Times like could never find moral clarity around anything. And Fox just sort of like a drunk uncle like go Israel, you know, kill those

non-Westerners. And I wanted more nuanced information. And so I brought on a friend of mine, a guy named Dan Senor, who has this wonderful podcast called me back. And I said, just break down what's been going on. And, you know, Dan has a bias, I have a bias. I'm not religious. I think of myself as Jewish, but I can't ascribe. I haven't earned Judaism as a point of pride because I'm a raging atheist,

but I'm now a full-blown Zionist. And I try to be upfront about that. So I bring a set of values. I'm not a raging atheist, but I'm now a full-blown Zionist. And I try to be upfront about that. So I bring a set of values. Some people will call it bias, I call it a moral clarity. But any honest analysis is the following, that what's happened in Gaza raises a very interesting or valid concern.

And that is similar to Trump in 2024. It feels like Netanyahu is running to stay out of jail. 100%. That he may in fact, if he's not reelected, he may go to prison. And we have a wag the dog, a very likely scenario of wag the dog where you have the nation's top political leader in Israel

goes on a war footing, not necessarily because maybe it's in the best interest of Israel, but because quite frankly, it's in his best interest. It just feels like the war in Gaza needs to come to an end. And this is where I think it really hurts to have what I feel is an incompetent in the most important position in the world and that is the president. And I feel that if the president was a more thoughtful, geopolitically aware person with a secretary of state that had a backbone and wasn't just trying to read the tea

leaves around how he someday might be president, that they would in fact be putting a lot of pressure on Qatar not taking a fucking $400 million plane from them and saying, we're going to ruin your economy unless you put pressure on Hamas to come to the table and also quite frankly working with a pan Arab force, a US force and putting pressure on Netanyahu to say the death and destruction in Gaza needs to stop and taking a leadership role around that. But I think Trump is spending a lot more time thinking, how can I get the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi to build me a new golf course or building, as opposed to bringing

political pressure on them to either create and finance a pan-Arab peace force for Gaza and to put pressure on both Hamas via Qatar and on Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza. Because that is what is, in my opinion, really kind of turning us, when I say us, Israel from the good guys to the bad guys, from David to Goliath. And it has huge negative ramifications for the support of Israel.

I find this much easier to find moral clarity around. Yep. I just think if you think of the US having four real enemies, people would list North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran. I think it's unfair to call China an enemy. I think they're a competitor, but the US has so kind of gotten used to the hegemony of US power that when a

competitor shows that they're viable in striking distance, the gold medal winner hates the silver medal winner and sees them as their enemy. I think they're a competitor, not the enemy. But Iran is our enemy. And three of those four already have a nuclear weapon. I don't think four out of four is good for us. So I'm very sympathetic to the concerns

that this is a wag the tail scenario. I bring a bias against Trump. I think he left Canada to try and act. I think he's trying to take credit for the IDF's win here. I get the sense. I mean, at four in the morning, Rubio was saying, we didn't know about this. And then by nine in the morning, when it looked like it was a success, Trump was saying, well, of course we were on board with it and beating his chest and returning from Canada to try and, I don't know, I think he's putting on his GI Joe uniform and trying to look tough and take credit for

the expertise and the bravery of the IDF here, but that might be being unfair to him. Your thoughts? I think the truth is always somewhere in the middle, right, between those two positions. And you know, I don't know what any other American president frankly would have done when their strongest ally did something like this. And I just wanted to raise, since you said earlier, something that is important is there's new polling out of Trump voters from 2024, and they are completely supportive of intervention here. So there's the narrative that, you know, Trump is a dove and people voted for him

because they don't want to get into any wars. Well, the truth of the matter is, is they're going to go along with whatever it is that Trump wants to do. 73% say Iran can't be trusted to honor any diplomatic agreements. 72% support direct U.S. military action if necessary to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. 83% support Israel's preemptive strikes. 79% support sending offensive weapons. 91% want to share intelligence with Israel and 89% are very or somewhat concerned about Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. So whichever direction Trump decides to go, as usual, the base will follow him. So I know that it's a lot of fun to talk about the inter-party dynamics and the

Tucker Carlson and MGT versus Josh Hawley and John Bolton or whatever. But the truth is that this is Donald Trump's party and the base will follow him wherever he goes in this. And by some miracle, if there is a decent diplomatic agreement, I will praise that and hope for the best. But I do think to what we were just discussing that people have really got to separate their feelings about the war in Gaza with their feelings about this strike on Iran. And yes, I hope that we end the war and that we end it soon. No, no, no, Gat is this on the far right,

this anger that Trump said we would never enter into these forever wars in sort of the isolationist argument. Like enough already, it's not our problem. And my response to this, well, why the fuck are you proposing we take the military budget from 800 billion to 1.1 trillion? Are you worried about Canadian Mounties marching into Buffalo? I mean, if we're not gonna take an active role

in the sport of our allies abroad, I mean, I get the argument that you get sometimes in the far left, let's take our military budget down to 200 billion and spend 600 billion on our own children and food stamps and education, that we don't need to be roaming the earth pretending to be GI Joe. I think that's a legitimate argument.

But if you're looking to dramatically expand military spending, what are we worried about? Are we worried about Mexico invading us? If we're not gonna use it. Well, they wanna give the money to ICE. Oh, there you go, for bonuses, right? That's probably- Not just bonuses, to hire more agents, border security.

The funds are fungible, as I'm told every single time that I talk about abortion. They're also caught up between the fact that it's a mix of doves and hawks that are part of this administration and the apparatus. Okay, but just the other really fascinating thing here, I find was the use of drone technology. If I could invest in any technology right now,

you watch, there's gonna be a dozen unicorns in drone technology. They again, similar to what the Ukrainian army did, which I thought was just inspiring. They figured out a way to get trucks into Iran that had pre-assembled drones and power, their kind of self-charging infrastructure, and they launched these things.

And as opposed to a two or a $3 million ICBM, they have these things that cost two or $300 and using GPS and on the ground, human intelligence, soft assets, they just swarm a building or a surface to air missile installation. And just the asymmetric war here and use of drones is incredible.

And the Ukrainian army and Israel have shown that a technologically sophisticated army with Skills around asymmetric warfare, which by the way does not describe the US right now is more powerful than these kinetic superpowers. I thought that was Fascinating. So let's take a quick break. Stay with us Let's take a quick break. Stay with us. Support for the show comes from MasterClass. There's nothing like getting a fresh perspective from experts who've seen it all and have the wisdom to prove it.

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The no Kings protests and Trump's military parade, which I describe as the saddest Bat Mitzvah in history. Nobody showed up for little Rachel's Bat Mitzvah, Jess. That's sad. Sadder than the military parade stuff. You've won a lot of people at your Bat Mitzvah. What's your take on this? Listen, it was raining. I'm sure there were some people who would have been casual attendees of the military parade who decided to stay home.

But I did think that the contrast was stark between the squeaky wheeled tanks rolling around DC and the five million people that turned up all over the country. I had friends abroad who went to no-kings protests like in Barcelona and in London. I'm not sure, you know, if we're getting ahead of ourselves with this talk of the, you know, the 3.5% rule that if you have 3.5% of the population engaged in actions opposing the government that you get a result. But I think it's a good step. And I felt like this was very different from the women's march, which I did participate in. And, you know, we were out there basically just saying, I don't want Donald Trump. But there was a lack of specificity. We also didn't know what the Trump administration

was going to look like. We were kind of just going off of these fears that we had from the 2016 election and the campaign. A lot of them ended up coming to fruition. But there was a specificity to why people were participating in the No Kings protest that I thought was really important, that people were there about the ICE raids that had happened, not just what might happen. They were there because of the cuts to VA benefits, for instance, that had actually happened. They were there because of the cuts to like VA benefits, for instance, that had actually happened. They were there to say no cuts to Medicaid, which are in the BBB and the big beautiful bill. And it felt like it had more oomph to

it than previous protests, at least from what I was consuming. And I think that as well, there were so many young people being interviewed specifically at the LA No Kings protests, who are actually signed up to go into the military that were standing right in front of the National Guard, guarding the federal buildings. And I thought that that was a particularly powerful contrast. What did you make of it? I thought it was was a particularly powerful contrast.

What did you make of it? I thought it was just inspiring. I was American abroad and he was moving back. It made me really excited to move back. There are really three I see three firewalls or buffers between this. What is the greatest experiment in history? And that is an American constitutional democracy platform for prosperity and rights. And that first buffer is the courts. And I think the courts have largely done their jobs. They've been a bit overrun by they're not able to deal with a criminal president.

The courts can't act fast enough. And the president has figured out that even if the courts reject this in 30, 60, 90 days, I can get the majority of the harm or the benefit done or accomplished. The judicial system just wasn't built for what's going on right now, but every time something comes before a court, they generally say, no, you can't do that. So I think you gotta give the courts their due, that the good work of our justice system

continues to grind on and do its job. Then there's the media. I get frustrated with the media that, I know, I think one of the biggest stories of the year is what is this unprecedented crypto scam where they're basically monetizing the presidency and preying on the vulnerability of hundreds of thousands of people who like the president, who will buy some Trump coin and then lose it while he creates massive market swings of volatility in the market and then gives his cronies insider information such that he's created an incentive system where, all right, if you know me, I'll

make you a billionaire. If George Stephanopoulos says something bad about me, you better give me 10 million bucks or I'm going to make your life miserable. Or if you don't give me 25 million, Sherry Roadstone, I will not approve your merger and you're going to go from being the billionaire kid to the kid who lost your father's company. I mean, the dissent into criminality here at the hands and the most obvious case is the Trump coin. I just don't think it's gotten nearly the coverage because I think it's hard work.

It involves numbers. It's not very interesting. I, and I think they've just totally missed it. So I do get frustrated, but I do think that at mixed bag, I, you know, I'm also learning a lot in turning to the media for solid information. And then the third kind of pillar of defense line of defense is citizenry. And I would argue to date that I've been sort of

shocked at how. Unplussed or non-alarm the American public seems by what's going on, or at least expressing their concerns privately, not publicly. And when you see, you you see five to seven million people in Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle, San Antonio, taking a day from their families, their work, self-care, coming up with costumes,

coming up with really funny signs, and marching as part of a collective, I just thought it was absolutely inspiring. And then great branding and great messaging creates contrast. And what was so powerful about this wasn't how bad the military parade was or how outstanding the No Kings protests were,

but it was the contrast between the two on the same day. And that is every news station, including Fox, even though it had audio of increased applause for the parade, they couldn't even help but cutting to the No Kings parades and just the whole world saw on display essentially the coolest rockin party, most optimistic party that represented America and the rich kid who threw the most optimistic party that represented America, and the rich kid who threw the most fucking lame party. And it was embarrassing. I mean, just the video was just, it's like, oh my God,

we ended up here, it's embarrassing. This was a bad idea. He even fell asleep at one point. He was nodding off as well. So anyways, the key here was not either. It was both on the same day, the contrast here, but I thought it was just incredibly inspiring, made you feel wonderful to be an American

and just thumbs up and thank you to all of the 7 million people. And just one piece of data as we end here, there's been some research done on protests and 1.8% of the American population turned up for a no-kings protest, whenever there has been 3% or more of Americans who turn out for anything,

there has never not been change around that policy. So I found that was interesting, that we came up about 4 million people short, but we're getting close to the point, historically, where there has to be some sort of change. Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. The data analytics company Palantir has been working

with the US government for about 15 years on all sorts of things. This year, ICE is gonna pay Palantir $30 million to improve how it targets and surveils undocumented immigrants. And your response to this probably depends to some degree on your politics. But the Trump administration is also expanding Palantir's reach on something that would affect all Americans.

The idea is to link together all the data that the government has about us. This is unprecedented. So anyway, Theo von freaks out. This sounds crazy, dude. And confronts JD Vance. It can tell if your kids are, you know, if your kids are gonna have a limp or whatever and they'll be in the Christmas play. Veep is like, it's going to be okay. But FYI, I also just learned about this.

I actually just read about it earlier today or maybe yesterday. Coming up on Today Explained, what's Palantir up to? Support for the show comes from SoFi Small Business Lending. If you run a small business, you're probably dealing with cashflow, trying to find capital for new opportunities, or thinking about other ways to expand. SoFi Small Business Lending Marketplace is your new best friend. No more chasing bankers or wasting time in a branch. SoFi's marketplace offers a fast digital solution in one single simple search. SoFi matches you with vetted providers for your business in just minutes.

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SoFi, now helping you get your business right. Visit sofi.com slash ProfGPod and see your options in minutes. Welcome back. Should we talk about the mayor's race, Jess? Which every New Yorker is super excited about, yeah. I feel totally removed from it. What do you, give us a rundown and what are your thoughts? I am near despondent that we don't have

a good moderate option to vote for. And I know you like Whitney Tulson, who seems great but obviously doesn't have the juice. It's not a factor. It's not a factor. And I thought, and it would have been the first time as far as I can remember that I wasn't going to vote in the primary because I don't wanna have to support Andrew Cuomo.

Right. I think he's a bad dude. I think he's a competent gangster, which we've talked about before. Yep. And people gravitate towards that, especially when they feel like where they live is in crisis. And we are in a crisis moment for blue city and

state governance. And that's what we saw in the election in 2024. That's why people are embracing the abundance agenda. Democrats are completely flipping their rhetoric from just a few years ago because they see that things can get bleak and can get bad. And I shouldn't be afraid to take my little girls on the subway. I grew up as a city kid with my mom. There was always someone to help with a stroller. No one thought

that anything was going to go wrong. And in the last year, we've had women set on fire in subway cars. So things have been bad. But now, because of the rise of Zoran Mondani, the progressive candidate, and it's a two-man race, 100%, even though we have ranked choice, a lot of would-be Cuomo voters are now going to have to turn out. And that's what's going to happen. And I'm going to rank him first and not put Mom Donnie on my ballot at all. And you see, which is interesting, you don't usually have a uniform reaction

from the major New York papers, but you have the New York Post and the New York Times both saying not to rank Mom Donnie. York Post and the New York Times, both saying not to rank Mamdani. And the New York Times editorial has gotten a lot of play. Cuomo was pushing it as an endorsement of him, and it's a backhanded endorsement. They basically said Cuomo is really bad, but he's better than this. And they listed a lot of his achievements, which there were many from when he was governor. But they basically say, Mamdani's experience is too thin. His agenda reads like a turbocharged version of Mr. de Blasio's dismaying mayoralty.

And talking about things like freezing rents and restricting housing supply. You know, he's for government funded grocery stores. That'll work. This is a capitalist nation. And then this isn't even to discuss, which has been a big problem for his campaign, his issues with the Jewish community. He's still a supporter of the BDS movement. I mean, this is the biggest Jewish population outside of Israel. And he

certainly has some Jewish supporters, most of them the types that would have been participating in the college protests, for instance. He has a very white base of support. And like most elections for Democrats, it's going to come down to how much minority turnout is there. Black and brown people more apt to support Cuomo. White progressives more apt to support Mamdani. But like we had Richie Torres last week. Maybe he runs for governor. Maybe he wins. I would love it. But if we had had a Richie Torres in the mayoral race, a Dan Goldman, for instance, I think we would have just been in much better position.

You know, I hadn't thought of that. That's a great idea. Richie Torres should run for mayor. Yeah, when I was on Bill Maher and Andrew Cromer was on and... That was our night. That's when we met. That's when we met. That was our special night? Yeah, that was our meet cute or our meet HBO. Yeah, I hated that episode because one, everyone in the comments

said how much they loved you, but also they kind of confronted Cuomo about the nursing home desk. And I chimed in and said, I was on the board of my kid's school and we didn't know what to do. And I got so much hate mail about being a pro-vax weirdo. I mean, I got the strangest emails anyway.

But the thing I noticed is any politician who was super nice to me and pretends to be really interested in the real Scott, I'm like, oh, they're running for president. And he was, he took a real interest in liking to me after the show. And I thought he's running for president. I thought, is he really that tone deaf that he thinks he could run for president after what happened to him? And I gotta be honest, I think he was dealt a bad hand. I think it's a typical example of a guy who got too much power, started blaming his own press and started losing all guard rails around the way he acquitted himself or didn't personally and privately. Having said that, I actually think he was a good public servant.

And I think a guy like that with those skills, quite frankly, of getting shit done is probably gonna be the best thing of all the candidates I can see. I don't have a problem with him being mayor. What scares me is I think he's mayor for 18 or 24 months, then he announces his candidacy for president. I don't think he's interested in being mayor.

I think he sees this as a- He doesn't even live here. I think this is a rehab, this is his rehabilitation tour before he announces that he's interested in being mayor. I think he sees this as a- He doesn't even live here. I think this is a rehab. This is his rehabilitation tour before he announces that he's running for president. I think these guys wake up, look in the mirror and say, hello, Mr. President. And he remembers those days of those daily briefings

on COVID where everybody was talking about, you know, how he was the sexiest public official in history. It's too bad because New York is an operational role. It really upsets me that you don't feel safe on the subway. I think a lot about what it means to be a man and what I try and tell my boys in that is, you need to make women feel safe. When we're ever out in public,

you wanna make people who are smaller or not as strong as you physically feel safe. And it saddens me that you would say that because when I first came to New York in the early 90s, when you were on a date or with a crowd, you would walk the women to our cab and you wouldn't let a woman take the subway because it was so dangerous.

And it's gotten a lot better since then. But I appreciate that you feel that it's gotten worse. And it's just insane that in any world-class city, people wouldn't feel safe. We should also note that Cuomo has been incredibly accused of sexual harassment by many women. And that is a reason that there are folks who don't want to return him to any sort of public office,

even if it is just Gracie Manchin versus running Albany. But I agree with you. I think he wants to run for president and he needs to be in the public eye and also remind us of the aspects of his leadership that were good. Those press conferences, the daily COVID briefings were must-see TV for the entire country and friends out in Los Angeles that were watching Cuomo, waiting to see what he was going to say. It was taken on all the major networks. Didn't matter what was going on.

They blew out normal programming to make sure that we all heard from Andrew Cuomo. So, you know, my expectation is that the late breakers will be going for Cuomo. You see a coalescing of endorsements, a big one coming out of the Hasidic community and Borough Park, who had originally been arguing to rank Adrian Adams first. But as an issue with ranked choice voting,

people are now trying to get the message out that you need to not have the guy that you don't want at all on your ballot whatsoever. That even if they're ranked fourth, for instance, that still keeps them in the mix. So each campaign is out there with their best surrogate saying, make sure that the other guy isn't on your ballot at all.

I would have voted for his brother, Chris. Mostly, A, I think he's a really nice man and smart and moderate. And I think he's very good looking, which is important in our civic leaders. All right, Jess, bonsoir. I will have some rosé. I'm seeing Diplo and someone else tonight. Oh, that's fun.

All right, that's better than the concerts I usually got into. Though I saw Post Malone a couple years ago at Cannes Lions and it was incredible. Yeah, I bet that was good. It's funny to think that we were here, but we didn't know, we've come so far, Jess. We've come so far.

Next year, tons of photos on the cassette with Jess Tarloff, which I will not like. You will love it. Cause it's about to dog. We take cute selfies. There we go. Have an amazing time, and you have a number of live pods

and speaking gigs going on. Yeah, gotta pay the rent. This hotel is like crazy expensive. I'm horn it up anyway. Anyone that has a checkbook, I'm like, hi, do you need a moderator? Anyways, that's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates.

Our producers are David Toledo and Eric Genekes. Our technical director is JuBurro. Going forward, you'll find Raging Moderates every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to Raging Moderates on its own feed to hear exclusive interviews with sharp political minds you won't hear anywhere else. This week, Jess is talking to Sky Perryman, the presidency of Democracy

Forward, about what it means to be a lawyer in a time where the federal government is fighting against the rule of law. God, I hope that's more exciting than it sounds. It is. She's awesome. It is? Yeah. She's awesome?

Yeah. Awesome. Okay. I'll tune in. Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Don't miss an episode.