The Young Turks - Kamalanomics VS Corporations

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Harris proposes raising the corporate tax rate to 28% and rolling back a Trump law. The “prosecutor vs. felon” line isn’t the slam dunk Team Harris thinks it is. TYT interviews actor Sean Astin." HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. All right.

Turks of the DNC, Jake and Granite, and despairing with you guys. Obviously, normally we're live from our Polymarket studio in LA, but this week we're in Chicago. And not only do we have amazing stories for you guys, but we have some amazing guests that are coming up. So one of the, I don't want to give it away, but one of the guests not only saved the known universe,

but has pulled off miracles in several different instances. Who could that be? Interesting. Okay. And is beloved by Anna's husband. Totally. I'll give you, I'll give you one clue. Potatoes. Okay, well, that's a big clue. Not a big clue. Okay. So, and we're going to have some formal Republicans. We're going to have, including Michael Cohen, come on later in the coverage. And tonight, we've got amazing speeches, Barack Obama and Shell Obama. I hear one of them is, secretly in charge of the Democratic Party. In fact, we're going to talk about a story about that a little bit later in the show.

Is it a secret? No, no, that they're secretly in charge. Yeah, it's not a secret. Oh, apparently it's not a scene. Okay, so, and then just, and then Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders, I like that you're going to get excited about Chuck Schumer. You know, yeah, not. But anyways, but last night they went on too long and that became like a huge point for the

media and criticism, et cetera. This night, it's going to be a little bit toyed, toyed like a tiger, okay? And of course, that's what we're going to do as well. We've got some amazing stories for you guys. There's a Trump might have been tagging as Kamala Harris that has me actually kind of enraged. And so, that's interesting and this program. So I love it. By the way, soy, thank you. You already made a contribution. Unbelievable t.com slash DNC. So we're trying to pay for this big giant trip here and we appreciate all you guys. And we're on to like much better, greener pastures. I don't think green and pastures is the right way to say, but it's like water will open blue skies, I hope soon.

So what we're asking for you is to help us to get to that moment. This is we need it a little bit of a bridge. That's why we're asking the audience. We appreciate you guys, love you guys. All right, let's do the show for you. All right, well, why don't we start with the ongoing media attacks against Kamala Harris over a very vague statement and proposal she may take a line? Is it okay to sort of sow the populist discontent? Do you think, Doug, I guess we shouldn't be surprised, but it's just so easy not to connect the dots between all the prosperity that a country enjoys based on the private sector. and it's just really it's really easy to bash corporations as greedy profit mongers and that need

you know price controls and you know should be precluded from buying back stock and need to pay their fair share when no one if you were to really pin them down no one wants the government to be the main provider of jobs is it just trying to win elections you know saying that It is wrong to accuse corporations of being profit mongers. It's kind of hilarious when you live in a country where corporations have the fiduciary responsibility to provide a return on investments to their shareholders. But anyway, of course, that was the NBC anchor Joe Hernan, who is not a fan of a vague statement that Kamala Harris made in regard to price gouging. And so that has led to this ongoing domino effect in the media where they've just been attacking her relentlessly. for something that she's not going to do.

And they're accusing her of wanting to do price fixing. There's no evidence of that. But let's get into the detail. So so far, Harris is, again, incredibly vague plan to ban price gouging as it pertains to grocery stores and food prices, has in fact ruffled some feathers. So to discuss the topic, CNBC brought on the former Kellogg CEO. His name is Carlos Boutierrez. his feelings on the matter probably won't surprise you. I thought we would have learned by now that price controls do not work.

It is an abstract concept and very hard to enforce. And I think if anything, it perhaps will create some intimidation that we shouldn't be raising prices or, but it's not it's not sound policy and I'm just very surprised. It seems like they have momentum, Harris will, they have momentum. them. They've got polls on their side. They don't need this. Some people are left-wing. And they believe it. And they believe in, you know, they believe that billionaires and millionaires and CEOs are the enemies of this economy. We want to compete against the world. We want to compete and beat China yet. We are holding back our companies, not just with this.

let's just say they do put on price controls. Try to get a merger across in the FTC, across the FTC. It'll take months and months and months. In the meantime, your competitors are getting stronger. Business is not the enemy, but it's an easy target. Mergers lead to an increase in prices. Lack of competition. in the market. And so I am against price controls, as we've talked about on this show, we're very much left wing when it comes to economic policies. Price controls typically lead to even more inflation, shortages, things like that. That's certainly what happened back in the 1970s. But what I'm certainly in favor of is ensuring that we have a federal

trade commission that is hyper focused on ensuring that there's competition in the market, to ensure there is lower prices. And without the competition, I mean, he was just complaining about how long it takes for mergers to take place in America. Yeah, and that's because he's in the middle of a $30 billion merger. Kellogg and Morris Company, I believe, were considering merging. And that would mainly really limit the supply, not the supply, but the number of companies within the snacks and candy industry, etc., of course, Kellogg's and more

things as well, but that's what they're worried about. They want to make sure that they want that they guard against monopolies and oligopolis. And if you're a capitalist, monopoly power is one of the first things that you read about and that you understand is an enemy of the free markets. monopolies and oligopolis, which is a number of small limited companies, small number of companies, which is exactly what we have in America, dominating almost every industry, greatly hurts competition, prices, and free markets. So that these executives get massive payouts when they do these mergers. So oftentimes they'll be golden parachutes, there'll be extra incentives to merge,

they'll get stock options from both companies, et cetera. So they have all the incentive in the world to do these. mergers, but it hurts consumers. And that's why the government is supposed to look out for you. Like they're a cop on the on Main Street. They also needs to be a cop on Wall Street. Now, a couple of interesting things he said there, though, he said, number one, this looks like intimidation. Well, it partly is. And that's what the government is supposed to. They're supposed to say, hey, we're going to put a check on you. So if you think you're going to abuse this system and abuse the voters and the average American, well, you're not going to get

away with it. So if you do price gauging in the middle of a natural disaster, you charge $200 for a bottle of water because there was a hurricane hit and your kids need water. Well, we're going to come after you for that. That's because that's the government protecting you in a time of need. So he then said, oh, well, this is really vague. No, wait a minute. If you thought it's price controls, then it's not vague at all. Price controls are very clear. Hey, I'm going to set the price of bananas at 20 cents a pound. Super clear. No, price dowaging is big. So you don't think it's price controls. You think it is an actually an effort to limit price gouging. That's why you called it big.

So look, that brother is speaking from his perspective as a CEO of a massive, multi-billion dollar company. And in their world, they really believe the mythology that they put out there in the propaganda that they do. And if you notice, he said, well, I had all this momentum. But you know, in them polling, this shows that it's popular. And they've added to their momentum. But what he really meant was the business community thought we could trust.

And you had momentum with the donors. But now you're cutting into your momentum. So now we can't trust that you're corrupt enough. Awesome. You can't do a better out of it. Right. And just to be clear, you know, former Kellogg's CEO, but has the mentality of a CEO, who's, by the way, tasked with maximizing profits.

So that is the job that they are focused on. And so it makes sense that they're going to push back against any type of government regulation that would go after any type of predatory behavior, right? And in the case of price gouging, that has been a problem. And look, they have been denying over and over again on cable news shows that, no, no, no, there was no price gouging. None of that happened. But if you want to know the truth, the best way to get it is to listen in on the calls that these executives have with their shareholders, which is public. You can actually join those calls and listen in to what they're saying and they cannot lie to the shareholders. Otherwise, they could be liable for fraud

prosecution. So with that in mind, let's actually read some of the transcripts from some of these calls. Okay. Let's start with the CEO of Iron Mountain Inc. who told Wall Street analysts at a September 20th, 2022 investor event that the high levels of inflation of the past several years had helped the company increase its margins, meaning increase their profits. And that for, and that for that reason, he had long been doing my inflation dance,

praying for inflation. Yeah. Praying for inflation. Okay, there's more. Proger's CEO. Rodney McMullen said on an earnings call with analysts back in 2021, our business operates the best when inflation is about three, to 4%. A little bit of inflation is always good in our business. Yeah. Okay, because they can

piggyback off of that inflation messaging that we see in the media and justify increasing their prices, even though they really don't need to. Yeah. So I want to get into the policies of this because it's just absolutely brilliant. But first, I want to emphasize one thing that Anna said. So when that CEO says that they're praying for inflation, remember the current CEOs are They're saying, oh, no, no, we're really worried about inflation because it drives up our prices. We're afraid of inflation. So when a CEO says, no, no, we're secretly praying for inflation. What he's saying is, I want to use that as an opportunity to drive up my profits even more.

So that's where he gives away the game. They're not afraid of that. It depends on the industry. It depends on the company. But for a lot of these consumer goods, especially because of the extra money that people had because of the COVID relief, they thought, they're going to be less likely to move to a competitor or to a non-brand consumer good, like sugar or et cetera, or even a detergent, etc. All of those things that you find in the grocery store. So we got them where we want them. And inflation allows us to charge past inflation to make a bigger problem. So now, the policy simply.

So this was an incredible, incredible populist jiu-jitsu maneuver and more effective than almost anything that I could remember in covering presidential politics. Because Donald Trump was perceived wrongly, but perceived as the more populist candidate. So he would speak like an average guy in that he didn't use prompters. He didn't know what the hell he was talking about, right? Like, not that an average guy doesn't, but he didn't look studied. like a normal politician does. And they gave him the feeling of authenticity without the actual authenticity or the actual populism. Meanwhile, he's saying in words, like, oh, I'm going to give corporations everything.

You need an even bigger tax cut, et cetera. But he had that momentum. Now it switched completely. Kamala Harrison, Tim Walts looked more populist. The more they are called communists, the more they look populist. Because now Trump, the Republicans, and all of cable news is dug into, oh, Kamala Harris. is hurting big corporations, she's trying to, you know, please the average person in America unfairly and taking it out on big business. You can't ask for better ads than that.

So this is beautiful. This is exactly what you should. Nobody's talking about how Trump's upon this and he would ever was anyway, but that veneer is gone when they start defending big business. Exactly. And so I want to give you more examples because it wasn't just one or two, corporate executives who openly bragged about how they were taking advantage of the inflation narrative in order to jack up their prices for no reason at all other than to increase their margins and their profits. AutoZone, which sells car parts and accessories, saw earnings jump 13%. CEO Jemir Jackson called inflation a little bit of our friend in terms of what we see in terms of retail pricing. There's more. Coca-Cola Co's CEO James Quincy said in February of

2023, the company had earned the right to push price hikes on the consumers because it's classic Coke and Fanta sodas led the beverage category. And so look, because of COVID, it is undeniable that there were supply chain disruptions. So there were areas in our economy, sectors of the economy that certainly saw prices jump because there was limited supply, increased demand. However, companies and sectors of the economy that were not impacted by these supply chain issues decided to take advantage of that and argue that they had to raise their prices as well. And look, I do think that there's value, even though I don't think Kamala Harris is going to do a damn thing about price gouging. And to be fair, you know, inflation has slowed down a little bit

when it comes to grocery prices, prices are still coming up, but the inflation has slowed down considerably. I do think that the threat of doing something has an impact. We certainly see that with Lena Kahn as the head of the FTC. You know, when the threat of FTC lawsuits could potentially stop a merger from happening, sometimes those proposed mergers are never even proposed. Yeah. So that's why when he said, it seems like they're trying to intimidate us. Think about the message. is that sense of the average voter. They're saying Kamala Harris would bully big business interests to fight for you. Oh my God, that's beautiful. So please keep saying that all over television. I know that the big business community is like for clamped over it. And they're like,

oh my God, we won't give you as much as we were going to. Okay, fine. But at this point, I don't think that makes much of a difference at all. What makes a difference is appealing to these voters. And this is why you attack on your moral high ground, because it invites the other side to accidentally help you by continuing this discussion, which frames you as the fighter for the average America. Exactly. Now, I have to give credit to one CEO, and I'm sure you'll be very proud of this, Jank. He's a fellow Turk. Oh, yes. So he's the Chobani founder and CEO. Hamdi Ulukaya. Yeah, Hamdi Ulukaya.

Obviously, and here's what he's had to say about the price gouging that has been taking place. He says that this is irresponsible. People who depend on food are paying the price. Yeah, well, look, that makes two church that didn't raise their price during inflation. We also didn't raise the price of membership here on young church. Hit the join button below still the same low price. But seriously, I look, I think Humdney is a super smart guy. a super smart guy. I love that he called the Greek yogurt when he's Turkish. He just did it for

marketing. It worked. And it worked and it was brilliant. And nothing wrong with that. That's another long story. But here he is, thinking out for the average consumers saying, oh, we're not going to raise prices. And you don't have to raise prices. It's all about profit margin. If you have a tiny margin, digital media, well, then you're in trouble and you need as much margin as you can possibly get to survive in the tough times, right? But a lot of these companies, have giant margins. So it's just a matter how much in profits they're making, how many billions of profits that they're making, etc. Now, grocery stores are not the best example of that. Grocery stores do have kind of low margins. But that's why all this is a little bit of more optics than

reality, because she's not going to go after grocery stores. And I doubt she'll ever even do this. I think that all they're doing is falling right into her trap of painting her as the populist person fighting for the average. Yes. I do want to move on to a different angle, having to do with Kamala Harris's economic policies. Let's get into it. Vice President Kamala Harris wants to raise the U.S. corporate tax rate to 28% if she wins the presidency. Proponents of something like this, you know, I listen to what they say, and I guess they make some good points. You just heard what Kamala Harris is, in fact, proposing. Remember that Donald Trump had cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

Kamala Harris is now proposing to increase the corporate tax rate to 28%, which I have a problem with because that's exactly what Biden said he wanted to do. And I didn't think it made any sense. When you campaign on reversing the Trump era tax cuts for corporations and the rich, then you should reverse the Trump era tax cuts on corporations and the rich, meaning you should propose increasing the tax rate to 35%, not 28%. But I I'm curious, Jank, what you think about this and whether or not using Kamala Harris, should she get elected, would even fight for 28%. Yeah, so there's a couple of different angles here. As usual, let's break it down to politics and policy. On politics, it's great. So she's fighting for higher tax rates for big business. Americans generally hate big business, except everyone on television were all part of big business, right? So yeah, you might get a couple of people even on MSNBC for a clamped over this. But overall, it plays really well to vote. Because remember, if you don't, if they don't pay the taxes, you have to pay the taxes. So I'm going to get back into that in a little bit.

Okay. So the politics are excellent. But in terms of the policy, Anna's totally right. So number one, it drives to be crazy that Democrats make all these promises. And when it's the campaign, everyone will pretend that the promises are 100% real and they're all going to happen. And then when they get into power and they don't do it, they go, oh, nobody thought that was going to happen. No, wait. I remember you telling me in the middle of the campaign that it was definitely going to happen.

And then you turn around the minute you win and say, oh, it's never going to happen. So which one is it? So look, I've seen Lucy pull the ball away 2,000 times. I'm not a sucker. I'm not going to go kick them. Like, it's a very low chance that she'll actually do this. Biden promised to no end didn't do anything, nothing on it. Zero.

Didn't even try. It was all just a political gimmick. Right. Now, is Kamala Harris better on it? Well, we're going to find out. But I would be surprised. And remember, guys, it was Trump brought her from 35 to 21. And even in their, like, promises, which they almost never deliver on, they're not even saying 35. They're saying 28. So, like, at best, they're going to bring back half of the cuts that the Republicans

gave to corporations, which is, by the way, what would happen to our whole lifetime, right? Republicans take 100 yards. Democrats promise to bring it back 50 yards, bring it back actually five yards. The Republicans gain 95 yards or in reality corporate rule gains 95 yards. And then corporate media declares victory for the five yards of the Democrats got. So that is very likely what's going to happen here. But nevertheless, if they do implement it, I also want to get into how much of a difference it would mean. So listen, I also want to just be clear on why we are so cynical about the- Because we're correct and we believe in fact. Because we have recent history to inform what we can predict about what the corporate Democrats are going to do. And let's let's just keep. Kamala Harris is a corporate Democrat.

And she is funded by a lot of billionaire donors. We've been talking about it on the show. Those donors are not giving her money to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. So the two of their own health. Like they're doing it for a favor. Yeah. turn. And I don't want anybody to get a twist. Look guys, Kamala Harris has been better than the average establishment Democrats. In campaigning. Right. And she picked Tim Walls and she's got an economically

popular position. I don't want you to get depressed over it or lose hope or anything like that. This is as good as you're going to get for the moment being, okay? So God bless. Good, smart politics. And because she picked walls and she's doing this strategy, there's even some small chance that she'll do it. She'll do some portion of it, that she'll fight for it. By the way, if they genuinely fought for it and they tried their best and they lost, I can live with that. I just want them to try really, really hard and not fake it.

So I don't want you to get depressed over it. But at the same time, I don't want you to have false hope that she's going to come in and be some savior who does everything she promised when that is not the track record of the Democratic Party. And obviously the Republican Party is way worse. They're saying no. In fact, Trump literally is saying, I'm going to cut it from 21 to 15. And the Republicans are good at getting those through. Trump got the last giant tax cut for corporations through. So the Republicans will marches

all the way backwards. But don't get too high on, oh my God, they're going to actually do these things that they're promising in the campaign. They almost never did. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we've got more news for you, including some on the left now attacking Kamala Harris for actually campaigning, aggressively, appropriately, and correctly. We're right back. that gave through t yt.com slash dnc black mf velvet nick muddard the happy warrior joseph Zupancic Atomic Ann who said it's my birthday I donate my gift who wants to match my donation

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Hit the join button below or t.com slash dnc. We need you and we appreciate you. Anna. Well, now there's this. Before that, I was a courtroom prosecutor. In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Broadsters who ripped off consumers.

Cheaters, who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump's type. That's strong message is being criticized pretty aggressively now because of the fact that Kamala Harris has decided to frame herself as a prosecutor who goes after perpetrators and criminals like Donald Trump. And apparently using words like perpetrator, felon, has ruffled some feathers among individuals on the left. And so there are think pieces out there now that I thought were fascinating and I wanted to share with you all. So let's start with Abdallah Fayad over at Box, who writes that it's not clear that this line of attack is effective. And there are real downsides to propagating the simplistic story of good versus evil in the context of prosecutor. and felons. The term felon is a label that stigmatizes more than it describes and does a real

disservice to efforts to reform a broken justice system. So there's more. You also have a Carol Bogart who is the president of the Marshall Projects nonprofit that pushes for soft on crime BS that I'm not in favor of. But anyway, she also penned an op-ed over at the Washington Post, arguing that the new edition of the Associated Press's influential style book coincidentally released the day before Trump's conviction states clearly do not use felon, convict, or ex-con as nouns. Instead, the style book advises journalists when possible to use person-first language to describe someone who is incarcerated or someone in prison. A person-first language is a concept borrowed from the disability rights movement. Now, when someone has a disability, it's usually

through no fault of their own or because they suffered a terrible tragic incident or injury. And so equating criminals, felons, convicted felons with people who have disabilities, I think, is strange. But let me continue. She also writes, by calling Trump a felon, we risk rehabilitating a word that has fallen out of favor for good reason. Trump is a person convicted of felonies. So are millions of other Americans. How we describe him affects them too, meaning how we describe a convicted felon, Donald Trump, impacts other convicted felons who have also committed crimes that they were convicted of in a court of law. Okay, so what should we call them? What is the what is the suggestion here? What's a better way of referring to people who committed crimes,

stood trial, and were convicted of said crimes? Well, Akila Lacey, who is a reporter with the intercept, argues the following. Democrats are really leaning into the convicted felon thing, despite pressure from criminal justice reformers, to dispense with that kind of language and acknowledge that justice impacted people are also bonus. So don't call. Call them felons, call them justice impacted people. Well, I suppose they were. So a couple of things here, as usual, politics and policy. On the politics, if you're a left winger and you are trying to get everyone

to say justice impacted person instead of felon, A, you will utterly fail. B, you will look ridiculous. And you can catch all sorts of feelings and you could hate me for it and you probably will, okay? But I'm just telling you what's reality. If you want, test it out in the real world, test it out in a barbecue, a dual poll on it, okay? And you will see what we're telling you. If you go around saying, just this impacted person, you sound like an alien. You sound like a person who just landed from a different planet. We use the word felon here. Now, that doesn't mean you have to hate felons. Like when I hear someone's a felon, I don't go, Oh my God.

It depends. I mean, there's an enormous range of felons. Did the guy do something stupid when he was young and he's passed it? Great, no problem. Look, when I moved, I used movers that were convicted ex-cons, right? Or ex-cons that were from a range of penalties. I'm past it. I'm okay, right?

So it doesn't have to have that stigma. In fact, this is a broader issue in terms of the politics of this. The left one seems like they're constantly changing words thinking, this one will have less stigma. This one will have less stigma. No, no, make the concept have less stigma rather than the word, okay? No, I disagree. I disagree entirely. Okay. There is value in society stigmatizing certain behaviors. It's just when you live in a society that enables bad behavior and, either glosses over or sanitizes or provides cover for bad behavior, well, then those who

are tempted to engage in bad behavior will engage in bad behavior. So I'll give you a specific example. If you go to Portugal, for instance, there are certain areas of the United States that attempted to model their drug decriminalization policies after Portugal's, because Portugal was a success. It actually lowered addiction rates. And so we were of the mind that if we do the same thing, it'll work. But there was a cultural difference. In Portugal, while it is true that they decriminalize these drugs, hard drugs, things like that, they also kept the stigma associated with those drugs within their culture, whereas we, for some reason, rejected that notion and instead pretended as if, no, no, no, this is totally fine, and let's engage in harm reduction. And all we've noticed is

that our addiction rates have gone up, drug overdose deaths have shot up. And so that cultural component, Jake, is important. Like, I'm not saying that if someone has committed a crime, they've been convicted, they serve time, that that should destroy the rest of their lives. I actually think it is important to have laws on the books that allow people to serve their time and then it's done. They should be allowed to come back into society. They shouldn't be be discriminated against in the job market. They should be able to be productive members of society. So I agree with dispensing of that stigma. But the idea that we should sanitize felons, no, I'm not interested in that. And again, I see a value in the cultural stigma

associated with committing crimes. Yeah, I'll say two more things. One is, look, for me, for whatever reason, felon has never had any powers or work. Like when somebody says, oh, somebody's a convicted of, I don't know, what were they convicted of? Maybe it's because I'm rational because that's such a giant range from like, oh, wire fraud, like, meaning like they wrote a bad check to rape and murder. I'm like, doesn't it depend what the felony is, right? So it's never had much power with me. I understand that it's eliminating for some people. That's why the Democrats keep using it over and over again. So I think the answer is somewhere in the middle, but I know what the answer isn't, calling them justice impacted people, because you sound,

I'm sorry, but I wish you didn't sound ridiculous, but you do. That makes them sound like the victims. Yeah. Yeah, and what if, by the way, Trump the victim? But look, there, there at least criminal justice reformers are being consistent for the first time that I've seen. Congratulations. Because before. January 6th, the rioters and, you know, let's not refer to them as rioters or convicted felons, you know, they're just just as impacted people. Yeah. And but before they were totally hypocritical on that. They'd be like, oh, put away Trump, he's a criminal and a felon, et cetera. And then everybody else is an angel, right? Now at least they're being consistent and say, don't call Trump that either. So I appreciate that from the movement. But finally, look,

when you look at the politics of this, back in 2020, when people were saying Kamala is a cop, that was a negative for her in the primary. Now, the more people say Kamala is a cop, the better it is for her in the general election. So, you know, why? Because of some of the policies in the large, democratically controlled cities that have made life a lot harder for working class people, whether it's retail workers who have been assaulted by smash and grab people, by robbers and things like that, whether it be working class people who had their catalytic converters stolen over and over again and

didn't have the $2,000 to replace it. So if we're going to have a conversation about making people's lives better, providing cover for these crimes and then sanitizing said crimes and then doing these weird like PR stunts where we decide to use like these soft labels for criminals ain't the way to go if you ask me. Yeah. And so but again, left us if you say, hey, we want to call Kamala Harris a cop and say that she's been very unfair to justice impacted people.

Please keep saying that because that'll definitely make. it more likely that she's going to win. That's just the reality. All right, we're going to take a quick break here. When we come back, our spectacular guest who actually might have gotten Biden to drop out secretly, we just didn't know it. So we'll come back. All right, we're back at the Young Turks of the DNC, janky or Anna Kisperian, and Rudy, Rudy, Rudy. Sean Asson joins us, of course, Rudy fame, Lord of the Rings fame, and about a billion other movies.

Billion. Yeah, about. Yeah. So Sean, what brings you? Why wouldn't I want to be on a show with you guys? Are you kidding? No, no, the DNC. I got it. I got it. Why am I at the DNC? I've been a proud, lifelong Democrat. So that's, I guess it's the first convention I've ever been to, which is kind of shocking, actually, giving up how much campaigning that I've done for candidates, presidential candidates, congressional candidates, Senate candidates. Yeah, I actually decided, so I'm a national surrogate for Kamala Harris for president. And that kind of, I think it was inevitable, or at least it was inevitable that I would

offer myself up in that way. But because of being on the national board of my union, SAGAFRA, and I was on the negotiating committee, and we had our big strike last year. And that was really, really an amazing moment in the labor movement in America. I mean, it was so visible and everywhere I've gone since then, people are just like, you know, really plugged into it. But it's amazing what happens whenever you get involved. You're there 10 seconds. And next, you know, you're talking to somebody else. You have something in common with. And then you find some other way. that you can be helpful here and then somebody you need something from somebody over there so

i was in wales a week ago and getting ready to go home to from london and i called my wife and said i'm going to chicago she goes you what i said i'm not going to come to lye with my wife and kids right i go i'm going to chicago i'm going to campaign the campaign wasn't really ready for me to do anything yet they were like well we're going to look at stuff for the kickoff they have a lot on their plate as you'd imagine um you know right before the convention and i said well do you do you can i just do like my own thing and they said yeah we've spread your message far and wide so i flew to chicago i rented a car i actually doodled this wait let's see if i can't show the camera you can't read that doodle but it's basically a

like third grader sketch of the united states and it says why asked him for harris road trip i named it a road trip i gave it a road trip and i says uh on election night 24, I want to know that I touched the face of history. And so I did that like, somewhere over Iceland, I was texting with some political friends and they're like, well, can we help? I said, yeah, do you know where any of the offices are located? Because I'm going to go to like Indiana, Michigan. I'm going to go down to Ohio. I want to do like four office stops, campaign office stops, a state a day. And they just started like, they basically advanced each little trip that I did. And it was amazing. It was amazing to meet with a volunteer.

to meet with the staff there to see the training that's going on, knock on some doors, make some fun, just the kind of normal drill that you do every, if you do this stuff. And somewhere in there, it's like, can you get, I don't know if it's a surprise or not. Do you think it's a secret what I'm about to do? I don't think so. Go ahead. I trust him completely. There's a roll call vote happening. And I may or may not be able to do the roll call.

That's super neat. from one of the states. You be the guess. So yeah, and then it just kind of, this is what happens with me in my life, is you just kind of like lean forward and stuff just unfolds in front of you. And I'm graduating this week with my degree

in public administration, public policy from American University. Oh, that's super cool. Yep. And so this is a, you know, real world history making application of what I've learned in that couple of years. Yeah.

You did make me jealous real quick. You didn't make me jealous. of the roll call thing because I'm like, wait a minute, how come I don't get to announce for New Jersey where I'm from? I know. I want that. People are saying. No, no, I'm, I'm pissed now. I think I can work this out. The question is, what would you say? Because it's like, you know, they want it to be really tight. So I'm, I'm, I can't say. I'm not, I don't think I'm allowed to say just yet. But anyhow, for those of you see Span efficiatos who are watching the roll call vote, I look forward to entertaining you for about six seconds. And it is pretty, I mean, I mean, I mean,

I've always watched states of the union and, you know, states of the state and convention and just all the stuff that you guys have been educating the world on for your careers. I've been a news junkie, you know, and I'm not just a political junkie. I like government. I like government. I like what I've noticed with my during this time at American mid-level administrators, mid-level bureaucrats are the ones designing how these programs work. are heroes. They're absolutely brilliant. They spend their entire lives working towards it.

And somehow, the way we've set our system up, just as they're starting to implement a program or just before, while they're incubating a program, some social issues, crap comes along. You elect a whole bunch of new people and they throw it out before it's had a chance to even work. So I know sometimes they protect against that and create, you know, programs that'll, you know, they'll legislate that thing, get six years before you can touch it. But basically, It's not just that. It's just that we lionize people who are, you know, they're kind of hit it and quitting, you know. And I feel like people who are, you know, are in public service because they want to serve their community to make them, you know, to make a difference. The true believer thing is it just annoys me when I hear political professionals who I worship speak in such cynical ways. I want to touch on that. I actually really want to touch on that. Because, you know, just to engage in full disclosure, you live in California in the L.A. area. I also live in California, the L.A. area. And, you know, things have kind of declined significantly in Los Angeles in particular. And as you know, everything, everything. I mean, yes, like the, just the quality of life. I mean, it's more expensive than ever. Quality life has taken a significant.

significant dip. And we're talking about a state that is fully controlled by the Democratic Party. And so it has made me a bit cynical about the Democratic Party. You say you're a lifelong Democrat. How do you kind of confront some of the flaws or issues within the Democratic Party while still supporting them? Every day. Yeah. It's a tough question. Every day. No, I mean, my mom moved up to Northern Idaho. She got married. You know my mom, how'd he do? Right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so she was very famous. She was president of our union. Oh, that's fine. I forgot that. Yeah, powerful, powerful woman. She was diagnosed with the bipolar mood

condition. She spent the second half of her life advocating for mental health, mental illness, de-stigmatizing. You know, she was just an incredible figure. But she moved up to North Idaho to to Cordillane and to Hayden. And some of the area right around there is a place is, you know, this white supremacist. Yeah. And actually one of the farms, just a couple of farms from hers was where they would actually have the literal white supremacist meetings once a year.

They're national meetings. And I remember saying, you know, mom, like, why do you, why would you live in a place like this? That means beautiful. You know, wheat fields and the pine trees and the clear lakes and the people are lovely, you know, I mean, you wouldn't know your neighbors has those beliefs. And she was, Sean, if people who don't feel that way don't move in, then it never changes. So it would be easy to leave the Democratic Party at any moment when it feels like it's like not,

it doesn't get the point. But that's not going to improve its functionality. Yeah, no, that's a great point. In fact, as you were making it, I was thinking, Rootie. Democratic. I mean, the thing is, I mean, I just made it up to Sacramento for the first time. I did, I testified in front of the labor, privacy, and consumer protection committees on how AI is impacting the workforce. And I was representing our union who is being, you know, having, I would say, I was going to say an outsized impact, but I was sitting next to the Department of Transportation. patient person and the nurses and you were listening to how it's affecting everyone. You're like,

oh my gosh, this is a all-hands-on-deck situation. I'd never been in that capital before. I'd never been in my capital. I'd never been in my state capital. I've never been in my state capital. I've done my whole life. And so it was like, oh my gosh, I'm in here. I don't know. I think it's great when they make a building out of marble and they light it up at night. I love it. Right? So you can walk in and you can feel inspired. But it shouldn't take that. You should just basically know that like, you know, when I walk past a homeless person or an unhoused person, you know, you can give money. You know, I don't know what, something happened today that just was like earth shattering when I think about it later. I was talking to a political consultant.

It raises tons of money. It helps a lot of different candidates and stuff. And I said, what is it in the human mind that can shut off? We were passing a protester in the street. And the protester had come up with something to say that wasn't particularly clever, but they were clearly suffering pain and talking about an issue that's real. And so you kind of go like, what is it? What is it to let you shut off walking past that guy?

What that person is talking about is real. And he said it's what's allowed us to survive over time. And I actually think that's probably true. If we were to live in the open space of the suffering that is existing at any point, planet Earth with, well, you couldn't function. So, yeah, just hopefully we don't dial it back too far the wrong way. I feel that it's become entirely normalized in California. And I feel that, you know, there has been justifications for leaving people out on the streets,

allowing them to literally waste away and oftentimes die on the streets. And, you know, you have some elements of even, you know, the Democratic Party, whether you want to call it the far left or libertarian left, whatever, who feel that no, no, they, if that's what they want to do, they should have the freedom to do it. But a lot of these people have severe addiction issues, a lot of them have severe mental health issues, and it has become normalized. And I can't normalize it. It bothers me so much every single day. Seeing it, I actually befriended a person by the name of Chris, who was homeless. And I remember trying to get him into a shelter or into housing. And he had some mental health issues, and he just would reject it. And he didn't make it. He died of an overdose.

And I'm angry about it, you know, and I want something to be done. And I feel that in a state that is totally controlled by the Democratic Party, you would assume, well, this is the party that cares about the little guy. This is the party that cares about, you know, the workers and all of that. What is stopping them? There is no legislative filibuster like there isn't the Senate that stops the national Democrats from accomplishing policies. But you look at a state like California, there is no excuse. Okay.

So a few things. One is, remember this guy, Gary Howgan from the International Justice Mission? I haven't thought of that guy's name in forever. He works with trafficking, sex trafficking, and exploitation, and that sort of stuff. He traveled around the world. He and his organization travel around the world, doing interventions, helping represent people, and he was this kind of happy warrior guy. And I'm like, how can you stay happy when you're seeing the most awful stuff ever?

And basically, it's like, because he, he, you can't do it. do it all. You can't do it all. I can't do it all. We have to rely on each other to work in. We actually don't have to do that much as long as we are working in concert with each other. But this problem is not an easy problem to solve. I can't say who it is, but somebody very close in my life lived in their car for 18 years with offers of an apartment, offers of, you know, but there is, but it's mental, whatever. I don't, I won't say what my impression of it was, but Governor Newsom has just changed his tone about this. Did you see this? Oh, I did. Yeah. It may be democratic control, but not completely. You're still,

Orange County. You still have the Central Valley. You still have like, California has a fair, you know, we're not. There are pockets. Yeah. Yeah. It's more than pockets. You, you know, I'm talking about AI in Sacramento. Well, you know, you've got laborers up there. I'm up there with labor. and we're talking about what we need. Well, that town is paid for by tech. Yes, right. So we say we love, you know, this is incredible. We're in a not just an inflection point like Biden talks about,

but when I studied history in English in school and undergrad at UCLA, and I used to wonder like, what would I do like if I was in the gold rush times? What I've done at any, would I've been a prospector? Would I've been selling a pick axes on the side of the road? Like what would have been my, how would I have been? we're in a moment that is radically, you know, it's so easy to say it and we know it, but really internalize it. Human life on planet Earth has changed more in the last 30 years than it has in all of human history before it. This is happening in a very, very quick rate. So I don't

want one more person to suffer. I don't want one more person to die in the streets. So we just keep trying. Your show is a great thing. You're informing people. I think, you know, It really pisses me off that a lot of the shows that I live on, you know, my CNN and my MSNBC and even Fox and any of the other shows, NPR, they cover the horse race. They are so quick to decide that they know what this building means today and they know what's happened. Oh, they didn't get Biden in prime time. Who cares? Pardon my French. Who cares?

These people in this building have spent decades, many of them, you know, certainly years invested in trying to understand. these issues and they need to interact with each other. We needed to cheer for Hillary Clinton for 10 minutes and for Joe Biden for 10 minutes. These people, you put your faith in people, they don't always live up to your expectations. But you know, we have to have a little grace. We have to have a little, you know, humility, a lot of humility maybe. You can't do it by yourself. The fact that you care that way is a beautiful, beautiful thing. And everyone in this building, and I believe everybody in the other building, too, in Milwaukee. I think those people care too. I'm not prepared to throw them under the bus because they vote for somebody different than me.

I just yeah I know it's like it's like ridiculous how good a person you are it's like and look we're known for tough interviews and we don't kiss up to anybody etc but you're like oozing goodness it's permeating for me. It's not getting my brand okay goodness is my brain okay anyway all right is it also true that you got Biden to throw the ring into mountain doom I'm trying to extend the metaphor in my mind because, well, so Sam Weishamjee, at a moment when Frodo couldn't carry the ring any further, had to pick him up and carry him. Ultimately, Gollum tracked him on the head, and the two of them had a fight, and they fell in. So I don't know if Tolkien sort of cheaped out on that one, and I didn't commit on who was going to make a decision who couldn't. But because I've been thinking about this and saying it for the last week,

Sam Wise was a supporting player. He was the support. Everybody told me, Sam was a real hero. Sam was one of the real heroes of that wonderful piece of literature. But that idea of being the sidekick or being the second in command or being in devotion, Kamala Harris has for three and a half years been in a secondary position where her talking was not the order of the moment. And so I think to make, and it's so easy and it's so chauvinistic and so sexist to look at her and say like, oh, she hasn't done anything. Every time she's sitting in one of those briefings in the situation or somebody that she's there, she's learning, this is a prosecutor, this is a brilliant woman who's being patient.

And now it's her moment to step forward. And you can see it. You can start to see it when she's talking to people. You can see when she's getting angry because she doesn't have the tolerance for people's bad behavior. I can't wait for her to take on the world's media in a press conference like everybody's, you know, the same press who had more than enough time not to screw over the global community by over covering a guy and not holding an accountable 2016. Now they're like, oh, we need access, we need access. Well, you better earn it. Right now she's putting together a campaign like fast,

a 90 day, a 70, 78 day campaign. You'll get your time with her, but don't tear her down. on process when you haven't earned it. That's my feeling about that. But anyway, I'm excited. No, no, it's amazing you said that because just this morning we're talking about how powerful a number two is. And I was doing it like an ode to Scotty Pippet and Spock and Doc Holiday and all these amazing S.M.Y's Ganges, right?

All these amazing number twos that are in a lot of ways cooler than the number one, right? And so it's so mad watching the Scotty Piff. Can you see it? You guys can't see it, but there's a Jordan statue right here. And that Scotty Pippin was not treated properly. Any of that, that's not what you're asking. So anyway, I just appreciate that you said that because it's true. The number twos are vastly underrated. And what did you want her to do?

She's vice president. It has no power, right? And so I think that's an unfair criticism of her. And especially from a media that doesn't hold people accountable in a way that it needs. And it's like the context of this entire conversation is one of the reasons why Democrats and definitely Republicans don't do what they say is the donor class, right? And the donor class is huge and has gigantic power and the press never holds them accountable. And then they go into the process and the optics of hey, did Kamala do enough interviews?

Well, you so on my road tour, I went to Grand Rapids and met with and went to a volunteer fair like a job fair and talked to this one girl was my like my oldest daughter's age, my daughter's 27 and I said, you know, is this enthusiasm, this like euphoria that people are feeling? Is it like real? Like how deep does it go, you know? And she just kind of looked at me like, okay, we're going to have like a real moment. She goes, well, I talked to my father about this. You know, I talked to my father about this. And last night and he said, he's hopeful like that. Oh, wow. That's great. Permission to be hopeful in a long time. So I think the fact that the donor class is not a factor at this moment in the way that it usually is, is giving people of, at least for a moment,

a kind of a clean look. So she, Vice President Harris must be accountable. She should be accountable. She should answer questions from the open media. But the shoulds go in the other direction too. And the media better to learn how to behave itself. I'm going to be very upset. And my children are going to be sitting in my house saying, dad, relax. They're just reporters. I love reporters. I revere reporters. Why don't they behave better? Yeah, so I just want to say, you know, I think Jank makes this point often, and I think it's a correct point about how much influence corporate donors have over our politicians. In fact, I think that on some economic policies, the Democratic Party has become a lot closer to the Republican Party on some of these issues.

But to your point about labor unions and the impact they have in mitigating the influence of, you know, corporate donations and corporate power, you know, what the union for the entertainment industry did is amazing. I mean, they realize AI is going to be an issue. And we're going to go to the belly of the beast in the state that has the largest tech sector and say, no, we're not going to stand for. And so I really want to emphasize that point because I do think that, you know, that's another point of hope. I think a lot of people feel like it's, situations are hopeless, that they have no power. But I think with unions, it's an example of how if you put whatever minor differences you have culturally aside, or whether it's on social issues

or whatever, put it aside, but come together as a group of people who are fighting and are hyper-focused on one thing, you can accomplish incredible things, right? So, story about Sid Scheinberg, who is one of the big moguls in Hollywood, who I think people give credit for helping Reagan go from the presidency of the screen actors. scale to governor and beyond. Apparently, I didn't hear it from his mouth directly, but apparently he said if unions didn't exist, I'd have to invent them. The structure, the legal structure, the philosophical structure, the concept of a union is actually a really useful tool for capitalism. It's actually something that the public should rely on because it actually is someone you can

interact with. I gave the commencement address to UCLA this year in the teeth of the protest movement. And I got a letter from, I guess it was 4811 was the union that represented all the academics, the PhDs and the TAs and stuff. And they went on strike after the encampment was roused in. And 48,000 people. And they said, you know, Sean, please don't cross our picket line. And I was like, they'd have to drag my dead body across the picket line. But they said, could you reach out to the the UC system and see if they, like, they're not establishing an open line of communication with us. And so because Lorena Gonzalez, who is the president of the California Federation of Labor and I know each other now because of the thing, she was able to facilitate a meeting for me with

the head of the UC system. And my point to him was, and he was lovely man, President Drake, my point to him was, you can work with these, you know, first of all, according to their own independent reports, this thing called the, I don't know this is boring me, but it's called the it's called the Robinson Edsley report. After there was some violence with police on the UC Davis campus, I believe, I could have that wrong. They generated this like independent report. It was 49 recommendations for how to deal with violence of the police in the schools. And like 48 of them were communicate and they had not communicated well with these protesters. I said, well, the union is they have they follow rules they follow contractual rules they follow government you know

criminal rules whatever you can you can actually work with these people and I could go on that a long way but basically when people say communism people say socialism people look at you know unions is like they're going to you're going to cap out like your billionaires aren't going to be able to be billionaires anymore and it's like no no no no no no no what you want is a a floor of of basic standard of living conditions. Yes. And the truth is that when the managers or the companies go into agreement with that, they can sleep better at night.

Right now, a lot of them are in a position of like, I think instinct. Like this is the role we're supposed to play. We're supposed to say no to this instead of like, okay, let me care about you and understand you're a human being. So I don't know if you saw, I won't go down that road. Same mentality of like, you know, I'm a little bit biased here, but happy wife, happy life. I mean, why can't we expand that ideology to the workplace? Happy employees, happy executives, right?

I mean, we always admire it when when innovators come along and they have a company and they like make them all employee owners and they, you know, they care about their, you know, being able to have time with their kids or have, you know, whatever, whatever accommodations they make. And in fact, there's all this research that supports certain kinds of work. that would like break the paradigm, the 1950s paradigm. And yet they, productivity is better, they're happier. Here's one last thing. So, and then I go to the role company. In my master's that I'm getting here, the second of last class was on human resources, basically.

He called it human capital resource management. That's referring somehow to human beings. Right. But geez. I love American University and I'm so grateful for my degree, not teasing you guys. They have research that says it's better to adopt a philosophy or a culture in your workplace that says that people are essentially good and that people, your workers, ultimately want to be productive. whether it's true or not, if you put that in the policy and you act like it, your productivity goes up, your efficiency goes up or something like that. So, you know, that's my experience, by the

company. That's my experience. If you assume good intent, you wind up in a much, much better place, more productive, better team, better camaraderie, better results. Bad actors reveal themselves pretty quickly. Yeah, that's exactly right. Responsibly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There you go. All right. Sean Asston, who's been in every movie ever made. Next time, I'm going to play you in the movie when they do, uh, I look forward to it. Thank you for joining us, father. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. We'll be right back, guys.