The Young Turks - Rogan Goes Rogue

Episode Date: August 10, 2024

CNN panel ERUPTS into fiery debate over Kamala Harris avoiding reporters. Tim Walz’s sudden rise in the Democratic party was no accident. CNBC is openly asking who is close to buying the Treasury Secretary position in a VP Kamala Harris administration. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur), John Iadarola (@johniadarola), Ramesh Srinivasan (@RameshMedias) 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

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All right, Power Power Power Panel, live for the Polymarker Studio in L.A. It's the Young Turks, Jane Hugo, Ramesh Serner-Besson, and John Iderola with you guys. John, of course, the host of Damage Report, and Ramesh does the Utopios podcast. So fun for everybody. All right, we got a big show ahead for you guys. Lots of stories about Donald Trump panicking and doing crazy things and making up stories. stories, people flip flopping, endorsing, unendorsing, trolling, there's tampons in there somewhere. It's a crazy wild story. And you know what? That's American politics for you guys. Totally

out of control. All right. In fact, it's a little balls to the walls. A good deal. Shop t-y-t.com. Okay. It's a great shirt. Whoever suggested that, genius. Genius at marketing. Did you suggest it? I mean, I'm not the only person that thought of it. But here, Here I was. Here I was. Okay. All right, I didn't know.

So now I know. All right, let's get started, John. Okay, let's talk about some of that craziness or where we could get more craziness if there were more interviews with the candidates, but there aren't, and why is that? Let's get into it. She's going to take questions. We're going to make sure of that. But, you know, there's been a bit of a honeymoon period.

I think she's giving Tim Walls a moment. Let me just also say this, like, don't nobody care but us about somebody taking a question. No, that is very true. I speak to swing state voters all the time. They have questions, they want answers. No, no, no, that's, but yes, they have questions, they want answers. But you know what doesn't have to happen? Audie doesn't have to ask those questions.

Yes, Audi does have to ask those questions. Political does not. Because when fans ask them, Bacari, when immigrants ask them, when surrogates ask them, they're not getting the real answer. This is so, this is so in the beltway. No, it really isn't. I'm telling you, Bacari, I speak to the state voters, every single day. So as you might or might not be aware, to this point, Kamala Harris, as a candidate,

has only done a little bit of direct discussion with reporters, sort of an impromptu meeting yesterday. And the fact that she hasn't done a sit down interview is causing a rift at CNN that I fear may never be repaired. And you saw it right there with Essie Cup and Bakari Sellers sort of fighting over whether there needs to be a big sit down interview. And that's not the end of the exchange. So if you fast forward a little bit in that program, Bukari Sellers,

S.E. Cup, as well as Trisha McLaughlin, former communications director for Vivek Ramoswamy, continue to talk about this. And Baccari Sellers has a theory as to why it is less urgent for Harris as the opponent of Donald Trump to do interviews. I adore you. You know that. Yeah, we rock. But you will lose, and you're not the first person to make this argument that she doesn't need to do this. It's very inside the bellway. This is for us. You lose credibility when you do that. Because if it were someone else, you would be demanding that they sit down for questions. And you know what?

It'll make her a better candidate if she doesn't. But that's fine. And why shouldn't she? She should answer these questions for the American people. But why not now? Because why do you have to, but why do you have to dick? First of all, let me ask you this question. Just a fundamental question.

If Kamala answers no questions today and Donald Trump says that he had more people at a rally than Martin Luther King Jr., which one is better? I think that is like a mis-complete. Why? Because that's what he said today. Because it's a false choice. Because he said it's not. Neither are good. Neither are good.

Just quickly acknowledging that that's not at all what a misnomer is. I think it's an interesting point that like you could have a day wherein Harris talks for three minutes on a tarmac to a couple of reporters. Donald Trump does an hour-long press conference and neither of them coming out of that have really answered any questions. Trump was asked many questions. any questions, but that doesn't mean that he answered the questions, he basically never does. Few politicians do. They're asked direct questions and they instead say whatever it is that they wanted to say. Sometimes it's relatively close to what's being asked, sometimes it's about how Hannibal Lecter would like to have you for dinner or whatever. But that said,

the fact that Donald Trump doesn't abide by the norms doesn't mean that the norms shouldn't exist for some reason, or that it wouldn't either be a good idea for democracy or a good idea for the Harris campaign to sit down and do a big interview. And we are a couple of weeks into her run now, bearing in mind that they're doing this big swing state tour, you could probably do both and maybe benefit from it. And so what do you make of this? Do you think that this is the right amount of outrage over her not doing these interviews? If not, how much longer can she go before it would seem to be a problem from your point of view? Yeah, I think that as usual, almost everybody there is full of crap. So, no, to be fair, I see a couple

was I think almost totally right. But Bacari Sellers, you're right. The person that was replying to him, it's not a misnomer, right? At the same time- Could be a false dichotomy. Yeah, it's, as he covers, sorry, it's definitely a false choice. Oh, well, how about this about Donald Trump? Okay, great, but you know, like Maga does the how aboutism is more than anyone else in the world.

Like Donald Trump says something crazy and they're like, oh yeah, what about Howard Dean in 1988? You're like, what are you talking about, right? So no, the question is, should she do more interviews or not? Yes, she definitely should. She should from a policy perspective and a thing that we care about. What actually are your positions? And it's actually kind of insane that we don't know a lot of our positions. Well, we also don't know a lot of Donald Trump's positions.

You might think, oh, we know everything about Donald Trump. No, we know who Donald Trump is. What his policies are going to be, he wouldn't even answer what is how he's going to vote on the abortion issue in Florida. So, I mean, he's also hiding. And he, except he does it publicly. He's like, I'm not here. I'm not here. You can't ask me that. You're like, wait, you're right there. What do you mean? I'm not going to answer it. Okay. So it's weird. It's, and so, okay, now, the second reason why she should do more interviews is because that's how you win. You win by getting out there and getting as much media coverage as possible. Could some of it go south on you?

Yeah, that's called life, okay? And you have to do so many and be good at it. And you have to do so many and be good at it so that when two out of 10 go south on you, you overwhelm it with the eight positive ones you did. So she's wrong strategically, et cetera. But the most important thing might be, guys, for me to fill you in on why she's doing it. There's two potential possibilities. One is she has anxiety issues. And so if you're reading from a teleprompter in front of a very friendly crowd is much easier than if you're getting hard questions from a reporter. But I think that's the minor issue. I think the major issue in this case is they're recalibrating all of her positions. Can we be honest about it? Nobody else in media is honest about it. So remember,

she was for Medicare for all. Then she was for Medicare for some. No one has no any idea. She's for, I have a better idea than anyone else. She's, I will predict ahead of time for you guys. She is not for Medicare for all. Okay, she's, there's no way she's going to go back to Medicare for all. That's my, I know a lot of people are new to politics and they believe these actors. So they're going to be heartbroken when she's not for Medicare for all when she said she was earlier. But not only do they have to recalibrate all of her positions for modern day politics like today, not 2020, not 2019, but right now what is she for, right? But then she has to remember all of that.

She has to formulate good answers for why she switched their positions. And they're doing a lot of work on that. And remember, they can ask you about anything. There's hundreds of issues. So there's a ton of homework being done behind the scenes, both for good because you want them to know these positions and argue passionately for it. And also for bad in terms of which ways the wind blowing. We're for Medicare for a limited slight,

vary, you know, percentage of the population. And this is our current position. And I know it and I believe it. Wink. So also true of Republicans, but that's the reality. Ramesh, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, thrilled to be with both of you. And I've been following your coverage pretty closely since I was last on the last couple of weeks with everything that's gone down.

And I do want to say, and I know you all have said this, that she has really nailed the rollout, all in all. I think her speeches have been pretty outstanding. I think there's, of course, a question of contrast relative to Biden, who was not out there at all. I thought her speeches have been charismatic and convincing. And in a way, she is introducing herself because she was always buried under Biden to the American people through these speeches. But I agree with you that it's going to be important for her to introduce herself to the American people because we don't really know the specifics of what her policy positions are until she does these interviews. She does all allude to them. She never has, I mean, she of course in the past supported Medicare for all, you know, per your point, Jenk.

But she has said multiple times in her speeches. I've been following it pretty closely that she'll expand the Affordable Care Act. So there are some specific policy positions that are alluded to. They're not super specific or lower the cost of prescription drugs, things along those lines. But she did nail her choice in Wals, in Tim Wals. Tim Wals has done tons of interviews. Of course, this was before he was named as the vice presidential running mate. And I do agree with you, though, you know, you know, political operators and experts, people along the lines of David Axelrod, James Carville, Bill Crystal and others, I've been following what these folks have been saying, and they've all been saying that it's really important for her to introduce herself to the American people as someone who's very relatable. Wals has done a good job so far coming across as relatable. It's going to be important that she does it because it's really her and her identity that's going to matter most in this election. You know, we know that.

the presidential election is primarily about the presidential candidate. So I think it's going to, she's going to have to come across as not a Californian elitist, not as some sort of like, you know, leftist weirdo freak that, you know, the right is conjuring up. We know she's not those things. We on the Young Turks know she's not really a legit progressive historically. And that's okay. But we also have to be very vigilant that we continue to push and stay vigilance to push both of them to actually support progressive positions that are supported by over 75% at minimum of American people, right? So instead of it being a left-right thing, you've said it perfectly before Jenk and John.

This is more a question of populist versus establishment. She needs to come across as populist, at least like, and populist lovable to the American people, which I think Tim Walls already has done a good job of that. Book Club on Monday. Gym on Tuesday. Date night on Wednesday. Out on the town on Thursday. Quiet night in on Friday.

It's good to have a routine. And it's good for your eyes too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at SpecSake, You'll know just how healthy they are. Visit specksavers.cavers.ca to book your next eye exam. Eye exams provided by independent optometrists. Let's turn to not just people talking about whether she's going to do these. Kamala Harris has been asked by a reporter about the lack of formal sit-down interviews, and here's what she had to say.

There's been a lot of questions about when you're going to sit down for your first interview since being that I'm in a year. Do you have me up here on my team? I wanted to get an interview setting before the end of the month. Okay, so there she is. She is speaking with reporters. It's in an informal setting. She can potentially leave whatever she wants. It's not an extended thing, but she is talking to them. That said she says she's talking to the team about doing some sort of interview by the end of the month. It is the eighth as of when she said that. So that is still a very long period of time. I mean, that's about a third of what remains in the presidential race.

So I don't know if that's necessarily gonna placate people who believe that it's a super important thing that she really prioritize. But I wanna turn now to the co-host of Shark Tank, Kevin O'Leary recently talked about one of the reasons that she might be a little bit hesitant to do an interview. Kamala Harris's campaign website has no economic plans.

We were just going through it again to the commercial break. It's a bio about her and it's a bio about her. There is no tab for issues. intentional. She has no intention of putting any policy out there until this convention's over. I'm very fortunate guy because I'm an investor and for decades I've been syndicating debt, primarily for real estate. Some of her closest advisor are people I work with in finance. We're friends. So I called them up and say, hey, listen, you want to talk about policy here? And they said, listen, everything's working right now. We're going to strong arm the press on policy.

We don't need to do anything. Wait, wait, wait, what's everything's working? The momentum's crazy. The press she's getting right. now she's talking about the campaign okay not campaign is working okay and there's no reason to sit down with any journalist and talk policy right now because we're in the euphoric stage they think they can raise up to 300 million dollars before this camp before before this whole thing that's going to happen over the weekend is over so that's extraordinary amount of money then it's time to talk policy then

it's time to go to the center then it's time to talk about board All right. Yeah, so that's Kevin O'Leary. And you can tell that like the tenor of that entire panel was obviously negative. I mean, even down of like the master graphic on the wall and everything. But yeah, that was basically what I was thinking. Like I think in the same way that I think an actual primary, it should be a prerequisite for a democracy, I think that presidential debate should be prerequisite.

I think that these interviews are also important. But that's from like my point of view and what I think we should all demand. From their point of view, why now would you do one? I mean, again, so like they're telling their aides are talking to political or whatever, they're saying that they're skeptical that it would really offer much upside in reaching out to swing voters, which I don't know if I necessarily agree, I think that there's potentially some upside, but I think that it's much more likely in an hour-long interview to generate at least one or two responses that now that'll be the thing that the media will talk about.

And I also think in the same way that there are, they're critical. They're cruising right now. They're raising tons of money, tons of volunteers, they're packing arenas and all that. Everything's going so well. So from their point of view, why not just keep that going as long as you can? But then there's also a thing that I think we're all well aware of, not just in American politics, but in America generally where the media gets bored and wants things to change. And so there's maybe a lot of media that's reporting on all the enthusiasm and how walls is being

embraced and how everything's great and there's great vibes and all that. But like wouldn't it be more dramatic if all of a sudden there was a scandal? All of a sudden there was a response that didn't go well. And so maybe they'd be right, maybe one of the responses would be bad and or unpopular. But I also think that there's probably an impression that the media might jump onto the first sign that the honeymoon is over. And so why would they offer that up, I guess, pragmatically? Yeah, because the correct political strategy is go on the offense and stay there. So that was what Donald Trump did in 2016, and it worked great.

Well, super fast, I don't like to interrupt you, but wouldn't they make the case that they're doing that with the rallies and with the speeches and in a way that they have total control over? Yeah, this is all a matter of timing, because is she gonna go to the whole campaign without ever doing an interview? Of course not, right? Is she going to go to the whole campaign without stating a single policy issue? I would hope not. Otherwise, why are we excited about her? We don't even know her policy positions. Remember, she does change them fairly frequently. So no, that would be absurd.

You have to do interviews. You have to answer what the hell are you gonna do when you get in office? And by the way, you should tell people what you're gonna do. And if that causes some degree of trouble because you misstated it or it's not a popular policy position, whatever it might be, that's called politics. That's, are you running or are you not running? You can't not run and then say you should vote for me. That's not a thing, right? So Ellis Bells is one of our members, hit the join button below to be part of the show like

they are, wrote in saying come, I should do some interviews in town halls, but the uproar from Trump's team is a bit rich considering that he didn't attend a single primary debate. So that's also true. And so all these politicians do these things, they don't want to tell you their policies because they think it's going to alienate a certain percentage of the voters. And that's why Trump won't answer the abortion question. And they all, whenever they're leading, they always duck and hide and they never want. But it's such a loser strategy.

It's a prevent defense strategy. I hate it. It's definitely wrong politics. And if you think you can't answer a bunch of questions, then you really shouldn't be running. I mean, that was a problem with Joe Biden in the first place. So now, having said all that, I guarantee you they're figuring out what are positions. are going to be, she's studying them, there's hundreds of them, and they will definitely, you can't go the whole thing without doing interviews and policy

positions. So she's going to get to it, it's a matter of timing, and by the way, you could give her credit for being smart and not just blunder out there, make sure you got your ducks in a row, make sure you've done your homework, and then go out there. Last thing I'll say is, guys, I don't want unrealistic expectations on either side, okay? So if you're You're new to politics and you think that she's going to get big money out of politics, and she's a populist, then she's going to get you Medicare for all and get us out of Gaza and stop funding. She's not going to do the great majority of those things.

But 98% of Democrats are corporate Democrats. She's in that class. She's not going to defy the donors in a massive way. What we're rooting for is for a guy like Tim Walz, who's very strategic and got things like this done, to help her get to a point where they could do some of these proposals. Like for example, Tim Walts has proposed that the very first thing they should do is paid family leave, okay? I mean, how much do I love this brother? Okay, balls of the walls, all right? So look, and if they did paid family leave, which is the layup of all layups, that's why you see me obsessing about it. And I can't, I can't believe it picked paid family I love this guy, right?

I think there's some chance he watches TYT. Okay, so anyways, that's a win. And then we go to the next win, and we try to push for the next win. So that's how it works. So don't, I don't want you to, like, just abandon her when you find out that she's not the perfect populist progressive. I also don't want you saying, like, how dare you say that she's not one of those things? She's an angel. All right, then you're going to get your heartbroken.

Okay, so just let's be. be realistic and push for the right direction. All right, Ramesh. Yeah, I just do want to say, though, that she has in her speeches, when she's talked about two sort of futures, the Trump future and her future, the future, she has, you know, at least signaled not only what the main challenges are that American people face, but also some of her positions, and I would say not totally specific on a number of issues, like housing costs. She has mentioned issues around student debt.

She's mentioned issues about Americans being able to build intergenerational wealth. She has mentioned restoring or trying to tax big corporations. So I mean, I'm no sort of blind defender of Vice President Harris, but I am actually impressed with not necessarily the specificity, but the signaling of issues and some specificity on some of those issues. And mind you, Trump this week isn't doing hardly any. rallies at all. He's only going to Montana, which seems like a pretty safe Republican state. When he does do interviews, it's almost exclusively only on Fox, as you know. And, you know, and Biden

wasn't doing any interviews either. And what I am so far pretty happy with is there is more of a discussion, unlike Biden, oh, we did all these good things. Everything's great. We did all these good things during my administration. When people don't clearly do not agree with them, she is speaking to future issues, at least, different visions of the future. And so that's why I, you know, you guys know me. My podcast is called Utopias. I'm psyched about this. Like, I'm relieved and psyched. Though I know it's up to us to keep the pressure on them, to really keep the pressure on them, to make sure they really walk the walk. Just because Tim Wallace has done great things doesn't mean he would necessarily push for those things in the White House. We have to continue to push for widespread populist,

popular issues by Americans across party, it's not a left right issue. What is 70 plus percent of Americans agree on? That's the agenda right there. And those are great humane issues. And most countries around the world already have these things. So let's just do it and ignore their nonsense about socialism, communism. That's just typical BS. Yeah, well, we've talked about Harris and Walls as well.

On the other side of this break, we're going to talk a little bit about how we ended up with Walls. How did he go from a guy almost nobody knew about. to potentially the next VP, we're gonna break it down after this. I like that. Enraged Cog made a contribution through t.com slash hope fundraiser. Why do you do that? Because I'm gonna be in Chicago Sunday night before the DNC.

And we're gonna do a fundraiser there for Operation Hope. So t.com slash hope fundraiser. That's at 5 o'clock Chicago time Sunday, August 18th. And we made it 27 bucks in honor of Bernie. So come and hang out. Love to see you guys. to see you guys. All right, John, what's next? Okay, let's, we were talking about Harris. Let's talk about Walls a little bit. For many Americans, maybe for you, the gentleman to my side right here,

Tim Walz, has had a startling and unexpected ascent to the top of the Democratic Party. You probably didn't know much, if anything, about him not too long ago. I know, I had known a few of the things that he had done, but I was hardly an expert. And it turns out that it wasn't just lightning in a bottle. It wasn't just he coined the weird thing and suddenly he's everywhere. There was a strategy and apparently according to people who were involved in it, it began coming out of the 2022 midterm. So he had just led his party to sweeping victories and he apparently wondered about the possibility that his particular political brand might be needed on the national level at some point, perhaps even on a presidential ticket.

They don't say specifically that he expected that Biden might step down or not run again, but that seems to be kind of one of the considerations. And so he and his aides figured us out a strategy that was going to try to get him ready to capitalize on any of those opportunities if they arose or another way to frame it is just to be there if he is called to service, I suppose. So they decided they would build his profile, one state party dinner and cable news appearance at a time, and so that they don't alert too many other potentially ambitious Democrats that that he's coming so they could fight back.

He was just gonna do it in a way they described as Minnesota Nice. And so they tried to have him reach out to a bunch of people. They tried where they could to have him go viral. And in the meantime, the nice part is he was just going to do a ton of favors and not ask for anything. Not do the normal politic thing where you give something, you get something. He spent about two years just giving. And so as examples of that, when he was asked to defend Biden in the news media, he said yes. When he was asked to lead the DNC's Rules Committee, he said yes.

And when he was asked to speak at party dinners or raise money for Democratic campaigns, he said yes. And he would give his cell phone number to nearly anyone who wanted to follow up, sort of building his network and growing a reputation as a guy who's just trying to be helpful. And as one maybe extreme example of this, back in January of this year, the weekend before the Iowa caucuses in which Biden did not compete, he agreed to drive for hours through sub-zero temperatures and a foot of snow to make the president's case early Sunday on NBC. meet the press. And so apparently he just wanted to sort of give across the brand that he's a guy who is trying to help out the party, help out those at the top, and might have in doing that really built a brand that contrasted when it mattered most with a politician maybe like Josh Shapiro, who some interpreted as being more ambitious or arguably more selfish. This is what some of the people affiliated with these campaigns might say. And so not only did he go viral when it mattered, and Not only did he have a long list of progressive accomplishments that he could sort of use to tout his executive experience and all that, he also had this particular brand. And it kind of plays into what the sources were saying about the final choice between the last few candidates that she had good chemistry with him. It seemed like someone that she could work

with and she seemed to be a little bit worried about her partner on the ticket being overly ambitious. What do you make of that? Okay, I think he did two things massively right. Two things are kind of depends, then I want to tell you about how fake politicians are and where Tim Walls falls in that spectrum. So the two things he did spectacularly right and that are essential are strategy. Look, I can't overstate this. If a politician on our side is not strategic, they will not be able to get anything done. So if I see a politician that isn't strategic, I have no interest in them. I've already dealt with a lot of politicians like that.

They just cannot legislate out of their way out of a wet paper bag. They can't strategize in the media, they can't strategize in Congress. And if you can't do that, you can't win. So I got no, and I'm by winning in this case, I don't mean winning elections. A lot of people can win elections without strategizing. Me will do what you want, donor friend, okay, me do it. That's how you win an election, that's easy. Actually getting a bill pass is hard.

So secondly, he's super hardworking. Oh, I love that, I love that, get in there, do the hard work, do as many media interviews as you can. I mean, he does all the things that you have heard me say for the last 10, 20 years that a politician should do if they were going to be on the right path. So I love it. The depends are kind of funny. So he says yes to everything.

Well, that one depends on who you are, right? He's a governor, so people are like, whoa, a governor's doing me a favor, that's amazing, okay, and they think that's great, and they, you know, they owe my favor. It's perfectly played. I do the same thing, people are like, yeah, right. Like I'll return the favor? No way. So I say yes all the time.

And some people are nice and they say, oh, you know, Cenk helped me when I first started out and stuff. And that's very nice of them to say. But nine out of ten times, if you don't have the status, they'll mistake your kindness or weakness. But in his case, saying yes makes perfect sense. And I like the strategy anyway, he's just doing it better. And then, but guys, remember that this,

This isn't magic, he did all those right things, but he had already passed the bills, the bills that we love. If he hadn't already passed those bills, then it's like a lot of other politicians, a lot of loose talk. Oh, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. Maybe, maybe not. But the reason we have shirts like boss of the walls, the reason we love the guy and we were so excited and hopeful when Kamala Harris picked him is because he already did it.

And that is, thank you, shoptut.com, okay? But because if he hadn't already done it, then I'm not at all excited. Okay. So, and then finally on the, the spectrum of politician's BS. A normal politician is not what you see on TV. They're, I would say about 98% different when they're off camera, okay? They're about 2% authentic. Everything else is they go in with their consultants and their coaches. What's the positioning?

How do we want to frame it? How do I want to sound? How do I want to look? Which demographic am I appealing to, et cetera? None of it is real. People on mainstream media pretend it's real and they set up this mirage, this theater. A politician that is like 40% authentic is the maximum, okay? And I think he's about 40% authentic.

Which by the way, that means I'm saying 60% of it is him, you know, figuring out positioning. How do I get ahead? What favors do I do? How do I frame myself? By the way, I would want him doing that. I don't want him going to go, what? Huh? I didn't do any homework. I'm just going to say whatever's off top of my head. I already know a guy like that. He's on the other side and it didn't turn out well, right? But I, you know, I would push for as much authenticity as humanly possible. But I think within the spectrum of politicians in America, he's maxing out on authenticity. And we can't ask for better than that. So, Ramesh, what do you think? I mean, you're absolutely right. We should always sort of not take what these people say or these moments that are curated for us completely for granted. Even with Tim Walls, who's so damn likable already for me. Look, I mean, we also have to see what happens when the decision was made. Immediately we had Joe Manchin supporting him and Ilhan Omar. That's something, right? Those are very, very different types of figures that came out immediately in quite

positive and ebullient ways supporting walls. And, you know, they have done a good job setting him up as whether you want to call him coach walls or America's dad, you know, these little memes are running around. And he, you know, it's funny. I'm here in Northern California, literally in the house and room I grew up in as a little kid. And I was watching like the whole thing with my parents. And my parents were like, I won't do the Indian accent, but they were like, he looks like a president. I was like, uh-huh, this is very, this is very interesting. So I think what we are seeing with him is a positive populist.

I'm not the one who invents that term. I've seen that making the rounds. As opposed to negative populism in Trump and Vance, when's the last time you saw either of them laugh or even really smile? I mean, just like, does Trump ever say anything positive about the US? I mean, I think these are just questions worth asking, right? So for me, it's exciting. And there are some curated moments that did take my breath away.

I mean, I'm a little bit of a, you know, I want, I want things to go well, right? So like, when he signed that bill with the free breakfast and lunches at the schools, I don't know if you all played that clip, but oh my gosh, I mean, that was so sweet to see all those kids with him. So, you know, he does come across, and I know we're going to talk about it, he's actually middle class as well. Yeah. He does come across as more authentic than almost anybody I've seen appear at this stage in my lifetime in American politics. Of course, Bernie was extremely authentic, but also authentic in his sort of, you know, in his integrity, but also in his like not wanting to deal with BS, you know, in a way. This guy's very inclusive and positive so far. Yeah, John's got some facts about how middle class walls is. It's just I honestly was shocked about. But you know what? The reason I jumped in is because I wanted to say something about what Ramesh just said. There's a chance that Bernie's too authentic.

He went too far on that spectrum and didn't strategize about how to frame his campaign. And so you want both. You want authenticity, but you also want strategy. And by the way, how do I know who the real Tim Walz is? A, I don't care. Why don't I care? Because all I care about is what bills you pass, because that affects actual Americans. The rest is just your ego, right? So he already passed the bills, so he already proved to me who he was. He's the guy who passes great bills, and that's the thing I care about most. Yeah, I think super fast, I think that Bernie was able to package and sell the,

especially economic ideas that he did in the 2016 campaign better than we've really seen by anyone. I think that his strategy in terms of that campaign was pretty good, but in terms of like the authenticity of how he can be gruff and a little brusk and everything, thing, like he doesn't get that sort of warmth stuff that Walls gets. Like Bernie generates memes, but it's a different sort of thing. It's a different relationship to a candidate. But when it comes to the authenticity, I want to mention three things, and the last will be, I want both of your quick responses to the economic stuff, but the stuff that they

did before they were politicians or like before they had power matters to me too. So like, you know, that he like sponsored the gay straight alliance at his school back in the 90s or whatever, like, you know, Hillary Clinton endorsed gay marriage in like 2014 or something like so he was that was early you know and then the fact that he left the military and then sort of his first campaign is centered around ending the war in Iraq very early and and he still is on the right side of not necessarily every one of those issues but pretty good and so that to me has some authenticity to it and then there's this too which is interesting I don't know the last time we saw something like this so his net worth is apparently less than the average

Americans. And bear in mind, he's been an elected politician for a number of years at this point. He was in the House of Representatives for 12 years. He's been a governor for multiple years. That's a lot of time to cash in if that's the thing that you got in there to do. And he clearly hasn't. By the way, when he was in the House of Representatives, he's a huge proponent of the Stock Act. That's basically the only thing we have that stops Congress people from, you know, like totally rigging the system for their for their own investments and everything. We need far more, but that's what we have. And he doesn't own any stocks, bonds or other securities. He doesn't own any real estate either. He doesn't invest in any real estate, I should say.

He just basically had his salary, which as governor was $128,000. He had a pension account worth as much as $100,000. So when you put together sort of his net worth, It is, in fact, less than the average American. And how many politicians don't just seem to stumble into being worth one or two million dollars at this point? And obviously, the guy on the other side, on the other ticket, J.D. Vance, is worth far more. Him and his wife have a net worth of between $4 and $10.5 million that we know of. But anyway, so this big difference is there. Conlon Harris is worth a couple of million dollars.

But he really does stand out. He seems even, like even Bernie, and Bernie's an older guy and everything, but he doesn't even have the money that Bernie has. I'm actually surprised at both of those things. I can't believe Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff only have a couple of million dollars. That's a lot of money for you and I, but it's not a lot for, you know, guy, people in their, you know, fields of work. Let's put it that way. And the most, the biggest asset that Harrison Emhoff has is actually their home in L.A. So I was surprised by that, but Tim Walls, Jesus Christ, brother, get a financial manager.

Like you're, like, you're gonna have to retire someday. Right, like that's so populous that it's almost negligent. Like, you save some money, get a 401k, what are you doing, brother? This is crazy, write a book, do something, okay? So, man, that is like, again, borderline too authentic. Okay, last things I'll say are, look, politics is about. carrots and sticks and so we're talking about Bernie and Walls and how their differences I couldn't believe that between

2016 and 2020 Bernie Sanders didn't take Jim Clyburn out to lunch a couple of times I would have tried to take Clyburn out to lunch 20 times and I can't stand them and the reason is you do carrots and sticks you see if carrots will work hey let's be nice let's be colleagues let's be congenial oh that didn't work then I got a stick right here for you Okay? And politically rhetorically, right? But don't go to the stick first, go to the carrot first. That's the logical way to go. And Tim Walls, you know, he's got, look, he seems to be doing the strategy just right. He's got both carrots and sticks, again, because he passed it. But also, I mean, you got to Remedy's point, Manchin and AOC both were ecstatic on the day that he was named. That's some strategy, brother. That's some strategy. take it. Oh, yeah. I mean, the vast majority of money being made by people in this country is being made through investments. That's why our economy overall is deeply unhealthy. And dummies like

Trump, I don't know if I should call him a dummy, but just sort of insane elitists like Trump constantly praise how good the stock market was under his watch. We know that stock market valuation tends to at times be negatively correlated, believe it or not, with GDP, which is a macroeconomic hypercapitalist calculation. So forget labor markets for forget genie coefficient or earnings inequity or equity thereof. Forget like you know wage paycheck to paycheck wage issues. So I mean Tim Paul says made choices to actually not accumulate a great amount of wealth in the way that most of us try to accumulate wealth because of this sick economy that we all

live within and you know we're all compromised. I speak for myself here. I have money in 401 K type things. And it's sort of like, that's the way to make money in this country because it's really, really troubling otherwise. He voted against the Wall Street bailouts. I know you all have covered that. That's very telling. You can't really pigeonhole him as an elite because he's just not an elite, right? Like it's just, it's true and true.

Like he's, you know, like the football coach teacher making less than the average American. But I guess the last thing I'll just say is again and again, as much as I'm like sort of really charmed by him, just like it seems like almost everybody else is. It's not what they say. It may not even be how much money they make. It's what they do. And that's why we just got to keep on as progressives and make sure that they support the things that actually the policies that actually have energy

amongst the American populace. Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna close with just one fact because I know we might have left a lot of people really worried about whether he'll be able to retire someday. I don't want them to be worried. So first of all, there will definitely be a book. there will be a book within like six months or something. But then also in terms of time that he has to invest, first of all, invest as early as you can. I was amazed by this because you see

a photo of him and you're like, he's an older gentleman. Well, you probably know he's the exact same age as Kamala Harris, even though they look like they're 15 years apart. But this is the most amazing fact about him. So like, let's say that he gets elected. Harris wins, he goes into the vice presidency. And then, you know, it's going well so they run for reelection. He gets reelected as vice president. And then it turns out, you know what people really liked him. It was a great eight years, we're gonna go with him as the next president, and he gets elected. And then it's still going well, and he gets elected again. At the end of all that, he'd be younger than Donald Trump is right now.

Isn't that amazing? Yeah, it is amazing. That's crazy. It really is a generational divide, and you're sort of seeing that in how these rallies are working anyway. Yeah, I mean, look, Biden was not even in the greatest generation. He was in the silent generation, and Trump is only three years younger than Biden. So he's almost older than the greatest generation. Yeah. So it's it's incredible how old these guys were.

And Trump, as we all know, was too old and too crazy. Yeah, all right, we're gonna take a quick break. Come right back, amazing stories, including an admission on CNBC that people just buy government positions. So we'll show that to you. Back on TYT, Jank, John, or mess with you guys. And don't forget to play Trump brackets, our fourth poll of, they have 10 different crazy and dumb things Donald Trump has said, and you pick three of them so we can get 64 to go to our March brackets for Trump.

So go to Trump brackets.com, pick top three, vote early and often. Okay, vote a fraud allowed. Okay, just kidding, I'm kidding. Go to Trump brackets.com participate. All right, John. And if you don't know how to vote, we're going to be sending mules, just thousands of mules around America, and they're going to get you set up. Don't make us bring out the cracking or the ghost of Hugo Chavez,

because those are hard to control. 100%. Okay, let's talk about a story that I think is Taylor made to just anger the hell out of jank. Let's jump into this. Here's the second part of the one-two punch. of the one-two punch, the finale, Treasury Secretary, in a Harris administration. Who is it? Who's closest to buying it? That ended in an exciting fashion. That's the panel at CNBC's Squawk Box,

and they're just being so honest and so transparent that the Treasury Secretary position, being that Cabinet Secretary, is a thing that can be bought, and it's a thing that they expect in this case will be bought. Here's more. Who's closest to buying it? Who's closest? Well, the people leading the charge on Wall Street, you have Ray McGuire, you have Blair Ephron, you have Lernery. So they're the major donors?

Yeah, and they're really putting themselves front and center. But who she chooses remains to be seen. Jamie Diamond's name is always good. Here's what I'm going to say. Who do you think? I'm going to say that if she, I think that her first pick, if she had her own up to her own volition, she actually would try to get Jamie Diamond to do it. Whether you do it or not, I think is a question.

I think after that, she'd actually pick a Gino Romanda kind of person, which actually think, and I have a lot of- Okay, I think there's a lot there that is absolutely fascinating, including if it were up to her, it should be, she should be choosing, but he would have you believe that if it were totally up to her and she didn't have to answer to anyone else or whatever, it would be Jamie Diamond. And what's fascinating about that is that's apparently like Trump's main pick as well. He's saying he wouldn't push out the current head of the Fed, but he does want Jamie Diamond for Treasury. And I just feel like, you know, the two different parties should

have a different guy that they think should be helping lead the economy. There should be at least some shallow top level difference between the two. But anyway, lots of concerns from that little clip. What do you think? So, yeah, John, you hit the nail on the head there. two parts of this clip, this tiny little clip that shows you exactly where we are in American politics that are great examples of late stage corruption. One is in the old days, the mainstream media, which is corporate media, which is the beneficiary of most of the corruption, they get the billions of dollars in political ads. So they love the corruption even more than the politicians do and even more than the donors

do because they get all that revenue and profit, right? So they had, they felt like they had a fiduciary responsibility to cover it up in the past. So they would never talk about money in politics. And if anybody brought it up, they'd be like, oh, that sounds conspiratorial. Just because APEC gave him $18 million, you think that he's going to do APEC any favors? Okay. And you think that they're not. And again, fill in the blank, ExxonMobil, Pfizer, et cetera.

These guys are obviously controlled by the donors. But in the past, they'd be like, no way, no way. Now, they're like, oh, it turns out there's nothing anybody can do about it. We could just say it. So we'll just go on national TV and be like, who do you think is going to buy it? I'm bitter, I'm going to 100, 100, 100 million, 200 million, 200 million, no, we got somebody at 225, 225, can I see 250? They're just saying it now because that's mainstream media going, there's nothing

you could do about it, okay? Okay, those are friends on Wall Street are going to buy this Treasury Secretary position. And we'll tell you who we like. And by the way, anyone they like is going to be a terrible Treasury Secretary. So I'll get back to that in a second. The second reason why this is late stage corruption is because to John's point, wait, both Trump and Kamala Harris are thinking you're picking Jamie Diamond as Treasury Secretary. So who's in charge here?

Because it doesn't look like it's Trump or Kamala Harris. It looks like whoever is the leading people pushing Jamie Diamond on both candidates look like they're in charge. And guess who those folks are? Donors, guess where a lot of donors come from? Wall Street, I know, I know. But you know what, I used to say, oh, these are all shocking. And if you told them mainstream media reporter, they would think you were crazy.

But nowadays, I guess they would say, of course you're right, isn't it great? Let's go tell everyone on TV. So massive corruption. So Jamie Diamond is a giant banker. He has the banker's interest in mind. The fact that they're considering him, it's like don't, if you're crazy enough to consider Jamie Diamond, please have enough sense to not say it. Because you can't be less populist than picking the head of JP Morgan Chase, the guy who got the bank bailouts, the guy who has argued for deregulation of the bank so they could take crazier risk with our money, et cetera, beloved

by Wall Street. You're gonna pick the Prince of Wall Street as your Treasury Secretary, then you're gonna negate the Tim Wall's pick. Please don't be stupid, don't say stuff like that out loud. And of course, do I want her to do it when she gets in? Of course not, that would be a terrible pick. But again, keep it real, guys. She's not some sort of populist queen that the internet is making her out to be. She's a very standard Democrat, which is better than a crazed fascist, but be careful about your expectations. The other person they mentioned was Chino Romando. Now, that's not a bundler or donor.

That's a politician, that Democratic one, but very, very friendly to donors. Very conservative, very corporate. That's why Sanby's is like, she's all right too. Either we get the real boss in or we get the person who's going to report to the boss. Either way, hey, stock market Wall Street, we're in good shape either way. So they're all ecstatic. All right. Ramesh.

Yeah, it's this this story grossed me out and it took a little way, a little bit away who curbed my enthusiasm a little bit, you know, because I've been pretty, I'm pretty excited and feeling relieved and kind of a breath of fresh air with Harris and Walls, especially the Walls pick, really. And it's, I really, really hope it's not going to be a redo of Biden's, you know, nothing will fundamentally change, right? His famous words that he told to donors. that I think sowed the seeds for our sort of widespread, discontent, lack of excitement about him. But I do also want to note that Biden did name, and not that she's some great secretary, but he did name Janet Yellen, who wasn't a Wall Street hack, a UC Berkeley economist. As Treasury Secretary, I don't agree with many of her decisions. And it's also worth noting that many donors are trying to go after Lena Kahn. who for me is one of the best people in the Biden administration and I really hope the head chair of the Federal Trade Commission. So I hope she she will stay on because at the minimum,

what we must fight for is a diverse set of voices and constituencies in this new administration if God bless she gets elected, Harris gets elected. I also want to note that Jamie Diamond met with Trump when the Biden situation was looking disastrous. This dates back several months and it's a nothing's going to fundamentally change thing. And it gets me back to something that I'm still sore about, not to bemoan the past, but which is that those in power would much rather have a Biden or a Trump than someone like a Bernie, right? It was actually going to challenge the fundamental contours of an extractive unjust system that is disenfranchising American people's, regardless of race or skin color or gender.

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. But why don't we end the show briefly with a little bit of soap opera WWE drums? How about that? Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan decided, I guess, to just shake up the already fraught situation on the Republican side of this campaign when he said this. That's politics.

They do it on the left. They do it on the right. They gaslight you. They manipulate you. They promote narratives. And the only one is not doing that is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. You a fan? Yeah, I am a fan.

Yeah, he's the only one that makes sense to me. He's the only one that he doesn't attack people. He attacks actions and ideas. But he's much more reasonable and intelligent. I mean, the guy was an environmental attorney and cleaned up the East River. He's a legitimate guy. You know, before anybody started calling him an anti-vaxxer, which I thought he was too, I thought he was just nut, this like conspiracy theorist nut until I read his book.

So that is Joe Rogan saying that RFK Jr. is the only one that makes sense to him. And he goes on in long extended rate, you saw a little bit of it there where he cites the fact that he thinks that he's very reasonable and very intelligent and he cleaned up the East River. And he didn't mention the bear for some reason or the worm or the ladybugs or anything like that, but he mentioned a few things. And he goes on a long thing. about how his book on Anthony Fauci was totally reasonable and he's not an anti-vaxxer or anything. And if any of that sounds convincing to you, I would just beg if you please watch John Oliver's most recent episode on RFK Jr. But that wasn't all he said. He goes on to say that he predicted

that Harris could defeat Trump. He doesn't say that she definitely will, but he says he can really imagine her beating Trump. And when you combine that with the fact that he's now saying RFK Jr. is the only one that makes sense to him, you can imagine that there are some who are going to be angry about that. One in particular, and yes, he apparently was listening, Donald Trump bleated, it will be interesting to see how loudly Joe Rogan gets booed the next time he enters the UFC ring. I don't know what the question marks are for. It's just a statement. Knock it's 2024. And so he's very mad. And so now there's a fight and it's all over Twitter. And you probably didn't see it because you're a reasonable person. Why would you be on Twitter?

But anyway, so people are attacking Rogan and people are attacking Trump. And then Rogan apparently notice that this is not necessarily great for his brand, many of which are Trump supporters. So he put out the statement saying, for the record, this isn't an endorsement. This is me saying that I like RFK Jr. as a person, and I really appreciate the way he discusses things with civility and intelligence. I think we could use more of that in this world. And much of that is accurate to what he originally said. He did also originally say he's the only one that makes sense to me. That is not in the tweet for some reason. But he goes on to say, I also think Trump raising his fist and saying fight after getting shot, kind of, is one of the most American effing things of all time.

Okay, I'm not the guy to get political information from. If you want that from a comic, go to comic Dave Smith. He actually knows what he's talking about. First of all, this continues the years-long thing where Joe Rogan pretends to not understand that millions of people just believe whatever he says or whatever he brings some insane person on a show to say. It's a complete abdication of the responsibility you have from having a platform, but that's what he does. So don't listen to him. Listen to Dave Smith. He's not attacking Trump. Don't listen to him. Listen to Dave Smith. So what does Dave Smith say? Well, he apparently said during the greatest assault on liberty in modern U.S. history, Trump praised lockdowns, demonized countries not locking down, and brags to this day about that BS Vax. I'm not endorsing Bobby Kennedy. Neither is Joe, by the way. But he can support whoever the hell he wants to.

And if people who are voting for president lock down warp speed of a problem, maybe they should consider the possibility that their guy should be less awful on stuff. So Joe Rogan's saying, I'm not saying don't go for Trump, listen to this guy who really heavily seems to be implying that. So it's an interesting backtrack. He doesn't want to anger the MAGA people, and yet he's telling them to listen to a person who doesn't like the MAGA guy. It's interesting, especially coming out of last week when Kyle Rittenhouse was all of a sudden a big strong. boy who wasn't going to support Trump anymore, and then he got attacked on Twitter, and he immediately backtracked. And so, I don't know, it's an interesting civil war brewing on the right. What do you think?

Yeah, I'm also having to Tim Poole, and they say, oh, no, no, he was just trolling. And maybe he is, but who knows, with people on the right wing, I know, Tim also pretends not to be on the right wing, okay, they're always like, whenever they get caught in something, I was just kidding, I was just out of context. So, but maybe he was, because there's a lot of people troll. So that's, but I'm not going to like assess with perfect accuracy, whether Tim Poole was joking or he got the same exact situation that happened in Kyle Rittenhouse and Joe Rogan. And so if you say no, they did not bend to the MAGA crowd, okay, that's your opinion, but you can't say that there wasn't a giant pushback and that

they didn't notice it. No, they definitely noticed it and they were definitely concerned about it. All three of those folks, right? Whether Tim Poole was joking or not, Rogan clearly not joking. So let's talk about Rogan. Look, he's an interesting and oftentimes frustrating guy. And both with him and Dave Smith, there are things that I agree and disagree with. Easy agreement with the beginning of his statement. Democrats or Republicans are full of crap. They have these narratives and talking points and fake. Totally true, okay? So, but at the end of the day, we have to choose somebody. And if you say, hey, I'm going to choose RFK Jr. I interviewed RFK Jr. here with a really good conversation. Substant

one, I asked him about policy. Nobody ever asked him about policy. I did, Rogan did, to be fair. And so I don't agree with his position on back seas. I don't agree with Rogan's position, even if they're slightly different, or Dave Smith's position, right? But that being said, I've told you before, I like RFK Jr.'s housing policy, a lot. He has the best housing policy and the best anti-corruption policy. Does that mean I'm voting for him? No, there's a couple of other things that are deal breakers for me. But I wouldn't hate on Rogan or Dave Smith or any of them if they said, I'm going to RFK Jr., right?

I'd get it, and it would actually be on brand for them in a lot of ways. And by on brand, I don't mean like, oh, they're trying to do a brand. Just, no, it matches their ideology a little bit better than Trump does and Kamala Harris does, right? But you could tell there was a blowback and Rogan was worried about it, not because Rogan has the advantage of being rich. So he doesn't have to worry about, oh, what did the advertisers think? What does the media company think, et cetera?

But there's a concept called audience capture. Yep. And that's what they're all scared to death of. And by the way, that is also true of the left wing. Go an inch off of left wing so-called Twitter ideology. I don't know who came up with it. And they'll rip your head off. Have I lived through that?

Only a million times, right? But we have the courage to stand by our convictions. So the reason you can tell even with Rogan is that second paragraph where he's like, oh, but don't get me wrong, Trump was a super badass when he got shot and he raised his fist. Yeah, I agree with that actually. And I said that as well, but why are you bringing it up now? It makes it sound like, yeah, I mean, RFK Jr. He's the only one I agree with, but I don't want to endorse him because Trump's a badass.

Trump's a badass. You don't have to do that. And he did do that because, yeah, this is what I've been saying about Tim Poole and Joe Rogan. Whether you think you're a right winger or not, almost your entire audience is right wingers. And you keep thinking that there's tons of moderates in there and a whole bunch of left wingers in there, there's almost no left wingers. And if you're being honest with yourself, very few moderates, okay? It's giant right wing audiences that are like screaming at them.

How dare you? Trump, right? No, okay, Trump. And guys, somebody said, oh yeah, like you're any better. We lost a decent chunk of our audience, let alone the left-wing fights that we've had. But because we didn't back Biden.

We said, we were honest. They said, too old. Sorry, too old. And you're never going to get me to lie and say he's not too old. And so, but audience capture is a hell of a drug and very, very timely. I like Dave Smith a lot, by the way. We can come back to that. But Revesh, what do you think?

Yeah, I mean, it's from the perspective of someone like Dave Smith, who I'm not an expert on, but I've seen you talk with them before, or Rogan, who I occasionally listened to, it seems they both sort of veer populist libertarian in certain ways, and which can, of course, align with right. But I think it's very telling that the, you know, to support RFK would be supporting our continued military funding of a genocide in Gaza. And I think that that's a very anti-libertarian position. And they both should be called out, at least Dave Smith, for that. If you support RFK, you're supportive of a disastrous policy where we actually make war in other parts of the world and kill people in other parts of the world, at least through our funding and our military arsenal.

That said, it's a great thing for the Rogans of the world to support RFK. You know, he doesn't say he explicitly supports him. This will peel away at a significant part of the Trump base, which is great news, because it's an unholy alliance of, you know, evangelical, you know, with meeting bros, you know, or kind of libertarians. And there's, and both are significant constituencies in the Trump MAGA movement. So the more sweet, the more that movement is destroyed by whatever forces, by whomever, the better in my, in my opinion. And last quick thought is I think Walls would do amazing on the Joe Rogan show, just like Bernie did back in the day. And I think, you know, to our point about interviews from earlier, Walls on the Rogan show could really, could really help actually a lot. Interesting.

Yeah. I'll say the last two things, guys. One, Rogan is also right about Kamala Harris. He said that she's likely to win. He didn't say I'm going to vote for her. He didn't come close to saying he's going to vote for her. So I don't know where people got that from. He was super clear about that one. And then I love that he said, hey, don't ask me.

You're right, John. He does that thing of, I'll tell all you my large audience, all my political opinions. Hey, but don't trust me for politics. It's a little too cute by half, right? But I like that he said, go ask Dave Smith, who actually does know things. Because I disagree with Dave Smith on a bunch of stuff, including vaccines. but the brother's super smart, and he agrees with us on a ton of things. You should watch our interview with him on the Young Turks YouTube channel.

You should watch the debate that he and I were partners in, where we were in the anti-war pro-peace side of an Israel-Gaza debate. And to your point, Ramesh, no, he's not a hypocrite on that at all. He does not like RFK Jr.'s position on Israel. He is very gung-ho on not sending any more money to Israel while they continue to do these bombardments. And he also hates Trump. And he doesn't just hate Trump because of vaccines. He hates Trump for a lot of really good reasons.

So at least that's my assessment of it. So at least Dave Smith is honest. And if they're going to a guy who's at least honest, and knowledgeable, especially on Israel, he knows just about as much as anybody does. So at the end of the day, there's two wins in here. Ramesh is right. I hadn't really thought of it that way. But if you're getting the right wing bro contingent to consider RFK Jr.,

it's not such a bad thing, and that's part of why the Magger crowd's so mad, right? And second of all, look, there's at least some degree of honesty mixed in here, where at least they had the courage to say they like RFK Jr. Before they got the blowback, right? Right? So mixed reaction for me. And my final point, like I'm more interested in what Trump said than what Joe Rogan said, because you can go with carrots or you can go with sticks. He didn't offer like, hey Joe, I saw what you said, you know, have me back on the show and

we can talk things out, I can try to reassure you. He was like, everybody go boo this guy at UFC, which is a bold strategy, and maybe it worked in this case. But if he were to lose Joe Rogan, like really angered Joe Rogan to Joe Rogan went rogue, I think like Joe Rogan has a lot of influence over the exact sort of like white male audience that Trump needs. And so that's a risky strategy, I think. It is. And I don't think he realized how much he was risking the bros by picking JD Vance. Because the bros, Portnoy, Rogan, et cetera, they're largely pro choice, but they're really mainly,

I don't want to speak too much for them. I don't know the exact nuances of their position, but they're mainly in the Tim Walls camp of mind your own damn business. Yeah. They don't agree with the walls on everything, I'm sure. Sure, I'm not speaking for them, right? But they definitely agree with mind your own damn business and the anti-abortion thing where the government, big government comes in and gets between you and your doctor and tells you all the medical things you have to do is very anti-bro, which you should give them credit for.

So it is possible that he could agitate them enough for them to go, I didn't like Vance to begin with with all this, oh, I'm gonna judge you for not having kids, I'm gonna judge you for that and that. And then you add this on top, he is risking it a little bit, but Trump's thuggish behavior, usually does work. I believe in carrots and sticks, and I respect Trump for using sticks. Not from a policy perspective, but from a strategy perspective. So, and when he does these sticks, they almost always work.

And if I'm Rogan, I'm a tiny bit embarrassed that it worked here. Because it's clearly, at least partially worked. Okay, all right, we gotta go. So Remus, thank you, everybody check out Utopia's podcast. John, thank you, everybody check out Damage Report. When we come back, we've got a lot more for you guys, including Tampon Tim. We have all the facts, is he actually a pro tampon when we come back.