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- Communism makes no sense at all, totally opposed to human nature. It never works.

0:06

It always evolves into dictatorship.

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It creates a power vacuum, when you say, hey, there's no structure of power here, right? We're all equal. It's a flat line.

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One guy usually gets up, because that's human nature and goes, eh, I don't think so.

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I think if you're gonna leave a power vacuum, I'm gonna take that power vacuum.

0:25

Corporatism hates competition.

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It wants monopoly and oligopoly power.

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Whereas capitalism loves competition and wants the free markets.

0:35

When mainstream media has you hooked, you got no hope because you don't have the right information.

0:41

You have propaganda, you have marketing, you don't have real news.

0:44

When you're in the online world, it's chaotic.

0:47

And don't get me wrong, it's got plenty of downsides, right?

0:51

But within that chaos, the truth begins to emerge.

0:55

Trump is a massive risk because of all the things we talked about earlier, but there is a percentage chance that he's such a wild card, that he overturns the whole system, and that is why the establishment is a little scared of him.

1:11

- The following is a conversation with Cenk Uygur, a progressive political commentator and host of The Young Turks.

1:19

As I've said before, I will speak with everyone, including on the left and the right of the political spectrum, always in good faith with empathy, rigor, and backbone.

1:29

Sometimes I fail, sometimes I say stupid, inaccurate, ineloquent things, and I frequently change my mind as I'm learning and thinking about the world.

1:40

For all this, I often get attacked, sometimes fairly, sometimes not, but just know that I'm aware when I fall short and I will keep trying to do better. I love you all.

1:52

This is a Lex Fridman Podcast.

1:55

To support it please check out our sponsors in the description.

1:59

And now, dear friends, here's Cenk Uygur. You wrote a book? - Yeah.

2:04

- A manifesto, that outlines the progressive vision for America.

2:08

So the big question, what are some defining ideas of progressivism? - Yes.

2:15

So in order to do that, Lex, we gotta talk about where we are in the political spectrum.

2:19

And in fact, there's two different spectrums now.

2:23

People often think of left, right.

2:24

And that's true, that exists.

2:27

But layered on top of that is now populist versus establishment.

2:31

So I'm center left on the left, right spectrum, but I'm all the way on that populist end of the second spectrum.

2:42

So where does progressivism lie within that?

2:45

Well, I would argue that it's exactly in those places, it's populist, and it's on the left, but it is not far left.

2:54

So far left is a different animal, and we could talk about that in a little bit.

2:59

So in terms of what makes a progressive, so expand the circle of liberty and justice for all and equality of opportunity.

3:09

Now people will say, well, that seems pretty broad and all American, but is it? Think about it.

3:15

So expand the circle of liberty.

3:18

Everybody's in favor of that, right? No, absolutely not.

3:21

So certainly the King of England was not in favor of expanding the circle of liberty, and the founding father said, we're gonna expand it.

3:28

And they expanded it to propertied white men.

3:31

And then progressives have been, they're progressives because they expanded the circle of liberty, they then, from then on, as we were perfecting the union, progressives always say, expand it further, include women, include people without property, include all races, and at every turn, conservatives fight against it.

3:48

So that doesn't mean if you're a conservative today, you don't wanna include women or minorities, et cetera.

3:55

But today you would say, for example, well, I don't wanna expand the circle of liberty to, for example, undocumented immigrants.

4:03

And maybe you're right about that.

4:04

And we could have that discussion in terms of a specific philosophy.

4:08

And I don't believe that undocumented immigrants should immediately be citizens or anything along those lines.

4:12

But I do believe in expanding liberty overall.

4:15

And the contours of that are what's interesting.

4:17

And then you see justice for all. Everybody's for...

4:20

No, right now, marijuana possession is still illegal in a lot of parts of the country.

4:25

Now, a lot of right wingers and left wingers agree that it should be legal.

4:28

But for my entire lifetime, black people have been arrested at about 3.

4:31

7 times the rate of white people, and the entire country has been fine with it. So is that justice? No, they smoke...

4:41

White people, black people smoke marijuana at the same rate.

4:44

Black people get arrested about four times the rate.

4:47

That is an injustice that an enormous percentage of the country was comfortable with.

4:51

Well, progressives aren't comfortable with it. We want justice for all.

4:55

So the equality of opportunity is an interesting one because the far left will say, at least some portions of them will say equality of results, right?

5:04

So progressives just want a fair chance.

5:07

So free college education, but afterwards you don't get to have exact same results as either the wealthiest person or we're not all gonna be equal, have equal talent, skills, abilities, et cetera.

5:21

- There's a lot of questions I can ask there.

5:22

So on the circle of liberty, yes, so expanding the number of people whose freedoms are protected, but what about the magnitude of freedom for each individual person?

5:32

So expanding the freedom of the individual and protecting the freedoms of an individual.

5:39

It seems like progressives are more willing to expand the size of government where government can do all kinds of regulation, all kinds of controls in the individual...

5:49

- So Lex, what we're probably gonna talk about a lot today is balance.

5:53

And so a lot of people think, oh, I'm on the right, I'm on the left.

5:59

And that comes with a certain preset ideology.

6:02

So the right is always correct.

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The left is always correct.

6:05

So there's two problems with that.

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Number one, how could you possibly believe in a preset ideology if you're an independent thinker?

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It's literally, by definition, not possible.

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If you say, I lent my brain to an ideology that was created 80 years ago, or eight years ago, or 800 years ago, and I'm not gonna change it, you're saying, I don't think for myself.

6:27

I, you know, I bought into a culture.

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And by the way, there's a lot of different forms of culture you buy into, religion, politics, sometimes racial, et cetera.

6:37

So that's why you need actually balance.

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The second reason you need balance other than independent thought is because the answer is almost never black and white.

6:47

And that gets into a really interesting to us, because mainstream media, in my opinion, is the matrix.

6:53

And its job is to delude you into thinking corporate rule is great for you and we should never change it, and the status quo is wonderful.

7:03

So they have created a false middle.

7:07

What mainstream media calls moderate is actually, in my opinion, extremist corporate ideology.

7:14

So for example, they'll say, Joe Manchin is a moderate, none of his positions are moderate other than potentially gun control in West Virginia.

7:22

He's not for gun control.

7:23

The people of West Virginia are not for gun control, generally speaking.

7:26

So, and he uses that and they usually have these shiny objects where they're like, you see this?

7:31

I'm a moderate because of guns, or I'm a moderate because I'm a Democrat from West Virginia.

7:36

But wait, let's look at your positions.

7:38

You're against paid family leave, that polls at 84%.

7:41

So you're a radical corporatist who say that women should be forced back into work the day after they have birth.

7:48

You're against a higher minimum wage. You're against...

7:51

You're for every corporate position.

7:53

And they all poll at 33% or less.

7:57

So Joe Manchin is not at all a moderate.

8:00

And this applies to almost every corporate Republican and every corporate Democrat.

8:04

They're all extremists in supporting what I call corporatism.

8:08

So you have to get to a balance in order to get to the right answer.

8:11

- So that's an interesting distinction here.

8:12

So you're actually, as far as I understand, pro capitalism? - Yes.

8:16

- Which is an interesting place to be.

8:17

That's the thing that probably makes you center left and then still populist.

8:23

You're full of beautiful contradictions, let's say this, which will be great to untangle.

8:29

But what's the difference between corporatism and capitalism? Is there a difference?

8:33

- Yeah, so I really believe in capitalism.

8:37

I don't think that there's really a second choice.

8:41

Where it gets super interesting is the distinction between capitalism and socialism, because that's not at all as clear as people think it is.

8:49

And people often say socialism and communism as synonyms when they're not synonyms, right?

8:55

And so I view it as, there's basically four distinct areas.

9:01

It's obviously a spectrum.

9:01

Everything is a spectrum, right?

9:04

On one end, you have communism on the left and on the other end you have corporatism on the right. Okay?

9:09

And I would argue that capitalism is in the middle.

9:12

And so communism we know, state owns all property.

9:18

You're not allowed to have private property.

9:20

So I will piss off a lot of people in this show.

9:23

And so I'm asking for their patience, please hear me out, and because, don't worry, I'm gonna piss off the other side too. Okay?

9:32

So communism makes no sense at all, totally opposed to human nature. It never works.

9:39

It always evolves into dictatorship because it is not built for human nature.

9:44

We're never going to act like that. It's not in our DNA.

9:49

You could try to wish it into existence than they have. And it never works.

9:53

And it's because once you have almost no rules in terms of, oh, we're all equal, and even though communism eventually winds up having an enormous amount of rules, right?

10:06

It creates a power vacuum when you say, hey, there's no structure of power here, right? We're all equal. It's a flat line.

10:14

One guy usually gets up, because that's human nature, and goes, eh, I don't think so.

10:19

I think if you're gonna leave a power vacuum, I'm gonna take that power vacuum.

10:23

- That's actually a really interesting way to put it, 'cause when everyone is equal, nobody is in power, and human nature is such that there's everybody's that there's a will to power, so when you create a power vacuum, somebody's going to to fill it.

10:36

So the alternative is to have people in power, but there's a balance of power.

10:41

And then there's like a democratic system that elects the people in power and keeps churning and rotating who's involved.

10:47

- That is exactly it, Lex, you got it exactly right, in my opinion. Okay?

10:52

So that's why communism never works and can never work.

10:55

So it's an idea of like, we're all gonna work as hard as we possibly can and take only what we need. Where? When?

11:04

When has that ever happened in the history of humanity, right?

11:07

We're just not built that way.

11:09

So, okay, we can get into that debate with my friends on the left, et cetera.

11:13

Now, corporatism is just as extreme and just as dangerous.

11:16

And that is basically what we have in America now.

11:19

What we have in America now, and this is another giant trick that the matrix played on everybody, that they did a shell game, and all of a sudden extreme corporatists like Manchin and almost every Republican in the Senate are moderates.

11:34

Oh my God, Mitch McConnell all of a sudden is a moderate, and et cetera, as long as you're not a populist.

11:40

Populists are never moderate, okay?

11:42

But if you love corporations and corporate tax cuts and everything in favor of corporations, you're magically called a moderate when you actually, according to the polling, have super extreme positions that the American people hate.

11:55

And by the way, that's part of the reason for the rise of Trump.

11:57

We can come back to that. Okay?

12:00

But the second shell game is taking out capitalism, putting in corporatism, but still calling it capitalism. Okay? So what is corporatism?

12:09

It is when corporations slowly take over the system and create monopoly and oligopoly power.

12:16

So that snuffs out equality of opportunity. So how do they do that?

12:22

When people say the system is rigged, they oftentimes can't explain it that well.

12:29

And then mainstream media goes, "Ah, you sound conspiratorial. (laughs) It was rigged. Yeah, I wonder how?"

12:35

Yeah, super easy to explain it.

12:37

Here's one of dozens of examples, carried interest loophole.

12:42

So that is for hedge funds, private equity, the top people on Wall Street, that's part of their income.

12:49

They get 2 and 20, right?

12:51

So 2% is a flat fee no matter what happens to the fund.

12:55

And 20% of the profits of the fund goes back to the people who invested it.

12:59

It's not their money, it's not their investment.

13:03

What they're getting is actually just income and should be taxed at the highest rate.

13:08

But it's because of this loophole, it's taxed at a much lower rate at around 20%.

13:12

So do you know at what income level you go above 20% if you're a regular Joe? It's at $84,000 a year.

13:21

So these billionaires are getting the same tax rate as people making $84,000 a year.

13:27

It's unbelievably unfair.

13:30

And that's corporatism taking over and starting to rig the rules.

13:33

I'm gonna pay less taxes.

13:33

You are gonna pay more taxes. Okay?

13:36

So again, I can give you dozens of those examples.

13:40

So, and mergers, so that they get to oligopoly power, that's how you rig a system, lowering the corporate tax rates, making sure that there is no real minimum wage, making sure there's no universal healthcare, we all become indentured servants of corporations...

13:55

They take away power from the average guy, give it to the most powerful people in the world.

14:00

So, and but the most important distinction, Lex, is that corporatism hates competition.

14:07

It wants monopoly and oligopoly power.

14:10

Whereas capitalism loves competition and wants the free markets.

14:14

And I remember, you know, we started Young Turks back in 2002, so we've been around for 22 years, longest running daily show on the internet ever.

14:25

And so we were pre-Iraq War, and the Iraq War starts, and Dick Cheney starts handing out no-bid contracts.

14:33

I'm like, what part of capitalism is a no-bid contract?

14:38

You can't negotiate drug prices.

14:39

That's the most anti-free market thing I have ever heard.

14:44

It's almost like communism for corporations. They get everything.

14:50

And you get nothing, right?

14:52

So it's preposterous, it's awful, and it kills the free markets, and it's killing this country, and it is the main ideology and religion of the establishment.

15:04

- Are all companies built the same here?

15:06

So when you say corporatism, it seems like, just looking here at the list of, by industry lobbyists, it seems like there are certain industries that are worse offenders than others, like pharmaceuticals, like insurance, oil and gas? - Yeah.

15:26

- So it seems to me it feels wrong to just throw all companies into the same bucket of like, they're all guilty. - No.

15:36

No, they're not all guilty.

15:37

So let's make a bunch of distinctions here.

15:39

So first of all, can you, first of all, are they, quote, unquote, guilty? No.

15:45

They're doing something that is logical and natural, right?

15:46

So if you're a company, do you wanna pay higher taxes or lower taxes?

15:50

Of course you wanna pay lower taxes, right?

15:52

Do you wanna have higher employee costs or lower employee costs?

15:54

Of course you want lower employee costs, right?

15:57

But the government needs to understand that and protect us from that power that they are going to exercise to get to those results.

16:07

And if you think free markets as there is no government, you read it wrong, go back and reread Adam Smith.

16:15

He says, you must protect against monopoly power.

16:19

If you do not protect against monopoly power, you'll have no free markets.

16:23

And he's absolutely right.

16:25

So second distinction is between small business and big business.

16:30

That's why Republicans will always be like, oh, we're doing this for small business.

16:33

That's why we got the biggest oil companies in the world $30 billion in subsidies.

16:37

What happened to small business, right?

16:39

So I run a small business.

16:41

And so if people were to say like, hey, maybe there should be exemptions for some of the regulations if your company has less than five employees, 10 employees, 50 employees, et cetera...

16:53

There's some logic in that.

16:54

'Cause businesses have different stages of growth and they have different interests and different needs in those stages of growth.

17:00

And we wanna facilitate small business growth because that's great for the economy, that's great for markets, freedom, et cetera.

17:09

But the bigger corporations, even there, there's a third distinction.

17:12

It isn't that there's certain industries that are worse, there's just that there are industries that are better at lobbying.

17:19

So anyone who, like right now, number one donor in Washington?

17:24

A lot of people make a mistake.

17:26

They think it's AIPAC or they think it's the oil companies or the banks.

17:30

No, it's big pharma, okay?

17:32

And who has the most power in this country? Big pharma.

17:36

So we can't even negotiate the drug prices.

17:39

I mean, look, guys, think about it this way.

17:41

That's like saying, okay, here's a bottle of water.

17:43

And normally in the free market that would cost about a dollar, right?

17:47

And in the, for Medicare, the drug companies come in and go, no, I'm not charging a dollar for that water. I'm charging $100.

17:55

And the government has to say, yes, sir, thank you, sir, of course, sir, we'll pay $100.

18:00

That's why I compare it to communism, because I can't imagine anything more diametrically opposed to the free market then you the consumer have to pay whatever the hell a corporation charges. That's insanity.

18:13

Let alone the patents, let alone the fact that the American people pay for the research and then they make billions of dollars off of it, and we get nothing but robbed by them.

18:22

So it's about lobby power.

18:24

Oil companies have huge lobby power.

18:26

Defense contractors have huge lobby power.

18:28

It's not that they're more evil, it's just that they have figured out the game better and they have basically taken the influence they need to capture the market, capture the government, and snuff out all competition. - Well...

18:42

- Or a lot of competition...

18:44

- Figure out the game better.

18:46

So I think a lot of companies are good at winning the right way: by building better products, by, you know, making people happier with the work they're doing and the winning at the game of capitalism.

19:00

And then there's other companies that win at the game of lobbying.

19:03

And I just wanna sort of draw that distinction, 'cause I think it's a small subset of companies that are playing the game of lobbying. It's like big pharma...

19:11

- So Lex, first of all, you have to set rules for what makes sense, not, oh, I don't like this industry, or I don't like this company, or, hey, this company's not doing that much lobbying at this point.

19:22

They will later, when they realize what's going on.

19:24

So for example, in my opinion, AIPAC has totally bought almost all of Congress.

19:29

And so now other countries are gonna wake up and go, wait, you could just buy the American government?

19:35

So AIPAC is gonna spend about $100 million in this cycle, and they're gonna, and then they're getting 26 billion back.

19:42

So every country in the world is soon gonna realize, oh, take American citizens that live there, get them a tremendous amount of money and just buy the US government, right?

19:52

So that, but for corporations, they've already realized that on a massive scale, right?

19:57

So for example, in the two industries you gave, automotive.

20:02

So in New Jersey, about a decade or ago or so, one of the most powerful lobbies is car dealerships.

20:09

So at the national level, you've got pharma and you've got defense contractors, et cetera, at the local level, guys who have huge power, number one is utilities, number two is real estate, and then car dealerships are hilariously among the top, right?

20:23

Because it's local businesses that are, you know, financing the politicians at the local level.

20:28

So they passed a law saying that you have to sell through dealerships, but Tesla doesn't sell through dealerships.

20:36

And it was intended to bully, intimidate, and push out Tesla out of the market.

20:42

They then did that in a number of different states throughout the country.

20:44

So does that make any sense in a democracy? Of course not.

20:49

Why do you have to sell your product through a specific vehicle or medium?

20:52

You could sell it any way you like.

20:54

That's the most anti-free market thing possible. Why?

20:57

It was just total utter corruption.

20:59

And, but it's not, but it's perfectly legal.

21:01

The Supreme Court legalized bribery.

21:04

So then what happened in that case?

21:05

So then Elon came in and gave campaign contributions and reversed it.

21:11

So now we're in a battle where it's an open auction, right?

21:14

Different companies are buying different politicians and then they're pretending to have debates about principles and ideas, et cetera.

21:21

So now let's look at tech.

21:25

In the beginning, Facebook was not spending any money in politics or almost any money in politics. So what happens?

21:30

They're getting hammered, they get pulled into congressional hearings, and Facebook's got fake news and oh my God, all these trouble from Facebook...

21:40

Then Facebook does the logical thing.

21:42

Oh, it turns out I need to grease these sons of bitches. Okay?

21:45

So then they hire a whole bunch of Republicans consultants, they go grease all the Republicans and most of the corporate Democrats, and then all of a sudden we're no longer talking about Facebook at all and Facebook are angels.

21:57

And now we've turned our attention to who?

22:00

Facebook's top competitor, TikTok. Funny how that works. Okay?

22:05

And by the way, then Donald Trump goes, oh, "And TikTok's big dangerous company, they're working with China," okay?

22:13

And then Jeff Yass comes in on this cycle, part owner of TikTok, and he doesn't want TikTok banished, of course, right?

22:21

So he gives Trump a couple of million dollars.

22:23

Trump turns around the next day and goes, "We love TikTok, TikTok's a good company," right?

22:29

- So that's a big contributor to influencing what politicians say and what they think.

22:34

But it's not the entire thing, right? - No, it is. It's 98%.

22:38

I'll go on mainstream media and they'll be like, oh, I see what you're saying.

22:41

I can see how that influences politicians about 10%.

22:44

I'm like, no, no, it's 98%.

22:48

So, and even a lot of good people think it's 50-50.

22:51

They have principles and they have money.

22:53

No, they have money and this smidge of principles, that's why I wanted to clarify 98-2.

22:59

- Okay, so how do we fix it?

23:00

So it's really interesting and nice that you're pro-capitalism and anti-corporatism.

23:06

So how do we create a system where the free market can rule, where capitalism can rule, we can have these vibrant flourishing of all these companies competing against each other and creating awesome stuff? - Yeah.

23:20

So in the book, I call it democratic capitalism as opposed to Bernie's democratic socialism, right?

23:26

We can get into that distinction in a minute.

23:28

But so as Adam Smith said, and anyone who studies capitalism knows, you need the government to protect the market as well as the people, because, so like, why do we have cops?

23:42

Because if we don't have cops, somebody's gonna go, well, I like Lex's equipment, why don't I just go into his house and take it? Right?

23:48

So you need the cops to protect you, and that's the government.

23:50

So people say, "Oh, I hate big government." Do you? Right? It depends, right?

23:55

If your house is getting robbed, all of a sudden you like the government, but you also need cops on Wall Street, because if you allow insider trading, the powerful are gonna rob you blind and the little guy's gonna get screwed.

24:05

So that's this easy example.

24:06

And so if you don't have those cops, the bad guys are gonna take over.

24:12

They're gonna set the rules, rig the rules in their favor...

24:15

So that's why you need regulation.

24:18

And so the Republicans on purpose made regulation a dirty word.

24:22

They're like, "Oh, all regulation is bad."

24:25

And then sometimes on the left people fall for the trap of all regulation is good.

24:29

A guy I like has a great analogy on this.

24:33

Matt Stoller, he's one of the original, I would argue, progressives.

24:37

And there's about four of us.

24:39

I'm sure there's more, but that have stayed true to the original meaning of progressivism and populism.

24:45

Me, Matt Stoller, David Sirota, Ryan Grim. Okay?

24:50

And they used to be in that original blogger group.

24:53

There was guys like Glenn Greenwald and other interesting cats, right?

24:57

But they went in different directions.

24:59

So Matt has a great line.

25:01

He says, if somebody comes up to you and says, how big a pipe do you want?

25:08

There is no answer for that.

25:09

It depends on the job, doesn't it? Right? What are we doing? What are we building?

25:14

I'm gonna tell you the size of the pipe depending on the project.

25:18

So when people say, are you in favor of regulation or against it?

25:22

That's an absurd question.

25:22

Of course you need regulation.

25:25

It just means laws, right?

25:26

So don't kill your neighbor is a regulation, right?

25:30

So my idea is a simple one, and one we're gonna keep coming back to, balance.

25:37

So when my dad was a small business owner in New Jersey, and they inspected the elevator six times a year, that was overregulation.

25:45

And I said to my dad, so should they not inspect it at all?

25:48

I'm a young kid growing up.

25:50

And he said, "Oh, no, no, you gotta inspect it at least twice a year." I said, "Why?

25:54

He said, "Because in Turkey, sometimes they don't inspect it and then the elevator falls." Okay?

26:00

So bounds of reason, correct regulation to protect the markets and to protect the American people. - Yeah.

26:07

But finding the right level of regulation, especially, for example, in tech, something I'm much more familiar with, is very difficult.

26:13

'Cause people in Congress are living in the 20th century before the internet was invented.

26:20

So like, how are they supposed to come up with regulations? - Yeah.

26:25

- Well, that's the idea of the free market is you should be able to sort of compete, the market regulates, and then the government can step in and protect the market from forming monopolies, for example, which is easier to do. - Yeah.

26:36

But that's a form of regulation. - Right.

26:39

But then there's like more check in the elevator twice a year.

26:42

That's a sort of specific watching, micromanaging.

26:46

- So Lex, here's the deal.

26:48

There's no way around the laws are made by politicians, okay? - Yeah.

26:54

- So, and so you can't give up then and go, oh, it's a bunch of schmucks who, I think most politicians are just servants for the donor class. Alright?

27:04

I, the, you know, the media makes it sound like they're the best of us.

27:06

Oh, they deserve a lot of honor and respect, and they kiss their ass, et cetera.

27:10

I think generally speaking, they're usually the worst of us, especially in this corporatist structure, right?

27:15

Because they're the guys who, they're number one talent is, yes, sir, no, sir, what would you like me to do with your donor money, sir? Absolutely.

27:23

I'll serve you completely. Or 98%. Right?

27:27

So in this structure, the politicians are the worst of us.

27:30

But at some point you need somebody elected to be your representative to do democratic capitalism so that you have capitalism, but it's checked by the government on behalf of the people.

27:41

It's the people that are saying, these are the rules of the land and you have to abide by them.

27:48

So how do you get to the best possible answer, which is related to an earlier question you asked, Lex, which is the number one thing you have to do is get big money outta politics.

28:02

Everything else is near impossible, as long as we are drowned in money, and whoever has more money wins.

28:08

And by the way, when it comes to legislation, again, that's true about 98% of the time.

28:13

Like we predict things ahead of time, people are like, wow, how did you know that bill wasn't gonna pass or was gonna pass?

28:18

It's the easiest thing in the world.

28:19

And we like literally, like, teach our audience on The Young Turks, watch, you'll be able to see for yourself.

28:26

And now like our members comment in, they do these predictions, they're almost always right, right? Because it's so simple. Follow the money.

28:33

So if you get big money out of politics, and I could explain how to do that in a sec, then you are at a place where you got your best shot at honest representatives that are gonna try their best to get to the right answer.

28:47

Are they gonna get to the right answer out of the gate? Usually not.

28:50

So they pass a law, there's something wrong with the law, they then fix that part, they, it's a pendulum.

28:56

You know, you don't want it to swing too widely, but you do need a little bit of oscillation in that pendulum to get to the right balance.

29:03

- By the way, I was listening to Joe Biden from when he was like 30 years old, the speeches, he was eloquent as hell. - Yeah.

29:13

- It's fun to listen to actually.

29:14

And he has a speech he gives, or just maybe a conversation in Congress, I'm not sure where, where he talks about how corrupt the whole system is.

29:23

And he's really honest and like fun and that Joe Biden's great, by the way, that guy, I mean age sucks, you know, people get older.

29:32

But he was talking quite honestly about like having to suck up to all these rich people and that he couldn't really suck up to the really rich people.

29:43

They said, come back to us 10 years later when you're like more integrated into the system.

29:48

But he was really honest about it.

29:49

And he's saying that that's how it is.

29:53

That's what we have to do.

29:54

And that really sucks that that's what we have to do. - Yeah.

29:58

So we did a video on our TikTok channel then and now of Joe Biden.

30:02

This is when I was trying to push Biden out.

30:05

- We should say you were one of the people early on saying Biden needs to step down. - Yeah.

30:10

I started about a year ago 'cause I was positive that Biden had a 0% chance of winning.

30:14

And it turned out, by the way, two days before he dropped out, his inside advisors, inside the White House said, yeah, near 0% chance of winning. - Yeah.

30:24

- So we were right all along.

30:25

- You got a lot of criticism for that, by the way, but yeah. - Yeah.

30:29

We'll we can come back to that. Yes, I did.

30:29

And which makes it Tuesday for me.

30:32

(laughs) I get a lot of criticism for everything.

30:36

And by the way, Democratic Party, you're welcome.

30:41

So, but Biden's a really interesting example.

30:45

I'm really glad you brought it up.

30:46

So the video on TikTok was just showing Biden then, Biden now.

30:49

And you're right, Biden was so dynamic.

30:52

When you see how dynamic he was, we did like side by side, right?

30:55

And then you see him now (mumbles) anyways, right?

31:00

You're like, oh, that's not the same guy. I get it. Right?

31:02

So, and that got like 5 million views because it resonates.

31:06

They're like, yeah, of course. Right?

31:07

But when he first started, to the point you were making, Lex, he, one of, in fact, I know, 'cause I talked to him about this, his very first bill was anti-corruption. Why?

31:18

Because at that point, everything changes in 1976 to '78, the Supreme Court decisions that basically legalized bribery.

31:25

But remember, Biden is ancient.

31:27

So he's coming into politics at a time when money has not yet drowned politics.

31:32

And in fact, the American population is super pissed about the fact that it's begun.

31:36

They don't like corruption.

31:38

So early Biden, because he's reading the room, is very anti-corruption.

31:43

And the first bill he proposes to get money out of politics, okay?

31:46

But as Biden goes on for his epic 200 year career in Washington, he starts to get not more conservative, more corporate, because he's just taken more and more money.

31:57

By the middle of his career he has a nickname, the senator from MBNA, okay?

32:03

MBNA was a credit card company based in Delaware.

32:07

The reason he had that nickname is because there isn't anything Joe Biden wouldn't have done for credit card companies and corporations based in Delaware, which are almost all corporations. Okay?

32:18

So he became the most corporate senator in the country, and hence, the most beloved by corporate media.

32:26

And corporate media has protected him his entire career until about a month ago.

32:31

So for example, in the primaries, both in 2020 and 2024, if you said the Senator from MBNA, I guarantee you, almost no one in the audience has heard of it.

32:40

If you heard of it, good job, you know politics really well, okay?

32:42

But the reason you didn't hear of it is because the mainstream media wouldn't say that's outrageous of Joe Biden to be such a corporate stooge.

32:50

They'd say, that's outrageous of you to point out something that's true!

32:54

And something we reported on earlier! Okay?

32:56

And so they protected him at all costs.

32:59

Now, finally, when you get to this version of Joe Biden, he can't talk, he can't walk...

33:07

He bears no resemblance to the young guy who came in saying that money in politics was a problem.

33:13

Now he's saying money in politics is the solution.

33:16

And in 2020, he said, well, I can raise more money than Bernie.

33:20

I can kiss corporate better than Bernie.

33:23

I'm the biggest corporate ass kisser in the world, so I'm gonna raise a billion dollars and you need to support me.

33:28

Now, of course he doesn't say it in those words, but that was the message to the establishment.

33:32

And Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Obama, Clyburn, everybody goes, oh, that's right.

33:36

Biden, Biden, Biden, Biden, not Bernie.

33:39

I don't know that there's anybody in the country who instinctually dislikes Bernie more than Barack Obama.

33:46

- Oh, that's an interesting...

33:47

I'm not taking that attention at this moment.

33:49

Because you mentioned mainstream media, what's the motivation for mainstream media to be corporatist also?

33:55

- So first of all, they're giant corporations.

33:58

So they're all multi-billion dollar corporations.

34:00

In the old days we had a incredible number of media outlets.

34:05

So you go to San Francisco, there'd be at least two papers and there'd be a paper boy, and I'm going all the way back, paper boy on each corner.

34:12

And they're competing with one another.

34:13

Literally, they'd be on the corner, right?

34:15

And one guy's going, oh, here are all these details.

34:18

They're trying to get an audience, they're trying to get people interested.

34:21

So they're populist, they're interesting, they're muckrakers, they're challenging the government.

34:26

Fast forward to now, or not now, but about a decade ago, five years ago, in that ballpark, now there's only six giant media corporations left.

34:40

And it's an oligopoly, right?

34:42

And they're all multi-billion dollar corporations. They all want tax cuts.

34:45

Half of them are also, especially about 20 years ago, during the Iraq War, half of them are defense contractors.

34:52

So they're just using the news as marketing to start wars like the Iraq War.

34:56

And then GE, which owned MSNBC, makes a tremendous amount of money, so much more money from war than it does for media that media is a good marketing spend for these corporations.

35:08

Now, that's part of it, that they themselves want the same exact thing as the rest of corporations do for corporate rule, lower tax cuts, deregulation, so they can merge, et cetera.

35:19

But the second part of it is arguably even more important.

35:24

So where does all that money in politics go?

35:27

So for example, in 2022, it's just a midterm election, no presidential, should be lower spending.

35:34

A ridiculous $17 billion are spent, okay? On the election cycle.

35:38

Where does the 17 billion go?

35:42

Almost all of it goes into corporate media, mainstream media, television, newspapers, radio.

35:48

They're buying ads like nuts.

35:49

So we have a reporter at TYT, David Schuster, he used to work at MSNBC, Fox News, et cetera.

35:55

And David once did a piece about money and politics at a local NBC news station.

36:01

And his editor or GM spiked a story, and David goes into his office and asks him, said, "Why? This story is true.

36:10

It's a huge part of politics.

36:13

If we're gonna report on this issue, we gotta tell you what's actually happening."

36:16

So he says, "David, come here."

36:18

He puts his arm around his shoulders, takes him to the big newsroom, and he goes, "You see all this?

36:24

Money in politics paid for that."

36:28

- That's really fascinating.

36:29

So big corporations, they're giving money to politicians through different channels.

36:34

And then the politicians are spending that money on mainstream media.

36:39

And so there's a vicious cycle where it's in the interest of the mainstream media not to criticize the very corporations that are feeding that cycle.

36:50

It's not actually direct, it's not like corporations are, because I was thinking one of the ways is direct advertisement, like pharmaceuticals obviously advertise a lot on mainstream media, but there's also indirect, which is like giving the politicians money, or super PACs and then the super PACs then the spend money on the...

37:11

- That's why media never, mainstream media never talks about the number one factor in politics, which is money.

37:18

Like we all know, I mean, as we talked about earlier, we see it with our own eyes. Open auction.

37:23

Any country, any company, anybody that has money, the politicians will now literally say, I am now working for this guy, as Trump says, 'cause he gave me a strong endorsement, which means a lot of money, right?

37:35

And so, and the press never covers it. Almost never, right?

37:39

So you're telling me you're doing an article on the infrastructure build or a Build Back Better, et cetera, and you are not gonna mention the enormous amount of money that every lobbyist spent on that bill? That's absurd. That's absurd.

37:56

That's 98% of the ball game.

37:57

And the reason they hide the ball is 'cause they don't want you to know this whole thing is based on the money that they are receiving.

38:04

And by the way, that one more thing about that, Lex, it's that the ads themselves actually, they work and they work pretty well, but that's not the main reason you spend money on ads.

38:18

You spend the money on ads to get friendly coverage from the content, from the free media that you're getting from that same outlet.

38:27

And so since every newspaper and every television station and network knows that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are their top clients, they're going to get billions of dollars from them, they never really criticize the Republican and Democratic Party.

38:44

On the other hand, if you're an outsider, they'll rip your face off.

38:48

- That's also really interesting.

38:50

So if you're an advertiser, if you're a big pharma and you're advertising, it's not that the advertisement works, it's that the hosts are too afraid, not like explicitly, just even implicitly, they're self-censoring.

39:04

They're not going to have any guests that are like controversial anti-big pharma or they're not gonna make any jokes about big pharma, they're not gonna make...

39:13

And that kind of, that continues and expands. - Yeah.

39:16

- That's really interesting. - Yeah.

39:18

Sometimes it's super direct.

39:19

When I was a host on MSNBC, I had a company that I was criticizing in my script and management looked at it.

39:29

And by the way, I used to go off prompter a lot and it drove him crazy.

39:32

Not because I wasn't good at it.

39:33

I think my ratings went up whenever I went off prompter.

39:36

But because they couldn't pre-approve the script.

39:39

And what do they wanna pre-approve?

39:42

Hey, are you gonna criticize one of our sponsors, one of our advertisers, et cetera.

39:46

So we had a giant fight over it and the compromise was I moved them lower in the script, but kept them in the story. Right?

39:55

So sometimes it's super direct like that, but more, way more often it's implicit, it's indirect.

40:01

You don't have to say it, right?

40:03

So I give you a spectacular example of it so that you get a sense of how it works implicitly.

40:10

So since GE is a giant defense contractor, they own MSNBC at the time of the Iraq War, they fired everyone who was against the Iraq War on air.

40:20

So Phil Donahue, Jesse Ventura, Ashleigh Banfield, but Ashleigh Banfield, they did something different with, okay?

40:26

She was a rising star at the time.

40:27

She goes and gives a speech in Kansas, not really even having a policy position, but just talking about the actual cost of this Iraq War and how we should be really careful. They hate that.

40:41

So they take their rising star and they take her off air, okay?

40:44

And she goes, okay, good.

40:44

Let me outta my contract. It's okay, I'll go.

40:47

Because she was such a star at that time, she could have easily gotten somewhere else.

40:50

And they go, no, we're not going to let you outta your contract. Why not?

40:53

Were you gonna pay me to do nothing?

40:55

"Yeah, not only that, we're moving your office."

40:58

"Where are you moving it to?"

40:59

They literally moved it into a closet, okay?

41:02

And they made sure that everybody in the building saw her getting taken off the air and moved into a closet.

41:10

The closet is the memo, right?

41:12

That's the memo to the whole building.

41:14

You better shut up and do as you're told. Okay?

41:18

So that way I don't have to tell you and get myself in trouble.

41:21

It's super obvious, there are guardrails here and you are not allowed to go beyond acceptable thought, and acceptable thought is our sponsors are great, politicians are great, the powerful are great. - So how do we...

41:34

How do we begin to fix that?

41:34

And what exactly are we fixing?

41:37

Is it the influence of the lobbyist, the influence of, like, it feels like there's, companies have found different ways to achieve influence, right?

41:47

So how do we get money out of politics?

41:50

- So it's very difficult but doable and we will do it.

41:53

So, but in order to do it, the populist left and the populist right have to unite, because, and that, by the way, that is why we have the culture wars.

42:01

- That's why you're voting for Trump? - (laughs) No chance. Okay?

42:05

So we can get into that in a minute.

42:07

So the culture wars are meant to divide us.

42:10

If we get united, we have enough leverage and power to be able to do it.

42:13

But you can't do it through a normal bill, because if you do it on a bill, the whole point of capturing the Supreme Court was to make sure that they kill any piece of legislation that would protect the American people.

42:25

- You're saying the Supreme Court is also captured by this? - Oh, 100%.

42:28

So, okay, so let me explain.

42:30

Again, people, for the uninitiated, they think, oh, that sounds conspiratorial.

42:34

Well, in this case, that's actually somewhat true because people now know about this.

42:40

It's the Powell memo, right?

42:42

The most infamous political memo in history.

42:44

Lewis Powell writes a memo for the Chamber of Commerce in 1971 that's basically a blueprint for how the Chamber of Commerce can take over the government.

42:52

And Lewis Powell explains, one of the most important things you have to do is take over the media.

42:57

But even more important than that is taking over the Supreme Court.

43:00

'Cause the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of what is allowed and not allowed.

43:05

And he says, we need, quote, activist judges to help business interests on the court. Okay?

43:16

And then Nixon reads the memo and goes, that sounds like a really good idea.

43:20

How about I put you on the Supreme Court?

43:22

And he puts Lewis Powell, the guy who wrote the memo, on the Supreme Court where he's the deciding vote in Bellotti and Buckley.

43:31

So Bellotti, those two decisions are '76 to '78.

43:34

And what they say is, yeah, yeah, I read the Constitution and it says that money is speech. No it isn't. And no, it didn't.

43:44

That's not even close to true. They just made it up.

43:47

And they said, okay, and corporations, they're human beings. No they're not.

43:51

That's preposterous, right?

43:53

And they have the same inalienable rights as human beings and citizens do.

43:59

And money is speech and speech is an inalienable right...

44:04

So corporations can spend unlimited money in politics, and there goes our democracy, gone. Okay?

44:10

So Citizens United just shot a dead horse with a Gatling gun and made it worse and put it on steroids, but it was already dead in '78.

44:18

So that's why every chart you see for the rest of your life you'll see this, every chart about the American economy starts to diverge in 1978.

44:28

So '38 to '78, we've golden 40 years of economic prosperity.

44:34

We create the greatest middle class the world has ever seen.

44:39

And our productivity is sky high, but our wages match our productivity.

44:45

After '78, productivity still sky high, best in the world, okay?

44:50

Sometimes people, oh, the American worker's lazy, not remotely true.

44:54

We work our ass off, okay?

44:56

But we just flatline and they've been flatlining for about 50 years straight.

45:01

And the reason is because the Supreme Court made bribery legal.

45:06

So in order to get past the Supreme Court, you only have one choice. That's an amendment.

45:09

And so you have to get an amendment.

45:12

Amendments are very difficult.

45:15

So for example, you need two thirds of Congress to even propose the amendment.

45:20

So well, why would Congress propose an amendment that would take away their own power? Right?

45:26

Because almost everybody in Congress got there through corruption.

45:28

Their main talent is, I can kiss corporate better than you can, right?

45:33

So they take the most amount of a person with more money in Congress wins 95% of the time, right?

45:38

But the good news is the founding fathers were geniuses, and they put in a second outlet, they said, or two thirds of the states can call for a convention where you can propose an amendment.

45:50

And after an amendment is proposed, then three quarters of the states have to ratify it.

45:55

That's what makes it so difficult, because getting three quarters of the states, there's so many red states, so many blue states, getting three quarters of the states, they agree, is near impossible.

46:04

But there is one issue that the whole country agrees on.

46:07

93% of Americans believe that politicians serve their donors and not their voters.

46:13

So this is the one thing we can unite on.

46:15

If we unite on this, we push our states to call for a convention, we all go to the convention together, we bring democracy alive, and we propose amendments to the Constitution, and the best amendment gets three quarters of the states to ratify, you go above the Supreme Court and you solve the whole thing.

46:33

- So if 93% of people want this, why hasn't it happened yet?

46:39

I mean, the obvious answer is there's corporate control of the media and the politicians, but it seems like our current system and the megaphone that a president has, we should be able to kind of unite the populist left and right.

46:54

So it shouldn't be that difficult to do.

46:56

Like why hasn't a person like Trump, who's a billionaire, or on the left, a rich businessman, run just on this and win?

47:05

- Well, eventually they will, right?

47:08

And so that's why I actually, I have a lot of hope, even though things seem super dark right now.

47:12

So, and that's why I was for Bernie.

47:15

So I can come back to that, but why hasn't Trump done it? Is easy.

47:18

And he's like, what am I, a sucker? The guy gives me money. I do what the guy wants.

47:23

Why would I get rid of that?

47:23

That's how I got into power.

47:26

And so that's how I'm doing it now.

47:28

I go to Miriam Adelson and say gimme $100 million and I'll let Israel annex the West Bank, right?

47:33

So I'll go to the oil companies and gimme a billion dollars and I'll give you tax subsidies, I'll let you drill, I'll take away regulation... Why would I stop that?

47:41

- You think he likes money more than he likes being popular?

47:44

Because there's a big part of him as a populist in a sense that like he loves being admired by large masses of people. - Yeah.

47:54

So, and you're absolutely right, but that is the fault of MAGA.

47:58

And so MAGA, you're screwing populace in a way that is infuriating, okay?

48:05

And smart libertarians like Dave Smith have figured this out.

48:09

And that's why he's just as mad at Trump as I am.

48:12

And it's because he took a populist movement and he redirected it for his own personal gain. MAGA, figure it out. Come on. Right?

48:24

And so if you say, oh, you think Democrats have figured out that these...

48:27

No, they largely haven't figured it out either, and I think there's blue MAGA and I could talk about that as well.

48:32

But for those of us on the populist left, yeah, we're not enamored by politicians.

48:36

And for example, when Bernie does the wrong thing, we call him out.

48:40

Well, I'm not, Bernie's not my god damn uncle.

48:42

I don't like him for some personality reason.

48:45

It's not a cult of personality.

48:46

You do the right thing, I love you for it.

48:47

You do the wrong thing, I'm gonna kick your ass for it, right?

48:50

So, but Donald Trump does this massive ridiculous corruption over and over again.

48:54

And MAGA's like, I'm here for it. Love it.

48:56

As long as you're doing the corruption, I'm okay with it.

48:58

- What does Trump say about getting money outta politics?

49:01

Does he- - He says nothing about it.

49:03

And MAGA, why haven't you held him to account?

49:05

Like, so when Bernie, it helped Biden take out $15 minimum wage from the Senate bill on the first bill that was introduced in the Biden administration, we went nuts.

49:15

We did a petition, we sent in videos to Bernie, our audience going, don't kill it, Bernie, don't kill it.

49:22

And so Bernie then reintroduced it as an amendment.

49:25

It got voted down, but he did the right thing, right?

49:27

That is us holding our top leader accountable and saying, you better get back on track. Okay?

49:34

'Cause we're not here for you and your personal self-aggrandizement.

49:38

We're here for policy, right?

49:40

And if MAGA was actually here for policy, they would've absolutely level Trump on the fact that he, I mean, remember what he ran on Drain the Swamp!

49:48

That's why he won in 2016, right?

49:51

So I predicted on ABC right after the DNC and Hillary Clinton was up 10, 12 points or whatever she was.

49:58

And I said, Trump would win, okay?

50:00

And the whole panel laughed out loud, right?

50:02

They're like, ha, get a hold of this crazy guy!

50:05

I said, he's a populist who seems to hate the establishment in a populist time.

50:11

And so, and Drain the Swamp is a great slogan.

50:16

And I knew he would win when he was in a Republican debate.

50:19

And he said, I paid all these guys.

50:23

Before I paid them and they did whatever I wanted.

50:26

And I was like, that's so true, right?

50:28

And people will love that.

50:30

And especially Republican voters will love that.

50:31

I actually have a lot of respect for Republican voters, 'cause they actually genuinely hate corruption.

50:36

- So what would an amendment look like that helps prevent money being an influence in politics?

50:44

- So I started a group called Wolf PAC. - Nice name. - Thank you wolf-pac. com.

50:50

And the reason why I named it Wolf PAC is because everyone in Washington I knew would hate that name. It's a populist name.

50:59

And everybody in Washington snickers, like, I know you're supposed to name it Americans for America and just trick people, et cetera. No, no, no.

51:05

Wolf PAC means we're coming for you, okay?

51:07

We're not coming for you in a weirdo physical or violent way.

51:11

We're coming for you in a democratic way. Okay?

51:13

So we're gonna go to those state houses, we're gonna get them to propose a convention, and we did it in five states, but then the Democratic Party started beating us back. We'll get to that.

51:23

And so we are going to overturn your apple cart and we're gonna put the American people back in charge.

51:31

So what does the amendment say?

51:32

Number one, a lot of people will have different opinions on what it should say.

51:37

And that's what you sort out in a convention.

51:39

So for example, one of the things that conservatives can propose, which makes sense, is term limits.

51:43

Because, well, the reason why these super old politicians are in charge is because they provide a return on investment.

51:50

So, you know if you give to Biden, Pelosi or McConnell, they're gonna deliver for you.

51:55

They love that return on investment.

51:57

They don't wanna risk it on a new guy.

51:59

The new guy might have principles, ew, or, you know, might wanna actually do a little bit for his voters, boo.

52:07

Whereas these old, you know...

52:10

And every corrupt system has these old guys hanging around that help maintain power, et cetera.

52:16

So my particular proposal in the amendments would be a couple of things.

52:21

One is, end private financing of elections.

52:24

So if, and look, if you're a business person, you're a capitalist, you know this with absolute certainty.

52:31

If somebody signs your check, that's the person you work for, right?

52:35

So if private interests are funding politicians, the politicians will serve private interests.

52:43

And then you're gonna get into a fight like Elon did in New Jersey where the car dealerships and Tesla are getting into an auction.

52:51

"Can I hear $100,000 1 million, 2 million, 3 million," right?

52:55

And now you gotta go bribe the government official.

52:57

That's called a campaign contribution.

52:59

And this is a terrible system, right?

53:03

End the private financing, go to complete public financing of elections.

53:07

That's when conservatives, because they've been propagandized by corporate media, yes, mainstream media got into your head too, and right wing media got into your head too, and right wing media also financed by a lot of this corrupt interest, and so they tell you, "Oh, you don't wanna publicly finance.

53:22

Oh my God, you'd be spending like a billion dollars on politicians."

53:25

Brother, they're spending trillions of dollars of your money because they're financed by the guys that they're giving all of your money to. - So can you educate me?

53:33

Does that prevent something like Citizen United?

53:36

So like super PACs are all gone in this case? So all- - Gone.

53:39

- So indirect funding is also...

53:41

- Indirect funding's gone, direct funding's gone.

53:44

You have to set up some thresholds.

53:46

Not everybody can just get money to run.

53:48

You have to prove that you have some sort of popular support.

53:52

So signature gathering, you would still allow for small money donations, like up to $100, something along those lines.

54:00

- That's not 5,000 or whatever it is now?

54:02

- Yeah, I think 5,000 is too high, but those are fine debates. Yeah. You know?

54:05

But you basically wanna create an incentive.

54:08

Everything is about incentives and disincentives.

54:10

Again, capitalists realizes better than anyone else, right?

54:13

So you wanna set up an incentive to serve your voters, not your donors.

54:18

So if you take away private donors, well, there goes that incentive and that's gigantic, right?

54:23

And then if you set up small grassroots funding as a way to get past the threshold to get the funding to run an election, well, then, good.

54:32

Because then you're serving small donors, which are generally voters, right? So that's what you want.

54:38

And ending private financing is critical.

54:41

But the second thing is ending corporate personhood.

54:44

So this is where you get into a lot of fights, because, you have two reasons.

54:48

One is some folks have a principled position against it.

54:52

And they say, well, I mean the Sierra Club is technically a corporation, ACLU is technically a corporation.

55:00

And so if you end corporate personhood, then, you know, that could endanger their existence, right?

55:07

No, it doesn't endanger their existence at all. Right?

55:10

So it doesn't endanger GM or GE's existence.

55:13

It doesn't endanger anybody's existence. Corporations exist.

55:16

We're not trying to take them away. I would never do that. Right?

55:18

That's not smart, that's not workable, et cetera.

55:22

We're just saying they don't have constitutional rights.

55:25

So they have the rights that we give them.

55:27

And by the way, read the Founding Fathers, is also in my book, they hated corporations.

55:34

The American Revolution was partly against the British East India Company.

55:39

And so the Tea Party in Boston was against that corporation.

55:43

They threw their tea overboard.

55:45

It was not against the British monarchy.

55:48

And so they, and all the founding fathers warned us over and over again, watch out for corporations, okay?

55:56

'Cause once they form, they will amass money and power and look to kill off democracy.

56:02

And they were totally right.

56:02

That's exactly what happened.

56:05

And so it's not that you don't have them, it's that you, through democratic capitalism, you limit their power.

56:11

They definitely, you can give them a bunch of rights.

56:14

You say, hey, you have a right to exist.

56:16

You have a right to do this, this and this. Okay?

56:18

But you do not have constitutional rights of a citizen.

56:24

And so you don't have the right to speak to a politician by giving them a billion dollars.

56:29

- And you believe that the people will be able to find the right policies to regulate and tax the corporations such that capitalism can flourish still? - Yes. You know why?

56:41

'Cause I'm a real populist, and I believe in the people.

56:44

So I drive the establishment crazy because they don't believe in the people.

56:49

They think, oh, Cenk, have you seen MAGA?

56:52

Have you seen these guys?

56:53

Have you seen the radicals on the left? We're so much smarter.

56:56

And you know how many Ivy League degrees we have, right?

56:59

And we know what we're doing. No, you don't.

57:02

No, you're, everybody, to some degree, looks out for their own interests, right?

57:07

Why I like capitalism and why I love democracy is because it's the wisdom of the crowd.

57:13

And so in the long run, the crowd is right.

57:15

Oftentimes in the short term, we're wrong. Okay?

57:17

But the wisdom of the crowd in the long run is much, much better than the elites that run things.

57:23

The elites say, well, we're so smart and educated, so we're gonna know better what's good for you.

57:27

No brother, you're gonna know what's better for you.

57:30

And so here's something that a lot of people get wrong on the populist left and right.

57:34

They think, oh, those guys are evil. They're not evil. I've met them.

57:36

I worked at MSNBC, I worked on cable.

57:39

I went to Wharton, you know, Columbia Law, et cetera, I know a lot of those guys.

57:44

And so they're not at all evil.

57:46

They don't even know that they're mainly serving their own interests.

57:50

They just naturally do it, right?

57:52

And so they think the carried interest loophole makes a lot of sense, right?

57:56

They think corporate tax cuts makes a lot of sense.

57:59

You not getting higher wages, you not having healthcare, it makes a lot of sense.

58:03

It doesn't make any god damn sense, but they get themselves to believe it.

58:07

And that's another portion of the invisible hand on the market.

58:10

- So there's problems with every path.

58:13

So the elite, like you mentioned, can be corrupted by greed, by power and so on.

58:17

But the crowd, I agree with you, by the way, about the wisdom of the crowd versus the wisdom of the elite.

58:24

But the crowd can be captured by a charismatic leader.

58:26

So the problem with populism, and I'm probably a populist myself, the problem with populism is that it can't be, and has been throughout history captured by bad people.

58:38

- But if you say to me, trust the leaders or trust the people, I'm gonna trust the people every single time.

58:44

- Well, that's why you're such an interesting, I don't wanna say contradiction, but there's a tension that creates the balance.

58:50

So to me, in the way you're speaking, might result in hurting capitalism.

58:57

So it's easy to, in fighting corporatism, to hurt companies.

59:04

So to go too far the other way.

59:07

- Yeah, of course, of course.

59:08

- And so like when you talked about corporate tax.

59:11

So what's the magic number for the corporate tax?

59:15

Because if it's too high, like companies leave, right? - Yeah.

59:20

Companies have so much power right now, this pendulum has swung so far...

59:25

And we're, guys, we're almost out of time. The window's closing.

59:29

The minute private equity buys all of our homes, the residential real estate market, we're screwed, we're indentured servants forever. Okay?

59:37

There goes wealth creation for the average American.

59:42

So you're right, Lex, that it's not a contradiction, it's a tension that is inevitable to get to balance.

59:50

The reason why people kind of can't figure me out, they're like, well, you're on the left, but you're a capitalist, et cetera.

59:58

That's not a contradiction.

59:59

That's getting to the right balance.

1:00:01

And in order to do that, like if you say, well, if we change the system, I'm afraid of change because what if the pendulum swings too far in the other direction, right?

1:00:12

Well then you would be opposed to change at all times.

1:00:16

So if you do that, it actually reminds me of the Biden fight, right?

1:00:21

So I'm like, guys, he has almost no chance of winning.

1:00:25

He stands for the establishment, he can't talk.

1:00:28

But then the number one pushback I'd get from Democrats was, "Yeah, but what if we change? It's so scary.

1:00:34

We don't know about Kamala Harris.

1:00:38

What if it's not Kamala Harris? It's so scary. Don't change."

1:00:42

And I'm like, yeah, but if you say change might be worse, it also might be better.

1:00:48

And you're at zero, anything is better, right?

1:00:51

And right now, in terms of corruption in America, we're at 98% corruption.

1:00:57

So we got 2% decency left.

1:01:00

Brother, this is when you want change.

1:01:03

And so too, and Lex, if you actually have wisdom of the crowd, just like in supply and demand and how it works in economics, it works the same way in a functioning democracy, you go too far, you come back in.

1:01:18

So for example, when Reagan came into office, me and my dad and my family, we were Republicans. Why?

1:01:24

At that point, the highest marginal tax rate was at 70%. 70% is too high, right?

1:01:31

Then he brought it all the way down to 28%. That's too low, right?

1:01:35

So, and that's how the system modulates itself.

1:01:39

Already we were headed towards corruption and 'cause it's the 80s, now we're past '78, magic '78 marker, right?

1:01:46

So, and even Carter was way more conservative economically than people realize 'cause we're already getting past it by the time it's in his administration.

1:01:55

But the bottom line is, yes, whenever you have real wisdom of the crowd, whether it's in business or in politics, you're gonna have fluctuation.

1:02:03

You're gonna have that pendulum swinging back and forth.

1:02:06

You don't want wild swings, communism, corporatism, right?

1:02:10

You wanna get to, hey, where's the right balance here between capitalism and what people think is socialism? - Yeah.

1:02:17

So I guess I agree with most of the things you said about the corruption.

1:02:24

I just wish there would be more celebration of the fact that capitalism and some incredible companies in the history of the 20th century has created so much wealth, so much innovation that has increased the quality of life on average.

1:02:38

They've also increased the wealth inequality and exploitation of the workers and this kind of stuff.

1:02:42

But you wanna not forget to celebrate the awesomeness that companies have also brought outside the political sphere, just in creating awesome stuff. - Look, I run a company.

1:02:55

And so I don't want companies to go away.

1:02:57

And I don't want you to hate all companies.

1:03:00

I think Young Turks is a wonderful company, right?

1:03:02

We provide great healthcare, we take care of our employees, we care about the community, et cetera.

1:03:07

And we're building a whole nation online on those principles in the right way to run a company, right?

1:03:15

But guys, we're at the wrong part of the pendulum.

1:03:19

The companies have overwhelming power and they're crushing us.

1:03:23

We're like that scene in Star Wars with the trash compactors closing in on them, the walls are closing in...

1:03:30

We're almost out of time, because they've captured the government almost entirely, they're only serving corporate interests...

1:03:37

We've got to get back into balance before it's too late.

1:03:40

And that's why I care so much about structural issues.

1:03:44

So I form Justice Democrats, so that's AOC, et cetera, right?

1:03:50

That's, people know it as The Squad.

1:03:51

They know it as Just Democrats, et cetera.

1:03:53

I'm one of the co-founders of that.

1:03:54

And my number one rule was no corporate PAC money. Okay?

1:04:00

So you're not allowed to take corporate PAC money.

1:04:02

By the way now Matt Gaetz and Josh Hawley have stopped taking corporate PAC money and they've become, to some degree, on economic issues, genuine populists. It's amazing. It happens overnight.

1:04:13

All of a sudden they're talking about holding corporations accountable, et cetera.

1:04:18

Now Just Democrats wind up having other problems.

1:04:21

They got too deep into social issues, not economic issues.

1:04:24

- There's a general sort of criticism of billionaires, right? This idea.

1:04:30

Now you could say that billionaires are avoiding taxes and they're not getting taxed enough.

1:04:35

But I think under that flag of criticizing billionaires is criticizing all companies that do epic shit, that build stuff. - Oh, okay.

1:04:45

- Create stuff, that's what I'm worried about.

1:04:49

I don't hear enough like genuine, you know, I like celebrating people, I like celebrating ideas.

1:04:55

I just don't hear enough genuine celebration of companies when they do cool things.

1:05:01

- Okay, so are you right?

1:05:04

Not about companies, but about capitalism? Yes.

1:05:06

Because you know, you look at life expectancy 200 years ago and you look at it now and you go, wow, holy shit, we did amazing things, right?

1:05:16

So, and what happened in the last 200 years?

1:05:20

We went from dictatorships more towards democracy, wisdom of the crowd.

1:05:24

We went from, you know, serfs and indentured servants and a nobility that holds the land to, more towards capitalism.

1:05:33

And boom, the crowd is right. Things go really well.

1:05:37

The advances in medicine are amazing, and medicine's a great example.

1:05:41

So, and on our show, I point all those things out and I say, look, we hate the drug companies because of how they capture the government, right?

1:05:49

But we don't hate the drug companies for creating great drugs. Those drugs save lives.

1:05:52

They should save my life.

1:05:55

They saved countless, millions upon millions of lives.

1:05:57

So the right idea isn't shut down drug companies, the right idea is don't let them buy the government, right?

1:06:04

So, and I know we get back into our instinctual shells, so on the left they'll be, oh, we should get rid of all billionaires. Why?

1:06:12

Like, how does that fix the system?

1:06:16

Tell me how it fixes the system. And I'm all ears, right?

1:06:19

My solution is end private financing.

1:06:22

Then you can be a billionaire all you like, you can't buy the government, right?

1:06:25

That's a more logical way to go about it.

1:06:28

I've never worn an eat the rich shirt and it drives me crazy.

1:06:33

I'm like, you would've eaten FDR, right?

1:06:36

And FDR is the best president, most populist president, in my opinion.

1:06:39

And so, no, there's wonderful rich people, of course, of course there's a range of humanity, right?

1:06:45

But you don't wanna get rid of the rich, you don't wanna get rid of companies, but you also don't wanna let them control everything.

1:06:51

So, okay, here, I'll give you an example that's really, and that informs a lot of how I think about things, which is my dad.

1:06:56

So my dad was a farmer in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border, no money, in fact, his dad died when he was six months old.

1:07:05

And so they were saddled with debt.

1:07:08

And no electricity in his house.

1:07:08

Like as poor as poor gets.

1:07:13

And he wound up living the American dream.

1:07:17

And so how did he do that?

1:07:17

What made the difference?

1:07:21

Well, what made the difference is opportunity, right?

1:07:25

So I'm a populist because my dad was in the masses, right?

1:07:32

And elites say the masses are no good. We're smart, you're not.

1:07:36

We're educated, you are not.

1:07:38

We, at meritocracy, we talk about that, we have earned merit, and if you are poor or middle class, you have not earned merit. Okay?

1:07:47

You're useless and worthless. And I hate that.

1:07:51

So what did Turkey do back in the 1960s that liberated my dad?

1:07:56

They provided free college education.

1:07:58

You had to test into it, okay?

1:08:00

But the top 15% got a free college education at the best colleges in Turkey.

1:08:07

And my uncle saved all of our lives when he came to my dad and said, do you like working on this farm?

1:08:13

And my dad's like, fuck no. Right?

1:08:15

It's super hot, it's super hard.

1:08:16

It's just, they gotta get up at four in the morning.

1:08:19

If they're lucky, the family next door gives them a mule.

1:08:23

If they're not, they gotta carry the shit themselves. Okay?

1:08:26

So, my uncle told him, work just as hard in school and you'll be able to get a house, a car, pretty girls, et cetera.

1:08:34

So my dad works his ass off, gets into the school and he comes out a mechanical engineer and starts his own company.

1:08:40

He creates a company in Turkey, hires hundreds of people.

1:08:43

He then moves to America, creates a company here, hires tons of people, right? So, do I hate companies? No.

1:08:50

My dad set up two companies and I saw how much it benefited people. I saw how much...

1:08:55

Employees would come up to my dad 20, 30 years later in the street and hug him.

1:09:00

And they'd tell me, as a young kid, your dad's the most fair boss we ever had.

1:09:04

And we love him for it, right?

1:09:04

That's how you run a company.

1:09:07

And he taught me the value of hard work.

1:09:09

But the reason I brought up here is because he taught me, look, like skill and ability is a genetic lottery.

1:09:17

So you're not gonna just get the rich to win all the genetic lottery. No.

1:09:23

There's gonna be tons of poor kids and middle class kids who are just as good if not better.

1:09:28

You have to provide them the opportunity, the fair chance to succeed.

1:09:32

You have to believe in them.

1:09:34

So this isn't about disempowering anyone, it's about empowering all of those kids who are doing the right thing or smart and wanna work hard so they could build their own companies and add to their economy.

1:09:47

- What in general is your view on meritocracy? - So I love meritocracy.

1:09:53

I wish that we lived in a meritocracy and I wanna drive towards living in a meritocracy.

1:09:58

So that's why I don't like equality of results.

1:10:00

So, okay, now people that are on the left will get super mad at that and go, what do you mean?

1:10:05

Well, okay, brother, let's say you're at work and you got one guy who's working his ass off, another guy, let's go, I don't care, I'm not gonna do it, right?

1:10:14

Well, the guy who works super hard has to pick up the slack.

1:10:17

Now he's working twice as hard, right?

1:10:19

And now you want the same results, you want the same salary as that guy? No, brother, no.

1:10:24

He's working four times, 10 times harder than you. That's not fair. Fairness matters.

1:10:30

I lived, we wound up, I mean this is, we're in the suburbs of Jersey, but we wound up in Freehold eventually.

1:10:36

And we lived across a farm, which is kind of, eh, in central Jersey it happens, right?

1:10:40

And it was called Fair Chance Farm. Okay?

1:10:44

I was like, how did I get, this is amazing, right? And I love that.

1:10:48

That's the essence of America and that's what I wanna go back to.

1:10:52

So we've gotta create that opportunity of, not just because it's the moral thing to do, but because it's also the economically smart thing to do.

1:11:03

If you enable all those great people that are in lower income classes and middle income classes, you're gonna get a much better economy, a much stronger democracy.

1:11:15

So that's the direction we go.

1:11:16

- So again, it's about balance, but what do you think about DEI policies, say in academia and companies?

1:11:27

So the movement as it has evolved, where's that on the balance? Is that...

1:11:36

How far is it pushing towards equality of outcome versus equality of opportunity?

1:11:40

- Okay, so now we're getting into social issues, right?

1:11:42

So this is where we all rip each other apart and then the people at the top laugh their ass off at us and go, "We got them fighting over trans issues.

1:11:49

(laughs)" They're killing each other. It is hilarious.

1:11:55

And they're so busy they don't realize we're running the place, right? Okay, but let's engage.

1:12:00

Some people will look at DEI and go, well, that just gives me an opportunity, just like anyone else. I love DEI.

1:12:07

Another person will look at it and go, no, that says that you should be picked above me and I hate DEI. Right?

1:12:16

So the reality of DEI is a little bit more complicated.

1:12:18

And so, but you gotta go back.

1:12:21

So first, did we need affirmative action in the 1960s? Definitely. Why?

1:12:26

All the firefighter jobs in South Carolina, as an example, are going to white guys.

1:12:31

All the longshoreman jobs in New York, LA, wherever you have it, are all going to white guys, 'cause that's how the system was. Yes.

1:12:38

Also in the north, right?

1:12:40

So we now are in a civil rights era.

1:12:43

We decide we're gonna go towards equality.

1:12:45

Minorities in that case, mainly black Americans, had to find a way to break in.

1:12:51

I'm not trying to, like, if you're a longshoreman and it's a good job, you naturally wanna pass it on to your son.

1:12:56

I get your instinct, I don't hate you for it, right?

1:12:58

But we gotta let black kids also have a shot at it, right?

1:13:02

So you need it in the beginning, but at a certain point you have to phase it out.

1:13:06

So when I was growing up, it's now in the late '80s, early '90s, I hated affirmative action.

1:13:11

And I have been principled on it from day one.

1:13:15

And to this day, I don't, I'm not in favor of affirmative action, I say it on the show all the time. Why? I'm a minority.

1:13:22

Being a Turk, I grew up Muslim, I'm an atheist now, but, but generally speaking, a Muslim is certainly a minority in America and pretty much a hated one overall.

1:13:34

So, but I didn't check off Muslim or Turkish or any ethnicity when I applied to college because I believe in meritocracy as we were talking about.

1:13:44

But we don't really have a meritocracy now.

1:13:46

And so, so I can come back to that.

1:13:49

But right now, so I didn't check it all 'cause I didn't want an unfair advantage, because I wanna earn it. I wanna earn it.

1:13:57

So now I'm in law school and I'm hanging out with right wingers because at that point I'm a Republican and one of the guys says to me about one of our, a black student going to Columbia, he says, "Oh, I wonder how he got in here."

1:14:13

God, that is the problem with affirmative action.

1:14:15

It devalues the accomplishments of every minority in the country.

1:14:20

You have to transition away from it.

1:14:22

If you don't, it sets up a caste system.

1:14:25

And that caste system is lethal to democracy.

1:14:29

So does DEI go too far in some instances? Yes.

1:14:34

But is it a boogeyman that's gonna take all the white jobs and make them black, as Trump would say, black jobs, right?

1:14:41

And give minorities too much power, et cetera.

1:14:44

No, the idea isn't to rob you and to give all the opportunity to minorities.

1:14:48

The idea is to make it equal.

1:14:50

But as the pendulum swings, did it swing too far in some directions? Yes.

1:14:54

The left can't acknowledge that and the right thinks, can't acknowledge that.

1:14:58

Of course, at some point you gotta give a chance for others to break in, so they have a fair chance.

1:15:03

- By the way, Michelle Obama had a good line about the black jobs in the DNC speech. - Great line. I love that.

1:15:08

- Where somebody should tell Trump that the presidency might be just one of those black jobs. Anyway.

1:15:16

But why do you think the left doesn't acknowledge when DEI gets ridiculous?

1:15:20

Which it, in certain places and in certain places at a large scale has gotten ridiculous?

1:15:28

- Because people are taught to just be in the tribe they're in, and to believe it 100%.

1:15:35

Like I've gotten kicked out of every tribe.

1:15:37

I might be the most attacked man in internet history.

1:15:41

Partly 'cause we've been around forever and partly because I disagree with every part of the political spectrum, because I believe in independent thought.

1:15:48

And the minute you vary a little bit, people go nuts.

1:15:52

And so the far left tribe is gonna go with their preset ideology, just like the far right tribe is.

1:16:02

So for example, on trans issues, we've protected trans people for over 20 years in The Young Turks, we fought for equality for trans people and for all LGBTQ people for two decades, we did it way before anyone else did.

1:16:17

When Biden came out in favor of gay marriage in 2013, we're like, this is comically late.

1:16:24

So like we're all supposed to like congratulate him in the year 2013 that he thinks gay people should have the same rights as straight people?

1:16:30

And then he had to push Obama to get there, right?

1:16:33

So on the other hand, I'm like, guys, if you allow trans women to go into professional sports, not at the high school level, but professional sports, but let's say they go into MMA or boxing, and a trans woman...

1:16:50

I mean, it happens in boxing, it happens in MMA, punches a biological woman so hard that she kills her, right?

1:16:58

So you're gonna set back trans rights 50 years.

1:17:02

I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm trying to help you.

1:17:05

You have to do bounds of reason.

1:17:07

So when I say simple things like that, and I say you give LeBron James every hormone blocker on planet Earth, he's still gonna dominate the WNBA. Okay? It would be comical.

1:17:19

He might score 100 points a night, okay?

1:17:21

And they'll say, "Oh, that's outrageous."

1:17:24

And some have called me Nazi for saying that trans women or that professional leagues should make their own decisions on whether they allow trans women in or not. So why do they say that?

1:17:36

'Cause they're so besieged, they think we cannot give an inch, we cannot give any ground.

1:17:42

If you give any ground, you're a Nazi. Okay?

1:17:44

So we've gotta get out of that mindset.

1:17:47

You can't function in a democracy and be in an extreme position and expect the rest of the country to go towards your extreme position.

1:17:57

- So why do you think we are not in a meritocracy?

1:17:59

- So, because of the corruption, so for example, but there's also, but remember, corporate media is the matrix and they plug you into cable, right? In the old days.

1:18:13

Now it's a little bit different 'cause of online media.

1:18:15

But especially 10 years ago, and remember, we started 22 years ago, so I've been losing my mind over how obvious corporate media corruption has been for decades now, right?

1:18:25

But no one acknowledged it until online media got stronger.

1:18:28

But one of the myths that corporate media creates is the myth of meritocracy.

1:18:33

Not that meritocracy can't exist or shouldn't exist, but they pretend it exists today.

1:18:39

So the problem with that myth, Lex, is that it gets people thinking, well, if they're already rich, they must have merited it, by definition.

1:18:49

So all the rich have merit.

1:18:52

And the reverse of that, if you're poor or middle class, well, you must not have merited wealth. So you're no good.

1:18:58

We don't have to listen to you.

1:19:02

And that's a really dangerous, awful idea.

1:19:05

And so if we get to a meritocracy one day, I'll be the happiest person in America.

1:19:12

But right now it's, look here, I'll give you an example that I put in the book.

1:19:17

And it's not us, these other folks did this YouTube video.

1:19:22

I can't even quite find who they were, but it was a brilliant video.

1:19:25

And they said, okay, we're gonna do 100 yard race.

1:19:28

But hold on, before we start, anyone who has two parents take two steps forward.

1:19:32

Anyone who has, went to college, take another two steps forward.

1:19:35

Anyone who doesn't have bills to pay for education any more, take two steps forward.

1:19:40

And they do all these things, right?

1:19:41

And then at the end, before they start, somebody's 20 yards from the finish line, and a lot of people are still at the starting line, and then they go, okay, now we're gonna run a race.

1:19:51

And the guy who was right next to the finish line wins.

1:19:54

And they go, meritocracy! Okay?

1:19:57

- So the challenge there is to know which disparities when you just freeze the system and observe are actually a result of some kind of discrimination or flaw in the system versus the result of meritocracy of the better runner being ahead. - That's right.

1:20:13

There are some parts that are easy to solve, Lex.

1:20:15

So, you know, if you donated to a politician and he gave you a billion dollar subsidy, that's not meritocracy, right?

1:20:24

- So if you follow the money, you can see the flaws in the system? - Exactly.

1:20:28

And so, and again, nothing's ever perfect at any snapshot of history, right? Or of the moment.

1:20:34

You're gonna be at some point in the pendulum swing.

1:20:37

But if you trust the people and you let the pendulum swing, but not wildly, then you're gonna get to the right answers in the long run.

1:20:45

- So you think this woke mind virus that the right refers to is a problem, but not a big problem. - No.

1:20:54

So, the right wing drives me crazy.

1:20:58

So look, guys, your instincts of populism is correct.

1:21:04

Your instincts of anti-corruption is correct, right? And I love you for it.

1:21:08

And so, and in a lot of ways, the right wing voters figured out the whole system's screwed before left wing voters did it.

1:21:16

I shouldn't say left winging voters 'cause progressives and left wing have been saying it for not only decades, but maybe centuries, right? But democratic voters.

1:21:24

A lot of democratic voters, some of 'em actually like this current system, some of 'em, a lot of them have been tricked into liking this current system.

1:21:32

And the left should be fighting against corruption harder than the right.

1:21:35

But right now, unfortunately that's not the case.

1:21:38

So there's a lot I like about right wing voters, okay?

1:21:41

But you guys get tricked on social issues so easily, right?

1:21:46

So how many people are involved in trans high school sports and a girl who should have finished first in that track race in the middle of Indiana finished second?

1:21:59

First of all, this is the big crime. This is...

1:22:01

And how many people are involved?

1:22:03

About seven, 13 out of a country of 330 million people?

1:22:07

And you can't see that that's a distraction, right?

1:22:10

So, and every everything that is like bait that the right wing media puts out there, they run after.

1:22:19

I mean, Tucker Carlson doing insane segments about M&Ms should be sexier. Mr.

1:22:24

Potato Head has gender issues. Guys, get out of there. Get out of there. It's a trap. Okay? - Yeah.

1:22:32

That doesn't mean that there're... (laughs) Absolutely.

1:22:34

It doesn't mean that there's larger scale issues with things like DEI that aren't so fun to talk about or viral to talk about on anecdotal scale.

1:22:45

There is, DEI does create a culture of fear with cancel culture.

1:22:50

And there it does create a kind of culture that limits the freedom of expression and it does limit the meritocracy in another way.

1:23:00

So you're basically saying, forget all these other problems.

1:23:05

Money is the biggest problem.

1:23:07

- So first of all, on AOC as an example, and I don't mean to pick on her, but she won through the great work of her and Saikat Chakrabarti and Corbin Trent and others who were leaders of the Just Democrats that went and helped her campaign.

1:23:24

They were a critical help.

1:23:25

And we all told her the same thing.

1:23:27

So it's not about me me me.

1:23:29

And so we all said, you've got to challenge the establishment and you've gotta work on money and politics first.

1:23:36

'Cause if you don't work on money and politics and you don't fix that, you're gonna lose on almost all other issues.

1:23:42

But she didn't believe us because it's uncomfortable.

1:23:45

And all the progressives that went into Congress, they drive me crazy.

1:23:49

They think, oh, no, no, you're exaggerating.

1:23:52

No, these are, and the minute they get in, all of a sudden my colleagues, right?

1:23:56

Your colleagues hate you and they're gonna drive you out. You're a sucker.

1:24:00

And Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, what did they do? They drove them out.

1:24:04

Marie Newman, drove them out, right?

1:24:07

And because they're not on your side, they're not your colleagues.

1:24:11

And what happened to $15 minimum wage?

1:24:12

And I remember talking to one of those Congress people, I won't leave out the name, and saying, hey, you know, they're not gonna do $15 minimum wage.

1:24:20

And he is like, "Oh Cenk, you're out of the loop.

1:24:22

Nancy Pelosi assured us that they are gonna do $15 minimum wage."

1:24:26

I'm like, I love you, but you're totally wrong.

1:24:30

Moneyed interests are not gonna do $15 minimum wage.

1:24:33

You have to start fighting now. Right? And they didn't get it.

1:24:37

So they lost on almost all those issues.

1:24:39

'Cause it's all about incentives and disincentives and rules.

1:24:43

If you don't fix the rules, you're gonna constantly run into the same brick wall.

1:24:47

Now the second issue that we were talking about is in the culture wars, the rest of us are stuck between the two extreme two percenters, right? On both sides.

1:24:57

So the two percenter on the left goes, you know, if you're a white woman, you need to shut up and listen now, okay? That's ridiculous. No, you don't.

1:25:07

If you're a white woman, you have every right to speak out.

1:25:10

You have every right that every other human being has.

1:25:12

And so would I love for all of us to listen to one each one another, to have empathy for one another and go, hey, I wonder how a right winger thinks about this?

1:25:20

I wonder how a left winger thinks about this?

1:25:22

I wonder why they think that way, right?

1:25:24

I love that and I want that.

1:25:26

So I want you to listen, but I don't want you to shut up.

1:25:30

So that 2% gets extreme, and I don't like it.

1:25:34

But on the right wing, you got your 2% who think that that's all that's happening on the left.

1:25:40

And that's all that's happening in American politics.

1:25:43

And they think the entire left believes that tiny 2%, right?

1:25:46

And so they hate the left.

1:25:48

And they're like, "Oh, I'm not gonna shut up.

1:25:50

Oh, I'm not gonna wear a mask.

1:25:51

I'm not gonna do any of these things.

1:25:53

And I'm not gonna do any, that's freedom!"

1:25:55

And then a Republican comes along and goes, oh yeah, that thing you call freedom, that's deregulation for corporations because you shouldn't really have freedom.

1:26:04

Companies should have freedom, right?

1:26:05

And then the guy goes, "Yeah, freedom for ExxonMobil!"

1:26:10

No, brother, they tricked you. - Yeah.

1:26:13

The 2% on each side is a useful distraction for, yes, for the corruption of the politicians via money.

1:26:18

Still, I'm talking about the 96% that remains in the middle and the impact that DEI policy has on them. - Yeah.

1:26:25

So here's where it gets absurd.

1:26:27

I'll give you a good example of absurdity.

1:26:28

So in a school I believe in California, they noticed that Latino students were not doing as well in AP and honors classes.

1:26:41

So they canceled AP and honors classes. Oh, come on. What are you doing? That's nuts.

1:26:46

No, your job is to help them get better grades, get better opportunity, et cetera.

1:26:52

That's the harder thing to do and the right thing to do.

1:26:55

Your job isn't, I'm gonna make everything equal by taking away the opportunity for higher achievement for other students.

1:27:04

If that's what you're doing and you think you're on the left, you're not really on the left.

1:27:08

I actually think that's like an authoritarian position that a no progressive in their right mind would be in favor of.

1:27:14

So, but it's all definitional.

1:27:16

So here's another example of definitional, communism.

1:27:19

Like they say, oh my god, Kamala Harris is a communist.

1:27:21

(laughs) Well, then, you're telling on yourself, brothers and sisters, when you say that, that means, A, I don't know what communism means, and B, I don't have any idea what's going on in American politics.

1:27:35

Kamala Harris is a corporatist. That's her problem.

1:27:39

Not that she's a communist, she's on the other end of the spectrum, right?

1:27:43

The idea that Kamala Harris would come into office and say, that's it, there's no more private property.

1:27:49

We're gonna take all of your homes and this now government property, that, all your cars, et cetera...

1:27:53

She was not gonna get within a billion miles of that.

1:27:57

Her donors would never allow her to get within a billion miles of that.

1:28:00

That is so preposterous that when you say something like that, it's disqualifying.

1:28:05

Like, I can't debate someone who thinks that Democrats are communists when they're actually largely corporatists. You see what I'm saying? - Yeah. So let's go there.

1:28:14

So when people call her a communist, they're usually referring to certain kinds of policies.

1:28:19

So do you think, I mean, I think it's a ridiculous label to assign to Kamala Harris, especially given the history of communism in the 20th century and what those economic and political policies have led to, the scale of suffering that led to, and it just degrades the meaning of the word, right?

1:28:39

But to take that seriously.

1:28:39

Why is she not a communist?

1:28:42

So you said she's not a communist because she's a corporatist. Okay, but that... That can't be... Okay.

1:28:51

Everybody in politics is a corporatist, just- - Almost.

1:28:54

- Almost everybody in politics is a corporatist.

1:28:56

But that doesn't mean the corporations have completely bought their mind.

1:29:01

They have an influence in their mind on issues that matter to those corporations. - Yep. - Right? - Yep.

1:29:06

- Outside of that, they're still thinking for the voters 'cause they still have to win the votes. - Barely. - Okay.

1:29:14

- So here, let me give you an example so you see what I'm saying.

1:29:17

So if you just wanted votes, you would do a lot of what Tim Walz did, okay?

1:29:24

And by the way, a lot of what Bernie did, that's why Bernie, who had no media coverage went from like 2% in 2015 to by the end about 48%, because he's just doing things that were popular, right?

1:29:37

And that American people wanted it, et cetera, right?

1:29:39

Because he's not controlled by corporations.

1:29:41

By the way, neither is Tom Massie on the right wing side, on the Republican side, right?

1:29:45

So it's not all, that's why I always say almost. All right?

1:29:48

So if you're doing things that are popular, people love it.

1:29:51

So today, what would Kamala Harris do if she actually just wanted to win, right?

1:29:56

So number one, she was trying to pass paid family leave right now. Why?

1:30:00

It polls at 84% and even 74% of Republicans want it. Why?

1:30:07

'Cause it says, hey, when you have a baby, you should get 12 weeks off, bond with your baby.

1:30:12

Right now in a lot of states that don't have paid family leave, you have to go back to work the very next day.

1:30:19

Or you have to use all of your sick days, all your vacation days just have one or two weeks with your baby, right?

1:30:25

So conservatives love paid family leave, liberals love paid family leave.

1:30:30

That's why it polls so high.

1:30:30

So why isn't she proposing it?

1:30:33

It's not in our economic plan.

1:30:35

Tim Walz's already passed it in Minnesota.

1:30:37

He showed how easy it was.

1:30:38

If you want votes, and then you know what's gonna happen if you propose paid family leave, the Republicans are gonna go, "No, our beloved corporations don't wanna spend another dollar on moms," right?

1:30:50

And they fall for that trap and then you are in infinitely better shape.

1:30:53

So why doesn't she do it?

1:30:54

She doesn't do it because her corporate donors don't want her to do it.

1:30:58

$15 minimum wage, layup, over two thirds of the country wants it 'cause it not only gives you higher wages for minimum wage folks, but it pushes wages up for others.

1:31:07

And what do the elites say?

1:31:09

"Oh, that's gonna drive up inflation.

1:31:11

Well, you shouldn't get paid any more." Wait wait wait. Hold on.

1:31:14

So you're saying all other prices should go up, but the only thing that shouldn't go up is our wages?

1:31:19

No, our wages should go up. Okay?

1:31:22

So these are all easy ones. Here's another one. Anti-corruption.

1:31:26

Why isn't she running on getting money outta politics? It polls it over 90%.

1:31:31

Why isn't Trump running on it any more?

1:31:34

He won when he ran on it in 2016, he didn't mean a word of it, but he ran on it. It was smart.

1:31:39

They don't do it 'cause their corporate donors take their heads off if they do it.

1:31:43

- So in contradiction to that, why did she propose to raise the corporate tax rate from whatever, 21% to 28%? - Because that's easy.

1:31:52

Because that is something that's super popular and she's not gonna do it. That's why.

1:31:58

So guys, this is where I break the hearts of Blue MAGA.

1:32:02

Blue MAGA thinks, oh my god, these democrats, they're angels and the right wing is, and the Republicans are evil, and they work for big business, but not Kamala Harris, not Joe Biden, right?

1:32:15

Okay, well, Donald Trump took the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

1:32:20

So that's trillions of dollars that got transferred.

1:32:23

'Cause guys, you gotta understand if the corporations don't pay it, we have to pay it because we're running up these giant deficits and eventually either they're gonna, not eventually, keep raising our taxes in different ways that you're not noticing.

1:32:37

They keep increasing fees and fines and different ways for the government to collect money, so we're paying for it.

1:32:44

And on top of that, eventually they're gonna cut your Social Security and Medicare 'cause they're gonna say, oh, we don't have any options left any more.

1:32:49

Yeah, you don't have any options left any more, 'cause you kept giving trillions of dollars in tax cuts to corporations.

1:32:54

So we're gonna have to pay for that.

1:32:56

So then Trump, then Biden says, oh my God, I'm gonna bring corporate taxes back up to 28%. I'm like, wait, hold on.

1:33:02

They were a 35, you already did a sleight of hand and said 28. Okay?

1:33:08

Then he gets into office and Manchin says, no, 25, that's the highest I'll go. And he goes, okay, fine. 25.

1:33:16

And then while you're not looking, they just dump it.

1:33:18

They don't even do 25, it's still at 21.

1:33:21

So hear me now, quote me later, I do predictions on the show all the time, 'cause you should hold me accountable, you should hold all your pundits accountable.

1:33:29

If you held all your pundits accountable, we'd be the last man standing and that's kind of what happened. Okay?

1:33:34

So I guarantee you, she will not increase corporate taxes.

1:33:38

- So would the same be the case for price controls or the anti-price gouging that she's proposing?

1:33:43

- So it's not price controls, it's anti-price gouging.

1:33:46

- [Lex] Well it is price controls, but I mean minimum wages, price controls also.

1:33:50

- Now we're gonna get into a lot of minutia, but I'll try to keep it broad.

1:33:54

So price controls are a disaster. They never work.

1:33:57

If you say, oh, here's a banana, it has to stay at a dollar a pound, make up a number, right?

1:34:03

Well, supply and demand's gonna move.

1:34:05

And then that's gonna, and so the minute it moves to $2 of where the price should be, then you're gonna run into shortages.

1:34:11

So we all know this, it's a bad idea, right?

1:34:14

But are there laws against price gouging?

1:34:16

There already are and they're a good idea. So why?

1:34:19

Like you have a natural disaster.

1:34:21

All of a sudden the water that was a dollar, now they're charging $100.

1:34:26

The government has to come in, democratic capitalism, they come in and go, no, I'm gonna protect the people.

1:34:31

So you're not allowed to price gouge, you know, maybe charge $2, et cetera, but you're not gonna charge 100. But it is temporary.

1:34:39

We get that done, we end the problem there, and then we bring it back to a normal supply and demand. Okay?

1:34:45

So that's what she's proposing.

1:34:48

That's all political because the price gouging has already passed.

1:34:51

They did it in '21 and '22.

1:34:53

And so now the grocery stores are actually a low margin business.

1:34:57

She says grocery stores, that's how I know she doesn't mean it.

1:35:01

'Cause the grocery stores weren't the problem.

1:35:02

Consumer goods were the problem. - Yeah. - Those companies.

1:35:06

- She's following the polls where most people will say that the groceries are too expensive so she's just basically saying the most popular thing. Yeah. - 100%.

1:35:16

And you could tell in which proposals she means it and which proposals she doesn't 'cause of the framing, right?

1:35:22

So this is a mediocre example, but in housing she said, we have to stop private equity from buying houses in bulk.

1:35:34

I'm like, huh, curious that they put the word in bulk there.

1:35:37

Why does it have to be in bulk?

1:35:39

Why don't we just stop them from buying any residential home?

1:35:42

Like you could set up normal boundaries, right?

1:35:44

For example, Charlie Kirk was on The Young Turks this week...

1:35:48

- By the way, sorry to take that tangent.

1:35:50

I really enjoyed that conversation.

1:35:51

I really enjoy that you talked to, that was like civil, you guys disagreed pretty intensely, but like there was a lot of respect. I really enjoyed that. - Thank you, brother.

1:36:01

- That was like, that was beautiful.

1:36:02

You and Charlie Kirk and I think Anna was there. - Yeah, that's right. So... - That's nice. - Yeah. Quick tangent.

1:36:08

And look, I've done a lot of yelling online, okay?

1:36:13

And I yell when, A, there's a issue that you should be passionate about 40,000 people, 25,000 women and children slaughtered in Gaza.

1:36:25

If you're not emotionally upset by that and you think it's no big deal, I think that's a problem.

1:36:29

But when you add gaslighting on top, that's what drives me crazy.

1:36:33

And then when you add filibustering on top, then that sets me off.

1:36:37

So for all my life, right wing has gone on cable and filibustered.

1:36:41

They take up so much more time than the left wing guest.

1:36:44

And the left wing guest always like goes, "Oh, okay, well, I'm offended, he is taking up too much time."

1:36:49

No, brother, go over the top. Go over the top.

1:36:51

You're not gonna talk over me. I'm gonna talk over you. Okay?

1:36:54

So, and then when you gaslight and you go, oh no, 1200 people in Israel being killed is awful, which it is.

1:37:03

But 40,000 people being killed in Gaza, it's no big deal.

1:37:07

We should keep giving them money, keep killing, keep killing. And that that's normal. No, it's not normal.

1:37:12

I'm not gonna let you say it's normal. That's nuts. Okay?

1:37:15

When you, like we were against the Iraq War, there was only two shows that were on the air nationally that were against the Iraq War, us and Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.

1:37:26

And at the time I used to yell all the time because mainstream media would gaslight the fuck out of us.

1:37:33

We're gonna be greeted as liberators.

1:37:34

Me and Ben Mankiewicz on the air.

1:37:36

Ben doesn't yell as much, he's now the host of "Turner Classic Movies."

1:37:39

But he's saying it in a calm way, I'm saying it in a screaming way.

1:37:43

We're not going to be greeted as liberators.

1:37:47

When you drop a bomb on someone's head, they don't greet you as a liberator.

1:37:51

Stop saying insane things.

1:37:53

And 7 out of 10 Americans thought the Saddam Hussein had personally attacked us on 9/11.

1:37:58

We got lied into that war by corporate media. Okay?

1:38:01

Now there's a couple of good things that Trump has done.

1:38:04

One is get people to realize corporate media is the matrix, right?

1:38:08

And so now, and get them to an anti-war position, he himself doesn't have an anti-war position, but his voters do, and that's a positive, we can come back to that.

1:38:17

But these days, the reason why the Charlie Kirk conversations are going great, and Rudy Giuliani and Mike Lindell, and historically though we've been, go back, again, 10 years, 20 years, we've always been respectful when someone comes on our show and we have a debate.

1:38:33

As long as they're not yelling, I match the tenor of the host, right?

1:38:37

You and I are having a reasonable conversation.

1:38:39

I'm not raising my voice, I'm not yelling at you for no reason, right?

1:38:43

So now when Charlie's not going to battle any more for like talking points, I'm shutting off my mind, all I'm doing is yelling at you, then I'm gonna yell back at him.

1:38:55

But now he's saying, okay, let's have a reasonable conversation. Great, I love it.

1:38:58

I love reasonable conversations. - It was great. It was refreshing.

1:39:02

And what were we talking about? You buying up housing? - Yes.

1:39:08

So Charlie, when he was on, said, hey listen, you know, I think that there should be a cap though, I forget if he said 10 billion or 100 billion, in assets.

1:39:16

If you have less than that, you should be still be able to do real estate as an investment, even if it's residential.

1:39:20

But above that it gets to...

1:39:23

Okay, that's good, no problem.

1:39:25

We can have a debate about that.

1:39:26

We can figure out is the right number, 10, 120, 5, no problem.

1:39:30

You could put in reasonable limitations.

1:39:32

But we gotta get them to stop buying the homes.

1:39:35

So when Kamala Harris says, oh, we'll stop them from buying homes in bulk, I'm like, okay, there's the loophole.

1:39:42

And so they're gonna use that loophole.

1:39:43

And besides which, it's not gonna pass, Wall Street owns the government.

1:39:48

So there's no way corporate Republicans and Democrats, which are about 98% of politicians, are gonna limit private equity.

1:39:54

And so when do we ever get a little bit of change?

1:39:57

When Democrats are in charge, they do 5% to 15% of their agenda.

1:40:03

And that's not because they're warmhearted, it's a release valve, right?

1:40:08

Oh, see, under Obama, we got about 5% change. And what was that?

1:40:13

That was Obamacare, right?

1:40:18

That was most of the change that we got.

1:40:20

And what's the greatest part of Obamacare?

1:40:22

And now a lot of right wing also agree, almost all of right wing agree about this portion, which is they got rid of the bias against preexisting conditions.

1:40:31

Why did they do that particularly?

1:40:33

Because the country was about to get in a fucking rage.

1:40:38

We all have preexisting conditions.

1:40:39

If you deny me when I'm sick, what the fuck is the point of insurance, right?

1:40:43

And the anger had gotten to a nuclear level.

1:40:46

So the release valve, get rid of preexisting conditions, let's go back to just milking them regularly.

1:40:53

And, oh, by the way, put in a mandate so that they have to buy it from us, right?

1:40:57

Do you know who originally came up with Obamacare? The Heritage Foundation. It was their proposal.

1:41:04

Romney did it in Massachusetts, it was called Romneycare.

1:41:07

So I think this is a super important election, but I've earned the credibility to be able to say that because in 2012 I said this is a largely unimportant election.

1:41:16

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama's policies on economic issues are near identical.

1:41:23

Obamacare was literally Romneycare.

1:41:26

Right now the left says, oh, the Heritage Foundation, it's so dangerous. Project 2025.

1:41:31

Well, brother, they're the ones who wrote Obamacare.

1:41:34

And you say that's the greatest change in the world, right?

1:41:37

So that's why the Democrats, yeah, I'll take the 10% change overall, I think Biden did about 15%, but Obama did 5%.

1:41:46

But they're gonna, they also march you backwards by deregulating like Clinton did and Obama did, their bank bailouts like Obama did.

1:41:54

But 10% is better than 0%.

1:41:56

But it's not to help you, it's the release valve so the system keeps going.

1:42:00

- Is it possible to steel man the case that, that not all politicians are corporatist, or maybe, how would you approach that?

1:42:12

For example, this podcast has a bunch of sponsors.

1:42:15

I give zero fucks about what they think about what I'm saying.

1:42:19

Like they have zero control over me.

1:42:22

Maybe you could say that's because it's not a lot of money or maybe I'm a unique person or something like this.

1:42:30

But I just think it's possible to have, and I would like to believe a lot of politicians are this way, that they have ideas and while they take money, they kind of see it as a game, that, you know, you accept the money, kind of go to certain parties, hug people and so on.

1:42:50

But it doesn't actually fundamentally compromise your integrity on issues you actually care about.

1:42:57

- I could steel man almost anything. I could steel man Trump.

1:43:01

I could steel man conservatives easily, right?

1:43:04

Corporate politician's a hard one.

1:43:06

So first, it's not all politicians.

1:43:09

We can start out nice and easy.

1:43:11

Tom Massie, now Holly and Gaetz not taking corporate PAC money, Bernie, The Squad, they don't take corporate PAC money.

1:43:20

You could disagree on either end of those folks on social issues, but generally they are 1,000 times less corrupt. They're more honest.

1:43:30

And part of the reason you might hate The Squad is because they're so honest.

1:43:34

They tell you their real opinion on social issues that you really disagree with.

1:43:37

A lot of the corporate politicians won't do that, 'cause they're trying to get as many votes as possible so that they can fellate their donors when they get into office and do all their favors for them.

1:43:46

Okay, but you see, I'm already falling apart on the steel man of corporate politicians.

1:43:50

- Let's like zoom in that.

1:43:51

So if you take corporate PAC money, you're, that's it. You're corrupted.

1:43:57

Can you imagine yourself say you are a politician, you're a president, you're a human being, you're a person with integrity, you're a person who thinks about the world...

1:44:08

You're saying, if I was a corporate PAC and I give you a billion dollars, I could tell you anything.

1:44:14

- So Lex, everything is a spectrum. Humanity's a spectrum.

1:44:18

So can you find outliers who could take corporate PAC money and still be principled enough to resist this lure? Yeah.

1:44:28

And I would hope that I would be a person like that, but I wouldn't take corporate PAC money.

1:44:32

But if you forced me to, I think I would still stay principled and do it.

1:44:37

Could you find 10, 20 other people in the country? Yeah.

1:44:41

But on average that is not what will happen.

1:44:44

What will happen is they will take the money and do exactly as they are told.

1:44:49

- See, I think most people have integrity. (Cenk laughs) Okay. Okay, hold on.

1:44:55

So what I'm more worried about is when you take corporate PAC money, it's not that you are immediately sold, is over time. - Over time. That's true. - See? Yeah, I get it.

1:45:06

But I wonder if the integrity that I think most people have can withstand the gradual slippery slope of the effect of corporate money.

1:45:17

Which if, if what I'm saying is true, that most people have integrity, one of the ways to solve the effect of corporate money is term limits.

1:45:27

Because it takes time to corrupt people.

1:45:29

You can't buy them immediately.

1:45:30

And then the term limits can...

1:45:34

For the listener, Cenk is shaking his head. - Yeah, no.

1:45:39

So look, you're right that over time it gets way worse.

1:45:42

And as we talked about earlier, Biden's a great example of that, comes in anti-corruption, winds up being totally pro-corruption by the end.

1:45:49

But he was also here for almost all of it as we started in a world that was not run by money in politics and is now completely run by money in politics.

1:45:58

So does it get worse over time?

1:46:00

Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona is a great example that comes in as a progressive, doesn't wanna take PAC money, cares about the average person, et cetera.

1:46:10

Over time she becomes the biggest corporatist in the Senate, a total disaster.

1:46:16

But if you say that the majority of politicians have...

1:46:21

I don't know if this is what you're saying, majority of politicians have integrity?

1:46:26

- No, let's start at the majority of human beings. - Human beings.

1:46:30

- And I think that politicians are not, they're not a special group of like sociopaths. - I think they are.

1:46:39

- They lean a little bit towards that direction, but they're not like only sociopaths going into politics.

1:46:45

It's like you have to have some sociopathic qualities, I think, to go into politics.

1:46:48

But they're not complete sociopaths.

1:46:51

I think they do have integrity.

1:46:52

'Cause sometimes for very selfish reasons, it's not all about money, even for a selfish person, for a narcissist.

1:47:00

It's also about being recognized for having had positive impact on the world. - Yeah, I get it.

1:47:08

But, all right, so let's break it down.

1:47:09

So first human beings, then we'll get to politicians.

1:47:12

Do human beings have integrity? Well, it's a spectrum.

1:47:16

So some people have enormous integrity, some people have no integrity.

1:47:21

So there is not one type or character, right?

1:47:25

So some people have a ton of empathy for other human beings and they literally feel it.

1:47:30

Like, I feel the pain of someone else. And I'm not alone.

1:47:34

Most people feel the pain of someone else.

1:47:36

If you see on video, a baby being hurt, an overwhelming majority of human beings will go, "No!" Right? You have empathy.

1:47:45

That's a natural feeling that you have.

1:47:47

Some people have no empathy because they're on the extreme end of the spectrum, serial killers and Donald Trump. Okay?

1:47:54

And so I'm partly joking, but not really.

1:47:59

He has never demonstrated any empathy that I have ever seen for any other human being.

1:48:05

I'm gonna trigger some right wingers 'cause they think every terrible thing he said is out of context or joking or not real or fake news.

1:48:12

But his chief of staff didn't make it up.

1:48:15

He called people who went into the military suckers and losers. Why? Why did he say that?

1:48:20

If, just hang with me for a second, don't have your head explode, okay?

1:48:24

And I'm not saying Lex, like I'm saying to the right wingers out there, right?

1:48:27

So the reason is because if you're like Trump and you don't, you literally don't feel the empathy, you think, why the hell would I go in the military, get killed for someone else? What a sucker.

1:48:38

No, I'm gonna stay out of the military. I'm gonna stay alive.

1:48:42

I'm gonna make a ton of money and I'm gonna look out for myself.

1:48:45

And he assumes, because everybody does this, you assume that everyone thinks like you do, but they don't.

1:48:53

So Trump assumes everybody's as much of a dirt bag as he is.

1:48:56

And because he doesn't feel it, he doesn't feel the empathy.

1:49:00

And so he's like, yeah, you'd be an idiot, a sucker and a loser to go into the military and have to sacrifice for other people?

1:49:07

So you see the spectrum, even if you think Trump's not on that end and you think I'm wrong about that, you get that there are people on that end, right?

1:49:13

So you have an spectrum of integrity, empathy, et cetera.

1:49:17

That's what I would call your hardware.

1:49:20

You layer on top of that your software, okay?

1:49:22

And the software is cultural influences, your parents, media, your friends, all these are cultural influences.

1:49:30

So now when you're in certain industries, they value more integrity.

1:49:36

So religious leaders, if you're doing it right, which is also very rare, right?

1:49:41

But if you're doing it right, you're supposed to have empathy for the poor, the needy, the whole flock, right?

1:49:47

So that profession is incentivizing you towards empathy and integrity, okay?

1:49:53

And even then, a giant amount of people abuse it, right? But, okay, good.

1:49:59

In politics, it creates incentives for the opposite, no integrity.

1:50:05

And that software, to your point, over time, gets stronger and stronger until and stronger until it takes over.

1:50:13

Now, you might have someone with a lot of integrity, like Tom Massie, right?

1:50:16

The Republican from Kentucky.

1:50:19

And whether I agree with him or disagree with him on policy, I get that the brother is actually doing it based on principles.

1:50:26

And there isn't any amount of money you can give Tom Massie for him to change his principles. Why?

1:50:31

He's on the principled end of the spectrum as a human being, right? So is Bernie.

1:50:36

They're on the same part of that spectrum, right?

1:50:39

But for most people, the great majority of the spectrum, if you overload them with software that incentivizes them to not have integrity, they will succumb.

1:50:48

And now let's switch to politicians in particular.

1:50:52

Why do I think that they're, on average, far more likely to be on the sociopathic part of the spectrum?

1:51:00

Because of the incentives and disincentives.

1:51:03

So this changes every congressional cycle.

1:51:06

And when Just Democrats were winning, it got all the way down to 87. 5%.

1:51:10

But on average for congressional elections, the person with more money wins 95% of the time.

1:51:17

It doesn't matter if they're a liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, or any ideology they have, 95%. Okay?

1:51:25

So now let's say you got the 5% that went in that are not hooked on the money.

1:51:30

Well, they're gonna get a primary challenge, then they're gonna get a general election challenge, and 95% of the time, the one with more money wins.

1:51:37

So eventually this system cycles through until almost only the corrupt are left.

1:51:43

- Wait, hold on a second. Is that real? - That is real. - 95%.

1:51:47

So if you have more money, 95% of the time you win, huh? - Yes.

1:51:56

- I like to believe that's less the case, for example, for the higher you get. - Yes, that's true. You're right. So you know why?

1:52:05

So the presidential race is ironically, in some ways, the least corrupt. So let's dive into why.

1:52:12

If you're running a local race anywhere in the country, you're gonna get almost no press coverage, meaning a congressional race, right?

1:52:19

If you're running a Senate race in the middle of Montana, you're gonna get almost no media coverage.

1:52:24

So that's where your money in politics has the most effect, because then you could just buy the airwaves.

1:52:31

You outspend the other guy, you get all the ads, plus you get the friendly media coverage, 'cause you just bought a couple of million dollars of ads in the middle of Montana.

1:52:39

So the local news loves you, the TV stations, the radio stations, the papers...

1:52:43

So some of the papers are principled, they might say, oh no, but overall, they're not calling you a radical, they're not calling you anything, and you're buying those races.

1:52:51

But when you get to the presidential race, that's much harder, because presidential race, you have earned media, free media that overwhelms paid media.

1:53:01

Perfect example's 2016, Hillary Clinton out-raises Trump by about two to one, but she loses anyway. Why?

1:53:07

Because Trump got almost twice as much earned media as she did.

1:53:12

And the earned media is better.

1:53:13

It's inside the content, right? It is definitely better.

1:53:17

So in a presidential election, as long as you got past the primary, you could actually win with not that much money.

1:53:26

And that's part of the reason why I have hope, Lex, because all you gotta do is get past a Republican or Democratic primary.

1:53:34

And now that's very, very, very difficult. But Trump did it, right?

1:53:38

Now he took it in the wrong direction, but he did leave a blueprint for how to do it.

1:53:43

And so once you get to the general election, you're off to the race.

1:53:47

You could do any goddamn thing you like, okay?

1:53:49

You could be super popular.

1:53:50

You don't have to give a shit about the donors. You can get into office.

1:53:53

You could bully your own party and the other party into doing what you want, and you can get everything done.

1:53:58

You could even get money outta politics. So don't lose hope.

1:54:01

I mean, we even started Operation Hope at TYT, and our first project was to knock Biden out?

1:54:07

And everybody said, you guys are nuts.

1:54:08

That's totally impossible.

1:54:08

And we knocked Biden out, right? Did we do it alone? Of course not.

1:54:13

We were a small part of it, right?

1:54:15

But we laid the groundwork for hope, and we laid the groundwork for when he flopped in the debate, people had already been told, remember, he's bad, he's old, he is not right.

1:54:27

And the debate proved it.

1:54:28

If we hadn't done that groundwork, and not just Young Turks obviously, but Axelrod and Carville, and Nate Silver and Ezra Klein, et cetera, Charlemagne the God, John Stewart, all these people helped a lot.

1:54:41

So that when the debate happened, it confirmed the idea that out there that he was too old and couldn't do it.

1:54:47

So my point is, hope is, if you lose hope, you're done for, then they're definitely gonna win, right?

1:54:54

Hope is the most dangerous thing in the world for the elites.

1:54:57

So whether you're right wing or left wing, I need you to have hope and I need you to understand it's not misplaced.

1:55:02

We just gotta get past the primary and we're gonna turn this whole thing around.

1:55:07

- So you, basically, a presidential candidate who's a populist, who in part runs on getting money outta politics. Okay?

1:55:17

Well, then let's talk about Donald Trump.

1:55:21

So to me, the two biggest criticisms of Trump is the fake elector scheme, out of that whole 2020 election, the fake elector scheme, this thing that really bothers me.

1:55:34

And then the second thing across a larger timescale is the counterproductive division that he's created in, let's say, our public discourse.

1:55:46

What are your top five criticisms of Trump?

1:55:48

- Okay, so number one, I have the same exact thing as you.

1:55:52

The fake elector scheme is unacceptable, totally disqualifying.

1:55:57

So the fake elector scheme was a literal coup attempt.

1:56:01

So he doesn't win the elections.

1:56:02

For folks who don't know, I need to explain why it's a coup attempt, because you just throw out words and then people get triggered by the words, and then they go into their separate corners, right?

1:56:12

So the January 6th rioters, they were not gonna keep the building.

1:56:18

That was not a coup attempt.

1:56:19

It's not like, oh, the MAGA guys have the building. I guess they win, right?

1:56:23

No, that was never gonna happen.

1:56:27

So what was the point of the January 6th riot?

1:56:29

It was to delay the proceedings.

1:56:31

Why did it matter that they were gonna delay the proceedings?

1:56:34

Because if you can't certify the election, they wanted general confusion and chaos.

1:56:38

So the Republicans in Congress could say, well, we don't know who won, so we're gonna have to kick it back to the states.

1:56:43

In the states, they had the fake electors ready.

1:56:46

And remember, the fake electors are not Trump's electors.

1:56:51

Both candidates have a slate of electors, Biden's electors and Trump's electors.

1:56:55

They go to the Trump electors first, in this plan, and half the Trump electors go, no, I'm not going to pretend Trump won the election when he didn't win the election.

1:57:05

So they're shit, like, now we gotta come up with fake electors. Okay?

1:57:09

So they enlist these Republicans who go, yeah, I'll pretend Trump won, right?

1:57:12

And so they sign a piece of paper, that's fraud.

1:57:15

And that's why a lot of 'em are now being prosecuted in the different states.

1:57:20

And so the idea is, the Republican legislators then go, we're sending these new electors in, and we think Trump won Arizona and Georgia and Wisconsin, right? That was the idea. That was the plan.

1:57:34

And then you come back to the House, at that point when there are two different sets of electors, the rule, constitutional rule is the House decides, but the House decides not on a majority, because the Democrats had the majority at the time.

1:57:50

They decide on a majority of the states, they vote by state, and the Republicans had the majority of the states.

1:57:57

So in that way, you steal the election, even though Trump didn't win, you install him back in as president.

1:58:04

That is a frontal assault on democracy. And I loath it.

1:58:08

And then Trump on top just blabbers out.

1:58:11

Well, sometimes you have, if there's massive fraud in an election, in other words, I think I won. I don't even think that.

1:58:18

I'm just saying that I won, right?

1:58:19

He says, you can terminate any rule regulation or article even in the Constitution.

1:58:25

No, brother, you cannot terminate the Constitution because you'd like to do a fake elector scheme and do a coup against America. Fuck you. Okay?

1:58:34

So I'm never gonna allow this wannabe tyrant to go back into the White House and endanger our system.

1:58:42

And so you wanna endanger the corrupt system? I'm the guy. Okay?

1:58:45

Let's go get that corrupt system and tear it down.

1:58:48

If you wanna endanger the real system, democracy, capitalism, the constitution, then I'm your biggest enemy.

1:58:55

So I'm never gonna take that risk.

1:58:57

And you see it every time he goes to talk to a dictator.

1:59:01

Look, guys, I'm asking you to be principled, right?

1:59:04

I asked the left of that.

1:59:05

And we drive away some of our audience when we do that.

1:59:08

So we got the balls to do that to our own side.

1:59:11

So for the right wing, be honest, if it was Joe Biden or Barack Obama or Kamala Harris that went and wrote, quote, unquote, love letters to a communist dictator who runs concentration camps, you would say, "Communist! We knew it. Look at that!"

1:59:30

And Trump literally says about Kim Jong Un, we wrote love letters to one another. We fell in love.

1:59:36

If a Democrat said that, they'd be politically decapitated, right?

1:59:40

Their career would be instantly over, right?

1:59:44

But Trump, whenever is Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin.

1:59:47

I'm not, don't get into Russia Russia Russia.

1:59:49

But it's just that he's a strong man, right?

1:59:52

Kim Jong Un or any, Victor Orban, Duterte in the Philippines.

1:59:58

Anytime it's a strong man that says, screw our constitution, screw our rules...

2:00:03

I want total loyalty to one person. Trump loves 'em. He loves 'em.

2:00:10

He said once, he's like, oh, it's great, you go to North Korea or China, and when the leader walks in, everybody applauds and everybody listens to what he says.

2:00:19

That's how it should be here.

2:00:21

No brother, that's not how it should be here. You hate democracy.

2:00:22

You wanna be the sole guy in charge.

2:00:26

As a populist, you should loathe Donald Trump.

2:00:29

- I agree on the fake elector scheme.

2:00:32

Can you steel man and maybe educate me on, there's a book "Rigged" that I started reading.

2:00:40

Is there any degree to which the election was rigged?

2:00:43

Or elections in general are rigged?

2:00:45

So I think the book "Rigged", the main case they make is not that there's some shady fake ballots, it's more the impact of mainstream media and the impact of Big Tech.

2:00:57

- So rigged is another one of those words that triggers people and is ill-defined, right?

2:01:03

So let's begin to define it.

2:01:05

So the worst case of rigged is, we actually change the votes, right?

2:01:12

So a lot of Trump people think that that's what happened. Nonsense.

2:01:15

That didn't happen at all. Okay? So then you move...

2:01:19

And by the way, some on the left thought the votes were changed in the 2016 primary, and it was literally rigged against Bernie. No, that did not happen. Okay?

2:01:29

That is a massive crime and is very risky and is relatively easy to get caught.

2:01:35

People who are in power are not interested in getting caught, they're not interested in going to jail, et cetera.

2:01:40

It is a very extreme thing. Could it happen? Yes, it could happen.

2:01:44

Have I seen any evidence of it happening in my lifetime? Not really.

2:01:49

- Given how much people hate this, you probably just need to find evidence of one time. - Yeah.

2:01:56

- One vote being changed, where you can trace them saying something to someone somewhere, that would just explode. - Yeah.

2:02:05

- And just that evidence just doesn't seem to be there.

2:02:07

- And by the way, for the right wing, who say, verify the vote, god damn right, verify the vote, right?

2:02:11

So you wanna do have different proposals like paper ballots, recounts, hand recounts, which, by the way, you had not the paper ballots, but the three recounts on a hand recount in Georgia and so many of these swing states, he lost, he lost, he lost.

2:02:25

There was no significant voter fraud.

2:02:27

Now second thing in terms of rigging is voter fraud. So how?

2:02:33

And the right wing believes, oh my God, there's voter fraud everywhere! Not remotely true.

2:02:37

Heritage Foundation does a study, they wanna prove it so badly...

2:02:41

And it turns out, no matter how much they move the numbers, the final number they got was it happens 0. 0000006% of the time. Okay? It almost never happens.

2:02:56

They found like 31 instances over a decade or two decades.

2:03:01

- What counts as voter fraud?

2:03:03

- So a lot of times these days, it'll be Republicans who do it, because it'll be, and it's not nefarious, it's a knucklehead who goes in and, "Oh, I heard they're having undocumented, the illegals vote.

2:03:14

So I voted for me and my mom, even though she's dead. But that's fair. They're doing it." Yeah.

2:03:18

And they're like, no, brother, that's not fair.

2:03:20

And that's not how it works. You're under arrest.

2:03:22

- So what about non-citizens voting? - So... It's preposterous.

2:03:26

Of course, non-citizens shouldn't vote and they don't vote.

2:03:29

- But there's not, you don't have to prove citizenship when you're voting, right? - No, you do.

2:03:35

I mean, so it depends on what you mean by prove and when you vote, right?

2:03:39

So you are not allowed to vote as a undocumented immigrant. So that happens upfront.

2:03:46

When you go, like, again, it's a hall of mirrors.

2:03:49

Like there's so many different ways to create mirages.

2:03:51

So the Republicans will say, well, when you go to the voting booth, they don't make you show a passport. Yeah, that's true.

2:03:58

But you showed it earlier when you registered, right?

2:04:01

And so, and we can get into voter ID laws, there's all sorts of things, but we gotta, we'll speed up the spectrum, right?

2:04:08

So these things almost never happen.

2:04:09

Voter fraud happens super rarely and not enough to swing elections.

2:04:13

And by the way, sometimes, if there is an issue, they'll redo an election.

2:04:16

There is actually a process for that.

2:04:18

And it happened in North Carolina, 'cause Republicans did voter fraud in this one district, okay?

2:04:22

And it wasn't a candidate himself, it was this campaign person and they did ballot harvesting.

2:04:28

And then, but ballot harvesting, again, it depends on what you mean.

2:04:31

If you're just collecting ballots, that's okay.

2:04:33

He changed the ballots, that's not okay.

2:04:35

And so they had to redo that election.

2:04:37

So now the real place where it gets rigged is before elections.

2:04:43

And there's two main ways that things get rigged.

2:04:46

One is, almost exclusively, no, that's not fair.

2:04:52

I was gonna say Republicans, but Democrats do it too in a different way.

2:04:55

So Republicans will come in, like Brian Kemp is the king of this in Georgia.

2:04:58

So he was against Trump doing an ex post facto.

2:05:01

He's like, no, you idiot, we don't cheat after the election.

2:05:04

We cheat before the election! Okay?

2:05:06

So they'll go, well, I mean, you gotta clear out the voter rolls every once in a while.

2:05:09

And that's true because people die, people move and you gotta clean out the voter rolls.

2:05:13

So then they come in and they go, we will clean them out mainly in black areas. Okay? Oh, look at that.

2:05:19

There goes a couple of million black voters.

2:05:21

Well, some of those, I suppose, are real voters, but they'll have to re-register, and then they'll find that out on election day and, oh, well, no, sorry, you couldn't vote this time.

2:05:31

Remember to re-register next time.

2:05:33

And so do they go, hey, we're going to take black people off the voter rolls? No.

2:05:38

What they do is we're having more issues in these districts, right?

2:05:43

Here's another way they do it.

2:05:44

How many voting boosts do you have in the area?

2:05:47

So primarily Republican areas will get tons of voting booths, so you don't have to wait in line, you go in, you vote, you go to work, no problem.

2:05:57

You're in a black area run in a Republican state, all of a sudden, hey, look, that city, well, we sent you four voting booths.

2:06:05

Oh, you got a million people there?

2:06:07

Well, what are you gonna do?

2:06:08

I guess you gotta wait in line the whole day.

2:06:09

You can't go to work, et cetera. So that's the way of...

2:06:12

- I refuse to believe it's only the Republicans that do that, I would say...

2:06:18

- So that's why I paused. - Yeah. Yeah.

2:06:20

- That just seems too obvious to do by both. - Yeah, no, no. - By both sides.

2:06:25

- The Democrats are so weak, Lex, they mainly don't do that, but they do do the third thing, which is gerrymandering.

2:06:32

So both Republicans and Democrats- - Also they have favorite flavors of, yeah, of messing with the vote. Okay. - Yeah.

2:06:38

So gerrymandering is the best way to rig an election.

2:06:42

That way the politicians pick their voters instead of the voters picking their politicians, right?

2:06:46

So all these districts are so heavily gerrymandered that the incumbent almost can't lose.

2:06:53

They'll push most of the voters into one district, most of the voters in another district, because they don't want competition, right? So then you're screwed.

2:07:04

The vote isn't rigged, but the district is rigged so that the incumbent wins no matter, almost no matter what, right?

2:07:15

So that's why we've gotten so polarized, because the gerrymandering creates like 90% of seats that are safe.

2:07:23

So they don't have to compromise, they don't have to get to a middle.

2:07:26

They could just be extreme on either side because they already locked it up. Okay?

2:07:30

So that's the number one way to rig an election.

2:07:33

Now finally, the last part of this, maybe the most important, maybe even more important than gerrymandering, and that's the media.

2:07:39

So it just happened to RFK Jr.

2:07:39

, it happened to Bernie in 2015.

2:07:45

It happens to any outsider, right or left.

2:07:48

The media, if you're an outsider, will say, well, radical, number one, they don't platform you, right?

2:07:55

So they're not gonna have you on to begin with.

2:07:57

Nobody's even gonna find out about you.

2:07:59

If nobody finds out about you, you're done for, right?

2:08:02

So Bernie broke through that because he was so popular, and the rallies were so huge that he, they could, local news couldn't help but cover him.

2:08:12

Jesus Christ, what are all these people doing in the middle of the city, right?

2:08:15

And he slowly broke through that.

2:08:16

But do you know that in 2015, as he's doing this miraculous run against Hillary Clinton, nobody thinks he has a chance.

2:08:23

And here comes Bernie, and he's almost at 48%.

2:08:26

This is, he had seven seconds of coverage on ABC that year.

2:08:30

They just will not put you on.

2:08:33

That is the number one way they rig an election. Bobby Kennedy Jr.

2:08:36

sitting at 20% in a primary, no town hall, 20 percent's a giant number, right?

2:08:44

And you are not gonna do a town hall, you're not gonna do a debate.

2:08:46

12% in the general election, a giant number in a general election, no town hall, no debate.

2:08:52

If no one finds out about you, they don't know to vote for you, right?

2:08:58

If they don't find out your policies.

2:08:59

Corporate media rigs elections more than anything else in the world.

2:09:03

- Now, this is something you've been a bit controversial about, but the general sort of standard belief is that there's a left-leaning bias in the mainstream media, because, as I think studies show, a large majority of journalists are left-leaning, and then that there's a bias in Big Tech, employees of Big Tech companies, from search engines to social media, are left-leaning.

2:09:29

And there that's a huge majority is left-leaning.

2:09:32

So the conventional wisdom is that there is a bias towards the left. - Yeah.

2:09:37

- Do you think, first of all, I think you've argued that that's not true, that there's a bias in the other direction, but whether there's a bias or not, do you think that how big of an impact that has on the result of the election?

2:09:51

- Okay, so let's break that down.

2:09:53

Tech and media are totally different.

2:09:56

So let's do media first, then we'll do tech.

2:09:58

So on mainstream media, corporate media, and I actually think that right wing media, like Fox News, is part of corporate media.

2:10:07

They just play good cop, bad cop.

2:10:09

And so in that realm, the bias is not right or left, except on social issues. Okay?

2:10:15

So, and that's where that image comes from.

2:10:17

On social issues, yes, the media is generally on the left, and right wing, sorry, but like this started in the 1960s, and the right wing got super mad at mainstream media saying that black people were equal to white people.

2:10:31

That's not the case any more, okay? Right wing, calm down.

2:10:35

I'm not calling you all racist.

2:10:36

But in the 1960s, was there racism? Of course! Of course!

2:10:40

They wouldn't even let black kids into the schools, right?

2:10:41

There was massive segregation in the south, but a lot in the north as well.

2:10:45

And at that point in mainstream media says, well, I mean, they are citizens, they should have equal rights.

2:10:51

And the right wing goes, "Bias!" Okay, yeah.

2:10:55

I mean, you're kind of right.

2:10:56

It is a bias, it is a bias towards equality in that case, but that is perceived as on the left.

2:11:02

Now, fast forward to today, you don't have that on the racial issues as obviously as much as we had it back then, but on gay marriage that existed for a long time, where the media's like, well, they kind of should have the same rights as straight people, right?

2:11:18

And the right wing went, "Bias!" Right?

2:11:21

So, okay, you're kind of right about that.

2:11:23

But at the same time, I would argue their position is correct. Right?

2:11:28

So, but can they go too far?

2:11:28

Of course they can go too far.

2:11:31

Okay, now, but that's not the main deal, guys. That's to distract you.

2:11:34

The main deal is economic issues.

2:11:38

And again, we say it ahead of time and you can see if we're right or wrong, right?

2:11:42

So we will tell folks, when we get to an economic bill, you'll see all of a sudden the guys who theoretically disagree, Fox News and MSNBC close ranks, and you just saw it happen with price gouging, that issue of price gouging, all of a sudden there's a lot of MSNBC hosts, CNN hosts, Washington Post writes an op-ed against it. And everybody panics. It's like, no, no, no.

2:12:03

You can't control anything a corporation does. This is wrong! This is wrong! Right? Oh, what happened?

2:12:08

I thought you guys hated each other.

2:12:10

All of a sudden you totally agree. Fascinating. Okay?

2:12:13

Same thing happened on increasing wages, when they were talking about increasing the minimum wage.

2:12:18

Stephanie Ruhle, giant screed against it on MSNBC.

2:12:21

All of a sudden Fox News and MSNBC agree, right?

2:12:24

Do not touch beloved corporations.

2:12:27

So now that gets us to our real bias. It's not left or right.

2:12:32

It's pro-corporate for all the reasons we talked about before, corporate media, corporate politicians.

2:12:37

So if you don't believe me today, whether you're on the right or the left, watch, next time an economic issue, where do they fall? How do they react?

2:12:47

When, anytime it's a corporate issue, where does the media go? Right?

2:12:51

So that's the real bias of the media.

2:12:53

And so since the real bias of the media is pro-corporations, that is not a left wing position, that is considered more of a right wing position.

2:13:01

I even think that's a misnomer, 'cause to be fair to right wing voters, they're not pro-corporations.

2:13:07

They're not pro big business.

2:13:07

They're not pro-corruption.

2:13:09

But the Republican politicians are.

2:13:11

So it gets framed as a right wing issue, right?

2:13:14

So if you think that they, that the corporate media is too populist, you just don't get it. They aren't. They hate populism.

2:13:22

So now when you turn to tech.

2:13:25

So tech's a complicated one because, yeah, people write the code.

2:13:30

If they're left wingers, they're gonna have certain assumptions and they might write that into the codes or the rules.

2:13:36

And so, but they're also, generally speaking, wealthy. They're usually white. They're usually male.

2:13:45

And those biases also get go in.

2:13:47

And there's a lot of people on the left who object to that bias, right? Okay.

2:13:51

But that's a fair and interesting conversation.

2:13:53

And one we have to be careful of.

2:13:55

And one, we could find a, hopefully find a middle ground on.

2:13:58

But that's not the major problem.

2:14:00

The major reason why Big Tech gets attacked is because they are competitors of who?

2:14:06

Social media competes with mainstream media.

2:14:10

So mainstream media has been attacking Big Tech from day one, pretending that it's a, they're really concerned.

2:14:19

Yeah, they're really concerned, 'cause that's their competition and they're getting their ass handed to 'em.

2:14:24

So I did a story on The Young Turks about CNN article, about all the dangers of social media.

2:14:32

I'm like, guys, this is written by their advertising department, okay?

2:14:38

And in fact, they go to the advertisers and they find a rando video on YouTube or Facebook, right?

2:14:43

Outta billions of videos.

2:14:44

And they're like, "Look, your ad is on this video.

2:14:48

Do you denounce and reject every Big Tech company and every member of social media?"

2:14:53

And the advertiser is like, shit. Yeah, I do. Right?

2:14:58

Meanwhile, they're doing "MILF Island" on TV. - Okay. - I didn't know that.

2:15:04

I'm going to check that out.

2:15:05

- There's literally a show that came out recently.

2:15:08

Where it's moms and their sons and they fuck each other. - Oh, wow. - Okay. They don't...

2:15:14

They don't have sex with their mom.

2:15:16

They have sex with a different mom. - Got it.

2:15:18

- Or they date, but then the show is, oh, then they go off into a corner, et cetera, right?

2:15:23

I'm like, you're doing this kind of like the worst, degrading, ridiculous, immoral programming.

2:15:29

And then you found a video on YouTube that has a problem. Get the fuck outta here.

2:15:34

You're just trying to kneecap your competition.

2:15:36

- Let's talk about the saga of Joe Biden.

2:15:39

So over the past year, over the past few months, can you just throw a rewind, where have you, maybe tell the story of Joe Biden as you see from the election perspective? - Yeah.

2:15:52

So about a year ago, I'm looking at the polling, and first of all, I have eyes, right, and ears.

2:16:01

So whenever I see Biden, I'm like, this is a disaster.

2:16:04

And then I go and talk to real people.

2:16:06

And when I say real people, I mean not in politics, that's not their job, right?

2:16:10

Because people involved in politics for media have a certain perspective and it's colored by all of the exchanges in mainstream media, social media, et cetera.

2:16:20

Real people aren't on Twitter having political fights.

2:16:25

They're not watching CNN religiously, et cetera.

2:16:29

Whenever I was at a barbecue, "You guys all Democrats?"

2:16:31

In some barbecues, "Yeah," what do you guys think of Joe Biden?

2:16:35

Like almost in unison, "Too old."

2:16:39

Every real person said too old.

2:16:41

So I look at what real people are saying.

2:16:43

That's why I thought Trump was gonna win in 2016.

2:16:45

I go in the middle of Ohio, I can't see a Hillary Clinton sign for hundreds of miles, right?

2:16:50

And there's Trump paraphernalia everywhere, right?

2:16:53

So that's not end all, be all, you could say it's anecdotal, but you begin to collect data points, right?

2:16:59

But then the real data points are in polling. Okay?

2:17:02

So now I'm looking at Biden polling. He's in the 30s.

2:17:06

No incumbent in the 30s has ever come back to win.

2:17:09

So I'm like, it's already over.

2:17:12

Then all of a sudden, oh my god, Trump takes the lead with Latinos. It's double over.

2:17:18

Later in the process, Trump took the lead with young voters.

2:17:22

I'm like, this is the most over election in history.

2:17:25

And a democrat cannot win if they're not winning young voters. That's impossible.

2:17:30

Trump's cutting into his lead with black voters.

2:17:33

This thing is over, right?

2:17:36

And what I go tell people, and they're like, you are crazy!

2:17:39

Why do they think I'm crazy?

2:17:40

Because MSNBC's lying to them 24/7, telling them that Joe Biden created sliced bread and the wheel and fire, and my favorite talking point was, he's a dynamo behind the scenes.

2:17:56

I'm like, okay, let me get this. Right?

2:17:58

It's like an SNL skit, right?

2:17:59

I'm like, so behind the scenes it's like, "All right, Sally, get me the memo on that and we're, okay, we're gonna do this, and I'm in command of the material."

2:18:05

Then he goes in front of the cameras, "Eh, anyways..."

2:18:09

Why would any politician do that? Why?

2:18:12

Why would they be terrible in front of the camera and great off camera, doesn't make any sense.

2:18:17

But once you get people enough propaganda, and MSNBC created blue MAGA, right?

2:18:23

They'll believe anything.

2:18:24

So they believe that Biden was dynamic and young and that he was the best possible candidate to beat Donald Trump, when in reality he was about the only Democrat who couldn't beat Donald Trump.

2:18:36

So, number one, I don't co-sign on bullshit.

2:18:40

I don't care which side you're on.

2:18:42

Number two, as you heard earlier, I can't have Trump winning.

2:18:46

It endangers the country, it endangers our constitution, et cetera.

2:18:50

So I'm gonna do something about it.

2:18:53

And so I start something called the Operation Hope on The Young Turks.

2:18:57

And we asked the audience what should we do, right?

2:19:00

So there's different projects in Operation Hope.

2:19:02

And, but the first project that pops up is knock Biden out of the race. Okay?

2:19:08

And so then I ask our paying members on TYT, I say, guys, you're gonna vote, and then I'm gonna do what you tell me to do.

2:19:15

If you say no, I like Biden, or I think Biden's the best candidate, or even if he isn't, we're not gonna be able to win on this, so don't do it, right?

2:19:23

Should I enter the primary against Biden?

2:19:25

Okay, 76-24, go, enter, right? I'm a populist.

2:19:32

You tell me to go, you're my paying members, you're my boss, I'm gonna go, okay? So I enter the primary.

2:19:37

Now I'm not born in the country, so people are gonna freak out about that. I'm a talk show host.

2:19:43

Like the establishment media despises me, right?

2:19:48

So I'm not gonna get any air time.

2:19:49

In fact, we consider hiring the top booking agent in New York.

2:19:55

We talked to him and he says, well, you know, I'm actually in New York this week.

2:19:59

And he says, I'm gonna go talk to those guys and I'll come back to you.

2:20:03

And he was really decent, because normally, you know, he charges a lot.

2:20:07

Just take the money, right?

2:20:08

And go, oh, yeah, yeah, I'll get you on.

2:20:10

But he was a wonderful guy.

2:20:11

He said, I talked to them, you're banned. So don't do it.

2:20:14

Like you're not, you're banned at CNN, you're banned at MSNBC.

2:20:19

And I think you're banned on Fox News, but I'm not sure. Okay?

2:20:21

So long odds, why do you do it?

2:20:26

Because if you think we're gonna crash into the iceberg, you might as well bum rush the captain's quarters.

2:20:32

Right, I'm lunging at the wheel.

2:20:35

So what difference can I make?

2:20:36

Well, I can make a difference by going on every show on planet Earth and going, he's too old. He's in the 30s.

2:20:42

He has no chance of winning, no chance of winning.

2:20:45

I go on Charlemagne show, "Breakfast Club," right? Charlemagne agrees.

2:20:48

All of a sudden we're having buzz.

2:20:51

And then people go, oh, Charlemagne said he has no chance of winning.

2:20:54

Then Charlemagne's on the Daily Show talks to John Stewart.

2:20:57

John Stewart does a segment.

2:20:58

This is not necessarily causal, but buzz is building, right?

2:21:01

So then John Stewart does a segment, if you remember, and people got super pissed at him. Too old. Can't win.

2:21:06

And all that buzz is building.

2:21:08

Meanwhile, unrelated to us, David Axelrod and James Carville.

2:21:12

And I'm like, guys, figure it out.

2:21:15

Who does Axelrod speak for?

2:21:17

The top advisor for Barack Obama.

2:21:20

Who is James Carville the top advisor for? The Clintons.

2:21:24

This is the Clintons and the Obamas sending their emissaries to say, we can read a poll. He's going to lose. Change direction.

2:21:33

So when the debate happens, we laid the groundwork.

2:21:36

If we hadn't laid the groundwork, debate would've been the first time that blue MAGA would've thought, oh, maybe Biden can't win. Right?

2:21:44

But since all of us said it, and strange bedfellows, I loathe Nancy Pelosi, but she was on our side.

2:21:51

I got a lot of issues with Bill Maher.

2:21:53

He was on our side, right?

2:21:55

I got a lot of issues with Axelrod and Carville, and they were on our side.

2:21:59

So the people who believed in objective reality, kind of independently made a plan, let's show people objective reality. And we did. And we drove him out.

2:22:09

And it made all the difference.

2:22:11

- So you think he stepped on voluntarily or was he forced out? - Both.

2:22:16

So again, it depends on what you mean. So was he forced out?

2:22:20

Of course he was forced out.

2:22:21

You think he just woke up, he is like, oh yeah, you know what? Screw my legacy.

2:22:25

I don't wanna be a two term president.

2:22:27

I'll just drop out for no reason. No, we forced them out. Of course we did, right?

2:22:31

And when I say we, I had a tiny, tiny, tiny role.

2:22:33

The people who had the major roles, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and all those folks, but even they were not the main driving force.

2:22:41

The number one driving force were the donors.

2:22:45

What is the source of power of Bernie or Massie? The people, right?

2:22:48

What is the source of power for Biden? The donors. The donors made Biden.

2:22:53

He is the donors' candidate and the donors, that's why he told the donors nothing will fundamentally change.

2:23:00

Like you can, if you say, "Lex, no, Cenk, I think you're too extreme that Biden works for the donors 98%.

2:23:08

I think he only works for them 80% or 55%," fine, we could have that debate, but you can't argue that it isn't his source of power.

2:23:16

And you can't argue it any more even if you're gonna argue it earlier.

2:23:19

Because once the donors said, we're not giving you any more money, he didn't have any options. He couldn't go on.

2:23:26

So, but was he forced out at like knife point or something? No. So was it voluntary? Yeah.

2:23:32

Ultimately, if Biden decided to stay in, there was nothing we could do about it.

2:23:35

And so he had to voluntarily make that decision.

2:23:38

But he voluntarily made it because he had no choice left.

2:23:41

- Yeah, I wish he stepped down voluntarily from a place of strength.

2:23:48

So I think presidents, I think politicians in general, especially at the highest levels, want legacy.

2:23:56

And to me, at least, one of the greatest things you could do is to walk away at the top.

2:24:02

I mean George Washington.

2:24:04

So walk away from power is, I think, universally respected.

2:24:08

Especially if you got a good speech to go with it and you do it really well.

2:24:13

Not in some kind of cynical or calculated or some kind of transactional way, but just like as a great leader, and maybe be a little bit even more dramatic than you need to be in doing it.

2:24:25

Yeah, I thought that would be a beautiful moment.

2:24:27

And then launch some kind of democratic process for electing a different option.

2:24:36

- Not only did I agree with you 100%, I reached one of his top advisors, one of the guys you see in the press all the time, in his inner circle.

2:24:47

I never said that before because we were in the middle of it and I'm never gonna betray anyone's confidence and I'll never say who it was, okay?

2:24:55

But he was gracious enough to meet with me as I was about to enter the primary.

2:25:02

And look, it is smart too, because get information, intelligence, et cetera, is this guy gonna be trouble or not trouble? Right?

2:25:09

But at least he took the meeting and the case I made is exactly the one you just said, Lex.

2:25:13

I said, if he drops, this about 10 months ago, I said, if he drops out now, they build statues of him, right?

2:25:21

The Democrats, if you are a right winger, you hate him. I get it.

2:25:23

But the Democrats would've said he beat Trump and protected democracy in 2020, and he steps down graciously now to make sure we beat Trump again in 2024.

2:25:34

And he lets go of power voluntarily.

2:25:38

He's gonna be a hero, an absolute hero.

2:25:40

But if he doesn't, you're gonna force all of us to kick the living crap out of him and tell everybody he's an egomaniac, which he is.

2:25:50

And he's doing this for two...

2:25:51

So that he could be, if you don't know Washington, in that bubble, if you're a one term president, you're a loser.

2:25:57

If you're a two term president, you have a legacy and you're historic.

2:26:01

He's running for one reason, one reason only. My legacy.

2:26:06

I will be a two term president.

2:26:08

I will be considered historic.

2:26:10

I'm like, brother, now you're gonna be considered a villain.

2:26:13

The villain of the story.

2:26:14

You're handing it right back to Trump.

2:26:16

You're not gonna win and you know, look at the numbers.

2:26:19

Any political professional knows you're not gonna win.

2:26:22

So you have hero or villain and you get to choose.

2:26:25

But if you think you're gonna be a hero and beat Trump, that is not a choice you have.

2:26:29

That is not gonna happen.

2:26:30

And they didn't believe us, but by then they did.

2:26:34

- Were you're troubled by, how Kamala Harris was selected after he stepped down? - Yes and no.

2:26:42

So I argued for an open convention.

2:26:45

And so if Biden had stepped down when we were trying to get people into the primary, knock him out, then it would, that would've been a perfect solution.

2:26:56

Then all the governors could go in.

2:26:57

Walz, Beshear, Whitmer, Kamala Harris goes in, obviously they have a real primary, at that point me and later Dean Phillips came in, me, Dean and I mean, Maryanne wouldn't drop out.

2:27:08

Me and Dean would definitely drop out, 'cause our whole point was get other people in the race, make sure we win, right?

2:27:14

So, okay then you would've had a great primary, it would've been the right way to do it.

2:27:18

Both morally, you know, constitutionally, et cetera.

2:27:21

But also as a matter of politics, 'cause you would've gotten a lot of coverage for your young, exciting candidates and you would've legitimized the idea that you're protecting democracy. Okay?

2:27:31

So that didn't happen because of Biden. It is what it is.

2:27:34

So now when Biden drops out, at least do a vestige of democracy, go to the convention and do what it's designed to do, which is pick a candidate.

2:27:42

Ezra Klein made a great case for this in the New York Times podcast that he did, that made a huge difference, and he was great for doing that.

2:27:51

So I believe in an opening convention, but I know Democrats that love to anoint because they don't trust the people.

2:27:57

So they think the elites are geniuses.

2:28:00

Don't worry, we'll pick the right candidate.

2:28:02

Yeah, I remember when you picked Hillary Clinton, how'd that work out? Right?

2:28:06

And I remember when you said Joe Biden was the right candidate in 2024. How'd that work out? Do not anoint. Right?

2:28:10

So, but in the end they didn't.

2:28:13

So what happened was Biden does the first announcement, he either forgot or on purpose didn't put Kamala Harris in there.

2:28:22

So there's all this kumbaya now.

2:28:24

Nah, they don't like each other. Okay?

2:28:26

And Biden's been screwing her over the entire time she's been vice president.

2:28:30

So he doesn't put her in the original statement.

2:28:32

And I'm like, whoa, I do a live video in media.

2:28:34

I'm like, Kamala Harris is not in the statement.

2:28:36

Right, in the middle of my video, they put out a second one, go, okay, fine. Kamala Harris, right?

2:28:42

Because that's too much for the president not to endorse his- - You think he was like really like somebody like stormed into the room and said, you absolutely must?

2:28:50

- I don't know, I wasn't there, but probably, right, or they, I don't know.

2:28:55

But the bottom line is, it was glaring that he didn't put her in the first letter. Okay?

2:29:00

So he had to put her in the second one. Fine, no problem.

2:29:03

But Obama, Pelosi and Schumer did not endorse Kamala Harris. That's huge.

2:29:11

Normally the Democrats would all endorse her and would all say she's anointed, shut up everybody.

2:29:16

And then MSNBC would scream, shut up! Shut up! She's anointed. Right? But they didn't do that.

2:29:22

So then Kamala Harris had to win over the delegates, and I thought she would win them over in the convention, but she locked them up in two days, and I know 'cause I know delegates 'cause I ran and the delegates are calling me saying, she's getting on a Zoom right now with us. Right?

2:29:39

She went to all the states and worked her off and locked up enough delegates to get the nomination in two days.

2:29:47

- Yeah, but come on, it's the, Biden endorsed. - Of course.

2:29:51

- Well why is that of course?

2:29:53

Why not say, sort of lay out Walz and Shapiro and Kamala Harris and the options to say let's, like, at least the facade of democracy, of a democratic process?

2:30:05

- There's what should happen and what is likely to happen.

2:30:09

So should Biden not have endorsed? Yeah, of course.

2:30:12

I think Biden should have done the same thing as Obama and Pelosi and not endorsed and say, hey, we'd love to have a process where we figure out who the right nominee is.

2:30:21

And at that point, I'm really worried about Kamala Harris 'cause she's doing word salads nonstop, right?

2:30:26

So I'm like, don't make the same mistake we did before and just pick someone out of a hat. Test them, test them.

2:30:32

You get stronger candidates when you test them.

2:30:35

The authoritarian nature of the DNC drives me crazy.

2:30:39

They don't believe in testing candidates.

2:30:42

They don't believe in letting their own voters decide.

2:30:44

And look, when we were in the primary, they canceled the Florida election, and they took me, Dean, and Marianne off the ballot in North Carolina and Tennessee.

2:30:53

I'm like, guys, if you're gonna make a case for democracy in the general election and you cancel elections in the primaries, do you not get how ridiculous you look, how hypocritical you look, right?

2:31:05

So I didn't want Biden to endorse anyone, but I'm shocked that they didn't all endorse her.

2:31:11

'Cause normally what happens is they all endorse.

2:31:14

So it, bottom line, Lex, is did she like earn it in a perfect system? Not even close. Right?

2:31:20

But did she earn it enough in this imperfect way where at least she showed some degree of competence that assuaged my concerns? Yes.

2:31:30

So because a normal Democrat would bungle that, they wouldn't go talk, like Hillary Clinton wouldn't have talked to the delegates.

2:31:36

She would assume that she's the queen and that they would all bow their heads. She would, you know?

2:31:42

So the fact that she did elementary politics correct, for Democrats, that's like a big win.

2:31:47

- It just really frustrated me because it smelled of the same thing of fucking over Bernie in 2015-16 and RFK and just the anointing aspect.

2:32:01

Now they seem to have gotten lucky in the situation that it's very possible that Kamala Harris would've been selected through a democratic process.

2:32:09

But I have to say, listening to the speeches at DNC, Walz was amazing, Shapiro was really strong, and Kamala actually was much better as compared to her as a candidate previously.

2:32:22

But personally don't think she would've been the result of a democratic process.

2:32:25

- So you don't often give your opinions, but when you give the opinions, I actually agree 90, like a huge percentage of the time in this conversation.

2:32:32

So I fought for Shapiro in the primary and when she was trying to pick for a VP, 'cause I thought there's no way she's gonna pick Walz.

2:32:39

He's way too, not just progressive, but more importantly populist, right?

2:32:43

So I didn't think she'd go in that direction.

2:32:45

And Shapiro actually did a bunch of populist things in Pennsylvania.

2:32:47

That's part of the reason why he's so popular in Pennsylvania.

2:32:50

He looks like a smooth talking politician, but his actions are pretty good.

2:32:54

And so Shapiro was great, Walz was great.

2:32:58

The Obamas are legendary.

2:32:59

Even Clinton at his advanced age makes terrific points in his speech where you go, well, that one's hard to argue with, right?

2:33:06

And so they all, I'm shocked at the competence at the DNC, shocked at it, but of all those, Lex, so you can give a good speech and the Obamas give a mean speech.

2:33:18

But I saw Obama as president, you know, he didn't deliver on that.

2:33:22

So, but the one guy that stood out is Walz.

2:33:26

And the reason is 'cause he's a real person.

2:33:29

- Yeah, real person, populist.

2:33:31

- We all gotta work towards picking the most genuine candidates.

2:33:35

So here, on the right wing side, for example, I would prefer Marjorie Taylor Green to a Mitch McConnell any day.

2:33:43

Marjorie Taylor Green is genuine.

2:33:45

She might be genuinely nuts. I don't agree with her.

2:33:49

She might be even more right wing than others.

2:33:52

But I believe that she means it.

2:33:55

And I'll take that any day over a fraud corporatist like Mitch McConnell who's just gonna do what his donors command of him, et cetera.

2:34:03

- I gotta ask you, because I also love, Bernie still got it.

2:34:07

I love Bernie, I always have.

2:34:10

I enjoyed his, I think he might still do it, but I enjoyed his conversations with Tom Hartman. He's a genuine one.

2:34:16

Like Bernie, even you disagree with him, that's a genuine human being. - Yep.

2:34:20

- So just talk about that.

2:34:23

Does it trouble you that he's been fucked over in 2015-16 and again 2020, he seems to be, and why does he keep like forgiving people? - Yeah.

2:34:36

So I love Bernie for the same reason you were saying it, because he's a real person, he's a populist, he means it.

2:34:42

And that is so rare in politics.

2:34:44

He's, I feel like I'm Diogenes and I went looking for the one honest man and found it in Bernie.

2:34:50

And so I did a video in 2013, saying Bernie Sanders can beat Hillary Clinton in a primary. In 2013. That video exists.

2:34:59

Because why did I think that?

2:35:01

I didn't say it of any of the corporate politicians and the guys who were supposed to challenge her and stuff, because populist and honest, right?

2:35:09

And the country's dying for an honest populist, dying for it, right? So, love the brother.

2:35:14

Now that doesn't mean that he's right on strategy and he drives me crazy on strategy. So two elements of that.

2:35:21

Number one, in 2016 and in 2020.

2:35:25

For god's sake, attack your opponent.

2:35:29

You said something about Trump that I disagree with, where I'm defending Trump. Okay?

2:35:34

You don't like what he did to the public discourse?

2:35:38

No, I don't mind it, and I'll tell you why. - Yeah.

2:35:42

- Because at least he got a little bit past the fakeness.

2:35:47

Like he's a conman and he's a fraud overall and he does everything for his own interest.

2:35:51

But at least he doesn't speak like a bullshitting politician, right?

2:35:54

And he's not wrong that you have to bully your own party to amass enough power to get things done.

2:36:01

And he showed that that's possible.

2:36:03

So the problem with the Democrats is civility.

2:36:07

So my whole life they're like, oh, no, don't say anything.

2:36:10

Let's lose with civility, right?

2:36:12

So, for example, in debates on, you know, whether it's on TV, online or whatever, Democrats or people on the left are always saying, I'm offended. I never get offended.

2:36:24

No, after I'm done you're gonna be offended, okay?

2:36:28

Fight back, fighting back wins.

2:36:31

And we couldn't get Bernie to fight back.

2:36:34

In 2020 he was one state away.

2:36:37

He won the first three states.

2:36:38

He crushed in Nevada, all we needed was South Carolina.

2:36:42

But in order to get South Carolina, we all knew, everybody on his campaign, everyone who's in progressive media, we all knew, you've gotta attack Biden.

2:36:50

If you don't, they're just gonna tsunami you.

2:36:53

You know, corporate medias and the corporate politicians are gonna run roughshod over you.

2:36:58

You have to make the case against them.

2:37:00

And so two times Bernie flinched, one in 2016 in the Brooklyn debate, they asked, did the money that Hillary Clinton taken from the banks affect her votes? And he said, no.

2:37:09

Of course it affected her votes. Of course it did.

2:37:14

You have to say yes and you have to show it and prove it. The bankruptcy bill.

2:37:19

When she was first lady, she was totally in favor of the American people and against the bankruptcy bill 'cause it has the banks, you can't discharge any debts, you know, credit card debt and bank debt, et cetera. It's an awful bill.

2:37:33

It's the one of the most corporatist bills.

2:37:35

She was on the right side as a first lady.

2:37:37

She becomes a senator, takes banker money and all of a sudden she flips over to the banker's side.

2:37:42

Say it, Bernie, for god's sake, say it, right?

2:37:45

Then in one of the debates in 2020, his team prepares attacks against Biden. They're not personal.

2:37:53

They're not like, you can sense by now, if I'm in a political race, my objective is rip the other guy's face off, right? - Yeah.

2:38:03

- Politically, rhetorically, never physically. - Yes, yes, yes, yes.

2:38:05

- And so, but I would get it to a point where they'd think, I don't know if I'm gonna vote for Cenk, but I know I'm not voting for the other guy. Okay?

2:38:13

So you gotta do that if you wanna win.

2:38:17

So they prepare this, he says I'm gonna do it.

2:38:19

He goes out in the podium and doesn't do it.

2:38:22

Because he can't, he's too damn nice.

2:38:24

He just can't attack the other guy.

2:38:27

Now that's problem number one in strategy.

2:38:28

Problem number two is something you alluded to.

2:38:31

So Biden gets in office, Bernie thinks they're friends.

2:38:34

They're not friends, Biden's just using him.

2:38:37

So he uses him to get the credibility and then he eviscerates 85% of the progressive proposals that Bernie put forward.

2:38:46

Biden throws away $15 minimum wage.

2:38:48

That was Bernie's signature issue.

2:38:50

Doesn't even propose the public option.

2:38:52

Dumps paid family leave for no reason. I can go on and on.

2:38:57

And Bernie co-signs on it because he thinks he's in an alliance, he thinks Biden's on his side and he thinks we're gonna get things done.

2:39:04

And to be fair to Bernie, like I said earlier, Obama got only 5% of his agenda passed and Biden got 15%. Okay.

2:39:12

So you're right, Bernie, you got three times more than under Obama. But you're wrong.

2:39:16

That is not fundamental change.

2:39:19

And without fundamental change we're screwed.

2:39:23

- Let me ask you about another impressive speech, AOC, is it possible that she's the future of the party, future president? - No.

2:39:34

So AOC in my opinion lost her way. And so... - In which way?

2:39:41

- So it's tough talking about these things because people take it so personally, right?

2:39:45

And that's why you'll see very few politicians on our shows, because we give super tough interviews and the word's out in the street, right?

2:39:56

Like don't go Young Turks, they'll ask you super hard questions, right?

2:40:00

So only a couple do it, like Ro Khanna does it. He's brave.

2:40:04

And we'll get into shouting matches sometimes in the middle of bills and stuff.

2:40:07

But at least he's there to defend his position. I respect him for that.

2:40:10

Tim Ryan, a little bit more of a conservative Democrat when he was the house, he would take on any debate, et cetera.

2:40:15

So there's a couple of good guys that do it, but generally they don't.

2:40:18

So when this relates to AOC, because when AOC's running, we do 34 videos on her, we get her millions of views, we founded Just Democrats and now launched it on the show.

2:40:33

Our audience, Ryan Grim documents it in one of his books.

2:40:37

Our audience raises two and a half million dollars for those progressive candidates overall.

2:40:43

And at that point AOC and all those, Rashida Tlaib, et cetera, they're all dying to come on the Young Turks. Makes sense. I would too of course.

2:40:51

It's not because it's The Young Turks any media outlet, and most media outlets, almost all the media outlets reject them.

2:40:57

We cover AOC more than all the other press combined, right? And she wins. For a number of reasons.

2:41:04

That's one of the reasons.

2:41:04

But there's many others and she did a terrific job herself.

2:41:09

She then takes Saikat and Corbin who were the, Saikat was the head of Just Democrats and Corbin was communications director for Just Democrats.

2:41:19

Then Saikat made one of the most brilliant political decisions in, arguably in American history.

2:41:25

He said, he called me and he said, "Cenk, I'm gonna go from head of Just Democrats to running AOC's campaign."

2:41:32

And I'm like, well, the other candidates are gonna get pissed, and you're staking the entire enterprise on one candidate.

2:41:38

And I'm like, Saikat, I'm not in it. I'm doing the media arm. You're in the trenches.

2:41:44

You're the guy making the decisions.

2:41:46

So I'm gonna trust whatever you say. You sure?

2:41:49

And he said, "Yeah, I'm sure."

2:41:51

So him and Corbin go over to AOC's campaign.

2:41:54

AOC then wins that miraculous win.

2:41:57

Then she hires Saikat to be her chief of staff and she hires Corbin to be her communications director.

2:42:04

Within six months they're gone.

2:42:06

And once they're gone, AOC then goes on an establishment path, okay?

2:42:11

Because why were they gone?

2:42:13

Oh, they insulted one of her colleagues.

2:42:15

Yeah, that colleague who's a total corporatist and was selling out one of her policy proposals.

2:42:21

If you don't call out your own side, you're never gonna get anything done.

2:42:25

But if you call out your own side, you become persona non-grata, and it is super uncomfortable, and that we couldn't get them to do things that were uncomfortable.

2:42:35

Now she's gonna find that outrageous and she's gonna be very offended by that.

2:42:40

And she's gonna point to a bunch of things she did that were uncomfortable.

2:42:44

And to be fair to her, she does, she has, until that speech, she was pretty good on Palestine when we desperately needed it.

2:42:51

She was pretty good on a bunch of issues.

2:42:53

Cori Bush did that campaign on evictions, et cetera, on the Capitol steps. That was great.

2:42:58

AOC's original sit-in in Pelosi's office.

2:43:01

At that point we're all still on the same team.

2:43:03

It's a spectacular success.

2:43:05

Me, Corbin and Saikat are saying, do it again, do it again. Like don't abuse it.

2:43:10

Like don't be a clown and do it every other day.

2:43:12

But like when it matters, you need to be able to challenge Pelosi. Right?

2:43:17

And in my opinion, she just got to a point where she got exhausted being uncomfortable.

2:43:23