Andrew Schulz, Akaash Singh, and guests from Pod Save America dissect Trump's broken promises regarding Epstein files and foreign wars, criticizing the Democratic "gerontocracy" for failing to challenge Biden or release documents within 30 days as proposed by Rokana. They argue that super PACs and "old money" interests rig the system, silencing moderate voices through weaponized anti-Semitism labels while careerists avoid moral courage. Ultimately, the discussion suggests Democrats must embrace "economic patriotism" and challenge the establishment to address working-class anger rather than relying on scripted authenticity or pejoratives like "communist." [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Ruining America With Accountability00:14:37
What's up everybody?
Apparently we ruined America.
You know, we were trying to hold the person in power, President Trump, accountable for not fulfilling some of his promises.
And that was foolish, man.
Nah, you're an idiot.
That was a bad thing.
That was a foolish thing to do.
Once you vote for somebody, no matter what they do, even if it's the exact opposite of what they say they're going to do, you just ride that until the wheels fall off.
Yes, double down.
Exactly.
Always double down.
Like if you vote for a guy that you know is dead, you pretend he's not dead for four years.
Exactly.
That's what makes you virtuous.
Absolutely.
That's what makes you care about your country.
Pick a side, man.
Pick a side and you die for that side, dude.
You know, so that's, you know, that was a big fuck up of ours.
That was a big fuck up, man.
We just kind of wanted to know about Epstein, you know, victimizing a thousand girls and who else he did it with.
We just kind of wanted to know.
And Trump was like, you're not going to know.
And we're like, I don't like that.
Yeah, but that's our fault.
Yeah, that's being a bad American.
But we were being bad Americans.
A good American says, yes.
Yes, T-Daddy.
Thank you so much.
And I have some more.
That's what you want to say.
That's being bad Estee.
That's what a good American says.
Because a bad American would be like, yo, you said you were going to end these foreign wars and we're still just blowing up places we don't want to blow up anymore.
No, no.
But what would a good American do?
You just say, oh, thank you so much.
Can I have another one?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's what you said.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay, okay.
So a bad American would be like, wait, wait, wait.
You said you were going to lower the deficit, but right now we're just.
Yes, bro.
That's what you voted for.
That's what you voted for.
If you vote for that, then you got to stick with that the whole way through.
No matter what.
Yes, exactly.
Oh, wow.
That doesn't seem very democratic at all.
No.
Well, a good Democrat, if somebody wants to change their mind on Donald Trump, says, no, you're not allowed to.
And instead of wondering what maybe made you vote for him, you just say, you're stupid.
You're a bad person.
We don't change anything.
Oh, they're perfect.
Because I figured what they would want to do is maybe win the midterms.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Or maybe even win the election.
You don't want to win.
You want to be right just on Twitter.
So just right now.
Yeah, on Twitter for five minutes.
The most selfish thing that they could possibly be.
Yeah, I do.
So only them.
Just get some clicks and views.
Of course.
They actually have to care about what the state of America is.
It's not like we live in a democracy where you lost and you actually need people that are disillusioned to go on your side.
So you got to go to the party that just doesn't have primaries for candidates.
That's it.
I get it.
And if you're upset by that, you love Trump and everything he did and every lie he tells.
That's a great point.
That's your problem.
That's a great point.
You don't want to hold them accountable or get disillusioned by them.
It makes you bad.
That's a great point.
I know.
You know what I should have done?
It's like if I wanted to vote for somebody who was going to end the foreign wars, who is going to increase the budget, and who is going to silence the Epstein files and throw it away, I should have just voted for Kamala, right?
Because she was going to do that.
And that's what had been happening.
And that's what was happening and she said she was going to continue.
So I should have just voted for that.
Exactly.
Because you were having the status quo.
Well, no, I wanted something different.
I was hoping for some sort of change.
Oh, no, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Then you should have voted for Kamala.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Got it.
Got it.
Okay.
Well, listen, now you know.
Yeah.
I'm just a fucking idiot, obviously.
I didn't understand how this, you know, information economy works.
Yeah, you don't understand democracy.
Yeah.
Damn, democracy's tough, dude.
We need someone to explain it to us.
Yeah.
Yeah, dude.
I think we should get somebody to explain it to us.
I know a couple guys that are pretty brilliant.
Okay.
I'm in.
Yeah, they are like probably the OGs of this political podcast shit.
They worked for somebody that we really respect.
Jen Gang.
Oh, hell yeah.
Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton.
The goat, dude.
No, we got a great episode today.
By the way, guys, I'm sure some of you have noticed what's been happening the last few days.
I just want to let you all know right now, like, I'm in neither one of your fucking cults.
Okay.
If you want me to be in your cults, you can go fuck off.
I'm not on the damn call.
I'm not a Republican cult.
I'm a free American.
I'll make my own fucking decisions and I'll say whatever the fuck I want about whatever president is in power.
Okay.
Simple as that.
I don't give a fuck what you guys have to say.
No, no, I mean it.
It's like, and if you guys are getting any shit, I just, I implore you to do the exact same thing.
We're not going to get caught up in this group think.
Like, I do understand that there are, you know, some like social media influencers out there that are no different than like the Trump grifters.
We're like, you just make your money and you get your views and you get your virtue signaling feel-good moments out of like calling out this shit.
But if you actually care about what's happening in the country, maybe you would want to talk to some different people and maybe you would hope to build a coalition and move some votes back over to the Democrats if you think that they have a better idea for America.
But obviously, that's not what you want, but God forbid we shine a light on the people who you know what I'm getting a lot of.
You talked to him, you platformed him as if he was at zero percent, and then we talked to him and then he won the election as if he had no shot of winning.
Hold on, hold on, hold on.
People were like, This guy's a monster, he's not a human being.
Then we humanize him.
That's all he keeps saying.
Let's game theory this, Akash.
Okay, we are so powerful and influential by simply sitting down with him.
Yeah, right.
We made him president.
Yeah, so one would think that if we are disillusioned by some of the things that he is doing as president and we are upset that that same influence might be able to make someone else president.
So shouldn't you be embracing this massive influence that come to our house?
Or you just want to take no accountability for the fact that you ran a dead guy and a woman that couldn't speak.
Yeah.
With no primary.
With no primary at all.
So like, let's put it again.
Maybe she could speak, but she wouldn't speak to us.
Okay.
I wanted to talk to both people who could be president of the country.
Sorry, I'm an asshole.
Sorry, I'm a bad person.
You're a fucking idiot.
Yeah, I mean, hey, do you know that?
I know this is crazy, but did you know that politicians lie?
Wow.
That's something I just found out.
Someone's like, Trump's a fucking liar.
You didn't know he's a fucking liar.
And I was like, oh, I thought they were all liars.
I didn't realize that there were people that tell you the truth in politics.
Yeah, every politician that said Biden was sharp cognitively when he refused to give up his power in 2022.
That's really interesting.
They were not lying.
They were being honest.
He suddenly got retarded.
That's a really interesting suddenly.
As soon as the debate comes, dementia.
This does happen.
He actually got dementia while he was prepping for the debate.
Like when they were like, five, four.
His brain stopped working.
Because you're right.
All right.
Elizabeth Warren, she came out and she said something.
I mean, yeah, it was hilarious.
What does he say?
They said, well, you know, do you stand by, do you stand by your comments about Biden's lucidity?
And she was like, yeah, he was so sharp.
He was extremely sharp when I saw him.
And then the guy even asked her, Do you think he's sharper than you?
And she goes, sometimes.
Yeah.
Like, she couldn't even help herself from laughing.
That's a hilarious question, right?
She said she's an enemy.
They'll lie about anything.
So what you do is with politicians is you gravitate towards the lies you like better.
That's what we hope.
One or two of those lies happen.
Exactly.
It's simple as that.
If we go off of like the truth that we know is going to happen, nothing's going to change.
We already know that.
Right.
So we have a little bit of hope.
Give me one thing.
Obama cared.
One thing.
That works.
He did that.
You could lie about a lot of things.
You do one thing.
If Trump did one of the things, we would have been happy.
Stop the endless war, stop the spending, release the FCN files.
We'd have been like, you know what?
Okay.
Unfortunately, the one he chose was the immigration one.
The one that we were not fantastic.
What he said to us, in which we pressed him in a way, I don't know what you thought in Donald Trump.
I thought they think we were supposed to dunk on Trump immediately, make him get up and walk off in 30 seconds, and now we're all happy.
We had an hour conversation so we could get in away from that.
But I mean, but you got to questions like Shaw saying, hey, what about people who were here working hard?
No, actually.
And then Trump saying, well, you got to start with the criminals.
He didn't.
So he didn't even do that.
So he's done nothing on those fronts in terms of the promises he made us.
But I don't regret it at all.
I don't even regret voting for him at all because what you see is all these Democrats that are starting to take up the issues that he was the one campaigning on.
So essentially, what he's done is pull the Democrat Party over to the center.
So, if they start talking about these issues, Ro Conna, who we have on later on this podcast.
So, today we've got the, I don't even know if I already said this, but we've got the Pod Save America Boys.
The OG podcast, bros.
They don't get the credit that they deserve, but they are the OG bros.
Okay, we've kind of taken over the Manosphere Bro thing, but they were the fucking Bromosphere bros or whatever that was back in there.
We appropriate.
So, yeah, so we're sorry for taking that from you guys.
But, but no, they're on, they're fucking brilliant, and they've got great perspective on what's happening politically and like what how the Dems can take advantage of these kind of moments where the right is fractured.
And then we got Roe Conna, who's pushing up this bill in Congress right now where he wants to release the entire unredacted Epstein files.
Yeah, and we're going to get a moment where hopefully we get to see which congressmen decide that they do not want that out there.
And that is going to be very telling.
So, I'm very excited for you guys to hear this conversation.
But, yeah, that is a great point.
We're really fucking awesome.
Was that the point that you were making?
We changed the Democratic Party, I think, is the point that you made for the moment.
Yeah, but it's like now you see so much of the Democratic Party that's echoing a lot of the sentiments that are usually on the right.
Yeah, right?
So, they're pulling over.
Like, I think you see Democrats like Roe is basically taking on the Epstein conspiracy.
Yeah, that's a right-wing thing that now the right-wing is trying to sweep under the rug.
So, Roe's like, you know, you're not going nowhere with that shit.
If you said it was a thing and you campaigned on it, let's expose it.
Yes.
So, I think Biden wanted to expose it.
I think he had all the files in his mind, and that's why they made him go crazy.
What would you do?
What would you do if someone had that level of incriminating information?
Should all the files in there make them forget exactly, bro.
Make them forget what they need.
Maybe we are as powerful as they think we are.
We changed politics, dude.
I mean, the White House did respond.
Yes, they did.
They did respond.
Awesome.
I told you.
The dumbest thing that the White House has ever done.
I just want to point this out.
Text him on the side now.
Never respond to us.
But I was like, just take a second to appreciate how fucking cool that is that the White House is saying your name.
That's so crazy.
He was like, he said something like, Andrew knows that life is better in America right now.
And I'm sitting there.
I'm struggling in my house in the Hamptons, looking at my pool with my daughter.
Your daughter's eating sand.
Yeah, she's just eating sand.
I'm like, I don't know if I can live in this America anymore.
I went to the store.
I got an $8 Arnold Palmer.
I was like, I don't know how I'm going to exist in this America.
Now, there was a moment when he said life is good.
And I was like, hey, you're not wrong about that shit.
But yeah, that's okay.
So listen, something we say now.
We expect an immediate response from the White House.
A precedent has been set.
If we talk about the White House, they fucking respond.
And if they don't respond, what do we do then?
Do another episode until they respond.
Fuck yeah.
Fuck yeah.
We don't stop.
We double down.
Damn, I wish we had a better response.
I just kind of lobbed up something with no remedy.
It was a volleyball net.
Anyway, boys, let's get to this.
Yeah.
All right.
Right now, we're about to be joined by the most dangerous ethnic group in America, White Podcast Bros.
These two guys have played a major role in shaping how millions of people understand politics, from Obama staffers to co-founding one of the most influential political podcasts out there, Pod Save America.
These guys are smart, thoughtful, handsome, vaccinated, and they're genuinely trying to make politics more honest and nuanced, which is refreshing.
It's good to see some other people out there doing that besides us.
Finally, right?
Okay.
Please give a warm, flagrant welcome.
We call him Johnny Favs and TV Tommy.
You guys can call him.
You probably already know him.
It's Jon Favreau and Tommy Glory.
We're doing the podcast, bro.
What's up, bro?
We're reclaiming it.
We're reclaiming bros.
How's it going, guys?
Guys, thank you so much for taking the time.
I appreciate you indulging me yesterday.
I hit up Tommy and John yesterday.
It was a bit of a media storm that happened after some criticisms that I had over Trump.
And I had him John, and I was like, John, like, can you am I off on this?
Like, what is the best way to handle like somebody that I voted for that is not living up to their promises?
I'm criticizing them.
And some responses are, well, yeah, you're a fucking idiot.
And I was like, I don't know if that's the best way to build a coalition.
What do you think?
What do you think about that, Sean?
No, that shit drives me nuts because I think, first of all, Trump lies a lot.
He's always lied a lot.
And it also assumes that every single person in America was supposed to be paying attention to like every single word that Donald Trump has ever said.
Right, right.
And which they're not.
But then, aside from all that, like you said, if you want to persuade people to join your coalition, which is how you actually win elections, then when someone says, oh, I'm disappointed in the person I voted for, you say, well, welcome.
Welcome to our side.
That's the smart thing.
Unless you want to just be right on the internet, which a lot of people just do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
No, no, no.
It is.
I don't know what it says about me, but when they were like, fuck you, maybe I have mommy issues or something.
I was like, I kind of like this.
I think I'm going back to the devs, guys.
No, what were we saying, Tommy?
No, it just drives me crazy.
I mean, like on the right, how dare you not say what the dear leader says?
Like, that doesn't track for me.
And then on the left, like, Democrats, we just need to understand that saying ha ha ha and scolding people and, you know, telling them that I was right and you were wrong.
That's so, no, everyone hates you when you do that, right?
Like, whether it's in life, whether it's in your house or a political party.
So we just got to welcome people.
And we also have to say to them, okay, what could Democrats do that would earn back your vote?
Because it looks like, and again, my assumption is the administration thinks that the Epstein thing is just an internet issue.
I'm really curious what you guys think, what the administration is thinking right now.
Because for them to so flippantly like throw it away after campaigning so hard to me indicates that they're going, this is on Twitter, this is on Instagram, it's not going to sway any of the voters.
It feels like it's a little bigger than that.
What do you think?
I think it's a lot bigger than that.
I mean, I think Akash nailed it on the last episode.
There's sort of two options here.
Either these guys were lying all along, Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, all these influencers, and were cynically using Epstein's abuse of what DOJ now says was a thousand kids to advance their political agenda, or they're covering something up.
And so I could understand good arguments for each side, but we do know that Bill O'Reilly recently said that he talked to Trump in March and he said, well, there's a lot of like good people who are in the Epstein files who are associated with him who didn't do anything sexually was the suggestion.
Epstein Files And Guilt By Association00:04:42
And he didn't want to put their names out there because that's unfair guilt by association.
So there's like a lot of smoke here that suggests there's something happening.
I think that they know it's a big deal in the administration, but there's just not a lot of good options for them right now because they clearly don't want to put out more information.
Right.
Or so there's they either don't want to put out more information or there's no more information to put out.
And either option leads to what Tommy was just saying that either they lied to us all along and we're exploiting this issue or that they're covering something up.
And so all they can do is move on, tell people to shut the fuck up and get back on board, all the MAGA influencers and everyone else, and hope that there's, you know, just wait for the news cycle to move on.
But like, I just don't think that, I don't think that's going to work because, you know, conspiracies or questions based on scandals that are all you have to do is say, like, are they covering something up?
Is there more info?
Like, that goes on forever.
Forever.
You know, like, there's no, there's no stopping that.
And to your point, and I've addressing what Tommy said earlier of there's a lot of names that would just be there.
It'd be guilt by association.
I'm going to be honest, if you are hanging out with a person who was convicted of pedophilia in 2008, you are guilty by association.
Yeah.
Like, if you, if anybody in this room was a convicted pedophile, I'm not hanging out with them anymore.
Yeah.
I don't know what else to tell you.
I'm not staying at your fucking brownstone on the Upper East Side.
Like, I can pay for my own plane ticket.
Also, guys, tour dates.
I'm going to be in Kansas City August 1st and 2nd, August 8th and 9th.
I'm going to be in Toledo, Ohio at the Funny Bone, August 22nd and 23rd.
It's a lot of fucking Ohio, huh?
Liberty Township, September, September 11th through 13th.
Let's hope it on bombing those shows.
Dania Beach, Florida.
Bunch of other dates on my website at Akasing.com, but also the Akash Singh Show drops this week.
We are trying to work out our first episode with Runbir Alabadia talking about everything he went through.
He is currently, I think, right now in front of the Supreme Court.
So we have to be a little delicate with when we drop it, but I'm very excited for you guys to see it.
I think it's important for anybody who's anti-censorship, etc.
Check out the first episode of the Akash Singh Show this week.
I love y'all.
It's going to be on my YouTube channel, youtube.com/slash Akasyncomedy.
Love y'all.
What's up, guys?
Mark Yagnon here.
I got some tour dates for you.
If you want to skip forward, dude, I'm not going to stop you.
You know what I mean?
I completely understand.
It happens.
All right.
Suck his dick.
Suck his dick.
That's not bad, honestly.
It's not bad.
It's not bad.
I bet it.
Actually, it is bad.
Don't do it, okay?
Because this Saturday, New York City, on July 19th, I'm going to be doing Alice's show at the Hard Rock.
Come on out.
It's going to be.
Absolutely.
Suck his dick, guys, come on.
And then I'm going to be in Stanford, Connecticut, Hoboken, New Jersey, Levantown, New York, Chandler, Arizona, San Diego, Burlington.
I'm also going to Canada, Toronto, Montreal, a bunch of other days.
Detroit is in there, and we're adding some time.
I'll see you guys at the show.
God bless you all, and peace be with you.
And like Mark said, this Saturday, July 19th, New York City, Times Square.
Suck his dick at Hard Rock Casino, Times Square.
We have a happy hour.
We have comedy.
We have an after party.
I have to come have a good time.
Wait.
Cancel Comedy X on Instagram, link and bio.
I don't know if you guys saw the clip that's going around now of this Fox interview that Trump did in 2004, last summer.
I just saw whatever clip you said to me.
He's doing this interview with Fox.
And what we all saw on television is Rachel Campos Duffy, who's the Fox host, former real world contestant, married to the transportation secretary now, Sean Duffy.
She asked Trump about declassifying the Epstein files.
And what everyone saw was Trump saying, yeah, yeah, I would.
But turns out they edited the video.
And the rest of his answer was played like much later on Will Kane's radio show.
And his full answer was, well, yeah, that one's a little more complicated than the Kennedy files or other or January 6th because, you know, you don't want to tarnish people's reputation if they're just mentioned, you know, a few times here and there that doesn't have to do with anything else.
So that was last year that Trump said that.
And then they just decided to edit it out, which I've been reliably told by Trump is a huge election hoax for a media outlet to edit an answer like that.
Broken Promises And Housing Woes00:14:25
So I'm sure a settlement with Fox will be forthcoming.
Do you think his base is going to just let this go?
No.
No, I don't.
I think there's kind of like a couple categories of people.
Like I think there are some folks who genuinely kind of fold into like the QAnon set of beliefs where they believe sincerely that there's kind of a cabal of evil, mostly Democrats who are child abusers who run the world.
Like there's people who sincerely hold those views.
There's also people who are just like, what?
You know, like you said you would do this.
you pro like pam bondi in february promised us that you would she was reviewing the files none of this makes sense and now you're just insulting us and i think like what's interesting about this this scandal is it's like the megan kelly types like traditional fox republicans are mad the tucker carlsons of the world are mad and then alex jones is really mad it's like it runs the gamut how how do you guys handle when I mean, I imagine you guys feel very comfortable being critical of your own party.
Do you, are you delicate about it?
Do you feel like you have to be even more critical?
Are you ever concerned that like you guys have so much influence that your critiques could sway voters away?
Like, how do you hold your own party accountable?
It's basically what I'm asking.
I mean, you know, about a year ago after the debate between Biden and Trump, we sort of immediately after the debate said that it was fucking awful and that Biden should seriously think about whether he needs to stay in the race.
And, you know, we weren't too popular for a while.
But like in that sense, look, there are some times where Democrats fuck up and like, I agree with what they're trying to do, like the underlying policy behind it.
Right.
And so there, when it's just about execution or like fucking something up here and there, then I'm more like, well, I agree with the goal.
I agree with the policy outcome here.
So I don't want to be like, I don't want to just be shitting on everything.
But with something like the Biden debate performance, I was like, look, we either, he either drops out of the race and we give ourselves a chance to beat Donald Trump or we have Donald Trump as president again, which I didn't want.
So like, of course, I'm going to criticize Biden.
How'd you feel about the lack of primary?
Sorry.
I mean, for a reelection, it's kind of standard.
But look, I mean, I struggle with this one a little bit, right?
Like, obviously, after the debate, it was self-evident that he was not up for a reelection or four more years.
And saying as much was just like, it was stating what was obvious.
What I struggle with was, to be honest with you, like before Biden ran in 2020, I felt like he was too old to be running at that point.
I felt like I kind of, you know, we, we were a little, we were pretty critical of this campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire when he took like fourth and fifth place.
And then he won South Carolina, won the nomination and won the presidency.
And I was like, you know what?
Maybe I'm just a fucking idiot and I don't know anything about politics and I'm wrong.
And so then when he decides to run again in 2022, I was like, this doesn't feel right.
All the data is telling us he's too old.
But like clearly he had made the decision at that point.
And so I was like, I don't know.
Well, if I had to vote for one over the other, I would have ended up voting for Joe Biden because I agree with him on the issues.
But now I think about in hindsight and I was like, you know what, maybe I should have just been louder then.
Like I don't think they would have cared.
They didn't give us an interview for four years because we were critical in that 2020 primary and they held a grudge.
Oh yeah, they hated us.
They're not happy.
I don't think that I think on the primary issue, like I kind of blame the other Democrats who could have run but didn't, you know, like people haven't taught.
Yeah, like, look, you could, I mean, I get that when it's an incumbent president, it's rare to have a primary challenge in a presidential.
It's also even rare for that primary challenge to succeed.
And if you run against Joe Biden and he ends up being the nominee and wins the presidency, like the party's not going to look at you kindly.
So I get the calculation that goes into that.
But ultimately, if Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer or Pete or any of those folks decided to primary Biden, they could have done it and they chose not to.
And they made a calculation about why that wasn't good for their careers or why they wouldn't be successful.
And that's fine.
But like, you know, they could have done it.
And I like Pete, but I assume you were working with Biden for four years and you probably saw the cognitive decline well before that debate and you still chose not to primary him, which is a little disappointing, I guess.
You make an interesting point about like, if you support the underlying policy that you're trying to implement, even if you fail in the implementation, the idea behind it is right.
And I think that that's like an issue for Trump right now, where he has a lot of people that are like concerned or disillusioned because a lot of the things that he was promising weren't really policies.
Like releasing the Epstein file, Epstein file isn't a policy.
Ending foreign wars isn't a policy, right?
Like I guess reducing government spending, there are ways that you would attempt to do it, but maybe it didn't happen.
But like some of these things are promises that are very difficult in execution.
Like it's almost like I don't really begrudge Trump not being able to convince Putin in one phone call to be like, I'll just give Ukraine back the Donbass region.
Like this is hard geopolitical diplomatic shit.
And so maybe there is a version of like over-promising and under-delivering, which no politician has ever done in history.
But I just, I just wonder like what a base does there.
And then how can Democrats that feel like they actually can serve that base, not just bringing over voters that are pissed?
Because I don't think those are like real, that's a real coalition, but like actually, how can you serve these people?
Because it feels like the Dem party right now is a little bit fractured.
There's like this new guard that's kind of rebellious and exciting and it's gaining a lot of steam.
And then it feels like the old guard is trying to do whatever they can to kind of consolidate power.
Is that what you guys are seeing?
Yeah, I mean, look, the leadership of the party is really old.
We have a real gerontocracy party in the Democratic, a real gerontocracy problem within the Democratic Party.
I think the status, the last eight politicians to die in office were Democrats.
Right.
So that's, that's not good.
Cool record.
We, we, like, look, the two of us sitting here, we, we worked for Obama.
We could tell you a lot about people feeling like you bring back Obama.
Can we just convince him to come back?
Everybody loved him, even though they didn't.
They did.
Yeah, they, but like at the time, you know, there were a lot of people who were very disappointed by him.
They felt like he ran on being anti-war, right?
And he ran on ending the war in Iraq, but he sent more troops to Afghanistan.
There were a lot of drone strikes.
There were a lot of controversial counterterrorism policies.
There was Libya, Syria, like a million things, right?
That people were understandably mad about.
And I still, I have a lot of sympathy for people who govern because campaigning is a lot easier than governing.
Governing is fucking hard.
There's events that happen.
You don't control them.
Like the Arab Spring happens and it just changed everything we did for two years in the Obama administration and Benghazi happened, right?
So there's just like cascading events.
I do think, though, like Trump is in a real Trump has just flip-flopped on so many things.
I mean, you guys talked about this.
It was not just Epstein, it was the Iran strikes.
I mean, today it sounds like he's going to send weapons to Ukraine again.
So there's a lot of things royal in the base here.
And even with Israel specifically, it looked like he was taking a hard line with Bibi.
And then I don't know if it was his ego, like he just couldn't let that mission that was so successful that they did go on without feeling like he was somewhat in control of it.
I just don't understand the impulse, but it seemed like he seemed like he gave away so much diplomatic currency by saying, yeah, I was actually negotiating with them, but I was with Israel the whole time.
It's like, well, now anybody else you negotiate, what do you think they're thinking?
They're wondering if they're going to get their fucking window blown open, right?
Like, yep.
I think with Trump is he doesn't necessarily have an ideology.
He has a bit.
And the bit is he identifies something that people are pissed about.
Yes.
He tells them who's at fault for it.
He then says, all right, I'm going to fix it.
He tries to do something to fix it that may or may not work.
And then he just claims victory anyway and hopes to move on to the next thing.
And he doesn't really think about like the long-term consequences of what he promises or what he says because he's just trying to win the news cycle, right?
Like he's just trying to get to the next day because that's all, that's how he thinks.
He's like a, he's a TV guy.
How can we get Democrats to do that more?
That shit feels good, guys.
It does feel good.
It does feel good.
But then you get, then you get fucked when you actually get into office.
And that's what's happening with Trump now.
He makes promises to like two different groups of people, promises that are like opposed to each other.
You can't possibly do both of them.
And then, you know, you get into office and now you're fucked, like, end the war and end the war in Ukraine in a day.
Or like, I'm not going to add to the, I'm not going to add to the deficit, but I'm also going to extend tax cuts for like the richest Americans.
Like, you can't do both those things.
I mean, you can do the last thing you said, and we'll just look the other way.
But, you know, listen, we're doing all right.
It's a nice podcast, dude.
But yeah, the first thing is horrible.
Okay.
The first thing is disgusting.
Yes.
I mean, I do think Democrats can learn from Trump.
He understands the sort of new attention economy.
He understands the internet.
Like, we should try to do the things he does and emulate those.
Like going to McDonald's was a genius move and serving people food, right?
It just was.
But I didn't answer your question about what the Democratic Party should do.
Like, we have to provide an alternative that is better.
And I want it to be anti-war.
Like, what if when you authorize military force, you have to vote on it every year?
It needs to be at sunsets after 12 months.
Great idea.
Or else, right?
Because, or what about we should be for working people?
We should lower taxes.
We should have better schools.
There should be a make childcare affordable.
We need a broad reform agenda that is not just about Washington.
There is that part.
It's like, don't take lobbyist money, but also no congressional stock trading, lifetime ban on these fucking congressmen becoming lobbyists.
And then there does have to be something about this gerontocracy issue because like I really do think we need some sort of term limits for congressional committee chairs or something that allows fresh blood to circulate up so those people end up running.
Yeah, if you can't hold your head up, like Schumer's head is coming out of the middle of his chest.
So I feel like if you don't have like the neck strength to hold your head up straight, then we got to yank you out of politics immediately.
Yeah, you can't be like doing a video where you're like hunched over in your chair yelling about Trump tackling.
You know, like that's not going to fucking break through really well.
But I do think like, and you guys have talked about this too, like Trump has these ideas that are just, they're policy ideas in theory, but they're also just easy to understand.
So it's like build the wall.
Oh, yeah, I get building the wall.
And you guys talked about Mamdani, right?
Like everyone who just paid attention to that race, even a little bit, you know that, you know, he wants to freeze the rent and wants free city buses, right?
Like those are just easy things to understand.
And I think sometimes Democrats, when we come up with our policy agenda, it's like a 10-point plan and it involves fucking refundable tax credits and no one knows what the hell that is.
And you just got to make the policy ideas both bold and simple to understand, accessible for people.
And then you actually got to have a plan to make it to pass it, right?
Like you can't just promise a bunch of shit and then not be able to do it.
It doesn't matter how well-intentioned your idea is or how helpful it is if you cannot communicate it to us in a way that is digestible and enticing.
You know, freeze rent is amazing.
I don't even rent.
And I'm like, I like, can I freeze my mortgage?
Like, I want everything frozen, right?
Like, it's now.
The question I have for you guys is: you've seen like the rise of Mondani, obviously, in New York, and pushing certain policies.
And you talk to different people about how easily they will be executed.
You know, I have some guys, you know, friends of mine who are in real estate, obviously biased, but they'll say certain things like the downstream effects of this are going to put us in the same position we are right now.
I'm sure you've heard of like the ghost apartment situation in New York, which is downstream from these like rent freezes.
I think there was like a 2019 law passed that said that you, once you were rent stabilized, you couldn't ever move away from that.
So then these landlords just never renovated the apartments and now they're just sitting there bacon, et cetera.
Of the of this like rise in the Democratic socialist side of the party, like how effectively do you think they will be able to administer some of these changes?
Or do you think some of this is kind of similar to Trump in that like it sounds really great, but it won't be able to be implemented and then the people will be kind of frustrated?
Yeah, my biggest worry about Momdani is that he's not going to be able to deliver on the big promises he's made.
And because I think I think part of it is not just not because of him, just because of the job itself.
Like he's going to have to get approval from Albany on raising a bunch of taxes and stuff like that.
And so if you don't have that, then you have problems.
The housing issue, like where I am on this is rent freezing does sound great.
Ultimately, you're not going to solve the housing problem without building more housing.
And I think like more housing, more supply is probably a more important thing to get done than just freezing rent because you freeze rent of people who are already in there and then they don't leave.
And the real challenge is what about people who don't have a place to live, who can't afford to even rent an apartment, who can't afford to buy a house?
So you actually just need to build a lot more housing.
Now, what I like about Mamdani is I think having listened to him a bunch of times, I think he's more reasonable than his critics suggest and he's more like willing to like compromise with people and like find ways to get stuff done.
And I do think he knows that he's going to be judged on whether he actually improves affordability in New York.
So like, does he get the rent control thing done?
Does he get the free city bus done?
We don't know.
But can he point to a whole bunch of things he's done after a couple of years in office and say, well, look, rent, you know, affordability, people can afford to live in New York now, or at least they can afford to live in New York a little bit more than they could.
And I delivered on that promise.
So I do think that delivering on the promises is, I worry about that for him more than I worry about, oh, he's going to become some radical leftist who destroys the city.
What if he delivers on none of the promises, but agrees to go to Israel three times in the first year?
God, I cannot believe this election has become about that.
Delivering On Radical Promises00:04:54
I mean, I would also say...
It's crazy, right?
It's so fucking stupid.
I mean, he, look, he, I, talking to his folks, like, I don't think they think the general election is a done deal.
The numbers get complicated.
It's not.
Look at that.
Yeah, polling.
He's at like 40% in the polling.
There's Eric Adams running that Cuomo is going to run.
There's this Republican guy.
And like, he's got some work to do, like older African-American voters in particular.
I think kind of like normie Jewish voters, normie Democrats in Manhattan.
I think he's got some challenges.
And I think you can solve that through politics, through conversations, like going to a ton of synagogues, meeting people, talking to them.
Because, you know, Andrew, I remember what you said about kind of the awakening you had about anti-Semitism after October 7th.
Yeah.
And just, yeah.
Well, just that, like, my wife's Jewish, like, we have a lot, had a lot of similar conversations.
And just that feeling of like seeing people celebrating a horrific massacre of innocent people and how shocking that was and how frightening that led people to feel unsafe.
And those feelings have not gone away for a lot of people.
At the same time, I think the war in Gaza has become this humanitarian catastrophe.
Abomination.
Abomination.
Morally, strategically, everything.
Awful.
So two things can be true, but I do think he's going to have to talk to these folks who sort of had feelings like you did and say, look, you know what?
Upon reflection, I realize that globalized antifada hits a certain way for you and it's hurtful.
And I'm sorry.
And like, that's not something that's okay.
He's going to have to figure out a way to localize the intifada how politics it looks.
I think it's halal goes back to $8.
Does that count as localize the intifada?
All right, guys, listen.
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What about you guys?
I think I'm mostly Bitcoin too, and I think I've been doing okay.
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Yeah.
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No, I doubled down on Epstein coin and it's crushing right now.
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They shouldn't make that.
I don't know what that's going to be.
You know, they don't ever show you the results of that.
Yeah.
Trump said that there's actually no coin.
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What did I put all my money in?
This is crazy.
And then now you're pretty much break even, right?
Yeah, I broke even.
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All right, guys, let's take a break for a second.
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Inclusion Versus Political Slander00:12:43
Now let's get back to the show.
I think you make a great point.
And like, I mean, it is, it is just so tricky because I, listen, I'm not even Jewish.
Everybody thinks I'm Jewish.
So I get all the anti-Semitism, right?
So like it's real.
None of the benefits.
I don't get any of the IQ.
I don't get any of the hedge fund access.
I just get the anti-Semitism, you know?
So it's like, so it is out there.
It is 100% real.
And I think that there's just, there's obviously tons of people who are anti-Semitic.
I think there's also tons of people who like really feel for what's happening in Gaza.
And then they conflate like believing Israel should exist with believing you should just keep bombing Gaza.
And I think it's, it's hard for a lot of people to even like separate that issue.
Like we're all sitting here right now and we're just going like, hey, this has been going on for two years.
It's rubble.
They're kids dying.
Their adults die.
Like it's not just kids.
It's like everybody's fucking dying.
So that needs to stop.
You could think that, but also be like, I don't think that we should fucking attack Jews in this.
Like there's videos of people just chasing around Hasidic Jews.
Is it funny?
Yeah, but it's wrong.
You know what I mean?
It's not funny.
But yeah, there has to be, there has to be, there has to be a space.
You know, there has to be a space.
I need to see the video before I decide if it's funny or not.
No, no, it's, it's, no, it's just, it's, there has to be a space for the conversation, and we can't just immediately throw around anti-Semitism whenever people disagree about an independent nation's policy that we are actually supporting.
Right.
So yeah, how do you guys, how do you guys, what do you think the best way to handle that is?
Do you guys, do you guys get criticism when you take a hard line on that?
Like, what is...
Oh.
The head of the ADL called me an anti-Semite in a New York post op-ed like a week ago.
For saying what?
Because I said that B.B. Netanyahu had dragged the United States into war with Iran.
I said Trump got forced.
He got duped.
He got duped.
Right.
Netanyahu started a war and he knew that to blow up the Fordo facility, he needed the U.S. to do it for him.
So I'm not sure that just seems like a statement of fact.
He decided, this guy, Jonathan Greenblatt, decided that was anti-Semitic.
And what upsets me about that is it is weaponizing a very serious problem, which is anti-Semitism in this country.
You try to silence your political opponents.
And it makes me viscerally angry because my daughter goes to a Jewish preschool.
And when I drop her off, I go through like six, seven layers of security.
Security guards, guys with guns, right?
Like I understand on a personal level, like where this fear comes from in the Jewish community.
The suggestion that me criticizing Trump or BB's Iran policy makes me an anti-Semite, makes me so angry that like I want to lash out about it.
Right.
And so it also numbs people to the word and it's not a word we should be numb to.
Yes.
And people should be able to figure out the difference between like criticizing a government and criticizing a policy and criticizing people's religion and their ethnicity.
I mean, even like when, you know, it always bothers us when you criticize Trump and then Trump and some MAGA people try to be like, oh, you're anti-American.
You hate America if you criticize me.
It's like, no, I fucking love America.
I just don't like you running it.
You know, like that is this.
I mean, it's similar to the criticism of Israel.
Like, I think the Israeli government's making a horrible mistake.
You know, I think it's been a fucking catastrophe.
But also, like, people have to have, I also think, principles that are universal.
So it's not hard to say, like, yes, the killing of innocent civilians, men, women, and children, is horrific, no matter who does it.
Treating people differently because of what they believe, whether they're Muslim, Jewish, Christian, whatever, is wrong.
It's just like wrong across the board.
And you should just be able to like, if you're going to have a principle and feel that strongly about it, it just has to be universal.
It has to be across the board.
There's a sentiment.
I think that's like beautifully said.
And I think that's what most people actually feel.
And I think what often happens is when you throw around these pejoratives, like when you call everything anti-semitism, when it's really not, it's like a criticism of government.
You'll keep talking about it, right?
Because you guys have a platform.
You also like maybe will deal with the slander or whatever it is.
Most people won't.
Most people got a regular job and they're like, I don't want that label.
And then they just be quiet.
And then what it does is it forces the conversation to the extremes who are the people that don't care if you call them anti-Semites because they're like, yeah, I'm an anti-Semite.
They just say it blatantly.
So now Nick Fuentes is the one controlling the conversation on something that should be a lot more nuanced, probably.
So I wonder why Greenblatt doesn't see this.
I mean, he's got to be aware of what the downstream effects of using that word far too much are.
I think there is a belief that you can silence critics and police their speech.
And I think conversations around Israel-Palestine have been some of the most policed conversations and policies in Washington for a very long time.
And like someone like me or John or Ben Rhodes, a guy I do a foreign policy podcast with, like we would be excommunicated from that city if we ever tried to get like a Senate confirmed job again because of comments like this.
And a lot of like kind of careerist strivers in Washington see that.
They clock it and they kind of, you know, play within the 40-yard lines.
And I think that's a huge problem because it leads to policy blind spots.
I think that is a big optics problem for Democrats in that I think there's a certain underlying moral superiority within the Democratic Party that we are the morally superior party.
But then we see you be very silent on these atrocities, not you guys, but like these institutional Democrats.
And I think a lot of modern people are very put off by, you're telling me you're so morally superior, but you're clearly for sale and have an agenda.
And that makes me very put off by this entire party.
Well, and this goes back to when Andrew got criticized for this is what you voted for, which is, it's this feeling that like, obviously Trump is bad.
Obviously his policies are bad.
Everyone should know that.
Everyone should know that he's a racist, horrible, whatever.
And if you don't, then fuck you, then you, then you deserve what you get.
And like that might be satisfying to certain people personally, but it's not going to move the ball forward.
And like, we got to think like, what's our ultimate goal here?
Is our ultimate goal to just be like right on the internet?
It's so selfish.
Or is the goal to like pass policies that we deeply believe in that are going to improve people's lives?
Because if that's the goal, then we're going to need to have a bigger coalition than a bunch of like white liberals.
Yeah, I've never there's, there's a, it's just so selfish.
And it's just like, it's clicks, views, attention, pats on the back, but it gets you nowhere.
There's no like, what about the midterms?
What about the election?
I mean, in that same conversation where you're like criticizing Trump, you're also tacitly encouraging the DSA.
And like, if you're someone that is a fan of Mamdani, they see someone like you like encouraging like, you know, Democrat socialists, like, why would they not jump all over that and say, finally, okay, we got this guy on our side.
Like he's, he's coming around to what we believe in our agenda instead of letting their ego get in the way.
It's just like such terrible policy.
It's, it's, I've never seen, I don't know.
I feel like there are people that grift all over the place, right?
But like it is the equal and opposite grift.
Like there's the Trump grift for sure.
Everything Trump does is right.
And you go along with everything he does and he's playing 4D chess and all this.
And then there's the everything Trump Does is wrong grift and you get the same views, but it's not real, right?
You satisfy that like primal urge in people.
And I understand people are frustrated.
I get it.
That's totally fine.
Like I'll meet you where you are emotionally 100%.
But I don't like this claim that they're actually trying to like make the world a better place so they actually care about where this goes.
It's like if your view, if your video gets 5,000 views, I promise you'll never mention it again.
And if it gets a million, you'll talk about it nonstop for the next two months.
Like, let's just be honest about what it is.
Everybody's clocking each other's shit and they're just writing the exact same headline.
I saw it happen over the last two days.
It's like, none of you guys care about building anything.
That's where the Epstein stuff came from, I think, because a lot of people like Bongino and Kash Patel kind of started talking about it and it built and built and built and it got them a following.
I think Bonnie too.
I think Bondi got caught up in like, I think she kind of wanted a moment.
She's like, I'm trying to build myself a larger career here.
She has bigger aspirations.
She's like, it's on my desk without really understanding what she meant with it's on my desk.
Totally.
But yeah, she brought in those influencers and gave them the buying.
What the fuck is that about you?
Yeah, stupid.
To tie it back to what you guys are saying, and I'm harping on this with you because you have such a powerful voice within Democrats.
But like in my lifetime, I've never seen a party, political party as obsessed with excluding people.
And the irony is Democrats seem to love talking about inclusivity.
Ad nauseum.
Inclusivity, inclusivity, inclusivity.
But if somebody steps out of line from what we want them to say, fuck you forever.
You are, you have no chance of redemption.
How do Dems fix that?
Well, one thing, I mean, look, I think there was a huge problem among Democrats that was particularly a few years ago about not having conversations with people we disagree with.
Like I got invited to go on a barstool show.
I said, no, I don't think I can do that, man, because like my audience would get upset about some things Portnoy said.
And I think back to that and I would, I'm embarrassed and I'm mad at myself because like, how am I going to speak to that barstool audience if I don't go on those shows, right?
So that was fucking stupid.
I'm embarrassed about it.
And we're course correcting.
I think a lot of Democrats are doing similar course corrections.
You saw it when like Bernie endorsed or Rogan endorsed Bernie and Bernie put out a press release about it and he got attacked by a lot of Democrats about it.
So I think we're learning from those mistakes.
I do think there has to be, I do think we're kind of a more motley coalition of diverse voices than the Republicans are right now.
Like I guess I would just push back a little bit on the idea Democrats can be annoying.
We can be scoldy.
But I think sometimes like it's online mobs more than the party.
I was going to say, like, I actually think Democratic politicians in general have been good about this and have only gotten better, especially since the election.
But I think what, you know, what people experience when you're paying attention to the news or you're following politics is the influencers, the people online.
And look, Trump, as we're seeing with the Epsom files, Trump just like just doing everything, just letting the base drive him wherever he wants to, and overpromising, like that's going to get him into trouble.
And I think that the challenge for Democratic leaders and Democratic politicians is to push back on shit like that when people aren't being inclusive and people don't want to build a big tent.
I remember like Sarah McBride, a first trans member of Congress, when Mike Johnson and Nancy Mace tried to do that bathroom bill to like prevent her from using a bathroom.
And, you know, she responded by being like, well, I'm going to follow the rules, but I didn't come here to argue about these issues.
And I'm going to try to make people's lives in Delaware a lot better.
And a lot of like online activists in the trans community just like attacked her and still attack her to this day.
And it's like, this is the first trans member of Congress.
And like imagine sort of the burden on her shoulders.
And what she's trying to do is say, you know what?
Sometimes we need to be more inclusive.
Sometimes we need to focus on, she's not picking the fight.
And so it's like, why are you criticizing her for that?
Because like that, that fight might make you feel good.
But what she's trying to figure out is both how to make sure there are more trans members of Congress and also even more importantly, how to make sure that she delivers on the promises she made to the people who put her into office in the first place.
There was when Pete came on the pod, he told this great story about like, I think he like first started dating his now husband or something like that.
And there was this woman like worked in his office and she was like a, you know, I think maybe a little more conservative religious woman.
Right.
And she said something to him like, I met your friend and he was, he was very polite or he's very nice or something.
And he met her where she was emotionally.
He knew that for her to say that, it was a much bigger leap than the average person that would just be like, I'm so proud and you're so brave and all this other like, yes, queen shit.
Like he was able to recognize what that meant for her.
I thought that was like very emotionally intelligent, right?
He could go, what do you mean, my friend?
He could scold her.
And I think to what Akash is saying is like that sentiment, and maybe it is online.
Like, I think the sentiment is like Republicans.
It's like, you could fucking shoot someone in the head, but if you're like, listen, I believe in small businesses, they go, all right, he's a good guy.
And then with Democrats, Democrats, it's like, I believe in trans rights, gay rights, black rights, but Asians shouldn't go to Harvard.
You're like, what the fuck are you talking about?
Genuine Connection Beyond Ads00:07:27
All it takes is one thing.
And then online, at least the rhetoric is you're scolded and you're out.
You're right.
Like Trump saw a political opportunity by welcoming RFK Jr. into the fold.
And all of a sudden, there's a prominent Democrat named Kennedy who's a cabinet secretary.
So he's been a genius on that front for sure.
And Democrats, you're right.
Sometimes we have like a laundry list of things and you don't check all the boxes.
We don't allow you in the tent.
I do think the solution here is getting back to Obama era politics.
Like he was actually. brilliant about this and emotionally intelligent about this because he understood that he just like tried to connect with people on a human level and he understood that people would misstep and that people had different views about race or abortion rights or things or maybe said things that offended him.
But if he could connect to them or make them think that he was going to help their lives, he could get their votes.
And it was, I think that's the right approach.
Okay.
Do you think that still works though?
Because we see the way Trump handles things and clearly he appeals to a lot of people and he's not, he doesn't give much grace at all.
Yeah.
He doesn't.
I mean, look, I think part of the challenge today, too, is the sort of information environment and like all of the incentives to our earlier conversation about the attention economy just pull you in the direction of simplicity, of yelling about things, of being like really strident, making everything black and white.
Yep.
And, you know, it's you hear, you know, when you hear like Pete on your podcast, or I just, you know, listened to Gavin Newsom for four hours on Sean Ryan's podcast, like you hear in a space like that, you get all the complexities and the nuance and you'll hear politicians be like, oh, I didn't like this guy when, or this girl when I like saw them on TV, but now like, you know, they're a little more complex than I thought.
But television, social media, like it doesn't allow for that.
And so I think Democrat, it's easier for Trump because Trump's message is, well, I'm just going to burn everything down because you're all pissed and I get it.
And so I'm just going to tear the whole system down.
And that's like an easy message to get across.
And the Democratic message is, look, we have to work together with this very fractious coalition and this like very diverse country to sort of build something together that's going to be better for people.
And that's like, you know, people are fucking bored already just hearing that sentence.
Yeah, we're the earnest fucking losers.
It sucks.
Like we're in this mummy Democrat space where we're like, actually, we think government can be good.
And the reason I don't think there's a ton of conspiracies is because mostly people are incompetent and they can't keep secret.
You know, it's like boring, lame answers like that.
And it's like, yeah, the burn it down stuff is fun.
There's a, I know you guys got to go in a few minutes, but two things.
One, Viter, I know that you're a Kenyan college graduate.
My dad went to Kenyon.
No way.
Wow.
Wow.
And his good friend and I believe roommate at part of time there was a guy named Paul Klugie.
Did you take any of Kloogie's classes?
I know the name.
I absolutely know that.
Kind of a legendary there.
So I thought maybe you might take it, but we're all good.
And then separately from that, who is, I know we have like a couple minutes here.
So who do you guys think that you would like to see?
I was going to ask that.
Yeah.
Who would you like to see run at this point right now?
Who do you think has the juice and who you think could execute the plan and bring some people maybe that the Democratic Party lost back over?
And you can give a couple of aims.
It killed Yahya Sinwar.
I'm going to be very honest because I've now been through a couple of cycles where I've, you know, regretted listing off a bunch of names that didn't go too well.
Like there's no one right now that I think could be, is going to be like a winning presidential candidate.
That does not mean that all the people mentioned that are often mentioned can't like grow into becoming an excellent candidate and ultimately an excellent president.
Like that's what campaigns are for.
And a lot of people grow during a campaign.
But right now, I just think it's tough.
And there's a lot of, there's a lot of Democrats out there who are, they look like they're always like just reading the stage directions.
Here's what we're supposed to say.
And here's the, here's the right message that'll work.
And I want more of these candidates to, you know, sit down on shows like yours.
Or like, here's my advice to them.
Like when something in the news happens, when there's a development, before you look online, before you watch TV, before you ask your staff about it, just like stop and think about how you feel about it.
Like what is your genuine reaction to what just happened?
Write it down and then start there.
And if you need to like, you know, massage the language and this or that because your advisor tell you that's fine, but at least start with what you believe in your gut.
And I feel like because Trump has won twice now and we've been through a decade of this, people have just stopped trusting their instincts, which I get is understandable.
But I think people at least need to go back to trusting their instincts because you could be wrong, but that's much better than just bullshitting your way through it, which people can tell immediately.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like the two things that I think I'm in a similar place.
Like there's no one, if I, there's no one who I would quit this job for right now and go work on their campaign.
There's no one like kind of like, you know, getting the heart going.
I do feel like it's more likely to be someone from outside of Washington because even after Trump, I still think there is just such a high distrust in institutions and the establishment and just frustration with the status quo.
And by the way, you're seeing that like everywhere.
It's not just the United States.
Like in Germany, they just had an election and among young, like you track this, the AFD, like young men went to the AFD and young women went to the far left parties.
And they all said, fuck you to the establishment.
Spain right now?
In Spain right now, you're seeing the exact same conversation about immigration that we're having right here.
Yep.
Like, yeah, so you're seeing it all over the place.
So may I ask why AOC wouldn't necessarily captivate you guys?
I'm not even being critical.
I'm just curious.
Look, she does captivate me.
I think she's like one of the best messengers in the party.
I think she's genuine, authentic.
I think that because she has had many years in the public eye, opinions about her from people who don't pay close attention to politics are still pretty polarized.
She's got the curse and the blessing of almost 100% name ID, which means that a lot of people have formed opinions of her.
Now, can she turn those opinions around to like win purple states in a general election?
I don't know, maybe.
But I think that it's tough.
It's, you know, it's tougher.
But like, who knows?
She at least, you know, she's at least genuine and very inspiring.
Yeah.
I mean, I didn't mention her just because I don't think she's going to run, but I do think she would scratch a lot of like important criteria.
One is just social media fluency, like knows how to communicate with people in 2025.
And it can't just be like, you know, ads on jeopardy or whatever.
And also just authenticity.
Like the fact that she was a bartender, sometimes Republicans make fun of her for that.
That is like the best part about her.
She's a human being.
She had a job where she worked with her fucking hands.
Like when Obama was elected, he and Michelle had just paid off their student loans.
They lived in a little condo.
Like they were normal people or like the closest thing to normal you could be when you get elected president.
And I think it's got to be someone like that that feels connected because in 2016, the voters were telling us like, we're sick of the establishment.
We're sick of Washington.
And we were like, hey, here's Hillary Clinton, a person you've known about for years.
Voters Sick Of The Establishment00:04:35
He's had a lot of people killed.
Not Epstein yet.
Yes.
Okay, okay, before you go, because I know you got to go.
You guys both worked intimately with Obama, big Obama fans over here.
Can you give us an Obama story?
Ooh, just a fun little Obama story.
Anything.
I'm trying to think of a good.
Can we tell this guy's colour?
If you don't want.
Can you just cut this guy's name?
So a good thing that you just said, by the way, the name of the name of the name of the name.
Yeah, got it.
Gotcha.
That is kind of tough on the record.
Okay.
A good friend of ours was in the car with, I think it was then Senator Obama.
And it was like two younger guys and him.
He's like, so who are you guys dating?
He asked the first guy.
And then this other friend of ours was in the back.
And he's like, so, like, person, who are you dating?
And our friend goes, I'm gay.
And he's like, yeah, you got game.
You got game.
And he's like, no, no, no, I'm gay.
And you can't be like, yeah, you got game.
No, sir, I'm saying that I'm gay.
And he's like, oh, well, there's lots of cute guys.
I love that Obama was just so happy and accepting that there is clearly for a moment someone with severe autism in the back of his car.
I got game.
I got game.
Anyway, boys, thank you so much for taking the time.
I appreciate you guys.
I wish you the best of luck.
And we got to get you in studio when you're in New York.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Cheers, guys.
Thank you, so much.
Thank you.
All right, guys, before we get to this Rokana conversation, I want to talk a little bit about a fight this weekend that I'm very excited, but also I'm almost like sad about.
So Dustin Porio and Max Holloway are fighting this weekend, and this is going to be Dustin's last fight.
Yeah, dude.
That's, oh, that's sad.
I have a suspicion, though.
I think if he wins in convincing fashion, it's not his last fight.
I think if Dustin wins, he challenges Ilya to Poria for the belt.
They give him one more.
Like if he wins in like devastating fashion, it's really exciting.
He's still the UFC's biggest star right now.
Like him and Max are probably the biggest stars.
Yeah.
And I think it'd be one more shot at the title.
Also going up against Ilya.
Ilya's coming up in wait.
They're both strikers.
Dustin has amazing hands.
He always does well against guys who can strike.
Now, Max, on the other hand, is just Max.
He's fucking all he's a dog.
Like they fought once before.
Dustin won.
But, you know, when Max came up in weight and then knocked out Gage.
Yeah, that was crazy.
That was crazy.
So, and Max's incredible hands.
It's going to be an amazing fight.
They're just both fucking unbelievable competitive.
But like, if Max wins, then Max fights Ilya again in 155.
I don't know.
A lot of cool shit happened.
What do you guys think?
Because part of me, if I'm Dustin, I mean, this is how I know I'm not Dustin.
Is that if I win, I'm just walking off.
You know, you just hang it up.
You get to leave a legend.
Like, you do a whole thing.
You know, you put your gloves in the middle of the cage, call it a day.
But I just think Dustin, you know, if you win, you're like, yeah, fuck it.
Let me get the belt one more time.
And then if you lose, you're like, let me do one more.
You know what I mean?
Like, I don't know how you walk away from that.
No, it's, it's probably, yeah, it's just probably the most exciting thing in the world.
And everything else is so mind-boggling boring.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's like an adrenaline rush.
It has to be.
Right.
Like, yeah.
But yeah, you need to do something like dangerous.
You need to skydive.
Imagine someone's like, hey, it's going to be your last show.
And you do an arena.
It's the greatest show you've ever done in your life.
Yeah, we're going to do another show.
Yeah, we'll do one more.
But then if you bomb, you're like, well, I can't handle that.
You know what I mean?
So no matter what happens, you just go to literally just.
You can't keep stretching it out.
Oh, that's brutal.
There's not really a risk of CTE with performing at an arena, though.
Yeah, that's true.
That is true.
It's very minimal.
But also, if you've been getting, you know, you've been fighting guys for 20 years, you're like, yeah, fuck.
I got it.
What's it?
Max was like, yeah, I don't know.
I just like fighting.
He was like, not even before he was a fighter.
That's what impressed me with Gage.
I was, you know, you interview these guys.
You really get worried for them.
And I was like, worried when he was fighting Gage.
Like Gage's biggie.
He's going to throw hands.
And again, I'm very casual, but I was like, this seems like a scary fight.
And then Max just kind of dominated that fight.
So initially, I'm scared him fighting Dustin, but I don't know, man.
I guess you can't ever underestimate this guy.
Yeah, Max is a dog, man.
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Now let's get back to the show.
But that's not all, folks.
Today, we are also joined by a complete anomaly, a politician actually fighting to release the Epstein files and end pointless wars.
Stopping Super PAC Votes00:15:22
I once described him as not only a congressman, but a dish.
We are very excited to speak to him while he's still alive.
Give it up for Rokana, everybody.
Love it.
Thank you so much, first of all, for being here.
I know that you have, you know, the techno-feudalists, the tech feudalists or whatever they're called, are ringing you left and right, trying to push agendas in.
So thank you for squeezing us into your time.
And you have a beautiful plant over your right shoulder.
I just want it.
Thank you for your dish comment has become folklore in my family when you ask, you know, what is Rokana?
What kind of dish?
So it becomes now like a running joke in my family.
All right.
Well, when we all retire and we open like a small Punjabi Hindu restaurant, then we can decide what goes on the menu.
You didn't say what you, you know, don't say chicken tikka masala.
That's not answering.
You got to pick a dish other than chicken tikka masala.
Yeah, like I got like a Lamb Rogan Josh or something like that.
There you go.
Okay, that's now.
So now I know you've been to an Indian restaurant.
What is this guy?
What is this guy talking to?
That's what he got.
I grew up in his village.
I'm in the heart of India.
My favorite thing is halvapuri, which I'm sure Akash knows.
Halvapuri?
Yes.
No, I've never had halvapuri.
Halua, like the sweet thing?
Yeah, the sweet thing.
You got alooz, halva, poor.
I've never had that weird shit in my life, dude.
Well, whatever you're having an Indian officer, I like it.
Come on, you eat that.
He's in Jalinbi, dog.
What are you doing?
What is the thing that said you look like a galab jaman?
Galab jaman.
Yeah, yeah.
I look like a galab jaman.
Those are fighting words.
It was a compliment.
It was a nice thing to say.
It was on his wedding.
I said, you look like a galab jaman with teeth.
He said that about young me, which is accurate.
That's true.
That is true.
He was a little kid.
He was adorable.
He was pudgy.
He had beautiful teeth.
Anyway, dude, let's get to the important stuff.
You're about to, you know, show how many of our congressmen are pedophiles.
How does that feel?
Well, look, it's a pretty simple thing.
And to me, it's whose side are you on?
Are you going to be on the side of the rich and powerful basically getting their own justice?
Or are you going to be on the side of people who were participating in this being exposed?
And I don't think it's a partisan issue.
We should just release these files.
People say, well, why didn't you do this earlier?
And I didn't do it in the first Trump administration or Biden administration.
But the reality is you now have had the Attorney General tell the whole country that there's a list.
And you had the president say that he's going to release it.
So it's now become bigger than the Epstein files.
It's an issue of trust.
Like people feel that the rich and powerful are their thumb on the scale.
They're screwing folks.
Life is hard.
This has now become an issue of trust.
What do you think about the list?
Do you think it exists?
Do you think there are powerful politicians and businessmen on that list?
What are your specific thoughts?
Yes, I think it exists.
I mean, I think, look, I don't know if there's a specific entries of here are the people who went to Epstein's Island, but I think that there is evidence suggesting that there are a lot of powerful and rich people who were on these plane rides, who frequented some of these parties.
And, you know, the standard at the DOJ is you don't release information unless someone is charged.
And I get that.
Like, I get that you don't want to destroy people's lives.
But this has become way too big.
You have accusations now of intelligence agencies involved and national security involved.
And so the president, like he campaign, should just say, in this case, we're going to release everything.
We're going to protect the victims, but we're going to release everything so the American people can decide.
Can you explain what the amendment is, essentially?
Because you're proposing an amendment, right?
Yeah.
And what would that make Congress do exactly?
So basically, if the amendment passes, it would require Pan Bondi to release the list and any evidence, any files within 30 days.
But before that, just proposing the amendment would make each congressman go up in front of Congress and say whether they're pro-releasing it or against releasing it, right?
Absolutely right.
That to me is the most interesting thing because then you get to see who's in the pocket if there is a pocket to be inside of.
Totally agree.
But the secret, the dirty secret in Congress is it's not how you vote.
It's what we're allowed to vote on.
What does that mean?
Meaning that the speaker is going to try to probably stop this from coming to a vote.
So I introduce it.
Today's Monday.
I introduce the amendment.
And on Monday night, the Rules Committee of Congress meets.
It's like the high priests, right?
There are about nine people on this committee, and they get to decide whether Congress even gets to vote on my amendment or not.
Can you tell the good people right now that are watching, hopefully millions, who those nine people are that get to decide whether or not we get to see if Congressmen and Congresswomen are supportive of releasing the Epstein file?
Who are those nine files?
Let me get the exact names.
I'll just look at.
Do it.
Look it up.
Take your time.
Look it up right now.
The rules committee is basically appointed by the speaker, but here are the...
Take your time.
There's no rush here.
I just want to know who is accountable, who is responsible.
Because it seems like a pretty benevolent thing to do, right?
We'd like to know this information.
The chairperson of the rules committee is Virginia Fox from North Carolina.
Okay.
And you've got Jim McGovern, who's the ranking member.
He's on the Democratic side.
And you've got Representative Michelle Fischbach from Minnesota, Representative Ralph Norman from South Carolina, Representative Chip Roy.
I hope Chip votes for this.
And Chip's usually for transparency.
He's a pretty independent-minded guy.
He's from Texas.
You've got Aaron O'Shian from Indiana, Nicholas Langworthy from New York, Austin Scott from Georgia, Morgan Griffith from Virginia, Brian Jack from Georgia, Joe Nagoos, Teresa Lager, Mary Gay.
So these are the people.
Is there anybody else or is that it?
No.
Okay, so these are the people that decide if we get to know which Congresswomen and men would like the Epstein file to be released.
These are the people they get to decide because it can't even go to the vote if they don't decide that it's worthy to be presented to Congress, right?
You're absolutely right.
And most people don't even know this.
I mean, they just think, okay, Congressman gets up and you file an amendment, you file a bill, people should be able to vote on it.
But there's this committee first that the speaker appoints.
It's always nine people from the majority party and four people from the minority party.
So the majority has it stacked in their favor and they vote on whether your amendment, whether your bill can even get a vote in the Congress.
And a lot of times they allow Democratic bills to get a vote.
But in this case, you know, I have my doubts.
So I'm going to on the floor to make the speech.
I'm talking to some of them individually.
And I'm hoping they'll just.
There is unanimous support in the United States of America for releasing all the information around the Epstein files.
I can't fathom.
I mean, you brought up an interesting point, which is like, if you're not charging somebody with a crime, releasing their information, there might be some sort of, I don't know if it's a breach in your civil rights.
I'm not exactly sure what that would be.
Like, if somebody's associated with something, but there isn't an allegation against them, what could that do to them and their life?
Could they argue this sets a dangerous legal precedent and try to hide behind that?
Yeah, that is, I think, what they will argue.
You know, they'll say, look, there are hundreds and thousands of people who may have been caught up in an investigation.
They may have gotten money from Jeffrey Epstein.
They may have run into Jeffrey Epstein and a fundraiser.
They may have had an email or a phone call or something fairly innocent.
He may have funded a university program.
And so now by putting all this out there, you're potentially harming their reputation.
As a general matter, I agree with DOJ policy that you should not, if you're just investigating one individual, leak stuff before you charge them because the government then would be way too powerful if they could just do that for folks before they charge that.
But in this case, where you have got the entire country outraged at a government that may be protecting the rich and the powerful, where you have got national security implications, where people are asking whose side are you on, I think the president should say, I am making an exception because of all the stakes.
We're going to release all the information.
We're going to exempt the personal information of the victims.
And I trust the American people to decide that we're just going to get it out there.
And are they people who are fair enough?
They're not going to be like, okay, you showed up to some fundraiser with Jeffrey Epstein, and that means you're a pedophile.
I think people are capable of taking this information and making a reasonable conclusion.
Do you have confidence that your bill will actually come up for a vote if you have the president telling everyone, hey, this is all news.
Let's move past it and focus on other things.
No, I don't, because I think that's, you know, if it was that easy, we wouldn't need to do podcasts or something.
You know, the sad reality is when it comes to reforming things, D.C. just doesn't allow votes.
Ban PAC money.
Oh, we don't need to vote on that.
Ban super.
We don't need to go to war.
Massey and my bill, right?
Like we were, we, Massey's a great Republican, independent-minded.
We do the war powers resolution saying, you know what, we don't need to be spending billions of dollars bombing Iran, having more troops in Iran.
And by the way, come to Congress before then.
Well, let's just not vote on Cona and Massey's bill on war powers.
The game in D.C. is not that they vote things down.
It's they don't even vote at all.
Wow.
I don't know.
That's interesting.
I wasn't aware of that either.
I think so many Americans were just like ignorant to the actual system.
We think we understand it because we learned in elementary school, but we don't really understand what it takes for a bill to get there.
And then why is a person like you, like I was doing some research on you and you've never taken any PAC money, but why is a person like you impervious to the effects of these super PACs?
Like a Bernie, for example, is also impervious when there are all these other politicians that seem absolutely petrified of pissing off the super PACs.
Well, I'll just give you a candid answer.
Look, I represent a district of Silicon Valley, and so I have a lot of people who are more affluent there, and they can give individual contributions.
It's easier to raise money.
Bernie is very principled, but he was a national figure.
And so when you're a national figure, you get a lot of people who are willing to give you $10, $15.
But if you're in a district that is not affluent and, you know, like you probably didn't recognize the names of any of the 13 members of Congress I said, and no one knows who you are, then it's very difficult to raise money in this system without the PACs and without the lobbyists.
So I don't have some holier than thou attitude.
Not like Rokana.
Yeah, I don't take PAC money.
I don't think supermarket money because I can.
The problem is the system.
Now, how do you fix the system?
Ban super PACs.
Summerly and I have a bill to do that.
It's, by the way, constitutional, even under Citizens United.
I don't want to get too in the weeds, but think about this.
Elon Musk, right?
He can spend $250 million on a super PAC, but he's limited to only giving $7,000 to a candidate.
So just have the same limits on super PACs as you have for candidates, and that would ban super PACs.
And then you should ban all PACs and lobbyists from giving money.
And you should allow, I've said that we should have this thing called citizen dollars, your democracy dollars.
Everyone gets $100 that they can spend on election campaigns.
Every voter is a donor.
But you need some broad campaign finance so it's a fair system.
And who are the politicians that currently stand in the way of executing those ideas?
That's not a list of 13 names.
I know you're going to have to just name off Congress, but I think it's important that Americans understand who the people are that are in the way of the things that we want.
Because I think right now we just go, oh, it's government.
Oh, it's politicians.
And there's this blanket statement.
And then there's a few of you that sprout up and you seem like these rogue figures.
And if you don't have a lot of support and backing and a social media presence, it's very easy to make you guys radioactive.
We saw it happen with Bernie.
It's definitely happened with Thomas Massey.
Like it's very easy.
And I imagine a lot of that money comes in through those super PACs, right?
So I think that kind of transparency is important so that when politicians vote against the will of the people, we are aware of it and we can vote them out.
No, totally agree.
So as a start, you know, there are about 10 of us who don't take any PAC money or any lobbyist money.
People should be asking the members of Congress to join that group of no PACs and no lobbyists.
But to get this vote on ending super PACs, again, it comes to this rules committee.
Are they going to allow a vote on the amendment to end super PACs?
And they aren't.
What is it realistically going to take to get that through Congress?
Is it going to take a president getting elected who starts making any big deal or what?
Is there a way?
You know, the reason I supported Bernie Sanders is because he was actually going to fight this stuff.
I mean, that's what was a co-chair of his campaign because he would have gotten on and he would have gone from the Oval Office or whatever.
And he'd be like, let me tell you, here are the people on the rules committee.
Here's why we're not getting a vote.
And I'm going to actually push this thing through to get a ban on super PACs or get a ban on money.
But you're absolutely right.
It's going to take a president.
And the reason it's going to take a president is otherwise people campaign and then they don't pay attention to the details.
So every Democrat will say, okay, we want to ban super PACs.
And let's say we get the majority.
Then are we actually going to be putting a bill to ban super PACs?
Last time we did.
It was called HR1 when Biden was president.
The House passed it.
And then the Senate couldn't get it passed because of the quote-unquote filibuster.
That was Manchin, Cinema, a few other people who didn't want to pass it.
But you need a president basically putting sunlight on all this and calling out people by name who are standing in the way of these bills getting passed.
And then there's the same pressure that essentially the super PACs are applying.
When you have a president that has That much sunlight, as you said, that and then you see kind of Trump do it all the time.
If somebody's going against him, he's basically blatant.
He's like, Yeah, we're going to primary you guys.
He's putting like the fear of God in these people, right?
But that's essentially what the super PACs are doing, right?
So, if we don't like it when he does it, then we shouldn't like it when the super PACs are doing it.
Yeah, just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's okay.
And we also don't even know who like runs the super PACs.
I mean, there's this like veil of like obscurity.
Like, I have no clue who the what would you call them, like the managers of the super PACs?
Who are these people that are in these like unelected positions that have so much power in our democracy?
Yeah, what are their interests?
I don't even know.
Yeah, they don't want you to know.
They don't want you to know.
It's like it's like old school people.
It's like it's you know, Elon is like uh, he comes from money, but now he has like you know, real money, right?
And he wants everybody to know, and he's flexing and he's he wants to shape the world and his vision.
Old money, they don't want you to know who the fuck they are, you know what I mean?
Like, I don't even know if Rothschilds exists anymore.
I just, you know what I mean?
Like, I never met one.
I was told Jay Electronica was dating one at one time, and that could be totally fake.
Anderson Cooper's at Vanderbilt, his last name is Cooper.
Switch his name.
I mean, I don't get it.
So, so I think that like, I think it's important that Americans understand the people with the controlling interests in these super PACs that have this unbelievable amount of power and sway in our democracy.
I mean, that are really kind of like stripping or stripping our influence as voters.
They really are.
And probably at more at the level of Congress and Senate than even the presidency because the presidency, everyone kind of tunes in.
And yeah, the money matters, and the awful super PACs matter.
And by the way, it happened on both sides.
Let's not kid ourselves.
I mean, Kamala Aaron's raised $1.5 billion.
Oh, 100%.
Yeah, this idea that Kamala's campaign was all small donations is complete bullshit.
I mean, she spent, but no amount of money would get her elected.
Like, it could be a trillion, but nothing, nothing would ever get her elected.
There's not even a lot of people.
If the election was again today, with Trump's betrayal and some of this Epstein stuff and the war, don't think she would lose.
Yeah, she's that bad.
No way.
No, no, she's that bad.
She's that bad.
Because, and I'll tell you why, because I've thought a lot about this.
Come on.
If and because I got recently like that, like we got like a lot of shit over the last couple of days, right?
Because we're on the pod and we're like, all these things that Trump are doing are none of the things that he promised during the campaign.
Like he said he was going to showcase, you know, what happened in the Epstein situation.
He campaigned hard on it.
You know, Boncino and Cash campaign.
His son campaigned hard on it.
They really campaigned hard on this thing.
Ending the foreign wars was a big part of what he was saying.
That hasn't happened.
It seems like we're still funding him.
It seems like Israel does whatever the hell they want to do.
We're still just turning Gaza into rubble.
Kids are fucking dying.
So it's like Ukraine seems like we're going to send more money over there.
Shrinking the budget, not expanding it by a few trillion dollars.
So like all these issues that I think were important to us, right?
That we wanted to see executed.
And he was making those promises.
And all of a sudden, he seems to be flip-flopping all those promises.
So naturally, we're going to criticize him.
We're like, well, this isn't what we voted for, right?
I thought that was great.
You're calling balls and strikes.
Yeah, because you're smart.
You're talking about your dad about the New York Times and how he had the scrunched-up New York Times every day.
So I guess what I was saying, what I was saying to people is like, if I wanted to vote for somebody to not release the Epstein files to continue the foreign wars and to expand the budget, I would have voted for Kamala.
The reason I didn't do that is because I didn't want that.
So my issue with Trump right now is he is doing what Kamala would have done.
Look, I think it's like, I mean, you can't tell me that Kamala is going to release the Epstein film.
I think the only difference.
I didn't do it.
The only difference is green card holders aren't getting deported, which is a big deal.
I'm not talking, but I'm talking about immigration.
I'm agreeing with you.
Most of the big things that we had a problem with would be status quo, whether Kamala won or Trump won.
It would be the exact same tariffs.
We don't actually know the economic impact yet.
And then green card holders, which is an issue.
But the big stuff that bothers us as a country is still going to be an issue of common sense.
Yeah, I just think, yeah.
So it's like he's basically running as like an institutional old guard Democrat on these issues.
He's not doing that.
There's a new wing of the Democratic Party that wants to get rid of the old guard.
It's the Bernie wing.
And we've said no dumb wars.
And that's just not about Iran.
I mean, Bernie and I led to stop the war in Yemen.
We were vocally opposed to the war in Iraq in 2003.
There's a wing of the party that says get rid of these super PACs.
We shouldn't have super PAC money.
We should go kiss up to billionaires and celebrities and raise the most super PAC money.
There's a wing of the party that is out there trying to get Medicare for all and health care for everyone and that wants to reduce the deficits.
I mean, I came out with a plan to reduce $12 billion of deficits.
But I think the only way the Democratic Party gets credibility is to call out the old guard and to say, you made a lot of mistakes and we need a new party.
Hey, welcome.
Welcome to the show.
Mark decided to show up today.
I feel so disrespectful.
Sorry, bro.
My apologies.
I'm on Indian Standard Time.
Please forgive me.
You'd be an hour later if you're running.
But yeah, not to distract, because I think that the point you're making is fantastic.
What keeps those new Democrats, sorry, what keeps them from making a real push?
Because in our opinion, we're idiots, but it seems like it somehow gets muddled with identity politics, and then that kind of takes over the discourse.
And then the new Democrats that can make real change, we aren't as captivated by.
Is that what you think, or is there something we're missing?
I think it's something much deeper.
I mean, there is huge financial interest against the policies that some of us are pushing.
I get booed when I vote against a trillion-dollar defense budget.
That's 56% of our defense budget.
If you pull up one of the clips, you'll see on the Armed Services Committee, it's like 67 to 1.
And everyone is like, Kana, Kana, you're going to vote for it?
And then when I vote, no, boo.
So the point is you're taking on the defense contractors when you're saying we don't want more wars in the Middle East.
You're taking on the Pentagon when you're saying you don't want a trillion dollars of defense budget.
When you say, okay, I want Medicare for all, you're taking on the PBNs.
You're taking on the health insurance companies.
You're taking on the hospitals.
When you say, okay, I want to release the Epstein files and I don't care which way that's going to go.
Why are more Democrats not speaking out about it?
Well, they're donors who probably want those files to be released.
And so then, so what game do the donors play?
They don't say, oh, Rokana is wrong.
They just say, you know, he's an unserious guy.
He's going down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.
That's not statesmanlike.
You know, we're above it.
We look the part of a politician.
And you know what people say?
Yeah, you look the part of politicians who've been helping out the rich and powerful and have corrupted government while people's lives are getting spoken.
The thing about the conspiracy is there's no question that I'm sure the internet has made the Epstein thing bigger than maybe what it actually is.
But where it already is is once convicted, pedophile.
We already know that that happened.
Sweetheart deal from the government.
And then Ghislaine is locked up for 20 years for procuring underage girls for him.
I think they said there's over a thousand victims.
So this is not conspiracy.
Like that to me is enough to get a little look under the hood of who else was in his circle, right?
Like if you know a guy was already convicted of being a pedophile, I don't know why Bill Gates is showing up to his house.
I don't know why the former Israeli prime minister is showing up to his house.
I don't know why Clinton's flying on a plane with him.
Like I imagine you vet the people you talk to.
I mean, you obviously didn't vet us, but I imagine most people that you talk to, you vet them.
So I think there is some curiosity like why some of these incredibly powerful and wealthy people would just look past the fact that he was a convicted pedophile.
You just said three things that most politicians aren't going to say.
They're not going to want to say, well, why did Bill Clinton show up or why did Bill Gates show up?
Because they're going to think, well, who am I offending?
Who may not support me?
Pretending To Have Viable Candidates00:17:27
And that's why our politics are in this mess.
And that's why you don't have more people on the Democratic side screaming right now to release these files.
But my point is, if we just get our credibility back, if we stop listening to the big moneyed interests, the donor interests, if we're actually a party against war again, if we're a party that stands for the working class and for the guy getting screwed, then maybe we start to win back the country because that's what Trump ran on, that we were getting into these dumb wars.
People's jobs were going offshore.
The government was taken over by too many corrupt interests that he was going to clean it up.
Because he hasn't delivered doesn't mean Democrats can just say, well, let's just go back to how things were.
No, people were pissed off.
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What is your advice for Democrats?
Like when you hear, like, I'm a lifelong Democrat, right?
I felt very disillusioned by the fact that like, I don't think we had a fair chance to actually pick a candidate for president in the past three elections.
Like, I didn't feel like there was a fair primary process at all.
You're right.
And I was really frustrated.
Like, do you think that's a fair assessment?
It's not only a fair assessment, it's a true assessment.
There was no primary process in 2024.
Bernie in 2020, I mean, I was the co-chair of his campaign after he won Nevada.
All the prediction markets said 70% he's going to be the nominee.
Then what happened?
Budijic drops out suddenly, two days later, even though he's doing well, endorses Biden.
Klobuchar suddenly drops out, endorses Biden.
Beto drops out, endorses Biden.
Like, when does this happen?
It's like you're in a track and field race.
You got 10 people.
One guy's a little bit ahead.
And then every other person on the field just endorses the guy ahead so that he doesn't, he wins and the guy coming second doesn't happen.
It's like never in sports, you'd never allow this.
And yet that's what happens.
And that's how they beat Bernie.
So no, that was not a.
Why do you think they did that?
Well, they were afraid of what Bernie was standing for.
Bernie was talking about taking on big insurance companies, taking on the pharmacy benefit managers, taking on the defense contractors, taking on Wall Street from buying up single-family homes.
He was actually going to fight to end super PACs.
He would have not just said, oh, yeah, I'm for a livable wage.
He would have called out senators saying, you know what, that senator is not for raising the wage and voting against it.
What do you think motivated the other people that were running to just drop out and support and endorse Biden?
They get promised a cabinet position.
Right?
They get promised a piece of the pie.
They're like, okay, you're not going to run this time, but you run next time.
Don't let me put words in your mouth.
What do you think?
Yeah, look, they're good people, but they say, look, you can run in the future.
We're going to make you committee chair.
We're going to make you in the cabinet.
We're going to make sure this is good for your career.
And then they appeal to, well, Bernie Sanders couldn't win.
Do you really want Donald Trump to be president?
I think what Al is asking, and maybe you answered it already and he's not.
We had Pete on the pod.
We really loved him.
We thought he was awesome.
You named him as one of the guys who dropped out.
Do you feel like he's a little bit compromised having dropped out or no?
I think that's what he's trying to get at.
Look, I don't think he should have dropped out and endorsed Biden.
I don't think that that was a fair process.
I think you should have just allowed the process to play out.
And in my view, there were a lot of people who voted for Bernie who were upset about it.
But then it's not just that.
You've seen this bombing in Gaza going on with Netanyahu.
You know, I voted against giving the extra funding to Netanyahu.
It's one of the reasons that some of the interest groups have targeted me because I don't think, yes, I think that October 7th was horrific and Israel had a right to defend themselves.
But after three months, they had destroyed most of the Hamas battalions.
It's been two years later.
Yeah, absolutely.
Now, that was really brilliant.
What you did is evading the Pete answer and then taking us to something that we cannot argue.
That was good.
That was slick.
Indian respect.
Very good.
But did I not answer Pete?
It's not a yes or no.
I'm going to be honest.
What I was saying, though, is that more people in the Biden administration, others should have called out what was going on in Gaza.
And I figured with Pete was not, yeah, that he dropped out.
I disagreed with it, but I was getting back to Pete, is that he and others should have been calling out this unconditional money going to Netanyahu.
Absolutely.
I just find that it's kind of funny that like the last few days we've been lectured by a lot of staunch liberals who pretended that the person they voted for wasn't dead for four years.
Like they pretended Biden wasn't senile for four years, and we're getting lectured for criticizing the person that I voted for.
Like, I think they're pretending they had a really viable, awesome candidate that we all should have voted for and not just acknowledging you.
I mean, I don't get it because they think you platformed him.
We talked not even that.
It's just they're like, you should have like, you should have known better.
You should, this guy's a career con man.
He just always lies.
You should have known.
And it's like, no, Dom, that's why the Democrats lost.
It'd be like, look, it'd be like I represent Silicon Valley.
It's like, let's say there's the latest version of the iPhone.
And people are like, you know what?
This iPhone really isn't good.
We're going to go buy some other phone.
And a bunch of people at Apple sitting around saying, you know what?
They're really stupid.
They should really like the iPhone.
Guys, we got to tell them why they should like the iPhone.
As opposed to saying, you know what, this iPhone really sucked.
Maybe we got to look at our in the mirror and change our party.
It's not the Democratic Party is not entitled, Andrew, to your or Kasha or anyone's vote.
It's not like, okay, just because your dad read the New York Times, you better vote for the Democrats for the rest of your life.
Yeah.
Earn your vote.
And the reality is we didn't earn your vote last time.
We were in these overseas wars.
We were taking big pack money.
We weren't talking about people's anger at the system with inflation.
We didn't have a clear economic vision.
People didn't feel us.
And so, okay, they voted.
And Gaza was going on.
And we didn't even allow a Palestinian American to speak to the deep state.
And so, you know, we could keep having more of the same.
We keep putting up these status quo folks and we can keep losing, or we can realize that people are angry in this country at both parties and we got to take on the establishment.
I haven't figured out if this is a good thing or bad, and I want to get your opinion on it.
So I feel like Republicans, even if they disagree, they all fall in line.
If Trump says, hey, I want to do this, they fall in line.
With Dems, there's fractured.
You say old guard, new guard, and you guys disagree quite a bit.
Do you think that's a good thing for the party or a bad thing?
Well, it's a good thing.
I think the Republicans disagreed a lot in 2016.
They had this guy, Donald Trump, who basically went on the stage.
Jeb Bush was supposed to be president and he said, Jeb, you can't even call the Iraq war a mistake.
And he transformed that party.
He insulted Nick McDonnell.
He insulted Jeb Bush.
He said, all these people don't know what they're talking about.
They got us into these wars.
They're talking about cutting Social Security.
No one liked him in the party.
But he stuck to his guns.
I think the Democrats sometimes were too polite.
We're not willing to call out our leadership.
I got in so much trouble because I said Chuck Schumer was making a mistake by not allowing a war powers resolution vote on the Iran deal.
They're like, how can you criticize the Senate majority leader of your own party?
I think what people want is for folks to just call balls and strikes to be blunt.
We love that.
Dude, I'm tired.
I'm tired of the cult of politics.
Like, I'm not some fucking Democrat cult member, Republican cult member.
Like, we're supposed to be free Americans that can make up decisions on our own, call balls and strikes, as you say, and then hold the people in power accountable.
When people fail us and fail us on the promises they make, we should criticize them.
Like, what is the alternative?
We just vote and then agree with every single thing that person does.
I love Obama.
I voted for Obama.
I didn't vote for fucking drone strikes of a wedding.
You know what I mean?
Like, maybe you wait to the honeymoon or something, like, target him.
You know, like, wait till they've been married five years.
Do it a favor.
Do it.
Say for February 13th.
You know, so it's like, you should hold the elected officials accountable.
And we live in this like weird time where any measure to hold them accountable comes with immediate criticism.
Experience as a politician, or I guess we experience it as, you know, for whatever people thrown in this, you know, political mess.
But there has to be a version, I think, also where, as Democrats, like this is a democracy.
You want votes, you don't have enough.
You lost last time, right?
You want to win this time?
If you see people that seem to have swayed over to Trump that are now disillusioned with Trump, you have the opportunity to build a coalition with those people.
And you don't build a coalition by just going, hey, fucking idiot.
Why would you stupid fucking, that's not how you build.
Totally agree with you.
I think we've got to listen to people.
And I agree with you on this point.
Like, we can't cancel people.
We need to have free exchange.
We've got to respect people.
But it's got to be much more than that.
You know, the Democratic lesson is like, okay, let's not make people put pronouns on their emails.
Fine, but it's much deeper than that.
The problem in the country is you've got a Democratic party that was too beholden to the interest groups, to the defense contractors, to the ideology of overseas wars, to not pushing for real reform.
And if we run as a status quo party and like, you know what, America is already great.
Yeah, of course we're great.
But you know what?
Half this country, half this country has a declining standard of living.
They can't, they don't think their kids are going to do well.
You're making a great point.
And I think that the identity of the Democratic voter and the Democratic Party are quite separate.
And I think the Democratic Party is a little bit split.
Obviously, you have the Bernie side, which it seems that you're a part of, and then you have like the old guard side as well.
But I think the Democratic voter doesn't believe that his party is tied to these billion-dollar corporation and special interest groups.
I think that they believe in their heart, like I believe my entire life as a Democrat, I was like, I'm here for progress and making sure people's lives are easier and better.
And I want to help as many people as possible.
And once I think Democrats start realizing it, that's actually not the priority of the party.
That there are military contracts that need to get paid, that there are pharmaceutical companies that need to get paid, there are insurance companies that need to get paid.
And those places are going to strip your ability to implement that progress that you want so bad.
The second they start realizing that, I think they probably lean more towards a Bernie or more towards you or guys that actually have that at their heart or their identity.
But there is a major chasm.
Like they think that the Republicans are bought, but not the Democrats.
And it's like, they're bought too.
There's a major chasm and there are people who want to silence that chasm.
Oh, you got to, bro, how can you be talking about the divisions in your own party when we got Donald Trump?
Just focus on Donald Trump.
And what I'm saying is, people are tired about the focus on Donald Trump.
Do you think there's a single thing I can say to any American about Donald Trump that's going to change their mind about what they about Donald Trump?
That's a great thing.
The guy's been on the it like there's not a single thing I can say to my whole family about Donald Trump.
We had this exact thing.
It's like there was a you know when we had Trump on people like why didn't you ask him about Epstein?
I was like, so he could give the same answer that he's given a hundred times about being with Epstein.
Like do you think that if we asked him about Epstein that he'd be like yeah, I used to fuck kids with him.
Like you do think he's just gonna open up because he's hanging out?
It's gonna be the same answer every single time, right?
So yeah yeah look, obviously I oppose very strongly what Akasha is saying, where he's deporting people without due process.
We stand up to that.
But you know, what we also have to do as a party is say, you know we, we hear why did the guy get elected twice?
It's because people are totally livid at the government.
I think sorry, sorry to interrupt, and and a very important thing I think for both parties to understand and I think you're seeing this happen a lot with, like the Democrats is, Your compass is not very wide for the things you're used to, right?
Like, I don't need to try pizza in that many different places.
I know pizza.
I'm from New York, right?
But a wild food in Singapore, I'm absolutely going to be open to and I'm going to try.
And I think what happens with like institutional Republicans or Democrats, we're very, we're very rigid in what we'll accept for them because we don't expect much.
The outsider that's presenting these ideas that are wild will indulge in because we need some form of change.
And I think that's like why a momdani is so popular right now in New York.
It's like, I know the institutional Democrats, the Cuomos, are not going to do anything different and my life isn't going to change at all.
So I have a lot of, I have rigidity with them.
But with this complete outsider, maybe there's hope.
Maybe there's an opportunity that things can change.
I think that's probably what a lot of us thought with the Epstein files with Trump.
We're like, yeah, maybe we'll get to see, we'll get some justice for a thousand underage girls who've been victimized.
That'd be really fucking nice because they're campaigning on it.
And then when he goes, we're not going to see it.
Yeah, we have every right to be frustrated by that.
I think people would be shocked at how similar the thought process that leads someone to vote for Donald Trump is to the thought process that leads someone to vote for Zaran Mamdani.
No, the thought process is almost identical, I would bet.
And one thing that frustrates me as someone who probably leans liberal, but would love to lean more is there's one party that you would think really preaches empathy and understanding people, and it's the Democrats.
But when it comes to voting for Trump, there is no, not even an attempt to understand what makes over 50 or over half the country, whatever the exact percent is, vote for that guy.
They're not all idiots and disenablers and whatever other awful adjective you want to throw at us.
Just some of us.
Just some of us.
Some are, no, some are for sure.
There's a percentage that are.
Look, I'm not saying if you vote for Trump, you're racist.
But if you're racist, you're probably not voting for the Democrats.
There's plenty of racist.
There's plenty of anti-Semitic.
But there's an understanding of, okay, something made a lot of other people vote for him.
What was it?
They're not all bad people.
You can't just do that and feel better about yourself and expect to improve your party or, more importantly, the country.
And I think that's getting.
A lot of them are great Americans.
I mean, they voted for him partly because their jobs were shipped offshore.
What they see in Dietrich Langman, $14 trillion in Silicon Valley.
1000%.
Johnstown, Ohio, or Lorraine, Ohio.
They say, look, there are no factories.
Our kids are not going to have a good shot.
And then these politicians are sending billions of our dollars and getting into these overseas wars.
Career Politicians Lack Courage00:13:04
And this guy is saying, I'm going to stop these wars.
This guy's going to saying I'm going to bring back manufacturing.
This guy understands that I haven't had a fair shot in life.
And, you know, Rose family, they just got here.
You know, yeah, my parents are middle class, but metaphorically, a lot of the immigrant communities, they're doing really well.
What about you?
You built the steel.
You built this country.
You fought in the world wars.
If we don't understand that sentiment and understand that there's a righteous anger that a lot of Trump voters had, we're never going to start to win them back.
But the point is not just, okay, now let's go talk to them and say, you're not, you know, we want to listen.
The point is, what are we going to do?
How are we going to actually change things?
And what I think the test of leadership on both parties is to channel the anger, but then to put something forward that is actually going to solve people's problems, that is actually going to be solution-oriented.
I call it economic patriotism, that we should be having a thousand trade schools.
We should have investments in new factories across this country, a Marshall Plan for America.
We should stop putting trillions of dollars in overseas wars and start investing in this country.
But whatever it is, I think if you don't, if you start out with, we were great and Trump voters are just wrong, we're going to keep losing.
Yeah, I like that idea of investment in America.
And I think that that's very, I think it's very enticing to a lot of voters that just really feel partyless right now.
You know, and they're struggling.
And I think when you're struggling, I think when your life is pretty good, just calling someone else a bad guy works because you fear like your life could get worse.
When you already feel like your life is worse, you're just going towards hope.
Whatever has more hope works.
If you go, that guy's a bad guy.
He's going to make your life worse.
You're like, I already can't afford to eat and I already can't afford rent.
How much worse can this get?
That guy's telling me he's going to make.
200,000 new, what's it called, rent-freeze units in New York City?
I like that guy.
That sounds really good.
Who knows if he can do it?
But maybe there's a chance.
And I think that's why a lot of the Democratic socialists are like really resonating.
I see that popping up all over the country.
It's not just in New York City.
I can see that becoming incredibly popular.
And especially in the way that it's kind of like rebuking the traditional old guard Democrats, which I think a lot of us don't really, I feel like we kind of just don't really trust them right now.
I totally, totally agree.
And, you know, look, the first thing is just to say that the system isn't working.
Because if you're one of those folks who can't afford rent, who can't afford to buy a house, right?
That was the American dream.
You don't know if you're going to get a good job.
And then you're like, well, let's just keep throwing people out because why should I vote for the same thing?
That is worth.
And the American people have been doing this since I'd say 2004.
Nine out of the 10 last election cycles, they've just thrown the other side out because their life isn't improving.
And I think there's an opportunity not just to, okay, mimic Donald Trump or to mimic Momdani.
You get your own ideas.
You could have fresh ideas, but you got to start by saying the system is bad.
People are getting screwed.
Here's what we're going to do differently.
And then, you know, let's have a lot of new debate and new voices about where we need to go.
You had a tweet that went viral.
I don't want to misrepresent you, but it was you polled people about were Dems more upset about or attacking Mandani or attacking Trump's beautiful, big, beautiful bill.
And more people voted that Dems attack Mundani more.
I hope I'm not butchering.
What was your motivation for the tweet?
And why do you think we got those results?
Well, because one week after Mandani won, all you were hearing in the media is, oh, is this the end of the Democratic Party?
Is this some existential crisis with the Democratic Party because Mamdani has not condemned unequivocally globalized the Intifada?
Well, look, I condemn globalized the Intifada, but the point is that really, that's what you got out of the Mamdani election?
Not that the guy was out there talking about why the price of halal went from eight to 10 bucks.
He would talk about that.
That's what you took out of that campaign.
And then instead of talking about the stuff that Trump was going to do to take away health care and child care from working class families, you're attacking Mandani as the problem of the Democratic Party.
And people, the headlines were Democratic Party is existential crisis.
The 33-year-old kid getting elected because he did so media videos talking to why people's life suck is an existential crisis for the party?
I mean, come on.
And that's, I think, the frustration people felt.
And then, you know, then you get the, then I got attacked by some of the people in the establishment.
Bro, that's not true.
So, oh-and-so senators spent five, you know, five hours on the House floor and they would spend more time talking about the Trump bill.
That wasn't the point.
The point is, you know, what did it feel like to folks?
I mean, what it feels like to folks is that anytime you have a new voice, anytime you have someone questioning the status quo, the whole party gets uneasy and they come down at him.
I mean, the guy's going to be mayor and you still got these billionaires out there plotting about like how you keep Cuomo back or how do you get Adams back?
It just makes no sense.
Yeah.
Why is Cuomo not stepping down?
Like, who the fuck wants Cuomo to be mayor?
I have no idea.
I mean, it's like they don't know when it's time.
I mean, he's not going to win.
Adams is not going to win.
Mamdani is going to win.
He still does not have the endorsement of every New York Democratic leader, even though he won the primary.
And this is the problem.
Like, sometimes I think we think voters are dumber than they actually are.
Voters in America are actually pretty smart.
That should be the first, the first thing Democratic, the party should realize, going back to Akasha's point, is if you believe voters were smart, which I do, and they elected Donald Trump twice, then maybe you'd think, like, what are you doing wrong?
So voters are smart that you can endorse Mamdani and still not agree with him on every position.
Just because you endorse Mamdani doesn't mean that you agree with Mamdani on every single position.
And yet we're so afraid in this country.
That's the problem with the Democratic Party in one sentence, one word.
It's a lack of courage.
It's like they're so they're calculating.
So how do we pussy?
Yeah, that's what it is.
So how can we instill more courage in them?
Because it feels like the courageous Democrats are having a lot of success right now.
You might not agree with their policies.
I'm not saying you, but like the people listening and watching right now, but they are resonating and they're making waves.
So like, how do you, how are other Democrats not seeing that and then echoing those sentiments?
And furthermore, why don't you echo in, why don't you echo them courageously without the pejoratives?
Like it seems like the worst thing they say about Montani, they're like, he's a communist.
He's an anti-Semitic.
He's a socialist.
It's like, well, can you refute some of his ideas?
Like, if you have a reason why his new building residential development program is bad for the city, attack that.
That defend his idea.
Because as someone who lives in New York, I'd like to know why is rent freezing bad?
And there are arguments for why it is and why it eventually hurts the people of that city in the long run.
But let's attack the arguments that these people are making instead of just throwing these pejoratives around because then we still are, in my opinion, I think that we're untrusting.
Once we're just trying to cast people at certain things, I start to lose a little bit of faith.
Totally agree.
But put your own policies out of how you're going to build millions of new homes and how they're going to be either public homes or private homes.
Put out your ideas of what you're going to do instead of just labeling someone based on as a communist, which is just not true.
But you ask, why is there a lack of courage?
And I think it's pretty simple.
You got to be willing to lose to be willing to do something that's meaningful.
And you look at one of the reasons Trump and Vance won.
Look at how many years collectively they've been in elective office.
Trump, like five, and Vance has been like five years.
Now you look at the amount of years that Biden and Harris were collectively in elective office.
And the reality is the longer you stay in, people think, okay, I got to just say everything to keep my position.
Momdani didn't think he was going to win that campaign.
He just was like, okay, I'm going to have fun with it.
I'm going to say what I want.
And if you have that view, like, okay, I'm just going to say that we should release the Epstein files.
I'm going to, who cares?
I'm going to partner with Thomas Massey and I'm going to say no war in Iran.
Maybe I'll be right.
Maybe I'll be wrong.
People will be upset at me.
Maybe this is not the best way to get into the cabinet.
But you know what?
Maybe it resonates and maybe that it does lead to change.
And I just think that's what the Democratic Party needs more of, courage, willingness, actually a willingness to lose these all, a willingness to risk your positions of power.
That's a great way of putting it.
It's there are too many people that it is their goal to be a career politician.
And if it is your goal to be a career politician, then you will lose your courage.
You can't really go up against the party.
You can't really create noise.
You can't be rebellious at all.
And the people realize that and we see the inauthenticity in you.
And then when you see someone who's willing to buck the system, even if the ideas don't make sense on paper, it is refreshing because it looks like they're not beholden to a system that has let us down.
I trust your intentions, too.
But they do get skewered, though, because all of the most courageous Democratic politicians we can think of do sit on the periphery of the establishment.
Yes.
You know what I mean?
Like the AOCs or Bernie or Roe himself.
Like they kind of are at odds with the establishment and they get crucified for it.
Yeah.
No, and I, well, you know, like people are sometimes on Twitter will say, oh, bro, you should be speaker.
I could never be speaker of the house.
They wouldn't vote me for speaker of the house.
I've offended too many people.
I've broken too many glasses to be speaker of the house.
So you have to be comfortable with saying, okay, I'm going to take certain stances and I'm going to let the chips fall where they may, but this is what I believe.
And maybe there's a movement and it gives you, it makes you president, makes you cabinet.
Maybe you never get further.
But you know, you can go back and say, like, I tried to make an impact.
And the best leaders, in my view, don't just have the courage.
Then they actually have solutions that resonate.
So we don't, the part, the problem I had with Trump is like he had the rebellion.
He diagnosed every problem.
Like, yeah, jobs are going offshore, too many wars.
I just don't think he thought about deeply about the solutions.
Like, how are we actually going to get manufacturing back?
How are we actually going to take on the defense establishment?
And I think our party shouldn't just be rebellion without purpose.
It should be rebellion with a new vision, a fresh vision.
And let's have 10, 15 people with that vision, not just anoint.
The worst thing the Democratic Party could do is to anoint people for leadership in 2026 or 28.
Like fight, have more fight within the party.
Speaking of which, how do you feel about Gavin Newsom and the job he's doing out in Cali?
You just want me to talk, comment on every Democrat, huh?
You said you call balls and strategy.
You know, yeah, I'm going to, my phone's going to blow up after this.
They're like, you, you were supposed to talk about the Epstein files.
My team will be like, what the hell are you doing?
You know, I'm going to, this is the last time I'm going to be allowed to do one of these things.
I'll just jump kick it around.
Look, my disappointment, the biggest disappointment I had with Gavin, I mean, just, and I've told him this, was he ran on single payer in getting single-payer healthcare in California in 2018.
He said, we're going to do big things.
And then he hasn't supported the single payer bill.
And then when he had the recall election, there were a lot of insurance companies that funded the anti-repol effort.
And so, you know, I mean, that was my biggest disappointment.
We can, there are places I agree with him, but that was the place where I have the biggest criticism of him.
We might have to sit down with Gavin and see what's going on because I think that the idea from like a New Yorker, obviously, we're not as like entrenched in California politics, right?
But I think the idea from like the outsider is you see him in interviews and he's like, he's a really good politician, if you will.
You know, he seems authentic.
He seems earnest, but then the state is on fire.
So, so it's just like mainly the southern part.
So it's like, we just need to see if like what he says in interviews actually ends up being executed.
And at the end of the day, if you cannot execute your vision, you cannot do the job well.
And I understand there's limiting factors to this, but that's where the art of being a politician comes into play.
It's not just convincing the people, it's convincing those other politicians to get on board with your plans.
Executing Your Political Vision00:00:44
But look, bro, we appreciate you so much.
Thank you so much for your time.
We hope to talk to you more about this.
Stay alive.
Make your 2028 announcement here.
Stay alive.
Okay.
I'm back when I totally love my life, just to put it on record.
Okay.
I'm sure if you, for whatever reason, are you know taken out, Peter Thiel's probably got your consciousness somewhere and he can inject it into another Indian kid and we'll get another one of you soon.
Reincarnation.
Yes, exactly.
Everybody's happy.
Anyway, thank you so much, Rob.
Knowing Rogan, Josh, that takes my level of respect way higher.
I'm going to take you out to some spots, man.
Go anywhere.
Next time in New York, we're going to take you to some spots.