FaceTime or Ask Patrick any questions on https://minnect.com/
PBD Podcast Episode 139. Patrick Bet-David is joined by political commentator Cenk Uygur.
Cenk is a Turkish American political commentator, media host, attorney, and journalist. Uygur is the creator of The Young Turks, an American left-wing sociopolitical news and commentary program known for promoting progressive politics and left-wing ideals.
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About:
Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
0:00 - Start
4:00 - How mass media has changed over the past 20 years
11:51 - Is cancel culture mainly on the right?
16:34 - Is mainstream media 'left'?
24:28 - Mainstream media doesn’t report the news, they manufacture consent
36:17 - Is Trump a con man?
56:40 - Should Elon Musk pay more in taxes?
1:09:45 - What is the perfect tax rate
1:16:45 - Cenk Uygur slams Ted Cruz as a b*tch
1:23:00 - Why lobbyists should be banned from Government/How to get corporate donors out of politics
1:56:06 - Cenk Uygur discusses kicking Joe Rogan's ass
2:32:28 - Should 'The Young Turks' change their name?
Okay, so for those of you that have been wondering whether this is an April Fool's joke or not, it is not.
We actually have Jink Uger in the house today.
So we're not playing a joke on people.
No, not yet.
No, maybe through half the next two hours.
There'll be some surprises.
Yeah, but look, I'm a guy that's been in a, what do you call it?
A prankster family my entire life.
My family from both sides are pranksters.
But this morning, you rarely are able to get me on April Fool's.
I'm on my way here focused on what I'm doing.
I'm driving the car.
Mario sends me a text message.
I got to tell Mario this.
Folks, I'm begging you to get Mario.
Prank Mario.
I'm sending everybody to Prank Mario.
Mario's our COO.
He runs the show out here.
He says, just an FYI, that the team is still trying to repair the water damage that happened last night to the new switcher keyboard.
It's not looking good, but we should start on time with the old sling, which always gives us issues.
We just sent somebody over to Best Buy to get another one.
So I called Mario, my Mario, what are you talking about?
He said, Pat's going to cost about $8,000.
I said, who did this?
He said, I think George, you know, spilled some coffee or something on the situation.
I'm losing my mind.
He says, I got to go having a meeting.
And I'm like, I call him back.
He says, but we're going to be okay.
April Fool's.
I'm like, you got to be kidding me.
So Mario got me today.
I got to give him credit.
Anyways, it's good to have you on today, man.
Really?
Thanks for coming out.
Good to be here.
Yeah, I've obviously followed your stuff for many years.
You can't nowadays with what you've done over the last decade or two decades.
For people that don't know you, I think one of your channels got six plus billion views online, 5 million subscribers.
I think total, you guys got 13 million plus subscribers, 10, 12 billion plus views from MSNBC to come in and do what you're doing with Young Turks.
I think a lot of people have a love and hate relationship with you.
We're going to talk a lot about today, which, you know, we're not going to spend a lot of time talking sports.
That was offline.
We're going to talk some politics.
But for some people that don't know, maybe give your journey of how you went from there to Young Turks.
Yeah, sure.
So we started Young Turks about 20 years ago.
At the time, it was the first original talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio.
And then I always wanted to go online video.
And so we had an interesting journey through a lot of different radio first, including Air America, XM, et cetera.
But then we went online.
And at the same time, I got the MSNBC show and the current TV show.
And those are done in parallel.
So we're actually the oldest online show, period.
Longest running daily show on in internet history.
And we're the first partner ever for YouTube.
So we've now accumulated 20 billion views and 21 million subscribers across all the platforms.
We do everything from 30-second videos to a 24-hour channel.
So we have on almost all the platforms, Roku, Pluto, Samsung, anywhere you turn on, just type in TYT, you'll get us.
And team-wise, how big is a team today?
If you were to say Young Turks has XYZ employees, how big would you say the team is?
We're about 70 right now.
Okay.
And how much of that 70 is talent?
That's a good question.
Well, so it depends on how you count because if you count all of the part-time hosts, then we're at about 100.
So because we have about 30 people on air right now, but off air, like I said, about 70.
Perfect.
I mean, that's congratulations.
20 billion is ridiculous.
So when you're saying oldest means you stayed on, you still survived.
That's the thing.
So, you know, for some that don't know how much has changed in media, obviously, if anybody can talk on that, speak on the last 20 years, it's you.
Because you talk about how, listen, I was a broke radio guy trying to make money, trying to figure this thing out.
I busted my ass and finally I got my break, et cetera, et cetera.
How much have things changed the last 20 years?
Everything's changed.
Everything.
So about 24 years ago, I wrote to my friends an email saying online video is going to be TV.
And so I'm going to head to online video right now because I'm positive that it's.
This is in the 90s when AOL is a thing.
Yeah, 98.
I wrote the email.
And what was the foresight?
How did you even know that that was going to be a thing?
This is before YouTube.
Yeah.
So I'd like to think that I'm a logical guy.
And so I look at patterns and I see where things are going.
And people are always, unfortunately, a lot of people just look right in front of them, right?
It's really hard to see a couple steps ahead, right?
But if you logically look at something, you can clearly see where it's going.
I said, look, first of all, television has these massive costs.
Online video, you saw it that had no gatekeepers and no overhead costs.
So, or very little overhead costs.
I'm like, that means there's going to be a million of them.
And they're going to start to get more and more popular.
And they're going to serve the audience because they don't have advertisers.
They have to serve the audience first.
The problem with TV, and I've been in TV pitch meetings, is that they serve advertisers first.
So I'll be in a TV pitch meeting and they'll say, okay, what's Walmart going to think of this?
And I think, okay, this show's doomed because Walmart wants vanilla.
They do not want interesting programming out of controversy.
They don't want fights, no bickering, just nothing.
No drama.
And by the way, do they say that to the actual company?
Like, will they say, this is the kind of talent we're looking for?
If you got a guy like this, we'll advertise during this time.
Well, it's not about talent.
It's about the shows.
So now we're fast forwarding a little bit, right?
So when I'm taking a TV pitch meeting, now we're in the middle of my career and we're trying to pitch something from TYT Network to one of the TV stations.
And so at that point, they're not talking about talent as much as the content of the show.
What kind of show is it, right?
And so the minute you start talking politics, they're like, whoa, everybody's out.
Everybody's out.
Nobody wants it because they live in the old world.
In the old world, you're going to get 100% of the audience, 100% of the market.
You don't want to offend anyone.
It's 1955.
It's okay.
There's only three TV stations.
You put it on.
You shove your product down their throats.
It's going to be fine.
And legacy media.
Legacy media.
Yeah.
You know, legacy advertisers.
By the way, right now, still the same thing.
I mean, it's not nearly as bad, but unbelievable.
I just read an article in Digi Day just a couple of days ago about how the brands are still like, whoa, this newfangled YouTube thing.
I don't know.
Like, you know, just now.
Yeah.
And they're still advertising on TV.
There's no under 45-year-olds on TV at all.
Zero.
Zero zero zero.
Right.
And brands are killing themselves.
They're just, I said on Twitter, you're better off burning the money in publicly because at least people will watch.
Okay.
Nobody's going to watch you on TV.
And so look, we have 24-hour channels and we're on the new TV, those OTT platforms, right?
What don't they understand yet?
Is it just an old school way of thinking?
They don't want to give up what they had.
What is it?
The advertising industry is the single most conservative industry in America.
And I don't mean politically.
I mean just by nature.
So, and one of the quotes was, well, nobody's gotten fired doing this in the last 20 years buying TV.
Well, that's the problem.
You should all get fired.
If you're a brand trying to appeal to younger viewers and you're on television and not online, everyone in your marketing team should be fired.
So you're just nuts if you're doing that.
You're just burning the money.
Here's a question for you.
Because what it makes me think about is the fact that, you know, how Justin Bieber was found?
Where?
Did Usher find Bieber on YouTube or something like that?
Some story.
I don't know if you're familiar with this or not.
It was Scooter Brown.
Scooter Bron found him.
And then he teamed him up.
But I was sure they did a story.
Or even the guy from what is that?
Don't stop believing.
Is that Journey?
Yeah.
Okay, Journey.
They brought a Filipino guy from the Philippines who was, you know, he's like, this guy's got the sickest voice.
He becomes the lead singer for Journey.
And they found him on YouTube.
Who would Logan Paul been 20 years ago?
Who would have a lot of these guys been 20 years ago?
Like, literally, I'm wondering, like, a lot of these guys that are big vloggers today, big YouTubers today, who would they have been 20 years ago?
Yeah, maybe they would have gone on to MTV somehow.
That would have been the route.
That makes sense.
Probably.
But I'll tell you what, guys.
Another reason why online video is always going to win is because there's just too many of them.
Since there's no gatekeepers, the audience is going to find what they like.
So it democratizes media.
So look, I'm not a big fan of Logan Paul, but you put him on and there's a community that's going to say, hey, I like that guy.
Okay.
Before, you couldn't get past the gatekeepers.
So the only people that were allowed on were people that the executives liked.
So who do the executives like?
Well, they like relatively rich people who say that the status quo is great and that you shouldn't change anything.
And remember, we're doing a show for Walmart, so keep it vanilla.
That's why TV was doomed the most boring stuff in the world.
What are they doing?
A Domino show now, I think.
I mean, they're watching Domino's fall.
I mean, it's just sad.
They're going to do it.
Finally, the last TV show is just going to be bingo.
But if you, I mean, if you think about it, again, capitalism wins.
Innovation wins again because they were able to compete against the traditional guys and the traditional guys who don't want to do any work and they're kind of bullying the talent and saying, you better do this or else now there's so much competition that you can't do that anymore because the reality of it is the talent's going to find a place to get their voice heard.
This is the market we're living in.
You can't silence people today.
Well, some people are trying to silence certain people, but all I'm saying is if the talent is a real talent, he's going to make it or she's going to make it if they go and do the work that's necessary to make it.
Let me bring up a quick point with TV.
I want to get your thoughts on this.
The other day, I'm with your dad, and we were looking for the March Madness game.
You're talking about the legacy media.
There used to be three channels, the big three, ABC, NBC, CBS.
And I remember whatever was the late 90s, early 2000s, and all of a sudden it was like 50 channels.
It's like, holy moly.
I'm with Pat's dad, who's 7, about to be 80 in the middle days.
God bless you, Gabriel.
And we were looking for the game.
And there's 900 channels.
He's like, oh, yeah, I think it may be on 847.
Maybe it's on 140.
Like, he knew the channels.
He knew what was going on in the sports.
How many of those do you really watch, though?
That's what I'm saying.
Is that like it's so fractured?
You're talking about the democratization of media.
How does that factor into that?
I mean, there's so many TV channels.
It's no longer the big three.
What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, so real quick, couple of things there.
Number one, yes, because of the fracturing, you will not get the big three again.
You will get relatively large companies, Vox, BuzzFeed, Us, right?
But there'll be a lot more talent spread out, and nobody can stop that.
So you're not going to get Seinfeld or ER like shows where 25, 30 million people are watching at the same time.
Like when everyone tuned into Dallas for the finale and got 100 million people, that's not going to exist anymore.
Probably not.
There's going to be some 10-pole events, Super Bowl, Oscars, kind of, et cetera, and new ones will pop up.
But so that's one of the small downsides because then we don't share the same culture anymore.
I mean, that's a much larger topic that we should get into.
But, you know, you kind of alluded to cancel culture there.
I grew up in an era of massive cancel culture, and it was progressives who got canceled.
So I remember sending a tape into a Minnesota radio station, and then the program director was decent enough to call me back and said, this is fantastic.
He's like, and I'm like, all right, great.
What time slot do you have available?
And he's like, none.
I said, why?
He said, you're on the left.
All of my other programming is on the right.
So I'm not going to counter program in the middle of the day.
So, you know, good luck to you, kid, because you're really good.
What year was that?
90s?
That was, we had already started on serious, and they were allowing us to pitch it to other radio stations.
So that was around 2003.
Yeah, I mean, listen, cancel culture hurts both sides.
It's not just one side or something.
It flip-flops, though.
It goes one side for 10, 20, 30 years, and then whoever's in charge, then it goes to the other side.
Then it goes to the other side.
Either way, we just want to hear people's arguments.
And let us, as the viewer, make a decision what's right and what's not.
Yeah, I think that there is one clear line for sure.
There's an arguable second line.
But advocating for violence is unacceptable.
Okay, so that's my clear line.
And so other than that, I've defended Ben Shapiro and Coulter when they're giving speeches on college campuses.
I didn't think Megan Kelly or Don Imis or any of those people should have been fired.
It doesn't serve anyone to fire people.
It doesn't serve the nation.
It doesn't serve the conversation.
Why don't you, like when Megan Kelly made the comments about black or white Santa Claus or whatever it was that, no, in the NBC case, it was blackface, right?
She had made the comments about Santa Claus when she was at Fox.
So NBC fires her, right?
Obviously, they were just doing that because the ratings weren't working out and they want to dump the contract that's keeping it real, right?
But if they were serious and they were just outraged at that suggestion, which is preposterous, honestly, then why don't you have Al Roker who was really mad about it and other people come on and have a national conversation with Megan Kelly?
That way people will learn why blackface is offensive instead of not having any idea.
All they know is people just randomly get fired, right?
Or what about putting Whoopee on two-week timeout because she had some unsavory thoughts?
Yeah, that was absolutely absurd.
Now, having said that, I still think today a majority of the cancel culture is on the right wing.
It started in the right wing.
It's still in the right wing.
It's still in the right wing.
Yes, absolutely.
How did it start?
How can you say that?
So the modern cancel culture started with Barry Weiss, which is hilarious and ironic.
She went around the country getting famous for trying to fire professors who dared to talk about Palestinian human rights.
So if they said Palestinians were equal and should have their own state, she would try to get them fired.
Okay.
And so she started cancel culture.
What year was that?
So that was, that's a good question.
About 20 years ago, I think.
She was New York Times.
What was she at the time?
No, no, it was before she was at the New York Times.
That's how she got famous.
That's how she got famous.
They're not pro-Israel enough.
Fire them, fire them, fire them.
You can look it up.
Okay.
So she starts cancel culture.
Then she pretends that she's a victim of it, which, by the way, she never was.
She was never fired from anywhere.
She decided to quit the New York Times to make more money on her own.
So look, what are the right-wing people?
You can't say behind closed doors, you can't write this, you can't do this.
I mean, that stuff happens, just like it happened to you when you're over there saying you got to talk more like a senator.
You get whatever word they use with you, senatorial when you're speaking.
Oh, senatorial, right?
So that kind of stuff is probably what rubbed her the wrong way.
Yeah, do you agree with him that the cancel culture is mostly coming from?
I'd love to know.
I do agree with him in the past.
I do agree with him in the past.
But in the past, the media model was a different model.
You had the Walter Cronkites of the world.
You didn't have a lot of what you have today.
Today's more showmanship.
I mean, things changed after Morton Downey Jr., after a lot of these guys that were more showmans, and then guys started realizing that's how I'm going to get eyeballs.
So Morton Downey Jr., you know who he is now.
Of course, of course.
Next thing, you know, he's number one ahead of Monte, ahead of Rookie Lake, ahead of uh uh, Oprah Winfrey, ahead of Jerry.
Wait, what?
Who are you in 18 months?
So people said, this is how I get to the top fast, rather than the old William Buckley.
So today our guest is uh, Jank Youger.
We're gonna talk to him about it's shock jobs, but for tv, so but so.
So now people are sitting there saying okay, that's what sells fantastic, i'm gonna go do this just like rap, change music, change the shock factor.
You know, like when Ice Cube wrote the song, you know what was not Nwa?
He had a song about cops uh, the police yeah, so.
So then next thing, you know, it's like, okay, this is, this is the route i'm gonna take easy.
Those guys changed hip-hop right uh, so I can see that.
But, but the part I want to go with today is, so you say cancel, culture is still on the right, would you?
I think you would agree that mainstream media outside of FOX is pretty much on the left.
I don't think you would debate that.
No, actually I would debate okay.
So tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me why.
Yeah um so, uh.
I can give you a thousand examples.
But first of all, structure wise.
Um, if you say CNN, ETC.
And Msnbc are socially liberal, i'd say I generally agree with you.
Okay, if you say they're economically liberal, I would laugh and laugh and laugh.
No, they're economically conservative and massively conservative.
So CNN, for example, non-stop can I curse on here?
Of course, non-stop shits all over Medicare For All.
Every time they talk about it.
Oh, Medicare For All costs 34 trillion dollars, hey liar.
And 32 trillion dollars, hey liars.
Why don't you actually also say that same study, first of all paid for by COKE Industries, said that it saves 34 trillion dollars.
So overall it saves two trillion dollars.
Why do you leave out that context?
They leave out that context every time, anytime you talk about a progressive economic position and you can go back to the debates and see the smug Anderson Coopers, Jake Tappers looking down their nose at Bernie Sanders going, how are you going to pay for that?
When we start massive wars, they never ask how you're going to pay for that.
When we do massive tax cuts for the rich, they never ask how are you going to pay for that.
No, they're definitely economically conservative.
And what explains the dichotomy then?
Why are they socially liberal but economically conservative?
Because they're corporate media.
So what do corporations want?
Why are they socially liberal?
Because they want to sell to everyone.
So I remember being at a Google presentation once and Koch was doing an ad and it was their, not their U.S. ad, but their international ad.
And I was shocked by how many Muslims they had in the ad, right?
Now, I grew up Muslim, so I'm not against it.
I'm great.
That's wonderful.
It's inclusive, et cetera, right?
But I was just like, wow, like a third of this ad is Muslims, right?
Then I was like, hello, a third of the world is Muslims, roughly, right?
And so are they going to be anti-Muslim?
Of course not.
Internationally.
Internationally, of course not.
They got to sell to 1.6 billion Muslims.
Are they going to be against black people?
Of course not.
They got to sell to black people.
Gay people, same thing, right?
So that's why corporate America and multinational corporations are socially liberal.
But economically, they're viciously conservative.
Because they are structured to maximize profit.
I get that part.
And you're right.
Which, by the way, that to me eventually ends up making them honest, if anything.
It forces them to be honest.
And I know you may disagree with that.
But at the same time, I think it's fair to say that anybody to the right of you is considered conservative.
Like you're probably more on the Bernie Sanders camp.
You've supported it.
So as a socialist, even a Democrat is conservative to you.
Even a center left, a Joe Manchin is conservative to you.
Even a Kristen Sinema is conservative to you.
Even an Obama is probably conservative to you.
Probably a Biden is conservative to you.
Probably Hillary Clinton is conservative to you.
So then if I were to ask you, who would you say is a liberal in your eyes today outside of Bernie Sanders?
Who would you say these are some of the liberals today?
So let's clarify a couple of things.
First of all, it's much to the annoyance of my audience.
I am not a socialist.
I'm a capitalist.
So I'm what I call a democratic capitalist, which I could explain, right?
Please.
And so, and to be fair, it's not the whole audience at all.
The audience generally likes what I'm saying, obviously, right?
They're our audience, right?
But there is some portion of the left that the word capitalist really grinds their gears.
Yeah, I was almost going to say grinds their gears.
I was like, what do I?
Anyway, they don't like that.
But I could explain why I believe that.
But in terms of your core question of are those people conservative, they're not just conservative to me.
Manchester Cinema, obviously, giant conservatives.
Honestly, Biden is a huge conservative.
But it's not just to me.
And by the way, I can show it to you.
I could show it to you in the policies and in the polling.
But it's not just to me, guys.
I can show you in the polling that two-thirds of the country is progressive.
And if they got beyond the filter of both right-wing media and mainstream media, corporate media overall, they would think Biden is way too right-wing.
Okay.
And so, and I actually can't believe that anybody would think he's a liberal.
I can't believe it.
And so who's actually progressive?
And progressive and liberal are different.
Now, a lot of the left views the word liberal as a little bit derisive, like it's neoliberal.
Like the word liberal is almost too conservative.
I watched it.
I think so many times.
Yeah.
But the word liberal, like the word socialism, is almost meaningless because everybody thinks it's something else when they're talking about it.
Same with conservative, too.
Well, you tell me because for me, conservative is pretty clear, but maybe I'm wrong about that.
And I'm sure there's gradations, right?
So, but progressive is the left, right?
So sure, AOC, Bernie Sanders, I co-founded Just Democrats.
So all the squad, Jamal Bowman, Corey Bush, I love those are your guys.
Those are the people you support.
Yeah, 100%.
So go back when you said, you know, you believe the CNN's, the MSNBCs, they're more right-wing, socially liberal, but fiscally conservative.
Fine.
At the same time, some may say, Jenk, even though you're taking that position, if you want to see a channel bashing Musk, you'll see them doing it.
If you want to see a channel bashing capitalism and what the wealthy are doing, you'll see them doing it.
If you want to see a channel bashing a Trump or a DeSantis or any candidate on the right, you'll see on CNN and MSNBC.
That's true.
So somebody may say, well, that's where they are.
Every candidate that I put up, say the right is saying this, every candidate I put up, DeSantis, Trump, you know, Nikki Haley, they keep ashamed, right?
So someone may say they're far left.
You're saying they don't do that?
No.
So you think CNN MSNBC and mainstream media supports Trump and DeSantis?
Not at all.
Okay.
So let me explain because you mentioned a couple of different people there, and that's why I wanted to clarify.
So are they against Trump?
Of course.
That's super obvious.
Are they against DeSantis?
Yes, they are.
Okay.
Because they view, who are they for?
They're for the establishment.
They're for the status quo.
When you're a multi-billion dollar corporation, you know why you like the status quo?
Because you're at the top.
You don't want to change anything when you're at the top.
Okay.
But when you say Nikki Haley, you're actually wrong.
Nikki Haley crossed over to establishment, and they love the establishment.
So for example, Chris Christie, establishment Republican, ABC, CNN, all giving multi-million dollar documentary advertising all around Chris Christie.
Wait, why is ABC and CNN doing these giant specials on Chris Christie out of nowhere?
He hasn't done anything in years and years and years because they love establishment Republicans.
All my life, I've watched Meet the Press blow John McCain and every Republican that's ever gone, oh, the beloved John McCain.
Which war would you like to start now, Senator?
That's such a great idea.
Let's start another war.
Tax cuts for the rich.
Why, that's brilliant.
Let's have another guest on.
He agrees.
This is a Democrat.
You know, and you fill in the blank, Claire McCaskill, Joe Manchin.
It doesn't matter.
Look at that.
They also agree with tax cuts for the rich.
Well, I guess everybody, we're all agreed.
Tax cuts for the rich.
So they don't like Trump because he's a populist.
I think that he's a fake populist, but at least he's playing that route and he's wild.
He's out of control.
And he leads to instability.
So the establishment does not like that.
So the only person they dislike more than Trump is Bernie.
They would burn down the house before they were like.
It's amazing how, if you remember this, when this was going on a year and a half ago, when I was upset that they didn't let Bernie win, because Bernie, when I said, so do you remember the day where it all kind of all happened like within 24, 48 hours, where all of a sudden go, oh, okay, this guy's ahead.
No, this person's ahead.
No, Amy, this.
No, Elizabeth Warren, this.
No, Pete this.
No, Bernie Sanders this.
No, everyone's dropping out.
And they're getting behind Joe Biden.
They're like, wait, what?
I can tell you exactly how that happened.
Yeah, I mean, I remember, but go ahead.
Yeah.
So Bernie won the first three states.
Now, look, mainstream media is not in the, they don't, they're not in the business of manufacturing news.
They're in the business of manufacturing consent.
Okay, so Noam Chomsky wrote about this decades ago, and he's absolutely right.
So they do propaganda for a living.
It's the marketing arm of corporate rule.
So when Bernie won the first three states, they did not do what they always do.
When an establishment candidate, either a Republican or Democrat, wins the first three states, everybody in the media goes, oh my God, we have to presume to winner.
Everybody clear the field.
Clear the field.
I want New Hampshire.
It's over.
Right.
They do that even when Hillary Clinton loses one of them.
Even before there was any election, they were like, Hillary Clinton's obviously the winner.
Hillary Clinton leading.
In fact, I criticize CNN on CNN for doing this.
They used to count her delegates, which were the establishment Democratic politicians, before a single vote was in.
So they're like, Hillary Clinton has a 500-and-0 lead on Bernie Sanders.
Why is Bernie Sanders still in the race?
Right?
So Bernie wins the first three.
They're like, oh, yeah, whatever.
Okay, no big deal.
I mean, he's not necessarily going to win.
I mean, he's unelectable.
He's unelectable.
But they panicked.
Internally, they panicked.
And then you saw Chuck Dodd and others come out and go, oh, Bernie's brown shirts.
And by the way, this is on MSNBC's so-called liberal channel, right?
And then Chris Matthews came on and said, oh, you know, people like Bernie wins.
People are going to get shot in Central Park.
And I remember when Castro was threatening to do that, et cetera.
And they go, they all pile on.
And the worst of the worst was MSNBC.
They're a wolf in sheep's clothing.
So they come in, oh, we're liberal.
We're on the left.
Oh, my God, but Bernie's unelectable.
No progressive is electable.
Oh, we brought in Claire McCaskill to be our expert.
Wait, didn't she get her ass handed to her?
Even though she was an incumbent?
She ran all the way right wing, tried to copy the Republicans.
It's a losing strategy every single time.
But MSNBC loves it because it's economically conservative.
And by the way, I have personal experience at MSNBC.
I partly got moved out of prime time because I was criticizing Barack Obama and they hated that.
And they literally told me.
So there's no question that they're economically right away.
So then for me, this is how I see it.
I see Bernie and Trump as the same people.
And I know you may not agree with this or you may not like this, but I see them as same people.
Let me explain to you why.
Because I think the left, like, I'm surprised the right didn't do to Trump what the left did to Bernie.
I'm very surprised they didn't.
They tried every single way to get this guy to not be the candidate because they don't have control over the guy.
The people they fear is whoever they don't control.
You can't control Bernie.
You can't control Trump.
That's why I think they're the same.
I don't sit there and I agree with Bernie's policies.
I'm not a socialist.
I escaped Iran to not have to deal with the high taxes and to control all that.
That's the fear that a lot of immigrants that leave their own countries who come here.
And I know you're one as well, but that's what a lot of people from, you know, that and that's capitalists don't want to deal with that.
So, on the other side with Trump, he was a loose cannon.
He's getting out there calling out.
They're pretty much calling out the same people.
Trump and Bernie are calling out the establishment.
They're both calling out some of the same swamps, same people, even though Bernie's a lot more part of the swamp.
You know, a lot of people on the right will say he's never had a real job, all this other stuff.
And a lot of people on the left will say Trump's never been involved in politics.
What the hell does he know about getting policies on all this other stuff?
You'll hear some of those things, but that's why I think those two were the same.
But even going back to it, so if you say, Well, yeah, you know, CNN and you know, all these guys, they're still fiscally on the right, you know, DeSantis has got tens of millions of eyeballs right now, people that follow the guy, and he may be their next superstar.
You know, even on Trump, you got 78 million eyeballs, whatever the number is that he got the votes.
Picker 81, is it 81, 78?
I don't know, I don't know if I'm getting the numbers right or not.
But so he's got 78 million eyeballs.
If you're not going to give that guy any credit, and so this will go to my next question with you, and I'm really curious on what you're going to say with this.
So everybody, I think a lot of times, and maybe this is a left and a right thing, but for the last six years, it was more of a left thing, left media side.
They did not know if Russia was real, but man, they kept talking about it like a broken record.
They had no clue if this thing was real, but thank God they had some story to talk about every day.
Viewership, another thing with Russia, another, you know, who's the one guy that got up shift?
What's shift's first animation?
Adam Schiff.
Oh my God, he's saying it.
There's got to be something.
It's like, what are you talking about?
And then next thing, you know, you find out that with the report that came out, that what's the report that came out with not the Mueller, the other one that just spying on the Durham.
The Durham report that comes out, hey, this is really what was going on.
Well, we don't really know this.
And then they stop talking about it.
And then you see the Hunter Biden laptop, you know, spits.
Everybody's like, no, this is just media misinformation, another Republican misinformation, another Russian misinformation campaign.
And then folks are sitting there.
And I'm looking at CNN's eyeballs.
So folks are sitting there saying, who the hell do you believe today?
Do you believe them?
Do you believe who do you believe today?
It's very hard for the regular viewer and the listener that's not involved in the politics like you are, that they've committed their life to that.
This is their work.
It's the average guy that's like, listen, I'm just trying to see who I believe.
You know, you seem inconsistent.
You seem consistent.
You seem consistent.
You seem inconsistent.
Who the hell do I believe?
That's why I say I think CNN, MSNBC, a lot of the mainstream media lost a lot of people because all they want to defend is maybe not progressives, but Democrats on the left.
And they don't want to support anything that the Republicans are talking about.
And they lost a lot of people.
So I got to flip your frame here because you're right on so many things, but it's just the wording is off, and it makes a big bait.
You speak English is now my first language.
Jay, give me a break.
It's my fifth language, by the way.
Not my first language either.
So here's what I mean by that.
It seems like they're supporting Democrats, but they're not.
Like, I gave you the example of Chris Christie.
I gave the example of John McCain.
I can give you tons of corporate Republicans that the establishment press supports as well.
Now, but yes, they're mainly in love with corporate Democrats.
That is true.
Okay.
Because corporate Democrats, unfortunately, it pains me.
And that's why I fight them so much.
They have become the most corporate, right?
We will do whatever corporations say and we'll pretend that there's change on the outside.
Oh my God, we've got a black person who's doing everything corporations want.
So everything is fixed.
No, everything is not fixed.
So for example, $15 minimum wage is so important to the black community.
47% of blacks in this country make less than $15 an hour, right?
What do debt corporate Democrats do?
They put out somebody like Hakeem Jeffries to say, now he goes, oh, I'm for the $15 minimum wage.
But behind the scenes, he helps to kill the $15 minimum wage.
But as long as we got the right face on it, corporate rule is awesome.
No, it is not awesome.
So it's not that they're pro-Democrat.
It's that they're pro-corporate rule.
And so the populism that you're seeing, the similarity between Trump and Bernie, you're right.
You're not right.
It's not, they don't, they're not similar on policies.
Of course not.
Right.
And they're not, and they're not similar on earnestness.
Like Bernie's super earnest.
I think Trump is a great A con man, right?
But they are both cannot be controlled.
That is true.
And that is why establishment media despises them.
And so establishment media has lied to us our entire lives.
Can I draw a correlation to what you're saying?
Because the control, neither of you two can be controlled.
And I think that's something that you both can agree upon, is that you'd like to be able to say what the hellever you want to say, do what you want to do.
Exactly.
I mean, that's undeniable.
Who wants to be controlled?
But you made a couple points here.
And I just want to kind of put the align the stars and see if I'm right here.
Essentially, what you're talking about is old school versus new school.
Now, you brought up the, we started off the conversation with media and the establishment media and legacy media versus new media and the democratization of media.
Then you moved on to establishment politics versus basically the Trumps and the Bernie's and the AOCs who are, you know, messing up the establishment.
And I'll even go one further.
That's essentially what crypto is doing to, you know, typical mainstream, you know, the monetary system.
Essentially, what is happening is here is the establishment wants to control what they control.
You know, and what you're basically saying and what, whether you're Bernie guy or a Trump guy, is they're rattling a lot of cages and the establishment don't like that too much.
Yeah, 100%.
And Patrick, let me just go back to agreeing with you on the core premise, which is really important, right?
So the reason why people are looking to these alternatives now, the Trumps, the Bernie's, everything else, and our programming, all the different right-wing, left-wing, et cetera, is because the one thing we all know for sure, and I'll give the right-wing credit on this.
They know this better than the left-wing does, okay?
Is that the politicians are full of shit.
Okay.
And what has establishment media told us our whole lives?
The politicians are honest.
They're having real debates.
They're all really principled and they're honorable.
And you have to respect them.
And they're worthy of so much respect.
Whereas we look at them and go, well, that guy is obviously lying.
That guy is obviously cheesy.
That guy's the most plastic person I have ever met.
That's why in 2016, everybody in the press said it's going to be Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio.
And I said, you guys are a joke.
There's no chance it's going to be that.
Marco Rubio is a boy.
Okay.
He's the most plastic fake politician you'll ever meet in your entire life.
And that's why corporate media loved him.
They loved him.
They're like, it's got to be Rubio.
It's got to be Rubio.
I'm like, have you guys looked at a single goddamn poll?
I said Trump would win the Republican primary about four months before they started voting.
You know why?
I'm not a genius.
One, I just know the country's in a populist mood.
They hate the lies of the establishment media about how politicians are so goddamn wonderful because that's just the most obvious lie of all time, right?
And secondly, I could read a poll and every poll had Trump at number one by a lot.
And they're like, no, don't believe your lying, guys.
By the way, every poll in 2016 had Bernie beating Trump and by large margins.
And Hillary Clinton was losing to Trump.
And every day, ABC, CBS, NBC, all of them would come out and lie to the American people and say, Hillary Clinton could beat Trump.
Hillary Clinton is better at beating Trump than Bernie.
Hillary Clinton is more electable.
Every one of them was a lie.
You think Bernie could have beaten Trump?
It's not me.
It's the American people.
The polling indicated he clearly could have beaten Trump on election day.
Now, I know they didn't run an election against each other, right?
On election day, Bernie was beating Trump by 12 points.
So you run an election, the Republicans smear him, you're going to wear down that 12, right?
But you're not going to wear down the whole 12.
12 is a giant monster league.
Do you remember those polls, Pat?
Not that it's saying that polls are credible, but I mean, that's a whole nother question.
First of all, first of all, what we learned about polls in 2015, 2016, none of them are right.
So the credibility of the only poll I may give some credence to is I look at Pew is good, Gallup is relatively trusting.
Any Fox News poll, CNN poll, MSNBC poll, I don't look at any of that stuff.
Those are the only two I pay attention to.
But folks, if you're listening to this super chats, we're going to come to some of the questions.
A few people made comments here.
Adriano Valentino from Australia said Trump is an uncontrollable con man.
Question mark sank, you're a sociopath.
The next guy responds and says, At least he's a con man.
At least he's not a politician, which is pretty interesting.
Well, that last one's kind of true.
Yeah, at least he's a profession.
Yeah.
So we'll take Colin's in the last 30 minutes, probably.
So just stay tuned.
And Tyler, if you want to put the number there for some people that want to call in in the super chats.
But let me continue.
Okay.
So.
Can I address the con man thing real quick?
Sure, of course.
I mean, look, he's been adjudicated and admitted to being a con man.
Both his charity and his university were giant scams, and he had to pay huge fines, $25 million fine, because he was running scams.
Almost everything he runs is a scam.
And by the way, does everybody know that he's gone bankrupt six times?
That he's an awful, awful businessman.
Couldn't manage his way out of a wet paper bag.
Biggest dumbass I've ever seen in business.
What he did in Atlantic City, it didn't just sink his own companies, he sank the entire city.
He's one of the worst businessmen in American history.
And by the way, you see the incompetence of the Democratic Party that they couldn't point out those simple facts when they were running against.
Let me ask you this: what's harder to do?
Okay, be honest.
Let's see if I'm really curious to know what you're going to say.
You think it's harder to be a senator for 50 years, or do you think it's harder to be in free enterprise, free market capitalism competition in New York for 50 years?
What's harder to do?
Well, Trump has proved that the economy is much harder because he went bankrupt so many times.
It must be really, really hard.
Well, Jack, but wait a minute.
But the point is, it is a, there's a big difference between me being in the arena and getting my ass kicked, but at least I'm getting in the arena versus being a fan on the outside and I'm booming the guy in the arena.
Let's give some credibility to the guy that's got the balls to be in the arena fighting capitalism.
No, Patrick, I give you credit.
I give me credit.
We're in the arena and we built these things on our own, okay?
So Ben Shapiro, I don't agree with his politics, but he built Daily Wire and it's a real business now, et cetera.
I give credit, okay?
Crowder, I don't think, takes big money and I think he did it on his own.
I give a lot of credit.
Trump had his dad hand him $413 million.
He's a spoiled.
He's a spoiled little bitch.
And he blew the whole $413 million because he's a moron.
I give him zero credit.
Yes.
Okay.
When your kids, when you die and you have a living trust, you're a smart guy.
I'm sure you got a living trust.
I'm sure you got all that stuff in place.
When God forbid something happens to you and that money and the business goes to them, are you going to call your kids a spoiled whatever, whatever?
Because they're going to get your money.
No, no, no, no.
There's a difference.
What do you do with the money?
So if my kids then use it to do good in the world or to set up a business, et cetera, then that's great.
If they take it and they go, daddy gave me the money, I'm going to put my name all over Atlantic City.
And then they are spoiled and they make fun of other people while actually not doing anything, not doing the homework.
I can't even read.
I'd be embarrassed if my kids were anywhere near as lazy and dumb as Donald Trump.
They can't read past the page.
They used to have the presidential briefings that were just three, four pages.
They had to boil it down to a page because he would lose attention.
But because the guy is dealing with so many different things that he typically wants to have the one page instead of the 50 pages.
But no, listen.
Can I make a quick point on Trump?
Yeah.
Okay.
This might shock some of the people.
I'm not a Trump fan.
I don't know.
You know, probably don't know my politics.
I mean, there's a lot of people here that think I'm a crazy socialist left-wing because I'm just not a Trump fan.
I'm a capitalist, and I like what you said about Democratic capitalism.
I'd like to come back to that at some point.
But again, not a Trump fan.
But what I am willing to do is at least give him credit for some positive things that he's done.
As an example, you're giving him zero credit, bro.
I will say, as much as I don't like seeing him on TV, he's a great marketer.
I can say that guy's a freaking brilliant marketer.
He gets eyeballs.
He knows how to play the media.
He knows how to rattle cages.
Like, I'm at least willing to give him credit for the things he does well.
And even if it's for policies, I'll say, look, can't stand the guy, but policies-wise, he's done some good things.
Are you saying that there's zero credit, zero whatsoever for Trump?
No, I'm not saying that.
Everything is situational.
People get into, which camp are you in?
Are you left, right, Biden, pro-Biden, anti-Biden, et cetera.
So, for example, I think Biden's doing a great job on Ukraine.
I think he did terrible job on domestic politics.
Total failure in domestic politics.
So we can get back into that later.
So why?
Because it depends on the facts.
So Trump, I remember in the beginning, there was a plan in Indiana, and he threatened a bunch of politicians, and he threatened a bunch of businesses, and it looked like they were going to stay.
And I remember doing a video at an airport because I liked that so much.
Because then MSNBC was crying, oh my God, can you believe he's threatening people?
Goddamn right.
The president's supposed to use carrots and sticks and he was using sticks effectively.
Now, unfortunately, that one, as with almost all of them, was just marketing.
And then that plan actually outsourced all the jobs later and Trump didn't do a goddamn thing about it.
It's all fake, et cetera.
So, but if on rare occasions, for example, he didn't start any new wars.
Great.
I'll take it.
I'll take it, right?
There's no reason for me to disagree with someone if they're agreeing with me.
Oh, it's because it's Trump.
You have to call it bad.
No, that doesn't make any sense.
You show me a sensible policy and I'll be in favor.
Fair enough.
By the way, and I've said this many times, I will say it again.
I think Sanders is a true believer.
If you get married in Russia and you go to, not Russia, but I think he went his honeymoon to Leningrad or St. Petersburg or something like that.
And he went to Russia.
This guy is a true believer from day one and he stayed there.
So maybe not a communist, pretty close to it.
Socialist, my opinion.
I may be wrong, but the guy's been a true believer.
Here's what I'm convinced with.
And tell me if you feel this way or not, because this goes back to you saying, you know, how he's done with Ukraine.
Biden's done a good job with Ukraine.
And I want to kind of push back on that, challenge you a little bit, and see if your views are different on this, which if it is, the audience is going to win.
So here's what I'm convinced with.
I've not been following politics my entire life.
I'm a business guy.
I've been in insurance.
I started with Morgan Stanley the day before 9-11.
I was in the military three years.
My mother was a communist.
They grew up to Communist Manifesto.
That's what they saw as a hero, who he was, what he did, Karl Marx.
My dad's an imperialist.
He was a Shaw guy.
So I saw them battling it out all the time.
And being a kid one time, my mom, I think it was 13, 14 years old.
I'm having an econ class and my teacher, Ms. Lou, starts talking about politicians and Democrats and Republicans and the defendant.
And I come, I said, mom, are we Democrats or Republicans?
And my mom says, we're Democrats.
I said, why are we Democrats?
She says, because the Democrats are for the poor.
Republicans are for the rich.
I said, when I grow up, I want to be a Republican one day.
Meaning I want to be rich, Adam, because I hate to be poor.
I'm a welfare, baby.
Parents got a divorce.
Dad worked at a 99 cent store.
But here's what I'm convinced that's going on when I watch some of these things.
From my experience, I started following politics, say, Kerry era, whatever the Kerry era is.
I don't know if it's 04, 03, 04.
Right on here is when I started.
But I kind of had to start paying attention to it.
I don't know why I may be wrong, Cenk, and give me your perspective on this who's been on this for a long time.
I'm convinced both party doesn't like a candidate that they don't have dirt on.
Let me explain.
I'm convinced they don't like it if they don't have three things on you where they know for a fact they can control you.
Then you become a leading candidate.
Meaning, maybe Bernie Sanders is not a good candidate because we ain't got shit on this guy.
Guy doesn't party.
The guy doesn't do this.
The guy doesn't that.
We can't control this guy.
Okay, but Biden, that's the best candidate because, dude, we got a shit ton of things on this guy.
Hell yeah, we can control this guy, right?
Or Obama, look, I think we can control this guy.
Why?
Maybe we got a couple things on Obama, but Obama doesn't have money.
So maybe money is going to drive him.
So if we give him opportunities to be a celebrity, to be this, to be that, maybe that's a driver.
So then you look at a guy like on the right and you say Trump, well, we got a lot of dirt on this guy.
Let's throw it all out there.
All right, let's see if this is, oh, we're going to destroy this guy.
Stormy Daniels.
Ah, it never happened.
He's like, no, it happened.
She goes on Jimmy Kimmel.
You know, Michael Avenatti.
Oh, he goes, oh, yo, you know what?
Karen McDougal.
I actually thought he loved me.
And we would actually spend time.
And he told me once, he loves me.
He never disrespected me.
You're like, man, I believe she seems very believable.
Oh, you know, here's how many people, African Americans, you know, housing what he did.
Yeah, that was a long time ago.
Well, here's what happened.
Yeah, it's not true.
Well, here's Bush recording what you said, you know.
Billy Bush.
Yeah.
No, no, he's like, well, you know, it's just locker rock.
I think they used every dirt they had on Trump.
Then they had nothing afterwards.
Then they said, shit, now we got to fabricate stuff.
So for example, Cuomo, I'm convinced, I may be wrong, push back because I want to get smarter in this area.
I'm convinced that Cuomo was somebody that was talking out of game on the Democratic Party.
And they looked at this guy and they said, hey, Cuomo, we got a lot of stuff on you behind closed doors, bro.
You better shut your mouth and kind of do what we're telling you to do.
You're a little bit too big and you're starting to get more eyeballs than everybody else.
And you have more voice now because every day you're doing your life or whatever he was doing during COVID.
Remember that whole thing that you almost felt like he's the president, not Trump being the president?
And they said, nah, we can't control this guy.
Boom, get him out of there.
It's not like they had dirt on this guy.
They could have used those things a long time ago.
So maybe I'm naive, okay?
And maybe I think the reason why Biden got elected is because the Democratic Party had the most dirt on that candidate more than anybody else.
Am I wrong?
So it's not right or wrong.
It's off by a shade, if you ask me.
Okay, I think the essence of it is right, but the way, again, the way you're framing it is a tiny bit off.
So let me explain from my point of view.
Please.
Okay.
So the candidates that agree with them, they don't need to use any, find any dirt or use any dirt, right?
So Pete Budigic will do anything a corporation asks him to do.
Okay.
So he's a robot made in a corporate factory somewhere.
And so you don't ever need to dig up dirt on Budigic.
In fact, at TYT, we went and did investigations of how he ran his little town in Indiana.
And it was awful.
And it was, by the way, rife with racism.
Now, did you see any of the mainstream media use that?
No.
But if Butigic had gone progressive, they'd have picked up our stories instantly and said, look at this racist guy.
Can you believe what he did?
He fired some black police chief for complaining about da-da-da.
They would have gone nuts, but they choose not to use that.
Biden lied about going to help Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
He went, he went, but he said he got arrested with Nelson Mandela.
That is not at all true.
Okay.
And the mainstream media just let it go.
They had that dirt.
They never, ever, ever used it.
Why?
Because Biden agreed with the corporate agenda.
Now, when you don't agree with the corporate agenda, then it's not that they already have the dirt.
They'll go find the dirt and then they'll use it.
And if they can't find dirt, they'll just make it up.
How do I know it happened to me, let alone Bernie, let alone Trump, let alone anyone who doesn't agree with the corporate agenda.
What they used to do, Patrick, in the old days was assassinations, right?
So, like JFK, etc., and people say, oh, no, it was really a guy on, you know, the RV.
Well, sure, sure, sure, sure.
Okay, don't be absurd.
You see, that's manufacturing consent when they get you to believe that a bullet can move at angles that it cannot physically possibly move, right?
So, um, but these days, they don't need to do that, that's messy.
Instead, what they do is character assassinations, okay?
So, you get a little too close to power and you don't already agree with the mainstream corporate way of thinking, you will be eliminated.
That's when they dig up the dirt, use the dirt, manufacture the dirt.
So, in my case, I ran for Congress, and the New York Times all of a sudden painted me as a right-winger.
By the way, I just checked time to see.
I just, I'm sorry, I'm not checking.
I checked time to see what we got.
What do you have after this?
Can you go?
Uh, uh, I can go.
Okay, so we're gonna go longer than our two-hour usual.
So, we're not wrapping up at 11 o'clock.
So, go ahead.
You were saying, yeah.
So, for in my case, the New York Times said, I'm anti-Muslim.
Wait a minute.
I'm atheist now, but I grew up Muslim.
My family's Muslim.
My background is Muslim.
What do you mean I'm anti-Muslim?
Doesn't matter.
We're smearing you.
Don't you want to at least say, oh, it's kind of interesting or ironic or et cetera, because he's actually from a Muslim background.
No, they didn't even say that, right?
Then the alt-right had done this smear campaign against me where they took a joke about bestiality and pretended it was real.
Like I had said it real.
New York Times writes it like as if it's in my agenda.
Jenk, who believes in legalizing sex with horses, I'm like, what the New York Times?
Are you insane?
Did no one in the building think, hey guys, that sounds like it's probably a joke.
Like, you guys want to double check?
And they're like, nope, nope, just write it as if it's in his platform, right?
That's an alt-right, total toxic sludge horse crap that the New York Times printed.
Why?
Because they don't want a progressive winning.
They can't control me.
LA Times, and then they said, I had David Duke on the show.
I called him a racist, anti-Semite, anti-Semite, a bigot.
I called him every name in the book.
New York Times says he had David Duke on the program to share his anti-Semitic views.
Oh, come on.
No, they're liars.
They're lying to you.
Because when someone, you don't think, you don't think everybody, so for example, let me put it back.
I don't know, but you don't think people will say, well, Jenkin, that's not fair because you guys do that at Young Turks.
Would you say we never do that at Young Turks?
We never do that at Young Turks.
So you don't take one snippet of, let's just say what, I don't know what Anne says or who Anne is not much in TV today.
Maybe Coulter, you're saying Anne Coulter, or let's just say Shapiro or whoever.
And you say, look what he said in this part, and you don't show the whole thing.
So I'll give you an example.
When McCain, all the way back in 2008, because we've been around forever, a local Arizona station had done an edited video of McCain's talk and it made him look really bad.
We thought it was not edited.
We thought it was real.
We aired it one day.
The next day, our audience says to us, hey, you know, that was edited.
Here's the whole thing.
We come back the next day.
We say, our bad.
We trusted that local station.
They were wrong.
They took McCain out of context.
We don't like McCain at all, but you always have to be fair.
And he didn't say that.
Look at the context of what he actually said, right?
So if you show me a clip where I'm missing context, I will definitely show that on air and go, wait a minute, let's look at the whole thing here.
Because we don't need to lie to be right.
Okay.
So the reason that mainstream media has to lie is because people want higher wages.
They don't want lower wage.
People want health care.
They don't want to have their family member get cancer and not be able to be treated.
So they have to lie to push their agenda.
And maximizing profit is a hell of a thing.
And so to come all the way back to democratic capitalism, capitalism is the right incentive structure, but it must be checked by democracy.
If it is not checked by democracy, it will run completely out of control.
And right now, that's exactly what's happened.
The corporations have seized the media and have used it to brainwash the American people into compliance.
So that's why I say on that core issue, I get that the right wing is in some ways more right and more animated than the left wing is because they see that control and they hate it.
And that's why they're always talking about freedom and they don't like the mass mandates.
They don't like the vaccines, but they're just getting misdirected.
Now, the perfect example is under Obama, the Tea Party started because they were so mad about the bank bailouts.
Right wing, you were right.
You were right.
The bank bailouts were monstrous.
They were horrible.
They were a total robbery of the American people.
And the Coke industry saw that and they're like, good, let's take advantage of these guys.
So they brought in their buses.
We covered it.
Coke industries paid for buses, paid for meals, and they didn't bring them to a protest of the banks.
They brought them to a protest of Obamacare to try to defeat them getting more health care.
Wait a minute.
What the hell just happened?
It was corporations that took your anger and directed it to their benefit.
It was amazing.
Listen, that's the, and by the way, Koch brothers have a very respectable competitor.
His name is George Soros.
I don't know if you've heard of him before.
He plays a similar card as well.
So it's not like he's an angel going out there.
He's got competition.
So it's not like Coke are sitting there alone by themselves.
But what I will say is the following.
When that happened, that's the part with capitalism that I have a problem with.
Because when it comes down to somebody doesn't run the business properly, either let them go out of business or let somebody else buy them out.
Very simple.
By the way, most people forget WAMU.
Do you remember WAMU?
I don't know if you remember WAMU.
Did you bank with WAMU?
I mean, I remember WAMU, you know, was blowing up.
You'd go into the bank, WAMU, and you'd stand up and you'd actually see the banker.
You're like, shit, I'm actually talking to somebody versus that whole, you feel like you go into the DMV with a thick four-inch glass thing you're talking to.
Okay, I like WAMU style, right?
You know, WAMU went from zero to $330 billion company.
$330 billion.
You can pull this up right now.
WAMU, just type in WAMU, $330 billion, okay?
Type in WAMU, $330 billion.
You'll see some article that'll come out.
Let me see what you have.
WAMU, WAMU Bank.
WAMUBING.
WASTING TO MUTUL.
Maybe he needs to put that.
Go a little bit closer so we can see it.
Go back.
You will see somewhere that says $330 billion.
Yeah.
So WAMU is a $330 billion company, right?
Do you know what it ended up selling for?
Do you know what Chase bought them for?
Do you know the number?
Chase bought WAMU for $1.9 billion.
Okay.
From $330 billion to $1.9 billion.
Guess what?
A lot of those companies, you want to unmute yourself because we're here in the typing title.
So they went from $330 to $1.9.
But at that time, guess what?
They're not letting that happen in.
Like, oh, too big to fail.
I'm sorry.
They maybe made some bad choices.
Let them fail and have somebody else buy them out.
That's when the argument from the left or folks like yourself has some credence because you'll see favors being done for the bigger guys that you're not letting them go out of business.
You kind of got to do it.
At the same time, I'll flip it as well and kind of debate myself on this point where a guy named Bob Ben Moshe, I don't know if you remember Bob Ben Moshe is.
AIG.
Bob Ben Moshe used to be the CEO of, yeah, there you go.
$330 billion of assets.
You see that $327.9?
And it's sold for $1.9 billion.
And if you go highlight the $1.9 billion right there, go up four lines, five lines to the left, boom, Chase Bottom for $1.9 billion is what they pay for.
Can you imagine?
It's like, that's like a $330 thing you buy for $1.90.
It's pretty insane for that to happen.
But Bob Ben Moshe was retired.
He had cancer.
He was dying.
It was a former CEO of MetLife.
And AIG calls him up and says, We want you to come and be the CEO.
He's like, Listen, I'm dying.
I got three years left to live.
He had acne everywhere because he was taking the steroid shots and all this stuff.
So it was uncomfortable because this is a good-looking 6'4, 6'5.
He could talk.
He talks shit.
And he talked to you like a man's man.
He didn't talk to you like the typical Wall Street guys, right?
And I've been in many meetings, have many dinners with this guy.
And they call him and he says, I'm in Dubrovnik at my winery.
If you want me, I'll do it for $10 million, not a penny less.
They say, That's a lot of money.
He says, Let me explain to you what I'm like.
I'm like a prostitute, except a very expensive one.
That's his line, right?
Anyways, they bring him in.
He goes to the government, gets $183 billion, pays it back within a few years, and pays it back with $21 billion of interest.
And the next thing you know, he dies.
Literally, right after they paid back everything, this guy dies.
He says, Here, I was on my deathbed.
Okay.
And if you read his book on his deathbed, his wife's to his right, his girlfriend's to his left.
Okay.
The wife that he left, anyways, but they weren't together.
It was divorced.
But the point is, everybody loved this guy.
He was one of those.
He was a man's man leader.
This is where I'm going with this.
I'm watching MSNBC, and I don't know this guy's, you know who he is.
He's always on.
He's a business.
He's on the business side.
And he's interviewing Elizabeth Warren yesterday.
And I'm sure you know what Elizabeth Warren's shtick is.
You've heard it, and you probably agree with some of it, right?
Where she says, you know, Elon Musk, he's this.
He's a freeloader.
You know, I don't know if you saw that or not.
He was on with, what's his name?
Oh, yeah.
He does the thing with Andrew Ross Sorkin in the morning.
You know who he is.
CNBC.
That's CNBC.
CNBC.
Yeah.
So anyway, so he's calling the Rod and he says, hey, so, oh, he's a freeloader.
Elon Musk is a freeloader.
He says, shouldn't we celebrate this capitalist?
He's one of us.
He loves America.
He came here.
He created all these jobs.
Should we not recognize, oh, he took money from so what's your position with Warren Musk?
That conversation.
So this is what drives me crazy about the national conversation.
None of it makes any sense.
So are you for Elon Musk or against Elon Musk?
Wait a minute.
That question doesn't make any sense.
The question is, what's Elon Musk doing?
So if you say, are you for Tesla?
Well, that creates electric cars and that's going to help the climate.
And I'm in favor of that.
So that's great.
So that's a great thing that Elon Musk is doing.
But in terms of paying taxes, for decades, he barely paid any taxes.
So wait, why would I be in favor of that?
Billionaires on average right now and federal taxes pay about 8% because of all the loopholes.
Am I in favor?
Should I like some progressives will say there shouldn't be any billionaires?
I don't agree with that, right?
So you did a great job.
You built a great business.
It helped the world generally.
You became a billionaire.
Fantastic, right?
But should you pay your taxes?
Fuck yeah, you should pay your taxes.
So no, when Elizabeth Warren says they should pay their taxes, otherwise they're a freeloader.
She's absolutely right.
So let's unpack that.
Let's unpack that.
Okay.
So this takes me to one area where we may have differing opinions, but I kind of want to process it with you.
So here's how I look at it.
If the government has a million dollars to give to you or to give to the government on who's going to do a better job with the money, I trust you're probably going to make the million dollars into $2 million more than the government's going to turn a million dollars into $2 million.
Now, you may disagree and you may say, Pat, I disagree with that.
But they gave this guy $464 million.
This guy named Elon Musk, the freeloader, right?
And he takes that $400 million and it's a 10-year loan that they give him.
He pays it off three years later in 2013, okay, with interest.
At the time, he has 6,000 employees.
He takes it from 6,000 employees to 100,000 employees.
Do you think that $464 million that he got from the government that he borrowed, if that was given to somebody in the government, do you think they're going to get that kind of return and produce 94,000 jobs of people in the free market that taxpayers don't have to pay for?
So, Patrick, let me ask him, please.
Who gave him the 464?
Taxpayers did.
Okay, so the government did.
So you just made an argument for the government being awesome at this.
So they gave it to Elon Musk.
The government made the decision to give it to Elon Musk, and it turned out to be a great investment.
But it's congratulations, government.
But I agree.
No, but what I'm saying is I agree versus when we see some of this money when they say, we're going to do $5.8 trillion.
Where's the money going to?
Okay.
So now let's break it down.
Okay.
So the government sometimes gives out subsidies that make a lot of sense.
So for example, when they gave to renewable energies, Fox News went crazy about Solyndra because that was a company that lost money.
But when you looked at the overall portfolio, that was a thing that Obama did really, really well.
The overall portfolio made tons of money and gave it back to the government.
So that was a success story.
And so Fox News eventually dropped Solyndra because it was embarrassing because that government program totally worked.
On the other hand, some government programs, or actually most government programs, are just built to be robberies.
Okay.
So people think, oh, the people on the left love the government.
No, it depends.
What's the government doing?
Is it invading Iraq?
Then I hate it.
Right.
Is it saying, hey, women can't control their bodies?
Then I hate it.
It's big government, tyrannical, jackbooted thugs coming in, telling me what my wife can do or my daughter can do.
Fuck off for my life, government.
Okay.
So what is it?
What's the government doing?
So a lot of the subsidies are just robberies.
So when you, right now, we still give billions of subsidies to oil companies.
Why?
They're the most profitable companies in the world.
Why are we giving them subsidies?
Those from 100 years ago when it made sense.
Now they don't make any sense at all.
And no one thinks they make sense.
They just do it, like Manchin, constant subsidies to coal.
Why?
He owns a coal company.
Manchin's one of the most corrupt people in Congress.
But they're all corrupt.
You name it.
Or you talk about Hunter Biden.
Orin Hatch's son was a lobbyist who just rode off his dad, right?
So whatever he wanted passed, he'd go tell his dad and his dad, oh, technically, we didn't meet at all.
It was somebody else from my son's company, lobbying company.
And they would pay the son millions of dollars, and then Orrin Hatch would pass whatever the hell they wanted.
So this robbery has been going on for a long, long time.
So it depends on what you mean by government.
Yeah, I agree with that, where some of the money goes in places, but we don't get the return.
But you give money to a guy like this who's doing well, who brings and makes money for you, and he pays $11 billion in taxes this year that he's actually selling some of his stocks because that's an event.
That's a tax event.
Should we not celebrate a guy like that?
No, when he pays his taxes, I celebrate.
Okay.
And you know the government forced him to do that.
So he wasn't going to pay his taxes.
And it was the structure of that particular thing.
I don't know if the government forced him to do that.
So Patrick, that particular.
So there's two different things that happened in that.
One, it was the type of stock grant that he had.
It was coming due and he had to pay taxes.
He wasn't choosing to sell at that point.
But he did choose to sell a lot more, which I think was him saying, Tesla's probably at its peak.
Let me take some money off the table while pretending.
But you see what happens here then?
Then here's what happens at this point.
So what happens, what you just did is there's no way this guy can ever win with guys like you.
Never.
No, that's not true.
But wait a minute.
But what you do, you just speculated and that's a speculation.
First part, okay, fine, I get it.
Like they're forcing to pay tax, but you say now he's paying more.
Oh, it's probably because he thinks Tesla's at his best.
So regardless, this dude cannot win.
No, no, Patrick, I'll take it.
I don't care why he's doing anything.
I don't care.
Politician, if they're the greasy, should we applaud this guy?
So again, it depends.
What are we applauding him for?
So Patrick, in your example, by the way, he gets $464 million from the government.
Why didn't the government take equity?
Think about it.
If somebody, we're all business people, right?
Whose fault is that?
Okay, hold on.
So if somebody's going to give me $464 million, they're going to take a lot of equity.
They're going to take 99% of the equity, right?
That's how the markets work.
But when the government does it, they're like, oh, we got paid back.
That's not investing.
That's not investing.
Why don't we get equity?
So you mentioned AIG.
We bailed out AIG 100%.
Of course, absolutely.
And $13 million of that was a backdoor bailout to Goldman Sachs.
Again, that $13 billion was nothing but a robbery.
Goldman Sachs took chances in the market.
They failed at those chances.
They should have been punished by the market for failing.
Instead, the taxpayers bailed them out because of the goddamn corrupt politicians, mainly Republicans, but yes, a giant portion were Democrats.
And Obama helped in that robbery.
Let's keep it real.
Now, you say, when I say that, MSNBC loses its mind.
No, the beloved Obama and the beloved Biden and Pelosi are perfectly clean.
Get the fuck out of here.
So Mitch McConnell raises a billion dollars.
So does Nancy Pelosi.
When Mitch McConnell raises a billion dollars, they're like, can you believe this corruption?
The Coke industry is giving money to Mitch McConnell.
When Pelosi raises a billion dollars, they're like, she's an angel.
No, they're both bribes.
Our politicians get bribed on the regular.
So those subsidies to Elon Musk and a lot of the renewable energies turned out good for the country.
So overall, I say, I'll take it.
But the correct way to structure that is significant equity for the American people, which they then sell off.
But by the way, I don't disagree.
Let me give you an idea.
No, on the one part, I don't disagree.
Okay, so the first guy I raised money with for my insurance company, I said, he says, I'll give you a few million dollars.
Okay, great.
Equity or debt?
Purely debt.
And it was a revenue-backed funding debt, which I don't know if you know how that works.
It's a very, it's a taxing loan.
It's a taxing money you're raising, right?
So ends up being 33% you're paying per year.
Yeah, I mean, so you know how that works, right?
But you're a startup.
And he's like, you know, okay, I'll take it.
I need the money.
We paid him off a year and a half later.
The second guy comes around.
He says, I'm going to give you $10 million.
I said, $10 million?
And at this point, I want debt.
I don't want equity.
He says, I don't want debt.
I want equity.
Of course.
Well, that $10 million guy paid him $40 million.
So he's sitting pretty saying, shit, can I get some more?
So he calls me two weeks ago.
He says, can I give you another $20 million?
Because I said, no, no, no, I'm good at this point, man.
We're going to be totally fine.
So I get that part.
That's the government lack of ability to negotiate the right contracts for tax people, which you should have asked for equity in Tesla.
It would have been better for everybody else to do.
Can you imagine how much the government would have made if we got equity?
What a great return that.
Would the government ever do that, though?
Actually get equity in these business businesses?
They can.
For example, I think when the banks all crash, they should have nationalized them in the short term, then gotten equity, and then sold them back into the private market.
You don't want the government running all the private banks.
That's crazy.
But when they go bankrupt, you still need the financial system to function.
But when you rescue them, as any investor that rescues a business would have nearly 100% of it, right?
So the American people get it.
So when they get back on their feet and they get profitable, we at least benefit from that.
Instead, what the American people do is constantly just give away billions of dollars to corporations and get nothing in return.
Why?
Because those corporations gave millions of dollars in campaign contributions to those corrupt senators and representatives.
So they're just getting free money because they're being bribed.
I support the fact that Elon didn't give up equity.
Good for him because he doesn't want to be controlled by them.
That is a choice that the individual can make.
Sure.
Whether you want to do that or not.
The last thing you want is every time I go to DMB, they treat me like shit.
Every time I go to a different institution that's not run by the government, they treat me better.
When I was in the army and I was in the army for a few years, it wasn't like, hi, Mr. Ved David.
How are you?
No, it's like, hey, specialist, stand over there.
Like, okay.
I mean, that's just not how things work in free enterprise.
He doesn't have to take the money.
That's right.
So he made the right moment.
You always give the TSA versus clear analogy.
Dude, Clear treats you royally.
Hey, Mr. Redavid, how are you?
How's your day?
TSA.
Can you stand over there, please?
Sir, ma'am, I don't care.
Stand here.
Let me see it.
It's a very, very, so to the government-ran organizations typically.
When you travel, do you fly clear or do you go?
TSA pre-check.
What do you do?
I do TSA pre-check.
I love it.
I think it's perfectly good enough.
I know other people on Clear love it even more.
I hear you.
I like both.
I just want to be given a little bit of a better service by a government organization, and you don't get that by government organizations.
They treat you like they own you.
It's a very different energy that you get.
Yeah, I hear you on that too.
And sometimes you need private and sometimes you need public, right?
We can't, there's some things like cops, military that we have to have public.
That's why the word socialism doesn't make any sense.
Every economy in the world is a mixed economy.
Every single one of them.
Sweden's a mixed economy.
We're a mixed economy.
And so some of it is public.
It should be public.
We used to have private fire departments in America.
It was a disaster because every house would burn down.
Oh, he doesn't have insurance.
We're not going to put out the fire.
Oops, there goes a whole block, right?
Some things need to be public, including health insurance.
So there just needs to be a perfect balance, a mixture?
There needs to be a mixture because life is about balance.
So saying the government is bad doesn't make any sense.
Saying the government is good doesn't make any sense.
The question is, what are they doing and how effectively are they carrying out that mission?
Yeah, you get some people that say taxes need to be zero.
Well, you can't do that.
I'm a public school guy.
So where would I have gone?
Would I have my parents who don't have money?
What would have been my opportunity?
Military.
I feel the budget that we have in a military.
Some say, well, we shouldn't have that big of a budget for military.
Well, that's because you feel safe and you forgot what war felt like.
Maybe you've never been through war and know what it is to be a weak military where everybody attacks you.
It kind of pays to be a badass that nobody wants to attack you.
But when that happens, the people that are raised in that environment become too ungrateful and they're like, no, we're spending too much money.
Now, do I think the current strategy of where the money's being spent in the military is wise while the other guys are investing into cyber and bio and we're investing in traditional ways of fighting 40 years ago?
I don't know.
I'm not either to see the budget.
I don't know where that's going to.
I just don't know if that level of innovation is happening with the military funding.
Speaking of taxes, I think you had this exact debate with Ben Shapiro.
I remember you're saying, I don't think taxes should be zero, but I also don't think it should be 100%.
He was debating you on like, in the Reagan days, it was 91%.
What's the number you're coming from?
So, Patrick, I used to be a Republican.
And so my dad left, started his own.
He was dirt poor southeastern Turkey olive farmer.
Part of the reason I'm progressive today is because in Turkey back in the 1960s, they had free college education to anyone who could score the top.
So my dad and my uncle worked their ass off to score at the top of those college entrance exams.
And without any money, he got in the best engineering school in Turkey.
Then he set up his own company.
I mean, he is the American dream.
And I interviewed him and conservatives loved him, right?
And they're like, how did a jackass like you come out of that guy, right?
And so, and we'll go even further.
My dad was basically chased out of Turkey by a communist.
So he had set up a business and they were threatening his life because he was a capitalist pig.
Okay.
Now, still we're progressive because we have none of this if the government did not provide a free college education to my dad.
Right now, I'd be an olive farmer in southeastern Turkey.
A lot of the right wings going, ah, bro.
So now, having said that, though, why did I leave the Republican Party?
Because every part of it turned out to be marketing.
So like you talk about the defense budget, right?
Do we need a strong military?
Of course we need a strong military.
And so you can't have no military.
That's nuts, right?
But do we need this level of monstrous spending with no accountability where they waste billion after billion because it's not wasted?
It's going in the pocket of defense contractor executives.
So the correct answer is balanced.
So that brings us to taxes.
So when they had it at 91%, right?
Then we were Republicans.
And Reagan came in.
It was still at 70%.
Our family's still Republicans, right?
Nobody paid 91%, by the way, at that time.
Just so you know, you say that, but nobody ever paid 91%.
There were so many loopholes.
The average guy was paying 40 to 50% who was making money because they, so even though I get what you're saying, the 40 years of taxes, there's nobody that was paying 91% at that time.
Yeah, and people have to understand that that's above a certain number.
And the number is super high.
The famous story with Reagan was that he would make $100,000 per each movie.
And then after $200,000 is the time, this is the 40s, whatever it was, anything over 200 grand is at 91%.
He's like, I'm not doing a third freaking movie.
I make 9% of the movie.
So he would just do two movies a year.
And that was basically impetus for his tax plan.
Yeah.
So there is a point where taxes are too high, right?
But right now, we've lowered taxes 128 times.
I'm making that number up.
It's hyperbole, but probably if you looked at the real number, it might be right around that or more.
We're constantly lowering taxes on rich and most importantly, corporations, right?
So, and then remember when the Trump tax cut, they were going to do $2 trillion, mainly for corporations.
What happened, Mr. Populist?
And then they were supposed to take away the loopholes.
What'd they do instead?
They did $2 trillion in tax cuts.
They didn't take away a single loophole.
They were lying all the time.
Republicans were lying.
Democrats were lying.
None of them took away a single goddamn loophole.
So it was a $2 trillion giveaway to the richest people in the country and to corporations.
So taxes should be around, it should be layered, right?
Progressive, like Reagan.
So, well, progressive taxes is American.
Like we've had progressive taxation in America.
Where would you put the top line?
You know, above a billion dollars, it'd be a high number.
I mean, 50% at least.
Above a billion dollars in earnings?
In earnings.
In earnings.
Earned income.
You're not talking capital gains.
Capital gains, I'd put it whatever is the normal tax.
Okay.
I think it's outrageous.
Capital gains is low.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, okay.
So interesting.
So there's a few things that, you know, you just said that I actually, you know, like when you said corporations, you know, I can't believe what, you know, we had the corporation taxes because our corporation tax were the lowest.
It was the highest at 35 points.
Nobody paid that, to your point.
You're right.
Nobody paid it, but it was high because they just kind of let the money flow and they took it out by debt or dividends or in different ways that it can avoid paying that 35%.
And then I think Trump brought it down to 21%.
And then it's back up to 25.
They're going to move it up by 20,000.
See, that's exactly how the good pad cop of Republicans and Democrats.
Republicans bring it down from 35, 21.
Biden comes and goes, I'm going to bring it back to 28.
Wait, it wasn't at 28.
It was at 35.
Mainstream media doesn't say a word about it, right?
Then Manchester says, I don't want 28.
I want 25.
And then Biden says, I am the bold leader who's going to get it to you at 25.
Hey, man, you guys just took 10 points off the corporate tax rate.
Biden did that under the Obama administration, by the way.
Bush passed massive tax cuts for the rich, but they couldn't make them permanent because it was so unpopular.
Then Obama gets into office, has Biden negotiate with Mitch McCono.
He makes 94% of the tax cuts for the rich permanent.
The Democrats did that, not the Republicans.
It was Biden himself.
It was such a terrible deal that other conservative Democrats were livid.
They're like, how could you give McConnell 94% of what he wanted?
That's why I say Biden is conservative.
Biden will give Republicans anything they want 24-7.
They have too many stuff on Biden, if you ask me.
But here's the other part.
You know how every time they're like, let's send money to, you know, to people to help them out and bail them out.
Every time they print a money and send money to them, what are your thoughts on sending money to people?
Hey, here's $1,000.
Here's $6 million a week.
Stimulus checks.
What are your thoughts on that?
Like an Andrew Yank model, even a UBI.
I would assume you would support someone like that.
No, okay.
So it all depends on context.
It all depends on the facts.
So when we were in the middle of COVID, did people need relief checks?
Yes.
So I supported that completely.
UBI has some issues, including they take away a lot of social services to be able to do UBI.
And I don't love that concept.
And so I, you know, and progressives are split about UBI.
There's a lot of different thoughts on it.
And I'm sure there's good progressives who love it and would disagree with me.
But I think just giving money is not the most productive way of the government handling it.
Do you know why I don't think?
You know how they did a case study with UBI, I think in Alaska.
I don't know if you've seen that study or not when they did Alaska and they started sending the money like, ah, this didn't work.
Alaska still does it for people that live there because who the hell wants to live in?
When guys were in Fort Wayne Wright, my friends were in the middle.
You know what's the great thing about living in Alaska?
Every year the state sends me $2,000.
I said, yeah, when you ETS, are you staying in Alaska?
Hell no.
That's why they pay you $2,000, right?
Because you don't want to live there.
Now, some people will argue that if you like that lifestyle, more power to you.
The one area that if you were to look at the current system that we have, we typically ask this one question.
I'm curious to know what your answer is going to be.
Guy asked me this question, yes.
I'm like, you know, no one's ever asked me the question that I've asked others.
I asked Joe Rogan this question.
Out of the five organizations and individuals I'll give you, tell me who's got the most power.
President of the United States, virtual governments, which is, you know, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, all those guys.
We call them virtual government.
And then you got the educational system.
You got mainstream media or you got the billionaires.
In order of top five, who would you put as the most powerful and the least powerful?
Billionaires have the most power by an order of magnitude.
Way, way, way more.
The president has the least power by an order of magnitude because politicians are basically servants.
They're waiters and waitresses that the mainstream media does marketing for.
They take an order.
Hey, donor would like this.
And they execute the order.
Okay, I will pass a bill in favor of the donors.
So why did, for example, why did Ted Cruz turn around on a dime?
Oh, I'm going to get Trump.
I can't believe he said that about my wife and I'm going to get him.
And then he said that about my dad and he's a dishonorable man.
And then he's like, I'm going to phone bank for Donald Trump.
I love Donald Trump.
Please re-elect Donald Trump.
Okay.
True story, by the way.
100% true.
A, he's a bitch.
Okay.
But B, let me explain to you why he's a bitch.
Because when he gave the speech at the convention and did not endorse Trump, he then went up to his daddy, which is Robert Mercer.
That's his donor that gave him $13 million.
Look, again, we're businessmen, Patrick.
Somebody gives you $13 million, they expect something in return, okay?
Especially in politics.
In business, they expect a return.
In politics, what do they expect?
They still expect a return, but through corruption.
So when he goes up to the suite.
He return on investment.
Exactly.
When he goes up to the suite of the Mercers, Robert and Rebecca, they slammed a door in his face.
They got a new boy.
It's Donald Trump.
And Ted Cruz miscalculated.
Because he lost his donor.
That's why he was like, oh, I'm sorry.
Insult my wife all you like.
I never really.
She's not that pretty anyway.
It's fine.
You're right.
She's ugly.
Donald Trump, what do you need me to do?
Okay.
Because he is, that's who they are.
So the president barely has any power.
When the donors tell Biden, you're not going to pass the $15 minimum wage.
Shut up and do as you're told.
Biden says, yes, sir.
Absolutely, sir.
I can prove it.
I forced the vote.
The Young Turks did a petition that forced Bernie to introduce $15 minimum wage in the coronavirus relief bill.
They had it in there originally.
They took it out and they were never going to vote on it.
Why?
Because it was going to be embarrassing to the Democrats.
Then Bernie does do the vote.
He did the right thing.
Wonderful.
Okay.
Guess what?
It wasn't just Republicans.
Eight Democrats voted against it, including the two Delaware senators.
The two Delaware senators are not voting without checking with Biden.
They're his top allies.
That is Biden saying, I didn't mean it.
I was lying the whole time.
I'm against $15 minimum wage.
The whole time, pretending that he's in favor of it.
If you watch mainstream media, they tell you, Joe Biden's in favor of the $15 minimum wage.
No, it was a lie.
So mainstream media, second most powerful on that list, but they're also servants.
The wealthy are at the top.
Corporations are at the top.
Everyone else serves them.
The educational system, that is a variety.
So because it has a history, right?
And sometimes, sometimes it's wonderful.
Like in the 1950s and 60s, education in New York was the best in the world and it produced amazing businessmen, entertainers, you name it, right?
So when I was growing up, we had great public schools.
I went to a public school in New Jersey, right?
Now it's an absolute disaster in places like California.
Why?
Because they lowered the tax base and they privatized the schools and they funneled the money to private schools and they starved the public schools.
So the educational system is important because that's where we teach culture.
Now the right wing would agree with me that we teach culture there, but we disagree on what we should teach.
So you put education three?
I think education three, president's five.
So who what's left?
What was the digital media?
Virtual government.
Oh, no, my bad.
Virtual government is now.
No, They're number three.
Yeah, but they're almost at number two.
So you got billionaires at the top.
Yeah.
Then you got legacy media number two.
And then virtual government's digital media number three.
That's right.
Educational system number four.
And at the bottom of the totem pole, the president of the United States.
Definitely.
So here's how I have it.
Okay.
I have president at the bottom, just like you do.
I don't think president is, you got eight years.
What are you going to be doing?
And quite frankly, eight years, you got to have Congress on your side sending.
There's a lot of moving parts for you to be able to do a lot of things done.
they're funding you from the back so you're working for you guys agree That part, I agree.
Absolutely.
At the second to the lowest, I put mainstream media because mainstream media is a byproduct of the money, guys.
Meaning mainstream media is nobody without the funders, which is billionaires.
Billionaires make mainstream media or whatever they're talking about.
So I put mainstream media at fourth.
I put billionaires at third.
I put educational system at second because it's got a long lifespan, kind of like what you were talking about.
So if one side of the political party gets the educational system, you got them for decades.
So if you got for every one conservative professor, 12 are on the liberal side, you got a monopoly there.
That's a full-on monopoly.
So that's problematic because you're able to indoctrinate younger generation coming up.
That's a lot of power.
That's number two.
And I put number one at virtual government because I think those guys are becoming just as powerful as the government, if not bigger.
You know, they can do a lot of different things.
They can have a lot of control over other things.
And you have to go through them.
They're not going away.
So you can do a lot of things you want to do, but you kind of have to go through them, the virtual governments.
But you put billionaires at the top.
The one area, lobbyists, let's talk about lobbyists.
So, which I think you love lobbyists.
They're your best friends, right?
You're a big fan of lobbyists.
They're your favorite.
We should have gotten a shirt for you saying, I love lobbyists, right?
So, so if you think about, do you think Trump and Bernie like lobbyists?
Do you think they like lobbyists?
No, my guess is they probably.
Well, no, no, no, no, let me admit.
Let me admit.
So you're kidding.
I despise lobbyists.
Of course I'm kidding, right?
And so Bernie probably despises lobbyists just as much, but there's a butt in there because there's public interest lobbyists that he probably will meet with.
And so now, for Trump, he says he dislikes lobbyists, but if they come with cash, they're his best friend.
He'll love them right away.
You know Trump.
He'll say, what am I going to do?
Say no?
They have money for me.
I'm going to say yes.
Why wouldn't I take their money?
He said it about the Saudis.
He said it about the Russians.
Of course, lobbyists, are you kidding me?
He's like, what do you need?
Let's make a deal.
Okay.
You want me to give you a trillion dollars?
You give me a billion.
I give you a trillion.
At least I have a billion.
Let's make a deal.
I don't know about that.
By the way, Jake, your Trump impression is a little mafia New York underwall.
There's a reason for that.
Oh, wow.
I got to look Bernie in there.
You know, I was like, wait, is that Bernie?
Yeah.
So let's hang on.
Bernie Trump makes Bernie's net worth is $3 million.
Okay.
He's been in government for, what, 40 years?
He's written a book, but you don't make $3 million off of it.
You actually do.
His book is not that good.
Hold on, Tyler.
Are you saying $3 million is a lot or a little?
For a government employee, unless you're doing what Nancy Pelosi is doing and you're an inside trader, I think it's far more than your net worth should be for 40 years in government.
For 80 years old, you think $3 million is a lot?
I think it's very little.
Whatever you're doing.
Yeah.
So look, for the average American, $3 million is a ton of money, right?
So I hear what you're saying.
Because you're young.
But if for an average politician, that's almost nothing.
I don't think there was a lot of money.
So to your point about Nancy Pelosi, she's gotten spectacularly rich.
She's worth how much?
$200 million?
She beats the market every time there's an index fund that tracks Nancy Pelosi's best because it's obvious insider trading, right?
And the difference is she's a crook and he's not, right?
So he made most of the money from books, from what I understand.
There is, you can't, there's, believe me, if I thought anybody on my side was corrupt, I call him out immediately.
I got no tolerance for that at all.
So, Patrick, though, you see what I'm saying about Trump likes people with money.
Lobbyists have money.
So are you saying Trump would say, oh, I don't want a deal?
No, no, no.
I'm not saying that.
But I'm going to come back to this one guy that asked the question about the, which we'll come back to in a minute.
But I'm not saying that.
What I am saying is the following.
If you look at people that have been assassinated historically, okay, it's been who?
Let's just say the ones that we know about.
Let's say JFK, okay?
He wanted to get away with Federal Reserve and he wanted to pull out a war.
He wanted to, even Lyndon Johnson didn't like the fact that this guy didn't want.
There's a lot of things.
They did not like the direction JFK was doing, but he couldn't be controlled because he had money.
Reagan, he made his money.
Was he a billionaire?
No, but Reagan had money.
It's not like he was struggling for money.
He had a nice place in Santa Barbara.
He had, you know, whatever the number was.
They couldn't control him.
Ah, maybe we got to do something with this guy.
Now, don't get me wrong.
I've read the Tip O'Neal book.
I've read the books on Reagan on the other side where he was a deal maker and he would say, we got to make deals happen.
We got to give him some to get some.
Great.
He was still a good deal maker.
You go to Reagan, you go to Lincoln.
I think, and you said character assassination versus the other side.
I don't think Trump is a guy that you can buy because he came in with money.
He funded his own campaign.
So if you sit there and you say, but think about it, who funded his campaign?
So who funded his campaign?
How much money did he spend on his campaign?
Patrick, you could buy Trump for like five bucks.
Trump will sell anything, including his soul, any policy position.
He wouldn't, there isn't anything he wouldn't sell.
I don't know about it.
And Patrick, but there are facts on how he funded the campaign.
In the beginning, he put some of his own money in.
The minute that he actually got funders, he's like, get my money out of there, put the donor money in.
That you're supposed to invest as well.
In 2020, it was almost all donor money.
Not almost all.
All was donor money.
Okay.
So he, and then what did he do?
He raised $200 million for a legal defense and hasn't defended anyone.
He hasn't defended the January 6th guys.
He hasn't defended Rudy Giuliani, his top guy.
He hasn't defended anybody.
He's just hoarding the money.
And he put it in there.
Hey, suckers, by the way, I can keep all this money.
Okay.
I don't have to spend it on legal defense.
And what does he do in his campaigns?
He started charging three times, five times as much for rent in his own properties and said that he was renting it out for the campaign.
There's no campaign office.
The guy's a long time.
You can flip it and say that Bernie wasn't paying his own workers $15 an hour, yet he's screaming off the top of his lungs to do $15 an hour.
So now they can be on both sides.
But I would agree.
Yeah, so the same criticisms can be given on both sides.
But what I'm saying about the lobbyist side, if I had it my way, I think they are probably the biggest problem makers in America today.
I think they're holding a lot of people back with lobbyists.
100%.
Left, right, middle, I don't care.
And you ask, I ask a lot of people saying, will this business model ever go away?
And they say, that's not going to go away.
Why is this business model not going to go away?
Because congressmen are making $170,000, whatever.
They just got a 22% raise.
I don't know what the number.
Say they're making $200,000 a year, and then they're retiring.
And then you got a lobbyist job making a million, $2 million, $5 million, $10 million a year.
Why would you give up that opportunity to get away with it?
Right.
I had one of my agents, literary agents for my book that he published.
He was a former lobbyist.
I said, tell me how ugly it is.
He says, Pat, as ugly as you think it is, it's 100 times ugly.
I said, get out of here.
He says, no, I'm telling you.
It's very ugly.
He says, he says, I made money, but I couldn't wait to get out of it.
I don't want to stay in it because it was a very, very ugly business model.
What do they mean by ugly?
Like, how ugly?
When you say ugly, define that.
So you know what a lobbyist?
What does a lobbyist do?
Yeah, they buy politicians, basically.
So how do you buy them?
How creative can you be?
As creative as you want, right?
Okay.
So what does creative mean, though?
Go get creative.
What things do you have to do?
What motives do you have to find?
What drives people?
How do you, you know, there's so many ugly things.
I don't even want to get into it.
Like, you know, you remember the story with Cartagena, what happened?
I don't know if you remember that story.
That was 12, 13 years ago where congressmen were in Cartagena partying and different story there.
But lobbyists, just open-ended question to you.
What needs to happen for the system to get rid of lobbyists, to not even allow for a lobbyist?
So, boy, that's the right guy.
So I started a pack called Wolfpack, wolf-pack.com, to get all money out of politics.
Okay.
So how are we going to do that?
You have to end the private financing of elections.
If you finance elections through a private system, the politicians will always work for the people who sign their checks.
That's just capitalism 101.
That's logic 101.
Okay.
If you do public financing of elections, then they have to work for the public.
Now, people go, oh my God, we're paying the goddamn politicians to run for office.
Yes, either we're paying them or Soros is paying them.
Coke Industries is paying them.
Then they work for Soros or Coke.
If we pay them, then at least we've got a fighter's chance of them working for us.
And on top of that, you make penalties for if you're getting private financing, you're getting money funneled to either your campaign or your pocketbook.
We're going to put you in jail.
We're not going to have corruption in American government.
You're going to serve the American people and not the industries that are buying you.
So you said Soros, I tell conservatives all the time, come join Wolfpack.
It's totally nonpartisan.
We want to do election reform.
You want to do election reform?
We want to do election reform.
We want a constitutional convention.
It's actually technically not a constant.
It's a convention that is put together to amend the Constitution.
Conservatives should love that.
Progressives love that.
The establishment hates that because it's real change.
We get the money out.
And then people say, oh, yeah, would you take Soros's money out?
Of course I would.
Why would I say, oh, yeah, yeah, take the Coke money out and the Mercer money out, but keep the Soros money.
And by the way, Soros is a massive capitalist, right?
Of course.
Yeah.
And so he's socially liberal, but economically, he's still conservative as well.
So, no, but it doesn't matter.
Even if he agreed with my 100%, I'd still take his money out because I don't want the politicians being bribed.
So that's how you get at it.
The lobbyists will exist, but if they cannot influence your election and they cannot influence your money, then they have a lot less power.
You still have to close the revolving door, the one you mentioned at the end when they retire, they get the big checks.
And that's the hardest thing to do.
Because when you tell politicians you're not allowed to make millions after you retire, they're going to fight you tooth and nail.
To the end.
To the end.
Do you agree with him, by the way?
Which part?
I mean, you're talking about campaign finance reform at the end of the day, right here?
And I mean, you're no fan of lobbyists.
I know you kind of give him an open-ended question.
So you're saying if you're running for office, use your own money to run for office.
No, I'm saying public financing.
So you can't take anybody else's money, okay?
So otherwise, we're worried you're going to work for them.
So you go, and the way that it works is you have to use your own money?
In most public financing systems, yes.
So it creates a loophole for the rich, and some progressives don't like that.
That's a different issue.
But the great majority will be just normal people.
Five bucks, $10, $20, $50.
You have to qualify.
And the way to qualify is to get a certain number of signatures.
It depends on where you live and your district and your state.
To get a certain amount of signatures, and you have to get a certain amount of money raised.
But usually it's like $5 or $10 at a time.
So you're actually raising money from real people.
It's one thing to do a signature at the mall.
It's another thing to give somebody $5.
Big difference.
Yeah.
This is what you're talking about with Bernie.
His famous thing goes, the only thing the average voter will give me, $18 of an individual donation.
Did you follow the Michael Porter and Catherine Gala when they came out with the book, The Industry of Politics, and they're trying to change the voting system?
Did you follow any of that or no?
Not specifically.
Okay.
So it's a similar, they're going a similar direction.
But question for you.
By the way, if you go with that format that you're talking about, who would win?
Who would that benefit?
And who would be against it?
So say you go to format that I get to use my own money or public money to run for office.
You're saying that because you think that would benefit Bernie because Bernie would get the most public money.
No, I'm saying that, first of all, I've been saying that for 20 years, well before the rise of the benefit, though.
Well before grassroots fundraising was even a thing.
So it would benefit the people because, and now then it gets to the question of, do I think the American people are fundamentally progressive or is it a center-right country as the media has told us our whole lives?
Now, if you're a conservative and you think the country is mainly conservative, you would love that system.
I'm a progressive and I think the country is two-thirds progressive.
So I love that system.
So that makes sense because if I were to ask my kids what percentage of them would like me to make their bet instead of them making the bets, it's two-thirds.
Probably three-fourths.
So do you understand what I just said, right?
I don't know if you got what I just said, right?
So I believe if the individual is not protected and somebody comes in saying, if you vote me and I'm going to give you XYZ, I do believe that majority of the country is going to vote for an easier life than a harder life where you have to carry the weight and pull your own little red wagon or as JFK would say, don't ask what your country can do for you, what you can do for your country.
But yeah, it's interesting to see that would benefit.
Patrick, you know, you just made an argument against democracy.
Tell me why.
Because you're saying, well, if we let people vote for their own interest, they're going to vote for their own interest.
Yeah, that's called democracy.
So then the question is, what is the right balance?
Okay, because that's always the balance that you have to strike.
Because let's say the people voted for, hey, you know what?
I want the government to give me to give us each a million dollars.
Right.
Well, the government's going to run out of money instantly, right?
And then all of a sudden, they're not going to have any social services.
Nobody's going to pick up the garbage.
Why?
Because we already gave you a million dollars.
Then they're going to go, oh, okay, we overdid it.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Let's course create.
Now, that's an extreme example, obviously, right?
And you would never get to that point.
But you would get to a point where you would tip the scales into the wrong balance from time to time.
But the idea that we should not serve the people because then they will want things is absurd.
That's the whole point of the government is to serve the people the things that they want, like security, police, military, et cetera, right?
Health care so they can stay alive and other things.
And then we all decide: hey, do we want that or don't we want that?
At what cost do we want it?
Instead, the system we have now is the very, very rich decide what they want and they get the media to lie on their behalf about what they want.
I get it.
So, what I would say is I would flip it on you and I would say, I'm okay with that side as long as we add an element of you having to earn the right to vote, which you're not going to like this.
But earning, of course, you're not going to like that part because to me, if I'm living in a household and my kid wants to tell me what color I should paint the wall and he's 18 years old, not paying rent, you have no right to tell me how to paint the wall or do anything.
If you contribute to society, no problem.
If you're paying taxes, no problem.
If you've earned the right to get a job or get a degree or serve the military, no problem.
Minus the 1% who don't have the ability, they're disabled, they have health challenges like that.
I think everybody else needs to contribute to society to do that.
You know, the structure of the whole thing.
Patrick, hold on.
Let me just say two things about that.
One, again, just definitionally going to go back to democracy.
And I'm going to say republic, where the individual has to be.
So you're against democracy, right?
So let's just be clear.
Universal vote.
I'm for the follow-on.
I came to America feeling I need to do more for America, not America needs to do.
America doesn't owe me shit.
I owe America.
No, I'm sorry.
What do you mean it depends?
So America didn't.
America didn't tell me to come here.
I chose to come to America.
I owe America everything, not the other way around.
No.
So, Patrick, I came to America too.
I love America.
Okay.
And I'm super.
We love a different America.
Yeah.
Well, apparently.
But I'm optimistic.
I love this country.
I think we're going to get back on the right track.
I think we're in dark times now, but we're going to get there.
And this country gave me a lot of opportunity, gave my family a ton of opportunity.
So it's got, but it's okay.
Right.
So, but it's okay to say one of the reasons we came here is because it's a democracy and we get to have a say.
We get to have a vote.
That's part of the reason we love America.
You're right.
And you got to earn the vote.
No, you don't.
Because Patrick, think about it.
Okay.
I think you said you were poor.
We were poor when we were growing up, right?
Very much.
Poor would be an understatement.
Yes.
Poor would be rich to us.
That's right.
And so what did the government do?
It gave you a set of opportunities.
It gave you a public school.
And for my dad, it gave it all the way up to college.
But for us, high school, right?
It gave us roads and bridges to it.
I'm indebted to it.
You're indebted to the United States government.
Okay, good, great.
I appreciate that.
I appreciate that.
But that's my government.
I'm here now.
It can't say, hey, welcome.
Thank you.
Here's the thing, the dream that we sold you.
But now the rich run the country.
So fuck it.
That's not what I said.
That's not what I said.
No, no, no.
But wait a minute.
You came to America and you've, in your own way, contributed.
You said you got 70 employees, right?
That's 70 people that are not relying on the government for an income.
They're getting it from you and young Turks and you got 30 part-time.
Patrick, it's always balanced because they also get a lot of things from the government.
They also get police protection, fire department, schools, they get all those things from the government.
But I'm not disputing that.
Are you kidding me?
Of course.
You know, if you and I were to start a country right now and we go and say, hey, we got 10 million square miles or whatever.
We got 10 million.
We got a good sized land.
Say South Dakota is ours now.
And we want to attract people.
Nuclear war took place.
We're running this place.
What's the first thing a mom's going to ask before they move to our country?
Security.
Safety.
Of course.
So she's going to want military.
She's going to want police.
She's going to want fire department.
Moms are going to decide what state and country they're going to feel safest to put their kids to, right?
And that's where they're going to go.
I fully support the fact that you're offering that to me, right?
America's offering that to me.
But I'm indebted to America for offering that to me, meaning I have to give back, not I have to take.
But Patrick, do you think that when you and I were poor, we shouldn't have been able to vote?
We had not contributed at what age?
Of course, 18.
I think voting should be, I think to me, voting is not age.
You're going to think this is crazy when I tell you this.
I would much rather have a 15-year-old kid vote who has paid $5,000 in taxes because he's got a job than a 24-year-old vote who's never had a job.
Yeah, that's what I think.
To me, it's not an age thing.
To me, it's a contribution to society thing.
But if the poor can't vote, then they can never get policies that help the poor to become middle class or rich.
But I'm sorry, but the poor can't find a way to contribute.
If I'm poor, I don't have anything.
I joined the military.
That's my way of contributing.
I work at Hawkins-Doz at 15 years old and I'm paying taxes.
That's the only way I can contribute.
I don't have a lot of money.
I'm poor.
My mom's living there with my sister and now.
My dad's having heart attacks left and right.
He's making $1,500 a month at 99 Central in Westwood.
Then he moves to Inglewood, right by Great Western Forum, which you know that entire area.
But that's how I gave it.
So I think the challenge a lot of times with the argument is that, hey, come here, we're going to take care of you.
No, no, no, no.
Come here and contribute to young Turks.
Come here and contribute to this environment that we have.
And we, in return, have to give you good 401k benefits.
We have to give you good health benefits.
I know you like to say companies are not individuals or companies are not countries.
But if let's just say people are working and I don't give you benefits, somebody else does.
I'm not competitive.
But if you come in here, you're not providing value to the organization.
You're always late.
You have a bad attitude.
You're complaining.
You're bitching all the time.
You're recruiting people to be complainers.
You're probably not going to stay here for too long.
So we have to realize who we're turning into heroes.
For me, even an individual who has had a job, who's cleaning, whether it's waste management, whether it's whatever it is you're doing, but you're figuring out a way to contribute to society and taking care of your family.
But Patrick, I salute you.
But Patrick, we agree on that 100%.
Our families worked our way up.
So which part of it is a challenge with?
So all of that is wonderful.
I'm just saying, yes, but if you're poor or you don't happen to have a job now, and I'll give you a specific example, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to vote.
You're taking away universal suffrage.
not what i'm saying so so like for example when my dad i'll give my caveat but go ahead please When my dad is going to college, he can't work at the same time.
He's barely able to survive, right?
And college is super hard at the time, right?
Now, I think college is way easier these days.
Anyways, so at that time, technically, he's not contributing to society.
But what's he doing?
He's turning from an olive farmer to a mechanical engineer and a businessman, right?
So in that time, he needs a little bit of a hand up and not a hand out.
Like, as an old Clinton line, it's true.
How long, though?
Yeah, that's the question.
And by the way, Patrick, will some people abuse that?
Of course, it's human nature, right?
And you put in safeguards, you put in guardrails, but it doesn't mean you take it away.
I think you said your family used food stamps or something like that.
Of course.
Yeah.
See, so that was the government helping you when you really needed to do it.
When you need it, but flip it, but I flip it on you.
For how long, though?
For how long?
You shouldn't have to do it.
That's just a balancing act.
So if you say, hey, you know what?
I think it should be three years and then you got to be self-sufficient.
That's what I'm saying.
Oh, and I say five years or the other guy says one year.
Okay, we're having a debate.
That's okay.
There's nothing wrong with you.
Then we don't have a challenge.
Example, like unemployment, you got fired.
Of course, you need unemployment to go find a job.
What are you talking about here?
But put a timeline to it, not 24 months, not 20 years.
I actually agree with you, and that's where some progressives don't agree with me.
But I'm on your side on that.
How, like, look, it happened to me when I was in Florida.
We were working down at Whammy and down in South Beach, and that was Barry Diller's TV organization.
He sells it to Univision.
We're all unemployed.
It's hard trying to get a job as a TV writer, especially in Florida.
So I go on unemployment.
Did I go on unemployment the entire time and milk the whole thing?
Of course I did.
That's what everybody does, right?
What are you going to do?
Turn down the unemployment check.
So, but at the same time.
I don't think everybody does.
I don't think everybody does.
But by the way, you've contributed.
You've contributed.
So to me, you've created 70 jobs that it's almost like this.
People ask me questions.
They say, How do you feel about your brother-in-law, Ciomac?
Okay.
I say, what do you mean?
How do I feel about COMAC?
You say something to COMAC.
You're going to have to deal with me.
This guy's my family.
Why?
Because I'm a younger brother by six years, five years and 10 months.
Let me pull it off camera.
She's only older than me by two years, because if you look at it, you'll think I'm the older one.
Anyways, but she's older than me, five years, ten months, right?
But I've always been the older brother and a little bit protective.
My parents got a divorce.
I kind of have to be that.
You know, I understand what the motives are with men.
I know it myself.
I know what they're trying to do.
So I got a little bit protective.
She married Ciomac.
Best wedding ever.
I think it's November 23rd or something like that.
03, we go to the wedding.
Ridiculous wedding.
Incredible wedding.
02 or 01 or one of those years.
Anyways, he starts taking care of my sister.
Do you know when's the last time I was concerned about my sister's health, protection, safety, finances?
Do you know when's the last time I went to sleep worried about that?
Two years before they started, a day before they started dating.
Okay?
Do you get what I'm saying?
So the moment these guys are together, I'm like, dude, this guy's a, I call him a saint is what I call him.
He's an incredible father to his daughter.
He's an incredible father to his son.
I salute this guy.
When I came the other day, says, I just want to tell you, man, I love you.
We had a moment.
I'm like, dude, you ain't got to tell me you love me, bro.
I love you.
We got emotional.
It was like telling you, you've made my life easier.
I owe you.
You contributed to this family, right?
What can I do for you?
To me, everything's about earning.
And I think we have missed the definitions of freeloaders.
We got an Elizabeth Warren calling an Elon Musk who created 100,000 job freeloaders, and millions of people are agreeing with that.
And we're forgetting that freeloaders come in different facets.
You know, they're coming from people that don't want to contribute.
My only challenge with what you're saying is, if you contribute, great.
You've contributed to created 70 jobs.
Great.
I don't care what side you are politically.
I just care that you created 70 jobs because you made taxes lower for me.
And my hat's off to you.
Do you understand what I mean by taxes lower for me?
That's all I'm saying with this part of it.
But by the way, who would you not take money from?
You've raised money.
I don't know what if you go to Crunchbase, you know, 26, 27 million bucks, you've raised some money from certain people.
You'll see Katzenberg.
You'll see this.
You'll see that.
Some guys that have given you money.
Who would you not take money from?
Yeah, well, I've already done that practically in many, many instances.
So I'll give you some examples.
So, first of all, in terms of advertisers, when we were at Current TV, Chevron wanted to advertise and we said no.
So we think the fossil fuels are destroying the planet and we don't want them to be a direct advertiser.
Okay.
So for-profit colleges, I think they're a scam.
We said no.
So we say no to advertisers all the time.
We now focus on the ads that we can control, the direct advertising.
We focus on progressive companies that are what are called in the good economy.
Like Aspiration is a great example of it.
They're a financial institution.
You would love it.
They create tons and tons of jobs.
They've got an interesting niche in the market and they're trying to generation and they're trying to make money by doing good in the world, but they're still making money, right?
And they're still a company.
So there are those great companies that I'm happy to support.
And there's many that I would reject.
In terms of investors, for me, we had a lot of trouble raising money because our competitors have raised billions.
Like Vice has raised, I think, nearly $2 billion.
Vox raised $200 in their million in their last round.
BuzzFeed, $400 million in their last round before they went public.
So we raised $20 million in our last round.
All in all, we've raised $25 throughout the entire history of the company.
We've actually paid back a lot of that money.
So I now control the company completely, editorially, managerially, financially, in every way, right?
So I'm super happy that we've got complete control.
But that was really hard, Patrick, because a lot of people, investors, they don't, in the VC world and the private equity world, it doesn't work like in right-wing media.
In right-wing media, a fracking magnet comes and says, I will give you funding to start your company, but you're going to have to be pro-fracking.
That's just obvious.
Okay.
In the VC world and private equity world, they don't care about your politics at all.
They just care about the bottom line.
How quickly can you grow?
How quickly can you get them the money back?
What's the, you know, if it's dead, how what's the interest rate?
If it's equity, how much equity?
What are the rights associated with it?
So people, the reason we had trouble is because I'm a pain in the ass.
I'm a stubborn guy.
And so.
Do you want to change?
No, not at all.
Well, that's kind of the definition of stubborn.
Yeah, but there's an irony there because I've changed a lot of my positions throughout my life.
I told you earlier I was a Republican, right?
So I now can't stand Republicans.
I don't think it's positioned like that.
I don't think that's the position.
I think sometimes the entrepreneur, you, I, are difficult to deal with, which naturally that's an entrepreneur spirit because you're like, hey, you know, but the one thing I had to learn the hard way, bro, very hard way, because I'm also, you know, extremely, I'm my dad's son and my mom's a son.
So if you meet both of them, you'll realize it's like double whammy from both sides that I got, right?
So Middle Easterns are not really so, but I had to learn.
I had to sit there and say, okay, all right, this makes sense.
Why the concern you would have with this?
Okay, this makes sense.
Okay, like for example, I'll give you one thing.
I had a call with my board, and my board had a call and it was about vaccines.
Okay.
And hey, what are we going to do to increase the vaccinations of our sales offices?
Because you got to go and, why don't we offer it to them?
Why don't we have somebody go and fund it and spend the money?
I'm like, okay.
So it was a three-hour board call strictly on this because there were breakouts.
And when there's breakouts, you got to have these calls.
We don't want anybody to have any kind of health issue.
So we had these calls and we went through it.
I said, okay, I'm going to think openly and just keep poking me and push me and challenge me and see if they have a leak in my argument.
And so that's what we did.
So I said this, and they said this.
Well, Citigroup was doing this.
Well, I'm not Citigroup.
Well, those guys are doing this.
I said, listen, man, we started the company with the cause being to save in America.
I said this in July 17th of 2009, dressed like George Washington.
My wife was dressed as Lady Liberty at JW Marriott Palm Desert.
We had a 40-foot Mount Rushmore on stage, and I'm saying, Saving America by bringing back the free enterprise system and hope to American families.
Like my whole premise is freedom.
You want me to force these guys to do this to go there?
I don't know if it fits the vision, if it fits the cause, if it fits who we've attracted all this time.
But what I'm willing to do, I'm willing to make people feel comfortable because a lot of people were feeling uncomfortable about if I get vaccinated, am I part of that community?
If I don't get vaccinated, I'm a part of this community.
It became so political that if you got a vaccine, people almost didn't want to say if they're vaccinated or not.
So I did a video and I sent it out to everybody.
And I said, look, guys, this is the video I'm going to do.
And I told the board.
And they said, very reasonable.
Do it.
Sure, I shot the video.
I sent it to everybody, so they son.
I said, Look, guys, here's where it is: there's a few different camps with vaccines.
There's a camp that has it and doesn't give a shit if you care whether they got it or not, and they'll publicly advertise it and they think everybody should get vaccinated.
There's a camp that doesn't want to get vaccinated because they think this is a conspiracy theory and they don't think they need it.
Unless if you're XYZH, you shouldn't get it, kids.
Okay, that's that camp, right?
They knew what my position was and where I stood.
I told everybody my position.
I said, But there's a camp in the middle that you feel guilty because you're going to disappoint somebody.
Here's my suggestion to you.
Let me speak to you.
And then I spoke to that camp because that camp was having a hard time making a decision on which way to go.
And then the board said, Fair.
You allowed some people to come and openly come out and say, Hey, I got the vaccine.
Good.
Hey, after the research doc, I'm not great.
But we took that approach.
I had to learn that as a CEO and a founder, and it was very, very hard to allow that feedback to be given.
But I think the other part is also the vision.
Like, what's the vision of young Turks?
How big you want to build it?
How big you want to scale it?
Maybe you're not Vox.
Maybe you're not Vice.
Maybe you don't want to go that angle.
Maybe, you know, because what makes it very complicated for guys like you, Shapiro, Glen Beck, you know, is you're also talent, which is tough, right?
I mean, if you're also, it's a lot of pressure on you that a lot of people don't realize because, you know, you have a talent.
You're like, man, I want to try to recruit this guy, but shit, I just said this on air.
And oh, it's very complex with the position you got.
So I can understand the complexities of where you're currently at.
Yeah.
Well, honestly, a lot of executives are more in the establishment Democrat camp, to be honest.
Okay.
And so when they see me on air and I'm ripping Biden and I'm ripping Pelosi, et cetera, they get uncomfortable.
And so they're like, I don't know that I could, you know, do that.
Yeah.
And so that's just realities of it.
That means we just have to work harder.
So look, in business, I believe in win-wins.
You win-lose is short-term, win-win is long-term.
You can get to win-win, but you just have to work harder to get to win-win.
If you got a $10 million offer right now from MSNBC for three years, would you take it?
Absolutely not.
You wouldn't take it.
No.
Fox.
I already turned down MSNBC and offered me over a million.
Back when I made no money, I was had no money.
I was going to be a contributor, and you were not going to have, you were not going to be 6 p.m.
You were going to be on the weekends, I think.
Right in front of this camera.
So I had 6 p.m.
They wanted to move me out of 6 p.m.
Yeah, even though I had the highest ratings they ever had at 6 p.m. into the weekends.
And my point wasn't, hey, you're moving me down.
My point was, why?
Right?
Because I said, Phil, who's running it at the time, Phil Griffin, I said, if my ratings are the highest you've ever gotten, is the ratings a problem?
He said, no, of course not.
I said, am I a bad guy internally?
Am I causing trouble?
And no, no, everybody likes you.
Okay.
So what would get me back from the weekends to prime time?
Is what I asked.
And that was the most awkward minute of silence you've ever seen in your life because the real answer was, stop criticizing Democrats.
And he can't say that to me.
So he just fumbled around and basically said at the end, do you want it or don't you?
Thinking nobody ever says no to cable news.
Nobody ever says no to that kind of money, right?
And so I said, no, I don't want it.
And I did my own thing.
And so to your point, Patrick, about entrepreneurs, we're stubborn for a reason because we have a vision.
We have a certain vision for what to do.
So if you tell me I got to apply a set formula that doesn't make any sense for my company, for my business, because you learned that in business school or you apply that to every company that you're going to be doing.
You went to Wharton.
It's not like you went to Wharton for management.
It's not like you went to a community college.
Right.
No, I'm not going to do your set formula.
I'm going to use my own judgment and I'm going to execute my vision.
I just learned long-term humility helped me out and being too cocky and arrogant hurts when it's the business.
If you're the talent, no one gives a shit.
You know, like, for example, have you seen the movie The Late Shift with the story of Letterman and Leno?
You ever seen that movie?
No, I didn't see it.
I think you would highly enjoy it.
If you've read the book, I've read the book and I've watched the movie.
It's a 90-minute movie.
No, I should watch it.
You're right.
I think you would really enjoy it if you watch it.
But you know, like, I have guys that I want to recruit and I want to put them on talent.
And I'm sitting, I'm like, man, I'd love to have you on, but some of the shit you say is going to get you a strike on YouTube.
It's just going to get you a strike on YouTube.
So, you know what?
I'm going to be a little bit patient and I'm going to create a platform that a guy like you can recruit you and I can pay you, but I'm going to put you on an OTT and you can make money, revenue, membership, all of that.
But you can say whatever the hell you want because the bylaws are no longer what?
It's no longer a YouTube or a Facebook or a disc.
But if today, YouTube, you say one thing, this, that, vaccination, next thing you know, they're taking the whole thing down.
They did that with a few different channels.
You got, they took 80 of our videos down the last two years.
80 of our videos they took down the last two years.
So you have to, until we have our own YouTube, until we have our own OTT, until we have our own thing, you got to play by different rules.
Let's talk about Joe Rogan.
Joe, you were on Joe, I want to say 13 or 14.
I don't know what it was.
It was when you guys run.
It was fantastic, by the way.
Thank you.
Yeah, it was a while back.
Yeah, six, seven.
And by the way, there was a lot of admiration both sides when you guys were talking because he was like, you know, the coming up, and that was before he was getting the 11 million an episode or week or whatever it was.
And you were like King Kong, you know, when you guys sat down together.
But you made a comment.
You said, you know, if Joe's something, I'd kick his ass.
Again, I'm taking it out of context.
Of course, I'm assuming you were just kidding.
You were upset about what he said.
Can you unpack that exchange?
Yeah.
Comments you made about Rogan.
Yeah.
So I like Joe a lot.
And we even grabbed lunch.
We were friendly.
I was thinking of I even pitched him to be a host on a show we'd pitch to cable or networks, et cetera.
Okay.
Yeah.
And I like Joe's independent attitude a ton, right?
Or what used to be an independent attitude, right?
Nowadays, I think he's lost his way.
So I think he got captured by the right wing.
He doesn't even realize it.
Almost all of his guests are right wing or fake left wingers who are pushing for right-wing agenda.
And so he surrounded himself with a wall of right-wingers and he's created a bubble.
Bill Maher is the same way.
A wall of right-wingers.
All their friends are right-wing, right?
And so now he's not independent.
He doesn't do both sides.
He doesn't have real.
You think he's a right-wing people?
Yeah, of course.
You think Joe's right-wing?
Yeah, I do.
Yeah.
And so is he.
Right of where, though, Jay?
No, do I think he's right of you?
Right of center or right of you?
No, right of center.
Okay, but Rogan.
Okay, Bill Maher too, you're saying again, it depends on the issues.
So you can take an issue that Bill Maher is super liberal on and go, come on, you can't call him right wing, right?
But I could show you 10 issues where he's just obsessed with cancel culture and only from the left-wing perspective, not the right-wing perspective.
He loves, by the way, Bill Maher loves corporate Democrats.
Okay, just loves them to pieces.
So to me, on economic issues, he's the same issues as all those corporate Democrats.
Anyways, so Joe, it's a matter of emphasis.
So I hear that he's pro-choice, but does he ever talk about that?
Almost never, right?
But on any right-wing issues, oh my God, trans rights, this, that, the other thing, he's like super animated about, right?
Whenever it's a right-wing issue, he will spend hours and hours and hours discussing it.
If he has left-wing positions, not a peep.
There's a thing called audience capture, where your audience starts to go in a certain direction.
It starts to build momentum.
Then, if you try to change, all of a sudden your audience numbers drop and people panic.
Okay.
Now, Joe's already rich, so he doesn't have to worry too much about that.
I think he got more guests captured than audience captured.
But, like, guys like Jimmy Door get audience captured like crazy.
So, once they, like, Jimmy Doerr used to be on the left, and he was a comedian, right?
He was in our network.
One of the worst mistakes I've ever made.
And so, yeah.
Okay.
And so, he goes independent.
Now, he uh, he's at one point he's doing pro-vaccine videos.
He got a vaccine.
They're not doing that well, right?
Then he does one that's vaccine skeptical.
It does great.
Okay, so all right.
Then he does another one that's vaccine skeptical because he wants the views, he wants the money, right?
And so, all of a sudden, that's then the next thing you know, he's on 20 videos against vaccines or vaccine skepticism because that's where the audience is going, that's where the money is going, and that's how.
And there was a progressive in our network who said, Look, the same thing happened to me.
I was criticizing Democrats so much from a left-wing position, but I was criticizing Democrats.
And one day, I woke up and I found out my audience is right-wing.
Like, I asked him a poll question.
Holy cow, these guys are like 70% right-wing.
So, he's like, I had to make a principal choice there, and I did.
And I cut off 70% of my audience, and I started talking more about my left-wing positions, not just anti-Democrat positions, right?
So, that's what happens.
So, on Rogan, to your actual specific question, so now I have animosity with Rogan, but yeah, I was largely trolling them.
Like, it's and I said it very clearly to never in the streets, never any violence.
Violence is crazy.
But I was saying, if you want to step in the ring, uh, I mean, obviously, you know what would happen if you stepped in the ring.
You're not naive.
Uh, so would Joe have a massive advantage?
Obviously, look at me, I'm 52, I'm very overweight, etc.
But by the way, I don't think it would be a foregone conclusion.
I'm oh, you think you could take Joe?
Okay, now you say you can take Rogan throw one kick and decide you'd be peeing blood for a week.
Have you seen his kicks?
Like, I've seen his kicks, okay?
So, listen, I appreciate your confidence, though.
I got to tell you, no, but I'll tell you why I do it, okay?
So, look, number one, I'm okay.
A trained person is, of course, better and by a lot, right?
So, and a guy who's in shape is supposed to a guy not in shape by a lot.
So, I would do tons of training, et cetera, and I'd still be a massive underdog, okay?
But I'm a brawler, and so it's not just that I fought my whole life when I was growing up, et cetera.
It's the will in you, right?
So, if he's going to beat me, he's going to have to beat me.
He will beat you, don't you?
Yeah, and that's fair.
And that's a fair conclusion to reach.
Okay.
But my point is, I'm tired of people running over the left wing.
Okay.
So, if you're going to say we're weak, then fuck off and step in the ring.
Okay.
So, step in the ring ideologically.
That is what I would greatly prefer.
By the way, I did this with Michael Smirkonish a long time ago on a HuffPost, right?
He's talking shit about, oh, the wussification of America.
And I was like, all right, bitch, then either get in the ring from a debate point of view or get in the octagon or whatever you want, right?
Because you're saying we're wussies, and I'm saying I'll kick the shit out of you.
Okay.
So you tell me, you know what Michael Smirkonish did?
He ran like a bitch, okay?
And he went and cried to mommy and he said, Oh my God, he's threatening me.
No, no, I said, Look, I would never do it in the streets.
That's nuts.
Okay.
I'm 100% against violence.
But you're not going to call us weak and get away with it.
We're going to stand a goddamn post.
And that's why the young Turks are hated by the right wing because we do not back down.
We punch back.
So the whole point there, Patrick, is rhetorical.
I'm punching back rhetorical.
Yeah, but you, I, and by the way, that was how I took it.
Yes.
But that's not how the world took it.
I'm not sure you know that.
There's a part of that was marketing.
I get that.
But let me go through a couple of these.
But I like triggering the right wing.
I like them being, oh, yeah, no way, man.
We're tougher.
We're tougher.
Really?
I don't think so.
No, I don't think if anybody.
By the way, Alex Jones paraded my set, right?
I stood up and all of a sudden, he wasn't so fucking tough anymore, right?
So all these fake, tough guys in the right wing.
Joe is not a fake tough guy, Tobro.
I get what you're saying.
I get what you're saying, but, you know, in regards to him being right-wing, like, that is the guy said he would vote for Bernie Sanders.
I thought you guys had found common ground on that.
Okay, yeah, he did, right?
And I, so that was like the last semblance of him being independent.
Since then, he's gone completely in the other direction.
He won 100% in the other direction.
And by the way, he supported Trump.
Trump's a lunatic.
So, I mean, you can't say what he wants.
He supported Trump.
He said that he looked, if I'm wrong, I'm happy to retract it.
But my understanding was he said he doesn't like either option, but between Trump and Biden, he preferred Trump.
Okay, no, I think the way, no, I think the way he said it, I think the way he said it is he thinks Trump had a stronger way of dealing with things than Biden does.
I don't think he said I would vote for Trump over Biden because he could clarify.
By the way, why doesn't he clarify?
That's such an easy thing.
I think he did.
Tucker won't say whether he took the vaccine.
Why don't you just say it?
What's wrong with you, right?
Joe, who'd you vote for?
What's the big deal?
I mean, you do a show that's got politics all over it.
Why would you be afraid to say who you voted for?
And if I remember with Jimmy, somebody said it here as well, Vanessa Aponte.
But if I'm, by the way, Jimmy all of a sudden started showing up and he had an adverse reaction to the vaccine or something happened with the basic shit.
He didn't have any adverse reactions.
So he's trying to make money.
He's a total concept.
So here's a few things that we know.
So let's go through some of the super chat.
And if we can get callers in, if you want to get people to call in, we're going to go to a few callers here because people want to talk to Jenk.
We have, okay, so Chris.
Okay.
The Young Turks is.
Okay, so Freddie says the Young Turks is the new MSNBC.
Robert Blake says we have a system that works for most people.
The problem is largely education and to some extent healthcare.
Capitalism isn't a problem to solve.
People are not moving themselves beyond entry-level jobs is a big problem.
Great point by Robert Blake.
So you disagree with that?
Look, these days it is so hard to move up.
People say, oh, yeah, go to Burger King, get an $8.25 job, and then magically work your way up.
Yes, you can, but it's not magic.
What do we need?
We need resources to be able to.
So here, guys, I'll give you a quick sense.
This is based on race, but it gives you a sense whether poor or white, poor or rich, right?
So the average wealth for a white family is 10 times that of a black family.
It doesn't mean a black family can't make it.
And I agree with you, Patrick.
Hey, industrious, work hard, believe in education, et cetera.
And so do almost all black leaders.
They all say the same thing.
But is it harder, when we know from personal experience, is it harder to get up when you have one-tenth of money?
Of course it is.
It's like doing a 100-yard race and somebody's starting at the 80-yard line.
You're starting at the zero-yard line.
Yeah, maybe I could win, but that's going to be tough.
That's going to be tough.
So constantly yelling at people at the bottom of the economic ladder is not the right way to do it.
Encouraging them in positive ways, giving them the right incentive structure.
That's the right way to do it.
Yeah, but at the same time, the guy that makes it with nothing is 100 times tougher than the guy that was handed stuff out.
The guy that makes it from nothing is going to be money.
That's why I'm 100% 100 times tougher than Trump.
Here's another one that we got, Patrick, Christopher Chapman.
Patrick, what about a basic civic test to show you understand how the country government works?
People would love to understand what's going on.
No, okay.
In reality, I wouldn't do it because those tests then get rigged.
That's exactly what Jim Crow was.
But are you kidding me?
If we did a civil test to vote, we'd eliminate 90% of Republicans.
They don't know what's in the Constitution at all.
I mean, the politicians don't know.
The voters don't know.
They don't know anything about America.
You don't think it's the same on the left, also, though?
Look, so when you do polling, you see that both sides have issues.
Like, for example, Bill Maher, as mad as I get at him, did make a good point the other day.
You always have to listen.
You always have to be open-minded.
And he said, now, like, Democrats think there's a, if you get COVID, there's a 50% chance you're going to die.
That's crazy.
That's nuts.
That's not true at all, right?
It's about, it used to be about like one to two percent, and that was dangerously high.
Now it's way lower than that.
So you have to actually do facts, science, et cetera, right?
So it just depends on the circumstances.
I keep going back to that because I need people to use their minds.
So can Democrats be wrong from time to time because they were watching MSMC, CNN?
Of course they can.
Of course they can.
But on average, the Republicans get factual things massively wrong these days.
So the things they like, the election was stolen.
Just not true, not remotely true.
Right now, every right-winger is going, no, I read it on JimChablowski.com on Facebook.
No, he lost 60 cases in a row.
He never presented a single piece of evidence.
All conservative judges, all Trump-appointed judges said you did not present one piece of evidence of fraud.
So he lost 60 cases in a row because there is no evidence.
All those Republican legislators in the swing states said there was no fraud because there was no fraud.
It's a giant, giant lie.
And 40% of the country has lost its mind.
Did you ever on Young Turks talk about that Trump was a Russian spy and the Russian story?
Did you ever yourself talk about what was linked to Russia?
Yes.
So let me explain.
So I did what is, I always have a unique position because I'm not in the camps.
I look at the situations and the facts.
Sure.
So the Democrats said, oh, it was because of Russia that Donald Trump won.
I said, no, that's not true.
Hillary Clinton lost the election.
And we, you know, that's to say that she didn't lose the election is conspiratorial, just like saying Trump won the election in 2020, right?
So, and she made a thousand excuses.
Bullshit.
You ran as an establishment candidate and you lost because the country is in a populist mood.
And by the way, you lost to an idiot.
You should be forever humiliated for that loss.
So the Russians did not rig the election with Trump.
Look, there's basic facts.
So Roger Stone, who I despise, is probably the guy I hate the most in politics, went and tried to get information from WikiLeaks about what the Russians were up to.
Well, if they were coordinating with the Russians, why did Roger Stone have to get information from WikiLeaks?
So they were obviously not coordinating with the Russians.
Why did they have to do a meeting in Trump Tower with the Russians if they were already working with the Russians?
So they were not working together in the election.
Having said that, did the Russians help Trump?
Well, that's a fact.
That's obvious.
They got the DNC emails.
By the way, they might have also gotten the Republican emails, but they only leaked the Democratic emails, and those emails were greatly damaging.
Okay.
So did the Russians help?
Yes.
Did they coordinate?
No.
Does Trump want to work with the Russians?
Definitely.
How do I know that?
Based on what Trump has said and his sons have said.
So his sons have said on several occasions, we get all of our money from the Russians.
Okay.
Well, I didn't say it.
They said it.
And you know, Trump, he's obsessed with money.
And you know that they bought a Russian oligarch spoke like a third of Trump Tower when Trump was in trouble.
What was that?
We all know that was money laundering.
We all know that was money laundering.
Russian oligarchs aren't buying a third of a tower in the middle of Manhattan because they need more property.
Like, oh, they need to live there.
That's the vacation.
They're cleaning their money.
And Trump says, I'll take it.
What am I going to do?
Right?
But if you, but if somebody who's got all the time in their hands to go back and look at your record of your videos and pull up and say what you said about Russia, would somebody be able to make the greatest hits of all the times you said, you know, he's a Russian spy, he's linked to Russia, he's this, would they be able to put create a greatest hits?
Patrick, people are doing that about every single issue.
You know why I'm asking this?
You know what I'm saying?
The only reason I'm asking this is the following.
Here's the only reason I'm asking this.
Okay.
You know, he himself, he, Trump's story, you know, whatever position he's got with Trump, he can speak on his behalf.
But when the Durham story came out, I was like, what the hell?
Like, you know, this is all we heard.
You know, there's a lot of people that they ran with the story without having all the information and they backed it up.
There's a lot of things we don't yet know and we're not going to learn for another five, ten years.
A lot of stories take a long time for it to come back and reveal itself.
All I'm saying is, this is the only thing I say.
When people say stuff about you, okay, let's just say they say, here's what's going to happen with Chen.
Because I called Iran.
I've seen you.
I know who you are.
I'm like, so how is this guy?
He says, you're going to love him.
You guys are going to be good.
You're going to have a great conversation.
But then he's going to leave and he's going to talk shit about you.
I'm like, what?
He says, that's his style.
I said, okay.
I don't know that.
I've never dealt with you.
That's what they said.
So far, you've been here.
It's chill.
I'm actually enjoying the conversation.
We're going 17 minutes over where our podcast.
How many podcasts have we gone over 11 o'clock?
No, we're over 17.
I'm actually enjoying this conversation, right?
So if somebody says that about you, all right.
Next thing I know, you go and you do a podcast next week and you're trashing me, then they're right.
Okay, so that's the part where sometimes in media, you know, what you see and who you talk to is different than what they leave and they talk about you.
I think that's where a lot of so Patrick, those people are totally full of shit.
And I can prove it in every instance.
So for example, right now, you guys have said nothing that I haven't challenged to your face.
Right.
And so whatever I've said, I've already said.
There's nothing else to say.
Okay.
So we have a debate with Ben Shapiro, for example, right?
I said my piece.
He said his piece.
What does he do?
He already had it planned out.
You know, you could say it's good business.
Okay.
But he immediately takes totally out of context clips and chops it up and puts it all over the internet.
Okay, fine.
No problem.
Okay.
Then I respond.
When I respond, they cry, Oh, young Turks.
Oh, I can't believe they took parts of the video.
Wait, bitch, you just did that a minute ago.
I'm responding.
Every time I respond to someone, people go on Rogan's show, lie about me 24/7, 24-7.
It's like a little cottage industry.
Why, by the way, the algorithm is rewarded.
Since Young Turks has been the largest online show for a long, long time, if you attack us, then the algorithm goes, Okay, let me serve up videos next to the Young Turks' videos, and they ride our dick, basically.
They ride off of our saying Shapiro rides your dick.
In the beginning, he did for sure.
Crowder, oh my God, he used to dress up as me.
He would go around town, dress up as me.
I mean, it doesn't get any more riding a dick than that.
Okay.
I don't see Shapiro as one of those things.
He's happily married.
He's got kids.
No, I'm not.
No, it's just the saying.
I don't mean it that way.
So, okay.
So you're saying if someone punches you, punch back 10 times harder?
So you're saying?
That's exactly right.
So you and Trump have something in common.
That's exactly right.
No, no, by the way, that is right.
Yeah.
So what I'm trying to teach progressive politicians is: look, don't go around picking fights for no reason, for theatrics, to make yourself feel better, to vent, et cetera.
But pick fights for a purpose or answer fights for a person.
My dad is the most peaceful guy you'll ever meet.
I don't know why he told me this, but he told me when I was growing up.
He said, Never punch anyone first.
But if someone punches you, punch them back so hard they never punch you again.
And I would, when I was a kid, I would literally let the other guy take the first punch.
And it's the most unnerving thing.
They're like, you just are going to let me punch you in the face.
Yeah, I am.
Go for it.
See how it turns out.
You literally did that.
I literally used to do that.
Yes.
Okay.
So I don't punch first, but I punch back so fucking hard they cry for year after year after year.
So why don't we do if we have some callers?
Let's get a few callers and then we'll wrap this up.
You know what I love the most?
Here's what I love the most.
I love a good debate.
I love a good exchange.
I love the fact the audience wins.
Our format is right after this, we're going to do how many short clips are we going to do?
Five, seven, eight, okay, and it'll go on VTS.
And there are three to eight minute short clips that'll go on there and it'll drive back to the interview.
But if you got callers, let's get a few callers.
John's got a few.
John, sometimes he only takes callers from ladies.
But John, let's see who you got here today.
We have Roberto.
Okay, good.
Roberto, how are you?
I'm doing great.
I have a question, Patrick.
Love the show.
Love the civil discourse here.
So my question is to both you and to Jenk.
I'd love both of you to answer this.
Why does it feel like the left pushes a specific narrative that America has rampant and overwhelming poverty when the data that we have, even from the government, says otherwise?
It's horrible that we have poverty, but it is less than 14% of the country.
So over 80% of people not in poverty sounds like a pretty good thing.
The median income is $55,000 a year.
You can live on that in most places of America.
65% of American adults are homeowners, less than 1 million homeless, less than a quarter million unsheltered.
So why are we being convinced of a narrative that Americans are destitute when we could talk about improving it?
Why is the narrative from the left that everybody is poor when that's clearly not what the data says?
Yeah, so that's not the narrative, but it is a failure of the left that it has left you with that impression.
So when you talk about income inequality, that doesn't mean everybody is poor.
What it means is there's something wrong in the system.
That instead of everyone having the same rights and the same opportunities, the system's been rigged in favor of some.
Jenk, what rights don't people have in America?
So for example, when an oil company, and there's a lot of different issues here, right?
But I'll try to give you some examples.
So when an oil company gets $14 billion in subsidies, well, Roberto, did you get $14 billion in subsidies?
Jenk, I didn't provide services to millions of people in America or provide services.
They're making a profit.
They're not entitled to equality.
They're not entitled to it either.
What services?
They provide services.
We pay them.
We pay them a lot of money.
It's a middle-class American issue.
So what I'm trying to tell you, Roberto, is that if we took, if we distributed the government money more equitably, it would not go, the majority of it would not go to the people who are already spectacularly wealthy.
It would be more fairly distributed.
And that is what you should root for, not because, hey, we just want to give money to the poor, because we want a government that actually functions and gives equality of opportunity, not results, equality of opportunity.
And I keep going back to this example of my dad getting a college education for free because that's opportunity.
Nowadays, you don't have that opportunity.
And Roberto, like I've had people on the show, and you see it back in the day, you could buy a house in LA for there's a guy in Manhattan Beach who bought it for $15,000 in the 1960s.
Now all those houses cost a couple of million dollars at a minimum.
Everything costs more now.
College costs three times as much because the government decided to back student loans without capping the interest rates with the banks, which they should have negotiated.
You, I think, agree with the student loan debt crisis.
Everything is more expensive.
I can't buy anything for the price it was in the 1950s when people in the 1950s couldn't buy it for the price in the 1920s.
That argument makes very little sense.
And not everyone lives in California.
Anyone can actually, with a working-class salary, get into a home in North Carolina or Georgia or anywhere in Middle America as a starter home for about $15,000 because they don't need 20% down.
They can do a 5% down payment.
So, Roberto, you can be a homeowner and be working class.
So, you guys have a sense that the left thinks you shouldn't work.
And that drives me nuts.
When did I say that?
No, it's overall this idea of like, hey, we're making it seem like the country's impoverished and we need to give all the money to the poor.
That's not what we're saying.
All we're looking for is equality of opportunity.
So, if you say, hey, the government, if you say the government, hold on, Roberto, if you say the government didn't do the right interest rate on student loans, okay, great.
But I think the government should provide free college so you all have opportunity.
But at the end, afterwards, not necessarily give you money like universal basic income, et cetera.
Earn your way, but set up a fair system.
So it isn't emphasizing the poor or saying America is poor.
In fact, we say this all the time on the show.
America is the richest country in the world.
And then we say we can't afford health care for our citizens.
Every other developed nation has universal health care.
They don't let people die.
We let people die.
Then when you're dead, you have no opportunity, right?
So how do we do that if we're the richest nation in the world?
Obviously, we have enough money.
We're just choosing not to prioritize the average American.
We're choosing to prioritize the richest people and the biggest corporations.
Roberto, where are you based out of?
Just curious.
We lost them.
Oh, we lost him.
Okay.
Roberto, if you're listening on the podcast, text John back.
Would love to stay in contact with you.
But appreciate you for your question.
Jen, thank you for taking that question.
Let's go to the next call.
Before we get to the next caller, breaking news: Jen Saki is leaving the White House for MSNBC.
Of course.
If you want to address that, yeah, it's all one giant circle.
You know what?
Pull it up on the news.
Okay, so they hired these governments.
It's a revolving door.
So, hey, now she's going to get paid millions by MSNBC.
Guess what she's going to say?
She's going to say that establishment Democrats are awesome.
And she's going to say Trump sucks.
And she's going to say Bernie sucks.
And she's going to do, she's just going to go.
And she's now, she did marketing for the government.
Now she's going to do marketing for corporations.
So it's the same thing.
It's the same thing.
But I think it's funny, the timing part of it, that it happens right after Hunter Biden's story was on WAPON.
Two days later, this happens to you.
Talk about timing.
When Jedediah got fired a week after she asked a tough question from Hillary Clinton, you know who I'm talking about, Jedediah.
I think we had her on a few months back.
View.
That was a timing thing.
This is a little bit of too much of timing.
Do you think it has to actually do with that?
I'm just purely speculating.
I don't have any information.
I'm speculating.
Do we have another caller?
Let's do two more callers and then we'll wrap up.
John.
Yes, we have Ryan.
Okay, Ryan, how are you doing?
Hey, good.
Thanks so much.
Thank you so much, you guys, for doing this.
Seriously, this is amazing, what you guys are doing talking together.
So I'll kind of preface this with saying, hello?
Yeah, we can hear you.
Go ahead.
What's your question?
Go forward.
So thank you so much for you guys for seriously doing this talk.
This is so amazing.
So I'll kind of preface my question with, you know, I grew up with a dad who came from Iran and he's an entrepreneur and everything.
And he really, I'm fortunate enough to have a dad that really pushes me to succeed in everything.
Like he had a very similar kind of upbringing that you guys did.
And I respect both of you guys.
I have to say I'm getting a little bit more towards the conservative side, but like I watch both your shows and what you guys are doing is great.
My question is, like, you know, I'm seeing a lot of people in my generation, like, and I obviously didn't live in your generation or any generations before that, but I feel like it seriously seems to me that people are getting a little bit lazier and, you know, like less willing to work, like, regardless of whatever narrative either side.
Like, sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, no, I could address that.
So it depends.
So why?
Because we just talked about this on the show the other day.
The president of BlackRock came out and said something similar.
Hey, this is the first time that anybody can't get whatever they want because of the entire generation is experiencing what it is to run out of stuff.
Exactly.
Well, that is true, but it's only true for the entitled class.
His kids, because he's a billionaire, have always had whatever they want.
But now you have supply chain issues, and all of a sudden they can't offer their order their next Lamborghini and they're crying to daddy.
So are they entitled?
Of course they are.
But it's not just them.
The rich and to some degree, the upper middle class, their kids are super entitled these days.
I mean, they'll come into a company and they'll be like, what?
It's been three weeks.
Why aren't I the CEO?
I don't get it, right?
But for poor and middle-class millennials in Gen Z, they're not at all entitled.
They're having to bust their ass.
They got student debt everywhere.
They can't afford housing.
They can't afford health care.
They're hurt and they're trying to work their way out of it.
And that's the silent majority of millennials in Gen Z you never see in media.
Excellent.
Thank you for that.
Okay, do we want to go to the next caller?
Yeah, we have Cameron on the line.
Go for it.
Cameron?
Yes, sir.
How you doing?
Hey, I'm all right.
I'm at work right now.
Let me hop in the truck.
Fantastic.
What do you do, by the way?
I do internal French drains.
So I waterproof basements.
Fantastic.
So tell us, what's on your mind?
Sorry, just ran over to the truck.
Hey, Cenk.
Dude, this is a great podcast.
I don't agree with you on anything, but God bless.
That's America, brother.
Hey, Cink, you've been great on this interview, man.
You've been really good.
Patrick McDavid, you're a star.
Dude, I make, so I live in Pittsburgh.
I make $18 an hour and I move around 3,000 pounds a day.
I actually just moved up from 15 an hour.
Thankfully, I was making the quote unquote minimum wage.
So my question was: Excuse me.
My question was: how could you, as a small employer, I have like $9,000 in the bank right now.
As a small employer, how would you pay your employees?
Because I think the argument of $15 minimum wage is a little disingenuous whenever, it's just a little disingenuous whenever the government doesn't control the market prices.
If the government controlled market prices, I think it would make a little more sense.
But yeah, thanks, guys.
Yeah.
So look, there's a legit question about what do you do with small businesses if the minimum wage is $15 an hour in Kentucky, right?
And so I think that you could do carve-outs.
For example, if you're having under 50 employees, you're still a small business, and maybe that's a different situation.
So you have to be really thoughtful about how you balance those interests, right?
But overall, we have got to get to $15.
I mean, I think his name was Patrick Hilno because that's the wage he used to get until recently.
Cameron, Cameron.
Oh, Cameron.
Sorry.
That's Patrick.
That's Patrick.
So, Cameron, brother, you know, $15 an hour is about $31,000 a year.
That isn't a lot of money at all.
You could barely live on 31,000 anywhere, right?
California, sure, that's impossible, right?
New York, it's impossible.
But Kentucky, it's hard on 31,000.
Especially if you throw a kid in the mix.
Yeah, of course, of course.
So we have got to get try to get people to that bare minimum.
Right now, the actual federal minimum wage is $7.25.
And you think, oh, nobody gets paid that.
That's not true.
A lot of people get paid that.
And you know what that gets you?
That gets you $15,000 a year.
That's poverty, below the poverty line.
Yeah, that is.
How the hell are you supposed to live on that?
Well, what happens if you're 16?
It's your first job, you know?
But look, that's such a misnomer.
I hear you.
Does that happen?
Of course it happens, right?
But is that the average minimum wage worker?
No.
40% of women make under $15 an hour.
47% of blacks make under $15 an hour.
So this is a giant portion of our economy.
And we have got to get them to a living wage.
And by the way, Cameron, and almost all the callers, they're saying, hey, this is a really interesting conversation.
And they didn't know this about me.
Like, dude, they were having this conversation and they didn't know the full context of my thoughts.
Why do you think that is?
That's because of what Patrick mentioned before.
And the right wing will take, and now the fake left wing will take videos of me totally out of context and they'll make it seem that I'm someone that I'm not at all.
And then they'll ascribe positions I don't even have to me.
And then they'll make up positions.
So that's why when I go on Roger's podcast, when I come here and we have a full conversation, people go, Holy shit, I didn't know that.
That guy's actually fighting corruption tooth and nail.
I've been fighting corruption the entire time I've been in media and politics.
I've been fighting the corrupt Democratic Party the entire time that I'm.
They hate me way more than the right wing hates me, right?
But you've got to be honest and principled.
You've got to have actual principles and apply them to the facts at hand.
Yeah, so for me uh, when you said 40 women, 47 blacks African-American, under 15 bucks an hour, my uh, uh.
Focus would be to increase the skill set in the marketplace.
I dictate my value in the marketplace.
When I first came in the marketplace, I had nothing to offer.
I went to get a job after the military.
I was a Hummer mechanic and I was a marksman as a shooter.
I wasn't even like the best one, but I was a marksman.
I go on my resume and I go to a job and look, so what are some of your expertise?
I'm a phenomenal Hummer mechanic HV, and I can shoot somebody from 300, you know.
So we don't have a need for that.
But I'm telling you I'm a ridiculous mechanic.
No one gives a shit.
Okay like, improve your skill set.
So I had to pivot and get better and I put a lot of time in the books.
But Cameron, the question you're asking my encouragement to you would be to find collaborations.
When you're smaller, great partnerships matter.
Great collaborations matter.
Savings matter with your nine thousand dollars and increase your skill set, but find other guys that are in your position they can have the right partnerships with to help increase your valuation.
Anyways, let's do, let's do the last one while he's doing this.
Let's do last one, last caller and tell John and we'll wrap up, go ahead and just just to finish the thought Cameron to.
I agree with Patrick and you always there's different levers, right.
So if you can't afford it, does your.
I know it's a small company, but does it have equity?
Can You, instead of wages, can you do equity?
Can you find a different way?
Can you find a reasonable loan?
But don't get in over your skis.
Just find the right balance that works for you.
Last one, Johnny.
Tell us who you got, John.
We have Darius.
Darius, how are you doing, Darius?
I am grateful this morning.
How are you?
I'm grateful as well.
Tell me, what's on your mind?
What question do you have for Jenk?
All right.
So my question is, it's a two-part question, but with right now, trust in mainstream media is continuously decreasing, and our political divide amongst citizens is continuously increasing.
So my question is: do you think it's important for journalists and political commentators to be examples of objectivity when covering people and issues?
Yes.
So that's a great question.
Number one, mainstream media did this sleight of hand that's really important.
They replace objectivity with neutrality.
Wait, those things are totally different, right?
Objective is the Lakers.
Okay, now my second part to that question is, if you agree that that's important, how would you rate yourself on your media company and what you put out?
How would you rate yourself in terms of the pursuit of objectivity on a scale of one to 10?
So to finish the point, brother, so objective for straight reporting is the right standard, not neutral.
Okay.
You don't say both sides are equal.
Well, it depends.
Are they equal or aren't they equal, right?
You have to be objective about the facts.
So in our reporting, when we talk about any story, on the facts, we are 100% objective.
We never ever play with the facts.
Then we give our perspective.
So that's like a newspaper.
You get the facts in the front and then you get the editorial in the back, right?
So do we have a perspective?
Yes, and we're honest about it.
Our perspective is progressive and everybody's clear about it.
Mainstream media also has a perspective.
It's that corporate rule is awesome.
Status quo is terrific.
Nothing should ever change and we should stay at the top and you should stay at the bottom.
But they're not honest about their perspective.
And then they take their corporate perspective and call it objective.
Objective, my ass.
Darius, so zero to 10, objective, young Turks.
On the facts, 10.
On the facts, 10.
Yes.
And then on our perspective, that's up to you.
Do you agree with you?
I don't know.
Okay, you put yourself as a 10.
Absolutely.
No, no, there's two lines at our network.
One is never advocate for violence, right?
Obvious exception of MMA, et cetera.
That's within a ring within prescribed rules, right?
But never advocate for violence and never play with the facts.
Crazy, complete different question for you here.
Do you think the Washington Redskins being forced to change their names was the right move?
So that one's tricky too.
So because now you have that name that's over-the-top offensive.
There is no other meaning for that word other than to be derisive, right?
Then you've got the Indians, and you say, well, their mascot's terrible, but the name itself is not necessarily offensive.
Then you got the Chiefs, a perfectly acceptable name.
There's nothing wrong with this.
Seminoles is actually an ode to the particular tribe in the area that's actually good.
It's almost complimentary.
So in the case of Washington, it had no other meaning at all.
It was obviously derisive.
So I would say yes, change it in that case.
So changing it to commanders.
Whatever it is.
It is a commander's organization.
I don't know.
I have to ask you guys.
I had no clue.
So let me ask you this.
So to an Armenian, the young Turks may be offensive.
Would you change your name?
Yeah.
So young Turks means young rebels.
That's the colloquial use in the English language.
You could actually look it up in the dictionary.
And for us, it was young progressives challenging the established system.
I mean, that is a textbook definition of what we are, quite literally.
But I get that it is offensive to Armenian people.
I get that.
And so, and I and I feel terrible about that, especially because I was wrong about the Armenian genocide.
You talked about that.
Yes, respect for the fact that you did that.
I think Anna asked you the question and you addressed it.
Yeah.
And so am I saying her name right?
Anna, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So when I was growing up, I grew up with, honestly, Turkish propaganda, right?
And so we all get propaganda.
You guys talk about the education system.
You know, what is it telling people?
I remember they taught this absurd thing that I didn't realize it was absurd because I was a kid, right?
They said Turks had never lost the war except World War I. World War I was a little hard to deny, right?
So, but I believe that.
And then I remember as a growing up, I remember reading about how the Ottomans had lost the battle.
And I was like, no, no, no, the Turks never, oh my God, I can't believe I believe that all these years because they implanted it in my head, right?
And of course, that's not true.
The Turks have lost tons of battles and wars, right?
And one of the things I was taught was that the genocide didn't happen.
Well, of course it happened.
Surbanesa is considered a genocide and 8,000 people died there, right?
In the Armenian genocide, way more than that, a lot more than that died.
And they didn't target Norwegians.
They targeted Armenians.
So was it based on that ethnicity, race?
Clearly, it was.
And they were targeted.
So as I've changed a lot of positions based on facts, I changed my position on that based on facts.
And I feel terrible that I had that earlier position.
And I've been super clear about it.
Yeah, the fact that you change it, that's respect to you for doing that.
You know, it was one and a half million Armenians, give or take, two to three hundred thousand Assyrians.
I want to say 500,000 Greeks.
When you read about the genocide, it's a lot of Armenians, but there's also Syrians and Greeks part of that as well.
But my respond back to your first question would be, not my first question would be, I don't think Redskins need to change their name.
Just like you don't need to change your name.
If your name is Young Turks and you offend a guy like me who's Armenian and Assyrian and I don't like it, I don't have to like it.
But I don't have to say, let's make sure he changes his name.
It's your name.
And by the way, there is an Armenian community that's, you know, you look at the American Indian community.
What is the size of that?
What is the Armenian-size community?
What is the Assyrian community?
What is the Greek community?
Some people might say, dude, that's offensive.
I get what you're saying.
It's a young progressive, but it's a young Turks.
So I think the part where sometimes, you know, we play this, change your name.
I'm offended.
I'm this.
I'm that.
I am offended, but I don't expect you to change it.
I expect you to stay with the name that you created.
That's the whole thing I'm thinking about with the Redskins thing.
Anyways, that was one thing I friend of mine brought it up.
I said, let me talk to Jenk about it and see what it is.
I got to tell you, bro, sincere, I enjoyed having you on.
Like, literally, I really enjoyed having you on.
And it's been, it looks like the audience, for the most part, we have some people that were pissed off, but for the most part, the audience was very happy to have you on and have this conversation.
Gang, I don't know who we have next week.
Can you tell us who we have next week?
We got Ken Golden Monday.
Ken Golden Monday.
Ken Farley Tuesday.
Kevin Farley's brother Tuesday.
Dave Rubin Thursday.
Okay.
And who is Friday?
Joe Jordan.
Joe Jorgensen.
Joe Jorgensen.
And possibly another special guest on so we don't want to say yet until we confirm it.
But we got a good week next week.
We got a busy week next week, but this was a fantastic week to finish the week.
Bro, really, really enjoyed you coming out.
Thank you for doing that.
So, Patrick Adam, this is great.
I love these conversations because then you get the full context and you find out what people actually think.
And anything I wanted to say to you, I just said it.
So I love the open dialogue.
Loved it.
But, gang, I would suggest you take this.
If this kind of topic is in, obviously, if you're our audience, you like this kind of stuff.
I suggest you do sit down and watch this with your peers.
