Batya Unger Sargon (6:01)

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here. There are a few things that I think your audience needs to know about you, Emily.

Emily (6:08)

Oh, boy.

Batya Unger Sargon (6:09)

First of all, I don't know if your audience understands that you are the it girl of the new Right. Of course, word to the wise, never go to a conference or an event because you see Emily's gonna be there thinking you're gonna get to hang out with her. You're not. She is surrounded by three rings of admirers, and you literally need Krav Maga to get anywhere near her just to say hello to this woman. She's so freaking popular. She's so fun and brilliant. And Emily, I don't know how you do it. Like, everybody loves you. You are, like, utterly unhateable, despite the fact that you take positions and you make statements. And you are a leader and a thought leader and a person forging new ground in really important ways. And yet you are utterly, utterly beloved It Girl extraordinaire. And I'm so excited about this show and I'm so excited to be here, and I'm just so excited to see you in so much demand on so many platforms in so many ways, because I adore you and I'm really sure your audience adores you as well, but I just wanted them to get that perspective that they may not know of what it's like trying to get close to you just to say hi at any place where you are thronged with admirers. Thank you so much for having me.

Emily (7:32)

Okay, Baja, first of all, you've made me blush slightly. I would say I agree with about 70% of that. I am amazing, in such high demand, Throngs of fans following me wherever I go. But in all honesty, Baja and I were at a, we an event a couple months ago and Bacia was the one being surrounded. So we could agree that, you know, every once in a while a few people out in the wilderness want to talk to us. The last time actually I saw Batya, we were on a patio at a Holiday Inn in Charleston downing glasses of wine. Way too much wine for a weeknight.

Batya Unger Sargon (8:12)

So it was fantastic. But that event was hilarious because it is my understanding that we both had quite a bit to drink before we went on stage and there were a bunch of speakers before us and you and I sat there, you know, just kind of sipping on our probably third glass of wine and just basically Beavis and Butt heading it through the other speakers like, just like kind of snide asides. And it was totally delicious and utterly beneath both of us, but it was so fun. And then I'm thinking, okay, well Emily's gonna get up there. I don't know how she's gonna get through her talk because I know what stage and gets up there and just gives the most incredible, incredible, incredible delivery. Your wonderful, wonderful take on the media and how the comparison between Johnny Carson and is it Colbert, the Carson Colbert distinction that you so beautifully present to help people understand what's gone wrong with our media. And even though I have written a book on this very topic, I was going to say hearing you talk about it even better than anything I could ever do.

Emily (9:19)

You literally wrote the book on that. I really, I'm so excited to have you here and I'm very excited to get your reaction to this massively viral clip of Zoran Lamdani from this was on NBC with Kristen Welker Sunday shows. He's a sensation now and got an interesting question from Kristen Walker and gave a pretty interesting response about just the existence of billionaires. So let's roll this clip and I'll ask you about a bachelor.

David Leonhardt (9:45)

You are a self described democratic socialist. Do you think that billionaires have a right to exist? I don't think that we should have billionaires because frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality. And ultimately what we need more of is equality across our city and across our state and across our country. And I look forward to work with everyone, including billionaires, to make a city that is fairer for all of them.

Emily (10:13)

So Bhatti, you have a really interesting story actually, and I think it speaks to Zoram Hamdani's story and his own trajectory and kind of the trajectory of the left in some really, I think, important ways. So let me just start by queuing this up. You come out of a similar movement. Am I wrong? Like last 10 years, you guys were both in sort of New York Democratic Socialists of America DSA circles. Is that right? Bacha?

Batya Unger Sargon (10:38)

I was never quite in the dsa. I was more like on the Hillary side of things. I used to be like, very woke and very left, but very much in that sort of like, I think before the MeToo movement. I really did feel that women still sort of had it pretty tough or that there were things we had to overcome in order to succeed. And now I really don't feel that way. I feel that women actually have a bit of an advantage in the professional world today, economically. They have an advantage because they're 15 points more likely to go to college, which is really the gatekeeper of the American dream today. So my view has really evolved in that sense. But I wouldn't have said that I was. I've become much more of a fan of Bernie Sanders now in my MAGA lefty iteration than I think I was when I was like, at my most left wing in the Democratic Party. But I think this is so interesting, this, this Zoran Mamdani phenomenon, because, like, for him, it's all performance art. This guy is like a child of privilege. His parents, I think, are millionaires. His mother raised millions of dollars to do these independent films. She's an Oscar nominated filmmaker. His father's a professor at Columbia. He was raised very much in this kind of over credentialed cultural and economic elite that has come to define the left in America. And they espouse this kind of, the liberal patriot, called it trust fund socialism to where their views on economics are. This kind of raise taxes and redistribute, expand the welfare state, have more people count as poor, give more free stuff to more individuals, which is not actually the economic populism that working class Americans are drawn to. They're much more drawn to the kind of protectionism that Donald Trump has on offer, which is, we don't want free stuff. What we want is an economy that protects the product of our labor through immigration controls and through tariffs. So it's a very different model of economic populism that you have on the right and the left, but obviously the one on the right is the one that's resonating with the working class, because Mamdani's victory was with the College educated, the multiple degreed, the wealthy. He did not get anywhere with black voters. He didn't get very far with poor voters. He got the 50,000 to $100,000. He won those slightly over Cuomo. He really won in a big way. People make over $100,000. But you have to remember that a lot of these over credentialed elites who are people who will be in the elite when they're further down in their careers, of course, at this stage in their careers as young people, they're not making a lot of money. But that doesn't mean that they're not on the trajectory that thanks to the economy that the Democrats created will net them the American dream in a way that working class people prior to Trump did not really have a shot at. So in a way, it's so interesting to see this kind of cosplay of a working class revolution when it's really much more along the lines of gentrifiers of the world, unite here. And I think that what's happening in the Democratic Party is. Okay, so I think what you said, Emily, to notice that he hasn't tweeted the word queer in a long time, it's a very smart thing to notice. But you also have to understand, who did he pull into this coalition with him? He won in a big way with Asians and particularly with Southeast Asians, with Muslims. And before October 7, I don't know if you remember this, but there was this very interesting coalition forming between Christian conservatives and Muslim conservative parents.

Emily (14:25)

Actually just happened at the Supreme Court last week. I mean, that decision at the Supreme Court was the product of Christian parents and Muslim parents challenging curriculum in. What was it? Montgomery County, Maryland.

Batya Unger Sargon (14:36)

Exactly. Opposing a lot of the WOKE stuff in the gender department. And I wonder if that is the reason that he really backed off of this kind of language around queer liberation and really leaned into the free Palestine stuff, even when it's such an obviously losing thing to do. In that interview with Kristen Wecker, he refused to condemn the calls to globalize the intifada, which is a call for violence against Jews, just refused to condemn it three times she asked him. So I think maybe that might have a lot more to do with who he saw as his potential coalition here in New York. Although, of course, I totally agree with you. Like the Democrats, if they wanna get anywhere, they need to move on from the identity politics and the WOKE stuff. And they have to be embracing economic populism. Immigration, of course, as you point out, is gonna be the big question. You wrote this in your piece for unheard crime and immigration are the two areas. Where will he be able to actually seize that populist energy on those two issues. That could be the make it or break it for him.

Emily (15:48)

Yeah. And so like, we definitely don't agree on everything about this, but I'm really curious what you make of that last point in particular about the identitarian obsession that tanked the left. I mean, it really started with Hillary Clinton. Joe Biden was able to sort of eke out a win for a lot of reasons in 2020. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris then again doubled and tripled down on it. And here Zoram Hamdani, who is way further to left on economic issues certainly than Kamala Harris. Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton is actually was not out there like overwhelming his message with identity politics. And I wonder if you think. I guess, I wonder if you think the rest of the party is capable of doing what he did. And actually, even if he is capable of taking that all the way to.

Batya Unger Sargon (16:38)

Election day in November, it's very interesting. He never once said, vote for me, I'll be the first Muslim mayor of New York. And that I heard. I mean, it's my understanding that he never said that. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong about that, but I think that's what you're talking about. Like that took a lot of restraint. Right. Because that was in the Hillary version. Right. The lingua franca of the day. It was like you call upon this historic nature of your. And so that I think was obviously very smart. He ran a really smart campaign. The problem is that it seems to me that the Democrats, if you look at Mamdani as a sort of harbinger, what they did was they swapped out a kind of woke elite left cultural position on race and gender that was very alienating to working class voters for a socialist redistributionist economic agenda that it turns out, is also very alienating to working class voters who really kind of want sort of a fair shot at the American dream. And he was right in diagnosing the problem. The solutions he gave were the solutions that appeal to the exact same top 20% of over credentialed elites that the Democrats were appealing to with the identity stuff. So it seems to me like that elite has gotten the message that if they focus on race and gender, they cannot win elections because most Americans have moved on from that. But what they swapped it out for is this kind of like, you know, trust fund socialism. That also seems to me to be a kind of losing agenda when you're talking about building a mass coalition in the way that Donald Trump did.

Emily (18:24)

That's such a good point. And one of my takeaways here at Aspen is that the millennials that are here are actually still kind of clinging to some of those cultural policies. So on that note, let's talk about the rights battle to actually represent or help the working class as much as possible. Bache, I got to get your reaction to because you've been posting about this on X really interestingly, Caroline Levitt claiming that that one big beautiful bill is actually going to strengthen Medicaid. This is S3. So this bill strengthens Medicaid. It will protect those benefits that hardworking Americans need. And that's why the president wants this bill to pass. The senator was wrong. The president put out a truth social post addressing it. And then the senator announced he's no longer running for office anymore. So I think that case has been closed and the White House is continuing to focus on getting this legislation to the president's desk for his signature. Now, if you've been around the conservative movement for a long time like I have, you would not have any problem with that argument. You would say, of course, cutting waste, fraud and abuse and tightening up, you know, for example, work requirements, as this bill does on Medicaid. Yes. That technically you can sort of stretch the definition of what quote unquote strengthens Medicaid, although it's probably not how most Americans understand it. And Elon Musk now sort of from the right of Trump, is threatening to create a new third party. This is F4 we can put on the screen. This is playing out literally as we're speaking. Bacha Musk is posting this one says if this insane spending bill passes, the American the America Party will be formed the next day. Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a voice. And Bachelor, I think he's sort of on the other side of your disagreement with this bill. But both of those disagreements speak to the problem that Republicans find themselves in right now with this bill. So let's start with what's happening in terms of like austerity and trying to find cuts to keep Ron Johnson and Chip Roy happy, for example, while also keeping Susan Collins and Josh Hawley happy from the sort of moderate and populist side. What's your takeaway from the cuts that Republicans are about to pass here?

Batya Unger Sargon (20:37)

First of all, the math doesn't add up. They're going to be adding trillions of dollars to the deficit. So even if you're a deficit hawk, like, it's just nonsense that this bill is good for you. But on the moral front, the idea that we are going to be kicking people off of Medicaid so that we can give the top income bracket a tax break I think is just so anathema to the America first agenda. They do this little sleight of hand where they act like if we don't pass this bill, there will be a tax increase for working class and middle class Americans. As if you couldn't separate out the tax cuts for middle class and working class Americans from tax cuts for the top income bracket. I just find it godless and morally offensive to suggest that taking away 2% of a tax cut from a billionaire, which he will never feel and never notice, that you should be doing that while taking away like health care from people. These people are not like scamming the system to get cash. I mean, even if somebody is scamming the system to get Medicaid, they're doing it to get health care. And if they get dropped from the Medicaid rolls, their family is going to end up paying those bills and their family is probably broken. It's not like they can just choose not to get health care. This isn't like spinning rims on a car, but that's how Republicans talk about it. I don't, in theory, philosophically have a problem with work requirements or volunteering requirements. I volunteer. I think volunteering is great for the soul. The idea that the 20 hours a week of volunteering that they're asking these people to put in in exchange for their Medicaid is gonna do something towards paying down the deficit to the degree that getting rid of those tax cuts for the rich would do. It's just insulting to me. So I'm on the opposite side of Elon Musk. The problem is this is where the MAGA base is. This is where MAGA voters are. They really believe Donald Trump when he said, I'm not gonna be dropping people from Medicaid and you can say it's fraud and abuse till the cows come home. Like, this is health care that people need. We need more people getting health care, getting good health care, getting great healthcare, which Medicaid is. And the last point I'll make, Emily, is that the parliamentarian just ruled that the Republicans without a 60 person majority cannot deprive illegal aliens of Medicaid and healthcare. So what you're telling me is that the America First Party is about to pass a bill that allows millions of illegal aliens to have access to the Cadillac of health care and is dropping 5 million Americans from the rolls. American citizens, like, there's no coming back from this. As far as I'm concerned, this is not an acceptable position. And I just really hope that they understand how angry this is going to make people. And justifiably so.

Emily (23:59)

So actually, let's stick on this point. I wanted to ask you about Elon, but I want to stick on this point because what you just said was so interesting. This is not something that they can come back from. People should know some context. You spent a good chunk of time recently talking to Trump voters and the American working class in states all over the country. So you have a good sense of the politics and also, as you brought in the moral component here as well. But when you say this is there's no going back after this bill, which of course is also what Elon Musk is saying from the libertarian austerity. Right, but when you say it, tell us what you mean and tell me why then, if that's your sense, Republicans aren't panicking.

Batya Unger Sargon (24:41)

So he's totally wrong, because only 3% of Americans are libertarians. That's the Joe Manchin quadrant, right? The Elon Musk quadrant, which is like socially liberal and economically fiscally austere. This is like, nobody's there. There's very few Americans who are in that group. So his America One New America Party is not going to be a threat to anybody. The reason that I think this is so, like, it's political suicide. When I was reporting my book Second Class, I traveled around the country.

Emily (25:14)

People should pick it up.

Batya Unger Sargon (25:15)

Second class, working class Americans from both political parties. And let me tell you, Emily, there was so much consensus, like whether people voted for Democrats or Republicans. They pretty much had the same politics, which really shocked me. So, for example, on abortion, like the vast majority of the women I interviewed, whether they were Republicans or Democrats, told me, well, I would never get an abortion because I think it's murder, but I would not take that right away from that woman. So I would vote against banning it. Okay? Neither party is really in that. You know, it's like, like Donald Trump's there, but very few other people on LGBT issues. Most people, including the Republicans that I spoke to, including the very Christian Republicans I spoke to, were very pro gay. And even the Democrats I spoke to were extremely against the trans agenda. So there's no lgbt. Right. There's like Christians who have gay friends and want them to be treated with dignity and Then there's Democrats who are, like, extremely upset about trans women and women's sports and on policy, on economic policy. Not economic policy strictly. But the most common view. I heard the most common combination was almost everyone I spoke to wanted pretty much a full moratorium on immigration for the foreseeable future. And that included the Democrats. And also much more accessible to high quality, affordable healthcare, and that included the Republicans. So this combination of, like, total moratorium on immigration, or at least an extreme hawkishness on immigration, coupled with an extreme permissiveness, understanding that healthcare is not a luxury good, it is something people encounter in their worst times and that working people work really hard and have the shittiest health care. I mean, that combination is the winning formula. Whichever party gets there first is gonna have a ruling majority for 50 years because 70% of Americans, 75% of Americans are there. In fact, 80% of Americans think we should be raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for this stuff. So this just seems to me to be going in the exact wrong, totally opposite direction and really actually is an opening for Democrats. Guys, all you have to do is get back to your 1990s position on immigration and you will be in really good shape. Will they do it, Emily? They won't do it. So basically what we ended up with is one party that talks about dropping people from Medicaid, dropping American citizens from getting health care, and another party that believes we should be giving health care to the entire world and to illegal immigrants. And it's just such a joke. I mean, it really sucks for the average American.

Emily (28:11)

I mean, I think the average American sees it that way, that's for sure. To sort of put a fine point on this. I know we have some pictures of the Lauren Sanchez Bezos, I guess we call her Lauren Sanchez Bezos wedding situation. We have her, we have the dress, we have some pictures from the whole affair. Yeah, there they are, the happy couple. He was getting absolutely torched for that tuxedo by people who know. I'm not even going to dabble in tuxedo criticisms because I don't have them. But Sanchez Bezos, as we call her now, was getting some compliments from. I don't know about you, if you saw this. I saw like trad World being like, it's amazing that she had the long sleeve dress up to the neck. That there was something surprisingly modest about it. But also, this entire affair, Bezos, as somebody who is. Has come to stand behind Donald Trump for reasons you and I probably agree on, and a lot of people understand why he did that. Also, some of it, I think is genuine fear of the Mamdani takeover of the Democratic Party by people like Bezos. But I don't know. I just. It all. Ivanka Trump was there. The Kardashians were there. Everyone was there. I think the estimated cost was, like, between 50 and 50, $56 million, something like that. It just all feels so bad. The state of the country just feels really bad. And I don't know if that's a tangent from what you were just talking about, but when you were mentioning the two political parties, neither one really serving the working class of America. I mean, health care is one of those things. Everywhere I go in conservative world, I tell them that is the biggest. That is your biggest blind spot. It crashes people month after month after month. Your people, month after month after month. It is devastating. It is fear that causes people not to go doctor. It's a heavy weight on the everyday person's life. And Republicans basically have no solution to it. Democrats, on the other hand, have no capability of producing a solution to immigration, for example. And we're left with everyone, you know, spending millions of dollars at the Bezos Sanchez wedding. I don't know about you. I don't feel good.

David Leonhardt (30:17)

Maybe it's.

Batya Unger Sargon (30:18)

Here's my take. When I saw that wedding dress, I had one thought, Emily. One thought. Do you know what my thought was?

Emily (30:26)

I wish I did, but you're gonna have to tell me.

Batya Unger Sargon (30:28)

My thought was Lauren Sanchez watched Megyn Kelly's review her outfit. Oh, goodness, Inauguration. And she is trying to recover from the devastating impact of being the object of Megyn Kelly's scorn.

Emily (30:48)

That is such a good point, because that really was devastating. It was so, like, it was just so accurate and so good. Oh, my gosh. You're probably right about that. I like how I asked you a really deep and serious question and you just. You punted. Bacha, listen, listen. Come on.

Batya Unger Sargon (31:10)

We're girls, right? I mean, like, you know, we want to talk about fashion.

Emily (31:15)

I rarely want to talk about fashion.

Batya Unger Sargon (31:17)

But in this case, I'll say one serious thing, which is it's my experience that working class people don't have class resentment against billionaires, that it's actually the top 10%. Like this over credentialed elite, like the people who, like, fly first class, who truly cannot stand the billionaires who have private jets. Like, the class resentment only goes one. Like one class, one cast, higher interest. So I think working class people have a lot of resentment against these sort of cultural and economic professional Elites who, like, think that they get to tell them, like, what to think and what to do and how to live and so forth. But they see billionaires as jobs creators and they're really turned off by, like, anti billionaire talk. Like, I think a lot of people, you know, imagine that they could be a billionaire or they wish they could, or they aspire to be. Like, the idea of trashing billionaires, I think is very, like, alien in working class culture. But it's very prevalent in that elite that Mamdani comes from, where people are very used to, from the lap of, you know, one step down privilege, like railing against the billionaires. You know, I always think of how, you know, Bernie Sanders, who, you know, I really admire, but like, you know, he used to rail against the millionaires and the billionaires. And then, you know, when you realize, like, wow, $3 million. What does it get you? Already just three houses. You know, he sold a book. It did really well. He bought his third home. Suddenly it became the billionaires and the billionaires, you know, like, it's. And I think that there's a little bit of that where like that is, you know, you would think if you are like a credentialed elite and you've only been raised in circles where your mom is an Oscar winner and your father's a Columbia professor, it's very natural and normal for you to assume that, like, people much poorer than you hate billionaires the way that you do. But actually they really don't. And it's kind of a tell for somebody in my mind who doesn't have a lot of connections in those communities.

Emily (33:18)

Although I do think there's something that changes when you parrot like a bill like this. I think when you're pairing it with austerity or the threat of taking something away for some reason, I think that that makes a difference anyway. Batya. Yeah, yeah.

Batya Unger Sargon (33:31)

I mean, make them pay more, definitely. I'm totally on board with that. Like, there's a way to be like, both positive towards it, like, positive towards capitalism, while also saying, like, when left to its own devices, it's leads to shipping all the good jobs to China and importing a slave caste to work here and like, disinheriting the working class. Like, yeah, of course I'm not pro billionaires getting off the hook. I want them here, I want them creating jobs. I want them paying a lot more taxes.

Emily (33:58)

We call it pro billionaire bacha. That's what we call it. Maisha loves billionaires. All right, bacha. Tell people where they can find Your work. Oh, God.

Batya Unger Sargon (34:09)

I'm on Twitter.

Emily (34:09)

But don't worry where they can find your work.

Batya Unger Sargon (34:10)

I'm there.

Emily (34:11)

Guys, get Batia's books. Follow her at the Free Press. Batya, thank you for being here.

Batya Unger Sargon (34:19)

Thank you for having me.

Emily (34:21)

A pleasure. All right, everyone, we are going to actually continue a very similar version of this conversation with David Leonhardt of the New York Times. But before we get to that, let me tell you a story about a guy named Leo Grillo. While on a road trip, Leo came across a Doberman. And this dog was severely underweight and clearly in trouble. Leo rescued that Doberman like a great man, a magnanimous man, and named him Delta. Sadly, Delta was just one of many animals needed help, which inspired Leo to start Delta Rescue, the largest no kill, care for life animal sanctuary in the world. They've rescued thousands of dogs, cats, and horses from the wilderness, and they provide their animals with shelter, love, safety, and a home. This dedication and everlasting love to animals, which I'm sure speaks to many of you, is Leo's mission and legacy. Delta Rescue relies solely on contributions from people like us. And if you want caring for these animals to be part of your legacy, speak with your estate planner, because there are tax saving estate planning benefits, too. You can grow your estate while letting your love for animals live well into the future. Check out the estate planning tab on their website to learn more and speak with an advisor we call a dog man's best friend for a reason. You can help those who need it most. So please go ahead and visit Deltarescue.org today to learn more. That's Deltarescue.org Wasn't that delicious? So good.

David Leonhardt (35:42)

Your bill, ladies.

Batya Unger Sargon (35:44)

I got it.

Emily (35:44)

No, I got it.

David Leonhardt (35:47)

Seriously, I insist.

Batya Unger Sargon (35:48)

I insisted first.

Emily (35:49)

Don't be silly. You're not silly.

Oregon Lottery Representative (35:52)

People with The Wells Fargo ActiveCash credit card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited 2% cash back on purchases.

Emily (35:58)

Okay. Rock, paper, scissors for it.

Narrator (36:00)

Rock, paper, scissors.

David Leonhardt (36:01)

Shoot.

Batya Unger Sargon (36:02)

No.

Oregon Lottery Representative (36:04)

The Wells Fargo ActiveCash credit card. Visit Wells Fargo.comActiveCash terms apply.

Emily (36:12)

I'm excited now to bring everyone this interview that I was able to do with David Leonhardt of the New York Times earlier today. David is really interesting. He's one of those people who actually sort of pops the very various bubbles that he's been in, whether it's on the pandemic or on immigration. He's the editorial director for the New York Times opinion section. He's the author of a book called Ours Was the Shining Future. He's a very open minded person. And so I know a lot of conservatives when they hear New York Times, obviously there's like a little radar going off me too. But David is always so willing to have these difficult conversations and I really appreciated that. So we talk about Zoram Hamdani, talk a little bit about immigration and a lot about sort of the culture, whether there has been a quote unquote vibe shift among America's elite. Because this is one of our unusual pre tapes, I'm actually gonna jump onto the chat in YouTube and I'll be talking to some of you there if you're watching this live on YouTube. So without further ado, here is David Leonhart at the Aspen Ideas Festival. We are here in the beautiful Rocky Mountains at the Aspen Ideas Festival, kind of on the sideline of the festival. And I'm joined by David Leonhardt. He's the editorial director of the New York Times Opinion section and the author of a book called Ours Was the Shining Future. David, thank you for being here.

David Leonhardt (37:35)

Thanks for having me, Emily.

Emily (37:36)

David, you work at the New York Times. We're here at Aspen Ideas Festival where you've moderated some very interesting conversations. And you kind of been willing to burst bubbles in these sorts of circles over the course of your career, whether on immigration or the pandemic. And now that we're 10 years into Donald Trump's hostile takeover of American politics. 10 years.

David Leonhardt (37:53)

10 years.

Emily (37:53)

I just kind of wanted to get your thoughts on what the trajectory of populism is like, is like in the United States now, a decade into really the Trump.

David Leonhardt (38:02)

I think it's hard to know exactly what the trajectory is going to be, but I think that the past can give us some sense of it. And I think there's a basic foundation that explains why we live in this populist era. And then there are some other factors as well. But the basic foundation to me is a sense that many Americans have, that their quality of life has stagnated. And I think they're right about that. When you look at things like income and wealth and health and life expectancy, you see this huge divide between roughly people who have a four year college degree and people who don't have a four year college degree. And the trends for people who don't have a four year college degree, who are the majority of Americans, are pretty dark. Income has grown very slowly. Wealth has grown very slowly. Life expectancy for people without a college degree is roughly back where it was 30 years ago, which is a pretty bad indictment of our society and our economy that it is not producing increasingly long lifespans for most of the population. And so I think that is the kind of the background to populism. And then you have other things on top of it. You have the decline of participation in organizations, whether it's labor unions or local churches or you name it. You do have immigration, which I think is important. You do have the COVID pandemic. But I think of the real backdrop as being this sense that, hey, things fundamentally aren't working for me and for my community.

Emily (39:26)

Well, and I want to actually keep pulling at that thread because it seems to me like the Robert Putnam, Charles Murray, David Leonhardt analyses of civic engagement. Nothing has gotten better. That's my perspective. And I'm curious what you think, David, because I look around and I feel like I don't think small town Wisconsin, for example, where I'm from, is all that much better off now than it was 10 years ago.

David Leonhardt (39:49)

I think that's right. I think it is hard to see real signs for optimism in terms of the data of what's going on. However, I do think there is more of a recognition of the problem than there was before. And sometimes you have to recognize a problem to deal with it. And I do really think that these computers we carry in our pockets are a big part of the alienation and the anger and the loneliness. And so I like to be optimistic. I try to be optimistic. And so I think this movement that we see, and Jonathan Haidt, the psychologist, is here at this festival, I think the movement we see where schools are saying we are going to ban phones from schools, which we see in state after state, we, it's, it's a bipartisan movement at this point. I think Republican governors are probably a little bit more out front than Democratic governors. But you also see Democratic governors and mayors doing it. I think that might be some reason for some optimism that people are saying, hey, in a basic level, something about the way we're organizing our lives isn't working. Walking around all the time just staring at these screens instead of engaging with each other is a real problem. And, and so I do find some reason for hope in that.

Emily (41:08)

Well, David, you know, New York, we were just talking about this before, so of course I'm going to ask you about Zoram Mamdani.

David Leonhardt (41:13)

Yes.

Emily (41:14)

And populism from the left context here. We just talked about Donald Trump. I wonder if in some way Mamdani's shock win in the primary is a bookend to the 10 years of Donald Trump coming down the golden escalator in Midtown. And then you have Mamdani, almost 10 years to the day later, surprising everybody with, you know, something, that aoc, this is bigger than the AOC win because it's citywide. So what did you make? What does that tell us about the Democratic Party from a kind of populist or trajectory of populist blends?

David Leonhardt (41:46)

So the first thing I would say is Zoran Mandani is a very talented politician. And if there are people who have just heard of him, particularly people who are skeptical of him, I would encourage them, go watch some of his videos, go look at what he's done on Instagram, look at what he's done on other platforms. He is engaging. He's always smiling. He is funny. And I think it's just worth remembering that a significant part of politics is that kind of performance. Ronald Reagan was very good at it. Barack Obama is very good at it. That is part of politics. And Zoran Mamdani is very good at it. And so I think it's important to acknowledge that and also to say that the center left, which was really his main opposition, has two really bad candidates in this race, right? Andrew Cuomo, who has a documented record of sexual harassment, and now Eric Adams, who has a documented record of corruption. And against them, you had Zoran Mandani, who is this charming and engaging figure. Now, I and my colleagues on the editorial board have deep qualms about his agenda. We are very much worried that if you look at this style of progressive governance that doesn't seem to take the idea of order very seriously and is deeply skeptical of the police and thinks that you can do rent control, you can rent control your way to low housing prices as opposed to actually having to increase the housing supply. That record just hasn't looked very good. New York is a worse place to live by most metrics than when Bill de Blasio, another progressive, became mayor. Chicago is struggling incredibly with their current progressive mayor. Cities on the west coast, like Seattle and San Francisco, are looking at some of their progressive policies, like, we can just let people use drugs and not worry about it. And saying that was a mistake. And so I do really have concerns about Mamdani's agenda now. He has shown some. Some signs that he is willing to listen to criticism and moderate. So I don't know if he wins, what kind of mayoralty he would have in terms of what it says for the Democratic Party. I'm not sure how much it says, to be honest. He won a Democratic primary in New York City. There is still no evidence at all that a candidate like Zoran Mamdani can win tough races in purple states or in congressional decisions districts. None at all. You look at the Democrats who won in places where Donald Trump also won. They didn't run campaigns like Zoran Mamdani, Ruben Gallego, Alyssa Slotkin, Jared Golden, Marcy Kaptur. That's not what they sound like. And so I am skeptical that he has somehow unlocked some new formula for winning races that Democrats haven't won before. I do think he's a reminder that political talent and extension excitement matter, although.

Emily (44:34)

I'm also kind of curious as to, and you'll know way more about this than I do, but the consolidation behind Andrew Cuomo after his pandemic record, not to mention, as you pointed out, his documented record of sexual harassment, I found that to be a very curious decision from sort of the Democratic establishment in New York. It was almost as though there's a blind spot still about how deeply skeptical of the establishment, post Covid, post Biden, even Democrats are now. I don't know. I'm curious what you think.

David Leonhardt (45:04)

I think that's fair. And obviously the kind of the coalescing of the establishment around Cuomo didn't help him win. Right. It's not even clear how much it benefited him. Look, I think if you, if you, at the end of the day, if voters are presented with a choice between a candidate whose agenda they like more but who is a deeply flawed or even a bad person, and a candidate whose agenda they don't like, I think we've seen again and again that most people are often going to choose the person whose agenda they like more. And I think that's what we saw the kind of establishment in New York trying to do with Cuomo. But Cuomo is just such a flawed candidate and ran a flawed campaign that it didn't end up making the difference. I think the thing for the kind of center left to really reflect on is why have they done such a bad job of producing compelling candidates now for roughly a decade and before that, the center left was great at producing compelling candidates. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, the most talented Democratic politicians of the last half century, are center left figures.

Emily (46:10)

Right?

David Leonhardt (46:11)

Right. And since then, what we've had is Joe Biden running as an obviously aging, who both the center left and the left pretended wasn't aging. We've had Kamala Harris, who is not a good candidate in New York. We've had Andrew Cuomo in Congress. We have a parade of people often who are in their 70s or 80s. And so it's been a while since the center left has produced compelling candidates. Now I think it's possible that the future is different. I already mentioned Alyssa Slotkin. I mentioned Ruben Gallego. Another person who's spoken at this conference is the mayor of Denver, Mike Johnston, who I moderated a panel on immigration with him and Governor Kemp of Georgia. And at the end, Mayor Johnston moved a lot of the audience to tears by telling a story about an immigrant who had enlisted in the US army to give back to this country that had given him so much. So there are talented figures out there, but at this point, they aren't yet national leaders.

Emily (47:06)

And one of the things you guys have very noticedly been doing on the Times opinion section is bringing in new voices. Voices, different voices. And I think that's really, really interesting. And I just am curious for your sense on how in spaces like this, the sort of center left upper echelon of media and business are things. How is that going? Maybe that's the best way to put it. How is that effort to sort of reacquaint ourselves with America in the media? How do you think that's progressing now, again, 10 years since documentation, Donald Trump kind of surprised everyone.

David Leonhardt (47:38)

I'm glad to hear you say that because our the leader of New York Times opinion is Katie Kingsbury, and that is one of the most important things to her, this idea of making sure that Times opinion is a forum for a wider range of voices. And I think it's fair to be critical of the establishment in general, forums like the Aspen Ideas Festival and forums like the New York Times opinion pages and say in the past they weren't sufficiently open to a wide enough range of perspectives. I mean, the Times had no columnist in 2016 who was writing really positively about Bernie Sanders. Right. And so it wasn't just that we weren't publishing enough conservatives, we weren't publishing enough leftists either.

Emily (48:17)

It was also class. Right.

David Leonhardt (48:19)

It's class as well. We weren't publishing enough heterodox voices. Now we were publishing a lot of interesting voices, but we could do better, and we can still do better. And we're trying to do better, but just broadening out. Too much of our debate has been constrained. It has been. And it's particularly been constrained in elite circles. You and I have talked, Emily, before about immigration and this sort of idea that for a long time there was this consensus among Democratic elites and Republican elites that more immigration is better, more and more and more is better. And you know what Most voters didn't feel that way. And the idea that elite politicians essentially decided that they were going to ignore public opinion and do what they preferred, that's a really dangerous thing to do. And I'm not sure Donald Trump could have won the presidency if he didn't, in his own kind of animalistic way, recognize that on both trade and immigration, elites were where the public wasn't. Ross Perot tried that. And if you think about it, Ross Perot does that in the 90s. He's like, We've got too much trade and too much immigration. And how do the parties respond to him basically discovering this? I don't know, 25% of the electorate that felt really badly served by the parties. The two parties ignored that 25% of the electorate. And it was sitting there waiting for Donald Trump to kind of take over the Republican Party and then add just enough Democrats and independents to allow him to be elected president. Twitter.

Emily (49:47)

And so that cohort was also, I think, by the time Trump comes around, angrier because there had been an increasing, I guess, sense of sort of getting smeared by the people who were ignoring them in Perot times. And then eventually that moved into sort of an ugly culture war clash for I think some of the reasons of just our physical geographic separating. People are less intertwined. Our lives are less intertwined on a class basis.

David Leonhardt (50:12)

And.

Emily (50:12)

And so by the time Trump comes around, you have this really ugly culture war divide, I would say, arguably, between haves and have nots. And that's where I want to ask about the immigration panel.

David Leonhardt (50:24)

You did.

Emily (50:25)

I thought that was so interesting. You had Brian Kemp, the executive director of the aclu, Denver's Democratic mayor. And I don't know that that conversation could have happened a couple of years ago.

David Leonhardt (50:34)

David, that's interesting. I think you might be right about. I mean, I do think that if you think about a series of issues, definitely immigration, a whole bunch of COVID issues, right? Like, should schools be closed, should we have mask mandates? Where did the COVID virus start? You think about other hot button issues on gender. And I do think that we went through a period where you would have a debate. And it wasn't just I disagree with you, but there were a set of views, particularly among elite progressives, in which it was like, if you have the view that I don't have, you're some version of ignorant or bigoted or in the case of COVID you don't care about people dying. And that's just not a good way to have political debates and look to Be clear, the Trumpist right is now doing its own version of that right. It's trying to throw people out of the country who aren't citizens and have a certain set of views. You can disagree or agree with those views, but I don't think being able to stay in this country should be contingent on a broad set of political views. The Trump administration has tried to put law firms out of business who represent Democrats. And so this really has been a problem on both the right and the left. It is not a way that a democracy can function. People have to be able to dispute, disagree, and have to be able to say, hey, I think you're wrong about this. It's a high stakes issue. It even might be an issue that determines people's lives. A lot of issues are war, health care, you name it, we disagree. But I'm not going to call you a bigoted, ignorant killer just because we disagree.

Emily (52:17)

Okay, so this is then a big question, maybe as we tie a bow in the conversation, like from your perspective, how did, did we slip into that and then seemingly slip out of it so quickly? I mean, I don't know that it's fair to say we're actually, the vibe has truly totally shifted, but it does feel like something has. And so we went from point A to point B, very, it seems very gradually over decades, and then from point B to point C, it was like everyone woke up after election Day and things felt different. What do you make of that?

David Leonhardt (52:49)

I think I half share your optimism and half am more concerned. So. But let me take both and let me answer your question as you asked it. I think part of what happened is a big part of the Democratic Party and the left, the so called groups had this view that we are on the side of the vulnerable, we are on the side of the disadvantaged and we are defending them. And then what happened in the second Trump election and over the course of the last decade is not only have we seen a big shift of working class people toward the Republican Party, but we've seen a big shift of people of color toward the Republican Party. First, Latino voters, second in magnitude, Asian voters. And although the numbers are smaller, we have also seen a shift of black voters away from the Democratic Party. And that becomes then much harder for the Democratic Party to say this set of issues to take immigration, you are either for more immigration or you're a bad person. Well, when it turns out that actually huge numbers of Latino voters and Asian voters say, no, no, no, we want less immigration than we had under Joe Biden, it just becomes harder to make that case. Right. That it's kind of a battle between goodness and badness. The place where I have more concern is that while it is true, true that I think there is more open debate now than there was five years ago, if you go to college campuses, I've noticed this on college campuses you can have more open debate than you could five years ago. You really can.

Emily (54:21)

Yes.

David Leonhardt (54:22)

I do think that we, it's important to remember we have a president right now who in various ways is trying to stifle debate using the power of the federal government. He's doing it with, with law firms, he's doing it with universities, he's doing it in some government agencies. And so I hope by now I've established my bona fides for criticizing the left for left illiberalism. But there is still right illiberalism and Donald Trump is practicing it and he's the president now. And I think it's important to call both out.

Emily (54:54)

David Leonhardt so interesting. Thank you. And actually even just tiny little thought on that post script, Mamdani is such an interesting cross section of everything you just said. The way that he walked a little bit back from the culture war, didn't talk about defunding the police, didn't talk. I mean, I went back and looked at his Twitter. He didn't post the word queer for like two years before he ran for mayor. I mean, it's just that at least seems different to me.

David Leonhardt (55:18)

If the left wants to really succeed and be self reflective, it should acknowledge, I think, that there is abundant evidence that it has more room to go left on economic issues than it does on social issues. And you see that with all the campaigns I mentioned, Ruben Gallego, Alyssa Slotkin, Jared Goldin, they often, some of them sound like real economic populists. They sound like social and cultural moderates and even sometimes like social and cultural conservatives.

Emily (55:48)

David Leonhardt this is actually the conclusion. Thank you so much for sitting down with me.

David Leonhardt (55:52)

Thanks, Emily.

Emily (55:53)

Appreciate it. All right, everyone, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with David Leonhart. It was great to get the chance to sort of pick his brain a bit, especially as I've been sort of taking in this interesting Aspen Ideas Festival over the last few days. I told David this. He is like the king of the Aspen Ideas Festival. He was on like a panel every single day. So to grab a sponsor slice of his time as a lot of these spaces, including I think very obviously the New York Times opinion section. As he said, it's totally fine to continue criticizing the New York Times opinion section. I certainly plan to, but I also do think that you see this outside their opinion section too, in their coverage of, for example, transgenderism and children. So where that ideology sort of goes into schools and medical treatment treatments. The New York Times says the coverage is different, let's just put it that way. And the opinion section has definitely been, I think NS Lyons was published there recently now in the State Department, but has been has been doing a pretty has been making an effort to bring in new voices. And so does that constitute a real vibe shift? Is it a temporary vibe shift? Is it fake? We're going to get into all of all of those questions and with a musical flavor too, in just a bit. First first this month, Tax Network USA proudly celebrates our nation's birthday, honoring freedom, resilience and financial independence. To mark the occasion, they're offering 10% off all services through July 4th. If you're dealing with back taxes or missed that April 15th deadline, don't wait. The IRS is rapidly stepping up enforcement. Penalties can add up quickly, up to 5% per month, maxing out at 25% of your total tax bill, just not for filing. That's on top of what you already owe, of course. But there's good news. Tax Network USA can still help you turn things around. Whether you're self employed, run a business, or your books are a complete mess, their team knows how to cut through the chaos and find solutions that work relatable. Your consultation is always free and getting ahead of the problem now could help you avoid harsh penalties, wage garnishments or surprise bank levies. Take the first step. Call 800-958-1000 or or visit tnusa.com and don't forget, you'll get 10% off all services through July 4th as part of their celebration of our nation's birthday. Regain control of your finances with expert help from Tax Network usa.

Narrator (58:23)

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Emily (58:54)

Okay, so we had a chance to talk a little bit about the 50 plus million dollar marital blowout that the Bezos had in Venice this weekend. The pictures from it. Well, why not throw them up again? Put them up on the screen. These are F8, F9. I know. We all just cannot possibly get enough of watching billionaires get married. Nothing quite like it. So, yeah, I mean, you. You see all of the pomp and circumstance around it. But Bezos and Ivanka Trump was there, by the way. Some other Kardashians, interesting people were there, predictably. I've been joking. It's not been a good joke, but over the last few days that Aspen feels empty because everybody's at Bezos when the concentration of wealth here in Aspen is absolutely stunning. I've been to a lot of different places through my work, and here it is just so palpable. And in a way that's like. I've been trying to work through this because I'm writing a piece about it. It's hard to kind of be in a place where people are so wealthy, but they are also. They're not driving a Porsche 911 or Ferraris. They sort of like, they keep those in the Hamptons. And here they have these like, ostentatiously vintage Jeeps and legit vintage Broncos and, you know, they're jacked up four runners, whatever it is. And that's just. I've never been able to wrap my head around why that bothers me. Part of it is that. And this is the sort of city of Aspen. If you go downtown Aspen, it's just. It feels like they are wearing the costume of people who they do not understand and exert disproportionate levels of control over, undemocratic levels of control over. And that is just like a sense of salt in the wound that feels particularly egregious and how this relates to everything. I don't think it relates to Jeff Bezos in really any way whatsoever. We did see Silicon Valley for a while, these billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and. And he's still doing it to some extent, just dressing in monotone sweatsuits. They're wearing the same pair of jeans, the same T shirt every single day in this weird attempt to relate and to take down their status. And now I want to put this on the screen. This is a Semaphore article that caught our team's attention. Trad Pop summer US Political vibe shift hit hits music charts. And it's about this. Well, it's about this change, I guess maybe we don't know how temporary it is or whatever, but this Alex Warren Song Ordinary, which a lot of you have probably heard, is the number one song on the Billboard charts right now. And it is sort of a traditionalist ode to the simplicity of finding love. He's a man, so finding love in one woman. And you compare that to a lot of the fare from the rap world, there's really no comparison. So if we're grading on the curve since the charts became totally, dare I say, irredeemable, if you're grading on that curve, then yes, this is definitely something really different. It reminds me a bit bit of what I thought when I heard one of the genuinely saddest songs that I can remember hearing on actually the pop charts, which is Outskirts by Sam Hunt. And that song is just this longing sort of someone who millennial was swept away from the simplicity of small town life where they grew up and missed out on the love of their life and got caught, caught up in the grind. To quote Eric Adams, if you haven't seen the video of him leading a chorus of elderly people in a chant that said focus no distractions and grind last week, you simply must. You are missing what I can only assume is performance art at this point. But in all seriousness, this has been creeping into pop culture for a little while and sonically, you've heard it in obviously the Beyonce country record. You've heard it in Shabuzzi, who I think is still on the charts. Morgan Wallen has four songs in the Billboard top 10 right now. So it's both the sound and the message in and of itself. The Amy Schumer show Life and Beth that came out during COVID on Hulu, is one of the best, one of the saddest, but also one of the sort of best examples of how I think the left has grappled with, with some of the sort of consequences of their own prescriptions for life. And in this, you see, I shouldn't spoil it, but you see Amy Schumer. I know people cringe at the name Amy Schumer. She's generally a very talented person who has some really bad, has done some really bad quote unquote comedy, particularly after train wreck. Some people may say it's because of her relationship with Anthony Jesel ended. I don't know. I'm not sure going to go down that rabbit hole because I don't want to be on the record particularly and making wild assumptions about Amy Schumer. But this is a story about a woman finding fulfillment and purpose by actually leaving Manhattan and basically going to rural life and going back to nature and all of those sorts of things which sound, I guess, kind of conservative. But also it's sad to me that those things are considered conservative. It's sad to me. Like the song Ordinary is something that should signal any type of vibe shift. But I suppose, again, we have to grade ourselves on this curve. And I don't know if this is a trend. I will say one thing that makes me think it's not a trend is that it's been happening for a while. A lot of people are sort of. You've seen headlines from the UK and from the US that Catholic Church attendance has been really high among young people. Some orthodox churches are reporting that as well. And that, to me, always seemed like it was destined to happen because I wrote a poll. I want to say it was in the Washington Post. It may not have, because it's a really long time ago. I'm just trying to go into my own thought process here that showed among young people, they were actually more attracted to traditionalist worship. And this was again, like 10 plus years ago, so don't quote me on it, but. But there's some social science to that effect. And it made sense, right, that if you're going to put in the effort to go to church instead of brunching or sleeping in, you don't want it to feel like brunch, and you don't want it to feel like you still slept in because you're one of the people that sort of got up and out. And you went to it for a source of, like, you went to it for sacraments. You went to it to feel the presence of something sacred. You went to it to find transcendence. And that was a very obvious, I think, trend. Again, I have to keep saying, as a millennial, which is the three worst words in the English language when you put them together, but sort of where I always saw it going. So maybe this is durable, maybe this is something that sticks around. But the elite millennials, and this speaks to my experience over the last several days. I mentioned this at the top of the show.

David Leonhardt (66:49)

Show.

Emily (66:49)

There's still a lot of what I would describe as cultural leftism. It still feels like 2020 here in Aspen among the elite millennials, people who work in corporate America, in media jobs, sort of my big takeaways. And Charles Murray wrote a book in 2012 called Coming Apart about how we are sort of geographically separating ourselves by education and income. It's a great book. And that book, none of those trends. And this is what I was trying to get at with David and also with Batya is none of those trends to me seem as though they're reversing. I think we are still separated geographically on those lines. It's fascinating to see that here in Aspen, a place that is relatively rural but is such a concentration of wealth that a lot of the people from Aspen who work in Aspen every day, they can't live in Aspen. They have to live everywhere else. And the billionaires and multimillionaires live here. And so that's the we can say the vibe has shifted in sort of political with among political parties. That kind of makes sense. We can kind of connect those two things because the party should, at least in theory be responsive to voters and businesses should, in theory be responsive to voters. There's a big CNN piece recently about how a lot of brands were consumers, not voters, but how a lot of brands were downplaying pride this year. I mean that's one thing, but it's one thing to downplay, it's another thing. If you sort of still as the marketing person, for example, Target, this is not specific, it's hypothetical. You still believe what you believe. That's going to put you at odds with the rest of the country. And it doesn't get you out of your bubble at all in any way whatsoever. It doesn't change the fact that you still probably are surrounded by people who have higher education and income and live. So the public polling really in terms of the sort of cultural tastemakers and gatekeepers, we can look at the opinions shifting on wokeness and free speech and all of that. But we're talking about the top 5%, 10%, the professional managerial class of the country. And if that doesn't shift, shift, then you still have this massive socioeconomic and cultural disconnect. And to me that's what doesn't feel like it's changing. So on that note, make sure to if you have thoughts, feedback. I'm@emilyevilmaycare media.com I've gotten some really great emails. I've tried to respond to all of them. It's been a lot of fun. I actually reconnected with a long lost friend from the email email account. So maybe I'll tell that story soon. But stay tuned, we have some really great guests coming up. I'm gonna be back in my regular studio. I appreciate everyone watching the sunset behind me here in Aspen and giving me the sort of grace to do this on my laptop and my remote setup. I appreciate the team working with me on that as well. We will be back again on Wednesday with more we are always here 10pm we are live and we are having so much fun. So I'll see you then.

Narrator (70:12)

Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cash back, the most savings on your shopping. So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Nike, Expedia, Bloomingdale's and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cashback. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save Money at over 3,500 stores. Join for free at Rakuten.com or get the Rakuten app that's R A K U T E N.