The Truth About Social Media's Role in Election Outcomes 2024 | Luke Beasley DSH #942

Summary

Digital Social Hour: The Truth About Social Media's Role in Election Outcomes 2024 | Episode Summary

Release Date: December 2, 2024

Hosts and Guests

• Host: Sean Kelly
• Guest: Luke Beasley

In this compelling episode of Digital Social Hour, host Sean Kelly engages in an in-depth conversation with political commentator Luke Beasley to dissect the multifaceted role of social media in shaping the outcomes of the 2024 U.S. elections. The discussion navigates through election dynamics, media biases, policy impacts, and the broader implications for American democracy.

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1. Post-Election Reactions and Outcomes

Luke Beasley's Reflections: Luke Beasley begins by expressing his complex emotions following the 2024 election results. He states, “[00:39] Luke Beasley: Not as great as I was feeling before, to be honest... I definitely knew Trump could win. I don't think I was expecting the electoral beating.” This highlights the unexpected nature of Trump's narrow victory, which Beasley had not fully anticipated despite recognizing his potential to win.

Election Results: Sean Kelly remarks on the unprecedented closeness of the election, noting, “[00:59] Sean: He won by like 100 votes. Yeah. I didn't even. I didn't expect that. I thought it'd be way closer. I thought some of the swing states would go her way.” This exchange underscores the razor-thin margins that ultimately defined the election outcome.

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2. Trump's Threat to Democracy and Election Integrity

Attempts to Overturn the Election: A significant portion of the conversation centers on Trump's actions post-election. Luke emphasizes, “[02:38] Luke Beasley: I think Trump committed one of the greatest crimes against our democracy in American history,” referring to his efforts to overturn the election results through measures like the fraudulent slate of electors scheme.

Vice President Pence's Role: Luke highlights the critical role of Vice President Mike Pence in maintaining democratic integrity: “[02:58] Luke Beasley: [Pence] was trying to get Pence to just take other random Republicans saying, we're the lawful electors from the swing states, and we say Trump won, which would have been a coup. Luckily, Pence said, I'm not doing that.”

January 6th Incident: Sean inquires about the Jan. 6th events, to which Luke responds, “[02:46] Luke Beasley: A lot of people zero it down to that. That was sort of the culmination of weeks of him trying to overturn the election.” This places the insurrection as the climax of sustained efforts to disrupt the electoral process.

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3. Media Bias and Its Influence

Left vs. Right Media: The duo delves into the disparities between left-leaning and right-leaning media outlets. Luke asserts, “[09:07] Luke Beasley: There's a lot of left of center voices... but I think there's more of a direct relationship between right wing media and right wing leaders,” pointing out the robust support structure for conservative media versus the relatively muted presence of progressive media.

Fox News vs. MSNBC: Luke criticizes the lack of parity in media bias, stating, “[19:07] Luke Beasley: There's no equivalent of Fox News on the left. Fox News goes further in their propaganda for Republicans than an MSNBC, for example, would ever go for Democrats.” This comparison highlights the perceived imbalance in media representation and its effect on public perception.

Impact on Public Perception: Sean notes the implications of media bias on public understanding, “[20:15] Sean: I'll push back on that a little bit because I think there are outlets that show Trump in a very negative manner.” Luke counters by emphasizing the depth of negative portrayal, “[23:03] Luke Beasley: What are the 10% of positives? I don't know how they're finding 10% positive stories for Trump.”

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4. Crime Statistics vs. Public Perception

Actual Crime Data: Luke presents factual data on crime rates, “[11:13] Luke Beasley: Crime now is down to pre pandemic. Pre pandemic levels are even lower. And like homicide rates have gotten extremely low.” He underscores the discrepancy between actual crime statistics and public perception.

Public Misconceptions: Despite the data, Sean observes, “[07:09] Sean: And they weren't really responding. I think that was an issue.” Luke elaborates on how fear-mongering and misinformation have skewed public understanding: “[10:56] Luke Beasley: What happens is during the pandemic... People believe it's up. The vibes favored Trump.”

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5. Kamala Harris's Performance and Policy Handling

Interview Skills: The conversation shifts to Kamala Harris's media appearances. Sean shares, “[24:37] Sean: It was supposed to be longer and her team cut it. Maybe so, but no, I just thought like it was just like we said earlier, I want to see the real side of you.” Luke defends Harris's composure, “[24:55] Luke Beasley: She really had good responses to the border stuff, to the trans thing, to the economic questions.”

Policy Implementation: Luke critiques the slow implementation of immigration reforms, “[33:19] Luke Beasley: They did, I think she handled it the best that she could.” He believes Harris could have been more proactive in publicly addressing immigration issues to counter Republican narratives.

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6. Social Media's Role in Shaping Opinions

Censorship and Platform Ownership: The episode addresses the role of social media platforms in political discourse. Sean remarks on Trump’s ban from multiple platforms, while Luke discusses the implications of Elon Musk purchasing Twitter (X), “[20:15] Luke Beasley: Imagine if George Soros purchased Twitter...” He expresses concern over platform owners using their influence to sway political outcomes.

Echo Chambers: Luke emphasizes the creation of echo chambers, “[10:56] Luke Beasley: We're building a pretty big block of sort of of an audience... Democratic establishment... needs to invest more in alternative media.” This highlights the challenges left-leaning voices face in breaking through dominant right-wing media narratives.

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7. Reproductive Rights and Federal Protection

Pro-Reproductive Rights Stance: Luke asserts his strong support for reproductive rights, “[31:43] Luke Beasley: A very pro reproductive rights,” critiquing the Republican approach to decentralizing these rights to states.

Federal Legislation: He advocates for federal enshrinement of reproductive rights to prevent rollbacks through state legislatures, “[33:21] Luke Beasley: And so we have to do two things again... enshrine reproductive rights in the federal law.”

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8. Education Policies and Federal vs. State Control

Department of Education Debate: The discussion delves into the contentious debate over the role of the Department of Education. Luke opposes its abolition, emphasizing the need for federal standards, “[28:54] Luke Beasley: how do you find this? ... abolishing the Department of Education doesn't create good state governments to do the things we're talking about.”

Curriculum Content: Sean raises concerns about practical education, “[29:47] Luke Beasley: ... how to pay taxes, how to run a business, stuff like that.” Both agree on the necessity for a more pragmatic curriculum that equips students with essential life skills.

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9. Polarization and Extremism in Politics

Extremism on Both Sides: Luke acknowledges the presence of extremism across the political spectrum, “[55:39] Luke Beasley: ... extremism is overrepresented.” He notes, “[55:50] Luke Beasley: ... extremism is making it disproportionately into positions of power in the Republican Party compared to the Democratic Party.”

Media Amplification: The conversation highlights how media tends to amplify extremist views, exacerbating polarization. Luke warns of the dangers when extremist narratives infiltrate mainstream discourse, “[56:33] Luke Beasley: ... a part of the authoritarian project to convince people that elections aren't fair unless your side wins.”

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10. Future Directions for the Show and Political Content

Shift in Content Focus: Post-election, Luke outlines his strategy to adapt to Trump’s victory, “[49:09] Luke Beasley: ... it's going to be a lot of the same type of content I've been doing, which is here's what Trump is up to...”

Engaging Nuanced Politics: He aims to delve deeper into nuanced political discussions, “[50:15] Luke Beasley: ... what distinguishes it from MAGA, but what distinguishes it from sort of your right smack dab in the center...”

Voter Outreach and Mobilization: Luke emphasizes the importance of grassroots efforts to engage and mobilize voters, “[51:17] Luke Beasley: ... mobilize my audience to do so, so that at least next time, however the election goes, we don't feel like there were things that we could have been doing more.”

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11. Personal Reflections and Relationships Across the Political Divide

Navigating Personal Relationships: Both hosts reflect on maintaining personal relationships despite political differences. Luke shares, “[58:14] Luke Beasley: ... on a lot of things, like have a lot of conservative. I grew up in Texas, so a lot of conservatives in my family, and that doesn't at all get in the way of our family relationship.”

Balancing Professional and Personal Life: Sean discusses the challenges of separating business from personal beliefs, “[57:03] Sean: ... I'd send a lot of business to liberals, to Democrats. It doesn't matter to me. Do you let it affect your business?”

Luke clarifies, “[57:18] Luke Beasley: It totally depends on, like, what it is. If they wanted to help with our show. No.”

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12. Conclusion and Future Engagements

Closing Remarks: As the episode wraps up, Sean encourages listeners to engage further with Luke Beasley's content, “[60:03] Luke Beasley: ... Explicit podcast listeners. Not explicit, but specifically just podcast listeners.” They hint at future collaborations and debates, leaving the door open for continued dialogue.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• “[00:39] Luke Beasley: Not as great as I was feeling before, to be honest.”
• “[02:46] Luke Beasley: A lot of people zero it down to that. That was sort of the culmination of weeks of him trying to overturn the election.”
• “[09:07] Luke Beasley: There's a lot of left of center voices... but I think there's more of a direct relationship between right wing media and right wing leaders.”
• “[11:13] Luke Beasley: Crime now is down to pre pandemic. Pre pandemic levels are even lower.”
• “[24:37] Sean: It was supposed to be longer and her team cut it.”
• “[31:43] Luke Beasley: A very pro reproductive rights.”
• “[55:39] Luke Beasley: ... extremism is making it disproportionately into positions of power in the Republican Party compared to the Democratic Party.”
• “[51:17] Luke Beasley: ... mobilize my audience to do so, so that at least next time, however the election goes, we don't feel like there were things that we could have been doing more.”

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Takeaways: This episode offers a critical examination of the interplay between social media and electoral politics, emphasizing the enduring challenges of media bias, misinformation, and political polarization. Luke Beasley provides a nuanced perspective on the necessity for informed voter engagement and the importance of sustaining democratic principles amidst evolving political landscapes.

Listeners gain valuable insights into the structural issues affecting American democracy, the role of media in shaping political narratives, and the imperative for grassroots mobilization to foster a more informed and engaged electorate.

For More Information:

• Luke Beasley's YouTube: Luke B's on YouTube
• Podcast Availability: Available on major podcast platforms.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this summary are based on the provided transcript and do not reflect the personal opinions of the summarizer.

Transcript

[Luke Beasley]

I was really proud of how at large you have your crazies, always. But we really do believe and stand by the fact that Trump is threatening our democracy, is violating so many of our most basic American principles. But still, you saw Biden at the White House with Trump able to acknowledge democracy has to come first. And we're not going to do what MAGA did last time and lie about the election for four years, try to overturn it. All those sorts.

[Sean]

Right. That's why I think it's important on my show to have on the other side, so I'm not just seeing one opinion the whole time. All right, guys, we got Luke Beasley on today. Post election, man, how you feeling?

[Luke Beasley]

Not as great as I was feeling before, to be honest. Yeah. You know, I don't know what I believed I've said before. I have a hard time deciphering between optimism and my actual prediction. I definitely knew Trump could win. I don't think I was expecting the electoral beating.

[Sean]

Right. It was landslide.

[Luke Beasley]

Right.

[Sean]

He won by like 100 votes. Yeah. I didn't even. I didn't expect that. I thought it'd be way closer. I thought some of the swing states would go her way.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah.

[Sean]

And he won every single one, I believe.

[Luke Beasley]

Yep.

[Sean]

All seven, which is crazy.

[Luke Beasley]

Crazy.

[Sean]

But you get in these. These bubbles when you're on social media. Right. When like. Like I log into Twitter and it's just all conservative stuff. So that's why I think it's important on my show to have on the other side, so I'm not just seeing one opinion the whole time.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. And I was really proud of how at large you have your crazies always. But at large, how the Democratic coalition has responded, because we really do believe in standby. The fact that Trump is threatening our democracy is violating so many of our most basic American principles. But still, you saw Biden at the White House with Trump able to acknowledge democracy has to come first. And we're not going to do what MAGA did last time and lie about the election for four years, try to overturn it and all those sorts.

[Sean]

Right? Yeah. It was cool to see that video of Biden and Trump together. They seemed like they were on better terms.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. I think Biden was just being the bigger man.

[Sean]

You think so?

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. That imagery is not something Trump ever gave to Biden. If you remember. Right. When Trump lost the election, from that point to when he left begrudgingly on January 20, 2021, he was working in allegedly Illegal ways like the fraudulent slate of electors scheme to keep himself in power. And he was telling his followers, I'm not leaving office. It's not going to happen. And so to see Biden do what Trump could never is just another example of why we shouldn't have elected Trump.

[Sean]

I mean, I will agree that. Yeah, I don't remember him with that transition, doing the same thing to Biden.

[Luke Beasley]

No. I think Trump committed one of the greatest crimes against our democracy in American history.

[Sean]

You talking about the J6 incident?

[Luke Beasley]

A lot of people zero it down to that. That was sort of the culmination of weeks of him trying to overturn the election. So one thing that not enough people know about, but is critical is, you know how him and Pence had that falling out.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Luke Beasley]

That was over Trump wanting to get Pence to. Instead of certifying, which is just the procedural role, the vice president was to engage in the actual lawful electors, he was trying to get Pence to just take other random Republicans saying, we're the lawful electors from the swing states, and we say Trump won, which would have been a coup. Luckily, Pence said, I'm not doing that. And then Trump's followers chanted, hang Mike Pence. And to the day Trump left office, he was pretending like there was a chance he was going to stay in office beyond January 20th. That's how you completely collapse your democracy. So, again, going back to why I'm proud of my movement is even in the face of someone who his own former chief of staff described as a fascist, is victorious. We still preserve a democracy.

[Sean]

Yeah. I will say Mark Cuban congratulated him. I like that, seeing that obviously he was very pro Kamala. You guys lost some subscribers when it happened, right? I saw PAC man talk about this.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. I'm happy we made. We sounded the alarms. I'm happy we very quickly said, guys, if your reaction to this election result is detaching, that's how we get more results like this. So please stay engaged, however hopeless you can feel. But it did get a little bit overblown because within days we started seeing.

[Sean]

You got it back. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. He's still challenging that 2020 election, it seems like.

[Luke Beasley]

You know, which I don't understand how anyone sees past that by itself, because any other issue, if you care about reproductive rights or the economy or crime, the way we address any of those issues is through our democratic process. We choose people who we think have the best ideas. And Trump says, no, I'm not going to engage thoughtfully in that process. I'm going to say that local officials should find votes for me when I lose elections. And the fact that we rewarded him for that behavior. Now the federal cases are being dropped. The one election interference one has to be dropped because Trump's becoming president and we're rewarding him for attacking the foundation of our democracy, which again, we can get into why I think he won and why people get distracted from that most important issue. But it is a crying shame.

[Sean]

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[Luke Beasley]

That we're allowing him to be rewarded for such behavior.

[Sean]

Yeah, it's been a while. And he's, he's, he was fighting that for years and nothing ever, ever happened. Right.

[Luke Beasley]

Dozens and dozens of.

[Sean]

Didn't have evidence to prove. Yeah, there was 81 million votes for Biden that election. So I do see people on X right now saying, like, where did the 15 million votes go? Have you seen stuff like that?

[Luke Beasley]

Well, a big backlash election to Trump's pandemic handling. It makes sense. There was more of a movement to elect the opposition then. But then once Biden Harris were in power. Now, those pandemic issues that actually they were handling really well, but across the Western world, we've seen voters want to punish the incumbent parties for the handling of the pandemic. And just because it's hard to square in your brain that you could feel all this economic pain, that's very real. But then also say it's being handled well by the party in power, which it definitely was. If you Compare the data on how we've handled this to other countries, how we've handled it compared to the projections, how Biden handled it compared to Trump. But people wanted to blame Biden Harris for that. And so there wasn't the same energy behind the Democratic coalition as there was behind Trump.

[Sean]

Right. I saw a lot of people blaming them, but. And they weren't really responding. I think that was an issue. Blaming them on, on the economy, like the gas, the groceries and all that.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, it's. It's a tough one to discuss. It's easier for me because I'm not running for an office. I can be a little bit more blunt. People's feelings were wrong about who they were blaming. The facts don't align with saying Biden Harris handled the pandemic conditions poorly. But that's not what Kamala Harris can't sit in an interview and say, well, y'all are just wrong. So, haha, she has to sympathize. So she was trying to walk this line of saying, you know, if you look at the metrics, we're actually doing things pretty well. But I understand there's a lot to be done and I have new ideas compared to Biden. So we're going to do even more than the pretty successful presidency that Biden's had. That message just didn't land because it's not as simple as they did it.

[Sean]

Right. Do you think she should have went on Rogan? Do you think that was a mistake?

[Luke Beasley]

Yes, absolutely.

[Sean]

I like that.

[Luke Beasley]

That would have made the difference, but she should have.

[Sean]

Okay.

[Luke Beasley]

Some people not going just a part of a broader issue with Democrats. They, some of them are getting better, but they don't go. They don't meet people where they are enough. And the facts favor. The facts favored Harris 100x. She had the facts on her side here, unfortunately. The vibes, the economic vibes and vibes about other things like crime, when it's down, but people believe it's up. The vibes favored Trump. And so the only way you can shift people's vibes is not releasing studies on the effective handling of this, that or the other thing, or papers about how crime has been plummeting at a prehistoric rate. You have to tap into people's feelings and connect with them. And the only way you can do that is if you're showing up everywhere. And while I thought Trump's appearances on Rogan and on Logan Paul and Andrew Schultz and all these different people's podcasts, from my perspective, he was all disoriented. And had a hard time communicating still. He was showing up and he was doing a lot of those things in places that, that people are not just your own base, but new voters who could. You could turn out. So that was a huge mistake for sure.

[Sean]

He was showing up and also being a human, humanizing with people.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. Best that he can.

[Sean]

Like sometimes politicians give these political answers, which I understand they have to do. Right. They got to put on appearance. But these days I feel like people want that authentic feel. They want to see who they actually are.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. And I think sometimes we overstate how much Trump was connecting with people. I think a lot of this was. Whoever the Republican was, was going to benefit from the vibes, the anti incumbent vibes, along with other things. But again, I have a hard time believing the. I know the fear mongering works that Trump was doing, but it's not like he was nailing those interviews himself.

[Sean]

Yeah, I could. Unbroken. He did seem a little all over the place, I'll admit that. I watched that episode.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah.

[Sean]

But I really think the conservatives have like taken over alternative media like the podcast space specifically. And YouTube. A lot of YouTube.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. There's a lot of, you know, left of center voices such as myself, you talked David Pakman, Brian Doc Cohen and others. And we're building a pretty big block of sort of of an audience. But I think there's more of a direct relationship between right wing media and right wing leaders and then politicians who reinforce the messaging and show up and bolster the platforms of those people. Whereas we largely get ignored by the Democratic establishment, for example, and Democratic politicians. And they're still stuck in this head space where mainstream media is the end all, be all. And so I think a lot needs to change between now and the next election. One of one of the major things, it won't have to do with how we brand and how we adjust. Some of it will just be the structural stuff. Like I'm saying, no longer will people be blaming Biden Harris for these pandemic conditions, but you also have to adjust where you can. And one of the things is we got to invest more in alternative media, like you said.

[Sean]

Absolutely. You got to adapt because traditional media numbers are dwindling year by year. Yeah, I just saw something where I think it was MSNBC is really struggling, one of the big networks.

[Luke Beasley]

You know, a lot of post election discontent among those viewers.

[Sean]

Yeah, you said something earlier. Crime is down, people think it's up. What is. What is that based off of?

[Luke Beasley]

What is the disconnect or what's like.

[Sean]

Where those, where do you get those numbers from? Where the, the crime rates were down, you said under Kamal and Biden.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, the FBI crime that sort of really always used to.

[Sean]

Was that compared to Trump's presidency or what was that compared to?

[Luke Beasley]

So crime now is down to pre pandemic. Pre pandemic levels are even lower. And like homicide rates have gotten extremely low. And so people feel less safe, but they're actually by many metrics safer than they've been even going back before the Trump administration. But what happened was during the pandemic, I'd of course say Trump exacerbated the economic crisis, the public health crisis, the crime crisis, all, all by his lack of a serious and coherent response to the pandemic. Something that even his own medical professionals have later spoken out against, saying that we could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives if he took this thing more seriously, more early. But even so, you had this end of Trump administration crime spike. Biden Harris inherited that. Right. So we had higher unemployment than when Trump came into office. That's what they had to inherit because of pandemic conditions and handling. You had this public health thing that handle. And then crime was up. What was super infuriating was then immediately conservative voices jumped in saying the crime stuff is the problem of Biden Harris. They created this even though it predated them. Same thing with all these economic problems. And then as much as Fox News and sort of the 2021, 2022 period liked to fear monger about crime, because it was up during that pandemic period, they never turned around and went, wow, it's so spectacular that it rapidly plummeted back to pre pandemic levels. And a lot of that is very again, structural, systemic. It was going to happen as we got the pandemic under control. It's why Trump should have taken getting the pandemic under control more seriously. But you do have to point to the record federal investments in public safety and law enforcement that happened under Biden Harris as well. And they actually have like passing the gun safety bill and some other things taken active steps that can be contributing to these solid numbers. So this among so many other issues is one that if we're just talking about data, you have this really strong case for why Democrats should have been given another term in power. But it doesn't align with how a lot of people feel. And I think a lot of that is more complicated than what about to say. But some of it comes down to the right wing media echo chambers really.

[Sean]

Effective yeah, because you said earlier the facts favored Harris in this election, so you just wanted her to be more vocal about the facts, basically.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. And she definitely was flawed, but she ran a pretty solid campaign given that she had to throw it all together in just a few months. But I don't know if the best messenger could have convinced people we could have moved the needle and I'm sure there's some scenario where we could have won. But seeing the overwhelming results makes me feel like it has to be something a little bit more. I keep coming back to this term, but structural.

[Sean]

Yeah. Do you think she was the right fit?

[Luke Beasley]

Yes, in the sense that it would have been a. There was so little time between when Biden decided he wasn't going to run anymore and the election that it made sense he'd go, all right, I'm the one who the voters chose. But the tickets, Biden, Harris. And so I'm going to go ahead and hand it off to my vp. She wasn't crowned though. People act like there were some powerful group that got to select her. Biden, just throughout the endorsement. Some people thought it was to sort of slight the Democratic establishment, saying, fine, but I'm gonna pick my person. But however it went, she went, oh, there's a mosquito's attacking me and won over the delegates, which. That's how the law or the process works within these party infrastructures and ended up becoming the nominee. And given that she was the vp, that was the smoothest way to make it happen in a few months. I do think so.

[Sean]

I have heard from conservatives that it wasn't Biden's choice to. To drop out or whatever. Like she kind of. Over there was an overthrow. Right. Have you heard that?

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, I've heard that. I definitely in the lead up to the election didn't care about talking about that because it was sort of she's the candidate now and she needed to win over Trump for sure.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Luke Beasley]

And I didn't see this. Oh, it's so anti Democratic when Biden was going to be the nominee. But he has every right to say I'm not going to accept the nomination. And thus it's up in the air. So then again the procedures say that the delegates are just going to have to decide. And so Kamala started calling delegates and won the supportive enough to become the nominee. So that wasn't sort of the coup that Trump would always describe it as. But did Pelosi or others strong arm Biden? I don't know. We won't ever know what those private Conversations were, I think Biden just came to terms with how bad polling looked. There was a report that we just recently learned of that said Biden got some polling map that said he would have gotten mopped like even worse than Harris. Really just an absolute historic landslide was in the works.

[Sean]

Huh.

[Luke Beasley]

And so I think it was less so him being strong armed because he could have charged through regardless of what people were saying. He had the delegates support, but he realized my whole legacy is going to be holding on to power and, and losing it and potentially losing our democracy for it. Now unfortunately, Harris ended up losing too.

[Sean]

How have you felt about some of Trump's recent hires? It's November 15th today, so he has all of them. You don't feel good about any of them?

[Luke Beasley]

Oh, no. I mean. Oh, well. Okay, good. Let's see. With. Yes, I feel good based on my expectations. For example, Marco Rubio is not the most extreme person he could have chosen for Secretary of State, but for Attorney General Matt Gates, if that ends up working out, I can't think of a worse person there. Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. Frightening.

[Sean]

Why don't you like her there?

[Luke Beasley]

She has a long history of foreign policy views and Russian aligned views that freak me out a lot.

[Sean]

Interesting. She's a former Democrat, right?

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. She was always a strange one though.

[Sean]

Did you have those views when she was a Democrat though?

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, I, I never like, never liked her. Yeah.

[Sean]

Okay. That's respect if you had that view while she was still a Democrat.

[Luke Beasley]

Thank you. I also wasn't doing political commentary when she was like running for president, for example. So I don't have any. I never actually talked about her. Got it online. But I remember even when I was keeping up with it, I didn't find her. I don't like accusing people of, of grifting. I like to believe even people that I find outrageously wrong or just wrong genuinely.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Luke Beasley]

She does stink of grift though.

[Sean]

Yeah. My hope is, is just if you're a political content creator, you try to stay as objective as possible, you know what I mean? Because I think some people bring a little too many emotions involved and then sways their bias in one way.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. You know, it's in this environment, my goal, because my show is an opinion show, I'm sharing my opinion, is to make sure that it facts come first. I demonstrate the facts properly and as objectively as I can and then follow it with opinions.

[Sean]

Got it.

[Luke Beasley]

Because what's happening in our current political environment is people. It's Less so that the, it's less so that sort of the Trumpism effect is convincing people that Trump is right on everything, but more so convincing people that it's impossible to discern what facts is. And so a lot of people really are fine with the conclusion of, I don't know. We all sort of live in our own echo chambers. We all have our own version of the facts. Who really knows? Even though there are actual facts, we can know what is true. And sometimes things are verifiably false, often when they come out of Trump's mouth. And so making sure we don't lose sight of that even as we all throw our opinions onto the facts is super important.

[Sean]

Well, it's hard to find facts these days. So many false information everywhere. It's like, where do you, where are you finding these? You know?

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, and I think I stand by with any of my criticisms of left wing media. Doesn't take away from the fact that I think right now we're in a really wonky environment, unbalanced environment, where for example, there's no. People will dispute this. But taking as objective of a look as I can at it, there's no equivalent of Fox News on the left. Fox News goes further in their propaganda for Republicans than an msnbc, for example, would ever go for Democrats. A good example of that is you haven't ever seen MSNBC have to pay $787.5 million for lying about an election so brazenly that even with our really strict laws around free speech, a defamation case was so threatening to Fox News. So with that being said, I think the MAGA echo chambers worse. But one thing I've been voicing a lot as we are a little bit distressed right now, is as a left of center media environment to not then just start trying to mirror MAGA and to still value facts and try to not descend in just the same exact bubble.

[Sean]

I'll push back on that a little bit because I think there are outlets that show Trump in a very negative manner.

[Luke Beasley]

I think some people, I've seen people who have taken him out of context and so that. But I think if you were to accurately report on him, you would have a very negative perception of him. To my previous point, just super objectively find me an example of a president who loses an election in the United States and then tries to illegally keep himself in power. And the only thing standing in between him and holding on to power illegally is his vice president going no and then being outcasted from the party for it. That is not a matter of oh, you're just so biased. That's just. Do you have a basic respect for democracy and the the both sides ism of every issue makes it to where you can have a panel where some people go, oh no, well that's not that significant. No one really cares about that. Well, we should. And the facts point to a really dangerous man. And mainstream media, for example, a lot of people think that your liberal legacy media is too liberal. And I understand that they, a lot of the voices on those networks have a liberal bias, but actually a cnn, for example, bends over backwards to prove they're not biased by creating this artificial neutrality, which isn't really what we're seeking. Objectivity is good, but neutrality is a little silly because some issues aren't neutral.

[Sean]

Right.

[Luke Beasley]

And they end up both sidesing issues that aren't both sides of all. Like Harris versus Trump's respect for our democracy. I don't know if you know this, but Trump called for the termination of the Constitution on True social. I heard about that and that's something that I bring up incessantly because that's not really excusable. It's online. He hasn't deleted that post. And people look past it. How do you vote for someone who's going to take an oath to the Constitution when they've said, oh, because I think the election was stolen. I think we should terminate all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution. That's just not a matter of are you liberal or conservative? It's do you agree that our system of government is something that should be preserved? And I thought conservatives abided by that, but they've sort of abandoned it. Hmm.

[Sean]

Yeah. Yeah, I think he could have handled that incident better. But the art, they were writing negative stuff about him way before that. You know what I mean?

[Luke Beasley]

Like when he said grandmother P word.

[Sean]

Yeah, I mean that, that was the first one I remember, but there was a lot.

[Luke Beasley]

How would you tell a story about that in a non negative way?

[Sean]

Well, not that specific moment. I mean that's hard to defend. But just in general, like I think they've done analysis on what percentage articles are negative versus positive and yeah, I've seen that.

[Luke Beasley]

I'm sure I've seen the graphic you're talking about. I remember Elon Musk posted a graphic and it was legacy media outlets. Harris, I think it was 88% positive. Trump 80, whatever, something high, 80s or 90% negative. And I don't know what, what are the 10% of positives? I don't know how they're finding 10% positive stories for Trump. But I will say no one ever includes in that calculus that if you go over to a much more influential, influential network than any of the legacy media outlets, Fox News, Fox News has a bigger reach than ABC or NBC or CNN, MSNBC. And no one ever does their analysis. Which is 100 negative for Harrison.

[Sean]

Do you think so?

[Luke Beasley]

It's 100 near. Yeah.

[Sean]

She did go on Fox News. I thought that was an interesting choice for her.

[Luke Beasley]

She did. What do you think? I thought she did pretty well.

[Sean]

I thought she did horrible, dude.

[Luke Beasley]

Really?

[Sean]

You thought she did pretty well?

[Luke Beasley]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean]

What sense?

[Luke Beasley]

Because I've, I've been willing to admit interviews for a lot of her vice presidency were her weak point and she would just come off sort of unprepared or uncomfortable and then would just revert to talking points there. She really held her ground. And I thought that a big criticism of her was what I was saying, that can she be Commander Chief if she's not comfortable to go into the ring with difficult interviewers? And I thought she dispelled with that talking point because while of course there are going to be negative moments, since it was a Fox News interview and they prepped it perfectly to try to get her on everything, she really had good responses to the border stuff, to the trans thing, to the economic questions. And I thought it showed her ability in off the script moments to handle oppositional interviews.

[Sean]

It was brave of her, I'll say that. I thought the interviewer could have been better. I thought he was cutting her off a lot. Yeah, I didn't like that. That's just like, I don't know, common courtesy.

[Luke Beasley]

SNL skit.

[Sean]

No, I actually didn't.

[Luke Beasley]

It was really funny.

[Sean]

They were just cutting her off the SNL skit. Yeah, I thought he could have done better, but no, I thought she, I don't know.

[Luke Beasley]

Would you find negative about it? I'm curious.

[Sean]

Well, did they end it early? I think I remember it was cut early or something.

[Luke Beasley]

I don't remember.

[Sean]

It was supposed to be longer and her team cut it. Maybe so, but no, I just thought like it was just like we said earlier, I want to see the real side of you. She was giving these answers that clearly were rehearsed, which is fine, but elaborate on that a little bit more. You know what I mean? Just felt like copy paste maybe.

[Luke Beasley]

I think we hold her to such a different standard than Trump. Some of this feels less relevant now that he's won because the comparison between the Two of them is less relevant, but she'll go in, she'll get asked a question about a subject, and even if it's a prepared talking point, she addresses generally the subject. And then Trump gets asked any question. He just starts saying they're coming from jails, they're coming from insane asylums, and repeats like five talking points. Whenever we are prepping for the show each day, whenever the campaign was going on, he would do all these different events. We'd be playing it out loud while we're working on other stuff. And, you know, any question he's asked, I could throw out three different phrases that he's going to go to, and he'll go to one of them. And often they're just him meandering and doing what he calls the weave, which is really just rambling, I think. We never criticize. Not we never. But folks who criticize Harris for not comprehensively enough or succinctly enough addressing certain questions, never put that on Trump when it's difficult to find example of him just directly and concisely answering questions.

[Sean]

Yeah, there are no examples I remember of him just clearly like talking about policies, for example. So I'll give you that for sure.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. And when he does, like the viral tariff moment I know you referenced earlier, they convey a true lack of understanding about the policies he's talking about, which is what frightens me that Americans are so willing to vote for him when every time he's asked about policy, if he really does give it a go, it's like a child talking about policy.

[Sean]

Well, hopefully he could just make the right hires, you know.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, yeah. Which he's not doing.

[Sean]

You don't think Elon and Vivek were a good thing with Dosh?

[Luke Beasley]

We'll have to see what they do. But the whole Elon Trump alliance is giving me some major concern.

[Sean]

What concerns?

[Luke Beasley]

I think Elon, as he's shown it in some of his. Some of his past business ventures, can get unrealistic with what he believes possible. And I'm worried he's going to end up doing a goal of his, which is cutting trillions and trillions out of the budget, which I. I also would like us to be more fiscally responsible, which Democrats have a better history with that than Republicans do in terms of the debt, but not do so in a childlike way where we end up tanking the economy.

[Sean]

But wouldn't cutting these agencies that are inefficient help the economy?

[Luke Beasley]

Well, all the agencies, I don't know which ones they're Planning on just completely throwing out the window. I know. I've heard, like the Department of Education to just go completely while there's inefficiencies and there's issues and improvements. Again, it's this. I've always said that Republicans are a lot better at bumper sticker politics. Things that fit nicely onto a bumper sticker and are simple and you can get your head around it real quickly, whereas Democrats will spend too much time addressing the nuances. And it just misses people completely. And so it does sound nice. Let's just. These agencies are not working perfectly for us. Let's just throw them in the garbage can altogether, missing what the actual utilities are that they serve, even if not as effectively as we'd like.

[Sean]

I'm a fan of the Department of Education getting rid of it. How do you feel about that one?

[Luke Beasley]

No, I don't think we should. You don't think so why go in the other direction? We need to add more. You went to public school, right? Effort into public schools. Yeah.

[Sean]

You went to public school, though?

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah.

[Sean]

And you. What was your experience? You felt like it was a good.

[Luke Beasley]

Experience to a really good public school. So I'm. I'll be transparent about that. I don't think it's representative of most public schools, but I had a great experience.

[Sean]

Okay. I had a pretty lackluster experience, I'd say. And I feel like most people would agree with that.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. So the solution is to provide less.

[Sean]

Hard to go back towards state powers for schools. That's what Trump wants.

[Luke Beasley]

Well, then I'm worried about the red states who have such worse education. Often, like when you have these poorly run red states that would rather pass things on like trans issues or something than do anything to improve education. When you completely give up any federal support or federal initiatives to improve their education, it's just going to go even more on the dumps.

[Sean]

So you don't want states to have more power. You want the federal regulation to have more power than the states?

[Luke Beasley]

Depends on the issue. But on education across the board, we need to be raising the bar. And so I think a federal approach while education is mostly left of the states, and I see the. The benefits to that. We definitely need to nationally raise the standard and be more educationally effective.

[Sean]

I just feel like there's better things we could be teaching the kids that are coming up, man.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. How do you mean?

[Sean]

Just like, well, you went to a good school, so I don't know what you were learning, but a lot of the stuff I learned, I'm not Using all gender theory. They didn't teach that when I was in school. But now just like, I don't know, a revamp or at least teach some stuff that makes sense, like how to pay taxes, how to run a business, stuff like that.

[Luke Beasley]

Now I'm with you on that.

[Sean]

I'm not asking for like crazy changes.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, I thought of that too. I don't know how you would do this. That's probably more on a. On a state, by state or even locality.

[Sean]

There we go.

[Luke Beasley]

For, I'm saying, to realistically implement some of the things you're talking about. But to be clear, abolishing the Department of Education doesn't create good state governments to do the things we're talking about.

[Sean]

Fair.

[Luke Beasley]

I'm saying if realistically I wanted to try out some of the changes, yeah, probably I'd have a better chance lobbying my local school district or whatever. But I've really been baffled. Even the school that I went to on the time we'll spend on certain things and super high mathematics and I didn't know a lot of the basics of finances and stuff out of high school.

[Sean]

I didn't learn how to pay taxes. Yeah, my first tax bill, I was like, well, yeah, what is this? You know what I mean? And then I knew how to do pre calc. When am I going to use precock?

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. Again, I don't know how that connects to gutting educational funding and stuff.

[Sean]

Well, the Department of Education, don't they provide the academic agenda for these teachers to teach?

[Luke Beasley]

I guess, sort of. But I think the types of changes you're talking about would come of more heightened interest in improving federal level or not. Again, the federal government moves a little slow on these things. And my worry is sometimes I'll hear these interesting prescriptions to social or economic issues or whatever it might be, and the solution is to make it even less possible to achieve those. Like, let's just completely privatize education.

[Sean]

Fair enough. Where are you on the reproductive rights movement? Where do you stand on that?

[Luke Beasley]

A very pro reproductive rights.

[Sean]

You're pro. And Trump wants to give that power to the state, that decision, right?

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, that's his position. Now, he's flipped around on it, but he's been super destructive with the justice he got on the Supreme Court. I. I did think that. I don't know what role it played, but I thought it was gonna lead Harris to victory. Not because that's the top issue for everyone, but because there really was this midterm phenomenon right after the overturning of Roe v. Wade where people were, excuse me, really upset with that and they correctly blamed the Republican Party for it. Since then again, the memory can get abstracted pretty quickly for a lot of people. And all of a sudden I've talked to people who blame Biden for it because he was president when it happened, or they, you know, very confused. I heard one lady who said she voted for Trump because Trump says he's not going to sign national abortion ban and that's good because she believes in reproductive rights. I think people get a little disoriented on these things. But yeah, I think Trump should have been electorally punished. The Republican Party needs to be because this has been a decades long project to overturn Roe v. Wade. And then we need to do more work within the Democratic Party to make sure when we have unified control of the House, Senate and White House again, we actually enshrine reproductive rights in the federal law because that's a justifiable bit of outrage from people who are pro reproductive rights, but not that motivated to support Democrats because they feel like they already failed them. Not protecting that before.

[Sean]

Kamala, how do you think she handled the. The border stuff? That was a huge issue this election, right? The immigrants.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, Kamala, Kamala, we're going to get.

[Sean]

PAC man corrected me on this already.

[Luke Beasley]

We're past the elections, still can't get it. But yeah, I think she handled it the best that she could. Meaning politically, obviously on the policy. They should have started more actively and publicly and aggressively implementing or trying to policy on the issue. They did. I'll admit they did. Slow walk now, right? When Biden came into office, he proposed an immigration reform package and Republicans were like, man, so I do put a lot of blame on Republicans. And then it became even more clear when they shot down that border security bill, that was just everything they'd want. It was crafted by Republican senator. It became clear, oh, this is just an issue you like to fear monger about. It's not really that you want to solve it. And federal legislation like that border security bill that Harris supported would have made a more systemic effort to address this long standing issue as opposed to just what an executive can do. So it definitely is something Republicans shouldn't be getting all this political advantage from because of their record on it. And they never want to engage with the Biden administration. But I understand why people were upset by it and the issues that are present. Again, just to add a few caveats shouldn't justify the insane dehumanization or the poisoning of the blood rhetoric from Trump and this crazy stuff. Separate from that, though, I do think Harris immediately took a better approach than Biden, which was not shying away from that issue and going after Republicans for it. And Trump gave her the perfect way to do it, which is the border security bill and him calling our Republicans saying, don't pass anything on the border because I want to run on it.

[Sean]

So that was true because I heard that. So he was calling people, telling them not to pass any bills.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. And the defense, you know, if some people in your audience might be thinking, no, Sean, point out that it was a bad bill. A lot of people are misinformed what the bill was like. For example, when certain border crossing thresholds are hit, then an emergency power is given to the president where they can restrict the asylum process like no president has had the power to do so. Then Trump took that and said, oh, they're allowing in completely freely that number of people, which wasn't what it said. A lot of people believe that's why it was bad bill or numerous other completely distorted things about it. It actually was a very conservative bill, too conservative for a lot of Democrats. But I was happy with that because we need to show people we're taking the issue seriously. Yes. We also want to promote and support and push back against the demonization of lawful immigration. And right now, the insane fear mongering about undocumented immigration is actually now widening to just immigration generally and, you know, some Republicans talking about taking away birthright citizenship. And. And so we have to do two things again. But nuance is really difficult in politics. And Trump's just really basic and historically sourced fear mongering about people impacts people more viscerally, unfortunately.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Luke Beasley]

But again, Harris, she was going to be hurt on the issue. It looks like it actually didn't hurt her. And she made a lot of inroads. The exit polls showed that people trusted her. I think it was like in the 40s of percentage, which is pretty good, it was like 40 something to 52 maybe. And 55 for Trump. That's a much smaller gap than it was before and than it was with Biden. So clearly her rhetoric made a difference in her taking the issue seriously. I think the economy was the big, big thing, though.

[Sean]

Yeah, I think she could have addressed that more. I will say, on the border stuff, a lot of the fear I was seeing with that was these people would get in and some of them would be able to vote. And I remember I had Harry Sisson on the show and I asked him, like before the election, like Are these illegal immigrants going to be able to vote? And he said no. And then you see this chart where all these states have no voter ID and there's like 10 states. Did you see that chart?

[Luke Beasley]

There are no voter ID states. Yeah, but I mean, you have to identify yourself to get registered. And you go, and then when you.

[Sean]

Say identify, what is, what is that process, though?

[Luke Beasley]

When you register to vote, you have to put some, one of your identifiers in.

[Sean]

So, so if you came here illegally, would you be able to vote, though?

[Luke Beasley]

You wouldn't be able to vote.

[Sean]

You wouldn't be able to vote, which.

[Luke Beasley]

Is why every single time this is studied, the reason that I, I understand actually why people on the. Not even voter id, but I guess it's like physical photo ID as they want to take it a step further in some of the red states. The reason is because they're actually, I, I wasn't even familiar with this honestly, because my experience is right when I turned 16, I got my driver's license. So if I ever need id, that's the easiest thing ever. It's always in my pocket. A lot of people actually don't have any physical photo ID. Surprisingly, I think it's like 10% of the US population. And so if you're gonna put this impediment where now they have to figure out and spend money to go dmv, is it worth the hoop you're having them jump through for the security that it's implementing? And what you see is it actually is not preventing the type of fraud that people think that it would. We don't have that type of fraud in any notable way. And every single time this is studied, it's essentially 0% fraud. And so why induce more inconvenience when we should want people to exercise the right to vote if the elections are secure? And again, all evidence points to the fact they are interesting.

[Sean]

Zero percent, near zero.

[Luke Beasley]

It's like point something, you know.

[Sean]

Okay, well, I'm actually impressed with that. If that's true. I got to look into that.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, we have really, really good secure elections. There's still issues, but this is what shows infuriating about what Trump did. And again, we have to care. Facts matter. Just because Trump repeats something over and over doesn't make it any more true. He had the chance. He brought dozens of court cases. They all got slapped down silly. Rudy Giuliani laughed out of court over and over. Then you had all these recounts audit showed, a forensic audit back in 2020 by the right wing group. It Was like, it's called something, can't remember the name, but right wing group, they got access to the Maricopa county account and they also determined the Biden win was legitimate. Every single time you have Trump's own investigators, Ken Block was a guy who Trump's campaign was paying to try to fight for find fraud, he's been speaking out, saying, no, he's lying, not widespread voter fraud. And so at some point you just have to acknowledge that he's been lying. And that is such a destructive lie, because y'all will never know how it feels to be on this side where we have a more significant dedication to our democracy. So we're not going to do that.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Luke Beasley]

Even though it is kind of mind boggling. Just as an example, Elon Musk bought Twitter. Something I've been saying on the show is imagine if George Soros. You know, the right is really concerned with George Soros sometimes on things George Source has nothing to do with. But if George Soros purchased Twitter and the reports were coming out that Soros was helping to censor stories that were bad for Harris, and then Soros started spending a million dollars a day in a way that some election experts think was illegal to get people on this petition so that the Trump campaign could, you know, or the America PAC could target them for voter outreach stuff. And if Soros were doing that and he had a platform leveraging it for Harris, that would be the biggest right wing justification to say, see, oh, it's stolen. But then Elon Musk does it. No one cares. There's a recent video of Elon Musk raising his hand when someone said, we need a Soros of the right. So they have sort of these conspiracies that then justify their own bad acts that we were never engaging in. And even with all of the things about this election that were mind boggling and a landslide when Trump's a historically unpopular figure and all of it we still respect enough because there's no evidence of outcome determinative fraud to say it's absolutely legitimate. And Biden has the character to bring Trump to the White House. And Harris concedes, clearly, unequivocally. And Republicans just sort of go, all right, cool, yay. We're going to benefit from their dedication to our democracy. We're going to accept the smooth transition of power, but we're not going to rethink at all our tax on democracy over the last few years.

[Sean]

Yeah, Elon bought Twitter, and yeah, he was conservative the past few years, but I would say Previous social media platforms have always been under Democratic leadership, and Google is one of the biggest donors to the Democrats, so.

[Luke Beasley]

Well, I'm not saying don't. I mean, people have the ability to donate to candidates that they support if they're rich. But I'm saying you've never had someone purchase a platform and then overtly say, I'm wanting to get this person elected and here's what I'm going to do. I'm using my platform and the enhanced reach I have because I own this platform to do anything I can to help get Trump elected. And Elon Musk just absurdly acting like if Harris wins, there's not going to be any more elections.

[Sean]

Yeah, yeah. He did strongly advocate for Trump. I'll agree with that.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah.

[Sean]

I haven't seen, like, the owner. I haven't seen Mark Zuckerberg, I guess, strongly backing him.

[Luke Beasley]

But again, I'm not saying that's proof of. Of anything illegitimate about the. I mean, unless the Pennsylvania million dollars a day thing was breaking voter laws, then he can be held accountable. But I'm not saying this was proof that anything was wrong about Trump winning other than me not wanting it to happen. My point is that they use much weaker arguments than the one I just made to justify the lies about Democratic wins. And the other thing is, a big thing that I've been hearing from Republicans is you have to now admit we must be right about some stuff. You know, look at the 70+ million people who voted for Trump. See, the left now it's time for you to admit you're wrong about these things. But whenever we get 81 million votes, it's, oh, that's impossible. It's stolen. And they don't do any introspection. So again, there's all these double standards that are infuriating. I always want to engage in introspection. I always want to try to figure out where I can be, you know, sympathetic and figure out where people are coming from. But it gets. My fuse is getting shorter.

[Sean]

I feel that. Do you personally use X? I know Don Lemon just announced he's leaving. Do you still use it?

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, I do. I'll keep using it.

[Sean]

Okay. I do like that they don't censor you on X.

[Luke Beasley]

They censor some people, but, yeah.

[Sean]

Oh, they do.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. The story about the. I'm blank on the particular one, but there was one that. I think it was Rolling Stone article broke about the Musk campaign coordinating with Trump to censor a particular story. That was disadvantageous. But all platforms are going to have you know, the terms of service, and they have the right to enforce them. They're companies. You're signing up to use their platform so they can do that, and then we can take issue with what their policies are and how they're enforcing them. Fine. I don't love when people equate that with governmental censorship, which is the real free speech thing, but I understand the magnitude of. Of these platforms now. And so in the court of public opinion, we need to hold people accountable for unjust terms of service or whatever. But, yeah, I know conservatives like X more now.

[Sean]

I mean, you saw Trump get banned almost everywhere on social media. Remember that? I do Facebook, Instagram, I think YouTube even. And Twitter at the time. Right, Twitter at the time.

[Luke Beasley]

So, yeah, that was a tough one.

[Sean]

What'd you think of that whole, I guess, incident?

[Luke Beasley]

I understand, again, these private platforms going, wait, did we just give a platform to someone who incited an insurrection? Is it our responsibility to not allow that? But I also get how tenuous that can get and how you got to be really mindful of when you're taking especially someone that relevant and notable off of a platform. But Trump did violate their terms of service over and over and over again.

[Sean]

So I've had a few videos get deleted. Has that happened to you before on YouTube or anywhere?

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. And again, sometimes I wonder what it's like to do what I see a lot of other especially MAGA influencers do, framing it as an attack against them, you know. Oh, the deep state social media is trying to.

[Sean]

I actually did get a deep state video taken down, ironically enough.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. But when it happens to me, I'm just like, all right, well, yeah, I get it.

[Sean]

A few of mine were, like, just topics that you couldn't talk about at the time. You know, it wasn't even me. It was the guest saying it.

[Luke Beasley]

So, yeah, that. That bothers me because I've been debating people and the video will get. Oh, whatever. Is it demonetized or. One time I got a YouTube strike because I was covering a QAnon person and being like, that's crazy. But they thought I was damn espousing the Q and answer, and that was a bummer.

[Sean]

Have you debated Nick Fuentes yet?

[Luke Beasley]

No. I probably want it too extreme for you.

[Sean]

Yeah, he wanted to come on the show. I kind of. Yeah, Even for me, like, I have on everyone but that one. I don't know.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, I actually struggle with that because, like, we just had a Trump supporter on. That's pretty fringe. Who was it but Isabella Moody?

[Sean]

I don't know that one, but.

[Luke Beasley]

So I don't. I don't know where the line is, honestly. My thing is, as long as I'm pushing back against it, I don't have a principle against debating Nick Fuentes. Just sometimes I think you have to be mindful of. Are they. Are they benefiting way more from the exchange than your audiences? Or then people out hearing the debate are. Is it valuable to argue basic tenets of, like, is racism bad or something? Whatever Nick Fuentes would want to debate. Is that a valuable discussion? I don't know.

[Sean]

Yeah, it's tough. We'll leave those discussions on X. Yeah. Would you ever do those Jubilee one on 25s? Oh, you've seen those?

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sean]

Those are cool.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, that'd be cool.

[Sean]

I watched Destiny. Charlie Kirk, what do you think of Charlie Kirk?

[Luke Beasley]

Actually, he's terrible.

[Sean]

You don't like him? Why?

[Luke Beasley]

Because he's really dishonest and I think he misleads people.

[Sean]

Professionally dishonest in what sense, though?

[Luke Beasley]

Like, I keep going back to the election thing because it's one of the most black and white issues. He was. He's perfectly fine convincing people of whatever Trump wants him to. And I think anyone who jumped on board that should be like, we shouldn't forget that because of how consequential it is. And again, maybe this feels less relevant to someone who didn't, who was on, like, the beneficial end of that, since we're never going to do it back to you and like, have our democracy collapse, but it's really, really destructive. And you've seen in, you know, history, it is a part of the authoritarian project to convince people that elections aren't fair unless your side wins. So it's really dangerous stuff.

[Sean]

Really. So that's happened in history? I haven't looked into that. That's interesting.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, yeah. And I don't understand. I honestly, like, for example, Trump also said the government should come down hard on MSNBC in a true social post and called, you know, media outlets criminals. And now he's suing cbs.

[Sean]

Yep.

[Luke Beasley]

And there's a few of these phrases. The termination of the Constitution. One, the government should come down hard. The. The act of trying to assemble illegal electors. That I don't see how people just go, okay, cool. If he had gotten his way, would have gotten a second term, even though he lost. That's not democracy. That would have been just our democracy collapsing. But because it didn't happen, barely, because a few people who won't be there this time said, we won't do it. I'm going to pretend like that never happened.

[Sean]

Are you going to go to the inauguration? I know you've been to some Trump rallies.

[Luke Beasley]

We. I guess, yeah. We'll be in D.C. still, so be good content. Yeah. Talk to people.

[Sean]

You were at the rally. He got shot at, right?

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah.

[Sean]

That's crazy. So you heard everything.

[Luke Beasley]

Wow, it was wild. Yeah. Really scary.

[Sean]

That is nuts. What are the chances of that? Do you go to a bunch of rallies?

[Luke Beasley]

Normally we've stopped recently just because everything else. Well, or I even mean like the final lead up to election. It was just more. I enjoyed more just covering the rally from afar on the channel and that was getting a lot of interest and stuff. So that was fine. But for a long time we went to so many that statistically it makes sense that I was there.

[Sean]

How are you going to pivot your content now that it's. Now the election's over?

[Luke Beasley]

I guess, you know, it's probably not going to change a ton. I was thinking we had prepared more for Vice President Harris winning. And what I was really excited for was doing a show that wasn't so oppositional, you know, and getting to dive more into the nuances of. All right, which Democrat, like whenever Biden his first two years had the House and Senate, a lot of the discussion right when I started my show was about what are like mansion and cinema doing to block the really good items in his agenda that I was excited about. And those discussions, they're not going to generate the same views, but I was totally ready for that. But now that Trump has won, while I hope he's not bad, we already have early signs that he's going to be about how I warn people he would be. So it is going to be a lot of the same type of content I've been doing, which is here's what Trump is up to, here's what the MAGA allies of his are up to, here's why I'm against it. And then a big thing in terms of the only I'm always doing this, but to call it a pivot, I guess, is fair. I want to direct people more toward what my type of left of center politics are, because we divide our political discussions into right and left. And that's so oversimplified. I mean, tons of people on the right you'd think are terrible. Tons of people on the left, I think are terrible. And so I want to get better at establishing for people very clearly what it is that I think makes the movement. I want to be a part of itself. Like, what characterizes it and what distinguishes it? Of course it's clear what distinguishes it from maga, but what distinguishes it from sort of your right smack dab in the center, and you're further left than me. And how we can then mobilize those people who groot my views to. To implement change. A big goal of mine is to not just talk about politics. And we're working right now to figure out how on the ground, we can actually engage in. In voter outreach efforts and mobilize my audience to do so, so that at least next time, however the election goes, we don't feel like there were things that we could have been doing more.

[Sean]

I like that. Yeah. Left first right is way too oversimplified.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Where would you put yourself on. On a chart of, like, far left, far right?

[Luke Beasley]

Like, it's tough because it depends on what we're talking about.

[Sean]

Okay.

[Luke Beasley]

For example, some people would characterize universal healthc care as far left, even though every industrialized country has it. I don't find that as super far left. But then you also have the spectrum of where you are on, like, cultural issues. And. And so I would say that in a really oversimplified way, I'm probably like, center far lefts over here. And then I'm like, just left the center.

[Sean]

Okay, so in between center and far left.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah.

[Sean]

So that's where I am on the right. I just took a test, actually. Yeah, there's this really cool test. We'll put it in the description, but I didn't vote this election, actually.

[Luke Beasley]

Wow. That's crazy.

[Sean]

I've never voted. Yeah, crazy, right?

[Luke Beasley]

That's crazy.

[Sean]

Why?

[Luke Beasley]

Why?

[Sean]

This time around, I wanted to, but Nevada, you had to, like, go to a specific spot. Even with the mailings, you had to go to specific spots. So I was just. Honestly, I was lazy.

[Luke Beasley]

You would have voted for Trump?

[Sean]

I would have.

[Luke Beasley]

Wow.

[Sean]

That's crazy. You think that's crazy?

[Luke Beasley]

Sean, Sean, Sean.

[Sean]

Why do you think that's crazy? I grew up Democrat. I grew up in New Jersey. My parents voted for Obama.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. They're so disappointed in you.

[Sean]

No, she. I don't want to put my mom.

[Luke Beasley]

No.

[Sean]

But, like, you know.

[Luke Beasley]

No, I. I find it crazy because, again, I don't. This is my point, too. There are some people who. If you're not exactly where they are, you. You're terrible. Right. You're the enemy. That's not how I think. There are a lot of people. You sort of saw sort of the Liz Cheney, Vice President Harris alliance that demonstrated Politics is about disagreeing on policy. That's fine. It's totally fine. When it gets to the foundational stuff, it's not a matter of are we just ideologically different and we can totally still engage our democratic process because the foundation is our democratic process. And so Trump threatening that, as I keep coming back to, is inexcusable. And I wish more people who were committed to our constitutional process would value that more and say, okay, however I feel about Harris's proposal on the enhanced child tax credit or more building, more housing, whatever, I, I still understand that she's the only one who hasn't called for the termination of the Constitution.

[Sean]

Fair enough. But can you agree that the left is not what it used to be from when we were growing up? That has changed always.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah, there's been a bunch of shifts.

[Sean]

Because I feel like I haven't changed that much since I was a kid.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. But I think a lot of what you define the left as doesn't represent the people in power. Like, this is something a lot of people get confused about. Online engagement sells and so on, both the right and the left. A lot of times, extremism is overrepresented. So then how do we know? Okay, well, we could just both be straw manning each other constantly. Well, I say look to people who actually have their hands on power because then, then you see who's relevant with our political discourse and who represents enough people that they were able to be voted into power. And so what you see when you do that comparison is, is Biden, for example, governed in some ways pretty progressively, but I would say in a way that a lot of people find common sense if they dove into the policy of it. I don't think most people have an issue with his infrastructure bill. If you combine his infrastructure bill and his inflation reduction act, it's adding zero net to the, to the deficit. You have all these initiatives to both boost energy production while also pushing forward the green energy initiatives, but not doing so in a way that will jolt us. We're obviously producing record oil still under Biden, and the crime plummet as a product of certain investments and the macro trends, of course, the PACT act, veterans benefits, you know, like his governance hasn't been super controversial, but Fox News would just collapse if they admitted that. So they have to stimulate a lot of things about, oh, this random tiktoker who, you know, said this about some trans issue. That's what Biden's up to today when it doesn't actually represent it. And so you would say, well, how do you know that's not the same thing going on in the right? In. In a sense, it is. Like, if anyone has ever said all Republicans are Nazis, they're probably consumed by unrepresentative extremist examples.

[Sean]

Right.

[Luke Beasley]

Because all Republicans obviously aren't. Very small percentage would be. But the person in the highest position of power is the extremist that I'm talking about, or Marjorie Taylor Greene is the extremist that I'm talking about. And so right now, there. There's an extremism problem on both sides, but extremism is making it disproportionately into positions of power in the Republican Party compared to the Democratic Party.

[Sean]

Yeah. They did place a lot of spotlight on the trans issues this election. I noticed, especially in Cali. Right. There was some bill passed there with trans kids in school or. I don't know.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. It's a big one. It's a provocative one for people. I would. I don't like invalidating people's feelings in general, even though I do it a lot. But even though they're wrong about the economy and wrong about crime. But I would warn them that that's definitely one that's blown out of proportion. Like, people are convinced that that's a more relevant issue to their life than things that are so much more relevant, like structural economic things and Democratic things. But on it, I think also, that's another one Democrats should have better messaging on. Again, the nuance makes it a more complicated bumper sticker. But we can both respect people's rights and love people and support people's identities while also not being perceived as too extreme on issues like the trans sports issue.

[Sean]

Yeah. I never let politics get in the way of business for me.

[Luke Beasley]

Okay.

[Sean]

I send a lot of business to liberals, to Democrats. It doesn't matter to me. Do you let it affect your business?

[Luke Beasley]

My business is politics. Let me see. Do you mean, like, would you go to a school?

[Sean]

Would you enter a business partnership if someone was a conservative?

[Luke Beasley]

50.

[Sean]

50 partnership.

[Luke Beasley]

Oh, it totally depends on, like, what it is.

[Sean]

Okay.

[Luke Beasley]

If they wanted to help with our show. No.

[Sean]

Okay, so if it relates to your political business, then. No.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. Because one of the things that makes, you know, we have the guys who work for the show in the room with us. And one of the things that makes it so worthwhile, as we all believe in what we're working on.

[Sean]

Okay.

[Luke Beasley]

The mission really fuels us because, like, the lead up to election, it was the wee hours of the morning to the wee hours of the morning, just Right.

[Sean]

You're with them all day.

[Luke Beasley]

It was brutal. And what makes that doable is really believing that this is worthwhile and that it matters. So if I had someone who is managing the business stuff but didn't believe in the mission of it, I think it would make it less worthwhile for them and, and me as well. But then on a lot of things, like have a lot of conservative. I grew up in Texas, so a lot of conservatives in my family, and that doesn't at all get in the way of our family relationship.

[Sean]

Oh, nice.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah.

[Sean]

So no arguments at the Thanksgiving dinner table?

[Luke Beasley]

No. And. Well, some arguments, but no. Since I started doing this as a job, people really avoid talking because, you know, most people are just sort of going through their life. They have a few things that are on the mind, but if they bring it up, I'm going to be like, I have all these things that I've been thinking about all day that I want to barf at you. So they've, they bring it up less. But I've gotten better too, at not showing that in people's faces unless they want it to be. But I also, it's interesting, like when I. The first type of content that I got into doing was going to Trump rallies and interviewing people. And then even with the interviews I've done with Trump supporters, like in studios and stuff, I really find a lot of their views just reprehensible. But I also see that is not a product of them, you know, being evil or something. So it's interesting. I wish people could see and we filmed this sometimes, but how we'll be debating. And it's not that there's like a genuine to non genuine switch going on with the cameras, but it's just once you're no longer talking about politics, then I'm walking to them, you know, out of the studio, and it's just super. And you're friends, just like a really pleasant person. You know, how you and I would be. And I, I hope more people can, can do that. But I see why on certain issues, it feels like a line that can't be crossed.

[Sean]

I see that. No, Ben Shapiro has the same view. I saw him on George Janko's podcast and he was saying how within his media company, he, they have to share a certain view. That's why he asked Candace Owens.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah.

[Sean]

So I could see that.

[Luke Beasley]

Yeah. And it really does, because otherwise the, the daily work can just. I don't want it to feel like just a 9 to 5, you know, it feeling like a mission and a passion makes it all the nine to five feeling is gone.

[Sean]

Yeah, I could totally understand that. Well, Luke, it's been cool, man. I can't wait to do a part two with you one day. Where can people find you?

[Luke Beasley]

Luke B's on YouTube.

[Sean]

Perfect. We'll link it below.

[Luke Beasley]

Explicit podcast listeners. Not explicit, but specifically just podcast listeners. We also have all that as a podcast.

[Sean]

I'm gonna arrange some debates for you, too. Yeah, I'll get Sneako if you want.

[Luke Beasley]

That'd be awesome.

[Sean]

All right, guys, check his stuff out below.

[Luke Beasley]

Peace.