Learning to Talk Again

Summary

Firewall with Bradley Tusk

Episode: Learning to Talk Again
Date: April 16, 2026
Guest: Ed Manzi, Founder of Unmuted

---

Overview

In this episode, Bradley Tusk welcomes Ed Manzi, the founder of Unmuted, a group organizing in-person conversations for politically curious New Yorkers. Their discussion revolves around bridging political divides, the mechanics and motivations behind Unmuted’s events, strategies to foster meaningful discourse in an era of polarization, and the structural challenges for political engagement at both community and systemic levels. The episode also touches on the potential for technology (like mobile voting and AI) to transform politics, and the evolving incentives that shape campaign and civic culture.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Origins and Purpose of Unmuted

• Ed’s Path: From accountant and lawyer to community organizer. Ed’s diverse professional background led him to start Unmuted in response to fears about the country’s political future and a desire for more meaningful dialogue.
  • "I was just thinking, nobody can make any money if this country blows up...let's get some people in the room to debate." (04:07)
• Early Days: Started with small dinners, focusing on substantive topics like Obamacare, and evolved into larger “salon” style events.
• Addressing a Gap: Targeting the silent majority of politically engaged but non-partisan, non-activist Americans seeking genuine conversation.
  • "These aren't people who are that activated…they just are tired." (08:07)

2. Who Shows Up—and Why?

• Participant Profile:
  • About 75% liberal-leaning, 25% conservative
  • 50/50 gender split, ages 25–40
  • Many are founders, career switchers, or grad school alumni
• Not for the Shouters: Ed clarifies that the group isn’t dominated by people who love to argue for argument's sake—listening is key.
  • "I was expecting people to leave the room or get upset, and we had almost none of that." (07:02)
• Motivations: Hunger for a safe, real-life outlet to discuss and listen—outside the social media algorithm.

3. Logistics & Community Building

• Growth through Networking: Ed attends multiple events each week, personally invites people, and leverages face-to-face outreach.
  • "My life is texting to a point where I'm going to get exhausted…Hey, this is a good event for you." (10:13)
• Networking as Antidote to Loneliness: The hosts reflect on how structured networking can address social isolation, especially for young adults in new cities.
  • "Networking events are really a way for people in a structured format to meet other people." (11:55)

4. Event Evolution—From Dinners to “Discussion Forums”

• Terminology Shift: Moving away from “salons” (too elitist) to “discussion forums.”
• Moderation Matters: Norm-setting is crucial; bad-faith questions or “gotcha” tactics are discouraged.
  • "If you're asking a question from a sense of attack...this isn't the place for you." (16:31)
• Format Innovations:
  • Comedians open with a "fast five" to break the ice and introduce the topic humorously.
  • Competitive group Q&A: Attendees work in small groups to craft the best question, with winners receiving free tickets. (33:18)

5. Political Forums and Candidate Accountability

• Aspirations: Unmuted aims to become a meaningful voice in candidate forums, not just for the sake of conversation but to demand substantive engagement from politicians.
  • "The main point is I want politicians to see that...there are organized voters and donors who care about: can you engage with someone who disagrees with you?" (18:58)
• Accountability via Technology: Bradley proposes using AI to track campaign promises and actual governing outcomes—potentially revolutionizing transparency.
  • "You can code an AI tool…to say, 'you ran for office saying you would do these things...' and score them." (27:36)

6. Challenges of Scale and Monetization

• Ed is candid about the hurdles: Unmuted is currently sustained as a personal project, with questions about scaling, volunteer vs. paid organizing, sponsorship, and content quality.
  • "How do I raise money for this? What is that money for?...Social especially—it's like as much as I think social media is the death of our country, it's also the way you get people to know for sure." (36:16)
• Discussed importance of streaming events and creating chapters but balancing bandwidth and resources.

7. Broader Reflections: Political Culture & Systemic Dysfunction

• Frustration with Existing Incentives: Both hosts bemoan political consultants' incentive structures and the waning effectiveness (and relevance) of traditional campaign spending.
• Technology as Disruptor: Agreement that the solution to campaign finance and policy inertia may be more technological and normative than legislative.
  • "I do think that if there is a solution, it's actually technological and normative, not legislative." (58:12)
• Immense Cynicism vs. Hope: They reflect on the national mood—most Americans are exhausted by political vitriol rather than energized by it.

8. The Future: Hopes, Cautions, and Realism

• Hopefulness: Ed is cautiously optimistic. There is a hunger for balanced conversation but sustaining it post-Trump is a long game.
• Dangers of Tribalism: Concern that on both sides, identity “club” membership and virtue signaling are eclipsing solution-oriented discourse.
  • "They're not trying to ostracize people to achieve policy…they're trying to ostracize people to feel morally superior." (47:40)
• The Need for Engagement Across Lines: Ed shares anecdotes (e.g., city councilwoman Tiffany Cab’s respectful dialogue with conservatives) that prove genuine discourse is possible, even with passionate ideological differences.

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Bradley (on campaign accountability):

  • "The point isn't to show that you're like promises made, promises kept. It's to show that you are uniquely accountable and transparent. Any other politician would have fired me. He, of course, fucking loved it." (27:12)

• Ed (on event norms):

  • "These kind of events aren't actually meant to get anybody to change their minds. This is meant to organize people who are open to changing their mind." (17:52)

• Bradley (on media and campaign spending):

  • "I just think you just won't need as much money for campaigns…it will require exposing the misaligned incentives of political consultants who are obviously trying to drive up price to make money." (57:15)

• On Unmuted's Mission:

  • "What Unmuted is trying to do, in my view, is in its own way…get us back on that path [of cooperation]." (51:24)

• Ed (on sustainability):

  • "I'm flying blind on this…I never raised money. But that's probably the big, you know, if I think about my big puzzles, it's: How do I raise money for this? What is that money for? And...social especially..." (36:16)

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |------------|-------------------------------------------------| | 00:44 | Bradley introduces Ed Manzi and Unmuted | | 03:30 | Ed describes career path and Unmuted’s start | | 06:02 | Participant breakdown and motivations | | 10:13 | Outreach and the non-scalable “texting grind” | | 11:55 | Networking events as anti-loneliness mechanism | | 14:32 | Evolution: From dinners to “salons” | | 15:39 | Event facilitation, ground rules, and moderation | | 17:37 | Events’ philosophical goals | | 18:33 | Upcoming NY-12 candidate forum | | 24:21 | Possibility of creating a candidate “scorecard” | | 27:36 | AI, campaign promises, and accountability | | 32:38 | Event format: Comedians, competitive Q&A | | 36:16 | Challenges in scaling, social media, revenue | | 41:08 | Hope or cynicism about American politics | | 47:40 | The trap of identity politics | | 50:05 | Example: Far-left councilwoman’s respectful Q&A | | 57:35 | The future of campaign spending |

---

How to Learn More About Unmuted

• Instagram: @unmuted.fyi
• Website: unmuted.fyi
• To get involved: Contact Ed at [e-mail]
  "I'm really excited about our first candidate forum: May 14th at the Hungarian House of New York."

---

This episode offers a deep dive into what it takes to build community-based, open-minded political engagement in 2026, the pitfalls and hopes for scaling such efforts, and why—despite everything—there’s still a case for optimism in American civic life.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, everyone, it's Bradley. Before we dive into today's episode, we've got some interesting news. Firewall was nominated for its first ever Webby Award. If you're wondering what are the Webby Awards, it's like the Oscars for Internet stuff, and we're up for best individual episode in the podcast category. And the way they determine the winner is through voting. And we could really use your help because we're up against some really heavy hitters, including Oprah. So if you go to the Show Notes, you can find the link that'll take you right to the ballot. Or if you go to Webby Awards, you can navigate your way there too, and we'd really appreciate the support.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

All right, welcome back to Firewall. I am your host, Bradley Tusk. My guest today is Ed Manzi. Ed runs a group called Unmuted, which is devoted to bringing politically curious New Yorkers together in person to have conversations about different issues. Here at pt, we've been hosting a salon series with Ed and Unmuted about free speech. We just had the first one last month. So, Ed, welcome. And I will say to the listener, this is Ed's first podcast ever, which I was surprised about, I have to say. I thought you would have been a veteran at this point, but you're not.

[B]

No, I'm. I'm actually so nervous. I've never. I've never done one of these. I like to talk, though, so I think I'll get pretty good at these pretty quickly.

[A]

It's reps.

[B]

It's reps. You know, I like to, like, say, maybe am I the first white man to want to do a podcast? I don't know.

[A]

No, there's one other.

[B]

There's, like, one. I gotta think about it, but I think there's one other.

[A]

But then he thought, like, why would anyone care what I think? So.

[B]

And thankfully, we have worded this whole industry. That could have happened.

[A]

Yeah, Yeah, I know. Although I will tell you this. It's reps. But one mistake that I have made in the past is thinking that speaking is a translatable skill. And I learned this when I did the audio for my first book where I thought, like, oh, I have a podcast. I'll be totally great at this. And I was fucking terrible. Like, totally different thing. And I, like, what should have been, like, eight hours in the studio took, like, 16, because I, like, you know, talk too fast or swallowed my words or whatever it was. So don't get too high on your horse here.

[B]

Yeah, that's fair. And also I talk very fast, so I'm going to.

[A]

So the first thing I was trying to remember this morning. How did we originally meet you?

[B]

Yeah, that's a great question. We've actually met. You know, the first time I ever met you, I've met you a bunch of times in very random places. And the first time I met you was at hbs. You were giving a talk. I was like a second year Harvard Law grad or sorry, students. And you were just speaking on a class I was at about Tusk Ventures and what you were doing. This is like 2018.

[A]

Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

[B]

And I just went up to you and I said, hey, love what you're doing. And I just, it was sort of random. And then I think the next time you met was like a year ago, honestly, because I now that I'm more involved in politics and I'm. Obviously, what I'm doing is very aligned. A lot of stuff you do, do. I've seen you at Beta Works, I think with Aaron Canary.

[A]

Yeah, I remember that.

[B]

Yeah, I think that was like the next time. And then I've been to a bunch of your stuff at PNT with Tim Wu, which we had. We actually, we've actually. PNT has been great for sourcing speakers. I've had Oliver Libby and Tim Wu.

[A]

They're both really good.

[B]

And. But because I met them here and I'm like, hey, I love this talk. I love to have you do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[A]

Right?

[B]

So I just got to keep coming back to pnt because you guys are

[A]

the source of all things good in the world starts to pull. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

They have heard that somewhere around nuclear

[A]

fusion, you didn't start out like, you know, originally doing unmuted. So, like, how did your career path get you to this?

[B]

Yeah, no, good question. I mean, if you looked at my resume, you would. You'd probably be like, it makes no sense. Because most of the roles I've ever had have been. I started as an accountant, I worked, I went to law school, I did chief of staff work. Um, you know, it's all, it's all very detail oriented work. And I'm not like a naturally. Honestly, what I'm doing now is I. I like love creating stuff. And what really happened was, you know, I was doing this traditional career path, just trying to make it and again, pushing sort of against my skill set. And then, I don't know, I guess November of last year, 2024, I was just thinking, nobody can make any money if this country blows up. And I just. I've always kind of cared about politics. That's why I went to law school, but especially now. And this isn't that original, but I just was like, this doesn't even matter if the country kills itself. And so I started hosting these small dinners part time, just like, let's get some people in the room to debate. Like, we started with like Obamacare and just like, what's been good after 10 years, what's been bad? And then by April, we started doing like much bigger events. So we started doing. Not to get all into it. Even the name itself, we hadn't developed. When we started. This was literally just Ed hosting dinners. By April, I was like, this is like, we're getting some real interest. I'm meeting people who are like, yes, I want a place to talk about this stuff where I don't feel. I feel I can say my opinion and actually hear people who don't agree with me. Maybe because there's not really any in person places you can do that. And so honestly, speaking of free speech, we had our first big event. 60 people all paying like 50 bucks, no speakers to talk about, like, free speech in America. I think, like May of 2025. And just like, what does that mean for conservatives? What does it mean for liberals? And it was really tense. Honestly, it was very, very tense. But it was like kind of that visceralness was like. I was like, this is something. This is like, I want to keep doing this. Maybe it may all just totally blow up. Because right now it's a. It's a. It's a non. It's an. It's an unprofit masking as a nonprofit. And it's like, I'm just sort of funding this, trying to see where it's going. But I do think there's something there.

[A]

And so the people who are coming to this, like, how will you describe their kind of political philosophy? And like, what's attracting them to this? Is it frustration or are these are the people who just love the sound of their own voice and they'll come to anything where they can talk?

[B]

Yeah, that's a good question. We've actually done. So I was curious about this for a while. We always take, when we do events, we always capture, like, what's their favorite issue? Where do they lean politically? So we're about to. And we're about 75% liberal leaning, 25% conservative, about 50, 50 gender split, 25 to 40. And we did some research on like, what are the super Fans. Why are they coming? Who are they? And we find there's, like, three types of people who come to these events. It's founders, it's people who've switched careers at some points, kind of like, in a way that's laterally moving, or people who went to grad school and so, oh, my God, law school especially. But I think the idea is, like, people who are, like, almost, like, see, like, political discussion as fun, and it's not. I don't think it's. That was. That is a risk, for sure. It's like people who just want to talk and be talked over, but that. I haven't experienced that almost at all.

[A]

How much do they listen?

[B]

A lot, I think. I think it's a good. I was expecting more. Some fights. I was expecting people to, like, leave the room or, like, get. Like, I can't do this, actually. Right. And we had almost none of that. I think these people are prime to, like, they generally want to. Either they want to be heard in a way where just, like, they just don't have any outlet. And I don't think in a way where they want to want to talk over somebody, or they actually just are really curious and want to listen to people. They. They're not going to get the exposure through the feed or the algorithm.

[A]

And you, you know, you said 75% more liberals, 25% more conservative. Are these people who would identify as, like, DSA and maga, or are these people who are more in the middle and feel like the voices that are out there don't really reflect how they feel?

[B]

I thought it probably correlates a little bit to more moderate people, but, I mean, we have. So we have, like, a founding member team volunteers, and, like, one of them is, like, thinks Bernie Sanders is too conservative. Like, I know, I know, but it's still.

[A]

All right.

[B]

I think it's more. I'm trying to think how to. I think it's more people who are nine to fivers and are totally disengaged. Like, these aren't people, like, most of my events are after work, et cetera. These aren't people who, like, are that activated and they just are tired.

[A]

So they're not, like, constantly tweeting and posting.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. They're people who are, like, probably the people you never hear from because they have a job and it's not possible.

[A]

Well, then what made them. Okay, so there's. I would argue, that reflects in reality 80% of the American population. We only hear from them in. You don't need to no one needs to hear my mobile button stick again. But like from the 10% on each side. But if they are kind of people who feel a little alienated and a little disenfranchised, what makes them then decide to go out of their way? Because this is not a zoom thing. Right. Like you're physically coming to this. So what are you giving them? Or how do they even know about it? Where they say, okay, instead of like going home and doing laundry and watching, you know, reruns of How I Met yout Mother, I'm gonna going to this unmuted thing instead. Is that still on reruns? Are reruns still a thing? Do they have reruns or you just call it up on whatever platform? Yeah, I've never seen How I Met.

[B]

Yeah, I. People have cable, I don't think. I. Yeah, I don't have cable.

[A]

Yeah, sure. He doesn't.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

I mean old people have cable. Oh, I've Hulu tv. I have TV on Hulu, I guess. Does that count?

[B]

So yeah, I've seen YouTube TV subscriptions, Hulu subscriptions.

[A]

They have reruns of How I Met your mother.

[B]

I.

[A]

Have you ever seen Harmony?

[B]

I. My brother is one of his favorite shows. Right, I see.

[A]

Does he come time muted.

[B]

He only lives in Boston, so one day he'll come here. Maybe.

[A]

But anyway, the point is, why are people who, if they would describe themselves as somewhat disenfranchised, what then makes them make the actual physical effort to do this?

[B]

Yeah, so right now it's pretty. I don't know, I guess you live in startup world. This is like the non scalable part is where I go to like three or four networking events a night. Not night, sorry, like a week. And I think I give a lot of energy for this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so I talk, I do the stick, I tell them what I'm doing. I. When I started this, I would. I mean, still my life is texting to a point where I'm like, I'm going to get exhausted. Like, hey, this is a good event for you.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But yeah, most of this was like just going to a bunch of networking events and telling. This is what I do. Whatever.

[A]

Did you go to these types of networking events before you started unmuted?

[B]

Uh, yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Why?

[B]

Looking for jobs.

[A]

Okay, so there's this very specific goal here. Like I have a real general antipathy towards networking only because I feel like it is typically a highly inefficient way to do things. And it's just People feeling like they're doing something because they're confusing process with results.

[B]

I think. Let's see. When I did this, I hear that point and I think that you have to be super serious. Like, I actually read this post. You did, and I get your point. Your network, Your network is going to be built on the expertise you build and how you've shown yourself to be credible. I think that it makes a ton of sense. I think especially maybe not to get at networking. I think earlier.

[A]

Let's get into it.

[B]

Let's get into it. Let's talk. Let's. Let's change the subject. I think serendipity is a hell of a thing. And there are. So for every 10 people I meet a networking event where they're just looking for a job, I meet somebody else like me who's doing something really interesting and that was worth the time and it takes, if I can get.

[A]

Is that why they're there too?

[B]

I think sometimes they're confused about the value too. A lot of times I get people who are. You know, I have my own sort of like, cynicism around networking events, honestly, because I. I do think a lot of it's low value, but there's also just people who are like, are new to it. Trying to meet people in the city, like have doing something interesting and there's new.

[A]

Don't understand yet how much does. Essentially. I never thought of this before, but if you have a loneliness epidemic, is there an argument that networking events are really a way for people in a structured format to meet other people? That's not like trying to talk to a stranger at a bar. I don't even mean trying to pick someone up. I mean, just like trying to meet strangers, you know, in real life maybe is harder than. It's something that's like, okay, this is meant to meet other people. Totally.

[B]

That's. I. I think that I actually honestly spend. It's good to have something to do at night. Especially like everybody I know about how

[A]

I met your mother.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that's true. I could just look at a tv.

[A]

I don't know why I'm picking on this show. I'm sure it's great.

[B]

Yeah. I don't know. It's fine. I watch like half a season. Yeah, I think it's. I mean, I actually think it's both the way that people date and network. I mean, just. Again, it's a way that there's a structured way to get out of the house without the. Maybe with a bar. There's some Sort of barrier to entry people. Some people feel uncomfortable going up to people at bars now. Cause, you know, a lot of my generation, the generation before, they spend most of the time on their phone.

[A]

It's hard to know how to talk. Right. I would say that I am in a social setting, very awkward around talking to a stranger or sort of approaching a stranger. Right. If someone approaches me and there's some relevance to it, then I'm totally fine because then I'm just talking about myself and that's my favorite thing to do anyway. But otherwise, I struggle with it. But I don't know that that's the norm for people my age. That's just my particular awkwardness. You go, You're. You're pretty good at talking to strangers, right? Sometimes I don't know. I don't. I feel like it's something that I intermittently enjoy and don't enjoy. Okay, that's a fair answer. So, yeah, that. It's interesting. I'd never thought about networking as a approach to deal with a loneliness epidemic, especially if you do move to a new city and you're a young person and you don't know anybody.

[B]

I've met most of my team. I must, most honestly, most of the people I like, rely on for this. I met through networking events. It's like, kind of insane. Like, some of the people I've. It's just so random and they're like, really helpful or impactful in what I'm doing in ways like. It's crazy because people like, how do you know this person? Why do you know this person too? Blah, blah. And it's like, I met the Met, blah, blah, blah.

[A]

And now do you think so could unmute it or is in your view, unmuted another forum to deal with that separately?

[B]

There's definitely. There's definitely. I actually think about social first, civic second. And we started. We've. We're still at the point where we're. I mean, I guess I haven't really explained, like, how we format our events now.

[A]

Yeah. Why don't you go to the event?

[B]

So we started as dinners, then we moved to salons.

[A]

And now, you know, salon is like a term people use. And then other than me thinking about something like in France in the 1700s, I don't quite know what it means.

[B]

It's also super elitist and I hate the term. And I, I want to stop using. I, I don't like it. But it's. It's like a forum for people to, you know, oh, my God, the Other one is Jeffersonian. Dinner sounds so elitist. Yeah, but it's a place for people to gather around, like an intellectual idea. Sometimes there are speakers.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Sometimes there are not. And it's a place for like an un. Sort of. Not just unfiltered, but like expanded, I should say.

[A]

Like, there's a topic, but then people can kind of take it in lots of different directions.

[B]

Totally. But it is super elitist. I really try to move away from that term. I like discussion forum better than.

[A]

And how much do you police or moderate at least when it was sort of a dinner salon type thing. Would you try to get things back on track if it turns into like a discussion about how I met your mother? Or do you just kind of let it go?

[B]

So we played around with it. I think the right answer is probably don't let it go. Don't let side conversations happen. Push people back. A facilitator definitely helps. I am not personally the best facilitator because I'm a little bit adhd. And then I'll get into the conversation.

[A]

Facilitator is not supposed to be talking

[B]

or just like being the, like in a small dinner, being the one who keeps on track. I, I, you know, like, everybody, everybody has their strengths and their weaknesses. And that's something I would outsource to somebody who's better.

[A]

Like, does it work if. Because people, if people believe that there are norms that they're supposed to uphold, typically the fear of stigma is enough to get them to do so. Do you like to kind of announce the rules up top so that therefore, if someone is cross talking, you can just be like, hey, you know, one conversation. And I was like, oh, okay. Or, or just do people just inherently know that and respect it?

[B]

So I'll move into what we do now because it makes. Yeah. So we had, like, we had a legal immigration debate between somebody from the Manhattan Institute and Muzaffar Chishti, who is a lawyer from a New York law school or professor at New York Law School. And that was a case where there was one that slipped my mind to put some norms in. Got pretty intense in the way of, like, one thing I think is a good norm is if you're asking a question for. From a sense of attack. I mean, you've seen this all the time. Questions that aren't really questions or questions that are just bad faith. And you're asking something, but you're really just saying, like, f you. I think that's. I totally agree. Like, that's something I try to get out of the way is like if you're here to just, you know, to your point, if you're here to just talk because you like to talk over somebody or you're here to like get them or like get somebody who doesn't agree with you with some like, gotcha, this isn't the place for you. And usually it's been okay. But I think especially we move past Ed Manzi goes and talks to 20 people a day. That's probably something that just gotta be codified.

[A]

Right. So then, okay, let's take that immigration one. How long did. Did people eventually start to get to some sort of consensus of a framework they could live with or was it everyone just sort of sticking to their belief of either immigration is good or bad?

[B]

So I think the point is actually I basically have. Man, I'm structuring this a way where I probably should have started with the main goal. These kind of events aren't actually meant to get anybody to change their minds. This is meant to organize people who are open to changing their mind about. They wouldn't be there if they weren't open to it. But it's not about the specific topic because what the actual goal is is to do events with candidates for office. We're doing a. And our first proof of concept here is we're doing a New York 12 candidate forum.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And it's Boris Lasher, possibly Schlossberg and possibly Conway.

[A]

When will that be?

[B]

May 14th.

[A]

And where will that be?

[B]

Hungarian House of New York and Upper east side.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And we have goulash. I will serve an excellent moderator who is a former NYU Professor X538 data scientist and full time comedian.

[A]

Who is it?

[B]

Name is Andrea Jones. Roy.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah, she was on, she was on Adam Grant's podcast. But she's funny. She's very funny. And I want, because I like a little bit of like the hue. I really, I like to think I'm funny. But I really think humor is really important for this stuff. And I also want, I want harder questions. And the main point is I want politicians to see that they're at least at the perception that there are organized voters and donors who care about. Can you engage with someone who disagrees with you? Like, you know, what is our con? What does our congress do other than hire people to write tweets?

[A]

Can I give you a question for that one? And look, I unabashedly for last year, right. Mike has been a really good friend of mine for decades. So like I'm Biased completely. But I've had this conversation with both him and with Alex Boris, who I actually think is great.

[B]

He's been in one of our events.

[A]

Yeah, Alex is great for my guy. I can't actually. I don't even live the district. But here was the point that I made to each of them, which is, are you a sports fan?

[B]

I know what they are.

[A]

Yeah. So there's. In sports, especially in baseball, there's a term called war, which is wins above replacement. And the idea is it's a good statistical measure of if the average at your position is a zero based on your play and the way the methodology of the stats, how many wins above that do you produce for your team? So someone like an Aaron Judge is like nine, which is sort of the highest it gets, and then it could go all the way down to zero below zero. And because in Albany, the bar for the quality of a state legislature is fairly low, in my experience, and because both Alex and Micah are so smart and so hardworking, super smart, that my case that I made to each of them was, you actually can do a lot more good in Albany because your WAR is significantly higher than the average state rep because of your talent and your work ethic and everything else in Congress. Both because the bar is a little higher. There are some idiots, but the bar is definitely a little higher. But. But also because of the structure of Congress, where there are so few bills that actually pass and mean anything that you, each of you, Schlossberg, Conway, whoever's running for that seat or whoever, even if none of you, Someone else, Jerry. There's no real distinction. Right. You're all gonna vote the same way on the same bill 100% of the time. So the question I'd be curious to hear them answer is if we accept that. Because I think, in my view, it's gonna be rare that there's not sort of a clear right answer for the district. And that's almost always the way that the Democratic Party wants the members to vote. What are you gonna do outside of that? That actually accomplishes something.

[B]

It's funny. First of all, I'm gonna use that question because I had a version of that question, which is you all filled out the Working Families party ballot with 200ish questions with about approximately 198 of them the exact same way. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And to say it's funny. Yeah. No, that's one of our questions. That's. I think that's.

[A]

Yeah. It's gotta be like, really, in some ways, like, when I Worked for Chuck. The. I was there for two years. And what. I. I don't think Chuck took a single vote in those two years that require any political courage whatsoever. Right. Um, where I thought Chuck was occasionally effective. And the work that I felt best about doing was when he was able to use the bully pulpit to get things done. And I thought he was actually quite good at that. Now, a senator has a lot more authority than a member of the House, but it's that kind of stuff to me, it's like, what are you going to do to work with the agencies? What are you going to do to use the bully pulpit? What are you going to do that's really innovative? Where will you break with the party that seems relevant to me otherwise, like, who the fuck cares?

[B]

This is exactly what I'm doing. I mean, this is. The questions are like that. It's. Donald Trump won on immigration. Nobody can really deny that when he started. What are you going to do? What do you. What do you think we should do specifically different than Joe Biden to not get in this situation again. Or it's questions like, and what.

[A]

What can you then do?

[B]

And what can you. Yes.

[A]

And the thing that, like, I remember asking someone that was running for off want to run for office once against an incumbent, and I said, well, what are you gonna do differently? He's like, well, you know, my. The incumbent is lazy and I'll have a. When Trump deports him illegally, I'll have a press conference to announce it. Well, that's just for you. Right. Trump doesn't give a fuck what you said at your press conference. Like, what is it that you're going to do that actually can realistically move the needle in some way?

[B]

No, this is. I mean, and I also feel like the Democratic Party forums and the point here is, like, this is New York right now, because we're not. I live in New York right now. I see a world where, you know, these races aren't competitive from a general election perspective. And they. In most races in the country.

[A]

Yeah, there's what, 20?

[B]

Yeah, something like that. Maybe there's more. And like, when it's really bad, but nothing. Not like statistically not much fractions.

[A]

It's like not much more than about 5 to 7%.

[B]

Yeah. So. But I think we can get in these primaries not just like, I don't want to change people's like, politics. It's not my. Not that. Not in that game, but I am in the game of like, almost being the NRA of quality control for politicians.

[A]

Do you see a world where you could build a big enough following that you could score candidates and it would actually matter to people in that district?

[B]

That's hope. I think. We are so early. I mean, I'll be honest, I'm still thinking through, like, you know, this makes more sense in an urban area. This is super dense. Those tend to be liberal. How do I have an in person event in an. Where the district is Republican and it's primary rural? Like, these are things I'm thinking through. I'm still at the point where I need to build, like enough of a flywheel. I, we're still early. A lot of it's, there's some word of mouth, but we're not at a point where it's like gangbusters. But I, I, you know, I don't know what those five or six metrics are.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But ideally there's some. And I do this, I mean, we're playing with this, like, idea of like, I've been doing these small things on Instagram. They're not like taking off or anything, but on, like, how, how do different lobbying groups, how do they get powerful? How did Emily's List get powerful, et cetera. And part of it is like, can you build a member base that's loyal?

[A]

When I got to City hall to work for Mike, one of the things that I got there about eight months into the first year because I'd been working for Chuck, and when you work for Chuck, it's like a military sentence and you gotta complete your two years. So I showed up at Lake City hall the next day, basically, and it didn't take me long to figure out that Mike was unique in a bunch of incredible ways, but also was never, you know, he's the opposite of, say, Mandatmir. He was never gonna win an election on charm and charisma. Right. That was not his thing. And in year one, he did a bunch of stuff that was unpopular at the time. Smoking ban, closing firehouses, raising property taxes. That all proved to be right and ultimately made him very popular. But I remember thinking, okay, this guy's never get reelected on his charm and charisma. But I can see that just from the time that I've been spending with him, he's very different. How do we illustrate that? And so I went back through everything that I could find from the campaign of every campaign promise Mike made. So it was every press release, there was no social media yet, but every interview, every transcript debate, and I made a spreadsheet. I think it was like 381 different. They were very prolific things that they proposed doing. And I went to Mike and said, I wanna release the status of all 381 of these things wherever they stand. Because the point isn't to show that you're like promises made, promises kept. It's to show that you are uniquely accountable and transparent. Any other politician would have fired me. He of course fucking loved it. And then I went to all the commissioners and of course that no one ever told about these things. And then a couple of months later, we actually did release it. And he did it for all 12 years of mayoralty. And I thought I was hoping to start a trend and no one else ever did it, unfortunately. But I kind of think that you could use, you can code an AI tool that could now do this, not even for them, but to them, right? And say, okay, you ran for office saying you were going to do these things, and you crumbs with metrics, you know, bills introduced, like something tangible that shows that they actually put the work in. It's a little easier on the executive branch than it would be on the legislature, but you could do it and then scores them and says like, okay, are you keeping your promises? Are you doing what you said and hold them accountable? And by the way, I thought the most important category we had in the MIC thing was it was done in progress, not started yet, or changed my mind. And I actually love change my mind.

[B]

That's good.

[A]

Because sometimes some policy person working on the campaign would have an idea and then I would go to the commissioner and say, hey, what are you doing on this thing? And they'd be like, it's a terrible idea. I'm like, well, why? And they would tell me and I'd go back to Mike and sometimes he would be like, no, I want that anyway. But something like, yeah, they're right, no problem, you know, okay. And I thought that was actually great because it showed that he was a thinking person. So I even think there's maybe a way to include that too. But I wonder if there's just not a way to use AI so that you're not just another group scoring candidates and holding forums, but that there's then actual follow up. And then maybe what you could even do is say to the member like, okay, let's say Micah wins, which I think he will. Okay, Micah, you promised these 137 things. We're going to release this thing, we're going to show it to you in advance, come to an unmuted and talk about it. What you got done that you're proud of, where you think you've screwed up so far, where you've changed your mind and why, and maybe start to create a flywheel on that way. And I think that if politicians were willing to be intellectually honest about stuff, I think they'll be really uniquely appealing to voters.

[B]

I. You know, I think about. I think that's the next. That's a logical step. Right. It's not just our campaign. Like, are you a good campaigner and are you honest during the campaign? Is. Do you get what you do done? That's like the sec. Yeah. Governing is the second part. I. I'm curious what you think. I think we need to. I don't want to be negative here. I am worried about our social media culture only rewarding elections.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And I think that, like, I don't think anybody cares, like Mandani, whatever voted for him or not. I don't think people actually care whether he gets anything done or not.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. It's a tension.

[B]

You decided.

[A]

You clearly did not listen to our podcast on Tuesday, because we were talking about that, which is sort of. It was actually about parenting. But I think it extrapolates to this, which was. We have now created a world where attention is the means and the end.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And attention for the sake of getting attention is seen as just as valid as attention in order to accomplish something. Like the example with Chuck, where it's like, now, Chuck obviously desperately wants and needs attention, but sometimes we could at least use it to then achieve a substantive goal.

[B]

Right. And also, I want to say I. Last night, I listened to your Chip Roy podcast with.

[A]

On.

[B]

With your.

[A]

With Chris.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I did do some. I did some prep. Sorry, I didn't do last Tuesday. I apologize.

[A]

Obviously, we're working on new ads right now. That's a fun campaign.

[B]

That. No, it's very interesting. I was like, oh, that's. That's kind of like. I don't know. It's very tangential. That's an interesting. Yeah. I am worried about. And, like, even the campaign with the. You know, you mentioned Michael Asher winning, right? Like, to win.

[A]

And I hope. I hope he will win.

[B]

Yeah. It's interesting. Right?

[A]

So I guess the point of the idea would be, could you use the unmuted as it grows, following and then some technology.

[B]

Yes. I mean, I think.

[A]

And maybe it's not just campaign promises, but it's like, well, maybe it is, right? Because it's sort of like, okay, you tweeted about this Thing. What'd you actually do?

[B]

Right, totally. And I think what I. Because honestly, I think I've mentioned I. I don't see this being like a million person movie. Like this is not a sexy no Kings thing or like something that like.

[A]

Yeah, well, anything that, that moves towards the middle and honest conversation is so much. Look, this is welcome to my life, man. But could be. I am not an extremist on either side or even a member of a party or anything else. The views that we tend to give on this podcast and my substack, everything else are fairly nuanced and as a result, it's gonna kill you. Yeah, it doesn't have like, we never have huge followings or listeners because, you know, it's a lot easier to just tell people what they want to hear on either side. And when you're not doing that, you need follow, you need people who listen, who genuinely want to sort of hear, you know, counterintuitive takes and takes that they might disagree with or, you know, and that's much harder to attract.

[B]

And that's why I think you have to. Well, there's two things there. One is that's why I think it matters. Like, you know, especially in these primaries when it's like if you're an, if you're a marginally important, if you're important to a certain material amount of like the swing vote in a primary, like you have to get to whatever that, that local, like whatever that number is. It's like, okay, now I'm important to a politician running in a primary because if these fling one way or the other, that actually has an impact on who wins if they're voting. If they're. If they're. Yeah, yeah. So it's. And although the mobile, I mean the mobile voting thing would make this not. Well, mobile voting sounds amazing. I wish somebody is working on it.

[A]

Yeah, it's a good idea.

[B]

Yeah. These nine to fivers who like probably don't have time to. I don't know. Okay. Anyways, the other thing is I've been playing, I mentioned, a bit as comedy. I think you have to do something like. I've been thinking about this because I have one of our buddies, one of our founding members who I met through networking, is a product manager who is also a former full time stand up comedian.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And he knows the New York scene. And so our format is typically now we have a comedian do a fast five on the subject.

[A]

Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

[B]

And then so whatever, next week we have it on. I'm Actually the comedian next one is the west. Still the west. And it's about Iran and the EU and what does that mean? We have like somebody running for New York 9 speaking and then a former Albanian member of parliament on the other side of this. And a conservative moderator. He's actually the debater. But anyways, doing a fast five. They're kind of humorously explaining the subject to get people lightened up. We have a moderator who we like to have usually like young reporters who are. Who need to prove themselves and want to be aggressive.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Have a 20 minute discussion because we have brain rot brains. Nobody's gonna pay attention longer than that. And we have competitive Q and A where we have, we actually have. We make people like part of our fun. Part of the reason people come is gonna. They get to talk to other people, not just listen. So we have this thing where you get in a group of five people, you have 20 minutes to come up with a question. So you have to also agree enough. What's the Q and A? And then the debaters decide after like answering these questions, what's the best, like what was their best question? And those people get free tickets to the next event.

[A]

And do you stream these?

[B]

Not currently. I just don't have enough bandwidth right now to like start thinking like I'm trying to social media.

[A]

I mean I'm not like the expert here either. But couldn't you get a member to literally just film it and post it to YouTube?

[B]

Yes, we've been trying doing clips. I think that's probably better for what we're doing. We do clips of like video, not audio and just saying you want to be in the room. Right.

[A]

But if they were, I mean, I guess the question is if you could build a following and they were live events that people were able to tune into, then I wonder if that doesn't drive hunger for people to attend. And I think in a perfect world, like for this thing to scale, you would need enough people to love the idea that they want to start their own chapters.

[B]

I think you're right.

[A]

Right. In different parts of the country. And you could be the godfather of the whole thing.

[B]

It's franchise model. But yes, I totally agree. Where I am right now is I'm trying to figure out how do I. Because I'm starting. There's either way to do this for volunteers. But my gut says I need to start paying people to do this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so how much revenue can you

[A]

generate from an event?

[B]

Not much. I think this is, I mean I. If I also I think a sponsorship, I think.

[A]

Yeah. But if you were streaming in, starting to get a little traction, then you get sponsors and then that starts to build on itself.

[B]

Yes. I. This is, this is like a big chick. I don't know. This one's a chicken.

[A]

You can always use the space here for free. So like that least cuts one cost.

[B]

Yeah, totally. I mean this might be something like this. I. I've just been thinking about how. Yeah, exactly. How do I do this and how do I do it in a way where it's quality enough for people actually pay attention. Because my social site now, I do try this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But they're not very high quality. Like I low. Like it's very inconsistent around the quality of video. I'm getting read for it. I'm like, how much am I putting. Like I put 30% of my time into social media and I get my out. I'm starting to think like maybe I should pair this back until I figure out I don't.

[A]

Yeah. Or find someone like for mobile voting, we just brought on some people who worked Mr. Beast. Now I have a little more means to pay, I think people. But. But because we weren't doing a good

[B]

job on our own.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so that's exactly how.

[A]

But then you get to the question of how do you. Yeah, it's a little chicken and egg to a certain extent. Unless you got like one foundation to sort of sponsor you initially that you could put money directly like they paid for that. You said, I need a, you know, $200,000 grant.

[B]

This is like kind of what I'm like, I'm flying blind on this in terms of I've never, you know, my life has been for profit stuff. I never raised money. But that's probably the big, you know, if I think about my big puzzles, it's do I. How do I. How do I raise money for this? What is that money for? And you know, and how did like social especially is like. I'm like, I totally agree. It's like as much as I think social media is the death of our country, it's like also the way you get people to know for sure. And so these are like, I don't know this, this is definitely keeps up at night.

[A]

Like another thing that where I think maybe there's some overlap between some stuff we're working on and you guys is we are coding this tool. It's an agent called how to create societal Change. And the idea is say 40 years pre Internet, if you wanted to get something done in government, you Wanted to pass a law, you want them to change a policy, a regulation, whatever it might be, you had to be an insider. You had to either be someone who was in the government itself or the head of a union or a party, or at least really, really rich. And, and the Internet, for all of its flaws, and there are many, many, many, one good thing is it did start to democratize and expand the ways to reach and influence politicians, voters, advocates, everyone else. And I guess the first big public manifestation was the Uber stuff that we did where there was a industry in taxi that was sort of the king of the inside game. And we were the opposite. We were able to use technology to sort of overcome and overwhelm them and win. And I think the campaigns that we run, whether it's out of my consulting firm, our fund foundation, whatever it might be, have a pretty good mix of inside and outside game tactics. But I don't know that it should be reserved just for people like us. Like, yeah, if it's a really, really complicated, politically difficult task, that might require more expertise. But if you wanted to ban cell phones at your kids school or get a stop sign on your corner or something that was, you know, more tangibly important to people, but more local, I think that there's enough tools online now that if you actually knew, here's the law as it is, here's what it would need to be, here's who has the power to change it, and then here's how you get them to do it. Here's what the inside game used to look like, here's how lobbying works, here's how you as an individual could do it, here's how polling works, here's how grassroots works, earned media, social media, paid media, oppo, and then here are all the different cheap or free online tools that you could use to try to do this, that you could start to take power away from the insiders and put it into people's hands and enable them to start getting real things done, which would A, accomplish good things and B, start to generate a little more faith and trust in the system. Because people don't sort of cynically think, well, there's nothing I can do about it, so why should I bother to come to an unmuted, why should I bother to vote? Right? And so we're coding this tool right now, it's gonna do that, it's just

[B]

gonna be a free tool. Oh, that sounds awesome.

[A]

I would imagine that the same kind of people who are coming to unmute it are the kind of people who might Say like, okay, you know, I'm a nine to fiver. I'm not a political insider. I don't have time to do that. But here's this thing in my community that I do care about, and if I can do most of it digitally, I would like to do. So maybe we could start, like, doing some betas once we're ready with the members, you know?

[B]

No, I love it. I mean, we. Right now, at this point, we've had about a thousand. It's not a ton of people, but we've had a thousand unique people, which is, I feel. And they're paying, which I feel really good about. And about 30 to 40% of them have been to at least two events. So, you know, I think that's for an events business. I think it's not terrible at a certain point. So, yeah, I think, again, there's something there. And I think there is a hunger for people who just. I don't know, I think we're all. There's a massive. I think there's a massive sense in this country, even the people who are hyper partisans, tired, tired of anger all the freaking time. Yeah, it's.

[A]

So there's two ways we can go, right? I mean, to me, there's. You're on the. The side of, of the light and the good, where it's like, let's not throw in the towel. Especially because, as I think you often see in your own events, it's not that everybody disagrees with each other, it's that you have small groups that disagree with each other and everyone else just feels cynical and disenfranchised and they don't participate at all. And so they cede all the power to these small groups who can't figure anything out. So if we can enfranchise those groups, whether it's through debate and discussion or political action or voting or whatever it might be, we can change things. Having done this now for a little while, are you more hopeful or less hopeful about the future of our country?

[B]

I think that's a good question. I guess I just. I'm treading carefully, I guess. Like, when I started this, I think was right beginning of the Trump admin, and I think there was this moment where progressives were like, okay, what are we missing? For maybe five seconds, they were like, what are we doing wrong? And Trump, whether you like him or hate him, he is uniquely good at making people very angry or very. For angry people who are against him. And I kind of think I just had to be. I think I just have to be careful with how I do this going forward because I think, I don't know if you know, the liberal Patriot substack. And it's like some guys from like they used to be at a liberal think tank, they are sort of like the opposition Democrat substack. And just went under basically because there was this moment of interest. It felt like from 2020, 2024, about we have to think about this. And then Trump does Trump things and people just go, we're literally going to destroy Iran's civilization. None of this other stuff really matters. And it's, it's just being careful. Like there is, there is a long. This is a long term play. This is past Donald Trump. I understand why people are either hate the people who are for against him or hate the people that are for him. But he is finite. And I just, everything I do, I have to be. I've been thinking about how do I

[A]

feel because it's interesting. We've debated this on the podcast before, which is there's one of two ways this can go post Trump the way we, I think most of us, or I guess people who are not hardcore maga, hope, which is a return to norms, right? To returns to rule of law, some return to some level of decency and the assumption that basically anyone who is not Trump, with maybe the exception of Vance, will sort of naturally return that way. So whether the next president is Josh Shapiro or Marco Rubio, you're gonna get that. The other possibility is far scarier, which is everyone in power wants to have as much adulation and power and just blind loyalty as possible. And what Trump has taught them is if you just ignore all of the norms and flout them and flout the rule of law, you can get away with it. And therefore the lesson to people on either side is just continue to behave like him. Your point about Trump being finite, I think relies on the former being true. Are you not worried about the latter?

[B]

I, I actually don't really fall into either of those camps. I think you actually, Oliver Libby said this too, is, it's not for this. It can't be taken for granted that because I'm not a liberal, I'm not a Republican either. But I think there's one thing.

[A]

Are you a member of a party?

[B]

No. Independent. But I think, like, I have plenty of Republican MAGA friends and like, you got to think about people like January 6th happened and then Trump won the popular vote and won by more than like, like he killed it compared to 2016, relatively. But like, enough where like, because of who he is. It's crazy.

[A]

It was. At least there was no doubt about the outcome.

[B]

Yeah. And I think that maybe people thought in like 2020, when Biden won, that these. They just. The, you know, especially in the liberal urban side, that there was like, that it was actually just back to norms again. But it actually never changed. Like, the people who were angry, who are MAGA people didn't like, go away. These people are not. They don't think they're wrong. So them going like Trump isn't. I don't. I think they're equal. I just think that MAGA people are.

[A]

During Biden, I mean, Biden, you know, now is basically only remembered for his sort of selfishness. But, you know, I thought was a one, somewhat conventional president and that he'd sort of followed the basic rules.

[B]

I like the Afghanistan thing, actually.

[A]

And two, I did too, actually. I was one of the.

[B]

I thought that was like, we're two

[A]

of the few people that I've ever met that does. But. But look, neither Trump nor Obama had the balls to do what needed to be done.

[B]

I know. I totally agree. It's like, it's always easy to say it. Was that.

[A]

Was it messy? Could they have done it better? I am sure.

[B]

I actually don't know if they could, honestly.

[A]

I think that's not. To some people on the inside who now will say, yes, we should have done it differently. But again, I'm not a military expert in slaves. And Biden got some legislation done and some things done.

[B]

CHIPS act, right?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, CHIPS Act. The infrastructure bill. Bill back better. So the MAGA didn't go away, but they weren't able to derail him. And the reason why, you know, if Biden had just said, I'm only serving one term, he didn't have to say a dementia, just only serve one term like I said I would. And there was a not. And there was a normal primary. I don't know that Trump would have won in 20. He might have, but I don't know.

[B]

I think that's a fair point.

[A]

So they weren't able to derail Biden's presidency. They were able to bring Trump back once Biden totally fucked everything up.

[B]

So I. That's true. That's an invariable. That's a variable. I can't possibly. None of us can. Right. This is an important thing that never happens except for one time I've ever seen it. But I. Somebody talks to a lot of these people. I don't think they think about this that way. Like, they as much as like, people hate Trump, they hate the radical left. They. And I think that if you don't start bringing it not like. And if you don't start again doing this sort of thing where you bring in more reasonable Republican primary, like not even again, it could be a MAGA person who will talk to somebody. Like, I don't even like saying like that's bad per se because I mean that's also still villainizing the country by putting in this way where there's so many of them, they're not dying, they're not going away. If birth rates do the way they are, it's going to be the religious people who are more likely to populate and doing more of them. And I just think that the look of like, oh, Trump goes things will happen is taken from perspective where you're not, we're not really interacting with the people who voted for him and their people. They're. They're Americans like us. And I think you got it. You got to work in these primaries to make it okay to talk to people across party lines again.

[A]

Well, yeah. I mean, that's the other thing.

[B]

Do you.

[A]

For the, for that 75% who are liberal, how many of them recognize, like, I would argue that as long as AOC or someone like that is not the Democratic nominee, whoever it is, is highly likely to win the presidency in 28. And my hope is that there's starting to be some recognition among Democrats that rather than living in fear of the far left ostracizing them because they fail whatever purity test. And by the way, the point is to ostracize people. Right? They're not trying to ostracize people to achieve policy. The point is they're trying to ostracize people to feel morally superior to them.

[B]

Yeah, we're in the same that if

[A]

we allow that to continue, then Democrats are totally fucked. Whereas if they start to say like we're done with all these culture wars and all this stupid shit that is not affects 0.001% of the population,

[B]

that

[A]

that's the path back. Do you get the sense that the people who participate on muted understand that and see that?

[B]

Yeah, I think that's. This is the most. So I guess two points. One is, I agree that there seems to be this. Either I don't understand the logic of being on Titanic with people who don't agree with you and we're going to end being okay with hitting the iceberg and all dying. Like, it feels like the yeah, the stance of, like. Like, even with the Trump stuff, like, people, you know, I just think, like. Like, after this administration, going after every single person in the administration feels like a path to just mutual destruction. Like, I don't see the end. I don't see the end of that. And, like, if you're not thinking about how do we build a country forward,

[A]

do you think the people who do that are trying to find a solution and they're getting it wrong? Or do you think that the thing that matters to them most is their identity? And anything that reinforces their identity and their membership in the club is like, we talked before about attention, both the means and the end.

[B]

You know, I think I wouldn't go so far. I think there's a. I think there's a correlation between being more. More on the left, more on the right, to that kind of mindset of an identity. But I don't think it's causation. I think there are people. Like, one of the best speakers we had is a city councilwoman. Her name is Tiffany Cab.

[A]

Yep. Very far left.

[B]

Very far left. But one of the best unmuted people we've ever had. She. We had Republicans in the audience.

[A]

She.

[B]

She's an abolitionist. She literally doesn't believe in prison. And Republicans were, like, grilling her on it. And she had great freaking answers. And she didn't call them racist. And every Republican in that room is like, I respect her. Yeah, I don't agree with anything she said. I respect her. That's why I almost push back when I'm trying to push it back on, partially because I worry about, like, being called, like, you know, as you probably know, like, people will automatically all center centrist, blah, blah. I really don't think it's about that. Even if it maybe correlates. I. I think it is about, like, even Mandani. I really like his. Not even Mandani, but Mandani's like, you know, dsa, but he engages with people, doesn't agree with him. And I freaking love that. And I. I think there just needs to be, like, you look at the way that Madani writes about Easter and saying, like, oh, to my, you know, my Christian friends, like, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, that is a kind of like, sure, that's a political.

[A]

Some might say it's a wolf in sheep's clothing.

[B]

Totally. And listen, I'm not talking about. Again, even if that's the. The policy is going to be the policy, but I think the messaging and how you talk to people and how you actually have discussion is equally important. Even like some. There's things that Trump does. I'm like, you know, do I think that our relationship with the EU deserves questioning and, like, how we actually work at that? Yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Do I think the messaging I'm doing is getting anybody to start coming to his side on it? Absolutely freaking not.

[A]

Right. The cost to the economy of no helping with this Trader Hormuz was far greater than the cost that we spend on subsidizing too much of data.

[B]

Brutal. Yeah, I know. I know. Exactly. And I don't like agreeing too much with somebody makes me. I'm a debater at heart, but I totally agree with this. Like, I just think the mess, the people and messaging and how they engage, people don't agree is everything. Like, because if we don't do that, like, there's no compromise. There's just no. There's no point. Like, there's no like, even going after. Again, going after Trump after 2028 and going. There's no trust in the freaking system. So they will be. Even if it's the totally right thing to do, there's no trust in the system. So it'll come off as a witch hunt.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And then we'll all. Then. Then it'll be like Bangladesh, where they every. I think for like 50 years, every party arrested the party coming out, and eventually they were one single party and just not a recipe for. And now I'm getting on a rant.

[A]

Well, it is not the. If the path for human survival of the species, long term, it's cooperation. We're not on that path right now. And what I would say is what unmuted is trying to do, in my view, is in its own way, you know, get us back on that.

[B]

Let's get. I mean, seriously. Yeah, I mean, listen, I know especially people in this district, you know, we're a plus 30 Democrat district. People are freaking pissed at Trump. That beyond pissed. Like, righteously infuriated. But you have the right kind of politicians that represent us who at least, like, are willing to. Hey, I'll go on and debate with this person. I'll talk to that person. Versus, like, I won't platform this. Like, and there's some. There's always like, some. There's some line, of course, but those are the right people to get into office. Now, being to your point, like, I don't know, is Congress like. Or Congress can get anything done and will one person matter that much? But if you can get that at scale, I don't know.

[A]

Yeah, look, that's the argument for mobile voting, which is if people are only going to respond to. If politicians will only respond to the incentives need to get reelected. When it's 10% and it's the extremes, then, no, they're not going to. And when it's 30%, they're more likely to.

[B]

Oh, like, I have a funny. Oh, my God. So I'm a big, big fan of your mobile voting stuff. And I gotta remember, I remember in law school, I was like, obsessed with this idea of mobile voting because I was like, this is so stupid. Why the hell, like, especially, like, this is just like everything else in their life is so freaking easy.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And I feel for you because you're dealing with a lot of lawyers when you're probably pushing this through. And I was in class about innovation and technology, whatever.

[A]

Mitch White's class. That's the one. That's one of the things. I think he did a case study.

[B]

Oh, it was. It was a. I forgot her name. It was a female professor. But I just remember this is the class where I brought up, like, why wouldn't we do mole voting? And some guy raises. No. He's like, well, it should be hard to vote on principal.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then somebody else said in the class at some point was like, we should go back to the time before the Internet. Like, these are not the people who are.

[A]

No. I was speaking at the University of Chicago a couple of weeks ago, and someone raised their hand and said, like, you know, well, if we make it easy to vote, don't we risk getting bad elect officials? And my answer was, Brandon Johnson is your mayor and Donald Trump is your president. How the fuck do you think it's working right now?

[B]

Oh, my God. Such an aristocratic answer, too.

[A]

That's another, by the way. And those are the people that are so easy to lampoon and parody, but not just for the purpose of satire, but for the purpose of demagoguery. Right. And that's what leads to real danger on both sides.

[B]

I mean, I'm reading this book right now about, like, lobbying. I just don't know much about lobbying in D.C. so I'm trying to learn more about it. Like, holy crap. It's called Not Wolves of Castry.

[A]

Yeah, we. It's not that. We had that guy on the podcast.

[B]

He's pretty sick.

[A]

He was great.

[B]

Yeah, there's somebody. It was an earlier book right around the time, that guy, who's a famous guy who got like in 2000s, he was a lobbyist. He was a kind Of a sociopath.

[A]

Oh, Jack something. Jack.

[B]

Jack something, Jack. Plain old criminal, wasn't he? Yeah, he was a plain old criminal.

[A]

The best part was I had. I won't name it. I had a client once. This was really early on when I first started the consulting firm. And he wasn't from the US and it was in the gaming industry. And there was a documentary that he watched about this guy and were. And the calls would be sometimes Abramoff. Yeah, him. Like ranking. I Googled Disgraced DC Lobbyist.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

And he came right up. All right.

[B]

Then you had a list of like 5,000.

[A]

You gotta be right.

[B]

It was a million pages.

[A]

And I remember. And we'd hired. I was running the campaign, and I kind of had an unlimited budget. And so I hired like, the who's who of political consulting. And everyone was sort of having a text thread during the call without him. And what we realized was he watched this documentary and his message to us was to be more like Jack Abramoff.

[B]

Jesus Christ. The book is called Too Much Damn Money or something. It came out right after that. It was about this one guy's more traditional path becoming an empire in lobbying. But I'm not done. I just started it, but I just like, oh, my God, there really is a freaking swamp. Like, it's.

[A]

Yes, it is.

[B]

It's. I don't. And it seems like it's a problem. This is such.

[A]

So Larry Lessig, who you might have taken classes with.

[B]

I know him. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. He has this really interesting approach to trying to deal campaign finance where it's to limit his belief. I believe I'm getting this right. Is there might be a. Citizens United might say that you can't limit contributions in certain ways, but you could do a lot more to limit spending, which would effectively achieve the same thing.

[B]

Do you think it's possible so here.

[A]

I don't know. That's possible from a constitutional standpoint, incentive perspective. Well, or let me give you much simpler, which is the vast majority of the spend in political campaigns goes to paid media. And the vast majority of that are. A lot of that now, in terms of the dollar amount is still television. And we live in a world now where almost no one watches How I Met yout Mother and they're not watching. Or if they are, they're doing it on some streaming platform that cuts out the ads. And so other than sports and maybe news, like, people just don't see ads that much. Right. And as the efficacy of TV advertising for campaigns goes further and further down and as the people who tend to watch it are older and older and just die out. And all the spending shifts to the Internet. The reason why it's so expensive for television is there's literally a limited amount of spectrum and so there's a supply and demand and that's the price. That's very different once you're on the Internet instead. And then direct mail is this total scam that political consultants use to make a lot of money that just surprisingly

[B]

I've seen so many Boris anti Boris things.

[A]

That's what they do. But I just think it's literally because a consultant tells whatever candidate or IE whatever it is to do it because. Cause they can charge like it takes no work and like a 30%.

[B]

Can you get me into this? This sounds like a busy box.

[A]

And when those two things eventually go away because the belief by the voters who respond to it die out. The candidates who are steadfast believe in them because that's how they originally got allowed to die out. And the consultants who have made their whole living that doing this die out. I just think you just won't need as much money for campaigns.

[B]

I mean, I guess there's an interesting argument about like even like Trump. Kamala, right?

[A]

Yeah. Think about like she outspent them meaningfully. Hillary outspent Trump meaningfully. Andrew Cuomo spent 70 million all in between IES and his campaign. Zoran spent 17 and Zoran kicked his ass. So I think that this is starting to happen already. Some of it will require exposing the misaligned incentives of political consultants who are obviously trying to drive up price to make money. But I do think that if there is a solution, it's actually technological and normative, not legislative.

[B]

That's usually how it works, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We've had the same solutions. We had the same Talking points for 15 different immigration environment where nothing happens until some technological innovation just forcing the conversation.

[A]

I believe the only way you're gonna stop climate change is when they figure out mass carbon capture and storage. Will I put this blue bottle in the recycling thing? Yeah, but do it means anything whatsoever? No.

[B]

What you know.

[A]

So anyway. Hey, you did great. Fear first podcast man. We talked for an hour. I thought we were going to go like 30 to 40 minutes. We could probably even keep going if I didn't have to get to my next meeting. So I think you're off to a really good start here. Well done.

[B]

Woo.

[A]

Last thing. How do people learn more about unmuted?

[B]

Sure. So we're on Instagram. It's unmuted. FYI. Our website is unmuted, FYI. And if you want to be a speaker or moderator, reach out to me at Ed Muted, FYI. And we're, you know, again, I'm really excited about our first candidate forum. May 14th 14th.

[A]

Hungarians.

[B]

Yes. And we are free goulash. I will say there's none of that. Do not false advertise me. I will say I've learned that working with campaigns and I won't mention which ones and what is the most stressful thing I've ever done. And I've never, I've not understood how incentives really work in campaigns until I've started doing this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So it's a learning opportunity, but it's also causing me to get an ulcer. Yeah.

[A]

Welcome to politics. All right. Thank you. Firewall is recorded at my bookstore, PNT Netware, located at 180 Orchard street on the Lower east side of Manhattan. We'd love to hear from you with questions, feedbacks or idea for a guest. Just email me at Bradley Firewall Media or find me on LinkedIn. And to keep up with what's on my mind and my latest writing, please follow my new substack@Bradley Touch.substack.com. thanks again for listening.