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- [00:00]
Anna Kasparian
Why have I asked my electrician I found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster? I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires, I knew I could trust him to bury my sweet nibbles after his untimely end.
- [00:09]
Pumps
This is very strange, Angie.
- [00:11]
Anna Kasparian
The one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects@angie.com.
- [00:18]
Pumps
So are we supposed to start the podcast?
- [00:23]
Mindy
Ready? 1, 2, 3.
- [00:25]
Pumps
Patriots, Gaytriots, they trio, Blacktriots, Brown triots, and every single one of these hypocritical maga Christians can do what? Pumps. Suck off pumps. What have you had it with?
- [00:39]
Mindy
Okay, what I've had it with is when you're seeing construction on the side of the road or construction in a. In, like a shopping center or somewhere that you are, it's. There's this always a sign that says, pardon our mess. And I'm like, do we have a choice? You've taken up the whole highway. I don't have a choice but to pardon you your mess. Same with, like, at the grocery store, pardon our mess. When is somebody going to pardon my mess? When do I get to say, I'm going to be crazy, I'm going to go nuts, I'm going to bang and. And scream and yell, and then I'm just going to say, pardon my mess, and everything's going to be hunky dory. And I don't know, maybe that's petty, but that's where I am in Trump's America, that I'm irritated that somebody's trying to upgrade something. And I'm thinking, why are you saying pardon my mess? I'm stuck with your mess no matter what, because I have to drive down this street. So stop acting like we have manners.
- [01:38]
Pumps
So you would rather them not acknowledge the inconvenience?
- [01:41]
Mindy
Yes, because then it's complete silence. Right? Because by saying pardon our mess and I keep going up and down the road, it's like I'm all in on pardoning their mess, but I don't want to pardon their mess. I have to drive that way.
- [01:54]
Anna Kasparian
But.
- [01:55]
Mindy
But I'm not. I'm not pardoning it.
- [01:58]
Pumps
Hmm, interesting. I. I like the acknowledgement that it's an inconvenience instead of just the gaslighting, that nothing's going on here, that they're not jacking everything up. So the acknowledgement for me is fine. Where I agree with you is the desire to go crazy, but I don't equate construction improvements with personal, unhinged stuff.
- [02:33]
Mindy
Well, I think it's because you're not as personally unhinged as I am. That would be my guess, because the first thing I saw, I give you.
- [02:41]
Pumps
A really good run for your money, though. I appreciate your providing me a little bit of COVID there, but I. I think that we're splitting hairs here as to which of us is more unhinged. Based on how viral I go on the Internet, I might even give myself point position.
- [03:02]
Mindy
You're not unhinged. Going viral on the Internet. You're right. And you're the only person that says it in such a clear manner. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's not unhinged.
- [03:13]
Pumps
So will I piss you off if I, at the end of my viral rants, go, pardon my message?
- [03:19]
Anna Kasparian
Yes.
- [03:20]
Mindy
You're saying it's a mess, and it's not a mess. You're fucking right. You're one of the few people that can communicate in a way that's very plain spoken, yet what you're saying is very complicated.
- [03:32]
Pumps
So when we see what. Let me. Let's do some role playing. When you're driving by and you see the pardon your mess, you just want to roll down your windows and say, fuck your mess.
- [03:40]
Mindy
Yes, I want to say, fuck your mess. When do I get to be a mess? When do I get to plow my car into this construction and say, oh, pardon my mess. Cop out.
- [03:52]
Pumps
It drives you crazy.
- [03:53]
Mindy
It drives me crazy.
- [03:55]
Pumps
What about signs that say have a nice day?
- [03:59]
Mindy
As long as it doesn't say have a blessed day, I'm okay with it. Have a nice day, I'm fine with. But as you know, when somebody tells me to have a blessed day, I just want to reach through the phone and scream and yell and. And say, pardon my mess. After I'm Annette.
- [04:16]
Pumps
Okay, Let me see how advanced you are in your deconstruction of faith, because you are with the have a blessed day, where I was early on, and it still irritates me for sure. What about when people say it was a God thing? Oh, it.
- [04:33]
Mindy
It drives me fucking bananas. It drives me bananas. Like somebody I know has a family member that's really sick and is going through a lot, and so they've, you know, did this surgery and it's better. It's just a God thing. I'm like, no, it's really not. It's called science.
- [04:55]
Pumps
Science.
- [04:55]
Mindy
It's called hospitals. It's called doctor. So I think I'm just so, like. Because I used to say it.
- [05:05]
Pumps
You did. You said it to me a lot. Right.
- [05:07]
Mindy
So I think that's why it makes me even cringier, because I.
- [05:11]
Pumps
You're the reformed smoker of evangelical Christianity.
- [05:14]
Mindy
Right? And I'm a great reformed smoker. I don't mind smelling smoke. But I think it's because I know how much denial and cognitive dissonance, because that's what I was doing when I was saying it's a God thing. So now it just. I'm ten times more insane about it.
- [05:30]
Pumps
Okay, what about this one? God is good all the time.
- [05:36]
Mindy
You probably didn't even know that people say that all the time at church. God is good all the time.
- [05:42]
Pumps
That kind of. That one really pisses me off because that's so dismissive of human suffering to say God is good all the time. And you're in the throes of like massive human suffering, like maybe your government separated your children from you without due process. Is God good during that time? You know, like, yeah, it's just such a dismissive thing to say. And. And it's so manipulative and gaslighting. But it's all that megachurch culture. Which brings me to my oh, grievance. I've had it with MAGA Christians and mega church attending Christians, especially mega church attending Christians. I really dislike them that are silent about the fact that the Trump regime is cankles deep in a pedophile ring, wherein it is being revealed that the President of the United States, an obese man that wears a full face of makeup every single day, who clearly looks like he's dying each day, appears to be compromised by Russia and by Israel. And they just like, whatever the plot is for the day, they just go along with it. I guess it's just, God is good. Pardon our mess. You know, all of our grievances are colliding pumps.
- [07:12]
Mindy
No, I. I completely agree. And it just. I cannot wrap my head around it. I have not spoken directly about this to the MAGA person in my life, my family member, but I do know that she was willing to make excuses about him banging out a porn star, even though the chastity belt purity culture queen bee of that and. Or having a girlfriend, like when his baby is little. So I have no doubt that excuses will be made about that. But I think I've decided, like over the weekend when I was listening to Mike Johnson be like, nope, no questions about the Epstein files.
- [07:51]
Pumps
Nope, it's fine.
- [07:53]
Mindy
My new thing is every time he speaks and says something biblical or, you know, God wanted us to do this, or anytime he references religion, just say, you Cover up for pedophiles and you get out here and lie. You don't get to talk about your religion, you don't get to talk about family values. Like your credibility is gone. So let's just skip over it and watch that sniveling little titty baby flail around that somebody would dare to question his morals and ethics. And I'm like, dude, that's your jam that you're good at, that you've done it your entire adult life. So I've just, I completely agree with it. It's so impossible for me to believe, yet it's not because people in churches have been covering up and, or ignoring sexual abuse of children as long as I can remember. Well, no, that's not right. At least for the last 25 years. Just one right after the other.
- [08:54]
Pumps
Yeah, it's. It's really bad. I want to start referring to Lady Graham, Little Moses, Mike Grindr Johnson, Josh Hawley, J.D. vance, and others with whom I believe are DL demon queens as alleged heterosexuals. Because these are the people who say that homosexuality is a choice. And the self own in that pumps is saying that they chose to be heterosexual. Right? So that's the own in that. Because for me, I didn't choose my sexuality. I just am heterosexual. For anybody in religious circles to say that homosexuality is a choice, they are telling on themselves that they are choosing something that wouldn't be their default setting, that they had to make a conscious decision to go, oh, the Bible says X, Y, Z. So I choose that. Completely erasing who they are naturally. So these little DL demon queens in the Maga movement, little Moses, Mike Grinder Johnson, who has, you know, a very tight relationship with God. So much so that God wakes him up in the middle of the night constantly to talk to him, hey, little buddy, wake up, you're Moses. All this stuff, it's. It's unbelievable to think that this is a guy who monitors his son's porn use and then tells his son, hey buddy, in return, you can monitor mine. And he is all about these pray the gay away psychological torture, psychological abuse camps that every therapist and anybody in the field of psychology says is nothing short of torture. He's all about these things. And then he expects us to believe that he's not this gender obsessed, sex obsessed, porn obsessed God wakes me up in the middle of the night because we're tight as ticks. He expects us to believe that he doesn't know anything about the Epstein files. And this is where evangelical Christians always get an assist from the People around them, the default setting in society is, oh, if somebody's religious and goes to church, religion equates to goodness.
- [11:13]
Mindy
Yes.
- [11:14]
Pumps
To the contrary, I have found that the more overtly religious people are, the more they're hiding something rather nefarious and scandalous and depraved. And so for me, seeing these red flags of Moses, Mike Grinder Johnson, and the people who, in politics who just don't go after the hypocrisy in his religion, that's the most silent, insidious part of this, where people assume that the insane Christian who behaves like a pedophilic Satanist, which, by the way, I don't believe in Satan, but they behave more like they it per their worldview, are more aligned with Satan, yet nobody will call them out. Because there's always deference given to religious people. Even this maga cult. There is this cooked in societal acceptance that, oh, he's a religious man. We won't say anything, right? The problem that I have with all of this is these religious men with an assist from these religious women like Riley Gaines, Caroline Levitt, Pam Bondi, Paula White, who tongue talks outside in the parking lot of the White House, and then Griffs, everybody, all the time. My problem with giving people like that deference is they are diabolical and ambitious. So we are, we are deferring to people's worst impulses by saying, oh, people's religion is we can't talk about that. And here's how I know that these people know they're wrong. Because any opinion that you have is open to criticism. Any belief system you have is open to criticism. Evangelical Christians get so hurt and so offended and because there's inquiry or critical thinking into their worldview and they are just, oh, I cannot believe that those ladies from I've had it have said, you know, Christians are like this or that. Well, maybe you should stop and think about it. Maybe you should say, I wonder why they bash evangelical mega churchgoers all the time. Let's, let's look at the evidence. Let's take Life Church, for example, in Oklahoma City, a very insidious cult wherein the pastor has five to $700 million in the bank. His number one goal right now is not to provide comfort for marginalized people, but to preach a gospel of Christian narcissism where you focus on your relationship with Jesus and being right with God. And I was born bad enough to make it right and lures all these people in with the rock band and the dunk take and the Coffee shop. Meanwhile, he's running a Ponzi scheme. He's got. His number one goal is to make more churches. Not we need to be on the front lines with ICE protesters. We need to go to these ICE detention centers with our 5 to $700 million in cash in our private jets. We need to go and stand outside where all of these children, some with cancer, are suffering in these detention centers. And we need to demand as religious leaders that we want to help these people. But they don't. Because Big Church is every bit as a big of a problem as Big Pharma, the military industrial complex and the private prison complex, Big Oil, et cetera. Big Church has been largely ignored by both political parties and that has to stop right now. These people are the worst among us. They offer permission structures. Now they're offering a permission structure for you to reject compassion, for you to reject empathy. Because their preachers, Craig Groeschel of Life Church, y' all, look this guy up. Go look at his Instagram. Not one post about what's happening in this country. Instead it's all of this Christian narcissism where people just are constantly thinking, oh, I'm not right with God, I'm disappointing God. So it keeps your eye off the ball of what the real message. And I'm not a Christian, but it's my understanding that the real message of Jesus Christ, who was a brown skinned Palestinian, was to meet people where they were suffering. This man spoke out extensively and exclusively against the accumulation of wealth. So let's call out Craig Groeschel and Life Church and say, how do you look in the camera every single day with a straight face and say you are preaching God's word when all your church is doing is accumulating wealth and trying to expand so that you can accumulate even more wealth, which is something that Jesus Christ, your alleged Lord and personal savior, frowned upon. And this needs to be called out all day, every day because these people act with impunity. Their whole doctrine is forgiveness without accountability, forgiveness without growth. And look at what they incubated. Look at this president. Forgiveness without accountability, forgiveness without growth. Knee deep in a pedophile ring selling America down the river while these churches wrap up in the cross, wrap up in the flag and grift, and help give the biggest assist to the dismantling of democracy and freedom. And furthermore, I want to say this. Why do these evangelical Christians give a shit about gay people? It's none of your business. Mind your own business if people are gay. It's not your business if People are trans, it's not your business, but yet they are genital obsessed, gay sex obsessed, preventing women from receiving health care obsessed. Because these are the nosiest, most diabolical, toxic Satanists. And I don't believe in Satan, but per their teachings, that's what this stuff is. And these mega churches are incubators for the dismantling of democracy and the march into fascism. And I've had it from top to bottom. Boycott megachurches. You can buy that merch on our website. Megachurches need to be boycotted. They do the worst work, as you all would call it in the Christian world, the devil's work. They incubate people to turn away from their good instincts by constantly reminding them that they're bad and they were born bad. And that is so diabolical. And now these churches support and provide comfort to a mass sex pedophile ring against children. And they are just constantly exposed for the hypocrites that they are. And we need to push back against this mega church culture, this prosperity gospel culture, and call these people out for the diabolical human beings that they are. The worst Americans among us are the mega church attendees.
- [18:49]
Mindy
Well, I can tell you I agree with everything you said. I'm, I'm a li. I'm living proof that through my indoctrination and faith that I was brought up in and had into adulthood, that I did not have empathy for people other than me. I was unable to have empathy and put myself in anybody else's shoes because I was special. It was about me. And so I ignored so many injustices because they didn't affect me. So if it doesn't affect me, why do I care? And I just, I heard it over and over and over again. And one thing I would say, these people cannot defend it. You cannot defend. They cannot defend that they support Donald Trump. And I've heard even as recently as the last 30 days, you know, Donald Trump, he's just, he loves Jesus.
- [19:50]
Pumps
Like what? He loves their version of Jesus. He loves the mega church version of Jesus, who is a white man who has taken over a religion of people of color. The Bible was written in the Middle East. All of these people were brown skinned and they colonized the religion, whitewashed Jesus and turned him into supply side Jesus. So yes, Donald Trump loves the Jesus that Life Church preaches about. He absolutely loves that Jesus. He loves the fact that these rich, diabolical, manipulative snake oil salesmen, like the people at Life Church are providing comfort in a permission structure for his fascist Unrolling. And this religion is always co opted by the worst forces in the world because the leaders of these churches are the worst people in the world. And we need to say it, we need to stop this instinct that, oh, we cannot criticize religion. The, the, the Trump regime is very aware of this because now they're trying to. In that national security memo that journalist Ken Kleppenstein uncovered and tweets about all the time, they are trying to make a list of people who have an anti Christian bias. Well, why would they do that? It's a free country. First Amendment. You want to, you want to bash Islam, swing for the fences. You want to bash Judaism, swing for the fences. You want to bash Mormons and all the, you know, extra wives that they did early on and that Mormons say Jesus was born in Missouri. We should criticize it. That's crazy. That's crazy. We should equally criticize these mega churches that are constantly co opted by the worst forces in the world. The kkk, where did they have their meetings at church when they hung people outside under a tree and then took pictures smiling while there's a black man that has been lynched, what's in the background? A church. The history of this church, this racist sect of Christianity, this white nationalist version of Jesus needs to be exposed. These people need to be liberated like you have been from the horrors of being so scared of yourself, scared of your thoughts, scared of sex, thinking other people. Suffering is not something you can care about. I mean, that's really abusive. These pastors are abusing these well meaning people and then they just keep capitulating and capitulating and capitulating until they're broken. And it's a real problem.
- [22:43]
Mindy
It's a huge problem. I mean, it is, it's a huge problem because it's, and maybe it's just because I live in Oklahoma City and everybody around me, but it seems to be growing more and more of a problem as it becomes, you know, you see it like Fox News. They're changing their, you know, their, their bent to be more Christian. Why are they doing that? Because they want to keep the people engaged. Despite the fact that Trump is shitting all over the country that he's in bed with Putin, he's embedded Israel. So I, I do think it is dangerous, and it is becoming more dangerous all the time. And I'll just say from a personal note, just taking it out, it's just a very personal matter. Like for me, being raised in Christianity and having those kind of views that it's all about me. You know, I don't have to have empathy because my problems are better. Those problems aren't going to happen to me. I was completely and wholly left without any skills to cope with what life handed me, period.
- [23:48]
Pumps
Let me ask you this. Having been an evangelical, drink the Kool aid Christian for 45 years of your life, then you started deconstructing around 10 years ago, are you happier now?
- [24:03]
Mindy
Way, way happier now. So much happier. I don't have the hamster wheel of judgment for myself and other people. But don't get me wrong, Christians are the most judgy people on the planet. But for me, I was super judgy on myself. Like, you're a bad person, that kind of stuff. So I have been relieved of so much of that. So, yes, I'm so much happier now, and I feel like I have more control my life. Like, I've made this decision, good or bad, it's mine. I'm not gonna, you know, go for a Hail Mary to Jesus to fix it. Like, I made the mess, I'm gonna have to clean it up kind of thing. Personal responsibility, I think, is something that you're just not taught growing up in that. Because I don't know why. For me, I just. Personal responsibility wasn't a big one. Although they preached it, it was more of God's going to save you. So if I have obedience. Right.
- [25:05]
Pumps
They mask it as obedience. Right. Which is what Trump demands, obedience. And that's the through line between this authoritarian religion that's occult evangelical Christianity, and then this authoritarian government that is a cult, Trump's fascist regime. And the through line is they demand blind obedience. And I just want to say pumps to you and to our listeners. Knowing you, 25 years, the last three or four years, is the happiest I've ever seen you. And you've actually been able to become who you want to be and not who these evangelical voices in your life scripted that you had to be. And so I think your story is so important, and I think there's a lot of people that have been abused in these evangelical spaces, and it makes me sad for them. But that's why we have to keep telling your story, because so that they know that there's hope that you can get deprogrammed and actually have agency and autonomy and compassion and empathy. All of the things that these preachers and these Fox News women use, their gender and they Christian signal and woman signal that you can't do these things. It's the devil. Fuck them. Okay? All Right. We didn't ever get to Kylie today. Welcome to I've had It, America's top DEI podcast. I am very excited about our next guest because the very first time I fell in love with her, she just read evangelicals for filth. I mean, she read them for filth. It was this viral video where she's like, if you want to believe all that in the Bible, swing for the fences. I don't believe any of that shit, but I'll fight for your right to believe it. And I think everybody's probably seen it. She, she is one half of the young turks. Let's welcome to I've had it. Anna Kasparan, Listener, I have to tell you my fashion secret. My fashion secret is quince. Quince is all about elevated essentials that feel effortless. 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- [31:14]
Anna Kasparian
I can't believe I'm here. I'm super excited. I'm doing really well. How are you ladies doing?
- [31:18]
Pumps
Great. Great. I'm so happy to have you. I was just telling our listener that I. Your viral video where you're just bashing Christians, like, that's my love language. Bashing religion. It was like I was. I loved it.
- [31:35]
Anna Kasparian
Well, I mean, I didn't mean to bash Christians because I like, I really do believe in people's right to, you know, practice their faith. And I was actually raised Christian, went to Sunday school every single Sunday growing up. But I do have a problem with people not really valuing the freedom to not be religious. Right. So if your religion and your religious doctrine indicates that you have to behave a certain way, you have to avoid birth control, for instance, that's great. I respect your right to practice your religion, but you can't allow your religious doctrine to dictate the lives of everyone else. You know, that was the point that I was trying to make.
- [32:16]
Mindy
Yeah, I was raised like that, too, and it was. I just. When you always assume you're right about everything, then you don't understand why people criticize it. And that's where I was. It was like, well, why would you. You know, why would you disagree with me? That's God's will. And it's like, oh, there are people that don't believe that or believe differently, which, like you said, I'm fine with. Just stay out of my uterus when you do it.
- [32:41]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think, like, just one more point about that. I mean, I. I think everything is simplified in the political discourse in this country. So something like reproductive rights. I think half the country, or at least the portion of the country that doesn't believe in reproductive rights, they've kind of simplified everything in terms of, oh, these are just whip women who are, you know, skanky, and they're sleeping around, and they just want abortion on demand, and that's just not the case. So I just want Americans to kind of understand each other a little better rather than stereotype each other the way that we've been doing for many years now.
- [33:20]
Pumps
But also, I want to say that the religious right very much stereotypes free thinkers and critical thinkers in such a way, and because they're doing it from the position of religion, they get more deference, they get more deferential treatment than somebody like me who's an atheist is pretty much dismissed. But. Okay, before we get into your grievances, I just want to head this off at the top of the podcast. So we're new to this. You've been doing this independent news thing a long time. We're just a little over three years, and we had jank on recently. And then the comment section people were like, well, jank betrayed us, blah, blah, blah. I don't follow personality news. I follow the news news. But because our listeners follow you. Jank, probably Hassan, you know, Don Lemon, lots of just various crossovers. I was researching you, and apparently the. The. The gist online is that you were progressive, and you receded from some progressive positions during the campaign, and now you recently issued an apology for that, and I just want you to tell us and Our listeners, what that is just from your mouth directly?
- [34:34]
Anna Kasparian
Well, the apology was on something very specific. I have moved away from the. I guess you could refer to it as the progressive position on some social issues. And I'll be specific about that in just a minute. But first, let me just address the apology. So Jake and I had a debate prior to the election, and I just felt that, like, using words like Nazi, which Cenk never did, but like, Nazi, fascist. Nazi fascist. Like, these words, much like the word anti Semitism, mean something, and when you overuse it, it loses its power. And I got my graduate degree in political science, where you learn political theory, you learn about fascism, like, the actual definition of fascism, what it means. And at that point, the point I was trying to make to Cenk is Trump is not a person who's driven by ideology. Like, he's not an ideologue, Right? A fascist is an ideologue. He is an authoritarian. He has authoritarian tendencies. There's no question about that. But fascism is something very specific, like identify what he actually is so you can address it appropriately. But then he gets elected, and what he's carrying out right now through the use of ice is fascism. So that was what I was apologizing for, specifically in engaging in that debate. My point wasn't that I like Trump and I'm going to vote for Trump, and Trump is not a threat at all. I didn't vote for Trump. I've always been critical of him. And I do think that there's a faction on the far left that, for whatever reason, has, like, this weird interest in misrepresenting the point that I'm making. You know, those videos where they attack get a lot of views, and there's. There's a financial component to it. But in terms of where I've actually changed a little bit in my policy views, you know, I live in California, and so I got to understand and see firsthand what some of these, like, far left policies, social policies in particular, not economic policies, like how they've kind of hurt the very communities and neighborhoods that the left wants to help. So, for instance, when the Los Angeles Council voted to cut $150 million from the LAPD's budget, well, obviously, they had to lay off sworn officers and, you know, police. And what we ended up doing is spending a lot more money on policing because of the fact that you have the remaining police officers having to work overtime, where they get paid a lot more in order to pick up the slack left by the officers who were laid off. Right. And the Call times are much longer if you're calling 911 looking for help, or in some cases they won't even send police. They don't consider it enough of an emerg. Let's say you've been burglarized. It'll take hours for anyone to show up and gather evidence. So these things, you know, it's like through lived experience that you realize, okay, this policy didn't work out the way that we wanted, so why don't we just recalibrate? It doesn't mean that you go back to, like, you know, draconian policies. It just means we've applied this policy. There are some flaws. Can we just tinker with it? Can we recalibrate? And leading up to the election, as I'm sharing these ideas, you know, people are, are obviously experiencing a lot of tension, a lot of fear, and they don't want to hear anything negative about Democrats or left wing policies. And so that kind of turned into, oh, you're betraying us. I'm not betraying you. I just see these policies firsthand and I want to improve them, and everyone should want to do that. But alas, there's a lot of ego that plays into politics. So there's politics and policy. I think I'm more focused on policy as opposed to, like, the horse race. And I've always run into issues because of that. So I think that's what's really going on here.
- [38:23]
Pumps
So you critically think through these things instead of just adopting what is the foregone conclusion that a person identifies as leftist. But for the record, you believe Trump and his regime to be fascist, authoritarian, autocratic?
- [38:38]
Anna Kasparian
Yes.
- [38:39]
Pumps
Tyrannical?
- [38:40]
Anna Kasparian
I do, yes.
- [38:40]
Pumps
Et cetera.
- [38:41]
Anna Kasparian
I mean, I always, I always identified Trump as authoritarian. I never did. I mean, the guy, like, tried to overturn the 2020 election. I'm not stup. But again, the word fascism is something very specific. And what's being carried out right now through the use of ice, the terrorizing of not just people who are here in, you know, undocumented status, the terrorism that's being carried out against American citizens. I mean, it's just abundantly clear the retaliation against blue states and blue cities. Ice, it's his version of the brown shirts, in my perspective.
- [39:15]
Pumps
Do you think ICE needs to be abolished?
- [39:18]
Anna Kasparian
Yes, I do. You know, you might have convinced me earlier that reforms are good enough, but at this point, Trump has hired so many questionable agents, and I don't know how you fix that in the next administration. I think that you need to dismantle ice and just build from the ground up. Because look, I do believe that we have to enforce our laws. I just don't believe in dehumanizing people and I don't believe in violating human rights.
- [39:49]
Pumps
This is where I think I always stayed clear eyed that and I respect your positioning on that, but I always stayed clear eyed about that Trump was a fascist because I listened to the people that work with him in Trump 1.0. These are neocons, these are conservative people that came out of that saying he said he wanted generals like Hitler's generals. Mark Esper said he asked, can you shoot the protesters below the knee? And then in leading up they had that Madison Square Garden Nazi rally. And I called it as such during the time because I saw the overt nationalism and the scapegoating of immigrants and during the rnc, the mass deportations now, which I'm so mystified that there were even Latinos for Trump that they thought somehow they were going to get a carve out. And I remember wanting to hang, wanting them to hang Mike Pence and I always was pretty clear eyed on it. And I would even say to pumps when we were podcasting as baby podcasters during the campaign that I suspect that they will have concentration camps. They are. And I think it's my experience living in Oklahoma versus your living in California. I've lived around these Christians nationalists. I've lived around these fascism. I know how serious they are about this. Oklahoma has had MAGA Republicans before Trump ever came down the escalator. I know how diabolical and ambitious these people are with it. I know that they will scapegoat any, anybody. And I know that they will even betray the white Republican Christian men like Mike Pence that don't go along with it. So I always think about right now, people say nobody's safe except for white men. And I'm like my pinch your as fuck wasn't safe. So it even goes beyond that. But I want to get into thing that I think is super important, not covered by mainstream media. I'm going to ask you what you've had it with. I'm teeing this up perfectly. What have you had it with?
- [41:55]
Anna Kasparian
I have had it with so many things, but honestly this week, because it does change week by week. I have had it with the fact that that our country has been governed and controlled by pedophiles or individuals who want to provide cover for pedophiles. That's the reality that we're currently functioning under. And I've had It with the fact that despite all of the terrifying things that we've been learning through the latest Epstein file dump, there's going to be like no prosecution for things like torture, right?
- [42:32]
Pumps
For.
- [42:33]
Anna Kasparian
For rape of little girls. I mean, and also all the various people in this country, both in the media and in the Trump administration, who lied to all of us with a straight face about how there are no documents, there is no list, there are no Epstein files, there are no co conspirators.
- [42:51]
Mindy
Right?
- [42:51]
Anna Kasparian
And we haven't even had access to all of the documents yet. The documents that we do have are heavily redacted and there's another 3 million documents that the Trump administration's DOJ has no intention of releasing. So, yeah, I've had it. Because how do you believe in our system, believe in our government, pay your taxes, knowing that your money, your hard earned money, is going to a government that has been covering up for pedophiles or consists of pedophiles? Like, that's what I've had it with.
- [43:23]
Pumps
Let's dive into the. No shit. And let's dive into the component of this, the Epstein files that is showing that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were Mossad agents, that Epstein is providing blackmail information to Vladimir Putin, that Peter Thiel and Jeffrey Epstein are celebrating Brexit, and that it's revealed that Marie Le Pen is also funded by Russia. On top of the outrage of the child rape, which is horrible and should be screamed about at the top of our lungs, we have these dorks like Peter Thiel and Jeffrey Epstein and Elon Musk that want to be politicians, but they will never get elected. So they're cheating. The whole thing behind the child rape thing is these people want to cheat to take away the power from the people so that they can govern, but they don't have the balls to put their name on a ballot and go run for office. So they cheat. And then they accuse the immigrants of cheating and they accuse liberal women of cheating and they accuse black people of cheating when they get jobs. And that fucking pisses me off so much I can't even take it.
- [44:44]
Anna Kasparian
I feel you. I mean, I totally agree with you. And in fact, you know, how are you going to talk about criminality among undocumented people when again, the government is covering up for pedophiles and refuses to prosecute individuals who are implicated in some of the documents that we just had access to? It's insane. It's absolutely insane. And look, the more I think about it, the more angry I get about the lies told to us by our commerce secretary, Lutnick. Right. And also Elon Musk, where they claim, like, oh, my God. I mean, Lutnick's interview about, like, oh, me and my wife in 2005, we visited Epstein and, you know, we saw the massage table in the middle of the room. And we're like, we are never gonna talk to you again. You are gross. Like, the. Acting like you really laid it on thick. And then you find out he's emailing Epstein in 2012. No, please, spare me.
- [45:43]
Mindy
Here's the thing. When I see it. What? One of the things, and there are a lot of things, it's the lack of accountability. Like, you see the New York Giants co owner. Nothing's going to happen to him because there's only 32 people and 30, you know, 31 of them are white, generational money men or, you know, thereabouts.
- [46:03]
Pumps
Okay.
- [46:03]
Mindy
Then you have, like, the commentator from the New Barry Wise contributor, you know, he's all in. You know, and she's running cover form. Like, none of these, Peter, are being held accountable. And that enrages me because these survivors has been held accountable since the day it happened. They have been held hostage by trauma and victimization. And it enrages me that all these rich, powerful men and the people that are covering for them will never face accountability. It makes me crazy.
- [46:41]
Anna Kasparian
I know. It makes me crazy, too. But let's not, like, lose the thread here because it's not just about generational wealth or the fact that these individuals implicated in the Epstein files are part of the elite. That's not the reason why there's no accountability. There's no accountability because all of our institutions have been occupied and controlled by Zionists. That's the reality of the situation. And that makes people uncomfortable, but it's the fact of the matter. I mean, what just happened with Ellison, you know, taking control of CBS and installing Barry Weiss, whose number one priority is what's best for Israel. Like, that's just one example of what's been happening. TikTok being purchased by Larry Summers, who is the single largest donor to the idf. The first thing that happened after that deal closed was they banned a Palestinian journalist who had a massive account on TikTok informing people about what was going on on the ground in Gaza. So it's not just about power and money. It's about what Jeffrey Epstein's objective was in trafficking underage girls, inviting all of these rich, powerful, connected people to his, you know, island or to his New York apartment, whatever it is. Why were there cameras everywhere? It was obviously a blackmail operation. We already have a problem in our political system where corruption is baked in, where you can literally buy our politicians like prostitutes. But every country, every lobby has the power to do that. What makes Israel different is that we seem to carry out what's in Israel's best interest to the detriment of the United States over and over and over and over again. Money in politics can't be the only thing that explains it. So what does explain it? And to me, it's just so clear, especially with the evidence that we've seen in the latest Epstein dump, that Epstein was working for Mossad, either as an asset or even as an agent. I don't know, but it's obvious he was working for Mossad in some capacity. And this was a blackmail operation meant to help Israel control the US Foreign policy to our detriment.
- [48:55]
Pumps
I was just so disgusted over the weekend. So I'm always mad at Chuckles. Chuck Schumer, I call him Chuckles because it's just, like, not the man of the moment. It's just. Just limp dick energy, you know? You know, he's not doing a good enough job because the right doesn't hate him. They hated Nancy Pelosi, and I didn't agree with Nancy Pelosi on everything, but she put up a resistance. She whipped votes, and they hated her for it. She had power, and she wielded it. Hakeem and Chuckles are not doing that. They're not even. The ride isn't even remotely scared of them. And then there's this video of Chuck Chuckles sitting there talking about his number one goal is to make sure that Israel gets all the money they need. And so then I start digging into the data. 4% of the Democratic Party support this 4%. And so I've been. I've come through this big awakening. I've always been a die hard political junkie. But when you live in Oklahoma, you don't know what's going on in the Middle East. There's not a big Muslim population. There's not a big Jewish population in that. I'm speaking for tons of people in Middle America. They don't know. You just buy the propaganda. Israel is the best democracy in the Middle east, and they're our ally. And we go, okay, so good enough. I'm trying to make sure abortion stays legal in Oklahoma, and my gay friends don't get their marriage. And all that was the fight that I was doing. So then after Kamala lost, I'm like, how the do we keep losing to this guy. So then I'm like waiting on the resistance right at the end of the year, beginning of this year, where are they? And then you start digging into it and they're like paid control, controlled opposition and the betrayal that I felt, I'm embarrassed to admit it, that I was 50 years old when I figured it out. But I'm just gonna make myself vulnerable and admit it because I'm a curious person. And it's really devastating to find out like Cory Booker, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuckle Schumer and others that are supposed to fight for us, that talk about universal human rights, but it doesn't in United States, but it doesn't apply to Palestinians. And that's just a really big, big red flag for me when people carve out a group and it seems like in the United States they carve out Palestinians, everybody has rights except for them. And I just think that's, that's such bullshit.
- [51:22]
Anna Kasparian
Well, let me just comment on what you said about realizing things later in life and how embarrassed you are. Please don't feel embarrassed.
- [51:30]
Pumps
In fact, I'm not that embarrassed.
- [51:32]
Anna Kasparian
Okay, good, good, because you shouldn't be. And in fact, to me it's a sign of intellectual strength and intelligence because. Because you're open minded enough and self reflective. Self reflective enough to understand like, okay, I don't get everything right, so let me learn more and let me recalibrate based on new information. Not a lot of people do that. And I actually think the country would be in a better place if we were a little more open minded, you know, put ego aside. But more importantly, this is the most important thing. Just make room for people to admit I was wrong. I'm sorry, right, like take the apology and don't demonize them. Don't give people a disincentive to change or to evolve. Anyway. But to your point about the Democrats, I was blackpilled on the Democratic Party earlier than you were. And honestly, during. I remember when Biden won, Biden wasn't my preferred candidate for the Democrats, but whatever, I was just very relieved to see Trump gone. And that happiness was short lived because immediately the debates over the infrastructure bill began build back better. And when I saw the behavior of the majority of Democrats in Congress and how they would run on issues like paid family leave, they would pretend as though they understand, care about and want to solve the economic frustrations of Americans. Then they turn around and they do everything they can to defeat the most popular provisions in Biden's bill. And you know, What Biden did, he not only allowed it to happen, he aided and abetted it. So when you have a conservative Democrat like, and by the way, one of the most corrupt Democrats, Joe Manchin from West Virginia, who luckily is not in the Senate anymore, or Kirsten Sinema from Arizona, who luckily isn't in the Senate anymore, when you have them fighting against increasing the federal minimum wage, defeating paid family leave, when you see them working on behalf of corporate donors as opposed to the American people who they purport to want to represent, yeah, it infuriated me. So that was the beginning of my Democrat black pill moment. Seeing what happened in Gaza under Biden's watch just. It did it for me. You know, I'm Armenian. Armenians went through a genocide of their own in 1915. 1.5 million Armenians slaughtered at the hands of the Turks and no one came to help Armenians. The idea that I'm going to like, sit back and just celebrate the Democrats, celebrate the Biden administration, after what I saw get carried out with the help of Biden, there's no way, there's no way. I was excited about him stepping down from the race. I know Kamala Harris had a huge hill to climb, but once I saw that she was like vicious toward pro peace protesters, I was like, this woman's going to lose and she deserves it if she doesn't change course. And she didn't change course and she lost.
- [54:35]
Pumps
Lost.
- [54:36]
Anna Kasparian
In the meantime, you have Trump pretending like he's the peace candidate, Right? So think about that juxtaposition and what it communicates to voters.
- [54:44]
Pumps
And think about this juxtaposition before you even get to the rotating villain strategy that you're talking about with cinema. Before you even get to that, Democrats play a totally different game. After January 6th, the most important presidential appointment of our lifetimes, the three of us here, was who is going to be Attorney general. And he picked Merrick garland because Mitch McConnell dicked over Merrick Garland under Biden with the Supreme Court pick. And he played integrity politics. And Merrick Garland sat on this shit. When I think about that, number one, he only charged the poor people, the low income cultists that somebody financed to get to D.C. he only charged those people with felonies. And Trump, of course, pardoned them. He didn't go after the big money. We have a Supreme Court justice's wife that was involved in the planning of this. It has since been revealed that Donald Trump himself paid $3 million. So the Democrats have no leverage with me saying that we go after the league, the elites the, the law applies to everybody equally. The Democrats curry favor with wealthy people every bit as much. And you can look at the prosecution and investigations into January 6th that should have been wrapped up. We should not all be sitting here talking about this right now. And it's because of Joe Biden and Merrick Garland. Furthermore, they had the Epstein files for four years and they didn't take it seriously. I took it very seriously after January 6th. I took it very seriously when Mitch McConnell refused to impeach him. And then a month later Kevin McCarthy went and kissed the ring and Fox News started going well, as a desktop, they were tourists. I took it very seriously and I believed that Donald Trump, and at least maybe not him personally, but the movement at large, it was a fascist movement and I was very clear eyed about that. And, and if I'm, if I'm a part of a political party that doesn't say, you know what, we're gonna have to get our hands dirty a little bit and we're gonna release all this shit. And I don't care if they accuse us of being partisan because these people are diabolical and I care more about this country and the safety and well being of its citizens than the appearances. And Joe Biden and Merrick Garland cared exclusively about appearances and, or their special interest with God only knows what corporations impacts. But that to me, the Democrats inability to fight before you even get to the rotating villain strategy and probably they go hand in hand really irritates me, right?
- [57:34]
Anna Kasparian
I mean whenever someone on the right would make the argument or counter argument about how like, oh well, you're getting on Trump's ass about how he's not, not releasing all the files. But what about Biden, what about Biden? What about the Democrats? You know, I would condemn the Democrats too. They should have released the files. But I would also make the point that like this is not a partizan thing. There are people on the left implicated. I mean Larry Summers obviously was working for the Clinton administration. He's a longtime Democrat. He's implicated in the files. Like there are people who have been lifelong Democrats implicated. So it's not a partisan thing. I thought that Biden didn't release the files because maybe his name was in it, maybe he's implicated. But no, it turns out he's not in like, at least from what we've seen so far. So who was he protecting? Why didn't he release the files? Especially knowing all the various political opponents who are implicated in it.
- [58:33]
Pumps
That's what I think the through line is from the lack of prosecutions in January 6to the Epstein, there is a ruling class that have the bank accounts that can choke a bull, that are able to do things with impunity regardless of who controls the executive branch in the doj. And we see that under Democratic politicians and we see it under Republican politicians, which I want to talk to you next. My next curiosity about you is I see you collab with Tucker Carlson a lot. And so I want you to tell me about that because Tucker to me is a very dangerous person because he speaks to a lot of people in middle America that have extreme homophobia, extreme transphobia. And I have so many gay friends in Oklahoma that are bullied by their churches, their families, their governments. And he recently was saying like F a G G O T multiple times. And he is clear eyed on Israel. But I feel like that, that his position on Israel is also wrapped in, this is my opinion, in some antisemitism, the same way his homophobia is. And I wanted to get your take on that.
- [59:49]
Anna Kasparian
I don't think he's anti Semitic. I don't at all, actually. In fact, he has even in the past like supported Zionism. But I think once he realizes how detrimental the US alliance with Israel really is, he's kind of moved off of supporting Israel in the same way that he has in the past. I really don't think he's anti Semitic. I think you raise a valid point about his views on gay people. I definitely do agree with you on that and I disagree with him. I have a completely different view when it comes to gay people, gay rights, gay marriage and all of that. But in regard to the anti Semitic question, I don't think he's anti Semitic at all. In fact, he's pretty well read on the issues that hurt us due to our relationship with an alliance with Israel. And he articulates that regularly. And by the way, I mean, he had asked me to go on his show, his podcast, a year and a half in advance of me finally agreeing to do it. And part of the reason why I wouldn't do it initially is because I just thought there's like nothing, there's no redeeming quality about this guy. There's no use in having a conversation with him. But his producers were so persistent that I finally decided, okay, fine, I'll just, I'll listen to his podcast, I'll make an informed decision and see if there's maybe a possibility that I'll, I'll do this interview. And I do think he gets taken out of Context a lot. He's definitely deeply conservative. I'm not. So obviously we're gonna have disagreements. But look, ladies, like, to me, the most important thing right now is to free the United States from Israel. And if there are people on the right who agree with me on that, I am willing to work with them on that issue to build a coalition for that specific issue and apply pressure to get our politicians to act in the way that we demand. Otherwise, if you do everything through the prism of partisan politics, we will be exactly where we are today, which is nowhere. No progress, no nothing. I've been doing this for 20 years, and that's been my experience.
- [61:56]
Pumps
I am cautious about the Marjorie Taylor Greene's and the Tucker Carlson's because they say that they care about Palestinian lives and these Palestinians getting killed. Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks about Palestinian Christians. That's her carve out. But when you don't have that same empathy towards the queer kid that lives in rural America or the trans population, which is less than 1%, that really doesn't even want to be spoken about at all, they don't want to be in political discourse. And the immigrant population in the United States and you make a carve out. I, I always think it's a real red flag. And I think there's a danger in both of their voices because I know when they speak and they say negative things about Israel at the exact same podcast, they're bashing gay people, they're bashing immigrants. Because I lived in red state America, it falls in the ears of people that are wholly bigoted that their ethos is white supremacy and bigotry. And that's why I see them as kind of being dangerous messengers. I agree. I don't think it's a big deal that you sat down with Tucker Carlson and y' all aired shit out. I don't think that's that big of a deal at all. I'm worried about the incubation. If you think about George W. Bush incubated Trump. And when I think about what is Trump incubating, and I see Tucker Carlson in these clips talk being critical of Trump. And then I see this whole Venezuela oil thing and he's standing there clapping like a seal, right, taking pictures with Trump. And I see the duplicity and the hypocrisy. So I don't, I don't trust his, the intentions of his messaging on Israel as much as I would somebody else who, who preaches universal human rights, who doesn't prioritize one group over the other, who will say I don't understand trans people. I don't get it. It's not my thing, but it's not my business and I'll fight for their right. Just like you said about Christianity in that viral clip.
- [64:03]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, I mean, look, I would agree with you, had Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson, for that matter, not revisited their previous statements about, let's say, Muslim people and made very clear that they were wrong. In the case of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Candace Owens, by the way, they have talked about this at length where they're like, we realized that we were totally misled and we bought into the fear mongering about Muslim people. Right. So in the case of Tucker Carlson, something that I was kind of shocked to see, honestly, after Renee Goode was shot and killed by Ike, he put out a newsletter kind of condemning the right for making light of it or even in some cases, celebrating it. And he basically said, like, this is a human life and what happened is not okay. And so to me, it's those moments where he's willing to kind of buck his own side, for lack of a better word, and he really gets nothing out of it. I mean, he doesn't get any influence in terms of the Trump administration by condemning Trump's foreign policy. And in regard to him being in the room, I mean, look, I agree it's not a good look, especially when you're clapping after you did a lengthy segment condemning what the White House did in Venezuela. But at the same time, I know that he probably wants to influence Trump in the right direction on foreign policy, and you're not going to be able to influence him unless you're in the room. So, you know, I'm speculating about his intentions there, but I hear what you're saying about wanting to be cautious.
- [65:38]
Pumps
This.
- [65:39]
Anna Kasparian
I also want to make space for people who change their minds. Right. And so if they come out and say, I was wrong, I'm sorry, I've changed my mind on this. Whether it be on Muslim people or any other issue, I want to allow space for them to be forgiven and to prove that they're not just talking the talk, they're walking the walk.
- [65:58]
Pumps
I think that it's the inverse of that. I think he lies to his audience and then colludes with the powers that be at large. I think he, Steve Bannon and Marjorie Taylor Greene are looking, how do we keep this cult together, this America first thing? And it's opportunistic for them to say, look, this has not been America first, it's 40 billion to Argentina It's a blank check to Israel. And that keeps. They're playing on the base's most racist impulses. And I just, I think that he proves himself to not be a credible messenger a lot.
- [66:43]
Anna Kasparian
I mean, I'm against giving Argentina a bailout, I don't think too racist. Yeah, you think, you think he's motivated by racism for being against the bailout for Argentina?
- [66:55]
Pumps
Not for that issue. Not for that single issue. I think we should all. I think that's a perfectly reasonable thing. That was a gift Scott Bessant gave to somebody. You know, that was a total shakedown that these people do. I think Tucker Carlson, my opinion is he is abundantly aware that the base, the connective tissue in the base is racism. Do you hate trans people? Do you hate gay people? Do you hate immigrants and Jews? And in evangelical America, in flyover states, they are deeply anti Semitic. Their apocalyptic dream, in order for the Rapture to come is for the Jews to be in Israel so that Jesus can then come and send them all to hell forever to be tortured. And the anti Semitism that I've heard all of my life came from white evangelical Republican Christians Jew em down and you know, these seedy Jews. And I think Tucker Carlson, being a lifelong Republican, understands the base and understands the cult. And I'm very skeptical when people speak out, out for one group of people and then the very next episode. He doesn't have the, the critical thinking skills or the balls to stand up for people in his own country. It's supposed to be a free country. He doesn't have the balls to stand up to the most marginalized group among us, which are trans people. And it's just, I think it's just such chicken how both parties just pick them up, use them, throw them under the bus instead of saying we believe in equality, we believe in affordability, we believe in the first Amendment for everybody, even people you don't understand. And you think they're lighting the loafers and weird, get over it, it's not your business, it's a free country. In the 80s, when I grew up, that was said all the time. But now after gay marriage, the religious right has to keep hitting the volume in the crackpipe more and more and more. And I think think Tucker is acutely aware of that.
- [68:54]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, look, I think that. So you're talking about dispensationalism when you're referring to the evangelicals who, you know, have this relationship with Israel not because they care about Jewish people, but because, you know, it's going to be the second coming of God and, you know, all of that stuff, whatever. He's actually pretty vocal against that. And I don't think he's helping to keep a coalition together. In fact, I think he's. He's being blamed, probably accurately, for breaking MAGA up to some extent because he's been so critical of Trump and the foreign policy. So, look, we're gonna, I guess, disagree in terms of, like, what Tucker actually believes. I agree with you that Tucker was certainly like that when he was at Fox, but since then, he's changed his mind on a lot of policies. He brings it up all the time. He shares his remorse for believing certain things that he believes believed. But with that said, he still has beliefs that I disagree with vehemently, including his. He's. He's against reproductive rights. He is against gay marriage. These are things that I support. So we have those disagreements. But I think it is important to work together when it comes to one of the biggest issues that's hurting Americans right now, and that's U.S. foreign policy. That doesn't actually benefit Americans. It's about benefiting weapons contractors, private military contractors, and foreign countries.
- [70:20]
Pumps
Countries.
- [70:22]
Mindy
Okay, I want to ask you, pivoting just a little bit, what is your level of confidence sl alarm in the upcoming midterms when we have Tulsi Gabbert in Georgia seizing ballots? What are your concerns? What are, what are you thinking? What is your level of concern on that? And then what do you think is going to be happening in that regard?
- [70:45]
Anna Kasparian
I have no idea what's going to happen, so I'm not going to predict, but I'm very concerned. I mean, raiding the election facility in Georgia, in Fulton County, Georgia, very concerning the fact that Tulsi Gabbard has succeeded in, I guess, halting or hindering some sort of whistleblower report that even Congress can't get access to. That really worries me. Like Tulsi Gabbard has been very sus from the very beginning. And in fact, fact, my first round of the left coming for me and coming for me real hard was when I had looked into Gabbard's record very deeply. This is when she was running in the Democratic primary in 2020. And I had found some things that were cause for concern. So I raised those issues. And the left was so convinced that she was this hardcore fighter, this real progressive, that they attacked me instead as someone who's trying to destroy progressives, destroy this wonderful candidate who's actually anti war and all this, you know, sorry to curse, but all this bullshit that we heard about Tulsi Gabbard in the earlier years. But anyway, she's part of a cult, number one, and that has been written about by the Intercept. People should look into it. And she is. Is. She isn't who she has claimed to be. And as you can tell, she shape shifts depending on what's beneficial for her. So do I think that she would violate our election laws or the rights of Americans for her own benefit? Yeah, I do think she would do that. So I am very concerned of. About what the administration is doing in regard to elections and also very concerned about Tulsi Gabbard's role in all of this.
- [72:33]
Mindy
Do you think as we move towards the midterm and we're talking about. About, let's say we have a blue tsunami, do you think that this administration will honor that, or do you think it's going to be like, I'm worried it's going to be January six all over again. Like, stop the steal. They're lying. Look at what they do. All of that. Do you have. Do you think that they'll accept a defeat in the midterms, or do you think we're just going to start over again with the other stuff?
- [73:00]
Anna Kasparian
There might be some congressional races that they try to do that with, but I think. I think it's. Look, what Trump did in 2020 was. I wouldn't say it was easier to do, but it is kind of easier to do because it's about one election, Right? It's about the general election for president that he's trying to overturn for his own purposes. To be honest with you, ladies, I don't think Trump really gives a. About anyone but himself. So do I think that he's going to participate in this effort to overturn congressional races on behalf of Republican candidates? Maybe, Maybe. But is it going to have the same zeal as he had for himself in 20? I think that's unlikely. I'm less concerned about the midterms, more concerned about the next presidential election, because he's already talking about, you know, nationalizing elections, meaning having the federal government determine what state and local election laws are, which is something Republicans pretended to be against not too long ago. Now you have Trump advocating for it, even though it's against our Constitution.
- [74:02]
Pumps
In linking Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard, I find both of their submissive, apologetic nature towards Vladimir Putin. A war criminal kidnaps Ukrainian children. You know, an egregious human rights violator killed Alex Navalny. Political opponents, I found, find both. The link between those two. I find that incredibly alarming as well.
- [74:28]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, I mean, Putin's terrible. I don't. I don't want to go to war with Russia, don't get me wrong. But I also see Putin for who and what he is, for sure. I mean, he's a guy who, by the way, had made security guarantees to Armenia and proceeded to renege on those security guarantees as Azerbaijan invaded Armenia and continues to occupy a portion of it. He's not someone that I trust. He's not someone who obviously is driven by morals, considering the fact that he invaded a sovereign country and continue to do so. So, yeah, I mean, I, I agree with you that, you know, Vladimir Putin shouldn't be in any way, you know, his reputation should not be laundered.
- [75:13]
Pumps
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- [77:36]
Anna Kasparian
I mean, I haven't had it or hit it. I just think it's hilarious. I, I laugh at it.
- [77:44]
Pumps
What about the director being like, photographed all through the Epstein files? I mean, the, the sexual abuse culture of Maga is so pervasive that even the director of the documentary is in the Epstein files.
- [78:03]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, Brett Ratner, I believe his name is. And he was implicated in 27. Was it? No, 2018 in the MeToo allegations. Olivia Munn, by the way, was one of the actresses who had made some allegations against him. And he really wanted to make it big again. He wanted to direct movies again. So what I, what I just kind of love about this whole story is the fact that he thought the Melania movie was gonna be his in, you know, and like, look, I knew it was gonna be a super boring movie. They advertised it as some sort of like, ooh, behind the scenes. Look, it's a real tell all, but Melania is notoriously private and also notoriously dull. I mean, how interesting can this woman be? Like, okay, she was a model, then she married this like, grotesque man for money. The whole film, from what I hear and I've watched a bunch of reviews, is just her talking about fashion and getting in and out of car. Cars to go to events.
- [79:04]
Mindy
Here's the thing. I would have gone to see it if she was talking about in the new Epstein dump, that Trump and the Epstein introduced her to Trump. Now that would be interesting to me. But we didn't talk about that.
- [79:15]
Anna Kasparian
What? Well, she doesn't talk about much. That's the thing. Like, she's never going to reveal anything juicy, you know, that's just not going to happen. That's not who she is. And Ratner deserves the scorn that he's dealing with now. Now, especially with all those photos coming out in the Epstein files.
- [79:34]
Pumps
All right, had it or hit it, Zoran Mamdani hit it hard.
- [79:40]
Anna Kasparian
Real hard. Okay, let me just say Zoran Mamdani, I mean, look, he's charismatic. He's obviously a leader, someone who's willing to think outside the box. We'll see how his policies impact, you know, the city. But aside from that, what I love about him, and we covered this on the show, on the Young Turks, just last week, he was asked during a press conference, do you agree with continuing to divest the pensions from the state of Israel? And he's like, yeah, yeah, I agree. We're going to continue doing that. No apologies, no further elaboration. It's unnecessary. No, this is what we're doing and we're going to move on now. And I just really adore that level of struggle, strength, I really do. Among a Democrat.
- [80:29]
Pumps
I recently moved to New York after my lifelong struggle in the Bible Belt as a progressive atheist raised by atheist parents. It's really bizarre upbringing. So my youngest child graduated from high school, is in school in la, and I moved up here and then I, you know, of course I followed the mayor. And like, we had this huge snowstorm and he's such a brilliant politician because he, he does what Biden didn't do. He's governing and advertising about it. And that's just where we've moved with smartphones. Trump understands this. Trump wrecks and then advertises about his wreckage, lies, propagandizes. But Zoron, when the snowstorm was coming, he was like, hello, New Yorkers, I've got all my trucks here. We're going to push the snow. And it was this sleekly produced, like, 60 second reel. And it's like, it's a reminder, it's the proper propaganda, if you will, that government and your taxpayers work for you. He's very simply reminding New Yorkers that you pay taxes here. And this is what we're doing. And the Democratic Party has lost that. Yes, Mindy, the voters. The government is not your enemy. We are providing public safety, the, and consumer protections. The Republicans call those regulations. And then you get cancer clusters. They forget to remind people that what they're doing is helpful. In earnest.
- [82:08]
Anna Kasparian
Yes, yes. But more importantly, okay, just bear with me as I explain this. And I just want people to understand I am not coming from a bad place. I'm just trying to, to explain why in the last general election, if you look at various blue districts, higher and higher percentages of people who are lifelong Democrats ended up flipping sides and voting Republican. This is why on a local level, what people experience really does matter. Right? Because it gives them a sense of what leadership looks like on a national level. So I think a lot of people turned away from the Democratic Party in the last election because if you look at, at some of these metropolitan areas, these, you know, cities, they have not been, you know, governed well by local Democrats. And I'm not making that up. I'll give you a specific example. In the case of Los Angeles, we have the largest homeless population of any other part of this country. Right. These people need to get off the streets, they need to be placed either, like in the appropriate facilities, by the way, some people, housing is the answer. Other people, they need more help. They might have severe mental health issues, they might have severe drug addiction issues. You have to cater to what is causing homelessness for these specific people. Right. That's the point I want to make. Well, under the leadership of Karen Bass, who's by the way, now under a federal audit, and it started under the Biden administration. This is not a politically motivated thing. The audit exists because so much of the money that, that the, well, like the kind hearted people in our city voted in favor of raising their own taxes to provide more resources, more revenue to state and local government so they can actually provide help for the homeless people. Right. I've been doing investigative reporting about where that money actually went. Perfect example. Lots of these, you know, nonprofits that are scams. One of these nonprofits, their whole purpose was to just provide a parking lot space in a parking lot for people to place their tents. But each space needed to have like a little platform. The city finally got pressured to go visit and see what's going on in this parking lot. And they were supposed to provide 88 spaces for a whopping $2.3 million a year, which sounds like a lot of money for just providing a little space for someone to pitch a tent. They weren't even operating at capacity. Most of the spaces weren't even usable. They didn't have the platform built. Nothing. And they weren't carrying out what they were contractually supposed to carry out. Besides which, why are we paying nonprofits to let people pitch a tent outside? Aren't we trying to help people get off the streets? Aren't we supposed to get people inside? Like, so when people see local government malfunctioning like this, they get ideas in their head about what Democrats are like nationally. And I think that's what kind of led to, some of, you know, the election results in the last election. When you see someone like Zoran Mamdani reminding people that public service isn't just about what's flashy, it's about, it's about the mundane. In a lot of cases, it's about fixing the potholes. It's about responding appropriately to fire conditions or a snowstorm like these, Local issues matter. And the way Democrats govern locally matters, even on a national level. Because if you see shitty leadership on a local level, you're going to think the same of Democrats on a federal level.
- [85:45]
Pumps
I wish as a woman that lived in a red state for 50 years, I wish that this applied to the Republican base because in our state of Oklahoma, they see how shitty red state politics are and they triple, quadruple down because the Republican Party has infused religion into it so much that when I was growing up, I would pass these mega churches and it would say, vote for George W. Bush today. Jesus wants you to vote for Bush. Very enmeshed. Our state in 2010, 2011, had a Democratic governor, governor, and we were ranked. No way. I think it was earlier than that, maybe 2007, Brad Henry was his name. We were ranked 17th in education. Since that time, Fox News keeps, you know, building up. We've had a Republican super majority, Republicans in the House, Senate governorship and the state Supreme Court. We're 50th in education Republican policies. And I agree that in Los Angeles that if, if they are not vetting these places that are supposed to, that pay taxpayer money, that's a huge problem that deserves to be audited. I concede that our governor in the state of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, whom I refer to as Kevin Limp Dick, Kevin Limp Dick dedicated every square inch of the state to Jesus Christ. When he won his second term, he banned abortion. He has banned all trans care. And a lot of people like to pile on on that issue. But I have friends that have a trans child. And it is a very painful, difficult thing for parents to go through. Nobody in their right mind wakes up and says, I want to with conservative Christians today and I want to be trans. That doesn't happen because. Because conservative Christians are mean and judgmental and it is torture and pain. And Kevin Stitt has piled on to that bullying and that abuse to where now these families, if they can afford it, are having to go to sanctuary states where they can make sure their child has therapy. And again, this is such a small, small portion of people. But more importantly, Kevin Stitt spoke recently about the homeless population in the most dehumanizing, cruel, demoralizing way imaginable, that the state was not going to do jack about it. Mind you, this is a big Jesus guy, right? Big Jesus guy will not shut the up about his religion. And I had like the Ten Commandments put on the Capitol ground. Ten Commandments in schools, Bibles in schools. Just really weird. And how effortlessly he speaks about dehumanizing homeless people and the cruelty of it. I welcome the problems of a blue state, even with the audit that at least somebody gives a shit. At least somebody tried. And maybe, hopefully the city of Los Angeles will start to figure out and apply pressure to our national politicians, the number one cause of homelessness is, is poverty. We're the richest state in the world that hasn't raised the minimum wage and I don't know how long, couple of decades and we don't even provide health care for people. So it's easy from your lens to look at blue state and every party has problems when they govern. And then for my, on the opposite end, these red state, this red state, just the dehumanization of people, the micromanaging of genital sex lives, bedrooms, etc, and so I, I, it's interesting to have this conversation with you because you, you've been footed in LA and I've been footed until recently in Oklahoma. So it's interesting to hear, you know, my default setting complaints with red states and then I hear you about mismanagement with taxpayer funds and that's, that's, it's really unacceptable.
- [89:56]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, I mean, look, I just think that there's a lot of rot in both parties right now. I think one party is more dangerous than the other when it comes to civil liberties and our constitutional rights. There's no question about that. So it's part of the reason why, you know, in election after election it's pick the lesser of two evils. But I want to break out of that. I really want to break out of that. I want to break out of this like, oh God, you know, you have the establishment Democrats, you have the DNC essentially manipulating the most important part of the election process, which is the primaries. The primaries is where you get to decide who best represents you and what you want to see happen in this country. And you know, it became very clear to me, and I think most Democratic voters who are paying attention that the DNC has no interest in allowing a real Democratic process to play out out because in now several primaries we've had them manipulate the process to the detriment of Democratic voters who, you know, want to say over who their preferred candidate is. So I think that Bernie could have won in 2016. I think the polling indicated that that was the case. A lot of people who wanted Bernie for the Democratic nominee switched over and unfortunately voted for Trump. That is true. But rather than maybe learn a lesson from that, the DNC decided to use that and weaponize that to, you know, demonize, you know, the progressive left. So I don't really have a lot of hope with the Democratic establishment. They're never going to change, they're never going to learn, they're going to keep trying to install mealy mouth losers like Hakeem Jeffries or, you know, Chuck Schumer. We need real leadership. Yeah. We need people like Mamdani who have a clear vision and are willing to fight for that vision, who aren't mealy mouthed and. And just have that energy and that charisma that we need in the party.
- [91:56]
Pumps
Okay, last one. Had it or hit it, the United States of America.
- [92:01]
Anna Kasparian
Hit it. I still love this country. I believe in it more than anything. I believe in the people of this country, even people who vote differently. For me, I think that we have to work hard to have conversations that are uncomfortable. And I'm specifically talking about voter. But when it comes to people in positions of power, I've had it. And it's time to hit at them real hard and be unapologetic about it.
- [92:28]
Pumps
I think you're cool. You believe in shit. You talk about it to all the listeners that want to dive in about critiquing and grading the progressive nature of people. This space, this podcasting space is a space for us to share ideas and disagreements and. And most importantly, our shared visions, which there are a lot more of than they're not. And so thank you for coming on and I really enjoyed you so much.
- [92:54]
Mindy
Yes.
- [92:55]
Anna Kasparian
I love your show. Thank you so much for having me, ladies. I really appreciate it.
- [93:00]
Pumps
All right, she's cool.
- [93:02]
Mindy
She's cool and she's smart. And you know what I kept thinking about her the whole time is she has conviction, which you have bang that drum all the time. Because you're right. Because if you don't feel it, you know, ship shape shifter, mealy mouth. When she said mealy mouth, I was like, it's been a while since I've heard that. But when you mealy mouth around, you gotta have conviction. And whether you agree with her or disagree with her, she has conviction. And that's what we all should have, I think.
- [93:33]
Pumps
Yeah, I just. I think it's interesting. I disagree with her about Tucker Carlson a million percent.
- [93:38]
Mindy
Right.
- [93:39]
Pumps
But we were able to have a very civil conversation about that. That I think Tucker Carlson is hoodwinking people. And I think he has ambitions to run for president. And I think his driving force behind a lot of stuff is he understands the racism of the base. And I do think he's really sympathetic to Vladimir Putin. And I think that's just a real red flag. All right, we'll see you guys next Tuesday and Thursday. Tell you what I've had it with. Let's hear it.
- [94:13]
Anna Kasparian
I've had it with that.
- [94:16]
Pumps
Listen up, patriots, gaytriots and natriots we have a new podcast that has dropped. It's called IHIP News. It's Monday through Friday. Every day, 15 to 20 minute hot takes on the political landscape of the United States of America. Always served with a side of petty grievances.
- [94:36]
Mindy
We are on all the available platforms. Apple, Spotify, Google, whatever you get your podcast and YouTube.
- [94:42]
Pumps
Please go rate, subscribe and review so that we will chart upwards with America's greatest legal mind. Pumps, Pumps. What does an eagle say?
- [94:51]
Mindy
Caca.
- [94:53]
Pumps
A little bit more enthusiasm. That's it. That's, that's, that's the patriotism that this country needs right there.