D (2:18)

And everybody thinks we're the prettiest people on the planet.

B (2:22)

Yeah, everybody's talking about the likes of with which the country has never seen, never seen before.

D (2:27)

Never seen anything like it.

B (2:28)

All right, my queen bee pumps, what have you had it with?

D (2:31)

Okay, what I've had it with, and I know it's a continuation. I've had it with passwords. I've had it with everything having to have a password. I don't know my passwords. I can't remember them. I have had two passwords in my life, and every time I sign in, they say, oh, no, this isn't your password. And then you have to go to your passkey and it's some made up number by my phone.

B (2:55)

Why do we have.

D (2:56)

Isn't there an option for people that can't remember their passwords that says, I can't remember my password? Instead of sending me a new link, just say, honey, we'll just let it slide. That's what I need. I fight with my password situation all the time. I'm sick of it. I've had it.

B (3:14)

Yeah, it's a. I mean, you're in the trenches with these things.

D (3:17)

I am.

B (3:17)

And it's been going on for years. I mean, I can attest to you guys, for years. Years ago, Pumps didn't have a Facebook. And I'm talking like. Like, right when Facebook came out, and I was like, you need a Facebook. And she was like, just make one for me. So I made her a Facebook and I posted as her and, like, really funny stuff. And. And everybody thought she was serious, but I can't remember what I would say. It was like, I, you know, I'm the happiest gal in the world, blah, blah, blah. And I accepted friend requests. This is like when we were bored, when you have toddlers, when you're sitting at home. But I remember I knew your password because I had to set up, like, an email account in your Facebook. Basically what you're telling our listener, since we're the top podcast in America, that it's like, hack me, duplicate me, I don't want a password.

D (4:14)

Okay, here's the deal. I mean, I hate all the scams and the passwords, but at this point, I mean, I can't cancel these subscriptions because I can't remember my password. I've just had it. I've just had it, had it, had it, had it. And I'll say this. I know exactly what you were doing, why you knew my passwords, because you were the person that set up online for my bills to be paid online.

B (4:38)

I did. That's why I used to be. I've always been your young friend. But back before millennials were of age, I was millennial. Right. Even though I'm not a millennial.

D (4:47)

Right. You were. You were always better at computers than me.

B (4:50)

And I'm not that great. Honestly. I'm not super techy. It's a low bar. Yeah. Okay, let me tell you guys what I've had it with. And this is pertaining to Uber. I've had it with Uber giving false information about the arrival time of the car. So when I'm traveling to, like, New York or la, I'll take Ubers. And because I don't want to rent a car in either space. And in New York, I take the subway during the day, but at night it's Ubers. It was just in New York a coup ago. And so I'm looking at the cars that you can get and it's like, Uber comfort is 10 minutes away. Uber black. It was like, four more dollars is one minute away. So I was like, I'm going to splurge. I'm doing the Uber Black. I committed to it being one minute away, right? That was why I decided to splurge. I click the Uber Black and it says finding your car do, and it pops up. Your car is 12 minutes away.

D (5:50)

FALSE advertising.

B (5:51)

That. And it happens every single time. Even if I select Uber Comfort. Uber Black. And I don't do the Uber share because I don't like sharing. I'm not a sharer. At my age, I don't. I don't want to share with anybody. But. And for those of you that do it, I don't mean any. If I was young and broke, I totally would share. But I think this is complete. It's just complete conning me. Like, you can't rope me in by saying that this car is one minute away. Because I'm thinking it's right around the block, it's parked within a 1 New York block, and then we find it and we're 12 minutes away. Like, that's just. You can't do that to somebody. And I'm a time manager. And when I know that I have 12 minutes, I would have been up in the hotel room returning an email, returning a phone call, doing something of importance. I don't want to spend those 12 minutes being lied to. Because from the beginning of that, the first minute to the 12th minute, what it does to me and my serenity is not good, right? I get matter and matter and matter at Uber for lying. And if we lived in a country where we had a government that would be interested in regulating some of these tech companies that have made billions of dollars. Billions. Billions. Billions. Billions of dollars. Because, hey, you can't do that, right, Elon Musk? You can't. You can't Write that crazy on your website and then game the algorithm so that everybody can see it. You can't amplify Holocaust denialism on your. Nobody will touch them because all they do is get a trophy for Kanks and take it over to him to the circle jerk meeting. And it's just really disappointing.

D (7:42)

It is very disappointing. And it's false advertising and it's a con job. But, you know, the biggest con on planet Earth is the president. So nobody's going to take any action. I'll tell you what I've had it with Uber about. So I put in my thing because Kylie set up my Uber that I can go in and tell them what my preferences are. And I say quiet and cool. The other day I got in an Uber and this guy, it was like we were best friends. Like he hadn't seen me since high school and we were like BFFs. And I just wanted to say shut the fuck up. And I could see on the thing, it said cool and quiet like he knew it, but he just couldn't help it. So I've had it with that too.

B (8:21)

Yeah, that's, you know, that's just not okay. And here's the thing that I don't like about all this stuff from the. A lot of this tech industry. Like, we're good customers, you know, like, I'm a good customer at Uber. Yeah, Yeah. I tip because we have to live in a country where we have to subsidize Uber paying these people a real salary. So working class people, you know, that really, really like taking an Uber as a splurge, have to tip because, you know, nobody's ever going to make these billionaire trillionaire companies pay their people a living wage. I mean, that's just completely out of the realm in maga, Christian First, Pro Life world. And you know, it just, it makes me sick that we're such good customers and, and there's such shitty parasites, both of us. It really pisses me off. All right, welcome to I've Had It. I am Jennifer.

D (9:11)

I'm Angie the hbic. And the B stands for beaver and bitch both.

B (9:16)

Bitchy beaver. All right, this was a really interesting story that I'm sure is going to rile people up, but I found it fascinating. Forced participation in religious activities to be classified as child abuse in Japan. The rules also instruct authorities to remove children from their homes immediately if necessary. As the guidelines state, children influenced by religious teachings may not even realize they are being abused. This is the first time Japan has introduced rules specifically aimed at Protecting children of religious followers. The new guidelines make things clearer. Frightening children by saying they will, quote, go to hell if they do not join rituals or preventing them from deciding on their education or career will be considered psychological abuse. Families that cannot provide food or housing because of large donations to religious groups or parents who isolate their children from friends because they are not of the same faith will be considered guilty of neglect. In Japan, parents and religious groups who force children to take part in religious activities or deny them the right to choose their own future will now be treated as perpetrators of child abuse. The new rules, prepared by the Ministry of Health, come after years of complaints from children of controversial organizations. For years, children said authorities failed to protect them when they reported their suffering to police or child consultation centers. They were often told that, quote, freedom of religion is guaranteed under the constitution. Pumps.

D (11:05)

Okay, I'm reading the things that they have now said are put make someone a perpetrator of child abuse. And I'm like, oh, well, that's my childhood. That's exactly what happened. You're going to hell if you don't do this. And it fucked me up. So this, this is a good thing. I don't think in Christian nationalist, radical evangelical culture United States, we're anywhere close to. But I agree with everything they said. And you know what popped into my head when they're talking about keeping your kids from other kids that have different religious beliefs, that's homeschool. Yeah, that's why people homeschool is they don't want their little darling, you know, introduced to anybody that may not be a super maga Christian person. So I honestly, I believe this is probably the right way to go. And I think 100 years from now we will have moved closer to this.

B (11:56)

I hope so. I mean, listener. As you know, we live in the Bible belt. Pump, Pump raised. Hellfire. Damnation. You know, you're born a bad person, only Jesus can save you. I was raised completely secular. My parents atheists. And I can tell you that a lot of my peers sometimes were not allowed to come over to my house because my family, we didn't go to church. When Pumps and I first became friends, her mother was very concerned. We were both grown adults, very concerned about you hanging out with me even though you were a lawyer. 30 plus years old, I was marked with the, you know, scarlet A not for adulterer, but atheist. And that was, that was problematic. Even though I'm a relatively good person and I've always been a positive influence in your life. And then I remember my first Boyfriend Sean. His parents were big Bible thumpers, and he was wildly indoctrinated. And his mother caught him masturbating once. He was 16 years old and he was grounded. He was in all of this trouble. And I think that's child abuse. I think when you tell a teenage kid pumping full of hormones that beating off is somehow demonic and the devil had gotten a hold of him, and that is just straight up child abuse. That's horrible. But on this front, I had a great exchange with a friend of mine from high school named Hollywood. And Holly is the friend from high school that I've known since elementary school, and she is a Democrat. And where I went to high school there, I mean, everybody is right wing, conservative, mega church, Christian, full tilt, Fox News, the whole nine. So the few of us that are Democrats kind of became reacquainted after Facebook. Holly's always stayed in touch with everybody. She's a wonderful girl. But the very first boy that I ever kissed, like, French kissed, was a kid named Billy. And you always remember your first. Always. Billy was so cute, you guys. I remember we're hiding under this honeysuckle bush and we were like, truth or dare to kiss for like 10 seconds. And Billy was like, let's go 11. And we did. And Holly was texting me the other day, and I'm so proud to tell you and the listener that Billy, my first French kiss, is a Democrat. Wow, that's huge for the listeners abroad and that don't live in Bible belt states. It's just. It's like this. It's like, oh, my God. At one point, I had a great picker. Billy, my first kiss was a Democrat. And the odds of Billy being a Democrat, you guys.

D (14:43)

Oh, my God, 92 0.

B (14:45)

So, Billy, you know who you are, and I'm just going to tell you, I never regret that kiss. If I wasn't married to Josh, I'd kiss you for 12 seconds. Now, Billy, you're a good kisser too.

D (14:56)

Billy, don't you look back on, like, the first of everything, the first kiss, the first sex, and think, I was so bad at that.

B (15:04)

I think back on it. So nostalgic.

D (15:06)

Oh, I'm super nostalgic. But sometimes I think, ugh, I bet that was a rough kiss.

B (15:10)

Well, when you first had sex with somebody, you thought you were going to crawl out of the bed and Satan was going to gobble you up, right?

D (15:15)

That's 100% true.

B (15:16)

Because child abuse.

D (15:20)

Referring back to the.

B (15:21)

Article, religious abuse, you guys, this is going to be like the autopsy of a lot of this MAGA shit and how religion primed them for this. The cruelty. The black and white worldview. Don't critically think. Believe everything the leader says with blind faith. Have blind obedience. Evangelical Christians are primed for this. And I believe, and I've long, long, long believed this growing up around all these Bible thumpers that my peers were abused as children. And a lot of the people that are in the MAGA movement are broken. These are emotionally stunted people who have been discouraged to use their brains to critically think. And it's. It does not set up the world for a healthy space for us to live in.

D (16:10)

I completely agree.

B (16:11)

Oh, my God, Kylie. I didn't introduce you. I went straight to the news story. You guys, we did it. Out of order.

E (16:18)

The lesbians.

B (16:19)

I'm so sorry. Please don't call me a bad ally.

E (16:23)

Okay, I've got two reviews for you.

B (16:24)

Okay.

E (16:25)

This first one is better than Therapy. Five stars. And she writes, wow. These two smart, sassy, creative, funny, and yes, kind, beautiful women are the biggest breath of fresh air we need right now. I cannot wait to listen to this podcast every day and share it with all I know. The sad part is that the individuals suffering from cognitive dissonance won't listen. And if they did, they just won't get it. But I hope they keep doing what they're doing for a long time. Thank you.

D (16:50)

I love that.

B (16:51)

Nice. You know, one thing that I really am so thrilled with that comes Pumps and I have done, and I never thought we were competent enough to do it, is we built a community where people feel a sense of belonging. And it's such a daunting thing being an American right now.

D (17:07)

Very.

B (17:07)

Pumps and I talk about it when we're not filming you guys like how foreboding it is and how worried we are. And I'm just happy that we have this place where our friendship is expanding for other people like minded that feel the same worry, that feel the same humor, that have the same sense of wanting a sense of community to get us through this. I just couldn't be more thrilled at that unintended consequence of the pod.

D (17:36)

Absolutely. I feel the exact same way.

E (17:39)

Okay, the last one I've got for you is five stars as well. Thank you for fighting the good fight. And they write, I miss the days of petty grievances before the US Became a plotline of a terrible movie. As a fellow liberal Oklahoman, thank you for being our voice. I fangirl hard every time I see you on a national platform.

D (17:55)

That is so sweet.

B (17:56)

And you know it is.

D (17:58)

When you are a blue dot in a red state, it's. It's not easy.

B (18:01)

Yeah, I have to shout out to all the blue dots in red states because that is a. It's a. It's a difficult place to be in. And, you know, your peers look around at you like you're radical Democrats. Come and you see firsthand how damaging MAGA policies are. You see it firsthand and you see how deranged and more radicalized these MAGA people have become. And with each other, capitulation of Trump moving the goalposts, the leaders moving the goalposts, the religious leaders moving the goalpost, how collectively that whole movement went from bad to worse on a national level, all the way down to a personal level. The moral rot of supporting this man is just so sad. Yeah.

D (18:58)

And so rampant. I mean, 77 million people thought it was a great idea to elect a criminal.

B (19:04)

Yeah, there's a lot of buyer's remorse on that. He's underwater with every group. Every single group. This guy is not popular, Kanks. Not popular at all. Listener, the hot book of the summer. Oops, I have it the wrong way. Take two. Listener. The hot book of the summer is now the cool book of the fall. It is in Trump's America. I can tell you with absolute certainty, the best book that has ever been written. And believe me, a lot of people are talking about it.

D (19:37)

Everybody's talking about it.

B (19:39)

Everybody's talking about it. It took us one day to write it on day one because we took.

D (19:47)

A cognitive test and it was book write done.

B (19:52)

All right, Anyway, please buy our book. It's a great way to support us. It is a really fun read for the fall. Curl up with your pumpkin spice lattes and just enjoy living the American dream. And Dipshit Trumps America. This episode of I've had it is brought to you by booking.com booking. Yeah. From vacation rentals to hotels across the U.S. booking.com has is the ideal summer stay for absolutely anyone, even those who might seem impossible to please. Whether you're booking for yourself, your partner, your picky teens, or your sleep light early rise mom, you can find exactly what you're booking for on booking dot com. I personally just booked a trip for my sons and I to go to New York City. And I found the perfect hotel in the perfect location, and we were able to tackle the city with enthusiasm and convenience. And I just absolutely love this site. If our family can find their perfect stay on booking.com, anyone can find exactly what you're booking for. Booking.com booking yeah. Book today on the site or in the app. This ad is brought to you by Vive Healthcare, the makers of Apertude Cabotegravir.

D (21:15)

You never skip your SPF and you carry hand sanitizer like an accessory. But what are you doing for HIV prevention? One way to help protect yourself from HIV is Apretude, a prescription medicine used to reduce the risk of getting HIV in adults and adolescents weighing at least 77 pounds.

B (21:34)

You must be HIV negative to receive Apretude and get tested before each injection. If you think you are exposed to HIV or have flu like symptoms, tell your doctor right away. More HIV testing may be needed. Apretude does not prevent other sexually transmitted infections. Practice safer sex to reduce your risk. Get Apertude as scheduled. Missing doses increases your HIV risk. Don't take aperitude if allergic to it or taking certain medicines that may interact. Tell your doctor about your medical conditions, liver problems and mental health. Serious side effects include allergic reactions or rash, liver problems and depression. If these occur, get medical help right away. The most common side effect is injection site reaction. Bring your EG game and talk to your doctor. Learn more at appertude.com or call 1-888-240-0340. All right, we have a guest that I'm so excited to have. I'd wanted him on and then of course the Internet brought us together, sliding into each other's DMs. This is David Miles Hogg. David Hogg is the co founder of Leaders We Deserve and March for Our Lives. David Miles Hogg, welcome to America's Top DEI Podcast. I've had it.

C (22:59)

Happy to be here.

B (23:00)

Happy to be here, David. It's been really difficult being an American lately. It's a really anxiety ridden moment where you wake up and we can go on a podcast and giggle and exchange pleasantries and then you look at your phone and you think what's happening? The fuck is going on? So in that vein, how are you and what have you had it with?

C (23:26)

Well, I've had it with a lot. I'll say this much. I've of course had it with gun violence first and foremost, given the how I got involved in politics after Parkland and the recent news and the daily gun violence that we see every day in this country.

B (23:41)

Let's will you spell out for our listeners who maybe have seen your face but tell us your history about Parkland and what brought you to be a national figure now on this.

C (23:54)

Yeah, so I got involved in politics. After the shooting at my high school in Parkland, Florida where 17 of my classmates and teachers were murdered, a group of classmates and myself came together after the shooting and said that we were going to try to actually change things. Of course, lots of older people, especially political purported experts and pollsters and pundits told us, you know, this is Florida, it's horrible what happened to you young people, but nothing is going to change here because this is a Republican trifecta state. There is zero chance that you will get anything done. And then like all good teenagers do, we did what our parents told us we couldn't and we proved them wrong. And we ended up raising the age to 21 to buy a gun in our state in Florida and passing a red flag law that has been used over 20,000 times since the shooting in Parkland to disarm people that I risk themselves and others that most research afterwards showed that there was about a pretty strong correlation of about a 11% reduction in gun homicides following the passage of that law, which isn't anywhere near enough, but it's a hell of a lot better than the track that we were on. And in the time since when I was in college, I hired Maxwell Frost to lead our organizing efforts for our lives. Maxwell then asked me to help him in his run for Congress when he was 24. I helped him run. He had an incredibly hard time running. But despite having to uber Drive from 9pm to 2am every night while running for Congress and coming from a very working class family, he ended up being elected to be the first Gen Z member of Congress. And I've since gone on with his campaign manager Kevin Lata to co found leaders we deserve. We're a PAC and super PAC that helps elect young progressive Democrats who don't take corporate money and support stronger gun laws. And support all kinds of progressive issues of course too. So that if our government doesn't change our gun laws, we'll find those young people that walked out of their schools that protested with us in one of the largest student protests in American history and change gun laws ourselves by changing who's in government.

B (25:42)

You know, I love Maxwell Frost. He's been on the podcast before and I think he's incredibly impressive. And you know, I kind of feel like I'm a Gen Xer, but I kind of. I'm ready for your generation to really accelerate into the national scene. I think it's just so time for a changing of the guard. And no disrespect to boomers, my parents are Boomers, Boomers, the good ones fought really good fights for civil rights and advancements. But there's just a time where it's time to pass the torch on. And unfortunately, your generation has been the gun generation. You know, pumps. And I grew up, we had a tornado drill because we live in Oklahoma, and we had a fire drill. And I have two sons, David, and my youngest one is in college now. But when I went to pick him up from junior high about five years ago, he's just so. He was such a happy boy. And I went and picked him up, I said, hey, Roman, how was your day today? He climbed in, he said, oh, hey mom. We had an active shooter drill. And my heart, like fell into my stomach and thinking about, like, what was said and what they were thinking, because I remember doing the tornado drill. Like, you think for a second, like most of the time you're dicking off with your classmates, you know, cutting jokes, but it impacted him. And so will you please, Because I don't think we can talk about this enough. When you're in high school where you're supposed to be safe and a shooter comes into your school and murders people, what is the impact on that long term, in the moment? And long term, like, how. How does that impact you, David, as an individual and your classmates?

C (27:26)

Horribly. And it affects our teachers a ton, obviously, as well, the first responders as well, who showed up. And it's to the point that unfortunately, several of our classmates have taken their own lives in the time since the shooting. And it creates long lasting impacts. It really divides a community, especially when it's a issue that people say is highly political all the time and divides them a lot. And it's. It creates a lot of long lasting pain and scars that I think many people have to just learn how to live with, unfortunately. And some never figure out how to do that, unfortunately. And this mind you, my school in Parkland is one of the most well resourced in the state of Florida. It's one of the best schools in the state. The median household income in Parkland is well over $120,000 a year. That these are the effects that many of our students, our classmates, are facing, despite the enormous privilege that our high school had. And what I think about are the young people that don't have the privilege on getting on the news that go through instances of gun violence outside of school on a daily basis. You know, the other day when Charlie Kirk was killed, not only was there a school shooting that happened as well that same day, there were also A dozen. Plus other shootings that happened, that happened every day in this country that barely make it on the news, that still have trauma, create trauma for people that doesn't get anywhere near the same attention. So what I think about a lot is how do we make sure that we're making every community safer and not going to them and saying, you know, this is what we're going to do for you. In my case, being somebody from Parkland, but asking what can we do for each other and how can we support each other? Because if Parkland's safe, but no other community is, we're not doing our work, and our work isn't done yet.

B (29:15)

You know, pumps and I have had a guy that worked for us. His name was Javier Sanchez Morales Jr. And he started working for me for my interior design firm when he was 18 years old. He's a black kid. His dad was, like, half Cuban, half black. That's why the Javier Sanchez Morales Jr. And we called him Javi. And last October 12th, I said goodbye to him. October 11th was a Friday. I said, bye, Javi. And he said. He called me J Dub. He said, bye, J Dub. I'll see you Monday. And, I mean, I worked 40 hours with him. I spent more time with him than I did my children. And in many ways, he was like a surrogate son to me. And the next day he went out. No criminal record, no parking ticket, nothing. He went to a convenience store a mile and a half, two miles from this studio. And some people tried to rob him, and they shot him. And the feeling that I had after that and that I still have. Like, when I. At first, David, when I come back to the office, I would start realizing he's never coming back. And then, like, a month would go by, and it's like I could still kind of, like, feel him around. I could see, like, something he had put somewhere in the care. He put to organize something neatly or arrange, like in this podcasting studio, little X's where tripods go. And then the time goes on, and it goes on, and you realize they're not coming back. And the grief and then the like. Then your brain goes to, like, my brain would go to. Like, when he. When he fell down, was he. Was he bleeding? Did it take a long time for him to die? And you have all of these things that come out of this. And the thing that makes me the most mad about all of this is that if you live in America long enough, somebody you love will get shot. And that hadn't happened to me until I was 50. And when I was 50, somebody I loved very much, like my very own son got shot. And I was hopeful because the political campaign was going on then, that Kamala would win. And we could have a lot of conversations like this. How can we get, you know, common sense gun laws, how can we end the suffering and the pain that this is causing people? But now we have the pro life regime in, you know, in power, and it seems like all they want to do is make guns more accessible to people. And in our state, guns have more rights than women. Right?

C (31:43)

Yeah. I mean, first of all, I'm sorry for your loss. It's horrible that that happened. And unfortunately, your story is not unique in this country, as you mentioned. What is unique about our country is that we're one of the only countries in the world where stories like that are nearly as prevalent as they are, especially in a country as developed and wealthy as we are. Right. And what I think we need to do after these shootings is figure out how to acknowledge that we have our differences and figure out what, even if it's a tiny amount of agreement that we have, how to come together like we did after Uvalde and Buffalo, and actually do something to save lives. Because we all do agree at the end of the day that something has to change here, that something has to be done. And I think in the case of Charlie Kirk, unfortunately, we saw an instance here where this argument of, you know, the only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun only is true if the bad guy with the gun is in range. And with a sniper, they rarely are. And there's no amount of bulletproofing our society that we can do that is going to be able to prevent what happened until we address how somebody gets a gun like that in the first place and the hatred that drives them to do that.

D (32:54)

I have a question, because you mentioned that in your community after Parkland, you know, there were two sides. And then for me, it is hard for me to pretend there are two sides to children dying in school shootings, gun violence as a whole. Absolutely. But particularly I do. Why would someone think that arming a teacher would help gun violence? Oh, well, everybody gets a gun. I just. I attribute it to the nra. But tell me, what are the arguments for these people that it is more important for them to protect guns than protect little kids that are innocent going to school?

C (33:40)

I think the reason why they want to arm teachers is one, because for the gun industry, it's useful to sell More guns. Right. Guns are not like iPhones. They don't break down over the course of two years because a lot of the time gun owners aren't regularly using them. So when you're a gun company and you constantly need to figure out how to expand your market and you've already militarized the police, you've already armed the military, then you have to figure out other parts of our society to arm. And we're in a vicious feedback loop where people feel afraid because there are so many large, you know, people that are severely under trained, severely under regulated, that have firearms in our society that are going and committing acts of gun violence that then results in us selling more guns because people feel a loss of agency and a loss of control because our government is failing to do its job, which is to protect its people. And I think that's part of the reason why this idea of arming teachers has become so popular, because people want to feel a sense of agency that even if the government is going to do something that maybe their teacher can and it's horrible and it should not happen. Right. I don't know if, if any. Anybody who says that teachers should be armed clearly did not have some of the teachers that I had growing up who should.

B (34:46)

That's what I'm thinking about. I had this Ms. Shifflebean. She was a retired Catholic nun. She was about 4 11, crazier and meaner than a rattlesnake. She'd slap our hands with rulers in a public school. She'd like slap our hands. I'm thinking Mrs. Schiffle, being armed is nuts.

C (35:05)

Yeah, it's insane. And not to mention the practicality of it. Right. If you have a bunch of teachers that are armed in this situation, how are you supposed to tell who the shooter is? What if it was one of the teachers? What if it was a student who got the gun from the teacher because they went to the bathroom and left it on the ground? There's so many major risks that this brings. But the point that I really want to bring us back to is that while addressing school shootings, of course is important, the vast majority of gun deaths in this country one, are suicides that we do and should we need to address. And we have to talk about a hell of a lot more because those are preventable deaths. Because we know most people who attempt suicide the first time and survive their first attempt do not reattempt with a firearm. You do not get that chance almost ever. Right. Then we also have daily acts of gun violence. That happen outside of school, that predominantly happen in poorer communities that have far less resources, that we absolutely do need to talk about and make sure that we're not leaving any part of this out in that conversation. But I think that's going back to what you said. The reason why they feel the need to arm teachers is one, because they want to sell more guns. And it helps them to fund these politicians more. And it gives people some sense of. A false sense of security that at least something is being done so that their kid is going to be safe. Even though we know that this is actually going to put them in danger more almost certainly.

B (36:22)

Well, and just what about the psychological effects that our society is having such a regressive conversation that our kids go to schools and people are armed around them, yet we're the richest, freest country in the world? Like, it's such a regressive, insane thing to say. And the way they move the goalposts. Our Trump, we call them kanks, short for cankles. I heard kanks the other day talking about arming teachers and stuff, and I'm just like, why are we even entertaining this idea? Why is this even being entertained? We want our children. I mean, two football guys could plow through the teacher, take the gun. It's so ridiculous that we even have to have such a regressive, stupid conversation. It makes me so bloody mad that that is even being entertained in conversations with people that are in charge of us, people that know.

C (37:21)

Because it's also just getting to the point where it's like they. They always love to talk about a slippery slope with guns. I think arming teachers is a real slippery slope because after Columbine, it was, we need cops on every campus. And then we had cops at Uvalde. They did fucking nothing. We had cop at Parkland, they did. The cop assigned to my school to protect us did nothing because this was a shooter with an AR15. And the reality is, these cops, they have to prove that they are good guys with guns in these situations. And far too often, when the moment actually counts, when lives are on the line, they prove only to be cowards with guns. And first responders, of course, have a role to play here in addressing gun violence as a last resort. But people like my father should not, who was an FBI agent, should not be the first line of defense when our politicians don't have the courage to do their damn job and actually regulate people, regulate guns so that people like the shooter at my high school who repeatedly threatened to shoot at my high school over several times and was reported to the FBI, was reported to law enforcement and had the police called to his house. I think it was nearly a dozen times before the shooting. So that people like that are not able to still be legally armed with an AR15 because we understand making sure somebody like that is not armed is no danger to anybody's freedom. And in fact, it protects all of our freedom to go to school without the fear of being shot. It protects our freedom to know that we can go out to a movie and not look at where the nearest exit is. It protects our freedom to know that when you send your kids to school that the only drills that they should have to do in the future are tornado drills and preparing for natural disaster. Not a man made in politician. And cowardice enabled disaster like gun violence. And until we make these politicians feel like they're going to lose their job, until they do something about this, both on the left and making sure that we do as much as we can as Democrats to address this and on the right, we're going to continue having this conversation.

D (39:26)

Yeah, sadly.

B (39:27)

Go ahead.

D (39:28)

I was just going to ask you one thing. And this makes me crazy. Like, I want to tear my hair out and like jump out a window. It makes me so mad. Is when politicians after shootings say, well, you know, thoughts and prayers, but no gun policy. And then I sit there and I think, thoughts and prayers is not gun control. It is not a policy to prevent death. It makes me crazy. It makes me insane. So how does somebody with your background, with all of this experience, how do you talk to someone normally about how their thoughts and prayers are not going to protect children? Because, you know, we online, it's like you're blasphemous. You know, you're a terror. Like, Mike Johnson gets up there and cries around like he's been under attack. And I'm like, if thoughts and prayers could fix gun violence, this would have never happened. But so how do you talk to somebody rationally? Because I can't be rational about it.

C (40:28)

I would tell them to actually read the Bible again and remember that Jesus didn't just pray, he also flipped tables. And they also, in the Bible, it says that. What is it? I'm trying to. I'm trying to remember the exact words. It's that prayers without works is dead. And so anybody who just acts like this is, you know, that thoughts and prayers are the answer to protecting our kids from gun violence. To like, look, if you have faith, that's fine. Pray all you want, but do the Work, too. The thing that one. There's a lot of stuff that really bothers me about this issue. Obviously, one of the things I've been thinking a lot about lately is like this idea that all of these guns just enable us to have freedom. I don't feel very free right now.

D (41:11)

Right.

C (41:12)

I don't think when somebody like Charlie Crook is able to be assassinated like that, that that makes us a more free country. Even if I vehemently agree, disagree with everything that he's ever said, it doesn't make us more free. And I think there's a real conversation that we need to have around the fact that democracy and political violence cannot coexist. And look at how many of our leaders throughout American history have been taken by this. And we still continue to have this conversation. And when are we going to say enough is enough? And it's not to say that we'll ever get to a place in this country where we have more guns than people and nobody is dying from gun violence. Right. But we can make significant progress on this. In states like Massachusetts, they have a gun death rate 70% lower than the rest of the country. You can still get a gun in Massachusetts, but it's a similar process to getting a car.

B (42:02)

Yeah. It's overwhelming. And I just can't thank you enough for your work because it's just. It's. After that impacted us, I mean, there's just. I think about this as you probably do. What happened at your high school, it just. It breaks a part of you, a part of me, a part of him. Being murdered broke something inside of me. But let's move on. And I want to play. Thank you for all of your information on that. But I want to play our game with you. Called had it or Hit it. Oh, my God. Welcome to had it or Hit It. I would hit it, had it. I hit it every day, sometimes twice a day. So. David Hogg. Had it or hit it. Twitter.

C (42:42)

I would not be on there if I didn't have to be. I hate social media with a passion I really like. I wish I could just be off of it forever.

B (42:49)

Okay. Had it or hit it.

C (42:51)

APAC had it. They need to go. They should not have any role in dictating our government's foreign policy. They're, I would argue, one of the largest foreign influence operations in American history. And they have been incredibly successful and it is fucking awful and they should not exist.

B (43:06)

I completely agree. I have been so hurt by the Democratic leadership after Trump's second term. And when you find out that this organization funded his reelection and then also funds Schumer and Jeffries.

C (43:31)

Yep.

B (43:32)

That is just insanity. It is complete insanity. And so they are just, by extension, MAGA Light. And once you start opening your eyes up to it, you see it again and again. And then you see. We had Zoran Momdani on our podcast.

C (43:48)

Hell, yeah.

B (43:49)

He's amazing.

C (43:50)

And he's great supporter of his. We were his largest financial supporter.

B (43:54)

I love that guy. And, you know, the thing about being on the left is you don't want. We don't require blind loyalty. You can agree with Zoron on, you know, a few things you can say, maybe he's too left for me, maybe he's not, whatever. But the fact that these New York politicians won't endorse him, it makes me so fucking mad, David. I just.

C (44:15)

Don't even get me started, because, like, what's crazy to me is the fucking dancing around in, like, the, like, circus of bullshit that they get into constantly. And it's like, like, like, it's like all the answers that Hakeem Jeffries is giving, it's like, like, give us a. Just. We know why. Right. Because you don't want to piss off your donors and you don't want to piss off aipac. That's it. That's it. It's not complicated. And instead, we see a situation where the vast majority of people in his congressional district voted for Zuron.

B (44:49)

Yeah.

C (44:49)

And if you're not listening to them, who are you listening to?

B (44:52)

You.

C (44:53)

Because it's not the people you represent.

B (44:55)

It's insane. And then I saw, after the disproportionate.

C (44:59)

Amount of converse, Let me just tell you, like, inside of D.C. because I'm in a lot of these conversations with different groups and everything about, like, oh, like, how do we support people that are going to win in these races and everything. The three questions I hear most often are, what is APAC doing? What is Crypto doing? And what is their last quarter's fundraising slash? How much money do they have on hand? That's it.

B (45:18)

It.

C (45:18)

It's not like, is this person a good person? It's not, oh, is this person actually going to help, like, be a good person in our party? Those are the three questions that I hear 95% of the time and basically nothing else. And it is incredibly depressing because an organization like APAC should not have a role in our politics. They shouldn't be legal. It is absolutely insane, the amount and the chokehold that they have on our part. And it is beyond time, more people start fucking saying it. Because there's a really good quote that I read the other day from James Baldwin, actually, that really I thought brought this forward because it made me think about AIPAC and the NRA and why they have persisted for so long. And in this quote in one of his works called the Fire Next Time, it's one of his most prolific works, he's talking about the Holocaust and how it happened. And he says one of the mistakes that people make when they're thinking about the Holocaust is that people think that it just required that people be evil or wicked rather, for it to happen. And for evil to happen, it doesn't require that people be wicked, only that they be spineless. And there are a lot of spineless people in our party, and there is a lot of spineless people in Washington. I call them wind socks, where they just go whichever way the wind is blowing. And the question is, are you going to be a windsock or are you going to make the wind? Are you going to try to make the wind blow? And we need to actually make sure that when people do the right thing, it is not only the right thing, but also politically the right strategy, because we know it is.

B (46:53)

Well, and this is what gets me, David. The Democratic approval rating is abysmally low. And this is the political climate where it would be so easy to be an opposition party. Like, I mean, the split screen of kanks with the bruises is rambling demented stuff with, you know, he, they. It looks like they put out an AI video the other day. I mean, I'm no AI expert, but it's what it looked like to me. So we've got this demented guy, wildly unpopular policies, has to have people, billionaires around him kissing his ass. It would be such a layup argument right now to take to working class Americans in suburban and rural areas and say, MAGA lied to you. They're Israel first, not America first. And start doing it over and over and over, over and over again. Super simple.

C (47:42)

Yeah.

B (47:43)

And because they're beholden to the same people, guess who's making this conversation right now? Grifter, anti Semite Marjorie Taylor Greene. And I'm shocked that she has that much ambition in her. But she hangs out with Steve Bannon, who is a political strategist, and they're all seeing beyond kanks. They're seeing like, okay, this guy's quacking like a duck. He's 80 years old. You know, we need to be thinking post MAGA strategy. And then I see like you said, Hakeem, and the word salad. Cory Booker and 25 Hours of Word salad, huh?

C (48:16)

And the strongly worded letters.

D (48:17)

Oh, my God, I can't take the strongly worded letters.

C (48:21)

Is that our strategy for November of 26 is just, just, just bury Republicans under a avalanche of strongly worded letters. Because that's what it feels like. Yeah.

B (48:31)

What do you think would happen? I mean, you're. And this is just an opinion, because I have my opinion about this. If the leadership came out and said, we're done with corporate donors, we're in the fight of our lives here, the Democrats aren't taking it anymore. I, Hakeem Jeffries, not Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker and others. And if you don't, if you continue to take him, we're going to primary you. What do you think would happen, Democratic support, if they started doing that and they started getting on camera all the time and really speaking in real terms about what's happening instead of all of the word salad stuff, have we.

C (49:08)

We could actually win?

B (49:09)

That's what I think.

C (49:11)

You know, like, but the reason why that's not going to happen is because these corporations fund a lot of the most powerful caucuses, like the Black Caucus and others in Washington, and help to spread that corruption. So that, and the problem with that is too, like, because I've thought about this myself, is that if we did that, that would be awesome. But the problem is when you have 200 plus Democrats in Congress, if you're going to have that kind of united message, you need a way of actually keeping them in line and not taking that corporate money, because all it takes is one or two of them for Republicans to be like, oh, my God, like, you're, you know, you're lying to the American people and stuff. And we would need to figure out a way to actually keep them in line. And I think what that would be is like threatening them with primaries and throwing down a couple million dollars to challenge them. But the problem is Democrats don't have the courage to actually do that and stand for anything. Anything other than just what we aren't. And that's the thing that pisses me off most about our party right now, is we just, it sounds like we, we are telling the, the message, I feel like we're telling the American people, especially young people, is like, hey, guys, we know, like, you're 10ft underwater right now. We're gonna bring you nine feet underwater. How's that? Does that feel better than 11ft? And it's like, you, I want to actually have my head above water. I want to be on shore. And I don't want you talking about how great it is being at nine feet because I'm still drowning. And if we don't give young voters and people of all ages an actual vision of what we are trying to build with a moral backbone for the future of this party and how we're going to stand up to special interests and build a government that works for the American people and not groups like AIPAC that are all these special influences, special interests that control our party. We're. If we don't do that because people are increasingly. They're gonna lose faith in us, and rightfully so, because we don't stand for anything. In that case, and I want to have a party, we should have a party that actually does stand for something. And that's why leaders we deserve exist is because we want to elect not just one, but a couple dozen Mr. Smith and Mrs. Smith who go to Washington and really shake shit up and show that doing the right thing is not only what you should be doing, but it's the politically smart thing to be doing doing. Because the American people are not dumb. They know that there's corruption. They know that our system in many senses is rigged and we are here to turn it around.

B (51:35)

That right there is why I think the Democratic polling is so bad. They are operating under the assumption that their base is dumb. And that works to an extent with MAGA because Trump just moves the goalposts. You know, we're for the. We're for Epstein release, nowhere against it. It's a witch hunt. They just, you know, like whatever he says they go along with. And the Democratic base is, I think, more inquisitive by nature, more fact seeking by nature. And when you, when I look at this, that we lost to a. Idiot. Idiot. A goddamn moron Donald Trump twice. Like. And then I see what their plan is right now and I see what the leadership is right now. That's when I really was like. Like, are you guys serious? Like, are you serious with your approach to this?

C (52:27)

I'll tell you that much.

B (52:28)

You what?

C (52:30)

Honestly, at this point, I'd rather have Pelosi than Jeffries.

B (52:32)

There's no question. She whipped everybody into shape like she believed in something.

C (52:37)

I don't agree with her on everything, but she got done. She didn't just write fucking strongly worded letters. She really held Trump's feet to the fire.

B (52:45)

She did. Remember when she ripped up a speech and then she patronizingly clapped at him. You know, there was. I don't. I didn't agree with her on everything, but she was an excellent, excellent speaker of the House. And you know what? She wasn't a pussy. And Hakeem just kind of is a pussy. And that's what bugs me about him. We've had him on the podcast, and I can see how in sound bites, it can. You know, it's like, okay, but now I'm just at the stage where every time he comes on my feed, I just am like, I wish somebody would primary him. And that's a really bad place to be when we're on the edge of just full. I don't even know where the edge anymore. We're in fascism now, you know, like, all we have is 20, 26 holding us together. And I just don't see leadership from him. I don't see it. I see when he pusses out on. On Zoron. To me, it's such a window into why the approval rating is so low.

C (53:42)

Yeah. Because we don't stand for anything. Like. Like, I think part of the reason why Trump is so popular, to be honest with you, as much as I disagree with him and don't like him, is because he obviously says what he thinks, even if he clearly contradicts himself, he clearly believes what he is saying, even if he is literally contradicting himself. And it is kind of remarkable that he is able to do that to that extent. But that is what American people want more than anything. They want somebody who says it like it is, even if they don't agree with.

D (54:11)

I agree.

C (54:11)

What's remarkable about Trump as a horrible person, to be clear, is that he is the most popular, like, President, he's incredibly popular, given how many unpopular stances he actually had. And it's because he says what he actually clearly believes in. And I think what we believe in in our party and a lot of our party's leadership is whatever's good at the moment for us. And it's like, that is not actually believing in something. That's just being spineless. That's because what I think people forget. I tell this to our candidates with leaders we deserve all the time. If you were compromising your values, like, let's say in Zoran's case, let's say, like, he started compromising on apac or he started compromising on other things, and then he got elected, is he actually winning? No. AIPAC is right. And I think that's what 99% of people in D.C. forget, that if you compromise your values to get to power, you don't actually win. Somebody else does. And I think that's a huge part of our problem, is that we're endlessly compromising our values in order to gain power. When the reality is the way that you gain power is you don't compromise your values and you figure out how to win, even if people say it's not going to be possible, like they did with Zoran.

D (55:24)

Yeah, no, I agree.

B (55:25)

No, I, I completely agree. And I think he is a canary in a coal mine. And I, you know, we're in Oklahoma, we're in a deeply red state, But I'm just going to tell you there, yes, Trump within the base is popular, but the people that are put off by him are moving further and further to the left. I went from, I went from a lib to far more progressive. Same with pumps. And then all these rich ass white women that I know whose husbands work in the oil and gas industry are like leftists now. Now I'm talking like rich ass former Republicans who are totally. And so the Democratic Party is not reading this at all. And women in particular do not want to go backwards. And we are hearing the misogyny coming out of this administration. And when you look to people like Hakeem and Chuck writing strongly worded letters when women in our state are having to drive to other states to get abortion care or they will die if they don't get it because the doctor's afraid of going to prison, and we're writing strongly worded letters and not endorsing a guy who won the Democratic primary. I am so mad about it. It makes me want to join your group and just primary all these from top to bottom, left to right, because I have had it, had it, had it. It makes me crazy.

C (56:44)

Well, the good news is we're making progress, right? Like, good. There was a situation where Lloyd Doggett was pro, possibly going to run again against Greg Kassar because they were drawn into the same congressional district. And we came out and said, said we are going to back Greg. Like we. Lloyd is amazing, to be clear, but he's been there for 30 plus years at this point. And we shouldn't spend a bunch of money fighting each other when there's a great progressive like Greg who can take his place. And then Lloyd, in a very mature way, to his credit, decided not to run again after saying that he was going to. And then Jerry Nadler just announced that he's not going to run again. Yeah, and part of what I hate about this is, like, there's a lot of really great older people who are deciding not to run again, and I'm glad that there are young people able to step up there. There's some not so great older people that we need not to run again that are going to be challenged by us with leaders we deserve Listener by.

B (57:37)

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D (59:13)

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D (60:04)

It's unbelievable. These old farts, I mean we have people dying. They know they have cancer, they're dying in lead and like what the fuck? If you're dying and have cancer and 150 years old, don't run again.

B (60:18)

It's just not that hard. How about this?

C (60:20)

How about this? It's like if you're. You cannot credibly tell me that democracy is in danger and the world is falling apart and all you're fucking doing is writing strongly worded letters. You can't credibly tell me that there is an authoritarian in the White House. But you don't want to talk about the fact that there are so many members of Congress that are so old they could not legally fly a commercial aircraft craft.

B (60:42)

Yeah.

C (60:42)

And act like that is okay. Completely.

B (60:45)

And here's one thing that, that, that is really off putting before we continue.

C (60:50)

Let me be really clear on that.

B (60:51)

Okay?

C (60:52)

Sorry to interrupt, but this is really important. There are lots of older people who are great, right? We see Bernie out there kicking ass, working his ass off and he is, he is not young by any means, but guess what? He's expanding the spotlight. He's raising up young people, people he is leading by example. We see people like Rosa in Connecticut, another great young older progressive who is getting shit done. Right. There are terrible young people who are trying to take money from APAC and say like, oh, I'm part of generational change, but really they have the same stances. A lot of these 80 year old blue Dog Dems and are taking money from apac. That's right. So there's terrible young people and there's great older people. What we're talking about with leaders we deserve is getting more fighters and less folders in this party regardless of their age.

B (61:38)

That's a really good point. And I want to bring up one other point that I want to talk to you about. One thing that bothers me right now about a lot of the people in the Democratic Party is this idea that I think we have to have credible messengers. And I'm going to use Cory Booker as an example for this. So Cory Booker can be a very impassioned, very gifted speaker. He evokes emotion in the listener and he has spoken about children being put in front of judges, immigrant children without lawyers that are six or seven with an interpreter and really good at social media, astute at social media and all of these things. And then when I, it's silence on Gaza silence. He cares about this kid, this kid, this kid, this kid, but not you. I don't care about you. I'm not going to talk about you. And then he does a photo shoot with Benjamin Netanyahu, who. And it also pisses me off that the same group want to hold us emotionally hostage and say, if you don't support Israel, then you're anti Semitic. And I've had too much therapy for that at 51 years old. Like, that's not how this works. The anti Semites are incubated in magic culture. You want to talk about anti Semites, look no further than the evangelical Christians that are prepping for the Rapture, that want the Jews in Israel so that then the, they can quickly send you to hell. And so the credible messenger, when I hear Corey speak about immigrant children, which I, I want to be with those kids, that's a fight that I want to, that's a fight that I want to unite with him on. But then it's crickets, crickets over a genocide that's happening in Gaza. Then nothing at that point, David, nothing that comes out of his mouth is credible to me because I think we have to have credible messengers in our part.

C (63:28)

Party. Exactly. And you know, I, I know as I say this, as I know a lot of the people we're talking about, that it's gonna be harder for me to have conversations with them. But I don't care if we can't talk, if we can't call. You know, they didn't call the Irish potato famine a genocide. That was a genocide that happened. That was human made and that was intentional. Right. A famine, like, is going on right now that is human made. It's not because we don't have food food. It's because they're not letting it in. And it is, we are, we are basically communicating to young people right now, like, okay, guys, we're the, we, we spent our whole time in 2018, 2020. Right. 22, talking about how, like, we're the morally superior people. Like, we, like, we do the right thing, we're for these values. And then all of a sudden we see a genocide that we enabled and we have nothing to stand on because people don't want to pick between, oh, well, they supported a genocide and the other side tried to overthrow the government and also supported a genocide. So I'm just going to support the, like, we don't want to. Voters are tired of picking between the least shitty of two options.

D (64:38)

Right?

C (64:39)

They Want to pick the best option. And I think as Democrats, the way that we do that is A, we grow fucking spine and we primary anybody that doesn't have that. And B, we actually do our damn job and acknowledge like, yeah, it's harder to be a Democrat. You know why? Because it's harder to make the government work than it is to intentionally make it fail and run. On the idea that it sucks and then make it suck after getting elected and then get reelected on the idea that the government that you broke sucks. Try to make government fucking work. And we have a long history of doing that. But guess what? It doesn't come from spineless people. It comes from people like FDR far who said, you know what? We're actually going to do things like the New Deal, and if the Supreme Court gets in the way, it, we'll expand it. And then all of a sudden the New Deal happens. Right? Because they tried to shut down the New Deal with the Supreme Court. He was like, you know what? Maybe you guys should have age limits. And then they're like, actually that New Deal thing is fine. Then on top of that, it's people like lbj, who I vehemently have a lot of problems with, to be clear, but clearly knew how to get shit done and build real power. Power and make shit happen. And that's how movements like the civil rights movement, through people like lbj, with the experience that he had starting when he was 28 years old in rural Texas, right, Starting out as a teacher, becoming a member of Congress at 28, worked his way up, gaining as much experience that he did, becoming a senator, then becoming the vice president, then the president. To be able to get so much done and be pushed from the left to actually pass really great policies and like the Civil Rights and Voting Rights act, like Medicare and Medicaid. And that is the party that we need to get back, get back to, is actually having people with the power to do the right thing so that we can get them elected and have our movements on the outside of our government push them to do the right thing. Similar to what happened with Joe Biden and on guns. Right. Historically, he's done a lot on guns, but because he has so much experience, we were still able to push him to get things done on guns.

B (66:32)

Yeah. You know, the thing about Joe Biden is his presidency will always go down as the presidency that didn't stop authoritarian takeover. And the failure of Merrick Garland is just a snapshot as to what is wrong with the Democratic Party. Absolutely. Democrats operate on Assumption politics. We assumed nobody would be crazy enough to vote for Donald Trump. Again, we assume all of these crazy white right wing conspiracy theories in this massive media echo chamber we don't need to respond to. Nobody in their right mind would think these crazy things. We have to address them. We have to say this is what they're talking about. This is how crazy they are. We need people in the DOJ that are pit bulls, not some French poodle lap dog like Merrick Garland was. And he should have released those Epstein files and passed him right over to Kamala because that's how serious this was. And Biden was a serious lifelong politician and there's things that he did that were good. Infrastructure, chip chips, act on and on. None of it means jack shit right now because you know what Trump's doing. He's been built by Donald J. Trump and all the rubes believe him. And we have a dictator. It's not. Are we on the precipice of this? We're in it. And he's going to do everything in his power to prevent 2026 from happening and. Or rig it, I think.

C (67:56)

Yeah, well, and also like for one, I don't know why we're acting surprised when, you know, we, we told our strategy last election cycle was to tell voters who told us three things, right? They said there's a genocide happening in Gaza. They said that prices are too high. And they said the President is too old. No, they aren't. We have to defend Israel at all costs and keep arming them. Then we said prices aren't high. Look at the stock market. Then we said the President's not old. Look at this speech that he gave at the State of the Union. If you tell voters not to leave their goddamn eyeballs and wallets with the force of $2 billion behind you, you are going to lose them. Especially when you put Kamala Harris. And look, she is not perfect by any means to be clear. But when you put her on a fucking glass cloth, Cliff, at the most critical moment in American history and give her all of these shittiest jobs, like being fucking border czar when you know there is a crisis there so that you can run for reelection and get give her all the shittiest issues to deal with when it became a real fucking liability for her and put her on that glass, cliff. And also as a party, we did that, we excommunicated basically anybody that dared to say maybe Joe Biden is too old to run again. Do you guys remember that?

B (69:20)

Yeah.

C (69:22)

We claim to not be A fucking cult. We sure as hell didn't act like it. We sure as hell acted like we were one leading up to that decision being made. And there is some real self evaluation that we have to do on that and hold true to the fact that, sure, Kamala Harris, absolutely, I don't think at that time was the right candidate, but we also put her in that position, that horrible position.

B (69:42)

And I want to say this about Kamala, and I think this is. Is important. Kamala is a lot more progressive than what the Democratic establishment made her run as when, you know, trotting around with Lesheny. Just like when Obama ran originally, he said, I'm not for gay marriage. And then he, quote, evolved. I really liked Kamala, but I felt like we should have had a robust primary. And I agree with you that she was kind of set up in this situation and did the best she could with the time that we had. But, you know, it's. It's really devastating to live with the ramifications of political strategists that live on the coast that have no idea what happens in the rest of the country. It's really frustrating.

C (70:27)

And think they can gaslight the country with enough money.

D (70:30)

Yeah, yeah.

B (70:31)

Last try to do it.

D (70:32)

So they think our last.

B (70:33)

Had it or hit it. Had it or hit it. The United States of America.

C (70:37)

I've had it with our lack of imagination and believing that the best is. Is. Is behind us for many people in this country and many Republicans that want us to believe that the best is. Is behind us. And that's what we need to go back to. And I would say I'd hit it because I think that time and time again, this country has proven people wrong. Right. We've. We've started out in an incredibly hard place where barely anybody in this country had any rights in the first place. And despite all of that, despite a civil war, despite so much more, we managed to actually, through democracy, in a long democratic process, expand it so that people could. And that is remarkable that we still exist at all. I. It kind of amazes me, to be honest with you, and is a huge source of inspiration for me of, like, what incredible things we could be capable of if we had a stronger Democratic Party, if we had people with a spine, if we did the right thing and didn't just do it once. It was the last resort. Right? And that's why I would say it's hit it. Because I think that the original idea of this country, our motto, e pluribus unum. Out of many, one is incredibly powerful. And I think with the right leadership, we can get through this. But it's going to take new people, it's going to take new blood. And what gives me hope, hope is that great generations are not born if, if studying history taught me anything, it's that they're made in the. In the crucible of awful circumstances and real challenges, right? And sure, you have the Neville Chamberlains of the world that are out there, but then you have other leaders that come up after them. And I'm very excited for those future leaders that are there to rise up and meet this moment. Because our generation knows, as a generation that I was born a year before 911 happened. I was raised through the wake of the financial crisis with my generation. Then we went through Covid. Then we went through all these school shootings and gun violence and climate crises and so much more. We as a generation, we as a generation have never truly seen our country united in any true sense or form at every turn. When it was time for us to be united, when it was time for us to come together against something like a pandemic, we turned against each other. It was a weak leadership. And I believe that soon, someday, maybe not this election, maybe not the next one, but sooner or later, a leader or a few leaders are going to rise to meet that moment and help bring this country back together. Because this generation has had it with the instability and weakness of what many of these politicians have brought us. And we don't want to be a generation that goes on to teach our kids how to live through school shooter drills because we know that it's possible. Joe Biden's generation, they didn't go through school shooter drills, but they did go through nuclear bomb drills. And that generation went on to pass some of the largest nuclear arms reduction treaties in human history. And I think for our generation, given the fact that the bomb for us is going off multiple times a week at this point, it feels like that we can do that too, but we just have to bring ourselves into power.

B (73:49)

I really like everything you have to say. I like you a lot. I like how feisty you are. Love it. Hit it. Haven't had it with David Hogg. I love that your generation has been done dirty, truly by so much of the American policies. And I'm glad that you're going to ringlead and, and you know, get the bull by the horns and get organized because it has to happen and it has to have people of your age group really pushing older people, like my co host here pumps Further to the.

D (74:21)

Four years younger than me.

B (74:24)

Thank you so much, David.

D (74:26)

Thanks, David.

C (74:26)

Thank you for having me.

B (74:28)

He's so. I like how feisty he is.

D (74:30)

I love how feisty he is.

B (74:32)

And I like. You know what I kept.

D (74:34)

I'm going to start using that, he says. The circus of bullshit.

B (74:39)

He said that and. But you know what made me sad, like, right towards the end when we hung up, like, he's here, like 17 of his teachers and classmates got murdered. And there's this whole generation that, you know, our government, our systems, our laws, the unrestrained capitalism. And now his life's work is this, which is totally commendable, but it didn't have to be the.

D (75:04)

No, it did not have to be this way.

B (75:05)

All right, listen, go buy our book. Life is a Lazy Susan of Shit Sandwiches. We have no idea where it is. Oh, I hear it is now. We found it. Found it. It's a great way to support Pumps and me. And we will see you all when.

D (75:18)

Pumps see you next Tuesday and Thursday.

B (75:23)

I'll tell you what I've had it with. I've had it with that. 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.

D (75:49)

We are on all the available platforms. Apple, Spotify, Google, whatever you get your.

B (75:53)

Podcast and YouTube, 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? Caca. A little bit more enthusiasm. That's it. That's, that's, that's the patriotism that this country needs right there.