The DEMS need a HOSTILE TAKEOVER - Cenk Uygur

Summary

Keeping It Real: Conversations with Jillian Michaels
Episode: The DEMS need a HOSTILE TAKEOVER - Cenk Uygur
Release Date: February 28, 2025

In this compelling episode of "Keeping It Real," Jillian Michaels engages in a candid and intense discussion with Cenk Uygur, the founder and host of The Young Turks. Known for his unfiltered commentary on politics, media, and corporate influence, Cenk brings a wealth of insight into the current state of American political discourse. Together, they delve deep into topics ranging from media bias and systemic corruption to populism and social issues, offering listeners a thorough examination of the challenges facing the nation.

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1. Introduction to Political Turmoil

Jillian Michaels opens the conversation by expressing concern over the growing sense of apocalyptic fear among her close acquaintances, likening their mindset to dystopian narratives like The Handmaid's Tale. She shares a troubling social media post featuring Elon Musk and Steve Bannon, sparking a discussion on the alarming rise of extremist sentiments.

Notable Quote:
"[00:44] Jillian Michaels: ...my wife sent it to me, because we both can't. I want to. I'm saying this to you because I need some perspective."

2. Democrats' Overreaction and Fear of Authoritarianism

Cenk Uygur addresses the immediate and intense reactions from Democratic voters, who perceive threats like gulags and Nazi-like behaviors from their political opposition. He highlights how both major political parties contribute to this climate of fear and division.

Notable Quote:
"[03:18] Cenk Uygur: There’s so many things that go into that one topic... They're going to say, 'Oh, then okay, then you're a collaborator.'"

3. Media Bias and Cancel Culture

The conversation shifts to the role of mainstream media in perpetuating biases and misinformation. Cenk criticizes both left-leaning and right-leaning media outlets for their manipulative practices, arguing that they serve corporate interests rather than the public good.

Notable Quote:
"[11:30] Cenk Uygur: ...the corporatists that run mainstream media... They have the biggest, most central lies that creates this entire theater that we're seeing."

4. Systemic Corruption Across the Political Spectrum

Both hosts examine the entrenched corruption within both the Democratic and Republican parties. Cenk points out how political donations from wealthy donors and corporations influence policy decisions, often to the detriment of the average American.

Notable Quote:
"[24:11] Cenk Uygur: So all my life I've had these clownish Democratic Party officials and mainstream media tell me, 'Oh, yeah, Mitch McConnell's donors are evil.'"

5. Economic Policies and Corporate Influence

The duo discusses the impact of tax cuts and economic policies favoring the wealthy and corporations. Cenk critiques the notion of trickle-down economics, emphasizing that such policies exacerbate income inequality without benefiting the broader population.

Notable Quote:
"[30:04] Cenk Uygur: ...the overwhelming majority of those tax cuts are going to go to corporations and the very, very rich."

6. Immigration and Social Policies

Jillian raises concerns about stringent voting laws and their potential impact on marginalized communities. The discussion touches on the broader implications of such policies, including the portrayal of these measures as modern-day gulags.

Notable Quote:
"[34:25] Jillian Michaels: There'll be documentation... because I change your name and you're married and it doesn't match your birth certificate. It's a problem."

7. Policing, Crime, and Criminal Justice Reform

Cenk and Jillian explore the complexities of policing reforms and their unintended consequences. They highlight instances where changes in law enforcement policies have led to increased crime rates, questioning the effectiveness of such reforms.

Notable Quote:
"[70:14] Jillian Michaels: So they do no time. Right. Which is why."

8. Populism vs. Establishment Politics

A significant portion of the conversation is dedicated to the rise of populism as a response to establishment politics. Cenk advocates for a hostile takeover of both parties to replace corrupt establishment figures with genuine populist leaders who prioritize the needs of the average citizen.

Notable Quote:
"[94:12] Cenk Uygur: ...a populist wing is the correct wing, whether you’re on the right or the left. If you go corporate, that’s the same old uniparty that’s been robbing us blind."

9. Transgender Issues in Sports and Society

The hosts engage in a heated debate over transgender policies in professional sports. Cenk argues against the inclusion of transgender athletes, citing concerns about fairness and safety, while Jillian emphasizes the broader implications of such policies on societal norms and individual rights.

Notable Quote:
"[88:32] Cenk Uygur: So when we got...we're not going to deport people and arrest people for disagreements."

10. Hope for Political Reform and Future Directions

In the concluding segments, Cenk and Jillian discuss pathways to political reform and the importance of supporting populist candidates who can challenge the entrenched corrupt systems. They emphasize the need for voters to seek unbiased news sources and prioritize policies that have widespread public support.

Notable Quote:
"[93:53] Jillian Michaels: I’m holding out hope."
"[94:54] Jillian Michaels: This is a winner."

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Conclusion

This episode of "Keeping It Real" serves as a robust critique of the current American political landscape, highlighting the deep-seated issues of media bias, systemic corruption, and the failings of both major political parties. Jillian Michaels and Cenk Uygur advocate for a transformative approach to politics, emphasizing the necessity of populist leadership and genuine policy reforms to address the needs of the average American. Their conversation underscores the urgency of dismantling entrenched power structures and fostering a more equitable and transparent political system.

Listeners are encouraged to engage critically with their news sources, support candidates who prioritize the public good over corporate interests, and remain hopeful in the face of pervasive political challenges.

Transcript

[Jillian Michaels]

Today we have a guest who's never been afraid to shake things up. Cenk Uygur. Now, you probably know him as the founder and the host of the Young Turks, which is one of the largest news networks in the world. But he's also a Wharton School of Business grad. An attorney turned political commentator, Cenk has built a reputation for his no holds barred takes on politics, media, and corporate influence. And today, we're gonna touch on all of those and more. You might fight, we might hug, we might do both. So buckle up. Keeping it real with Jillian Michaels. Jillian Michaels. Jenky, how are you?

[Cenk Uygur]

I'm great. How you doing, Jillian?

[Jillian Michaels]

I'm doing. I'm not. Actually, not great. I mean, to be honest, not great. I have a million questions for you, but there's something that I want to start out with, and I am seeing this everywhere. So, friends, people really close to me are actually experiencing what they perceive as an apocalypse, and they think they're part of the resistance. Like, it's the Handmaid's Tale. And a friend of mine. I can't even believe a close friend posted this the other day, and my wife sent it to me, because we both can't. I want to. I'm saying this to you because I need some perspective. If you're experiencing this as a person who leans left or if you think this is as crazy as I think it is, this is a really brilliant man, very successful businessman. Posts a picture, which I'll throw up, of Elon Musk. My heart goes out to you, this move, Right? And then a Steve Bannon move.

[Cenk Uygur]

I'll.

[Jillian Michaels]

Steve Bannon scares the crap out of me. So I'm not a Steve Bannon fan, but I don't think he's a Nazi. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think so. How long will it take for all of Trump's biggest supporters to publicly do the Nazi salute? We have two caught on camera in public appearances. All right, hang on. In public speeches. Can you imagine how often they're doing them behind the scenes? Is it just at the beginning of every meeting, before formal introductions, at the coffee break, late at night, when they dress up and play out their deepest fantasies? What would our grandfathers, the greatest generation who did everything they could to kill as many Nazis as possible, have to say about this? At first, I thought this was a parody that he was like, come on, guys, this is silly. Stop.

[Cenk Uygur]

Mm.

[Jillian Michaels]

And you could talk to any person I know on the left, and they are kind of quietly believing that we're. We've hit Armageddon.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah.

[Jillian Michaels]

And what's really upsetting about it though is in this election I did vote for Trump simply because what I want to talk to you about, some of the things on the left I found more scary. That said, is this as deranged as I think it is or are you like. Yeah, they're all.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, so there's so many things that go into that one topic. So let me start and, and, and get into it. So first of all, are the Democrats, did the Democratic side, the actual voters, start overreacting immediately? Yes. Right from minute one they were like, that's it, the gulags are coming. They're full blown Nazis. We're gonna, you know, they're gonn for the Chinese, they're going to camp for this, camps for that, etc, and they're absolutely convinced of it. And if I say that guys, the gulags are less likely. They're like, oh, then okay, then you're a collaborator.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yes. You're, you're right wing extremist.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. You're a right wing extremist. I'm like, no, I live in the reality based world as you're about to see in this ex longer explanation of what's happening. Right. So the freak out begins, no question. And I was surprised at the severity of it. And the reason that I didn't see it fully coming is because I stopped watching mainstream media a long time ago.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

And what I didn't realize was that the MSNBCs of the world had become radicalized. And so it wasn't just online shows with some radical hosts, et cetera. It was like Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow, et cetera, right into the main vein of Democratic voters going, no, they're gonna round all of you up. Which is actually similar to what Trump and those guys do when they say, oh, when they're going for Trump, they go after Trump because he stole the documents and put him in a Mar a Lago bathroom. They're not going after Trump, they're going after you. So you should be really afraid and you should really hate the other side. Right. And it riles up the hatred and the fear.

[Jillian Michaels]

It's worse than ever, I think.

[Cenk Uygur]

So I was expecting fear at around, I don't know, 70, 80 on a scale of 0 to 100. And it, the fear out of the gate was 200.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

Out of 100. Right. It was unbelievable. So now having said that, it is not just out of thin blue air. Right. So the right wing will be like, ah, they just have. They have tds. Trump Derangement Syndrome. It's nonsense. It's fabricated. No, wait, there are no gulags right now. So that part is not. Yes. Right. And. And here I'll give you another example of where it's hike. So Trump says, I'm going to take the. Some of the undocumented immigrants and I'm going to put them in Guantanamo Bay. Okay, so that's a terrible idea. I know it's a lawless area, that's not the American way, et cetera. But Joe Biden already had a plan to put undocumented immigrants in Guantanamo Bay.

[Jillian Michaels]

And the cages were originally Obama's. And Clinton deported 12 million, and Obama deported 3 million. No one has deported 1 million.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, no one has deported more than Barack Obama. And that cuts in both directions. For the right wing who thought, oh, the Democrats don't do anything. Wait a minute, Obama deported more than Trump. Like, way more. Right. And for the Democrats who think deporting people is Nazi, you know, a Nazi thing to do, well, then, is Obama ten times the Nazi? Trump is. And Biden did a contract with a private contractor to build that, to reuse that base in Gitmo for undocumented immigrants. So if Trump is a Nazi, who's starting that Gitmo Gulag, then you have to confess that Joe Biden was the original Nazi who started that gulag. Because it's not even Trump's contract, it's Biden's contract to do that facility, use that facility for that purpose. So, okay, so those are the two sides. But so are there real things to be concerned about, as it turns out? And this is not surprising to me, and this is why I voted against Trump.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay. Yes. So when Trump says MSNBC should be shut down because they're lying, what is that? That's not freedom of speech. That's cancel culture. So that's saying, hey, I'm a politician, and I'm gonna take away your constitutional rights to criticize me. And then the right wing will say, well, no. Well, they shouldn't be allowed to lie, brother. Do you know how often Fox News has lied? Do you have any.

[Jillian Michaels]

I totally agree. Okay. Then I put. I see what you're saying. Right. And then I'm going to see you as though we're playing cards here. I'll see you. The taking away of the First Amendment for medical misinformation, which all turned out to be true. It did come from a lab. The mask thing wasn't needed. Ivermectin was relatively Effective as a therapeutic for the first strain of COVID That, to me, was scarier than what you're talking about, shutting down msnbc, which is why I voted for him, not her.

[Cenk Uygur]

So I.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yes and no, but keep going.

[Cenk Uygur]

No, no, no. That's a great question. So. Yes and no. Here's what I mean.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yes, on. I agree with you. They should not have shut that information down. So I'm in a unique position where I'm criticizing the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. So this is why I love you. Well, thank you. And. And, you know, and some people are going, oh, that's honest, and that's good. And others hate it. They're like, no, you have to tell me. One side is always right, and the other side is always wrong and evil. Right. So in this case, no. The Wuhan Lab, I was like, wait, an outbreak happened right next to one of the top virology labs in the world? That is enormously unlikely. Right. That it was natural. But then all the scientists seemed to be putting out a paper saying, no, no, it really came from the lab. So in the very beginning, I was like, I guess if all the scientists say that it came from the lab, then you found out later it wasn't all the scientists. It was a couple of scientists and the Lancet Journal or whichever, you know, very seriously.

[Jillian Michaels]

The wet market, that was nature and that was Fauci.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. And they should not have run that, and they certainly should not have done the propaganda that it was all scientists agree, because all scientists did not agree. And then we found out. Yeah, of course it was from the. I mean, look, we don't know for 100% yet, but it is very, very, very likely that it was from the virology lab that the virus broke out. So, like, I hate it when they insult our intelligence. Like Joe Biden's young and dynamic guys. We got eyes and ears like, he is not within a million miles of young and dynamic. And you sound ridiculous. But what was amazing, Jillian. And that goes to. To, And. And remember, whenever I say something, it also applies to the other side.

[Jillian Michaels]

I want all of it. This is why I, like, I need your voice now. Because I'm feeling heartbroken that half the people in my life quietly think I'm a Nazi or something.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah.

[Jillian Michaels]

I'm like, I have 33% Ashkenazi Jew, which you and I quietly discussed. Might mean I'm part Turkish as well. But, like.

[Cenk Uygur]

So. So the problem isn't the left or the right voters. The problem is the bubbles that they're in and where they believe that they're totally right and they're not getting information about, like, what's wrong with their point of view or their facts, et cetera. So this election was amazing because I couldn't believe that super smart, super educated people on the Democratic side could not see that Joe Biden had was in mental decline. Like, how could you not see it? He's shaking hands with a person who isn't there. He did this with an invisible person. He's saying that his uncle was eaten by cannibals. He said that we. And then we get to the debate and he says, we defeated Medicare. And his brain falls out of his ear. And even then, a giant portion of Democrats are like, nope, I don't see it. Totally fine. He's the best candidate. I'm like, if that's the best candidate the Democrats have, then the Democratic Party's done, finito, right? So, so on the left, they could not see the most obvious things in the world, right? But on the right, that's also true. So when Trump does everything that he. That the right wing fought against, right? So they hate cancel culture. And Trump starts saying, if the news outlet is saying some things I don't like or I'm calling a lie, I should be able to sue them, get money in my pocket for. And I'm like, guys, this is a politician saying the press shouldn't be allowed to criticize them.

[Jillian Michaels]

What if Trump wins in the.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay, Jake. Okay, so listen, number one, I need to get this through to everybody's heads. I hate that the media lies. My whole career is structured around telling the truth to the best of my ability and pointing out the lies of all the different sides. And by the way, we haven't even talked about the biggest liars, which is the corporatists that run mainstream media.

[Jillian Michaels]

I can't wait to get that.

[Cenk Uygur]

They have the biggest, most central lies that creates this entire theater that we're seeing. Okay? So my job is to defeat those lies. But if you say a politician gets to decide what is a lie and what is not a lie and gets to say, I'm either shutting that place down because they lied about me, or I demand a financial penalty or a financial reward for me because they lied about me, what will the politicians do? The very first thing they'll do is they're all lying. That's it. You're not allowed to criticize me. Any criticism is a lie. And now you're shut down. And the minute they shut one outlet down, everybody's going to then panic and go, okay, the politicians are the best. Yay, politicians. And remember, it's not just for Republicans. Once you set the precedent, then Democrats get to come out and go, anyone who says Joe Biden is old is lying. Because. And you say, oh, come on, they can't do that. No, no, no. What they'll say is, you don't know that he has dementia. You don't have a medical record saying he has dementia. Anyone who hints that he has dementia or is in cognitive decline, that's it. You're shut down, maybe arrested, and you owe Joe Biden money for saying that he's in mental decline because you're lying.

[Jillian Michaels]

Question. If it's defamatory. So I was actually just having a similar conversation with Bill Maher the other night at dinner asking, like, what do you feel about him going after different media outlets? And he said with one, I believe it was George Stephanopoulos, correct me if I'm wrong, had called him a rapist. And he said that wasn't what he was accused of. They're very different things. And that's defamatory. I agree with that one. I was like, okay. And then Bill said, cbs, he's like, everybody manip. It's editing. They all manipulate interviews. This terrifies me because I'm in the media. This is crazy. Is there a continuum, though? Because as public figures, I've experienced the craziest lies. They do it really well, though. There was an article where, in the New York Post where it said that somebody I dated when I was 20 said I spit on people. Now, I could sue the person who supposedly I dated when I was 20 years old because they were reporting the story, but if they said I spit on someone, I could sue them, because that's not true. That I want to reserve the right towards because as a public figure, there are so many lies, and it actually is very effective. That said, you know, when you're. Where is that line, though? I see what you're saying. Is there any scenario where you're for holding these guys accountable?

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So, in fact, this was the left wing position until the right wing started adopting it because of Trump, which is that no free speech is not absolute. And so you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. And you also can't defame people. So if you take a random person and you say they're a pedophile when they're not a pedophile, and then the whole country thinks they're a pedophile. Yeah, you're gonna owe Them a lot of that's defamation and that is not legal. Okay, so now the legal standard is correct in my opinion, that for a public figure like us and politicians, it's a higher standard. You have to prove actual malice. Not only did they lie about him, but they lied on purpose to hurt them. Okay, now why is it a higher standard? Because otherwise, again, the people in power, powerful media figures, powerful politicians, again, remember, always shoe on the other foot. What if it's a Democrat? What if it's a Republican? Right?

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

Those powerful people would be able to. Well, I think that's a lie, you know, and I could prove it around the edges. Or maybe it is a lie and I get to own them. I get to take all of their money. That would give the politicians way too much power. Okay, so. And they would abuse it instantly. And Trump is already abusing it. Okay, okay. And then the Democrats would go, well, Trump abused it. I'm going to abuse it 10 times more. Right?

[Jillian Michaels]

Yep.

[Cenk Uygur]

So for example, on the CBS1, the Mars absolutely right. Everyone does editing to say that I didn't like your edit. I thought her longer answer made her sound a little worse. Are you kidding me? Okay, Fox News has edited things. A right wing media online, left wing media online, etc. Every part of media does some sort of edit. And so then, okay, that's it, that I own you guys. The politicians get to then steal your business because they say, I didn't like the way you edited. Insanity. Insanity. Okay, so we definitely cannot have that. That is super dangerous.

[Jillian Michaels]

And they're all.

[Cenk Uygur]

And that is cancel culture when they say I'm going to cancel you because I didn't like the way you edited. I didn't like what you said then. Then Elon came out and was talking about how 60 Minutes, he didn't like something they said. And he's like, maybe we should arrest their reporters. No, brother, no. I mean, it doesn't get any more.

[Jillian Michaels]

Cancel culture than arrested arrest the reporters. Okay, so see, this is the part that I missed. Okay, Yeah, I wanna listen.

[Cenk Uygur]

That's why we need to have these conversations. So on the Stephanopoulos one. Look, I wouldn't look, I have had the most outrageous lies told about me by every single part of the media ecosystem. And I've never sued for defamation. So like that. Oh, he did sexual assault, but not rape. And he called it rape, even though by some legal definitions it is rape. I would say, hey, I wouldn't have called it rape. Okay, but that's a very, very defensible argument. And you're going to say that was actual malice and there's no way they would approve that in court. ABC just panicked and was like, okay, here's money. And that money's going into Trump's pocket. I mean, they're saying he's going to go through some charities where his, you know, people that are allies of his work, etc. Etc. But some of it goes straight to his pocket. So now politicians are making money off of saying, you're not allowed to criticize me. No way. Look, Jillian, okay, okay.

[Jillian Michaels]

I want to play. I want to play devils. I actually want to give you the part of me that I feel like when I walk. Listen, she Kamala beat Trump in that debate 100%. Nobody does selling better than Shopify. Home of the number one checkout on the planet. With shop pay that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts are going abandoned and way more sales are going on. So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in the store, in their feed, and honestly, everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. So upgrade your business and get the same checkout. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com Jillian all lowercase go to shopify.com Jillian to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com Jillian who doesn't love the good things in life? I mean, even though I enjoy a little luxury, it doesn't mean I always want to pay for it. And then I discovered Quince, my go to for luxury essentials at a full affordable prices. Quince offers a range of high quality items at prices that are within reach, like 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters for 50 bucks, washable silk tops and dresses, organic cotton sweaters, 14 karat gold jewelry. By partnering directly with top factories, Quince cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes the savings on to us. And the best part is that all Quint's Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes, which I love. I mean I personally love. The sheets are amazing and you don't have to spend 500 bucks on them. So give yourself the luxury you deserve with quince. Go to quince.com Jillian for free shipping on your orders and 365 day return. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com Jillian to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Jillian when you watch the JD Vance Tim Walls debate, I feel like that's a fairer one to default to. He's like, we agree there's no fact checking. You're facting. Check. You're fact checking me, but you're not fact checking him. And my point here simply is that in I have no question that the vast majority of the media leans left and they do rig the game a little bit. So there's a part of me that's like, I hope you learn your lesson. And it's like a little like, ah, smack. Stop that shit. I know that's wrong. Tell me it's wrong. Yeah, but I just, I find it to be so unfair because there's like Fox and Breitbart and Newsmax over here and everything else.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah.

[Jillian Michaels]

And they all lean left. Chank. Why do I do this to you? I'm saying for mispronounces it. So now why do they lean left?

[Cenk Uygur]

J so okay, that one is also complicated. The. So they actually there's two different things. There's social issues and economic issues. So on social issues, the mainstream media leans left and the reporters are left. Etc. By the way, the thing we never talk about, there's a different layer, which is the executives. The executives are massively right wings and they're not socially right wing. Okay? And maybe some of them are, but that's not the issue when you get into the other half economic issues. And it's not even fair to call them right wing. To be fair. They're corporatists, okay? They're not really right or left. And so they will say things like, the central lie of mainstream media is the politicians are honest people who are having genuine debates.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay?

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay. No, they're actors and they have been given a script by the donors and they do exactly as they are told. They're the servants. They're not powerful, they're not intellectuals. They're not having ideological debates. They have no ideology at all. Their ideology is who signed my check. So if Lockheed Martin signed it, I work for Lockheed Martin, by the way, if Israel signed it, I work for Israel. If the pharmaceutical companies signed it, I work for them. Okay? So when Stephanopoulos and all the rest of them get out there and do their silly theater where they're like, oh, what does Lindsey Graham think? Oh, what does Senator Coons from Delaware think? They don't think anything. And so you're. I can show you, first of all, in, in politics, 95% of the time in Congress, whoever has more money wins.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right?

[Cenk Uygur]

So, so that leads to two things. Number one, it doesn't matter if you're a Republican or a Democrat. It doesn't matter if you're on the left or right. It doesn't matter what any of your policies are. The only thing that matters is who has more money. And you'll win 19 out of 20 times if you have more money. So now that leads to the second fact. If you watch mainstream media, that overwhelming fact, the thing that controls 95% of politics is never discussed. It's as if the donors don't exist. It's as if they didn't buy those elections, which they most certainly did buy. Right. And so, and then when you point that out to mainstream media, they're like, how dare you? It sounds. I had a reporter once tell me it was conspiratorial.

[Jillian Michaels]

Stop.

[Cenk Uygur]

That people would work for the folks who are giving them millions of dollars. I'm like, it's conspiratorial to think that they wouldn't work for the person who gave them millions of dollars.

[Jillian Michaels]

But you see it in real time. I could even cite examples I've heard you mentioned about Trump. But if, okay, so then let's default one more time. I looked at how much money she raised versus how much he raised. I was more afraid of who donated to her than I was of who donated to him. Which is a like, well, I've got Soros and Bill Gates and Reid Hoffman and. And then it's like, you've got Elon Musk and this Adelstein guy. I'm like, this one. And the Twitter TikTok guy. And I was like, odds. These guys are less scary to me.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. At some point we have to pick people who are not wedded to these donors. And I don't give a damn if it's Soros or Musk and this. So look, I give you that too. And I want to come back to all these topics that we set up.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay?

[Cenk Uygur]

So all my life I've had these clownish Democratic Party officials and mainstream media tell me, oh, yeah, Mitch McConnell's donors are evil. Of course, they're terrible. They're corporate goons and the Koch brothers, et cetera.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

But the left wing donors who are also giant corporations, people who run giant corporations, billionaires, et cetera, they're angels. Get the fuck out of here. Right. Like, come on, are you serious? And the thing is, I would go on NPR and they were dead serious and they were outraged that I would say that Nancy Pelosi is corrupt.

[Jillian Michaels]

Oh, she's horribly corrupt.

[Cenk Uygur]

They don't think. And that's what I mean by the bubbles in the NPR bubble.

[Jillian Michaels]

No, you're right.

[Cenk Uygur]

They find that to be an outrageous right wing conspiracy theory. And I'm like, guys, guys, guys, guys, let me get this right. Mitch McConnell takes a billion dollars in donations throughout his career and you guys condemn it, right? Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Nancy Pelosi takes a billion dollars from corporate donations. Very. And by the way, a lot of times the same exact people. In fact, SpaceX and Palantir, big right wing donors. This just gave two and a half million dollars to the Democratic Party. Okay, why? They're buying both sides.

[Jillian Michaels]

Of course, of course.

[Cenk Uygur]

If you want to win, you buy both sides.

[Jillian Michaels]

Like a roulette and you put chips all over the board.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. And so I'm like, so Pelosi, you're telling me, is not corrupt, even though she did the same exact thing as Mitch McConnell that you just called corrupt. And even though that is an inarguable point, they go, no, you sound like a right wing radical. Oh, okay. Jesus Christ, man. Jesus Christ. Okay, so now though, okay, so now that you've like, understand how crazy that sounds, now I'm having the right wing tell me, no, George Soros is evil. And all the Democratic donors are evil and self interested, but our donors are angels. And our billionaires, Jeff Yaz, Peter thiel, Elon Musk, etc. They would never be interested in money for themselves.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

They're doing this out of the goodness of their heart. Swear to God. Exactly what Democrats say about George Soros. They're like, no, Soros is just doing it out of the goodness of his heart. And he's not like the other guys and yada yada. So both sides, you're in bubbles. The donors of course, want their own self interest. I mean, look, I asked Elon Musk on Twitter and this got a lot of attention. Hey, put me in, coach, I'll, I'll cut defense. Right? And so. And he said, oh yeah, let's cut, et cetera.

[Jillian Michaels]

And you sat with him and.

[Cenk Uygur]

No, I didn't. No, we just had talked back and forth online.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right, okay.

[Cenk Uygur]

And then Don Jr comes in and says, okay, let's cut. And it sounds really good. And then Pete Hegseth gets confirmed and he says, we're cutting 8% per year. That's about 50 billion a year over five years. Not as much as I wanted. Not as much as Maga wanted, but overall, over five years, $250 billion. I'm like, okay, I don't. I'm super skeptical. I offered it, thinking there's no way they're going to do it. Right. And then what did it turn out? Then he says, well, we're not really cutting. We're going to take that 50 billion a year and we're going to reallocate it. Now, they didn't say what they're going to reallocate it to yet, specifically.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

I would be shocked if it wasn't Palantir and Space X and Starlink. Okay, so, so wait. But even if it. Because that hasn't happened yet. If you're skeptical and go, hey, jank that you're buyers, but no problem.

[Jillian Michaels]

Say your bias there. I would ask you about cuts in other areas, which I plan to do when we talk. But if it's. Do it now. Do wherever it's appropriate.

[Cenk Uygur]

So now, if so, we'll see with our own eyes though, right? If it does go to them and they. Then you go, oh, I need you to go, oh, I see. I was in a bubble and they told me this thing that was just marketing and it wasn't real. But even before you get there, we already know they're not actually cutting, they're reallocating.

[Jillian Michaels]

So order just the Pentagon.

[Cenk Uygur]

At the Pentagon.

[Jillian Michaels]

Got it.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay. At the Pentagon.

[Jillian Michaels]

I understand.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay. So then it just got way worse yesterday. So the Republicans then pass a budget in the House. Everything else is marketing. Budget is real because that's where the money is.

[Jillian Michaels]

Got it. Okay.

[Cenk Uygur]

They increase defense spending by $100 billion.

[Jillian Michaels]

So not only did they not cut.

[Cenk Uygur]

They didn't cut, they increased it. Okay. And then they're going to have to reallocate to God knows where. Okay. And that's a different thing. They're reallocating, but they're adding a new $100 billion. So it was never true. It was never true. I knew they were going to do giant tax cuts for the rich. That's what they always do. That's what the unit party always does. And I get it. The right wing has this great faith and hope in Trump. Why I understand it when other Democrats and other people on the left don't. The reason is because he's against the establishment and the elites.

[Jillian Michaels]

I was gonna say you're a populist. He's anti establishment.

[Cenk Uygur]

That's why people, in their desperation. Look, I give the Republican voters a lot of credit, and that's why some on the left hate me. For doing that. So what do I give them credit on? They saw corruption within their own party before the Democrats saw it in their party. So they noticed Mitch McConnell was corrupt and they started saying uniparty. Wait, these guys are working together. Exactly right. They're doing good cop, bad cop on you with the Republican establishment and Democratic establishment. They're doing good cop, bad cop on you with MSNBC and Fox News.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yep.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay. And whenever there's an economic issue, they always agree. Don't give it to the average American, give it to the very top and have it trickle all over everyone else. Okay. MSNBC agrees with that. They pretend not to agree with that, but they do agree with that and so does Fox News. So. So we'll get back to them. But it's good cop, bad cop. It's all a mirage. The budget is real. And what happened? $4.5 trillion in tax cuts that they just voted yes on those tax cuts. And you. The details are not laid out yet. They're going to go to committees to lay out the details.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Cenk Uygur]

And what you're going to see in those details is the overwhelming majority of those tax cuts are going to go to corporations and the very, very rich.

[Jillian Michaels]

Can I ask a question? So would if I again was to play devil's advocate, what about this whole, I mean, you went to Wharton Business School, so. I'm a college dropout. I have a hard time pushing back on you here. But wouldn't that whole Reagan trickle down economics thing have some legitimacy?

[Cenk Uygur]

It's never ever worked. It's just a marketing gimmick. Because when you. So what? They're doing it right now. They're doing the same exact thing. So they say, yeah, we're gonna give four and a half trillion to the rich. But, but first of all, they always put in something that sounds populist.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Cenk Uygur]

Like for example, Trump offered up no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, et cetera. Is that in the bill so far? No. Okay, we'll see. Maybe they'll put it in, but if they were smart, they'd put only one of them in that was the least expensive. Like maybe no tax on tips. Right. And then they'll make it seem like the four or the whole four and a half trillion. Is that. No, that'll be a tiny, tiny percentage of it. And the lion's share will go to the very top. Okay. That's what happens in every bill and to the Democrats is I'm telling you how the Republicans are planning on robbing you right now. Okay. And that Trump at the end is actually just serving his own donors and himself. But Democrats don't get too happy because now I'm gonna tell you an amazing story that almost no Democrat knows why mainstream media kept it from them. So, but you can go confirm it. There were articles written, but no one talked about it after they wrote the articles. So in Obama's term, the rich had a problem, the donor class had a problem. Bush had passed these giant tax cuts for the rich and even bigger than Trump's, but they had to have a 10 year sunset, otherwise they couldn't pass. So now they needed them to become permanent.

[Jillian Michaels]

So the Obama administration needed them to.

[Cenk Uygur]

Become permanent, the donor class needed them become permanent. And they own both parties.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right, Yes, I understand.

[Cenk Uygur]

So now they got the good cop in Obama. So they go to Obama and they go, bush couldn't make them permanent. We need you to make them permanent. Because they'll lower their guard and they'll think you're the good guy. So Biden, I'm sorry, Obama then sends Biden to negotiate with Mitch McConnell. And Biden and McConnell are two of the most corrupt politicians we've ever had in American history.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay, I'm just, just a sidebar for a second. Everyone's like, Trump's so corrupt. I'm like, biden is just as corrupt. And then I'm picking which one I think is more corrupt than I thought Biden was. But yeah, let's go get go.

[Cenk Uygur]

So I, I'll explain why I think Trump is. But. But yes. Oh, my God. We're screwed either way. Okay. And I'm gonna, at the very, at least at the end, we have to talk about hope and how we can get past this. Of course.

[Jillian Michaels]

But I'm trying to, I'm trying to. There's such a disconnect, Cenk. It's like people think that the people who voted for Trump are Nazis. And I'm thinking you have no. We're choosing between evils. And I, I feel like at my pendulum there, there was less with Trump. And I'm also a health person. I mean, you saw all of that and why that unfolded. And so, so I have a bias leaning in that direction and what have you. But just, I was just talking to a friend and she brought this up and she feels that this save act where you have to present a birth certificate could prevent 69 million married women from voting. I'm like, there's no shot. This is real. There'll be documentation. You could provide a marriage certificate. Because I guess that the Name has to match. So if you change your name and you're married and it doesn't match your. She was just teaching me about this. Doesn't match your birth certificate. It's a problem. I was like, there's no way Lara Trump changed her name and is not going to vote. So I'm thinking surely, like, let's look it up now. I didn't read the bill, but it did say that they're working on states being able to just provide your. Either a passport. Okay, I don't have a passport. No problem. Or a marriage certificate. But without us even doing that dance, she was pretty convinced that that was the intention. Now, God, I hope that she's wrong and I'm not. But that is what the people on the left see. You're trying to. It's Handmaid's Tale. You're going to kill Jews, you're going to kill blacks, you're going to kill trans people. Yeah, that is, it's the more so for me. I am trying to litigate these issues because I think, I really do think they're going to destroy the country.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So let me come back to that in one second because that's so important. That's what we started with and I want to come back to it.

[Jillian Michaels]

But what you're talking about is more important. But that's, that's.

[Cenk Uygur]

No, no, no.

[Jillian Michaels]

They're eating.

[Cenk Uygur]

They're super important. They're both super important. So to finish the Biden McConnell story, because it's going to relate to all this. So Obama sends Biden to negotiate with McConnell and they make over 90% of the tax cuts for the rich permanent. Okay? So that's the uniparty. And they do it under Obama, so no one even notices and no one even fights back. Okay, My nickname for Obama back then, Remember, we're the largest left wing show online forever and ever, right? And I said my nickname for Obama was the establishment, okay? And people are like, oh, you can't call them that. And that's not right. And a bunch of people are some paying subscribers left all the way back then, right? Because we were being honest. And they're like, no, I just want you to tell me Obama's an angel. I'm like, but brother, he just got this giant tax cut for the rich passed that even Bush couldn't get passed. And they did it as if they're our friends. They're not our friends. So in eight years, he got Obamacare passed, which is slightly better than what we had before. And then they Made it seem like it was historic reform and he brought us all this change. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. He was the establishment. So. And again, for Democrats, that's heresy. That's the benighted, angelic Obama. You can't criticize Obama. You're in a bubble. You're not getting it. They're rooking us. There's both sides are robbing us blind. So now we come back to Trump. So I, I'm at this point where I have a tiny bit of hope in the right wing and again, the left hates that. But let me explain it, okay?

[Jillian Michaels]

That's the most upsetting part. Why do they want to see a side? Why wouldn't we work together? Can I ask you a question? Speaking specifically, I'm under the impression that Clinton, who was he? Lindsey Graham? That he worked with somebody on the Republicans to Wait, sorry. To fix the deficit. Can't remember which guy on the right, but I remember falling asleep listening to a podcast about it because it had to do with, look, 90s Democrats wanted to get reduce waste, fraud and abuse and they worked across the aisle. So didn't we used to work together? Well, I guess uniparty, as you're mentioning. But why does the left inherently want to see this not work?

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, because what they're really worried about and what they've been convinced by MSNBC and online hosts is that they're going to be put into gulags. So if they, if you help them 1%, you're getting us on a road to gulags. That's what they've been trained to believe and now they've internalized it and actually believe it.

[Jillian Michaels]

But where are the gulags? We did four years.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yes.

[Jillian Michaels]

No gulag, no new wars.

[Cenk Uygur]

So let me get to that too. Okay, so one last thing on economic issues and then I come back to the so called gulags.

[Jillian Michaels]

Sorry, I've been wanting to talk to you about it.

[Cenk Uygur]

No, no, no, absolutely. This is a great conversation. So now when I say I have a tiny bit of hope in the right wing voters, then people misinterpret that. Oh, then you love Trump and you love Elon and no, I never said, I never said that I like their politicians, I never said that I like their donors. I'm the most anti donor guy in the whole country. Right. I started Wolf Pack to get the donor money out of politics. Right. So go to wolf-pac.com okay, so I knew Trump was going to propose a four, four, four and a half trillion dollar tax cut. I know that the great, great, great majority of that is going to go to the wealthiest people, into corporations. I mean, they cut corporate taxes in his first term from 35 to 21, which is monstrous because we're going to have to pay that. It just. He added 8.4 trillion to the deficit in just four years. No one has added more to the deficit than Donald Trump. You can go look that up.

[Jillian Michaels]

Isn't this a Covid thing though? Like, we couldn't work and we had the stimulus packages and so the stimulus.

[Cenk Uygur]

Packages added to the deficit under for. Because of COVID both under Trump and Biden. So. But Trump had already built up $4.8 trillion extra in debt before we got to Covid.

[Jillian Michaels]

Why does the economy feel so much better?

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, so debt and the economy are not directly related. Debt just means the economy is going to blow up on you later.

[Jillian Michaels]

Got it.

[Cenk Uygur]

As you accumulate the debt. Okay, so. And by the way, other than inflation, the economy was pretty healthy under Biden as well. Now that's a giant asterisk on inflation. My only point is that this uniparty is maintaining a house of cards.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yes.

[Cenk Uygur]

And it looks like it's okay for now as they siphon more and more money to the top 100%. And at some point it's gonna collapse. And so. And I think that there's a chance it collapses under Trump. I think there's a good chance it collapses under Trump. And then I don't want the uniparty and the establishment blaming populism, which is definitely what they're going to do. Cuz Trump isn't doing populism. If he said, okay, tax cuts only for the average guy. And no one in the higher brackets is getting it. And no corporations are getting it. I go, oh, okay, now we're doing populism. If he said we are actually cutting defense. Okay, now we're doing populism. Right. So instead it looks like there's going to be about $800 billion in cuts for Medicaid, which is not at all populism. You could agree or disagree on cutting Medicaid. How much to cut Medicaid. But that is not popular. That's taken from the average guy. And why? In service of tax cuts to the very top. So, so right now you mentioned. Wait, but they're cutting in other places.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah, like they're. So we've all seen the podcast or the new show where you get the list of crazy shit that. Oh, we gave it to an opera in Amsterdam about a trans mouse that married a pansexual camel. I mean, we've. Yeah, we've all seen that.

[Cenk Uygur]

So. Jillian, it's a misdirection. It's squirrels. It's a bag of squirrels. Really? Yes. So here, here's why there's two things that they're doing wrong there. So if you're. And I'll. Let's take it from just a strictly right wing populist point of view. Not left wing. Okay. Or not even middle right.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Cenk Uygur]

So you don't want any of it. Right. So what would you do? The first thing you would do is what are the bad things? What are the good things?

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Cenk Uygur]

Is it possible that any one department is nothing but bad things? Pansexual mice?

[Jillian Michaels]

No.

[Cenk Uygur]

Funny. Of course not. Right. So when you look at usaid, if you went line by line, you'd see, well, okay, we. George W. Bush, a Republican, and I gave him credit for this all the way back then because we've been. We're the longest running show in Internet history. So I was around during the Bush years and I was like, oh, he's giving $15 billion to battle AIDS in Africa. Not only is that a wonderful thing to do to save millions of lives in Africa, but it also stops the spread. So it saves tons of lives all across the world, including here. Okay, Trump is cutting that. I wouldn't do that. Cuz then that spreads AIDS more. And that is not a good thing. But it's okay. You can say, I hear you, Cenk, but we gave a lot. And you know what? I don't want to give anymore. There's all these great programs, in my opinion, as someone on the left, and I would argue a lot of the middle, like, we're helping to educate women in Afghanistan. We've got a campaign to fight malaria in another part of the world. And I get it. The right wing can say, I don't care. I'm done spending money there. Okay. Okay.

[Jillian Michaels]

Well, there's the continuum, right, of the stuff that's actually doing good and the stuff that's. Correct me if I'm wrong. And I'm sure you've seen the Mike Benz slew of interviews where he talks about how essentially it is a siphoning of money to facilitate regime change.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So that's what I was gonna get to. Okay, so. But they also have some things that are absurd. So whether it's, you know, helping theater in Peru, whichever gender it is, I don't know. I don't care.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right, yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

So whatever it is. And you say let's put that in the cut bucket. I'm gonna agree with you, okay. Not because I'm against transgender people, but because I don't know why I'm helping transgender theater in Peru. I mean, o. Like, I made that one up.

[Jillian Michaels]

The 80 year old grandma to get her health care.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right. I made that one up. But you get it, right?

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah, I totally agree.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right. It's just like the same thing with the ad that Trump ran. The undocumented immigrant transgender people that crossed over are in detention and they want free surgery for gender reassignment surgery. And I'm trying to tell my friends on the left whether I say it or the American people say it, which they do. 98% of them basically say it. We're not saying we hate trans people. What we're saying is, I don't know why I'm paying for their surgery, okay. When they're not even citizens and they were detained for crossing the border illegally. Now I owe them money for their surgery, for whatever surgery. Right, right. And Americans are saying, I don't. I don't owe them that money. Sorry. Right. And so that's fair, in my opinion. That's super fair.

[Jillian Michaels]

But then you got Kamala saying that on frigging camera. And again, this is where I'm like, oh, yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

And so that's the far left. That's the far left.

[Jillian Michaels]

But Cenk, they plant a frigging flag, man. And they don't.

[Cenk Uygur]

Course.

[Jillian Michaels]

Correct. I've got my list of crazy shit they have planted a flag on. That's like the 80% issues. It's like sex changes for kids, sex changes for illegals and criminals. I mean, it's fricking bananas. Stop letting criminals out of jail.

[Cenk Uygur]

So we'll get to that, too. And so, again, I agree with you a lot on that stuff. And again, why I get attacked from the left, et cetera. But when you look at usaid, you go, okay, I'm eliminating the theater in Peru. Okay.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Cenk Uygur]

And I'm eliminating some programs that you're like, wait, that looks like a CIA slush fund.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right?

[Cenk Uygur]

Right. And there are things in there that are probably a CIA slush fund, but if you eliminate everything. But wait a minute. You didn't just eliminate the CIA slush fund and the theater in Peru. Not only did you also eliminate AIDS treatment, malaria treatment, et cetera, et cetera, but you also eliminated, as it turns out, the programs that were going to the churches that were doing an amazing job of helping the poor and the needy across the world. And by the way you could even say then, look, I've now looked at it. I see what I'm cutting, and I'm still okay with cutting it.

[Jillian Michaels]

No, I'm gonna help pour on the needy here. We've got veterans in the street. I mean, we put our own oxygen mask on first. I, I understand that position. There might be some stuff I would. I. It's a continuum. It's.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right, yeah. So problem number one is when you cut blindly, you cut the money to the churches as well as to theater, et cetera. Right. So you're cutting blindly, and that doesn't make sense. You want to cut the fraud, waste and abuse, but you don't know what that is in the beginning. So if you cut, you're going to cut things that you shouldn't cut, but you're also going to leave behind things you shouldn't leave behind because you never even bothered to check what was fraud, waste and abuse.

[Jillian Michaels]

It's like if you're removing a tumor from someone's brain, you have to be exceptionally precise and careful.

[Cenk Uygur]

Exactly. Okay. And especially when it's the government and it affects real people's lives. I understand, but even when you say, all right, Cenk, I don't want to do nuance, I get it. I cut up a part of the brain I shouldn't have cut, but whatever. Right. I hated the tumor so much, I had to get it out. Right. Okay, okay, I'm still with. It's a drop in the bucket. When you take all of those cuts together, it's going to be like 2% of the four and a half trillion dollars.

[Jillian Michaels]

Really?

[Cenk Uygur]

And it's meant to distract you. It's meant to get you to think, oh, it's okay, we did cuts. And so in the budget, always look at the budget. In the budget, There's a theoretical 2 trillion in cuts. First pause. Wait a minute. There's 4 1/2 trillion in tax cuts. Only 2 trillion in cuts. And according to reconciliation, the way that the Senate works, it has to be deficit neutral. Okay? Right.

[Jillian Michaels]

So if you've got four and a half on one side, but two over here you got a two, two and.

[Cenk Uygur]

A half trillion dollars that's going to get added to the debt at a minimum. So that's when Republicans. And they've done it for 50 years and Democrats have played along for 50 years, go, oh, trickle down economics. Yeah. Supply side. And these magical thinking where if you cut taxes on the rich, we'll all magically get more tax revenue. No, you won't. You'll get less tax revenue. And how do I know that? We've done this a lot of times. And every time they cut taxes on the rich, we do not get more revenue, we get less.

[Jillian Michaels]

Salaries don't go up.

[Cenk Uygur]

No, they. In fact, salaries for the average American, there's a big giant asterisk there. Salaries for the average American, adjusted for inflation, haven't gone up in 50 years. Okay? That's why the country's so angry. But the establishment, the people in media and politics don't see that anger. Why? Because the giant asterisks, pay and salaries for the top, for executives, etcetera, have gone way up. Okay.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

So everybody in Washington is like, what do you mean? We all got super rich. This economy is amazing.

[Jillian Michaels]

Market's doing great because they're in a.

[Cenk Uygur]

Bubble and they don't know any normal people. They don't know anyone in the middle of the country. And they don't know that now a house, if you're a young person, it's impossible. It's impossible to buy a house.

[Jillian Michaels]

Impossible.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay? And there's so many factors that go into it. So when the right wing go back to credit for the right wing voters, they noticed. Wait, I think it might not just be Pelosi and Biden that are corrupt. I think McConnell might also be corrupt. Wait a minute. I think that the establishment Republicans might be working with the establishment Democrats. Wait a minute. This is a uniparty. I want to drain the swamp. Exactly. Yes. And drain the swamp. Exactly. Unfortunately, they picked the wrong guy. Right? Okay, but that instinct was correct. And if you're on the left, don't call them Nazis for having the right instinct. So now on the left they say, yeah, but they don't realize that Trump is corrupt and even more corrupt. So I hate. So it's. But guys, one step at a time. Do you realize that Biden and Pelosi are corrupt? You don't even realize that. Right. So now you're blaming them for not realizing Trump is corrupt when you haven't even fixed your own house. Right, Got it. And so get out of your bubbles. And so why do I say Trump is corrupt? Because the proof's in the pudding, okay?

[Jillian Michaels]

For. For what he's doing.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay, hold on.

[Jillian Michaels]

No, guys, in women's sports, I'm like, oh, my God, thank you. And the earth is also round. It's a new dawn. It's this insanity that is, you know, we're. Okay. Everyone's outraged about Kennedy. Not a doctor, not a PhD. Neither is Xavier Becerra. Who was previously running the head of hhs. Where was your outrage? Oh, he's questioning the safety of vaccines. Okay, first of all, I do believe a large part of that. It was a red herring because it was a small part of the bigger picture. That said, where is your outrage about the fact that Xavier Becerra is trying to remove any and all age restrictions for minors to get gender affirming care? And that means off label cancer drugs, cross sex hormones, surgeries. Like no one's. To me, I'm thinking like, this is, this is, that's a gulag to me on our kids, on our most vulnerable. It's this kind of craziness. Cause I look at the. I see what you're saying, that it's evil, evil, evil, evil. I'm like, yep, I'm. Yeah, I agree. But when I'm cherry picking, it's. I think so many of us are like, how are you guys missing this? Because this is real.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, so. So what you're talking about is social issues slash the culture wars.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yes.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, so that's real. And let's, we'll talk about the specifics.

[Jillian Michaels]

Don't you think so many of us moved left to right because of that though? I never saw anybody go right to left.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, I do, I do think that. So I'm going to get to that. Okay, so, but let me connect the two things. Let me build a bridge. Okay, so on Trump, you don't have to trust me, but what I would ask the right wing is when they, they go into the committees to come up with the specifics of the budget and they come up with a final product, please look at it. Don't trust Fox News or right wing hosts telling you, oh yeah, we got rid of the transgender theater in Peru and that's all that happened. Trump is amazing for getting rid of that.

[Jillian Michaels]

I understand.

[Cenk Uygur]

No, look at c. Wait, is the. What, what's happening to taxes for the middle class?

[Jillian Michaels]

Did you get what you were promised?

[Cenk Uygur]

Did you get what you were promised? Exactly. I asked Democratic voters and Republican voters to always look for. Did you get what was promised? And with Democratic voters, they're finally beginning to catch on because Biden said he was gonna do 15, minimum wage paid, family leave, public option, all these things, and he never even came close to doing them. And they made excuse after excuse. But once that people saw that Biden was lying about his mental decline, finally the Democratic voters were like, damn it, I think we got lied to. Right. So that's just the beginning.

[Jillian Michaels]

This was. Okay, here's Another one, though.

[Cenk Uygur]

This is.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay, So I see that. Let me put on my tin hat for a second. It was clear that this guy was shaky mentally in 2020, but, you know, and I didn't vote in that one. I was like, I don't know. This is just. I don't like either of these guys. I'm going to sit this one out. That's my vote, is I'm holding my vote. I'm not voting. As the years progressed, again, I work in health. I work with many different doctors who can quietly whisper under the table that there's either a Lewy Body, dementia, some form of Parkinson's. You hear rumors on my sister is the doctor the da, da, da, da, blah, blah, blah. You can see it. A year ago, I go on Bill Maher's podcast, and we get in a fight about Biden's mental health. And Bill's like, no, he can handle it. I'm like, bill, he cannot handle it. Cut to you. Here's the tin hat part. So I'm going, I know they know this guy's not all there. And you're listening to Megyn Kelly or Dave Rubin, and they're like, you know, there's a rumor, and the rumor is they're gonna have an open convention, and they're gonna wait, kick him out last minute, and slot in who they wanted. I say this to Bill in January of 2024, and sure enough, the exact thing happened.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah.

[Jillian Michaels]

And this is where I'm like, bullshit, you guys.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay. I can give you the details of what actually happened, because I, they knew.

[Jillian Michaels]

He was demented, so. But tell me.

[Cenk Uygur]

So I, I, I ran against Biden in the primary as a protest candidate because I was like, this guy's gone.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

If we run him, it's a guaranteed loss, 100%, and I don't want Trump to win.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

And, and I can't. So I'm like, wait, you guys say that Trump is an existential threat to the country. You're, like, more freaked out about it than even I am.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

And you guys say that Trump is a fascist Nazi, et cetera, but you're going to run a guy with obvious mental decline against him? Well, that's a guaranteed loss. And a guy who's in the mid-30s in approval rating, so just. Okay, now, this is politics. One on one for people who are professionals in politics. Right. If you're an incumbent in the 40s, you're almost definitely going to lose. Okay. It's very, like, people have run the numbers. This is. Well Known fact formula. Everybody knows if your approval rating is in the 40s and you're an incumbent, you're almost definitely going to lose. If you're in the 30s, it's nearly impossible. It's almost never happened at the federal level. It's happened once or twice. Okay, so all those professionals that are in the Democratic Party, they all know Joe Biden has no chance of winning. Okay? It's. But they get. But to be fair, a lot of them diluted themselves. No, no, we're going to be the miracle candidate to rise up from the third year, etc.

[Jillian Michaels]

No, they wanted to slot her in because she's a puppet.

[Cenk Uygur]

So Jillian Michaels. I'm sorry, Jillian. So what I wanted is Jillian Michaels.

[Jillian Michaels]

Spot on.

[Cenk Uygur]

I don't know why I said whole name.

[Jillian Michaels]

I like it.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay, so Jillian, what happened was in 2023, on the young Turks, I start a petition to push Biden out of the race.

[Jillian Michaels]

I love it.

[Cenk Uygur]

Because it's already super clear in 23. Yeah, okay. People thought, oh, yeah, we figured it out during the debate. No, it was obvious a year before the debate. Obvious, right. So then what happens is people very. They, of course, immediately jank you, we hate you, you're hurting the Democratic Party. You're trying to help Trump all the propaganda. They always run, Joe Biden's the best candidate, blah, blah, blah. Right. But then slowly people start to catch on and. But they're not catching on fast enough. So I go, oh, behind the scenes, I'm trying to get progressives to run. Then I give up because the progressives aren't gonna run and they're not gonna have enough time to build up name recognition to be able to topple Biden. Then I go to, guys, we're gonna lose. It's a guaranteed loss. It. I hate Gavin Newsom and Buttigieg, et cetera. And I don't love the Democratic governors. I think some of them are good, some of them are mediocre. But get in the race because we're gonna lose otherwise.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

I'll take Gavin Newsom. Oh, okay, hold on, hold on.

[Jillian Michaels]

Josh Shapiro.

[Cenk Uygur]

No, I. I did Gavin Newsom. No, no, I'm telling you, I'm telling the worst case scenario. Okay, Right. I'm like, the worst case scenario just.

[Jillian Michaels]

To make my blood pressure rise.

[Cenk Uygur]

I know this is the part where my co host, Annika Sperrian, turned it off this interview often it's like, okay, no, I pick Gavin because. Or Buttigieg because they're the worst corporate Democrats. Okay. And I'm saying, but at least those guys have a prayer of winning and Biden doesn't. So I'm willing to go to the very worst of the corporate Democrats just so that it's not Trump. Okay. And then we can come back to why, etc. But you've got to pick someone else. Right. And I can't convince them to come in the race. Right. Because I'm not going to beat Biden. Right. Marianne Williamson wasn't going to be Biden. We needed some heavyweight to be able to take them on. Josh Shapiro would have been perfect, but.

[Jillian Michaels]

They didn't let anyone do that.

[Cenk Uygur]

So what the Democratic Party has turned into is this authoritarian structure. And so when I say that again, people on the left flip out and they're like, no, the Republicans are more authoritarian. I'll come back to that. I'll come back to that. And there's. There's truth to that, but it does. Two things can be true at the same time.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

It doesn't mean that the Democratic infrastructure isn't authoritarian.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

It definitely is.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Cenk Uygur]

And the mainstream media are the main praetorian guard. They're the, The. The guys who go out there and enforce that unity. They always have code words. They always. For marketing reasons. So they don't say you have to follow orders and be obedient to the Democratic leader. They say, in order to have unity, in order to be done, you have to have unity to beat Trump. And a way to have unity is rally around the leader.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yes.

[Cenk Uygur]

And so when Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were about tied in 2016, and whenever they let me on TV, which was rare, they'd go, okay, now Cenk, you know, Bernie Sanders is ruining unity. I said, why? They're tied. Why isn't Hillary Clinton ruining unity? Why is it your assumption that Bernie Sanders has to step down, but not Hillary Clinton? So you don't really want unity, you just want your side to win.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay. And then Bernie was winning in 2020. He won the first three primary states. So according to the unity principle, everyone should have rallied around Bernie. But what did they do? The exact opposite. Because they never wanted unity. They wanted compliance.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay. So they built a system based on compliance. And why was it done? That was done to keep people like me out and to keep Bernie out and Ro Khanna out and Nina Turner out.

[Jillian Michaels]

They don't pander to the donors.

[Cenk Uygur]

Exactly. So if Bernie doesn't pander to the donors, all of those Democratic consultants aren't gonna be able to get paid.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

This is super important. And the Democratic voters have to understand this more than the Republican voters do. Guys, the consultants take 15% of all the money that's raised. Cause they spend it in media, and that's their return for spending it in media. Wow. So if Kamala Harris raises $2 billion, which is around where she raised, they're going to take 15% of that home. That is $300 million, in incentive to make sure that no progressive wins. Because if Bernie wins. Yeah, you're going to get a lot of grassroots donations, but you're not going to get any of the corporate donations. The giant, giant corporate donations. So that is money out of the pockets of Democratic consultants. So all the Democratic consultants and the entire party infrastructure is built around those elites getting paid, not on actually winning elections. They would much rather lose an election where they made $300 million.

[Jillian Michaels]

Oh, my gosh.

[Cenk Uygur]

Than win an election where they didn't make any money.

[Jillian Michaels]

I didn't know this at all.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right, so there's hundreds.

[Jillian Michaels]

They want the candidate that can do the biggest raise.

[Cenk Uygur]

Exactly.

[Jillian Michaels]

They've got to pander to the most special, most amount of special interest in big corporations and lobbyists. Because they get a chunk of that money.

[Cenk Uygur]

Exactly. So but what that does is that incentivizes them financially to pick the very worst candidate.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yes.

[Cenk Uygur]

Why? Because they want to pick the most corporate candidate. The one that makes the donor class so happy.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

So now what happened in this election? Kamala Harris outraised Donald Trump by a lot. She got a lot of corporate donations. And then, like morons, they went all over cable news and started telling everybody.

[Jillian Michaels]

Because that's another reason.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, they're like, oh, we're the most corrupt. We raised 2 billion from corporate interests and lobbyists. And see, now they don't say corporate interests and lobbyists, but the American people hear corporate interests and lobbyists because they know who's giving them big checks. Right. Then the second thing she did was she bragged about how 90 corporate CEOs has signed a letter saying that they prefer her. I'm like, do you have any idea how despised corporate CEOs are in this country, you morons? So then they come out and go, oh, no, it's okay. We're campaigning with Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney. Polls at 13%. What is wrong with you people?

[Jillian Michaels]

Dick Cheney. I had this fight with Hannity, actually. And I was like, he's a war criminal. And Sean's like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

Because Sean loves Dick Cheney. But now all of a sudden. Oh, yeah, yeah. Pretending he doesn't actually.

[Jillian Michaels]

Sean is such a. He's really genuinely a nice guy. But it's like, it's nice when you could get into these sort of heated conversations. But that's, that's exactly. But.

[Cenk Uygur]

But you're proving my bias. So. So hold on.

[Jillian Michaels]

So now on the Democrats here, I needed more perspective. Jen, here.

[Cenk Uygur]

So now on the Democratic side, you have this infrastructure built to pick the most corporate friendly, donor friendly candidate who has the least likelihood of winning. Okay. So that's why I need Democratic voters to wake up, Wake up. They're purposely picking the worst candidate for you so they can get richer. You've got to go populist to win. Look at Trump. He won as a guy running, whether he actually is or not. Running on popular.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah, he ran on everything you espouse. That's a question I have for you. It's, yes, you on Trump and populism versus establishment. You rail against Trump as an existential threat, but most of his appeal is the same as yours. And it's like. But you're saying it's a. You're saying he's a sheep in wolf's clothing here.

[Cenk Uygur]

100.

[Jillian Michaels]

Look at the numbers.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah.

[Jillian Michaels]

Which is interesting because when my friend was like, well, married women won't be able to vote, I was like, did you, before you get freaked out about this, did you actually read it? And with that said, I would never have looked at the budget. I would have been like, look at all this corruption that they're rooting out. I wouldn't have looked.

[Cenk Uygur]

So Trump. I thought Trump was running. Right. All the way back in 2015. So I'm, so I think Trump is a legendary con man and we can, and, you know, I've talked a little bit about that. We could talk more about. I want to talk more about that. But as I saw it, there's. You have to separate out what you think of their policies and what you do. Political analysis. Right.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Cenk Uygur]

My policy.

[Jillian Michaels]

Explain the difference. I'm sorry.

[Cenk Uygur]

Policy analysis is. I don't think Donald Trump means anything he's saying. I think he's just going to pass giant tax cuts for the rich.

[Jillian Michaels]

Got it.

[Cenk Uygur]

And in the first term, that's exactly what he did. I understand his number one accomplishment was bringing corporate taxes from 35 to 21.

[Jillian Michaels]

I understand.

[Cenk Uygur]

And then he forgot to do anything else. And at the end, he panicked about the wall. He's like, oh, right, I meant to build a wall. And then in the last six months, he tried to build a little piece of the wall. Because it was the populist campaign promise that he had made, but he largely just passed tax cuts. So I don't like him on policy at all, on the things that he does. But on political analysis, when he stood on that debate stage around, I think it was around October of 2015, if I'm not mistaken, and he said, I gave all these guys money, and then they did whatever I told him. I'm like, that's it. He's going to win. Okay. And at the time, I remember that.

[Jillian Michaels]

And they talked about tax loopholes that all the rich use because he uses them.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. Jill, you have to remember at the time when, I mean, I've said these things. In 2013, when Bernie was pulling out 1%, I said, Bernie can beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Three years later, everybody's like, you're nuts. That's the craziest thing I've ever heard. No way that's gonna happen. And he came within a couple of points of beating here. Now in Trump at the time, Trump's actually polling well, so take credit away from me because he's already polling really well, so it's not that hard to see. But everyone's in their bubble. So the Republican establishment is thinking, this bozo reality talk show host. No, they're going to pick Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio.

[Jillian Michaels]

100.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right.

[Jillian Michaels]

I thought so, too.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right. They're not going to pick this, like Donald Trump. Right?

[Jillian Michaels]

Yes.

[Cenk Uygur]

Democratic establishment is thinking the same thing. Mainstream media is saying the same thing. So when I say Donald Trump is going to win the Republican primary In October of 2015, people think you're crazy. We're still three months out from a single vote being cast. Right. And they're like, you're nuts. It's never going to happen. Because he's just. American people want experienced politicians. I'm like, on which poly? On which planet? Not the American people that I know on this planet, they hate the politicians. They're like, oh, that's ridiculous. Everybody loves the politicians. No, no, they're going to pick Rubio. They love the politicians. Jeb Bush, he's got the good family name. Like, they don't like that family name. You guys are on La La Land. And plus, I'm like, look at the polling. Trump is winning every poll. They're like, oh, it'll never last. I'm like, yeah, but why wouldn't it last? Because they'll realize he's a reality show clown. No, he's a reality show clown to you, but not to the average person. They just view him as a successful.

[Jillian Michaels]

Businessman and cenk a person who saw them. And what I mean by that, I remember as a still being pretty entrenched on the left. Several years, four years back, a friend came over and her boyfriend was a Republican. And in an interesting debate, and he goes, do you realize that the whole middle of the country that you guys call the flyover states here in California, these people work two jobs, they go to church, they live paycheck to paycheck, they keep the country functioning, they drive the mail, they fill the gap, all the things, right? You shit on these guys all the time. You call them ignorant, you throw them away. And Trump spoke to them. And you know something, by the way, I didn't realize I kind of never thought much of it. I was a little bit being gay, I was a little bit freaked out by religion, and my wife happens to be Roman Catholic, so I've learned to appreciate tradition and culture and heritage and community and the good parts of it. But being gay, you know, you're like, oh, you're gonna take away my marriage and whatever. So I don't know about you. That was my one sort of concern and bias that I used to hold. But when he said that to me, I thought, my God, I have probably been pretty dismissive about this vast swath of the country that are good people just trying to pay their bills and do their thing and live their lives. And the Democrats used to speak to that group, and then they managed to marginalize them and call them racist. And you surely you saw, I can't even believe this. Tom Hanks on SNL basically implying they're all racist in that skit where he's got his MAGA hat on and he won't shake the black Jeopardy host's hand or whatever. Trump spoke to them too, though.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, he did. So. And that was smart politics. And that's why I thought he was going to win.

[Jillian Michaels]

But why aren't the Democrats doing that? They're still calling them transphobes and racists.

[Cenk Uygur]

And so what happened then is the authoritarian infrastructure that was built so that Democratic consultants and leaders could get paid more.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay.

[Cenk Uygur]

Then was used on social issues because they had already gotten everybody to comply. So then you were not allowed to disagree. You are not allowed to say Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton or Biden. Now you're not allowed to say, hey, maybe undocumented immigrants who are trans shouldn't get free surgery.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right?

[Cenk Uygur]

You're not allowed to say that.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay. And then a curious thing happened where the Establishment guys, who I have deep problems with, started joining forces with the far left. And so then in California, they did something that was so strange. And so we started calling it out on the Young Turks again. People say, oh, no, you guys don't help the right wing, et cetera. So. But I'm. So they. We all wanted police reform. Why did we want it? Black guy after black guy getting shot, killed, et cetera. And not just black people. One of the worst we ever showed was a white guy in a hotel room crawling on his hands and knees, and the cops shoot him anyway, totally unarmed. And I'm like, look, you've got to retrain the cops. Remember in the old days, you'd see in the 1970s and 80s, they say, freeze, put your hands in the air. You know, they'd go through a process. Now they come in and they're like, boom, shoot them dead in two seconds. We've got to fix the training of the cops. Okay, so then in California, they did not do that.

[Jillian Michaels]

And then they defunded police instead.

[Cenk Uygur]

No, no, they didn't even bother doing that. They did in small parts, but instead they changed some felonies into misdemeanors.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

And I'm like, wait, who asked for that? No one asked for that.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

That wasn't the problem at all. And they're like, you know, let's take these thefts and a whole bunch of other things that used to be serious crimes, and now let's make them misdemeanors. But the problem is when you make them misdemeanors, they plead out. So when they're a felony, they can plead them to a misdemeanor and at least they'll get some prison time.

[Jillian Michaels]

So they do no time. Right. Which is why.

[Cenk Uygur]

So that's why when. So the theft started exploding, because before it used to be a felony. And I'm giving loose examples here, but there's super concrete examples on each one of these laws, right?

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

So then when those thefts then became misdemeanors, they'd plead out to literally nothing. They would walk. So the cops would arrest the guy who broke in at cvs, and then they'd take him in and the prosecutors would go, we can't hold him because there's nothing to plead to, so we're going to let him go. And then the cops started getting frustrated and they're like, what are we arresting them for if you're just going to let them go? And so now the left was like, no, you can't Say that authoritarian structure, you have to say that that's fictional. It's a right wing narrative. It isn't actually happening. But I'm like, guys, look at the charts of crime between 2019 and 2023, by the way, it got better since 2023. Long story. But between 2019 and 2023, crime is actually going up. It's not a mirage. And I know CVS also has their own incentives. They have a lot of like, they started doing these checkout things where you're checking your cell phone and that led to more theft because people are like, I'll just take it and go, I'll.

[Jillian Michaels]

Just walk out the door. Yep.

[Cenk Uygur]

And that was done to reduce cost. So there's a lot of factors that go into it. But overall crime is definitely going up and it's definitely affecting people's real lives.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

And so on the Young Turks, we acknowledge that and we go, remember, we're for justice for the average working person. And the people who are most affected by crime is the average working person on the subway in New York, on the bus in Denver, in, you know, in. In all these working areas in la, et cetera. So they don't believe us. And then the election happens in California just in 2024. And what happened? San Francisco, Louisiana.

[Jillian Michaels]

Oakland, all the Soros DA is gone.

[Cenk Uygur]

Gone. Yeah, they're wiped off the face of the earth.

[Jillian Michaels]

And they changed that crime bill, right? That.

[Cenk Uygur]

And they changed the crime bill and they said, no, no, no, no, no, we're taking them back to felonies.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay, Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

So this didn't work. This experiment didn't work. Okay. And so by the way, we looked in, Anna and I looked into it, and it turns out a lot of establishment Democratic donors funded that crazy misdemeanor enterprise.

[Jillian Michaels]

Gavin Newsom fought against.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, he did.

[Jillian Michaels]

Repealing it.

[Cenk Uygur]

And he. Gavin Newsom's not far left. He's corporate left. So the corporate left and the far left merged in some crazy wedding we missed.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right, Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

And then so in Oakland, and if you're on the far left or anywhere on the left, please look at the actual. What I asked of the right wing to please look at the actual budget.

[Jillian Michaels]

I get it.

[Cenk Uygur]

And see, and I'm asking the left.

[Jillian Michaels]

Wing, or I'll have you explain it to me at a future date, but you'll know how to read it.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right. And I'm asking the left wing, please look at the facts. Oakland got rid of their mayor cuz they thought she's too far left. And it's leading to more crime.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

They didn't just vote her out, they recalled her, but they didn't just recall her, which is extreme. The vote was 65, 35. That is gigantic. Oakland is one of the most left wing cities in the world and in America for sure. It had filled with black and brown community. So the working class black and brown communities said, you idiots, we're not pro crime. The crime is hitting us and we're voting your ass out because we never asked for this. We asked for you to retrain the cops so they wouldn't shoot us. We didn't ask you to let out the criminals because those criminals are robbing us. Right? And the left's like, no, they're not. No, they're not. Oakland. Oakland's. What is Oakland right wing. Oh, is Oakland right wing? Did the right wing, like do a Vulcan mind meld on the voter, the black voters in Oakland, and get them to believe that crime existed when it didn't exist? It existed and it hit the average American. So now. But then Young Turks is the only one rebelling, right? And saying it's not true and we're going to lose these elections. And we were right. We did lose those elections.

[Jillian Michaels]

You're not rebelling. I'm sorry, you're not the only one rebelling. You're the only one rebelling and staying. That's why so many like myself are like, I just can't. I have to vote the other way. Because Cenk, I cried when Trump was elected in 2016. Now a lot of the gulags I thought were coming never showed up. So I was like, okay, maybe I was a little. And I married a Republican who was constantly like, you're losing your mind. You know, there's no gulag. Nevertheless, I do think the left buried themselves with this kind of madness. So you tell me, like, Jillian, I want to talk about hope. Where is it?

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay, before we get to hope, let me address why I don't, why I voted against Trump, why I think Trump is worse, et cetera.

[Jillian Michaels]

Tell me why you think he's worse.

[Cenk Uygur]

So. Because I saw his first term, so the proof's already there, so it's not.

[Jillian Michaels]

Like it felt better.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, no new wars. I. No, I. So let's break it down.

[Jillian Michaels]

Houses were, gosh, how do you even. How do you go 300% down?

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. No. So look, Trump has the same systemic corruption as the Democrats do in establishment Republicans. Do you take the donor money you deliver for the donors?

[Jillian Michaels]

Sure.

[Cenk Uygur]

So he has that systemic corruption built in. He didn't make it any better at all. Okay? He passed no laws to get money out of politics. He passed no laws to drain the swamp. He didn't even propose a single law to drain the swamp. What happened to drain the swamp? Gone. Right?

[Jillian Michaels]

I know.

[Cenk Uygur]

But on top of that, Trump. Trump layers in personal corruption where he's like, okay, now cbs, you owe me money. Give it to me. Me. Okay? And I'm going to do a meme coin. And what does a meme coin do? It robs his own voters. No left wings buying that meme coin. The value of the meme coin was 15 billion at its height. Now it's down to 3 billion. The extra 12 billion went to Trump and his allies, and they robbed their own voters. So. And I can give you dozens of examples where it goes straight into Trump's pocket. And by the way, that is why the establishment hates Trump. Not because he's systemically corrupt. They love that part. They hate it because he's also personally corrupt. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. You share the loot with all of us. You don't take the loot for yourself. And we're all on the record here because we've been doing the show for over 20 years, right? I said when Trump got into office, Gary Cohn, who was his national economic adviser, who's from Goldman Sachs, and the establishment guys are gonna stay with him until they pass the corporate tax cuts. And the minute they pass the corporate tax cuts, the establishment is going to turn on Trump. And that's exactly what happened. So they're like, oh, yeah, Trump maybe. Could be, yeah. Oh, look at the Goldman Sachs guys are in. He had more Goldman Sachs guys in his cabinet than anyone.

[Jillian Michaels]

J.B. dimon was J.P. diamond. Trump syndrome, which, by the way, was effective. You're like, that's frigging Jamie Dimon.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right? So, but Jamie Dimon, everybody's on board. Until they passed the 2 trillion back then 2 trillion in tax cuts for corporations. And. And so there was some for average Americans, but very little overall, mainly wealthy and corporations once the tax cuts are passed. That's when mainstream media turned on him. Establishment Republicans turned on him. And then he had to beat them back. And he effectively beat them back real in an amazing fashion. His tactics work. His tactics are correct. They just need to be directed towards helping the average American and not himself and the donors. And he did. He enriched himself over and over. Look, Hunter Biden, is he an actual Ukrainian gas expert and a modern artist? Right? Come on.

[Jillian Michaels]

You knew I was gonna Say but. And I would rather Trump, like, do it with a meme coin than have Hunter Biden working with Ukraine and China and all that stuff. No foreign agent, so.

[Cenk Uygur]

But Trump does all these things that are worse, but they're. But the Democrats don't talk about them because it would expose their own corruption. So, for example, Hunter Biden, he got $5 million for being a Ukrainian gas expert, which is hilarious. Right? And then he's got a whole bunch of money for being a modern artist. Come on, get out of here, man. This is so obvious now, whether it connects to Joe Biden. Big, long debate. I don't think so, but it doesn't matter. Hunter is a scam con man. Right.

[Jillian Michaels]

Got it.

[Cenk Uygur]

Jared Kushner leaves. They leave office.

[Jillian Michaels]

This, the Saudi Arabia thing.

[Cenk Uygur]

Gets $2 billion from Saudi Arabia. You're not wrong about the meme coin. At least that's. Hey, Maga, you want to be robbed, that's your business. Not my business. That's not government. Right, but now, Jared Kushner was in charge of the Middle East. He went and talked to the Butcher of Riyadh. That's Muhammad bin Salman, who chopped up the Washington Post journalist.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

And by the way, he lost his national security clearance after he went to talk to him. And all of a sudden, a lot of our allies in Saudi Arabia were arrested by Muhammad bin Salman. Okay, so he.

[Jillian Michaels]

I don't. I know only that he took this money, and I know nothing else about it.

[Cenk Uygur]

So they do a ton of favors for the Israelis, of course. Right.

[Jillian Michaels]

Anti Israel. I mean, they're. He moved the frigging.

[Cenk Uygur]

They did a million. You know why? Because Sheldon Adelson was his top donor and had given them.

[Jillian Michaels]

Talk about that.

[Cenk Uygur]

100 million in 2016. 100 million in 2020. And then his widow, Miriam Adelson, gave him 137 million in 2024. That's why he does that insane Gaza plan where he's like, yeah, we're going to put American boots on the ground. And he talked about how we were going to help Israel clean up the unexploded bombs. And that's when I was right. Right wing Maga went, no, we're not. No, no, we're not putting boots on the ground in Gaza and let them. Let them deal with their goddamn unexploded bombs, not us. We're not going to have Americans die there. And I'm like, out of. Boy, there you go, Maga. That's actual populism. Now they need to push back a lot more Because Netanyahu is about to slaughter people in Gaza and West Bank. And even if you don't care about that, you should, but you don't.

[Jillian Michaels]

That is one that I've been trying to have two people because I feel like it's like 33% Jew, you know, a lot Arab, whatever the hell percent it is. And I don't, honestly, truthfully, I wanna tell you, I couldn't even begin to unravel this. I don't understand enough of it. I don't know the history of it, but I keep trying to bring like, Bari Weiss on with someone, but, like, she doesn't wanna do a debate. Like, nobody wants to do the debate on that.

[Cenk Uygur]

Well, nobody wants a piece of me on that debate because they're wrong. But it's okay, I don't wanna get into that topic. That's too big a topic.

[Jillian Michaels]

It's a huge sub.

[Cenk Uygur]

I'm using it as an example here. So since those donors gave Trump so much money, and Jared Kushner naturally agrees with the Israeli position anyway, they wind up doing all of these enormous favors for the Israelis, but with our money. Right? Okay, so then, then Biden gives them an even bigger blank check, gives them $20 billion, because AIPAC is his top donor throughout his career. So both sides are getting tremendous money from pro Israel people. Right? So, okay, then Kushner gets deals with Israelis through his company when he's done. But people forget, no, his major deals were with the Saudis.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right?

[Cenk Uygur]

So he does the Saudis all these tremendous favors when he's work, supposed to be working for American citizens, he's working for himself. Hunter wasn't in the government. Jared ran Middle east affairs for us. Jared negotiated with the Saudis and the Israelis for us. And then he doesn't get 5 million afterwards, he gets 2 billion afterwards. So do you see that?

[Jillian Michaels]

I do.

[Cenk Uygur]

And why did you.

[Jillian Michaels]

I do. And I haven't gone down that rabbit hole. Cause I, like, I don't have any idea what this means, but it has come up a couple of times.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, so there's the personal corruption and added on top of the systemic corruption. But now when you talk about the things that I'm most worried about, when Trump lost the 2020 election, when he wouldn't just do a normal peaceful transfer again, I know right wing is going to be triggered because you're in your bubble and you think it was perfectly peaceful and they were tourists or antifa or whatever, or patriots that went into the Capitol.

[Jillian Michaels]

FBI agents.

[Cenk Uygur]

The FBI agents. But guys, they were chanting Hang Mike Pence. Hang Mike Pence.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

They were not peaceful. That's crazy. That they were chanting to kill Donald Trump's vice president. That's scary. That is super scary. And that's not made up. That's real. Okay, and then. And then. And the Democrats are so incompetent. There's a. Cassidy Hutchinson said that Mark Meadows, this chief of staff, came into a room filled with Trump's guys and said he had told Trump that they were looked. That they were chanting about killing the vice president. His vice president. And he said he deserves it. That's a bad guy. That's a super dangerous guy. And then he said at one point, and it's. And every time I debate a right winger, they go, no way. He said that. Then they look it up. God damn. He did say it. In Truth Social, he wrote, look, when there's fraud like this, we should be able to terminate all rules, regulations and articles in the Constitution. No, you don't get to terminate the Constitution, brother. You don't get to do that. So now he's doing. Attacking the First Amendment and saying, oh, yeah, the press should be canceled. I hate mainstream media. They shouldn't be canceled. Let us beat them in the marketplace of ideas. Don't cancel them. If someone says the virus broke out on the Wuhan lab, don't cancel them. Let's have a debate about it. They might be right. If they say vaccines don't work, don't cancel them. Let's have a debate about it and we'll see who's right and wrong. And you've got to trust the people. And the problem is the Democrats became authoritarian and didn't trust the people. And Trump says, don't bother. No, I'm just. I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to cancel them. I want to cancel MSNBC. I want to cancel 60 Minutes. I want to. Now Elon's talking about putting them in jail. And by the way, protesters of Israel on college campuses talking about arresting them. Not just taking away their diplomas, talking about deporting them. Are you insane? We're not going to deport people and arrest people for disagreements.

[Jillian Michaels]

Death to America. Or preventing Israeli or, sorry, Jewish students from getting to class. Yeah, and they aren't a citizen. And they're chanting, death to America. I'm for deporting them.

[Cenk Uygur]

No.

[Jillian Michaels]

Now get the fuck out of here.

[Cenk Uygur]

Super dangerous precedent.

[Jillian Michaels]

How can you come into the country and chant death till marriage?

[Cenk Uygur]

So, Jillian, get out. Okay, so, number one. So, number one, that is Way overhyped. Like, they'll find one instance of like three dudes doing it on a college campus and go, aha. Anyone that is opposed to Israel thinks it's Death to America. It's Propaganda 101. Half the time I don't even know if they're actually Palestinian supporters. Because if you wanted to shut down all criticism of Israel, you know what I would do? I'd put three guys in a mask going, shouting, death to America. And we love Hamas. And all of Congress will shut down every critic of Israel and will arrest anyone who criticizes Israel. So, but even. And do I think that that's the right way to go to protest? No. I think those guys are monumentally dumb. I hate when they say Death to America or they put Hamas. They spray paint Hamas on a statue or they burn them every day.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right away. There, done.

[Cenk Uygur]

Because, look, if you are truly on the side of the Palestinians, you're the biggest moron in the whole world if you do that. Because you're going to make the cause of peace much harder, not easier. You're going to turn all Americans against Palestinians, not in favor of Palestinians. What kind of a moron says, hey, America, come support me. By the way, I hate you.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right?

[Cenk Uygur]

Like, no, you moron, say you love America. I love America. Right? I love America. Why? Because it gives me freedom. Yes, but now if I criticize Israel, maybe I don't have freedom. Right, okay, and so this is. And by the way, let's also be real Democrats. That happened under Biden. They started arresting people under Biden, okay? On college campuses. They shut down all those protests under Biden now, but then Trump, as always, makes it worse. So he goes, not only should they take away their diploma, take away their right to speak, arrest them, he adds in deporting them. And then, and then some of his supporters started talking about deporting people who were citizens, American citizens.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay, hold on now.

[Cenk Uygur]

Where are we deporting American citizens?

[Jillian Michaels]

I totally missed that. That's direct. But that's like the crazy lunatic who said we should. I can't remember the guy's name. We should give Trump a third term. I was like, oh, yeah, Steve Bannon, shut up.

[Cenk Uygur]

But look, But Steve Bannis. So that's exactly what I'm talking about, Jillian. So Dan Holloway, I see it. Dan Holloway is a right wing podcaster, real populist, really smart guy, does a podcast called Drinking Bros. And he has his own. He came on our show, I've gone on his show, and he made the best case for Trump. And even so I disagree. But he said, look, man, we know he's a bull in a china shop. It's not like we don't see it. Right, Right. And we know, we even know that he's gonna break some of the china that he shouldn't break.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yep.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay. But we hate the china shop so much, we're like, attaboy, Go in there.

[Jillian Michaels]

Kinda.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, right.

[Jillian Michaels]

Cause I don't want sex changes for 6 year olds. I don't want criminals let out of jail. I don't want girls who have worked their entire lives to get a scholarship to get punched in the face at the Olympics or whatever, you know, by a guy. I'm sorry. X. Y chromosome means male. It. Like jank. It's. It appears to be delirium.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So for the folks on the left, listen to what Jillian's saying.

[Jillian Michaels]

They don't. Not only do they not, they quadruple down.

[Cenk Uygur]

They're. They're. I'm afraid that some folks who are not just right wing, but used to be Democrats, folks who are independents, folks who decide elections, have stopped listening to us when we tell them, hey, Donald Trump has a personal corruption. Donald Trump said, terminate the Constitution. You don't want to hear it because.

[Jillian Michaels]

You don't want to hear it. That's why we need to.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yes. You don't want to hear it because you're so angry about these fringe cultural war issues.

[Jillian Michaels]

Very.

[Cenk Uygur]

So Democrats, please stop digging that hole. You're driving me crazy. Stop digging the hole.

[Jillian Michaels]

They don't listen.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right. And so, okay, I mean, I got called a Nazi and a lazy collaborator because I said trans professional sports leagues should be able to decide on their own whether they want to admit trans women or not.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay. I would disagree with you and say we should defer to the signs. Separate show.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay, But. But for God's sake, at least let the leagues make that decision. And the left was like, no, we should force the leagues, okay. To include trans women in women's sports. But that's not a constitutional right. I don't have a right to play in the NBA. You don't have a right to play in the WNBA.

[Jillian Michaels]

Biden reinterpreted the Title 9 language, which was a loophole, I guess, where a government agency is allowed to do that.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah.

[Jillian Michaels]

Whereas then you had Trump put that executive order in and attach it to federal funds. And I don't even understand if he's allowed to do that. I tried to figure it out online for about an hour and gave up. But I guess they litigated in court.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So some on the left. I mean, one of our hosts, Piers Morgan, asks her, so are you okay with Leo Messi playing in women's sports? And by the way, he said in the most extreme way, if he declared himself a woman tomorrow, even without hormone therapy or anything, it doesn't work.

[Jillian Michaels]

I'm telling you, I could give you 19 different studies that show it's not effective.

[Cenk Uygur]

So first of all, my opinion is, are you nuts? Like, if you put Messi in, he'd score 20 goals a game. If you put LeBron in the WNBA, with or without hormones, who score 200 points a night. Okay, and you. And they, and I've read the studies. They always say, oh, there's studies and they never read them. There's. If you read the studies, the ones that are the most on the side of letting them into the leagues. All the studies say inconclusive because there was only seven of them.

[Jillian Michaels]

That's your best case scenario, 19 of them.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right.

[Jillian Michaels]

Like a perfect example is one on grip strength, which is an indicator of overall strength. And the long and the short of it is they took trans females who had been on puberty. Bloggers cross sex hormones. And then they took trans males. So women, biological women who became men that were also on puberty blockers and cross sex hormones. And the biological males still had 17% greater strength.

[Cenk Uygur]

Of course they did.

[Jillian Michaels]

After years of medicalization. And that's one of 19. Exactly.

[Cenk Uygur]

Bone density, muscle strength, capacity, everything. I mean, it's so. And then, so what do we do, though? Hold on. So when we got. Then they got to the absurdity of Floyd Mayweather going into women's boxing if he declares himself a woman. Do not say yes to that. Do not say yes to that because they're going to hurt someone. And when they do, you're going to lose the country even more. Then you're not protecting trans rights. You're actually, you're walking them backwards. We had the bathroom thing and the military thing solved. I think that they should be able to go into the bathroom. That they appear to be. Right. If you're a.

[Jillian Michaels]

The bathroom thing. I agree with that. Like, that's, that's, it's like a. Who care. No one's assaulted. There's no case of anyone being assaulted.

[Cenk Uygur]

Exactly.

[Jillian Michaels]

By trans person in a bathroom. And this is 100% with you. However, in sports, this is a flat earther conversation.

[Cenk Uygur]

So Jillian, that's exactly what I'm saying. So since they insisted that Floyd Mayweather should be able to go Mike Tyson should be able to go into a ring with biological women if he has puberty blockers, et cetera. That made people go, oh, forget it. Then I guess they're wrong on the bathrooms, too, and they're wrong on the military. No, no, no, no, no. You made it worse, not better, by sticking to an absurd extreme position that is both indefensible logically, but also whether you think it's right or wrong. You're driving 98% of Americans into the other camp, 100%. So why would you want to do that?

[Jillian Michaels]

Well, why are they doing it?

[Cenk Uygur]

Because they. Because the authoritarian structure has been set up and you're not allowed to disobey. But what are we disobeying? Who set the rules on trans people participating in professional sports? When did we vote on it? When did the left wing get together and vote on it? And then they also said the same thing about crime. You're not allowed to say that crime actually has gone up, even though it has gone up. Right, but when did we vote on that? When did the Democratic voters say that they were pro crime or that they wanted you to not talk about crime? We never did. But that's why I brought up the California elections that just happened. Because when we did vote on it, it turns out not just the general population, but the most Democratic voters in the country, Oakland, San Francisco, Louisiana. Were on our side, and they said, no, crime is real, we don't want it, and we're voting you out. So the radical, whether it's the far left or the corporate left that claims we speak for the left, we speak for all Democrats, when they actually run into an election, they get slaughtered. They don't speak for Democrats. They don't speak for the great majority of the left wing in this country.

[Jillian Michaels]

Right?

[Cenk Uygur]

They're radicals. And they say, you have to be a radical, otherwise we're going to call you a Nazi. Call me and call me anything you like all day, every day, but I'm not going to agree to be a radical. I'm not going to agree to have deeply unpopular positions. I'm not going to agree to drive more voters to the Republicans. I'm not going to agree to your insane strategy.

[Jillian Michaels]

And so you're staying in your fighting for it, man. You're like a person that stayed in California, like with Anna, you know, like all of us left. And you're staying in there and you're fighting for it. I mean, I commend the shit out of you, but.

[Cenk Uygur]

So then let's end on hope, okay?

[Jillian Michaels]

Do It.

[Cenk Uygur]

So for me, look, it could have happened in the Republican Party and maybe it'll happen in the next primary, but I think it's a lot less likely. But. So I think in a Democratic primary, a left wing populist must rise. You don't have one, so that's my job, to find one.

[Jillian Michaels]

Okay, don't give me Jon Stewart, okay? He's part of the problem.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay, hold on. So whoever that person is, okay, their number one job is do not take any corporate donor money. Do not represent the donor class, do not represent the rich. Fight for things that the average American wants and they are not unclear about it. The polling shows that the whole country agrees. And then we created a populist plank that we put on our website, TYT.com those six policies, at a bare minimum. There are others, but those six anti war. Negotiate drug prices on Medicare. Right? So don't let private equity buy our homes because it just drives up home prices. Right.

[Jillian Michaels]

This is a winner.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, right. All of these things are so popular. They poll 67% or higher. Some poll in the 80s, some of them poll in the 90s. Paid family leave polls at 84%. Give moms 12 weeks off after they have a baby. Every other. Almost every country on earth has it. Even though we're the richest country, we don't have it because it would cost corporations a nickel. So the corporate interests are killing it. And so if you're a politician and you can't get a bill that's at 84% popularity passed, you're not trying to get it passed. So both the Democrats and Republicans are monumentally full of shit. So if it's a Democrat who's going, oh, yeah, I'd love to work with Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries. And I think they have America's best interest now. That guy's not gonna win. That guy. That guy's useless. I have no interest in that guy. No, you gotta do a hostile takeover of one of the parties.

[Jillian Michaels]

I totally agree.

[Cenk Uygur]

And so Trump did a hostile takeover.

[Jillian Michaels]

He did.

[Cenk Uygur]

Of the Republican Party. He gave a blueprint for how you do it. Okay. Unfortunately, in my opinion, he misdirected it to himself and Jared Kushner.

[Jillian Michaels]

I understand.

[Cenk Uygur]

And his donors, et cetera.

[Jillian Michaels]

I understand.

[Cenk Uygur]

But on the left, you can do a real one. You need a new Bernie to say no, no. And I know everybody's got propaganda against Bernie these days, but it doesn't. The individual doesn't. Whether it's Jon Stewart, Bernie doesn't matter.

[Jillian Michaels]

What matters is we also have to jettison the insanity. So I love these positions you're talking about, but you also have to say, okay, guys, sex changes for 12 year olds. What do we have? We've got the cast review. There was a systemic review of every single study on gender affirming care done by the top pediatrician in the United Kingdom. And when it came out after four years, all of Europe took a step back. But not us. We doubled down. Because it's a bazillion dollar business, quite honestly, as you mentioned. It's like these things come together but nobody calls. You have to do that too.

[Cenk Uygur]

So first of all, if our candidate, the one that I hope that I could help find and I could help support, if that candidate says they're in favor of gender reassignment surgery for minors, I'm out. That's not the right guy. You won't win that. You won't win. You have no chance of win.

[Jillian Michaels]

You won't win.

[Cenk Uygur]

And by the way, it's also the wrong policy. There's a reason why the overwhelming majority of Americans are against it. Because the kids are too young to have that surgery. It's so obvious that they're too young.

[Jillian Michaels]

It sterilizes them for life. It keeps them from ever having an orgasm again. It impacts their brain development, their bone development. Like, you cannot interrupt puberty.

[Cenk Uygur]

Even if you want to debate all of those details, it doesn't matter because the American people are never going to allow you to do gender reassignment surgery for minors. 12 year olds for 12 years.

[Jillian Michaels]

Removing Xavier Becerra.

[Cenk Uygur]

It's never going to happen, okay? It's never going to be allowed. So I'm not going to go and support a radical. It's not it. They can't. So this.

[Jillian Michaels]

Let me know who your, your guy or girl is. I don't think you got a. I don't think you got a dog in that fight.

[Cenk Uygur]

In both parties, there are three wings. There's the far left and far right. There's the corporate left and corporate right. And then there's the populist left and populist right, okay? The populist wing is the correct wing, okay? Whether you're on the right or the left, it's the correct wing. If you go corporate, that's the same old unit party that's been robbing us blind. They're gonna continue that robbery forever and ever until the house of cards collapses. If you go far left or far right, you're never gonna win an election. And people don't want that. There is a reason why you're on the far left. There's a reason why you're on the far right because the great majority of the country doesn't agree with you. I know everyone in your bubble agrees with you. And you think, oh, yeah, I got this. Oh, I bet the whole country wants it. And by the way, I'm not just talking about the far left. The far right's a bunch of lunatics in there.

[Jillian Michaels]

You're right.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right.

[Jillian Michaels]

Who are like, you're right.

[Cenk Uygur]

Oh, yeah, I bet the country wants, you know, XYZ these X. We just interviewed Linda Lee yesterday. She was a Democratic donor that now has switched over to being a Republican bundler, et cetera. And she's like, I switched over to the right because they were so welcoming and inviting. Yes. But she said, as soon as I got in there, the far right started attacking me and started saying that I'm a Chinese agent yet to have that happen.

[Jillian Michaels]

But let's see, what do we do? We continue the conversation. Truthfully, you and I were joking before we sat down, and I kind of want to end with this is I. I've been trying to pull friends from both sides off their exceptionally polarizing media feeds, and our joke was if I could get them to watch the Young Turks, like, that's how you save the country.

[Cenk Uygur]

Well, I mean, I. I love that. I'm not gonna argue with that. No. Okay, so the real quick, plug him. And then I want to get.

[Jillian Michaels]

Please.

[Cenk Uygur]

Content. So, yeah, if you watch us, you know, we're on YouTube 6 to 8pm Eastern every day. What now we're getting a lot of folks who are independents and even conservatives writing in going, man, you guys are honest. It's like, even balls and strikes, like, even the things I don't agree with you on, I don't doubt that you honestly mean it. Right. And that you're trying to get to the truth. 100 and so, sure, I would love it if you watch the Young Turks, but find any news source that is critical of both sides, because if you're. If your news source is telling you that one side is 100% right and the other side is 0% right, they're not. They're not telling you the truth. That is, there's no way that that's true. Right? So look around, look around. Find people who are willing to. To be critical and. But be productive as well and give credit where credit is due. And another thing that drives the left crazy is sometimes Trump will do the right thing. And I'll go, well, that's like Steve Bannon says, don't cut Medicaid. Now, he wants to cut Medicaid, and he says it, but he says don't because it's a bad idea. I'll take the win. You don't want to cut Medicaid. I'll take the win. Don't cut Medicaid. Right. So wherever there's a win, give them credit on the win. If you say they're bad guys, even when they do the right thing, you.

[Jillian Michaels]

Lose all credibility of cred, Wolf.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. And so. And you don't. That doesn't mean you have to agree with Steve Bannon on everything else. You fight him on everything else. And you take the. He says we should increase corporate taxes. I'll take that. That's a win. I'll take that and fight them on everything else. Now, in politics, before we vote on anyone else, whether you're right or left, for God's sake, the number one rule is follow the money. The money is everything. Everything else is distractions. So this transgender issue we're talking about, you know that out of 500,000 athletes at the college level in the NCAAs, only 10 are transgender. Okay.

[Jillian Michaels]

Do you know it's like 1%.

[Cenk Uygur]

It's like, way more.

[Jillian Michaels]

It takes one athlete way less than 1% to take that rarefied air, spot the scholarship.

[Cenk Uygur]

Meanwhile. Meanwhile, okay, Bobby Kennedy goes in to hhs. We're talking about vaccines. That's important and interesting. We're getting distracted by trans issues. But wait a minute. The number one problem is we can't negotiate drug prices with Medicare companies, and that's costing us trillions, literally out of the pockets of American taxpayers and into the pockets of corporate executives.

[Jillian Michaels]

Trillions.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So that's what matters. They're distracting you with the 10 athletes.

[Jillian Michaels]

I think they're distracting you with the vaccine debate, too. But I. I agree with you. I understand.

[Cenk Uygur]

So, and if. If Trump, for example, like, if Trump wanted to be popular, I could show him tomorrow. If you negotiated drug prices, which you should in a free market.

[Jillian Michaels]

Yep.

[Cenk Uygur]

People would love it, because all of a sudden, their drug prices would be lower. If you gave people paid family leave, it's moms that you're helping when they're making a family, people would love it. So do the things that are popular. But you'll see, unfortunately, he won't. Because, unfortunately, he's the same as the other guys. He just had a better story. He's a better marketer. I'm holding out hope and by the way, no problem in holding out hope.

[Jillian Michaels]

I'm holding out hope.

[Cenk Uygur]

And if he wants to paid family leave, I'll help.

[Jillian Michaels]

Cenk, you're fantastic. I hope we can continue having these conversations and I love watching your show and I learned so much and you keep me very grounded and very centered and I cannot thank you enough.

[Cenk Uygur]

Thank you, Jillian. Love this conversation.

[Jillian Michaels]

Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed the podcast, please like, comment, subscribe and share. And make sure to let me know what guests you want to see on in the future.