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Offline with Jon Favreau
Hasan Piker on the Bro Vote, Kamala Harris, and the 2024 Election
01:21:31
Hasan Piker, Gen Z’s favorite left wing political commentator and Twitch streamer, joins Offline to talk about the Trump campaign’s bro-first election strategy, the right wing’s dominance of the digital media landscape, and why, 25 days until the election, he’s feeling mostly…tired. Jon and Hasan debate the Biden-Harris policy agenda, particularly with regard to immigration and Israel-Palestine, and Hasan shares how he avoids burnout while talking politics live for 50 hours a week.
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- [00:01]
Hasan Piker
The kind of burgers you get today tells you a lot about yourself. You're either someone who settles for sad, same old, same old burgers, or you're Edit Carl's Jr obsessed with a tangy OG Western bacon cheeseburger, demanding a house made guacamole, loaded guac bacon fired up for the insanely hot El Diablo or craving a classic Charbold Famous Star. Give in to your flavored cravings. Do your mouth to Carl's Jr Big Burger good Burger. I live my life on camera for the most part, and I'm very fortunate and very privileged to be able to do so. For me, I feel like that kind of stuff is what keeps me away from burning out. Because like I will still of course, cover politics. That's my interest. That's what I love to do. That's what I find a lot of emotional fulfillment in. And I will continue doing it. But in order to mitigate burnout, in order to stop it from happening, I realized that I wasn't doing like eight hours of news coverage. Usually I'm doing like six hours of news coverage, maybe two hours of video games or four hours of news coverage and then a couple hours of like lifestyle culture, things like that, you know, fun, different fun segments that I engage in and then you know, doing IRL streams like, and participating in other stuff when I don't do that, when I don't have a healthy diet of that. And it's just all news for 8 to 10 hours, poll watching, having, you know, people on to interview them and talk to them over and over again every single day, it does definitely start taking a toll.
- [01:37]
Jon Favreau
I'm Jon Favreau, and you just heard from today's guest, Twitch streamer and political commentator Hasan Piker. Hasan is a repeat offline guest. We first had him on in the spring of 2023 to talk about topics such as the strengths and weaknesses of Joe Biden's campaign. Obviously, a few things have changed since then, so I wanted to talk to him about a few things that are on my mind. With about three weeks to go until Election Day, namely what both campaigns are doing to target young men, why right wing garbage is still dominating the media ecosystem, and how he feels about the vibes here in the final stretch, I also talked to him about his day job. For those who don't know, Hasan is one of Gen Z's most influential political commentators and a proud leftist. Seven days a week, for eight hours a day, he streams to his 2.7 million Twitch subscribers talking about politics and breaking news. In real time. It sounds exhausting, but I'm glad he's out there, even if our politics don't always line up. And as a quick note, we are getting right to the interview this week. Max will be back with us next week. Here's Hasan Piker. Hasan Piker. Welcome back.
- [02:49]
Hasan Piker
Thank you for having me. It's good to be back.
- [02:51]
Jon Favreau
You made it.
- [02:52]
Hasan Piker
I did. It was. It was tumultuous. It was rough. I had a. I had a car accident situation this time around. Last time I was here, I had just adopted my puppy and she was a menace. Not letting, not letting me sleep at all. There's always something going on.
- [03:08]
Jon Favreau
There's always something. When you come to crooked media, I.
- [03:11]
Hasan Piker
Don'T know what it is.
- [03:11]
Jon Favreau
I think last time you were on, it was like spring of 2023. Just a few minor political developments.
- [03:17]
Hasan Piker
Since then, nothing, nothing too significant has occurred. Right.
- [03:21]
Jon Favreau
Get into.
- [03:22]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, Joe Biden's, you know, looking not that great in the polls right now, but we'll see.
- [03:27]
Jon Favreau
I don't know if he can pull it out.
- [03:28]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [03:29]
Jon Favreau
Want to start with the Politico story from this week on a topic that you and I have talked about before. The headline is inside Trump's push to win over the bro vote. Yeah, this is about Trump doing a lot of the manosphere podcast. Theo Vaughn, Andrew Schultz, Logan Paul, Lex Friedman, the rest. He's got the Nelk boys doing a voter registration drive. There are tailgates, UFC fights, they're advertising on sports gambling sites. What, what's your overall take on Trump's BRO strategy?
- [03:56]
Hasan Piker
I think he is smartly looking at, like, he's smartly looking at a situation where he already has hemorrhaged his base of support, and those that remain are not exactly enough to push him across the finish line for a victory in the Electoral College. And if you can't tap into people that either voted for you and now hate you or voted for you and love you and will vote for you again, or will never vote for you and hate you, then what remains? Younger male voters, low propensity voters overall from every demographic that might not have even voted last election cycle because they were too young and too young to even, like, fully comprehend what it was like to live under the Trump administration, or voters that have never really voted, that might vote this time around if they are successfully activated by Trump. That's like the only. That's the last remaining area of voters you could go to. And normally this would be a risky gamble if you were a normal Republican, but When you're Trump and you get almost assassinated twice, and that still doesn't even move the needle a little bit for you in the polls. You just gotta look at other avenues. The problem with a lot of those people is that they are virtually impossible to pollute. And they are, I feel like they're, they're hard to, to, to figure out if they're going to go out and vote at all. Right?
- [05:35]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [05:35]
Hasan Piker
So that's the reason why the dynamic has shifted every single election cycle. Democrats say, oh, we got turnout. If it's going to be a high turnout election, then we're going to win. Right. It's not like that anymore. Right. Now, if this becomes a high turnout election, very likely Donald Trump will win. If it's a low turnout election, the Democrats will win. Because out of the groups that people, out of the groups that normally do go out and vote, it seems like there was a definite edge for Joe Biden before the debate for sure. And there was a definite edge in 2020, and that was his electoral calculus. Now it seems like the dynamic has shifted a little bit with Kamala Harris, but they're still bouldering towards that. They're still bouldering towards the suburbs. Like they're genuinely pushing for the suburban, educated, white, college educated white voter.
- [06:37]
Jon Favreau
We were talking about this on Positive America yesterday, but I was looking at some polling. They broke out by types of voters, how often they vote. High engagement voters, people in the last four elections, Kamala is winning them by 4 points as Biden was low propensity voters or mid propensity voters, people who've like skipped one of the four last elections. Trump's winning those voters by less than he was with Biden, but still by like seven points, I think.
- [07:06]
Hasan Piker
But, but that's a larger percentage overall than Kamala's victory over high propensity voters. That's.
- [07:11]
Jon Favreau
Well, that's the thing is a bigger pool, right? Yeah, but then new registrants since 22, Biden was losing by 10 and Kamala's winning by 13. So there is like an X factor there in like the brand new voters who look a little different than these low propensity voters. But that's why I think no one knows what the fuck's going on. The polling certainly suggests that men, especially young men, have been drifting to the right over the last few years. Some moving to Trump, some moving to RFK Jr, some just no longer supporting Democrats, I guess. Do you buy that? And if so, what do you think is causing that shift?
- [07:48]
Hasan Piker
Oh, no, I absolutely buy It, I see it, I experience it. I am a political commentator on Twitch. It's a heavily male dominated space. I'm friends with some of the people that have interviewed Donald Trump. I know them personally. Like Mike Malak is a good friend of mine. He's a great guy. He's the co host of Logan Paul's podcast, Impaulsive. He wrote a book on, you know, he wrote a book about his own journey through, and his own struggle through addiction. He's a fantastic dude. Can't say the same about Logan, but that's besides the point. Or I know Andrew Schultz. I've been on that podcast that Trump was on recently, Flagrant. So like I know their fan bases, I've been on these podcasts, I talk to these guys and I also know like I'm in this space so I see it every day. There is a massive amount of right wing radicalization that has been occurring, especially in younger male spaces. Everything is completely dominated by right wing politics. All of the hobbies, if you're, if you're a dude under the age of 30 and you have any hobbies whatsoever, whether it's playing video games, whether it's working out, whether it's, I don't know, listening to like a history podcast or whatever, every single facet of that is just completely dominated by center right to, I wouldn't say far right in the same way that it was back in like the 2016 era at the end of like Obama's administration. But like definitely center right to Trumpian right, like openly Trump right, not like genuinely neo Nazi. That part is quieted down a little bit. But like they're like 90% of the way there for the most part. And, and that's it. Everything that they see is right wing sentiment being expressed by individuals that they find charismatic thought leaders, influencers that they subscribe to. And I think that that is some of the reason why you see this movement. That's a normal situation that occurs when you have a Democratic president. When Joe Biden, when Joe Biden became the candidate, one of my locks all the way back in 20, like in the 2020 cycle was, oh, we're just going to go back to the same culture war stuff very quickly. We're going to snap back to a lot of the, a lot of the same exact sentiments like women in video games or like ruining woke is ruining this. Woke is ruining M&Ms. And they did, they very quickly snapped back into that comfortable space that existed under the Trump administration as well. But it was a harder argument to make, to convince people when Trump was the president. Why do you still feel angry? Is a question I would ask right wingers all the time. I was like, your president is the president right now. You still feel angry. You still think it's trans people that's like fucking up your life. He's the president, he could be fixing your problems, but your material problems remain the same even under this leadership, just like they existed under the former leadership of Obama. So maybe it's not these, like, culture war issues that's fucking up your life. And of course, younger audiences back then I would say, were significantly more left leaning. Like that culture under the Trump administration was the quote, unquote, resist culture all the way from liberals screaming about even abolishing ice, which is a position that I have maintained for years. But I did not ever expect, like a, like a brunch, wine mom, podcast enjoyer of, you know, crooked media to turn around and be like, yeah, we really need to abolish the Department of Homeland Security and restructure it. Like, that's a wild position. But we got to that point because there was a, it was culturally permissible, right? And we have snapped completely back in the opposite direction under the Biden administration, under the Biden leadership. And of course, when you have a liberal leadership, there's going to be resentment from younger audiences that are still once again feeling the same material harms that younger generations experience on a regular basis. And inevitably that breeds hostility, that breeds resentment, and it creates a lot of vulnerable men who are looking for answers. And I think a lot of right wing podcasters in the manosphere and the like take advantage of that. And they do a very good job of taking advantage of it. They're like, oh, yeah, you're angry. It's, you're angry because trans people exist. You're angry because women are taking your jobs like they should be going back to a traditional lifestyle. And it's like if you're like a 14 year old boy who's vulnerable, who's mad, who's emotional, and you see that kind of stuff, you're like, well, yeah, I'm gonna believe the guy with the nice car telling me that it's not my fault, it's actually the fault of all of these systemic problems and that's what's going on.
- [12:54]
Jon Favreau
I mean, you bring up a really good point, which is that it sounds that the resentment and anger is sort of anti institution, anti establishment, and that it is harder to maintain that if you're the right wing manosphere or whatever when A Trump is president than when someone else is president because you're upset with the status quo. And so who are you gonna be upset with? The people who are in charge.
- [13:20]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, but I mean, right wing manosphere guys were popping off when Trump was president as well, for sure. It's just that overall there's always, there's always gonna be a space for right wing content creators, especially outside of mainstream voices. But they get like a lot of elevation for mainstream platforms anyway, especially with like Tucker Carlson back in the day at Fox News. Like fucking Fox News will have any right wing person of any demographic as long as they say the appropriate things. They certainly have a good focus on building this infrastructure, this communications infrastructure that spans far beyond their own network. And they do a pretty good job with that. And no such thing exists for the liberal side of media. That does not exist. I, like, you might every now and then go on shows. Right. But even that's rare.
- [14:14]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [14:15]
Hasan Piker
And you fucking were the speechwriter for Barack Obama. Like, you're not, you know what I mean? You're not like a random upstart in the same way that like Charlie Kirk is an example I use all the time. This person is now an institutional part. He's doing turnout strategies on the ground in Arizona right now with Turning Point usa. How did Charlie Kirk get his start? He wrote a, he wrote a high school paper that was highlighted on Breitbart and immediately they were like, get on Fox News right now. We need this kid on Fox News. And that's how he became this person. And he used that platform very quickly to go to Foster Freeze and all these like right wing donors to set up Turning Point usa. So the right has a very good way of packaging anyone and everyone that even leans a little bit to the right or completely is right wing. They identify them, whereas, and highlight them and make them into like media figureheads. And there's plenty of money there as well because obviously there's plenty of billionaires and millionaires that want to fund and continue this flow of propaganda because they recognize the importance of that. Whereas like I said, no such reality exists on the left especially. And it doesn't even exist for like the liberal side of things either.
- [15:33]
Jon Favreau
No, that's true. I'm very interested in what is appealing to young men about the manosphere stuff, Trump, all of that. I mean, data shows that young men are now less likely to go to college than young women, less likely to graduate, more likely to live with their parents, more likely to spend time alone, struggle with loneliness, and of Course, you know, you throw in the Internet and social media and you've got a real recipe for radicalization or at least alienization. Alienation from institutions.
- [16:06]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [16:07]
Jon Favreau
How do you tease out whether economic forces are driving this, material forces are driving this, material concerns or cultural? Like, how do you, how do you see the interplay between them?
- [16:18]
Hasan Piker
Well, I mean, I always think, like, material realities drive culture in general. Like, you can't. You can't really culture your way out of this. If that was the case, then, I mean, mainstream media in general is fairly liberal. And from where I'm standing, the way I understand the world, they're definitely center right, but overall they are still considered liberal. They're certainly more progressive and more liberal than Fox News and all these other outlets on the right. But culturally at least. Yeah, for sure. When it comes to. Well, yeah, we're not even talking about fiscal policy. We're talking about, like, you know, social stuff. But I think that at the end of the day, it is much harder to radicalize people if they're in a. If they have a hope for the future. It's much harder to radicalize people if they feel as though they can get an honest job and make a living, get a living wage, have a car, or have a wonderful city with an infrastructure that's designed, that is walkable, that you can get on a bus and roam the city around in where you're. Around this diverse population and that you know that you're inevitably going to be able to retire. You know that you're inevitably going to be able to buy a home. It's much harder to radicalize people like that. It's much easier, on the other hand, to radicalize people against or for right wing sentiment and reactionary sentiment when they're in dire constraints. I'll give you the example of Springfield, Ohio. Springfield, Ohio is a very poor town. It was a very poor town. It still is a very poor town. It's actually on the up and up. Similar to a Hazletown situation in Pennsylvania. A lot of Haitian migrants went to Springfield, Ohio. Their taxable revenue actually went up. There was need for, there was, there was need for workers there. And that's why they were like, oh, shit, let's just move here, let's work here. Similar with Hazletown in Pennsylvania. Town was on the verge of insolvency and Latino migrants start coming in and they start building businesses and the town is flourishing. That happened under the Trump administration. That's why I'm using that as an example. So in that process Obviously, Springfield, Ohio, became a major point of contention, a major talking point, because Republicans all the way from J.D. vance to Donald Trump started lying in the most unimaginably racist way possible by claiming that, like, the Haitian migrants were just eating cats and dogs. These are people who are multilingual. Like, they speak like four languages. Like they're doctors and engineers and shit, that are now driving Uber, right? As is the case with most immigrants that come into this country that, like, escaped horrifying conditions back home. Conditions that we contributed to, mind you. But let's not even get into that. But ultimately they are making the town better. But the people that live there are very frustrated. And when you listen to them, when you listen to all the people that were interviewed by, you know, insane right wing youtubers that went there and swarmed the town like a bunch of goddamn vultures and was putting. Were putting microphones to every psycho that you could find in the town that was like, yeah, they're eating cats and dogs. I promise I saw a van full of cats. Like, all this shit. You start to recognize that, like, these people don't feel this way because they're just like, truly evil. They're saying evil shit. But they feel this way because if you listen to their stories, you start recognizing, oh, the social safety nets were crippled here. Like, this is a town that was completely left behind. And in that vacuum, in that dire poverty that they were experiencing, they started developing resentment. And right wingers very cleverly pointed to the people that don't look like you that might not speak English all too well for now, right? And that was it. That is the same exact principle we saw in Sweden that had a flourishing social democratic regime for many, many years. And then austerity kicked in and all of this anti Muslim, anti refugee sentiment started baking into society. Far before there was a significant number of Muslim refugees that actually even came to Sweden. They were already primed and ready to go. And now when you look at it, it's like their liberal parties are just straight Nazis at this point. And you see it all over Europe. You see it everywhere. Austerity comes in, people start feeling the hurt. People start recognizing that the things that used to work, that they took for granted, whether the buses were running on time, whether they're. Whether the infrastructure was like, fine is no longer working in the same way. And you're like, man, shit kind of sucks now what's going on there? And then someone goes, yeah, it does suck. You know why? Because black people are here. You know why? Because Muslims are here. Now and they go, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah.
- [21:32]
Jon Favreau
Well, in all of it's interesting you bring that up because in all the discussion about Springfield, I had sort of had this thought too where the pushback to the Trump Vance story about Springfield is. Well, actually Springfield over the last couple years has been doing really well and there's been a lot of prosperity and it's been great. And you know, it's sort of like the same stats people use. The Biden administration used to do that with like, actually it's the greatest economy we've ever had. Everything's great.
- [21:59]
Hasan Piker
Right?
- [22:00]
Jon Favreau
Like, it can be both be true that Springfield has grown and it has benefited economically from all these immigrants moving there and there's more jobs and there's more opportunity. Like that can all be true. And yet it's still a community where housing is expensive. It's still a community where the hospitals are stretched thin, where the infrastructure doesn't always work. Right. And so I think we sometimes skip over the fact that yes, these resentments still can be sort of heightened by the right coming in and people still have problems. I saw this interesting study that it wasn't necessarily, it's not necessarily like the poorest, poorest people who become maga, but people in smaller cities and towns that have been left behind, who may be middle class within that city, but have seen the city become left behind in post industrial America. And that resentment about, resentment towards some of the poorer people in that city who tend to be people of color, tend to be migrants, that gets them more radicalized. So they actually have an okay standard of living, but not quite as good as what they're seeing. And cities and on Instagram and on social media and that sort of drives a lot of the Trump.
- [23:20]
Hasan Piker
No, for sure. I think, I mean, you see that in, in Los Angeles, like the housing market is completely fucked. Every two years, Californians go and vote for ballot measures that are like, let's kill landlords proposition. And they're like, oh my God, I love that. And then they vote by like, you know, 30% margins. They're like, they love that bill, they love that ballot initiative. And then it, I mean, I'm obviously exaggerating for those at home, don't be afraid. But, but then, you know, it gets held up or it gets outsourced to a contractor that like takes the money, takes the taxable revenue and then like doesn't do anything with it and holds it up purposefully and there's never any initiative. So the housing market and the housing prices keep Going up, which is really good. If you are a homeowner and have a mortgage on your house and you take that for granted, and you take the expectation that your housing prices are going to go up year after and you can maybe even refinance later down, or you could take a second loan out if you wanted to. You know, that's like your vehicle for wealth accumulation. And when you take that for granted, you're like, oh, it's great that it's still, it still keeps going up. But 66% of Californians are renters. And for them, when the housing prices are going up, rent is going up. And when rent is going up, they get priced out of the housing market. When they get priced out of the housing market, they go down this death spiral of homelessness and they first start couch surfing, they maintain a job, but then that becomes really hard and they're living out of their car, and then they inevitably become the homeless person that you see on the sidewalk. Like, that has tattered clothes and is like, definitely hasn't been taken care of by the government for years and years and has withstood a lot of trauma and is very clearly in a dire mental health situation as a direct consequence of not having shelter. And people see that and they're like, well, I'm a progressive guy, but I think we should kill that person. Like, that's literally what it is. Like, that's why you. That's why there's so much, like, cognitive dissonance surrounding subjects like this. And you see that radicalization occur because once again, the system has failed people and the system has left people behind. And people see that and develop resentment.
- [25:46]
Jon Favreau
This podcast is sponsored by the Washington Post. Big fans of the Washington Post here at Offline. We have used many Washington Post stories to talk to you about why the Internet is breaking our brain. Some of the best political reporters, technology reporters in the world work at the Washington Post. We love it. If you listen to Offline, you know the great work the Washington Post does on topics like Capitol Hill, the economy, climate change, foreign policy, and more. If you're in a rush and need to catch up quickly on the day's most important and interesting stories, the Post's The7 newsletter is a quick commute read sent each weekday morning. I read it every single morning when I wake up. It's a great newsletter. The Post even offers a cool feature for audio lovers like you. You can actually listen to articles in addition to reading them, so you can tackle your to do list and catch up on the news at the same time. Love it. Have I not been raving about the Washington Post to you?
- [26:37]
Hasan Piker
We love the Washington Post.
- [26:38]
Jon Favreau
I won't shut up about it.
- [26:38]
Hasan Piker
We're huge fans of it.
- [26:39]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, it's great. Anyway, you should get the Washington Post. With the election rapidly approaching, now is the time to sign up for the Washington post. Go to washingtonpost.com offline to subscribe for just 50 cents per week for your first year. That's 80% off their typical offer, so this is truly a steal. Once again, that's washingtonpost.com offline to subscribe for just 50 cents per week for your first year. Offline is brought to you by Henson Shaving. According to a recent study, 2/3 of men expect some irritation when they shave. There's virtually no information on how to prevent irritation, only on how to treat it. This is why Henson Shaving wants to change the shaving industry. Not through gimmicks like subscriptions or moisturizing strips, but through groundbreaking research on the impact shaving has on your skin. Here's a dirty secret about the razor industry. Even the cheapest dollar store disposable razor will likely give you a reasonably smooth shave. The trick is in removing the hair without any negative outcomes to your skin. I hate negative outcomes on my skin. Hate negative skin outcomes. Henson wants to change the paradigm away from getting a smooth shave to getting a skin friendly shave. Well, that sounds like something I can get on board with, huh?
- [27:45]
Hasan Piker
Yep.
- [27:45]
Jon Favreau
Are you ready to change this paradigm with me? Love it.
- [27:47]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [27:47]
Jon Favreau
All right.
- [27:48]
Hasan Piker
Hey, let's get skin friendly.
- [27:49]
Jon Favreau
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- [29:58]
Hasan Piker
Oof. If you asked me this question when Tim Walls was chosen as the Vice president, I would give you an entirely different speech because I was very hopeful for the first time ever because I was genuinely confused as to how the Democratic Party was behaving in a competent way because I'm so used to where I'm standing. Like, obviously I'm very biased. I'm very leftist. I'm much further out from like, I'm much further left than the, than the Democratic Party is. But I do think that, like, a lot of people feel the same way that I do. Even if they don't communicate those desires or tack it onto any sort of ideological framework. They like most people my age group and younger are like, yeah, I want health care. Like, can we please get that? Or student loan debt relief. Sounds like a good idea. Like, I would like that, like, lighten my burden, please. It seems like, you know, or it seems like the world is going to end any time now. Climate change is, is devastating the country. Don't know if I'll ever be able to retire. Like, these are attitudes That a lot of people have. And, and that's my background from where I'm standing, of course, I don't think the Democratic Party does enough even lip service to these constituencies historically. And they certainly haven't done it since the swap out happened. I think with some exceptions. When Kamala Harris first came on board, I was a big advocate for obviously getting Biden to drop out because I saw the writing on the wall pretty early on. I mean, I was.
- [31:32]
Jon Favreau
As most Americans did.
- [31:33]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, as most Americans did. Which is like a very unique perspective in media or was a very unique perspective in media at the time. And now we just like act like, how ridiculous that, like we think back at it and like, how ridiculous would it be right now if Biden was still in the race? Like, but ultimately it was a unique moment because like the Democratic Party responded to public pressure. Now, of course they responded to the donor pressure as well. And they responded to establishment Democrats like my queen, Nancy Pelosi. But they.
- [32:07]
Jon Favreau
Our queen.
- [32:07]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, our queen Nancy Pelosi. Like, they responded to that and they were like, oh, we gotta change this so. And the people responded very positively to that with billions of dollars of fundraising that they can now tout as a massive war chest. Right. That to me was unique because the Democratic Party going along with Biden, like riding with Biden all the way to the end is like typical old school Democratic Party operation. So I thought maybe things would be different. And then they didn't pick Josh Shapiro, they picked Tim Waltz. And I was like, what the hell is going on? Because Josh Shapiro is again, classic Democratic Party. He's like relatively charismatic. He is conservative from. Not even from where I'm standing. I mean, he pushed for a right wing charter school bill, a school choice bill with the Republicans in his own state. Like, that's a, that's as conservative as you can get from, you know, for me at least, like you're, it's. It immediately hurts teachers unions. And from the perspective of a Democratic analyst, he's locking in Pennsylvania. Right. That's a two point boost minimum that you're going to get if you get the governor of Pennsylvania on the ticket. So that would have been a perfect choice for them, I think, to go with, if they were going to go the conservative route, is what I thought. Tim Waltz paid family leave, you know, protected abortion, protected medical access, did a whole bunch of stuff with a single seat majority in the state Senate in Minnesota. And you know, it is pretty applicable to the American state of Congress if you look at it that way. It Made me feel like the Democrats were basically going to sign on with Tim Wallace. They were, they were going to have to be on board with his policies and have to communicate that, like, no, these are good things. Like what you consider to be radical or what you consider to be socialist or scary is actually good for the people. And people don't care. Republicans don't care. As long as, you know, their kids are being fed in their public schools as well. Everybody likes that. And Tim Waltz also was very good at communicating these desires. And he also was very good at attacking the Republican Party for all of the weird culture war phenomena that they consistently engage with. He called them weird. And it was, it's something I've been doing for years and years. So I was like, oh, this is great. Like, I can't believe the Democratic Party is like, finally, you know, taking the fight back to the Republicans. And then the DNC happened and I was there and they were like, oh, just kidding. We're just, we're old school. Like, we're going back to the same exact route. We're gonna run to the middle. We're gonna get as many Republicans in the suburbs as possible to come out and vote for us. We're gonna go over the Nikki Haley constituency and you can't do a damn thing about it. And we're gonna tell you, you gotta go out and vote for us. And if you don't, then you want fascism to thrive. If you don't, you want deportation. Which is another issue that I have with Kamala Harris as well. But yeah, overall I'm very critical for, in two different brackets. I'm critical of the Democratic Party and their capitulation, the right wing framing on immigration, because I think it's bad policy and it's bad politics. But I'm also like, even if it was a successful strategy for this election, I still think it is devastating for the future of this country to consistently move further and further right on this issue, to inevitably create a reasonable ground for the next Republican competent administration to come in and just do full tilt fascism with concentration camps.
- [35:53]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. So on immigration, I mean, I tend to think that like, global migration from the global south to the north is going to be like. And climate change is going to accelerate this and war and conflict is already accelerating. It's is going to be like the political issue for the net for the remainder of our lifetimes. And Europe has dealt with this. We dealt with this. And the tough part is, and like, I've, you know, you, you talk to like progressive, seemingly progressive Voters in border states and now, you know, like Desantis stunt, like busing migrants into. Into blue cities. Right. And. And then first it was a stunt, and then they were just doing it because they didn't know where else to. To, you know, as people are coming over the border, where else to put them.
- [36:43]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, there's just no space in Texas, famously. Right?
- [36:46]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [36:46]
Hasan Piker
Like, I always think about, when I think about like an area where there's just like not enough space, I think of Texas.
- [36:52]
Jon Favreau
Well, it's like, so you have a. I mean, the way I see it is you have this underfunded, broken immigration system. You don't have enough space. You don't have like the courts are all fucking backed up. Right. And so there's no way to. To process all these asylum seekers consistent with the law. So. And yes, Texas has a lot of space, but you need cities, services to send people. Right. And so they said. And now you've got like, Brandon Johnson in Chicago, pretty progressive mayor by the Democratic Party standards.
- [37:24]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, for sure. I mean, he was like a DSA pig, but he's been. But it's like a little underwhelming.
- [37:29]
Jon Favreau
Right. But even like people like that being like, you know what, we want to be welcome to migrants, but like, our surfaces are stretch too thin. We don't know what to do. And then you've got voters, Democratic voters, liberal voters, seeing. And so I agree that the policy is just all fucked. We could talk about that forever. But politically, like, it is a real. It is a real concern that voters have with immigration. And the right very wisely makes this an issue in the election.
- [38:01]
Hasan Piker
Well, it's not. They don't make it an issue in the election. They never stop making it an issue. Correct.
- [38:06]
Jon Favreau
You're right.
- [38:06]
Hasan Piker
Then that's the major problem here. I'm a firm believer. And there's polling data that I can point to if you want to. If you want to get into it. I'm a firm believer that the average American voter, the median voter, is of two minds. They believe things that are inherently contradictory.
- [38:20]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [38:20]
Hasan Piker
And that bears itself out in the data if you actually look through it. There's a Pew Center, I think, research that looked at Asian American voters and what their opinions on migration patterns are. And I believe it was like 64% of Asian American, first of all, 74% Asian Americans, just like everyone else believes. Full tilt amnesty for DACA. Right. For the Dreamers. That's consistent. That's been like 90% throughout the entire. Throughout the entire existence of the program. And yet we never get any headway on that because obviously it's just politics that sucks.
- [38:53]
Jon Favreau
Also, courts keep knocking it down.
- [38:55]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. So you have that. But then something very unique happens where they ask them, what do you think about offering pathways to amnesty for all undocumented migrants? As long as they've like not caused any commotion or done any crimes, which is the overwhelming majority, if not damn near the entirety of the undocumented migrant population, they are responsible for less crime per capita. But I won't get into that right now. And that number is 64%. Yeah, and then they ask those exact same. Yeah, and then they ask those same exact people, what do you think about mass deportation? 60% say yes.
- [39:30]
Jon Favreau
I know. I've been talking with this about people. I think it is people. Those people think that deportation is the people who are just arriving over the border. The scenes they see from the border. And I think if people knew what mass deportation in this country would look like, will look like if Trump wins, where it's like raids and offices and homes.
- [39:51]
Hasan Piker
It did look like that when Trump was president.
- [39:53]
Jon Favreau
And tearing families apart and children separated, like, then I don't, I don't believe that's.
- [39:59]
Hasan Piker
And then you gotta house them. You gotta concentrate these people in an area. Possibly a camp.
- [40:05]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, a camp.
- [40:05]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [40:06]
Jon Favreau
So I don't think, I don't think that would be as popular. But I agree that it's just a really. You know, I agree then that also that the Democrats.
- [40:14]
Hasan Piker
But who's at fault then? Who is responsible for the counter messaging not existing? I blame the Democratic Party because the Democrats knew that the Republicans were going to engage in this right wing framing. They never stopped doing it. There's always a caravan. Every two years, it's so suspicious. There's always a caravan that George Soros paid for this. Coming from El Salvador or Guatemala or wherever. Honduras. Right.
- [40:38]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [40:38]
Hasan Piker
Because that's the only thing they have. That's the only thing that they can point to and engage with like right wing hysteria on and lie about actively. And if you don't counter message against that on the off season, you are going to allow the right to capture the space in its entirety. You brought up the Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis strategy, which is so funny because Ron DeSantis was taking migrants from Texas.
- [41:05]
Jon Favreau
I know.
- [41:05]
Hasan Piker
And shipping them elsewhere. Right. In the country. That's human trafficking. That's illegal. The Democratic administration should have come down and swung the long dick of the law and shipped Greg Abbott into a supermax facility and then immediately been like, no, this, this process, as long as it's regulated and as long as there's proper paperwork in order not to overwhelm the facilities in the areas that you're sending these migra, too, should be done methodically, immediately fund it immediately. Go in. I mean, this is immigration as well. So technically, I think, like, there is more power in the executive authority to be able to move stuff around immediately, given more money to New York, more money to all of these cities in an effort to process and facilitate and integrate these people into society. Because when you see those rows and rows of migrants waiting inside of these, like, awful places in New York and, or maybe even like, overtaking hotels and whatnot, the one question that people ask them is like, what do you want out of this? Like, what do you want out of this process? They're like, I want to work.
- [42:09]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [42:10]
Hasan Piker
And these guys want to fucking work. And they could, they could go out and work if they were processed faster. The reason why they can't be processed faster is we're not allocating enough federal resources under a Democratic leadership. So if I was Joe Biden, that's what I would have done.
- [42:25]
Jon Favreau
But the reason. Well, this is the problem. This is how it's actually, this is emblematic of how Republicans have succeeded politically over I don't know how long now. It's not just a messaging thing. It is a policy thing, which is that, okay, how do we get more funding for all the. To fix the immigration system? Right? It's going to require more funding. It's going to require path to citizenship, right? This is what Democrats have wanted since the Obama era, path to citizenship, all this kind of stuff.
- [42:50]
Hasan Piker
First 100 days of the Biden administration.
- [42:53]
Jon Favreau
And Republicans, absolutely not never going to pass Congress, don't want to give more funding, don't want to do anything. So then the only thing becomes, okay, what can you do via executive action? Well, you can try to do dreamers, but courts are knocking that down. So then all you can do is more board. You can only do the security stuff, right? And you can only do the, like, kick them out stuff. Right? So that's the only thing that you're allowed to do without Congress. And so then Congress hamstrings you and then says, look, those fuckers screwed up everything. And now there's all these. And now, in fairness too, there was an influx of migrants since 2021 that was much larger than throughout the Trump era or the Obama era or whatever.
- [43:33]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, because of COVID Because of COVID Right.
- [43:35]
Jon Favreau
So there was an influx that they were not prepared to deal with, which makes it a little tricky. But anyway, now we're way off topic with immigration, but it's good to talk about because I think that so much of the Harris Walls campaigns, challenges, you get like shot out of a cannon with a couple months to go in the election. You gotta go to the dnc, right? And you actually, because the electorate is on a knife's edge in terms of like how closely divided it is and how close 2020 was. You do need the Haley voters, you need the suburb voters, you need the young voters, you need the low propensity voters. Like, you need all of them. You do need a coalition that spans from fucking AOC to Joe Manchin to Liz Cheney just to people who vote, who support those people. Not them necessarily.
- [44:27]
Hasan Piker
Okay, well, Liz Cheney has like eight supporters or Dick Cheney.
- [44:32]
Jon Favreau
Right? But like people who. These like suburban Republicans who used to vote for Mitt Romney, who then voted for Joe Biden, you need them. You need the kids who like Bernie, you need the working class folks who maybe voted for Obama. And then like, you need all of them. And trying to hold that coalition together against a minority coalition that keeps winning elections because of the electoral college and a whole bunch of other shit is a real bitch.
- [44:59]
Hasan Piker
No, I'm not, I'm not saying it's not a complicated process. I do. However, I will push back a little bit on what you said because here's the reality. Poll after poll shows that if that was genuinely a concern for the Harris campaign, then there is a freebie out there. There are some Americans who want permanent genocide in Gaza. Definitely. They're like, I love it. I want more of it. Please give it to me. They're called evangelical Christian voters that are firmly committed to the Republican Party. Okay? There are zero likely Democratic Party voters or currently voting for the Democratic Party that say we want more genocide in Gaza. That is not a thing. However, on the other side, there are hundreds of thousands of Americans, not just in Michigan, but all around younger Americans that would more likely vote for the Democratic Party if there was a ceasefire. And the only way to do that is by denying weapons transfers and making the phone call, making the boss call and being like, you're done. The same boss call that Joe Biden did in 2021 after. After Israel started pummeling and like, you know, shooting the Associated Press building and stuff when he was like, you're done. And then the next day they were done. American foreign policy is horrible. Luckily for, I guess either candidate, there's bipartisan support for it in the, in Congress and, and Americans are trained not to care about it because if they did, they would go crazy. I think if they like hyper focused on it, they'd be like, oh, my God, we are literally the most evil empire of all time. We need to stop it immediately. Americans, by and large, on the other hand, while they don't care about foreign policy, are not neocons. Right? They're not like invested in nuking Iran even. They might be afraid of Iran because of what, you know, the television is telling them. Like, you know, the Iranian guys are saying death to America all the time, but they don't really care. Like, they don't want the money to go there and back in the day. I think Barack Obama did a fantastic job of communicating that instead of doing nation building in the, in Iraq and Afghanistan, we should do nation building here. That's what he said in 2008. You might have written that. Actually, it's a great line.
- [47:24]
Jon Favreau
Very popular Democratic line from way back when.
- [47:26]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, but like, but that's the thing.
- [47:28]
Jon Favreau
Since the Kerry days.
- [47:29]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, I know, but like, what happened now? We're just like, we want to have the strongest dicked military of all time. We got to have a lethal military. Like, we got to fuck shit up. We're restructuring the party to do like neocon agenda shit that like virtually zero people want. And even less people in D.C. want it now because they might want it, but they just don't want it in the way that it's currently unfolding because even they recognize the danger that that presents for America's interests in the region. Right? So who are we doing this for is a question that a lot of Americans have. If you were genuinely trying to win every voter, you would have put a Palestinian at the DNC to come out and speak. You would have had Ruva come out and speak at the DNC and endorse Kamala Harris. You would have tried to not get into the Humphrey trap and part as best as you can, try to desperately show the American population that, like, you're at least marginally different than Joe Biden on this issue. You wouldn't be running towards Joe Biden on this issue. That's even a more holistic problem, I think with the Kamala Harris campaign in terms of like, every media opportunity she has nowadays, she will be like, I'm just like Joe Biden. I am Joe Biden. I love Joe Biden. I love Dick Cheney. And the only difference I have between me and Joe Biden is that I will have A Republican in my administration. I'm like, what are you doing? Like, I get that. Like, I get that they have completely changed their messaging strategy and their strategy on the ground to like flip Republican suburb like you know, educated small business owner, white former Republican voters and like flip them to go along with like a managed a more, a less volatile Republican framework. Like that's what they're communicating.
- [49:20]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [49:21]
Hasan Piker
To those people.
- [49:22]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. I think it. Well, okay, first of all, but you're.
- [49:25]
Hasan Piker
Leaving a lot of people on. You're leaving a lot of people aside is what basically what I'm saying.
- [49:29]
Jon Favreau
I'm going to separate the policy from the politics because I think we could have an entire other conversation about the policy around Gaza. I think it is a. Has been a continues to be catastrophic policy. I think on the politics of this would have been an easy win and they should have had a Palestinian American speak at the convention. I do. I was just in Michigan talking to a lot of folks on the ground, some pretty progressive folks as well, who know the state really well. And they said the challenge here is we are extremely worried about the Muslim and Arab American vote in Michigan. We are also worried about Jewish vote in Michigan as well because there's a lot of. They're like we're fielding calls from folks in Dearborn, folks in Arab being like not gonna vote for the Democratic ticket and then fielding calls from folks in the suburbs being like, I'm a Jewish Democrat, I've been Democrat all my life, I can't vote for the ticket this time. Cause they haven't been what I know. But this is like this is the. I'm just telling you, I don't fucking like it.
- [50:39]
Hasan Piker
Hartz conducted a study that showed that Jewish Americans list Israel as their ninth priority out of 10. It's the ninth priority in the top 10. Now you might say it's because, you know, both parties are, it's uni party on Israel and that is the case. Like it's, that's just precise. That's directly the case. It only goes more right. Like it's either full tilt genocide plus annexation of west bank, which is what Donald Trump is most likely going to do, or full tilt genocide and maybe annexation of west bank later down the line when the Republican does it and then the Democratic Party doesn't reverse that decision. So on that front, maybe that's the reason why he's uni party. But I don't believe that especially for young Jewish voters as well. Young Jews that are not getting the same media diet that like older Voters have gotten across the board, definitely generational, have the very aggressive, exact, almost exact same for sure issue divide on Israel, Palestine. It is exactly the same with every other demographic. If you're under the age of like 40, the likelihood that you think what's going on is fucked up raises spectacularly all the way to being openly anti Zionist. And besides that, Jewish voters as a voting bloc have always been two different brackets. The 25% that are, give or take, that is like Orthodox, not net Orthodox, but like, you know, ultra orthodox Jews that are very conservative that vote consistently for the Republican Party and then. And then a lot of educated Jewish voters that vote for the Democratic Party, around 75%. And I don't think that Israel is their single issue. I. And the polls don't show that Israel is their single issue.
- [52:40]
Jon Favreau
That's right.
- [52:40]
Hasan Piker
They care about the exact same things, which is ironic because this goes to like almost dual loyalty territory. It's like anti Semitic to be like, no, Jews only care about Israel, of.
- [52:50]
Jon Favreau
Course, which is like what Trump likes to say.
- [52:53]
Hasan Piker
Well, exactly, exactly. And they don't. They have, you know, if you're a younger, if you're a younger Jew living in America, you care about rent in the same exact way that everyone else does. You know what I mean? There's no difference. It's just like.
- [53:07]
Jon Favreau
And by the way, also sort of a lot of Muslim Americans and Arabs.
- [53:10]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, exactly. Abortion, like all these things. Right. So that is what.
- [53:16]
Jon Favreau
It's all on the margins is basically my point.
- [53:19]
Hasan Piker
But the other thing I was going to say about the Jewish vote in general is that like, it's not. Not only is it not monolithic, but even if it was monolithic, the areas where a lot of Jewish people live are already not swing states, with the exception of Pennsylvania, every single Michigan.
- [53:38]
Jon Favreau
Michigan too.
- [53:39]
Hasan Piker
But like, even then, I think that there is a far larger number, I would say, of Michigan voters that would be more invested, as shown by polls. I think it's like what 25% boost that you immediately get for pushing for a ceasefire, a policy that like 70% of Americans, 75% of Americans are on board with. Like, they want it. Right. This is objectively popular and even advocating for it, even if you don't have it, like, even if you're not going to be able to change it is going to. Is going to be a reasonable push. Denying weapons transfers to Israel is the only way to do such a thing. And I think that would be the step, that would be the extra step that separates you from Biden. That would also add additional pressure to the administration to change the trajectory. You could also then, I don't know, do the other stuff that Biden cares about and be like, see, Benjamin Netanyahu is dog walking you. He's embarrassing you. He's going to ruin your legacy.
- [54:43]
Jon Favreau
Like, I mean, right now you like, BB has fucked Biden on this. He wants Trump, right? So he's, he's of course doing those now and then Biden is fucking Kamala on this. Because it's very hard as the, there's one president at a time. It's hard when you're the Vice President and the president, United States is in the Situation Room negotiating all the time. I would agree with you sort of pointlessly and poorly with Bibi Netanyahu not showing much leverage, not using the leverage that he has. It is, it is real. And it's on this issue and on most issues because everyone's like, you know, she's got to separate with, from him, blah, blah. It's tricky to separate from him on issues, partly because she was vice president by his side. And so then the next question after she separates with him on some issue is, well, where were you for the last couple years? Now you want to separate just because you want to win an election?
- [55:37]
Hasan Piker
No.
- [55:37]
Jon Favreau
Which is tough.
- [55:38]
Hasan Piker
Which is tough. No. I think she's dropped enough hints early on when she did actually leak to the press that she wanted a permanent ceasefire. But then they changed her message like last second. Like, there were, there were inclinations that, like, she would actually be potentially more progressive. And that was another reason why I was like, maybe she is reading the room well. And when you do that ahead of time, you're, you're, you know, you're priming for that swap out. You could be like, yeah, we can be of two different minds here on foreign policy. I certainly, I certainly am. I think that the President wants what's best for all Americans. And on this issue, I think, like, I have to respond to, you know, what my, what my moral compass is telling me and what the American voters are demanding. Overwhelmingly, even in the Republican Party, you got like 54% of Republicans that want a ceasefire.
- [56:40]
Jon Favreau
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- [57:17]
Hasan Piker
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Jon Favreau
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Hasan Piker
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Jon Favreau
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Hasan Piker
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Jon Favreau
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Hasan Piker
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- [58:24]
Jon Favreau
Let me ask you this, because you were talking about issues that are driving the election. Main issue that's driving the election for voters is the economy.
- [58:30]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [58:31]
Jon Favreau
And how do you think? I think that she and Walls are handling this better than Biden did. Because Biden went out there and was like, no, no, no, I did all these things, accomplishments. I should get credit for it. Blah, blah, blah. Everything's great, economy's rosy and she's focused more on prices and costs, which I think is good. But what would you be doing knowing that she is not a leftist? What would you be doing differently on the economic stuff?
- [58:59]
Hasan Piker
So one thing that she did I thought was brilliant and I give her her flowers for that every day. Americans are terrified of price caps. They. They're scared of like, you know, so control.
- [59:13]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, right, right.
- [59:14]
Hasan Piker
They're scared of that. Another poll that came out recently, like net +35 favorability for going after price gouging. Net negative like 40 favorability for price caps.
- [59:30]
Jon Favreau
I know.
- [59:30]
Hasan Piker
It's the same fucking policy.
- [59:32]
Jon Favreau
I know.
- [59:33]
Hasan Piker
And Americans are so stupid. You know, this dynamic Obamacare, very unpopular Affordable Care act provisions. Especially when you talk about like, you know, preexisting conditions or companies. Yeah, preexisting conditions. Incredibly popular. People are fucking stupid. You know this. I'm stupid. Everyone is stupid. You have to message. You have to message on one side of the issue and you have to say it over and over and over again. She came out with a brilliant strategy and she said, I'm going to go after people who are price gouging. People are still hurting at the grocery stores. Prices are still entirely too high. New York Times immediately wrote an article like, this is crazy. This is a crazy. How dare Kamala Harris put this together.
- [60:17]
Jon Favreau
And all the neolib policy nerds and the fact checkers were like, actually this is not a thing you can. That wasn't causing inflation, the price gouging and all that.
- [60:27]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, guess what? Donald Trump was also calling her Venezuela Harris. Comrade Harris. She's a communist. Her dad is a Marxist professor, yada yada yada. That policy went from 74% approval to 83 in that timeframe. Nobody gives a fuck if you are literally, if you're suffering if your egg prices went up okay, 200%. You don't give a fuck if the person that's saying like, no, I'm going to drive this shit down is a communist or whatever. They don't care. They're just like, no, this is great. I like that. Lower the fucking prices. That was a great way to also communicate that to the American public. Instead of saying something scary like price caps or price controls, she said, price gouging. I'm going to tackle price gouging. There's a very effective way of communicating a very radical, very progressive, bold policy that Richard Nixon implemented and was very popular at the time when he did implement that. So obviously there is a way to do it and there's a way to communicate it. And yet just like with the Republicans are weird thing, they just dropped it. They don't talk about it. Why don't you talk about it Like Kamala Harris got a major gift in this swap out where Americans did not fault her for Biden's economy. They did not fault her for the harm. They did not fault her for inflation eating away at the marginal increases that they got in their wages in that same timeframe when they experienced real negative wage growth. They did not fault her for that. And she could have taken advantage of that. And I think she was originally when she was communicating that like we're going to do, we're going to go after price gougers, but I think that they're failing to communicate that. Another thing the FTC Lina Khan shouts out to the queen, she's doing a fantastic job. The IRS has done a fantastic job. They recently had a court case against Coca Cola. I think they were found to be avoiding taxes to the tune of $16 billion. That's what the 85,000 IRS agents are doing. They're not just like going after Jack.
- [62:35]
Jon Favreau
Booted thugs coming to your house.
- [62:36]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. They're not going after the dude on TikTok in a fucking trailer park. Like, they're not. That's ridiculous. You don't have enough capital for them to like make any earnings. Certainly they are going after millionaires. Yeah, right, because they can't go after billionaires. But they are definitely going after tax avoiders on the, on the millionaire scale. And that frustrates a lot of Americans. There's a lot of American millionaires. But having said that, they are bringing back taxable revenue that the government had no way of bringing back. The NLRB is doing a fantastic job in terms of going after people that going after even small businesses or big businesses that regularly harm their labor, that refuse to engage in good faith collective bargaining agreements, that refuse to allow to unionize their workplace, that refuse to pay back payments. There are a lot of things that these agencies are doing every single day that we all take for granted that we don't ever think about. And I think that is because since, especially since the Reagan era, we are terrified of like, big government is scary. I'm not. I like big government. I want big government. I want a good government. I don't want like a shitty, outsourced, privatized government with the private public partnership that Kamala Harris touts on a regular fucking basis. I despise that. I want actual good federal jobs programs. I want good large initiatives that will change the trajectory of the American economy. And like Green New Deal was another one of these programs that I thought was fantastic. It actually addressed the problem, climate change, and found a pretty solid solution for it by communicating it as a jobs program. Right. But the Republicans very quickly ate away at that by turning it into taking away your hamburgers. Yeah, AOC is going to come to your house and kill you if you eat a hamburger is what they kept saying. And Americans were like, I don't want that. I like hamburgers. It's the only thing I care about. I'm an American. Don't take my burger away. But they should have supported that. They should have pushed for it. They should have pushed back harder on Bill, back better. They should have locked up every single member of Joe Manchin's family for Example, straight up. I'm sorry. Oh, is your, is your daughter a pharma executive and jacking up prices? Oops, she's going to jail.
- [65:01]
Jon Favreau
Hey, we got his vote on the ira.
- [65:03]
Hasan Piker
Well, but. Okay, after making concessions.
- [65:06]
Jon Favreau
Well, that's the first thing we're going.
- [65:08]
Hasan Piker
To do for making ridiculous concessions to a guy who's supposed to be, you know, who's supposed to remember his place. You don't get to be in a committee if you play the spoiler.
- [65:17]
Jon Favreau
Now we're going to get a Republican senator from West Virginia who's going to be 30 times worse, and that's going to be the rest of our lives.
- [65:23]
Hasan Piker
No, I understand that, but Waljo Manchin. But Joe Manger knows where his bread is buttered. He, he has a better opportunity for lobbying and securing, you know, favorable contracts for his immediate family members like his brother and the coal mines that they operate. When he is in an energy committee, when he's in a position within the Democratic Party as playing the role of the spoiler, the revolving, the rotating villain in the Democratic Party, he knows that he would just be a random dickhead senator if he was just any other senator from West Virginia. He wouldn't have the same level of clout and the same level of financial opportunities for his immediate family members as a Republican. So my point always is like, there are, there are areas where you can push and pull. Republicans do this very well when they want to push for an initiative. They're not going to, they're not going to have spoilers in the party. It rarely ever happens. John McCain was one of the few instances where it happened, and that's it. Beyond that, usually it's just everyone knows to toe the party line. So I think that it's bad governance overall from the Democratic Party. It's like bad leadership from the Democratic Party to have their full control over the government for two years, get gutted by a bunch of spoilers who are very openly corrupt, like Kyrsten Sinema. You're the government you should be able to utilize. You should be able to utilize every agency at your disposal in, I would say, an overt political fashion, if you feel the need to do so, because these guys are all corrupt anyway. So, you know, then use that. Apply the law. Apply the Lehi law when it comes to Israel and apply the law when it comes to Joe Manchin. Why is it that, like, their open graft is so public, so visible, and I'm not even talking about, I mean, we're doing it with like, Bob Menendez, Henry Cuellar, there's plenty. Eric Adams, my favorite. Falsely being imprisoned for being friendly with Turkish people. It's fucked up. But like you do that. I mean the government does. The DOJ is working, right? Make it work in the direction of people that are also in violation of the law. This is a common technique that I would say the American government utilizes against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for example. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, tyrant, awful guy. Okay. Very corrupt. America knows he's very corrupt. So when he says, I don't want Finland and Sweden to join NATO because he's always playing both sides despite having NATO's second largest military force, I'm not going to vote for Finland and Sweden to join NATO. What does the American government do? Manhattan District Attorney immediately launches a case into his like improper financial dealings. Next day he's like, okay, nevermind, I'm gonna vote for them to be in NATO. That level of corruption sets up a very easy opportunity to make people do things you want them to do. Every single American politician is engaging in this, virtually every single one. Apply the letter of the law to these people and make them go along with your agenda. That's what I think. Yeah. Or even if you're not gonna do that, you should just at least whip them. You know what I mean? Like. No, I'm serious though.
- [68:42]
Jon Favreau
No, I mean, look, I think our.
- [68:43]
Hasan Piker
Bid, I mean physically, but I know your audience knows. I mean physically, it would be funny too.
- [68:47]
Jon Favreau
But look, I think we're gonna find out in a couple weeks, but I think our challenge here is the Senate is never gonna be Democratic unless we figure out a way to actually win votes in these purple and increasingly red states. And we have. No, we're going to have, you know, unless Tester can pull it out and maybe Sheridan will pull. I still think the Sherrod can pull it out. We're not going to have any Democratic senators in red states, which is fucking crazy. They're not going to have any Republican senators in blue states, except for Susan Collins I think is the last one. So we have that opportunity. So at some point we have to figure out a way, muscling people aside, whipping them aside, to like get voters who are becoming like radicalized towards MAGA in some of these like rural small town areas to start voting Democratic again. And I think the question is, in this Democratic Party aside, right, in this media environment that we're in, where we started the conversation, there's just right wing garbage everywhere. You and I were talking about this last week that, like, the top of the podcast charts. Right wing garbage. Now you can pick the medium. It's everywhere. There's just not enough on the left. In the vacuum, there is misinformation at best, radicalization at worst. I know you've been talking. We saw this with the hurricane. I know you've been talking about that as well.
- [70:17]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [70:18]
Jon Favreau
I saw this Wall Street Journal story today, by the way. I don't know if you read this, that there are these Nazi groups who they basically did, you know, put out the disinformation about the hurricane stuff, and then they swoop in on the ground and are helping do the cleanup.
- [70:33]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [70:33]
Jon Favreau
Patriot front.
- [70:34]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [70:34]
Jon Favreau
And now they're just like, oh, we're just here to help.
- [70:36]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. I was watching them. It's really funny because they are like. There was a group, I don't know if they're Nazis or not, but they're called the Christian Rangers. I found their TikTok and they were doing like a sit rep, right? And it's all these, like, hoorah motherfuckers who are dressed up in all tactical gear. Okay. And they're all armed. You have to be armed. Why? I don't know. But they were talking about how, like, you know, local law enforcement actually wants us to be here, but, like, FEMA doesn't want us to be here. But then they were also talking about ways of, like, engaging in espionage. They're like, go out there and offer, like, offer a helping hand and then you can gain information on, like, where the staging areas are so you can go there. And it's like, dog, they don't want you to be there, then, like, even local law enforcement doesn't want you to be there. If you're like, having to do espionage to figure out where to help. And there's a good reason for it. We saw it happen in North Carolina. North Carolina National Guard had a Chinook helicopter, right? Yeah. And it. It was trying to deliver generators. And there are obviously, in a hurricane, in the aftermath of a hurricane, there are very limited areas where you can land a fucking Blackhawk, right. Those things are finicky already. They love exploding. Most helicopters that the American military has, they love blowing up regardless. So when they're. When they're doing that for hurricane relief efforts, they're trying to deliver generators. The staging area is filled to the brim with a bunch of people that brought supplies there, but they're not supposed to be there. Those supplies are not supposed to be there. So, like, there's already miscommunication happening. And then people are bringing in supplies. Good intentioned people are bringing in supplies. But that actually ends up harming the logistical, the logistics of a relief effort. And that's precisely the reason why females like don't do it. Like, don't only work with us, only work with like groups that we have designated as like, you know, food banks or whatever. And don't try to take matters into your own hands because you're going to fall into a pit and then we're going to have to save you too. Right. And these guys don't understand that. And they're incredibly narcissistic and also crazy. And they're like, oh, well, you see this, like these FEMA helicopters, these military helicopters trying to kill us. It was doing rotor washing on the staging area and it's like.
- [72:59]
Jon Favreau
And then it's like, then, you know, it's a. Someone films a video and then they put it on Twitter and then Elon Musk is tweeting it and suddenly there's a fucking. And then finally Pete Buttigieg has to call him and like calm him down. It's fucking nuts.
- [73:11]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [73:11]
Jon Favreau
I guess the question is like, have you, you've been doing this for years now. Have you thought about like quitting? How to. Yes, that too. Or like how to start changing this media environment and the information environment? It's more than media environment. Information environment that is only getting worse to the extent now where we have like large chunks of Americans who are just like disassociated from reality.
- [73:34]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, I think that like, I mean, you might not like the answer I'm gonna give you, but like, I think there is a lot of faith that the American public broadly has lost in media. I think it still comes from like a lack of education. For sure. We are getting progressively dumber and dumber as a country. I think that's by design. Every time you open up a new charter school and redirect funds from a teachers union backed public school, you're contributing to this. Every time you allow homeschooling to exist, you're contributing to this. Every time you focus on private education, you're creating this massive gap between the average American that's getting shittier education year after year because it's super underfunded versus private schooling for rich kids. That's one of the major systemic issues here. But then on the other side, on the media side of things, I think that a lot of people are losing faith in media and they just stop trusting it altogether. And sometimes it's for bad reasons. Right? Like during COVID that was a major world changing event for a lot of Americans and the media was actually doing the right thing in that situation where, like, they were trying to be as protective as possible over the broadest subsects of American society by listening to scientists, epidemiologists, and listening to their warnings, which is what you're supposed to do in that situation. The media was using its propaganda purposes for good. And that still caused a lot of that, still created an information vacuum that a lot of grifters took advantage of to sell, like directly sell and market their stupid products and sometimes even just gain clout out of it. And that was a bad circumstance where the media was doing the right thing, but people still hated them for doing the right thing and stopped trusting them. But there's also situations like Israel that a lot of newsrooms I know for a fact are completely aware of. Like their coverage on it is directly at odds with what people are seeing on social media. And not all of the stuff that they're seeing on social media is disinformation. A lot of the stuff that they're seeing on social media is the correct information directly from the ground. And the media is engaging in a level of disinformation by omitting key details or utilizing a passive tone. Right. As though, you know, as though they usually do with cops in general. And I think that, that like, what you are seeing, what you are watching unfold in front of your eyes and what you're getting from CNN or, or the New York Times is directly at odds with one another. And I think that causes like an entire generation to be like, well, I don't trust these guys. Like, I have to tell my audience all the time, like, I can't do what I do without news reporting. Yeah, I still, I still rely on the New York Times. I still rely on cnn. I know, like, there are inherent biases in every publication, especially when it comes to State Department policy. Like, their role. You have to understand their role. But they're still, there's still a lot of truth that you can extract out of every single article. And the reason why I have to have this conversation is because a lot of people are like, why are you looking at the New York Times? They lie all the time.
- [76:54]
Jon Favreau
I know.
- [76:54]
Hasan Piker
And it's like, and it's not even like a lying New York Times type of way in the way that Donald Trump complains about it. It's like objective reality when, like Israel invades Lebanon. If you are trying to contextualize that as like an Appropriate measure. Or when, when, when the, when the pager bombs, when the pager strikes happen. That was declared an act of terror and a war crime by every single like knowledgeable UN prosecutor and knowledgeable human rights organization. Because it is. The former CIA director said it was an act of terror, but mainstream media celebrated it. When people see that, when they see that, like, and these are people who obviously care about the news, these are like well informed individuals who are genuinely interested in American foreign policy. They're not like the average person, they're thoughtful individuals. If you lose those guys, then you're losing the people that are not so interested in mainstream media to begin with. And they're just hearing it in the distance and they're like, oh, I don't care about these guys at all. This is all bullshit, it's fake. And then in that vacuum you have, and this is like, I guess a double edged sword of the democratization of information. Yeah. Where you have people like myself who normally would never be able to get a media job or rather never be able to represent truly what I genuinely believe in. Mainstream outlets be able to develop audiences that are sizable enough that you get that mainstream recognition afterwards. But also it opens up the opportunity for people to just say whatever the fuck they want and just like routinely lie. And plenty of people do take advantage of that. And they do it and they do it mercilessly and relentlessly. And it's much easier to believe a lie than it is to think about it and be like, is there like some underlying biases here that maybe I'm not privy to? What is the motivation behind this person saying certain things? Like, it's much easier, especially if it, if it leans on the structural inequalities that already exist and persist in society.
- [79:10]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. And it's, it's much easier to believe misinformation when it confirms your own beliefs anyway.
- [79:16]
Hasan Piker
Which is what, that's what I'm saying is like structural. Yeah. The pre existing structural harms that already exist. Like Ben Shapiro does this very well in comparison to like a JD Vance or a Donald Trump even where he's not going to be like, black people are inherently inferior and violent and that's why the police has to kill them. He'll say it's common sense. Of course the police have to like go after criminals. Right. Like he, he leans on pre existing things that a lot of Americans take for granted due to the social conditioning that they've gotten to, you know, demand more of that structural violence that already exists. And sometimes I think right Wingers go above and beyond and drop the ball on it. Like we talked about the immigration stuff. Right. 60% of Americans want mass deportation. They were waving that at the rnc. They were waving mass deportation flies. It's like a fucking Hitler rally. And yet overwhelming majority of Americans thought Donald Trump's statement about Haitians eating cats and dog was weird because he went way above. There is a level of permissible bigotry that is acceptable in mainstream discourse. And if you go above that, if you get, like, real nerdy with it, like Ron DeSantis did, for example, when he was trying to make these culture war issues the prominent fixture of his campaign. And he doesn't have any charisma to back that up either. Most people find that to be gross. Racist. People don't want to be called Nazis. They don't want to be called Klansmen. Even if they complete, almost completely agree with that sentiment, they still don't want to be called that because they understand that's like, kind of gross and weird.
- [80:59]
Jon Favreau
They know it's a brand issue.
- [81:00]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, yeah. So that's, that's the, that's the way I see it, with the, with the way that, like, the right communicates certain things.
- [81:10]
Jon Favreau
Last question. You were at USC recently. Are you talking to students? They asked you about burnout. This is something that you face all the time because you stream eight hours every day.
- [81:19]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [81:21]
Jon Favreau
Seems exhausting. Do you. You said that maybe you take off a day here or there. Is that enough to unplug?
- [81:29]
Hasan Piker
Sometimes. But this election cycle has been particularly gruesome. Not even just because of the election cycle. I do think that there was a lot of interest in key moments when, like, world changing events were occurring.
- [81:42]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [81:42]
Hasan Piker
But I think that interest got sucked out immediately. I've noticed that at least in my own personal. I mean, this is a personal anecdote, but I've at least noticed that in my own analytics, like, where people were more interested to tune in during, like, the hurricane coverage, because that's, like, different. And that's more interesting than just like, going in every day, looking at polls, seeing Kamala Harris say something like, you know, Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney support me. Like that. I think especially for my audience and people that are looking at, like, independent media in general that are very interested in what's going on in American politics. Like, that's not as interesting for them. Like, the normies don't really care. They only tune in for big moments and then they don't stick around for the rest of the election at all. They Just kind of, they're, they're in and out. Like, I think information spreads so much faster and people get bored of it so much faster now in this day and age.
- [82:36]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [82:36]
Hasan Piker
That it's, it's impossible to retain people's attention. And I think, think those are some of the reasons as to why it feels more boring this cycle, especially at this stage when we're a month out, 24 days out from the election and it still feels kind of. At least anecdotally, it feels kind of boring. It went back to the same, like guardrails very quickly. It snapped back into it and then simultaneously, there's obviously genuinely disastrous things that are unfolding all the time. But people, People definitely do. People definitely do exhibit fatigue from watching Man Made horrors beyond comprehension unfold every single day in the Middle East.
- [83:27]
Jon Favreau
And whether it's that or the drama at home, we've been just dealing with this now for the last decade in our faces more than it's ever been because of. Of our phones. You think you'll be able to do this kind of content generation for years to come?
- [83:43]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, I do, but I am definitely looking forward to the, to the election cycle ending. Like, I've genuinely been looking forward to that. I realized, because I just, I want to do more fun shit. Like, I want to. I want to go travel and like, do that kind of content like I used to always do. I'm going to play more video games, like, because.
- [84:02]
Jon Favreau
Go live your life.
- [84:03]
Hasan Piker
Because. Yeah, in the, in like. And I live my life on camera for the most part. And I'm very fortunate and very privileged to be able to do so. For me, I feel like that kind of stuff is what keeps me away from burning out because, like, I will still, of course, cover politics. That's my interest. That's what I love to do. That's what I find a lot of emotional fulfillment in. And I will continue doing it. But in order to mitigate burnout, in order to stop it from happening, I realized that I wasn't doing like eight hours of news coverage. Usually I'm doing like six hours of news coverage, maybe two hours of video games or four hours of news coverage and then a couple hours of like, lifestyle culture, things like that, you know, fun. Different fun segments that I engage in, and then, you know, doing IRL streams like, and, and participating in. In other stuff when I don't do that, when I don't have a healthy diet of that. And it's just all news for 8 to 10 hours, poll watching, having, you know, people on to interview them and talk to them over and over again every single day. It does definitely, it does definitely start taking a toll.
- [85:06]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, you know, that makes a lot of sense. You need some. You need some balance. I need to find that too after this election. Hasan Piker, thanks as always for coming by.
- [85:14]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [85:22]
Jon Favreau
Before we go, some big news for the Offline fans who've been tuning in on YouTube. Starting this week, Offline is moving to its very own YouTube channel. Gone are the days of searching through the pod save America YouTube page for the latest episode. To subscribe, search Offline with Jon Favreau in your YouTube search bar. Yes, I know I'm telling you to go online, but you know what? Life is full of contradictions. Check out offline on YouTube now on our own channel. And we are very excited to announce that votesafe America's Build your own ballot tool is back. It's your one stop shop for everything you need to vote smarter with candidate bios and ballot measure breakdowns. For everything you'll see on your ballot. It is quick and easy to do. Just go to votesaveamerica.com vote, enter your email and voting address and click the Build your own ballot box to get started. Go to votesaveamerica.com vote fill out your address and name and you'll instantly get access to your personalized voter guide. This message has been paid for by Voting Save America. You can learn more@votesave America.com this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. Offline is a crooked media production. It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau along with Max Fisher. It's produced by Austin Fisher and Emma Iluk. Frank Jordan Cantor is our Sound Editor. Charlotte Land is our engineer. Audio support from Kyle Seglin, Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeline Herringer, Reed Churlin and Adrian Hill for production support and to our digital team, Elijah Cohn and Delon Villanueva who film and share our episodes as videos.
- [87:26]
Hasan Piker
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Jon Favreau
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Hasan Piker
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Jon Favreau
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Hasan Piker
Not valid with any other offer, discount or combo.