← Pod Save America
Pod Save America
“Get These Incels to Work” (feat. Hasan Piker)
02:06:00
Lovett sits down with Hasan Piker, the massively popular progressive streamer, to talk through (and argue about) the hard questions about where the Democratic Party needs to go from here, the liberal media landscape, what the Harris campaign told us about why they lost, and yes, a jobs program for incels. Then, Jon talks to Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton about the fight for the House, why blue states like his swung right, and the controversy he kicked up with his comments about trans athletes.
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- [00:00]
Colman Domingo
Emmy award winner Colman Domingo returns to television. In the Netflix limited series the Madness, Domingo portrays a media pundit, Muncie Daniels, caught in a deadly conspiracy. He must fight for his innocence and his life after he stumbles upon a murder deep in the woods of the Poconos Mountains and discovers he's the only witness to a crime. As the walls close in, Muncie strives to reconnect with his estranged family and his lost ideals in order to survive. Watch the madness November 28th only on Netflix.
- [00:27]
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- [01:18]
Jon Lovett
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Lovett, and guest hosting with me today is the massively popular streamer leftist dumbass himself. You just self described.
- [01:28]
Hasan Piker
That's okay. Sure. Fair. I say himbo, but damn.
- [01:31]
Jon Lovett
Okay. Hasan Piker, welcome back.
- [01:33]
Hasan Piker
It's good to be back. Thank you for having me.
- [01:35]
Jon Lovett
After my conversation with Hasan, you'll hear my conversation with Seth Moulton. We talked about the Democratic Party. We talked about the controversy over his comments around trans athletes. Also on the feed right now, you can hear Dan's conversation with Jenna Malley, Dillon Quentin, folks, David Plouffe and Stephanie Cutter about what went wrong in the Harris campaign. We're having a bunch of different conversations about what we learned from the election, where we go from here with a bunch of different voices, one of which is here today. So people are mad that we talked to the Harris campaign. People are mad we're talking to you. People are mad. And that's okay.
- [02:15]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [02:16]
Jon Lovett
But let's start with this.
- [02:17]
Hasan Piker
It was big tent.
- [02:18]
Jon Lovett
It's a. It's a. It's a big tent. It's a big tent.
- [02:21]
Hasan Piker
Got Dick Cheney in it.
- [02:22]
Jon Lovett
It's got Dick Cheney in it. It's got Hasan Piker in it.
- [02:25]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [02:26]
Jon Lovett
It's got Dan Osborne in it. It's got Seth Molten in it.
- [02:30]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, yeah. You know, tent shouldn't maybe feature Dick Cheney in it. But you know, everybody else we can. I Can have a conversation with.
- [02:38]
Jon Lovett
Great, great. All right, now, look, the main pastime on the left, other than being mad for the last few weeks, is everyone saying how right they were all along about Democrats being out of touch and bound to lose.
- [02:50]
Hasan Piker
Arrest me. Sorry. So we had a. I sat at this chair. Well, maybe not at this chair, but I had the offline interview with. With John, I think, a month before the. The election. And a lot of the things, a lot of the concerns that I brought up to him, it seemingly came across as somewhat prescient, where people went back to the footage. And I've been seeing comments that were rather positive about, like, okay, he said a lot of stuff there that was objectively correct. It seeming.
- [03:26]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, I want to talk about one aspect of that, which is that you were saying, others were saying that, hey, Trump going on Rogan, Trump going on Theo Vaughn. Like, something is happening here and we need to understand it, we need to address it. It's real. And I remember my experience, it's seared in my mind of Trump being on Joe Rogan because of how, like, my path of understanding it, because what I saw first were a bunch of people taking clips and saying, wow, Rogan really didn't like Trump. Trump is a mess on this show. He comes across terribly. Rogan was like, giving Trump space to hang himself rhetorically. And then I watch it, I'm like, trump did fucking great in this interview.
- [04:15]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, he's very telegenic. That's the thing that, like, a lot of people, I guess, refuse to factor in for some weird reason, is that, yeah, he. He definitely rambles on. He likes to call it the weave. And even Joe Rogan made fun of him for that a little bit in the process. But, like, there is something to be said about a relatively telegenic person who is able to portray himself as, I like to call it, honestly, dishonest, where, like, everybody knows he's a bit of a scumbag, but he's your scumbag. And he's able to get that across to a lot of people. And I don't think that there is really anyone with that level of television presence on the Democratic Party front. I think the most skilled orator in the Democratic Party's ranks in the last couple of decades was obviously Barack Obama. And outside of that, I think in a lot of instances, purely from an optics point of view, Democrats track as technocratic, elitist, too serious about everything that they talk about. And there's certainly a lot of that on the Republican Party side as well. And We've seen failed initiatives from establishment Republicans that tried to recreate the Trump phenomenon with the likes of Ron DeSantis, and that was a massive failure. But ultimately, I think this goes beyond podcasts. This is something that I've been talking about quite frequently. I know the podcast thing is, like, the most.
- [05:46]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, yeah.
- [05:46]
Hasan Piker
Like, that's the one that got everyone's attention. But I said this on CNN last night that you can't really podcast your way out of this problem. Like, having. You know, there was that one tweet saying, like, oh, we just have 100 pot save Americans, but they all have to look like Hasan. Like, that's not. That's not how this works.
- [06:06]
Jon Lovett
Oh, you think that that one tweet might have been wrong? But the. Yeah, like, I guess so. I agree with that. You know, it became this. The couple. The kind of, like, I don't know, like, just have had this devastating loss to Trump, and everybody's looking for these sort of little explanations that all feel. They just feel silly, like, oh, we need a Joe Rogan of the left. And even saying, like, I don't even want to talk about how stupid that is anymore, because even that has become stupid. But, like, I do agree that, like, people are like, oh, well, she should have gone on Rogan. All right, yeah, sure. I think so, too.
- [06:39]
Hasan Piker
That would not have changed the outcome of this election.
- [06:41]
Jon Lovett
There's a larger problem to what you're getting at, which is, like, why don't we have figures and where, like, we think they would do great on that show? And why is someone like Joe Rogan now, who was four years ago open to Bernie, now suddenly open to Trump? Like, that's the deeper problem. Like, you look at, like, successful Democratic messengers or progressive messengers over the last, like, decades, and you think, all right, well, Bill Clinton obviously was successful, and he, like, ran against the Democratic Party in some way. Barack Obama did the same thing. Bernie does the same thing. AODC does the same thing. Not on. I'm not talking about on policy.
- [07:18]
Hasan Piker
You don't mean it, like, also in the same direction of running against.
- [07:21]
Jon Lovett
No, no, no. But running against the establishment in some way. And just saying. And the reason I connect them is because they all did something which is demonstrated that they were not part of the Democratic establishment, both, like, on policy and rhetorically. Right. Like, that's what they all did. And I'm just wondering, like, what. There's a place where there's, like, kind of an alignment of, like, the Seth Moulton critique of the Democratic Party and the lefty critique of the Democratic Party, which is just like, it's fucking annoying and like, kind of, I don't know, like pedantic in some way.
- [07:57]
Hasan Piker
Here's the thing. I think it's an incorrect interpretation, an incorrect autopsy to look back at a thing that the Democratic Party did not do at all and then say, it's actually that reason. It's not anything that we did so far. It's not that we tacked to the right over and over again, despite people like myself and many others saying, like, don't do this. You're going to hemorrhage the base. You're going to hemorrhage the base of support. You are going to cut away at your turnout. You're going to cut across many different constituencies that you rely on to create an effective coalition. And it's, it's a very dangerous gamble to assume that you can decouple a lot of these people in the suburbs, a lot of, like white women specifically, away from the Republican Party and vote for you instead. I know that they're high propensity voters, but it doesn't matter. There's still plenty of low propensity voters that you have to rely on to win. And that's precisely what the Democratic Party did. They hyper focused on these key constituencies despite the fact that polls were seemingly deadlocked after $30 million of ad spend in key suburbs. Right. Like it showed. At least I said this time and time again, it showed someone from the outside looking in that the message was not working. And you can have the best ground game possible. You can have, you know, hundreds of thousands of people all across the country, door knocking. But if the top down message that you're communicating is not resonating with people, then you're not going to be able to win an election. You're not going to have the effective turnout necessary to win this election. And that is precisely what happened. Now, does that mean that Trump's messaging was good? Of course not. It wasn't. It was actually pretty bad. And I would even go so far as to say the anti trans ads were actually a distraction and not good. It was only effective in the D.C. bubble, I think, and the consultant bubble and the, and the media class that saw those ads and were like, oh my God, this is an incredible ad. Like, they really ruined Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris had a silly answer to a ACLU questionnaire. Okay, that just shows that she is not the most experienced politician. This was all the way back in, I believe, 2020. Right. She literally had to drop out of the primary anyway at that time, that's one thing, okay? But that should not be a campaign killer. If you personally think that that's a campaign killer, then your campaign is weak. This message across the board should never be able to end a single campaign. Then Teflon Don is real. I mean, the man had the grab him by the pussy tape come out as the October surprise in 2016, and he still won. And since then, there has been a litany of different controversies, including, but not limited to straight up undermining American democracy by doing January 6th. And yet people are still voting for him. And one must ask the question why? And I think overall, the same exact problems that persisted in 2016 when the economy was seemingly very good, right? As especially as opposed to like the post Covid economy and its recovery, people were still very frustrated with what was going on. The notion that in the wealthiest nation on earth we have 600,000 people sleeping outside every night. The idea that we have the concept of medical bankruptcy is an insane phenomenon that doesn't exist in any other OECD nation. The fact that 60% of the American public doesn't have $400 in emergency spending, these are all very real economic anxieties. I'm using that term specifically because it's one thing that people like to hyper focus on that creates volatility, that creates instability, and it creates a base of angry people. And if the Democratic Party is not addressing that anger and addressing their material problems and earnestly telling them like, we're going to fix that shit, ok? And the other side is looking at that anger and saying, we're going to channel your anger. You have every right to be angry. And you know who you should be angry at? Those who have less than you. You know, you should be angry at the working poor, the homeless people that are doing crimes left and right, black and brown people, undocumented migrants that are doing incredible amounts of crimes, they're killing hundreds of thousands of Americans and trans people. And the Democratic Party only cares about those people and they don't care about you. And that message resonates with a base of support not because they are intrinsically evil. That message resonates with the base of support because they're angry. And one of the two major parties is not even remotely interested in addressing that anger and trying to tell them what the solution to that anger actually is and what the real problem is.
- [12:36]
Jon Lovett
So I want to like break that into kind of how we like the Democratic brand, how we message and all. But then, but Also like on the policy front. So Joe Biden wins. He tries to kind of build consensus with Bernie. He brings an aoc, he goes to the left on antitrust. He does the Inflation Reduction act, he does a post Covid relief bill. He cancels as much debt as he can legally even though the court is trying to stop him. Like I in before the last year, like what my view of this was is Joe Biden, this consensus Democrat, right, actually to the right of the consensus for most of his career, kind of somebody that had to be kind of pulled to where the party was going, did something extraordinary which is he adapted, he changed, he governed in a much more progressive way than I think probably. Like I certainly. Than I expected. I hope that you expected.
- [13:41]
Hasan Piker
Oh absolutely.
- [13:42]
Jon Lovett
And whether it's because people didn't feel it or people didn't believe it or the way Democrats talk about policy is ineffective, like it didn't seem to matter in terms of how people viewed like the Democratic response to the economy, right. They were so angry about inflation, they were angry about a bunch of other issues and it really didn't matter what Joe Biden said or what Kamala Harris said. They were held responsible. And I'm just wondering what, how you explain that, right? Like it seems as though Joe Biden tried to listen to this exact critique and it didn't matter.
- [14:14]
Hasan Piker
So yes and no. I do agree there are plenty of things that Joe Biden did like beefing up the NLRB and letting the FTC rain hell upon these monopolies. There's two issues there though. One is, I think, something that you will agree with as well, that the Democrats don't campaign year round in the same way that Republicans do on key issues. And they do have a massive communication problem that could potentially be solved by having a more robust ecosystem and more collaboration with even the likes of yourself and maybe even someone like myself as well. And they need to always be on, they need to always be counter messaging against the anti immigration sentiment. I went back and looked at my commentary From February of 2021 when the story of the Customs and Border Patrol Haitian migrants getting whipped by, you know, horseback Customs and Border Patrol people, officers was, was in the news. And I remember talking about how the Republicans are going to keep hitting the immigrants are doing crime note over and over again because that's the one thing that they have and it's built around a complete falsehood that undocumented migrants are responsible for incredible amounts of crime. It's not correct. There is no data to suggest this. The data actually shows the exact opposite. Undocumented migrants are your neighbors. They contribute to the economy in very meaningful ways and they very rarely take anything in return. Why is the Democratic Party not pushing this counternarrative? And they never did. Instead of pushing that counternarrative, which is based in truth and talk about how undocumented migrants are responsible for less crime per capita than natural born US citizens are, or that fentanyl being trafficked across the US borders are actually not coming in the knapsack of a otherwise law abiding abuela, but instead it's coming from regular points of entry trafficked by American citizens. 90% of the people that are being apprehended for chemical compounds necessary for fentanyl or direct drugs that they're trafficking across the border are American citizens. This does not track with the narrative that people believe because the narrative is dominated by the right on this issue. They should have been counter messaging against that and they should have been putting bills forward in defense of the moves that, for example, Governor Greg Abbott was engaging in in Ron DeSantis. I said this even back then, that this is a, actually a fantastic opportunity for the federal government to show that there is a more tolerant approach that one they should have immediately pursued. Governor Greg Abbott legally and arrested him for human trafficking and tried to prosecute him for human trafficking. I don't care if it's a constitutional crisis or not. All of this stuff was insanely messed up and the federal government dropped the ball. I think the Biden administration dropped the ball by not adding additional funds immediately, sending additional funds immediately, places like Chicago and New York and to figure out a better way to transition a lot of these people and integrate them into the American labor force and instead they just got stuck in this like legal limbo for no reason.
- [17:17]
Jon Lovett
So, yeah, I mean, look, why is it that, okay, so Republicans say they sort of lay all these problems at the feet of undocumented immigrants. They say they're responsible for crime. No, they're not. But there are obviously undocumented people. They're people and some are committing terrible crimes which they then exploit. But for the most part, these are people that not only are committing crimes at a lower rate, but actually are unable to go to the police when they're victims of crime. Whether that's a, that's a domestic violence, they can't go to the police, or whether that's just sort of the quotidian mayhem of living in America or a boss taking advantage of you. They can't go to the police. Right?
- [17:55]
OnDeck
Yeah.
- [17:55]
Jon Lovett
Then they Say, oh, well, they don't pay taxes. Actually, that's not true. They pay into Medicare, they pay into Social Security and they don't get the benefits of it back. And then they say, well, they're driving up the cost of housing. I do not believe that undocumented people are the reason a house costs $450,000 where it used to cost $350,000.
- [18:12]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, I didn't realize there were executives at Blackroc. The Guatemala migrants are mass producing houses and making sure that everyone's a permanent renter. That's the point, though. But that's not a trans person. That's your landlord. It's not an undocumented immigrant. That's your landlord. That's raising the cost of rent. Your manager is not an undocumented immigrant.
- [18:30]
Jon Lovett
There are two big problems, though. One is there are a lot of people saying this and it doesn't break through because there is this right wing media system that puts out this one story. And the second problem is Democrats really don't have trust on this issue with the people that they're trying to persuade to see it our way. Which I think goes to the point you made before. Right. Which is why is it that Donald Trump can meander around the country rambling, committing what in any other era would be, if not like campaign ending, like campaign harming, ridiculous statements, gaffes. Sure, that he can basically be an astrategic mess. But Kamala Harris has to hit every point exactly right. If she says the wrong thing on the View or there's a bad interview from 2020, those things can be campaign ending. And I think to your point, it goes to something deeper, a lack of, I don't know, core vision or motivating mission for the current Democratic Party.
- [19:37]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. Something that is an understandable, easy to communicate, simple policy that you can put your campaign around. So we agree on the messaging front a little bit at least, or the asymmetry of how much right wing media dominates the ecosystem, the media ecosystem in general, all the way from independent outlets down to traditional media, where as far as I understand it, 73%. Now I think of all news watchers are watching Fox News. 73%. That's an insane percentage. That's an insane number. Right. So outside of that though, I think here is the disagreement that we will have that while Joe Biden did a bunch of stuff that I agree was positive, it was simply not enough. And that was something that I was always very critical on as well. If you see a homeless person and you chuck Them two pennies and they're, you know, they're sitting on the corner of the street like, yeah, technically their, their material wealth improved by a percentage, a decent percentage. But he's still going to be mad at you because you just gave him two pennies. Why doesn't the homeless person understand that their situation is much better? That is, that is not an effective way to communicate to Americans that like, no, you don't understand inflation is actually under control, that the economy is rebounding, even if it's objective truth. Because they like most Americans don't understand what inflation is and they don't understand that prices are not going to go down in that circumstance. And besides that, and in fact this is not just the vibe session communications but I'm also talking about specifically like even the IRA or many of these other parts of the legislative agenda that Biden put forth that was more progressive than I expected from more progressive than even the Obama administration in many respects. But one, they didn't do a good job of communicating any of those victories in my opinion. They did not, they, they did not actually like go to the media regularly to, to show these victories and to showboat and gloat a little bit too. A lot of that was also held up in gridlock because we didn't whip votes well enough within, within our own party. And I think that there was a lot of punishments that should have been dished out to the likes of Joe Manchin and the likes of K Cinema. Rather than offering a green senator an opportunity to be a prominent fixture of the Democratic Party. I think that a lot more punishments should have been issued towards these people that use the moment of the spotlight to specifically play the role of a rotating villain in the Democratic Party which has happened time and time again all the way from Joe Lieberman to the Maggie Hassans of the world, the Kirsten Cinemas, the Joe Mansions of the world and the problem solvers caucuses within the, within Congress in general. These guys need to get whipped into shape.
- [22:33]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, I just like, I wish, I wish I believed that. I just wish I believed that. Like I, but I just like, I don't know how much more you could have gotten out of Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema. Like Joe Manchin basically was telegraphing the whole time like, I'll walk away and Joe Biden kept him in the tent that got judges through, that got the Inflation Reduction act through. Like I just, I do not believe, like, I think we agree on a lot. Like I just don't believe that there is a version of the Joe Biden presidency that could have been more successful on legislative policy. I just. I don't see it.
- [23:07]
Hasan Piker
You're not going to appreciate what I'm about to say.
- [23:08]
Jon Lovett
Then hit me.
- [23:10]
Hasan Piker
Use the IRS and also the SEC and maybe even the FTC to investigate as to why Joe Manchin's brother owns a coal mine and whether there's a conflict of interest there. Investigate why Joe Manchin's daughter is selling pharmaceutical products to the state of West Virginia when Joe Manchin is directly at odds with any sort of bill that would lower the cost of pharmaceuticals.
- [23:35]
Jon Lovett
So you want the President to politicize these agencies and use them to go.
- [23:40]
Hasan Piker
After people because you want to know why?
- [23:41]
Jon Lovett
Tell me why. Hey, tell me why.
- [23:43]
Hasan Piker
Because they're doing it at the behest of not only the American people, their interests, but they're also. And this is probably going to frustrate everyone in this audience. But here's the thing that I get.
- [23:54]
Jon Lovett
A wide range of listeners across a broad ideological.
- [23:57]
Hasan Piker
Here's what really frustrates me, what frustrates about the way the Democratic Party operates. They love norms, they love institutions, for sure. Civility. They care about bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship. As though that is something.
- [24:10]
Jon Lovett
There's no debt. Some do, some don't.
- [24:12]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, sure. But for the most part, the broad communication coming out of the Democratic Party is that these are the things that they care about. These are the top line issues. We gotta protect democracy. We gotta preserve our institutions. The problem is the other side doesn't give a shit about that. So I think I want a Democratic Party that fights for me and others who are marginalized, other people that like, desperately need help. And I know that the Republican Party is never going to do that. I'm not one of those guys who's like, oh, well, you know, at least I. At least the Republicans are kind of listening to what I have to say or are communicating, channeling the anger that I feel like I don't care. They're charlatans. They're significantly worse than the Democratic Party. I don't like the Democratic Party for their closeness to the Republican Party. I want them to be a party that actually fights for the working class, for all Americans, unconditionally, regardless of ideology. And you can't do that through bipartisanship with an otherwise, like, hostile entity that is the Republican Party. And I think there is a lot of hypocrisy there and the. And hypocrisy that people can see. Hypocrisy is the easiest thing that they can understand. You can't say that these guys are fascists. These guys are racist for eight years for wanting to build a wall and then turn around and straight up tell Anderson Cooper in that town hall, well, maybe the wall is a good idea and I want to build it myself. I'm going to be the border Czar. I'm going to be the border Party. You can't do that. Americans look at that and go, so you're admitting that you were just lying for the past eight years?
- [25:41]
Jon Lovett
Well, it's like, again, though, it's like, I think actually you look at somebody like Dan Osborne, who ran so far ahead of the Democratic Party, ran as this economic populist, but one of the things he had to do to get there was kind of be tough on immigration. And actually, I think part of it goes back to if people felt like they knew in their bones, Bernie Sanders being, to me, the signal example. You know, what Bernie is about, you know what he's for, you know what motivates him, you know what he cares about. Same thing for Trump, you know, when there are issues he doesn't give a fuck about and there's issues he really, really cares about. Immigration is when he trade. Right. Like, you know, the things that, like that have been anti crime, whatever, that there are things that have been in Donald Trump's like, kind of brain slowly losing plasticity that are like, kind of solid in there. And for Bernie, you know, like, we know why he's in politics and that gives a politician the space to kind of challenge orthodoxies in the party or kind of run counter to it, to signal to the people you need to signal to now, like you say, oh, you can't call them fascist and then also work with them. Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, Joe, again, like, it's like, I just don't know what to do with this nuance. Joe Biden, like, I am glad Joe Biden did the inflation Reduction act and an infrastructure bill and a gun bill and the CHIPS act and a bunch of other stuff. I'm glad he was able to do all of those things. I'm glad that he was able to use his kind of, like, moderate brand, whatever, to kind of bring people in and get some stuff done. Like, I don't think the country is better off if he didn't do those things. So, like, you describe it as hypocrisy, like it's compromised. Like politics requires compromise.
- [27:28]
Hasan Piker
The Republican Party rarely ever compromises. They're uncompromising you only have to beat them.
- [27:33]
Jon Lovett
But that's not true, though.
- [27:34]
Hasan Piker
Right.
- [27:34]
Jon Lovett
Like, I agree with. I agree with that on Trump, but that. That's just not true. Like, the re. They did compromise. Right. They, like these are there. There are plenty of people on the Republican side that were furious at Republican senators for going along with some of these Biden bills. Right. Like, those are people that did compromise.
- [27:49]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. There is a million examples, however, of Republicans that are obstructionists that I'm sure you also love presenting that go back to their town halls and lie about all the money that they brought back home.
- [27:58]
Jon Lovett
Absolutely.
- [27:59]
Hasan Piker
From the bills that they voted against. So ultimately, we now know that political polarization is set in. In a way that never really existed in American history until the last couple of decades. Right. I think that parties originally were more geopolitically focused on their immediate needs, like statewide needs. So you saw. You saw this dramatic shift, and now the Republican Party, especially with Mitch McConnell under the Obama administration, showcase that, like, permanent obstructionism is not punishable and that gridlock is always considered the administrative party's problem. If there's any sort of gridlock, it's the fault of the leadership. And Americans hate gridlock. That's kind of the reason why I was talking about Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, because there was a massive moment where, like, they actually ended up protecting the Republican Party because they were never going to vote for these bills anyway. And now the entire conversation was about, like, you know, madness within the Democratic Party's caucuses. Like, oh, they can't get their ducks in a row. Right. Like, that was genuinely frustrating to me because it's like, if you don't. If you had whipped your votes immediately, then you could showcase that the Republican Party is standing in the way of progress. But that's just like. That is legislative minutia. What is more important to talk about is broad, sweeping legislative changes or a agenda that might even come across as bold and radical in the interest of the American working class. Joe Biden said he wanted to do the public option. Everybody knew that wasn't real. He never talked about it after. He just used the public option. He slotted that in. In the primaries when the party was primed to the Bernie left and everyone was like, you know, trying to communicate their own populist version of what Bernie was doing. And Joe Biden won the primaries and effectively tabled the discussion about healthcare. This is still a major problem, regardless. Yes, negotiating pharmaceutical prices and ensuring that insulin prices are capped to $35, which is now going to be looking like a Trump victory when he's in office doesn't matter. It's still good for the American people. So that's great, but that is good. But that's not enough. Yeah, and I think that, I think that when you don't do that, when you have this very technocratic third way, neoliberal approach, but you sprinkle in a little bit of like anti corporate, anti billionaire populism that Joe Biden certainly did, you're a rudderless ship. You're not communicating effectively like what you are about. And when you, when you don't have a North Star that every single person can point to and say, this is what the party is about, your enemies can portray you as whatever they want. And that's why the trans, anti trans ads are even remotely effective. Because you can make the Democratic Party look clownish and inconsistent and even silly and hyper focused on whatever key issues there are. Because one, they rarely ever focus on universality in programs. Everything has to be means tested, which I think is, is both on the policy front and on the politics front, garbage. Focus on universal programs. Because that way you can cut across every single group and you can disproportionately target marginalized populations, black populations, brown populations, and trans people. These people do not exist in a vacuum. They're not magical, mystical beings that are not experiencing the shocks of the market or they still have to pay rent, they still need workplace protections, they still need the cost of medicine to go down. Right. So universal programs capture the attention of all Americans, including this majority white angry population that is finding themselves in the throes of the Republican reactionary movement. So they need to do that. And if they don't do that, then the subtle populism of the right is always going to be the only game in town and they're going to be able to present themselves as anti establishment while they have billionaires parading around all of the, all the campaign stops like Elon Musk trying to do that X logo every time he jumps like a child. I hate Elon Musk.
- [32:25]
Jon Lovett
That is the trick though, man. They're like. So if you listen to the Harris campaign's advisors talking to Dan Pfeiffer, I know you did and you had problems with it, but one place where they agreed is that like, hey, like everyone's saying, oh, this trans Ed. Oh this trans Ed. Like it actually might not have been their most effective. And they were trying to. And what Quentin folk said was that like they were actually really trying to target it to get at black men. And it looks like maybe that didn't work. Right. Like that's what that, that sort of. We'll see. Like we're going to get more data. But like the point that the ad makes is just that like Democrats are weird, Democrats are strange.
- [33:04]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [33:04]
Jon Lovett
Right. And like they use trans people as a cudgel.
- [33:07]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [33:07]
Jon Lovett
To do that. But like to the larger point, you have billionaires, just the wealthy, literally the wealthiest man in the world.
- [33:15]
Hasan Piker
The top seven. The top seven donors this election cycle all donated to the Republican party and they were donating like 100 million, $200 million. Like it was crazy.
- [33:26]
Jon Lovett
How do you think about the fact that in right wing media right now and like right wing adjacent media, they are managing to be both the party of the wealthiest oligarchs in the world and the kind of traditional moral set trying to impose a specific way of living on people and anti establishment kind of rebellious politics.
- [33:53]
Hasan Piker
It's Nazi Germany straight up. It's just pure fascism. That's all this is. It worked. It worked 100 years ago and it's seemingly working right now. And it's not just the United States of America. It's all across western Europe. The only country that bucked the trend of the incumbency disadvantage seemingly was Mexico. One must ask the question, why an old doddering man who was still, you know, relatively telegenic even though he believed in wood elves, duendez, was able to get a tremendous amount of popularity and then become the transition candidate that actually passed the torch to a younger woman, Claudia Sheinbaum. I'm of course talking about Mexico. I'm talking about AMLO is the old man. Claudius Sheinbaum was his spiritual and ideological successor in the Morena Party. Why did that happen? Why was amlo so popular? And why is Claudia Sheinbaum also incredibly popular? Why did Claudia Sheinbaum win the election with even larger margins of victory than AMLO did? It's because they expanded the welfare state, they increased minimum wage, and, you know, they made a whole bunch of decisions that genuinely improve the material conditions of a lot of people in Mexico. And that's something that people will never forget. We talked about the black vote for a second. As far as voter patterns goes, older black populations, like older black voters as a voting bloc, is a more reliable voting bloc for the Democratic Party than younger black voters are. One must ask the question why that is. Because people remember the last time the Democratic party did something for black people, did something bold, expended social and political capital for black people and that is something that people do not forget. If you give people things, they will not forget that. That's why there was a lot of dummies who thought, oh, Trump's back, we're going to get some stimmy checks. It's not going to happen. But they still remember that because they think, oh, yeah, Trump gave us stimmy checks.
- [35:58]
Jon Lovett
I mean, well, Joe Biden expanded. I mean, like, I know, and by the way, like, I'm not pushing back on any of this because I don't like agree with the sentiment. I just like, I am trying in the weeks after this election to just like, just like question these, these sort of statements because then it's like, well, well, Joe Biden expanded the child tax credit. Made a huge difference for millions of children.
- [36:21]
Hasan Piker
No, absolutely. The child, the expansion of the child tax credit was fantastic. But it didn't continue. It was so successful and it didn't continue. Like, do you think American people know why that happened?
- [36:35]
Jon Lovett
I don't. I don't.
- [36:36]
Hasan Piker
Who's at fault if American people don't know why that happened?
- [36:39]
Jon Lovett
It's a, well, that's a. I think some of it is Democrats, some of it is the mainstream media, some of it is the right wing media and some of it, by the way, is the left. It is the media of the left. Right. Like the first couple years, there have been so many moments where by great frustration, I think in the way politics is talk about is often people do not want to do the work of figuring out who's actually responsible. Right. Like Republicans will shut down the government and mainstream sources will say Washington gridlock continues. Right. Or Joe Biden will be stymied in some way Or Barack Obama will be stymied. Why didn't Barack Obama do this? Why didn't Barack Obama do that when he had a majority? Right. Well, because it's actually, you know what, in the Senate, having 49 votes to get rid of the filibuster and having 50 votes to get rid of the filibuster is a difference between doing a ton of shit and not being able to do anything. That's not the fault of 49 people. That's the result of one person. Yeah.
- [37:42]
Hasan Piker
Can I bring you something really quick? This conversation that you and I are having, have you ever heard a Republican have this conversation?
- [37:50]
Jon Lovett
Well, what do you mean? Like, like Republicans, have you ever heard.
- [37:53]
Hasan Piker
A Republican go, sorry, we couldn't get this done because we simply did not have the votes. Is that ever like a real significant front facing public conversation that the Republicans have.
- [38:10]
Jon Lovett
I mean, I feel like you want the answer to be no, but, like, I do think the answer is yes.
- [38:14]
Hasan Piker
I can't recall a time. Maybe. No, I'm asking you.
- [38:17]
Jon Lovett
No, I, like, I think there have been, I think, on their side, like, I think the. I mean, they have over the last decade, slowly but surely gotten rid of the people who are pointing out the actual things that stand in their way. Right. They went after Kevin McCarthy. They went out. Well, yeah, like, and sometimes that works. Sometimes that leaves them, like, pretty well stuck. I mean, like, Donald Trump was president for four years. He wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Acts. He didn't have the votes.
- [38:46]
Seth Moulton
Right.
- [38:46]
Jon Lovett
There was a big conversation about why he didn't have the votes that, like, there have been, like, Republican. The Republican base, like, furious with what.
- [38:56]
Hasan Piker
Did Donald Trump do?
- [38:57]
Jon Lovett
Spending bills that were passed. Right.
- [38:59]
Hasan Piker
What did Donald Trump do after, when John McCain struck down the Affordable Care Act?
- [39:03]
Jon Lovett
Well, what did he do?
- [39:04]
Hasan Piker
He took out the individual mandate. Regardless, he did well.
- [39:08]
Jon Lovett
He did what the same thing a Democratic president would do. Do as much as you can legislatively and when it fails, use your executive power, which is what Biden has done on student loans and a bunch of other issues.
- [39:15]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. So my point is he still got the most significant aspect of his agenda across. And in the process, he utilized the bully pulpit to laser John McCain nonstop and effectively bully John McCain in a way that I've never seen a Democratic president turn around and communicate about Joe Biden. I'll hear it about the left, about how they're naysayers, how they're spoilers. I never hear it about conservative Democrats. And I think it's the coalition. It's the coalition that you want to have, is my point. And I think Democrats, win or lose, want to win by their own, like, established policies and the way that they want to win and they're willing to lose if necessary, as long as they still maintain the overarching attitude that they have.
- [40:07]
Jon Lovett
I just think that is.
- [40:09]
Hasan Piker
Or maybe they're just bad and wrong.
- [40:10]
Jon Lovett
Well, I just think that, like, I think people need to be persuaded. I think people need to be persuaded. Like David Plouffe talking to Pfeiffer yesterday. He's like, look, you go to a swing state, you got a certain percentage of liberals, progressives, you have certain percentage of conservatives, and you got this vast swath of moderates. You need them. You need them now. I think where you're right is, like, there is something about a Democratic establishment, establishment figures that feel more comfortable with a Liz Cheney sitting at the table than with a leftist sitting at the table.
- [40:41]
Hasan Piker
It's gross.
- [40:42]
Jon Lovett
And that the disagreements with Liz Cheney are more kind of are acceptable and the disagreements to the left are less acceptable. But.
- [40:52]
Hasan Piker
But one must ask the question, why is that acceptable? Liz Cheney is anti lgbt. Liz Cheney is anti abortion. Liz Cheney is anti Democratic Party. Liz Cheney is the daughter of a, a rabid, warmongering terrorist sociopath Dick Cheney. And yet there are Democrats who are more comfortable with her than people who also would totally be on board with the Democratic Party. But I don't know, have maybe sometimes identical opinions of Liz Cheney on even LGBT issues. Like Joe Rogan is a great example of this.
- [41:24]
Jon Lovett
Yeah.
- [41:25]
Hasan Piker
The Democratic Party has consistently utilized and weaponized in the most cynical ways possible, identity politics. And I say this as someone who is infinitely more progressive than the average Democrat on these issues. They just use it. They use it against Bernie. They use it against every. They use it against every single person, and now they're dropping it themselves. That makes every Democrat look like a silly fool. That makes. It does in the eyes of Americans. They go, you called us racist, you called us transphobic, you called us crazy. And now you're saying, okay, my bad, we got to drop this woke shit. Like, of course people are going to go, all right, I guess, like, I'm primed into now believing the Republicans. Like, you're pushing your base towards being more open minded to right wing policy is the only thing you're doing. And that's how, and that's the only thing you're doing when you don't actually claw back a lot of the things that the Republicans, the former Republican administration engages in. Like Democrats are very good at, you know, trying to fix the deficit. They're the only real deficit hawks. Right. Republicans certainly don't care. They only use it as a, as a, as a weapon to wield to communicate against the Democratic agenda. But, but outside of that, like on foreign policy, Joe Biden said he was going to be an effective foreign policy leader. He did NATO. He kept talking about, you know, NATO, Jack Aukus, as though that was going to be.
- [42:49]
Jon Lovett
He loved talking about. Yeah, like, I have never been more, I've never been more like, nervous in politics, like, other than the day before an election than when Joe Biden was still in the race. And he did that press conference and he was like, he talked about Aukus. It's like no one knows what the fuck Aukus is.
- [43:05]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, Five eyes Aukus. That's a deep cut.
- [43:07]
Jon Lovett
That is a deep cut.
- [43:08]
Hasan Piker
But like Joe Biden was like, I am, I'm the adult in the room, Jack. I'm gonna bring back America into the global stage. The way that the American public sees that is like, there's war in Ukraine, right? And that's not even Joe Biden's fault. Like, I understand that. That's Vladimir Putin decided, I'm going to do the insane thing, I'm going to invade Ukraine. That's psychotic, right? But the way that people see it, they're like, why are we giving money to Ukraine when we're not fixing the potholes? Why are we giving money to Ukraine when the ISP suck here? What the hell's going on? Why are we giving money to Ukraine where we don't have health care, we have homeless people everywhere. And then on top of that, they see that instability as like something that is Joe Biden's fault. Fair or unfair, doesn't matter. They attribute it to Joe Biden. Same thing with Israel, Palestine. They look to what is going on and they're like, this is insane. Like why Biden will come out and say, or used to come out and say, you know, we're going to do a two state solution, Benjamin. And now the next day would be like, fuck the two state. What do you mean? How about no state literally the next day? And, and Biden kept trying to do this thing where he was like finger wagging, where he's like, oh, we're, I'm really, I'm gonna give him a heart to heart, you know, real man to man. For a lot of Americans, they saw that as like, you're weak, you're old, you're weak, you're feeble and you're getting dog walked by an American ally and in a very public and very embarrassing way. And there's a metric ton of violence that's happening on top of that. Like he ironically destroyed the goodwill that a lot of people had coming in to his administration with the, with the last, I guess like post Afghanistan withdrawal, everything was bad after that. With, with respect to Joe Biden's foreign.
- [44:50]
Jon Lovett
Policy, it also, just like it's also tied to.
- [44:54]
Hasan Piker
I still defend the Afghan withdrawal, by the way. And I think the Democrats also dropped the ball on that too because they're, they, they should have stand, stood 10 toes down and said that was the right thing to do. We exhibited political courage. And for the record, Republicans tried to do a 13, you know, the 13 of our best soldiers died in Afghanistan thing over and over again. The cynical thing that they tried to do.
- [45:15]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, I mean The Republicans are shameless, Democrats are less so.
- [45:18]
Hasan Piker
It's like, no, they should be shameless.
- [45:20]
Jon Lovett
I'm not, I'm just, I'm just, I'm describing what the issue is. Yeah, I mean, part of this though too, like, I like huge policy problems in how the Biden administration has responded to the war in Gaza. But on that issue, on a bunch of foreign policy issues, a bunch of domestic issues, some of the problem has been Joe Biden gave a State of the Union which was good. And everyone's like, okay, that's what happened.
- [45:46]
Seth Moulton
Right.
- [45:46]
Hasan Piker
Okay.
- [45:46]
Jon Lovett
But other than that, he has been such an ineffective communicator that. And it has gotten so much worse over the last year. Yeah.
- [45:55]
Hasan Piker
Because he's old as fuck.
- [45:56]
Jon Lovett
I know, I know. But we're in this moment where we're kind of trying to like, what went wrong. What about this? What about that? People are so mad. People are like the answers that Kamal's advisors gave were unsatisfying. Yeah, they are unsatisfying. But so much of this is just like there was a giant anti incumbent fervor around the world. Joe Biden was completely unable to articulate a defense of his policies. Right. Like the fact that there is inflation and people are mad about inflation is not a reason alone. Like that does, like that can explain why we lost. If you accept that we had no agency in competing against that argument. But like, Joe Biden certainly had no, like just could not communicate effectively.
- [46:39]
Hasan Piker
I think you'll see what happens when someone effectively bullies corporations. Regardless of being a right wing Republican in the upcoming Trump administration, things are going to get significantly worse for every single person, including the people that voted for Donald Trump. One of the funniest aspects of the tariffs conversation that's happening right now is that Donald Trump is going to implement wide, you know, broad tariffs on 45% of all trade that comes in and out of the United States of America. Mexico, Canada and China comprise 45% of all trade. He wants to tariff every single one. Tariffs are obviously an entry fee that like the, the, the American corporations are going to be paying. None of the, none of the countries are going to be paying for these tariffs. It's a policy that's going to destroy dropshippers, which overwhelmingly vote for Donald Trump and the Trump merchandise industry. So that's pretty funny. But having said that, it's going to be devastating for the economy. Now what do I think Trump will do in the process? He'll obviously use tariffs to, to basically get corporations and industries and sector leaders on board with his agenda. So when he says jump, they say how high? Or I'm going to slap you with tariffs. And it's going to actually punish you. It's going to hurt your bottom line. And I think that's part of the reason why they're going to do that. The other reason is this regressive tax is a broad sales tax on all consumers that, you know, disproportionately affects the working poor. And Republicans love that shit. But he also, at times I think we'll just institute the Defense Production act or something, we'll see it. We kind of saw it in Covid as well, when it was a necessity. But that's the thing. The American government is powerful, all governments are powerful. But the American government is especially powerful. It's the wealthiest nation on the planet and the way that it runs is Basically it's like 50 companies in a trench coat. We are working at the behest of corporations. We feed them with our tax dollars that turn into subsidies for them. They utilize those subsidies to I guess, lower production costs, but then they use that to increase their profit margins and engage in what used to be illegal pre Ronald Reagan, you know, stock buybacks and the like, market manipulation of all different sorts. And we're constantly deregulating the economy. And I think that it's not just about having like a populist message, it's about actually implementing said populist message and show who your real enem enemies are. Like not be afraid to say these people are fucking your life up. And if you are truly the pro working class party as the Democrats want to be, as they claim they were historically right. And there were certainly times when they were then you have to say these corporations and the wealthy that have given us money as well as the Republican party and always have been hedging their bets are the real reason why you're feeling this economic anxiety, the real reason why you feel hopeless. That you will never be able to own a home, that you'll never be able to retire. And the Republicans are always in defense of them. They will distract you with lies. They will say your fellow neighbors, you know, your God fearing, Christian, Muslim, whatever, Jewish neighbors are your enemy, when in fact we know what the problem is. So we're going to bring them to heel. This kind of messaging is terrifying, obviously for many different reasons and it will never happen within the Democratic party. Well, but in the absence of that.
- [50:10]
Jon Lovett
I don't think that's true.
- [50:11]
Hasan Piker
We'll see in the. No, I think you'll just get focus grouped messaging and means testing about the opportunity economy which Kamala Harris presented at a time when people were, you know, when, when wage growth had never actually caught up to the, never caught the.
- [50:28]
Jon Lovett
Cost of living and cost of housing.
- [50:29]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [50:30]
Jon Lovett
Which by the way is like you need to be. But this is, but like oh, you.
- [50:33]
Hasan Piker
Need to deflate housing. That's a, that build.
- [50:35]
Jon Lovett
You need to build vast amounts of housing.
- [50:37]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, the, the federal jobs program. Get these fucking insults to work.
- [50:42]
Jon Lovett
Well, we got to get these insults to work.
- [50:44]
Hasan Piker
No, get them to work. Give them, give them. Whether they like it or not, they're going to get good, well paying jobs with good benefits. They're going to get socialized medicine. Got to put the incels and they're going to work. None of this neat stuff anymore. They can't, they can't be online all the time. They're, they're too online.
- [50:59]
Jon Lovett
It's your business now you're going. Now you're coming after your own business.
- [51:01]
Hasan Piker
Fine. I'm, I'm happy for like it. I would, I would drop everything if we got universal health care and a federal jobs program and, and we're building public housing all around the country. That's fine.
- [51:19]
Colman Domingo
Emmy award winner Coleman Domingo returns to television in the Netflix limited series the Madness. Domingo portrays a media pundit, Muncie Daniels, caught in a deadly conspiracy. He must fight for his innocence and his life after he stumbles upon a murder deep in the woods of the Poconos Mountains and discovers he's the only witness to a crime. As the walls close in, Muncie strives to reconnect with his estranged family and his lost ideals in order to survive. Watch the Madness November 28th only on Netflix. Pod Save America is brought to you by the Zero Emission Transportation Association Education Fund. The Zeta Education Fund is working to ensure more Americans are aware of the positive economic impact the EV and battery supply chain is having on communities across the country, especially since the passage of the Inflation Reduction act and the bipartisan infrastructure law. So here are the facts to date. The EV and battery supply chain has already created 240,000 jobs, attracted $177 billion of investment, and supports millions of more jobs in the electricity industry. More than a million EVs were sold in the US last year and three out of four were made in America. There are currently 200,000 public charging locations in the United States and 1,000 more coming online each week. EVs are great cars, but it's also important to know that they're already making a positive economic impact, creating jobs and strengthening communities. Whether or not you drive one. Join forces with the Zeta Education Fund and help spread the facts about what a transition to EVs means to the future of the United States. Get on board@zeta.org join that's zeta.org join pod Save America is brought to you by prizepix. Prizepix is the best place to get real money sports action. With over 10 million members and billions of dollars in awarded winnings, Prizepix has made daily fantasy sports accessible to all. You just pick more or less on at least two players for a shot to win up to 100 times your cash. Run your game all season long on prize picks. It's also the best way to get action on sports in over 30 states, including California, Florida, Georgia and Texas. Plus, Prizepix is the only real money daily fantasy platform with an injury insurance policy so that your lineups stay in play even if one of your players gets injured. If your player leaves in the first half and doesn't return, Prize picks keeps your lineup live.
- [53:35]
Jon Lovett
All right, here's what I'm going to do this week. Okay, this hurts me because I despise both of these teams, but we got jaden Daniels over 241 pass yards. I feel like that's going to happen. And then Derek Henry over 83 and a half rush yards. So look again. I hate the commanders. I hate Baltimore. No offense. I mean offense, I don't really care. To all of you listening, I'm a Patriots fan and I'm an asshole and I endorse that. But Price Picks is super fun because it makes you care about games you wouldn't otherwise watch.
- [54:05]
Colman Domingo
Well, best of luck. We'll check in with you to see how you did.
- [54:07]
Jon Lovett
Thank you.
- [54:08]
Colman Domingo
Download the app today and use Code cricket to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code CROOKED to get $50 instantly after you Play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks run your game.
- [54:21]
Jon Lovett
What do you think the like. Kind of. You're in the kind of. I don't know. There's like the. There's a place where the left, the online left and the online right meets and it kind of meets a little bit at people who think RFK has some good ideas. A little bit. A little bit. What do you think? What do you like? What is the appeal there?
- [54:40]
Hasan Piker
Cranks.
- [54:41]
Jon Lovett
Just cranks?
- [54:42]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. Anti establishment cranks. There's a lot of them. There's the Tulsi Gabbard constituency, which is like marginal. It's not all that significant. But, yeah, I think that the online left is not as robust a media ecosystem as people think it is in general. And besides that, they don't have any sort of political motion regardless. Right. I have disagreements with the closest Congress members that are ideologically as closely aligned with myself as possible, but I still have many disagreements with them. And outside of that, I think these guys that like RFK Jr. Because they think he's going to make America healthy again, they just like the crank stuff. That's what it is.
- [55:29]
Jon Lovett
I mean, you talked like, when I'm really, like four years, I guess, eight years ago. Jesus. I remember after Trump won the first time, what I was feeling at the time, which I'm still feeling now, is that the two challenges, right, is that, like, at a moment where someone like Trump is ascendant, like, how do you keep this big left together, this big tent together from, yes, it includes the kind of pro democracy, anti Trump right runs all the way to the far left and leftists. How do you keep that big group of people together? And I do think, like, you're right, like, there is just in part because there's just so much money behind it, like, the online right is. I think it's bigger and more influential, but it also knows how to get on board. Right. Like, it knows, like, it fights, it has disagreements, it pushes, but then it knows, like, for our ends, for our goals, we all need to get behind. Whether it's Trump or in previous elections, it was getting behind, like, Romney, like, figures. McCain, like, like, they get behind those figures. And sometimes it feels like on the, on the left, like, there's no moment at which we say, all right, we've had the fight. We've had the. We've had. We've had the debate. We disagree on a whole bunch of stuff. Hey, everybody, we're gonna get together, we're gonna make sure that we stop Donald Trump. We elect Joe Biden as much as we elect Kamala Harris. Like, that moment doesn't come. And, like, I'm not saying that Democrats in power aren't, in part responsible for that. I think part of what we need to do is figure out a politics that brings people in. But it is. It does require. It does. Like, everyone is responsible.
- [57:08]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. I think just as I was very critical of Bernie Sanders campaign despite, you know, still loving Bernie because he was nowhere near as aggressive as he could have been in the primaries and definitely should have probably gone on more independent media route in a similar vein to Donald Trump, I am still, because I blame the fault on Bernie's campaign strategies in the primaries. Despite recognizing the structural hurdles of a left wing populace coming out of Democratic Party primary, where it's the laser focused audience that goes out and votes at those things, or like the MSNBC watcher base that is like objectively terrified of someone like that because people are saying he's going to, you know, start executing wealthy people. It's still his fault and it's still the campaign's fault in this regard as well. And that's why I brought forward the point that like, you can have a billion point five. Right. You can have ground game. None of that matters if the message is not actually addressing the real issues that Americans are facing. And the reason why I think the Republicans can go out and vote for the Republican Party and don't usually sit it out, I guess, and instead are able to say, suck it up and say, yeah, we're still going to vote for Donald Trump is because there are single issue voters out there and Trump, they know that Trump is going to protect it. People that like guns are going to be like, I like my guns. I want my guns to be protected. I want to be able to marry my gun. I want to be able to have sex with my gun. I know Donald Trump is going to be the guy that lets that happen. And I know the Democrats are going to, you know, shun me for wanting to have sex with my gun. So that guy's gonna go and vote for Trump regardless. Right. On the other side though, if your top line communication and your major policy prescriptions are like, we have to preserve these institutions, we have to preserve civility and we have to preserve democracy at a time when Americans are like, I don't give a fuck about democracy, just lower the price of eggs, then there's no way that I could outflank the Democratic Party and get people to vote for Kamala Harris in a way that sticks, in a way that is gonna be successful no matter how much influence I wield.
- [59:25]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, I'm not even just talking about, yes, take your point.
- [59:29]
Hasan Piker
Most people are just not voting. That's the problem.
- [59:31]
Jon Lovett
But the challenge, right, is that there are these three. Let's say you say there's these three kind of media ecosystems. There's the right wing one, there's a kind of mainstream one, and there's the left one. The one on the right is built to attack Democrats, the one in the middle is built to attack Washington and politics, and the one on the left is built to attack Democrats. It is, I Mean, like, I don't, I think they're trying to pressure Democrats to be a more moral and just version of itself.
- [59:57]
Hasan Piker
I think I probably spend more time shitting on the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. But yeah, I, but I, but I'm.
- [60:02]
Jon Lovett
Saying when we're talking about like when the right is talking, when, when right wing media, it is trying to be a team player and it is attacking Democrats and supporting Republicans, the middle is attacking both and the left is attacking Democrats and Republicans. There is no place right, there is no like big kind of fun, exciting media environment.
- [60:21]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [60:22]
Jon Lovett
Outside of, I guess, fucking this table where like you have a lot of people that are like critical of the Democratic Party, like annoyed by the same things we're talking about. But ultimately it's just like we got to win and we have to get behind these people.
- [60:33]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, well, but again, it is because for many people on the right wing ecosystem, like, they have their toys, they have their treats, and the Republicans are giving them those toys and those treats, whereas the Democrats are offering what?
- [60:50]
Jon Lovett
No, I agree.
- [60:51]
Hasan Piker
What are they offering?
- [60:52]
Jon Lovett
Well, yeah, no, I know. We gotta fucking figure out.
- [60:54]
Hasan Piker
It doesn't matter to me. I'm rich, okay? Like, I mean, I probably might go to prison if Project Esther gets kicked in or if they denaturalize me or something. But hey, come on, you know, I mean, who knows? We'll see. But you can, but.
- [61:10]
Jon Lovett
You can be rich abroad.
- [61:12]
Hasan Piker
That is true.
- [61:13]
Jon Lovett
What are you talking about?
- [61:13]
Hasan Piker
My point is, but I like being here. I like trying to solve some of the problems in America at least. And then like, overall, the point is not that I'm rich. The point is that the point I'm making is that like I care about my fellow Americans. I care about them, their lives getting better, they're improving their material conditions. And I recognize that if Democrats keep losing, then Republicans are going to keep ruining this country further. And I want the Democrats to win. I want to be the most regime pilled propaganda minister you've ever seen.
- [61:52]
Jon Lovett
That's what I want for you.
- [61:53]
Hasan Piker
But I can't do that if the Democratic Party is not offering anything.
- [61:56]
Jon Lovett
I guess what I, here's what I. And I think that's all fair, I guess where I'm like, what I'm trying to see is what is the path to the Democrats creating the kind of story that's backed by candidates, that's backed by message, that's backed by policy, that's backed by having the right enemies telling that kind of story. And then in concert with that, it is A kind of, we do need a kind of virtuous circle where then more and more people in left media start to accept that the vehicle for changing this country for the better is the Democratic Party.
- [62:34]
Hasan Piker
If we were consistently critical. I mean, I can't speak for everybody else on the left. I don't know who you're talking about when you say this, but like, I can speak to my friends that are over at Drop Site News, former Intercept guys like Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grimm. I can speak to Majority Report. That was way more in the tank for Kamala than I was, for sure. Like, they were very openly more excited at the prospect of Kamala Harris. I was definitely a lot more depressed by no matter who wins, we are still cooked was my attitude. But like certainly understanding and recognizing that Jonathan Trump is going to be far worse than Kamala Harris, of course, and Chapo Trap House. Right. So these are some of the largest media companies out there on the left, right? Outside of the orbit of the Democratic Party. Every single one of these outlets, myself included, talked more about the Biden administration's accomplishments with the nlrb, with Lina Khan at the ftc, with like, you know, trust busting and, and numerous other accomplishments that the Democratic Party actually brought forward than they did. And it didn't matter. My point is. Well, who's that? We always defended, we always, always defended the Afghan withdrawal unconditionally. You never saw that on even, you barely saw that on msnbc. We always defended that. We always defended Lina Khan. We always defended the nlrb. We always defended the walking, the symbolic move that Joe Biden made when he went to the UAW picket line. We didn't forget that. We talked about that. It didn't matter. It's not enough. Especially when there is a. There's so much that Joe Biden did, I think outside of the economic pressures that Americans were experiencing, that was certainly going to play a pivotal role in the election. But there's so much that he did in the month of October, in 2023 that just completely wiped that, that made it impossible to defend him because it became the major focus of a lot of people. And there's nothing you can do in that moment when people are, you know, seeing exactly what's going on and getting frustrated. He unveiled the right wing immigration bill on October 5, 2023. If I'm, I might be getting the date wrong, but it was like literally two days before October 7th. He did that. And then October 7th happened and he went and he bear hugged Netanyahu and kept Giving, you know, unlimited weapons to Israel over and over again, never restraining Israel. Everybody knew exactly what was going to happen. It had happened before and it was going to be much worse. And yet no restraint whatsoever. And it has, I think, diminished America's soft power capabilities on the global stage. Further, it has eroded America's influence and soft power capabilities in the Western world. Obviously the Global south already knew what was up. They've always known. But they have no power, they have no voice, it doesn't matter. But the populations in Western Europe recognizing what was going on and actually starting to protest against it, I mean, that's different. I'm saying this as someone who's been an advocate for Palestinian emancipation for the past 10 years, publicly, I've never seen this groundswell of this massive sea change, this attitude shift in such a dramatic fashion over the course of the last 12 months. And they did not address that at all. And instead they hugged and kissed neocons and talked about, Even in the VP debate, like, Israel having the nuclear first strike capability. What an insane conversation we're having after 12 months of genocide. Like, that's, you know, Americans fancy themselves to be peaceful people. It's a lie. America's foreign interventions are anything but peaceful. Even then, the media ecosystem usually just shelters Americans from the genuine devastating impact of America's actions globally. But for that reason, Americans can at least feel like they're peaceful doves. Which is why Donald Trump, despite never being a peaceful dove, was able to effectively communicate that he was actually anti Iraq war against Hillary Clinton in 2016, which was a resilient message that actually showcased him as more moderate than Hillary Clinton in the eyes of many Americans. He did four years of no peaceful dove shit whatsoever. And then he turned around and after October 7th was still able to effectively outflank the Democrats on this issue, despite the fact that he got $100 million from Miriam Adelson, Sheldon Adelson's wife, to potentially annex the west bank and put rabid evangelical fariques like Mike Huckabee as the, as the Israeli ambassador. Like, these guys are insane.
- [67:25]
Jon Lovett
That's why it's like, it is like, it's like very heartbreaking for me too. Like, look, I think one of the reasons people will be mad that you're on the show is because you're like a proud anti Zionist, right? Like you said that I've gotten shit.
- [67:37]
Hasan Piker
For some anti semi. I was like, damn.
- [67:40]
Jon Lovett
Joining us today. Anti Semites. Yeah, no, but that, but like, I actually like a couple like two or three years ago, I said on Ponzi America that I describe myself as a Zionist, which got people upset too. But what I said then and what I still say now is, and I actually had the same conversation with Bernie is you ought to denounce the destruction and death in Gaza. You ought to denounce the moral abomination that is taking over the west bank on its own terms because it is morally reprehensible, it is despicable. These are war crimes being committed against innocent Palestinians who are paying with their lives for the crimes of Hamas. Like, you don't need to go further than that. But I actually do go further than that. And what I say is.
- [68:36]
Hasan Piker
You're saying dismantle the Zionist entity. Is that what you're saying?
- [68:39]
Jon Lovett
No, I'm not. And so what I'm saying is, well, what I like piece by Peace, inshallah. I am not saying that. What I'm saying is it is also terrible for Israel and you don't need to care about that.
- [68:49]
Hasan Piker
No, I agree.
- [68:50]
Jon Lovett
No, I know. I do care about that. And like what Bernie said, like, I always appreciate what he has to say on this issue. What he said is that basically even Israel does not understand the way in which they're becoming an isolated pariah nation. And so people will be mad to have someone who is a self proclaimed anti Zionist on this show. But like I am someone who has called himself a Zionist and I am against this because I believe it doesn't serve Israel's interest either. And that to me is what is so devastating about the outcome of this election. In part because of policy, in part because Joe Biden is such an incomprehensible messenger on one of the most delicate and contentious topics in American politics. We now have Donald Trump who is able to kind of allied what his actual views would be on this issue. And it like, you know, we have, we have seen what happens in Israel when you have someone like Trump in power at a moment of crisis. And now there is Trump back in office here. And if you are concerned about the lives of Palestinians, if you're concerned about continuing instability and violence and death in that region, this election has just made everything so much fucking worse.
- [69:59]
Hasan Piker
I think American foreign policy being so uni party on this issue is genuinely frustrating and it's genuinely damaging for Israel because we recognize how our fellow Americans are becoming more reactionary every single day, especially with this new Trump election. You see people that formerly maybe had different opinions go, you know what, maybe it is good to deport 20 million people violently by utilizing the military, potentially, this is something that the Donald Trump administration has said they're going to do.
- [70:30]
Jon Lovett
Well, at the very least, even if people don't believe that'll happen or didn't understand, like the expectation that Donald Trump taking all of these extreme positions would be enough.
- [70:37]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [70:37]
Jon Lovett
Wasn't that just wasn't true.
- [70:39]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. So I, What I'm trying to explain here is that before you know it, people can succumb to reactionary feelings and reactionary sentiment and find themselves in the throes of a fascist ideology without even recognizing it. And I think examining that is important in an academic setting. And that's why we have Holocaust studies. Right. That's why we have genocide studies as an entire field, to specifically understand exactly how Nazi Germany got to that position or fascist Italy got to the position that it got to. And, and I think that, you know, you might even disagree with me on this, but, like, that's where Israel is. That's where Israel is at right now. They have become an incredibly angry culture, an incredibly angry country that has succumb, especially since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, who wasn't exactly a great guy for Palestinians either. I mean, he was known as the guy who deliberately tasked the Israeli security forces in breaking the hands of children for stone throwing.
- [71:44]
Jon Lovett
Right.
- [71:44]
Hasan Piker
In the first Intifada, that guy was the off ramp for peace negotiations with Palestinians, and they assassinated him. And his assassins and people who are backing his assassins, like Itamar Ben gvir, like Bezalel Smotrich, are now firmly a part of the Israeli establishment, the current government.
- [72:06]
Jon Lovett
Israeli government. Yeah. Well, also, there are also hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have protested this government.
- [72:14]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. For different reasons, but. Yeah. No, for sure.
- [72:17]
Jon Lovett
Yes. I just think it's important. Yes. Like, Israel is responsible for Israel's actions, but we do need to separate Benjamin Netanyahu and his conduct from the Israeli people in the same. That doesn't mean they're not responsible in the same way that America is not George W. Bush. Right. But America is responsible for what George W. Bush when he is in command of our armed forces. Yeah, but we understand that distinction.
- [72:42]
Hasan Piker
No, no, of course. The problem is, you have to also look at the Overton window, though, in any society, in any culture, in any country. Right. And I think that. And I come from. I'm Turkish. Like, I come from a country with a conscription. Like, I understand what ultranationalism is. I've lived through it. I've experienced it. I know what it's like when Turkish people hear me say that The Armenian genocide is real, for example. That's like a non starter, right? That's like. You can't say that. What are you talking about? I learned in school that it wasn't real. Right. I understand how a country can become more and more right wing where even the liberal position is still committed to the maintenance of an apartheid. And I think that that is where we're at with Israel and we have to restrain Israel as we are the number one partner of Israel, Whether it be the weapons that we give to Israel, whether it be the financial support that we give to Israel, or whether it be the trade partnership that we have or the financial partnership that we have with Israeli companies, we have a lot of influence over what Israel does. And I think over the course of the last couple decades, especially with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has become a more and more right wing nation.
- [74:05]
Jon Lovett
But see, but like, yes, because it is a country that now views itself as being isolated and under siege, right? Like this has all gotten to be so kind of hopeless and Israel faces recrimination from around the world, feels isolated, feels like it needs to turn inward to protect itself, views itself as being an attack. Well, it's like the question, right, to me is like, how do you break that cycle? I agree it requires a ton of American pressure, but it also I think like anti Zionist fervor, like to me, like anti Zionism itself is not a path to where we ultimately need to go, which is peace. Peace and Palestinian self determination. Right? Like that's like, that's what I believe in. Like that's what I care about. That's where I want this. Like Israel as a country that no longer feels constantly under threat. Palestinians being able to live in peace and safety without being under occupation, in control of their own destiny. And to me like that, like it's become a kind. Like that is a two state solution. And anything that drives towards that I think is, is ultimately the direction to go. Right now we're moving in the opposite direction, which is why this all feels so hopeless to me.
- [75:17]
Hasan Piker
Well, I mean, look, I used to be of that same mindset maybe like a decade ago as well, where I resort to the likes of Avi Schliem on this or Elon Poppe on this in terms of like my analysis of it. But like the settlement operations in the so called peace process that were again funded by America as well and still funded to this day by like the likes of Kufi Christians United for Israel, which is the oftentimes not talked about part of this equation that is significant and dare I say, more significant than whatever Jewish Americans think about Israel. Like, it's the right wing evangelical Christians that are the number one funders of the settlement project.
- [76:03]
Jon Lovett
But it's also like the consequences for the expansion of settlements.
- [76:07]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, well, that's.
- [76:08]
Jon Lovett
And the use of settlement, like what was once expanding settlements as part of a negotiation tactic towards what would ultimately have been a solution is now just a plan to take over the West Bank.
- [76:18]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, no, it's developing Bantostans, which they did. And my point is that that has made it virtually impossible for a two state solution to exist. Which is why I think that like Israel already maintains sovereignty and that as an apartheid state, what needs to happen is to abolish the apartheid, which is something that unfortunately many Israelis refuse to reckon with, at least right now. Because that would mean 5 million Palestinians, including the 2.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, would now constitute a demographic majority in this area, in this land that Israel enforces sovereignty over. And that is terrifying for its, its demographic destiny, its demographic goals in general.
- [77:02]
Jon Lovett
Well, it just also, it's, that's something to add. Like you can point, like, it's also something that Israel is never going to assent to.
- [77:08]
Hasan Piker
No, I understand that, which is why I think like the pressure campaigns, albeit, you know, minimal, but the, the, the change in attitude in the way that like a lot of people see this dynamic is significant. And I think that inevitably things will change. And we're seeing it right now, we're seeing it with the ICC decision. Like this is, this is a truly unique moment we're seeing with the ICJ court case. We'll see where it goes. But I think that I understand why even members in the State Department that I would directly be at odds with in the way that we examine the world have, have from the start tried to say this can't happen, that we need to use the liberal Zionist off ramp immediately. We need to just like, you know, put Benny Gantz in charge or something. Like we need to just like single out Benjamin Netanyahu, say he's the bad guy, and then move in the direction where like a more manageable, more liberal person, a more moderate person can be left responsible and restrain Israel in some way in order to continue Israel being an unsinkable aircraft carrier in a resource rich region. And they didn't even listen to that. Like, but also because it was just didn't even listen to that.
- [78:25]
Jon Lovett
Well, because Netanyahu is an obstacle to any kind of peace. I mean, this is a, like we have Been in moments in the recent past where Palestinians and Israelis were at the table and peace seemed within reach. Right. And that seems very far away. Right? We were, we were, we were. And that seems very far away right now. But to me that still seems closer than a single state. And to me there's that sort of a future of heading towards that is a future of a lot more chaos and violence and terror and horror. And so I like come back to my view remains that the future, that the only hope is some kind of a two state solution. As far as that seems right now people want to say otherwise, fine, but.
- [79:13]
Hasan Piker
I think they're gonna, I think they're gonna annex the West Bank. I think that's what I think is gonna happen.
- [79:18]
Jon Lovett
Let's, let's move.
- [79:18]
Hasan Piker
We got Trump is gonna. And Trump's gonna let it happen. Like Trump.
- [79:21]
Jon Lovett
Well, Trump, this is the thing, like.
- [79:23]
Hasan Piker
And it's not even because Trump is like ideologically committed to the Zionist project in the way that like Joe Biden was. It's because Miriam Adelson gave him $100 million. That's it.
- [79:32]
Jon Lovett
TRUMP doesn't give a fuck.
- [79:33]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, he doesn't give a shit about anything. He's just like, yeah, these guys gave me money. I'm going to listen to her. And that's it. And that was really funny because that's what he's talked about in the antisemitism conference that he put together, if you recall. He was like, I've done so much for you Jews, why won't you vote for me? That's what he kept saying. He's like, if I lose, it's because of you Jews.
- [79:53]
Jon Lovett
I know, I know, I know.
- [79:55]
Hasan Piker
And it was insane because in his mind he thinks that's the only thing that American Jews care about. Like, it's the dual loyalty trope. But you also can't do that trope in a woke way on mainstream media either when you are, you know, I'm not saying you're doing this.
- [80:13]
Jon Lovett
Yeah.
- [80:13]
Hasan Piker
I'm just saying, like, you also can't do that in a more woke way when you're talking about Israel, as many liberal outlets do sometimes when they talk about like, well, you know, you just want Israel to perish, I think, and you're probably anti Semitic and that, you know, it's just Israel has demographic concerns. It's like, okay, well that's. America has demographic concerns. America has white demographic concerns. That's not a con. That's a non starter for me. You know what I mean? I don't Care.
- [80:44]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. I mean, there is also a ton of anti Semitism. Oh, I know, I know you don't. I know. Like I just making sure. Because. Yes. And yeah, it's skyrocketing and like that. But like, again, like, I just. We gotta move on from this. But like, it's just that you see it in our politics. You see it in politics around Israel, like this kind of vicious circle of people feel under threat, they turn inward, they become less and less empathetic towards their neighbors. That leads them to be more and more isolated. And to me, it's like the question is not, like, I don't, like, I'm not even interested in like philosophical debates ideologically, like, how do you break that human cycle? Right. And I think on our side, it starts with a policy that recognizes that it is in Israel's interest to stop the violence and to stop the killing. And that moving towards something like the annexation of the west bank or the permanent occupation of Gaza or whatever it may be is ultimately not in Israel's interest. I know that that makes me sound like a neolibshill, but that is what I think.
- [81:45]
Hasan Piker
No, I understand where you're coming from. I don't disagree with you. I think that that's why I was trying to bring it back to like, American politics. And, and I don't think it's an accident that in the past three decades, every single Western capitalist nation, firmly planted within the heart of empire, firmly within the, the, the comfortable bosom of American imperialism, all right, has shifted dramatically to the right. And in that process, I think, or leading up to that, there was a lot of austerity, a lot of clawing back of social safety nets, a lot of privatization that took place that some people call the inshitification of the economy or the insidification of everything. And in that process, I think people got more and more angry. And the only people that benefit from that anger are always going to be far right figures that can point to people that are defenseless and people that are less powerful than you are. And they were able to successfully use the anger to redirect that towards nationalist sentiment, to redirect that towards racism, homophobia, bigotry of all different sorts. And that's why you're seeing the reform movement grow in the UK with Nigel Farage, who now has a higher approval rating than the very Conservative Tory adjacent Labor leadership, when Keir Starmer. That's why you're seeing the AfD grow in momentum in Germany. That's why you're seeing the le Pen's party grow as well. Even if she goes to jail, her movement will not go away. And in every single instance, you have centrist, moderate, moderate to like center right neoliberal party leadership, constantly trying to maintain the hegemonic status of neoliberalism and losing out to populist far right messaging every step along the way. Because when material conditions worsen, ok, and you might look at the technological improvements and say, what do you mean material conditions are worsening? Like, I can order a Uber Eats and immediately have it at my doorstep. But like, overall, the important things like educational attainment, healthcare, public transit, if we're talking about Europe, we don't even have that here in America.
- [84:17]
Jon Lovett
We can talk about it here too.
- [84:18]
Hasan Piker
You know, home ownership, these sorts of things are just getting worse and worse year over year. And it truly ruins people's lives and it leaves them angry and confused. And right wingers like Donald Trump or fascists like those in Europe, like Meloni's party in Italy as well, or Gert Wilders in the Netherlands, like these guys use that opportunity to say, you know why you're mad? Because Muslim refugees came in and they ruined your beautiful European culture.
- [84:47]
Jon Lovett
It's the challenge, right, Is that, like, things aren't getting worse on every metric. They're not. And if you were to look at the last, I don't know, 50 years of American politics, and if you just showed people the economic data and you said, I want you to find on this chart where the United States elected a fascist dunce, you would not pick 2024. You might pick 2008, you might pick 1992, you might pick after the stagflation of the 70s, there are a bunch of times you might say, well, that must have. If it's someplace here, it must have been then. And so I do think, like, we have to. I think housing is a big part of it. I think people being furious that life didn't seem to come, like people are, I think, traumatized by the pandemic in ways we're still kind of. It's hard to see and hard to find in polling, right? I think there's like a deep anger about, like, hey, wait, things never got back to normal. I don't feel normal. Costs didn't come back down. Life seems worse in measurable and immeasurable ways. And I do think part of it is like, yes, it's material, but it's also, I think, spiritual. It is. It is. There is something. There is something. I think that there was a bargain. People were Making when all the restaurants where they knew the owners closed and they were replaced by fucking Panera breads and subways and chains and when their supermarkets became chains and the Walmarts came in, right, when people like to blame Walmart. But Walmart is both a symptom and a cause, right? I think, like, there was a bargain people made, and the bargain was, I'm gonna give up on the kind of dignity and community and sense of place and belonging that I used to experience in my town for this cheap stuff. But it better be fucking cheap. Yeah, it's not. But I think people are very bad at understanding what they want. And people. I do think that there's this collective feeling of like, hey, we traded something away to these corporations, and some of it we did unwillingly, some of it we did willingly, but we're not happy with the outcome. And I do think that that's about community. I do think that's about. About. About meaning.
- [86:53]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, what you're describing. I mean, you're describing alienation, but.
- [86:57]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, I am, but like. But.
- [86:58]
Hasan Piker
But that is a big part in the Marxian sense. Not like alienation in the normal understanding of it, but like, yes, you're right. Americans feel isolated. Everyone feels isolated. Everyone feels alienated. They feel alienated from their labor. And besides that, there is no sense of identity. And I talk about this quite frequently, actually. Our consumption is the only marker for identity. Even guns is a very important political identity for a lot of Americans. That's consumption that's no different than an expensive Gucci bag. Okay? It's actually more expensive in many instances. And the culture that surrounds it is still ultimately at the point of consumption. And when there is a hurdle in front of that, whether it's cost or because you just simply can't go and buy it at the store or whatever. During COVID and the lockdowns, everything falls apart. Because we're a very fragile nation that is built on this idea that, like, as long as I get shit for cheap, I'm fine. I don't really care as long as the cost of eggs will go down. You know, 20 cents or a dollar, I don't care if 20 million migrants get deported, is the calculation that some people made. And many people said it's not going to happen anyway. Now, there is the other side of this story, but that's why I was.
- [88:13]
Jon Lovett
I want to hear the other side, but I just want to.
- [88:15]
Hasan Piker
Just the other side is. What I was trying to say is this is what Kamala Harris did wrong, in my opinion. She, she could have gone up there and said, I am going to arrest the Walton family. And if she was able to successfully say, I'm going to arrest the Walton family and they're going to stand trial, okay. In a military tribunal, and that is going to make egg prices $5 cheaper. It's going to be. Eggs are going to be 10 cents. Again, Americans would have voted for that. That's my point. So you don't have to go that crazy, obviously.
- [88:45]
Jon Lovett
No, I know, I know. Well, I guess it just like this to me, like, these are the twin problems of dealing with a fascist threat. One is keeping a big, fractious, progressive, small l liberal movement together. The other is how you defend the value of institutions that don't do that. And I know you're being.
- [89:05]
Hasan Piker
I'm being hyperbolic. Hyperbolic. I'm exaggerating. But I think that for far too long, deregulation and unconditionally supporting corporations and even having what you just described as like the, the formative opinion on antitrust, like, as long as the consumer is happy, as long as the prices are low, we don't care if you monopolize.
- [89:26]
Jon Lovett
That's the right. That's the right's view. I mean, we, like Democrats are now fight like nobody. Some of this is like, we're fighting back on that stuff.
- [89:31]
Hasan Piker
No, but. So that was the, that was the right view. But that was kind of uni party for a very long time, at least 90s.
- [89:38]
Jon Lovett
I think the. But this is like, this is. I think conservatives had an ideological view of this. Yeah, the Bork view of this. They came in and they said, antitrust doesn't mean what it says in the law. It doesn't mean what it says in people's experience of what a monopoly does. It's this one specific definition which makes it really hard to stop mergers. And Democrats said, wait, hold on. Like, kind of Democrats just didn't have a strong view on this. It just wasn't a motivating. It wasn't. It wasn't.
- [90:02]
Hasan Piker
Why. Why didn't they.
- [90:02]
Jon Lovett
Well, I think they. First, I think that, like, I think the intellectual academic left had to catch up to the damage this was doing. I think Democrats just didn't focus on it, didn't care about it. I also think there is money from donors. Of course. Of course I'm not. I know. You don't need to rhetorically cue me up. I know. But. But that, like, I think sometimes it is. I think it is not people saying, o, I wish we would go after these Giant monopolies, more. But I got this donation, so no, now I'm not. But it's a culture, a kind of pro business culture, right. That like, kind of pervaded democrats since the 90s that made conversations about this kind of thing harder to have, which is different now because Lina Khan is now the chair of the ftc. Right. Elizabeth Warren created this Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Right. Like, there has been a shift, but it, but it is both a not enough and not a shift in people's actual understanding of what the Democratic Party.
- [90:54]
Hasan Piker
Because there's no, there's no immediate gratification that comes from that.
- [90:57]
Jon Lovett
I know.
- [90:57]
Hasan Piker
And the immediate gratification that that is supposed to happen could happen potentially with wide, sweeping legislative agenda changes overall or like, clearly communicating a pathway towards like a more just outcome for healthcare, for example. Like, that's not something that we're invested in. Like, things that touch people's lives immediately is, is going to yield very positive benefits. I will say this. I think as far as, like Lina Khan or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, these are fantastic things that happened under the watchful eye of the Biden regime.
- [91:36]
Jon Lovett
Well, Barack Obama.
- [91:38]
Hasan Piker
And Barack Obama as well. The problem here, however, is that once again, I think out of genuine fear, maybe that they would disrupt or upset the Tony west coalition of the Democratic Party or the, you know, all of these, like, major donors that donate to the Democratic Party, they didn't do a good job even explaining what they were doing. And I'll tell you why. Just real quick, I just want to give you an example of the IRS. Right. Joe Biden funded the IRS. Every dollar that goes to the IRS, I think is like, what, seven extra dollars or 30 up to 35, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know the exact numbers, but like, every dollar that you spend on the IRS, you get 35 in return in America's coffers. Right. That's massive. That's fantastic. Republicans hate that. Yeah, they hate the irs. And many Americans also hate the IRS as well. They hate paying taxes partially because they get. They don't see anything in return for it. Even though the IRS, getting more funds actually retrieved a lot of, you know, tax dodgers that were refusing to pay taxes. And on top of that, their investigations concluded that I think Coca Cola had avoided or had evaded taxes to the tune of $16 billion. Right. One company, I never heard that from the Biden administration. They never went out. They never went out and said, this is why we funded the irs, not because we want to come after you and your trailer in the trailer park with our armed agents or whatever. Republicans, on the other hand, were like, 85,000 armed agents are coming to your house, they're going to kill you, they're going to take away your children and they're going to take your guns and they're going to take your trailer park.
- [93:25]
Jon Lovett
Look, I think we paid for not having an effective communicator in the president. Like, I think we paid tearly for it.
- [93:32]
Hasan Piker
It's not just the President.
- [93:34]
Jon Lovett
I know. It's not just the. I know.
- [93:35]
Hasan Piker
It's just an attack dog sitting on every television show.
- [93:39]
Jon Lovett
I think, I do think part of the challenge is a lot of people are talking about what these agents would actually do. It just doesn't get covered, doesn't get attention, just doesn't matter. People don't cover this kind of stuff. That's a pop. That's part of it. I'm not saying there aren't Democrats. I like, I agree with you. Like, Democrats need to have a kind of combative, like that's anything we take away from Donald Trump becoming president is that like, clearly we need somebody.
- [93:59]
Hasan Piker
People want to fight her.
- [94:00]
Jon Lovett
They want a fighter. They want to fight her.
- [94:02]
Hasan Piker
And like, and you can't fight for opportunity, economy and $50,000 in tax credits for startups. That is not something to fight for. You need to be a fighter and you need to fight for things that are universally good and that people want. Healthcare, fixing the housing market, things like that.
- [94:20]
Jon Lovett
Well, she did do that. Yeah, I just, like, I agree with you.
- [94:22]
Hasan Piker
But again, even her communication on that is like, so much of the Democratic Party is now officially captured by what we would look back in the past as like unimaginably right wing economic policies like tax cuts and tax cuts in a public private partnership. When I hear those words, I'm like, I'm not regime pilled. I want to be regime pilled. I want to champion the social democratic regime. I want to make the Democratic Party make Olaf Palme look like a fucking revisionist right wing reactionary. That's what I want. I want trains.
- [95:02]
Jon Lovett
I want trains.
- [95:03]
Hasan Piker
I want, I want better, better public transit, better transit. I want more.
- [95:08]
Jon Lovett
I want you.
- [95:08]
Hasan Piker
I want socialized housing. Like, that's. See, but you're, you're stopping.
- [95:13]
Jon Lovett
I don't know. But like, what, what do you mean we can't get into it?
- [95:16]
Hasan Piker
I mean what I'm saying is like, we.
- [95:19]
Jon Lovett
I'm from mill. I am for building millions upon millions of houses everywhere. Mm. That's what I'm For.
- [95:25]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, but no, no public private partnership. Build it with federal, publicly funded employees and build it as a mechanism to claw back the insane housing market prices to lower them by force.
- [95:41]
Jon Lovett
Okay.
- [95:42]
Hasan Piker
That's what I think.
- [95:43]
Jon Lovett
All right.
- [95:45]
Hasan Piker
I think if you said that a lot of Americans would be like, I like that idea.
- [95:49]
Jon Lovett
I think if a Democratic politician got up there and said, we are going to employ millions of Americans, we're going to have a national jobs program to employ millions of Americans building millions of houses, I think that'd be very popular. I agree.
- [96:00]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [96:00]
Jon Lovett
Okay. All right.
- [96:02]
Hasan Piker
You've regime pilled as well.
- [96:04]
Jon Lovett
I am regime pilled now. I did go on your feed yesterday to see what you've been up to.
- [96:09]
Hasan Piker
Oh, my God.
- [96:10]
Jon Lovett
And can we just put this up?
- [96:13]
Hasan Piker
I think I know what you're going to post.
- [96:15]
Jon Lovett
I was looking for what your reaction was to the Harris campaign podcast, and I just found this. And I. And I just thought, is this what the Joe Rogan of the left would post?
- [96:28]
Hasan Piker
I think Joe Rogan posts Donald Trump wins.
- [96:32]
Jon Lovett
And you're like, I think I know what I need to do. I need to. I need to post hole.
- [96:35]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [96:36]
Jon Lovett
You getting good reactions to this? Is getting this, Getting what you need?
- [96:39]
Hasan Piker
Well, I wanted to show my progress. It's been a while, you know, that's like from 2021 till now. And I mean, I do. I do talk about my fitness journey quite a bit.
- [96:49]
Jon Lovett
You do Pilates?
- [96:50]
Hasan Piker
What?
- [96:50]
Jon Lovett
You do Pilates?
- [96:51]
Hasan Piker
No, I train. I weight train and then I play basketball.
- [96:55]
Jon Lovett
What are you doing for cardio?
- [96:57]
Hasan Piker
Basketball.
- [96:57]
Jon Lovett
Basketball, Yeah.
- [96:58]
Hasan Piker
I play basketball three times a week, sometimes four. And that's been very good. I also track my macro nutrients. I track all my calories.
- [97:08]
Jon Lovett
What does that do for you?
- [97:09]
Hasan Piker
What do you mean? It's that, right?
- [97:11]
Jon Lovett
You think that's what it's doing?
- [97:12]
Hasan Piker
Picture on the right. That's how I got there.
- [97:14]
Jon Lovett
Oh, yeah, I use Manjaro. It's awesome.
- [97:18]
Hasan Piker
Oh, nice. I have. I have family members who use it as well and it's been very helpful.
- [97:22]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, I don't think about it anymore.
- [97:23]
Hasan Piker
Well, yeah, it's. I mean, it's great. It's fantastic. Do you feel like it's stopped your other, like, other addictive tendencies as well?
- [97:30]
Jon Lovett
I'm a better driver. Isn't that weird?
- [97:33]
Hasan Piker
Isn't that weird maybe because you're not on your phone or something?
- [97:36]
Jon Lovett
No, I think it's because my, like, like my. I'm not spending so much of my, like, mental energy on, like, diet. And so, like, I'm just A little bit less kind of spent and like, kind of, I don't know, impulsive around other things. And so like, I don't feel some need to like, get home two minutes faster. It's hard to explain. Like, I don't feel as much of a need to find justice on the roads.
- [98:00]
Hasan Piker
I understand.
- [98:00]
Jon Lovett
Does that make sense?
- [98:01]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. You asked me. No, I 100% get it. You asked me like, how, why you track your calories or whatever. But like, I get, I get a lot of comfort from the rigidity of my schedule, my regimen. And I don't even think about it because it's just a habit that I have at this point. And for that reason, it's not even a thing I think about at all. It doesn't weigh on me. But when I was, you know, when I was eating in a very unhealthy way, it did constantly weigh on me. I was like, oh, I'm going to feel so good. But also it's so bad for me.
- [98:33]
Jon Lovett
But then, you know, a little bit hopeless.
- [98:35]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [98:36]
Jon Lovett
It's true in politics too, for sure.
- [98:39]
Hasan Piker
I mean, definitely. But you know, you gotta, you gotta focus on whatever small victory you can have. And it's the same for fitness. And like I said, going back to the Joe Rogan of the left conversation, I, you know, this is definitely something that I talk to my community about quite a bit. And there's a lot of people in my community that have also gone on their own fitness journey. I've been able to inspire them to do this as well. And I think it's important to be physically healthy.
- [99:04]
Jon Lovett
I do like just to make, just to close this out because we've gone on too long. But like there is something about like in terms of meaning and like a spiritual. Like, I think there's a reason that there's been an appeal of people like the Jordan Petersons of the world and some of the kind of more like self help, right wing types.
- [99:26]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [99:27]
Jon Lovett
And like, I do think there are a lot of people out there looking for not just sort of answers in politics, but like, answers about like, why does like I feel unfulfilled, working, not working, whatever it may be. Like, I feel like I'm missing like community and the kind of leadership that would come from community. And like, I don't think that. I do think that's why sometimes you see like, I don't know, like even on like the shows we do, like, I do feel like there's like a hunger for like something broader than just a political program, but like, more of a kind of way of grappling with the fact that this version of modern life kind of dares us to ruin our own lives.
- [100:10]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, you know, I offer that in my broadcast every day. I mean, I talk about my own personal journeys and I offer advice. I used to have an advice segment as well. I haven't done it in a while, but, like, you know, I'm gonna bring it back. And that's why I also, like, collaborate with other content creators, even if I don't align with them politically, agree with them politically at all. But, you know, there are plenty of people that I know who are my friends, who I think as long as they're, like, relatively charitable and good and kind people, even if we don't agree on everything politically, it doesn't matter. And, you know, I find myself in these bro spaces a lot. I've been on every single. Almost every single podcast that Trump has been on, and many of them are run by my friends, like, impulsive. My buddy Mike Malak is Logan Paul's goals. Not the biggest fan of Logan Paul, but I love Mike. Mike is a fantastic human being. He has an incredible journey of overcoming addiction, and he wrote about it as well. He had a New York Times bestseller, Bradley Martin with the Nelk Boys. I don't really know the Nelk Boys, but like, Bradley Martin, I like a lot. He owns Zoo Culture. He's a real meathead. And that's the. And Andrew Schultz as well. I've been on that podcast, too. Like, these are a lot of these podcasts I've been on as well. And like, these guys, and they' audiences are receptive to what I have to say. And I think, like, optics play a role in that, for sure. Like, the way I carry myself, the way I am naturally, authentically, I think is. Is a package that young men are. Are not immediately dismissive of. And I'm very aware of that. And I try to use that for good. And I try to use that to, like, explain to people that, like, it's not cool to, you know, on random people for no reason, like, let them live. Like, what the fuck is this to you? It's not going to fix your life. Yeah, you're being a kind of a loser, an entitled little loser, and it's not good. And that does work. It works. And I think my. The size of my community now and the makeup of it is proof of that reality. Like, I. A couple of years ago, I didn't have the numbers that I have now, and every single person. Virtually every single person in my audience will tell you that, like, there is one key issue that I have dramatically changed their opinion on, whether it be American foreign policy, whether it be the way that they, you know, viewed trans people and were transphobic, but now they're not, or even racist opinions. So, yeah, that's, that's what I try to do to the best of my ability in my little corner of the Internet.
- [102:39]
Jon Lovett
Hasan Piker, good to see you.
- [102:40]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [102:42]
Jon Lovett
When we come back, Congressman Seth Moulton.
- [102:50]
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- [103:20]
Colman Domingo
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- [104:53]
Jon Lovett
Joining us now. He's represented Massachusetts six districts since 2015. Welcome back to Pod Save America. It's Congressman Seth Moulton.
- [105:00]
Seth Moulton
John, it's great to be here. Thanks so much for having me back.
- [105:03]
Jon Lovett
All right, so if you look at the map, it's a sea of arrows pointing red, including in Massachusetts. Nearly every county in Massachusetts shifted. Right. Both of the counties in your district did. Everybody loves after we lose an election to know why we lost the election. Did you see signs before that made you think this was that we were in trouble?
- [105:25]
Seth Moulton
Oh, yeah. This didn't surprise me at all. I've. I've actually thought for past year, year and a half that, that we were likely to lose. And listen, I wasn't just sitting back. I was working hard on a winning strategy. I've been campaigning all over the country and I have this. This group of veterans called Serve America who've been running in some of the toughest House seats across the country to try to flip seats that we need to win to win the House back and to hold the tough seats that we have. We had an 89% win rate as of. There's still a couple elections that haven't been called, so. So I've actually been working on a really successful strategy. But by and large, it just felt like a lot of Americans thought the Democratic Party was out of touch. And when I remember being in Pennsylvania just a week before election day, and I did not have a good feeling.
- [106:19]
Jon Lovett
How much of that do you explain by People were just really fucking pissed about inflation, didn't believe they were seeing the benefits of Joe Biden's policies, had a really negative opinion about Joe Biden. And as we've seen all around the world, there is just an anti incumbent, anti establishment fervor. And the fact that Kamala Harris got so close to winning actually speaks to the fact that we mitigated what was a trend around the world.
- [106:49]
Seth Moulton
I mean, look, there's definitely an argument there, but I think too often Democrats use that as an excuse because look at the opposition. Here we are running against the first convicted felon to be President of the United States. We're running against a party that's got a civil war playing out across the country between traditional Republicans and MAGA Republicans. I mean, they couldn't even elect a Speaker of the House for three weeks. That's never happened in American history either. Never in American history have a president's senior advisors, including military officials who usually don't get involved in politics, come out and said, this guy's unfit to be commander in chief. So my argument would be, I get there's anti Incumbency problems. I get there's inflation, but we are essentially running against half an incumbent himself. And this should have been easy. We should have been cleaning up from school board to President of the United States. And so the fact that we lost it all is real cause for concern.
- [107:43]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. So in the wake of it, I like have these two competing instincts. One is to want to be open and just listen to all the different perspectives on what went wrong. And, but at the same time, I end up feeling pretty suspicious when people say what they've always said. Right. You know, and I, and I include in that Bernie Sanders puts out a statement after saying that Democrats have abandoned the working class. I don't believe that's true. I, I'm sure there are ways in which it's true, but Joe Biden was an incredibly progressive president and did a lot of what Bernie Sanders had advocated for him to do. So obviously the answer is going to be more nuanced than that. Then I see Democrats like Alyssa Slotkin saying that it's identity politics, but we've been through news cycles about more center left figures blaming identity politics. Then I see you talking about how, you know, Democrats need to have a debate about how we talk about trans issues because Donald Trump ran this ad about trans issues. And I, so I wonder, like, wait a second, like, are people going to the explanations that they have had in the past for the parts of the Democratic coalition that they just find annoying? And you know, when we lose an election, I blame the people that I don't like or that I have a disagreement with or that I in some ways find irritable.
- [109:12]
Seth Moulton
I mean, I think it's a really fair question. And we should always be suspicious. I mean, literally we should have these debates about these tough issues. Right. But what I would say is, you know, look, you don't have to agree with Bernie Sanders, but you can't say that we have followed his economic plan. I mean, I think there's actually a really legitimate argument for a more populist economic policy, and I don't think we've adopted that. I think Alyssa Slotkin raises identity politics because a lot of Americans, not just Democrats in tough seats, but a lot of Americans think that the Democratic Party is obsessed with identity politics. So I'm not sure we've put that issue to bed. And I'll tell you, a lot of independents that I hear from, including Marines that I served with, for example, overseas, who really don't like a draft dodger to be Commander in Chief and don't really want to vote for Donald Trump. But they say to me, you guys are obsessed with identity politics or some other reason why we're just sort of out of touch. That is something that I hear and I think also on contentious issues like, look, I did this 20 minute interview with the New York Times and talked about a lot of places where I think the Democrats are out of touch or just not trusted on issues. And they picked out this quote about trans women in sports. But I do think it was a problem that Harris really just didn't even have a response to this vicious, hateful ad that honestly, Republicans clearly had data to say it was successful because they put $200 million behind it or something. And when you can't even respond to that, then a, it's bad politics because they can just clobber you over the head with it and win on issues like that. But also it does a real disservice to the communities that only the Democratic Party will be there to protect. Because if we just cede the ground to Republicans and let them get their hateful policies through because we don't even have a reasonable response, then they win. And that's dangerous for our party politically, but it's also dangerous for exactly the folks like trans people and trans kids, who genuinely need our support and protection.
- [111:15]
Jon Lovett
So everybody's come back to this. You know, the ACLU does this questionnaire, then she's asked about it. That answer becomes the basis for this ad. And there's clear a choice. And not just on this issue, but when she was asked about the policy changes she's had since 2020, tried to make it about values to avoid kind of creating a news cycle of. She has changed her position. And when she was asked about this issue in an interview, she said some version of that was just the Trump administration policy and it was a way to kind of get out of it. Now, you can say that that should have gone a different way. But more broadly, you know, the Biden administration puts out a compromise policy on trans athletes to try to answer some of the concerns that people have and some of the attention that it gets while trying to stave off outright hateful Republican bans. Right? Like that was an attempt to kind of do. I think Joe Biden did what I think you are asking Democrats to do, to try to kind of enter this contentious issue, try to have the debate and try to kind of signal some kind of compromise. The problem, right, is that, like, Democrats aren't obsessed with this issue. Republicans have a strategy of elevating, drawing attention to making salient this issue, to try to make us talk about this issue. Sarah McBride about to start in Congress, she didn't come saying, I'd like to talk about where I'm going to go to the bathroom, please. That's Nancy Mace. And Republicans are thrusting it upon us. And so how much of when you say, oh, voters think or people think, independents think that Democrats are obsessed with these issues, how much are you kind of blaming Democrats for living in a broken media ecosystem?
- [113:13]
Seth Moulton
Well, look, I mean, you're right, John. There's no question that Republicans are the ones bringing up these issues, badgering us over the head about it. Right. I mean, we never had a problem with bathroom policy until Nancy Mace makes a huge issue of it. And it's obviously an effort to just attack this one path breaking woman who's coming to Congress. But the problem is again, that if we just don't even have a response, then they're going to keep doing this because it works for them. And if we don't engage in this issue or refuse to debate it unless it's exactly on our terms or have an absolutist position that the majority of Americans don't agree with, remember, there are a lot of Democrats who just think the only answer to trans women in sports is not the Biden's administration's compromise policy, but it's just an absolutist view that no, there's no restrictions whatsoever, which of course, I mean, the Olympics doesn't even agree with that. Right. So it's totally reasonable to have this debate. And yet the people, I mean, the fellow Democrats response to my even just raising the issue was, no, there's no room for debate here. You can't even bring that up. I mean, the backlash really proved the broader point that I was trying to make. But I also think that this was exactly what the Republicans were able to do with immigration. I remember being on the House floor last year and there are some people, colleagues running for this position of Democratic messaging, like chair, committee chair, and supposedly in charge of Democratic messaging for the House. And I asked one of the candidates how she thought we should deal with immigration and her answer was we should not talk about immigration. I said, well, I actually think a lot of people are concerned about it because it does seem there's a real problem at the southern border. No, it's just dangerous. It's dangerous to talk about it because it's used against immigrants. And I just don't think that strategy has worked. It's why even though we do have A reasonable bipartisan immigration policy, in part represented by the bipartisan deal in the, in the Senate, Trump and the Republicans have just been able to clobber us over the head because there was a period where Democrats were just denying it was even a problem. So totally legitimate concern, like, yes, Republicans are the ones weaponizing these issues, but if we want to win the debate, settle it and then focus on the things that we want to talk about, we have to do that. We can't just, we can't just cede this to the Republicans. We have to win.
- [115:31]
Jon Lovett
So on immigration, though, so that it sounds like what you're like, sometimes I think what we're doing is saying, like, boy, we made a bunch of mistakes in 2017-2018-2019-2020, that have, we have rectified but have not successfully drawn attention to that in the public imagination. Most Democrats in the House embraced a pretty conservative bipartisan border deal. Kamala Harris embraced that deal. Joe Biden embraced that deal. It's, you know, if the problem is a bunch of people running for president shouldn't have raised their hands about decriminalizing the border in 2020, great. But I can't, we can't go back in time and change what happened then. But it seems like a lot of what you're saying has been addressed. The problem is, is it that people don't believe it because you just, you're pointing. Yeah, there are going to be some Democrats that disagree with what you're saying, but that's the debate. We're having it.
- [116:18]
Seth Moulton
Look, look, Well, I don't, I actually don't. I think the backlash against me was not. We should have this. And here's my opposing view. It was literally, you can't talk about this.
- [116:27]
Hasan Piker
Well, you did.
- [116:28]
Jon Lovett
I just say. You did say it in a pretty dickish way. Like, you said it. You said it. But like, and you said, you said, I don't want my daughters overrun by a man on the football field. Like, that sucks. Like that. You didn't, you didn't exactly invite the best version of yourself.
- [116:43]
Seth Moulton
Look, but this is the problem, John. Like, you step back from this discussion, right, and just hear two Democrats talking about the precise word choice and whether it was sensitive or not, which I agree, wasn't the most, perhaps the most sensitive words. Like, this is exactly how a lot of Americans feel that the Democrats are out of touch and that we are obsessing on these things rather than just having a reasonable discussion. I mean, yes, we're not always, not everyone is going to get the Terminology. Exactly right. Even fellow Democrats. And I'll take that criticism, but we got to be able to take on the issues. But look, the broader point here, right? The broader point is that, you know, I mean, just to go. To go back to immigration, right, because you're right. I think the broader point you're bringing up is in some places, we have fixed our problems, right? We are talking about the border. We do have a reasonable immigration policy. And so therefore, the question is if we have a reasonable immigration policy. And Trump's immigration policy is both unrealistic and just hateful. I mean, it's going to tear apart families and communities across the country. If he's able to deport millions of Americans, not to mention it will raise inflation, which obviously people don't want, then why is it that the American public trusts Republicans more on immigration than Democrats? Why is it then we have a great economic policy. Harris's plan would not only continue to bring down inflation, but would actually reduce the deficit, something that Republicans used to care about. Trump's policy would triple the deficit and dramatically increase inflation because deporting Americans, raising tariffs and tax cuts for billionaires all contribute to inflation. And yet the American public trusted Republicans more on the economy. And I think my personal view. And, look, I don't know if I'm right. The view I'm proposing is that this is a place where people just feel like we might have the right policies, but there's a cultural mismatch, like we're too preachy rather than listening to Americans, or we're standing in our ivory towers and we're not hearing the problems of working people, especially in rural communities. There's a sense that people just don't trust us, even if we do have the right policies. And that's where I think we've really got to look ourselves in the mirror. I mean, look, I'm sitting here in Massachusetts with three Harvard degrees, right? Like, I'm part of the problem.
- [119:00]
Jon Lovett
Three of them. That's offensive.
- [119:04]
Seth Moulton
But, like, it's. But here's the issue, right? I got into this whole business because of my time in the Marines and feeling that I. I saw the consequences of failed leadership in Washington when I was serving four tours in Iraq. And I worked hard. I worked hard to get through school and to get to Harvard. I'm living proof that C's get degrees. So I didn't have a stellar academic career at that august institution, but when I showed up to my Marine platoon, my biggest liability was that Harvard degree, because these guys, some of the best Americans I've ever met, 18, 19, 20 year old kids really from across the country who wanted to serve, they looked at me and said, he might be book smart, but he's probably not street smart and he's liable to get us killed. And so when I show up with this degree I've worked so hard for much of my life to earn, and it's literally my biggest liability, what I quickly learned is that's not going to get their trust. And standing here and saying, well, let me tell you what I know because I went to Harvard and let me tell you, how we're going to do this is not the way to earn the trust of those Marines. And I think it's similar for us in the Democratic Party, especially where we're concentrated in cities and urban areas, we're concentrated on the coast. We just can't have this cultural arrogance of always telling people, oh, we're right and you're wrong. Not only you're wrong, but you're a bad person if you don't agree with us. That's what a lot of Americans hear from Democrats. I had to say these, these, these fellow Marines, I respect you, I hear you. And that's how I'm going to earn, Earn your trust. Not by trotting out my degree.
- [120:49]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, well, I think that's, I think that's smart. I think nobody should, from Harvard should ever trot out their degree. But the, but I want to. I think you're right about that. And by the way, like, I also think, especially when it comes to issues that, like, I think we have backslid on LGBT issues, specifically on trans issues. Right. And I think it's worth thinking about how that happens. And I think part of it, to your point, is we need to like, not assume people have a lot of knowledge, not assume people are approaching it with bad faith. The reason I'm criticizing you and I'm talking to you about this in this way is because I'm holding you to a higher standard. If there are people that are new to this issue, I genuinely believe that the more people. No trans people talk about this, I think that that's good for that, that's good for this debate. I think we will win this debate. I think there's a difference though, between how we talk about this with people we're trying to persuade and help understand that. No, like this bathroom issue, like AOC's. What AOC said about it I thought was like, perfect, right? Basically saying that, like, hey, like, this is just a crazy thing that makes women and girls unsafe. Right. Like, that was one way to talk about. But like, I think people want a member of Congress and a Democrat who's introducing a debate about a sensitive topic to be, to be someone that they can trust to lead that conversation in a way that doesn't make them feel like he's not on their side. And I think that was the problem. Right. Like, I think you're right. Like, we need to talk about, like, I think that there's completely a conversation that has to be had around sports, specifically right wing Republicans, other people, they're obsessed with the sports issue. And like, I, like, I want, like, I don't want sports. Like, I just want trans people to be safe and not to be afraid to go to the bathroom at the airport. Right. Like, and just to be able to live their lives. And if there's any way in which the issue around sports is a distraction from that or that there's legitimate questions and nuance that needs to be addressed, like, we should have that conversation. But to the larger point that you're making, yes. Like, Democrats have this front of the classroom vibe, right? That like, we are hand raisers, we are teacher, you forgot to assign us homework types. And we need more like, back of the classroom energy. One of your colleagues who talked to John also did a conversation with the New York Times, Marie Glusenkamp Perez, and she said we need to keep it local and that we shouldn't be represented by any more lawyers. Where's your head on the lawyers? Should we. Are we done with lawyers?
- [123:15]
Colman Domingo
Guess.
- [123:15]
Seth Moulton
You know, I mean, look, some of.
- [123:17]
Jon Lovett
Your best friends are lawyers. Some of your best friends are lawyers, actually.
- [123:19]
Seth Moulton
Oh, my God, who am I going to offend by this comment?
- [123:22]
Jon Lovett
She's not afraid. She's not afraid.
- [123:24]
Seth Moulton
Listen, I. Oh, gosh, if you know me, I mean, you know me a little bit better. I'm always railing on lawyers.
- [123:29]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, it's easy to go after a trans quarterback, but now lawyers, suddenly you're skittish.
- [123:34]
Seth Moulton
I think that, I think that this is part of the problem with the Biden administration. You know, look, I'm like a foreign policy. Everyone asks me, like, what do you think about the Biden administration policy on Ukraine? And my answer is, I think they've done everything right. Three to six months late. And why? Because rather than being an administration filled with decision makers and executives and people who've run companies and whatnot, real leaders. Right. It's filled with a lot of lawyers who are just obsessing over every detail and hemming and Hawing. And I don't know, is this going to cause this or that. And what about the particular legal restrictions? Like, just get them the guns. Like, just get them the artillery, tanks.
- [124:11]
Jon Lovett
Fuck Harvard, fuck lawyers. That's where I'm at.
- [124:14]
Seth Moulton
Well, at least we can all agree on that. But look, there are a lot of Americans who we do have to, if we want to be the majority party, if we want to win. To me, this is all about winning. We can't advance any of our agenda, any of these issues that we believe are so important if we don't start winning elections again. And you just simply can't, by definition, win elections if you're not in touch, if you're not relatable to the majority of Americans. And so we have to pay attention to what the majority of Americans are thinking and meet them where they are, have a discussion on their terms. And then, you know what, we can try to bring them around to ours.
- [124:51]
Jon Lovett
I agree with that. Democrats are preachy. I feel like everybody's right. Bernie. Bernie has a point. I agree with you. The Democrats are pretty annoying. I'm pretty annoying. I'm pretty annoying Democrat myself.
- [125:01]
Seth Moulton
Look, I can be pretty damn annoying myself, too. But, like, look, can we talk? Okay. What's the action plan here? Right.
- [125:08]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, let's see. What are we going to do?
- [125:10]
Seth Moulton
What are we going to do? What are we going to do?
- [125:11]
Jon Lovett
What are we going to do?
- [125:12]
Seth Moulton
The first thing is I think we need to, like, we can't just say we need to listen more, we need to preach less. Like, we need to actually very publicly go out and listen to Americans and make that a very public thing where leaders of our party, like Chuck Schumer sitting at, you know, cafe in Ohio, like, if he wants to be the leader of the Senate, if he wants to be the face of Democrats in the Senate, he needs to get down with farmers and sit on and, you know, sit on a tractor and just not to make a photo op, but actually to listen to what they're saying and listen to what their concerns are. So I think that we need to actually practice that idea. The second thing is you brought it up, actually, these interest groups, right? I mean, another word for it is lobbyists. And we always rail against Republicans for being beholden to the gun lobby and the oil lobby. Totally true. They totally are. They're afraid of these folks, but we're afraid of some of our own lobbyists. And we are beholden to these candidate surveys and we stress over them. Like, we would just, you know, not do that. Like, just, you know, listen more to people outside of Washington rather than inside the Beltway. Folks who sometimes don't even represent their own interest groups.
- [126:21]
Jon Lovett
Right.
- [126:21]
Seth Moulton
They're more extreme than many of their constituents. Right. And then the third thing is we've got to elevate more leaders in our party who know how to win in these, in these tough districts. Like, you look at some of the Serve America guys like, like Pat Ryan, Abigail Spamberger, Alyssa Slotkin, Jerry golden, who won the most Trump district in the entire country. I mean, these men and women who are true leaders in the Congress, they don't get to be chairs of committees, they don't get to be leaders of Democrats in leadership positions in the House because those all go to people in safe districts. And everyone in a leadership position almost to a person, is in a safe district. And so we never hear from the perspectives of people who do have to talk to independents who do have to earn every vote because they might lose an election and they only win by, you know, a sliver like Slotkin, like Goldin. We need to elevate more of those leaders in the party. And I think those are three concrete things. More listening, less preaching, and actually show it, you know, actually elevate leaders who, you know, can, can make, you know, can, can actually tell us how we need to win across, across the country and, and, and, you know, do these things and then pay more attention to them and the people rather than the interest groups and lobbyists. Doesn't mean that they don't matter and that their views are important, but we can't be beholden to them.
- [127:52]
Jon Lovett
What do you think about ranked choice voting?
- [127:54]
Seth Moulton
I love it. It. I love it because, I mean, it's a, It's a tricky concept to understand. I believe that if someone had just sat down with the Founding Fathers and explained ranked choice voting, we would have it because it just ultimately results in candidates who are more representative of the majority of people. And you're smarter than I am, so you can probably do a better job of actually explaining why that's the case. But that's the bottom line, is you actually tend to get people who are more representative of the broader electorate as opposed to just, okay, you know, you win a primary by running to the extreme right or the extreme left, and then you get an extreme conservative and extreme liberal in the general election, and people feel like, wait a minute, like, I'm kind of in the middle and I don't know which way to go, which way to choose. And that's how we get These very polarized districts and these very polarized members of Congress.
- [128:44]
Jon Lovett
And I agree with all that. And I just. Until I think people are brave enough to really take on the lawyers publicly, I think we're gonna be. I think we need to start an anti lawyers movement.
- [128:55]
Seth Moulton
I mean, this.
- [128:56]
Jon Lovett
I think it's begun. It's begun. I mean, I checked. I checked your I before. I. I was like, I actually, and this is. I'm sorry, maybe this is slightly insulting. I was like, is Seth a lawyer? I gotta look.
- [129:06]
Seth Moulton
Oh, God. Oh, I'm sorry.
- [129:07]
Jon Lovett
But you had. Dude, you do have three degrees from Harvard. Are there no other schools where there no other. You don't speak like a lawyer. You don't speak like a lawyer. Where there no other schools you thought you might want to check out? No other quads. You got to go to Harvard three times.
- [129:22]
Seth Moulton
I know.
- [129:22]
Jon Lovett
They didn't let me in once.
- [129:23]
Seth Moulton
I'm never going to.
- [129:24]
Jon Lovett
I've been rejected by Harvard as many times as you've gone there. That's something that happened to me.
- [129:29]
Seth Moulton
Well, Harvard makes mistakes too, John, and.
- [129:32]
Jon Lovett
That'S important to keep in mind. Congressman Seth Molten, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.
- [129:36]
Seth Moulton
Been a great, great to be here. Thanks.
- [129:43]
Jon Lovett
Thanks to Seth Moulton. Thank you to Hasan Piker for joining us. Now, as I said at the top, there's a conversation Dan had with Jenna Malley Dillon, David Plouffe, Quentin Faulks, and Stephanie Cutter from the Harris campaign. Afterwards, Dan took questions from listeners about the interview and had a bunch of really interesting thoughts on what he learned, what more there is to learn. That is now available as an exclusive bonus episode for subscribers on the Friend of the Pod feed. Reminder, when you subscribe to Friends of the Pod, you're also supporting Crooked's mission to build a progressive media ecosystem. We're also offering 25% off annual subscriptions right now. So head to crooked.com friends or subscribe now from this feed on Apple Podcasts. That's our show. On Friday, we'll be dropping our annual Thanksgiving mailbag episode with tons of great questions from you all. And then John, Tommy and I will be back in your feeds on Tuesday morning. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Recording this on Wednesday. I already spatchcocked the turkey. Cut the backbone right out. It was a whole procedure.
- [130:41]
Colman Domingo
If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free or get access to our subscriber discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the pod community@crooked.com friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safaree, Reed Churlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taff is our Executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelaviev and David Towles.
- [131:55]
OnDeck
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