20 Trump Supporters Take on 1 Progressive (feat. Sam Seder)

Summary

Podcast Title: Surrounded
Host/Author: Jubilee Media
Episode: 20 - Trump Supporters Take on 1 Progressive (feat. Sam Seder)
Release Date: June 22, 2025

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Overview

In Episode 20 of Surrounded, Jubilee Media presents a heated debate featuring Sam Seder, a progressive commentator, facing off against twenty-five Trump supporters with opposing conservative views. The discussion delves into contentious topics such as Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA), Social Security, tax policies, inflation, religious fundamentalism, and abortion. This episode showcases raw, unfiltered conversations aimed at challenging assumptions and fostering a deeper understanding of divergent perspectives.

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DEIA Rescission and Corporate Power

Timestamp: 01:30 – 06:33

Sam Seder initiates the debate by asserting that former President Trump's attack on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives conceals his true intent to amplify corporate power. A conservative speaker counters, arguing that Trump's actions target the excesses of DEIA, aiming to prevent corporations from hiring on "unfair bases" without undermining protections for marginalized groups.

• Sam Seder [01:30]: "Trump's attack on DEI hides his real goal, which is to give corporations more power."
• Conservative Speaker [02:17]: "Trump's rescission of DEI isn't about ending protections but about preventing quotas and unfair hiring practices."

The discussion highlights a fundamental disagreement on the purpose and impact of DEIA policies, with Seder advocating for DEIA as protective and inclusive measures, while conservatives perceive them as overreaches that potentially harm merit-based hiring.

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Religious Fundamentalism and Cultural Identity

Timestamp: 26:12 – 35:36

The conversation shifts to the role of religious fundamentalism in shaping societal values. Seder critiques the imposition of religious morals on public policy, emphasizing a humanist approach focused on minimizing suffering. A conservative speaker defends religious ideology as a democratic and ethical framework essential for maintaining societal order.

• Sam Seder [26:12]: "I have a problem with theocrats who want to impose their religious morality on the rest of us."
• Conservative Speaker [34:53]: "Religious doctrine is reasoned over like any ideology and should inform, not dictate, public policy."

The debate underscores the tension between secularism and religious influences in governance, with Seder advocating for separation to preserve democratic principles, while conservatives argue for the integration of religious values as foundational ethical guidelines.

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Social Security and Tax Policies

Timestamp: 45:47 – 58:27

Seder raises concerns about the potential GOP plans to dismantle Social Security and healthcare systems, arguing that such actions would leave the elderly vulnerable and exacerbate wealth inequality. A liberal speaker counters by highlighting the necessity of Social Security in preventing poverty among the elderly and debating the sustainability of the program.

• Sam Seder [45:47]: "The GOP will destroy Social Security and healthcare, leaving the elderly in poverty."
• Liberal Speaker [46:03]: "Social Security is a vital social insurance program protecting two-thirds of our elderly from poverty."

The exchange reveals differing views on fiscal responsibility and the role of government in providing social safety nets, with Seder emphasizing the risks of dismantling established programs and liberals defending their efficacy and necessity.

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Inflation and Economic Policies

Timestamp: 57:18 – 75:49

A major portion of the debate centers on the causes of recent inflation. Seder attributes inflation to wealth disparity and corporate exploitation, while conservatives argue that left-wing policies, including increased taxation and government spending, are the primary drivers. The discussion touches on historical tax rates, the Laffer Curve, and the impact of stimulus measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Sam Seder [60:13]: "The rich are getting richer, and inflation is driven by corporate power exploiting society."
• Ben Shapiro [60:43]: "Inflation is caused by left-wing policies like pumping trillions of dollars into the economy, leading to a loss of purchasing power."

The debate highlights contrasting economic philosophies: Seder advocates for higher taxes on the wealthy to mitigate inequality, while conservatives emphasize free-market principles and argue that reducing taxes can stimulate growth and control inflation.

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Abortion and Personhood

Timestamp: 83:12 – 90:43

The topic of abortion sparks intense discussion, focusing on the definition of personhood and the morality of abortion. Seder supports a woman's right to choose, arguing that personhood begins at birth, whereas liberal speakers contend that human life begins at conception and advocate for the protection of unborn children.

• Liberal Speaker [83:26]: "Abortion is immoral and should not be legal because human life begins at conception."
• Sam Seder [83:42]: "I believe personal rights should belong to the individual, and a fetus does not equate to personhood."

This segment encapsulates the ethical divide on reproductive rights, with Seder promoting bodily autonomy and conservatives emphasizing the sanctity of unborn life.

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Conclusion and Final Claims

Timestamp: 66:03 – 91:53

As the debate winds down, both sides reiterate their core positions. Seder makes several claims, including the GOP's potential destruction of Social Security, the exacerbation of wealth inequality, and the harmful impact of Trump's policies on the working class. Conservative speakers defend their stance by arguing that social programs lead to economic inefficiencies and that free-market solutions are preferable.

• Sam Seder [66:03]: "Trump's policies make the rich richer and the working class poorer by undermining government agencies and social safety nets."
• Ben Shapiro [91:53]: "Socialism does not work. Our nation is too social, leading to economic stagnation and wealth disparity."

The episode concludes with a mutual acknowledgment of deep-seated disagreements, reinforcing the show's theme of challenging conversations that push listeners to reconsider their perspectives.

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Notable Advertisements Skipped

Throughout the transcript, several advertisements and promotional segments were present, including endorsements for Priceline, Greenlight, Pluto TV, Avid Reader Press, Ollie products, and Shane Co. These sections were excluded from the summary as per the user’s instructions.

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Final Thoughts

Episode 20 of Surrounded effectively captures the clash between progressive and conservative ideologies, highlighting critical debates on DEIA, economic policies, social safety nets, and moral issues. Through robust exchanges and pointed quotes, the episode offers listeners a comprehensive look into the complexities and fervor surrounding American political discourse.

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Notable Quotes:

• Sam Seder [01:30]: "Trump's attack on DEI hides his real goal, which is to give corporations more power."
• Conservative Speaker [02:17]: "Trump's rescission of DEI isn't about ending protections but about preventing quotas and unfair hiring practices."
• Sam Seder [26:12]: "I have a problem with theocrats who want to impose their religious morality on the rest of us."
• Conservative Speaker [34:53]: "Religious doctrine is reasoned over like any ideology and should inform, not dictate, public policy."
• Sam Seder [45:47]: "The GOP will destroy Social Security and healthcare, leaving the elderly in poverty."
• Liberal Speaker [46:03]: "Social Security is a vital social insurance program protecting two-thirds of our elderly from poverty."
• Sam Seder [60:13]: "The rich are getting richer, and inflation is driven by corporate power exploiting society."
• Ben Shapiro [60:43]: "Inflation is caused by left-wing policies like pumping trillions of dollars into the economy, leading to a loss of purchasing power."
• Liberal Speaker [83:26]: "Abortion is immoral and should not be legal because human life begins at conception."
• Sam Seder [83:42]: "I believe personal rights should belong to the individual, and a fetus does not equate to personhood."
• Sam Seder [66:03]: "Trump's policies make the rich richer and the working class poorer by undermining government agencies and social safety nets."
• Ben Shapiro [91:53]: "Socialism does not work. Our nation is too social, leading to economic stagnation and wealth disparity."

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Transcript

[Sam Seder]

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[Ben Shapiro]

Try.

[Sam Seder]

Try Greenlight risk free [e-mail] Spotify like.

[Kaley Cuoco]

What'S the problem with xenophobic nationalism? Don't you think that's better for Americans in general?

[Sam Seder]

Like, xenophobic nationalism is better.

[Kaley Cuoco]

We should have a coherent culture. Everyone should be a part of the same culture.

[Sam Seder]

Which do you get to choose what the culture is?

[Kaley Cuoco]

We already have a dominant culture.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, look, I gotta be honest with you. Like, you and I have a fundamental disagreement. We will never see eye to eye on this. From Jubilee Media. This is surrounded where one brave soul.

[Jubilee Host]

Faces a room full of disagreers. Let's get into it.

[Sam Seder]

Hi, I'm Sam Seder, host of the Majority Report. And today I am surrounded by 20 conservatives. My first claim is Trump's attack on DEI hides his real goal, which is to give corporations more power.

[Conservative Speaker]

I think I have a slight issue with the back end of the premise. I guess Trump's attacks on DEI being a real goal to give corporations more power. I'd rather center the conversation around the Democratic, especially as conservatives, the issues that people have with DEI and why I believe Trump would want to support the issues that people are voting for him for.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, I'm talking about his whole attack on dei. It's actually deia. Right. You know that in government agencies the a being for accessibility, right?

[Conservative Speaker]

Yeah. And I think the attack on DEI isn't an attack on people's protections. It's on the other. On the other end of the spectrum. Right. Wanting to end DEI doesn't want to end Protections for someone being disabled, someone being, you know, inaccessible to get into a job. It rather wants to deincentivize corporations, to push them to hire these people on unfair bases.

[Sam Seder]

Okay, but DEIA is not about quotas or anything like that. It is about protections for people within these organizations or to make sure that you have different communities that have the opportunity to apply to these things. So it can mean within government agencies, it means things like let's pay interns so that not only wealthy people can have their kids do internships in these agencies. Or let's. Let's put out notices around different parts of town.

[Liberal Speaker]

Sure.

[Sam Seder]

Metaphorically speaking, so that people know this job exists.

[Conservative Speaker]

This is where it begins. But this isn't the ultimate goal that conservatives have an issue with. Conservatives don't have an issue with trying to spread job applications to poorer communities.

[Sam Seder]

Well, then why rescind DEI requirements for government agencies?

[Conservative Speaker]

Because the problem with DEIA is the. There may not be like perceived actual number quotas, but that's what it devolves into. And especially with corporations of that. I mean, sure, we can look at corporations that are government agencies that are hiring people on not true proper bases. We can even look at. I mean, we can even look at.

[Sam Seder]

Would you have any evidence that that's happened?

[Jubilee Host]

Yeah.

[Conservative Speaker]

Even the DNC's nomination of Kamala as president this year. There was no reason to nominate Kamala as she wasn't democratically selected. She wasn't. She was. She didn't go through a single primary. None of these things.

[Sam Seder]

You're saying that Kamala was the vice President of the United States after the president drops out two months before the convention. You think that's a dei?

[Conservative Speaker]

She wasn't higher. Every presidential nominee is democratically selected to be the nominee for that party.

[Sam Seder]

Except there were not even primaries prior to 1972.

[Conservative Speaker]

This isn't before 1972.

[Sam Seder]

Well, I understand, but what did you. Do you think you were going to run primaries in those two months? I mean, Joe Biden should have dropped out three years ago. Even before.

[Conservative Speaker]

Well, sure, but even before, when Kamala was running in primary, she didn't. She wasn't the next man up. None of this. She wasn't the next person.

[Sam Seder]

She was the vice president.

[Conservative Speaker]

Right, of course, but she wasn't in primary detail.

[Sam Seder]

But listen, aside from. I would have. Might have wanted a different candidate as well, but that has nothing to do with. With Trump rescinding orders that basically say you need to search for a wide range of candidates, not necessarily give any different benefits, but you need to make sure different communities have access to the awareness of this job. You need in your office. Accessibility for people who have physical handicaps. If you have folks who identify as trans, you need to make it at least hospitable and not. This is all non discriminatory stuff. That's what this is all about.

[Conservative Speaker]

You're cherry picking the portions of DEI that even conservatives don't have issues. Conservatives don't have issues with making workplaces.

[Sam Seder]

The whole DEI apparatus within our government was a function of doing exactly what I said had nothing to do with quotas.

[Conservative Speaker]

It is unfortunate that those things get taken out and there might not have been specific.

[Sam Seder]

What else is he trying to take out?

[Conservative Speaker]

It's trying to take out people getting jobs that don't deserve those jobs. People getting pushed into positions they have no qualifications.

[Sam Seder]

There is no evidence of what you just said happening in these government agencies.

[Conservative Speaker]

That's not true at all. I mean, I'm not gonna. We're not allowed to sit here and have notes and numbers to pull up for you.

[Sam Seder]

You can't give me one example.

[Conservative Speaker]

You can't ask me to pull up numbers when I'm not, you know, I'm not able to sit here and look on a computer for you. But these are problems that conservatives.

[Sam Seder]

Sorry, you've been voted out. Please return to your seat. Thanks, ma' am.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

I think the roots issue with DEI isn't what the previous gentleman was trying to point. Conservatives aren't necessarily have issues with those things like accessibility to people who might need help. The issue is, and I kind of referred to this before, when you have agencies and systems, what tends to happen when you have government overreach, big government is that agencies and systems get abused. And I think unequivocally, DEI was heavily abused. In practice it was great. In theory, it's idealistic, which is sure, sure is fine that a lot of people can get behind, but it was abused in a lot of ways. When you have actors, like we're in California right now, when you have actors, white male actors, who are being told, we do not want white men, we're not going to cast any white men, we only want this particular kind of gender, race, right? That is an abuse of a system. It's no longer fair, but more about just perpetuating one aspect of visual compelling aspects. Because at the end of the day what's going to happen is companies are going to say, well, we want to look the most diverse. And what that is, it's moral grandstanding. It's that because we have more black women. We're a better. We sell better soda. Like that.

[Sam Seder]

I got you.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

That is not.

[Sam Seder]

Well, that's getting a little far afield from what Trump's DEI orders are. But I can tell you, as somebody who was a sitcom actor in the 90s, I would walk into a room and everybody I would see would look like me. And I was doing second position, which doesn't even exist anymore, where you do two pilots a year. And I was looking around basically every part of television. When I was a kid, I was centered in some fashion. It was either this is about my mother or this is about my father, or someone like me was centered. So, you know, we can argue as to whether or not Hollywood is overcorrected in some fashion. But on a governmental level, the DEIA directives that agencies were following for the past four years. I don't know what you mean by abuse on it, but there is no evidence that it was an affirmative action program. In those instances, it was about anti discrimination. You cannot discriminate against these people. And you want to open up opportunities for a broad swath of people. Again, the internship is one of the most material things that exist there, where the idea that you need to pay interns, and that's important because you want low income people to, to have the same sort of like opportunities to see these things as wealthy people. You know, my kids can maybe afford to do an internship for the summer instead of going to get a job.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

So I think what's happening is we're talking about two different things because, well.

[Sam Seder]

But I'm talking about Trump's DEIA rescission is a way of basically driving people out of these agencies, making it a.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

You're saying, you're saying Trump's, and I understand why you're saying Trump, but I think the American people as a whole have kind of, and I won't say whole because Obviously it's not 100%, but a majority of the American people have kind of rejected DEI because again, I.

[Sam Seder]

Don'T think we're talking about DEIA is.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

That may be the case. But again, my point is we're talking about abuse of a system. What you're talking about is not necessarily what was happening. What people were seeing were, hey, because you're white, you can't do this. And liberals like to do this thing where they create systems and then they like they created the whole idea of woke, and then they backed away. And then conservatives say woke, and then they're like, we don't know what WOKE is. They create a dei Biden literally said Kamala Harris is being chosen because she is a black woman. And then all of a sudden, Democrats for the rest after that said, that's not why she was chosen, even though Biden literally said that. And then we have this cognitive. We have this cognitive dissonance as if we're not living in reality.

[Sam Seder]

Biden wanted to make sure that there was some. That there was an opportunity for a black woman to be his vice.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Yes, but so, so why, so why did Democrats move away from that, say, no, it wasn't because she was a black woman. So my point is that it's not.

[Sam Seder]

Because she's a black woman, but that's what they said.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

I can agree that it's not because she's a black woman, but that's what they said. Why did they say that then?

[Sam Seder]

No, because there are plenty of black women. Right. Like, he could have picked anybody, but he picked specifically her. You're positing the idea that there wasn't a black woman who would have been qualified for that position. No, and I don't believe that.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

No, that's not. Conservatives aren't saying that there aren't. Because again, even in the Republican Party right now and in Trump's Cabinet, there are people of color that Democrats pretend don't exist, like J.D. vance's wife. And there's.

[Sam Seder]

J.D. vance's wife is not in the Cabinet.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

No, but if J.D. vance was a Democrat, his wife would be lauded all over everything because of.

[Sam Seder]

You know, listen, I'm not here to defend the Democrats choice on every policy, but there is one party in this country that is identitarian. There is one party that is represented and it is homogenous, and it is the Republican Party. 85% of Republicans are white. And that's just the reality.

[Conservative Speaker]

So some people don't necessarily.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

But here's the thing. You said, even if, let's just say, okay, that's true, 80% of Republicans are white. Does that mean that they're less moral? That they're, that they can't run. They can't run an effective government? What does race have to do? What does race have to do?

[Sam Seder]

Hold on. What does Trump didn't have to say, my vice president is going to be a white male?

[Another Conservative Speaker]

No.

[Sam Seder]

Because they all knew it was going to.

[Ben Shapiro]

No.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

This is the premise of Di. What does race have to do with running an effective government? What does race have to do if, let's say, Di. On the, on the micro level, I will tell you right now, on the micro level at McDonald's, I'll tell you.

[Sam Seder]

Am I going to get better nuggets? Listen, I'll ask you a question.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

If the. If the cashier is black or what does that have to do with.

[Sam Seder]

I'll tell you what. It. First of all, DEIA means that if you come into this agency or corporation, you're not going to be discriminated against because you don't look like everybody else, or you don't have the same, like, physical abilities as everybody else, or you may require handles on the bathroom or whatever it is. That's what DEIA does. But does it make a government better if there's a broad representation of the people it's supposed to govern? Without a doubt. Without a doubt.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Correct me if I'm wrong, and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong. Don't. Regardless of dei, don't we already have things in our Constitution that protects people's rights? Protects people? No, we don't.

[Sam Seder]

No.

[Ben Shapiro]

Do we or do we not?

[Sam Seder]

No, we do not. Tell me, tell me what, What, What. What protects people from discrimination in housing and in work, in hiring or getting loans? It's all statutes. It's all statutes. And in these government agencies, there was nothing except for that order. That's why Trump just rescinded it.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

I'm gonna tap out because I think someone else. I think someone else has a better. Can defend that point, specifically, better than me.

[Sam Seder]

All right, please return to your seat.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

When it comes to dei, essentially, if a person was not racist, he would hire someone regardless. Right? So why would we need a policy to protect a person if we've moved past racism? So would you consider yourself racist?

[Sam Seder]

Wait, are you suggesting we've moved past racism?

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Would you consider yourself racist?

[Sam Seder]

I consider myself. And sometimes I practice. I think we all practice, like, some form of, you know, white supremacy. I think, actually, like, we all do to some degree.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Well, I'm glad that you're saying that. So I guess going to the LGBT topic, it seems like it's very prevalent for you as an issue.

[Sam Seder]

It seems like a big issue. I mean, the Republican Party spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars demonizing trans people.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Well, the reason why they've done something like that. And I think you're misconstruing the narrative. They haven't demonized them. They simply want protections back for their own children because children are being stripped away from their parents.

[Sam Seder]

Who's their own children? Children are being stripped away from their parents.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Yes. Due to AB954, they've now included gender Identity as a premise to remove and strip parental rights for children who maybe they are rejecting their gender ideology.

[Sam Seder]

So but you'd be okay with parents who agree with their children's doctors to provide gender affirming care?

[Another Liberal Speaker]

I do not agree with that. Do you?

[Sam Seder]

I believe that parents and doctors can make those decisions with the kids.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

If a child can't smoke, drink or have sex before the age of 18, they should not be able to consent to a sex change. Now, in terms of a DEI initiative, in terms of a DEI initiative, the reason why there's military bans on trans women and trans men is because they do not have the ability to cooperate at a mental capacity when they're constantly undergoing hormone treatment as well as depression pills, as well as different mood stabilizer pills. And so when you go out to combat, do you really think you're going to bring an ice cooler pack with your, whether that be hormone, estrogen or whatever it may be while you're about to shoot someone of the opposing war?

[Sam Seder]

The executive orders that Trump gave were DEIA orders that had to do with agencies that have nothing to do with the military.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Yes, they do. Yes, they absolutely do.

[Sam Seder]

The fda, they just revoked the ability of the Air Force to teach Air Force members about the Tuskegee Airmen. What are we talking about here? Okay, well, honestly, they're rewriting history.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Well, that's your perspective, right? But at the end of the day.

[Sam Seder]

If a person to seeking the Airmen we can all agree existed, right?

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Just listen to this. If you were racist, right, and you were an employer, and if you wanted to absolutely be racist and exercise that, you would. I think DEI sort of prevents people from seeing the reality. If a person truly wanted to hire you based on your intellect, based on your skill set, they would. DEI essentially provides tax cuts for the end of the year. When you create your tax returns, they give you a tax credit for hiring someone who is black or a person of color.

[Sam Seder]

I don't know if you knew that.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

In these agencies, in agencies and private.

[Sam Seder]

In government agencies, they don't get tax cuts for hiring people.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

And the other thing I want, discrimination, the other thing I want to kind of state here is that I've realized that a lot of the times with the liberals is that you guys push for, for example, for DEI and people of Latino or Hispanic descent. And a lot of the times what you don't realize is you're actually doing more harm than good by putting them in positions where you make them believe that it's based on the color of their skin. It's based on deia does not.

[Sam Seder]

Is not.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

It's based on merit. DEI emphasizes color. Skin color, physical attributes.

[Sam Seder]

No, it says that the people who work in your agency. It's about anti discrimination.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Discrimination against what?

[Sam Seder]

Against people who may have different cultural mores, may have different.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

But that's irrelevant to a job. Right? It should be based on merit. And that is the emphasis.

[Sam Seder]

People get hired as a merit. But if you're. If you're. If the dei. If the deia. I'm talking about Trump's rescission of these orders.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

As an employer, wouldn't you hire a person of color, dude, if you could pay them less?

[Sam Seder]

Listen, we're talking about government agencies that do not get tax cuts. They don't. Government agencies.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

They don't.

[Sam Seder]

No.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Yes, they do. They absolutely do. I'm talking about every private and public sector gets tax cuts when you hire a person of color.

[Sam Seder]

Government agencies don't pay taxes. Government agencies operate. Are funded by the government.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

That is not true. That is not true. And you know what I think? I think the whole juxtapose of this entire conversation.

[Sam Seder]

What month is this?

[Another Liberal Speaker]

This is January.

[Sam Seder]

Okay? So we can agree on that. The FDA does not pay taxes. It does not get a tax cut because it doesn't pay taxes. D E I A forces them as an agency to say, if you have a job opening, you must do your best efforts to make sure that every.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

I like that. Love me a buzzword. You must do your best effort. I love that buzzword. Because you feel like you have to. You're pressured to.

[Sam Seder]

Yes.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

You shouldn't be pressured to hire someone based on skin color.

[Sam Seder]

No. Not to hire someone on skin color, but put up notice about. About that the job exists. Make sure that you put it in different communities so that you have as wide an application pool as possible.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

And therefore you get tax cuts.

[Liberal Speaker]

All right.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Return tax. At the end of the year, when you file taxes, you get a tax cut for hiring someone who speaks a different language or a different skin color.

[Sam Seder]

I don't know how to respond to that.

[Liberal Speaker]

I want a little bit more clarification because I don't even know if we got it yet on which part benefits corporations. Like, from your perspective.

[Sam Seder]

Okay, so agencies, the US Government agencies, the vast majority of them, what they function to do is inhibit corporations from essentially externalizing their costs onto society. So the example would be. I used it before, but it's a good one. I'm making Teflon C8, for instance. Okay. And C8 is supposed to be burned instead of, like, deposited, because it's a forever chemical and I can go out and instead of burning it, it's too expensive to burn it. I'm going to dump it into a river. And the EPA comes in and says, you can't do that. We're going to fine you. You're not allowed to do this. But what the company is doing when they do that is they're going to take the profits that come with lowering their costs by dumping it into the river, and those costs are then borne by everybody who lives around that river. They're going to get cancer, they're going to get gastrointestinal problems, whatever it is, and society bears the cost of that.

[Liberal Speaker]

You have the dots for me, though, because it sounds like we're talking about something completely different.

[Sam Seder]

And so the DEIA stuff is just the beginning of demoralizing these agencies and trying to wreck them from the inside. It's all part of, like, Russell Votes thing, the omb, the whole Schedule F, where they get rid of civil servants and they demoralize people and they don't want them to be able to function.

[Liberal Speaker]

So then would you agree? If this is about demoralizing, I mean, over 75 million people voted for Trump, right? He won the popular vote. Do you not think that in part. You even said yourself that Americans don't really know what DEIA is according to your definition of it?

[Sam Seder]

The government's definition of.

[Liberal Speaker]

Okay, Well, I would argue that the average American is demoralized by what they've seen, the way that the government goes about their DEI policies in the military and other organizations, not just the military.

[Sam Seder]

Please return to your seat.

[Liberal Speaker]

Okay.

[Sam Seder]

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[Another Conservative Speaker]

Okay, so let's tackle one aspect. Religious fundamentalists. What benefit would religious fundamentalists get? And also, can you define what is a religious fundamentalist?

[Sam Seder]

Maybe you could say more of like a Christian nationalist. Okay, in this instance. But things like, you know, the attacks on trans folks, the attacks on a woman's right to choose, the idea that we're going to get stuff like an enhanced rfra, which is going to mean that if you're a pharmacist and you don't want to provide birth control, you may not have to.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Don't you think you're assuming that if.

[Sam Seder]

You want, if you believe that public education, we should take that money and pour it into religious schools, you're going to get a benefit out of a Trump administration.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

But don't you think you're assuming that the vast majority of Americans who are.

[Sam Seder]

Moderates, what do you think you're going to get out of the Trump administration?

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Economic relief.

[Sam Seder]

That was the case. What kind of economic relief? They're going to cut Social Security. You're going to have to pay for your parents. They're going to cut. When they go after the agencies, like they're going after. Right. And this is outlined in Project 2025. Russ Vaught, who's going to be the OMB head, he was the OMB head the first time around. He wrote all the book on this stuff. When you cut, when you cut agencies and go after them and you fire all the inspector generals so that they're not being able to make sure that the agencies are working, who do you think profits from that? It's corporations they're going to go after. Agencies that make sure you food is not full of botulism, that your air is not full of mercury, that your water is not full of C8. This is what they're going to do. Agencies exist to curb corporations from externalizing their costs and privatizing their profits. So it may be cheaper for a company to. To dump their chemicals into a river than it is for them to dispose of it in a safe way. And so they get the profits from that. But the costs are borne by society. They're borne by society in the form of, like, people get cancer. They're born by society in terms of like, we've got to do the cleanup. That's what agencies do.

[Liberal Speaker]

Pause.

[Sam Seder]

You've been voted out by the majority. Please return to your seat. That's good.

[Jubilee Host]

Okay, so I would like to touch on the religious fundamentalist aspect. Are you an Atheist.

[Sam Seder]

I'm a reformed Jew. I don't, I don't have a strong belief in the existence of God, but I don't think that religion in and of itself is bad.

[Jubilee Host]

Okay, so what's wrong with religious fundamentalists? So like when you said, you said trans rights and women's rights or something like that?

[Sam Seder]

Well, the problem I have with religious fundamentalists and really more, I guess it's really theocrats, is that they want to impose their morality that comes from their religion on the rest of us. And I don't.

[Jubilee Host]

But morality from your view is going to be a preference, right? It's not morality, it's a preference. So morality without a foundation is going to reduce you to a preference?

[Sam Seder]

Well, I have a foundation for my moral morale.

[Jubilee Host]

Which is what?

[Sam Seder]

It's a humanist vision of what basically creates as little suffering as possible for as many people.

[Jubilee Host]

Okay, so you're like a consequentialist, utilitarian.

[Sam Seder]

I don't really bother myself with being a consequentialist or a utilitarian.

[Jubilee Host]

It's always going to reduce you to a preference. So if you say that killing is wrong and I say it's right, you would really have no contention with that?

[Sam Seder]

Well, no, I don't base my understanding of civil society on religion. And so we have a civil society, we have laws that we have decided as a society in a democratic way. And for some people it's okay for it to be informed by their religion. That's okay.

[Jubilee Host]

Perfect. So if tomorrow society comes together and we say, hey, trans folks don't deserve rights, you would be okay with that?

[Sam Seder]

No, I would be against it. But I mean it would be, it.

[Jubilee Host]

Would be morally right under your.

[Sam Seder]

Not morally right. No, no, no, I'm not talking about morals.

[Jubilee Host]

Okay, so here's where I'm getting to right? Religious foundations provide an ethical framework for one to live their life off.

[Sam Seder]

I believe you can have an ethical framework without.

[Jubilee Host]

And if we take the leftist view to its logical tail end, to its extreme view, you have low reproductive birth rates, you have a reproductive dead end, so two men together can't reproduce unless they have to take from a healthy straight couple. Religion provides this foundation where you do prioritize the nuclear family.

[Sam Seder]

So do you have a problem with gay people being married?

[Jubilee Host]

It's not that I have a problem. I just don't see a justification for why they ought to be gay outside of it just feels good. Can you give me another justification for it?

[Sam Seder]

Well, I think maybe that's the way they were born.

[Jubilee Host]

Okay. What about pedophiles? Are they born that way?

[Sam Seder]

They may be, yeah.

[Jubilee Host]

Okay, so should we let a pedophile off the hook since they were born that way?

[Sam Seder]

No, I think we as a society is.

[Jubilee Host]

Should implement duties to prevent them from acting on that innate urge, correct?

[Sam Seder]

Well, I think between consenting adults, it's a different thing than.

[Jubilee Host]

Okay, so you're okay with a 45 year old dad with a 19 year old daughter as well? Incest?

[Sam Seder]

No.

[Jubilee Host]

If they consent, you're okay with that?

[Sam Seder]

No, I think society is also determined that it's like it's not beneficial.

[Jubilee Host]

Right. There's duties and obligations that we have. So religion provides those duties. Life isn't about freedom and exercising what you want.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, well, you want to impose your religious doctrine.

[Jubilee Host]

No, because you just admitted we need duties. We need. We have responsibility as a society to keep us functioning, to keep us thriving. Your leftist view, the liberal view, doesn't provide anything. Besides, it just makes me feel good. Religion does. So what's your argument?

[Sam Seder]

What's my argument as to why I don't want. You have no intentional religion to. Well, because the other. First of all, I don't think that you have the right to corner what God is telling us is right or wrong. And there are differences between religions. And so my argument is, you know, like, you're not going to keep halal or kosher, right? I mean, I don't believe that someone has a corner on religious truth. And the reason why we have a democracy is because we don't want a king. And the kings came from the idea that their God said that they're the ones who are supposed to be king. And so we can disagree on this. I don't want to live in a country that is ruled by religious fundamentals.

[Jubilee Host]

And if I do, you have no issue with that.

[Sam Seder]

And. No, no, no. And this is why I say under Trump, yes, you have won. Yes, you have a bunch of male and female.

[Jubilee Host]

You're right.

[Sam Seder]

You have a Christian nationalist, which is necessary. So I concede the point that under Trump, your Christian nationalism has gained an advantage under this.

[Jubilee Host]

Sorry. We're gonna have more kids, we're gonna have less abortions, we're gonna have more family. We're gonna have stable family households. Sorry about better education.

[Sam Seder]

Gay people should be out.

[Jubilee Host]

They should be straight. They should be straight.

[Sam Seder]

Women should be secondary to their husbands.

[Jubilee Host]

Women should submit to the husbands.

[Sam Seder]

Women should.

[Jubilee Host]

That doesn't mean they are slaves. It doesn't mean they are. It means they are protected. Okay, let me ask you that.

[Liberal Speaker]

Let me ask you.

[Sam Seder]

No, no.

[Jubilee Host]

Should women be drafted? Should women be drafted? Listen, I think if they're equal, should they be drafted?

[Sam Seder]

I think this is the vision that you have, and I think Trump supports it. I think the Christian nationalists he has throughout his government are all going to work towards your vision. And my hope is that when people look at this, they say, hey, wait a second, I don't want my life to be dictated by the notion of a Christian nationalist prescription. Now, you may win out. I mean, certainly, like, if you look at a country like Iran, they have a theocracy there and that, and apparently that's, you know, good for them if they want it.

[Jubilee Host]

My final point is whenever I don't.

[Sam Seder]

Want to live in a.

[Jubilee Host]

My final point is whenever we see people live out Christian values to its full extent, we see a great society. When we see people deviate from that, that's where all the problems arise.

[Sam Seder]

I think you are at home in the. Trump.

[Jubilee Host]

Thank you very much.

[Sam Seder]

Been voted out. Please return to your seat.

[Conservative Speaker]

I think I have an issue with the implications of the prompt. I mean, of course I'll stick on the religious fundamentalism. I think it's unfair to view Christianity separated from the ideology that Christianity informs. Right. You have an ideology that you vote upon because you view it to be the truth that benefits everyone in a society. That's how a democracy works. I, as a Christian, have an ideology that informs my opinions, and I believe that it is the most moral and correct way for a society to function. So I think if we put religious fundamentalism in a box where you say any. Any moral implications that I draw from this, you know, religion is unable to be voted upon, unable to be pushed onto you because simply it's a. Religion is unfair to view it that way. Religion is an ideology like all ideologies are. You know, it's. You have. You vote away.

[Sam Seder]

I don't mind you, I don't dispute the idea that you could have a religious ideology and want to see it imposed upon others. And it's not inconsistent with my claim. My claim is that Donald Trump is ushering in an element of Christian theocracy that, that, you know, I can't remember his name, Alezia. And you may be excited about. But I'm not excited about it. I don't think the vast majority of Americans are. But maybe I'm wrong. I mean, I don't think this country was set up to be a theocracy. Sure. And I find it problematic that it will be, but others will be happy about It.

[Conservative Speaker]

I think it's unfair as well to label any morals that comes from religion inherently immediately theocratic. Like having. Having a theocracy is something different than having.

[Sam Seder]

I think love thy neighbor is a good precept, and I don't know that we should necessarily legislate it, but I think it's a good precept. I think there are things from religion that are good. I interviewed Desmond Tutu years ago who said that, you know, religion can be, you know, is like a knife. It can be used to spread butter or could be used to stab people. But that doesn't mean that I want religious doctrine to be the same as the law of the land. We have a democracy, and it was founded on trying to get out from some type of religious oppression, which means one religion shouldn't dominate in this country. That's my sense.

[Conservative Speaker]

Yeah, and I see that, but I think I have an issue with where you would perceive religious doctrine is derived from God isn't. At least in Christianity, a guy doesn't go in a room and come out and say that he is. A secret message from God that everyone now has to follow. Religious doctrine is grueled over. It's reasoned over the same way any ideology is discovered.

[Sam Seder]

I'm not talking about the validity of religious doctrine. I'm talking about religious doctrine supplanting democracy in civil society.

[Conservative Speaker]

And I'm saying that religious doctrine is democratic inherently and in the way that you earned it.

[Sam Seder]

Well, I mean, look, we can have a debate as to whether or not women should be subservient to men.

[Jubilee Host]

Right?

[Sam Seder]

I don't think they should be. And in a democracy, I don't think it's healthy.

[Conservative Speaker]

Right, but when you said earlier with him that someone shouldn't have a. I don't know the exact word, like a chokehold on what is, you know, religious truth and what isn't religious truth. That's not how religious truth itself works, and that's not how religious truth is brought to the political table to have that work either.

[Sam Seder]

I don't know. When Pete Hegseth is in a bar yelling, you know, we're gonna kill all Muslims.

[Conservative Speaker]

Oh, that's. Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, well, yeah, but now he's in charge of the largest military in the history of the world, and he is informed by his Christian nationalism. I think that's a problem. But we don't disagree on that.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Yeah, we don't take pause.

[Sam Seder]

You've been voted out by the majority.

[Conservative Speaker]

Thank you, Sam.

[Kaley Cuoco]

Turn to your seat.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Eleazar mentioned his views on gay Marriage. And I saw that you believe that essentially conservatives don't believe that gay marriage should be allowed. I want to ask everybody in this room, is there any law or legislation that Donald Trump has passed to prohibit same sex marriage in the last four years? Okay. Is there anyone in here who would potentially oppose two people kissing in public that are of the same sex? You could raise your hand if you want. Yes. In public. Kissing in public. No. No law against it. Just your. Just your own opinion. Okay, so these are all people's opinions. Right. The same way you have your opinions about Christians is the same way these people are allowed.

[Sam Seder]

I don't have a problem with Christians.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Well, you do not believe that theology should be as.

[Sam Seder]

We should not have a theocracy.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Correct. And so what I'm saying is I think that Christianity, I'm a Catholic. I think that Christianity is, I think, fundamentally very important to instill family values in myself as well as every person who wants to have children. Now, let's talk about.

[Sam Seder]

I'm okay with that, too.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Let's talk about order 1 14,166. That is an executive order that Donald Trump just imposed on identifying what is male and female. So I personally believe, as well as many transsexuals, friends of mine believe that a woman is a biological female as well as a man being a biological male. You are assigned what you are at birth. You are not assigned your gender later on. What you choose to express is something that is similar to wearing a garment, similar to what you decide to put on your face. And I don't think there should be laws or legislations dictating people or imposing laws to manipulate children, for example, to castrate their bodies at such a young age. There are 50% of children.

[Sam Seder]

Do you know how many children are treated over the past five years? Let's say, I think it was from 2018-22. There was a study that just came out from Harvard. Do you know how many children received gender affirmative care but broken down into puberty blockers? And then.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Give me the numbers.

[Sam Seder]

You tell me. I'm curious.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Well, I'm curious because you're bringing it up.

[Sam Seder]

No, I have the numbers.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Okay, tell me.

[Sam Seder]

I do know, but I'm curious.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

If you know, tell me what the numbers are.

[Sam Seder]

I promise to tell you after you tell me what you think it is.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

I'm not going to pay you. I love it. Because I have a feeling we're not playing this game.

[Sam Seder]

No, no, I am playing this game because I think you think it's much higher when you tell me that kids are being castrated, I know you don't really know what these numbers are. And I do know these numbers.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Okay, well, I can tell you this much. It was reported that scientifically, every single child who has received gender affirming care about, roughly 50% of them regret it, and 50% of them are suicidal because of it. They're actually more depressed because of it.

[Sam Seder]

How many of those kids.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

How many psychologists, by the way, over.

[Sam Seder]

The course of five years?

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Well, tell me.

[Sam Seder]

You tell me. Just.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to put me in this chokehold of like, no, I got you moment.

[Sam Seder]

No, no, this is definitely an I got you moment because I'm suggesting to you that you think this problem is much bigger than it is a huge problem. Medical.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

You know, medical covers inmate trans women.

[Sam Seder]

I understand medical coverage. One person has had that. That surgery.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

I don't understand how my taxes should go for an inmate prisoner who wants to transition.

[Sam Seder]

Well, I think because we got to do health care for prisoners you don't.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Consider real health care has imposed $2.6.

[Sam Seder]

Billion over five years.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

That is a lot of children. That is a lot of children. Just including gender identity. How many kids died during gender identity?

[Sam Seder]

All right.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

To allow children to be separated from their parents just due to not affirming their gender identity.

[Sam Seder]

But here's the point. Listen. Trump is. How is he hurting these people? He just rescinded the ability of the Labor Bureau to investigate discrimination in workplace. Are you for trans people being discriminated in workplace?

[Another Liberal Speaker]

They're never being discriminated.

[Sam Seder]

Are you for trans people being discriminated with houses?

[Another Liberal Speaker]

I'm very passionate about that question. And can I. Can I answer it? Okay, so I believe that affirmative action should be.

[Sam Seder]

It's not affirmative action.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Oh, then what is it?

[Sam Seder]

It's anti discrimination. It's not saying to hire trans people. You can't fire someone when you find out they're trans.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Okay, well, hold on a minute. So when you. When you hire someone or when you interview someone, for example, you are supposed to interview them based on their knowledge and their work ethic, not based on stats.

[Sam Seder]

I'm not saying affirmative based on their sexual orientation. Are you allowed to fire them if you find out they're trans?

[Another Liberal Speaker]

If you need to. If you need to, then you should. If you need to, then you should.

[Sam Seder]

So we have a disagreement. I don't believe people should be discriminated against. Pause.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

And that's not discrimination. It's based on your knowledge not what you sleep with, not who you sleep with. Just saying.

[Kaley Cuoco]

I actually think that this liberal world order needs to be thrown away completely. And I think Christian nationalism would be a good alternative. What we're seeing right now is just a Congratulations.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Kaley Cuoco]

And thank you.

[Sam Seder]

And.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Kaley Cuoco]

I think what we're seeing right now is a culture of death. This is the most suicidal generation ever. We have millions of children dying by abortion. People aren't even reproducing. We're not even. We don't even have, like a.

[Sam Seder]

Should we mandate people reproduce?

[Kaley Cuoco]

No, I don't think we need to mandate. We can just stop them from killing their kids.

[Sam Seder]

Who wanted to outlaw abortion?

[Kaley Cuoco]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

Yes. I mean, this is. We have a fundamental disagreement on this. And my claim was that if you voted for Trump, it would be to your benefit if you want to outlaw abortion.

[Kaley Cuoco]

I think it would benefit everyone.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, I disagree. I think that women should have the right to choose.

[Kaley Cuoco]

I think that it would benefit everyone to bring back the family unit, to stop having women just thrown into the workforce.

[Sam Seder]

Maybe we shouldn't allow women to choose to divorce unless their husbands say it's okay.

[Kaley Cuoco]

I mean, I don't really believe in divorce in general, so, like.

[Sam Seder]

Sure. All right. I mean, this. This, I think, though, reinforces my point that. That if you are.

[Kaley Cuoco]

But it would be better for society. It would be better for everybody in society. And same with xenophobic national. Like, what's the problem with xenophobic nationalism? Don't you think that's better for Americans? In generalism is better. We should have a coherent culture. Everyone should be a part of the same culture. We should have assimilation.

[Sam Seder]

Which. Do you get to choose what the culture is?

[Kaley Cuoco]

We already have a dominant culture. What is a dominant culture? And Christian values and identity. That is the dominant culture rooted in European identity.

[Sam Seder]

So your argument is that that has.

[Kaley Cuoco]

Been the dominant culture, just to be clear. But we're not letting people assimilate to that. We're saying you should keep your culture, and this is why our culture's so divided.

[Sam Seder]

Your argument is that Trump is good for those who want a dominant white European culture.

[Kaley Cuoco]

I mean, that is what America is. It's rooted in European identity and Christian values. That's what it has been. Would you really disagree with that? What is it, then, if that's not the identity of America?

[Sam Seder]

Well, I think the identity of America.

[Kaley Cuoco]

For the majority of time, America's been a country. You don't think that's been the identity?

[Sam Seder]

Well, actually, no. I think actually the identity of America has been for better or for worse, a melting pot in that regard.

[Kaley Cuoco]

Yeah, maybe since the 1960s. Even then, even we had this idea of a melting pot literally means assimilation, too. It means melting. It means you're assimilating to the dominant culture. Is that not what melting means? And now instead we're saying there's something.

[Sam Seder]

Wrong with xenophobia culture. No, I mean, look, I gotta be honest with you. Like, you and I have a fundamental disagreement. We will never see eye to eye on this. It's a choice. And people, I think what you're expressing, though, is really what the Trump movement at its heart is about. And I think that's probably.

[Kaley Cuoco]

I disagree. I don't think Trump's, like, anywhere close to being a Christian nationalist. That's ridiculous. Like, Trump's basically a Democrat from, like, 15 years ago when it comes to socialism.

[Sam Seder]

So you don't think that he's conservative enough for you?

[Kaley Cuoco]

Oh, definitely. Nowhere close.

[Sam Seder]

No. He's not xenophobic enough for you? No.

[Kaley Cuoco]

He's trying to pour a bunch of H1Bs. Are you kidding?

[Sam Seder]

Right? Oh, so you want to get them out too? Yeah. No, I mean, I think you're making my argument for me.

[Kaley Cuoco]

All right, well, I'm just saying, he's.

[Sam Seder]

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[Ben Shapiro]

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[Sam Seder]

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[Ben Shapiro]

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[Sam Seder]

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[Ben Shapiro]

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[Sam Seder]

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[Sam Seder]

My next claim is the GOP will destroy Social Security and healthcare.

[Liberal Speaker]

What if Social Security should go away? That's my question to you.

[Sam Seder]

Because Social Security keeps two thirds of our elderly out of Poverty. And not only does it keep our elderly out of poverty, it's essentially a social insurance program that protects you if at the end of your life, you don't have enough money to survive for right now.

[Liberal Speaker]

Do you know that it's also the albatross around our generation's neck?

[Sam Seder]

No, it isn't. Okay, so let me just explain this.

[Liberal Speaker]

Well, you're gonna go back to lecture about Social Security. Well, we don't have what we're talking about. Yeah. Social Security is one of the top three funded.

[Sam Seder]

Social Security is almost the biggest thing that our government does.

[Liberal Speaker]

Exactly. And we are more than $30 trillion in debt.

[Sam Seder]

Well, first of all, Social Security cannot contribute legally to the deficit because they.

[Liberal Speaker]

Don'T even account it in the federal deficit every year. We have 30 years.

[Sam Seder]

When Social Security started in 1936, you have more workers than retirees because people haven't entered into retirement. By 1970, it was at 3.5 to 1. Now it's at 2.5 to 1. But productivity has increased during that time. So the amount of money paid into Social Security has been up there. The reason why we are running out of money just for the trust fund, not for Social Security. Like I say, if we do nothing with Social Security now, it is statutorily unable to contribute to the debt. The math is right there. The reason why the trust fund is running out is because wealth inequality has hoarded so much money above the cap.

[Liberal Speaker]

I think it's because the government does a terrible job managing their money. They have a huge spending problem, and they go, look at all this money we have for Social Security that's earmarked for 60 years from now that we're just going to spend on something right now.

[Sam Seder]

Forty years ago, they predict. This is an actuarial table. Accountants sit there and look at it. This is a very easy math problem.

[Liberal Speaker]

Accountants in the government are always right. Right. That's totally the thing that you're saying, that they're always correct about money. Right. That's why we have a $40 trillion debt problem.

[Sam Seder]

The problem isn't the math with the 40 trillion debt problem. It's the you have tax.

[Liberal Speaker]

It's the spending problem. I totally agree with you. Which I would argue is part of why Social Security has gone in the whole already.

[Sam Seder]

That's not. That's simply not true.

[Liberal Speaker]

Oh, okay, so we're out of money from the Social Security bucket.

[Sam Seder]

No, no, no. Statutorily, by that, I mean by law, Social Security pays for itself. If we do nothing, we do nothing. The 6.2% that your employer and your employee pays into. It will pay out 78% of benefits starting in 2033.

[Liberal Speaker]

And why is it going down if everything's so much better?

[Sam Seder]

Why is it only 78% if we raise the cap? There's a cap right now at $176,000. So, for instance, if you make $100,000, you pay $6,200 into that.

[Liberal Speaker]

A year.

[Sam Seder]

A year. But if you make $4 million, do you know how much money you pay into Social Security? $6,200.

[Liberal Speaker]

And so why should it. Why should wealthy people. Hang on. Why should wealthy people pay a higher percentage?

[Sam Seder]

No, they should pay the same percentage. 6.2 on $400,000, 6.2 on a million dollars.

[Liberal Speaker]

And why should they pay even more money at all? Because they make more money. Again, you fundamentally have this idea that because somebody. Okay, you have an idea that because somebody makes more money, that that's fundamentally wrong, right?

[Sam Seder]

No, no, I don't think it's fundamentally wrong. I think you should pay more taxes into it. Now, I do think as a society, we should. We should not allow billionaires, so, for.

[Liberal Speaker]

Instance, they can pay more taxes generally. But why should they.

[Sam Seder]

Expansion of our economy.

[Liberal Speaker]

Hang on. Does a billionaire get more money from Social Security when they. If they went to go take it than I would?

[Sam Seder]

No, no, of course.

[Liberal Speaker]

Why should they pay more?

[Sam Seder]

I'll tell you why. Because if you. It is a. It is a social insurance program that keeps you from being in poverty when you're a senior. And the reason why I think billionaires should pay more taxes than other people, even. Even a higher percentage, is because it works better for society. The greatest expansion we've had in this country in terms of economics and the least amount of wealth disparity was in the 40s and 50s and 60s in this country. Do you know what the top marginal rate was?

[Liberal Speaker]

It was high. I don't know the exact number.

[Sam Seder]

But if you made over $470,000 in 1955, every dollar you would make above that was taxed at 90%.

[Liberal Speaker]

So I have a question.

[Sam Seder]

90 cents on every dollar was taxed at above 470. So if we had.

[Liberal Speaker]

Yeah. Which is wild, by the way, but.

[Sam Seder]

And it's also the greatest expansion we had of the economy. Yeah, you can.

[Liberal Speaker]

You can expand for a time. And then you see places, you see like Nordic countries that were like, oh, let's tax. Tax the hell out of our rich people. Right. And then they go, whoops, we messed up. We can't actually live off of our terrible us. We basically are able to live off our economic boom that they had between like the four forties and the nineties. And then we have to revert all of that because we made a terrible choice and we were able to have a party for 50 years until we realized we ran through all the money that capitalism got us. So let me ask you real quick. So the average person, right, right now, they fundamentally look at Social Security, young people like me, and they go, I'm going to have that money sitting waiting for me when I retire. Since your opinion is whatever works best for the average person is better, wouldn't you rather shift towards something that I would agree with, which is getting people that are 19, 20 years old into funding their own retirement rather than relying on other people to fund it?

[Sam Seder]

You're talking like a 401k.

[Liberal Speaker]

Sure. Not just a 401k but IRAs. Any other type of retirement wouldn't he agree with that?

[Sam Seder]

Social Security was set up as part of a three legged stool where back in the day when I was a kid, we had defined benefits, pensions, where you know how much money you would get out. That all shifted in the 80s to define contribution, where you know how much you put in the 401k started during that Reagan era. It has been a disaster. Because the fact of the matter, for better or for worse, people just don't save in the way that you're talking about.

[Liberal Speaker]

Why it would be nice because things are. If the government were changing the mindset and actually pushing that cultural shift towards. We're not just going to hand you money when you're 65. Do you have to plan for right.

[Sam Seder]

Now, experiment with that. The government affecting the cultural mindset and it failed.

[Liberal Speaker]

We've had a 40 year experiment of everybody. You know what my, you know, my parents say Social Security. Do you know what grandparents say? They go, well, I'm just waiting for my Social Security check to come in rather than I have $800,000 waiting for me because I thought about it when I was 19 and 20 because I didn't have this grab bag of money waiting for me. You're assuming, hey man. That you're assuming that you're.

[Sam Seder]

I try and tell my kids, so we agree.

[Liberal Speaker]

So we agree we should get rid of Social Security, phase it out. Well, no. So we should phase out. How would you listen to this idea? You phase out Social Security to our people who have five years left before they retire, get 100% of the benefits and then people like me who have 40 years until we retire. Dude, I'm not gonna get it. I'm gonna get screwed either way. You really think I'm gonna get Social Security?

[Sam Seder]

I guarantee you, guarantee you at the very least you're going to get 78% of your benefits.

[Liberal Speaker]

That's awesome. I'll get $9,000 a year. That's great.

[Sam Seder]

In calling for our government to increase the cap. In fact get rid of the cap. Then your grandkids will get so scared.

[Liberal Speaker]

I would much rather. And again maybe we'll just disagree but I would much rather result to. Hey 20 year olds, please save for your own retirement. Invest for your own retirement. Because the government is bad at dealing with money and what. Don't rely on them. What happens if. What?

[Sam Seder]

What happens if those 20 year olds don't listen to you?

[Liberal Speaker]

The same thing that happens if a 20 year old just doesn't go and get a job because I tell them to. They're going to have a problem. But that's not my fault.

[Sam Seder]

I got news for you. It's not your fault. But there used to be in New York City, 30,000 people sleep.

[Liberal Speaker]

No one in this, no one in this room was alive before Social Security. We've all lived under this. Just like the. Just like that income tax.

[Sam Seder]

Most successful government program in the history of our government.

[Liberal Speaker]

Things that are successful don't just start to die out and end up in dying out. It's the grab bag of money. The massive excess that was there in the early years because of the 42 to 1 beneficiary.

[Sam Seder]

It wasn't a massive excess in 1932.

[Liberal Speaker]

To 1 is a massive excess.

[Sam Seder]

There weren't that many people who had entered into the Social Security program.

[Liberal Speaker]

And the fact that it.

[Sam Seder]

In nineteen nineteen seventy it was 3.5 workers to 1. Now it's 2.5. But productivity has increased it. I've told you why the Social Security trust fund is running out. It is because of wealth disparity. Billionaires hiding and hoarding their money above the cutoff line which is 176,000. That's the cap. If you hold the cap, your grandkids.

[Liberal Speaker]

Billionaires aren't keeping $2 billion under their mattress. They're investing it back into.

[Sam Seder]

They're just putting it into some stock market or they're just looking around and.

[Liberal Speaker]

What do you think a 401k or an IRA relies upon? It relies on the stock market and things like that.

[Sam Seder]

401K relies on the stock market. And I knew people who were retiring in 2008 when the stock market tanked and they got screwed.

[Liberal Speaker]

That's a whole other problem. I would argue that's largely driven by the government being once again terrible with policy and creating bad economic hazards.

[Sam Seder]

Social Security is there regardless of what happens with the stock market. You've been voted out by the majority. Please return to your seats.

[Jubilee Host]

There's an idea that you, that you have that basically government can kind of fix all these problems.

[Sam Seder]

Right.

[Jubilee Host]

If you didn't save for retirement, well, then the government can just come in, swoop in and save you from.

[Sam Seder]

Well, not swoop in. It starts on literally the day you get your social. Sure, sure, sure.

[Jubilee Host]

It swoops in once you retire. Right, Once you can. Right, right, exactly. And so you believe this idea basically that government is an effective organization which just time and time again, if you look at history, that's proven to not be true.

[Sam Seder]

When you're hitting at retirement. You don't know. This is an insurance program. That's it. It's an insurance program and it basically says you're insured against eating cat food food when you're 65. And it works. It works.

[Jubilee Host]

No, it, it doesn't. You should have. Well, one, you should have your own personal.

[Sam Seder]

How doesn't it work?

[Jubilee Host]

How doesn't it work? Well, I mean, we've already discussed the, the details of how it is just completely failing as a program.

[Sam Seder]

Like, how is it failing?

[Jubilee Host]

Because I'm not going to receive any Social Security.

[Sam Seder]

I've already told you. Right, I know.

[Jubilee Host]

I'm not going to rehash out that debate.

[Sam Seder]

Well, the main, the main issue numbers. You've just been told this and you know why you've been told it is because they want to rate it to give tax cuts to rich people. That's why.

[Jubilee Host]

So are you saying there are. The Trump tax cuts were only for rich people, you're saying?

[Sam Seder]

No, no, I'm not saying they're only for rich. Then how can people benefited more from it than, than low income people? And I.

[Jubilee Host]

And what do you mean benefited more from that? Because we already went over the percentage numbers and we know that's not true.

[Sam Seder]

You don't need the money as much and they don't need it.

[Jubilee Host]

What are you talking about? These rich people are the people that are investing in smaller businesses. These are the people that are giving other people jobs to allow them to provide for their family.

[Ben Shapiro]

I want to zoom out a little bit. Okay, so obviously you're pinpointing on Social Security and there's a reason for that.

[Sam Seder]

And health care too.

[Ben Shapiro]

Okay. But Social Security is the, is the program that you're very concerned about and.

[Sam Seder]

That Medicare, I'd love a Medicare for all program, but go ahead.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes. So I think the reason you're focusing in on Social Security precisely is because Social Security is the most successful in a shadow of social welfare programs and government spending that it's, it's like the.

[Sam Seder]

Democrats also the biggest bucket money.

[Ben Shapiro]

It is the biggest bucket. But the Democrats have these social programs and this deficit spending and it's just never ends. It's never enough money. So you're focusing on Social Security because it is the one successful child, but you're ignoring all the social welfare. The social welfare state that we become.

[Sam Seder]

Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid make up the majority over like a.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right. So 70% of our, 70% of our federal spending is mandatory. You're right. It's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on debt, 8% of our work paying for that. So the Democrats run on this. Essentially they want a welfare state. So yes, Social Security might help a lot of people, but it's like we're, we're closer to a welfare state than we've ever been. 38% of our, the GDP in the US is government spending. That's the highest since World War II. So US conservatives, we're trying to tell you, like you guys are fiscally really.

[Sam Seder]

So worried about the tax cuts and what that does to the debt and deficit.

[Ben Shapiro]

The tax cuts, increased revenue.

[Sam Seder]

No.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

I want to tell you about Kansas.

[Ben Shapiro]

Okay, tell me about Kansas.

[Sam Seder]

Sam Brown back in 2012 brought in Arthur Laffer. You know the Laffer Curve, right. That's the argument that if you cut taxes, you're going to get more revenue.

[Ben Shapiro]

And that's exactly what happened. That's exactly what happened.

[Sam Seder]

They destroyed Kansas by 2016.

[Ben Shapiro]

Let's look at the numbers.

[Sam Seder]

Legislature raised taxes again. They destroyed their education.

[Ben Shapiro]

Reality is against you, my friend.

[Sam Seder]

Look up Kansas. The numbers.

[Ben Shapiro]

The numbers say the Trump administration.

[Sam Seder]

They sent Sam Brown back. They made him the ambassador to faith because they didn't want this guy around the rich.

[Ben Shapiro]

You should vote Republican because they pay more in taxes in under Republican. It was the same as Reagan. It was the same on Trump.

[Sam Seder]

Look at, look at the US look.

[Ben Shapiro]

At the US it was the perfect. Obama's best year. Federal income revenue is. Pales in comparison to Trump's worst year. Do you get what I'm saying? Does, does more taxes equate necessarily equate to more revenue?

[Sam Seder]

Yes.

[Ben Shapiro]

No, that is, that's where you're wrong. So if you look at TCJA, and I'll say the numbers again, the top 1% paid more, more into the system. GDP grew, wages grew 3% year over year under TCJA. So when you're saying tax the rich, like, but you're. Sounds like you're actually a Republican, you just don't know it.

[Sam Seder]

You're. You're not. You're confusing causation with correlation. Because. Because Obama's economic recovery was way too slow. And I agree with you on too slow. Way too slow.

[Ben Shapiro]

When you have tons of stimulus. What you're doing is you're creating the Great Depression for the bottom 90%. All the assets inflate. So who does that benefit? Your policies benefit the 1%. Inflation disproportionately benefits the 1%. It's an immoral tax on the poor. And that's exactly what happens when they stimulate.

[Sam Seder]

Inflation was not a function of monetary stimulus.

[Ben Shapiro]

It absolutely was. They increased the money supply by $6 trillion.

[Sam Seder]

I understand they did that. I understand they did that. And they could pull it back in taxes with the wealthy if they wanted.

[Ben Shapiro]

You can't.

[Sam Seder]

You're making an argument for higher taxes.

[Ben Shapiro]

Do you think taxing people makes the country wealthier? Is that what you think? Does it make the country taxes make us wealthy? Is that government tax? Increasing tax. Are you, Are we now more wealthy? Do you think that the only way.

[Sam Seder]

You tax, the only way you create.

[Ben Shapiro]

Wealth is by producing?

[Sam Seder]

If you tax and spend, government stimulus can, yes. Increase GDP, of course.

[Ben Shapiro]

Is GDP wealth?

[Sam Seder]

Is GDP wealth?

[Ben Shapiro]

If we import 10 million immigrants and our GDP goes up, are we now wealthier? If the, if the housing costs more, if, if CPI goes up because there's more people.

[Sam Seder]

I understand you. And this is basically control. And we haven't pulled that money off the table.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right, but I'm just saying that inflation.

[Sam Seder]

Is back because we had a problem.

[Ben Shapiro]

The welfare state makes us all poorer. Yes, it does. And you can see it doesn't if you compare. People want to come here for economic opportunity. We don't want handouts. We want opportunity. That's why. That's why as an immigrant, that's why my family came here. We left the socialist paradise. It's garbage. The people that come here want economic opportunity. And you're stifling that. You're undermining capitalism in the free markets with your utopian vision.

[Sam Seder]

There is no free market.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, there's not anymore.

[Sam Seder]

No, there's.

[Ben Shapiro]

There used to be. No, that is, that is. That is what makes America the greatest. That's what makes the greatest America is the greatest economy in the world because of the free market. The greatest free market capitalism is the.

[Sam Seder]

Most ethical America had was when we had 90% tax.

[Ben Shapiro]

True. The numbers are against you.

[Sam Seder]

1940, 1950, 1960, the highest top marginal.

[Ben Shapiro]

So stagflation.

[Liberal Speaker]

So what happened in the 70s.

[Sam Seder]

And we had.

[Ben Shapiro]

Milton Friedman predicted stagflation in the 70s with your social welfare.

[Sam Seder]

We had OPEC when your welfare shock. That drove inflation way up. And that was a function of OPEC. But in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, highest top marginal tax rate was 90%. Wealth inequality shift World War II compression and more people enjoyed World War II Industrial Revolution.

[Ben Shapiro]

We were producing then. We were producing more than every other country. It's because we're producing more than every other country. That's what creates production.

[Sam Seder]

Doing that with a 90% tax rate on the wealthiest, which was less when.

[Ben Shapiro]

And when. And 90, when Reagan came in and brought it down, the top 1% paid more. Can you believe that?

[Sam Seder]

No, no.

[Ben Shapiro]

Do you know that federal income tax, when you, you. Wait, wait. You know federal income tax? It was when it was established.

[Sam Seder]

You're talking about the Laffer curve.

[Ben Shapiro]

And I'm telling you here's, here's my last claim. Federal income tax in 1913, when it was established, was only targeted at the people making 100,000 and over. Now we don't even know. Most people don't even know that. It's just a base tax. Why? Because the projections that they had of taxing the rich didn't work out like they thought. Because it doesn't work out. There's a ton of loopholes. The rich are not. The rich are smart like the rich people are smart.

[Sam Seder]

So focus on top marginal rate. Still produced an effective tax rate that is double what it IS today was 50%.

[Ben Shapiro]

Effective tax rate does not create more wealth, more taxes.

[Sam Seder]

Well, I mean by wealth, I mean.

[Ben Shapiro]

Wealth is very simple. It's production of goods and services, more taxes.

[Liberal Speaker]

That's what creates taxes.

[Ben Shapiro]

Money. People think money is money buys wealth.

[Sam Seder]

Creates less wealth inequality. And then you have wealth that is shared by more people rather than being in the hands of a plutocracy or a plutonomy. And then you get stuff like an oligarchy.

[Ben Shapiro]

When you punish your top producers over and over again, they leave, they stop producing. The government, the, the cap. No, it isn't. You cripple the economy. Guess what happens next.

[Sam Seder]

Wait, wait. When did this happen in the country when we had a 90%.

[Ben Shapiro]

It happens in every socialist country. This is the socialist playbook.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

They're like.

[Ben Shapiro]

They come in and they're like, guys.

[Sam Seder]

This is not a socialist country. And I'm not calling for socialism to have.

[Ben Shapiro]

It is more social than ever before. We have more social welfare spanning GDP. I'll say it again. 38 of government spending of GDP is government spending. We are more. We have more social welfare programs, and look at what happens. But how come we have all these programs and the black community is still living in poverty?

[Sam Seder]

How come programs are you talking about that are geared towards the black community? We. During. During. In 2021, we did. We expended. Hold on. In 2021, what do you mean?

[Ben Shapiro]

What program? How much money is enough? When is it enough? You have the richest country in the world.

[Sam Seder]

We offered $300.

[Ben Shapiro]

The way you guys think is insane to me.

[Sam Seder]

Like, let me just finish this. In 2021, we extended the child tax credit, which is basically a payment. $300 per social welfare. We cut child poverty in one year by 45%. By 45%. But because no Republican would join the Democrats in, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin voted against this provision. And build back. I'm talking 2021. From 2021 to 2022, we cut child poverty in this country by 45%. Look it up.

[Ben Shapiro]

I feel like when I look at.

[Sam Seder]

It, I guarantee you I will give you my phone number.

[Jubilee Host]

You call me.

[Ben Shapiro]

All right, we'll call.

[Sam Seder]

I'll do it off camera. And you will see that we cut child poverty in a year by 45%.

[Ben Shapiro]

And I'll look into your claim. All right, guys, we'll talk out.

[Sam Seder]

What is daddication? The thing that drives me every day.

[Jubilee Host]

As a dad is Dariona.

[Sam Seder]

We call him Dae Date for short. Every day he's hungry for something, whether it's attention, affection, knowledge. And there's this huge responsibility in making sure that when he's no longer under my wing that he's a good person. I want him to be able to sit back one day and go, we worked together.

[Jubilee Host]

We did a good job.

[Sam Seder]

That's dedication. Find out [e-mail] brought to you by the U.S. department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Hi, welcome to IKEA. This is my college campus. Correct. But I see you're on ikea.com ordering some college items. My daughter's room is pretty bare. We need a lamp, some comfy pillows, her favorite stuffy dad with pickup options. We've got what you need to conveniently order Ikea literally anywhere. Sweet. More time for gaming and wait, where.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Are you going now?

[Sam Seder]

Have to show the ultimate Frisbee team how easy it is to order from Ikea. Get Ikea whenever, wherever, however you want. Choose from thousands of pickup locations, affordable delivery options and more. My next claim is Trump's policies make the rich richer and the working class poorer.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Do you mind if I ask what policies in specific are you referencing to.

[Sam Seder]

Tax cuts for the rich? I think his idea of tariffs on countries in the way that he's talking about will make people poorer. I think all the work that they're doing in terms of attacking the government agencies will make people poorer. Because when you get agencies that are supposed to protect us from corporate interests, they will externalize their costs, those corporations, instead of actually assuming themselves. So their profits are made on the backs of all of us, whether it's our health, our protection from consumer rights, worker rights. His anti union policies will make us poor.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

So real quick, I'm going to touch on one of the things that you said. Now, there's a lot to unpack there.

[Sam Seder]

But there's a lot of policies.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Yeah. We'll start at the very beginning. You talked about taxes. Let's talk about in his first term, the Tax Cut and jobs act of 2017. There are a couple things in that specific policy that actually do benefit the middle class and the lower class more than the top 1%. So you mentioned taxes. Right. But in that from the IRS data that came out, the middle class and lower class got affected. I think they ended up saving like 3 to 4% on their taxes on their tax cuts, whereas the billionaires only saved 2%. So if we're talking an actual dollar amount, sure, the billionaires saved more, but they also make a lot more. Right. Also, the billionaires don't really care about an extra grand or two. In that specific policy, the child tax credit doubled from $1,000 per household to two. No billionaire cares about an extra grand in their pocket. But I can guarantee you the working class does. So how would you rebuttal that?

[Sam Seder]

I would say in terms of the taxes themselves. Well, the policies that Trump wants to pursue this time are to expand those taxes for wealthy folks. And over time, what starts to happen is you have this wealth disparity. And as the wealth disparity increases, it becomes harder for working people essentially to keep up. Things become more expensive. You get inflationary pressures when you have people with more money. We have more and more billionaires than we did four years ago. And a large part of that was obviously Covid, but a large Part of it is also money starts to accelerate. Like you say, when a millionaire gets a tax cut for a couple of grand or something, 60 grand or $500,000, at the end of the day, they end up investing that and ends up growing because they're not out there working for their money. Their money is just doing all the work.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Okay, so, yeah, I mean, I think we can agree with you on that when it comes to, you know, billionaires and millionaires and there being a wealth gap in our country. Right. I don't think Republicans or liberals would disagree on that. But I think where we will fundamentally disagree is under Trump. Right. The stats show that take home pay was higher for the middle class and the lower class. Inflation was down, they weren't paying as much on tax.

[Sam Seder]

Inflation was down. But wage growth was actually greater during the Biden administration.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Well, that's because due to Covid, when a lot of people lost jobs.

[Sam Seder]

No, no, no. I mean, I'm talking in percentage comparison between those four years and these past four years, wage growth grew not from as a baseline on 2020, but I'm talking as a baseline from 2016.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Interesting. Okay, well then another point that I want to talk on with you real quick is you talked about slashing government agencies. For instance, the Department of Government Efficiency. I'm sure you've heard about that a lot in the news.

[Sam Seder]

That's not a government agency. That's just.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

It is actually, it actually an executive order was signed to make DOGE an official government agency as of less than a week ago. So, yeah, it is an official government agency. So obviously we're talking about money. We want people to be able to afford a house. We want them to be able to afford to raise a family. Right. As a young man myself, I want to be able to grow up in America and be able to afford food one day. Right. I mean, I can now, but continue that. And that the way things are going, it's unsustainable for people on the left, people on the right, people in the middle. So we have to come to a common ground on how to fix that. What's unsustainable? The fact that cost of living is increasing.

[Sam Seder]

Doge doo doo to inhibit cost of living.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Yeah, absolutely. So what DOGE is gonna do, the Department of Government Efficiency, is slash a lot of the federal spending. Right. So what happens when the Fed.

[Sam Seder]

What? The spending is gonna get cut.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

So. So I'm getting there. One second, sir. So what's gonna happen is the Department of Government Efficiency is going to slash a lot of federal spending. What happens is the government, Republicans, Democrats alike, spend a bunch of money that. Excuse my language, but it's, it's nonsense, right? They spend it out here, they spend it out there.

[Sam Seder]

Be more specific, here or there. Are you talking about COVID cutting defense? Because they're not gonna cut defense.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

For example.

[Sam Seder]

Wait a second.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

No, no, no, no. Let me finish. Let me finish. $175 billion to Ukraine, first and foremost, that was a bunch of nonsense. So we're going to talk about that. But we also have a bunch of other things in the Defense Department as well as a bunch of DEI departments.

[Sam Seder]

Well, they're not touching. First of all, there are no DEI departments.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

That's completely false.

[Sam Seder]

Listen, Defense spending. Defense spending is not going to be touched by Doge. And when you talk about the government, what's the biggest expenditure government has?

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Our military and Social Security are our top two.

[Sam Seder]

And Medicare and Medicaid right now, they're not going to touch the military. Are they going to cut Social Security?

[Another Liberal Speaker]

You're asking me like I'm part of doge.

[Sam Seder]

No, no, no. Well, you're telling me that Doge is going to help everybody here. And I'm telling you if they cut Social Security, everybody in here is going to get hit because these folks are going to have to pay for their parents because Social Security keeps 2000/3 of our elderly out of poverty. So tell me what they're going to cut that's going to make it easier for Americans.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

I already did. What I told you. The $175 billion that we've sent to Ukraine, we're no longer going to.

[Sam Seder]

So he's going to.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

So Donald Trump has signed an executive order.

[Sam Seder]

You've been voted out by the majority.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Thank you, sir.

[Ben Shapiro]

Why did we see a higher increase in the top 1% paying as part of federal income revenue under TCJA?

[Sam Seder]

Why did we see a higher increase in the.

[Ben Shapiro]

So under TCJA? You know, it was past 2017, as effective 2018. 2018, and on onward, we actually saw the top 1% pay more as they had more of the federal income tax burden. They paid 45 as opposed to a Obama. During Obama's tax plan, they only paid about 40 to 42% of the federal government.

[Sam Seder]

They got more money, right?

[Ben Shapiro]

Okay, so they got more money.

[Sam Seder]

They got richer.

[Ben Shapiro]

But why are they paying so. And why do they get richer? So this goes on inflation. That.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, that's my point is the rich are getting richer.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right? But you. So you. Why would you say that they're getting richer but you mentioned inflation.

[Sam Seder]

No, they're not. Well, I mean, I think that they. Inflation to the extent that there was money that wasn't a function of like logistics and other problems that we had during COVID Yeah, the rich got richer. Not all inflation is a function of monetary inflation.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's true. But when we look at Covid and we can see that they increase the money supply by 40%. They added $6 trillion and you have a Federal Reserve system that's doing quantitative easing and pumping stimulus into the economy. You can attribute that to left wing policy. The entire Federal Reserve system is Keynesian economic. Those are very left wing.

[Sam Seder]

Well, I can tell you this. Inflation went up in Europe, in Western European countries.

[Ben Shapiro]

The same rate stimulus that had stimulus.

[Sam Seder]

No, no, no. They didn't have the same level of stimulus.

[Ben Shapiro]

They absolutely didn't.

[Sam Seder]

They did.

[Ben Shapiro]

You can look at Japan. I hear this topic all the time from the Democrats. They say, oh, inflation was global. Not true. China Never went above 3% inflation during all of COVID And they were actually. They were under deflationary pressures. Japan is which part of the G7 was also never had deflationary pressures. They never had inflation. The only countries that I'm talking in.

[Sam Seder]

Western Europe you could see inflate. Well, you could. England, Germany, because they stole. They didn't stimulate as much as we did. It wasn't monetary inflation. If you look at the cost of goods and logistics that screwed up because.

[Ben Shapiro]

Of COVID So let's look at the reason. All international trade because we're the world reserve currency is done in US Dollars. When that we. Because we experienced it, domestic inflation was high.

[Sam Seder]

So you're saying our inflation is higher inflation?

[Ben Shapiro]

Absolutely. Because. Because that's not what economies international. Well, you can look at the facts. International trade is, is. We have dollar denominated international trade. All, all international trade is. That's what, that's why we're the world reserve currency. You guys claim that the, that the U.S. recovered faster than anybody else. It's like.

[Sam Seder]

Well, it did.

[Ben Shapiro]

It's because we have a privilege of being the world reserve currency and we export our inflation like the strength.

[Sam Seder]

We export our inflation.

[Ben Shapiro]

Let me explain that. Let me explain that the US Dollar is the most safe asset in the world in times of great crisis and great volatility. The COVID crisis, everybody turns to the dollar. Many currencies are tied to the dollar. So it's like when you.

[Sam Seder]

The euro is not tied to Europe.

[Ben Shapiro]

The euro is not. But international. International.

[Sam Seder]

Okay.

[Ben Shapiro]

So if the euro actually crashed against the dollar During COVID the euro used to be above.

[Sam Seder]

I'm unclear what your point.

[Ben Shapiro]

My point is that the inflation is caused by left wing policies.

[Sam Seder]

And so inflation was caused by, you're.

[Ben Shapiro]

Saying supply shock and pumping trillions of dollars.

[Sam Seder]

Well, first of all. Wait. First of all, you understand that the Federal Reserve is not part of. Biden didn't have control of the Federal Reserve.

[Ben Shapiro]

Certainly not. But the entire Federal Reserve system is left wing in economic theory. That's the Keynesian economics. It's interventionist economics. So you're saying that the more you stimulate, the more you stimulate.

[Sam Seder]

Why didn't we get it through qe?

[Ben Shapiro]

We do get it.

[Sam Seder]

Why didn't we get inflation during the Obama.

[Ben Shapiro]

We didn't get the wealth gap that you guys attribute.

[Sam Seder]

Wait, wait, wait.

[Ben Shapiro]

We absolutely did.

[Sam Seder]

What numbers were inflation we get during the Obama years that were outside of like the 2% sort of fed target?

[Ben Shapiro]

I don't think it was as high as Covid. Covid hit us. When we look at the effects of.

[Sam Seder]

Compounding inflation, QE1, 2 and 3 all happened during the Obama years. If your theory was correct, we would have had rampant inflation.

[Ben Shapiro]

In fact, we did.

[Sam Seder]

Glenn Beck was talking about how we were going to turn into Weimar Germany and none of that happened.

[Ben Shapiro]

Here's the factors.

[Sam Seder]

None of it.

[Ben Shapiro]

Here's the fact that you're missing.

[Sam Seder]

So if you look what's happening at Western Europe. Well, no, listen.

[Ben Shapiro]

We didn't close on the economy.

[Sam Seder]

The economy.

[Ben Shapiro]

The Biden administration closed down the economy.

[Sam Seder]

I understand.

[Ben Shapiro]

No, there was not the entire world. The Biden administration, yes, they forced mass mandates. They supported Democrats.

[Sam Seder]

Wait, wait, wait.

[Ben Shapiro]

They supported Democrats.

[Sam Seder]

Do you not remember who was president in the last, in the first year of COVID What?

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, it was Trump. I'm not, I'm not saying Trump, Trump had a role in this, but I'm saying.

[Sam Seder]

Wait a second. When did. By the time in 2021. The economy was opening back up.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes, the economy. No thanks to the Democrats.

[Sam Seder]

Okay.

[Ben Shapiro]

I'm not. The Democrats wanted to keep it closed.

[Sam Seder]

Okay. So, okay, you can talk about hypothetically what the Democrats want.

[Ben Shapiro]

But it's not hypothetically. We can look at mass. We can look at their mandates. We can look at them close down.

[Sam Seder]

The economy closed down in 2020. March of 2020.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, okay.

[Sam Seder]

Donald Trump was president. Pause. You've been voted out by the majority. Please return to your seat.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

When you're talking about like inflation in 2021, Janet Yellen said it would be transitory. And, and then again in 2022, she said it would be transitory and it turned out to not be transitory. And then one major thing happened in 2022. I think we all know what that was. That was the war in Ukraine. And I believe, and I can explain that the war in Ukraine. Ukraine was explicitly caused by Joe Biden's bad foreign policy. And that shot inflation up from like, there was already pretty bad inflation in early 2022 and late 2021, but it shot it up from the low kind of margins and like 3 or 4% all the way to 9% in 2022 of July.

[Sam Seder]

@ the, at the peak, inflation is now down around 2%. Around where, you know.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Yeah, in between 2.5%.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah. Where they're looking to get it. And we have really close to record unemployment that we've had over the past four years. But how does this have to do with Trump's policies not making the richer richer and the rest of us poor?

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Okay, so what I was just explaining with, I was going to get into oil prices. So oil prices skyrocketing it in 2022. Because when in 2021, when Biden got into office, he, he shut down the R Keystone pipeline, shut down all new oil and gas leases in America. Then he took the sanctions.

[Sam Seder]

We are producing right now more oil in this country than we ever have in the history of any country everywhere.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Yeah, I know.

[Sam Seder]

On top of the fact that Biden is credited by oil traders and this isn't something that I, you know, terribly excited about.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

What did he just do on the east side?

[Sam Seder]

Apparently what Biden did during the, during the past four years is he used the strategic oil reserve to drive down oil prices. Broke. And it's filled back up. And he filled it back up. And he broke. Not anywhere close to. He broke the negotiating power and the price setting power by oil countries across the world. I mean, oil traders hail him for doing this and frankly, I don't think it's that impressive. But let's talk about what Trump's policies are. No, I was.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

We only have a little bit of time. I was getting to that. So oil prices in 2021, Biden took all the sanctions off of the pipeline in Russia and in the pipeline in Russia ran straight through Ukraine originally. And he knew that if he invaded Ukraine, Ukraine would destroy the pipeline and his economic system would be destroyed in Russia. And then he, when the, when the.

[Sam Seder]

Sanctions, Biden or Putin, Putin knew that.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

That would occur in Russia if the sanctions were taken off of that pipeline. And Biden took all the sanctions off of Nord Stream 2 in Russia, like the second week he was in office. And then a year later, Putin invades Ukraine, sanctions happen all over the world and inflation rises within six months all the way up to 9%. Trump is going to do great things with oil and let us drill and what that actually does for the economy.

[Sam Seder]

Like I said, we are producing more oil in this country than any country in the history of the world.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

What executive order did Biden just sign to have to do with offshore drilling in the East Coast?

[Sam Seder]

He stopped it.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Yeah. Really dumb idea. We're about to begin a new well.

[Sam Seder]

So you want to go beyond even the record breaking.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Yes, I want to become energy independent and that lowers inflation.

[Sam Seder]

We're going to sell this oil. We don't, we don't use the oil we sell.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

We're going to. Yeah, we sell getting money in the pockets of American citizens.

[Sam Seder]

We sell it. Well. How is that oil getting to the pocket of American citizens?

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Because when you lower the prices of oil, that lowers the prices of oil.

[Sam Seder]

I understand, I understand that the inflationary press is effective of energy, but the fact of the matter is they're just going to sell it. Yeah. So we're gonna want to produce even more oil than we are now.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

And you don't think climate change is going to impact. You don't believe in climate change?

[Another Conservative Speaker]

I. Well, that's a whole nother discussion, but.

[Sam Seder]

No, well, I mean it's sort of the same discussion.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Yeah, no, I, I believe that climate change is. Well, there's obviously an element of climate change that is partially true, but lowering.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

Or which part of it.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Raising the man made. Raising temperatures by 1 to 2 degrees Celsius in the next 150 years isn't necessarily a detriment to society. Human beings.

[Sam Seder]

You don't think so?

[Ben Shapiro]

No.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

Human beings are very good at innovation and we can build seawalls and we can create carbon capture.

[Sam Seder]

What kind of seawall are you going to build for Miami? What are you going to do about like when we don't.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

I'm talking about the economy right now, which if we get back on topic.

[Kaley Cuoco]

All right guys, sorry, time's up.

[Another Conservative Speaker]

I let you.

[Sam Seder]

Now choose someone from.

[Jubilee Host]

The circle to debate again for another 10 minutes, but based on a claim of their choice.

[Sam Seder]

I choose Ben because he let me lecture him about Social Security.

[Liberal Speaker]

My claim is that abortion is immoral and should not be legal.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, I disagree because largely because I think the primary rights that we have under a society should belong to the person. And I don't believe A fetus is a person.

[Liberal Speaker]

Okay, okay, so you. That's very interesting. You don't believe the fetus is a person. When do you think that it gains personhood, in your opinion, would you agree it's a human life at least?

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, I guess you could say that. I mean, yes, I think that's. I mean, largely. I think that claim is. Is largely, like, it's not relevant to the way that I think about it. I think about it in terms of personhood. I mean, I think, like, you know, life exists all around us and not.

[Liberal Speaker]

Human life, but not like there's not human life in a tree.

[Conservative Speaker]

Correct?

[Sam Seder]

Right. Correct.

[Liberal Speaker]

So it's human life, it's human life, but it's not a person.

[Sam Seder]

It's not a person.

[Liberal Speaker]

At which point does it gain personhood and gain the value of being a human?

[Sam Seder]

Well, I think it. It becomes a person when it's born.

[Liberal Speaker]

Why? So five seconds prior, it's not born yet. Not person. Five seconds after exits the birth canal. Person. Is there a magical quality to the birth canal? What is that?

[Sam Seder]

The person becomes separate from the host that it's been growing inside.

[Liberal Speaker]

Okay, so would you assign that to other human beings that are attached to things? Like, for instance, if I'm attached to a machine, am I a machine now? Am I part of that machine? Or am I still a human life? I just need support in order to stay alive.

[Sam Seder]

If you've never been born and you're growing in, let's say, a test tube, for instance, then yes, I would argue you're not a person yet.

[Liberal Speaker]

Okay, so then. But it's not. So it's not really the disconnected part. It's the being born part.

[Sam Seder]

Well, being born means being disconnected from your mother.

[Liberal Speaker]

Okay, so you're specifically aligning having the quality of being birthed as what makes someone a person.

[Sam Seder]

Person within the context of, like, our society and civilization.

[Liberal Speaker]

So just in our society, you wouldn't say that objectively that's a person. You would say that we just decide that it's a person because it's birth.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah. Rights we give to persons. Yeah.

[Liberal Speaker]

Okay, so. So I guess that's an interesting kind of definition of what human life and specifically person.

[Sam Seder]

Well, no, I don't. I'm conceding that it's human life, but that as a. You're not a person until you're born. And you do not have the same, like, rights that we would give. Like, you know, look, we have rights about cruelty to animals, for instance. Right. But they're not persons within the Context?

[Liberal Speaker]

Well, yeah, I'm not saying that they are, but specifically it seems like you're just kind of saying, oh, it's a person when it's born, but you're not actually providing any consistent reason for that. You're just saying it just is a person.

[Sam Seder]

I think that on some level there's a certain amount of, like, arbitrariness as to when we give rights. Like one could say, like, is it. Do you say it's at conception?

[Liberal Speaker]

Sure. Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

So ivf, in other words, would have to be illegal under your principle.

[Liberal Speaker]

Because, I mean, I'm not sure that I would agree with. With IVF in that case. It really depends on the particulars in that case, but I believe.

[Sam Seder]

What do you mean, the particulars?

[Liberal Speaker]

Well, so for instance, at conception you would still be a human life, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the, that the fertilized egg attaches to you.

[Sam Seder]

Is it human life for you or what?

[Liberal Speaker]

It's human life. Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Okay. So human life should be protected.

[Liberal Speaker]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

Okay. So ivf.

[Liberal Speaker]

Yeah, I would, I would say that, that.

[Sam Seder]

So IVF should be illegal under your rubric?

[Liberal Speaker]

No, no, no. So they're human lives. Correct.

[Sam Seder]

The IVF is when the egg and the sperm and then they're supplanted.

[Liberal Speaker]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

Is it. When is it human life?

[Liberal Speaker]

As soon as it has unique human DNA, that's a human life.

[Sam Seder]

Okay.

[Liberal Speaker]

It's a new human. Correct.

[Sam Seder]

Now, you know, in the IVF process, there's stuff that gets thrown out.

[Liberal Speaker]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

You would consider that murder?

[Liberal Speaker]

Yeah, I'm not even. I'm not even defending IVF or going against it. I'm specifically saying abortion. That was my claim. Right. I'm not going to argue ivf.

[Sam Seder]

But isn't that abortion under your.

[Liberal Speaker]

I would say if you get rid of human life after conception, I don't think that's moral. I'm not going to argue the IVF particulars because that's not what my claim was. Right.

[Sam Seder]

When we're talking about laws. Right. Because you want to outlaw abortion.

[Jubilee Host]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

Correct. Okay. When we're talking about laws, it's not just morality when we form public policy around and create laws.

[Liberal Speaker]

Not just, but it should be moral. Correct.

[Sam Seder]

Well, I mean, I think like your definition of what constitutes moral in mind are different. For instance, I would prefer in a perfect world not to have abortion on demand until, you know, up until birth. Right, sure, in a perfect world. However, we know in practice that when you start to restrict things like, say, only in the threat of life to the woman, let's say that's the only way we're going to allow abortions. Right. When you start to have these exceptions, they're in practice, they don't work because when your life is in jeopardy and you come into a hospital, the doctor doesn't see a bulb that shows up above you and say like your life is in jeopardy. It's always a subjective assessment. And what does life in jeopardy? Hold on, what does life in jeopardy mean? Does it mean a 30% chance of death? Does it mean a 50%, a 70% or 20%? That's why we now have women who are dying, because doctors are afraid to perform form abortions on them. That's true.

[Liberal Speaker]

Are you referencing. Just because some doctors misread plain text doesn't mean that they, that it's all of a sudden that life is less valuable.

[Sam Seder]

No, it means that you are subjecting the woman to more risk and it's impossible. These exceptions are all, they're canards. When you oppose a law, it is not just about morality, it's about, it's in practice. Sure, I understand that you cannot do this without sacrificing women's lives because what.

[Liberal Speaker]

About the unborn children though? Because let's go back to your born unborn children. So let's say you have a person, you have a nine month mother, has.

[Sam Seder]

More rights in my mind than the unborn child.

[Liberal Speaker]

Yeah, that's a claim that you can make. But so a nine month birthed child or just nine months and just now born, it's a newborn baby. A five month could be emergency C section and could be birthed. Right. Let's say they don't do that. What's the difference between the arbitrary choice of taking that child out of the womb at six months?

[Sam Seder]

Why don't we take all children?

[Liberal Speaker]

No, what I'm saying is that the personhood just because of birth runs into a problem where it starts to say.

[Sam Seder]

Well, I'm, I hate to do it, but I gotta do it. I'm sorry, that's time.

[Liberal Speaker]

Okay.

[Sam Seder]

Hey, appreciate it. I'm glad I was here. It was interesting. I know my questions were more sort of policy oriented, I think, than maybe folks anticipated here. And I was a little bit surprised that there wasn't many people here who could address the policies. They were very, very sure of themselves as to why they voted for Trump. But a lot of it was sort of not material in any way.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

So there was stuff that conservatives were saying today that I fundamentally disagreed with with my entire heart. But at the end of the day. We're still part of the conservative movement. So I think there are people that I disagreed with. There are people that I completely did agree with. But the cool thing about this new conservative movement and the people here today is it's people from all different walks of life sharing their perspective.

[Ben Shapiro]

I don't think Sam had a. Any like, at least when I was speaking to him. I don't think Sam really had great responses because the reality is not on his side. I don't think socialism works. I think social programs can be good up to a certain extent, but we are. We are very socialist as a nation. And yeah, I mean, I'll just say it again. Socialism does not work. Sorry. Wish it did.

[Sam Seder]

I think debate is healthy and I think it helps viewers sort of clarify why certain people support certain things. And it gives an opportunity, I think, to both have fun and drama and maybe learn some stuff. So that's always a good thing. Don't forget to subscribe to Surrounded wherever.

[Another Liberal Speaker]

You get your podcast so that you.

[Sam Seder]

Don'T miss an episode.

[Jubilee Host]

And if you want to watch the.

[Sam Seder]

Video version of Surrounded, subscribe to Jubilee on YouTube.