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- [00:00]
Adam
You think MSNBC is radical? Yes, I do think MSNBC is radical, absolutely. What do you think is radicalizing more people? Nick Fuentes or msnbc?
- [00:07]
Conservative Commentator
Probably msnbc.
- [00:08]
Adam
A lot of times they return to the idea that MSNBC or the Democratic Party was radicalizing people. And I guess the broader point in this segment that I was trying to get towards is which side it comes from in a top down manner. So every time I see people in power on the right talking about the Democratic Party, they're using incredibly incendiary rhetoric, whether it's Stephen Miller or Caroline Levitt. And then when I see people in power on the left, I feel like they're always more conciliatory. So after Charlie Kirk died, every single politician unanimously was trying to tone things down. The people are that are extreme on the left were protesting outside of the dnc. But the people that are extreme on the right are inside the RNC on a daily basis. They're inside the Turning Point USA floor.
- [00:55]
Interviewer
Adam, welcome to this surrounded follow. It's great to finally meet you. I've been watching your content for some time, hearing your political takes and yeah, it was great to see your episode. You haven't seen any of the footage yet, have you?
- [01:10]
Adam
I've seen nothing from the episode except for like a 10 second snippet. And we filmed it two and a half months ago basically. So you'll see that my hair is way different. My hair is really short. I don't think I've cut it since then. So now I've got a long ass haircut. No, I don't even remember a lot of it. It's starting to worry me. It's slipping my mind.
- [01:29]
Interviewer
Well, you did film it a while ago. I'll show you some clips of it today and we can kind of react to it. But I'm curious, just you know, with what you can recall, how did you feel about it going into it? Because I, you know, we were closer to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. That was more fresh on people's minds. So yeah. What was kind of going through your mind going into being on the show?
- [01:52]
Adam
I've done a lot of debates this year and as I do them I feel more and more confident. So I wasn't exactly nervous going into this one, but this one I was more intimidated for than most of my other recent appearances. I mean I'd done some really good CNN hits. I've done some Piers Morgan debates, other debates on air. This one had me a bit intimidated just because of the uncertainty of 20 versus 1. I remember being in the green room and I hear like 20 voices out there, you know, rumbling and talking and I'm just imagining all the different ways it could go. And yeah, the uncertainty was a little bit nerve wracking, but overall I'd like to think that it felt pretty good. And then on the way out after it was over, I remember feeling pretty confident, like super confident that it went well. I really connected with all the Trump supporters there in such a way that we took selfies after, I think, and we were all just chatting and talking and it was a cool experience.
- [02:46]
Interviewer
Oh great. Yeah, there was a camaraderie. There were several times during the episode where you kind of just applauded or commended whoever was in the center with you for making a good argument. So, yeah, I want to dive into your first claim and then we can watch the first clip. But just to refresh your memory, the first clip I want to react to is in response to your first claim, which was there's a rise of fascism happening in your generation. Something roughly along those lines. Before we watch the clip, do you feel like this is unique to your generation, which, you know, Gen Z, this, this kind of exposure to fascistic ideology?
- [03:29]
Adam
I think it's happening across generations, but the way it's manifesting in my generation is unique. So like the week before we recorded this, there was a new group chat, there's a new article about the Young Republican group chat where a bunch of Republicans like 20 to 30 years of age were saying uniquely heinous far right stuff about gas chambers and all of that. So it was at the top of mind because the Griper movement has been, you know, talk about a lot lately. I think that there's a lot of fascistic elements that have manifested throughout all generations. I'm not even saying people are fascists. I just think like the denying of elections or the worship of one person. But I think that in my generation it is manifesting in unique ways. But I guess that one of the counters somebody could have come up with is, hey, it's not just in our generation, it's all generations. That would have actually been a pretty good counter. Like, yeah, you're right.
- [04:20]
Interviewer
Okay, so that cues up perfectly what we're going to watch. So let me share this clip with you. This is you debating Sarah gas chamber.
- [04:29]
Conservative Commentator
The difference is that young leftists genuinely worshiped the murderer of Charlie Kirk and Luigi Mangione, who are people committing genuine acts of violence and they genuinely condone that. So that's the big difference. Because, I mean, I saw Literally graffiti on college campuses saying, kill all Charlie Kirks. They are inciting violence. And that is a totally, like, normalized thing to say to, like, celebrate the fact. And that serious. And the political group chat was a joke, and you know that.
- [04:54]
Adam
Okay, so your concession is that, you know, people talk like fascists in private sometimes, but you're worried that leftists are using increasingly violent rhetoric like the people.
- [05:01]
That you were talking about.
- [05:02]
Luigi Mangioni supports.
- [05:03]
Conservative Commentator
One thing is serious and one thing is a gender.
- [05:04]
Adam
Okay, I want to ask you one thing. Did one Democratic politician support what Luigi did? Can you name any actual Democratic politician?
- [05:10]
Conservative Commentator
No, but it doesn't matter.
- [05:11]
Adam
So on the other side, you're talking.
- [05:13]
Conservative Commentator
About the rise in the generation. You're not talking about politicians?
- [05:16]
Adam
No, no, no.
- [05:16]
I am talking about politicians as well. So on the other side.
- [05:19]
Conservative Commentator
Oh, now you're. No, you're.
- [05:20]
Adam
No, no, no.
- [05:20]
Let me, let me clarify.
- [05:21]
Conservative Commentator
What about young leftists? What about the violence that young leftists.
- [05:25]
Adam
Let me clarify very, very quickly. So you're trying to point to young leftists on the left, but on the right there are politicians in power, people like Stephen Miller, who says the Democratic Party is a domestic extremist organization. Caroline Levitt just the other day, as I said, said that the entire base is Hamas terrorists and criminals. So when you have people in power on the right. Wait, wait, wait. They're using this rhetoric and normalizing it that goes downstream.
- [05:48]
Conservative Commentator
And you have left wing media like MSNBC cheering backstage when Charlie Kirk was murder.
- [05:52]
Adam
You think people are being murdered because of msnbc? You think MSNBC is radical? Yes, I do. You think MSNBC is radical?
- [05:58]
Conservative Commentator
Absolutely.
- [05:59]
Adam
What do you think is radicalizing more people? Nick Fuentes or msnbc?
- [06:02]
Conservative Commentator
Probably msnbc.
- [06:03]
Adam
Really?
- [06:04]
More so than Nick Fuentes. I hear someone laughing behind me and that's kind of.
- [06:08]
It's interesting because a lot of times they return to the idea that MSNBC or the Democratic Party was radicalizing people. And I guess the broader point in this segment that I was trying to get towards is which side it comes from in a top down manner. So every time I see people in power on the right talking about the Democratic Party, they're using incredibly incendiary rhetoric, whether it's Stephen Miller or Caroline Levitt. And then when I see people in power on the left, I feel like they're always more conciliatory. So after Charlie Kirk died, every single politician unanimously was trying to tone things down. When, when something happens like that, I just see left wing politicians operating in a different way. Now people in our generation on the left do hold sometimes extremist views, but I just don't see it manifesting in the same way. Like, the difference would be the people that are extreme on the left were protesting outside of the dnc, but the people that are extreme on the right are inside the RNC on a daily basis. They're inside the Turning Point USA floor. Yeah.
- [07:13]
Interviewer
And this. This argument came up multiple times. We kind of circled back to this throughout the episode. And just to kind of repeat back what I'm hearing from you, you concede there are cultural elements of extremism that we see on the left, but you're saying those aren't representative of political leadership on that side. But on the right, we have extreme sentiments being expressed by people who hold much more power. And, I mean, this isn't necessarily political extremism, but the recent Rob Reiner tweet does support that argument to some degree. People celebrated when Charlie Kirk died, but they weren't. It wasn't major politicians, but they went on social media and did that. But then you have this famous director die in a horrifying way, and you have the President of the United States tweeting an incredibly bizarre kind of mocking message about it from the official POTUS account. Does that support and sort of reinforce what you're trying to express?
- [08:25]
Adam
Yeah, that happened, like, two months after we film. But that would have been the prime example at the moment, of course, is that the President of the United States was. I mean, like, people on Twitter in real time had their argument undercut. So after Rob Reiner was killed, which was tragic, the. For the next 12 hours, all the right wingers are patting themselves on the back in a masturbatory way saying, like, look. Look how good we are. We're not going to make fun of him. And then Trump came out and swooped that entire argument under the rug by.
- [08:51]
Interviewer
Just saying it shatters the argument.
- [08:53]
Adam
It shatters the entire argument. So, like, yeah, of course there's going to be extreme elements of the left, but when I see the rise of this sort of nihilistic, fascistic wing, especially of the Nick Fuentes gripers, I mean, I. Some people in that room have tweeted some crazy far right shit before. So it's like, it's crazy that they're representatives trying to say that there is not a far right swing when I've seen people tweet, like, some crazy shit.
- [09:19]
Interviewer
Yeah. If we were to rewind to, you know, the. Your concession of, like, you know, the Luigi Mangioni sort of fan base that it does exist on the left, or, you know, even some of the more extreme things expressed by someone like Hasan Piker or the people who celebrated Charlie Kirk and that catch fascist engraving that was on the bullet. How concerned are you about those symptoms of radical politics on the left?
- [09:49]
Adam
It concerns me. I push back on that type of rhetoric all the time in my own fan base. I think it's important for leaders on the left to have moral clarity about all of this at all times. So when I saw people celebrating Charlie Kirk's death or saying they're like, spit on the on the new change my mind. I'm like, no, no, no, guys. This is America. This is a democracy. I try to have moral clarity about violence. It does concern me. But again, it just the same, it doesn't manifest institutionally like it does on the right. It reminds me of this clip from the Quinta's where he said, phase one is complete. We've normalized our rhetoric. Phase one is complete. I'm on Tucker Carlson now. We go to phase two, which is getting all of our gripers to hide their power level and infiltrate all of the institutions like the Young Republican group chat and. And eventually in 10 years, we take our mask off and then we, like, push our ideology. I don't see that same type of institutional push from the Hassan Pikers of the left or the people in the left who think that Luigi Mangioni is really, really sexy and are writing him love letters or whatever. Like, yeah, that's some weird, weird stuff. And obviously you shouldn't idolize Luigi Mangione. I will always be pushing against any sort of thing that, like, weakens the social cohesion of America in that way. But I just don't know if I see it manifesting in the same way on the left.
- [11:06]
Interviewer
I think they are kind of two different beasts. I would agree with you there on the Nick Fuentes of it all. You kind of have the Ben Shapiro approach and the maybe J.D. vance approach. Like, J.D. vance is trying to be a unifier. He's trying to downplay conflict. He said some pretty. He kind of had some apologetic things to say about the group chat that we're discussing. Whereas Ben Shapiro has been surprisingly aggressive towards condemning that type of rhetoric and that faction of the right. And he thinks it's kind of an existential risk to the political ambitions of the right. What do you think about that divide? Who do you think has the right approach? I guess from a political standpoint, I.
- [11:49]
Adam
Think that Ben Shapiro's moral clarity approach Is right and it's necessary. I had a clip recently that went viral where I was on CNN and I was basically just saying it feels like right wing commentators were okay with any form of bigotry until it began to affect them personally. So Vivek Ramaswamy was okay with bigotry towards other forms of immigrants, gay people, trans people, women, Somalis, Haitians, any sort of minority. But right when the bigotry hits Indian Americans, Vivek Ramaswamy has a lot of moral clarity. Ben Shapiro was, okay, was, you know, blind to trans hatred in the Republican party for years. But. But then right when it hits like Jewish people, he calls it out as he should. I think that he should have moral clarity at the very, very beginning. There is one Republican representative, Randy Fine, he's like talking about Ilhan Omar and Zoran Mamdani, saying to deport them, calling them nasty names. But then he's jaw dropped, shocked when, whenever there's like anti Semitism within his wing of the party. So I do think Ben Shapiro is, is a lot closer to being right. He, he stands up on stage, he has moral clarity and listen, Ben Shapiro is somebody who has pushed back on anti Semitism and bigotry of all forms for many, many years. So Ben Shapiro is actually an example of someone who I think has done a good job of having moral clarity. J.D. vance is playing this weird game where he won't outright condemn the groipers and he's kind of softly playing defense for the gripers, but it's not gonna manifest. It's not gonna be good. He's got a wife who is Indian American and there's a lot of Indian American hatred that is boiling up within the movement, within a lot of young far right people. So I think J.D. vance needs to be more like Ben Shapiro and have some moral clarity now. Like go on stage now and say, hey, all of this is not welcome in the movement. When he took the stage at Amfest, he was really like soft about it. He would not take a clear stance.
- [13:44]
Interviewer
Yeah. So you're of the mindset both sides should take up the task of policing their extremists, you know, or doing. Cleaning up the extremists internally. Yeah, no, it's, it's very bizarre to witness that happening because it has felt like that was a reckoning that was gonna happen on the right for some time. And then, you know, they have like the. What's his name? Clavicular of it all, saying, you know, he would vote for Gavin Newsom over J.D. vance. Purely off of looks. It's a strange, strange strand of politics going on there.
- [14:17]
Adam
He mogs him 10 out of 10 times. Yeah.
- [14:21]
Interviewer
Okay, so I'm going to move on to the next clip. This is in the context of, I think, your second claim, which was economics. This was an exchange you had with Martin.
- [14:33]
Adam
You.
- [14:33]
Interviewer
You called Martin back, but he kind of gets you tongue tied. And I want to give you an opportunity to complete your thoughts there.
- [14:41]
Martin
The left always speaks in these, like, just, you know, abstracts. Like, that's actually like, what are the barriers?
- [14:46]
Adam
The increased barriers are when people are vulnerable and already working part time and then you cut them of Medicaid. Yes, people can get Medicaid with this, but the problem is when 18,000 people, like in Arkansas are kicked off of their Medicare part time.
- [14:58]
No, they.
- [14:58]
The 18,000 people were kicked off of their Medicaid because they couldn't get access to it. What happens then is that they have to dig into their social safety. Dig into their.
- [15:06]
Martin
How they not get access then?
- [15:08]
Adam
Because the barriers are increased.
- [15:10]
Interviewer
What are the barriers?
- [15:10]
Martin
The only barrier you listed, the only barrier we talked about is work requirements, and that's working 20 hours a week.
- [15:15]
Adam
Yeah, but it's.
- [15:16]
The work requirements increasing is just. Yeah, it's not. So, wait, can you concede?
- [15:21]
Interviewer
So.
- [15:21]
Martin
So we agree. Work requirements are a good thing.
- [15:23]
Interviewer
So what were you trying to express to Martin? What are, what are the barriers that are preventing people from accessing their Medicare?
- [15:31]
Adam
He got me there. It's essentially just increased paperwork or increased. It's just increased paperwork. That's all it is. That's what I was trying to illustrate. That's what they add, which makes it a little bit harder. And I guess I should have had, you know, a more fleshed out way of explaining that.
- [15:49]
Interviewer
You call him out and you kind of congratulate him. Hey, you got me there. Good job. And you actually called Martin back in to the center at the end of the.
- [15:57]
Adam
It was our final debate.
- [15:58]
Interviewer
Yeah. How has there been kind of an evolution in your debating style because you've come of age during the Trump era, during the COVID era, kind of a politically tumultuous time. Have you had to learn how to admit when you're wrong or just admit when somebody has a stronger argument than you?
- [16:20]
Adam
Yeah, of course. I mean, there's. I'm young, so as a function of my age, I don't know everything at every single moment. And that's usually why, when I'm going into these CNN debates, for example, or the Jubilee debates, I prep super super hard. So the reason I entered debate in the first place was actually because I wanted to have good faith conversations at Trump rallies. I saw liberals going to Trump rallies and their goal was to be as condescending as possible. It was like, how much of an asshole can I be to this person and how dumb can I make this person look? So I started going to the Trump rallies and I would have these decent, you know, actually good hearted conversations with Trump supporters and we would reach some sort of middle ground. And a lot of times I would learn something new just as a function of my age. I would be talking to someone who's like, you know, 47 years old and I flew out from Indiana to Pennsylvania to meet them or to go to this rally. I meet them, I have a conversation, and it ends up teaching me some stuff. So there are a lot of times where I would be wrong. And yeah, in this situation, I just, I should have had a more fleshed out worldview. But yeah, I mean, it's never, it's never going to like, ruin me too much. There's going to be moments where, you know, you don't have the flawless argument.
- [17:29]
Interviewer
Mm, yeah, no, it's, it's always good to, it's just good to have that flexibility to not have to kind of triple and double down on everything, building off of kind of the economic arguments against Trump. I actually think this is where Trump has consistently had the most strength and has, I think, the left or more liberal leaning commentators and politicians have been outplayed by him. And I would even make that argument or I've even had that observation this past year. You know, going into the tariffs, we were told this is going to tank the economy. We did see the economy crash, you know, momentarily before surging to record highs. And I think currently we're, we're kind of like either at a record high for the S P500 or hovering near 1. And so, yeah, what do you think? And obviously time will tell, but what do you think, looking back on this past year, what should the left learn about Trump's economic policies and whether or not they have, you know, it's lived up to the fears that they've messaged.
- [18:46]
Adam
Yeah. So the Trump tariffs are sort of confusing because he made a bunch of announcements without actually placing the tariffs for like another 90 days. So you get kept getting caught up in these announcements, then loops where it would be like a 90 day delay. When he did do the tariffs, the stock market ended up tanking and I, the tariffs did not raise prices as much as liberals thought, we definitely overestimated the impact of tariffs. But Trump also kind of backed off of a lot of his worst tariffs. And even when beef started to get too expensive, he backed off tariffs there, conceding that it just raised the prices a bit too much. I think that liberals definitely have a lot to learn about messaging regarding the economy, especially after the Biden era, where the Biden administration's policy was essentially kind of just gaslighting, saying that everything is fine when it's not. Since then, I think the Trump admin has taken that strategy and, like, blown that out of the water by gaslighting even further. When there's a lot of inflation embedded in the economy, there is a lot of economic problems that people are still facing. I mean, youth unemployment has gone up a lot since Trump took office. Unemployment for black Americans is still skyrocketing. I just think that overall tariffs weren't the economic catastrophe that we claimed they were going to be. But I think people are still struggling a lot.
- [20:02]
Interviewer
Yeah, and we see that in, you know, some of the data around the labor market. And so there's for sure a lot of uncertainty. I don't think anybody's looking back at 2025. Well, that's not true. Some people are saying it's a golden age. It's actually kind of a tale of two predictions. Some people think we're. We're really facing a dire 2026 or a very recession like 2026. Some people think that the AI boom is just about to kick in. What do you anticipate going into 2026, do you think, like, we just have yet to feel the full impacts of this economic policy, or are you kind of unsure?
- [20:37]
Adam
Yeah. So tariffs are inflationary, and like I said, Trump placed a lot of tariffs and backed off a lot of them. But on August 7th, that's when the Liberation Day tariffs fully went into effect. And I do think it's going to cause more inflation. Inflation was going down when Trump took office. It went from 3%. Then it went down to like 2.4%. It was going down. Then sometime around his Liberation Day tariff, it started going back up. So if he can just back off some of the craziest economic policies, I think we'll be fine. We could stick the landing. But right now, the direction we're going is not good. It feels like we've been teetering for a while at this point, where unemployment is going up, where interest rates are kind of starting to go down. But after Trump bullied the Fed, I guess we'll see. But I'm not too bullish on the economy right now.
- [21:24]
Interviewer
Martin made the argument and I'll probably pull this clip into the edit. He made the argument that a lot of these tax cuts that are benefiting the wealthy in the big beautiful bill, they're there so that the wealthy has the necessary cash that they need to invest in AI, which he said would be exponentially, you know, it would have exponential growth for the U.S. economy. And so there's this big bet on the golden goose of AI. Do you think AI is going to deliver, you know, levels of prosperity that we're hearing?
- [21:56]
Adam
I am bullish on AI. I'm not sure if like a top marginal tax rate of 37 versus 38% for corporations would really affect their ability to invest in businesses like that. I think that AI is the future. I'm very bullish on it. If we can get it in the right hands. I've always said that if like the richest of the rich are manipulating it to hurt the working class people, then it's probably not going to lead to the best outcomes. But if we can get an AI that is leading to a more equitable future, leading to a future where people at the bottom can be more comfortable and it can, they can lead to like strength and safety nets, that would be great. I'm bullish on AI.
- [22:35]
Interviewer
So are you someone who is kind of more even handed on the billionaires who have kind of the keys to these AI engines or to the investments that are trying to build this AI future? Because I hear, this is something I hear a lot of different opinions on and I'm kind of wondering where the left is going to go, where the core messaging is going to go. Is it going to be more middle of the road? Like, yes, we need AI. We should be bullish, which I'm hearing from you, or are we going to be more in this kind of Bernie camp? Bernie, recently, you know, this was like, I think a matter of like a week or two ago said that we should put a moratorium on these data centers. You know, he really thinks AI is a risk of putting way too much wealth in the top, you know, 0.1% of the population. He thinks that's too much power. Where do you think the party is going? Because I kind of hear both things.
- [23:31]
Adam
I think that if the Democrats seed ground on AI and we just say we don't even want to touch this and cede it all over to the Republicans, they will take the most extreme position on AI and use it to hurt the working class and suppress people. So I think the Democrats need to maintain narrative control. Pete Buttigieg has come out with some pro AI platforms that regulated in a smart way, but also use it for growth and use it to help the economy and help the working class, help people who need it the most vulnerable Americans. I think AI can make health care way less expensive, can make teaching our kids way more effective. There was one school that was using AI to do an eight hour school day in like three hours. Now I'm not saying every single school should integrate that immediately, but over time I'd like to see AI make America more efficient. That could be the Democrats slogan, make America more efficient with AI or something like that. And I think that, yeah, it would just be a mistake to cede all of that ground to any other country or to the Republican Party as a whole. I think sometimes people on the far, far left can take too hard of stances on the billionaires. I think if billionaires are creating value and the value matches the billions that they're worth, that is totally fine. Now obviously some billionaires take it to the extremes. Wealth hoarding is not good when inequality is a big problem. But yeah, overall I think Democrats should be bullish on AI because if we're not, then the Republicans control the entire narrative on it.
- [24:54]
Interviewer
Okay, so moving on to your next claim. This was actually kind of a claim. I'm going to share a clip of a discussion you had with Kai and this was in regards to your claim around and I actually kind of want to talk about this. Children would be safer in a room with the average illegal immigrant than with Donald Trump. And so this is really kind of a character comparison. Why? And there was a lot of pushback just on kind of the framing of the prompt. Why did this feel like an important prompt to bring into this episode? Because I think it's kind of hard to defend.
- [25:28]
Adam
I think that that's why I wanted to choose it. It's hard to defend. But it also gets to the point that, you know, Dean Withers asked this question recently in one of your guys debates and I thought it was just perfect. He asked it perfectly because I talked to him a bit about this book before and the question is essentially would you let somebody cross the border in a legal manner if they had 20 plus sexual assault allegations and were convicted of 34 different felonies? So if you take the standard of the President of the United States and you try to apply it to any random immigrant, most conservatives would want those immigrants, that immigrant deported immediately. But you take it to the next step. If you take the average person who is here illegally, they do commit less crime than native born citizens. Every single study shows this, that they commit less crimes than the native born citizens. Trump commits more crimes than the average native born citizen. So I thought it would be a fun prompt to throw in there. I was going to do one about like Israel, I was going to do one about Gaza, I was going to do one about Ukraine and Palace or Ukraine and Russia. But all the foreign policy stuff seemed a little bit at the moment, just like it was moving fast. I didn't know how long this would take to edit, so I was like, let's just do a, let's do a prompt like this, a fun one.
- [26:44]
Interviewer
It had me kind of thinking because, well, here, let me play this clip of you and Kai and then we can kind of dig in more.
- [26:50]
Adam
The framing that you're saying, the framing.
- [26:52]
Kai
That you are providing, if we were to be statistically consistent, would say that with the average illegal immigrant, you are safer than with the average black American. Would you agree with that framing?
- [27:01]
Adam
With the average illegal immigrant, you're safer.
- [27:03]
With the average black.
- [27:04]
Yeah, yeah. Because black Americans commit crimes at a disproportionate rate. No, yeah, yeah, sure.
- [27:08]
Interviewer
Okay.
- [27:09]
Kai
So you understand how framing can significantly shape the way that we engage in these conversations. I don't think every black person is gonna kill me, but there is a disproportion around it.
- [27:16]
Adam
But the thing is, not immigrants. Listen, not every immigrant's going to abuse you. I 100%, every one of those thousand Donald Trumps will abuse their power dynamics. Absolutely.
- [27:24]
Interviewer
Okay, so, you know, I, I thought Kai had kind of a good retort, is like, look, we can frame this in a way where it's almost a little bit of a dog whistle for anti black policy or stereotypes against the black community. Like if we're kind of doing these character attacks, like your prompt or like your, your claim, you can kind of spin that in a way to push any narrative that you want. And this is something I have kind of seen, you know, done especially online for like the last 10 years. What did you think of kind of how Kyle was, was deconstructing your claim?
- [28:02]
Adam
I think it's a good point. But again, I don't think that every single black American will abuse power if they have it. But 10 out of 10 times Donald Trump has shown that whether it's him walking into dressing rooms or like grabbing women or doing this, he will abuse power so broadly, it's a pretty good flipping of my framing. I thought it was really, really clever. But at the end of the day, I just don't see immigrants or illegal immigrants abusing power dynamics in the same way that Trump repeatedly does. And that was a framing I kind of tried to bring it back to repeatedly as well, is that Donald Trump abuses power every single time. He has it 10 out of 10 times. And a lot of the minorities, a lot of like immigrants don't even have that power to abuse.
- [28:45]
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- [29:13]
Interviewer
Experian we're in this moment now where there's, you know, pushback on dei, there's pushback on Biden's border policy. In this episode, you said you didn't, you thought Biden did a sloppy job at the border. You wouldn't defend his administration on the border. What do you think the big lessons are that the left needs to learn about kind of how they approach identity politics? Because the border was both like a legislative issue, you know, a security issue for the country, but it also was very heavily laced with identity. And, you know, there was a lot of discussion about American character and how we treat immigrants. Do you think that sometimes liberals get too caught up in these emotional, broad characterizations of other people that kind of corners them into these indefensible stances on issues like being overly sympathetic towards immigrants, specifically illegal immigrants, and then having just a very, very weak border security policy.
- [30:13]
Adam
Yeah, overall, Biden's border policy really bothered me over the past year. Like after he dropped out of the race, the manifestation of the border and all of this, I really think hurt the Democratic Party's credibility nationally. And it's because he was weak. He should have earlier on taken a stance so that, you know, right wingers weren't able to go and fill the vacuum with the most far right stance possible. I think that there is a version of the Democratic Party that is more like what Obama would say about the border, where he had a very, very strong policy on the border. He wanted everybody to assimilate speak English. He thinks that you have to go through the proper procedures. But Biden just lost that for some reason and wasn't able to put his foot down. I think partially because he was too worried about the far left flank calling him racist or he was too worried of appeal appearing racist like Trump did. At the end of the day, the identity politics stuff has really bothered me too. It's got to stop in the Democratic Party. We've got to stop purity testing people or pushing people out of the coalition or finger wagging. That's not how you win over young men. And I think a lot of the race stuff too, also, like there's, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of very valid conversations to be had about redlining, about so many different things and systemic racism. But we can't always inject these academic conversations into the average person's daily life.
- [31:41]
Interviewer
Yeah. Do you worry that that has become too much of the, you know, the platform for the Democratic Party? Because it has felt to me, this is just something I'm kind of thinking out loud here, you know, the hesitance for Democratic candidates to take middle of the road stances on the border or transgender issues, such as transport, transgender athletes, not, you know, just transgender people altogether. There's always been a reluctance to take kind of a middle of the road stance, as though it might alienate so many voters to hurt their chances of winning. Do you think that the Democratic voters just, you know, they are really a pro dei, pro trans acceptance on almost unconditionally voting base? Because that's sort of how Democratic leadership has behaved, as though that that's what they believe their voters want and demand.
- [32:40]
Adam
Yeah, it's weird. It's like the Democratic leaders have been beholden to the farthest left activists who don't even really vote for, for us. So, like the people on the far right, like I was saying earlier, a lot of these far right people, at the end of the day, they'll fall in line and they'll vote for the Republican Party. So they technically are a part of the broad right coalition. But on the left, we have certain, like pro Palestine activists or transactors, people on the far, far left that are representing us and on online Twitter spaces that our politicians feel beholden to when that doesn't represent the broad base. Like the broad Democratic base wants trans rights. We want equality, but we're okay with at least having the conversation about trans people in sports. But there was a while there where it felt like that conversation was being shut down. Inside the party because people thought that was too extreme of a conversation to have or it was too bigoted to have. So I think that we should at least be willing to take stands on these topics and have moral clarity about them and stand up for minorities without always curtailing to the loudest online voices.
- [33:45]
Interviewer
And in a strange way, that, that has felt like the path, from my observation, that's led to someone like Stephen Miller being the enforcer of our current immigration policy. You know, I think most people, conservative or liberal, would probably, if they had a conversation with Stephen Miller, would find themselves seeing him as pretty far to the right or pretty extreme in what he thinks is appropriate levels of illegal immigration enforcement. And that, to a large extent, is what we're seeing executed right now. A very aggressive, growing ICE that is using technology as best it can to track people down. And even if it means separating families, I wonder if that is the result of. If you're extremely incompetent on an issue, you give the most extreme opponent, you kind of justify them. And it's. It's like, you know, Stephen Miller having the keys to ICE now feels as much a result of kind of radical views on the right as it does poor policy and enforcement.
- [34:59]
Adam
Yeah, like the Biden admin didn't have a clear stance and it created a vacuum so big that Stephen Miller was able to fill that vacuum. That's exactly how I see it. When you leave a vacuum and clarity on your side, you, like the American people, don't have that pushback. So then when there's no pushback on the left, the resistance just goes all the way off to the right. That's exactly how I see it.
- [35:20]
Interviewer
Who do you think? I ask a lot of people who are more left leaning on this show. Who do you think is the future voice in the Democratic Party, though, that can kind of inoculate the left from what we're discussing or who is kind of. Yeah, just having a fresh approach to issues.
- [35:40]
Adam
It's hard to tell. You know, I always say if you ask somebody this in 2005, after the Democrats lost, no one would have really said that Barack Obama is gonna be our next leading voice. Or if you asked the Republicans this in 2013, no one would have said that Donald Trump will be the next guiding voice. No one would have said that. So we may not know who it is. Most betting markets show AOC and Gavin Newsom as the current, like, next prediction leaders of the party. Andy Bashir, I think, is really good. He. He's got the juice right now. John Ossoff has got the juice. Pritzker, my state of Indy or Illinois, sorry. Pritzker is great. I think that we've got some great leaders. But right now, Newsom seems to be the one that's capturing the most attention of the public.
- [36:23]
Interviewer
But what do you think? Because this is just really interesting to me. The state of California, though, is so emblematic of kind of this being held hostage by the most, you know, the far left. Yeah, I think. And so it's unaffordable.
- [36:39]
Adam
And this is like the affordability election. It's the most unaffordable state. I. I asked this, too. I don't know. I don't know how he'll do on the national stage. Like, it's rough.
- [36:47]
Interviewer
Is there somebody you lean more towards, though, like, of the. If we're going AOC or Newsom, is there somebody you see yourself more aligned with? You could punt this, too.
- [36:58]
Adam
No, no. It's really hard. It's really hard because right now I just want someone to punch back. So when I see Newsom punching back, it makes me feel so satisfied, and it's cathartic. Right. But I don't know how he'll do on the national stage. Like, I genuinely don't know if he'll make a good national candidate due to the affordability issues and because he just looks like a California politician. He's like a slick back. But if he can prove that he's on the national stage, the best swinger, then great. I love AOC. But the problem with AOC is, you know how that one 2019 ACLU clip screwed Kamala over because she was like, trans people should have surgeries in prisons. I'm pretty sure AOC has, like, 20 different clips like that. And from, like, 2023, like, AOC is pretty far left, but AOC is not Kamala, and she's definitely not Hillary. She's got the juice. It's really hard to tell. It's really hard to tell. So I basically just did just punt your question because I don't know.
- [37:50]
Interviewer
You know? Yeah. Well, aoc, if you're listening to this, you should do an episode of Surrounded, because we'd love to have you. Okay. That kind of cues up the last clip that I want to react to with you. So this is where you called Merrick Garland a pussy.
- [38:08]
Adam
Do you see the double standards here?
- [38:09]
And no, you don't.
- [38:11]
Interviewer
Not.
- [38:11]
Martin
Not at all.
- [38:11]
Adam
Because it's that throughout this entire debate, you guys are able to draw connections. Even with Pam Bondi, you said that Biden. There's no actual proof of Biden asking Merrick Garland to do this, but the proof of Trump asking Pam Bondi to do this isn't.
- [38:22]
Martin
Again, proof is that Merrick Garland on day one did it after being appointed from Biden.
- [38:26]
Adam
He didn't. He slow walked it. He did not do it on day one. And Biden never asked him to do that. Because there is a clear Merrick Garland was a pussy. He was somebody who slow walked every single case. He was absolutely a pussy. I mean, if he was actually as strong as you guys thought he was, then Trump would probably be in jail for trying to overthrow the 2020 election right now.
- [38:41]
Martin
There was no crime there.
- [38:42]
Conservative Commentator
But time, time's out.
- [38:44]
Adam
Thanks so much.
- [38:46]
Good work, man. Definitely true. I think that, so this, this is a debate that I have all the time and it's whether or not Trump or Biden, it's basically if Trump weaponizing the DOJ was just tit for tat for Biden weaponizing the doj. It's kind of a debate that drives me crazy because Donald Trump posted on his True Social, hey, Pam, can you please, please, please get these three people? And then two out of those three people were indicted within like two weeks. Like Pam Bondi immediately went after them. And people say that Joe Biden did the same thing, that it's justified to weaponize your DOJ because Joe Biden did the same thing. But there's like no good example of Joe Biden doing that. And I guess the example they point to is Trump's trials. But Trump literally tried to like coup the government via January six in the fake elector scheme. And it still took Merrick Garland two years or a year and a half to even open that investigation. He slow walked the entire thing and then he ended up, it was too late. Trump ended up winning.
- [39:48]
Interviewer
Do you think it was a mistake to convict Trump, you know, of the felonies that he was convicted of?
- [39:54]
Adam
Yeah, it was pretty dumb. Yeah. And how come I think that if you're going to see, the thing is it wasn't some coordinated top down scheme among a bunch of Democratic officials to indict Trump. So because of that, I can't just ask them. Like there's not actually a reality where we can just pick which case we want to go first. These were actual things that he did. But I think that if there were like a broad strategy and we were to look at each one, when you're going to go and try to make a case to the public against a former president and Say that a former president did something bad. Ideally, you want to lead with your best evidence. In your best case, you want to have put your best foot forward. And again, it's not like Letitia James and Jack Smith were actually coordinating. So there's no way for them to, like, think about it. There was no strategy. They're just trying to apply the law. But ideally, we have the January six case first, and we're making the case to the public, like, hey, this dude literally tried a fake elector scheme and it's really bad. And he's on phone. On the phone saying that he wants these votes. Like, I think that would be way more compelling. And we probably wouldn't have a second Trump term if we actually made that compelling case. But instead, it was like 34 counts of falsifying business records with the intense of covering up another crime. How do you even explain that to the average person? I don't know.
- [41:15]
Interviewer
Yeah, January 6th is really strange to me, because I do, I agree with you. If there was one thing that stood out from Trump's first presidency, I mean, January 6th was for sure it. Do you really think, though, that there was a convictable crime, like a winnable case there?
- [41:33]
Adam
Yeah.
- [41:33]
Jack Smith has been coming out for the past few weeks, and he said with certainty. He is so certain they would have gotten a conviction, especially on the elector scheme. The fake elector scheme was crazy. I mean, it was. They did, like, a RICO charge against Rudy Giuliani and everyone. Yeah, that was some pretty crazy shit.
- [41:51]
Interviewer
So that was, you know, an attempt, like, very kind of aggressive attempts to engineer the election, prove that there was. Well, just to kind of change the outcome, essentially.
- [42:02]
Adam
Yeah. Like, I don't even think the biggest. Like, the biggest concerning thing about January six isn't just the fact that those idiots stormed the Capitol. Right. Trump, around that time was manufacturing claims of fake fraud. Then in seven different swing states, he had seven different electors ready. Like, he had electors ready to forge their signature, go in the Capitol and claim that Trump was the winner of all seven swing states. He was going to, with brute force, rig the election, and it didn't work. And there should have been consequences for sure.
- [42:35]
Interviewer
Do you think he'll give up power peacefully as this term winds down?
- [42:42]
Adam
I think so. I think he'll be pretty old. Yeah. I don't think he's going for a third term. I think he. I think him and Steve Bannon use that as a troll a lot, because Steve Bannon is the master of throwing shit at the wall to, like, scare the enemies And Steve Bannon is always the one that's harping on the Trump third term thing. So I think he's just doing it to distract. That's my theory.
- [43:01]
Interviewer
So then we get into kind of like the Merrick Garland was a pussy kind of argument, which is, you know, we have these Steve Bannons on the right, these Donald Trumps, these, these very aggressive, not held to norm type personalities that have really become the, the, the leading minds on the right, and they have crafted this unbelievable political ascent. What you're kind of arguing is like, the left needs to play, you know, you need to fight fire with fire. You need to play hardball to, to compete. But then what I'm also kind of hearing from you, and what I also feel sometimes in my own discussions is that the left needs to appeal more to centrists and not be as extreme. And so there, there's kind of these contradicting things. You know, Merrick Garland is somebody who's kind of a very processed guy. He's not extreme by nature. He was a centrist. And so he was kind of doing what he thought was the least lawfare like approach. But then, you know, that doesn't really win against the Trumps of the world. But if you play by Trump's rules, do you sort of lose part of your soul in the process? Do you feel that tension?
- [44:22]
Adam
Definitely. And I think that Biden and Merrick Garland were just sort of misreading the moment as a return to normalcy, status quo moment. And that's not where the American people are, that's not where centrists were either. They weren't at a return to normalcy, status quo moments because they immediately ended up reelecting Trump right after who ended up choosing Pam Bondi, which is like the polar opposite of Merrick Garland in terms of process and prestige and having a steady hand. There's a quote where it's like, like norms in a democracy work a lot like consent in a relationship. You, you can't have meaningful consent if only one side is engaging consensually. That's not consent. And you can't have meaningful norms if only one side is engaging in the norms. So we can't just continue to go high while they break process over and over and over. I think we have to, at the very least, match the energy of Republicans.
- [45:14]
Interviewer
Yeah, I could see that. And yeah, I will say this, going into kind of this next presidential election cycle, which I admit I look forward to because I'm very engaged in politics, but I know a lot of people are. They're over it. They really don't want to think about politics for another two years. This is kind of the biggest question on my mind is where does the character of Democrats go? You know, more towards this Bernie messaging, more towards this Buddha judge messaging and. And who tries to fill the big shoes of Donald Trump if he truly does step back? Do you think J.D. vance has the sauce not to fill Trump's shoes?
- [45:55]
Adam
I don't think anyone can fill Trump's shoes right now. J.D. vance already sees cracks in the coalition because the gripers hate him. Clavicular thinks he gets mogged to death by Newsom. I don't think anyone can.
- [46:07]
It's going to be interesting.
- [46:08]
We're already seeing the cracks in the MAGA coalition and does JD Vance take the pro Israel position? Does he split from it? Does he go super anti Israel? It's gonna be, it's gonna be interesting to see.
- [46:19]
Interviewer
Definitely will. Okay, so going into a new year before we wrap up, Adam, what I want to give you the opportunity. What are your biggest predictions for 2026?
- [46:31]
Adam
Damn. I think that we're going to see a blue wave. I think that more Jubilee episodes will come out. More debate shows will launch. I'm going to be launching a debate show in 2026. I think it's going to be a good year for democracy. It's going to be tumultuous, of course, because the Trump admin is still in power. They're going to do anything they can to cling on before the midterms come, but we're going to keep pushing.
- [46:54]
Interviewer
Well, thank you Adam so much for, for doing a Surrounded follow up.
- [46:58]
Adam
Thank you for having me on.
- [46:58]
Interviewer
If you want to see more follow up episodes of Surrounded, be sure to like leave us a positive review. Comment if you're watching the video on YouTube, you can subscribe to Tubli, Jubilee's second channel. You can also subscribe to Jubilee to see full Surrounded episodes. But however you want to support us, just thank you so much for listening. Remember, you could be wrong, so could I. Keep your mind open until next time.