Adam Mockler Charts The Path Forward For Democrats

Summary

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Summary: The Chris Cuomo Project

Episode: Adam Mockler Charts The Path Forward For Democrats

Date: September 30, 2025
Host: Chris Cuomo
Guest: Adam Mockler

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Episode Overview

Chris Cuomo sits down with Adam Mockler, a young liberal influencer with a massive online following, to dissect the current and future strategies for Democrats and left-leaning movements in America. Their conversation explores the pitfalls of grievance-driven politics, the challenge of engaging young men, the influence of social media, and the necessity for Democrats to offer concrete solutions beyond simply opposing MAGA.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Goals and Identity of the Left

02:00

• Mockler clarifies he sees himself as a liberal, not a leftist

  "I call myself more of a liberal, not really a leftist... The goal should be to maximize the happiness and well-being of everybody in America..." — Adam Mockler

02:34

• Cuomo identifies the imperative: Democrats must defeat the opposition to win power, but at what cost?

  “To win elections, you have to make the other side lose. That is the easiest path to victory. That’s why gerrymandering is such a big thing...” — Chris Cuomo

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Attention Economy and Negative Messaging

03:25–05:05

• Mockler argues that messaging built around grievance (‘Trump sucks’) is the dominant paradigm but recognizes its limitations

  “Our whole strategy was sort of, Trump sucks, but you're saying that needs to be matched with a more forward-looking vision, like from the Obama era.” — Adam Mockler

• Cuomo warns that mimicking MAGA’s anger only perpetuates the problem

  “I think Trump sucks is MAGA. I think Trump sucks is all grievance, all outrage... I am your retribution, I am your vengeance.” — Chris Cuomo

• On Newsom’s political style:

  “Newsom’s popularity, to me, is a yellow flag... he’s dominating the attention economy because he realized that’s what Trump’s been doing.” — Adam Mockler (04:30)

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The Risks—and Power—of Social Media Amplification

05:05–09:17

• Cuomo dissects how social media companies shape political discourse for profit, amplifying outrage and negativity

  “I don’t know what Mockler’s creating... but I’m taking what he’s creating and I’m using it and I’m amplifying it and I’m drowning out other voices... and as soon as you do that, there should be a responsibility that has to change.” — Chris Cuomo (06:58)

• Mockler concedes the value of attention, but Cuomo critiques clickbait tactics

  “Now it's straight clickbait with these people when they go digital... I'm going to follow you around and try and get you into a conflict.” — Chris Cuomo (09:17)
  “What I want to see from Newsom is: mock Trump, fine. Get you clicks... But then that second piece... bring a case, run on a platform where there will be no more gerrymandering...” — Chris Cuomo (10:03)

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Leadership, Substance, and Messaging

12:13–14:11

• Cuomo urges the left to connect with the "many," not just the online "few"

  “Your life on digital media, you are playing to the few, not the many... The many want reasonable, balanced, sane. They don’t want boring... Can you actually do anything that will make something that I care about better?” — Chris Cuomo (12:13)

• Discussion on faith and the separation of church and state

  “The wall between church and state matters, for now, it is holding. But that is only if people keep advocating and fight the good fight.” — Chris Cuomo (14:11)

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Mockler’s Personal Story & the Rise of Young Influencers

15:27–17:40

• Mockler details his upbringing (Syrian heritage, young parents), early YouTube start, and method of engaging Trump supporters in honest debate

  “I went to a Trump rally two states over and I debated the people there in a very respectful way... My whole thing was, ‘Hey, you think that Trump is putting America first, but I would say funding Ukraine is putting America first.’” — Adam Mockler (16:50)

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The Midas Touch Network and Partisan Media

17:40–21:02

• Midas Touch has succeeded by serving a previously unaddressed liberal/pro-democracy audience, adopting tactics that rival Fox News in loyalty and messaging

  “They’re speaking to a broad audience that wasn’t spoken to for a while... Midas Touch decided to essentially create something for our base, for a pro-democracy base...” — Adam Mockler (18:08)

• Cuomo and Mockler discuss how both tribal loyalty and combative rhetoric are shaping new media ecosystems

  “Anybody who plays to a side is going to kick my ass in numbers.” — Chris Cuomo (22:35)

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Critique of Binary Party Systems and the Need for Authenticity

23:09–24:57

• Cuomo expresses his disdain for “the game”—the binary trap of U.S. politics

  “I really believe the parties are the problem... I hate the game.” — Chris Cuomo (23:09)

• Mockler pushes back, noting both sides morph into what they oppose

  “It seems like both sides begin to morph into the other side.” — Adam Mockler (24:12)

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Authentic Strength vs. Outrage Politics

26:20–38:19

• Cuomo and Mockler discuss the need for Democrats to be seen as tough, but not out of anger—"sweet strength" versus performative bravado

  “The tough motherfucker is not the guy who says he wants to beat your ass. It is the guy who no one wants to try to beat his ass.” — Chris Cuomo (37:32)

• Young liberal men report feeling suffocated by risk-averse, finger-wagging Democratic Party culture

  “The Democratic Party has just gotten suffocating... I’ve got so many young men who are liberals who... just feel suffocated by the overall party.” — Adam Mockler (26:23)

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Algorithmic Radicalization and Young Men

48:54–52:37

• Mockler describes algorithm-driven radicalization, particularly for young men, and how they fall into right-wing content pipelines

  “There’s this theory that I have called the pipeline to volume theory in the algorithm... a lot of young men... get sucked down this Andrew Tate pipeline... or other radicalization.” — Adam Mockler (29:05, expanded at 50:15)

• Cuomo observes Democrats failed to create positive spaces for young men, leaving them alienated and villainized

  “Young men are getting crushed... Because we’ve made it that way. They are not a priority except in terms of villainizing. And it has worked.” — Chris Cuomo (52:03)

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How to Debate Ideas after Political Violence

33:05–35:09, 54:05–55:33

• Cuomo draws a sharp line: separate the man from the message, and never equivocate on political violence

  “When you start killing for ideas, the ideas will die. … There cannot be a comma or a but anywhere near the murder part.” — Chris Cuomo (33:36, 54:05)

• Advocates debating actual ideas after time, not tying critiques to moments of tragedy

  “If you don’t like his beliefs, have better beliefs. Don’t kill him for his. Let’s have the debate... That’s the way to do it.” — Chris Cuomo (54:52, 55:33)

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The Path Forward: Solutions Over Grievance

39:22–44:03

• Cuomo pushes the need for specific policy plans and pragmatic fixes, especially on affordability and immigration, urging Democrats to focus on signal over noise

  “The game is not which one of us is worse... Change the game. Don’t let the game change you. ... I can fix the affordability problem and not by giving everybody free shit.” — Chris Cuomo (39:22)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You lefties have a tendency to beat us over the head with your intelligence and there comes off as an arrogance... Even if you’re right.” — Chris Cuomo (01:31)
• “As long as it’s getting viewed... Look, there are people now... when they go digital... it’s straight clickbait.” — Chris Cuomo (09:17)
• “There is a lie in that, by the way... Who said moving back home and having multi-generational families is a bad thing?” — Chris Cuomo (47:34)
• “The conversation is the cure, and I’m always welcome to have it with you.” — Chris Cuomo (57:30)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:00 — Mockler on goals and personal political identity
• 04:30 — Newsom, Trump, and the attention economy
• 06:58 — The role of social media amplification and responsibility
• 12:13 — Cuomo on the difference between “the many” and “the few”
• 16:50 — Mockler’s backstory and debate style
• 18:08 — The success of the Midas Touch network
• 23:09 — Problems with the binary, party-driven system
• 24:12 — Both parties morphing into each other
• 37:32 — Cuomo on what authentic toughness means
• 39:22 — Cuomo urges Democrats to focus on solutions
• 50:15 — Mockler’s theory of algorithmic radicalization among young men
• 52:03 — Cuomo on the neglected struggles of young men
• 54:05 — How to handle political violence in discourse
• 57:01 — Mockler on the importance of respectful debate and moving beyond clickbait

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Final Takeaways

• Democrats face a fundamental strategic challenge: They must tap into real grievances and offer solutions, not simply mirror MAGA’s anger or strategy.
• Young people, especially men, feel left out by today’s Democratic Party and are susceptible to online radicalization due to both societal neglect and algorithmic incentives.
• The media landscape rewards outrage and division, making it harder for reasonable, solution-oriented politics to break through.
• Cuomo and Mockler agree on the importance of substantive debate, respectful engagement, and the need to build a politics focused on real-life issues like affordability, immigration, and social cohesion.

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Closing Sentiment

Chris Cuomo and Adam Mockler exemplify the potential of open, probing, and sometimes uncomfortable conversation as a means of progress—reminding listeners that only with real engagement (not just more noise) can American politics chart a better path forward.

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Transcript

[Chris Cuomo]

Is the best hope for liberals, the left, Democrats, anybody who wants MAGA to stop the new generation. Adam Mochler has millions of followers, huge reach all over social media, and he is making his mark. Is this the difference I decide to test Chris Cuomo here from the Chris Cuomo Project. Thank you for joining. I wanted to sit down with part of the tip of the spear, let's say, of the influencers who are really making an impact on the left, or Mockler would call himself a liberal. What's the difference? What are they trying to do? What do they believe is working for them? What isn't working for them? In my opinion, Time for conversation as a cure. What do you say? Let's get after it.

[Adam Mockler]

I think that in politics right now, like, Newsom only started to pop off when he started projecting this level of strength. Like, do you think that empathy. I think that's the Democratic Party trying to lean into being empathetic and sweet and soft. It's kind of burned us for the past decade.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Right.

[Chris Cuomo]

I think it's about how and I think it's the balance. And I think Newsom is resonating. Yes, but for the wrong reasons. And I totally love that we're jumping in midway because this is where Adam Mockler and I are. All right. I love your success.

[Adam Mockler]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Because you're young. Yeah, that's cool. And you're connecting with people your age and beyond. Yeah, that's great. But there's a thoughtfulness that is not just. You know, you lefties have a tendency to beat us over the head with your intelligence and there comes off as an arrogance and that turns people off. Even if you're right and we're talking now about what the left needs to be. All right, so let's take a step back and say, what's the goal? Like, I'll tell you how you should be if you tell me what you want. What do you want?

[Adam Mockler]

What is the goal for people on the left? Yeah, I'd say that first of all, I call myself more of a liberal, not really a leftist. I don't know if there's a distinction for you there, but I'm more of a liberal. I think the goal should be to maximize the happiness and well being of everybody in America by making sure they have a strong family, they have access to healthcare, access to things that people need in a society. So I'd say we can reverse engineer from just maximizing everyone's wellbeing, which is the pretty basic.

[Chris Cuomo]

Do you want to more positions of power in government?

[Adam Mockler]

More positions of power in government. I think that.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

So you want to win more elections. You want to win the midterms.

[Adam Mockler]

Of course, yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

So here's your problem or your challenge. Let's say to win elections, you have to make the other side lose.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

That is the easiest path to victory.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Right.

[Chris Cuomo]

That's why gerrymandering is such a big thing, because you limit the ability to lose. That's why you have an over 90% retention rate with an under 30% satisfaction rate. Right. That's the only time you get that no one stays where they are if everyone thinks you suck. Unless it's rigged. And it is.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

So if the straightest line in Mockler versus Cuomo.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Is Cuomo sucks, I think that that's how you win elections. The problem is that's not a liberal at their best, that is an anti liberal at their best.

[Adam Mockler]

So you're saying that. So I get what you're saying, but our whole strategy was sort of, Trump sucks, but you're saying that needs to be matched with a more forward looking vision, like from the Obama era.

[Chris Cuomo]

I think Trump sucks is maga. I think Trump sucks is all grievance, all outrage leaning into it.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

And I am your retribution. I am your vengeance. That famous line from the movie Snatch where the guy says, do you know what nemesis means? It is the righteous infliction of retribution as manifested by an appropriate agent. In this case, an horrible cunt. Me. That's what Trump is. He is the nemesis of the left. He is going to punish all the people in MAG that MAGA wants punished.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

I see the reaction to that becoming more like that. Newsom's popularity, to me, is a yellow flag. Maybe not a red flag, but a yellow flag.

[Adam Mockler]

But it worked for Trump. He attacked the enemy. He was able to consolidate power off of, you know, talking to people's grievances, saying, you're not happy with the system, you're not happy with what's happening. And. And with Newsom. The whole framework I've been using is the attention economy. That Newsom is dominating the attention economy because he realized that's what Trump's been doing for the past decade. And you see Newsom out there getting millions and millions of views on these all caps, tweets. If he wouldn't have tweeted it in that format, it would have gotten way less views. So what I think Newsom's doing is, number one, playing to the grievances of the party, saying, hey, we should go after, like, the opponents. But Two, just trying to dominate attention so we can drive the narrative for Prop 50.

[Chris Cuomo]

Look, for you, that's enough. If you're getting gazillions of views and getting paid and getting reach and getting your eyes out there, that's fine. But you're not a leader. You're not elected to get something done. Yeah, that's the space. No one's getting elected to do anything except stop the other side. In that, I believe there is opportunity. Okay, we've been here before. It's louder because of social media. And we. We have this weird thing going on right now, which I think will change in the not too distant future. What is it? Fox News and Newsmax almost got sued out of existence because they fill in the strong language. You want misinformation about Smartmatic. Okay, they lied, they intentionally, this, whatever. They almost got sued out of existence. Right. They are a wastebasket fire compared to what social media did. With the same information they. Those companies get a pass. Why? Section 230. Why? Because I don't control Mockler. I just built the house. I built the house, I maintain the apartment. Mockler's coming in. I don't make the content the way Tucker Carlson did, and I don't buy that anymore. Why? Because I amplify Mockler. Because I know with my technology how to pick up on what he's saying and whether or not it will resonate. And what is the resonation that I want? Oh, the resonation I want is outrage, is grievance, is negativity. Why? Because it sells best. It gets me the best click through. And that's where I put my ads. So I don't know what Mothler's creating. Okay. But I'm taking what he's creating and I'm using it and I'm amplifying it and I'm drowning out other voices and I'm prioritizing yours. And I'm making a trend and I'm taking shorts of it. Now, with software that you don't even know about, and I'm making smaller clips of it.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Now, am I a creator? I say yes. And if you're making money off it and you're amplifying certain things and not others, you're making choices of what creation there is and what there isn't. And as soon as you do that, there should be a responsibility that has to change. That's the problem with social media, is that you can say, I gotta tell you, I don't think that this Tylenol research that just came out from Harvard is dispositive. Right. And you get drowned out by people saying, never take Tylenol again. They've been killing us the whole time. We knew it. That needs to change. So in the information economy, as you understand it and benefit from it, you're right about Newsom and you're right about what the opposition to MAGA needs to be.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

However, I don't think that that's the only standard and I don't think it wins elections for Democrats. I don't think becoming what beat you gets you where you want to be. And I am not being high minded or overly virtuous.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

I get being pragmatic.

[Adam Mockler]

I get what you're saying, that you can't just become what beats you. But at some points, before having to change the game, like Newsom can hopefully change the game so he doesn't have to play like this, but you have to play the game that Trump is playing, and that is attention. I think that there's a second part to what Newsom was doing beyond driving the attention and getting these views. He, he was driving a narrative about Prop 50 that he's trying to push, which is their effort to redistrict in proportion to what Texas is doing. Right. So he's been using this. I think this entire stunt has been to push attention towards Prop 50 and it seems pretty brilliant. We now have like millions of views on tweets about Prop 50 that wouldn't have those views otherwise.

[Chris Cuomo]

The views, though, are a.

[Adam Mockler]

But it's a. It's a double edged sword.

[Chris Cuomo]

It is. Because, look, if I get a lot of views by showing how small my junk is, are those good views? No, because that's not really something that I probably am gonna benefit from in the long haul. I think that we've lost the plot on that. It's like as long as it's getting viewed. Look, there are people now, I watch them who used to be pretty, trying to do it the right way in terms of their craft of journalism writ large. Okay. Journalism is a broad, broad term. Not really narrow, just the facts.

[Adam Mockler]

Right.

[Chris Cuomo]

There's more to journalism than that. There always has been. And now it's straight clickbait with these people when they go digital.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yep.

[Chris Cuomo]

I'm going to follow you around and try and get you into a conflict. Right. Hi. A lot of people think you're losing it. Adam.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

What are you.

[Adam Mockler]

I'm not losing it.

[Chris Cuomo]

Oh, wait, are you attacking me?

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Adam Mockler]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Why are you attacking me? You know, and now it gets clicked, click.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Click, click, click, click, click.

[Chris Cuomo]

And that is, I believe, a mistake. I think it's playing into a problem, but it is effective. What I want to see from Newsom is mock Trump. Fine. Get you clicks, information economy. Okay, that works. All right, fine. But then that second piece.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Instead, do this.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

Instead I'm doing Prop 50 because I have to.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

But what I want to do is I want to change the rules. And we're also bringing a case and we're doing this. And I want to run on this kind of platform where there will be no more gerrymandering. It will be done by. By an independent panel of non elected officials who will figure it out for the whole fucking country. Yeah, they'll figure it out and both sides will put people on that fucking thing. And I'm going to incentivize them. They're going to get a million dollars each to deliver the report. They're going to get $10 million each though, if they deliver this much time and get it done. That's the second piece that's better. That's not just good for you for saying that Trump is a miserable bastard who right after Erica Kirk says the one decent thing that's come out of Charlie's murder, which is her saying, I'm gonna forgive this guy. Not just cuz it's a statement of my faith, but it's the only way to relieve myself of the burden of how much I hate this guy for what he did. Which was a really strong thing to say. He comes out and he says, not me. Sorry. I hate my opponents. Hate them. To me saying, wow, what an asshole. What a stupid thing to say in that moment. Even if he was joking, which I think he was, but still wrong time, wrong joke. That's not enough for me.

[Adam Mockler]

Of course.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

And I think it's why you guys lost. I don't think for all the things about Kamala Harris. Yes, yes. You got beat by a bad game. She got beat down and made to seem less than she is. I think that's true. Did she contribute to it? Yes. But I get why your guys takeaway was what it was. But I also believe with the benefit of having lived your past.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah, okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

Which is a little different than studying the past. Right. Why did my father win when he wasn't supposed to? Why did Obama win when he wasn't supposed to against Hillary? Why didn't Bernie win? Because of better. The majority of this country remember that too.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Your life on digital media, you are playing to the few, not the Many. Even if you had 10 million, okay, 10 million every week. You had Rogan's audience. He's still playing to the few, not the many. The many want reasonable. They want balanced. They want sane. They don't want boring. That was a mistake describing it that way. Can you actually do anything that will make something that I care about better? One. Are you willing to say no and not just blame somebody else, but help me understand why that is and what would have to change? And if the answer is yes, what does it look like? Tell me, because then I don't give a fuck what he's saying. That usually makes me laugh, because this. Wait, hold on. Shut up for a second. This actually matters. That's the space. That's the space. The Chris Cuomo Project is brought to you by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Now, this is an important one, okay? I choose faith. I choose it. I do not choose to put it on you, okay? And for those of us who believe in the key aspect of the First Amendment, which is that we do not have institutionalized religion as part of the state, okay? The Freedom From Religion foundation just helped stop two big pushes to put religion into public schools. You want to inculcate values, great. I think we need more of that. But religiosity? I think that's more the problem than the solution. In Texas, a federal judge blocked a law that would have required the Ten Commandments to hang in every public classroom. And in Arkansas, after another FFRF lawsuit, a judge ordered that Conway Schools in Arkansas immediately remove their 10 commandment posters. The rulings remind us public schools are for everyone.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay?

[Chris Cuomo]

For those of your faith, other faiths, or no faith, okay? The wall between church and state matters, for now, it is holding. But that is only if people keep advocating and fight the good fight. And that fight is to keep our public institutions free and fair. Go to FFRF US School or text my first name, Chris to 511-511. To stand up for real freedom, text Chris to 5 11, 5 11. Look, once you take one step of allowing religion back into schools, it's only a matter of time before it's running rampant everywhere. And remember, today, it may seem okay to you because it echoes your beliefs, but what about when it doesn't? What about when you're not the majority? So go to FFRF US School or text Chris to 511-511- Message. And data rates may apply, but it is time to fight the good fight. So, wait, your father is Muslim?

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

By choice, or was he raised.

[Adam Mockler]

He was raised Muslim. My grandpa's from Syria. There's a. You want to run you through some of my backstory on this. Yeah, it's interesting. So my grandpa moved from Syria in the late 80s and started a business out of his car. He like, slept in his car. His. The story he's told me a million times. He used to like, you know, walk to work and sleep out of his car or like walk to his meetings and stuff like that. And then my. It's interesting. My mom had me when she was 15 years old.

[Chris Cuomo]

She's Syrian too?

[Adam Mockler]

No, she's from America. She's just, you know, super white. My dad's pretty white. Passing too, because he. My. So both my parents were born in America. Right. My grandpa was born in Syria. He moved here. My dad was born here. And then he spent a lot of his childhood over in Syria. My mom had me when she was like 15 and it was this whole, you know, like they had to get married through the mosque or whatever. And then, yeah, 22 years later, they're still together. And really quickly, I was going to respond to something you said before that I can't remember. But as it pertains to my story in this space, this is a story that I'm always telling. I started the YouTube channel that I have now when I had when I was nine years old. So the channel that I have now with 1.5 million followers, I literally started that when I was nine. I used to make these dumb Minecraft videos after school, but I would sit there and edit all night, edit these videos all night, play Call of Duty or whatever. And then when I got into high school, I realized I don't want to do Minecraft stuff. I want to get girls and be normal and actually go out there. And then when I graduated, I was like, wait a minute, I have these skills in editing. I'm still good at conversing with people and talking politics. So I went to a Trump rally two states over and I debated the people there in a very respectful way. A lot of the debates that were out there were just like people being condescending or trying, how dumb can I make this Trump supporter look? But my whole thing was, hey, you think that Trump is putting America first and you think that we should stop funding Ukraine. But I would say funding Ukraine is putting America first. And then I give them my whole framework and I try to pull them over. And a few clips went viral of me, like changing Trump supporters minds. Because I'm just, I was 20 at the time and I was giving them Arguments they hadn't heard. So essentially this YouTube channel that I created when I was nine years old making these dumb fucking Minecraft videos has parlayed into this broader thing, the sphere that we're now at the forefront of where we're doing online politics. So it's really interesting how a bunch of skills can combine later in life.

[Chris Cuomo]

And what do you make of your association with Midas Touch?

[Adam Mockler]

Yeah, they're. I'm a contributor for them, so they essentially helped accelerate. Accelerate my career at the perfect time. When I started doing those debates, they went viral in certain areas of the Internet. And the main dude from Midas, Ben, he hit me up and was like, you're doing great work. Let me know if we can help in any way. So then I signed on to them as a contributor and they helped just accelerate my career with connections and an audience. And now it's.

[Chris Cuomo]

Why do you think they're doing so well?

[Adam Mockler]

Midas Touch? I think they're speaking to. Well, there's a few things. I think they're speaking to a broad audience that wasn't spoken to for a while. So Fox News is the biggest network in the United States, Right. Isn't the Five the biggest show right now with.

[Chris Cuomo]

On cable.

[Adam Mockler]

On cable, yeah. That's.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Adam Mockler]

So on cable, the 5 is the largest show right now. And it's because, you know, they have Jessica Tarlov there who pushes back. But a lot of Fox News is just speaking straight to the base, is giving the base what they want. I don't know if there was a strong Democratic version of that. I mean, you could argue like MSNBC or cnn, but even CNN and MSNBC are, are still different in how they cover things. They're more mainstream. So Midas Touch decided to essentially, you know, create something for our base, for a pro democracy base that wants to hear stuff that doesn't just sane wash what Trump says. So I think that's why Midas does well. I mean, a lot of people in America right now turn on the TV and they feel crazy when they hear Trump speak and say these crazy things. And people aren't really calling it out as much as they should. I mean, you probably disagree, but on certain networks, Trump is sanewash is what they say where he'll say some crazy shit about Erica Kirk or about how he does hate his opponents and they just kind of make it a little footnote. It's not a big deal.

[Chris Cuomo]

You would do nothing else if you were to police Trump's statements. You would have time for nothing else.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

And that's by design, by the way.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

He floods the zone because there is a genius to his manipulation. Yeah, I'm not saying he's a genius and he's gonna beat you on Jeopardy. That's not what I'm saying.

[Adam Mockler]

No, I always wonder that though. He's gotta have some sort of instincts with pr.

[Chris Cuomo]

He knows what drives the media and he knows what works and he knows how it works and he knows with whom it works. Remember, this guy is not organic to his base. He listened to Tom Tancredo, he listened to Steve King. The wall was an acronym, was a euphemism that was offered him on a campaign bus just to have an idea in his head of metaphorically what to do. He made it literal as he lear that the more simplistic he was, the more sticky it got. And that's not to disrespect. See, the mistake is. Yeah, cuz his base is stupid. No, because politics is stupid. The base isn't stupid. These people aren't stupid. There's a whole range of sophistication of people who are within MAGA who are now hating maga. There's a whole range. It's what their expectations are of the people who want the power of campaigns, of politics. That's where the bar comes down. If you went and tried to sell them a new roof and did it the way Trump does, you're going to be on your way.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

If you want to invest their kids college money, you're going to be on your way.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

But for politics, their bar is very low. And that's where I see opportunity. I'm told the Midas touch guys like don't like me. They want a piece of me.

[Adam Mockler]

I have no clue.

[Chris Cuomo]

I've never had. They've never reached out to it. I'm fascinated by this.

[Adam Mockler]

Let me tell you. I'm a Midas touch guy and I like you. So it's all good.

[Chris Cuomo]

Thank you, Adam.

[Adam Mockler]

They've never said anything to me about it.

[Chris Cuomo]

It's nice of you to say also when you're trapped in my house.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Right.

[Chris Cuomo]

But I think it's an interesting aspect of the new media that I hear a lot more of that from that space than I would have ever heard. Like when guys on Fox didn't like me, it wasn't, I want to find that guy and beat his ass. Especially when that's not going to happen. But I hear it all the time from digital media.

[Adam Mockler]

People don't like you or that.

[Chris Cuomo]

No, but it's like a. It's it's not. I don't like you. It's not. I think what he says is silly. I think he's useless. Those kinds of things, that's what you sign up for when you want to be judged. It's personal.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

And it's often aggressive. And I don't think they mean it that way. I think only like an Andrew Tate means it, like seriously. But is that just like how it is with you guys that you talk about, like, you know, destroying other guys?

[Adam Mockler]

I don't know about destroying other guys. I think that, you know, I'd have to know exactly what's been said, like between Midas or whatever. I don't know if they've said anything but regarding the people in the audience. Is that what you're talking about? Like people going out?

[Chris Cuomo]

Those guys? I heard and I'm happy to go on and talk to them about whatever they want. I never say no.

[Adam Mockler]

Unless the Midas guys said they were going to kick your ass.

[Chris Cuomo]

Yeah, that's what I was told. I don't watch. I don't.

[Adam Mockler]

I don't follow in numbers or in person.

[Chris Cuomo]

Oh, they definitely kick my ass in numbers. Anybody who plays to a side is going to kick my ass in numbers.

[Adam Mockler]

I don't. Okay, so here's the thing. I don't think there's a reality. The Midas guys are actually quite non confrontational. They don't really do debates, they don't really do on TV stuff. I'm the guy who does the debates because I can like talk to the other side and go on CNN and stuff. They honestly are not that confrontational. I don't think they would say they'd kick your ass. But maybe I could see them thinking you play both sides too much. A lot of people think that, but I don't think they'd say anything like that.

[Chris Cuomo]

I'll ask you the alternative. If you reject the binary system, which I do.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

I really believe the parties are the problem. And it can't be a coincidence that George Washington took all that time in his farewell address that was written by arguably the two greatest minds of that period within our founding, which was Hamilton and Madison, because that's who wrote Washington's thing, he did it twice to say avoid the parties. I really believe that it's hard for us to get better in this setup. So to pick a side, do I think the sides are equal? No, but they're playing the same game and I hate the game. Yeah, but you should still pick a side. Then nothing gets Better, because, look, right now it's getting worse. The left, liberals, Democrats, whatever you want to call yourselves, are resembling what you oppose more and more. Why? It's contagious. It works. Look at Newsom. He would laugh. If you would go back in time three years and say, three years from now, you're going to be pretending to be Trump. He'd be like, fuck you. I'd get out first.

[Adam Mockler]

To be fair, it seems like the other side is becoming what they oppose, too, though, because Republicans, the moment they got in power, didn't even wait a year to start canceling people, getting people fired. So it seems like both sides begin to morph into the other side. Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

So you carry the burden on your side of being purists. They only carried it as a faux Christian orthodoxy. Right. And why? Because they have an escape hatch that Catholics don't have on the evangelical part of their faith of Christianity, which is, hey, I just found out, Adam, that you do all these horrible things. I know. I beg forgiveness from the. From Jesus, my Lord and Savior. And now it's okay for Catholics. You've got to live with the guilt for the rest of your life, and it, like, never goes away. They get a free pass as long as they say they're sorry. So it's easy for them to traffic in hypocrisy.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

And they do. That's why whenever you see a little crucifix after a name on social media, you know you're getting a beating. You know what I mean? They're going to come at you. Why? Because they're always forgiven. I expect that of them.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

And I don't think it's the same on both sides. I think that there is an opportunity. I was raised in it. I was raised by a real one, as you guys would say. Okay, Mario Cuomo would be a dream for you guys today. Yeah. He was technically a white male, even though he wasn't called that in his time. He was dismissed as an ethnic the way your grandfather would have been.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[Chris Cuomo]

Even though, you know, pale, not pale, doesn't matter.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

It's. Well, you're Italian. Gap tooth, swarthy Mafia. He had to share his valedictory in college and in law school with an Irish guy because the schools were Irish dominant. He couldn't get a job on Wall street as a lawyer, even though he was a genius because he was Italian. So it was different kind of whiteness than I am. But he would be a dream for you guys. Why? Tough as fuck, but he's not going to be like you. He's going to be better than you. Like, yeah, yeah, you can say what you're going to say about me. We can take that up later when we're off the stage. I'll talk to you, we'll see how it goes. But for right now, you tell me how you think that you can help people with affordability when what you're doing is taking money out of their pockets for this and that. That's what he was. That's your sweet spot.

[Adam Mockler]

We need a fighter. I mean, as a young dude, I think the Democratic.

[Chris Cuomo]

Fighting the good fight.

[Adam Mockler]

Fighting the good fight. But the Democratic Party has just gotten suffocating and we, we thought we were fighting the good fight for a few years. But I've got so many young men who are liberals who share the same values as me about gay marriage and about all these things. They just feel suffocated by the overall party.

[Chris Cuomo]

Gay marriage is not a value. It is the law of equal protection. It's not, it's not a cultural preference. It's not, there's no religiosity to it. Marriage is a legal construct. It is an equal protection, no brainer issue.

[Adam Mockler]

Yeah, tell Michael Knowles that. Michael Knowles thinks gay people shouldn't be able to adopt kids or get married or have these. He thinks that's fine.

[Chris Cuomo]

Those are feelings. He can have those feelings.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Legally, they're either people or they're not. If they are persons in the eye of the law. This is the reproductive rights problem. He's making a straw man argument which is they're not the same as me. They either are or they're not in the eyes of the law. And if they are, then they are accorded all the same rights as you. Yeah, but I don't like it. That's a culture issue. Yeah, that's a culture issue. And indoctrinating culture through law is very dicey. And they're supposed to be against it. Yeah, small government. Right. That's why they love to call themselves libertarians. Libertarian means I never run anything. I never do anything. I don't have to make anything better. But I'm better than you. And that's why I get, I get frustrated by that moniker.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

But.

[Chris Cuomo]

So you're saying you have like minded individuals and what do they want?

[Adam Mockler]

I mean, I've got a lot of young, say young dudes, for example, that I talk to who are just sick and feel suffocated to the party because they think it's two things. Number one, a Little bit too finger waggy, but at the same time, while they're finger wagging, it's like risk averse. So the Democratic politicians always seem risk averse. Donald Trump is not risk averse. He'll go into any space, anybody with a microphone, he'll go debate and talk.

[Chris Cuomo]

To you because his own won't attack him and yours will.

[Adam Mockler]

That's also, that is one of the problems with our media ecosystem that we can get to. On the right, everybody from Nick Fuentes to Candace Owens to Ben Shapiro lines up at the end. But on the left, you, you know Hasan Piker, one of our biggest creators, He's a cool dude and I've like watched him before, but during election time, he did not say to vote for Kamala. Our biggest creator on the left was not advocating to vote for Kamala. Meanwhile, on the right, they all completely line up. So people in my age cohort, and I think throughout the party too, just think that we've gotten lame, too risk averse and we need to be in these spaces making these arguments, not saying we're going to kick the shit out of people. I don't, I don't know if it might have actually said that, but not saying that, but I think that going and actually presenting the argument in a good faith way, not going to lie. The Charlie Kirk model, what Charlie Kirk was doing worked very well and it's created this cultural dominance for the right. It's, it's this theory that I have called the pipeline to volume theory in the algorithm. And I've seen this happen where a lot of young men who are looking up dating advice, for example, like say every young dude has dating problems at some point you get sucked down this Andrew Tate pipeline, this rabbit hole. And before you know what you're watching Andrew Tate, what about my friends that just work out, they like working out. So they're watching reels on that. Then they get sucked down this pipeline to make America healthy again. Meaning VACC and Tylenol, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. There's also this pipeline with young mothers where young mothers just had a baby are now getting pulled down this sort of anti vax, like and like weird health pipeline. And then once you're down that, they hit you with so much volume you can't escape it. Think of Elon Musk's Twitter feed. If you've ever scrolled through it. He posts 100 times a day, right? 100 tweets a day with millions of views. That's the volume. So on the right, you were Saying earlier that Joe Rogan doesn't speak to the many. He still speaks to the few. And I do agree, actually, I agree a lot that us on social media, we're all speaking to.

[Chris Cuomo]

But it gets amplified.

[Adam Mockler]

It gets amplified, and there is a cultural shift. You asked at the very beginning why I think it's important for us to talk about Charlie Kirk's beliefs when he just passed away. And I think we see this insidious amplification of his beliefs throughout the culture, throughout young men, young women, people of all ages that are now getting this amplified. And I think it's very important to be out there and be like, listen, Charlie Kirk shouldn't have gotten shot. Obviously, that's terrible. He got, like, publicly executed. It was. It was terrible. But at the same time, this is a dude who repeatedly said the Civil Rights act shouldn't have been passed.

[Chris Cuomo]

No, not at the same time. Two things. Yeah, you're about to make the AOC mistake. And to be very clear, I say this all the time. You got to say everything 100 fucking times. I think she's one of your best in terms of personal political cachet. I don't know if she's one of your leaders, and I don't know that you win a major election with her pushing socialism and a higher tax burden.

[Adam Mockler]

She's like a democratic socialist. I don't like the word socialism either.

[Chris Cuomo]

But it's high taxes.

[Adam Mockler]

Yeah, no, I get it.

[Chris Cuomo]

And it just. It's a tough, tough. It's a tough sell. Well, pride, maggot.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

But hold on. Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Charlie Kirk never said the Civil Rights Act. I've studied this very deeply, and it's pretty simple. It'll take you five minutes. It's not what he said.

[Adam Mockler]

I've looked it up.

[Chris Cuomo]

I looked what he said was Civil Rights act. Good. Needed it. Great.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

No.

[Chris Cuomo]

Was then used to inculcate DEI and do these other things by extension of that law that he was against and that it should have never been used for those purposes. Not to help black people vote. That's he believed in, but to make it as an extension of a welfare program for blacks in every manifestation that he was against.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yep.

[Chris Cuomo]

Now, I happen to disagree. I actually think it was necessary.

[Adam Mockler]

No, I've heard him make that argument.

[Chris Cuomo]

He didn't say, get rid of it.

[Adam Mockler]

I've heard that argument against it. I didn't say. He said get rid of it. He said they never should have passed it. And he also used. He said that. Right. They never should have passed it in the first place. And he made.

[Chris Cuomo]

No, I don't think he did say that. I think what he said was the way that they. What they did with it made it a mistake.

[Adam Mockler]

I did a lot of research on this because I wanted to make sure he actually said this. And essentially, he also made this other argument that black Americans committed a lot less crime and there were more households with both parents before the Civil Rights act, which is actually true if you look up the statistics. But it's a lot more complicated than he made it.

[Chris Cuomo]

Not because they didn't have rights.

[Adam Mockler]

No. Yeah. So it's very complicated. But this is what Charlie Kirk would do. He would bundle.

[Chris Cuomo]

That's a straw man.

[Adam Mockler]

He would bundle these arguments together. He would say the Civil Rights act shouldn't have been passed. Yeah. I think that was his view. And he said it accelerated DEI being integrated into the workforce. He said that a lot. But then he would also make these arguments like black Americans committed way less crime and they were less fatherless households before the Civil Rights Act. So you can't blame someone if they get confused. When Charlie Kirk is making all of these arguments, I just think the way.

[Chris Cuomo]

To do it matters. Right.

[Adam Mockler]

How should I. So what I said, here's what I. Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

How do we stop the next one? Here's how we stop the next one. We have to check toxic ideas when we hear them, and we have to do it consistently, and we have to show that there is a better way to think about these things in America. And Charlie got shot for his beliefs, and it was wrong.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

The idea of memorializing beyond that point is problematic.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

Charlie should be remembered by those who want to remember him for whatever reasons they want. The idea that we should enshrine his politics, I do not agree with. I agree that despite his politics. In fact, the more powerful point to me is I absolutely disagreed with 7 out of 10 things that would come out of Charlie's mouth. And I would have thrown myself in front of that bullet if I had the chance.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Really?

[Chris Cuomo]

His kids are young, and they need him in a way that my kids don't. I would have thrown myself in front of him. Why? Because when you start killing for ideas, the ideas will die.

[Adam Mockler]

All of them.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

And the way to finesse this argument is I have no explanation for anything but wrongness when it comes to what happened to Charlie. You want to memorialize him and say he was a great leader and an organizer. He was great. He would help Trump win. No question about it. But that's where it ends for me. Well, his ideas are now great, too, because he was killed for them. No, the ideas are not great. Killing them made you worse than his ideas, in my opinion. But I do not want to enshrine those ideas. I don't want.

[Adam Mockler]

But they are being enshrined. And we can't let this vacuum exist in society that's being filled by Charlie Kirk's ideas. What about in, like, three decades?

[Chris Cuomo]

Can we take them out of him? The mistake that Mehdi Hassan and these other guys make, okay, is they're forgetting their humanity and saying, look, Charlie King, Charlie Kirk was a racist. No, he was just murdered. Not the right way. You talk about the ideas. Talk about the ideas, and I'll tell you why Mehdi should get this. The same thing is true for your father's faith. Obama was right to not want to say Muslim terror. He was right. Why? Because 90% of Muslims reject that idea.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

That's why he didn't want to say it. You have to say things the right way.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

And there's a burden on that, and it's harder to do it.

[Adam Mockler]

So how should I hypothetically attack, even if I do disagree with the Civil Rights act statement that we agreed he was making, how do I attack that if it's pervasive in society? Say my friend from high school who was apolitical then posts on his story, Charlie Kirk saying that. Do I just, like, not. Not bring it up to him?

[Chris Cuomo]

No, you just go with the idea has nothing to do with Charlie. Charlie isn't the first one to say that DEI was a mistake.

[Adam Mockler]

So you don't like people looping it.

[Chris Cuomo]

I get. Not right after a bullet just flew through his head.

[Adam Mockler]

Yeah, yeah, I get that. Because, like, he talks shit about MLK, but this is 60 years after MLK was killed.

[Chris Cuomo]

And look, I see Charlie in the same sentence as Martin Luther King in terms of people. Yeah. I don't know. I think. I think his murder was terrible. Murder for murder is murder. Yeah. All murders for your ideas are terrible. They are not the same kind of person. One was a transcendent. A leader who. Who lost traction during his day because he refused to succumb to darkness.

[Adam Mockler]

Can I ask you really quickly, when you said earlier that the sides need to tone down the rhetoric that it's on, like you were saying, essentially the incumbent. It's incumbent on the leaders of the party to begin toning down the rhetoric.

[Chris Cuomo]

Here's what I think.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Nobody. It's like. It's like. I'm not saying tone down the rhetoric. Why? Because it's it's empty. It won't happen that way. It's like, I'm angry, and you tell me to relax. You know that's not going to go well for you.

[Adam Mockler]

You said something to the effect of returning back to, like, a lesson.

[Chris Cuomo]

What makes you guys formidable?

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

The reason Democrats win elections is because they tap into the fact that America does not want to embrace bullies and harsh strengths. My father beat Newt Gingrich in debates all across the country, and they went together as, you know, not a team, but they were a couple, and they were booked out to do it, and he would beat him routinely. Why? Newt is harsh. There's a meanness to what he says wrapped in Christian orthodoxy. Or not, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, it's how it plays. And my father believed in sweet strength. Again, the tough motherfucker is not the guy who says he wants to beat your ass. It is the guy who no one wants to try to beat his ass.

[Adam Mockler]

So you think it's a display of weakness when Donald Trump talks all this shit? It's basically just him.

[Chris Cuomo]

Yeah, if I were up against him. Yeah, if I were up again, it's easy.

[Adam Mockler]

But can I ask how the hell. Like, I don't get how Democrats are supposed to operate in this media environment or this political environment. When Donald Trump went on tv, and right after Erica Kirk, he said, I hate my political opponents. And yes, there was a bit of sarcasm in the tone that he was using, and he laughed, but he literally, literally said, I hate my political opponents. And then when I covered that, I got emails, people telling me, like, tone it down. When you're talking about Trump right now.

[Chris Cuomo]

You have a temporal sensitivity. I think that's okay. I felt the same way when I was covering the riots after George Floyd.

[Adam Mockler]

For the past decade, Trump has been amping up the rhetoric, and it's like, how do Democrats match this? What do you think Democrats should do when Donald Trump feels like before Trump have better ideas? But we do. Kamala did have better ideas, in my opinion.

[Chris Cuomo]

She didn't articulate him.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

She didn't. Yeah.

[Adam Mockler]

But the thing is, was there any politician in the mainstream who called to lock up their political opponent on stage before Trump? I think he was the first one to do that. So, like, he entered us into this new stage.

[Chris Cuomo]

People don't take him seriously the way they take you guys to. He. Look, this is very frustrating to compete against him.

[Adam Mockler]

So frustrating.

[Chris Cuomo]

He gets a lot of benefits that you don't.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

He is loved by people. In a way that very few politicians have been. And they excuse almost all of his weaknesses that would kill anyone running against him.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yep.

[Chris Cuomo]

So how do you deal with that? You have to change the game. The game is not which one of us is worse. Because even though you should win in this game against me, 10 times out of 10, the people judging don't hold me to the same standard. Yeah, change the game. Don't let the game change you. What are you about to. I can fix the affordability problem and not by giving everybody free shit. I get the word free is scary.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

I get that socialism is a scary idea or word. I'm not going to use it. They don't pay their taxes, okay? They get away from paying their taxes in a way that everyone else can't. I can fix it. How? Not with this and this. Here's how. And then you got to have a plan, okay? And I'm going to target it to these states and this is how I'm going to do it. I'm going to have a plan. I'm going to have a better idea.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

Immigration. Okay? They were right. We fucked up on the border. Fucked it up.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

But he hasn't done shit about legal immigration. And we're sweating all these workers now because they're running away. We already had seven and a half million open jobs. We're going to start to see a function of our services collapsing. What I would do is, you bring people in here the wrong way, I will end you. I will find out who you are and I will take your business from you. I'll figure out how to do it. If you bring people in the wrong way, I'm coming for you. Now, I'm also going to come to you and say, before I destroy you, do you need these guys? Do you. Do you have good guys here? Yeah, I do. I have good guys. They're not here legally, but they're good guys. All right, Give me the list. Let's vet them. Let's find a way. Let's find a way to keep what we need. Because them telling you that these are the guys who are killing everybody, that's bullshit.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah, okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

I'm not here to bullshit you. I'm here to fix. And I think you got to get obsessed with that. And what happens when you do that is the more we tap into what's real, the less the noise goes away. And the more people want signal that, the more we're talking about how, hey, look, grocery prices aren't going the right way. And let's talk about why. And this. We gotta deal with our monetary system. We flooded the fucking markets. All this quantitative easing. Here's a plan. I got two, three guys are gonna help me do this. We're gonna get it back and it's gonna help us with getting our prices in check. Now, you don't wanna hear the bullshit the same way. Hold on, let them talk for a second. You know that part in a debate. Hold on, I wanna hear em. Hold on. That's the part. And is that strength? Yeah, it's strong. Because the way I'm going to deal with your noise is going to show my strength. Don't talk about me. Don't talk about my family. Don't do it. This campaign's not worth it to me. All right? I'll put you on your ass right now and this will be over. Look, at a certain point, that's what gets said man to man, okay? Is at a certain point, I can't say certain shit about you without there being a price. That's America.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

Okay?

[Chris Cuomo]

It's a very American value. You don't insult me to my face and think you get a free pass. Only Ted Cruz does that, right? Only he'll back Trump after that. And now he's trying to have a spine again, but it's probably too late for him. That's the space for you guys. AOC is at the top of your potential presidential picks. I know, it's just a preference poll. That's where we are. I don't believe there's any chance she.

[Adam Mockler]

Can win in 2028. I don't think so.

[Chris Cuomo]

But I don't think anyone, no majority in American society has ever. Now, if we become a different society, if we are a majority Latino and a huge infusion of poor Muslims, well, now maybe you can talk socialism, because they'll be coming from cultural reference points where that's much more acceptable to them.

[Adam Mockler]

Do you think that AOC could ever win in like a decade if she moderated a bit?

[Chris Cuomo]

Of course. Yeah, of course.

[Adam Mockler]

Pendulum swings.

[Chris Cuomo]

Of course. It's, you know, man meets moment.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Right. So. And. But what she's saying right now, I'm telling you, even the Charlie Kirk stuff, I'm telling you my understanding of. And I listened to him 8, 9, 10 times explaining his position on it. He was not black, shouldn't have had the right to vote. It didn't need to. Jim Crow was, you know, not a problem. All those things he owns that. It's the DEI stuff he was attacking.

[Adam Mockler]

It is a dei. But when he intentionally made an inflammatory argument about the Civil Rights Act, I believe he said it shouldn't have been passed. I believe that was his take, but it was to get towards the DEI stuff that he was arguing for. I just think that, you know, it's fair game if you're going to go out there and say inflammatory.

[Chris Cuomo]

Well, it's fair game. And let's say he did say it.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

And then he corrected it eight, nine times afterwards. Yeah, that's because the game is saying something obnoxious and outrageous and provocative. And that gets the clips.

[Adam Mockler]

But he kept doubling down. There's a clip where he's reading an article and he's like, they say the Civil Rights action never should have been passed. That's true. I did say that multiple times. We talk about on the show every single week. So I think AOC was doing. I disagree that the way AOC did it wasn't right. I think that she said political violence has no place. But then she began to talk about the actual implications of Charlie Kirk's beliefs and.

[Chris Cuomo]

But then how are you not saying. How is she not then undoing her statement? If you say he should have never been killed, but he had a lot of fucking beliefs that should get you killed, you know?

[Adam Mockler]

And the same way that Charlie's the problem, the same way that Charlie Kirk, when talking about mlk, said that MLK was a bad guy. He didn't agree with MLK's beliefs, but he shouldn't have been killed. He said the same thing about.

[Chris Cuomo]

But that's why Charlie Kirk wasn't president. That's why Charlie Kirk wasn't an elected officer.

[Adam Mockler]

He was damn close. He was closer like he was. He had a lot of power within the Republican Party.

[Chris Cuomo]

And I think that party is not an elected place. It is just a tradition. He was a big name and a big presence in a club.

[Adam Mockler]

Can I ask you, do you think it's any more disrespectful for Democrats debunk Charlie Kirk than Trump going on stage and like making it all about himself for 40 minutes? I feel like that's pretty disrespectful.

[Chris Cuomo]

You're judged differently. I get that it's frustrating.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah, I know.

[Chris Cuomo]

But he doesn't get judged by his own the way you will get judged by your own and the ones that you're trying to get.

[Adam Mockler]

I think that Democrats right now, if some politician came and wanted to capitalize on it, they could create a blue MAGA very, very easily. We have a fan base that is.

[Chris Cuomo]

Ripe I think you are. I think there's reaction formation to MAGA right now. Look, look at what's happening in the New York City mayoral race or in Minnesota. My brother is a traditional centrist Democrat. That's what he is. He's a I can get it done guy.

[Adam Mockler]

You just said socialism wouldn't work. But how do you explain Zoran's when.

[Chris Cuomo]

Because I said on a national level and I agree the majority. But in New York City you have tons of ethnic minorities.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

Affordability is a real problem here.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

It is an exaggerated example of an American reality of top versus bottom. The little bit on the top and everybody else.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

And there is. It's not a have and have not. It's a have too much and have not enough.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

And. And words matter, ideas matter. So that's New York City. You also have a lot of Muslims in New York City, but you have more Jews. You do ish. But being Jewish is a complicated matter right now in terms of politics. And they've been weaponized also. But why is a Democrat who was once a big deal in a struggle against a guy who was an open socialist, anti police, all these other things and very deferential to Islamist ideas in a city that suffered 9, 11. How is this happening? I would have never thought it could happen. Because one packaging. He's not your father's jihadi Muslim. Right. He doesn't seem scared. There's nothing scary about this guy at all. Right. And while some of his ideas seem bad, he doesn't seem that bad. And the affordability is more important than all the other.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

And young people have been made all these promises that are not coming true in your lives right now. More of your moving back home than a generation ago in Gen X. We didn't move back home the way you guys are now. There is a lie in that, by the way. There's a lie who said moving back home and having multi generational families is a bad thing?

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Because that's where we are. There's an expectation. You are aberration. You dropped out of college and you're making a killing and you're doing great. Good for you.

[Adam Mockler]

Thank you.

[Chris Cuomo]

I love that. I love it. But that's not how you're supposed to do it. You're supposed to go to college, supposed to finish, supposed to get a job, supposed to be on your own, supposed to kind of struggle, come to me for help me. Kind of go like, I don't know. And then you're supposed to find somebody and get married. And have your own house, right?

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

And you come see me once in a while, but never enough. Why? Why, why are we splintering families? Yeah, why wouldn't it work better that you do whatever you're going to do, but you stay with me?

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah, we.

[Chris Cuomo]

I love having you around. We get along. And by the way, it'd be nice for you to contribute a little bit here, you know, and you're going to be building wealth because you're not paying the nut the same way. Because you got me. And I'm not paying my nut the same way now because you're there now when you meet somebody and you want to get married, really, and you're ready, go. And until then, you'll find ways to be together. I promise you that. And grandma's here, so guess what? When grandma gets frail, guess what problem we don't have? What's sinking families and people all over the country right now, which is elder care.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

There's this idea that we're stronger apart. And I think during the pandemic we saw that. That doesn't have to be true. But affordability is a crisis. You guys think you should be on your own. You can't afford it and you're mad about it. That is reaction formation to MAGA and the ideas of how to fix the.

[Adam Mockler]

Affordability piece's reaction just to the environment of it is.

[Chris Cuomo]

But it's being weaponized on that left reaction to maga. Rightly so.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

And the remedies, or as radical as maga's remedies were on their issues. That's my problem with this binary setup.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Adam Mockler]

I feel like it also disproves you. You did say that like a left leaning MAGA wouldn't work on a national scale. And I agree to the socialism bit, but I think Zoran is a really good example of what we talked about at the very beginning, how there's two parts. You drive the attention, then you drive the narrative. He was really good at online driving the attention. Really good. And then he used that, in my opinion, to convert people. Like, oh, what's this guy about? Or like, oh, I see him on the street, then they're interested in his policy. I think there's a two pronged grievance for Democrats.

[Chris Cuomo]

Grievance, not solution based grievance.

[Adam Mockler]

But the grievances are things that people are living every day. That is true. But the grievances with maga. Yeah, that is true.

[Chris Cuomo]

They're just not your grievances.

[Adam Mockler]

The grievances with MAGA is like Somebody in the Indiana being mad that immigrants are getting into the border over in Texas.

[Chris Cuomo]

They think that's why their job isn't what they needed to be and why they can't make ends meet because all the services and the tax dollars are going to these people.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Now, is that true? No.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

No.

[Chris Cuomo]

But if I'm pissed off and I'm. My money is tight makes as much sense as anything else.

[Adam Mockler]

When I was on your show, I think two weeks ago, I floated a theory about young men getting radicalized in the algorithm. I can expand on it a bit because it was a good. It was a good segment that we had with some Gen Z turning Point guys on there. But essentially, like, I have this theory. This is a little bit off topic for what you're saying. I have this theory with young men getting radicalized in particular, where throughout Covid. I mean, it's been happening for a while, since Columbine before that. But I think Covid, the pandemic, accelerated the isolation of a lot of young men. And I think what happened is, to me, at least, I put a bubble around myself throughout Covet, I was spending less time with people.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yep.

[Adam Mockler]

And I had to very intentionally tear that bubble down after and go hang out with my friends and start dating again. I could imagine a lot of young men who didn't tear that bubble down in their online radicalization was only accelerated. Right. And then while that's happening, you have foreign actors. Imagine like, China, Russia, Iran trying to, like, weaken social cohesion. On top of all of that, you have Elon Musk, who bought Twitter. Elon Musk is radicalizing people en masse. And then Donald Trump, you may not agree with that, but I think Elon Musk, when he sends out these things with like 100 million views or whatever.

[Chris Cuomo]

I think completely irresponsible.

[Adam Mockler]

It's very irresponsible. And then. And the cherry on top is that Donald Trump himself is using all this rhetoric. And of course, Democrats can have some sort of blame, but I think that, oh, Democrats do have a lot of blame, actually. Democrats did not create a space for young men.

[Chris Cuomo]

That made them we.

[Adam Mockler]

We. Not me in particular. I was still in, like, high school at the time. But Democrats made young men part of the problem, alienated young white men. And I even see this in my audience. I made a video the other day about how there's a problem with young men. And one of the top comments was like, adam, don't you mean young white men? And I'm like, really? I did a whole analysis and your correction to me was not saying whites. That's kind of part of the problem with people on my side.

[Chris Cuomo]

And also, it's not true. Young men are getting crushed.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Right now. Why? Because we've made it that way. They are not a priority except in terms of villainizing. And it has worked.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

And that's why you have. And then you. And then you ism. Everything. Right. So now you got them. Now you call them incels. Oh, that's gonna help. And you have. Social media is, you know, completely suffused with women posing as these. These sages on things that just reinforce all this toxic stuff.

[Adam Mockler]

And then you get broken up with and you see Andrew Tate saying the women suck.

[Chris Cuomo]

And you're like, oh, and you're the problem. You're completely privileged, especially if you're a white male. But if you're a male and a black male, you're completely privileged because your gender matters more. And if you're white and a man, you're at the bottom. You've had way too much for way too long. Everything's too easy for you, and you suck. And if you don't like being told that, oh, and now everybody does to you what they've said you've been doing to everybody else. But now suddenly it's okay. That has worked. And there are 10 other reasons, but it's a real problem, and people don't want to acknowledge it. Why? Well, because it's not in vogue. In vogue is to take care of other minorities, not what arguably is a majority. And this is the problem with not being able to put two ideas in your head at the same time. Because we have binary thinking and because it's all one thing at a time and going to war on that one thing. And that's why Trump floods the zone. But it still leaves you at the end of our conversation, one of many, I hope and I love spending time with you, is you have an opportunity. MAGA is reductive. It is negative. It is angry.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

Right now it's justifiably angry because one of their symbols was murdered for believing things that they think are fine.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

I think you gotta separate the man and the message. And then you can go after the message all you want.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

You know, I will enshrine Charlie Kirk because I liked Charlie Kirk. Fine. That's your choice. His ideas. No, no, thank you. And the way you say that matters. And there cannot be a comma or a but anywhere near the murder part. There just can't. Charlie Kirk should have Never been killed. But he believed a lot of things that were terrible. There's no reason for that. It's inappropriate, it's insensitive, and. Well, then how do I do it? You wait for a discussion about the ideas. Well, we're going to memorialize Charlie. Well, I'm not in favor of that.

[Adam Mockler]

I think it's a week to wait, though. I mean, you're just. I'm just supposed to sit here and wait while these.

[Chris Cuomo]

I don't mean wait, like, let time pass. I feel that way. When people say we can't talk about guns because we just had a school shooting.

[Adam Mockler]

You mean, like, don't say it in the same breath.

[Chris Cuomo]

Death? Yeah. It's not about the murder. It's not about the murder. Was wrong for his beliefs. If you don't like his beliefs, have better beliefs. Don't kill him for his.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Let's have the debate. Give me the issue. The 64. Civil Rights Act. Really? You know, I'll crush you on that. About why we needed it at the time and probably need something like it today. Let's have the discussion. I respect you about it, and that's how you do it. Is. Let's talk about the idea, not Charlie. It's not about Charlie. God forbid what happens to Charlie ever happens again. But let's talk about whatever the problem the issues are that you don't like of his. Let me hear you a better idea. That's the way to do it.

[Adam Mockler]

I have good news. In Chicago, we're starting this debate show where we're bringing people on, a lot of young people, people from Turning Point USA or other orgs, and it's going to be me talking to right wingers in the most respectful way possible. Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

That's where I love it. And you don't always have to be respectful. If I have a dumb idea, it's okay to say, I have a dumb idea. What I would want to do, which, of course, would not be marketable in the. In. In. In the information economy. On digital media, I can sit down with anybody. Don't bring me some actual Nazi or something.

[Adam Mockler]

Not Nick Fuentes.

[Chris Cuomo]

You know, don't bring. Don't bring me someone who is swallowed by malignancy.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

But you bring me anybody who says that we disagree, I guarantee you we will agree about more things than we disagree.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

And I know that that's not sexy and it's not clickbait, and it won't work the way Jubilee is doing what they're doing, but that's what we Need.

[Adam Mockler]

It actually pulls a lot of views. One of my first Trump rallies I went to, I started doing these Trump rallies with the fundamental idea that if I just explain things to people in a non condescending way, they would agree with it or understand. There was this older Trump supporter, this older gentleman who was saying, we need to stop funding Ukraine and let's put America first. And I remember going, funding Ukraine is exactly how we put America first. We're giving them weaponry, old stockpiled military. It's helping our economy. By the end of this, this Trump supporter in a MAGA cap, it's online. He goes, wow, I had never realized that funding Ukraine was actually helpful for us. I'm going to go do more research on this and I think that model right there, you can just have that type of conversation.

[Chris Cuomo]

Just don't let your team put a thumbnail on it that says, watch MAGA get owned. Watch him realize it works how I know, but man, it's feeding the problem. Yeah, no, that and you did it right. You had a conversation and somebody realized that their ideas were not the only ones and that they're worth consideration. But when you say destroys.

[Adam Mockler]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

No.

[Chris Cuomo]

And now you're right back in the feedback loop.

[Adam Mockler]

That's more of like us having to play the algorithm game rather than me wanting to be intentionally inflammatory.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Now what will happen here is a lot, a lot of your people will come and say, man, you had Cuomo on that couch with you. You should. This, this and this and this. It's the combativeness that is keeping us stuck. And you and I can disagree on ideas all day. And if anybody has a critical eye on this, they'll see that you and I are coming from different situations on most things. But the conversation is the cure and I'm always welcome to have it with you.

[Adam Mockler]

And by the way, at some point, I would like to go back and forth and debate a little bit more. I've had a long week, so I'm a little bit more like just docile today.

[Chris Cuomo]

You invite me on, I'll come, I'll come to your house because I don't know where you live, but I will debate you on anything that you want. Anytime.

[Adam Mockler]

Let's do this more. I'll be doing a lot of New York trips over the next year, so I say we continue to have conversations.

[Chris Cuomo]

Now, you will be frustrated because you're going to wind up seeing that I agree with you about a lot of things. Agree with me on a lot of things.

[Adam Mockler]

We'll find the disagreements we'll find the disagreements, that's fine.

[Chris Cuomo]

But within disagreement, usually conceptually, you're probably close to the right place. When you're talking about politics.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah, yeah, of course.

[Chris Cuomo]

And social policy in a place that is supposed to be about interdependence and interconnectedness. And if that's not what America is, then America doesn't work. Yeah, because you can't do what we're trying to do here if you're having purity tests. Because we are impure.

[Adam Mockler]

I hate the purity.

[Chris Cuomo]

I mean, look at you. We look kind of the same for people who want to check very general boxes. Your background is Syrian Muslim. You know, your mother's American. I don't have any of that in my background. I have two Italians whose families were for the same two towns for six generations. And yet here we are, trying to make it work together.

[Adam Mockler]

Your dad rose through the ranks to political fame, and that's the American dream. In the same way that my grandpa slept in his car and then built a business out of nothing. It's the American dream.

[Chris Cuomo]

His father was your grandfather? My father. One generation. His parents were uneducated, did not speak the language, had no skills, were not from Norway.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Okay.

[Chris Cuomo]

They were not welcome here. One generation later. My father didn't speak English until he was eight. One generation later, he was the governor of the state.

[Adam Mockler]

That's pretty wild.

[Chris Cuomo]

That's the American dream.

[Adam Mockler]

That's wild.

[Chris Cuomo]

Not money, not privilege, not because he had access, but because the system can work.

[Adam Mockler]

What year was this DNC speech?

[Chris Cuomo]

Well, 1984 was his speech, but I think the one that mattered more was actually when he nominated Clinton in 92, when people thought he was going to run and he made the case for Clinton and why it had to be him, which nobody else would have done, but my father was a different guy. Mr. Mockler, thank you. Continued success to you. You're always welcome on the couch.

[Adam Mockler]

Let's do it again.

[Chris Cuomo]

Brother. Be well.

[Adam Mockler]

That was great.

[Chris Cuomo]

Smart. Makes my case that college isn't for everybody because Mockler dropped out and he's doing just fine. The question is, is what he wants the remedy? That's for you to decide and for us to test right here on the Chris Cuomo Project. So thank you for being with me, subscribing, following, checking me out on News Nation at 8pm, 11p Eastern every weekday night. And listen, I believe in wearing your independence. The free agent gear is coming back. Wear it. This is a. A little special piece that I got from a local artist out where I live, because I love that the crown of thorns are power chords, man, because social media is killing us. See you next time.