Loading summary
Transcript179 lines
- [00:00]
Chris Cuomo
You want to know who's helping this shape our understanding of politics and culture as much as anybody when it comes to digital media. Good, because I got them. This is Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. Tim Dillon, you check out his podcast, it's growing for a reason. You check out his Netflix special, I'm your mother, and you're going to laugh for good reason. Look, I wanted to talk to Dylan because I believe that the comedian has a very unique place in cultural criticism. One of my personal heroes when it comes to philosophy and journalism is George Carlin, famous, famous, sometimes infamous comedian, now also a profound student of history and economics and politics. We're going to talk about what boxes you should check to be relevant on digital media and who checks them and who doesn't and what is it really about. And Tim Dillon is someone who's having a conversation with, with this country in a way that many people in the media should envy. Tim Dillon, this is a great pleasure. Thank you for being part of the project.
- [01:18]
Tim Dillon
Thank you for having me. I appreciate you having me.
- [01:20]
Chris Cuomo
And I'm a big fan of the Roy Orbison homage, by the way. I want you to know that I can't get a read on you. You're in the Tulip Festival of the Netherlands. I can't see your eyes. I mean, you're a freaking enigma.
- [01:31]
Tim Dillon
Whatever I say in these glasses, I have no responsibility for. But no, also, it is the universal truth.
- [01:37]
Chris Cuomo
I get it. Everything you say, by definition, is a promise. Which is why I did want to clear the air early on. You are a dead ringer for the guy who busted into Aniston's house a thousand percent.
- [01:50]
Tim Dillon
Everyone has showed me that, and I agree with him. I don't know what he did or why he did it, but when someone has that physicality that matches yours, I think he probably had something very important to talk to her about. And sometimes these security guards don't get it. They don't get, especially in Bel Air. And I think he wanted to have a face to face, so I support him.
- [02:13]
Chris Cuomo
So assuming it was you, which again, is a very, very well regarded theory, you know, you're a big shot, everybody loves you. You couldn't just knock on the door, you had to bash into her house.
- [02:27]
Tim Dillon
Well, I don't know if the first two things are true. I think there are some people that love me, but I want people love you. If I wanted to see Jennifer Aniston, there would be no other than busting through the gate. I don't think my Overtures would be, I don't think they would get to her. I think I would have to go through in a military style.
- [02:47]
Chris Cuomo
She is known as a big fan of smart, funny and you are top of class when it comes to smart, funny.
- [02:57]
Tim Dillon
That's very nice of you to say. I, I, I've never met her. My friend David Spade knows her and they, he says she's great and she's a big fan of comedy. That's what he said, so I believe him.
- [03:09]
Chris Cuomo
So, all right, so look, we'll let that go. Help me understand. I get the sunglasses. You know, you're a man of mystery. You're a big shot bi coastal, the whole thing. But the Tulips is an interesting play because, you know, you're a strong willed guy, strong opinions and I feel like you're trying to get me off balance. Like, you know, you want me to see the tulips. Oh, maybe he's in like a flowery mood. Maybe this is going to be light and polite.
- [03:37]
Tim Dillon
I think it's, we do a nice seasonal backdrop and usually it's like the tulips or like a lake in the fall or a nice beach in the summer. We want to knock you off your access so that I can kind of deliver these kind of nihilistic rants, but in a kind of upbeat and agreeable way. Which is what we're, we're hoping to do is we hope that people find it like a nice thing that comes into their home once a week.
- [04:02]
Chris Cuomo
Well, it has worked very well and I think you put your finger on your waves of success. Agreeable nihilism seems to be the American vibe right now.
- [04:16]
Tim Dillon
I think you're correct on that. I think that a lot of people, myself included, feel like, and maybe we're wrong, but it feels like at some point the people who were tasked with protecting the country and running it gave up on it. And that seems obvious to a lot of people in many different ways. And I think illustrating it in a funny way is hopefully something that, that I try to do well.
- [04:52]
Chris Cuomo
I think you succeed at it. And I think that, you know, one of the reasons, just one other than just fanbo that I wanted to talk to you was I wanted to talk to you about what is working and this world of comedy and cultural criticism, which I think is a really important space. George Carlin is a personal hero of mine and was obviously way ahead of his time because his rants were spot on to where we are. What is your take on that? We won't look at it through the lens of your own success because you're being too humble about it. But in terms of what works in the world of American culture, when it comes to comedy, how do you see it?
- [05:40]
Tim Dillon
I think anything can work as long as it's funny and as long as people feel that it resonates with them for whatever reason. So there are great comedians who talk only about their families and themselves and don't go into that cultural space. There are people like me who are on the Internet and you do this show every week and you end up, you know, you read the news all week and you digest it and you spit it out, you know, hopefully in a funny way. But you have a lot of great comedians that are from every different genre. You have really funny people that are on Saturday Night Live who do sketch comedy. There's very funny, you know, standup comedians that again, could speak about, you know, perhaps only their personal life. Then you have comedians that are more in the space. And I'm in. And it's, I think, the demands of the medium being on the Internet every week, you have to find things to talk about after a while. You've told all the stories from your family, in your childhood or whatever, and you kind of look at the world around you and you try to make it funny because a lot of it's insane. A lot of it is very crazy. And I think comedy does a great job of, you know, putting out, you know, a. I don't want to say positive per se because a lot of it isn't quite positive that the stuff I talk about. But like, it's a way for people to digest what's happening in hopefully a funny, A funny way and a lighter way than they would by just reading a newspaper or, or reading an article online.
- [07:26]
Chris Cuomo
Let's unpack comedy. Where are we on the curve, in your opinion, in terms of what's allowed and what isn't allowed? Where do you think we are on that?
- [07:36]
Tim Dillon
I think everything's allowed. I think people got very tired of being hyperjudgmental. I think movements that are based on ideological purity are bound to fail because they're exhausting. People get very tired of these litmus tests, the word police, people like that. Eventually movements that are based on that either become, you know, sex of a religion, they become a violent, you know, whatever anti establishment movement, or they just peter out because people get bored. And I think that's where people were, you know, after we had that kind of moral panic, people just got bored. And now people are just kind of sitting back laughing at stuff. I think nuance is back. I think people realize that we're all fallible, flawed human beings and that most things that most people believe live in that gray area between right and left. And I think that's the. The moment we're at now. That doesn't mean we'll be there forever. And I'm sure that pendulum swing from one extreme to the other, but it feels like we're in a pretty good place now with what you're allowed to talk about.
- [08:50]
Chris Cuomo
You think that the Tom Brady roast was a watershed moment?
- [08:54]
Tim Dillon
I think so.
- [08:56]
Chris Cuomo
It was where the canceling died, at least in one context.
- [09:00]
Tim Dillon
I think people enjoyed it. I had several friends on it that did a great job. You know, Nikki Glaser, phenomenal. And I think people really just sat back and said, this is really fun. It's enjoyable. These are words. I also think if we look around the world now, we have wars in the Ukraine, wars in the Middle East, India and Pakistan exchanging missiles. They're both nuclear countries, right? Really, to be upset only by words now, you have to be a special kind of disconnected because you're looking at real life tragedy all over the globe. So if you. If you're invested in a joke or you're getting angry about a specific set of, you know, words or beliefs you don't like, you're probably the most privileged group of human beings to have ever existed on the planet.
- [09:54]
Chris Cuomo
Who do you think owns the extremism of canceling in our culture? Do you think it's the right or the left?
- [10:05]
Tim Dillon
I think both the right and the left can utilize that weapon, and it's a weapon. I saw it in the 90s, and the right employed it often. But Tipra Gore also employed it with music that she didn't like. She found Volgar, Al Gore's wife. I saw it in the 2000s with the Iraq war, where the right was saying anyone that didn't fall in lockstep with their aims in the Middle east was a traitor or was anti American. I saw it then. Then it emerged, you know, around 2015, on the. On the contemporary left as a tool in which to marginalize people that they disagreed with or found to be objectionable in some way. I also think it was motivated, as many things are, by careerism. I think people saw it as a way to, like, you know, elevate themselves at the expense of other people. It was a way for a lot of mediocre people, be they writers, comedians, actors, whatever, directors, to get work by falling lockstep in line with that ideology and then reaping a lot of professional benefits because of it. So I think that's what it became. I think it was very cynical and I think it was employed by people to advance themselves. And I think that that was a huge feature. And then it didn't work because all these companies lost a lot of money. Viewership dropped in a lot of these areas where they were just green. You know, doing a paint by number strategy of green lighting things based on, you know, how many people of color you have, how many gay people, how many trans people, how many women. And you forgot that all of this at the end of the day is to entertain people and to earn money. And it didn't work. And then when it didn't work, Hollywood, which famously doesn't believe in much outside of success, was like, we tried this. It didn't work. Hollywood will go which way the wind is going. The wind started to blow the other way. And then immediately all those executives forgot they had ever championed any of this stuff because they got big mortgages, you know, and, and kids in private school and they need to earn a living. And then they went the other way.
- [12:37]
Chris Cuomo
This podcast is sponsored by Smalls. Now listen, I am not a cat guy, but I will tell you this. People love their kitties. And when it comes to fur fam, I'm all in. I got three rescue dogs. And what I know is this. The better you feed them, the longer they live. And that's where Smalls comes in. Smalls cat food is protein packed. Their recipes have preservative free ingredients, just like the stuff you'd find in your fridge, assuming you shop well and it gets delivered right to your door. Here's a review from a legit real Smalls customer, Elizabeth C. My cat was always so so with her usual food, but. But she is very enthusiastic about Smalls. Her breath, much better, she poops much less frequently and it doesn't smell disgusting like it used to. What are you waiting for? Give your cat the food they deserve. So for a limited time only, because you're a Chris Cuomo project listener, you get 35% off smalls plus an additional 50% off your first order. How? Use my code, Cuomo. And remember, that's an additional 50% off your first order. All you got to do is head to smalls.com and use the promo code Cuomo. Again, the promo code Cuomo. And you get an additional 50% off your first order plus free shipping. Smalls.com so when you see it going the other way. How come Louis CK hasn't been brought back into the bosom of Hollywood when he is arguably one of the most talented guys in this space?
- [14:19]
Tim Dillon
Well, he's touring around the world. He's doing arenas. His fans are there. He's one of the top comics in the world, I think.
- [14:27]
Chris Cuomo
His own. By his own hand.
- [14:29]
Tim Dillon
By his own hand.
- [14:30]
Chris Cuomo
He did it all himself. I'm a huge fan. Yeah. He's myself, a friend.
- [14:35]
Tim Dillon
Right.
- [14:35]
Chris Cuomo
But why haven't they brought him back?
- [14:37]
Tim Dillon
If we're there right now, they're in a weird place, and that has to do with many different aspects of that business. So right now, it's a hard question. I think prior to now, the reasons were the ones we're talking about.
- [14:51]
Chris Cuomo
Right.
- [14:52]
Tim Dillon
They're scared. They're terrified. They're, you know, chasing or afraid of these Twitter mobs or whatever. Now I think it's such a weird place. They really don't know what to do. I don't think it's political right now. I think really they're unsure about the future of the business, how it's going to be shaped by the Internet, by AI, by all of these things. So right now, it's a very difficult. I mean, the smartest people I know in that world are very uncertain about what comes next.
- [15:26]
Chris Cuomo
That seems to be the word of the day. Uncertainty.
- [15:30]
Tim Dillon
Yeah.
- [15:30]
Chris Cuomo
And, you know, it's interesting. I've watched a shift. I want to know if you perceive it, and if so, do you perceive it the same way? Watching your show, I've seen a natural evolution of where you just are hitting your marks faster and faster. You're just seeing the field better and better, as happens with any experienced pro. But I have noticed, especially on this kind of new renegade disruptor vibe that is almost exclusively at this point on digital media, a lot of comedians have crossed over into a harsh critic and expert vibe. We just saw this culmination of that with Douglas Murray taking on Rogan and Dave Smith, who a lot of people in my audience won't know, but if you Google him, he's one of Rogan's foot soldiers. And I thought that that was a really interesting moment of somebody who's an actual intellectual saying, you know, just because you guys agree and have decided that there's no more things as experts, and just because you're funny, sometimes you can say whatever you want and be an expert. It doesn't work like that. Do you see that kind of shift? And. And if. Or. Or what do you see?
- [16:50]
Tim Dillon
Well, I think Dave specifically has done A ton of research on that conflict. Like, I would never say that. I have done a ton of research on that conflict. I have a layman's understanding of that conflict. I'm bothered by the civilian casualties. I think watching the footage is coming out of that region is heartbreaking. I think it's a terrible thing that's happening. But yet I'm not someone who's done. I think Dave, to his credit, has looked into that particular conflict. He's a Jewish guy. He has been heavily critical of Israel. He knows a lot about the history of that conflict, more than me. There are things I know more about. I wouldn't say I'm an expert per se, but I would say that there, there are areas where I'm more comfortable weighing in because I've done more research than, you know, I know more about certain things than I do about other things. Sure. Yeah. I think Douglas's point, I think, which, which to me, the issue that I had with his point was that only experts or only people that had been granted this designation by somebody as an expert could weigh in on this question of Israel and the Middle east and Gaza. And to me, unfortunately, in my lifetime, from the Iraq war to Covid, you know, all, a lot of the experts have failed. They failed when they told us there were weapons of mass destruction. They failed when they said that we should be passing the Patriot act and that we should be subverting constitutional norms and locking people up in Guantanamo Bay. They failed when they said that it was going to be, you know, two weeks to stop the spread and that there were no masks needed. And then you had to have a mask. And the churches are closed, but the liquor stores are open and nobody could have a prom, but the movies had special permission to shoot if they had political connections. I understand Douglas's point. Like if I want surgery, I'm not going to go to my friend, I'm going to go to a surgeon. But the problem is a lot of the people that we deem as experts in society will get out and say biological, gender and sex are unrelated. So to me, as a layman, non expert, community college dropout, but a guy who's somewhat self educated and knows people and, you know, looks at culture a lot. I, I think that the damage done to the realm of experts has been largely self inflicted. And I think that that's so I think it, it's easy to point and go, this person doesn't have the requisite amount of knowledge to comment on something. But really, when we look at the field of experts and how people become experts and the, and the realms of intellectuals, whether it's higher education or a think tank or a GSE government sponsored entity, wherever the money's coming from. It's just hard for people in my generation Gen, you know, Gen X, who live Iraq war and Afghanistan and everything. The experts said that was a great idea. And then 20 years later, the Taliban takes a country again. So I think it's, it's. I understand what, what you're saying, but I think I'm more on the line of, like, I'm just now looking at the way somebody presents an argument and seeing what rings true to me.
- [20:40]
Chris Cuomo
Yes, I get it. I think it's the rings true to me and people being seen as, I guess the word expert is now tarnished. But I got what Douglas was saying for several reasons. One, I have no problem with people having an opinion about anything. That's all podcasts are for the most part, is hot takes. And I get that. And there's space for everything. And it's an evolving space. And my big prediction is that Rogan's success is admirable. I do not believe he'll be where he was three months ago, a year from today. There are too many talented people entering that space now who want his real estate and they're going to be better at what he does than he is. So I think that, yeah.
- [21:24]
Tim Dillon
But you know, I got to be.
- [21:25]
Chris Cuomo
Honest, going to see attrition.
- [21:26]
Tim Dillon
That's not, that's not the first time someone said that about Joe. He does surpass expectations. Like people wrote his obituary many, many times and it's just never come true.
- [21:37]
Chris Cuomo
I'll listen. I don't necessarily want it to come true because I don't, I don't find him offensive or any. I see him as innocuous, but he's getting criticism. He never got criticism before. The media is taking him seriously now and that's not gonna go well for him. He's always been ignored. And then he did that deal after the media made him relevant for a minute as an anti vaxxer, which wasn't really fair, but he put himself in that position and then he got his big deal and then they had problems with the deal and the media scrubbed him, found bullshit racist things that, you know, he had said in the past. They made him apologize. That was the beginning. So that's what I see being done to him, whether or not it is deserved. But I'm happy for his success. I hope it continues. What I saw in Douglas Murray's thing that I think people should think about is there's a difference between saying, look, Tim, this is what I think about tulips, okay? And, you know, make of it what you want. You know, I'm not a botanist, I'm not a horticulturist. There's a difference between that and me now becoming an organizing point on tulips. The issue for Murray is not that Dave Smith has an opinion on Gaza, but as a journalist, I would never say the kinds of things that Dave Smith says about Gaza, about Israel, about COVID about vaccines, about any of it. Because as a journalist, I'm so aware of what I don't know. And he seems to be too comfortable ignoring his own ignorance. And because of that, it'd be one thing if he was just another guy. But when you are positioned by Rogan or by anybody as someone to listen to so that you may believe what he believes. Now I get why Murray was bothered by it. Because if you ask me about Gaza, okay, it matters that Smith has never been to the region. Okay? If you're not. If you're not on the ground there and you don't talk to people in the region, you know, through no filter. No filter. This is not what Tim Dillon says about what happened when he was in Gaza.
- [23:47]
Tim Dillon
Most people in this country around 2004, 2005, we're starting to see the folly of the Iraq war. They were starting to see that the Bush doctrine of preemptive war to supposedly democratize the Middle east had failed or was in a process of failing. Almost none of those people had visited Iraq or Afghanistan.
- [24:10]
Chris Cuomo
I would.
- [24:11]
Tim Dillon
I would say that 99.9% of them had never visited that country. But the images coming out of that region and the news from a common sense perspective allowed most people to say that engaging in this type of foreign policy was an error.
- [24:33]
Chris Cuomo
I agree. And you don't have to be in a place to understand it, obviously. Obviously. However, from a journalist perspective, the idea that you understand the fabric of a conflict and you haven't been around it, I get why that would be upsetting, because that is a standard for us now. The war I lived, right? And I signed up as an early embed, and I lost a lot of guys on 9 11, and it had a big impact on me, and I was here for it, and I watched it in real time. We knew there were no weapons of mass destruction much earlier, and the Bush administration shut us down, said that we were threatening operational security of troops on the ground in the Middle East. The American people agreed and stopped watching the news. I remember the reporting changing. Not that we started to change our take, but we said it less because Bush had succeeded in swaying the American people to agree to disagree about weapons of mass destruction. But we're in it now, so let's just go kill the bad guys. And I remember it, and I remember Congress, that being the last time they took a vote on a conflict after that point, they gave their power to the President.
- [25:56]
Tim Dillon
To the President. Yeah. I think part of the media's credibility problem and why I think the media going after Rogan as much as they do doesn't have the desired effect on their end, is that they have lost the trust of a vast majority of Americans. And I don't know if they're gonna be able to get it back.
- [26:15]
Chris Cuomo
But who has the trust? Who has trust? I guarantee you, if you asked all of America, I don't know how many know Joe Rogan, but if you were to ask, but I'm saying I don't know because you gotta remember, yeah, these numbers, I don't believe them. I don't believe my own numbers. So, you know, let's say Rogan, you know, has made a name for himself. He's been popularized within the media. I mean, I've always known him because I'm a UFC fan, but I don't think he's going to have a high end issue of trust with people out the outside the bro culture.
- [26:46]
Tim Dillon
Here's what I would disagree with you in that sense because I think what people like about Joe is that they feel like he's authentic and that he is himself. Now, whether they agree or disagree with everything he says, what he's built over a period of years and really over a decade, is trust that he is going to be who he is and call things how he sees them. Again, that doesn't mean he's always right. He built a show with his interests. Corporate media doesn't allow people to do that. Most journalists we don't know much about other than the fact that they opine on the news or they read the news. Rogan built an audience with his interests. Here's the things I value, here's what interests me. And he filters the, you know, current events through that lens. I think because people know who he is as a person, he's built a level of trust with them. There are, of course, people that dislike him, but even the people that dislike him, I would say they probably are less likely to think he's a cynical actor and more likely to Just say, well, I don't agree with him, or I think he's bad for America or whatever. I think when you talk about a corporate media structure where you have corporate sponsors, you have a lot of big, big money players in the mix when it comes to advertisers, when it comes to media moguls who run these operations that have big political connections, which Joe has now. But for many years, didn't he interviewed Trump? But for many years he doesn't come from that world. I think that he's built trust with his audience, and I think they trust that he's going to, again, not always be right, but be an honest broker of his own feelings, which I think CNN or Fox News or msnbc, people are less likely to feel that way about anchors on those networks.
- [28:41]
Chris Cuomo
Yeah, I also think that, Yes, I think that that's a fair appraisal. I think. Look, I think Joe's. I think Joe's limiting feature is that I don't think a lot of people find him to be on serious topics. I think he's authentic. Sometimes he gets out over his skis. That seems to be happening more recently. Why? Because he's getting scrutinized differently. And the power of his platform is what his guests. He gets all of the best guests. Why? Because he's got the most reach. We know why they're there. They're there to sell whatever it is that they're into.
- [29:12]
Tim Dillon
And that's why I think any media platform that's ever been invented, the guests are there to sell something.
- [29:20]
Chris Cuomo
Oh, 100%. I'm not. Again, it's not unique. All media is the same. Just the delivery device and podcasts will be the same thing. They're going to start getting bought up and you'll see an evolution. You'll see Bill Burr is going to be put into a position to rival Rogan soon. They're going to get other talent, Jerry Seinfeld, they're going to get other funny people who. They're going to try to encroach on the space. And we'll see. We'll see where they develop an audience and where they don't. But I do think that there's risk in all this. And here's my. In watching what you do and watching what I do, the idea that, as you said, agreeable nihilism, we were joking, but there's a real truth in that. None of it matters. Nothing is true. Nothing is real. It's all how you feel. You know, that's what it is. You can go Any way, on anything. I think there's a danger in that, and I think we're living it. I don't know how aware of it we are.
- [30:21]
Tim Dillon
Yeah, I would internalize. I would internalize it a little differently. Not that nothing is real, but like, your family's real, your friends are real, your community is real, the Internet largely isn't real. What. A lot of what politicians and media figures say is not necessarily real. We've established that. So the nihilism to me is like, it's. It's a cynicism that's relatively healthy because it can keep you alive and it can keep you from going broke. It can keep you from falling for anything a huckster says. So I don't internalize nihilism as like this complete emptiness or void of meaning. I think it's just having a very healthy skepticism and cynicism about the narratives that are being pushed all the time.
- [31:03]
Chris Cuomo
But why do conspiracies pop in a unique way in American culture now, especially on digital media, for instance? Yeah, because I think Tim Dillon is going to do. Well, if you were someone who was talking to me about why the government isn't talking to us about UAPs, you do one and a half times as well.
- [31:24]
Tim Dillon
Why, sure, yes, maybe. I mean, I. I think that the. The problem with this conversation about experts is that the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are supposed to be diametrically opposed on a lot of things. You know, they're positioned as very different.
- [31:40]
Chris Cuomo
Yeah.
- [31:40]
Tim Dillon
But really they come down on the same side of most issues. The Washington Post, same thing. Abc, NBC, cbs, cnn, Fox News, msnbc, all of these organizations have never really challenged, like, the dominance of the financial sector in American politics. The, you know, trade, immigration, all of these things, you know, the militarism, all of these things have been pretty consistent that experts on all sides of the spectru, Republicans and Democrats have all come down on the same side of a lot of these issues. And a lot of their kids go to the same schools, and a lot of them belong to the same social clubs, and a lot of them have gone to the same schools. And it feels like to a lot of Americans who feel like they were sold out or that the economic system doesn't work for them, or that their concerns about immigration are constantly called racist, or their concerns about what their kids are being taught in school, they're constantly accused of being transphobic, or like some fundamentalists, a lot of those people feel that they're losing control of their lives and their communities. Because people that are supposed to have all of these varying viewpoints have actually landed on the same side of many of these big issues that were never voted on and that the American people never had a say in. So the question about the conspiracies, and I think we all know some conspiracies are valid and some are absurd. But the question of the, all of that seems to arise from the, from the same place, which is that Americans are trying to figure out how this system is so wildly corrupt and it no longer serves their interests. And they're seeing a lot of patterns. And some of the patterns are crazy, right? Like, oh, it's the Jews or the earth is flat or whatever. But then some of the patterns are very, very understandable where they go. It does seem like there are a lot of interlocking power factions that have each other's back. Whether you want to call it a deep state or you want to call it a permanent government, or you want to call it the corporate state, which is the marriage of government and big business, whatever you want to call it. Most Americans are seeing that their lives and livelihoods are not being prioritized by this kind of amorphous blob of very wealthy, well connected people. And whether those people are simply united by class interest, whether some of them are being blackmailed, whether some of them just have ruthless career ambition, whatever it is, they seem to be on the same side of all these issues. I think that's where a lot of this conspiracy stuff comes from.
- [34:23]
Chris Cuomo
Why is it that people on the fringe, right, seem to engage in conspiracies more? Is it a coincidence that Benny Johnson and Charlie Kirk are more interested in the Epstein files? Is it a coincidence that Rogan believe was, you know, talking so much about Epstein killing himself versus being murdered? Why do we hear more of that on the right?
- [34:48]
Tim Dillon
I think there's people on the fringe left, if you remember. And I, I listen, I think Epstein probably was murdered. I mean, I, I don't think there's. Well, based on the idea that the cameras went out and the guards fell asleep and he had information on some of the most powerful people in the world and his best friend Ghislaine Maxwell's father, Seymour Hersh, wrote a book alleging that he was an agent of the Mossad and they had what clearly seems like a honeypot operation and that all of these politicians were on his jet. It feels like, again, just from an outsider's point of view, he was. Got a sweetheart deal for the first time. He was accused and convicted of of being inappropriate with a minor. And I don't know the exact terminology, he did a lot more than be inappropriate with a minor. But you have this very. This intriguing, weird figure who's connected to all of these very powerful people and has an island where people are going to meet up with underage women, and all of these people are coming out and testifying to that effect. And then right before his trial, he dies. I mean, Chris, let's be honest. If we're talking about the Mafia and we're talking about a guy that had information on all of these big powerful people, and he gets whacked. There's not a part of your brain and Kirk or Johnson or Rogan or whoever, me or anybody who's looking at this, and people on the left and the fringe left also has some conspiracies. One of them was that Donald Trump was an agent of Russia. And by the fringe left, I mean every media organization, including the one you used to work for, every day, was Russiagate. So to me, it's like, don't you look at the Epstein thing and for a minute say to yourself, yes, it is possible that this guy who is involved in. In. In potentially blackmailing people, but certainly involved in human trafficking and connected to all these wealthy, powerful people, gets whacked before he can say any of their names?
- [36:51]
Chris Cuomo
Yes, I think it's very. I think it's very curious. I think that. I don't believe. I. I guess what my gripe with it is is that I don't believe that there's high ground on the right on these things like Russiagate. I lived it. Okay, let me just make a couple of points that I just know are true, and you can do with them what you want. Okay, sure. I've never seen any other political team do what Trump's team did. Never. And Bill. Paul Manafort will agree with that. Paul Manafort has been in exactly one meeting where he was sitting with other campaign officials and realized that he was talking to someone who was selling themselves as a Russian asset. And he got up and left. He says, okay, once the guy's been in the business 60 years, once he was in a meeting like that, once do. Have I ever heard of guys like Roger Stone, who knows better, and Michael Caputo, who knows better. Sit down with a guy who says, I got information for you from Russian intelligence sources that'll help with Hillary Clinton. Once I've heard of somebody taking a meeting like that. Now, were they right to go to school in the dossier the way they.
- [38:11]
Tim Dillon
Did the Steele dossier that was paid for by the Clintons.
- [38:14]
Chris Cuomo
Well, indirectly, yes, but indirectly, oppo research had been paid for. But that guy who was not working MI6 was not working for Clinton when he did it. But in fairness to him, he never said that everything in there was fact. He worked the situation that he was paid to work.
- [38:37]
Tim Dillon
A lot of that stuff was used and peddled by the media to convince people that Donald Trump was an agent of a foreign government. That does a ton of damage to democracy. It does a ton of damage.
- [38:48]
Chris Cuomo
But here's the thing, here's the thing. And again, these are just, these are observations of things that were true. I've also never heard of anybody who said what Donald Trump said about wanting more WikiLeaks, about wanting Russia to do more of the things. If they were interfering, it's interfere more. And you know, when you say things like that, of course you are asking for scrutiny. And if you think it's just started with Trump, you remember Gary Hart? Gary Hart looks at the media and says, enough with the questions about me fucking around on my wife. You want to know what I do? Follow me.
- [39:23]
Tim Dillon
Trump says a lot.
- [39:24]
Chris Cuomo
They follow him and they bust him on monkey.
- [39:25]
Tim Dillon
Trump says a lot of wild stuff. But I think when you, when you part of the issue, I think the way the media has viewed Trump as he's this existential threat and in many of their minds, I believe they believe that this is true. Who has to be vanquished at all costs, even if we're engaging in dishonesty or we're inflating something. I mean, it started with he's a Russian asset. It ended with he inflated the price of a condo. I mean, the amount of things they tried to get the guy on. They had the full power of the federal government. They had Robert Mueller, they had a very.
- [39:57]
Chris Cuomo
Well, they had Mueller, who's a Republican, a lifelong one. And we learned way too late that he was way off his game. And it was actually David Weissman who was running that investigation. He is not a lifelong Republican and he definitely wanted to get Trump, which is why they had that list of potential charges at the end that everybody who wants to say there was nothing to it ignores. Now. Fair, fair. All of those crimes were crimes of COVID ups. And it is often like that in criminal law. Whenever anything is conspiratorial or fraud based that get you for the initial activity, they get you for how you tried to cover what you did initially.
- [40:34]
Tim Dillon
Look, it seems like there's a level of scrutiny being applied to Donald Trump that was, I agree, applied to the Clintons.
- [40:41]
Chris Cuomo
Obama's Clinton isn't a good example because Clinton got attacked in a way that Trump wasn't even attacked.
- [40:48]
Tim Dillon
Well, Clinton, yes, but Clinton was, was impeached. Trump was impeached twice.
- [40:53]
Chris Cuomo
But I'm saying Clinton started with d' Amato opening the Whitewater investigation, which was into his wife.
- [40:59]
Tim Dillon
Senator from my hometown.
- [41:00]
Chris Cuomo
Yes, I saw him in the park.
- [41:02]
Tim Dillon
We go to the same fish restaurant, Artie's Fish, South Shore fish. It's great. Thank you.
- [41:09]
Chris Cuomo
I love Senator d' Amato and this is a worthy digression. What does it mean when Chris Cuomo says he loves Senator Alphonse d' Amato? Senator Alphonse d' Amato unseated my father.
- [41:22]
Tim Dillon
Right.
- [41:22]
Chris Cuomo
Alphonse d' Amato found George Pataky, ran him against my father, and won. Right. I should therefore hate Alphonse d' Amato, but I don't. Why? Because I was raised in that game and that's what happens in politics. And d' Amato before that and after that was respectful of my father as a man, asked him for things, spent time with him. So I know him in a different way. That world, world is dead. And in the new world of what we started talking about, not you, which is, I really enjoy your stuff, but in the Rogan Smith, all these new players, it's all us and them all the time.
- [42:05]
Tim Dillon
Well, Rogan's not, I wouldn't say he's a new player, but the, I mean, he's.
- [42:09]
Chris Cuomo
In the last 10 years.
- [42:11]
Tim Dillon
I, I think what your, what you're saying, and, and, and I think that it's, it's a value judgment. I think it's a value judgment. I think there are a lot of people that are always going to look for a more traditional structure for their information to come through, and I think that's fine. I don't tell people where to get news. What I tell people is get news from many different sources, use their own brain, cross reference things, use a knowledge of history, if they can get one. And I think people are gonna have to make their own decisions about a lot of things. With the Trump Russiagate thing, to me, this, the, the, the amount of damage done to the country's psyche and the fact that it's never grouped in with any conspiratorial thinking and that it is never mentioned alongside other types of conspiracies, the fact that it was, then it was dropped by the media, they never bring it up anymore. They never even mentioned.
- [43:14]
Chris Cuomo
We do that with everything.
- [43:15]
Tim Dillon
Well, for sure. But this was calling the President of the United States an asset of a foreign power and that he had possibly been recruited in the 80s. Like, these articles were so salacious and conspiratorial. And then the publishing of this dossier, and then Jane Mayer, who I respect and I think it is a good journalist at the New Yorker, writing these things about these fantasy tapes and the urine and all this stuff. And then late night hosts are doing jokes about it, and everybody. It's because it's seeping into the culture. But it's never called a conspiracy. It's never been. I don't think there's a ton of reflection in the media on it. You know, more than I do about that. But I feel like there's never been a me, a cult. But there's never been an. I'm sorry. There's never been a. We got this wrong. There's only been, hey, we didn't have the goods on it, but we kind of somewhat still believe it.
- [44:11]
Chris Cuomo
Tim, name me somebody who has apologized for anything in public life and it went well for them. Donald Trump is 100% right. Yeah. Only a fool apologizes when the people you're apologizing to want to beat you over the head with it. He's right. Right. He is not wrong to not apologize for things that people find offensive. I honest. I know that that sounds rude. I know that that doesn't sound adult.
- [44:41]
Tim Dillon
I agree with you. But he's right, because if you were.
- [44:43]
Chris Cuomo
To apologize, he'd get killed.
- [44:45]
Tim Dillon
A little bit about the moral high ground. And I think the idea is that, like, podcasters don't have a moral high ground and they're just peddling whatever. But then there are these experts.
- [44:55]
Chris Cuomo
I don't think there's any moral high ground. I don't think there has been for a long time because look. Look at what happened with Trump. Trump. Okay, I. You can write three books on how what happened to him with Russia Gate, or whatever you want to call it, was wrong. What was the first thing he did when he got in power? He went after Biden for being a Ukrainian Russian plant. The first thing he did was go after Biden and his son. Weaponizing a guy's addiction. I don't know how much you know about that world, but unfortunately, I was.
- [45:26]
Tim Dillon
An addict for many, many years from when I was. I started doing cocaine at 12, and I stopped at 25, and I never ended up in the Ukraine. And I never took a photo of everything I did and put it On a laptop.
- [45:37]
Chris Cuomo
You know very well Circuit City, but you know very well that Hunter Biden is a typical drug addled person. I know. I'm not saying that he didn't do.
- [45:49]
Tim Dillon
Business people, very few of them ended up in the Ukraine and I mean, their dads are the vice President.
- [45:56]
Chris Cuomo
It's not about why he wasn't.
- [45:58]
Tim Dillon
It's a unique life, let's say that.
- [46:00]
Chris Cuomo
But unique life you would have to look at.
- [46:03]
Tim Dillon
None of my drug addict friends ended up in Malibu selling art for $80,000.
- [46:08]
Chris Cuomo
You would have to find drug addled people who also were wealthy with connections of people in power.
- [46:13]
Tim Dillon
Right, okay, that's true.
- [46:14]
Chris Cuomo
A lot of junkies don't wind up that way. My point is this. It was so wrong what was done to Trump. It was so wrong, it was so destructive that he then did the exact same thing as soon as he got in power.
- [46:28]
Tim Dillon
What do we expect if this is the standards that we're all setting? It becomes if this guy is attacked relentlessly for being an asset of a foreign power and then we have the Vice President's son in the Ukraine up to God only knows what with a laptop full of pictures that the.
- [46:50]
Chris Cuomo
No, no. A laptop full of Pict pictures is not the standard. He said he was on the take from Ukraine and all the money was going to his uncle and his dad. And by the way, Joe should have never let his son be doing deals like he was when Joe was in office. My father would have never allowed it. My brother never did anything like that. He wouldn't allow me to do it. And I had opportunities falling on my head all the time. That would have been legal, by the.
- [47:17]
Tim Dillon
Way, if Don Jr. Had that laptop surface with those type of photos where.
- [47:23]
Chris Cuomo
You were the photos, photos that are personally hurtful would be spread all over the place and then some. If it were the Trumps in a way that it wasn't done with Biden.
- [47:33]
Tim Dillon
Intelligence chief said this was even worse Russian disinformation and it was censored for a period of time on accident. Some of the biggest media platforms in the world. And a lot of people would say that that's election interference. You had guys like John Brennan and Hayden and Clapper and these are like, like the kings of the national security state. These are not underlings. They're not people that aren't good at spotting what Russian disinfo was. Right. John Brennan led the CIA for many years. I'm sure he knows what Russia does.
- [48:00]
Chris Cuomo
But even if they come to conclude. Well, no, because they're not doing the vetting anymore. They're just taking the findings of their agencies. And that's their mistake. That's their mistake. But the idea that therefore they're on par with a Dave Smith is also a mistake. Support comes from Soul. Sol is a wellness brand. What does that mean? They think about what goes into what they make and they believe feeling good should be fun, easy and safe. Sol specializes in delicious hemp derived THC and CBD products designed to boost your mood and help you unwind. Their best selling out of office gummies were designed to provide a mild relaxing buzz, boost your mood mood and enhance creativity and relaxation with none of the downsides that come with booze or, of course, narcotics or other hard drugs. I have taken the gummies. They are good. They do not hit too hard. They do not take too long to hit. They are sustained. And believe it or not, even though I'm a vanilla gorilla, I'm pretty chemically sensitive, meaning it doesn't take a lot for me to feel a lot. But. But they're good and the people I've given them to have liked them. Bring on the good vibes. Treat yourself to Soul today. Right now, Soul is offering my audience 30% off your entire order. You go to GetSoul.com and use the code CUOMO in case you're on a gummy right now. I'll Repeat it. Get soul.com promo code Cuomo, 30% off. What I'm saying is, at some point, somebody's got to get into the business of better, my brother. Somebody's got to get into the business of better.
- [49:42]
Tim Dillon
That's a good slogan.
- [49:43]
Chris Cuomo
The business of better, because otherwise it.
- [49:45]
Tim Dillon
Never ends like a home improvement company.
- [49:47]
Chris Cuomo
What Hunter Biden did was beyond the pale. Okay.
- [49:49]
Tim Dillon
Yes.
- [49:50]
Chris Cuomo
Ivanka Trump went as an emissary of the United States to China and asked them for six patents that they gave her.
- [49:57]
Tim Dillon
Yeah.
- [49:57]
Chris Cuomo
While she was working for the United States government.
- [50:00]
Tim Dillon
I don't like a lot of people. I don't like the crypto stuff, but.
- [50:03]
Chris Cuomo
I'm saying it never ends. They're starting a gentleman's club right now. 500 grand to sign in in D.C.
- [50:09]
Tim Dillon
There'S a lot of stuff right now going on with the Trump administration that everybody's been very critical of, especially on the right, the deportations. People do not like these college kids that wrote an article critical or attended a protest. Now, if they committed a crime or violence or something like that, it's a different story. But like deporting people to an El Salvador in prison that are US Citizens are bad. Alex Jones said that. Right. Like, there's a ton of stuff that people are unhappy with Trump about. I don't think people love the crypto stuff. I don't think people love. People elected Trump for a strong border, a strong economy, and to bring back common sense to the culture. And if he does those things, I think he'll be a very big success. I think he's gotten very distracted. I think a lot of people are noticing that, and I think a lot of people are calling him out, including Joe Rogan. I've called it out. A lot of people have called it out. I think there are people that are on a frequency where they'll never criticize him, but I think a lot of people on the right are really starting to criticize a lot of what's going on.
- [51:10]
Chris Cuomo
Well, I'm not a big fan of criticism because it's too easy and deporting Americans isn't happening. There was one hairdresser who's an American who was left in the lockup in Florida wrongly, and he's gonna get a nice sip. Civil settlement would be my guess. After he produced his citizenship proof, they left him there for over a day waiting for ice. He's going to sue, he's going to win. But nobody was deported.
- [51:39]
Tim Dillon
Trump.
- [51:39]
Chris Cuomo
I can't believe I'm saying this, but Trump does not get the benefit of saying things the wrong way with the media.
- [51:48]
Tim Dillon
Yeah.
- [51:50]
Chris Cuomo
He gets asked about. He's being asked about what the constitutional standard is for due process. Okay, let's just start with the idea of why expertise matters. We both know Donald Trump doesn't know about due process, where it comes from in the Constitution, what it means, what it doesn't mean. He doesn't know. We both know that he is not legal.
- [52:11]
Tim Dillon
Legal scholars would also fight about it when it comes to people that aren't citizens, probably.
- [52:15]
Chris Cuomo
Well, but here's what you can fight about whatever you want. Right. The Fifth Amendment is pretty clear, and anyone who can read the language will make it through 90% of it, which is if you are on land that is in the jurisdiction of the United States, you're entitled to due process under the laws. How much? That's the question. That's the question. Right. Is someone who enters illegally entitled legally to as much due process as Tim Dillon? Nope. Nobody ever said otherwise. How much? How does it manifest itself? In what context? Debatable subject of legislation and case law. But what I'm saying is this. Trump says, I don't know. I don't know. About this due process thing. I don't know. Well, Marco Rubio said, yeah, I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. I got lawyers. Okay, but, you know, you're supposed to defend the Constitution, right? Again, he says, I don't know, media goes crazy. We just had the first president in American history saying he doesn't, doesn't think he's supposed to defend the Constitution. Is that what he said? No, that is not what he said.
- [53:26]
Tim Dillon
Right.
- [53:26]
Chris Cuomo
Is that what he meant?
- [53:28]
Tim Dillon
Yeah.
- [53:28]
Chris Cuomo
Hell no, it's not what he meant.
- [53:30]
Tim Dillon
No. And I, And I think that. But it's just. I will say that instinctively and I, I think this is a credit to people on the right who everyone says are a mindless cult of, of zombies that follow him when he does something they dislike or they instinctively feel could be an issue. A lot of people are speaking up, more so than I think people would.
- [53:54]
Chris Cuomo
Would have expected, maybe. I mean, look, I think part of that is because he's doing things that they didn't expect when they voted for him, which, you know, you now have people saying, well, shame on you. This is what you get. We told you this was going to happen. Which I think is also gratuitous, which is, by the way, my biggest beef with our media culture, and I include all of us, us in that, which is everybody's a Monday morning fucking quarterback now. Everybody knew that the vaccine wasn't a vaccine. Everybody knew that everything that was done during the pandemic was wrong. Everybody knew these things. And I lived it in real time, and people didn't know shit. And the first time that I brought up the lab leak story, I got shut down by the Trump White House. The first time I brought up whether or not they were going to investigate where it started and whether it was intentional. I was told to shut up by Redfield and the other people. But everything is. Hindsight's 20 20. What I'm saying is he's doing things that are disruptive for the right. Tariffs are anathema to fiscal conservatives. Right. So they didn't expect that, even though he said he was going to do it. But we've all gotten used to him saying a lot of things, but not doing those things, or at least not doing them the way he said he would, and then he did it, and then he overdid it, and now they're having to deal with that, and they're upset because a lot of them are market sensitive. And that's okay. That's. That's part of the business. Trump doesn't deal with it well, which is why he's doing what he does best. He's distracting now with Tina Peters. Tina Peters is a political hostage. How. How is she a political hostage?
- [55:39]
Tim Dillon
How.
- [55:40]
Chris Cuomo
How is your political hostage? But all these people echo it. The same people on the right that support these other things are now saying, Tina Peters is a political hero. Political hostage.
- [55:52]
Tim Dillon
Who is Tina Peters? I can't even keep up.
- [55:54]
Chris Cuomo
So Tina Peters is the lady who was the county clerk in Colorado who did the stop the steal thing and brought the people in to show the extra databases and then gave it to the MyPillow guy. And then. Then she got busted for letting in someone who wasn't supposed to be on the inside and releasing information that actually did have sensitive information that could be used to compromise the voting systems. So she was indicted and prosecuted and found guilty. And then she was sentenced to nine years, which was too long, in my opinion.
- [56:24]
Tim Dillon
In my opinion, yes, A lot.
- [56:25]
Chris Cuomo
It's heavy because state crime. I thought it was heavy. I read the judge's rationale. I get it. She basically did. Told him to fuck himself a couple of times during the trial. Figuratively.
- [56:36]
Tim Dillon
She's a spirited woman.
- [56:37]
Chris Cuomo
So she. So he dropped the hammer. Okay. But not a political prisoner. Why? Because she did what they said she did. And Trump says it was the Democratic attorney general. No, it wasn't. It was a Republican district attorney who brought the case and investigated all the allegations. But now we get all these people echoing it. So if you're going to. About Russiagate, which you should. You can about that. Don't start advancing because it works for your side.
- [57:07]
Tim Dillon
No, I listen a thousand percent. I don't think people have an interest in him relitigating the 2020 election. I do think nine years is a bit extreme, but I think people elected him for the three reasons. I said. They want an economy, strong borders, they want common sense in cultural spaces. And that is what he offered. And I think, again, that's what that the Democratic Party failed to offer. They've now spun this narrative that it's all podcasters and Joe Rogan who swayed the election, but they tried to run a guy who.
- [57:36]
Chris Cuomo
If they say that. I haven't heard that that much.
- [57:39]
Tim Dillon
Oh, it's every interview I do, and you didn't ask me, but every single interview they all go. All these podcasters swayed the election. I'm like, you ran a terribly unpopular candidate.
- [57:49]
Chris Cuomo
They're full of shit. They're full of shit. Most of the voters don't even listen to podcasts that's not what it was. They said the boy wasn't a problem. They ignored it. Why? Because the left flank of that party believes that there is advantage in showing that the right is heartless to the immigrant experience and that we are all about immigrants. We're all immigrants here. Let's love them up and be compassionate to whatever brought them here. Relax on enforcement. It was an extension, theoretically, of the defund the police of force as a mechanism, and they caved to that. And that was on them. And Biden was a lousy candidate.
- [58:35]
Tim Dillon
Yeah. You also had a lot of people on the right with that issue, which. Interesting. You know, for many, many years that really wanted cheap labor. And they still do. And they still do. And so there's a lot of people, Chamber of Commerce, Koch brothers, a lot of those people are very pro immigration. And that's where I think when we talk about conspiracies or whatever, this idea of us versus them or there's an amorphous blob or a deep state or whatever, people start going, hey, man, I didn't get a vote on this. I got elements of the far left, elements of the far right, really well funded, powerful groups of people making decisions that dramatically impact and affect my life. And there's no way for me to push back on any of that stuff. And I think that's why the Trump candidacy got so much support in 2016. You had Hillary Clinton about to run against Jeb Bush. It was an oligarchy.
- [59:36]
Chris Cuomo
Yes.
- [59:36]
Tim Dillon
And America pushed back on it. And I think the Democrats indicted Trump back into prominence in the last election. And he ran on the same issues. Yes. That propelled him. And these were the same things. BIDEN Letting in 10 million people.
- [59:53]
Chris Cuomo
Yes.
- [59:53]
Tim Dillon
People feeling like public safety was at risk in the inner cities because of liberal DAs that were kind of out of step with, like, Yes, I agree with all those policies.
- [60:03]
Chris Cuomo
Yeah, I agree with all of it. Your analysis is spot on. Unless we're both wrong. But we're.
- [60:09]
Tim Dillon
We're building. I can't believe that we will never be.
- [60:13]
Chris Cuomo
We will be. We will. We're both building backwards from the same conclusion. Where, where we know where we are and how we got here seems fairly obvious. The question is where you go? My problem with Trump is right now I have a new problem with Trump. My old problem with Trump was he's a pain in my ass. He's saying shit all the time that I can't let go. Otherwise I'm, I'm being as unserious as he is in that moment and yet nobody gives a shit. So how do I balance those things? That was my old problem. And then he weaponized me, made life hard for my wife and my kids and I asked him to stop and he didn't. So that was my beef. It was personal. Now I have a new beef, which is he is so close to the signature issue of your and my generation. He's so close to it.
- [61:05]
Tim Dillon
Which is tower in Dubai. I agree with you. It is luxurious and it's been Gaza, in Gaza or Gaza, I think actually he's so luxury is the defining issue of my generation. How we live a lifestyle. Building with a lifestyle with the right amenities, private restaurants, a 24 hour house, car, a thousand percent. These are the issues. Couple of pools, a lap pool, a lounge pool, couple of Baja decks. I'm, I'm fully with you. Room service, concierge, 24 hour lifestyle manager, thousand percent. That is it. But I don't love the design because it's one tower. I say go three. Go three, go.
- [61:44]
Chris Cuomo
A three tower celebration of the Trinity.
- [61:47]
Tim Dillon
Celebration of the Trinity.
- [61:48]
Chris Cuomo
Here's the defining issue of our generation and Trump is right on top of it. Okay? He's actually even and said it once at least. America, to move forward as any extension of the dream has to rethink the benefits and burdens and how they're shared of how our economy works. Now, I am not a communist. I am a capitalist. Okay? We have certain socialistic aspects of, to our, to our system, right? Public education, entitlements, there are socialistic things. Bankruptcy laws for corporations, these are socialistic. However, he's on top of that with where he started before he did the tariffs, the corporate class, raped our buyer base, made their shit somewhere else, used other people just because it was cheaper and they didn't have to deal with any of the protections of the labor labor or of the environment. And then they sold it all to us, but we weren't making the money anymore to buy the stuff. And so the gap between the top and the middle has grown exponentially in the last generation. That is the defining issue. What do you do about it? I don't know. But Trump has identified that issue now, now the way he is saying to solve it, I totally get the criticism of it from the right and the left. We want to make T shirts and sneakers here. No, we don't. We want the good jobs here. Let them keep those jobs. But how you rethink the share of burden to benefit that people get for the American market is the issue. And he is on it. The way I have never heard a Democrat on it. It never.
- [63:48]
Tim Dillon
That's. I, I agree with you. I think that was very well said. I think he gets it. I would also extrapolate. I, I think it's encouraging that he's saying to Europe you have to step up and pay for more of your defense. And I think I agree with you.
- [64:06]
Chris Cuomo
So what you do about it, he took a huge turn by doing what he always does. He goes very fast and far in a direction. And look, the guy isn't known for running things, managing things, being a strategy and an implementer. That's not what he's known for. It's not a coincidence that he had as many corporate bankruptcies as he had. But he is a vision guy and he is a salesman and he is right. That's the defining issue of how do you figure? I don't know what the answer is. I don't know. Maybe Dave Smith knows, but I don't know how to deal with it being 345x from the management to the people who are making the money for the corporation. And if you touch that, you're fucking with capitalism. But if anything happens to that system, we bail them out. And that's not offensive to capitalism. He has defined this. Bernie Sanders talks about it also. But his solution structure is overtly offensive to capitalist society.
- [65:07]
Tim Dillon
Sure.
- [65:07]
Chris Cuomo
So there's an amazing opportunity there and Trump is right on top of it.
- [65:12]
Tim Dillon
Yeah.
- [65:13]
Chris Cuomo
And instead of just sinking his teeth into it and doing what is really hard in politics, which is saying, fuck, I did too much with the tariffs too soon. I did. We're have to rethink it and go at it a different way. I got some people's attention because I.
- [65:26]
Tim Dillon
Do think they're a negotiating tool. I don't know how good those negotiations will go, obviously, but let's see what happens. The all in podcast made an interesting point. They said said in any negotiation, if you set the bar very far away, it gives you maximum leverage to just land in a place that's good. I agree with you. I have the same concerns. I think partially it's defining the problem and then figuring out how to chip away at it using different weapons. And I think one of them is. Is trying to rebalance trade. Another one is trying to regulate immigration. Another one is trying to, you know, probably. And it might affect me or you. You might have to raise taxes on wealthy people for a period of time. It is what it is. And a lot of it is seeing America as not just an economic zone. But a country where people have to live together and, and fight and die, you know, fight and potentially die in wars to defend said country and seeing it. And not in some nationalist, crazy, Hitlerian way, but just in a way that like the American people should have a standard of living. It should be the envy of the world. We should be an example for the rest of the world. Our food should be healthier, our streets should be safer. We have too much money in this country to have our cities look the way they do. We have too many freedoms in this country for those freedoms to be, you know, completely abused by people to just make vast sums of wealth at the expense of the middle class and the lower class. And you know, I don't think you can have this aesthetic politics of going, here's a trans Batman or, you know, the CEO of this company is now a female of color. You need to actually address systemic, structural.
- [67:16]
Chris Cuomo
Yes.
- [67:17]
Tim Dillon
Issues.
- [67:17]
Chris Cuomo
It's, it's, it's not race, it's class. The issue is class. And the missing piece of the capitalist philosophy is that it assumes there's no responsibility beyond profit. And that has never been a function of any great mercantilistic society. And that's what we've gotten away from. But that's the issue, brother. That's where all this other shit goes away. If we're focused on that, and this is a big fucking topic. There's a, like you said, there are a lot of different things that would have to happen and how you do it and consistently and over what amount of time. But it is the way to get the majority with you. Because remember what's been happening the last 15, 20 years, instead of tackling the big things, they develop the culture wars and just finding ways. Agreed. To get the majority. Majority to fight with one another over things that don't matter as much as the things that are being ignored to them all equally. So should you have a high school volleyball player who's a female, who's miser, who's six to £230. No, you should not have that. But let's fight about it. About what gender is and what. Let's fight about that and ignore 345 for the CEO, 0 for 1 for the worker. Let's ignore that. That which affects 60% of the country, 70% of the country. And let's talk about something that feels.
- [68:49]
Tim Dillon
Very much like the p. The stewards of the economy have driven it to a boom and bust cycle.
- [68:55]
Chris Cuomo
Yes.
- [68:55]
Tim Dillon
That ignores people. And, and a lot of these people, you know, they, they Love. You know, they'll show up in the south of France, they'll show up in. On. On the Mediterranean. They'll show up in Beverly Hills, they'll show up in Aspen. And there's a great quote from a Nelson DeMille Long Islander book called the Gold coast, where it's a guy in the Gold coast who said, I've been in Manhattan and Beverly Hills and Palm Beach. I've never been to America. And that's a great quote. And I think that you can't just say, we're going to have 10 zip codes where things work, and then we're just going to let everybody else, you know, deal with all these problems. And those people are rightfully angry.
- [69:36]
Chris Cuomo
I agree 100%. And I want to say thank you. I want to say that. I'll give you my number. I'm always a text away you ever want me on the show.
- [69:46]
Tim Dillon
Maybe the other people you mentioned weren't experts, but I feel like I'm an. I feel like I'm the expert. I think that's what we've learned at the end of this interview, that if the expertise means it's me, I didn't even realize early on, but now, after doing this for an hour, I realize I think I'm an expert.
- [70:02]
Chris Cuomo
I have great regard for people who wear dark sunglasses. I'll just say that.
- [70:06]
Tim Dillon
That in fact, cheap Steve Bannon's going to take these away and give them to people in Ohio.
- [70:11]
Chris Cuomo
I've never. I've never met a man with dark glasses on who couldn't be trusted. That's all I'm going to say.
- [70:16]
Tim Dillon
I appreciate you having me. I'm your mother. Special on Netflix. If anyone cares, it's great to watch. While you are addicted to Fentanyl in the hovel that our country has allowed you to live in.
- [70:29]
Chris Cuomo
Fentanyl. The worst problem we've never dealt with.
- [70:32]
Tim Dillon
We've. We're not going to deal with it.
- [70:35]
Chris Cuomo
A grain of it can kill two generations of the Dylan and Cuomo clan. Yes, but let's just keep talking about.
- [70:41]
Tim Dillon
It with my family. But, yeah, for sure. All right. Thank you, Chris.
- [70:45]
Chris Cuomo
Tim, I think that you are a gift to your audience and I appreciate having a conversation with you. I'm always available if you want me for anything. And thank you for doing this.
- [70:54]
Tim Dillon
You're the best. Appreciate it. Thank you.
- [71:01]
Chris Cuomo
Tim Dillon. Can't see his eyes, but I can see his ideas. Funny guy, smart guy who's having a conversation that I think is one of the ingredients of creating a stew that gets America to a better place. Mixed metaphors, sure, but that's okay. We gotta find ways to have conversation. Be the cure. And Tim Dillon, with his new Netflix special, I'm youm mom, is funny, he is smart, and most of all, he is relevant. What do you think? Let me know. Thank you for subscribing and following. Appreciate you. You want the podcast, but you don't want the ads. Go to the sub stack. It's cheap. There's a lot of other stuff that you can have there. I'm going to be given political interviews and insights there where if you subscribe, you get to comment and I'll answer your questions there. If you don't want to subscribe, you don't have to. You can see the video. But we're not going to get into your comments and I'm not going to give you any answers. So check it out. And News Nation, thank you so much for giving us a chance. 8 and 11 Eastern at night, every weekday night, News Nation, news for all Americans. The problems are real. My brothers and sisters. Let's get after it.