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The Find Out Podcast
Big Bullsh*t Bill Moves Closer to Reality
01:12:30
As Congress moves to pass Trump's horrendous tax bill, we break down just how bad this bill truly is and how we can continue to push for it to fail. Plus we discuss how Democrats continue to struggle with their messaging around the bill and what they can do to make the case for it to fail.
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- [00:00]
Tim Fullerton
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Find out podcast. This is Tim Fullerton. We are down one today. Luke had a previous engagement. So if you're listening to us for the F bombs, you might have a few less to listen to this week. So I'm sorry about that, but we have lots of things that the four of us will talk about, and the biggest one is the Trump tax bill that is slowly making its way through the Senate. And in fact, by the time you listen to this tomorrow morning, because we're doing this on Monday, the Senate may. May have passed their version. That doesn't mean the bill is done and because there's a reconciliation process that needs to happen with this. But they've made the bill even worse than the Republicans had it. I think at this point, we're looking at $900 billion of cuts to Medicaid, which translates into 16 million Americans losing their health insurance. Likely 300 hospitals across the country will be closed and 500 nursing homes. @ least these are the estimates that have come.
- [00:57]
Chris
Yeah, Tim. Tim. But does it help you to know that Lisa Murkows has exempted Alaskans from all this pain?
- [01:05]
Tim Fullerton
Does that help? No. No. And I'm. I'm from a state.
- [01:09]
Chris
You don't want to move to Alaska.
- [01:11]
Tim Fullerton
No. I'm from a state that may get some car votes, too, which is main for Susan Collins because she has a imaginary moderate reputation to uphold up there as she runs for reelection next year. That was something. Earlier we were talking about hot takes, and my hot take is that Susan Collins has pulled the wool over mayor's eyes for 30 years and pretending that she is a moderate when she absolutely sucks.
- [01:33]
Chris
That's a cold take. That's a cold.
- [01:35]
Zach
Yeah.
- [01:35]
Tim Fullerton
I don't think I'm. I don't think I'm. I don't think I'm at risk. Yes. Main.
- [01:40]
Zach
Yes. Maine.
- [01:40]
Chris
Physically cold. That was a pun. Sorry.
- [01:42]
Tim Fullerton
I know. I can't tell you how many times people are like, do you have electricity up there? Like, yes, yes, we are just like everybody else. Anyways, so let's all. I'm going to. For Luke's purpose, let's talk about how up this bill is. Yeah, let's hear it. Let's hear all the bad things. Why is any. Why are we passing this bill, by the way?
- [02:01]
Zach
That's the question I had. It's like I made a video this morning about, like, the truth is the, like, if you're just the average Republican voter, you're sort of like trading, you know, tens of millions of people's health insurance and livelihood for a couple hundred bucks in tax savings every year. Like, that's it. Like, I likened it to like, you get like a free Vizio flat screen pretty much for, you know, for the trouble of many millions of lives.
- [02:26]
Tim Fullerton
For those who don't know, Vizio is like the cheapest, crappiest version of a TV you can buy.
- [02:30]
Zach
Yeah, that's really what you get. I mean, like, you get nothing. And it's, it's remarkable to me how good Republicans are at pitching a terrible deal and making it sound awesome to people because they're like, ooh, money. It's like, okay, but how much money? Like, yeah, wealthy people will make a ton of money. Like, you know, even for my family, like, this will be helpful financially. I don't want it. It's because it's terrible for other people. I didn't need it. And it's just one of those things where, like, we've done this before, we've done this stupid deal before, or like, hey, make wealthy people wealthier and make poor people poorer. Let's see how it goes. Like, we've seen how it goes. It's terrible. So what are we doing?
- [03:06]
Chris
It's the same thing every, I mean, it's the same as, as Bush's 2001 tax cuts, his 2003 tax cuts, Trump's 2017 tax cuts. I'm looking at the, the 10 year cost versus 10 year savings, you know, and almost 5 trillion is just the tax cut extensions. And then the 10 year savings, 1 trillion by cutting Medicaid. And then you've got green energy in the environment, student loans, food benefits and care, those and the natural resources. So literally every dollar is coming from something we need in the future. You know, lo and behold, giving it to billionaires who literally don't have anything else to buy. You know, they, they don't need money. They don't. The people in this call, in this podcast, you know, we, we largely don't need to be, you know, we don't need a 5%. Whatever. Sorry, I'm a show today. Jesus Christ. Got like a coffee in the wrong pipe and everything ready.
- [04:07]
Tim Fullerton
We haven't been here for five minutes.
- [04:09]
Chris
It's, it's just the, it's just the bill. But in the podcast form, it's just a dumpster fire.
- [04:15]
Zach
That's true. I mean, if there was any evidence that making wealthy people wealthier was going to make regular people wealthier, I'd be fine with it. But there just isn't. And that's that's the struggle for me. Like, and the other thing that really bothers me is that within the bill there are some provisions that are smart, but they are overshadowed by the overarching arc of the bill being horrendous. But, like, raising the standard deduction for elderly people, that's a good idea. Like, there's good ideas in this thing. They're just buried under a mountain of terrible ideas. And that's, that's like Trump in a nutshell to me. Occasionally there's like, oh, that's an interesting idea. And it's buried under, like, what the is that? You know, it's just, you can't focus on it. So for me, that's very frustrating. Like, as just an American, I want to make sure that people are doing better. And I don't really give a shit if the idea comes from the right or the left. I just want it to be good ideas. And I don't think that right now we have a litany of good ideas in this bill. It's like three good ideas and 17,000 terrible ideas.
- [05:13]
Rich
I think where the Democrats have gone wrong is very typical. There is no unified messaging around this. Everybody is calling it something different, like the Big murder bill, the Republican bad bill, because we have not, with 10 years of Trumpism, we haven't figured out how to reduce something to a slogan and just stick with it. That's, that's why this bill is going to pass. Like, if we could just keep it simple and not talk about every piece of it, just keep it simple, this bill would not pass like that. That's it. Like, what is the name, what is the, what is the alternative name for this bill? Right? Donald Trump figured out a way to get every fucking newscaster to say the words big, beautiful. And, and Democrats have had no answer to that. And I think our country is going to be fucked because Democrats don't understand communications. That's true.
- [06:15]
Tim Fullerton
I, I, I, I actually think Big Murder Bill would have been a good, good one to use because, I mean, look like if you're going to close 500 nursing homes, you're going to close 300 hospitals. You snap benefits away from poor, poor and working class. By the way, this isn't just these, like this, this imaginary belief that SNAP benefits are just for lazy people who are sitting at home. No, that is not right at all. And you're going to also then take that money that they're spending in their local communities and give it to people like Jeff Bezos, who just spent $50 million on a on a wedding, like, clearly that guy doesn't need more money. And I think Rich, you made a good point. Like the, the Republicans started doing this in 1980s with Ronald Reagan where they came up with trickle down economics, which, the idea which without looking at any data or any evidence, okay, it's you give more to the top and then it will filter down to everybody else. We have now tried this at least four times. Reagan's tax cut in the 80s and then the three that Rich mentioned, it never stimulated the economy for any sustained period of time. You get a little bit of a bump at the beginning, but this one is even more regressive than I think any of the other tax bills because it, almost nobody making six figures and below is going to get very much from this at all. If you're $100,000, you're not gonna get any like anything. And, and, and on the other end of it, you're going to lose things that you're going to have to either borrow money for or just not do. Like this is, this is not going to stimulate the economy in any way. In fact, it's going to decimate some local economies. Like if a hospital closes and then all of a sudden you don't have snap benefits and maybe you worked a job at the hospital, like, and these are in red areas too.
- [07:54]
Rich
This is the statistics.
- [07:55]
Zach
Me, it's going, people are just getting completely screwed over. Republicans are going to get screwed over by their constituents. But there's the other element of it too. Just to get a little more detailed on the Medicaid side of things. The work requirement is a very interesting thing because they pitch it as like, look, we're going to stimulate the economy and people are going to have to go to work. And it's great. The truth is, a ton of these people who are unemployed, the jobs don't exist where they live. So they're going to get screwed over by a provision that they can't control. Like what if there are not. Like if you live in West Virginia, you're not swimming in job opportunities out there and you're on Medicaid and you need to get a job to get it. Good luck. You lose your Medicaid, that's a terrible idea to get. And especially for parents, like the provisions the Senate put in there for single parents. It's insane what they're doing. It's just that's the kind of stuff that people don't like because like Chris said, the sloganing of the Republican Party makes people not know that these are parts of the bill. And then they find out down the line and go, oh, my God, if only I'd known.
- [08:53]
Chris
Well, and I think this is, this is where I want our listeners. I want the Democratic Party to come back around to is. Yes, they are going to. They'll pass some, something, they'll pass something that is called the big beautiful bill by Donald Trump. And he'll call it the greatest policy that has ever been passed in the generation or in the history of America. And he'll have banners and a party and maybe another military parade. This is a budget reconciliation bill. Like, it's not even a policy bill. Because everything they put in there that is supposed to be policy gets stripped out by the Senate parliamentarian who is, I'm not even religious. She is doing God's work. She might actually be God. This is a woman who's been in this position since 2012. She's gone through the Obamacare attempts to pass and repeal. She's gone through January 6th. She's made it through all these different speakers. She serves at the pleasure of the Senate Majority Leader. That's it. And I said speaker. But the Senate Majority leader, John Thune, has kept her in that position because she's so goddamn good at what she does. She is the reason that, I don't know, I look through a very long list of everything that's in and out of this bill right now, and there are at least 20 to 25, sometimes multi billion, sometimes $100 billion items that have been stricken, struck from the. Struck they were struck in from the bill because the Senate parliamentarian said we, our rules prevent us from allowing this to be voted on with a simple majority vote. And I don't even want people to, I don't want Trump to know this. Don't tell him. Nobody tell Trump. But John Thune could, could dismiss her at any time he wants and put in somebody that Trump would love who would just say, like, nope, there are no rules. And yet. And yet. So, like, I do want people to know the Senate is hacking this way, way, way back, partially out of rules and partially because some of the people are trying to not be terrible.
- [10:55]
Tim Fullerton
When.
- [10:55]
Chris
He does say, hey, we passed this thing and it's the greatest ever. Understand that it is maybe 15% of the malice and cruelty that they originally wanted to put into doesn't make it good, but it does make it something that is not as bad as it could have been. And it's something that we can address when it comes around. And if people just do the right thing and we vote Democrats into power. A lot of this stuff, it's over 10 years or it doesn't start for two years or three years. Like the green energy, some of those things are like there, it's maybe going to be to 27, 20, 27. There are, there are ways that we can get way back out ahead of this. And so I don't want people to panic and freak out when they say, you know, when they see that he, he got his big beautiful bill passed.
- [11:40]
Rich
Because I'm going to hard disagree with that. It's still a multitrillion dollar bill. It still fundamentally reshapes the, I mean it, it furthers the already terrible wealth inequality that we've got in this country, 100%. And it, it puts the, the, the, the blame on future Democrats who have to fix the bill in the first place. Because right now there's no evidence that this is going to, you know, increase the number of jobs. It's not going to help companies expand. But raising taxes, absolutely. You, I guarantee you the fucking data is going to be there saying, oh, it's going to be a catastrophe. We're going to see the stock market slump, we're going to see millions of job loss. Like that is going to be the effect of fixing the bill. So once this hole is dug, there's no fill in it. Like, it's just not realistic to say that we're gonna undo the damage. And you know, I, like, I, I'm not gonna do the math here and try to say what percentage of the bill is surviving, but enough is going to go through with the tax code that it is going to strip our children's future of stability. And, and that is, that is the point.
- [12:59]
Zach
Right.
- [12:59]
Tim Fullerton
Well, and I think that to be, you know, Chris, I agree. I mean the challenge here is like, even if we take the house back by 25 votes next year and even somehow we take back the Senate, we would probably be sitting at 51. And there is, there is no way that as long as Donald Trump is president that we'll be able to reverse that. There will be no overriding of veto. I don't, there's been an override of veto in Congress in decades. Very rarely you hear about in this in the state level, but never at the federal level. Like it's really 2029 is the earliest and that is a, there is a lot of damage. And I think the CBO estimates even with things that they stripped is still 5 trillion dollar deficit in this and taking money out of poor children's hands. Literally taking food out of their hands and giving more money to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who funny enough hates this bill and actually launched another tirade against it. Y. Because they're phasing out the. I mean, I agree with him in this particular sense, but they're phasing out of the green energy tax credits, which is insane, by the way, and giving it to oil and gas companies, which Trump literally said, I think this weekend solar is ugly. We're going to coal. And it's like, is coal. There's no cold. There's no cold. The jobs aren't coming back.
- [14:17]
Zach
No, like, it's like going back to Chris's point that, like, Democrats could so easily make this a messaging win. All they got to do is like, this will make us lose to China. You know who's. Who's heavily investing green energy? China. Because it's the future. They know it's the future. It's economically smart. They're killing us on it now. They're going to continue to kill us on the future when it's more necessary. That's it. Simple. You want to lose to China, go with this. Like, you just need slogans around it.
- [14:41]
Chris
So it's the China energy bill.
- [14:44]
Tim Fullerton
Well, Zach, Democrats have spent more time distancing themselves from Mandani, the Democratic nominee for mayor, than they have been fighting against the tax bill this weekend, which shows you that where the priorities are. And even, even Senator Gillibra made this, like, horrible statement about Mdani this weekend, talking about him supporting jihad or something. And then she claimed that he, she misspoke, but was like, yeah, yeah, it was. I, I might be getting that a little bit wrong, but she didn't walk back her statement.
- [15:12]
Rich
I am someone who, when I was in Community College 10 years ago or so, like 2015, I wrote an essay for my public speaking course. Well, not an essay, a speech on why I wanted Senator Gillibrand to be president. A year later, I worked in her office. And let me tell you, there is no one who can change your mind like Senator Gillbrand. The closer you get to her, the more you realize that she shouldn't be in office. She is the epitome of, of, of this, like, protected snobbery. Everything that was a caricature about Hillary Clinton. And I'm. I was proud to support Hillary Clinton when she, you know, ran for president. But every caricature, like, every problematic, like, idea about who Hillary Clinton was, that is what Senator Gillibrand, like, took on as her personality. She is someone who, and as someone who. I was just an intern, right? Like I was, I was a 30 something year old intern. So it was a little different of an experience for me than it is for the average person. But I resent her so much from my time in that office because of the way that she treated her staff and her constituents. The intern class that I came through, I got to watch the way that I stayed for the whole summer. I got to see how every intern class, there's usually at least two throughout the summer, how they get treated. These are young people, they're typically in between their, you know, college years. And these are people who could be turned into alkalytes for, for, if not the party. That specific politician, Senator Gillibrand, is the only senator who just didn't meet and have coffee with her interns because she just sees people as below them. That, that is like the experience that came out of, of working for her for, for a summer. And I have seen since I came to that recognition, I have seen it in everything that she does. So I am not surprised to hear her being a racist or Islamophobic against a very popular politician in the state of New York.
- [17:34]
Tim Fullerton
So I just looked this up and this is in Rolling Stone. But New York senator, quote unquote, misspoke when she falsely claimed that Zoram Mamdani condoned and I quote, global jihad. What she meant to say was global Intifada, which is the thing that, that they're coming. And actually in I believe in Arabic, that stands for revolution. And unfortunately it has been turned into something different in this country. And we're not going to win that messaging war. And I think Zoran probably should figure out a way to walk that back because we're. That's just a loss. I get what he's saying.
- [18:05]
Chris
I want to, I want to go back to the, to the, to the bill, just real quick because I think it's important to just draw attention to what is happening in the Republican Party right now because we have seen this show so many times before. This is what they do. They cut taxes, they cut taxes, they cut taxes. They say it's going to pay for itself with growth. It never does. And There are actually two cuts in the 80s that Reagan oversaw and in both cases, whether you call it supply side or trickle down, they said the growth will pay for the. And this just doesn't happen. The growth will pay for the tax cuts because it'll stimulate the economy. It never does. Every nonpartisan, every right wing analysis, it all shows the same thing. It all shows that maybe 15 to 20% absolute best case scenario of the costs of these cuts is offset by future growth. But that's an 80 to 85% loss and sometimes it's quite a bit worse than that. And so that, that is what they do. But what's different right now is that they did this in 2017 and they just got away with it. It was like it was Trump's big giant tax cut. It was, hey, let's do this. Let's just add he added 3 trillion dol into the deficit in his first term before COVID hit.
- [19:16]
Zach
Right.
- [19:16]
Chris
And, and we, we had a 1 trillion dollar annual deficit before COVID hit because of his tax cuts.
- [19:23]
Zach
Yes.
- [19:24]
Chris
And nobody fought him on that. Now they are fighting him. The, the Rand Paul's and a handful of people in the House are just saying, you're not going to be on the ballot when I'm reelected next. You know, when I'm, when my name is next on the ballot, 20, 26, 28, you're not going to be there to carry me. I don't care if you threaten me, if you primary me. I stand on the thing that I used to say that I stood on. And so the fiscal conservatives are fighting him and that is why they are pulling out trillion dollar cuts to Medicaid. They know that is a disaster. It is a disaster for them politically, it's a disaster for their constituents. And it's really not the best place to go find money. That's the military budget. If you really want to go find money that doesn't need to be spent. But they're not going to do that because that would piss off Republican voters. So they're going after Medicaid in the environment and student loans because that is the safest place for them to stick it to people, to make them eat some of this cost. But you're still seeing Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins and a handful. I mean, Thom Tillis is retiring because he wants to stand with his constituents and because he doesn't want to deal with Trump fighting back, you know, and endorsing a primary challenge. So they are, they are making decisions now that they didn't make in 2017 because they understand that Trump's power is on the way out. He still has it. He'll get something passed and it's going to be bad. But we are seeing this infighting and the defections because Trump has just lost some of his mojo within the Republican Party.
- [20:50]
Tim Fullerton
I mean, I'm going to Throw out a bit of a hot take here and we'll see. And I hope, well, obviously I hope I'm right. But I think we are seeing basically Trump at his peak power right now. And I think, and Rich, you've actually written a lot about this and I think that once this bill passes, I think we're going to start seeing it slowly slip away. I mean, Thom Tillis, who I have, have no love for, I do not think has been a good senator at all, but he's basically retiring because of this bill. I mean, if you listen to what he was saying on the floor yesterday or Saturday or whenever it was, you know, he's like, I can't take this back to my constituents. I mean, North Carolina is not a rich state. It has rich areas. But like there is a lot of poverty in that state. And he's like, he basically saying like, I am going to go down with this. You know, I'm going to go down fighting to stop this bill and basically hand Republicans a nightmare, nightmare next year because the Democrats look like they've got an A recruit. He hasn't announced yet, but I think he's thinking about it, which is the former governor Roy Cooper, who won twice as a Democrat and is super popular. And I think he next year that's going to be a really tough one and it's going to make Republicans spend money in a place that they normally wouldn't. And then I also think all of the things that every one of you have said like, like every Democrat in the country is going to be able to run on, you took money out of, out of poor kids like mouth or food out of their mouths and you shut these hospitals down, you killed these jobs. It's going to be so easy to peg Donald Trump and the Republican Party with literally every problem this country has next year. Whether that's right or wrong is different. But like this is politics and this is what you do. Like, I just, I think this is, this is the beginning of a nightmare for him.
- [22:32]
Zach
I, I want that to be true, but I don't think it is because I think in the end a lot of the long term effect of this won't be felt right away. And when that's the case, essentially what happens is you have a messaging war between Republicans and Democrats and Republicans win that messaging war 10 times out of 10. And even if they have clearly a straight line drawn between the problem and them, they still find a way to make the line look jagged. And Democrats drew the line. I, so here's my here's my take in general on this, is that the average person wakes up every single day in this country and it's the exact same as it was when Trump wasn't president. It's the same as it is when Trump is president. They don't feel a difference. All they hear is Democrats saying shit like this where they go, it's this big problem and it's going to be this problem and that problem and this. They're losing their health insurance. The average person, that's not happening to them. They're just not feeling it. ICE isn't affecting their life. These cuts won't affect their life. They'll get a little extra money in their pocket and they'll go on their merry way because they don't give a fuck about the person next door. They care about themselves and that's it. And the average person will not be hit by this in any substantial way.
- [23:39]
Chris
You're saying average person. You're saying average person. I the way I hear that, because I agree about a segment of the voting populace is low information. Swing white, swing voters.
- [23:53]
Zach
Because that's a huge group of voters.
- [23:56]
Chris
Oh, no, absolutely. They decide election that you said average person. I just want to make sure because.
- [23:59]
Zach
Well, I don't think it's just, I mean, like, look, the misinformation and the Messaging war was one among Hispanics as well. In 2024, they shifted heavily towards Donald Trump because of that exact same tactic. It's not just white people doing this.
- [24:11]
Chris
But they're seeing ice. Because you mentioned ICE too, but they don't.
- [24:15]
Zach
But a lot of the Hispanic, like listen to a lot of Hispanic people that I know who I talk to. They're in favor of what ICE is doing because they look at the illegal population as a drain on them individual and a bad PR thing for them. So it's more complex than this. But in the end, to me, it comes down to until the country like flatlining. It's. I don't give the Democrats an advantage until they figure their out. If Democrats were good with messaging, I'd be all about Tim's perspective. But they suck ass at it.
- [24:43]
Tim Fullerton
So I agree. Yes, obviously we were talking about that before, but I mean, if we're looking at history, there's. There's two things running against Donald Trump's favor right now. Midterms traditionally are favor of the opposing party. And also we went through this in the first term of Trump 2017. He passed his tax cut and then he got annihilated in 2018. He lost places he shouldn't have lost like all that. And on this one in particular, I think it's a bit different. I, I, I, and like, I'm not saying that this is, I, you're 100 wrong because I think there's a lot of truth to what you're saying. But there are some immediate things that are, that people will feel in this bill.
- [25:17]
Zach
Some people.
- [25:19]
Tim Fullerton
And so like for all those people who voted in 2020 but didn't vote in 2024, I think you're going to see a spike of those people.
- [25:25]
Rich
Yeah.
- [25:26]
Tim Fullerton
And we have seen more Trump regret votes videos and posts on social in this term than we did the last time. So I, I'm not saying that Democrats are going to get their together. I mean some of this they're just going to and fall over themselves into the majority, into the House.
- [25:39]
Chris
Yes, but way to win.
- [25:42]
Tim Fullerton
But, but I just think that there's too much damage in this bill for him to buck a historical trend and not lose the House next year.
- [25:54]
Zach
I'm not saying that he will lose the House. Like there's no question about it my mind. And Democrats love to do literally nothing to have that happen. Because you're right, the party that's not in power tends to do incredible.
- [26:02]
Tim Fullerton
They've only got a five seat majority or whatever.
- [26:04]
Zach
And Democrats also tend to turn out better in midterm elections and Republicans do in general. So that I'm with. Right.
- [26:10]
Rich
But so I think now's a good time for us to address a conspiracy theory that seems to be plaguing our, our comments.
- [26:16]
Zach
Yes.
- [26:17]
Rich
And that is the idea that this, that this bill is going to like cancel future elections. That that is not true. There's zero truth to that. But it is an idea that has, has caught on and the net effect of that is, is that people are spending their time and their energy focused on, on imaginary problems. We're going to be facing more and more and more of that as time goes on, as tools like AI become more advanced. A friend of mine, a guy who goes by angry male vet right now is facing down on TikTok, which is where we all met. He's facing down an AI based account that is using his image and his voice to convince people that that is the real authentic account. And they're in the AI voice, the AI image of him talking in his fucking car. Like Luke's typical background.
- [27:16]
Zach
Right.
- [27:17]
Rich
It looks really real. If I didn't know this guy and that was my first impression, I see an account with 170,000 followers telling me that's the truth. I would, I would probably believe it and I'd probably go and report support the real account. So that, that is just an example, right, of the type of tools that are going to be used to distract us from fighting against the real problems that exist today and instead to, to spend our precious time, our greatest resource on things that are imaginary.
- [27:52]
Tim Fullerton
That's a, that's a really good point. And, and this is why Democrats, progressives or the left or whatever needs its own messaging apparatus because we need to be able to combat this stuff. I mean you're, you a really good point. I mean if you're just scrolling through TikTok like most people on their for you page, you're not gonna know like if it's like AI Chris or Real Chris. Right. Like it's a, it's. This is a real problem. And Republicans are, and folks internationally too. Russia and other places are going to flood the zone with disinformation to get people off of the like the core points. And the election thing is a perfect one. The Constitution states that there needs to be elections. You need a constitutional amendment. There is nothing in there to cancel them. There is some stuff at the state level which we affect state races that like if there was an emergency, the governor maybe be able to. But it would doesn't affect Congress, House, Senate, presidential. It has to happen every four years. Now you can talk about the integrity of those elections and I think in certain states that they're, you know, there's maybe some questions about that. But you know, our side has been consumed by some conspiracies and I will say this, like Kamala one conspiracy is one of them which is going to anger a lot of people. There is zero evidence of that.
- [29:04]
Chris
Congress certified the election. There's no means to, to re. To undo an election after Congress has certified it. So like wouldn't matter anyway and it won't. And, and I still, because I, I agree. I'm getting comments from people saying like just wait. You know, just wait, just wait, just wait. That's always. It's like the favorite. It's like Trump's two weeks, you know, two weeks. It's always, it's always just wait and we'll find out. And then like, you know, then they'll throw them out.
- [29:31]
Zach
Release the Kraken. We're going to release the Kraken. All this information. What the you talking about? Nothing to there.
- [29:36]
Tim Fullerton
Yeah, I mean I get, I get why people want it and I want to be clear, like if I thought that there was fraud. Even if there was no way of taking it back, I would be saying it. I'd be screaming it at the top of my lungs. Totally. I've looked at it. I've. People have sent me PowerPoints from these groups that are doing these things. I've looked at it. First of all, it's so muddled that it's like. And it's all based on, like, the, The. The electronic tallies being sent through Starlink, and then somebody is, like, altering the totals and then blasting the back. Like, if you knew how votes were counted in elections, you'd be like, no, like. Or this thing about the Rockland county districts, not the whole Rockland county having no Kamala votes. You know that area. You know why? Like, it happens. So, like, these are those things that, you know, conspiracies always start with a grain of truth or something that seems reasonable, and then you pull on the thread and it falls apart. Yeah, well.
- [30:28]
Chris
And back to this bill, please, listeners, please, like, have a bullshit detector and put it to use. Because it's just like, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. If something sounds so scary that it would ruin the country, it probably won't. Specifically, a budget reconciliation bill literally cannot have policy changes in it, not to mention amendments to the Constitution, which would be required to actually change the cadence or the timing of election, that those are all built into the Constitution. And so, like, are there bad people who would want to change that? Obviously, yes, of course. But. But when you see the Senate parliamentarian, I'm just going to pick a random one. Stripping out something. Gender transit, transition care. Perfect. Ban the use of Medicaid funds for gender affirming medical care for transgender minors and adults. The sentiment Senate parliamentarian determined this provision does not comply with the chamber's rules and must be removed or modified. So, like, they're trying to save 2.6 billion on something Trump would love nothing more than to save 2.6 billion on. And it's not going to happen because they're following the rules. So, like, please just pump the brakes before you panic, because it doesn't help anybody. And like, to you guys point it, it really does change the subject from the fact that millions of people, potentially, I think up to 16 million in the last estimate I saw, 16 could lose their. Their health insurance over the next 10 years because of the. Because he's still obsessed with trying to gut Obamacare. Like, a lot of this Medicaid stuff is just, it has to do with Medicare expansion and The Medicaid, Sorry, Medicaid expansion and how people can get into it with. Through Obamacare. And so, like, these are real things that are happening. So when we're talking about, you know, Rockland county or we're talking about canceling elections, like, you look crazy, like, to the. To the people who aren't us. Because I'm like, no, I get it. He would love to cancel elections. But. But to moderate, low information voters are like, what the fuck is this person talking about? Like, you look crazy. And then they're also not talking about the actual damage that this guy's out here doing.
- [32:31]
Zach
I also want to, like, just play that out for a second. Just imagine for a second that there was that provision and they were pursuing it. Right? Which they're obviously not. The amount of pushback from the American people on both sides of the aisle would be extreme. Look at what happened with ICE in la. Trump changed course. Course overnight. On, you know, he's. Yeah, let me. Oh, hold on. What about farm workers? And what about if people are like, he's shifted. The second there was actual public pushback and it was pretty fucking mild by comparison to what it could have been. There is no world that exists where if they literally said, hey, we're going to try to cancel elections, or Democrats can't vote, or whatever this stupid shit is going to be, everybody's going to jump out and go, no, that's insane. And they're all going to protest and Trump will go, fine, fine, fine. That's how it's going to be.
- [33:15]
Chris
So he declares victory and he immediately pivots. That's how he. That's how he loses. And so, like, always remember that he never says, I made a mistake. He never says, all right, you're correct. He never apologizes. He still has yet to ask God for forgiveness. Like, he actually said that in an interview. I will ask for forgiveness when I need to. And, like, to this date, I never have. So he will never admit defeat, but what he will do is say, I won, and then change the subject. That's how you know that you won and then let it happen. Like, he's like. He's like a toddler. Like, allow him to change the subject and go find some chicken nuggets and, like, you know, live to fight another day.
- [33:51]
Zach
That's true. I mean, like, even. Even Republicans within Congress and especially Senators, if they saw something in a bill like this that was like, hey, there's going to be no elections, they'd be like, yeah, we're not doing that. Like, we act like every Republican is nuts, but like, most of them are sane enough to know that that is the death knell of their party and they're never going to pursue it.
- [34:10]
Chris
So I think they secretly want to get away from Trump as fast as possible.
- [34:14]
Zach
Yeah.
- [34:15]
Chris
Like you think John Thune and Mike Johnson are having the best time of their life right now, navigating this shit on behalf of Trump. Like they're just pawns right now. Now. And politicians are still egocentric maniacs, man. Like, they want to be in power. They don't want to be doing Trump's billing.
- [34:28]
Tim Fullerton
I do want to talk about one terrible senator in particular who I love to dunk on, and that is Josh Howley. Josh Howley, the Republican? Well, one of the two Republican senators from Missouri. You may remember him from the fist bump photo that he gave to the January 6th insurrectionists, then, then ran away from them. By the way, there's also video of him sprinting away from. He came out. You could tell how unpopular this bill is, is because he came out and talked all kinds of on it. He said, this bill is bad for Missouri. It's going to kick all these people off health care. If Republicans want to keep winning working class voters, we're going to need a change of course. And then he voted for it.
- [35:12]
Zach
It's crazy.
- [35:12]
Tim Fullerton
Like, it's just, it just shows you how, like, beholden they all are. Trump and Josh Alley wants to be president someday. Has no convictions whatsoever. Doesn't even really live in Missouri. Northern Virginia. Virginia. And, and sorry, we.
- [35:28]
Zach
Yeah, it's like a crash in the background.
- [35:31]
Tim Fullerton
It's summer, so kids are home.
- [35:33]
Chris
750 skittles just hit the kitchen floor. If I had to guess so, I might have to step away. No, it's, it's funny you mentioned Josh Howley because I actually, I found his, his backbone. So it's, it's, it's white and it's very small and, and semi rubbery.
- [35:50]
Rich
Hang on a sec.
- [35:52]
Tim Fullerton
And very, very. There is no tightness to that whatsoever. He's basically, for those of you listening, he's holding up, I think a shoestring maybe dangling around.
- [36:04]
Rich
I feel like one of us should, should, you know, draw the short straw and read Holly's book on how to be a masculine man. Because the way that that man kisses his wife is something that everyone should see. It is.
- [36:23]
Zach
I never seen.
- [36:24]
Rich
He is a man of passion and action.
- [36:29]
Tim Fullerton
Are we getting, I think we're getting sarcastic Chris here.
- [36:32]
Zach
Have you ever seen, have you ever.
- [36:33]
Rich
Seen that photo or the video? This guy is like, the most uncomfortably, like, weird to just creepy.
- [36:45]
Tim Fullerton
Like, oh, oh, oh, geez.
- [36:49]
Zach
That's a horrible picture. Can we see that?
- [36:52]
Tim Fullerton
There's multiples. It is. Isn't it weird?
- [36:56]
Zach
It's like he's using a lemon.
- [36:58]
Tim Fullerton
He's, like, closing his mouth. He's like, closing his mouth so much as to not touch his wife.
- [37:03]
Rich
Yeah.
- [37:03]
Zach
And she. She's like, lurching in like, I can't get too close.
- [37:08]
Tim Fullerton
Isn't that so weird?
- [37:09]
Rich
Like, that man is. It has declared himself to be.
- [37:15]
Tim Fullerton
Look at that.
- [37:16]
Rich
A real masculine man.
- [37:19]
Zach
Oh, it's painful.
- [37:20]
Tim Fullerton
That's what a real. That's how a real man kisses his wife.
- [37:22]
Zach
Yes.
- [37:23]
Tim Fullerton
Well, it's also like Ted Cruz who, like, when he goes to, like when he was like, I think it was against Beto and that Senate race, there's all these videos of him, like, pushing his wife out of the way and, like, elbowing her in the face because he's, like, trying to get past her and stuff. And it's. And you can see the look on her face. Like, these guys are. These guys caused plenty of play as masculine. Right. This is like the whole right wing, like, manosphere. Right. They all are like. And I think it's always projection. Right. Same with Republicans. Like, it's always projection. They're always talking about the Trump in particular and like, he, like, howley with whatever the hell that is and, you know, Cruz and stuff. Like, it. It's just so phony. But, but it's.
- [38:03]
Zach
That's. That's the scary part.
- [38:04]
Tim Fullerton
I know.
- [38:05]
Zach
It's like, it's like a company with, like, the worst product you could imagine, but their marketing team is amaz. Like, that's really what the Republican Party is.
- [38:12]
Rich
I think you've just described Donald Trump's presidency.
- [38:16]
Zach
Yeah, for sure.
- [38:17]
Tim Fullerton
Yes.
- [38:17]
Chris
It's.
- [38:18]
Zach
It's.
- [38:18]
Rich
It's the worst. It is objectively, if you take his name off of it and you just look at the facts, anyone with half a brain would look at, like, the MAGA campaign and they'd be like this, this A, makes no sense, and B, it's. It's harmful to our own brand. But as soon as you, you, you know, put the gold plated on it, all of a sudden people are just attracted to it.
- [38:43]
Zach
It's like a cyber truck. Yeah, yeah.
- [38:45]
Tim Fullerton
Fucking weird.
- [38:48]
Chris
Go ahead, Tim.
- [38:49]
Tim Fullerton
I was just going to say it's when you look at the policy positions that he has, and if you were to just strip the names out of them and read these things to somebody and say, does this sound like a good idea to you or not? 99% of Americans would say no. Like, okay, let's see. Are you in favor of taking a few hundred dollars a month away from a family that makes $15,000 a year to give that money to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk? Yes or no?
- [39:16]
Zach
No.
- [39:16]
Tim Fullerton
No one's going to say yes to.
- [39:18]
Chris
That because do I get $10 in the process?
- [39:21]
Tim Fullerton
No.
- [39:22]
Zach
Right?
- [39:22]
Tim Fullerton
No, you get no.
- [39:24]
Chris
Well, you miss me with that. But if I can get $10.
- [39:27]
Zach
That's the thing is there's, unfortunately there is just a lot of selfishness among especially Republican voters. So like a lot of, you know, me get something. I don't really give a what happens to them. That's a, an epidemic among Republican voters. And it's like the, the craziest part to me is that these are like the followers of Jesus. It's like, I don't think Jesus is all about that dude. I, I think he'd probably say the opposite.
- [39:50]
Rich
You know, so what I, I. One of the like best things I think that has come out of my for you page in, in TikTok are the economists. The economists who like typically do 10 minute long videos. I'm a, I'm a 10 minute long video guy. Like that is, that is what I produce. That is what I like watching. And these economists will talk about like, what does it mean to take away snap? Why is this a bad idea? Not for the vic. The direct victims, but for the economies in the local communities. I don't think that most people understand, you know, because maybe they took, maybe they took an economics class class 20 or 30 years ago. So it isn't on the front of their mind about people who have less money spend everything that they get like that. That is. And, and the velocity of money, it goes into somebody else's, you know, it doesn't go from the person who gets SNAP benefits back to the government. It doesn't go from the person who gets SNAP benefits into a black hole. It goes to the grocery store, right. It goes to the business owner. And that business owner is ordering from the farm, right?
- [41:03]
Chris
Like.
- [41:04]
Rich
Or the, the wholesaler, right? These. Let me, let me just name one Keds. Keds economist on on Tik Tok has been doing this for Bloomberg and on her own channel. I want to encourage anybody who uses TikTok to, to go look for Keds economist because she breaks down in really effective ways how these cuts are going to hur. How. You know, my family is going to, you know, pay a few thousand dollars less in taxes every year. But the price that my family is going to pay in terms of lost productivity, you know, in my local economy is not going to be worth the money that I'm saving.
- [41:50]
Tim Fullerton
If you want to stimulate the economy, you give money to poor and workingclass families. Yes, that's it. That's it. Like, it has been proven over and over again. And there is not a serious economist out there that, like, actually cares about their reputation that would say that this is a stimulative bill. They will say that this is going to blow up the deficit and it's going to screw us down the road. Like, we have big problems coming up. We have to address Social Security, we have to address Medicare, and we are taking all this money out of the system so that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and the Walton family and like Warren Buffett, who doesn't want this tax cut, would get more like, it's just. There is no defense of this bill that is, that is like a good, that it's a good idea. There's no.
- [42:35]
Chris
I think it's like, it comes back to, you know, Chris, what you mentioned earlier about, like, somebody's got to do the work. I don't want to clean this up. I don't want to be the one to say we have to raise taxes because that's what the Republican will say. But the Republicans will say, but. But we do, we do have to raise taxes on people who can afford it. I will be the first in line if you're telling me that we're going to get green energy back and we're going to get food stamps for people I know, my friends, in some cases, family members, people down the street, people 27 states away. Yes, yes, I can afford it and I will pay for it. Because what is the old quote? I like paying my taxes because with it, I buy civilization.
- [43:22]
Tim Fullerton
Yeah.
- [43:23]
Chris
You literally cannot have a country if somebody's not paying for it. The great news is, and we've, we've, I think, beat this to death over, over the past many episodes and in all of our videos. But the great news is that right now, the top marginal tax rate is, I think I'm using the terminology correct, is at 37%, 37.4%, something like that. For the bulk of the time, from the 40s to the 80s, when they say America was great, it was 70 to 94%.
- [43:50]
Zach
Yeah.
- [43:51]
Chris
And I just did a video on this about Zoran's policies. But not only Nationwide was that fine. But even where the most millionaires are, New York City has never had less than the most millionaires in the world, including through the entire period from the Great Depression through the Reagan era. So no, you millionaires don't go to Europe. They don't leave. They stay in New York City, they stay in New York State, they stay in the Bay Area and they bite their tongue and they, they pay their taxes when they have to pay their taxes because they know it's still worth it. It. That's really what it comes down to. It's still worth it.
- [44:25]
Tim Fullerton
And this is an interesting discussion because. So Zaran Memdani's proposal is to raise taxes on people making a million dollars or more in New York City. And on the low end of that, which is a million dollars a year, right? Like, what is that? 20 times more than the average. That person will pay roughly $2,000 more a year in taxes.
- [44:46]
Zach
Right, right.
- [44:47]
Tim Fullerton
And this is what the mass hysteria is about. Meanwhile, that person that makes a million dollars a year is going to get more than that back in this tax, this tax bill. It just shows how screwed up and broken our discussion is around taxes in this country. And that how they, we have just. Republicans have labeled them as bad. I mean, everybody hates paying them. Right? But that period rich that you're talking about, that's what we had, the GI Bill when we sent thousands of people to college for free. That was when we built the highway system in this country under a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower. And that is what the combination of those two factors and a few other things is why we became the world's superpower, because we invested in the country. There's no world in which investing in billionaires is going to expand this country or make it better for people. It's just not that. Imagine if we took that $5 trillion and actually spent vented on free health. Free, free health care, right? Universal health care, free child care for, for single families or parents. All of the, there's all of this stuff that would make this country better rather than just, again, I keep saying Jeff Bezos and Elon because it's like, I just imagine them with more money like it. That's which they've already like 5x their income since co. Since COVID Right. Or their net worth.
- [46:05]
Zach
You have to look at it through like a stimulating factor from the economy. Right? So if you're giving it to billionaires, the argument from the right is that the more billionaires have the invest in putting, you know, new jobs in the Economy, all that shit. That story sold fine. Democrats haven't sold a counter pitch, which they easily have, but they have pitched the shit wrong. I'll use your free childcare as a perfect example. Childcare is extremely expensive. It really, it's like a second mortgage to a lot of families that they can't afford that second mortgage or they barely make it work. Imagine putting that money back in their pocket. Imagine what that would do for the economy. Talk about a stimulating factor, right? Let's not pitch that it's free health care. Let's pitch the people in the middle.
- [46:44]
Tim Fullerton
Let's.
- [46:44]
Zach
You could do both. Like, we can pitch, like, look at the social benefit of all this stuff, but you can also pitch the person in the middle who wants to understand how this is beneficial beyond just free shit. Because that's the downside to all this, right? You pitch that person going, look, you give all these people that money back in their pockets going to stimulate the economy. Same thing when you look at universal healthcare, right? If you're able to do that, the payroll taxes that people at the companies are getting destroyed. Droid right now with the way that they have to allocate their finances to pay for people that are getting health care from them. The amount of a corporate tax cut that it would be to give corporations back this cash in their pocket, to not have to front everybody's health insurance would be insane. It would be the biggest corporate tax cut in American history. Those are the ways to pitch the middle while still keeping the left satisfied. You could win everybody and they just miss it drives me nuts.
- [47:32]
Tim Fullerton
I think you're 100% right. I do not understand. On the healthcare battle, for example, I do not understand why we did not argue that that was an economic fight. Because I started as. The only reason I was able to start my small business is because my wife had health insurance. If she didn't, I wouldn't have done it and I hired people, right? And it's, it's crazy. Also on the child care thing, I think it's right. There are. I saw the stat the other day, which is crazy. There are 400,000 manufacturing jobs open right now in this country because they can't. We don't have the workers. Now, I'm not saying that single parents, because a lot of single parents stay home because our parents stays home because it's cheaper to do that than to pay for childcare. If that got taken away, that person could go get a job. And then all of a sudden everybody does better, but instead we. I don't know, I don't, I don't, I don't know why we do what.
- [48:20]
Zach
We do pitch and we just don't do it. And I don't get it.
- [48:24]
Chris
The problem is.
- [48:27]
Rich
One of the things that I think, think resonates with, with a lot of Americans and a lot of Republicans is you know, my community, military and veterans, right. If, if you had to guess how many, and I'm going to do this live right now, guys, how many military families do you think are considered food insecure in this country?
- [48:50]
Chris
70%.
- [48:51]
Rich
Like a number?
- [48:53]
Tim Fullerton
Like 40? 40. Oh numbers. Thousand.
- [48:56]
Rich
100,000? 325,000 military families are considered food insecure.
- [49:04]
Tim Fullerton
Jesus.
- [49:05]
Rich
Right, so, so when Republicans try to, to push forward this idea that people using SNAP benefits aren't working hard, we're talking, we're not just talking about like, you know, people working in you know, jobs that are, are looked as, as, like, looked at as like, you know, less than like working at a gas station or something. We're talking about American troops who sign on a dotted line willing to give their life for their country. We aren't paying them enough that A, they, they can feed their families and B, we have the Republicans trying to take away the food benefits that are filling the gap. That is insane. And it is insane that like this factoid that I think is going to resonate every flag waving Republican like there, there is, you can't tell some soldier, oh, you just need to work harder, get a second job. You can't get a second job when you're on active duty.
- [50:08]
Zach
Possible.
- [50:08]
Tim Fullerton
Right.
- [50:09]
Rich
And, and this is, you know, if, if Republicans wanted American troops to, to, you know, to be willing to fight for their country, taking away their, their food security is, I don't know, probably not the best way to go about it.
- [50:25]
Chris
Well, and Zach, you pointed this out a little while back, but you know, it sounds callous if you don't say it right. It can sound callous but like America needs natural consequences. I'm a parent so I go back to parenting all the time. But Republicans have protected people from feeling a lot of their, the consequences of their cuts over the years because they have said we need a balanced budget while, while just signing every goddamn bill that gives us trillions and trillions of deficits. Just a quick reminder, every dollar of our deficit, of our national debt right now probably 85 to 90% of those dollars were because of Republican budgets. Republican presidents who signed those bills. We're talking the 80s was a disaster. The George Bush era. Eight trillion for the war on terror total was a disaster. It's just deficit spending. They call us tax and spend liberals. They're just spend psychopaths. And that is all they do. And now they're a handful of them are forcing a little bit of that to be offset and that is going to deliver real pain. And suddenly those military families who are like, yeah, fuck yeah America, if they're food insecure or if they become more food insecure or if they lose their VA care, we don't want this. We don't want the political win so that people or we don't want people to hurt so that we can score political win. We will have the political win when it happens because this is going to be bad for more people. But when that time comes, we also have to be able to ask people like, hey, this is a complex argument, but we think you're capable of having a complex argument or understanding a complex argument because it's not tax and spend liberal. It's not trickle down. It's not one big beautiful bill. It has to be more complex than that. You know, Democrats stats are, it's not, it's not stability versus stability, it's stability versus chaos. It's clarity versus chaos. Like we have to be able to have that clear conversation with people because you can't sum up Medicaid in a, in a, in a slogan like they will, they will. But we understand that's disingenuous, it's abusive, it's usually just completely incorrect. But they'll do that because they want that cheap win. We, I'm not going to do that to my listeners, to our viewers. And the Democratic Party shouldn't do that to the American people because that means we got got to a place where reality TV sound bites are the only things that resonate. And you can't govern 340 million people successfully with reality TV sound bites. So I'm always at that point where it's like, how do we, do we expect people to be more thoughtful and nuanced than they are today? Or do we find a way to communicate our policies in a more simplistic fashion? It's going to be somewhere in the middle. It's going to be somewhere in the middle.
- [53:13]
Zach
I think it's not in the middle. I think we just have to adopt the Republican strategy and just not adopt their shit ass policies. In the end, people don't give a shit like we give a shit because we like this stuff and think it's interesting. I'd say nine out of ten Americans don't understand most of what we're talking about. They don't understand the ins and outs because they don't have any interest in understanding it. They want a slogan that makes sense.
- [53:32]
Chris
It is real boring. For people who don't like it.
- [53:34]
Zach
Yeah. For people who don't like it, they're just turned off or they think that they're liars or whatever the fuck, and then they show up with whatever feels right within the last two weeks of the election. But we are missing major opportunities by just thinking exactly like you're saying. Saying that people, we. We can't stoop that low. It's like, we can and we should, because we're not trying to sell them snake oil. They are. We're just trying to sell them a better product. We're just bad marketers. If we could be better marketers, they'll show up and go, holy, this product's been better. It's been on the shelf this whole time. Why wasn't I buying this before? Like, all we got to do is come up with a better marketing strategy. I mean, that's the truth.
- [54:07]
Chris
It's like a bridge loan, I think, is what they call it in finance. Like, we. We just got to get there. We got to get people smart, smarter. And in. In the interim, we need, like, a reality TV show where, like, you get slime dumped on you if you say a Republican thing and you get, like, a thousand dollars in a briefcase if you say the Democratic thing. Like, we need. How do we gamify this?
- [54:26]
Rich
Well, maybe real. I think what Zach is describing is, you know, the next mayor of New York City, like, yeah, it wasn't just sloganeering. It wasn't just talking to influencers and going on podcasts. It was having good podcasts. Policy.
- [54:41]
Zach
Yes.
- [54:41]
Tim Fullerton
Yeah.
- [54:42]
Rich
It was meeting people where. Literally meeting people where they were being like, hey, do you think New York is too expensive? Well, how about we. We control the rent prices? Like, are you having difficulty getting healthy food in your neighborhood? All right, well, how about these grocery stores? Hey, do you think that cops shouldn't be responding to, you know, a vet in crisis with their guns drawn, and instead, maybe we should have a Department of Public Safety to have a psychiatrist or a psychologist or a social worker worker on call?
- [55:13]
Tim Fullerton
Yes.
- [55:13]
Rich
Like, these are all good policies. And he just was like, yeah, we're going to do this. We're not going to pander to, you know, whatever Andrew Cuomo is doing, saying, like, he's gonna go overseas as his first act as New York City mayor. Like, he. He Met New Yorkers where, where they were, communicated clearly to them and people liked it. Democrats, instead of distancing themselves from the brown guy, which is what a lot of dep. Senator who I ranted against earlier, instead of distancing themselves from the really popular guy with popular policies, perhaps they should emulate him.
- [55:52]
Zach
Yep, 100%.
- [55:53]
Tim Fullerton
Well, I, I, I think as, as, I think authenticity and strength are things that Democrats just like, you can be a moderate Democrat and do this, and you can be a progressive Democrat and do this. Zor Madani, first of all, overcame his name in New York City, let's be very clear. Same as Barack Hussein Obama. Right, but, and, and I'm not saying that he is Barack Obama. I'm not saying that at all. But, but there are some similarities here. They, they stayed on message. It is insanely expensive in New York City, like, no matter where you live. I don't know how a single, like a, like a, a single mother lives in the city, to be perfectly honest. It's just unfathomable to me. And you know, they tried all these things on Zoran, all the blah, blah, blah, and he just focused on affordability. Affordability, affordability. You say freeze the rent. People know exactly what you mean because every year people get a bill that is, is much higher than the year before, especially coming out of COVID when prices went down and then they tried to make up for the losses that they sustained, and there's really very little that anybody can do about it. So like, they heard that, they heard, you know, maybe this, maybe the government should run grocery stores to bring prices down. They're like, okay, like, you know, I mean, I think there's some challenges with, but like, he put it out there, but that's, but at least he's trying. Like, what, what is the, the other option is just keep doing the same shit that you're, which is basically what the other candidates for the most part did. They're like, oh, well, I'm going to, I'm going to make housing cheaper.
- [57:18]
Chris
How?
- [57:19]
Tim Fullerton
Cops by building. I'm going to put, you know, there's only 34,000 cops in New York. We need more, you know, more than the $5 billion, but $6 billion budget. It's hollow. No one's buying it. We saw some of that, rightly or wrongly, in November of 2024. And the candidates, and then you also numbers of who Zorin got out to vote. Do you know what the biggest, the, the, the largest demographic was that voted for him or that came out at all? 1928, 18 to 24, which is almost never, never happens.
- [57:52]
Chris
Educated and the wealthiest precincts voted for him over Cuomo. It was the lower information and or like brand name people who, you know, which is normal. We see that ever. But those people will always come around once they learn a little bit more.
- [58:05]
Zach
No, that's for sure.
- [58:07]
Tim Fullerton
Yeah, but I think you're right. Like we had like even the Senate minority leader and the House minority leader both sort of like are tiptoeing around their support for him. And it's madness. He's the Democratic nominee. If Andrew Cuomo had won that, they'd be screaming at Zoran to endorse him immediately. So why isn't that happening to him? It is crazy. It is insane. Also, this like anti Semitism claim against him is complete nonsense. Let's not forget that the guy who co endorsed him and maybe partially helpfully responsible for getting him over the finish line is Brad Lander, who was my former city council member and last I checked is Jewish. Jerry Nadler came out. That's first. The day he was. He was. He won. Also Jewish endorsed him. Now would you ever claim that those guys would be soft on someone that is anti Semitic? No. So I don't understand why the others, like, it's just, it's insane. And I think they're scared.
- [59:02]
Chris
Just don't take the bait. Just don't take the bait.
- [59:04]
Zach
It's like the whole world scared. That's. That's right.
- [59:06]
Tim Fullerton
They are scared.
- [59:07]
Zach
They're scared to change. They don't know what to do. Like it's a whole new territory for them, dealing with 33 year olds with completely different perspectives than them. And like, you know, just to speak to the anti Semitic. Because I'm Jewish, like, you know anti Semitism when you see it. This dude is not anti Semitic. Like, let's just be real. Like it's the same thing with racism. Like any of this, like, you can look at somebody like, I know this person is not that. He is not that. And the fact that Democrats are accusing of anything close to that or Republicans are doing it too, but the fact that Democrats are like chiming in on that shit, it's painful to watch. It's one of those things where it's like, guys, we've shown you proof of an effective strategy and what are you doing? You're running away from it because you don't understand it. Maybe instead of running away, look at it for a second and try to fucking understand it. There is a successful formula here and here's like, like, look, the guy's 33. He's 33 with almost no fucking experience and he's literally about to run the biggest city in the country. It's not because he's quite qualified, it's because he's smart and a good marketer. That's it. The least qualified guy on the table. One because he had the best PR and the best marketing. The end. Full stop. Don't run from that shit. Embrace it. I don't give a shit if half of his things can't happen. Republicans didn't worry about that when Trump ran. He sold you a thousand false stories. Who gives a shit?
- [60:26]
Tim Fullerton
Win.
- [60:27]
Zach
You know, it's furious.
- [60:29]
Tim Fullerton
Every, every politics politician.
- [60:30]
Chris
I would gently push back on the definition of qualified because there are a lot of experienced people who are wildly unqualified.
- [60:37]
Zach
I'm not saying it's just an experience thing, but he's run like what, a department of five or some? I mean, he's going to run city.
- [60:43]
Tim Fullerton
Oh, assembly office. Yeah, that's.
- [60:44]
Chris
He'll crush it.
- [60:45]
Zach
I hope so because he's smart.
- [60:47]
Chris
I'd rather have a smart person than an experienced person. Like, I'm just saying if I have to choose between intelligence and experience, like experience goes a long way, but only if you're intelligent and you're learning from your experience. Otherwise you're just learning bad habits and just getting stuck in your ways.
- [61:00]
Zach
Depending on, depends on who it is.
- [61:01]
Chris
But yeah, maybe it's a hot take. But watching Zoran win. We know what we know about Barack Obama. I think we over indexed on the role of identity in his campaign. In hindsight, it was so powerful to us. It'll be like, I voted for the first black president. I voted for the guy with a weird name. He was fundamentally opposed to identity politics, as the right calls it. And he was absolutely, absolutely rigidly dedicated to health insurance. And yes, we can. And hope like he did the Republican thing better than anyone in the Republican Party did at that time, which is give. You give me, give me the one. Like what are the three words you think of when you hear Barack Obama? Yes, we can. He did that well. And so we voted for him for all, all the reasons we felt. But the reason why he won absolutely massively massive landslide victories twice is because he was also saying the correct things to the, to the middle. And so I want to go back to that because Chris, like you mentioned, you know, we got to pay for things and it pays, it pays it off. The first thing the Republicans say when you say we got to invest in, you know, free food for, or, you know, health care for everybody. Free food for veterans is, well, how are you going to pay for it? And our go to has been to do what they do, which is us versus them. We try to themify somebody and it's the billionaires. And Zach, you've pointed this out. We have to stop demonizing the billionaires. Even if the billionaires are evil, even if Elon Musk is evil. Elon Musk, that is still an aspirational goal for some amount of people. They think that they're going to win something or invent something and they're going to be a millionaire and billionaire. And a lot of people just also fundamentally disagree with the idea of like punishing success, they call it. So my take is instead of saying we're going to do these things and they're very expensive and we're going to pay for it by making the rich pay their fair share, which is like the Elizabeth Warren thing, I think, think you flip it and you do. Essentially similar to what he's done successfully with that group of people with Make America Great Again, which is that America is strong enough to do this. We produce enough wealth to pay for the things that we need. And if you look at gdp, if you look at per capita GDP among any nations that are even close to us in population size, we are in most cases 50 to 100% higher in wealth generated per capita person than any other nation. So instead of making it about, make sticking it to the rich people, sticking it to the billionaires, which feels it's, it's still a fundamentally negative argument. If you say instead, hey, we generate so much wealth, you included as a worker, them as a CEO, together we generate so much wealth we can have universal healthcare. Because look, they're doing it in all these other countries and they produce half the wealth per person that we do. If we made an aspirational argument out of American greatness is the reason why we can do these things for ourselves, Ourselves. Instead of saying it's we're going to make Elon Musk pay for it, which the math actually doesn't always check out on that I think, I think we've actually got something. And, and I think that's what Zoran does with affordability, which is he's not saying we're going to punish everybody, he just says it's too expensive to live here, we're going to fix rent. And we're going to say, you know, we're going to, we're going to do It. Because we can.
- [64:09]
Zach
That's interesting.
- [64:09]
Chris
Because we should.
- [64:10]
Rich
I like.
- [64:10]
Tim Fullerton
He does. He does. He does say that though, that the rich need to pay more.
- [64:14]
Zach
Yeah, he does.
- [64:15]
Tim Fullerton
That's on his website. And he did. And he did say billionaires shouldn't exist.
- [64:20]
Zach
Well, that's.
- [64:20]
Chris
That's. Yeah.
- [64:22]
Rich
I think your interpretation, Rich, of how he communicated the eat the rich philosophy is. Is perhaps a little inaccurate. He was very much eat the rich.
- [64:31]
Tim Fullerton
Yeah, that.
- [64:32]
Zach
But I, I think that is a.
- [64:34]
Rich
Message that resonated in New York.
- [64:36]
Zach
I don't know if I see. I don't. I didn't see, like, I never once saw that come out of his mouth. I'm sure it did. I'm not saying it didn't. But that was not the centerpiece of his PR under his campaign. And his marketing, like, at the centerpiece of his marketing was like exactly what Rich was saying, which is essentially like, we're New Yorkers. We can do this. We deserve this. Here's the things we deserve. The methodology to which he was getting there took a backseat in his marketing strategy, which I think is very, very smart. Like, I'm. I'm not eat the rich person. I think that we need to have a more balanced tax system. And I do think it's a.
- [65:05]
Chris
It is like caviar.
- [65:07]
Zach
It's a very disastrous structure. I do think that there's a. You lose a lot of the middle when you start attacking success. And the eat the rich, it doesn't really work very well. But regardless, I think that whether or not Mamdani believes that stuff, I think that what sold was what we deserve, needs to be what we get and how we get there is somewhat irrelevant. It's more so that we should be able to do it because we're New York and we're great. And I think the same thing would translate somewhat on the American stand, the full, like, national stage.
- [65:37]
Tim Fullerton
Well, I think that. I think that the difference is for both he and Obama was that they were able to. They were able to spin it into a hopeful message. But there. There was still like, that was the lead. But it, to be clear, having been, you know, the amount of. I should have kept all of the flyers and mailers I got in the last few weeks because it's probably taller than the building I live in. But there was a fair amount of eat the rich and there was a fair amount. But. But I think he. He's able to craft a story and a narrative that doesn't just. Doesn't just say us versus them. It's like, we can all do this together if these guys come along with us, basically. And I think that was powerful. But we'll also see what happens in the general election. Like, this was a Democratic one primary. It's a very different thing. I think he's, he's got a bit of a challenge ahead of figuring out how to pivot a little bit to the center just because there, there are some challenges ahead. I don't think that they're going to be as big as some people are saying they are, but, you know, we'll see in a general. And then maybe this is a road map for Democrats next year. I mean, I think already it looks, if you're, if you're running in a primary, I think he's given you a road map for success that's for sure.
- [66:40]
Zach
Going to either he should, he should just hang on the fucking messaging, that one.
- [66:43]
Chris
Don't apologize, don't pivot, don't apologize. They're making, I looked up the numbers because it just made me crazy to see people saying Liz Orans like, oh, the millionaires are going to leave New York or whatever was like a thing that, you know, Eric Adams, like, complaining like, like, get over yourself. 1% of New York City residents control 40, 44% of the city's wealth. And so they should be paying that same share right in the income tax burden. And they don't. They pay about half of the personal income tax, which is only 22% of the city's revenue. And so you're talking about 78% of the revenue is coming from other places. It's coming from use fees and property taxes. You're telling me that are they going to move the skyscrapers from downtown Manhattan so that they can avoid. No, you know, property taxes are going to be there. And, and so the way he's going to pay for things, you know, it'll, it'll be there and they'll get it. And so going down that road of like, how are you going to pay for it? And he's like showing all the nickels and dimes. I don't think it's necessary just say, we're going to pay for it because we can, we can afford it and because you deserve it, you need food and you have to live in your city. So, like, let's start from there instead of starting from how do we protect the billionaires? And then reverse engineer policy from that.
- [68:05]
Tim Fullerton
Right. I actually saw a Republican, I don't remember who it was the other day say, I, I bet in five years that the New York Stock Exchange will be moving to Florida. And I just like, about fell out of my chair laughing. I'm like, you just do not understand how any of this shit works.
- [68:18]
Zach
No, I mean, that's, that's like the thing that drives me the most insane is like, that argument that millionaires are going to leap. Like, New York City is an N of one city. There's no other city like New York City. I personally don't like it, but like, I, that's why I don't live there anymore. But people fucking love it. You can't move from New York, York to, I mean, no offense to Chicago, but Chicago and feel like, oh, that's the same. It's not. It's completely different. You can leave California, go to Florida. It's a scene of hot and hot and whatever. Sunny. Who gives a. There's a parallel. There's no parallel. So they're leaving.
- [68:46]
Rich
I think people are going to fight you over this.
- [68:49]
Zach
Good, good. I'm glad. I like, where are they going to go? Where are they going to go? Where this feels like New York.
- [68:55]
Chris
Nowhere.
- [68:55]
Tim Fullerton
Southern California and Florida are quite different.
- [68:59]
Zach
But, but really, like, in the end, it's about like, sun and warmth.
- [69:02]
Chris
Right?
- [69:02]
Zach
I mean, like, they're completely different in terms of what they offer and the, like, the. But like, people in those circumstances are like, well, I live in a sunny, warm place. I want to go to the sunny, warm place. That's, that's.
- [69:11]
Tim Fullerton
I get what you're saying.
- [69:12]
Rich
I think there's, there is some truth to the idea that, you know, New Yorkers are flooding to Florida, but Florida is New York's graveyard and it has been, always has been. Oh, yeah, so. So, like, not a whole lot is different saying, like, oh, all this wealth is going to Florida. Yeah. People are higher in Florida because the taxes are lower. And that is, that is true for my grandparents generation and my great grandparents generation. It'll probably, like, I have, you know, friends who are, who are democratic socialists who've moved down to Florida to save money. It like, they're not moving there for Ron DeSantis. Like, they're moving there for the warmer weather to be closer to family, to have free babysitting, you know, from grandma and Grandpa. It's. Chris, not just for lower taxes.
- [69:58]
Tim Fullerton
Are you telling me these people don't make $1 million a year and are upset about $2,000 more foreign taxes? That's not their, that's not their reason for moving. Also. It's also not just New York. It's all of the northeast people, I'm from Maine and and Mainers go down get places down there all the time. And it's part of it's the taxes and part of it's just it's so cold in Maine. Like you know, not as much as it used to be but like it's still like it's, you know, the winter is not fun for somebody especially if you're you know, older and you know all those things. So anyways, well, I tell you what guys, we have gone a lot longer than we said we would this time but I think we had some really good conversations and I would just as a final note say to anybody, if you have a, you live in a district that has a Republican member either in the House or the Senate, it doesn't matter whether you think that all hope is lost. Call them, tell them how mad you are about this. And also you know, we talk a lot about low information voters. Talk to your friends and family. Like that's actually the most effective thing that you can do is get other people to do this too or get them to understand how bad this stuff is and how we can stop it like at its tracks now and then if, if somehow it does pass, which I think everyone's right that there some version of this will probably go through and it will probably be bad gearing up to make sure that nothing else bad happens by taking back the house next year.
- [71:11]
Rich
You know I have another idea for how to get these people engaged in conversation and that is to buy the merch from find out podcast.com so guys.
- [71:20]
Tim Fullerton
The good thing about this merch is one it helps keep us going and paying the bills. Also all of our stuff is made in America and where we we could get it union made so it cost a few extra bucks. But you're also helping to support the US economy as well unlike the Republicans in Congress. And you know it's all going to a good cause. Also like I have the hoodie, it's great. I have the T shirt, it's great. I'm not wearing it today but you could do that. The other way you can help us is also subscribing as a paid member to our substack which is findout podcast.substack.com I think it's $6 a month I think and and that just helps us go keep going too because we have more plans. Rich keeps tacking on tapping on his mic and we are hearing all forever.
- [72:04]
Zach
I don't know.
- [72:05]
Tim Fullerton
I think Riverside is saying your time is up, Rich. And probably our time is up as well. So we've done our pitches, we've talked on the bill. I don't think we had as many F bombs because we didn't have Luke. But Luke will be back on Thursday. Do not worry about that. Yes, Rich is trying to drop F bombs, but he's behind a muted mic, so little does he know that I did that to him. No, just kidding. But anyways, make your calls, folks. Talk to your friends and family. We'll be back on Thursday. We'll talk soon.