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- [00:00]
Anthony Weiner
Foreign
- [00:04]
Mike Pesca
It's Thursday, June 18, 2026. From Peach Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Today in New York City, the New York Knicks had their championship parade. Now do you remember in Kansas City two years ago when they had a parade after one of their many Super Bowls? Do you remember what happened? Let me remind you, we're coming on
- [00:25]
Anthony Weiner
the air as officials in Kansas City, Missouri are about to give an update on the deadly shooting at the end of the Chiefs victory Super bowl parade yesterday. One person, popular local DJ Lisa Lopez Galvan, was killed by gunshot wound. More than 20 others were also shot during the incident, including nine children. Police say three people are in custody and have recovered one firearm.
- [00:44]
Mike Pesca
Actually, 23 people were injured, including nine children. So it may have dropped off your radar as to the adjudication of that case. But now let me inform you what happened to the people who did the shooting. The answer, essentially nothing, almost nothing. And that is because two groups, quote, got into a fight about why they were staring at each other. That's a quote from an NPR report. And one drew a gun. We're not exactly sure who. Someone else drew a gun and they began firing. But because of Missouri law, they were allowed to have the guns. And because of the stand your ground provision in Missouri law, even in a public place like a parade where they couldn't ban guns, because of that, they were allowed to fire back. Now, a couple of the shooters did serve a couple years in jail on weapons charges. They're out of jail now. The prosecutor in the case said this case, like many others, highlights the significant restrictions that Missouri self defense and defense of others laws place on our ability to prosecute conduct that many in our community would deem unacceptable. Yet many, I would say that many would say that shooting at someone for staring at you or for perceiving that they drew a gun on you after you stared at them, that is unacceptable. But it's not, strictly speaking, illegal or prosecutable under Missouri law. Now, there was a lot of celebration of the Knicks, of the nature of New York, of the grit and determination of New Yorkers. But one thing that wasn't and shouldn't have been noted is we do have better gun laws in this city. Which is not to say that there would be no risk of anyone being hurt during the Saturday night celebrations after the Knicks won, someone was shot. But I just can't see what happened in Missouri, the escaping of justice or even going to a huge event, strapped, drawing and then having the law back you up I can't see that happening in our fair city of New York. Now, of course, the Supreme Court got their way, there would be more of that and a greater chance of that. But I'm just glad they're not. And I'm not here to rain on anyone's parade. It's a joyous occasion in New York. But I did think, I found myself thinking, whatever happened to that Kansas City shooting? And the answer, as I said, is almost nothing. On the show today, it is a Not even mad. We do talk about the Knicks and sports and local politics. We, with tried and true New Yorkers want to transplant the other one who is quite associated with our fair city and was almost mayor. Anthony Weiner, Matt Welch of Reason magazine are the guests as we are not even mad. Hello and welcome back to the show that aims to bring professional slap fighting to the White House lawn. Not even mad. Today we speak of SpaceX youth and vigor versus age and experience in politics and sports. Why? As we do so, we promise to uphold our reputation for refutation while at the same time vowing to be not even mad. So who are we? I am a little scratchy. I'm Mike Pesca, I will admit that. But we're also Matt Welch, editor at large of Reason, co host of the Fifth Column. I know there are three of you, but co host? You don't say try host, do you?
- [04:34]
Matt Welch
No, not at all. That's Menagea Hosts. No, not a problem.
- [04:38]
Mike Pesca
Well, that's good. You're in a poly host situation. Anthony Weiner, seven term congressman who served New York's 9th district, is the same. Still the 9th. They change these things, man.
- [04:47]
Anthony Weiner
They change it.
- [04:49]
Mike Pesca
They change it. You know, after you, it all went downhill. So totally, yes. Okay, so let's start with the richest man in America, possibly the world. It's hard to really count Saudi wealth. Elon Musk. SpaceX went public last week to the tune of. Not even a tune. A veritable symphony of speculation. It's now valued at over $2 trillion. SpaceX does have some nice profitable businesses within it. Starlink makes money. It also has a data center business tucked inside. That's a cash suck in terms of revenue. SpaceX makes $15 billion. That's nice. You know what it compares to almost exactly? General Mills, the cereal guys. Honey Nut Cheerios, which is, I found out, more popular than regular Cheerios. So Musk is now a trillionaire on paper and he has more power than many, many countries, maybe even most countries. Starlink has basically, or is basically winning the War for Ukraine. Now the left says every billionaire is a policy failure. What about trillionaires? Anthony, what do you think? The fact of him being a trillionaire, does that mean we've done something wrong?
- [05:55]
Anthony Weiner
Well, I do think whenever you're dealing with this conversation about the growing amounts of inequity in the world that we have and in the country in particular. Yeah, I mean you should wonder like how this came to be. But I am, I am dubious of the whole, of the whole SpaceX thing. I mean the company's owned by a really weird dude who's on drugs most of the time with a lot of things in the company that are not profitable at all and that just seem like vanity things. I mean, but what I don't know about how the stock market is kept afloat in this period of architecture can fill a book. Maybe this is a super, a super valuable company and that investing in it makes a lot of sense. I'd be really worried though when you have a so much of it riding on the whims of this one slightly wacky dude. I think that there's reason to be concerned now. Is it? When we hear about super wealthy people, I don't mind that being a stepping off place to what policies we should have around making sure that people are able to get healthcare and able to support themselves and the amount of inequality we have in the country I think is a legitimate problem. But we do get bogged down when you have it around a single person. Cuz someone says well yeah, but Amazon is so amazing or SpaceX is so amazing. So I don't think it's particularly helpful to at a particular person and say all right, he's the problem. But I'm totally fine with my, with people on all levels, on all parts of the spectrum saying well let's have a conversation about what it means that we now have a trillionaire out there who's hyped up on ketamine or whatever it is he's doing.
- [07:29]
Matt Welch
Matt, one thing for what it means that is positive for me, at least in an unalloyed way, is that we have a world beating capital market system that allows crazy innovators and both every possible meaning of the word crazy in this case to raise money to do more innovation. That is awesome. I mean if you work in the business press abroad, which I did for a long time, every single tin pot country is trying to form a silicon valley of X. You know, I was in Hungary in the mid-90s, we're going to have a silicon pusta it never goes anywhere because you never have the concentration of kind of research universities, culture of venture capital, then access to actual capital, liquid capital markets where you can raise tons of money for an experiment. And the experiment might not work. I presume, without knowing anything, that SpaceX is overvalued. But I presumed the same thing about Amazon 20 years ago, and I was wrong. So we'll see what happens with it. But I just think it's a wonderful thing. Like, I, you know, this, there is this discourse that's, I think, increasingly popular on the professional democratic left, sort of. Graham Platner, Bernie Sanders, you know, billionaires are a policy problem. Aoc. I just, it leaves me so cold, like I don't care about billionaires one way or the other. I like when they're innovating and not doing really stupid things in the federal government. That's helpful. But in general, it means that we are spinning off wealth and experimentation. And I just think that's obviously great.
- [09:00]
Anthony Weiner
I think that the question is more about the scale, right? I don't think that it's kind of a false choice, say, well, we either have trillionaires or we don't have innovation, we don't have capital markets. You can have, you can have really successful capital markets that still figure out a way that on a societal level makes sure that we don't have abject need at the same time we're having crazy, ridiculous, amazing wealth. But I think that you're right, you want to have people. The weird thing about the must thing, because it gets very confusing because he's got a lot of failing companies that are kind of in there, right? Part of it is X, which is arguably in a lot of ways doing a lot worse under his leadership. You've got even the risk involved and the relative value of the SpaceX part of the company. I think that it's a little bit of short circuiting of a reasonable conversation to say, well, you don't want to live in Hungary, do you? No. But I think it is reasonable to say if we have a system that is creating more and more people that are literally not getting health care, while we have a system that allows and encourages this, that might be a problem in the long term. And I don't think, I don't think there's anything about that that argues we shouldn't have strong, thriving capital markets.
- [10:18]
Mike Pesca
But it's one thing to say, if I might just say, it's one thing to say we have a system with flaws and a system with successes. You have to link the successes to the flaws. And in Elon Musk's case, yes, he was involved in government and he does take drugs and he is a wild man and he does tweet irresponsibly or X irresponsibly on X. But the space X part of it, and I mentioned Starlink, literally is beating back an aggressor state like no technology ever has. I mean, and Tesla, what he has done for the world in terms of popularizing the ev, it's all just amazing stuff. The man contains more multitudes than any of the rest of it. So, Matt, you know, in your campus, do you think the flaws of the trillionaires are what causes people not to have health care?
- [11:03]
Matt Welch
No, I don't. Like, we have a complicated health care system in this country and it's infuriating for anyone who's participating in any way, shape or form. I can testify as someone who's probably, as soon as this thing stops, I'm going to be arguing with a Flores third party administrator about God knows what, some kind of dental payback situation.
- [11:24]
Mike Pesca
Flores? Is that a guy? Is that your dentist's name?
- [11:27]
Matt Welch
I wish. I get better dentistry from a Puerto Rican than whatever I'm getting right now. But no, they're just separate issues and I think we all want to conflate them everything at once, which I understand on some level, but on another, I just don't like, you know, when Mamdani is in front of what's his face's house saying, like, you know, this is the obstacle that we're not taxing this pied a terre enough. You know, we have $125 billion budget in the city of New York and the highest tax rate of any place, and spending $44,000 per student in K through 12. Like, I don't. I just, I'm not seeing that. I don't like that type of political instinct when we couldn't be delivering better services at every level all the time and be thinking about that as the number one policy and politics objective rather than pointing at a rich guy and saying bad.
- [12:23]
Anthony Weiner
Well, let me just try to make an argument for what the connective tissue is. And just for the purpose of the argument. I don't know if I agree with all this, but the whole idea is that if you have a tiny number of people where the wealth is concentrated, tiny number meaning proportional to the rest of the population, who has a disproportionate say over what policies are gonna impact the other 99.999%, then I think there's something there. And the wealth is what gives them that access to wealth and is what gives them the regulatory easing that they may want or whatever it is. And as far as the thing about standing in front of a rich guy's house, I just, I remember like what it was a week ago, watching somebody running for mayor in LA pointing to homeless people and making them an example of something that's political stuff. I have no beef with that. I mean, everyone's getting their knickers in a twist. Oh, you stood in front of a rich guy's house. That's so unfair. Settle the fuck down. All right, you know, yeah, you'll figure out a way to get over it that someone did a press conference outside your house. But I do think that the Platner argument and the Ossoff argument that might resonate is it's because we have concentration of wealth is leading to us have concentration of political power. And I think that's what the argument that some would make. I don't. I think it holds up better in some places than others. And then you have the other problem that influences the three of us here. If you have rich people buying and crushing media outlets, that's also not a great thing. You're buying the Washington Post, you're buying X. You're basically turning them into cesspools. That kind of argues for, for a way that our country is less good for the 99.9% because these rich guys can go out and do these vanity projects more easily.
- [13:54]
Mike Pesca
As far as the press, I would give an always ever thus argument, you know, McCormick with the Chicago Tribune, and we could go down the list of press lords who weren't exactly operating in the public good. Always there is an aspect and yeah, what's his name? Cushing was the guy that he was picked on. And it's funny because in both cases with the homeless or the unhoused in California and Cushing, the solution was let's drive them both to Florida. Interesting. But. But I want to ask you, Matt, because I know you are a committed libertarian and it doesn't surprise me that you would celebrate not only one guy getting rich. That's not the point. It's the infusion of, of in the capital markets and it's the infusion of technology and ideas. And I think just what Space X does, by the way, has great applications for all of us as taxpayers. It makes NASA better and it gives. It allows satellites to be launched into space a bit cheaper. However, if you look at how Elon Musk has set up his governance on the board. There is no governance. I guess if you're worth a trillion, you don't essentially have to have board oversight. And I want to know if your libertarianism extends so far as to say that's a good thing. Because there's one caveat, empty argument and there's another where you would say, you know, it is actually a distortion of capitalism.
- [15:10]
Matt Welch
I have no idea what's the best board governance structure or Elon Musk's companies?
- [15:15]
Mike Pesca
Some. Would you say some is better than others?
- [15:17]
Matt Welch
No, I like. I mean I have no idea what the best governance structure. The guy is on an innovation hot streak that most people aren't. Not everything works, correct. Most things don't. But my God, NeuroLink, Starlink, Tesla, SpaceX, that's pretty good. And shout out, by the way, because this doesn't happen enough, especially from. Not especially from libertarians, but especially from people on the right. I'm not on the right necessarily. Shout out to Barack Obama. He allowed for NASA's stranglehold on space development to cease. He said, okay, let's welcome in private space development back when that was a very libertarian pipe dream for decades going absolutely nowhere. And it was. I remember getting in an argument with Lou Dobbs, former Space.com's Lou Dobbs, on Red Eye a thousand years ago, back when Obama was making those decisions. I said that was great, don't you think? SpaceX guy or space.com guy. And he just screamed at me, that's the problem with libertarians, you know, nothing. But as Lou Dobbs does, well, God rest his soul and his makeup artist soul too. But you know, there's. If you allow innovation to happen, you can allow innovation to happen. And that's great. And shout out to Obama for doing it. I don't know what the best board structure is. I presume that that sounds bad what you're talking about. And also it's clear that their board, shareholders and other people are just betting on one guy. That guy is going to crack ketamine at some point, one would assume, if he has not already. And he certainly lives what by look from the outside looks to be a kind of a repulsive life. But it's worked out for them so far. It's worked out for a guy I grew up with down the street who works as a logistics guy for SpaceX. I haven't gotten a hold of him, but I presume he's had a pretty nice week.
- [17:01]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, he won't be returning your calls. I would Say as a more or less defender of capitalism, the good kind of capitalism, the capitalism that doesn't say every billionaire is a policy failure. To which I say, what's your problem with Oprah and Paul McCartney? I would say part of the argument for capitalism is it is Democratic too. Right. It allows people to have access to capital and to have a say in these companies. And so public investors right now are buying the economics of Space X, but they're getting almost none of the say. And that would be bad as a model for Wall street companies going forward.
- [17:35]
Anthony Weiner
Well, let me just add to that also that, you know, no one ever stops when I was running for office or when I was a congressman, says, you know, you gotta make that SEC more muscular. We need to keep these companies on the guard. But ultimately part of the problem that we have is if you become too big and important a player in Washington, you can say, well, I want to neuter the SEC so they don't keep an eye on us very closely. Or I don't want to have to worry about the Justice Department coming in and breaking up a monopoly. These things that theoretically protect the consumer from, you know, the avarice of a company left unchecked. So I do think that's another reason to be concerned, that when you have this kind of incestuous. And let's stipulate that maybe this whole relationship between Trump and Musk, we don't know what it is and maybe it's sui generous and not really instructive of a larger policy conversation. But that is why you have strong government structures around the regulatory theme. So that companies who are big and are intertangled like that do have governance that protect shareholders and protect ultimately the American people.
- [18:40]
Matt Welch
I agree with half of that and just want to add one quick thing which is that for me one of the biggest problems with the abilities for deep pocketed companies to influence regulation is that they write the regulation and usually in ways that pull the ladder up behind them. So everybody at some level has to spend this much money on compliance and that really screws the people who can't afford the compliance money. And I think we're seeing this in strong ways with AI. They started off by please regulate us. By us, I mean us six richest guys in the AI sphere. And we should always be on a lookout for that and always be in a way that Elizabeth Warren I think isn't, but more in tune with a Ralph Nader 1970s argument, which is like be careful while you regulate because you're going to create that possibility for regulatory Capture. Agreed.
- [19:30]
Mike Pesca
So don't take any investment advice from not even Matt, but maybe hold off on SpaceX until the pop simmers. In a moment we'll talk about experience in politics and the downside of that, which could be vigor, it could be just being an idiot in your 20s when not even Mad returns. We're back with Not Even Madam, here with Matt Welch and Anthony Weiner. And I've been looking at a couple of races, one in the Senate, one in the House. I bet. You know the Senate race I'm going to talk about, Graham Platner will be the Democratic nominee against Susan Collins. This is a match and a showdown of generations, but also of, we could say inexperience, we could say sexting, texting, tweeting, everything that, tattooing, everything associated with Platner. But I've also been looking at a local New York race in the Bronx and there a five term Congressman Espalat is facing Darieliza Chevalier and she is a CUNY graduate student trying to get her PhD. She has the endorsement of Mayor Mamdani, which is really the only reason she's challenging Espel Esplat so closely. And the New York Times writing about her is tweet, delete, repeat social media posts overshadow house race from 2018-22. Ms. Evil. Yeah. Chevalier, who is challenging Adriano Espalot, unleashed an extraordinary torrent of social media posts, often using profane and dismissive language. And I have to say much of the coverage is what do we do about the phrasing of these tweets or the childishness of these tweets or the outrageous sentiment of these tweets from long ago. But I look at it somewhat differently and I say without so much to go on, this is a compendium of someone running for office's thoughts not so long ago. And I think it's quite fair game to evaluate the tweets. Then again, espalots71 so that is a knock against him and she does have vigor and she does have the Mumdani endorsement. I know you don't have strict rules of thumb with this Anthony. Maybe you know esplanade from New York politics. How do you look at a race like this and an issue like this about 70 something year olds are not ideal. But then again, when the people you get to run against them don't have a track record, you might be playing with fire.
- [22:02]
Anthony Weiner
Yeah. First I don't think you say the L's. I think it's Espiat. But I mean, look here's here's what I, what I learned acutely last summer when I ran for city council after being out of the game for over a decade. We used to, we had this thing that when we, we used to believe that these shifts, these realignment shifts, the throw out, the bum shifts happened every so often but didn't happen. We're kind of in a permanent place of that. I have these terrible scandals in my background. All the new thought of me. I'm a 61 year old guy, I'm running against that I used to be something years ago. Therefore I was just, well, I don't want to hear from you position papers, things I had said, things I did. No one gave a shit about that. The idea was it's the old versus new. It has become such a vibe electorate. And I assume this is happening all around the country, but certainly here in New York City. And again I put filter everything to the idea that I'm talking to you from the East Village. So maybe it's even worse there. But I just think that that's the through line. The through line is no longer what people say, what their positions are. It's almost as if what the vibe is of the campaign is. And so they have the change people, the people under 45 or so and the people over 45 or 50 or so in that district and who's gonna have the most votes in this primary? I think that's what's going on kind of everywhere. I don't even know what you learn. I think no one could read her tweets from just a couple of years ago and say, all right, she's for me. I don't really believe, I don't think so. But I think that there is just this general sense in maybe it's in both primaries, maybe in the Republican primary it manifests itself. Who's the craziest, more pro Trump guy? It doesn't matter. Irrespective of your policy positions, that's what seems to be going on. It's almost as if we kind of stare at things through the microscope of like, all right, what can we learn here? We kind of give this New York Times treatment to these conversations when you're out on the street. It's just old guy versus new person basically. And with the possible exception of like Bernie Sanders, who's got his own thing going on, it's usually young versus old. And I think that's. I don't think you're gonna. And I don't think you're really learning all that much. I don't think you can learn from this woman getting votes, that people think it was a smart thing or a good thing, that, you know, those horrible things that she said recently. Nor do I think that Platner winning is going to really say much about a tattoo on his chest.
- [24:25]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And who knows if she will win? And I will acknowledge I'll take the L on all those extra Ls, but I'll read a couple of these things. Most of the theory I've read is communism, but the pyromania associated with anarchism is very intriguing to me. She wrote, I forget to get. I forgot to get napkins. So I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me. And she wrote, black men and Arab men fetishize colonizer women. This was okay five years ago, but not 15 years ago.
- [24:58]
Anthony Weiner
It's a quarter of her life, though, Mike.
- [25:00]
Mike Pesca
And what else do we have to go on? Then again, I don't know, maybe if I loved her policy, I would say.
- [25:05]
Anthony Weiner
Can I just say, before I know Matt wants to, I wouldn't vote for this woman in a thousand years. Right. But if we're trying to figure out, like, what is the elector? Like, I ain't like the elect. I mean, we aren't like, what's going on in a primary electorate right now.
- [25:18]
Mike Pesca
Right.
- [25:19]
Anthony Weiner
I just. I think it's almost. It's almost like all of, you know, the genocide. Genocide. Yes or no? I mean, it's like the whole debate, everyone. We have three of them going on here in my backyard. We've got Goldman, we've got the Nadler seat, and we have this one upset. Every debate is the same inanities about stuff that's wafer thin. And I don't know if we can make that much of it. I think it's kind of we're in a national fever dream in both parties, and I think it just manifests itself. Like, what if we put up someone who's a young woman who's running against an older member who says the craziest shit just a couple of years ago, Will that work? And they're like, sure, we'll do that.
- [26:00]
Matt Welch
Yeah. I think the analysis that we're in a populist moment has been true since 2015. It's been true since the rise of Bernie and the rise of Trump. And one thing that makes this race and these suite of races, including, sadly, my own congressional district 10, interesting, additionally, is that it's whether Mamdani can build a political machine. He is trying to add some scaffolding right around the corner is just poster after poster with freaking Brad Lander, who used to be my city councilman. Now it's a very, very angry anti Israeli woman. And it's Mamdani next to him everywhere. And this is not young. Brad Lander ain't young. I wish that he had more of an excuse for the way that he acts. But it's whether that is Mamdani can do that and whether the Mamdani machine, how much of it relies on what feels to me kind of pretty a boiling, bubbling anti Israel sentiment that seems to be kind of table stakes for igniting the populist left, particularly in a heavily blue state city and in a primary. And I hope that's not me over noticing and kind of being distorted in my own vision of it. But just when you see what quickens the pulse of people, it's are you talking about billionaires and are you talking about aipac? It seems like what comes first. And as someone who, you know, don't. I don't wake up mad at billionaires or apac necessarily. I don't think that's going to necessarily translate into great policy or politics.
- [27:39]
Anthony Weiner
Yeah, that has. I agree. I just want to say, you know, every. A lot of debates have, after they've done some questions, they do a lightning round kind of thing where there's yes, no's. I swear in at least two debates I've seen this season, Israel genocide. Yes, no. It's like, it's just insane the way it's become in the Democratic primary. I agree with Matt 100%.
- [28:00]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And I wonder if the questioners or even the people answering actually know the definition of genocide. For them to say yes, no. Is it a special intent to destroy and hold or impart a ethnic, racial, religious, tribal or group as such?
- [28:14]
Anthony Weiner
Well, ask Dan Goldman. Dan Goldman trying to make that case. He's getting his ass kicked.
- [28:18]
Mike Pesca
So yeah, I know you try to parse these words, but you're right, Matt, it's a populist moment. I do think it's an anti Zionist moment as well. And you're right, Anthony. How much do we take? We're going to get a winner in this primary. And so from the winner, do we say, I'm talking about Espalat espionage and Darieliza Villa Chevalier. Do we say if Avila Chevalier wins? Well, this shows that anti Zionism is ascendant. This shows that people will excuse tweets. This shows that Mamdani does have a good political machine. This shows that 71 year olds who took money from AIPAC are on the outs. Or maybe only one of those things are true. Or maybe one of those things resonated so much with the voters that the other things aren't true. And what do we do about that? It's one of the things that makes politics hard. Right. Harder than baseball, which we're going to talk about.
- [29:13]
Anthony Weiner
Let me add one other thing.
- [29:14]
Mike Pesca
We don't know what the lessons really are.
- [29:16]
Anthony Weiner
Let me add one other thing. Or is it that more of Matt Walsh's neighbors are moving to these other neighborhoods, the white, young, lefty liberals, and displacing a historic Dominican guy like Espied, or even in heavily Jewish parts of. I mean, and that district that Goldman's got, he's always had a much. It used to be that. I don't think that district includes Borough park anymore. It used to be leavened. Gerald Nadler's district used to go from Zabar's to Nathan's. Now it's much more compact with just. Just a very lefty district. It could just be, as gentrification happens and more white, white liberals move to these more districts, does that become fertile ground for these primaries?
- [29:57]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. Now, I will make an observation about Platner, which I mentioned in the intro, but we haven't talked about too much. He does seem to have so much more vigor than Susan Collins, who seems old and, you know, me talking about this today, creaky. Whereas espionage is a fighter. You know, he's. He has a lot of vim. So I don't know if the vim factor will be so important in that particular race. And then again, like you said, Goldman is slightly younger than Lander. I guess, coming back to the idea that how do you as a politician know what the right lessons are? Can't you just look at a field of possible lessons to take and then take the ones that appeal to you the most? How do you effectively pursue your theory of the case when you're running for office?
- [30:43]
Anthony Weiner
Well, from personal experience, some of it is you create a thesis, right. That invariably relies upon your strengths versus what you perceive the field like. So a little bit of it's. It's like you tell whatever story gets you through the night kind of thing. Now, I. And you've been very kind not to raise this in the introduction, I tested a theory a year ago in the summer of 2025 that the party after 2024 would moderate. It's not a word, but kind of get back to the knitting of we gotta be the idea party. We've gotta do things about public safety. We've gotta kind of think about how we're gonna solve some of these problems, or no one's gonna wanna vote for us as a party anymore and where to start that except New York City. That's a good place to start. So I did. And I did another idea book, and I went out campaigning on, like, the idea we need to hire more cops. We're not paying so much in overtime. We got to get rid of the scaffolding that it's no one's idea of progressive to climb over a homeless person on your way to the bodega, et cetera, et cetera. I turned out to be wrong. Right. But that was my theory of the case. So when I.
- [31:50]
Mike Pesca
Did you turn out to be wrong or. Sorry, this is gonna sound like an insult. Did you just turn out to be Anthony Weiner?
- [31:57]
Anthony Weiner
I don't. You know, I wouldn't buy that. If I was knocking on doors. If I was knocking on doors and people were saying, carlos Dainty, go fuck yourself. All right, I would be like, maybe that's just me. I know, for example, one of the. One of the mistakes I made is I assume the Cuomo would be better at doing the same thing at the top of the ticket. But I did believe we were going to have this big city debate about where are we going as a party? Are we going to. And traditionally, I know this is going to be a surprise to your national listeners and viewers. We've always chosen moderates when we've chosen mayors. That's kind of been the way we've gone. The lefties generally don't prevail. De Blasio was the result of me flaming out at the last minute. So I was wrong. Now, have we had a realignment that's permanent? Well, if crime spikes, if it seems like these socialist things are not working out so well and people are miserable, then maybe we will have a pendulum swing back. But when you ask how you construct the case, a lot of it is historical. One more final thing I had as a person who hadn't run in a while last week of the race, I go on the View like, I've made it right. This is a great place to go when I'm trying to turn out votes. And I went on the Adam Friedland show also, I didn't know who the f that guy was. Nobody was showing up in the place first for early votes saying, I saw you on the View. The ladies in the projects were. But all these people that were coming out from andami wanted a selfie with her because I had been out with Adam Frieden. So what does that tell you? It tells you that sometimes you construct a campaign based on what has traditionally worked and the tradition becomes just that, it's now over. We don't do stuff like that anymore. I don't know if that answered your question, but that's my kind of theory about what's happening now is it could just be that the Alticaca Dominicans are still going to vote for espionage and he wins. This thing is.
- [33:50]
Mike Pesca
Do they know? Do they know Mayor Dentist Flores? No. What was the name of your company? Was it Flores? Yeah. Matt, do you have any predictions or not even a prediction about who will win, but what lessons will be taken?
- [34:05]
Anthony Weiner
Hmm.
- [34:06]
Matt Welch
I. I'm sadly focused on the Brad Lander thing. And if it, and if he wins, the lesson is Mamdani is a thing because I can't imagine living through Bradlander again and again and again and say yes, that guy. So then it'll show him power. But yeah, I think the broad lesson in New York or in California, where I'm from is when you have kind of a one party state, it's easy for you to develop Chuck Schumer's and Javier Becerras who just last forever regardless of whether anyone had asked for, for that. And so at some point like, yeah, let's get an AOC in there just like anything different. And I can see why that's an attraction to people and it's an issue. It's something that one party dominated states and that happens to Republicans too in places like Wyoming need to work through because I think it gets you bad candidates, especially anyone who thinks they're gonna translate on a national level.
- [35:05]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, yeah. And that's another downside of the Supreme Court's redistrict restricting ruling. It just takes away the necessary tension that creates better candidates. By the way, AOC did not endorse in the race we're talking about. I think it was a mom Donnie revenge on espionage to some extent. All right, now it's time for sports. And my question after the New York Knicks win the world championship is why? Why do we like sports? Is it that theory one, every once in a while one of these teams that you root for will break through and will win and will give us great joy and knock us to quote the altar knockers in the Esplat district. Or is it something else? Do we like to some extent the suffering of the sports we are on this show, fans of the Mets. That's me and Anthony and the Angels. That's you, Matt. And people might not realize the Angels are a more besotted team than even the Mets. Why don't you take it from there and tell me why you're an Angels fan and if you regret that.
- [36:10]
Matt Welch
I'm an Angels fan because my dad went to Columbia for grad school in the early 60s from Oregon. He was a sports fanatic. He's 87 years old now and he decided as a baseball fanatic, I could choose the Yankees. That's a pretty easy call. 61, 62, 63. So I'm going to choose the Mets. So he chose the Mets in their first year. I don't know if he's a season ticket holder, but he went to a whole bunch of games, moved out to California in the mid-60s and had a similar decision. I could go with the Dodgers. Pretty awesome in 64, 65, 66, or I will become a founding season ticket holder of the California Angels in their new stadium in Anaheim. So that's what we did. So I grew up in angel fan lore and we had back in the 70s, 70s were brutal for Mets and for Angels. We all know the name Skip Lockwood. That should tell us something right there. But we had Tanana and Ryan in two days of crying that was very mediocre. Teams with two pitchers that both should have gone in the hall of Fame. But then Tanana threw 14 consecutive complete games and turned his elbow and shoulder into a meat grinder. So I've been cursed with that. The Angels were great, actually probably the best run organization from 2002 to 2009. Won a World Series in 2002. They averaged 94 game wins a year and also were doing it, you know, keeping their, their payroll stable. And then at the end of that 2009, they had five of the first 50 draft picks and chose Mike Trout. So, okay, you just got a really successful team and you just drafted Mickey Mantle. How can you screw this up? And ever since then, it's been an incredible object lesson in just how you can screw this up. We think to have the longest streak now of not having a winning season, not making the playoffs, and doing this all throughout the prime of one of the best players ever. And then also Shohei Otani for five years too. It's remarkable. And I think to answer your broad question like this is how we earn our stripes. You know, the sports is great because it's great. The Knicks, we were all in the streets. It was so much fun. I'm not a Knick fan, Laker fan. But like, I loved it so much and it's just sports is awesome. The human drama of athletic competition, doing it at peak levels is just intrinsically great. And we're seeing this with the World cup now and I love every second of it. But there is that suffering component which, you know, you need to earn your keep some way. And so we earn our keep by suffering.
- [38:32]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. Have you philosophized your Met fandom, Anthony?
- [38:36]
Anthony Weiner
No, but I. Not so much. Except, I mean, in the 72. 72 When I was first starting to come of age as a sports fan, the Mets made the World Series and in, you know, Felix Mian, like a lot of guys that I can kind of really relate to, but I really do. I had a similar experience with Matt as Matt's father did with. When it came to the Islanders. The Islanders first season was 1972. Everyone I was a hockey player. Everyone around me was a Ranger fan. And at that age, I guess it was like what I was, I 10 or so. Whatever it is at that age, the idea that a new team would happen, I didn't quite understand that. I thought they were like forces of gravity, like teams are. So the idea a new team was coming in and I could be with them from the very beginning. And then the best possible thing happened in 1975, they beat the Rangers in a series and they became good. And then amazing. Through my youth, I do think there is. I had a feeling on Saturday night when the Knicks won of like, what do I do? Like, my identity as following losing teams that have lost for so long is so deeply ingrained in me. I didn't quite know how to fire the other emotions. Like, I didn't quite know, like, what do you do when you're a winning team team. And I think that's part of it too. I think there's a certain amount of pride that goes with being. I've been with them through these very difficult times. My son has an old Anthony a Nick jersey. What is your jersey? Hardaway Junior. A Hardaway junior jersey. And he's like, I can't wear this. They suck. Then I'm like, that's what you want to be wearing. You want to be wearing that. And as a 14 year old, he goes out and was affirmed everywhere he went for being a real like fan during those losing times. That's part of it. I, you know, I, you know, I think it's been, it's been said. I don't know who said this. Matt probably does rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. steel. Like, what's the fun? Like, what. What is the fun of that? But you root for the Mets, you root for the Jets. Now, the Islanders have been a long time. You know, there are a lot of teams on that list that are like, hey, the Brooklyn Nets. One of the reasons why this Knick thing is so exciting, there are no net fans. There's like, you can't find one. We really are a one basketball, one team town in that regard. And so I think. But that's kind of suffering is kind of what. What we'd like to be. It's not really a New York thing. I bet your fans everywhere like the idea of I sat through. I was here when 40 people were here that night, that it rained and everyone left. Whatever it is, that is part of the narrative we tell ourselves about being good sports fans.
- [41:03]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, I do not buy the losing builds character argument. And I also don't buy. I never did. And this Knicks win was proof of my theory that we last through or suffer through the losing in order to maybe get to the winning. The winning was great. It was transcendent. Like you Jets, Mets, Knicks, and these were teams that it. I used to say, never won during my lifetime as a conscious person. Because when you're one year old, when the Knicks last one, it didn't really make an impression on me. I was a sports reporter, and I would always go to these championship games, and I would say, it must be nice for these people. I see them celebrating sometimes. I see long, bedraggled fan bases like the New Orleans Saints finally get their win, and I envy them a little bit. But even without the winning, there is something about sports. And I could put my finger on it a couple times.
- [41:56]
Anthony Weiner
Times.
- [41:57]
Mike Pesca
It's not just entertainment. Right. It's also nonfiction. I was talking to Mike Shore and Joe Posnanski about this, and because it's nonfiction, you can't just walk away from losses or disappointing seasons and regard it like a movie that you didn't watch or entertainment that wasn't delivered. There's still information there. There's still something to hang on to in terms of the story that it's telling. And sometimes the story isn't. Hey, in Shakespeare, the greatest plays were tragedies, right? And sometimes the story is a tragedy, but we still get something out of it. So that's. That's my theory on fandom. Although I got to say, this Knicks victory has been even better than I imagined it would be, especially in the way that it brought the city together.
- [42:43]
Anthony Weiner
Yeah, I've never. This is not like, this is not like the Yankee championships because there are a lot of Mets fans who are just gnashing their teeth at the time. It is, it's really not like even the Giants, even the Giants, when they had their Super Bowl Jet fans can't bring themselves. But I really do think it's very different because we don't. It is our one team and let's face it, they're just, they're easy guys to like. It's just, they're just, they're an easy team to root for.
- [43:08]
Matt Welch
I love the way that I feel like, especially in New York, but this happens in other cities as well, that the teams take on the characteristic of the city inevitably. This definitely was true of the 90s Knicks who were, you know, almost got over the hill and didn't quite, couldn't quite do it. But they're always scrappers, fighters, scratchers.
- [43:27]
Mike Pesca
They were a real stop and frisk team when you get down
- [43:33]
Matt Welch
early, Bratton, not late Breton team. And this, this team very much so too. Like in, in every possible respect. I mean, like, what was the best commercial on, on TV during the run? It's the Knicks commercial. When like, cat's got, I got berries, it's like, sure, why not?
- [43:48]
Anthony Weiner
It's the Knicks.
- [43:49]
Matt Welch
That's what we're doing. Just loved it. I know everyone outside of New York is sick of hearing about New York and they should be at all times. And I say that as a California, but really a top five sports experience, has been watching the games on the street during the conference finals and the finals itself just like remarkably awesome. And in different places too. Where I live in Carroll Gardens was super great in its own way. And then Dime Square just going off after, after the wind. Just, just lovely. And it's a, a very good vibe summer, not just, not just in New York, but I think, I mean, this is the highest rated basketball series since the 90s and the world cup is popping off. So it's a really nice, really nice time for vibes. And we're coming up on the 250th anniversary of this damn country. So I think people are going to be in a good mood.
- [44:36]
Mike Pesca
It is a good time for the city. And if the city was experiencing its doldrums, we'd tell a story of, you know, we really needed this team to come along and rescue us, us. But I think the city's doing really well. On the show. The other day I read this NYPD release Which is true. The fewest murders, shooting incidents and shooting victims in recorded history for the first five months of the year. So we do have a lot of wealth inequality. There is, if it doesn't get too out of control, a little bit of charm of 20 year olds living three to an apartment in Williamsburg if you can actually progress and one day own a home. So it is a great time for the city. Another thing that I wanted to say is how this, how the teams take on the character of the city that's always so fascinating to me. Pittsburgh, the Steelers, they're always tough, right? The Bears, well, they have a good offense now. But these northern hard weather, hard bitten cities are always tough. The California teams are usually Showtime, like the Lakers. Look at the World Cup. The vast majority of the teams take on the characteristics of the countries that they're from. And the Scandinavian, Scandinavian teams are stalwart. And the Czech Republic and the Central European teams are tough but don't have much flair. And the Brazilians are all flair. It's really interesting to me and it's one of the things that makes sports a great thing. Not just.
- [45:57]
Anthony Weiner
I mean this is, this is, I mean that's. The 86 Mets were much more typical of what, New York City. A bunch of dysfunctional guys from different parts of the world bouncing off each other with various drug addicts. That's what you kind of expect from New York. This Nick team, they're just, they seem like that they're friends forever, they're teammates forever, whatever it is. So yeah, that I think is the other. It was. And I gotta tell you, I mean some of my friends don't like to hear this. It's a good Mondami vibe too. I think it's been good for him.
- [46:32]
Matt Welch
I don't like it because I don't like Mamdani, but he, he can sense a good vibe to surf when he can. Like he's always trying to put himself in the Knicks and in the World cup and stuff and, and people like are going gaga for him doing absolutely normal mayor things at the exact same rate of previous mayors. Like he fills potholes at the same rate as de Blasio, more or less. But like, wow, did you see him? He did a video on social media. Whatever. Enjoy a wild ass kid. But the budget is still a mess and you're taxing too much.
- [47:05]
Mike Pesca
We're very vibes based, as Anthony said earlier in the show. All right, so let us go from the highs to not the lows, but the kind of annoyances that we Revel in that sometimes can be quite joyful. These are our goat grinders, the things that grind our gears or get our goats. And I don't know why. Matt, I think you might have one at the ready.
- [47:26]
Matt Welch
You know, I was thinking about this. I usually have some sort of day to day annoyance around me because you live in New York, there's gonna be something that annoys you almost as much as street fairs annoy Anthony Weiner, which is significant. But national politics right now, to watch the people who have been in this Iran war, very supportive of the idea of it, express their disillusion and surprise that it didn't turn out well, and blaming Trump for it and not themselves. And I don't want to say that it's their fault because they didn't execute it, whatever, but I've seen this now. I'm old enough to have been covering foreign policy for a very long time. And I just want to know when the lesson's going to sink in that you can't. It's really difficult to just bomb a country into changing its entire existence. And people keep acting surprised that the aftermath of, of a military that you defeat is not necessarily. You get to impose all the terms. And I wish there'd be more self reflection. Lord knows when I'm wrong about things, which is constantly. I beat myself up in private and in public sometimes too. And I wish I would see more of that humility of people who thought this was the greatest idea in February and now, like, I can't believe Donald Trump betrayed me. I just think you need to think it through a little bit more next time.
- [48:46]
Mike Pesca
All right. Mine is. Well, my wife's out of town, so this gives me occasion for a movies that Michelle wouldn't watch with me Film festival and I watched the Substance last night. Would not recommend that. They tried to do some things the night before that. I watched Sinners. She's not into the horror. Here is my review of Sinners. I'd give it an A or an A plus. It was a fantastic movie. I have nothing bad to say about it. What I'm going to say is my coat Grinder is not bad. I just want you to realize this. This about Sinners. Sinners came close to winning the Academy Award. And I am sure the reason that this Ryan Coogler movie did not win the Academy Award is when you think about it, the premise of Sinners is sometimes a song is so good a vampire shows up. And the Academy could not give the best picture to a movie whose premise is you know, sometimes a song is so good that a vampire shows up. Look at it another way. It's the best movie that could possibly be made out of the premise. You know, sometimes a song so good a vampire shows up. I don't even know if it's a goat grinder. It's kind of delightful. But that was the premise of Sinners. Anthony, what do you have as your goat grinder?
- [49:58]
Anthony Weiner
But I feel like you just spoiled it for me. Like, is that really what the movie's
- [50:02]
Mike Pesca
about in the first 20 minutes? Don't worry.
- [50:05]
Anthony Weiner
Yeah, I have one. But I want to comment a little. I know this is not really what you're supposed to do, but about Mats, here's the thing. In my world, there was this big argument of whether the JCPOA was a good idea or a bad idea. I was not there to vote on it, and I probably would have voted against it because of the district I represented. All those people who were against it were never able to answer the question, well, is the alternative war? And they always said, no, no, the alternative's not war. It's just a better deal. Well, here it is. We're getting both. Both war and a worse deal. But anyway, well, mine is a sports one, and it's a nick one. You know, there's been a lot of conversation about what made the Knicks, the creation of the Knicks roster possible. And part of it has been that Brunson agreed to take less money so they can hire more people. It is infuriating.
- [50:47]
Mike Pesca
113 million less.
- [50:49]
Anthony Weiner
Yeah, it is infuriating to me that that doesn't make people stop and say, wait a minute, isn't Dolan the guy with all the money? Why do we have a salary cap structure that means that one of the employees, if they want to have a really good product on the court, has to say, I'm gonna take less than I'm worth. And I thought about this because Matt's on the show, and from a libertarian perspective, you cannot like salary caps. It is just. And the conversation about it is just, oh, my God, he's heroic for taking less money. And no one is taking the next sentence, which is, wait a minute, how does that work? Again, why should Brunson take less money so you can hire another employee who's good for the final product? And that's infuriating to me. No one is just taking a good, hard look at this situation and saying, the real problem is that we have a salary cap system that fundamentally doesn't provide incentives for the team owners to necessarily put the best team on the floor. So you have to rely on. And it's not just there. You have the same exact thing going on the NHL with Connor McDavid. You have, it goes on other places. But it is infuriating to me that they're asking their employees to make sacrifices so they can get a championship when the Dolan's of the world are the billionaires.
- [51:59]
Mike Pesca
But it does burnish his legend and reputation as just, I think the greatest story in American sports in the last couple years. Drafted 33rd overall. Just not good enough or tall enough or anything enough.
- [52:13]
Anthony Weiner
Yeah, we should. We should, everyone. We should want our kids to grow up to be like Brunson and take half of what they're worth so that, so that their power forward can get more money.
- [52:24]
Mike Pesca
Well, I mean, we can't ask our kids to grow up like Dolan. You just have to be born as a Dolan to do that.
- [52:29]
Matt Welch
I'm just glad that there's a micro moment when it seemed like people are like saying nice things about Dolan and it just passed. It passed.
- [52:40]
Anthony Weiner
I'm done with that.
- [52:42]
Mike Pesca
All right, thank you so much. Our guests have been, or our panelists have been Anthony Weiner. Thank you, Anthony.
- [52:48]
Anthony Weiner
Thank you.
- [52:49]
Mike Pesca
And Matt Welch. Do listen to the Fifth column or even watch it. Great podcast. Thank you, Matt.
- [52:54]
Matt Welch
Thank you.
- [52:55]
Mike Pesca
And until next time, we're not saying we're right. We're not saying you're right. We're not asserting that my voice is listenable, but we are saying we're not even mad. That's it for today's show. The Gist is produced by Cory Wara. Jeff Craig does How To. Ben Astaire is our booking coordinator. Kathleen Sykes does the Gist list. And Michelle Pesca is extraordinary in her role as coo. Thanks for listening.