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A
This episode is brought to you by eight sleep.
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B
Summer is here, and while midterm election campaigns dominate American politics, the rest of us are actually trying to enjoy the sun and survive those terribly hot, sleepless nights.
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That's trip us@eightsleep.com TripUS get you even get 30 days to try at home and return it if you don't love it. But I'm confident you will.
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B
Hello and welcome to the Rest is Politics. Us with me, Katty Kaye and me
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A
on the 250th anniversary of America, Anthony Scaramucci. And by the way, caddy, I have lived 24.8% of America's life. How about that? So scary, actually, when you think about it. I haven't done that.
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B
That's a very good stat.
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A
I haven't done the calculation in Scaramucci's, but, you know, that just speaks about how young this country is. If you're 60 years old in the country, you've been here for 24% of the time.
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B
That's amazing. So what are you doing for the fourth of July, Anthony?
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A
You know, I'm hanging at home. You know, I think the, I think
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B
no fireworks, no parade.
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A
Well, I'm going to go to the fireworks. But I mean, when I was and I. And I'm wearing the shirt from the last big movement. This is the bicentennial shirt.
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B
I remember the bicentennial.
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A
That star was created. You probably can't see it if you're not on YouTube, that that star was created as togetherness. You see the interconnectivity of the star. And I was 12 years old Caddy and my father had a 20 foot motorboat. He was a big fisherman and he took us into New York harbor and we got to watch what was called Operation Sail, which were all the large ships that entered the harbor in celebration of the 200th anniversary. But there's no wind in anybody's sail here related to this right now. And I think we should talk a little bit about that because my kids are like, nfw, I'm not going to a Trump rally on the birthday. I'd rather go eat hot dogs in the backyard. But go ahead, Katty.
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B
So on the 200th anniversary, I was in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and I had my first ever hot dog at the American Embassy birthday party. I thought it was fantastic.
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A
Was that also your last ever hot dog? It was your first ever hot dog.
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B
It was pretty much my last ever, but it was not my last ever Betty Crocker's devil's food cake. I thought any country that had food like that, I had to go and live there. So that was a great celebration. You know what, I'm in Maine, hence the sweater. And I will be going to the local 4th of July parade and the fireworks and you never know. Antony Scaramucci, I may be found with a hot dog in my hand on July 4th.
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A
But yes, if you have a hot dog, I want to see a picture of it.
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B
Okay? Okay. You'll get the picture. Okay, Anthony, I want to discuss the huge wins that Trump is having for his anti immigration agenda. And with Trump's approval ratings at record lows and inequality in America on the rise, we're going to talk about if America is falling apart. But on its 250th birthday, let's dive in. One person in the White House who is particularly happy, who we have done a series about before is Mr. Stephen Miller. We know that Miller has immigration at the top of his list of things that he wants to change in America. Well, he got two wins last week. On June 25, the Supreme Court's conservative majority handed President Trump two big victories around immigration policies. They were both six to three decisions, both authored by the conservative Justice Samuel Alito. They clear the path for the administration to remove something like a million people from the United States. One of them, the decision, is to end temporary protected status, known as TPS for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and about 6,000 Syrians who are currently living in America legally under this humanitarian program, while their asylum claims go through, they have this temporary protected status. The Supreme Court has said that the administration can do away with that. And then the second ruling decided that migrants arriving at the border of America are not entitled to apply for asylum until they step foot on US Soil. This will severely limit the number of people who come into America applying for asylum. Could cut it right back down. So the thinking is this is probably all in all about a million people who could be deported. And we do know that in the past week or two, deportation numbers much more quietly than we've seen around Minneapolis and the ice crack down there. But we do know that deportation numbers have been picking up. So, Anthony, this is what Stephen Miller wanted. This is what he spent years campaigning for. Suddenly we saw him back on television after the Supreme Court ruling saying that America is no longer open for asylums for asylum seekers anymore. Basically that the America's doors are closed fully to asylum seekers was what he said on television. So what do you, what do you make of these rulings?
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A
Well, I mean, to me, because I read the decision and I also read the dissent because I'm a little bit, you know, of a wonk when it comes to this stuff from constitutional law. It says that the court is in the pocket of the Republicans and that the court is basically going to more or less do what the administration wants to the extent that it can. It couldn't get there on the tax issue because that's like the whole central thesis of the Constitution. And so there was some originalist thinking around that. And they said, okay, we can't break the entire Constitution, but there's a lot of loose things that we can do, that's right up the alley of Stephen Miller. But I want to ask you a social engineering question, because if you are Lee Kuan Yew and you say that America is going to always be okay because it's teeming with immigrants, rich and poor can show up and some of the poor people are very smart. They go on to create multibillion dollar businesses and lots of different colors of people show up, lots of different sexual orientations and religions. And this is really the backbone of the country. And now we're being told no, we're going to take a very xenophobic and some would potentially say white supremacist stance. How is that going to help the country? And you tell me, you be the social engineer here thinking about the future of America in its next 250 years and tell me if this works for America and By the way, be fair. Katty, channel some Stephen Miller for give us some of the aging well dressed lollipop and tell us what he's thinking and. And so forth. Go ahead.
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B
Well, so long as I'm well dressed, which we know that Mr. Miller is
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A
a fashionista who's ever taking fashion advice from Stephen Miller should be deported alongside all the other people that Stephen Miller would like to deport.
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D
But go ahead.
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B
I think that both Obama and even more so Biden landed America in this situation by having those scenes of people rushing across the border and not appreciating that, that there were Americans who actually welcomed migrants into their communities, saw the economic benefits of migrants, but at the same time wanted a secure border. And somehow they weren't able to hold those, you know, two thoughts in their brains at the same time, that dichotomy. And they didn't do enough. I don't know why. Was Joe Biden asleep at the switch? Were his people around him just not informing him properly? But they lost control of that story. And understandably, you had people right across this country, even very far away from the Mexican border, who saw those scenes night after night after night on television and said to themselves, we are losing control of our country. I mean, the scenes, we should play the scenes on YouTube again because it's worth remembering them. They were shocking. You literally had streams of people coming across the border. That is not the way to run a country, and it's not the way to make the case for immigration. There is a case to be made for immigration, and it's a demographic case. Do we want to become Japan? Do we want to become South Korea? Do we want to become Europe with aging populations that we will have to support? Because that is the way America is heading right now. For the first time since the 1930s, America is simultaneously seeing low migration and near record low birth rates. Well, what does that do to your country? It shrinks your country. It shrinks your tax base. It shrinks your worker pool. It adds to the burden of young people who are trying to look after old people, who are the people that actually use up your social services. The idea that it's these young migrants who are using up social services is just a misnomer. They're actually contributing tax dollars into the system, billions of dollars of tax dollars into the system. The easy way out of this. I mean, this is what's absurd about what. There is a solution to this demographic problem that America faces. But unfortunately, it's the same solution that Trump has spent decades Denigrating and, and I think they've got themselves into a real pickle here. I mean, if you can't out policy demographic, what's actually being won here? Is it just the optics of being in control? Are they actually slowing down the change of an aging population? I don't think so. So are they doing this? Is Stephen Miller doing this purely to be able to say we're stronger and tougher than the Biden administration and we've shut the borders and we're sending asylum speakers home, or is this a race issue, which is what many people on the left believe it is? I think this is a problem, an economic problem for the country.
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A
I think it's a race issue. Of course, you know, and I'll be the first one to tell you that, Katty, when this happens in the country, I always think of the Einstein letter. And so what is the Einstein letter for viewers and listeners? So Einstein wrote a letter to Franklin Roosevelt and he said, okay, we think we know how to make the bomb, okay, but we got to get the hell out of Germany and we want to come and help you make the bomb.
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D
Okay?
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A
So we started the Manhattan Project. And if you watch the man in the High Castle, which is sort of this alternative timeline where the Nazis win and the them and the Japanese take over the United States and of course they control Europe and are killing all the people that they don't like, including people that just have birth defects and other deformities. I think about that and I think, oh my God, if we go in this direction, is the next American president, if there's a big global crisis, going to get the Einstein letter? And who's going to get that Einstein letter, if anybody? Caddy. That's the thing I always worry about. I want America to always be the place where Albert Einstein is willing to write the letter to the generally open minded, not perfect, but generally open minded American president who's thinking about these things the way America has long thought about them, which is that the border, I get the fact that we have to have legal immigration, but the border is generally open for people that want to come through legally.
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B
So when this ruling came down, Anthony, I don't know if you saw it, I texted you that little clip from Megyn Kelly, who's on the right, has her own show. Pretty influential here, is what Megyn Kelly says. And I think the problem is that the rhetoric around these rulings has gotten, I mean, it's almost uglier than the policy itself. And that shows you where our politics is heading here's. What Megyn Kelly said. Go home, get out. We know our country is better than yours. That's because we filled it with our work ethic, culture and values. You being here only dilutes it for us. Go back to fucking hate. I mean, you may believe that America needs to get rid of people who are on temporary protected status. You may be not looking at the long term demographics of the declining birth rate, but there's no room for empathy for people who may be going back to a country that is incredibly violent. And by the way, the people who are employing Haitians in the town of Springfield, where there was the famous awful story about they're eating the dogs and they're eating the cat, are saying, we want more Haitians. They work harder, they don't do drugs. There was the manager of a factory who was being interviewed saying they don't work, do drugs, they turn up on time and they work harder than native born Americans. Please give us more of these people. Why is she doing that? Why is she doing that?
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A
Well, I mean, she's doing that because her audience likes that. That's like red meat for her audience. She's doing that because a lot of these right wing pundits, they gravitate, these people that feel this level of nativism and feel this level of tribalism. And so it's almost like she's feeding them high octane candy or cocaine. They love it. And so if she's saying that to them, then they pass that on to their friend and say, yeah, go Megan. And but you know, I think she hurts herself. She's, she's, you know, I know her, I've been on her show, she was on the news. I don't, yeah, I don't think she's even totally believes any of that, you know, and I, and I've caught some of these guys where, you know, I'm having a beer with them or something like that. You don't really effing believe that, do you? Oh, no, no. I say that for the audience. You know, I don't ever want to be that person.
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B
Caddy, you know, the trouble is in our world that we live in, when you say it for the audience, you start driving things right. You whip people up and that's why it's good. I mean, there are Republicans, you've got your friend Congressman Mike Lawlor, who we both know, who warned that ending the temporary protected status could create a real crisis in the country. You've had the Republican governor of Ohio, Mike Devine, saying that the policy the ruling is a mistake. And that actually you need these people in the country. So you have got some Republicans saying, look, we need migrants in this country. We've got a declining birth rate. My question for the Democrats, Anthony, and for you would be, does this give Democr a chance to actually move this debate onto the economic territory and win some ground on it? Could Democrats make something out of this not as a kind of necessarily as a cultural issue, but as an economic one, not a culture war one?
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A
They won't do it. Somebody said to me in the UK last week, I did somebody's podcast, and they said, well, who runs the Democratic Party? I said, well, I know who runs the Democratic Party. Oh, you do?
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B
Okay.
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A
Who is it? They said, donald J. Trump runs the Democratic Party. That's who runs the party. Because he is a cue ball and he's at the one side of the billiard table and he smashes into them and they go in 15 different directions as a result of his behavior, which. Which if they were smarter, they'd get together and they say, okay, Gavin, we don't like you. We're going to hold our nose, we're going to support you, or who is the one person in this party? Let's all be honest with each other. You know, there's a divide going on Caddy between the left and the hard left. And then there's a group that, hey, man, we didn't get the communism pure enough in San Francisco. Let's make it more pure. Guys, knock it off. Country's not ready for any of that culturally. Get together, subordinate your personal interests to one attractive candidate. But they won't do that, you know, And Trump runs them. He runs them. Okay, you know how Putin runs Trump? Well, Trump runs the Democrats, and that's the irony there. I wish they would stop doing that, you know? Cause we need a fortified opposition and a coordinated opposition to Donald Trump. And he has them very uncoordinated right now.
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B
Okay, some breaking news. Just as we go on the Supreme Court, because they have declined. He's won on immigration, but he is lost on the sexual harassment case, abuse case from Eugene Carroll. You remember, we spoke about Eugene Carroll a lot. Donald Trump was found guilty of sexually abusing her and the Supreme Court. Donald Trump went to the Supreme Court and said, overturn the case for me and the Supreme Court, without any reasoning and no public notices, no public dissents, has declined the President's request to have that case reviewed. So he owes Eugene Carroll 5 million. So you win some, you lose some. Donald Trump.
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D
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B
Welcome back to the Rest Is Politics US Happy Birthday, America. Anthony, I think we should start with what the polling shows us about not just Donald Trump, because the polls on Trump are terrible. But I found a poll that also talked about the American dream more broadly. And as income inequality has grown in America, people's belief in the prospects for American dream has also grown. I mean, basically this idea that America was a country of potential and prosperity and if you worked hard and played by the rules, you could get ahead and you could have a life that was better than your parents, as you heard have done, and your grandparents. That notion kind of peaked in the 1950s and 60s, which is also when people believed in government. And it's sort of been declining ever since. But it really dropped off the cliff in 2008 and today only 51 of American adults think there is an American dream for them. And I think that's a very sad way for America to be celebrating its 250th birthday. Because in a way that was the whole point of the country, right? That if you came here and you worked hard and you played by the rules and you believed in the Constitution, you could progress from wherever you started. And it was not like Europe, it was not like Britain where you were stuck in a kind of rigid class bound structure that didn't exist. And yet today we have a system in America where there is more social mobility in the UK than there is in the US and where does that leave this young country that you were talking about?
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A
Well, I mean, I'm bummed out because the sentiment is something that you feel locally, too. Why you live.
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B
I was expecting a sort of, you know, a kind of moment of great eloquence. And I got the perfect Long island answer.
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A
Yeah, I'm bummed out. How could you not be bummed out?
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B
The perfect Scaramucci eloquence.
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A
You know, I wanted to take my kids, like my father did, to go see the sailboats that are going to be in the harbor. They're like, no way. We don't have no interest in that,
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B
because it has become. This celebration has become Trump's celebration. Right.
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A
He made it a campaign rally. Okay. And he made it a celebration about me, the person, as opposed to we, the people. You see, I don't understand. You know, a great leader would be like, hey, we got to get everybody together, and whether you like me or dislike me, we're unified. The first name of the country is United. It's not the Disunited States of America. You know, But, Katty, the numbers that you gave, I want to give a few more numbers, and I want you to react to them. 29%. This is from the Pew Research Poll. So, you know, the cross stabs. 29% of the US adults say that they are satisfied with how the country's going. Okay? 69% say that they're unsatisfied. 2% don't care. 19% of the Americans think the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be pleased by the way the U.S. has turned out. 77% say disappointed. But the one that gets me is from Fox. This is a Fox News poll, and it's really not a poll as much as it is word association. Describe the United States today. Two thirds of the people polled decided to go with a negative word. Ready, failing, divided, struggling, corrupt. My God, Caddy. Okay, so to me, I'm bummed out about that. Yeah, that isn't a Long island expression. But then, you know, last but not least, when people are asked, well, okay, you're bummed out, but would you want to leave? Two thirds of the American voters describe the United States in negative terms, but 81% say they still want to live here. So, you know, I'm in that camp. I want to fix it, Caddy. But why such malaise on what should be a celebration? And by the way, this is the longest lasting government, as everybody knows, in the world. You know, this is the one that's. That's stood the test of two and a half centuries.
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B
I mean, first of all, shout out to Pew Research if you ever want to really understand what's happening in America. Pew just are the best. And they on, on big moments, they do these big demographic studies of the country and how the country is feeling and how the doing. And they're always objective, they're totally nonpartisan. And it's a very good way to try and get a kind of read on the country. And I thought those numbers, I looked at the Pew's sort of 250th take on America, too, and, and I found it equally depressing. The shrinking middle class story is very real. And it's, in a way, it's not really the story of the shrinking middle class. It's a story of a growing working class and a growing upper class in terms of income. And it doesn't feel particularly like America. I think we have actually seen record numbers of people leaving the country. Now, of course, they are the people that can afford to go and live in Portugal or go and live in Spain or wherever it is. But a lot of people still feel patriotic. I think a lot of Americans think this too shall pass. And this period of Trump and corruption and this kind of presidency that we spoke about last week that Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman describe so well as this incredibly powerful presidency, that doesn't look like the kind of presidency that the Founding Fathers had in mind with this huge power grab and money grab for people around him that, that will pass. But I think actually what interests me more about the state of the country, America has a real demographic problem. It has this middle class that is shrinking. And you've written a whole book about this that we will talk about later. But it's, I think that is where the malaise comes from. That's where when you ask people, are you satisfied? Only 29, only 19, say the founding Fathers, signers of the Constitution would be satisfied with the. Would be happy with the way the country is developed. I think it's that. Isn't it America, Anthony? It's this. Where has the middle class of this country gone? Where can they find their home? And we see no signs of that reversing. I don't see how that reverses itself. That is the number that needs to grow in America, not decline.
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A
The top 20% control 87% of the wealth. Does that sound right? I mean, and by the way, I'm all about capitalism and I'm all about unlimited upside for people. I believe in unequal outcomes, Katty. I'm all about that. You want to work 10 times harder than somebody else, you can earn 10 times more. But that's not really. What's going on now. There's a circle, there's a feedback loop between the very rich and the federal government and Citizens United campaign contributions plowing into the countries, elected officials. And then they're doing the bidding of the people. They're giving them tax cuts. They've got corporate welfare. You know, when Gavin, which I think was the stupidest thing he's done so far, Gavin Newsom says he wants a national wealth tax, okay, very stupid. Will likely not get the nomination because of that. And if they run on that, they will 100% lose to the Republican candidate because people don't want that. But I understand why he's saying it.
- [27:14]
B
Why? Why do you think he is saying Antony, and that's interesting, you understand why. Is he saying it to catch up with the move of the repo of the Democr Credit Party or is he saying it for kind of practical reasons? We can't have a national, a state wealth tax in California, but not in Texas and Florida because we're going to lose our rich people to those states.
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A
Those are two reasons why he's saying it. But the mega reason is a social engineering reason. He's looking around saying, oh my God, the system's gotten wildly unfair. I got to send a message to people that the way we're going to make the system fair is to take a layer of wealth away from all these people. Okay? But that's not the right way to do it, okay? Teddy Roosevelt wouldn't have done it that way. You break up the trust, you defeat the monopolies, you splinter these special interest groups. How about unplugging the money from the system via Citizens United? Okay? There's so many different ways you could do this. By doing it that way, you're telling people that the government's going to be in the confiscation business. And by the way, I'm going to tell you something about how Americans think. So give me 30 seconds. I've made my money. Okay? But I have to pay 50% tax. Maybe that's not a high tax in Europe. Americans think it's a high tax. Now I'm going to go to the store and I'm going to buy something for myself. Well, there's an extra 10% that you have to pay in sales taxes. Okay, no problem. And then I own a house, but my annual property taxes are quite high. And I can go through all the different layers of taxes in the country. It turns out if you make a dollar, you're able to keep about 34 cents of the dollar. And so let's say that I'm the ant and I'm not the grasshopper. And I say, okay, I'm going to take this money and I'm going to save it for my family. And now. Why are you laughing, Kat?
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B
Because I'm just quickly trying to get into the ant and the grasshopper. I'm like, I had to do a little bit of a fable turn there.
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A
Yeah. The ant is out there working away, saving food for his family. The grasshopper's playing all summer long, and the ant is.
- [29:15]
B
Comes along and eats the ants.
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A
Yeah. And then the grasshopper's knocking on the door and saying, hey, man, I'm starving out here. You know, he's looking at him going, duke, you were partying the whole summer. I mean, you're making. Making the. You know, in my family, man, I've been the ant, but I fed every grasshopper. That's a whole other topic.
- [29:31]
B
I know. You are totally the ant.
- [29:33]
A
And this could be. The rest is therapy.
- [29:36]
C
Okay?
- [29:37]
B
I'm gonna teach you how to be a little bit more of a grasshopper, you know, a little bit more European, actually. Take a look. Anyway, there we go.
- [29:42]
A
I'm the ant, and the grasshopper's always
- [29:44]
B
knocking on the door, why am I still working?
- [29:47]
A
But just hear me out for a second. You got, the guy makes the money or the woman makes the money. And now the government's saying, well, you know, you were a saver. You're a very good investor. Now we're gonna take the money from you. And they start out with saying, well, we're only gonna do it to the billionaires. Okay? But then it's creeping, right. It's like the pay to tear tax. We're only going to do it for the 5 million, you know, the second home of the 5 million. Then it's going to creep down or inflation's going to push those smaller homes up. You see what I mean? And so. So to me, the Americans don't like it. Stupid. And it's going to cost them the election.
- [30:20]
B
There is a huge debate going on, clearly, that we have spoken about on the program in the Democratic Party. And I have always maintained that America does not have a socialist bent, as Joe Scarborough said. But. But I actually think maybe we're seeing a shift, and we are seeing younger Americans. Look, in those same polls, only 22% of people under 30 believe that the American dream still holds for them. There is this big generational shift happening of disappointment in the country around all of the things that we've spoken about housing being too high, jobs not being available, insecurity about AI. And they are saying the Democrats have not delivered. That system of playing by the rules. Even if you tax people 50%, it hasn't delivered for me. And I think you're seeing that backlash happen around the country. It's gonna be very interesting to see how it plays out and see actually whether America is. And particularly younger Americans are having a moment where socialism, or something that looks more like socialism, even if it's hard to define, is gonna, you know, make an appearance in this country, having not done so for 250 years.
- [31:28]
A
Yeah, I think it's just dangerous. And I think they. They fixed these things before Go look at what the two Roosevelts do. You can create a bedrock of the middle class and some safety nets. You can break up some of the trusts. You can tell people, hey, I'm sorry, you can't have 2.5% of the GDP of the country as your net worth. Okay? Because we know that that forces out competition. The reason why the Medicis adopted monopoly laws and even the government of England adopted monopoly laws is because. Because what monopolies do is they control price and then they reduce competition, and then they sit on top of innovation caddy. When ATT was broken up in the mid-80s by Judge Harold Green with the support of Ronald Reagan, it was the largest monopoly in the history of the country. They were sitting on. The great irony is that they were sitting on all the technology that led to these big mag seven companies like. Like Netflix and Facebook and all this Internet interactivity. They were sitting on the stuff. They didn't want it because they were charging people $4aminute for long distance phone calls. Why did they need to do any of that? And so we're doing that again right now, and these guys are paying the government to keep them from getting broken up. It's just stupid. And doing it the way Gavin wants to do it, it is going to just piss off the average American. It's not going to. People are going to look around and say, wait a minute, I want unlimited upside in this country. My grandmother got here, my grandfather got here willing to work with uncapped upside. Gavin, knock it off.
- [33:11]
B
I was thinking of you last week, as I often do, and I was having a conversation with John Meacham, the famous presidential historian, and he said that this very interesting line. And he said that no republic has survived in history without a middle class. And I think when we look at that Pew data about the shrinking middle class in America and the levels of dissatisfaction. What Meacham is saying isn't just a sound bite, but it's actually the stakes. It's the stakes of all of that Pew data that this is going to be a real problem for America. So my question for you is, if Meacham is right, is this a structural warning for the country going forward? Is this experiment that America has done for 250 years survivable? Can it beat the odds of what Meacham is saying has been true of history? Because I don't see this middle class. I don't see how this middle class grows with politicians acting the way they are at the moment on either side.
- [34:12]
A
It's such a great question, and obviously none of us know the answer. But we did survive a revolution. We did survive a civil war. We survived a Great Depression and two global wars ancillary. We survived Watergate and the tension around departing a president Vietnam. We've survived political assassinations. We survived nine, eleven, several financial crises, 1907, 1929, 2008. So yes, I think we can survive. The question is, what do you want to do for the people? Because when you interview the cartel, and let me tell you who the cartel is, that's a duopoly. It's not a monopoly. See, a duopoly doesn't want to break up the monopolies. But the duopoly are the Republicans and the Democrats. They're the Demo publicans, they're the Republicrats. It is a ruling class in the society that is generally indifferent to the plight of the average American. They'll pay lip service to it, but they offer no policy solutions. So to me, I believe, and maybe I'm wrong in believing this, but I'll tell you what I believe. I believe there's going to be a younger crop of politicians that come in that are more data dependent, that are less ideological than the AOCs or the Mandanis or even the JD Vances. And they're going to say, guys, this is what could work for everybody. All right? This is the system that could work. We've got to end Citizens United. You got to knock off the gerrymandering or at least limited it, make it more structured and codified. You got to stop an American president from taking $20 billion, which is a conflict of interest, a gross conflict of interest. You got to create a more independent Department of Justice so it doesn't become the law for the family law firm of whoever the next American president is. And if you do these things, the people will Think that the system is actually fairer and more merit based. And then, Katty, you got to give the working poor earned income tax credits so that they have enough disposable income without the additional burden of taxation. So those are things you could do that could fix the country. Meacham's right. If you just stay on this course, forget about it. We're like Thelma and Louise. We're gonna run right over the cliff.
- [36:43]
B
Great scene, by the way. I have questions about where those politicians are because I'm not hearing them. I think we may be a cycle or two away from that because I think the Democrats are gonna go through a cycle of nominating candidates who are on the left of the political structure. And it's not even just that they're on the left of the spectrum. They are in a kind of. Of blow the house up. We've tried everything else. We're going to just burn it all down. Mixing my metaphors there, but we're going to burn it all down. And they're in a kind of a market mood. I'm up here in Maine. There are platinum signs everywhere that I've been. And I've been going through working class neighborhoods. I have been going through more affluent neighborhoods. There are platinum signs everywhere. And he is a blow it up guy. He's not necessarily an economics policy want guy. I haven't really heard much in the way of economics policy. Wants wonkary from him. So I think they're. I think they're a little way away from that. But I also think there's something else that is happening here because I actually look at those PEW numbers and went over them like you did. And particularly the numbers on the, on the American dream. They're not really about economics. They're about tribalism. People are looking at exactly the same sets of data and taking very different conclusions. So you've actually got 57% of Republicans believing the dream holds true, but only 17% of Democrats. That's a 40 point gap based on the same facts. And I think it's that kind of us and themism. You know, maybe Republicans are thinking, well, the American dream is alive because it's still happening for me. And Democrats are thinking it's dead because it stopped happening for migrants and poor people and people of color. And they've gone to identity politics. But I think that division in the country around you're either on my team or you're on their team. And my team is not necessarily. It's about fighting the other team rather than proposing Solutions that will make you the country better. And I think that. And the algorithms, when people go back to history and they did this around the time of the killing of Charlie Kirk, the thing I would point to that's different, and I'm holding up my phone here, guys, is this. And I don't know that we are strong enough to beat those algorithms that have a vested interest in dividing us. And you're seeing those divisions in almost every statistic in America that reflects how people feel about the country.
- [39:07]
A
I'm going to take the over. I think you're right. And I think that in the average scenario, in the average country, that's the trajectory. But I'm going to take the over because I've seen this happen, and I've seen this happen in American history. I've also seen it happen in companies. You know, I. I'll give you an example. My company should have been dead four times, okay, Skybridge, due to various calamities. And what we did was we innovated or we switched plans or we built a conference business or we moved into some other area of the Wall street product line. I think that we are, and again, I could be wrong. I think we are at a crisis moment moment where there's some very, very smart people getting together saying, whoa, we can't let this happen. And there are even billionaires saying, wait a minute, maybe Henry Ford was right. Maybe I got to pay these people more and maybe I got to elect some politicians that are market based politicians. They're going to allow me to keep what I've made, but they're going to come up with solutions to help other people feel better about themselves. Because this Mondani, let's wreck it. Let's take a wrecking ball into it. Smash Never ends well.
- [40:19]
B
You were very up on Mamdani the other day, Anthony. What happened?
- [40:22]
A
Listen, I get a lot of criticism, by the way, from my older New Yorkers. Listen to our podcast. I like Mandani. He jumped into a swimming pool the other day with his full suit on. This kid gets politics. And this kid has the best smile since Barack Obama in American politics. And this kid understands something that other politicians should listen to. He understands the politics of joy. He's using joy as a political currency. And so he's creating a lot of popularity. It's the policies that thankfully, so far he's been restrained on are the things that I'm happy about. Because let me tell you something, Caddy, if he invokes those policies in the city, he'll finish the city.
- [41:09]
B
City.
- [41:09]
A
Now he just, he just put a rent, his rent stabilization board went in for an increase of zero. Okay, but let me ask you a question. What about the property taxes, guys? Are the property taxes not going to
- [41:23]
B
get increased, also going to be zero?
- [41:26]
A
Oh, no, they're not going to be zero. Okay, so now what's the landlord going to do? The landlord's going to save money on the boiler. He's going to let the paint chip in the apartment, he's going to skip a trash removal. Guys, it's not market based what you're talking about. Okay, well, the landlord's rich, he owns the building, so let's let the building guy pay. That's not how it works because you have to deal with the animals. What did Cain say? You have to deal with the animal spirits of the human being. And you got to get the policies so that they're conjoined with those, but they can restrain those, but they can't destroy those. And so, yeah, Mandani to me is a brilliant politician. I just wish he had more common sense policies that I know would work for the working class again. Study Teddy Roosevelt, study Franklin Roosevelt. These guys got it. You know, even Reagan Caddy. Okay, even Reagan, who is supposedly Mr. Right Wing. In 1982, he put through two tax increases.
- [42:31]
B
Yeah.
- [42:32]
A
And he put a commission. He put a commission together with Alan Greenspan to stop the bleeding out of Social Security. Remember the Social Security Commission?
- [42:42]
B
I have to ask you about another politician who has mastered the art of joy. Your favorite vice president, J.D. vance, who is out there, was a little birthday gift for everybody. He's out rehabilitating Nixon's image. He was at the Nixon Library this week and he said that Nixon's legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance. There is actually some truth in that. You've got foreign policy experts who look at the way Nixon handled China, for example, and actually some conservatives who are saying, well, at least Nixon was a race real conservative around policies unlike what we have in the White House at the moment. But then he went on to say that if Watergate had happened, it would be a Nothing Burger, a 12 hour news story. And he has drawn the parallel between himself calling the deep state takedown of Nixon not all that different from what he said has happened to Donald Trump. Why is the Vice President out there pre shrinking Watergate at the moment? And I think that's what he's doing. I think he's trying to make Trump's scandals look smaller by comparison. Is he kind of, you know, Just talking to an audience of one and trying to tell Donald Trump, don't worry, corruption doesn't matter. What's going on here? Is this a kind of Nixon rehab strategy? Is it confidence or is it not confidence?
- [44:04]
A
Okay, such a great question, but I'm going to give you some a personal story here. Okay? So I'm going to take you back to the Trump campaign and Trump talking about Nixon. So now we're flying around and Trump would be saying, I liked Richard Nixon. You know, Roger Stone liked Richard Nixon, but Richard Nixon was a fall guy. Richard Nixon wasn't tough enough. Richard Nixon needed to ride out the storm and he needed to threaten all those senators that were threatening him and he needed to browbeat these people into submission and to stay in office no matter what. And so Trump has said that. And that is right in the vein of, you know, where's my Roy Cohn cateche? If you go to people that have worked for Donald Trump and they have spent at least two hours with him, they have listened to one stream of consciousness monologue about Richard Nixon that what he did wasn't that big of a deal. So when I hear Vance saying it, it I'm like, oh, he's just channeling that stream of consciousness monologue that Trump has been spouting for the last 25 years. But there's something else going on with Vance that I think is also important. He went into certain territory and faced the music. Okay? So he went on the Bill Maher show. I watched the nine minute interview and people can dislike me for this. I thought he did well in the end interview. I don't like Vance. I don't want him to become the president. But he went on the interview. AOC invited on. Bill Moore won't go on. Kamala Harris invited on. Bill Moore won't go on. I can name a lot of liberal politicians. Won't go on. Okay, but he went on and he was getting blistered by Bill Maher and he faced the music. And so, you know, don't underestimate that. Okay? Trump did that. That Trump, you know, he doesn't do it anymore, but he used to 16. He was good. Yeah, he was showing up.
- [46:03]
B
He went everywhere.
- [46:03]
A
Exactly. So went everywhere. So. So to me, another big message. And this is something we couldn't get Vice President Harris to do. Go face the music. She went on Fox News once. She should have went on Fox News 30 times. Once every day for the last 30 days of the campaign, but she wouldn't do it. And by the way, when you do that, that you soften people up. Caddy, you know, they, you open the minds of independence.
- [46:28]
B
You know, I mean, I don't know that going for a Republican vice president to go to the Nixon library is not quite the same as going on the Bill Maher show, obviously.
- [46:36]
A
No, no, no. He was in friendly territory there. Yeah.
- [46:39]
B
And I think he is trying to do something specific, which is he sees post midterms worth if the Democrats win, we are going to have a slew of investigations into corruption, corruption around the Trump family and around the Trump White House. Trump can survive a corruption story. I mean, he'll pardon himself anyway and he'll pardon J.D. vance anyway. But I think the question is whether Vance can survive being the guy who says corruption doesn't matter, which is what he went and said. Effectively the message he was making in the Nixon library was Watergate. No big deal. 24 hour news story, guys. Corruption doesn't really matter. Well, ask Victor Orban how that worked out because actually quite a lot of voters, I suspect, particularly if we have a post midterm two years with lots of these investigations and everything that we have been talking about about the middle class in America, people might start to think that corruption does matter. And I think JD Vance went and said all of that at the Nixon Library because he realizes if he's going to run, he's going to have to somehow find a way to answer the corruption stuff.
- [47:44]
A
Listen, I think you're making really good points. I just see this guy in a huge identity crisis. Read both of his books and listening to his interviews. He wants to be a good guy, but his ambition is overwhelming his ability to be a good guy. You see what I mean? And that makes him, to me, very dangerous.
- [48:06]
B
That's why we're going to do a series on him, guys, for our founding members. You can listen to that. It's coming out in a few weeks time. We will be back for our founding members later on in the week with our questions and answers. We're going to be talking about voting rights and what the administration in particular is trying to do to suppress voting rights ahead of the midterm elections. You can listen to that by becoming a founding member. Join us@therestispoliticsus.com but for now, happy birthday America.
- [48:32]
A
We'll see you guys later on in the week. Sam.