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Zero Hour with James Poulos
Ep 100 | Ana Kasparian: 'I’m Done with the Democratic Party' | Ana Kasparian
01:02:07
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- [00:01]
James Polis
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. Not everyone is careful with your personal information, which might explain why there's a victim of Identity theft every five seconds in the U.S. fortunately, there's LifeLock. Lifelock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast terms apply. I'm James Polis, this is Zero Hour.
- [01:00]
Anna Kasparian
La La la.
- [01:02]
James Polis
She's the host of the Young Turks, a fearless commentator, and a woman who can debate circles around just about anyone. Buckle up. This conversation is going to be as sharp as her takes. Welcome, Anna Kasparian.
- [01:13]
Anna Kasparian
Thank you. James.
- [01:13]
James Polis
How are you?
- [01:14]
Anna Kasparian
So good, so good to be here with you. I mean, I've known you forever.
- [01:18]
James Polis
It's crazy, right?
- [01:19]
Anna Kasparian
I kn. I knew you back in the day when you were with Pajamas Media. I think it was.
- [01:23]
James Polis
This is. This is ancient history. They thawed me out from cold storage. No, I remember getting the call or the email. I gu. Who was on not that long ago, and he's like, hey, you know, Glenn Greenwald says that, like, you should come on. And if we had only known, like, I think that was even like before the whole Snowden thing.
- [01:42]
Anna Kasparian
Oh, yeah.
- [01:42]
James Polis
And just such a long time ago.
- [01:45]
Anna Kasparian
And I just remember, you know, you've always been to the right of me, but I just remember enjoying hearing you engage in conversation. You just seem like a totally reasonable guy. And then I didn't hear from you for a while. So it's kind of nice to see that you're doing your show, you're doing your thing. It's great.
- [02:01]
James Polis
Yeah, well, you know, you. You have to be water to. To swim in media. And it's been a crazy ride, you know, sort of like being MAGA before there was such a thing as maga and being like, well, wait a minute, you know, like, what about this quadrant on the map? Like, why is. Why are there so many people here? But none of them seem to have any sort of influence or say over what's going on. So, you know, you guys were sort of like coming at Obama from the left at that time, but the left was like, wait a minute, you know, centralizing. Everything is bad. Corporations eating America is undeclared, wars are bad. You sort of, let's not have a permanent surveillance state. All these things that were considered to the left of Barack Obama, who's this crazy liberal, are now sort of seen as being Sort of. Right. Coded, which is fascinating is one word for it. Right.
- [02:53]
Anna Kasparian
I've been thinking about this a lot because, I mean, I'm not happy about it. And so I find myself in this weird, like, politically homeless place right now because you look at the Democratic Party and both in pathology and in policy, I feel that they've taken on some of the characteristics that were indicative of like the Bush era Republicans. And so I've been asking myself, what happened? How did we get here? And I really do think that Donald Trump specifically just kind of came in, stirred the pot, realigned things in some ways. So for instance, he was such a disruptive force that the left in general just really didn't know how to react or respond to him. And I think that they, the mainstream Democratic Party has kind of taken on the enemy of the. My enemy is my friend. And so suddenly the neoconservatives, the Bush era Republicans, the so called Never Trumpers, were welcomed into the Democratic Party. Nothing made that clearer than Kamala Harris saying that she was honored by Dick Cheney's endorsement. I was like, oh my God, that.
- [04:07]
James Polis
Comes in right at the top. Not like, okay, you know, but don't tell anyone, but like right in the front door.
- [04:13]
Anna Kasparian
I mean, if I were a Democratic candidate and I had the endorsement of Dick Cheney, I'd be like, keep it cool, keep it cool. Don't say that. Like, just keep, let's keep it between us. Also, what am I doing wrong right in how I'm campaigning to attract the likes of Dick Cheney or and Liz Cheney? So I think the biggest mistake the Democratic Party has made in recent years is this mistaken thinking that if someone or a political ideology is against Trump, that must mean they're good for the Democrats, they're not good for the Democrats. But I don't know if they've learned that lesson yet.
- [04:52]
James Polis
Is anyone sort of on their way to learning that lesson, do you think? I mean, Gavin Newsom is now like a podcast bro, which is signaling all by itself. Right. And we can have a whole.
- [05:00]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah.
- [05:01]
James Polis
Sort of trying to unpack whatever that is. But he's one guy who seems to have some sort of recognition. And it's interesting to me because, you know, people look at California as kind of the petri dish of, of the left or whatever. But so much of what MAGA is and so much of just, you know, individual people who are responsible for going from it's the Bush's party to it's Trump Party are all Southern Californians. You know, so, like the scene in California is, is more than meets the eye. And so much of Maga came from SoCal. And I'm sure that this is not lost on Gavin, especially because of sort of Kim and kind of the whole whatever that is, which is another conversation.
- [05:43]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah. Yep.
- [05:44]
James Polis
What do you make of. Of sort of Newsom and kind of the broader. The broader California scene? Is this where that kind of wake up call is going to come from?
- [05:52]
Anna Kasparian
Well, before I comment on the broader California scene, let me just say Gavin Newsom is a snake. And he is setting himself up for a presidential run. And as a result, he's kind of presenting himself as like some sort of reasonable, more moderate Democrat. He is someone that you shouldn't trust or believe. I mean, I've seen what his leadership was like when he was, you know, a political leader in San Francisco. Now he's the governor of California and he has overseen the absolute destruction of the state that I was born and raised in, the state that I absolutely love. He shuttered four state prisons, released inmates, including those who have committed violent crimes, into society with no plan for them, no transition for them. Where do you think they ended up? I mean, he released tens of thousands of inmates during COVID because of, you know, the prison system being too crowded. The idea was, well, we need to protect them. We don't want this virus to spread in these tightly packed prison cells, which is an understandable thing to wanna do, but you have to have a plan. And so he just released tens of thousands of inmates in a state that just underwent a shutdown. No businesses are open, there are no job opportunities, there's no housing. Where do you think they ended up? And then you want to tell me that there hasn't been a crime spike? Please. You know, so all of these things, I think, have woken up some Californians and it was reflected in the election results. For instance, Los Angeles county voted 11% more Republican in this election cycle compared to the previous presidential election cycle. And so that tells you something. That tells you that voters, even in the bluest state, in the bluest city, are waking up to how some of these policies have actually failed them. And they want, you know, the economic policies that the Democratic Party historically purported to want to protect, but what they're getting instead is all these, like, social changes that have diminished their quality of life.
- [08:08]
James Polis
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's no argument like, you're in Angelino. I spent the better part of 25 years in that city. It's worse than it's ever been in its history.
- [08:18]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah.
- [08:18]
James Polis
Just overall, which is shocking in its own right. San Francisco, you know, that's been beaten to death. We've all seen the poop map. Like it's, it's, there's no end in sight to any of this. And so you have to ask yourself, like, why, you know, this is a guy Newsom, two terms lieutenant governor. Two terms governor, podcast bro. Still presenting himself as someone who deserves public attention and who ought to be listened to and who in some way is more kind of savvy or dialed in than the average Democrat right now. Low bar, granted. Yeah, but why then, if he still wants to play at the top of the game, why govern in the way that he did? Was he actually governing? Was it mostly just letting bad things happen? I mean, how does he expect to run to convert that record into some kind of future?
- [09:06]
Anna Kasparian
Well, I think that Gavin Newsom is the perfect example of a politician who wants to be a leader, but doesn't have the characteristics necessary to actually be a leader. Gavin Newsom follows trends and he goes along with what he thinks is politically popular at any given moment. And so when the BLM movement happened, you know, when there were calls for criminal justice reform, he didn't think about it. He didn't implement policies in a carefully considered way. He just went along with what he thought would be popular or what the activists in the state who are not representative of the general public were demanding. And that's the thing that's so frustrating about politics in California. The people who lead the political scene in California are not the politicians. They're the activist groups and they're the nonprofits, and they're the loudest. They seem to have a lot of time on their hands. They'll be at every single, every single city council meeting. They will, you know, harass the crap out of these politicians until they get their way, until they get what they want. In order to survive in a state as expensive as California, you gotta be working constantly, as I am. I don't have the luxury of showing up to a city council meeting and having my voice heard. And it's incredibly frustrating when, you know, the vast majority of the population doesn't really have a voice in our local politics, but self interested activist groups do. And by definition, whatever the activist groups are representing is some niche policy that most of the voters in California are not gonna be in favor of. And you're starting to see some of that backlash now. But I think what you're also noticing in California, and honestly with the American electorate in general, is the biggest demographic of voters are Non voters, people who have basically given up on our political system altogether, don't believe that a politician from either side of the political aisle is going to serve their best interests. That's a really big problem.
- [11:08]
James Polis
You look at the activists, you look at the, you know, NGOs or nonprofits, whatever you want to call them, you know, obviously a huge villain for. For guys on the right. And they look at these things. They're like, these people cannot wield this kind of influence unless they're just being quietly, lavishly funded by, you know, whether Soros Bucks or USAID or whatever. What's the story there? How is it that they've been able to be such a prominent, you know, force in California politics and really have the chokehold on politicians? A guy like Gavin Newsom, you're like, okay, sort of like white guy, you know, he's got to kind of find a way to not so much like a white guy in that kind of environment. But it goes beyond that, right?
- [11:44]
Anna Kasparian
I think it goes beyond that. I mean, I think that there is a pretty big scam taking place right now when it comes to these NGOs, particularly in a state like California. So I just recently published a pretty lengthy investigative report on something called behested payments in California. And basically, you know, obviously you have campaign finance laws. So in California, there are private companies that receive grants or contracts from local government or state government. They are not allowed to, you know, contribute funds or campaign contributions to politicians, knowing that if those politicians get elected into office, it's likely that they're going to renew the current contracts that these private businesses are enjoying, obviously funded by taxpayer money. But there's this loophole. And what politicians can do once they're elected in California is they can essentially raise unlimited, almost completely unregulated sums of money through a nonprofit they. That they themselves control. And, I mean, they get to do pretty much whatever they want with that money. Now, there's always a cover story, right? They're raising money for some project that they have in their agenda, and sometimes the money does actually go to that project. But what. What it's really about is taking that fundraised money and then funneling it to other nonprofits that are supposed to carry out, you know, certain policy goals or part of the agenda that this office holder has. But then you look at the financial disclosures for these NGOs and these nonprofits, and you realize, yeah, it turns out this public private partnership is just a total scam, and they're spending a minuscule percentage of the grants that they received from taxpayer money on what the policy or agenda is really supposed to be about. You look at the salaries, though, of all the individuals working at these NGOs, and you get a better sense of where this money's actually going.
- [13:50]
James Polis
Yeah.
- [13:50]
Anna Kasparian
You know, that's how you have a situation in which you spend, you know, nearly $25 billion over the course of five years on homelessness, and the problem becomes 37% worse. It's because the nonprofits who have been given that money, first of all squandered it. There was no real tracking mechanism to ensure that there was no waste or fraud of that money. And then at the same time, I mean, it's just not going to where it's supposed to go. It's building careers for the people who work at these nonprofits, but that's about it.
- [14:25]
James Polis
Yeah, well, and this is how we get to the point where something like Doge comes along, where it's like, okay, it's going to be, you know, 20 guys in a room just kind of combing through everything from. From the top. Because we've had 20, 25 years plus of this kind of scam economy. I know where a handful of people at the top have just been really eating the seed corn, just scooping out the inner workings of a society. This is beyond sort of like capitalism versus socialism. This is just a group of people who are just, like, sort of harvesting all of the value out of the political economy and hiding it, or I don't know what happens to it. You look at something like blm. You know, it was a glaring example where. Where, you know, the founders of BLM are, like, buying houses in Topanga or whatever.
- [15:08]
Anna Kasparian
Half of them Patrice colors.
- [15:10]
James Polis
Yes, thank you.
- [15:10]
Anna Kasparian
For separate houses. I mean, 20. 20. BLM received $93 million in donations. So you have the national chapter of which at the time, Patrisse Cullors is like, one of the heads of the national chapter. But then you have the local chapters who are expecting a cut of that money. They didn't receive anything. They were complaining. And that's how we found out that, oh, wow, she spent money on these homes, and then she, like, did this nonsense about how you. No, no. The whole point of these mansions is to bring people together and to put out, you know, content pro blm content, whatever. It was.
- [15:47]
James Polis
Community organizing.
- [15:48]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, right. It was. No such thing happened. It was all lies. And, you know, just going back to your point about Doge, look, I don't have a rosy outlook on what Doge is doing. Even Though I was very much in favor of actually coming in and with a scalpel, actually rooting out the waste, fraud and abuse. I don't think that's been happening. I think that, you know, Elon Musk and Doge have just essentially did this, like, blanket policy of getting rid of probationary federal workers, regardless of what they do, regardless of how skilled or important they might be. You know, there's this thinking that if you're a probationary worker, well, you're brand new, you're considered a probationary worker if you've been promoted to another position, which means some of the skilled people in the federal government that we need were let go. And it's gonna be hard to get some of those folks back. There's waste in the Pentagon. They haven't passed a single audit and there hasn't really been a genuine discussion about cutting waste in the Pentagon. That's frustrating, right?
- [16:51]
James Polis
Not since Rumsfeld got up and said, oh, trillions unaccounted for. And then nine, 11, you know, shocker.
- [16:56]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah. And the other thing is the vast majority of Americans, including Republican voters, want to protect programs like Social Security. Doge deciding to fire 7,000 workers at the Social Security Administration leads me to think that they're probably trying to dismantle Social Security without having to do it through Congress. And if that happens, I don't know how voters are going to react, but I hope they rage about it because that's an entitlement program that we're entitled to because we've paid into it.
- [17:31]
James Polis
It's a sticky situation. I know lots of people who are hoping for the best with this. Um, but the attitude is like, we, you know, we never should have gotten in this mess in the first place.
- [17:43]
Anna Kasparian
Yes, I agree.
- [17:44]
James Polis
And we now might have to like, endure yet another wave of like pain and chaos and confusion in order to try to hack our way out. And you sort of back yourself into a corner as a country and you have to take this kind of Hail Mary in the hopes of just kind of like clearing a space where you can begin to understand. I mean, this is what happens when you have, when you're printing magic money for generations, when you have a budget and then like an off books budget that's so huge and so corrupt that even the people at the top can't really be sure what's real and what's not anymore.
- [18:19]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, I mean, I think that all of this wasteful spending taking place for so long ended up garnering support for the idea of someone coming in and just Cutting things like crazy. And this is where I get frustrated with Democrats and the left in general because they have lately engaged in this, like, weird strategy, if you can call it that, of just deny that it's happening. And if you deny that it's happening, maybe voters won't see that it's happening. No, no, voters see that things are happening and they see that you're trying to gaslight them and pretend like these very real issues are not occurring. And that creates an opening for the right to come in and say, we'll save you.
- [19:05]
James Polis
Yeah.
- [19:06]
Anna Kasparian
And that's exactly what happened with Doge. That's exactly what happened with immigration. Okay. Well, before the election took place, I did stories about how, look, there is a crisis at the border. I am not anti immigration. I would like to reform our immigration policies. I would like a pathway to citizenship for the millions of people who have been here for decades, who have contributed to society, who have actually paid taxes, but aren't going to get, you know, things like Social Security in return, even though they're paying into the system. I want a better immigration system. However, it was a lie that there wasn't a crisis at the border under Biden. There was. And since we weren't able to, you know, track everybody and make sure that we were doing background checks on people coming in. Yeah, some pretty shady figures came into the country and were causing problems. The communities that were impacted by that deserved a voice, and they weren't getting that voice from the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party was just gaslighting the hell out of them and trashing anyone on the left who had the audacity to raise these issues through their own platforms, like me. And so either you take these issues seriously and have a seat at the table and finding solutions, or you're going to create a vacuum in which the right is going to take over. And guess what? They took over.
- [20:26]
James Polis
They did. And at the same time, though, I mean, politics is not going to go away.
- [20:29]
Anna Kasparian
Right.
- [20:30]
James Polis
You know, there's all endless fear mongering about Donald Trump being not like the others. He's a dictator. This guy is qualitatively different from any president who has ever sat, even walked, by the way. And you look at fdr, I mean, this is. This was a guy who's absolutely sort of flexing what we would call dictatorial muscles. You know, no, I'm packing the court. No, I'm creating these agencies.
- [20:51]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, that's true.
- [20:52]
James Polis
No, if I don't get congressional support, I'm going to do it anyway because things got To a point where the. The. The. The foundations of the institutions were just sort of crumbling.
- [21:01]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, that's a great point.
- [21:03]
James Polis
What do you do? You know, and so even though that was all unfolding, politics still existed, all these kinds of different interest groups and pressure groups. And, you know, we do still live in a country where even if you have immense power at the very top, which, let's face it, we haven't had in a president for some time, certainly not during Biden, even with that immense power, there's still this kind of big, roiling political situation, and I think we're gonna continue to experience that. What I'm starting to hear from the right is, you know, kind of this flip of what we would expect on immigration, which is, you know, Zelenskyy's a bad guy. He's been destroying his own country. It's not these Ukrainian refugees fault. We can't just send them packing back to Ukraine to be destroyed by the same war machine that was built, you know, that we didn't want to be built in the first place.
- [21:48]
Anna Kasparian
While the right is saying that some.
- [21:50]
James Polis
People on the right.
- [21:50]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, that's excellent. I'm glad that they are.
- [21:52]
James Polis
And it's. It's just, you know, it's people's lived experience, which I know lived experience is sort of like a, like, loaded word or whatever, but it is. People are alive. They have experiences. And when the experiences of people on the right who are anti. Anti Ukraine war from the beginning, anti intervention, they see the refugees show up. These are people who are, you know, not just going directly to the meth or directly to the gangs. You know, lots of them came to my church. You know, I have lived experience, too, and it's reflective of that. It's not fitting into those neat sort, sort of left, right, binary categories that have been created for us, paradoxically, by the uniparty.
- [22:31]
Anna Kasparian
That's such a great point. And for people who are really paying attention and, I mean, I'm not tribal, so I don't feel loyalty to anyone or, like, politically speaking, any one political figure or political party. And so that gives me the space to kind of step back and constantly ask myself, okay, well, I've been voting Democrat my entire adult life. Am I happy with where the party is now? Do they represent me? Do I even know what they represent? Right at this point?
- [23:05]
James Polis
That's the big question. Yeah.
- [23:06]
Anna Kasparian
And it's tough, James, because right now I don't have a party that I feel represents me. I'm very left, economically speaking. Not so much, though. I'M not really in line with the mainstream Democratic Party these days when it comes to some social issues issues. They're just kind of unreasonable at this point, like on. On a lot of different things. And no, I don't. I don't believe in police and prison abolition. I think that's crazy. It's never been accomplished in any other country. We're, like, struggling to even get to the Scandinavian model when it comes to criminal justice. What are we talking about here in police abolition? Like, those people who had been preaching about those dumb policy ideas have squandered an opportunity to actually do successful, effective criminal justice reform. So I'm tired of the maximalists on the left. I think that they've destroyed the party when it comes to social issues. And then on economic issues, the Democratic Party has destroyed itself by essentially taking corporate money and siding with the corporate interests that fund their campaigns. So what's left for me there?
- [24:18]
James Polis
Is there, like, a point, is there an event or a moment that is sort of living in your head where it was like it began to be so over when that happened, was it Bernie's heart attack? Was it RFK getting kicked out of the party? Like, what was it?
- [24:35]
Anna Kasparian
You know, I remember this moment vividly in 2020 when Bernie dropped out of the race. And I. I was upset that he dropped out. I thought he still had a shot. But I think because of COVID and because of the fact that, you know, the mainstream corporate Democrats were rallying around Biden, he just kind of was able to read the tea leaves. And I remember talking to my good friend at the time, the late, great Michael Brooks, and he's like, things are going to get really bad. And I didn't realize how bad things were going to get. But, yeah, things got really bad. But I think that was probably the moment when, for people like me, hope was lost with the Democratic Party. I mean, they fought Bernie Sanders. You think Democrats fight Donald Trump aggressively? Please. I mean, you want to see an effective Democratic Party in basically destroying someone's political career? Look at how they responded to Bernie doing well, you know, in the primaries in 2020. Like, they'll do anything. I mean, they'll even drop out early on to rally around Biden to ensure that a typical, you know, moderate Democrat, corporate Democrat gets voted in.
- [25:51]
James Polis
I know he. He blamed it on the heart attack. Do you think there's something more nefarious going on there that they forced him out in some way?
- [25:58]
Anna Kasparian
I just think Bernie, having experienced what happened in 2016, knew that his colleagues on the Left side of the political aisle weren't gonna let it happen.
- [26:08]
James Polis
Yeah.
- [26:09]
Anna Kasparian
Every once in a while, people will ask me, you know, would you ever run for office? It's a dirty game. It really is. And I get upset.
- [26:18]
James Polis
Is it an LA mayor? Like, the doors are wide open?
- [26:21]
Anna Kasparian
I don't know. I just think for. For those who were fortunate enough to get elected, despite how gross our elections are, how could you not want to do right by your voters and actually do good things for them? Yeah, I don't get it. I really don't.
- [26:40]
James Polis
Yeah.
- [26:41]
Anna Kasparian
You know, don't you. Don't you care about looking at the world around you, the community around you, the community that you decided to run in order to serve, don't you want to see them thriving? And it just shocks me when you see someone like Karen Bass, for instance, in la, engage in the policies that have failed over several years, continue to bolster those policies, support those policies, lie to the American people, lie to Angelenos about how she didn't cut the fire budget ahead of the disastrous wildfires we just experienced. We can see the documentation. Homegirl, you cut the operational budget by $17 million. And a day before the fires, City hall sent the Los Angeles Fire Department a memo indicating that they wanted to cut another $46 million from the budget, and they were looking to shutter 16 fire stations. I see how much money she's spending on these nonprofits who are not using the money to help the homeless. How are you going to justify the high taxes in our city and state? Take all that money, funnel it to these NGOs, and tell us that you don't have money for the fire budget? I just. I'm sick of it. I'm so sick of it. I can't take it anymore.
- [28:01]
James Polis
It's disturbing. And what's insane to me is, like, you know, the. The tech guys get scapegoated a lot as being the ones who are like, we're going to build this secret utopia, and it's going to be off stage, and we're just going to sort of like, suck value out of you people and take it over to our little utopia. And one day we're going to get in our little UFOs, we're going to fly out there, and you're never going to see. Right? And it's like, you don't need to be a tech mogul in order for that to be your master plan. Because we've seen it play out over the Biden years where the people at the top of the establishment have done exactly that. The Karen Basses, Gavin Newsoms, they've done exactly that without having to found any tech companies. Right? And so there are folks who look at Karen Bass, you know, just to stick with that example, and they're like, she's just evil. Stupid and evil. There's no other explanation. You gotta name it when you see it. Okay, but what's the motivation? You know, and it's like you got the scales here, and on one side of the scale, you've got basic public welfare, the basic common good.
- [28:58]
Anna Kasparian
Right.
- [28:58]
James Polis
Do you walk down the streets of your city? How does it look? Are people thriving or are they struggling and dying and, you know, going to a very dark place? And so that's like, that's on one end and on the other end is something that's off stage that we don't get to see. How much money is it? How many offshore bank accounts is it? What is the payoff for so many of these policymakers and politicians that is causing them to go like, oh, well, you know, I really don't want to impose destitution and misery on my own people, but the payoff is just too good. What is that?
- [29:30]
Anna Kasparian
Bribery's baked into our political system. You know, the Supreme Court has legalized political bribes, but it's even worse than that when you look at Congress and what motivates them. It's not just money in politics. It's the fact that they are free to engage in insider trading based on briefings that we're not privy to, the general public is not privy to. And they're able to make stock trades, individual stock trades, based on those closed door briefings. They don't get prosecuted for it. There's barely any regulation or oversight of it. They have to, you know, do financial disclosures of their investments, but they're kind of vague in terms of like the dollar amount. Right. It's like a giant, you know, it's, it's based on monetary categories as opposed to like exact dollar amounts that they're, you know, contributing to stocks. And even if they're not doing insider trading, if you are a member of Congress and you're free to trade individual stocks, well, you're literally invested in companies that you're going to be making regulatory decisions about. Yeah, that's a problem.
- [30:41]
James Polis
Yeah.
- [30:41]
Anna Kasparian
You know, so that corruption is a huge issue. And it's created a system where all the incentives are for the politicians to be corrupt. Right. To look out for themselves as opposed to their constituency, the people who voted them into these positions of Power and.
- [30:59]
James Polis
Those who are able to stand up and call foul on this stuff, you almost have to be, like, a freak and like an ostracized figure. I mean, I went to dc, I did a little mini doc on just this filthy rich, got Matt Gaetz, who at that point was still in Congress, and, you know, hugely polarizing figure on the right and the left sometimes, depending on who you ask. But, you know, we're walking up and down the halls of Congress, and he's like, they came at me. I survived. I have nothing to lose. I'm taking you to every office of the prime. Prime offenders on, you know, can't really call it insider trading. The rules are a little squishy. But you can look at the printouts, you know, unusual whales and other guys have sort of tallied this stuff and just went to their offices and, you know, we did a little standup in front of each of them, and he called them out. And you have to be sort of a fringy person because the center is so corrupt.
- [31:49]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, definitely. I was listening to a recent podcast. Oh, yeah. So I don't know why I was compelled to listen to this, but it was Adam Carolla and Matt Gaetz kind of interviewing each other on the same podcast episode. And I found it super fascinating. Adam Carolla lately has kind of grown on me because he speaks truth about California. And I appreciate it. Those people are far and few between. Like, you don't come across them too often. But Matt Gaetz, I have two thoughts about him. I. Look, I agree with him about money in politics. I agree with him on corruption. In fact, he co sponsored some legislation with the likes of AOC when he was in Congress that I agreed with and I gave him credit for. And then he'll throw out words about, like, the transgender community that it's like, why do you have. Why. Why do you need to speak about people like this in, like, a degrading, dehumanizing way? You know, And I wish he didn't do that, because even if he's making a good point, you know, when you say dehumanizing things or make it appear as though you don't respect them as human beings things, it's easier to just shut you out and not trust anything you're saying. You know what I'm saying? You know what I mean? So, like, he's a polarizing figure not only because of his messaging on corruption, he's also polarizing because he loves to troll the left on these social issues.
- [33:15]
James Polis
Yeah. And, you know, and. And unafraid to push back really hard when there's something, you know, like, like that kind of top down, you know, you're being told that you are going to respect these kinds of people and you're going to treat them in a certain way. And if you don't, then, you know, you're going to be kicked off social media, you're maybe going to be thrown in jail, depending on what country you're in. You know, that, that can, can bring out, you know, spicy takes from people and, and, and gates. And you know, there's some other figures who, yeah, they sort of like, did the trial by fire being the sort of villain of the day or the month or the year for the establishment. When they come out on the other side, they're like, you know, I'm just going to say what I want. Now personally, partly for what I guess you would call religious reasons, partly for just, I can't be bothered to be sort of incorporated into the hate Borg. It's just, it's exhausting. I don't know how people do it. I would rather not have to as professionally have to engage in that way where it's like, you know, these are sort of, this is the cast of characters where everyone is obliged to sort of invoke them, talk about them, have takes about them. You know, you're either with them or against them. Like, I think that that can be very enervating. And a lot of productive political energy that's channeled into that sort of like war of words.
- [34:40]
Anna Kasparian
Yes.
- [34:41]
James Polis
Is. Is squandering our lifetime.
- [34:43]
Anna Kasparian
I totally agree. I totally agree. When you're needlessly using rhetoric to troll, but in that message, you actually are making a good point. Well, that good point is totally destroyed. Right. People are just gonna brush you aside as someone who's hateful and you're motivated by hate. You're not actually making a reasonable point about anything. And so, yeah, I just wish people, especially political figures, especially on the right, we're a little smarter about that.
- [35:13]
James Polis
Yeah.
- [35:14]
Anna Kasparian
You know.
- [35:14]
James Polis
Yeah. And you know, hate is such a weird word now. Like, yeah, we don't know. What, what, what, what, what's the Republican Party mean right now? I don't know. What does the Democratic Party mean right now? Not so sure. What does hate mean? What counts as hate? Like, I also, you know, I also don't know people, you know, can they say like, I hate broccoli or whatever? And it's like, fair enough, I guess, but like, I don't want to hear, I don't want to spend my dinner with you talking about what you.
- [35:40]
Anna Kasparian
What you hate. Right.
- [35:41]
James Polis
You know, this is like. Like these are missed opportunities. And this is a moment when there's so much that needs to be done that, like, we can't, you know, we're not really doing ourselves a service.
- [35:49]
Anna Kasparian
Well, you just reminded me of what I think has been the Achilles heel for the Democratic Party in elections lately, which is to say that if you focus on the 2024 presidential election, you have Donald Trump, who has decided to position himself as like, this warrior for the working class. And in every speech, yes, I mean, there was definitely some negativity, you know, a lot about immigration and all of that. So I'm not discounting that he incorporated that in a lot of his speeches, but he also had, like a vision for the future. Whether you bought into that vision or not, it was still a vision. What he sees as benefiting the American people moving forward, what he's going to fight for, he focused on less, on trashing the Democrats. I mean, there was some of that, but what stood out about his campaigning was specific policies, things like no tax on tips, what he was gonna do with immigration, but just wanting to see the country in a better place, like there was something to hope for.
- [36:55]
James Polis
Right.
- [36:55]
Anna Kasparian
Whereas with the Democratic Party, this is now what the third election cycle, where the focus is on how much they hate Trump and how dangerous Trump is, how scary Trump is. And that's all fine. And, well, you can have that be part of your campaigning. But wait, what are, what are you gonna do for us again? Like, why am I voting for you again? Aside from Trump? Bad.
- [37:20]
James Polis
Oh, and it's like, so, you know, funny in a sad way, but, you know, richly deserved in another sense where just to go back to Doge, we're like, this is terrible. This is authoritarianism. It's also not working. And it's like, you know, this food is terrible in such small portions. Like, come on, guys.
- [37:35]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, it's. They should be asking themselves. This is the most important thing for them to learn.
- [37:40]
James Polis
Yeah.
- [37:41]
Anna Kasparian
They should be asking themselves, how is it that this guy who was so unpopular, who had such a low approval rating when he left office, how is it that this guy was able to beat us again? That should be a moment of self reflection for the Democratic Party.
- [38:00]
James Polis
Yeah.
- [38:00]
Anna Kasparian
But they immediately pivoted to, you know, more of the fear mongering. Again, that's fine. There are things happening with the Trump administration right now that I don't like, and there are areas where I agree with the Democratic Party. In their criticisms. However, you should ask yourself, well, how did it get to this point where the majority of the American public, at least in the beginning with Doge, and, you know, what happened with usaid, was kind of in favor of it?
- [38:27]
James Polis
Yeah.
- [38:28]
Anna Kasparian
How did it get this bad? How did it get so bad that even a majority, slim majority, but even a majority of Democratic voters were in favor of mass deportations? How did it get that bad?
- [38:40]
James Polis
Well, it's, you know, who's, who's in charge.
- [38:42]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah.
- [38:43]
James Polis
And this is, you know, it's, it's all this. There's, there's the whole ideological sort of kabuki dance that, that is done. And there's, there's like the demonization of Donald Trump. That's done. But it's the hardest lesson for party elites is that they personally are. What's going wrong?
- [39:01]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah.
- [39:02]
James Polis
You know, there's other stuff that's going wrong, but it's all sort of emanating out of the fact. I mean, I see, I see this in Hollywood. You know, you look at. And, and LA is not going to get back on his feet unless Hollywood sort of goes through this same process.
- [39:15]
Anna Kasparian
How so?
- [39:15]
James Polis
That Democrats need to go through at the national level, which is like, like. No, actually, it's you personally who don't get it. You have come unglued from what the people as a whole are experiencing and understanding and going through. You know, so Hollywood, oh, they're crying. It's. Oh, it's the streamers. It's tech. You know, it's the. What's the business model? This is terrible. How do we solve this problem? And it's like, well, maybe the problem is that you actually don't understand what is cool and glamorous and exciting and drives people into the movie theater. You know, you don't. You've come detached so much from, like, the, the shared culture that you're just not able to understand that the problem is, in fact just you, that you need to exit and new people need to come on who are better in tune with what's actually going on with the people. It's the same thing in politics.
- [40:00]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah. I mean, we, I feel like with Hollywood and just entertainment in general, we went through several years in a row of feeling like all the content that was being put out there was more about lecturing to audiences as opposed to focusing on entertainment. Good storytelling. You know, there have been some gems, in my opinion, like one of my favorite shows that launched fairly recently, certainly in the era of, like, lecture entertainment like Abbott Elementary Right. It's. It's a great show. It's about, you know, a public school, underfunded public school, and how the teachers and staff are making ends meet there. It's so funny. It's so entertaining, and it's a very diverse cast, but they're not, like, constantly reminding you that this is a diverse cast and the actors were chosen specifically because they're diverse. No, they're just really talented. Really talented. Super entertaining, excellent writing. That's the kind of content we need to focus on, I think. People are amazing and capable of incredible things, regardless of what their identity is, what their race is, what their gender is. Just give people opportunities and don't do, like, the tokenism thing.
- [41:11]
James Polis
Right.
- [41:12]
Anna Kasparian
You know?
- [41:13]
James Polis
Yeah, well, it's. What are you trying to arouse in the audience? And if the answer is clapter, like, you know, this is, like, North Korea. Like, this is not what you. In. In a sense, you could look at North Korea as, like, politically a very successful regime, you know, sort of, like, survive the hard times, still going strong. Right. But, like, that's certainly not art.
- [41:32]
Anna Kasparian
Right.
- [41:32]
James Polis
And it barely passes as entertainment.
- [41:35]
Anna Kasparian
Yep.
- [41:36]
James Polis
And when you've got a system, a legacy system, that's trying to figure out how to get the business model right and no longer understands how to make art, that brings sort of the creator and the audience together to experience, like, you know, something that resonates in an eternal way or in a timeless way, but ultimately has to do with, like, right now, who are we? What is going on? What world are we in? People need a voice outside of their own head, sort of like, telling them. And a lot of Americans, you know, I got my nice little stack of books here, but, like, let's face it, like, people don't turn to the book, right. For, like. For, like, the truth about what the heck is going on in the world in the way that they used to. And a lot of Americans are still, you know, unwilling to just kind of, like, go crawling to the computer to get that. We're still kind of like the people who turn to the screen to get that kind of experience where reality and entertainment and art can kind of come together in a way that sort of, like, puts it all into context.
- [42:39]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Are you watching that show Severance, by any chance?
- [42:42]
James Polis
So people keep telling me, they told me from the beginning that I specifically need to watch the show.
- [42:48]
Anna Kasparian
You're going to love it.
- [42:49]
James Polis
And so I was like, okay. Didn't get around to it. Now there's a season two and. And the demands that I watch Severance have yet to subside, so I need to catch up.
- [42:58]
Anna Kasparian
Okay. I love that you're getting that messaging because I think that show is so interesting. No spoilers, I promise. But for me, the message in that show is just how dangerous it is when you allow corporations to become too powerful. I think that the commentary about what it's like to be a worker, you know, the precarious nature of being a worker is, is an interesting and important message. But the point that I'm making is that show, I think, has the ability to appeal to people across the political aisle because of the storytelling, because of how unique and interesting that show is. And it's not about lecturing, even though there's actually a very substantive message in that show. But when you watch it, we'll have a conversation about it.
- [43:50]
James Polis
Yeah, sounds good. From what I've managed to glean, it's broadly a sort of like a deep kind of critique of the cubicle world, right?
- [44:02]
Anna Kasparian
Yep, yep.
- [44:03]
James Polis
And what's been interesting to me, sort of, you know, back in the early Obama years, 0708, I was starting to flag, like, oh, this is interesting. You know, corporations are trying to turn themselves sort of trying to enchant themselves into this thing where it's like, we're your family now, like, maybe we're even better than your family. And it was just the beginning of sort of human resources culture that, you know, that rose up at the same time that the offices were all sort of becoming like cubicle farms, you know, and those two things kind of happening at the same time. And then a lot of what we think of still as like big tech was very much all about like cubicle world and human resources. And it wasn't until the second coming of Donald Trump, right, when you start to have tech Bros and like VCs and guys saying, like, wait a minute, like this whole culture is really inimical to the kind of initiative taking and sort of individual responsibility and, you know, not giving into scam culture, not giving into the scam economy, but putting yourself out there, skin in the game, you know, taking charge of it and doing it yourself. That switch where suddenly you start having very successful businesses not just walk away from DEI and esg, but walk away from the cubicles, walk away from the human resources department, walk away from managerialism, which became one in the same with, with corporate America. That's been such a huge transformation. And I understand, you know, people on the left who are like, well, you know, just because we're getting rid of corporatism in favor of, you know, VC ism or startupism or whatever it is. Well, well, that's dictatorial and we don't want Elon Musk sort of owning everything and it being like these Superman, you know, this is scary. And it's like, you know, I, I get it, you know, Lex Luthor bad or whatever that is.
- [45:56]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah.
- [45:57]
James Polis
But you can't just like shoot down every kind of, of of of. Of corporate and economic organization activity in America. We're not gonna have anything left except for the NGOs, the Soros Bucks, the permanent activism.
- [46:11]
Anna Kasparian
So I, I think that it's a mistake to hyper focus on one individual. Whatever anyone feels about Elon Musk, put them aside for a second. Because I think what's far more nefarious in our current system is the consolidation of, of companies through acquisitions and mergers. And so, you know, the Federal Trade Commission under Lina Khan, for the first time in decades actually started enforcing antitrust laws. And I think that's so important because if you have a situation in which, you know, sectors of the economy monopolize with no real cop on the beat, without anyone preventing these mergers and acquisitions from happening, well then, you know, there aren't really many opportunities both for consumers and for American workers and also for those who might want to branch out and be entrepreneurs themselves. So I think enforcing antitrust law is super important. You know, Vice President Vance was actually a fan of Lina Khan's. I was hoping that they would keep her in her position. Unfortunately, they didn't. But you know, I'm holding out a little bit of hope that some of the more populist elements of the Trump administration will have their day. Right now it seems like the tech Bros have taken over and co opted and they're pushing through their vision of what America should be and what they want. But I think that there's tension between that end of the MAGA base and the more populist wing of the MAGA base.
- [47:46]
James Polis
Oh yeah, no question. I mean, I hope that it's a productive tension. This is a new coalition and anytime you're sort of having this kind of sea change, especially when you're going to that, like that mythical fourth quadrant where so many people sort of right and left gravitated toward that kind of, you know, what, like politically right, but economically left or however they wanted to characterize it, you're going to have that, that kind of friction. I think. Lina Khan. Yeah, you know, it wasn't just Vance. It's lots of guys in that kind of, kind of, you Know, Gen X right wing policy space. We're like, she gets it. This is someone we can work with. I'll be very interested to see sort of what her next act is.
- [48:24]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah, same. I mean, she's so young, super talented, and honestly, even though she's like, mild mannered, she's so fearless. I mean, people hated her. Like the corporate world despised her. She was calm, she did her thing. And, you know, she. She managed to prevent some pretty big mergers from taking place. And I'm glad that that happened.
- [48:44]
James Polis
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, we can. We could spend a whole another hour just on RFK alone, kind of. You know, he stuck it out longer than I thought he would trying to make it work with the Dems and they were just not having it. And now it's like, Big Tech is on the chopping block. Big Ag is on the chopping block. Big Pharma is on the chopping block. Like, this is long overdue stuff.
- [49:06]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah.
- [49:06]
James Polis
And not just in an ideological sense, but in, like, what are the fruits by which we know what these, the bigs are really all about? And it's like, okay, you know, hollowing out the economy, hollowing out people's physical health, destroying people's mental health, pumping people full of weird things that aren't actually food. I mean, we see the results, the science is settled. We tried the experiment, we have the results, and everyone knows that it can't continue.
- [49:31]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah. I'm gonna wait to give a verdict on RFK Jr he has said some things that I totally do agree with. You just listed some of them, and I hope he actually walks the walk and doesn't just talk the talk. Because if he actually does something to regulate our food industry so we're not constantly, you know, poisoning ourselves with this low quality, ultra processed nonsense, I'll give him all the credit in the world, you know, but what I've noticed so far, and it is early, so I'm gonna be very happy if I'm proven wrong. But what I've noticed so far at least, is some of those more appealing things that you heard from the Trump campaign haven't really been pursued yet. So if RFK Jr pursues some of those issues that he raised during the election, all the power to him. I hope he does, and I'll give him credit if he does.
- [50:22]
James Polis
Yeah. Are you seeing warning signs, though? Things that make you go, hmm, Yeah.
- [50:27]
Anna Kasparian
I mean, okay, so I'll give you a specific example. As the head of Health and Human Services, I need to understand why one of the very first things RFK Jr. Announced he was going to do or is doing is fighting antisemitism. What I mean, by the way, I mean, I'm not a fan of anti Semitism, obviously, but to me, it came across as, oh, I need to do my virtue signaling for Israel.
- [50:55]
James Polis
Yeah.
- [50:55]
Anna Kasparian
And it's like, no, why don't you actually focus on some of those things that, by the way, voters on both sides of the political aisle agree on. They want better food, they want better regulations in regard to the food industry. You're gonna do anything about that? I mean, it's weird that you ran on those issues and the first thing you announce is, I'm gonna battle anti Semitism.
- [51:16]
James Polis
There's a lot of weirdness going on with Israel on the right and the left, which is really unprecedented. And so I can understand, understand how, you know, American Jews would sort of look around and be like, what world are we in now? And how can we feel confident that it's not going to go to, like, a place where everyone sort of sees us as, like, the problem? You know, no one wants to get scapegoated. And I totally understand.
- [51:38]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah. And I.
- [51:39]
James Polis
But when you got guys on the right, I mean, this has happened in Texas where they're like, standing strong with Israel. I'm banning hate speech. And it's like, bro, like, this is not. But constitutional number one. Number two, this is really off the reservation for conservatives. But, you know, these are unsettled times. And you just see people starting to kind of flail around and hopefully it'll even out, but not without kind of clear heads prevailing.
- [52:05]
Anna Kasparian
I think if Republicans think censoring or punishing pro peace or pro Palestinian protesters is somehow going to fix any issues we might have in this country with anti Semitism, they're wrong. They have an entirely different thing coming. Right. And I think the left should have learned that lesson themselves. I don't think they have.
- [52:28]
James Polis
Well, it's tough for the left because they are sort of feeding into the stereotype that wherever two or more sort of pro peace Palestinian people are gathered, it's going to, you know, behind their back is this sort of cesspool of Hamas terrorists.
- [52:42]
Anna Kasparian
It's so frustrating to me because the vast majority of those protesters are not hateful, do not agree with what Hamas did, are not like, you know, singing the praises of Hamas.
- [52:52]
James Polis
Yeah.
- [52:52]
Anna Kasparian
But you'll always have that handful of cosplaying revolutionaries who care more about themselves and getting their name out there by being like, needlessly spicy or edgy and so they'll say disgusting, loathsome things. And it's so easy to take those few examples and make a blanket statement about all those protesters, when in reality there's a ton of Jewish people included in those protests. Right. They're not all anti Semitic, they're not Hamas supporters. But for those who are looking to smear the protesters in general, it's easy to do it when you have that handful of morons who say moronic things. I can't stand those people. They're the wreckers. That's the best way to describe them. They're part, you'll find them in any protest, in any movement. It's a small group of self interested narcissists. They're just wreckers.
- [53:45]
James Polis
Yeah, I mean, to me this is, this falls under the category of thanks Obama, right. Where it's like, you know, I get it, you're coming in after, after bush, you defeat McCain, you're sort of like, neo conservatism is dead. Right? And you take a pass on war with, with Iran, which, you know, I think was, was, was the right call at the time, definitely. But then you have this second term and like, what's going on in the, in Obama's second term, it's like, okay, we're going to be droning American citizens, we're going to be, you know, permanent sort of J sock around the world. Somehow it flips into, we're actually going to be neocons.
- [54:21]
Anna Kasparian
There's no reason.
- [54:22]
James Polis
And then Trump rises up and it's like, we're really, you know, we're going to literally become the neocons. That whole, whole experiment, whatever, it was not just avoiding war with Iran, but trying to cut a deal with Iran, it didn't work. You know, whatever you want to say about sort of slicing and dicing the ideology there, which was bad in its own right, but it just didn't work. And it left the left wing in America with this really sort of schizophrenic mix of interests and motivations. I'm glad it's not my job to untangle that because it's going to take some work.
- [54:59]
Anna Kasparian
You know, that's actually a really good point. I never thought about the continuation of neoconservatism in the Obama era because he expanded Bush era foreign policy. Right. Including the drone war and, and, and.
- [55:16]
James Polis
For all of Biden.
- [55:17]
Anna Kasparian
So did Trump in his first term, the drone, like the drone strikes. In fact, the Trump administration in his first term decided, oh, there's so much collateral damage. Meaning we've killed so many civilians as a result of this drone war. We're just gonna stop disclosing it.
- [55:32]
James Polis
Right.
- [55:32]
Anna Kasparian
So, you know, but honestly, with Trump's first term, I don't know how much of that was really Donald Trump's decision making or how much of it was Pompeo and Bolton. You get what I'm saying?
- [55:43]
James Polis
I do. And I can tell you that it was. You know, you would be hard pressed to find a president throughout all of American history who was as hamstrung in many cases by his quote, unquote own people as Trump was in the first term. For sure ye the Biden years. You know, Obama's just up the street in colorama running that administration, obviously. I mean, I think we can say now that it's obvious that he never really left. Right.
- [56:09]
Anna Kasparian
Well, now, yeah, it's funny because I feel a little bad poking fun at Republicans who were like, biden's not really the president, it's Obama. I thought it was a joke. I'm like, come on. Nah, it turns out Obama was still very much involved behind the scenes. Yeah. I mean, look, I don't know how many decisions Obama made, like, within that administration. I think in terms of foreign policy, Anthony Blinken was making foreign policy decisions.
- [56:37]
James Polis
Right.
- [56:38]
Anna Kasparian
But in terms of the Democratic Party overall, Obama is still very much influential, obviously.
- [56:44]
James Polis
Oh, 100%. You can just go back to the primaries when it was looking like it was gonna be just a free for all. You know, it was like, what was it, 90, 92, and it was like the 12 dwarfs or whatever. And then it's that primary season when the spectacle of Mayor Pete and Kamala just sort of like fighting to death. Picks up the phone, you know, one night, sort of makes a few calls, and Biden wins South Carolina and never looked back.
- [57:09]
Anna Kasparian
Yep.
- [57:10]
James Polis
I mean, he was an incredibly powerful dude. And I must admit that, you know, not particularly big hearted to laugh at Obama in the closing stages of that campaign when he was like, sweating frustration sweat, looking haggard, like, not happy having to do the rallies. But, you know, comeuppance, man. Comeuppance is a.
- [57:32]
Anna Kasparian
It's kind of wild how. How less powerful Obama seemed during this pat. Or influential toward the electorate.
- [57:42]
James Polis
Obama was, in this last election, less generational, I think.
- [57:45]
Anna Kasparian
I think so too. That's like the scariest thing about getting older. Right. If you're not careful, it's so easy to lose touch.
- [57:53]
James Polis
It comes for us.
- [57:54]
Anna Kasparian
All right.
- [57:55]
James Polis
Exactly.
- [57:56]
Anna Kasparian
Totally. I mean, I feel it when it comes to the media industry, because I don't know Tell me if you think this is the case. I just think like over produced, super professionalized newscasts are just not hot right now at all. Like people kind of just want to tune in to something that was slapped together. The hosts look like they just rolled out of bed. Like, you know, they just want people they can relate to. Not these like hyper polished, you know, well spoken, hyper produced people.
- [58:26]
James Polis
Yeah, I think, you know, I think that's right. It's. It's gotta be rough being CNN or whoever right now.
- [58:32]
Anna Kasparian
Totally. Yeah.
- [58:33]
James Polis
Because it's not your sort. Your infrastructure is imprisoning you in the format and people are gonna start asking uncomfortable questions if you have this established media monolith that starts putting up, they caved a long time ago. We're just going to be reading tweets on the air. That's it. That was shaky enough as it was going to the level of it's going to be the host and the smartphone. Well then what do you need this building for? And what do you need this staff for? And why should you even. Is cable TV as a whole, those kinds of questions are real and I'm not sure how those big cablers are going to keep them at bay. But I do think, why have podcasts been so successful? And I think the answer is a question of length. Well, why are podcasts so long and why are they so successful if they're so long? And I think the answer has something to do with. People want to slip into that kind of banter mode.
- [59:30]
Anna Kasparian
Totally.
- [59:30]
James Polis
And if you are bantering, and I know some people like to just 2x the podcast, but even still, I think a lot of people now would rather 2x a podcast than listen to something that's tighter at 1x.
- [59:42]
Anna Kasparian
Totally. And I think it has to do with the depth of long form conversations when you're doing a formatted typical newscast and you got to go to break and you have to have different stories in different segments. I mean, if you watch any given story that's being covered on cnn, you barely know what the story's about. Like you just know the basics, like super surface level. But I think most people are way more intelligent than that. Meaning, you know, I think most people have a voracious appetite for information. I think they're intellectually curious, they want more information, but more importantly, they want to think about things a little more critically. And you're not able to do that if you're just watching, you know, a two minute segment on an incredibly important foreign policy story, for instance.
- [60:38]
James Polis
Absolutely.
- [60:39]
Anna Kasparian
Yeah.
- [60:39]
James Polis
No, I mean Especially when you see the credit or the chiron, and it's like, trump bad. Even if you vociferously agree that Trump bad. This, this is not a product for you. There's nothing to consume. There's nothing to engage with. You're like, I don't need, like, Gloria Vanderbilt, like, silver haired sun to tell me what I already know or believe. Right. There's no room for it to breathe. And, you know, we're kind of out of time here. We could do the podcast thing and go three hours, maybe one day. But, you know, Gavin Newsom, again, like, the guy who's the trend chaser, seems to understand that if you don't let it breathe, people are just gonna tune you out.
- [61:20]
Anna Kasparian
That's very true. Yep.
- [61:22]
James Polis
Yeah. Anna Kasparian, thanks so much for joining us.
- [61:24]
Anna Kasparian
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
- [61:25]
James Polis
Of course. All right, that's all the time we got today. So if you are on YouTube, give us that. Like, smash the subscribe until you can subscribe. No More subscribe to BlazeTV until next time around. This is Zero Hour. I am James Polis, and may God have mercy on us all.