Ep 94 | 'The Young Turks' Founder Admits Conservatives Were Right About the Deep State All Along | Cenk Uygur

Summary

Podcast Summary: Zero Hour with James Poulos

Episode: Ep 94 | 'The Young Turks' Founder Admits Conservatives Were Right About the Deep State All Along | Cenk Uygur
Release Date: April 20, 2025
Host: James Polis
Guest: Cenk Uygur, Founder of The Young Turks

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1. Introduction

In Episode 94 of Zero Hour with James Poulos, host James Polis engages in a candid discussion with Cenk Uygur, the founder of The Young Turks and a prominent figure in progressive media. The conversation delves into the evolving political landscape in America, examining the shifting dynamics between the establishment, populism, and the influence of media.

2. The Establishment and the Legacy of Obama

James initiates the conversation by reflecting on his past interactions with The Young Turks and reminiscing about the left's critique of Obama's administration, particularly regarding war policies and surveillance practices.

Key Discussion Points:

• Obama's Establishment Ties: Uygur discusses how Obama's administration was perceived as establishment-aligned, which later vindicated certain progressive critiques.

• Changing Perceptions: The shift in how Obama's legacy is viewed by progressives, recognizing that his policies may have caused more harm than anticipated.

Notable Quote:

“If you're in the reality-based world. Yeah, then I feel vindicated.” — Cenk Uygur [03:01]

3. Media Bias and Reality-Based Reporting

Uygur articulates his concerns regarding mainstream media's shift from objective reporting to propaganda, emphasizing that media framing often distorts political realities.

Key Discussion Points:

• News vs. Propaganda: Differentiating between actual news reporting and media serving as propaganda tools.

• Corruption in Politics: Highlighting how donor money influences politicians, undermining genuine political discourse.

Notable Quote:

“Mainstream media is the least objective, the least truthful.” — Cenk Uygur [05:05]

4. Election Predictions and Analysis

Reflecting on past elections, particularly the 2016 and 2020 presidential races, Uygur shares his analytical approach and the backlash he faced for his predictions.

Key Discussion Points:

• 2016 Election Insight: Uygur's early prediction of Trump's victory and the subsequent underestimation by establishment media.

• 2020 Election Outcome: Discussing the unexpected dynamics and the establishment's realization of public discontent.

Notable Quote:

“Trump is a fake populist, but he's at least doing populism at a time when the country's in a populist mood.” — Cenk Uygur [07:43]

5. The Deep State and Political Establishment

The conversation navigates the blurred lines between left and right in defining the "deep state," with Uygur emphasizing that both sides target the establishment in their narratives.

Key Discussion Points:

• Defining the Deep State: Understanding differing interpretations between the left and right regarding entrenched power structures.

• Character Assassinations: Transition from physical assassinations of the past to modern-day character smears in political discourse.

Notable Quote:

“The establishment's in power... the real problem's up top.” — Cenk Uygur [33:31]

6. Character Assassinations in Politics

Uygur recounts his personal experiences with being "canceled" by various political factions, illustrating the pervasive nature of character assassinations in today's political environment.

Key Discussion Points:

• Triple Crown of Cancel Culture: Being targeted by the left, right, and center for past statements and actions.

• Impact on Political Figures: Examples of how politicians like Madison Cawthorn and Matt Gaetz face relentless character attacks despite their policy positions.

Notable Quote:

“I've been canceled by the left, the right and the middle.” — Cenk Uygur [25:36]

7. Populism in 2025

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the concept of populism, its manifestations on both ends of the political spectrum, and its implications for future political movements.

Key Discussion Points:

• Defining Populism: Differentiating between populist left and populist right, and their shared goals against the establishment.

• Populist Policies: Highlighting widely supported policies like paid family leave that cross traditional party lines.

• Horseshoe Theory Critique: Challenging the notion that populist movements on both ends converge toward the same policy outcomes.

Notable Quotes:

“Paid family leaves a great example. Moms get 12 weeks off after they have a baby. It's very pro family. That's why 74% of Republicans are in favor of it.” — Cenk Uygur [43:27]
“Mainstream media tells you the most unpopular people are the moderates.” — Cenk Uygur [48:13]

8. Technology's Impact on Politics and Populism

The episode shifts focus to the role of technology and social media in shaping modern political discourse, including the rise of online media as a battleground for populism versus establishment control.

Key Discussion Points:

• Online Media as a Free Space: Uygur advocates for online platforms as avenues of freedom with fewer gatekeepers compared to traditional media.

• Crypto Regulation: Debating the need for balanced regulation in the cryptocurrency space to prevent fraud while fostering innovation.

• Tech Elites vs. Populism: Examining how tech moguls like Elon Musk influence political agendas and maintain the status quo.

Notable Quotes:

“Online media, we're in the woods.” — Cenk Uygur [56:14]
“Buyer beware, right? Especially on the meme coins.” — Cenk Uygur [60:45]

9. Predictions and Future Outlook

Uygur shares his bold predictions regarding U.S. foreign policy, particularly the evolving relationship with Israel, and the potential for significant political shifts driven by populist movements.

Key Discussion Points:

• Israel Lobby Influence: Predicting a clash between MAGA supporters and the Israeli lobby, potentially altering U.S. foreign policy stances.

• Populist vs. Establishment Dynamics: Foreseeing continued tension as populist movements challenge long-standing political dynasties and donor influences.

Notable Quote:

“I think that Israel could lose a political battle in America is unimaginable.” — Cenk Uygur [65:39]

10. Conclusion

In wrapping up the episode, James and Cenk reflect on the persistent influence of the establishment in politics, the potential for genuine populist change, and the ongoing battle against media manipulation and character assassination.

Key Takeaways:

• Need for Cross-Party Populism: Emphasizing the importance of collaborative efforts between populist left and right to dismantle establishment control.

• Vigilance Against Media Bias: Encouraging listeners to critically assess media narratives and seek objective truths beyond propagandistic framing.

Notable Quote:

“Your bubble is not going to save you.” — James Polis [08:32]

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Overall, Episode 94 of Zero Hour offers a deep dive into the complexities of modern American politics, highlighting the challenges posed by entrenched establishment forces, the resurgence of populist movements, and the transformative role of technology and media. Cenk Uygur provides insightful critiques backed by personal experiences, urging listeners to recognize and resist the pervasive influence of power structures that hinder genuine democratic progress.

Transcript

[James Polis]

This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. It's tax season and we're all a bit tired of numbers, but here's one you need to $16.5 billion. That's how much the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud last year. Now here's a good number.

[Cenk Uygur]

100 million.

[James Polis]

That's how many data points Lifelock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed. Save up to 40% your first [e-mail] podcast terms apply. With more than 30 billion video views, he reaches millions weekly. And he's here now to open a discourse across the aisle, if the aisle still exists. Cenk Uyghur joins us in studio next. I'm James Polis. This is Zero Hour Cenk. We are founded and hosts the largest online news show in the entire world. You know them as the Young Turks. He co founded the Justice Democrats and is the best selling author of Justice Is Coming. Welcome, Cenk.

[Cenk Uygur]

Thank you, James. Appreciate it.

[James Polis]

Thanks for coming. Is when is justice going to be here?

[Cenk Uygur]

2028, I hope.

[James Polis]

2028. Okay. All right, let's, let's get into this. Lots of people, you know, sort of scratching their heads for one reason or the other. This is definitely a strange moment. It's going to, it's going to continue to be strange for a while, I think. I'm really interested in the way that the categories of right and left have kind of been scrambled and morphed. I know you've been tracking this stuff for a very long time, so let's get into it. Trivia for those playing along at home. I was a guest on Young Turks quite a few times back in the day when, when I was living in LA and you guys were, were, were, were doing the thing. I, I fondly remember that Glenn Greenwald gave me the thumbs up. So that was good enough for your bookers. And now, now here we are today. Back then, you know, you guys, you and Glenn and that whole kind of the, the, the LA left, you know, Oliver Stone had folks hanging out all the time. It was definitely a scene. And there was a lot of attacking Obama from the left, attacking Obama for the wars, for droning American citizens, all that kind of stuff that now, you know, for a minute it looked like that was gonna be ancient history. But now, like that faction of the left seems like, you know, maybe you guys have a reason to pat yourselves on the back a little bit. Maybe, you know, the Obama legacy has proven to be more pain and suffering than certainly what he was selling. Do you feel vindicated by what's happened with Trump and kind of where the left finds itself today.

[Cenk Uygur]

So if you're in the reality based world. Yeah, then I feel vindicated. But remember, everybody looks at everything from a different perspective. Right? So there's tons of people now that are either on the left or the right that would look at it and go, oh my God, Cenk was totally wrong. If he had just backed Joe Biden, more Biden would have won. Like they there. There's a whole group of people that really believe that.

[James Polis]

Right. It's actually all your fault.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. Oh, by that happens all the time and it's always both sides and it doesn't really matter. Like, so they'll say, like, you're not important, you're not relevant. And then they'll say you swung the election. Well, wait, which one is it? Right. And so if you just hadn't spoken out against the things that Obama was doing wrong or Biden was doing wrong, or Kamala Harris was doing wrong, we would have won. And that assumption is. And they don't realize it. It's an implicit assumption planted in their head but by mainstream media. News is not news. News is propaganda. So if you have your side not backing your guy 100%, then he's. Then he's not on your side. He's not doing news. In reality. No, that is news. News is your. You give credit and discredit wherever it's due, and especially to politicians. But news has not been news for so long. People forgotten. They're like demanding propaganda and they're like, why won't you say that Obama is a saint and benighted? And I'm like, but we're on the left. We don't want him drilling in the Gulf. He just said he's gonna drill in the Gulf. On what planet should I not criticize that? Are we supposed to morph our policies around these politicians and their donors? No. No deal. So look, if again, you look at objective reality, Obama was way more right wing. And now finally, people are beginning to say that and say, oh yeah, my nickname for the establishment. And that used to drive people crazy on the left. And we lost a good amount of members, subscribers, etc. When I did that. But now people look back and go, oh my God, you're right. He was the establishment. He did listen to his donors.

[James Polis]

The guy who never left Washington was the establishment. Imagine.

[Cenk Uygur]

Oh, and then Joe Biden. See, that's what I'm talking about. This. And I get it. The left wing has a Certain perspective. And that gets put into a lot of their broadcasts, etc. Are we. Do we do it sometimes? Of course, we're all human, right? And we come at it from a certain perspective. The right wing media certainly has a very strong perspective and that colors how they view things. It's not like, oh, left wing's bias, but right wing's a bunch of saints. And they got it exactly right. Not even close, in my opinion. We could have that conversation, but most of all, mainstream media is the ones that claim to be objective. And I think they're the least objective, the least truthful. Not because their facts are wrong, but because their framing is so absurd that politicians aren't crooks. They're crooks. The donor money doesn't affect politicians. You gotta be mental to think it doesn't affect politicians. So the Democratic Party unfortunately has gone so pro corporate, we've been trying to pull them back from the left and they wouldn't listen. And one of the things that we were saying, James, is if you don't listen, you're gonna lose the American people. They don't like corporate donors, they don't like corporate media. And they're like, oh, you're crazy. Everybody loves that. What are you talking about?

[James Polis]

Right?

[Cenk Uygur]

Oh yeah, yeah. And only the right wing takes the money. I'm like, really? Because Nancy, I can swear that I saw that Nancy Pelosi took a billion dollars in donations. So this idea has always been absurd. If we had gone in the populist direction of Bernie Sanders, we would have won. But they can't get it through their thick head. They're like, no, we have a new and improved corporate robot.

[James Polis]

Yeah, well, at a certain point they became captive to that establishment and it's really hard to pivot on a dime. Right. I mean, maybe if it's a complete emergency in the making. But they thought they had Trump nailed down. They thought they had him in a box. They threw the kitchen sink at him and it didn't work.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So in 2016, on ABC's this Week, right after the DNC, Hillary Clinton's got a 10 point lead, she's at her height. They asked us to predict who's going to win the election. I'm the only one on the panel that says Trump. Everybody laughs out loud, right? And so they said, why you hate him more than any of us on this panel? Why do you think Trump's going to win if you don't like him so much? Cuz I'm not in the. Do I like them or not business. When I'm doing analysis of the news, I'm in, hey, what's objective reality and what's going to happen? And I explained at the time, and everybody can see the clips for themselves online. Right? So Trump is a, is in my opinion, a fake populist, but he's at least doing populism at a time when the country's in a populist mood and they don't like the establishment. And everybody else on the panel, of course, is establishment.

[James Polis]

So.

[Cenk Uygur]

So they're like this crazy guy thinks the country doesn't like the establishment.

[James Polis]

Right?

[Cenk Uygur]

No. They're so blinded by their own bubble, James. That's the most important thing. Everybody's in their bubble. And in their bubble they're 100% right. And everybody they know says they're 100% right and they don't need to talk to anyone else. And there's no way that they're wrong. Well, what happened in 2024, 2016 was the beginning of it. But 2024 to me was. Was the most watershed moment for so many reasons, because the establishment finally realized the country hates them.

[James Polis]

Well, you know, the bubble offers security, it offers predictability. It offers, you know, people have your back. A lot of reasons to, to retreat into the bubble. And what we saw in 2024 was actually, no, your bubble is not going to save you.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, 100%. But look, it's happening now on the Right.

[James Polis]

That's right.

[Cenk Uygur]

So you go on X and they think Elon Musk has a 200% approval rating. Right. Because everybody on X is like el. Elon. Right. And, and then you look, and I said just a couple of days ago, I'm like, guys, his numbers are going to fall off a cliff. Why? Because 77 million people that voted for Donald Trump aren't all hardcore maga and they're not all tech bros, they're not all on X, etc. They're real Americans that are living their lives. Didn't like inflation, didn't like the situation with immigration and crime, etc. Right. So your poll comes out literally the next day. Boom, fell off a Cliff. He's a third. Like, he was at 26%, strongly favorable. He used to be at 47. That's for Republicans, for the country. 13%, just strongly favorable. To be fair, if you include, like, somewhat favorable, I think he got up to like 28%. But these are really bad numbers.

[James Polis]

Well, this is, these are patterns of politics. This is human nature. You know, you love the guy before you vote for him, he gets into office, reality sets in. And those numbers, you know, they come down. They always come down.

[Cenk Uygur]

So to that point in the right wing bubble right now, Trump, maga, et cetera, is ascendant. And they think we could do whatever we want, we got a mandate, et cetera. The Republicans won the popular vote for the first time in like 20 years. And Trump won it by what, like a point and a half or two points in that ballpark, which is like a huge sea change, right? At the same time, guys, winning by 2% for the first time in 20 years is not a mandate.

[James Polis]

It's just very easy to get high in your own supply. Everyone's susceptible to it. And it's easy to see how and why people get political power and they overextend themselves.

[Cenk Uygur]

Exactly. And look, I said it as a warning to the left. Hey, watch out. We're running into an iceberg here in 18 different ways. One, stop being pro establishment, stop listening to mainstream media. But also with Biden, I was like, there's a 0% chance this brother's gonna win. I said it a year and a half ago. I said, look, anyone who follows politics knows if you're an incumbent in the 40s, your chance of winning is very, very low. Joe Biden is in the 30s. He's in the mid-30s, sometimes he drops into the low 30s. That is a zero percent chance of winning. Zero, right? Plus he doesn't, he can't talk. You need a candidate who can speak. And what's amazing about how thick the bubbles are is most of the Democratic voters, cuz they were watching Morning Joe and the View and now these new online shows that are, I got my issues with the far left, that's a different topic. But the ones I'm talking about in this case are like super pro establishment. They were telling their audience, no, Joe Biden's young, right? Like behind the scenes, he's young and dynamic. Yeah, yeah. And what's amazing about that is not the level of the lie, is the guys going, oh, we defeated Matty Care. And they're like, no, no, behind the scenes he's like, woohoo. Yeah. Like no one could possibly believe that. Except tens of millions of people believe that. They really believe that Joe Biden was the only one who could beat Trump and he was a great candidate, et cetera. Now on the right, we've got folks thinking, oh, okay, since we're ascendant, we don't need to worry about figuring out where the middle of the country is, where you win. Elections. We're just going to go all the way to the right. Okay. And we're gonna like, why is. Okay. Trump appoints this BD guy in public diplomacy, public diplomacy in the Middle east. And it turns out he's been saying crazy white nationalist stuff. Why. Why do you want to lose the country? But people can't get out of their bubble, and they think, oh, that's no big deal. That's no big deal. So what? He's a white nationalist. So what? Right? You guys are always calling everyone fascist, and that's true, too. We call people fascists way too much.

[James Polis]

I think that's when the bubble popped, is when it was Hitler, Hitler, Hitler. And then Trump's elected, and it's like, well, we're gonna have lunch with, you know, I was just trying suddenly, so. Oh, so. So you're cool to have, you know, tea and crumpets with. With Hitler now. And I mean, that's. It was just an embarrassment, you know, and that's the risk of making that kind of rhetoric.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So look, Trump has it coming because he shouldn't have done what he did in 2020. He lost the election. He should have just handed over power peacefully, but he can't let it go. To this day, he can't let it go. He's still got an enemy's list. He's going to drive himself into being unpopular again because it's his insecurity. It's so obvious it's his insecurity. Okay, So I know a lot of people disagree on the right, and they'll be super mad at me for saying it, but that's what I'm saying. Guys in your bubble. Trump won that election, but for the overwhelming majority of the country, they think your guys are in la la land. He did not win the vote at all. At all. So how could. One of the ways you could tell us. So this time he won, and everybody said he won, and there was no ands, ifs, or buts, and he won every swing state. Nobody contested a damn thing. They're like, oh, yeah, okay, he won. So when he wins, it's super easy to acknowledge. Now we got blue and on, though. People are driving me nuts. They're like, no, comma, actually won, right?

[James Polis]

And the cycle begins again.

[Cenk Uygur]

And here we go again.

[James Polis]

It's so easy to manipulate people, you know, And I think that's why January 6th stuck in so many people's minds this time around when they thought, you know, you can't just. What? I think they had, like, 500 FBI agents on the ground for J6 it was like some ridiculous slice of all available agents smothered with operatives and throwing people in jail, people committing suicide in prison. Just disgraceful, extremely anti American and totally blown out of all proportion to what was going on on the ground that day with people who are just there to have a rally. I think that more than the actual sort of debate over whether or not he actually won and by how much and how much of it was. Was fraud and how much of it wasn't, it was really just what happened to people who turned out to support Trump on that day peacefully that I think led to the result that we're seeing now.

[Cenk Uygur]

You're talking about 2020, January 6th. The January 6th. Yeah. No, I'm not sure I agree with that. So here's my take on it. Whole bunch of people came out to support Trump and most of them did not go to the Capitol. Okay? So first of all, people don't talk about that. So the folks who went to go see him speak and didn't go to the Capitol, didn't do anything wrong. They just went to go see a president speak. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Right. Then for the January 6th guys that actually went into the building, look, we on the left say riots are the voice of the unheard. That's a quote from Martin Luther King. Right, right, right. And what I try to explain to the left now, I'm going to be both generous and very ungenerous to those folks. The generous side is, I get it, a lot of MAGA didn't feel served by the establishment at all. And they hate him. And I get why they hate him. I hate him from the left for a similar reason. Right. And so the voice of that average Trump voter, et cetera, was not heard in the media, was not heard in the halls of power. And so that riot was a little bit of the voice of the unheard. Okay? And so I get it. On the other hand, now, you broke into the building, you chanted, and I know not everybody chanted this, but a lot of people chanted, hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence. That's a disaster in the United States of America. Talking about murdering the vice president then. And then now I'm going to really piss off the right. Then they, we have witnesses who say Trump was told they're talking about murdering your vice president and he says he deserved it. I'm never going to vote for that guy. Never. Okay, so he had it coming in terms of like, don't tell me he's pure and innocent. On the other hand, it doesn't mean that all of his voters think that. Like, on the left, they think, oh, everybody on the right knows that it was a coup attempt, Know that, knew that Trump was trying to steal the election and they were trying to steal it for him. Because they're all fascist. No, no, no, no. They don't think they're fascist. They don't think they were trying to steal elections. They thought they were trying to prevent the theft of an election.

[James Polis]

Well, that's the power of propaganda. And it wasn't just propaganda coming out of the mainstream media. You know, this is deep state orchestrated stuff. You know, you've been tracking this stuff as long as guys on the right have. And one of the things that's scrambled those categories of right and left is what's your attitude toward the deep state, toward the intelligence community? So much of that has bubbled up to the surface since the Obama years. That the Trump 2.0 coalition that you got that, you know, is coming from, from whether it's. It's Maha people, Kennedy people, people who have been on the left and have been stalwart against, you know, Big Ag, Big Pharma, Deep state. That is, I think, why we got into a situation where Trump was able to win to a degree that there wasn't any sort of controversy over his win because of those people.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So, look, the right and the left are probably going to have a little bit different definitions of deep state, establishment, et cetera. But look, we can't help but talk about the things we disagree on. Right? And we've got to stop catching feelings every time we talk about things we disagree on. And this applies definitely to the left and right. Okay? So sometimes, like, I remember being in a debate once and I made a comment about Melania being an immigrant. I mean, those folks nearly attacked me on the spot. Right, okay, yes, but you can't say. I get to say whatever I want about the deep state, the establishment, the Democrats, the liberals and this and that and the other thing. But if you say anything about my beloved Trump, then I'm deeply offended. No, no, stop being offended. And I mean, especially on the right, like, the whole thing is, oh, don't get offended. So don't get offended when I say something about Trump.

[James Polis]

But now it's me, now I get to be offended.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right? So it's okay. I'm another American with a different opinion. Nothing wrong with that. And of course, on the left, guys, my God, we are offended at Everything. We're offended at everything. And it's so annoying. And so the fact that the left can't see that is amazing. Because now, to my friends on the left who think, oh, no, no, you're just validating the right wing, etc. Guys, there's objective reality. When 79% of the country tells you that they don't want transgender women playing in women's sports, okay, you can say that. That you don't agree with that position. Nothing wrong with that. There's 18% who say yes, Right. But understand that you're in the 18% and you're not in the 79%. It doesn't mean you're wrong. It doesn't mean that one person is more right morally or not, but it does mean you're in the minority. And. And your positions seem radical to others. Right? And they can't get that through their head. They think. No, everybody thinks. It's only the fascists who say, keep Messi out of women's soccer or LeBron out of women's basketball. No, it's not just the fascists. It's 80% of the country. So please. And when you go to burst these bubbles, the people inside the bubbles hate you.

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

So that's the situation I'm in.

[James Polis]

Well, look, I think that outrage is very uncharismatic. And you've had a couple generations of Americans who have been shown through media that, you know, whoever is the most outraged is the most virtuous. Whoever is the biggest victim is the ultimate hero. And that kind of messaging has created this sort of bizarre understanding of what charisma and what authenticity is. And it's just, you know, that encounter, the bursting of that bubble, waking up to that reality where it's like, actually, no, you are not the main character just because you're crying into TikTok.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So look, I've got folks who are, you know, independents. I've got folks who are hardcore Democrats and hardcore progressives and populists, all in our TYT network. Okay? So we got the whole range from the middle to the far left, right? So I try to tell the folks on the far left, you've got to be able to modulate, right? So when a guy like BD is nominated for the post that he has and he has these outrageous things that he says, then today there's a story about a guy on Doge who said, normalize Indian hate. And then you read all. And then he hates the Jews, the Muslims. He hates everybody that isn't Christian and white. Now the left thinks that's everyone on the right. No, no, no, no, no, no. There's 77 million people who voted for Trump. They're not all those guys. But for the right, when those guys pop up, can you not see why people would be concerned? So the guy who says normalize Indian hate, you think if you're Indian and who an American citizen who's South Asian, Right. That that's not gonna bother you? Of course that's gonna bother you. Of course that's gonna bother you. Right. But I just constantly. We do this on the young Turks all the time. Shoe on the other foot. Okay, if it's a story about Trump and the media is reacting a certain way, I say now, how would you feel if that story was about Bernie Sanders? Right. Or if the story's about Bernie Sanders. I asked the right wing, how would you feel if that was about Trump? Right, right. So just keep doing shoe on the other foot because it helps you to realize. Oh, right, that's the other. They're looking at it that way. Not everybody's looking at it the same way. I am.

[James Polis]

Well, and this is kind of like, you know, part of the consequence of living in an extremely Internet mediated political landscape. Like people say things on the Internet and if you have free speech on the Internet and you use it, you know, it might be on a major platform, it might be buried somewh somewhere in green text somewhere, it might be on a comment on a blog from, from 15 years ago, you know, and then it's going to get surfaced. And whatever is the sort of the most damaging thing that you've ever said on the Internet is going to be dug up by people whose basic, you know, whether it's, whether they're being paid or not or they're unpaid contributors to just perpetuating that oppo research machine, it's going to be surfaced. And half the time it's people, you know, saying things when they were teenagers or saying things that, that they didn't take seriously or said things just to try to get a rise out of someone or, you know, was, were ultimately, you know, saying things that, that cut across whatever their identity seemed to be. You know, it's like, it's like these guys, there's so many half Jewish guys who are accused of being fascists on the Internet because they supported Donald Trump. I mean, there's no way to stop that outrage machine from twirling and twirling if every time someone says something on the Internet, it's going to be resurfaced. And held again against them.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right, so two things about that. One, for our side, modulate, because when a true bad guy comes, nobody believes us anymore.

[James Polis]

Yeah, right. You're just crying wolf.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right. And for both sides, understand that when someone is disliked by the establishment, there will almost always be a character assassination of them. Okay? So in the old days, you guys call it the deep state, you know, and that's fine for the purpose of this especially, because in the old days, I think the real deep state did exist. I mean, the one that did assassinations, et cetera. Right. So in those days, they would do literal assassinations. And by the way, often of left wing figures. Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, jfk, Fred Hampton, et cetera. And if the FBI thought this guy's causing trouble and we don't like it, they put a bullet in his head and we were done with it. But there was a problem with that. It made martyrs of those people and it made their causes more popular, not less popular. Okay? So eventually the establishment figured out, wait a minute, instead of doing physical assassinations, why don't we do character assassinations? Because then when you smear the author of the idea, it makes the idea less popular instead of more popular. And that way we get rid of the guy and we hurt the idea. So now you'll see, whenever someone's outside the establishment, all of a sudden, character assassinations start to pile up.

[James Polis]

Well, this is RFK Jr. All over the place.

[Cenk Uygur]

So now RFK Jr. Is a funny category. He's a category of himself. But you're right. So Bobby Kennedy is totally outside of the entire political spectrum. I knew him when he was on the left. I know him a tiny bit now. And so he's an environmental lawyer that challenges giant corporations. Now he's challenging giant pharmaceutical companies kind of from the right. Right? So, oh, my God, everybody's blitzkrieging on character assassinations. And normally. And so here's how you should judge whether a character assassination is true. Like, ah, damn it. He really did do that. Right. And I don't like that. Or it's bs. What did they find? Because when they go to do a character assassination, they'll look at the haystack of your life and try to find the needles. Right? So, for example, they did it to me. I've been canceled, I don't know, half a dozen, A dozen times. I've lost track. And I've been canceled by the left, the right and the middle.

[James Polis]

Yeah, so.

[Cenk Uygur]

So I've the triple crown. Thank you. I appreciate it. Triple crown. Hat trick. I got it. All right, so originally, when the alt right came to cancel me, when I found a just Democrats, they, they looked and looked and looked for a problem. And it was in the MeToo era, right? So they, they dug so much that they literally called every woman that's ever worked at the Young Turks. And every one of them said, no, Cenk's a great boss. We're good. I, thanks for asking. But like, no, this is a great place to work. Like, damn it, he hasn't done anything wrong. He's super boring. He just looks at his computer all day long.

[James Polis]

Gotta keep digging, right?

[Cenk Uygur]

Gotta keep digging. So then they go to the Wayback Machine, which is where the Internet keeps deleted stuff. I had deleted blogs from 15 years ago at that point, right? Because I looked out. I was a kid trying to get attention, like little shock jock, that kind of thing, right? And it was mainly jokes about myself. So one line is, I write a column about how I can't I be a little crass here, okay? But go for it, okay? I can't get laid in South Beach. And I'm like, oh my God, how incompetent do you have to be? And I'm making my fun of myself, the whole article. And near the end I say, you know, the real problem is the genes of women are problematic because they won't sleep with us as readily as we'd like, right? That's obviously joking about how you can't even get laid with all these models in south beach, right? And it's about myself, right? They take that and they go like, good. We dug so far. We found this rusty old tiny needle in the bottom of the haystack. He once wrote something that was a joke and can be misinterpreted. They put it out there. Then the left wing, like the Justice Democrat staff, et cetera, all the circling, oh, they, that was catnip for them. So they're, boom. They, they love. And they're like, ah, you're a female. You're sexist, misogynist.

[James Polis]

You gotta go, ah, we kn knowing.

[Cenk Uygur]

And I'm like, guys, guys, they're looking for a needle in a haystack. And then, by the way, then I run for Congress and the New York Times, infinitely worse than any left winger or any right winger. They say, oh, he has a well known history of being sexist against women. But then they started making things up. They're like, he's a long history of being anti Muslim. I'm like, I am Muslim. You didn't even Write that, right? So my background's Muslim and I'm an atheist now. Right. But my family is, my background is, my culture is, etc. And the new York Times pretended because of an, you know, what that needle was. And I'm gonna get to the point for everybody in a sec. But for, but it's an interesting experience that I've lived. So that needle was. I once made a joke about, you know, these, both the Orthodox, like fundamentalist Muslims and Orthodox Jews, they wear different outfits, right? And to be fair, so does the Pope. Right? And so, and they like some of the Orthodox have, have, have like these giant Russian coats and the big hilarious hats and stuff. And the Muslims have their robes and they got their skull cap. And I'm like, do they think it's a fashion contest? They're going to get up to the pearly gates and God's gonna be like, oh, you were really good, but oh, you're dressed really nicely. Come on up. Right. And so it's just a joke. It's, you know, you may, if you're Orthodox or if you're, you know, more fundamentalist Islam, you might be super offended by that.

[James Polis]

But you probably heard worse.

[Cenk Uygur]

But you probably heard way worse, right? So anyways, they're like long history of being anti Muslim and anti Semitic.

[James Polis]

Yeah. Shameless.

[Cenk Uygur]

Off of one joke over a 20 year career. Are you kidding me?

[James Polis]

Well, I knew we were in trouble. I don't think I hallucinated this when, when the New York Times actually did a write up on the New York Times shifting from hard news to what they called juicy narratives. And I was like, okay, yeah, it's over.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, here we go. So now when you look at Bobby, I'll give you a good example of one on the right, Madison Cawthorn. Okay? Madison Cawthorn, super right winger, he's liked by MAGA, he's liked by a lot of folks, etc. He says two things against Republican senators.

[James Polis]

Yeah. Lights out.

[Cenk Uygur]

Lights out. Oh, they do orgies, they do coke, whatever they do. I don't know if it's true or not true, but he said it, right? All of a sudden they got pictures of him. Did you just find the pictures? No. You had the pictures all along, didn't you? Right?

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

And so now what is it? Oh, a character assassination based on some pictures he took God knows how many years ago.

[James Polis]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

Now, I don't agree with the brother on policy, but I can see a character assassination when I, you know, especially one that clear. Right. And sometimes people did do it, but they're trying to take them, take them out. Like Matt Gaetz is a good example. You know, look, I don't know exactly what he did, but it doesn't look good. But having said that, why did they come after Matt Gaetz and now someone else. He's doing anti corruption bills. He's doing, hey, don't let them trade stocks. He stopped taking corporate PAC money. All of a sudden we got a problem with Matt Gaetz.

[James Polis]

Yeah, Surprise, surprise.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right now, Bobby's in a category of his own. Because when you go to look for a needle in a haystack with Bobby, that haystack is filled with needles. I mean, half the haystacks, a needle.

[James Polis]

So he's, he's lived a few lives.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, he has, yes.

[James Polis]

Yeah. Nevertheless, why are they coming after him? Because he's scrambling the categories. He's opening up possibilities for people to make decisions and choices that they wouldn't even be able to imagine if they were trapped inside that bubble.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. And, and also to, to your point about gates and, and all that. And any of them can look, last one. Elliot Spitzer was Democrat, Governor of New York, Attorney General of New York, and he was known as the Sheriff of Wall Street. He comes from a very establishment family, an establishment background. The establishment is very comfortable with him, or was. Then he started to go after the bankers because the bankers were robbing us. And Eliot started pointing that out. And that's when he became known as the Sheriff of Wall Street. And he's putting guys away for ripping people off. Oh, they did not like that. And in this case, they're so brazen that they admitted on camera there's a movie about it called Client Number Nine on, I think it's still on Netflix. And so the donor class goes. Yeah, I didn't like that he was investigating us. So I hired a private investigator to track him until we found what, anything that he could do that he did wrong. And boom, there we found him with an escort. That's it. And then the whole country falls for it, hook, line and sinker. And they go, well, but he was, he was with an escort. It's true. Right. So then women hate him because they.

[James Polis]

Imagine the narrative begins.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. And Roger Stone in that case made up the thing about how he wore black socks. He kept his black socks on. And that creates a visual. Then people hate him more. Meanwhile, they forgot, why are they attacking him? Not because of the escort. They all have escorts themselves. Give me money. I'll hire a private investigator. Every guy on Wall street that's Robb has 12 escorts, okay? But they pretend that that's the problem. But the real problem was he was regulating the bad guys.

[James Polis]

Some would say this is politics, and if you can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen, you know?

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So. But what's. So Trump wins, as you heard earlier, totally against Trump, not gonna vote for him. And I come at it from a very patriotic point of view, and you could say, hey, I disagree with how you're interpreting the facts, but he said, terminate the Constitution after he lost, and I was done with him. Okay? So I love America, I love the Constitution, etc. But that's a lead up to. Now that he won. I had a different feeling than I expected. I was surprised by it, and I just. I tweeted something and then everybody got excited and angry and all this stuff I said. I feel strangely optimistic.

[James Polis]

When did that happen?

[Cenk Uygur]

It. It happened about a week or two weeks after he won. So not after he became president, but after he won. And so think now, here's a guy that I definitely didn't want to win. Why am I feeling this way? Right? And I realized why. It's because. So look, I battle with maga, I'll battle with the right wing. I'll battle with anybody, right? But my real enemy is the establishment. And why? Because the establishment's in power, right? So, like, the average Trump voter is not in power. The average left wing voter is not in power. And what the powerful want us to do is fight each other and hate each other. And if we're so focused on fighting and hating one another, we'll forget that the real problem's up top. Up top. It's the Elliot Spitzer issue, right? So they get you to fight to get you to hate them, but you forget, oh, he was fighting the guys up top, okay? The donor class, et cetera, right? So I wanted Bernie Sanders and the populace left to defeat the establishment. As it turned out, Trump defeated them. And. And now there's a little bit more freedom. Now, why is there more freedom? On the one hand, Trump's terrible against the press, suing everybody who he thinks insulted him or whatever. Brother, you won. Let it go. Let it go.

[James Polis]

Well, this is about libel law, right?

[Cenk Uygur]

This is not solving. No, no.

[James Polis]

It's like, hey, this is a lawsuit against the New York Times. Come on, you're gonna beat up on the Times, right?

[Cenk Uygur]

No, but, James, look at how much the New York Times smeared me. Yeah, and I gave you the tip of the iceberg of that story. That Story gets more and more absurd. But part of the reason I didn't sue them is because we need an aggressive free press that challenges politicians, that challenges the media, et cetera. And if the President, the most powerful person in the country is suing the media, it intimidates them and gets compliance, and I hate it. We don't need more compliance. We need more freedom. Even if it means criticizing the beloved Trump.

[James Polis]

Okay, yeah, I hear that, but libel is libel, right? And I just think that case.

[Cenk Uygur]

But they didn't liable. They didn't come within million miles of libeling him. They libeled me, and I still did sue. They didn't come anywhere near that with Trump. I mean, the whole thing, we just. A 60 Minutes thing that just came out. The answer was exactly what we expected. They didn't hide anything. So I know you guys disagree. I know that's fine. Well, that's a disagreement. But my point is, even though I think Trump goes too far, and I think that that's going against freedom and freedom of the press, freedom of speech, et cetera, the number one problem in this country. And we gotta prioritize this, the number one problem was the establishment media. That was a monopoly. And you were not allowed to go outside the guardrails. Yeah, okay, so I was a host on msnbc, and the minute I went outside the guardrails, warning, warning, warning. So I remember I asked this one writer, I said, can you name me three honest Democrats? I remember, this is back in 2011, okay? So some people think, oh, Django, because Trump won. You're going and talking to the right wing, and now you start to criticize the left. I'm like, yeah, that's. You don't know my career at all. I've been criticizing the Democrats. Yeah. In every way. Right? So I asked the guy, name me three honest Democrats who don't care about donor money. And he named Henry Waxman. I was like, it's good enough. I'll give it to you. He named someone else. I was like, okay, fine. And maybe it was Bernie. And I was like, yeah, that one's real. Right? And then he ran out of names, and he's like, chuck Schumer.

[James Polis]

And I was like, chuck Schumer, number three.

[Cenk Uygur]

No, not honest. Totally works for the donors. I get a talking to afterwards. Hey, Cenk, remember who the home team is, okay? And I'm like, yeah, I know. The home team's the audience. They're like, right? No, not exactly.

[James Polis]

Right?

[Cenk Uygur]

Not exactly. Obama does a absurd press conference where he says, love the Egyptian revolution. Love Hosni Mubarak, our great ally. Like you can't love both. The revolution's against Hosni Mubarak. Don't criticize the president. Why? We're in the news business. You can't criticize him right after a press conference. That's disrespectful. I'm like, I'm pretty sure that we criticized Bush right after press conferences and Cheney right after press conferences. Why are we all of a sudden have a different standard for robot? And I said, look, if you say I can't criticize him right after the press conference out of BS Respect, when can I criticize him? An hour later? A day later? A week later? Let me guess. Whenever it's out of the news cycle? And then you'll tell me, Cenk, what are you going back to that old story for?

[James Polis]

Yeah, you're beginning to understand.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So that monopoly of thought was poison to the country and not being able to go outside of the corporate guardrails, the status quo. So that's why I felt optimistic, because the number one enemy, Darth Vader, establishment media, establishment politicians, had been defeated. Maybe in my opinion, the wrong side defeated him, but at least they were defeated. And now we're in an open playing field.

[James Polis]

It's a real defeat. Those dynasties, the Bushes, the Clintons, the Bidens, that's three for three. And that's a powerful. You call it a sea change. That's what it is.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. And so that's where I said I'd rather be in the populist woods and then in an establishment prison.

[James Polis]

Well, but let's talk about this for a second, though, because, like, populism sort of got a bad name because of the propaganda war and Trump and everything. But now it's like people are. There's an opportunity to actually think about what this means and what a populist agenda would actually look like. So, you know, you talked about the Bernie left and sort of populist coming from the left. People still, I guess, remember Occupy Wall street as sort of an attempt at a populist moment. What does populism look like to you in 2025?

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So first, let me clarify that. I think there are three branches of both wings, right? Both the right and the left. So there's the establishment guys, the establishment Republicans like Mitch McConnell, establishment Democrats like Joe Biden. So those guys are the uniparty. Until Trump and Bernie came around, they were fully in charge, 100% in charge. There was, other than Bernie, in the woods, there was no one fighting them. They had a monopoly on everything. And that was the bad old days. So a lot of Democrats make the mistake of thinking, oh, we gotta go back to those days. No, we don't. I hated those days. Can't stand those days. So that's the establishment wing. Okay, but they're in charge. Or they were in charge, and they still are. I mean, 90% of Congress still unipart party. Right. And so that's just something we both sides have to contend with. But they have almost no real support among the population. So there's no one raises their hand and says, I'm an establishment Republican or I'm an establishment Democrat, because they know it's. That just means you're sucking up to the powerful right and et cetera. So I'll get to what it means in a sec. But okay, so that's one wing, and then second wing is on the other side of the spectrum. Radical left. Radical right. Right. Okay, so the right doesn't want to admit that it has a radical portion. It definitely does. And it's a super scary thing where it scares minorities and LGBTQ folks. We got to get rid of this and we got to get rid of that, et cetera. And by the way, it smears everyone else on the right because then the left says they're all radical right. But that's not true. That's only a portion of the right wing. But now, before you get offended when you're in the right wing, let me tell you. Same thing is true of the left wing. There's a radical left. And so they're the ones who have the. They say crime didn't actually go up. It was a right wing narrative. And I'm like, guys, this crime everywhere. You cannot go to San Francisco or Oakland and not have your car broken into. People started leaving their car doors open because they're like, well, at least I'll save the money on the broken glass.

[James Polis]

Right?

[Cenk Uygur]

Right. Yeah.

[James Polis]

But if you're on the Internet all day and you never go outside, then you'll believe whatever you're fed.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. And so the radical left to this day, they hate me because they think, doc, there he goes again, pretending that there was crime and feeding into the right wing narrative. Meanwhile, Oakland recalled their mayor because they thought she was too soft on crime. 65, 35. Yeah, that's the most left wing city in the country going, there is crime, and we're sick of it. And you knucklehead, rich white liberals, the crime is against black people and brown people and we don't want it. We don't want it. And so the radical left will be furious with what I just said. Right. And any criticism of them at all, and the radical right will be furious. Okay. And by the way, other people that think, no, no, you're describing the whole left or the whole right. I'm not. Listen to what I am saying. Now, finally we get to what I view as the good wings of both parties. Parties, which is populist left and populist right. So I think that Trump is not an actual populist. We can get into that debate and discussion, but at least he gets that that's what people want. And I think his voters. That is the largest bloc of his voters. Populist. Right. Okay. And for us, the largest block of voters is populist left. And we have super popular policies that actually a lot of the right wing agrees with, like paid family leaves a great example. Example. Moms get 12 weeks off after they have a baby. It's very pro family. That's why 74% of Republicans are in favor of it. Overall in the country, 84% of Americans are in favor of it. So then I asked my friends on the left, why do our politicians ever do things that are popular?

[James Polis]

What do they say and things that.

[Cenk Uygur]

Are on our side. Right. Like, for example, Trump comes in, it's a tornado of action. I disagree with, I don't know, 80% of it, at least. But at least the brother's doing something and he's trying to make his base happy. And you see immediate trying to make his base happy. Ugh. Right? Like, no. That's what politics is. You're supposed to make your voters happy. You're supposed to represent your voters.

[James Polis]

Everyone knows that things are broken.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yes. So no, on the left, why don't they ever do the things that would be happy? First of all, they love the. There's nothing we can do. As soon as you elect a Democrat, they'll tell you there's nothing I could do. Then why did I elect you? Okay.

[James Polis]

Because the rhetoric was so beautiful.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So you're telling me, brother, that you cannot get a bill passed when 84% of the country's in favor of it. You're telling on yourself. What you're saying is, either I am the world's worst politician, so do not make me the candidate. I don't even know how to get a bill passed when almost everyone in the country agrees I am so deeply incompetent that I can't get the most popular bill in the country passed. Okay, then great, then you shouldn't be the candidate. Obvious. Clear. Right.

[James Polis]

But that's not the real classic message from the establishment.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right. Too. For.

[James Polis]

For decades. For generations. Oh, you know, we're just the party of. No. And you know, the best that we can do is just kind of shoot down things that are bad and we're. We can't have a positive agenda. And maybe next year, maybe next cycle.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, exactly. Why? Why? Why? Because the donors love the status quo. They don't want you to do anything. There's one, one true thing that Joe Biden said he told his donors back in 2020, don't worry, nothing will fundamentally change. And that was exactly right. And so he gets into office and all of a sudden, all of his camp, 85% of his campaign problems is out the window. Nothing we could do. First thing he said in the super bowl interview was, oh, $15 minimum wage. That was supposed to be the bare minimum. That was supposed to be super easy. Right. $15 minimum wage. Oh, and yeah, there's probably not enough support for that. When the president says that, that means I don't want it. It. I want you to throw it under the bus. I want you to get rid of it. Not enough support. Right again. Paid family leave. I'm sorry, $15 minimum wage. At that time was polling at 67%. Two thirds of the country want it. And you don't think there's enough support? No. That means my donors don't want it. The National Restaurant association doesn't want it. And guess who took checks from the National Restaurant association right after they voted against it? Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. Okay, so it is an outright auction. So why don't the Democrats object more to Obama not doing 95% of his agenda and Biden not doing 85% of his agenda? Biden was a little bit better, actually. Okay. Because the bigotry, the soft bigotry of low expectations.

[James Polis]

Yes. The one phrase to survive the Bush years.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yes. And so they've been taught by Morning Joe and Whoopi Goldberg. How dare you expect anything. No. These are super wise men and they know exactly what they're doing. And they're playing four dimensional chess. And you're a moron. You don't know anything. Okay. Know your role. No, you don't get that and you don't get that. And if you want anything, you have to push him. Remember, guys, when I get in office, push me. Why? My job is to vote for you. Your job is to push yourself. What do you need me to push you for. And then when I do go to push him, which, you know me, me, I do. They're like, how dare you push us? Well, brother, why don't you do something? Right?

[James Polis]

And this is how it is that, you know, people have started talking about horseshoe theory, where it's like you go far off on the right and far off on the left, and it starts curving around toward the same policies, because they don't think of the populace as being in the center. They think of the establishment as occupying the center. In order to fight the establishment, you got to go all the way to the fringes.

[Cenk Uygur]

So that's a great point. Terrific point. And I want people to think about that, because the mainstream media has been telling you lies your whole life, and it's not in the facts. They actually don't play around with the actual numbers, the statistics, the studies. That's not where the lies are. And Noam Chomsky's talked about this for decades. Right. It's the framing. So I'll give you a great example of it that goes exactly to what you're saying. So Joe Manchin, in my opinion, is an extremely radical pro corporate politician. Almost all of the things that he says except gun control. He has a popular position on gun control and they always do it on social issues. So it's big, shiny object. But all of his economic positions poll at in the 30s or lower. So he's against paid family leave. He's in the 16%. He's not in the 84%. But mainstream media doesn't say he's a radical. What do they call him? A moderate.

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

Okay, now why is he a moderate, by the way? Also true of Mitt Romney on the other side. Now, Mitt Romney is a moderate on social issues, he is a moderate in his tone, etc. Right. But when you look at his actual policy positions on economic issues, they're radical corporate positions that only 10% of the country, 15, 25% of the country agrees with. Totally radical. But they're called beloved moderates. Why? Mitt Romney was the governor of Massachusetts. He's a Republican from a blue state. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from a red state, West Virginia, must be a moderate. Moderate, moderate, moderate, moderate. And you radicals, you're doing the horseshoe and you're all the way out like, oh, you want, you want to cut the Pentagon.

[James Polis]

Yes.

[Cenk Uygur]

So for. But wait a minute, like, 80% of the country wants to cut the Pentagon. Okay. Do you know, and this, you probably don't hear this A lot in right wing media. 76% of the country wants to increase taxes on the rich.

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

Increase tax on the three quarters of the country, but you never hear that anymore. Why? Because almost all of media is funded by the rich. So they're not going to tell you that poll. They're not going to emphasize that poll. Right. So that's why I'm trying to get people to open their eyes. So that's why you're right. The populists are not meeting at this horseshoe. They're actually, they've always been in the middle. The reason why the populist right and the populist left both want paid family leave is because it's an enormously moderate position. Every country, almost every country in the world, every developed country, but nearly everyone has paid family leave. We give Israel, we've now given them $300 billion over a lifetime. Last year we gave them over $20 billion. They have paid family leave.

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

They have universal health care. They have Iron Dome. We have none of those things. Right. But yet we keep giving them money. Giving them money. I think that's a radical position to give them money. Right.

[James Polis]

Think that's about to change?

[Cenk Uygur]

I think it might. So that's a bold prediction that I have that I'll get to in a sec, but they'll tell you, wait a minute. Most of the country's in the middle and goes, wait, why am I funding that? I want paid family. Why do they have it? And I'm sending them money and I don't have it. That's a moderate populist position. Populist right. Populist left agrees. But mainstream media calls you radical. Yeah, Mainstream media tells you the most unpopular people are the moderates. That's the magic trick. So we're popping that bubble together. See, that's populous, Right, Populist left together against the establishment that's been holding us down the entire time. Okay? And to my friends on the left, that doesn't mean I'm working with the radical right. It means I'm working with the popular. And I need them to. One more thing about my friends on the left, they think that take the most radical guy you'll ever find on the right, and they think he represents all 77 million Trump voters.

[James Polis]

Yeah, no, that would make it so easy.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah, because. Exactly. That makes it easy. It makes it easy to hate them.

[James Polis]

Easy to message, easy to memorize those.

[Cenk Uygur]

Talking points and easy to label, easy to do everything. Everything. Right. But the reality is that is a giant range. And within that 77 million people. There are a lot of great Americans who just want relief. Relief from the powerful relief in their lives. Why are the richest nation on earth? We can't give moms 12 weeks off. Estonia gives them 82 weeks off. Estonia. Of course we can afford it, but we live under corporate rule. And the corporations don't want us to have anything. They want us to be indentured servants for. For them. So back to your question of okay, what, but what does populism mean? It means, number one thing. And we have a whole populist plank on our website, TYT.com we talk about on the show every day on the Young Turks, Monday through Friday, 6:00 on YouTube and everywhere else. But that's a great place to watch it. So six things. One is anti corruption, money out of politics. Okay, Obviously the money's controlling the politicians. Anyone who tells you otherwise is disingenuous or knows nothing about politics. Number two, anti war. Okay, enough. Enough with the wars. They're not about defense. What are we defending ourselves against? The Palestinians? Palestinians can barely fight the Israelis. In fact, they can't fight the Israelis. What are they? No, we're just making enemies out of people for no reason by having the, you know, the neocons drive us into war after war after war. Right, so that's two. Number three is private equity is buying all of our residential homes, real estate. And when they buy our homes, that's where we create wealth for the middle class. The bankers are now taking that. They're extracting the wealth from the American middle class. They're going to kill off the middle class. We have to end that right now. And populist right agrees. Populist left agrees. The establishment hates that idea because they're like the beloved bankers, of course they have a right to buy your home and price you out of the market and then drive up prices and make you a renter. And that way they get the wealth and you owe them for the rest of your life. No. Okay, Negotiate all drug prices. Why? What kind of free market where you can't negotiate your own drug prices? And Bush did it. Then Obama said he was going to turn around. He didn't. Obama continued it. And then Trump said he was going to stop it. And he did, didn't he? Continued it. Obama then Biden said he was going to stop it. He didn't. He continued it. He did it for 10 drugs out of 10,000. Thank you so much. It's a trick. Now Trump's back and he's not doing it. And he won't do it unless we push him to do it. But these are populist positions, okay, so of course we want to negotiate drug prices. That's the free market. And then. But as you see, all of those there, they're not supposed to be on. Some on the left say, hey Cenk, these, these aren't the top priorities for the left necessarily. Climate change isn't on there. The X and Y and Z aren't on there. Higher wages is on there because again, that's where the average American lift up minimum wage. You lift up all wages and they'll say, oh, that creates inflation. No, brother, your corporate greed creates inflation. And supply chain issues create inflation. And the Federal Reserve creates inflation. The average guy in America isn't creating inflation because his wages went up by a dollar. No, you're using it as an excuse, okay, higher wages. So you get it. It's not supposed to be the most left wing positions or the most right wing positions. It's supposed to be the positions we all agree on. So that's populism for the average guy, not for the elites.

[James Polis]

So I'm really interested in how tech changes the game on all this stuff, because there's no question that technology is in some ways creating a new elite that wants to occupy some of the high ground that is being slowly surrendered by the old elite, by the establishment. But it also does offer populism a kind of new lease on life. I don't think you would have seen populism make the gains that you've seen just over the past year or so without the technological development that we have seen. But it cuts both ways. You know, for every, every person who sort of feels like they can get more of a grip on their own life through, through, through leveraging technology, there's, there's a Bill Gates out there with, with an opposite agenda of increased centralization, increased consolidation, increased control. So we've got a few minutes left here. I'm curious to hear which way you think the tech influence is going to tip when it comes to populism versus the establishment.

[Cenk Uygur]

So both. And there's already forces from both camps all over social media, Silicon Valley, et cetera. And then who's gonna win? Well, it depends on the timeframe. Right. So I love social media and online media. Not just because, you know, we live there. And look, we're the first, we're the longest running show in Internet history. Young Turks is. And we were the first partner for YouTube. So we're the original YouTubers.

[James Polis]

Right?

[Cenk Uygur]

So obviously I have a bias. I believe in online media and I've believed in it for now, quarter of a century, from the very beginning. Right, but why did I believe in it? Because that's where you have freedom and that's where there are less gatekeepers. So in the beginning there were no gatekeepers. So if I'm trying to get on radio or tv, wall to wall gatekeepers, they're all establishment and if you don't think just like them, they're no, there's, they're not going to hire you. And if they make the mistake of hiring you later, they're going to fire you. Okay, so you can't. That, that's a prison to me. Online media, we're in the woods. Right, so. But some people are scared of the woods a little too much for you.

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Cenk Uygur]

Right.

[James Polis]

It's dark in the woods.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. And they go, oh wait, wait, that guy's saying something I don't like. Let's shut it down. Right. And that guy's saying something that could be dangerous. Let's shut it down. Right, I get it. And some of them were dangerous. We had to stop shutting things down. It's not going to work if you shut things down because who's making the decision on what to shut down? Okay, you got somebody saying something dangerous, counter it. Oh, but that lie is going to go around the world. Yeah, it is. That's life, man.

[James Polis]

Yeah. Always. Always has been.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. And you know, you don't have a choice, you just have to get better at countering it because if you try to tamp it down or cancel it, it's just gonna make it worse, it's just gonna explode in other ways.

[James Polis]

And those are censors just hiding out in places of power that, you know, you don't know their names. You can't vote em in, can't vote them out. That's not America.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So now at the same time, the tech guys are now enormously white wealthy. So now they've got a reason to want the status quo. Why does mainstream media, the establishment, etc, why do they say nothing should fundamentally change? Why are they in favor of the status quo? Because they're already at the top. If you're already at the top, you don't want anything to change. Right. Change can only bring you lower. So you're like, no, no, no change, no change. So now that the Silicon Valley tech bros etc are at the top, all of a sudden they got an incentive for the status quo. Right. And all of a sudden they have an incentive to keep things kind of the way they are. And now they're worried about people criticizing them. So now they're looking at their own algorithms, they're looking at their own rules. Right, right. And they're saying, okay, wait, should I start becoming more like mainstream media where I turn everything to my advantage?

[James Polis]

The temptation is always there.

[Cenk Uygur]

That's right.

[James Polis]

Nature of power.

[Cenk Uygur]

And so now you look at crypto, now this. I'm going to really get people mad. Okay? So, guys, crypto is so unregulated, so such wild, wild west. And so it might work out for you. You might go in, you might buy low, you might sell higher, and you're out. Great. Good job. I'm happy for you. Okay, but the. What are, what's a, what's a regulation? A regulation is a law. Okay? That's just a different word for a law. Okay? Now are you pro laws or against laws? Well, I don't know. What are we regulating? Right. So should we have too much, a lot of regulation or a little race? I don't know. What are we regulating? And what's the, what's the goal? Right. So should there be no regulation of crypto? You're nuts. The minute you have no regulation of anything, there'll be robbery after robbery after. You basically, you're taking the cops off the street, you're defunding the police. Right. So on the other hand, if you have smothering regulation, you can't get anything done. It becomes a giant bureaucracy. In California, believe me, we know over regulation. Right, Right. And so the answer is in the middle. And it's tough because it's not easy to label it. Right. It's easy to say, no regulation. Regulation is bureaucracy. It's easy to say, of course you need regulation. You know, it protects the consumers, it protects the workers, et cetera.

[James Polis]

Well, and with, you know, some people are out there saying, like, this is basically gambling and that's good, and that's what the use case is. And you know, if you have unregulated gambling, you can, you can. I mean, we've tried that. We've, we know how that story ends. Then you've got other people, you know, me, some others, saying, no, you know, Bitcoin, you got to be using it. If you're just treating it like a trip to the casino, then you're, you're, you're using it the wrong way and you're not going to build wealth, and it's not going to be something that does empower ordinary people.

[Cenk Uygur]

I'm mainly worried about the robbery. Okay, so there's two potential robberies. I'm not saying it's happened. I'm not saying it's definitely going to happen. I'm just saying be careful. So one is the pokes at the top of crypto have an enormous amount of power. They get to sway things way more than the average guy does. When you. And if, if it's a pure pyramid scheme, I'm not saying Bitcoin and I don't know enough about it, but a meme coin?

[James Polis]

Yeah, you can, yeah, you can totally rug anyone you want. You know, Exactly. This is already happening. You got what's her name with the podcast. Just, you know, she wakes up one morning and pulls out her funds and everyone gets ruined and it's, you know, it's bad.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. So I've been warning about that the whole time and a lot of people are yelling at me. Oh, you don't know, you don't know. I'm like, guys, I'm trying to protect you, but if you don't want it, I got you. But be careful. Buyer beware, right? Especially on the meme coins. Okay, but there's a second potential robbery. Now, Elon Musk is in charge of the whole government, apparently, and then he brings in Silicon Valley CEOs on his DOGE team. Now, wait, wait, wait, wait. We got a bunch of CEOs that have complete access to the Treasury. If you're not worried about that, you're not paying attention and you're getting too bubble, bubble brain.

[James Polis]

Well, I mean, this is worth a whole separate conversation. I mean, as far as I know, they've got, they've got eyes on, eyes on the numbers. They can't actually, you know, stop payments.

[Cenk Uygur]

That's, that's what we think.

[James Polis]

It's, it's early days.

[Cenk Uygur]

It's. And then now we. Today in the News is a 19 year old old who used, that's part of that team that used to work for a place that hires black hat hackers. Black hat hackers can hack into almost anything. And now that guy has access to the information at the Treasury. Okay, so I'm just telling you. And, and, and crypto said they don't need the government, we don't need any stinking regulations. Now they're talking about, hey, why don't we insure this stuff with US Taxpayer money? No. Right? No.

[James Polis]

Right.

[Cenk Uygur]

No. You want to do crypto, you do crypto. Don't put it on all the U.S.

[James Polis]

Taxpayers that, well, that's a bank, you know, that's a bank.

[Cenk Uygur]

That's a bank. I don't know. So. Because if they take the US Taxpayer money to do some sort of pyramid scheme, you haven't seen rage yet. Okay. And the people who will be the angriest will be the right wing because they went into crypto more than the left wing did. If they get robbed or the average couple or a retired couple in the middle of Indiana gets robbed and some because some tech bro wanted to make an extra billion, there's going to be rage like no one's seen before. Be careful.

[James Polis]

Yeah. I mean at the end of the day, you can't get rid of the people. And that's, that's something more guys need to bear in mind across politics.

[Cenk Uygur]

Yeah. One more thing because we mentioned and we didn't get back to it, on Israel, you asked, so what do we think is going to happen? Right. So this is me. I love making predictions. And so, and usually I'll say like, I, I hope I'm wrong. Right. I think I'm like, Biden's definitely going to lose. I hope I'm wrong. Right. Hillary's good, he's going to lose. I hope I'm wrong. Right. And so etc. Etc. And, and then when you get it right, people get mad at you and they think you caused it. Right. It's the Bruno problem. If you've seen encanto. Right. So, so now on Israel, I'm making maybe my boldest prediction. So I think that maga's going to turn on Israel and they're in the middle of turning on Israel now. And I'll define what turning on Israel means. And they're going to put pressure on Trump who is going to want to serve Israel. And it's going to create a giant clash between the donor class and maga. And I think MAGA is going to win. And so I, I, so Netanyahu and, and the AIPAC and the Adelsons that have funded, by the way, all politicians gave Joe Biden over $11 million, gave Kamala Harris over $5 million during this campaign alone. The Israel Lobby, etc. These are facts. You can catch feelings, but they're facts. And then $337 million to Trump over three election cycles. Just one family, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson. I can get into the, all the corruption I do. In my book, justice is coming both on Democratic and Republican sides. Okay. So that is a world of power. You, I mean, Netanyahu standing ovation after standing ovation because the whole Congress is bought. Right. Or almost all Congress. This is another reason why I love Bernie, Okay? And it isn't about religion. It's about foreign governments. Okay? Bernie's Jewish, and he's like, I don't like it. I don't like it. They're taking the money and they're killing people with it. Why are they taking our money? There you go. I love Bernie. Right? So. And a lot of right wingers are saying that now. So the idea that Israel could lose a political battle in America is unimaginable. They've never lost one my entire life. They get everything they want. Every check is a blank check. Infinite power in America because of money and politics. They just did something smart. And the drug companies do it even more. The oil companies do it, the bankers do it. Everybody does it. Does it. Which is pay the politicians and they'll work for you. They're just servants. Right? So that's what AIPAC did, etc. But I think that they poked a bear. So already I thought this. And then what just happened with Netanyahu and how he's having Trump pull the chair in for him like he's his freaking waiter.

[James Polis]

Right?

[Cenk Uygur]

And this whole nonsense about we're going to own Gaza, what is going to be the 51st state, we're going to take care of the unexploded bombs.

[James Polis]

Yeah. I don't know. Netanyahu looked a little weirded out by that. So it's. I'm not. I'm not 100 sure, but I think you might be right, that Israel might lose a political battle in the US.

[Cenk Uygur]

And, and so the left, I. Look, I've been trying my whole life, and we're going to win one of these days. But people in power mainly ignore the left, to be honest. And I hate it. But it's. I'm being object. As objective as I can be. But when the right gets mad, that moves people. Right. And so when MAGA gets mad at the Israeli lobby, guys never make it about religion. Never, ever, ever, ever. Okay? Jewish folks are brothers and sisters, they're Americans, et cetera. It's not about that. But this foreign government has taken enough from us. Enough, enough, enough. And when MAGA says enough, Trump likes being popular. He cares about his base, so he might act. But you're gonna have to do a lot to push him past those donors. Yeah. Might be because he's taken hundreds of millions of dollars and he loves money. So you got to push really hard to win against the Israeli lobby. That would be epic. And I think Maga might be able to do.

[James Polis]

It might be like a Nixon has to go to China kind of thing. That's all the time we got. Chang, thank you so much for joining us. And you know, may the spicy predictions continue to flow.

[Cenk Uygur]

All right, thank you. I appreciate it. Monday through Friday, 6:00, everybody. Check out Young Turks on YouTube.

[James Polis]

Good deal. Thank you for watching this particular YouTube show. If you are on YouTube right now, give us that. Like, like hit the subscribe button. Subscribe to Blaz tv. And until next time around, I'm James Polis. This is Zero Hour. And may God have mercy on us all.