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Let's move on to the the man who's always sprinkling good luck on everyone, Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders was on Flagrant with Andrew Schultz and the Gang and Brian I watched this. Did you get a chance to watch it?
Sing and tell me about these guys. I don't watch this show, so.
Cccer's friends with them, actually, but they are book you know. Charles was talking on the podcast, he's like the cosms of a lifelong Democrat, repeatedly in his conversations with Bernie's I really wanted you to win in twenty sixteen. He's kind of like he's similar. I would say he's sort of politically similar to Rogan, probably a little less you know, interested in some of the wild conspiratorial so like he's not in as deep probably on all of those things.
But it kind of similar. And there's like Bernie brow Ish and he even talked about how the podcast bros Have been labeled similarly to the Bernie Bros. In conversation with Bernie Sanders, part this almost yeah, this almost sexist approach to lumping people in the pejorative categories. O.
Jay's going to come for you pretty soon. Yeah, keep doing that.
Yeah, they'd come right for you. DEI. But anyway, it's the conversation before we kick it over to this one fascinating clip. We have a couple of clips, but the one we're going to play for verst is really, really good. I just want to say the first part of the conversation, they're spending like twenty minutes talking about the Brooklyn Dodgers. And the reason that's important is I don't think there are a lot of Democrats who can sit and talk
totally organically. Bernie is just like blowing them away with his knowledge of like the nineteen fifty eight lineup of Brooklyn Dodgers.
The Dodgers going to LA I think it was a formative experience for Bernie Sanders in a way that he said, Yes, the early childhood trauma can be and I think you can connect it to this sense of like who are the wait, who are these oligarchs that can rip a community apart? Like Yeah, and as somebody who was as passionate about baseball in my childhood as Bernie was in his, baseball feels like it is part of the It is
part of the community. It does not feel like it should be something owned by an individual who can do something with it.
That's why you got to go with the Green Bay Packers.
And one of the greatest sense of senses of injustice I would ever feel as a child was when the Phillies would not be on TV. What do you mean I can't watch the Philadelphia Phillies. That the Philadelphia Phillies. They have to be on TV? Yeah, this is insane.
It's outside You're outside of Philadelphia. Yeah. The reason that I wanted to start with that point is precisely because I think I'm saying this as a conservative. The if you are a If you are an ideological liberal and you watch Bernie's fluent, natural organic conversation about the Brooklyn Dodgers with Andrew Schultz for twenty minutes, he gives the best pitch for democratic socialism, all in the context of baseball in the first twenty minutes of that podcast. That
is changing hearts and minds. Is persuading people that the left is reasonable, even if I disagree with it. You're a eighteen year old boy and you're listening to that, You're like, holy shit, this is completely true. These billionaires come in buy up teams. Jack got the ticket prices so that a family of four can't afford a vacation.
Now it's literally the price of a vacation. Yes, can't afford to go to a game without it being the price of the weekend at a beach for everyone to get a hot dog, decent ticket, whatever.
Punch in the face.
Yeah, And so they come in and buy it. Parking, Well, they use your money to build the stadium, then charge you eighty bucks a ticket for a decent seat, and then they take the team somewhere else ten years later, once you've already bought your kid's gear, and you've sort of emotionally invested in the franchise.
It's an eighteen dollars eighteen dollars for a coke.
And it's baseball. It's America's pastime. Yeah, And so the way Sanders starts that segment is just a fantastic pitch for democratic socialism. And there are so few he's willing to laugh at their jokes about. Like they say something about Bernie's like, we learned how to do arithmetic this way by watching baseball, and Schultz goes, well, today, we
call that autism, and Bernie's laughing at it. And it's like, you don't find other democrats, Like imagine Alista slot Can just being able to roll with a comedian making a joke about that she wouldn't. And it's the same thing when Schultz makes jokes about you can only be bigoted around your close friends, like Bernie Sanders like, look, I'm against bigotry. Schultz goes, unless it's around your close friends, and Bernie just rolls your close friend, Yeah, to your
close friends. So let's roll this clip so that I can stop doing summaries of clips. I know everybody loves that this is d one.
It's good about what happened to you in twenty sixteen with this Bernie Brose movement where you're your followers are seen they have a racism problem, missagy problem.
Do you think that's a superPAC thing behind that?
No, it was the Democratic establishment. Oh wow, okay, you know.
That was just they were sitting there. We had a lot of young people, we have people of color, and you know, they create this kind of myth with the help of the corporate media or all that stuff. You know.
It's kind of interesting to that note is during this election, the podcast space, which the Democrats largely avoided, they feel had some influence in the election, and they started to label us the podcast bros and said that we were sexist and we were racist and bigeted. It's almost like it's the exact same strategy to get you out of there.
Yeah, that's what the liberally China does. They run away, look getting again. I would hope that everybody who's watching the program is that we as a nation have got to and or forms of biggotreat right. Yes, that I thought off as a basic assumption. Unless I see your close friends, right, it's racism but sexism, homophobia or aenophobia, whatever it is. But and you know, liberal democrats talk about that all the time. And then you get to
what we call identity politics. That you're black, you're wonderful, you're tremendous, you're yeah, you're the greatest human being on earth. Yeah, And rather than say what do you what do you stand for?
Exactly ya? That's why who cares? What do you stand for?
You know, is every gay person brilliant and wonderful and great?
Now of course that everybody's um.
Yeah, So the issue is what you stand for, which huts you back to what we discuss every class politics in the sense of which side are you on? Are you going to stand with working families, Are you going to raise the minimum wage to a living wage or not? Are you going to guarantee fight to guarantee healthcare to all people or not? Are you going to demand that the wealthiest people stop paying their fair share of taxes on?
Those are the issues, and no one cares what color you want, you know, what your gender is, et cetera, et cetera.
Okay, so Ryan, well done again. You just this is what's so frustrating is democrats. I just wrote about this morning. Actually, like they're on their quest, we can put the next hair straight up on the screen, this multimillion dollar quest to find the nextra rogue. In The New York Times had an interesting three Yeah, The New York Times had
an interesting report on it. Sorry, yes, I skipped ahead about how Democrats are now throwing millions of dollars they have spreadshere of influencers to try and create the next Joe Rogan when obviously they lost the original Joe Rogan. Who's somebody who had Bernie Sanders on and then a big conversation with Bernie Sanders about universal health care and all of these democratic socialist policies that Rogan is pretty
interested in. And Democrats don't want to change their policy offerings or their tone, as evidenced by the fact that they're not leaning into Bernie being the guy that can help them win back the Rogan instead of astroturfing some partisan hack that's going to be exactly the opposite of what succeeds on the podcast circuit, which is the anti
partisan ship of free, willing conversation and authenticity. Bernie can go on flagrant just like Trump can, just like Jade vance Can and he can go in Theovonne, he can go on Joe Rogan, and it's because he's a critic of the Democratic Party in the same way that Trump is a critic of the Republican Party. You could say Bernie's more sincere than Trump, sure, but they're both criticizing their own party, which is what you're not going to
pay a bunch of influencers to do. Nobody wants the dem donors to give millions of dollars to people who are then going to go trash the Dems.
We got Rokana coming pretty soon, So let's roll this last clip of D two from here where he talks about our Democrats a threat to democracy as well.
The problem I think a lot of voters had is like they didn't even know if it was her. We didn't even know if Biden was president. We didn't even know if these were her talking points, and we felt that over the last four elections, Democrats we felt that we didn't have a say on who could be president. We talk a lot about the Republicans being autocrats and oligarchs and taking over democracy, but from the Democrat perspective,
and as I'm a lifelong Democrat. I felt like the Democratic Party completely removed the democratic process from its constituents and they I think they need to have some accountability of that.
No, um, I don't for you.
I mean I wanted you to. Like twenty sixteen, I was like, this is going to happen. This guy's going to do it, and it felt like they it felt like they stole it from it. And I'll be honest, it broke my heart when you when you support him.
Look but you have in the world that I live in, you got a choice. And I mean a lot of people, including my wife, agree with you, but you know you're down to a choice. It's going to be Hillary Clinton or is it going to be Donald Trump? Not a great choice, but it ended up being him anyway.
So why don't we burn it down?
Well, because it's easy to say, burning it down means that children are not going to have you know, foodia, that the schools will deteriorate, people will not have healthcare. I got it, and I you know, I'm an elected official. I got to represent the people and I can't turn my.
Back on But then could we not also say if ostensibly there hasn't been a fair primary for the Democrats since two thousand and eight, Are they not also a threat to democracy?
We often hear fair.
Enough that is that is Yeah, I'm not going to argue with that point, including my wife.
That was a pretty funny line. Yeah, that's why he can hang with the Yeah, and Jane is Yeah, she is more of a burn it down than Bernie is.
Yeah, that is more than Bernie bro than Burney.
Sure, Bernie actually wanted somebody to primary Obama in twenty twelve, which killed him. Then in twenty sixteen they used that against him ruthlessly. Then I think he would like at the time, he would have loved to take it back. He didn't have any idea that he was going to be a competitive presidential candidate in the next cycle. So, yeah, twenty twelve that was fair because no he ran against him Obama. Twenty sixteen, we know twenty twenty votes were fair. Yeah,
but the party just consolidated around Joe Biden. Yeah, Bernie was like pulling ahead even among black voters after Nevada, But the Democratic primary voters are very lockstep. And when MSNBC, CNN people to judge Obama, Amy Klobuchar, everybody consolidated they moved.
Yeah. Well, and that's what sends just really cheating.
It's like they used the power of the party to beat him, which, yes, is hypocritical if your name is the Democratic Party.
Yeah, and it's the reason that you end up getting the Andrew Schultz of the world looking seriously at Donald Trump. And it's because they're so disillusioned by how Bernie Sanders was treated. And until Democrats acknowledge that they're not going to have success in the anti establishment podcast circuit, they can continue to you know, New York Times, the Daily and pr they'll still do really well in the podcast charts. It's something that I think them sort of take for granted.
But they're not going to win back young men until these faults are acknowledged, and they're not going to pay their way to bullshitting people and to thinking that they're sincerely acknowledging those faults. So good luck to everyone. That's how we're ending every segment there.
Good luck exactly all right. Up next, we got Rocan in the studio, a Democrat of congressman is taking his pitch to some red districts or at least purple districts around the country. Here let's play a little bit of a Rokanna heading to Pennsylvania. I want to ask.
Are we safe?
Is my family safe? And you know you asked are we safe? And you're mature enough and you're thoughtful enough that I'm going to give you an honest answer. And the honest answer is that there are people right now in power who are making it harder for folks who are lesbian. And in this country, there are people who are making it harder for folks who are on Medicaid and who need those services to live well and to
have basic health care. That's true about what's going on, But you know, we also have a country where a sixth grader gets to stand up and talk about that and talk about that and talk about that in a way that is so much more powerful than anything I can say or any congress person can say.
All right, joining us here is Democratic Congressman Rocanna. Thanks for joining it.
Thank you the standing of issue. So it was for the sixth grade girl, not for me, But that was a powerful moment because she stood up there a lot of courage and she said, I'm afraid. I'm afraid for my family, and what can you tell me? That's going to keep me safe. And there's not much you can tell folks. And I was pretty honest with her about some of the cuts that are taking place and the climate affair that it's been created.
And this is this is kind of your you know, this is your homecoming in a way. You're from Bucks County. I was actually just up that way from my cousin's high school graduation from Boyertown High I was born. I was born in Allentown, which you also visited.
That's why we were having such a hard time getting a venue. I said, how's it so hard? They said the graduation graduation?
Yeah, exactly. So how is Allentown? Where'd you go in Allentown?
We were in Allentown and it was right next to the Mack Truck facility. A lot of the folks in Mack Truck, unfortunately, are losing their jobs in July. Two reasons. One, those jobs are going to Mexico. So I'm in Donald Trump here's talking about bringing manufacturing jobs back. How about we just start not losing them. And the second thing is these blanket tariffs have caused Mack Trucks to raise their prices by twenty five percent, and they've lost twenty
five percent of orders. And so these folks from UAW were there saying, you know, three hundred and fifty four guys are going to get laid off if you guys don't do something, and appealing to Ryan mackenzie, the congress person there in Donald Trump to save their jobs.
So what would an industrial policy look like? That didn't lead to that, because Trump, when he talks about bringing manufacturing back, is not talking about mack Truck laying people off in Allentown. He's talking about the opposite of that. And mack Truck laying people off has been going on for forty years and it had a bit of a revival, but there was a formative experience with my child. Remember, like everybody talking in Allentown, mack Truck is moving to
South Carolina. Like one of the first things that a lot of these companies do is they move from the Union states down to the non union states, and then when there's a little bit of union activity there, then they had to Mexico or China or Vietnam or wherever they go. So what would you do, because obviously it makes no sense for US policy to be hurting mac in Allentown.
Yeah, well, first, you wouldn't have blanket tariffs that are making it harder for manufacturers to import things that they need for their trucks before you actually phased in the production in the United States. So if you wanted to say, Okay, here are the component parts, we're going to produce that in the United States and phase in tariff's fine. But you can't just have these blanket tarfs. Second, I would
have an offshoring tax. I mean, if you're going to offshore a plan, you're causing a lot of disruption, You're causing a lot of harm to a community. There should be a tax right now. Actually, the tax overseas is less than the corporate tax in the United States. It's twenty one percent here, but to repatriot profits it's only ten percent. So we need to have an offshoring tax.
And third, i'd have an economic Marshall plan and development policy of what are we going to invest in these communities to build new factories and where are we going to commit to buying things where the government can buy things. Some of it may be mac trucks, some of them
may be other kinds of manufacturing. Some of it may be healthcare, education, it's not all going to be manufacturing, but you need to have a concerted investment economic development strategy, none of which down from as he wants to just wave a magic wand with blanket tariffs. And it's in some cases like mack Truck, unintentionally. I don't think Trump wants to hurt them, but unintentionally hurting them.
So I have a two prong question on that point. Because the Big Beautiful Bill, if it gets past, is promising tax ri offs for investment in the United States, building, manufacturing, building, factory building in the United States, and retroactive to January twentieth, like one hundred percent write offs on all of that. Corporate tax would go down from twenty one percent to fifteen percent. The Trump administration sees that as a sort of compliment to the tariff policy, as kind of an
industrial policy in a tax structure way. What do you
make of that? Do you think substantively that's helpful? And having been talking to people in counties that went Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump in many cases people who have voted for Democrats and Republicans in the presidential ticket in recent decades, do you think those types of policies could be sold by the Trump administration, like, do you think the Trump administration will have an easy time saying, listen, we are bringing manufacturing back if that bill passes in substance and in style.
I guess is the question.
Well, first of all, on this substance, they're also repealing some of the Inflation Reduction Act production tax credit. So it's not a clean build that says, if you're making things in America, we're going to give you tax credits. I guess if you're making things that happen to be low carbon, they want to take those tax credits away. They have some of the accelerated depreciation, but it's also
a very trickle down approach. Their view, I mean, a genuine view is we're going to create these global deals. We're going to provide these tax breaks, and somehow it's going to lead to more job creation in the United States and every community, and may lead to more job creation in Silicon Valley. It may lead to more job creation and capital centers. But I don't think these companies are going to say, Okay, now we're going to go
in Johnstown, We're going to go in Lorraine. We're going to build the types of manufacturing that those communities want.
To do that.
You need federal directed investment, you need a workforce, you need to ask these communities what to do. In terms of the politics of it, I think he's going to try to sell that, but ultimately reality is reality. At some point people are going to say, Okay, am I getting laid off? Am I getting new jobs. It's why Donald Trump is so much more effective as an outsider than as president in my view. As an outsider, you know, David Brooks said, he asked all the right questions, he
just said some of the wrong answers. As an outsider, he can say all these problems, but when he's as a president, he's going to be judged on the actual record.
Great, and so you had you were saying you had some Trump protesters. We did, who showed up? How what was their deal?
But first of all, it's an argument for every Democrat going on Fox News because they said, you know, first they started approaching me. I said, oh no, I'm going to get yelled at. And they said, we have a request. Can we get a selfie? I said, you want a selfie with me? So we see you all the time on Fox News. So that's the That's what started the conversation. And then I said, well, why don't you just listen, because I just introduce a bill to codify Donald Trump's
executive order. I'm the first the pharmaceut on the pharmaceutical bill to say that Americans shouldn't pay more than people in every other part of the world. And Bernie and I had done something simil or years ago where we said that if you're paying more in America than places in Japan or Germany, we should take away the patents from those pharma companies. Trump says, let's import the cheap drugs, and we got to bipartisan. It's with bigs, it's with Luna,
and so this got the Trump voters paying attention. I said, I'm not for medicaid cuts. They said, well, we don't want Medicaid cuts. I said, I'm for keeping this mac truck jobs here. They said, we're for that.
Now.
I said, you know, the bill actually has these cuts. And I think that the politics the debate is going to be whether Trump can sell them that is not cutting medicaid, when in my view it actually is. He's calling it waste, fraud, and abuse.
It's not though, right.
So on that point, even actually on the drug bill, Have you heard anything from the White House? Have your Republicans heard anything, Republican colleagues heard anything from the White House that there might be movement on that or is Republican leadership going to do everything they can not to let that come to the floor or get into any other packages.
It's an uphill battle get it onto the floor. There's so much lobbying money off big pharma. And you know, Donald Trump's out there saying he's already lowered drug prices by eighty five percent, so accomplished. He's got the talking points. But again, he's president and maybe right now people think, okay, this is going to happen, But a year from now they're going to wonder, have drug price has actually gone down?
And I would think this would be such a home run for him if he would actually we would pass this law and codify it, and he'd be the president to take on big pharma, he would it would be a huge deal. But I just don't think that the Republicans in Congress are going to do it or the Senate are going to do it.
He just got a kind of surprise win in the Senate on a similar vein where they passed Last night, they passed it alt the No tax On Act got one hundred votes in the Senate, just went through by unanim's consent. Democrats like, all right, fine, we'll do this. Do you think is that going to pass the House?
It's going to be part of the Reckon Soation Bill. I do think it'll pass. You know, as you know, they've given the no tax for tips for four years. They're giving the tax breaks for the millionaires and billionaires for ten years.
Well that's why it was only one hundred and thirty five or and that's the.
Gimmick that they had. But look, Donald Trump obviously has incredible political instincts. You don't become president twice. I mean, I don't agree with his leadership, but his no tax on tips was a stroke of brilliance in Nevada and other places. My view is, we got to raise the living wage, but in the meantime, yeah, why are we
taxing tips on working families? And so you're going to get support for it, and I think the argument from Democrats is why are you making this four years and not ten years and having the millionaire billionaire tax cut for ten years? By the way, eighty thousand dollars plus that every millionaire is going to get based on this tax plan, and it's about seven hundred and fifty dollars for people under one hundred thousand dollars just on the
tax breaks. And then there was this CBO study which is just astounding of distributional analysis saying that the bottom ten percent are going to be hurt because of the Medicaid cuts and the cuts and food stamps, in the top ten percent are going to benefit. And it's a pretty straightforward analysis.
Could you see the So what about the pharmaceutical measure? It feels like from a political perspective, You've got Trump has already said it, he's for it, he's claimed he's doing it. You've got the bill. What's the mechanism to expose the big pharm a lobby as the ones in the way of it, because once they're exposed, it's much more difficult for them.
Yeah, call up the Health and Human Services secretary, see if he wants to do some message.
That's not a bad idea. Actually we can reach out to him. I'm hoping we get as many Republicans and Democrats to sign on to it. Look, it's not perfect in terms of what I prefer Lloyd Doggett or Bernie's approach. Yes, but the argument I'm making to my Democratic colleagues is I'm not changing the language because I don't want to then say to Republicans, here's an excuse to oppose it.
Now.
For Republicans, I'm saying, look, we're literally codifying Trump's executive order, and then how are you not for this? And I think we can get to a large number of House members on this bill, we start to get momentum because the reality is that both parties have taken money from big pharma or buy into those talking points always going to hurt innovation and hurt drug discovery. Not true. I mean, most of that is happening with your and my tax dollars.
But we've got to expose it. It's a powerful lobbying group and that's really what's standing in the way now.
The debate consuming Democrats right now is the you know, what did you know and when? About President Biden's sinility. Megan Kelly and Jake Tapper had it out a little bit. Let's to set the context. Let's play some of this Kelly Tapper clip over here.
In my ecosphere. We were covering all of these. It wasn't just falling down, it was get lost. It was some of the stuff you report in your book. We knew and we were reporting on, like the multi jump cuts in the videos of him, or it was obvious he couldn't get through a one minute take. It was clear to us that he was using teleprompter, and there was some reporting on that at the time, all of
which the White House was denying. Now the current White House, I have some connections with the Joe Biden white House.
I had none, but you did.
There was an attempted cover up.
It could only ever work if you allowed it, if the press allowed it. Some of us tried not to, and some of us were complicit.
The Biden white House did not like me. Okay, this is I do not have great connections with the Biden White House.
Well, clearly you have a lot of sources.
You say you talked to over two hundred sources for this book, so you have something you could have called and worked.
I know.
That's the point is that they were not being honest.
That's how the Street Journal get it.
In June of twenty twenty four, and Jake Tapper and CNN couldn't find sources for this story then before he dropped out.
No, it's just again going to do if we're going to if we're going to do this, let's just stick to the facts here, Okay when there is a damn, That's.
What I've been doing all along. I'm talking about what you miss the biggest story of the century when it comes to presidential politics.
So that's Jake Tapper taking the beating.
A little bit of his own medicine.
Yes, speaking of that. Actually, Joe Scarborough getting a little bit of from from Mark Halpern.
Oh yeah, let's let's roll some of this next clip too.
I say to people, go watch the State of the Union address. Talk to people who talked to Joe Biden. He had good days and bad days. You were with him on a good day and had conversations with him on a good day, but good days on good days, good days.
Yeah.
Looking but looking back at that, do you say, well, it was misleading to say best by never without caveating it and say except on the days when he's not the best Biden? Well, but but I never I never saw those days.
First, Well you did?
You did, because he saw Hi, address the dead congress woman, and you saw him in South Carolina.
And yeah, more than I can show you.
So I can show you the r n C clip Reils. There were plenty of days in public when he when he was not the best Biden ever, and.
Of course stumbled and he stumbled and he stumbled and bumbled around.
Mark.
I mean, yeah, he he certainly did. Uh, Donald Trump did, other politicians did. But but but it And it's actually the same case as a lot of times when I've gone in and talked to Donald Trump.
So where did you where did you come down on this storing? Like, what what was your sense of Biden's sinility and ability to be president versus privately versus publicly.
Well, first of all, obviously right now everyone is hoping, uh and praying for his full recovery from from prostate cancer. But what I have said is it was a mistake for President Biden to run. I had seen him a few times in the year UH and had said that based on my conversations, he should run. Now, in light of all that's come out, I think that was a wrong judgment. We also were hearing from a lot of people in the Botton White House that he's capable of
doing it, he has the energy. We should have pushed back. It should have been more independent, should have asked more questions, shouldn't have had as much deference. I do think it was capable of doing the job of president. But was he up for a grueling campaign in four more years. That seems obvious that some of us, many of us in the party, got it wrong.
Well, I'm curious. I imagine you know, if you do more town halls, you'll hear sentiments that sound just like Meghan's to Jake Tapper.
There.
I feel like it's part of a trust deficit that voters have with Democrats now. It feels like a significant question mark that people will come to Democratic congressman with the correct me if I'm wrong, if that's not something you hear from your constituents. But I wonder how you address that, how Democrats address that. I know Jake Tapper isn't like an elected Democratic official, but as somebody.
In Kansas like to the public, right, yeah, well.
And he did. I mean, his coverage was mixed. He's trying to defend his record, but the point is he wasn't banging the drum every day saying this guy is he doesn't seem capable of leading the country for another four years, and there's significant questions about whether he's capable now. So how do you think Democrats can or should or shouldn't address that question?
Well, I do think this created a trust deficit and was read one of the big reasons we lost, and the American people punished the Democratic Party for that trust deficit. But I think the American people are very fair and also tend to move on. And the only way that this story drags out, in my view, is if we're
not honest. If we don't come out and say it was a mistake, we own it, We're going to be better in pushing back, and now we want to talk about the future and what's happening with medicaid and your jobs and tax policy. If we continue to say, well, we were right and we didn't make a wrong call, then I think it drags on. And that's why I just think I don't think it is in any way betraying Joe Biden. I'm still very proud of his record
off the IRA and the Chip sack. I just think he made a wrong judgment to run, and many of us should have asked tougher questions and shown more independence, And I guess if you say that, I think the American people are pretty fair and just.
In terms of like the lessons that can be taken away from it is one of do you, in your own mind, when you look back, do you think one of the reasons that maybe you didn't push for the answers to those questions hard is that there didn't seem like a good alternative in the moment because Joe Biden had pushed for some of the economic populist economic policies that people like you had pushed for. Is there something that you thought maybe it held you back from asking
pushing further asking those questions. I think the.
Biggest thing, in my view is the deference to seniority and party leaders that sort of the culture of the Democratic Party. I mean, we see this unfortunately today with Jerry Connolly's passing, but we saw that in the Oversight race. We've seen this time and again that the Democratic Party has a lot of culture of deference to seniority, to people who've been there, to party leaders, and we just need to be more willing to push back at least
to get for me that was the main reason. I also think the fact that it went so long at the end. You know, if there was a robust open primary and someone like Bernie Sanders would have gotten in and had the time, that's one thing. But when it was one hundred days left, there was a fear that Biden had championed and was championing fairly progressive policy and that the DNC would sort of engineer something that would
move the party in a much more corporate direction. And that's I think also part of the reason that you had progressives being out there for Biden because they liked a lot of Biden's policies.
Yeah, I think that's the case too, And I wonder how much the coronation of Kamala Harris plays into this whole, the same sense of betrayal or rejection that the public feels towards the Democratic behavior in twenty twenty five, or do you think if when you know, even Obama we now know through reporting, and it seemed you could kind of sense it at the time, but we now know that the Obamas, both Obamas, thought that there should be an open primary and that the convention should really choose
a candidate a completely radical idea like Democrats get together and democratically decide who should be the nominee, and they were front run by, eventually by Biden and then others who could very quickly just endorsed Kamla and there it was done. So do you think do you think that plays into it? Do you think that was do you think that was a mistake not to have You know, the argument was all will be six weeks of fighting on and on, But what was that a mistake to not have an open primary?
It was Look, the ideal situation would have Biden does better than expected at the midterms, announces he's not doing his second term, and there's a real open primary. Because I do think it was awkward to go to a convention and to pass over the sitting vice president. I'm not saying that that wouldn't have been preferable to what we did, but there's an awkwardness to that, Whereas I don't think anyone would have said that if there was an actual open election. The second best case, though, would
have been an open convention and primary. And the reason is that the American people have this sense. In my view, I mean having lost races, having lost a race and won a race two years later. I mean I lost to an incumbent and the one against the same incoment two years later, and the biggest thing I got was, well, bro, you're really working hard. You must really want this job.
You've been campaigning so long. And I think with Donald Trump, unfortunately, there was a sense like he's been campaigning for this for four years what we saw as criminal charge lawsuits. People said, well, he's really fighting this and he's fighting assassinations. And so there was here's this person who's been campaigning for four years for a job and someone who's you know, one hundred days, and the American people kind of want you to earn it. They want you to beg and
ask for their votes and fight for that. And that is something that Obama really benefited from, right. I mean, he was in every milk and cranny of this country fighting for his Hillary. And I think it hurt Harris in just her chances had she defeated someone, and it would have actually strengthened her.
And can you imagine the hagiography that Biden would be getting right now if he had anybody watching this. Who's if you're in your eighties and you're hanging on to your Senate seat, like, think about this.
Yeah, they love breaking points if Biden.
I'm sure they do. If Biden. They watched it right after the PBS News Hour clip on YouTube bends. Yeah, if Biden had stepped down, like you said, after the mid after they overperform in the mid terms, he steps down, he says, I said I was going to be a bridge. I'm following through on it, like the glowing portrayals of his legacy that we would be kind of sloshing through right now.
Do you think even if Trump wins that's the case.
I think even if Trump wins, because he then he did the best he could. He did what he said he was going to do. He set the party up, and then the people chose Trump. But I think actually Democrats probably win.
The cancer diagnosis tragically would have vindicated that decision as well, saying, you know you it was maybe.
Could have been honest about the cancer diagnoses earlier. Right she's saying that he just learned that he's in the phones. It's like, I'm not a cancer doctor, but.
Saying that he hasn't been tested since twenty fourteen, I mean, I don't.
You know that's what the what kind of guy? His age doesn't get regular anyway alone the president, as as Biden says, anyway.
Yeah, but look, I think that Democrats have to find a way to genuinely celebrate some of the policy achievements because we don't want to move back to a Democratic party that doesn't have a worker centered politics, a belief that there should be stayed intervention, that there shouldn't be blanket trade, right. I mean, just because Trump's blanket tariffs aren't working doesn't mean that the Democrats now should start celebrating NAFTA or China's ascension. It's a world trade organization.
I think Biden represented a break from unfettered globalization and separating that and being proud of that, from his decision to run and owning up to that. And you know, other than maybe Dean Phillips or a few people, there are very few Democratic elected officials who weren't endorsing Biden and saying something or the other about why he would have been a good president. And we could just say we made a wrong judgment, didn't a light to what it's come out.
At least Dean went for it. But connorson KNA always a pleasure to have you in the studio.
I appreciate it. I always enjoyed it.
Thank you. Elon Musk made a big announcement, actually in a pretty casual way yesterday. He was asked during a conference or Zoom whether he would well, I don't know Zoom. It could have been whatever else not skyp. Skype is gone, but it could have been Google Meet. Who knows. He was asked about his political donations, the future of his political donations, which again donated just a crazy amount of money. Yeah,
almost three hundred million just in the last cycle. So Republicans he has this America Pack have been have been really building up an infrastructure around an anticipation of future donations from Elon Musk. Let's take a listen to what he said.
I think.
In terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future.
And why is that.
I think I've done enough?
Is it? Is it because of blowback?
Well, if I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it.
I do I currently see a reason.
And it's easy to read into that some awkwardness. It's always kind of baked into Elon Musk. Yes, but some awkwardness in his relationship with the Republican Party. With Donald Trump, he seems my particulars. He seems kind of bitter almost so, though it can be hard to tell with Musk because it's hard to standard.
Yeah.
Yeah, So this was at Bloomberg's Cutter Economic Forum in Doah, which is just kind of hilarious in and of itself. But that was zooming into it again. Almost three hundred million dollars in the last election cycle, a big pack that Republicans have been counting on. My check on this is it's actually kind of good for the Republican Party to not be tiptoeing around Elon Musk for the sake of getting hundreds of millions of dollars from him in
an election cycle. So just from a like populist standpoint, that's a good thing. Anti corruption standpoint, maybe it is one way to put it. That's a good thing.
Yeah. On CNBC, he acknowledged that he took a beating for his entry into the arena. He blamed it on propaganda from the mainstream media. Let's roll f two.
You are somewhat divisive figure two years ago, but now you really are. I mean, there are people who love you, but there are a lot of people who dislike you, some of whom were your customers, And I wonder was it worth the undertaking it Doge and everything.
Else that you've done, and how it's spoken.
You've been in terms of the things you believe in to antagonize so many potential buyers and or users of things like a ROBOTAXI.
Well, I mean, unfortunately, what I've learned is that legacy media propaganda is very effective at making you believe things that aren't true.
What would an example of.
That be that I'm a Nazi, for example? And how many legacy media publications, talk shows, whatever try to claim that I was a Nazi because of some random ham gesture at a rally where all I said was that my heart goes out to you, and I was talking about space travel. And yet the legacy media promoted that as though if that was a deliberate Nazi gesture, when in fact, every politician, any public speaker who's spoken for any length of time has made the exact same gesture.
And yet there's sold people out there and I've never had I've never had.
A single puss.
You know what I wasn't I was I was talking about it. Yeah, and so this has had commercial damage to in particular Tesla, the most I guess consumer facing of his companies. You can put up F three. This article in The Bulwark highlights one guy who paid one hundred and ten thousand dollars a year ago for a cyber truck now being offered fifty four thousand dollars for
it by Carvana. There are an enormous number of unsold cyber trucks kick kicking around, but things could be turning around, and you know, maybe thanks to his involvement in politics. In the end, put up F four. Elon Musk apparently reached out to Pete Hegseth, saying that you know that he'd be happy to collaborate with the construction of this new Golden Dome that we talked about earlier in the program.
Donald Trump is going to keep us safe from the while barrages that he apparently expects to come our way and is going to build us an iron dome times gold and Elon Musk wants a piece of this, you know, five hundred billion dollar project. Well that that's what the CBO says it was cost. Trump says it's basically going to be a tiny fraction of that. If if you're a betting man, you always take the over on any Pentagon contract. Elon Musk, a betting man, would like a
piece of that action. So on the one hand, Musk saying politics has been really bad for me for the foreseeable future, I'm not going to be investing. At the same time, he's still hoping he's going to be able to continue to get government contracts, which in our pay to play system requires some involvement in politics, but it doesn't require the level that he's been involved in. This this unprecedented like I'm going to be your banker kind
of thing role that he was playing. And I'm curious how you know, Democrats were nervous that Elon Musk's superpack was and I think some Republicans were nervous too privately, yeah, that it was going to turn Trump into not dictator in the old sense, but like a guy who can basically dictate anything to the Republican Party because if you step out of line, here's my man, Elon Who's going to put ten million dollars into a superpack and is going to destroy you in the next primary more than not.
And they basically said that explicitly, and that would give a president an amount of power over his party that no president really has ever had before. But almost seems like Trump can do that anyway. But he doesn't even need the money, just his own, his own kind of power and influence within the party can do it well.
Primaries, yeah, I think in the primaries maybe, but in general elections. I mean, I think we've talked about this in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election that Elon Musk actually went to Green Bay and Cheese.
Had on good. Western civilization was at stake.
Said, Western civilizations at stake. I think we're right. Our coverage has been correct to pinpoint that as the moment in which must started to slowly disentangle himself from the Trump administration. At least in public view, it does seem like that's happening. Privately, it does seem like he's gradually spending less and less time near the White House, in the White House and in Washington, d C.
And luckily for him, he's heavily invested in Eastern civilization too.
Yeah, and space civilizations.
In many civilizations. Yeah, he's covered.
The bases are covered, yes, so, but I think part of that is because he wanted to be able to wield so much easy power in that that Wisconsin election was a test case post twenty twenty four general election of Musk being able to come in register tons of new Republican voters by offering money, like bribing people to register to vote, and then just come in and flick your finger and flick of the risk, flick of the wrist,
and you've totally changed. You've bought an election. Essentially, he was testing that he was trying that and it didn't work.
And so now in retrospect, the way Democrats framed the election in Wisconsin as sort of a test case for whether or not Musk can buy his way to complete in total domination politically of the United States, that framing looks pretty good because it seems to have been a message to him that he cannot, that it will not be that easy, and that, if anything, his attempt to do that has become a sort of what's in albatross for the Republican party that wants to have a new
populist messaging, wants to have a new populist brand, and you have a billionaire coming in as sort of openly bribing people to register to vote, and trying to buy elections again openly, pretty openly trying to buy elections, spend a bunch of money. If cash infusion changed the game, it didn't work, and it didn't work for a couple of reasons. Voters didn't like it. It's not great for Republicans. So that's where, at least I think on the public level,
we're seeing him step back, genuinely step back. But whether or not that investment, because we can put this funny post from Tim Miller on the screen F three. This is about a guy who bought his cyber truck for one hundred and ten grand and then was offered fifty four thousand back for it by Carvana. It's a long bowlwark story about how they say in their stubheading Trump killed Tesla. And obviously it's true to that Tesla is struggling immensely. Some of these cars are struggling immensely. The
Tesla's valuation. Valuation has always been about more than just the cars. It's also the technology. I mean, it's primarily probably like the FSD full stub driving technology that's in
the cars. Nevertheless, yeah, the cyber truck in particular, has struggled for reasons that aren't just Trump related, but are definitely Trump related to So if you thought that that was representative of Musk taking a big hit, it actually may turn out that you know this, the Tesla hit is nothing compared to the gain for SpaceX, for Starlink, and for other Musk properties, because he's now built up tons of goodwill with the Trump administration going forward. He
has great connections with Pete Hegseth. And by the way, that's why people influence pedal to get the influence when they want it, for example, when there's massive contracts.
Golden Dome contract available. Yeah, and hey, look I'm rooting for Tesla. We need more, you know, we need electric vehicle companies and we need American ones. So I hope he pulls this off. And I'm also very delighted that he's tweeting much less, because God, that was not so much less. That was so obnoxious to just see him constantly in your feed. It was nothing you could do about it.
It wasn't even obnoxious so much as it was just like watching a slow motion cyber truck crash right like.
It was painful, and he would he just would keep lading like Kat turn and Ian Miles Chong and everybody's fees. You're not doing the world a service with that. And he was for yourself.
He was openly admitting that they were half baked, right, He was like, sometimes I'll be right, sometimes I'll be wrong. And for a billionaire to be so casual about these pronouncements that, even if he wants them to have less power, even if he wants people to realize that this is just my half baked two in the morning thoughts. It's not how people interpret things that are coming out of the mouth of a billionaire.
And one of the best things culturally about him is that he's always been interesting. Yes, and he stopped being interesting. He became a reply He became a reply guy. He became boring.
Yeah, I think that's right.
No pun intended on his company. And so maybe he'll get his interesting mojo back.
Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't even good for like his personal brand. Terrible, many different robles. So we'll see. But if you had said in January twenty first, for example, May twenty first, so exactly five months ago that uh, you know, Elon Musker four months ago, I can't count that's keep that in mind for all of the economic segments. I know you already know many of you already do.
But if you have on January twenty first, for someone coming to you and saying by May twenty first, Elon is saying he's gonna be no more political donations and basically he's done with DOGE. I think a lot of people would have been like, WHOA, what happened?
Well, and russ Vote is taking over Doje And russ Vote is much more dangerous probably person than Elon because he's methodical and he's like a revolutionary depends on your perspective.
I mean, if you support the government becoming more limited, relatively limited, then Russ's is definitely less dangerous because Elon is more of like a crony capitalist than like rest is an opponent of crony capitalism, like ideologically. So we'll see where that.
Goes, Yes we will. And we touched on this briefly while Rocana was here. But the news that broke during the show is that Representative Jerry Connolly of Virginia has has died of cancer. This will create a special election, It'll give Republicans one extra vote cushion as they're pushing through their big, beautiful bill. But on on a personal level, you know, Connolly took a lot of heats for despite facing cancer running for terminal cancer turned out to be terminal.
He thought he was going to beat it the top position on the community. It was a bad it was a bad prognosis and not being up to the task. And I think he deserved, deserved, you know, criticism for that, you know, mis misreading that moment. I have a soft
spot for him. He was elected in two thousand and eight, so he came in in this There were two big waves of Democrats that came in in two thousand and six and then again in two thousand and eight, and both those classes, you know, were a big part of the two thousand and nine and ten Obama rush of legislation which created the CFPB, the Affordable Care Act, and on on and so he was he was always in
the speaker's lobby. Uh and he I think to his dying days almost which means that he was out out off of the floor, just hamming it up with reporters, always willing to be transparent about where he was giving good quotes, giving and also given given good intel and you know, he just represents a it was a swing district at the time. Now it's a little bit more democratic, So it's not like he was Democratic Socialist of America champion,
but he was well liked and a charming guy. Like he came up just a machine politician, like he was Fairfax board of Supervisors for you know, decade and that decade plus and then member of Congress. Like you know, he's not not not upbending politics, but as far as like a machine politician goes a good guy and it's.
A you know, so.
You know he'll be he'll be missed on.
That level that people have friendly memories of of him, certainly that people have shared those machine politicians, many of them dudes. They're they're very nice.
That's why they're successful, backslapp and they love the chicken dinners.
Yeah they do. They're super extroverted people, gregarious.
Yeah.
So he was also Jamal Kashoggi's representative, and I was always grateful for him to him for raising the alarm before we knew that he was that Kashogi had been killed. He was because he went into the consulate and I heard immediately, like you from people close it was his fiance were like, he hasn't come out, and so there was about a week where there was still some hope that he was alive and there could be enough pressure
put on Saudi Arabia that he would be released. That we didn't know at the time he'd been killed right there in the consolate, but Connolly was outspoken in real time, so that was I credit him for that.
Who's back on the show tomorrow? Ryn? Are you here with Crystal? Yes? Great, something to look forward to. And I think it's just you and me on the Friday Show this week.
That sounds right, all right, Well, plenty more, we'll get a special guests or something.
Yeah, that's we couldn't it's Soccer's baby, just the baby, not Soccer, just the Yeah, that's right, all right, we'll stick around for that. Breaking Points dot Com if you want to see the second half of the Friday Shows. You get the show in your inbox early every day, so make sure to subscribe there if you can. If you can't, just make sure to subscribe. We appreciate it very much, and Ryan and Crystal will see you back here tomorrow.
See that