Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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All right, guys, we got a special guest in the house this morning to talk to us about media and also twenty twenty four politics, the former host of Hardball with Chris Matthews, the one and only Chris Matthews.
Welcome, Thank you, sir, thank you. I'm here.
So let's start with a little bit of Biden administration stuff. What do you give him as a grade on policy and what do you give him as a grade?
Well, I'm a political expert.
That's what I'm at, that's what i'm good at, and I think he's going to be going to face a close election next year. I think to twenty four even so, I'd say, uh, he should be able to carry the usual democratic states and lose the usual Republican states and will decide the election, probably in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia. Although I think George is getting very tough for Trump right now. It looks like that governor's pretty good, tough, strong guy camp.
So you think it'll come down to the time.
I think, Look, the economy is the numbers are really interesting. You know, I never thought of unemployment this low. It's very low. But there's also the inflation threat. And I don't think inflation goes away when they go from say nine percent down to something lower.
I think people will still feel it.
Yes, and when they and a guy complained the other day about Philly, you know, Philly chief, what do you call it, the chiefs? It was the chief, it was the cheese itself. He's just complaining about phil And I think people don't like prices. They don't like the gas.
Yeah.
And if you're a working guy or working woman, you have to travel fifteen miles to go to work. You don't live near buying some elite neighborhood. You got to travel that misgas every day. That's a tax. It's a tax, yeah, and you don't get you don't get anything out of it. You don't get an extra speed out of it. You just pay a lot more for gas. And I think
that's real. So I think where inflation is going to be if Trump does well, meaning if he wins despite all the legal challenges he faces, if he wins, it'll be because of inflation and unemployment is lower. But that only affects the unemployed. Are the employed, I mean, that's only a percentage. It's very good to get it low
because it gets marginal people to work. I think one thing really good thing about the economy today is that people that normally wouldn't get a job are working because they've they've gotten brought onto the workforce by salaries.
So what do you think about from a political perspective, the idea of leaning into this label Bidenomics, fusing his name with an economy that the overwhelming majority of people of people say is not working for them.
Well, you know, I think that he's done some things that Trump hasn't done done. Donald Trump came into office saying he was going to do infrastructure and build up the economy, build up the roads, highways, bridges, everything and the new stuff.
He didn't do it. Why didn't you do it? That's my big question.
Why didn't Trump do the every Even demagogues like Huey Long and Hitler and people like that, they all build stuff. Building is what demagogues do. It's one way to reach the people.
Why didn't he do it?
So if he was so bad, no, no.
That's not so bad. It's just said that Biden has done this.
But if he's done better on these areas, why are they tied? And then you also have, obviously all the indictments. I mean, this man may be facing prison time by the time the election comes around. Why is it a jump ball? Isn't that a you know, show some weakness on the Democratic the other side?
I think it is charisma. I think Biden may suffer from that. I don't think he has the charm that Biden that Barack Obama had or Reagan had. I think I'm writing about that now. I mean, who's good on television. Let's pig blunt. Who's good on television and politics that matters? Trump is good on television. When he says something, he doesn't reconsider his words. He says at once. He doesn't say I mean that, folks, literally, folks, he just said it.
And when Trump speaks, it's loud, and I think that's powerful stuff. And Reagan could do it that, Barack Obama could do it. Jack Kennedy could do it. Roosevelt could do it on the radio. But Biden does have that problem. He's older too, he's eighty.
His problem is the gravitas doesn't come through. I think that's part of it.
A lot of this is cosmetic, and let's say said, a lot of politics is how you look, what do you sound like?
Are you convincing?
And even if if the policies are good, he's got to go out and sell them.
What about Kamala Harris? Do you think she's a good heir apparent for the Democratic Party?
I think she'd have a hard time winning a general election on her own.
Why did he make a mistake.
Because I don't think that she has gone out and talked to the American people. You know, when you're running for office, you have to make yourself likable. You have to make yourself likable, and this guy did. DeSantis isn't able to do that. He doesn't know how to do small talk. He can't talk to kids, he can't talk to regular people. A lot of people have had this problem I mean, John Carrey had this problem. Watermandale had this problem. A lot of people have come off as
too official. They don't know how to talk to regular people. W could do it like a bandit. He may have been he took us under the wrong war, but he knew how to talk to regular people. And that talent hasn't come from the Florida governor. And for some reason, Kamala thinks she's she comes off as as prosecutor, like she's talking about people to disagree with their own abortion rights. Well, they're not wrong. I mean, they may be wrong in
your thinking. They may you may disagree with them, but they're not evil, you know, And and that's not and portraying it always being on the attack doesn't make you popular to make the list of all the popular prosecutors there are.
I mean, I mean, they're just not.
And I think you have to tell stories that if I were in her corner and I used to do this for a living, I tell her tell stories about growing up with a tiger mother, an Indian American mother, that must have been really tough. You have all a's you know what it's like. You can imagine what it's like, you know, and tell her what is what that's like, what's like having a Jamaican father with that, what is that mixture to cultures?
What was that like? Tell us something that makes that brings you into your life?
And everybody, everybody tells the narrative Bill Clinton was the best of the best in you was good. Sure, and you have to tell your stories. And people say, you know what, that's not quite my story. But you know, I think it's interesting if I want to follow that person and she doesn't do that, and I don't understand. I don't understand a politician who doesn't try to be liked. And I think, uh, Jack Kennedy, people used to say, I've written a lot of books about him and that
he that everybody thought he liked them. That's a talent that people thought that he liked them.
Well, does that come across with her?
Do you think the American people don't think that? It doesn't really matter what I mean, the people don't.
You know, some people come off as a Michelle Obama's very popular, but she doesn't have to.
She doesn't have the approving voice either. It's not it's not common.
Harry didn't have it. It's it's not getting people to do what you wanted to do. It's getting to like you first, and then they might do what you wanted to do. But to convince people, by the way politics is simple. You have to like the persons, just so simple.
I mean that's the first step. But you know, to go.
Back to trust them and trust them.
Yeah, and to to go back to the Biden critique. Isn't there more though than just you know, the messaging or the cosmetic or his inability that you convey gravitas? Well, we're asking you, well it is.
Why do you have to repeat yourself.
When you look at the numbers? Though, When you look at the numbers in terms of how people are doing economically, you do have this mixed picture. I mean, the White House can rightly point to one low unemployment rate as you did, but when you look at the percentage of people who are food and secure a struggling to pay their bills, trillion dollars in debt, credit card debt, we just hit that milestone as the nation. So there is real economics.
There's people living at.
The edge where they can't raise three hundred bucks if they need. You've seen these studies exactly. You can't raise three hundred bucks.
Right, So isn't there more to the problems for Biden and why he's tied with Trump?
Well, then there's then there's.
Always going to be problems when you just establish as the American condition, it's always going to be like that wellistic, nihilistic got tay Ronald Reagan got real liked the morning at America.
What was the unemployment rate? What do you think it is?
Unemployment rate was I don't know seven. So, I mean, you can't just quantify and say it's.
Not just about where people are, it's where they they're going. And so during the pandemic, for example, you know, there were a lot of problems, there was a lot of pain, but you also had a child tax credit that was put in place that genuinely reduced child poverty. You actually had homelessness significantly reduced because you had eviction moratoriums, you had expanded access to healthcare, and you had actually suicides went down un even.
In Michigan on hold on.
So it is possible to improve the material condition of Americans. We've seen it throughout American history. We saw it just now in the pandemic. When the government wants to deliver so to say to throw up your hands like, well, this is just the American condition.
Running.
We're running two trillion dollars in data, in full employment. It is basically full em playment. You can't have more expansive economic policies than that.
You can't. You blow the whole thing.
You did, and it worked very well for people. It worked well for lots of people who had more money in their bank account and where childhood poverty was much lower the pandemic. And then you also had, you know, talk about the FDR era. I mean, we had a new deal that you know, built out the American middle class. This is the era you were growing up. I know you're right, things are possible. You can't just say, oh, well this.
Is more money. Yeah, spend more money and tax the rich. Okay, how are you going to do that?
You're going to tax the rich?
How do you do that?
The wealthiest among us?
Who runs the runs the Congress?
The wealthy? But isn't that the part of the problem.
So what's your argument?
My argument is.
The wealthy shouldn't be wealthy and the Democrats should be running the Congress.
Well, I know, my argument is the American condition. We can't do anything more.
Like I can tell you we're running.
We're running in something that's very close to read more inflation, very close.
So what do you do.
You bring up, bring up prices if it look demand pull more money you spend, the more prices go up.
Right, do we agree on that? Yeah?
No, I actually don't fully agree on that because of what we saw coming out of the pandemic. You know, the argument was always just because of all the big government spending, because God forbid, we give working class people a little bit of money in their pockets. At the same time, increasingly we've seen a lot of the price increases were from corporations who decided they could price gouge
and use the excuse of inflation to lift prices significantly. Now, that was seen as a fringe theory at the time when it was first floated, like just a bunch of lefty wars that think this. We now have increasing evidence that that was a big part of it. We also had coming out of the pandemic, huge supply chain disruptions that were a real problem, and also the Ukraine War contributed to that significantly. So to just say, oh, they spent money and that's what happened. I think that's a
very simplistic understanding of what was going on. Well, all right, well disagree.
I argue that the more government spending, whether the government or from the private sector or investment or consumer spending, all that spending drives up prices.
All that drives up prices.
So I think we need to spend less if you want to have left lesson. So we talked to her about inflation. I want to ask you about the media. I grew up kind of watching you on television.
This show.
Kind of our popularity and the existence of a lot of the Internet has kind of been in reaction to cable news, of which you were a product of for decades. Why do you think that trust in media right now is so low?
Too many voices, too many, too many different voices. You can watch Fox, and you can watch MSNBC or CNN, and you can watch different stories.
So you just think optionality is what has reduced trust.
Trust is the problem of all media because you have to give the whole picture, Like you have to talk inflation, you have to talk prices, you have to put it all together. And we're trying to run an American economy that's healthy and for example, if you talk about Hunter, why not to talk about Jared No, no, no, no, just a minute. Who else does that?
Not very many? No?
Anybody right? Anybody right?
So nobody talks about the holistic situation of relatives and how they might be exploiting the situation. Yeah, well that's a problem because everybody is watching. Well, the weu is right here has limited So who else is doing that?
Who else is doing the whole picture?
When they talk about things like you're talking about inflation and the problems of the poor and everything else and homelessness and putting it all together, and you're talking this one point of view, putting it all together. What happens to the average person, The middle class family has to pay bills when prices go up, they got to PIV. When you're retired, you don't have any income coming in.
That's already there. It's fixed. These are realities. You cannot hurt one group and say I'm helping the other, because when you're president you have to put it all together. In the media, I do think that if you look at who watches MSNBC and who watches CNN and seeing an an experiment with Chris Slick with going independent or rather going non partisan. It's a very difficult time to go nonpartisans. Yeah, because you have to say, well, I
don't know whether Trump won the election in twenty twenty. Well, if you want to say that, I think you're an idiot.
But that's all right.
Huh.
You say that, and you're saying, I'm not going to deal with factual news. I'm not going to go with which states voted. I'm not going with how the electrics were counted. Honestly, I'm not going to I'm going to just say, well, they're all the same. No, they're not all the same.
And I think you did a lot of this at MSNBC.
What did I do with the figure pointing well, you know, what did I do? What did I do? Here? Well, what did I do?
I saw you do that a lot.
No, I never did you what did I do?
I mean while you were in the chair at MSNBC, specifically during the Trump years. I mean you're talking about how Fox every criticism you just gave. I mean we're also talking about I watched on your network. Russia Gate coverage about Trump was an asset from nineteen eighty seven about selective covers or all this. I mean, do you still feel good about that coverage? Like, because you're.
Talking about that. That's the problem.
The problem was that we had a lot of points where there was would look like collusion with the Russians showing up all the time, Russians showing up at conventions, what are they doing at conventions? Throwing up in meetings with Trump, all.
This kind of all those issues together created.
The situation looked like it was all connected and that never was connected. That's a fact, okay.
Yeah, And so do you have any regrets about the coverage during that time or you know.
I think whenever you whenever you're going to you're following a story as it develops, and you look at it developing and developing and developing, and all these these points seem to hit and all the connections with Russia again and again and again, and we never got to the.
End of the story.
Yeah, but as a journalist, you can't just float things that are wildlike oh, maybe you said.
That's a floating thing. With every fact, we don't every fact we dealt with was a fact.
But we watched, you know, segments about hey, maybe it was a Russian asset since nineteen eighty seven. Hey, maybe these peas? That was on Crisches's show. Jonathan Chate said that one's show. You know a lot of veracity given to the alleged p tape, et cetera. You don't think the network got out beyond what the facts suggested.
I think I think that we did what we had with what we had, and we.
Didn't have enough.
O gotcha and you didn't have enough. I guess I'm curious through MSNBC now that you're on your outside of your independent with your reflections of what went wrong. You know, you start in the nineteen nineties on cable television, the country was a lot more united. Things start to go downhill. You've said here it's optionality. I'm just well, you said you said that one of these I.
Said, you know, you know what we're talking about people talking to the audience, confirming right with the audience already.
But don't you think that's what MSNBC did? I mean, that's you're asking me about MSNBC. Ask me about me, okay, I'll ask you. I mean, you were a fixture on that network for.
Do you use these terms?
I was a fixture, I was a product of I don't think these are causalities.
I'm not a function of individual.
Who I am and I've always been who I am. Yeah, and I may disagree with other people on the same network. I don't know what you're talking about, this we and us and all this thing.
Let me let me ask a little bit specifically about the twenty twenty sixteenth primary coverage, because I'm curious about how this went down. You know, this was after I'd been let go from the network, so I don't have any insight into this era. And you would think that MSNBC, being this liberal progressive network overwhelmingly and you certainly had your own point of view, that they might at least be a little bit Bernie curious, maybe a little bit,
you know, inclined towards Bernie Sanders. You had this overwhelming or who would be for Bernie Sanders? Well, I'm saying who was? That's what I'm saying, is that there you are?
That means you are that do you think other people should be for Bernie Sanders?
Well, I'm asking yes, your time. Hold on, Chris, hold on, let me get to a question.
Answering the question.
No, But let me I haven't even gotten to the typical question.
This is a cable news to net work. Chris, Well, you're answering the question with your answer.
Your question, you had instead of you know, maybe a variety of opinions or whatever, you had an overwhelming every single host just completely opposed it, completely contemp fal of the movement or at times gripped by like sheer terror that he might want. Was that, hold on, hold on examples? Okay, well names you did float that you might be rounded up and executed in Central Park if he won. So you also I didn't, like.
I mean very clear, never I never said anything about Hitler. But what I'm I know, I never said anything about Hitler.
Okay, there was I believe a Nazi compared no.
No, I was. You have to answer.
That he might be, but this is true. You you might be rounded up in Central Park and executive he was president. Okay, So as one example, but you have to say that overall, ten of the tenor of the coverage of the network was very negative. Was that individuals making choices? Was that like a voice coming down from that or was that a problem of group thinks?
It was all individual at your time?
And then who would have talked to me.
There's lots of friends in this town. You're certainly in touch with network executives who want to have you know.
I never got a point of view told to me from anybody in the executive role.
So it just happenstance that every single person at the network this way.
I don't know. I don't think the hate is the right word.
Looks like it from the outside. People can speak to their own view at the time.
No, I thought at the time, just to put this back in where I'm factual and accountable. I thought when Bernie was headed toward winning in New Hampshire and winning in a Nevada big time, and I couldn't see even results coming in from the others, the moderates from Biden in those right, and I got I get concerned that they've disappeared, that they weren't even there, because in the afternoon in Nevada, we didn't have any numbers coming in from anybody but Bernie.
Bernie was winning that thing in a landslide.
And anybody who'd been through nineteen seventy two knew what happens when the Democratic Party goes that far left. And if you put a person like Bernie Sanders up there. It looked to me like a rerun of nineteen seventy two McGovern mcgovernor, and I saw McGovern got beaten in almost every state, and I think, and I thought that was wrong for the Democrats to do that. I thought Bernie was probably or Elizabeth was going to win. And of course I didn't happy, but I wasn't happy with
either one of them. But what do you think, Why would I be happy with Why would I be happy with people they're probably.
Going to lose?
That's your opinion. I mean, that's not what the polls were showing in terms of how he was performing in hypothetical matchup matchups against Trump, both in twenty sixteen and in twenty two.
You're allowed, that's an arguments.
That opinion, but I mean it didn't match up with the Well, let me know.
The Democratic Party got together.
And basically Jim Clyburn in South Carolina delivered a seventy percent victory for Biden. That was enough to convince the others like like Mike Bloomberg and Amy Kloscher and met Pete Bodhaje Edge to withdraw because they saw, for whatever reason, they saw this heading And there's only one kendidate that could win.
Yeah. Now, but don't you think the media played a part in also convincing people like this is the guy that can win. Joe Biden is the one.
If the media control thing, Mario Cuomo would be president.
General power would be in the media has had favorites forever, General Pale, We've had a lot of favorites that have gone nowhere.
Well, we could the other way. Okay, you you were at a network and your show was beloved by many Democratic primary voters. You don't think you had any influence amongst those voters.
It was pretty clear that I wasn't.
I mean I think that the people I thought the people around me were probably with Bernie. I don't think there was an animosity. It's not interesting.
It's true.
You know that people around you were like at the network group or do you mean the people who watch your show.
I thought there was a an ambivalence about Bernie winning and a.
Sense of this is fine, that's all. Okay, no more than that.
And I said, and I was the one hard strick and that this is going to be a big defeat it And I think you're wrong about thinking that the middle class of the United States who run elections.
Basically, we're not going to like Bernie.
But why do you assert that so confident when first.
Of all, he called himself a socialist.
I'm just not going to sell I actually agree with you that the label no, no, it.
Wasn't label, it was his name, it's what he said.
But Chris, when you look at what he actually supported, things like healthcare for all, those are popular things, right, living wage fifteen dollars men, that's very popular. In fact, you know, the student debt cancelation is something that Biden has picked up in his movie.
Bernie was able to put forward.
But I thought they were very popular Vermont and they think he's very popular winning elections up there, and I don't think it would have sold with the country.
I have a question about you specifically. So you've kind of lionized like biparts and politics. You've written books about it, Tipper and Reagan. I'm curious do you think, then, you know we're talking here about Trump and Bernie, don't you think those are kind of indictments of those type of politics, the bipartisan kind of the lionization of that of the lionization. Yeah, did you read my book no, I didn't read it. Okay, so you're talking about well, I've seen the title of it.
What are you talking about that?
Talking about you?
Where? Do you think that the populist energy around Bernie and Trump both came from what's what? What is this?
In response to? And to me it seems to respond.
I think I think a lot of people are not happy. Yeah, generally speaking, they did, they don't. I think there's a lot of of animus about power, about intellectuals.
Are people doing the show?
And I think there's a lot of anger in working people about the Democratic Party.
Do you think it's justified?
I think there's anybody that looks down on other people has a problem.
It's creating a problem.
And you think there are elements, at least a Democratic Party they look down on people.
What do you think?
I think so, But I'm curious.
I think so too.
Well. I guess it comes back to then how do we get out of this?
Well, look, if you get you know, if you want to get a really good socialist newspaper, I haven't read it. So let's find one, okay, because there isn't one. Because that's where Bernie's pushing big government role a lot of government responsibility, a lot of government taking, possibly taking roles taking.
I mean Bernie at this point is basically a loyal soldier for Joe Biden or Bernie threat is completely neutralized to the extent that it ever existed. Would you say that's true, Well.
You say things, and then I got to think about whether that's true or not. He's neutralized. I think he's been. He and Biden, I think are on the phone a lot. I think he supported Biden. I think he knew that Biden was the one who could win, and I think he saw him winning the Democratic Party, and I think the maybe he has a sense of history. I don't know. Bernie ran sort of wild liberal left wing politics up in the Vermont and finally beat the Democratic Party. You
never joined the Democratic Party. Biden's head of the Democratic Party. He has a different role this. Democrats are not socialists. They're They're like Roosevelt. They believe in a little more government in places like uh social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
But those issues have all been joined by Trump.
Trump completely agrees with leaving sub security alone, He leaves many care, medic He has gone completely against the Republican thinking about fiscal austhority the Democrats have gotten. And I just read this piece about new monetary policy. I think it's wacky. They just spend all you want, print the money. It's in the paper today, Robert Zelig. Print all the money you want and just spend it. Biden and the student loan thing, Print the money and I'll give it
to you. I'm just where did the money come from? Where'd the money come from? Where did the money come from?
Well, I'm curious.
What do you think? Market rates atmorrow rate mark are the.
Best and worst things that Biden is so as president? In your view, he wont that.
Was the best.
That's sarcastic, that's fun. I think I think infrastructure was important. I think he should have done a bigger infrastructure bill. I think although it may it may inflate the economy again. I think that next year could be very bad for the economy with inflation, and and that hurts. That hurts everybody. You talk about spending more money, and you have the goals for spending, but every time you spend, you're taking
money and inflating prices. It's just that you can talk all you want to getting rid of inflation, it's never gone away as long as the money has been spent.
So what about the worst? What are the worst things? Biden to his president You mention, I.
Think there's an old rule of Churchills that you never promised something you can't deliver. Don't say you can give people freedom to free them from student loan debt. It's their debt. They paid them, they made the decision. They're getting their career opportunities out of it. The people in the in the United States, the middle class and the working class in Pennsylvania, who don't go to college, which the majority of people, they're not going to get those benefits.
And yet you're taking them from them and saying, oh, I'm going to just inflate the economy. I'm just going to create more money, drive all the prices up to pay for student loans. Well, that was very responsible because he couldn't do it constitutionally. He had no right to do that. The courts are not going to back them on this.
Yeah, I mean they've already vacated in people's people's payments are going to be resuming very soon. Some commentators we've seen out there have been floating that we're on the verge of a civil war. You love history.
No, let me do it.
I'm gonna go back to you because this argument about you've got to spend more money two tradion hours over full employment. We've pushed down umployment as as low as it's ever been able to do. This is the hardest we can ever do. In terms of expansionism and and and social programming and everything that Biden's done, He's as probably as left as you could go.
Yes, wildly disagree.
I mean wildly disagree. Start the premise that we live in a country we don't live in.
No. No, the beginning of the administration, there was significant programs and relief, there were checks that were cut, there were pandemic era programs. All of that has been stripped away over the course of Biden administration. I mean, student debt payments are set to be.
They COVID they were for COVID nineteen.
Everything that was done during that period was stripped away. So to talk, the story of the Biden administration has actually been cutting social spending over the course of administration, which is why I would argue he's in such a difficult place in terms of electorally because people's experience have been. You know, I was doing okay, and now you know, all of these things that were helping me, including I think the child tax cred is a perfect example, those
things have gone away. I do think inflation is important part of that story. I just disagree with the totality of the causes of inflation, but I think that that's the issue. But you know, you.
Know I disagree that, but prices go up, it's because more money is being spent.
I don't think that's the whole thing that's going on. Is that is economics, but it's not that that's what the economics textbook says. But when we look at you can you let me finish here. The Federal Reserve did research showing that a significant portion, a majority of the inflation was just corporate price gouging. Executives were on calls. You don't have to take my refort. Executives were on calls bragging about how they were able to use the
excuse of inflation to hike up prices. So there's an issue with monopolies of the last thing I really want to get from you, and this is genuine.
In the real world, and I'm telling you, if inflation rises next year and it continues that Theate, it's going to hurt by Like I believe.
That the era that you've covered extensively, you know, it's like this Reagan Clinton neoliberal consensus. Do you think that that consensus failed in any meaningful respect? Do you think that consensus is broken? Are we moving towards a new era, or do you think that it continues a pace?
Well, I don't think moderate moderation sells generally. I mean mcgovernor beat Muskie. I mean, the fact is that if you have a wild idea and you can appeal to people who are desperate, they're going to give you a shot. And like, you know, the idea that we can continue a massive welfare program in addition to what we're spending now, I don't know how we.
Can keep doing it. I just I.
Mean, there's not going to There's no way you're going to raise taxes. I can't think of how you're going to raise taxes with the Republican Congress right now, and in effect, even the Senate is not going.
To do it, right yeah, I mean, so where are you going to do it?
What government you're going to have? You're talking about the United States government.
But do you think that there were core failures to get back to this question of like where does the populous energy around Trump and around Bernie? Where does this come from? And is it rooted in some key failures of that bipartisan consensus, the overlap between basically Bill Clinton and Donald Reagan. You know, you have this census, You have this consensus in favor of deregulation, You have the Iraq War, you have free trade, you have all of
these things that build up to the financial crash. I mean, aren't these key failures of neoliberalism that now you have these movements in reaction to movements that you you know very much don't support.
Don't support what you don't support, the populace movements like Trump, like Trump or Bernie?
Yeah?
Yeah, were there were there failures in that.
Trump or Bernie? Were there?
There's a different they're wildly different, but talking about animating energy, here were their key failures in that neoliberal consensus that has dominated here for some forty years.
I don't know, you know, I mean, I don't know.
This is wearing me out. I'm just this argument is just I'm arguing with someone who has.
No interest states.
How me the States are for your point of view, because you're you're advocating here. You're pretending to interview me, but you're really advocating for a social welfare state.
And I'm going to ask you where is it winning.
Well, look at Florida, they passed a fifteen dollars.
No, you're jumping around your point.
I'm not trying to argue with you about Bernie anymore. I'm going to ask you what you really think about the era that you covered, and whether it's coming to a close or whether you think that you know the leader. Do you think it's coming to a close? Do you think it served people well? Do you think there were any failures to it, anything that should have been done differently during that era?
Can I speak?
Yeah?
Go ahead.
I think the Democratic Party, the modern Democratic Party, has been very good at opposing the Vietnam War, and most of it, not at the top, is very good at opposing the Iraq War. And these are real conditions where people get killed, and we killed two hundred thousand people
in Iraq and the Vietnam fifty eight million people. Fifty eight thousand people died from our country and millions and Vietnamese, and we made those decisions on civil rights, starting with the Brown case in fifty four and the Civil Rights Bill and sixty for voting rights in sixty five, and all those issues social issues, the Democratic Party with Republican support in many cases Midwestern Republicans were very big on civil rights. Certainly that's when we had a Northeastern Republican
party establishment party. And I think in all those issues the Democrats did the right thing.
And even after Roe v.
Waite was a brilliant decision because I think even though it was political and it wasn't really a court decision, it was a practical decision. The old joke was that the Supreme Court follows the elections, and they did what makes sense, and viability made sense, and so we moved. We've made a lot of decisions in terms of unemployment. The Democratic Party has under Clinton bounced the budgets, which I thought was important. Under Harry Truman bounced the budgets.
I think they've tried to do fiscally responsible stuff. They have maintained at ignormous of costs Medicare and Medicare and Social Security, which are incredibly difficult expensive. They have done
all those programs for retirees. I think they've been probably in terms of homelessness, and reality is on the street, not this the world you talk about, that world I don't know anything about, but in the reality of the streets where you walk in San Francisco and you see the liberalism, it is liberalism.
It's not left wing liberal.
Attitudes towards people living in the streets, the graffiti actually the dration of a lot of downtown San Francisco. I think they've been probably too liberal, and I think if you go any further in that direction, it's almost zany.
Now just a minute.
I'm getting to talk here because I live in the real world where people like Gavin Newsom can get elected and Jerry Brown can get elected four times, and people that are modern Democrats, or you call them a neoliberals, they are neoliberals because they're trying to do something. They're not socialists. They don't believe in the government taking over things. They know that at some point the government gets too big and it's the problem, and they do it.
They don't believe in all these solutions advocating.
Thank god there is no Bernie Sanders running the country. Think I know just because I want you've made your point. I heard all the points. I heard them all my life, and all those arguments.
Absolute defeat that.
You know places the real world, the real world I know about. I have a couple of brothers who voted for Trump this time, probably will again. I've got people and relatives I will not even argue with because they disagree with me. There's a lot more people on the other side than from your side. I think that Trump probably in the latest polling in Pennsylvania's one point ahead, in Michigan's even Virginia's running even.
I think he's.
Probably going to pick up a couple of points in the next few weeks. Yeah, because because every time the courts go after Trump, every time the prosecutors go after Trump, every time they go after Trump, and they are all right in these cases, I believe completely right. His microphone gets bigger, is louder, because if you attack somebody, they.
Have a right to respond. That's the key thing.
But America is if you're under attack for whatever reason, you get to talk and you get a lot of opportunity. So he's going to have I don't think I'll go to this debate this week. I think he's probably gonna wait outside. I may have been get arrested during that time. He may do anything, but he's not gonna let their Chris Christy grab the front page of the New York Times away from him, because all will be is Christie attack him.
And he's the liberal pin up boy.
Right now, You'll hear about a whole lot on the MSNBC and CNN. You'll hear a lot of them because he's a liberal pin up boy. He's their guy, and they know he doesn't have a chance in the world of beating Trump, just like Bernie Sanders does in the world.
She beat anybody, anybody that's not what the pole. No, give me one. Just give me one now in real time. I'm looking at it. You're not looking them up. Gill me the poll. Now give me one poll. I'm just challenging you in your basic guy. You have you have the platform.
Clinton, you have the platform Keller Clinton was the electable one.
How did that go?
How does he do a beating Trump?
What is that? This is the this is called what about? Is this?
You're making a case about who would have won? I can tell you who didn't win. Hillary Clinton didn't win. Yeah, yeah, and that was the person who at that time your networks.
This I was pushing.
I was pushing Clinton is a candidate. I like Shared Brown, I like people like that. I like some people left because they because they have an ability to talk to people the way they live and not this this, this.
Performance, Jerney have some labor supporting.
I don't.
Look, you have a point of view, and you've run to this table and I'm trying to defend against it. I'm just saying, monery course can win. The montery course can win. And Biden, uh has made a lot of compromises with ron Klain. He's certainly moved over to the left, There's no doubt about it. He got rid of the High AMENDMENTY tried to you're not going to get rid of it. But these kinds of decisions, Uh, you know,
he was for bussing. Most people were against busting rather and and he's had to pay for all these of the past. I personally think it's it's it's a strange argument. But I don't think you could win as a ward leader anywhere. I think I think I think you've made that.
Clary, No, not just where where would you where would you?
Where would you want to be? The board? Where the political boss. Where can you be a good blog boss? Your point of view with.
My point of view? Where would you go with that support populous economics?
Where? No, where, no, no, tell.
Me where you would want I'm not looking to be a ward leader anywhere, Chrisma.
Where are you going to win? Where are you going to win with this argument?
Well, obviously it hasn't won in a Democratic primary, especially given the fact that you know, I think Democratic voters are very concerned about electability, and I get that from her perspective. But my view is the media really shaped and informed those Democratic primary voters of who was actually electable and who wasn't, and that the evidence that was.
Let me just say, if I had if I had fielded this kind of power in my role for twenty six years, I would have felt it.
I never felt it.
I felt I was up against the left and I had to argue with them. I felt I had to take I had to challenge people like Hillary included. I think the uh, the idea that that Hillary was too conservative for the country is ridiculous.
There was a lot going on with the idea that he talked about ability.
No, no, no, no, no, that context Hillary's very likeablee person.
Okay, but how did the American people feel about it?
How they feel about how they react to her?
Yeah, they obviously they went more vote for her than for him, but he won the electoral college, right, Yes, And how could that happen in a world where Bernie rises supreme?
We don't have to litigate Bie.
No, no, no, you say Bernie to a similar populist anger and backlash against the forty year neoliberal consensus that brought US wars and bad trade deals and hollow down a good portion of the country.
So I think I think there are absolutely different.
Absolutely, listen, it's a counterfactual. We'll never know.
Asked Bertie Bernie's farm policy, ask about the world he sees it thankfully different.
Thank you for joining us. We really appreciate your time. We weren't trying to really.
I think I think we've learned more about your point of view than mine.
Oh, people know my point of view, but it's just.
It's just doesn't it doesn't sink with anything.
I've been involved in politics, and I can tell you that the Bernie argument, he's a likable guy. I don't see the country outside of Nevada and those primary voters voting for him.
Nevada is a working class.
I think you've made your position very clear and we appreciate your time.
So, yeah, you have.
We talked about in the world today about democracy and the situation we face today, and I think that's been a problem because that's the biggest thing I want to talk about.
I thought lead item.
I think that in terms of world politics, the way we live, the way we elect people, who gets its votes.
I think that.
It's a fact that, starting with the age of television, which we talked about, yeah, that people who lost presidential elections said, so on television, what do you mean they conceded defeat.
Oh?
Yes, they considered to be within with the real time, even Jack Kennedy and Nixon, because Nixon said, as the conditions go now it looks like the continues of this course, Kennedy will be the next president, and then the vision to statement. The next morning, Kennedy made a point of meeting with Nixon down.
In Florida so that it would be very clear he lost.
And Al Gore had to do this and Hillary Clinton had to do this, and they all did it. Even though Hillary Clinton was very unhappy. She was shocked by her defeat, and I was in the hotel with her that morning, and they all did it. They stood up, They had guts, and not to be is patriotic support of our country.
It's not left wing or right wing.
It's believe in how who you run our elections, and we do base them on who wins the electric College and how it worked, and.
That's how we do it.
And all this other stuff about theories and what else could be done and how it could be a different world. It's not reality. It's not the world where we live in. It's not our constitutional basis for our country. We live with a constitution with the most people voting the way they vote. They may be middle class, they may have They may like corporate memes.
They may even like M and ms.
They may like weedies, they may they don't hate corporations. Can be when I get up in the morn and say I hate corporations.
They don't they about They don't get it. They don't get up and worry about it.
That's not what they think about. They're not on the left.
They're not on the left. They're just not there. But they were not on the left.
They worry about being able to pay the bills, not just left right, and so people are pissed off that stuff costs too much.
The word right, you know, of course I've said that from the beginning.
Again, it's all the question.
Of trying to make things into a big ideological snowball. It's not going to be Bernie's never going to be elected to anything like president.
It's not going to.
He's doing anything at all.
It's not me.
It's this thinking. That's the government thinking of it. All you have to do is hard left and everything is going to be fine. Democratic Party went hard left.
He went nowhere. And there's one way.
I think it's about delivering socialism.
I don't want to live in a country so.
Bad that it goes social I think it's about it's delivering You go back to the same problem.
It's holistic. Look at what driving up prices does the people. When you do what you want to do and you keep spending money at the government level. Federal government spending is what you're talking about.
That's really what.
You're talking about, a delivering for people.
No, No, that's another way of saying government spending.
It doesn't have to mean that because it does everything.
You said was all these all these programs you talked.
About, Think about just healthcare, all the.
COVID programs for spending programs.
Spend on healthcare as a country more than any other country in the whole world. Is just a question of who is spending that money? Do you think we're doing a good job with health giving? The nihilism is very depressing of like, this is just how it is and we have to accept it. So I personally, I personally believe that politics is downstream of how people are doing
in terms of their economics. Now you and I are just going to agree to disagree about how this all works out and exactly the inflation.
I think.
I think this argument is fine democratic primary, and we'll see who wins.
That's all you We've already we've already seen it. Like I said, your side one, Chris, I appreciate it's.
Not my side.
My side is probably to the right of Biden. Okay, probably to the right. It's more moderate. I think that people like must keep people like that over the years, and.
Said, you like Sharon Brown, who I would say is to the left. But I want to thank you.
Because shared Brown and Tim and Tim Ryan know how to talk to people. Yeah on their face, and they don't go off as any professors or anything like that.
They're not arguing theory.
Focused on populist pocketbook economics, and that's something I score pocketbook. Thank you. I appreciate the time.
I appreciate.
Keep your eye on elections because they decide things and they were in a proper constitutional world, they are the victors the people.
The majority wins.
We agree wh