Learn. Share. Evolve…

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0:02:00 Jess has two young kids at home.
0:02:01 Be supportive.
0:02:02 – They have to go to college,
0:02:05 even though higher ed is such a disaster.
0:02:06 – Hit it now.
0:02:09 Please help us out and in exchange, we will do our best.
0:02:11 Maybe we won’t be as moderate as you like,
0:02:14 but we promise we’ll be very, very raging.
0:02:15 – We’re not supposed to tell them that.
0:02:16 – That’s right.
0:02:17 Now we’ll be both raging and moderate.
0:02:19 Please hit the subscribe button.
0:02:24 – Welcome to Raging Moderates, I’m Scott Galloway.
0:02:25 – And I’m Jessica Tarland.
0:02:28 – Jess, this is the part of the show where we banter.
0:02:29 – I’m reading the same note.
0:02:31 What would you like to banter about?
0:02:33 – Well, let’s bring this back to me.
0:02:35 Show, ask me what I do this weekend.
0:02:36 – What did you do this weekend?
0:02:37 How fantastic was it?
0:02:38 – Well, Jess, I don’t like to talk about me
0:02:41 or my personal life, but on Saturday morning,
0:02:45 I had my 14 year old, just me and him.
0:02:46 And so I said, what do you wanna do?
0:02:48 And I knew it involves something in football.
0:02:51 So we jumped on the Euro star on Saturday morning.
0:02:52 – Which is lovely.
0:02:53 – Amazing.
0:02:54 – Yeah.
0:02:55 – It takes two hours and 20 minutes.
0:02:59 Pancras, or St. Pancras Station is about 10 minutes
0:03:02 from where we’re living.
0:03:05 Two hours and 20 minutes later, we’re at Garde de Nord,
0:03:07 which is I think train station of North or something
0:03:10 in French, just for those of you out there.
0:03:12 And then we’re at the hotel.
0:03:15 We went and had an amazing, my favorite,
0:03:19 or our favorite lunch, we had steak frites.
0:03:22 And then we went to the most amazing little stores,
0:03:25 mostly chocolatiers and crepe stores.
0:03:27 And then we went back and napped and went to the pool.
0:03:29 When you have a 14 year old, you gotta go to the pool.
0:03:30 I’ve learned that.
0:03:32 – That lasts until high school?
0:03:33 – Yeah, no.
0:03:34 – That they’re into going to the pool?
0:03:35 – You know, his only criteria for a hotel
0:03:36 is do they have a pool?
0:03:39 And we always go to the pool.
0:03:42 And then we went and then we had a dinner
0:03:45 at the most fabulous restaurant at the top
0:03:48 of this new fancy hotel called Cheval Blanc.
0:03:52 And we got dressed up and then we got dressed down
0:03:56 and we went to the PSG Paris Saint-Germain football
0:03:58 that’s the major team in Paris.
0:04:00 Oh, someone’s gonna say, “No, they’re not.”
0:04:03 Ty Renz, which was a big disappointment for PSG,
0:04:05 but we went and saw the football game,
0:04:08 came back next morning, woke up, had a lovely breakfast
0:04:12 and then went to Notre Dame, which is spectacular.
0:04:13 – Oh, it looks amazing.
0:04:16 – Spectacular and then caught the US star back,
0:04:18 I mean, 24 hours and just it was one of those
0:04:22 incredible weekends with my son.
0:04:23 What did you do?
0:04:25 – Well, I went to a three-year-old’s birthday party
0:04:26 on Saturday morning.
0:04:30 There was cake, funfetti flavor, which is my favorite.
0:04:31 So–
0:04:32 – Do they rent a place or is it one of those
0:04:33 where it’s rich people in Tribeca?
0:04:34 Do they have to rent a place?
0:04:37 – Well, I think both of those types classify as–
0:04:38 – Wealthy.
0:04:39 – Rich people, ’cause if you can rent a place
0:04:41 for your toddler’s birthday,
0:04:44 they did it at their building, actually.
0:04:47 So, and I don’t know what they earn,
0:04:50 so I can’t comment on that, but it was a lovely party.
0:04:52 And then Saturday night,
0:04:55 we went out to dinner with three other couples,
0:04:58 which was very lively, a lot of fun.
0:05:01 We’re trying out a new babysitter.
0:05:02 It seemed to go okay.
0:05:06 The toddler by the end said, “I liked new babysitter.”
0:05:09 So, great, but it was nice to go out.
0:05:12 You know how you usually are out with one other couple,
0:05:15 but being out with three other couples,
0:05:16 tons of conversations going on.
0:05:19 We had a nice time, but home by 9.30,
0:05:20 asleep by 10, the usual.
0:05:23 – So, four couples that usually gives everyone permission
0:05:24 to drink more is what I find.
0:05:25 And two–
0:05:28 – There was a lot of drinking and a discussion
0:05:30 about how one person thinks
0:05:32 that their partner drinks too much.
0:05:34 – It makes company, that’s nice.
0:05:37 – Yeah, I asked to be excluded from the conversation,
0:05:40 ’cause also I barely drink, I’m not.
0:05:43 I’m a lightweight, and I guess not that fun.
0:05:45 And so, I’m always very uncomfortable
0:05:46 with those conversations.
0:05:48 – Yeah, so I’ll give you a little bit of a heads up
0:05:50 on what’s coming your way.
0:05:53 In about seven to 10 years,
0:05:55 you’re gonna freak out about the fact
0:05:58 that you’ve spent so much time just raising kids,
0:05:59 and that you’re losing your youth,
0:06:01 and you and your female friends will start parting
0:06:04 like fucking rock stars diagnosed with ass cancer.
0:06:06 You’re gonna start drinking like crazy.
0:06:09 You’re gonna start doing girls trips all the time.
0:06:10 You’re gonna abuse alcohol,
0:06:11 you’re gonna experiment with drugs,
0:06:14 and you’re gonna make all the guys trips
0:06:18 that movies have been depicted on seem like a tea party.
0:06:21 They talk about the midlife crisis that men have.
0:06:24 I think men’s are longer, but less severe.
0:06:27 The midlife crisis for women happens earlier.
0:06:28 Specifically, I think when they leave
0:06:30 kind of their birthing years and they’re worried
0:06:34 they’re losing kind of their hot girl 20s and 30s,
0:06:36 and they go ape shit.
0:06:37 So anyways, you got that coming.
0:06:38 You got that coming.
0:06:40 Well, well, that sounds like fun,
0:06:42 ’cause I, yeah, I’m definitely not doing any of that.
0:06:42 No, none of that.
0:06:43 At this point.
0:06:45 Well, it’s hard, you know, what are you gonna do?
0:06:47 Every once in a while, I have a lot of good friends
0:06:48 because I–
0:06:50 You have a second glass of Chardonnay.
0:06:51 Is that when you–
0:06:54 No, I’m not, wait, I have one drink also.
0:06:54 What is your drink?
0:06:58 I only drink Tito’s grapefruit and soda.
0:06:59 You’re so fancy.
0:06:59 It’s like a modified Paloma.
0:07:01 So here’s another prediction.
0:07:02 I mean–
0:07:04 You’re gonna start getting unsolicited bottles of Tito’s.
0:07:07 When I started talking about how much I love Zacapa,
0:07:09 I’d show up to events and they’d have a bottle of Zacapa.
0:07:13 So everyone, Tito’s for the lady.
0:07:15 Good, good, all right, enough of that.
0:07:17 Grape banter, I loved it.
0:07:18 Yeah, that worked, check that box.
0:07:20 In today’s episode of Raging Moderates,
0:07:23 we’re discussing Trump’s whirlwind first week in office,
0:07:25 how Democrats are responding to Trump,
0:07:27 and what it really means to be a moderate
0:07:29 in today’s political climate.
0:07:31 Okay, so let’s bust right into it.
0:07:33 Donald Trump has hit the ground running
0:07:35 in his first week back in office,
0:07:38 signing nearly 50 executive orders and actions
0:07:41 that are already sort of reshaping politics in our country.
0:07:43 These include escalating immigration crackdowns
0:07:48 or deportation flights in a southern border troop surge,
0:07:49 as well as targeting birthright citizenship
0:07:51 and freezing asylum programs.
0:07:54 On Sunday, he also got into a feud
0:07:57 with the president of Colombia over deportation flights.
0:07:59 Meanwhile, he has halted foreign aid worldwide
0:08:01 and revoked security clearances
0:08:03 from former officials critical of him.
0:08:05 Add to that his controversial pardons of January 6th
0:08:08 defendants, the confirmation of cabinet appointments,
0:08:10 including Pete Hegset, despite numerous allegations
0:08:13 against him and threats to eliminate FEMA
0:08:15 while visiting disaster zones,
0:08:18 including Hurricane Helene’s wreckage in North Carolina
0:08:20 and wildfire ravaged California.
0:08:22 It’s a whirlwind start that is already redefining
0:08:24 how America Governs communicates
0:08:26 and is viewed globally.
0:08:31 Jess, there’s a lot to unpack here from Trump’s first week.
0:08:32 What stood out to you the most?
0:08:34 – That there is a lot.
0:08:36 That’s the point, right?
0:08:41 We’re so quickly back to where we left Trump 1.0,
0:08:45 which is I’m gonna throw everything at the wall
0:08:47 and just see what sticks.
0:08:51 And it feels as though we have a bunch of angry teens
0:08:52 that are in charge of the government, right?
0:08:55 Trying everything, pushing boundaries,
0:08:58 waiting for someone to slap them on the wrist to push back.
0:09:02 Maybe that comes from, you know, part of the internal caucus,
0:09:05 but we’ll talk about that later on
0:09:07 with some of the DEI initiatives that they scaled back,
0:09:10 but like waiting for the courts to come and get them,
0:09:13 you know, hoping that they just can skate through
0:09:15 with some of this stuff.
0:09:19 I feel there’s an overwhelming sense of manufactured chaos
0:09:23 to everything and that we are living in the midst of,
0:09:24 you would know better than me.
0:09:28 If it is, in fact, the biggest branding exercise in history,
0:09:30 but this golden age of America,
0:09:33 and he has lots of social media spots about it
0:09:37 out there on all of his channels,
0:09:40 it feels like he’s just going full steam ahead
0:09:45 with this social media driven approach to governance,
0:09:49 loyalty tests, everything that he left on the table
0:09:50 from the first time around,
0:09:53 he’s picking it up and doing it to the nth degree
0:09:55 if he can get away with it.
0:09:58 And he’s just calling our bluff, right?
0:10:01 Just saying, well, come and get me, right?
0:10:04 So that’s my feeling writ large
0:10:07 about what’s gone on so far, what about you?
0:10:09 – Yeah, I think that’s right.
0:10:12 It feels as if one, you could argue this is leadership
0:10:14 that he’s had kind of four years to prepare
0:10:17 for what he would do and just hitting the ground running
0:10:19 and has decided, okay, I’m gonna, you know,
0:10:21 promises made, promises kept,
0:10:24 and it’s going aggressively at everything he talked about
0:10:26 and moving, you know, their fleet of foot,
0:10:28 signing executive orders on the dais.
0:10:30 So you could argue it’s leadership.
0:10:32 I like what you said, the world’s largest branding event.
0:10:33 I hadn’t thought of it that way.
0:10:35 I think that’s really interesting.
0:10:38 At the same time, you sort of flooding the zone,
0:10:41 which is so much shit or actions
0:10:45 that wouldn’t have flown before.
0:10:47 And one of the things about our government,
0:10:48 the reason why we have three branches
0:10:51 is it’s meant to have this wonderful intransigence
0:10:53 where we sometimes to a fault,
0:10:56 wrestle stuff to the ground and really examine it.
0:10:58 And there’s just none of that now.
0:11:01 The, I would give more points to the Trump administration
0:11:03 than I would give to the Democratic party right now
0:11:05 who appears to be just caught flat footed.
0:11:07 In this mixed of, can you believe this shit?
0:11:08 We don’t know what to do.
0:11:11 And trying to sign up for this PBS Hallmark Channel
0:11:14 bullshit of we need to come together
0:11:16 and we need to cooperate with the president.
0:11:17 And they’re all trying to,
0:11:21 they’re all in such shock about this win.
0:11:24 And, you know, while it was a small number of votes,
0:11:26 so you went kind of seven for seven in swing states,
0:11:28 they’re all trying to pretend to be more moderate
0:11:30 and say, I’ll work with the president
0:11:32 and they don’t want to come right out of the box
0:11:33 shitposting them.
0:11:34 I think that’s a failed strategy.
0:11:35 I think they wanted war.
0:11:37 I think we should have it.
0:11:41 I’m not up for normalizing an insurrectionist and a rapist.
0:11:43 So I guess that doesn’t make me a moderate
0:11:44 because I won’t sign up to this.
0:11:45 – Great.
0:11:47 We’ll just end the podcast right now.
0:11:50 – But I would argue that there’s this,
0:11:54 we have this sort of notion it’s time to come together.
0:11:55 – I don’t agree.
0:11:58 I think Democrats and moderate Republicans
0:12:00 need to come to the rescue.
0:12:02 I think some of this stuff is just so over the line
0:12:06 and so un-American, you know,
0:12:10 rescinding the security detail of people who he doesn’t like.
0:12:14 – With live Iranian threats to their lives.
0:12:16 I mean, if you have Tom Cotton,
0:12:19 maybe the hero in all of this,
0:12:21 which is frightening to me, but.
0:12:24 – Well, he wants a security detail when he’s out of office.
0:12:26 – Well, he definitely wants one on January 6th.
0:12:28 Oh, no, it was Josh Hawley.
0:12:31 He was riding away like a little girl.
0:12:32 No offense to little girls.
0:12:34 Some of it is just petty.
0:12:37 Some of it is the revenge tour.
0:12:40 Some of it I do think is rooted in a genuine ideology,
0:12:42 but then it’s always taken one step further.
0:12:46 And I’ve been thinking about this notion of
0:12:50 what is the kernel of truth that gets us
0:12:52 to the crazy place that we’ve ended up, right?
0:12:55 Because a lot of what’s going on right now,
0:12:56 I believe is Democrats fault, right?
0:12:59 Like we walked into very specific traps.
0:13:02 And so we ended up with people telling us,
0:13:04 essentially I want a bloodless revolution, right?
0:13:07 I want the establishment so far away
0:13:09 that I can’t even see Nancy Pelosi.
0:13:11 All of this makes me sick.
0:13:14 And I would rather take a flyer on the chaos agent
0:13:19 than have someone who is routine and boring
0:13:23 and also is afraid to say things that are common sense.
0:13:25 Like the thing that’s right in front of you.
0:13:29 So if we look at with the DEI revolution
0:13:32 that’s going on now, that comes from, you know,
0:13:34 after the murder of George Floyd,
0:13:36 that companies just added, you know,
0:13:40 50 to 100 DEI employees or it was crazy.
0:13:44 I was looking at data from Loudoun County, Virginia.
0:13:47 They have a DEI office that they’re spending enough on it
0:13:50 that they could hire 125 new teachers
0:13:51 if they took that money and did that.
0:13:54 Obviously a parent in that district is going to say,
0:13:56 I would rather have new teachers
0:14:00 than have dozens of employees in the DEI office.
0:14:02 For instance, on the trans issue,
0:14:04 we talk about this regularly.
0:14:06 If you’re going to say that it’s fine for Leah Thomas
0:14:09 to compete at the collegiate level,
0:14:12 people are going to think that you are insane on trans issues
0:14:13 and then they’re going to pick someone
0:14:14 who’s going to over correct
0:14:17 and take away protections for trans people.
0:14:20 On immigration, if you’re going to say the border is secure,
0:14:22 people are going to look at you like you’re a lunatic,
0:14:25 especially once migrants are getting bust
0:14:27 to northeastern liberal cities
0:14:29 and they’re understanding the implications
0:14:31 of how El Paso taxes has been living.
0:14:32 And we’re going to have the overcorrection
0:14:35 and we’re going to see stuff like this.
0:14:39 Like, I don’t even want to call it a rise in deportations.
0:14:40 I find it fascinating,
0:14:42 and this goes to the social media presidency
0:14:45 or just who has the best branding exercise of this
0:14:47 because they’re out there saying,
0:14:48 promises made, promises kept.
0:14:53 We deported 310 undocumented people or illegals,
0:14:57 they would say, I would say undocumented because I’m polite.
0:15:00 And Biden was deporting,
0:15:02 sometimes it got over 400 people per day.
0:15:05 I think on average, he was at 310 per day,
0:15:07 but the Democrats never talked about anything
0:15:09 that they were doing.
0:15:11 And that’s the difference in this.
0:15:13 If you leave people in the dark
0:15:16 about what your administration is actually doing,
0:15:18 and I’m talking about the stuff that matters to them,
0:15:21 not the stuff that feels ancillary or for show,
0:15:24 they’re going to pick the other person.
0:15:26 And now people are running around saying,
0:15:28 oh, well, Donald Trump is the toughest on immigration.
0:15:30 No, actually Barack Obama was the toughest on immigration.
0:15:32 And we have been deporting a lot of people.
0:15:35 People don’t know that border crossings are down 55%
0:15:37 at the end of the Biden administration,
0:15:39 after obviously a huge surge in the beginning.
0:15:44 So we need a new digital strategist, that’s for sure,
0:15:46 the next time around that we do this.
0:15:51 And I don’t know, have you listened to any of Chris Hayes’
0:15:54 interviews about his new book about attention
0:15:56 and like the attention economy?
0:15:58 – Oh, that’s a new term, attention economy.
0:15:59 Let me think, I started using that
0:16:00 about 15 fucking years ago.
0:16:02 Anyways, what did Chris Hayes said?
0:16:03 He’s discovered the attention economy?
0:16:04 What does Chris have to say?
0:16:07 – No, he didn’t, no, he didn’t discover it,
0:16:11 but he’s talking about it in context of recent outcomes
0:16:15 and this race just to be the first person to say something
0:16:17 that someone sees on their phone
0:16:18 and how meaningful that is for that.
0:16:21 And I cannot think of an instance where Democrats
0:16:24 were the first people to be able to say something.
0:16:26 It’s always the Republicans and usually it’s Trump.
0:16:28 – Well, just starting there.
0:16:31 So first off, I would like to see
0:16:34 the, what committee would it be?
0:16:36 – We need immediately, in my opinion, to get,
0:16:41 probably not Musk,
0:16:43 because I think it would be too much of a spectacle
0:16:45 and just bring him more power.
0:16:48 It’s like one of those villains in a comic book
0:16:50 that the more you throw shit at him,
0:16:53 the more he absorbs it and becomes more powerful.
0:16:56 But the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee
0:17:01 in my opinion have hearings in the tech industry’s
0:17:03 influence on democracy and its elections
0:17:06 because there, I think, is now emerging evidence
0:17:09 that basically Musk and Yacarino weaponized Twitter,
0:17:12 including creating thousands and thousands of accounts
0:17:17 to elevate misinformation and essentially spread
0:17:19 just a ton of propaganda misinformation
0:17:21 that had a real impact on the election.
0:17:22 I’m not sure it’s illegal.
0:17:23 It’s a private company.
0:17:25 He can do what he wants with it.
0:17:29 But I want her up there to under oath to say,
0:17:31 yeah, I knew that he was creating thousands of bots
0:17:33 pretending to be humans.
0:17:37 And we were elevating information or lies,
0:17:39 even though we knew they were lies,
0:17:42 such that it would influence the outcome of the election.
0:17:44 I just want her to go on record saying that
0:17:47 so Americans know what they’re dealing with.
0:17:50 And they have very effectively,
0:17:53 even if it’s Umberta Eco, the Italian philosopher said,
0:17:55 along the lines of the attention economy,
0:17:57 that it’s not what you’re famous for,
0:17:59 it’s just about being famous.
0:18:00 So say something incendiary,
0:18:02 and as long as you’re dominating the news cycle,
0:18:04 I mean, I feel like Republicans are dominating
0:18:06 90% of the news cycle right now.
0:18:09 And unfortunately, we have Senator Schumer,
0:18:11 who brightens up a room by leaving it,
0:18:14 just kind of doing nothing or saying nothing.
0:18:16 We have Speaker Emerita Pelosi,
0:18:21 who just purchased $50,000 to $100,000 worth of call options
0:18:23 on Tempest AI.
0:18:24 And when that was disclosed,
0:18:27 the company had its best one day performance in history
0:18:28 at 35%.
0:18:30 So she’s spending more time on Robinhood,
0:18:32 engaging what is effectively insider trading,
0:18:36 than actually paying attention to real issues.
0:18:39 You know, my question is, where the fuck are Democrats?
0:18:41 I don’t agree with a lot of AOC’s policies,
0:18:42 but at least she’s out there.
0:18:43 At least she’s trying to push back.
0:18:48 Where is Senator Klobuchar talking about,
0:18:51 you know, antitrust and competition and inflation,
0:18:53 and talking about how the tenure is surging,
0:18:56 and that these policies are incredibly inflationary.
0:19:00 We have, we’re literally fighting fire
0:19:01 with fucking squirt guns.
0:19:02 And when I say squirt guns,
0:19:06 I mean senior leadership in the Democratic Party
0:19:08 that is too old, too tame,
0:19:10 thinks they’re in a PBS drama,
0:19:11 where they, good sir,
0:19:14 and they like hit them with their glove.
0:19:15 I mean, enough already.
0:19:18 That this is insane that we don’t have,
0:19:20 I wanna see hearings on,
0:19:22 let’s immediately have a hearing
0:19:24 on this new crypto AI community.
0:19:27 And first thing is we need them to come,
0:19:29 this committee who organized by the president,
0:19:33 we should have the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing
0:19:37 investigate legal implications of Trump’s meme coins.
0:19:41 I want and bring the new head of this AI and crypto community
0:19:44 to explain the Trump and Melania coin.
0:19:46 Let’s have him go on the record and say,
0:19:49 what is this and is it good for the economy?
0:19:52 And we’ll be able to invite dozens of the 60,000 people
0:19:55 who bought this coin and are now off 70 or 80%
0:19:57 in about 72 hours.
0:19:58 Instead, we just sort of sit there
0:20:01 and give this bullshit, let’s time to come together.
0:20:04 There’s things we can work on together, work on together.
0:20:07 We had an immigration bill that the president basically
0:20:10 from Mar-a-Lago killed, so he could take credit for it.
0:20:12 And we’re all sitting around thinking,
0:20:14 it reminds me of the movie, “The Mission.”
0:20:16 I don’t know if you saw that movie
0:20:19 with Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons.
0:20:21 But Jeremy Irons plays this,
0:20:23 I’m gonna call priest, a religious figure,
0:20:26 and the British are coming basically to slaughter
0:20:28 this indigenous community.
0:20:30 I don’t know if it’s Argentina or Brazilian.
0:20:32 They’re missionaries, anyways.
0:20:34 And the priest, Robert De Niro is trying to get everyone
0:20:37 they know they’re coming to prepare for war.
0:20:39 And the priest says, we’re about non-violence.
0:20:41 And they’re slaughtered, of course.
0:20:42 I just watched a movie called “24,”
0:20:44 which was about the most famous Norwegian spy
0:20:47 of all things, and a woman stands up,
0:20:48 as he’s speaking to this university, saying,
0:20:51 why didn’t you try non-violence?
0:20:54 I feel like the Democrats have decided to try non-violence.
0:20:58 And I’m like, sir, say, I choose violence.
0:20:58 This is not working.
0:21:00 Sitting around trying to pretend
0:21:01 we’re taking the higher ground
0:21:04 and we’re gonna work with the president.
0:21:06 It hasn’t worked, folks.
0:21:09 We need to be calling balls and strikes here
0:21:11 and saying that this is, when you have the president
0:21:13 saying things like polluting blood,
0:21:15 and then you have the person who, in my opinion,
0:21:18 weaponized a platform to get him elected,
0:21:20 telling the far-right party in Germany,
0:21:22 you shouldn’t dilute your culture.
0:21:24 I mean, this is pre-Hitler shit.
0:21:27 And yet, I don’t see a single Democrat
0:21:30 with anything resembling a following of social media
0:21:33 out there saying, fuck all.
0:21:36 So yeah, right now, as far as I can tell,
0:21:38 we have one party and another party
0:21:40 that thinks they’re at Catillion
0:21:42 training their kids to be polite
0:21:46 and that peace and love will win out.
0:21:47 Thank you for my TED talk.
0:21:49 Okay, let’s take a quick break.
0:21:50 Stay with us.
0:21:54 It’s Today Explained.
0:21:57 I’m Noelle King with Miles Bryan.
0:21:59 Senior reporter and producer for the program, hello.
0:22:01 Hi, you went to public school, right, Miles?
0:22:03 Yes, go South High Tigers.
0:22:05 What do you remember about school lunch?
0:22:09 Oh, I remember sad lasagna, shrink-wrapped
0:22:10 in little containers.
0:22:11 I remember avoiding it.
0:22:13 Do you remember the nugs, the chicken nuggets?
0:22:17 Yeah, if I had to eat school lunch,
0:22:18 that was a pretty good option.
0:22:19 I actually liked them.
0:22:22 But in addition to being very tasty,
0:22:23 those nugs were very processed.
0:22:26 And at the moment, America has got processed foods
0:22:28 in its crosshairs.
0:22:30 It’s true, we are collectively very down
0:22:32 on processed food right now, none more so
0:22:35 than Health and Human Services’ secretary nominee,
0:22:37 Robert Fluoride Kennedy, Jr.
0:22:41 I’ll get processed food out of school lunch immediately.
0:22:43 About half the school lunch program
0:22:45 goes to processed food.
0:22:49 Hen the man who once saved a dead bear cub for a snack
0:22:50 fixed school lunches.
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0:24:07 – So a couple of things.
0:24:10 Democrats said all the stuff that you just said
0:24:12 before the election for months
0:24:16 and voters turned up and said, “I don’t care.”
0:24:18 Right, so I care.
0:24:21 Millions of people do care,
0:24:23 but the pivotal number that seven million people
0:24:26 who voted for Biden in 2020 sat home in 2024.
0:24:29 That’s how little they cared about
0:24:30 what you’re just talking about.
0:24:32 AOC is out there.
0:24:34 She posted before the inauguration,
0:24:37 people are asking me why I’m not going to inauguration
0:24:41 and I’m not going to the inauguration of a rapist
0:24:42 to use the term that you use,
0:24:44 though I know there’s a legal conversation about that
0:24:46 and I’m not looking to have a defamation suit.
0:24:48 So AOC is saying stuff like that.
0:24:49 She was on John Stuart’s podcast,
0:24:52 talking a lot like you are just now.
0:24:55 But I feel like for someone like Hakeem Jeffries,
0:24:58 who is a very unifying leader,
0:25:03 he is trying to figure out as Nancy Pelosi had to for years,
0:25:06 how to manage a caucus that is being pulled
0:25:07 in many different directions
0:25:09 because the difference between what goes on
0:25:13 for a safe seat Democrat and a swing seat Democrat
0:25:14 is like night and day.
0:25:17 And we’re going to have Congressman Tom Swazi
0:25:19 on for an interview later in the week,
0:25:22 talk to him about this as he’s from a swing district
0:25:25 and he was one of the first people out there saying
0:25:27 these are the issues I’ll be able to compromise on.
0:25:29 We got to work together like the Lake and Riley Act
0:25:31 for immigration and I’m definitely looking forward
0:25:33 to pushing him about the parts of that bill
0:25:37 that are definitely not good, right?
0:25:40 In terms of not projecting dreamers and minors,
0:25:44 but obviously you can’t affect any change
0:25:45 if you’re not in office.
0:25:48 And if these people want to continue to be reelected,
0:25:51 so they can even make incremental progress,
0:25:54 they’re going to have to work with the other side
0:25:54 to some degree.
0:25:58 It’s something like 83% of the American public
0:26:01 wants the two sides to work together.
0:26:06 And that’s why I think going back to the executive orders
0:26:07 and kind of the beginnings of this,
0:26:11 like it is important to look at the list of things
0:26:16 and to say this is stuff that I kind of understand, right?
0:26:19 Like if you want to call it a national emergency
0:26:21 on the Southern border,
0:26:23 if you want to put more resources down there,
0:26:24 I can get on board with that.
0:26:25 I completely understand it.
0:26:27 All the people who live along the border would tell you
0:26:29 that’s exactly the kind of conditions
0:26:30 that they’re living in.
0:26:34 But the stuff that you have to figure out a way
0:26:36 to effectively hold the line,
0:26:40 not just rail about it or post about it.
0:26:43 He’s basically undoing the entire asylum system.
0:26:46 I was watching Tom Homan, he was being interviewed
0:26:49 about what happens now to all the people
0:26:52 who had their customs and border patrol appointments canceled
0:26:54 ’cause they got rid of the CBP One app.
0:26:56 And he said, well, go to a port of entry.
0:26:59 And the whole point was that you don’t want people
0:27:00 showing up at port of entries.
0:27:02 I mean, there are tens of thousands of people
0:27:04 who have been waiting in Mexico,
0:27:07 some upwards of a year to do this the legal way.
0:27:09 Also completely forgetting the fact
0:27:12 that people who are here illegally do have rights.
0:27:14 That is enshrined in our constitution
0:27:15 that they have a right to legal counsel,
0:27:18 that they have a right to do process.
0:27:20 And the DOJ has new directives.
0:27:24 This is one that I thought this can’t be real,
0:27:27 where they’re now telling legal service providers
0:27:30 who get federal funding not to do their jobs,
0:27:32 not to help these immigrants that are here
0:27:36 who might have a completely legitimate asylum claim.
0:27:40 I already mentioned the DEI offices
0:27:41 in the Fairfax County, sorry,
0:27:44 I said Loudoun County before it’s Fairfax County.
0:27:47 So that’s obviously bad, but then you sprint ahead.
0:27:50 Did you see this, that the Department of Defense,
0:27:52 ’cause they took down all of their DEI stuff,
0:27:55 removed promotional video material
0:27:56 about the Tuskegee Airmen.
0:27:58 – Yeah, and women in World War II.
0:28:01 – Yeah, the Wasps, which is such a great name for it.
0:28:04 And it was Katie Britt from the center from Alabama
0:28:07 who tweeted, “Oh, this must be a mistake.”
0:28:08 And within a couple of hours,
0:28:10 the new defense secretary, Pete Higgs,
0:28:12 was like, “I’ve fixed it.”
0:28:14 But that feels like one of those circumstances
0:28:16 where they were trying it on, right?
0:28:18 They thought, well, we could just go ahead
0:28:19 and get rid of these things.
0:28:23 And if someone catches us, so what, we’ll put it back up.
0:28:25 – And we’re in the news, as long as we can.
0:28:27 – Right, and we’re dominating the cycle no matter what,
0:28:31 because all news is good news
0:28:33 or all press is good press, I guess.
0:28:36 And that’s a credo that Trump has lived by forever.
0:28:39 There’s also just such a lack of expertise
0:28:41 and willingness to want to do the work, right?
0:28:44 They want to eliminate things en masse
0:28:46 and not spend the time going through
0:28:48 and actually looking at what the relevance is,
0:28:52 like purging the government of any of those checks.
0:28:54 They got rid of, I think, 17 inspector generals
0:28:57 over 12 huge bureaucracies, right?
0:29:00 These are things that used to piss off
0:29:02 storied members of the Senate, like Chuck Grassley,
0:29:04 lost his mind in 2021.
0:29:06 Trump got rid of two IGs.
0:29:08 Now 17 have been removed.
0:29:12 Did you see this communication freeze for the NIH and the CDC?
0:29:15 Like in the midst of bird flu,
0:29:18 they can’t tell people what’s going on with something.
0:29:20 Yeah, exactly.
0:29:24 And the foreign aid freeze is just totally frightening.
0:29:25 – Yeah, I’m a chairman of the World Health Organization.
0:29:28 To your point about sticking our chin out,
0:29:31 I believe Biden’s first executive order had to do
0:29:34 with transgender athletes’ rights,
0:29:35 and it took him three years
0:29:36 for an executive order on immigration.
0:29:39 – And to your point, illegal border crossings
0:29:43 had dropped to about 45,000 in December of 2024,
0:29:45 but in December of 2023,
0:29:46 a quarter of a million people came across
0:29:48 the border illegally.
0:29:53 What I find sort of ironic and telling about these,
0:29:54 I don’t know what the term is, roundups,
0:29:57 or when the ice shows up,
0:29:58 they’ve decided the most efficient place
0:30:02 to quote unquote find these unproductive people
0:30:03 who are freeloading.
0:30:05 Is it workplaces?
0:30:06 – Right.
0:30:08 – I thought, so if you wanted to deport Americans,
0:30:09 you’d probably go to McDonald’s
0:30:12 or to their basements where video games are,
0:30:15 but with undocumented workers,
0:30:18 you go to places of work ’cause that’s where they are.
0:30:20 I thought that was sort of ironic,
0:30:22 but we had this coming.
0:30:25 We ignored the problem, it got out of control,
0:30:28 and just as you can never actually visually spot
0:30:30 a pendulum at the middle,
0:30:32 they have swung, they have taken advantage of this
0:30:33 and they swung back.
0:30:35 And quite frankly, I don’t have a problem
0:30:38 with deportations of undocumented workers,
0:30:39 but let’s start with those who are in prison,
0:30:41 let’s start with those who’ve now committed two crimes,
0:30:44 one crime coming over here, legal, the second one.
0:30:47 I think that’s absolutely fair game.
0:30:50 The, I mean, some of the other issues
0:30:52 that we really screwed up on,
0:30:55 we talked about transgender, we took just a,
0:30:57 I don’t wanna say irrelevant,
0:30:59 but an issue and gave them just a free gift
0:31:01 would purchase for parents all over the nation
0:31:05 who don’t wanna have their daughters kind of run over.
0:31:08 The macro, the biggest issue, hands down in my opinion,
0:31:10 is that a mix of identity politics,
0:31:13 weaponization by special interest groups,
0:31:16 essentially had the Democrats implicitly
0:31:19 and explicitly turn their backs on the group
0:31:22 that has struggled the most the last 40 years.
0:31:25 Everybody feels when young people aren’t doing well.
0:31:28 Their parents, society,
0:31:29 and these are the people on social media saying,
0:31:32 okay, great invidious, we’re $3 trillion,
0:31:33 I can’t afford rent.
0:31:35 So instead of focusing on policies like inflation,
0:31:38 how to build more houses, bring down costs,
0:31:41 lower enrollment instead of being weaponized
0:31:43 by these universities that are,
0:31:46 I mean, essentially some of the most corrupt organizations
0:31:48 in the world are seen as the center
0:31:50 of democratic politics, specifically my industry.
0:31:54 What is more of an epicenter of kind of democratic ideals
0:31:56 than elite institutions
0:31:58 who I just interviewed the president Dartmouth.
0:32:02 They have an $8 billion endowment and they let in 500 kids.
0:32:03 – Okay, excuse me,
0:32:07 but you’re not this elite cast enforcer
0:32:10 talking about big, big fancy ideals,
0:32:12 but you don’t want to give people this drug
0:32:14 that decreases obesity, anxiety,
0:32:17 gives them a shot at getting married, making money.
0:32:20 No, you’d rather hoard it just for you and your elite friends.
0:32:23 So let’s create a misdirected DEI.
0:32:26 Michigan, University of Michigan has 200 DEI officers.
0:32:32 60% of Harvard’s freshman class identifies as non-white,
0:32:34 but we need to have DEI on campuses
0:32:35 such that we can discriminate against,
0:32:38 what, white kids and rural states?
0:32:40 I mean, it’s just, we got so out of control
0:32:43 with the identity politics, the DEI apparatus,
0:32:46 not focusing on inflation, not focusing on young people,
0:32:50 that we just gave them a layup to become sort of,
0:32:52 you know, just go overboard, flood the zone
0:32:54 with a ton of shit.
0:32:56 I get it, we deserve it, we had it coming.
0:32:58 What I’m really disappointed about
0:32:59 is why we’re all taking it
0:33:02 and calling on people to work together.
0:33:03 As far as I’m concerned,
0:33:07 it used to be about a certain level of mutual respect.
0:33:10 You know, Democrats and Republicans at the end of the day
0:33:12 thought, well, if they get in power,
0:33:14 I want them to show me some mutual respect.
0:33:16 It seems to me like we need to move to mutual destruction
0:33:20 and say, look, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Stephen Miller,
0:33:23 if you want to start revoking security details,
0:33:24 just be careful what you ask for,
0:33:26 ’cause once you’re out of office,
0:33:29 my guess is you’re gonna be real fond of a security detail.
0:33:31 You know, if you want,
0:33:33 I mean, if you want us to stick the DOJ on you
0:33:35 after our guy gets in office,
0:33:38 but right now we’re giving them the impression that
0:33:39 if you hit us, we’re Gandhi,
0:33:42 and we believe that peace is gonna work here,
0:33:44 and I think it’s to our disadvantage.
0:33:47 I think we come across as total wimps
0:33:50 and there’s no incentive for them to say,
0:33:52 well, maybe we shouldn’t be cutting
0:33:54 the security detail of General Milley,
0:33:57 in case our generals that we like are under threat
0:33:58 after they leave office.
0:33:59 I don’t think there’s any sense
0:34:03 that we’ll ever hit back, so to speak, your thoughts.
0:34:04 – Yeah, to back up your point,
0:34:08 that I think it’s crazy that we had his whole transition
0:34:12 knowing exactly who he is, what he’s going to do,
0:34:14 he’s telegraphing it every day,
0:34:19 and that we showed up on January 20th at inauguration
0:34:24 and did not have a solid message or a plan for countering this.
0:34:28 – The Democrats response post inauguration
0:34:33 or the complexion, for me, defines the term flat-footed.
0:34:36 Just on our heels, not even responding,
0:34:41 just kind of paralyzed, just incredibly encephaletic
0:34:44 and not counter punching at all.
0:34:48 It feels to me like in terms of the viscosity or strength
0:34:49 of the Democratic Party right now,
0:34:52 we have, I’ve never seen us this week.
0:34:53 – That’s a major declaration.
0:34:55 I don’t know if it’s necessarily wrong.
0:34:57 I think the right attitude,
0:34:59 like Congressman Golden’s team has said,
0:35:01 we’re not gonna respond to everything that Trump does
0:35:02 ’cause you can’t live in the midst
0:35:05 of an outrage cycle constantly.
0:35:08 But if we just take it on the chin constantly,
0:35:11 I could see voters showing up again in 2026
0:35:13 and just saying, well, what are you about?
0:35:15 I still have absolutely no idea.
0:35:17 So Huckin’ Jeffries really wants to focus in
0:35:18 on cost of living issues,
0:35:23 and the Republicans have put forward all these EOs,
0:35:26 they have a bill about banning transgender people
0:35:29 from athletics, but they don’t have a cost of living bill
0:35:31 and JD Vance was on with March Brennan over the weekend
0:35:33 and said, well, it takes time to bring prices down.
0:35:35 When they had told us it would happen on day one.
0:35:37 So I think you have to keep hammering that,
0:35:40 but you also need to have a personality
0:35:42 and be able to go on a long-form podcast
0:35:45 and chill with people and talk about other things
0:35:49 besides politics and I’m not seeing that
0:35:52 from that many key players in the Democratic party.
0:35:54 Most people, myself included,
0:35:57 thought Biden went too far with his preemptive pardons,
0:36:02 but he may be vindicated in that in the long term,
0:36:04 that these are ruthless people
0:36:07 who have said in public forums
0:36:10 that they’re going to come after these folks
0:36:12 and that that was actually the right thing to do.
0:36:14 I mean, that’s a Mitch McConnell move, right?
0:36:16 It’s not a traditional Joe Biden move
0:36:18 to go for the absolute worst case scenario.
0:36:23 So, you know, I hope that if Kashpatal gets confirmed
0:36:25 and it looks like he will,
0:36:27 because it looks like everybody will,
0:36:32 maybe not Tulsi, that he isn’t as punitive
0:36:38 and as motivated by retribution as he details in his book,
0:36:40 but who knows?
0:36:43 And I wanted to add to what you were saying
0:36:44 about young people.
0:36:48 I was talking to a friend of mine whose brother is 30 years
0:36:51 old, went on a bachelor party, 13 guys,
0:36:53 10 of 13 voted for Trump.
0:36:55 And these were all liberal-minded guys
0:36:58 that went to university together.
0:37:01 And what we were discussing that I found so interesting
0:37:03 and it links also to the discussion
0:37:05 about what’s going on with higher education
0:37:08 is that we just are seeing now amongst young people
0:37:11 a new definition of what sounds smart.
0:37:15 So, it used to be, you know, all of your degrees,
0:37:19 your level of credibility was directly connected
0:37:22 to how fancy the school you went to was, right?
0:37:25 Like what kind of job you had,
0:37:28 how that you knew which fork went with which, right?
0:37:30 Like going back to the pretty woman scene, right?
0:37:31 Slippery little suckers, right?
0:37:33 Like that that was what low-class looked like
0:37:35 and high-class looks like someone
0:37:38 who dedicates their life to public service,
0:37:40 but also has a trust fund that they’re relying on
0:37:42 and went to Harvard for everything.
0:37:45 And now the people that are revered
0:37:46 or that folks think are smart
0:37:50 are the ones who are asking questions incessantly.
0:37:52 And it doesn’t matter what they’re questioning.
0:37:55 Like RFK, well, I’m just asking questions, right?
0:37:58 About the measles vaccine or fluoride in the water
0:38:00 or whatever it is that day.
0:38:04 And the right has weaponized that against us
0:38:06 to an incredible advantage
0:38:10 because all of these young people who are smart
0:38:14 and very well-educated now think that it is cool
0:38:17 and forward-thinking and what they want to see in leadership
0:38:20 for people to not actually know the answers to questions.
0:38:23 And I don’t know how you rectify that
0:38:25 because, you know, I talked to my toddler
0:38:27 and she’s asking questions all the time, right?
0:38:29 Like, but why, mom?
0:38:30 Mommy, why?
0:38:30 Why do we do this?
0:38:32 Why are you going here?
0:38:33 Why do I have to brush my teeth?
0:38:35 Why do I have to make my bed?
0:38:38 And then you fast forward
0:38:41 to where she’ll be in 25, 30 years, let’s say.
0:38:43 Is she gonna think Joe Rogan is the smartest person
0:38:45 in the world because he’s just asking questions?
0:38:47 I mean, even Lex Friedman,
0:38:50 someone is a very traditionally smart person, right?
0:38:53 In terms of education and productivity
0:38:54 is just asking questions.
0:38:58 Like asking Zelinsky, why don’t you just give up your country?
0:39:00 And that’s what passes now
0:39:02 as the folks that we should be looking up to.
0:39:05 And that’s leading to a set of government officials
0:39:07 who are also doing that same thing
0:39:09 who are just flooding the zone with wild questions
0:39:12 that then leave them with this route
0:39:15 that they can go through to throw all of this
0:39:16 administrative shit at the wall.
0:39:19 And we’re ending up with a government
0:39:21 that I’m sure will be in complete crisis
0:39:22 in a matter of months.
0:39:26 – Yeah, it’s definitely, I mean, we say this a bunch
0:39:29 that we’re sort of in uncharted territory.
0:39:31 It seemed like I’m just, you said something
0:39:33 that sort of, I don’t know, piqued my interest
0:39:35 because you know more about this than I do,
0:39:39 but that you believe Kashpatel will be confirmed
0:39:42 and that there’s a chance that Tulsi Gabbard won’t be.
0:39:45 And I would have reversed that, but I don’t know the latest.
0:39:46 What’s going on there?
0:39:49 – What, well, what’s going on is, I mean,
0:39:50 you saw Pete Hegsas go through.
0:39:53 So there were three no votes on that.
0:39:56 It was quite clear that Senator Tillis did want
0:39:59 to vote against him ’cause he required Hegsas
0:40:02 to write a letter to him answering specific questions
0:40:06 about accusations of abuse against his second wife.
0:40:09 There was a big New York Times piece about this.
0:40:12 And you can see if an unjoney earns his face
0:40:13 that she didn’t want to do this.
0:40:15 But when you’re threatened with a primary
0:40:17 and probably with violence,
0:40:20 knowing how the internet works, you do those things.
0:40:22 The reason that I say that I think it’s possible,
0:40:23 Tulsi doesn’t get confirmed,
0:40:27 Lindsey Graham over the weekend wouldn’t answer, right?
0:40:29 And how he was voting on it.
0:40:32 And I feel like if there is anyone
0:40:33 who’s not gonna get through,
0:40:36 it’s the one that people are being the quietest about.
0:40:39 And no one really talks about Tulsi Gabbard.
0:40:42 They’re talking about the other ones.
0:40:46 I think it’s feasible that Republicans decide
0:40:48 that RFK Junior is not actually a threat
0:40:51 to vaccines or whatever and let him through.
0:40:54 But it seems like they’re advertising,
0:40:56 having good meetings with Cache Patel.
0:40:59 And I haven’t seen one thumbs up MAGA post
0:41:01 with people standing with Tulsi Gabbard.
0:41:05 So, but I’m prepared for all of it to get through.
0:41:09 – I love someone said that Mitch McConnell voting
0:41:11 against Hexath would be like Hannibal Lecter
0:41:13 going vegetarian on his death bed.
0:41:18 It’s just like, don’t hold your breath.
0:41:19 But yeah, it’s-
0:41:20 – You did it.
0:41:25 – Yeah, again, he’s got very little to lose at this point.
0:41:27 Right?
0:41:28 – Totally.
0:41:30 – He’s leaving his old, I mean-
0:41:32 – Profiles encourage though, right?
0:41:36 That you’re doing it and then nothing really to show for it.
0:41:40 But, you know, I guess I appreciate it anyway.
0:41:41 – But you think Cache Patel is gonna get through?
0:41:43 That’s super interesting.
0:41:46 – Right now, I don’t, you know, who knows,
0:41:51 but it looks likely and people seem to be thinking
0:41:56 that Donald Trump is entitled to whatever he wants
0:41:58 in terms of a cabinet.
0:42:01 And usually people do get what they want.
0:42:04 There have been cases where it hasn’t happened,
0:42:07 but they strong arm everyone.
0:42:09 And they have this fleet of people online
0:42:11 just threatening anyone who opposes them,
0:42:13 including, you know, members of their family
0:42:14 will do things like that,
0:42:17 whether that is a sitting elected representative
0:42:19 or the president of another country.
0:42:22 Like this game that went on with the Colombians
0:42:25 about using military planes
0:42:28 versus the regular detention planes.
0:42:30 I mean, first of all, it costs three times more.
0:42:35 They can get up to $852,000 to send back migrants
0:42:39 on these C-130s, I think, or C-17s.
0:42:40 – It’s all about branding, right?
0:42:43 – And so it’s like a huge, it’s all the show.
0:42:45 And CNN was reporting this morning
0:42:48 that they want all of the ICE agents
0:42:50 to be wearing their vests.
0:42:53 And for this to be made for TV,
0:42:54 ’cause we’re in the Truman Show,
0:42:55 but like a really bad version.
0:42:57 – Yeah, the one jet blue.
0:42:59 Okay, let’s take a quick break.
0:42:59 Stay with us.
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0:44:16 (upbeat music)
0:44:20 – Welcome back.
0:44:22 Before we wrap, we gotta adjust something
0:44:23 we’ve been hearing from some of you.
0:44:26 Apparently there’s a feeling that we’re not quite living up
0:44:28 to the moderate in our show name.
0:44:30 Maybe we’re leaning a bit more into the raging side.
0:44:32 People say we’re more raging than moderate.
0:44:34 That’s a fair point.
0:44:37 So what does being a moderate really mean to us,
0:44:38 especially during this new administration?
0:44:40 Jess, you kick us off.
0:44:42 What do you think it means to be a moderate?
0:44:44 – Well, first, the fact that we’re talking about this
0:44:48 is your fault because you made me a comments monster.
0:44:51 And I went and looked at what people were saying
0:44:54 and there’s a lot of positive stuff.
0:44:54 But it–
0:44:56 – Oh, don’t look at the comments.
0:44:57 I mean, read the first five, learn from it
0:45:00 and then ignore it, just your own mental health.
0:45:03 – I stay up later than everyone in my household
0:45:05 so I could spend a good amount of time
0:45:07 comments doom scrolling.
0:45:10 But seeing a lot of this, like this is not
0:45:12 what a moderate means.
0:45:15 And I am completely willing to accept
0:45:17 that A, a moderate means different things
0:45:19 to different people.
0:45:24 And that also, I think of myself as a liberal moderate,
0:45:28 not someone who is a swing voter at this point.
0:45:31 And most people who advertise that are lying
0:45:33 ’cause there’s usually a crucial issue
0:45:35 that puts you into one camp or the other.
0:45:37 For a lot of people, it’s whether you’re pro-choice
0:45:39 or pro-life, and as a pro-choice person,
0:45:42 I would be hard-pressed to support
0:45:44 a candidate that was pro-life.
0:45:46 But I guess I wanted to talk about this
0:45:48 because I think what we share
0:45:53 and why we wanted to do this specific podcast together
0:45:57 under this name is because we wanna talk
0:46:00 about politics through the framework of pragmatism,
0:46:04 not just optimism or what we want to happen.
0:46:07 And that it’s important to have political discussions
0:46:10 that are cognizant of the guardrails
0:46:12 of the way government actually operates.
0:46:15 And also, I think most crucially,
0:46:18 understanding that the framework of a partisan worldview
0:46:21 is not how the general populace operates.
0:46:25 And the 2024 results were so indicative
0:46:27 of that transformation,
0:46:30 that people are not interested in backing a team
0:46:32 in the same way of anything they’re backing Trump
0:46:33 because they back that player, right?
0:46:35 Like that’s their favorite football player,
0:46:38 their favorite basketball player or whatever sport they’re into.
0:46:43 And I think that being a moderate right now is trying,
0:46:47 as per our earlier discussion,
0:46:50 to see the good in what the other side
0:46:52 may be bringing to the table and saying like,
0:46:54 “Sure, that works for me.”
0:46:57 And also I have constituents or I have people that I know
0:47:00 who absolutely feel that way,
0:47:04 recognizing the faults of the party that we both belong to
0:47:07 and then trying to find a way to constructively
0:47:12 and effectively push back where we need to.
0:47:15 And that’s how I see it right now.
0:47:17 I don’t, how do you see it?
0:47:19 Even though you said earlier, you’re not moderate.
0:47:21 So the podcast is over.
0:47:24 – I would define myself as kind of ground zero
0:47:25 for moderates.
0:47:26 And that is what, as far as I can tell moderates
0:47:29 are basically people that everybody hates.
0:47:34 And essentially, I mean, the generous
0:47:36 or the actual Webster definition would be someone
0:47:39 who has tempered views
0:47:42 and is somewhere in the middle on the political spectrum.
0:47:45 And the way I see it is I’ve tried as I’ve gotten older
0:47:48 to not be lazy and sign up for any political orthodoxy.
0:47:50 When I hear something crazy on the left,
0:47:54 I like to call it out when I think our democratic leadership
0:47:58 is too inefficient, feckless, cowardly, I call it out.
0:48:01 When I think DEI is out of control,
0:48:04 when I think that immigration is out of control,
0:48:07 when I think that social security spending is out of control,
0:48:10 you know, there’s some of their favorite policies
0:48:12 of the left, I call it out.
0:48:17 And when I am, you know, I’m vigorously pro-Israel.
0:48:19 It’s like, I don’t bark up any one tree.
0:48:20 I try to have my own views.
0:48:24 In this environment, based on where the political spectrum is,
0:48:25 I’m now seen as center left.
0:48:28 In the 70s, I would have been a Rockefeller Republican.
0:48:30 I just would have been, I would have,
0:48:32 I would have been in that party.
0:48:34 But I think it’s also just saying,
0:48:36 look, I’m gonna look at, I’m gonna be a critical thinker.
0:48:39 I’m gonna look at issue by issue.
0:48:41 And regardless of the political orthodoxy
0:48:42 you’re supposed to sign up to, you say,
0:48:44 okay, I’m not down with this.
0:48:47 And it’s almost like you become, unfortunately,
0:48:50 to a certain extent, the left is much harsher on moderates.
0:48:52 They treat you like an apostate.
0:48:54 Yeah, Scott, I thought we could trust you.
0:48:57 People from the Biden campaign, sign up.
0:48:59 Don’t you understand the assignment?
0:48:59 Sign up.
0:49:01 Well, no, he’s too fucking old.
0:49:03 What are we doing here?
0:49:05 And then people on the right are just like,
0:49:06 kind of write you off as a libtard.
0:49:09 But they don’t come after you the same way the left does
0:49:11 when they thought you were, quote unquote,
0:49:13 when we thought you were one of us.
0:49:17 So I see a moderate as someone who says,
0:49:19 okay, I’m gonna go issue by issue.
0:49:20 I’m gonna use critical thinking.
0:49:22 I’m gonna be unafraid to say this makes no sense,
0:49:26 regardless of the cult dynamics of pressure
0:49:29 to sign up for the full orthodoxy and narrative.
0:49:31 Because when the narrative gets crazy
0:49:35 or makes no fucking sense, you say, okay, I don’t buy this.
0:49:37 I don’t have a problem with deporting criminals.
0:49:39 I get the symbolism of it.
0:49:41 I don’t have a problem with a surge of troops
0:49:44 at the border, fine.
0:49:46 Deficits, anyways, my point is,
0:49:49 I’d like to think a moderate is someone who says,
0:49:50 I’m a critical thinker.
0:49:52 I’m gonna look at the issues
0:49:54 and I’m gonna decide one by one,
0:49:57 what I think is the right view on this.
0:50:00 I’m not gonna sign up and just say, okay,
0:50:03 I’m a fan, I’m a cultist, no matter what they say.
0:50:05 And this is true about the left and the right.
0:50:08 But I will say as someone who’s seen or identified
0:50:13 as a Democrat that I get more hate from the left
0:50:13 than I do from the right.
0:50:16 The right has just kind of written me off.
0:50:17 And that’s how it is in our society.
0:50:18 You gotta pick a side.
0:50:21 You can’t say, well, I wanna go issue by issue, right?
0:50:24 Do I believe women should have the right
0:50:25 to terminate a pregnancy?
0:50:26 Yes.
0:50:28 And the third trimester?
0:50:30 Okay, that’s worth a discussion, right?
0:50:35 If the woman’s health or the baby’s health is not in danger,
0:50:38 at the same time, nobody trusts each other.
0:50:41 So nobody wants to have anything resembling
0:50:45 kind of a moderate conversation.
0:50:49 In addition with Citizens United and gerrymandering
0:50:52 that has hard right and hard left districts,
0:50:54 there’s no political room for moderates anymore.
0:50:56 They can’t get elected, right?
0:50:58 Because basically every election now
0:51:00 with these hard blue and hard red districts
0:51:03 is decided in the primary.
0:51:05 So it’s basically who can be craziest.
0:51:07 Who can be more crazy left or who can be more crazy right?
0:51:10 And a moderate is just a recipe for not getting elected.
0:51:14 So I think in the media or as a commentator
0:51:16 or whatever you wanna call yourself a thought leader,
0:51:18 I think it’s especially important that we demonstrate.
0:51:20 It’s okay to be a critical thinker
0:51:23 and occasionally have your followers on threads
0:51:25 or blue sky come after you because you say,
0:51:28 yeah, I don’t get this democratic policy.
0:51:34 I think the vice president was a great senator.
0:51:36 I think she’d be a great Supreme Court justice.
0:51:39 I don’t know if she’d be a great president.
0:51:41 And then everyone comes for you.
0:51:45 And I’m not willing to sign up and blind,
0:51:49 bend the knee for C above an insurrectionist and a rapist.
0:51:51 – Critical thinking, look at every person,
0:51:53 look at every issue and decide where you are on it.
0:51:56 Because that’s my story and I’m sticking to it, Jess.
0:51:58 – No, I think that’s the right story.
0:52:01 And I think that there’s so much pressure
0:52:02 to always be a good soldier.
0:52:06 I certainly feel this in my role,
0:52:08 being part of the conservative media ecosystem,
0:52:13 that there are liberals who get enraged if I even say,
0:52:14 well, this doesn’t make a ton of sense.
0:52:19 Or this is an issue that 70% of Americans agree on.
0:52:21 Like, why can’t that just be our position?
0:52:24 It seems pretty normal.
0:52:29 Like, you know, the was a prop 36 on the California ballot,
0:52:33 making it not okay to shoplift up to $950
0:52:34 without getting arrested.
0:52:37 Like these are just obvious things.
0:52:40 And you should be able to have opinions about them
0:52:42 without people flipping out on you.
0:52:45 But I do think a critical component
0:52:48 of how we approach politics
0:52:53 and how people who are governing more in the middle do
0:52:55 is that they fundamentally understand
0:52:58 that it’s not the intentions that matter,
0:53:00 it’s the outcomes that matter.
0:53:03 And we just had an enormous outcomes election
0:53:07 where people said that governance in blue cities and states
0:53:12 is not meeting the moment, far from it.
0:53:16 That riding the subway is not a good option anymore.
0:53:18 That we don’t support law enforcement,
0:53:21 that we have people who are incompetent,
0:53:24 perhaps corrupt in big positions of power.
0:53:27 And that we are not living up to the covenant
0:53:31 that our elected officials make with the people
0:53:32 who send them there.
0:53:35 And that we’re actually failing ourselves
0:53:37 when it comes to our values
0:53:40 because of how poor that governance has gotten.
0:53:44 And that’s really crucial to how I think about politics
0:53:47 and how I think about my advocacy for policies
0:53:49 that I think will improve quality of life.
0:53:53 And more often than not, those policies are linked
0:53:58 to more liberal legislators or people who see the world
0:54:01 through a similar prism to me.
0:54:03 But I am completely open to the fact
0:54:05 that there are good representatives
0:54:07 from the other side of the aisle
0:54:10 that also live by those ideals
0:54:12 or certainly can meet us somewhere in the middle
0:54:13 to get something good done.
0:54:18 And I remember when the Democrats were funding MAGA candidates
0:54:21 to run against moderate Republicans.
0:54:26 And I understood it from a, we got a win perspective.
0:54:29 But it was upsetting to me
0:54:34 that good people like Peter Mayer in Michigan lost his seat
0:54:39 because we put in tons of money to back a crazy person
0:54:41 that would then go on to lose to the Democrat.
0:54:44 And I think that those are the kinds of things
0:54:45 that we need to explore
0:54:49 because we’re only gonna have a healthy political system
0:54:52 if we do have two thriving parties, right?
0:54:55 That are full of people that actually capture
0:54:58 the cultural and political zeitgeist of the country.
0:55:03 And the extremes on both sides are wildly dangerous.
0:55:07 And I think that the right more dangerous than the left.
0:55:10 But when you look at what people think
0:55:12 and how they’re talking about the issues,
0:55:14 you know that the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world
0:55:18 are not appealing to the general population writ large.
0:55:21 And that first sound like the Alonno Mars
0:55:22 or the Rashida Thalibs of the world
0:55:24 are not appealing to them either.
0:55:29 And so I think it’s important to be trying to stake out ground
0:55:31 to have these discussions about it to, you know,
0:55:34 bring people on from the other side of the aisle
0:55:37 or people who work regularly with Republicans
0:55:41 so that we can hear about how progress can actually be made
0:55:42 because they’re the ones,
0:55:44 we can talk all we want from our studios,
0:55:47 but they’re the ones actually casting the votes
0:55:50 for all of this and hopefully making a big difference
0:55:51 in people’s lives.
0:55:52 – Yeah, something I think the Republicans
0:55:54 have done much better than Democrats.
0:55:57 And your buddy Tim Miller, I thought made a great point on
0:56:01 from the Bollard podcast that they kind of the coarseness
0:56:06 and the, I don’t know, just the provocative,
0:56:09 sometimes stupid, sometimes weirdness
0:56:10 that’s come out of the right.
0:56:13 It came across as authentic, whereas Democrats,
0:56:15 it’s as if they’re reading off a press release
0:56:17 or believe that they’re crossing the Delaware
0:56:20 or giving an inauguration speech.
0:56:21 I mean, they’re just so like,
0:56:25 it’s like speak like a regular person for God’s sakes.
0:56:28 And the Republicans do that better than Democrats.
0:56:31 Also, it strikes me that a big component
0:56:33 in terms of what impacts people’s lives
0:56:38 and gives them the impression of the respective brands,
0:56:40 we have to get our shit together around on the ground,
0:56:44 running some of these Democratic cities.
0:56:49 A bunch of my friends lost houses in the Pacific Palisades.
0:56:50 And they basically all said the same thing.
0:56:53 They’re like, I keep hearing these excuses
0:56:54 where the reservoirs weren’t full,
0:56:56 the water pressure was down, whatever it is.
0:57:01 And he’s like, we pay 13% a year in additional taxes.
0:57:02 If I’m gonna have my house burned down,
0:57:05 I’ll move to Florida or Texas where I pay 0%.
0:57:09 It’s like, we should have the supersize gold-plated VIP,
0:57:15 a white glove government when you’re paying 13%.
0:57:17 And instead, some of the highest tax,
0:57:19 highest tax states are offering,
0:57:21 I mean, they’re expensive but bad,
0:57:23 which isn’t a recipe for a good product.
0:57:27 And the most expensive but bad metros right now
0:57:29 are governed by Democrats
0:57:31 who seem to be weaponized by unions
0:57:34 or whatever it might be, special interest groups
0:57:37 and are just taxing the shit out of their local residents
0:57:40 and doing head up your ass, you know,
0:57:42 enforcement like you’re talking about
0:57:45 where if you steal less than $900,
0:57:47 they don’t even prosecute you.
0:57:50 So I think until, and by the way,
0:57:51 I don’t think that’s true of New York.
0:57:53 New York has 12, I think it’s a total
0:57:56 of about 12 or 13% also in taxes.
0:57:58 But I would argue Manhattan is worth it.
0:58:02 I think it’s actually, I think Manhattan is well run.
0:58:05 And I don’t know about you, but I do feel,
0:58:09 I do feel that the subway feels a little bit different.
0:58:11 I’ve noticed that, I’m more aware.
0:58:13 – That’s an understatement.
0:58:15 – Yeah, you really feel it, don’t you?
0:58:17 – Well, I do personally,
0:58:20 but I don’t remember I grew up here
0:58:22 and have ridden the subway my whole life,
0:58:25 the number of people being like thrown in front of cars,
0:58:29 being punched, slashed, a woman burned on the F train.
0:58:33 That’s not normal.
0:58:35 Oh, things happen every once in a while.
0:58:36 – Agreed.
0:58:38 – And Cathy Hookle is definitely getting the message
0:58:42 because of Richie Torres, but it’s bad.
0:58:46 – Yeah, and also I just, in terms of crime, I think it’s-
0:58:48 – Well, crime is down, but those are also
0:58:50 to the point about the messaging of this.
0:58:54 No one, if they feel less safe and you come at them
0:58:57 with a bunch of statistics, it doesn’t matter.
0:58:58 – If I don’t feel safe on the subway,
0:59:00 if I can’t have my AirPods in,
0:59:03 ’cause I need to, I have to feel like I’m more aware.
0:59:05 All right, that’s all for this episode, Jess.
0:59:07 Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates.
0:59:10 Our producers are David Toledo and Chenenye Onike,
0:59:12 our technical director is Drew Burroughs.
0:59:14 You can find Raging Moderates on its own feed every Tuesday.
0:59:17 – That’s right, Raging Moderates on its own feed.
0:59:20 Please follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
0:59:22 Jess, have a great rest of the week.
0:59:23 – You too, Scott.
0:59:24 – Thank you.
0:59:26 (upbeat music)