Ana Kasparian on Debating Ben Shapiro, Toxic Trumpism, Rising Prices, and Evil Landlords

Donald Trump will likely go down in history as this country's most moronic president I have changed my mind on a lot of things recently to be honest with you I love being a wife I love cooking a warm dinner for my husband I actually love a lot of the so-called Trad wife duties how equal do you think men and women are in 2024 this is what no one wants to talk about and it's super uncomfortable but it's the truth and I'm going to say it Anna kasparian host of The Young Turks podcast with just over 5 million subscribers on YouTube thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee I would really appreciate it thank you for having me I'm glad we made this happen me too us too us too we've been listening to a lot of your debates you debated Ben Shapiro twice you were on the Patrick B David podcast and we really enjoy your insights oh thank you I appreciate that yeah it was fun debating them and I mean I I debated one person on the Patrick B David uh podcast and that was Adam but with Ben Shapiro it was actually pleasantly surprising how civil and nice he is you know you kind of like build up a character in your head based on like little Snippets and little clips that are posted online about them and then you meet them in real life and you realize just how different they really are and so we disagree deeply on a lot of different issues but what those two debates kind of taught me was that you can still have like a civil conversation and you can avoid it devolving into nonsense as long as it's like two good faith actors who are having that conversation you know so how was Ben different in person than he was online because we had him on the podcast he was very much different than what I thought so chill he was so easy going and very respectful like he showed up right on time to the minute right said he had an hour and a half gave us exactly an hour and a half uh and then was kind enough to kind of chitchat afterwards but yeah he's you know very polite uh what I was surprised by was his warmth like he's actually a pretty warm guy in person which you know you see this caricature of him and honestly like even if you watch um an entire episode of his show he's just very to the point and you don't see that warmth so meeting people in real life I think just gives you a different sense of who they are and what their personality is like and also to understand if they're a good faith or a bad faith person I heard you talking to Ben about this actually where like some people you feel like they're in it as a bad faith actor where they're just puppeting or being puppet puppeted by somebody who's just kind of like ins in their agenda in them and they're just doing it for clout for fame for money Etc some people they feel very genuine in their beliefs and Ben I feel like is definitely a good Fai oh 100% he believes what he's saying he's not in any way a grifter I think that even with the most goodfaith people though in the world of politics because things have become so tribal whether you want to believe it or not there is some element of audience capture and you feel this pressure to kind of go along with the default talking points on your political side or your political group um so I see a little bit of that maybe happening with him I can tell that he's not a big supporter of Donald Trumps uh in fact in 2016 during the Republican primaries he endorsed uh I can't even believe this but Ted Cruz uh and then this time around uh he was a big fan of Ronda santis but he ultimately had to tuck tail and recently put out an endorsement video for Trump but I would be shocked if he's genuinely a big supporter of Trump's and not not to make this about Ben but just curious like to me there's nothing that I would like less than to be on the other side of a debate between Ben and and and me like that sounds like terrifying yeah horrifying he's not I mean he's he's totally normal like he speaks quickly but you could end up in one of those compilations you know true but I think there's a difference okay so I think there's a difference between someone who's more interested in defending their political group versus someone who's willing to concede on issues or areas where concessions make sense so I'll give you an example without naming names you know someone who identifies as a leftist uh recently fairly recently like goes on Tim pool's podcast and debates him on a number of issues and during that debate there were just obvious concessions like for instance no you don't allow abortions of a healthy fetus like a minute before the woman is about to give birth like that's a ridiculous hypothetical I get that it's a ridiculous hypothetical but don't play into that hypothetical by creating this caricature of what the left is no one on the left is in favor of aborting a perfectly healthy fetus a minute before it's about to be born so just say that you know what I'm saying but there's like this effort to like provide cover and defend the left or or the right depending on who the person is and I just got to a point where I'm like I'm not going to do that so as long as you're willing to be honest and as long as you've actually thought through why it is you believe what you believe these debates aren't scary at all I don't think look we talk a lot about financial success here in the channel but what's even more important is the mental aspect along the way so I've mentioned this before but I have had ADHD for my entire life and it has always been a constant struggle of mine trying to learn how to better leverage it in my day-to-day so when the sponsor of today's video better help reached out I was excited to give it a shot I went in with an open mind I tried out several different sessions and I'm sticking with it because I've actually noticed really good results and it's really easy to use you can talk to your therapist by text chat phone or video call and you can even message your therapist at any time or schedule live sessions when it's convenient for you better help is the world's largest therapy service used by over 4 million people and with over 30,000 licensed therapists within their Network you'll have access to a wide range of expertise to get helpful unbiased advice to get started all you have to do is fill out a questionnaire to assess your specific needs and then from there you'll get matched with the therapist often in 48 hours or less and plus if for any reason your therapist is in the right fit you can switch to a new therapist at no additional cost so if you're interested in getting started with betterhelp click the link Down Below in the description or visit betterhelp.com cof hour to get 10% off your first month of therapy thanks again to better help for sponsoring this episode and back to the podcast as long as you're willing to be honest and as long as you've actually thought through why it is you believe what you believe these debates aren't scary at all I don't think yeah I feel like in these days it's worse the feeling is worse to be wrong than the benefit of finding truth unfortunately in a lot of debates and people try to be philosophically consistent but it ends up just kind of like winding them into this weird thing where they're defending a position they don't really feel sometimes you want to win in the court of public opinion though like even if you might be wrong if you say the right things and people are going to be like no you know they won they said the right things well so the reason why I agree to debate Ben was because I saw it as an opportunity to display my values and where I stand on certain policy issues and like introduce that to an audience that otherwise wouldn't hear that perspective right I mean you don't see a lot of people on the left Go on Ben Shapiro show so I didn't go on his program for me um I'm super busy and like doing interviews and debates like it can become overwhelming with my schedule but I saw it as an opportunity to reach out to people who otherwise eyes are unfamiliar what I actually believe um have been misled to think I believe things I don't believe and I wanted to see if there was any possibility in persuading members of his audience to maybe even if they don't change their political values or anything to at least reconsider their perspective and perceptions of the other side and the thing that I've become increasingly interested in doing although it's been incredibly difficult because there's a lot of resistance to it is finding ways to bring the two sides together assuming that we're talking about goodfaith people who want a better like Society better country to live in I think there are a ton of people who are just kind of politically homeless and right now the discourse is represented by two extremes and so I'm trying to figure out how I can uplift people and speak to the concerns of people who are more politically homeless why do you think people should listen to you I think people should listen to whoever makes compelling arguments right and my goal is to just try to make those compelling arguments to be fair to be as accurate as I can to correct myself when I realize damn I got that story wrong and I'm hoping that that Integrity attracts people to the message that I have on on my show but ultimately it really boils down to everyone's values and if they have values that are just completely different from M mine I don't begrudge them for not wanting to watch the show when's the last time you changed your mind on a big idea I have changed my mind on a lot of things recently to be honest with you but I would say the biggest thing would be the direction the left is going in with alleged Criminal Justice Reform and I say alleged because a lot of what I've seen them carry out wasn't really about reforming uh the system meaning reforming the way we do policing and reforming our prison system so it's more focused on re abilita people so we reduce recidivism what I did see uh following the 2020 you know protests that summer was a more hands-off approach in regard to Violent criminals that should absolutely be taken out of society because they pose a risk to Public Safety do you see this anecdotally in your own life like living here in Los Angeles anally but I also see it um in terms of the broader picture if you look at overall Trends so California has shut down I I believe two and they're set to shut down their third state prison and I think there's a huge misconception and I bought into this misconception that like everyone who's in prison is like low-level drug possession you know that's all they're in prison for that's actually not the truth um the reality is when they shut down those prisons without no real plan in place basically they assumed that those uh inmates would be taken in by County prisons but but the county prisons are too full and so they're just releasing like violent offenders well before their sentence is over what percentage are violent offenders versus drug low-level crime so I don't have the exact percentages in front of me I didn't even realize we're going to get into this conversation Jack is skipping way ahead like we have this towards the bottom so uh if if you are of the belief that the majority of people who are behind bars right now are simply there for drug possession nothing more you're just mistaken like that is a very tiny percentage you know there's other other crimes uh might be robbery a lot of violent crime uh is represented in the inmate population and so that doesn't mean that I think they should be locked away for the rest of their lives but I don't agree with just releasing them without them serving their sentence and without them getting any Rehabilitation so they're no longer a risk to Public Safety and so that's that's the issue that I've been having recently I'll give you I'll give you more spefic spefic examples of what I'm witnessing and what we're seeing especially on the streets of like Los Angeles you know I have no problem with legalizing drugs you want to snort whatever you want to snort or you know smoke whatever you want to smoke by all means do it I don't think you should be allowed to just do it on our sidewalks it's wild to me that we have stricter laws in place and we enforce stricter laws in regard to smoking cigarettes but people can just you know shoot up on the Metro system or smoke fenel out in the open and I think that's unacceptable and I think that needs to stop like the whole point was to legalize and regulate but what we're seeing in a lot of liberal cities across the country is the weakest way of responding to you know the drug epidemic and the drug war which was a failure and it's a hands-off decriminalization approach when you simply decriminalize you just disempower the authorities to do anything in regard to drug crimes when you legalize and regulate you allow for you know people who want to use recreationally to do so but you can't be breaking other laws to get your fix or you can't be you know shooting up out in public in front of a school you know that has led to a decay in Los Angeles that I think is pretty undeniable and people want to deny it but it's ridiculous like we all see it yeah and it's not okay it's not okay for kids to witness that um I remember growing up and hearing about what it was like in Compton or South Los Angeles and how you know these kids had a really tough life because there was a drug dealer on the street corner you know selling dope and people you know very clearly High out of their minds on the streets and now we've just allowed that to spread all throughout Los Angeles County and by the way other cities you know in this country and I I think it's a failing model I think people need help if they're addicted to drugs I don't want to Simply throw them in prison I think that's the wrong uh response to it but they need help rehabilitation's super expensive and rather than focusing on offering uh rehabilitative services for people who are struggling with drug addiction I feel like some of the policies we've implemented only help to continue their drug addiction because it's more about so-called harm reduction and preventing overdoses which is important but that's not really helping them out I think there are a lot of people addicted to these hard drugs um certainly things like fenol who want help but they can't afford it and I I personally know people you know good friends of mine who have had family members just like dive overdoses and they did like they just drained everything that they had in you know their assets their bank accounts to get their loved ones the rehabilitative services they needed and it's expensive you know and it's something that I feel like a lot of people are struggling with and they're not getting the help that they need what was your life like growing up I grew up in r California which is a wonder and I still think it's wonderful It's a Wonderful working class community in the San Fernando Valley and I was the only Armenian in my entire School my Elementary School the community especially when I was growing up was like 98% Latino and I really grew a deep appreciation and love for various like Latin American cultures and I I had a great childhood I feel very very lucky because there were definitely times there were years where my family struggled my dad lost his job and uh as a result of Outsourcing and so financially speaking I knew that the family was struggling when I was a kid what was the job that he lost from Outsourcing yeah he was he worked as an engineer at a welding company and it was a unionized job too so he had great benefits uh he felt at the time some job security but it was outsourced uh to another country and he was unwilling to move and so after that he just decided all right well I'm going to be a handyman and just do various jobs for anyone who needs jobs in their homes or their properties and that was during a time when someone could make a decent living and Survive by being a handyman he was able to do that while um you know he he had my dad's kind of funny he doesn't trust the stock market which I wish wasn't the case because he instilled that in me and I didn't realize how bad that was until I don't want to say recently but fairly recently I didn't start there a reason that he didn't trust it there's got to be some sort of catalyst he's like okay because of that it's un I can't trust it so my my grandfather his father was a Social Democrat and my dad grew up in like Soviet era Armenia he hated communism so it's not that he's a communist but I think some of the anti-market teachings that he was experiencing growing up stayed with him and so he just didn't trust the stock market he just thought the stock market is rigged rigged evil um you know I think that he has a deep passion for workers and he saw how you know the fiduciary responsibility to shareholders ends up screwing over a lot of workers because you're going to cut costs and usually the biggest cost is labor and labor gets screwed over when you're trying to maximize profit so he he saw that and in his mind the best thing to do for retirement was to invest in like a little apartment building with like four units right so that's what he did he worked as a handyman he you know invested in an apartment building and that was going to be his retirement and then he retires covid happens and being a landlord a small time landlord in La is the worst I mean I can't tell you how hard Co was for my family did his tenants pay rent oh none of them he had one tenant that was paying one tenant moved out um so he had basically three tenants left one was paying rent the two others refused and then once the moratorium was lifted one of them just booked it and so he's out look he lost he lost a lot of money and that sucks but the hardest part was he still needed to maintain the building of course right he and property taxes insurance it was rough it was rough and so um that was an eye opener to me because I feel like all landlords kind of got lumped together with like the big corporate landlords and the private Equity firms that have been buying up residential re you know real estate and turning them into rental properties like that's not my dad my dad's the guy who didn't want to invest in the stock market because he thought it was ultimately evil to workers and instead thought the more moral thing to do would to be to invest in an apartment building so he'd have something to retire on right and he's made to be some sort of like Devil and that's the thing that's anyway I don't want to get into it too much it it's It's upsetting It's upsetting cuz he's a 78-year-old like elderly man who worked his entire life for that and to see the city just like financially rap him like that is so wrong I really appreciate your transparency when it comes to stuff like that and your ability to take Jabs at people who most people would probably Loop you in with they'd probably say oh you know you're Progressive you probably think similar to these sorts of people this sort of ideology and you're willing to take Jabs at it and be like no it's not necessary been my experience I appreciate that yeah thank you I thank you I really appreciate that too and I think part of the problem is people don't want to look at issues in a more nuanced way they like to make generalizations and just see things as black and white but I'll give you a perfect example of a more recent situation or story that I just wish people thought about a little more deeply they might still have the same thought about it but at least understand the other side and their concerns so you know the houie Rebels that are um capturing various cargo ships in the Red Sea and they're doing it they say uh in order to hold Israel accountable so they stop carrying out this war in Gaza now I am sympathetic to that point of view I don't know for sure whether they're being honest or whether they're lying but let's say you take them and what they say at face value that they're they're like basically holding innocent you know workers captive and these cargo ships captive in order to apply pressure to Israel and they're doing it for the right reasons well you have to also acknowledge that you could be against bombing houthis in Yemen and I honestly am I don't want to drag you know the United States in the west into a broader Regional war and I think that's what we're in the middle of right now which is awful but and you can also advocate for you know the United States which supplies the weaponry and the funds to Israel to carry out this war like get them to pressure Israel to rain it in a little bit and instead do targeted uh strikes on Hamas but at the same time don't minimize the impact that disrupting global trade will have on ordinary people in the UK certainly we're talking about ordinary people who might experience shortages in the pharmaceutical drugs they need to stay alive or healthy like these it's way more nuanced and complicated than houth is good or houth is bad like that's simple-minded thinking and I I want to kind of dig a little bit deeper and consider all the different factors and perspectives that will eventually lead to My overall opinion of the story have you always been this curious like where did that start for you so there is no better sound than if you're running your own business and if you want to hear a lot more then it's time to get started with our sponsor Shopify Shopify is a global e-commerce platform that has already helped transform millions of businesses worldwide for example Shopify is an endless list of Integrations thirdparty apps and flexible templates to customize your online store exactly the way you want and what set Shopify apart from their competitors is their ability to turn browsers into buyers with the internet's best converting checkout that's 36% better on average than their leading competitors not to mention this is pretty crazy but Shopify actually Powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States supporting Brands like Albert's rothy's and Brookland in over 175 countries in fact my coffee company bankroll coffee.com is run exclusive ly through Shopify you could even go to the website and check it out to see what Shopify is all about but when we were setting up we researched a whole bunch of different companies and Shopify was the best by far plus they also have an award-winning support team to help you every step of the way so sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com all lowercase grow your business no matter what stage you're in at shopify.com once again guys it's $1 it's all it cost at shopify.com all lowercase and now with that said let's get back to the podcast story always been this curious like where did that start for you when I was a kid I've always been super curious and it's both good and bad because so I work on this show all day we air two and a half hours Monday through Friday that is a monster of a program to research and produce and host so when I'm done with work and I work from 5:00 a.m. till like 5:30 p.m. when I WRA the show so it's 12 straight hours when I wrap the show I should probably stop listening to political podcasts or reading books on it's all political stuff right but I want to know like I want to know more about what I'm talking about I want to make sure that I have considered all the perspectives I listen to a wide range of political podcasts what political podcast do you listen to so I just started listening to it's actually a radio show in the UK but it's called LBC I don't know if you guys are familiar with it just came across it James O'Brien is one of the hosts on this lb Network and he's definitely more liberal um in terms of conservative content I will listen to Ben Shapiro's podcast Joe Rogan here and there although some will argue he's not conservative I don't really think he has a set political ideology to be honest yeah um there's a YouTube show that I've been on twice that I actually really love and I think they're more Centrist uh but it's called the sigon Adam show are you guys familiar with yeah so I listen to like MRE a lot of independent but different perspectives another conservative thing I I'll listen to it used to be the JN and Ken show Ken retired now it's just the John show and it's a Los angeles-based uh radio show that's definitely conservative and I don't agree with them on everything but every once in a while one of the hosts would make an argument that would make me want to dig a little deeper and then I would realize no they've got a point I think I agree with them on this matter right this one matter so when did you realize politics is something that you want to get involved in after 911 I would say I was in high school a freshman at the time and obviously what happened on 911 was terrible but then similar to what I think Israel is is experiencing right now suddenly you have the people in charge making some pretty irresponsible decisions that obviously did drag us into Wars that we shouldn't have been fighting in for as long as we fought in them um you know invading Iraq was outrageous to me I remember in English class I would have like a newspaper I would hide my newspaper in like my binder or a book and as the class was doing whatever assignment like I I found high high school like not challenging and super boring so I was reading the New York Times and I remember this one article I was reading in English class was quoting Bill Crystal and he was a huge War I mean continues to be a huge War war hawk but back then he was really pushing for us to invade Iraq and I just remember being like so like irritated by him and frustrated by him and feeling like I have no voice and then fast forward to I believe it was like 2018 or 2019 I had an opportunity to De to debate him at like politicon which was nice um so I've always been into Politics as soon as I was like old enough to even understand what politics is but when did you decide to turn that into a career I had never really thought I was going to have a career specifically in political news but I wanted to be in media and journalism starting from like Middle School my mom asked me like what do you want to be and I thought I wanted to be an actress and she's like nope you're not we're not going to let that happen right and my parents are you know they're Armenian immigrants and they're very conservative in some ways and that's one of the ways they were very conservative they're like you'll be Pat it's called patat which means like ruined right you'll be a ruined woman like if you become an actress so they're like no we're not going to allow that so then I was talking to my mom more about like what kind of careers I might be interested in she mentioned that I loved watching ABC's 2020 when Barbara Walters was a host and once she said that I was like oh yeah journalist I want to do journalism and from that moment on that was what I pursued and then you know that all manifested in ways that I didn't expect But ultimately I guess I'm happy doing what I'm doing so what was your first gig in journalism first gig in journalism was for knnx 1070 which at the time was a news radio station remember that yeah my mom would listen to that yeah owned by on the way to school my God kx7 news radio whatever I still remember that they hired me out of college as like an assistant producer it was awful it was an awful job no it was terrible it was like $10 an hour 10 bucks an hour when was this this was in two I guess at the time wasn't that bad but it was 2007 okay yeah so $10 an hour but the worst part about it was I always got the night shifts so I would have to be in at 3:00 and I'd work from like 3: to about 10:00 in the morning um wait 3:00 a.m. 3:00 a.m. yeah wow it was bad and like the editor that I had to work with was really mean and like would like curse me out over any little thing he'd asked me to print something for him which of course I'll oblige but in the middle of that I'm taking a live feed from a reporter who's on the field so I have to finish that before I print out his papers and I remember one time I guess I took too long you started like cussing me out in the middle of the uh Newsroom and I emailed the news director about it I was like hey you know I don't really like being treated like this and she's like you need to be an adult this is a this is an adult workplace you know this is a newsroom and I was like okay I thought that's what it was supposed to be like then I find out that um the this show called The Young Turks needs like a temporary fill in for one of their producers one of my colleagues at KX reached out to me about it asked me if I was interested I was planning on like a month-long trip to Europe and then after that I was going to go to grad school and try to figure out what I wanted to do after that because my experience at K andx was so awful I didn't think I wanted to do journalism anymore but then I decided to take that temp job at tyt cuz it was just two weeks and I needed a little bit of extra money for my trip and I loved it I really really enjoyed it and I didn't want to leave after that so what was the difference working with tyt than canx well it was creative the news coverage was more honest there were no scripts which I appreciated you know at KX you have a team of news writers who take stories from AP or Reuters the wire Services they just rewrite it for broadcast and then like 15 minutes before the podcast the anchor shows up and just regurgitates reads does the anchor know anything about what they're saying I don't want to throw the anchors under the bus they might be super knowledgeable but they don't need to do any of that grunt work of actually writing what they're going to be reading themselves um but what happens if they disagree with something that they're given to say well at that time remember opinion journalism was a lot more rare so there was no opinion or analysis it was just straight news like a straight news broadcast which I also found kind of boring because at that time especially no one was willing to outright criticize what Bush was doing this was during the Bush Administration and I was like there are war crimes being committed also there's a legal wiretapping into Americans that shouldn't be happening like there were all sorts of crazy things happening and I feel like if it got any coverage in the media it would be in print news and no one would read it or it would just be like a straight news broadcast type situation where it was presented as if it was normal right like you know the bush administration's doing this and all right next story that kind of thing sure it just felt Hollow all of it felt Hollow and boring no creativity nothing to look forward to or work toward like the best thing that I could hope for is that I would work really hard move up the ladder and be that anchor who shows up 15 minutes before the broadcast and just reads on a microphone like I don't want that so tyt was totally different um it was irreverent it was so unique at the time and I was treated really well I was treated as a human being like my opinions mattered from the beginning I was a temp and uh there was none of this oh you have to pay your dues before you go on air like the first day I was there uh Jen yuger who's the founder of The Young Turks and he was also you know the main host he's like oh we have a new intern let's bring her on I was like I haven't paid my dues I can't be on air but it was great I really enjoyed it in the beginning it was just a tiny crew of people five in total and it was it really did feel like a loyal family that looked out for each other and I didn't make much money those days but I miss those days big time I'm curious if you think people need to gain more experience and Authority before they start showing their opinion to a bunch of people because I know bench be not to bring him up again but he he he always says that the dumbest stuff that he ever wrote was when he was young and in college at UCLA and he was writing articles for the for the uh UCLA newspaper like he was saying some stuff that if he could go back in time he would remove all of that stuff and I know a lot of young people like when I was between the ages of like 16 and probably 20 I thought I knew everything and I was 100% happy to share that information with with anybody that would listen to me and I think it's a little bit concerning now that anybody can go and purport to be an expert on anything and talk to thousands and or hundreds has been a problem and there is a distinction between people who might think they know it all and they're opining on things in a ignorant way versus those who are just like literal scammers and they're presenting themselves as experts when they're really not and how do you tell the difference between the two for a viewer I'm a big fan of Oppo research uh so I'll research the hell out of someone before I trust them or trust what they're saying and what I mean by that is okay well what's your background what is your experience that gives you the expertise necessary to comment on these things uh often times you'll see various people quoted in print reports on various stories and I'm like this person certainly has a take I wonder who they are and who they work for because unfortunately today's journalism doesn't disclose some of the conflicts of interest involved with the sources that they rely on so a lot of times people from think tanks get quoted and it's like okay well this Think Tank has a partisan bent and the audience or the reader should be aware of that so I look into that like what are the affiliations what are the associations does this person have a take that's informed from a political ideology doesn't mean that what they're saying should be thrown out the window but at least you know that it's coming from a very specific perspective and you should look out for opposing perspectives to have a more holistic approach to the story or understanding of the story do you ever feel like you need to subscribe to some of the ideologies that The Young Turks like the organization as a whole subscribes to you don't feel like that at all I mean there's been pressure not by the way let me just be clear about this in terms of tyt's leadership and management absolutely not I love how hands-off they are in that regard I have never been told by anyone in a position of power at tyt that I need to believe something or I need to say something I feel so deeply respected there which is why I've been loyal to tyt I've been there for 17 years and a lot of people are like oh why don't you leave and do your own thing I just I don't know if you guys are familiar with Jonathan height my moral foundations um certainly include loyalty I score very high in the Loyalty area so like I feel very loyal to tyt given how wonderful the leadership and management has been to me but they are different from some of the past employees we've had who want to force me to believe certain things that I don't believe so I'm a you know I'm obviously a woman female um and I think I should be allowed to engage in conversations about how language changes in order to be more inclusive um to any Community but certainly lately it's more about like the transgender Community I have no ill will towards the transgender community at all in fact if you look at my body of work I've always been um pretty vociferous in defending them and calling for them to be treated equal to anyone else in society but I think sometimes you'll have those who those who want to like push the limits and it's never about the important stuff it's more about things like language right and they were turning a lot of people off including people who are on their side let's get specific about what you're talking about we know what you're talking about but I'm sure a lot of the viewers are sure so like just really goofy rhetoric like birthing people and right so someone called chest feeder did someone call you a birthing person that was the yeah okay so yes okay okay it happened yes in a medical setting but I don't care like I don't need to be called a birthing person from a a doctor yeah and it's on medical forms too now like in I don't know if it's all throughout California did you have to put your gender anywhere on the this sheet or was it just birthing person checkbox or now no no it wasn't a checkbox situation it was a form that I had to fill out and in the language of the form rather than using the word woman birthing person was used another form used a person with a uterus and it's just like I just felt like it was awkward and I didn't like it that's all I was saying by the way like I don't like this and I think it's Goofy and I think it turns people off and that led to like an insane Firestorm that I did not expect who is getting upset at you for saying that we always talk about this massive cohort of people that will just attack you if you say the wrong thing but I feel like honestly they hardly exist maybe maybe that's not true well they're very loud they're very loud it's a loud minority but the people voice of aund I feel like but to call you a birthing person rather that just sounds like like something that I would have like done in like kindergarten like not trying to offend anybody I don't want them to come after me what would be the male equivalent of that does that exist penis wielding person no it's got to be ejaculating person would Beil I am an ejaculating person but it is interesting because none of that conversation exists when it comes to inclusive language in the male realm like a lot of that it's really interesting and I don't know why it is but anyway like at this point I don't I don't care like I don't care about any of it like I don't care about any of that stuff I don't care about the criticism I'm getting but the reason why I bring it up is we had a transgender Fillin host at tyt um her name is Benny when Benny began at tyt she hadn't transitioned yet and so I met Benny before the transition and before Benny was even out about her ident and I was always super nice to Benny we never had any problems honestly I barely even hosted the show with Benny I think I might have done it once never really had any personal conversations remember this is during covid so a lot of us were working from home a lot of us didn't come into the office I've never met Benny in person and because of what I had shared with you know the public about how I feel about some of this inclusive language Benny felt I don't know I don't know why Benny felt like it was a slight on her but it wasn't and uh there was a group of people on Twitter and I knew this was going to happen these people on Twitter who like take up a cause and then they become like weirdly obsessive with the cause and they were just in Benny's ear about how oh you got you have to hold Anna accountable and tyt is not the place for you it's a transphobic Community you need to leave you need to leave and they were like urging Benny to leave and I just knew to I I thought to myself if Benny takes their advice she will have no platform and she will disappear and none of these people who are encouraging her to leave give a damn about her they're not going to follow her to wherever she's going to you know do a show or launch the YouTube channel they're just this is their little cause right now they think they're in a war and they're pretending like they give a damn about Ben they don't give a damnn about Benny they give a damn about presenting themselves as people who purport to care about transgender people but as soon as Benny's gone as soon as she makes that decision to leave tyt Benny's gone for real from their Consciousness you know from the media in general and I I think it's just they did damage to Benny and I don't know if Benny realizes it right now but these people don't care at all at all they don't care about making Society better in regard to like all my focus would be is how can we ensure that we improve our Health Care system so people who do decide to make that transition because remember once you transition and if you go through the surgeries and everything it's not a one-time thing you need medical attention for the rest of your life the priority should be if you actually give a damn about transgender people how do we reform our Health Care system so someone who does choose to transition doesn't go into bankruptcy because of the medical attention or she is going to need for the rest of their I've always been curious who pays for that does that come out of pocket or is that we pay insanely high taxes now here's the thing if you manage your own solo small business you're aware of 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when you go to collective.com and again tell them that I sent you but don't wait to elect because the deadline to backdate your escorp to January 1st is coming up on March 31st again that's collective.com and tell them I sent you thanks again to Collective for sponsoring today's episode and let's get back to the podcast we pay insanely high taxes like I mean look let me just be clear right now the way it gets paid is through private insurance if you're lucky to have it 20 million Americans don't have any insurance no coverage at all I think our healthare system is broken and a lot of times you know you might get stuck with insurance let's say you get insured through your employer you might get insurance that won't authorize a ton of your medical needs so it really depends on what your specific situation is but you know when you think about transgender youth a lot of them do get disowned by family members a lot of them do end up homeless you know and so my priority or my top concern in terms of improving their lives would be okay what kind of safety net are we going to have in place to catch them if and when they fall you know and and I always thought like obviously I'm good faith about that and these are things that I've been talking about not just this year not just last year but like almost the entirety of my career and I was just under the assumption that people know that I don't have a anti-trans bone in my body but some of this stuff some of this language stuff is a little goofy how do you not get overly defensive over something like that somebody calling you transphobic how do you not just explode or want to like counter that and say no that's ridiculous how do you develop a thick skin um well in the beginning I was defensive and then this job is already really difficult it's incredibly difficult it would be impossible for me to enjoy any of this if I were just sucking up to people bullying me and saying things I don't actually believe so whether the audience likes it or not I'm going to tell them what I really believe and we lost like some paying members to tyt over this whole drama and that's okay God bless I mean do you you you don't need to be supporting the show financially if you think you know the biggest Injustice is that I don't want to be called a birthing person but um I just don't want I I have a tough I have a tough time lying about what I really think that's like the hardest thing for me to do well that's good I mean but how do you not take these comments to Heart how do you not let that affect your day I have a lot of um inner piece and I know who I am and I think since I know exactly who I am the opinions of others that I know are inaccurate I just don't let them get to me I can't control what other people believe about me I can control my own behavior I can control how I feel about myself and I don't want to say that I I like love myself or feel great about myself I think I'm a flawed person just like anyone else and I look back at some of the things that I've done and said in my career and I like deeply regret some of it but I I have slowly but surely like made an effort to correct some of my previous errors a lot of them were like during the pandemic and I kind of got got like wrapped up in some of the narratives that were coming from the left during that time that turned out to not be so accurate and so to me what's the like the most important thing to me is getting my audience accurate information then being honest with them about what I actually feel and genuinely feel about these stories and if I get something wrong ensuring that I correct those errors and do so as loudly as I can and openly as I can because I want to do good in the world through the work I do and I don't think you can do that if you mislead people or misinform people yeah you've been very open about the times you have gotten some stories wrong right and ere extended periods of time as well like I see you continue to reference from things you've gotten wrong years ago which I I also deeply appreciate uh speaking of sharing how you feel how do you feel about California because we were talking earlier and we were like we drove in from Vegas because we left uh on the way here I mean we were off of a freeway for maybe 10 minutes and we how many tents oh gosh do I mean like and and here's the thing too in this neighborhood that we shoot this podcast studio in there has been like this colossal sized tent like a a tent Mansion not to make a joke out of it but like a big tent and it's been there for probably two years and it and it takes up the entirety of the sidewalk so to you can't walk in the sidewalk you'd have to go into the street where a car is parked and then walk around it if you're same exact tent yeah yeah I mean so let me just start off by saying saying as someone who was born and raised in Los Angeles I actually politics aside failed policies aside if I just think about the landscape here the nature the mountains you know the beaches I love California I think California is the most beautiful and wonderful we pay very high taxes in California we get very little as like working people in return it's full stop okay the amount of I mean even with the gases right we pay a higher gas tax in California and what is that money supposed to be used for roads well for roads they're gonna oh my God the Pooles are horrible they don't fix them the roads are in like they're just terrible right there's Pooles everywhere you're correct there's trash everywhere um you know I think the department of sanitation is in need of more workers and that's like playing into it but what's also playing into it is this honestly the homeless issue yes and the fact that the city just allows them to like hoard gar like literal garbage and they say no no no it's not garbage it's their belongings but I'm sorry like fast food bags from a month ago is those are not belongings it's literal trash these are people who have mental health issues and you're just allowing them to wallow away and die on massive piles of garbage and I say they allow it because this is what no one wants to talk about and it's super uncomfortable but it's the truth and I'm going to say it when there is housing and shelter available and they're offered the housing and shelter no is not an answer no is not an acceptable answer you have to take the housing period you're not I'm not allowed to do whatever the hell I want to my own property right I have to take out permits I need to get permission from the city I can't just do whatever I want it's amazing to me how when it comes to working Americans in this state when it comes to people who pay their taxes have worked hard have done everything right whole host of rules for them okay but for some reason it's a hands-off no rules approach for people who are living on the streets and the reason why the reason why they've gotten away with it for so long is because some of these people are really struggling right and you feel bad for them and I certainly feel bad for them but a lot of these people are struggling with severe mental health issues or in some cases they you know are addicted to drugs they don't want to take the housing they like the freedom of living Outdoors not everyone but we have a massive homeless population that's actually staying with loved ones or they're couch surfing those are the people who we don't see the homeless people we do see for the most part on the streets are those battling with addiction and mental illness and so this idea of like oh well we offered them housing and they said no so now we're just going to leave them on the streets I don't agree with that so I've always believed there should be a Federal issue and not a state issue because it seems as though a lot of States their solution including Las Vegas is simply we'll give you a bus ticket anywhere you want to go and that's our solution and so a lot of homeless people in Vegas for instance will say I want to go to Santa Monica and people come here from all over the place right so to me it doesn't seem like it should be a state issue because you look at California and you say why should California bear the burden for all the other states where people migrate totally what's happening right now by the way that's happening because I mean if you're home in another state and you're dealing with lawmakers there making it very difficult for you to Camp wherever you want you're going to want to go to the state where they allow you to Camp wherever you want and that's California also the weather and the weather of course but weather is warm and nice in Florida too they don't have the same issue we have here so what's the difference between Florida and California is it that Florida enforces stricter policies on sleeping over night yes and how do they combat that in terms of uh let's say someone is someone going to go to jail because they don't have a place to sleep or how they no let me be clear about something I don't want to put anyone in jail because they have nowhere to sleep like that's ridiculous I'm specifically talking about instance instance where they're offered housing and they deny it and people think that that's a myth that doesn't happen remember California or Los Angeles specifically under the leadership of Mayor Karen bass has been purchasing like old hotel buildings and the whole point is to shelter and house homeless people in those hotel rooms and I remember reading a story by the Los Angeles Times just a few months ago about one of these hotels in downtown LA that's like sitting vacant M and it's like why is it sitting vacant that's what happened in Venice remember they they did that thing in Venice and I think it was at the peak it was like 60% occupied but there were hundreds of people around it yes and I remember reading something uh someone did an interview with these people and they were they were asking people why aren't you going and using it and they say there's there's no alcohol no drug policy and luck I can't comply with that I don't want to comply with that and I think there's also something about no pets which that to me I feel like you know that one makes a little bit of sense but I bet you that's not the biggest percentage of the pie no the sucky part is it's not sympathetic at all to let people just sit on the streets and people are saying like oh you know they can they can come here and they can live for free and they can do all the like it's like the worst possible thing unethical to no one lives for free let's be clear about that no one lives for free okay we pay for that we pay for that in every way oh yeah so I I don't I'm not that's the problem that I've been having because we pay insanely high taxes in this state our schools are garbage okay our communities are falling apart we spend literally billions of dollars every year in this state on the homelessness issue and it's only gotten worse so these policies are failing and so the idea that they're living living for free no we're subsidizing what's going on where's the money going I don't know oh well actually I do know let me let's talk about where the money's going it's my favorite topic my absolute favorite topic money's going to these garbage and I mean it in every sense of that word and meaning okay garbage nonprofits a lot of these nonprofits are run by friends and family of elected lawmakers in this state and they just pad their pockets with millions in government grants and do nothing nothing to fix the wasn't there the case of the place downtown LA that they were renting $60,000 a month it's been vacant since like 2011 because they claimed there was like a foundational issue or something like that so it wasn't safe but they were doing all this like investigation for the foundation for a decade and the city was paying 60,000 a month for shelter never got used and then it came out that he was a friend of somebody on the board or something like that maybe they made a handshake agreement or something but nothing's happened yeah these policies and and the failure of these policies is it could always be traced to the corruption to the fact that the people making the decisions are less interested in solving the problem and certainly more interested in you know giving handouts to their buddies who run these gross nonprofits I remember one of these nonprofits there have been a a number of Investigations into them it's just that no one takes the investigation seriously because it's conservative Outlets that do the investigations and it really pisses me off because some of the reporting's been been fantastic and they showed their receipts and so one of those investigations into an LA based nonprofit um dealing with homelessness followed them around in downtown to see like what do their workers actually do and they were literally just handing out crack pipes to people who are struggling with addiction I get the need and I'm in favor of safe injection sites because you don't want to spread AIDS and diseases and that makes all the sense in the world why are we why are we spending taxpayer money on crack pipes exactly like what what was the point of that and why are we like just you know spreading them out onto the streets like that's not that's not what I wanted my tax money to go to is there a solution because it doesn't seem as though anybody has any reasonable solution that could actually take place I've always been in favor of of mental health treatment because from my experience in Santa Monica 90 plus perc of it seems to be mental health related just from what I've anecdotally seen and there doesn't seem to be on the street there's no long-term treatment is you can't necessarily Force someone to seek treatment that they don't want but you can't put them in jail but you can't qu just up again I want to really reiterate I don't want to I don't want to throw homeless people in jail that's crazy on the same page but if someone refuses to leave they don't want to seek treatment but you can't have them on the street in a position where they could be in danger what's the solu I don't I don't know any it's a multi to say that it's one thing would be wrong because this is a more complex issue you know I think the left uh minimizes it and simplifies it by saying it's just merely a housing issue it's not merely a housing issue I mean clearly um I do think that we need to build more housing I think the way the LA City Council has um been doing that so far has been pretty disastrous for instance they approved a sstory apartment building in a single story residential home neighborhood in Sherman Oaks I went to a neighborhood Council well it wasn't really a neighborhood neighborhood council meeting um niia Ramen who's the council member representing that District was uh debating uh her opponent and so I believe it was last week I went to that debate and it was being hosted by The Neighborhood Council so that issue came up and I'm like why would they say no to a proposal that I think makes all the sense in the world that would build apartment buildings along suula Boulevard right the busy corridors so along suula Boulevard and along Ventura that was one of the proposals that was sent in to the city council I don't know why but the city council did not approve that and instead approved like this weird construction project that consists of a seven story apartment building you any idea why could that be that maybe there's could I don't know for sure um so please take that with a grain of invisions that but going to your question homeless we do need to build more housing I totally agree with that but simply doing that is not going to solve the problem because there is a crisis in regard to mental health and drug addiction those are two issues that are driving the increase uh in homelessness and those two issues need to be dealt with appropriately and so um Gavin Nome who I have no love for at all had basically put out his proposal to institutionalize severely mentally ill people who can't care for themselves and basically do it in in rare instances against their will but you have unfortunately organizations like the ACLU which used to focus their energy on Free Speech now they're focusing their energy on pushing back against any policy that could help people that are like struggling on the streets including those with mental health issues they argue that it's a civil liberties issue to force people into mental healthare but I disagree I think that it's one of the most inhumane things to watch people have these episodes publicly on our streets waste away and oftentimes die on our streets and if they don't die on our streets usually what'll end up happening is they'll commit a crime that's so gruesome that they'll end up in prison for the rest of their life lives how is that Humane so I have a quick question about squatter's rights because this is something I never understood um and I would assume that it's more of the progressives the Liberals that would be in favor of such a thing there was something that was going viral on uh X today which was this guy in New York who went out of town for three weeks he got a water bill and when called to turn off the water the company told him that he couldn't turns out random squatters moved into his house new York law forbids a homeowner from shutting off utilities or locking out the squatters after 30 days unwed squatters in New York become classified as tenants that's yeah that's insane who is in support of squatter's rights is there a single person on this planet aside from squatters that are in favor of that I think young people on the left probably and then you grow up and you realize what property rights mean and what being stolen from actually entails because remember when someone's stealing from you they're not merely stealing a material object they're stealing all of the time energy and hard work that went into acquiring that material good and in this case we're talking about you know a property now look they I think will probably think of the private Equity type people or the corporate landlords and think like f them who cares but a lot of times that's not the case and I I look I don't have a lot of love for squatters I just don't my thought um and I have tenants and I am a landlord I think there's a lot of overlap between squatters and tenants because you could have a squatter that says no I have a signed lease and you could have a landlord with a tenant and say I don't like them they're a squatter let's get them out of there oh interesting if someone just moves in and they're there for 5 days but they signed a year-long lease and landlord gets a higher offer how do you not call those people up there're squatters I want them out so I think that's a really interesting perspective you see so I kind of think that you have to prove their squatters to begin with which means going through the court system and differentiating between a squatter and a tenant problem that you have to go system but the but the police aren't the ones to say they're squatter or they a tenant but the problem is the cost so much overlock right and that's in and of itself will be a disincentive enough for a landlord to be like all right I'm going to go Belly Up do that I think you have to make it easier to evict tenants and instead of having it be a 90day process or up to it like six months has to be a lot quicker because right now squanders when they move in they could just they could draft up a lease agreement themselves and say no this is it what are you talking about this is it uh they signed it and they could download free forms online just sign it the police aren't going to enforce it and automatically that's six months uh and just from what I've SE seen a lot of them have the free resources for public defendants and they're they they're happy to go after landlords because everyone deserves equal representation so they assume the benefit of the doubt these people aren't squatters they deserve the same rights to be defended but that's a six Monon process that a good perspective that I hadn't considered yeah look I when I think of squatters I'm not thinking about tenants who are getting screwed over by their landlords and we might disagree it really depends on like the details but in terms of like making it easier to evict people I think that right now La is making it very difficult for all landlords um to evict even more difficult than what landlords have experienced uh historically here and some of that I think goes a little too far because again you can't discount you know the mom and popop landlords who put all of their investment into an apartment building for their retirement there are more people like that than than people realize but um in terms of squatters I just I always just think of and maybe this is wrong and I need to reconsider um what squatter means I just think of someone who's on the streets probably addicted to something breaking into someone's unit or or home and just hanging out and like refusing to leave that's what I think of yeah there was a story on YouTube that went Mega viral because a lady just closed on her home and had the moving trucks out front and she goes in and she sees a couple in there and she's like I'm I'm moving in I just closed on the home and they say nope we're living here I know I know that story and wild it inspires because look I I can't help but I guess I'm a bit of an empath because I can't help but think about how I would feel I put myself in the shoes of the woman who worked really hard to be able to afford a home in this like unbelievably difficult Market I would be furious like I don't know how I would wouldn't get like violent to be honest like I'd be very upset um so I I think that right now the ways the laws are written could potentially lead to some unsafe situations cuz how being stolen from like right in front of you and they it's like so Brazen and they don't care and then you don't really get much help from your elected officials like it's kind of messed up what are your thoughts on rent control I think that rent control to some extent has been really important but I do think it kind of um it creates this perverse Market to some extent as well because if you have a rent controlled unit you're not going to want to leave it right and I think that it limits your opportunities like if you're more willing to move around and and Chase a job that's going to give you better benefits and better pay I think that's a better situation at the same time though in a state like Florida that has no rent control at all and like very few protections for tenants you see your rent go up out of nowhere to the tune of like $500 $800 I have family in Florida and um my cousin actually just experienced that and she loved her apartment had no issues like you know paying on time had a good relationship with her landlord but as soon as covid was over they raised her rent by 500 bucks and she was expecting a a baby and so she had no choice but to leave and being forced to leave your home right whether you're renting it or whatever it's it's very difficult so I think that there should be some regulations in place that apply to all rental units not just like a certain slice of rental units um while it doesn't apply to others but I I honestly I don't know and I'm not an expert on it and I need to read into it a little more because I I see the downsides but I also see the benefits yeah from my perspective it just rewards people who have been in the unit for a very long time and it's not based on income I've seen some people make 200 Grand a year and they they have just they got lucky because they rented the right place in 1994 in Santa Monica by the beach they rents 800 bucks a month and no one could kick them out the market rent could be $5,000 a month they never want to leave so what ends up happening is that everyone who's rent controlled tends to want to stay there because they got a good deal regardless of how much money they make and that limits the inventory of rental units and so those that are not rent controlled you you see the prices go up and gets inflated yeah yeah uh but the other issue that I see is that landlords with rent controlled units really don't have any incentive to fix it up because they almost want the tenants to leave they'll do the bare minimum yeah just so that the tenants could kind of like SC because why invest more money when you're not going to get a higher return so i' there's a an area in uh West Adams where one street is rent controlled because all the buildings are pre9 uh you know 28 or whatever it was and they're all older multif family and then another street is not rent controlled same year built but there's single family homes and you see a stark difference between the two in terms of upkeep uh the area uh cleanliness I mean it's wild that these landlords on the one side do not put any money in the property whatsoever yeah I'm just seeing that Stark difference between the two I'm not saying that's 100% rent control but when you have tenants in there sometimes you just you can't afford to pay more if you buy the building on a certain C rate and you're just earning enough to pay the mortgage and like the bare minimum you don't really have anything extra to fix up the building with yeah that's a good point too and I've certainly um I've seen stories of landlords that not only refuse to improve their buildings and maintain it well but in some cases and this is Extreme they'll like try to get their tenants to move out by like releasing rats into the unit like have you seen those stories the New York ones are crazy there's one where like one tenant held out from the entire building so what they did they renovated the entire building and she was on like the one of the top floors and they made the elevator inaccessible because it was constantly under construction cuz they wanted her to move no see like that kind of stuff is not right In fairness they offered her hundreds of thousands of dollars and she didn't take it that's C she didn't take it she she she wanted to prove a point that she wasn't going to get kicked out now she had been there for a long time but they offered her a lot of money to leave yeah but they're saying well I'm in my legal right to renovate the unit and you don't have a legal right to an elevator so you have to up and down the stairs it's that is wild but you hear crazy stories a lot of them are't New York because you're dealing with such immense wealth and some people who have been there since like the 1960s or 70s who have lived in the same unit their entire life so it's it's been a while since I've thought about or talked about rent control so um I'm now recalling some of the things that um I've read that I think are interesting in this topic so one of the other downsides to rent control that um I think we've experienced firsthand in Los Angeles is if you are a landlord a mom and pop landlord for a rent controlled building in LA and you're approached by a developer who's like look I'll give you definitely more than what the building is worth because they want to buy the building and what do they want to do they want to demolish it course and they want to build a completely new building where the units will not be rent controlled they they get to rent them at market rate and so that ends up actually decreasing um you know rent controlled units because it's it's very tempting I mean if you're a landlord you've been slepping around like maintaining this building you you you know really do feel like your margins are like very low and you uh are fighting you tend by the way being a landlord I can't think of a worst job like I can't believe like do you enjoy it it's so a listen I enjoyed it a lot more when I first got into it because I was really involved I was working full-time as a real estate agent I would look every day at properties I'd go and see them I was and I be very Hands-On like I did some of the work myself I'd be in there like painting myself I try to do I love that kind of stuff like I'm very handy loved it now that I moved it I have a property manager so I try to be a little more hands-off but in the beginning it was something I took so much pride in I would be posting on Instagram like what do you think of this fixture and I I i' do the polls and if one got more votes than the other I'd buy that one and I told my dad like if you cuz he my dad's very old school and so he's like I want to leave something for my kids you know before I died and he thinks like we're looking forward to inheriting an apartment building I am not and I like I like looked him in the eye and I was like I will sell it you know because you also got to step up tax basis now did you see that the new tax no there was a property tax thing that went into effect I had no idea now I voted in favor of this believe it or not the whole the whole thing was that it was to keep the same property tax for people who have lost their homes to fire or Dam damage or earthquake and it makes sense imagine you lose your home to a fire you have to rebuild you don't want your property tax being re reassessed because you built a new home uh because your house burned down because of an earthquake and I was like this is really great and I voted for it and I didn't realize there's all these Provisions in that that in order to do that you give up the stepped up property tax basis for kids who inherit the properties from their parents in order to get the the stepped up tax basis you have to live there full-time as your full-time residents rental properties are exempt and there's all these limitations in terms of what you can transfer uh from a parent to a child and that was never in place before so I think the benefits were there like I look at it and I think who wouldn't vote for this but you don't but they left out all the convenient stuff of like here's how it's going to affect everybody else well I mean the god the ballot initiatives it's frustrating because people don't have all the information and the way that they're written can be misleading it's so confusing ISS obvious yeah Pi the the you have to if I don't know if I haven't like read deeply into what the ballot initiative is I just don't vote on it at all at this point because I voted in favor of some ballot initiatives that I now very much regret um Prop 47 was one of them which was written in a way to make the voter think that it would just ensure that lowlevel offenders and people people with like drug possession don't end up in prison I don't think they should end up in prison so I was like what year was this this was was this 2020 no it was I think a few years prior to that okay because this sounds very familiar to something that I I remember reading you probably voted in favor of it because again it was written in a way that would reform the criminal justice system in a way that makes sense yeah but this was a $1,000 cap right or was like oh that was a different that was actually a different one yeah but I think I voted in favor of that too I didn't realize that like all shoplifting would be like allowed like all Smash and grabs doesn't matter like what limit like people like Rob entire jewelry stores with these Smash and grabs they get booked if they get caught yeah they get booked if they get caught and then like released the next day like it's anyway no but Prop 47 what ended up happening is as soon as it passed they reclassified a bunch of violent crimes as nonviolent unserious crimes and um child sex trafficking was one of them and I'm like what the how was that a nonviolent crime I don't know I don't know but why did they want what is the incentive to do that I don't know it's the craziest thing believe it or not the state legislature has been struggling to pass legislation that would reclassify it as a violent crime I don't know why who's voting against it oh I'll tell you there's um assemblyman weiner okay literally that's surprising yeah that's it's I mean he got in trouble for that didn't he no no that was um that was a different wiener that was a wieners we got to get rid of the wieners honestly that's the problem be suspicious of the wieners I forget um the the state lawmaker I forget his first name but he actually just proposed legislation that would put speed Governors on people's cars or any newly manufactured vehicle would have them so you would not be able to drive drive like any higher or any faster than 10 mph above the speed limit so he's pushing for that kind of Nanny State BS while simultaneously consistently voting no but why is he someone's got to look into this guy's like you know best friend group or something like that I like to feel like there's got to be a reason like he's got read about it last night actually because um I read about the new proposal about the cars and the speed limits and I was like I wonder if this MF like voted against classifying child sex trafficking as as a violent offense and sure enough I read that he voted against it um multiple times because it kept coming up and I think the very last time because of pressure he voted yes to reclassifying but the previous times he voted no he argued that the penalties uh as a misdemeanor as a you know nonviolent crime were stiff enough like I don't agree with that if something's a misdemeanor it's going to be treated very differently from a felony when you get charged with a crime what tends to happen is it gets pled down so if child sex trafficking is considered a misdemeanor and they get prosecuted for it and they take some sort of plea deal they're not going to serve any time Behind Bars child sex traffickers should be in prison for the rest of their lives period okay no no conversation about it I don't want I don't want to hear an argument about how people praying kids in the worst possible ways should be let out into society it's disgusting but there was that and you know I mean look you see these examples like bail reform I'm in favor of because I don't think that if you're poor and you're unable to pay bail until your you know court date if you're innocent it's like so unfair and unjust right like I If You're wealthy obviously you pay the bail and you're done you go show up to your court date you're good so it creates like a two-tier justice system uh where the people who are privileged get all these like benefits and then those who don't have the money end up sitting in a jail cell even if they're innocent waiting for their court date however the way it was implemented I don't agree with right you need to give judges discretion and those judges like in New York when they uh passed their bail reform judges were not allowed to have any discretion at all so if the judge felt no this person is a risk to society and they should be behind bars they weren't able to make that decision and so bail reform I think is a good idea it just depends on how it's implemented I want to talk about the cultural political shift because you see people like Joe Rogan like Elon Musk and other people of influence seemingly moving a little bit towards more conservative principles you see Elon replying to end wokeness on Twitter which is a popular conservative publication which is interesting he's interacting with like very conservative things Elon recently collaborated for an hour with Ben Shapiro more people appear to be aligning with conservative views how many people are moving to the left these days do you think I think the left is in a really bad place right now and I think it's because they kind of lost the plot and rather than focusing on the genuine economic concerns that I think we have some proposals to improve a lot of the focus ended up being and unfortunately it's just representative of what you experience on social media it's a small group of people who I think have hijacked um the for lack of a better word branding of the left and what the left represents and all they do all day is scold scold scold scold scold scold right we're super pure we're the best we're the kindest we're the we have the biggest hearts um you have to use this rhetoric you have to use this language you have to believe this that and if you question anything if you ask the wrong question s you're a bad person everyone's a right-winger by the way like I'm a right-winger according to the online left it's absurd so I've seen that picture Elon tweeted where he was like right in the middle you have like the right and the left but then all of a sudden the left moves like way far down and then he's staying in the exact same spot but it seems like he's more conservative just because the left has moved this way do you find that to be accurate or true I find Elon to be a marker of any political ideology a big mistake um I like don't even really know how to answer that question by thinking about Elon Musk like Elon Musk I think a lot of people seem to relate to that where you know they always say I'm right in the middle but lately I've been aligning a little bit more because the left is moved so here and I've stayed in the middle it seems like I'm more conservative than I am you're called things that are like altright conservative things for saying the same thing you've been saying for the last 25 years of your life I just think the left needs to focus on the issues that have brought appeal and those issues tend to involve economic anxieties stress about our financial system stress about our health care System those are issues that appeal to people across the board including by the way Trump supporters who found his prol labor messaging however Hollow it might be very appealing and so if you focus on the issues that would help to build a broad Coalition as opposed to sitting behind a computer and just scold holding people all day I think you're going to do a better job you know building support for your movement and there hasn't been a lot of focus on that there's also been like a a little bit of a war within the left um where you have identitarians who want to make everything about personal identity and then the so-called you know economic essentialists who just want to focus on economic issues without getting too bogged down by you know allegations of racism sexism homophobia transphobia all of that stuff now those isms exist and I do find them to be a problem but I think that the way the left talks about that problem would have you believe that it's like so widespread and it's like destroying everything I I think that they overemphasize those things I think that they're also very quick to call people racist sexist homophobic transphobic and then you end up losing the meaning of those words and I've gotten to a point where if I see the online left accuse someone of being one of the isms I'm like but are they like I'm way more skeptical now why does it seem like both sides are getting more extreme like you have the right just going crazy right and the left going crazy left why do you think that is is it just an echo chamber I think the extremes are over represented on social media okay everyone else all the normies all the critical thinkers all the people who haven't bought into extremism on either side and I think that's representative of the majority of the country they're not engaging on Twitter because they don't want to be dog piled they see what the rhetoric is like they see what the discourse is like so they just stay out of it but if you talk to normal everyday people they've got some views that are conservative some views that are definitely like on the left people tend to be a mix of both which I which is why I think most Americans if you if they stop and think about it and they're not forced to take a side or feel pressure to take a side they're probably somewhere in the middle let's talk about feeling forced or pressured to take a side my concern with a lot of these media Publications is that they are financially incentivized to make the other side look as evil as possible because that's how you make money that's how you stay alive and a business is a grower die type thing you have to be growing and unfortunately it's gotten to the point where you have to make the other side look like the most vile inhuman type stuff and uh I'm concerned that when I see you know titles from the Young Turks that are just like ad hom and attacks at certain people the same thing that I see on the right it's not actually helping the problem it's more so now I feel like for a lot of these Publications focused on lining the pockets and getting views and making money than it is actually about like pursuing truth well the as I'm sure you all know uh the titles of videos have a huge impact on how many people end up clicking on that video and watching it I really make an effort to not get upset at video titles because our publishing team is doing what they're supposed to do you know we by the way like people think hosts title and and choose thumbnails for for videos we don't like that would be a full-time job in fact it is a full-time job we have a whole publishing team no who knows better than us on titles thumbnails yeah it's I couldn't do that job I would be the worst at it but anyway um they work really hard and they're doing doing what they're supposed to do and their performance is judged on how well those videos perform based on the titles and the thumbnails so I think that there is a problem with those kinds of extreme views being rewarded by the algorithm um I don't think most people have that in their hearts naturally right like where they want to just demonize the other side but I do think that there's something about the way YouTube Facebook you these platforms work where that kind of divisive content for some reason or another Rises to the top and I hate that and like if you click on the videos and you watch it like certainly years ago I like played into it but it wasn't a strategy it was what I actually believed and I was totally ignorant and I was an unhappy person because I totally bought into this notion that like everyone on the other side is a fascist and they're all evil and they're all coming for us I was so wrong about that and so I try to focus on people as individuals and even within you know the Maga crowd there are gradations there are differences so it's awkward because sometimes when we cover stories about Trump supporters sometimes I feel like the audience doesn't like that I'm trying to be like fair to them and try to consider where they're coming from so you'll click on on the video and you'll think you're going to get like a very hardcore anti-m Maga View and you know sometimes that is the case but a lot of times especially fairly recently it's not the case I'm usually kind of like disagreeing with my co-host and trying to provide a more fair perspective um because I want to understand what drives people what changed what caused that honestly the cruelty that I've personally experienced from the left and how it was so incredibly hypocritical to un one hand claim that like all the horrific treatment of others comes from Trump supporters when they themselves were engaging in pretty awful behavior um when I was sexually assaulted by a homeless guy in my own neighborhood one of these uh leftists who worked on aoc's campaign uh quote tweeted me and basically made fun of the assault like I was sexually assaulted and he just made fun of it and I'm like oh like these are the people that I had been identifying with and I was totally blind to the fact that they engage in the very behavior that they find so disgusting on the other side they might believe in different policies but the behavior is s is similar you know what I'm saying so that that woke me up and it made me think wait do I really have a fair perspective of every side and so it made me want to be a little more skeptical a little and investigate things more than just go along with a tribe where have you noticed if you've noticed it at all yourself sliding on that political Spectrum have you recognized maybe you're getting a little bit closer to the middle or do you think that you've stayed solidified and similar to what Graham was saying the left is just pushed so far that way that it feels like you're in the middle but you're still where you were I don't know where I am that's the hard part right like one of my really good friends Ben Burgess he's um you know he's a socialist we agree on a lot of like economic policy and stuff like that and I was on a podcast once last July and I said I don't know what my label is and he's like you know what you're you you're on the left it's just that you reject some of this you know for lack of a better word some of like the woke stuff that we're seeing on on social media which is true but the truth is I have some views that are pretty far left and then I have some views that are you know relative to where the left is today kind of conservative ative um I I don't know it's I don't know I think that's that that's good because we had someone on the podcast recently that said that you should never look at things through an ideological lens which I think is exactly that and we had another I think it was Chris Williamson said if you know let's say five things about somebody and then you can pinpoint every single other belief that they have right they're an ideological thinker and they just subscribe to something and I think that's really good and it makes your words have a lot more weight when you say something and I'm like wow I didn't really think that she would have thought that yeah and like there is truth to oh the left has gone further left and the right has gone further right there is truth to that but I think ultimately the biggest thing that has been like a phenomenon in political discourse is the tribal mentality and how you're kind of expected to be an ideologue but if you're an honest thinker and if you're really searching for truth it's impossible to be an ideologue because it would be ridiculous for one side to always be right and to know the right policies in response to societal issues that's a ridiculous like when you stop and think about it that's a ridiculous thing to think but there are you know there are things about the rightwing that really bother me you know the rhetoric that I hear on the daily wire typically from you know I know you guys had Matt Walsh on you know know I think Matt Walsh goes way too far in demonizing pretty powerless people like the transgender Community sure culturally speaking they have some power but they're still dealing with horrific discrimination um they're still deal dealing with you know on a personal level families that might disown them um depending on what state they're living in a medical system that doesn't respect uh their medical needs so I don't like dehumanizing people and I see a lot of that taking place and I don't subscribe to it at all and so I I can't I don't really fall I definitely don't fall on the right I don't identify with leftists at all anymore I just have very left-wing economic policies and on some social issues I've become a little more conservative let's talk about gender roles switch the topic for a second since you just mentioned Matt Walsh do you believe that gender roles exist I think increasingly gender roles have changed and probably will continue to change and I'm fine with that as long as people are able to identify with gender roles that make them comfortable so I can talk about my personal experience and my personal preferences on some level obviously as a person who has a career and I enjoy being an independent woman that is not a traditional gender role but at the same time I love being a wife I love coming home from work and cooking a warm dinner for my husband I love cleaning like I actually love a lot of the so-called Trad wife duties and I I do them on a regular basis it's a huge part of my life it's a huge part of my identity I love femininity I deeply deeply you know identify as someone who's feminine and I love it uh but it's not for everyone so if you're a woman and you reject all that I think you should have the right to reject all that and live your life in a way that makes you comfortable and happy in terms of you know the traditional male gender role I like it a lot you know I I I like the idea of a man who wants to protect his family the whole thing about a man needing to provide I'm less concerned with that for lack of a better word I mean it's nice my husband does provide uh but when I met him he was couch surfing he came to LA to be an actor he had been a professional baseball player that career ended and he was kind of lost he didn't know what he wanted to do and he was still lost and didn't know what he wanted to do when we got married he was working as a bartender and what I love is that we have been building a life together and now he has a career what Drew you to him when you guys like first met that ass was the ass okay he was a baseball player right so I mean the classic you know they have big butts he does have a big butt um and he's Cuban like it's a I don't know if it's a gr's got a big butt to I do not mine is no you got a big butt no I do not um oh my God I'm so inappropriate okay but no um obviously what first drew me to him was the fact that I was attracted to him okay but then I got to know him and he's just I thought he was lying about who he is because he's like so good-looking I was like no you're probably a massive you know yeah but no he ended up being so kind and he's definitely on some level more sensitive than I am which you would never expect but he his personality traits complement mine and we work really well together as a team and we understand each other and deeply respect each other and that's what ultimately convinced me like this is the guy I want to marry we had a divorce attorney on the podcast recently that said the most successful relationships he sees are complimentary opposites mhm yeah definitely I mean it's funny because when we first met I asked him what he's into like what are your interests do you like news and politics he's like no I don't follow the news at all and I was like okay what are you interested in and I'm thinking in the back of my head please don't say sports please don't say sports and then immediately he says Sports and I'm like this isn't going to work out so like we have different interests uh we definitely have different characteristics and personality traits but we also have some commonality like we have some similarities and you know he loves to go dancing I love to go I was a dancer I trained um in ballet for like 17 years and now we're taking salsa classes together so there are things that we share together as well interests and things like that you can't be completely different but in terms of like our temperament and our personality traits I do think we're opposites and I do think that helps how equal do you think men and women are in 2024 I think they're perfectly equal at this point like I know I'll probably regret saying that but I don't think that there's a problem with women getting discriminated against I know there's like a big controversy at the moment about Margot Robbie not getting nominated for an Oscar for Barbie Barbie was like Ken kend did yeah but I just who cares like to me what matters is are women not getting hired simply because they're women and I don't think that's the case um women have been moving up the economic ladder um they're moving up to Executive roles at some of these uh major Fortune 500 companies there's been a lot of progress for women and if there's any indication that we're sliding back obviously I'll speak out against it but I don't really see that happening I actually see a different crisis happening that's impacting men that I'm worried about and what is that it's the like loneliness crisis the education uh they call it the friend session what's that meaning that men are becoming more and more atomized they're lacking any friends or personal relationships that worries me it really does and I also have seen that men are graduating at lower rates um so I was never one of these people and I think this is also rare to be clear I was never one of these like feminists who cares about improving the lives of women or uh fairness toward women and doesn't really care at all about you know the opposite sex I care about everyone I want everyone to live good lives I want everyone to thrive I want people to be treated with dignity and I don't want men to be lonely or in crisis why do you think that is the case why are men lonely honestly I don't know I'm not an expert on that there have been some theories that I think make sense and I think it should be studied a little more but uh one of the things that's come up is the fact that with changing gender roles and with women being able to provide for themselves and not needing a man to provide for them it's been a little bit disorienting for some guys because they don't know what their role in society is so I think there might be some truth to that I think that while it was important to draw attention to the treatment of women especially in the workplace during the whole Meto phenomenon there might have been some unintended consequences to it in that and I kind of hated this there were some women who are kind of speaking out on behalf of all women and I disagreed with what they were saying so I know that I personally don't want and I'm so happy I'm not dating anymore I'm married I don't have to deal with this but the idea that a guy needs to ask me permission for like everything like may I kiss you may I no I don't you need to feel the Vibes you know but but that's what I think is I hate to say it but agree with you but I also think social awareness disappeared it seems a lot of the Common Sense things you could kind of sense by Body Language this person's not into it they're not interested in me they're bored they're not into the conversation I feel like it's lacking but also that's true and I think it's part of the atomization the fact that we're we're all like behind computer screens all day or on our phones and so you really do need to make an effort to connect with people in person and put the technology away and I make an effort to do that and it has definitely made my life better but um I think that the other thing that ended up being a little bit disastrous is if a guy went for a kiss and you weren't into it back in the day okay you're not into it you reject the kiss it's a little awkward but you all move on with your lives now with some it's not all women not even half of women or a huge portion of women but some of the more outspoken ones during the MEO era they would make that out to be like a sexual assault and it's like no that was not a sexual assault like that scares guys like that scares guys in trying to date or trying to get to know women um and that's look based on anecdotes based on conversations I've had with male friends that has come up um and I think there might be truth to it I don't know how broadly that you know opinion is held among men but I just want people to consider maybe it'd be better to be Kinder and more understanding to each other and not assume ill intent by everybody I think that's the biggest issue everyone assumes ill intent by everyone else whether it be the opposite sex political opponents people aren't necessarily out to cause harm there might be a misunderstanding so try to be more generous I guess I think I agree with your husband I know you're talking about this that I like to believe there's good in everybody and that somebody has good intentions even though on the surface it might seem what on Earth are they doing but I think deep down they truly want to improve the situation that's what I like to believe yeah I I didn't used to believe that and that was when I was a pretty miserable person but once I made an effort to get to know people who disagreed with me um I realized no I was being a little too paranoid and I think I might have bought into narratives that aren't true and also people don't get ideas out of nowhere like malicious ideas out of nowhere it's usually extraneous situations impressing those ideas into them we got to end this yeah but before we end it we want to do one quick game of word association with you so we're going to say some names and you're going to tell us the first thing that comes to mind when you hear them okay okay Elon Musk annoying AOC disappointing Viv ramaswami super annoying Joe Biden sleepy weak Patrick B David Hustler Bernie Sanders fighter Ben Shapiro misunderstood wow cool thank you so much Anna for coming on the ice coffee we'll have to do this again this has been amazing this is great I really enjoyed it and I'd be happy to do it again cool so we'll link to your information Down Below in the description thank you guys so much for watching and until next time time