Video summary
Cenk Uygur argues that the modern political landscape has shifted from a traditional left-right spectrum to a more critical populist versus establishment divide, noting that he identifies as a populist left who is often rejected by both mainstream Democrats and Republicans for his views. He contends that the Democratic establishment serves corporate donors rather than the working class, citing examples where politicians like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris prioritized donor interests over their base's needs, such as losing elections to avoid defying AIPAC or other wealthy contributors. Uygur highlights how this elite mindset creates a bubble where leaders believe they are delivering significant progress with only 5% changes while the majority of Americans struggle financially, leading him to advocate for radical shifts like paid family leave and universal healthcare that he believes would be popular if not blocked by corporate influence. The discussion extends to specific criticisms of recent political strategies, particularly regarding Kamala Harris's campaign performance in 2024. Uygur suggests her initial polling lead evaporated after she adopted positions favorable to corporations, such as endorsing a letter from ninety CEOs and featuring Mark Cuban on cable news, which signaled a shift away from populist promises like ending price gouging. He also addresses the impact of culture war issues, arguing that extreme stances on topics like transgender rights were strategically deployed by Republicans using "wedge issues" to distract voters from economic realities. While acknowledging his own support for trans rights and constitutional protections, he emphasizes that Democrats have been accused of prioritizing corporate interests over people's lives, a narrative amplified by ads framing the election as a choice between corporations ("them") and ordinary citizens ("us"). Uygur draws parallels between Democratic establishment behavior and Republican tendencies toward identity politics, pointing out hypocrisy in how both sides handle criticism. He notes that while Republicans often attack lifestyle choices or specific groups like Muslims or transgender individuals, Democrats similarly distrust populist voices within their own party, viewing them as uneducated masses rather than allies. This intolerance for dissent is exacerbated by a media ecosystem where mainstream outlets function as propaganda machines to protect incumbents, suppressing internal critiques and promoting anointed leaders regardless of competence or mental health issues, such as the case with Joe Biden's cognitive decline being ignored until it was too late. He contrasts this with figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who he admits have flaws but also possess a certain authenticity that forces accountability, even if their methods are erratic or driven by personal ego. Looking toward future elections, Uygur expresses cautious optimism for 2028, believing that online media platforms may finally overcome the influence of traditional networks like MSNBC and CNN to elevate genuine populist candidates who can offer real choices on economic issues. He predicts a potential reckoning where voters reassess their priorities based on tangible outcomes rather than ideological purity or culture war distractions, urging both sides to focus on universal policies like paid family leave, anti-war stances, and money out of politics that enjoy broad support across the political spectrum. Ultimately, he calls for an end to gatekeeping based on background or ideology, advocating instead for a merit-based approach where politicians are judged solely by their ability to deliver results for the people rather than adhering to preset party lines or pleasing corporate donors.
Read the full video transcript
Who is more credible, the cast of The
View or a dragon?
These days apparently a dragon. Uh so uh
as you know uh Joy Behar said that uh oh
you can't trust Joe Rogan, he believes
in dragons. Oh well, Joy Behar uh
believed that Joe Biden was um young and
dynamic, uh that he had no cognitive
difficulties at all, and that uh he was
the best possible candidate for the
Democrats. Uh I can't find anything less
credible than that.
Why are these people so out of touch?
Like is it is it purposeful or is it
ignorance?
Oh, it's definitely ignorance. And so
Chris, this is really interesting cuz I
um am bilingual. Uh I speak both
populist and establishment, and uh
that's because I uh worked at MSNBC as a
host. Uh I worked at Current TV. I went
to the you know, some of the same
schools that these folks went to. And so
I I I mainly come from their world, but
I'm a natural-born populist. And so
they've rejected me 2,000 times over
before I even got to the right wing,
right? And so and but I know how they
think, and they're in their own bubble.
Everybody's in their own bubble. And so
in their bubble, they're right about
everything and they're objective, right?
And they truly believe that, right? And
so anyone who disagrees with them they
think is not objective and is to be
dismissed and derided and insulted, etc.
And so they have no idea how clueless
they are. And they did they're not
coming out of from bad intent, which a
lot of people won't believe, right? But
they actually they they genuinely
believe they have the best of intent,
and if you just listen to the
establishment one more time, boy, then
they'll really deliver, right? And if
you cheer for them louder, they'll
really deliver. And I swear to God they
genuinely believe that. Are they
well-read?
Because it seems to me in order to be
able to have that level of self-belief,
you need to you need to really know what
you're talking about. And I'm yet to see
much evidence that that's the case.
No, that's the other amazing part.
They're actually really well-educated,
really well-read, but since the bubbles
are so strong and thick, they still it's
like asking a fish how's the water? And
the fish says, "What water?" Right? So,
what they don't understand, this is the
crux of what they don't understand,
is that the establishment is built to
preserve the status of the top 10%.
And then most importantly the top 1% and
then the top 0.1%, right? And since it's
built on that and almost all of the
people in the establishment are at a
minimum in the top 10% at least in terms
of socioeconomic status. And they grew
up most of them, not all of them, but
most of them grew up in that context.
When Joe Biden provides about 5 to 10%
or Barack Obama provides 5 to 10%
change, they think, "Oh my god, this is
amazing. My life was already great and
these saints have given me
5% extra positive change in their minds,
right? Or 10% positive change. How could
anyone complain? You guys are nuts."
What I'm trying to get them to see is,
"No, brothers and sisters, but for the
rest of the country, 60% of Americans
live paycheck to paycheck. 5% change
ain't going to get it done. They need 50
to 100% change and you're not getting it
cuz you just don't talk to folks like
that and you're not in that context."
And when I say that, they think I'm the
biggest radical ever and and and by the
way, now of course the new theory is
that's it. I've done the pivot and I'm a
right-winger and I've abandoned all my
policies and and I and I'm you know,
etc. etc. No, I've been saying the same
thing for 20 straight years. Oh, you're
not taking a hard turn to the right? No,
not at all.
So, and here's another thing. I talked
about this on on Lex's show and and and
I talk about it in my book Justice
Coming and and whenever we can have an
actual conversation, I want people to
get this through their heads. I just
wrote a a piece right before the
election for Newsweek about it. There's
two political spectrums. There's the
left-right spectrum, but there's the one
that nobody talks about, the populist
versus establishment spectrum. So, I am
populist left. So, you will see me
uh have left-wing positions on many many
issues, uh the great majority of issues.
But, I also have a populist position.
So, that's what discombobulates them.
They're like, "No, if you're on the
left, you have to be pro-establishment."
I'm like, "No, that doesn't make any
sense at all. The left historically was
not pro-establishment. You guys turned
them that into pro-establishment through
all the corporate donations, etc., etc."
So, that's why people are confused.
Yeah, what
that pivot towards defending the people
who have the most money, defending the
people that have the most power,
defending the people who are the most
educated, seems to be
turning the entire barstool upside down
compared with what traditionally were
the values of the left, right? Working
class, on class, on class lines, not
based on really that much else.
Uh
is it salvageable? Is it possible to try
and bring this back around? Yeah, 100%.
So, look, um
first of all, Bernie almost won in 2016
and 2020. I mean, he lost by, you know,
the skin of his teeth and that's only
after the entire establishment uh
coalesced and ganged up on him. And not
just the politicians rallying around Joe
Biden in 2020, but all of mainstream
media, most importantly MSNBC. They all
said, "Oh, Bernie's a Nazi. He's going
to execute people in Central Park, etc.,
etc." Which, oh, who else did they call
a Nazi? Oh, right, Donald Trump. So, and
so, anytime anybody's an outsider is out
there. Now, I have massive problems with
Donald Trump and and I think that what
he did in 2020 was unacceptable and
un-American. So, we can go back if you
want and discuss and debate that. But,
he is trying to be a populist in his own
way. I think it's a little fake. We can
again debate and discuss that. But, at
least he's going in that direction. And
Bernie is clearly a populist, and that
is why the establishment hates both of
them. But, remember they barely beat
Bernie two times. So, it won't be Bernie
again. He's too old. But, next time
around if we have an actual populist on
in the Democratic primary, we can
recapture the party in the way that
Trump has captured the Republican party.
And if we don't, we're doomed. That
establishment can't win elections.
They're too fake. They're too phony.
They serve the donor class too much.
They're too elite. And and nobody's
interested in that [ __ ] You asked
Elon Musk to put you in charge of
cutting the Pentagon. How'd that go?
Uh it's official. I'm now running the
entire Pentagon.
Cuz that's how it works. Uh no, look, I
thought it went great. And
but
the left doesn't think it went great.
So, let let me explain.
Uh so, E- Elon says, "I want to cut two
trillion from the from the budget."
In reality, there isn't two trillion to
cut. Uh all discretionary spending is
only 1.7 trillion. But, there is one
place where you could have massive
savings, and that's the Pentagon. And
that's because they never pass an audit.
This is their seventh straight audit
that they failed. And uh they say that
they generally can't account for half
the money, which is over 400 billion
dollars. So, I said uh on on X, "Hey
Elon, put me in charge of the Pentagon.
I'll cut 400 billion overnight. And hey,
all of a sudden you're 20% uh of the way
home to your goal, right?" And he said,
"Give me suggestions." So, let's pause
there.
Um no Democratic leader has ever asked
me for suggestions, even though I run
the largest left-wing media network in
the country.
They've never asked why?
A populist, what would a populist know?
He doesn't even support the doors.
Terrible, we're never going to ask him,
right? So, Elon asked.
Already, that's progress. That's already
better uh than I would what I was
getting from the other side. And so then
the left goes, "No, don't say that."
Okay, but what do you want me to do?
Lie? Do you want me to tell you that
Kamala Harris and Joe Biden call me
every other day like, "Oh,
we're really interested in what populist
left thinks. Oh, we're super interested
in what our base wants." They're not at
all interested in what their base wants.
They pretty much hate what their base
wants. So, so that's great. And then I
came and then he's then I gave him a
suggestion, which was
"Hey, listen, if you want to cut
a in a real way, you'd have to of course
do it line by line. So, if you bring me
in and and we both went to Wharton, we
both run businesses, his are of course
much larger, but hey, I run a top 10
media network in the country. So, both
of us know how we can go line by line
and cut things that are actually
wasteful, inefficient, and by the way,
some of it is just corruption. Just
massive pork barrel spending.
Okay, but for now, I can give you a
suggestion of stop having the generals
work for defense contractors. Cuz the
minute they retire, they go work for the
military industrial complex, and since
they're going to get millions of dollars
from those guys, what do they do before
they retire? They give those same
companies billions of dollars, sometimes
hundreds of billions of dollars in
contracts. That's an obvious massive
conflict of interest that any business
person would understand, anyone with
common sense would understand.
And so then Don Jr.
jumped in and he said, "That's a good
idea, we're already discussing it."
Great. Okay, so So, you've got Elon
sonifying, and you've got the son of
Trump stepping in as well.
That's right. And then and then Donald
Trump's union came back in and said
again, hey, this is just common sense
and and we should be going in that
direction. So now if the left wants to
complain,
if now it's if they do it cuz they
haven't done it yet.
If Elon and Trump and etc. cut the
Pentagon or and/or do a great rule about
conflict of interest for the generals
that the left has wanted for the last
20, 30, 40, 50 years.
If they complain, oh, they did the thing
we wanted,
I got then I can't help you,
right? Yeah, this this
take the win, I can't help. Does this
sounds
a lot of the time that purity is more
important than victory?
Oh, 100% and unfortunately that's one of
the defining hallmarks of the modern
left that I'm rebelling against. And so
what and look, I know so both sides
again misunderstand each other and again
I'm bilingual. I I used to be a
Republican. I'm a progressive populist.
I've been at in both camps. I understand
both camps and I speak both their
languages. But they do not speak each
other's language. So the left thinks,
oh, it's all a trick, right? And there's
there's good valid reasons for thinking
that, okay? Uh but they think, oh, the
everyone on the right is a fraud and
that is not true. And they think, okay,
if the minute you agree with them,
they're not going to actually do that
thing. Instead they're going to use it
to cut Medicare, Medicaid, all these
other programs that we care about and
they're never going to actually do the
thing that they said. Now, maybe that's
true and if that's true, well, okay,
then I'll call them out on it. Problem
solved, right? It's not like I'm going
to go, oh, okay, they promised it so I
will let them cut all the programs that
I care about and I will not say
anything.
No, man, if anyone hasn't learned yet, I
am uncontrollable.
Okay, so you're not going to control me
from the left or the right, the
Democratic Party or the Republican
Party. So, if they do stuff I don't
agree with, I'm going to not only call
it out, probably going to yell at them,
right? But if they say yes, and then
they do it,
I am going unlike everyone on the left,
I'm going to take the [ __ ] win,
right? I don't think that part is
complicated at all.
You've been talking a lot about
something I've been fascinated around
the last few years, which is the
intolerance of dissent from within the
left. This high hypersensitivity around
that. How frustrating is that to try and
navigate?
Yeah, but okay, so that is super
frustrating. And and there's an extra
layer of it for me, but I also want to
talk about the right a little bit, too,
in a sec in a second. So, um on the
left, there's a
thesis that if you agree with the right
even 1%, they will abuse it, so never
agree with them. Um okay, yeah, but
that's going to lead to very
unproductive conversations, right? Uh
and then there's a also a thesis of if
you're not at the most extreme
maximalist position,
your your strategy is wrong. We should
always defend
the craziest [ __ ] our side has ever come
up with in human history.
I don't agree. I think that's a terrible
strategy. And that's how we wound up at
defund the police, that's how we found
out wound up with transgender
undocumented immigrants getting free
surgery, blah blah blah blah blah. Like
you
I told them that is 98% of Americans are
not going to be in favor of that. You
are just flat out wrong.
Like and so, if you tell someone on the
left they're wrong, they get so hurt by
that. They they're
they just they cannot stomach that. And
that And one thing I'll give the right
credit for is there's way more debate,
right? I think in the old days, as in
like first Trump term, there was no
debate. Trump Daddy Trump says it,
everyone does it. Period. Period, okay?
And the right wing also has this massive
intolerance, right? Intolerance for
anyone on the left's opinion, uh
generally speaking, although now we're
building some bridges, but also
intolerance for I don't like that
lifestyle. So, that lifestyle is bad.
Hey brothers and sisters, do you did you
mean freedom or do you not mean freedom?
If you If you mean freedom,
let anybody do their any [ __ ]
lifestyle they like. What is it of your
business, right? So, but again, I think
these are times are different. I think
Trump 2.0 and I and I might be naive and
I might be too hopeful and I grant that
to my friends on the left. But I sense
an actual right-wing populist movement
that might even push back against Trump.
So, and I think the first place that
pushback's probably going to come is
Israel, but we'll see. Maybe I'm wrong,
maybe I'm a sucker, and maybe you guys
will all just say Daddy I don't want to
mean you, Chris. I mean right-wing
populist. We'll just go no, Daddy Trump,
Daddy Trump, whatever Daddy Trump says
we want, right? We'll see, we'll find
out.
Do you think that you're closer to
right-wing populist or left-wing
establishment people?
It depends on how you would define it,
right? Because if I say right-wing
populist, people will then say, "Well,
right-wing populist some right-wing
populist believe X, Y, and Z, and those
X, Y, and Z positions are awful and I
would never agree to them, right?" Um
but if I say
left-wing establishment, they believe a
whole bunch of
that I don't agree with, right?
Yeah. Yeah. So, and what I want
everybody to understand both on the left
and the right is
maybe we are individual human beings and
we are not born with an ideology that
fits pre-existing buckets. So, there's
this bucket of left-wing ideology and a
bucket of right-wing ideology, and those
are all on different issues, foreign
policy, domestic policy, spending,
social issues, etc. And they say, "No,
this was set 100 years ago, 200 years
ago, 20 years ago. You have to agree
with every position on the left or every
position on the right."
Why? My number one question to Americans
is, "Why? Why do I have to agree to a
preset ideology? Why don't I say, 'Hey,
you know what? I like that on the left,
I like that on the right, I like that in
the middle.'" And that's because I'm a
human being, I'm an individual, I'm an
American. And so, stop listening to your
leaders telling you what you have to
believe. And especially for right-wing
populists that
that think and often do, but think that
they cherish freedom. If you do,
brothers and sisters, you have to prove
it. Not just by cherishing your own
freedom, but by cherishing other
people's freedoms, too.
It's
it's interesting to think about the the
way that the incentives align. You know,
I had Anna on the show a couple of weeks
ago, really interesting conversation for
her, too. And I asked her the question,
"Can you see the incentives and the
dynamics that cause people to go from
left to right?" Because I don't see very
many people going from right to left.
And I think that it's because of this
sort of puritanical purity nature that
the wouldn't you wouldn't be accepted
with open arms. And it does seem like
until the left is prepared to let go of
this incredibly high bar that I'm at,
the maximum maximizing
the number that you said. It can't be
98%, can't be 99%, must be 100%
agreement with absolutely everything
that the party line is saying that you
have to agree with. Whereas, the right's
like, "Nah, you're most of the way
there. Come on over." So, yeah, I mean,
it it just seems so obvious to me about
why you get this slide to the right. I
mean, even you talking to Donald Trump
Jr., talking to Elon Musk. Like, that
doesn't happen in reverse. It doesn't
happen the other way around.
Oh, well, that's definitely true. I
mean,
because as you were saying, I I was
laughing inside at the idea of Kamala
Harris
saying to Charlie Kirk, "Oh, that's an
interesting idea."
"WHAT OTHER SUGGESTIONS DO YOU HAVE,
CHARLIE?"
Come on. That's never ever ever going to
happen. I mean, that's never She's never
going to say that to me, let alone
Charlie Kirk, right? Let alone anyone on
the right. And so, and that's because
again, that's not the left-right thing.
That's the populist-establishment thing.
Cuz the people in the establishment
think that the people in that are
populist are dirt. And they think that
they're not They're not in the elites.
Why would I listen to them, right? So,
like they they find the idea
Unwashed, uneducated masses. Yeah, and
they find the idea of taking advice from
us
just laughable. You know, you just laugh
that out loud at the at their
intransigence. And they would let They
would laugh at the idea "What would we
learn from Charlie Kirk or Jack Huger?"
And they'd laugh and laugh and laugh.
And that's why sometimes I'll get into a
conversation with somebody who's an
establishment Democrat, and they're
talking down at me like
almost every time. I'm I've barely ever
had a conversation with anyone who's an
establishment Democrat where they
weren't doing this. Mhm. Looking down
their nose at me the entire time, right?
Like, who the [ __ ] do you think you are?
It's a highly unlikable party. It's a
highly unlikable group to be around.
Yeah, so look, from their perspective,
they would say, "Well, how about you
guys? You guys keep attacking Muslims
and transgender people and gay people
and black people, etc." From their point
of view, and I know a lot of you the
right-wing would disagree, right? But
as someone who is as close to neutral as
it gets in terms of at least the
populace then? No, the right wing does
attack those people. And maybe not to
the degree that The View says, and maybe
not in the same way that The View says,
but are there attacks? Are there actual
bills passed etc? Yes, definitely. Okay?
So, both sides have reasons to distrust
each other. But but what I'm saying
about the establishment Democrats is
that they don't just distrust the right.
They distrust populace that are on their
side, too.
Because they're elitist by nature. And
and by the way, that also is true of
Republicans.
And but the but why give the populace
right credit is because they led a
rebellion and a successful rebellion
against establishment Republicans. So,
if I tell a Democrat Mitch McConnell is
a piece of [ __ ] who took a billion
dollars from corporate donors and does
anything a corporate donor ask him to
do, they'll say, "Oh, of course that's
true. Yeah, I Mitch McConnell's the
worst." If I say Nancy Pelosi did the
same thing, they're like,
"How dare you? She's an angel. When she
took the same billion dollars, she did
it for our well-being." I'm like, "Did
she? Did she? Cuz I could show you all
of our staffers that worked at health
insurance companies and drug companies,
and then all of a sudden we can't
negotiate drug prices. And all you know,
and I can go on and on and on, right?"
But on the other hand, so now when I be
in the old past when I talked to
Republicans, they would say the same
thing like,
"How dare you? Mitch McConnell is the
beloved Mitch McConnell who has given us
everything we want including the giant
corporate tax cuts we wanted." Well, now
when I talk to right wing populace,
they're like, "Yeah, [ __ ] Mitch
McConnell." I'm like, "All right, there
you go."
We're making ground.
Yeah, that's right.
You don't have to agree with me on the
policy.
But we
the bare minimum that we all have to get
on the same team on is
And by the way, the right's not all
completely on this team yet, okay? Which
is that the donors control everything.
The politicians serve their donors.
They're
That's why they do talking points.
They're empty shells. They're almost all
crooks. And whatever donor money get is
given to them, they serve that money
100%.
Does that mean if the donors are so
important and you know, I've heard this
I had Dean Phillips on the show at the
start of the year and he was I was
digging deep into just how much time is
spent fundraising and having to schmooze
at cocktail hours and so on and so
forth. It's like way more time than you
spend actually legislating or doing your
[ __ ] job. Uh, is there something
different now about Elon being a large
contributor financially, strategically,
etc., operationally, but being out
front, being
owning it, being like, "Hey, I'm here.
I'm on stage." Does that add
an amount of transparency, legitimacy,
scrutiny to him that gives you a
sense of confidence?
Um, not yet, no. Uh, proof is in the
pudding. Yeah, okay. Okay. And so,
proof's always in the pudding.
Um, and so, look, You understand the
structure of what I'm saying here
though, right? That we
Yeah.
Yeah. So, let me let me address it in a
couple of ways. So, first of all, does
Trump serve the donors? Sorry guys, but
definitely yes. So, Sheldon Adelson gave
him $100 million in 2016 and then
another $100 million in 2020 campaign
contributions through the PACs. And then
Miriam Adelson, his
you know, his his wife, he's he's now
passed away, gave him $137 million in
this um
uh cycle. So, that's three over $330
million
that the Adelsons, let's be honest,
bribed Donald Trump. Okay, it's a legal
bribe. And yes, the Democrats definitely
do it as well. Both sides claiming only
the other side does it is insanity. Not
remotely true. So, what did Donald Trump
do for the Adelsons? He moved our
embassy because Sheldon asked him to.
The one one of the upsides of Trump is
that he can't help himself. He just says
whatever's at the top of his mind and
that gives us a sense of authenticity,
but the downside is he does confession
after confession. And so he's like,
"Okay, yeah, Sheldon gave me a lot of
money and so I moved the embassy." No,
you're not supposed to give away foreign
policy to a donor. Sorry. And then she
he gave Miriam Adelson the Presidential
Medal of Freedom.
For what, brother? Come on, for what?
That's like our highest honor and you're
giving to a donor's wife? So now
what's important is not the past, but
right now. So he appointed four people
that are team Miriam. Marco Rubio at
State, Elise Stefanik at as UN
Ambassador, Mike Huckabee as Ambassador
to Israel, and Mike Waltz as National
Security Advisor. All four of those are
neocons.
They're war hawks and they want more
war, not less war. That is not what the
base voted for. That is team Israel
versus team America. I'm keeping it
real. And by the way, I say the same
exact things about Kamala Harris and Joe
Biden. They totally sold us out cuz
AIPAC gave over $11 million to Joe Biden
throughout his career. It's his number
one donor.
They've given different groups have
given over 10 million now. 5 million
from AIPAC, 6 million from J Street to
Kamala Harris. That's why they they were
willing to lose Michigan and the entire
election rather than defy their donors.
So now we're Proof's going to be in the
pudding. So that So that's one of his
donors. I can give you many other
examples. Now when you turn to Elon, to
your question,
well, so on the one hand he's more
transparent about it. That's good.
That's true. Right? The Koch brothers
hid in the shadows.
And And the right would argue, and I
think there's true some truth to it,
that George Soros
was in the shadows, right? And a lot of
times the right will say, "Oh, yeah,
would you ban George Soros's money from
politics?" And I'm like, "Yeah, of
course I would." And they're like, ah
yeah, would you ban union money from
politics? Of course I would. I would ban
all money from politics. That's the
point. I don't want to cheat. And so,
that's the difference between a genuine
populist and and a partisan, right? So,
now Elon has a lot of interests, right?
Let's keep it real. He he and one of the
people and when he's doing efficiency in
in the government, if he gets rid of
every regulator who regulates his
businesses,
that's super fishy, right? So, is he
going to do that or is he not going to
do that? And
you know, it there's
and even Trump, he said it in one of the
rallies cuz he can't help himself. He
said, I used to be against electric
vehicles, but Elon gave me a very strong
endorsement, so now I'm pro-electric.
Brother, you're not supposed to say it
out loud, right? So, I'm hoping against
hope that right-wing populist actually
hold them to account. And my side thinks
I'm a sucker for that and that
right-wing populism is not genuine, it's
all fraudulent, they're all going to do
whatever Trump and Elon says. So, we'll
find out. Uh and and their actions will
will tell us who was right and who was
wrong. I've heard you talk about you
just sort of leaning back into the the
criticisms that occur internally. And I
do think that you're right. Uh
the right's not particularly good at
taking uh criticism in the past, but
recently it seems to be at least uh
prepared to have the argument, but I've
heard you highlight something I've
noticed too, which is
the Democratic leadership finding it
offensive if you ask them hard
questions. This sort of
um what are you doing? Like, are we not
on the same side?
Uh which obviously doesn't allow you to
sharpen your sword particularly well,
because you can actually do it
constructively in a way that's aiming to
improve and move toward things, speaking
the same language uh with the same
goals, the same outcomes, etc.
But yeah, the
the fact that
it's not taken well. Internal criticism
and difficult questions aren't taken
well.
Yeah, there's there's two elements to
that. So, one is they believe that the
role of the media is to do marketing for
them. So, anyone who doesn't do
marketing for corporate politicians
overall, but now it's mainly become
corporate Democrats.
They find that to be deeply offensive.
And and unfortunately, they've trained a
lot of Democratic voters to find it
offensive. So, when I criticize the
Biden administration,
I get pushback from
actual Democratic voters saying, "No,
Jenk, Jenk, you're supposed to do only
say only positive things about them.
Don't say anything critical cuz that'll
hurt our chance of beating Trump."
They've trained their own voters to
believe in propaganda
as a concept. And and I love Democratic
voters. And so, I'm not I want to snap
them out of it. I want to say, "Hey
guys, you guys are generally
kind-hearted folks who want to look out
for other people.
But you cannot have this ideology of no
criticism. Cuz if you do no criticism of
your leaders, you will have very shitty
leaders, okay? They will get absolute
power corrupts absolute power corrupts
absolutely. And it it'll make your side
weaker and weaker and weaker. And so,
for 10 straight years, I've been arguing
for stronger primaries, actually way
longer than that. But it's it's I say
the last 10 years because they had the
ideology of
"No, we will anoint a leader, and
Democratic leadership is geniuses
playing four-dimensional chess, and I
swear to God they would literally say
that to me. They're playing
four-dimensional chess, your little mind
can't understand it, Jenk, okay? So, we
pick the the one who's the most
pro-corporate and will, you know,
pleasure the donors the most, and that
is the anointed leader who is has the
best chance of winning. And then they
send every robot on MSNBC best chance of
winning, best chance of winning, best
chance And then okay, but Bernie's like
he went from 1% to 48% in a miraculous
run with no media coverage. That was
unbelievable, right? So how about that?
That looks successful. No, he has no
chance of winning. He is not a corporate
robot, has no chance of winning, right?
And they got Democratic voters who are
good people to believe that [ __ ]
right? So I'm trying to snap them out of
it. And one of the things that I point
to is They're like, no, we should have
no primaries, we should just have an
anointing and a cheerleading, and you're
ruining the cheerleading, Jake. Okay,
how did that work out for us? Because in
2016, the DNC did everything they could
including illegally funneling money to
Hillary Clinton's campaign through the
state parties
to make sure that it was Hillary Clinton
and not Bernie Sanders, right? And they
did as small a primary as they possibly
could.
And then on the Republican side, there
was a free-for-all. You remember the um
old I don't know if they still do it in
WWE, but uh they where everybody's in
the ring and then they uh the Royal
Rumble Royale.
What's that? Is it Royal Rumble or
Battle Royale, yeah?
Yeah, yeah, both of those.
Uh and in the what they started calling
the Royal Rumble, um it you got to throw
everybody out of the ring, right? And
it's one against all. And that's what
2016 was, and Trump came out of it and
And I keep asking them like super simple
question. Can you remind me who won in
2016?
All right, Donald Trump won in 2016. The
Republicans won in 2016 after they had a
super tough and I would argue vicious
primary.
In 2020, there's no primary on the
Republican side, but there is a
significant primary with 27 Democrats
on the Democratic side, Democrats win.
So in this case, they again, they
canceled the primary, they say the guy
with dementia is the anointed one, and
and don't tell anyone that his brain is
melting.
I'm like, guys, he shakes hands with
invisible people. We all already know
his brain is melting. There isn't enough
propaganda in the world to get people to
believe that Joe Biden is mentally
healthy. And they're like, no, there is.
And then he goes out and he's like, oh,
my uncle was eaten by a cannibal. I'm
like,
I mean, if you can't recognize that this
brother is in bad, bad shape, you're
trying to deny reality and it is such a
dumb strategy.
Forget that it's wrong and that it's
immoral to lie like that, etc.
If you want to win, you don't want your
candidate's brain falling out of his
ear. Like, this is not complicated. And
that's why I had such blow-ups with Alan
Lichtman, cuz even after the debate, the
the professor with the keys,
he he came on The Young Turks, he's
like, no, Biden's the right guy. I'm
like, he said he wanted to destroy
Medicare by accident. Do we think that
that's the right guy? And he's like, no,
the keys aside, always go with the
incumbent, always go with the
establishment guy, Joe Biden. I'm like,
okay, look, if you guys are going to be
lunatics, I'm not on board for that,
right? And so that I challenged Biden in
the primary, and we had a petition 14
months ago to get him the hell out of
the race.
So, that kind of you must shill lead,
you must do marketing, you must do
propaganda, I despise it, and that is
why we're oil and water. Like, the
establishment Democrats probably hate me
more than they hate any Republican. If
they if you said to them, you're forced
to go to lunch with Cenk or Trump,
I think every one of them picks Trump.
Everyone They're like, oh, [ __ ] Cenk.
No, no, no, no. I don't want any piece
of that guy. I was listening to uh The
Rest Is Politics. They did uh a number
of
postmortems, I guess, after the
election, uh trying to break down what
was going on. They had this guy on, I
can't remember who it was, but he uh
worked with Trump uh during his first
administration, and he was telling this
story, you know, sort of one of these
classic ones about um his Trump's
fragility around knowing things or not
knowing things, this sort of egotism
that that seems to be pretty endemic,
although uh at least the snappier parts
of it are nerfed publicly. Um
And uh I can't remember what it was.
There was some something about the
Middle East. He needed to know this
thing about the Middle East, and one
person tried to teach him something
really important that would help to
future-proof them against the situation
that was coming down the line. And Trump
is like, "Nobody knows more about the
Middle East than me. Uh I already that's
that's I've read the book on it. I know
all the rest of it." Uh but he really
needed to learn. He really needed this
to be uh given to him. So, this dude
that used to work there went in and took
a different tack cuz he seems like quite
a canny shrewd sort of dude. And um he
said, "Have you ever seen this movie?"
Brings up a movie, and Trump's like, "A
best movie that's ever been made maybe
the best movie that's ever been made."
Uh and he said, "Well, interestingly,
there's a there's a backstory to that
that I'd love to tell you about." And he
teaches Trump through this sort of uh
odd acrobatic dance that he has to do to
sort of get himself to the stage where
this information is to be accepted. This
is, you know,
if there are
character flaws in Trump that people
really, really do not like and that is
sort of out front, this is one of those
big ones. This sort of fragility about
knowing things, uh the the um
brittleness
uh around this sort of stuff. And it's
wild to me that the very thing that most
people on the left would point the
finger at around Trump and
narcissism and egotism, you know, all of
the accusations that typically get
thrown at him are precisely the thing
that they have decided to embody
as, "If you ask me an offensive or
difficult question, that's dissent.
That's trea- treason. You This is
mutiny. You can't do it." And I'm like,
"You are aware you're taking for your
own playbook the exact thing you see as
the biggest weakness from the other
side. There's this weird ironic tragedy
around that.
Yeah, God, that's such a great point and
I hadn't thought of it that way. Uh so
um
it's absolutely true about Trump and and
it's it's kind of hilarious. Uh he he's
often accidentally very funny.
Uh so, you know, like the clean coal one
is an is an example, but there's like
dozens of these. He says, "Oh, you know,
good clean coals when you they take out
the coal and they wash it." I'm like,
"No, it's not, okay?" But that's not the
important part that he got that wrong.
The important part is if I was going to
give that speech, I would think, "Do
they Do they take out the coal and wash
it?"
That seems unlikely. Let me ask someone,
right?
But Trump never thinks, "Let me ask
someone," right? "Hey, if you, you know,
if you put the disinfectant inside the
body." You know, ask that off air. Don't
ask it on air, right? Learn like And he
comes out and he's like, "No one knew
health care was this complicated." No,
brother, we all knew health care was
super complicated. You didn't know it
because you didn't study it. And and I'm
And like I get mad at the Democrats for
all the things that they do wrong. I'm
surprised that the right wing doesn't
get mad at Trump for all the things he
does wrong. Like he never does any
homework. He's never done a piece of
homework in his life. And that's
probably cuz his daddy got him through
school. Anyway, but you're right that
the Democrats now have that same kind of
imperious attitude. Whereas, yeah, maybe
they read books and they went to Ivy
League schools and they did all that
stuff, but
but if you say to them, "Hey, I have a
suggestion for you," their gut reaction
is, "Fuck off."
I CAN'T WAIT. WOAH, WOAH, WOAH, WOAH.
WAIT, OKAY, but you said Trump was
terrible for not taking any suggestions.
Mhm. Why won't you take any suggestions?
Because they find the idea of taking a
suggestion from someone who doesn't have
status
as an as an anathema, as something
deeply troubling It's a very real
never even consider. This gatekeeping
based on
background, positions, social class,
social group,
whatever, is a a very British thing.
Like it really feels like it's sort of
inhabited the posh versus proletariat
uh
discussions that have that like they're
just endemic to UK culture, right? I I
never I've never once heard an American
person use the word posh. In the UK it
is used every single day by every single
kid in school because class permeates
everything. Everyone is is aware of it
front and center and it's so odd to see
Americans who, you know, we
criticize the left for not uplifting the
working class, for not sufficiently
focusing on the working class. Also the
fact that Americans kind of almost deny
that it exists. They they gets all
squirrely and it's recently been put
into race or it's been put into sexual
orientation or into the area that you
live in or whatever.
Um
and yet it this just sounds like a lot
like class gatekeeping uh but just
coming out in different ways.
So there's a really good reason for
that. You're absolutely right about the
observation and the reason is because
establishment Republicans and
establishment Democrats for my whole
lifetime have been trying to make sure
that we don't talk about class. They
want you to talk about race and sex and
gender and and and both sides do
identity politics and if you're a
right-winger and you think no, we don't,
you're nuts and I'll prove it to you in
a second. Okay? So
but what they want us to do is they want
to divide us on culture war [ __ ] so
that we don't realize oh, what we have
in common is that we're the 90%. If the
90% realize that that we're united on
those grounds, the top 10% that are all
rigging the rules to their benefit would
be [ __ ] and they know that. So they're
like, okay, here's some red meat on
trans issues. Now, masses go fight each
other, right? So the reason why I tell
the right, look, you guys are full of
[ __ ] too. You do nothing but identity
politics on your own right. So here's an
example. Nancy Mace comes out after the
election, does a look at me, Daddy move
with the trans bathroom with bathrooms
and go, "Oh, no trans people in the
women's bathroom."
That's that's the big issue in Congress?
I mean, we're got $36 trillion in debt.
Uh you know, we're a mess. We're not
funding uh we don't have paid family
leave. Every other nation on Earth has
paid family leave.
That's still every time that I [ __ ]
hear that stat, it blows my mind.
I mean, again, but that's because we
live under corporate rule and we've had
these corporate Republicans and
corporate Democrats get getting us to
fight one another for decade after
decade and doing mass propaganda through
mainstream media.
Hey guys,
don't focus on the fact that you're
slowly getting crushed by corporate
rule. That that trash compactor scene in
Star Wars, we're all getting squeezed
and squeezed. So that's why Americans
don't even know that the rest of the
world gives moms 12 weeks off after they
have a baby because they are human
beings and they understand that of
course moms need 3 months at least to
bond with their baby. That is a very
right-wing position. That is a very
left-wing position. That is a very human
position and that is why 84% of
Americans agree. And these bullshitters
in Washington tell us, "Oh, there's no
way we can pass it." And so what I say
this about Biden the same way that I
would say it about George W. Bush or
Donald Trump. Don't tell me that you
can't pass a bill that has 84%
popularity
and then tell me that you're a good
politician cuz those two things are not
possible. If you can't pass that bill,
that means you suck as a politician. And
the reality is it's not that they suck,
it's that they don't want to pass the
bill cuz corporations would lose a whole
7 and 1/2 cents over that. And remember,
I run a company. I know how much they're
bullshitting you, right? It's not that
big a deal for companies to give paid
family leave at all for especially for
trillion-dollar companies. They're doing
it out of unbelievable cruelty. And so
they bought all of our politicians and
they get them to go, "Oh, it's paid
family leave is impossible. Higher wages
is impossible. Universal health care is
impossible. Everything is impossible.
Anything that helps you is always
impossible. And anything that helps the
rich, all of a sudden, "Oh, yeah, giant
corporate tax cuts. Here you go." All of
a sudden, that's the easiest thing in
the world. How much do you think the
equivalent middle management bureaucrat
government officials are [ __ ]
themselves about having Elon Musk and
Vivek breathing down their neck if this
thing comes off?
Well, a lot. Uh but and they should be.
Um so, look, I'm so if they're talking
about actual efficiency and they
actually want to cut pork barrel
spending, like I said on X, like I've
said on every show and I'll say here,
I'm here for it, okay?
Put me in, coach. Let me at them because
these sons of [ __ ] have been wasting
our money this entire time. I give one
more example from the Pentagon. In 2015,
they buried a report. Why? What did the
report say? That they had wasted a
hundred and twenty-five
billion dollars. Billion.
How do you lose and waste a hundred and
twenty-five billion dollars? You do it
by saying, "Don't ever cut the Pentagon.
You're endangering our security. We're
all going to die unless you let me steal
this hundred and twenty-five billion
dollars." [ __ ] They've been robbing
us blind at the Pentagon my entire life.
Now, they're not the only department
that does it. And if you find other
instances of waste abuse, great. I'm
happy to take it out. But what I'm
worried about is they're not worried
about the abuse, or maybe they are, but
on top of that, they also have another
agenda, which is, "Oh, Lina Khan's a
pain in my ass regulating my businesses.
Oh, she doesn't want me to have
monopolies." Yeah, she doesn't want you
to have monopolies cuz monopolies are
against capitalism. They destroy
capitalism. So, J.D. Vance said he was
in favor of Lina Khan. Let's find out.
Let's find out cuz Elon Musk is against
them, against her, and so is all of
Kamala Harris's top donors, Mark Cuban,
etc. They were all against Lina Khan.
That means she's actually trying to
protect the average American, okay? So,
if you cut Lina Khan, that isn't saving
anyone money. It's costing a lot of
people money, right? I give that as an
example, but we can go on and on. But
but what's going to happen is they're
going to cut until they get to a point
where the American people are going to
go, "Nah, we don't like that," right?
So,
I think where the rubber hits the road
will probably be Department of
Education. And if they go to cut the
entire Department of Education as
they've threatened to do multiple times,
I think the American people are going to
go, "No, no, no. We asked you to close
the border. We asked you to end
inflation. We asked you to care about
the average guy. We didn't ask you to
destroy education and replace it with
private education, which you're all
going to get rich off of."
Right? So, let's see how that goes.
Yeah, after now that the dust settled,
you know, a few weeks hence from the the
election, what's your sort of
post-mortem being able to tie everything
together now the fog of war's [ __ ]
off? Do you think this was more a a
right victory or a left loss? Where
where's your sort of head fallen on
this?
Yeah, I I think it's actually super
clear. Um so, uh people voted for
change. They almost always vote for
change because the neoliberal system
They sometimes they call it neoliberal,
sometimes I call it corporate rule. It's
basically the same thing. Uh
corporations have gained so much power,
which by the way, in my book Justice
Coming, I explain the founding fathers
did the American Revolution
not just against the British Empire, but
against the British British East India
uh, company, right? So, the Boston Tea
Party was not against the British
government, it was against that
corporation. They went and threw their
tea overboard cuz they were tired of
their [ __ ] right? And so, the
founding fathers kept warning us "Be
careful with corporations cuz they will
accumulate so much money and so much
power, they will use it to choke off
democracy." And they were exactly right,
right? So, that's what's happened all
across the world. So, people are like,
"I don't get it. Brazil's going left and
right and left and Argentina's going
extreme left, extreme right. I don't I
don't understand what's happening." I
can clear it up for you. They're voting
against the incumbents, they're voting
against the establishment, they're
voting against uh, corporate rule.
So, and they're doing it all across the
world. So, in this case, Kamala Harris
was actually People are already
forgotten this. There was a brief window
when she was up in the polling by about
seven points. Now, the polling turned
out to be wrong by about three or four
points. It wasn't off by 30 or 40, it
was off by three or four.
So,
in that window, she actually could have
won the election if they had held the
election that day. So, why was she
popular back then and then she lost all
of her popularity? Yeah. Well, because
she came out with populist positions in
the beginning. She said, "I'm going to
end price gouging by these sons of [ __ ]
corporations. I'm going to go after uh,
what they're doing on housing and I'm
going to lower the prices of housing.
I'm going to pick Tim Walls and I know a
lot of the right-wing now have problems
with Tim Walls, but Tim Walls was a
populist in Minnesota that passed paid
family leave, etc., etc." So, she
started out in a great direction it
strategically. And she sky Biden was
down eight, she's up seven. Holy [ __ ]
she gained 15 points nationally, which
is so hard. And then her [ __ ] corrupt
brother-in-law, Tony West, who's a
corporate lawyer for Uber, was like,
"No, I got a great idea. Let's go kiss
corporate ass." So, he convinced her to
put out a letter saying that 90
corporate CEOs are on her side. And he
convinced her to put Mark Cuban all over
cable news. I got no beef with Mark
Cuban. I have agreements and
disagreements with him. That's fine,
right? But strategically, it was a
massive mistake to put Cuban on cable
news going, "No, she loves big business.
No, she loves corporations. No, don't
worry, she's not going to do any of that
price gouging stuff. She's going to let
the corporations keep [ __ ] you,
right?" And then her lead poof,
evaporated. The whole And oh, she loves
Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney. Are you guys
idiots? Dick Cheney's last poll was at
13%.
Who the hell do you think you're going
to win with Dick Cheney? They just can't
get it through their heads. So, it
she As soon as she turned around, Ana
and I on The Young Turks started saying,
"Terrible strategy.
We're I'm we're worried we're doomed."
And that's exactly what happened. How
big of a deal do you think the woke
stuff has been? Because everybody's
heard 30% of the Trump campaign budget
went on this one ad, the most effective
political ad in modern history talking
about they/them and for you and us,
uh, which
on the surface probably makes it feel
like, well, that was the
a a linchpin issue or the linchpin
issue.
W
How much do you believe that?
Yeah, so at Young Turks, we have, uh,
a total open mind. So, I have people to
the left of me, I have people that are
more establishment than me, and so, uh,
we had this huge debate after the, um,
election between I was on the side of it
made a difference. We had two other
hosts that were
more leftist than I am, who said, "No,
the ad didn't make a difference."
Okay, I'm going to have the same debate
with my nephew Hasan [ __ ]
uh on Thanksgiving we do a thing called
Jenksgiving uh on his stream uh and he's
more of a leftist than I am and so we
fight for an hour or two and then we go
eat Thanksgiving dinner together, okay?
So, we're going to have that same fight.
And the essence of that fight is they
think no, go maximalist position
and say that, you know, every other uh
president should be uh African-American
and trans disabled person and we'll win
all the elections. And I'm like, nah,
it's not going to work. It's not going
to work. And I had this huge fight with
Hasan earlier about crime and he's like,
no, it's imaginary. I'm like, okay. If
you'd like to get your clock cleaned
tell the voters that they're imagining
being in danger when they're actually in
danger, okay? You're going to get
annihilated. And what happened? Prop 36
was a referendum basically on crime in
California.
In California with massively democratic
voters it passed with 70%.
That is
democratic voters going, yes, there was
crime. Yes, we were pissed about it and
cut the [ __ ] out, okay? Move those
misdemeanors back to felonies. We're not
interested in domestic assault being
lightly treated. We're not interested in
having our toothpaste locked up at a
CVS, right? This [ __ ] is real, okay? So,
now, but it connects though. It connects
with our earlier conversation because
the end of that trans ad was, okay, so
that position was so extreme and they
don't get it. They think it's not
extreme. No.
Asking me to pay for your surgery when
you're not a citizen yet and you're a
detainee.
Brothers and sisters, I got a thousand
priorities.
And maybe we disagree on whether I would
pay for that surgery if I had all the
money in the world, right?
But we don't have all the money in the
world. We don't even have paid family
leave. What are we doing giving surgery
to prisoners or detainees in that case?
Anyways, at the end of the ad it says
Kamala Harris is for they/them
and Trump is for us.
See, that connects it back to populism.
So, Kamala Harris seems to be
generically for they/them, whether it's
an extreme position on on trans rights.
And and by the way, I'm I want to be
clear. I'm 100% for trans rights,
constitutional rights. I'm I am not for
a I have a right to play in the WNBA.
No, you don't. That's not a
constitutional right, okay?
Uh but if you try to take away their
actual rights, I'm going to fight you to
the end on it, okay? But but that idea
of they're for other people, Democrats,
whether these extreme trans positions,
whether it's sometimes
criminals, it's such bad framing,
Democrats. What are you doing? Okay? Or
it's corporate goons. They're for them
and not for you. And the reason why it
resonated so much is because that
establishment Democrats have proven over
and over again they are for them, not
trans people, not black people, not
immigrants, but for corporate donors.
So, they will never ever listen to the
people. That's why that commercial
resonated so much.
Yeah, plays into a wider narrative, this
sort of skepticism of the this uh
suspicion that people have. Like, ah, it
kind of feels like that might be the
case. And then it legitimates any claim
that then follows along that same set of
train tracks.
Yeah, that's exactly right. And so,
those two things collided in a way that
was toxic and and it ultimately proved
fatal for the Democratic chances. And by
the way, again on The Young Turks, what
did we say? We said don't go that
extreme left. We were right.
And don't go corporate, and we were
right. And so, we did that at the risk
of losing some of our audience, and we
did, we lost some of our paying
subscribers, it hurt us financially, but
it matters if you're being honest or
not. It matters if you're authentic or
not. And so, what I'm hoping for is at
the end of the election
that those two There's three wings of
the Democratic Party, the corporate
wing, the establishment wing, that's
one, they're the dominant ones,
unfortunately, that's Biden, Harris,
Hillary Clinton, et cetera. There's the
extreme left
wing, the identitarian left, et cetera,
what you guys what right wing would call
woke politics. And so, but there's a
third wing, that's our wing, the
populist left wing, right? The Bernie
Sanders 2016 take care of the average
American wing. So, honestly, that wing
was the only one that was correct. The
other two wings were totally discredited
in this election. Now, will we be able
to convince Democratic primary voters of
that
in 2028? That's the big question. I just
had an idea. So, that three-pronged
layout that you've had, I wonder how
much of the Democratic Party, if that's
true, let's just assume that that
framing's accurate,
I wonder how much of the Democratic
Party actually likes both the right and
the left obsessing over the identity
politics woke stuff, because it creates
a
a specter that people can throw stones
at that isn't
the corporate side, that isn't the
establishment side, that it allows them
to hide behind the much much sexier,
much more headline-grabbing
little nefarious
underling that occurs for the for the
Dems.
100%. And guys, what you don't know is
that a lot of those culture wars are
started by the Republican donor machine.
So, what they do is they go, "Okay,
let's try to dig up something that the
American people will hate that's on the
left." So, on the trans issue, for
example, they started with, "Okay, if
you remember in the first Trump
administration, he thought about banning
them from the military."
And that turned out to be unpopular, cuz
people were like, well, they're risking
their lives for the country. That seems
nice. That seems good. No, don't do
that, right? So then they moved to the
bathroom issue. And then eventually
people were like,
what are we going to do? Check people's
genitals in bathrooms to see which
bathroom they should go in. That didn't
prove to be popular. So then they moved
to okay, trans women in sports. Oh,
boom, they got it, right? So why are
they doing that? Why are they going
through all those things? Cuz they're
trying to find a way to have a wedge
between us. That's why they're called
wedge issues, right? So they're trying
to find a thing that is unpopular on the
left so they could use that against the
left. Why?
Because of the same reason that the
establishment Democrats do identity
politics. Cuz they don't want to talk
about the economic issues. Cuz on the
economic issues, we're all united
against them. So they have to divide us.
And so I would ask my right-wing
brothers and sisters, stop falling for
the trick, okay? Well, then the nut
picking The nut picking occurs on both
sides, right? The opportunity for you to
find something on the left which is a
a ridiculous Marjorie Taylor Greene,
whatever she's got up to this week, or,
you know, even earlier on today. Like
you can nut pick the nut picking. You
can almost use This is the recursive
reactive cycle of story occurs, someone
reacts to it, the reaction occurs to the
reaction, the meta reaction about what
everybody's saying happens. It's so
predictable.
A- And in fact, we predicted it.
So, uh on The Young Turks, we love doing
predictions, and so, uh for example,
like I said about 14, 15 months ago, I
said Biden has approximately a 0% chance
of winning this election. And right
before he dropped out, his staff said,
we believe he had a 0% chance of winning
this election. Okay, so now on this
ground, I'm not telling you all this
stuff about uh
I my disagreements with the extreme left
now as a Monday morning quarterback and
after the election,
we started saying it two years ago.
We started saying, "Hey guys, this is
wrong direction." And we got into huge
fights over it. And so, and one of the
And what I was trying to explain to them
is,
"Guys, the other side is digging to find
something unpopular on our side.
They will eventually find it if you dig
long enough.
And so, when they do find it, can you
please not help them by falling right
into that trap?" And their resounding
answer to us was,
"No, [ __ ] off."
So,
so when they got to trans sports,
then like that portion on the left fell
right into the trap. They ran into the
trap. They're like, "Yes, no, there's no
difference between trans women and
biological women." I'm like, "Guys, a
trans woman entered a weightlifting
contest. She's in her 40s. Okay? And
notice I'm saying she. I respect all of
her choices. I respect all of her
rights. But she enters that contest and
wins by 200 lb, even though she's in her
40s. THERE'S A THERE'S A BIOLOGICAL
DIFFERENCE. OF COURSE, THERE IS."
And they're like, "Nope, nope, nope,
nope, nope. We're going to fall into the
trap." And I'm like, "Okay. So, you
think I'm like, look, give LeBron every
hormone on planet Earth. Put him in the
WNBA. He scores 200 points a night."
They're like, "No.
He He would be an average player."
Okay, look, I can't So, they wouldn't
listen. And I'm asking right-wing
populists now, can you guys please
listen? Every time they do a culture war
issue,
they're trying to distract you. It's a
[ __ ] squirrel, okay? Focus on things
that matter in your life. Does your
daughter have health care when she needs
it? Are your wages higher or lower? Like
here, $15 minimum wage, the right wing
was trained through propaganda from
corporate Republicans, you should hate
the minimum wage. You should hate the
minimum wage.
They and their propaganda is, "Oh, if
you have higher wages, it'll drive up
inflation." No, dick, inflation's
already here. Higher wages at least
allows me to keep up with inflation.
Mhm. So, the what you're saying we
should move up the price of cars and
bananas and and houses, the only thing
we shouldn't move up is your wages? No,
[ __ ] off. So, you can tell me anything
you want about trans bathrooms in either
direction. But at the end of the day,
fight for your wages, fight for your
health care, fight for your family.
Does that make sense? It does. I mean,
ultimately, the job of the political
party, first job, the first job, is to
get into power. Because if you're not in
power,
you're not really doing [ __ ] So, do you
think that there will be a reckoning on
the left? Do you think there will be a
reassessment of the things that have
been focused on?
Uh will it result in
genuine change of any kind? Or
You said that you like predictions.
What's your prediction for this?
Yeah, so um
and I and I'm also one of the few people
in media that uh acknowledge it when I'm
wrong, right? So, I thought that 2020
online media was already strong enough
to beat mainstream media, and that
that's why Bernie Sanders would win
against Biden. Cuz mainstream media is a
propaganda machine, and they despise
Bernie more than they despise Trump.
They hate him with every fiber of their
being. Uh because he's a true populist
left uh person who's actually looking
out for the average guy. And nothing
bothers the elites more than that. So,
but I thought he was online media that
was backing him and all the uprising,
etc., would be enough to overcome Biden.
Uh and it looked like for the first
three primaries that Bernie won, he won
all three. Uh it looked like we you
right. But it turns out no, when they
called us, then Obama pulled them in and
Clyburn pulled them in and said
Buttigieg, Klobuchar, all you guys shut
the [ __ ] up and back Biden. And hey,
Morning Joe and CNN, everybody shut up
except just everybody called Bernie the
most successful Jewish candidate in
American history a Nazi and his
followers Nazis. Just go do that. Smear
the [ __ ] out of him. Let's go. And when
they did that and Obama gave the and
Clyburn gave that order, um and he
didn't to be clear, he didn't give the
order to MSNBC and CNN. That's more
groupthink, okay? And so but when that
happened,
uh we lost because it turned out
mainstream media was still bigger than
online media, okay? So I was wrong about
that.
Now in 2024 for the first time online
media has been stronger than mainstream
media. And you see that cuz mainstream
media all said in unison, "Must vote for
Kamala Harris. Trump is great danger.
Trump is the worst hurt human alive."
And look at this I
bunch that I agree with them on about
Trump. I think we can get into that
another time.
He's egomaniac. He should have never
said terminate the Constitution, etc.
etc., okay?
But don't tell me that Kamala Harris is
perfectly fine when she could barely
speak, right? She speaks in talking
points. She looks like a corporate
robot. So but those bullshitters for the
first time in my life lost, right? Why?
Cuz Rogan, Theo Von, all those podcasts
that Trump did got them more views than
all the paid media that Kamala Harris
got and all the mainstream media that
she got. So that gives me some hope not
because of Trump or Republicans, but
because in 2028 primary
that we might be able to win in the
primary and have a truly populist left
candidate, which would finally give
Americans a real choice. Wouldn't that
be amazing? Hey, do we go in that
direction of that guy genuinely trying
to help the American people? Or if you
guys come up with a genuine populist,
that person trying to genuinely help the
American people, but in a different
direction. Now, let's let the American
people decide. So, I hope that our
side's online media, including The Young
Turks, is strong enough to overwhelm
MSNBC and win those primaries because
this is really important.
People misunderstand politics. They
think And and this is the mythology that
television has been putting out there my
whole life.
Oh, the two sides got together. Everyone
in the country watched the debate. They
then analyze the policy issues, and then
they decided which candidate they like
better. No.
One side got brainwashed by one set of
media, the other side got brainwashed by
another set of media, and then some
people broke free of that brainwashing
and they're floating out in online media
right now, etc. So, what decides
elections is almost exclusively media.
So, the media wars are going to
determine who wins the 2028 election, as
they have throughout. It's just that for
the first time, our side, as in online
media, which is more populist, is now
winning.
Cenk Uygur, ladies and gentlemen. Cenk,
I appreciate the heck out of you. Thank
you very much for today. What is coming
up for you guys next? What can people
expect?
So, one of the things that we're doing
at TYT.com is we got a populist plank,
and I'm super curious to see if the
right wing agrees with those
positions. And what I'm saying is, let's
do a voting block. And so, if your side
is true and they deliver on these
things,
I'm not playing around with any man. I
don't care what the teams are called. I
don't care if there's an R or a D on
your helmet. You deliver paid family
leave, anti-war, money out of politics,
whatever those positions, then I'm going
to vote for you.
And that's what That's what signing that
pledge means, okay? Whichever side
delivers, I vote for them. And if you
don't deliver, [ __ ] off. Okay? So, I'm
not going to vote for you if you don't
actually do the things that we want. You
can tell me how terrible the other side
is, and you can both sides fear-monger.
Oh my god, they'll let trans people in
all the bathrooms. Ah!
Right? And the other side's like, "Oh my
god, they're going to turn the country
into, you know, the fourth reich. Ah!"
Right? You can say that all you want,
but those six policies are all super
popular with right and left. So, you
deliver on this, we deliver our votes.
If you don't, again, in unison we should
shout to them, "Fuck off." So, but I
don't know if the right-wing will like
it or not like it. So, go check it out
on tyt.com. Look at the thing. If you
like it, sign the petition. Watch the
show. We do live show 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
every day, Monday through Friday. And
every right-winger that watches it goes,
"Holy [ __ ] they're honest. I didn't
expect that." Right?
And we criticize both sides. And by the
time we criticize Trump,
they're like, "Oh, I get it. They
actually give a [ __ ] And they're not
criticizing him just to be a dick to
Trump, or just to be on the opposite
side, or just because they're Democrats
or on the left. They're doing it because
they have genuine concerns. So, come
check out Young Turks on YouTube or on
tyt.com anytime. Sign the pledge if you
like it. And and at least hear our case
so you can make an informed decision
about which side to go with.
Appreciate you, mate. Good to chat.
Thank you, brother.
Thank you very much for tuning in. If
you enjoyed that episode, there is
something else you will absolutely love.
Right here.
Go on.
Give me the tap.