Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 3: dot com. Let's get over to Elon Musk and the
Speaker 3: fight right now with Steve Bannon. This is just absolutely
Speaker 3: fascinating in terms of who's winning and some of the
Speaker 3: other behind the scenes fights that are happening right now.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 3: Trump is currently playing Maga civil war mediator between Steve
Speaker 3: Bannon and Elon Musk, and has asked Bannon last month
Speaker 3: that he wants him to sit down with Elon and
Speaker 3: to hash out their differences. He also asked him to
Speaker 3: stop a series of blistering attacks on the super White
Speaker 3: House Advisor and the Tesla CEO. Now, no meeting has
Speaker 3: actually happened yet, and it's quote not clear if one
Speaker 3: actually will. And all of this is because Musk. He
Speaker 3: has called Musk, for example, a parasitic illegal immigrant, a
Speaker 3: truly evil person. He's called him out also in terms
Speaker 3: of medicaid cuts, entitlements, the vision on doge just generally,
Speaker 3: whether they quote oligarchs in them should be in power recently, Actually,
Speaker 3: he replied to a tweet, this was just last month.
Speaker 3: Ian Miles Chong tweeted, Stephen see Bannon's just mad. Elon's
Speaker 3: getting all the attention for doing a damn good job
Speaker 3: with USAI d let Man. Hegseth manage the DoD Elon replied,
Speaker 3: Bannon is a great talker, but not a great doer.
Speaker 1: What did he get done this week? Nothing?
Speaker 4: So okay, send to your bullet Steve Ban. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so Steve Bannon, you know, even told New York
Speaker 3: Times quote he's still he's still not a popular nationalists,
Speaker 3: he's a globalist and quote he and I have a
Speaker 3: chasm that is probably insurmountable. Thought it was absolutely interesting
Speaker 3: because at the very same time that this is all
Speaker 3: playing out. We're getting a lot of indications of like
Speaker 3: who's winning this. You're talking in your monologue, Crystal about
Speaker 3: Elon basically, you know, getting huge support from the President
Speaker 3: of the United States saying that he's going to go
Speaker 3: out and buy a Tesla today to prop up the
Speaker 3: stock after it lost like fifteen percent of its value
Speaker 3: just yesterday. I think it's erased all of its gains
Speaker 3: from the day that Trump got himself elected. Similarly, right now,
Speaker 3: inside of Doge, there is a fear that public backlash
Speaker 3: is and the PR crisis basically that they find themselves
Speaker 3: in is that they're quote searching for wins. So this
Speaker 3: profile into them is absolutely fascinating. Let's put this on
Speaker 3: the screen. Quote turmoil within Dose spills into public view
Speaker 3: as Musk's group confronts a PR crisis. Elon Musk Doge
Speaker 3: is hunting for wins as it raises to finish slashing
Speaker 3: the federal bureaucrac and move on to more quote constructive
Speaker 3: work of building digital tools.
Speaker 1: For the government.
Speaker 3: So there is a feeling, according to this insider account
Speaker 3: from Doge, is that quote I think everyone there knows
Speaker 3: they need to do a better job of telling the
Speaker 3: story and that it's going to be a big component
Speaker 3: of the next phase of Doge leaning into storytelling and
Speaker 3: showing the wins and not having the story told for them.
Speaker 3: They have had obviously issues of navigating this, just with
Speaker 3: the Doge account claims of things that were cut, having
Speaker 3: to bring people back, a lot of it having to
Speaker 3: just do with the chaotic nature of Elon himself, but
Speaker 3: more broadly, I just thought it was interesting because they
Speaker 3: are starting to feel pressure, at least from the outside
Speaker 3: and possibly from the inside as well. Elon did an
Speaker 3: interview yesterday in the White House where he said he
Speaker 3: would stay on with DOGE for at least another year
Speaker 3: or is that he wants to and he said I
Speaker 3: would like to cut up a trillion if we're not stopped.
Speaker 3: I thought it was an interesting line for him to
Speaker 3: throw out there, So maybe he's feeling pressure as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 2: And those quotes that the Washington Post got, they actually
Speaker 2: got leaked audio, so it's not like a you know,
Speaker 2: someone in the room claim blah blah blah. They actually,
Speaker 2: you know, they had the transfer. They were able to
Speaker 2: listen to the audio to get quotes like I need
Speaker 2: wins to defend and to really get a sense of
Speaker 2: the fact that there is a bit of an internal
Speaker 2: freak out at DOGE because they realize that the you know,
Speaker 2: they're looking at the polls, they see that people are
Speaker 2: moving on from the general support from of like, oh, yes,
Speaker 2: let's trim the government, let's trim the fat, let's root
Speaker 2: out the waste for an abuse to their more specific
Speaker 2: experience with the federal government, and also just the chaos
Speaker 2: of this and the lives that they've gotten caught in
Speaker 2: and all of those sorts of things. There's also some
Speaker 2: interesting notes in this article as well about how some
Speaker 2: of the things that they've been doing have been incredibly counterproductive. So,
Speaker 2: you know, before Elon Musk and DOGE came in, in fact,
Speaker 2: they took over this digital service agency that did some
Speaker 2: of the things that Musk claims to want to do
Speaker 2: about making government technology quote quote more efficient. And so
Speaker 2: one of the things they say here is Musk is
Speaker 2: repeatedly criticized Social Security, one of the government's most popular programs.
Speaker 2: Do staffers have been working inside the agency, but an
Speaker 2: effort to give the Social Security website and services a
Speaker 2: user friendly digital overhaul was already underway. At the US
Speaker 2: Digital Service until Musk pushed out the team working on it,
Speaker 2: so they actually were already working on a thing that
Speaker 2: he would want them to work on, and then those
Speaker 2: people were pushed down and so now they're starting from scratch.
Speaker 2: I mean it just again shows like the nature of
Speaker 2: just coming in thinking you know everything, and also you
Speaker 2: know they're The focus from Elon has been much more
Speaker 2: on this sort of grand standing and throwing his weight
Speaker 2: around and really crippling agencies that his companies directly interact with.
Speaker 2: Then I think a focus on these how do we
Speaker 2: make things actually more efficient? How do we make the
Speaker 2: tech profile of the federal government, which Lord knows it
Speaker 2: needs an upgrade, no doubt about that, that that they
Speaker 2: could actually deliver on that. One of the other things
Speaker 2: that I thought was interesting here is remember how originally
Speaker 2: they had been attacking the digital like e file system
Speaker 2: that goes around TurboTax so that people can directly file
Speaker 2: their taxes with the government, which saves the money. I mean,
Speaker 2: the TurboTax is basically like a cartel that was forcing
Speaker 2: you to use their product, and so they had developed
Speaker 2: this way to file directly with the government and avoid
Speaker 2: turbo tax and saves you money, et cetera.
Speaker 4: They initially were attacking that.
Speaker 2: Now they're saying, you know what, maybe actually, because this
Speaker 2: is a popular program and good thing, maybe we should
Speaker 2: expand that so that people have some personal sense of like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I can see how this is benefiting me versus Right now,
Speaker 2: everybody's just seeing job loss, you know, and really callous
Speaker 2: mass job loss, national parks getting screwed over, the FAA
Speaker 2: being attacked, veterans being fired, social Security under assault, etc. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was kind of interesting that they realized that they
Speaker 2: have a bit of a pr problem. Just to go
Speaker 2: back quickly to the Elon Bannon thing, I mean, I
Speaker 2: do think that this relationship is really important to watch
Speaker 2: and because they represent, you know, the sort of like
Speaker 2: two distilled ideologies that are in competition right now in
Speaker 2: the Trump administration. And you know, thus far to your point,
Speaker 2: soccer like Elon's ideology has obviously been winning out.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: There's no guarantees that that continues to be the case,
Speaker 2: but that is certainly the case today. I did notice
Speaker 2: Emily recommend I listened to Bannon on Tim Dillon Show.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you listened to that. I took.
Speaker 2: I listened to it, and I did note that he
Speaker 2: he It's not that he wasn't critical at all of Elon,
Speaker 2: but he had definitely dialed back his criticism. And it
Speaker 2: was before we got this news that Trump had had
Speaker 2: a talk and like, oh, you guys need to sit
Speaker 2: down and work it out. So I felt like some
Speaker 2: message had already been sent of like Okay, this is
Speaker 2: you know, you got to stop calling him a parasitic
Speaker 2: legal immigrant.
Speaker 3: It's these sorts of things, you know.
Speaker 2: And also he called South Africans the most white South
Speaker 2: Africans the most racist people on the planet as well,
Speaker 2: which I also enjoyed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was definitely amusing. All right, let's get to
Speaker 1: the next one.
Speaker 3: This was just just an interesting thing that happened yesterday
Speaker 3: and potentially a consequence of Elon now being a senior
Speaker 3: government official. He gave an interview to Fox Businesses Larry
Speaker 3: Kudlow shortly after a huge outage at Twitter and or
Speaker 3: x basically all day the site was rendered unusable for
Speaker 3: several hours, especially during the workday. Well, here is Elon
Speaker 3: saying that it was a massive cyber attack and then
Speaker 3: it originated in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 5: There was a cyber attack on X today which shut
Speaker 5: it down and may have been foreign sourced.
Speaker 1: It's a big story.
Speaker 4: You want to give us a moment on that.
Speaker 6: Well, we're not sure exactly what happened, but there was
Speaker 6: a massive cyber attack to try to bring down the
Speaker 6: X system with ip addresses originating in the Ukraine area.
Speaker 3: IPA addresses originating in the Ukraine area. What he has
Speaker 3: to say, let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 3: What he said right prior to that, he said, there
Speaker 3: is still a massive cyber attack against X. We get
Speaker 3: attacked every day, but this was done with a lot
Speaker 3: of resources, either a large coordinated group and or a
Speaker 3: country is involved tracing dot dot dot then blaming Ukraine
Speaker 3: there shortly afterwards. We haven't had cloud Flare or anybody
Speaker 3: else release any data on the attack, and they haven't
Speaker 3: done that as well, but you know, it genuinely could
Speaker 3: be a consequence of don't forget. Elon also uses his
Speaker 3: Twitter account often to basically disagree with the policy of
Speaker 3: the Ukrainian government. He recently attacked Senator Mark Kelly for
Speaker 3: visiting Ukraine. He has been talking about Ukraine corruption and
Speaker 3: or you know, but pushing for a peace deal now
Speaker 3: for quite some time. He got into a huge spat
Speaker 3: with the Polish foreig Ad minister over Starlink and the
Speaker 3: payment for that system that's being used in Ukraine right now.
Speaker 3: So is no great friend to Ukraine. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think that's fine, But also don't forget their own cyber
Speaker 3: you know unit inside of their agency is trained by
Speaker 3: the best and brightest of the United States of America,
Speaker 3: so I wouldn't put it past them necessarily, although we
Speaker 3: don't yet have any proof, it would make sense. I mean,
Speaker 3: it could also be a series of other you know,
Speaker 3: foreign actors and or even criminals, right because if you want,
Speaker 3: this is what Russia and China do very often, they
Speaker 3: won't have their direct intelligence agents actually do the hacking.
Speaker 3: They'll outsource it to some criminal element which will also
Speaker 3: get a financial benefit for doing so, and or state sponsorship,
Speaker 3: or at the very least looking the other way.
Speaker 1: So we don't know.
Speaker 3: Ukraine's always been it's been in nexus for cybercrime for
Speaker 3: the last twenty five years, so it wouldn't also be
Speaker 3: It's not out of the question that it's also a
Speaker 3: non governmental actor, although I don't think so. If it
Speaker 3: is Ukraine, I don't know. It could also be bad service.
Speaker 1: Who knows. That's problem with Elon. We have no idea
Speaker 1: they true.
Speaker 4: That is all totally accurate.
Speaker 2: Ukraine just launched a mass drone strike on Moscow actually,
Speaker 2: which just I.
Speaker 3: Mean we actually my friend Lex Friedman was in Moscow.
Speaker 3: Oh really, I've tweeted it. He apparently narrowly missed the
Speaker 3: drone attack that happened to him. So yeah, Ukraine, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe not the smartest move to try nearly assassinate with
Speaker 3: one of the most famous podcasters in the United States.
Speaker 3: And you know they also happened to do that Crystal.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if you saw right before they walked
Speaker 3: into a peace meeting with the Russians.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that was the point, smart I was
Speaker 2: to demonstrate, you know, we can, you know, we can
Speaker 2: hit you where it hurts. But my point is only like,
Speaker 2: obviously the Krainians are willing to do a wild shit,
Speaker 2: but also I don't trust Elon Musk whatsoever.
Speaker 4: So who knows.
Speaker 2: I feel like this is very I don't know, it's
Speaker 2: a very It is a very convenient explanation for twitter
Speaker 2: ounage yesterday because it aligns with Elon's for you know,
Speaker 2: foreign policy views, and it lets Twitter off the hook
Speaker 2: for any potential engineering or technical failure.
Speaker 4: So maybe, But also I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I would need to see more proof and evidence before
Speaker 2: I came to any conclusions about any of this. I
Speaker 2: saw there was some Hacket collective that claimed to be
Speaker 2: like non political, just sort of like flexing their muscle,
Speaker 2: that took credit for it. But I have no idea
Speaker 2: if there's any voracity.
Speaker 3: That's another there. Look, there's a lot of liberals in
Speaker 3: the world, especially also in Europe. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: cyber criminals there too. A lot of them are very
Speaker 3: pro Ukraine. They could hacked him as well. I mean,
Speaker 3: so who knows.
Speaker 2: Maybe it doesn't ask me about I mean, John's got
Speaker 2: a lot of enemies around the world. I mean, he's
Speaker 2: messed in politics in multiple countries all over the place.
Speaker 2: Is approval rating is in the toilet basically everywhere. As
Speaker 2: I'm about to cover my monologue having massive impact on
Speaker 2: Tesla in particular, where sales are falling off a cliff
Speaker 2: and where the stock price has just been you know,
Speaker 2: absolutely plummeting. So you know, if someone was trying to
Speaker 2: cause damage to him, his reputation's company, just to cause
Speaker 2: trouble or whatever. There are many potential suspects who would
Speaker 2: want to take aim at Elon Musk, but certainly the
Speaker 2: Ukrainian government or aligned forces is one of those.
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely right, Crystal, what are you taking a look at?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: Yesterday the entire stock market after Trump refused yet again
Speaker 2: to rule out plunging the country into recession. Among the
Speaker 2: harder hit stocks in the general selloff was Tesla, which
Speaker 2: has increasingly struggled with plummeting sales since Elon made himself
Speaker 2: king here in the US and jumped into politics on
Speaker 2: behalf of right wing candidates and causes. In countries around
Speaker 2: the world, Tesla sales have fallen off so hard that
Speaker 2: Volkswagen has actually surpassed Tesla in EV sales. Outside of China.
Speaker 2: I was shocked by that European sales for Tesla they
Speaker 2: have dropped by nearly half. The company did, though, get
Speaker 2: a boost from the President of the United States, who
Speaker 2: announced he's going to buy a Tesla to support the
Speaker 2: Great Elon. In a post he said, in part, the
Speaker 2: radical left lunatics, as they often do, are trying to
Speaker 2: illegally and collusively. Boycat caught Tesla, one of the world's
Speaker 2: great automakers and Elon's baby, in order to attack and
Speaker 2: do harm to Elon and everything he stands for. In
Speaker 2: any event, I'm going to buy a brand new Tesla
Speaker 2: tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for
Speaker 2: Elon Musk.
Speaker 4: A truly great American.
Speaker 2: I guess Elon is feeling sensitive enough about Tesla's too,
Speaker 2: asked for a presidential favor for his baby. Now amidst
Speaker 2: all this turmoil, there is a brewing possible scandal that
Speaker 2: has so far gotten little attention, but it could become
Speaker 2: a little more significant. Could also be a potential indicator
Speaker 2: of just how desperate the floundering company has become as
Speaker 2: pressures from a toxic leader, a stale product line, and
Speaker 2: increased competition, Mount Tesla is now being investigated for possible
Speaker 2: government fraud, not of our government, but of Canada and irony,
Speaker 2: to say the least, at a moment when Elon is
Speaker 2: posturing like the ultimate warrior against government waste fraud abuse.
Speaker 2: Lest you think this is some sort of politically motivated
Speaker 2: witch hunt because of Elon's position and an administration currently
Speaker 2: waging economic war on Canada. Take a listen to the
Speaker 2: facts from this local Canadian news report.
Speaker 5: A suspicious spike in Tesla sales has experts in the
Speaker 5: industry scratching their heads. It started with a deadline in
Speaker 5: January for Ottawa's rebate program on electric vehicles that allegedly
Speaker 5: prompted a mad rush to buy evs. Cdv's Adrian Gobriel
Speaker 5: has been crunching the numbers. Adrian, do they add up?
Speaker 7: Sandy? A spike in purchases was to be expected, though,
Speaker 7: the reported sale of eighty six hundred Teslas equaling forty
Speaker 7: three million dollars in rebates at four Canadian testl the
Speaker 7: locations has sparked plenty of questions.
Speaker 8: In the West End of Toronto. This one test the
Speaker 8: location alone reported selling more than twelve hundred vehicles on
Speaker 8: January eleventh, totaling more than four million dollars in rebates.
Speaker 8: So we paid them a visit to try and get
Speaker 8: some clarity on the staggering number of sales.
Speaker 6: How are you good?
Speaker 5: How are you good?
Speaker 7: Good?
Speaker 9: My name's Adrian Gobriel.
Speaker 1: I'm a journalist with CTV News.
Speaker 9: I think there was a large increase in the number
Speaker 9: of sales processed through the EV rebate program.
Speaker 1: Just trying to get.
Speaker 9: An understanding of perhaps what maybe some of the reasons
Speaker 9: were behind that. Did that take place or is that
Speaker 9: a backlog of paperwork going through You can't share any comments.
Speaker 9: Is there any manager you think that might be able
Speaker 9: to end the manager?
Speaker 8: Our multiple emails to Tesla's headquarters have been met with silence.
Speaker 4: It defies logic that these corporate stores of Tesla and
Speaker 4: Tesla shareholders and Elon Musk would be able to sell
Speaker 4: eighty six.
Speaker 1: Hundred vehicles in a single weekend. There's something highly unusual
Speaker 1: about this, so.
Speaker 2: To recap Canada has been running an EV rebate program
Speaker 2: which has been quite popular and quite successful. The way
Speaker 2: the program works is that when a customer purchase and
Speaker 2: purchases an EV, the cost of the rebate is originally
Speaker 2: fronted by the dealership. Then the dealer receives reimbursement from
Speaker 2: the government. Now, in early January, the government announced the
Speaker 2: fund was running low on money and might be suspended
Speaker 2: sometime in the next few weeks.
Speaker 4: And that is when four Tesla.
Speaker 2: Dealerships pulled off the biggest miracle since Fish and Loaves
Speaker 2: somehow selling eighty six hundred cars in just three days.
Speaker 2: One dealership claims to have sold four thousand Teslas over
Speaker 2: this period. Now that is quite a jump from the
Speaker 2: few dozen or so cars that they had previously been
Speaker 2: moving per day. I really got to see those morning
Speaker 2: sales meetings, I guess. I mean, are they hypnotizing the customers?
Speaker 2: Are they handing out tariff exemptions? Did they switch the
Speaker 2: complimentary coffee for pre workout and crack? According to car
Speaker 2: scoops and basic math, this level of sales would have
Speaker 2: required each of these four Tesla stores to sell thirty
Speaker 2: cars per hour, twenty four hours per day for three
Speaker 2: straight days. Now, if you scale the time back to
Speaker 2: the actual hours when the dealerships were even open, you
Speaker 2: would have more than one car sold every minute at
Speaker 2: each of these dealers across that three day period. Insane,
Speaker 2: As one government official told the Toronto Star quote, Tesla
Speaker 2: did not sell those cars that weekend. Now, Tesla went
Speaker 2: on to claim forty three million dollars in rebates, sucking
Speaker 2: up about half the remaining balance in the rebate fund,
Speaker 2: leaving other EV dealers holding the bag after they sold
Speaker 2: vehicles with the rebate priced in expecting to get a
Speaker 2: refund from the government. According to the Canadian Auto Dealers Association,
Speaker 2: independent dealers or out of pocket about ten million dollars
Speaker 2: after Tesla's car rebate application bomb. Now, perhaps people just
Speaker 2: saw the rebate was ending and decided in spectacular numbers
Speaker 2: to buy a Tesla before that perk went away. Cutting
Speaker 2: against that notion, however, is that, like the rest of
Speaker 2: the world, Canadian Tesla sales have been absolutely tanking, declining
Speaker 2: some seventy percent month over month. I think a more
Speaker 2: plausible explanation is that Tesla had sold a bunch of
Speaker 2: cars with the rebate over a number of months never
Speaker 2: filed those applications with the government. But that explanation too
Speaker 2: has some holes. Why the mass surge at just these
Speaker 2: few dealerships. Also, according to the Toronto Star, the program
Speaker 2: does require that rebate applications be filed before a car
Speaker 2: is delivered. Transport Canada did admit, however, that this policy
Speaker 2: was not being fully enforced, So we'll see what the
Speaker 2: government investigation turns up ultimately. Now, whether Tesla gained the
Speaker 2: system far and square, fudged the rules, or outright defrauded it,
Speaker 2: it's one more reason Canadians are certainly pissed at Musk
Speaker 2: and Tesla at a time when both the man and
Speaker 2: the company are facing massive global backlash. Here in the US,
Speaker 2: Tesla has attracted protests and property damage. Charging stations have
Speaker 2: been set on fire, cars have been tagged with stickers
Speaker 2: of Elon sighile, and protests have targeted Tesla dealerships across
Speaker 2: the country. For Elon personally, there is obviously a lot
Speaker 2: of state. It's believed that Tesla makes up about a
Speaker 2: third of Elon's net worth, and it's not like all
Speaker 2: his other business ventures are going particularly smoothly.
Speaker 4: At this point.
Speaker 2: Italians are pissed at Elon for meddling in their politics.
Speaker 2: They're threatening to scuttle a significant Starlink contract the tune
Speaker 2: of one point five billion dollars. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim
Speaker 2: is cutting ties with Musk and Starlink after Elon amplified
Speaker 2: a tweet suggesting that he was tied to drug cartels.
Speaker 2: Back in Canada, Ontario Premier Doug Ford permanently canceled a
Speaker 2: one hundred million dollars Starlink contract in response to Trump's
Speaker 2: trade war and Elon's last two rocket launches both blew
Speaker 2: up spectacularly, causing commercial flight diversions and airport closures in Florida.
Speaker 4: But me personally, I wouldn't worry too much.
Speaker 2: About Elon's bank account since as of today, he effectively
Speaker 2: has the entire US Treasury backstopping his net worth, and
Speaker 2: this is exactly the bet that he has placed.
Speaker 4: I suspect he.
Speaker 2: Has to know that going full right wing would hurt Tesla,
Speaker 2: would endanger contracts for Starlink and other of his companies,
Speaker 2: but the short term loss to him it's.
Speaker 4: Well worth it.
Speaker 2: If he's able to pull off his coup and continue
Speaker 2: his power graph, he'll have access to all of our
Speaker 2: dad at a feed into his AI, along with whatever
Speaker 2: other government favors he needs to help him prevail in
Speaker 2: the AI arms race. He'll be able to plow endless
Speaker 2: taxpayer resources into SpaceX to further enrich himself and achieve
Speaker 2: his big goal of making it to Mars. As weird
Speaker 2: and sci fi as it sounds, Mars is really kind
Speaker 2: of the ultimate dictator play here from Elon, because if
Speaker 2: he makes it to Mars, his rule there would be
Speaker 2: fully unchallenged and he could achieve his dream of a
Speaker 2: fully privatized society run at his personal whim. No more
Speaker 2: Canadian transportation agencies to shake their fist at him for
Speaker 2: ev rebates, no more Debbie downer regulators to complain about
Speaker 2: him turning the Gulf of Mexico into the Gulf of
Speaker 2: SpaceX debris. No more pesky customers with their choices to
Speaker 2: buy other vehicles. But even if you think the Mars
Speaker 2: ideas preposters, which I do, for the record, winning the
Speaker 2: AI race alone would make Musk an unstoppably powerful force.
Speaker 2: The idea of ketamine adult megalomaniac Elon Musk having control
Speaker 2: over the first earthly intelligence to surpass our own is
Speaker 2: truly terrifying. And there's a decent chance that that is
Speaker 2: exactly where we are headed. So as much as I'd
Speaker 2: like to think that Canada investigating Tesla and the stock dropping,
Speaker 2: the Starlink contracts getting canceled would matter to him, I
Speaker 2: just don't actually think that's really how he takes. He's
Speaker 2: all in massive gambles, everything on the line, that's what
Speaker 2: he's all about right now. He is risking it all
Speaker 2: for world domination. Who am I to say that that
Speaker 2: bet won't pay off?
Speaker 4: And Cyber. I'm curious for your view of weather.
Speaker 3: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 3: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com.
Speaker 1: Joining us now is Bryan Tyler Cohene. He's a YouTuber.
Speaker 3: He's been had quite a bit of success recently, and
Speaker 3: we're very happy to have him here on the show.
Speaker 1: It's good to see Brian. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 10: Good see you too.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me Brian.
Speaker 3: I am absolutely fascinated by the rise of your channel
Speaker 3: and of a few others. Not saying you haven't been
Speaker 3: doing well in the past, but I think you will
Speaker 3: say it's just been an absolute deluge and a bonanza
Speaker 3: very recently. And I've been curious, you know why you
Speaker 3: think that you've had quite a bit of success, as
Speaker 3: mainstream channels like CNN or MSNBC have had a decline
Speaker 3: in ratings. What do you think about your rise about Midas,
Speaker 3: Touch and others really blowing past many of these traditional
Speaker 3: media companies recently.
Speaker 10: I think it's a testament to how kind of fed
Speaker 10: up most of this country is with the lack of
Speaker 10: any stable or long term I don't know, like like
Speaker 10: value set from legacy media. I mean, we've seen depending
Speaker 10: on who comes in to helm any of these networks,
Speaker 10: suddenly there'sies change on a dime, and we see them
Speaker 10: them either till right, till left, go full full board
Speaker 10: to the center. But there isn't any any long standing
Speaker 10: guiding principles at these networks, and I think it kind
Speaker 10: of betrays that what they stand for is whatever they're
Speaker 10: told that they stand for, and there's a lot of
Speaker 10: false equivalencies. There's a lot of both SiZ ism and
Speaker 10: back in the day when we didn't have any other alternative,
Speaker 10: that was I mean, that's all we've got, right, But
Speaker 10: I think now in an era where people can seek
Speaker 10: out content that's actually guided by some degree of long
Speaker 10: standing principle, you guys are a testament to exactly that.
Speaker 10: I think people recognize that we don't have to just
Speaker 10: settle for media that decides what it is based on
Speaker 10: who becomes the new president or CEO that week.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that one of the things that has been
Speaker 2: really different with Trump two point zero among the Democratic
Speaker 2: base is their orientation both towards like MSNBC and CNN
Speaker 2: and also towards Democratic politicians themselves. I mean back in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, you know, it was nightly appointment viewing to
Speaker 2: watch Rachel Maddow, Like MSNBC was really sort of like
Speaker 2: the beating core of heart of the resistance. You know,
Speaker 2: Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff were leading the charge. There
Speaker 2: was a sense like, Okay, these guys are our guys.
Speaker 2: They're fighting for us, they're doing everything they possibly can,
Speaker 2: and we're all this sort of like unified army going
Speaker 2: to war against what we see happening here and this time,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, you could tell it in the race.
Speaker 2: You can also tell it in the poll numbers about
Speaker 2: how Democratic voters are incredibly disenchanted with Democratic leadership in
Speaker 2: a way that certainly reminds me of the way Republicans
Speaker 2: felt about Republican leadership during the Tea Party era. Do
Speaker 2: you think that that's part of what's going on here?
Speaker 2: And to what do you attribute that level of discontent.
Speaker 10: I think that there's two factions right now within the
Speaker 10: Democratic Party. I think that there is a faction that recognizes,
Speaker 10: and I would include myself in this faction, recognizes that
Speaker 10: we desperate, we need to like fight against what we're
Speaker 10: seeing right now, and then there's another that I think
Speaker 10: is more focused on loss, on risk aversion, and and
Speaker 10: so it's it's kind of tearing the party in two sides,
Speaker 10: because you've got people who say it's like the moderate
Speaker 10: versus versus progressive wings, right, and so you have people
Speaker 10: who say, Okay, we need to we need to we
Speaker 10: need to tack to the left and show some fight
Speaker 10: and and push back against the worst successes of this administration.
Speaker 1: And then you see the.
Speaker 10: More moderate members of the party or of the wing
Speaker 10: who are saying, like, you know, it was the tacking
Speaker 10: left that got us into this position in the first place.
Speaker 10: And clearly America is having a right word shift, and
Speaker 10: so I think that there's just some some inherent conflict
Speaker 10: there and and as a result of that, the party
Speaker 10: seems rudderless, the networks that speak to Democrats kind of
Speaker 10: seem rudderless, and there's just this this contradictory idea of
Speaker 10: where to go next.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Brian, one of the reasons I really wanted to
Speaker 3: talk to you is I really do think you guys might,
Speaker 3: as touched in others, are like the beating heart of
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party right now for the future. And the
Speaker 3: reason I'm curious, just as as an outside observer, is
Speaker 3: how do you feel about leadership? For example, like we
Speaker 3: have this we can put on the screen, the Axios
Speaker 3: tear sheet guys Democrats privately confronting their Trump speech disruptors
Speaker 3: and others. They're very focused on decorum. They're more risk averse,
Speaker 3: as you said, So, how is someone like you a
Speaker 3: really rising influencer? I think in the Democratic Party with
Speaker 3: the younger Democratic base, how are you feeling about HACKEM Jeffreys,
Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and the tact that they've decided
Speaker 3: to take in the Trump administration.
Speaker 11: Now?
Speaker 10: Well, I think what we need to do is figure
Speaker 10: out how to really optimize in this media environment. And
Speaker 10: that's something that we haven't been able to do before.
Speaker 10: I actually went to DC this past week and I
Speaker 10: spoke to a lot of members of the Democratic Caucus
Speaker 10: in the House and the Senate, and it was my
Speaker 10: effort really to try and convince them and persuade them
Speaker 10: about the importance of kind of embracing social media, recognizing
Speaker 10: the importance of of getting content creators in moving a
Speaker 10: lot of our our attention and focus from legacy media,
Speaker 10: where we've spent so much of our time talking to
Speaker 10: an audience that has already largely bought in, instead talking
Speaker 10: to an audience that that is, you know, not only
Speaker 10: bigger because that's where that's where uh, you know, social
Speaker 10: media audiences are, but also more persuadable and and look
Speaker 10: to their to their credit, they were largely on board
Speaker 10: with all of this stuff, and so I think it's important.
Speaker 10: I think it's important to to try and shift a
Speaker 10: lot of the attitudes that have been cemented for a really,
Speaker 10: really long time in DC. And so that's that's kind
Speaker 10: of my focus right now is to try and in
Speaker 10: so far as I have any influence in this party,
Speaker 10: given what I do online, my focus right now is
Speaker 10: just trying to get a lot of people on board
Speaker 10: to change their habits in an institution that is as
Speaker 10: nimble as a cruise ship.
Speaker 2: Basically well, and as part of that trip, you were
Speaker 2: able to talk to AOC.
Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little
Speaker 4: bit of what you have to say.
Speaker 11: Listen, if you're representative is not doing a town hall,
Speaker 11: give me a ring.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know if an.
Speaker 11: R plus twenty five districts would have me, but I'm
Speaker 11: always willing to be proven wrong. And I mean, I'll
Speaker 11: say it right here, right now, if a deep red
Speaker 11: Republican district wants to have an honest conversation, even if
Speaker 11: it's with someone they disagree with, I'm willing to do that.
Speaker 11: You know, I'm willing to meet with Republicans and just
Speaker 11: you know, be honest about where I stand where they stand.
Speaker 11: We can explain, you know, and understand each other better.
Speaker 11: But I definitely think it creates a vacuum. And even
Speaker 11: if it's not a Democratic member, people can host community
Speaker 11: town halls. You don't need a member of Congress to
Speaker 11: host a town hall and just host one without them.
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the better ideas that demos
Speaker 2: have floated. And really it's sort of Bernie Sanders who's
Speaker 2: led the charge. I'm sure you saw the images from
Speaker 2: his town all like ten thousand people showing up on
Speaker 2: a random day in Warren, Michigan. You know, just astonishing
Speaker 2: level of energy just because he's out there and basically signaling,
Speaker 2: you know, like we're going to fight and here's something
Speaker 2: we can actually do. I know, Rokanna said he's going
Speaker 2: to do town halls. Tim Wallas said he's going to
Speaker 2: do town halls, AOC saying she's going to do town halls.
Speaker 4: And it's been kind of interesting.
Speaker 2: To me the tactical or ideological valance of this moment,
Speaker 2: because one of the other big Democratic stars of the
Speaker 2: moment is Jasmine Crockett, who is not necessarily ideologically the
Speaker 2: same as Bernie Sanders. But I think there's such a
Speaker 2: base level excitement about these individuals simply because it feels
Speaker 2: like they're putting up a fight, and because they do
Speaker 2: understand the attention economy and how quickly the news moves
Speaker 2: and how much you have to jump on it right
Speaker 2: at that moment and not be afraid of stirring the
Speaker 2: pod and not be afraid of creating some controversy.
Speaker 10: Hundred percent. I mean, that's how this that's how this
Speaker 10: entire ecosystem works. And I think that you're exactly right
Speaker 10: in terms of the thing that people want to see
Speaker 10: is that you are willing to fight. And this doesn't necessarily,
Speaker 10: to your exact point, have to be like a progressive
Speaker 10: versus moderate, doesn't have to be you don't have to
Speaker 10: be a certain political persuasion, you don't have to land
Speaker 10: somewhere specifically on the ideological spectrum to be able to
Speaker 10: do this. People just want to see that you are
Speaker 10: there doing the job that they put you in office
Speaker 10: to do, and so and so that's why there's a
Speaker 10: lot of focus on these people who are actually getting
Speaker 10: themselves out there and showing that they're willing to have
Speaker 10: some fight. And it doesn't have Look, we're in a
Speaker 10: position right now where we're in the majority. We don't
Speaker 10: have to be relitigating Medicare for all today because it's
Speaker 10: not like any of that stuff is going to happen.
Speaker 10: But if you're going out there and you're saying, look,
Speaker 10: I'm here to make sure that your Medicaid is protected,
Speaker 10: that to make sure that that snap benefits are protected,
Speaker 10: to make sure that education funding or any healthcare funding,
Speaker 10: or that veterans have jobs. If I'm putting myself out
Speaker 10: there showing that I'm willing to actually do the work,
Speaker 10: people are going to respond to that. It is precisely
Speaker 10: the unwillingness or inability of anybody in office to actually
Speaker 10: stick their necks out there and show that they're willing
Speaker 10: to fight. It is that that same risk aversion that
Speaker 10: I was talking about before, that people are actually tired
Speaker 10: of these days and kind of puts you in that
Speaker 10: camp of doing stuff that's safe and uncontroversial, and like
Speaker 10: people don't want to see that. We're in a moment where,
Speaker 10: you know, democracy is at risk, where healthcare is at risk,
Speaker 10: where so much of of what we hold deer is
Speaker 10: at risk, and if you're just going to kind of
Speaker 10: sit back.
Speaker 1: People are going to recognize that.
Speaker 10: So again, it's not it doesn't have to do with
Speaker 10: how progressive or how moderate you are. It's just that
Speaker 10: you're putting yourself out there and that you're showing you're
Speaker 10: willing to fight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to dig down on that a little
Speaker 1: bit though.
Speaker 3: Something I watched during the Tea Party era is that
Speaker 3: opposition to Obama really became like the unifying force of
Speaker 3: the Republican Party. But then after Obama was gone, there
Speaker 3: were huge fights and those litmus tests on policy. You know,
Speaker 3: those things mattered. You talked there about Medicare for all.
Speaker 3: So I'm curious at a policy level. You know, I
Speaker 3: watched some of your channel, and a lot of it
Speaker 3: is just about Donald Trump. That seems to be the
Speaker 3: stuff that really is most animating right now. But sooner
Speaker 3: or later, you know, might actually win an election, you
Speaker 3: might be in power. So what are the types of
Speaker 3: things that you think do matter, you know, for a
Speaker 3: future Democratic leader. Republicans at that time said, you need
Speaker 3: to figer about you know, you need to be concerned
Speaker 3: about debt. We need to repeal Obamacare. No matter what
Speaker 3: you want to say about the Tea Party, they did
Speaker 3: have some demands. What are some of the demands that
Speaker 3: you think you have, Brian.
Speaker 10: Well, first of all, we should be so lucky to
Speaker 10: be in a position where we can start litigating the
Speaker 10: things that matter to Democrats. But hopefully we do get
Speaker 10: there soon. I mean, look, I'm a progressive. What I
Speaker 10: would like to see is full board, green new deal.
Speaker 10: I would like to see Medicare for all, you know,
Speaker 10: like I would like to see a fifteen dollars minimum wage.
Speaker 10: I would like to see the Proact get passed so
Speaker 10: that we can boaster unions in this country. But I
Speaker 10: view myself as a pragmatic progressive, and I know that
Speaker 10: that what's going to work in certain places may not
Speaker 10: necessarily work in other places. So you know, I'm perfectly
Speaker 10: content to if we're lucky enough to be able to
Speaker 10: get in a position where we can again litigate this stuff.
Speaker 10: I would love to be able to have, you know,
Speaker 10: have these these conversations and have these debates with folks.
Speaker 10: My focus obviously right now, for as is the same
Speaker 10: for any Democrat, is just to get in a position
Speaker 10: where we can actually be able to exercise power. And
Speaker 10: that's going to take a lot of that's going to
Speaker 10: take a lot of changes from our strategy right now,
Speaker 10: because you know, it feels like, well, it feels million
Speaker 10: miles away at this at this moment. But it also
Speaker 10: depends on Democrats actually being able to wield, to be
Speaker 10: willing to wield power once we do get into office.
Speaker 10: And so often we look, there's a huge difference between
Speaker 10: what Republicans do with power when they're in office and
Speaker 10: what Democrats do with power in office. And I think
Speaker 10: the perfect and apsolation of that is what happens with
Speaker 10: the parliamentarian. Like for the Democrats, the parliamentarian says no,
Speaker 10: and we're like, well, that's it. The parliamentarian says no,
Speaker 10: So I guess, I guess there's no other avenue and
Speaker 10: we just have to kind of sit down and lick
Speaker 10: our wounds and that's the end of the fight. Republicans
Speaker 10: will and literally have just replace the parliamentarian altogether. If
Speaker 10: they don't get what they want, and that is how
Speaker 10: they view power, they figure out how they can get there.
Speaker 10: It's almost like Republicans, if they get told no, they
Speaker 10: figure out how they can get to yes. If Democrats.
Speaker 10: If Democrats get told no, they they're perfectly content to
Speaker 10: accept that, and it almost sometimes feels like they're not
Speaker 10: even willing to try and get to yes. And so
Speaker 10: that's what I would like to see if Democrats actually
Speaker 10: get into power. Notwithstanding what I would like to see
Speaker 10: on the specific policy front, and again I listed a
Speaker 10: bunch of things that I would like to see on
Speaker 10: the policy front right there, but just more broadly, a
Speaker 10: focus on actually being able to wield and exercise power
Speaker 10: in the rare instances, rare opportunities where we actually get it.
Speaker 4: I was curious what you made.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you saw the Gavin Newsom Charlie Kirk podcast situation.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you, like, I'm not a Gavin Newsom
Speaker 2: fan because I think he's you know, way too corporate
Speaker 2: and you know, puts donors ahead of progressive values often,
Speaker 2: but I do respect his political talent. I saw him
Speaker 2: go on Fox News and really take it to Ron DeSantis.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people like that, you know,
Speaker 2: certainly increased my estimation of him. I think a lot
Speaker 2: of Democratic base voters felt the same way. And so
Speaker 2: when I saw he's doing this podcast he was having
Speaker 2: a few right wing folks on, including Charlie Kirk, I
Speaker 2: was like, Oh, that's actually really smart because he can
Speaker 2: fight with him and people are going to freaking love that.
Speaker 4: And then he has him on.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh my god, Charlie, you're so like influential
Speaker 2: and my son loves you, and let's talk about some
Speaker 2: issues where I want to, like, you know, culturally, shift
Speaker 2: more towards your position and find common ground, et cetera,
Speaker 2: putting aside like you know, my positions on that issue,
Speaker 2: and how grotesque I find that to be. I also
Speaker 2: just found it to be so tone deaf for the
Speaker 2: political moment, because if he actually, like this man obviously
Speaker 2: wants to be president, and if you actually want to
Speaker 2: position yourself in that way, then what you need to
Speaker 2: be doing is demonstrating that you will show up and
Speaker 2: debate these people, you will hold them to account, you
Speaker 2: will demonstrate that you're a fighter. I mean to what
Speaker 2: do you attribute that total tone deafness about what the
Speaker 2: Democratic base actually wants to see from a politician like
Speaker 2: him right now?
Speaker 10: Yeah, I think the main thing is he wanted to
Speaker 10: show himself as being more willing to embrace like the
Speaker 10: eighty side of that eighty twenty issue. But I think
Speaker 10: to your exact point, look, the biggest the biggest virtue
Speaker 10: for someone like Gavin Newsom, and something that obviously I
Speaker 10: find really attractive about him as a candidate, is that
Speaker 10: he is willing to get out there and fight. He
Speaker 10: is willing to go on Fox News and defend his positions,
Speaker 10: defend his values stand on business, and that's something that's
Speaker 10: in short supply in the Democratic Party and so it
Speaker 10: is a great idea to have a podcast where you
Speaker 10: invite folks from the other side on and actually try
Speaker 10: and stand up and defend your values. That's something that
Speaker 10: we desperately need in democratic politics. And so it was
Speaker 10: disappointing to see that he was so effusive in his
Speaker 10: praise for Charlie Kirk, because again, his biggest virtue is
Speaker 10: that he is able to fight, and so when you
Speaker 10: sacrifice that that then then if you sacrifice your biggest
Speaker 10: your biggest asset as a candidate. Then then that really
Speaker 10: does that really does hurt how people I think perceive you.
Speaker 10: More broadly, this isn't a time right now your your
Speaker 10: stance on the issues. Notwithstanding, this isn't a time right
Speaker 10: now to lay down arms and show that you're willing
Speaker 10: to just fully, fully embrace not only folks on the right,
Speaker 10: but just bad faith folks on the right, people who
Speaker 10: are doing this as solely political actors. And so, you know,
Speaker 10: I would I know that he's gonna do more episodes
Speaker 10: in this series. I think that the reaction to this,
Speaker 10: this might be exactly what he was looking for, might
Speaker 10: be looking for some some praise, some pets from right wingers,
Speaker 10: and even even if it's at the risk of, you know,
Speaker 10: pissing off some Democrats, so be it. But I would
Speaker 10: like to see him actually stand up and fight for
Speaker 10: the things that he believes in, because that's really that's
Speaker 10: really where he's derived so much of his popularity and
Speaker 10: strength prior to doing this.
Speaker 3: Rian, let me ask you, what is your retrospective take
Speaker 3: on what went wrong in the election. Unlike us, you
Speaker 3: actually got to interview Joe Biden. You met him while
Speaker 3: he was in the oval office. So what is your
Speaker 3: like grand theory of why Democrats lost in this election.
Speaker 10: I think it's I think it's two things, well three things.
Speaker 10: First is the economy. I think that that we saw
Speaker 10: the ways in which the high inflate, like the global
Speaker 10: phenomenon of high inflation led to led to incumbents or
Speaker 10: governing parties getting ousted across the world. I think Mexican
Speaker 10: Mexico's president was the only one to be able to
Speaker 10: withstand that. But a lot of people in this country
Speaker 10: sadly just don't pay attention to politics, but they do
Speaker 10: pay attention to the costs that impact their lives, and
Speaker 10: so if costs are high, they're going to punish the
Speaker 10: people in charge. The people in charge were the Democrats.
Speaker 10: The second is I think that the Democrats. The big
Speaker 10: disadvantage for the Democrats in this media ecosystem is that
Speaker 10: it's just the size and scope of right wing media.
Speaker 10: And so if you have an issue like gender reassignment
Speaker 10: surgeries among trans inmates in prison, which is an issue
Speaker 10: that Kamala spoke about in twenty nineteen and has disavowed
Speaker 10: in this past election cycle, if Republicans have the amount
Speaker 10: of people and the amount of money to be able
Speaker 10: to put this message in front of everybody. Then they
Speaker 10: can kind of create the reality that they want to create,
Speaker 10: and Democrats don't have anything to push back against it.
Speaker 10: I mean, the Democratic Party never bothered bolstering their own
Speaker 10: independent media ecosystem, even though ten years ago the Republicans
Speaker 10: started building up Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, Meghan Kelly, Tucker, Carlson,
Speaker 10: Alex Jones. And so they have these folks who are
Speaker 10: willing to push the narrative through in an expressly political
Speaker 10: way that the Democrats just can't do because our message
Speaker 10: distribution system has always been CNN and MSNBC and the
Speaker 10: New York Times, and a lot of these networks are
Speaker 10: perfectly willing to take the messages that are being fed
Speaker 10: to them by right wing media. And so what you're
Speaker 10: left with is sixty nine cover stories about Hillary's emails,
Speaker 10: for example, in the twenty sixteen election, because Republicans are
Speaker 10: willing to just exercise overtly partisan voices, and the Democrats
Speaker 10: will or liberal media will always bite on that. And
Speaker 10: so there's this huge asymmetry where whatever narrative Republicans want
Speaker 10: to perpetuate, they do, and then liberal media, which we've
Speaker 10: decided is again our message distribution system is perfectly content
Speaker 10: to bite on all of that stuff. And so those are.
Speaker 1: Two of the main things.
Speaker 10: And then obviously, look in retrospect, I think that the
Speaker 10: only answer would have been immediately after Joe Biden the
Speaker 10: the you know, either one in twenty twenty or Democrats
Speaker 10: had a strong performance in twenty twenty two, that he
Speaker 10: drops out and we figure out, you know, a new
Speaker 10: way forward that also includes a candidate who is willing
Speaker 10: to show some distance between between him or her and
Speaker 10: Joe Biden. And you know, look, I understand too, because
Speaker 10: it's it's for somebody who had just beaten Donald Trump
Speaker 10: by eight million votes to say, okay, now I have
Speaker 10: no mandate to continue.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 10: Regardless of whether or not I agree with it, I
Speaker 10: understand it. Same deal with midterms. If you look at
Speaker 10: somebody who just presided over over a strong midterm performance
Speaker 10: in what was supposed to be a red wave year, again,
Speaker 10: hard to say that there's some huge mandate. And yes,
Speaker 10: I sat down with him, and you can watch the interview.
Speaker 10: It's completely unedited. It's difficult to look at that and
Speaker 10: to see that it was the same, you know, the
Speaker 10: same guy who would be on that debate stage two
Speaker 10: summers from them, two summers from then, and think that
Speaker 10: it's the same person. But you know, his decline was
Speaker 10: pretty precipitous in that respect, and so so I think
Speaker 10: between those three, you know, that's that's kind of what
Speaker 10: led to the position where we're in right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, aging is also very uneven, so he could
Speaker 2: be cojin at one point and then completely not Cojin
Speaker 2: another moment, which is some of what has come out
Speaker 2: from his aids, you know, after the fact, belatedly after
Speaker 2: it was too late to do anything or change or
Speaker 2: ultimately changed course. The last as question I have for
Speaker 2: you is, you know, as YouTubers like, we all have
Speaker 2: a feel for our audiences and like, oh, this segment,
Speaker 2: this headline, this is really going to pop, this is
Speaker 2: really going to click. What is your sense of what
Speaker 2: is sort of like most animating about Trump two point
Speaker 2: zero for your audience? You know, is it elon in Doge?
Speaker 2: Is it immigration? Is it the trade war with Canada? Like,
Speaker 2: what are the particular issues or the particular threats from
Speaker 2: this Trump administration that have really animated your audience and
Speaker 2: caused them really to flock to you in in droves.
Speaker 10: I think there's a couple of things. I think the
Speaker 10: Elon stuff is especially potent because even ironically enough, even
Speaker 10: at the same exact moment, as you have Republicans railing
Speaker 10: against unelected bureaucrats, you have an unelected bureaucrat who is
Speaker 10: aggressively unpopular, not just for Democrats, but especially for Republicans.
Speaker 10: And this is an issue that Look, the important thing
Speaker 10: in politics is that you find issues that unite your
Speaker 10: party and divide the other party, and Elon is exactly
Speaker 10: that issue. Democrats are united in their disdain for somebody
Speaker 10: who's going to go in with a hatchet and unilaterally
Speaker 10: try and destroy agencies that do good, try and destroy programs,
Speaker 10: life saving, life saving programs and lifelines for American for
Speaker 10: the American people that are overwhelmingly popular. And so that's
Speaker 10: an issue that I think has really driven a lot
Speaker 10: of attention on YouTube especially, and also, look, there is
Speaker 10: there's a big international audience on YouTube. It's the biggest,
Speaker 10: biggest platform in the world. And so even as Trump
Speaker 10: continues his attacks against countries that are allies, countries like Canada,
Speaker 10: country like Mexico, European countries. That's driving a lot of
Speaker 10: interest too, because suddenly this clown show that was isolated
Speaker 10: to just within our borders is seeping out across the world.
Speaker 10: It's having impacts in Russia and Ukraine and China and
Speaker 10: Europe and South America. And so there are a lot
Speaker 10: of people suddenly paying attention because this isn't like not
Speaker 10: my circus, not my monkey situation. Now we're all part
Speaker 10: of the circus, and so everybody has a vested interest
Speaker 10: in paying attention.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my last question for you, Brian is how do
Speaker 3: you view yourself in this role? So there's been variety
Speaker 3: of theories, as you said, you mentioned Charlie Kirk, Charlie
Speaker 3: Kirk is kind of a YouTube podcast.
Speaker 1: Was ultimately like an actual political force.
Speaker 3: We've seen previous efforts like jank Uger or somebody else's
Speaker 3: husband here who formed the Justice Democrats right, trying and
Speaker 3: push forward and agenda. Oh, well, what do you think
Speaker 3: about your own role as you continue to rise with
Speaker 3: a lot of the Democratic base.
Speaker 10: It's a really good question, and I've never been asked that. Look,
Speaker 10: I I try to be I'm trying to reach as
Speaker 10: many people as I can. That in a kind of
Speaker 10: a space for where expaths from legacy media feel like
Speaker 10: they have somebody who kind of can speak on their wavelength.
Speaker 10: I try to position myself with the majority of I
Speaker 10: think what the party what like regular Democrats think that
Speaker 10: there There's also the fact that because I've been lucky
Speaker 10: enough to have access to democratic politicians, I'm trying to
Speaker 10: use the position that I have to be able to
Speaker 10: be able to foster some change from the inside of
Speaker 10: the actual party itself. And if I have the opportunity
Speaker 10: to go and speak to these folks, use that voice
Speaker 10: to try and push for more of an embrace on
Speaker 10: independent media. And I know that a lot of people
Speaker 10: in this space and this ecosystem don't have that kind
Speaker 10: of access, and so if I do, I'm going to
Speaker 10: try to use it to the best of my ability
Speaker 10: and to the for the betterment of the party more broadly.
Speaker 10: And so if I have the ability to go up
Speaker 10: on the hill and speak to folks, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 10: gonna use that not to not to be as hostile
Speaker 10: as I can, but instead to say, like, look, I
Speaker 10: do think it's important that we embrace independent media. I
Speaker 10: do think it's important that you start to talk to
Speaker 10: content creators. I do think it's important that we have
Speaker 10: a posture where y'all are going out and being willing
Speaker 10: to fight, because that's what the majority of my audience,
Speaker 10: that's what the majority of I think the party more
Speaker 10: broadly wants to see. And so a little bit a
Speaker 10: little bit of a different positioning than I think the
Speaker 10: vast majority of YouTubers out there. But but look again,
Speaker 10: in so far as I have any influence, I'm trying
Speaker 10: to use it in the most in the most helpful
Speaker 10: way possible.
Speaker 3: Got it, well, I really enjoyed talking to you, man,
Speaker 3: and I'll be paying attention. So thank you for joining us.
Speaker 4: Thanks Brian, we appreciate it. Thanks guys, Yeah, our pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for watching.
Speaker 3: We appreciate a great counterpoint show for everybody tomorrow and
Speaker 3: we will see you all later