Speaker 1: Cancer Straight Talk is a podcast for Memorial Sloan Kettering
Speaker 1: Cancer Center where hosts doctor Diane Reedy Lagunas has intimate
Speaker 1: conversations with patients and experts about topics like dating and sex,
Speaker 1: exercise and diet, the power of gratitude, and more. I
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Speaker 1: learn so much. Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric and this
Speaker 1: is next question. Well, folks, we're taping this episode the
Speaker 1: morning after a pretty shocking Trump rally that took place
Speaker 1: at Madison Square Garden. The rhetoric was more inflammatory than
Speaker 1: ever as if that's possible. My friend, comedian and cultural
Speaker 1: commentator Sam b is here today. Is my plus one. Sam. Hi,
Speaker 1: how are you? It's so good to see you.
Speaker 2: I swear to God, you know what, There's nowhere i'd
Speaker 2: rather be than right here talking to you right now.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you right.
Speaker 1: Oh good lord. We have so much to talk about.
Speaker 1: But first, how how have you been? I haven't seen
Speaker 1: you in person for quite a while. I miss you
Speaker 1: and your show, but you've been staying very busy, Sam,
Speaker 1: tell us what you've been up to? Very busy?
Speaker 2: I did I did a one woman show called How
Speaker 2: to Survive a Mental pas, which I loved so much
Speaker 2: and it was probably just like one of the most
Speaker 2: fun creative experiences I've had in a really long time.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to do it more. I just don't
Speaker 2: know when. And I'm doing the Daily Beast podcast with
Speaker 2: Joanna Coles, which is super fun. It's like a it's
Speaker 2: a pretty great outfit and we get to like plunder
Speaker 2: their reporting in a really fun way. It's been I
Speaker 2: don't know, I'm just kind of going along for the ride.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 1: And you're you're You're Canadian. You're in Toronto right now,
Speaker 1: I am. Do you have you have Canadian citizenship? Have
Speaker 1: you been thinking about that?
Speaker 2: It's I'm just lightly scoping out neighborhoods, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. Like, I'm not sure i'd go back to
Speaker 2: the neighborhood where I grew up, but I'm just like,
Speaker 2: that's interesting. Look at this delightful neighborhood with these coffee shops.
Speaker 2: This is very lovable. People aren't at the absolute end
Speaker 2: of their rope at all moments of the day and night.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting vibe.
Speaker 1: I know, well, you can't say that about this country,
Speaker 1: right now you can kind of feel it in the air,
Speaker 1: the anxiety, the trepidation, the sphincter tightening that is going on.
Speaker 1: And whenever I can use the word sphincter, I like
Speaker 1: to embrace that. And why I couldn't think of someone
Speaker 1: who would be a better partner my plus one to
Speaker 1: talk to one of my favorite people, Van Jones, about
Speaker 1: what is happening right now in our country, because honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to make of it anymore. And
Speaker 1: that's why Van is going to explain it all to us.
Speaker 1: I think in many ways, Van Jones has been a
Speaker 1: kind of north star during the course of this election,
Speaker 1: although at times even his magnanimity that's a good word,
Speaker 1: look it up has been tested. So how do we
Speaker 1: get here? What does this say about us? Could Kamala
Speaker 1: have done anything differently? And what about Trump's closing argument?
Speaker 1: Van Jones? Welcome to Next Question with my co host
Speaker 1: Samantha Bee.
Speaker 3: Helloathan, Hello, been blessed to be a guest with sam
Speaker 3: in the past, so it's good to be that.
Speaker 1: It's nice to see and of course she loved me too. Van,
Speaker 1: can we please at that we.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean that goes out. I think the global
Speaker 3: love affair with Katie Kuric is unending and all inclusive always.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, now you're going overboard. But thank you
Speaker 1: for being here, and Gosh, Van, we have so much
Speaker 1: to talk about. I saw you on Bill Maher on
Speaker 1: Friday night. I watched it last night because I had
Speaker 1: a wedding out of town and caught up with you there. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I watch you on CNN and big fan, Van, big fan,
Speaker 1: and you've.
Speaker 3: Always been very kind and very encouraging. I sincerely appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Really well, let's talk about Gosh. I guess the latest
Speaker 1: thing we need to talk about is what happened last
Speaker 1: night right here in New York City, not far from
Speaker 1: where I live at Madison Square Garden. Did you all
Speaker 1: watch this rally? Did you see clips of it? And
Speaker 1: what can I say? What did you think?
Speaker 3: Look? You know I have a friend who I've been
Speaker 3: talking with her earlier in the day, and you know,
Speaker 3: she's she's frustrated with where the Democrats are a number
Speaker 3: of her issues. She's quite progressive, and she was like,
Speaker 3: I'm going to vote but and then I sent her
Speaker 3: the clip of this horrible bigot making fun of Mexicans
Speaker 3: is talking about. You know, they have so many babies
Speaker 3: they have They never pull out. They always come inside
Speaker 3: the same way that they came inside our country. Ha
Speaker 3: ha ha. And when she heard the crowd, this massive crowd,
Speaker 3: one of Trump's biggest crowd, laughing, laughing, laughing and making
Speaker 3: fun of Mexican immigrants like her and Puerto Ricans, you know,
Speaker 3: she immediately started sending it around to her family members
Speaker 3: because like, this is a choice. You know, we have
Speaker 3: as always imperfect, you know, Democratic candidates, except for Barack Obama,
Speaker 3: they've all been imperfect. And then we have a literal
Speaker 3: clown car fascist who was doing like racist insult comedy
Speaker 3: eight days away from an election. You know, there's a
Speaker 3: lot going on. Like I don't know if you guys
Speaker 3: know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage
Speaker 3: in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: think it's called Puerto Rico. I don't get it. Like,
Speaker 3: there's no if you need more information than that, And
Speaker 3: there there was no rebuke. There's nobody to come out
Speaker 3: and said that we don't believe in that. Well, no,
Speaker 3: they love that. They are going to pull off the
Speaker 3: biggest con ever, and that they're going to get black
Speaker 3: some black people marginally more than what would have given
Speaker 3: them a vote, and some Latin people to vote for
Speaker 3: someone who is going to turn around and do a
Speaker 3: massive crackdown on black and brown communities. Colm was trying
Speaker 3: to lift people up. Trump wants to lock people up.
Speaker 3: And you know that's where we are eight days out.
Speaker 1: Sam as a comedian, Yeah, I had to ask you
Speaker 1: about the quality of the humor. Obviously it was insulting,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't even funny, you know what the.
Speaker 2: Crazy the thing that is so I mean, everything about
Speaker 2: it is so incredibly disheartening and I definitely watched it
Speaker 2: sitting on those side just kind of just like just
Speaker 2: like in a state of disbelief from like this is
Speaker 2: who you you know this comedian like Tony Hunchcliff, Like
Speaker 2: they hired him, they asked him to come and do this.
Speaker 1: They know by the way, Sam, it's like a he's like.
Speaker 2: Very well known for like roasting people. He's like a
Speaker 2: roast comic and he did you know he did one
Speaker 2: that Tom Brady wrote like he does really like outrageous,
Speaker 2: like like super just like hardcore, like pushing the boundaries
Speaker 2: that's like his signature. That's his signature. If you've watched
Speaker 2: one minute of his comedy, you know exactly what he's
Speaker 2: all about. So having him come to a political rally
Speaker 2: with tens of thousands of people there that's going to
Speaker 2: be watched like nationwide, is on purpose. It's an on
Speaker 2: purpose dog whistle. When you pay this person to come
Speaker 2: and speak at your thing, you know what you're getting.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it was a dog whistle, right, it
Speaker 1: was just it's just like a right, just like.
Speaker 2: A blowhorn, Like you know, they all knew what was
Speaker 2: going to happen, and unfortunately I just kind of go, wow,
Speaker 2: that's so an intentional Like this is where your part is.
Speaker 2: This is where you want people to vote for you,
Speaker 2: but this is what this is what you have intentionally
Speaker 2: put out in the world as a representative of you
Speaker 2: and all the people that you stand for.
Speaker 1: Like it's so awful.
Speaker 2: I want to just I feel like I don't even know,
Speaker 2: I don't even know what to do, and it's working
Speaker 2: for them in a way because they're getting wall to
Speaker 2: wall free press for it, and I'm like, wow, this
Speaker 2: is like it's like Machiavellian. I'm like, I can't believe
Speaker 2: that anyone could look at this person and think that
Speaker 2: this crew of people could possibly be the president of
Speaker 2: all Americans. Is so disgusting to me on such a
Speaker 2: deep level, Like how dare you?
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people, and we live in
Speaker 3: like the United States of Amnesia, right, A lot of
Speaker 3: people really have just kind of forgotten how bad it was,
Speaker 3: you know, in during the years, and I think people
Speaker 3: have I thinks a couple of these going on one
Speaker 3: as people remember that they were good economic times, they
Speaker 3: forget that that was the Obama economy that Trump inherited.
Speaker 3: I mean Obama we had, we had seventy five straight
Speaker 3: months of job growth under Obama. He handed that off
Speaker 3: to Trump. It actually slowed down under Trump, but he
Speaker 3: still had the good momentum from the Obama years. And
Speaker 3: then he started chasing off all the good people around him,
Speaker 3: and by the time he got to COVID, he was
Speaker 3: down to not the B team, not the C team,
Speaker 3: but the D team. He had taken Obama's playbook for
Speaker 3: a pandemic and put in a garbage cant someplace, dismountled
Speaker 3: that whole function in the federal government. So we had
Speaker 3: a million, six hundred thousand extra Americans die because Trump
Speaker 3: had a d team around him and they had thrown
Speaker 3: away the eight teams playbook and didn't know what that
Speaker 3: well he was doing. I was talking about injecting bleach.
Speaker 3: So you had a worse economic performance under Trump. Only
Speaker 3: thing that Trump did for the economy was cut tactics
Speaker 3: for rich people. He didn't pass Obamacare, he didn't do
Speaker 3: anything to help anybody, but he put his name on
Speaker 3: stimulus checks, and so people think that Trump was for them.
Speaker 3: So that was terrible. But then the thing that's even
Speaker 3: more awful is it going forward? People say, well, it
Speaker 3: wasn't so bad before. Democrats always scream hit, leer and racist.
Speaker 3: I don't have to listen. I said, you know what, honestly,
Speaker 3: you have a point. If you're a conservative. We said
Speaker 3: Romney was unfit, we said we didn't like John McCain.
Speaker 3: You have a point to say. They Democrats always attack
Speaker 3: our nominee. And you might be rational and saying I'm
Speaker 3: not going to listen to Democrats, but you should listen
Speaker 3: to Republicans. You should listen to all the Republicans who
Speaker 3: serve with them. Do just listen to all the generals
Speaker 3: who serve with them, who are screaming and yelling and saying,
Speaker 3: this guy is completely incompetent. You should listen to the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court that says now Supreme that the president can
Speaker 3: be lawless, which that was a restraint before. Now there's
Speaker 3: no restraint from the Supreme You have people who are
Speaker 3: Republicans saying he's a racist and a fascist, and you
Speaker 3: will no longer have You won't even have the D team.
Speaker 3: You're going to have the Z team around him in
Speaker 3: the White House. This is this is a very very
Speaker 3: serious threat that we're facing eighty days.
Speaker 1: I want to know why you think people have amnesia.
Speaker 1: I think you know what are the root causes and
Speaker 1: the root reasons that you think people are gravitating to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and the race is so tight.
Speaker 3: I think social media. I think there's a big campaign
Speaker 3: from Russia, China and Roan to just discourage and distress progresses,
Speaker 3: and so I think that's more effective than that. Honestly,
Speaker 3: I think that RFK Junior supporting Trump has hurt us,
Speaker 3: hurt progressive and helped Trump more than people really understand.
Speaker 3: Because I do think that the make America healthy again Maha,
Speaker 3: that slogan does appeal to some people in the yoga
Speaker 3: and kil crowd and other people who.
Speaker 1: The wellness community.
Speaker 3: Wellness community has been pulled very far to the right,
Speaker 3: frankly objectively, in ways that I think people are not tracking.
Speaker 3: So I do think that there's that, But but yeah,
Speaker 3: I think people are hurting and uncertain. I think that
Speaker 3: you know, it sucks to go at the grocery store
Speaker 3: and have to take stuff out of your cart and
Speaker 3: put it back on the shelf because you know, you're
Speaker 3: watching those numbers go up in a way that's kind
Speaker 3: of scary. I think. I think the economy managed a
Speaker 3: lot of people, and you know, everything is twenty percent
Speaker 3: more expected than it used to be. And now that
Speaker 3: was a worldwide global phenomenon and we beat it back better,
Speaker 3: faster and quicker than era. But people don't like that
Speaker 3: kind of thing, and there's a lot of disinformation out
Speaker 3: there too.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, do you think that people
Speaker 1: understand that Joe Biden. I mean, my husband and I
Speaker 1: talk about this because he thinks that Joe Biden has
Speaker 1: had impact on inflation. I say that it's sort of
Speaker 1: a worldwide trend, as you do, Van, But were there
Speaker 1: things that Joe Biden could have done to get prices
Speaker 1: down at the grocery store. Was flooding the economy with
Speaker 1: all the COVID money was flooding, you know, with adding
Speaker 1: to the deficit with student loan forgiveness. I'm not the
Speaker 1: economy is not my strong suit. But were there things
Speaker 1: that were initiated by the Biden administration are not done
Speaker 1: that have led voters to feel that he could have
Speaker 1: had a bigger impact on these things?
Speaker 3: Well? Look, possibly, though it's hard to tell. Look, and
Speaker 3: there were people the works of economists warning you might
Speaker 3: be putting too much gas on the fire by doing
Speaker 3: some of the investments and other things that needed to
Speaker 3: get done. But you know what, I think what people
Speaker 3: forget is a lot of that spending you know that
Speaker 3: Biden and Harris did on infrastructure. It's still that's that's
Speaker 3: long term, that's not it's not like they just poured
Speaker 3: it all on the streets. Everybody went and grabbed it
Speaker 3: and like started buying cotton candy. Like long term investments
Speaker 3: in the country payoff over a long period of time,
Speaker 3: they also hit the economy over a long period of time.
Speaker 3: So look, I think you have to just look at
Speaker 3: the comparison. We got an inflation down faster than everybody
Speaker 3: else around the world. It was a global problem. There
Speaker 3: were two things happening. You had the supply chains that
Speaker 3: had been you know, backed up, and demand that it
Speaker 3: had been held up because of the COVID pandemic globally,
Speaker 3: and so you know, once everything opened back up, prices
Speaker 3: went through the roof around the world. And you know,
Speaker 3: some of biden palsy frankly smart mantary policy from the Fed,
Speaker 3: which Biden had done the doing, also finally beat it
Speaker 3: back down. But you know, you're still up above where
Speaker 3: you used to be. I think the thing people don't
Speaker 3: think about enough is Okay, I'm mad about inflation and
Speaker 3: prices today. So I'm going to vote for Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: who is going to make it all massively worse because
Speaker 3: both of his big ideas are inflationary. His big idea
Speaker 3: of putting your riffs on everything is going to drive
Speaker 3: up prices, and so you're either going to have to
Speaker 3: pay buy more expensive stuff overseas or largely more expensive
Speaker 3: stuff from American producers. You might say that's great for
Speaker 3: long term you know, reshoring, but short term prices are
Speaker 3: going to go through the roof. And the other thing
Speaker 3: is grab all the immigrants thrown out of the country,
Speaker 3: which is then going to create a labor shortage, is
Speaker 3: going to drive up the price of labor, which is
Speaker 3: also inflationary. His two big ideas. If you don't like prices,
Speaker 3: now vote for this guy. He is Captain inflation. He
Speaker 3: is mister Inflation. He is the father of inflation. That's
Speaker 3: what you're dealing with with Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not even just just amnesia, because it's
Speaker 2: also like disinformation campaigns like that are just hugging for force.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, there's a proportion of the American
Speaker 2: electorate who thinks that Joe Biden dismantled Roby Waite and
Speaker 2: you just kind of go what and what now? And
Speaker 2: it's a large proportion.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not tiny. I wanted to ask both
Speaker 1: of you, I mean, do you think the Democrats van
Speaker 1: are talking enough about these two highly inflationary policy proposals,
Speaker 1: i e. Tariffs and the Great Deportation And what the
Speaker 1: impact is really going to be. Why isn't that registering?
Speaker 3: You know, I just don't know. I think the blizzard
Speaker 3: of bs that you have to go with every day
Speaker 3: from the joke. Yet, Babe, I mean, by the time
Speaker 3: you get finished talking about Arnold Palmer's penis and you
Speaker 3: know that's just clown joke. I mean it's so hard.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's part of the strategy. I guess it
Speaker 3: just to put just that a blizzard of bs. And
Speaker 3: it's hard to disappoint out basic stuff. Donald Trump will
Speaker 3: make inflation worse by throwing out immigrants. It's hard. The
Speaker 3: other thing, it's hard, you know, thinking about this over
Speaker 3: the weekend with black men. Donald Trump literally has on
Speaker 3: his own agenda, not you know, part of twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five Donald Trumps that's not mine. Well, you know, Donald
Speaker 3: Trump never lies, it's always very honest. So we said
Speaker 3: this not is I have to agree with that. But
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's actual agenda forty seven is all about attacking
Speaker 3: black men. It's literally, we're going to bring back stopping frisk.
Speaker 3: We're going to have the Feds put anybody who's involved
Speaker 3: in any sort of like street level pity crime put
Speaker 3: them in federal prison. Like it's an amazing you could
Speaker 3: not come up with a more terrifying agenda for black men.
Speaker 3: But you know this, you know the Trump crackdown on
Speaker 3: black men, which he's promising, we haven't really been able
Speaker 3: to get ourselves to talk about in clear terms.
Speaker 1: I want to tell you all about the Cancer Straight
Speaker 1: Talk podcast from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center with MSK
Speaker 1: oncologist doctor Diane Reedy Lagunis. I was a guest and
Speaker 1: we had a totally candid conversation about my family's experiences
Speaker 1: with cancer, including my husband Jay's illness, my own treatment
Speaker 1: for breast cancer, and of course the time I got
Speaker 1: that kolon uskby on National TV. Cancer straight Talk features
Speaker 1: life affirming conversations with experts and patients alike about topics
Speaker 1: affecting everyone touched by cancer. If that includes you or
Speaker 1: someone you love, I hope you'll listen to my episode
Speaker 1: and every episode of Cancer Straight Talk. Isn't the problem
Speaker 1: that people who are supporting Donald Trump are not listening
Speaker 1: to anything that is trying to convince them otherwise? On
Speaker 1: Fox and Friends this morning, apparently I didn't see it,
Speaker 1: but reportedly they were gushing over the Madison Square Garden event.
Speaker 1: Right Wing media in general is not analyzing Trump's policies,
Speaker 1: so people are getting, you know, a very distinct brand
Speaker 1: of news and information that is staying in its lane.
Speaker 1: It's pro Trump. Don't criticize Trump lane. In fact, criticize
Speaker 1: obviously Harris till the cows come home. And you know,
Speaker 1: by the way, one could argue that the other networks
Speaker 1: and media outlets do the same to Trump, and I
Speaker 1: don't think you can compare the two. We can talk
Speaker 1: about that in a moment. But they're not hearing these
Speaker 1: things about tariffs, and that's what they're listening to. Twenty
Speaker 1: four to seven.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, look, you know, you know, you do have
Speaker 3: people who are like really brought into like you know,
Speaker 3: Trump media, and you have people who by other media.
Speaker 3: It's the people in the middle who are really just
Speaker 3: not tuned in that much at all. Those are good
Speaker 3: people who decide the election. It's the independent and swing
Speaker 3: voters in swing counties and swing states, and those people.
Speaker 3: That's why do you see Donald Trump going on too
Speaker 3: all these podcasts, all these quote unquote bro podcasts, because
Speaker 3: that's where a bunch of people who are not watching
Speaker 3: Bots and Friends, who aren't listening to Rachel Bado, who
Speaker 3: are just that's all, that's that's what they're their kind
Speaker 3: of corny cousin or their crazy uncle does. They're interested
Speaker 3: in sports and other things. He's going after those people,
Speaker 3: I think very well, and trying to get these you know,
Speaker 3: these guys to come out and vote. It's very, very
Speaker 3: hard to communicate in this environment. And I think that
Speaker 3: that's everybody wakes up in the morning, an environment where
Speaker 3: there's an algorithm. Your next door neighbor is looking at
Speaker 3: their phone at the same time you're looking at your phone,
Speaker 3: and they are seeing completely different things. It's not to
Speaker 3: say that yours is right and there's is wrong. Maybe
Speaker 3: their's is right and yours is wrong. It's just to
Speaker 3: say that it's completely different. And so when you go
Speaker 3: out to check your mail box and she goes out
Speaker 3: to check her mail box, you're literally living in a different,
Speaker 3: algorithmically created world that she didn't pick constantly for herself,
Speaker 3: and you didn't pick constantly for yourself. And so that's
Speaker 3: one reason why I really focus on kindness, civility, empathy.
Speaker 3: We're all at the effect of something that we didn't
Speaker 3: create or choose. Four years ago. You clicked on something
Speaker 3: about Hillary Clinton, or you clicked on something about you know,
Speaker 3: some issue in the environment, and that is still informing
Speaker 3: what your algorithm is giving you. Your next door neighbor
Speaker 3: clicked on something maybe anaquis about, you know, buying a gun,
Speaker 3: and that is now informing four years later what she's
Speaker 3: seeing in her algorithm. Then come out and say you're
Speaker 3: an idiot, you're a cult member, you're crazy. The whole
Speaker 3: last second, everybody's slow down. Now, somebody, not me and
Speaker 3: not you, is creating this division for their own purposes,
Speaker 3: and so mentally, can we be kind? And that's you know,
Speaker 3: I try to focus on that and try to remind
Speaker 3: myself that none of us chose this crazy, dystopian disinformation
Speaker 3: reality that we're living in, and none of I's got
Speaker 3: to get out of it.
Speaker 1: Okay, mister Rogers, So you're welcome.
Speaker 3: You're welcome.
Speaker 1: I mean I I aspire to that too. But I
Speaker 1: guess one question, and Sam, I'm curious how you feel
Speaker 1: about this? You know, how do you cover Trump? The
Speaker 1: media has gotten, you know, tied itself in knots. How
Speaker 1: you cover this guy? And I think they're still trying
Speaker 1: to figure it out eight years later. Van, you know,
Speaker 1: Jeff Zucker got trash for covering all his rallies without
Speaker 1: any kind of critical commentary. A company them because they
Speaker 1: rated well, right, and now.
Speaker 3: You have just in just defense. We were criticizing it
Speaker 3: the whole time, but it turns out just the overall
Speaker 3: effect of covering it that much, covering even empty podiums,
Speaker 3: had a positive effect, even though the whole time we
Speaker 3: were I was on the air that during those years
Speaker 3: we criticized it, but we also just showed it so
Speaker 3: much that it wound up backfiring very much, very much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I still think we have not like we have
Speaker 2: not figured it out. No one has figured it out
Speaker 2: because it is so outrageous, Like last night's rally is
Speaker 2: so outrageous, and he's just getting like volumes just like
Speaker 2: you know, uh Kamala has like raised a billion dollars,
Speaker 2: but he's got a billion dollars in free advertising that's
Speaker 2: occurring today. Like the more you know, I have good
Speaker 2: friends in the advertising industry who are like, it's all
Speaker 2: about brand. The only thing that matters is brand awareness.
Speaker 2: It's not even like really what the brand is doing.
Speaker 2: It's brand awareness. So you want to be like pushing
Speaker 2: the brand again and again and again and so that
Speaker 2: it's the last thing you think of when you're in
Speaker 2: that voting booth, and that's what's happening, and it's happening
Speaker 2: for free today. It's just everywhere. We're talking about it
Speaker 2: right now, because how can you not talk about it?
Speaker 2: But I don't think we're talking about it. I think
Speaker 2: we're talking about it in a horrified way. I mean,
Speaker 2: we're horrified, but we're so think that that.
Speaker 1: You can't tell me that that rally at Madison Square
Speaker 1: Garden helped him van you know, to interviewed Tara Palmery,
Speaker 1: maybe it helped solidify his base and he was throwing
Speaker 1: red meat out to them. But he certainly, as she said,
Speaker 1: elections are about addition, not subtraction. And if you're going
Speaker 1: to alienate Puerto Ricans, right, four hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: Puerto Ricans are eligible to vote in Pennsylvania. Did you
Speaker 1: know that.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that number. I'm happy to hear that number.
Speaker 1: There's a huge population of Puerto Ricans. Like, why would
Speaker 1: you invite a guy who's going to trash people? Why
Speaker 1: would you say you want to bring back the Alien
Speaker 1: and Sedition Acts of seventeen ninety eight, which gave the
Speaker 1: president the power to deport non citizens who were subjects
Speaker 1: of foreign enemies, gave the president the power to deport
Speaker 1: any alien he considered dangerous, and the Sedition Act, if
Speaker 1: we need to be reminded, made it a crime to
Speaker 1: write or publish anything quote, false, scandalous and malicious about
Speaker 1: the government or the president.
Speaker 2: Well, I hate to drop this right in the middle
Speaker 2: of this chat, but this election is close. So actually
Speaker 2: it works really well, Like it actually works really well,
Speaker 2: because if it didn't work, this election would be like
Speaker 2: a shoeing for Carmel Herro's. But it really super works.
Speaker 2: And that is my honest feeling.
Speaker 1: What works. What are you saying? This campaign strategy works.
Speaker 2: To be this outrageous, It works to have that comedian
Speaker 2: on that stage being so repulsive, like being actually being
Speaker 2: repugnant actually really works for them.
Speaker 1: And like I don't know what to say.
Speaker 3: The other thing that it does is, which is even
Speaker 3: more troubling and more reasons for people who are listening
Speaker 3: to you get involved and to make sure that everybody
Speaker 3: bothes and trusts, get their friends to vote, and make
Speaker 3: sure that when you vote, triple it, make sure you're
Speaker 3: three other people are voting. Is because if he wins
Speaker 3: with this, he's got a permission structure now to do
Speaker 3: whatever he wants. If you can be this badly behaved
Speaker 3: before you're the president, if you can tell people, and
Speaker 3: by the way, notice he will say things like I'm
Speaker 3: going to lock up all my opponents, I'm going to
Speaker 3: lock up Nancy Pelosi, I'm going to do all these things,
Speaker 3: and then all the Republican apologies come out and say
Speaker 3: he doesn't mean that, he's just speaking in hyperperly. And
Speaker 3: then the next day he says, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I meant what I said, like he's literally will tell
Speaker 3: that the next interviewer. Well, everybody said he didn't mean it.
Speaker 3: No I meant it. So here's the thing. If you
Speaker 3: get elected with that, you can say, with some justification,
Speaker 3: I have a mandate to lock up all my opponents.
Speaker 3: I told you I was going to do it, and
Speaker 3: you left it me. I have a mandate to crack
Speaker 3: down on all of these communities because I told you
Speaker 3: I was going to deport all these people, and you
Speaker 3: elect me. So it is unfortunately very effective, but it
Speaker 3: also should be galvanizing on our side. And I think
Speaker 3: that for people who believe in democracy, for people who
Speaker 3: believe in human rights, people who believe in the Constitution.
Speaker 3: This should be galvanizing on our side. We shouldn't be like, yeah,
Speaker 3: well I don't like what Kamala said twenty years ago,
Speaker 3: or I don't like her foreign policy on this thing,
Speaker 3: or I don't like so therefore I'm going to vote,
Speaker 3: but I'm going to be sad about it. Look, you
Speaker 3: should vote and be passionate about it, because not only
Speaker 3: does Kamala actually have plans that will actually help you,
Speaker 3: like help you get a house, help you get an apprenticeship,
Speaker 3: help you start a small business, actual plans. With Donald
Speaker 3: trup has never passed a plan to help you. His
Speaker 3: only economic adgeda to was passing the tax clubs for
Speaker 3: his friends. He's never passed a bill to help ordinary Americans.
Speaker 3: Kalma has a stack of those bills ready to sign.
Speaker 3: And so, if you care about the future, if you
Speaker 3: don't want more inflation, if you do want help getting
Speaker 3: for your kid to buy a house, if you want
Speaker 3: to start a business, there's only one candidate for you,
Speaker 3: and you should be passionate about it. You should be
Speaker 3: texting everyone you know about it. We lost Florida in
Speaker 3: year two thousand by five hundred and thirty seven votes.
Speaker 3: There were almost what one hundred and fifty million votes cast.
Speaker 3: It came down to five hundred and thirty seven votes
Speaker 3: in Florida plus five boats in Supreme Court. But that's
Speaker 3: another story.
Speaker 1: And well a lot of hanging chats and votes that
Speaker 1: got thrown away, right sure, sure, but they start every
Speaker 1: morning with a breakdown of the news and fascinating pop culture,
Speaker 1: I mean likes.
Speaker 3: So everyone should be passionate about saying I don't care
Speaker 3: what you say about any of the deficiencies of Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3: You know, Donald Trump gets to be lawless, Kamala has
Speaker 3: to be flawless.
Speaker 1: Yes, a lot of people have been commenting that on
Speaker 1: my Instagram.
Speaker 3: And you know, social media does a great job of reinforcing.
Speaker 3: If you click like on somebody who's grumpy about, you know,
Speaker 3: any issue, you'll get nine hundred more of those next tomorrow,
Speaker 3: and so it will reinforce whatever grumpiness, whatever unhappiness, whatever dispepsia,
Speaker 3: they will be reinforced. And then if you click or
Speaker 3: like or share or comment I want, then you'll get
Speaker 3: nine thousand the next day. And so that's why everybody's
Speaker 3: so depressed. I'm not on social media, so you know,
Speaker 3: and I've got a good therapist, so I'm not depressed.
Speaker 3: But everybody that I know is, you know, miserable. And
Speaker 3: I'm like, honestly, your life is pretty good. You live
Speaker 3: in the United States. People are like, well, all these
Speaker 3: people with all this privilege, you know, the most privileged,
Speaker 3: every American citizen. There's never been a more privileged people.
Speaker 3: I don't care if you're black, white, brow, There's never
Speaker 3: been a more privileged people of people that live in
Speaker 3: the United States. Today. We have clean near clean war.
Speaker 3: I mean, we have our problems, but we are in
Speaker 3: a great position. Everybody's miserable. Why because these things do
Speaker 3: not give us information.
Speaker 1: They give you affirmation. That's my famous line that I
Speaker 1: co opted from my friend Nicole Seligman. Affirmation not information.
Speaker 3: I like that. And if you happen to have a
Speaker 3: bad day today, you'll have a worse day tomorrow because
Speaker 3: whatever you're clicking and liking, that's what it gives you
Speaker 3: more of. And so yeah, people are you know, the
Speaker 3: people are unhappy. And so that's why it's rationally a
Speaker 3: change election. People do want change. The problem is that
Speaker 3: you know, you said, well, okay, I'm going to vote
Speaker 3: for change. I'm going to vote to change political parties. No, honey,
Speaker 3: no sir, no man. The worst thing you could do
Speaker 3: right now is to say we're going to put the
Speaker 3: car in reverse and go back to this clown car
Speaker 3: administration that boshed COVID, that you know, ruined the Obama economy,
Speaker 3: that you have an extra six hundred thousand dead people
Speaker 3: because this guy didn't know what he was doing, and
Speaker 3: he's more disinhibited now. He's crazier now. The Supreme Court
Speaker 3: s is he can do more damage now his team
Speaker 3: is worse now. That is not the change that you want.
Speaker 3: You want the change that Kam was talking about, which
Speaker 3: is to build on the progress Limiteda has been with
Speaker 3: Biden and get you more of what you need. That's
Speaker 3: Kama Harris.
Speaker 2: At least want someone in the White House who you
Speaker 2: can have a conversation with, who you can move, who
Speaker 2: you can like, you can push in a direction that
Speaker 2: you care about. You just want some You want a
Speaker 2: coherent voice, like minimally you want a coherent voice in
Speaker 2: the White House? Please can we please have that?
Speaker 1: But Van, you know you talk about building on the
Speaker 1: Biden administration for reasons I guess you know again, food prices,
Speaker 1: gas prices, housing prices. Whether he's to blame or not,
Speaker 1: but it happened during his administration. He is incredibly unpopular,
Speaker 1: and Kamala Harris I don't think has done a very
Speaker 1: good job. She started to of separating and saying what
Speaker 1: she would do differently than Joe Biden? And what do
Speaker 1: you think of that? Could she have said, listen, I'm
Speaker 1: proud of this, but or we could have done this better.
Speaker 1: Why is she so cautious about saying how she might
Speaker 1: approach some problems differently than an incredibly unpopular incumbent.
Speaker 3: I hate to say this because it's going to sound Look,
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris is a loyal person. That is very It
Speaker 3: might sound corny. She's she's not going to take out
Speaker 3: her knife and start stabbing somebody in the back to
Speaker 3: advance herself. People think that the opposite about Comma said, Oh,
Speaker 3: she's Matchiavella. She's this, she's at you know, she's tough minded,
Speaker 3: she's a she's a super practice is she's not She's
Speaker 3: not California progressive. I'll tell you that's a California. She's
Speaker 3: never in the progressive camp at all, as you know.
Speaker 3: But I think that she has a reluctance to say
Speaker 3: we fucked this up, we fucked that. I don't I
Speaker 3: don't think she believes it. But also don't think that
Speaker 3: she is that type of a person. And so I
Speaker 3: think that I would have preferred if I were if
Speaker 3: I were her, I would have preferred for her to say,
Speaker 3: you know what, Joe Biden's a hell of a man.
Speaker 3: He's done a hell of the job. But everybody has
Speaker 3: been the number two and had other ideas. I've been
Speaker 3: number two. I had other ideas. Here's what I wanted
Speaker 3: to do. But I know no calm for thirty years.
Speaker 3: She cannot fix her mouth to say something like that.
Speaker 3: She just can't do it. And so if it's a
Speaker 3: character flaw that costs her the election, and that character
Speaker 3: flaw is just too much loyalty to people who gave
Speaker 3: her a shot, I just I just think you got
Speaker 3: to eat the whole hamburger will come here. She's not
Speaker 3: that kind of person. She is not that kind of politicans.
Speaker 3: I don't think she believes it. I think that she
Speaker 3: honestly believes that they did a better job than they
Speaker 3: get credit for. I think she does have critiques and
Speaker 3: criticisms of him. But I don't think that she feels
Speaker 3: comfortable doing that in public. And that's just the reality
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: And also in a very truncated campaign, like it's not
Speaker 2: you know, when you have like a very narrow window
Speaker 2: to like come in, take over, take over the whole campaign.
Speaker 2: You are driving, you are driving to election day. You
Speaker 2: really do not have time or you don't have like
Speaker 2: the grace of the public to go sinkly need some
Speaker 2: mistakes here, you just don't those. It is not the
Speaker 2: time to like look back, like and go I think
Speaker 2: we failed on this measure.
Speaker 1: I think you need to do.
Speaker 2: I think she is just driving the most forward the
Speaker 2: best she.
Speaker 1: Can, like go for it.
Speaker 3: I just want to say, as a political guy, I
Speaker 3: agree with Katie that it had been politically smarter and
Speaker 3: better for her to find a couple of things to say. Look,
Speaker 3: I wish we had done this earlier. I whish we
Speaker 3: had done this all. Here's what I learned when I
Speaker 3: came in. It's unfracking, very easy on fracking. So you
Speaker 3: know what, as a California Democrat and you know, we
Speaker 3: were very anti fracking, and I came out of that.
Speaker 3: But like a lot of California like a lot of Democrats.
Speaker 3: But here's what I learned in office. I learned, first
Speaker 3: of all, you can have fracking and also do the
Speaker 3: clean energy agenda. But much more importantly, I learned that
Speaker 3: we needed that natural gas we were fracking in Pennsylvania
Speaker 3: to beat Putin. Putin when I came into office, Putin
Speaker 3: started threatening Europe. He was going to cut off natural
Speaker 3: gas and freeze Europeans in their beds because we wanted
Speaker 3: to defend Ukraine. And I learned we needed that natural
Speaker 3: gas coming out of Pennsylvania fracking to stop Putent fracking
Speaker 3: as a part of my geopolitical arsenal to defend democracy.
Speaker 3: And I would never write, so didn't you tell you that?
Speaker 1: I haven't heard her say any of that. I heard
Speaker 1: her say the first part. I heard her say, you
Speaker 1: can have clean energy and be involved in fracking. That
Speaker 1: her views have evolved, But what has been sometimes missing
Speaker 1: I think for some voters Van and Sam is sort
Speaker 1: of that second or third sentence to help people understand
Speaker 1: a little bit more than kind of one or two
Speaker 1: sentences that kind of give the general idea. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: when you're asked about the Supreme Court as she was
Speaker 1: in that CNN town hall. I interviewed Neil Katilla in
Speaker 1: front of his law firm and a bunch of clients. Now,
Speaker 1: he's brilliant, right, he's a constitutional law professor. I mean,
Speaker 1: the guy's brain is unparalleled. And he was talking about
Speaker 1: the pros and cons of expanding this Supreme Court and
Speaker 1: of term limits from a historical perspective. And I don't
Speaker 1: expect her to say that, but I want a little
Speaker 1: bit more meat on the bone van If not so
Speaker 1: much for me, but for listeners. I want her to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I want to look into this. There's
Speaker 1: some pros to that, there's some cons. But one thing
Speaker 1: I do think is absolutely necessary is a code of
Speaker 1: ethics for Supreme Court justices who have clearly exhibited a
Speaker 1: conflict of interests on several occasions over the past two years.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think when you've got a candidate on the other
Speaker 2: side who's like people are ripping the heads off cats
Speaker 2: and dogs in the street, You're just like, let me
Speaker 2: just hold on everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess. I guess we treat her as a
Speaker 1: normal candidate and we want, you know, and we tolerate
Speaker 1: him as an abnormal candidate. And so is that unfair
Speaker 1: in your view?
Speaker 3: I think at one hundred percent unfair. But I also
Speaker 3: think that I understand what Sam is saying. She's saying, listen,
Speaker 3: she's already pulled off eight hundred miracles, right, like to
Speaker 3: take over a campaign one hundred days of colection day,
Speaker 3: to hold this party together, to get the Chenese and
Speaker 3: Chompsky on the same bus, to keep driving it forward,
Speaker 3: to be able to have to switch out some of
Speaker 3: the campaigns the up, but you can't switch out all
Speaker 3: of it because you don't have a beat. Like, So
Speaker 3: I agree, it's like she's pulled out eight hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty miracles already and we should just give her our applause.
Speaker 3: And I also feel that for whatever reason, she has
Speaker 3: locked in on the strategy of just saying the same
Speaker 3: thing every time, And even Charlamagne and God said, you know,
Speaker 3: you just sound like a robot, and she goes, that's
Speaker 3: called discipline, ha ha ha. But I do think that
Speaker 3: given the voters we're trying to move, who you know,
Speaker 3: they can't. You can't be more appauled by Donald Trump
Speaker 3: and they still haven't moved. And you can't be more
Speaker 3: impressed by her resume, and they still haven't moved. What
Speaker 3: do they need to hear? I do think they need
Speaker 3: to hear something else. There's something that she's not doing.
Speaker 3: And so look, I would say I'd love that answer,
Speaker 3: and Supreme Court, I love my instrument tracking. We can
Speaker 3: all answers, but we're eight days out, and so the
Speaker 3: thing I would say is whatever you need to say
Speaker 3: to your own friends, because again, five hundred and thirty
Speaker 3: seven votes, whatever you like, Tom's not going to talk
Speaker 3: to your friends. She's going to be on a stage,
Speaker 3: She's going to be interviewing. You get to talk to
Speaker 3: your friends. You have your Facebook followers, you have your
Speaker 3: Instagram followers, you have your WhatsApp chat groups, You've got
Speaker 3: your and you should just say, I am now the
Speaker 3: common haras campaign manager, and I am fortually myself going
Speaker 3: to make the arguments that I think are a ballad
Speaker 3: to my friends and be aggressive about it and be
Speaker 3: passionate about it. Donald Trump closes strong. He always closes strong.
Speaker 3: He's going to have even more devastating campaign ads to
Speaker 3: come out. He's going he always closes strong. And so
Speaker 3: if you if you to Sam's point, if you can
Speaker 3: appreciate that if you had to run for president one
Speaker 3: hundred days from now, how hard it would be for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I feel so cynical for being a person
Speaker 2: who's like, actually, I think there's no almost no room
Speaker 2: for a nuance.
Speaker 1: It's just like everything.
Speaker 2: Anytime she dips into a nuance, I think she risks
Speaker 2: a larger swath of the population. I think it's all
Speaker 2: about risk management, keeping steady, get into the ellipse, giving
Speaker 2: delivering that like heavy hammer. Like, I just don't I
Speaker 2: feel I totally understand and appreciate what you're saying. I'm
Speaker 2: just not sure that the nuance is going to move people.
Speaker 2: I literally think it could be like a coupon per
Speaker 2: a sandwich on the way into the voting booth.
Speaker 1: It's gonna move from up.
Speaker 2: No one's doing that. That's not legal, But I do
Speaker 2: think a coupon for a Quiznos might actually seal the deal.
Speaker 3: That's buddy.
Speaker 1: If you want to get smarter every morning with a
Speaker 1: breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and
Speaker 1: wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter,
Speaker 1: Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com before
Speaker 1: we go. I want to ask you all about the kerfuffle.
Speaker 1: It's not actually bigger than a kerfuffle. I would say
Speaker 1: it's a full out brewhaha over the La Times and
Speaker 1: the Washington Post failure to endorse a candidate. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm surprised that there are many people who don't understand
Speaker 1: or appreciate, or maybe it's outlived its usefulness, the separation
Speaker 1: from an editorial board and the rest of the paper.
Speaker 1: And I do think I was talking to Nancy Gibbs,
Speaker 1: who was at a wedding I was at former editor
Speaker 1: in chief of Time, now teaches public policy at Harvard.
Speaker 1: You know that when Ruth Marcus the Washington Coast says
Speaker 1: an endorsement represents the heart and soul of the newspaper,
Speaker 1: that's a little misleading for readers. It's really the editorial
Speaker 1: board and it's a separate entity. But I'm curious for
Speaker 1: you both to weigh in on these two major newspapers
Speaker 1: at the behest of their billionaire owners, deciding not to
Speaker 1: endorse a candidate.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't love it. I don't like it. I
Speaker 2: do think I think can subtle and not so subtle
Speaker 2: ways people are preparing for a Trump presidency, and I
Speaker 2: don't like to see it. I don't like to see
Speaker 2: it on Wall Street, and I don't like to see
Speaker 2: it in I guess it feels to me like democracy
Speaker 2: is signed darkness, like what the editorial I don't think
Speaker 2: that the editorial board has outlived its usefulness. I think
Speaker 2: they should have done it, and I'm really dismayed, like
Speaker 2: really disheartened that they weren't doing it.
Speaker 1: I don't know that it moves people, but yeah, it
Speaker 1: should exist. What do you think, Van, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Think I think newspapers don't matter as much as they
Speaker 3: used to, but they still matter. And I think thateople
Speaker 3: don't understand the editorial board. You know, you can you
Speaker 3: can have an opinion about a candidate and still have
Speaker 3: the The other on the other side of the wall
Speaker 3: often literally are the reporters, and they can still do
Speaker 3: fair reporting. So we've kind of known that for one
Speaker 3: hundred fifty years in the United States. So I would
Speaker 3: much rather them the way in. I don't think ten
Speaker 3: years from now, if we have very bad outcomes from
Speaker 3: the Trump presidency, anybody's going to be proud that they
Speaker 3: stood on the sidelines. I think that people should think
Speaker 3: I think that I think that people should take to
Speaker 3: take a sting one way or the other. I agree
Speaker 3: with you, I don't. I don't think you carvery yourself
Speaker 3: in glory if one hundred years from now or ten
Speaker 3: years from now, you wouldn't register an opinion about what's coming.
Speaker 3: And by the way, and I say this, no matter
Speaker 3: what your what your view is. If your view is
Speaker 3: that you know Kama Harris has just not met your bar,
Speaker 3: and if your view is that you think that the
Speaker 3: economy would be in better hands with Donald Trump, that
Speaker 3: would be interesting to know. Like whatever it is, I'm
Speaker 3: just saying, I'm I'm not saying it's got to be
Speaker 3: for comment, it's got to be for Trump. But I
Speaker 3: think that we don't want our institutions to be We
Speaker 3: don't want our few remaining institutions to not offer their
Speaker 3: honest opinion at a time of great consequence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now is the time to plant a flag one.
Speaker 3: Way or the other. I mean, jin maybe there's something
Speaker 3: I haven't heard.
Speaker 1: I think it's also a little ironic that Trump administration
Speaker 1: or Trump officials were visiting Blue Origin when this decision
Speaker 1: was made by Jeff Bezos. It just seems really yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, I know Jeff Bezos. I'm quite fond of him.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he gave you a lot of money to
Speaker 1: give away, like one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 3: Right exactly. I know Jeff Bezos, I'm quite fond of him.
Speaker 3: I've not talked to him about this. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I literally Kim Kardashian's a good friend of mine. Jeff
Speaker 3: Bezos friend of mine. I discount ninety eight percent of
Speaker 3: what good said about them in public because it's almost
Speaker 3: always not right. So I do not know what decision
Speaker 3: making was, but I would just say, as a matter
Speaker 3: of principle, I would say this too, or about anyone,
Speaker 3: this is not the time to be quiet. I think
Speaker 3: people should put their best thinking forward so that we
Speaker 3: can make informed decisions.
Speaker 1: When this episode drops, the election will be less than
Speaker 1: a week away. What do you think is going to happen? Man?
Speaker 3: You know, I think it's going to be house to
Speaker 3: house combat. I think it's going to come down to
Speaker 3: I think this will be the closest I think it's
Speaker 3: going to be one of the closest elections in American history.
Speaker 3: But I'll tell you it's in the hands of the
Speaker 3: people who are listening. I mean, we can all sit
Speaker 3: here and write speeches for everybody and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: They ain't got to read those speeches. You can write
Speaker 3: a text message, it's going to be read. You can
Speaker 3: make a phone call, it's going to be heard. It
Speaker 3: will come more than anything else. What I would say is,
Speaker 3: you don't want to be sitting there, whoever you're for
Speaker 3: sitting there election, I would saying I wish I had
Speaker 3: done one thing more the next several days. You should
Speaker 3: put every arrow in the air. You should do everything
Speaker 3: you possibly can. You know, if you've never done a
Speaker 3: video selfie on your social media, do it because that
Speaker 3: might move three votes. You have no idea the impact
Speaker 3: you can have. So sometimes people put stuff up and
Speaker 3: it goes mega viral and changes the whole conversation. So
Speaker 3: I think that it is in the hands of ordinary
Speaker 3: people at this point, every day people at this point,
Speaker 3: especially in the seven battleground states. And if you don't know,
Speaker 3: if you live in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Arizona,
Speaker 3: or Nevada, your vote matters more than anybody else's vote
Speaker 3: in the country those seven states. If you live in
Speaker 3: those states, your vote is one hundred votes. If you
Speaker 3: live in those states, your vote is a thousand votes.
Speaker 3: Your vote counts more than all the rest of our
Speaker 3: votes combined, because those are the seven states that will
Speaker 3: determine this election. So if you live in those seven
Speaker 3: battot ground states, you have a responsibility to vote whichever
Speaker 3: way you feel, and you will have a bigger impact
Speaker 3: on the election those states and any of us talking
Speaker 3: about it, I.
Speaker 1: Think we're going to know the night of no.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think so, And I think we should
Speaker 2: remind everyone we know that you don't have to tell
Speaker 2: anybody how you voted in that voting booth. You don't
Speaker 2: have to tell a damn soul. You don't have to
Speaker 2: vote one way just because your parents did and your
Speaker 2: grandparents did, and your husband told you that you had to,
Speaker 2: or your wife thought that that would be a good
Speaker 2: idea for you. You can tell anybody anything you want,
Speaker 2: and you can vote with your conscience, But for what
Speaker 2: do you know it's right?
Speaker 1: I thought Michelle Obama's speech is great emphasize that, yeah,
Speaker 1: we have to use.
Speaker 4: Our voices to make these choices clear to the men
Speaker 4: that we love our lives are worth more than their
Speaker 4: anger and disappointment. And we are more than just baby
Speaker 4: making vessels. And if you are a woman who lives
Speaker 4: in a household of men that don't listen to you
Speaker 4: or value your opinion, just remember that your vote is
Speaker 4: a private matter, regardless of the political views of your partner.
Speaker 4: You get to choose, You get to use your judgment
Speaker 4: and cast your vote for yourself and the women in
Speaker 4: your life. Remember, women standing up for what is best
Speaker 4: for us can make the difference in this election. So
Speaker 4: let us use our voices in these final days.
Speaker 1: That was a pretty powerful speech to anythink fan.
Speaker 3: Migielle Obama may be the best communicator in the English
Speaker 3: language right now. I mean, she is so good. Always
Speaker 3: say I love Obama and her husband. I mean, she's
Speaker 3: just a believable and and I thought she did a
Speaker 3: great job of pointing out to men what it's like
Speaker 3: to be a man when you're you're the woman that
Speaker 3: you care about your partner, your daughter is in medical
Speaker 3: distress and you can't and she's bleeding out, and the
Speaker 3: doctors are standing there looking at her, afraid that they
Speaker 3: help your You love the one they've got to go
Speaker 3: to prison and really just letting people bleed out of
Speaker 3: parking lots, as a as a man, as a as
Speaker 3: someone who wants to be able to protect the people
Speaker 3: that you love, what does it mean?
Speaker 2: And also the message of like it takes two people
Speaker 2: to make an unplanned pregnancy, do you want to be
Speaker 2: able to do something about that?
Speaker 3: Or do you not?
Speaker 2: Like you have skin in the game, you're part of this,
Speaker 2: being a part of it.
Speaker 3: I thought Michelle did just an unbelievable job, as she
Speaker 3: always does, and she makes it look so easy. It's
Speaker 3: very difficult to do what she does. Like, that's the
Speaker 3: arguments that she makes, the way that she makes them.
Speaker 3: Who she's being when she's making them might just sing
Speaker 3: Michelle Obama as a national trend.
Speaker 1: I also had a little bit of a cold, I
Speaker 1: could tell.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, got your nose, she pulled it off. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Do you think the Democratic Party needs to retool? My
Speaker 1: husband John says things like, how this election is so close,
Speaker 1: what does it say about the Democratic Party? And I'm
Speaker 1: curious what you think it says about the Democratic Party?
Speaker 1: Has it lost its way? Has it lost its mojo?
Speaker 3: Look, I am very I'm always willing to look in
Speaker 3: the mirror, Like, if something goes wrong in my life,
Speaker 3: the easy thing to do is to say that person sucks,
Speaker 3: and that person sucks, the other person sucks, and why
Speaker 3: do they do that? The harder thing to do is say,
Speaker 3: you know what, what did I do to create this situation?
Speaker 3: Even if it's nine nine percent of the other person's fault,
Speaker 3: I looked for my one percent. And so I am
Speaker 3: not trying to let literal fascists off the hook. That
Speaker 3: is its own thing. But is there anything I can
Speaker 3: look at on our side?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think like a stuff on our side. I
Speaker 3: think we we have created a style on the progressive
Speaker 3: left that is that's obnoxious and that makes people feel
Speaker 3: uncomfortable and unwelcome. Too often. I mean we change terms
Speaker 3: every six months. Somebody said I was a BIPOCK. I said,
Speaker 3: what is the I've never gone to a BIPOC church
Speaker 3: or a bi I've never eaten any BIPOC food, Like,
Speaker 3: is there a BIPOC barber shop? What are you talking about?
Speaker 3: Latin X. You make up these terms and then people
Speaker 3: feel dumb because they don't know them. And then I
Speaker 3: think we also have created a situation where we think
Speaker 3: that Trump is pulling people. I think we're pushing people,
Speaker 3: you know, I said, I'm Bill Maher. If we if
Speaker 3: we have a party where we say all white people
Speaker 3: are racist, all of you you're all racist, All men
Speaker 3: are toxic, all billionaires are evil, well then you can't
Speaker 3: be mad when white male billionaires like Elon Musk leave
Speaker 3: our party. Elon Musk was a Democrat supporting Andrew Yang
Speaker 3: four years ago. Now he is on some crazy look.
Speaker 3: I don't I don't let him off the hook. He
Speaker 3: has a responsibility to defend democracy not undermined. But is
Speaker 3: there a one percent where if he if someone like
Speaker 3: him comes into the room, if a straight white male
Speaker 3: comes into the room, if if someone who is Jewish
Speaker 3: and who is pro Israel coming to the room, are
Speaker 3: they welcome or not? Do we want them or not.
Speaker 1: I have a friend who's covering the Trump campaign and
Speaker 1: I asked her about Trump supporters and she said, in
Speaker 1: her view, a lot of it has to do with
Speaker 1: quote lefty lecture culture. I thought that was a very
Speaker 1: interesting observation, and I think it basically encompasses, man, what
Speaker 1: you're talking about.
Speaker 3: And after the election, I think we should do a
Speaker 3: whole analysis of it. But until the election. Whatever sins
Speaker 3: and flaws we have are literally nothing compared to a
Speaker 3: overtly racist, overtly fascist, overtly raitorian mass phenomenon that is
Speaker 3: about to not only ruin America if it wins, but
Speaker 3: also abandoned people in Ukraine and also make sure we
Speaker 3: don't fix the climate crisis. So I am not trying
Speaker 3: to take any of the the foot off the gas.
Speaker 3: But after the selection, can we say the same things
Speaker 3: more kindly? Yes? Can we defend African Americans, Latinos, latinas
Speaker 3: poor folks, the environment more kindly, more wisely, more empathetically.
Speaker 3: Can we be more magnetic?
Speaker 1: Yes we can, and perhaps be less judgmental and self
Speaker 1: righteous I don't know.
Speaker 3: Less judgy and shitty toward people, Yes, that's not Can
Speaker 3: we improve yes? Can we be more magnetic and welcoming? Yes?
Speaker 3: Should we be? Yes? After we win this selection?
Speaker 1: Van Jones, thank you, Van all right, thank you, Talk
Speaker 1: to you soon. Sam. Yes, I really like Van Jones.
Speaker 2: I like them too, talk to them. They are arenas
Speaker 2: and I always enjoy I always enjoy his perspective. He's great.
Speaker 1: What do you think about those closing remarks about the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: People just want to be governed from the middle. They
Speaker 2: just want to be governed from the middle. They just
Speaker 2: seem to, like the majority of the country lives pretty
Speaker 2: much in the middle zone, and they just want a
Speaker 2: steady hand. They want things that are like actually more
Speaker 2: simple than sometimes we make them.
Speaker 1: I can agree with that. Who do you think is
Speaker 1: going to win? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't want to manifest. I don't want to I
Speaker 2: don't want to manifest a big, bad problem. But I
Speaker 2: will say that I think it's going to be extremely
Speaker 2: close and a squeaker, and that is so distressing. So
Speaker 2: I don't know either way. But I do have a
Speaker 2: sick feeling in my stomach that there's a you know,
Speaker 2: there's a chance we could have a repeat of twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen and Amlowen's popular vote a wide margin, but those
Speaker 2: electoral colleges barry pesky. So I don't really know. I
Speaker 2: think anything is possible. I don't know that one is
Speaker 2: more probable than the other. And that is extremely distressing,
Speaker 2: and that I think necessitates like a real reckoning, like
Speaker 2: who actually are we here? Regardless of who wins, who
Speaker 2: actually are we That this is a squeaker. It's absolutely
Speaker 2: it's absolutely awful.
Speaker 1: Well, I have to say on that positive note, Sam,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for being with me today and to
Speaker 1: be continued. Hang in there, Hang in there.
Speaker 2: Stay strong, drive people to the Owling station.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,
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