Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
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Speaker 3: But enough with that, Let's get to the show.
Speaker 4: All right, guys.
Speaker 1: I can hardly believe I am saying these words, but
Speaker 1: joining us now the former host of The Daily Show
Speaker 1: and the current host of the Problem with John Stewart,
Speaker 1: the one and only John Stewart.
Speaker 4: Welcome, Great to have you.
Speaker 3: Good to see you, sir.
Speaker 5: Oh hold on, hold on, I'm about to make my entrance.
Speaker 2: There is wow, a little bit older than I remember,
Speaker 2: very dramatic.
Speaker 5: Yeah, sounds pretty good.
Speaker 1: So I really have genuinely been enjoying the show. We've
Speaker 1: actually talked about it here on Breaking Points a couple
Speaker 1: of times.
Speaker 4: But let's just start with you.
Speaker 1: Oh of course, yeah, Well, what was the sort of
Speaker 1: creative spark that led you to create this show and
Speaker 1: decide to come back into the media space.
Speaker 4: At this time.
Speaker 5: I think it was that sense of having worked down
Speaker 5: in Washington. The Daily Show was kind of an exercise
Speaker 5: in catharsis an exercise in you know, sitting in your
Speaker 5: underwear yelling at the TV screen, and there was a
Speaker 5: certain impotent rage to it. But it also for my
Speaker 5: creative mind ran its course. I didn't. I wasn't quite
Speaker 5: sure how to evolve it anymore. I wasn't quite sure
Speaker 5: what else to do with it, and I don't. And
Speaker 5: it became I didn't want it to become a caricature
Speaker 5: or become rote and you don't want to stay somewhere
Speaker 5: just because they're letting you. And you can see now
Speaker 5: like the other folks that had been on it have
Speaker 5: worked and evolved it into these different worms that have
Speaker 5: been really cool to see, you know, Oliver and Trevor
Speaker 5: and Sam and like they've they've moved it and made
Speaker 5: it their voice and and that's kind of that's the
Speaker 5: creative process. But I couldn't. For me, I just I
Speaker 5: just needed just to step away and kind of engage
Speaker 5: more in in the real world. And so after having
Speaker 5: done that and seeing how the halls of power have
Speaker 5: a relationship with their constituents, but it's not it's not
Speaker 5: one that is necessarily grounded in their needs or the
Speaker 5: necessities or their reality. And so it stemmed from the
Speaker 5: idea of like, why is that gap so difficult to bridge?
Speaker 5: And it seems fucking simple, Like, to be honest with you,
Speaker 5: a lot of this stuff seems simple. So it was like,
Speaker 5: you know, the impetus of the show is just why not?
Speaker 5: You know, you'd you'd have these constituencies with these very
Speaker 5: real and urgent issues, you'd have the stakeholders in those
Speaker 5: issues very articulately stating what their what their problem is,
Speaker 5: or what their you know, what the process is or
Speaker 5: the perversion of that process, and then you have people
Speaker 5: who have an ability to affect change over that disconnected
Speaker 5: from it. So the idea for the show is sort
Speaker 5: of simple, which is, set the map on where the
Speaker 5: kind of corruption or perversion is and whatever issue we're
Speaker 5: talking about, Let some of the stakeholders express how that
Speaker 5: corruption or perversion affects what they're trying to accomplish or
Speaker 5: affects their lives, and then try and talk to somebody
Speaker 5: who might have a sense of how you could overcome
Speaker 5: that or in a position where they could have.
Speaker 3: It's really interesting to see you in the new.
Speaker 5: Promat long winded.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, it's fine. We're on the podcast. You
Speaker 2: don't have to worry about the commercial breaks or whatever.
Speaker 2: We got limitless dive.
Speaker 5: That's what That's what I thought. That's right.
Speaker 2: What I enjoy is that while you were a source
Speaker 2: from me, whenever you were on the Daily Show, you
Speaker 2: would always famously say, like, I'm a comedian, I'm not
Speaker 2: delivering the news. But here you've really embraced both the
Speaker 2: comedy aspect, the explainer aspect, and then the news making interviews.
Speaker 2: So how has that kind of changed your not even calculus,
Speaker 2: but like the way that you guys come up with
Speaker 2: the constructs of the show. Because to sit down with
Speaker 2: the Bob Iger or to sit down with the Jamie Diamond,
Speaker 2: to sit down with the people that you are and
Speaker 2: to push them in a way that are the Secretary
Speaker 2: of Veterans Affairs, both those are not necessarily things that
Speaker 2: might have happened in the previous era.
Speaker 3: And you've you've affected change.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think single handedly are responsible for the
Speaker 2: word burn pits being uttered by the President of the
Speaker 2: United States in the State of the Union how is that?
Speaker 3: How have you reflected on that in the current in
Speaker 3: the context of the current show.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't know. So part of it is Daily
Speaker 5: Show made its money on volume. You know, we were
Speaker 5: there so you know, we had to do four shows
Speaker 5: a week, so you're you're always there, so you would
Speaker 5: have those types of interviews, but you would also have
Speaker 5: you know, the third lead on a New Girl and
Speaker 5: also somebody who wrote a book about how they built
Speaker 5: the Pentagon. So it was this wide variety of things
Speaker 5: where you'd have a you know, someone was asking me, well,
Speaker 5: you know, there's an earnestness to the show, and and
Speaker 5: how is that? And and I feel like the Daily
Speaker 5: Show was very earnest. You may have thought it was cynical,
Speaker 5: but it wasn't. It was more pathetically earnest and idealistic.
Speaker 5: The only difference is we would have a correspondent deliver
Speaker 5: that earnestness with archness. They would they would approach it
Speaker 5: from the arch position, and then I would say that
Speaker 5: sounds crazy. You know, I would be the mirror to
Speaker 5: say to the person who is delivering an arch premise,
Speaker 5: but that sounds like it's backwards. Well wow, So you know,
Speaker 5: we had a lot of people on the show back
Speaker 5: when I was doing it that were newsmakers, from Rumsfeldt
Speaker 5: to Sibelius to Pelosi to all these people that were
Speaker 5: Judith Miller. But I think it got in the in volume.
Speaker 5: It's forgiving in one sentence in that when you fuck
Speaker 5: up a show or you're not doing it well, or
Speaker 5: you know, you can come back and take another crack
Speaker 5: at it the next day. But also everything blended together
Speaker 5: and kind of a stream of it, there becomes a
Speaker 5: certain meaninglessness to Volume. Yeah, all it is is it
Speaker 5: just plays into the churn.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, we totally get it.
Speaker 1: I mean we experienced that. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: know our trajectory at all, but we were. This show
Speaker 1: used to be at the Hill. It was five days
Speaker 1: a week, and we've taken it independent and intentionally scaled
Speaker 1: it back to three days a week, because, yeah, you
Speaker 1: just get in the cycle where you're like, you realize
Speaker 1: you're talking about stories that you don't actually really care about,
Speaker 1: that you don't actually really think are great use of
Speaker 1: the audience's time. You're hosting guests that you're like, this
Speaker 1: person's not really adding anything to the conversation. So for us,
Speaker 1: three days a week has been a good sweet spot
Speaker 1: in terms of being able to we do a daily monologue.
Speaker 1: Each of us think about have a topic that we
Speaker 1: have time to get invested in. So I definitely hear that.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you. You've got a great new
Speaker 1: episode out on the media. We do a lot of
Speaker 1: media critique here as well, so I want to dig
Speaker 1: into that a little bit more. But one of my
Speaker 1: favorite episodes that you did was on the economy, and
Speaker 1: you took a part the sort of like moral panic
Speaker 1: over socialism and also really pointed out that guess what, guys,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of socialism for the rich. It's
Speaker 1: only when it's you know, to benefit the working class
Speaker 1: that suddenly we have these moral panics. And it just
Speaker 1: struck me watching that episode ode that the critique and
Speaker 1: the commentary was, to my ears a little bit sharper,
Speaker 1: a little bit more pointed than from the Daily Show era.
Speaker 1: And first of all, I wonder if you agree with that,
Speaker 1: and if you feel like your politics have evolved or
Speaker 1: changed over the interim since you were, you know, last
Speaker 1: during the Daily Show.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think my politics are relatively consistent. It's
Speaker 5: that I mean Honestly, you could have lifted that, and
Speaker 5: I probably did the socialism for corporations to pit directly
Speaker 5: from the Daily Show. Again, I think it's got to
Speaker 5: do with having a little bit more time to craft
Speaker 5: something that can be a little bit more specific and
Speaker 5: a little bit more surgical. I think when you're you know,
Speaker 5: comedy in general, and especially as I wielded, it is
Speaker 5: pretty reductive. Just in general, it's, you know, comedy is
Speaker 5: a distillation of a variety of assistant prejudices into a
Speaker 5: you know, a kind of a catch all bucket. And
Speaker 5: so I think for this it was about trying to
Speaker 5: deconstruct the narrative of what is considered socialism. It's the
Speaker 5: idea that for a certain status quo population in America,
Speaker 5: an entitlement is just basically shit you don't need, and
Speaker 5: a stimulus is shit you need that you think is important.
Speaker 5: And so it's trying to make that point that if
Speaker 5: you look at the status quo mainstream distillation of our
Speaker 5: economic policy, we have this identity. The show always tries
Speaker 5: to exist in the difference between what the image of
Speaker 5: something is versus the room where that image is planned,
Speaker 5: the meeting where where they design that image. Sometimes it's purposeful,
Speaker 5: sometimes it's by happenstance. Sometimes it's malevolent. Sometimes it's just
Speaker 5: blind spots and ignorance. But it's it's looking at that.
Speaker 5: And it's pretty clear that the image of the United
Speaker 5: States as a beacon of free market capitalism, where the
Speaker 5: government doesn't choose winners and losers and just this leis
Speaker 5: a fair and visible hand creates the wealth. This is,
Speaker 5: this is how God intended money to be made, is
Speaker 5: a fabrication and a fallacy. And I think the whole
Speaker 5: point of the episode was to show that as specifically
Speaker 5: as we could, and to show that it's sole an manipulation.
Speaker 5: It's just a question of where the powers that be
Speaker 5: decide to put the emphasis in that moment.
Speaker 6: Yep.
Speaker 2: I remember thinking so much during the Trump era, whenever
Speaker 2: we had to react to some of the insanity. I
Speaker 2: was like, Man, I wish John Stewart was around during
Speaker 2: Russiagate and smart.
Speaker 3: So to get to watch this episode.
Speaker 2: Was like a cathartic experience because I remember thinking how
Speaker 2: important it would have been to have you around at
Speaker 2: that time. And I think the biggest problem John, which
Speaker 2: you allude to, is, look, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I would have come to your house.
Speaker 5: By the way, I would be Yeah, you just should
Speaker 5: have called me how to come to your house. I
Speaker 5: would have had me around. Wish I could have sat
Speaker 5: on the couch with you and watch TV.
Speaker 3: My mom would have been thrilled.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 2: But when I think about it, it's like, yeah, Okay,
Speaker 2: Fox is bad.
Speaker 3: Right wing media is bad.
Speaker 2: We agree, you know, but the so many of the
Speaker 2: same characteristics, the intertwinement of the administration talking points, building
Speaker 2: up narratives, and as you point to in your interview
Speaker 2: with Bob Iger, is it's not just that the media
Speaker 2: is covering fear. It's that by their ridiculous and selective coverage,
Speaker 2: they're influencing the trajectory of Paul and of politics in
Speaker 2: this country is just as easily applied to so much
Speaker 2: of whatever the corporate liberal media industrial complex as much
Speaker 2: as it is on the right, John, Why is it
Speaker 2: so difficult to get the people in that complex to
Speaker 2: understand it? You know, Having come from a more conservative background,
Speaker 2: I can tell you a lot of people at Fox
Speaker 2: they know what's up, they know what they're doing. But
Speaker 2: the people of the Washington Posts and the New York Times,
Speaker 2: they truly believe they're doing the Lord's work exposing all
Speaker 2: of this, and they don't even see their own, like
Speaker 2: their own role in so much of the system that
Speaker 2: they're helping to perpetuate. That's why I always found your
Speaker 2: covered so valuable. Is just skewering of everybody, which I
Speaker 2: think is.
Speaker 3: Where most the majority of the country is. They hate
Speaker 3: it all, all of it.
Speaker 5: Well. So one of the difficulties of the nihilism that
Speaker 5: should describe yeah, is I think you have to understand
Speaker 5: it's about incentives and mechanisms right and the mechanism and
Speaker 5: incentivizing for right wing conservative media is different from the
Speaker 5: mechanism and incentivizing for what you would consider mainstream than
Speaker 5: you know, left wing media. So yes, it's not about
Speaker 5: a pox on all your houses. It's about criticism of
Speaker 5: or examining each thing as its own separate entity, but
Speaker 5: being as clear headed and smart about what you believe
Speaker 5: to be. It's about looking at things on a different polarity,
Speaker 5: whereas the mainstream media has set up kind of this
Speaker 5: dynamic of right versus left because it's producible and it's
Speaker 5: a good source of conflict, and it's reductive enough that
Speaker 5: it's you can repeat it. I mean, the one thing
Speaker 5: you guys know about making content is it's one thing
Speaker 5: to be able to make it. It's another thing to
Speaker 5: be able to make it all the time, every day consistently.
Speaker 5: And that's their job. They're on the air twenty four
Speaker 5: hour day, seven days a week, where you have talk
Speaker 5: radio or you have all these other things that have
Speaker 5: to be producible, and so producibility is an enormous foundational
Speaker 5: principle of the dynamic of right and left. What we're
Speaker 5: trying to do is look at it from a principle
Speaker 5: of corruption versus integrity or noise versus clarity. Don't always
Speaker 5: obviously achieve that, but that's the goal. So you know,
Speaker 5: when you say something like the right wing media, yeah,
Speaker 5: that's bad, but the left wing media is bad too,
Speaker 5: it's not a question of them both being bad. It's
Speaker 5: a question of what is one trying to achieve, what's
Speaker 5: the incentive behind what they're trying to achieve, and how
Speaker 5: are they going about achieving it. And I do think
Speaker 5: there's a big difference between what CNN does and what
Speaker 5: MSNBC does, And I think there's a big difference between
Speaker 5: what all of them do and what the right wing
Speaker 5: media sphere is much more directed and much more politically
Speaker 5: a li mind and entwined. I mean, you saw that
Speaker 5: after January sixth, the text messages back and forth were
Speaker 5: between the President of the United States and his handlers
Speaker 5: and Hannity and Ingram and you know, the right, the
Speaker 5: right wings media is a much stronger arm of a
Speaker 5: political movement.
Speaker 7: That is true.
Speaker 1: And Emerson, although I do want to say, I mean,
Speaker 1: CNN just got caught in a big scandal where the
Speaker 1: president of the network and his mistress were are stand
Speaker 1: accused of, you know, helping Governor Cuomo at the height
Speaker 1: of his popularity, coordinating talking points having him be interviewed
Speaker 1: directly by his brother in prime time. Jensaki is now
Speaker 1: being floated as a new host at either CNN or MSNBC.
Speaker 1: Simone Sanders, who was constractor for the Vice president, is
Speaker 1: at MSNBC.
Speaker 4: So I'm not sure that there's a lot of political detach.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but there's revolving doors. And it's what I'm saying
Speaker 5: is the coordination. You can't have it on the left
Speaker 5: because the left is a much more fractious coalition. What
Speaker 5: I'm saying is their bias tends more towards sensationalism, right
Speaker 5: and easy narrative, and it's not relentlessly focused on achieving
Speaker 5: political aims. They're just not, and if they are, they're
Speaker 5: really bad at it. And I would say the example
Speaker 5: you have about Chris Cuomo and Andrew Cuomo is much
Speaker 5: more about protecting one of their own than it is
Speaker 5: about protecting a political movement. That it had a lot
Speaker 5: more to do with nepotism and the cozy relationship between
Speaker 5: those industries than it did about, you know, trying to
Speaker 5: advance medicare for all. You know the right wing media
Speaker 5: is about and you've seen them have to flip now
Speaker 5: when you look at their coverage of Russia and Ukraine, right,
Speaker 5: So Russia is much more politically aligned with our political right.
Speaker 5: They're defenders of They're an orthodox Christian state, defenders of
Speaker 5: Western value. So there was great kind of common purpose
Speaker 5: with our right wing media. And then this guy goes
Speaker 5: like full Hitler and everybody's got a backtrack. But the
Speaker 5: fact remains that there is a lot of common cause
Speaker 5: in their sort of politics. Does that make sense? So
Speaker 5: I'm not suggesting that left wing media is the same
Speaker 5: as mainstream media is the same as right wing media.
Speaker 5: But what I'm saying is you have to be able
Speaker 5: to critique them for what they are and not put
Speaker 5: them all in the same pot. And it's not both
Speaker 5: sides arism to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's one well, there was one piece of
Speaker 1: that that you pointed to you there with regards to
Speaker 1: the Quomo scandal that I think is correct, which it
Speaker 1: was much more about you know, Zucker interested in getting
Speaker 1: the governor of New York who was this big political
Speaker 1: star at the moment, sort of exclusive to his network.
Speaker 4: It was great for.
Speaker 1: Ratings to have this little like casual back and forth
Speaker 1: with his brother where they're joking about swabbing each other's
Speaker 1: noses or talking about mom spaghetti dinner or whatever. So
Speaker 1: there was a money and corruption and nepotism angle there ultimately,
Speaker 1: And that was one piece that I felt like was
Speaker 1: a little bit left out of the episode that you
Speaker 1: did on the media because you talk a lot about
Speaker 1: the pressure for sensationalism for ratings. You know, anchors getting
Speaker 1: the minutes by minute by minutes and seeing, okay, these stories.
Speaker 1: You know, climate change is un sexy, but you know
Speaker 1: Russiagate is very sexy. So we're going to lead with
Speaker 1: it every single night, and the walls are closing in
Speaker 1: and all of that.
Speaker 4: But I do think part of.
Speaker 1: The problem is that sort of coziness, in that clubbishness
Speaker 1: where they're all in the same circle as the very
Speaker 1: people whose feet they're supposed to be holding to the fire.
Speaker 1: So that's how you end up with a situation like
Speaker 1: Governor Quomas.
Speaker 4: It wasn't just CNN.
Speaker 1: Everybody was linizing these guys, this guy at the same
Speaker 1: time that there were real questions about the handling of
Speaker 1: nursing homes, about the liability corporate liability shield that he
Speaker 1: was helping to usher through that was used as a
Speaker 1: model by Republicans, and all of that was ignored because
Speaker 1: they were all sort of in the same social circles,
Speaker 1: and it's uncomfortable to hold people that you know and
Speaker 1: consider as peers to account.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I mean yeah, you're you're dead on there.
Speaker 5: And I've said that to everybody who works here, and
Speaker 5: I said it to everybody to Daily Show, which is
Speaker 5: when we all leave this show, look around this room,
Speaker 5: because these will be your only remaining friends. You know,
Speaker 5: we don't we we can't have we can't have colleagues
Speaker 5: and you know that that cozy relationship and everybody depending
Speaker 5: on each other for their for their livelihoods, and that
Speaker 5: revolving door is an enormous issue. And it's why the
Speaker 5: you know, White House correspondence issue should be taken out
Speaker 5: in the back and were sent to a farm upstate,
Speaker 5: like the idea that because you can't do your job
Speaker 5: while protecting access and feelings. Yes, ever, and I think
Speaker 5: it's an enormous problem, but I think beyond that problem,
Speaker 5: you have to look at the dynamics of how they're
Speaker 5: incentivized to make their money. Look, there are people there
Speaker 5: that get bonuses for ratings right on the news and
Speaker 5: so that naturally incentivizes it. Salaries are based on if
Speaker 5: you can drive a better demographic. So those are all
Speaker 5: the kinds of things that and they're competing for a
Speaker 5: narrower and narrower audience. And I think if you drill
Speaker 5: down with almost any of them, they don't think that. Look,
Speaker 5: I'll give you an example. The way that they're covering
Speaker 5: Ukraine is bold. It's brave, it's immediate a lot of times,
Speaker 5: it's thoughtful, a lot of times, it's illuminating, and it's heartbreaking,
Speaker 5: not just for what they're going through, but for having
Speaker 5: to be on the front lines of something so dangerous.
Speaker 5: But what it reminds you is there's a different model
Speaker 5: to do all this. What it does is point out
Speaker 5: the superficiality and the general tediousness and triteness of the
Speaker 5: majority of their coverage. Yes, because it's not along the
Speaker 5: lines of now, let's bring on Van Jones and Rick
Speaker 5: Santorum to tell us how to put Ukraine into perspective.
Speaker 5: They're not using the right left polarity. They're using right wrong.
Speaker 5: They're using corruption integrity. Now, it doesn't mean that some
Speaker 5: of it isn't manipulated, and some of it is and uh,
Speaker 5: redundant and overdone. But what it shows is there's another
Speaker 5: way to do this that's compelling, that is insightful and
Speaker 5: within their grasp that they have the tools. And that's
Speaker 5: all we're asking for is cover it in a manner
Speaker 5: that is illuminating and not obfuscating, because generally, when you
Speaker 5: buy into the two team paradigm there and they do
Speaker 5: and they do it differently right and left in mainstream,
Speaker 5: you're buying into a false dichotomy and one that clouds
Speaker 5: the conversation and doesn't you know, so I when when
Speaker 5: you look at that, it's hard to imagine, Well, if
Speaker 5: you've got the capacity to do it this way, why
Speaker 5: aren't we doing everything this way?
Speaker 2: I think a lot of it is a just current
Speaker 2: system system thinking sold that. O'Brien actually pointed that in
Speaker 2: your episode whenever Crystal and I started our show, actually
Speaker 2: a lot of what you said resonated with me. Whenever
Speaker 2: you told the date of the Comedy Central guys, you're like,
Speaker 2: let me do what I want and if you're not,
Speaker 2: you can fire me. Everybody told us the covering the
Speaker 2: news in a class first, in a non partisan way
Speaker 2: was not going to work. They're like, nobody cares, it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. Good luck all of this, you know. Now
Speaker 2: it's what number one or whatever in the news category
Speaker 2: on Spotify, which is not connected to a corporate media organization. Now, no, everyone,
Speaker 2: But this is the point, though, which is that nobody
Speaker 2: wants to take that leap of things. Nobody wants to
Speaker 2: try and within that framework, it's not going to happen
Speaker 2: at the most systematic level. But it's actually something I
Speaker 2: wanted to ask you, which is that you are one
Speaker 2: of those people who's not going to cut anybody slack
Speaker 2: in an interview. Yet you got Jamie Diamond to sit
Speaker 2: down with you, you got Bob Iger to sit down
Speaker 2: with you, you got the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to sit.
Speaker 3: Down with you. What is the model then for people.
Speaker 2: Like us who are kind of coming up in your
Speaker 2: footsteps because we find this problem. John Politician wants to
Speaker 2: come on, but he wants to talk for five minutes
Speaker 2: and stick to whatever is bullshit Bill is.
Speaker 3: It's like, no, that's not how it works here.
Speaker 2: And then they say, Okay, I'll go to CNN, I'll
Speaker 2: go to MSNBC, I'll go talk to the New York Times.
Speaker 2: You actually successfully broke through that barrier. How do the
Speaker 2: people who are coming up do the same thing, or
Speaker 2: is it even possible to have the same level of
Speaker 2: household ID or whatever that you have from coming up
Speaker 2: in legacy media in the two thousands of the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, your goal can't be household ID.
Speaker 3: Well, it's not that not to be clear to get
Speaker 3: the big interview too.
Speaker 5: Well, but again even that, what your goal should be
Speaker 5: is to get really good at diagnosing what are the
Speaker 5: corrupting or corroding influences in whatever story. It's about becoming
Speaker 5: a weather man for bullshit, for figuring out how is
Speaker 5: this system incentivized for negati of outcomes or how is
Speaker 5: this system incentivized to keep the status quo in power
Speaker 5: at the expense of you know, you know, disenfranchised communities
Speaker 5: or communities with less power. It's about power dynamics more
Speaker 5: than anything else. And it's about learning how those work
Speaker 5: and being able to diagnose them and being able to
Speaker 5: articulate them in a really clear way. And if you
Speaker 5: do that, and if you become a really expert at that,
Speaker 5: and then you develop a constituency. And that constituency has
Speaker 5: value to salespeople and politicians are salespeople at heart. And
Speaker 5: if you have a constituency that they feel is an
Speaker 5: important one or that they feel will have consequences for
Speaker 5: them in a negative way, even if it's shame or
Speaker 5: if it's uplift, if you develop that, then you can't
Speaker 5: be ignored because you I mean, that's what that's the
Speaker 5: right wing media model. You develop this constituency that can't
Speaker 5: be ignored. My point is develop it in a way
Speaker 5: that's honest, and that is looking at systems not in
Speaker 5: a political way or a partisan way, but not being
Speaker 5: ignorant that those are the dynamics which can affect change.
Speaker 5: But make your arguments urgently and smartly about the dynamics
Speaker 5: of situations and nuance and call out corrupted arguments wherever
Speaker 5: you find them. Yeah, and that helps you build a constituency.
Speaker 5: That's what it is, is earning your editorial authority. And
Speaker 5: if you earn that, then you can use that to
Speaker 5: get access to do those things. But if your access
Speaker 5: is based on obsequiousness, or if your acts is based
Speaker 5: on the care you will take for that person's you know,
Speaker 5: fragile status quo world like, that's useless. It does no
Speaker 5: good and you don't need the access. You can do
Speaker 5: your the jobs you guys do you can do without access.
Speaker 4: Certainly we do it every day, fortunately have Tom.
Speaker 5: Let me ask you this we talking about.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the cable news model is salvagable
Speaker 1: because you know, I even think about the Ukraine War,
Speaker 1: which you said, like you feel really good about the
Speaker 1: coverage and they're doing you know, right versus wrong, versus
Speaker 1: right versus left. But you know, at the same time,
Speaker 1: the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet is happening in
Speaker 1: Yemen right now. They don't find that good for ratings.
Speaker 1: It's also inconvenient for their friends and politicians because Saudi
Speaker 1: is one of our allies versus Russia's one of our adversaries.
Speaker 4: Or you could look at the Ascan.
Speaker 1: Where there was a lot of focus when we were
Speaker 1: finally after years withdrawing our troops, and now that you know,
Speaker 1: our freeze on that central the Afghan government's reserves is
Speaker 1: helping to spark a mass humanitarian crisis and famine, suddenly
Speaker 1: there's no coverage to be found. So given the fact
Speaker 1: that there is such sort of like selective coverage, all
Speaker 1: based on what's good for ratings, what's good for their
Speaker 1: friends and whatever political circles that you know they're frequenting,
Speaker 1: is it possible to change the cable news model to
Speaker 1: be more edifying without just creating an entirely alternative ecomedia system.
Speaker 5: You just did it. You you just did it. You
Speaker 5: just explained how to do it.
Speaker 1: But don't you have to change the incentives? How do
Speaker 1: you change the incentives? Because right now it's not about
Speaker 1: the individual people. You know, there's a certain type of
Speaker 1: person that thrives in cable news because they're willing to
Speaker 1: sort of accept the system as it is. But it's
Speaker 1: really not about the individual people. It's about this system
Speaker 1: that's ratings driven, that's access journalism driven. In that day,
Speaker 1: twenty four hour news coverage striven. So can you change
Speaker 1: that really fundamentally without sort of changing that structure altogether.
Speaker 5: So I guess I don't buy the premise that if
Speaker 5: you were to cover Yemen responsibly and give it the
Speaker 5: attention that it deserves for the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan,
Speaker 5: that you would suffer that your ratings would be, that
Speaker 5: your ratings would be the problem. Now, there may be fluctuations,
Speaker 5: but it's already an incredibly small, narrow group of people,
Speaker 5: and it's designed by Nielsen, which is from like the
Speaker 5: forties and fifties, So it's a nonsense rating system to
Speaker 5: begin with, so to be judging important stories. The larger
Speaker 5: problem for news organizations is they are really good at
Speaker 5: singular focus. So when you have an event that matches
Speaker 5: the magnitude of their news gathering firepower, that confluence works
Speaker 5: really well. But the truth is they should be able
Speaker 5: to cover all those things you're dead on right about Afghanistan.
Speaker 5: The high dudgeon that everybody took about the mistakes that
Speaker 5: were made in those two weeks, You're like, where the
Speaker 5: fuck have you been? You know? And maybe if we
Speaker 5: had covered it with the kind of aggressiveness that it
Speaker 5: had deserved from the beginning, we wouldn't have been there
Speaker 5: for as long as we were. That we would have
Speaker 5: a different foreign policy that didn't rely on destroying countries
Speaker 5: and then being their social safety net for the next
Speaker 5: fifteen to twenty years as we try and rebuild them
Speaker 5: to the point where they're friendly enough to us that
Speaker 5: nineteen people in a basement in Hamburg couldn't plan an attack.
Speaker 5: I mean, the whole thing is nonsensical from the get go.
Speaker 5: But that being said, these companies make their money on
Speaker 5: carriage fees, Like Fox News makes almost two billion dollars
Speaker 5: a year, not just for ratings, but on they make
Speaker 5: carriage fees. CNN makes carriage fees. EMSONBC does make the
Speaker 5: kind of carriage fees that they do.
Speaker 1: So why do you think, then, if it's not a
Speaker 1: ratings issue, if it's not a ratings issue, why don't
Speaker 1: they cover what's going on in them?
Speaker 4: For example?
Speaker 1: Because I would submit and tell me if you think
Speaker 1: that I'm atas here it's it's chauvinism, but it's you
Speaker 1: know this, what's going on in Ukraine is okay for
Speaker 1: them to talk a lot about because not only is
Speaker 1: it good for ratings, but it's also Russia is one
Speaker 1: of our adversaries, so we're not going against one of
Speaker 1: our allies. But in Afghanistan, you know, now it's the
Speaker 1: Taliban in charge, and so we can't be you know,
Speaker 1: seed to be nice to them. And with regards to Yemen,
Speaker 1: Saudi's one of our big allies. They have a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, money in this town and all over
Speaker 1: the country, and a lot of ties to.
Speaker 4: Political leaders here.
Speaker 1: So it seems to me that that's a part of
Speaker 1: how they choose what to cover and what to go
Speaker 1: all in on, no.
Speaker 5: Question, no question. I mean, it's you know, the Saudis
Speaker 5: are considered an ally. I mean, it's it's very hard
Speaker 5: to think of that regime as anything other than murderous,
Speaker 5: especially after Kashogi and and those kinds of things. It's
Speaker 5: a repressive regime certainly, But I think the other thing
Speaker 5: that we have to talk about is what the people
Speaker 5: of Ukraine look like. They look like us yep, and
Speaker 5: Muslims are scary, and that world is primitive, and Africa
Speaker 5: is primitive, and those worlds. I mean, they've they've said it.
Speaker 5: Trevor did an unbelievable bit on this which was, you know,
Speaker 5: a lot of news reporters going, you don't expect to
Speaker 5: see this kind of construction and the.
Speaker 1: Blonde haired and blue eyed the sea they watch Netflix.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. So I think you're you're dealing with a
Speaker 5: lot of look biases and prejudice are rife in everything.
Speaker 5: The question is getting us to overcome the blind spots,
Speaker 5: getting us to you know, not have that. And I've
Speaker 5: sort of described it all the time as an eight
Speaker 5: year old eight year old's playing soccer. There's a ball
Speaker 5: and everybody runs to it and no one else is
Speaker 5: on the field, Like hold your positions in other places
Speaker 5: to give people a better perspective on everything that's going
Speaker 5: on in the world. And it's not like it can't
Speaker 5: be done. Yeah, it can be done, and I think
Speaker 5: it can be done. To profitability. Now, will it be
Speaker 5: the billion dollars that CNN makes off their carriage fees
Speaker 5: and things, I don't know, but it'll be fucking profitable
Speaker 5: and if you get the right people involved to it,
Speaker 5: it'll be dynamic and it's about telling stories and telling them.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, yeah, well we agree with you, and people
Speaker 1: are hungry for you know, real sort of unvarnished, as
Speaker 1: you put it, uncorrupted, you know, attempts to sort what
Speaker 1: is a complicated and nuanced world. So thank you John
Speaker 1: for your time again.
Speaker 5: Go ahead, Yeah, I was just gonna say one more thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Ways, when you talk about that, the thing that people
Speaker 5: always wonder is that doesn't mean it's not visceral exactly
Speaker 5: or emotion right.
Speaker 4: Yes, it doesn't. It's not like let's all come together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just you know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: inspired us from the Daily Show that we tried to
Speaker 1: bring into this show is your willingness to you know,
Speaker 1: to just look at the landscape and point out the
Speaker 1: absurdities wherever they were. And the other thing that we
Speaker 1: really have tried to embrace here is engagement. That's probably
Speaker 1: the most controversial part of our show, to be honest
Speaker 1: with you, So thank you for that model. Guys, watch
Speaker 1: the show is the problem with John Stewart. We've got
Speaker 1: a nice little graphic we can put up there on
Speaker 1: the screen it really is worth your I've gotten a
Speaker 1: lot out of the show. I think the new model
Speaker 1: has a lot to recom end it. So thank you
Speaker 1: for your time today. We were grateful.
Speaker 3: Thanks John.
Speaker 2: It was a great honor and everybody goes subscribe to podcast.
Speaker 5: Thanks man oh, thank you. Keep up the great keep
Speaker 5: up the great work, guys.
Speaker 3: Thank you sir doing our bust.
Speaker 6: Thanks John, Marsha and Soccer here. Welcome back to the Realignment.
Speaker 6: Hey everyone, we've got a great episode. We interviewed presidential
Speaker 6: candidate vivike Ramashrami about his candidacy, what he's focused on,
Speaker 6: his agenda's priorities, pushed him a bit. Only had thirty minutes,
Speaker 6: not quite the format length we typically enjoy, but this
Speaker 6: is what you get for entering in this side of
Speaker 6: the game. Hope you all enjoy this conversation. We'll definitely
Speaker 6: be following up.
Speaker 2: Vivike Ramaswami, Welcome to the Realignment. Good to be on guys,
Speaker 2: Absolutely so, Vic. I think it's important just to put
Speaker 2: this out at the top. One of the ways I
Speaker 2: became prominent, honestly, was just by interviewing newer candidates to
Speaker 2: the field, unconventional candidates and kind of treating them seriously.
Speaker 2: So at the top, I just want to say you
Speaker 2: to the audience, I'm gonna treat you the same way
Speaker 2: that I treated Andrew Yang, Tulsa Gabbard, President Trump, Mike Pompeo,
Speaker 2: any of the people that we've interviewed here. So I
Speaker 2: think at the top, number one, what is the case
Speaker 2: for your candidacy.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the case for my candidacy is I'm not advancing
Speaker 7: somebody else's vision. I'm advancing my own, and it is
Speaker 7: a vision for national identity at a point where we
Speaker 7: lack one. I think America is in the middle of
Speaker 7: this identity crisis where if you ask most people my age,
Speaker 7: most people your guys age, for that matter, what does
Speaker 7: it mean to be an American in the year twenty
Speaker 7: twenty three? You get a blank stare in response. And
Speaker 7: I think that's a problem. And I think much of
Speaker 7: what the Republican parties focused on attacking, from wokeism to
Speaker 7: gender ideology, to climatism, to Covidism for that matter, which
Speaker 7: I've also been a critic of, fierce critic of, is
Speaker 7: just a symptom of that deeper identity crisis. And I
Speaker 7: don't see another candidate in this field stepping up to
Speaker 7: actually offer an affirmative vision of national identity that can
Speaker 7: dilute that vision to irrelevance. And as part of that,
Speaker 7: I'm also willing to take on issues that other candidates
Speaker 7: in this field bluntly seem unwilling, frightened, or unable to
Speaker 7: take on. I've committed to committed to an affirmative action
Speaker 7: in America.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 7: I would love for another Republican candidate, all of whom
Speaker 7: behind closed doors say they agree with me on this,
Speaker 7: to say that out loud it could be done by
Speaker 7: executive order. Most affirmative action in America. Not a lot
Speaker 7: of people know this. The original sin the head of
Speaker 7: the snake was a Lyndon Johnson era executive order. Every
Speaker 7: Republican president since then could have crossed it out. Instead,
Speaker 7: they complained about affirmative action without actually doing something about it.
Speaker 7: Same thing with respective.
Speaker 6: Climate, very quick, quick thing like isn't. Part of the
Speaker 6: reason why Republicans don't do that is Republicans are doing
Speaker 6: terribly in the center adjacent suburbs. I think the last
Speaker 6: thing a republic would want to convey is that they're
Speaker 6: going to start a racial battle at the Supreme Court, Like,
Speaker 6: isn't that why they're not doing it.
Speaker 7: I mean, maybe it's political calculus. I don't do the
Speaker 7: political calculation. I asked the question about from this. This
Speaker 7: is why I make this about American identity, from the
Speaker 7: standpoint of what it means to be an American. What
Speaker 7: are the values that define being an American. Part of
Speaker 7: that to me is getting ahead not on the color
Speaker 7: of your skin, but in the content of your character
Speaker 7: and your contributions. That's what it means to put merit
Speaker 7: back in America. And I think that there's actually broad
Speaker 7: bipartisan consensus around that, more than most people appreciate. California,
Speaker 7: you'll remember what was at Prop sixteen a couple of
Speaker 7: years ago that a liberal state still voted down on
Speaker 7: the back of saying that you, no, no, no, we
Speaker 7: don't want to amend the state constitution to allow this
Speaker 7: form of discrimination. So I think, actually this meek attitude
Speaker 7: to think that actually we've got to compromise and somehow
Speaker 7: we take these two sides as given. That's not my
Speaker 7: theory of national unity. My theory of national unity is
Speaker 7: we achieve national unity in this country not by showing
Speaker 7: up in some proverbial middle and say, can't we all
Speaker 7: hold hands, guys and sing Kumbayan get along? No, we
Speaker 7: achieve national unity in America by embracing the extremism, the
Speaker 7: radicalism of the ideas that set this nation into motion.
Speaker 7: And you want to know the case from my candidacy,
Speaker 7: I'm willing to embrace the extremism and the radicalism of
Speaker 7: those American ideas even without regard to simple partisan labels
Speaker 7: or political calculations. And my bet is the America people
Speaker 7: are going to be able to tell the difference between
Speaker 7: a foot soldier in the fight against wocism who's spouting
Speaker 7: off talking points that you might have read in a
Speaker 7: book or in a binder are given to you by
Speaker 7: a political consultant, versus somebody whose actual, original bone, deep
Speaker 7: conviction it is that drives this agenda. And in my case,
Speaker 7: it's definitely the latter. From affirmative action to the climate
Speaker 7: religion in this country to willingness to use the military
Speaker 7: to solve the fentanyl crisis by going after cartels in
Speaker 7: Mexico and using our military to protict the southern border.
Speaker 7: Basic ideas that actually transcend I would say partisan lines,
Speaker 7: but which other Republican candidates appear too fearful, bluntly to
Speaker 7: be able to say out loud, I'm taking those I'm
Speaker 7: taking on those sacred cows. And you know I say
Speaker 7: this as a vegetarian, hinduo American myself. Take those cows
Speaker 7: to the slaughterhouse, because that's what it's going to take
Speaker 7: to spawn a national revival that's unapologetic.
Speaker 6: Here's something I wonder too. You kind of had a
Speaker 6: Bury Goldwater adjacent movement moment when you were talking about
Speaker 6: like extremism. You had the famous extremism in the defensive
Speaker 6: Liveries Novice. You're saying, we get the extremism the ideals
Speaker 6: that you are describing. Do you get the sense that
Speaker 6: the American people are asking for extremism right now? We
Speaker 6: look at the twenty twenty two midterms like that was
Speaker 6: the definition of a moment where the right thought there
Speaker 6: was always populous energy, there's always aggression, and it actually
Speaker 6: just turned out people don't like stop the steal and
Speaker 6: want things to be pretty normal. That's the Joe Biden case.
Speaker 6: What's the response to that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So I don't think people are looking for partisan extremism,
Speaker 7: because partisan extremism is a unproductive but be boring. It's
Speaker 7: not even coherent. I mean, what does it mean to
Speaker 7: be a Republican today? What does it mean to be
Speaker 7: a Democrat today? These questions are on the table, They're circular.
Speaker 7: Whereas I think what people are hungry for is a
Speaker 7: sense of purpose and meaning and identity and cause. I mean,
Speaker 7: I think our generation, all generations in this country today
Speaker 7: are so hungry for purpose at a moment in our
Speaker 7: history when the things that used to fill that void,
Speaker 7: from faith to patriotism, to hard work to family, those
Speaker 7: things have disappeared, and that's what creates this moral vacuum
Speaker 7: in its way. So are people hungry for it now?
Speaker 7: I think people are starved for it of what it
Speaker 7: means to be American, a revival of a national identity
Speaker 7: that we long for, hungering to be part of a
Speaker 7: bigger nation. Filling that hunger with something greater than transgenderism
Speaker 7: or wokeism or climatism. Yes, people are hungry for it.
Speaker 7: Here's my problem, though, is the Republican Party so far
Speaker 7: has not been stepping up to deliver an affirmative, inspiring
Speaker 7: vision to fill that void, reviving ideas like merit, like
Speaker 7: free speech, and open debate as our mechanism to settle
Speaker 7: political questions rather than censorship, reviving the idea that who
Speaker 7: have ever thought the people we elect to run the
Speaker 7: government are the ones who actually run the government, rather
Speaker 7: than this cancerous federal bureaucracy. These are basic American ideas,
Speaker 7: and in fairness, I will tell you this, those are
Speaker 7: extreme ideas. For most of human history it was not
Speaker 7: done this way, although seventeen seventy six, on the other
Speaker 7: side of the pond, in Old World Europe, it was
Speaker 7: not done this way. So we're the weirdos here on
Speaker 7: the American side of the Atlantic, in the post seventeen
Speaker 7: seventy six version of our country. But that is part
Speaker 7: of what makes us who we are, and we've obsessed
Speaker 7: so much over you know, are different. We have similar
Speaker 7: shades of melanin on this particular call, but across the country,
Speaker 7: different shades of melanin. Who cares whether we look different,
Speaker 7: whether we're diverse, if there's nothing greater that binds us
Speaker 7: together across that diversity. So if there's one thing that
Speaker 7: I think our citizenry is hungering for, it is a
Speaker 7: revival of that commonality. Those basic ideals and dare I
Speaker 7: say yes, embracing the extremism of those ideas, I will
Speaker 7: not apologize for it, because that's what it means to
Speaker 7: be American.
Speaker 2: One of the talks about extremism right now, Vivik here
Speaker 2: in Washington is a Republican standoff with the Biden administration
Speaker 2: over the debt sealing and cutting Medicare and Social Security.
Speaker 2: This isn't something I've heard you get way on. Where
Speaker 2: do you stand on entitlement programs? Should they be untouchable
Speaker 2: in any sort of deal? If you were the president
Speaker 2: of the United States, what would you plan to do
Speaker 2: so with those programs?
Speaker 7: So the first observation I'd make is this is again
Speaker 7: another one of these straw man partisan struggles. I mean,
Speaker 7: one of the things that Republicans ought to be honest
Speaker 7: about was that spending was high under President Trump. I'm
Speaker 7: actually an unapologetic America first conservative of I think in
Speaker 7: order to put America first, we have to actually redefine
Speaker 7: and rediscover what America is now. Donald Trump he had
Speaker 7: a lot of things right. One of the things he
Speaker 7: didn't have right was the amount of money he's spent.
Speaker 7: So I think that this is far from a partisan struggle,
Speaker 7: So I generally favor spending less money as the federal government.
Speaker 3: I thought about it time my programs.
Speaker 7: You know, I want to give you the give you
Speaker 7: the broad back drop. So look, I think that there
Speaker 7: are easier ways to solve this than just sort of
Speaker 7: dig trenches and then pretend like we have some sort
Speaker 7: of disagreement about it. Take somebody who's earned over ten
Speaker 7: million dollars over their life, should they be eligible for
Speaker 7: Medicare in the same way as somebody who hasn't earned
Speaker 7: over a million dollars in their life. I think we
Speaker 7: ought to be able to have that discussion rationally without
Speaker 7: using toxic code words like means testing. I think if
Speaker 7: you get really specific, I mean, that's a line that
Speaker 7: I would draw. Okay, I think that somebody ten million,
Speaker 7: and that's a lot of people in this country. And
Speaker 7: I think that you know, in my you know, a
Speaker 7: full policy team early days, first week of the campaign,
Speaker 7: this is not one of my campaign priorities. Rock solid
Speaker 7: on the twenty or so things that I do plan
Speaker 7: to deliver. This is not Admittedly, entitlement reform is not
Speaker 7: part of my case for the President's You asked me,
Speaker 7: what was I'll tell you about it. This isn't on
Speaker 7: the list, but it is something that a leader of
Speaker 7: the United States is going to have to consider. And
Speaker 7: the way I think about this is that there are
Speaker 7: reasonable incremental steps we can take to get the country
Speaker 7: back on the right track the way I saw for it.
Speaker 7: What is on my agenda is shutting down many swaths
Speaker 7: of the federal government because part of where you get
Speaker 7: spending bloated the way it is is if you put
Speaker 7: people in a job, they think they're supposed to do
Speaker 7: the job, and all jobs in the federal government involves
Speaker 7: not only spending money on their own employment, but spending
Speaker 7: on money on behalf of the federal government itself. And
Speaker 7: so when I say shut down the Department of Education,
Speaker 7: part of that is because the Department of Education has
Speaker 7: no reason to exist, but part of that at the
Speaker 7: federal level. But also part of that is because it's
Speaker 7: a step towards creating a culture in the federal government
Speaker 7: of not only spending less money, but returning it to
Speaker 7: the people to whom it belongs. So that's going to
Speaker 7: be my main contribution. And I've laid out the fact
Speaker 7: that I'm to shut down government ag ses, I'm going
Speaker 7: to actually fire employees pursue it to Article two of
Speaker 7: the Constitution, which says that actually the US president runs
Speaker 7: the executive branch of the government, no matter what civil
Speaker 7: service protections and statutes say. Those are the kinds of
Speaker 7: issues I'm most focused on. But if you're gonna ask
Speaker 7: me directly, I'll tell you where I am on those
Speaker 7: entitlement rule.
Speaker 6: Okay, Well, here's the thing, like we're because I you
Speaker 6: know this, like I'm not a huge fan of like
Speaker 6: two thousands george'll b Bush, like naming the president of
Speaker 6: like Taiwan, gotcha journalism. The reason why we're asking you
Speaker 6: I think this actually matters beyond what you're saying, though,
Speaker 6: is we could say whatever we want. What matters what
Speaker 6: the voters actually think, and I could tell you the
Speaker 6: Donald Trump twenty sixteen voters actually did not like how
Speaker 6: Jeb Bush was not aligned with their vision of how
Speaker 6: entitled and social security actually worked. So what I want
Speaker 6: you to reckon with here, right, So talk about like
Speaker 6: you're saying these values of like merit and like individualism
Speaker 6: relate how that vision translates into how we treat old
Speaker 6: people in this country. Because this is frankly a debate
Speaker 6: with Obama, you're not being overturned, well, social security prioritization.
Speaker 6: Failing that, the Left has broadly won. So express that
Speaker 6: entitlement debate through the values you said at the top
Speaker 6: of the episode.
Speaker 7: Yes, So, look, I think that we have to start
Speaker 7: with the lower hanging fruit to start a spawn a
Speaker 7: cultural revival that gets us. So here's my theory of
Speaker 7: the case philosophically, and then I can get to the
Speaker 7: specifics as much as wat on policy. So my view
Speaker 7: is a lot of the things we're going to have
Speaker 7: to do in this American moment will demand sacrifice. The
Speaker 7: one I've been most explicit about is decoupling from China.
Speaker 7: I've called for a declaration of independence from China. Sounds
Speaker 7: great on paper, in practice a lot harder than it sounds. Why,
Speaker 7: because it's going to involve some trade offs. We got
Speaker 7: addicted to buying cheap stuff for a long time. That
Speaker 7: was a purposeful bargain we entered, but it got us
Speaker 7: into the precarious geopolitical position we're in, where we're in
Speaker 7: this codependent relationship with an enemy that's different than anything
Speaker 7: we ever experienced with the Soviet Union in the last
Speaker 7: Cold War.
Speaker 6: Well quick to understand. Ild you understand this then, So
Speaker 6: what you're saying is under your presidency, assume you could
Speaker 6: get this past or whatever you could make this happen.
Speaker 6: We cannot do business if anyone in China and American
Speaker 6: So I'm just like a small business like garage cannot
Speaker 6: source its goods from China. That's what you're saying.
Speaker 7: Well, I'm going to be explicit about a couple of
Speaker 7: things of what decoupling means. But at the limit, we
Speaker 7: have to be prepared to tell us businesses that you
Speaker 7: cannot do business in China unless and until the CCP
Speaker 7: reforms its behaviors or the CCP falls. And then for
Speaker 7: reasons I can explain to you, because I think China
Speaker 7: is in a very precarious position right now, and we're
Speaker 7: working within a short window we pull the rug out
Speaker 7: from under them that delivers that reform and possibly the
Speaker 7: fall of the modern CCP as we know it. Xijinping
Speaker 7: shot China's economy in the foot to take his third
Speaker 7: term last October. So there's a complex geopolitical view here
Speaker 7: that informs my view that this is actually leverage we
Speaker 7: exercise to defeat them economically. So that we never have
Speaker 7: to militarily. I could go on for hours about that,
Speaker 7: but I bring that back as an example to say that, yes,
Speaker 7: we have to be willing, as you pointed out, to
Speaker 7: make some short term sacrifices in order to achieve long
Speaker 7: run game. But I think the American moment right now
Speaker 7: calls not for Chamberlain, it calls for Churchill. It calls
Speaker 7: for thinking on the time scales. Yes, I'm not shy
Speaker 7: to say it, time scales of history rather than in
Speaker 7: the time scales of an actoral cycle. And if we're
Speaker 7: able to do that, okay, then we then I think
Speaker 7: our kids and grand kids are going to be a
Speaker 7: good place. But we can only do it if we
Speaker 7: know what we're sacrificing for. And that's why it comes
Speaker 7: back to this case for national identity. Okay, you know,
Speaker 7: entering a family, think about values I inherited from my parents, right,
Speaker 7: entering a marriage, having kids, raising a family, These things
Speaker 7: involve a sacrifice and trade offs too. But you can
Speaker 7: make those trade offs if you know what you're sacrificing for.
Speaker 7: I think it's the same thing in your capacity, not
Speaker 7: just as a family member or a parent, but as
Speaker 7: a citizen. Of this nation too. And that's why my
Speaker 7: focus and the next president of the United States. No
Speaker 7: successful president, successful president in history, has been able to
Speaker 7: take on everything at once. You pick the few things
Speaker 7: you're going to do, clearly pledge what you're going to do,
Speaker 7: go deliver, and accomplish it. In my case, it's going
Speaker 7: to be to fill that void of a missing national
Speaker 7: identity by setting in place, setting into motion a set
Speaker 7: of policies that help us revive that sense of natural
Speaker 7: national culture and pride, start to declare independence from China,
Speaker 7: and begin to demonstrate how we're able to make the
Speaker 7: short run sacrifices in order to do what actually needs
Speaker 7: to be done in the long run on the scales
Speaker 7: of history.
Speaker 2: And so it may gives us us how I think
Speaker 2: about my priorities there. Sure you're calling this America first
Speaker 2: two point oh? And it really raises a question. I
Speaker 2: know a lot of Trump people here in Washington. I
Speaker 2: interviewed the presidents several times what was wrong with America
Speaker 2: one point zero?
Speaker 3: And there was quite a bit of a discussion.
Speaker 2: You know, on the platform that you laid out, we
Speaker 2: didn't see immigration there at the top. Is there a
Speaker 2: reason that you didn't put immigration in your formulation of America.
Speaker 2: First two point, Oh, you talked about wocism climatism, because
Speaker 2: is in there?
Speaker 7: Yeah, Immigration's in there. I chose to do something that
Speaker 7: most candidates don't do, is I launched my campaign both
Speaker 7: on television and with the simultaneously published op ed in
Speaker 7: the Wall Street Journal laying about I think the most
Speaker 7: specific campaign launched that at least in modern history of
Speaker 7: candidates launched with immigration was on there. I believe in
Speaker 7: merit in immigration, so meritocratic immigration is the cornerstone for me.
Speaker 7: I divide this in terms of accidental immigration versus versus inten.
Speaker 2: What about overall levels of vague? Are we talking about?
Speaker 2: So the discussion plan? So sorry, So go ahead.
Speaker 7: Yeah, wrong discussion right. So I'm not rejecting your premis
Speaker 7: because other people talk about this too. But look, I
Speaker 7: think that we should ask ourselves what are the right
Speaker 7: kinds of immigrants we want? Right now, we're getting the
Speaker 7: wrong kinds of immigrants. People whose first act of entering
Speaker 7: this country is a law breaking one should not be
Speaker 7: permitted to enter this country. I say that unapologetically as
Speaker 7: the cave of immigrants. I'm not a hardliner on that,
Speaker 7: I believe in using the military to secure the southern
Speaker 7: border if necessary, rather than protecting somebody else's border abroad.
Speaker 7: This is a higher priority here. However, and by the way,
Speaker 7: even in the legal immigration system, we have this hair
Speaker 7: brained idea of a lottery based immigration. Co on Earth
Speaker 7: would want America to pursue a lottery when you could
Speaker 7: just pick the best ones instead right best ones as
Speaker 7: defined by loyalty to this country, by willingness to make
Speaker 7: contributions to this country, on the basis of economic and
Speaker 7: otherwise career based track record to predict who's going to
Speaker 7: make the biggest contributions to this country. So I think
Speaker 7: merit based immigration ought to be the right answer. And
Speaker 7: so these people who want to get this into discussion
Speaker 7: about this many immigrants are not I say, there's two
Speaker 7: problems with that. One is, let's say you just pick
Speaker 7: level X, whatever that number is. It may be that
Speaker 7: there are not enough immigrants who even meet that bar.
Speaker 7: Why should we let that many immigrants in Conversely, if
Speaker 7: we have immigrants who are really willing to serve this
Speaker 7: country as citizens, make contributions, assimilate, be part of America,
Speaker 7: and be proud of it, even more proud than people
Speaker 7: who actually inherit their status as American citizens. Great, let's
Speaker 7: have more of them. But that's so far from where
Speaker 7: we are today. The problem today is that we actually
Speaker 7: have an accidental immigration policy starting with a disastrous illegal
Speaker 7: immigration influx starting at the southern border.
Speaker 3: So it I just want to go back.
Speaker 7: It's a false straw man that that otherwise exists in
Speaker 7: this numerical debate that some people like that.
Speaker 3: I understand what was wrong with America first? One point? Oh,
Speaker 3: why is nothing wrong?
Speaker 7: Nothing was wrong with America? Person, But I would I
Speaker 7: wouldn't borrow the lingo America first if I thought something
Speaker 7: was wrong with it. I just think we need to
Speaker 7: take it to the next level.
Speaker 3: So but then the follow up on that, right, President
Speaker 3: Trump is there in the race? Who was in the race?
Speaker 2: Whenever you announce your candidacy, two point zero is going
Speaker 2: to be juxtaposed then with one point zero? So why
Speaker 2: is two point zero then better than one point The
Speaker 2: original version is on the ticket right now.
Speaker 7: A couple of things here, so I can get specific
Speaker 7: on the policies. I think I'm just willing to do
Speaker 7: certain things that President Trump, if he was going to
Speaker 7: do them, would have done them already, right. Eliminating affirmative
Speaker 7: action is the easiest example, because that can be done
Speaker 7: by executive order. But that's small ball, Okay, compare small
Speaker 7: not small ball, but small picture compared to the deeper
Speaker 7: answer to your question. I think in order to put
Speaker 7: America first, we need to rediscover what America is. Okay.
Speaker 7: I care a lot about national unity, and I know
Speaker 7: President Trump, he's a friend. He's misunderstood on us. He
Speaker 7: cares about national unity too, I know he does, but
Speaker 7: he I don't think is capable in the same way
Speaker 7: of delivering it, because if he was, we wouldn't be
Speaker 7: where we are right now. And so to me, I
Speaker 7: think the thing that I care about many of your
Speaker 7: listeners care about many Consernais in this country care about.
Speaker 7: What Donald Trump cares about is having not a national divorce.
Speaker 7: And one of the things about this conversation about a
Speaker 7: national divorce is the more you talk about it, the
Speaker 7: more it speaks itself into existence. I care about having
Speaker 7: one nation left at the end of it, e pluribus
Speaker 7: unum from many one. That is the vision that set
Speaker 7: this nation into motion two hundred and fifty years ago.
Speaker 7: And I think we need a leader who is capable
Speaker 7: of actually delivering on that, both by going further than
Speaker 7: Donald Trump ever did on questions from affirmative action to
Speaker 7: dismantling this climate religion the shackles of the United States
Speaker 7: without shackling China. That's going further on putting America first,
Speaker 7: also has a clear north star on the ideals that
Speaker 7: set American motion, and speak to that with national unity
Speaker 7: as an express objective. On the other side of.
Speaker 6: It, there is a contradiction here. You're talk about in
Speaker 6: noasri unity, but you say something like climate religion basically
Speaker 6: flips the bird at half the country. How do you
Speaker 6: get national unity through polariz I.
Speaker 7: Disagree with you on that premise, Actually respectfully disagree with you. First,
Speaker 7: I think that most people in this country agree with
Speaker 7: everything I've said so far. Okay, that there is a
Speaker 7: climate religion that shackles the United States without laying a
Speaker 7: finger on China. That the United States should be producing
Speaker 7: more fossil fuels, and it's completely hypocritical to tell companies
Speaker 7: like Exon and chef that they can't to only shift
Speaker 7: that oil production to places like Petro China in China.
Speaker 7: Last time, I checked it was global climate change. And
Speaker 7: even if you subscribe to the tenets of this religion,
Speaker 7: methane leakage is far worse over there than it is here,
Speaker 7: and methane is eighty times worse for global warming even
Speaker 7: than a unit of carbon dioxide. So a lot of
Speaker 7: this is a farce. I mean, even the ESG movements
Speaker 7: and the climate movements, hostility to nuclear energy defuddels the
Speaker 7: mad Belies reality, because even if you cared about carbon
Speaker 7: production or carbon emissions, you would be embracing nuclear energy production.
Speaker 7: So I think a lot of people see through that hypocrisy.
Speaker 7: A lot of people understand that, as I've joked around,
Speaker 7: this has about as much to do with the climate
Speaker 7: as the Spanish Inquisition had to do with christ Okay,
Speaker 7: so you're not flipping the bird on Christians by saying
Speaker 7: that you actually oppose the Spanish Inquisition at the height
Speaker 7: of the height in civil in the fifteenth century, I
Speaker 7: think the same thing is true in America today. People
Speaker 7: recognize that these religious movements aren't even about the gods
Speaker 7: that they propose to care about, from racial equality to
Speaker 7: the climate. They've really become vehicles for aggregating power for
Speaker 7: the people who wield these magic words as a way
Speaker 7: of exercising dominion and control and even punishment self punishment
Speaker 7: on the back of it. And I think that goes
Speaker 7: for the racial equity agenda to climate change in a
Speaker 7: with it. By the way, the calls I've gotten, I've
Speaker 7: been surprised, even from Democrat friends or otherwise after they
Speaker 7: watch my opening video and you know, only been one
Speaker 7: week on the campaign trail, but saying that, you know what,
Speaker 7: I'm afraid to say this to my friends, but actually
Speaker 7: a lot of them like what you're saying. Wait, what
Speaker 7: did I say in my opening video. I don't care
Speaker 7: if you're black or white, or Democrat or Republican. If
Speaker 7: you're on board with these basic principles, these basic rules
Speaker 7: of the road, then we're on the same team. And
Speaker 7: we can disagree on whether Ivermectin treats COVID or whether
Speaker 7: corporate tax rates should be high or low. But if
Speaker 7: we're on board with the unapologetic pursuit of excellence, of
Speaker 7: free speech and open debate of self governance over aristocracy,
Speaker 7: of recognizing that China is indeed our number one long
Speaker 7: run threatened, that it's worth making some sacrifices to address that.
Speaker 7: That's what it means to be American today, and that's
Speaker 7: a pro American movement that transcends these, I would say
Speaker 7: somewhat boring even stopophoric, partisan boundaries that we've somehow become
Speaker 7: a prisoner of, in part because of modern media and
Speaker 7: a bunch of other reasons.
Speaker 6: Sure, so we've got We've got less than five minutes left,
Speaker 6: so sorry, and I will be quick about these ones.
Speaker 6: So you had an interesting interview with Hugh Hewitt earlier
Speaker 6: in the week. You didn't know what the nuclear trad
Speaker 6: meant pride was. We'll put that to the side. You
Speaker 6: can learn what that term means. I know you know
Speaker 6: what it is now. That said, I think the significance
Speaker 6: behind the question, though, is the president is in charge
Speaker 6: of the means to end the earth. You can definitely
Speaker 6: train to learn what acronyms mean. I'm not convinced that
Speaker 6: you could learn in a year and a half during
Speaker 6: partisan Fox News hits podcasts like this. How do I
Speaker 6: actually sit down with Shijing ping er Vladimir Putin? Convince
Speaker 6: me otherwise? Because I got your point about how make
Speaker 6: a great point that work?
Speaker 7: And thank you for taking the superficiality out of it,
Speaker 7: because you know, anyone can learn a term, right, so
Speaker 7: this is a word. Okay, I understand that there's land,
Speaker 7: air and see. But I'm approaching this with humility. So
Speaker 7: I think I think one of things is it's different
Speaker 7: is yes, I'm I fast study. Yes. Have I taken
Speaker 7: on other complicated problems before and learned them fast? Sure,
Speaker 7: But I got to approach this, and I am approaching
Speaker 7: this with humility. So I'll just tell you where I
Speaker 7: came from. Earlier today, I was having lunch upstairs in
Speaker 7: my house in the basement now with a former cabinet
Speaker 7: level secretary from the Trump administration who was over here
Speaker 7: visiting me. We spent two hours training on the relevant issues.
Speaker 6: You know, training after one precise I think precise? What
Speaker 6: does training mean? Does train it? Because once again, let
Speaker 6: me tell you a quick story. Berlin, nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 6: Incredibly important. JFK he's in the presidency. He meets in
Speaker 6: Vienna with Krushchev. He looks like a full in front
Speaker 6: of Khrushchev because JFK is a very smart guy, but
Speaker 6: he was like kind of not really ready for it.
Speaker 6: Khrushchev builds the Berlin Wall Quan missile crisis. That is
Speaker 6: the definition of an example of how in the presidency
Speaker 6: there was no training for that. The JFA could have
Speaker 6: done between nineteen totally nineteen nine nineteen sixty. So what
Speaker 6: does training mean in that context for.
Speaker 7: You is at least understanding the history and the status quo.
Speaker 7: But you can't. You have to analyze as a future situation.
Speaker 7: You can never do it by analogizing as a substitute.
Speaker 7: But one thing that we're going to do that's different
Speaker 7: on this campaign, and I haven't talked about this, so I'll
Speaker 7: mention this to you guys, is we're going to tape that.
Speaker 7: We're going to do it daily. We got two hours
Speaker 7: at least daily where there's somebody coming in flying here
Speaker 7: spending time with me in Columbus, Ohio. We're going to
Speaker 7: actually let the world watch how I learn. Okay, nobody
Speaker 7: and by the way, many of the governors who were
Speaker 7: running they're utterly unprepared on foreign policy as well. Not
Speaker 7: because it's their fault, it's just not in the nature
Speaker 7: of what it means to be a governor. So nobody
Speaker 7: is really prepared.
Speaker 6: To cause it's important. YEP, I would not debate that you,
Speaker 6: being incredibly educated and smart, may know more information at
Speaker 6: the end of this campaign than a governor does. But
Speaker 6: the issue of George W. Bush wasn't that he didn't
Speaker 6: know enough facts. It's that when nine to eleven happened,
Speaker 6: he had terrible judgment. He had terrible judgment. He was
Speaker 6: emotionally immature, he wasn't intellectually suited for the job. He
Speaker 6: was foisted upon. I'm just concerned if we reduce this
Speaker 6: to an SAT quiz that's playing to your strengths being
Speaker 6: to the actual job.
Speaker 7: There's difference being smart and being wise. And you know what,
Speaker 7: in the nature of this conversation, there's nothing I can
Speaker 7: say that would convince you or should convince you of
Speaker 7: the answer to your question. Right, But I think that
Speaker 7: what you want is somebody who approaches it with humility.
Speaker 7: This is a long process for a reason. I think
Speaker 7: the early States in Iowa, New Hampshire played a really
Speaker 7: important role here where people actually I spend a little
Speaker 7: bit time there lost because really impressed. I mean, people
Speaker 7: have a sixth sense for who's real, who's not. What
Speaker 7: to ask I mean the questions and the exchange the
Speaker 7: parts that they were picking up on. We have an
Speaker 7: all right process. It's not a perfect process, but we
Speaker 7: have an alright process for vetting who gets to run
Speaker 7: the free world. I'm entering this ring pretty early to
Speaker 7: go through that. People should be skeptical of me or
Speaker 7: anybody else, but maybe especially somebody who's young, who's never
Speaker 7: held political office, who has the hubrist to think he
Speaker 7: can run for president of the United States. And you
Speaker 7: know what, we will leave that to the voters next year.
Speaker 7: I think that this year should be about defining the agenda.
Speaker 7: So for a second, I ask to you and everyone
Speaker 7: watching this is forget the question about the who in
Speaker 7: the primary for a little bit. Let's first define the
Speaker 7: what and the why. What do we stand for? Why
Speaker 7: do we stand for it? I think that's what's missing
Speaker 7: in the Republican Party. I expect, you know, bluntly, I'm
Speaker 7: not trying to be humble here, as you can tell,
Speaker 7: I think I have already this last week and will
Speaker 7: continue to lead the way in specifically defining an agenda,
Speaker 7: offering specific policy solutions. I invite the other candidates to
Speaker 7: join me. That's what this year should be about. Sure,
Speaker 7: next year should be about the question of the who okay,
Speaker 7: And I will be very transparent and open about this.
Speaker 7: People have a chance to watch how I learn. I
Speaker 7: will approach this with humility. And you're right, there's a
Speaker 7: temperament question to this too. Is not just about who
Speaker 7: has the right ideas, though I think this year's emphasis
Speaker 7: should be on that. But next year, let the voters
Speaker 7: decide who they think that right standard bearer is going
Speaker 7: to be. And I hope that I'll learn the trust
Speaker 7: of the people who vote for me.
Speaker 2: I have faith in the democratic process as well. So
Speaker 2: last two questions, I know you've got to get out
Speaker 2: of here. Number one, on the election of twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: was it stolen or not?
Speaker 3: Yes or no question?
Speaker 7: Yes, but not in the way that not in the
Speaker 7: way that you mean that question.
Speaker 3: Okay, So what I think it was.
Speaker 7: I think the technology companies tilted the scales of public debate. Okay,
Speaker 7: I think that this was. I think the Hunter Biden
Speaker 7: laptop storyes what was wrong with the lead up to
Speaker 7: that election cycle. There was a true story that was
Speaker 7: censored in the name of misinformation, actually created more misinformation
Speaker 7: that somehow this was Russian disinformation. Guess what this was
Speaker 7: American disinformation? That that actually wasn't a true story. By
Speaker 7: the way, the same lesson we've learned this last week
Speaker 7: as it relates to the COVID lab league. And so
Speaker 7: I think that I think the twenty six I think
Speaker 7: the real If I had to pick one election that
Speaker 7: was stolen from Trump, though it was actually the twenty
Speaker 7: sixteen election, the one that he won, not the one
Speaker 7: that he lost, because he had to actually deal with
Speaker 7: two years of a fraudulently based inquiry that was based
Speaker 7: on completely false and politicized premises. But I also think
Speaker 7: that we should stop using these retroactive We're not going
Speaker 7: to move forward by adjudicating the past. We're going to
Speaker 7: have to understand going forward, how are we going to
Speaker 7: fix the democratic process. And it's not just about the
Speaker 7: ballots we cast every November. It's about a democratic culture
Speaker 7: of free speech and open debate. And I think the
Speaker 7: litmus test for the health of a democratic process is
Speaker 7: actually the percentage of people who free to say and
Speaker 7: are free to say what they actually think in public.
Speaker 7: I think over the last eight years we've done poorly
Speaker 7: in that regard. I think we have an opportunity to
Speaker 7: do better since that the twenty twenty four election can
Speaker 7: put that dirty pass behind us.
Speaker 2: No disagreement on much of what you said, but I
Speaker 2: do have to get specific because it's an important thing.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about mass voter fraud. There was no mass
Speaker 3: voter fraud in the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 7: I have not seen any evidence of mass voter fraud.
Speaker 7: I distinguished that from micro examples that have clearly been
Speaker 7: reported and documented. I have not seen evidence of mass
Speaker 7: voter fraud.
Speaker 2: No great and final question here is on abortion. So
Speaker 2: one of the Vice President Pence and big disagreement between
Speaker 2: him and President Trump is on a national abortion ban.
Speaker 3: Where do you stand on national abortion ban?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 7: I am pro life. However, I think that for years,
Speaker 7: on constitutional grounds, we have correctly argued that this is
Speaker 7: a state's issue, and I think it should remain a
Speaker 7: state issue. I think overturning Row in the Dobbs decision,
Speaker 7: I think it was the right decision on hard constitutional grounds,
Speaker 7: full stop, hardline on that, crystal clear. I think that
Speaker 7: we constitutionally finally got it right. That's where I'm at.
Speaker 7: For years it was argued to be a state's rights issue,
Speaker 7: and both for constitutional as well as public policy reasons,
Speaker 7: I think that's where it rested.
Speaker 2: So would you sign any federal abortion legislation fifteen week ban,
Speaker 2: twenty two week ban as proposed in the Congress.
Speaker 7: As somebody who is staunchly pro life and unapologetic about
Speaker 7: that fact, I think that the states should get to
Speaker 7: that answer.
Speaker 2: That's okay, so all right, well with Viak Gramase, Sammy.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate you taking the time to join us.
Speaker 2: We know that you took some time out of the schedule.
Speaker 2: I look forward to some of the videos that you're
Speaker 2: talking about, the two hour videos, the education chestins and
Speaker 2: welcome back on the show anytime.
Speaker 3: Thanks very much, appreciate you guys, absolutely