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Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. High

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Speaker 1: whip Smarties. Today we are joined by one of my

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Speaker 1: smartest friends and someone that I look up to in

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Speaker 1: every single way, both from the way she lives her

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Speaker 1: life and runs her career to who she is as

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Speaker 1: a person. Today, I'm sitting down with Serlina Maxwell, who

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Speaker 1: you likely know as an incredible American cable television host,

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Speaker 1: political analyst, commentator, speaker, and author. She writes and speaks

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Speaker 1: about everything politics, culture, gender inequity, sexual consent, racism, and

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Speaker 1: so many other topics that affect all of us. She

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Speaker 1: is a survivor and an activist. She holds a degree

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Speaker 1: from Rutgers Law School. Started out as a field organizer

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight on the Obama campaign and then

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Speaker 1: was the director of Progressive Media for the Hillary Clinton

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Speaker 1: campaign in twenty sixteen. She is a director of Programming

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Speaker 1: at SiriusXM, now hosts her weekly show on Sirius called

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Speaker 1: Signal Boost and her daily show Mornings with Zerlina on

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Speaker 1: SERRIOUSXM Channel one twenty seven. And as if that wasn't enough,

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Speaker 1: she wrote an incredible book called The End of Wait Politics,

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Speaker 1: which we're kind of having to reanalyze now because a

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Speaker 1: lot of fear mongering decided the last election. I'm going

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Speaker 1: to talk to her today about the way that she

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Speaker 1: sees the current state of things, how she's figuring out

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Speaker 1: how to communicate that the political is actually everywhere around

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Speaker 1: us and is so deeply personal with her audience with

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Speaker 1: people who agree with her and people who don't. And

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Speaker 1: she's going to give us a little preview in her

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Speaker 1: next project, she is launching a new substack called the

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Speaker 1: Inner Work Dispatch on Monday mornings because she realized, like

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Speaker 1: many of us, that she needs to do a little

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Speaker 1: more work on her mental health care and on her

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Speaker 1: own wellness. She tries to ensure the wellness of the world.

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Speaker 1: I cannot wait to dive in today. Let's hear from Serlina.

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Speaker 1: I how where are you?

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Speaker 2: I'm okay. I actually I just moved.

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Speaker 3: I don't know if you saw on the thread or

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Speaker 3: if they told you that, or if I mentioned that

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Speaker 3: I was moving to Sicily, and so I just literally

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Speaker 3: to Sunday, I moved to Sicily. So it's been a

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Speaker 3: little bit crazy this week, just like because you have

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Speaker 3: to like do all this stuff, like when you first

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Speaker 3: move in terms of like your resident your permit to stay,

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Speaker 3: and so getting a Italian phone number. Like, there's just

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Speaker 3: a lot going on. But why I'm able to like

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Speaker 3: do my show from.

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Speaker 1: Me, I was gonna ask, how does that work?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it looks it works out for me pretty

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Speaker 3: well because the show's at seven o'clock in the morning,

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Speaker 3: so here it's not.

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Speaker 2: Seven o'clock in the morning.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: But uh, and and it just like gives me a

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Speaker 3: different quality of life. You know, I can I live

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Speaker 3: by the water, I can, you know, go from my

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Speaker 3: run or walk by the water.

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Speaker 2: And I just I don't know. I was here.

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Speaker 3: I was in Italy in Rome for like five months

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Speaker 3: of twenty twenty four, and then I spent the last

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Speaker 3: month ironically the I spent the election day and day

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Speaker 3: weeks after here in Palermo. And I I feel like

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Speaker 3: it was meant to be that way, because I was

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Speaker 3: like obviously stunned, just like everybody else, but I was

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Speaker 3: also in like I felt removed from it, so my

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Speaker 3: head was.

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Speaker 1: Clear, Yeah, you had a little distance.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and.

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Speaker 3: I was able to like form thoughts about it in

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Speaker 3: a way that I didn't I after in twenty sixteen.

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Speaker 3: I was just like couldn't speak, you know, like it

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Speaker 3: was different than that. Yeah, and so yeah, I'm here

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Speaker 3: for at least a year.

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Speaker 2: That's what the visas for. So we'll just we'll see.

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Speaker 1: That's so exciting. I spent some time near the end

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Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three in Italy with my mom's family,

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Speaker 1: and it was so special and I definitely had sort

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Speaker 1: of thoughts of maybe this is what I do, Maybe

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Speaker 1: this is where I go, maybe I start over.

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Speaker 3: There's something special about Italy. I think a lot of people.

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Speaker 3: I mean, obviously it's a popular place for people to

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Speaker 3: go on vacation, but I quickly learned and just talking

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Speaker 3: to people, first of all, I mean it depends where

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Speaker 3: you are obviously in Italy, but in southern Italy and

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Speaker 3: in Sicily, the people their warmth is real, Like that's real,

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Speaker 3: and they I don't know, there's the way they are

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Speaker 3: is different, and it's actually very I learn a lot

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Speaker 3: about like being present and you know, when I go out,

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Speaker 3: not having my phone out, and talking to people face

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Speaker 3: to face and having like face to face interactions and

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Speaker 3: like connecting with people in a way that I just

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Speaker 3: wasn't doing.

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Speaker 2: I lived in Washington, d C.

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Speaker 3: Before I started my trips to Italy, and I was

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Speaker 3: the most I mean, my mother died at the end

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Speaker 3: of twenty twenty two, so I was like in a

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Speaker 3: period of grief and like all of that, but like

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Speaker 3: also in Washington, d C. I was the most sad

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Speaker 3: I've been since I was like maybe nineteen, and I

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Speaker 3: was like, I have to get out of here. My

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Speaker 3: therapist like, you can move, you were remotely.

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Speaker 1: So do you think that's sadness? I mean, of course,

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Speaker 1: losing your mom is like, what a deep wall of

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Speaker 1: grief to have to fall into. But do you think

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Speaker 1: some of that larger sadness geographically was coming from a

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Speaker 1: sensitivity to just how crazy things have gotten in our system?

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we we're all old enough to remember,

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Speaker 1: you know, policy fights and debates about legislation and budgets

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Speaker 1: and priorities and things. But the Pandora's box that the

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Speaker 1: first not even election, I would say, the first Trump campaign, yeah,

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Speaker 1: opened right, you know in twenty fifteen leading into twenty sixteen.

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Speaker 1: I I like, you can't believe we're back here. I

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Speaker 1: was so shocked and also not at all surprised, which

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Speaker 1: is a sort of heartbreak that I had to wrestle

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Speaker 1: with for a few months. You know, the experience of

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Speaker 1: I believe we're better than this. I guess we're just not.

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Speaker 2: No.

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Speaker 3: I literally, well, my book is about how we are

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Speaker 3: better than this. I thought I thought we would be

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Speaker 3: in a very different place. I did not allow my

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Speaker 3: brain to think that she may not win. I knew

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Speaker 3: obviously that it was going to be really hard, right,

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Speaker 3: and also she's a woman, and she's a black woman,

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Speaker 3: and she onlyan one hundred days, like yeah, one hundred

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Speaker 3: and seven, So all those things. I just didn't allow

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Speaker 3: my brain to even go there. So when it happened,

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Speaker 3: I was like, this is not happening. I don't I

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Speaker 3: just sat there for a second and I was like, Okay,

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Speaker 3: thank god I'm here because I can go and run

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Speaker 3: and listen to loud Regie music and just like get

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Speaker 3: that out of my body. Because I was like, it

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Speaker 3: was like a primal screen almost like yeah.

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Speaker 1: And I think, what's hard to you know, and now

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Speaker 1: that we're in it, let's be in it. I think

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Speaker 1: what's hard for me is to see the level of

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Speaker 1: destruction and the sort of shock that a lot of

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Speaker 1: people are in that he's actually doing what he said

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Speaker 1: he would do, right, And many of us are like,

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Speaker 1: he told you the whole time he was going to

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Speaker 1: do this, Like what are you what are you talking about?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and.

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Speaker 1: It's odd. It's been odd for me. You know. There's

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Speaker 1: another woman kind of who is in our long time

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Speaker 1: sphere of political activists who I just kind of caught

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Speaker 1: online the other day and I was like, oh, you're

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Speaker 1: you're a traitor, got it. You You thought that by

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Speaker 1: demonizing trans folks in America it might protect you. But

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Speaker 1: you you're a woman, and by the way, you're not

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Speaker 1: even a white woman. And this, this, this is not

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Speaker 1: good for women like me, let alone for any other woman, Like, like,

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Speaker 1: everybody has a target on their back unless they're you know,

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Speaker 1: a billionaire. And I think it's hard for me to

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Speaker 1: watch the swiftness and the cruelty. And also I think

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Speaker 1: it's why so many of us have been saying, listen

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Speaker 1: to the historians who are warning you about one hundred

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Speaker 1: year cycles, like this shit is not new. We can

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Speaker 1: tell you exactly where it starts, and we can tell

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Speaker 1: you exactly where it goes. And by the way, you know,

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Speaker 1: Hitler didn't start with Jews. He started with trans people,

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Speaker 1: That's where he started.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So literally, people who are like, what do you mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, this is why they've been banning books and

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Speaker 1: attacking the American education system for forty years, Like Mitch

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Speaker 1: McConnell's forty year plan is literally bearing fruit. I think

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Speaker 1: it can be tough when you've dedicated so much of

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Speaker 1: your life to understanding both history, potential and politics and

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Speaker 1: how it's actually in everything to figure out how to

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Speaker 1: communicate when you have a large platform like I do,

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Speaker 1: or you do with folks who just don't have as

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Speaker 1: many political touch points, who haven't been as in the

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Speaker 1: weeds for so long. And I guess before we get

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Speaker 1: into where you are, I just want everybody listening to

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Speaker 1: understand your background. We've done a lot of shows together,

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Speaker 1: so I don't want to ask you questions we've already

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Speaker 1: gone through. But I do want for somebody who maybe

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Speaker 1: this is their first time hearing us talk on my

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Speaker 1: show or yours, I want people to understand your background.

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Speaker 1: You know, like what first sparked your passion for politics?

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Speaker 1: When did you know that you wanted? And I don't

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Speaker 1: even want to call it political commentary. I think about

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Speaker 1: it as like political communication, like it's translation of a

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Speaker 1: system into words most of us can understand. When did

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Speaker 1: you know that you wanted that to be your life,

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Speaker 1: your career.

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Speaker 3: I feel like I knew that during the administration of

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Speaker 3: George W.

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Speaker 2: Bush.

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Speaker 3: And I've always been somebody who's been obsessed with politics

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Speaker 3: since I was a little kid.

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Speaker 2: I remember vividly.

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Speaker 3: I was eight and I was outside of school and

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Speaker 3: we were lined up to like go in. I think

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Speaker 3: I was in second or third grade back then, and

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Speaker 3: it was the election.

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Speaker 2: With George H. W. Bush and Michael Ducaccus.

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Speaker 3: And I remember like doing a little speech in front

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Speaker 3: of the school in elementary school telling the kids to

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Speaker 3: tell their parents to vote for Michael Ducaccus.

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Speaker 2: Now, no one told me to do this.

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Speaker 3: My parents, both of my parents, like I think my

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Speaker 3: mom was mostly a Democratic voter when I was growing up.

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Speaker 3: My dad actually was voted for a few Republicans there.

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Speaker 2: So nobody told me to do this. This was just like.

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Speaker 3: Completely me sitting in front of the TV as a little kid,

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Speaker 3: deciding I agree with those people and not those people

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Speaker 3: like that. It was a very like visceral thing for

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Speaker 3: me as a little kid, So fast forward to George W.

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Speaker 3: Bush's administration. I was literally obsessed, in part because at

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Speaker 3: the time I thought that was the worst we could do,

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Speaker 3: and I just couldn't imagine not trying to prevent his

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Speaker 3: you know, Republicans from continuing down this pass. So I

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Speaker 3: ended up on the Obama campaign in two thousand and

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Speaker 3: eight because I was like, if I don't do something well. One,

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Speaker 3: I felt like I couldn't complain if it didn't if

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Speaker 3: it didn't go well.

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Speaker 2: But also I was like, I have I need skin

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Speaker 2: in the game.

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Speaker 3: And I lived in New Jersey at the time, and

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Speaker 3: I decided I was like, well, New Jersey's not a

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Speaker 3: battleground state. So I think it was Chuck Todd in

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Speaker 3: his map, and I picked a yellow state, two yellow

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Speaker 3: states to apply it to Virginia and Pennsylvania. I got

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Speaker 3: jobs in both, but then decided to go to Virginia,

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Speaker 3: a state that I'm very closely connected to my family now.

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Speaker 3: My parents retired in Virginia, so Virginia is like a

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Speaker 3: state I know they're politics well, and I've been in

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Speaker 3: that state for many, many years. But I moved down

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Speaker 3: to Virginia. I worked for the Obama campaign as a

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Speaker 3: field organizer. This is before even my career in political

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Speaker 3: communications took time off law school went down. Was a

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Speaker 3: field organizer, knock on doors, and I really just learned

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Speaker 3: what organizing is all about. I mean, I think everybody

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Speaker 3: who starts in campaigns as a field organizer, that's like,

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Speaker 3: that's the grunt work. But it's the best work because

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Speaker 3: it teaches you all the different aspects of what's going

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Speaker 3: on in a campaign because people are coming in and

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Speaker 3: out of your field office.

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Speaker 2: But also you learn how to talk to people.

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Speaker 3: You learn how to communicate with people about what they

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Speaker 3: care about. Right, all kinds of people are coming into

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Speaker 3: your field office every day, mostly for yard signs, but

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Speaker 3: sometimes with other types of questions. And they really just

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Speaker 3: taught me that there's people of all ages and all backgrounds,

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Speaker 3: and you know, with so many different concerns, I mean,

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Speaker 3: and politics is one way to address those concerns. When

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Speaker 3: I first got that job in two thousand and eight

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Speaker 3: and all the organizers stood up and they were asked like,

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Speaker 3: why are you here, we went around the realm of

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Speaker 3: hundreds of people, and ninety five percent of the people

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Speaker 3: said health insurance. Healthcare was the reason why they were there,

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Speaker 3: So they had been impacted directly because parent, her grandparent,

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Speaker 3: and for me, I think that was a really emotional

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Speaker 3: experience because I realized that it's not just politics, right,

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Speaker 3: it's I mean a lot of people think politics is

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Speaker 3: a thing that doesn't affect them because they're not paying

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Speaker 3: attention to it. Right. It's, oh, well, that's that's politics,

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Speaker 3: that's Democrats and Republicans. No, it's it affects you every

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Speaker 3: single day, whether you know it or not. So I

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Speaker 3: think I learned in that in the grassroots way, how

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Speaker 3: politics intimately affects people, and I learned how to organize

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Speaker 3: on that campaign. The second campaign I worked was Hillary

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Speaker 3: Clinton in twenty sixteen. In between, I became a writer

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Speaker 3: and sort of had a profile as a writer and

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Speaker 3: a media personality and ended up on Hillary's campaign in

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Speaker 3: twenty sixteen based on that experience and what I learned

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Speaker 3: were on that campaign, I mean, it was a really

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Speaker 3: different job. I was a community communication staffer working on messaging.

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Speaker 2: I think that's how we started.

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Speaker 3: Communicating with each other because at the time Jess McIntosh,

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Speaker 3: my partner in feminism, as I like to describe her,

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Speaker 3: we were messaging to influencers, which no one knew what

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Speaker 3: that meant. Bay twenty sixteen, they were like, what what

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Speaker 3: is influencers? And we're like, we're doing influencer messaging and

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Speaker 3: they were like, yeah.

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Speaker 2: What does that mean?

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Speaker 3: But I think in twenty sixteen, what I learned in

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Speaker 3: that experience is that you really have to hit people

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Speaker 3: in the heart.

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Speaker 2: You know. There's something that.

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Speaker 3: We and I've been thinking about this idea all year

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Speaker 3: because there's something that is disconnected between what policies democrats

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Speaker 3: are talking about and what people are feeling, even if those.

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Speaker 2: Policies would would help with that.

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Speaker 3: I think, long story short, to bring it back around,

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Speaker 3: I think my experience both in two thousand and eight

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Speaker 3: and twenty sixteen taught me from different perspectives how to

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Speaker 3: actually reach people, right what do people care about, and

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Speaker 3: how to talk to them so they feel like you

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Speaker 3: hear them. And the things that you're talking about as

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Speaker 3: it relates to politics, which affects everybody, are all things

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Speaker 3: that they're like, oh, okay, I see how that can

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Speaker 3: help me, and they're not so defensive right away.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll be back in just a minute. But here's

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Speaker 1: a word from our sponsors. There's a few things that

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Speaker 1: kind of come up for me, and I'm curious about

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Speaker 1: your lens, you know, much like you. The Oait election

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Speaker 1: for President Obama was that was my first it's a

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Speaker 1: political volunteer, and you know, by the time we all

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Speaker 1: got onto Hillary's campaign in twenty sixteen, I think we

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Speaker 1: were like, oh, we know what we're doing. We know

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Speaker 1: how to do this. Part of the reason storytellers are

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Speaker 1: so effective is because we can remind people take it

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Speaker 1: out of the policy specific language and talk about how

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Speaker 1: policy is personal. And one of the things that I

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Speaker 1: see now is and we knew this right. We know

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Speaker 1: a lie travels sixteen hundred times faster online than the truth.

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Speaker 1: We know that soundbites float around and complex conversation doesn't.

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Speaker 1: We know that the black and white is something that

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Speaker 1: causes reactivity and nuance, which is required to run a

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Speaker 1: country of this size, and also to understand all the

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Speaker 1: people in it often doesn't translate or become clickbait. What

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Speaker 1: I think I struggle with now is knowing not only

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Speaker 1: those facts, but knowing how effective fear and othering are

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Speaker 1: as a message, and to know that for our current administration,

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Speaker 1: the cruelty is the point. And one of the things

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Speaker 1: that I think we have failed at assuming we've had

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Speaker 1: all these wins, we've had all this progress. You know,

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Speaker 1: we were all born when a woman could get a

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Speaker 1: credit card without her husband signing for it. We were

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Speaker 1: born when a woman could rent an apartment without a man.

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Speaker 1: Some of our elders, you know, the women that we

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Speaker 1: look up to, were not. They remember the difference. And

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Speaker 1: what I think we have failed at is communicating well

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Speaker 1: that progress requires time and destruction is relatively immediate. If

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Speaker 1: you drop a beautiful piece of pottery, it shatters the

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Speaker 1: second it hits the floor. To make that pot on

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Speaker 1: a wheel took time and clay and water and shaping

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Speaker 1: and attempts and might have failed, and then begin again,

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Speaker 1: and then it gets fired, and then it gets glazed,

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Speaker 1: and then it gets fired again. Political progress or requires

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Speaker 1: an investment of time and patience. But it's why we

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Speaker 1: have these systems that seem to simply exist, and we

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Speaker 1: haven't explained how they exist. The fact that we both

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Speaker 1: have power in our homes is politics. The fact that

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Speaker 1: we can turn on a faucet and drink water that

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Speaker 1: hopefully won't kill us is politics. The fact that we

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Speaker 1: have roads to drive on politics. When you bitch about

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Speaker 1: the pothole in your neighborhood. Bad politics, Like people have

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Speaker 1: forgotten that schools and clean air and water and electricity

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Speaker 1: and a grocery store, all of it is politics. And

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Speaker 1: so now politics has become these people who want to

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Speaker 1: give your stuff away versus these mean people who'll do

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Speaker 1: anything to give it back, And like that just ain't it? Like,

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Speaker 1: it's not how it works. And when you think about

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Speaker 1: you know, your show, your right, your activism, your political organizing,

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Speaker 1: how do you begin to make the political personal? Because

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Speaker 1: that difference between what we know and what we feel like,

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Speaker 1: that's the gap. I think, So how do we help

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Speaker 1: people understand how personal every single political decision is.

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Speaker 3: I've been thinking about this for the last three weeks

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Speaker 3: because one of the things that folks call my show,

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Speaker 3: and they call from all over the country, they're like.

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Speaker 2: What can we do? What can Democrats do? You know,

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Speaker 2: how do we stop this?

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Speaker 3: And it's in part I think there is a disconnect

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Speaker 3: between some Democrats and what they say and some of

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Speaker 3: the democratic messaging and what really resonates with people emotionally.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: I think that is why Trump succeeds in communicating to

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Speaker 3: his base of support, because he taps in to them emotionally.

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Speaker 1: Even though he's lying.

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Speaker 3: To that, right, right, Like, that's what makes me crazy,

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Speaker 3: you know me too, Me just.

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Speaker 1: Lies and people go, yep, that's it.

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Speaker 3: Right, And and unfortunately there are some people who want

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Speaker 3: to be lied to, so some people do. They They

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Speaker 3: may even if you got them, you know, in a

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Speaker 3: corner and you were like, you know, that's not true,

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Speaker 3: and they probably you probably could get them to admit that.

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Speaker 3: But but I do think that one of the things

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Speaker 3: that we sometimes miss on the left, and I hate

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Speaker 3: even doing like right left, like on my show, I

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Speaker 3: feel like we're humans, We're trying to survive, we're trying

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Speaker 3: to be happy. We're all like have sort of the

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Speaker 3: same goals here, and he's hurting everybody. It doesn't matter

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Speaker 3: what side of the spectrum you fall on. He's he's

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Speaker 3: firing government employees that voted for.

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Speaker 1: Him, right, I mean, just gutted the VA.

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Speaker 3: Exactly, literally veterans losing their And one of the things

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Speaker 3: I've been thinking about in the last couple of weeks

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Speaker 3: is the way in which Democrats can start talking about

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Speaker 3: what's happening with Doggie. I don't even call it dose

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Speaker 3: because Jess McIntosh and I just call it doggy.

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Speaker 2: Because it sounds funny.

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Speaker 3: What stories we can start telling about what's happening, right,

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Speaker 3: It's not you know, there have been twenty thousand people

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Speaker 3: who have been laid off. It's let's go talk to

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Speaker 3: those people who are they it's a mom. It's probably

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Speaker 3: a mom of three who worked for the federal government,

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Speaker 3: maybe in a health agency, maybe in the Consumer Financial

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Speaker 3: Protection Bureau making sure that people aren't getting scammed by

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Speaker 3: credit card companies, and they're not. They're going to miss

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Speaker 3: the payment for their mortgage, They're not going to be

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Speaker 3: able to pay their their bills, they're not going to

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Speaker 3: be able to pay tuition for their child. There you know,

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Speaker 3: they may not be able to put gas in the car,

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Speaker 3: much less afford eggs that have not gone down in price.

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Speaker 3: So I think that the storytelling element that you that

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Speaker 3: you referenced is the key, right. And I think sometimes

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Speaker 3: we can get caught up in statistics and numbers as

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Speaker 3: opposed to really talk to people's hearts, not their heads.

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Speaker 2: And I actually I.

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Speaker 3: Was having a conversation with somebody in Europe after the

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty four election, and that is the conversation we were

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Speaker 3: having because it wasn't just about the United States. It

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Speaker 3: was about the left globally and how they sometimes struggle

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Speaker 3: talking to people's hearts. And I mean in the context,

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Speaker 3: the context was sort of like feeding people, you know,

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Speaker 3: talking over a good meal and really just talking in

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Speaker 3: a way that sounds human. And it's not that Democrats

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Speaker 3: are not and it's not that they don't care about people,

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Speaker 3: but I think sometimes we can get caught up in

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Speaker 3: the numbers. And I was actually even in the first

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Speaker 3: couple of weeks, not sure if even attacking Elon Musk

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Speaker 3: was necessarily the best message quote unquote for the this

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Speaker 3: particular moment, even though I think that couldn't be part

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Speaker 3: of the message, that could be the only message, because

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Speaker 3: I almost was like, I'm not sure, because there's a

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Speaker 3: lot of people who look up to him of all backgrounds.

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Speaker 2: Right he is the world's richest man.

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Speaker 3: There are people backgrounds that look up to him because

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Speaker 3: they don't know anything other than that's it.

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Speaker 1: People look up to him because they don't know how

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Speaker 1: he got rich, and they don't know where he comes

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Speaker 1: from exactly, and they don't know what he's done to

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Speaker 1: people exactly exactly. And we this is the irony, though,

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Speaker 1: And I'm curious what you think here, because Trump has

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Speaker 1: demonized the quote elite public servants who make not a

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Speaker 1: lot of money compared to people like Donald Trump and

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Speaker 1: his friends. He's demonized folks like you in the news media,

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Speaker 1: folks like me who you know work on TV sometimes

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Speaker 1: and I'm like bro, most of us with sad cards,

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Speaker 1: you know, screen actors, guild actors like I only have

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Speaker 1: healthcare because I'm in a union, right, Like, that's literally

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Speaker 1: how I go to the doctor. You know, I if

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Speaker 1: I make a dollar, my agent makes ten cents, my

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Speaker 1: manager makes ten cents, my assistant makes ten cents, my

437
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: lawyer makes fifty cents. Like I support a whole team

438
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:18,440
Speaker 1: of people when I work, and when I don't, we're

439
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:23,399
Speaker 1: all stressed out. Like we aren't like him. We don't

440
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:27,440
Speaker 1: fly around in private jets. We don't, you know, have

441
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 1: endlessly expendable money. And yet a man who is a

442
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 1: billionaire who launched a meme coin which was likely allegedly

443
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:38,640
Speaker 1: a money laundering scam, who went from having a four

444
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:41,399
Speaker 1: billion dollar net worth to having a twenty nine billion

445
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:44,359
Speaker 1: dollar net worth at the weekend of his coin launch,

446
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:47,400
Speaker 1: and then the coin tanked once he sold all his shares.

447
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:52,159
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's a straight up twenty five billion dollar grift.

448
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:55,439
Speaker 1: And your friend is the world's richest man who is

449
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 1: about to be the first trillionaire, who, by the way,

450
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: said to the World Health Organization, tell me how I

451
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 1: could solve world hunger. They gave him a plan and

452
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,879
Speaker 1: said it would only cost you six billion dollars. He

453
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:09,840
Speaker 1: announced publicly he was going to do it, and then

454
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:11,919
Speaker 1: he was like, psych I got all the good press.

455
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 1: What I'm going to do is go buy Twitter for

456
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 1: forty four billion dollars instead. Like these are bad people.

457
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:25,000
Speaker 1: These are like movie villain rich terrible people. And somehow

458
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 1: they've managed to convince people with so much less, people

459
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:33,679
Speaker 1: whose livelihoods are at risk from paycheck to paycheck, that

460
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 1: those of us who have been in paycheck to paycheck

461
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: positions aren't like them. But the billionaire class is like,

462
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 1: how how, why? What is that? Are we just all

463
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 1: so secretly sure that if we got a reality show

464
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:59,080
Speaker 1: or I don't know, fathered seventeen children with however many women,

465
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:01,320
Speaker 1: Elon has that like, we could be rich too. What

466
00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:04,919
Speaker 1: what is that in our psyche that puts us in

467
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 1: these crazy places where we are like the characters in

468
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: that kid's book The Emperor has no clothes, and we're like, yeah,

469
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: great robe to the naked guy, Like what why are

470
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: we like this?

471
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 2: I don't know.

472
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 3: I wish I knew the answer. I think part of

473
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:22,399
Speaker 3: it we're delusional. There's a lot of people who are

474
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:25,359
Speaker 3: delusional these days, and I think it goes back to

475
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 3: in all serious it's the point you mentioned earlier about

476
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:32,359
Speaker 3: disinformation and misinformation. So number one, even the story that

477
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 3: you just told about Elon Musk and Donald Trump and

478
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 3: the meme coin, a lot of people don't know that

479
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:40,919
Speaker 3: detail because that's not detail that is in their siloed

480
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 3: media environment.

481
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:45,160
Speaker 2: So they're not even getting the facts right.

482
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 3: They are poureding off from fact telling right if they're

483
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:53,480
Speaker 3: just watching Fox News, if their algorithm is only feeding

484
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 3: them right winging voices, they are not getting any of

485
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 3: the facts and that it's it's so because I feel

486
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 3: like one of the things that happened in the first

487
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 3: couple of weeks and it's still happening now with all

488
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 3: the federal layoffs, is people who voted for Trump are like,

489
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 3: I got fired today or I did not, I lost

490
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 3: my snap benefits today or I couldn't access my step

491
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 3: menefits because of the initial funding freeze. I think that

492
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 3: people are now starting to see that, wait a minute,

493
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 3: he's doing things that are affecting me, that are harming me.

494
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 3: And he didn't say he was going to do that.

495
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 3: He said he was going to deport all of the

496
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:31,399
Speaker 3: brown people, all the undocumented people that I thought he

497
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 3: was going to do that. I didn't think he was

498
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 3: going to do this. And I think that the storytelling

499
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 3: plus the making sure they have access to the facts,

500
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 3: I think that there can be a really critical combination

501
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 3: of those two things that can help at least get

502
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 3: us part of the way. But unfortunately, for the next

503
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 3: couple of years, until at least the midtrum elections, it's

504
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 3: going to be incredibly hard. And I think that one

505
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 3: of the things that I know that I've been doing

506
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 3: on my show, I know that AOC has been doing

507
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 3: that every time she goes on IG Live, is really

508
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 3: level setting with people and saying, look, we're not in

509
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 3: power as Democrats, not in the Senate, not in the House.

510
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 3: There's very little that we can do. There's I mean,

511
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 3: I would argue there there's more they could do. But

512
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 3: there's not a whole lot they can do. They can't

513
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 3: stop things whole claw.

514
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 1: And not only can they not stop things, but when

515
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 1: when the federal government, when our federal courts say, this

516
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: is outside the scope of presidential power. You are infringing

517
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: on the other branches of the judiciary, this is not

518
00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: within the scope of executive power. You are breaking the law.

519
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,959
Speaker 1: And he says, so, yeah, we've never had that. I mean,

520
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 1: it is truly.

521
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 2: It's not hyperbole.

522
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: It's not people, you know, being sensitive or fantastical or whatever.

523
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 1: It's a true constitutional crisis or in the person who

524
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: occupies the O office, I am not going to respect

525
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:04,080
Speaker 1: any other branch of the federal government, and I am

526
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: not going to listen to the law of the land,

527
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 1: nor will I follow the letter of the Constitution. We

528
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 1: have a problem.

529
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, it's a huge problem. I asked Senator

530
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 3: Chris Murphy recently the same exact question. I was like,

531
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 3: I know, But I was also like, well, what do

532
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 3: we do because we have to assume he's not going

533
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 3: to follow any of what the judges saying. Even if

534
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 3: the judges are like, you're in the law, He's going

535
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 3: to be like so what, I'm gonna do what I want.

536
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 3: It's unconstitutional. He's like, so what, I don't care, and

537
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 3: we have to just assume that he's I think that

538
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:39,720
Speaker 3: Senator Murphy pointed made the most important point. One of

539
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 3: the first things he did was was a signal. He

540
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 3: pardoned the January sixth insurrectionists. That was the mall we

541
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 3: all should have known from day one that he is

542
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 3: not going to respect the rule of law.

543
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: Yeah.

544
00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 3: I mean, he's going in there as a convicted felon,

545
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 3: but we know he's not going to respect the rule

546
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 3: of law because he pardoned the people who attacked the capitol.

547
00:30:57,280 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 2: In January sixth.

548
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so that was the signal that if you

549
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 3: ever commit acts of violence or break the law for me,

550
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 3: you'll be fine. And that is the same thing is

551
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:12,040
Speaker 3: true about mister Elon Musk, Right, if he breaks the

552
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 3: law and a judge is like, stop doing that, he's

553
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 3: gonna make so what because he knows that his buddy

554
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 3: President Trump can pardon him.

555
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 2: Yeah.

556
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 3: Right.

557
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 2: So I think one of the things that.

558
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 3: So many people are not really grasping right now is

559
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 3: not only did they tell us they were going to

560
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 3: do all of this, they wrote it all down on

561
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 3: probably twenty twenty five, And I remember saying on MSNBC

562
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 3: before the election, the combination of Projecly twenty twenty five

563
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 3: in the presidential immunity decision, that is what a dictatorship is.

564
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 3: Those two things together combined make a dictator And I

565
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,240
Speaker 3: don't think people were really getting it. And the pushback

566
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 3: that I got in talking about democracy and protecting democracy

567
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 3: was that people really care.

568
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 2: About the cost of eggs.

569
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 3: And while I think that there are people out there

570
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 3: that did care about the cost of eggs, they that

571
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 3: was just their cover for not really admitting that they

572
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 3: wanted to deport some of these brown people and that

573
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 3: was the real reason why they were supporting Donald Trump.

574
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 3: And it frustrated me that we couldn't really get to

575
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:13,960
Speaker 3: the heart of the matter. And now people are stunned

576
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 3: that he's breaking the democracy because they told us they

577
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 3: were going to break the democracy. They had a plan

578
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 3: to break the democracy, and he's using Elon Musk to

579
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 3: do it.

580
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 1: We'll be back in just a minute after a few

581
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: words from our favorite sponsors. To go back to that

582
00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 1: pottery analogy. When I think about the outbreak of a

583
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: global pandemic, the first in one hundred years. You know,

584
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: you think the Spanish fluid in nineteen eighteen, and then COVID,

585
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:47,720
Speaker 1: you know, granted we know now that it was beginning

586
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 1: to spread in twenty nineteen, but really went global twenty twenty,

587
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 1: shut down the entire global economy, supply chains, factories, shipping routes.

588
00:32:56,240 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 1: To build that back up requires a building, almost from scratch.

589
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:06,160
Speaker 1: Once the well oiled machine stops, it takes a lot

590
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 1: to get the machine going again. And when economists were

591
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: talking about how President Biden had done such incredible work

592
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 1: to stop inflation and manage to do it without starting

593
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 1: a recession and brought American inflation below three percent in

594
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 1: just three years, and did it so effectively that it

595
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:30,120
Speaker 1: actually began lowering inflation rates in other countries, people were like,

596
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: what are you talking about?

597
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 2: And when I would.

598
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 1: Quote to friends and say, have you seen the studies?

599
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 1: Do you understand that inflation in Australia went over twenty percent,

600
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: that inflation in Argentina reached twenty two percent, that inflation

601
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: in Europe in certain areas was over nineteen percent, And

602
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 1: people were like, wait, what I'm going How much do

603
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: you think eggs cost there? And yes, things are not

604
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 1: perfect again here yet, but everything is trending in the

605
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 1: right direction. But for some reason, we are so impatient

606
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 1: with the fix, right, we are impatient with the work,

607
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: even though the work for America alone has to be

608
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:09,319
Speaker 1: done for three hundred and thirty two million people. Like,

609
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 1: think about how crazy the freeway looks at five o'clock,

610
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:15,840
Speaker 1: Like there aren't even a million people on the freeway

611
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,080
Speaker 1: and you're in a bumper to bumper parking lot. Like

612
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 1: to move hundreds of millions of people back into a

613
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: sort of synchronized efficiency takes time, and for some reason

614
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: that time, rather than looking at it and saying, wow,

615
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 1: we are so proud to be leading the world on

616
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:39,359
Speaker 1: global recovery, it turned into they're not doing things fast enough.

617
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:43,240
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the other guy. And it feels,

618
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 1: you know, it feels to me like we are in

619
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 1: the upside down. And to your point, it feels like

620
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 1: because these are complex conversations right the left or the

621
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 1: you know, folks that want everybody to have rights and

622
00:34:58,120 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: that want kids to have lunch in school. Because I'm

623
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm done like you with the right and

624
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 1: the left thing. I'm like, you either want kids to

625
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:05,479
Speaker 1: be able to eat in school or you don't.

626
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:08,280
Speaker 2: That's it right to me, just basic human decency.

627
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:14,120
Speaker 1: And so the pro kids having school lunch's side, for

628
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:19,560
Speaker 1: some reason can't seem to harness the messaging on what

629
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:24,720
Speaker 1: they're doing well. And so the other side, despite everyone

630
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:28,879
Speaker 1: know they're lying, keeps lying and then the lies hit

631
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 1: the airways and here we are. So how do you think,

632
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 1: you know, Chris Murphy, I think one of our best

633
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 1: messages AOC doing an incredible job. How do you think

634
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 1: we can begin to cut through some of the bs

635
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 1: and some of the unwillingness for people to listen to

636
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 1: anyone who thinks, yes, I kids should eat lunch in school.

637
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:57,560
Speaker 1: How do we like right the ship a little bit here?

638
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 3: Well, one of the things I think is that we

639
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:02,760
Speaker 3: have to be better about putting on a show.

640
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 2: Right.

641
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 3: One of the things that Donald Trump did well, I mean,

642
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:10,200
Speaker 3: for lack of a better description, in the twenty twenty

643
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:12,719
Speaker 3: four election, is he put on you know, it was

644
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 3: silly and and even and I was making fun of

645
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:18,000
Speaker 3: it at the time because it looks silly, But when

646
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 3: he kept standing in front of a bunch of groceries, right,

647
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 3: it was just a visual reminder to people that he

648
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 3: was going to solve that problem for them, even though

649
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 3: he didn't do anything about it. He hasn't done anything

650
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 3: about it since becoming president, and he doesn't intend on

651
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 3: doing anything about it. We just have to tell better stories,

652
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 3: and we have to do it in a way that

653
00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 3: is visually compelling. So I have been critical on my

654
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:43,800
Speaker 3: show in the past couple of weeks just in terms

655
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:46,880
Speaker 3: of I think that Democrats showing up at protests outside

656
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 3: of federal agency buildings is great. And I know that

657
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 3: there are like regularly scheduled press availabilities and press conferences

658
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:59,279
Speaker 3: that are inside of Congress because our government has, you know,

659
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 3: things that standard procedure, but we're not.

660
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:03,320
Speaker 2: In that moment.

661
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:07,399
Speaker 3: So I I've grown tired of seeing any Democrats stand

662
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:09,760
Speaker 3: in front of a podium inside of the Capitol building.

663
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 3: I do not understand why they're not standing at a

664
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 3: coffee shop with real people who have been fired from

665
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 3: their jobs. That is what I think they need to

666
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 3: do more of. They need to be in with the people.

667
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 3: I know that they have jobs, and they got to

668
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:24,880
Speaker 3: vote on legs. Well, they have to vote on procedural

669
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 3: things and confirmations obviously happening with the cabinet, or hopefully

670
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 3: they're voting in opposition to that cabinet. But I think

671
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,400
Speaker 3: that part of the problem and the disconnect sometimes comes

672
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:40,279
Speaker 3: from they're not putting on a good enough show and

673
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 3: it seems silly. It seems like, well, isn't it about substance.

674
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 3: It is, but you do have to make it digestible

675
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:52,600
Speaker 3: for people. Going back to the food analogy, you do

676
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 3: have to to make it so that people are like, oh, okay,

677
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 3: they're gonna they're gonna make sure that.

678
00:37:57,239 --> 00:37:59,800
Speaker 2: You know, I can afford my groceries.

679
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 3: Now, the president can't do anything about gas prices per se,

680
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 3: but I think that you know, Trump does. That doesn't

681
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 3: make mean that Trump doesn't say he can do something

682
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 3: about that. He still lies and says that you know,

683
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 3: it's all because of him, even though it isn't.

684
00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:18,279
Speaker 2: But Democrats just have to tell better stories. They're not that.

685
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:21,160
Speaker 2: Sometimes they can get into the weeds they.

686
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:23,399
Speaker 3: Want to they want And I do this a lot

687
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:25,800
Speaker 3: of the time, Like I have to catch myself sometimes

688
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:28,319
Speaker 3: doing this. And I think on my radio show, if

689
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 3: you like listen, over the years, I think that I

690
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 3: talk more like a regular person and less like a

691
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 3: strategist now because I realized that actually coming with all

692
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:39,759
Speaker 3: of my facts and all of my data and all

693
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:43,280
Speaker 3: of my talking points is not actually persuasive as persuasive

694
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:45,080
Speaker 3: it as it is to just talk to another person,

695
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 3: hear them out, listen to what they're saying.

696
00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:50,799
Speaker 2: And then be like, but what about what about this?

697
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 2: Isn't that? Isn't that a better idea?

698
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:57,479
Speaker 3: And just and talk to them in a way that

699
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 3: they feel heard, but then understand that what you're suggesting

700
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 3: in terms of a policy is actually going to help

701
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:08,279
Speaker 3: them and is for their benefit, like that you don't

702
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 3: have some sort of other agenda going on as well.

703
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:13,800
Speaker 2: And I think we can get to in the weeds.

704
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 3: We're talking in too many stats and numbers, and we

705
00:39:17,200 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 3: just have to get to people's hearts, right, go talk

706
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:22,280
Speaker 3: to their heads, talk to their hearts.

707
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 1: Well, I hear you. And then it feels so tricky

708
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 1: because yes, a lot of people talked about the price

709
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: of eggs, and now eggs are twice as expensive approximately.

710
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,280
Speaker 1: I think the numbers change every day as they were

711
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 1: during the last administration. Nobody's talking about it. You know,

712
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 1: the AP is getting banned from the Oval Office, because

713
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:46,839
Speaker 1: they are still referring to the Gulf of Mexico as

714
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:50,359
Speaker 1: the Gulf of Mexico because that's its name, right.

715
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:53,879
Speaker 2: You know. Some of this stuff is so crazy, you know.

716
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:56,320
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, so you do understand name changes

717
00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: in pronoun changes. Actually yeah, Trump government got ithilarious loll

718
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: but also not funny. You know. Everything he's doing is

719
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 1: it's happening so fast, and we are getting caught on

720
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:14,279
Speaker 1: these things. Gulf of Mexico versus Golf of America was

721
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:16,839
Speaker 1: a week long discourse and it's not even a thing

722
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 1: that matters. It's a distraction to the gutting of the VA.

723
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,839
Speaker 1: It's a distraction to the fact that someone with no

724
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: government oversight, who has not been vetted, is essentially acting

725
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:31,240
Speaker 1: as a shadow president, someone who comes from a generational

726
00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:37,279
Speaker 1: family that supported apartheid, that are allegedly active Nazis, that

727
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:42,040
Speaker 1: are you know, doing Nazi salutes on stages and courting

728
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:45,440
Speaker 1: the far right German Party and interfering in European elections

729
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:50,799
Speaker 1: and buying media outlets. I mean, this is this is

730
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 1: the playbook of the twenties and thirties on steroids, yea,

731
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 1: And people are getting really caught up in dumb shit.

732
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: So I almost wonder if the bigger systemic problem. I

733
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: think a lot about this with anti vaxers. Okay, people

734
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:14,319
Speaker 1: are convinced that rather than having better science and us

735
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:18,520
Speaker 1: being able to understand the full spectrum of neurodiversity in humans,

736
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:22,719
Speaker 1: thus we understand more people exist on an autism spectrum,

737
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: more people are a neurodivergent ADHD. They're actually beginning to

738
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:28,799
Speaker 1: prove was a superpower in hunter gatherer times because you

739
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:30,839
Speaker 1: could really focus and get all the berries and then

740
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:32,600
Speaker 1: go home when you felt like you did your task.

741
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 1: You know, none of this is actually a bad thing.

742
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 1: But now suddenly everybody's like, oh, it must have been

743
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:42,240
Speaker 1: this one vaccine dose my kid got that did something

744
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 1: to them, even though the tighters are all lower than

745
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:47,320
Speaker 1: they were when we were kids, even though the vaccine

746
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 1: amounts are lower than they were, even though there's more

747
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 1: arsenic in a pair from the pesticides it grows in

748
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 1: than there is in the totality of all vaccines you'll

749
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,240
Speaker 1: ever get in your life. Like, I think, it's easier

750
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 1: to blame the one thing that maybe you could avoid it,

751
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 1: even though avoiding it could kill you, than to admit Oh,

752
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 1: our government's been poisoning the land on both sides of

753
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:13,120
Speaker 1: the aisle with glycassate for fifty years. Oh, we know

754
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:15,400
Speaker 1: that the pipes in Flint are full of lead and

755
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: they're giving kids brain damage, but we're not replacing them. Oh,

756
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:23,319
Speaker 1: we clearly have a problem, you know, after the wildfires

757
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles with water system contamination by a Brita like.

758
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:31,840
Speaker 1: I think it's easier to try to point to the

759
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 1: quickest insult to your safety than to analyze systemic problems. Yeah,

760
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:43,320
Speaker 1: and to require then that these sides work across the

761
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:46,120
Speaker 1: aisle to solve the problems for all people and all voters,

762
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:49,719
Speaker 1: no matter how you identify. It's easier to harp on

763
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:52,799
Speaker 1: something that you think you can avoid than to say, Oh,

764
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 1: I'm a cog in a very big machine that might

765
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 1: not care about me. Do you think that's part of it? Oh?

766
00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. I mean,

767
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:05,480
Speaker 3: it's interesting that you talk about food policy, because ironically,

768
00:43:06,239 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 3: when I spend out a lot of time in twenty

769
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:10,719
Speaker 3: twenty four in Europe, that was like, the first thing

770
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 3: I noticed was that fruit tasted like fruit, and I

771
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 3: was like, wait, what is this paar taste sweet and

772
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 3: what's going on.

773
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 1: Instead of like foam exactly.

774
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 3: And I actually had Governor Walls on to talk about

775
00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:27,240
Speaker 3: school lunches as a part of a food policy special

776
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 3: that we did on my radio show, and I learned

777
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,800
Speaker 3: so much about not just the difference between food policy

778
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:36,319
Speaker 3: and Europe versus food policy in the United States, but

779
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 3: I think the way in which we've been blocked from

780
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 3: actually changing it, and the way in which the lobby

781
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 3: just makes it completely impossible to change how we make food,

782
00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:54,759
Speaker 3: consume food, and what's in our food. And that's a

783
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 3: much more important conversation than any conversation about a vaccine

784
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:00,040
Speaker 3: that has been tested.

785
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:09,799
Speaker 1: And now for our sponsors. If we made the lobbying

786
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 1: and the money and politics illegal, all of this would change.

787
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 1: It's not actually about the law or the die, which

788
00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:19,279
Speaker 1: by the way, is still in food in Europe. They're

789
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:22,319
Speaker 1: just called different things. It's not even that. And it's

790
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 1: really not lost on me as a California And you know,

791
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 1: a year and a half ago, when Gavin Newsom tried

792
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:29,799
Speaker 1: to ban five substances from the California food system, he

793
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 1: was called a communist. People were like, how Dario tell

794
00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: Us what we can eat. And so was Michelle Obama.

795
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:38,359
Speaker 1: When she tried to say, you can't classify pizza as

796
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:41,120
Speaker 1: a vegetable in school for kids because it has tomato sauce.

797
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:43,400
Speaker 1: You have to give them actual vegetables. People called her

798
00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:45,319
Speaker 1: a communist. They said she was meddling. They said she

799
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:48,440
Speaker 1: didn't have the presidential oversight to do this. And now

800
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 1: we're just handing the whole kit in kaboodle over to

801
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:54,720
Speaker 1: RFK who's making millions of dollars a year selling people

802
00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:59,359
Speaker 1: supplements that aren't even tested by the FDA. No, I

803
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 1: mean upside down.

804
00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:05,480
Speaker 3: Money in politics is the problem. Right, So everything we're

805
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 3: talking about today, the problem is money in politics.

806
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:09,759
Speaker 1: Right.

807
00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 3: If we did something about that, we would go a

808
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 3: long way to solve all of the other problems. It's

809
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:17,320
Speaker 3: like when you make your list of goals at the

810
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:19,880
Speaker 3: beginning of the year, and you have ten goals written

811
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:22,439
Speaker 3: down on your paper, and there's that one or two

812
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 3: goals that if you actually accomplished those, it would make

813
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 3: the others easier. That's the problem, right, That is the problem.

814
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:32,720
Speaker 3: I remember back when Citizens United was decided. I remember

815
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 3: I was sitting at home watching Keith Olberman because That

816
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:37,759
Speaker 3: was the show eight o'clock on MSNBC at the time,

817
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:42,360
Speaker 3: and he was talking about the danger of a decision

818
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 3: like citizens United. And I won't ever forget what he said,

819
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:52,360
Speaker 3: because we're living through it. He said, imagine a president

820
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 3: Sarah Palin paid for by Citybank. Now we're not living

821
00:45:57,680 --> 00:46:02,719
Speaker 3: exactly in that reality. However, how different is it the

822
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 3: reality we're living in now versus President Sarah Palin paid

823
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 3: for by City Bank. We're living in a president Donald

824
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:12,440
Speaker 3: Trump two point zho paid for by Elon Musk. Yes,

825
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:17,279
Speaker 3: it's yes, literally what he predicted that night, says, since

826
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:18,720
Speaker 3: United was decided.

827
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:22,719
Speaker 1: Right, Well, and I read something last night, and you know,

828
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: forgive me, and we'll have to double check it in

829
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:28,799
Speaker 1: the notes for the episode. But you know, Elon Musk

830
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 1: spent close to three hundred million dollars buying his presidency

831
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:35,319
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump, and now he's been awarded nearly eight

832
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 1: billion dollars more in government contracts.

833
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:42,240
Speaker 2: I'm going, hello, It's is Carlos, plain and simple.

834
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:45,920
Speaker 1: The Fox is in the Henhouse. Yeah, and I guess

835
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 1: we talked about this, you know, when we first jumped

836
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:53,040
Speaker 1: on that. In a weird way, we're not at all surprised,

837
00:46:53,040 --> 00:46:57,839
Speaker 1: but we're absolutely rocked and shocked. When you wrote your

838
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:03,000
Speaker 1: book about, you know, healing a liberal divide, you analyze

839
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 1: past and present problems of the we want children to

840
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:09,719
Speaker 1: have luncheon School's side. But you called the book the

841
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:13,759
Speaker 1: end of White politics because the idea here is that, like,

842
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 1: these systems aren't protecting us, these sort of bastardized ideas

843
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:24,399
Speaker 1: around quote unquote supremacy are hurting everyone. And by the way,

844
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:26,479
Speaker 1: the men like the President who want it the most.

845
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:28,840
Speaker 1: It's like it's older white men that are killing themselves

846
00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 1: at the highest rates, so they're clearly suffering in all

847
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:36,360
Speaker 1: of this too. How does it feel to have that

848
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 1: book exist post this election, post the world turning upside down?

849
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: How do you make sense of your thoughts and feelings

850
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,960
Speaker 1: your analysis? Are there things you wish you could add

851
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:52,560
Speaker 1: to it? Is that where the substack comes from, Like,

852
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:56,480
Speaker 1: how does it all work for you now? From here?

853
00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 3: Well, my substack, which is launching very soon called the

854
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 3: Inner Work Dispatch, is going to focus on mental health

855
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:08,239
Speaker 3: and mental wellbeing because I think that as we are activists,

856
00:48:08,239 --> 00:48:11,880
Speaker 3: as we are organizers, as we are thinkers in this space,

857
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:13,960
Speaker 3: we have to also learn how to take care of ourselves.

858
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:17,319
Speaker 3: That's something that I am learning, like I actually need too, right,

859
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 3: like take care of my mental well being before I

860
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:21,960
Speaker 3: can go out and fight fight the man.

861
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 1: And I feel like I'm learning as an academic quote

862
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 1: unquote expert in certain arenas. I feel like I'm signing

863
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 1: up for kindergarten learning how to actually prioritize my own

864
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:36,160
Speaker 1: health and wellness and mental health.

865
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:37,360
Speaker 2: I just have to.

866
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:41,160
Speaker 3: I mean, I've been more intentional in recent years about Okay,

867
00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 3: I'm going to read the news now out why I'm

868
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:45,040
Speaker 3: putting it down. I'm not going to look at it.

869
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:47,400
Speaker 3: I you know, push notifications. They're not even on my

870
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:49,440
Speaker 3: phone anymore. And I work in news, so that's like

871
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:53,760
Speaker 3: actually insane. But also I make sure like I'm checking

872
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 3: it with intention.

873
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:56,640
Speaker 2: I'm doing that on purpose.

874
00:48:56,680 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 3: I'm not accidentally seeing something, and so that go a

875
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:04,919
Speaker 3: long way in making sure you're mentally okay. But back

876
00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:09,600
Speaker 3: to the book question, I feel like I don't know

877
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 3: that was a version of me. I wrote that book

878
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:16,160
Speaker 3: completely before COVID, by the way, I didn't realize that

879
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:20,240
Speaker 3: it came out in July twenty twenty. So I wrote

880
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 3: the book before COVID even happened, and I had to

881
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:25,640
Speaker 3: write it a forward.

882
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 2: For the paperback post Insurrection. So the Ford and the Pape's.

883
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:34,239
Speaker 1: Way, Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, because I'm like, no,

884
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:36,359
Speaker 1: why do I feel like it was so much more

885
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:39,200
Speaker 1: recent than that? And that's why, because the words in

886
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:42,520
Speaker 1: that forward, I know, really stuck with me.

887
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 2: It's the forward.

888
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:46,120
Speaker 3: I read it the Ford a lot, actually, because I

889
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:50,200
Speaker 3: think I sometimes I feel like I'm like a couple

890
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:53,840
Speaker 3: of years ahead of like where the political analysis is,

891
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 3: and that's not twenty my own horn. That's just like

892
00:49:55,560 --> 00:49:58,120
Speaker 3: sometimes I'm like, I see the matrix, and how come

893
00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:02,799
Speaker 3: nobody else sees this? So I knew that, and I

894
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:04,760
Speaker 3: have a chapter of the white resistance in the book.

895
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:07,919
Speaker 3: I knew that there was going to be a backlash

896
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,719
Speaker 3: to the evolution of American demographics.

897
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 2: I knew that.

898
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:14,799
Speaker 3: I knew it right there was going to be. I mean,

899
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 3: we're living through that backlash right now.

900
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:19,359
Speaker 2: Now. I don't know what happens on the other side

901
00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 2: of this backlash. I don't know.

902
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:22,759
Speaker 3: I don't know if we actually reach a place and

903
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:25,040
Speaker 3: still have a democracy where we can have a multi

904
00:50:25,160 --> 00:50:28,440
Speaker 3: racial and functioning democracy. I don't know the answer to

905
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:32,359
Speaker 3: that question anymore, because I don't know what happens after

906
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:35,760
Speaker 3: this administration. Do we have a democracy to even engage

907
00:50:35,760 --> 00:50:38,919
Speaker 3: with right, I don't know. I don't think anybody knows

908
00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:42,280
Speaker 3: the answer to that because we're in such unprecedented times.

909
00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:45,759
Speaker 3: But I do know that the evolution and demographics of

910
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 3: the country. That's why they're trying to mass support eleven

911
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 3: million undocumented people right now.

912
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 2: Those people weren't.

913
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 3: Even voting, but it's like a show and it makes

914
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:59,560
Speaker 3: them feel better about the fact that American's demographics are shifting,

915
00:50:59,840 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 3: that is happening now. They might try to prevent that

916
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 3: evolution right in ways that I don't even want to

917
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:10,920
Speaker 3: talk about because I don't want to allow my brain

918
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 3: to even go there thinking about those horrors that potentially

919
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:20,920
Speaker 3: ways in which they could stop that evolution demographically.

920
00:51:21,040 --> 00:51:24,959
Speaker 1: Their private prison contracts to be modern day concentration camps

921
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:26,320
Speaker 1: are pretty indicative of there.

922
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:29,480
Speaker 3: There are ways they can do it. We know from

923
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 3: history and also the present. Really scary conversation, but I

924
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:37,719
Speaker 3: will say that I am somebody who comes from an

925
00:51:37,800 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 3: ancestry that has survived, works, and somehow holds onto some

926
00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:48,920
Speaker 3: form of optimism and hope and even the worst moments.

927
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:54,880
Speaker 3: So for me, it's like, we can reach that place,

928
00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:57,839
Speaker 3: but we all have to stay really focused in this

929
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 3: moment so that we actually have a democracy to engage

930
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 3: with when our demographics shift and when we could have

931
00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:08,520
Speaker 3: a multi racial democracy. But I think about a lot

932
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 3: about the fact that I thought I didn't know that

933
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 3: we would live through quite a dismantling of the democracy

934
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:17,960
Speaker 3: at the pace in the last month that we've seen

935
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:19,799
Speaker 3: under a second Trump like term.

936
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:20,960
Speaker 2: I really didn't.

937
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:25,080
Speaker 3: I thought that the first Trump term was the backlash.

938
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 3: Biden winning in twenty twenty was the signal that we

939
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 3: were going in the right direction.

940
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:32,520
Speaker 2: I didn't know that we were so.

941
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:37,279
Speaker 3: Quickly going to make a turn, a U turn. But

942
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:40,280
Speaker 3: I feel like in some ways that was almost naive

943
00:52:40,600 --> 00:52:43,200
Speaker 3: because history, and Melissa Harris Perry said this a long

944
00:52:43,239 --> 00:52:46,520
Speaker 3: time ago, we always we make progress and then we

945
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:48,080
Speaker 3: go back. We fight and we fail, and we fight

946
00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:51,440
Speaker 3: and we fail, And that's sort of how progress happens

947
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:53,200
Speaker 3: is you fight and you fail, you go a little

948
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:54,839
Speaker 3: bit further, you fail, you go a little bit further,

949
00:52:54,880 --> 00:52:55,240
Speaker 3: you fail.

950
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 2: And so I'm hopeful that.

951
00:52:56,960 --> 00:53:01,480
Speaker 3: We don't go backwards so far that even catching up

952
00:53:01,480 --> 00:53:04,960
Speaker 3: to where we started, that the status quo of twenty

953
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:07,239
Speaker 3: twenty is impossible, I don't think.

954
00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 2: I don't think it's impossible.

955
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:13,480
Speaker 3: I think that as AOC always says, like, some of

956
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:17,400
Speaker 3: the power is an illusion, right they you know, some

957
00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:19,239
Speaker 3: of it is an illusion. Some of it's real, but

958
00:53:19,320 --> 00:53:21,319
Speaker 3: some of it is an illusion. And I think that

959
00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:24,240
Speaker 3: the power of the people in this country, we the people.

960
00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:28,080
Speaker 3: It's still true, our collective. They change things that they

961
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:31,040
Speaker 3: were doing the initial days of the administration because of

962
00:53:31,160 --> 00:53:34,919
Speaker 3: the backlash publicly, and so I think that as long

963
00:53:34,960 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 3: as that is still true, we can do everything in

964
00:53:40,520 --> 00:53:44,440
Speaker 3: our disposal, you know, through our grassroots organizing, through our

965
00:53:44,480 --> 00:53:48,920
Speaker 3: political pressure, and you know, in the arena of public opinion,

966
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:54,520
Speaker 3: we can do those things to try to mitigate the damage,

967
00:53:54,600 --> 00:53:56,239
Speaker 3: because it's not going to prevent it, but it can

968
00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:57,759
Speaker 3: mitigate it somewhat well.

969
00:53:57,800 --> 00:54:00,399
Speaker 1: And I think that's really important to remind people. It

970
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:04,200
Speaker 1: feels hopeless by design, But the more noise we make,

971
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:10,560
Speaker 1: the more quickly they do retreat. Funding freezes are stopped,

972
00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:15,719
Speaker 1: they try to rehire the team working on bird flu,

973
00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:19,440
Speaker 1: they rehire the people with the nuclear codes.

974
00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:21,520
Speaker 3: You know, shocker, and you imagine getting rid of the

975
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:23,320
Speaker 3: people working on bird flu.

976
00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:26,480
Speaker 1: I can because you know, he disbanded our pandemic response

977
00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:28,400
Speaker 1: network in twenty seventeen. And I know that because I

978
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:32,319
Speaker 1: had a friend who worked for it. So I'm not surprised,

979
00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:37,359
Speaker 1: but I am rather shocked that humans who can't go

980
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 1: live in bunkers aren't hitting the streets. It's also not

981
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:44,240
Speaker 1: lost on me that there were mass protests on Monday

982
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:46,040
Speaker 1: and I didn't see them on a single news network.

983
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:48,680
Speaker 1: I saw them on Instagram, I saw them on TikTok.

984
00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:52,200
Speaker 1: We need to not only apply pressure to the government

985
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:55,680
Speaker 1: to stop allowing the president to act like a dictator,

986
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:59,280
Speaker 1: but we also have to apply pressure to the news

987
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:03,840
Speaker 1: to not bend the knee in advance, to not refuse

988
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:09,279
Speaker 1: to cover the protests, to not ignore the horrors, to

989
00:55:09,760 --> 00:55:12,759
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that our veterans no longer have

990
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:17,040
Speaker 1: access to mental health care benefits and treatment for their injuries.

991
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:21,320
Speaker 1: You know, we need to continue to apply the pressure.

992
00:55:21,320 --> 00:55:23,399
Speaker 1: It's why I think five calls dot org is such

993
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:27,560
Speaker 1: a good website. It's why I will remind everyone listening

994
00:55:27,640 --> 00:55:31,600
Speaker 1: to listen to your show Mornings with Zerlina As on

995
00:55:31,719 --> 00:55:35,560
Speaker 1: Serious XM one twenty seven. It is certainly one of

996
00:55:35,600 --> 00:55:37,520
Speaker 1: the first places I turn to when I'm pissed and

997
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:39,680
Speaker 1: stressed and I just need to listen to somebody top

998
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:42,080
Speaker 1: me down a little bit and remind me of what matters.

999
00:55:42,719 --> 00:55:45,960
Speaker 1: So thank you for that. I really do think we

1000
00:55:46,080 --> 00:55:50,200
Speaker 1: have to be reminded that we are in this together,

1001
00:55:50,280 --> 00:55:53,879
Speaker 1: and there are more of us than there are of

1002
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 1: the billionaire oligarchy. Certainly, and as so many people who

1003
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:04,000
Speaker 1: did vot for him, I would like to think because

1004
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:08,200
Speaker 1: their information was siloed, not because they overtly or consciously

1005
00:56:08,840 --> 00:56:10,920
Speaker 1: agree with the cruelty. I know some do, but I

1006
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:13,680
Speaker 1: want to appeal to the ones that don't. I hope

1007
00:56:13,680 --> 00:56:17,160
Speaker 1: that the people who believed what they were being sold

1008
00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:22,360
Speaker 1: who will need our help, I hope those are people

1009
00:56:22,400 --> 00:56:25,839
Speaker 1: we can welcome to build a new political future. And

1010
00:56:26,719 --> 00:56:29,759
Speaker 1: just thank you for keeping keeping up the work. Thank

1011
00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:32,400
Speaker 1: you for the substack that's coming. I need it so badly,

1012
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:38,719
Speaker 1: and I guess I mean it feels like you've done

1013
00:56:38,760 --> 00:56:42,680
Speaker 1: such amazing work, not just in your career but in

1014
00:56:42,719 --> 00:56:48,440
Speaker 1: your life. To give yourself a fuller life, to find respite,

1015
00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:51,040
Speaker 1: to find joy so you can stay in the fight

1016
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:55,160
Speaker 1: long term. Is the joyful part of resistance. What feels

1017
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:57,360
Speaker 1: like you're work in progress right now? Because I know

1018
00:56:57,480 --> 00:57:01,360
Speaker 1: moving is a literal work in progress. But but is

1019
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:04,080
Speaker 1: it is it sort of that whole shift in life,

1020
00:57:04,200 --> 00:57:06,440
Speaker 1: or is it something else that I'm not even thinking of.

1021
00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:10,200
Speaker 3: I think that the joy is part of my journey.

1022
00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 3: It has to be part of my journey. And I

1023
00:57:12,120 --> 00:57:16,120
Speaker 3: think it's because of who my mom was. My late

1024
00:57:16,160 --> 00:57:19,680
Speaker 3: mother was a psychotherapist, so she was always very you know,

1025
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:23,280
Speaker 3: she was always inquiring like, how are you feeling, what

1026
00:57:23,280 --> 00:57:25,360
Speaker 3: are you feeling, what are you thinking? She was always

1027
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:27,880
Speaker 3: asking questions like that, And it didn't occur to me

1028
00:57:27,960 --> 00:57:31,600
Speaker 3: until later in my life that not everybody's parents are

1029
00:57:31,680 --> 00:57:34,800
Speaker 3: asking them those questions. But one of the things that

1030
00:57:34,840 --> 00:57:37,440
Speaker 3: she always used to say is that you have to

1031
00:57:38,160 --> 00:57:41,640
Speaker 3: She called it sole care, right, and you have to care.

1032
00:57:41,880 --> 00:57:45,360
Speaker 3: You have to be very, very intentional and care about

1033
00:57:45,440 --> 00:57:47,120
Speaker 3: what you let enter your spirit.

1034
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:48,640
Speaker 2: That's how she used to talk about it.

1035
00:57:49,560 --> 00:57:54,440
Speaker 3: And because I work in news, and you know, consuming

1036
00:57:54,520 --> 00:57:57,280
Speaker 3: news all day is you're allowing the worst things that

1037
00:57:57,320 --> 00:58:01,320
Speaker 3: are happening to enter into your spirit every day. And

1038
00:58:01,520 --> 00:58:05,400
Speaker 3: because I'm empathetic and compassionate, it affects me. It's not

1039
00:58:05,480 --> 00:58:09,560
Speaker 3: just reading statistics. I feel those things really deeply. I

1040
00:58:09,600 --> 00:58:12,120
Speaker 3: had to I had to get to a place where

1041
00:58:12,760 --> 00:58:19,160
Speaker 3: I could could create space, right to actually live a full,

1042
00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:24,920
Speaker 3: beautiful life that wasn't just news and politics and reaction

1043
00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:28,280
Speaker 3: to what Trump did and reaction to what Republicans did,

1044
00:58:28,360 --> 00:58:29,680
Speaker 3: and and and.

1045
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:32,600
Speaker 2: I realized that I just wasn't.

1046
00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:36,040
Speaker 3: I mean, the whole day would go, you know, front

1047
00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:38,160
Speaker 3: to back, and I'd be like, what did I do

1048
00:58:38,240 --> 00:58:41,200
Speaker 3: today that was fun? Did I do anything today that

1049
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:43,040
Speaker 3: was fun at all?

1050
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:43,720
Speaker 1: Yes?

1051
00:58:44,360 --> 00:58:45,360
Speaker 2: And and I think.

1052
00:58:45,160 --> 00:58:49,440
Speaker 3: That who wants to live a life where they are

1053
00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:54,400
Speaker 3: not enjoying at least a moment of your day?

1054
00:58:54,760 --> 00:58:54,960
Speaker 2: Right?

1055
00:58:55,080 --> 00:58:58,120
Speaker 3: And and that's not to say that And again, I

1056
00:58:58,160 --> 00:59:01,520
Speaker 3: am incredibly privileged, right, I'm incredibly but I work remotely.

1057
00:59:01,640 --> 00:59:04,840
Speaker 3: I'm able to create a life in a way that

1058
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:07,720
Speaker 3: I know that that is a privilege that I enjoy.

1059
00:59:08,520 --> 00:59:12,760
Speaker 3: But I also know that my mother, she always used

1060
00:59:12,760 --> 00:59:14,760
Speaker 3: to say to me, you know, it's really not you

1061
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:18,160
Speaker 3: know any kids, you're not married. She's like, you can

1062
00:59:18,200 --> 00:59:20,680
Speaker 3: go anywhere, you can do whatever you want. And I

1063
00:59:20,720 --> 00:59:23,760
Speaker 3: think that those messages that she always used to say

1064
00:59:23,760 --> 00:59:27,760
Speaker 3: to me, they started ringing in my brain. You know,

1065
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:30,760
Speaker 3: when I was living in Washington, d C. In like

1066
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:33,600
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, and I was like, I can go anywhere,

1067
00:59:33,600 --> 00:59:35,200
Speaker 3: I can do what I want, and I think I

1068
00:59:35,200 --> 00:59:38,040
Speaker 3: should do it because what am I waiting for? And

1069
00:59:38,080 --> 00:59:40,080
Speaker 3: now that Trump is back at the White House, it

1070
00:59:40,160 --> 00:59:44,240
Speaker 3: really feels like, Okay, I'm glad.

1071
00:59:42,680 --> 00:59:44,240
Speaker 2: I made the move.

1072
00:59:44,320 --> 00:59:47,560
Speaker 3: I took the leap of faith because you know, you

1073
00:59:47,600 --> 00:59:48,880
Speaker 3: can't take anything for granted.

1074
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:51,960
Speaker 2: You can't take anything for granted. So for me, it's

1075
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:52,880
Speaker 2: about I say this.

1076
00:59:53,320 --> 00:59:55,280
Speaker 3: I start my show every single morning with a moment

1077
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:58,000
Speaker 3: of gratitude, Like even if I in some days I'm like,

1078
00:59:58,080 --> 00:59:59,680
Speaker 3: I don't even know what I'm grateful.

1079
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:01,840
Speaker 2: I don't know, like I'm trying to think. It was

1080
01:00:01,840 --> 01:00:02,520
Speaker 2: hard to think of it.

1081
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:05,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I actually do that to model for everybody

1082
01:00:05,880 --> 01:00:08,280
Speaker 3: listening that they should do that in their own mourning,

1083
01:00:08,440 --> 01:00:11,240
Speaker 3: because you have to sort of late have that be

1084
01:00:11,320 --> 01:00:13,960
Speaker 3: the foundation of what you're doing. And then at the

1085
01:00:14,040 --> 01:00:16,400
Speaker 3: end of the show every day most days, I'm like, Okay,

1086
01:00:16,480 --> 01:00:18,880
Speaker 3: do something that sparks joy today, please, Like, I don't

1087
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:20,400
Speaker 3: care what it is, but you're going to do that.

1088
01:00:20,520 --> 01:00:24,720
Speaker 3: And we have a weekly segment mental health Mondays, because

1089
01:00:24,760 --> 01:00:26,520
Speaker 3: if you're going to listen to a new show to

1090
01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:28,520
Speaker 3: start your morning, I'm going to have to give you

1091
01:00:28,600 --> 01:00:31,160
Speaker 3: a little bit to help you with your mental health

1092
01:00:31,200 --> 01:00:34,520
Speaker 3: and your mental well being because this is hard. This

1093
01:00:34,600 --> 01:00:36,440
Speaker 3: is hard, and no sugarcoating that.

1094
01:00:37,360 --> 01:00:41,400
Speaker 1: I love that. It really reminds. What you're reminding me

1095
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:44,480
Speaker 1: is that we live so much of our life and reactivity.

1096
01:00:44,560 --> 01:00:46,720
Speaker 1: It's the nature of the world, especially if you care

1097
01:00:46,760 --> 01:00:51,680
Speaker 1: about the world, that to dedicate real routine time, even

1098
01:00:51,720 --> 01:00:55,800
Speaker 1: if it's five minutes to proactivity, is something that you deserve.

1099
01:00:56,400 --> 01:01:00,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to do something that you enjoy. I mean,

1100
01:01:00,880 --> 01:01:04,640
Speaker 3: I had someone ask me recently. They were like, so,

1101
01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:06,760
Speaker 3: what do you like to do for fun? And I

1102
01:01:06,800 --> 01:01:09,800
Speaker 3: was like, I don't understand the question. And they were like,

1103
01:01:09,960 --> 01:01:13,080
Speaker 3: is there anything that you do that it wouldn't matter

1104
01:01:13,440 --> 01:01:14,560
Speaker 3: if you weren't good at.

1105
01:01:14,400 --> 01:01:16,640
Speaker 2: It, you just enjoy doing it. I was like, I.

1106
01:01:16,640 --> 01:01:19,120
Speaker 3: Really don't understand your question. I don't understand. What do

1107
01:01:19,120 --> 01:01:21,080
Speaker 3: you mean I'm not good at it? Like I'm doing

1108
01:01:21,120 --> 01:01:23,640
Speaker 3: something and I'm not good at it, Like I don't there's.

1109
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:25,440
Speaker 2: Nothing that I do that's like that. I don't have

1110
01:01:25,560 --> 01:01:27,440
Speaker 2: things like that. They're like, well, this is what you're

1111
01:01:27,440 --> 01:01:27,800
Speaker 2: gonna do.

1112
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:29,840
Speaker 1: This is the beginning of the jet this is.

1113
01:01:29,840 --> 01:01:33,080
Speaker 3: How you need to tap into doing things for the

1114
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 3: pure enjoyment of it.

1115
01:01:34,440 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 2: And so that's sort of the journey I'm on.

1116
01:01:37,040 --> 01:01:41,200
Speaker 3: Right now because I realized that I was, I mean,

1117
01:01:41,480 --> 01:01:44,640
Speaker 3: like so many other people, you know, you're just focused

1118
01:01:44,680 --> 01:01:47,840
Speaker 3: on your kids, your work, your career.

1119
01:01:47,800 --> 01:01:50,160
Speaker 1: And then years go by and you go, wait.

1120
01:01:50,480 --> 01:01:52,840
Speaker 2: Wait, wait a minute, what happen?

1121
01:01:52,840 --> 01:01:55,959
Speaker 1: Wait a minute. I like being encouraged to take a minute.

1122
01:01:56,040 --> 01:01:58,520
Speaker 1: Thank you, and thank you for all of the work,

1123
01:01:58,560 --> 01:02:01,480
Speaker 1: for the writing and the show and the soon to

1124
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:04,960
Speaker 1: be substack and all of it. You know, you you

1125
01:02:05,160 --> 01:02:08,520
Speaker 1: really as both a you know, a friend and a

1126
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:11,560
Speaker 1: sort of compatriot out there in the world. You always

1127
01:02:11,640 --> 01:02:14,760
Speaker 1: remind me to be good to myself and to others.

1128
01:02:14,760 --> 01:02:15,520
Speaker 1: So thank you for that.

1129
01:02:16,200 --> 01:02:16,600
Speaker 2: Thank you