Speaker 1: Welcome to Off the Cup.
Speaker 2: Later in the show, I'll talk to my friend Van
Speaker 2: Jones about some big questions. What's next for the Democrats,
Speaker 2: what's next for the Republicans, what's next for our country.
Speaker 1: It's a really good conversation. I think you'll really like it.
Speaker 1: But first, let's talk about what happened this week. Okay.
Speaker 2: It was a doozy of an election in Texas. I
Speaker 2: covered it Tuesday night. The MAGA candidates won and it
Speaker 2: wasn't close, both in the Senate race and and the
Speaker 2: race for ag the I'm gonna call them Maggie the
Speaker 2: Maggie the Maggie ist candidates beat the less Maggie candidates.
Speaker 1: Now, are we surprised by that in Texas? I'm not.
Speaker 2: I mean, for all of the Dems dreams of turning
Speaker 2: Texas blue somewhere, it's still a very red state, Okay.
Speaker 2: And I've been talking to Republicans in Texas for the
Speaker 2: past few months to try to get a sense of
Speaker 2: where voters were both between you know, the two right
Speaker 2: candidates in the Senate, but also you know where they
Speaker 2: are with regard to a Democrat winning Texas Senate, which
Speaker 2: would be the first statewide win for a Democrat since
Speaker 2: I think nineteen ninety three or four, which is just crazy,
Speaker 2: but it's still a very it's a very red state,
Speaker 2: and Trump is still king there.
Speaker 1: There's just no question about it.
Speaker 2: So bye bye John Cornyn Ken Paxton is now the
Speaker 2: face of MAGA, of the Mega movement, because in MAGA,
Speaker 2: you can only move in the direction of more Maga. Right,
Speaker 2: It's like cow bell, we need more cow Bell. They
Speaker 2: always need more Maga. And just when you think someone
Speaker 2: can't get Maggie enough, they they want more Maga. They
Speaker 2: want it magiar. And I've used this analogy for years
Speaker 2: when describing Trump's Republican Party. It's like those cans of
Speaker 2: orange juice we grew up with.
Speaker 1: Did you have.
Speaker 2: These cans of orange juice concentrate in your freezer and
Speaker 2: you're meant to add water to them so that they
Speaker 2: expand and dilute, and so you're not drinking just straight syrupy,
Speaker 2: mouthpuckering orange juice concentrate, but delicious, balanced orange juice. Trump's
Speaker 2: Republican Party is that can of orange juice, and they
Speaker 2: are adding less and less water to it.
Speaker 1: And that project is actually made to.
Speaker 2: Make it pure concentrated Trump. That's what they want out
Speaker 2: of the Republican Party. They just want it more and
Speaker 2: more concentrated. So back in Trump's first term that that
Speaker 2: project really started. The Jeff Flakes, the Charlie Dents of
Speaker 2: the party, moderate Republicans who were appalled by what Trump
Speaker 2: was doing for this reason or that and said so, well,
Speaker 2: they were pushed out. Then came the Kinzingers and the Chenese,
Speaker 2: anyone who wasn't sufficiently Maggie, who wouldn't go to like
Speaker 2: cartoonish lengths to defend Trump and everything he did, and said.
Speaker 1: Well, they were shown the door.
Speaker 2: And when I tell you how remarkable that is a
Speaker 2: political party actively pushing members out, actively shrinking the tent purity,
Speaker 2: testing its own members not on like conservative policy, but
Speaker 2: on their loyalty.
Speaker 1: To one guy.
Speaker 2: It's just not a thing that's like happened in modern
Speaker 2: American politics, because.
Speaker 1: No one would advise.
Speaker 2: The leader of a political party to shrink the ten
Speaker 2: or kick members in good standing out, or remake the
Speaker 2: party so that it's completely condensed and small and concentrate
Speaker 2: it like politics is a game of addition, not subtraction, right,
Speaker 2: and Trumps only one every time He's won because he
Speaker 2: was actually able to get more voters into the fold
Speaker 2: that Republicans had not gotten before. But inside the MAGA base,
Speaker 2: it was kicking people out, which is just it's just crazy.
Speaker 2: I'll never get over that decision. But that's what they
Speaker 2: did and they're still doing it. So. Ken Paxton, who's
Speaker 2: a truly, truly loathsome figure who was indicted on multiple
Speaker 2: corruption charges, has faced legal battles for nearly a decade.
Speaker 1: Was impeached by his own party.
Speaker 2: The Republican controlled Texas House of Representatives voted one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty one to twenty three to impeach him on
Speaker 2: charges of bribery, dereliction of duty, an abuse of public trust,
Speaker 2: who was embroiled in a nasty divorce, who's had multiple
Speaker 2: mistresses allegedly. Well, he got Trump's endorsement in the nomination
Speaker 2: for Senate over John Cornyn, a four term incumbent who
Speaker 2: was very popular and liked in Texas. He voted with
Speaker 2: Trump one hundred percent of the time. There was absolutely
Speaker 2: no good reason to contest that seat.
Speaker 1: It was safe.
Speaker 2: It was going to go to corn In. It was
Speaker 2: going to be a Republican seat. After November twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think if.
Speaker 2: Ken Paxton had decided not to primary Cornyn, I'm positive
Speaker 2: that James tell Rico, the Democratic nominee, wouldn't have even
Speaker 2: bothered to run. Okay, but he did. He saw an
Speaker 2: opening and he thought, but could I be so lucky?
Speaker 2: Could the Republicans give me such a gift in Ken Paxton?
Speaker 1: There's no way.
Speaker 2: Surely, surely they wouldn't be dumb enough to nominate a
Speaker 2: guy like Ken Paxton when there's a guy like John
Speaker 2: Cornyn right there. Surely someone smart is running the Republican
Speaker 2: Party in Texas.
Speaker 1: And will not allow will not allow this to happen.
Speaker 1: But he's wrong.
Speaker 2: Republicans did nominate Ken Paxton. That's after Donald Trump endorsed
Speaker 2: him about a week before the election. And that's all
Speaker 2: it took. Trump gave, gave the word, and Paxton walked
Speaker 2: away the winner. So mag is celebrating this. They're out
Speaker 2: there pointing to Trump's lock on the party. His grip
Speaker 2: on the party is influence his ability to make kings
Speaker 2: out of out of Ken's. But to the Republican Party,
Speaker 2: I say, be careful what you wish for. This could
Speaker 2: end up being one of the biggest blown opportunities, biggest
Speaker 2: self owns, worst political collapses in recent memory, worse.
Speaker 1: I can't even think of something.
Speaker 2: I mean, this could be the big enchilada of self owns.
Speaker 1: How do we get there?
Speaker 2: Let's start by imagining you're John Cornyan, because he's going
Speaker 2: to be a problem for Trump too. You're a popular incumbent.
Speaker 2: You've never lost an election in twenty three years. Over
Speaker 2: those years, you've enjoyed as much as a seventy percent
Speaker 2: approval rating among Republicans in Texas, your base. You're primaried
Speaker 2: by the states sitting scandal ridden Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Speaker 2: You managed to best him in the primary in March.
Speaker 2: That's right, John Cornyn beat Ken Paxton in March. But
Speaker 2: neither candidate had a fifty percent threshold. So it goes
Speaker 2: to a runoff, and you're John Cornyn. And despite voting
Speaker 2: with Donald Trump one hundred percent of the time, one
Speaker 2: hundred percent, and despite the urging of your Senate Republican
Speaker 2: colleagues two picked on Cornan, Trump endorses the other guy,
Speaker 2: the scandal ridden guy, and at the last minute, and
Speaker 2: then he wins in all blowout, effectively retiring you.
Speaker 1: Com November. What do you John Cornyn do now.
Speaker 2: Well, you're still in office until November, and that's the
Speaker 2: first problem for Donald Trump. Cornyn is joining some other
Speaker 2: recent casualties of Trump's ire Tom Massey, Senator from Kentucky,
Speaker 2: who is beat by Ed Golrain in his primary, Senator
Speaker 2: Bill Cassidy, who lost his primary in Louise, Sienna.
Speaker 1: They could all be a.
Speaker 2: Thorn in Trump's side for the rest of their term.
Speaker 2: And they're not alone. Ran Paul's in there, Tom Tillis
Speaker 2: is in there. These are beleaguered Republicans on the outs
Speaker 2: with Trump, but they're around.
Speaker 1: Until at least November.
Speaker 2: They could keep Trump from passing legislation, getting war and
Speaker 2: ballroom funding, confirming judges and cabinet appointments. I mean, they
Speaker 2: could be a problem for Trump, and there is more
Speaker 2: of them than Republicans can afford to.
Speaker 1: Lose on a vote. Yeah. That's fun to think about,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: And I'm really hoping that Cornyn and Cassidy and Massy
Speaker 2: until us like band together and decide to just be
Speaker 2: a huge pain in the ass for Trump when his
Speaker 2: pet projects come up in the Senate. They have enoughing
Speaker 2: to lose don't be emasculated. Cucks still trying to get
Speaker 2: in his good favor. He doesn't care about you, that's obvious,
Speaker 2: So be assholes. I hope they turn out to be
Speaker 2: assholes these last months in office because their service and
Speaker 2: their loyalty were not rewarded. They owe Trump nothing.
Speaker 1: Okay. The other thing.
Speaker 2: That Trump's done to the party, which could end up
Speaker 2: being a huge self own, is forced the GOP to
Speaker 2: spend millions more than it wanted to, like millions, because
Speaker 2: Trump's primary against Massey cost extra money. They'll have to
Speaker 2: spend millions to defend the indefensible Ken Paxton in Texas
Speaker 2: against attacks from James tall Rico and the left. They'll
Speaker 2: have to spend millions to do that when they didn't
Speaker 2: have to because John Cornin.
Speaker 1: Was right there.
Speaker 2: He had a safe seat in a safe district in
Speaker 2: a safe state. Carl Rove was on Fox and he
Speaker 2: pointed out today also that Paxton is also just like
Speaker 2: a terrible fundraiser. He said, he's going to suck money
Speaker 2: from other crucial races around the country. Yeah, who wants
Speaker 2: to give money to Ken Paxton? Gross? He also pointed
Speaker 2: out that Paxton ran behind the rest of the statewide
Speaker 2: Republican ticket. In his last two campaigns. He trailed all
Speaker 2: seven statewide GOP candidates in twenty eighteen by an average
Speaker 2: of about one hundred and seventy seven thousand votes, and
Speaker 2: all six in twenty twenty two by an average of
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty four thousand votes. And that was
Speaker 2: all before most of the scandals surrounding Ken Paxton became
Speaker 2: public and before the Republican run Texas House impeached him
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: He was never a good candidate and.
Speaker 2: Things are only going to get worse because I just
Speaker 2: want to point out this is some excellent tea if
Speaker 2: you want to have a good weekend. This this news
Speaker 2: I'm about to tell you is gonna is gonna speak
Speaker 2: it into existence. Ken Paxton's divorce hearings begin in a
Speaker 2: few weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that right.
Speaker 2: Ken Paxton's ugly, brutal, bitter divorce, in which his wife
Speaker 2: cited was on biblical grounds. Those hearings begin in a
Speaker 2: few weeks. Their divorce records are unsealed. This will be
Speaker 2: public all the dirty details that they're already out.
Speaker 1: But we're going to get more as this divorce.
Speaker 2: Uh goes to trial just a few months before the election.
Speaker 1: Like, isn't that great? Isn't that like?
Speaker 2: What impeccable timing to run for higher office in the
Speaker 2: middle of a nasty divorce in which you are being
Speaker 2: accused by your wife of serial adultery and then using
Speaker 2: your political office to hide your affairs, including one of
Speaker 2: which was allegedly with a staffer.
Speaker 1: Impeccable timing.
Speaker 2: This is a gift to us from the timing gods
Speaker 2: that Ken Paxton, again, a loathsome human being, will have
Speaker 2: to go through his divorce proceedings publicly while he's running
Speaker 2: for office in a seat Republicans didn't.
Speaker 1: Have to contest. Yeah. Tell Rico meanwhile is sitting pretty.
Speaker 2: Democrats have been trying, as I said, to turn the
Speaker 2: seat blue for years, and with Paxton rather than Cornyn,
Speaker 2: they have their best shot in a long time. Telrico's
Speaker 2: incredibly popular and he's raised a ton of money since
Speaker 2: Trump turned really him and Stephen Colbert into like resistance
Speaker 2: heroes over It was that it was Colbert's interview with
Speaker 2: tall Rico that got Trump's sites set on Colbert and
Speaker 2: getting Colbert out of there, and in the process it
Speaker 2: made James Tall Rico, a household name James tell Rico,
Speaker 2: was pulling well behind Jasmine Crockett in Texas in the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party before Trump decided to make him a darling. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: he has that, he has that effect. Telrico and Democrats
Speaker 2: are thrilled that Paxton got the nomination. They will spend
Speaker 2: their considerable capital painting Paxton as a corrupt and ethically
Speaker 2: challenged deadbeat who could be indicted in the future and exploiting.
Speaker 1: The rift.
Speaker 2: In the Republican Party that this this primary created. Texas
Speaker 2: Republicans are divided a lot of corn and loyalists who
Speaker 2: thought this is stupid, he is great, leave him alone.
Speaker 2: And then others, you know who went with Trump and
Speaker 2: went with Paxton and decided again to pour a little,
Speaker 2: a little water out of the Orange concentrate. How Maggie,
Speaker 2: can we get So it's a party divided in Texas.
Speaker 2: Polls and prediction markets after Tuesday's Paxton nomination, Uh well,
Speaker 2: they got a lot better for Democrats once once he
Speaker 2: got once.
Speaker 1: He got the win.
Speaker 2: Poly market gave Tallarico a forty seven percent chance of
Speaker 2: beating Paxton after Paxton's Tuesday win, within within striking distance.
Speaker 2: They gave Paxton a fifty four percent chance of winning.
Speaker 2: Cook Political Report moved this race from likely Republican to
Speaker 2: lean Republican, that's downgrading Paxton's chances, and an April poll
Speaker 2: from the Texas Politics Project at UT gave Tallerco an
Speaker 2: eight point edge over Paxton in a general election matchup.
Speaker 1: We haven't even let me. Let me put it this way.
Speaker 2: I know a lot about Kim Paxton because it's my
Speaker 2: job to write cover these primaries.
Speaker 1: I have to cover all the people I know. Most
Speaker 1: people do not know what I know about Ken Paxton.
Speaker 2: They're about to because you just got catapulted to, you know,
Speaker 2: the national spotlight. We don't even know everything there is
Speaker 2: to know about Ki Paxton. We're going to find out
Speaker 2: a lot more during this divorce. Everyone's going to learn
Speaker 2: a lot more about Ken Paxton. And I just can't
Speaker 2: It's like, this is going to be something to watch.
Speaker 2: This terrible person, terrible candidate could give Democrats their first
Speaker 2: shot at winning a statewide seat in Texas in decades.
Speaker 2: And if tall Rico manages to pull off this like
Speaker 2: unimaginable thing, it's going to be because of Trump and
Speaker 2: his short sighted meddling into what could have been a
Speaker 2: safe seat had Cornyn been the nominee.
Speaker 1: Paxton is a very risky bet in.
Speaker 2: The general election, and Trump hasn't always delivered on his endorsements.
Speaker 2: Remember Roy Moore in Alabama. Remember herschel Walker in Georgia.
Speaker 2: Those guys were absolute freak shows, and Trump backed them
Speaker 2: to the bitter end and Democrats won. Democrats won in
Speaker 2: Alabama and Georgia. Okay, they can win in Texas, which
Speaker 2: is a crazy thing to say. It's a crazy thing
Speaker 2: to say, but they can thanks to Donald Trump and
Speaker 2: Ken Paxton.
Speaker 1: Here's another good point Carl Rove made on this. He said, the.
Speaker 2: President's endorsement still settles primaries, but his record in general
Speaker 2: elections isn't so good. In the twenty twenty one runoffs
Speaker 2: for Georgia's Senate seats, he discouraged supporters.
Speaker 1: From turning out.
Speaker 2: Then in twenty twenty two, he endorsed subpar Senate candidates
Speaker 2: in Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Democrats won all five of those contests.
Speaker 2: If Republicans had won those, they might have a fifty
Speaker 2: seven to forty three majority today. But they don't because,
Speaker 2: like Rove said, Trump might be king in the primaries,
Speaker 2: but in the general it's a different story, because, of
Speaker 2: course it is when our primaries are increasingly giving us
Speaker 2: the most extreme candidates, and then they have to pivot
Speaker 2: to a general election to win all voters.
Speaker 1: Of course, that candidate.
Speaker 2: Isn't going to translate very well in a general election.
Speaker 2: Ken Paxton is not going to translate well in a
Speaker 2: general election. Let me tell you that. So look, Paxton's
Speaker 2: win this week. Win, I'm putting it in quotes. Win
Speaker 2: could end up being like a peer victory at best.
Speaker 1: At worst, could be a disaster for the party.
Speaker 2: Imagine if the Dems take the Senate in November by
Speaker 2: one boy, will Trump's endorsement of Ken Paxton reek, then
Speaker 2: you won't be able to wash the stink off of
Speaker 2: that endorsement. Now, he obviously doesn't care about this because
Speaker 2: he doesn't care about the midterms. I've been saying that
Speaker 2: for months because it's so obvious he doesn't care about
Speaker 2: the midterms. Well, he actually came out and said it
Speaker 2: this week. He was being asked about Iran, whether the
Speaker 2: unpopularity of that war could impact midterms. He said, I
Speaker 2: don't care about the midterms. He doesn't if he did,
Speaker 2: he wouldn't be imperiling Republicans with billion dollar ballrooms and
Speaker 2: slush funds and primary safe seats. He doesn't care. But
Speaker 2: Republicans care about the mid terms. They care personally, they
Speaker 2: want to keep their seats. They care medically, they want
Speaker 2: to keep their majority. But look, Trump's tomfoolery and Tom
Speaker 2: tom fuckery could absolutely kill their majority.
Speaker 1: And I am here for it. I am so here
Speaker 1: for it.
Speaker 2: Okay, when we come back and interview with Van Jones,
Speaker 2: don't go anywhere. Welcome back to Off the cop. I'm
Speaker 2: joined now by my friend Van Jones.
Speaker 1: Welcome Van, Hello buddy.
Speaker 2: We see a lot of each other, but it's really
Speaker 2: nice to have you here because the thing I'm thinking about,
Speaker 2: maybe the most right now, is what comes next for
Speaker 2: us as a country. What comes next for Democrats, what
Speaker 2: comes next for Republicans, what comes next for voters. Over
Speaker 2: the past ten years, we've watched Trump just dealing with
Speaker 2: the right for a second, like totally dismantled the Republican Party,
Speaker 2: the conservative movement, the ones underpinned it feels a bit irrelevant.
Speaker 2: The thing that's holding up the modern right today is
Speaker 2: a little nationalism and whatever Trump just said, if I'm
Speaker 2: looking at the ingredients list, it's a little nationalism and
Speaker 2: whatever Trump just said.
Speaker 1: So when he's out of office, does the right who
Speaker 1: does the right become?
Speaker 2: Is it the party of JD JD Vance whose I
Speaker 2: see him sort of like as an empty vessel. He'll
Speaker 2: be whatever Maga wants him to be in the moment.
Speaker 2: Then there's Marco Rubio, who I think would attempt to
Speaker 2: sort of bring the party back to some kind of
Speaker 2: version of twenty sixteen. Marco more muscular foreign policy, maybe
Speaker 2: more a more optimistic kind of populism.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if that's what they want, though.
Speaker 1: I think Tucker Carlson's going to run.
Speaker 2: He's working on creating a Trump alternative lane that maybe
Speaker 2: delivers on what Trump promised but didn't accomplish. Right, he'll
Speaker 2: be the actual America first president that ends ties to Israel,
Speaker 2: makes nice with Russia. He'll be the true upholder of
Speaker 2: Judeo Christian values. We'll talk about the left too, but first,
Speaker 2: you have such a good sense of where voters on
Speaker 2: the ground are, what their anxieties are, what their hopes are,
Speaker 2: what's building under the surface. Do you think they want
Speaker 2: more angry populism.
Speaker 1: Do you think they want a caretaker?
Speaker 2: Do they want to take Trump's project to its logical
Speaker 2: sort of nihilistic conclusion in search of more normalcy. What
Speaker 2: do you think comes next as we're gearing up for
Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight On the right, I.
Speaker 3: Mean I look at the world somewhat differently in that
Speaker 3: I just try to figure out what everyday people are feeling.
Speaker 3: And I think people there's a lot of economic anxiety
Speaker 3: that is getting more and more profound because people don't
Speaker 3: see how they're going to People don't see how they're
Speaker 3: going to work their way out of it. Yeah, where
Speaker 3: people used to think, Okay, well I'm behind on my bills,
Speaker 3: but I can add a job, I can cut an expense,
Speaker 3: I can add a roommate, I can do something nothing
Speaker 3: that is available, or I can buy some crypto, or
Speaker 3: I can bet on polymarket, or I can do something
Speaker 3: increasingly people they fire, or I can you know, just
Speaker 3: max out my credit card.
Speaker 2: Or can I just add one before you continue? Or
Speaker 2: I can count on Trump to turn things around. I
Speaker 2: think that was a belief in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think people have fired all weapons at this point. Economically,
Speaker 3: and they and they're worse than before. You're starting to
Speaker 3: see people when people stop paying their car Note that's
Speaker 3: a very bad sign, because people need their cars to
Speaker 3: go to work, to get their kids. You're starting to
Speaker 3: see things starting when people start not paying their credit
Speaker 3: card bills. So you're starting to see that wave starting
Speaker 3: to build of just real economic desperation. And then you
Speaker 3: add to that all this concern about what AI is
Speaker 3: going to do to the people who have been pretty
Speaker 3: secure for the past twenty thirty forty years in the
Speaker 3: white collar sections. Then you add to that nobody's kids
Speaker 3: getting a job. They're not getting a good job coming
Speaker 3: out of high school, coming out of college, good kids,
Speaker 3: hardworking kids, the kids that didn't get in trouble, who
Speaker 3: didn't do a bunch of dumb stuff. Those are the
Speaker 3: ones who are having a very hard time. So I
Speaker 3: just think you're going to have people sitting on a
Speaker 3: white hot stove, and so any form of populism will
Speaker 3: get it if you are hearing. I think you're going
Speaker 3: to see people focused a lot on the billionaires and
Speaker 3: the trillionaires and the AI of it all and that
Speaker 3: kind of thing. And I think that Trump hasn't done
Speaker 3: awful lot of favors by just being so close and
Speaker 3: cuddly with people that are doing super well. Other people
Speaker 3: are not doing very well. And so, uh, you know,
Speaker 3: I think that I think the wheel is still in
Speaker 3: spin in terms of who is going to be able
Speaker 3: to capture that and speak to it. But uh, you know,
Speaker 3: all the cultural stuff, and you know all that stuff
Speaker 3: it you know, the white nationalism, those things which you
Speaker 3: know I worry about a great deal, all the anti
Speaker 3: Jewish stuff, the anti Israel stuff, it's bubbling up. All
Speaker 3: those things get you know, they have their own dynamic,
Speaker 3: but they get way more force when people are trying
Speaker 3: to figure out why why don't I have? What I
Speaker 3: need is who who cannot blame and a so you
Speaker 3: gotta have a blame in shame constituency out there, both sides.
Speaker 3: And so it takes real leadership in situations like this.
Speaker 3: You know, it's rare and frankly, in the last century
Speaker 3: we produced world class leaders, I mean on the right
Speaker 3: and the left. I mean you had you know, FDR.
Speaker 3: You had Nelson Mandela, you had Ronald Reagan, you had
Speaker 3: Margaret Thatcher, you had Churchill. You had world class leaders
Speaker 3: that you know, and and we still barely made it
Speaker 3: out of the last century alive, right, and we still
Speaker 3: barely And now we're a quarter the way into the
Speaker 3: new century. And you don't see a single leader like
Speaker 3: that on the planet. Maybe Zelenski, you know, in a
Speaker 3: good day. I mean, you can hunt high and low,
Speaker 3: and instead you have I think some of the worst
Speaker 3: leaders on the world stage that we've ever seen. I
Speaker 3: think Trump category. Know, he is definitely in that category.
Speaker 3: Bb net and Yahoo in that category, Putin is in
Speaker 3: that category. G and from my point of view, is
Speaker 3: still in that category. Though you know China is doing,
Speaker 3: you know, pretty well economically. You just have a whole
Speaker 3: bunch of terrible leaders at maybe the worst time. And
Speaker 3: so who's going to break you out of that? Under
Speaker 3: the west And so far I haven't seen yet the
Speaker 3: person who comes in just orthogonal to all this nonsense.
Speaker 3: Here's here's a positive vision the country can work on
Speaker 3: together and get ourselves back on the right track for
Speaker 3: working people. I just haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 2: Before I ask you about the left, you've talked a
Speaker 2: lot about Trump's ability to capture attention and the attention economy,
Speaker 2: and no one's been able to do it like him
Speaker 2: over on the right. How do you see the right
Speaker 2: trying to capture attention as we get up to twenty
Speaker 2: twenty eight with Trump still in office, probably not wanting
Speaker 2: the attention off him, even.
Speaker 1: If his heir, a parent, whoever that is, is running.
Speaker 3: Look, part of the thing I think is hard for
Speaker 3: normies to track is that a lot of this is happening,
Speaker 3: a lot of the fight for attention is happening on
Speaker 3: a much broader information warfare landscape then we're used to.
Speaker 3: I mean, we used to think, oh, you know ms
Speaker 3: NBC versus CNN versus Fox, that was the arena. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and now I mean that's a microscopic part of the
Speaker 3: overall terrain. I mean when you have you know, someone
Speaker 3: like a Hassan Piker on the left who's reaching you know,
Speaker 3: tenion million, yeah, twenty million people, and you know, my
Speaker 3: beloved Anderson Cooper is reaching one million people. Right, that's
Speaker 3: a that's not a it's just a statement about how
Speaker 3: broad the information landscape is. You know, the battles take
Speaker 3: place on Twitch, the battles that play take place, you
Speaker 3: know with these streamers, the battles that take place on YouTube,
Speaker 3: among influencers that those of us in the mainstream Normanis
Speaker 3: have never heard of, but are reaching way more actual
Speaker 3: human beings than the entirety of mainstream media. I mean,
Speaker 3: you take someone like, you know, I show Speed, you
Speaker 3: know this, you know, cute black kid who his worst
Speaker 3: week is better than CNN's best week. And he's just
Speaker 3: like a cute black kid who just like you.
Speaker 1: Know, like racing animals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, but but but but Speed went, but
Speaker 3: Speed went to Africa and shut the whole continent down.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just nuts. And so so I just think,
Speaker 3: first of all, in this fight for attention, I think
Speaker 3: it's important for kind of the normies to recognize it
Speaker 3: ain't a fight between the New York Times and Wall
Speaker 3: Street Journal. That ain't the fight. It's a massive, you know,
Speaker 3: set of podcasts, streamers, YouTube shows, you people with accounts
Speaker 3: on x Instagram.
Speaker 1: It's flatten completely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so in that world, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: horror shows like Candice Owens and Tucker Carlson are competitives,
Speaker 3: real competitive, real competitive, And so I don't have enough
Speaker 3: visibility on any given day into what's happening you know
Speaker 3: in the deep. You know, you just call them fever swamps.
Speaker 3: But now they're not the beaver swamps. That's just the content.
Speaker 3: That's a massive continent of conversation. And so I think
Speaker 3: likely the likely case, unless we build some better tools
Speaker 3: for just monitoring and listening and understanding the world, I
Speaker 3: think likely we're going to be surprised by the kinds
Speaker 3: not just kinds of individuals. I worry less about the individuals,
Speaker 3: but the kinds of arguments that that that that take hold.
Speaker 3: This anti Jewish stuff is really terrifying. Yes, and they
Speaker 3: can call it anti Zionism and call anti Israel. But
Speaker 3: you can't tell the difference if you just if you
Speaker 3: just think, here's an anti Jewish bigot, Yeah, here's an
Speaker 3: anti Zionist zealot, and here's like a right wing conspiracy
Speaker 3: theory that's seriously doesn't like Israel and then just mix
Speaker 3: up the you can't tell the difference. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also on the same Yeah.
Speaker 3: So you can say, well, I'm not against jew Jews,
Speaker 3: I'm just against Israel. Well, then you need to make
Speaker 3: it very clear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, distinguish your message.
Speaker 3: Just distinguish your message. And they're not remotely interested in
Speaker 3: doing that. And that's true on the right and the left. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and whenever you see anti Jewish hatred bubble up in
Speaker 3: a society, the next thing, the next scene is never
Speaker 3: a good scene.
Speaker 1: It's not a good scene.
Speaker 2: Esh.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about the left. The Democrats are struggling.
Speaker 2: The DNC autopsy was a mess, both the rollout and
Speaker 2: the actual document. People are calling for Ken Martin to
Speaker 2: step down, and that's you know, I have no joy
Speaker 2: in discussing that. In fact, I have a lot of
Speaker 2: anger and fear about the state of the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: because as I look at the right and how dangerous
Speaker 2: I think they are, well, the right, the left better
Speaker 2: figure something out, and they're not there.
Speaker 1: What are you making of sort of the mess on
Speaker 1: the left? Right?
Speaker 3: Now? You know, we have similar dynamics in our party.
Speaker 3: You know, obviously I'm a a proud Democrat and I'm never,
Speaker 3: never afraid to criticize, you know, my side of the aisle.
Speaker 3: I think that you have a few factors. You do
Speaker 3: have this broader information landscape that a Hassan Piker, for instance,
Speaker 3: can you know, dominate and do very well. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: have a mom, Donnie, you know who I think even
Speaker 3: this time last year was an own to most people,
Speaker 3: and it's now you know, uh, you know, went from
Speaker 3: less than one percent am id to a global celebrity.
Speaker 3: I talk to people who've been to Europe and people
Speaker 3: are wearing Mom Donnie t shirts in Europe. I mean
Speaker 3: that gives you a sense of how volatile and how
Speaker 3: unpredictable this information marketplaces. And so the the again, the armies,
Speaker 3: the mainstream, the central left. You know, people like myself
Speaker 3: have no answer, zero answer to Sanpiker, to Mom Donnie
Speaker 3: and should expect to get continue to lose continued mind
Speaker 3: share to that side of the aisle. I think AOC
Speaker 3: is uh increasingly popular. There's there's some disaffection with her
Speaker 3: on the far left. I think that she's you know,
Speaker 3: moderated too much. I don't see it, but you know,
Speaker 3: but they do, but they do, and so but I
Speaker 3: don't think it's going to cause her any problems because
Speaker 3: there's there's no So do you see an ALC candidacy
Speaker 3: in a world where all the middle is chopped up
Speaker 3: between you know, everybody from you know Kentucky governor to
Speaker 3: you know Pete Bootages to Gavin too, you know, Wes Moore.
Speaker 3: If the middle is chopped up twelve different ways than
Speaker 3: who runs on the left. So you probably have a
Speaker 3: row Kana and but you may have an ALC. And
Speaker 3: if if ALC has the entire left to ourselves, well
Speaker 3: everybody else is just shredding themselves over policy minushawn healthcare.
Speaker 3: You get very interesting primary in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3: What I see is that there is this age problem
Speaker 3: in our party. Yeah. You know, look, I'm in my
Speaker 3: late fifties. Corey Booker is in his late fifties. Well,
Speaker 3: so we're still considered somewhat young. Yeah that's nuts, you know,
Speaker 3: like that's nuts. Corey Booker is still considered like a
Speaker 3: young rising star, Like, how the hell is that possible?
Speaker 3: You know, you know, you know, Corey and I've known
Speaker 3: each other since the early nineties. Yeah, you know, one
Speaker 3: of my closest you know, buddies in politics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, quarter century ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, more more not.
Speaker 2: To put on it, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, and so there is this age problem. Part
Speaker 3: of it is that, you know, you have a kind
Speaker 3: of you know, once in a century talent, like an
Speaker 3: anti Pelosi who, whatever people feel about her, it was
Speaker 3: one of the most effective legislators ever. Hard to just
Speaker 3: push her off the stage, and then the Congressional Black
Speaker 3: Caucus in particular is a has been a pository of
Speaker 3: people who have tremendous esteem uh in the in the
Speaker 3: black community in particular, and Democratic Party more generally. So
Speaker 3: it's kind of hard to get these people out of
Speaker 3: the way. Yeah, but now you pay a price, yeah,
Speaker 3: because it's very hard to convince people that a party
Speaker 3: made of a people who've been around this law is gonna.
Speaker 1: Do something different, right, Well, and we've seen them not yes.
Speaker 3: And world's history was determined by two people wanted to
Speaker 3: stay tune law yeah, with Bitter Getinensburg and Joe Biden. Yeah,
Speaker 3: decided to stay too law yep. And and so.
Speaker 1: And that's painful.
Speaker 3: It's very painful. And so you know, I didn't know
Speaker 3: with Britty Ginnisberg, but you know, in the bomb administration.
Speaker 3: You know, everybody says I was in the Oboma administration.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's true, but I worked for Joe Biden. That
Speaker 3: was you know, that was who I worked for, and
Speaker 3: so you know, I am you know, it was just
Speaker 3: painful to see him make a decision that was just
Speaker 3: so ill advised and and open the door. I mean,
Speaker 3: he now just becomes like a shortcomings in his failures
Speaker 3: define him more than his great success. He had just
Speaker 3: decided to leave after the first term, he'd beyond Mount
Speaker 3: Rushmore because except for the inflation, like he you know,
Speaker 3: he would have restored the American Republic. He would have
Speaker 3: passed a bunch of good stuff and.
Speaker 1: Maybe gotten another Democrat elected, and.
Speaker 3: Then maybe got another Democrat elected. And instead, you know,
Speaker 3: he's like below Jimmy Carter in the minds of a
Speaker 3: lot of people.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately well, and that inability to try different things, to
Speaker 2: do different things has manifest on the left in a
Speaker 2: few ways. I think, you know, Mamdannie's success I covered
Speaker 2: that race is a big warning to the party because
Speaker 2: he won without the party for the most part. He
Speaker 2: had a lot of backing from the Democratic Socialists, but
Speaker 2: almost no support from the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: And over in it didn't matter.
Speaker 2: And it didn't matter, and over in Maine, I'm seeing
Speaker 2: sort of a similar thing. Like Democrats in New York
Speaker 2: really wanted Cuomo, right, that was Schumer's pick, so they
Speaker 2: didn't want to help mum Donnie.
Speaker 1: He won without them.
Speaker 2: In Maine, Schumer picked Janet Mills to run against Susan Collins.
Speaker 1: That was not what the people wanted.
Speaker 2: Now they're stuck, probably with Graham Plattner as the presumptive
Speaker 2: Democratic nominee. We'll see how that goes. Maybe he pulls
Speaker 2: off a Mum Donnie.
Speaker 1: Maybe not.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at LA and Democrats there. Whatever you think
Speaker 2: of Spencer Pratt put that aside. Democrats have decided LA
Speaker 2: is great. We're going to fight for the status quo.
Speaker 2: We're going to fight against this reality star newcomer who's
Speaker 2: identifying all the problems that just normal people can see
Speaker 2: with their own eyes.
Speaker 1: We're going to dellvoter la is great.
Speaker 2: You want the incumbent mayor to stick around, and if
Speaker 2: you don't want her, maybe you want the incumbent city
Speaker 2: council woman to become, you know, the next the next mayor.
Speaker 2: It's just this fighting for the status quo that I
Speaker 2: think has really disappointed average voters.
Speaker 3: You know, I had a chance, when I was a
Speaker 3: young guy to be in the room with Tony Blair
Speaker 3: and Bill Clinton. I was very young and they were
Speaker 3: at the peak of their powers, and you know, a
Speaker 3: bunch of up and coming political kids. But Tony Blair
Speaker 3: said something in that meeting that I've always kept in
Speaker 3: my mind, he said. He says, what happens is that
Speaker 3: the right wing comes on so hard. They are so destructive,
Speaker 3: they are so aggressive, that the tendency is to want
Speaker 3: to defend the institutions from them, yes, and to defend
Speaker 3: what has made the country great and strong, to defend
Speaker 3: common sense and reason. But you wind up seeming like
Speaker 3: you're defending the status qua right and that you always
Speaker 3: have to be on the march for reform. That's the
Speaker 3: most important message that you can say to people, is
Speaker 3: that you're not satisfied with the status quo, but you
Speaker 3: have better answers for change, you know. And when you
Speaker 3: get pushed off of that and you're just reacting to
Speaker 3: the reaction and the reaction of the reaction to the
Speaker 3: last crazy thing that they said, then you're playing into
Speaker 3: their hands. And I think Tony Blair and Bill Clinton
Speaker 3: in their generation were able to convince people that they
Speaker 3: want to preserve the best but fix the rest. And
Speaker 3: if you don't show that passion for people, I think,
Speaker 3: you know, to me, if I sometimes find myself a
Speaker 3: little bit at odds with my party or kind of
Speaker 3: almost a strange from my party, is that I don't
Speaker 3: really give a fuck up about it. I don't give
Speaker 3: a fuck. I was never a politician. Yeah, I had
Speaker 3: one job in government, it was for Barack Obama for
Speaker 3: less than a year. Other than that, I've been at
Speaker 3: grassroots you know, activists, you know till you know people
Speaker 3: you know forget. I did twenty years working in criminal justice, prisons,
Speaker 3: juvenile halls, jails. Uh, you know, went to jail with
Speaker 3: Apple Aschian coal miners, fighting against coal companies. You know,
Speaker 3: I come out of you know, real grassroots fights, and
Speaker 3: the Democrats were frankly never that to help them, like a
Speaker 3: lot of times, like in California, fighting against a prison system.
Speaker 3: You're fighting against Willie Brown and Jerry Brown and Gray Davis.
Speaker 3: You know, we built more prisons in California than they
Speaker 3: built in Texas and close closed fewer than Texas has
Speaker 3: on the downside. So if you're me, you know, look,
Speaker 3: I've you know, fighting against Democrats who had the head
Speaker 3: up there but and didn't understand what was happening at
Speaker 3: the grocer's level. Has been my entire career, right, and
Speaker 3: so you know you're not surprised and just and not beholden. Yeah, right,
Speaker 3: you know, when we passed the First Step Act under
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, which by the way, got uh now, sixty
Speaker 3: thousand people out of federal prison. I didn't say sixty people,
Speaker 3: said sixty thousand people out of federal prison. Helped to
Speaker 3: form you know, it was a part of that coalition,
Speaker 3: you know, included a Jared Kushner, included a New Gingrish,
Speaker 3: included a Nancy Pelosi, included a jakeem jeffrees. Why are
Speaker 3: we able to do it? Because we're in every district
Speaker 3: there's some family who's got somebody locked up for some
Speaker 3: stupid ass reason. Yeah, and they don't care if you're
Speaker 3: a Democrat or Republican. Can you help my child?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: And we pulled together that coalition in red states and
Speaker 3: blue states, and we got eighty seven US Senators to
Speaker 3: vote to reduce the federal prison population. Now, that doesn't
Speaker 3: come from being a loyal Democrat or a loyal Republican,
Speaker 3: or or an anti Democrat anti Republican. It comes from
Speaker 3: caring about everyday people. And so that's that's where I
Speaker 3: come from. And so when I see the party doing
Speaker 3: stuff it's I don't think is smart. I don't have
Speaker 3: a problem complaining about it because Democrat Democrats have have.
Speaker 3: You know, they're they're to my point of view, they're
Speaker 3: better than the alternative, but they've been disappointing for a while.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, and a lot of people believe that.
Speaker 2: And and that goes to my next question about this
Speaker 2: asymmetry and appetites among the bases on the left and
Speaker 2: the right. I've been saying for a long time the
Speaker 2: left has a problem because its voters hold it to
Speaker 2: a much higher standard than the right holds its leaders.
Speaker 2: The left is mad at Joe Biden, and they're going
Speaker 2: to say it. They're mad at Kamala, They're mad at
Speaker 2: the party. And you've got you know, whether it's the
Speaker 2: pod Save guys coming after Ken Martin or just voters,
Speaker 2: black voters leaving the party and saying my vote is
Speaker 2: not yours to take for granted, they're mad and they're
Speaker 2: saying it. A perfect example happened just over the weekend.
Speaker 2: The DNC posted a Memorial Day message honoring the thirteen
Speaker 2: fallen soldiers that have died in the Iran War. They
Speaker 2: got backlash from Democrats people like Tammy Duckworth, who thought
Speaker 2: it was exploiting dead soldiers for a political attack. Ad
Speaker 2: Folks like Tammy expressed their disdain for it, thought it
Speaker 2: was really in bad taste.
Speaker 1: They were offended by this. Whatever you think of that argument.
Speaker 2: Over on the right, Trump posted a lengthy Memorial Day
Speaker 2: screed against Democrats.
Speaker 1: Right, no one on the right.
Speaker 2: Blinked deny, and if they did, he wouldn't take it down.
Speaker 2: The Democrats took their message down immediately. What do you
Speaker 2: make of this uneven battlefield and a total double standard
Speaker 2: that the voters have set where Democrats voters. I don't
Speaker 2: want them to lower their standards like that can't be
Speaker 2: the answer. But at the same time, they are not
Speaker 2: fighting the same fight because Republicans don't care that their
Speaker 2: party is hypocritical, that it promised things it's not delivering
Speaker 2: like they so are they have not cared about that.
Speaker 3: Well, you know it's hard for me to know. I
Speaker 3: wasn't aware of that story. And also online in real
Speaker 3: life aren't the same. Yeah, you know, sometimes what I'm
Speaker 3: feeling despondent. I joke and say was the difference between
Speaker 3: liberals and cannibals. Cannibals don't eat their friends and family.
Speaker 3: That's kind of my that's my right. So so sometimes
Speaker 3: you know what I feel this Pond, I feel that way. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but also look, I mean I think that low self
Speaker 3: esteem is not a good place to be standing when
Speaker 3: you're trying to lead. Sometimes people are going to disagree
Speaker 3: with you, but they'll respect you more if you don't
Speaker 3: back down. Yeah, Like a lot of people don't agree
Speaker 3: with my position on Israel, I don't agree with my
Speaker 3: position on you know, working with Republicans on criminal justice reform.
Speaker 3: They don't believe that in my position in terms of
Speaker 3: being aggressively coalition in bridge building at a time when
Speaker 3: a lot of black folks feel like we tried that
Speaker 3: it didn't work, we should just retreat into our own camp.
Speaker 3: But I don't back down. I don't change my position.
Speaker 3: I don't post something and then somebody didn't like it,
Speaker 3: so now I'm going to change my mind about it.
Speaker 3: Like I just don't like it. Not everybody's. I'm not
Speaker 3: everybody's cup of tea, And I think that we need
Speaker 3: more of that. I would must rather for the party
Speaker 3: for whoever posts that thing, to say, you know you're wrong,
Speaker 3: and you know Tammy Duck work, will he love you
Speaker 3: and you're wonderful, But we see it differently, and you know,
Speaker 3: let's have the conversation. But this sort of I just
Speaker 3: see it as like low self esteem politics, like please
Speaker 3: like me, this kind of picked me politics. Please like me.
Speaker 3: Please don't be mad at me, let me try to bemprove.
Speaker 3: I just think it shows.
Speaker 2: Weakness, and that happens on the left with special interests,
Speaker 2: I think wart more so than it does on the right.
Speaker 1: Threat has its own of course, but but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, our coalition is broader, we have a lot more,
Speaker 3: we have a lot more people.
Speaker 2: But also yeah, but not wanting to let down this
Speaker 2: special interest or that special yeah, but.
Speaker 1: Gets into yeah.
Speaker 3: But also people fall for like stupid shit, like for instance,
Speaker 3: people say, well, you know this group feels this way.
Speaker 3: What they really mean is some paid people who went
Speaker 3: to college who got a grant and have a website
Speaker 3: and claim to represent millions of people that they've never met. Yeah,
Speaker 3: are going to be mad, and so like the groups,
Speaker 3: like worrying about the groups, What are the groups going
Speaker 3: to say? I don't give a shit about the groups
Speaker 3: because I know all these people, we all went to
Speaker 3: school together, we all get grants from the same people,
Speaker 3: And they don't fool me that they represent who they
Speaker 3: say they represent. But if you don't know any better,
Speaker 3: you'll think that whoever showed up, you know, with their
Speaker 3: coalition of seven groups that all claim to represent something,
Speaker 3: actually they don't represent a goddamn thing half the time,
Speaker 3: except for people who went to college and people who
Speaker 3: give grants, and so I know that, so I don't
Speaker 3: bow down. Also, online is not real life, like there's
Speaker 3: you know you can It's like I know the people
Speaker 3: who whip up these storms online and a lot of
Speaker 3: it's synthetic, or at least it's it's not exactly a
Speaker 3: reflection in public opinion. So you got to be willing
Speaker 3: to You have to be willing to take the heat
Speaker 3: from your from your base. And that's what's interesting to
Speaker 3: me about you know, Trump and others is like Trump's
Speaker 3: going to do Trump and you can like it or not.
Speaker 3: And I think people over the long term respect that
Speaker 3: because it shows strength if you if you realize you
Speaker 3: can bully dad, bully mom and get your way. You're
Speaker 3: happy in the in the short term, but you're actually
Speaker 3: miserable in the long term. You don't respect your parents
Speaker 3: when your parents are like I don't care what you said,
Speaker 3: I said what I say, Sit down, go to your room.
Speaker 3: You don't like it in the short term, but long
Speaker 3: term you love it because you know, you say, you know,
Speaker 3: my parents didn't screw around. It's just like a lot
Speaker 3: of weakness on the left that I think we have
Speaker 3: to be well and you know, we have to be
Speaker 3: willing to if you're going to lead on the left,
Speaker 3: it's a raucous bunch of people and you're not going
Speaker 3: to please everybody. But if you can find a mass
Speaker 3: base of people who are real folks, who say, I
Speaker 3: believe in that woman, I think she's fighting for me,
Speaker 3: then a lot of this online and middle class professional
Speaker 3: layer becomes less important. That's the key. Can you can
Speaker 3: you connect with real people who really believe in you,
Speaker 3: and then all this stuff becomes less important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, before we let you go, we like to end
Speaker 2: an exit poll of a mental health minute where you
Speaker 2: answer a few questions of varying degrees of seriousness. So
Speaker 2: the first question is what's your favorite movie about politics?
Speaker 3: Oh, it's a it's a movie that has Sean Penn
Speaker 3: All the Kingsmen, where Sean Penn is the star of
Speaker 3: that movie. I think it's a great, great film and
Speaker 3: it teaches teaches a lot about politics.
Speaker 2: If you were teaching a class about America, what's one
Speaker 2: book you'd make your students read.
Speaker 3: Oh, the Making of the Making of Black Revolutionaries. The
Speaker 3: second half of that book by James Foreman. It's a
Speaker 3: book about the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee and what
Speaker 3: they did in you know, going into the South. And
Speaker 3: it's it's what James Foreman, who was a leader of
Speaker 3: SNICK and all those kids who went south and some
Speaker 3: of some were murdered, many were beaten, many were arrested.
Speaker 3: He had them every night right down report field reports,
Speaker 3: and so he has like so the book full of
Speaker 3: like minute by minute, this person's missing, we went to
Speaker 3: talk to this sheriff. It's really really gives you. The
Speaker 3: Making of Black Revolutionaries by James Foreman really gives you
Speaker 3: an insider account of how risky, how dangerous, and how
Speaker 3: difficult it was for us to get you know, black
Speaker 3: people registered to vote in this country in living memory.
Speaker 3: This is not a thousand years ago. This is in
Speaker 3: the living memory of your grandparents. It was a murderous
Speaker 3: You were risking your life to sign a black person
Speaker 3: up to vote in a third of America.
Speaker 2: Great, what's something you find encouraging about the state of
Speaker 2: politics today.
Speaker 3: Look, I think that we haven't heard from the best
Speaker 3: people yet. I think that most people are still on
Speaker 3: the sidelines trying to make their individual lives work. At
Speaker 3: some point they'll realize that they can't and someone will
Speaker 3: come off off the bench in a negative posture. There's
Speaker 3: gonna be some brilliant, beautiful, amazing people who stand up
Speaker 3: and and and represent of a better path. So this
Speaker 3: is this is what happens when demagogues and status quo defenders,
Speaker 3: you know, duke it out on the on the on
Speaker 3: the national stage for a decade. But but the best,
Speaker 3: the best people in the country haven't been heard from it.
Speaker 2: How do you unplug from the news and politics?
Speaker 3: I mean, like, I've I got four kids, so sometimes
Speaker 3: I you know, spend time, uh you know, doing dumb
Speaker 3: things with them or fun things with them. You know.
Speaker 3: I'm a person of very deep religious faith, as you know,
Speaker 3: and so for me, like one reason why I have
Speaker 3: a lot of independence and politics is that I have
Speaker 3: my own religion and it's not the Democratic Party, you know,
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of people who are not
Speaker 3: people with faith and you know, including yourself, a great
Speaker 3: respect for But there's some people who they're still theological.
Speaker 3: They just protected into politics. They still are looking for
Speaker 3: the Messiah. They just think it's Donald Trump or whoever.
Speaker 3: The Democrats run every four years and they're still like
Speaker 3: but all of those needs that some people try to
Speaker 3: pull out of politics, I already have met because you know,
Speaker 3: come out of the Black Church, and we got a lot,
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of assustenance over there. And
Speaker 3: so I think between my you know, look, I'm I'm
Speaker 3: a Southern kid. Faith and family is my thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, why do you do what you do?
Speaker 3: No idea, no idea like I could, I could come
Speaker 3: up with something. But the reality is, since I was
Speaker 3: very little, I've been just mainly focused on politics. But
Speaker 3: I was like a little kid, like in first grade,
Speaker 3: I had a whole. I had a bulletin board in
Speaker 3: my room, and I would whenever the Weekly Readers came out.
Speaker 3: You're too young, but they used to have these newspapers
Speaker 3: for children in school called the Weekly Reader. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: it was terrible, like you touched it, like the ink
Speaker 3: would come up off in your fingers. It was not
Speaker 3: a high quality. But I would take my little round
Speaker 3: scissors in anything about the Kennedy family or Doctor King.
Speaker 3: I would cut out and I would bring it home
Speaker 3: and I would stick it up on my bulletin board
Speaker 3: because I was just really interested in the Kennedy's and
Speaker 3: the Kings and Doctor King in like kindergarten first grade.
Speaker 3: So some people were interested in politics, some people were
Speaker 3: interested in music, art, sports. I was just a political
Speaker 3: nerd from the beginning. And I have no idea why.
Speaker 2: Okay, And the last question is very important to me.
Speaker 2: I know the answer to this, but I have to
Speaker 2: ask it. When is it iced coffee season?
Speaker 3: I don't drink coffee. I don't know anything about that.
Speaker 3: I know, Sorry, I knowd coffee, any coffee or alcohol.
Speaker 3: HAVE never had any alcohol ever in my whole life.
Speaker 3: Corey Booker is the same way Donald Trumps the same way.
Speaker 3: So I don't tell too bad, but I don't know. Now.
Speaker 3: Why would you have ice in the coffee? Isn't supposed
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 2: Usually?
Speaker 1: Wait a second, why would you even have ice in
Speaker 1: the coffee?
Speaker 2: Well? The answer van is both cultural and spiritual. The
Speaker 2: cultural answer is because I grew up in Massachusetts with
Speaker 2: Dunkin Donuts.
Speaker 1: That's the first answer.
Speaker 2: The second answer is because I want to drink it fast.
Speaker 2: I don't want to sip it. It's not precious. I
Speaker 2: want it in my veins quickly, and I can't do
Speaker 2: that when it's hot iced.
Speaker 1: The answer is year round. There's no season. You drink
Speaker 1: iced coffee year round.
Speaker 2: But I know that, and we ask it at the
Speaker 2: end of every pot, which is why I'm asking you
Speaker 2: even though I know you don't drink coffee.
Speaker 1: It's okay.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm for whatever you're for in this.
Speaker 1: I love you anyway. I love you anyway.
Speaker 3: I'm sure if I if I, if ever, well, listen,
Speaker 3: I do sometimes drink a diet coke on set when
Speaker 3: we're like those of late nights.
Speaker 1: Know that about you.
Speaker 2: That's unrelated. It has nothing to do with coffee. But
Speaker 2: that is a thing you did. That's true.
Speaker 3: I've never had any coffee. I don't even know what.
Speaker 2: Thanks Van Jones, Thanks so much for joining us on
Speaker 2: Off the Cup today.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: You're a great deep thinker, and you're very thoughtful, and
Speaker 2: I know you care a lot about the future of
Speaker 2: this country, so it was great to have you on.
Speaker 3: Well. I appreciate it, and thanks for including me, and
Speaker 3: I'll come back anytime.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Van. Thanks to you for tuning in. PS.
Speaker 1: There's a new talking.
Speaker 2: Coffee up where we taste test a brand new coffee
Speaker 2: product will surprise you, and we dish on all kinds
Speaker 2: of fun stuff because coffee really does reveal a person
Speaker 2: and it's kind of just a gateway to like talk
Speaker 2: about anything, and we do.
Speaker 1: So check that out and we'll see you next time
Speaker 1: on Off the Cup.
Speaker 2: Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcast as
Speaker 2: part of the Reason Choice Network.
Speaker 1: If you want more, check out the.
Speaker 2: Other Reason Choice podcast, Spolitics with Jamel Hill and Native
Speaker 2: Land Pod.
Speaker 1: For Off the Cup, I'm your host, Si Cup. Editing
Speaker 1: and sound design by Derek Clements.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are me Si Cup and Lauren Hanson.
Speaker 2: Rate and review wherever you get your pod casts, follow
Speaker 2: and subscribe for new episodes every week