Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: My guest tonight is a national correspondent for Bloomberg BusinessWeek
Speaker 2: and best selling author whose new book is called The Rebels.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocazia Cortes, and the Struggle
Speaker 2: for a New American Politics.
Speaker 3: Please welcome, Joshua Green. Josh Welcome. Welcome. All right, John,
Speaker 3: see your last book.
Speaker 2: Your last book, Devil's Bargain, was about Steve Bannon and
Speaker 2: the rise of far right populism. This book is looking
Speaker 2: at the far left and the rise of populism in
Speaker 2: the progressive movement. Is this what you brought us for
Speaker 2: Valentine's Day?
Speaker 4: I'm giving you the gift of a book that's not
Speaker 4: about Trump or Biden or the depressing presidential rematch.
Speaker 1: It's going to dominate our lives for the.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's my gift to you.
Speaker 2: This is Arrested for people who need a break. Read
Speaker 2: about Bernie said, Yes, you talk about this book about
Speaker 2: the rise of the left and the progressive and the
Speaker 2: progressive movement and populism, and also you talk about how
Speaker 2: it has a symbiotic relationship with the more moderate wing
Speaker 2: and the Joe Biden side of it all. Talk to me,
Speaker 2: how you see those two things working symbiotically.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean, the book starts in two thousand
Speaker 4: and eight, because I date the rise of this left
Speaker 4: populist movement to the reaction from the financial crisis, and
Speaker 4: after that, everybody was angry. There was a big backlash.
Speaker 4: On the right, it led to the Tea Party and
Speaker 4: to Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: But on the left it.
Speaker 4: Gave rise to people like Warren who were able to
Speaker 4: articulate the deep dissatisfaction a lot of Americans had with
Speaker 4: the fact that the government was bailing out Wall Street banks,
Speaker 4: but that they weren't helping the middle class. And you know,
Speaker 4: over the years we saw with the rise of Warren,
Speaker 4: who used her platform, including places like The Daily Show
Speaker 4: to to spread this message. You saw the rise of
Speaker 4: Bernie Sanders and his presidential race, and ultimately this just
Speaker 4: became an important part of Democratic Party politics.
Speaker 1: And when Donald Trump won, I.
Speaker 4: Think it woke up a lot of Democratic officials who said, gosh,
Speaker 4: we better listen to these people. And Joe Biden's presidency
Speaker 4: has really managed to kind of unite the populaces and
Speaker 4: the moderates. He's put into place a lot of things
Speaker 4: that Warren and Bernie and AOC have argued for. And
Speaker 4: so we're heading into the November election with Democrats really
Speaker 4: unified behind Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: Now that's interesting. It's interesting you say that.
Speaker 1: Mostly.
Speaker 2: Because I don't I theoretically see that. It doesn't seem
Speaker 2: as if that is the feeling. I would say most Democrats,
Speaker 2: they don't feel like they're lining up charged ready.
Speaker 3: To vote for Joe Biden right now.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of more far left Democrats still
Speaker 2: feel like their voices aren't being heard. How are are
Speaker 2: their voices being heard and seen through a vessel like
Speaker 2: Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: Well, I think you look at it two different ways.
Speaker 4: At the national level, all of the important UH left
Speaker 4: wing democrats, including my three characters, have all come out
Speaker 4: and endorsed Biden. Nobody decided to run against him, which
Speaker 4: they could have if they wanted to. UH, and even AOC,
Speaker 4: who's had some problems with him lately, came out yesterday
Speaker 4: and said she thought he was one of the best
Speaker 4: presidents in recent US history.
Speaker 1: So they're pretty much united.
Speaker 4: But when it comes to the actual kind of rank
Speaker 4: and file of left leaning voters, especially younger voters.
Speaker 1: There is a.
Speaker 4: Lot of dissatisfaction with Biden. Maybe that's because of its age.
Speaker 1: She's kind of old.
Speaker 4: He looks like Grandpa. Maybe it's because of his kind
Speaker 4: of old, really old.
Speaker 1: It looks a lot like Grandpa. Sure, yes, so does Trump.
Speaker 3: But yes, they're both they're both quite old shoes.
Speaker 4: Yes, But the challenge for Biden is going to be
Speaker 4: how can he bring those younger people back into his coalition?
Speaker 4: And I think one hope is that, you know, my
Speaker 4: characters will be effective surrogates. It's you see that or
Speaker 4: he's gonna have to count on, you know, going on
Speaker 4: TikTok and trying to attract them an other unorthodoted ways
Speaker 4: that you know, maybe the Biden campaign is going to
Speaker 4: be so good A.
Speaker 2: Well, you talk a lot about economic populism and what
Speaker 2: people across America really want and that this movement sort
Speaker 2: of started from people being disaffected post two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2: You spend a lot of time on the field you're
Speaker 2: covering this election. I was recently in South Carolina and
Speaker 2: Biden has pretty good numbers right now. When it comes
Speaker 2: to the economy, the stock markets up, inflation seems to
Speaker 2: be going down. You know, we have unemployment that is
Speaker 2: incredibly low right now. But when I talk to the
Speaker 2: MAGA folks, those aren't the indicators that they care about,
Speaker 2: partially because yes, but I think sometimes it's a political dodge.
Speaker 2: But sometimes what they focus on is gas, and oftentimes
Speaker 2: gas could never be low enough for folks, but housing,
Speaker 2: housing is an indicator that they feel like the Biden
Speaker 2: administration is not dealing with and the real people in
Speaker 2: America are frustrated with that as an indicator, Like are
Speaker 2: the Democrats missing that conversation looking at the middle parts
Speaker 2: of America what they're actually disaffected by.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think they're missing it.
Speaker 4: And there's been a ton of worry about inflation, of course,
Speaker 4: that's that's been the main challenge that Biden has had
Speaker 4: to deal with. And you hear that from Republicans, independence
Speaker 4: and Democrats. You know, unless you spent the last three years,
Speaker 4: like only eating at a taco bell, like, you've probably
Speaker 4: experienced price inflation and you're not real happy about it.
Speaker 2: I bet also you're not really happy about it if
Speaker 2: you spent the last few years just reasons too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but look, look, you know, people's views of the
Speaker 4: economy are looked at through the lens of political partisanship.
Speaker 4: It's true for Democrats, they were very unhappy about the
Speaker 4: economy Pole said when Donald.
Speaker 1: Trump was president.
Speaker 4: So there's a certain group of people and their maga
Speaker 4: Republicans who are probably never going to be happy with
Speaker 4: the state of the economy under Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: But what you really need to look at.
Speaker 4: Are Democrats and independents. And the one thing that Biden
Speaker 4: really has going for him running for reelection is that,
Speaker 4: you know, he dealt with the deepest financial crash we've
Speaker 4: had since the Great Financial Crisis, the one that followed
Speaker 4: the COVID crash, by doing what my characters wanted to do,
Speaker 4: what Warren and Sanders did, we had three rounds of
Speaker 4: stimulus and beefed up unemployment benefits and student loan freezes,
Speaker 4: and the economy three years later is in really strong shape,
Speaker 4: as you pointed out. So Biden's best hope is that,
Speaker 4: you know, in the ensuing nine months, people are not
Speaker 4: going to be able to ignore all these positive signs
Speaker 4: of four to one k is going to go up,
Speaker 4: They're going to get a good job, they're going to
Speaker 4: feel more positive, and we can see measures like consumer
Speaker 4: sentiment that have turned around pretty strongly, so that you know,
Speaker 4: the way I think of Biden's reelection is like, it's
Speaker 4: not like the Olympics where you have to put up
Speaker 4: a perfect score. You just have to do better than
Speaker 4: the other guy. And the things are trending in a
Speaker 4: direction where where you know, it's like it's at least
Speaker 4: an attainable goal, we hope, right, the world's slowest hundred
Speaker 4: yard dea the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, yes, So.
Speaker 2: If we're still running, or we're still running, it's interesting
Speaker 2: to say that he needs to articulate those successes. But
Speaker 2: since you wrote this book, we've had what's happening with
Speaker 2: Israel and Palestine, and I think we are starting to
Speaker 2: see a real shift in the Democratic Party. Obviously AOC's
Speaker 2: response probably not surprising to folks, but Bernie and Warren
Speaker 2: have been vocally critical of Bebie, leaving Biden in a
Speaker 2: weird location right now. How do you see him squaring
Speaker 2: that with a party that he needs to win over
Speaker 2: and these rebels as you call them, clearly taking a
Speaker 2: much stronger tact.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question.
Speaker 4: I mean, in a lot of ways, the story of
Speaker 4: my book is the story of how Democrats came together
Speaker 4: on economics over the last fifteen years. But just in
Speaker 4: the last couple of months, we've seen a new fissure
Speaker 4: open up between the left and the center and the
Speaker 4: Democratic Party over Israel. And it's something that I think
Speaker 4: kind of has taken the Biden White House by surprise.
Speaker 4: Biden initially came out was very much pro net and
Speaker 4: Yahoo and then as things at South and Gaza, and you.
Speaker 1: Could see the.
Speaker 4: Rebellion of the left flank, of ordinary act and file voters,
Speaker 4: but also of important elected Democrats like AOC like Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 4: It's a problem that they don't really know how to square.
Speaker 4: And so you've seen the White House express concern and
Speaker 4: all these kind of Washington buzzwords. But I don't think
Speaker 4: that that's really satisfying anyone. And that's something they're going
Speaker 4: to have to figure out, because in a divided country
Speaker 4: like we've had in what I'm sure shaping up to
Speaker 4: be a fifty to fifty election, they're going to need
Speaker 4: every vote they can get. And these are a group
Speaker 4: of voters right now, people who are upset about Israel's
Speaker 4: campaign in Palestine that don't at least don't tell pollsters
Speaker 4: that they're real excited to vote for Joe Biden right.
Speaker 2: Now, What do you see the demo Democratic Party reflecting.
Speaker 2: Is it reflecting more of an AOC version of the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party or is it a Biden's version.
Speaker 1: It's a good question.
Speaker 4: I think if you look at where the Democratic Party
Speaker 4: is today visa VI where it was, let's say in
Speaker 4: two thousand and eight during the last crash at the
Speaker 4: beginning of the book, completely different party. When I came
Speaker 4: to Washington as report in two thousand, Biden was considered
Speaker 4: so pro corporate that we used to kind of jokingly
Speaker 4: call him the Senator from Corporate America. But if you
Speaker 4: flash forward fifteen years to Joe Biden as president today,
Speaker 4: he's out walking on UAW picket lines, instituted a recovery
Speaker 4: plan that was geared so much toward the middle class,
Speaker 4: that pushed so much money out the door to working
Speaker 4: people that actually cause inflation. And you look at what
Speaker 4: it is that politicians like Warren and Sanders have called for,
Speaker 4: and I think that's really a large degree of unity
Speaker 4: on economics, and that's one reason why the party has
Speaker 4: remained unified behind Joe Biden. So I think He's come
Speaker 4: a long way in kind of melding the two wings
Speaker 4: of the party in a way that really kind of
Speaker 4: points the direction.
Speaker 1: Forward for Democrats generally.
Speaker 4: I think I don't think we're ever going to go
Speaker 4: back to a time when, if there's another financial crisis,
Speaker 4: Democrats are going to hand all the money to Wall
Speaker 4: Street banks.
Speaker 1: I think they've learned that lesson.
Speaker 4: And I think Joe Biden's success in twenty twenty and
Speaker 4: if he has success in twenty twenty four, I will
Speaker 4: help to underline that message.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a great read. The Rebels is available now,
Speaker 3: God's great. Everybody.
Speaker 2: My guest tonight is an actor you know from Captain Marvel,
Speaker 2: No Time to Die and The Woman King. She plays
Speaker 2: Bob Marley's wife Rita in the new biopic Bob Marley.
Speaker 2: One Love, Please welcome, Lashana Lynch, God welcome.
Speaker 3: No, right, right, they're lovely, right, lovely?
Speaker 1: I love her love they are?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Might you say it's all one love?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: I like it. That's nice. It was nice. It was nice.
Speaker 1: It was very.
Speaker 2: Nice going through some of the things you've you've picked
Speaker 2: up over the last few years when you're part of
Speaker 2: the Marble cinematic universe.
Speaker 3: You learn to fly a plane.
Speaker 5: Yeh uh.
Speaker 2: In Woman King, you learned how to fight in No
Speaker 2: Time to die. You learn how to arm and disarm
Speaker 2: and fire a gun. Do you feel ready for the
Speaker 2: impending apocalypse? Yes?
Speaker 3: Yes, you've done the work. You've prepped for it, prep
Speaker 3: my life. You found a way to get paid for it.
Speaker 2: So whatever happens post November, you're going to be in
Speaker 2: a great space.
Speaker 3: Basically, Yes, you got.
Speaker 5: Settle skills and you've got to get into it.
Speaker 3: You can now write it off on your taxes.
Speaker 1: It's great. Exactly what did you do?
Speaker 3: That's what I was trying to do. This is smart,
Speaker 3: all right?
Speaker 2: Yes, what did you What skill did you pick up
Speaker 2: working on the latest movie One Love?
Speaker 5: None of that, None of that, none of that much
Speaker 5: much lighter emotional grasp. Oh, yes, definitely, there's a lot
Speaker 5: of there's a lot of holding. You know, Molly is
Speaker 5: a strong, very powerful, balanced, spiritual woman, so I had
Speaker 5: to make sure that she was grounded at all times.
Speaker 3: You had to work on yourself.
Speaker 5: You had to work on myself, my spiritual self, my
Speaker 5: inner self. Make sure that I was collected enough to
Speaker 5: take all of the experiences of all the training that
Speaker 5: you just told me about and put them into good use.
Speaker 2: Now, I think you know what a lot of people
Speaker 2: think of Bob Marley. Perhaps they're not as familiar with
Speaker 2: the story of Riata Marley. Right for me, in college,
Speaker 2: Bob Marley, I love Bob Marley. He was a poster
Speaker 2: on a wall and I thought Legend was an album
Speaker 2: that he made as opposed to a Greatest Hits album,
Speaker 2: which is the mistake most college kids made at that point,
Speaker 2: but they weren't aware of readA Marley. When you watch
Speaker 2: this film, you see that she's really the backbone of
Speaker 2: the Bob Marley story. Like, when you read this, what
Speaker 2: did you know about Rita's story and what drew you
Speaker 2: to this?
Speaker 5: Well, my parents are Jamaican, They're born in Jamaica. So
Speaker 5: I had a responsibility to take the role and make
Speaker 5: sure that it was everything that it needed to be
Speaker 5: represent Rita Marley way that she deserved to and also
Speaker 5: to uphold the legend's story, the legend that we know today,
Speaker 5: you know didn't come from nowhere. She literally is the
Speaker 5: backbone that she held everything together. She ensured that you know,
Speaker 5: her children are I mean, the geniuses that they are today.
Speaker 5: And I just wanted to make sure that the remarkable
Speaker 5: woman remained a remarkable woman in the story, and that
Speaker 5: the female narrative was told in the way that we
Speaker 5: know it should be, especially as a woman, as a
Speaker 5: black woman and of Jamaican descent. I just wanted to
Speaker 5: make sure that everyone was on the same page.
Speaker 2: That I would say that feels stressful to a big backpack.
Speaker 3: Light stress, yes, just light stress.
Speaker 2: I mean my parents are from Michigan, so if I
Speaker 2: had to play Eminem that would be a lot of
Speaker 2: stress for me.
Speaker 3: Make sure you get it right, to it right. Yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe kid Rock would be an easier fit. Sadly, I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 5: We could talk to someone make it happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, him, if you're out there and let me, I know,
Speaker 2: you're a better actor than I am and more successful.
Speaker 3: You could probably play yourself. But think about me. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: you met Rita Marley, right.
Speaker 2: Not only is it the pressure of upholding this this
Speaker 2: real life figure who is still alive and people have
Speaker 2: opinions about her and what her role is, but you're
Speaker 2: also you're also creating this role in the shadow of
Speaker 2: somebody who is there and watching.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 2: What was it like to to meet Rita Marley and
Speaker 2: what did you glean from her?
Speaker 5: Sometimes you meet someone and it feels like a film.
Speaker 5: Like I walked into her house and her back was
Speaker 5: turned to me, and it kind of felt like I'd
Speaker 5: imagine smoke underneath her chair and like clouds above her,
Speaker 5: and it just felt like I was walking into some
Speaker 5: kind of like heavenly space because she's just really quite angelic,
Speaker 5: actually really peaceful and chill. And I remember when I
Speaker 5: stepped in, I'd only been there for like a minute,
Speaker 5: and her daughter, Sharon was like, Mom says that she's really.
Speaker 1: Happy that you're here.
Speaker 5: And she says that you have the energy, like whatever
Speaker 5: that means.
Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, the energy, the energy?
Speaker 2: Oh did you said did you know what the energy was?
Speaker 2: Or you were like, oh what am I giving off?
Speaker 2: Is it pheromone?
Speaker 3: It vibe? Tell me what the energy? Tell me what
Speaker 3: the energy? Exacly?
Speaker 1: Can you look?
Speaker 5: Just describe that to me so I know that I'm
Speaker 5: in the right place, like I've.
Speaker 3: I got the wrong address because I don't know what
Speaker 3: I'm doing.
Speaker 5: No, it was it was like a kind of a
Speaker 5: meeting of spirits. It felt like because when I did
Speaker 5: eventually sit down with her. I left my book that
Speaker 5: had three pages of notes in it in my bag
Speaker 5: and just sat on the floor and across my legs
Speaker 5: and just kind of like looked up to her almost
Speaker 5: like a little schoolgirl looking at her teacher, and just
Speaker 5: soaked her in, soaked in her spirit and her energy.
Speaker 5: And it reminded me that this process has to I
Speaker 5: kind of have to kick the actor thing to the
Speaker 5: side and realize that I'm a vessel bringing this incredible
Speaker 5: woman's life or slice of her life to the globe.
Speaker 5: And like you said, you know Bob Marley, and there's
Speaker 5: information for days on the internet about him. With Rita Marley,
Speaker 5: you you know, unfortunately culturally less so, but it was
Speaker 5: an opportunity for me to give the world an education
Speaker 5: on how incredible she is and how meaningful she is
Speaker 5: to our culture in Jamaica and in the continent of Africa.
Speaker 3: Like she's just so powerful.
Speaker 5: And her voice has been you know, doing all sorts
Speaker 5: of it's like her voices like that phone. It's just
Speaker 5: kind of like do you feel like do you know
Speaker 5: what I mean?
Speaker 3: Is that the energy?
Speaker 1: Energy?
Speaker 5: That's what I'm talking about, the energy exactly that Thank
Speaker 5: you so much. For that que well timed.
Speaker 2: You really you've described like an intimacy with a person that, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I've ever experienced with another human
Speaker 2: being in my own life. That came off like a
Speaker 2: cry for help.
Speaker 3: And I you really bringing up of people, don't you.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, take a minute, he's just going to
Speaker 5: take a set.
Speaker 3: Oh god, oh god, I didn't. I didn't learn enough
Speaker 3: of my acting classes. Should take over? Yes, yeah, good?
Speaker 3: Please please? Did you get notes on set from family members?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did, no, but I needed them.
Speaker 5: I really needed them, because you know, as an actor,
Speaker 5: you do your research and you sit with the character.
Speaker 5: We have like eight months, I think myself and Kingsley
Speaker 5: to sit with it, have the conversations develop, her speak
Speaker 5: with Rita Marley again, and then we had Ziggy Marley
Speaker 5: and Sidella Marley on set near and every day just
Speaker 5: to kind of tweak things, you know, to give us
Speaker 5: the accuracy and to give us the guidance and the
Speaker 5: confidence that we needed because we were playing real legends
Speaker 5: here and we didn't want to do anything by chance
Speaker 5: and kind of make anything up that wasn't realistic. So
Speaker 5: every so often I'll go to the monitor and be like,
Speaker 5: do I sound like your mom?
Speaker 3: Like would your mom say this? Do I feel like
Speaker 3: your mom today.
Speaker 1: Right now?
Speaker 5: And you'd be like, yeah, yeah, all good, all good,
Speaker 5: and of course in my active self and go away
Speaker 5: and be like, I'm not like his mom.
Speaker 1: Terrible.
Speaker 5: I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 3: But he just in the map being like mom, no, mom, Mom, no, mommy.
Speaker 2: No, let's shrill, let's set good.
Speaker 3: Ok. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 5: Until we got to the end of the shoot and
Speaker 5: I thought, you know what we've done. We've done a
Speaker 5: good job in telling this story. We have an hour
Speaker 5: and forty five roughly to tell a whole life, thirty
Speaker 5: six years of this man, and we were able to
Speaker 5: do it in a really succinct way. And I'm proud
Speaker 5: of it, and I'm proud of Kingsley.
Speaker 3: He's a pretty evolve.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: It's a it's a beautiful movie, and it really brings
Speaker 2: you into his life and you bring it out wonderfully.
Speaker 3: Bob Marley One Love is in theaters now. The Shadow List.
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