0:00

What's up guys today? We are joined

0:02

by the Democrats secret weapon. He's

0:04

an Afghan war veteran and the former

0:06

secretary of transportation He's also one

0:08

of the first gay men to run

0:10

for president and today He's here

0:12

to explain how he kept the planes

0:15

in the sky how billionaires legally

0:17

dodged taxes Why Trump's new tariffs could

0:19

be hurt in America? What do

0:21

you eat in Afghanistan that made him

0:23

gay and most importantly why every

0:25

Republican national convention? Grindr

0:27

is on fire Give it up

0:30

for Pete Buttigieg. You

0:32

started a conversation when you sat down on

0:34

the couch and said that Lachlan should have

0:36

died. Which is not

0:38

the first thing we often hear from a,

0:40

you know, future president. You

0:42

said Lachlan should have died in white lotus.

0:44

Talk to us. This is a big time. I

0:47

hate to say it, I love him, he's a good kid. But

0:50

just from a narrative perspective. From

0:53

doing that to his brother. You

1:06

know, I think the dad has to sit

1:08

with Chaston my husband. I've been talking about

1:10

this a lot Yeah, you the dad should

1:12

have to sit with like what he did.

1:14

Yeah, yes And there were so many parallels

1:17

to what happens with Tony where he's like

1:19

floating right when he seems like he's dying

1:21

or maybe sort of dead Yeah, I think

1:23

just story -wise that that otherwise, you know,

1:25

I don't have a lot of notes for

1:27

for this year's while I mean it was

1:29

I guess the one thing would be Does anything

1:31

really happen to the ultra wealthy? Yeah,

1:35

good question. Maybe that's the one he's trying to

1:37

showcase. Which is kind of what they always get

1:39

away with it. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, even the

1:41

kid. Even the kid. Yeah. Yeah, because

1:43

by the time they're on the boat, it's

1:45

like none of that even happened, right? Yeah.

1:47

And then the poor security guards that are

1:49

guarding the guy, they die. Yeah. Yeah. No

1:52

one talks about them. No, I

1:54

forgot about them. They're assholes. They were

1:56

mean to what's his name. Yeah.

1:58

Yeah. I'm okay

2:00

with that. There are

2:02

bullies, dude. Yeah,

2:05

dude, he had to set a pure heart. Don't bully

2:07

this guy. Yeah, that is true. And the three women

2:09

seem fine after witnessing a mass shooting, like they're just

2:11

laughing at you, right? Just on the

2:14

boat, having a good time. Yeah, yeah. But

2:16

yeah, in season one, if you remember that

2:18

guy, the really rich kid stabs the guy, and

2:20

then he's just in the airport 20 minutes

2:22

later or whatever. No questioning, no nothing. And I

2:24

think that's kind of Andrew's point, is like,

2:26

I think the point of that show is he

2:28

ultra -wealthy. One guy has his wife killed. Nothing

2:31

seems to happen. They just kind of

2:33

get away with it. But there is social

2:35

mobility because Belinda joins the club. Second,

2:38

she joins the club, what happens to her? She

2:40

seems fine. She becomes the woman she's

2:42

always hated. Yeah. the same

2:45

language. I think she's like the same words.

2:47

do something for myself. Yeah. Yeah. But

2:49

like the whole show, I was worried about

2:51

her. Yeah. Physically, not morally. Yeah. And

2:53

then it turns out... was and I thought

2:55

that was a genius choices You're worried

2:57

about her well -being and then she gets

2:59

the five million you're so happy But then

3:01

she also just kind of becomes gross

3:03

right after yeah, I mean I thought that

3:05

was a really good way money corrupts

3:07

money corrupts Speaking of how do we corrupt

3:09

you know? What do

3:11

we do like I keep on hearing conversations

3:14

about how we're gonna tax people and make a

3:16

lot of money Yeah, I've been very fortunate.

3:18

I've made a lot of money and they're doing

3:20

a really good job at it Who who

3:22

how do we? tax the people who really are

3:24

making a lot of money, like the guys

3:26

who like send their wives to space for fun.

3:28

How do we make sure? What did you

3:30

think about that? The space light?

3:32

Yeah. I'm glad they got back. OK. I mean,

3:34

yeah, I guess, I mean, it seems

3:36

to me there's some other things we could probably

3:38

be paying a little more attention to. But,

3:40

you know, it's exciting. Look, we're in this era

3:42

of commercial space light, which is exciting. Yeah.

3:44

And I worked on this, my secretary of transportation

3:46

like that. Oh, you were part of that. Yeah,

3:49

I mean it's transportation right our main thing was

3:52

just making sure on the way It's actually a very

3:54

Wild West right now. Yeah big picture wise The

3:56

main concerns are making sure you don't hit anything on

3:58

the way up because you got to go through

4:00

the national airspace And that if anything blows up on

4:02

the ground you don't hurt anybody on the ground

4:04

like there's kind of me like concerns But eventually we'll

4:06

have to start regulating that

4:08

like we do commercial air

4:10

travel, right? In order to make

4:12

it, like now I think there's a

4:14

sense of fly at your own risk, right?

4:16

You understand if you're being blasted into

4:18

space. ask permission when you're ready to go?

4:21

I'm guessing there's all kinds of, I

4:23

haven't seen it, but I'm guessing there's all

4:25

kinds of releases and paperwork. If only

4:27

we could talk to the transportation secretary. But

4:31

there's an understanding there's a different

4:33

level of risk, right? Whereas

4:35

on commercial aviation we have zero,

4:37

tolerance for risk. And actually,

4:39

that's worked out pretty well. I

4:41

think one thing that we always talk

4:43

about the things that are going

4:46

poorly, we pay attention to the bad

4:48

thing before we notice the good

4:50

thing. It does feel like that a

4:52

little bit recently that the planes

4:54

aren't making that as much. Yeah, well,

4:56

we can get into that. But

4:58

we had 15 years with zero commercial

5:01

airline fatal crashes. 15 years. Think

5:03

about that. Just in the time I was secretary,

5:05

we had about four billion people

5:07

get on airplanes. Look, statistically, if

5:10

you took your seat on an airplane and

5:12

you were sitting there, buckle your

5:14

seatbelt, eat in your snack,

5:16

you would be statistically more likely to

5:18

randomly die of natural causes than to

5:20

be involved in a fatal crash, right?

5:22

Wow. And that didn't just randomly happen.

5:24

They have years of technology, regulation, policy,

5:26

like a lot of things go into

5:28

that. And That's

5:30

what it looks like kind of on the

5:32

other side of that process where with

5:35

commercial spaceflight It's very new. It's understood that

5:37

it's very risky and I guess that's

5:39

okay But I don't to lose the first

5:41

thing you asked about which is taxation

5:43

because I think you know a big thing

5:45

I think most Americans definitely my party,

5:47

but I think most Americans believes that if

5:49

you're making a billion dollars Good for

5:51

you. Well, like you should at least be

5:53

paying an effective tax rate. That's comparable

5:56

or I would argue more than like A

5:58

firefighter. And that's not true right now. now.

6:00

Because nobody really makes a billion dollars. Right,

6:03

because it's all equity. Oh, yeah. And

6:05

getting any paychecks. Nobody makes income. Like

6:07

anybody that's generating that type of wealth is

6:09

not making income. So it's

6:11

almost like, and this is not like

6:13

a woohoo, like we got it so tough,

6:15

but it's almost like the people who

6:17

are, I think Miles used the term like,

6:20

not middle rich, like middle class,

6:22

like they're the ones that are actually

6:24

paying what they should pay. If

6:27

they're adhering to the tax code, they're

6:29

not hiring these tax attorneys that are

6:31

going to attack it all willingly and

6:33

try to reduce whatever they're paying in.

6:35

But let's assume, let's take it from

6:37

face value. An athlete or somebody that's making

6:39

five million bucks and let's say that

6:41

they pay two and a half million

6:43

around. The

6:46

concern I have really is potentially the corporations, and

6:48

I'm not smart enough to even know about

6:50

this stuff, but it seems to me, and I

6:52

think tariffs plays into this, so I'd love to

6:54

get your technology, but it seems to me

6:56

on the surface, and again, I'm giving a very

6:58

emotional argument. You can give me tons of data, call

7:00

me an idiot for even thinking this, but it's

7:02

I doubt it. Okay. Seems

7:05

to me that there's been an

7:07

effort that has been supported

7:09

to send the manufacturing of some

7:11

of these products overseas to

7:13

increase profits, right? Sure. Maybe

7:15

it's more effective to manufacture them overseas.

7:18

Maybe it's not all nefarious, but the idea

7:20

is to increase shareholder profits or increase

7:22

the profits of the company. Which

7:25

I'm not necessarily against. What

7:27

I'm against is when

7:29

you also put these

7:32

shell companies overseas. to

7:34

decrease, like you create the headquarters and

7:37

you put it in Dublin or something like

7:39

that so you can avoid taxes. And

7:41

it's a PO box, like nobody's even there.

7:43

Exactly. So you can't do both. You

7:45

can send the manufacturing overseas. Yes. But at

7:47

least if we're taxing the revenue of

7:49

that company that's generating billions of dollars. Yes.

7:51

you would like to believe that that

7:53

money would come back to the American people

7:56

and then we could reinvest in the

7:58

American people and then maybe there's other industries

8:00

that would pop up and those jobs

8:02

could transfer from manufacturing to new ones. Or

8:04

vice versa. Or vice versa. But you

8:06

can't do, to me it just feels like

8:08

if you do both, you are using

8:10

the marketplace that America is, that really is

8:12

entrepreneurship, follow that, but not

8:15

really giving back cattle. then stealing from

8:17

it. Yeah, there's no question, especially because a

8:19

lot of what that tax revenue goes

8:21

into or is supposed to go into here

8:23

in the US is what then turns

8:25

around and makes it possible for businesses to

8:27

thrive. Can you give us an example

8:29

of that? Yeah, my favorite example is probably

8:32

the smartphone. So have

8:34

you ever noticed like talks or like whenever

8:36

somebody mentions a smartphone, they like start to

8:38

pull it out of their pocket or touch

8:40

it. But so. The

8:42

federal government could not have invented the

8:44

iPhone, right? I don't think any of

8:46

us would want a phone that was

8:48

invented by the federal government. That thing

8:50

would suck. That is like all of

8:52

the design, the manufacturing supply chains, that's

8:55

the kind of thing that corporations can

8:57

do very well. And Apple did it

8:59

very well, and they're competitors. But

9:01

what makes the iPhone

9:03

work? Well, among other things,

9:05

the internet. The internet was

9:07

literally invented by a federal research

9:09

project. And it would

9:11

never have been possible to invent the

9:14

internet with a private company because you

9:16

wouldn't have got the kind of capital

9:18

virtue, even though it's a trillion -dollar

9:20

idea or a multi -trillion -dollar idea. You

9:22

know, companies can do multi -billion -dollar ideas,

9:24

but a trillion -dollar idea, like inventing the

9:26

Internet, that requires basic research,

9:28

and that's the kind of thing the government's

9:30

supposed to do, among many other things.

9:32

It requires basic research? What does mean? Yeah,

9:34

by basic research, I mean... that are

9:36

so fundamental that you actually don't know for

9:38

50 or 100 years if they're going

9:40

to have a return. They might never work

9:42

out. Oh, yeah. You can't

9:45

look at it as this thing is going

9:47

to be profitable. It has to be

9:49

a benevolent endeavor versus that. Yeah. It's different

9:51

from research on like a pharmaceutical company,

9:53

researches, a new medication, expecting that they're

9:55

going to have a return in the next

9:57

10, 20 years. Right. At least kind of within

9:59

the profit right there. But public parks is

10:01

another version of this and stuff like that. Yeah.

10:04

of the public parking. Right, this is the whole

10:06

idea of public goods. This is why we

10:08

have governments, why we collect taxes. God, we're turning

10:10

into such libs already, dude. But

10:14

there's a handshake, right? There are the

10:16

things that only the government can do, and

10:18

then there are the things that the

10:20

private sector can and should do, and they

10:22

meet in the middle. But if you start

10:24

shorting, and part of what really worries

10:26

me right now about this kind of war

10:28

on academia, and there are some things about

10:30

academia that need to change, but... war on

10:32

academia, the cuts to cancer research, the

10:34

cuts to science research, this kind of like

10:37

general anti -science like atmosphere that I think

10:39

is emanating from the administration. That

10:41

costs us in ways that don't show

10:43

up on a corporate profit and

10:45

loss statement six months from now or

10:47

a year from now. But in

10:49

terms of whether a country, a society,

10:51

an economy is productive and is

10:53

growing and is innovating, that

10:55

starts to really cost you over time.

10:57

And if we're shorting that or If

10:59

corporations and extremely wealthy people don't want

11:01

to be paying into that through taxes, that

11:04

is, I think, a classic example of

11:06

a kind of short -term gain that causes

11:08

long -term pain. I'm really worried about that.

11:10

I think that's why there seems to be

11:12

a lot of support for the administration

11:14

right now, or one reason why, and even

11:17

support for the administration when it comes

11:19

to tariffs. When the tariffs happen

11:21

and you hear about the stock market being

11:23

deeply affected, most Americans are not invested in

11:25

the stock market. So they're like, I don't

11:27

give a fuck. Oh, rich people are losing

11:29

some money, or 50%. We can go off

11:31

the numbers. Meaning there's a large swath of Americans

11:33

that don't feel directly But here's the thing,

11:35

right? So part of

11:37

what's happening is the markets are responding

11:39

to their belief that the tariffs will

11:41

probably make the world economy less productive

11:43

and make a recession more likely. But

11:45

a tariff is a tax that people

11:47

pay on stuff they buy every day.

11:49

And proportionally, if you're what you call

11:52

it middle rich versus people in the

11:54

neighborhood I grew up in in South

11:56

Bend, Indiana. Sure. Like, proportionally, it's the

11:58

people in Indiana who are spending a

12:00

much bigger portion of their income at,

12:02

let's say, Walmart. And everything at

12:04

Walmart is about to get more expensive.

12:06

You're 100 % right. I'm talking about the

12:08

knee -jerk emotional reaction when you see people

12:11

who have money and have seemingly left you

12:13

behind as they've gotten richer, start to

12:15

suffer a little bit, you go... Yeah, I

12:17

don't really care if you're suffering. In

12:19

the same way when the Palisades fires

12:21

happened, there was this sentiment of like,

12:23

oh, a rich person's third home is on

12:25

fire. They'll figure it out. Not

12:27

this person's entire life and belongings just went

12:30

up in smoke. So I think that there

12:32

is this sentiment amongst a lot of Americans,

12:34

you probably experience it where you're from, just

12:36

this kind of being left behind. And

12:38

I think this taxation of these corporations

12:40

is a perfect example that really justifies

12:42

that sentiment. It's like, Why are you

12:44

using the American marketplace and the support

12:46

that we've given you and the lack

12:48

of regulation? There's a reason why these

12:50

companies don't sprout up in other countries,

12:52

right? They sprout up here. And it's

12:54

not just because... they happen to be

12:57

these unique smart individuals is because there

12:59

is this marketplace that allows them to

13:01

thrive here. You don't get to

13:03

remove the headquarters so that you can not pay

13:05

your fair share of taxes that's going to then

13:07

support the next generation of people who do the

13:09

same thing. But how do you tax them? What

13:11

do you do? But look at what's about to

13:13

happen, right? As we speak, congressional Republicans

13:15

are working on a budget framework that's going

13:17

to cut Corporate taxes like that's

13:19

one of the biggest things it's gonna do

13:21

and even this president You know the least popular

13:23

he ever was last time around was when

13:25

they passed his tax cuts for corporations in the

13:28

wealthy So a lot of this is about

13:30

look question about that real quick Yeah, is there

13:32

a world where and I doubt that this

13:34

is possible But is there a world where if

13:36

they do that it will? Influence

13:38

companies that have gone abroad with their

13:40

headquarters to come back here. I

13:42

think I'm not trying

13:44

to defend the administration. no, I get

13:47

that argument. But honestly,

13:49

there are ways to structure taxes

13:51

so that they capture where the value

13:53

and the wealth is actually created.

13:55

that? You can have a P .O.

13:57

box in the Bahamas or Ireland or

13:59

whatever. So one of the things,

14:01

for example, that happened in the last administration

14:03

was an international agreement on a threshold, a minimum.

14:06

And now it only works if everybody agrees on

14:08

it. This is part of why. diplomacy matters a

14:10

lot, right? But no other country

14:12

really wants to see too much of

14:14

that happening either. So there's a way to

14:17

create a floor that gets you a

14:19

more level playing field. An international agreement for

14:21

taxation of corporations. Yeah. So even if

14:23

your account is in Switzerland, if you have

14:25

a trillion dollars in Switzerland or the

14:27

Cayman or whatever, you're a trillionaire, you're going

14:29

to get taxed as such. Exactly. So

14:31

it reduces the incentive to offshore your books.

14:33

Now, it kind of seems like you're

14:35

making the argument for a tariff on Lesotho.

14:39

Right. I don't know why they're beating up

14:41

on Lesotho. No, no. I think the

14:43

justification for that was so that someone can't

14:45

go put a manufacturing factory on the

14:47

plate. tariffs are other place, right? We don't

14:49

think about tariffs yet, but just on

14:51

taxation. But again, what really worries me about

14:53

tariffs is those don't amount to a

14:55

tax on corporations. They amount to tax on

14:57

consumers. mean, to push back, sorry. I

14:59

want to push back. And this is something

15:01

Andrew brought up on a call that

15:03

I completely agree with. And I'm an idiot.

15:06

But I feel when people say these

15:08

things, the buck gets passed on to the

15:10

consumer. That only happens because

15:12

the corporations have exploited profits to the

15:14

highest possible degree to keep their shareholder,

15:16

share price as high as possible. Things

15:18

have gotten more expensive over the past

15:20

50 years, every year. It's not just

15:22

inflation. I think corporate greed is the

15:24

big part of it. So why is

15:26

it that now that there's a tariff,

15:28

their profit has to stay the exact

15:30

same and nobody's looking at them as

15:32

perpetrators of any kind of greed. And

15:34

it's just, oh, the United States government

15:36

is deciding, here's a measure to help

15:39

middle America. Now we have

15:41

to eat that. But how is making

15:43

middle America pay more a measure to

15:45

help middle America? I

15:47

do think I get more frustrated

15:49

with Democrats because I want very

15:51

badly to be that. I definitely

15:53

do not identify as conservative. But

15:55

I find there's this, when I go to middle

15:57

America, and I'm sure you go there, we travel

16:00

the country. there. Yeah, you live there, yeah, that's

16:02

what I meant to say. But it's like, oh,

16:04

there's like decay in some of these places. And

16:06

it doesn't feel like, The party that I want

16:08

to identify with has any empathy for them. And

16:11

this, to me, was an idea that could

16:13

help bring jobs back there. And I don't think

16:15

the execution has been great from what I'm

16:17

seeing, but this could help them. Why don't we

16:19

look at any measure that could help them

16:21

beyond, let's keep things the way they are, because

16:23

the way the status quo is not helping.

16:25

Yes, I agree on that. Yeah, I think that's

16:27

really important. And I think what my party

16:29

has to do is respond to this in a

16:32

way that doesn't make it sound like... whole

16:34

argument is let's just go back to 2024, right?

16:36

Yeah, yes. things like this,

16:39

moments like this, movements like the one

16:41

that's in charge of the White House

16:43

right now, don't spring up in a

16:45

country or an economy where everything's going

16:47

along fine. And look, I lived this

16:49

too. I grew up in South Bend,

16:51

Indiana. People think South Bend, they know

16:53

Notre Dame. Notre Dame, yeah. The big

16:55

employer that propelled South Bend wasn't Notre

16:57

Dame. It was Studebaker. Studebaker made cars. Before

16:59

the big three, it was the big four. And

17:02

we were one of them. It

17:04

dominated our city, grew our

17:06

city. And then in 1963, they

17:08

shut down. That's 20 years before I

17:10

was born. And we were still dealing with

17:12

it 20 years later. We were still

17:14

dealing with it 50 years later when I

17:16

became the mayor there at the age

17:18

of 29. And what had

17:20

happened was, I mean, when

17:22

we were going to a school, I

17:24

would go in between just acres of

17:27

collapsing factories that literally looked like a

17:29

war zone. I have been to war

17:31

zones that look very similar to the

17:33

way a lot of places in the

17:35

industrial Midwest, like where I grew up,

17:37

looked because of some of these things

17:39

you're talking about, which is why I

17:41

think there's an appeal to saying, we're

17:43

going to bring back manufacturing. And

17:45

by the way, again,

17:48

I don't want to like Move away from

17:51

what I was saying that we shouldn't go

17:53

back to where we were because I think

17:55

a lot needs to change But I would

17:57

point out that in our entire lifetime the

17:59

year when there was the most investment in

18:01

factories in the United States the most factories

18:03

being built was last year Because there were

18:05

a lot of policies The the chip stuff

18:07

the manufacturing stuff trying to get the more

18:09

the green economy stuff to be built on

18:12

US soil That led to a lot of

18:14

these factories now a lot of them are

18:16

still in construction as we speak some of

18:18

them actually open some of them still haven't

18:20

but right now In Kokomo, Indiana, I just

18:22

read a story today about 370 workers at

18:24

Stellanus who just got laid off. Auto

18:26

workers who got laid off because of the tariffs. So

18:29

this is a tool that you

18:31

can use for sure. But

18:33

it's absolutely critically important that you know what

18:35

you're doing when you do. And if

18:37

you're just making shit up as you go

18:40

along. Or if you're doing it for

18:42

a reason that's actually less about

18:44

helping middle America and more about consolidating

18:46

power, which is what I think is

18:48

actually happening. We can get into that.

18:52

Then it's not going to work. But I don't

18:54

want to completely disagree with what you're saying earlier. Part

18:57

of what's happening is,

19:00

part of why things cost more is

19:02

that they actually cost more. But

19:04

also, we've seen a lot of expansion

19:06

of the corporate profits that people

19:08

cash in on. which helped to explain

19:10

why a lot of things cost

19:12

more. But to me, the answer to

19:14

that is, okay, let's have a fairer tax system. How

19:16

do we do that? That says, well,

19:18

I mean, at risk of sounding simplistic, like you

19:21

pass a law, like we can do this, right? It's

19:23

not profound. law? For example, it's like it's not

19:25

going to be income tax, right? Because they'll find a

19:27

way to not have income. So you can adjust

19:29

capital gains, right? It doesn't have to be like

19:31

all the way at the level that it used be.

19:33

But even with capital gains, you're only taxing them

19:35

when they cash out. And a lot of these

19:37

guys won't cash out. They just take loans against their

19:39

investments and then loans aren't taxable. So they live

19:41

for free. Right. So that's where the idea of

19:43

wealth taxes come in, right? And what is that?

19:45

If you're just sitting on it. at a certain point,

19:48

especially if you're past a certain point in how

19:50

much you're sitting on, you gotta contribute a little bit.

19:52

I mean, this is not a novel kind of

19:54

property taxes are that way, right? Like you don't

19:56

wait, depends where you live, but usually you don't wait

19:58

until you sell a home to have to pay

20:00

property tax on every year. Like you contribute a

20:02

little bit of the value of the real estate you're

20:04

sitting on. And that goes to... know, the county

20:06

roads and the school and the sheriff's department or

20:08

whatever else you count on, right? So there is

20:10

a way to do that nationally. We

20:13

just haven't the political will to it. going to close that

20:15

gap. I don't think it's going to close that gap. I mean,

20:17

if you had all of these, well, you have pieces of

20:19

that a lot, right? No, I'm not saying

20:21

we shouldn't do it. I think that there

20:23

is... feeling this sentiment I think that Akash was

20:25

tapping into as well and there there's two

20:27

things like you seem like someone who's very knowledgeable

20:29

and very aware of all these thinking you

20:31

know these people that were fired in this random

20:33

Factory and which is it was I know

20:35

Indiana in Indiana, right? It's like the average person

20:37

might not know about that They don't know

20:39

about these factories being built But you have to

20:41

meet the average person where they feel emotionally

20:43

and like I think you do a really good

20:45

job I've seen a lot of your interviews

20:47

is like acknowledging the emotions of

20:49

the people that you're talking to

20:51

before giving them evidence that might be

20:53

contrary to them. Instead of this

20:56

finger wagging approach, which is like, you're

20:58

stupid if you don't agree with

21:00

me. Really important. But

21:02

just quick, I think the average American

21:04

isn't even aware that... what Jeff, what

21:06

Amazon makes a year and what they

21:08

pay in taxes. Like I think they

21:10

paid zero dollars last year. That's a

21:12

whole bunch of these corporations. And I

21:15

get what they're doing and it is

21:17

like they're writing off losses from other

21:19

parts of the business or they're reinvesting

21:21

that money and growing the business. And

21:23

I don't want to, I don't want

21:25

the pendulum to swing so far that

21:27

you can't start a business and you

21:30

can't grow and thrive. And I think

21:32

that's like one of the great things

21:34

about America. But there has to be

21:36

this middle ground. And if

21:38

we don't do something about it, the

21:40

American people should at least be aware of

21:42

the... I don't want to say the

21:44

CEOs, but the people that own these companies

21:46

that are essentially stealing from the American

21:48

people and using the system. We should be

21:51

aware of who they are. I'm not

21:53

saying we should do anything to them, but

21:55

they should be shamed. Or taxed. If

21:57

they're not going to pay the taxes, you're

21:59

going to pay it emotionally. Because

22:01

I don't really care about their emotions. I

22:04

just want to tax them. I do think there's

22:06

a sociopathy to these people that you might

22:08

underestimate. Yes, true. But maybe their partners will. There

22:10

will be no more chick flights of space.

22:12

I promise you. After the reaction to this, there

22:14

will be no more chick flights of space.

22:16

I promise it will not happen again. And the

22:18

next one that happens, it will have like

22:20

a real purpose. That's a fight when they get

22:23

home. When she gets home, he's going to

22:25

be like, you see how much shit I had

22:27

to deal with. To

22:29

have a girl straight to the moon.

22:32

Also, guys, tour dates May 9th and 10th, Virginia

22:34

Beach, June 19th, and through 21st, I'm to

22:36

be in Salt Lake City at Wise Guys.

22:38

All those dates and plenty more at Akash Singh.com.

22:40

Now let's get back to the show. Hold

22:42

on a second. Don't skip forward, guys, because it's

22:44

the world's fastest ad read. My name is

22:46

Mark. I'm coming to America. All right, we're going

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22:57

to prove you didn't skip. We got

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Raleigh, North Carolina, Poughkeepsie, Portland, Fort Worth,

23:01

Austin, Stanford, Philly, Levittown, Chandler, and San

23:03

Diego. More dates to come. You can

23:05

get it at my website markgagnonlive.com. And

23:07

I can't wait to see you guys

23:09

there for a consensual time where no

23:11

one's going to suck my dick. Somebody

23:13

suck his dick. I could be assuming

23:15

wrong, but it seems like you're against

23:17

the current administration's tariff plan. And what

23:19

would you do different because no one's

23:21

giving actual solutions? Yeah. So I think

23:23

what you do is you peg it.

23:25

Basically, you do what they're pretending to

23:27

do. So what they said they were

23:29

doing is they're kind of scanning all

23:31

of the different countries and they're saying,

23:33

okay, here's some countries that are really

23:35

not trading with us on fair terms.

23:37

Like they're restricting our trade with them.

23:40

or they're artificially manipulating their currency. China

23:42

does this for sure. What does that

23:44

mean? To artificially manipulate your

23:46

currency. So in a nutshell, the

23:48

cheaper the exchange rate, the

23:50

more you're going to export because the

23:52

cheaper your goods are. So the strong dollar,

23:55

basically the weaker the dollar is actually,

23:58

the cheaper our stuff looks to the rest of world and

24:00

the more they're going to purchase our things. So

24:02

if you're China, one thing you're going

24:04

to do is you're going to, it sounds counterintuitive. Like

24:06

usually you think like a nationalistic country, we want our

24:08

currency to be super strong. If

24:12

you were traveling like Southeast Asia and the dollar is

24:14

doing really strong, you're like, wow, I'm going to

24:16

buy everything here in Thailand. It's the first thing. Like

24:18

when you go to Europe and you find out the

24:20

euros, like there are moments where it's like under the

24:22

dollar and you're like, oh my God, let's go. I'm

24:24

getting this hotel. If I go to India, I

24:26

want a five star hotel. It's $200 or $300 a

24:28

night. So that applies on

24:30

everything from your experience as a

24:32

tourist to like major industrial production. And

24:35

how does one do that? Do they print

24:37

more money? To print more money,

24:39

you can buy and sell bonds. Some

24:42

countries just officially set an exchange rate and then use

24:44

their central bank to do it. There's all kinds of

24:46

ways to do it. But the point is, part of

24:48

trading deals is you're supposed to promise not to do

24:50

it. So what I'm saying

24:52

is, what you do is you look for

24:54

a place where there's an unfair trading

24:56

practice. And then you respond. And

24:58

you say, OK, you either drop this trading

25:00

practice, or we're going to impose these

25:02

restrictions on how you trade with us. Which,

25:04

again, is exactly what they say they're

25:06

doing. But it is not what they're

25:09

doing. And you can tell. They came up

25:11

with this weird formula. It's

25:13

actually the same thing that ChatGPT would

25:15

suggest if you just asked ChatGPT to make

25:17

up a table of how I should

25:19

trade shares. They

25:21

used a totally different measure called the trade

25:23

deficit, which we could get into and

25:25

said, okay, whatever the trade deficit is, we're

25:27

going to do this formula off of

25:30

that. And by the way, there was a

25:32

math mistake that a conservative think tank

25:34

discovered in the way they did it. And

25:36

they just randomly applied. There were islands that

25:39

don't even have people. There are islands that are

25:41

actually like US, UK. I heard that this

25:43

is a little bit of a misnomer though. I

25:45

heard that there was a language, there's

25:47

a little confusion with language where they said

25:49

reciprocal, but it was. be proportional. Either

25:51

way, it showed the sloppiness of the

25:53

process. Sure, in terms of the communication, but

25:56

if the actual, and I don't

25:58

want to seem like I'm defending the administration, but I

26:00

do want to seem like it's important that we

26:02

get true information out there. So it's

26:04

like if they're doing proportional tariffs to

26:06

that trade deficit, that would make sense.

26:08

If it's reciprocal, it doesn't make sense

26:10

because there's no way you could match

26:12

a trade deficit from a What

26:14

I'm saying is, I think it also doesn't

26:16

make sense as policy. The

26:18

trade deficit may or may not be

26:20

helpful to us economically, actually. It's not

26:23

just a simple thing, they're like, trade

26:25

deficit, bad. So what I'm saying is,

26:27

you use the tariffs in a much

26:29

more targeted and specific way when you

26:31

know that you either have that kind

26:33

of unfair trade situation, or you're trying

26:35

to protect a certain industry that you

26:37

think is vulnerable domestically, right? But

26:39

it's really important to know what you're doing, or

26:41

else a whole bunch of people get screwed in

26:43

the process. The other day I was having breakfast

26:45

in Michigan out, and a couple of people came

26:47

up to me. They were on a little shop

26:49

that was right next to the breakfast place where

26:51

I was eating. And

26:53

the woman who runs it said, I'm not sure

26:56

what we're going to do. It's like clothes, like bags

26:58

and stuff. And they store stuff from all over

27:00

the world. And she said, we just put an order

27:02

in. We don't even know how much it's going

27:04

to cost us. And I don't know what

27:06

I'm going to do for next month. I got some

27:08

inventory here I can use this month. But we're going to

27:10

be screwed, especially if we don't even know how to

27:12

plan. Because the other thing you need to do, it's

27:15

like any form of diplomacy. do

27:18

shots across the bow, you make clear what

27:20

if you do this, we're going to respond

27:22

that way. And there

27:24

has to be some logic to

27:26

it or order to it if you

27:28

want to shape the behavior of

27:30

other countries. And what we're seeing instead

27:32

is this really chaotic grab -ass policy

27:34

where he changes his mind every

27:36

couple of days on things. That

27:41

makes it that much harder, especially if you're a

27:43

small business, or if you're a giant corporation, you

27:45

have all kinds of hedges and ways you can

27:47

maneuver through this. Or they'll just remove the tariffs.

27:49

That's another thing that really frustrated me. If you're

27:51

going to put the tariffs on, put them on

27:53

everything. Seems to me like, hold it. Right now

27:55

they're like picking and choosing what they're going buy.

27:57

Yes, and now Apple doesn't have the tariffs. And

27:59

it's just like, but to me, that frustrated because

28:01

Apple is the one that should be paying more

28:04

than anybody. They're the one that parks their money

28:06

overseas. They're the one that's skirting on taxes, the

28:08

mom and pop businesses that are fucked by the

28:10

tariffs. are still gonna have to pay. So now

28:12

you're disproportionately punishing the people, they're actually doing the

28:14

right thing for the country in the first place. They're

28:16

building their small businesses, they're paying into the

28:18

system. And I do think one

28:21

thing, again, I don't like the way it's executed,

28:23

I don't agree with a lot of things

28:25

that are happening in this administration, but I do

28:27

like that it kind of shone a light

28:29

on something that didn't seem like it was getting

28:31

talked about by either party, which is, there

28:33

is a lot of decay happening which I do

28:35

that's one thing I really I have a

28:37

lot of hope for you is that you live

28:39

there you reside over it you've you've experienced

28:41

it and you speak to it and I sometimes

28:43

wonder if you get frustrated you have to

28:45

I mean you can find a more diplomatic way

28:47

of saying it but have you been frustrated

28:49

at all with the the way

28:51

that it's worded amongst the Democratic Party where

28:53

it seems like it's a lot more identity

28:55

politics, which matters, but not, to me, it's

28:57

not as prescient as, I don't know, some

28:59

people are pressing as people who can't afford

29:02

to feed their families and are losing jobs.

29:04

Yeah, especially because there are a lot of

29:06

people that I think Democrats are understood to

29:08

care about. Yes. Like low -income people, black

29:10

and brown people are disproportionately caught up in

29:12

the economic pain when something like this happens.

29:14

And so I do think my party needs

29:16

to do a much better job, especially with

29:18

the kind of finger wagging that you're talking

29:20

about. I think we are very... prone to

29:22

that. And I've seen it happen on any

29:24

side. I think a lot of people you

29:26

get, you get this sense of like moral

29:29

conviction and you're so sure of it that

29:31

you start to think. it makes it okay

29:33

to be an asshole. Because you're

29:35

deep down, the thing, and

29:37

this is far right and far left movements

29:39

through the ages. But I think it's

29:41

definitely true of far right and far left in

29:43

the US right now. You

29:45

just think you can treat people however

29:47

you want, you say whatever you want

29:50

about them because... They're evil. Yeah, they're evil.

29:52

And if they win, all is lost.

29:54

And their pain becomes intellectualized. Like you'll

29:56

see like think pieces of like, why does

29:58

the South love MAGA? Like how can

30:00

we, like why is neo -Naziism

30:02

on the rise through like a chart?

30:04

And I feel like it misses the

30:06

feeling of, you know, low income people

30:08

saying like, no, we're in pain. Yeah,

30:10

yeah. And I think pain is a

30:12

really important place to start because like

30:14

if you, if you encounter somebody in

30:16

pain and you approach that with compassion

30:19

and you actually listen, that's a very

30:21

different place to come from than like,

30:23

Either how can I use this or how am

30:25

I going to judge the choices that this

30:27

person made while in pain? Especially

30:30

if they have developed very

30:32

understandably a distrust of everybody. So

30:35

what are things that Democratic Party can

30:37

do better? Because I like you go

30:39

speak to both sides. We've begged so

30:41

many Democrats to come on this. You

30:43

were the only guy that agreed and

30:45

then you had to back out allegedly

30:47

because you had to do debate prep.

30:50

Oh, OK. Sorry. It

30:53

seems like a big deal. I'm

30:56

glad it worked out in the end. Good excuse. But

30:59

we've been trying to. It was like Mark

31:01

Cuban, who was obviously a surrogate for the party,

31:03

and he came on. He was fantastic. But

31:05

everybody we asked, they just wouldn't do it. Yeah.

31:07

Look, there's this even going on. I don't

31:09

want to get away from Alex's question. Yeah. But

31:11

to your point, part of it is like,

31:14

where do we go? To me, especially

31:16

after we lose, our

31:18

party or any party has this debate of like,

31:20

what do we have to say and how do we

31:22

say it? To me, there's actually three things we

31:24

need to deal with. What do we have to say?

31:26

I mean, like the policies, the ideas. If

31:29

they're right, we should hold to it. If we're

31:31

not so sure they're right, we should rethink them. Or

31:33

so there's that. Then there's

31:35

how do we say it? That's the tone,

31:37

the message, the style, whether people feel like

31:39

you're wagging a finger at them or not,

31:41

whether people think you get the kind of

31:43

pain they're going through or not, right? And

31:46

And then the part nobody talks about is where

31:48

we say it. And I think right now where

31:50

we say it is kind of everything. Because

31:53

there are so many spaces where

31:55

people, like I'm sure you don't

31:57

think yourselves as maybe a political

31:59

show or a news show. Like

32:01

the reality is there's probably a lot of folks who like

32:04

this is where they're getting their news because like they're not

32:06

sitting watching CNN. I mean, I

32:08

remember the moment when I was back in

32:10

college that I realized I was getting More

32:12

of my news from the Daily Show

32:14

than I was from like news sources, right?

32:18

And and so I think it's really important

32:20

for Anyone practicing politics and definitely my

32:22

party after what just happened to it To

32:24

be saying okay, where else do we

32:26

need to be and like it's it's all

32:28

well and good for me to keep

32:30

going on Fox News and I will although

32:32

they Don't seem to be inviting me

32:34

as much lately. But, you

32:36

know, a lot stuff. He just

32:38

called y 'all pussy. I like that. Talk

32:43

your shit. Talk your shit, Pete. I'm

32:45

just saying. We

32:48

were really close to having a conversation about

32:50

the whole signal gate, put the wrong dude

32:52

on your class Yeah, yeah. What happened? Didn't

32:54

they cancel it? It just didn't quite get

32:56

around. Was it debate prep? They

32:58

were working on something. They were

33:00

busy. But

33:02

like, you know, a lot of people

33:04

aren't watching left -right or center -not -watching, like

33:06

television cable news all the time, right? And

33:08

I mean, my party has this illusion

33:10

that we're the savvy ones about tech. And

33:13

15 years ago, we were, right? Like, we

33:15

were onto things like Facebook and social media, probably

33:17

a little more than the right was, or

33:19

we were there first. But at

33:21

least since 2016, the Twitter

33:23

election, like, that has been true

33:25

less, right? So...

33:28

we need to be prepared to go everywhere and

33:30

that's always been that's always been my style I

33:32

mean largely because I had to when I was

33:34

first running for president I would talk to anybody

33:36

who would listen which at first wasn't a lot

33:38

of people and I would go to any any

33:40

place that would have me But you know to

33:42

go back a little bit in what I was

33:44

saying I do think we also need to revisit

33:47

like what it is We're offering because if it

33:49

sounds like what we're offering is Let's just go

33:51

back. This isn't working out. Obviously the terrorists are

33:53

hurting people He's consolidating absolute power like lots of

33:55

things are bad about this which is True. Therefore,

33:58

let's go back to that. But you

34:00

have Bernie and AOC who clearly have

34:02

a message that's resonating. Why isn't the

34:04

party getting behind that? So I think

34:06

a lot of what they have to

34:09

say will get more and more traction

34:11

in the party, especially on the economic

34:13

piece. This idea that you have a

34:15

lot of regular people in regular life

34:17

getting screwed over by the way things

34:19

work. And if we don't have better

34:21

services and fairer taxes, we're just never

34:24

going to get through that. And it's

34:26

thrown in their face. And

34:28

it's thrown in their face quite often.

34:30

Look how great Biden's economy is. Look at

34:32

the stock market. And they're like, that

34:34

doesn't affect me at all. Serial's $10. What

34:37

are you talking about? Yeah,

34:39

I would feel deeply offended if I

34:41

was them, especially when you throw that kind

34:43

of support behind one specific party. And

34:45

I think that's why you saw a lot

34:48

of them start to migrate. So

34:50

then what do you do? How do you get

34:52

working class people Well, first, I

34:55

think we need to be more disciplined

34:57

and louder about that economic message.

34:59

To be clear, we will be... policies

35:01

that make sure you're economically better off. What does

35:03

that mean? That means that you can, you know, the

35:05

one thing I think people do give us a

35:07

lot of credit for is healthcare, but there's more to

35:09

do on that, right? We're not going to let

35:12

them like tear up Obamacare. We're going to

35:14

make sure that there is a fairer tax

35:16

code, like not just standing against the tax cuts

35:18

for the rich that he's about to push

35:20

through Congress, but actually having a tax code where

35:22

there's not a benefit to a corporation like

35:24

moving billions of dollars overseas, where there's not a

35:26

benefit to kind of hiding your worth. We're

35:28

not better off basically with wealth. health than work,

35:30

which is where the tax code is right

35:32

now. we need to be much

35:34

more clear about what we would

35:36

provide in terms of services for people.

35:38

We're the only countries, I think

35:40

maybe Papua New Guinea is the only

35:42

other country in the world that

35:44

doesn't do a policy

35:46

for parental leave, like some level of

35:49

national guarantee that when you have - Don't

35:51

start this, bro. You will get leave. Don't

35:53

start this, man. I got people trying

35:55

to have kids working at this company right

35:57

here. We cannot hand,

35:59

we cannot recover from this

36:01

financial. It can be done, I

36:03

promise. Because we did it when I was building it.

36:05

think it's great. When I was there, we did it

36:07

locally for city employees. At our

36:09

company, we pay for anybody that wants

36:11

to have their eggs frozen. We

36:14

don't hire women though But

36:32

yes, we should

36:34

absolutely pay for it. But I

36:36

think there are also some things that

36:38

we need to kind of rewire

36:40

in the way government works to make

36:42

it work better for people. And

36:45

I live this. So for example, I'm

36:47

watching them basically burn the federal

36:49

government down. And obviously, I've got problems

36:51

with the way they're destroying cancer

36:53

research or making it harder for the

36:55

FAA to keep airplanes safe. Like

36:57

a lot of that is bad. But

37:00

I will also admit that I

37:02

have been furious and frustrated with the

37:04

way things work in our federal

37:06

government. And it's actually gotten to where

37:09

it makes it harder to do

37:11

things that I think progresses in particular

37:13

care about. Building

37:15

things, building housing, building

37:17

roads and bridges, which I lived

37:19

for four years, building clean

37:21

energy projects, like stuff we should

37:24

objectively definitely be doing. And we've

37:26

gotten in our own way with

37:28

this these layers

37:30

of process, layers of procedure,

37:32

all of them introduced with good intentions, but

37:34

which collectively have made it almost impossible

37:36

or unaffordable to do anything. So you want

37:39

less regulations? So we need a, yeah,

37:41

we definitely need to be smarter and there

37:43

needs to be less procedures, still powerful

37:45

regulations to keep people safe. So real could

37:47

be a department to make sure the

37:49

government is efficient. I think that's like really...

37:51

I think that's where you're going and

37:53

it's great. Look, this is another example. Did

37:55

you work on that in the private

37:57

sector? Isn't that what? Yeah. What was that

37:59

company that you worked for, the consultant

38:01

company? McKinsey, yeah. McKinsey, McKinsey, yeah. And isn't

38:03

that partially like what governments will hire

38:05

a company like that to do doge stuff,

38:07

right? Yeah, I wouldn't call

38:09

it doge. Again, you're a fucking

38:11

doge. You're such

38:13

a doge. Doge was actually about government

38:15

efficiency and I'd be all for

38:17

it. But it's not about that. No.

38:19

What is it about? It's

38:22

about power. Look, I'll give you an example. Yeah.

38:24

Because you're telling me people in government

38:27

are concerned with power. I know. This

38:29

is This is interesting. I know.

38:31

Hot take. Truth bombs. Hot take and dropped on

38:33

flagrant. No, but look at it this way. And

38:38

yeah, when I was in government the South, like

38:40

as mayor, when I had my kind of small government

38:42

that I was running, we like took whole departments

38:44

apart and put them back together. We removed

38:46

people who weren't performing very well. And by

38:48

the way, that was hard. Like one of

38:50

the reasons I've always had a problem with

38:52

this president is like he emerged kind of

38:54

play acting like firing people for fun, right?

38:56

he's tagline is your fire. For

38:58

me, at least, as a young

39:00

CEO, basically, of a city government, other

39:03

than dealing with violence and death, the

39:05

worst part of my job was firing people.

39:07

I hated it, especially because they weren't. It

39:10

wasn't necessarily a bad person, but you had

39:12

a person who was in a role that they

39:14

didn't fit in, and their department wasn't doing

39:16

as well as I thought it needed to do

39:18

to serve residents. I would have this very

39:20

painful conversation where we'd sit down, I'd look them

39:22

in the eye, and that sucked. Obviously, most

39:24

of all, for them. But

39:28

anyway, we're not afraid to do that because

39:30

you have to do that. But look at

39:32

what happened when they came in, right? If

39:35

this is actually about government efficiency,

39:37

then the problem you would be solving,

39:39

which is a real problem, is

39:41

that in the federal government, it is

39:43

too hard to reward your top

39:45

performers. So you could be...

39:47

who could be commanding a multi -million

39:49

dollar salary in the private sector working

39:51

on something wildly important But there's just

39:53

no way that that you're getting you

39:55

know, you're in your particular pay grade

39:58

same as everybody. Yeah, and to remove

40:00

your Like a lot of people who've

40:02

been in and out of business and government will tell me

40:04

like when I was in the private sector in the public

40:06

sector, actually like the top 10 % were pretty much the same,

40:08

these amazing driven people. You know, the government

40:10

ones weren't compensated as well, but they were purpose

40:12

driven. But the bottom 10 % was completely different

40:14

because I couldn't do anything about the bottom 10%,

40:16

right? So imagine if

40:18

Doge had come in and they had

40:20

gone through every department and said, okay,

40:22

we're going to create a way to

40:24

reward the top performers. And we're also

40:26

going to analyze who's either whose job

40:28

description is no longer needed. or

40:30

their job performance is not there. And

40:33

even though it's painful, even though maybe it's

40:35

politically tough, we're going to show them

40:37

the door. That would be one thing.

40:39

But they just sent an email to everybody, many

40:41

of whom were in fact top performers. Some

40:44

of the people they fired who got caught up

40:46

in this thing, people got fired just based on

40:48

whether you were in a category called probationary employee.

40:50

But to be clear, probationary isn't like... fucked up

40:52

and you're on probation. Yeah, you could start, yeah.

40:55

You could actually be because you were promoted. Yeah.

40:57

You could be a seven -year veteran at the

40:59

FAA, or maybe you'd been there as a contractor,

41:01

but you were so good that the FAA said,

41:03

we want to hire you now as a government

41:05

employee. And even though it might have been a

41:07

little pay cut, you went for it. Yeah. And

41:10

you're probationary. Yeah. And then next thing you know,

41:12

like you wake up one day and this... office,

41:15

department, whatever Doge is, clearly hasn't gone through

41:17

and checked who's doing a good job or who's...

41:19

There's no way, because there wasn't even time

41:21

to do that. And they're just like, guess what,

41:23

you're fired. Yeah, do that. I think there

41:25

is... Wow. I wouldn't say unanimous support with the

41:28

criticism of Doge, but I think that there

41:30

is a lot of support for the way that

41:32

it's been handled. Though I

41:34

would also say that the idea

41:36

of an agency that is attacking

41:38

bloat and excess spending of the Absolutely.

41:41

is a bipartisan supported issue as well. I think

41:43

initially when Doge, when Elon first announces this, and

41:45

I think it's Elon and Vivek, people are really

41:47

supportive, I think of both sides. They're like, you

41:49

know, let's cut some government spending. If you're actually

41:51

doing it for real, and that's another part of

41:53

the answer to your question of like what Democrats

41:55

should be talking about. Because I think we're the

41:57

ones who believe, some say we believe it to

41:59

a fault, like we believe it naively, but we're

42:01

the ones who believe that there is a government

42:03

has to, if you do it right, government has

42:05

the power to make people better off. But if

42:07

we're going to do that, let's actually do it.

42:09

And part of that does mean like taking a

42:11

hard look at everything we do. And

42:14

I remember, again, most of my

42:16

examples will come from transportation, right? But

42:18

I remember something that went on

42:20

with the FAA where they had to

42:22

get some special waiver in order

42:24

to allow a certain class of airplane

42:27

to fly because there was no, because

42:29

there was a regulation that said there had

42:31

to be a switch to turn off the

42:34

no smoking light. And this was

42:36

written back when sometimes you turned off the no

42:38

smoking light. Now, obviously, there's just always no smoking lights.

42:40

You can't smoke on airplanes. And there's

42:42

this scramble. That's the kind of stuff

42:44

that we should absolutely be getting rid

42:46

of. And there are things that we

42:48

do. In government, sometimes we're

42:50

in the military. We call it a self -licking

42:52

ice cream cone. There's definitely things that are

42:54

there that are just self -perpetuating processes that

42:56

nobody would have come up with on their

42:59

own. But they're still there. I

43:01

think we should absolutely own that space because we

43:03

have a good faith belief that government should serve

43:05

people better and should work better. And we should

43:07

be the ones who are making that happen. So

43:09

on that, so this idea with Doge, it seems

43:11

to me, and again, I only know like the

43:13

most surface level version of it, is that the

43:15

way that the government becomes more efficient is just

43:18

firing a bunch of people. That seems just like...

43:20

money. I don't know if that's how it becomes

43:22

more efficient. The efficiency is getting rid of

43:24

the bureaucracy that stops a plane from flying just

43:26

because it doesn't have an on and off switch

43:28

for a smoking light, right? But it's

43:30

surgery because you don't want to get rid of

43:32

the part of the bureaucracy that makes sure

43:34

the planes and protects people, right? 100 % because

43:36

a lot of... I think that there is altruism

43:38

and benevolence in a lot of these policies,

43:40

right? They're trying to protect they're all there for

43:43

some reason or another. Yeah, and like maybe

43:45

some is like... I don't know

43:47

what have you experienced like you were you

43:49

know secretary of transportation like when you're trying

43:51

to rebuild some bridge or whatever

43:53

like that. What was the biggest hiccup that you

43:55

experienced that you're like, we got to just get

43:57

this out of the way. There's no way we're

43:59

going to be able to improve people's lives if

44:01

this is here. What is an example of that?

44:04

Well, so there's an entire process where to permit

44:06

a federal project, you have to listen to every,

44:09

you have to take in every comment from anybody

44:11

who wants to weigh in and then you

44:13

have to respond to every comment or that your

44:15

human has to kind of review all of

44:17

that. Which by the way, one thing

44:19

I'm really worried about is if you have Let's

44:22

say there's some regulation coming and an industry wants

44:24

to stop it. Can they use

44:26

keep commenting. Yeah, or can you use AI? Because it used

44:28

to be like, well, you'd have to take the trouble

44:30

to write a letter, or at least go to the trouble

44:32

of getting people to write form letters. Now

44:35

you could write customized letters. So

44:37

you use bureaucracy to fight bureaucracy. Well,

44:39

use bureaucracy to stop something from happening, which

44:42

is a real problem if that's a

44:44

thing that needed to happen, especially because

44:46

you also need to go through that

44:48

process to remove. a regulation

44:50

or to replace or to modernize it.

44:53

So there's this level of pride and I encountered

44:55

it all the time. I mean,

44:57

right here in New York, right, there

44:59

are so many major transportation projects going and

45:01

I'm proud to have worked on them. BQE,

45:05

Hudson River Tunnel, I mean, that's one of the

45:07

biggest transportation projects in our time. Second Avenue

45:09

Subway. That's Second Avenue Subway we don't want. I'll

45:11

tell you once, as a New Yorker, we

45:13

don't want it. We never needed it. It's never

45:15

been an issue. I remember when you guys

45:17

started building, we're like, who the fuck is this

45:19

for? Nobody on the Upper East Side from

45:21

where it goes to where it ends, uses the

45:23

subway. That's all old ladies. They take over. Nobody,

45:28

there hasn't been a dumb, I'm sorry if this

45:30

is your idea, but it's so fucking stupid. There's

45:33

never been a dumber idea for a subway.

45:35

There are so many other places we could put

45:37

subways. We could add some more trains, but

45:39

Second Avenue specifically, there's a train on Lex. But

45:41

here's the crazy thing, look, I

45:43

don't know my New York geography as well as you

45:45

do, but the really crazy thing about the Second Avenue

45:47

subway is the tunnel's already there. It's been

45:49

there for 50 years. Well, just because there's a tunnel,

45:51

you don't need to put us up. This

46:04

is why I don't come on

46:06

these podcasts I will always defend second

46:09

news because I think there's like

46:11

This is a neighborhood that like deserves

46:13

good transit to everybody else. It

46:15

has it has good transit Yeah, it

46:17

doesn't go all the way up

46:19

to what it's a hundred twenty -fifth

46:21

to where nobody's to go to hundred

46:23

twenty -fifth and second Avenue I

46:31

used to work in

46:33

New York Presbyterian and that

46:35

walk did suck walking

46:37

from you York Avenue to

46:40

Lexington. Okay, so how

46:42

are you going to get

46:44

there? I'm just saying.

46:46

So how are you going

46:48

to get to that

46:50

2nd Avenue line? What are

46:52

you talking about? It's

46:54

1st Avenue We're talking about

46:56

the subway right now.

46:58

Yeah, but I'm talking about

47:00

the walk that I

47:02

would have to do every

47:04

day going and to

47:06

and from work to York.

47:09

to like suck. It

47:11

would have been great if

47:13

they a second Avenue

47:15

train was there. And I

47:17

walk two less blocks. I

47:19

was like three cross

47:21

town boxer. Yeah, it was

47:24

Avenue Avenue. Come on, put your limits

47:26

to my New York expertise. And like

47:28

to get to the airport. We

47:33

need. We need us. You

47:36

never said one New Yorker. I

47:40

actually, I actually went, I went near

47:42

it. We went it. I didn't go

47:44

on it. I went near it. I

47:46

went near it. And I was like, is anybody

47:48

even there? I looked. I was like, is

47:50

anybody here? Nobody's here. I don't want to be.

47:52

Is there a subway there? Be honest. I

47:54

don't want to challenge your expertise to somebody who

47:56

once went near it. But a lot of

47:58

New Yorkers seem to really want this, because I

48:00

got a lot of calls, and we worked

48:02

hard on it. But to think I will always.

48:04

Now, the six trains. That's bots. There's got

48:06

one on a subway in 10 years. Wow. That's

48:09

Chinese bots. That's good from

48:11

Jersey. The 456

48:13

is the most crowded trains are crowded.

48:15

So if you're on it, you're

48:17

like, you know, if there's something to

48:19

eat congestion relief, that'd be nice.

48:21

There's safety in it being crowded. Safety

48:24

in it being crowded. You never had a homeless guy

48:26

jerk off on you when it's crowded. That's

48:29

where they try to do it.

48:31

So much cover. We're

48:41

too far away from it. You said

48:43

that... That's a New York City term. You

48:46

said doge. We all

48:48

agree that there's money being wasted in

48:50

government. And we were for the idea

48:52

of doge, but you said they're only

48:54

doing it for power. How is what

48:56

they're doing for power? Because it seems

48:58

like they're just focusing on... down expenditures

49:00

so they have something that can be

49:03

like, look, we saved all this money.

49:05

But how did it power play? Because they're

49:07

not going through the regular, any kind

49:09

of process we have to check with

49:11

Congress or evaluate which of the programs

49:14

are actually doing something and which ones

49:16

aren't or which people are good at

49:18

their jobs and which aren't. It means

49:20

all that really matters is whether you're

49:22

on the White House's good side. And

49:25

this is what is happening. It

49:27

sends a message basically, be on our good

49:29

side, we won't clip your program. That is one

49:31

way of interpreting it for sure. And they're

49:33

doing this with everything. The tariffs are like this.

49:35

Of course. In the end, if your company

49:37

or your country or your industry gets on his

49:39

good side, then you get out. That has

49:41

nothing to do with whether it's good economic policy

49:43

or whether it's going to help my neighbors

49:45

in Michigan. But it is something that helps consolidate

49:47

power, right? Law firms, he's sending this message.

49:49

Like, if your law firm doesn't get on my

49:51

good side, then you're going to be screwed.

49:53

we're going to use, even though it's completely illegal,

49:56

we're going to manipulate your access to security clearances

49:58

or anything else because I don't like you.

50:00

Isn't that what Biden did to Mayor Adams, though,

50:02

when he was just trying to get some

50:04

upgrades? No, I would argue the opposite is true.

50:06

I would argue what happened was, and

50:08

I know he was just sitting in here

50:10

talking about this. He just wants some upgrades, dude.

50:12

He wants to build a 24 -hour strip club.

50:15

Everybody wants upgrades. I get it. That's way better

50:17

than a second -hand subway if you want to talk

50:19

about it. Colds people can hang on. But

50:25

what really happened is... This is

50:27

why they don't come off of

50:29

it. It's a bit different

50:31

than Fox News, right? Think

50:34

about what it means if

50:36

you get caught or accused of,

50:38

like in his case, being

50:41

mixed up with the foreign government and making policy

50:43

decisions based on that. Being

50:45

a politician. But that

50:47

can't be how low our expectations

50:49

are. That's how we all

50:51

look at it. Hold on, hold

50:53

on. During your time as

50:55

the secretary of transportation, right? Did

51:00

nobody try to bribe you or anything? If

51:02

I got an upgrade, how'd you keep the planes

51:04

in the air? What'd you do? If I

51:06

got an upgrade, and by the way, not because

51:09

the Turkish government liked me, but because I

51:11

was a frequent flyer on United or whatever. If

51:13

I got an upgrade, I would have my

51:15

security detail go to the gate agent. and

51:18

negotiate the downgrade, so I didn't have to deal with,

51:20

not because there was a rule about it, but so I

51:22

didn't have to deal with a bunch of people on

51:24

Twitter saying, like, look at this asshole in first class. I'll

51:26

take all your upgrades. You're better than me, bro. bro.

51:28

You're better better than than than than me, bro. than me, bro. me,

51:31

bro. me, bro.

51:42

You're better me, on

51:46

Delta or United. Because I don't want people

51:48

to ask, I'm regulating airlines. I shouldn't be

51:50

like up there. Now I take the upgrade.

51:53

I love the

51:56

upgrade. Yeah. Anyway,

51:59

this is not about upgrades. This is

52:01

about whether somebody who has been indicted for

52:03

a crime can get out of it

52:05

by getting on the good side of the...

52:07

The whole point of this country is

52:09

that no one person should have too much

52:11

power. Like, to me, that's the whole

52:14

point of a cut. The king was somebody

52:16

who had too much power. And we

52:18

said, we're not going to do it that

52:20

way. There were ferocious debates at the

52:22

time of the founding over whether to even

52:24

create a presidency. Because Jefferson was

52:26

worried that if we had a president, it

52:28

would turn into a king. And

52:31

they kind of hit a compromise where we

52:33

created the president, but we took all these

52:35

measures in the Constitution to make sure that

52:37

that presidency didn't become too powerful. And

52:41

this is like a part of the texture of

52:43

our country. My favorite

52:45

fun fact about Washington, DC,

52:47

is the Jefferson Memorial, the

52:50

round -domed, columned structure with the

52:52

statue of Jefferson right in

52:54

the middle, has him...

52:56

aligned with the exact center line of the

52:58

White House, so that if you're standing in

53:00

the blue room, which is in the middle

53:02

of the White House, looking south, you

53:05

have... There's a straight line. He's watching you.

53:07

Because he's watching. He's watching the executive, saying

53:09

he doesn't want the executive office, the president,

53:11

to get out there. question about that. Lincoln

53:14

Memorial and Jefferson Memorial,

53:16

right? Both

53:19

liberal politicians

53:21

for the

53:23

time... Uh,

53:26

Jefferson. You think he was, like, extreme

53:28

conservative? Kind of both, right? I mean,

53:30

was agrarian. He was definitely more kind of libertarian, if we

53:32

were to try to map it on the today's terms. on

53:34

your whole joke right now. Yeah. But...

53:41

was trying to shoehorn a joke.

53:44

Let's go with it. Let's go with the joke. I'm sorry. Come

53:47

on buddy. He's

53:50

so right. He's so right. a

53:54

stupid joke. It's a bad

53:56

joke. Why

53:59

are you so ill? Okay, here's the

54:01

actual question I have. I hear a

54:03

lot of what you're saying is tax

54:05

the rich, they need to pay their

54:07

taxes. I remember moving from Texas to

54:10

California, Texas, I started paying taxes

54:12

and it was like, I remember I was

54:14

working at Verizon Wireless and doing a horrible job

54:16

selling cell phones. And my commission would get

54:18

taxed at like 40%. And I was like, okay,

54:20

fair enough. But then I'm driving the roads

54:22

suck, the schools from what I heard sucked. New

54:24

York, same thing, very high

54:26

taxes. There's no second avenue subway.

54:28

Schools are horrible. If you

54:30

have any kind of money, it seems like you're sending

54:32

your kids to private schools, or you live in such

54:34

a rich neighborhood that the public school is basically a

54:36

private school. The

54:38

tax money seems like it gets wasted

54:40

and doesn't get used wisely. So

54:43

I have an aversion to, oh, they should

54:45

pay their taxes. Because my reaction is, I've

54:47

seen what happens when people pay taxes. I

54:49

agree with that. fixed. What he said about

54:51

California. I

54:53

think what he said about California was I'm not

54:55

gonna get on one side or another. Good.

54:58

Yeah, there is obviously a relationship

55:00

between the results you see. Yeah. And

55:02

your willingness to trust that there's

55:04

anything you're getting out of your tax

55:06

dollars. My trust is very

55:08

low. Especially in California. America's trust

55:10

is very low, right? Yeah. And if you

55:12

look at, I know Democrats always like to

55:14

point to Scandinavian countries, but I'm gonna do

55:16

it. One thing you notice about those countries,

55:18

which do have a pretty high tax burden, But

55:21

the reason there's also a higher sense

55:23

among people that it's fair is that they

55:25

get good results. They have good health

55:27

care and good education. And that doesn't just

55:29

happen because you put the money in. But

55:32

if you put the money in and you

55:34

do it right, then the public's going

55:36

to be more trusting that you're getting something

55:38

out of those tax dollars. So I think it's

55:40

easy to do when every girl's hot. Disgusting.

55:44

Have you been to Scandinavia?

55:47

It's like every girl's hot, right?

55:49

So you're not the wrong

55:51

guy. The

55:54

dudes are hot there, too. The dudes are

55:56

good looking guy. If you're into that look,

55:58

I don't know if you're into that look.

56:00

Ow, what's going on? They're so

56:02

good looking. I'll spend 75%.

56:04

Listen, this is crazier taking, building

56:07

a fucking subway on 2nd Avenue.

56:09

Who the hell is going to

56:11

use that, unconscious thing? Oh,

56:13

that's it. What

56:15

I'm trying to say is if you go to

56:17

Denmark you go to Sweden saying if you're good -looking

56:19

there's gonna be a higher perception You'll spend a

56:21

little bit more. You know what I mean? It's

56:23

something to look at. just happy to be there.

56:25

You're happy to be there Have you talked to

56:27

Scandinavians when they travel abroad and what they see?

56:43

hahahahahaha All

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basically saying if you pay, have faith that it

1:01:49

will get fixed. No, no, no, I'm not

1:01:52

saying that. Okay, okay. I'm saying that if people

1:01:54

don't see the results. Yeah. Especially when come

1:01:56

along saying like, okay, everybody's gonna have to like,

1:01:58

pay into this. Yeah. Fuck

1:02:00

off, I'm not seeing the results. Yeah. Right. Now,

1:02:03

I think that's a nuanced

1:02:06

story because the best results sometimes,

1:02:08

especially when you're in safety, a

1:02:11

big part of my job, it wasn't

1:02:13

just building, it was transportation. A

1:02:15

big part of the results is what doesn't happen. Good,

1:02:17

bad things that don't happen. You don't notice your

1:02:20

school being good, you just notice when it's bad. Yeah,

1:02:22

and you don't notice your road being smooth, you

1:02:24

just notice when there's a pothole. And you don't notice

1:02:26

when an airplane doesn't crash. And you don't notice

1:02:28

when you have clean, safe drinking water. By the way,

1:02:30

that's okay, that's the point. You shouldn't have to

1:02:32

worry about whether you're drinking drinking water is clean. Because

1:02:34

if you did, you wouldn't be able to worry about whatever else

1:02:37

matters to you in life. So

1:02:39

I don't think anybody can argue that

1:02:41

the American taxpayer has gotten their money's

1:02:43

worth. I think there's

1:02:45

lots of reasons for that. Part of

1:02:47

it is, though, that we underinvest. And

1:02:49

we underinvest not because the overall tax

1:02:51

rates are too low. I don't think

1:02:53

that most people should be paying more

1:02:55

in taxes. I do think certain

1:02:57

people should be paying much more in taxes. And

1:03:00

that's where we get to the giant multi -billion

1:03:02

dollar corporation that figures out a way to

1:03:04

do their books and pay zero. And

1:03:07

they are doing just fine. Why is

1:03:09

Warren Buffett bragging about it? Tell him to

1:03:11

pay up. But you can't

1:03:13

blame him for using the

1:03:15

rules of the system. I actually

1:03:17

like him calling attention to...

1:03:19

I find that. Because if the

1:03:21

whole capitalist system, for good

1:03:23

and for ill, is that if

1:03:25

you don't play that to

1:03:27

your advantage, somebody else will and

1:03:29

they will beat you. So

1:03:32

instead of asking somebody to leave

1:03:34

money on the table, we

1:03:36

should just fix the rules so that they're more fair.

1:03:39

And that's the investment side. But the other

1:03:41

side of it is, throwing

1:03:43

money at the problem is not enough. Like, it is

1:03:45

clearly true, and this is the other point about

1:03:47

the Second Avenue subway, which, again, I will defend my

1:03:49

death that it is a good project. Have you

1:03:51

been on it? We can't do this. We

1:03:53

haven't built it yet. We haven't built

1:03:55

it yet. It's not there yet. I remember

1:03:57

reading about this in 2008 on the subway.

1:04:00

They had ads coming in 2015 second Avenue

1:04:02

subway. Right. So that's my point. And we

1:04:04

were so excited, dude. There was parades in

1:04:06

New York City. was excited. I'm telling you,

1:04:08

there was parades in New York City. There

1:04:10

was there was a memo sent out there

1:04:12

like we're brilliant second. Obviously we're like, our

1:04:14

fucking son. That

1:04:17

was the part of the parade. They

1:04:19

live off the side. But

1:04:22

what is very hard to defend

1:04:24

is going to totally reinvigorate that

1:04:26

economically destitute area called the Upper

1:04:28

East Side. What's

1:04:30

really impossible to defend is how long it

1:04:32

has taken. I'm not joking when I

1:04:35

say it's been there for 50, the tunnel's

1:04:37

there for 50 years. It's a 100 -year

1:04:39

project, which started in 1920. Which is

1:04:41

nuts. And the cost of it. But it's

1:04:43

also, it's not that. like, obviously, the rail project in

1:04:45

California, we were going to show in Hawaii, and there's,

1:04:47

it was, you know, was a joke that everybody kind

1:04:49

of makes, but there was a rail project out there,

1:04:51

not underground, and they put $12 billion into it, it

1:04:53

has a mood of a centimeter in 10 years. And

1:04:55

from my understanding, for people out there, they're

1:04:57

like, it's just pure corruption. It's not even

1:05:00

bureaucracy. I don't know that

1:05:02

that's true, but I know that if you

1:05:04

see that much money going in and you don't

1:05:06

see results, I don't blame you for assuming

1:05:08

that's corruption. Well, where could it go? I think

1:05:10

a lot of it is bureaucracy, actually, and

1:05:12

it's the inability to get even basic things done.

1:05:14

There are exceptions. One thing

1:05:16

I worked on that I'm very excited about

1:05:18

is another high -speed line that goes from

1:05:20

Las Vegas to Southern California. They could

1:05:22

be open by 2028 if they hit all

1:05:24

of their marks and everything goes well.

1:05:26

There's some reasons why that was different, though.

1:05:30

And part of why it was different was the public -private

1:05:32

partnership. which created a different,

1:05:34

and it's a red state next to a blue

1:05:36

state. But it's California too, right?

1:05:38

So it's Nevada and California. Sponsored

1:05:40

by Nevada, which is a swing state, by the way, not

1:05:43

a red state, I would argue. Good point. And

1:05:45

they did some right away stuff where a

1:05:47

big part of the route is actually just

1:05:50

right down the median of I -15. So

1:05:52

it's easy, comparatively easy compared to having to

1:05:54

buy the problem the second avenue subway, the

1:05:56

cost of it. Sounds like you know a

1:05:58

lot about this. Loves trains. Do love trains.

1:06:00

Good. I love trains too. Ha

1:06:03

ha ha! The

1:06:22

reason it's costing so much here is to

1:06:24

even like put in like a little power

1:06:26

facility let alone a station You've got to

1:06:28

buy real estate out in one of the

1:06:30

most dense and expensive places probably the most

1:06:33

dense and expensive place the most expensive buildings

1:06:35

in the world. Yes, incredibly complicated to even

1:06:37

just do the signal work in the stations,

1:06:39

right? Anyway,

1:06:41

my point is, I agree that

1:06:43

we have to have better results,

1:06:45

better return on taxpayer money. But

1:06:47

when it goes well, I

1:06:50

mean, again, we're all living off of

1:06:52

the value. even

1:06:54

though the internet has proven to be a mixed bag.

1:06:57

Many people, including these Doge guys, made all

1:06:59

of their money off of something that

1:07:01

was literally invented by the federal government, the

1:07:03

internet. That's a great point, honestly. So

1:07:06

it can work. I'm not here to say it

1:07:08

always does work. It can work, but

1:07:10

you have to actually have people who care about

1:07:12

it working versus just gathering their own power and

1:07:14

making it all the best. We're not, by any

1:07:16

means, and don't let me speak for you guys.

1:07:18

Like, hard line, the government is horrible and everything

1:07:21

about is horrible at all. We live in New

1:07:23

York City. Like, we understand the importance of, like,

1:07:25

rules and regulations. You got someone living above you

1:07:27

and below you, they're blasting music. After 10 o

1:07:29

'clock, you're like, I would like the government to

1:07:31

step in here and make a rule where they

1:07:33

can't do that. It's nice. So, like... I think

1:07:35

we understand more than most Americans how important regulation

1:07:37

can be to you living like a happy, fruitful

1:07:40

life. So if you're living

1:07:42

in a house somewhere in the middle of nowhere,

1:07:44

your next neighbor's three miles away, I get why

1:07:46

you're like, government, get the fuck out of my

1:07:48

life. I get it. When you live on top

1:07:50

of people and below people, you see people. No,

1:07:52

I think that's true. When you live in a

1:07:54

city, when you live in a dense neighborhood, you're

1:07:56

like more aware of the importance. Although I'd also

1:07:58

argue wherever you live, right? Sure. You count on

1:08:00

things from national defense to, you know, railroads. I'm

1:08:02

not saying you don't, but I think that it's

1:08:04

easier for them to ignore them. it's more in

1:08:06

your face here. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because you confuse

1:08:09

yourself for not, if you get on the subway, which I still

1:08:11

can't tell if you ever have. You

1:08:13

want me? Me? I don't

1:08:15

know. I'm just trying to infer. I

1:08:18

grew up, I was born and raised in

1:08:20

a subway. I

1:08:23

know.

1:08:27

Okay, so when you're saying on a subway, name one

1:08:29

stop. I'll tell you what it is. You can't miss.

1:08:35

I'll tell you what

1:08:37

name any train

1:08:39

I'm off sugar from

1:08:41

left name your

1:08:44

favorite train. I'll tell

1:08:46

you my favorite

1:08:48

Guys come on we're

1:08:50

saving America listen

1:08:52

when there's big projects

1:08:55

like that that

1:08:57

nothing happens. It feels

1:08:59

like when construction where it's like,

1:09:01

you know, the construction crew tells

1:09:03

you, oh, we'll get this done in

1:09:05

three months. And then they take

1:09:07

three years because they just want to

1:09:09

squeeze it out. So it's like,

1:09:11

we have no faith in government getting shit

1:09:13

done because we don't see a lot getting

1:09:15

done. Less faith, think. Less faith, I think.

1:09:18

I have almost none. I'm going to be

1:09:20

completely transparent. I have almost no faith. Anything

1:09:22

will get done. And I think that that

1:09:24

is specifically positioned on liberals. And I think

1:09:26

that the Republicans have done a really good

1:09:28

job of projecting that on them. Democrats, like

1:09:30

you hear a lot of rhetoric, whether it's

1:09:32

right or wrong, whether there's data back in

1:09:34

or not, who knows. But they've done a

1:09:36

really good job of going, hey, look at

1:09:38

California. Look how California looks. Look at these

1:09:40

cities. They spent this much on homeless people,

1:09:42

and they're even more of them that are homeless.

1:09:45

And look at San Francisco, look what's

1:09:47

happening, people moving out of the city,

1:09:49

et cetera. And I think they've done

1:09:51

a really good job of marketing the

1:09:53

perceived failures of Democrats in

1:09:55

these states. How do

1:09:57

you, as a Democrat, change

1:09:59

that perception while not gasolineing the people

1:10:02

who live there that do feel like

1:10:04

their cities have, I don't want to

1:10:06

say have become ruins, but have definitely

1:10:08

decreased the standard of living. Yes. I

1:10:10

think, first of all, you have to

1:10:12

acknowledge why people are skeptical. And I

1:10:14

do think that's, I mean, look, anybody

1:10:17

who's been in a relationship knows that,

1:10:19

like, if somebody's upset or pissed, like,

1:10:21

you don't start and say, like, you

1:10:23

should feel, you should feel better than

1:10:25

you do, actually. Here's why you're wrong

1:10:27

to be upset, right? Like, we

1:10:29

can't be caught doing that. We are rightly proud.

1:10:31

Is easier doing that with a dude? No,

1:10:35

it's the same. Really? Yeah. No.

1:10:39

Fuck, this whole time I was like, man, at least

1:10:41

you could be like, you're wrong, bro. And

1:10:43

they'd be like, yeah, I was. No, I'm sorry. My side's

1:10:45

got a lot to offer, but it's that part. There's

1:10:48

no loopholes in relationships. Dang it.

1:10:50

OK, please continue. Where was

1:10:52

I? So part of it's kind of

1:10:55

that approach. Part of it is to demonstrate

1:10:57

the things that are

1:10:59

going well or that can be done

1:11:01

well. So we're talking about crime, right,

1:11:03

in cities. And you would think if

1:11:05

you watch like the Republicans that like

1:11:07

every city is a like hellhole of

1:11:09

crime. Now, if we respond and we're

1:11:11

like, what crime? Then like obviously

1:11:13

when you got like people getting pushed into the

1:11:15

subway and you've got car jackings up, it's gonna

1:11:17

sound like we're just making shit up. If

1:11:19

on the other hand we point to

1:11:22

the fact that like Boston is at something

1:11:24

like a 70 year low in the

1:11:26

murder rate there. or we point

1:11:28

to the achievements in Denver under their mayor

1:11:30

there about tackling some of the hardest problems

1:11:32

in the world, like homelessness and housing. And

1:11:34

I, having lived that as a mayor in

1:11:36

a largely low income community, like that, that

1:11:39

is one of the hardest things that people

1:11:41

working in government can ever try to solve,

1:11:43

right? And there are people

1:11:45

who are doing it well. And most of

1:11:47

those people, in my experience, are Democrats.

1:11:49

Now, they may not be like Washington Democrats

1:11:51

or like federal, like congressional part of

1:11:53

our party, but because I

1:11:55

think the folks who are saying like government got this

1:11:57

wrong, which might be true any number of times. What

1:12:00

they're really saying is like the policies of

1:12:02

this person and government got it wrong, but they

1:12:04

don't have an answer. Their answer is burn

1:12:07

it all down, right? If we haven't solved poverty,

1:12:09

their answer is we're going to slash Medicaid,

1:12:12

which is what the Republican budget moving

1:12:14

through Congress right now will do is

1:12:16

slash Medicaid. Medicaid may not be

1:12:18

perfect. In fact, I know for a fact like

1:12:20

many issues come up in the way it's administered,

1:12:22

the way people have access to it. But also

1:12:24

know for a fact that if your answer to

1:12:26

that, it's just to cut out a bunch of

1:12:28

poor people. Or VA, like

1:12:30

any veteran can tell you the horror

1:12:32

stories of all the times things

1:12:35

didn't go right in dealing with the

1:12:37

VA. But if you think the

1:12:39

answer is to just cut it or

1:12:41

privatize it, That's

1:12:43

not an answer. We can do better

1:12:45

than that. And I think my party's

1:12:48

job is to make clear what that

1:12:50

looks like and how we would do

1:12:52

it better. How would you do it?

1:12:54

Well, I would follow the lead of

1:12:56

some of these mayors we're talking about

1:12:58

who are solving some of these problems

1:13:00

in a more localized area. City governments

1:13:02

that make systems work better in ways

1:13:04

that complicated federal systems like Social Security

1:13:06

or like VA. I mean, how would

1:13:08

you get the messaging out? How would

1:13:10

you help people realize good things are

1:13:12

actually happening? We had Mayor Adams on

1:13:14

him. We brought up the subway system

1:13:16

and the perception that it's incredibly dangerous

1:13:18

right now. And he

1:13:20

was like, it's the safest it's been

1:13:22

in X amount of years. He gave examples

1:13:24

for crimes being down. Now, there's other

1:13:26

ways to like fudge these crime numbers. If

1:13:28

you're not, what is the word where

1:13:30

you actually punish people for the crime? If

1:13:32

you're not prosecuting crimes, I guess you

1:13:34

could say that these crimes didn't happen. So

1:13:37

then all of a sudden it looks like

1:13:39

crimes are down. So I think there are

1:13:41

ways of Fudging numbers. Yeah, I mean usually

1:13:43

those numbers are based on arrests more than

1:13:45

prosecutions, but yeah, I hear he was giving

1:13:47

me crime statistics not arrest statistics, but but

1:13:49

sure But still, he came and he gave

1:13:51

me this data, or he gave us this

1:13:53

data. And then we were kind of shocked.

1:13:56

We were like, oh, I thought that somebody

1:13:58

was dangerous again. Well, there's that perception reality

1:14:00

thing. I mean, back again to aviation, right?

1:14:02

So a lot of folks are nervous, flyers

1:14:04

don't know if it's safe to fly. Meanwhile,

1:14:06

like I said, there was this horrible crash

1:14:08

in January, but America went 15 years without

1:14:10

a fatal commercial airline crash. Meanwhile,

1:14:13

the number of people who are going to

1:14:15

die today in car crashes is Basically

1:14:17

the same as the number of people you

1:14:19

can fit into a 737 and yet

1:14:21

most of us every day every single day

1:14:23

40 ,000 people a year yeah, yeah same

1:14:26

as gun violence roughly and Yet most

1:14:28

people feel safer when they get in a

1:14:30

car. Yeah Especially if they're the ones

1:14:32

driving you're on the ground. You have some

1:14:34

level of control. Yeah, but the reality

1:14:36

is your life is in way more danger.

1:14:38

Yeah, absolutely So then it's kind of

1:14:40

a psychology question. You're like, how do you

1:14:42

find people where they are? You don't

1:14:44

to blow off those fears, but you do

1:14:46

want to reach people with real data

1:14:48

and real numbers and information that is real.

1:14:50

And the thing that really scares me

1:14:52

about the moment we're in is it's harder

1:14:54

and harder for everybody to have access

1:14:56

to the same facts. It's one thing, I

1:14:59

grew up in a world where you

1:15:01

watch TV, you got your news from TV,

1:15:03

which is like antique. From what I

1:15:05

can tell talking to students now, but you

1:15:07

would watch a TV show and maybe

1:15:09

the you know, maybe the that TV show

1:15:11

that network didn't do it perfectly but

1:15:13

generally what they would try to do is

1:15:15

they would cover an issue whatever it

1:15:17

was abortion taxes some build them moving through

1:15:19

Congress and they would have the Republican

1:15:21

saying Republican things and the Democrats saying Democratic

1:15:23

things and you would you would think

1:15:25

about it and Watching that like often hearing

1:15:27

the other side would just make

1:15:29

you feel what you believed even stronger, because you'd be

1:15:31

thinking of your own counter arguments. And other

1:15:34

times, something the other side said would actually get through to

1:15:36

you. But the point is, you would think about it. And

1:15:38

you'd have to contend with what other people

1:15:40

had to say. And while there were different

1:15:42

opinions going around, based on different values, they

1:15:45

tended to be in an argument that

1:15:47

was over the same facts. Now,

1:15:50

we don't even have the same facts. Yeah.

1:15:52

And that is a massive massive problem trusting

1:15:54

statistics like me personally I have an issue

1:15:56

with like data in that regard because like

1:15:58

what's saying like you can torture the numbers

1:16:00

They'll tell you anything you want, you know

1:16:02

like it's difficult because every side has different

1:16:04

data interpretations to support their idea And now

1:16:07

they're just making up stuff. Yeah, and like

1:16:09

a lack of public trust that I think

1:16:11

is probably the One of the largest issues,

1:16:13

I think, in American politics is that you

1:16:15

can't trust the data. You can't trust the

1:16:17

politicians. I think that's the general feeling. And

1:16:19

I think even congressional stock trading is a

1:16:21

major issue with this. I'm curious your opinion

1:16:23

on private holdings for publicly elected officials when

1:16:26

it comes to the stock market. And I

1:16:28

think that is one of the main things

1:16:30

that is eroding the public trust in politicians.

1:16:32

Yeah. I think it's a real problem. And

1:16:34

I think they should get rid of it.

1:16:37

I mean, this is not a problem for

1:16:39

me because I didn't have a lot

1:16:41

of wealth. And

1:16:43

look, I get it. If I

1:16:45

was a millionaire, I'm sure I

1:16:47

would think twice before taking a

1:16:49

public service job if that meant

1:16:51

having to divest. But we're talking

1:16:53

about people who are sometimes responsible

1:16:56

for multi -billion -dollar decisions, or in

1:16:58

terms of the course of the

1:17:00

national economy, trillion -dollar level outcomes. And

1:17:03

if they think even for a second

1:17:05

about, oh, what's this going to do to

1:17:07

my stock in Google or whatever, that's

1:17:09

a problem. And,

1:17:12

you know, that coupled with, and this is

1:17:14

less politically popular, but I also think a lot

1:17:16

of public servants don't get paid enough. And

1:17:19

I would go to Bath for them getting paid, maybe

1:17:21

not the same as the public's private sector, like I

1:17:23

get that that's never going to be the same, but.

1:17:26

But I do think that they need to be compensated

1:17:28

well enough that they don't have to swallow quite as

1:17:30

hard. You have to incentivize the best and brightest to

1:17:32

do the most important jobs. And again, ideally,

1:17:34

reward the ones who are... Politicians. But you can't

1:17:36

trade stock to make up for the difference, I

1:17:38

think. But I think it's interesting what you said.

1:17:40

People feel like they can't trust the data. They

1:17:42

can't trust the politicians. I think those two things

1:17:44

are linked. Because actually, the data, it's

1:17:46

actually very, very rare for data

1:17:49

to be put out that is objectively

1:17:51

false. They can happen. like usually

1:17:53

like the data are like based on

1:17:55

some real set that some of

1:17:57

it can be manipulated. But yeah,

1:17:59

how it looks or how you make it sound. I mean,

1:18:01

they're doing this right now. Again, the door says they make

1:18:03

it sound like there's like millions of dead people getting social

1:18:05

security. Exactly. That's just not true. So

1:18:09

how many are getting? Are there dead

1:18:11

people? That's because this seemed to me fact.

1:18:14

Well, first of all, like Biden can get it. One

1:18:18

thing to think about is, obviously, the

1:18:20

vast majority of people who die of old

1:18:23

age are getting self -security the day they

1:18:25

die. So for at least a minute

1:18:27

or a week or a month or an

1:18:29

hour long, there's that process of updating. But

1:18:32

part of it had to do with how the database

1:18:34

was built. And you just didn't necessarily remove everybody from the

1:18:36

database. It didn't mean they were getting money. But

1:18:38

it meant they were in the database and

1:18:40

so you could twist that into looking like

1:18:42

this is what the president did in his

1:18:44

speech Like it's true. There's this database out all

1:18:47

these people from like, you know a hundred

1:18:49

years ago. It was not true that they

1:18:51

were getting checks Okay, but he said the

1:18:53

one part and you your brain fills in

1:18:55

the blanks and I think oh shit There's

1:18:57

like millions of people who were 150 years

1:18:59

old getting check was not true so but

1:19:01

but the real thing is we don't trust the

1:19:03

people who are supposed to be interpreting the

1:19:05

data and That is like

1:19:07

a societal problem. It's not just politicians, right?

1:19:09

It's an erosion of trust in every institution

1:19:11

where somebody is supposed to help us make

1:19:13

sense of this. And

1:19:15

I come out of the local, right, where we're a

1:19:17

little more connected to reality because if, like, if

1:19:19

the roads are in shitty condition and I'm the mayor

1:19:21

and I can produce some statistics saying that the

1:19:23

roads are great, people can call me out and say,

1:19:26

no, they're not. Like, I drive on these roads

1:19:28

all the time and they're not. And they're gonna see

1:19:30

you at the supermarket. And they will find me

1:19:32

and they will tell me what they think of the

1:19:34

condition of our roads, right? you get

1:19:36

up to the national level and you're

1:19:38

so removed from them that you start to

1:19:40

get into these like alternate reality zones

1:19:42

and then you add to that the fragmentation

1:19:44

of where people get their information because

1:19:46

there isn't the, you know, Walter, the famous

1:19:48

example is Walter Cronkite, right? Like everybody

1:19:51

in the 60s like turns on Walter Cronkite

1:19:53

and it's not so much that he

1:19:55

told people what to think. It's that he

1:19:57

laid out a certain set of facts,

1:19:59

certain set of things that happened to everybody.

1:20:01

They can argue over what it means, but they

1:20:04

would generally agree on what just happened. And we

1:20:06

don't even have that. Yeah, we're

1:20:08

in the echo chambers and the algorithms are

1:20:10

just making those echo chambers more extreme. So

1:20:12

the algorithms are even worse. I mean, the

1:20:14

other problem I would say is like, we

1:20:16

no longer have the access to the editorial

1:20:18

function, by which I mean

1:20:20

like a professional news organization. I

1:20:23

used to get so mad at it, ever

1:20:25

from the south entry of me into the New

1:20:27

York Times. There were times that I was

1:20:29

so pissed over a story or framing or whatever.

1:20:32

But I will say, if

1:20:34

I actually found that they got

1:20:36

something actually factually wrong and showed

1:20:38

it, they would correct it. Like

1:20:40

there is that ethos. They

1:20:42

always know. Um,

1:20:45

you know, like professional journalistic organizations have to

1:20:48

do that. But if we're

1:20:50

in a world where somebody waits like

1:20:52

what some dude on the internet says, the

1:20:54

same as a, as a organization where

1:20:56

there are people who have to hold to

1:20:58

journalistic standards, if that's the same, well,

1:21:00

that dude on the internet doesn't have to issue

1:21:02

a production. He doesn't even have to reveal like who

1:21:04

he is. Right. I guess a

1:21:06

lot of people looking at their feeds

1:21:08

and those two things seem equal. Also,

1:21:11

yeah, go, go, go, go. The

1:21:13

algorithm is going to reward the

1:21:15

more salacious version of that

1:21:17

information. Yes, it rewards the lizard

1:21:19

brain. Yes, because your lizard brain is taught. The

1:21:21

thing we don't realize is every time we click

1:21:23

on something, look at something, let alone like something

1:21:25

or share something or, I don't know, I'm still

1:21:27

talking in Twitter terms like an old man, but

1:21:30

whatever the kids are doing these days, you

1:21:33

are actually Making

1:21:36

a statement about your editorial preferences. Yep.

1:21:38

You're not intentionally doing it. You're not saying

1:21:40

better than we know ourselves. Give me

1:21:42

more... But to me, it's not just how

1:21:44

they know us. We all have different

1:21:46

levels. It's like what we want and what we

1:21:48

want to want. There's what

1:21:50

we think is important. This is

1:21:52

why TikTok works better than Instagram.

1:21:55

How do you mean? Because TikTok

1:21:57

is what we actually want. And

1:21:59

Instagram is what we want to want.

1:22:01

We follow all these people. We think we

1:22:03

want information about what's going on in the

1:22:05

world. But TikTok is like, motherfucker, I know

1:22:07

what you want. Just shut up, sit down

1:22:09

and scroll. And that's why we

1:22:12

watch more TikTok. And Instagram is trying to compete. But

1:22:14

the reality is we don't want to look at

1:22:16

all the people we follow. But

1:22:18

also because like both of those things

1:22:20

are true like both of those are us

1:22:22

right the me that clicks on the

1:22:24

stupid bullshit because it's funny Yeah, it's the

1:22:26

same me as the one who if

1:22:28

she just sat me down and said okay

1:22:30

if I want to allocate like what

1:22:32

Topics are covered in the hour. I'm gonna

1:22:34

spend online today would like try to

1:22:37

like choose the more high -minded stuff, right?

1:22:39

But the algorithm is empowering the lizard brain.

1:22:41

Yeah Over the actual like the

1:22:43

citizen brain. Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah, it's less cognitive

1:22:45

effort It's more cognitive effort to think about

1:22:47

what you want to consume that day and put

1:22:49

some work into yeah Way less to just

1:22:51

scroll even though if it makes you better off

1:22:53

in the same way that like reading a

1:22:55

good book might actually at the end of the

1:22:57

Enhancer you read it like making better like

1:22:59

make you feel better either guys Let's take a

1:23:01

break real quick. So we talked about the

1:23:03

in -bay playoffs Pete. It's not his bag. You

1:23:05

know what I mean? Even though the men are

1:23:07

in shorts You're a fan finally Oh yeah,

1:23:09

this is the time of the year. That's great.

1:23:11

Needs to play two playoff games. You watch

1:23:13

both of them, I assume. I mean,

1:23:15

you know. There you

1:23:17

go. This guy's missed 50 % of the

1:23:19

next playoff games. Didn't go to a single regular

1:23:21

season game. Didn't watch Game 2. I didn't watch

1:23:23

Game 2. They lost, so clearly they need my

1:23:25

eyes win. I didn't watch Game 2 either. Exactly.

1:23:27

They need our eyes. They need New Yorkers' eyes.

1:23:29

Yeah, I don't know why that is. It is

1:23:31

the least important in a seven -game series. Yeah,

1:23:33

when was Game 2? It was last night, right? Jesus

1:23:36

Christ, dude. I don't know. I wasn't

1:23:38

about it. It's something about Detroit. Like, I

1:23:40

don't even need to see Detroit. Well, it's

1:23:42

1 -1, so you might need to see Detroit.

1:23:45

Yeah, I might need to. I might need

1:23:47

to. Game 5. Tuesday, we're going. You

1:23:49

know, as long as Shultz can get on

1:23:51

Celebrity Roads. You know, we should go and

1:23:53

then just heckle the fuck out of him.

1:23:56

We should just be as close as

1:23:58

we can to Celebrity Roads and just

1:24:00

heckle the fuck out of Shultz. Y

1:24:03

'all too cheap. Last

1:24:06

minute, you can get some tickets for cheap. So

1:24:08

what we got game three now that our eyes are

1:24:10

going to be on it. I

1:24:22

think the Lakers get game two that's

1:24:24

happening though before this comes out. I think

1:24:26

that's tonight Mm -hmm, and I think game

1:24:28

three will go Lakers as well. I

1:24:30

think so Lakers taking care of that I

1:24:32

just trust Luca, but that's because I'm

1:24:34

biased. All right. Listen put your money where

1:24:36

our cost is put his money historically.

1:24:38

Yeah, that's always worked out Give me back

1:24:40

my Bitcoin that'd be great those of

1:24:42

you who stole it from me. I'd appreciate

1:24:44

that Stake is the leader in global

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betting in US social casinos bet on top

1:24:48

sports and political events use the promo

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code flagrant for your welcome bonus Now let's

1:24:52

get back to the show you said

1:24:54

one that's important for the Democrats is to,

1:24:57

it's where they go and not just

1:24:59

kind of staying in the echo chamber. So

1:25:01

you're coming on this podcast, which again,

1:25:03

I commend you and thank you for. But

1:25:05

is that getting met with a lot

1:25:07

of like, I guess, acceptance and like, oh,

1:25:09

yes, we should do that. Or are

1:25:11

you kind of the only Democrat doing this?

1:25:15

I think it sounds like your experience has been not

1:25:17

a lot of people in my party are willing

1:25:19

to do this. I think

1:25:21

that's a mistake. But yeah,

1:25:23

I think Look, to be

1:25:25

fair, if

1:25:27

you're in politics, you know that

1:25:29

anything you do, you can

1:25:31

get shredded for. Even

1:25:34

not something you do, but something that

1:25:36

somebody sitting next to you does and

1:25:38

you don't make the appropriate face or

1:25:40

scold them for it, right? And

1:25:43

there's even like a contagion of

1:25:45

cancel culture where like if you're

1:25:47

around somebody who does something, right?

1:25:50

And I want to parse like some of

1:25:52

that's maybe legitimate and some of it is

1:25:54

problematic, right? But all of that's there. And

1:25:57

people who are running for office

1:25:59

want to win. Obviously, they want

1:26:01

to keep their jobs. And to

1:26:03

me, it's worth some risk

1:26:05

in order to reach everybody. And again,

1:26:07

that's partly the habits that I

1:26:09

formed while I was unheard of. you

1:26:12

know, 30 -something -year -olds, Indiana

1:26:14

mayor running for president. So we did

1:26:16

everything, like we would do CNN if they

1:26:18

would have me, but we would do,

1:26:20

I mean, literally like Iowa College lesbian radio.

1:26:23

It was like, I would like do

1:26:25

a show, like anybody who would talk to

1:26:27

me. I think that's

1:26:29

better though, because I think it better

1:26:31

resembles what politics is supposed to be.

1:26:33

Like politics obviously has a bad name,

1:26:35

people are... politics and frustrated politics and

1:26:37

hurt by politics but like to me

1:26:40

politics is a process of making decisions

1:26:42

about how we're gonna Have laws and

1:26:44

rules that all of us have to

1:26:46

live by and how we're gonna spend

1:26:48

resources that all of us are paying

1:26:50

into and For that to make any

1:26:53

sense. There has to be a process

1:26:55

of encounter like we have to be

1:26:57

encountering people Who don't think like us

1:26:59

and don't view the world the way

1:27:01

we do both in order to actually

1:27:03

legitimately become smarter and better and make

1:27:05

better choices and have better positions, and

1:27:08

just in order to persuade. There's

1:27:10

no persuasion now, or there's, I think

1:27:12

there's not enough persuasion. And

1:27:14

that's why we have these 50 -50 elections, like

1:27:16

this current election. The president won, he says

1:27:18

it was a landslide, but like, we used to

1:27:21

have actual landslides in this country, Reagan won,

1:27:23

that was a landslide. And

1:27:25

I think that my party should aspire

1:27:27

to be like a 60 % party.

1:27:30

And I think we could do it because most

1:27:32

of the issues that most people care about,

1:27:34

not all, but most issues. taxes,

1:27:37

abortion, guns,

1:27:41

educate, like things that affect how your day -to -day

1:27:43

life goes, healthcare for sure. You think guns

1:27:45

is one of them? Yeah, I mean, maybe, look,

1:27:47

obviously there's a big divide on that somewhere.

1:27:49

But if we're talking about like, checks. I think

1:27:51

there's support for regulation, there's support for background

1:27:53

checks, but I don't know if I would like

1:27:55

to change the election on guns. Sure, sure,

1:27:57

but what I'm saying is like, something like universal

1:27:59

background checks, that's got like between 80 and

1:28:01

90 % support. Yeah, 80 % of

1:28:03

Republicans are supporting. And they're to reverse it.

1:28:05

And yet we don't have, yeah, like, it's hard

1:28:07

to even hold on to what we've got,

1:28:09

right? Yeah. So anyway, my point is like, my

1:28:12

party should be on, by the numbers, doing

1:28:14

better than it does, because more people agree with

1:28:16

us more of the time on more policies

1:28:18

than not. And so, yes,

1:28:20

we have some work to do on policy,

1:28:22

too. to change? Like, how do you just,

1:28:24

sorry Al, but how do you change that

1:28:27

perception if you know that more people agree

1:28:29

with the policies? that you guys have. Why

1:28:32

aren't they agreeing with you? And what

1:28:34

are you doing wrong? I think the biggest

1:28:36

problem. Picking back on that. Yeah. So

1:28:38

I think it's great going everywhere to speak

1:28:40

to people. One thing that I don't

1:28:42

see happening from the Democratic Party is getting

1:28:44

their message out and actually convincing people

1:28:46

or letting them know like, hey, we're doing

1:28:48

stuff or these are the stuff we've

1:28:50

gotten done. This is something I don't like

1:28:52

that Trump does, but it actually works

1:28:54

with like permeating the culture.

1:28:57

Like he ran on, hey, I'm going

1:28:59

to get all these criminal migrants out

1:29:01

of the country. And then he makes

1:29:03

a video where you see all these

1:29:05

guys chained up, coming off a plane,

1:29:07

going in. That's messaging that you don't

1:29:09

even need to understand. You see it

1:29:11

and it's like, hey, he said he's

1:29:13

going to do something and look, he's

1:29:15

getting it done. So it's like, I

1:29:17

think he knows how to play that

1:29:19

social media game where it's like, oh,

1:29:21

I know how to speak to people.

1:29:23

And that's something Dems aren't doing at

1:29:25

all. So it's great that you go

1:29:27

talk to other places, but what other

1:29:29

ways can you get your messaging through

1:29:31

to people? The only one the only

1:29:33

one that does it is is AOC

1:29:35

and Bernie Yeah, and it's very specific

1:29:38

and very targeted and it works and

1:29:40

it feels like everybody else is worried

1:29:42

about you know offending somebody or being

1:29:44

yelled at by one of your constituents

1:29:46

or one of those groups that you're

1:29:48

supposed to be protecting. Yeah, so I

1:29:50

think Two things. One, I think what

1:29:52

they're getting right, which is also what

1:29:54

Trump understands about politics and attention, is

1:29:56

that you can't be afraid of controversy.

1:29:58

And sometimes it takes controversy to get

1:30:00

something recognized. So, part

1:30:02

of why the country is talking about

1:30:04

these deportations is there's a couple of

1:30:06

things that are traveling together. Like, one,

1:30:09

I think most people would agree with

1:30:11

the idea that violent criminals shouldn't be

1:30:13

here, right? But then other

1:30:15

things are happening, like they take

1:30:17

some guy and just send him

1:30:19

by mistake to a Salvadoran prison,

1:30:21

right? Which is obviously, first of

1:30:23

all, a huge, huge problem, like

1:30:25

morally and policy -wise. But

1:30:28

in terms of the media game that he's playing, even

1:30:31

if it's bad luck to have screwed up in that way, it

1:30:33

helps him draw attention to what you're talking

1:30:35

about. In addition to like the social media

1:30:38

pictures of the being lined up in the

1:30:40

chains. I experienced this a little bit in

1:30:42

our stuff because when we did something, when

1:30:44

we like got a bridge or a road

1:30:46

built, it was incredibly hard to get attention

1:30:48

on that. Like we did it. Like I

1:30:50

was out there, go on TV, I'd wave

1:30:52

the flag, we'd do an event, cut a

1:30:54

ribbon. But

1:30:57

it turns out when something was

1:30:59

uncontroversially good, it was way harder

1:31:01

to get anybody to notice. The

1:31:03

projects we got the most coverage on didn't

1:31:05

get the most coverage because the project

1:31:07

was really great. although I believe in our

1:31:09

projects. We did 70 ,000 projects around the

1:31:11

country from like little airport thing to

1:31:13

like the Hudson River Tunnel. The

1:31:15

projects that got the most coverage

1:31:18

were the ones where we caught a

1:31:20

Republican congressman trying to take credit

1:31:22

for the project after they voted against

1:31:24

it. because

1:31:26

it just created like a different, more

1:31:28

interesting story, right? So nobody would even

1:31:30

know that we were, or very few

1:31:32

people would have ever heard that we

1:31:34

were doing a rapid transit project in

1:31:36

Charleston, South Carolina. If the member

1:31:38

of Congress there, Nancy Mace, hadn't tried to take credit

1:31:40

for it and then got blown up on the

1:31:42

internet because she tried to stop the funding from happening

1:31:44

in the first place. So it's

1:31:46

complicated to figure out what lesson Democrats should learn

1:31:49

from all this, but part of it, and part

1:31:51

of what I think Bernie and AOC are doing

1:31:53

quite well, is they're not afraid of some controversy

1:31:55

of naming bad guys,

1:31:58

of talking about kind of why we are where

1:32:00

we are. And I think we need to.

1:32:02

So just addressing societal utility. If you

1:32:04

want attention for a project that has to meet societal

1:32:06

utility, people have to need it, they have to want it,

1:32:08

and they have to feel like they're not allowed to

1:32:10

have it, and then you bring it to them, and then

1:32:12

they're really excited. If people aren't tripping

1:32:14

about a bridge, or like worried about a second

1:32:16

-aged new sub, like, I'm telling you, nobody's going

1:32:18

to care when they have to get that sub.

1:32:20

And it's not going to be anything that you

1:32:22

get pat on the back about. But if there's

1:32:24

something that people in New York City do really

1:32:26

care about, and they're really concerned about, and you

1:32:28

guys address it, you will be heroes. It's

1:32:31

the nature of So it's like... I think so, but

1:32:33

it is tougher when it just goes well. No, no,

1:32:35

I understand what you're saying. I think that makes perfect

1:32:37

sense. Like, when we expect the roads to work, so

1:32:39

when they work, we don't go great job, Pete, right?

1:32:41

Or whoever is in control, right? We expect the plane

1:32:43

to land. We don't go... Matter of fact, if they

1:32:45

applaud for the captain, you're like, who are these corn

1:32:47

balls? Like, it's supposed to land, right? Like, that is

1:32:50

like a reaction people have. But

1:32:52

if there are things that we... And this

1:32:54

is one of those situations where it's like,

1:32:56

if there are things that we want, the

1:32:58

people want, and you are the one to

1:33:00

bring it to us. You will be really

1:33:03

applauded, especially if we feel like we've been

1:33:05

asking for it for years and nobody's listened

1:33:07

to us at all. I

1:33:10

think if you do certain things

1:33:12

for us, not you, somebody in your

1:33:14

position, that we're not asking for,

1:33:16

right? And then go, but this is

1:33:18

what you need. Now we're back at the finger

1:33:20

wagging where we're like, bro, I didn't even want that

1:33:22

to be fixed. Why do you want

1:33:24

credit for this thing we're not even asking for? So I

1:33:26

think it's really about listening. What do you

1:33:28

think people actually in America, what do you think people

1:33:30

really need? If there's five issues, what are the

1:33:32

things that they're concerned about? Like all

1:33:34

of them are some version of the same