About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of INTERVIEW: What Ever Happened to Climate Change? from The Young Turks, published October 23, 2026. The transcript contains 32,014 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
"*music* I'm so upset, oh my god. Let's see how Earth responds to that. The God! *music* All right, well, the Young Turks, J. Cooper, Michael Schur with you guys today. Big day ahead, we've got a lot of big Democratic names that are going to be discussed on today's show. Nancy Pelosi is retired,..."
[00:00:00] Speaker ?: *music*
[00:00:30] Speaker 1: I'm so upset, oh my god.
[00:00:32] Speaker 2: Let's see how Earth responds to that. The God! *music* All right, well, the Young Turks, J. Cooper, Michael Schur with you guys today. Big day ahead, we've got a lot of big Democratic names that are going to be discussed on today's show. Nancy Pelosi is retired, knocked out by my co-founder, Shortcut Chakrabarty, knocked out, right. Just Democrats, we'll discuss/debate that a little bit. Speaking of what, Shortcut is going to be on at 8 o'clock Eastern. So the person who was running against Nancy Pelosi, West Coast Momdani, on the show at 8 o'clock Eastern tonight. And then after that, Corena Gore. So lots of big Democratic names on the show today. And so for these next couple hours as we discuss, both Democratic and Republican parties. We've got Trump reaction to the filibuster, Trump reaction to Momdani. We got Bernie and Schumer, we got everything you could imagine. So let's get started, Michael.
[00:02:09] Speaker 3: Let us indeed get started. There's a lot and we will start with this.
[00:02:13] Speaker 4: What is the risk for the midterms next year if the party leadership does not embrace this plank of the party?
[00:02:20] Bernie Sanders: Well, the party leadership did not support Momdani in New York and he won. Party leadership is not supporting Plattner in Maine and I think he's gonna win. So I think it is, you know, I think there is a growing understanding that leadership and defending the status quo and the inequalities that exist in America is not where the American people are.
[00:02:43] Speaker 3: So that, as you all probably know, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and he commandeered. He sort of took over a press conference that was going to be a press conference for Senator, Majority Leader or Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in DC. And before Schumer took the stage, Senator Sanders came in, took the Democratic leadership, as you just heard, to task for not lending their support to now mayor-elect Zoran Momdani and didn't do it when he was running. And we're gonna hear what Schumer had to say in response. But first, Cenk, what have you got on this?
[00:03:20] Speaker 2: It made me think of like, what if Bernie was the Senate minority leader, let alone if you were in other positions, but that's the type of message we need to hear, I believe. So we're gonna get into here, what does Schumer eventually say and, but most importantly and interestingly, what are other Democrats saying today about Momdani and about the direction of the Democratic Party and the things they say and then the things they don't say, so you'll
[00:03:49] Speaker 3: see. And since this is gonna be one of the episodes where you and I don't agree on every single thing we talk about.
[00:03:55] Speaker 2: No, no, we won't agree on this. We won't agree on this. We won't agree later on Pelosi. It'll be fun.
[00:03:59] Speaker 3: We'll agree in essence on this, but we won't agree fully on that. Anyway, stay tuned and you'll see. During Senator Sanders pop in at the Schumer press conference, Sanders also admitted that there is a clear divide within the Democratic Party, which of course we all knew that was brought to the forefront again thanks to the election in New York. Here's Senator Sanders.
[00:04:21] Bernie Sanders: This guy started his campaign at 1% in the polls. I called it one of the great political upsets in the modern history of America and I think that's really quite true. So who did he take on? He took on oligarchs who put millions and millions of dollars to try to defeat him. He took on the Republican establishment and of course he took on the Democratic establishment.
[00:04:41] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: But is the Democratic leader part of the old party?
[00:04:44] Bernie Sanders: Why do you want to create? Look, obviously you have a Democratic, I ran for president against the Democratic establishment. That's what Mamdani did. It's no great secret. That's what Alexandria did. No great secret. Of course there's an establishment and of course there's a division within the Democratic Party. There's no secret to anybody here. What are we seeing in Maine? What did you see in New York City? What are you gonna see all over this country? You're gonna see progressives running, protecting the needs of the working class, taking on big money interests, fighting for an agenda that works for all, not just the few.
[00:05:17] Speaker 3: And he referenced Alexandria. That's of course Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who had some harsh words for the party on the night Mamdani won the race herself. And here is the representative.
[00:05:31] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: He had to not just defeat a Republican. He had to defeat a Republican and the old guard of the Democratic Party at the same time. He was fighting a war on two fronts and not just one. And he still won resoundingly. And I think the message that that sends is that the Democratic Party cannot last much longer by denying the future, by trying to undercut our young, by trying to undercut a next generation of diverse and upcoming Democrats that have the parties, the actual party, the actual electorate and voter support.
[00:06:11] Speaker 3: And despite never having endorsed Mamdani refusing to say even who he voted for, leader Schumer fully rejected that he is out of step with the Democratic base. And as the New York Times reported, Schumer still exudes confidence that he is an effective party leader making unpopular decisions that these kinds of progressive figures don't have to face. He often points to the fact that he never faces any challenge to his leadership from the Senate Democratic Caucus as a sign of his strength. Even if this year he has seen his poll numbers in New York dip lower than they have in the past two decades. And that's very low right now as popularity rating is underwater by 20 points according to real clear polling. He was asked to respond to Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez's statement during his press conference yesterday. And here's what the minority leader had to say.
[00:07:06] Speaker 7: I'm moving forward. This morning I talked with Mayor elect Mamdani. We had a very, very good conversation. We said that we cared about New York City. And that we look forward to working together to help the city and improve the city. I congratulated him on running a very, very good campaign. And the issue that he is stressed is being stressed by Democrats across the country from one end of America to the other. The high costs that the Trump administration is imposing on us and their failure to do anything about it.
[00:07:43] Speaker 3: So, Cenk, we'll get to what some of the other Democrats had to say about all of this and about Mamdani's victory and about the victories that happened around the country. There's a similarity to the tone that some of the national figures struck. But before we do that, let's talk a little bit about this, the access of what Senator Sanders, Representative Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Schumer had to say.
[00:08:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, so let me start off with some of our members and then I'll get into my commentary. Over 9000 wrote in on tyt.com. They got burned. Ask him about establishment ghouls and he will spit some fire. Part of the reason I'm reading that to you guys is because I want you to know the context. Schumer was late to the press conference. So, Bernie just sitting there and they asked him a question about the establishment. So, he's like, you want to ask a question? I'll tell you, right? I mean, was he supposed to hide his feelings? No, of course. And Mr. Inbetween said, tap Schumer on the shoulder and says, bounce bitch. Okay, now Bernie didn't do that. Okay, although that's a fun way of putting it. So, look, several different things here. Schumer never endorsed and Hakeem Jeffries endorsed like three minutes before the race was called. I'm exaggerating, but not by much about last week or so after a long, long race. And the reason is obvious, their donors didn't want him to. And they're in the opposite camp of the Democratic Party. They're in the corrupt camp and Momdani and Bernie are in the clean camp. And so-
[00:09:15] Speaker 3: Although Bernie's an independent, he's not in the Democratic Party.
[00:09:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, okay. Yeah. And so, that's not surprising. What I liked about that clip, Michael, was that Bernie's acknowledging something obvious, which he doesn't always do. There's been this unspoken war between establishments and progressives. It's spoken online all the time. On TV though, it's almost never mentioned. Because in the past, what would happen is, if a progressive said, yeah, of course, there's an establishment. They said, well, who do you think it is? Are you saying Chuck Schumer and Ezzie Pelosi or the establishment? And then, obviously, the answer is yes. But then, that's seen as some big affront to unity. Wait a minute, here are the Democratic leadership that never endorsed Momdani, who was a Democratic candidate. So, obviously, they never meant anything about unity. Whenever they said unity, they meant compliance. I think that one is inarguable. You could argue about the two sides and who's right. But at this point, we have empirical evidence and we've had a lot of empirical evidence. When progressives are in trouble or challenged, the establishment never helps them, never. And whenever they feel they got an inch above progressive, they're like, you must obey unity. So, it's lies, 100% lies. I'm done with that. And by the way, Schumer should be done too. Now, I mean, Pelosi's gone now. Cuomo's gone and AOC should primary Schumer for the New York Senate race, obviously, and drive him out and easily take that seat. That's my opinion.
[00:10:52] Speaker 3: I don't know that she'll have to prime. I think that Schumer will eventually just step down. I don't think that it's going to be a question of primary. I don't think he wants to get into a primary. I don't think he wants to lose a primary. I think that he's going to see how this shutdown thing pans out. And then I imagine he'll have a press conference where you learn a little bit about what his plans are.
[00:11:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, the AOC situation is interesting, Michael, because she must be thinking about running for president. Because if I'm her and I'm not going to run for president, I want that Senate seat if it's a bigger role. And all you have to do is say, I'm coming and Schumer will retire. I agree with you.
[00:11:28] Speaker 3: But in New York, a downstate challenge from progressive may not play as well. And it's interesting because also Kathy Hochul is now in the conversation, the governor of New York.
[00:11:40] Speaker 2: I think AOC would obliterate her.
[00:11:42] Speaker 3: I do too, except she's an upstate New Yorker. And she's also an upstate New Yorker who came out as she should have for Mom Donnie immediately and campaigned with him. And that's not what you would have expected from Governor Hochul, right?
[00:11:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, she wasn't on his side in the primary, but she didn't have to be. She didn't have to be.
[00:11:58] Speaker 3: In the primary, you don't have to be on anybody's side. I mean, and it was a funny primary for her because she replaced Andrew Cuomo essentially when Andrew Cuomo went away. So it was a funny place for the governor to be. Interesting politics, actually. I think it was really good political theater. These leaders should have endorsed the Democrat who won there. I understand why they didn't. And that doesn't mean I sympathize with why they didn't. I get why they didn't. I don't think it's as much about money as you probably do. I don't think it's about the donors. Maybe in Schumer's case a little more than Jeffrey's case it is. But I think that it's about a national strategy that the Democratic Party has for better or worse. Whether it works or it doesn't work. Of saying we are not going to get ourselves caught up in what we view as being fringe types of issues. You hear Republicans ecstatic that Mamdani won because they can tie the national party to Mamdani. So what these national figures are doing are saying, yeah, we're okay with Mamdani winning. We don't want to get involved with it because we want to be able to A, raise money on it. And B, be able to run the types of national campaigns that we want to. Whether you agree with that or not. No, I get it Michael, I do. That's the strategy and I get it. So that's it.
[00:13:19] Speaker 2: So look, normally I'd say it's almost always 98% about the money if it's not 100. But in this case, I understand what you're saying. It's probably 80-20, right? So they don't want to get labeled with a socialist label, stuck with it, right? But number one, just one, I get it, it's New York City. I get it more than anybody, right? Now, having said that, why are you stuck with that label? I mean, mainstream media does this absurd thing where they're like, okay, one Democrat is a socialist and one in one of the most progressive cities in the country, okay? So that means all Democrats you have to say whether you're a socialist or not. Why? And do you do that for Republicans when Herschel Walker was running and he was mentally unstable? Like, okay, Herschel Walker is mentally unstable. Are all Republicans mentally unstable? Are you for mental instability? He's talking about murdering people. Are you all for murdering? Well, Randy Fine is talking about murdering 2 million people in Gaza. So are they asking every single Republican, Randy Fine is a genocidal maniac or does that mean you're a genocidal maniac? No, so this is a smear job by mainstream media. The way that I would fight against it, and you're not gonna be surprised by this, is I'd go over the top. I wouldn't be worried about that. I wouldn't be like, my God, we'll be all be called socialist. I'd be like, hey, you're a reporter, right? You understand that Montana is not the same as New York? You understand that not every Democrat is the same? Like, do I have to explain that to you? Really? Really? But ask any question you like, cuz I'm here all day, right?
[00:14:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, and it is about the media. It's about the questions they ask and how they tell the story. And Tallarico, who's running in Texas, said that. When he first came on the air as a candidate for the Senate seat, he was going on the air. And everyone was saying, you're all asking me about LGBTQ and trans people in sports. No one has asked me about the cost of living. No one has asked me about immigration. No one has asked me about civil rights. No one has asked me about housing. They're all talking about that. So in fairness and in agreement with what you're saying, the media is carving this out because those are the questions they're asking. And those are the connections they're drawing. So they will ask Hakeem Jeffries, would he endorse? What does it mean if the minority leader of the House of Representatives is endorsing someone who is a democratic socialist? So somebody like Jeffries will say, I don't even wanna bother with that, right? I don't even wanna bother with that being associated that way. You could say that it's clownish, you could say that it's cowardly. It probably is both to a degree, but it also comes with a bit of strategy which they will live or die by.
[00:15:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, that kind of defensive posture drives me crazy. Of course. You're like, just go out and say who you are. There's nothing wrong with it. Here, look, I'll do it. I'm a capitalist. I'm not a socialist. I like Mom Donnie because he was for change and he was against the status quo. Or do I think that every one of his positions gonna work? I don't know, let's find out. Well, I'm not in favor of rent control, for example, and he wants to further rent control. Just like with the apartments that are already rent controlled, do a freeze on them. I don't think that that's gonna work that well. So what? So what? The brother won the Democratic primary. He's for change. So I'm in favor of him, right? That doesn't mean I am him. This is complicated. Is this complicated? Like sometimes I feel like with mainstream media, you have to talk slowly. And why are they trying to, look at the point that Michael's making about the candidate where you said in Montana that was running or Texas?
[00:16:35] Speaker 3: In Texas.
[00:16:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're constantly asking him culture war questions. Okay, why? Because mainstream media doesn't want to focus on what Mom Donnie was desperately trying to focus on, affordability. Because corporate media and corporate politicians love that it's not affordable. They love it. Because that's the corporations that are getting rich off of crushing us and making things unavoidable. And it's complicated, guys. It's not, there's no conspiracy. There's no, the cable news anchors don't get together with the Chamber of Congress. I've talked a lot about this. It's groupthink. And what does a groupthink comes from? It's invisible hand of the market. I wrote about an injustice coming my book. But bottom line here is, you're seeing it in action. As you're seeing them constantly focus on culture war issues and things that divide us. And never really asking about the issues that the New York voters just told you are the most important.
[00:17:30] Speaker 3: Right, and all that matters is what the New York voters had to say, right? And he won resoundingly against a familiar name in Andrew Cuomo. I don't think Curtis Lewa had anything to do with what happened the other night. And now he's the mayor of New York. And listen, there have been, and Cenk and I off air talked about this the other night. There have been other mayors of New York who have challenged the establishment and been wildly unsuccessful mayors. I happen to think Momdani is too smart to be dumb when he is mayor. David Dinkins challenged the establishment. He's a black borough president, Manhattan borough president in New York. Yes, he came up through a political machine in New York. But there were not a lot of citywide black figures who did well in that way. And of course, he was the first black mayor. And then Bill de Blasio, who came kind of out of nowhere as a progressive, a very progressive candidate. Who came in with an arrogance that he could do whatever he wanted and was, while charismatic, unsuccessful. So I think that there is most definitely precedent for challenging the establishment in New York. But when leadership in Washington comes from New York, it's different. You have a New York senator who runs the minority in the Senate. And you have a New York representative from Queens and Hakeem Jeffries who runs the minority party in the House. They should have stood up. Now, unfortunately, Momdani needs them more than he needs, more than they need him. Because if Trump is gonna make it difficult on him, he's gonna have to find a way to get money and support from Congress. And that's the way it's gonna shake out at least for the next year while that leadership team is in there. So on election night though, there were other Democrats, many national Democrats who congratulated the two candidates who won that night in other places. And some of the others on their victories, but didn't point to Momdani. So consistent with what we've been talking about, Pete Buttigieg, former transportation secretary and mayor. He said, New Jersey and Virginia have chosen well by electing Mikey Sherrill and Spanberger for Virginia. That's Abigail Spanberger as their next governors. There are proven leaders who won by focusing on what matters most, how politics and policy can make everyday life better and more affordable. Cory Booker put out a tweet, the senator from New Jersey, saying yesterday, we showed that the power of the people is greater than the president in power. With the images of four headlines attached, none mentioning New York or Momdani. You'll see Philadelphia with New Jersey, Philadelphia had in Pennsylvania, Supreme Court justices that all won. They're a bedroom community for some New Jersey voters. They have Mikey Sherrill there, California and Prop 50, the Denver districting and Abigail Spanberger. There seemed to have been room. I think you could have lost the across Philly and New Jersey headline there and put room for Momdani winning. Cory Booker, though, did not do that in his tweet. Debbie Dingle, a member of Congress from Michigan, was asked about Momdani on CNN. She immediately went right to Spanberger and Mikey Sherrill. Here is Debbie Dingle, their former colleague.
[00:20:39] Speaker 8: Do you have concerns about Momdani and the labels that this affords Republicans being used as a weapon against Democrats?
[00:20:49] Speaker 9: Okay, Republicans tried to make Nancy Pelosi the enemy in Europe's past. I'm gonna focus on the election of Abigail Spanberger, who is clearly a moderate, as is Mikey Sherrill. Both women that had strong military and national intelligence background.
[00:21:10] Speaker 3: So, look, that was the example of what we were talking about, right? I mean, you had the CNN anchor asking the representative from Michigan, what about the socialist who just won, right? That's how they're framing this. And that's how, it's an interesting thing to talk about after a primary. He's the Democrat who won the mayor's race in New York. It's an interesting thing to talk about when that person is a candidate. Can a socialist win? You're a socialist. Can you win in New York City? Well, he proved that he can win in New York City. So it's an irresponsible question to still be asking. I get why they're asking, but if that's the lead question, that's terribly irresponsible. And Dingell, of course, talking about her former colleagues and the Democrats, as we talked about earlier in the segment, Cenk, talking about moderation. It seems to be a national plan. You're not gonna agree with it. I'm not sure that I agree with it across the board, but I get the strategy. I get why they're trying. Yeah.
[00:22:12] Speaker 2: So look, everyone's a little bit different place within Democratic Party. I just keep saying, so what? So and in terms of these Democrats that Michael just quoted, Art Garfunkel wrote about this a long time ago, called the sound of silence. So when it comes to mom, don't say anything, don't say. There was a hilarious thing about Cory Booker. He's not backing mom Donnie. They asked him about it and he says, well, New York is so far. I don't like to get involved in New York politics. Philly's a little further and DC is definitely further. But yet you seem to be involved in their politics, right? So, all right, one last time. This is super simple. Chuck Schumer and I are in the same party. I'm a Democrat, he's a Democrat, okay? Does that mean I agree with everything Chuck Schumer says? That's comical, right? I barely agree with anything he says. So, so what? So what? Not a complicated question here. And for the Democrats, look, that's why I say it's 80% about money. Because it isn't just like, hey, AOC won. When AOC won, a lot of them immediately flipped and we're like, okay, well, what am I going to do, right? But they're not flipping here. They're not mentioning him. They're purposely avoiding him. Because yeah, of course their donors would be super pissed. The donor class despises Mom Donnie. So that's why they're all nervous as hell. Don't say Mom Donnie. I got it, I got it. Come on, Cory Booker is the most obvious. Cuz, okay, Debbie Dingell, her politics is confusing. I don't even know what to call her, right? And Buttigieg's corporate establishment 101, I get it. But Cory Booker would sometimes pretend to be a progressive. So what would be the issue with Mom Donnie? Come on, get real.
[00:23:57] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you can paint it pretty easily with money. And the fact that most of Cory Booker's or many of Cory Booker's constituents work in New York City every single day and make a lot of money doing it. And so there's obviously that connection. And he's a national candidate and he's gonna be extra careful, annoyingly so as a US senator in this case at least. So there will be more on this when we come back. We're gonna be talking about Mom Donnie and the president, which is an entirely different relationship that is gonna be forged if it is at all. So stick with us and we will be back.
[00:24:38] Speaker ?: We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye.
[00:25:08] Speaker 2: All right, back on TYT social break. Doc Daniels writes in on TYT.com epic politics man in the house. Yep, nerd Ferguson with jokes says Pelosi's quitting her job in this economy. It's actually really funny. Anyway, I didn't get it when I first read it and then I realized, all right, right. It also wrote in saying shoot feisty burning energy into my veins. Yeah, right there with your nerd. So hedgehog dragon says Cuomo got 40 million in donations to lose to a guy that only got 10 million. Imagine what could have been done for the people in New York City with that 40 million. I hear you, but on that one you can say it on any given race. I just think that it's amazing that they spent $40 million against them and it didn't land. It didn't work. I mean, it was a four to one massive, $30 million advantage in ads and it didn't work. And so that's a great day in America when the guy with more big dollar donor money can't buy the election, right? That election was unbuyable. And by the way, why was it unbuyable? It's for the same reason I tell you guys the presidential election is unbuyable. Why did Trump win twice when he raised less money than the Democratic candidate? Because there's so much media attention on a presidential race, the ads become irrelevant, right? And the same thing happened for this race because they attack Mom Donnie so much, they accidentally put a huge spotlight on the race. The minute you put a huge spotlight on any race, the progressive is infinitely more likely to win, okay? Or the populist, by the way, in either branch. Because people like most of the districts and most of the cities are pretty comfortably one way or another. And when you highlight for people who the more grassroots candidate is, they usually pick that person.
[00:27:07] Speaker 3: Okay, so- Also forgetting the money, they also turned back a dynastic New York political family. So it's not even just the $40 million advantage, the name Cuomo and he beat him twice.
[00:27:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, and he beat him with a stick, a political stick. I lives in America, right? And I'm curious to know why you think rent control won't work. So to me, it's a matter of simple economics. By the way, I don't want people to get it wrong. I like some of Mom Donnie's policies like childcare, great, wonderful, okay? And as I've said a million times, I love that he's trying for change. In terms of rent control, what it does is any market, if you cap some of the prices in an area, it'll drive the other prices up, right? So rent control is oftentimes ironic because the people that are in those houses are very lucky and are in good shape, but it usually creates higher prices for everyone else. So, and there's plenty online that you could read about it. And it's a legitimate debate, there's nothing wrong with that debate. That's where I land on it. Tug in the tube and says, Anna didn't make it. Yes, by the way, also because of the government shutdown. Tons of flights are getting delayed, her flight got delayed. So the government shutdown is a real pain in the ass and annoying to the whole country and us included. Trump lawyer writes in, AOC is totally correct, we want a future and not squirrels. Although later in the show, she's going to do squirrels, but you're right, she was great here. Just read a book says, can someone tell me what the difference between a progressive and a socialist is? Both support capitalism. Look, socialism is the most misunderstood word there is. It depends almost on the person what they mean by it, because it has a giant range. All right, we're out of town, we'll be back. All right, back on TYT, Cenk, Michael, and Deborah Kinthai. Deborah, thanks for joining, we appreciate it. She hit the beautiful join button below the video on YouTube. You guys can do it at tyt.com/join. We appreciate everyone watching and all the different platforms that we're on. All right, Mike.
[00:29:16] Speaker 3: So Cenk, Deborah, take a look at what the president had to say.
[00:29:21] Speaker 4: So Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you. Turn the volume up. So hear me, President Trump, when I say this. To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.
[00:29:46] Speaker 10: How do you respond to that? Does that affect anything you're gonna do? It's a very dangerous statement for him to make, actually.
[00:29:56] Speaker 3: Shockingly, President Trump not embracing the new mayor of New York. We knew that was going to happen. A fight between Mayor Mamdani and President Trump is brewing now, following the win on Tuesday. The pot only starting to simmer now. Cenk, what are your first thoughts on what you see as this relationship?
[00:30:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, I wasn't as worried about that statement from Trump. I'm worried about the next statement we're gonna show you, because I think that it's unacceptable. But I also wanna talk about who's right here. Because Trump thinks it's a win to have Mamdani as a foil. I don't think it's the win that he thinks it is. So we'll discuss.
[00:30:34] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, and we will discuss. And I don't know when we'll know the answer to that. But probably soon considering it's Trump. As we shared with you yesterday, Trump was pushing very, very hard for former Governor Andrew Cuomo to win that race. Posting on Truth Social on election morning. Any Jewish person that votes for Zoran Mamdani, a proven and self-professed Jew hater, is a stupid person. Which is a really smart thing to say in New York. And because he didn't get his way and got called out, Trump's hurt feelings were on full display during an interview with Fox's Bret Baier last night.
[00:31:10] Speaker 10: I thought it was a very angry speech. Certainly angry toward me. And I think he should be very nice to me. You know, I'm the one that sort of has to approve a lot of things coming to him. So he's off to a bad start. At one point he says, turn the volume up.
[00:31:23] Speaker 4: So hear me, President Trump, when I say this. To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.
[00:31:32] Speaker 10: How do you respond to that? Does that affect anything you're gonna do? It's a very dangerous statement for him to make actually. And you talk about danger. I think it's a very dangerous statement for him to make. He has to be a little bit respectful of Washington. Because if he's not, he doesn't have a chance of succeeding. And I wanna make him succeed. I wanna make the city succeed. I don't wanna make him succeed. I wanna make the city succeed. And we'll see what happens. Could you see reaching out to him? I would say he should reach out to us.
[00:32:06] Speaker 3: An interesting take from the president. And during the Momdani campaign, Trump had threatened, as you recall, to slash New York City's federal funding to the minimum requirement if Momdani won, as well as mount a takeover. So in essence, Trump was alive when Gerald Ford was president. And there's that famous New York Post or Daily News headline said, Ford to city dropped dead. I'm sure that he's waiting to emulate that when New York City was asking for federal funds during the Mac era in New York. Big Mac when they were bankrupt in New York City. The White House even posted this to X yesterday following his win before deleting it hours later. Trump is your president, as you can see in the familiar, even if you're not an NBA fan, New York Nick logo. So this celebratory post was posted by the White House. Momdani's campaign used a similar Nick's parody logo, and the Knicks asked both parties to take it down. So Momdani made it clear during his first press conference yesterday, he's ready for anything that the president throws his way. AP News reported that Momdani was preparing to Trump proof, that's in quotes, Trump proof the city to protect those with the least from consequences of the man with the most power in the country. He's already vowing to hire the president is 200 lawyers to the city's department. The mayor is the mayor elect is to hire 200 lawyers to the city's law department to help stand up to quote presidential excess. New Yorkers are facing twin crises in this moment, an authoritarian administration and an affordability crisis. And it will be my job says Momdani to deliver on both. But at the same time, he's willing to work with Trump, as we said earlier in the last segment, that now the mayor is gonna have to work with Washington to a degree to get what he wants. This is what Momdani said about that. I will work with the president if he wants to work together to deliver on his campaign promises of cheaper groceries or a lower cost of living. But if the president looks to come after the people of this city, then I will be there standing up for them every step of the way. The rise of Momdani is similar to how Trump was able to rise to power nearly a decade ago, though not from the same anonymity. Obtaining power through social media to get attention and to promise a way of change with a populist message. And Trump can't help but be attracted to that even if he seems pissed in public. In private, Trump has described Momdani now, the mayor elect of New York City is a talented politician calling him slick and a good talker. According to two people who discussed the president's comments on condition of anonymity. That's Tyler Pager in the New York Times. Cenk, what do you think of how the president and the mayor elect are interacting one day into this?
[00:34:59] Speaker 2: Yes, there's something that Trump said there that pissed me off. So we'll get to that in a second. But first on his true social post, I just want to clarify a couple things. Of course, Momdani is not a Jew hater and that whole thing is a lie. But the part that was over the top was that he said he's a proven hilarious because he's literally never said anything against Jewish people. And has said a million times, of course, I support Jewish people, I'll protect them, they're important, blah, blah, blah. They've said all the things that you would think any decent human being would say.
[00:35:30] Speaker 3: And any mayor of New York.
[00:35:32] Speaker 2: And any mayor of New York, of course, would say or candidate. But not only did he say proven, but self professed Jew hater. Really, when did Momdani come out and say, I hate all Jews. He just makes stuff up with no remorse, no conscience at all, right? So a lot of you know that, but some of the folks who voted for Trump are just beginning to see that because they're getting a sampling of different shows in online media. And they're like, I'm not sure Fox News was right when they said Trump's always correct.
[00:36:03] Speaker 3: No, not always correct, okay. And also if you look at the breakdown, Cenk, of where Mamdani's support came in New York City. You look at Brooklyn, you look at the Upper West Side, it was a sea of Mamdani. And those are some of the most Jewish parts of New York City. So it also flies in the face of what the president is saying.
[00:36:23] Speaker 2: Exactly what I was gonna say, Michael, not about the different areas of New York, but some of the polling. We don't have the definitive exit polls yet, but at least a third of Jewish voters in New York voted for Mamdani. And there was a poll ahead of time showing two thirds of younger Jewish voters voted for Mamdani. So a huge number. So apparently according to Trump, they all hate themselves. Right. So like self-professed. Of course, right. Anyway, so now to the main event. Look, the part that bothers me is when Trump threatens funding based on his feelings. So he's like, yeah, you better be nice to me. No, no, he doesn't have to be nice to you. You're supposed to represent all Americans. Now, look, I always ask people shoe on other foot, right? And I do it with Democrats, I do it with Republicans. So in this case, imagine if a Democrat wins the presidency and he's like, well, you know, the mayor of Tuscaloosa and Biloxi, they better be nice to me. Otherwise, I'm cutting off Alabama and Mississippi, you won't get any money. You weren't nice to me. You'd be like, what a maniac, what a lunatic. No, no, no, you represent Alabama, Mississippi. You're the president of the United States, right?
[00:37:29] Speaker 3: This is in Republican DNA, right? You see it with FEMA, you see it with disaster relief. So you see it, of course, in the way that Trump's speaking to mom.
[00:37:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, and in this day and age, you have to fight through so much misinformation to get to the real answers. So I know right wingers who think that Michael's totally wrong about FEMA. No, FEMA is the one that's discriminating. So I don't want to get back into the whole FEMA fight, right? But here, it's obvious, right? Because he's saying that Momdani is not being nice to him. So he might punish US citizens who live in New York. Totally unacceptable. And then did you notice what he said? This is a direct quote now. He needs to be, quote, a little bit respectful of Washington. Does he? Even if you're MAGA, does he have to be respectful of Washington? Is that a thing you want all of your local politicians to do? Even if there's a Democrat in office? No, no, no, I have to be respectful of Joe, but I can't criticize Joe Biden. And I certainly don't want to criticize him personally because then he'll get hurt feelings. You get it. It's not the way to go. That's not how a president of the entire country should be acting. And then the one part I will agree with Trump on though. He said when they asked him, are you going to reach out to him? He said he should reach out to us. And that's fair. He's the president. That's just the mayor. He's obviously the biggest city in the country. But yeah, no, it goes in the opposite direction. Mayors should reach out to presidents. So, okay, having said all that, what's going to be the bottom line? Is Trump going to cut off some funding that New York is due? That's not only a terrible idea philosophically and ideologically and for the country. But also, what if it starts a tit for tat? And now we're even more divided, right? So now, like Texas redistricts, California redistricts. So now if Trump says, I'm not going to give to blue states and blue cities. What happens if a Democrat gets in and you're MAGA and all of a sudden, well, there goes the red states. You're not getting funding anymore. Only the blue states are. No, that's an epic disaster. We can't have it.
[00:39:32] Speaker 3: It'd be right. But that's where the question of whether Trump is anomalous to other politicians comes into play. So the presumption is that the Democrats or the Republicans would not have a Trump like that. There is not anyone in our lifetime who will be like that and as childish as this guy and certainly as president. But we had it once because we have it now. So it could happen. I do think that it is, I don't think it's a, the FEMA thing is a bridge too far and it's not just FEMA. It's extra money that Congress allocates above and beyond FEMA when there are disasters. So James Comer, you know the Republican member of Congress who is on the oversight committee. And he is somebody who had terrible tornadoes in his home state of Kentucky in his district as a representative. And he was screaming for money from the federal government to go into Kentucky. And then there were fires in Northern California. So yeah, we can't do that. We don't have enough money to do that. If we do that, then we'll be giving. Ted Cruz did the same exact thing. Ted Cruz did the exact same thing. So it is like I said in their DNA to behave this way is to be vindictive through starving them to death. But Trump also if grocery prices go down in New York City stands to benefit. If some of the things that mom Donnie is doing work, they are economic boons and going into a midterm election. That helps Donald Trump. That helps his party if things start to turn in a direction that is positive. So you do run into that a little bit as well if you're Trump.
[00:41:11] Speaker 2: Yeah. So but look, let's keep it real. They want mom Donnie to do as poorly as he can. Now to be fair to Trump. Of course they do, yeah. He said the opposite. You heard him say the opposite. So fair is fair. He said the right thing in that case. But I mean, you see it in all the punditry. You see it on all the other Republican politician reaction. And you know Donald Trump. He doesn't want mom Donnie to do well. And if New York suffers, they'll be able to point to it and go. Aha, we told you.
[00:41:37] Speaker 3: And if New York prospers and the things I just talked about happen, they'll take the credit. 100%. So it doesn't really matter. But I'm just saying in general, that's kind of how it seems to be.
[00:41:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's definitely true. Like if things go well in New York trouble, but it was because I was president. If they go about this because he was mayor. And that's a game by the way that everybody plays to be fair. All right, we're way out of time here. When we come back, one of our friends drove Nancy Pelosi into retirement. Was that the only factor? Probably not the only factor. Okay, but. I agree with that. Okay, all right. Well, and we might have a nice debate about Pelosi's career when we return. Be nice to me.
[00:42:14] Speaker 11: Be nice to me. Be nice to me. Be nice to me.
[00:42:28] Speaker ?: All right, let's go to Super Chat.
[00:42:41] Speaker 2: Deb Long says Pelosi stepping down. Hey, goodbye. That's Deb saying it, not me. Okay, I'll have my own views in a minute. Vincent Godot writes in, as soon as Mamdani or any other person of color progressive is running, identity politics suddenly is no longer part of the conversation. Vincent, I think that's a really good point. So lots of identity politics by the Democratic Party in the mainstream media. But it's a Muslim not important, not important. In fact, you'll get a little bit of the reverse treatment. Mohit Baki says Nina should run again and AOC should take Schumer seat and need to look into Michael Blake looking to unseat Richie Torres. So Michael Blake will probably be on the show next week. I like anyone running against the AIPAC money and he's a good solid progressive. So stay right here and you'll see probably more of Michael Blake soon. Mohit also wrote in, need Shoikop, Plantner and Abdul Said to win and join Congress so they can be the bro squad, the male version of the squad. Brother, the degree to which I am working on that is immeasurable. I got it. RebellionPAC.com by the way, RebellionPAC.com, that's where that's happening. Mark Jacobs says, in 2024, Democrats scolded voters forever voting Trump. Now Republicans are scolding voters for supporting Momdani. Do both sides not realize this is a terrible strategy? You should say this online, Cenk. Good news, Mark, I just said it. So, but you said it and I totally agree and I will continue to say it. Yeah, stop blaming the voters. The voters are trying to pick the best people, God help them, that they have among the choices that they have, right? That's not the issue. The issue is the people in charge. Make it make sense says, is it true Zoran called for more slash continued donations? I think it's so sleazy when politicians continue asking for money. If I got this wrong, can you explain why we should keep donating? So brother, it's a good question and I'll look into it. Thank you for bringing it up. I don't know anything about that. But I wouldn't be altogether that surprise. A lot of folks do do that. And there actually is a really good reason because they've racked up campaign debt and they don't want to stiff the local business guy who helped them, the staffer who worked for them, etc. They want to pay their bills. And sometimes they go a little bit over and they need to make it up. I'm with you on the cheesy fundraising if they go past that. But right after a campaign that does often happen, okay? Grizz my homie from the street says conspiracy, he declares. They're trying to get rid of Nancy Mesa promising signer of the Epstein petition. And because of the quote erratic behavior asked her to resign. So look, I like your conspiracy theory. Because Nancy Mesa is a little bit out of control and has been for quite some time. And people pointed it out. It's not like anybody was covering it up or anything like that. But now all of a sudden her erratic behavior, which is just as erratic as before. Getting more attention and more negative coverage and more pushback. Is it because she joined the signers of the Epstein files? She voted to release them? I don't know. But almost everyone on the Republican side has had consequences. Massey's already had two million spending estimate in his election. We're more than a year out. There's been a lot of campaign against Marjorie Taylor Greene, against Nancy Mace. So we'll track it and see what happens. And I am out of time. We'll be right back.
[00:46:24] Speaker ?: Be nice to me. Be nice to me.
[00:46:27] Speaker 11: Be nice to me. Be nice to me. Be nice to me.
[00:46:52] Speaker 2: All right, back on TYT, Cenk and Michael with you guys. All right, some programming notes. Shortcut Chakrabarti, who's running it, was running against Nancy Pelosi until today, is gonna come on here at 8 o'clock Eastern and talk to us about it. Corinna Gore working on climate change. I know you're surprised. She'll be on at 8:30 PM. So stick around for that. And then I wanna tell you about Chapter. So you know the Medicare enrollment is ending on December 7th. It's on right now. A lot of the plans change. You gotta make sure you're on the right plan. By the way, the good thing about Chapter is when you call in at 707-TYT-HELP. If you're on the right plan, they go, you nailed the brothers. Stay on that plan. It's good, right? And then you have great peace of mind. If there's a better plan for you, they suggested both in terms of coverage, but also in terms of savings. And on average, they save people $1,100. And now I've seen it with my own eyes because a bunch of you have written in and told me that you have saved around some 1,000, some 1,500, etc. The call is free. They don't get money from you. They're trying to save you money. So just quick 20 minute call, 707-TYT-HELP, 707-TYT-HELP. All right, Michael, what's next?
[00:48:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, so we will have a lot to say after you take a listen to this.
[00:48:10] Speaker 12: I say to my colleagues in the House all the time, no matter what title they have bestowed upon me, speaker, leader, whip, there has been no greater honor for me than to stand on the House floor and say, I speak for the people of San Francisco. I have truly loved serving as your voice in Congress. And I've always honored the song of St. Francis. Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace, the anthem of our city. That is why I want you, my fellow San Franciscans, to be the first to know. I will not be seeking re-election to Congress.
[00:48:49] Speaker 3: This morning, the Speaker Emerita, the Representative Nancy Pelosi, the first and second and only female Speaker of the House announced she will not be seeking re-election next year after serving nearly 40 years and what will be 40 years in Congress. TYT has had, I guess, a quixotic relationship with the Speaker over the years. So, Cenk, I suspect I know your two cents, but we'll have lots to say.
[00:49:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, down goes, all right, hold on, hold on. So, we're gonna talk about my former colleague, shortcut, checker, but he was running against her. Do I think that was part of it a little bit? Do I think that Zora Mamdani winning was a little bit of a part of this calculus? Yes, the incumbents for the first time feel vulnerable. In my lifetime, I don't think I've ever seen Democratic incumbents feel vulnerable. And so, in primaries. And so, I think that this is a bellwether change. And yes, we'll debate Pelosi's career.
[00:49:49] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Nancy Pelosi was always going to step down before she even knew Showcat's name. But I just think the timing of this was 40 years in Congress and that was it. But we'll get to that and that doesn't really matter. We're talking about her career, what this will mean for the Democrats, why it happened. Nancy Pelosi is 85 years old. She was first elected to Congress in 1986, I guess. She started serving in 87. She served as the Speaker of the House following 2006 and the 2018 elections. Her announcement comes two days after she held California Governor Gavin Newsom pass Proposition 50, which we now all know will redraw the state's congressional maps ahead of next year's midterm elections. According to a person familiar with fundraising efforts in that race, Pelosi herself raised tens of millions of dollars for Proposition 50. In her video announcing her retirement, a piece of which we just saw, she reflected on her many roles in the US Congress.
[00:50:51] Speaker 12: For decades, I've cherished the privilege of representing our magnificent city in the United States Congress. It seems prophetic now that the slogan of my very first campaign in 1987 was a voice that will be heard. And it was you who made those words come true. It was the faith that you had placed in me and the latitude that you have given me that enabled me to shatter the marble ceiling and be the first woman Speaker of the House. To go forward, my message to the city I love is this, San Francisco, know your power. We have made history. We have made progress. We have always led the way. And now we must continue to do so by remaining full participants in our democracy and fighting for the American ideals we hold dear.
[00:51:47] Speaker 3: So the Speaker leaves having, in 40 years you get a lot done, especially when you become the Speaker of the House, a lot done for her own district, a lot done as she said in her video, a lot done for the country. So here's some more from the Speaker of Marita.
[00:52:06] Speaker 12: It was a historic moment for our country and it was momentous for our community, empowering me to bring home billions of dollars for our city and our state. With these resources, we have powered enormous progress for health care from the fight against HIV AIDS to the Affordable Care Act, for transportation, extending Bart, electrifying Caltrain, creating the third street light rail and the central subway and strengthening our iconic Golden Gate Bridge, all creating good paying jobs. We can be proud of what we have accomplished, but there's always much more work to be done. Of course, San Francisco's impact is not confined to our city limits. The Affordable Care Act, Wall Street reform, human rights abroad and so many other priorities all sprang from the vision, values and voices of San Franciscans. Because of your trust, I was able to represent our city and our country around the world with patriotism and pride.
[00:53:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, she was always, she always hewed very closely to being the representative from San Francisco. And as she said there, none of it inaccurate that she, I mean, maybe romanticized, but not inaccurate that she did do a lot for the city. When you are in leadership, it's a lot easier to do that when you're the speaker, even more so. She did also, on the Golden Gate Bridge, she put in those suicide barriers on the Golden Gate Bridge. She had those put in, she took the Presidio and turned it into a national park. So a lot was done for San Francisco, as she mentioned. I don't think, Cenk, we would have the Affordable Care Act in the same way. I don't think it would have passed the same without her having shepherded that through. And I think that's probably her biggest achievement as a member of Congress. Though she did have the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act, she had the Child Care and Paid Leave Act. She was also instrumental in human rights and finally she stood up to China. She went to China and held up signs to commemorate the people at Tiananmen Square. Like her first, maybe it was her second term in Congress. She put in environmental restrictions so that developers around the world had to abide by a certain set of environmental barriers, let's say. But I think stepping away from that, I think that we saw, and I said this about Mitch McConnell too. We got to see Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell, who I think, forgetting what you think of their politics or their party or their personalities or anything. And in terms of doing those jobs, they were both excellent at the job of both speaker and majority and minority leader in McConnell's case. I despise Mitch McConnell, but he was certainly pretty crafty getting done what he wanted to do. I think the same for Pelosi. She was able to hold together her caucus against Donald Trump in that first term in ways that I don't think many leaders would. And of course, I can't speak for what, I'm not a woman, I don't have daughters. But I know that she inspired a lot of women to break that marble ceiling the way she did a lot. There were 24 women in the US House when she got there. Now, the US House is 30% women. And so they're not all Democrats, they're not all there because of Pelosi. Some of them are there in spite of Pelosi. But I do think that her record in that regard is exceptional.
[00:55:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, so look, first of all, you gotta give credit to her for bringing the glass ceiling, marble ceiling, etc. First female Speaker of the House, role model for people showing that you can do it. No question, she gets a ton of credit for that. She gets credit for everything she did in San Francisco. The Presidio is beautiful, etc. I got no beef. And I don't want to speak too ill of the retired. Because so I get on Pelosi's case a lot throughout the years. But that's because we're in the middle of a heated battle. And she always represented the establishment and was always against progressives. So I got every right to oppose her. She opposed us her entire career. But now that she's retiring, less relevant, right? So I don't do this out of spite, but out of making sure that you all know what actually happened, right? So all the things that Michael said are true, but two things can be true at the same time. And context matters. And context actually, it doesn't help her in one way. But then at the end, I'll tell you about how it helps her in a different way. So when you look at the context, okay, so the one major bill was Obamacare, right? And Obamacare, they had the House, they had the White House. And they had the Senate sitting at one point in the beginning. If they heard 60 senators filibuster proof, then 59 senators. So you really, if you say, hey man, my major accomplishment is passing a bill that, by the way, didn't go anywhere near all the way, didn't go to universal healthcare, didn't even go to a public option. But this mandated that you buy from private insurance, but made the system a little bit better. When I had 59 senators and had the House comfortably, and obviously she's the Speaker of the House. I just, I wanna be nice, but I just don't believe that's like some magnificent accomplishment.
[00:57:20] Speaker 3: It is an extraordinary, it is a historic, it is the biggest congressional legislative accomplishment that you've been alive for, I would say. But maybe not alive for, but certainly- It's one of the biggest, yeah, but- And to do that- Such a low bar. It's not a low bar. I mean, she changed healthcare, she changed healthcare in America along with President Obama, along with the people on the staff, along with members of Congress. And it didn't go far enough, it didn't do enough. But it took something, put it in place, and now no one in America wants it taken away. That is a rare and enduring thing to do. So I'm giving her credit for that one bill, which I think was-
[00:58:00] Speaker 2: It's monumental. Stunningly easy to pass, stunningly easy.
[00:58:03] Speaker 3: It wasn't easy to pass, it wasn't even easy to pass. I mean, it wasn't easy to pass because she had a caucus that was large but divided. She had pro-choice members of that caucus that didn't want to vote for it because of what- There wasn't enough for abortion. Drug money, health insurance money, okay. I mean, come on, come on, come on, you tell me- She's the Speaker of the House, and they passed monumental healthcare. The Speaker gets credit for that. Okay, I'm trying to give her- It's never a low bar to change the way things
[00:58:33] Speaker 2: are done in this country. My God, so what I dream about, Michael, is that an ally of mine that I think is really earnest and strong and wants to do it gets in a role like that. I really want to show the country what you can actually get done.
[00:58:48] Speaker 3: And that person would have a hard time doing that. I hope that happens for you. That person would have a hard time doing it. It would not be hard. It would be hard because getting anything through Congress is difficult.
[00:58:57] Speaker 2: No, you break their legs politically and rhetorically. You say, here's the corrupt son of a bitch taking away your healthcare. Now, here's a corrupt son of a bitch who created higher drug prices. Yes, that corrupt son of a bitch is in my own party, but not for long. We have to talk about real- Because I'm going to definitely destroy his career for supporting corporate donors who are destroying your lives with these high drug prices. But of course, the Democratic in her era would never do that.
[00:59:26] Speaker 3: You have to talk about anybody's era when you're talking about it. I mean, it's the real politics of the time. It's a divided caucus. It is, I'm going to come to that. And it's, I mean- Okay, so hold on. I'm going to come to that. Okay, so- If you're saying you want to happen, happens, fantastic. But that won't be under Nancy Pelosi's watch. I'm getting to that.
[00:59:43] Speaker 2: Okay, so now the rest of her career, I mean, she mentioned only three things nationally. Wall Street reform. They did half a reform. The other half was so bad that they were going to put Paul Volcker's name on it. Who's a conservative from back in the 1970s and 80s that ran the Fed. And by the end, he's like, no, it's so conservative and corporate and establishment. I don't want it. I don't want it. And then he accompanied it with a giant bailout of the bankers, including their bonuses. Okay. And then she said, human rights abroad. And there's some truth to that. The things that Michael said are true. At the same time, when the Palestinians wanted some human rights, Nancy Pelosi didn't care about them at all. And she helped to send more money to crush them and to further this genocide. So human rights for some, but not for all. So in a 40 year career, you got one big bill passed when you had almost the entire deck stacked in your favor and you got half or a quarter of Wall Street reform in 40 years.
[01:00:43] Speaker 3: Wait a second, you didn't just get one bill passed. And that wasn't her bill. She was the speaker then. There were from TARP, from AIDS and HIV relief. AIDS and HIV relief is the model for countries around the world. And that was crafted. I mean, it does go to her being from San Francisco, obviously. It was crafted by Pelosi and Boxer, who was her colleague in the Congress at that time, went on to be a senator from California. So these are things that she did that have lasting and enduring. And how many members of Congress leave with legislation with their names on it? Nancy Pelosi isn't leaving with legislation. She's leaving having been speaker who shepherded these things through at a time that it was not easy to do that. She went up against George Bush big time with the Iraq War, was a foil to him, was somebody who had that Iraq War resolution and made sure that everybody was opposed to it and wasn't able to get it there. During the COVID relief, the Trump administration had to pull Steven Mnuchin out of negotiations with Nancy Pelosi because she was getting too much COVID relief. And the Trump people like, we need to send somebody who isn't Steven Mnuchin. I'm just saying, this is her as a leader, this is her as a speaker. And that's the role of the job, that there isn't a Pelosi, the Pelosi Act, which by the way, the Pelosi Act is what the Republicans want to put in to stop stock trading by any members of Congress. Well, Nancy Pelosi has supported that and she supported that.
[01:02:12] Speaker 2: Well, she didn't in the beginning, she only did when she got into the minority.
[01:02:15] Speaker 3: Well, she started doing it in 2022 when it became an issue and she said that there was bipartisan effort and she was behind it. And then she said, even if it's called the Pelosi Act, I don't care, I'm for it. Look, she's a rich housewife from San Francisco, her husband is a stock trader. I'm not saying that everything about her is squeaky clean in that regard. No, I got you, I got you.
[01:02:37] Speaker 2: And you don't mean housewife derisively, you're just saying her husband is really wealthy finance guy.
[01:02:44] Speaker 3: I got it. She raised five kids and she was home being a housewife until she entered politics. Yeah, that's all I'm saying.
[01:02:50] Speaker 2: So listen, guys, I'm really glad that Michael's here today so that you could hear the full conversation and the full context. And so you've gotten both sides of it, you get it. And look, only the last two things I'll add is, look, did she fight progressives throughout? She did. And so when the Green New Deal came about, she said, it's the green dream or whatever. When Medicare for All came around, she said, I mean, I've got a poster for universal healthcare from the 1960s in my basement, where she apparently buried it, right? But on the other hand, everything Michael is saying is also true, it's not a little thing that she made people address AIDS at a critical time, right? So fair is fair. Now, did she raise about a billion dollars in campaign donations and disperse that to other Democrats in the House? Yes. Is that a good thing? No. I think much more than that.
[01:03:41] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, more than a billion. It's not a good thing that you have to do it. It's a good thing that she did it.
[01:03:46] Speaker 2: Which gets me to my last point, right? So I hate that kind of corruption. And then did those people then control those Democrats? And is that why we haven't passed a lot of bills? Yes, I think so. But to Michael's point, historical context matters. And what I realized recently, Michael, is that, yeah, I am a little too tough on these guys. And so the reason is, I keep assuming that they can see the things that I see. That they see it as clearly as we all do, and that they could act in the same way that we do. But they can't. The historical context of her era, which is now just ending, right? Is that money ruled all of Washington. So if you didn't play that game, you were going to be a miracle like AOC winning. You were gonna be a gadfly for a long time like Bernie Sanders was. So this wave of progressivism and populism is just now starting to become ascendant. And in her era, if you didn't raise a lot of money, you weren't gonna be a relevant player. And so she played the game as it was. I kept wishing that she could play the new game and better to get us more democratic policies, more wins. But from that era, that's all we had. We had Mitch McConnell and we had Pelosi. And we had all these guys raising infinite amount of money from corporations, etc. And so she hadn't matched Mitch McConnell and she did. I don't think that that makes her evil. I also don't think that makes her good. I think it makes her a product of her time. And at the end, the only thing that anybody will remember, if we're being honest, is that she was the first female Speaker of the House. And that's not a small thing. That is a historic accomplishment. And she tore up Donald Trump's speech. She did do that as well. All right. My God, we're out of time. Well, that one flew by. Yeah, I love that. Okay, and by the way, she did a good job on Prop 50. I appreciate that she raised money for that. You see that?
[01:05:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, and there'll be a race in that. I mean, shortcut will be running. Scott Weiner, a state senator will be running. Possibly Christine Pelosi, her daughter, will run for that.
[01:05:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna talk more about that when shortcut comes out at 8 o'clock. All right, thank you, Michael. We'll be right back.
[01:05:52] Speaker 13: Boy, that escalated quickly.
[01:05:57] Speaker 14: Hey, Andrew, what's up? Hey, Cenk, you ready to make the switch? Yeah, I guess. I promise it's easy. Universal, basic, and you get income. Yeah, you keep saying that. But you sure I'm gonna have coverage? Of course you will. You think I would have bad service? I'm Andrew Yang. Of course I have good service. All right, let's try. But I'm so bad at tech.
[01:06:21] Speaker 2: So wait, should I do this thing of the hashtag business? Andrew, you're still on, right? Yep.
[01:06:30] Speaker 14: I see it.
[01:06:31] Speaker 2: No, wait, I don't see. Yeah, I do see it. Here we go.
[01:06:35] Speaker 14: I actually did not realize that you'd be searching in real time, but I love it.
[01:06:40] Speaker 2: How much do people actually normally save?
[01:06:43] Speaker 14: Yeah, the average American is gonna save between $500 and $1,000 a year on Noble.
[01:06:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you know what I'm gonna do, Andrew? Are you ready to become a Noble member? The two buttons are do it and go back. There's no going back. We're doing it. We're doing it.
[01:06:56] Speaker 14: Here we go, Noble Mobile. My gosh, I just called you and are you now on Noble and not Verizon?
[01:07:04] Speaker 2: Why didn't you tell me it was gonna be super easy?
[01:07:06] Speaker 14: I know, man. Now you just stay away from your phone and watch the money roll in. I can do that. Here you go, phone, yeah. What the fuck?
[01:07:13] Speaker ?: Cenk, you still there? Andrew? Well, at least I got Noble Mobile. It was really just one tape.
[01:07:17] Speaker 14: The whole thing is wild. It's in my shoes. It's in my shoes.
[01:07:20] Speaker 15: Hi, I'm Brett Ehrlich with Breaking News with Brett Ehrlich. This is Breaking News with Brett Ehrlich. Hi, Brett Ehrlich here. According to EPA head Scott Pruitt, climate change is not happening. He cited a meme on Facebook he saw. When pressed to back up this source, he said it must be accurate because the watermark said it was made by a scientist. So your move, truth.
[01:08:09] Speaker 2: That's right. And politics is nearly absolute. Everyday working people need a champion, a fight for them and a push back against the powerful interests that threaten our democracy itself. At TYT, we're proudly progressive and call out corruption and duplicity wherever we see it. From Republicans, Democrats or anyone else. And unlike mainstream news media outlets, we're not beholden to corporate advertisers, to defense contractors, to Wall Street or to Big Pharma. We only have to answer to our audience and for nearly two decades, we've accomplished that by delivering honest, timely and insightful perspectives on the day's news without fear or favor or concern for whose toes we might step on or which powerful elites we might offend. And while we're super serious about the news, we also manage to do it in a way that is fun and lighthearted. We can do this together and serve our audience. And yes, have fun doing it.
[01:09:08] Speaker ?: We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun.
[01:09:15] Speaker 16: We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun.
[01:09:20] Speaker 17: We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun.
[01:09:23] Speaker ?: We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun.
[01:09:28] Speaker 18: We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun.
[01:09:36] Speaker 12: We can do it in a way that is fun.
[01:09:37] Speaker 18: We can do it in a way that is fun.
[01:09:38] Speaker 12: We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun.
[01:09:40] Speaker 9: We can do it in a way that is fun.
[01:09:41] Speaker 17: We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun.
[01:09:54] Speaker ?: We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. We can do it in a way that is fun. Be nice to meet you.
[01:09:59] Speaker 10: Be nice to meet you.
[01:10:28] Speaker 2: All right, back on TYT Jane Huger, Sharon Reid with you guys. Also, Abdullah Sudan and Casey Stoibert. You guys are awesome. Thanks for joining. They hit that big, beautiful join button underneath the video on YouTube. And don't forget tyt.com/join. That's another amazing way to join. You get actually a couple of months off if you do annual membership. All right, speaking of saving money, we partnered up with Noble Mobile. So that's your cellular service. Boom, I switched the other day. You're starting to see it in that little video we shot with Andrew. And when you switch on average, you save $500. We're saving you guys a lot of money. So if for unlimited data, you only have to pay 50 bucks. There's no way that that isn't lower than your current plan. It was way, way lower than mine. So it's saving me a ton of money. I have the same exact service I had before. Same exact phone, same number. It was super easy. And then if you don't use some data, they give you money back. Last time I checked, I was getting $18 back this month. So we'll see if that holds. So go to go.tyt.com/switch. Switch, switch your service and you get a lot of money back. Love it. All right, Sharon, what's next?
[01:11:49] Speaker 19: Filibuster Battle Cenk.
[01:11:50] Speaker 10: Regardless of the Schumer shutdown, the Democrats will terminate the filibuster the first chance they get. They will pack the Supreme Court of the United States, pick up two states, that's a lot of states, and add at least eight electoral votes. Their two objectives are gone, remember, Sinema and Manchin, they're gone. Don't be weak, don't be stupid Republicans. Republicans, you will rue the day that you didn't terminate the filibuster.
[01:12:19] Speaker 16: I'm on the record and I want to be consistent on this. I absolutely loathe the legislative filibuster in the Senate. I think it should be majority rule and I'm okay with them nuking it. There we are.
[01:12:32] Speaker 19: President Donald Trump is preparing to annihilate any Republican senator that does not push to end the Senate filibuster. And Anna thinks he should get his way. Cenk, can't wait to hear your two cents.
[01:12:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I'm on Anna's side. There's one thing I'm worried about that we'll talk about in a minute. But this war between Trump and the Republican senators is also really interesting. The senators claim that they're going to hold strong. Will they? We're going to find out.
[01:13:02] Speaker 19: Yeah, we'll see. So Trump wants to end the filibuster. So Republicans in the Senate can end the government shutdown without any support from the Democrats. Thanks to the filibuster, bills need 60 votes to pass. But without the filibuster, Republicans would only need a simple majority. They outnumber Democrats right now, 53 to 45 plus two independent. Trump is planning an all out pressure campaign to scrap the filibuster. An anonymous Trump advisor telling Axios what will happen to any Republican senator who stands in Donald Trump's way. Trump will make their lives a living hell. He will call them at three o'clock in the morning. He will blow them up in their districts. He will call them un-American. He will call them old creatures of a dying institution. Believe you me, he's going to make their lives just hell. Trump already has the support of several Republican senators. So let's check in on just a few of them. In order of appearance, you're about to see Senators Josh Hawley, okay? Ron Johnson, Jim Banks.
[01:14:15] Speaker 20: Every day that the Democrats force the shutdown to go on. Every day that they deny payment to our great federal law enforcement. Every day that they hold hostage needy families. The president's arguments about the filibuster get a lot more attractive. And I think what he's saying makes a lot of sense, which is that the Senate needs to work. It needs to produce. Congress needs to produce. And if the Democrats are just gonna, if this is gonna be the new norm, Will. If they're just gonna hold us hostage constantly for the next three years, we cannot allow that to happen.
[01:14:41] Speaker 21: I've always been a big supporter of the filibuster. It has stopped America from going down a socialist path for decades. But the president is right. And I told him, at this point in time, he's 100% correct.
[01:14:54] Speaker 22: Well, I know why he's frustrated. I agree with him. We should change the Senate rules and do everything that we've ever dreamed of doing as Republicans. It's not just about reopening the government. It's about balancing the budget. It's about voter ID laws. It's about codifying President Trump's tariffs and his trade policy and being tough on China.
[01:15:14] Speaker 19: So you heard it from three prominent Republicans there. But many Republicans are still on the fence about this. They are. Others outright oppose any changes to the filibuster. Senator John Kennedy is one of them. Here's his take. Yeah, I explained to him.
[01:15:29] Speaker 23: I said, Mr. President, the job of a senator is not just to advance good ideas. The job of a senator is also to kill bad ideas. And how did you take your response? Well, like you would expect. Not happy? Well, he wasn't unhappy. I mean, the president didn't yell or anything. My personal opinion, I could be wrong, but I doubt it. We're not gonna change the filibuster or the blue slip while we're in charge during your or my natural lifetime.
[01:16:13] Speaker 19: Well, just in case changing the filibuster would require 51 votes or in other words, all but two Republicans. To that point, Republican Senator Tom Tillis stated this. It only takes third grade math to figure out that if you've got 15 or more members that are dug in, it's not gonna happen. On the other side of the aisle, Democratic Representative Ro Khanna agrees with the plan to end the filibuster. Here's what he wrote. Donald Trump is right on killing the filibuster. It makes no sense that 51 senators can vote to keep government open. Thune can do this today. Can't rather vote to keep the government open. Thune can do this today. The filibuster is simply the senator ego and power protection mechanism. Is that what it really is? And we should all realize and I'm sure Anna of course has her reasons and I suspect this is among them that fine. This will change everything. This will stop the gridlock. What say you Cenk?
[01:17:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's a secret reason why some of those Republican senators love the filibuster. So I'm gonna come back to that in a second. But the case against filibuster is easy, which is majority rule. So Ro Khanna's right, Anna's right. We've been saying it all along. Second thing is, guys, you gotta stay principled, right? So back when the Democrats were in charge, we wanna get rid of the filibuster. So now when the Republicans are in charge, our principles shouldn't change. Now there's one giant asterisk to that, which is kind of haunting me. But I'm still gonna say do the right thing and get rid of the filibuster. But I'm very worried about what they're planning for in terms of the elections. So if they start proposing bills on how we vote right before we vote, super worried about it, right? Now I came up with an idea the other day on the show. Nobody's gonna listen to it. But okay, let's get rid of the filibuster after the next midterm election. So in a year, right? So that way no one knows who's gonna win. Neither side has an unfair advantage. And you could pass it now saying it'll be in effect after the 2026 election. So that's fair. Now, of course, they're not gonna do that because neither side will vote for it because they're not sure if they're gonna win. But this is a rule that lasts for a long, long time. It's been around for decade after decade. So at some point we have to get back to majority rule. Why does nothing ever get done? It's because of the filibuster. Because it's nearly impossible to get 60 votes in the Senate. And so who's in favor of that? Well, the donors are. Why? Because the donors love the status quo. If you're already on top, you don't want to change anything. And if you don't want to change anything, the filibuster is your dream come true. It makes it nearly impossible to change anything. So why do you think 15 Republican senators are dug in, right? Because they're reporting to the Chamber of Commerce, they're reporting to all their corporate donors. And so those guys are going to impact them even more than Trump does. Cuz Trump is gonna leave at some point, but those donors are forever. So now in terms of the quick points on hypocrisy here. Josh Hawley saying, the Democrats are costing people, government workers and everybody else. Cuz the government shut down, they're holding us hostage. And then he's talking about how snap benefits are gonna be affected because of this. Number one, it's the Republicans who are cutting snap benefits. So stop it. I mean, you're being an obvious liar. If you said, hey, you know what? I agree with the Democrats about snap benefits. Okay, at least then you're being honest and I'll give you credit for it. But when you go around pretending that Republicans are for more snap payments. Come on, brother. Come on. Bounds of reason. This holding us hostage line. You see them flip on it every time the other guys are in power, right? Before the Democrats were saying, the Republicans are holding us hostage on government shutdowns. Now the Republicans are using the same talking point. I'm so exhausted. The way they switch sides every single time with no principles at all. And then finally, when Trump and by the way, many other Republicans are saying the same thing. Says, well, the Democrats would get rid of the filibuster in a minute. Wait, are we pretending that we all have collective amnesia? The Democrats were just in charge for the last four years and we begged them to get rid of the filibuster. And they absolutely positively refused. The Democratic senators love the filibuster even more because they're less grassroots these days. It drives me crazy. I wish that weren't the case with notable exceptions of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, etc. But most of the corporate Democrats and the corporate Republicans love the filibuster because it protects the status quo. And Sharon, that's why at the end, I'm with Anna and Roe. We should get rid of it.
[01:21:11] Speaker 19: Yeah. I'm with good company, I like to say too. But when it comes to Trump and his threats, I mean, we just had this national election basically. Our elections across the country that showed people are really grown quite weary of Donald Trump. These threats though, when you're calling out individual people in their districts, do you believe that it's gonna work a little bit? Or do you honestly think these dinosaurs or at least the filibuster in the Senate lives because they can hold it together and say no, dear leader, we're not gonna capitulate this time?
[01:21:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. So first of all, do threats like that work? Yes, they definitely work. So media normally will tell you like, no, that's childish. What do you mean? We saw it happen with our own eyes. So, Representative Wilson in South Carolina in Trump's first term did a mild critique of Donald Trump. I mean, he was so mild, he's Wilson's super far right, right? And Trump was like, my feelings have been hurt. I want him eliminated. And he was, he lost in a primary because he hurt Donald Trump's feelings. And he did that three or four times. Why do you think, why do we all think that the Republicans all bow down to Donald Trump and are all bootlickers at this point, the politicians, not the voters? Because they know that if Donald Trump wants to eliminate you, he can. So now Donald Trump has used it for his own self aggrandizement and ego and all of that. But if you used it on behalf of policy to get policy passed for the American people, that would be a super powerful tool. I don't think Democrats use it nearly enough. And again, part of the reason is because they don't actually want real change. If you want real change, if you want real change, you would definitely threaten, bully and intimidate other politicians. It's called carrots and sticks, softball and hardball. We all know it, we all learned it in school, but almost no one outside of Trump ever uses it. No, that strategically and stylistically, I don't mind at all. I mind what he uses it for, but he is correct that that is a better strategy. But in this case, Sharon, to fully answer your question, they know that Trump's time is out. We think, we hope in three years, right? And like I said, Exxon Mobil and Pfizer aren't going anywhere. So, and the corporations definitely, definitely want the filibuster in place. So what the dug in Republican senators are doing is they're trying to stay quiet. Only Senator Kennedy has come out, the guy, leghorn, foghorn that we just showed you guys. So he's the only one, as far as I've seen that saying it publicly. The rest of them are in a witness protection program. And they're figuring if 15 of us huddled together inside a basement at the Chamber of Commerce, maybe Trump can't find us or can't eliminate all of us at the same time. So we're in a funny, strange battle fellows kind of situation there.
[01:23:57] Speaker 19: That we are, take a quick social break and we'll be right back. We'll be right back.
[01:24:02] Speaker ?: Thank you.
[01:24:32] Speaker 2: All right, back on TYT, in Liberty and Guns We Trust asked, this is super chat. Cenk, do you get the sense that Sliwa stayed in the race as a spoiler to ensure Cuomo wouldn't win? An enemy of my enemies, my friend sort of thing. No, I don't think so. I mean, look, I'm just guessing from the outside, but having seen Sliwa's whole career and in this race, I think that he really thought for a second that he had a chance to win. And I don't blame him, I mean, he's never pulled higher. And if you're in the 20s, it's so hard to drop out. Now, by the end, he got down to 9% because of Trump and all the Republicans saying, no, you all Republicans vote for Cuomo, vote for Cuomo, right? But I think that he really thought he had a shot for a second. He doesn't like the establishment of the billionaire class. And look, in a weird way, I respect Sliwa a lot more after this. And not because, yeah, he helped bum Donny by staying in the race. I swear it's not because of that. It's, he had some principles, he had some good lines and he's a real populist. Yeah, he might be goofy on a bunch of things. Look, don't ask me who I'd vote between Sliwa and Cuomo. I'd have to get more into the details to find out, okay? Because I do not want to go in that establishment direction. Ali says, behind in the stream, just went on Zora on site. And it said they are no longer accepting money. They've reached the cap of the public matching fund. Okay, that's good update. We appreciate it. Jack Glancy says, Pelosi was very effective speaker. Yes, but also very inconsistent progressive, in my opinion. She was more cautious and a pragmatic centrist. Yeah, I don't know how pragmatic it is, but you're unquestionably right. She was not very progressive. She was more of a centrist, but she was effective at being a centrist. Constantine Kavira said, Pelosi retiring, good for her and good riddance. I hope she enjoys her retirement and stays out of politics. So that one's clear, Michael Cotavelli says, Zoran Mamdani said he needs to ask for donations to help cover the cost of the transition salary and all. Unlike Trump who had Silicon Valley cover the cost of his transition. So that might be the reason why he's asking that makes sense. And others have said that Zoran acknowledged that he asked other people to stop giving earlier, but that he was now raising for the transition. And he might have stopped again based on what Ali just read to us. All right, so those are your updates there. On YouTube member section, BoxyBrown6900 says, they shouldn't give Trump any more power than he already has. Well, that's my giant asterix. I'm worried with Trump in charge like anything can happen. But still, we gotta stay principled. Nor count girl says, Andrew Yang is part of the TYT game. Pretty cool. It is pretty cool. I like Andrew a lot. Laura says, until just a couple of years ago, I was a moderate Democrat. I like progressive policies, but didn't think they could get passed. Or that progressive candidates could win on the national level. I changed. Laura, wonderful of you to be open minded. No wonder you're a young Turk member, but also, you're not alone. A lot of people are changing now. And as we rack up these progressive and populist wins, people are beginning to realize that it was corporate media mythology all along that progressives or outsiders can't win. Total, utter mythology, horse crap, not remotely true. And it was self-fulfilling. Corporate media was like, no, the greatest candidate in the world is the incumbent, the establishment, the beautiful corporate candidate. Everybody vote for them. You loser, outsiders can't win. And that's what made it happen. All right, back on TYT, Jane and Sharon with you guys. Sharon, what's next?
[01:28:28] Speaker 19: New York has a Mamdani meter.
[01:28:31] Speaker 24: We are concerned because Jewish New Yorkers are alarmed. And what I can tell you is I look right at the camera. If you are a Jewish New Yorker, we have your back. We launched the Mamdani monitor this morning. We are simply going to track, again, not what he says in a single speech, but what he does. We will hold Mamdani, Mayor-elect Mamdani accountable.
[01:28:58] Speaker 19: Jonathan Greenblatt there, Anti-Defamation League. They've launched what they call a Mamdani monitor to make sure the Mayor-elect doesn't do anything or appoint anyone that they deem anti-Semitic. More on the monitor in a second. In addition to a shocking confrontation between Greenblatt and Joe Scarborough, but first, Cenk, you're two cents. I watched that live and I couldn't believe it. So people wanna stay tuned for that, but you're two cents.
[01:29:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, I watched the whole segment too. I couldn't believe Scarborough stood up against him. It was shocking. So I have some more thoughts on that whole segment in a second. And we're gonna show you that clip in a second. But also, he said, now if you're a Jewish New Yorker, that feels unsafe. Cuz I keep telling you to feel unsafe. You should be really worried. There's a Muslim mayor. This is ADL claims to be an anti-hate group. I think they've now turned into an actually pro-hate group. I'll explain more as you see the vile comments of Jonathan Greenblatt.
[01:30:03] Speaker 19: Yeah, their website, the ADL's website now features this so-called Mamdani monitor. Here's what it says. In light of Mayor-elect Mamdani's long disturbing record on the issues of deep concern to the Jewish community, ADL is watching and responding to the policies and appointments of the new administration. Sign up for alerts and opportunities for you to take action and help keep Jewish New Yorkers safe. ADL also said in a statement that this Mamdani monitor will prove transparency around city hall decisions affecting Jewish New Yorkers, including education policy, budget priorities, security measures. That's just part of the statement. But budget priorities, we should tell you, he's also referring to BDS or the boycott, divest and sanction movement, which he considers to be anti-Semitic. The webpage features an anti-Semitism tip line where anyone can write in, report alleged attacks or discrimination against Jewish New Yorkers. ADL experts will support victims. They'll use data gained from incidents to track and monitor the impact the new administration could have on the safety of Jewish residents. The launch of this Mamdani monitor isn't overly surprising since Jonathan Greenblatt has repeatedly accused Mamdani of anti-Semitism. And announcing this initiative, he falsely said again, Mamdani has promoted anti-Semitic narratives associated with individuals who have a history of anti-Semitism and demonstrated intense animosity toward the Jewish state. And his reaction to the ADL's new project, Mamdani once again, made it abundantly clear, Greenblatt smears are inaccurate.
[01:31:54] Speaker 25: I have not spoken to Jonathan Greenblatt, I take the issue of anti-Semitism incredibly seriously. And last night in my speech, I spoke about how my city hall will stand steadfast with Jewish New Yorkers in fighting the scourge of anti-Semitism across the city and making that clear in the actions that we deliver on from January 1st. And I look forward to working with Jewish leaders across this city, whether they be elected officials, whether they be rabbis, whether they be community leaders to deliver on the promise of not just protecting Jewish New Yorkers, but celebrating and cherishing them in the same city. I think that anyone is free to catalog the actions of our administration. I have some doubts in Jonathan's ability to do so honestly, given that he previously said I had not visited any synagogues only to have to correct himself.
[01:32:42] Speaker 19: A little error there. But Mamdani isn't the only person skeptical of Greenblatt's ability to be impartial. It seems Joe Scarborough is too. During an appearance on Morning Joe, Greenblatt was asked about Mamdani's support for BDS and tried to tie that policy to violence against
[01:33:03] Speaker 26: Jews. Watch this. He makes a distinction as many people do between Jews in New York and the state of Israel. What he's saying is, I take my brothers and sisters, Jewish New Yorkers separate from the policies of the state of Israel. BDS, he says, is meant to punish the state of Israel. How do you respond to that distinction? Well, look, there's lots of room to
[01:33:27] Speaker 24: criticize policies of the state of Israel. But what I worry about, what New Yorkers worry about, is when the guy gets assaulted for wearing a yarmulke and they hit him in the head and yell at him as a Zionist. Or when the governor's mansion in Pennsylvania is burned down by someone who claims Josh Shapiro has a policy on Palestine, which he doesn't. Or when two young Jewish people are shot and killed outside the Jewish museum by someone who yells free Palestine. Or when an elderly person is firebombed in Boulder, Colorado,
[01:33:56] Speaker 13: like an 80 year old woman. We're all shocked and we all find this abhorrent and I'm sure that the next mayor would say the same thing.
[01:34:07] Speaker 19: All right, so that was just part of it, folks. When Scarborough pointed out that Mondani has gone to one high holiday celebration after another, Greenblatt said that wasn't exactly right because he went to an anti-Zionist synagogue. Later in the segment, Joe Scarborough called out the ADL leader for, well, insinuating that Mondani was supportive of
[01:34:28] Speaker 13: violence against Jews. But you're not suggesting that he supports the firebombing in Colorado. I know. I never said that. You're not suggesting that he supports the firebombing. I never said that. No, but you know what? No, no, so let me be clear. There's a lot of blurring and blending here, Jonathan. And you know I love you and you're on all the time and always a fierce defender of yours. But you seem to be like blurring a lot of things together and then looking into that camera and say, call us. We're going to make sure that he doesn't
[01:35:01] Speaker 24: support- No, I say to Jewish New Yorkers, call us if you feel unsafe. I'm not accusing him of those things. What I want to make sure is he doesn't create an environment where Jewish people are unsafe. He doesn't create an environment where globalized becomes a mantra.
[01:35:18] Speaker 19: Okay, so Cenk, he was absolutely accusing Momdani of those things.
[01:35:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mean, look, buckle up for what I'm about to say about Jonathan Greenblatt. So first of all, of course he was insinuating that. Why bring that up, right? So you just brought it up randomly as you're saying, Momdani monitor, we have to monitor this Muslim. Remember the people who attacked these folks? Wait, were the people who attacked those folks even Muslim? No, right? But it doesn't matter. We're going to demagogue against a different religion. And so Jonathan Greenblatt's whole purpose is, do not demagogue against Jews because of their religion. I couldn't agree more, I 1000% agree. Then I say, also don't demagogue against Muslims for their religion. He's like, hell no, I don't agree with that at all. People were burned, the Muslims, the Muslims. Shut up, you lead a hate organization now. So okay, what's Jonathan Greenblatt complaining about? So watch the whole segment. By the way, there you go, Joe Scarborough, nice job. Thank you for standing up. I mean, and by the way, that's one of the very few times I've ever seen a cable news anchor defend someone Muslim period, ever, ever in any context, right? Normally, pro-Israel guys like Jonathan Greenblatt come and they smear the living crap out of all Muslims. And everybody goes, bravo, bravo. And then you say, we're worried the Jews are gonna be unsafe. How about us? How about Muslims? Do we feel unsafe? We feel unsafe because guys like Jonathan Greenblatt are constantly go, the Muslims, the Muslims, we have to kill them all. We have to kill them in Gaza. To be fair, Jonathan Greenblatt didn't say kill them all, Randy Fine did, okay? But Jonathan Greenblatt is supporting everything that Israel is doing. A massive genocide, at least 68,000 dead, 20,000 kids dead. And he's like, yeah, but they're just Muslims, Muslims. Are you kidding me? The whole world feels unsafe because of Israel. Every Muslim, every Arab, every Palestinian feels unsafe because of Israel. But he's like, no, I feel unsafe just because we did a genocide. Sorry, I get worked up, okay? And in this case, why is it like it shouldn't be we? But Jonathan Greenblatt actually screwed up once, and in a TV appearance about Israel, he said we. Jonathan, you remember, you're supposed to be an American. Trope, trope, dual loyalty. But I didn't say we, you said we. So don't give me this nonsense crap about your stupid ass tropes, and pretending that you're unsafe. So, and why are some Jewish Americans in fear? There are those real attacks that are terrible, despicable, and every decent human being condemns them. Nobody's in favor of those attacks. Nobody would be as monstrous as Randy Fine and Jonathan Greenblatt and go, murdering people, as long as they're Palestinians, it's okay. Don't worry, Jonathan, we're not anywhere near as immoral as you. And all the Israeli supporters out there going, what's the big deal? The Palestinians had it coming. Of course, it's just dirty Muslims, okay? So now, who's scaring people? It's actually Jonathan Greenblatt, not just against Muslims, but for Jews. Jonathan Greenblatt's going out there, you're gonna be unsafe. You know they're burning everyone, you're so unsafe. Remember, my organization is gonna keep, give me money, give me money. And that's from other Jewish Americans, by the way. He's like, give me money, cuz you're unsafe. The Muslims, you're so unsafe. I'm the only one who can keep you safe by reporting on the dirty Muslims. Okay, now if you say, Cenk, that's unfair. He didn't say dirty Muslims. He just said, all of a sudden, when a Muslim mayor is elected, right? Okay, all right. So what does he want in policy? So let's look into the policy, cuz maybe he's trying to protect Jewish Americans. So the three major things that he mentioned in that appearance were, making sure that the NYPD still cooperates with the IDF. So wait, that doesn't have any to do with Jewish Americans. That has to do with somehow having Israel infiltrate NYPD. And why is that a priority? Are you insane? Should we bring in the Polish military to help the NYPD? Should the Saudi military infiltrate the NYPD and no Muslim feel safe unless the Saudis are running the NYPD or somehow working with them? What kind of a ludicrous thing would that to be said? And then you saw him say one of the BDS movement. No, wait, wait, boycott, divestment and sanction who? Jewish Americans? No, that's a foreign government. It's the boycott, divestment, sanction Israel. So you don't care about Jewish Americans. You don't care about Jews. You don't care about bigotry. The only thing you care about is your beloved Israel. Can you be honest once in your life? Trump, Trump, Trump, you can't say that. Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. I don't care. You're a liar. You lied about Mamdani. You're lying about the danger everybody is in from the Muslim who won't support Israel. And you're lying about your real priorities. And it's super obvious because when we asked you all your list is Israel, Israel, Israel. In fact, the last thing he said was curious. He's like, he better not touch the education system. I was like, why? Was there a threat to changing math or physics? What's he talking about? You've got in the history books that Israel was attacked in 1967 and all these different times when Israel was not attacked. Israel launched that war. Israel started it in 1948, 1967. And right now, the Jonathan Greenblatt's of the world are freaking out. But guys, it's never Jewish Americans. It's these guys who are pro-Israel radicals that run these groups, okay? And they're like, how dare you saying that Israel had 6% of the land, but took 48% and obviously drove out all the Palestinians and murdered them there to take the 48% while factually true. And they did it with tons of terrorism, including blowing up the King David Hotel. And the leaders of those Jewish terrorist groups then became the prime ministers of Israel over and over again. While technically and empirically true is anti-Semitic, facts are a trope, all facts are a trope. So yeah, we got it, Jonathan, you love Israel, you wanna serve Israel, you hate Muslims, you wanna drive hatred towards Muslims, and we're sick of it. And I can't believe one of our champions is Joe Scarborough.
[01:41:58] Speaker 19: Yeah, and I have to tell you in the months after October 7th, there were portions of that show that were unwatchable. It was unwatchable. The unchecked nonsense that was spewing. I know we want people to go check out the interview for themselves, but there's a couple of things that I found curious. Number one, Joe Scarborough said he wanted to get mom, Donnie and Jonathan together just to talk. Wouldn't that be great? And the hesitation from Green Black was just unfathomable. I couldn't believe that he really, he did not even want to talk to him. He pretended he did, but he didn't. And the other thing that crossed my mind was this, I hate to say it, but what he, this mom Donnie meter is so sick. Can you imagine if a woman were elected the mayor of New York and there was a meter or we're watching her or a black man like Eric Adams, who should have watched him? We would have said, my God, I can't believe this. This is horrific actually, this meter.
[01:43:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, the minute you said woman, I was like, you're so right, because my mind went to David Dinkins, the first black mayor of New York, right? If when he won, there was like a Dinkins meter, a black man is now the mayor. So we're gonna track crime. Everybody feels unsafe. We all feel white people feel unsafe. Hey, if you're a white person reporting if you feel unsafe. Sharon, that was a gorgeous point. That is exactly right.
[01:43:36] Speaker 19: Do you know what I mean? It's not even like he's not even coded. It's just so blatant. We've gotta watch this Muslim. We have to watch him.
[01:43:45] Speaker 2: 100%, not even, it's not a dog whistle. I heard it. It's a human whistle. And last thing is, they keep saying like, well, I mean, it's the mom Donnie says these things. By the way, he doesn't say those things, right? And then they say that, well, if he would just say that the Jewish Americans are the same. The brothers said it thousands of times. He said it last night in his victory speech. He said it today. He celebrates Jews, etc. But it's never good enough because it isn't about Jewish Americans. It's about a foreign government. And that's why the leaders of these pro-Israel radical groups are never satisfied until every politician in America bows their head to Israel. And no, Jonathan, it's not a trope because it's not about Jewish Americans and stop smearing them. You're driving up anti-Semitism through the roof. I have Jewish family. I have nothing but Jewish friends. No, okay, you're not allowed to say you have Jewish friends. I don't give a goddamn what I'm allowed to say. I'm telling you the reality and I don't want them to get hurt. The only way they get hurt is by guys like Jonathan Greenblatt going, all right, all the politicians bow down to Israel. They didn't, that's it, eliminate them. No, you're doing the trope, you monster, you idiot. You idiot, you don't speak for all these Jews. You're actually getting them in trouble and you're getting them, you're getting riling up so much hatred. Mom Donnie's not doing it. You're doing it, you moron. No, they don't have to represent a foreign government. They should represent this government and they should represent Muslims, Christians, atheists and Jews in New York City, not in Tel Aviv. I don't give a damn about Tel Aviv. I don't give a damn about Riyadh or Karachi, okay? God bless all of them, but they're not our business. He won the mayor of New York and let him be the mayor without being so unbelievably racist and bigoted. Thank you for calling it out. Desperation, but it's the, and I know we have
[01:45:42] Speaker 19: to go, but it's the desperation. When you have young Jewish Americans supporting this new mayor, this campaign, joining forces with Muslims saying, look, we all have the same progressive ideals here. They can't tolerate it. Greenblatt, perhaps AIPAC offshore, it cannot be tolerated because this trend, this youth movement is very dangerous to that. Yep. All right, we gotta take a break here. We'll be right
[01:46:12] Speaker 2: back.
[01:46:42] Speaker ?: Thank you.
[01:47:12] Speaker 2: Our members are so smart, I wish I'd have made this point. So on a YouTube member, Ahab Elzwazi says, Cenk, someone tell the ADL that Trump labeled Jewish Mamdani voters is not Jewish. Wait, it's about Israel, isn't it? Exactly. I mean, somebody, one of you guys made this point the other day. Again, I was like, don't, I should have made that point. And I've been making it ever since. So Donald Trump had dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes at the height of their antisemitism. And they're like, free pass. Jonathan Greenblatt's like, high five. He objected to that dinner, but then he was right back in Trump's corner the next day. Why? Because he doesn't care how antisemitic Donald Trump is. Donald Trump has said antisemitic things a billion times, goes to meet with Jewish leaders and he's like, no room likes to renegotiate more than you guys. Come on, that's not a trope, that's not a trope, okay? No, because Trump is pro-Israel. So they're like, be as antisemitic as you want. Nobody cares. You want to say crazy crap about Jews? You want to smear Jews? Who cares? Do it, do it, do it. You're pro-Israel. Atta boy, atta boy, do anything you want to Jews, right? That's what Jonathan Greenblatt's about. That's what ADL and APAC and all these disgustingly pro-Israel radical groups are in this country. They never speak for Jews. You know what Jews are? They're like, I keep telling you guys, they're physics professors, they're plumbers, they're dentists. They're like everyone else, of course, of course. Unfortunately, we have these monsters who are heading up these organizations who are deeply racist and disloyal. Yes, I said disloyal, I meant disloyal. You are disloyal, Jonathan Greenblatt. You don't care about this country. All you care about is Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel. Then why don't you effing move already? If you love that country so much, good news, it exists. Why don't you go there? No, you can't say that. I demand to stay here and make all of your politicians work for my actual country. You said it, Jonathan. We didn't say it, you said it. All right, Trevor Stevens says, Cenk makes two cents go a long way, lol. Wait a minute. Amy Megenson says, I like hearing both viewpoints. Love how two things can be true. Thanks, guys. Saying that about the Pelosi discussion me and Michael had, I love that. Thank you for writing that in. Billy States says, Cenk mentioning us from Biloxi. What's up, Unc? Hello from Biloxi. I want good money in Biloxi. I like Biloxi. Delivery Ghost says, she speaks for the moneyed interest and only them, not the American people or San Francisco specifically, referring to Pelosi. Billy States says, Cenk, no, I already read that. The great Mandini says, how hard is it for other Democrats to just acknowledge Momdani's success and say, yeah, he won. People obviously supported his ideas. I have different ideas that I think focus on my constituency. Done, totally agree. Brenda Jones, Momdani is a classic example of focusing on local elections, create change there, and then move up the ladder. Perfect.
[01:50:27] Speaker ?: All right, back on TYT, Cenk is sharing with you guys project for progress. He is a YouTube member and he
[01:50:41] Speaker 2: said it was my birthday yesterday. I never got a shout out. Can we fix that? Boom, fixing it. Happy birthday. And the reason I'm going out of my way to do that is because he came up with a really good idea for Operation Hope. So TYT.com/hope, I love that you're involved. Sharon, what's next?
[01:51:09] Speaker 19: AOC versus MTG. Here's some tea for you. MTG, people are like, my God,
[01:51:19] Speaker 27: she's saying all these things. What's gotten into her lately? She's bucking against Trump, she's bucking against the administration. Marjorie Taylor Greene wanted to run for Senate in Georgia and Trump told her no. The White House and Trump land shut down Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal ambitions to run for Senate. And she has been on revenge tour ever since.
[01:51:49] Speaker 19: All right, so that's a recent Instagram live stream. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed the obvious changes we've seen and Marjorie Taylor Greene as of late all stemmed from bitterness over Donald Trump. Give you more Greene's response. But first Jake, your two cents and I don't know, it doesn't even matter. Do we care why she's saying things that we perhaps agree with now?
[01:52:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, and Marjorie Taylor Greene took a shot at her in return and we'll show that to you too. And then we've got a poll up at TYT.com about who's right in this case, AOC or Marjorie Taylor Greene. But hear the whole story first before you vote because I think although AOC is technically correct, I might vote MTG. Hold, let's discuss first.
[01:52:35] Speaker 19: Wow, okay, according to reporting from back in the spring, it's true that the White House discouraged Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for Senate. Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump's political team commissioned a poll that showed Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene losing a potential race for Senate in Georgia by double digits. And the President shared the results with Greene in a bid to discourage her from running in 2026, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump's team was determined to keep Greene out of the race to unseat Democratic Senator John Ossoff because they feared she wouldn't be competitive, some of the people said. But Greene says AOC is wrong, insists that she decided on her own not to run for the Senate. Listen. Sounds like she's best friends with Laura Loomer too,
[01:53:23] Speaker 11: because that's the same thing Laura Loomer said, but it's not true. I put out a lengthy post back this summer about why I didn't want to run for Senate. And I see the Senate is basically where all good things go to die, go to die. And I'm a very serious person. I don't want to go serve somewhere where all of my good ideas and bills I want to work on get completely stopped in a system that I think is utter failure and I explained that in length. The other problem with AOC is I think she's really jealous that I came into her home state, stomped around and actually had a great conversation with the ladies on The View.
[01:53:56] Speaker 19: Here we go. She praised her experience on The View, attacked AOC for stirring of drama instead of working with the other side.
[01:54:07] Speaker 11: I think it's good to have conversations with the other side and have respectful conversations. When I say people are sick and tired of political drama, they are fed up with it. And they're tired of the toxic culture that we have. People are tired of lies, tired of stupid attacks like AOC's video. I don't respect her very much. She's never accomplished anything in life other than being a member of Congress. So I don't really know what she has to offer other than gossip. But people are tired of that. Right.
[01:54:42] Speaker 19: Are people tired of it? Are more and more people embracing Marjorie Taylor Greene? I find myself thinking that, yeah, I could have a cup of coffee with her, sit down, break bread and maybe we even have some things in common.
[01:54:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, look, so we had her on before almost anyone else did in either the left or the center. And we got a lot of heat for it. And you guys shouldn't have done that. She's terrible, blah, blah, blah. Now all of a sudden The View has her on and they're like, bravo View. Okay, fine. That's just particularly to us. But it is actually somewhat related to the entire story. I'm gonna come back to that in a second. So overall, look, I think they're both right in their own ways. So did Marjorie Taylor Greene think of running for the Senate? Did she consider that? Yes. Was she dissuaded by the Trump team? Well, we know the Trump team dissuaded her, meaning discouraged her, let's put it that way. Was that pivotal in Marjorie Taylor Greene's decision not to run for Senate? It's impossible to know. If I had to guess from the outside, I would say, yeah, it was probably important. Did she catch some feelings that Trump thought she couldn't win a statewide race in Georgia after she's backed Trump all that time? Yeah, I could see her catching feelings over that. I don't know for a fact, but that sounds very plausible. And then, was she considered running for higher office, whether it's Senate, or maybe even now, people are talking about 2028. Could she run for the Republican primary? And if you think that that's outrageous and it can't be done, did we not live through Trump already? Why do people keep saying things that are demonstrably false? Of course, it could happen. And to me, of course, she can win the Republican primary. I don't know about the general race. But anyway, so could that be part of her decision to at least change her style a little bit? Yeah, it could be. So I think AOC might be right about that. Is it true? Could it be true that Marjorie Taylor Greene is right? That AOC all of a sudden feels like, wait, wait, wait, Marjorie Taylor Greene is gaining credibility here. And mainstream media used to love me, now they're starting to like her. Well, I don't like that. She's stealing my shine. I'm supposed to be the outsider who is getting things done. Yeah, but then that means you actually have to get things done, right? So now look, what is Marjorie Taylor Greene gotten done? Not much either. To be fair, almost no one gets anything done in Congress. But she did have one scalp. Marjorie Taylor Greene blocked a bill that was going to prevent people from boycotting Israel inside the country. Score one for Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now look, AOC has also done some wonderful things. I believe in the Green New Deal and she got portions of that in one of the Biden bills. They're going to strip it out now. But it was a great effort and it made a difference. And that was one of the few progressive wins, right? And do I agree more with AOC's policies? Of course, by a landslide. But we're a fair show here, and we're trying to give you the reality of both sides here. But so Sharon, I come back to the most important point being, Marjorie Taylor Greene is coming to our side, right? So she's now saying, hey, I don't know about funding Israel. Has AOC said that much? Maybe, I don't know. And she's saying, hey, release the Epstein files. Hey, we should have lower drug prices. We shouldn't take people off a snap. We shouldn't double up their premiums. The correct thing to say when she comes to us is yes. Let's take yes for an answer, right? So but instead of taking yes for an answer, and I think this is why I'm siding with Marjorie Taylor Greene a little bit more here than AOC. Even though I agree with AOC's policies way more, right? But in this particular clash, she's saying, Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying, yes, I agree with you, even on the government shutdown. And AOC attacks her anyway. Like the model of the opposite is Ro Khanna. And where he said, you're for releasing the Epstein files? Come on in to our press conference. And then they hugged and like, hey, look at that. She's team MAGA, maybe the number one person in MAGA outside of Trump. And she's for opening the Epstein files. Yes, correct answer is yes. I'm not telling you to go to their side. This is so easy. I don't know why this is like a debate, right? When they come to say you are right, say thank you. Don't slap them across the face for no reason. Don't try to drag us back into a conflict in a moment where we've got the other side agreeing with us, not complicated. Sharon, what do you think?
[01:59:21] Speaker 19: Yeah, I think she's knocking on the door. She's got a nice bouquet of flowers and I just open the door. I say, welcome. Welcome. Come in. Let's talk. Let's be friends. Let's get some things done together. I think you're right. She's saying yes. Why knock her? Of course, there's no doubt Greene has been more vocal and criticizing her own side of late, as Cenk mentioned. During the same interview on News Nation, Marjorie Greene had harsh words for Republicans
[01:59:48] Speaker 11: following their disastrous showing Tuesday 9. I believe the election yesterday was a referendum on not delivering what November 2024 was about. It was about America first, it was about Maha, and it was about cost of living and putting Americans issues above everything else. And that has not been
[02:00:12] Speaker 19: the focus for months now. I mean, who can argue with this 2.0 version of NTG? Of all people, former Obama advisor David Axelrod found himself agreeing with her. Listen.
[02:00:29] Speaker 1: Well, I'm in the kind of astonishing position of saying I agree with every word that Marjorie Taylor Greene said. I've never said those words here. We're making news right here on your show, Caitlin. But that's absolutely the case. That's what happened. The fact is the president got elected in the main because people were very unhappy with the economy. And it hasn't changed for the better.
[02:00:54] Speaker 19: I mean, this is almost unbelievable the way people bicker and dig their heels in. And Marjorie Taylor Greene not long ago was over here and Axelrod wouldn't even be seen in a picture with her, Cenk. But she's been saying these things consistently of the recent months. And I think she deserves credit for that. What see you?
[02:01:17] Speaker 2: Yeah. So guys, I hope we've earned a little bit of your trust. We told you she was flipping and everybody said we took the crazy pill. Now here's David Axelrod, campaign manager for Barack Obama saying, no, you didn't take the crazy pill. Marjorie Taylor Greene is agreeing with us. So we see these things coming a little bit ahead of time. Why? Because we listen. It makes a difference if you listen. So look, she's supporting us on the government shutdown. But there's also a super important thing here that a lot of people are getting wrong, in my opinion, Sharon, which is that they're saying, well, she's becoming less MAGA now. That's not true. I think she's more MAGA. So MAGA ran on anti-war. Marjorie Taylor Greene is more anti-war than Donald Trump, ran against corruption. I mean, it's hard to be more corrupt than Donald Trump. She hasn't spoken out much about it. So I don't give her much credit about that. But I mean, Trump is worse on that. So on Israel, she's America first. Trump is Israel first. And they ran on inflation and affordability. And she's saying we should care about affordability. And Trump is saying, I don't care. So no, she's actually sticking with the MAGA positions. Her style has changed. She's become more open, less of an attack dog, etc. Looking for moments of agreement. But look, to be honest, as you saw with your own eyes too, our style changed too. Why? Because partly we realized, right, the overwhelming majority of the country doesn't want war or corruption. It's mainstream media and the other corporate politicians whose job is to divide us. They're dividing us on the culture wars so that we don't unite on economic issues. We realize that. And now when others like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tom Massey on the other side realize it, that's a beautiful day in America. Imagine getting actual unity on anti-war, anti-corruption, lower drug prices. That would be amazing. Don't push that away, invite that in. You want to have caution? Of course, of course have caution. And nobody's forcing you to agree with every one of their policies. We're just asking you when they agree with ours, don't reject them. Last thing, look, at this point, Marjorie Taylor Greene is doing even more progressive media than AOC is. So, and guys, it's not about us. I've told you a million times, our interviews, they don't get a lot of ratings, clicks, however you put it. So it doesn't really help us. My point is that if you're trying to get things done as a progressive, you should probably be all over progressive media and fighting for your causes, etc. And if you're sitting comfortably at home and you won't do that, and then Marjorie Taylor Greene comes on progressive media and is fighting against funding Israel and for lower drug prices, you shouldn't get jealous of that. You should outdo her. You should show how you're even more in favor of the average American, which by the way, you can do because AOC's policies are generally speaking pretty great. So go fight for them, including fighting against leaders in your own party, which to be fair to AOC, she was wonderful with Mom Donnie and she did call out Democratic leaders on Tuesday night when Mom Donnie won. So it's complicated, it's nuanced, it's not black and white, it's not hero and villain here. But overall, you've heard me loud and clear. When we agree, there's no reason to end that agreement. You make the bad guys super happy when you choose to disagree on things that you actually do agree on. There's no reason to hate each other and to fight each other when we're at a yes. Okay, now we gotta go, we're way over time. Joining us next, stay right here, freely available to everybody. Shortcut Chakrabarti, the candidate who knocked out Nancy Pelosi joins us on the revolution.
[02:05:42] Speaker ?: The candidate who's a member of the company, who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company, who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company, who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company, is a member of the company, is a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company, is a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company. The candidate who's a member of the company, is a member of the company.
[02:07:26] Speaker 2: All right, back on the revolution, the new program we're doing to unite the left, right and center, and get our representative government back. Before we get to it, I just wanna say, two quick super chats that came in. Cuz they're so relevant about what we talked about on the show. Then we got a great guest for you guys. Mara Felsen wrote in, as someone who's Jewish, my blood boils when I see Greenblatt. After he defended Elon and claimed it wasn't a Nazi salute, he has zero credibility. Mara, you saw me condemn what Elon Musk did, right? So when there's real anti-Semitism, we call it out. Because we wanna protect Jewish Americans. We wanna protect everyone equally, right? But, and you're absolutely right that they're exposed. They don't actually care about anti-Semitism. All they care about is Israel. It's really unbelievable. The last one is Michael Cotavelli saying, husband our videos today about DSA calling for a city divestment from Israel from bonds to city pensions. Seems this goes hand in hand with ADL's monitor. Also how John wrote off anti Zionist Jews is not real Jews. In that morning show interview referring to Jonathan Greenblatt. So yes, DSA is calling for BDS, but they've been calling for it throughout. And there's nothing wrong with calling for a boycott and divestment of sanction of a government that is committing a genocide. That's the least you could do. And so, no, that's not anti-Semitic in some way. It's, if somebody said boycott Turkey, and I was like, that's racist against me. You'd be like, why? Do you work for the Turkish government? Are you not American? That would be a normal logical question, right? So all right, you guys get it. All right, joining us now, giant killer, shortcut Chakrabarti. So he was the campaign manager and chief of staff for AOC in that legendary primary, where AOC knocked out Joe Crowley. He is the candidate against Nancy Pelosi. And today, down goes Pelosi, down goes Pelosi. Shortcut, good to have you back on the program. You are, are you right now the only person in the race, unopposed now that your opponent, Nancy Pelosi, has surrendered?
[02:09:40] Speaker 18: I'm not the only one in the race. There is one other person in the race who hopped in a week ago. He's really the establishment pick, but I think you want to get ahead of it. But he's been running for a little bit, and so is the two of us right now.
[02:09:54] Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm gonna come back to him in a second, cuz I, that means he probably knew what Pelosi was gonna do, okay? Because they're not done with you yet. So, I'm calling shortcut the west coast mom, Donnie. And now that Pelosi stepped down, there's a little bit of truth to that. Look shortcut, keeping it real. Of course, it wasn't just you that drove Pelosi out, right? She's 84 years old, etc. But do you think that given the strong challenge you were doing and how you'd close a tremendous amount on the polling already? And given that Mom Donnie just knocked out Cuomo, that Pelosi might have been worried about losing that primary.
[02:10:34] Speaker 18: Yeah, there's actually some reporting on Politico that I just saw that Pelosi had prepared two different videos for today for her retirement. One was a retirement announcement and one was a reelection announcement. So I don't think she had made up her mind well in advance. But what I do know is this campaign has had so much momentum over the last several months. We just did a rally about a couple of weeks ago in the mission, we had 800 people show up. And Cenk, you remember when we were running races in 2018, when there was this appetite for change. We had nothing like that, right? The biggest rally I think AOC had was about 40 people. That's not a knock on her at all. She's an incredible candidate. I mean, she's amazing. It's just the demand for change was overwhelming and it really is overwhelming right now. And then on top of that, we released some polling last month that showed that when voters hear about me and they hear about her. So nothing negative about her, they just hear about the two campaigns. Our campaign ends up winning by six points. So I think all that really did feed into her decision at the end of the day. And I don't know when she finally made the decision. I know she had two videos lined up and she went with the one to decide to retire today.
[02:11:38] Speaker 2: No, no, the two Momdani's beat her then for sure. Because if she had two videos ready as Politico's reporting, that means she hadn't made up her mind and was waiting for the election results. And remember the Democrats won everything. So it's not like she would have been discouraged like, no, the Democrats will never get control of Congress again. In fact, if she'd stayed and she had won, she might have been Speaker of the House again, especially given the results from yesterday. But because Momdani won, I think she started to get nervous. Biden stayed too long, Cuomo stayed too long, even though he's not as old as them. But he was a governor and tried to come back as mayor. Obviously, you guys beat Crowley with AOC. And now you're beginning to see the handwriting on the wall, right? And so it seems like that Momdani win with you closing in as well, kind of had her in a pincer move that got her worried enough to drop out. So but tell us about the polling, how much did you close that got her worried?
[02:12:40] Speaker 18: Well, I know when I started the campaign, we're down 25. And we closed that gap in half just over the several months I've been campaigning. And then the poll showed that if we had kept going against her, we'd end up winning by six, right? So it was just a matter of getting my name out there, getting the campaign out there. Because everything I'm running on, it's all overwhelmingly popular, both in the district and across the country, right? This is a platform that the voters are behind. The politicians aren't necessarily behind it, because I do call for getting rid of big money in politics. I call for attacks on the richest people in our country. I call for ending all military funding to Israel. These are all things that voters overwhelmingly support, but the politicians don't do. And so I think that, of course, she saw that polling and that made a difference. But I agree with you. The other thing that the Momdani race really showed is that it is possible to defeat the establishment when you are standing for working people, when you're standing on a set of policies that are popular, and when you can communicate that. Because Momdani, he got outspent like 100 to one or something crazy like that, right? And the establishment, all they know is how to raise money. And they believe that's the only way to defeat people in elections. So when someone like Momdani wins with a people-powered movement, the establishment doesn't really know how to respond to that. Because all of a sudden, their main weapon, money, it doesn't work anymore.
[02:13:57] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, they spent $40 million on him and couldn't really dent him. He got over 50% with three people in the race, that's amazing. So now let's move on to how the race is gonna go going forward. And the reason I ask that, and by the way, the reason you're on this revolution segment is because you're a populist, and this is a revolt against the establishment. And we've featured Marjorie Taylor Greene before, we're featuring you, left, right, outsiders, grassroots, fighting for real change, and trying to get our government back for the people. So I think the bigger spotlight you put on this race, the better, because when you have a big spotlight as Momdani did, people go, wait, you're the one fighting for us. This is not a hard question, right? So I didn't see that who got in last week, I'm gonna guess it was Wiener, was it Wiener? It was Wiener, yeah. Yeah, so tell us who he is, and that'll inform people as to why I think that he might have been tipped off.
[02:14:56] Speaker 18: So Scott Wiener is a state senator who represents San Francisco. And he really is the establishment candidate, he's been working in government, working his way up, waiting for Nancy Pelosi to retire for years now. And he's got a lot of big money on his side, I know he's already raising money for a super PAC that's gonna be going against me. He raised a bunch of money on his first day, I think his average donation was over $1,000. So he's got the corporation and the big donors on his side. The other thing to know about Scott Wiener is he was the chief architect of this bill that just passed in California that is a censorship bill. It's a bill that equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism in our public school system, and everyone is against it. Public school teachers are against it, ACLU is against it. But he's been trying to push this through the legislature for years and he finally got it passed. And the result of it is in San Francisco, our textbook just doesn't teach about Israel and Palestine anymore. It's such a chilling effect on free speech, right? But the other piece of this is you talked about how we need a revolt in the Democratic Party, right? Since the beginning of this campaign, I've been really clear that I'm not trying to just run against Nancy Pelosi. I think the entire Democratic Party needs to change. We've gotta be a party that is fearless about standing for working people and about actually getting this stuff done. And so I've been calling for people to primary other Democrats all across the country. I went on Madi Hassan's show the other day and I told the camera, we need someone to primary Hakeem Jeffries. We need someone to primary Chuck Schumer. We need a change in the leadership. We need people who know how to actually stand up right now and fight, and then people with a vision to actually build that economy. And that's the kind of thing that of course Scott Wiener is not gonna be four, right? And I'd say Scott Wiener, as a state senator, he's gonna be campaigning on his experience. I'd say his experience has been, he's focused on housing over the last 14 years. And in that time in San Francisco, rents have more than doubled. We have a huge housing crisis, so I don't think he's been successful there. But he's also had experience working in a largely Democratic Sacramento, passing some reforms here and there. I think we actually need to do the big structural changes. We need Medicare for all, we need universal child care, we need tuition free public colleges, we need to raise the minimum wage. These are things that we have to actually organize as a movement to get. We're not gonna be able to do it by just having a technocrat in DC writing some little reforms and doing that kind of work, getting big ideas into real legislation. That's what I have
[02:17:22] Speaker 2: experience doing. Yeah, I remember the smear video that said that you're the mastermind behind the progressive movement in the Democratic Party, which I thought that's the best smear video of all time. But now you're saying, hey, go primary these incumbents. And we find out today Michael Blake's primarying Richie Torres. So maybe you are the mastermind. Okay, so anyways, so on Wiener, look, the minute you tell me that he's doing cancel culture on education on behalf of Israel, I'm done with them. No, no, serve this country, period, okay? And so, and that's, I mean, what a random thing to like, imagine if I'm a state representative and I'm like, okay, I wanna get all your textbooks and make them pro Turkish. You'd be like, that's super weird, right? All right, anyways, now I wanna talk about one other person that might come into the race. They're talking about some sort of nepo baby, some Pelosi relative that's gonna come in, a niece, an uncle, a daughter. I think it's a daughter. I'm being facetious, I know it's a daughter. But anyway, tell me about that. Do you think Christine Pelosi might get in?
[02:18:33] Speaker 18: I honestly have no clue. I heard the same rumors you have that she's been wanting to get in for a long time. But honestly, I don't think she has much of a chance. I think people are really done with dynastic politics and people are really, really done with the status quo. They're done with politics as usual. I think we look at the polling of the Democratic Party, even amongst Democrats, people know the party needs to change. So I'd be really surprised if she jumps in the race at this point just because
[02:19:01] Speaker 2: I don't think she's got a shot. Yeah, he's calling you out, Christine. You're gonna sit there and take it? Okay, and look, they've got to, of course, they gotta be worried that they are gonna split the vote, right? Because they're both establishment and everybody knows it, and you're the only progressive in the race. So come on in, the water's hot, okay? And so now all of a sudden they're gonna be like, wait, wait, wait, do we run the Nepo baby or do we run the establishment dude who's been waiting in line? They love those two categories, right? So, and then eventually they'll wanna drive one of them out and we've seen this movie 100 times. But I remember the first time we talked about this race shortcut. And I told the story of how things are always called impossible, like shortcut and I were two out of the four co-founders of justice Democrats, right? And when we founded it, it was said, that's impossible. AOC is not gonna be Joe Crowley, he's the number four Democrat in the house. None of these people are gonna win. Who are you guys? You're not even anyone established in Washington, you're randos. You're not gonna get anybody into Congress. And of course, just Democrats now have 11 people in Congress. So we did pull those things off. But what happens is, after you start winning, then all of a sudden they call it inevitable. I did it because they don't wanna give you credit. And shortcut, that kinda happened today. Because when you first came on, people were like, Cenk, what are you gonna shortcut? Come on, don't be ridiculous. What are you gonna do, beat Nancy Pelosi? That's impossible, you can't win this race, it's impossible. Now Pelosi drops out, they're like, well, it was inevitable that she was gonna drop out, of course.
[02:20:42] Speaker 18: Yeah, I mean, the thing that I have learned in all my time working politics, is you gotta try. And nine times out of ten, if you try, you'll be amazed at what's possible. Cuz everyone's got their assumptions, so and so is not defeatable, so and so policy could never happen, we could never make this kind of change. And what that does is it feeds into this nihilism, which is the real enemy we have, right? It's this nihilism that says, nothing's ever gonna change, nothing's ever gonna be possible. But I think it's all possible, not just me winning this race. I think actually getting a whole new movement of Democrats really fight for people, that's possible. I think not being bought out by the corporations, that's possible. I think building an economy where people can just work eight hours a day, five days a week and afford to live, afford a home, afford to raise a family, that is possible. We can rebuild the American dream. And I don't know, it's gonna be the same thing where once that starts happening, when we get to the other side, it's gonna be hard. But once we get there, people are gonna say, of course, this is where the country is going and that'll be fine. I'll be so happy if we get there.
[02:21:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, last question. So look, nobody's counting any chickens, they're nowhere near hatching, it's still a year out. They're gonna spend a gajillion dollars against you, the entire establishment's gonna be against you. And mainstream media was actually kinda nice to you when they thought you weren't gonna win. My prediction is they'll change on a dime, and all of a sudden they'll start digging into your life and find out what T-shirts you wear. A literal attack that was done on Shortcut earlier when he was running Justice Democrats. Anyways, and so all that is coming. But if you win this race, and you help to knock out the number one and the number four Democrat in the House, how large is your swagger going to be in Congress? I mean, are you gonna be walking around the whole time like, what now?
[02:22:33] Speaker 18: Cenk, you know me, I'm a humble guy. I'm not the kind of guy who walks around showing much. I don't talk that much, I act. That's what it boils down to. I'm not gonna be satisfied until we actually get to a point where we're building that economy that works for everybody. I really am not, because that's what this is about. It's not about just this one race, it's not about just replacing a few Democrats. I won't be happy if all we do is get a little Tea Party movement that fails in Democratic Party. We have to replace the whole damn, sorry, darn thing. And we've got to actually get to the point where we do the hard work of implementing this stuff. Cuz that's the only way we're gonna defeat authoritarianism in the long run. If democracy can't work to improve people's lives, then people are gonna go for the strong man who's saying I alone can fix it and just give me power and I can do it. But yeah, I'll feel a
[02:23:22] Speaker 2: little bit of swagger I guess if that happens. Yeah, but you're right over, I'm mainly the swagger guy. Shortcut's definitely humble. But look guys, he said something that's really important, I don't want you to miss it. Policy is the only thing that matters. If shortcut gets in and we can't pass any policy, then we didn't win. The win isn't the race, the win is when you actually pass the bills. So eyes on the prize, love it. And I got an idea for a website for you shortcut, I'll text you afterwards. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with TYT overall, yeah, we have an opinion. Yeah, I know I'm interviewing him, but I like him, I think you should vote for him. In fact, what's your website shortcut?
[02:23:58] Speaker 18: It's shortcut.us, s-a-i-k-a-t.us. And I gotta say, we're building the largest grassroots campaign that San Francisco has ever seen. We're gonna talk to hundreds of thousands of voters, we're already on our way to doing that. And so if you live in San Francisco or the Bay Area, please sign up to volunteer. Even if you don't live in the Bay Area, you can sign up to phone bank. If you don't have time, please send a few dollars our way. We can absolutely win this thing. I mean, it's not a shoo-in. As Cenk said, I'm going up against a state senator, he is gonna be the establishment pick, it's still a steep race. But we know that if we talk to every voter and we get this message out there, this campaign wins. So I'd love your help, thank you.
[02:24:34] Speaker 2: Imagine if a progressive populist has Pelosi seat. All right, shortcut, thanks for joining us, brother, appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me, Cenk. Yeah, no problem. All right, so we have a couple minutes left. I wanna keep going in the revolution, then we're gonna talk to Karen Gore. And so, and don't forget, please don't forget climate change. That's still happening, whether we like it or not, the planet's still heating up. Anyway, we'll get to that in a little bit. So we talk about the populist plank every once in a while. But I'm not sure we've ever shown you the couple of videos we have on it that explains it. Because I explained what the revolution is on an earlier show. But for those of you unfamiliar with it, what is a populist? Good question, here's a video. What is a populist? Easy, we stand for the average person, and not the establishment, not the elites, and not the donor class. The establishment serves the donors rather than the voters. Our mission as populist is serve the voters, serve the average American, and we can do this together. Yeah, and not that complicated, right? And so, and by the way, isn't it funny that we had to start a small rebel group to actually represent the voters? That in a so-called democracy, that became like a radical thought. My God, look at those crazy guys trying to represent the voters. Okay, so now, what is the populist plank? We got a video for that. So what's the populist plank? It's got six things that we all agree on, populist left, populist right, independence, real Americans as opposed to the establishment and mainstream media. Number one is end the corruption, get money out of politics, we all agree to that. Number two is anti-war, stop the endless wars. Isn't it amazing that the great majority of Americans finally agreed to those two central issues. And then higher wages for real Americans, not for CEOs, not for shareholders. They take care of themselves plenty fine. We've got to stand up for the average person in America. And then paid family leave, so moms and dads could have some time off after they have a baby. Eighty-four percent of the country agrees to that, so why don't we finally do it? And then two important issues, we want to negotiate all drug prices. It's crazy not to, it's anti-free market not to. We're literally killing ourselves because we can't afford the drug prices, and then finally ban private equity in the Wall Street from buying our residential homes. That is wealth creation for the average family in this country. And we need to bring that back to the middle class and back to all of us instead of just for Wall Street. This populist plank is something the whole country agrees to, except Washington DC and except mainstream media. And those are the guys we are going to defeat to make sure that we get this populist plank in the past as long as we do it together. All right, and now I want to show you, in case you haven't seen it, Brian, I'm sure a lot of you haven't. This is a nice list, the politicians who have endorsed the populist plank. All right, so former congresswoman, Marie Newman, a representative from Illinois. Nina Turner, former state senator. J.D. Schulten, former candidate for US Senate. Cara Eastman, former candidate for US House. Yeah, okay, I also signed it. Brent Welder, former candidate for US House. Dan Osborne, current independent candidate, Senate candidate in Nebraska. Ro Khanna, current incumbent Democrat in the Congress. Richard Ojeda, current candidate for North Carolina 9. He's part of the rebellion pack. Nick Udijewski, who's a candidate for state senate in Illinois. Randy Bryce, candidate for US House in Wisconsin 1. Make sure you're supporting Ironstache, another rebellion candidate. Bushra Amawala, she's a candidate in US House, Illinois 9. Garland Gilchrist, lieutenant governor of Michigan and current candidate for governor of Michigan. We'll talk to Garland soon too. Jason Morgan, state house rep that we talked to just a couple of days ago in Michigan. And look at that, shortcut Chakrabarty, candidate for US House. California 11, otherwise known as the Pelosi seat, might be to Chakrabarty populist seat soon. All right, so what can you do to help? First of all, check it out on populistplank.com. We've got a lot more information there and you could see in case you forget what the six things are, etc. Make sure you're checking it out, populist, and refer people to populistplank.com. If they're saying, hey, what are you in favor of, right? As a progressive, you say to them, hey, I'm in favor of the populist plank, go check it out. I bet you love it. I bet you agree with almost all of it, right? You could say that to your right wing friends, your independent friends, etc. And by the way, if you are independent or right wing and you do love it, great, send it to them. And there's really nothing not to love here. I mean, maybe somebody could be against higher minimum wage, but remember that brings up everybody's wages. And we need that as all other prices are going up, okay? And finally, if you want to help, and that's important, how did we get half these guys? You guys have been reaching out to them. State senators, US representatives, US senators, etc. And you guys are doing an amazing job. I don't even know half the people who signed there because you guys got them. So keep going, how do you do that? tyt.com/endorse populism. So it's a system that's already built. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, it's really easy. But you could also put it in your own words, you could edit it, or you could just send it as is. But we got it ready for you to send to your member of Congress. So ask them to join the populist plank, it should be real easy for all of them. These are all intensely popular policies. So tyt.com/endorse populism. All right, this has been The Revolution. Love that you guys are here, we appreciate it. And as you can see, already having some effects. So I love it. All right, stay right here, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back with Karen Gore, important conversation about climate change.
[02:30:55] Speaker ?: We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break.
[02:34:12] Speaker 2: Hey, whatever happened to climate change? Is anybody still talking about that? And can we actually do anything to save the planet? Well, that's the conversation we're going to have now. Joining me is Karina Gore. She's the founder and executive director of Center for Earth Ethics. We're going to find out what that is. She's a teaching professor of practice at Earth Ethics of Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York. And she's the author of Lighting the Way, Nine Women Who Changed Modern America. And she's about to speak at COP30. We'll tell you, if you don't know, we'll tell you where COP30 is as well. Karina, welcome.
[02:34:43] Speaker 28: Thank you, I'm so happy to be here. How are you?
[02:34:46] Speaker 2: Wonderful, I'm super happy that you're here. So, Karina, you do something fascinating, Earth Ethics. So for those who are unfamiliar, what is that?
[02:34:58] Speaker 28: Well, Earth Ethics is the discernment of how to live in right relationship with the living planet. It is a field of thought that really looks at how do we understand the conditions of life that we're in? What are our moral obligations across time, space and even species in order to live in balance and harmony? And create the conditions for the flourishing of all?
[02:35:29] Speaker 2: No, no, no, now we're having a super interesting conversation. We'll come back to climate change in a minute, okay? But time, space and species, okay, this is now we got the Star Trek area, you're in my ballpark now. Okay, so tell me about how Earth Ethics is related to time and space. What do you mean by that?
[02:35:48] Speaker 28: Well, let me say that a friend of mine with the Church of Sweden once said that in any room where there are decisions being made about climate, there should be three empty chairs for those who are at the same time most impacted, least responsible for the harm. And also least likely to have a voice in the decisions that are being made. And therefore, one for the poor and marginalized people, two for future generations and three for all non-human life. And if you think about it, if we had looked out for those three categories, we wouldn't be in this perilous situation as a whole. So it's not only about what is fair to each, but it is really about a way of life that has more wisdom to it. And one of the things we do at Center for Earth Ethics, we're based at Union Theological Seminary. We're affiliated with Columbia Climate School, but we're really based at the seminary. And so with a great history of interreligious dialogue and moral philosophy, so we draw from faith and wisdom traditions across the board to try to bring to bear some of those concepts and principles and an ethos of sort of belonging, community and culture. And actually, that has been some of what people have felt is missing in the conversation that takes place around a lot of the cops because it can be quite technical. When in fact, it's really about the meaning of life.
[02:37:23] Speaker 2: It is, that's why I'm fascinated by it. So, but again, guys, cop doesn't mean cop, we'll get to that in a minute, climate change conference. But so you had me on two out of three. In fact, I think it's brilliant, but I'll tell you why I disagree on the third one. So having a seat for poor and disadvantaged folks is brilliant because you're right. I mean, they're never represented. They don't have lobbyists. They don't have the money to show up in that room where the decision makers are. They are the most forgotten people in America and in the world. So that's great to think about it that way. Who's not in the room, right? Future generations also brilliant, makes sense. And we all agree across race, class, everything you can imagine because those are all of our kids, right? And our grandkids. And so the third one, you're gonna say, wait, you disagree with me on non-humans? Yeah, I'm a humanist, okay? And so that's why, though, ironically, that leads me to this question. Because my wife one day decided that she was gonna relax about climate change. Now, this is the most ironic thing you've ever heard, okay? So why? And she said, I realize I care so much about the Earth and the Earth is just gonna shake us off. It's gonna be totally fine. It's us that's gonna have the problems, right? And so as a humanist, I'm much more worried about climate change than Earth should be. So that's my sense of it. So what do you think of that?
[02:38:49] Speaker 28: Well, I think one of the, basically, we like to look at the root causes of the climate crisis. Cuz if you're just acting at the level of effect, you're never gonna solve a problem. So we can talk about the impacts. And, of course, we need to focus on adaptation and dealing with the effects of the stronger storms and the heat waves and the droughts and the wildfires. But if we don't look at the level of cause, then we're not going to solve the problem. So at the one level of cause, I like how Gus Beth puts it. They're two modern megatrends of pollution into the atmosphere, especially those greenhouse gases that cause climate change. And there's more to say about that. But also depletion, depletion of carbon sinks. There are also habitats for many species, including human beings. But that's on the material plane, that level of cause. So what's the deeper level of cause? Those modern megatrends are happening because of human perception and behavior. The deeper level of cause is the illusion that we are separate from nature. And if you look in faith and wisdom traditions, they're especially indigenous traditions. There are many teachings about how, in fact, we are very much in an interconnected web of life. So if you think, if you're a humanist, think about what is food, right? We eat food. Food is other living species. That's what that is, you know? So if we think about the homes for our food, that's habitats. It's also, of course, agriculture. We now live in a society in which most of our food system is boiled down to just these monocropped industrial agriculture. But even that is being affected by climate change. And of course, of all the wild species that much of the world does still rely on, and the smallholder farmers. That's also non-human life. So I think that these are sort of the deep level of the illusion of our separation from nature is actually the thing that's most important to break through on. Because it's what's causing the crisis in the first place.
[02:41:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't know that I was signing up for a wonderful philosophical conversation. And that's what we're in the middle of, and I love it. Because, so, you're challenging me on my selfishness, and I got news for you. No, I'm gonna win on that. I'm deeply selfish. Okay, so, no, seriously, the case that I make is for if we want to survive, we should do something about climate change. Because whether the Earth is okay or not, we're gonna get wiped out if 99% of the world scientists are correct. It's only a matter of time, right? But, of course, you make a great point about how interconnected we are with the other animals in nature. And of course, I know that, but again, it goes to my selfishness. So when we started losing the bees at an alarming rate, I was panicking because we're gonna need them, right? Without the bees and the fish and etc., we're all gonna be in a world of trouble. And it's to me, again, as a humanist, I'm amazed that people don't see how we're part of nature. What do you think we're part of? Of course, we're part of nature. I mean, to me, and again, this is ironic because you deal so much in faith and I'm an atheist. But as an atheist, I think I'm an ape, literally, I'm in the ape family, right? And so, as an ape, you need a lot of things from nature, including what you eat, including what you breathe. And so, you'd be nuts to damage that environment because it's your environment that you live in. So we come back to the same place. But one last thing about this before we go on to discussing cops and whether they're good or bad is, as you said indigenous, I was thinking, man, this sounds so much like Native American philosophy, right? And I remember when I was a young meathead and we learned that the Native Americans were one with nature and all that. I remember thinking like, yeah, back when I was a Republican, yeah, yeah, right, I bet. Yeah, sure. Why do we think crazy things? Anyways, then later I grew up matured and did a little reading and learning, etc. And it turns out, yeah, of course, they hadn't figured out a lot better than us. And now look, to be fair to us, they lived in a much simpler world with smaller number of people, etc. But the way they managed their environment, it was a lot to learn from. So can you tell us a little bit about that?
[02:43:30] Speaker 28: Well, yes, I agree. And it's been a wonderful doorway to knowledge and understanding, to listen to the perspective of indigenous peoples in this country and around the world. And one reason for that is that it really reveals the assumptions of modern industrial society and especially those societies and cultures like where I grew up. That is definitely rooted in a settler colonial mindset and dynamic. And there is a theory that even the most secular people, even the most atheist people, that they might have somewhat of their mindset informed by a distortion of a Judeo-Christian idea of dominion. That that was so ingrained in the way in which folks of European descent settled in the way that they did. Let me just say in the United States of America, that's my context. I felt when I learned that, when I understood that what was being conquest domination coming down on was actually a way of life that took for granted a long term management of an ecosystem. So, for example, this concept of seven generations that comes from the Haudenosaunee, better known as the Iroquois that were part of this region that I'm in right now. I'm in New York City, Lenape, Haudenosaunee. And that this concept that every decision that is made of any importance should be made with seven generations ahead in mind. And actually in some interpretations, it's backwards and forwards and that that should be kept in mind. That is really like the antithesis of the very short term mentality that our economies run on. So that's one example. And in that, there's also that interrelationship and responsibility to the other species that comprise the food. That also take care of the habitat. And for example, beavers that help with erosion and to maintain wetlands. There are different species can play different roles in ways that benefit each other. My friend Lila June Johnston, who is Danae, better known as Navajo. Talks about, humans can be a keystone species, what's known as a keystone species. Whereby we live in a way that benefits all of life. And if we actually start to blend in here and harmonize with nature, it's like we belong here. Whereas our species on mass is really increasing the scale and the pace with which we're destroying our own habitat. Which doesn't say much for our intelligence. So if we're gonna solve this problem, we need to be drawing from a different source of intelligence, a different kind of wisdom. And I think indigenous peoples have a great deal to offer in that regard.
[02:46:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's funny how there's always two ways to look at something. I look at humans as apex predators. So a little bit different, right? But even so, even if you're the most apex predator in the world, it doesn't matter because you still need an ecosystem. You still need an environment. You still need all of that. If you don't have the beavers, then the land is gonna sink from underneath you. If you don't have the bees, there's gonna be no pollination. So it's not about being a tough guy. It's about survival. So you can look at it in two different ways and still get to the same conclusion. Editor's note, I wrote a paper about Iroquois and the Lenape when I was growing up in New Jersey. Okay, all right. So and about settling and conquering, the Turks would know a thing or two about that. So I've been on that end of it too. But if we keep going about philosophy, we'll never get out. So tell me about COP30. I know you're speaking there for the folks at home that don't know. What is it?
[02:47:45] Speaker 28: Okay, so COP is one of these acronyms that doesn't very often get defined. So it's conference of the parties and it's the parties to what? So the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. So actually this whole mechanism whereby our species is starting to face up to the fact that we're having a collective impact on the planet that really is changing it and threatening our health and well-being and is already actually having destructive effects. Particularly on the most vulnerable. The whole way that we can get our heads around this and do something about it is through the world coming together because the atmosphere is shared. And so this happened in 1992 in Rio. So one exciting thing about COP30 is that it's going back to Brazil, this time to Belém. But in 1992 with the establishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, also the acronym is UNFCCC. We began these annual gatherings whereby nations get together and talk about what to do. Basically, the intent initially was, well, we need to have scientific studies. We need to bring the best of our ability to actually study this and figure out what is going on, what are the causes and what to do about it. And then of course, there are negotiations after now that we after 29 cops, there's been of course a lot of critique of the process. But we do now know what we need to do, what the issue is and COP30 in Belém is another such occasion. And this time actually, so the Paris Agreement was a big breakthrough in 2015, COP21, whereby there were nationally determined commitments to say what your emissions reductions would be and so on. We talked about adaptation, mitigation and climate finance. So written into the Paris Agreement, there was something called a stock take, global stock take. And what that meant was that people had to come back, the parties had to come back and report in about how they were doing on those commitments. And that was largely very important, but largely technical. So in this year, in the Brazilian COP30 leadership, and particularly a woman named Marina Silva, the Minister of Environment and Climate of Brazil, Marina Silva, who's a very compelling and brave, wonderful leader in my opinion, had an idea which was embraced and became an official thing. It's a new initiative, it's called the global ethical stock take. So what that means is that we need to bring into the center of the conversation, not just the questions of where we are technically with regard to mitigation, adaptation, finance, but what is holding us back? What are the reasons why people are not heeding the science? What can we do differently? What elements of culture can we bring in to help communicate and motivate people in this regard? So my role is actually supporting the global ethical stock take. She asked me to be a co-leader, particularly for North America, and that is what I'm doing. I will be at COP. There's gonna be a global ethical stock take pavilion. There's going to be, there will be programs. We'll be lifting up some of the concepts, some of the voices that have been engaged in civil society where we've had lots of dialogues. One official per region and then many self organized dialogues. And that's what I'll be doing there. And you can check it out on centerforearthethics.org. Our website, we're gonna have next week a whole gallery of voices that are lifting ethical and moral, spiritual, cultural concepts and ways of communicating about this issue.
[02:51:54] Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm gonna go on a little soapbox here. So you're gonna have to bear with me on it for a second. But first, I want people to know that COP30 is happening between November 10th. So it's coming up and November 21st. It's called, COP just means conference of the parties. It's over 200 nations getting together. So that's important. But I'm gonna ask her in a second. Yeah, but are we actually doing it? But the salt box part is, again, two different ways of looking at the same thing. Karen talks about ethics and the right wing in this country might talk about family values. But really, that's very similar, right? Values, ethics. And so then what's causing the division if we all agree that we should be ethical and have the right values? What's causing the division is honestly corporations. And so in this case, the oil companies. So the oil companies have, as with any company, revenue and cost, right? And so their revenue is obvious. They make an enormous amount of money. They're among the most profitable companies in the world. Yet we still give them $35 billion in subsidies every year, which is maddening, but a different issue. In this case, one of the costs that they have is creating climate change. And then that makes storms much more severe. And one of the many, many things that it does. And then guess who pays for the storms? We do. So they put their costs onto us. Now, normally, you wouldn't be able to do that in a democracy because your representatives would stand up for you. But unfortunately, because of money in politics, our representatives don't work for us. They work for the oil companies and they help them manufacture doubt. Well, I don't know, is it climate change or is it not? Is it warming or cooling? Well, don't worry about it. Let us just keep making the money and you keep paying the cost, okay? So now, Karen, you're, of course, perfectly familiar with that. But that's all a prelude to the question of, yes, but how are we doing so far? Because those guys are very, very powerful. And unfortunately, Trump has won the presidency and one of his slogans is drill baby drill, which is not going to help any situation. And according to the Paris agreement you mentioned, we were supposed to limit global temperatures to only a rise of one and a half degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. How are we doing on that? And eventually, I'm gonna ask you, is there any hope out there given how it seems like America's basically pulled out of any of this?
[02:54:22] Speaker 28: Well, we're not doing well by a lot of the metrics, some of which you mentioned. It's record high fossil fuel consumption, record high fossil fuel company profits. In the global ethical stock take official dialogue that we did for the North America region that was brought up in several ways. Sipporah Berman was there talking about the fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty. David Suzuki of Canada called for banning fossil fuel lobbyists. There's a more and more clear recognition that it is not just reliance on fossil fuels themselves. It's reliance on fossil fuel money in so many institutions. And it is the influence that is really a major obstacle standing in the way. So I think it's very important to name that. I also wanna say though that in the field of ethics, so ethics is basically the discernment of right and wrong. And the implications for our behavior as individuals and as collectives. And it is something that undergirds society in many ways, our laws and social norms. But ethics is most powerful when there is a deeply felt and more and more widely shared sense of right and wrong. That is out of step with both laws and social norms. And that was the case in times past like the abolition of slavery, the movement for the abolition of slavery. And I grew up right in the wake of the civil rights movement from a political family from the south of this country. So I was very aware of that. And it is the case also for the climate crisis today. Most of what is causing climate change is perfectly legal and even socially encouraged. So what we have to do is we have to draw from those deeper wells of conscience. We need to work with ethics. We need to make that ethical lens very sharp and talk about it as the issue that it is with the high moral stakes. That is the thing that's gonna change it. And so that's my hope for this COP is that we can have a shift in perception and we can start to name the real stakes with that ethical lens. And I absolutely agree that it should be in the context of the COP, which is necessarily nation states because it is the United Nations. There is increasing awareness that the drivers of harm are to be found also in these multinational corporations. And so how do we understand that in our region and it is different than in Africa. I was also able to be an observer at the Africa global ethical stock take dialogue. And many people noted there's not a lot of climate denial in Africa. There is a lot of recognition of the stakes of what's happening. How many people are already suffering and dying and how much that will continue. So we need to be standing up to those fossil fuel industry influence peddlers at this COP. And that is something I'm very interested in supporting and doing.
[02:57:41] Speaker 2: Okay, so then let me end on that because okay. Okay, but we're gonna be really behind because Trump's not gonna do anything for three years, right? So he's pulled us out of a lot of agreements and won't go along with other things that we agreed to earlier, etc, etc, right? So the next president that has to catch up even more and then people are gonna complain about prices and you're gonna, I mean obviously you're gonna get the propaganda about the gas stoves and a million other things that they're gonna invent, right? But can we catch up, can we take significant enough action three years from now to be able to actually not have the temperature rise enough so that the storms get even more severe, the oceans rise, etc. Because I mean people, unfortunately in America, we don't have a global enough perspective because we're like, yeah, the idea that you'd lose cities or whatever. We're losing nations, we're losing island nations. That's already happening just because it didn't happen to us doesn't mean that it's not happening. Plus the severe storms are happening to us all the time, right? So okay, that impossible question of can we catch up?
[02:58:59] Speaker 28: Yes, I'm not the world expert on all of the technicalities, but I read what people say. The International Energy Agency says that we have all of the technology that we need to transition away from fossil fuels. We need to identify the obstacles to doing that and we need to care more. So the fact that many people don't list that as their main concern or don't voice it in their town hall or so on is obviously something that we need to change. We need to lift it to the top of the agenda and keep it there. It's so intertwined with other issues. The Lancet does these studies on health and poverty, many, many others do as well. But basically the air pollution alone caused by the burning of fossil fuels kills millions of people a year. So there are many reasons why we should be getting off of that. And I would say one last thing, which is that part of what has been so good about this global ethical stock take is that bringing voices to the fore that aren't normally in the conversation in the United States of America. It's true that we have to face the fact that many of us are among the sector of society that bears the most responsibility for the systems that have caused this crisis. And that's very serious business morally, but also this is a place in which there have been incredibly strong movements. The environmental justice movement, for example, and in the indigenous movement, the American Indian and other aspects of it have been raising these concerns for so long with very deep and sharp analysis and insights that can be brought to the world. And they will be we had a self organized dialogue actually in New Orleans on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. It was very powerful to hear from the community there. The karma there, I mean, I say karma, the cause and effect there is so tight because there's so many petrochemical industries located right around there on the Gulf Coast. There's so much health impacts from those industries and then there's also the stronger storms that are from the impacts and the oil spills as well. So hearing from that community rising up, Sharon Levine and others in New Orleans that were speaking in that way was really strong. We can take those voices to cop. We can take the voices from the first national people of color environment conference that was in 1991. They came up with the 17 principles of environmental justice. We heard from Ben Chavis, we heard from Robert Bullard, Jackie Patterson, others that have been lifting those voices. And that will all be able, we can as Americans, we have a lot, we have a deep legacy in that regard that we can bring to the world. Even though obviously we have an ethical embarrassment and a difficult situation with who's in charge at the moment. So I'm hoping we're going through something and we're gonna come out the other side even better when it's all said and done.
[03:02:09] Speaker 2: I mean, you're talking about getting people from Louisiana who are affected because they have all those corporations causing all that around there, let alone globally. But, excuse me, what are the chances that a severe storm would hit Louisiana? All right, okay. So, Corinna, you're gonna speak at COP30 and it's left me speechless apparently. And we're all gonna check it out. Tell us what your website is one more time.
[03:02:39] Speaker 28: Yeah, okay, well, and I'll be at the pavilion. I'll be at the Global Ethical Stock Tank Pavilion speaking and I'll be at the Ted Countdown House. Actually, we have an event which is going to be on November 14th at 11. The website is centerforearthethics.org. And it's been such a pleasure to talk to you, Cenk. I really appreciate you having me on. Thank you.
[03:03:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, no problem at all. And look, we talked about how currently we have a guy who doesn't care much about climate change. But I think we actually can unite around this. I think we do have the same ethics and values. And I think that once people see what the real danger is, one of the dangers, by the way, is cost. And I think that for a lot of folks in this country, including our right wing friends, when they find out that the oil companies are putting all their costs onto us, are not gonna be happy with that. Like, God, they have, in my opinion, they have robbed us blind for decade after decade. And we've gotta stop that for all of our sake, financially, personally, spiritually, as you're pointing out, which is a very important point. So and so that we can survive. So Karen and Gore is trying to make that happen. We appreciate you so much. Thanks for coming on. Thank you so much.
[03:03:53] Speaker 28: I enjoyed it. I guess we'll see you tomorrow.