Making & Breaking Points: Populism, New Media & More — The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

[0:00] look we all know in an attention economy what sells the most is probably outrage anger and [0:08] those things so how do you and your model avoid being captured by the rage of the townspeople [0:15] you know how how do you avoid pitchforks and torches well that's why we're really blessed [0:21] honestly it's a right left show uh so you know at any given time a decent portion of the audience [0:26] is mad what are the other of us it works well it works really well we're gonna be hated no matter [0:31] what by some portion yeah perfect ladies and gentlemen welcome to the weekly show podcast my [0:39] name is john stewart the final podcast of the year uh we will be gone for the rest of august and i [0:47] think uh coming back in in early september so uh been a delightful year obviously tonight i think [0:54] is the wisconsin uh primary we don't know what's going to happen we'll probably discuss it during [0:59] the episode even though we have no idea what it's going to be uh and then you know we'll we'll we'll [1:05] talk about the other things it's the dog days of summer uh there's not a whole lot uh going on right [1:10] now it's a little bit quiet senate is on recess the house on recess i am going to go away i've got a [1:18] lovely like a snorkel vacation planned in this beautiful crystal clear it's i probably am not [1:24] pronouncing this right hormuz straight of hormuz uh or we're gonna see the uh uh that's never gonna [1:33] end uh but we got a great show for today i i wanted to bring on uh a couple of folks that i feel like [1:41] have been doing the kind of i'm on the left i'm on the right uh discussion i feel like they do it in [1:47] a way that engenders good faith and so i wanted to highlight them uh on today's program so let me let me [1:53] let me get to them right now we'll discuss all things left right populist and otherwise please [1:59] welcome to the program the hosts of breaking points uh ladies and gentlemen here we are the final [2:10] uh weekly show podcast uh before summer break and we have the co-host of breaking points crystal ball [2:16] and sagar and jetty are joining us today to discuss all that is happening in the world uh first of all [2:22] welcome crystal welcome sagar thank you so much for having us john thanks for having us i want to start [2:27] by saying i don't feel comfortable seeing you two in separate spaces [2:36] we had a debate about that actually but it just was a little bit technically easier this way so i'm [2:40] sorry that we made you uncomfortable and same for you to see you at home in a t-shirt it's throwing me [2:46] off from my childhood oh dear god if only you knew sugar how painful it was for me to put on the suit [2:53] for my for my 120 minutes a day and all that that's actually why i left the show in 2015 i just decided [3:00] hey man i couldn't take that anymore i'm done with the button down this is over uh but but we're delighted [3:07] that uh you're both here and i i want to ask you because you're both you're such an interesting dynamic [3:16] as you guys have worked together do you find that your political opinions are starting to converge [3:25] because i think the the point of it is sort of at a a guy a little bit on the right you know sagar [3:31] you'd worked at daily caller you've done something crystal more on the left but as i listen to you [3:35] guys i find there is a great deal not just of respect but convergence and i can't think of another [3:45] show where sort of the idea is to get those contrasting viewpoints that has had that is that [3:52] how you're experiencing it um i would say it depends very much on the moment of the news cycle [3:58] so if you had been watching us regularly leading up to trump's victory or after trump's victory when [4:05] we were talking about immigration and mass deportation and secot or even today we had a big debate about [4:10] like woke 1.0 um you might get a different impression but the concept of the show you know [4:16] from the beginning even pre-dating the the current iteration of breaking points was okay if we got [4:21] the best faith interpretation of the populace right in conversation with the populace left what would that [4:26] look like and my theory is that there would be different overlap than you might find on sort of the [4:32] traditional like crossfire um to name a throwback i just gotta something just back of the neck hairs the [4:40] typical crossfire sort of cable news dynamic and so i think that's what you're picking up on and [4:45] certainly on the iran war on changing the relationship with israel uh on you know economic [4:50] issues there is a lot of overlap there i think the thing you said crystal that resonates the most [4:55] with me is best faith good faith i think and sagar maybe that's what i'm thinking of i think that's [5:01] what you're picking up on it might not be a convergence of opinion it's that it's a good faith [5:06] discussion yeah i mean one of the things that we both really built our show around is like a [5:10] rejection of cable news and just not only the format but the very way in which they want to [5:16] increase division and we have plenty of division which we showcase very openly and honestly as you [5:21] just pointed out crystal about our woke 1.0 debate but in it there was a good faith i mean crystal heard [5:27] me out and i heard her out and we gave our counterpoints and there was no like yelling or screaming [5:32] at each other i also whenever you're talking about convergence i think that one of the things that [5:37] really comes with respect is understanding and so we've been doing this you know not just this show [5:42] but our previous iteration of the show for almost like seven or eight years now what was the first [5:46] one right that's it rising over at the hill and one of the things that comes with that is you come to [5:52] understand very deeply where other people are coming from and it's really useful uh because it helps not [5:58] only in your interactions politically but like even in your everyday life like when you hear somebody [6:03] say something you can understand where previously would have been like what an idiot you're like [6:07] okay i see how you got to that conclusion because of the information you took in or your worldview is [6:13] just fundamentally really different than my worldview and there's a level of acceptance with that one of [6:18] the best compliments that we both get you know if we're in public or something is like you really [6:22] helped my relationship with my dad you know you just helped me understand like where my dad was coming [6:27] from whenever he would rant about x y and z like i understood why and then or vice versa you know [6:33] like helped my relationship with my kid and like my kids really into dsa and like i don't understand [6:37] you know what that is but when i hear crystal talk about it it's like okay like i i kind of [6:42] start to make sense to me and so you know in that way it's it's really edifying and part of the reason [6:47] why i love doing the show as as you've come together and now it's been as you said seven years or [6:53] does it help you also identify the bad faith actors in our political and and media hellscape has [7:03] has there been a way for you to discern oh these people are performative these people are bad faith [7:10] and do you do you avoid that now avoid those folks or do you expose what's your both it's a mix yeah i [7:17] mean definitely that is certainly the case and look i have become less tolerant of a lot of pundits [7:23] on the right there are very few um who are actually on the right that i would work with at this point [7:28] because i just think there's so much lies and propaganda there that to deal with that on a [7:33] daily basis would not be productive you know if you're doing a debate and you're having engagement [7:38] you're trying to expose that's one thing but to work together with someone every day as you know [7:43] is an entirely different relationship so for example in the wake of your john fetterman interview [7:48] i don't think that is someone i could work with every day john fetterman i'm not sure john fetterman [7:53] is working with john fetterman every day just bad faith arguments a lack of an ability to really even [7:59] grapple with the questions that you're asking etc yeah but what has made it work with sagar is [8:04] we've had some very heated debates very hot and over issues that we both care a lot about and i think [8:11] are very consequential uh what makes it work over the long term is that we're both capable of saying [8:17] you know what i got it wrong there you were right you had a point and i think over the long term that's [8:22] part of what is built the the trust that enables it i totally agree and it's like you know christ [8:27] vice versa i think you know especially at the height of a lot of pretty crazy moments 2020 and others [8:33] uh there are not a lot of people i think who i could have stomached uh but yeah i mean as crystal [8:38] said it can get hot and that's fine i actually think it's healthy it's normal uh it's reflective [8:42] of literally the nature of the country or literally living through one of the most tumultuous times i [8:46] think in modern american history it's probably akin to the 1960s in a lot of different ways or [8:51] actually maybe the 70s is a better comparison here's what's sad i think i'm i'm the only one [8:55] who's lived through both of those that's true i've only read about it john if you have any questions [8:59] i am happy i'm happy to tell you about it right but i mean john since you were there you know [9:05] that that was a moment of very actually limited public debate and in my opinion one of the reasons [9:11] why things went really wrong was because of the convergence of the mass media era like for me this [9:16] is honestly surreal to be able to talk to you because you were so instrumental for me as a kid [9:23] who is growing up in bush country hearing these lies about the iraq war there is only one place that i [9:31] could go to to expose like this level of hysteria and nonsense which i just hear propagated all day [9:38] long on all three cable networks and that was at a time of total ubiquity in mass media part of the [9:43] reason that we got into the war that we did and it went as long as we did i think that the iran war [9:49] is look it's a disaster but it is a hopeful story in that the poll numbers went south immediately a huge [9:55] amount of the american public is getting their information from sources or you know different from [10:00] sources like us many others uh who are out there who are able to expose the absolute holes in all [10:06] of the propaganda that the pentagon or the white house is able to put out and so look it's a disaster [10:11] that we're in this but it's actually a hopeful story that the public turned on it almost immediately [10:16] and so that we didn't have that edifice to prop it up that we did at that time well let me ask you a [10:20] question because it it brings up sort of the incentives of those systems that created that because i think [10:25] you're you make a nice point about the 60s and 70s being tumultuous in that same way i i think the iran [10:32] war has gone south in some ways because this administration doesn't respect us enough to lie to [10:40] us yeah they kind of don't give a what we think and in the 60s and 70s the lies were uh generally you know [10:52] media has found a way the incentives of it to uh get weaponized bad faith actors [11:00] weaponize it right the ubiquity of cable news was at first and tv in general in the 60s and 70s [11:08] politicians weren't quite sure what to do with tv and you remember the debate between kennedy and nixon [11:15] uh and kennedy went out there and he understood that television is a visual medium and nixon was like [11:20] i don't need makeup i look great he's sweaty and clammy right and he got his ass kicked on the tv [11:28] side but if you listen to it on the radio people thought nixon won do you think it's in some respects [11:35] the media has just politics politics has figured out how to weaponize media is is that fair to say [11:46] like you just talked about all these bad faith actors right they exist as part of a political [11:52] ecosystem as a way of you know roger ales very famously said i want to create something so that [11:58] what happened to nixon could never happen to another republican president you know sometimes we separate [12:05] media and politics but isn't it true that in a lot of ways there's a symbiosis a lot of it's been co-opted [12:15] by politics and i'm curious what you think of that and we can talk a little bit about breaking down [12:19] those ecosystems yeah i mean i think it's a double-edged sword on the one hand absolutely and the [12:25] amount of propaganda the amount of lies you know you go on twitter now x and there's all these [12:30] accounts that are just ai slop accounts feeding all kinds of nonsense it makes it very difficult [12:35] actually to sort out what's happening in the war not to mention there's a total [12:39] censorship lockdown on the us as part of what is happening in the region on the flip side of it [12:45] though there's also a hopeful story there because in its best incarnation you know they haven't been [12:49] able to cover up the horrors in genocide people watch that in 4k themselves and they took their own [12:54] moral opinion of what was happening there and it went directly against what the bipartisan elite [12:59] consensus had been for years and years i think you're right that it's insulting that they didn't [13:04] even bother to lie to us this time before the war i think it also reflects the fact that donald trump [13:09] doesn't feel that he needs to go through the mechanism mechanisms of democracy we just have to [13:13] swallow whatever insanity he's going to do but i also think the fact that you have so many dissenting voices [13:20] in new media that were critical from the beginning and able to expose the very thin [13:25] level of propaganda that had been fed to us has also been a positive point now i get concerned [13:30] because there are also legacy media has its advantages there was a real tradition and a [13:36] firewall between opinion and that you know and the journalist part and the advertising and those [13:42] walls fall down in new media but overall i think when you look at those two stories in particular [13:47] you can see that it has helped to create a better atmosphere for democratic under small d democratic [13:54] understanding of what these wars and what this genocide actually are i think that's a really [13:59] important point it's a double-edged sword as crystal said i compare it to the invention of the printing [14:04] press i mean that's how the internet i mean seriously that's what the internet school yeah because i [14:08] mean what did that actually do is it decentralized media we literally had something called a 100 years war a [14:15] protestant renal reformation chaos millions of people died but of course nobody would say well [14:21] yeah the invention of the printing press was bad it was just it unleashed a new medium of debate much of [14:26] it was propaganda actually pornography one of the original inventions of the printing press of mass [14:31] distribution just like the internet but what it demonstrated i think on a long enough timeline was a [14:37] more informed public and that's the thing we're working things out as crystal said and this is where i [14:42] think all of us can be upfront and honest like we are in a difficult position because we are people [14:46] who do the news but crystal and i are also business owners we co-own our company but we set you know [14:52] rules at the very beginning we do not read ads period because we believe that if we did so it could [14:59] potentially compromise things in the future now we know that we have sacrificed literally like multiple [15:05] zeros of income however what we've decided instead was to build a more anti-fragile business for [15:11] example like we have a premium subscription program we have youtube revenue you know we have like [15:15] dynamic ads which are not as that we read which we have no negotiation or interest in but it took [15:20] a level of intentionality however though there's no reason that we had to do that if we wanted to [15:26] read manscaped ads we could and most people are not doing that and are not going to do that and most [15:31] people are not doing that and are much richer than us as a result but we believe in the long run it'll [15:36] work out you're starting to make me sweat yeah and it's why i look to quince [15:43] hey folks i i know you're trying to figure out ways to skip through these little ad reads here [15:52] i get that i know i know what you're doing i know you're looking into that spotify thing i yeah listen [15:57] i'm not blind you bastards and be honest with you i'm not crazy about reading them in the first place [16:03] generally except for this one uh ground news you know i'm always going to go to bat for the ground news [16:09] ground news because it's i hate the news i hate what it's doing to me emotionally i i hate that [16:18] you don't really know where the information is coming from sometimes you don't know how it's [16:22] being manipulated and it it adds to the creeping fog of sadness that grows but i have to keep up i have [16:29] to understand what's going on in the world and that's why ground news it's they've got a website [16:34] it's an app you can see how different news outlets will frame the same story they've got a blind [16:40] spot feed so you can challenge yourself about your news consumption to get the same unlimited access [16:46] to the vantage subscription go to groundnews.com steward and subscribe to get 40 off discount only [16:53] available for a limited time that's groundnews.com steward or scan the qr code on screen sagrat so [17:03] this is this is really interesting to me because we're talking about media independence and when you [17:09] think of independence i think writ large you think of it as media independence from corporate interest [17:15] we're not we're not owned by universal or ge or any of these things but independence is also are you [17:23] independent from a political motivation yes that's another form of independence and a lot of people i [17:30] think are captured by that but the third avenue of independence and i wonder about this for you is [17:38] what are your incentives to the audience yeah you know when you say we have a subscription model and [17:45] all that and and do the incentives of look we all know in an attention economy what sells the most is [17:53] probably outrage anger and those things so how do you and your model avoid being captured by the rage of [18:03] the townspeople you know how how do you avoid pitchforks and torches well that's why we're really blessed [18:09] honestly it's a right left show uh so you know at any given time a decent portion of the audience is [18:15] mad what are the other of us it works well it works really well so we're gonna be hated no matter what [18:20] by some portion yeah perfect we are very often hated by our own paying so we might have one of the [18:27] most ignominious you know honors of being often hated by the people who pay us uh but that's built [18:32] in as i said so at various different times we've gone through these you know types of events [18:37] before people are mad that you said x y or z but because of our political independence [18:41] and the right left kind of dynamic that is baked in to the heart of the program it means that there [18:47] are always new people who also show up that's one of the things where a lot of the and you actually [18:53] can see this there's a lot of articles about maga media and how it's collapsing as enthusiasm in maga [18:59] and the project with donald trump especially with younger men starts to go down people who went [19:04] all in on just trump alone or on right-wing so-called media are seeing a dramatic reduction [19:10] in their overall revenue and views because that's just not really what people want to hear right now [19:14] that is just not something that could ever happen to us because crystal would always represent a side [19:19] of somebody who's critical of maga right or i mean even i am obviously as well but vice versa let's say [19:24] whenever joe biden was president and so we're very lucky honestly in the way that we designed [19:30] everything but what you're laying out is a very real problem and it explains grifterism which is [19:36] basically people who have to continue it going manufacture and create new type of controversies [19:43] purely for an economic incentive which is enough of a cancer that we have today yeah i mean audience [19:48] capture is very real you can kind of if you're watching channels closely you can tell who's just [19:52] catering to their audience and what they think you know an algorithm wants them to um produce [19:58] but i also want to say with regard to the the fury and the pitchforks like i think people have good [20:02] reason to be furious right now i think both on an economic level you know we've been thrust into [20:07] this war that basically no one wanted that is devastating for the global economy it's first and [20:12] foremost devastating for iranians iranian civilians we have used had our taxpayer dollars used to fund a [20:19] genocide that again the public has vociferously turned against and we have a system that is rigged by [20:25] an oligarch class so i think talking about those things the way that the ai oligarchs literally want [20:31] to take everyone's jobs yeah people should get angry about that those are things that should infuriate [20:37] you and so we don't shy away from that you know i think to be informed right now is to be angry and [20:43] furious about the state of affairs i agree let me ask you because it's you know it's such an interesting [20:49] thing to point out how many real things there are uh that can shock the conscience of people and yet [20:55] i think if i'm being fair about where the the real energy of the debate is right now it's whether or [21:01] not ennis canter is going to get drafted into the wnba like the real outrage in this country and culture [21:10] doesn't seem to be about those those very real points you just you just articulated well and to me [21:18] sager may have a different take on this but to me it's very obvious what's going on here [21:22] trump's approval is in the toilet his war is a disaster the economic numbers are trash people [21:29] are furious republicans i think it's the greatest economy this country's ever had i forgot about [21:34] that yes according to fox news absolutely and republicans are facing what is likely to be a [21:41] landslide defeat in the midterms so what are they doing they're going back to the culture war bag of [21:46] tricks here's a shiny object that i can tangle over at fox news to get our own base back in line [21:53] but i actually don't think that that's what's driving for example the um electoral results that [21:58] we're seeing in democratic primaries across the country and likely to see in the general election [22:02] in the fall there you to me the number one issue is very likely the economy but it's also horror and [22:07] a foreign policy that is both expensive and deeply immoral yeah john i would push back a bit [22:12] i agree with you what how dare you sir well i i just think it's reflective per maybe of a cable [22:19] news bias because you're right i believe the wnba was the most mentioned second most mentioned topic [22:26] on fox news uh this week and that's probably true of the 65 plus crowd if i were to go and ask them [22:32] however the segments that perform best on our channel are things about the housing crisis are about [22:38] flock cameras data centers ai displacement and job loss foreign policy i mean i never thought i would [22:46] have my dream job of being able to speak to guys like professor john meersheimer who is my literal idol [22:52] for over like an hour and a half and have him describe like great power politics and the iran war and and [22:58] watch millions of people want to engage with that type of content and so i do think like look are we [23:05] amusing ourselves to death empirically yes i mean not just in terms of sports but with gambling and [23:11] many of the other vices which are exploding in our current society however what we always also point [23:17] out on the show that is derivative of real problems like housing which is the one i would say we see the [23:24] most consistent rage in terms of not just our audience but in our demographic and is like downstream [23:31] of so many of the other problems that we face like as a society can i also just say john that i think [23:37] too the revelation this will feel like a bit of a left turn but the revelations in the epstein files [23:43] of the way that this powerful elite actually has this incredible class solidarity and the way that [23:49] they operate i think it's blown some of the lid off of this idea that you know the what we should [23:54] really be focused on is trans people or these culture war debates because we've been able to see [24:01] the way the powerful actually work in the world and the view that they have of the rest of us [24:07] and so i think that that has been a very educational and illuminating experience for [24:12] people as well as they process some of these like new red meat culture war debates that are thrown [24:17] into the mix yeah it's just hard to imagine you know when we talk about and the importance of it [24:22] all these things that you're bringing up are are truly important and yet there's been no accountability [24:28] for right for any of it correct and it seems like what there is accountability for either [24:35] legislatively or otherwise are culture war issues that like i'll give you an example you know the save [24:43] act being uh you know uh at the forefront of so much of the problems that were going on uh in the [24:51] senate right now and uh the liberals they don't want they want illegals who are voting in millions of [24:57] numbers not to you know show an id you know just utter nonsense that gets thrown out there or the [25:04] the trans debate as being at the forefront of what's in everybody's minds about the like nuance is [25:12] utterly removed through the process of our media and our politics yet the things that you talk about that [25:18] are facing uh americans or are making them question the legitimacy of our institutions are never addressed [25:28] seemingly with no accountability yeah i mean that's kind of the core of our show can i give you another [25:33] example of that john which is very much top of news cycle right now so there's this whole controversy [25:38] about hassan piker and whether or not candidates should associate with him and abdul al-sayed famously [25:44] had a rally with him so he's being targeted right now is like how dare you associate with this guy who [25:49] said all these terrible things the clip that they usually point to is where he says that we quote [25:54] unquote deserve 9 11 where he's talking about the concept of blowback and for which he has since [25:59] apologized meanwhile abdul al-sayed is running against a guy who literally was in congress after 9 11 [26:07] who authorized the iraq war who supported mass surveillance who defended torture but where that guy is fine [26:16] but associating with someone who said something that was edgy one time that's what's out of bounds [26:22] that's what should be off limits that's not just me but i think most people is insane well i'll do you [26:29] one better jd vance's spiritual advisor you know the the preacher that jd vance considers one of his [26:37] sort of spiritual advisors talks about male dominion over women you know there are all kinds of extremes [26:45] uh in terms of association i remember with obama just think about though the contrast between hassan [26:50] piker said a thing in response to 9 11 versus this guy actually was in power and was involved in the [26:59] horrific lies leading up to that war the authorization the war the torture the murder of iraqi civilians [27:05] and so we're when you talk about accountability where is the accountability for that where's the [27:11] moral weight on that versus i mean many of these guys that that were villains on your show when you [27:16] were covering the iraq war are still around today to propagandize us and push us in the iran war so i [27:23] think that lack of accountability you point to is a big failing in our society and in my opinion it has [27:29] to be corrected in the next administration people have to go to prison for the crimes that were [27:35] committed whether it's rogue ice agents whether it's insider trading within this regime that has to [27:40] happen for us to re-establish anything approaching a healthy society and i will say john i was for [27:46] me um i know i'm with two liberals here so i'm trying to pick my battles how dare you call me a [27:51] liberal careful sorry a leftist and a liberal a leftist and a liberal and i'm gonna have to fact [27:58] i'm gonna have to check on that jd vance spiritual advisor one uh hegseth hegseth spiritual [28:02] advisor sorry i was gonna say i was like i'm i'm fairly certain that's not true that was uh hegseth but [28:07] jd vance was peter teal who like when asked by ross dutat should uh human beings continue to exist [28:15] long paused for like eight seconds to be like i don't know about humans and like has unbelievably [28:21] you know this uh the other people that are in those words my point being guilt by association [28:28] uh which is often thrown in democrats faces whether it was uh obama's spiritual advisor can be thrown [28:35] into the rights faces but it never seems to be done and that's fair what was a pastor right is [28:39] that right pastor right uh now that i think about it that was a long time ago oh with uh obama you're [28:44] talking yeah anyway i i think the the vein i'm picking up on and this is where i'm i mean i would [28:51] say this is like the great disappointment political disappointment of my life as i said was i was inspired [28:58] to get involved in politics because of iraq and watch and you know the entire the centerpiece of [29:05] the 2024 campaign and it's fair for people to say that you were fooled was no more foreign wars i mean [29:12] the vice president as you said wrote an op-ed endorsing trump trump's best legacy no new wars [29:18] stephen miller famously said kamala will send your sons to war a significant contingent in the 2024 [29:23] campaign was we are not going to war with iran and so to live in a reality where trump dastardly [29:32] and disgracefully attacks iran under the cover of negotiations twice kills 168 school girls you know [29:42] delivers the greatest strategic disaster to the united states potentially either since vietnam or [29:47] eclipsing it if you talk to one of our guests professor robert pape to live in that reality with [29:52] those people who i really did trust and i'm saying this on a personal level i know many of them i came [29:57] up in politics kind of in the same cohort it has been the greatest like betrayal of my lifetime and [30:03] and i think what's really disappointing is how much of it is clearly bs in that i believed that the voters [30:12] believed that the wars were bad and so to live in a reality where thomas massey you know loses his house [30:19] primary purely because of aipac and pro-israel money and a boomer republican base who if you'd [30:26] pull them under well and that trump i mean let's not deny that right those two together like those [30:32] two forces together sagar i want to ask you a question and i mean it's and this is for crystal too [30:38] the the dynamic that you're describing is a politics that distorts reality that creates an impression and [30:48] then makes policy choices to to ameliorate the the damage of this false reality and you're saying [30:58] that your dividing line for that was iraq and now iran i think maybe the disconnect here for [31:06] whatever you would call liberals or the left or any of those things is that the entirety of trump's [31:12] operation has been that is a con is what you're saying that's right has been the same dynamic you're [31:19] describing that has disappointed you in iraq and iran i would say has disappointed me when you say [31:26] the haitian community is eating cats and dogs right well that's the same immigration wise as [31:33] saddam hussein is using these aluminum tubes to enrich uranium and that's why we have to go in there [31:39] in other words the reason that has been given for so many of these policy decisions that i would [31:46] disagree with is also a distortion of reality i think that's entirely fair john so i find it [31:52] interesting that it's but somehow iran it's like the whole tucker carlson of it okay i've had enough [31:58] really because it looks to me like it's the same that's been happening from day one i think that's [32:05] entirely fair uh again to take a step back and i can only short from my perspective uh like i would [32:10] the haitian thing yeah it was a lie uh the truth is a lot of us sat and swallowed it because we [32:16] wanted less immigration and we're like okay well i mean this highlights a topic and an issue which we [32:22] can fight on we can put the left on the back foot because you know they want you know mass amnesty and [32:26] we don't uh and that was a tactical political decision that people in politics make all the time [32:31] but i'm not even sure they want mass amnesty like i even think that's a red herring i i don't [32:36] i don't know that they do want mass amnesty but we don't have a politics in this country that's [32:41] functional enough or literate enough to have an actual conversation about what immigration in this [32:47] country should look like i i think that again i totally take your point and this is where this [32:51] is the most common look at me look at me yeah come on you're my parents are loving this uh my parents [32:59] are loving this me put me being put in my place but i do think like with the iran thing and and again i [33:04] can explain it from my perspective which was these were people whose entire careers literally were [33:10] kind of built on opposition to the neoconservative agenda and did we know trump is a liar a con [33:17] often says various different things absolutely uh many of us knew that or would say it in private [33:22] what we also knew is that in his first term he was incredibly deferential to a lot of his staff [33:26] a lot of the people we were hiring he was hiring i knew for a fact you know at the very least had [33:30] a genuine belief we shouldn't go to war with iran so but but but what was extremely blackpilling to [33:36] use an online term was uh to see those same people have to defend the war and in some cases use you [33:43] know iraq rhetoric i mean i remember the vice president who i'd seen give lectures against [33:49] the war with iran or you know against you know neoconservatism he was in the oval it was in the [33:53] middle of the iran war and he's like it's like a suicide bomber we're not gonna wait till the suicide [33:57] bomb goes off to disarm it and i was like oh my god we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom [34:03] cloud right right it's condoleezza rice all over again i i actually couldn't believe it and then [34:11] you know mark teeson is back on my television screen and ari fleischer is back on my television [34:16] screen and the same liars like who are justifying this like and to watch that happen like i i would say [34:23] fine i was fooled i didn't think it would i thought that the lesson was learned and there's [34:28] a major mea culpa that has had and has to be had uh by people who thought that it would be different [34:35] and said so publicly so that's kind of where i am currently crystal what do you think of that because [34:40] it's it's hard for me to hear a mea culpa about an iran war when the entire regime is that there's an [34:46] inevitability to the reality distortion field and the actions that they take based on a reality that they [34:53] are creating yeah well this is something soccer and i have had it over on our show quite a lot [34:58] and i've sorted through in many conversations and i've certainly had my i i told you so's um and and [35:04] in fairness to soccer it's not even an i told you i i don't mean it that way honestly it's not that [35:09] no i i get what you're saying though and i think one of the biggest differences in my view going into [35:15] trump 2.0 and sauger's view apart from the fact that we have different ideologies and so we have [35:19] different things that we consider to be good or bad specifically on immigration in particular [35:24] but sauger's view was that there were institutional constraints the first time and there will be [35:30] some institutional constraints this time that's true i looked at the what had been done in the [35:35] off season whether it was project 2025 whether it was all of the plans to fire mass fire government [35:41] workers whether it was the supreme court taking control of the supreme court and then the supreme [35:45] court giving trump a green light to commit whatever crimes in office that he wants to [35:49] whether it was the mass loyalty test and fealty that he demanded and demanded that people back up [35:55] his 2020 election stolen lies i looked at that and said no this is going to be gloves off it is going to be [36:02] a most maximalist version of what he would want to do of what his id is and it's going to be horrifying [36:10] now even i don't think could have anticipated all of the the doge and secot and murdering random [36:17] fishermen in the caribbean i could have anticipated and did anticipate the iran war but those were i [36:24] think two of the very different frames that we had um coming into this and you know for me i'm very much [36:29] caught between i people who now are seeing some of the problems i i want to say great come along but i [36:37] agree with you that there has to be some reckoning with okay how did you get it wrong and and again [36:44] i think sagar has actually done this but how did you get it wrong how did you end up in this place [36:48] and what are we doing going forward because if you're not just all of a sudden uh pretending like [36:54] you had nothing to do with his rise if you aren't reckoning with the other lies and horrors that unfolded [37:00] during trump 1.0 and in the off season and in the build-up to iran then it's going to be very [37:05] difficult to have any sort of like coming together or certainly coalition formed around that group [37:14] i only eat food now that afterwards i can swim in the bowl that i ate it in [37:25] can you imagine if your cereal bowl was literally big enough you could eat your cereal and then go [37:30] for a quick dip oh oh the time i would save but i gotta tell you this magic spoon man it's healthy food [37:41] cereal imagine that cereal but healthy it's magic spoon changing the game they got uh 13 grams of [37:48] protein for those of you going through the change of life as i am where you get the old sarcopenias [37:55] as they come in you got to get that you got to get that muscle up you got to get that protein zero [38:00] sugar by the way five grams of net carbs per serving that's low so you got a lot of protein no sugar and [38:07] not that many uh carbs there great breakfast late night snack post-workout fuel wake up in the middle [38:15] of the night weeping it's a great time to console yourself they got granola they got snack bars come [38:21] on man don't make me beg look for magic spoon on amazon or at your nearest grocery store and there [38:27] are plant-based versions of the cereal too even vegans get to feel like they had a childhood you'll find [38:33] vegan options at whole foods or get five dollars off your next order at magicspoon.com slash tws that's [38:40] magicspoon.com slash tws for five dollars off my concern is that this uh awakening is actually just [38:52] strategic what do you mean by that so all right let's let's go to the the photograph in the the [39:01] cracker barrel the thomas massey marjorie taylor green tucker carlson photo of the diaspora the [39:08] republican diaspora the those that have woken and the iran war and now they sit in this room and [39:15] they're going to come up with the it's not this is the real make america great again that was fake [39:20] that we we enabled it we worked our asses off to uh amplify the lying to help create a reality [39:29] distortion field that has given us all of these bad outcomes from uh invading iran to a shitty [39:37] reflecting pool because they're all one in the same they're part of the same process quite frankly [39:43] it's all the same great it's the real great replacement theory let's take all the partisans and [39:50] replace them with ideologues because partisans are part of the game ideologues are a whole different [39:55] version and now what they've done is they've created a little isolated uh group that can say [40:03] oh no we didn't go along with it so whoever kind of rises up to next lead maga that group can bless [40:14] and provide cover to to say oh no this these guys have it right now this is the real maga and we'll [40:24] provide cover and i don't think any of it isn't intentional i think the entirety of the design of [40:30] this and it's not just the last 10 years it's the last 50 or 60 years so i mean obviously a very [40:37] cynical interpretation uh you know i know some of the people uh i think please tell me why i shouldn't [40:43] be cynical about that interpret please tell me why these bad faith actors are suddenly acting in good [40:49] faith you have every right to to think that i don't think that there's nearly the incentive that you [40:53] necessarily are imp like you have people who all lost their elections and are not exactly like [40:59] well let's say marjorie taylor greene's and thomas massey's case like actually lost their entire [41:03] careers or joe kent for example who i know personally and it's not somebody i don't think i don't think [41:09] they're the progenitors of it i think tucker is i think he's he's the one who has to be he feels he [41:17] must be is very telling he said i i couldn't believe how little influence i have his whole thing is i [41:24] have to be in proximity to power i see look i've known tucker for a long time uh i just don't really [41:30] agree with that analysis having spoken to him uh i would say that he does feel genuinely burned uh by [41:37] donald trump not just with iran but actually with a lot more i know you're skeptical i i i think i mean [41:43] how do you how are you burned by a guy that 10 years ago you said this man is corrupt to the core [41:48] and i hate him how are you burned by that sure i mean the vice president said that as well uh i think [41:54] right people could change right and is also a cynical cynical uh uh person manipulating himself [42:02] into the the halls of power you can't convince me otherwise because i've seen no evidence of it let's [42:07] take the vice president now because you're right he's literally the vice president so he had something [42:11] to gain i don't see necessarily the same tucker gain uh i i guess whenever it comes to the third party [42:17] or let's even take the trump criticism i again think it's genuine it's has lost him uh [42:23] any like genuine friendships cachet i think in terms of his ability to project power in a republican [42:30] party i mean i'm not sure if you've seen some of the approval polling on tucker like after trump [42:35] did they do approval polling on pundits they did yes they did because they they were testing this exact [42:41] theory of what you're discussing which is like hey does tucker independently have juice amongst [42:46] republicans without trump and his net negatives went much higher obviously he's independent on his [42:51] show like in terms of his like you know away from partisanship or his own economic situation but but [42:57] saga the same could be said about republicans who were apostate about the iraq war in other words [43:03] people look to the future and he's always been a guy that has looked to what's in it look explain to me [43:10] a guy who says i'm all about liberty and america and make america great again and you know who's really [43:15] a great leader putin like just i just there's an incoherence to this that has to be cynical because [43:25] it's incoherent i understand how you get there but again for but but it's like what and this is kind of [43:32] like we were because i work with crystal like i could see your brain pathways yes so i'll explain the [43:38] way that we would get there and the way we would get there is like tucker or not even just tucker a lot [43:44] of maga and you're talking about putin i assume in terms of like the war in ukraine or admiration [43:49] or whatever for the russian system some of which by the way i do think goes too far but a lot of it [43:54] is about some of which no i'm saying in terms of like people who like or like russia is the you know [43:59] this pinnacle of western greatness and it's like well just look at their demographics and their economy [44:04] like that's not exactly true but the point that i think where it came from again just to try to explain [44:11] this is a lot of the original 2016 energy in particular was a buchananite rejection of globalism [44:21] and in particular i think what people tried to see in putin or slash like admiration or whatever [44:27] of putin or the russian system was somebody who stands up for like the neo-liberal west right so if [44:34] i were to look at it through that frame it's a little bit different like i don't think it is necessarily [44:40] as incongruent as you're thinking because if you're a nationalist and your primary you know [44:45] view of the world is that sovereignty itself is one of the things you should promote and not just [44:50] promote but to cherish and to hold dear as much as possible then you're going to look at different [44:56] countries which have rejected like a western global hegemon and say oh that's admirable i guess [45:02] in a sense again i'm not saying i agree with this sure but i'm trying to explain how somebody yeah [45:07] would get there well crystal let me let me ask you because it is you know this gets us into a whole [45:12] other thing but maybe this is distinction between left-wing and right-wing populism because i always [45:17] think of populism through a much more economic lens but there really is a nationalist lens yeah that you [45:23] have to look through it uh as as well and the thing that's interesting about the right-wing populism is [45:30] and again i view it as cynical it's the bannon theory of power i'm going to combine left-wing [45:39] economic populism because i think that gives me a large group of people to pull from and i'm going [45:44] to combine it with right-wing we must protect white anglo-saxon culture and western civilization which is [45:55] there i guess uh sort of euphemism for that homogeneity i think the the second part of that [46:08] the the white homogeneity is more important to them than the economic populism and the reason that [46:14] i think that is because they didn't tell their judges to be economic populists like all every every [46:21] supreme court decision that comes down basically favors corporate interest yeah rather than workers [46:28] interest the economic part of it at least you know putting the voters aside but in in the expression [46:34] of right-wing populism in trump and i would say other right-wing populist leaders around the world [46:39] the economic part is basically fake i mean this has been an incredible administration for billionaires [46:45] in the oligarch class they've never made more money or had more power or been deregulated they're [46:50] getting everything they want and that's part of why it was easier for trump to take over the republican [46:56] party than it has been for the left to take over the democratic party because the left-wing populism [47:01] that class dynamic you're talking about that is the whole thing right it is in in populism you're [47:08] basically doing the people versus who is the villain for the left the villain is is the billionaires [47:13] it's the trillionaires it's the epstein class it's the oligarchs for the right it's typically you know [47:18] to to frame it i think i think you're right in your framing there's usually a lot of you know [47:22] scapegoating of various minority groups and so you can use a sort of sloppilist faux populist rhetoric [47:29] when it comes to the economics but that has all been cast aside and in trump 1.0 it was as well i [47:34] mean their biggest economic accomplishment was this big tax cut for the rich that was cooked up by the [47:40] heritage foundation and paul ryan so i i think that is an important distinction here and i think that's [47:46] increasingly becoming clear to many americans which is why trump's approval rating on the economy is in [47:53] the toilet why there is such disgust with him why you see this real rise of left-wing populist candidates [48:01] who are overcoming a lot of money and establishment rejection of them and you know attempts to smear and [48:08] demagogue against them but they're able to succeed anyway because the establishment has lost so much [48:13] credibility with the democratic base and also because these economic and oligarchic forces have [48:18] become so abundantly apparent to so many americans yeah john and and i think look again i i hear your [48:24] critique uh and and you know i've had my mea culpa by the way sagar you really are like your way of [48:31] dealing with me is exactly how now i'm going to go home and deal with people in my family i hear i hear [48:38] what you're saying right uh i see how you got there i see how you got there i mean because i spend my [48:43] time with crystal and and you know i've been in that way mo and i understand yeah it's taking you [48:49] right yeah you took one route we're taking another exactly if you were to take my route my preferred [48:53] route so you know you're impugning or not imputing you're imbuing kind of an ideology of just uh in your [49:01] original analysis there about economics and about white identity politics but i actually think and i [49:08] would take it further is it's actually worse it's really just about trump and i think it really [49:14] took the iran war to fully kick that in for me is that the voters fundamentally they just really like [49:22] trump and it's actually not as much about policy or any of the things that you might type of thing [49:28] i i really hit home for me in terms of like when i talk to some of these people still all on board [49:34] the trump train especially the older voters they really just love how he drives people like you [49:38] crazy and that's actually just all it is that may be the saddest thing i've ever heard but it's true [49:44] uh it is kind of empirically true is what you see is like liberal cultural rejection of trump [49:49] he hates the right people or you know he's hated by the right people that's that's actually what it's [49:54] about all right and so that's the truth i think at the beating heart of a lot of the remaining [49:59] maga coalition so if we start to like him they'll abandon him i don't know about that uh the damage [50:06] has probably been done but i don't know if they would cling necessarily as hard as you think but [50:11] you know this is where though to you know kind of to kind of break my own analysis the one thing [50:17] that does appear to quote unquote trump that is the economic situation which is a validation i think [50:24] of the economic framework of what you're talking about for the very first time we see trump's net [50:29] approval rating or approval rating with republicans on the economy began to dip down as a result both [50:34] of the way that the tariffs were handled and because of the iran war and four dollar gasoline that is [50:40] beginning to pierce what i would say is the cultural veneer and it already has you know definitely [50:45] for a lot of let's say the younger men or voters who went along with trump in 2024 but i'd rather talk [50:51] about the designers of this program than those that have to live through it i think i'm talking more [50:59] about the designers okay that the project 2025 designers there is a uh there is a christian [51:10] nationalist bent to it that i think is the driving force of it and everything else is strategic and [51:21] intentional about how do we get there how do we get to the power how do we get to control everything [51:30] when our ultimate goal is is that so i actually see i think it's much more economic like well and [51:37] even project 2025 itself is kind of a complicated story right because project 2025 was written by the [51:42] heritage foundation it was explicitly disavowed by donald trump on the campaign trail who was [51:47] like i have nothing to do come on man now you're now you're i'm not saying it was real i'm saying [51:53] he did about it correct like he did but cynically he didn't disavow it he tried not he gave it plausible [52:01] deniability as he does with that's my point okay is when you act like wow this iran thing really caught [52:09] me off guard and then you tell me you know with earnestness oh no he disavowed 2025 he did nothing of [52:17] the kind he in no way wanted to deal with the particulars of it because he knew how politically [52:23] damaging right no no i'm actually i'm i was about to get there so i was saying he disavowed it only [52:28] then to hire many of the people who were signatories of project 2025 so there wasn't an acknowledgement [52:35] going into the campaign that this is politically damaging this type of product the heritage foundation [52:40] etc but then that became the general policy at least in some areas it's been kind of complicated [52:45] because a lot of it is just trump himself deciding what the tariff rate on china should be [52:50] whenever he wakes up in the morning i'm not joking that's actually how it works or i like when he did [52:54] he he didn't like a conversation he had in switzerland and he was like 50 on chocolate right [52:59] yeah 50 on chocolate and watches for the watch community that was devastating as a member of that [53:05] so like when we talk about the designers i don't know if it's as intentional though as you say i do [53:12] think all political coalitions have like people who are insider organizations in washington who are [53:18] jockeying for power that's literally the job of the heritage foundation or of these neoconservative [53:23] think tanks so you're saying like what you're talking about how you think the iran war came out [53:27] of nowhere you know that's kind of a foolish thought but it's just really hard for somebody who [53:32] lives in the town knows some of the most senior appointees or some of the people who were there [53:38] who in private and in public spoke against war with iran made good cases against war with iran [53:44] why we should disengage from the middle east to say that that was disingenuous disingenuous the whole [53:50] time i'm still just having a hard time with no what i'm saying is not that it was disingenuous [53:56] and i'll ask you this crystal the idea wasn't that they really didn't believe they would go in iran [54:02] my point is that all these other policy decisions that have gone along with the intentional design of [54:10] moving us more towards this uh intentional heritage american version non-credal america of a people who [54:19] belong here more than other people who are more american than other people real america that's all been [54:27] driven by a very intentional uh a planning group that is trying to figure out ways to maximize their [54:38] power and in doing so have created this group that is manufacturing a reality to get them to do that [54:48] now the iran war whether it fits into that framing or not that's the reality of it it's a cynical [54:54] manipulation to get to a certain goal and my problem is and crystal i'm going to ask you this [55:01] is it your problem as well that you look at this sudden like i can't believe the tiger ate my face [55:09] when the rest of us have been faced with this cynical manipulation of policy the whole time yeah [55:16] whether it got them the results they wanted on immigration but not the result they wanted on iran [55:22] yeah i mean at the risk of getting up on soccer i feel very similarly to you no no no and by the [55:27] way and then we'll talk about how the left sucks so okay we'll do that in a moment um but no i mean [55:33] look i look at the track record from trump 1.0 i look at jd vance's speech to your point about the [55:40] like heritage american christian nationalist vision for the country his speech at the rnc where he lay [55:46] down an explicitly blood and soil consumption conception said america is not an idea and then [55:52] you look at the at stephen miller who is so powerful that he's been called the prime minister [55:57] within the administration and this guy is a die-hard ideologue who loves to nazi post on maine um you [56:04] know there is no doubt what his priorities are so and so far as trump even has said like oh this guy [56:12] would like there to just be a hundred million people in the country that all look like him so [56:15] it's not a secret what his priorities are and he's been given a free hand in order to execute that sort [56:22] of policy so i think you have that strain and then i think you have a trump is just the most self-dealing [56:28] corrupt person on the entire planet who also has kushner and wick cop and these other characters [56:35] who are also focused on looting and self-dealing as the other primary impetus within the administration [56:41] and i think when you put all of that together and also trump's desire to be this big man in history [56:47] and he wants this world-changing legacy whether that is for good or for ill i think that's part of [56:52] what explains the iran war in particular but when you put the ideologues together with the self-dealing [56:58] together with the total lack of any guard rails on this train at this point that's how you end up [57:04] with this situation and yes to your point i mean not only was it predictable it was predicted mint [57:13] mobile and it's important that you throw in the mobile there because mint you know we all know what [57:19] that's about but mint mobile what we're talking about here is a phone company that's delivering you [57:28] their product for less than what other phone companies are doing like i don't know i don't know [57:33] what you want out of a phone company what i want out of a phone company is deliver me a good product [57:38] for less and don't bother me well mint mobile plan 15 bucks a month 15 bucks a month what is it 1992 [57:50] 15 bucks a month high speed data unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5g network [57:54] you can even you want to bring your current phone and your current number do it get rid of your [57:59] overpriced wireless with mint mobile there it's it's not dipole cool it's just good value to get your [58:05] new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month go to mintmobile.com slash tws that's mintmobile.com [58:10] slash tws cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash tws that's it [58:20] there's no catch so given all that and i think that's a summation that i i would not disagree with [58:29] why is it that the democrats are having such a difficult time they don't control anything they [58:35] don't control the senate they don't control the congress they don't control the court and they [58:38] don't control the white house so what is it about the way that democrats have governed that has allowed [58:47] this in my mind cynical and corrupt experiment to take such hold and when will accountability [58:54] come for that because i don't think i i don't think that trump arose for no reason i think people [59:01] were dissatisfied with a government that did not seem to be responsive to the needs of the people [59:08] and was at a remove yes i agree and i think what we've seen at this point is a sort of limp uh status [59:17] quo decorum obsessed liberalism is not going to be sufficient to fight what i see as rising forces [59:24] of fascism in the country they weren't historically you know when we had a previous rise of a fascist [59:29] movement in this country it took fdr it took the new deal coalition a sort of experiment in social [59:34] democracy here in the uh us to beat that back forget about rising fascism though how about just like [59:40] rural broadband like i'm not i'm not even talking about a party that is not up to the task of fighting [59:47] the nazis i'm talking about a party that is not up to the task of competently governing and easing the [59:56] difficulties that people are facing in their day-to-day lives not being responsive to their needs [1:00:00] see i would pick up on that not only not responsive to their needs but actively gaslighting them about [1:00:07] their needs i mean we could go back to you know the financial crisis and the response to that yes okay [1:00:15] which was too little where there was zero accountability to wall street criminals where [1:00:21] homeowners were completely screwed and you can see the the seeds of that dissatisfaction and now we've got [1:00:29] two generations millennials and zoomers and soon it'll be gen alpha as well who are being shut out [1:00:34] of the american dream who can't aspire to buy a house who see education costs you know they're told [1:00:39] to go get a college degree that college degree is wildly expensive they're saddled with debt and then they [1:00:44] can't get a good job out of it a bunch of ai oligarchs are telling them they're going to take their jobs [1:00:48] anyway and there has been a wildly insufficient at best response from the democratic party establishment [1:00:56] who have been more interested in palliative care for america and the working class of america in [1:01:01] particular than actually solving problems wait they put us in hospice and governing pretty much and [1:01:07] governing effectively and so you know one of the things that we've seen in the the small pilot experiment [1:01:13] of zoran mamdani in new york city where look you're the mayor of a city it's a big city but you've got [1:01:18] limited powers is i do think you see a different approach to governance where there's a real [1:01:23] commitment to no we're going to make promises we're going to deliver on those promises people are going [1:01:27] to feel the impact of government in a positive way i'm sure you probably saw the story someone posted [1:01:32] a picture of a pothole on i think it was instagram and by the end of the day he had come and filled [1:01:36] that pothole it's something small but it makes people feel like oh the tax dollars that i'm paying the [1:01:42] government that i elected they actually are trying to make my life better in a way that materially [1:01:47] improves my quality of life and democrats have become completely divorced from that and then [1:01:52] you know the other part of this of course hangs over all of it is money and politics i mean this [1:01:55] is really the root cause of so much of it where they are beholden to corporations they're beholden to [1:02:01] beholden to special interests whether it's apac or big tech etc that keeps them at odds with the needs [1:02:08] and the desires of the american people and so that's why i've been so heartened to see this [1:02:12] reckoning that is happening between the democratic base and the democratic establishment in the party [1:02:17] sagar is that how do you see the left now do you buy into the framing you know there's a lot of talk [1:02:23] about now they're socialists and very rarely does anyone ever talk about what socialism is there's it's [1:02:31] just a word and no one really describes you know in terms of specific policy what's socialist about it [1:02:39] how how do you see the left what would be your you know greatest criticism of them and and what would [1:02:46] be your fix to that how could you see them right recovering from that so i mean look i'm i do not [1:02:54] speak for the right so i'm i'm a very unique person i don't really care about hassan piker i did an [1:02:59] event with him he was fine we were perfectly cordial i actually think he's not nearly as [1:03:03] radical as a lot of people uh think that he is and so and i don't know if i'm the best person to [1:03:07] answer but like from my perspective here's what i would say is that fundamentally what i think you [1:03:13] know you guys talked about you know there's been a lot of like oh cultural issues and all of that are [1:03:17] nonsense at the end of the day there's only one movement in recent history that won households [1:03:23] under a hundred thousand dollars that was donald trump in the 2024 campaign which he won the [1:03:28] popular vote the dsa and leftists is predominantly a coalition of downwardly mobile white liberals a [1:03:35] lot of people who don't have a four-year college degree find the movement distasteful or distrust [1:03:41] them we saw that just what happened in the abdul al-sayed campaign in the primary election where you [1:03:46] had older black voters or traditional political coast political co constituency and households that [1:03:51] don't have four-year college did not vote for him still vote i mean that was a democratic primary but [1:03:55] right but that's emblematic also in the general election results of 2024 so if we try to transpose [1:04:01] those two things the most likely predictor of what your politics are in this country [1:04:06] is whether you have four-year college degree or not and if four-year college degree is also [1:04:10] correlated highly with income the democratic party while may having economic positions that [1:04:16] supposedly benefit the working class is not convinced the working class of yes that's just [1:04:21] empirically true right and so that's kind of like my criticism if you will if it's you know crystal gave [1:04:28] her speech so i'll give my worst case you know my worst faith interpretation would be sure it's class [1:04:33] cosplay i mean fundamentally it is um cosplay of dressing up you know said you know basically woke one type [1:04:42] policy and or rhetoric to explain that what is look one yeah this is a whole thing right i mean also let's [1:04:48] be fair like yeah i mean trump is the one who puts on the apron and sits in the mcdonald's wing like [1:04:53] talk about cosplay like i don't think anybody does it depends what type of cosplay we're cosplaying [1:04:58] you know how many times can you hear he's he's a blue-collar billionaire and you're like yeah i don't [1:05:02] think that's a thing he's cosplaying norman rockwell america uh obviously which is you know highly [1:05:08] effective all right so you have to grapple with that if you want to win in america's in an american [1:05:12] politics today right and so yeah i mean i think and we're talking to the whole woke one debate and [1:05:18] crystal i literally had it today yeah what tell me what you mean by that because i'm not sure i [1:05:22] understand so aoc aoc recently went on television and she said quote woke one was crazy and it was in [1:05:27] relation to francesca hong who's a dsa candidate who is very likely to win i think tonight was [1:05:33] in wisconsin in the gubernatorial election in which i don't have the exact tweet in front of me [1:05:38] had said something along the lines of critical of thanksgiving she gives an interview in which they [1:05:44] said so do you want to cancel thanksgiving and gives a word salad level of an answer okay might [1:05:50] seem nonsensical john you and i both know that in this country that is not uh exactly how you're [1:05:55] going to appeal quote unquote to the very working class uh that we're talking about my favorite holiday [1:06:00] yeah it's most people's favorite holiday it's most normal people's favorite holiday and so that [1:06:04] comes across as deeply disconnected and obsessed with you know what some activist uh is either going [1:06:11] to say towards you or your genuine belief that thanksgiving or just like white society which she's [1:06:17] also talked a lot about her own like biracial son and potentially being ashamed of that like that is [1:06:23] deeply off-putting i think to a lot of people and so that is where like to the extent that i have a [1:06:28] critique i guess is they're saying oh woke one was crazy and it's like no but you still believe many of the [1:06:34] things that woke one consisted of she's still saying that now no no no what i'm saying is aoc had said [1:06:41] woke one was crazy as in the rhetoric that we use there was an overton window and she she made it clear [1:06:47] that much of the rhetoric that was used from 2020 was oh okay all right i see what you're saying was [1:06:53] dumb and i'm like okay that's fine um but you know kind of john as you're saying uh if the rhetoric [1:06:59] was bad well what about the idea like do you still believe like in defund the police zoran had [1:07:05] explicitly apologized to the cops and said no i'm sorry i said that um right and so okay that's [1:07:10] fine you know for people like but isn't on the flip side of that isn't going through people's [1:07:15] old tweets isn't that what the right hated about absolutely fair so fair you're right it's part of [1:07:20] cancel culture and has the right embrace cancel culture yes especially oh yeah whenever it comes to [1:07:26] anti-semitism uh and all of this or or or bud light but yeah i i get what you're saying yeah um [1:07:35] is so much of woke now or or cancel culture or anything also just the ubiquity of social media [1:07:43] meaning we've democratized criticism so social media makes its money on outrage conflict all those uh [1:07:53] uh different things isn't it just a reflection of there is no such thing as a non-cancel culture [1:08:00] because everything that you say somebody will try and seek advantage of it and highlight it and amplify [1:08:09] it to help them uh do that certainly and i also don't understand how the idea that well she said [1:08:16] thanksgiving should be cancelled so she's crazy but he said trump won the 2020 election but that's fine [1:08:22] we're all just gonna we're all just gonna go along with it is it fine though well no but i'm saying [1:08:27] like it is i think people who say that get plenty of criticism though i don't think it's fine i don't [1:08:31] think that's true get it but they get criticism but there's no accountability it's not like they [1:08:35] don't still get confirmed by the senate it's not that they get they can sit in a confirmation hearing [1:08:41] for example mike rogers mike rogers is an election denier and i haven't seen all the hand [1:08:47] ring about like oh my god is he going to be able to win and you know for moderate voters because [1:08:52] he's such an extremist on this see i'm not sure that's true i see that story like two days ago [1:08:57] what i've heard is all about how extreme abdul is because oh my god he hung out with hassan piker [1:09:02] how dare he versus mike rogers who actually holds these views himself and has expressed them multiple [1:09:09] times that's not framed as being too extreme for a moderate voter but i'm sure he doesn't actually [1:09:15] hold those views crystal he doesn't again it's cynical he doesn't actually hold them i'm sure [1:09:22] he's not an idiot right but it doesn't really matter at the end of the day whether he believes [1:09:26] it in his heart of hearts or whether it's a cynical posture he's going to act and behave in the same way [1:09:32] because he's going to be a rubber stamp for donald trump at the end of the day so no i think woke is um [1:09:38] you know and especially the the current iteration of woke coming from the trump administration now what's [1:09:42] the current admit what so what's if that's woke point one what's woke point two well that's i think [1:09:47] up for debate but currently we're living through a trump regime that wants to um crush any sort of [1:09:53] dissent the place where they've come down the hardest is on any sort of criticism of israel which is [1:09:58] characterized as being anti-semitic and they've used it as an excuse to jail to crush protests to um [1:10:05] deport and you know as part of their nspm 7 project they also use that to label you as effectively a [1:10:13] terrorist and subject to you know potential government action and surveillance so it goes far [1:10:18] beyond some like social media cancellation campaign at this point and i think really does expose how at [1:10:25] its core this is really about controlling the bounds of debate about scaring people into compliance um you [1:10:33] know against a an unpopular policy and about maintaining power so i think that's the way that [1:10:38] it's really been deployed by trump does that sound like woke 2.2 2.0 to you sucker it's see this is the [1:10:45] difficulty i accept crystal's entire critique as that is the definition of woke i've described the [1:10:52] anti-semitism you know freak out in the administration as like ibrahim x kendi's dream come true like going [1:11:00] after uh at you know universities and saying you're not sufficiently uh and not anti-anti-semitic [1:11:07] enough i think it's outrageous i think it's obviously a violation and all that of free speech [1:11:11] woke 2.0 is what i think is uh you know for example abdul al-sayed the candidate in michigan [1:11:18] literally claimed that he'd never said defund the police he did say it he lied about that um now that's [1:11:23] an important thing and okay but but john he said it and he and he lied that he didn't say it he deleted [1:11:28] his tweet and that's fine and that may not be objectionable to you but it certainly is objectionable [1:11:33] we we've all lived through the campaign ads of of guys on the left having to like walk with police [1:11:38] and go like it's actually right they're quite nice well i actually think that's healthy and good uh [1:11:43] because it's establishes good norms in society as opposed to you know like wanting to defund and or [1:11:48] ban police well that's i never understood why progressives reject safety public safety as a [1:11:56] non-progressive value i always look at it as don't people in the most economically devastated areas [1:12:04] deserve the same level of law and order that people in beverly hills enjoy i i never understood why you [1:12:13] would agree why you would hold back on that but sucker the anti-semitism thing is kind of interesting [1:12:18] to me as someone who's received pretty good anti-semitic stuff and been accused of being it myself you [1:12:26] know if you if you look at the twitter feed i'll always get a like you're a dirty jew along with [1:12:30] you're a capo like you get it all i'm interested on the right this idea of you know they fight [1:12:38] anti-semitism when very clearly they hire people you know there's the republican uh young republican club [1:12:47] in new york where they go through their chat history and it's just vile like flat out anti-semitism [1:12:54] or jd vance will say look the nazi jokes who doesn't like to have a nazi joke i don't think [1:13:01] we should hold that against people while basically forcing universities to pay them millions and [1:13:09] millions of dollars it's again can you understand why the whole thing feels cynical sure yeah and [1:13:18] you're right because it is cynical because it's not about anti-semitic anti-semitism it's about israel [1:13:22] that's what it's about it's about the unholy alliance but can't you understand now how writ [1:13:26] large the whole operation seems cynical uh yeah but i would say that a lot of democratic stuff is [1:13:33] just as cynical right and so then well but then very well be but i you'd have to you'd have to tell [1:13:38] me those you'd have to make those points to me as well right i could tell you what's cynical and [1:13:43] what's not but i don't i don't hear a lot of specificity in the criticism 100 fair how much time [1:13:49] do we have i i think uh not much you're busy people yeah i think to your i do want to pick [1:13:55] up on the anti-semitism point just because i do want people to i want this to be emphasized is it [1:14:01] does expose the lie at the heart of it as you just said that any of this is really about anti-semitism or [1:14:08] any genuine concern it's about israel and it is just the pro-israel alliance with the trump [1:14:15] administration and you know chris you eloquently you know talked about woke 2.0 and how it's about [1:14:21] power i think woke 1.0 was also about power cultural takeover in order to defend a unpopular [1:14:27] policy so i think they both have two things in common and in both cases i think both are genuinely [1:14:32] not about what they allegedly were you know supposed to be anti-semitism and or racism i think both are [1:14:37] about cultural power who gets to have said power in our society again i i would say i would never have [1:14:43] predicted it john uh and perhaps that's the dupe uh in me but you know how can you come up with people [1:14:49] who've been talking about free speech for 10 years only to then when they have power deport people for [1:14:54] what they have said i would not have predicted that never in a million years and so i do i do have to [1:14:59] be forced to accept some of your own criticism of what you're saying i'm just saying like donald trump [1:15:06] said to jeff to zuckerberg mark zuckerberg uh zuckerbucks is what threw the election and so if he [1:15:15] tries that again i'm going to put him in jail i said that to elon musk i said so you're you said free [1:15:24] speech is your line you're supporting a guy who's literally threatened to jail somebody if they exercise [1:15:32] their free speech while you're as a social media mogul doing far more direct electioneering giving away a [1:15:40] million dollars here setting up an algorithm that favors uh conservative content how can you justify [1:15:47] that and he says oh trump is just that's just talk so i guess my point is you see the clues you want [1:15:57] to see crystal and the same could be said from the left if somebody was saying yeah man i'm going to open [1:16:02] all the borders and then that's what happens and you say when you say well they said it how could [1:16:10] how can you pretend that they did well yeah i mean i think to me it's not just about listening to the [1:16:16] rhetoric it's also looking at the actions and um yeah i mean look it's no secret trump behaves like [1:16:23] an authoritarian he does it in his business he does did it in trump 1.0 and you want to just shoot [1:16:28] protesters in the knees that's hardly pro first amendment pro free speech type of activity and um on [1:16:35] on anti-semitism specifically i mean there's always been even at the height of oh we're pro free speech [1:16:41] etc there's always been a carve out for israel i mean just look at these anti-bds laws across the [1:16:47] country look at the number of professors who had their careers attacked by you know free speech maven [1:16:53] barry weiss as one example um so there's always been a carve out there because it's about protecting [1:16:59] israel and it's also about you know a lot of the uh influence they've successfully been able to wield [1:17:04] which is not unique to the israel lobby but is very central to the way that our politics ultimately [1:17:09] operate i totally agree so are you going to say something i'm sorry i cut oh i honestly i don't [1:17:13] even remember that's a perfect place to stop hold on john if i don't say uh that my husband kyle [1:17:24] kalinsky wants you to run for president and is your biggest booster then he's going to divorce me so oh [1:17:28] dear god don't don't let the divorce that's that oh i i so want you two to work out but i don't [1:17:36] want to come on the country needs you john sagar who you got who who who are you have do you guys [1:17:44] talk about uh in your mind is there a leader that you think could arise that could put behind us this [1:17:54] weaponized environment we currently live in run on a platform of sane policy competently executed [1:18:02] do you think they could do that and and is there someone out there that you view as having that [1:18:09] potential there is an agenda for the taking for someone i don't know who that someone is no question [1:18:15] certainly on the left it's wide open there is an agenda for the taking that is about economic [1:18:20] populism yes it's about pushing back against the tech oligarchs fighting back against these data [1:18:25] centers that are taking over communities and which are hated by left right center doesn't matter about a [1:18:32] foreign policy which is about investing in america rather than fighting these horrific immoral [1:18:39] foreign wars and backstopping a genocide to me there is a broad fdr style coalition that is there for the [1:18:46] taking if you have the the right person who has credibility and expressing those values in the right [1:18:52] way sagar i i don't know about a specific person i do have a general kind of theory i love to read [1:18:59] history books is that we talked about the 60s and the 70s and one of the most unique parts of jimmy [1:19:04] carter's rise is that if you had gone a few years before nobody would have predicted that somebody like [1:19:09] him could have been elected now let's ignore how he actually governed and kind of the promise of [1:19:14] of carter itself it was an oil shock saga come on man all right yeah sure it wasn't just [1:19:18] yeah uh but i do think a really interesting idea is that the trump era began with the escalator the [1:19:26] celebrity politics era began with obama that we've now lived with 20 so years of celebrity politics [1:19:34] that an inevitable swing back would be to the type of thing you're talking about an executive a level [1:19:40] of seriousness in anti-charisma a level of like nerdish you know ness almost in the way that [1:19:47] carter's sheer moral impeachability was so important to the country in a post watergate [1:19:53] post nixon post lbj environment governor of iowa type dude governor of iowa but but with the right [1:20:01] politics so that's the key there's the key to those two things is many of what crystal just said and the [1:20:07] right ability to communicate those politics i think there might be some people that exist without [1:20:10] that if you put those together the country is desperate for genuine leadership desperate that's [1:20:15] what i think so thirsty final question trump uh famously chose the escalator which to me [1:20:24] is maybe the least authoritative mode of transportation there is it's literally [1:20:31] it's gravity and you don't even have to move your legs but it's cinematic yeah you just you're [1:20:37] you're heading down what would be that for for our next great leader what would be the mode of [1:20:43] conveyance that they could choose would it be people mover chariot what anything the segue they [1:20:53] should announce it on breaking points breaking points that's where they should come majestic yeah [1:20:59] the final plug yeah the final damn plug uh i can't thank you guys enough uh crystal ball and saga and [1:21:07] jetty of of breaking points please check out the show because it is and and i don't say this lightly [1:21:13] uh good faith good faith conversation that you may not agree with some of it you may have arguments [1:21:21] but it never feels cynical it never feels manipulated and it never feels uh performative [1:21:31] that's extremely kind john and i really do appreciate that for the both of you it's it's not an easy trick [1:21:36] to pull thank you thank you very much means a lot coming from you john thank you so much [1:21:41] thanks guys my last plug my parents adore you i love them i think my mom met you in an airport once [1:21:48] and so wait for real yes she said you were extremely kind to her uh so thank you and i was in the front [1:21:54] row at the rally to restore sanity at age 18 while i was in college did it work did we restore the sanity [1:22:00] it clearly didn't take but i was there i was there uh thank you guys both for being with us folks you [1:22:09] know i am nothing if not a generator of ideas that may never work obviously we've talked a little bit [1:22:14] on the show about the crumple which is the portable dog bed that you throw on the ground that makes a [1:22:18] different topographical shape uh each time you do it think of it as the way your dog likes to sit on [1:22:24] your coat although uh officially a more dog uh appropriate blanket type thing hasn't come into [1:22:31] production or uh fruition yet but this shopify thing if you've got an idea if you're somebody [1:22:36] that always thinks oh you know it would be a great business this is this is the thing that that makes [1:22:41] it work makes it ready to go from from day one and i don't know how they did it i think with zeros and [1:22:46] ones i don't know how this works to be honest with you i don't know how computers work in general [1:22:52] or apps work zeros and ones and then you feed it into a box where i guess eight brilliant gerbils [1:22:58] live and they do the rest of the work i have no idea it's easy to design your shop it's easy to get [1:23:03] paid they handle the checkout process you might think to yourself like oh how how are they going [1:23:08] to complete their purchase that shopify handles it gets them to come back as repeat customers [1:23:14] setup and checkout are all handled so get shopify for god's sakes with shopify nothing stands between [1:23:20] your idea and a real business so go make it one start your free trial at shopify.com tws start your [1:23:29] free trial at shopify.com tws you can so tell sagar's parents do not agree with him but he's learned the [1:23:44] gentle art of accepting his parents wrongness but dealing with them in a kind way like i can't tell you [1:23:53] how many times he said to me like i see how you got there well i'd certainly i could i can understand [1:24:01] why you might think that but like it that that is a guy trying to get through the weekend he is [1:24:07] spending at home i'm gonna steal some of those like rhetorical flourishes yeah that's um he has the [1:24:14] patience first of all i was saying like just i fantastic it's really admirable what he does and what [1:24:21] they both do but what he did in this conversation because it was a bit of two-on-one so shout out i [1:24:26] i did i did feel bad on that there was a certain point but when he would say like it's not cynical [1:24:31] and i'd be like come on god you help yourself yeah how can it not be cynical yeah when he said they [1:24:39] love how much it drives you crazy that really hit me because i was like so that's why my family behaves [1:24:47] this way in the group chat last week i left the group chat because they're just like the memes the [1:24:53] you know the fauci shit oh my god it just like surged and i was like i'm out i can't i can't i've [1:24:59] highly suspected for years that this was all just to own the libs and just for that to be confirmed [1:25:04] in that moment was gratifying but also really upsetting yeah right but it's also in some ways [1:25:11] uh it's verified my decision to never join group chats oh yeah i do not have there are no long [1:25:20] strain the only the largest group chat i have is literally with the guys that i play music with [1:25:25] okay that's a reasonable number four of us yeah and and the only discussions are the discussions are [1:25:32] always like tuesday night and then it's a bunch of thumbs ups what about wednesday right can't you know [1:25:39] it's that there's not a lot of you know fuck covet like yeah that stuff i see where you're coming [1:25:44] from that's that's that's exactly right yeah uh britney what do we what do we got on this our final [1:25:50] episode of the summer okay john do you think the white house press corps is cool with taking a bullet [1:25:55] or a surface-to-air missile for trump absolutely i have of course they would say to themselves if we [1:26:02] can be the decoy if we if sir if killing us makes you safe however that would be do you want one of [1:26:12] us to put on the trump wig do you want us to put on the red tie and do that i'll jump in front of the [1:26:18] catering cart myself sure whatever it is you want us to do sir do you want us to taste your food to make [1:26:25] sure that it is in no way contaminated although now uh with kennedy running uh hhs you don't know [1:26:32] if it's contaminated because of a foreign act of assassination or there's just diarrhea parasites [1:26:38] and everything common misconception that was a wild story although caitlin counts again because caitlin [1:26:43] counts she does her research she says you know there that is not unprecedented that uh a president has [1:26:50] had to change plans based on a certain threat and it and it wasn't until afterwards that it was [1:26:57] explained to the people who remained on the on the targeted conveyance hey by the way just wanted to [1:27:04] let you guys know now that we're here safely um there were a lot of lasers being pointed and we weren't [1:27:10] sure which one was it's so crazy also the irony of it being a catering truck is just like it's just like [1:27:18] what's always in the movies too they're like how do we get you out of here and then there's like a [1:27:22] little catering cart and you're like oh it's perfect here's here's the question did he have [1:27:26] to put on the cater waiter outfit he had a disguise he dressed as a bellhop put on the thing actually [1:27:32] here's what they did they brought him in on the big table and it had the little cloche on it and then [1:27:37] they pulled it in they got the table to the safe location and then they lifted the cloche are you [1:27:42] okay now mr president and put it back down and then it's just such a screwball comedy it's perfect isn't it [1:27:48] it's very it's very clouseau i also love him saying if i go you go afterwards and it's like [1:27:55] actually not actually that was if they go they go yeah if i go i go you say right if i go i go and you [1:28:05] don't go you go bye-bye yeah you go bye-bye that's for sure what what else they got all right john [1:28:13] whose weave is better trump or federman oh tr whose weaves well weave weave well yeah i was [1:28:24] going to say federman no i mean federman i think gave up on whatever hairstyle trump at least is [1:28:32] experimenting that's kind of what i dig about him like with trump you literally could imagine like [1:28:37] where was he this morning and somebody be like i think the beauty parlor like he's because he's got [1:28:42] a hairdo now that's like like when my you know when i was younger all the old ladies would go to [1:28:48] this guy joe joe would he it was the beauty parlor and joe would be at the beauty parlor and [1:28:53] he would take care of the ladies and he's got that like i imagine trump sitting under that little [1:28:59] dome after getting his thing up and just coming out and going like oh my god wait till i play bridge [1:29:05] uh trump is the master of the weave because he's in control of it federman unfortunately i think look [1:29:15] to be fair to him like he had a stroke i do think that creates processing issues i don't think it's a [1:29:23] great environment for him in long form necessarily i don't want to lay all of it on that because i don't [1:29:29] think all of it should be laid on that but i definitely think um in he may have a more [1:29:38] thoughtful mode of communicating that we are not necessarily privy to if that would be is that the [1:29:45] nicest way to say it fair is it is that's i would say it's too generous in fact i'm not i'm not suggesting [1:29:51] that the opinions should not be uh criticized and looked at with astonishment because i do think [1:30:01] they are his real opinions i just think i i don't know if that was necessarily his best at defending [1:30:08] them that's all i that's all i haven't seen better and i did look around quite a bit so i haven't seen [1:30:16] him articulate the point better than he did i actually think he's taking i think federman is [1:30:22] taking like some of trump's playbook where it's like when he's talking to some of the media just like [1:30:27] completely throwing lobs back like when i think it was drop site like caught him in the hallway [1:30:32] and was asking him questions about israel and he was like who do you work for like that's not [1:30:36] a real organization oh right you know what yeah i'm i'm giving him too much credit i i i'm probably [1:30:42] i am giving him too much but i think that's like uh he's you know copying trump a little bit like i [1:30:47] see there's some tendencies there but yeah i think it's because in the conversation like i did get to [1:30:53] a place where i felt bad i i know that's that he's a senator i should there's there's no amount of [1:31:01] having that you know but having diminished ability but yeah but having power not be diminished that's [1:31:08] a scary place for people to be but it's hard not to on a human level have a conversation at that length [1:31:15] with somebody in that situation where you don't go like oh i it's like i have to not let me just not be [1:31:26] yeah i think that you have to yeah i think it's really good to like hold space for that kind of [1:31:31] empathy um whoa did you say i've never used i've never heard hold space used before in a non [1:31:38] um but i don't i don't know that it's warranted yeah i i agree and and the reason why it's not [1:31:46] warranted is the amount of power that the individual wields in the same way for uh mitch mcconnell [1:31:54] where you can go like wow that must suck to be infirmed to the point where you literally can't [1:32:02] be filmed saying you're okay yeah and then also think to yourself that guy for still having that [1:32:10] much power yeah 100 i feel better thank you for helping me work through this because i i did i had [1:32:16] i was feeling guilty you should i can't i can't not think that i was feeling a bit guilty that's all [1:32:23] no all right what's fun resolved uh last one john please settle this for me and my wife done i can do [1:32:30] that no problem mcdonald's fries or burger king onion rings uh mcdonald's fries they're yeah quint why [1:32:40] would anybody even yeah why would someone throw that even into the the burger king onion ring is [1:32:48] not i don't believe is in the same weight class that's like you know manchester city or you know [1:32:57] somebody the galaxy like it's not even they can do it friendly every now and again but they shouldn't [1:33:04] be competing a friendly yeah they can they can play and you know what we'll even pretend that we're [1:33:10] going to referee it but we all know what the the the real situation is now uh uh the mcdonald's fry [1:33:18] i will say this uh my view on the size of mcdonald's fry has changed over the years uh in the old days [1:33:30] if you would supersize a fry or get me get me the largest container of fries that they will allow me [1:33:37] to take out of the restaurant yes do you have i'm sorry do you have bucket oh fry may i have a bucket [1:33:45] may how about this i'll hold my arms like this and you load it with fry and i will walk out with oh you [1:33:53] know what i'll have the sack o fries like a little santa sack filled with fries yeah as i have gotten [1:34:02] older i can uh actually feel the amount of salt enter my body and slowly begin to change the chemical [1:34:11] makeup uh of of what i'm experiencing and and i can't do it oh that sucks just to know that that's [1:34:20] coming yeah oh oh it's coming nothing hits like a medium french fry and a medium diet coke yeah [1:34:27] now you say medium french fry that is a respectable amount of fry but the large fry three quarters of [1:34:35] the way through i think to myself i believe i'm having a pulmonary embolism i'll eat a bucket of [1:34:41] fries for the both of us john thank you so much and i and i miss it you know what i've taken to doing at [1:34:46] times you get the fries and you do this no yeah yeah yeah i get the fries and i do this oh no no no [1:34:55] i have to i have to clear out whatever whatever they put on dark wait have you had a burger king [1:35:02] onion ring oh sure oh listen i've traveled is that what you're asking me has he traveled the world of [1:35:09] course am i a bon vivant am i a sophisticate of course i've i've had the uh and i by the way i've even [1:35:16] had when they try like let's do cheesy tots like when they they'll introduce new fried items or things [1:35:25] like that i'll try them all why not i'll try the cinnabon with the little frosting in the center of [1:35:32] it yeah yeah taco bell tried to throw out a chocolate empanada for a little while yeah sort [1:35:38] of like a choco taco i always wondered who those advertisements worked on you're looking at him me [1:35:46] i'll try them all i'll i'll throw but but i am always searching for the perfection of in my old days [1:35:54] when i ate when i ate bread meat the mcdonald's cheeseburger a large fry coke and an apple pie [1:36:05] that that was the quintessential american lab made i'm sure it was made in a lid like the same lab [1:36:17] that where you made creepy crawlies where you put you poured the stuff into the thing and then you [1:36:22] heated it up and out came a worm yeah i'm sure it was the same lab the 60s and 70s were nothing if not [1:36:31] monosodium glutamate and whatever else they could throw in there they figured it out so good [1:36:38] well that's all for us and this is it the show we are done until when do you know when the next [1:36:44] one is september september 10th thursday we'll be out on a thursday that week switching it up [1:36:50] we're we're switching it up september 10th uh to all the people that have been listening [1:36:55] uh throughout the year thank you all so much for doing so uh we're excited to come back in september [1:37:01] and uh uh and infuriate you even further uh as always we could not do it without our exceptional [1:37:10] team and we have added a new team member i would like to say a new associate producer by the name [1:37:17] of rebecca rotenberg she'll be joining us uh doing a wonderful job but our producer britney memedvick [1:37:22] our producer jillian spear our video editor and engineer rob vitolo who uh made a headroom call [1:37:28] today that i thought was well worth i got a little lax and i came in hot with a ton of headroom and [1:37:37] rob said not on my watch my friend not gonna happen audio editor and engineer nicole boyce associate [1:37:43] producer rebecca rotenberg as we mentioned earlier and our executive producers chris mcshane and katie gray [1:37:47] thank you guys so much and we shall see you in september the weekly show with john stewart [1:37:54] is a comedy central podcast it's produced by paramount audio and busboy productions