Podchaser Logo
Charts
Elon Musk cements position in Trump world; Pete Hegseth nomination up in the air

Elon Musk cements position in Trump world; Pete Hegseth nomination up in the air

Released Friday, 6th December 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
Elon Musk cements position in Trump world; Pete Hegseth nomination up in the air

Elon Musk cements position in Trump world; Pete Hegseth nomination up in the air

Elon Musk cements position in Trump world; Pete Hegseth nomination up in the air

Elon Musk cements position in Trump world; Pete Hegseth nomination up in the air

Friday, 6th December 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
Rate Episode

Episode Transcript

Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.

Use Ctrl + F to search

0:14

Good morning and welcome to We have We have

0:16

a great show for you today. joined by

0:18

Amber Duke, joined by time hosting together. Yes, Our

0:20

first time hosting together, to be here exciting. so excited

0:22

to be here we had even matching so

0:24

or something. know, it's like we had some

0:26

telekinesis or something. news, big news day, We really

0:28

love to see it. man, to get right

0:30

into the over a quarter of obviously. of a The

0:32

world's richest man, Elon Musk, has spent

0:34

over a quarter of a billion dollars

0:36

to help President -elect Trump secure the

0:38

presidency. This is according to federal findings. That

0:41

makes him the biggest individual donor

0:43

of the 2024 campaign. the 2024 campaign. And

0:45

move, the billionaire poured

0:47

The billionaire poured $20 million into a super

0:50

PAC after the late Supreme

0:52

Court Justice Bader Ginsburg, The the

0:54

organization sought to help Trump's

0:56

image by softening his pro -life

0:58

position. position. Musk spent several

1:00

million to cut checks to

1:02

voters in swing states who signed

1:04

a petition supporting the Constitution. Since

1:07

Trump's victory, Musk has become a

1:09

frequent guest at at -Lago and is

1:11

set to lead Doge the the Department

1:13

of Government to eliminate government waste. waste.

1:15

The The total spending that has poured

1:17

into helping Trump is currently unknown, but

1:19

the staggering amounts that have been

1:22

reported been have summoned the political world. if

1:25

Musk is trying to buy

1:27

access to the the president-elect. Well, one Bloomberg

1:29

business pointing out on out on X,

1:31

quote, Musk only been a modest

1:33

political donor until this year.

1:35

told the giving has lofted him into has

1:37

inner orbit. into Trump's has

1:39

seen his his since Trump won

1:41

the election last month. last month.

1:44

Now Trump in the past has

1:46

made supportive comments about Musk, but

1:48

about Musk, but cracks to about his

1:50

presence, one time time saying,

1:52

quote, Elon, what a job, what a

1:54

job he does. He's great. He's great, he

1:56

happens to be a really good guy. You know,

1:58

know, he likes this place. get him out

2:01

of you. I should have done that with

2:03

the Trump voice. Yeah, he loves the place.

2:05

I can't get him out. Incredible. Look, I

2:07

mean, I will say this is obviously a

2:09

broader story about money and politics and whether

2:11

or not billionaires should be able to dump

2:13

so much money into an election and then...

2:15

potentially get rewarded with either cabinet picks or

2:17

in this case an external non-government agency that

2:19

is supposed to be advising the White House.

2:21

But I do think that the oversized focus

2:23

on must does kind of ignore the fact

2:25

that Kamala Harris also spent a lot of

2:27

money and had a lot of money from

2:29

billionaire donors. This is certainly not a Republican

2:31

versus Democrat issue or anything specific to Elon

2:33

Musk. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think

2:35

there are two parts of the story. There

2:37

is a genuine ideological alignment with Elon, and

2:39

this has been chronicled in the Walter Isaacson

2:41

book about Elon. It's really happened over the

2:43

last four years. You know, Elon used to

2:45

be a basically climate activist calling for carbon

2:47

taxes and things like that. But there has

2:49

been a shift. He calls it the woke

2:51

mind virus, as chronicled in the biography about

2:53

him. He had a trans kid, and he

2:55

became very concerned during the time of COVID,

2:57

with some of the lockdowns in the censorship.

2:59

That moved him towards not just Republicans, but

3:01

the new Trump Republican Party. So there's some

3:03

genuine ideological alignment there, but there's also a

3:05

money story here as well. Does money, him

3:07

spending $250 million, help him get into Maralago

3:09

on a consistent basis? Absolutely. And I think

3:11

Trump very much appreciates that support. That's how

3:13

our political system works right now. I think

3:15

I'm a get money out of politics kind

3:17

of guy. We do need to reform that

3:19

system. But for now, Elon is hanging out

3:22

with Trump. Yeah, I mean, the way the

3:24

system is currently, that's what it is. It's

3:26

basically pay to play. I mean, whether it's

3:28

Elon Musk spending $250 million through these supportive

3:30

packs of Trump, or whether it's, you know,

3:32

Mark Zuckerberg in 2020, spending $400 million and

3:34

get out the vote efforts that primarily benefited

3:36

Democrats, this is, uh, non -partisan

3:38

issue, you guess you could

3:40

say, in a lot

3:42

of ways. I do I

3:44

do think, know you

3:46

know, Elon Musk, as

3:48

you said, is very

3:50

ideologically aligned with Trump.

3:52

So I think sometimes

3:54

the question becomes, or is

3:56

it the chicken or

3:58

the egg? Is Elon

4:00

Musk supporting Trump with

4:02

all of this money

4:04

because he wants to

4:06

move him on certain

4:08

issues? that Or is

4:10

it that Trump already

4:12

supports the issues that

4:14

Elon Musk really cares

4:16

about? Just based on

4:18

what we saw during

4:20

the past couple of

4:22

years in his purchase

4:24

of of X some of

4:26

the things that he

4:28

was talking about. was on X,

4:30

I think there was a natural sort of alignment

4:32

there that happened before he started dumping the

4:34

money in. he heard a great line from

4:36

a friend of mine 10 years ago.

4:38

He said, a the sum of the 10

4:41

closest people to you. the And so the

4:43

no doubt, to you. And so Trump, one of

4:45

those people. as one of And I have no

4:47

doubt that his ideas on government and

4:49

upcoming administration are absolutely shaped by Elon

4:51

Musk, including and the and the Department of of

4:54

Efficiency and Elon's role with that. with that.

4:56

Now going back to the to story,

4:58

one thing that's particularly striking about this

5:00

is the sheer volume and the compressed

5:02

amount of time. compressed amount of time.

5:04

got involved got and financially in

5:06

the Trump campaign Trump campaign assassination attempt

5:08

in the summer. summer. So to

5:10

have that sheer amount of

5:13

money of just a few months

5:15

period of time of pretty unprecedented. unprecedented.

5:17

I also think going back to

5:19

the ideological piece of this, of

5:21

think that that has some constructive

5:24

things to share with the

5:26

federal government. He certainly has a

5:28

perspective on space technology. He

5:30

has a perspective on AI. a perspective

5:32

on AI. And I I think his voice

5:34

is going to be heard. Now,

5:36

Now, part of what we don't

5:38

know a a public is that the actual

5:40

total amount that Yolanda spent. We're

5:43

reporting 250 million because that's because

5:45

reported in the FEC filings. However,

5:47

there are dark money groups, there are dark

5:49

groups that are not required to

5:51

disclose their donors. their donors.

5:53

so so we know actually as a fact

5:55

that you on has a donated to those

5:57

groups and we just don't know how

5:59

much much. That It's also a system that needs to

6:01

be reformed. What I found really interesting about

6:03

about involvement too is how much the

6:05

Trump campaign was willing to outsource

6:07

a significant amount of its ground game

6:09

in some of the swing states

6:11

like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona, to America PAC

6:14

affiliated entities, right? I mean, they, very much

6:16

aligned very much aligned with the

6:18

Trump campaign's idea of turning out

6:20

low and mid propensity voters voters used

6:22

Elon Musk's money to have employees out

6:24

for doors for those efforts. a And

6:26

so it was a very bifurcated effort

6:28

were a there were a lot of

6:30

outside groups that were helping Trump. whereas

6:33

maybe the Kamala campaign

6:35

was more internal DNC oriented and

6:37

of of one. large behemoth, so you

6:39

kind of saw two different strategies from

6:41

these camps. these camps. one thing that I

6:43

do always go back to when it

6:45

comes to the money in politics question

6:47

is that is that when we do see

6:49

that Kamala Harris has outspent Trump pretty significantly.

6:52

I think the total amount between her

6:54

official campaign and then the the packs supporting

6:56

her was close to $2 billion. to $2

6:58

Trump was about and a half billion

7:00

with all of those various efforts. Obviously

7:03

you can't win just based on money, be

7:05

an There has to be an underlying

7:07

message that the American people resonate with. what

7:09

we that was what we saw in

7:11

this election, was that even though Kamala

7:13

Harris significantly outspent Trump, there was something

7:15

about what Trump was was selling people people they

7:17

really liked and and on to of

7:19

how much money Elon Musk or anybody

7:21

else individually put in. put in. Now I want

7:23

to remind people that one of

7:25

the original appeals of Trump going

7:28

back to 2016 was a lot of a

7:30

lot of supporters out here from

7:32

would say that Trump is not beholden

7:34

to anyone. to self -financing his campaign.

7:36

There is the There moment on the

7:38

debate stage on the debate Bush it all up Jeb

7:40

Bush and all his we gotta get rid

7:43

of these super PACs. Now, me at

7:45

the time, certainly packs. Now me at the time,

7:47

certainly hand. a Trump fan. but

7:49

I am a political reformer. I

7:51

was like, I more of that.

7:53

more of that. Let's, yeah, call out. Jeb Bush

7:55

and his his super packed owners. But

7:57

unfortunately, the the drain, the

7:59

swamp mess. Trump, some of which I actually

8:02

did support, did not actually get executed.

8:04

The swamp only got swampier during Trump's

8:06

four years in office, and now certainly

8:09

he's surrounding himself with all kinds of

8:11

big money donors. So I'd encourage him

8:13

to listen to himself from his 2016

8:15

debates because that actually is an appealing

8:18

message. And I'm really interested to see

8:20

some of the crossover with support for

8:22

Doge from Democrats like Bernie Sanders and

8:25

Rokana. to cut down some of these

8:27

wasteful government programs. I think that's going

8:29

to be a part of this realignment

8:31

that we're seeing with Populous Left and

8:34

Populous Right coming together on this shared

8:36

message of, yeah, actually we do waste

8:38

a lot of taxpayer money and we

8:41

have programs that are not adequately serving

8:43

the American people. And now that Republicans

8:45

are in power, maybe we can actually

8:48

work together to achieve some of these

8:50

goals. Right, we had Rokana on the

8:52

show yesterday and we asked him a

8:54

little bit about that. He had just,

8:57

he had just put out his public

8:59

statements saying he was going to work

9:01

with Elon and Vivek on Doge. Well,

9:04

later in the day, he posted again

9:06

saying that Not that X is real

9:08

life, but over 24 million views on

9:11

that tweet is his most engaged tweet

9:13

since he's been in Congress. And basically

9:15

his point is maybe there is a

9:17

hunger for this kind of cooperation, especially

9:20

among populists left and populist right, to

9:22

get rid of wasteful spending, especially if

9:24

some of that corruption happening at the

9:27

Defense Department and defense contractors were getting

9:29

big contracts and often not at the

9:31

benefit of the American people. Often

9:34

cooperation is not sexy, but apparently is

9:36

in that case. Yeah, I love to

9:38

see it. We'll see if it continues

9:40

for sure, and if more Democrats come

9:42

to the table. We have a lot

9:44

more to cover on rising. We're going

9:46

to be back right after this. The

9:48

final hearing of what went wrong with

9:50

the Secret Service in relation to the

9:52

assassination attempts on President-elect Donald Trump took

9:54

place yesterday. Congress grilled acting director Ronald

9:56

Rowe for the mishaps. allowed

9:58

a shooter to target

10:00

then -candidate Trump on

10:02

July 13 13th in Butler,

10:04

Pennsylvania, and then catch a gunman on a Florida

10:06

golf course where Trump was playing. playing. It

10:09

It began so so many other contentious hearings. Let's

10:11

take a look. Congressman,

10:13

I think I was appointed I was appointed July

10:15

and I was there on the 24th

10:17

or 24th or were the second you senior member

10:19

of the Secret Service. of the could have

10:21

gone. Service. I was managing gone. here the

10:23

crisis. from here the crisis. didn't you We Did

10:25

you call match. you were managing the crisis,

10:27

you just said. Did you call the

10:29

detail? the That night on July the,

10:32

that was protecting President Trump. Did

10:34

you call the that night, they were

10:36

operational, that was not. Okay, did you call on

10:38

the next day? Trump? On No, did

10:40

not. were Okay, when did you finally talk to him. I

10:43

I spoke to them they arrived in they

10:45

arrived in Milwaukee. days So four

10:47

days later, July that sounded about right? Yes, sir.

10:49

Okay. So you waited four days, and when we were

10:51

waited four days a couple months were talking

10:53

earlier, a couple months ago, all this is

10:55

an epic failure. We all agree on

10:57

that. And instead of really focusing

11:00

on the egregious errors and the the

11:02

incompetence and improving the doctrine

11:04

and changing the culture, there there

11:06

was a massive appropriations request. We

11:09

know that you have 8 ,000 employees. We know

11:11

that they have a have a $3.1 billion .1 you asked for $2

11:13

And you asked for $2 billion What sticks in our cross

11:15

sticks in our cross to we report to our

11:17

constituents, have to say, this hey, this federal agency

11:19

failed then they and then they wanted to almost double

11:21

their budget. How much would it have cost

11:23

to put somebody on that water tower? How much

11:25

would it have cost to have drones that

11:27

were actually functioning that day? cost to have an have

11:29

an ether cable where you're anti-dron technology

11:31

would have worked? Well,

11:34

the hearing then devolved into

11:36

into this when Pat Fallon of

11:38

Texas attacked Texas attacked Roe. So

11:40

actually, Congressman, what you're not

11:42

seeing is the sack of the detail.

11:45

sack of the detail off, out the the

11:47

view. view. And that is the

11:49

day day we remember the but

11:51

more than 3,000 ,000 people that

11:53

have died on 9 I actually I

11:55

actually responded to zero. I was there

11:58

going was there going through the - of the

12:00

World Trade Center. I was there

12:02

at fresh kills. I'm not asking

12:05

you that. I was there. Congressman,

12:07

the city, I was there to

12:09

show respect. You are not. For

12:11

a secret service member, that died

12:13

on 9-11. You're trying to be.

12:15

Do not invoke 9-11 for political

12:18

purposes. Oh, I'm not. I'm invoking

12:20

me. I have elected a member

12:22

of Congress and I'm asking you

12:24

a serious question and you were

12:26

paying politics. I am a public

12:29

servant who has served this nation

12:31

and you won't answer your question.

12:33

On our day, on our country's

12:35

darkest day. Committee will come to

12:37

order. Committee will come to order.

12:40

Committee will come to order. I'm

12:42

asking you serious questions for the

12:44

American people and they're very simple.

12:46

They're not true questions. Were you

12:48

were there. You wanted to be

12:51

visible because you are listening for

12:53

this job. You're not going to

12:55

get it. You're not going to

12:57

get it. You endangered. You are

12:59

out of line, Congressman. You're out

13:01

of line. You're out of line.

13:04

Because you put those agents out

13:06

of position. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman.

13:08

Mr. Fallon, you're expecting a weapon.

13:10

I did, sir. And you are

13:12

out of line. Okay,

13:15

very testy indeed. So what Congressman Fallon

13:17

was asking about there was a moment

13:19

where there was a 9-11 memorial service

13:22

and Ronald Rowe was there with the

13:24

vice president, Kamla Harrison, the president, Joe

13:26

Biden. And the allegation is that he

13:28

moved his normal position, which was three

13:31

rows behind the charges. to right next

13:33

to them amid this photo op. And

13:35

his explanation is, well, I served at

13:37

ground zero, I was involved in the

13:40

cleanup efforts of 9-11, the rescue efforts,

13:42

so basically I deserve to be standing

13:44

next to the president and the vice

13:47

president. But the question was really about

13:49

whether or not he moved away Secret

13:51

Service members who were there to protect

13:53

the vice president and the president so

13:56

that he could basically get front and

13:58

a lot positioning And

14:00

his his reaction to

14:02

that Crabtree, who's been who's

14:05

been doing amazing reporting on the Secret Service all

14:07

summer since the assassination attempt, really

14:09

angered members of the Secret Service

14:11

rank and file who said

14:13

that he was basically trying to

14:15

deflect from this legitimate line

14:17

of questioning. from by making it

14:19

about of -11 itself, by and they

14:22

were very 9-11 itself. And they were

14:24

by his reaction to that.

14:26

that. Well, you you think

14:28

I think his reaction is quite revealing,

14:30

You know, that know, that is not the

14:32

kind of tone or tenor. of,

14:35

whether any kind of whether acting

14:37

or permanent of the of the

14:39

Secret Service should have. quite sensitive about

14:41

felt quite sensitive about and subject

14:43

and certainly a -11 is a very

14:46

sensitive subject for people. But

14:48

I think it's interesting when you

14:50

look at the room there

14:52

in that video. in that video. Pretty empty

14:54

room, by room by the way a

14:56

lot of members Congress, not there. And frankly, a

14:59

lot of staffers I a lot of staffers

15:01

I talked to on these hearings some of these hearings

15:03

get so boring, they're actually happy when things

15:05

kind of explode a little bit and make things

15:07

interesting. You notice from the

15:09

video video that it was it was a congressman who

15:11

kind of exploded out of nowhere

15:13

and then certainly and then kind of matched

15:15

him kind of matched that kind of kind of

15:18

match. match. I think the root of

15:20

this issue here is we have

15:22

to go back to the assassination attempt

15:24

on Donald Trump. There's a real

15:26

reason why reason Service is being looked

15:28

you. being looked needs to be accountability.

15:31

be There's absolutely no reason why

15:33

that gunman should have had

15:35

a clear line. line. to. the former

15:37

the former president of the United

15:39

States at that rally in at Pennsylvania.

15:41

in I'm sure we've all seen

15:44

videos all seen videos where in it civilians

15:46

who are walking around, who

15:48

are not law enforcement professionals,

15:50

but they still spotted this

15:52

guy but up to the

15:54

roof and this guy to local roof

15:56

and talked to local police and ultimately

15:58

they still were not to do anything

16:01

about that shooter it's it's completely unacceptable

16:03

there's been a little bit of accountability

16:05

at the Secret Service there needs to

16:07

be more there's a rational conversation to

16:09

be had I'm not sure it happened

16:11

in that hearing yeah I mean you're

16:13

right it has to go back to

16:15

that assassination attempt and the tone and

16:17

tenor as you put it of Ronald

16:19

Rowe has left people feeling like the

16:21

Secret Service is more interested in defending

16:23

its actions and trying to protect itself

16:25

that it isn't actually seeking accountability and

16:27

the type of reform needed to prevent

16:29

something like this from happening again. I

16:31

mean, when you heard Kimberly Cheetle testify

16:33

when she was still the director of

16:35

the Secret Service, she was going on

16:37

about how they couldn't put officers up

16:39

on that roof because it was too

16:41

sloped. But then the roof that they

16:43

did have snipers on was more sloped

16:45

than the one that the attempted assassin

16:47

was on. They didn't cover the water

16:49

tower. They didn't allow drone surveillance. I

16:51

mean, all of these things that would

16:53

probably be pretty obvious to anyone who's

16:55

scoped out this location. It was completely

16:58

unsecure. I mean, this guy was able

17:00

to basically just hop offense and climb

17:02

up onto a roof and shoot at

17:04

the president, the former president and now

17:06

president-elect. It's absolutely insane. And then again,

17:08

you have Kimberly Cheetel and now Ronald

17:10

Rowe testifying in front of Congress. And

17:12

I think the American people want to

17:14

see a little bit of humility, right?

17:16

You have made perhaps the gravest error

17:18

in your line of work that you

17:20

can possibly make outside of Donald Trump

17:22

actually being dead right now. And there

17:24

was a bystander who was killed, as

17:26

well as multiple others who were at

17:28

that rally who were innocent, who were

17:30

injured. And you don't even have the

17:32

self-awareness and the respect for the American

17:34

people and the people who you're charged

17:36

with protecting to go in there and

17:38

have a little bit of grace and

17:40

maybe an apology really for your abject

17:42

failure. Oh, we need humility from the

17:44

Secret Service. Now, granted, they have a

17:46

very difficult job. You know, they're doing

17:48

their job when we never hear about

17:50

them. And you're doing all of this

17:52

preparation and putting in all these resources

17:54

for the possibility of a moment like

17:56

what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania. That said,

17:58

it was completely un- Now

18:01

I do want to go back to

18:03

this congressman here who just started yelling

18:05

into his microphone and I think it's

18:07

interesting because I remember I've had the

18:09

opportunity to testify on the Hill before.

18:12

I remember one particular experience where I

18:14

was going with a group of interns,

18:16

I wanted them to kind of see

18:18

what that experience is like. I remember

18:20

after the hearing the intern said I

18:23

can't believe that all members of Congress,

18:25

they're basically cordial. They had a rational

18:27

conversation across party lines. There are a

18:29

couple performative moments, but that's not what

18:31

you see on social media. So unfortunately,

18:34

so many of these hearings don't get

18:36

any attention. The ones that are deserving

18:38

often get the least attention. But in

18:40

this case, the congressman... He's almost calling

18:42

out the acting Secret Service director for

18:44

wanting the photo up and wanting to

18:47

get the attention. But I have a

18:49

pretty good feeling that the congressman is

18:51

doing that exact behavior for himself to

18:53

be seen as tough on the Secret

18:55

Service director. He's definitely getting a new

18:58

cycle out of this. We're now talking

19:00

about it. And so I do think

19:02

the congressman needs to self-reflect on his

19:04

conduct in these hearings. Well, we definitely

19:06

know that when staff are writing these

19:08

questions or these lines of inquiry and

19:11

the Congress people are working with them,

19:13

that they're often looking for that viral

19:15

moment. I would say in this case,

19:17

it was more justified than not, just

19:19

given the sensitivity of the nature of

19:22

what they were asking about, but point

19:24

taken that screaming to your microphone is

19:26

usually not a good look. All right,

19:28

we have a lot more topics to

19:30

cover on rising and back right after

19:32

this. Republican

19:35

Senator from Iowa, Joanie Ernst, is feeling the

19:38

heaf from Maga Republicans over her hesitancy to

19:40

back President-elect Donald Trump's pick for Secretary of

19:42

Defense Pete Hegseth. Ernst signaled on Thursday that

19:44

she is not ready to support Hegsez's nomination.

19:46

Well, I did have a very long lengthy

19:48

discussion. Pete yesterday and I do I

19:51

do appreciate his service

19:53

to the nation. I

19:55

also am a so

19:57

veteran. a So we talked

19:59

about a number of

20:02

those issues with the we

20:04

will continue with the

20:06

vetting process. I think

20:08

that that is incredibly

20:10

important. I'm So is we had

20:12

I'm saying is we

20:15

had a very frank

20:17

and productive discussion that we

20:19

I know that we

20:21

will continue to have

20:23

conversation in the upcoming

20:25

months. doesn't sound on your answer that

20:27

you've gotten to a gotten to a I'm

20:30

wrong about that, correct me. me. And if if

20:32

that is the case, it sounds to

20:34

me as if the hearing will be

20:36

critical for his nomination.

20:38

Am I right about that? I think

20:40

you are you are made a name

20:42

for herself made a name for

20:44

herself in the past by championing legislation

20:46

aimed at addressing sexual assault and

20:48

harassment in the military. in the military.

20:51

served in the U .S. Army

20:53

in from 1993 to 2015

20:55

2015. retired as a a lieutenant She

20:57

has been outspoken about her personal

20:59

experiences with sexual assault and violence

21:01

in the military. sexual For years

21:04

the military the struggled to

21:06

reduce the number of

21:08

sexual assaults within the ranks,

21:10

yet we have seen

21:12

little progress in defeating little progress

21:15

in defeating this The

21:17

stories from from are heartbreaking. One

21:21

user on on called Ernst

21:23

Despicable, also popular -wing influencer D D.C.

21:25

Drano, quite a handle, a posted, posted,

21:27

how about the first thing we

21:29

cut cut is all American money you

21:32

keep sending to Ukraine. to

21:34

Ukraine? And host J J.D.

21:36

Rucker chimed in, as as long

21:38

as your plan includes confirming

21:40

Trump's nominees, especially Pete Pete Heggset,

21:42

then sure it's fine. fine. Peg

21:45

Seth is continuing in the fight

21:47

for for secretary despite being embroiled

21:49

in allegations of sexual misconduct

21:51

and alcohol abuse. abuse. Despite her comments

21:53

on Fox News News Thursday, Ernst took to

21:55

act after that appearance to to her support

21:57

for a meeting she was attending with

21:59

with of Government efficiency co-chairs

22:02

Elon Musk and the vague Ramoswami. They

22:04

are discussing plans for slashing the federal

22:06

budget. She posted, I'm excited to host

22:08

the first Senate Doge caucus meeting today.

22:10

I'm sharing my plan with Elon Musk

22:12

and the vague Ramoswami to reduce waste

22:14

and hashtag make them squeal. Earlier this

22:17

week Ernst pitched a $1 trillion federal

22:19

spending cut to the Doge co-heads and

22:21

as head of the Senate Doge caucus

22:23

Ernst has been eyeing doing away with

22:25

work from home policies. and released a

22:27

scathing report on Thursday citing widespread instances

22:29

of abuse and failures from telework practices.

22:32

So you win some, you lose some,

22:34

I guess, for Joanie Ernst, she's obviously

22:36

getting a little bit of that street

22:38

cred back with her work with Doge

22:40

and Elon Muskie and Vécarama Swami. I

22:42

think people were really excited about her

22:44

report. talking about telework practices, a significant

22:46

amount of the federal government is still

22:49

work from home. I think it's fair

22:51

to say that if you're getting a

22:53

taxpayer-funded salary, maybe you should go into

22:55

the office. I don't know, maybe you

22:57

feel differently about that. I'm sure there

22:59

are some hybrid situations for some employees

23:01

that are fine. But yeah, she's taking

23:04

a lot of heat for her position

23:06

on Pete Hegg Seth. People are not

23:08

happy that she is holding up potentially

23:10

his nomination. She's obviously not the only

23:12

one on the Republican side who has

23:14

concerns about some of the allegations that

23:16

came out. But I think the Senate

23:19

only has a limited number of vetoes

23:21

on Trump's nominees. They used one on

23:23

Matt Gates. I'm not sure if they're

23:25

going to be able to force out

23:27

Pete Heggsetth in favor of Rhonda Santos

23:29

as some outlets have been reporting, but

23:31

we'll see what happens. Well, I think

23:34

it's interesting, first with Joanie Ernst, there

23:36

have been some people in the magga

23:38

world who are starting to threaten a

23:40

primary challenge. We're not quite there yet.

23:42

I would say she's still relatively politically

23:44

safe in Iowa. And I think that

23:46

her concern here is pretty genuine about

23:49

her, first of all, her background in

23:51

the military as a reformer around sexual

23:53

assault in the military, which has been

23:55

a great bipartisan bipartisan issue over the

23:57

years. and I think

23:59

she's genuinely troubled. troubled

24:02

by background and she's trying

24:04

to signal signal her opposition to

24:06

him without getting totally called

24:08

out by Donald Trump and

24:10

the MAGA base. There have been some people been

24:13

some people who've even floated her name

24:15

for of of Defense. I think that

24:17

makes her critiques a little bit harder. In

24:19

In the past, you've seen seen who've

24:21

torpedoed different nominees, but not necessarily putting but

24:23

up to replace those nominees. up to replace

24:26

those nominees. One thing

24:28

I noticed yesterday with Pete with Pete Hexat is

24:30

this this headline talking about, know, know, I

24:32

commit to not drinking while on the

24:34

job, which is never a good

24:36

day if that's the headline about you. you.

24:38

so I think Hegzett is inviting a lot of

24:40

this a lot of this criticism. Doesh area

24:42

Now to the doge area that

24:44

she's been commenting on, it's very interesting,

24:46

like you said, I think that

24:48

she's regaining some of her credibility on

24:50

the Magus side by really leaning by

24:52

really that issue. issue. I do think

24:54

there's some important nuance required when it

24:56

comes to the telework policies. to On

24:58

one hand policies. I? hand, do I doubt that

25:00

I doubt that there is some

25:02

abuse of telework policies happening across millions

25:05

of people? there are many millions of

25:07

know, who work of people work

25:09

with the federal government, many who

25:11

take advantage advantage of telework, yes. the

25:13

other hand. hand, many people who choose

25:15

to telework for the federal government

25:17

and various agencies have to make

25:19

the case that their telework is

25:21

helping to save the federal government

25:23

money. so so if the interest here

25:25

is cutting spending with the federal

25:28

government, there are there are that you

25:30

gain with telework and I think

25:32

that's getting missed in that I think

25:34

I guess that's fair, but then the

25:36

question would be Yeah, I well, are you

25:38

doing your job as well at home would

25:40

also you doing your you well at home and also

25:42

are you... You might be I guess, how would you

25:45

be would you be saving money from

25:47

teleworking? Because I don't, pay for transportation or

25:49

parking or parking or? Yeah, part of it of

25:51

it is a lot, the cost of living is higher

25:53

in Washington DC than it is in many

25:55

other parts of the country, so the

25:57

compensation is indexed for the of of

25:59

living the area. if you're working in my home

26:01

state of Wisconsin, for example, you're getting compensated

26:03

less than if you were based in DC.

26:05

So that's part of the rationale for the

26:07

cost savings. Now the other part of the

26:09

story, though, is Doge and Joanie Ernst, they're

26:11

talking about calling everyone back in, cutting these

26:13

telework policies, partly because it's going to cause

26:15

attrition in the federal government, right? You know,

26:17

and I totally get your point that I'm

26:19

a big like work in the office kind

26:21

of guy, I'm big into building a team

26:23

culture, I think culture is the most important

26:25

determinant of success of any organization, and so

26:27

I totally take that point, but the problem

26:29

with the attrition argument is that you're going

26:31

to lose some of the most talented people

26:33

working in the federal government. You want to

26:35

be able to keep your talented people and

26:37

farther people who are not doing as good

26:39

of a job. This kind of across the

26:41

board cutting and using the telework policies as

26:43

a way to just randomly cut people, that's

26:45

not a way to enhance the culture or

26:48

enhance the talent of your organization. One of

26:50

the other ways that Elon Muscom of Lake

26:52

Ramosami have talked about this cost-cutting analysis of

26:54

federal employees based on the cost of living

26:56

adjustments you're talking about is actually moving some

26:58

departments to places in the US that are

27:00

cheaper than Washington DC, which is potentially another

27:02

way to get around that issue of teleworking,

27:04

potentially saving money for people who live outside.

27:06

of the beltway. I wanted to go back

27:08

to this Pete Hyseth question with Joanie Ernst

27:10

for a moment. I do think the headline

27:12

that you're talking about was that he wouldn't

27:14

drink at all when he was Secretary of

27:16

Defense, not just when he's on the job,

27:18

which is a little bit different. Yeah. That's

27:20

right. And I do think that Still not

27:22

a good news day. No, not a good

27:24

news day. I mean, it hasn't been a

27:26

good news day for him for the past

27:28

couple of weeks. Some of the allegations more

27:30

concerning than others, some with better sourced material

27:32

than others. But he's. on the

27:34

the for the past

27:36

four days now now to

27:38

to face -to -face to I

27:40

think that's going to

27:42

be a big part

27:44

of of transition transition team

27:46

actually getting them FaceTime

27:48

with the time with the going

27:50

through the confirmation hearing

27:52

process. process. I I think

27:54

people are actually going

27:56

to be pretty surprised

27:58

by how how and

28:00

experienced a lot of

28:02

these picks are. are. There's sort

28:04

sort of been this

28:06

overarching narrative that if

28:08

you haven't worked in

28:10

government before then you

28:12

don't know what you're

28:14

doing and you can't

28:16

leave these departments. As

28:18

As long as you're

28:20

surrounded with people who

28:22

do know know ins and

28:24

outs and the culture

28:26

of the department inside the

28:28

the government. as long as you As

28:30

long as you have, I think an idea that's

28:32

consistent with Trump's vision, the vision that the

28:34

American people voted for, that then that shouldn't be

28:36

disqualifying just because you haven't worked in a department

28:39

before. We definitely need people with

28:41

new vision to to change things. think there's

28:43

a lot of... lot of corporate capture

28:45

of agencies. I'm very sympathetic

28:47

to nominees who want to help,

28:50

for example, the close the revolving

28:52

door let's take the let's take the

28:54

Defense Department, for example, a huge

28:56

revolving door between senior officials

28:58

at the Defense Department and then

29:00

joining the and then complex and

29:03

lobbying the Defense and lobbying the Defense a

29:05

huge issue. a huge issue. Another piece piece

29:07

of the story that people

29:09

need to know about, however, is

29:12

is Those surrounding organizations,

29:14

organizations just on the periphery

29:16

of the defense industrial

29:19

complex. of power. have a ton of power.

29:21

There's so much money to be made.

29:23

And I think part of what's happening with

29:25

Pete is they they don't respect him. him.

29:27

And they are helping to leak

29:29

a lot of these stories seed

29:31

seed stories of different news

29:33

organizations to basically assassinate his character. And

29:36

I think it just is another

29:38

reminder of how powerful those organizations are.

29:41

Now going back to the federal

29:43

agencies going out across the country, I out across the

29:45

country, I think that's really fascinating

29:47

I think part of the problem we

29:49

have right now is a lot of has

29:51

a lot of people in power

29:53

are highly concentrated in a few

29:56

areas, particularly like Washington It's an It's

29:58

an issue for the government policy. It's

30:00

also an issue for the media,

30:02

by the way. Why that nearly every

30:04

reporter I've worked with lives in

30:06

New York and Washington Washington, a whole rest of the

30:08

country a whole rest of the country out

30:10

there, I've spoken previously The the show about how

30:12

shows like The View to the consider relocating to

30:15

the really help I think that would really help

30:17

them reconnect with people. a And I think

30:19

a similar principle applies for the federal government. I

30:21

totally agree. I mean, when you're living

30:23

in one of the wealthiest enclaves in the

30:25

enclaves in the with a very different culture

30:27

from most of the continental US, that's a

30:29

that's a problem with making generally being touch

30:31

with the out of touch with the

30:34

American people. to move We're gonna have to

30:36

move on, we're out of time

30:38

on this side. we're we're going to be

30:40

back with more rising this. Diversity

30:43

equity, and inclusion, or DEI as

30:45

it's known, be appears to be

30:47

going a bit out of style.

30:49

The University of Michigan on Thursday it

30:52

is that it is slashing the

30:54

diversity statement requirement from its hiring

30:56

process. process. It is also considering a

30:58

broader move away from DEI policies. In other

31:00

words, In other words, there are

31:02

no longer tenured and incoming faculty to outline

31:04

how they would promote diversity, equity,

31:06

and inclusion in their teaching. their teaching. The

31:09

decision comes as the university joins

31:11

other schools in overhauling sprawling

31:13

DEI programs. These These statements

31:15

are credited with helping

31:17

public universities build more diverse

31:19

faculties. But critics that DEA

31:22

that DEI is a form of compelled

31:24

political speech that is often used

31:26

to evade legal restrictions on affirmative affirmative action.

31:28

At least nine states have banned

31:30

DEI requirements per the per of Higher

31:32

Education, Higher with my home with Wisconsin

31:34

as well as Ohio and Missouri

31:37

axing them from public universities last

31:39

year. MIT year. Massachusetts

31:41

and Harvard's faculty of Arts

31:43

and Sciences have as

31:45

well. as well. But who have

31:47

directly benefited from diversity geared

31:49

programs fear fear that chipping away at

31:51

them will hurt lower income

31:53

students. University of Michigan undergraduate

31:56

student, student Mary Battle

31:58

York the New York Times that DEA. are

32:00

the reason she is is able to

32:02

attend the school. school. Astronomye Professor

32:04

at Michigan posted on Blue Michigan posted

32:06

on and quote a cowardly

32:08

and into hiring into hiring

32:11

practices and rubrics That should

32:13

be set by departments

32:15

according to their needs and

32:17

missions missions, administrative fiat fiat.

32:19

Another member of the of the faculty,

32:21

James Hewan, posted on Blue posted on blues

32:24

guy, scholar of anti -racist health. I

32:26

was hired by the by the initiative

32:28

on anti -racism. on This is extremely

32:30

troubling, but I'm glad the faculty

32:32

senate is ready to fight. Senate

32:35

is ready to fight. professor, professor, Essie

32:37

posted, posted, quote, a rally to

32:39

save DEI at the

32:41

University of Michigan. of Michigan, to

32:43

see the the showing up to

32:46

confront this threat. threat. There

32:49

you have it, it. Okay, so of Michigan moving

32:51

away from DEI as well as other

32:53

universities. as other I wonder how

32:55

much of this is due to

32:57

to the of cultural backlash against DEI

32:59

DEI. how much is universities discovering

33:01

that maybe it didn't have the

33:03

outcomes that they were hoping for,

33:05

because I don't think necessarily that that

33:07

the probably pretty liberal administrations of

33:09

a lot of these public

33:12

universities are that concerned about

33:14

what Donald Trump or some conservative activists

33:16

are saying about DEI, think I don't

33:18

think that they would move away from these

33:20

programs unless they were not seeing some

33:23

demonstrated benefit that they were hoping for. hoping for.

33:25

Yeah, that's right. So University of

33:27

Michigan, it's an important important. university

33:29

to be a central part

33:31

of the DEI story of they

33:33

have been because the national leader

33:35

in the higher education field leader in

33:38

DEI. Since 2016, they've invested

33:40

a quarter of a billion dollars

33:42

a quarter of positions, which is the

33:44

highest in the country. which is the

33:46

highest outcomes are part of the

33:48

issue here are hinted at that.

33:50

issue here and you since 2016.

33:52

So since 2016 Black enrollment

33:54

has not increased increased Michigan. and

33:57

black students don't feel more comfortable.

34:00

And that was part of what the

34:02

DEA programs were aimed at doing. And

34:04

so that's part of the issue here.

34:06

I think there is obviously a lot

34:09

of good intent with DEA programs. I

34:11

worked very closely with them when I

34:13

was a student at the University of

34:15

Wisconsin-Madison, some really great people working to

34:18

help students that come from very disadvantaged

34:20

backgrounds. get started at a university, help

34:22

them feel comfortable, help to give them

34:24

financial scholarships or programs like the PASI

34:27

program that do that very effectively. The

34:29

problem now is though the DEA has

34:31

become a cultural war kind of issue

34:34

and it's now becoming counterproductive so I

34:36

actually support a major reform to these

34:38

DEAI programs, I think that we need

34:40

to focus more on how we can

34:43

be creating a more diverse cultural campus

34:45

climate where you hear from a variety

34:47

of viewpoints. And I think that's more

34:49

of what the spirit is intended to

34:52

do, but the brand is disallowing them

34:54

from doing now. Yeah, I mean, it

34:56

clearly prioritizes a certain racial makeup over

34:59

intellectual diversity, which colleges are severely lacking

35:01

in. I mean, if you look at

35:03

the breakdown of professors political affiliations, There's

35:05

something like 50 to 1 Democrats or

35:08

Republican in professor makeups in some departments

35:10

at universities. Even in econ departments now

35:12

it's like 10 to 1, 15 to

35:14

1, which you would think would be

35:17

a more conservative field. And I think

35:19

the obvious answer to a lot of

35:21

the concerns that universities have about making

35:23

sure that they're giving disadvantaged students. the

35:26

opportunity is to focus more on class

35:28

differences and giving benefits to lower income

35:30

students as opposed to doing it based

35:33

on race because you would still be

35:35

impacting a disproportionately black population because they

35:37

are disproportionately low income in the United

35:39

States, but you wouldn't be doing it

35:42

in a way that is perceived as

35:44

discriminatory based on race. So for example,

35:46

when I was at Georgetown, I was

35:48

part of the Georgetown Scholarship Program, which

35:51

is a program for first generation. low-income

35:53

college Yeah, it's a

35:55

great program a great program

35:58

and was mostly black

36:00

and Hispanic students. I

36:02

I was one

36:04

of the few white

36:07

students in it. in

36:10

it, wasn't because they they

36:12

weren't accepting white students, but just

36:14

because the people who were applying to

36:16

Georgetown and getting in who were

36:18

low income getting to be disproportionately black

36:20

and Hispanic students. And I think that's

36:22

a and Hispanic students. And I more equal

36:24

opportunity way of addressing this

36:26

problem this elites having access

36:28

to major universities. And. When

36:30

I I was at Georgetown, I was

36:32

very troubled by some of the the by

36:34

students to what they viewed as racism

36:36

in the because one of their things that of were trying

36:39

to achieve when they would they were trying to

36:41

achieve when they would protest against the

36:43

administration, in particularly in the aftermath of the

36:45

death of Michael Brown and Ferguson, was

36:47

was they were claiming that there weren't

36:49

enough black professors on campus and that

36:51

they needed to hire a certain percentage

36:53

of black professors in order to be

36:55

truly diverse. diverse. But Georgetown actually already had

36:57

a higher percentage of black professors than

36:59

there there are black people .S. population. US So it

37:02

raises this important question of okay

37:04

well what's the stopping point? the Like

37:06

at what percentage or what number of

37:08

black and brown faculty are you

37:10

going to be satisfied to that the

37:12

campus is sufficiently diverse? Is it Is it

37:14

20% 30% 30 percent, 50 percent? Because

37:16

clearly with the commensurate with the general population

37:18

wasn't enough for you. I And I

37:20

think that's where people were like

37:22

okay. were like, OK. You all have gone too

37:24

far, you're way out over your skis, and

37:26

now you're actually making it. difficult for

37:28

Asian and white professors and students to

37:30

have equal opportunity as well. as well.

37:32

Well, one reason reason why I

37:34

think a lot of Midwestern universities

37:36

like University of Michigan, of mater, University

37:39

of Wisconsin. mater University with diversity programs,

37:41

just the with themselves, where

37:43

they primarily draw students from,

37:45

are not incredibly diverse. For

37:47

example, are not in Michigan, campus

37:49

population is 5 there's students of

37:51

color is 5% students of the state

37:53

as a whole has 14 a whole

37:55

of residents that are that so

37:57

there's still So there's still below.

38:00

the state averages, but still there

38:02

isn't, you know, we're not talking

38:04

about some other states where there's

38:06

a lot more diversity. Your education

38:08

is certainly enhanced to your point

38:10

about professors. I think when you

38:12

have a diverse group of people

38:14

who are educating students, that includes

38:16

race, but includes a number of

38:18

other dimensions as well, and I

38:20

would agree with you that class

38:22

should absolutely be one of those

38:24

dimensions. I think one of the

38:26

other problems that I've seen among

38:28

a lot of the DEAI programs

38:30

on campus, which for I want

38:32

to understand, there's a historical basis

38:34

for them, a lot of the

38:36

sort of modern regime of programs

38:38

are rooted in 1960s social justice

38:40

movements. And I think some of

38:42

those programs have not been sufficiently

38:44

updated. And as a result, you

38:46

have, for example, a lot of

38:48

campus safe spaces where you have

38:50

people, particularly of one race or

38:52

a few different races that are

38:54

just essentially segregated on campus. They

38:56

congregate in separate areas. And Michigan's

38:59

DEA programs were meant to actually

39:01

fix some of those problems where

39:03

students from a more variety of

39:05

backgrounds are able to integrate and

39:07

work together. And that didn't necessarily

39:09

happen. So that I think is

39:11

what needs to change. And in

39:13

the words of one of my

39:15

mentors, who runs a great organization

39:17

called Interfaith America, he says, speaking

39:19

about campus diversity programs, diversity is

39:21

not just about the differences you

39:23

like. And I think that's a

39:25

really beautiful way of summing up,

39:27

I think, how these college programs

39:29

need to change. Yeah, I'll make

39:31

one final point on this before

39:33

we wrap. I think no one

39:35

is really taking the problem seriously

39:37

as well if they're not focusing

39:39

on early primary education because the

39:41

reality is if you're getting to

39:43

the college level and you're perhaps

39:45

having lower standards for a group

39:47

of people because you want to

39:49

give them a greater opportunity, you're

39:51

actually setting them up for failure

39:53

and you're doing a disservice to

39:55

them because we see for example

39:57

in law schools that black law

39:59

graduates have a lower bar passage

40:01

rate. why is that? It's because

40:03

they have lower LSAT scores going

40:05

into law school. and are basically

40:07

beyond the point where they can

40:09

go through the remediation necessary to

40:11

get to the level that they

40:13

need to be through that process.

40:15

If you're not starting in early

40:18

education, then you're basically completely behind

40:20

the ball and you're gonna be

40:22

having these students take out potentially

40:24

hundreds of thousands of student loan

40:26

debt to not even really get

40:28

the same outcome that a comparative

40:30

student with the higher entry requirements

40:32

would. So I think it's sort

40:34

of a misplaced area to be

40:36

addressing perhaps disparities in education. Right,

40:38

I'm sure we've both heard about

40:40

students, first generation students, they go

40:42

to elite colleges and law schools

40:44

and business schools, they feel like

40:46

they're fish out of water. More

40:48

programming to help students deal with

40:50

that so they can truly benefit

40:52

from the education and not feel

40:54

so isolated. That would go a

40:56

long way. We have a lot

40:58

more to cover on rising, stick

41:00

around, we'll be back. Aaron Rogers,

41:02

eight for everybody. It

41:04

just feels like you're either for him

41:06

or against it. What you just

41:08

saw is a clip from Netflix's

41:11

new documentary on NFL star quarterback

41:13

Aaron Rogers. Rogers is an elite

41:15

pro football player with a Super

41:18

Bowl ring and multiple league MVP

41:20

titles. He was smeared by the

41:22

mainstream media as an anti-vaxer and

41:25

conspiracy theorist after the coronavirus pandemic

41:27

broke out. In 2021, when sports

41:30

resumed, NFL players were given an

41:32

ultimatum. Get the COVID shot or

41:34

hang up your cleats. Rogers opted

41:37

out. He was raped over the

41:39

coals by the media. Let's watch

41:41

a little more. Losing friendships, family,

41:44

it was heartbreaking. Here come the

41:46

chips. Rogers has something to prove.

41:48

It is on. People getting to

41:51

see behind the curtain. Have you

41:53

thought about going into politics? Once

41:55

I started my spiritual journey, everything

41:58

shifted. The metamorphosis was happening. Most

42:02

people who are not doing the walking.

42:04

I'm not most people. While Rogers

42:06

got slammed by While Roger's got

42:08

slammed by establishment types, this

42:10

documentary is being touted as

42:13

a of sorts, not not just from

42:15

his nearly ending a a career

42:17

ending, torn Achilles, but for his personal

42:19

convictions as well. as well. Well,

42:21

I'm a Green Bay Packers fan, so

42:23

was our quarterback. I have a lot

42:25

of thoughts and feelings about him. He

42:27

brought us to the to land with

42:29

the Super Bowl, and I should

42:31

disclose that I'm that I'm a part owner. I'm a proud

42:33

proud of of the Green Bay Packers.

42:35

I do attend the meetings, and I

42:38

stick to the end with the marketing

42:40

and audit committee updates. Most Most people

42:42

just stick around for the fun

42:44

football updates. updates. I think I think is an

42:46

important sports figure to look at in

42:48

the lens of how our politics has

42:50

shifted. has shifted. Aaron Rogers, we hear about

42:52

the the Iowaska and things like that which I've

42:54

never done myself Can't say I have either Yes,

42:56

although I although I hear a lot of

42:58

great things about it, you know it. You

43:00

know, he basically, him and I, we and

43:03

I, we do have some

43:05

mutual friends and from all accounts,

43:07

he was basically a liberal a

43:09

from Northern California California he has

43:11

stood up for a number

43:13

of important causes including human rights

43:15

rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo

43:18

and many other important issues. issues. But

43:20

all started to change in

43:22

2020 and 2021 with the COVID

43:24

pandemic and his choice to

43:26

in his words get choice to and his

43:28

words get he actually did not

43:30

get the when he He ultimately

43:32

got COVID had to sit out shot.

43:35

He of at least one game due

43:37

to the NFL policy. And as

43:39

a result, it became public that he

43:41

was against getting the vaccines and

43:43

then basically as a broke loose as a

43:45

result of that. And he became

43:47

a figure on the right, but point in

43:50

point in sharing this transformation

43:52

is because there are many, what out

43:54

figures, people in in

43:56

the country I'd call independent

43:58

populists, who to be be on the left

44:01

or more independent leaning in general and have

44:03

shifted to the right and shifted towards Trump.

44:05

It's the what I call it's the Aaron

44:07

Rogers kind of Joe Rogan ecosystem of people.

44:09

Elon Moscow is part of that as well

44:11

and these are all people who formerly voted

44:13

Democratic but now voting for Trump and it's

44:16

important to look at that story because I

44:18

think people like Aaron Rogers feel like he's

44:20

been attacked by a lot of people on

44:22

the establishment left. And despite having some sympathy

44:24

for a lot of left issues, got pushed

44:26

to the political right where he wants to

44:29

be able to speak more freely about things.

44:31

and for people who only get their view

44:33

of Aaron Rogers through reading the New York

44:35

Times, I encourage you to check out the

44:37

Pat McAfee show where he goes on once

44:39

a week and you get to know him

44:42

more as a person. You may disagree with

44:44

his views, but at least he can humanize

44:46

him as a person. He's not an evil

44:48

person. He is a person that is an

44:50

independent thinker, and certainly his spouse has a

44:52

number of views that I disagree with. I

44:54

should note that, but at the same time

44:57

he's a very interesting voice right now. Yeah,

44:59

I love his appearances on the Pat McAfee

45:01

show. And when you go back to what

45:03

he was saying about the pandemic and the

45:05

vaccines, he turned out to be right about

45:07

a lot of it. I mean, his whole

45:10

point was we are some of the healthiest

45:12

people in the world being professional football players,

45:14

particularly quarterbacks. I mean, linebackers might be a

45:16

different story. They have comorbidities potentially through obesity.

45:18

But when you're a quarterback, you're not having

45:20

that issue and the vaccine was most beneficial

45:23

in reducing death and severe side effects for

45:25

people who had multiple comorbidities, maybe didn't need

45:27

to be taken by people who were otherwise

45:29

healthy. We know now that the vaccine did

45:31

not stop you from actually getting COVID or

45:33

spreading COVID, but it was more about reducing

45:35

the symptoms. And what I always found interesting

45:38

about this story about Aaron Rogers as well

45:40

is that he was not the only NFL

45:42

player who was skeptical of getting the vaccine.

45:44

In fact, my quarterback Lamar Jackson at the

45:46

Baltimore Ravens gave multiple public interviews ahead of

45:48

season he talked he how

45:51

about how he was

45:53

not planning on getting

45:55

the vaccine and was

45:57

actually really nervous about

45:59

it because of the it

46:01

authorization. emergency use he did

46:03

not get the same

46:06

backlash get the same I

46:08

don't know why that

46:10

is, but that was

46:12

indeed the case. that was I

46:14

think you're right about this

46:16

problem on some parts of the

46:18

of the left where They're not really interested

46:20

in having in debate about issues. about

46:23

It's more of an ideological purity test.

46:25

And if you fail any if of

46:27

that ideological purity test, you become purity

46:29

test, you And if the right is

46:31

there with open arms there with come in,

46:33

we're willing to have this discussion

46:35

with you. this Why wouldn't they want

46:37

to jump to so to speak, to

46:39

and talk to people who might be

46:41

more open -minded about their views? views? Now

46:44

that dynamic I've seen seen on the

46:46

political right as well right as well with

46:48

the, any any, any who who voted,

46:50

for example, to impeach Donald Donald Trump

46:52

basically isn't in Congress anymore. anymore

46:54

and they conservative people, people like

46:56

Liz Cheney, who by the way,

46:59

I oppose on basically way I oppose

47:01

on nearly every issue. every issue, Adam

47:03

Adam there are many others, who who

47:05

were all basically taken out of

47:07

office or voted out of

47:09

office or chose to retire because

47:11

they were persona non non on

47:13

the right. the right. this of of council culture

47:16

the the inability to hold multiple

47:18

views at at once is a problem I

47:20

see on both the left and the right.

47:22

to going back to Aaron, I'm very excited

47:24

to see this documentary on Netflix. I

47:26

think we'll get to know him a little

47:28

bit more as a human being. And

47:30

you're right, he did get. he did

47:32

get attacked even more than Lamar

47:34

Jackson around his COVID stances, I and

47:36

I think part of it. this is

47:38

an this is an important

47:41

lesson for any of the

47:43

independent populist media or political figures that

47:45

of, speaking of. be careful,

47:47

need to be careful, especially if they're

47:50

not political or they don't spend

47:52

their life professionally doing politics, to

47:54

understand that on on social media with

47:56

some of these media stories, you're

47:58

going to get get lord in. the mud. And

48:01

as I say, you'd never want to

48:03

wrestle a pig in the mud, you're

48:05

only going to get money. And I

48:07

think Aaron has invited a lot of

48:09

criticism. I kind of wish that I

48:11

could have helped steer him in a

48:13

little bit of a better direction and

48:16

know when he's getting ignored into stories

48:18

that he should not be a part

48:20

of because that was a real dynamic

48:22

and that led to Aaron saying even

48:24

more questionable things and getting more into

48:26

a corner that I think you didn't

48:28

want to get into. And so I

48:31

think a lot of people like Aaron,

48:33

they come into politics with really good

48:35

intentions and really get kind of torn

48:37

up as a result of it and

48:39

then you feel just kind of disillusioned

48:41

as a result of it. Like there

48:44

are a lot of good things that

48:46

you can do by being involved in

48:48

politics. You just got to be careful

48:50

about not getting into what I call

48:52

the polarization vortex. Yeah, and part of

48:54

it is not necessarily their fault either

48:56

though, because it seems like everything is

48:59

political now. And even if you express

49:01

religious beliefs like Harrison Booker did, giving

49:03

a commencement address at a Catholic college,

49:05

all of a sudden he was a

49:07

political lightning rod from both the left

49:09

and the right. because he just talked

49:11

about his Catholic faith and his family

49:14

dynamic and what he thought a lot

49:16

of women in the crowd might be

49:18

interested in which is starting a family

49:20

and being wives and mothers and all

49:22

of a sudden he was viewed as

49:24

this like conservative icon and you kind

49:26

of have a choice when you get

49:29

in that moment which is you either

49:31

embrace the fact that you're now a

49:33

voice for some of these issues and

49:35

and part of some partisan makeup, or

49:37

you shy away and you do the

49:39

sort of apologize and back off and

49:41

get out of politics entirely, and it

49:44

kind of sucks that that's the binary

49:46

choice that you have, that you can't

49:48

just express some opinions about really important

49:50

cultural and or political issues without becoming

49:52

sort of a figurehead for some political

49:54

movement. It all gets weaponized and when

49:56

the Harrison Bucker story came out, Patrick

49:59

Mahomes, the star quarterback of the Kansas

50:01

City Chiefs. commented on it and basically

50:03

took the latter out that you're talking

50:05

about which is look we appreciate a

50:07

variety of views in the locker room

50:09

fully support him not necessarily agreeing with

50:11

everything he says and I actually think

50:14

that's a beautiful sentiment because the spirit

50:16

in an NFL locker room where you

50:18

have people coming from extremely different backgrounds

50:20

frankly the kind of backgrounds we were

50:22

talking about in the diversity story earlier

50:24

from very different class backgrounds certainly different

50:26

racial and religious backgrounds And you're all

50:29

brought together to serve a higher purpose,

50:31

which is to go play a great

50:33

game and ultimately win. And I think

50:35

that that part of the spirit of

50:37

the locker room, I'm not saying everything

50:39

in the locker room is great, but

50:41

that part, I think is something that

50:44

our politics can learn from, I think

50:46

is something that Congress can work from,

50:48

because at the end of the day,

50:50

we are coming from all these different

50:52

racial, political, religious, class, intellectual kind of

50:54

backgrounds. And we have to be able

50:56

to have conversations because that's what humanizes

50:59

those perspectives and that's what allows us

51:01

to find often uncommon areas of common

51:03

ground. We're seeing that for example with

51:05

the Doed story, people like Bernie Sanders

51:07

and Elon Musk. So that's what we

51:09

need more of. Let's learn that from

51:11

the football locker room. Totally. I think

51:14

sports has long been a unifying force

51:16

in American life and that's what the

51:18

danger of politicizing everything about it is

51:20

is that you kind of lose that

51:22

commonality and just rooting for a team

51:24

and being part. of that community. We're

51:26

gonna cover more on rising at this.

51:31

A report for the Department of Justice

51:33

released this week found that the Memphis

51:36

Police Department uses excessive force and

51:38

discriminates against black people. The investigation was

51:40

launched after the beating death of

51:42

Tyre Nichols after a traffic stop in

51:44

2023. The investigation began six months after

51:47

Nichols was kicked, punched, and hit

51:49

with the police baton as five officers

51:51

tried to arrest him after he

51:53

fled a traffic stop. Let's watch the

51:55

video from the Memphis Police and

51:57

note may find the

52:00

video disturbing. may

52:06

find

52:09

the

52:14

video

52:19

disturbing.

52:26

The report says that, quote, Memphis officers

52:28

regularly violate the rights of the

52:30

people they are sworn to serve. to

52:32

serve. It went further and said

52:34

that the Memphis the Memphis police show,

52:36

or practice of excessive force

52:38

force routinely exhibited discrimination against

52:40

black people and those with

52:42

behavioral health disabilities. health The report

52:44

revealed that a black person

52:46

that a black times more likely

52:48

to be stopped. That means

52:50

the police department routinely conducted

52:52

racial profiling by making unlawful

52:54

stops, searches and arrests. Despite

52:56

these findings, officials in Memphis, Memphis,

52:58

have pushed back against calls for

53:00

greater oversight of the city's of

53:02

department. police In a news conference on

53:05

Thursday, Mayor Paul Mayor Paul Young said the

53:07

been taking steps to address police police

53:09

abuses. pushed back against the city city

53:11

a binding agreement with the federal government the

53:13

is known as a consent decree. is known as

53:15

a consent believe we can make

53:17

more effective and meaningful and meaningful

53:20

change working together with community input.

53:22

and national experts.

53:24

experts than we can bureaucratic, costly,

53:26

and complicated federal government

53:28

consent decree. consent decree.

53:31

The death of Tyree Nichols and

53:33

the The death of Tyree go

53:35

to the subsequent findings go to the

53:37

heart of tensions facing police and

53:39

policing around the nation. been more been more

53:41

reporting on the persecution of black

53:43

people by police since Black Lives Matter,

53:46

which erupted in 2020 in the murder

53:48

of George Floyd. Floyd. All right, so

53:50

interesting report here. There has been There

53:52

from from in Memphis,

53:54

notably notably legal officer. officer

53:57

for the city, Tenara Gibson, that

53:59

that because the. took 17 months to

54:01

complete as opposed to an average of

54:03

two to three years, that she feels

54:05

that there was a rush to judgment.

54:07

And I would note that she is

54:09

black as well as the five officers

54:11

who were involved in that tragic death

54:13

of Tyree Nichols. So I don't, based

54:15

on what I've read of the report

54:17

so far, I'm not sure that it

54:19

fully establishes that there is racial discrimination

54:21

happening with the Memphis Police Department, which

54:23

is over 50% black in terms of

54:25

the officer makeup. Is there police

54:27

abuse? Probably. I'm sure there is in every city.

54:29

But I would stop short of agreeing with the

54:31

Department of Justice's conclusion that this is a racially

54:33

motivated issue and not a power issue. Well, people,

54:36

including this Justice Department report, they're certainly pointing to

54:38

race, but they're also pointing to people with disabilities.

54:40

And so I think as so many of these

54:42

stories try to get weaponized, talk about in terms

54:44

of race, but also in terms of what they're

54:46

describing as behavioral health issues and people with disabilities.

54:48

The report did find that an eight-year-old black boy

54:50

with behavioral health issues was grabbed by the responding

54:52

police officer, lifted into the air and thrown onto

54:54

a couch. They're handcuffing children as young as eight

54:56

years old as well. So we are seeing some

54:58

abuses that are very troubling. And I think when

55:00

you zoom out and look at police departments around

55:02

the country, there has been a... Very important conversation

55:04

about how they can reform their practices now being

55:06

the job of a police officer is extremely difficult

55:08

I have friends for police officers the one thing

55:10

they tell me all the time is that they

55:12

wish they had more Training they have more resources

55:14

for training. They're constantly in these very difficult very

55:16

sensitive and emotional situations. There's a has a huge

55:18

impact on the police officers personally, but there are

55:20

constructive bipartisan solutions to address this issue and I

55:22

think, you know, as this report is pointing out,

55:24

there is excessive force. I think one example of

55:26

excessive force is choke holds and I think seen

55:28

some interesting left-right alignment around reforming the practice of

55:30

choke holds in many police departments and there are

55:32

other opportunities as well. So I hope that, you

55:34

know, this whole investigation sprung from the Tyree Nichols

55:36

case and I'm glad they're looking into it further.

55:38

Sure, yeah, and I definitely am often concerned about

55:40

conversations to reform the police because sometimes we get

55:42

to conversations like defund the police which are hugely

55:44

counterproductive. If you want police to behave better in

55:46

these fraught situations, then the question would be about

55:48

training and potentially more funding, not less. Why are

55:50

you going to take away the resources that they

55:52

need to make sure that they're hiring the best

55:54

officers and training good people? What happens when you

55:57

remove funding from police departments is they end up

55:59

hiring people who are less qualified for the job,

56:01

and you actually are exacerbating the exact issues that

56:03

you're trying to get rid of. And there's been

56:05

a lot of conversation about how police do deal

56:07

with people with disabilities, particularly mental disabilities, because they're

56:09

often going into situations where someone could be having

56:11

a mental health crisis or something similar, where things

56:13

escalate very quickly. And there's been talk about de-escalation

56:15

tactics. One of the issues that I've heard from

56:17

police officers is they have a lot of concern

56:19

about some of the alternative solutions that have been

56:21

suggested for this, which is to send in mental

56:23

health professionals instead of police officers. And although they

56:25

may be better trained in de-escalation tactics, one of

56:27

the concerns is if a situation does turn violent,

56:29

are you then putting someone who is a mental

56:31

health professional but not trained to handle potentially violent

56:33

situations in a situation where they could end up

56:35

getting hurt, and then if they're even accompanied by

56:37

a police officer, they now have two people that

56:39

they're concerned about rather than just the one. Way

56:41

too often in America we're asking for. We're supposed

56:43

to be doing. and we certainly need the mental

56:45

health support social service workers who can do those

56:47

things and police do the things that they're trained

56:49

to do. de -escalation. That's another

56:51

area that I'm seeing

56:53

interesting alignment between left and

56:55

right is more training

56:57

around de -escalation. That's something

56:59

that a number of police

57:01

officers are calling for

57:03

right now. And another solution

57:05

that's come out is

57:07

developing a registry of essentially

57:09

bad cops in America

57:11

because one thing that happens

57:13

is you have a

57:15

bad cop who uses excessive

57:18

force, is discriminatory perhaps

57:20

in one police department, but

57:22

then they move to

57:24

a different police department and

57:26

perhaps in a different

57:28

state and they might not

57:30

be aware of some

57:32

of those issues. And so

57:34

if you can share

57:36

that information across police departments

57:38

across the country, that

57:40

can be helpful as well.

57:42

And that's getting bipartisan

57:44

support. Yeah. I mean, that

57:46

should seem pretty obvious

57:48

to me. And I have

57:50

to say one of

57:52

the reasons why I think

57:54

this has become such

57:56

a fraught partisan issue is

57:58

because of the rise

58:00

of Black Lives Matter, particularly

58:02

in 2020 because they

58:04

were one of the groups

58:06

pushing the defund the

58:08

police solution as they put

58:10

it. And I think

58:12

they created a lot of

58:14

unnecessary fear and really

58:16

exaggerated fear about the police,

58:18

which has made it

58:20

harder for both police to

58:22

do their jobs and

58:24

for citizens to feel like

58:26

they can trust the

58:28

police and have a good

58:30

relationship with them. You

58:32

have a majority of Democrats

58:34

who believe that the

58:37

number of unarmed Black men

58:39

who are killed each

58:41

year by police is in

58:43

the thousands. It's like

58:45

a dozen. I mean, one

58:47

is too many, sure.

58:49

But even if you look

58:51

at the Washington Post

58:53

database of police shootings of

58:55

unarmed Black men and

58:57

that 12 to 14 number

58:59

that's been consistent from

59:01

2014 to 2024, you see

59:03

that if you actually

59:05

look at the individual cases,

59:07

a significant portion of

59:09

them attack the police officer

59:11

before they were shot.

59:13

So even if they didn't

59:15

have a gun or

59:17

a knife, they were still

59:19

maybe trying to beat

59:21

this police officer or take

59:23

their sidearm, for example.

59:25

And so you end up

59:27

getting down to about

59:29

five cases where there was

59:31

an actually unjustified shooting

59:33

and there's maybe four out

59:35

of five where the

59:37

officer was ultimately held accountable

59:39

for their actions. Again,

59:41

if there's one where the

59:43

police officer didn't face

59:45

accountability, that's bad and we

59:47

should fix that. But

59:49

I also think it's important

59:51

for us not to

59:53

overstate the problem because that

59:55

just creates this fraught tense relationship

59:58

between police and civilians

1:00:00

when, I think generally speaking,

1:00:02

both of those groups

1:00:04

are trying to do the

1:00:06

best they can. they They're trying

1:00:08

to and I think the

1:00:10

more the build they can build community relations, policing

1:00:12

policing important. Interestingly,

1:00:14

some of the areas where

1:00:16

you see the least support

1:00:18

for defunding the police police is from

1:00:20

primarily brown communities in places

1:00:22

like my hometown of Milwaukee. hometown

1:00:24

I can also think about some of the

1:00:27

activists who called in the wake of

1:00:29

George Floyd. in the wake of George the police.

1:00:31

the police. Now a lot lot of activists they

1:00:33

kind of kind of get their talking

1:00:35

points from social media it it

1:00:38

becomes kind of a slogan. for policymakers

1:00:40

policy based on slogans, not a

1:00:42

good idea. idea. There's a lot of a

1:00:44

lot of support for actually refunding

1:00:46

the police right now. some of the But

1:00:48

some of to add a add a little

1:00:50

bit more context of the of police was also

1:00:52

about this issue of police officers being

1:00:54

asked to do things that they don't.

1:00:56

do or aren't ready to do. you really

1:00:58

need more social support for people

1:01:00

who are drug with drug addiction

1:01:02

or mental health challenges. need You need

1:01:04

people, to we need to fund

1:01:06

those services as well. the spirit some

1:01:08

of the spirit that I heard

1:01:10

from my friends active in the defund in

1:01:13

the defund the police movement. some some

1:01:15

of those same people who were

1:01:17

calling for the police, not so

1:01:19

much talking about that right now. Unfortunately,

1:01:21

Kamala Harris was one of those

1:01:23

individuals and she has absolutely paid the

1:01:25

price for that. that. So part of the of

1:01:27

the other I'll just quickly point to here

1:01:29

is is the wake of George Floyd there was

1:01:31

there was. Initially a

1:01:33

constructive process in in Congress for

1:01:35

a a justice and

1:01:37

policing reform legislation. unfortunately what happened with

1:01:40

that happened with that quickly into this

1:01:42

got sucked into this polarization vortex who

1:01:44

are where people who are driving

1:01:46

that bill. be a partisan issue they

1:01:48

to be a partisan issue. They wanted

1:01:50

to be only a when they issue.

1:01:52

And even when they had the opportunity

1:01:54

to get some constructive ideas from

1:01:56

Republicans, people like Senator Tim Scott, for

1:01:58

example, they said we actually don't want

1:02:00

to hear your ideas. Well, so then the

1:02:02

question then the question becomes, to are you

1:02:04

here to make a statement or are

1:02:06

you here to solve the problem? a Because

1:02:09

there really are quite a bit of

1:02:11

bipartisan ideas that are out there, but unfortunately

1:02:13

on the easier to keep the issue on

1:02:15

the solve to actually solve. that they want

1:02:17

that political win as opposed to

1:02:19

actually to create a better outcome a better

1:02:21

outcome people. It's all too people, it's all too in

1:02:23

our in our politics today. a We have a

1:02:25

lot more to cover so we'll do that. right after

1:02:27

this. Is

1:02:30

Evil Santa coming to a toy

1:02:32

store near you? Well,

1:02:34

California's Attorney General wants holiday

1:02:36

shoppers to report stores

1:02:38

that do not have not have

1:02:41

gender toy options. California

1:02:43

passed a law back in

1:02:45

January requiring major retailers

1:02:47

to maintain to maintain toy aisles.

1:02:50

Stores who fail to

1:02:52

comply will be slapped with

1:02:54

a with a penalty for the

1:02:56

first violation and up to

1:02:58

$500 for subsequent infractions. California Assemblymember

1:03:00

Evan member who introduced the bill,

1:03:02

said it will said help children

1:03:04

express themselves freely and without bias,

1:03:06

we need to let kids

1:03:08

be kids. to let kids be this

1:03:10

a is this a move? nice on who you

1:03:12

ask. on who took the X to

1:03:14

sound to X to One user One user

1:03:16

saying quote unhinged California Attorney General

1:03:19

Rob Rob Banta is forcing California

1:03:21

department stores to have

1:03:23

a to have a quote gender section.

1:03:25

Bonta is taking is taking the woke

1:03:27

on Christmas to the

1:03:29

next level. Another user said in

1:03:31

you can steal toys from

1:03:33

stores from daylight, but they

1:03:36

must be in a gender be

1:03:38

section Make it make sense.

1:03:40

it make sense. question for me.

1:03:42

What is a gender -neutral neutral I've

1:03:44

looked this up, looked looked this up. This

1:03:46

includes. includes radical things

1:03:48

like puzzles that can

1:03:51

help foster social skills

1:03:53

and cooperative play. puppets

1:03:55

that can help can help kids communicate more

1:03:57

easily and express their feelings. their

1:03:59

feelings. that can help children

1:04:01

work on complex tasks and solve

1:04:03

problems. and solve Part of what's

1:04:05

going on here, I feel like

1:04:07

this is a wing of the this

1:04:10

is a that is struggling to win

1:04:12

on policy win on elections nationally.

1:04:14

Now I know that assembly member

1:04:16

in California, Evan Evan Lowe, worked with

1:04:18

him on a number of bipartisan

1:04:20

things, so with things. organization

1:04:23

future which works with young elected officials.

1:04:25

So he's a great guy. I'm

1:04:27

not going to be great guy him, going to

1:04:29

be trashing him but how go for you go

1:04:31

for it. But I will say that.

1:04:33

say that why are we Why are we

1:04:35

calling it gender neutral toys to begin begin

1:04:37

with? mean, these are normal things that

1:04:39

we all grew up with up with and

1:04:41

puppets. And I think the other thing

1:04:43

here is here is Why mandate that it

1:04:45

that it needs to

1:04:47

be in stores? These are

1:04:49

products that have been

1:04:51

successfully sold to kids for many,

1:04:54

many, many years, long before we

1:04:56

had ever heard what a a gender

1:04:58

neutral toy is. I And I don't

1:05:00

think they need to be mandated,

1:05:02

I think it mandating it and

1:05:04

putting place these penalties. just sets a

1:05:06

just sets a tone and a message

1:05:08

that is counterproductive for the Democratic Party.

1:05:11

Now, in the state of California, you

1:05:13

do have do have super of Democrats in

1:05:15

the state legislature, as well

1:05:17

as as virtually every major position.

1:05:20

So you So you can often get

1:05:22

away with things like this, but

1:05:24

this is why you need to have

1:05:26

diverse opinions represented in state legislature to

1:05:28

of push back on this and

1:05:30

say, want, if we want, a if there's a

1:05:32

market for puzzles. gonna They're gonna exist

1:05:34

and companies are gonna produce that. They don't

1:05:36

need to be mandated into gender to be toys. into

1:05:39

it's just bizarre toys. Yeah,

1:05:41

a Barbie puzzle And gender puzzle,

1:05:43

not gender neutral, and a for boys

1:05:45

I just the whole

1:05:47

idea of even idea of even. saying

1:05:49

that the toys that children choose to

1:05:51

use have any reflection on their gender

1:05:54

is I think I of the problem. the

1:05:56

And when you look at some of

1:05:58

the some of the progressive activist groups on

1:06:00

behalf of transgender youth medical care, for

1:06:03

example, like the ones that are arguing

1:06:05

in front of the Supreme Court this

1:06:07

week, they make the claim often that

1:06:10

one of the early signs of a

1:06:12

child being transgender is playing with toys

1:06:14

that are marketed towards the opposite sex.

1:06:16

And it really is an erasure one

1:06:19

of children who might be homosexual. It

1:06:21

is erasure of people who just don't

1:06:23

conform to normal ideas of what gender

1:06:25

are. and I think is kind of

1:06:28

harmful to put this idea in kids'

1:06:30

heads that they're not normal or they

1:06:32

might even have been bored in the

1:06:34

wrong body if they don't play with

1:06:37

the right toy. And with this assemblyman

1:06:39

saying, let kids be kids, yeah, exactly,

1:06:41

but that's not what you're doing with

1:06:43

this bill. You're actually doing the opposite

1:06:46

of that by unnecessarily politicizing choices about

1:06:48

what toys kids want to play with.

1:06:50

And I think you're exactly right. The

1:06:53

idea that a store needs to be

1:06:55

compelled to sell puzzles or blocks or

1:06:57

whatever else is obviously absurd. Right. And

1:06:59

how do you define exactly gender neutral

1:07:02

toy? And like the enforcement of this

1:07:04

I think is very questionable. I have

1:07:06

friends who I don't have kids yet,

1:07:08

but I have friends who do who

1:07:11

vote consistently for Democrats. And they are

1:07:13

very big on making sure that they're

1:07:15

careful about the toys that their kids

1:07:17

are playing with. Just to your point

1:07:20

about, you know, the style of toys

1:07:22

that kids at a formative age are

1:07:24

playing with might have an impact on

1:07:27

how they identify in terms of gender.

1:07:29

And so my friends, it's interesting, they

1:07:31

vote Democratic, but have kind of a

1:07:33

conservative view when it comes to the

1:07:36

toys that their kids are playing with.

1:07:38

And, you know, it's completely understandable. from

1:07:40

a policy standpoint I always like to

1:07:42

distinguish between personal and policy because personally

1:07:45

you can have that view in terms

1:07:47

of policy let people do what they

1:07:49

want to do with their kids there

1:07:51

might be some parents who have the

1:07:54

opposite opinion yeah I would like to

1:07:56

expose my kids my my male kids

1:07:58

to more feminine toys and vice versa.

1:08:00

They're welcome to do that as well.

1:08:03

The point is to give people the

1:08:05

freedom and that's a great thing in

1:08:07

this country to do that. So I

1:08:10

think the bigger picture here that we're

1:08:12

going to be looking at over the

1:08:14

next few years is Gavin Houston will

1:08:16

be running for president in 2028. And

1:08:19

so you're going to see him doing

1:08:21

a lot of positioning over the next

1:08:23

couple years as he finishes up his

1:08:25

term as governor in California. And the

1:08:28

question is, and this is part of

1:08:30

the problem with our primary system right

1:08:32

now, is you have to go as

1:08:34

far a left as you can to

1:08:37

try and win the primary, and then

1:08:39

suddenly reinvent yourself within a month to

1:08:41

appeal to a general election audience, and

1:08:44

that comes across as disingenuous for a

1:08:46

lot of people. Now, I'm sure Gavin

1:08:48

Newsom will have no... a problem kind

1:08:50

of navigating those waters. He seems to

1:08:53

navigate things quite well politically, but at

1:08:55

the same time, he's going to be

1:08:57

doing more things like this over the

1:08:59

next few years to position himself nationally.

1:09:02

And the problem is, and I've seen

1:09:04

this in Wisconsin where our Governor Scott

1:09:06

Walker ran a Republican ran for president.

1:09:08

You try and do things for a

1:09:11

national audience and it doesn't work for

1:09:13

you in your state audience and your

1:09:15

approval rating goes down and he's going

1:09:17

to face that problem. Yeah, I think

1:09:20

that's true and he's already been trying

1:09:22

to, he's vetoed a few progressive bills

1:09:24

but then apparently signed this gender neutral

1:09:27

bill. It's not exactly

1:09:29

clear what tack he really is taking

1:09:31

going to 2028 because he's kind of

1:09:33

moved both ways. He's trying to be

1:09:36

a little bit of a shape shifter,

1:09:38

but just based on the fact that

1:09:40

one of the most influential ads from

1:09:43

the Trump campaign was the they, them

1:09:45

out against Kamala Harris this past election,

1:09:47

it seems like the Democratic Party would

1:09:50

do well to move away from this

1:09:52

kind of hyper focus on gender.

1:09:54

Especially when it comes to children, a

1:09:56

lot of parents, when you pull them,

1:09:59

are not interested in this kind of

1:10:01

gender identity. the left likes to talk

1:10:03

about. And it suggests to me that

1:10:06

they haven't really learned that much from

1:10:08

this past election in terms of what

1:10:10

cultural issues are popping for Americans and

1:10:13

how Americans react to them. What I'm

1:10:15

looking for in the Democratic Party right

1:10:17

now are people who are being self-reflective.

1:10:20

They are asking the question, what am

1:10:22

I missing? From the most enlightened Democrats

1:10:24

have spoken to you, they're asking

1:10:26

that question right now. Even those who

1:10:29

I would describe as living in an

1:10:31

echo chamber, in a coastal echo chamber,

1:10:33

the more enlightened ones are saying, what

1:10:36

am I missing right now? And for

1:10:38

people who are engaging in some of

1:10:40

these kind of left-wing woke politics and

1:10:43

not seeing the writing on the wall

1:10:45

of where our country culturally is right

1:10:47

now, if you want to win national

1:10:50

elections, that is, they're going to be

1:10:52

losing. And right now we have this

1:10:54

DNC chair race happening over the next

1:10:57

few months. The direction of the

1:10:59

Democratic Party for the next four years

1:11:01

is being decided really over the next

1:11:03

few months. And let's see. which vision

1:11:06

of the Democratic Party emerges? Is it

1:11:08

more like the one that we're seeing

1:11:10

from people like Rokana who are very

1:11:13

more, I would say, more independent-minded? Or

1:11:15

is it more in the Gavin Newsome

1:11:17

direction, which is complicated as you referenced.

1:11:20

The people who are saying that Democrats

1:11:22

did nothing wrong in this past election

1:11:24

cycle over the last few years, be

1:11:27

very wary of those people, please. The

1:11:29

people who are instead saying, hey,

1:11:31

we need to listen and reach out

1:11:33

to and talk to people. We disagree

1:11:36

with including people in the across the

1:11:38

spectrum, including the Obama Trump voters, for

1:11:40

example, in Wisconsin who voted Obama twice

1:11:43

and have now switched to Trump. Let's

1:11:45

have those conversations. Let's pay more attention

1:11:47

to those leaders. Absolutely. All right, we're

1:11:50

going to take a quick break. We'll

1:11:52

be back for rising after this. YMC,

1:11:54

Make America Great Again. The founder of

1:11:57

the Village People, the 70s band that

1:11:59

wrote the disco Bob YMCA changed his

1:12:01

tune on tune on President -elect

1:12:03

Donald Trump using song. After years

1:12:05

years of requesting that the Trump campaign

1:12:08

stop using the iconic the iconic even

1:12:10

suing Trump at one Trump at one Willis

1:12:12

finally gave the gave the the green

1:12:14

light to use the green light to he

1:12:16

is hit. his change on Fox

1:12:18

News change on Fox News Thursday. I

1:12:20

to allow allow the president the

1:12:22

next of use of YMCA.

1:12:24

because to to

1:12:26

genuinely, he seems to

1:12:29

genuinely like you know, so

1:12:31

many other artists were stopping

1:12:33

him from using their music. So

1:12:35

I decided to contact using their music,

1:12:37

so I decided to not

1:12:39

to terminate his, and told them

1:12:41

to not to terminate he seemed to

1:12:44

be bringing so much joy to

1:12:46

the American people. he seemed to

1:12:48

be this use of much joy

1:12:50

to the American done so much

1:12:52

for YNCA. of YNCA. and

1:12:55

brought so much joy to so

1:12:57

many so much joy to so

1:12:59

many people. The song has to

1:13:01

gone back to number one and

1:13:03

it's still number one today. today. So

1:13:05

if he were to ask those

1:13:07

people to perform. the the

1:13:09

song live for him. we'd have

1:13:12

have to seriously consider it.

1:13:14

it. great outfit

1:13:16

there. there. who is named who of

1:13:18

the Year at Fox Nation's Patriot

1:13:20

Awards. the Heard Willis loud and

1:13:22

clear, curious celebrating after accepting

1:13:24

the word, heard watch. loud

1:13:26

and clear. Here he

1:13:29

is celebrating after accepting

1:13:31

the word, let's watch.

1:13:46

The Trump tried to use

1:13:48

other artists' songs before, like Bruce Springsteen's,

1:13:50

born in others and others, The

1:13:52

Foo Fighters, the Foo Fighters, Adele Farrell,

1:13:54

and at least a dozen

1:13:56

others. others. Well, this song has become

1:13:58

quite a phenomenon. A friend of

1:14:00

mine said, Trump made politics, pop culture,

1:14:02

and you know, Trump with this song,

1:14:04

he, I would say, the YMCA song

1:14:07

has now achieved the status that some

1:14:09

of the all-time great songs have achieved

1:14:11

in terms of having a signature dance.

1:14:13

I think about Siz's song, Gangnam style,

1:14:15

The Weekend had blinding lights, where these

1:14:17

dances go viral on TikTok, and it

1:14:19

makes these artists' careers in many cases.

1:14:21

Now in this case part of the

1:14:23

interesting part of the story is that

1:14:25

people are saying the YMCA was like

1:14:27

a gay anthem and now it's a

1:14:29

magga anthem and you know I it's

1:14:31

something that I hear a lot of

1:14:33

people joking about kind of behind the

1:14:35

scenes I don't know if that's exactly

1:14:37

true although I know many of my

1:14:39

gay friends love the song and now

1:14:41

that and magga loves the song as

1:14:43

well that's the great thing about America

1:14:45

and the great thing about music why

1:14:47

I love music and I'm a musician

1:14:50

as well because it helps to weave

1:14:52

together some of the most disparate strands

1:14:54

of American life. Another great example I

1:14:56

think about is like Johnny Cash who

1:14:58

his music appealed to punk rockers and

1:15:00

evangelical Christians and everything in between. So

1:15:02

this YMCA song is apparently doing that

1:15:04

and I love it. Yeah, I think

1:15:06

it's awesome. And going back to this

1:15:08

gay anthem question, I think beyond just

1:15:10

being loved by gay people, there was

1:15:12

a narrative that was sort of being

1:15:14

pushed on social media, that the song

1:15:16

was about gay people gathering at the

1:15:18

YMCA, and the creator actually took issue

1:15:20

with that and said, no, this was

1:15:22

about the YMCA just being a community

1:15:24

spot, especially for black men to go

1:15:26

and hang out. and have a safe

1:15:28

place where they could do that outside

1:15:31

of maybe whatever was happening in their

1:15:33

neighborhoods and actually threaten to sue anybody

1:15:35

who calls it a gay anthem because

1:15:37

he was so offended by the idea

1:15:39

that he wrote this for people who

1:15:41

go to the YMCA to be gay,

1:15:43

I don't really understand it to be

1:15:45

honest with you, but nonetheless gay people

1:15:47

can enjoy the song, maggae people can

1:15:49

enjoy the song, I think that's wonderful,

1:15:51

a nice little cross-cultural moment, and it

1:15:53

is amazing to see how the Trump

1:15:55

dance gone completely viral. You see professional

1:15:57

athletes now doing the dance and celebration

1:15:59

when they score goals or touchdowns or

1:16:01

even on the golf course when you

1:16:03

hit a good shot. The MMA fighter

1:16:05

when he won recently at UFC he

1:16:07

went into it as well. I'm not

1:16:09

going to do the dance. Sorry, keep

1:16:11

going. Totally fair. But I think it's

1:16:14

a huge shift from 2016 and even

1:16:16

2020 where there was this movement of

1:16:18

the silent Trump supporter. of people who

1:16:20

were really scared to publicly express support

1:16:22

for Trump or even be seen as

1:16:24

adjacent to Trump. or normalizing Trump because

1:16:26

there would be so much backlash against

1:16:28

them from the media or what have

1:16:30

you. And now we're in a place

1:16:32

where you're kind of allowed to post

1:16:34

about the president-elect or do a dance

1:16:36

that was popularized by the president-elect and

1:16:38

it doesn't have to necessarily mean that

1:16:40

you're endorsing the guy but just recognizing

1:16:42

that he is sort of an icon

1:16:44

in pop culture. He is going to

1:16:46

be the president of the United States

1:16:48

and I think it's a good and

1:16:50

healthy thing for America to be able

1:16:52

to do that and not have it.

1:16:54

automatically mean that you support every policy

1:16:57

that he is trying to put into

1:16:59

place. Yeah, that's right. I think a

1:17:01

lot of politicians would be wise to

1:17:03

understand that culture precedes politics and so

1:17:05

if you can win in the cultural

1:17:07

arena, help to define the cultural space,

1:17:09

that has a huge downstream impact on

1:17:11

politics and I think a number of

1:17:13

political figures have nailed that over the

1:17:15

years. Trump definitely got it, like he

1:17:17

won with this YMCA song and people

1:17:19

love the dance. And now I notice

1:17:21

that he even integrates like the golf

1:17:23

swing into the dance and people have

1:17:25

picked up on that. So when you

1:17:27

even have variations of the dance that

1:17:29

are going viral, like you've absolutely won

1:17:31

in the cultural realm. But Obama had,

1:17:33

his theme song was the you two,

1:17:35

City of Blinding Lights, that became his

1:17:38

signature song. And I'll honestly say. You

1:17:40

know, there's a lot of Kamala Harris

1:17:42

bashing going on right now because obviously

1:17:44

her campaign did not succeed, but when

1:17:46

she came out with that Beyonce song.

1:17:48

and her campaign brand

1:17:50

was Fetum, that

1:17:52

popped. That's part of part

1:17:54

of what I think

1:17:56

helped to create

1:17:58

a moment where the

1:18:00

vibes were so

1:18:02

high in the the summer

1:18:04

and August going

1:18:06

into September. So I think

1:18:08

If a a campaign

1:18:10

can nail the song

1:18:12

selection, which is

1:18:14

hard to do, always

1:18:16

not always happen, it

1:18:19

pays dividends to it helps define the

1:18:21

brand of the campaign. helps define the

1:18:23

message of the campaign. You might even

1:18:25

get some of those endorsements, I guess,

1:18:27

in the case of the people were the

1:18:29

village people were initially against it, but

1:18:32

now they're for it. I'm I'm sure they're

1:18:34

thrilled with all the Spotify the Spotify I

1:18:36

Oh, I bet. They're raking it in. I think

1:18:38

a broader part of this of this connection

1:18:40

between politics and pop culture too is

1:18:42

authenticity, is right? And one of the reasons

1:18:44

why I think the Trump dance has

1:18:47

been so popular is that he's not

1:18:49

forcing anything to be cool. It's just

1:18:51

kind of him doing like like a. middle age

1:18:53

to older dad dance that they would do at a they would

1:18:55

do at a wedding. doing he's doing

1:18:57

the golf swing because he loves the

1:18:59

golf. to And it's not like a super

1:19:02

hip hop or tick-talk song. It's an

1:19:04

old classic hit from the 70s and he just kind

1:19:06

of he just kind of embraces who

1:19:08

he is and doesn't try right it's it's very

1:19:10

hard to be and right? It's very organic

1:19:12

and kind of natural, which is why

1:19:15

I think it resonates with people come

1:19:17

it doesn't come across like he's intentionally

1:19:19

trying to create a viral moment. He's

1:19:21

just doing it because he kind of

1:19:23

likes it and it's fun. cool I wish more

1:19:25

cool. I wish more politicians of of just

1:19:27

embrace that instead of doing all of

1:19:30

these

Unlock more with Podchaser Pro

  • Audience Insights
  • Contact Information
  • Demographics
  • Charts
  • Sponsor History
  • and More!
Pro Features