0:00

Does anyone know if he's gotten into the car yet?

0:03

I've been away from the TV for a minute

0:05

or two. Are you in chopper six,

0:08

like looking overhead? You know

0:10

what, if he was a badass,

0:12

he would take one of those e-scooters.

0:14

You know what I mean? City bike

0:16

e-scooter, hop on that bad boy.

0:19

Again, that is not actually true at all.

0:21

Red tie flapping

0:23

in the wind, one hand on

0:26

a slice,

0:27

one hand on the handlebars, come on. That's

0:30

how New Yorkers go to Rainmans, baby.

0:35

["The Welcome

0:53

to the podcast. It's a problem with me, John Stewart. By

0:56

the way, the show is

0:59

on Apple TV plus. It's our finale.

1:01

The final episode. Will

1:04

I finally have that baby? Oh,

1:06

will it be a cliffhanger? I don't know. We're

1:08

actually going on. We're trying something

1:10

a little new. We're going to react to all this

1:14

Trump and media nonsense

1:17

on our actual program. Oh,

1:19

it's going to be fantastic.

1:21

Today, an unprecedented

1:24

podcast, a consequential podcast,

1:27

this historic, hysterical

1:30

podcast, Donald Trump,

1:32

a sitting former non-sitting

1:36

standing president

1:38

has been indebted. If you watch the news, it

1:41

does appear Republicans are now being rounded up in droves

1:43

while crime runs rampant in our cities. But

1:46

we're going to talk about this two-tiered justice system

1:48

today, one that Donald Trump

1:50

has suffered so greatly under. Please welcome to the program

1:52

David Dann, Executive Editor of the American

1:54

Prospect, and Dr. Philippa Tibagov, co-founder

1:57

and CEO, Center for Policing Equity and

1:59

the Chair.

2:00

and Carl I. Hovland, professor of

2:02

African-American studies and professor of psychology at Yale

2:04

University. David and Phil, thank you

2:06

for joining us. Thank

2:08

you. Thank you for getting that whole title in there. Well

2:10

done. Let me tell you something. I talk

2:12

as fast as I need to

2:14

to get out. The problem I'm having is

2:16

if my guess could be less impressive,

2:19

I could get this done much easier. Second

2:23

lead on third rock from the

2:25

sun, boom, and we're into the conversation. You

2:27

see what I'm saying. My old life

2:29

was much easier. Gentlemen,

2:32

please talk to me. It's as

2:35

though you can't be

2:38

a rich billionaire ex-president

2:41

in this country anymore.

2:43

That the man

2:45

will keep you down. Is

2:48

that where we're at? Is that where we're headed,

2:50

gentlemen? It's

2:51

a sad day in America when

2:53

that's the case. I think this is a case,

2:56

I was talking to my staff about this, something that

2:58

I called the

2:59

peacock prosecution. So

3:02

you have someone that is so out

3:05

there that is essentially

3:08

an indictment in human form who

3:11

is just daring the system

3:13

to

3:14

take it on

3:16

and takes up for 50 years. For,

3:19

yes. For 50 years. Yes, for decades,

3:23

whether in real estate development

3:25

or whatever other corners

3:27

of the economy he was dealing

3:29

with. And

3:31

it moves all of the focus

3:34

over to this particular indictment,

3:37

whereas the litany

3:40

of other white collar crime, corporate

3:42

crime that goes on is

3:44

forgotten. And the true state

3:47

of our justice system where

3:50

who you are certainly matters a whole lot

3:52

more than what you did

3:53

is obscured. And now

3:56

it's refracted through this

3:58

lens. of political

4:01

prosecution rather

4:03

than the real biases in

4:06

our justice system. That is exactly,

4:08

and Phil, what is it in your mind when you

4:10

see that Republicans have just discovered

4:13

that the justice system in America

4:17

may not be fair?

4:19

What must run through your mind, Phil?

4:22

So they might be onto something. Are

4:25

you agreeing with them, sir? They really

4:27

might be onto something. You

4:29

know, and I want to be really clear. I

4:32

think that their formal position

4:35

of defund law enforcement is wildly unpopular.

4:38

I think that- They want chaos, Phil,

4:41

chaos. Well, they've been defunding law enforcement

4:43

in the sense of trying to defund the DA's office

4:45

in Manhattan. They have defunded the IRS.

4:48

And they've allowed

4:49

really crime to grow rampant. Let

4:51

me tell you a little bit about the crime I'm talking about.

4:54

This conversation's on its head.

4:56

I say, I really want to say they are allowing

4:58

crime to be rampant. And here's what I mean. So

5:00

if I were to walk up to you

5:02

and steal your wallet, that would be a robbery,

5:05

right? And robbery is heavily,

5:08

heavily enforced, it's regulated. People

5:11

come, they will beat you up, they will try and get that money back. But

5:13

if I work in a corporation and

5:15

I steal money out of the pockets of my employees,

5:19

that's not called robbery, it's called wage

5:21

theft. So in this country in 2019, What

5:25

is the amount of, let's say, formal robbery

5:28

to wage theft? Oh, I'm sure stealing

5:30

of wallets is much more, a

5:32

much grander. Wildly out of control,

5:35

in the sense

5:35

that wage theft is literally

5:38

over a hundred times larger

5:40

in the amount of money than robbery.

5:43

A hundred times, we have over $40

5:45

billion of wage theft, and

5:51

about $340 million worth of robbery. And

5:53

yet the IRS, which is that's the

5:55

enforcement arm that would go and look at things

5:58

like wage theft. So it takes... about 75%

6:01

of its human being hours towards people

6:03

making less than a million dollars,

6:05

who people were worth less than a million dollars. And

6:08

if you want to make sure you are audited by the IRS,

6:10

the number one category, up until

6:13

the point where they stopped reporting it publicly because we're looking

6:15

bad for them, who belong

6:17

to the very elite category of EITC,

6:20

that's the Earned Income Tax Credit,

6:22

which is the lowest wage earners,

6:26

you're five and a half times more likely as

6:28

getting EITC than any

6:30

other group to be armed by the IRS.

6:32

These are the folks that we choose to prosecute,

6:34

not the people who are getting money and taking

6:36

money literally illegally.

6:39

Now Phil, the question then becomes

6:41

is, if these corporations engaging

6:44

with wage theft would just keep this money

6:46

in their wallets,

6:48

then we might have something, then we might have a mechanism.

6:52

David, you know, we're not even necessarily

6:55

talking about

6:56

all the fraud and all

6:58

the white collar crime,

7:01

forgetting about even the derivatives

7:05

monstrosity that caused the 2008

7:07

financial crisis,

7:09

we don't look at white

7:11

collar crime, wage theft, fraud

7:15

as crime.

7:17

It's looked upon as a kind

7:19

of price of doing business in the

7:21

same way that like, you know, We would find out

7:23

HSBC launders

7:26

money for drug cartels, and instead of throwing everybody

7:28

in jail, we just asked them to give us a cut

7:30

of it. Yeah, 2%, let's say $5

7:33

billion, and we'll all go square. How

7:36

do you convince people that what Phil

7:38

is talking about, in other words, not funding

7:41

the IRS to go after this, but we

7:43

lose maybe almost, what, $800

7:45

billion a year to this

7:48

kind of thing that is stolen?

7:53

tax evasion, I think is 175 billion. I

7:56

mean, the amazing thing is that this

7:59

is a relative.

8:00

new development, this impunity

8:02

for corporate and white collar crime. In

8:05

the 1980s, after the savings and loan crisis,

8:08

we saw a thousand bankers

8:10

go to jail.

8:11

In the Enron frauds

8:14

and the accounting scandals

8:16

of the early 2000s, we did see people

8:18

go to jail.

8:20

And what happened was that out

8:22

of that Enron task force

8:24

and out of the crimes that were

8:27

conducted there and the convictions

8:29

that were gotten there, there was a change

8:31

in the Justice Department in the way it

8:34

handled corporate crime. There was a memo

8:36

by a guy named Larry Thompson, who was part

8:39

of the Enron task force. Phil is nodding,

8:41

it's a very bad sign. Go ahead, David. You

8:44

know, previously, the options for

8:47

the Justice Department, when they found corruption

8:50

or fraud in a corporation, it was

8:53

prosecute or don't prosecute. And

8:55

then this third option

8:57

in the Thompson memo came forward. It was called

9:00

the deferred prosecution

9:02

agreement. What? Yes, deferred

9:04

prosecution agreements actually came out

9:06

of juvenile delinquency,

9:09

like a century ago, if you

9:11

were a kid and we didn't wanna prosecute

9:14

a kid and ruin his life. So we'd

9:16

do a deferred prosecution agreement where

9:18

we would watch him and

9:20

monitor him and over years,

9:22

If he rehabilitated, we

9:25

would get him back into a regular

9:28

society.

9:29

And so we wouldn't prosecute initially.

9:31

Is the thought there, then, that corporate

9:34

brains are not fully developed

9:36

yet? Yeah, pretty much. So

9:38

we have to wait until

9:41

they gain a more sophisticated understanding

9:44

of right and wrong.

9:45

So we really don't want to do anything yet. Exactly.

9:47

So with DPAs, which started, by

9:50

the way, the very first DPA in a corporate

9:52

context was by a woman

9:54

who was a prosecutor at the Southern District

9:56

in New York, attorney's office named

9:59

Mary Jo White.

10:00

Sure, Mary Jo White. Who prosecuted

10:02

Prudential with a deferred prosecution

10:04

agreement. She later became the head of the

10:06

SEC. And after that is now the

10:09

personal lawyer of the Sackler

10:11

family. The personal lawyer

10:14

of the Sackler family. So

10:20

even Faust, even the devil,

10:23

the devil himself is now saying

10:25

like, you really want to take those people on, that family?

10:29

Is that what you want?

10:30

Now that was a rare case in 1994, but

10:32

a decade later, the Thompson memo comes out

10:35

in 2003 and DPAs

10:37

are pretty much not used very much,

10:40

but after that, they explode.

10:42

They become the standard way

10:45

in which these prosecutions are

10:47

carried out. They are essentially

10:50

given a fine. There is an independent

10:52

monitor set up that like, hey, for five

10:54

years, we're gonna be watching you. It's like putting them

10:56

up the hole. We might do this prosecution. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

10:59

And usually nothing ever happens. That

11:01

was true in the HSBC case, by the way, there

11:03

was a DPA there. And this

11:06

is how it goes. And prosecutions

11:08

of individuals have gone down precipitously

11:12

since that time. Which

11:14

is why this all seems so shocking. Phil,

11:17

it's the kind of thing that makes you realize,

11:20

oh right, because I'll tell you why I think the

11:22

government is doing that, the DPAs.

11:24

I don't know that they're necessarily corrupt.

11:27

I think they're fucking tired.

11:30

They

11:30

don't have the resources or the money

11:33

to go after these criminals and

11:35

prosecute them because if your

11:38

wallet is thick,

11:39

you can delay, you can throw

11:42

obstacles at it. And is

11:44

it

11:45

that they've learned

11:46

not to even bother to just

11:49

get what they can get? Is that what this

11:51

is? So I'm so glad we're talking about the

11:53

Thompson memo. I didn't know how nerdy we were gonna get and

11:56

how quickly we were gonna get there. Oh, we're getting nerdy,

11:58

baby. We're going Thompson.

12:00

No, we're starting nerdy. Let's say

12:02

we're starting there. And it's only getting worse.

12:04

You talked about it being the bankers brains aren't fully

12:06

formed, which, you know, I don't know how many bankers you

12:09

know, that may be actually true. Maybe I actually

12:11

think it's the other piece, which is we should

12:13

be able to preserve their innocence

12:16

until later. Right? Because

12:18

these aren't people that seem like they're criminals.

12:21

That was the idea of DPAs in the juvenile context,

12:23

which interestingly are reserved for folks

12:26

who aren't black

12:27

or Latin. Right? Native

12:29

American, now in the ways that we do DPAs

12:32

in the juvenile context, which is why to this

12:34

day, black kids who are under 18

12:37

are 18 times more likely to be tried as adults,

12:40

right, than are white kids. So- Are

12:42

DPAs still in use for juveniles to some extent? Oh,

12:45

yeah.

12:45

Oh. Yeah, I mean, like, much less so. But

12:48

not if you're African American, then it's 18

12:50

times more likely that they go, oh, we've seen enough.

12:53

I don't know that we need to defer this. I

12:55

think we're okay.

12:56

Right. but you kind of, you crime

12:58

to like you were 18 years old. It looks very

13:00

much like you could grow a beard. I think we're done here.

13:02

Exactly, exactly. I'm upset because you

13:05

look more masculine than I do and therefore,

13:07

so like part of our criminal justice system

13:09

is set up

13:11

to figure this out for who

13:13

is deserving of certain kinds of punishment,

13:16

who deserves to be constrained and bound,

13:18

and who has made a mistake or had mistakes

13:20

happen around them, but they're not the crime

13:23

type of people. And so the Thompson

13:25

memo essentially says, If you've got folks

13:27

who they're gonna delay forever, you can't really get them,

13:29

you can't really prosecute. This gives you another avenue

13:31

for managing it. But also these crimes

13:34

are so diffuse, they're systems errors.

13:36

They're people who were beneath them and they weren't really great managers.

13:39

Do we really wanna punish them for all those kinds

13:41

of things in the same way that we used

13:43

to not punish coaches when their

13:46

subordinates would be the ones who were setting people up

13:48

with cars at the university. Now

13:50

we say, yeah, they're victims of a lack

13:52

system as opposed to

13:54

bad actors. And

13:56

what we've done is we've allowed for the passive

13:59

voice happen

14:00

for the people we don't want to prosecute,

14:02

right? Crimes occurred in this

14:04

general area. And a DPA allows you to say, hey,

14:07

you existed where crimes occurred,

14:09

not you were ultimately responsible for it. You benefited

14:11

from it. Your salary was dependent on the things that you

14:13

got as a result of this. And there's no admission of guilt.

14:17

At a DPA, you just say,

14:19

boy, this kind of got away from us, I

14:21

would imagine. Let me ask you

14:23

how much the Supreme

14:26

Court's changing of the definition

14:28

of corruption, because

14:31

it feels as though the society

14:33

decided at some

14:35

level

14:36

that if we had a Venn diagram of

14:38

unethical and illegal, right?

14:41

And that area in the middle there, which is

14:43

where I think Trump has built a

14:45

hotel and casino, somewhere in

14:48

between a lack of ethics and

14:50

illegality, the system

14:52

has decided to say, unless

14:54

it's explicit, unless you walk

14:57

into someone's office and say,

14:59

I'm doing this to steal

15:01

from old ladies pension funds,

15:04

unless you explicitly make

15:06

it quid pro quo

15:08

or define it as corruption, does that

15:10

then hamstring

15:12

any ability for, whether

15:14

it's the SEC or the Department of Justice,

15:16

to prosecute something like this?

15:18

I mean, that's true in the corruption

15:21

context, certainly. Yes, not in the crime

15:23

context, maybe.

15:24

Right, and it's not like it's very

15:26

hard to go around and find

15:30

massive pieces of documentary evidence. If

15:32

you think back to the financial crisis, and my

15:34

first book was about this, we

15:38

ended up having all of these mortgage-backed

15:41

securities that were created,

15:43

and they were not created in the style

15:46

in which they proved the actual

15:48

ownership. The documents were never converted.

15:51

They were mortgage molecules that

15:53

were clumped together. And so

15:56

in order to cover up for that, banks mass

15:59

produced on an industrial

16:00

scale, all of these

16:03

documents after the fact to prove

16:05

that they were in fact the owner of these

16:08

various homes and use them

16:10

in court to foreclose on someone. So the idea

16:12

that there was, oh, there's no documentary evidence,

16:15

there's nothing there. There were literally millions

16:18

of documents. There was a place in Georgia

16:20

where millions of documents

16:22

were mass produced and they were were all done

16:25

by multiple $15 an

16:27

hour workers who were signing their

16:29

names to

16:30

these documents, signing someone else's name.

16:32

They had the names of these various

16:35

officers of the bank. And would they just post-date

16:38

it? They would just post-date it as though they were backdated.

16:40

They were backdated. They used

16:43

the name Linda Green because,

16:45

and they asked Doc X, this

16:48

document fabrication company, why they use

16:50

them. And they say, well, Linda Green's name,

16:53

we made her the vice president of this bank,

16:55

and her name was easy to spell for

16:57

these various people. And so that's

16:59

why we use Linda Green. So in the

17:01

public records, in these recording

17:05

agencies, there is Linda Green

17:07

with 20

17:08

different ways of assigning her

17:10

name.

17:11

And nobody went to jail for that. Absolutely

17:14

nobody. And the information is there. And

17:16

what we ended up having is a series

17:18

of settlements that

17:20

were DPA-like in

17:22

nature, where banks were

17:25

told, okay, you have to give principal reductions

17:27

to people, or you have to give mortgage modifications to people.

17:30

Or my favorite, your sentence is

17:32

to give loans to lower

17:35

income people, which is a moneymaking activity.

17:38

Wow. Your sentence is, you've

17:40

got to get in the subprime

17:41

business. That's your sentence. You've

17:44

got to get into payday

17:46

loans. It's like telling someone convicted

17:48

of Robert to open a lemonade stand. It's

17:52

ridiculous. This

17:55

is the way we

17:57

dealt with the largest operation

17:59

of... mass

18:00

fraud in recent

18:02

memory. And explicit fraud, explicit

18:04

fraud where these hedge

18:07

funds were trying to pass

18:09

toxic mortgage back derivative

18:11

assets onto their clients, knowing

18:14

that they were shit and not

18:16

telling them and that's why they refuse to be fiduciaries.

18:19

But Phil, this gets us into so now

18:22

let's talk about

18:23

the consequence of

18:26

that lack of any kind

18:29

of accountability. All right. So Linda

18:31

Green or the many Linda Greens

18:35

are signing away these

18:37

documents and they're post dating them and

18:39

they're getting back and people are being foreclosed

18:41

on and people are losing their jobs and

18:44

people are losing their homes and they

18:46

are left poverty stricken and

18:48

desperate. And what happens sometimes

18:51

in communities that have been decimated

18:54

by poverty,

18:55

they turn to

18:57

wage theft. Is that what you were going to do? Boom,

18:59

boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. No, no,

19:02

it's not. It's robberies. It's the other one.

19:04

That's what I'm talking about. Okay, there we go. Yeah.

19:07

We're talking about robberies. We're talking about crimes

19:09

of desperation. We're talking about drug

19:13

use, alcohol use, lives

19:15

of despair that put

19:17

them at risk

19:19

of going into the justice system

19:22

where they will pay non-DPA

19:24

penalties. Correct?

19:26

That's exactly correct. That's

19:29

the cycle. It's in some ways, you said explicit

19:31

fraud. And I actually think that's where a lot of the

19:33

sort of the juice on this lives,

19:36

because it's hard to show

19:38

how explicit it is. Now you draw the thread,

19:41

it's easy to see someone had to know,

19:43

but was it me? Was it Linda Green who

19:45

didn't exist? Like was it this president

19:48

of this bank? And did you mean it?

19:50

Did you mean to commit the fraud? Right.

19:53

And so, and I want to be clear, we're talking about this in the context of corruption, because

19:56

today is an end historic day. and

19:58

I really want to make sure that that end. that

20:00

the end of an historic day because i

20:02

am guess are you have to i finally

20:04

at

20:04

yale no less hey assault

20:06

but it's not just for business corruption

20:09

this is also the standard for civil rights

20:12

so if you don't mean it it

20:14

so the one for one for one standard on which

20:16

is how the federal government has any kind of

20:18

deal jake it's any kind of songwriting asian says

20:21

you have to engage in willful discrimination

20:23

which the way we've done that historically in

20:25

united states is hey i

20:27

beat you up because you were black isn't

20:29

enough i beat up all the black

20:31

people and i don't we don't white people and i say

20:34

that out loud that isn't it off i think

20:36

black people deserve to be beaten they

20:38

have earned these meetings that i give them some i'm a deserted

20:40

be shot even if they didn't commit crimes i can say all

20:42

of those things but if i don't say i'm

20:44

doing this because you are black and because

20:46

i hate black people my

20:49

prejudice is the animated voice i don't get

20:51

that explicit right

20:52

then what you end up with is

20:55

now

20:55

it's not a deferred prosecution agreement

20:57

but it is a consent decree is

21:00

the worst that can happen which is a we kind

21:02

of agree that what you did there was kind of messed up

21:04

it's not the chiefs faults up training officer small

21:06

if it's but we're going i'd want to watch for a little

21:08

while and you're not going to really comply or we'll

21:10

have some metrics are going to frothing meet them and then

21:12

it's going to be expensive for the city which by the way the

21:14

poor people pay more of has been rather taxes work

21:17

but that's how it's done and

21:19

at the core of all of this is

21:21

that once you have systems

21:24

and institution we don't know

21:26

how to think about accountability

21:28

we know how to think about making money off of those

21:30

things right we know how to be in charge

21:32

of those things we don't know how to hold

21:34

individuals or systems

21:36

accountable for the damages that they

21:38

really should because even though these things are so

21:41

transparent it's obvious what's happening in almost

21:43

every police to partner other country it's obvious what's happening

21:45

in the banking industry in the subprime mortgage industry

21:48

all of those things were obvious that someone

21:50

should have no no we

21:51

can't decide on who and

21:53

what the punishment should be much less how to regulate

21:56

those systems after the crisis has

21:58

been born on the backs of vulnerable

22:00

And I think I would put that slightly

22:03

differently in that I think we know

22:05

how to find those

22:07

responsible and those culpable

22:10

of those particular behaviors. We've

22:12

lost the muscle memory,

22:14

the institutional memory of

22:18

actually summoning the will to

22:20

do it. I mean, if you

22:22

look at- But David, when would we have the institutional memory?

22:24

Because when have we really, I understand that a thousand

22:27

bankers maybe went to jail in the 80s, but

22:30

the 80s was also the crack epidemic and

22:33

those bankers went to play tennis for

22:35

about 16 months and

22:38

somebody who bought crack on the street went

22:40

to jail for 15 years. No question

22:43

about that. You

22:46

can say that we never had a golden age of

22:48

white collar fire. We

22:50

had several. That's my point. We

22:52

had several bronze ages or silver.

22:55

But the mechanism,

22:58

what I'm kind of talking about is the mechanism

23:00

for how it would go about that is

23:02

well known. You flip the lower level

23:05

guys, you get them into

23:07

the corporate boardroom where the decision is at. You

23:10

do

23:10

a RICO. Exactly. And that is done

23:13

in those contexts all the time. And

23:16

organized crime where

23:19

the person isn't wearing

23:21

a three-piece suit and in a C-suite,

23:24

we know how to do that. So

23:27

the mechanism is there. The problem

23:29

is several fold. One is

23:32

this sort of out that has been given through

23:34

the way the Justice Department prosecutes

23:37

this stuff. The second is the sort of

23:39

the mind share that prosecutors

23:42

and the corporate defense attorneys

23:44

have. They go to the same schools, they

23:46

live in the same neighborhoods, they're on

23:49

friendly terms with one another, and they

23:51

cut deals with one another. They grant grace

23:53

and empathy to each other in the way that

23:56

they don't to communities that they don't understand.

23:58

That's correct. and

24:00

And I think the judges are implicated in that

24:02

too. So you have

24:04

this sort of idea and then there's

24:06

this unwillingness on the part of

24:10

prosecutors to take

24:12

a risk, to say, no, we're actually

24:14

gonna try to hold this person responsible.

24:17

There's a famous story

24:19

it's in the book, The Chickenshit Club.

24:24

The book is by Jesse Isengers, a very

24:26

good Pulitzer Prize winner for ProPublica.

24:29

And the Chicken Shit Club refers to,

24:32

it's actually James Comey, who comes

24:34

to the Southern District of New

24:36

York, and he asks, how

24:39

many people have lost

24:41

a case here?

24:42

And very proudly, nobody raises

24:44

their hands.

24:46

And he says, well, we call

24:48

you guys members of the Chicken Shit Club. And

24:51

that's because you're not willing to fail. You're

24:54

so desperate to stay

24:56

away from losing a case that

24:58

you're going to take

25:00

the safe route. And that's what a DPA

25:03

is. And that's what a fine is

25:05

or a settlement or consent decree. And

25:07

so that's the culture that has built

25:09

up. And it's very hard

25:11

to knock that down. Well, because it's

25:14

also,

25:15

Phil, I'll ask you this. Aren't we also

25:17

operating against something reptilian

25:21

in the human brain, which

25:23

is

25:25

white collar corruption

25:27

doesn't threaten my safety, not

25:30

understanding the idea of hollowing

25:33

out the resources of a community or

25:36

creating giant swathes

25:38

of entrenched poverty, not thinking

25:41

along those lines. What they think is,

25:43

if you looked at a video

25:45

of somebody looting a store, right?

25:48

You would think, my God, society

25:50

has ultimately failed,

25:53

But that is a metaphor

25:56

for what so many of these bad

25:58

corporate actors are. doing

26:00

on a much larger scale.

26:02

But as long as they're not carrying it out

26:05

in diaper bags, then it doesn't

26:08

fucking look like anything.

26:09

And so we don't view it as a harbinger

26:12

of that kind of chaos. And I don't

26:14

know how reptilian our brains need to be if it's on

26:16

our nightly news every single night. Maybe

26:19

we've been made reptilian in that way. And

26:22

I wanna be clear, there is nothing more

26:24

consequential for somebody's long-term safety than

26:26

their pension fund being rated. Right. unlikely

26:29

to be victimized by violent crime from

26:32

a stranger. And if you don't live in these neighborhoods,

26:35

that stuff is not coming for you statistically

26:37

speaking. And yet the pension rating

26:39

that is happening all the time, the hundred times

26:42

larger wage theft than robbery

26:44

is coming for you. But this is what I

26:46

mean by an inability to think about systems. And they're

26:49

point taken in terms of we have the mechanisms

26:51

there, but only when we recognize

26:53

that the entire structure is a criminal

26:56

enterprise. I would love it if we recognize

26:58

that in banking right now, but we do

27:00

not. We have made it legal. In fact,

27:02

we have made it something where you get to go and

27:05

become president of a university after

27:07

you have engaged in that kind of stuff. You get to go and run

27:09

the largest philanthropic enterprise working

27:11

in criminal justice systems if you have been a member of Enron.

27:14

And yet

27:15

we understand that they're engaged

27:17

absolutely on a daily basis and stuff

27:20

that raids pension funds, engages

27:22

in wage theft, and for which we do not have the means

27:24

or the muscle memory of holding folks accountable because

27:26

we've decided those people aren't the kinds

27:29

of criminals we were thinking about. That's right. And

27:31

if you have a felony conviction of taking somebody's wallet,

27:34

you can't chaperone your kids'

27:36

field trips. Even if you've

27:39

done your time and you've been out, there

27:41

are a gentleman named Jay Jordan

27:44

was letting us know about the complications

27:47

that arise

27:47

from having a felony conviction on your

27:50

record and all the things that you

27:52

are prevented from doing in terms of licensing

27:55

and renting something and buying

27:57

something and chaperoning something.

28:00

something that ruin your lives. And like

28:02

you said, uh,

28:03

the redemption arc for

28:06

many of these white collar criminals

28:08

or those that had just sucked the system, try

28:10

the money

28:11

is a presidency at a university or

28:13

a think tank or something else. And

28:16

is it because Phil, we're

28:18

just more comfortable with

28:21

the exploitation of certain groups.

28:23

It's just feels better. It feels so

28:26

right. comfortable with it and

28:28

a spoiler alert, a lot of that has to do

28:30

with race. Wait, what? Yeah,

28:33

so we're more comfortable with it. I'm trying to get my show canceled,

28:35

young man. But it's not, and thank you for calling me young

28:37

man. But

28:40

it's not just that like we collectively are more

28:42

comfortable. I want responsibility to reside

28:44

where it resides. The folks who set

28:46

up the systems in the first place, who maintain control

28:49

over it, and who by the way are the ones who authorize the narratives

28:51

that go on our of televisions, all of those, the

28:53

narratives

28:55

that we get sold about what is safety

28:58

are absolutely untethered

29:00

to the reality of safety in vulnerable communities.

29:02

Right. Right. And we have decided that our

29:04

systems should, I mean, and this is now it's

29:07

sort of liberal doctrine right now, but it should bind

29:09

some people and not protect them, protect other

29:11

people and not bind them. Folks who end

29:14

up being elite and privileged, right? We're

29:16

protected, right? But we're not bound.

29:19

Nothing, nothing that happens for the most part. I'm

29:21

I'm still black, so like there's always a chance

29:23

that something terrible is gonna happen to me when I'm not wearing a sweater vest.

29:26

But for the most part, I'm protected and not

29:28

bound, right? And the

29:31

place of the folks who I grew up with, the folks who I am connected

29:33

to by blood, they are bound and

29:35

they're not protected. And that's the pattern

29:37

that I hope that we're gonna see today is

29:40

that Republicans, bring it back to full circle,

29:42

Republicans who are outraged that

29:44

Trump could possibly be bound by a legal

29:47

system are saying, that's not what this system

29:49

is supposed to do we should take money out of the system that

29:51

does that. Quite right. We

29:53

should be defunding and taking money out

29:55

of systems that unreasonably bind

29:58

but do not protect.

30:00

individuals in our society. Only we should listen

30:02

to the people who are bound and not protected

30:04

more virally, which is vulnerable

30:06

communities, not billionaires. Wow.

30:09

Bars,

30:09

my friend. Bars. David,

30:12

it speaks to an idea that

30:15

I think

30:16

there's a new populist strain

30:18

in this Republican party that Donald Trump

30:20

has harnessed, kind

30:23

of imprinted

30:25

by AM radio, that's kind of been imprinting

30:27

that over the years in

30:30

the majority of those red

30:32

areas where it airs 24 hours a

30:34

day, seven days a week. And it is powerful

30:37

propaganda and a

30:39

explicit reality distortion

30:42

field that is created.

30:45

The populism that he rides on,

30:48

somehow he's never

30:50

mentioned to the judges

30:53

he's appointed. Because if you look

30:55

at the doctrine

30:56

of right-wing judges,

30:58

they are

30:59

anti-worker, anti-poor,

31:03

anti the people that they say they're best

31:05

representing. So

31:07

how do they twist this?

31:10

How do they get out of that, I don't

31:12

know, lockbox that they've placed

31:14

themselves in? We are the populist party.

31:16

We just never mentioned it to our judges. or

31:20

to the people that are writing

31:22

the laws. Yeah, never meant

31:24

to the policymakers. Right.

31:26

So, I mean, I don't think it's

31:28

too hard to imagine

31:31

a set of

31:33

cognitive dissonance that goes

31:36

on with individuals who

31:38

are using that sort of

31:41

man of the people, populist kind of moniker

31:44

for their own purposes. I mean, Trump has

31:46

really done this for his entire life. if

31:49

you think about it, is the salt of

31:51

the earth, New Yorker that also wants to- A

31:53

blue collar billionaire. Exactly.

31:56

So that is not terribly

31:59

surprising to me.

32:00

What I think might

32:02

end up being interesting, as

32:05

Phil has brought out here, is

32:07

if that cognitive dissonance

32:10

gets pierced by the spectacle

32:13

of this indictment and the reality

32:15

of the criminal justice

32:17

system. We've seen this come to the surface

32:19

a little bit with the January 6th

32:21

prosecutions and these

32:24

discussions about, oh, it's really

32:26

horrible being locked up and they won't get me

32:28

the proper food, I'm really having

32:30

a terrible time. All I did was wipe my

32:33

feces on the speaker of the house's

32:35

desk. It's nothing. But the point

32:37

is like, welcome to prison. That's right.

32:39

Like welcome to prison. This is this is

32:42

a very punitive country, overly

32:44

punitive when it comes to these.

32:46

We're number one, baby. And we would welcome

32:49

a discussion about how to decarcerate

32:53

these various spaces and reserve

32:55

them for the crimes that

32:58

are really true and systemic.

33:00

I mean, because the problem is that the systemic

33:03

crimes are not the ones that usually get

33:05

prosecuted. Because they're not looking

33:07

at it that way. They will find a way

33:09

to twist it. What they're saying is, this

33:12

is an anomaly based on your

33:14

hatred of this one man

33:16

who stands for the people. The

33:19

actual system should be

33:21

punitive to those street

33:23

crimes and to leave our martyr

33:25

alone.

33:27

My favorite part

33:29

of the dissonance is I was watching

33:32

somebody, they were talking about Michael Cohen, the lawyer

33:34

who went to jail for basically

33:36

the same sort of situation that is

33:38

being dealt with today. And someone said, how

33:40

can you trust Michael Cohen? He's a felon.

33:43

And you go, right. You

33:46

do know why he's a felon, right? That's,

33:50

I mean, that's for the crime that

33:52

he's being

33:53

accused of right now. But Phil, talk to

33:55

that, which is

33:57

you're right. system. It's

33:59

like it.

34:00

If Al Pacino and Justice

34:02

For All, he said, you're out of order. This whole system

34:04

is out of order. And they went, yes,

34:07

it's completely out of order. Our

34:09

leaders should walk free and those

34:11

people who steal wallets should get 15 years.

34:14

Yeah. And so it's the people who are deserving

34:17

of it, right? Like that's the

34:19

whole bit, right? That's the bit.

34:22

The bankers aren't deserving of it. Our guys aren't deserving of it. Those

34:24

folks are supposed to be protected, not bound, but these

34:26

folks, they're deserving of what they're getting.

34:28

That's right. talking about cognitive dissonance. And so

34:31

it got mentioned three times in like Betelgeuse, the psychology

34:33

professor,

34:35

it's only cognitive dissonance. If

34:37

you think about it, you have to have cognitions

34:40

around it.

34:40

And what happened is we've got a narrative

34:43

that makes that those things not

34:45

inconsistent. I believe that there are justices

34:47

that have been appointed who genuinely,

34:50

genuinely believe there are

34:52

big interests, right? And

34:54

those big interests, again, they're racialized, like, We

34:57

want to be anti-Semitic with them, so we call them Soros. So

34:59

we're big interest, big civil rights is now a thing,

35:01

which I wish some rights could be big, but

35:04

big CRT, baby. They're big interests

35:06

that are set up to absolutely

35:09

accost the victimized folks

35:11

who are salt of the earth. And I am on their behalf

35:13

because I am against anybody being able

35:15

to organize regulation on those issues.

35:18

Now, if you are too stupid to be successful

35:20

like me, if you are too poor to

35:22

be successful like me, then jet-sats

35:24

sucks for you, but you and I are in colludes on

35:26

the idea that there's someone coming to get people like

35:29

us, people who don't want regulation.

35:32

That story, that narrative

35:34

is more powerful than our systems, because our

35:36

systems rely on a shared reality,

35:39

and we have one group of folks who is incredibly

35:41

large right now, statistically the minority, but powerful

35:44

enough that they've got a shared reality that

35:46

is disconnected from the cognitive dissonance we

35:48

all would feel in that situation. But

35:50

that shared

35:51

reality is explicitly

35:53

a lie, And when you look at, and it's probably

35:55

why no one will communicate via

35:57

email anymore or text message.

36:00

When you look explicitly at something like a media

36:02

organization like Fox News, where they say,

36:05

we will perpetrate this reality

36:08

distortion field. We will continue

36:10

to prop it up, the infrastructure of it.

36:13

We will continue to broadcast

36:15

the hologram that we have

36:17

created,

36:18

because to not do so would be

36:21

upsetting to

36:22

the people whose world

36:25

we have shaped and created, and

36:27

we don't want to undercut And so that's

36:29

what you're fighting. Fox News gives us a fantastic

36:31

example of

36:34

the ability to speak out of both sides of the mouth

36:36

and make money in both pockets at the same time. Fantastic

36:38

example, but what's for me critical in

36:40

the lessons of Fox News is that

36:43

intention is not required.

36:45

They didn't need to know

36:47

all of that, right? To be able to do it. All you gotta do

36:50

is be like, our audience is really upset about this.

36:53

We should tell the story this way. And I genuinely

36:55

believe that there are good faith people

36:58

who have been suffering at the bad faith

37:00

exploitation of folks who have the cognitive dissonance,

37:03

who know better, who are just, they're just

37:05

replicating the story and it makes enough

37:07

sense. You feel me? It's what we always

37:10

talk about. Yeah. The difference between ignorance

37:12

and malevolence and ignorance being a highly

37:14

curable condition, but certainly epidemic

37:16

and malevolence being a much narrower

37:18

slice, but much more easy to

37:21

gain power and control. And that's

37:23

how they do it. And David, it also speaks

37:26

to our view in this country of

37:28

a president as

37:30

shockingly above the law. As much

37:32

as we like to believe that we are a meritocracy,

37:35

an egalitarian and a representational

37:38

democracy, man, is that a

37:40

kingly position to be in. I mean,

37:42

Donald Trump has exposed the way that he

37:44

does business,

37:45

but presidents down the line

37:48

have not been held accountable for any

37:50

of the variety of misdemeanors

37:53

and felonies that they've perpetrated. I mean, 50

37:56

years ago on national television, Richard

37:58

Nixon said if the president does...

38:00

it's not illegal. We have

38:02

been down this road before.

38:05

And

38:06

the arguments that

38:08

Gerald Ford made to pardon Nixon for

38:11

those crimes were very similar

38:13

to the arguments that you're seeing today. We

38:15

can't put the nation through

38:18

this terrible spectacle.

38:21

There will be consequences down the road.

38:23

There will be tit for tat. We just

38:25

can't do it. We have to hold.

38:27

It's a there is no alternative

38:30

kind of thinking. We have to hold presidents

38:32

somehow outside the law.

38:35

And Trump is a manifestation

38:38

of that lack of accountability, whether

38:41

it was Nixon, whether it was Reagan and Iran-Contra

38:43

and Bush and Iran-Contra, whether it was, you

38:45

know, we had a president 20 years

38:47

ago that sent us to war on false

38:50

purposes, killed hundreds,

38:52

millions of people in Iraq. a Democratic

38:54

president that did extrajudicial

38:56

drone killings. Drone killings,

38:59

torture. I mean, you know, you go down

39:01

the line, the litany, the rap

39:03

sheet that we have on presidents is

39:06

much larger than the people now sitting

39:08

in our nation's prisons. But we

39:11

have internalized this

39:14

idea that Ford laid out very explicitly 50

39:17

years ago. And now

39:19

we're seeing it come to the fore again, even

39:22

with someone so obviously

39:25

corrupt, so

39:27

daring the system. Who walked

39:30

in the door that way. I mean, that's kind

39:32

of my theory is that,

39:34

I think one of the reasons, it's kind of the Costanza,

39:37

the Seinfeld thing, it's not a lie if you believe it. I

39:39

think one of the reasons Trump is truly

39:41

baffled by this is,

39:44

he's one, his company, Trump organization

39:46

was not a publicly owned company. So he

39:49

ran by dictate, by fiat.

39:51

He was the king and

39:55

ruler, you know, prima nakta. He could

39:57

come in and do whatever the, you know, whatever he

39:59

wanted to do. and his ass

40:01

is kissed for 40 years. And

40:04

so the presidency,

40:06

far from being a kind of democratic

40:08

institution that doesn't live

40:10

up to its potential, to him is

40:13

an extension of

40:15

this.

40:17

I decide there is no

40:19

checks and balance. There are no checks and balances

40:22

at that organization.

40:23

So why would the country, what

40:25

it is, is he made the United States

40:28

a subsidiary. of Trump

40:31

Inc.

40:31

as opposed to bringing

40:34

whatever business expertise he had into

40:36

a democratic system. And I think

40:39

it's why he's so baffled by this.

40:41

Yeah. And to be clear, no one came along

40:43

and held Trump Inc. accountable, not since

40:46

the civil rights violations of the 70s, but we don't like to talk about

40:48

that. And still aren't. And still

40:50

aren't, exactly. I mean, the Manhattan

40:53

DA had two choices. He

40:55

had two investigations that were going. One

40:58

was these payouts to Stormy

41:00

Daniels, Karen McDougall, whatever. And the other

41:03

was about the Trump organization itself

41:06

and its- The inflating of its values

41:08

when eating

41:08

its values and deflating- The tax

41:10

consequences. And this prosecutor

41:13

took one and got rid of the other. The

41:15

one that was more replicable maybe to

41:17

other businesses where you could have set a

41:19

precedent. And someone, by the way, has gone to

41:22

jail in both cases. Weisselberg

41:24

went to jail in the one that

41:26

you're talking about in terms of financial improprieties.

41:30

Someone went to jail in terms of the things. Everyone

41:32

around this cat, his lawyer, his

41:35

campaign manager, his accountant.

41:38

I mean, I think

41:40

he might be a narc. I think

41:44

he might be entraping

41:46

these poor people and getting

41:48

them to commit crimes. He might be

41:51

the guy who's actually an FBI

41:53

informant. Yeah, I mean, I gotta quote

41:55

Nas. How can a kingpin squeal though, right?

41:57

Like he can't be the nog if he's the CEO. It

42:01

doesn't work quite that way. I don't know. I

42:04

went to a chat room and a guy online

42:06

told me that he's doing this whole child

42:08

sex abuse ring and he's going to round

42:10

them up any day now. So the storm

42:12

is coming. You're saying that this is all part

42:15

of the eight-dimensional chess. Your

42:17

idea would be in line with that, that he

42:20

is a master crime fighter by

42:23

starting with his own organization and

42:25

all the corrupt people within it. I'm gonna take

42:27

you guys outside of

42:30

sort of the realm

42:32

of nerdy discussions

42:35

of what the actual white

42:37

collar crimes and corruptions are and ask

42:39

you both, is there a better system?

42:42

And my anger happens to

42:44

fall upon the media where

42:47

these kinds of things can be held

42:49

accountable rather than 24 hours

42:52

of a 7-Eleven security footage

42:55

outside of Mar-a-Lago as we await

42:58

a man driving to the airport, which

43:02

I can never get enough of watching people driving

43:04

to the airport. But what if the

43:06

media was focused viscerally,

43:09

angrily on the things that you're both

43:11

talking about, on implementing

43:14

and educating their audience

43:16

on how this all comes to be

43:18

and what the context is? Couldn't that

43:21

do something? Please say yes.

43:24

I mean, that's why I talk about this in the context

43:26

of kind of like a peacock prosecution.

43:29

One of the good, I think, models for

43:31

it is remember the guy they called

43:33

the pharma bro, Martin Shkreli,

43:35

who was rounding

43:38

up patents on very,

43:40

you know, what they call orphan drugs that don't

43:42

affect a lot of people, jacking up

43:44

the price. And he was brought to

43:46

prosecution and jailed for what

43:48

they

43:48

called securities fraud. It wasn't for that

43:52

what I just described. It was

43:54

that somehow he defrauded

43:56

investors in the process. I thought he was jailed

43:58

for keeping Wu Tang from

44:00

the people. There's

44:02

also that. That's what I thought it happened. But

44:04

here's the point. In the years

44:06

since Shrelly

44:08

did that and then went to jail for

44:11

relating associated crimes,

44:13

the entire system of

44:15

the pharmaceutical industry has essentially

44:18

adopted that practice of using

44:23

patent authority to jack up prices

44:25

to whatever they saw fit.

44:27

He was a useful object

44:30

that could be focused upon

44:33

because he was kind of a dick

44:35

to turn everyone's

44:37

attention away from the actual adoption

44:41

of those crimes, the systemic crimes happening

44:43

below him. And I think

44:45

this is a very similar aspect. So

44:48

the question is, you know, what

44:51

could the media do? illuminate

44:53

that very ordinary,

44:56

run-of-the-mill, everyday

44:59

set of crimes that we live

45:01

within and meander through.

45:03

And be relentless. Be as relentless

45:06

as the system forces

45:09

it to be. Phil? Yeah, I

45:11

wish I could agree. So first of all, if we had a media

45:13

that did that, it would be banned in Florida. So

45:16

there's a limited utility in terms of 550 states.

45:19

It doesn't have to go everywhere. I'm not saying go

45:21

everywhere with it. So I

45:23

got to say media, we love

45:26

to blame media for these sets of things. We want better

45:28

media, we need better media, but media can't be an

45:30

education system and media is not

45:33

a substitute for the way the power structures work, right?

45:35

So we think about education as its own thing,

45:38

but it wasn't always its own thing. Like you

45:40

go to school to get a certain set of skills so you can work

45:42

certain sets of jobs. And in some cases, the

45:44

way we set up education systems actually increases

45:48

class stratification and income stratification. It's

45:50

not a great equalizer. It should be. can

45:52

be, we utilize the genius of the nation better

45:55

when it's equally distributed, but we know we don't do that shit,

45:57

right? So that's not just because the education

46:00

system fails and our teachers are, no, no, that's not what's

46:02

going on. We've got money to interest that say we

46:04

want to keep this education system this way. We want elite status

46:06

so our kids can be, have reserved rooms in the

46:08

buildings that are named after us, after we've made our billions.

46:11

It's a more complex system than

46:13

that. And we need a deeper education to

46:16

be able to have media matter in

46:18

order to get there. So what I'm saying

46:20

is

46:21

if we had daily coverage of

46:23

the petty thefts that rich

46:25

people pull in vulnerable neighborhoods every day.

46:28

Sure, that would help if we had narratives

46:30

that people, and a basic understanding that people had

46:33

walking into watching the news,

46:35

but we don't.

46:36

So when I talk about structural racism in my classroom

46:39

at Yale, which allegedly has some

46:41

of the brightest minds in the country, and my students are

46:43

fantastic, it's not a dig against them, they

46:45

walk in, they say, well, cool, but what's the structure?

46:48

And

46:48

they're not asking that sarcastically. They

46:50

say, all right, well, who is the structure? Who do I hold

46:52

accountable? How do I think about this? They show

46:55

up to college without the tools

46:57

to hold systems in their head.

47:00

And what I'm saying is, there are reasons

47:02

why our education system doesn't teach that.

47:05

We're seeing it play out not just in Florida, though that's

47:07

a useful idiot kind of example. We're

47:09

seeing that play out all over the country as we're banning

47:12

books. Folks have a motivation.

47:14

Let

47:15

me back up a second. I'm at

47:17

the end of a road. I

47:20

did- No, no, no, baby, come on, take us home.

47:22

If we wanna talk about how we move through this, we're talking

47:25

about the fundamentals of what holds a society together.

47:27

That's the social contract. And the fundamentals of

47:29

what holds a society accountable

47:31

for those exploitations. That's what we're talking about.

47:34

Right, so the thing, if you violate the social contract,

47:36

there has to be consequences. That's the rationale

47:38

for any kind of punitive, that's for a

47:40

criminal justice system, right? The social contract

47:42

says there's some rules we're gonna live by. Charles

47:46

Mills comes along, he writes this book, which is the only

47:48

pithy piece of philosophy ever, called The Racial

47:50

Contract. And he says the racial contract is a mimeographed

47:53

underneath the social contract. It says that there

47:55

are some people who get the full benefits

47:57

and some people who don't and we're going to decide that based

47:59

on race.

48:00

And what is required for us to

48:02

have a two-tiered system is first, you

48:04

just divide the stuff up,

48:05

right? That's the political contract. Some people have more and some people

48:08

have less. Second, the people who have more

48:10

have to have a moral authority. They

48:12

got to be good guys because if they're bad guys, the

48:14

people on the bottom rise up.

48:16

So how do you have the people with more also

48:18

being good guys? Your

48:19

first of that is the third pillar of the racial contract. He

48:21

calls that epistemologies of ignorance. And

48:24

what he means is you didn't want to know that shit

48:26

in the first place. And you didn't want to know that

48:28

shit in the first place is I am motivated to make sure

48:30

you don't learn or have collective language

48:33

for what's actually happening. It's why we need lawyers

48:35

to understand contracts. Right. Right.

48:39

Understand what I'm saying. If I could borrow this bill, it's

48:41

this.

48:43

Apple doesn't really need when you're buying

48:45

a, let's say something from iTunes

48:48

to have a 20 page terms

48:51

of service thing that you're supposed to read through. These

48:53

things are purposefully obtuse

48:56

so that understanding and digesting

48:59

is a much more difficult operation. Therefore,

49:03

ignorance allows for possibility

49:06

when it comes to those that control the systems.

49:08

If you don't know what's going on

49:11

and you can't possibly figure it out

49:13

through that credit card

49:16

statement that they send to you, which is 30 pages

49:18

long when what it really should just say is don't

49:21

buy such expensive t-shirts or whatever

49:23

it is that that says, you

49:25

can't get to the bottom of it. But I'll

49:27

ask you this, Phil, and I truly mean this. This

49:31

system requires more than just

49:33

entrenched poverty amongst black

49:36

people. That's right. This system requires

49:38

entrenched poverty amongst white people

49:40

too. It requires a large

49:43

underclass And something

49:46

is in the way of those groups

49:48

being able to join together

49:50

as well. And what's so interesting about

49:52

it now is

49:54

that entrenched poverty class

49:57

of, let's call them non-black

49:59

and brown.

50:00

people

50:01

are the exact ones being

50:04

activated by this new populist

50:07

rhetoric. That's

50:07

it. That's exactly right. Because going

50:10

back to Nixon, Nixon said, you know what, we about

50:12

to have a problem because poor people

50:14

like unions, because unions give them things that they

50:16

need to survive. And educated people

50:19

don't like us because they have figured out our

50:21

game. We need to segregate the

50:24

white poor folks from everybody else.

50:26

Because if the white poor folks get together with the

50:28

black and brown poor folks and the educated folks, we're

50:30

gonna have a problem. We're gonna be left with nothing. We

50:32

call that the Southern Strategy, and it has

50:34

been absolutely both intentionally

50:37

and unintentionally the plan

50:37

on the political right in this country ever

50:40

fucking since. Wow. That's

50:42

what I mean by epistemologies of ignorance. They don't

50:44

want folks to know, and it's those people

50:46

in particular that they don't want to know.

50:49

Right. I think it's important to add

50:51

to this conversation that in the context

50:54

of this sort of right-wing populism and

50:56

what's activates it

50:57

is that this lack of elite accountability

51:00

is what led to the rise of

51:03

Donald Trump. It's a rot at the heart of our

51:05

democracy. If you can't

51:08

have a situation

51:09

where someone who's powerful

51:12

or well-connected ever gets held

51:14

accountable, you're going to look to other

51:16

solutions to the

51:18

pressing problems that you have. Explanations

51:21

for your powerlessness. Exactly. And

51:24

it's going to lead to demagoguery. And

51:26

so when you look at this and

51:29

think about causes and

51:31

then solutions, you have to look

51:34

at this culture

51:36

of letting off

51:38

people who engage in these

51:40

systemic crimes

51:43

as part, the biggest part, in my

51:45

view, of the problem and what we We

51:48

need to counteract not

51:50

with

51:51

better education around it, but with the political

51:53

will to actually

51:56

go after these people. Now, I mean, it

51:58

is interesting. that we've seen

52:01

this SEC really try

52:03

to take down

52:04

the web of fraud in crypto.

52:06

Right. But so far, all they've gotten is like

52:09

they've gotten Kim Kardashian to pay a fine. It's

52:13

always talk about peacock prosecutions.

52:16

That's the SPF guy, right? It is

52:18

interesting that there is, you remember

52:20

the Wells Fargo fake account scandal?

52:23

Sure. Where they had millions of accounts

52:25

created behind the backs of folks.

52:29

Carrie Tolstett, who Right. So one thing they

52:31

can get them operation at Wells

52:33

Fargo, is going

52:34

to jail. She lied to the FBI,

52:36

which is what you just can't do. Yeah,

52:41

exactly. And so

52:44

it's good to see these one-offs, but it's

52:46

not a culture that's been created

52:48

of elite accountability. And that

52:51

is what causes people to take to the

52:53

streets. It's what causes people to

52:55

listen to people who say I have

52:57

the solution to all this. And it's very

52:59

integrated into the sort of right wing populism

53:02

that you're talking about. These people are untouchable.

53:05

They're globalists. But when all that is exposed

53:08

as the music man, as fraud,

53:11

and as a reality distortion field, it's

53:13

going to be a hard crash.

53:17

And it always is. Gentlemen,

53:21

my goodness. I could sit here talking

53:23

to you guys all day, for God's sakes.

53:25

David Day, an executive editor of the American Prospect. Dr.

53:27

Philip Atibaga. Phil,

53:30

co-founder and CEO, Center for Policy

53:32

Equity, the chair of Carl Hovind,

53:34

Yale. I'm just going to say Yale.

53:37

Phil's at Yale, for God's sakes. Get

53:39

yourself up there. Get a slice of pizza and go listen to him talk,

53:42

because he's brilliant.

53:43

Jesus.

53:44

Guys, thank you so much. And

53:46

I hope to talk to you guys again real soon. Always

53:48

a pleasure. Thank you. Thanks, John. Bye.

53:56

So that's it guys, please tune into the

53:58

show.

54:00

on Apple TV plus the problem

54:02

and also we're taking a little bit of a break on the podcast.

54:04

We'll be back. I don't know exactly when, but not too long.

54:07

And we'll be dropping a few in there here and there because

54:09

I get

54:10

very lonely.

54:14

Anyway, see you soon. Bye-bye.

54:17

["The Private John Stewart

54:20

Podcast"] The

54:31

Private John Stewart Podcast is an Apple TV

54:33

Plus podcast and a joint

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