11/6/25: Pelosi Retires, SCOTUS To Kill Trump Tariffs, Morning Joe Vs ADL, Summer Lee On Zohran Victory

24:47Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

25:08ADL, not a fan of Zoran Mamdani. Apparently the feeling is quite mutual. And they have announced in the wake of his election, this is honestly insane and frankly racist. They've announced an initiative to track and monitor all Mamdani administration policies and appointments to quote unquote protect Jewish New Yorkers. So Greenblatt has gotten so far out over his skis on his anti-Mumdani meltdown freak out that even the Morning Joe crew, Joe Scarborough specifically, are like, dude, you can't be serious about this stuff. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. Look, it's not about politics. This morning we launched a tip line at ADL.org NYC.

25:49So if you are Jewish and you experience anti-Semitism where you work or where you worship or where you live, we want to know so we can track it. And look, I tell you, we also - And there has been anti-Semitism in New York that we've talked about time and time again. This isn't something new because he got elected last night. Will you work with him? Will you sit and talk to him? Will you be a part of this process? He has said publicly that he will not work with the ADL and Jonathan Greenblatt. Or when an elderly person is firebombed in Boulder, Colorado, like an 80-year-old woman. Like someone angry about Gaza.

26:27We're all shocked. And we all find this abhorrent. And I'm sure that the next mayor would say the same thing, wouldn't he? You have to ask him. I think he has said the same thing. I don't know. I think you have to. I think you look at the fact that he has gone to one holiday service after another. He has talked to the Jewish community. That's not exactly right. He went to an anti-Zionist synagogue, which is like going to the black breakout at CPAC and saying you understand African-Americans. I mean, come on. You're saying he hasn't talked to the Jewish community? I don't know of the mainstream.

27:02Now, look, he has been to synagogues. He has Jewish people working for him for sure. Right. But if you look at the biggest institutions that represent Jewish New Yorkers, I have yet to see him engage with any of those. Now, my hope is the mayor-elect will do so in the days and weeks to come. But in the meantime. But you're not suggesting that he supports the firebombing in Colorado. I know. You're not suggesting that he supports the firefighters. Joe, I never said that. No, but you know what? There is a lot of blurring and blending here, Jonathan. And you know I love you and you're on all the time and always a fierce defender of yours.

27:41But you seem to be like blurring a lot of things together and then looking into that camera and say, call us. We're going to make sure that he doesn't support. No, I say to Jewish New Yorkers, call us if you feel unsafe. I say to Jewish New Yorkers, call us if you are harassed. So let me clarify. How about you calling his team, Mom Donnie's team? Or how about talking to people who may know him and you? Let's see if that happens. Talk to Reverend Al. Maybe you guys can get together and have lunch and talk. Isn't that a more constructive thing? Incredible clip there. I mean, he tries to pull the whole, oh, my God, this person was firebombed.

28:19and Joe does not accept the emotional blackmail. He's like, yes, that's terrible. I'm sure the mayor would say that's terrible too. Are you insinuating that he wouldn't? And oh, well, you'll have to ask him, which is him insinuating that he wouldn't be horrified by some Jewish person getting murdered or firebombed or whatever. I mean, it is deeply disgusting. And especially at a time, I mean, look, like there's a whole thing happening on the right about whether Nick Fuentes should be part of the coalition, et cetera. an overt, like an overt neo-Nazi, genuine anti-Semite. These freaking people don't have anything to say about that.

28:53But God forbid you have someone who is anti-Zionist and outspoken about it. And also, by the way, Muslim, total meltdown, massive project to track everything, blah, blah, blah. By the way, I don't know if you saw, there were just some new stats that came out where they did a deep dive into the alleged anti-Semitism incidents at one particular university. And there was one that didn't have to do with Israel. One. And so that's the game with this dude. And it's become transparent. Even on that one? Let me look at the details. We got to write it. Let me see the details. Look, with this dude, it's become transparent even to someone like Joe Scarborough, who is there saying, listen, I've been your defender.

29:31And even I'm like, come on, this is getting ridiculous. You are trying to insinuate things that are wildly unfair against this guy who, you know, the only thing they can ever point to with him is he refused to condemn. to globalize the Intifada. Not that he says it, not that he, you know, any of that, just that he refused to condemn it. That's the closest that they can come. And the free camp has been completely deranged. Yes. So silly. I mean, look, I will say the ADL spent spending a time on Nick Buentes and on all the right wing as well. It's just that they also have the Trump administration, I wouldn't say in their pocket per se, but they're definitely in a convenient alliance, I think.

30:09There are a lot of these types, including Netanyahu, who don't really care about actual anti-Semitism so long. In fact, in some ways, genuine anti-Semitism makes their case for Israel stronger of like, we have to have the state to protect the Jews. So they've been happy to make alliances with, you know, far right, like flirting with genuine anti-Semitic types. So long as they are allowed to have their apartheid, genocidal ethnostate, that is the one line you can't cry. Well, I've said, you know, John Putharitz, who's Mr. Commentary, Nepo Baby, literally said, Trump can say Shylock because he bombed Iran.

30:44I was like, okay, so all right. I mean, well, don't really want to hear about anti-Semitism from you ever again. So, Mr. Human Egg, but that's part of – that is kind of giving away the game. Greenblatt already gave the game away. This is all just about Israel. These people are the wokest people on the planet. every word he just said reminds me of the same type of like BLM bullshit rhetoric. By the way, including pointing to incidents of like, oh, there's this one incident over there. And that is what you have, you know, that is exactly what you say when you don't condemn it. And people are like, yeah, I obviously condemn that.

31:19But that doesn't mean that I should have to like put on a dashiki and kneel in the middle of a square. And they're like, whoa, blah, blah, blah. And then now in this exact same thing, put the next one up on the screen. The ADL has announced a new initiative to, quote, track, monitor policies and personnel appointments of the incoming Mamdani administration to protect Jewish residents across the five boroughs. So the anti-anti-Semites are now making lists of people. Are we tracking this? We are now going to make lists about the people who do not align with our politics, and then we'll publicize that.

31:53I mean, again, this is the same woke tactics that all of these people did. All of the lists of the people who don't sign our pledges, they must be fired. They must put their names publicized. It's just sickening to watch, honestly. It really is, especially because nobody in the right spectrum is condemning any of this stuff out of an alliance of convenience because ADL, Miriam Adelson, and others are just chucking money into the Republican Party. How do you not look at the current election results and say, yeah, we need to get rid of this shit? People are done with it. The guy who took the podium and said, I'm not going to visit and I won't, you know, cave to your tactics, just won the election.

32:31Learn from it. Everybody just move on. Yeah. The level of just overt, like, Islamophobic bigotry, it honestly is higher than even what I saw after 9-11 because it's out in the open and it was both Democrats and Republicans. I mean, Cuomo from the beginning, he was, you know, saying laughing along as someone said that Zoran would be cheering on 9-11 on a radio show. Disgusting. He was darkening his skin tone and lengthening his beard in mailers. You had Kirsten Gillibrand calling him a jihadist. I mean, the number of people called him a jihadist. I didn't know she said that. Yeah. I didn't realize.

33:06Yes. I mean, it's just absolutely insane. And, you know, this is the like from the right. It's just uniform across the board acting like he's going to implement some kind of like Sharia law. Total insanity. And I think, you know, part of his victory was voters just being like, this is absolute nonsense. You know, and it cut against their argument that he's some, you know, he's like a lefty radical communist. But then at the same time, he's like Islamist Sharia law jihadist. Two things didn't really work together. And then people see the guy and are like, you guys are out of your minds. Like this is not credible whatsoever what you're trying to insinuate about this man.

33:43The low IQ Islamophobia is an Israel tactic. It's actually one that they've explicitly said out in the open. That's exactly right. What we want to do is to maintain support for Israel to make it so that it's like an Abrahamic, you know, we all band together against the Muslims. The West. About the West. But then you're like, wait, do Western countries usually have right to rape protests? Is that the same barbaric behavior that you condemn in Islamic country? because, oh, maybe you're actually kind of the same, and that's actually really not good for you. And so that's what they really run into.

34:15A lot of it is being pushed by the Randy Fiennes of the world. It's fascinating. It actually is, is that much of the anti-Israel right, which is probably more predisposed to being explicitly anti-Muslim, is not the one who is pushing this. It is actually the capital L, like, liberal right, the people who are pro-Israel who are the ones who are most embracing this like sharia law coming to new york city stuff and it's literally just to it's literally just to protect pro-israel politics yeah it's totally crazy it's like randy fine and all these other people who are the ones who are pushing it the most so yeah i mean don't fall for it and also like i really just believe in like like looking at stuff on their face and it's like oh so was zoran mamdani is sharia law the guy whose wife wears like a bra singlet under a see-through shirt.

35:07It's like, yeah, I just don't really think that's accurate. I don't think people are really buying that. Zoran is from a shit-lib family. No, he's from a legit leftist family. I would say there's not too much of a distinction on the culture, and that's kind of what I'm getting at, is if you look at the milieu of which Zoran and the people come from, amongst Indians, they are one of the most hated subgroups of like the high elite. I think he even, this is very in the weeds, but the Indians will know what I'm talking about. I think Zoran quoted Nehru in his, he did. Yeah. Yeah. So Nehru is probably like the biggest villain in India right now under the nationalist government, because he's the one who kind of pushed this so-called like heterogeneous society, which was explicitly pro most, whatever we can get into the base later.

35:58But the point is, is just that by doing that, he's not a Sharia law person. It's just a capital L liberal, like quite literally, in a lot of his positions. And looking at him explicitly, it's just so insane, you know, to say that that is what's coming. It's like he probably is much more socially liberal than 99 % of the US population. So just to call it by what it is, I don't understand why they can't do it. Well, and here's the thing, too, is they've so Bannon and Andy Ogles and Randy Fine are all threatening to denaturalize him. They're trying to introduce bills in Congress also to keep him from being from being sworn in using the 14th Amendment somehow.

36:46I mean, I'm not going to say these things are going to work out. But, you know, I mean, the attack on him personally and just, again, in the most flagrantly racist ways you can imagine, just because he's Muslim, he must be into Sharia law and jihad is literally the argument that's being made here is so repellent and repulsive. And then there's a level of genuine hysteria that I think, I mean, I think some of these people genuinely believe that he's going to like authorize pogroms against Jews in New York City. I think they believe that. I think they believe it because of the ADLs of the world.

37:20Totally. Who are starting. They're the people who are the ones who are pushing us. Put D3 up on the screen. This is just one sign of the insanity here. So NYC's fire commissioner is resigning from the administration over disagreements with Zoran on Israel. Let me read you that sentence again and tell me if this makes any sense. New York City's fire commissioner is resigning over Mamdani's positions on Israel. Person familiar with Tucker's decision said it was influenced by Zoran's Zionist view, by his own Zionist views and belief that he could not continue to serve under Mamdani. Now, I don't think this individual will be a particularly large loss.

38:00Apparently, he had no like background in firefighting whatsoever. He was some sort of an Eric Adams donor effectively, and that's how he ends up in the position. But that is so deranged and insane that that is like a sentence and a sentiment that exists. And then the last one, let me just put this up on the screen. This is kind of funny. Everybody was sharing this New York Post headline, which I don't find this poll particularly credible, but whatever. They say there were nearly a million New Yorkers ready to flee New York City if Mom Donnie becomes mayor, possibly igniting largest exodus in history.

38:32Ryan pointed out, you know, if these million people who are supposedly going to pack up and move had just showed up to the polls, they could have voted for someone else and he never would have won, which is why it's not very credible. It's also definitely not. But I will tell you that, you know, all the New Yorkers that I've talked to have been like, please go. Like, if you said you're going to leave, please do, because that will actually like. That'll drive down. That will actually drive down costs and make life easier for us. And we just don't particularly want you here. So, look, we'll see.

38:59I mean, you guys can watch our segment. I talked about it. I don't think like I'm making a bet. And if I could make a poly market bet, I would. Aggregate rent will be higher four years from today, outpacing inflation than it will be on the day that Toronto's elected. I will put a marker down. I don't think it's going to work. But, you know, we'll see. In terms of the people who are leaving, if it's about the right type of people, if the millionaire millennials and NAPO babies leave, yeah, it's great. Right. But if you have younger families and other people who are middle class, and I was going to say, those are the people who are leaving who shouldn't be leaving if you allegedly are a great place to raise a family.

39:34Now, if you have net migration of those types, then yeah, I would say it's a failure. So look, people should be judged on outcomes and we'll see how it works out. Like I said, I don't think much of it is going to work. I think a lot of it's going to be virtue signaling. Most of his speech was about Trump and all that, which is smart politically. I would do the same thing because then it's about a boogeyman who's attacking us and not about whether I'm going to lower the rent or any of that stuff. Fine. If that's what you guys want for your mayor, and be cool. I don't think that's fair to say that most of his speech was about them.

40:03Did you watch it all? Yes, I watched the entire thing. The most high profile sections were specifically about - Trump is directly threatening the city with stripping their funding and sending an ice on all of that. But number two, I mean, he definitely centered his campaign promises. I'm not saying he didn't do that, but there were significant portions which were dedicated to national issues. But I mean, that's kind of my point. I think you'll be absolutely saved by it. By the fact is, I think that's what a lot of those voters want. I'm not so sure many of them even particularly care whether he can even deliver on his promises.

40:37Most of politics is about whether somebody appears to be fighting for you, but we'll see. I put my marker down. If the red goes down, I'll be happy for you. I really will be, but I don't think it's going to work. Okay, we've got Summer Lee standing by, so why don't we get to it? Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had both been assassinated, and Black America was at a breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest.

41:13It featured two prominent figures in Black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should. And it will blow your mind. Listen to The A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Bowen Yang and I'm Matt Rogers during this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast in the lead up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games we've been joined by some of our friends Hi Bowen, hi Matt Hey Elmo Hey Matt, hey Bowen Hi Cookie Now the Winter Olympic Games are underway and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears Listen to Two Guys, Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

42:47And we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff. Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore. Loss that changes you. Purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down. Faith when it's complicated. Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

43:27We are very fortunate to be joined in studio this morning by Congresswoman Summer Lee. She is a progressive representative of the Pittsburgh area. Great to see you. It's so good to see you. You guys have been too long. And in person. Yes, indeed. Double treat. I have a lot of things I want to talk to you about. First, let's just jump in with like the overall election results. What do you think is the message that American people were trying to send? Oh, my goodness. You know, I think I don't want to take this election alone. I want to take both of the elections together. Right. Because I think that weaving them together tells a big story.

43:57Right. I think that last November it was it was a change. It was like we want systemic change. We want to see an acknowledgement that things aren't working, that the way that things have gone for so long that we don't like. And I think that coupling this one, I think honestly, I think it's like people are horrified. Right. You know, oftentimes, obviously, when the party in power faces an election, it usually is a bloodbath. But I do think that and I am grateful that people came out, people came out. They some a lot of people felt like they had, you know, something actually exciting to vote for.

44:27You had other folks who felt like they were voting against something, whatever it was, folks showed up. And I think they sent the message that they don't like the direction that Trump and, you know, his folks are taking us in currently. Yeah. And what do you think for Democrats? Like, what do you think Democrats should take from that? Oh, my goodness. I think that, you know, I think that we're always going to take the wrong lesson. Honestly, I sometimes wonder if we're doomed to take the wrong lesson. You know, I think that a couple, you know, separate them. Right. Obviously, what was Zoran was Zoran?

44:56I just feel like energy. You know, people have been begging for some sort of just responsive representation that says, I see you. I know you. I'm not going to be afraid to lift up just like the regular stuff that you want. Not going to tiptoe around it. Right. I'm going to actually go and be amongst you. I'm going to go to where you are. I'm going to bring you. That's what people like that. Every time people like that. And then, you know, I think that we watch we all watch it. We watched for months as, you know, some Democratic figures, you know, they didn't want to endorse. They didn't want to, you know, touch them.

45:29I think that that is a little bit of an indicator that we're making the wrong decision. We're taking the wrong message. Yeah. Let me tell you what I've been thinking about with that. So you had, you know, Kirsten Gillibrand, I think, never endorsed, called him a jihadist. Unbelievable. You had Chuck Schumer never endorsed, wouldn't say who he voted for on Election Day when the other choice was either an actual Republican or the guy who was endorsed by Donald Trump. and you can't tell us that you voted for the Democratic nominee. OK, Hakeem Jeffries did at the very last minute, very reluctantly and passive aggressively, did endorse him, given that.

46:02And so I've been thinking about, you know, what is it? Right. What is it about this man that is so repellent? I don't think it's just this man, to be clear. And don't get me wrong. I think that there are parts of this man that makes it easier for them to be, except for some folks to be as outward. Right. Because he is young. He's Muslim. He's an immigrant. Right. Yeah. Especially Muslim. Like, I think that sometimes that gives people a little bit more of a comfort that they just should not have. Yeah. But we saw we saw with me in my early days when I first ran. We see it with a lot of like young, especially people and progressive.

46:33Yeah. That combination really does something to the establishment. And here's what I came to. So I think Israel is a big part of it. I don't think there's any doubt about that. And I want to dig into that more with you, because for people who don't know, I mean, the Israel lobby spent. You can tell me how many millions against you trying to defeat you. And they they failed. And that was at a time when awareness of AIPAC and Israel was not the red-hot dividing line with the level of public awareness that it is now. It's a different day. No, it is a different day. So I want to get into that with you.

47:02But I've been thinking about it with Zoran. I think, number one, it's his just stridently, like, I'm not going to kowtow you. I'm not going to tell you the things you want to hear. I'm going to say I think it should be a state with equal rights. I'm going to stand firm on my position. And I think it's that. But I also think it's this sense from Democratic leadership that they are losing control of their ability to tell the base who they are allowed to vote for and who they're not. And Zoran, to me, is the biggest example of, you know, they did everything they could. They had their scion of a storied political family and Andrew Cuomo had all the money behind him in the world, etc.

47:39They tried to paint Zoran as a jihadist anti-Semite. Which is just beyond a pal. Which is insane and totally racist. And and all of their normal tactics completely fell flat. And you see this right now with Graham Plattner as well, where voters are like, no, we're going to judge for ourself and you're not going to get to tell us. That is different from the past. I mean, in 2020, we all watched when the political and media leadership said it's got to be Joe Biden. It was Joe Biden and the Democratic base largely listened. They had a lot of sway. And so to me, that's actually the more existential threat for them and the more existential sense for them is that the fact that they would still stick with this guy and give him this massive upset victory, that means we don't have the power anymore.

48:25Oh, I think that's absolutely like the underlying thing behind a lot of progressives, right? This idea that we don't, you know, we're not playing the whole, you know, we're choosing both masters. We're not on the fence. Yeah. Right. We are unapologetically against corporate interests, you know, especially those corporate interests. Right. That are not in line with working class people, unapologetically for working class people. They threw everything that they could at that man. And you know what he did? He pivoted every time to. Yeah. But the price of housing. But but but the buses. Right. But affordability.

48:55But affordability. Right. And then I think that that is not a politics that they've been allowed to do. So I think on one hand, when they see an uninhibited progressive candidate like Zoran, they see what they were never able to be. So there's almost like a jealousy there. I feel like that. This could be just me therapizing them. But just having experienced this for some time, I think that there has been this club that exists. And this is the way that we do it. And our number one God is incumbency itself. right our number or maybe fighting fighting with right you know our lobbyists our corporate interests the money the big big big big big money that comes into these races right and then you get someone who comes in and says i'm gonna bypass that money i'm gonna go straight to people in ways like we saw the same thing which is all the progress from from 2018 i'm not gonna start what the world didn't start in 2018 but you know that's the world that i know right 2018 on right it was like this animosity that instead of going to the same consultants we went straight to social media to digital to email to the streets grassroots volunteers bringing in people growing the base that we're bringing people in who aren't always the ones who get the mailers they're not the ones who get the phone call old methods right revolutionize the way that we interact with people you know who we're interacting with them on behalf and how we talk about things that's all that is all different than what they've all known so yeah i think that just this idea that we recognize that the system itself whoever is in power in the system the system itself has to change is frightening for folks, for an institution that has relied on the counterbalance between one corporate-owned interest and the other one.

50:26I think that's very insightful because I think part of the psychology there is there's a lot of telling themselves a story of like, well, I wish I could be for Medicare for all, but that's just - You always hear people say that. I wish I could. Yeah. Or I wish I could be more outspoken on it, but this is just the reality. And so when you have people who are actually doing this, it makes them, their whole narrative of why they haven't done the things that they really need to do to deliver American people. It crumbles and their excuse falls apart. Or, you know, it does crumble. But don't get me wrong, right?

50:57Because the reality is, is that, yeah, we've come a long way on being able to speak out, you know, just very clear about the genocide, you know, and just all the things that led up to it for decades. And there are also a lot of people who lost. Yeah. So the reality of, you know, what, you know, can happen, the money that will come in after you. And not just the money, right? Because it's not just political pressure, right? We know that there are people in nonprofits. Folks have faced real retribution for speaking the truth on this one. So I don't want to say that it crumbles, but I do want to say that bravery, having courage, is frightening for people who have chosen to not.

51:37Right? So because it's like, oh, I'm choosing my comfort. Because when I spoke out, right? And not spoke out, right? When I was just me and AIPAC chose to come after me, Right. I knew that there could be a consequence. And I chose to say that it was more important for me to be honest, more important for me to be truthful in real time, my values, you know, and come what may. And there are a lot of people who don't want to do that. So I think that that is another thing, too. Can you talk a little bit more about that race and the amount of money that was spent against you? And also, like, what was it for?

52:07What had you said that was so deeply offensive or what had you done that was so deeply offensive that justified this multimillion dollar smear campaign? Honestly, what they spent against me then is peanuts. Peanuts are what they're spending now. Right. I think they spent like a measly four and a half million against me. What are they saying against Jamal Bowman? 20 million. Yeah. Something insane. Yeah. Many, many millions. Yeah. Right. Just and it's going to keep getting bigger. Honestly, I hadn't even said anything. Right. When I first ran, you know, for Congress, I think I had literally one post.

52:42I had one tweet once that said, honestly, that likened what I saw and what I perceived was happening to Black Lives Matter. And that was just that was that was a bridge too far for them, because I think that so many people want black folks to stay out of it. They want black folks to have a one dimensional view of things. So I was threatening just by being black and progressive. So you likened the Palestinian struggle to basically like black liberation struggles. I have. And that was that was it was one tweet to too far. AIPAC has never reached out to me. Like we know the narrative, right? A new candidate shows up.

53:21The first the first call they usually get is from their local AIPAC rep. You know, then they do the interest paper. Yeah, people have talked about it. You know, we've talked about it. You know, even Thomas Massey, like people, people are talking about it more now. It is a real thing. AIPAC has never reached out to me. AIPAC has never asked for a meeting. They looked at me. Why do you think that? Honestly, I'm not even sure, right? I'd like to hope that they looked at me and said, the good system is unbought and unbossed. It wouldn't matter if we call. I don't know if that's the real reason. Because they have actually reached out to other folks.

53:52Yeah. You know, other folks in my cohort. Yeah. They didn't even bother with me. They were like, we don't want her. Well, I know Jamal Bowman told us that they reached out to him and he said politely declined. Yeah. And then they went through another organization. A black organization. Yes, a black men organization in New York that he had a positive relationship with and basically, like, tricked him into having a meeting with them because they were so desperate to, like, get that in. So it's very interesting that they just didn't even try with you. And then they saw that one tweet and they're like, OK, we got to go all out to make this.

54:21They went all out. Make sure that this lady is defeated. But they failed. In your case, they failed. In other cases, you're right. They did succeed. And I want to know from your perspective, you know, how much things have shifted, how much more how much further you're allowed to go. Because, again, what you said is so tame compared to, you know, I mean, now like it's undeniable to genocide. Vast majority of Democratic voters say it's a genocide. We should not be funding them at all ever again. Again, the disconnect between where the base of the Democratic Party is and where Democratic leadership is, too, is truly, you know, something beyond what I've ever seen before on any issue.

54:59So, you know, talk a little bit about some of those dynamics, how much further you feel like politicians feel like they can go. And then also whether or not Democratic leadership realizes how at odds they are with their own voters here. Yes. Yes. So when when right after October 7th and, you know, there were many people who were like, we can see what's going to happen. We can see what's going to happen because right history. We come out with the ceasefire now resolution. When we introduced that, I think it was maybe nine people on that. By the time that Congress ended, I think that we have never gotten a white person to sign on.

55:40never I don't think we ever got a white person take now our oh what is the the weapons embargo yeah the block the bombs so now my roommates block the bombs resolution I think what we're already maybe beyond 20s 30s right and in more coming every day like we've been as we've been in a shutdown for six weeks and from what I understand there are still more people who are looking to get on it now you have people who are saying for whatever reason they're saying it that they will not accept AIPAC dollars. That is because of the work that has happened on the ground to educate people on how this organization has moved, how they have come, especially into black and brown districts, districts that don't have as much money, don't have as many resources, and really honed on those districts, right?

56:25People are now waking up to that. People are coming and they're running on both opposite ends of the spectrum. Some people are like, listen, I'm still, you know, you know, Israel is 100 % right. There is no nuance. And there are people who are like, okay, but yes, these kids. Right. What's happening with these hospitals? Like, what's happening, right, with these journalists? There are people who are questioning it out loud in ways that we've never seen. More people are speaking out in their ways. Back when it first happened, we were in—people don't remember this, but we were in session for, I think, like 10 weeks straight.

56:56It wasn't until people went back home and then they found that at their town halls, people were saying ceasefire. That they were going and they were fine and they were talking to their district staffers. and their district staffers are saying people are calling and they are horrified by not just what they're seeing, but your stance. So no, I think that they've known for some time that their districts do not align with this. This is why they're trying to change the narrative, right? They're trying to say, oh, well, you don't know enough to talk about this, right? Well, you don't understand, right?

57:24No, all lobbyists have a right to exist, right? I've heard that, which is why I focus late. I laser focus on money in politics. I don't care if it's AIPAC, if it's CryptoPak, if it's oil and gas, if it's pharma, if it's the NRA, I do not believe that any corporation, any lobbyist should be able to have that much access and influence to members of Congress and to the financial processes of running for office. You don't have a democracy. You do not have a democracy when the people themselves do not get to make their own determinations for who they want in office. And there are some districts where that's what they want.

57:55They want somebody who doesn't care about a genocide. They want people like that. That's fine. But most districts don't. And in every district, you get to choose that. Yeah, I think that's very, I think that's really important, really well said and fascinating look at. I mean, the thing that I just keep struggling with is then what is it that keeps so many of them from changing their position? Like, why is it so hard? They don't have to. No, they don't have, A, I do think it is, I think it goes back to that beginning. They have known a politics. It's the only politics that they've known. So it's just sort of like muscle memory.

58:27Yes, muscle memory. They've done their politics this way from the time that they got in. You'll go better and different. Go better and different. Being brave, and I'm not saying this as an excuse, being brave in politics is underrewarded and understated. Every day you're juggling interests, right? Do I vote on that bill with a poison pill that people aren't going to understand knowing that I won't have enough money to get the message out? We weren't every two years. when we're talking about just just how much money comes into politics now like this is the race to the bottom right it was it was remarkable that year that they spent four million dollars against me they went the next race after me and spent eight million against donna edwards right then you saw how much it cost you know to run the most expensive races in history last cycle and primaries right it's only going to get more expensive and if you're somebody who doesn't want to spend all your time dialing for dollars if you're a black elected and you're like where would who would i I doubt for to get it?

59:25You're poor. Who would I doubt for to even get it? You, you got to weigh these interests. So I think that the lack of courage is also conditioned. Yeah. I think that's conditioned. And I think that you don't, people don't understand how often, like people who are Palestinian, people who are poor, the kids who are, you know, facing gun balance in their school, right? They don't, they don't have the access to Congress people like we do. Right. You know, people with diabetes, people, you know, they don't, they're not up in our offices every day. They don't have the power to, you know, get an audience with both the speaker and the leader by camera with the president.

1:00:01You know, JPP, they don't get meetings with Trump. Right. So it is also who you see. And too often people can just excuse a different perspective because they don't hear that perspective. They don't have to hear that perspective. Yeah. We have to change that. Let's talk a little bit about Mayor Elect Mom Donnie. Let me play a little bit of highlights from his victory speech. The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said, I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity. We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about.

1:00:49Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you. Turn the volume up. President Trump, when I say this, to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us. so Zoran I mean unbelievable star power starting the speech with the Eugene Debs quote loved that um moment and now you've got this big discussion happening on the Democratic side of the aisle of like okay what does the future of the Democratic Party look like is a candidate like Zoran is a candidate more like Abigail Spanberger who is you know more of a centrist after Donald Trump was elected she came out and shook her finger at the left it's all your fault this guy's coming back into power.

1:01:37And, you know, I mean, the truth of the matter is it didn't matter what type of Democrat you were this week. They all won, including Jay Jones, who, you know, had a pretty significant scandal and actually still outpaced Kamala Harris. So, you know, I'm wondering how you're thinking about that and how you would make the case that, you know, the politics that you and I both share is the correct direction forward for Democrats, not just to win, but to actually deliver for people and make sure that we're not, that we're putting this rising fascism to bed. I beg, I beg of Democrats, I beg of you all.

1:02:12I beg of us to get out of this idea that all voters exist on the same like linear, you know, model that we make our politics exist in. The reality is, is that, you know, this whole left, right, middle thing, it is not how people organize their lives. And it's also just not how people organize their politics, right? We talked earlier about how Zorowin was just relentless in focusing on his people, focusing on his people wherever they were, whatever the comment, the topic was, he made a point of getting back to the things that people care about. And that's how you earn trust. But to do that, he had to know what people cared about.

1:02:52He had to know what excited them. He had to be a genuine, authentic messenger, right? So number one, We don't have a messenger. We don't have a message problem with a messenger problem. Right. The future of the Democratic Party is going to be one that picks a side. Right. And the side isn't, you know, are we going to be are we going to be the scary left? Are we going to be the center? No, the side is, are you going to be for the people? Are you going to be for the special interests? That's the first thing that we have to do. So before we go into analyzing these races, we're just all Dems won. All Dems won.

1:03:21We're up for a Dem brand. Like, let's talk about what the Dem party brand is going to be. I don't really care if you are a centrist. I do care if you are somebody who believes that a corporation has more has more right to be comfortable in the society, to be taken care of than working class people. And you cannot convince me that whether you are in the Appalachian Mountains or if you are in the Deep South or if you are, you know, on the coasts, you can't convince me that people want corporations to have more rights, to have more access to care than regular people. So we got to get rid of that one.

1:03:53I think that that is the number one thing. But number two, yeah, I think we should not discount what people like Zorowin are able to do. The cities do exist. We should not have to moderate our politics to areas that we don't represent. Just like Nebraska gets the right to have a representative that reflects them and their values, why should our urban areas not? Why should black areas not get to have that? Why should poor areas not get to have that, right? We get to have that, too. And I think that too often the party likes to exclude us, right? The pathway to 218 comes through our blue areas, too.

1:04:22Yeah. Right. Yeah. What did you make of I saw Cory Booker in particular, Pete Buttigieg in particular, like congratulations to all the Dems, but not really Zora. I mean, they just couldn't. That's a choice. And, you know, the funny thing to me, too, is with Pete Buttigieg's post in particular, he mentioned the affordability message that Spanberger and Mikey Sherrill ran on, which, you know, especially Sherrill. Like Zora, they do that every day. Right. And I mean, he really I in my opinion, you can tell me if you disagree with this. he was really the one that led the way on that and showed this is powerful.

1:04:56I'm very biased, but I saw him leading on that. Right, this is very powerful. This politics is so powerful that it can turn Trump voters back to the Democratic Party. It can allow me to win young men by 40 points. It can allow me to unseat a legit political dynasty coming from 0 % of the vote to victory with a majority of the vote on Election Day. That's how powerful this message is. And so to just erase him from that, I found to be very offensive. Again, it comes back to that lack of courage, right? Because at the end of the day, they will always use us against each other. Listen, since I came onto the political scene in 2018, every election cycle, the Republicans who barely exist in Western Pennsylvania and nationally will use me on somebody's mailer against some candidate in a district that isn't as Democratic performing as mine.

1:05:41Every single time they will do it. The question is, is what would we accept, right? If the Republicans want to demonize black and brown people, right, if they want to demonize queer and trans people, we don't have to acquiesce. We don't have to accept it. We have to go and do our work. So I'm trying to understand why is it that we, you know, the left, you know, we are mature enough to understand that there are different districts with different makeups and different values. Again, I think that all working class values, I think our message relates everywhere, neither here nor there. But we recognize that different districts exist and we are not trying to say that you don't get to be.

1:06:17Why can we have the maturity to understand that and other people don't give us the same courtesy? Right. When when Republicans are demonizing black women, I don't expect Democrats to help them. Right. Every election cycle. It brings us back to that one. You know, the back in 2020 when everybody was saying all these Democrats lost because of Black Lives Matter. They lost because of defund the police. And I'm like, well, black folks have been, you know, we've been begging. We've been begging for people to look at this system. And you're going to now come and blame us that your candidate who did not run on that in a district that didn't focus on that.

1:06:48that that's the reason why they lost. I don't think that we, I think that we are scapegoating us. That we actually did beat Donald Trump. Yes. And so our willingness to accept their messaging and their narrative has now bitten us in the butt, you know, as we've come back around, right? Because again, we yield the floor to them to create the narratives and then we just react to it. And we got used to it when it was against people who we didn't want to defend, didn't know how to defend. But again, we saw what he was able to do. He excited people. This is the largest voter turnout in decades. Yeah.

1:07:22He brought new people in. That's what we want to do. Right. I'm looking around. That's what we want to do. We lost. We need more people. He went and got more people. And not only did he go and get them. I hear from people who are like, oh, my God, Zorwan is the first vote that I cast that made me excited. Yeah. I remember when people said that about my race and Rashida and so many people. there. Like I was excited to come. That's a party that we should aspire to, that people are not just voting out of duty. They're voting out of excitement. They're voting because I'm like, I believe a better world is possible.

1:07:53And I actually have a responsibility to help to create it. Yeah. Let me play for you his he got, I think, asked a question about ICE and how he would handle. I mean, we're just seeing rampant lawlessness from not just ICE, by the way. ICE is sort of the catch-all, but it's ICE, it's CBP, it's whoever, FBI, whoever else, whatever other federal masked thugs have been set loose on American cities. Let's go ahead and take a listen to F2. This is Zoran talking about ICE. My message to ICE agents and to everyone across this city is that everyone will be held to the same standard of the law. If you violate the law, you must be held accountable.

1:08:30And there is sadly a sense that is growing across this country that certain people are allowed to violate that law, whether they be the president or whether they be the agents themselves. And what New Yorkers are looking for is an era of consistency, an era of clarity, an era of conviction. And that is what we will deliver to them. I feel like one of the activist movements that is most vindicated in this moment is the abolish ICE movement. I mean, truly, because, you know, again, this is a, you know, an ideology that's been smeared. And yet you see when ICE and CBP and these other agencies are turned loose on American streets.

1:09:04I mean, you see them literally shooting people and bragging about it, tear-gassing little kids. You see them using Blackhawk helicopters to raid an apartment building and pull little kids out and zip tie them in the middle of the American citizens too, by the way, not that it's okay when you do it to immigrants. You know, how do you think that the insane authoritarianism we've seen in our neighborhoods and streets, how do you think that has changed Americans' perceptions of this administration and of the conversation around immigration? I think that, unfortunately, like all things, it's a polarizing.

1:09:33It's a polarizing effect. You just said it, right? There are so many of us who have been warning that this is the trajectory that we've been going in. That's why you got the progressives, whether they be the elected progressives, the media progressives, the organizing movement progressives who have been talking about, hey, we're looking at—because in our own communities we're experiencing it. We're looking at what's happening, and we're trying to ring the bell. We're here now. And right now, I think you're still getting—I think that everybody is not—I don't think everybody is woke. Yeah. People are afraid of being woke.

1:10:02We gave them woke. So they're afraid of being woke now. But increasingly, people are seeing it. The masked ICE agents is horrifying. And if you are not horrified, then you are not paying attention. You're not honest, right? The just overreach that we're seeing from Trump, that started, you know, back in 2016. the media complicity and letting him, allowing him to create his narrative, allowing him to overstep without real serious analysis or serious responsibility and accountability, right? All of these, they've all been in motion for a really long time. And, you know, we see the voters who are saying no still.

1:10:35I think that people are like, theoretically, I understand authoritarianism. Yeah. I think they're like, we're here theoretically. I think Americans are still reckoning with the idea of us living through an authoritarian regime in practice. Because again, And American exceptionalism tells us this could have never happened to us. Right. Oh, even if it were living through it, just another election is going to get us through it. I think that right now what we need are people to understand that when you actually fight authoritarianism, it isn't just what laws, because, again, he's lawless. Right. What law can I pass?

1:11:04What law can I introduce? Right. That Mike Johnson is going to bring to the floor that Republicans are going to vote for. That's going to go to the Senate that they're going to vote for. And that President Trump is going to sign into law that's a check on his own power. Right. We know that's not going to happen. Not to mention the Supreme Court already said basically blanket immunity remotely connected to. No, we need empowered people. We need people to think about what they're going to do and how they're going to use their dollars, how they're going to use their labor. Yeah. We need people to understand the power of resistance and also the sacrifice of resistance.

1:11:32Right. That's a different way of imagining America right now. So I think that, you know, but on the other hand, I think that there are still Trumpful who see what he does. I think some of them every now and then are like, wow, yeah, that's wow. But then they go back to sleep and they wake back up and start the day over again. And we have to acknowledge and accept that that's where they are right now. I don't think that we are doing enough work that when someone does pick off, you know, that we're like, welcome, welcome. We need more people. I think we got to get out of the na-na-na-boo-boo stage.

1:12:02Like, oh, we told you, don't do that. Yeah. That 92 percent. No, man, we need more people. And, yeah, accountability can also exist with grace or it can exist with allyship. We got to figure that out. I don't think we're doing that enough yet. What do you think of how democratic leadership has has met the moment or not met the moment? I do want to give cry. I think the shutdown has been important. I think I mean, it's incredibly painful right now for a lot of people. So I don't want to you know, I don't want to minimize that. But at the same time, I think it's really proven the way that you can actually take control of the conversation.

1:12:34You know, health care was not really a central part of the political conversation. It was basically ignored in 2024, which is insane. And now you have people looking at their premiums going up. They know where to sign the blame. They know what's going on. So I want to give credit for that. But, you know, at other moments, there have been messages coming out from Jeffries and others saying, you know, don't talk about Kilmar, Brego, Garcia. Don't talk about the perhaps the, you know, murdering random people in the Caribbean. Let's not talk about the ice raids and immigration because that's not our strongest ground.

1:13:04You know, how do you think that at the federal level, democratic leadership has done? I think I'm going to say I'm actually after that. I think that first I do want to say that we talked about courage and courage in politics. This shutdown took a level of courage that is not in the like a day to day norm. Yeah. Of the Democratic Party. Because we know the base really pressured leadership. Absolutely. From from from July, from the reconciliation with Schumer, Schumer got flamed. Yeah, he got flamed for not standing firm. And I think that obviously he learned a lesson. But Democrats are going—it's going to be painful because, unlike Republicans, we actually don't want to see federal workers on one end, you know, the wall closing in on them for not getting paid, a wall closing in on the other end from them not being able to access benefits or LIHEAP or whatever it may be.

1:13:50We actually don't want to see people suffer. So the pressure is going to be intense on the Senate this week to open up—to win—to not win on health care, to not win on anything, to give up. There's going to be a lot of incentive to do that. and we're going to be, they're going to be in a lose-lose situation. That aside, I think that leadership has to look different than it ever looked before. Yeah. And I don't think that they have found the, I don't think they have, I don't think they have the recipe right now. I don't. Because, you know, I was just talking to my staff. They're like, who are you going to answer this?

1:14:21And that was like - What other questions were you worried about getting? No, no. We weren't worried about, get them all, get them all. No, we weren't worried about anyone. They were like, if someone asked you that, who would you say? No, but I was just like, I think that people just like even just really in the course of a conversation. I was like, I think that leadership traditionally sees itself as leadership as of the caucus. Right. Like they are the leader of the caucus. And leadership has meant that we have to raise enough money to help the frontliners. We have to raise enough money to flip the seats.

1:14:46We have to gain a majority. But leadership to the country right now looks like marching orders. Yeah. It looks like being in the trenches. Like we have images of like George Washington on a horse. Yeah. On the front lines, like that type of leadership. People are looking for that and they're not wrong. So I don't think that they have meant that. Yeah. And I think that that's what people want from us. And when you shift, who are we leaders of? I think that's what people are asking. We're not asking you to be leaders of each other. That's a good point. We're asking you to be leaders of our country, leaders of us.

1:15:13What can I be doing right now? My organization maybe has a couple of dollars and what should we do? Right. The labor unions are like, hey, you know, the labor history is a mighty one. What do we do? What do we do with it? People want to see people acknowledging that every movement in history was not led by Congress. It was led from the outset. The real movement came from the organized, empowered electorate. How do we get people back into that? How do we help people understand that the final failsafe of democracy are the people? We don't get a dictatorship. Trump don't get to decide if we have a dictatorship, right?

1:15:47Hakeem Jeffries doesn't get to decide if we have a dictatorship. We do. And we just want our leaderships to be with us in that. So to that extent, we all have to figure out better ways of doing that. And it will be hard because we have spent too much time telling people the right way to protest is to just vote. Yeah. The right way to protest is to go run. And not that the right way to protest has always been you're organized. It's always been when you take to the streets. That's always been an appropriate way to express, you know, dissent, to express a lack of consent when your government doesn't answer you when you say you want this.

1:16:19Has Hakeem Jeffries earned your vote again for leader? I don't think, first of all, we had a whole year to go. My hope and dream, my hope and dream is that everybody will change the way that they're doing things. So right now, the question is, is who's running? You know, who's even a part of the conversation about being a leader? I think that right now we have we have room where everybody is going to have to step it up. Everybody needs to step it up right now of the people who are would ever think that they should be a leader. Right. I want to see how people are applying the lesson of this election cycle.

1:16:49I want to see how people are handling, you know, when a Zoran comes because I was a Zoran. Right. Right. Because, you know, all of all the squad, we were Zorans. Right. And we remember how it felt to be treated, how we were treated by our party. We want to see them learn a lesson that learn a lesson from us. We want to see that. I want to see how they're applying, you know, the idea that people aren't just going to come and vote. We got to go and get them. I want to see somebody who comes up with a horse. That's who I plan to vote for. Who's coming with the horse? Who's the cavalry? Are you going to be backing any primary challenges against incumbents?

1:17:19oh if they're if they're not listen if their districts are saying that they want something i i don't have a blank i don't have blanket rules right i don't know those districts you're open to it yeah i'm open i'm not sometimes i'm like it makes sense sometimes like it don't make sense like i think that people should be represented i think people should be represented well and i think that to the extent that we as incumbents are doing our job that in of itself protects us and when we're not doing our job we have to answer to our people and if our people are all in a collective voice saying that they want something different, you're not going to see me being able to stand in the way of those folks.

1:17:51And I don't believe that anybody should stand in the way of those folks. I don't run that district. So I'd like to hope, and I think that this is going to be, I think this might be an anti-incumbent year, not a Democrat or a Republican year, because people are tired of gerontocracy, right? You look at the halls of Congress and you're just like, wait, people don't want that. Credit to Nancy Pelosi for retiring. Credit to Nancy Pelosi. She looked at the landscape and she said, you know what? Let's call it here. Let's call it. Let's call it. Which is, you know, my family. Don't let me. Don't let me be 90 and caught up like this.

1:18:30Don't let me. Don't step in. Step in for me, please. All right. Congresswoman Summerlee, so great to see you. So great to catch up with you and hear all your thoughts on very interesting times that we're living in. Oh, aren't they? Let's get through them. All right, guys, that does it here for us today. Friday, show tomorrow, we have Michael Blake joining us, who has just announced a primary challenge against Richie Torres, which is very interesting. So we'll be getting the tea from him and lots of other interesting things to cover as well. There's a whole meltdown going on over at Heritage Foundation that I'm interested to hear from Emily on as well.

1:19:03So in any case, have a great day. We'll see you then.

1:19:39We'll see you next time. based on hairstyles associated with race. To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bowen Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, in the lead-up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Bowen. Hi, Matt. Hey, Elmo. Hey, Matt. Hey, Bowen. Hi, Cookie. Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears.

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