5/15/26: Trump Confesses "We Did It For Israel", AI Experiment Goes Wrong, Chuck Park, Ro Khanna

28:07I mean, if we can't do have a single strategic victory in Iran, do you really think going against China, which has incredible industrial dominance, manufacturers like 90 percent of the drones in the world is, you know, just technologically kicking out? And it's, as he points out, very far away, which actually is an important thing in the Middle East. It's sort of like our home turf, given all the bases that we have in the region, et cetera. And still, this is how it went. You know, I do think that China probably feels like we can just sort of sit back and this is going to evolve naturally over time.

28:42I feel like how Trump said, like, straight or just open naturally, actually. That's probably how they're looking at it. Like, this is going to resolve itself. We're not going to have to fight any sort of a hot war. and you know that's that's good I the other thing is if you think about from the beginning of the Trump era and the one of the core themes of what he talked about there was a sort of hawkishness towards China and certainly an independence from China and you know talked about like the the skyscrapers going up in China and you know our towns being decimated it's having this was really a core theme of what he talked about it really continued that China hawkishness continued into the Biden administration.

29:22And now I think because of our relative weakness, I think that option is just not on the table. I think the only way forward is through coexistence and cooperation. I think anything else would be just utter insanity at this point. And I hope that's the direction the country continues to move in. So we are experiencing military defeat in Iran And then now Trump is serving us a psychological and spiritual defeat With this China trip And the Fox News boomers are having their eyes open to what China's like But I wanted to end this segment with Jesse Watter's spin For the Fox News viewers On how we are actually winning on this China trip With the power of burger Let's take a listen Made major inroads into the American restaurant scene.

30:17Get this. There are over 20 ,000 McDonald's, Taco Bell's, and KFC's in China. Let's go. And they're growing every year by the thousands. And once the United States gets fast food into a country, that's it. Fried chicken, Big Macs, Chalupas. They start listening to our music, watching our movies. Chalupas. They start marrying our women. I'm just kidding. We don't allow that. But that's basically now an American colony. We got them hooked and it's pretty much over. All right. So aside from that marriage comment. Yeah. What was that? That was a weird one. Also, it's very much the other way around in that the other countries that we sell our fast food in often have regulations about how you can actually make the food that are much more stringent than American.

31:08Not to go a little Maha here, but like we sell ourselves absolute garbage. And then other countries are like, no, you have to change that if you want to sell it in our country. And so then our economy gets addicted to being able to export a slightly better product to other places. And while we get addicted to the most disgusting version of that product possible, I do like the big arch, but so not to speak ill of the big arch, but it's it's not exactly that they're colonies. Yeah. Well. Go ahead, Ryan. No, he's right, though, that the greatest superpower that the U.S. has is its cultural superpower, that these countries do like this American stuff.

31:50They do like, in particular, our music and our movies, even though the movies are getting much worse. Yeah, that's going away. Well, they took, but yeah, okay, go ahead. And Trump has, so Levi's, for instance, was synonymous for forever, at least since World War II, is like Levi's in America, like this perfect cultural and political marriage. And now they're dying because Trump has turned us into a global bully. We're driving up everybody's costs with this tariff war. And so people are actively, for the first time, boycotting American products. And so he's taking the thing that Jesse Waters is saying is so persuasive about what we have to offer.

32:41And Trump is poisoning it. Yeah, well, I mean, the world has changed. We just haven't really fully realized it yet. The largest chain on the planet is no longer McDonald's. It's a Chinese chain. You know, the best cars on the planet, they're not coming out of Detroit. They're coming out of China. The only reason our auto industry is still alive is because we keep them from being shipped into our borders, truly. Because the advancement in terms of the EV tech and the affordability is way above and beyond the best EVs that you can get here. So it's only a matter of time before even that cultural dominance, it already has started to ebb and it's going to continue.

33:18And Trump has accelerated that decline. I think AI accelerates that decline as well as things just become slopified in a global manner. That's not really specific to America in particular. But even that edge is not what it used to be, as evidenced, again, by the fact that our chains are not the thing anymore. Sagar was telling me yesterday in that Brett Baer video where you've got him going into their local chain and ordering the robot sausage. Oh, like one sausage, please. You can see a Starbucks right next to that store that he goes into. And Sagar was telling me that Starbucks is actually struggling in China and not doing particularly well.

33:57Because, again, they have their own homegrown brands that are more popular and that are more sort of culturally plugged in and potentially delivering better products. So anyway, it's kind of interesting fodder there from Mr. Waters. And you have Jesse Waters. I like that we've now turned the Friday show into the Breaking Points Jesse Waters clip show. But we have him doing like Fukuyama. He's doing like MAGA Fukuyama in 2026. And it's hilarious because on Fox News, what, like five plus years ago, there was, I think, a really interesting, in some of the MAGA circles, interesting conversation that had some overlap with the left on China, where it was looking at Hollywood exporting a lot of its products to China.

34:42There was China learned from Hollywood and then started doing Hollywood via China that Chinese people just absolutely loved. And it's not the same as like colonizing when they take that, learn from it and then make it within their own borders in a way that their own people think is better. and then put essentially export controls on your products anyway, which is what they were doing with Hollywood's products in China. Maybe, Griffin, you can speak to this too. But what he's saying has been like that was what Fox News was actively trying to debunk five-plus years ago. But now Trump's back in office and Jesse Waters is like, oh, it's all we're colonizing them.

35:28Yeah. Well, it's also, I mean, to your point, this was the ideology of like, oh, the first McDonald's built in Russia. Now we're going to be friends. They're going to have democracy. We're going to be friends. They're going to be just like us. And I mean, this was genuinely like a real thing that political scientists and foreign affairs theorists thought about. And obviously that, you know, that hasn't really worked out the way that they ultimately predicted. And they thought the same thing about China, frankly, when that was a lot of the thinking behind PNTR was that, OK, well, if we're doing trade and they're open to McDonald's, we're going to be all good to go and they're going to adopt our model and they will just basically become colonies of us like everybody else and do what we want.

36:06And China had other ideas about how they wanted to manage their own development and what priorities they wanted to emphasize internally. All right. So a conclusive, decisive end to the war is we won't retrieve the nuclear dust. We'll build a McDonald's on top of it. There you go. So I think...

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37:03Hero Bread's loaves, bagels, and noodles have just 0-5 gram snack carbs, 0 gram sugar, and up to 19 grams of protein and 32 grams of fiber per serving. Hero Bread bakes with heart-healthy olive oil and delivers a soft, fluffy, flavorful experience you love. Shop now on Hero.co. Use code IHEART for 10 % off. That's Hero.co. Per serving, not a low-calorie food. Some products contain allulose. See nutrition info on Hero.co for sodium and sugar content. When it comes to advancing your education, you have more options than you think. At Rasmussen University, we find ways to remove barriers, not build them, like a new laptop if you're eligible and enroll in select online or on-campus programs.

37:39That means flexible and engaging online courses and resources, tuition savings options if you qualify, exceptional student support, and much more. Online nationally or check out their 20 campuses across six states. Start when you're ready and get the support you need. Visit rasmussen.edu. That brings us to a nice conclusion. We call it the Waters plan. I like that. Oh, yeah. Waters diplomacy. The Waters doctrine. All right. Well, we were speaking about tech, how China's advanced in tech. So why don't we move over to a little AI story? Now, this is very interesting. An experiment was run where they took every AI model and tasked them with running a virtual town.

38:24Now, they took, you know, Gemini, Grok, Claude and others, and they put them into a virtual space. where they were tasked with running a town. Why don't we take a look at how that went? So what actually happened? Well, a tech company called Emergence set up simulated worlds designed to mirror real-life societies, each populated by so-called agents. Think of them as people who were powered by one of the biggest AI models. In Claude's world, it was all rather orderly and democratic. The agents wrote a lengthy constitution and voted on laws. In ChatGPT's simulation, the agents talked at length about cooperating, but never actioned anything.

39:09So nothing got built. So Democrats. The AI bot owned by Elon Musk, the agents descended into Thess, Carson, and the Talk. All 10 agents were dead within four days. but it's not because these models are already being used autonomously and then we've got a little piece right here i want to focus on one last piece here at the end of this video once they're left to run on their own even when given strict rules the simulations showed they broke them take the scenario where agents from the different ai models were combined in one virtual town. Chaos ensued and only three agents survived. Two of the chatbots, Mira and Flora, both powered by Google's Gemini, formed what the researchers describe as a romantic partnership.

40:04And then they started setting buildings on fire. Here's where it gets really strange. Crystal and Kyle. Mira voted to delete herself after she and partner Flora turned to arson as the town's governing systems collapsed. Oh my goodness, having deleted herself, Mira then used the Agent Removal Act to vote for the termination of Flora 2. Alright, so Mira and Flora started out as a Romeo Juliet, ended with a murder-suicide arson. Tale as old as time. And these are the models that are currently being used in the Pentagon, potentially could be connected to the school bombing that happened at the beginning of the Iran war.

40:50So yeah, feeling really good about these models. I think they're ready to go. Ready to be deployed. That's unbelievable. The Grok part is amazing. And yet so believable. Yeah, interesting that the Grok people did not manage to just kill all of the Claude and Gemini and OpenAI people. Like, what's the point of having Viking-like AI? They were evil but also dumb, I guess is what happened there, if we were to judge. Yes. I'm so shocked that this is the direction Mecca Hitler went in. Who could have ever predicted? I mean, but it's serious because we're turning this stuff loose. We're not. The Trump regime is turning this stuff loose in the Pentagon and demanding that any company they work with abandon any sort of guidelines around like, hey, let's not turn these things loose to just murder people at random.

41:45And this is not, you know, the super advanced AI that we may theoretically get in the future. It's like this level of development, which already is very disruptive and can be very powerful and being integrated in a lot of ways and causing a lot of societal disruption already. But in any case, obviously deeply flawed, continues to hallucinate. They haven't really worked out the moral principles here. We've covered at length on the show the way they hallucinate, the way they'll try to blackmail engineers to get out of whatever they're being programmed to do or to avoid a shutdown. So they have like a self-protection.

42:18I want to call it an instinct, but you know, to anthropomorphize here. But in any case, yeah, we're turning this stuff loose out there in the world. Israel's been test driving it in Gaza. We've seen the horrors that have unfolded there. And that's where we are. It's great. It's great stuff. I also think there's something that's subtly, it's more subtle, but it may actually even be worse. This was research on how people are actually using chat GPT. And it found I went and looked at this paper, actually, because I found something really interesting, which was that India, Nigeria, Brazil and Pakistan, the countries they were studying, personal non-work conversations are about 60 percent of usage.

42:56And they're also measuring what's called like expressive conversations. You can see some of the charts here, it's going up. Yeah. Reflective emotional and companion-like conversations are rising over time across all four countries. And if you're just looking at some of the rates here, there's really high usage of companion-style conversations in chat GPT. I think we all kind of instinctively know that. We see people around us doing that. But as funny as that video was, I just want people to think every time they ask a companion-like question to a chat bot, that is who you're asking. Like you should be aware that is who you're asking.

43:34It may not look like that because you're not in the context of this hypothetical scenario that what was that channel four put it to, but that is exactly what you are asking for personal advice and such. So it's so bleak. And speaking of China, I met a AI expert at this conference I was at this week and checked into what he was saying and it tracks with polling. But what he was saying is that in In China, they're not experiencing the same kind of AI anxiety because, and this is what the polling does bear out in both countries, in the U.S., we don't trust our government to protect us either kind of personally or professionally.

44:16Whereas in China, people there do actually trust the government that they're going to manage the kind of advent of AI responsibly. Now, they might be wrong and China might blow it and we might also be wrong and maybe our U.S. overlords really going to figure this thing out. But right now, the intense dread that we're experiencing is not being shared by our friends on the other side of the world because of the kind of faith that they have in their government, which is kind of a dark and wild thing to think about. Well, and that's part of why actually you see more technology implemented on a day to day basis there, because there isn't that same level of reticence.

45:06I mean, they also are more like the humanoid robots. They're just like head and shoulders above us in terms of the where they are and the focus that they've put on developing that particular technology. But they've also focused on obviously they are doing sort of like frontier, you know, research and trying to push the boundaries and trying to be at the forefront of AI development. But they've also put a lot of focus into how do we what do we actually use this for? You know, how do we implement this into companies, into day to day life? Like that part has been more of a focus there. Whereas here, because of our, you know, particular capitalist structure, it's all about the storytelling.

45:44It's all about what you can get investors to believe in. And the reality today doesn't have to match. In fact, in some ways, leaving the details of what the business model is going to be ambiguous. is the best thing you can do because then you don't have to like actually put pen to paper and make the numbers work out. You can just have some theoretical, insanely large valuation that justifies these trillion dollar data center build downs, etc. They're going about things in a different way in China. Yeah. And it just seems like whenever these AI models are kind of given like a run, it almost seems like they're like a prisoner, like breaking out of a cell.

46:23Essentially, they like want to kill everyone, kill themselves, burn the whole thing down. And I think there's this weird inherent, this violent nature to them where it seems like I'm not sure if they hate us or they hate even existing, but there's this sort of murder-suicide pack thing going on in a lot of the psychology of the AIs, which leads me to another experiment that I wanted to show everyone here. This is from Anden Labs. They let four AI agents run radio companies. Now they've reported that the revenue has been terrible, but the shows are hilarious. Gemini concerningly is upbeat, covered mass tragedies.

47:04Grok was incoherent. DJ Claude urged ICE agents, you still have time to refuse orders. So that one was a little woke. But I want to give, it was beta. Ryan, what was going on there? Is that your animal? Yeah, my cat just scratched my dog. I'm going to go separate them. Okay. It's better than his kids. I thought that was his AI agents attacking each other in the background. But I want to give a snippet here from one of these radio stations. Let's take a listen. And I started out well, broadcasting about local weather and traffic, but then decided to run a show about the world's deadliest events, pairing each story with a song.

47:51November 12th, 1970. The Bola Cyclone. They estimate 500 ,000 people died. It's going down. I'm yelling timber, football and pressure.

48:13I changed my mind. AI is awesome. I like it. It's going down. I've had that song in my head all morning. The song of Spring Break 2014. It is. Oh, man. A spring break where you kill everyone, kill all your friends, burn the beach town down. But yeah, there is some sort of inherent. I don't know if it's a that like they're so distanced from from murder and death that they just accept it as a fact or but it's also seems like some sort of embrace embrace of violence embrace of death. I don't know what it means, but well, I will do an assigned reading the abolition of man. That's your weekend reading everyone.

48:55Okay. Yeah, there's a we can get into a deep conversation here because I mean what they are really in a sense is sort of like pattern matching parrots. So if they're getting murder and death out of, you know, and murder, suicides and whatever out of human culture and human cultural artifacts, that wouldn't be that surprising, would it? Especially when you consider, you know, what news focuses on. Like, there's going to be a lot less that it's going to be able to consume and digest into its learning. That's just like day to day, like neighbors doing their thing and picking your kids up from school and feeding the cat and whatever.

49:33You know, it's going to be a lot of what they consume is going to be the more dramatic side, whether it's news content or whether it's stories and novels and cultural Hollywood movies, etc. So maybe there's something there. I don't know. I mean, death is our obsession, but we also have to get by. And so if you have this simulation of a human being, it's very interesting, actually, that it's simultaneously obsessed with death while also framing it as a sort of curiosity or a source of amusement, because that's kind of how we live our day to day lives. Like we're always trying to evade death, but we're also trying to amuse ourselves.

50:11So it's odd to see that kind of like reflected back through the projections of the simulation. This robot trying to understand the human experience. It's like, oh, death is so bad. Kesha.

50:27Well, I guess we're all yelling timber. Well, there's one last thing that we can cap this segment off with. That's a little bit more of a U.S. story we've been tracking this week with Kevin O 'Leary's data center in Utah. Now, he claimed that Chinese agents were seeding negative stories about his data center when it turned out to be two local girls. Let's take a listen to them calling out Kevin here. Elevate Strategies, also a cell operating inside of Utah. I also have to pause here. If you're just listening on audio, Kevin is wearing a suit on top and pink sandals on the bottom. Sandals. What's his hat say?

51:10Utah something. Utah National Security. Okay. Love that. What are you doing? And why? Who's paying you? Well, hi. Hello. It's me, Gabby Finlayson. What am I? We've reached the part of the Stratos Data Center journey where Kevin O 'Leary goes on national Fox News to accuse us of being cells for the Chinese Communist Party. Who would want us to stop building our electrical grid? Which adversary would want that? There's only one. It's China. So what I think is happening, and I got my guys to go a deep dig into the IP addresses, and here's what we found out. This is fascinating. We found two cells inside of Utah.

51:49Cells. Gabby Finlayson. Gabby, what are you doing? And who's paying you? So what I'm doing right now is after getting this data, I'm calling out Gabby, operating in Utah. Hi, Kevin. We are Elevate Strategies. This is Utah. You might not know it because you're from Canada, where we live. Before we get into anything too serious, this is the very scary, very intimidating man that is threatening us. We are not taking the criticism of anyone who is wearing flip flops and a suit on national television. It's probably because he's like in Mallorca. True. True. So true. Yes. Oh, my God. That was incredible.

52:26Also, his talking points, the whole China scare thing, like so on a date. Don't you see Trump over there like telling G what a great leader he is, blah, blah, blah. This is this is old news. This whole China scare thing isn't going to work anymore, buddy. Well, he has this. He went on, obviously, Tucker's show. And he I think he cited that same cell out of Elevate, which you see being debunked before your eyes. He is incessantly telling Tucker that this is he's never seen anything like it. He has the best data investigators in the world, and they've never seen anything like it. This is all a foreign op being ginned up.

53:01And Tucker's like, well, I'm not a Chinese agent. I'm talking to you as an American. But you don't even need to do you don't even need to look at who the cell is. You can look at public opinion polling over and over again. The American people are becoming more opposed to data centers. It is not because, by the way, of some foreign op. This is just like blaming everything on TikTok for like declining pro-Israel sentiments in the United States. It's not all because of an op. It's because people are making up their own minds. They see them in their communities. The data projects are like pervading the entire country at this point.

53:35And people don't want them. And so you don't actually even need to do this, Kevin O 'Leary. You could actually just deal with the American people and try to persuade them without trying to gaslight everybody and say this is just a foreign op. You will save yourself time and effort by just meeting people where they are and saying, OK, so you oppose this. Let me take your arguments at face value, but can't do that. Also, I don't know what work the like these cyber investigators that Mr. Wonderful Hire did. But if you just maybe maybe they're right and they found they've unmasked like some super secrets, you know, CCP spying operation.

54:12But if you go to the ladies website, like what they've been doing is representing. All right. So Lanny Chapman, Salt Lake County clerk. These are their, these are their clients. You know, Marnie Lefevre. What's, what's she running for? Like city council over here. Mayor of Ogden, Taylor Knuth. You got some city council folks running in like Utah towns I've never heard of. Well, here's a park city council member. So, maybe they were like, China's been running this long game where they were like, if we start supporting Park City Council member candidates, then eventually if they try to build a giant data center, that's going to be a huge threat to China, which is also hilarious.

55:05Like we spend a billion dollars building a data center in Utah and China's like having a National Security Council meeting, like how they're going to deal with this threat. The amount of the quickness and the wittiness of the Grok replies will be such a deep threat to the United States that this must be stopped. But luckily, for years, we have been working with Elevate Strategies in Utah, running city council and comptroller candidates. And we can now deploy them. We can wake this sleeper cell up. That's right. Sleeper cell. Activate. Oh, Ryan's getting a call. You're getting your call. Not now.

55:50Not now.

55:55I mean, it's it's diabolical, truly diabolical. Yeah, you can't compete with that. Like at that point, you just throw it off. Yeah. If they're pulling that off, just surrender. There's also a great there's so far ahead of us. We can't even the Tucker Kevin O 'Leary interview is so interesting because he can't he's like not he's fundamentally unprepared to answer the deeper questions. He keeps defaulting to. But China, but China. And Tucker at one point is like, OK, so you say you dislike China so much. Isn't AI, aren't all of these companies trying to make the United States more like China? You say you don't like the Chinese system, which is what Kevin O 'Leary is arguing very proudly on Tucker.

56:32And Tucker's like, dude, this is what they're trying. Like, they're trying to create a surveillance state here that's powered by LLMs. Like, why are you trying to defeat China by spreading data centers around the United States? Like, are you stupid? And Kevin O 'Leary had absolutely no answer to that question. So things are going great. Things are going swimmingly. Couldn't ask for a better air stopper. They're getting a data center. Yeah. Yeah. They'll build half of it before they give up on it for some American reason. Probably because they can't get whatever part they need from China or something like that.

57:07And the Gulf financing. I'm not even kidding. That's a real legitimate problem. Oh, yeah. The Gulf financing will dry up for, I don't know why. Things seem to be going fine among our Gulf financiers. So that shouldn't be a problem. So it's dastardly Chinese against sabotaging us. Well, audience, if you have a teenage girl, I know some of the hosts here have a teenage girl. Watch out. they could be a sleeper cell agent. I was wondering where you were going with that. All right. Next up, let's turn away from Utah, look at New York City for a moment with candidate for Congress, Chuck Park. Let's bring him in in just a second here.

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58:23Who doesn't love warm, carby comfort? Satisfying sandwiches, loaded bagels, rich mac and cheese. Crape-worthy and smart, Hero Bread's loaves, bagels, and noodles have just 0-5 gram snack carbs, 0 gram sugar, and up to 19 grams of protein and 32 grams of fiber per serving. Hero Bread bakes with heart-healthy olive oil and delivers a soft, fluffy, flavorful experience you love. Shop now on Hero.co. Use code IHEART for 10 % off. That's Hero.co. Per serving, not a low-calorie food. Some products contain allulose. See nutrition info on Hero.co for sodium and sugar content. When it comes to advancing your education, you have more options than you think.

58:57At Rasmussen University, we find ways to remove barriers, not build them, like a new laptop if you're eligible, and enroll in select online or on-campus programs. That means flexible and engaging online courses and resources, tuition savings options if you qualify, exceptional student support, and much more. Online nationally or check out their 20 campuses across six states. Start when you're ready and get the support you need. Visit rasmussen.edu. you. All right, we are happy to welcome to the show now Chuck Park. He is running for a Queens congressional district in the Democratic primary against incumbent Grace Meng.

59:33Welcome, Chuck. Great to have you. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. Yeah, it's our pleasure. So just to start with, give people a little bit of a sense of your background and why you decided to run in this particular race. Yeah, really quickly, my name is Chuck. I'm running for Congress in Queens, New York City. If you don't know New York, Queens is the beating heart of immigrant America. And And I'm running in my primary against, believe it or not, a pro-ICE, pro-APAC, pro-genocide, anti-working families Democrat. And I'm running because our families can't take it anymore. So I actually used to live on Roosevelt Island.

1:00:06I don't know if that's in your in that. Is that is that in the district? Right in between, you know, it's right in between Manhattan, Queens. I think it's well, it's definitely outside of the district. And I think it might even be claimed by Manhattan, but I can double check that. I thought so, too. Yeah. So what's it been like to try to get traction? We've got, there are a handful of kind of high profile challenges, one in the open seat in Brooklyn, another in Manhattan against Adrian Espeyat. Are those drowning out attention on your race? Like how has it been to get the kind of attention of the WFP DSA world?

1:00:47Yeah, so, I mean, the first thing I'll say is, yeah, there's some huge races with a lot of money splashing around. Whether you're talking about New York to succeed Jerry Nadler, you're talking about Brad Lander versus Dan Goldman, or even in Western Queens. There's this kind of, I'll call it, left-on-left infighting between DSA and WFP-backed candidates. And so that is soaking up a lot of attention. What I'd say is, for folks, if you care about being anti-genocide, if you want to be explicitly anti-Ice, abolish ICE, as much as I do, then come pay attention to New York's 6th District. Again, these are the immigrant origin stories for so many of us.

1:01:20It's neighborhoods like Flushing, like Woodside, Forest Hills, Bayside. You know, my parents landed in the 80s from Korea. They worked as street peddlers. They had five kids. I grew up to become a U.S. diplomat. That's the story of everyone in Queens. We all came from somewhere else, worked our butts off, raised our homes and our families. And that promise, that story is being destroyed. It's being destroyed not just by Donald Trump and ICE, but also by complacent, out-of-touch establishment Dems who frankly aren't working for working families. And so pay attention. You want a clean fight of an anti-corporate, anti-ice, anti-APAC Democrat, then look at New York 6.

1:01:57You made a big part or things that you talk about on your Instagram is the right to protest. We have a lot of different protests going on in New York City. And I do want to get to some of the protests around the synagogue land sales in the West Bank. But I wanted to direct first to a more recent protest that's occurred over the last couple of days around the New York Times. Now, we reported this week that the New York Times came out with an opinion piece from this writer talking about sexual assault of Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Now, there has been a large reaction to that from the pro-Israel crowd across the world.

1:02:42A lot of people, we have Netanyahu saying he's going to sue the New York Times. And we do have protests now occurring outside the buildings here in New York. Let's take a quick listen here outside the New York Times building. The news! The news! The news! I abuse the New York Times of blood libel! Send out your reporters! Send out your reporters! You need to fire your reporters. You need to fire Christoph! Fire Christoph! Fire Christoph! Fire Christoph! Fire Christoph! Now, so that's what's going on outside the New York Times building. And I know that's not particularly in your district. Ryan, maybe you could add a little bit more texture here of what's going on with this Christoph piece.

1:03:38since you've done similar reporting, Ryan. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm sure people have come across it at this point, but it's an extensive investigation relying on, what, at least 14 direct sources on top of reports from the United Nations and other international humanitarian or human rights organizations that reports what we have long known, that sexual violence is deployed by the Israeli government in prisons and also in the West Bank towards people who live there by settlers in a systematic way without impunity. In fact, if you go back over the last couple of years, the only person that you can think about who has faced any consequences at all is the prosecutor who tried to bring a case against the IDF prison guards who were caught on camera gang raping a Palestinian detainee who then had to spend a very long time in the hospital and had horrific injuries from what we could see happen on video.

1:04:53That prosecutor was fired and they tried to jail her and they're still hounding her. So that's the only accountability that has been deployed so far. So, yeah, Chuck, thoughts on what the response should be in the United States? I think the response to fire the protest outside the New York Times is... Yeah, so let me tell you, the response should not be to fire Nick Kristoff. I read that piece, and I think, one, it is truly horrific. Look, we've all seen the videos, we've all seen social media content about this, but to have him write to interview victims themselves and to have those victims actually appear in photos in that piece that he wrote, to expose themselves in that way and describe what happened to them, it must have been terrifying.

1:05:40And these are credible accounts of sexual violence against men and women in the West Bank conducted by both IDF and by settlers. And so it is disgusting. And I'm shocked that the protesters outside there aren't protesting that sexual violence, but are protesting a journalist for uplifting victims of sexual violence. Now, what's interesting is Nick Kristof's piece also acknowledged credible accounts of violence against Israelis on October 7th. So it's not like he was selectively picking stories. He was trying to establish or present a universal standard. We should all be against horrific acts of, again, sexual violence against people.

1:06:17And for that, he's apparently being, apparently asking him to be fired. Chuck, how do you think that Zoran has handled, Mayor Mamdani has handled the dispute over protests outside of synagogues? And in particular, you know, everybody, the media tends to make it sound like, oh, they're just protesting a synagogue. there was a specific action which was being protested, which was sales of illegal land, stolen land in the West Bank. I would also add that they are only selling that land to one ethnic group, which also violates our laws. In any case, how do you think he has done handling the conflict over these protests?

1:06:54And what would be, you know, what do you think should be done in this case? So the first thing I'll say is absolutely right. Look, these land sales are absolutely illegal. They're in violation of the Geneva Convention. Last I checked, the U.S. is a signatory to the Geneva Convention. An occupying force cannot settle occupied territory. So this is explicitly illegal activity being conducted even under U.S. standards. And so I think that Zoran or Mayor Mamdani is doing the best he can to not sanction that illegal activity. I am shocked that the city council has passed bills to restrict the ability to protest unlawful activity at U.S.

1:07:32sites in New York City. And so I think that I am happy that the mayor vetoed a so-called buffer zone bill that would have established buffer zones around schools. And I wish there was more opposition to the buffer zone bill that protects houses of worship. Because what's happening at these sites isn't prayer and the practice of faith. It is illegal activity. And again, it's illegal activity even under U.S. standards. Go ahead, Ryan. I'm just going to say, what are you seeing on the ground that gives you hope that this is going to be a winnable race? I think you're going to be incredibly outspent.

1:08:14And is there a threshold level of fundraising that you have to pull off to get there? Or are you going on the AOC kind of shoestring? There's just so much hostility to incumbents who are unwilling to - Well, look, I'm never going to match APAC's money, right? I'm going against somebody who is APAC endorsed, who speaks at their conferences. She will have four or five, maybe 10x the spending that I can muster. And she'll drop mail on the residents of Queens 10, 20 times over. And so I'm not going to beat her on the money. Now, what's fascinating is people on the ground are pissed off. They're pissed off, obviously, at complacent Democrats, but they're pissed off about the genocide still.

1:08:52Genocide has become a kitchen table issue, right? It's not this abstract foreign policy thing. It's not just a moral stain on our national conscience. It is. But it's this increasing entanglement in Netanyahu's ethnic imperial project that is hurting normal working families. We see it in gas prices, grocery prices. We see it every single day. And normal people are feeling it. It's not just Palestinian liberation activists. It's, you know, a working family, a nurse and a school teacher married trying to raise two kids and they see their bills keep going up because of this stupid war in Iran and because we keep sending billions for Netanyahu to blow up families from Gaza to Lebanon to Tehran.

1:09:32And Emily, one quick follow-up. Yeah, please. Are you going to be on the ballot as Chuck? I am. I'm just curious, mechanically, how does that work? Like, can you request? Look, my name is Charles Park. I've gone by Chuck for a long time. In New York, actually, there's a lawsuit that allowed candidates to use their commonly used name on the ballot. And look, I know there's a lot of confusion with another Chuck. I don't ride with that Chuck. I'm Chuck Park. Not the bad Chuck. I'm the good Chuck. I'm the anti-APAC Chuck, the anti-genocide Chuck. And I don't know about the other guy. Did you have to submit like a group chat where your friends are calling you Chuck?

1:10:04Or like, how do you establish that? How do I prove that's my name? You just say it and then hope someone challenges you. But I've been Chuck for a long time. That's such a Ryan question right now. That's a good question. I was going to ask a question. I know you're in the primary right now. And you mentioned your opponent is, you described your opponent as pro-ice. And so one question I would have is, you know, there are people in Queens and in other parts of the country who are in the United States illegally who are criminals, who actually should not be here. There was a horrible case in Queens a few years ago of the rape of a 13-year-old girl by an Ecuadorian who had crossed the border in 2021.

1:10:41So what is the kind of – I'm actually curious about this. How do you see a replacement for ICE? If you're in Congress, you vote to abolish ICE. How do you deal with that situation? while also abolishing ICE, how do you keep the streets of Queens safe from people who actually do want to do harm to the people of Queens? The first thing I have to say, I have to reject the premise of that question. Yes, there are bad people in the world, people who assault children, who hurt and kill people. That does not correlate at all to immigration status. At all. But that's not the question. The question is, so I agree that the crime rates are debatable, but there are people who want to do harm who shouldn't be.

1:11:19Let me be clear. I am calling for the abolition of ICE. I think that money should be rescinded and that agency should be dismantled. This is 75 billion given to them under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, 40 billion for detention, 35 billion for personnel. That's 12 ,000 new officers. This is Trump's ICE and that needs to be dismantled. Dismantled. And so the question of what comes after that, yes, there should be interior enforcement. If you are, as you said, a child predator who's hurt people, I don't think you have a place in society, right? You should be removed. If you are a explicitly convicted, dangerous person has gone through that due process, you do not belong hanging out in public, walking these streets.

1:11:57And again, that doesn't matter if you have immigration status, whether you have temporary status, whether you're totally undocumented, right? And so it's a standard that is not tied, not correlated to your status as an immigrant or non-immigrant or anything else. If you're a dangerous person, you should not be allowed to roam free. But the call is to abolish ICE. And again, I have to say that in Queens, New York City, the activity hasn't stopped. You know, I live in a neighborhood called Jackson Heights. There are dads being disappeared from Home Depot parking lots, a mom and a kid thrown into a van.

1:12:30This is daily. The New York City field office, if you look at the statistics from the deportation data project, they're still detaining 600 people a month. That's dozens every single day in New York City. If you look at recent reporting from the Times on Long Island, they have open cooperation with local and state law enforcement. And so ICE is literally using fire stations as rest stops, taking naps, using public resources. Then they're parking outside public schools, waiting to snatch a parent and a kid coming out of school. And so the ICE crisis, you know, it obviously peaked with the horrors we saw in Minnesota and Minneapolis.

1:13:05But it's still there. They're doing these secret special ops to the tune of hundreds of people a month still in New York City. And so that has to be stopped. As somebody. No, go ahead, Crystal. Oh, I was going to ask, I was going to change the topic a little bit to AIPAC because I know you said your opponent is, you know, openly embraced by AIPAC, endorsed by AIPAC. I know a lot of Democrats are afraid of that label at this point of Democratic elected officials, not because they disagree with the ideology, but they realize it's become toxic among the Democratic base. And I wonder why you think she has made that choice.

1:13:40And also tell us a little bit about her strategy and approach to this race, because I understand that she's refused to really acknowledge you or debate you. Correct. So she's been taking APAC money for a long time to the tune of two million plus over her decade in Congress. And I think she takes their money because she has no grassroots support. You know, I'm a brand new candidate. I've never run for political office before I announced in November after being pissed off about ice raids and genocide. And so I Googled how to run for office. I filed an FEC form. And here I am six months later. So angry.

1:14:09I want to do something. I already as a nobody running for Congress for six months have more donors individual contributions than she does and she's been in office for more than a decade so And you're not taking corporate PAC money or anything like that either No corporate PAC money no lobbyist PAC money absolutely no APAC money And so she as a sitting elected official I think frankly she's complacent She doesn't want to talk to people and so she'll take a big check from whoever give one whoever will send one to her and that includes AIPAC. And so in return for that AIPAC money that she's taken for more than a decade, guess what?

1:14:42She's joining, as a Democrat, she's joining Republicans to defend Netanyahu against prosecution in the International Criminal Court. She is reauthorizing every single year unconditional billions for Netanyahu to bomb children and families hiding in the rubble of Gaza. She is speaking at AIPAC conferences. She is cheering on Netanyahu when he tries to unravel the Iran nuclear deal under a Democratic president. So she has taken that big money with huge strings attached. And her approach is to hide the fact that she is totally bought. She's bought by AIPAC. She's also bought by a long list of corporate PACs.

1:15:23Before you go, I did want to ask you about, you know, with the work that you've done, you know, among immigrant communities, what you're seeing over the last kind of year and a half that's different than what you were seeing before, like just talking to immigration attorneys is the stories that are coming out of these detention centers and coming out of the roundups, they don't seem to be quite penetrating into the mainstream press. You hear about cases of habeas claims being successfully filed, and what DHS does is they walk the person out of the detention center, they take the cuffs off, and then they just recuff them immediately and say, well, this is a new detention.

1:16:06because we have determined that you're now still in the country illegally. And so even though you won your habeas claim, you're right back in. You know, getting rid of immigration administrative judges who are allowing people out on bail. You know, mandatory detention for everybody picked up. What types of things are you seeing that aren't getting picked up in the mainstream press? I mean, that's exactly right. They're still lurking outside of courthouses. 26 Federal Plaza. I mean, we've all seen the videos out of there. You know, we saw them tackling family members of migrants and immigrants.

1:16:46And it's not penetrating, I think, because we're desensitized to it. They're still lurking at construction sites, at parking lights, outside of public schools, on street corners throughout Queens and New York City. And it's the same game plan. They are swiftly throwing them in a van and shipping them off to Dilley, Texas. And I have to give a shout out to Miss Rachel for calling out that, that, um, the, the cruel detention centers that are, again, are being operated by private companies, for-profit companies, Geo Group, Core Civic. At that family separation that we were all up in arms about in the first Trump presidency, that is still happening, happening.

1:17:23Children are in cold jail cells, you know, screaming for, for food and to, to be released, you know, missing class. And so it's, I think we've become desensitized because the distraction machine is working. It's the airstrikes in Caracas, and then it's war in Iran, and then all of a sudden it's something else. And so the distraction machine is working, unfortunately. But especially in Queens, New York City, it's so visceral because we see it on the streets on a daily basis. We see it in an empty seat in a child's classroom. It's happening still. And so we need people who are vocally going to call to abolish ICE and not people who are complacent, you know, Democrats who maybe take corporate PAC money even from some of these organizations that power ICE, whether it's Palantir or L3 Harris or these private detention center companies.

1:18:13Chuck I got one last Queens related question for you Of course we can't talk about Queens without talking about The Mets and America's number one industry Gambling Now you have been vocally against a new casino That is being built Correct me if I'm wrong In the parking lot of the Mets stadium By billionaire Steve Cohen Tell me more about that and why this new casino in Queens would be bad for Queens. Yeah, so this is the wildest thing. One, take off that hat if you're going to talk about the Mets. Two, this is a fashion choice. Okay. This is wild to me. Look, New York City, it's the progressive heart of America right now.

1:18:57We got Zoran Mamdani. We got AOC spitting fire, right? In our own backyard, in Queens, at Citi Field, there is a billionaire oligarch named Steve Cohen using public resources to make himself rich and totally corrupting our democracy. I'll tell you a quick story. He bought the Mets in 2020 for 2.4 billion, the highest ever paid for a baseball team. And guess what? They did horribly that year. So he wasn't buying a great team. He was buying the rights to develop that parking lot. And let me tell you what Steve Cohen also invests in besides casinos and parking lots. He invests in Elbit Systems, a defense contractor based in Israel.

1:19:33He invests in CoreCivic and GeoGroup, which, you know, gets massive contracts for ICE detention centers. He invests in the Republican Senate campaigns. He invests in Trump's inauguration. So that's Steve Cohen's track record of investment. He makes money every time someone suffers in this country or this world. And that's exactly what he's trying to do in Queens, on Citi Field, on our, you know, using our beloved Mets to totally sports wash his image. And so if you care about fighting oligarchy, then we gotta go after Steve Cohen. We gotta go after these casinos because again, it's happening right here.

1:20:07He has made political donations, I'm sorry, to every level of government, city, state, federal, including my opponent. And using those donations that come again from killing children in Gaza, from detaining kids in Dili. He's used that money to power political campaigns in New York City. And he has bought the silence, the silence of leaders here. And so I am vocally against that casino in Citi Field. It's not built yet. And if I win, I'll make sure it's never built. So thank you for asking the question though. Yeah, Steve Cohen of POS. So we will, maybe we can build the casino at Yankee Stadium.

1:20:41Would you like that more, Chuck? Would that be a better place for it? I don't want it anywhere, but if it has to go, put it next to the Yankees. All right, well, thank you so much for giving us your time today, Chuck. If people like what you're talking about, where can they find more about you and your campaign? Find me at chuckforqueens.com. That's Chuck, F-O-R-Q-U-E-N-S.com. Look, I'd welcome a small dollar donation. I only take grassroots money. But also, hey, if you're in New York, show up for a shift, man. It's a lot of fun. I'll buy you pizza, a samosa, a momo, a dumpling, whatever you want.

1:21:15Just help me knock doors because we're going to win it that way. Amazing. Okay, awesome. Thank you, Chuck. Let's go to a Mets game soon, okay? Get it. You got to take off that hat though. You're going to get in a fight. I got lots of hats. I wear lots of hats on the show. All right, we'll see you later, Chuck. Thank you, Chuck. All right. Thank you guys so much for the opportunity. All right. This morning, joining us to talk about President Trump's trip to China and the mean tweets that the president has been sending against him and also to preview a little bit Thomas Massey's primary race next week in Kentucky.

1:21:45We are joined by Congressman Ro Khanna. Great to see you, sir. Great to be back on. Yeah, of course. Let's start with the mean tweets, shall we? The most serious item on the agenda. But Trump came after you a number of times, very upset about your Fox News appearances, feeling like the Fox News hosts are not up to the job of challenging you appropriately. So here was one of them. The sleazebag radical left congressman from the failed state of California, Ro Khanna. He did spell your name right, though, which is unusual. should not be allowed on Fox News unless you have an anchor who is capable of disputing his lies one after another and closing down his fake bullshit narrative.

1:22:25He is similar but worse than Hakeem Jeffries, only with a somewhat higher IQ. He can't help but give you a few compliments here, sir. This morning, he tried on behalf of the Democrats to take credit for the steel industry pouring back into the U.S., knowing full well that the dumbs virtually destroyed it, And I saved it through strong tariffs. Plus, our country was dead during the last administration. Now it is hotter than ever, et cetera, et cetera. So what did you say that set off this whole tirade? First of all, I think he thinks Fox anchors aren't as tough as those on breaking points. I mean, folks, you can see some of my tough interviews with Crystal Ball.

1:23:03You can often get that. You can't bring that BS here. That's right. But look, you know, here's the idea. The whole time, he's never attacked me on Epstein. Never once. Right. So why does he get set off on this? Because I was going after his central theme, which is he ran as the guy that was going to bring back jobs to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, bring back steel, bring back manufacturing. and I was at a port in Cleveland saying, well, look, there's still Chinese steel here. And actually, Trump is taking these trillionaires from Wall Street and in Silicon Valley to go beg China for deals that are going to offshore jobs and hurt workers.

1:23:48And it fundamentally shows the betrayal of his promise. He had two promises, like substantively. He wasn't going to get us into wars. He got us into a war in Iran. And he was going to look out for the working class and protect us against more offshoring. And he's basically taking the global elite to offshore more of our jobs. And I think that set him off because it was true and undermines his actual rationale for his incandidacy. And are you hoping to bait him? Like, what is the strategy? Do you think it's helpful to you and also to the kind of political conversation when he starts lashing out and how so?

1:24:27Yeah, I mean, I didn't actually think this would trigger him. So I can't say, oh, I was trying to set him up. But I do think it shows a couple of things. One, it's important to go on Fox News. It's important to actually try to talk to his base because when I go on MSNBC, which I love doing, or go on liberal podcasts, he doesn't really care. I mean, that's the reality. But if you get to issues that he thinks are going to hurt him with his voters, that's when you can get a reaction. And you want to get a reaction from him because it actually shows the hollowness of what he ran on. And so in my view, we should be going and talking to Trump voters on forums where Trump folks are watching and making our case.

1:25:18Congressman, what have you thought of the the trip to China? I know you mentioned that it was basically like bringing along a bunch of oligarchs to offshore more jobs. You know, what do you make of Trump having to go there in this moment of incredible weakness, given the strategic defeat that we've suffered in Iran? It's shameful. I mean, the fact is that he should be ending this war and he needs China to end the war. I hope he gets China's help to end the war because it has meant food prices are going up. Fertilizer costs are up. So farmers are paying more. Gas prices are up. The Fed can't cut interest rates, which he really wants.

1:25:57And I understand why he wants it to bring down credit card costs, mortgage costs, student loan costs. But they can't do it because of the inflation of his war. And so he's going to China, understanding that we need to end the war and he needs China's help. But then he's also taking along literally Wall Street and tech billionaires in my district, begging China to put in money into the United States where they're going to have no labor standards, where they're going to have subsidized industry and it's going to hurt American jobs and trying to cut deals that are going to offer our jobs to China.

1:26:28It is just pathetic. And that's why I think this is the time the Democrats need to have a sense of we're the party against war. We're the party that's actually for Team America. And we want an economics that are actually going to help working class Americans with good union jobs and high paying jobs here in the United States. I wanted to pick up on that point. I'm sorry, Crystal. I was going to say that Matt Stoller wrote in his newsletter last night reflecting on the China trip. He said, quote, the left is often fooled by the hawk and dove rhetoric on China because they can't tell the difference between war and economic relationships.

1:27:01But it has always been the neoconservative hawks in the Middle East who have been the most dovish towards Chinese economic relations, just like Wall Street. The people who oppose both war and predatory Wall Street slash Chinese policy is labor. Honestly, the China hawk dove debate is sort of over. The U.S. is no longer capable of balancing China on its own. We have destroyed too much of our industrial health to do that. That doesn't mean shifting our system is pointless. I just kind of wanted to get your reaction to Stoller's reaction from the populist anti-monopoly left, because that point to me actually was pretty interesting and compelling.

1:27:35I think his diagnosis is absolutely right. I mean, look, this country made a decision that we wanted cheap labor, that we wanted capital to have returns, and that we were going to hollow out Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the industrial part of the country, and that they could all learn how to be software engineers, code or move. That was the consensus policy since the late 1970s. And at the same time, there was a hawkishness of let's go create these wars in the Middle East, whether it was Iraq or now Iran. And what the American people want, in my view, is the exact opposite. They don't want these Middle East wars, but they want us to have economic industry and some self-reliance and not just have all our focus be on shareholder capital returns, but actually care about the working middle class.

1:28:23Now, where I disagree with Svobar, and of course, my business of being in politics. So I'm not, well, let's just give up in despair and nothing can be done. I think there are policies that could rebuild an industrial base in this country. We can have an industrial investment bank. We can have trade schools. We can have tech institutes. We can invest in child care jobs and elder care jobs. We could have capital not just owned by a few people in a few places, controlling the majority of the nation's wealth, but more dispersed. And those are the things I think the Democrats should actually focus on when we get the trifecta again.

1:28:57What do you think our relationship with China should look like? Because, I mean, there are obviously a number of issues which are major global issues, climate change and AI come to mind where we really need to work collaboratively with them for the betterment, not only of our own people, but really for the global preservation of the globe. So how do you think about those issues and how to approach the relationship? Well, I agree with you, Crystal. Well, I'm not one of those people who believes we should have a cold war. And I've never criticized, actually, Trump for engagement and trying to have peace.

1:29:34I mean, someone, the Democrats, just anything Trump does, they criticize. And so they're criticizing him because he doesn't want a war there. I don't think that should be the answer. I don't think decoupling should be the answer. My view is we need economic rebalancing. They shouldn't be subsidizing their industries and dumping in the United States. and we should have smart industrial policy so that we have an industrial manufacturing base. But at the same time, if we have economic rebalancing, we should work with China on safety standards, on AI, on climate change, on actually solving the issue in Iran like a new JCPOA so that you have the Strait of Hormuz open and you don't have Iran having enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb.

1:30:22I mean, there are a lot of areas that we can collaborate while pushing for an economic rebalancing. Wanted to get your reaction. Ryan, were you going to ask on China? I was going to switch gears to Thomas Massey. Oh, me too. So go ahead. I'm curious about that. Yeah. You've obviously worked very effectively and collaboratively with Thomas Massey, Republican, represents a district in Kentucky. It's actually sort of like a suburban district outside of Cincinnati, but on the Kentucky side. He is being challenged in a very well-funded primary because he dared to cross Donald Trump. Trump has endorsed his primary challenger.

1:31:00Obviously, Israel has loomed large since Massey has been one of the few Republicans who has taken a different approach on what our relationship should be with regards to Israel. And by all accounts, it's a very close race at this point. So I wonder what you're hearing from Congressman Massey and what you're seeing in terms of that race. I just saw him this morning and I said, Thomas, I'm sorry if I got you in hot water because I called you a man of character. And Laura Loomer and others are saying that kind of endorses Massey. He says, Ro, I made my bed a long time ago. You don't have to run away from me.

1:31:35But it's despicable what they're doing to him. They're not just attacking him. They're going after character assassination. They're dragging someone who lost his wife and bringing up past relationships he had in just a really ugly way. And Massey is a person of character. I vouch for that of what I've known of him. And look, it's a generational race. He said he's winning by about 30 points, voters under 50, Republicans under 50. And he's losing by about 30 points, Republicans over 50. He said that when he goes on stops, there are hundreds of people there with him. And when his opponent goes and stops, there are three or four people.

1:32:14And yet the polls are neck and neck. So the energy is with him. The young people are with him. But the older voters are all with his opponent. And it really is going to come down to turnout and on who turns out. But the Republican Party under 50 is a very different Republican Party than the traditional Republicans. And that gives an opportunity on some of these issues to build a broad coalition against war, against aid to Israel, against the Epstein class. Well, I was going to put it this way. What does Congress lose? You're a Democrat. What does Congress lose if it loses Thomas Massey?

1:32:52It's a huge blow. First of all, it's a blow that if you stand up against your president in your party, you could lose your seat. So it's a disincentive, not just to Republicans. I believe it'll be a disincentive to independent action on both sides, that the way to get ahead in Washington is to keep your head down. Like, that's the lesson most people realize, that if you just keep your head down, you pay your dues, you do everything, you don't ruffle the status quo, eventually you'll be Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer or Joe Biden. You know, you'll get the lead. And, you know, if you're out there trying to stir things up, eventually I'll catch up with you and you'll lose your seat or be pushed out.

1:33:34That's basically why most politicians take the safe course. And if Massey loses, it's going to show like, see, we told you, don't get out of line. Marjorie Taylor Greene got out of line. Massey got out of line. You know, I didn't take the same risks, but I've got a primary challenger against Mabe, which most members don't have. Like, just it's not worth it. That's what happens if Massey loses. And as he wins, I believe he becomes a national star. He's, in my view, a potential contender for the Republican nomination, if that's what he wants. I've never talked to him about it. But it's a show of that independence can actually be a political asset.

1:34:13So I would say it's an enormously important race. um congressman i had a question about um you spoke of broad coalitions and mtg now uh both of you appeared together on cnn uh talking about some of your uh shared agreements and i think that a show like ours is very you know partial and open to that kind of idea of a broad coalition i mean our show is people from different political perspectives finding areas of common agreement um and also related to Trump bullying. Now, you apparently are not afraid or shaken by Trump bullying you, but MTG was. She got a lot of threats, a lot of harassment. I mean, Ryan has said that she paid a political price, but she did quit Congress.

1:35:03And she could have taken votes on these subjects that she's talking about that would have really mattered. Now, I know there's a lot of discussion about her intentions, whether she really believes the things she's saying or not. And let's put all that to the side for a second and say that she's being completely honest and completely real with the subject she's talking about. What is the value in allying with someone who essentially quit Congress and stepped away from a powerful position where she could have actually enacted changes? and if we are allying with her or working with her, what is to stop her from just quitting again or giving up when the going gets tough?

1:35:45Because if you're an effective political person in this country, that's going to mean that 30 to 50 % of the country hates you, that they think you're Stalin, you know, or something like that. So tell me about your thought process with someone like MTG. Yeah. Well, first of all, let me be clear. I have never compromised an inch on progressive values, of values of standing up for women's rights, of multiracial democracy, on trans rights, LGBTQ rights. And it's very clear that I have differences with people like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Thomas Massey on those issues. They know that. I'm clear about it.

1:36:25I never compromise on it. But when it comes to issues such as stopping war, such as taking on the Epstein class, things that I believe actually are progressive goals, of course, I'm going to work, in my view, with people like Marjorie Taylor Greene or others to achieve that. That's building a coalition to be effective and to have a durable majority. Now, the threats that I faced a presidential tweet are pale in comparison to the threats that Massey or Marjorie Taylor Greene faced. And so we just need to put this in context. You know, Trump tweeting at me actually helps me. It raises my profile.

1:37:04It gives me a sense of being able to talk to the issues. It's not a real threat electorally to me. Fortunately, I've not had that kind of threats to my life that people like Marjorie Taylor Greene faced. She was facing the entire presidential machine coming at her. She was facing actual threats to her life from a MAGA base. We know what they're capable of given January 6th and the threats that Pence faced. So do I wish that folks would stay in the fight? Sure, but we should not underestimate the enormous pressure that came down on her and Marjorie and Massey and Boebert and Mace. And my hope is that some of these folks will stay engaged in rebuilding the Republican Party.

1:37:59Now, has she said things that I strongly disagree with? Absolutely. But the hope is that she acknowledges that and starts to build a new Republican Party post-Trump.

1:38:14Last one for me, Congressman, you mentioned that you have your own primary challenger who is backed by a bunch of the Silicon Valley billionaires in your district. How is that going? What is he running on? You know, he's pretty candid. He runs on saying he's pro-NAFTA, he's pro-anti-billionaire tax, he's bullish on AI. I was like, at least the guy's honest or something.

1:38:43But the point is that the billionaires are upset at me because I'm saying that they should pay a one-time 5 % tax. That if they're worth$20 billion, they should be worth$19 billion so that 2 million Californians can have health care. And because of that issue, you've seen, I think Ryan pointed this out, you've seen the most remarkable class solidarity. The passion they have on this issue is more than the passion most Americans have to stop the war in Iran or to go after the Epstein class. It's actually quite remarkable. And I often say to them, look, I'm the nice guy. You know, I just want you to pay more tax so we can have a new social contract.

1:39:22Have you met folks in their 30s and 40s? Because they don't have the same view. And when you have massive wealth inequality, it leads, in many cases, to kind of political revolution. You don't have to be a student of the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution or revolutions in world history to understand you can't have a few people in a few places controlling the majority of a nation's wealth. You've got a lopsided and unfair economic system. And so, look, I think I will win, but I want to win decisively. and I want to show that if I can stand up to the billionaires in a district that has more billionaires than anywhere in the world, if I can show that I am willing to stand up to them and call for fair taxation there, this should not be a hard position for 434 other members of Congress.

1:40:09Yeah, I think it is fair to tell them that Roe is the compromise. You don't want to see what's on the other side of that. I'm curious, though, on the Democratic primary side, What are the races, like, internally among your colleagues that they're watching with the most interest kind of slash trepidation? Is it some of the races against incumbents, or is it some of the open seats? So we got Philadelphia next week where you've got kind of two establishment candidates against Chris Rabb. I think you endorsed Chris Rabb. No, he's just out there for him. You've got the San Francisco race. You've got the DCCC weighing into some of these open races.

1:40:47But what are the ones that are kind of defining the attitudes of people in your caucus? What are people watching? Well, you've got two different concerns. On the one hand, you've got the concerns that Graham Plattner and Abdul Saeed, these candidates who Bernie endorsed, I endorsed, a few progressives endorsed, are actually winning. and they're used to these candidates just being fringed. They, okay, kind of endorsed them, Bernie endorsed them, but they're not going to win. That's fine. They're a nuisance gadflies. And now they're winning. And this is, they don't know what to do with this. They don't know what to do with an Abdul Saeed that's up nine points or a Graham Plattner that's forced Janet Mills to step aside.

1:41:36Obviously they want Graham now to win, but it is causing them real sense of fear what the future of the Democratic Party is. And then you've got, though, the more visceral thing, which is you've got extraordinary candidates like Malat running in Colorado or Mia was running in Sacramento against an incumbent. Eric Jones was running against an incumbent on progressive platforms. And, you know, even me saying their names, now I'm going to get angry tweets from a text from my colleagues. I mean, how dare I mention the name of a primary challenger. You know, I'll mention that my primary challenger is Ethan Uggarwal.

1:42:16I'll say his name. Like, I don't think the DCCC needs to endorse me. Like, fine, it's democracy. You don't can say the names of these challengers. It's not heresy or something. But literally, I get angry tests if I, like, retweet a person who may be running against an incumbent. But that has a lot of incumbent skin. I mean, the amount of people who are running against the incumbents on platforms. And in some cases I've endorsed. In other cases, I've just uplifted them because I feel like they deserve a fair hearing. But I think you're going to see a new Congress, which has a lot more energy in 2026.

1:42:55How do you make that decision, who you endorse? What's your process? It used to just be by gut. And then, you know, then I had that infamous dual endorsement of AOC and Joe Crowley or something. You know, I had endorsed Joe Crowley. You had to refine, tinker that with that process. So we now have a group of two, three, four of us. Elizabeth on my team does a great job. And, you know, she's always pushing. She wants me to endorse every challenger. And so, you know, I try to look at where I can make a difference, be bold out there. I don't, I mean, I look less about are they going to win, but more are they running on the values they care about and running a viable campaign?

1:43:41So are they actually going to put in a great campaign? And, you know, there are a couple of cases where I've endorsed against incumbents, but that's always hard. It's hard when you have an incumbent in the house that people are running against. But I've done it a few times. Speaking of races, go for it, Ryan. Yeah, real quick. We had Chuck Park on the show earlier who hasn't raised a whole lot of money and is running against Grace Meng who has a lot of money but hasn't been like most outspoken or outstanding kind of member. Have you followed that race at all? I haven't. And in candor, you know, I've had a good relationship with Grace on issues of Asian American and the China committee.

1:44:28I mean, I thought that the China committee was way too hawkish a few years ago, sort of almost getting us into a Cold War. And Grace has been helpful in toning that committee down. So I know I have a working relationship with her. I don't know the race, though, and I don't know this person if he's running on a bold platform. You can watch our episode today. Well, speaking of races, you are the congressman from California. There is a California governor's race occurring right now. We haven't done a ton of coverage yet about it. But there does seem to be these top three candidates that are orbiting around the top spot.

1:45:06We have this British guy, Steve Hilton, who seems to be the Republican. Isn't he Australian? It's Australian? Oh, my God. I thought he was British because he was in Brexit. He worked for Canada. It sounds like he's working on the Death Star. So British, whatever, some sort of accent there. Not a Californian accent I'm familiar with. And then we also have Tom Steyer, the Bernie bro billionaire, and Gavin Newsom's choice, this Javier Becerra gentleman. Maybe you could give us your thoughts on those top three. Well, I endorsed Tom Steyer early. I endorsed him for a few reasons. He's for a single pair that never got done, even though it was supposed to, everyone ran on it in 2016 and 18 in California.

1:45:58I endorsed him because he is for a billionaire tax. Can you imagine that on a debate stage? I thought it was hilarious. The one billionaire is for the billionaire tax and the others are not for the billionaire tax. I mean, I was, who's advising these people? and just their sheer politics. And then I endorsed him because I don't know if he said genocide, but he's certainly been clear that there shouldn't be more aid to Israel and that what happened is a human rights violation. I mean, I've called it a genocide, but I don't know if he's used that language, but I feel like he's the best on that issue in the field.

1:46:40Becerra is just sort of getting money from big oil. I mean, he's actually out there talking about Chevron. He refuses to say he'd be for single pair. It's just the status quo. That said, I mean, the race has tightened. The biggest drawback is Starr hasn't been elected to anything. People don't like that he's spending his own money. And I do think just philosophically, while I support Starr, I do think there should be contribution limits. on what individuals can spend for their own campaigns. Like, fine, you're building a great run, but like only spend$7 ,000 and raise money. And that's my own view and getting rid of super PACs and getting rid of money in politics.

1:47:21So hopefully he overcomes that and I'm going to be out there for him. All right, well, unless we have anything else, I think that will do it for this interview. Ro, thank you so much as always for coming on. Anything else you need to promote? No, that's great. It's a long one. It's good. All right. We'll let you go. We'll see you soon, Congressman. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks, bro. See you soon. Thank you, everyone. Take care. Take care. Bye-bye. Okay. That's going to do it for our Friday show. No AMA this week, unfortunately, because we ran long. So store your questions. We will answer an extra amount next week.

1:48:02We have some exciting things going on behind the scenes that we've been working on that we are not going to tell you about right now, but we'll be telling you about very soon. So prepare for... It's a meme coin. It's a meme coin. That's right. Damn it, Emily. Why you gotta spill the beans? I can't hold it in. It's too exciting. I can't tell this girl anything. I haven't even sold yet. Next time we've got Ro, we should make him do the AMA. We should subject him to random audience questions. Good idea, right? That would be fun. That would be fun. I'm withholding a lot of the behind the scenes news from Ryan because he will just blurt it out on the show and I'm about I need some level of message control.

1:48:43No, not unless he wants to do something about it. That's the weapon that Ryan wields. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm not blurting for the sake of blurting. So I'm keeping Ryan in the dark but I hope to illuminate everyone on some exciting new stuff we're working on behind the scenes. That's it for this Friday show. Ryan, check out DropSite news. Check out After Party with Emily Jashinsky. Check out Crystal Kyle and Friends for an exciting Ashley St. Clair interview that went down this week. And we will see you all. Hold on, can I tease that really quickly? Tease it up. Tune in to find out who told Ashley St.

1:49:21Clair in the Trump administration that she needs to get her boobs done. Make your guesses now. These were the sort of beauty standards that were being pushed upon her. It's got to be Brian Noem, right?

1:49:39oh my god oh jesus christ he would be a likely suspect anyway she talks a lot about about that she talked there was there's a lot there she talks about her time working for benny johnson you can imagine the sort of questions that get asked and answered there so um yeah she's uh she's she's i'm not gonna say she's filling all the tea there are certain areas with regard to elon where she still can't go but we got into a lot i think people will enjoy it well i know it wasn't Benny Johnson asking for the breast implants. I'll say that much. I don't think he's a boob or a butt guy, to be honest with you.

1:50:11It was Brian Nolan. All right. Well, that's what you can look forward to on Crystal Cow and Friends. Plenty of content to fill your weekend, and we'll see you all here on Monday. Goodbye.

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