Republicans ramp redistricting fight up to a 10

22:57And so we were trying to ring the alarms at that moment. But for a lot of people, I think that they saw the fight as like, oh, this is over voting rights and it's a Texas issue and that kind of stuff and whatever. But the fact that these Texans decided that they were going to leave their homes, that they were going to be bullied by cowards who want to arrest them. I mean, they are going harder on elected officials that are simply trying to make sure that their constituents' voices are not minimized, then they're going on, say, getting the Epstein files. Like, we know that y 'all know how to move, clearly, because y 'all done called in the FBI and everybody else trying to go after not pedophiles, right?

23:39Because we know that seemingly the commander-in-chief has a soft spot for pedophiles because next thing you know, we know that Ms. Maxwell was transferred to a cushier existence in a federal system, penitentiary system, right? But now you want to go after lawfully elected people whose constituents are not upset with them at all because they dared to do what democracy says we should do, which is to represent. So for those that don't understand, In our Texas Constitution, it specifically provides for breaking quorum. And this is one of those circumstances. And they're not doing it because they are the ones whose districts are on the chopping block.

24:22They're not doing it because they're concerned, per se, about individual congressional members. They're doing it because this country is on fire and it is time for people to see that we have a fire in our belly. There are Democrats that are willing to wage a ridiculous fight if it means that we're going to protect democracy. So I love them. I thank them and I stand with them.

24:46Brian Tyler Cohen:Perfectly put. You know, I think I think what you said about the fact that these Republicans are showing us that if they want to get something done, they can. You've got the Speaker of the State House issuing civil arrest warrants. You've got John Cornyn going to the FBI. You've got Cash Patel saying, yeah, the FBI is at your disposal. You've got Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton going to the courts to try and deprive these people of their seats, to vacate their seats. And so if there's a will to get something done in the GOP, clearly these people are showing that they are not, that there's no stone that they won't leave unturned.

25:15Brian Tyler Cohen:And yet when it comes to the Epstein files, something that they themselves have been barking about for years and years and years. When they finally have the chance to substantiate what they themselves have been saying, their hands are tied. There's nothing they can do. They're not even willing to hold Pam Bondi to account, even though she said the files were on her desk. And so it goes to show when they want to get something done, they can. And when they don't, that's a conscious decision that they're making, too, which I guess leads me to this question here. The oversight committee has compelled the release of the Epstein files, and that that should be done within two weeks.

25:48Brian Tyler Cohen:How confident are you that they're going to comply and that these files will be in your hands by the time that that deadline approaches? I'm pretty confident. I mean, this is a subpoena that came from the Republican chair. There was a bipartisan vote in one of our subcommittees on oversight that is led by the amazing Summer Lee out of the state of Pennsylvania. And so when they thought they were getting everybody out of D.C. in time, again, I tell people all the time that they may have the muscle, meaning that they have the numbers, but we definitely have the brains. So they are all brawn and we are all brains on this side.

26:27And so we were able to outmaneuver them because that's what we do. who we actually think. And so, you know, this is a subpoena that then the chair of the entire oversight committee then had to send out because there was, you know, the vote. And so this is coming from Comer. So this is coming from another Republican. Now, you know, whether or not DOJ, you know, gives us a trickle down or, you know, how they treat it and that kind of stuff, who knows? We know that they are spending so many man hours on redacting Trump. I wouldn't be surprised if they come up with some trumped up reason to explain why any of the documents that have anything to do with him cannot come out.

27:11I mean, they will make up law. They will go to the courts that belongs to them like they will do a lot of things. So I think that we'll get something. But I think that, you know, they will only give us what they want us to have versus fully complying with the subpoena itself.

27:28Brian Tyler Cohen:What's your message to those Trump supporters who stake so much of their support for Donald Trump on this idea that he's going to finally do what so many other politicians wouldn't do, which is to expose this deep state cabal of of elites who are above the law, who can operate with impunity and do heinous, vile things, who now very much seems to be entrenching the very system that he promised to expose. You know, what I really want people, whether they're a Trumper, a MAGA, Republican, Independent, or former Democrat, right? Like, what I want them to do is evaluate, number one, what is government for, right?

28:09And evaluate how it is that we are choosing our elected officials. Government is not for enriching the people that are elected, right? This is why it is wildly popular to stop members from trading stocks. This is why, you know, there should be more outrage at the fact that, you know, probably at this point, at least 50 % of Donald Trump's wealth has come just since he's gotten into office. Like, we should all be disgusted because we should have a government that has transparent and honest leaders that are strictly focused on us and nothing else. But honestly, when you have someone that consistently shows you that he has no relationship whatsoever with the truth, you got to start calling him out.

29:01You got to start understanding that there is a reason that he is constantly lying to your face. you've got to say we deserve better. This is more so about what we deserve. We are supposed to be a government for and by and of the people. And let me tell you right now, from all of the foreign government interference that we've got going on ever since his first administration, from all the intermingling that he does with his businesses, with foreign governments and his family, from the crypto schemes, like we should be concerned because it is clear that he is not putting America first. It is clear that he's not putting Americans first.

29:42The fact that we're in this crazy tariff war that is only hurting us domestically, like this is a problem. Like I don't want, you know, what I would wish if I could like wave a magic wand is if people would literally not look at the R or the D in front of somebody's name. They would just look and have like a little snippet, a little paragraph of what the people have done. Tell me about the bills they filed. Tell me about how those bills impacted people. I can tell you that I have worked on things such as the Democracy Restoration Act. I can tell you that I've worked on bills around protecting reproductive access.

30:21I can tell you that I have filed criminal justice reform bills that would make sure that we never had to worry about the crack cocaine disparities. I can tell you things that people can look at and say, you know what, I agree with this or I disagree with this. And then you can look at somebody who says, I wanted to make sure that I gave tax cuts to billionaires at the expense of health care to people that needed it. I can say, you know what, this person decided they wanted a$200 million ballroom. And this is at the expense of USAID and impacting our soft power around the world. Like, I just need people to look at the substance of who people are instead of consistently following anybody, anybody, Democrat, Republican or independent blindly.

31:06That is why democracy is supposed to be so great is because we are supposed to be the voices. We are supposed to be the ones that are running it. And right now we've got a minutia of people. I mean, it is such a tiny group of people that are controlling all of us instead of the majority of us controlling our elected officials.

31:28Brian Tyler Cohen:Yeah, and that was perfectly put. And I think the most egregious part of all of that is that this guy ran on a populist platform. He ran dangling promises all the way going back to his first term of of infrastructure, of middle class tax cut, of a jobs boom, of a manufacturing renaissance, a health care plan that was cheaper and more comprehensive, of cheaper groceries and eggs and housing and rent, of free IVF. He hasn't delivered any of that. The only thing he's expended his political capital on is a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires both times. And now he's looking out for himself to the tune of 200 billion dollars for a ballroom.

32:03Brian Tyler Cohen:He gave himself a billion dollar retrofitted jet that not a single one of these feckless Republicans could lift a finger to say, hey, maybe you don't get to keep a jet that costs a billion dollars to the taxpayer while you have Carolyn Levitt applauding the fact that he's donating his paycheck. so I think his paycheck would be like$33 ,000 gross. So the guy donates a$33 ,000 paycheck and hands himself a billion dollar jet paid for by American taxpayers. This guy is so clearly not looking out for any of the people who he conned into voting for him, all of the rubes that he conned into voting for him while he continues to heap more benefits, more wealth unto himself.

32:38Brian Tyler Cohen:The guy doubled his net worth in like six months. I don't know how many people watching out there have gone from$2.5 billion to$5.1 billion in the last six months, but I presume it's not most people. And finally, let's finish off with this. Donald Trump's DOJ just announced that it's going after New York Attorney General Letitia James. And so we're seeing one more instance of the weaponization of the federal government at the hands of Donald Trump going after his political opponents. So can I have your reaction to that move? Yeah, you know, I mean, you could see this a mile away, right? Like even a blind man could see it coming because we know that this is a guy in the campaign and said, I will be your retribution.

33:13And that really translated into him seeking his retribution if he were to get into office. And what is so frustrating is that we have a guy that decides that he wants to say he's all about law and order. But if anything, he is the most lawless person that we have ever had. And this is not by any stretch of the imagination, considering the fact that he is the only president we've ever had that has been convicted of 34 felony convictions, on top of the fact that he had so many other outstanding cases. So to have the audacity to believe that he should go after someone who is duly elected, who has never been accused of a crime, who truly you are trying to trump up charges on.

33:51That's all we're seeing. The same thing with going after Jack Smith. Right. The same thing with firing all of those that participated in the legal and lawful investigation of his wrongdoing while they were at the DOJ. Like people that are following the law, they're following the evidence, they're following the paper trail of documents that you took and stuffed into your gaudy bathroom and ballroom. OK, like that's what they're following. Like they didn't make this up out of thin air, you know. And so it is frustrating. But I absolutely knew this was coming. I absolutely see that there will be other political opponents that he will go after, because this is the only reason he wanted to be in office was to, number one, stay out of prison.

34:32And number two, do his best to try to muddy the water and pretend like the real lawless people were the people that were actually doing what their oath prescribed versus him, who basically is just a sexual deviant. Yeah, I'm going to call him who, you know, is obviously been found liable for, you know, being a little less than truthful more than once in civil context, as well as criminal. Yeah.

35:03Brian Tyler Cohen:Well, as always, I appreciate your fight and you taking the time today. Absolutely. Have a good one. I'm joined now by the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia. Congressman, thanks for joining me. Yeah, happy to be here. So you've got some breaking news here as it relates to a subpoena for the Epstein files. Can you explain what just happened in committee? Yeah, I mean, this is a this is big news. Obviously, it's good for transparency for the American public. James Comer just put out the subpoena today that is actually going to get the subpoena files to Congress and to the Oversight Committee.

35:35This, of course, is because a couple of weeks ago, Democrats forced a vote in a subcommittee of the Oversight Committee where we got a couple Republicans to join all the Democrats on the committee to actually make that motion to release those files. And so we've been waiting for Comer to get the subpoena out. Of course, Republicans didn't want to do this, but we forced that vote. And now the subpoena is out. It's a full files, any documents, anything that the DOJ has, we are now going to be in possession of. The request has been in the next two weeks, so we hope that DOJ complies with that timeline.

36:05Brian Tyler Cohen:What is the timeline here? How long do they have to wait? Because we've seen that every chance they have to actually put forward these delay tactics, they will. Right. I mean, obviously, it's in the DOJ's court right now. We've requested the files in two weeks. And so either we're going to get those files or they're going to try to stall in some way. And so we're going to push back on that, of course. What is Donald Trump hiding? He should want to get all these files out. He campaigned on it. Apparently, they're sitting on Pam Bondi's desk. Like, let's get these files over to Congress. There's been a bipartisan subpoena.

36:39Let's stop with the lies. Let's stop with the cover-up. Let's stop protecting all these powerful people that harmed, clearly, women and young girls. And let's get the truth out there.

36:49Brian Tyler Cohen:Congressman, how confident are you that the files that you would get are even the full tranche of files. I mean, like to suggest that everything that comes is going to be exactly exactly as it was in its in the in the initial files is to is to basically say that you believe Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, Cash Patel and Dan Bongino are actually responsible stewards of this stuff. Well, if they didn't hand over everything they have, it's not just irresponsibility. It is immense corruption, highly illegal and unconstitutional. And so I think that it is concerning. Look, I don't trust anything that Donald Trump or the Department of Justice enforce or their actions.

37:29So I think we should be clear about that. At the same time, the subpoena is out there. It's bipartisan. It was sent by a Republican majority in the House. And so let's see what we actually get and what they send over and what that timeline actually looks like. So I will give them the benefit of the doubt in this moment. But in no way do I trust Donald Trump's Department of Justice.

37:52Brian Tyler Cohen:In the same committee, there was also a vote about compelling or subpoenaing the testimony of a bunch of Democrats, of the Clintons and James Comey. So can you give us some understanding of what went on on that front and what we can expect with that subpoena? Yeah. So, I mean, Republicans, obviously, they have a majority in the committee, so they made a motion and they wanted to subpoena all these other folks. And they can subpoena to whoever they want. I mean, they have the votes to do so. And so they did that. We wanted them to go further and subpoena other folks in the Trump administration.

38:23They didn't want to do that. That's on them. At the end of the day, our motion was about getting the files because we know that the truth and transparency is going to come when we actually center the victims, protect them, and get justice for them. And that means getting those files out to the public and exposing whoever caused the harm. This isn't going away. And I think that Republicans and Mike Johnson and other folks continue to trying to hide what's happening here. This is only going to snowball, as we know. And so it's in their best interest to get this to the public, to us, and for us to go ahead and release.

38:55And look, the release is about censoring the victims and getting justice for them. That's what this has to be about.

39:02Brian Tyler Cohen:Was this just like so that the Republicans can feel like they have something to bring back to daddy Trump? Like, OK, yes, we may have compelled the release of these Epstein files against Trump's wishes. But but don't worry, because we've also done our part to help perpetuate this bogus theory that, you know, Hillary Clinton, Russia gate. I mean, I legitimately can't even stay on top of what the new scandal is right now. But is this just to to feel like they got one also so that they can perpetuate the distraction from the Epstein stuff? I mean, probably. I mean, I think, look, they're they create a new conspiracy theory every day.

39:36And obviously, they're trying to create a new one with the Clintons as it relates to Russia and all these other just bizarre accusations that they like to make. So yes, I'm sure a lot of it is about just creating smoke and mirrors, but they're also trying to hide the fact and dismiss the fact that the scandal here is the cover-up at the White House around the Epstein files. And that's, I think, where the focus needs to be. And while we're pushing for this release, I think we all, certainly Democrats, I think the American public at large, we've been saying, we don't care who's in the files. We don't care how powerful you are, what political party that you are in.

40:12Brian Tyler Cohen:Right. Or if they're Democrats, like we don't care. We're not here. There is no cult or personality here. If it's Democrats that are impacted or Republican, who cares? If you did harm and you're abusing and causing violence and trafficking, then you need to be exposed. And I think all of us should be united around that. Okay. So aside from compelling the release of the Epstein files and this subsequent vote so that Trump could feel like he got one too. There was also the impending matter of being able to subpoena testimony from Ghislaine Maxwell herself. And that deposition was going to take place on August 11th.

40:46Brian Tyler Cohen:There was an update as far as James Comer was concerned. Can you explain what happened with him? Yeah. So there's a couple of things, pieces of this. I mean, one, there is, of course, this deposition that we're seeking for Ghislaine Maxwell. That's a piece of it. That was done through the Oversight Committee. Ghislaine Maxwell is working with James Comer. Essentially, that deposition has been postponed until after her Supreme Court appeal. We oppose that. Now, they did agree with us as Democrats that they wouldn't get the questions in advance. You wouldn't get immunity. But the postponing of the deposition is concerning.

41:19The second piece of this, which is happening in real time, is we also know that Ghislaine Maxwell then, of course, meets with Donald Trump's Department of Justice. And not only her Department of Justice, her former, Donald Trump's former attorney, right, Todd Blanchett, who used to be his personal lawyer to Donald Trump. And she's meeting on the side with him. And now that testimony might get released. But all of this is just honestly is really concerning because Donald Trump injecting himself. She wants a pardon. She wants a reduced sentence. Republicans want to protect Donald Trump. And so she is not a trustworthy person.

41:52She's a convicted sex trafficker. And we've got to remember that so that all this information that she puts out has to be viewed in a way that's very, very skeptical. and knowing that she's someone that is not a good person and her best interests are not the victims.

42:08Brian Tyler Cohen:What benefit does she derive by virtue of waiting for the Supreme Court to weigh in? Well, she wants the Supreme Court to essentially to reduce her sentencing. And so that's for her. That's key to key. She didn't want anything to get in the way of her trying to get out of prison. And now, of course, she's been moved. I mean, Trump's Department of Justice clearly was involved in moving her and encouraging the Federal Bureau of Prisons to a place that's essentially less secure where she has much more movement, where she is much more comfortable. I mean, that is not right. That is not a way of holding the truth about what she did and harming these young women and girls.

42:46Brian Tyler Cohen:You know, from the outside, it very much looks like if you're getting preferential treatment, it's a reward for something. I mean, am I off base to think that if you're moved from a higher security prison where she was in Florida to a low security prison where she is now in Texas, that it doesn't just, I mean, this stuff doesn't just happen in a vacuum, right? And so am I off base to think that that could very well be the reward for something perhaps that she discussed with Todd Blanche? Well, I mean, I think that's the concern. I think the fact that she's getting a Kushier, essentially a prison in place to spend her time is concerning.

43:23And look, we don't know what happened in that room. We don't know what she's been promised. We don't know what she has said. But what I do know is that she's not trustworthy and not a good person and should not have been moved. And so all of this is continuing to snowball. And there's a lot of information out there. It's complex and complicated. But we just have to remember one thing, which is Donald Trump campaigned on releasing the Epstein files. He has now decided not to do so and instead is trying to take our attention into different places. We're not going to let up. The subpoena is out. Donald Trump, we know, is also in the files per the Department of Justice and and reporting that, you know, Pam Bondi has told him, hey, you are in these files, but we don't know what that looks like.

44:02So we've got to get the truth out.

44:04Brian Tyler Cohen:And finally, what would your message to Trump supporters be out there who who staked a lot of their support for the guy on the fact that he said he would be the one to expose, you know, this this tranche of of deep state elites who are able to act with impunity, even when they commit the most heinous of crimes. And now, far from keeping true to his own word, he's actually entrenching the very system that he promised to fight against. I mean, I would say to those Trump supporters that he's betrayed you. I mean, Donald Trump has betrayed you. I mean, he's lied to you about Medicaid. He's taken away health care.

44:35He's lied to you about supporting working people. He's given away your money to the very rich. He told you he was going to release the Epstein files, and he's lying to you about that as well. He has betrayed his base. And I think his base, a lot of them understand that. And so they're also out there and they're causing hell to their own members of Congress and Republican districts. And we're going to keep fighting and ensure that these files get released to the public.

44:58Brian Tyler Cohen:Yeah, I think that's a great point. I mean, look, his whole presidency, the pattern here has been promising his supporters one thing and delivering something that is completely the opposite. And his first army promised a jobs boom, a manufacturing renaissance, an infrastructure law, a health care plan that was more comprehensive and more affordable, didn't deliver on any of that. He gave him he gave himself a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires. Now, this term came in promising to end the Ukraine war on day one, promising to bring down costs, promising to bring down inflation, promising to make IVF free, promising to bring rent down.

45:33Brian Tyler Cohen:None of those things have happened yet again. Gave himself a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires. And in fact, when he promised to be the guy that would defer to his supporters, defer to regular people, he is instead, again, protecting this, you know, tranche of people at the very top who are unaccountable to our laws. So I think it's a great point to bring that up. It's not just as it relates to the Epstein files, but everything that he's done in his presidency. So with that said, I appreciate your time today. Thanks for continuing to fight this fight and looking forward to seeing what happens when it comes time to actually release these files.

46:08Brian Tyler Cohen:Congressman, thanks so much. I'm joined now by the founder of Zeteo, Mehdi Hassan. Mehdi, thanks for joining me. Brian, good to be back. So I want to start with some breaking news that we saw today, and that is that Donald Trump has allowed his FBI, with the help of Kash Patel, to now go after these Texas legislators who fled the state to go to Illinois. So first and foremost, can I have your reaction to the fact that this is, you know, despite what Kash Patel said in his confirmation hearing about not wanting to weaponize the Department of Justice, that's exactly what we're seeing right now? It was inevitable, Brian, that this was going to happen.

46:42This was the very reason that Kash Patel was picked, to be the yes man. Donald Trump has wanted Kash Patel in a position of national security intelligence for a while. you'll remember after the last election he tried to make him deputy director of the cia gina haspel at the time career cia official said she would quit if that happened he bided his time got convicted got re-elected and brought back cash patel to a compliant republican senate that knew he wasn't qualified to be fbi director knew he would be a yes man knew he would politicize the bureau in a way that they've always accused democrats of doing and this is what he's doing by the way brian we're speaking on a day when actually cash patel was supposed to be at jd Vance's house today chatting about Epstein.

47:19And then that leaked out. So they canceled the whole thing. And Vance has been denying it in the Oval Office today that it was ever going to happen. But it's funny that they went straight from being one kind of politicized FBI director to be like, all right, I'll do something else today, political. I'll go after Democrats in Illinois. Like, that's what his day job is, to serve Trump.

47:36Brian Tyler Cohen:Mehdi, do you think that what we're seeing right now from some of the Democrats out there, there are a few governors who are vowing to fight back against what Texas Republicans are doing. We see Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker. You know, we've seen to some degree Kathy Hochul in New York, although, you know, she's limited by what what New York's constitution allows them to do. Although I would also make the argument that Republican states have been limited by what they're able to do and they've done it anyway. We saw unconstitutional maps enacted in Louisiana and Alabama. And still, they did that at such a late time that even though the courts noted that they were unconstitutional gerrymanders, it was too close to the election for them to change it.

48:14Brian Tyler Cohen:They relied on the Purcell doctrine. So I think if there was really a desire to get this stuff done, we don't have to look far to see what it looks like when those Republican governors get it done. But that notwithstanding, do you think that we're seeing something of a sea change among Democrats who have for so long been the party of strongly worded letters? I hope so. I'm going to reserve judgment until I see some actions back up those words. Illinois Governor Pritzker, New York Governor Hochul, and California Governor Newsom have all said the right things. now they've just got to do it. As you say, there are some limitations, but these are the same limitations that Republicans overcome all the time.

48:51You and I at the Zateo event in LA talked at great length in front of the audience about the Senate parliamentarian and how Senate Democrats deferred to the parliamentarian and said, well, she said, we can't do a minimum wage increase. She said, we can't put this in our bill. Republicans came along and they refused to even meet with the parliamentarian when they did their big, ugly ass bill. So that is the difference in the two parties. I hope, and I've said this before to you and to others, I hope Democrats learn the right lessons from this period of opposition, that when their opponents get into power, they're not limited by conventions or norms or all the other things that now seem so quaint and antiquated.

49:24And you can't play this whole moral high ground game. Well, you know, they're going to do this stuff, but we're going to stay pure. Doesn't work like that. You do that and you lose. And it's worse than just losing. You do that and you abandon your constituents who need you.

49:38Brian Tyler Cohen:Andy, we've spoken about this idea that what the future of the Democratic Party is going to look like is not necessarily whether progressivism wins out or a more moderate posture wins out, but rather this idea of Democrats who are actually going to stand up and fight. Do you agree with that? Do you think that the future of the Democratic Party is not so much like the monolithic nature of your political ideology, but rather just your willingness to go balls to the wall? Yeah, I've been saying that for a while. I said that when Democrats were in office as well. I think, you know, the left-right dimension is still important in policy terms, for sure.

50:12But in terms of saving American democracy, standing up to the Republican Party, it's less relevant. It's about who actually has the balls, the backbone, the ability, the desire, the communication skills to actually take the fight to the other side and fight on their terrain, not your own terrain. I would say someone like Zoran Mamdani, who is the New York Democratic mayoral candidate, is a perfect mix of those two things. He's shown that you can actually have progressive radical policies, you know, shake things up, tax the rich, look after your constituents, freeze the rents. You can have a Bernie-esque, if we want to call it that, agenda.

50:43But people forget he's also the guy who showed up at Albany to protest Tom Homan in person a few months ago. He was there on the front lines. He didn't just write a sternly worded letter or say, I'm going to do X and Y when I met. He turned up, put his body on the line, got grappled by police officers and heckled, rightly so, the fascistic homen, the border chief. So I think I think Zoran Mamdani has walked a great line on this in terms of making sure he's standing up to Trump, standing up to Trumpism, calling out Republicans, but also doing what constituents and the Democratic base wants right now, which is more progressive policies, less corporate friendly policies, less pro-rich policy.

51:21I think you can do both. One thing I would say about the governor so far is, again, we need to say if the actions match the words. We need to see what they actually do. And I think the key when we get to 2028 is, yes, are you going to take on Trump rhetorically? Or are you going to do it actually with actions, with policies, with positions? I'll give you one example. Cory Booker gave a 20, what is it, 25, 26 hour speech, whatever it was earlier this year. Broke the record for Senate speeches. I believe that speech is now a book. and he's gonna be doing a book tour. He went straight to the top of the class in terms of opinion polls.

51:57You saw those polls, Brian. Suddenly he was like in the top three presidential candidates. People were saying to me, oh, Cory Booker's gonna be a favorite. I was like, come on, we're three and a half years out from 2028. No polls now have any meaning. Let's see what happens going forward. Immediately, his poll numbers dropped. Why? Because liberals were upset with him because he voted to confirm Charles Kushner, Jared's dad, as ambassador to France. I believe he was the only Senate Democrat who did that. And the left is really upset with him because he then went and signed off on another set of weapons sales to Benjamin Netanyahu in the middle of an ongoing genocide.

52:26And now, suddenly, it's gone downhill. People don't like him so much anymore. So this thing, you know, between now and 2020, you and I and many others are going to have a lot of conversations about who's up, who's down, and ultimately it'll be, it's not just who's saying the right thing, but who's doing the right thing.

52:39Brian Tyler Cohen:Right, right. I completely agree with that. Why do you think that where a lot of the energy, like, okay, so we just spoke about how it's not necessarily progressive versus moderate. That's going to be the thing moving forward. But so much of the energy is in the progressive wing of the party. When you look at Bernie and AOC doing their tour, when you look at the success that Zoran Mamdani has had in New York. And so what would be your advice, I guess, is the question to these more moderate members of the Democratic Party? Again, knowing that like being representing a moderate district like Marie Galusin-Camp Perez or Jared Golden.

53:18Brian Tyler Cohen:We want those people because the alternative to them is going to be, you know, some Republicans. So when we have these conservative Democrats, like part of being in a big tent is being in a big tent, right? It's being tolerant enough that even when there's somebody whose ideology doesn't comport 100 % with ours, that's okay. Because again, like part of being in a big tent is being tolerant of those people who have views that aren't directly ideologically aligned. But what would your advice be to those folks to get the same degree of, I guess, I guess, passion or excitement behind them as we're seeing from these members of the progressive wing of the party?

53:54So again, I think it comes back to like, what do we call left and what do we call right? I mean, some of this stuff is just, I mean, now we use the phrase populist, standing up to the establishment, which can be populist right, populist left. You mentioned Jared Golden. If memory says we currently, Jared Golden supports Medicare for all, like he sees that as something that helps his constituents, even though, as you say, he's in a very conservative frontliner district. I think Zephyr Teachout did a quite good study of frontline Democrats who are in these swing seats and are seen as conservative or moderate or whatever it is.

54:23And actually, a lot of them ran in 2024 in the congressional elections on a very populist platform, anti-big business, anti-price gouging, anti-big pharma. You can run in conservative districts on populist platforms because guess what? Conservatives don't like big pharma or big tech or big oil either. Right. Republican voters tell pollsters every day they don't like rich people being too rich. They don't like corporations not paying tax. They don't like the fact they don't have health care.

54:48Brian Tyler Cohen:So, you know, the pushback to that is going to be that people are going to say, OK, you say the Republicans say that they don't want all of these things, but they'll vote for a party that consistently heaps benefits, heaps subsidies onto fossil fuels that continuously cuts taxes for millionaires and billionaires. And so the difficult part for me is like, yeah, when you understand, you understand this stuff and you understand what they have told pollsters and you look at the numbers and, you know, 90 % of Americans want to cut taxes on, I'm sorry, 90 % of Americans want to impose tax, an additional tax burden on the wealthiest Americans.

55:22Brian Tyler Cohen:But half of those people can consistently vote for a party that does the complete opposite. it? Well, I'll say two things to that. Number one, it's because Republicans have now successfully reinvented themselves as this kind of fake populist working party. So you can, with a clear conscience as a working class American, say, well, I'm voting for Republicans and Trump because they're sticking it to the man and they're giving me no taxes on tips and all that bullshit that's been sold to them as some kind of populist agenda. And you ignore the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. You ignore all the gifts to corporations and the deregulation and the doge stuff.

55:55So that's one issue is that the Republicans have successfully done that. And the way they've been able to successfully do that, Brian, aside from just brazenly lying, is the Democrats left the space open for them. Let's just be very honest about that. The only way the Republicans were able to occupy that pro-worker, anti-establishment platform that Donald Trump came up with in 2016, which he never believed in and never acted on, is because the space was left open. Nature abhors a vacuum, right? The Republicans would never have occupied that space had Democrats not vacated that space. And I think most Democrats would probably agree with that analysis now.

56:23Maybe not five years ago, I think pretty much entire party leadership now accepts that is true. That's point number one. Point number two, the Republicans are very good, as you know better than me, but they're cynically switching attention, deflecting culture wars, right? So they know, and this has been the trick since Reagan and even before Reagan, Nixon, that they know they can't win on the economics. They know that the American public consistently for decades do not support wealthy people avoiding taxes. They do not support corporations getting away with murder. So what they've done is they say, well, let's talk about abortion.

56:53Let's talk about DEI. Let's talk about trans kids. Let's talk about Mexican immigrants. Let's talk about Sharia law, right? They've been the masters of switching, getting people to vote against their own material and economic interests because they think they're voting for some higher cause, for God, for country, for morality, all bullshit. But they've successfully done that. They've raised the salience of cultural issues while, you know, ignoring or deflecting or side playing the economic stuff. And I think Democrats need to find a way. There's no simple solution to this. I'm not pretending it's easy.

57:22But they have to find a way to both, A, win the culture wars, because I don't think you can run away from culture wars, but also, B, bring attention back in the way that AOC or Mamdani in New York did. Or Harris did. Let's not forget, Kamala Harris, in August of last year, was leading in the polls. She had all the momentum. She was talking about price gouging and greedflation and all that. And then after the DNC, she stopped talking about all of that. Some people say it's because her brother-in-law from Uber persuaded her not to. Who knows what happened behind the scenes? But we know the campaign markedly changed from going after those populist targets.

57:55And that didn't help her.

57:57Brian Tyler Cohen:Yeah, I think also, if you look at the massive advantage that Republicans and right wingers have in the alternative media space, which is a space that you and I occupy, that allows them to drive the conversation. If we just simply do not have the number of voices that they do, eventually they're going to win out. Eventually, if they just have more voices, they are louder, they are going to win out. And it doesn't help that they have unlimited funds that can put money behind that stuff so that, you know, turning an entire election into a referendum on transgender reassignment surgeries in prison becomes the issue when Kamala Harris didn't even mention it one time in this entire campaign.

58:31But if Democrats, to go back to your point at the beginning, Brian, had fighters. I agree. You can't do anything about the media playing field. It is what it is. That is the way it is. They have an advantage. But it doesn't help that not only do they have an advantage, they also are up against a party that is not ready for a fight, is not willing for a fight. So, you know, how many members of the House are there? How many Democratic members of the House are there? 200 and something. 213, something like that. Yeah. Okay. How many of you and I heard of? We do this for a living. I couldn't name half of them.

59:01What are they doing? Where are they? They're not all over your TV screens. They're not all over your social media. They're not all over your town halls. Most of them are living a quiet lie. Keep their head down, put their heads up for election time. To be fair to Republicans, as much as I loathe a lot of the people in the House right now, they're everywhere. You can't blink. There's some new provocative member of the House pops up. I could probably name to you more Republican House members than I could Democratic House members because they're all over everything. And that's because they want to have a fight, right?

59:26And by the way, they also have amazing message discipline, right? Once the diktat has come down from Trump or Bannon or whoever it is, Miller, that's it. They all go, this week is DEI week. This week, we're only going to talk about trans, right? Democrats don't have that. We know that. You and I have banged our head against walls saying, where is it? Like today, I'll give you one example. This morning, I wake up to the NPR story that Donald Trump put a man from January 6th riots who said, kill cops on camera. He said, we should kill cops at January 6th. He's now an official at the Department of Justice.

59:58Not only did Trump pardon him, he gave him a job at the Justice Department. Now, a few years back, Black Lives Matter protests, some random people not associated with the BLM leadership said pigs in a blanket, fry them, some line about the police. Republicans ran endlessly on that one quote. It became a household quote in every Fox-watching household. Every Republican said Democrat to pro-killing the police. Black Lives Matter must be disowned. And by the way, Democrats went along with it and said, yeah, yeah, we disown all this. Are we going to see, Brian, you answer the question for me. Are we going to see Democrats do that with this NPR story this morning?

1:00:31Yes or no?

1:00:32Brian Tyler Cohen:No. No. It'll be gone by tomorrow. Yeah. Well, and look, like, I think you can go all the way up to today. I mean, you have you have even the Sidney Sweeney thing. I mean, like you have a few the right wing media ecosystem is so coordinated that you have a few accounts on TikTok and Instagram who have spoken about this issue that no national Democrats have weighed in on. And it goes all the way up to the president of the United States because they know that if you can traffic in these culture wars, that's going to be better terrain for them. And so even if they have to pick some anecdotal thing from some random person on TikTok who is not an elected official, they'll do it because it helps them and they understand that.

1:01:08Brian Tyler Cohen:To that point, I want to move over to to an issue that has broken through on on culture. And that is the Epstein issue. And you and I spend so much of our time trying to get an otherwise pretty apathetic population to pay attention to politics, to understand why this stuff is so important. And every once in a while, an issue like Epstein rolls around where it actually breaks through in a way that you'll never have for a discussion on Medicaid or food assistance or the intricacies of our gun laws or whatever it may be, even though those things are much more important. But but on this issue of Epstein, I'm curious to your thoughts here because we've seen it break through because we've seen Shane Gillis talk about this at the ESPYs and we've seen all of these podcasters talk about it.

1:01:47Brian Tyler Cohen:And my friends and families who are not political, they talk, they understand what's going on. Do you think that this has staying power or I mean, we still are in a new cycle that moves very quickly. Yes. This has been a month long story. Is this going to be the kind of thing that sticks around or that will eventually dissipate like everything else does? The cynic in me says the latter. It will eventually dissipate. I hope I'm wrong. This is the first Trump scandal which was driven by Trump voters, not by Democrats. It's so funny when you see Trump in the Oval Office saying, was it yesterday? Today, I've lost track of days, where he was asked by a reporter about Epstein.

1:02:21And he says, oh, this is just a Democratic hoax. This is pushed by the Democrats. I wish. Democrats have come very late to the party. They're rightly being accused of hypocrisy by Republicans who are like, you know, I see Democratic members talk about Epstein and then some Republican in the reply says, you never said anything about Epstein until 2025. And it's like, probably true, but I'm glad they're saying it now. At least they've realized the salience of this issue. But look, this was driven by Republicans. Trump cynically, you know, Trump, Vance and co, they cynically use this to get their base out, to get their base worked up and enraged.

1:02:52And now they can't deliver on it or they won't deliver on it. And I don't know. I mean, I'm torn on this. On the one hand, there's enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that parts of the base are still furious about this, are still angry at Trump, have not let it go. But then the polling shows Trump hasn't really taken a dent at all in his approval ratings from his base. So I don't know. And you see people like Charlie Kirk, and I see you've been mocking him online, being a very good boy and telling Donald Trump that I'll do, you know, I trust Trump. He told me not to talk about it, so I'm not talking about it.

1:03:20And Dinesh D'Souza and a bunch of others, right-wing influencers, we trust the White House, time to move on. Now, whether the base moves on as well, I don't know. I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene is one person who has refused to move on, is still causing a bit of a stir on some of this stuff. But I think in general, like if I believe the Trump movement, the MAGA movement is a cult, which I do believe, then I have to also believe that they will fall along with this. I mean, I interviewed Mick Mulvaney recently. He did make a good point that, look, Donald Trump came out and said publicly a couple of months back, MAGA is what I say it is.

1:03:50Right. And the Epstein story is a test of that claim. Right. Because if he's right, then they will move on. And Epstein is no longer an issue for the MAGA base. If he's wrong, then MAGA is beyond Trump. But they say, no, no, no. Epstein and pedophile scandals and QAnon is key to who we are. I do think, again, Democrats have to keep pushing this. The media still have to start asking questions. Because what the left and liberals don't seem to understand, which the right understands, is these scandals, these controversies, this is not organic. This doesn't just happen spontaneously. You need people to be pushing it, right?

1:04:19Especially for the media. We often say, you and I will rightly say, oh, New York Times isn't covering this story. It's not on its front page. But to be fair to New York Times, the New York Times needs kind of, quote, unquote, permission to do that. And the way they get permission to do that in our system is they need a senior Democratic politician to hold a press conference and ask questions or hold a hearing in Congress. But then -

1:04:37Brian Tyler Cohen:I mean, you look at how Jim Jordan and James Comer, they give endless supply, endless oxygen to their insane conspiracy theory. Yeah, Fox doesn't operate in isolation. It's all coordinated. And the Democrats don't understand that. But I see a lot of, especially on the blue skies, a lot of liberal Democratic parties will say, oh, the media is just ignoring the story. And I'm not defending the media. I'm the last person to defend mainstream media. But you also have to ask questions about the Democratic Party. If the leadership of the party is not pushing this at the same time, it allows the media to move on.

1:05:05So you do need your Chris Murphys and your Brian Schatz and others to keep bringing this stuff up, not just Epstein, but the multiple other scandals that are going on. Take one other scandal, the plane from Qatar that he's now spending a billion secret dollars that they put in a budget when no one was looking to retrofit this plane that he's going to take with him into his private life. Again, if the media doesn't cover that going forward, you still have to, again, I'm sorry, blame politicians. We need Democratic Party politicians talking about this all the time in every media hit they do, bringing up Trump's corruption, bringing up the examples of corruption, saying let's not move on.

1:05:35I can't believe we've moved on from January the 6th. That kills me. That should be the center of every, every Democrat who goes on television should bring, begin every interview saying Donald Trump pardoned 1600 criminals, 1600 rioters, 600 of whom attacked police officers. Like that should just be something you say at the beginning of every interview.

1:05:53Brian Tyler Cohen:There is something we can learn from Donald Trump in terms of repetition of his message over and over and over again until it's seared in the cerebral cortexes of everybody who is listening. And he repeats this stuff so frequently that it has to be in the news because that's what he's spoken about that day. I think there's this sense of like, OK, I want to treat my audience, you know, speak to my audience at the height of their intelligence and not repeat something I've already said to them. But the reality is that, first of all, most people aren't listening. And second of all, you have the ability as an elected official to drive the conversation.

1:06:22Brian Tyler Cohen:And so use every opportunity, limited though they may be, to drive the conversation in the way that you want it to be driven. And you're exactly right. This stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's not just going to, I think there's this sense that like, we can all wait for this to just stay in the news, but we have agency here. We're in charge of making sure that it stays in the news. So quick point, Peter Mandelson, who was Tony Blair's main spin doctor, main advisor, helped create new labor, the three election victories in the nineties and two thousands. He had a line, which I put in my book about debate.

1:06:54He talked about repetition. You as a politician, if you only when you get bored yourself of saying your message, are you even halfway towards where you need to be in message?

1:07:04Brian Tyler Cohen:Yeah, yeah, that's it's and it's a great point. I mean, how many times has Trump said, build the wall, lock her up, make America great again? There's a reason that we remember all of this stuff. There's a reason that people, even the people who have been duped, who have been gullible enough to fall for his bill of goods, that they think that's what he stands for is because he says it so many times. On the point of the media, We have seen, to switch topics here, we've seen Benjamin Netanyahu suggest that he's going to look into waging a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times for reporting about starvation in Gaza.

1:07:36Brian Tyler Cohen:Can I have your reaction to that? Good luck is what I would say. Good luck with that. It's an insane position. It's interesting how many foreign politicians are now coming to sue people in the US. I know that Macrons are suing Candace Owens. The US famously was a place where you couldn't sue people, right? The First Amendment. I come from the UK, which is libel tourism home, right? That's where you go to sue people is the UK, because the courts are very friendly to the plaintiffs, not to the defendants. In the US, it's supposed to defend a free press. Let's see. Obviously, we've been seeing a very authoritarian attack on our free speech and on the First Amendment.

1:08:07Look, he's doing this to distract from what everyone knows, which is that the Israeli government is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. We just published a poll today, Brian, from Data for Progress, which shows that Americans by a 14 point margin say what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. This is no longer a debate. The American public believes it's a genocide. The top genocide scholars in the world believe it's a genocide. The International Court of Justice continues to investigate Israel for a genocide. And the Israelis keep saying genocidal things. So good luck, Benjamin Netanyahu, suing the New York Times.

1:08:35That'll be a great bit of discovery that goes on there. Although I would say they don't need to do any discovery. What's hidden in Netanyahu's emails that they haven't said publicly? Every member of the Israeli government has said something genocidal at some point or another over the last year and a half. The heritage minister, Brian, said last week that we're going to take over Gaza and make it Jewish again, is the words of the heritage minister last week. The settlements minister said, we don't care about the hostages, not about the It's about taking back Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu himself has talked about the Palestinians being Amalek, which is biblical code for kill everyone, including the donkeys and the children.

1:09:07So the stuff from the Israeli government has been horrific. It is one of the great tragedies in American history and one of the great stains on both our political parties that two presidents, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, gave Benjamin Netanyahu pretty much everything he wanted. And Biden did that disastrous hug him close strategy. We hug Bibi and then he'll do what we want him to do. He did not. In fact, Benjamin Netanyahu used Biden, got everything he wanted out of Biden, $17 billion of weapons. And then he openly just counted down the clock to get Trump so he'd get even more from Trump. And by the way, Donald Trump was asked yesterday, what do you make of Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to take over the entire Gaza Strip?

1:09:43And he said, well, it's up to Israel to do what they want to do. No, it's not. We fund Israel. We fund Israel. We have a right to say no.

1:09:50Brian Tyler Cohen:You know, that strategy of hugging these politicians in hopes that they'll reciprocate this goodwill is a recurring theme in the Democratic Party. I mean, it's what we so often do to confer goodwill onto the other side and maybe they'll reciprocate. I'm curious what your... Chuck Schumer does it in the Senate. Yeah. I'm curious what your reaction was to the Bernie Sanders amendment blocking arms sales to Israel garnered, I think, record support among the Democratic caucus in the Senate. Still, obviously, not enough to pass, but some of these even longtime pro-Israel hawks decided to vote in favor of that amendment.

1:10:29Brian Tyler Cohen:Can I have your reaction to that? I was stunned. I was actually in a debate, which our mutual friend Tommy Vito was moderating on Crooked with Jeremy Ben-Ammi, the head of J Street, the liberal Zionist group. And Jeremy was saying, look, look, Democrats are shifting. And I was like, there's not going to be a majority. And he said, yes, they will. And to be fair to Jeremy, they did get a majority of Senate Democrats for one or two of the bills. Remember, there were two votes, Brian. One was on offensive weapons and bombs. The other one was on assault rifles. And some people like Ossoff, I think, voted on rifles, yes, but not on bombs.

1:10:57But anyways, it was symbolically an important vote. Is it as many as I would like to see? No. By the way, we should remind everyone, every single Republican voter who was there, every single Republican senator present voted to send arms to Israel. I have been very critical of the Democratic Party's record on Gaza, on Israel, on Netanyahu. You heard me just criticize Joe Biden. Having said that, never forget the Republicans are worse. And we see that in these votes. At least some Democrats in the House and Senate are willing to take a stand for human rights, for justice. For American law, Brian, I should remind everyone, sending arms to Israel right now is a violation of two separate US laws.

1:11:30The Leahy Law, which the former senator from Vermont, Patrick Leahy, passed, which means you can't send weapons, American weapons, to a military that's clearly involved in human rights abuses. That's the Leahy Law. The other law is the Foreign Assistance Act, which says you can't send weapons to a country that is blocking American aid, which again Israel is doing in Gaza. So I would like to see every Senate Democrat come out and vote against these weapons. Sadly, the likes of Cory Booker just won't do it. John Fetterman has become this kind of pro-genocide ghoul who some of us are counting down the clock to be primary.

1:11:59Sadly, he's got a lot more years in the Senate. Never has there been a bigger bait and switch, a bigger fraud, a bigger liar in the Democratic Party than John Fetterman. I'm ashamed to say I supported John Fetterman's Senate candidacy and Senate run. I defended him against Republican attacks on his health after he was elected to the Senate. and here he is cheering on a genocide happily every day. So I think there are a lot of Senate Democrats who still behave in a shameful way, but I'm glad many of them are following Bernie's lead and credit to Bernie Sanders for leading on this issue for the last decade, but not a single Republican, not a single, in the House, Thomas Massey, yes, Marjorie Taylor Greene amazingly came out on the right side of something for once, but in the Senate, not a single one.

1:12:40They're all pro-genocide in the Republican Senate.

1:12:42Brian Tyler Cohen:Mehdi, it's clear where Joe Biden stood on this issue. And so Democrats don't have a ton of political capital here. Prior to the 2024 election, there was this, or during the 2024 election, there was this sea change, especially among Muslim Americans who had voted historically Democratic, who moved over to Donald Trump. because of because of as a response to to the way that Joe Biden comported himself with Benjamin Netanyahu. I'm curious how how how like where do we stand right now? Because obviously, obviously, Biden didn't build up any political capital with that community. What Trump is doing, I think we can all see is is to the nth degree falling off the cliff worse.

1:13:26Brian Tyler Cohen:And so where is this? Is this a community without a home? Like, how are you thinking about this in light of in light of the move for that community in the 2024 election? And then this this these new developments, which are just so I mean, you know, this this relative to the Biden administration, you know, this this is a whole different animal here. It's a good question. We should just be clear that it was the Muslim community. It was young Jewish anti-Zionists. It was progressives. It was people of color. was black pastors in Georgia, hundreds of whom wrote to Biden saying, we can't get our congregations to vote for Democratic Party if you carry on this genocide.

1:14:07It was a bunch of different people across the board who came out and said, we cannot do this. We can't hold our nose and vote for a party that supports genocide. And that was a completely understandable position. I made that argument. You and I discussed it before the election. I said it very clearly. I said, I think Trump is worse than Harris, but I totally understand. I would never berate someone to say, well, somebody in Michigan who's lost 20 members of their family in Lebanon or Palestine and say, well, you've got to vote for the party that just helped Israel do that. Yeah, I totally understand why people stayed at home or held their noses or voted for Jill Stein or even voted for Trump.

1:14:36Trump, I think, got one in four Muslim votes or more, depending on which poll you look at. It's funny you mention historically Democratic, because if you go back to 2000, Brian, in 2000, George W. Bush won a majority of the Muslim vote, right? And then Iraq happened and 9-11 happened, and the Democrats never looked back. I'm sorry, the Muslims never looked back. Muslim Americans all went to the Democratic vote, 80-20. It switched from 80-20 Republican Democrat to 80-20 Democrat Republican. And now I worry that the Gaza issue, Biden handled it so badly, and Harris refused to disown Biden, refused to distance herself.

1:15:06She had so much goodwill from that community and then refused to budge an inch on Gaza policy. And I hope it's not a long-term sea change effect. I do hope that people can see what's happening to Trump. What Trump is doing is a complete betrayal of everything. He went to Dearborn, Michigan, the home of Arab America, Trump, And he said, I am peace. Kamala votes with Liz Cheney. She's campaigning with Liz Cheney. She'll take you into endless wars. I'll bring back our troops. And then what did Donald Trump do? He became the first American president to bomb Iran on behalf of Benjamin Netanyahu, something even George Bush didn't do.

1:15:38He's obviously given Benjamin Netanyahu carte blanche to ethnically cleanse Gaza. He's presided over the worst famine we've seen. So clearly he was not better for Palestinians. So I hope people can see that. But look, people are not stupid anymore. Whether you're Muslim, Jewish, Christian, atheist, whatever background you are, People, to go back to the start of our conversation about, you know, Mamdani types, walking the both sides, people want delivery. People want to see that you're acting on your words. You're not just making promises in the air. We can have lots of Democrats say all sorts of things now about, oh, we support this and we support that.

1:16:10What are you going to do when you have power, when you get back control of the Senate or House, when you get back control of the White House? Is the next presidential candidate going to say that, you know what, no more forever wars in the Middle East? I'm going to take that line back from the Republican Party that stole it and never meant it? Are they going to say no blank checks for Benjamin Netanyahu and his fascists in Israel? That's going to be a question in 2020. People like Ro Khanna are almost certainly going to run for president. And they're going to put this issue on the table, even if the other, even if the Newsoms and Pritzkers and Whitmers want to run away from this issue and be like, we want to talk about kitchen table issues.

1:16:42There are going to be people bringing this issue up. Let's just be very clear about that. Gaza will not disappear come 2028. It's just too major an issue. And I just think Democrats are going to have to think long and hard, not just about reckoning with Biden's awful record, but what they do now going forward, what promises and pledges and action plans they can make to change our horrific foreign policy, which most Americans don't support, whether they're on the right or the left.

1:17:04Brian Tyler Cohen:Let's finish off with this. In light of what we're seeing at the hands of Trump's FCC, at the hands of Trump himself, as it relates to all of these media companies, the way that he's leaned on ABC News to see them capitulate, leaned on Paramount and CBS to see them capitulate, leaned on the Washington Post, the LA Times. I mean, outlet after outlet after outlet, all of whom had said, you know, been so quick to hide behind these slogans of democracy dies in darkness when it wasn't challenged. But the moment that it does get challenged, they all fall immediately and start heaping millions of dollars to Donald Trump, heaping him positive coverage, whatever it may be.

1:17:38Brian Tyler Cohen:And so how are you looking at Zeteo's place in this ecosystem in light of what we're now seeing is a pretty feckless, a pretty castrated media ecosystem from all of these legacy outlets. To borrow a line, if Zateo didn't exist, we'd have to invent it. I mean, I'm thinking back now, I created this company over a year ago, but let's say I hadn't, I'd be creating it right now. Because I may have created it a year ago, but never have we needed independent journalism, not just Zateo, but what you do, what others do. We need this more than ever before, because in the last few months we have seen the American media, and I didn't think it was possible, to be even more craven, even more of a letdown, even more of a rollover, even more complicit in authoritarianism than we've seen.

1:18:26The last six months have been a horror show. I mean, we're speaking, Brian, on the week where the CEO of one of the world's most powerful tech companies went into the White House with a 24-carat gold gift for Donald Trump and then gave a speech in which he bathed Trump with sycophantic praise. Tim Cook of Apple, the man whose name Trump can't even remember, called him Tim Apple. Tim Cook went into the White House and this billionaire CEO of Apple stood in front of the cameras and assembled some weird plaque or prize for Trump and then gave it to the president. This is where we are now. This is North Korea-style moment that we're in.

1:19:07And I just think to myself, Apple and Bezos and the Washington Post and all of these now, now David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison, who was part of all the election denial meetings in the White House with Donald Trump back in 2020. Allegedly, David Ellison is now owning CBS and Paramount. Like this is where we are now. We always talk about corporate owned media, but this is worse than just corporate owned media. This is corporate owned media where the corporations are run by complete weaklings or cowards or pro-Trump fascists. And this is the world we're in right now. So yes, we do need independent journalism.

1:19:41I would urge everyone watching to get behind independent media because unfortunately our corporate-owned media has let us down far too much in recent months.

1:19:48Brian Tyler Cohen:I mean, you even look at the Smithsonian, which was literally rewriting history in deference to Trump. All of these once revered institutions are actually just betraying how weak and willing to capitulate they really are. But the annoying thing, Brian, is like the Smithsonian, you can even make a case for that. Okay, it is weak, right? It is scared of the government. There will be consequences if they try and stand up to Trump. In a sense, as much as they are cowards, I kind of get the cowardice. What I can't forgive is the Cooks and Bezoses of this world. Like what is the point? People who have all the money in the world.

1:20:18As the phrase goes, Brian, what is the point of having fuck you money if you don't say fuck you, right? Why be a billionaire? Why be the second richest man in the history of the world, Jeff Bezos, but run to the inauguration and stand and heap praise on Trump and wreck the Washington Post, which, you know, it's just so depressing to watch and so infuriating and so unforgivable.

1:20:40Brian Tyler Cohen:Well, look, you have been, I think there's nobody who doubts the fact that you have been absolutely fearless in speaking out. Highly recommend for everybody who's watching right now. If you're watching on YouTube, please make sure to go subscribe to Zateo's YouTube channel. I'm going to put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description. If you're listening on the podcast, it'll be in the show notes. Please help support, build up independent progressive media. Very important. Does not cost anything to go subscribe to the YouTube channel, but it helps elevate voices like Mehdi's, which are so needed right now.

1:21:07Brian Tyler Cohen:Mehdi, as always, I appreciate the time. Thanks, Brian. Thanks again to JB Pritzker, Jasmine Crockett, Robert Garcia, and Mehdi Hassan. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesley, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me at BrianTylerCohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to BrianTylerCohen.com to learn more.