One's MAGA, One's A Democrat: What a Pair of Identical Twins With Opposite Views Can Teach Us

0:00Good day, good day from Newsweek headquarters here at the top of the World Trade Center in frigid snowy disgusting New York City. I'm Carlo Versano and this is the 1600. This country was stone cold dead. I think just about every one of us has had the experience of getting into a heated political debate or political argument with the family member. You know, maybe you've argued with your your uncle over Thanksgiving about foreign policy or you've gotten into it with your mom and dad about whatever the latest Trump drama is. Not a lot of us have had the quote unquote lived experience of my guest today.

0:34Nick and Nathan Roberts. Nick is a local Democratic politician in Indianapolis who became the city's youngest ever city county counselor when he was elected at the age of 23. Pretty impressive. And then Nathan, equally impressive, is a MAGA supporter who runs an anti-immigration grassroots nonprofit also out of Indianapolis. It's called Save Heritage Indiana. These guys are brothers. But as you can see here, they're not just brothers. They're also identical twins. And they're here with me today. Nick, Nate, thank you guys so much for joining us. Yes, sir. Thank you for inviting us. OK, so we're going to have to do this in such a way that one of you speaks at.

1:14So I just don't want to mix you guys up. So so if I do, just tell me. All right. And let me just say at the arts that it's it's nice to get some blonde white guy representation here in digital media. You know, we don't have enough of it. So good to see you both as fellow blonde guys. um nick uh let me start with you so so you achieved a a bit of virality uh over the holiday period because you posted this clip on social media we're about to show in which you warned all of your followers that if they saw somebody who looked like you but they were at a trump event or or you know a republican conference or they were walking around wearing a maga hat that it wasn't actually you so let's take a look hey everybody nick here i just want to address something for you all that you may have heard about because this caused a lot of confusion So my identical twin brother Nate has recently decided to get involved in Republican politics.

2:04And yes, I promise this is real and not a joke. While this might seem ridiculous for a lot of reasons, it's been very confusing because we look similar, because he's Republican, and because a lot of people didn't even know I was a twin in the first place. Like a lot of families, we have plenty of political disagreement in ours, and it's just something that we've had to deal with. So just know if you see somebody that looks like me at a Republican event, or definitely if they're wearing a MAGA hat, it does not mean it is him. and always disagree on a lot of things. He's still my brother and I care about him.

2:30We just disagree on basically every single political issue. I just want you all to be aware of it. Hope you have a great rest of your week. So Nick, what was that experience like going viral? So it was crazy. It's one of those things that I've lived with it my entire life, having a MAGA twin brother. I had posted a couple of times before about being a twin, but I didn't really lead with the fact that my twin was like a raging MAGA supporter because I'm a Democrat. I mean, I was a surrogate for Kamala's campaign. I was a delegate in 2024 and 2020. So obviously I'm very passionate about not liking Trump.

3:05So people were shocked when they saw the video of my brother that went viral originally of him talking about supporting redistricting at a state house, which I can get into. But regardless, people were very confused. People thought that the video was either AI or it was a joke or there's something going on. they didn't they just didn't even consider the concept and my twin was like ultra mega so people were very and i'd get ahead of it because it didn't matter what thing i was at if i was at a neighborhood meeting in my district or i was at a council meeting or i was at the state house your house lobbying on something every single person was like what is going on with your brother like what is going on that video that i saw every single time so i had to address it i made the video honestly i was blown away just how much attention i had gotten i mean almost every outlet has reached out to us in some way or another.

3:53It's been very surreal, but it's been very interesting to kind of giving people behind the scenes a look at what it's like having an identical twin with polar opposite politics. Nate, did Nick give you a heads up that that video was coming out or did you just sort of see it in your own feeds or how did that work? First of all, I love the characterization. I'm Raging MAGA, I think is what he called me. I'm like, I've never heard that before, but I guess it's okay. But no, he didn't give me any warning at all. In fact, I don't follow him on social media. I don't do any of that stuff. And it wasn't until I had a friend who was like, oh, I love that video, kind of sarcastically.

4:30Oh, I love that video your brother posted. And I'm like, what video did he post? And then I went on and watched it. And I was like, oh, that's weird. That's why like five journalists followed me this morning. because I woke up that morning and there was like five journalists that followed me. I'm like, that's weird, but I didn't think anything. And then he posted the video, but it was actually a nice video. To be honest, I thought it would be like I disavow my brother's hateful behavior and all this stuff, but it wasn't really like that. It was pretty friendly. So it was nice. Oh, no. And I want to get to that because I think that's really the point of this whole conversation is that you guys are on obviously different political tracks and have different beliefs, but you're still brothers.

5:12and that's very important. But before we get there, Nate, let me stick with you. So obviously your brother's a raging lib. You're, you know, to quote him, a raging MAGA guy. I'm just, what was it like growing up? Like, when did you guys realize that you had divergent politics? Well, I thought it was because we were born in 2000. So we were 15 and 16 when 2016 happened. So I thought that was really when our politics started to kind of separate. But we had actually we're looking through like a project we both did in eighth grade and I call myself the Republican twin and he called himself the Democratic twin even in eighth grade so the politics divide kind of existed but I would say it really started in like sophomore year junior year of high school when Trump announced when he came down the golden escalator I fell in love I thought he was awesome everything he stood for I was totally all about it that was in the age of like ISIS attacks and europe and brexit and all that so i was really engaged by that and then nick got into the bernie campaign and all that stuff um so we've kind of been separate since then although i would say over time we've both gotten more partisan not in a bad way which is more kind of orthodox conservative and orthodox like liberal well i think that tracks with with the experience of so many people uh in this country i mean i know you know friends and even family members who were just who didn't really consider themselves political at all until until Trump, until Trump sort of like, you know, came down that escalator and widened this this partisan divide.

6:42So, Nick, you were you were a Bernie bro before you were on the the Harris train before you were a brat. Admittedly, I was so cringe. Like that was the first politics political campaign I followed was 2015, 2016. I was like a Bernie bro to the death. I was the biggest Bernie guy. And then like by summer, I came around to Hillary. But now I'm just like, I would say a mainstream Democrat is probably how I would define myself. I think part of it is being in Indiana politics. Like you learn, you have to be pragmatic and kind of moderate in order to get elected. At the time I was so just like progressive because I had no clue what I was talking about when I was 15.

7:21And I think as you get involved and knock doors and talk to people, you get a little bit more crowded in your politics. And I mean, now at this point, I'm just, I would say I'm an anti-Trump Democrat. So whoever gives us the best chance to beat Trump in the general elections, I typically support in the Democratic primaries. Basically, the code of what he just said is personally, he's a far left progressive Bernie Sanders socialist Democrat. But because we're in Indiana, he has to pretend like he's moderate. So that's basically the translation of what all that was. Well, I mean, there's nothing wrong with a little pragmatism, right?

7:56I think the Democratic Party could probably could probably use some of that. Nick, maybe you should maybe you have, you know, nationwide office in your in your future. But actually, on that point, it must have been hard to be to get elected to a any race in a city and state as red as Indianapolis and Indiana. No. It was very hard. It was the most expensive council race in Indiana history. It was a very hard task. I'm in a very purple area of the city, so I had to work my butt off. But I knocked$21 ,000 as a campaign. I raised a lot of money. I went to all the meetings I had to do. I just hustled, right?

8:29And it's a cliche, but really hard work paid off for me completely. We don't come from a political family, so I didn't have money, you know, family money to throw out the race or a family name to win off of. It was really just by working hard. I mean, it's the area we've lived in our entire lives. So it was hard work. Honestly, that was what made it work. Nate, did you vote for your brother in that election? Were you able to? I did. He kind of pulled in some favors for me to vote for him. I don't remember what it was. It was something about like, he gave me like a$50 TV and he was like, oh, do you remember that?

9:02Like, he got out for me. I'm like, fine. He was the first. Harvesting votes. Harvesting votes. Just like a classic Democrat. live yeah yeah um but yeah i voted for him um i think he's the only democrat i ever voted for and i actually i didn't campaign for him but i stood outside the voter place because he asked me to and he was like don't act like you're me like if somebody asks like say who you are but if somebody happens to think that you're me just kind of like go along with that i'm like okay whatever nick tell me uh tell me a little bit more about your family first of all is it just you guys?

9:37Is it just you two? You have brothers and sisters? Just you? Just us. What kind of, just tell me about your mom and dad. Like what, what kind of ideals did, did your folks, did your family members instill in you guys when you were young? Yeah. Well, I would say we had a pretty interesting upbringing. Our parents were in high school. They had us. So they were not like very political or anything. We were mainly raised by our grandparents. And what I would say was nice is that our grandparents that we had were a very good blend of all politics. Like some of our family members were very progressive.

10:07Some of them are more modern Democrats. Some are more, you know, like traditional conservatives, some are more MAGA, right? So it was really everything. For our parents, our mom is not very political. She's more of a Democrat now because of me. And our dad is like ultra MAGA. So it's again, really a mix of everything, which I think made things honestly preferred because we had a very healthy dialogue and the family. People were respectful of each other overall. And I think we got to see firsthand different people's life experiences and how that affected their politics. So it was very interesting.

10:39I mean, we always had positive conversations and it gave us a good perspective on things as we got older. No, I mean, it sounds like your parents and your grandparents just did a really good job in showing you guys just how messy the world is, right? There's so many people out there who, you know, maybe they're, maybe they're liberal about some things, maybe they're conservative about other things. And obviously they can, you know, they can get along even if they're, they're not in the same family. So, so Nate, the, the, the confusion, the sort of like the beginning of this, you mentioned before, it started when you both gave this public testimony during a recent redistricting debate in Indianapolis.

11:18So, so Nate, now, now that the mid-cycle redistricting plan in your state is on ice, at least for now. And the Republicans didn't pull it off. Were there any political lessons that, I guess I'll ask this to either of you guys, that either one of you sort of took from this fight? Just because somebody is a Republican does not mean that they will align with the leader of the Republican Party. I think there's many theories about why it failed. I would say the most convincing thing to me, And I'm not saying anybody that voted against it or obviously for it is bad people. But I think a lot of people in the Indiana Senate think that they are like the most powerful people in the state, which they basically are with a very strong legislator in the state, especially the Senate.

12:05And they really did not like being basically have their finger pointed in their face by national Republicans who they're probably not even that sympathetic to in the first place. And I think that's kind of an important lesson is I know a lot of people that run that campaign for redistricting in Indiana. And I think with hindsight, they may have done it in like a maybe slightly, I don't know, nicer way and not tried to like hardball them so quickly. But I don't know. And also, my take is that it's nice to see that there are some Republicans with courage who are willing to stand up to a wannabe dictator.

12:43Because genuinely, the redistricting plan did not benefit Indiana at all. And in spite of the immense pressure that Nate highlighted, that national Republicans and influencers were putting in and basically bullying them, right? They were giving them death threats. It was craziness. In spite of all that, there were still some Republicans who were willing to stand up for democracy and do the right thing. And honestly, most people that you talk to, up until really a couple days beforehand, thought they would cave at some point until the vote happened. and it's amazing again that 21 republicans out of 40 were willing to stand up to the president and say you know what you know i might have voted for you i might like you in some ways but this is a bridge too far like this is not good for the state and not good for our democracy and a lot of them did not have any political reason to do it other than doing it because it's the right thing to do and i give them a lot of credit for that all that's untrue a big part of this too is the fact The fact that Mike Pence and Eric Holcomb, or not Eric Holcomb, Mike Pence and Mitch Daniels, the two governors before our last governor, they were pushing very hard behind the scenes.

13:50And they're buddies with most of these state senators because mostly state senators have been around for a while. They're buddies with most of them, and they were pushing very hard behind the scenes to make sure this didn't happen. Why were Mike Pence and Mitch Daniels pushing against it? Personally, I would say it's because they just don't like Trump at all, and were putting everything they could at this. So it wasn't just like Republicans were bullying them. A lot of it, too, is a lot of these people just don't want to be called mean names by Democrats and their district or people they work with, and they're willing to not do what is right.

14:24Also, I disagree that this is not good for Indiana. If you care anything about immigration, abortion, guns, taxes, regulation, environment, anything, foreign policy, those two out seats could very well be the difference between this country being blown to pieces and getting to survive another two years. So, and obviously Indiana's in America, so it has a huge impact.

14:49Well, look, I mean, I think it's a great debate and you guys both make salient points. I do want to stick on the sort of contemporary politics for a minute because Nate, tell me a little bit first about what Save Heritage Indiana is all about. Well, I met this guy. His name is Daniel Pointer. He ran a previous nonprofit group. He'd actually met with my brother multiple times, apparently, and they'd known each other. But he ran a previous nonprofit group. But he got really interested in the issue of immigration for several reasons. One, he had kids. Two, he saw the Biden immigration wave and other reasons.

15:28But he got really interested in immigration. He met me. We basically formulated the idea of safe heritage in Indiana. It's not a super unique idea, but there's groups for everything at the Indiana State House. Dogs, cats, pro-abortion, anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-gun. But there's nothing on immigration and against illegal immigration. Indiana has 100 full-time employees working for immigration to increase the numbers, but there's nothing against it. So there's a huge opening. Everybody that we talk to says they think it'll be successful because nobody's ever done it before. And Indiana has had the largest form borne increase in any state in the country.

16:02in the last five years, just by us always voting for Republicans. So that's really the cause of why we're doing this. And the more we look at the issue, the more we look at the numbers and realize how disastrous things are. And a lot of people don't know those numbers. So that's really our job is to pound the drum on. Just one follow up here, Nate, do you worry a little bit as sort of like an immigration restrictionist yourself, just about, you know, we've seen, we've seen these recent headlines out of Minneapolis with these ICE raids, you know, the killings of Alex Pretty and Renee Good. We're seeing it in the national polls that this is an issue that is really getting away from Trump and the administration.

16:41I mean, this was their issue and they're now underwater on it. Do you worry at your level that maybe they went too far and the administration went too far and the wind is out of your sails? No, because one, it's still Trump's most popular issue, even if he's like slightly underwater. Two, there's always a thing with presidents where the moment they get in, they enact the policies that they were elected on. And then the voters were like, well, that was like too far. That just happens with everything. It's like the pendulum swinging. So I'm not worried about that. And three, I've seen like Google search trends of like Alex pretty or what I don't know.

17:18I don't know how you pronounce the last name. It's like Alex pretty and Heather versus yeah, pretty versus the Chicago bears and Seattle Seahawks. And the Chicago Bears search trends are like 50 times what anything about ICE or immigration is. So I really don't think people always predict this is going to be the thing that ends Trump and it never works. There's always something new. And that's for sure. I'm just yeah, I'm just not that worried about public opinion going against it. Nick, what about you? I disagree. I think that the killings obviously were incredibly inhumane, and it's totally out of control what ICE is doing.

17:55I think people are waking up. I go on my Instagram, which a lot of the people I follow on Instagram still are people I went to high school with and college with and everything. And I saw more people that are apolitical posting about those two killings than anything during the Trump administration so far. I think this is an issue that has broken through in a way that is so hard to do in the modern era. I think the fact that there were videos, especially for one for Alex Preddy, was indisputable. I mean, it was obviously just so egregious. I think people are waking up to it. And I think the initial Trump response of calling them domestic terrorists was totally inappropriate.

18:33And everybody knows that. And they backtracked on it a little bit. But those are the sort of things that wake people up that even Trump supporters are like, this guy is really loose cannon. And I think that it's so hard, again, to find those issues that people can really resonate with, like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, technical democratic processes. those are things that don't really make for a good social media headline or video. But those videos, they say a picture tells a thousand words. I think a video could tell probably a million. And those videos showed people a lot about how the Trump administration is handling this issue and I think really woke people up.

19:10I'm old enough to remember. I've known Nick for 10 years. Two weeks ago, the Rob Reiner tweet was destroying Trump. January 6th, Roy Moore, the Putin meeting, the disabled journalist joke, the Mexican rapist things. I can name you probably a hundred things that people like you for the last 10 years have said, this will be the end of Trump's coalition. This is breaking through. Brat summer is here. And you know what? It never happens because most Americans are not watching these liberal podcasts that you do. And also we went to a very liberal high school. Despite us growing up in Indiana, we did not grow up in MAGA, farm, Trump country.

19:54So most of the people that you're talking about have been liberals since I was in high school. And I was about the only MAGA person at the whole high school. So I'm going to fact check you on that, Nick.

20:06Nick, you can rebut quickly. I'll just say the people that are posting about it are not. That's their liberals. I saw some conservatives posting about it. people that are more moderate, not necessarily people who went to high school with, but just people in general. And I'll just say, I don't think this is going to end Trump's presidency necessarily, but I think it is one example of a bad headline. And all it takes is a few bad headlines to flip Congress come November. And that's all I'm asking for right now. I'm not asking for Trump to be impeached right now or to be removed from office. I'm just asking for people to wake up and vote democratic in the midterm.

20:39Okay. Let's leave that there. And thank Thank you guys for that. But I wanted to actually talk about something a little more serious, which is, you know, family estrangement, political estrangement. You know, I have this in my own family, honestly. It's not not not political, but, you know, members of my family who no longer speak to other members of my family for various reasons. And it's really it's it sucks. Right. It's terrible. It's even worse, I think, when it's politics that comes between people. You know, I remember in the newsletter that I write, I wrote on Thanksgiving before Thanksgiving, I wrote something about how like, you know, even if you're you know, if you're going to if you're a lib and you're going to your family, you know, Thanksgiving dinner and it's all MAGA or vice versa.

21:23Like that's OK. Right. There's you don't have to you know, you don't have to make a big stink about it. You don't have to say, you know, make a big you know, you don't have to post on on social media that you're you're sitting out Thanksgiving because of Trump or whatever. What is your message to the both of you? We can start with Nick, just to folks who in this inflammatory and this hyperpartisan moment that we're in right now, who might say, you know, I'm done. I am turning away from my brother, my sister, my mom, my dad, my grandparents, because they have a different political outlook on XYZ issue.

21:58yeah well i'll start off by saying our family is not all rainbows and unicorns we don't lead with it but there are plenty of things that have ended up with family members not talking to others because of politics and i think it's it's inevitable right now in some ways that there will be some tension however my take on it and you know this comes at it from somebody who works in politics i have to work with republicans every single day of my life right and i understand that family tensions can be very high. But I don't feel like cutting people out of your family actually does anything to further the cause, right?

22:34Like in my opinion, not trying to be mean to people. I think a lot of people do it because they're not really doing much else. And it's in a way of feeling empowered, which I feel like you're fighting against what Trump is doing, but it just doesn't work. Like in my opinion, when I've seen people do it, when you cut people out of your family, people hope that six months from then they'll get their uncle saying, oh, you know what? I voted for Trump. You're so right. Like, you know, I've seen the light now. I'm voting for, I'm voting blue this November. That doesn't happen, right? Like it doesn't really work.

23:05And if you want to actually change their hearts and minds, it's probably not going to change overnight. But I think you really want to build that relationship with them. Don't be judgmental. Don't be negative towards them. Be kind, be respectful, be curious what motivates them because odds are pretty good on their phones. 90 % of their content is totally different than yours, right? They may not even see the same news that you see. So I say just be kind, be empathetic. You know, if there are some people that are deeply, deeply extreme, obviously, that's a different conversation to have. But for your run of the bill conservatives, like most of them are not bad people.

23:38Most of them are, you know, want the same things in their city, in their country. And by having that actual relationship, I think you have a better chance of convincing them than by cutting them out because usually people only get more dug in deep the further out they go from society. If our whole family cuts them out, they're not going to get any more moderate or liberal or anti-Trump. It's usually going to have the opposite effect. That's my opinion based on what I've seen and heard from my family and other families too. I would completely agree. But Nate, what do you think? Well, I think it's a bad strategy.

24:12I mean, I have liberal family members. I texted with my uncle the other day. He sent me a long text about how offended he is about what ICE is doing in Minnesota. And he said he's training at the gun range and all that stuff to prepare for a fascist takeover. And I said, OK, great. Good for you. Self-defense is an important skill to have and all that stuff. I don't cut anybody out. I mean, I'm very conservative. I'm very right wing. A lot of people, when they frame this story, I think they want, you know, me and Nick to be like slightly different. but we're Republican and Democrat if we get along.

24:45But it's like, no, I'm a MAGA Republican conservative. I don't apologize for that to anybody. And I don't pretend to be anything else. But if someone's cool with my politics, I'm cool with their politics. It's kind of different maybe if you have kids because then you have to worry about like influences. But for me, just me being me, I'll talk to anybody. I've done that for 10 years. I've never cut anybody out because of politics. If you respect me, I respect you. Another great answer. While I have you on this topic, Nate, if you're having a disagreement with Nick, political or nonpolitical, what are some of the strategies you guys employ to sort of like work through a disagreement?