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In short

A debate-focused conversation about political messaging and “change” in the 2024/2026 election cycle, especially among Gen Z; includes discussion of DSA candidates, election-denier threats, and how Democrats should compete in the “clip war” on social media.

Guests

Adam Mockler, a liberal debate/media figure and YouTube-to-CNN commentator known for confronting Trump supporters (including Scott Jennings). He hosts the Adam Mockler Show on YouTube.

Key claims

Gen Z is souring on Trump because his actions contradict his “no new wars” and economic promises; Democrats lost messaging in 2024 (e.g., immigration) and should reclaim anti-war/anti-election-denier clarity. DSA candidates can succeed if they use resonant messaging (examples: Zohran Mamdani, AOC). Spending money on defeating Democrats (e.g., Third Way targeting DSA) is a waste during midterms.

Notable examples

Wisconsin governor race (Francesca Hong vs election-denier Tom Tiffany); viral TikTok about a NYC pothole leading to Mayor Mamdani fixing it; Jubilee “surrounded” debate clips; AI/fake election videos vs “real factual” clips.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

1:35

Conversations with Adam Mockler

Discussion with Adam Mockler about his rise in political commentary.

“If I have somebody, if I woke up and there were a MAGA person standing in my corner, like, have you seen the movie Obsession?”
5:00

Wisconsin's Political Landscape

Examining the Democratic race in Wisconsin and its implications.

“Yeah, she talked about Thanksgiving as a colonizer holiday and she's said police exist to uphold white supremacy, kind of stuff that was like floating around and not that atypical in 2020, right?”
8:56

Gen Z Perspectives on Trump

Discussion on Gen Z's changing perception of Trump leading into the 2024 election.

“I kind of think of you as a photo negative of Charlie Kirk because you're both from the Midwest, like Chicago area.”
14:00

Messaging and Gen Z's Political Perception

Explore how Gen Z is responding to political messaging in the context of the Trump administration and midterms.

“It's like, wait a minute, you're starting to lose me on the nitty gritty of this.”
24:40

The Debate on Democratic Focus

Discuss the internal debates within the Democratic Party and the need to focus on defeating Republicans.

“I know that you believe in debate as a way to kind of filter out good and bad ideas.”
28:00

Democratic Party Challenges

Discussing the Democratic Party's struggles in the political landscape.

“I'm just saying it can make it feel a little bit impossible to manage if you're a Democrat.”
29:10

Reflections on Conventions

Comparing experiences at the Democratic and Republican conventions.

“You didn't like the convention or the city?”
30:01

Debate and Engagement in Politics

Exploring how political debate and youth engagement influence voting.

“You know, I said before I see you as a kind of inverse Charlie Kirk, but part of what made Charlie Kirk so powerful was that he helped turn out the vote for Donald Trump.”
31:28

Navigating Journalism and Influence

Discussing the balance between journalism and political influence.

“And on campus, he would register every single one of those people in the crowd and make sure they were there on election day.”
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Transcript

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0:00Hi, this is Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman. I've been writing about food and restaurants for almost 50 years, my whole career, really. And what I know is that the good restaurants all have something in common. They're busy, genuinely, chaotically busy. And somehow in the last few years, the best of them have begun to make it look easy. And do you know why? Because they're running on Toast's technology. Toast is built for restaurant owners who understand that Toast's tools keep the line moving and keep their customers happy, with fewer mistakes and hiccups in ordering and paying.

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1:35when I got Adam Mockler on the line yesterday it made sense that it was 8 30 in the morning and he was already at the airport getting ready to catch a flight because Adam I think of him as the energizer bunny of liberal debate bros do you wake up in the morning like ready to debate Yeah, generally. If I have somebody, if I woke up and there were a MAGA person standing in my corner, like, have you seen the movie Obsession? Where, like, the girlfriend is, like, standing in the corner. Like, haunting you? Yeah, yeah. I would immediately ask him who won the 2020 election because they can't answer this question.

2:14They can't answer the question. So, yes, I wake up and I'm ready to debate.

2:22I feel like over the last year or so you've had this moment, You've gone from YouTube guy to CNN commentator. And you're known for going on air and picking apart Trump supporters, especially Scott Jennings, who you seem to have a very special relationship with. I was only a few years old while you were in the administration defending prior endless wars. Now, this war is failing. Eight weeks is endless to you? OK. The clip that went really viral was when you were talking with your hands next to Scott Jennings about the Iran war. And he told you to get your hands out of his face. Because you can't defend the fact that this war is not going your way.

2:54Wait, one more time. Not going your way. Name one political concession. Name one political concession. Hey, hey, whoa, whoa. Honestly, I'm not going to have this guy's name on my face. Everybody hang tight, okay? When you go on TV or anywhere, are you trying to create moments like that? It wasn't that I was trying to create that moment. It's that I'm not somebody that's going to allow the table to move on or play by this random set of rules. Like, you know what really bothers me is that Scott Jennings plays by no set of rules. He goes on these tables. He crosses his arms. He'll be smug. He'll demean.

3:26He'll talk over whatever female panelists are on the are on the table that day. And the moment that I actually apply some pressure and try to assert myself in the real timeline, he blows the hell up. So he can dish it out, but he can't take it. Exactly. He can't. If you can't take the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen, Scott Jennings. That's what I'd say. The ability to stand up and fight is maybe the quality that matters most to Adam. him. He's kind of a funny guy, because if you squint and look at him one way, he seems like a moderate. Look at him from another angle, and he seems super progressive.

3:57And in a way, he's a bit of both. He wants a big tent for the Democrats. This midterm season, he's probably going to get one. By the time you hear this, you may already know who the Democratic nominee for governor in Wisconsin is. But when Adam and I talked, it was still being decided. And the fact that a Democratic socialist Francesca Hong was the leading candidate, it was giving some folks anxiety. Because if the Democratic candidate loses the November matchup, an election denier named Tom Tiffany is likely to win. Adam, though, he's cool about all this. I think that DSA candidates don't worry me right now because the Democratic Party has been trying a lot of the same thing for years and years and years, and it hasn't been working.

4:44So if we want to try something new where we have candidates who are outside the box and they're trying like change, they're trying to be change agents. That's not inherently bad. Now, the race in Wisconsin in particular, I think there's some soundbites from Hong that she's had to condemn from a few years back. Yeah, she talked about Thanksgiving as a colonizer holiday and she's said police exist to uphold white supremacy, kind of stuff that was like floating around and not that atypical in 2020, right? To be honest, I find the Thanksgiving thing to be rather cringe. When she's backed off the Thanksgiving thing, she said like, oh, actually, I love Thanksgiving.

5:21Exactly. Exactly. People are looking for a change agent. The reason why Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2024 is because people want change. But I would rather we have very strong candidates against election deniers. And I do worry about some of the Hong soundbites in the past. I don't think that's unfair to say.

5:40Yeah, I feel like it's not even the soundbites for me that like, I wouldn't even say I'm worried. I would just say, I think you want someone in an executive role with executive experience, like gubernatorial. And she ran her own restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin, and then went to the state legislature for a little bit. And I just feel like she herself has said, I know there are concerns about my sort of executive level experience walking into this job. And I don't think those are unfounded. And I think when I look at it, I just think, huh, I could see how a voter would be like, well, what do I vote for here?

6:14You know what I mean? That's what gives me the sort of willies. I could see it as well. I could see a voter looking at both sides there and being a bit caught up and not understanding which side is worse. I just, I'm hard-lined that the election deniers should stay out of office. So tonight I'm going on CNN and I'm like very, very certain that they're going to try to ask me about the DSA race because I'm likely the most progressive one on the panel. This is what I'll say. I think it's incredibly unfair to try to judge Democratic extremism when the person Hong is running against is a literal election denier.

6:48Today on the show, a conversation about how much change we're going to get this election season with a guy who is a change agent himself. I'm Mary Harris. You're listening to What Next. Stick around.

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9:08I kind of think of you as a photo negative of Charlie Kirk because you're both from the Midwest, like Chicago area. You both dropped out of college and you both have built or are building these political media empires. You obviously have opposite politics to what Charlie Kirk had. To me, it also kind of makes you something of a Gen Z whisperer. And that's part of why I wanted to talk to you. because in the 2024 election, Gen Z, especially Gen Z men, had a real impact. So I guess I'll start here, which is in your feed, in your experience, as you're out there talking with people in your generation, are you seeing younger voters sour on Trump at this moment?

9:53And how are you seeing that? Absolutely. Younger voters are souring on Trump. Now, I think I need to provide some context as to how younger voters view the 2024 election. A lot of young people during the most formative years weren't paying attention to the first Trump administration. I was in middle school and just like near the beginning of my high school when Trump was first president. Most young people were not super locked in during our formative years to what was happening in the White House. So Trump won was like a vibe. It wasn't like a real thing. It was like a vibe. And most young people's vibe of that time was like, hey, summer 17, summer 18 was a good time.

10:30I don't remember things being expensive because my parents were paying for things. It seemed like a good time. Right. So when Trump then began to run in 2023 and 2024 in that race, he was able to capitalize on the fact that many young people, they didn't see what he was like as an executive. So he was able to say, no new wars. I'm going to fix the economy on day one. I'm going to do this, this and this. And he came with these bold ideas and somehow was able to basically paint himself as a change agent coming from the outside. That's not true. He had four years in the White House and he was literally he's a billionaire.

11:02He's not some change agent that's an outsider. But young people, unfortunately, seem to have sort of fallen for that bit. So when it comes to the economy and when it comes to no new wars, we rapidly see in real time that our feed is showing he's doing the opposite. I mean, Donald Trump is not just somebody who is like like starting new wars. He is actively posting memes about him and Benjamin Netanyahu sitting on the Gaza Strip after it's been turned into the Trump Strip. So all of my generation's lowest expectations were then beaten by Trump as he goes lower and lower and lower and starts these new wars and gas prices are spiking and the tariffs are on.

11:40I think this really bothers a lot of young people. One final thing, young people really do care about the topic of Israel and Palestine. And Donald Trump is not delivered in any sense on that. He's been the opposite of what we expected. How, though, did I guess I want to go back before we go forward. You're saying that young voters like sort of were able to kind of memory hole Trump won. And I actually I believe you in that. But to me, that seems like an epic fail on the Democrats part that that was possible because it's not like there was I think Trump, too, is more extreme. But I think there was plenty of material from Trump one that you could have like re-upped and said, hey, guys, maybe don't vote for this person.

12:22It's kind of a problem with the broader American electorate. I was going to a bunch of Trump rallies before the 2024 election. And you know what topics I would ask about? January 6th, stolen elections and stuff that I cared about. I thought democracy was the issue. I thought that Americans cared about the fact that Trump tried to overturn an election. And I was humbled so hard on Election Day in 2024. And when I sat there, I was like, did I really just spend four months asking Trump supporters about January 6th when that's like something that no American seems to care about? So the point that I'm trying to make is even though it was memory hold by young people, the vast majority of people who like the people who voted for Trump, the 75 million, also memory hold all of that.

13:01Now, I do think it was a failure on the Democrat side to just have a captivating vision and message for the country. During the four years that Biden was president, he sort of lost our message on immigration, for example. And due to him leaving a vacuum in our immigration messaging, Trump was able to then swoop in with the most radical immigration messaging possible. And there was no tension on the other side to push back and say like, hey, this isn't the immigration message we should go with. We have our own common sense message. Biden didn't have that. Yeah, I would say it was more like herky-jerky.

13:32Do you know what I mean? Where it's like it's sort of the immigration policy began one way and then all of a sudden it was like, OK, let's shut stuff down. And so it allowed this opening where it looked like there was chaos at the border. And people really remembered it. They really remember that. So young people, they're falling for this Trump vision of the country that the Democrats just didn't have. Trump had these big, bold ideas. Drill, baby, drill. He used to say, build the wall. He's got these three word things. Kamala Harris, she ran a great campaign in 107 days, but her policy was like, if you are a home buyer under the age of 25 and you live in a certain area, you may be qualified for a twenty three point five thousand dollar tax deduction.

14:13only if you live in X, Y, and Z states. It's like, wait a minute, you're starting to lose me on the nitty gritty of this. And Trump is like, drill, baby, drill, drain the swamp. What you're talking about is messaging. So I guess I wonder, we're a couple years into the Trump administration. We're heading into the midterms. There's definitely evidence that Gen Z is seeing what's happening as you're saying and being like, huh, this isn't what I expected. Is the messaging better now? Because I don't know that there's great evidence, even though we may see Gen Z voters saying, huh, the Trump isn't what I expected.

14:46I don't know that there's great evidence that they're turning towards Democrats. Well, we have a few good examples. And a few minutes ago, we were talking about DSA and whether it worries me that I'm not a DSA member and there are certain candidates. The reason why it doesn't worry me is because some of these DSA candidates are finding messaging that really resonates with broader audiences. And I think it's OK to try new things. Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, is somebody who has become massively popular among young people. And he is directly responsive to like TikToks online. I don't know if you saw this, but over the past week, there's been this viral story where somebody posted a TikTok about a hole in the road in New York.

15:22They said there is a huge like pothole in the road. At Mayor Mamdani, please come fix this. And it was a total meme, right? What do you know? Two days later, Mamdani is on the ground helping fix the hole or at least allocating the resources there. So when you have people like Mamdani, I think people like Abdul Al-Sayed, people like AOC who are really, really captivating. You also have even more moderate Democrats like Abigail Spanberger, who's passing good legislation. I think this really does increase and improve our messaging. Trump is also leaving all these openings. Like with the Iran war, he started another practically endless war.

15:55We're 165 days into it, and they said it was going to be 28 days long. So young people see with our eyes that this admin is starting wars, and the Democratic Party needs to reclaim the messaging, the mantle of being the anti-war party. So yes, we still need to fix a lot, but I think some candidates are really starting to understand how to message. I mean, people are going on more podcasts. Pete Buttigieg is going on like Andrew Schultz or these comedian shows. Theo Vaughn is having on more Democrats. We're starting to get there. Yeah. I mean, you've said in the past you think liberals are losing the clip war, essentially.

16:28And I see your project is like trying to push back on that, like create enough content that can kind of flood into people's feeds and maybe combat what they would naturally see there, which might be more conservative messaging. Is that how you see your project? Yeah, yeah. I have a few projects. I think that's a really big part of it. I think that Donald Trump has turned basically every single governmental agency into a meme account on Twitter right now. I swear to God, like the Department of Interior is for some reason posting memes of immigrants being hauled off. The Department of War is posting edits of war happening in the Middle East.

17:07He has turned every single government account into a straight meme. Can I cuss on here? Yeah, do it. Into a straight shitposting account. I mean, the White House account is shitposting right now about deporting immigrants and starting wars. I'm not saying that that's what we should do. But when people like Charlie Kirk or Ben Shapiro or Trump himself hit the scene and they dominate the messaging with a volume of clips that can't be matched, we need our own volume. Like if I open Twitter right now and I go to Elon Musk's feed, I guarantee he's tweeted hundreds of times over the past week about trans people or immigrants.

17:39He's always pushing these far right messages. People are pushing messages with a volume on the right. And I think on the left, we need that same amount of volume, but we need it to stick up for affirmative liberal values. Like it's so easy to flood the Internet with fake videos of stolen elections. That's what Trump did. AI videos of people planting ballot boxes in Wisconsin and Michigan. But it's much harder to flood the Internet with real factual videos about how about how elections deserve to be safe and secure and you shouldn't deny elections. So I just because the facts are messy. The facts are messy.

18:13They're nuanced. It's hard. They're boring. The facts are boring. Reality is boring. Like it's rather boring at times. So I think there needs to be some sort of explosive in your face version of liberalism that tries to fight for human dignity and social harmony and all these things that we care about while also being debater, being a little bit aggressive, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the way you do that is through debate primarily. Right. Like it's like that's that's the format you've embraced. And I think of like the project that people who make content do. It's like you're you're taking other people's work or information and you're kind of finding a way to manipulate it to make it more like metabolizable for the American public.

19:00and debate is one way to do that. But I got to say, I struggle with the debate format because I just worry that dunking on people doesn't necessarily change their minds. And I just wonder if you've had that sort of internal debate, too. Yeah. So when I first started going to the Trump rallies, the goal is actually never to just solely dunk on people. There's a few clips out there of me genuinely changing someone's mind. There's a clip that went viral of me changing someone's mind on Ukraine. Dunking on people doesn't change their mind. You're right. Having genuine conversation can change people's mind.

19:31But you also have to remember the battlefield that we're on right now. It's not just about changing the mind of the person you're talking to. It's that after you clip this up, it will have millions and millions of views across the internet. So I did something with Jubilee a few months back where I did a Surrounded episode. And some people were asking me, like, do you really want to go on this platform? Do you really want to give this platform air and try to just dunk on people? And in my mindsets, if I cede this platform and this ground to the other side, then who's going to get to Jubilee? Like Ben Shapiro?

20:01Would I rather 30 Ben Shapiro clips out there of him dunking on college students that are liberal and don't really know what they're talking about? Or would I rather I have some narrative control about election fraud, about gay rights, about social harmony, about human dignity and ICE and all of us? 10 out of 10 times, I would rather my clipping and my views being out there being pushed. So my goal isn't always to just go and maximally dunk on somebody. Sometimes that's the incentive that's created on these shows. I don't think you can avoid it on a place like Jubilee. Yeah. When you have like, when you have like, like Jubilee has like three minute segments.

20:34Abby Phillip has like 11 minute segments. Like sometimes due to the nature of the segment, you have to have these fast paced clips. Yeah. The faster, the more dunking. It's, I mean, it's interesting because I see you, you're doing your own show now, your own debate show. And there's this interesting tension in it where you talk about it as a debate show. And then when you describe it in a little more fully, it's a little bit different. You talk about conversation. You talk about creating dialogue at a time when America is uniquely divided. And I think that's really interesting. And then like the headline for it in YouTube is I changed a MAGA voter's mind in 20 minutes.

21:07Like it's not quite dunking, but it's like you have to play to the algorithm. And I do think that that it constrains what you're able to do. Right. I agree. I agree. So it's honestly a thing that my team and I talk about all the time. It's the trade off of playing to the algorithm versus of staying true to what you'd want to do. And this trade-off almost always falls on the side of you want to maximize the amount of reach and volume that your message gets. If I'm posting these debate videos and I'm like, Adam Mockler debates Brady blah, blah, blah, and it's like just some MAGA supporter, and this gets like 3 ,500 views, at that point, I am quite literally stifling a rather good video and good message because I'm not willing to play to just the, I'm not willing to title it differently.

21:52In the same way that I don't want to cede ground to MAGA and other algorithms, I get emails all the time saying, Adam, why are you even on X as a platform anymore? Why don't you just get off Twitter? Like, wouldn't it just be morally right to just get off Twitter? Like, yeah, sure. In an ideal world, I'd hop off Twitter and never use it again. But the political reality is that there is a battlefield happening on Twitter. And if me, along with Midas and every liberal left, we'd be ceding all of this ground. It's also an easier place for you to exist as a white man to be itch. Yeah, sure. And like also the way that I title my videos is how the president literally writes tweets.

22:27So once he once he changes. That's so interesting that he's like your model. You're like, how would I write this if I was Donald Trump? No, I wouldn't say thank you for your attention to this matter. Yes. Yeah. I wouldn't say he's my model. I just think that like people constantly try to hold liberals and liberal media to an impossibly high standard saying I don't like how you title your contents. But it's like, wait a minute. The president of the United States called Tim Walls the R-slur six months back. I'm not saying that we should replicate that. I'm saying I think that the standards that we set are set by the president and not my YouTube channel.

22:59We'll be right back after a quick break.

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24:43I know that you believe in debate as a way to kind of filter out good and bad ideas. But I'm really struck by the fact that a lot of Democrats, especially centrists right now, seem to want to debate each other rather than taking on MAGA. Like, I'm sure you saw the reporting in The New York Times about this moderate group Third Way that says they want to spend 15 million bucks trying to defeat democratic socialism. What do you think about efforts like that? I think that right now all of our focus should be on beating Republicans, beating MAGA, reclaiming the House and the Senate, and at least putting some checks on our government so we can't see this level of corruption again.

25:22Sounds like you think it's a waste of money. It is a waste of money. Like, it's nuanced. There is absolutely a valid conversation to be had within the Democratic Party during primaries as to which direction the party is going to go. Do we want to take a more populist stance, a DSA stance? Do we want a moderate stance? These are actually fine conversations to have. But there is this weird, intense focus on spending money and debating and writing articles about our own allies or people that are in our coalition when it's like we are currently heading into a midterms where MAGA is the goal. So, yeah,$15 million defeating DSA in this very moment feels like a little bit of a waste.

25:58But that doesn't mean it's not an OK conversation or debate to have. We can debate ourselves. Like, it's going to happen in 2028. There's going to be an intense debate on stage. And it's even starting now. But when we're talking about allocation of funds, don't we want, like, James Tallarico to beat Ken Paxton? Isn't that a good place to put$15 million? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I hear what you're saying. Like, the debate is coming. I was just thinking about how come November or January, it may be that we have a Congress where there's one party that's running it, the Democrats, and it's very diverse.

26:31You might have like two representatives from New York who have kind of opposite ways of seeing the world. Like you might have Darleza, Avila Chevalier and Tom Swazee, both New York, both like very, very different. And I don't know how you make it work. It's a big tent. I think it's I read this book one time and it was about super majority thinking. And it's this idea that in order for the Democratic Party to have a super majority like we've had in the past to pass sweeping legislation, we need to have such a broad tent that you can have Zoran Mamdani in New York and then you can have Andy Beshear in Kentucky as the governor.

27:03And both are popular, but both are rather different. Zoran Mamdani would not win Andy Beshear's seat. You could probably even argue that Andy Beshear would struggle in Zoran's area in New York City. But like the fact that we have a diversity of politicians is what this party needs. We don't want such an ideologically rigid box that we become MAGA and you have to be an election denier in order to be a Republican. I think that there can be a broad tent where Andy Beshear has his spot. He's very popular. In Kentucky, yeah. Josh Shapiro is very popular in Pennsylvania. Zoran Mamdani is very popular in New York.

27:34These are all different politicians, but they have their own model. And this is a way that you can build a super majority. But I do think that you then have the contrast with MAGA, where there's such a clarity and speed with which it can work because it doesn't have those things, right? It's very clear about its project, which is Trump, basically. What Trump wants, we do. Trump is informed by X, Y, and Z, and we march forward. I'm not saying that's the way to do it. I'm just saying it can make it feel a little bit impossible to manage if you're a Democrat. Yeah, I think it is politically effective how Trump has the entire party wrapped around his finger.

28:13And I can definitely see a reality where we have either DSA candidates or super moderate candidates like Manchin and Sinema who are holding up the agenda for their own concessions. And that could cause problems. But right now, I think, listen, like the Democratic Party got kind of cooked in 2024. We're still finding our footing and finding the way to message to regain the trust of the American people. So right now it's more about like winning these elections and gaining power. And then we figure out how we can manage. I mean, shout out Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi would have had everybody lined up.

28:46She was so good at that. She really would have. She would not have taken any prisoners. She would have everybody lined up perfectly. You were at the Democratic Convention, right? Yeah, in 2024. I just still remember like seeing her like dead center front row looking at the stage. And I was like, yep, that's Nancy Pelosi. Yep, yep. You were in Chicago? for those days. Yeah. It's such a beautiful city. That was such a great convention. I loved it. Oh, my God. I have such a different perspective. Really? You didn't like the convention or the city? No, I love the city. I was born in Chicago. For me, I was in at that convention.

29:19I'd just been to the RNC, too. And to me, I thought it was a real problem for the Democrats that when I was at the Republican convention, I could have like reached out and touched Greg Abbott. You know what I mean? I could have talked to anyone. Democratic convention, exact opposite. it. It was really hard to get anyone on the record. It was really hard to track folks down. People were surrounded by guards. Like you'd see a rush of like people. You'd be like, oh, that's Cory Booker somewhere in there. You know what I mean? And I think that that's part of the Democrats problem. It's accessibility.

29:49Democrats are inaccessible to wide audiences. And that's why the example earlier of somebody sending a tweet to Zoran or a TikTok saying, hey, please fix this. And then he fixes it. That's the type of stuff that really works. there was this whole debate about whether kamala should have been on joe rogan i don't even care about that specific debate but i do think it's a microcosm of a broader problem that democrats were very risk averse in 2024 well the reporting right was that she actually went to austin to try to be on joe rogan no sorry you know what i mean so it's like it's it's an interplay of these things where i think that both there was a closeness but then also the infrastructure the entire infrastructure was not designed for them.

30:27Exactly. Yeah. I'm curious. You know, I said before I see you as a kind of inverse Charlie Kirk, but part of what made Charlie Kirk so powerful was that he helped turn out the vote for Donald Trump. Like if you went to the RNC, they had like a big stage out front, fireworks and like lots of kids walking around with like red ties, looking to, I guess, go door to door or at least just talk to their friends about things. He hosted AmericaFest, where young people could meet each other and kind of get energized around their MAGA ideas. Is that a path you want to go down? I have a slightly different vision, but I think what he built was very powerful.

31:09And sometimes people mistake this as me just like purely praising him. I'm just trying to praise what he's built for a second, because you have to think about this. He would go to these college campuses and do these rapid fire debates with all these students where he would then clip them out of context. But that was a vehicle to get more and more students to his next campus debate. And on campus, he would register every single one of those people in the crowd and make sure they were there on election day. He built an infrastructure around him that was focused on debate and getting out the vote and converting these debates directly into votes for the Republican Party.

31:44Do you want to do that? My goal is to create an accessible show where politics can be debated. But right now, I don't have plans to build a get out the vote infrastructure. Why not? I've talked about it with a few organizations and I've talked about potentially raising the money. Listen, maybe it's something I do. I do end up pursuing. But right now, I'm just I'm moving so fast and building this macro media and this team around me that a get out the vote apparatus isn't something. Do you think I should pursue that? I honestly don't know. Do you know what I mean? Like I'm a journalist. I grew up as a journalist.

32:20You are not a journalist. You do something different. You're very clear about that, which I really respect that you're like, this is my line. I don't do that. But we're in this moment where influence is such an important piece of the pie. And I don't, as a journalist, I don't have an ethical framework for that. Do you know what I'm saying? Like I, I, uh, I struggle with it and I, it's interesting because I hear you kind of struggling with it too. I have a clear direction of where I want to go. And it's interesting. I guess a lot of people compare me to Charlie Kirk and I understand it in the sense that I do debates and I clip, but then people use that comparison to have an expectation that my next step is going to be a get out the vote apparatus when that's never been my vision for myself.

33:06Now, would it be very, very helpful yes and i could devote a lot of my 20s and early 20s into doing that but it's just not where my instinct is taking me adam i'm really grateful for your time thanks for getting up early right before a flight coming on the show always for you guys this was a very great conversation i just want to say thank you for all the great work you do i'd love to have a conversation again and i apologize for being in the airport holding room adam mochler hosts the adam mochler show on youtube And that's our show. What Next is produced by Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme, and Patrick Fort.

33:44Paige Osborne is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD. Milo Bell is the executive producer of podcasts here at Slate. Ben Richmond is our senior director of podcast operations. And I'm Mary Harris. Go track me down on Blue Skies. Say hey, I'm Matt Mary Harris. Thanks for listening. Catch you back here next time.

34:36We'll see you next time. budgets balanced and lines moving. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. Hi, this is Nicaela Matthews-Ocome from SideHustle Pro. The sale's right there. Don't miss it. This holiday, give shoppers a flexible way to pay with PayPal Pay Later and turn them into regulars. PayPal is built for all business. Get started at paypal.com slash business.

From the publisher

Donald Trump’s success with Gen Z men was one of the many surprises in 2024, but as the second administration has gone on, that support has been plummeting. What would it take for Democrats to win the Zoomers?  


Guest: Adam Mockler, host of The Adam Mockler Show podcast and YouTube channel.


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Podcast production by Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.


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