From GTA to Grassroots: Mike Nellis Discusses Politics and Play

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the newest episode ofProgressive.
I'm here with my Co host and oneof my best friends Belay.
We are so excited to welcome Mike Nellis to the show.
Mike, welcome. Hey, happy to be here and.
We're a little disappointed to welcome because he said he's not
excited for GTA6. I'm not.
I don't appreciate. That Mike, what's what's up with
that? Like right, I'm losing the young
men vote right here, but you just saying that.
Fine, fine, I'm too old to have the time to play Grand Theft

(00:22):
Auto 6 and I also feel like unless they end like I'll wait
for the reviews and for it to come out because it hasn't come
out yet, right? No, they got pushed for another
year. They.
Got pushed for another year, so like if they come out and it's
got some like new fun twist on it, I'll play with it, but if
it's the same game, I'm not going to I'm not going to like
it. And I kind of get I get this way
with Madden football too, where I'm like they just keep
releasing the same thing over and over and over again.

(00:43):
I know it's been a while since GTA5 but I I don't know I want.
I get. That's.
Red Dead is, yeah, Red Dead is great, Matt.
And I get being annoyed with it just because they release like a
new edition every single year And it's like all these minor
tweaks, they don't matter. But like GTA6 is supposed to
like go back to Vice City. Like that's, that's the
nostalgia. You know, I was like what, like

(01:03):
8 years old and I was playing Vice City.
I don't know, my parents were like immigrant parents.
So they didn't know like, you know, what games to let me play
or not play. So I was playing like, so I have
like some of my fondest memoriesas a kid was playing Vice City.
So going back to Miami. And then the characters are like
super cool. The characters have so much more
background information this time.
They're kind of doing some like drug related stuff, but that's
like, oh, he's GTA 6. That's like that.
That's GTA in essence. Yeah, I'm very careful about

(01:26):
which video games I go down the rabbit hole on.
And and part of it is just I don't have a lot of time.
So like if I'm going to get deepinto one, it better be what I'm
like really excited about. That's why Red Dead 3.
Red Dead 2 is probably the last game I really like, got obsessed
with because I had that story. Like I remember getting
emotional when my horse died at the end of Red Dead 2 and I was
like, why am I emotional about these pixels that are dying on
screen? But yeah, I just don't, I don't

(01:47):
have the time. So it doesn't excite me the way
that he used to. So.
I mean, I don't think like, I mean for GTA6, like I mean GTA5
it came out in like half the country called in sick to work.
I mean, that was like, that was like living through history.
I'm not judging anybody for being excited about it.
Let's be clear about that. I just, I don't, I don't think I
have the time to like get into it the way that I the way that I
would. Yeah, but I mean, that's fair.
But also, I think GTA is a game where you can like play like you

(02:10):
can never play just 30 minutes. I was going to say, oh, you can
just like space it out. No, you're just going to play
for like hours and hours and hours.
But I mean, I'm excited to see the map is supposed to be really
cool. You're able to like travel to
the Florida Keys, I think, whichis like super.
Yeah, you're like super interesting.
There's like the long bridge that.
You go on. But I'd rather just go to the
Florida Keys like like myself. Physically and losing the young

(02:31):
men vote and portraying us to the Republicans.
Wow. Yeah.
I mean, listen, I'm a Democraticstrategist.
I'm really good at losing young men, so.
I mean, in that, Vin, if you're really good at losing young men,
let's let's talk about losing those young men.
All right. So your first big, big notable
thing that I was able to find was that you were a Harris
advisor in 2020. So tell us a little bit about
that. I mean, how did that turn out?

(02:51):
And then you were running white dudes for Harris.
I mean like, how did, how did all those things come about?
So I, I was, I was with Harris basically from when she was
attorney general until she joined the Biden ticket and I
was a consultant for her and I ran and built all of her
original digital apparatus. So I, I joke that sometimes I'm
the accidental creator of the K hive.
So if the K hive has ever abusedyou online, I apologize in

(03:12):
advance for what I may have doneto create that.
I mean, they, they had their moments and, but you know, I
mean, for me, it was, I'd had a nice career in the 1st 10 years
of my, my career. I dropped out of college to go
work for Barack Obama. I went back, got my degrees
later. So I could, you know, get apply
for jobs, be successful and had just gotten a chance to like

(03:33):
learn to talk about digital. And I was working at a firm
called Revolution, which doesn'texist anymore, but did all of
Bernie Sanders fundraising in 2016.
And in 2016, because we were raising all the money at
Revolution for Bernie, A lot of people came to us because they
wanted that model for themselves.
And one of them was Kamala Harris, who was running for
Senate in California. And I got assigned her account,
by the way, I say I, I got assigned her account.

(03:53):
I demanded to be assigned on that account because I believe
that she had the ability to get to where she ended up.
And I believe she could have gone further, but she kind of
got screwed in this last election.
But I able to ride that out, built millions, raised to 10s of
millions of dollars for her, built this massive digital
apparatus for her. I'm the maybe a senior advisor
for the presidential election, which her 2019 campaign was
famously not great. I joke with some of the staffers

(04:16):
from the 2024 campaign, you knowwhich one was worse.
We'll have to exchange over a beer and find out.
I had more than 100 days to do the work.
They didn't. They only had 100 days.
But she was always amazing. I loved working with her.
She was good to me, good to my staff.
She's the first person who called me when my son was born.
So it's not really highly of her.

(04:37):
And it was a great opportunity for me because while the
campaign in 2019 was not successful, if you talk to
anybody, they will tell you thatthe digital program for that
campaign was great. And I was surrounded with some
really smart people like Shelby Cole, who's the mobilization
director at the DNC now. Lena Mangie Bett is over there
too, and just a whole bunch of other like really smart people
that went off to do other reallyimportant things in the party.

(04:57):
Yeah, no, that, that's great. I think I remember like her
launch, her launch was great on social media.
Kamala Harris for the people. And I wanted to ask, because
you've done so much digital work, how would have you seen
the digital like footprint of Democrats evolve from barely
having one? I would say to, I think now we
have a kind of a more robust digital footprint that might,
because we're out of powers, we can have more descending voices

(05:20):
online. So how have you seen that evolve
and how have you seen your work kind of evolve throughout the
years as well? Yeah, well, there's much more
vibrancy to it when you're out of power, which is unfortunate.
And I think that part of one of the cycles we need to break is
not, is getting boring when we're in power because we need
to be as good at generating attention as we are when we're
actually doing shit. Because then people have no idea
what we're doing, good or bad half the time, because people

(05:41):
want to, people want to go to sleep.
So I think 20 years ago when I got started, nobody knew what
digital was, nobody knew what the Internet was.
I'd fight with clients to get anAT Twitter account.
I just had an X account, but it was a Twitter account back then
and nobody knew what online fundraising is.
The way I got into online fundraising and, and for context
for listeners, like I've raised over a billion dollars in low
dollar grassroots contributions for Bernie Sanders and Adam

(06:03):
Schiff and Connell Harrison, Gretchen Whitmer and a whole
bunch of other people. Mallory Mcmorrow, one of our
current clients, it does that work.
And at the time, the way I got into it was I was a finance
assistant on a Senate race and somebody was like, hey, Barack
Obama's raising a lot of money online.
This was the general election. So I was on a different campaign
then. They were like, somebody want to
figure out how to do it. And I was like, yes, I'll, I'll
figure it out because I was whatever, 19 and stupid and

(06:25):
thought I could just figure anything out.
And I did. And I did it mostly by copying
like a direct mail tactics that I had seen and then like copying
what the Obama campaign was doing.
But we raised good money and then continue to do that.
So what I watched was an industry that was burgeoning
become very foundational to the core of how the Democratic Party
raises money. There are hundreds of millions
of dollars getting moved all thetime through this grassroots

(06:46):
fundraising apparatus that we have built it.
Now there's not five of us, there's hundreds of us that are
doing this in a bunch of different firms that are doing
it. Some of which do it the right
way and try to tell stories and lift people up.
And some of which do it in a really shitty way where they are
treating people like their ATM machines and lying to them.
And and then, you know, trying to scam and con them out of
their money, which I hate. And I do not do that stuff for
anybody who's who's worried thatI might.

(07:08):
Where I think we fell behind waswe were really good at memes for
a while. We were good at generating
attention online, particularly Obama era good at it when Trump
was in power the first time under Biden, I think a couple of
things happened fun. We were not an interesting party
because our standard bearer was in 70 something year old man.
And I love Joe Biden to death. I I think he was a good

(07:30):
president, a better president that people give him credit for.
I don't think he was perfect, but he was a good president, but
he couldn't do what we needed him to do as the person who had
the bully pulpit. And the worst part about the
last four years for the Democrats that got us in the
situation that we're in today isthat we had all the
disadvantages of being in power and none of the advantages
because Democrats are bad about using the levers of government
to get shit done in a way that Trump has shown you can get a

(07:53):
lot done. Now he's using it a lot to
destroy and grift. But we didn't do that to like
help people. And that's a problem.
And then two, Joe Biden couldn'tsit for long interviews.
Joe Biden couldn't do the work that needed to be done.
And like, that's because of his age.
And I think Democrats need to say that.
So it puts us at a competitive disadvantage against somebody
like Trump who could who you can't get to shut the hell up.
I'm like on this Epstein stuff right now at the time that we're

(08:14):
shooting this, like he needs to shut up and stop talking and he
can't now. That's his problem when your
opponent is drowning ahead of ananchor.
And maybe we'll get into that a little bit later, but we fell
behind on that. And then an additional problem
just to add a third on top of it, is we've gotten really
cautious as a party on how we talk.
And everything's got to be poll tested.
Everything's got to be carefullycalibrated.

(08:34):
Everything's got to be, we have to use the right words at the
right moment, at the right time with the right crowd.
Otherwise we're going to piss off some corner of the Internet
that's going to get our candidates cancelled.
And that doesn't work. And so we got scared to go build
surrogates that can go talk to Joe Rogan for four hours and
defend the Democratic Party position.
We got scared to put people on Andrew Schultz.
We got scared to do all kinds ofstuff, like part of the reason

(08:54):
I've stepped out of the shadows,let's say.
I sort of hate that phrase, by the way, is like I go out and I
do right wing TV, so I go do Piers Morgan and I do News
Nation. I do Merit TV, which is Doctor
Phil's TV's network like which by the way, just filed for
bankruptcy. So that's how good of an on air
personality they had in me. I'm not generating the clicks
for them that they want or the views, but we need more people
that are going to go do that andwe don't have enough.

(09:15):
And so there's this ongoing conversation about how do we
create the left Joe Rogan, whichis the dumbest conversation I've
ever heard in the history of theDemocratic Party.
I don't. First of all, the left Joe Rogan
is Joe Rogan. Joe.
Rogan. Exactly.
Yes. And then I need people that can
go in uncomfortable spaces and defend the Democratic Party's
position on things with clarity and with empathy, because
they're not hearing that anywhere else.

(09:36):
And if you get your news about Democrats from Republicans,
you're not going to think very highly of the Democratic.
Exactly. It's.
Just a hard thing to. Create and I want to add one
more thing. It allows them to create a
caricature of what a Democrat isand what they believe in and who
they are. And I think part of the reason
that, like, I keep getting invited back on these right wing
TV shows is 1, On good TV, whichthey like, but 2, they don't see

(09:56):
a lot of Democrats who talk likeme.
I talk like a Republican becauseRepublicans generally talk like
real people more so than the Democratic Party right now.
Now, I think the values of the Republican Party, the national
Republican Party are absurd. And the work that they're doing
is hurting a lot of people. But we need more people that can
talk like a regular. Can I curse on the show?
Just making. Sure, before I get you guys in
trouble, I mean, it's called progressive.

(10:17):
I feel like I should be able to curse on progressive.
But it's it, you know, but it's,it's we, we don't talk like
fucking normal people. We just talk like fucking
weirdos. And it's because we're so
calibrated. And then we use words that
people don't understand. And like Latin X is the perfect
example of that. Like that's cooked up in some
academia circle about the right way to categorize like all
Latinos in a perfect way. And then you talk like that and

(10:37):
people are like, the hell is Latin X?
Like, why don't you just talk like a regular person?
Like, be normal. It's something that Liz Smith
shouts all the time on Twitter. Liz is another Democratic
strategist like me. Like, just be normal.
And we should elevate more normal candidates.
They can just talk like regular people and are a lot closer to
the issues that we're trying to solve.
It's funny that Blaze is all there was one that's getting on
my ass about that. He's like, dude, we just got to
talk like normal people and he'slike, dude, stop with the

(10:59):
academic target and I'm like, motherfucker.
I like, I'll go after them. I'll send tweets.
I'm like, This is why we lose guys.
Like I'm being half serious, butI'm like, this is so dumb.
Like please just use the word homeless.
We don't need to go out there and say unhoused like.
Holy fuck. More than anything.
Look, there are some words that you can be retired.
I recognize that because their origins are bad.
Unhoused means the same goddamn thing is homeless, bro.

(11:22):
It's so bad. That's what upsets me about it.
And, and, and the other thing islike, look, there's a lot of
homeless people in Chicago. I can't imagine that any of them
care whether or not they're called.
Homeless run. But they would like to know
where their next meal is coming from, and they would like to
know where they're going to sleep tonight.
And I'd like to be able to solvethat problem.
And recalibrating the language doesn't solve that.
It doesn't mean that the people trying to change the language

(11:43):
are bad people. Their intentions are good.
But I need more solutions to actual problems.
That's shit that we like createdfor ourselves.
I think that's a that's a big problem Democrats have where we
kind of focus a little too much on jargon and like, OK, are we
being politically correct here? Are we lining up with like what
the like people in academia are saying?
And then people just want to hear solutions.
They just want to hear solutionsthat actually affect them.

(12:04):
So I was saying like, you know, the Republicans had Project 2025
and Trump, horrible policy, but at least people knew, you know,
some of the things he stood for,no tax on tips.
So I thought maybe Kamala Harrisshould have come out with like 5
concrete policies, put them on abig ass bulletin, go to a rally,
present them or have like a televised speech.
And one of them to be like universal childcare, free meals
for children in school. Like that's something that

(12:26):
doesn't cost that much money at all, but it would feel
widespread. And parents were like, oh fuck,
I don't have to wake up at 5:00 AM and worry about what I'm
going to make my child. Does the government just going
to provide them a meal? And she could point to all these
states that do it. So like having these concrete
policies, like build more houses, you don't have to go
into depth about how you build more homes.
Like me and Max agree with, you know, cutting regulation where
it doesn't make sense, making sure that environmental laws

(12:47):
don't come in, don't actually conflict with environmental
projects that we're trying to build here in California.
That's why Texas is beating our ass when it comes to solar.
So I think having those broad universal programs that we talk
about, leaving the details for later, I think that's how we
should approach politics and policy.
That's right. And let me I'll frame it to you
this way is like the Democratic Party loves to do this.
By the way, Kamala Harris had five concrete policies that she

(13:09):
ran. On she did.
That's true. I want.
To be clear about that, but the way they were packaged was poor
because what the Democratic Party does is we go, let me tell
you about the blah blah blah act.
And the blah blah blah act does XY and Z.
And what you need to do is if you file Form 57-C with the IRS
on this specific date, with thisspecific colored envelope, you
will get a $47 tax rebate. And people are like, that sucks.

(13:30):
It's not enough impact. And I don't remember anything
that you said. And Donald Trump goes build the
wall, drain the swamp, no tax ontips, much better.
And you know who's good at that on our side?
Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is amazing at
that. Medicare for all, free student
free, free, free college. Like that is a better place to
be in. And I think you can do that.
You don't have to go full Zoran Mandani.

(13:51):
And I like Zoran Mandani. I'm not one of those Democrats
that complaints about him. But like, you know, he has that
Freeze the Rent ad that he ran in the campaign, which I thought
was really smart and and well calibrated.
I don't know how successful thatpolicy will be when he tries to
play. That's a different conversation.
But the ad was successful. So what is the mainstream
Democratic Party's version of Freeze the Rent?
And if they can't articulate that, then we're going to keep

(14:13):
getting our asses kicked in national elections.
It's like it's using, it's funnyyou keep saying it's good bland.
I argue about this all the time.It's like politics versus
policy. Or some people are like, oh,
well, you know, good policies, good politics and whatever, and
vice versa. But like blending the
commutative aspect of like, oh, we're going to build more homes
instead of boring the shit out of them with, oh, we're going to
reform Sequa and we're going to do all these zoning reforms,
which I love. That shit's awesome to me.

(14:34):
Everybody else in my family included are falling asleep.
But getting that simple message,just fuck it.
We're freezing the rent and we're going to, you don't get
that. Explain how you're going to do
it just freezing the rent and then you can go do all the
boring zoning stuff behind closed doors.
Well, can I also say that a lot of Democratic policy that's put
together by think tanks in in Washington is bad.
I would like to get that out there.
And I think like basic immediateassistance to help people's

(14:57):
lives. 80% of Americans are struggling to put food on the
table, buy a house, start a family, retire with dignity.
And so if you're not making an immediate impact on people's
lives and solving the actual problem that people are facing,
you are doomed to electoral disaster.
And I'll give you an example. So in Trump's budget, they
passed these baby bonds or whatever, however they're
packaging them. I think they're calling them
something else. But Baby Bonds is original, a
Democratic Party idea where it was like we would give you $3000

(15:20):
every time you have a kid to help you get started, and you
could then invest that in the future of the kid to help pay
for college. It's not a terrible idea, but it
is not a good idea because it's not solving the two real
problems that people having kidsare facing right now.
One, if you have a kid and they go to college for four years and
get a master's, there are hundreds of thousands of dollars
in debt, which is a terrible drag on their ability to start

(15:41):
their lives, to start a businessand be an entrepreneur, to buy a
house and start a family, thingsthat we need people to do.
So it doesn't solve that core problem.
And then on top of that, the waythat most people are going to
use that money is they're going to use it to buy the things they
need to take care of a kid. I have a six year old boy at
home. Childcare before he started
going to public school was insanely expensive.
It was ridiculous. I think I was paying like

(16:01):
$25,000 a year. Now I'm doing really well in my
life. I've got a couple of successful
businesses. I'm an entrepreneur.
I'm a decent investor. So like, I can afford to do
that. That's a privilege that I have.
But if I'm given $3000 and let'ssay it creates the effect that,
you know, JD Vance talks about this all the time.
We need to be having more babies.
If we have more babies, but we don't build the public

(16:22):
infrastructure to support them and solve the childcare crisis
in this country, then what we'regoing to have is more people on
welfare. And we're going to have more
people on food stamps. We're going to have more people
on SNAP. We're going to have more people
using free school lunches, whichagain, is fine.
I support all of those programs.But again, I want public policy
that gets people off of those programs so that they have good
wages and good jobs, that they can afford childcare, that they

(16:43):
can afford healthcare. And the Republican Party isn't
speaking to any of those challenges.
They're creating more problems. And the Democratic Party's
putting patches into a dam that's like flooding all the
time. And people are like, I don't
believe in either party. So I'm just going to go off
vibes right now or. The vibe election.
It was a little bit of a vibe election.
But like, I think what when we talk about the vibe election,
what we miss is that like nobodylikes the Democratic Party,

(17:05):
nobody likes the Republican Party.
Let's be clear about that. Like a lot is said about the
Democratic Party's approval rating when I see it in like
higher quality polling and what you see it's like. 30 close.
Yeah, the GOP and Dems are pretty.
Close. They're like at 41 and I'm like,
it's 9% difference. Don't get me wrong, that's about
base consolidation, But ultimately people are willing to
take risks because nothing that either party is offering is

(17:26):
working. Electing Donald Trump in 16 and
in 24 is a desperate cry for help from 10s of millions of
Americans who are struggling. Electing Zoran Mandani in New
York City, which is what they'regoing to do, is a cry for help
because if an establishment politician like Andrew Cuomo or
one of the other options in the race had solutions that were
going to help people, then they would have what?
But Zoron had better, more interesting policies.

(17:48):
And people are going, I'll take the risk on the democratic
socialist, even though I've never seen what one will do
before. But you're not doing anything
for me. And the problem is the
establishment doesn't have enough to like look in the
mirror and go, am I the problem now?
The kids are wrong. It's not me, you know, and it's
stupid. It's why Cuomo's running in the
general. And he has nothing to offer
other than the most vapid Internet videos I've ever seen

(18:09):
in my life. They're embarrassing by the.
Way. There you go.
Yeah, No, I agree with you. I think a big part of our
problem is that we just, we justhave these.
Like I was going to ask you about a specific issue that
polls extremely well, like raising taxes on the rich and
closing loopholes. For some reason, I just feel
like Democrats just don't talk about that enough.

(18:30):
Is that just me or like it? I just don't see that like,
like, I like, I see them talk about it like Biden would bring
it up and he'd be like, when you, you know, close loopholes
and that might be he's just an inability to really communicate.
Why don't we talk about that onespecific issue that literally
polls that I think net like 60 points?
I mean, it's like 40% of Republicans are in favor of it.

(18:50):
I think we talk about it all thetime.
I think what we don't do is connect it to how it's going to
help people because like, I don't care if you raise taxes
for the rich. If it isn't coming back to me,
why do I care about that? So it's got to be like, I'm
going to raise taxes and then I do these three things with it.
And here's what it's going to look like.
And the problem is, and I think the Republican Party is also
like this on a ton of issues. There's a million things we've
said before that people just don't trust us anymore.
Oh, when we get elected, we're going to make sure that

(19:11):
everybody has access to quality and affordable healthcare.
What does that mean in 2024, after passing Obamacare, after
multiple times with the Democrats having a trifecta, not
making sure that every American has healthcare?
I can understand being a regularperson sitting at home going.
I don't trust that the Democratic Party is going to get
anything done. And I don't know who they're
fighting for, but I know it's not me.
And all the focus group information that I've ever seen

(19:32):
and all the polling information bears out that people don't
believe that we can get anythingdone.
They don't know what we stand for.
They don't know who we're fighting for, but they believe
it's not them, and that is a massive.
So I mean, with that is like, OK, well then what would be this
your solution? Like I said, do we go in and
kind of pull like a Trump? Just fuck it, we're going to
break some rules. We're going to, what is it play
fast news for the rules, something like that.
I mean, just go in and really make something to change.

(19:52):
Because I really, I, I don't know, I feel like it's like a
chicken and the egg thing where it's like you do too much.
People don't like what you're doing or we don't communicate it
well. And it's like there's something
that's going to come in and gum it up.
So do we come in and make some real big flashy change or like,
I, I don't know, I really, I'm at a loss.
I, I, I think we need to offer some big solutions and we need
to make sure that people know that we're going to help them.
And we need to have a communicator in place who can go

(20:13):
out and sell it. And I think it's important that
in this presidential election, when the Democrats pick a
nominee, that we do not elect A technocrat.
And if we elect A technocrat that just goes in and rebuilds
everything that Donald Trump is destroying right now, we will
get killed four years after that.
And we will probably elect an autocrat who is way worse than
Donald Trump. If we elect somebody like FDR or
Teddy Roosevelt that understandsI have an enormous amount of

(20:34):
power and I'm going to use that power aggressively to help
people and make this country better and improve your life,
then we're going to be OK because they can go out and sell
it and then we can do it. The problem is there can't be
half measures in that. And when I'm online and people
are like, we have to get rid of the filibuster.
We have to stack the Supreme Court.
We have to do this and that. I lean towards doing those
things I do. I want maybe to spend a little

(20:56):
bit more time thinking through the consequences of that.
But I think that that's step onein like a 400 step plan of what
needs to happen in a four year presidential term.
Because if you stack the SupremeCourt and get rid of the
filibuster and we lose 4 years later.
Now we've gone even further downthe Overton window on what you
can do with the federal government.
But the opportunity that we havehere is that whether they mean

(21:19):
to or not, or whether they've thought through the consequences
or not, they have empowered the executive more than the
executive has ever been empowered in this country.
And if I were the Democrats in an 8 year period, I would use
that as aggressively as I can toget Medicare for all.
Because if we get into power andtinker with the Affordable Care
Act, we're going to look like idiots.
Yeah, like I agree on on some level, I think the the issue we

(21:40):
kind of always encounter is thatlike when Bernie was trying to
sell Medicare for All, there wasa little bit of a hesitation
when he would speak about like, OK, so everyone's taxes are
going to go up. So I've seen like different
polling on this and I've talked to different people and people
are like, I like the idea of Medicare for all.
I just don't know how practical it is.
So what if, what if Democrats had introduced like a like a
public option? That's more, I think the more

(22:01):
comprehensive. And it's like, hey, you can get
this public option. You can leave your private
insurance and maybe expand Medicaid and do like when we
talk about immediate things, I think if you want to go in there
and enact immediate change, fuckit.
One day we pass a bill expandingMedicaid in all the states that
haven't expanded it yet. And it's automatically,
everyone's enrolled automatically.
Like for the people that are eligible, we don't know.
There's no like, oh, you have tofile an application.

(22:22):
No, we have your tax returns. We can see how much money you
make if you are under a certain threshold, you get Medicaid like
that, even if you're in a red state that prohibits it.
That's like step one, immediate change #2 public option.
Starting this year, you can buy into this public option a lot
cheaper than the private health insurance plans.
Creates competition. I think those are two things
that I've been advocating for onthe healthcare side that are
like quick, I think not easy fixes, but immediate fixes.

(22:44):
Whereas Medicare for I think takes a lot of time.
And we're talking about like delays and time.
And you would really need like right now, how many senators do
we really have that are for that?
I think if we want to get shit done quickly, I would do the
Medicaid enrollment thing right away for the red states that
haven't enrolled in their publicoption right away.
Let's like fuck this two year thing where like by like, oh, in
two years, seniors are going to feel the the inflation reduction

(23:07):
act. They're going to see that the
prescription drugs and 15 prescription drugs have gone
down. First of all, 15 prescription
drugs. I mean, that's better than
nothing, but come on, man. Like your means testing again.
And then why do we have to wait two years?
Like what is this Like, I think Democrats are kind of just
obsessed with when they get in power, they're obsessed with
bureaucracy and they're obsessedwith rules and, and regulations,
which look, I'm all for rules and regulations that make sense,

(23:27):
but rules and regulations that hinder like actual economic
empowerment of people hinder a green energy projects like Max
and I've seen here in Californiahinder people actually being
able to sign up for healthcare quicker and faster and cheaper.
I think that's something that wealso need to push back against.
So what do you think about? Well, I hate rules.
I hate regulations. I've hated rules since I was a
kid. I cheated at every board game I

(23:48):
ever played when I was a kid. Don't tell my parents, but like
I'm look, I'm, I'm an elected official in the city of Chicago.
I serve on the school council down the street.
And the number of times I run into the dumbest fucking rules
about what I can or cannot do asthe community's elected Rep
really drive me crazy. And just, I'll give you like a
couple of quick examples. Like 1, there's a sensory room
in the in the school with the kids can't use because they're

(24:08):
shelving in there that has to bedrilled into the wall.
Now I recognize that I am not a professional, but I know how to
use it in drill and I can drill that in.
But they're like, well, we can'tget an engineer out for like 2
to three months. And I'm like, so for two to
three months, these kids don't have access to a sensory room.
And like my son is at a different school.
He's at a public school. I just, but there's a lottery in
Chicago. So you can like we got into like

(24:29):
a really good school. So we sent him to that one
that's like a couple further blocks down.
But then this other one, like needs more people like me to get
involved to help these kids because they're getting kind of
they're getting kind of boned inmy opinion.
But like I can't go in and install that.
But like it's going to take so long to do it.
So it's the example of the bureaucracy.
There's a whole issue with like the roof that's taken like
almost a decade to fix with water damage and stuff that I

(24:49):
think is putting kids in danger.Then the bureaucracy to get the
the capitalized expenditures to be able to fix it is ridiculous.
And meanwhile the kids are suffering and they're not
getting the education that they want.
And I don't think the district is showing any interest in
trying to solve this. So like then if you say that
publicly, like I'll get, you know, maybe not right now on
this podcast, but if I say like on my Twitter account, somebody
will be like, oh, so you hate teachers?

(25:11):
Oh, so you don't believe in unions?
And I'm like, no, I just believein getting shit done.
I love unions. Unions are great.
I love teachers. Most of my friends are actually,
I married a teacher, my wife's ateacher.
But like, I got to get shit donefor these kids.
I got to get shit done for regular people.
And so Democrats have to get beyond creating more rules,
creating more bureaucracy. I think I think Mike, you bring
up a great point. I think if we're going to
introduce more broad based government programs, we have to

(25:33):
first show the American people that the government can work,
that the government can be effective.
And I think right now trust in the government actually being
able to get shit done is low, but appetite for the government
to get shit done is high. So I've I like seen them had a
poll with like 62% of Americans were like they, they said they
wanted a more acts of governmentin their lives.
Me which like that was, you know, take that out as you want,
but that also means that if theywant a more active government in

(25:56):
their lives, that means that thegovernment's ineffective right
now. So there's this two things that
kind of clash with each other inmy opinion, you kind of have to
show the American people that wewon't be this slow government
that enacts change super slow and there's all these rules we
can actually get shit done on day one.
So that goes back to your point of like, hey, we don't have to
break the rules, but rule the use the rules for our advantage.
Use the rules for the American people's advantage.

(26:17):
Like in the ACA, there's a there's a provision in there
when there's like a natural disaster or something that
occurs. We can actually people Medicaid.
You don't know that there's a soObama used that a couple times.
I thought Biden should have usedthat more.
Like I thought he should have used that more in some
hurricanes and natural disasters.
So using the power of the government is good when it's
good for people. I think when we have immediate
help like that and actually showpeople the government can get

(26:38):
done, then we can kind of gain their trust and do some more big
government programs. That's kind of my thinking of
it. There's a there's a lack of
creativity, I think, from the Democratic Party about how we
get stuff done. And we're stuck in a rut where
we try to pass piece of legislation on like gun violence
to protect kids, right? And then we go, oh, the
Republicans are stopping and ha,ha, but like, I got to get some

(26:58):
shit done. So like, we got to get creative
about this. We can't stop leaning on the
fact that the Republican Party has zero interest in solving
anybody's problems other than Donald Trump's.
So that that's number one. So I have AI have a client,
Jocelyn Benson, who's the Secretary of State forever state
of Michigan. She's great.
And she's very likely to be the state's next governor.
I think I really believe one of the things that she says that I
think is right along with your point is that the government

(27:19):
shows up everywhere. You don't want it and know where
where you need it. And that's what bothers me is
that the government's in my way as an entrepreneur, letting me
do and build the things that I want to do.
The government's telling me whatto do.
And like, I always give this example, which is not about the
United States, but when I was inin Canada not too long ago, I
tried to order a burger and I asked for a medium.
And the guy was like, sorry, Sir, legally I cannot give you a

(27:39):
medium burger. I have to give you.
And I was like, are you kidding me?
It is not the government's job to tell me how I want my burger
cooked. All right, now I understand the
medium burger is not as safe as a well done cooked burger.
I get that. But it's so much better tasting
and I get to decide those things.
And so I always talk about it also in the context of like what
I want the government to do and what I don't want the government

(28:02):
to do. And I want the government to
largely leave people alone to live their lives so long as it
doesn't have an impact on other people around them.
So a smoking ban in a restaurantmakes a lot of sense to me
because you can get cancer from second hand smoke.
A soda ban, which a lot of liberal cities love to try to be
like, you can't have a 70 ounce of Coca-Cola.

(28:22):
Like I believe it's my God-givenright as an American to get a
soda, however large I want it tobe and let the free market
decide whether it's too much. Anytime I'm on a road trip and I
stop at Wendy's, I'm always like, give me the small because
I know the small is like the size of my son and and it's
ridiculous. But that's that's my choice of
what I put in my body. Now.
I think if the government wants to do a better job of regulating
cancer causing chemicals up to and by the way, including added

(28:44):
sugar in our food, that's worth doing because it's keeping
people safe. And so there's just a line
there. But what I don't want the
government doing is telling women what to do with their
bodies, telling men what they can watch online because the
same people that want to ban abortion, that have banned
abortion, a lot of states want to ban pornography.
I don't think they should be telling people who they can or
cannot marry. My wife and I have our son
because of IVF. There are a lot of people out

(29:05):
there that want to ban IVF or severely restricted.
You shouldn't be telling people how to start a family and how
many kids they can have. So the government's got to show
up to help me, but it's really about helping me have a good
paying job in a world where AI is going to crush the economy,
making sure I can afford a houseor get an apartment and be able
to do that. And by the way, the locking out
of so many young people's ability to buy a home locks out

(29:26):
their ability to build equity too, which then impacts them
further down the line because then they spend 15 years in an
apartment, they have no equity to show for it.
So now you're suddenly 3540 and you don't have any net worth.
And that's a problem because if you want to start a business,
you need to be able to borrow again something and show people
that you've been able to accomplish something.
So it makes it harder for peopleto rise up.
And that's the sort of insidious, insidiousness at the

(29:48):
right word, yeah, of this momentof America is that the American
dream is kind of slowly dying. Not maybe not even slowly.
It's dying. Your ability to rise up in a way
that you know, my my grandparents 100 years ago or my
great grandparents came here from Ireland and Italy.
My grandfather got a good job atthe post office, became the
postmaster general for Lackawanna County in Scranton,
PA. My dad became an FBI agent and

(30:08):
rose a little bit further up in America.
Now I'm doing even better than my dad and my brothers are doing
better than my dad too. So like that upward trajectory,
I don't know if my son will do better than me.
I'm not confident in that. And when I do my financial
planning now and I think throughthe future of how much money I
need to make to get to my FU number so I can retire someday,
is do I need to have money to support my kid?

(30:28):
Because when I started out, I thought I need enough money to
make sure that my kid can go through college and maybe not a
student loan debt because I'm not confident we're going to
solve that problem in my lifetime.
But do I need to make sure he can have a house?
Do I need to make sure that there's some kind of trust for
him? Can I afford to have that kind
of trust? I don't think that I can at the
trajectory that I'm on. But now I think about those
things and that feels like it's not my job to think about.
And I'm easily doing way better than the average American.

(30:50):
I just doubt. And the average person can't
even think about that stuff because they're working multiple
jobs. They're lucky if they can drink
a beer and watch Monday Night Football.
So it's just, it's, it's so fucked up and insidious the way
that the system works. It's like that sense of urgency
and like that planning, which I think it's the uncertainty and
that feeling of like things are scary.
But that doesn't mean like, oh, by the way, no medium you man, I

(31:12):
won't have my medium rare burger.
If you go to the person, they'relike, yeah, oh, it's we can't
cook it there. I give a fuck.
Like I dude, I'll eat multi bread.
Like you think I give a shit about like my burger's well done
enough. It's a burger.
It's going to be fine. I don't want an I don't want a
nanny state government. I don't.
And I think there are multiple people in my party that want a
nanny state government. And I think those people are
very, very silly. And I think the intersection of
how you build a coalition that can win the future here is going

(31:34):
to be this intersection of like personal freedoms and liberties.
So it's very libertarian. Like if it were me, I would
steer straight into like some libertarian tendencies that I
think my party gets scared of. But the intersection of that
economic populism, so it's like we're going to use the
government to improve your life and hold billionaires
accountable and make sure that you're paid a living wage and
make sure that you have access to healthcare and affordable
housing. And other than that, we're going
to leave the fuck alone and likeyou want to go play poker

(31:56):
online, go play poker online. We're going to provide you with
resources in case you get addicted to gambling, which is
good. We should do those things, but
you should be able to gamble online.
You want to go watch porn, Great.
We're going to make sure that porn is consensual and safe for
everybody. Go watch as much porn as you
want. It's your life and I'm OK with
that. And like, yeah.
And I think it's a fun little horseshoe effect because there
are certain elements of my partythat are very anti porn.
And then just as to go on this random porn and gambling and

(32:17):
crypto. And then there's certain
elements of the right wing that are anti porn and crypto and
they're they're like the same position on like opposite ends
of the horseshoe. But largely we should just leave
people alone to live their lives.
And I think that has always beencentral to what America should
be a place where you can go liveyour life and do what you want.
And, and, and just to take back in it in the 90s, who were the
biggest voices fighting against video games and telling you that
like video games were going to like create a generation of like

(32:39):
violent Americans? Like it was like Hillary Clinton
and I love Hillary Clinton, to be clear, but like Hillary
Clinton and Tipper Gore were allabout that in the 90s.
I remember as a kid being like, I don't feel more violent
because I'm playing Mortal Kombat.
I'm just having fun with my friends.
And we're like the 80s scares for Dungeons and Dragons where
Dungeons Dragons going to createlike a generation of demonic
teenagers. Like that didn't happen.
We just got Goths and they were weird, you know, and I apologize

(33:01):
to either of you or Goths, but like, I should say weird.
You know what? I don't even want to say weird
because like, you can live your best life and and then be fun
and nobody should make fun of you.
You ever actually a medical off?Like, I feel like they're always
actually very pleasant and very nice to be around, you know?
Yeah, my favorite, my favorite. I'm a big pro wrestling fan.
My favorite pro wrestler is Ria Ripley.
I don't know if you guys know who that is, but she's like big

(33:21):
goth and it's like her whole character.
I love her. My son watches it with me and he
calls her Spooky Girl because hecan't remember her name.
And I think it's I'd like that'sa better name than what her name
actually is. So so we should just be a pro
gambling and pro gooning party. I I fucking love it.
Like you know what? Tackle the exploitation because
there is a lot of exploitation with casinos, there's a lot of
exploitation with these, you know, with DraftKings and stuff

(33:43):
like that. So I'm all for better regulating
it so that people are safe and better educating people who get
addicted to gambling and making sure that they have the
resources that they need. Same thing we should do for an
alcoholic who needs support. Same thing we should do with
food addiction. Like I struggle with food
addiction my entire life. There's not a lot of resources
for people to understand how thefood we're eating makes us
addicted to it. You know, RFK Junior is a nut

(34:04):
job, but like the bottom 30% of things that he says are right
about health and food and what'sbeing put into our bodies.
And so we should provide people with that.
But ultimately it's their choicewhat they want to put into their
body. And what we just need to make
sure is that the rules that we allow for the companies to
create stuff doesn't have like cancer causing things and it
doesn't have like anxiety causing things.
And I don't think we talked enough about how the things that

(34:25):
are in our food are causing us to have more mental health
issues, which is a huge problem.And then in the same way like
fostering and protecting ways for people to be active outside.
So talking about after school programs for kids and making
sure the kids can be outside having fun with their friends,
making sure that we have, there's a huge problem and a
lack of connection, particularlyamongst men.
So men are lonely and isolated. They report this themselves.
And part of the problem is like,if you have money, you can

(34:48):
afford to join a pickleball club.
But if you don't have money, youmight not be able to have access
to do anything unless you're lucky enough to have a good
group of friends. So people turn to video games
and they turn to social media. And that's not real connection.
So the government should be fostering ways for people to go
outside and have fun with their friends.
Chicago has right off the lake, a beautiful, actually, it's kind
of a dump. And I love it because it's kind
of a dump, but like, it's right off the lake and it's a driving

(35:09):
range and it's $8 for a bucket of 100 balls and the city
subsidized that. I guarantee you they lose money
on it if they ever try to close it.
I will chain myself to the frontof it because we need more stuff
like that in our society. I want the city of Chicago to
create a pickleball court for people to go.
And I think we should be investing in that kind of stuff
too. So you can go out and enjoy your
friends, whether you're a millionaire or you make 50 that
it shouldn't be. That money locks you out of your

(35:31):
ability to spend time with your friends doing fun and
interesting things. What are your thoughts on like
publicly subsidizing some spike ball Nets?
I'm a big spike ball guy. I think it's great you and your
boys go out. You ever played spike ball?
No idea what spike ball is. Dude, it's like the greatest
sport imaginable. So it's like like a.
Whole I need to know this, I gotto have a frame of reference for
how? 22, I'm 21. 22 next week, right

(35:52):
Max? Yeah, yeah.
The spike ball is a game, but the young spike games.
I just want you guys to know that like, I started working in
politics when I was like 17, andI was protesting the Iraq War
before that, and I used to be the young kid in the room and
now I'm fucking old and you're telling me about a sport I've
never heard of. So keep going.
So, so it's like volleyball, right?
There's like this like little net right in the corner.
And so if you and like two otherguys or girls or whatever,

(36:14):
right? And you play, it's like
volleyball, right? So you'll hit it up, you like
volley it, and then you spike itas hard as you can.
And it's fucking fantastic. Because like if you get really
good at it, you can like do likebetween the leg ones and you can
like spike it. And like people like running
like all the way down the field to like hit it back to you.
It's. Oh, yeah.
There we go. Can you see it?
Yeah. Yes, I've seen this.
OK, yes, I've seen this. Oh dude, I this was like my shit
in college. Like me and me and my roommates

(36:35):
and stuff we'd go and play for. Like it got to the point where
we joined the club, we were going to go and do tournaments.
And I was like, dude, this, thisis what could heal America.
This is racial divides. This feels like the zoomer
version of hacky sack to me. I love this for you, I think
it's great. I would play this.
I think it's great. No, but we see your point.
I mean, it's like, it's like that community, organizational

(36:56):
things where like you're meetingwith people again, you're going
out in public. Like I, I think a lot of, and
very sadly, I think a lot about our generation who are just
sitting at home on TikTok, they're not actually talking.
About like young men, Max. I think that's an epidemic that
young men are are feeling a lot.Yeah, yeah.
Well, one out. Only one out of every seven
young men report having a close friend that they could talk to
about a personal issue. Wow, holy shit.
It's. Insane.
And then on top of that, economically, they're getting

(37:17):
killed. So they're twice as less likely
to be able to buy a house, twiceas less likely to be able to go
to college than women. So women are outpacing men for
the first time right now. Men under 31st generation of men
that are ever going to make lessthan women of the same age.
And the way that is going to them up psychologically and in
society is like, we haven't fully rooted into that.
By the way, we shouldn't do anything to get in the way of

(37:37):
women who are kicking young men's ass right now.
That's actually amazing. But if men fall too far behind,
then they're going to get disaffected.
And this is a Scott Galloway quote, so I don't want to take
credit for it. But if they get disaffected,
they're going to affect a lot ofwomen.
And young men who are disaffected tend to be pretty
violent, especially when they'relistening to ask clowns like
Andrew Paid You. Know it's funny that you say
that with the the disaffected, like the falling behind young

(37:58):
women. I was thinking a lot about
there's no Smith article where it's like as the demographics,
the United States change, like white people become minorities
and like men are now being like out earned by women.
It's like essentially they're achieving this minority status.
But like we still haven't wrapped our head around like,
OK, well, wait a minute. We can help them now that
they're falling behind. Like that doesn't mean we we
we've go into like the JD vans, like, oh, we should make women,
you know, go back to like 1930s Like, no, no, that's, that's

(38:18):
that's not happening. We're not doing that.
But we can help young men get back on track and try to at
least keep it fair. You know, it always should have
been fair. It doesn't mean we just abandon
you. Like, oh, too bad, so sad.
Like sucks, you know, Like that's not.
I don't think it's said it's unfair to men.
It's that the issues of our timeright now on those particular
issues just are disproportionately affecting and
holding men behind. And then the loudest voices that
they're listening to are guys like Andrew Tate.

(38:40):
And part of that is that in the last decade, there was a
well-intentioned attempt by white liberal men like me to
kind of take a step back and letwomen and people of color have
their say and their time. And I don't think that that was
necessarily wrong, but it shouldhave been that we should have
also been there cheering them onand talking to people who look
like us, because it's hard to besomething you don't see or hear
from regularly. And then Donald Trump and Andrew

(39:01):
Tate and Elon Musk and all theseother, I frankly think they're
all cocks. Like they, they stepped into
this void and they told you a man's his places to take what he
wants and to be violent and meanabout it.
And women are the source of all of your problems and you deserve
a maid who's subservient to you and all this shit.
And like, I don't have a problemif somebody wants to be a trad
wife, but that's the relationship you want to have.
So long as it's consensual, I don't care.
That's the idea of my wife beinga trad wife is really weird to

(39:24):
me because like my wife would probably kick my ass before if I
ever brought anything like that up.
But like, and I like her that way, by the way.
Like I think my wife more than anybody else in my life keeps me
in check, but I recognize that there are different people who
want different things. But we shouldn't have all the
voices in the space be guys likeAndrew Tate who are predatory
and violent towards women. And that's our fault though,
because we, we've, I mean, you, you've been doing your best and

(39:45):
you've been trying, but I think we need to amplify more voices
like yours. I kind of get in that space.
I see. See, Blake.
I don't. I don't try.
I'm. I'm one year into being a public
figure, which I feel is weird tosay.
I like most people. Like 2 months ago like.
I got pulled out of the shadows by a series of like, conspiracy
theories that Laura Loomer started by me.
And then I kind of went. Oh wait, wait, can we hear

(40:07):
these? Wait, can we?
Talk about that in a second if you'd like.
But like, I got pulled out of being like an anonymous figure
into being a public figure and then kind of went, fuck it.
Well, if this is going to happenanyway, then I'm going to do it
right? And then a light bulb clicked on
to be like, all right, I see what's wrong here and maybe I
can be one of the people to kindof help with it.
And I don't, I don't know. But you know, I'm in one of
those those Democratic Party incubators trying to find the

(40:27):
next Joe Rogan. And I laugh about it all the
time because I'm like, I'm not Joe Rogan.
I don't want to be Joe Rogan. But it's funny.
We need more people to step out and do it.
But Blake, we haven't been tried.
That's the problem. And, and a year like Joe Rogan's
on year 14 of the Rogan Experience.
I listened to Joe Rogan 10 yearsago.
He was much less crazy then. But like, we have to.
We'll see where we are in 10 years.

(40:48):
Maybe I stick around, maybe I go, maybe I breakthrough, maybe
I don't. I don't know.
And I'm not going to pretend I'mperfectly OK to go back to not
having. I'd be happy to never look at
Twitter again. You're like a great
communicator. We we need you out there on like
every single show. I mean, being on Piers Morgan, I
think people under account, he gets so many views on YouTube
and I watch Piers Morgan. I just watch him for like
because the panel's so funny sometimes, like God, that the

(41:11):
panel that he puts together. I actually I like the show.
It's so it's a good show. It's a great show.
The challenge is that so I've done it, I don't know, like five
times. The first time they brought me
on for Piers Morgan. I love, I love this because I
think it's funny. It was 2 conservatives and then
like kind of like a very feat liberal, just like your typical,
like the way they want to present us, right.

(41:33):
And then me who talks like a regular.
And so like I spent more time being like the liberal drives me
crazy that like the conservatives did because like
I, you know, you know how you, like you kind of you're, you're
angry at your brother than you are at your friend.
Like it's sort of like that. And then the next time I did it,
it was 3 conservatives and me and then every other 13
conservatives and me. So they don't even bother with
the other liberal. They just stack everything with

(41:54):
me. And my biggest ally is always
Piers Morgan. Like it's always Piers Morgan
coming in because Piers listen, something that people don't
understand. It's the same thing with with
with with with with Rogan. Pierce is aggressively anti
woke, whatever the fuck that yes, Pierce is on issues like
immigration, generally with us on, on issues like how we use
the government, generally with us.
So I'll get my backup from him. So the way that they construct

(42:16):
the show now is like bringing onlike 3 people they know that I
can't fucking stand. Last time I did it, it was like
me, Dinesh D'souza, some Twitch streamer I never heard of
before, and the pizza gate guy and I was rothing at the mouth
to be on that show. And I missed one a few a few
weeks ago that I couldn't do because I was travelling with my
family. And it was when the the Biden

(42:37):
book was out and the panel was going to be me, Cindy Lee and
like I forget who the other my. It was like it was like Lindy
Lee, Charlie Kirk and like some other asshole.
And I was like later, and I was pissed that I wasn't on this
panel. I would actually like demand him
to do that panel again if I missed it kind of want to.
Be like I'll come back on, but only if you.

(42:59):
Please. Oh wow, Lindy Lee.
Charlie Kirk a little bitch on Twitter this week and one of
his, one of his minions responded to me by by saying
you're a pathological liar. And I wrote back, no, it's true.
Charlie Kirk really is a little bitch.
Little bitch I am. OK so I commented under Benny
Johnson use the word that maybe we shouldn't use too much and it
has like over 1500 likes right now.

(43:20):
I called him a retard because like he was trying to
misinterpret something. Me and Max are like on the
autism spectrum, so I think it'sfine for us to say that.
But whatever, you're good with it, that awesome.
Yeah, we were, we, we have the, we're, we're the OK, but.
I got yelled at because I I was talking about Italians.
I'm half Italian. I said, I said Diego and Guba on
a call on, on one of my lives. And somebody was like, you know,

(43:42):
you can't say that. And I was like, no, I get to say
it because it's me, you know? Yeah, yeah, I'm like, I, I, I'm
like very. Common term when I'm home with
my family. And, and and we got like I'm, we
got no pushback on that comment.Like it's one of the top
comments under Benny Johnson's thing.
I'm like you just are though. Like I'm sorry you said dumb
ass. It's like those short replies.
It's like no he's a little bitchlike he just is.

(44:02):
You don't have to refute the point like just bring it up
again do. You know that I had to brag
about this because not enough people know.
I had the biggest tweet in America on Tuesday, apparently,
according to socialisting stats,which is Nancy Mace tweeted that
all child rapists should be sentto prison, which is true, they
should be. And but she did it like 5
minutes after she voted to conceal the files.
And so I quote tweeted it and I just said 5 minutes ago you

(44:25):
voted to conceal the Epstein files.
And I went like I didn't look atit for like 5 hours.
We came back and it had like 100,000 likes and it I.
Think I saw, yeah. After like 350,000 likes I've
never had a tweet blow up that big.
It was like shit. Like 57,000,000 times or
something. It was it was because and it got
community noted which made it even funnier.
So I said I sent it to my wife, but I said this better make it

(44:45):
into my obit. Like when I die, I want somebody
to read this out and I hope thateverybody goes.
Who the fuck is Nancy Mace? She's the lady who loves beans
like that's. She loves beans, Max, just know
that. I actually don't think that was
that much beans like. It was like 1 tray, but it was
so it was like Kyle Kolinsky. It was Kyle Kolinsky from

(45:08):
Secular Talk we'd love to have on the show.
Love you Kyle, but he like tweeted, that's a lot of beans,
you nasty bitch. You mentioned like hundreds of
thousands of likes and the the Democratic official Twitter page
quote retweeted her saying don'tyou have like some beans to go
eat? You know that my favorite tweet
that the DNC sent out was some reaction to Ted Cruz that

(45:29):
reminded everybody. I think it was Ted Cruz like
signed on to an anti porn bill and they posted a photo of the
porn star with the name something I heard Corey Chase or
something like that. Remember, David, which is like
her like lowering her glasses a little bit And I quote tweeted
it and then I said something like we have to teach the
classics young kids they don't understand how good tweeted.

(45:51):
And then my tweet outperformed the DNC tweet, and now my tweet
hangs in the DNC office for outperforming their very good
tweet. So it's.
So that's like. By the way, the DNC social team
doing incredible work not getting.
Amazing, Holy shit, dude, amazing work.
I have friends that will send menormie like friends who don't
really then ARN and to impalt they send me their tweets and

(46:13):
then their Instagram posts and their tik toks.
They had like a TikTok about basically like the big beautiful
bill, adding more taxes on your parlay.
Like when you do a little parlayfor like whatever, like you bet
on a couple NFL games, whoever'sgoing to win and now you have to
pay like taxes on that or an increase number of taxes.
And my friend sent it to me and I was like, Oh, that's so funny.
Like they're they're strategy has been great and there's some
people that are criticizing them.

(46:33):
They're like, you're just like too online.
I'm like, that's what the fuck you're supposed to be when
you're a Twitter account, you'resupposed to be quote UN quote
too online. Like everybody's online
nowadays. So that term too online, like,
yeah, if you're going out there and giving a speech and you're
bringing up like Nancy Mace's beans, the amount of bean sheets
all the time, that's being too online.
When you're shit posting on Twitter, that's being online.

(46:54):
So you should be too online. What's, what's your target
audience and what's your goal? So exactly they are one, setting
the tone for the rest of the Democratic Party, which is a big
thing the DNC does that's important.
And I find their Twitter accountto be fucking hilarious.
And I see that sometimes when I'm feeling a lack of
creativity. But then, but then two, their
job is to communicate with theirtarget audience.
And on Twitter, their target audience is reporters, is people

(47:16):
like me, it's people like you guys, and it's regular people
who are very online that then goout and have conversations with
their friends. Because what happens is you get
a funny meme, you show it to 20 of your friends, 19 of which
don't look at Twitter the way that you and I do, and that
seeps into the consciousness. Trump is also very good at that,
but tell you the White House social media is unhinged and

(47:37):
weird and weird. They were doing like the, the,
you know, like, like how Max we have that joke about the girls
who type in all lowercase or have like the, the, the nail
emoji thing. They like just tweet random
shit. And I have like my one of my
conservative friends is like, bro, why does our why does our
White House account look like your guys's like Democrat
account from like 3 years ago? And I was like, wait, that makes

(47:58):
no, it makes it's like, Oh, he ate like they had a tweet about
Trump like this policy ate. And I'm like, it's like those
like little niche things that weused to like do that are a
little maybe sided towards one gender more than the the other
that now like the White House Trump account is doing.
And then my friend's like, this is stupid.
Did we switch sides? What I like about it though, is
like, OK, people are less afraidto fuck up or they're less

(48:21):
afraid to get yelled at, and that's good.
And I feel that too, although I almost got cancelled a couple
weeks ago when Elon Musk, the day that Elon Musk and Donald
Trump were fighting, I did an emergency live on Substack and I
titled it emergency live. The girls are fighting.
Fred, this is Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
And there were so many people that were commenting in the
thread being like this meme is offensive to women and.

(48:41):
Like I'm like my God. This is a very common Internet
meme. It's a very common Internet
meme. Like it's used all the time.
AOC said it not but like an hourafter I posted it and I was
like. Those but like those people are
like the the, the 5%, the less than 5% in the in the base that
just fuck our shit up and they're like voices are like

(49:02):
they're loud online. They're getting less loud
online. If you're noticing they're
getting less loud online, but they're.
Oxygen. They'll move on to other stuff.
Exactly just like me, like just reply like I don't give a fuck.
I don't know. I tell people like because I get
other strategists at my level that are like, because I'm one
of the differences between me islike there's democratic
strategists out there. And one thing I hate is like
turning on the TV and so and so's on TV and I've never heard

(49:23):
of them. I don't know anything they've
ever done and they clearly don'tknow their ass from a hole in
the ground. And there's a lot of people like
that. The difference with me is, and
there's a couple others like me that are out there doing it,
like Chuck Roaches out there, but like I'm doing the content
creation and having conversations with people and
going on TV and I have a day jobwhere I'm actually doing this on
a bunch of races. And that gives me a better
perspective. And what pisses me off is when
there's people that aren't doingit and we need more people to

(49:45):
kind of step out of it. But I have so many of my
colleagues are like, Mike, aren't you worried about getting
canceled and losing all your business and shit like that?
And I'm like, no, because one, I'm uncancelable because I have
a good enough head on my shoulders to not say something
really stupid, because I don't believe anything really stupid.
And and I'm not playing a character like this is who I am.
If you turn this camera off and you three of us were just
sitting in a bar talking, this would be probably the same

(50:07):
fucking conversation. And when I fuck up, I know how
to handle the fuck up. So if I say something that's
wrong about a community or I usethe wrong word, or I maybe take
something a little bit too far, I'll be able to go all right,
I'm sorry I fucked up. Can you explain that to me?
I want to understand it a littlebit better and not go do what a
lot of people do in like cancel culture situations, which is to

(50:28):
be like this cancel culture is killing me and you people are
ruining fun and comedy is dead and that kill Tony shit that I
don't really find very funny. So I think there's a, there's a
balance to it. I agree.
I agree. I agree with that fully you.
Know it's, it's funny because like I was thinking about like
getting cancelled and I'm like, I feel like that was like a like
a uniquely like 2020 thing that just kind of permeated.

(50:49):
I mean, it makes sense. You know, everybody's locked in
at home. I remember like my brother, like
and like he was, you know, him and I were like walking out the
house. Like for context, I'm Jewish,
right? I love making fun of our Jewish
relatives. I love making fun of because
like we go to like the family things that they all they do is
complain and like we're like a living Jewish stereotype.
And I said something he's like Max, that's not funny.
I'm like Zach, we are Jew if we are at we are the joke.

(51:09):
And I was like, dude, there's noway in insane the amount of
policing we did over a lot of those very asinine things.
But but further to your point, like it's there's a huge
difference between like making ajoke with your buddies and like
maybe across on you. Like, oh, shit, like I didn't, I
didn't know I'm sorry. Versus like, well, like, like
fully intent, like to hurt someone's feelings or go out of
your way to hurt them. Like, you know, again, Blaine, I

(51:29):
will make fun of each other. That's what friends do.
That's so different than like going out of your way to be a
hateful mean. Person yeah, it's like being a
German is like the Dick like there's a difference between a
German Dick and just like fucking around with your friends
and I think a part of the reasonwhy Gen.
Z didn't move to the right is because Max we grew up and Mike,
you're still a pretty young person but I'm I'm using we as.

(51:50):
I'm not working yet, I'm only 37so see I'm saying it.
You can run for a president now.Dude.
Fuck that, let's go. There you go.
Mike and Ellis. Oh.
We grew up we, we grew up in a time where like.
What Barack Obama looked like when he left office.
OK. You can go to Turkey now and get
like a hair transplant and get. I don't need a hair.

(52:10):
I don't. Need it.
No. Your, your, your.
Yours is perfect. It's amazing.
We might need one soon. So yeah, Max and I, we grew up
like in a time where like, we were getting like just just
fucking. We were told not to say a lot of
shit that people say nowadays. We were just, I think just a lot
of pushback against our generation where we wanted to
rebel. And millennials rebelled by
becoming more left. I think Gen.

(52:30):
Z rebelled by. We came of age with George W.
Bush yeah, exactly. We come of age of like, OK, the
cancel culture stuff, woke and so and like it and now it all
makes sense why Gen. Z moved to the right.
We rebelled against that, like as a crew, not saying mean Max
individually, but we've rebelledagainst that.
Yeah, but like, let's keep in mind like 80% of everything is
the economy for sure. And then the rest trivia.

(52:53):
But you know, when I was a kid there, they would make all kinds
of really dumb movies that wouldfeed that need for me to be like
emotionally immature and and sayand listen to to dumb shit.
And like, I got Tropic Thunder and I got hang.
Rush hour. I got rush, I got rush hour like
early, I was like mid 90s and like I got those type of movies
and they're not making anything like that right now.
And I, and I don't understand why because like, I still want

(53:13):
to see it. And based on what I see from
like the comedy world, like I'vegone and seen basically every
comedian that turned against theDemocratic Party since the
election. I liked a lot of them before
that. I went to Bert Kreischer at the
United Center like four or five months before the election.
I was basically at a Trump rallyand I had a blast because Bert's
hilarious. Oh, how would he let them win?
Like take comedy. Because we have a Tropic Thunder
too. Like, how have you let the right

(53:34):
claim comedy that that's something that I've just never
it. Became unfun.
Like we, we try to make everybody feel safe.
And like Max, I think it was yousaying that, like, I think it's
especially true for young men. Like young men are more
emotionally immature than women.That's like a proven fact.
But also like it's good to have those outlets with your friends
when you're in safe places whereyou can make fun of it.
And like my buddy, he and I, andhe and I are very close and we

(53:56):
had it. We had an incident on a, on a
trip that we were at where we didn't really know each other.
We're part of a group together and another person asked me what
his last name was. And I turned to them and I said,
his name is, His name is, I'm not going to say what it is, but
I said what his last name actually was.
But it was a very common Chineselast name.
So the other person assumed I was being racist and then
started digging into me for being racist.
And if you had listened to the way that this person was nagging
me, you thought I'd been like, his name is Wang.

(54:18):
And I didn't say that. I said what his actual name is.
And when he showed up, I went, no, I went, I'm going to say his
name. What what's your last name?
And he said, this is my last name would confirm that I was
saying it right. Then I kind of got in that guy's
face for being a Dick. But then it sparked a friendship
between the original guy and I where I'm racist to him all the
time now, like on purpose, like,like I look for like little ways
to like make him a diamond to like you dig into him a little

(54:39):
bit and like he loves it. And I tell him all the time,
like the moment this becomes toomuch, you tell me to stop
because I don't want to hurt youor anything.
But like, I think this is funny.And if you think it's funny that
I'm all in on this bit and he's like, you couldn't possibly
offend me. And like, that's OK because it's
consensual and, and, and it's part of building a relationship,
but it's extremely juvenile. It makes our wives very
uncomfortable when we're hangingout together.

(54:59):
It's hilarious. Well, it's like you've never had
a friend. Yeah, so.
With yeah, I think it's a phenomenon uniquely with young
men where like our friends that are girls, like our friend group
here at UCLA, they kind of see some of the behavior we engage
in where we kind of make fun of each other.
And there's some like back like culture bashing towards each
other and like we kind of do it all to each other.

(55:20):
And it's it's very like funny. And then they're like, like, why
are you saying that boy? I'm like, do you see all this
shit he says about like my culture?
Like, like dog, she goes, yeah, but you guys both shouldn't be
saying that. And I'm like, I don't know what
to say. Well, I'm it's.
Like I'm Irish, the way I show affection is by being mean to
you. Like I, I will make fun of you

(55:40):
or I will nothing you like. So I don't, I'm not going to be
mean to somebody else. I'll just crack jokes.
But the cracking jokes is the way I show affection to people.
And like my buddy Kevin is 3 years older than me.
I talk about him like he's 70 all the time.
He's just three years older thanme.
But I'm like, I'm like, I ask him.
I will like show up and be like,Hey, I got that Medicare form
for you just so you can fill that out.
You know, what's it like living on Social Security and shit like

(56:02):
that? Like we're in a bar and like,
it's really dumb. But like the comments will come
out of nowhere and they hit him so good when they just come.
And that's that's our bit. And like, it's OK to have that
stuff. Like we don't have to live in
this sanitized world. You can be fun and you can enjoy
a joke that's fucking offensive to some group of people.
Like it's OK Machine Gillis has that bit about how like we're
about to, he's like, yeah, you're not allowed to make fun
of this group, not allowed to make fun of this group.

(56:23):
He's like, Italians are the lastgroup that it's socially
acceptable to make fun of right now.
And I feel like that one's goingto go away anyway.
That's like his bit. And I love that bit because I'm
Italian and I'm like, it is absolutely socially acceptable
to make fun of Italians and Irish people in American Society
today. I don't have any problem with it
as when he was both, but my my son on Saint Patrick's Day at
his preschool, they had him dress up in a, in a in my son,

(56:44):
by the way, is like my wife is Swedish.
So he doesn't really look. He has like very pale skin.
He looks like me, but he's got really white skin.
And they put him in a little Irish top hat and a little big
thick mustache and a whole goofyass outfit.
And I was like, if that was a fucking sombrero, this place
would burn to the ground on the Internet.
And I don't really care. But like, I'm just like noting.
I'm noting the problem like you know?

(57:06):
It's one of those things like when you live in the real world,
right? When you have actual friends,
it's like the hallmark of like you have like a multiracial
friend group. People will be.
Horrified to hear the way they talk to, we talk to each other
like it's like how people actually exist in the real
world. Like when you're when your buddy
is in the end and your friend islike Chinese and you're Jewish.
Like it's like a South Park episode.
And if anybody else heard that, it would be in jail.

(57:27):
Like it's just that's that's howthe shit works.
But that's our generation kind of grew up on that on like
PlayStation live calls like if they heard the things that I we
say to our friends or the way Blay and I talk to each other.
But it's like a like a divorced married public.
We just berate each other. But like it's so funny.
That's like a hallmark of being friends.
I think I saw a meme once I was like there was like the girls
friend group and then a guys friend group and it's like all

(57:47):
these like 10 white girls that are like I'm not racist, I'm not
racist, I'm not racist, I'm not racist, I'm not racist.
And then next to it's like a very diverse friend guy group
and everyone saying I'm racist, it's no one just to make most of
most of my friends are not racist.
But I think it's like that type of that type of what's the word?
I think that's a good way to sumup a lot of young men and their

(58:09):
friend groups. Like very diverse group but they
say a lot of questionable shit to each other.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's always been that way too.
Like it wasn't any different when I was a kid.
The difference was we didn't have phones in our hands all the
time because I'm that fucking old that I I had a phone, but it
had it was lucky if it had text messages and I was limited to
like 20 a month, which is, by the way, insane.
I used to work in a Blockbuster.That's my other like old man
story. If you kids even know what a

(58:31):
block. What's a blockbuster, dude?
You really seriously not know what a block?
No way play. I know.
Yeah, I've seen like take talks about it.
I never went to one growing up because like dude, the.
Last one of my town closed down.It was like 2009 it closed down.
It was like the best place ever because you could go and get
like movies, you could like rentgames and shit.
The only thing I remember ever because we had I think like.
The podcast was literally banging my head on the table

(58:53):
right now because I can't handlethis.
OK, so I've never been to a Blockbuster.
I remember this one. They used to have like this
vending machine outside of the 711.
Yeah, I remember we used that like twice.
But then like there was Netflix growing up and that was all
there. So we had all the digital stuff
like I was we were born in 2000 and Max, you're born in 2003.
Yeah, born in seven 3. So we.

(59:14):
After 911, which is foundationalof my life.
You know what I've heard that. I've really heard that.
That's I've heard, yeah, I've heard that.
I'm like, do you guys don't understand?
I'm like, yeah, I mean, we, but we grew up with like we still
played outside. Like there was we still, I think
we have the best of both worlds in a sense because we have the
the digital shit, but we also played outside.

(59:34):
Do you remember, like, when iPhones first became a Thanks?
I remember, like, my parents used to have like, Blackberries
and I was like, dude, this thing's so cool.
And then they got an iPhone. Too.
Technology. They were cool for like 3 years.
Yeah, no, I love that. Too.
So I worked at a Blockbuster. I'm going to explain it for the
young UNS here. Like a blockbuster, you can just
walk in and write a movie and you can walk right out with, you
can bring it back a week later. You can make video games when

(59:55):
you work there. Here's the here's the setup I
had when I was like 15. It was dope.
I had is dope still cool can I use that or did I just did I?
Think that's so cool? Yeah, does.
Gen. Z use as much.
It's like people instead of dope.
I think people say like it's cool.
Like bro, that's sick. Oh, so cool.
It's like. A sick.
Come back around SO. Sick, sick, sick has come back a
lot. I love sick.

(01:00:16):
I recently was debating with my brother the proper usage of the
word eat because I think he usedit wrong.
So that's just to let you know about old man Mike Miller shit.
But when I worked there, I couldrent 5 movies a week and two
video games a week for free. Wow, I said it was.
Next to a Little Caesar's pizza with a 399 Hot Ready pizza.

(01:00:37):
Wow, 399 I. Was the champ of Friday nights
with my friends which I would show up with like 3 pizzas after
getting my paycheck and every video game and movie that they
could possibly imagine for the weekend.
It was awesome. It was awesome.
I had that shit figured out. Now you just like turn on Max
like my brother has. An Instagram match description.
Watch when there's like. 50 bro,I'm like scrolling.

(01:00:57):
I'm like, OK, we can't find shit.
My friend goes on Reddit. We still can't find I like I'll
text Max or Ben or other Co hosts because they have like the
the whole movie thing. Like I just go to I'm like OK,
we still can't find anything. We end up watching like a 911
documentary dead ass true story.We just end up watching one on
YouTube. Like it was pretty cool.
It was I'm not pretty. It was interesting, George.
Bush didn't like my dad watchingWorld War 2 documentaries on The

(01:01:18):
History Channel. I will say history
documentaries. I don't know if they everyone
away for your generation, they're very there for our
generation. OK, but it's like, but it's like
it's but it's like YouTube though.
Yeah, it's YouTube at. Some point either like get into
like fancy cars when they go. To the Roman Empire.
Documentaries. Roman Empire.
Yeah, how? How many times a day do you
think about the Roman Empire? Because it's not 0.

(01:01:39):
Never they literally shit shit. No, literally the only few of us
like oh, how many times you think about it Like never.
Like why would I think about? They weren't even like
industrialized. They barely had.
Like, do you understand how advanced they were?
You actually understand how advanced they.
Didn't even have enough steep power yet.
They collapsed for a. Reason.
Power yet? Dude, they're not individual.
Industrial, I'll send you, I'll send you videos.

(01:02:01):
They're infrastructure. It was cool, insane.
OK the statues they would build bridges in like 50 foot water
dog with fucking dare technology.
We go to space, motherfucker, Like we go to Mars. 2025 and you
can order like a burger through Uber heats and get it medium.
That's pretty. Cool, why don't we think about
that? Bro, we got Amazon.
You can deliver shit from anywhere in the globe in two.

(01:02:22):
Days Max, this is losing young men by the 2nd.
I need you to. I mean Max here.
Max just got cancelled I think. He's I did.
It's over. It's over.
My wife came home one day and she asked me the the TikTok
question of how many times do you think about the Roman
Empire? My immediate reaction was like,
I don't know, like maybe once a week or something.
And she thought that was high. And then what I realized was
because I'm, I'm a Stoic, so I've read Meditations.
I carry a copy of it with me andI was like Marcus Aurelius.

(01:02:44):
So I had to throw it up by her. I think about it every day
because like, I have a Marcus Aurelius quote that pops into my
head every probably every 9090 minutes easily.
Oh, Max, they were a fucking Republic for like a couple 100
years. Like it was, you know what?
I would be so my friends and I always make this joke with the
Roman Empire. I think me, I would be like one
of the philosophers on the street and ballet would be a
pretty cool name for that. I think like, like, oh, I think

(01:03:06):
I would be known in history for being one of those philosophies.
Ballet did. You'd be.
You'd be. Diogenes, you'd be like shitting
in the street and like chasing dogs like.
No, I would, I would, I would bebro.
I would, I would legitimately just be like preaching on the
street. And then we have a friend named
Louise. He's like, bro, I think I'd be a
philosopher. And then we're like, yeah, your
name doesn't work with that, bro.
Like, you know, like, I'm sorry,we're not remembering you,

(01:03:27):
Louise. And then they're like.
You know, there was some guy outthere that like, had he was
like, he was like, Socrates sucks.
I got better things than him. His name was just Dave.
Max, you'd be like a. Dude, I'd be like an emperor but
I'd get stabbed. I would be like one of those
ones that gets shacked. Like, let's keep in mind.
Well, you know, my real name is Maximilian.
Is it full? Yeah.
Well, wait, that's. Like a Roman emperor name?

(01:03:48):
Yeah. He should be the first Jewish
Roman emperor, right? Dude, I would just, yeah.
And then they'd be like, wait, he's a Jew.
Like and just over just done. No, I mean, but I mean, maybe
you could have just easily converted to Christianity for
the back 400 years, yeah. Just like a hid there Incognito
like. You know what?
That Jesus guy, pretty good. I'll take.
I'll take a seat. Dude, he was one of us.
I always tell the people that I'm like, no, he was Jewish.
It was pretty cool. And then he got like disabled

(01:04:10):
with a piece of wood. But you know, hey happens.
He's a, he's a socialist Jew. Is that what he is that what
people say? Kind of.
I mean hung out with like and. Homes, People.
Over the socialist tendencies ofour biggest heroes.
But like Jesus for sure definitely leaning towards
socialist. Martin Luther King.
Massive socialist society just loves to be like no, no,
capitalism is great we're just going to cut that stuff off.

(01:04:30):
Jesus literally like tore apart a casino.
He was like pissed about it. Jesus hates gambling.
But we're pro that show on Amazon Prime.
I forget what it's called. The Disciple.
I've I've heard about. It I've watched like a couple
episodes. It's good.
I need to like get into it. But the trailer for this it's
either upcoming or just releasedseason is one of the most
dramatic things ever because they're getting to the moment
where Jesus is finally going to be crucified.

(01:04:51):
And it starts with like, the actor that plays Judas sits down
and when he throws like a pile of gold and, you know, and then
like, very pop culture and music.
And it's not the song, but I swear to God, I swear to God I
heard this. It was like, this is the moment.
Tonight is the night. And it's like all Christian.
No way. I was like.
Jesus, I was like. This my religious like I got to

(01:05:13):
show my religious Catholic parents as I don't want to see
what they think about this show.I loved it though because I'm
I'm a huge Catholic and it's foundational to my life, but
like I. Yeah.
I love anytime like Christianity, like really seeps
in and meets with pop culture and I'm like, yes, let's go.
We can do these things together.Here at C Max, there's there's
more Catholics out there. I'm not the only one.
And. We have, we have our American

(01:05:34):
Pope from the city of Chicago now.
Anything. That's.
Cool. Yeah, it was awesome.
And he criticizes like JD Vance and and Donald Trump.
Yeah, well, JD Vance killed the last guy even.
Both of hate. JD Vance would be on the list.
Yeah, that's true. We don't even.
Imagine like I. Mean Imagine you're JD Vance and
you converted to Catholicism. He converted to Catholicism.
I forgot about that. Let's.

(01:05:56):
Talk about the week that JD Vance had, the week that,
because I think about this all the time, the week that he was
that Pope Leo was selected, three days it was, or excuse me,
no, it was the week that Pope Francis died.
So three days before Pope Francis dies, Eddie Vance, who's
an Ohio State graduate, has the entire university, the Ohio
State University football team. They're having won the national

(01:06:17):
championship against my FightingIrish and JD Vance breaks the
national championship. Yeah, he dropped it.
Looks like an absolute doofus. 3days later meets the Pope.
Or maybe it was like a day latermeets Pope Francis and then Pope
Francis. Yes, six hours after that and
then a month later, the Vatican is like, we're going to pick
them up anti JD Vance Pope. Tweets and tweets against JD

(01:06:38):
Vance. This shit's so funny, dude.
It's a fucking horrible. Yeah.
And usually, like Max explain this.
So when they select a new Pope, they usually like drift a little
from the doctrine of the old Pope.
This time they actually stuck with like, the, the Pope Francis
realm and the Pope Francis vibesand kind of his, his the, you
know, so they usually will like,pick someone that's a, it's very

(01:06:58):
like part of this political and strategical, but they'll usually
like drift away from Pope Francis ideology.
But they picked someone that waslike pretty much in line with
his ideology. Really.
Yeah, for the most part, yeah, Iwould.
I mean, they, they picked the guy whose job it was to pick the
Cardinals for. Yeah.
And Pope Francis selected him topick the card.
Yeah. So there was a lot of trust
there. I mean that there's like a
there's a good House of Cards spin off if somebody really
wanted to do it from. Oh, you know, have you seen that

(01:07:20):
one movie on on prime Conclave? Yeah, I've seen conclave.
Oh yeah, I've been meaning to watch it.
I heard it's actually really good.
There's my favorite scene in Conclave is can you mind if I
share it? Yeah, Yeah.
I don't wanna spoil for it. There's like a there's a moment
where the main cardinal who's running the conclave and then
the conclave's about to start and there's some squirreliness
going on. And this, like, Priest who is
not invited to the conclave is like, I need to meet with you.

(01:07:44):
Like, please, please, please, I need to meet with you.
And he's like, I need you to hear my confession.
Who is it? It's Ray.
Ray finds Ray finds characters. Like I don't have time for your
confession. Just tell me what happened.
And I'm like, that's literally what confession is.
That is what. I was like, you just say like a
couple of prayers. You listen to what he says and
you tell him to go see Ted Haleberry.
He's like, it's not a process. And I.

(01:08:05):
End up basically what it is I had.
To pause the movie because I waswheezing and my wife, who's the
evangelical, did not understand why I thought it was so funny.
It was great. The Real Housewives of Vatican
City is what I call it. That's crazy.
That's funny. Funny.
I don't know. I've like always.
I always wondered what I like. I didn't know that Catholics
were like discriminated against in the like.

(01:08:25):
So what I was talking about like, you know, I'm a big U.S.
history guy. So I was like, wait, so JFK was
attacked for for being Catholic.I'm like, that's so weird.
I thought we were liked in America.
And I was like, oh, I. I mean, he, his political
opponent, said that the Vatican would control every.
Control the White House? Yeah.
Control the White House and thatwas a big thing is anti Catholic
sentiment was real. I think people don't know that
the Ku Klux Klan as much as theywere, you know for sure anti

(01:08:46):
black, right? They're also anti Jewish.
They were also Anthony Catholic.They were anti Italian, they
were anti Irish. So there is like a a collection
and a whitewashing of this in history, which is like I tell my
mom, my mom is Italian and my mom looks Italian.
She's very dark skin colored andI'm like maybe halfway there
between there and my dad. I tell my mom all the time, like
when they're done with like black people and brown people,
you're next. You understand that because like

(01:09:07):
you're white now, but when you were born, basically you were
not considered white. You would not have been allowed
in a, in a, in a, in a golf on agolf course because you're
because of how dark you are. And I don't think my mom
understands that because in her upbringing, like she grew up in
in Scranton, PA. So it really wasn't like that up
there for the most part Joe Biden, just like Joe Biden.
That's right, just like and Michael Scott, the electric

(01:09:28):
city. But my but I think the only
people understand. I think in the same way, like I
saw a tweet that that really pissed me off once where
somebody was like, it was something, it was during the
George Floyd protests. And no, I don't remember exactly
what was going on, so I'm going to get this wrong.
But it was, it was some, there was a black activist who tweets
something that went super viral.And I think it was he was either
around George Floyd, something like that.

(01:09:48):
That was like, where's the solidarity from the Jewish
community? This was during the this was
during the Israeli attacks of you and some black activist was
like, whoa, I'm not going to getinvolved in this because where,
when is the Jewish community ever done anything for me?
That's why don't you learn your fucking history about Jew, the
Jewish religious community and rabbis and and Catholic priests

(01:10:10):
were marching alongside Martin Luther King.
Like that is a very real thing. Like Father Hesburg, who was the
head of University of Notre Dame, left the University of
Notre Dame and went down to Birmingham, Montgomery and
Birmingham, AL, excuse me, and marched with Doctor King on the
bridge. And I think like, and that's a
big part of Notre Dame story, but I think people don't know
that unless they're engaged in that community.
And like, there is a lot of likecollective work that has been

(01:10:31):
done to support these communities in the past.
Because the same people that want to go after the gay
community, that want to go afterblack people, that want to go
after Hispanic, people that wantto go after immigrants, they
want to also go after Catholics when they can.
It's just not socially acceptable anymore.
They want to go after the Jewishcommunity.
That's unfortunately more socially acceptable than it's
ever been in my lifetime at least, which is gross.
Dude, it's insane. It's genuine.

(01:10:52):
Because we don't teach people. Yeah, well, people don't even
know, like it's like the whole thing of going through this
whole history, like the Jewish and like African American, like
Media Atlantic and like Chicago in particular.
That's like that whole history there.
It's people don't think about that.
It's it's a whole uncovered thing that we don't talk about
it. I love that you brought up the
Irish. Like I, I think about the one
locks my girlfriend's Irish and it's like we forget that.
Like, I don't know, 80 years ago, like it was like, I mean

(01:11:13):
like second class. Irish did not apply.
Irish did not apply. Those signs were everywhere. 100
years. What's insane?
It's like for us that's like that's just a different world.
But the I mean Irish, Italian, like all these things like being
like different citizens, that's like that.
My grandfather like almost criedwhen he found out he was part
Polish, like he thought he was 100% German.
He almost cried in like 2025 finding that out.
And I was like, why are we? I don't understand.

(01:11:34):
I was like, no, you don't understand.
Like it was like he barely was allowed to marry.
My grandmother was Polish and I'm like what?
Like it's like they're right here who like what that's.
A good point. I'm a long way on that stuff,
but it's a lot easier for me because 3 generations in I look
basically like everybody else. And it's different when you're

(01:11:55):
black or Hispanic or Asian, likeit's different.
And so it's a, it's not the same, but it is the kind of
thing that I think over time does continue to get better.
And we're going through a dark time right now where we have
like the worst possible fucking people leading the government.
I mean, just posting and doing horrible shit.
But like I do think it gets better over time But again,
easier for white presenting Europeans.

(01:12:16):
Yeah, that's the same thing withlike, I'm Middle Eastern, so I
didn't really grow up with much.I can't blame.
I grew up with like discrimination.
I didn't really grow up much discrimination.
So I, I think that's pretty similar to me.
And I've never been able to likecarry that mantle.
So it's it's tough. Yeah.
I don't know, I think it's a it's a real thing.
But we should also acknowledge that like all these other groups
also have fucking been through it and gone through it and.

(01:12:39):
And I mean, yeah, so. There's what's it mean right
now. It's, it's, it's naive, but I'm
still somebody that's like, there's more that unites us,
that divides us. And I, and I'm someone who like,
I want to engage with as many cultures as I can and like
travel as often as I can and go see places and like.
Boy, also great food like these so you can get Oh my God.
I, I'd say my one of my favoritephrases about food is that if

(01:12:59):
I'm the only white person in therestaurant, I'm going to have
the best meal in my life. I believe that's it's great.
I there's nothing I love more than like being in like a ramen
place and feeling very out of place and then walking in and
going make me the spiciest version of this, but don't ruin
the flavor. And then having the person at
the other end go, you can't handle that.
And then they'll bring it to me.And then they'll watch me eat it
and then watch to see if I fall apart.

(01:13:20):
And I don't. I love doing.
It you good with spice? Are you good with spicy?
Food spice. I love Mexican food.
I love ramen. I don't like sushi.
I don't fuck with sushi. I don't.
I'm sorry. I don't.
I know that that's like a minority opinion.
I can't stand it. It's like a texture issue.
That's not just a minority opinion.
That's like a when I was a little kid, I couldn't eat
sushi, like, come on. But.

(01:13:41):
I can't eat sushi. I just, I've never been able to
do it. The good news is every sushi
place has a teriyaki chicken that's usually.
Or like a BLT, Yeah. Or Cuban.
Yeah. And.
There's no better feeling in theworld than being like the one
white boy at the carne asada andlike they're cooking you up with
like the beans tacos, like just all the good shit.
And you're like, you're sitting there.
They're like, oh, OK, OK. And they cook me a little Taco.
They got the onions. You know when they grill the
onions and they spring on top ofthe cilantro?

(01:14:03):
So good when you come to, I'm sure you've had tacos here in
Socal. I mean, I think we have the the
best. I think undoubtedly Southern
California is the best Mexican food in the country.
I don't think that's like comparable.
I don't think that's comparable like.
It's just, I think that's. Fair.
I think that's fair. Yeah, I don't.
I just think. It's it's like Mexico City
though. Not even close.
Yeah, but it's like here, God, Oh my God, you just go down the

(01:14:26):
street like. In Chicago, though, there's some
really good places. You know what, I, when I was in
Chicago, I had AI had really good papusas from El
Salvadorian, but like really good other like other Hispanic,
Hispanic food really good because I think there's like a
sizable Salvadorian population there.
Great papusas, like really good papusas.
Also one good thing about Chicago.
I do like your guys's public transportation and I got

(01:14:49):
surprised about how walkable it was.
In America, it's best city. In America, I'll die on that
hill. It's a big but affordable with
something to do all the time. The lake is right there.
It's publicly accessible to everybody.
There's throw a rock and hit a park.
I didn't go during the winter I will say so I don't.
I think my Southern California ass would literally like fall
apart and die. Here's the thing.
Three months of the year, it's Hoth from Star Wars.

(01:15:10):
That's terrible, but climate change will solve that over
time. OK, let's go positive
verification of that. Problem is that for three months
of the year it'll be doomed. So.
That's fair enough. I'm moving to Hyde Park.
I would say I'm moving to Hyde Park in about a little less than
a month now, so I'm excited. Let me know when you're here,
I'll take you. We're going out.
Hell yeah. Going here downtown.

(01:15:32):
I was excited. I love Chicago restaurant scene
so good. So many good restaurant.
Now we're bad to go. I finally went to the Sharks
game. We got the hot dog with the
works. I got the big pool of sausage
with the sauerkraut and the onion.
She was fantastic. Wrigley much?
Better Chicago experience. What a Chicago experience.
Dude they had the the Pope hats when they came hit in the
baseball. I was just so cool.

(01:15:52):
I have I have a blue shirt that I bought that says Sweet Pope
Chicago that like I I cut the sleeves off of it's like where
from the. House how?
How Catholic is Chicago? Pretty Catholic.
I don't, I mean, I'm not saying it's the dominant, but like
Irish Catholic, you know, prettygood contingent.
It's actually there's like a bigreligious community out there.
Like there's the Jewish side, there's like the Catholic side,

(01:16:13):
like there's a really big kind of diverse community out there
in Chicago. The the Chinatown in Chicago.
I remember visiting Chinatown was great.
It was so cool. It was like in the food there
was just amazing. Sounds amazing.
My my friend that I talked aboutearlier is Chinese, took me to a
place I'd never heard him speak Mandarin before.
We walked in, he starts speakingMandarin.
All of a sudden we're at a tableand they brought out more food

(01:16:35):
than I've ever seen in my entirelife.
And I was like, are you part of the triad?
Like what's happening? I don't understand.
And there's just every meal, every food they brought out was
incredible. I had some like, like spicy
edamame thing that they made forme that was like, incredible.
It wasn't edamame, but it was like, like that.
I don't know what it's called. I immediately forget the names
of anything that I eat. I have another friend that I go

(01:16:56):
to Indian restaurants with all the time.
People like, remember that, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I think we had like, no. And he's like, remember that
green thing we ate once. I'm like, yeah, so basic.
Yeah, the food's good enough. You don't remember.
Like you just feel like it was good.
I was too busy enjoying the foodthen to remember the.
Name, But I can remember every specific meal I've ever had in
Italy and exactly where they were.
So like that's the scene sounds.So good dude.
Fuck my my friend Luis is he's from Panama.

(01:17:17):
His family owns like the second most popular like it's, it's the
second oldest Italian restaurantin Panama, super popular,
amazing food and like like the president will go there.
They're like politicians will gotheir diplomats.
So when he cooks up like Italianfood, it's like like, holy fuck,
you know, I, I won't be racist towards the Italians today.
I firmly believe that everywherein the world I could get a I

(01:17:38):
could find a good Italian place with a good immigrant story.
And even if I was in the middle of Pyongyang, I'd be able to
find, like, an Italian restaurant, which is like
somebody that was like, yeah, wecame over on wait. 200 years.
You know what's so interesting about that?
I was watching a YouTube video about how North Korea like sent
people to go. It's to go to Italy or some shit
to train them on how to make like good pizzas.
So there's like this market now of like Italian pizzas in in

(01:18:00):
like yeah, in North North. Like a Roman style pizza.
Like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like they, they sent people to go get trained and stuff.
I was just watching it was it had like 2.
Million views to the Internet. They could have just watched a
YouTube tutorial. Yeah, but yeah, maybe they were
also using as like a spy mechanism as well.
I mean, you know, sneak. In some of those like KitchenAid
attachments where you can make your own homemade pasta.

(01:18:21):
I like taking fucking. I'm just trying to imagine, I'm
trying to imagine customs with like a bunch of North Koreans
that were smuggled in, like coming out and like, like, what
did they have drugs? A mixer or.
What? They were like kitchenaids.
There's some yeast, you know, some some pepperoni.
They got, they had, they had, they had 10 kilos of double up
flour. You know, North Korea has like

(01:18:43):
Catholic churches and mosques. Like if you it's so weird that
like. I'm pretty sure I have got.
It it's like they're yeah, it's like part of their new effort
recently built ish like new partof their new effort to like
quote UN quote reopen other called modernize and that some
bullshit. But like, like if you go on
Apple Maps or Google Maps, you can dead ass zoom in and see

(01:19:05):
like, like like the buildings inNorth Korea and like, because
they can't block that. You can see like the camps where
they send prisoners and all thatshit too.
It's like crazy. It's crazy.
So remember when, like, there's this meme going around, we were
like beefing with North Korea inlike 2017 where it was like the
one light in North Korea, and then it was like the one person
on Steam in North Korea. And I was like, dude, is Kim
Jong Un like playing like Rust or something?

(01:19:26):
100 percent, 100%. That's pretty.
Fun. Like we're gonna go ahead and
wrap up here. Anything else?
Want to leave reverse before we go ahead and hit the road?
No, I enjoyed this. We need more young people that
are doing this. I'm no longer young so I
appreciate this. Hung in the heart, dude.
Hung in heart. 37's the New 20. There you go 37's, the new 20.
I don't know how I feel about that, but anyway guys, this has

(01:19:46):
been great. Please keep doing this work
because we need you. We do.
Thank you, Mike. Great conversation.
We'll have you back on again. We'd love to talk to you.
We got to get in with the whole crew, dude.
Oh my God. Imagine the whole crew with
Mike. And then we'll shame him for not
playing GTA6. Yeah, no, trust me, there's
going to be a lot of shame there.
I'll make you a deal. I'll play GTA6 with you live on
Twitch. I'm so down.

(01:20:07):
Let's do that shit when it comesout in a year because they oh
also Trump's tariffs affected. They said Trump's tariffs
affected some of the shit too. I don't know I don't I don't
know the fuck that makes sense, but there was something going on
there. I think they just like making
Kobe skater chips. It's.
Fucking up everything, like the whole it's fucked up everything.
The Switch, Yeah, the new Nintendo Switch or something.
I know it's. Fucking delayed.
They increase the price of the accessories like.
Motherfucker, I want my cheap Nintendo Switch.

(01:20:29):
Right. I mean, hot take.
I think people like cheap shit. Yeah, they do.
You state your career on. Not giving people cheap shit,
You're going to be in trouble. People do like cheap shit, but I
think people also will sometimespay more.
If it's made in America. There is that it is a little bit
of, you know. I mean, like private, I've been
just driving Rivian trucks whichare made right here in Illinois
and I'm, I'm a bit obsessed withthem in the SUV.

(01:20:50):
So I I may pay more for that just to have a car that was made
right here in the. Dude, fuck yeah.
American cars are amazing too. Like we have really good quality
cars. Like people forget that.
Like our cars. Yeah.
And the price is compared. More like it's getting better.
Prices are comparable, I will say, especially now, like yeah,
look at those are fucking bad ass Max, come on.
OK, listen, listen, listen. They're they're cool cars, but

(01:21:10):
like we are not gas efficient. So it's like, do I want to spend
no like $90.00 when I go to the gas station?
Fuck no. They're they're getting better
though. And I will say like I have a
Honda Accord right now, but I think my next card will be like
a Ford. I fuck with like Ford a lot.
Really like Ford. I know.
Those Fords are like cars are pretty fucking nice dude.
The Ford like these, the trucks others are I love.
I drove one of those and why they're pretty sick.

(01:21:31):
Yeah, now you got to get like a car that runs on diesel.
Bro. Just fucking let that shit RIP.
Post. Videos of you like going around?
No, because like Beto, when, when Beto actually ran a good
race in 2018 and actually came close.
People forget like 2 1/2 points within Ted Cruz.
He had his fucking 4 truck. I think it was A4 truck diesel
driving around. He would he drove to like every
single county with that truck like and he went that's that was

(01:21:54):
part of his mechanism. He would drive himself, go
around, meet people taking videos, but like, it's pretty
fucking sick. Because I worked on his race, he
did these great direct to cameravideos that we'd put up a book
and he'd be like, hey guys, I'm just filling up my gas tank here
with this. Whatever it was 35 bucks to fill
up the tank today. If you're willing to donate $35
to support this campaign, you'llbe covering the cost of this
ride from here where I'm drivingfrom Houston to Dallas.

(01:22:16):
Where that's you see that type of like fucking, you know, he
had. I still fuck with him a lot.
I like him a lot. I wish he wasn't in Texas.
It's just so hard there. But I mean, we'll see.
We'll see. I like him.
No, he's a cool guy. He's he's good on podcast too.
He's great on podcast. I'm a big Westmore fan.
Just got to put that out there real quick.
I like Wes Moore, Jon Ossoff, just I like Jon.

(01:22:39):
Damn. Oh my God, he's.
Like I just, I just want a Jewish president.
I want to do. I want to do in the white.
House he like does the Obama ish, but it's not it's not Josh
Shapiro. It's just very like sleek.
Oh my God, it's like Wes. Shapiro is Obama.
I like, I like Josh Shapiro quite a bit, but he has the
political Obama problem that like people talk about where he
sounds exactly like him. That's a real problem to get

(01:23:00):
over. Yeah, and I think Jon, Jon
Ossoff is like, he was talking about the Epstein files at his
rally. And there was this clip that
went viral and it was like just nailed it, fucking on the mark
target. And then he talks about like big
money in politics. That's an issue that like a lot
of people, like across the spectrum, give a fuck about.
Like no matter what you think about the issue, a lot of people
care about big money in politics.

(01:23:21):
And so I think he really is ableto tap into those ideas.
And he's like, look, Republicanscan't say shit about debt.
They can't talk about debt. And you know, they want to, you
know, and he puts it perfectly like they want to increase our
debt to give more tax cuts to the rich and prohibit your
children from being able to get healthcare.
And it's like this great, like just package.
He connects everything together,young, tall, handsome, which I
think does matter in politics. I think bro has it all.

(01:23:43):
He's like a he's a kid, family man, young.
You know, we, we, we did like a tier list of the the candidates
a couple days ago, Max, We weren't there.
Him, Ruben Gallego and and Wes Moore.
We all agreed we're on the the highest tier list for us you.
Put the monest here. We put the monest here.
Listen, I'm not. I know what an S tier is.
It's oh, so you we got to do a tier list.
So we we thought though, and Gallego fucking amazing.

(01:24:04):
Last year we were going to find out how low Gavin Newsom ends up
on that list for me as well. OK, Newsom was pretty high and
I'll wait. Let me, let me, let me, let me
just say something. Couple months ago I was like,
yeah, I mean, I like, I thought he's done some good stuff in
California. I think a lot of the issues
aren't his problems and he's doing good stuff now with
housing. But like after seeing him go on
Shawn Ryan's show for 4 1/2 hours and I listened to like

(01:24:26):
half of that, I was like, this guy can fuck him.
Like holy fuck, this guy's good.Like he, he is very good at the
communication aspect. He's good at like just hopping
on Twitter first thing in the morning, Like how did my
opponents fuck up? How did Trump fuck up tweet
about it? How did Jay-Z, JD Vance fuck up
tweet about it? How did Ron De Santis fuck up
tweet about it? He is like fucking on that shit.
And like maybe not the best 2028candidate, but I will say if he

(01:24:49):
can like lessen the California baggage, it's a real thing.
California baggage is a real thing.
I think he'd have a chance, but.I don't think this country's
ready to elect anybody from California to the presidency.
I also think that Gavin Newsom if you built a presidential
candidate in a lab by Republicanrun against, they would make
Gavin Newsom but. He's he, but I like how he just
rips it. He goes on everything dude.

(01:25:09):
Very good online, very good stuff.
He's gonna make a great He's a great content creator.
He's a good debater, too. He did pretty good against Ron
DeSantis. Yeah, I.
Also got his black clean by Steven Bannon and Charlie Kirk
got his own podcast so I'm not so sure about that.
Yeah, John. Also, what about what do you
think of Gallego? Ruben Gallego.
From Gallego, I think he's great.
I had him on it. He was amazing.
My first guest on Endless Urgency.
No reason for. No fucking way.

(01:25:30):
I gotta listen to that. He's so cool.
He's. Amazing by the way, he left
halfway through for votes. I was like God damn this is my
first episode. It was over like 18 minutes
because he had to go. That's that's sick.
That's sick, I think. Yeah, Mr. Gallego.
Cool guy, I like him a lot too. I think he.
Like, I mean, I like anybody that's going to wake up in the
morning and get some shit done and help people and all the
stronger, better Democratic Party.

(01:25:51):
So like, if that's Gavin Newsom,fine.
But like I would say he's not myflavor of Democrat, but I love
Gretchen Woodwork. I like Big Gretch.
I love Pete Buttigieg. I love Cory Booker.
I really like Wes Moore. I love Wes Moore, Max Only time.
How long have I been talking? About he never shuts the fuck up
about it. It's like his favorite thing in
the world. I think he's great.
He likes to get shit done. There was a bill that went to.
There was a bill that went to his desk.

(01:26:13):
It was like a study, a study about reparations.
He vetoed it. And a lot of people in, in, in
the Maryland State legislator were pissed about it.
He's like, why are we passing studies?
I want to stop passing studies. Pass me shit that actually
effects people's lives. We got to stop with these like
endless studies. And, and so his attitude was
like, he just said it like in South Carolina was like, let's
get shit done. We got it.

(01:26:33):
We got to be the party that getsthings.
Done. Gretchen Gimmer's the same way.
Like I love Gretchen. The same way I love Gretchen
Max. Remember when the Biden debate
happened? What was my my ticket?
Hold on, I got to brag about this for one second.
That's the I being Max on a phone call.
The second the Biden debate ended, I'm like, we're fucked.
We're done. That's it.
Pack it up, gone. But I'm like Max, he needs to
drop out. I was like, love Kamala Harris,

(01:26:54):
but I, I, I thought her main issue wasn't actually like her
herself. I think it was her tie to Joe
Biden. I really think it was that
really screwed off. So I was.
Like, I and I met her three times.
She's so nice. I think she's really smart and I
think if she runs for Californiagovernor, she'll do an amazing
fucking job. I know housing is a big issue
for her, but I really thought I told Max the second debate I'm
like, it needs to be Wimmer on top, Westbawn bottom.

(01:27:15):
And guess who else held that same ticket?
Barack Obama. That was Barack Obama's ticket.
My addendum to that is because I, as I argued at the time, it
was Whitmer and it was Warnock. Those are the two that.
I Warnock has some baggage that they.
All have baggage Westmore. Yeah, they all have bag.
I like I like Warnock, but the the reason the the Whitmer more
combination. I get Georgia and I get Michigan

(01:27:35):
in that. But but we remember I let's stop
playing this game of like, hey, let's pick someone from a swing
state. It doesn't fucking work out.
It's like it's so it's minimal man fucking.
Find out. I think, I think picking a
candidate who's. Now listen, Barack Obama from
Illinois, Joe Biden's from Delaware, Hillary Clinton's from
New York or Scranton or Florida or Arkansas, depending upon the

(01:27:56):
day. And she's got a lot.
Of Tim Walls from Minnesota and and Kamala didn't do that much,
but she did worse there than Biden did in 2020.
Everywhere than Biden. Yeah, that's true.
That's good. Yeah, that's true.
Which is, which, by the way, is not a reflection of Kamala
Harris, is a. Reflection of No, No, I think
the fact that she took it from A7 point race at at 1.7, like I
was like I kept telling you about just three months dog.

(01:28:18):
We were about to walk into a a 1984 done 1984 yeah 1984 style
wipeout it was. Collapsed.
New Jersey was going to be gone.New Mexico was going to be gone.
Imagine if he had 58. Yeah, no.
And I tell people this all and the people that are now like
Jamie Harrison going on there saying our problem is that we
weren't too. We were, we weren't loyal enough

(01:28:39):
to Joe Biden. I was like.
I love Jamie. Listen, I love Jamie.
I I think he took the worst job in politics and he took a lot of
heat for shit that wasn't his fault.
That is a bad take. It's a bad take.
Oh my God. That's not just a bad.
Take. That's an insanely horrible
fucking take. The only good decision we made
last year was making that switch.
It was and it was necessary. And I'm sorry to Joe Biden, who

(01:29:01):
I love, but he should not have run and we should have had a
full primary. And let me point out that the
two times we lost to Donald Trump were the years we did not
have full primaries that were vibrant and with full fields
because. People were scared to run in
2016. Scared to?
Run against Hillary Clinton because they didn't think they
could be here and bring consolidated the anti Hillary
vote and kept himself to amazingplaces.
In 2020 we had a full field and the field for some reason

(01:29:22):
decided it was Joe Biden. I don't understand why.
Voters, Democratic voters, were scared.
Don't. Take me as a Joe hater, but it's
just like I felt like we had better candidates, including
Kamala in that cycle and then this last time we didn't have
any primary. Which was fun.
We're Mike. I think we're too cautious.
That's our issue. Just like you said, we're and
Joe Biden was the safe choice. We're like Democratic voters
when they were polled in 2020, you obviously know this.
It was like your number one criteria was beating Donald

(01:29:44):
Trump. And so that was their number
one. Just when they were picking
Biden, it was like, yeah, he's probably the safest one.
Probably would perform Obama 2020 election.
Obama nostalgia and there was just enough of it left to get it
over the finish line while Donald Trump was mismanaging the
worst health epidemic of my lifetime of probably like
anybody's lifetime right now since like the Spanish flu or
whatever. But he barely won.

(01:30:05):
I mean, the part of the problem is like, the Democrats didn't
recognize the warning signs thatwere there.
And I talked a lot about this and not externally because I
wasn't a public figure at that point.
But like, we barely won in 2020.And then we acted like we'd done
something amazing, which we did.I mean, it's hard to be an
incumbent president. And then two Joe Biden
overperforms. Democrats overperformed the red

(01:30:25):
wave. Yep, we acted like we had won
when we lost the fucking House. And so I, I think and people
attribute and then I think people, here's the thing.
I, I was thinking about this. I, I wish we had suffered major
defeats in that midterm because I think that would have, there
would have been a bigger push tomaybe get Joe Biden to get get
out of the race early. But I don't even know.
The thing is, I'm not even too sure he.

(01:30:46):
He would not have been able to politically stop people, someone
serious, from running against him had he had a word.
Why didn't Gretchen like I? No, because at the time I
remember, I like I was like thinking like fuck, I wish like
one of these governors would just like just fuck it, get in
the race. Don't be.
Scared, like he's not my favorite Democrat, but I I
really thought Ro Khanna was going to run for president.
And if I were Ro Khanna, I would, I would have.

(01:31:07):
It's a very lot of move. And Dean Phillips, no matter
what we think about him, I thinkit does take balls to, to jump
in the race and, and like, you know, I, I think it takes, it
takes some. Dean Phillips is pissing me off
now, though, because he he's saying that the Democratic Party
isn't big enough for him and Zoran Mardani.
And he can. I'm like, that's our issue.
We need to like just be a party.That's anyone that wants to you
agree with us on like 2 issues, One issue come along.

(01:31:28):
That's what Republicans are you.I don't.
Think democracy is important? Do you wake up every day and
think about how to help other people?
I'm good with in my I wrote a piece on my sub stack is that
like I'm comfortable with the Democratic Party that ranges
from Zoran Mandani to Joe Walsh who's a former Republican.
Congressman and Joe Walsh was onTwitter defending Zoran was

(01:31:49):
like, the party's big enough forboth of us.
Like that's our issue. You guys need to be stop being
so like narrow minded and and means testing who can be a
Democrat or on the left. I'm like This is why we fucking
lose bro. Like the right doesn't give a
fuck, Trump does. Trump's like a, I think.
This is a game of addition and what I tweeted at Dean Phillips,
and I meant it was like Zoran Mandani won his primary and Dean
Phillips didn't. But I think the party's big

(01:32:10):
enough for. Both of them.
It's pretty good, Mike. I'm a very good.
We got to have you on again, dude.
I'm going to fucking follow you right now.
We got to have you on. We have to have you on again
with like the whole crew. I think it'd be funny as fuck.
And dude, thank you so much for taking time out of your day and
coming to us. And then we have to like
reschedule stuff. So thank you for being patient
with us and hopefully you can get that fucking room fixed for
the school and go in with your drill and and get some shit done

(01:32:33):
because that's what we need to be doing as a party.
That we got fixed, but it took like a lot of good joy to get
the engineering. There you go.
We're gonna We got to get the roof fixed.
The roof is a problem. OK, just fucking call some
contractors. I know there's probably a lot in
Chicago. They don't come out for a
weekend. For it, I got to get the money
for it. Because you think fixing a roof
on a house is bad? Imagine doing it for a public
school. Like it's, it's bad.
It's bad. Or doing doing the Lord's work.

(01:32:54):
Doing the Lord's work. Thanks guys.
Thanks guys. This was a lot.

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