Rep. Greg Casar & Rep. Ritchie Torres Brogressive Special Episode

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Today's super Science Progressive episode features
Congressman Greg Kasar and Congressman Richie Torres.
We were honored to host the representatives to discuss the
future of Democratic politics, effective governance, abundance
and more. Side.
Now, this episode was filmed prior to the Musk Trump breakup.
Let's dive into the episode. Good morning.
Welcome to the newest episode ofProgressive.

(00:21):
We're joined here by Representative Greg Kazar.
Greg, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me on.
It's good to meet you man. I wanna say it.
Well, it's really a pleasure to have you.
It's been a really early morning.
We're sitting here and I've beenspending a lot of time thinking
about the president. I heard he was going through a a
rough patch. I guess him and his special
advisor are having like a littlea breakup.
I. Co president breakout breakup.

(00:42):
That's right, yeah. Yeah, I knocked on his door and
I he he had Taylor Swift. You belong with me playing at
full volume. And he just, he wasn't
interested in talking. So I, I figured I'd go back to
the White House another day. But yeah.
Did you get any thoughts on that, Representative?
Well, look, Elon Musk and DonaldTrump are in a fight and I think
it's good for them to fight and for us to highlight the fight.

(01:05):
But it's just, I mean, it's really sad.
I mean, it's funny when you think about, yes, you know,
Trump playing Taylor Swift full blast, sad about it.
But the sad. But what's really heartbreaking
about it? It's like what the argument
really is over here. Elon Musk, by all reports, I was
pissed off that not enough moneyin Trump's bills was going to

(01:28):
Elon Musk and his own companies.Like there's like this age long
feud between one tech billionaire, Sam Altman and Elon
Musk. And he's like, you're hanging
out too much with Sam and not hanging out enough with me,
Donald. And so they're mad at each
other. And then when Elon Musk says
that this bill doesn't cut enough, he's basically saying

(01:51):
this bill isn't kicking enough working class families off of
their healthcare in order to funnel even bigger tax breaks to
billionaires like himself and Donald Trump.
And so look, just cause Elon Musk is against the bill doesn't
mean that we're suddenly for Elon Musk.
Just cause Donald Trump and ElonMusk have broken up doesn't mean
we now have to go and try to go play FTSE now with Elon Musk

(02:14):
ourselves as progressives or as a Democratic Party.
It's good that they're fighting.Let them fight.
Let them break up and get back together and break up and make a
mess and not pass their bill. Because what we're trying to do
is actually go tax billionaires like them, protect and save
healthcare for our families. And yeah, it's good for us to
stoke up them fighting, but thatdoesn't mean that we're

(02:35):
suddenly, you know, team Elon Musk again.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a, it's a good point.
I wanted to just bring up 1 aspect of the bill.
I mean, Republicans like to talkabout, you know, the debt and
the deficit. I think they like to claim that
now as, oh, we're the party of responsibility.
We're the party that isn't overspend.
The CBO came out and said, I think it's going to add about
$2.4 trillion to the deficit across the next 10 years.

(02:58):
But also almost 11,000,000 Americans will be kicked off
their healthcare. I mean, this is pretty personal
to me growing up on Medicaid. My mom also growing up, she had
like a heart condition. She still has a heart condition.
I don't know how she'd be able to afford that without Medicaid
growing up. So how, how does this impact
your constituents and your community?
And how are you fighting back making sure that hey, these

(03:20):
11,000,000 Americans don't get stripped off their healthcare to
pay for some tax cuts or people already have like 3-4 yachts?
Yeah. I mean, this is the big question
about this horrific tax scam is their tax cutting taxes for
billionaires, adding that to thedeficit.
So they're essentially putting that on the credit card.

(03:41):
And then they're saying, well, they also want in the process to
needlessly kick people off of their healthcare.
I mean, how does any of that make any sense?
And when we talk about how Democrats need to have a message
for everyday people, I know your, their show here is geared
to men where we're like, what our message to men should be.
It's like, why go give someone afourth yacht, increase the

(04:04):
deficit and then kick kids off of their healthcare.
And oh, actually they also addedkicking kids off of food
assistance whose parents don't make enough money for food.
And we think that's going to help them in school somehow.
I mean, like, give me a break. And to me, that's about as
direct and clear of a message isthat we could be for the exact
opposite of what's in this, say the guys that actually are

(04:29):
stealing most people's money andworking way less than everybody
else, just making millions of dollars off of the billions of
dollars that have been handed tothem.
Let's go tax them a little more,more, frankly, in my view, a lot
more. They don't need it.
They're still going to be millionaires after we tax them
and use that. And we don't actually have to

(04:52):
blow up the deficit. And we can actually lower taxes
for people that go out there andare working freaking 7 twelves a
week on a construction site or doing maintenance or serving
people in a restaurant or takingcare kits.
We we can lower taxes for working class people.
We don't have to blow up the deficit.
We can improve and expand healthcare access.

(05:13):
And we could do it if we actually have the guts to look
at the Elon Musk's in the eye and the Jeff Bezos is in the eye
and the Mark Zuckerberg's in theeye and say, you just need to
actually pay your fair share because you pay less in the
programs like Social Security, amuch lower rate than a
firefighter does or than a teacher does or than a custodial
worker does. And we just, I, I just think as

(05:35):
a Democratic Party for too long we've said, well, maybe the Mark
Zuckerbergs of Jeff Bezos's willbe nice to us or will sometimes
be with us, even if they're sometimes against us.
No, we just got to say we're willing to kick those
billionaires out of our big tent.
And I think that will welcome inso many more people back into
the Democratic Party tent if they see that we're willing to

(05:56):
fight for them and go, you know,bring them more money, bring
everyday people more money. If we go chase after the money
where it really is, which is these billionaires.
Like when you talk about the Republicans saying that they're
fiscally conservative, give me abreak.
They're blowing up the deficit to help their donors.
And basically every time a Republican president takes the

(06:17):
White House, they dump tons of money also into going to war and
sending our young women and men to war, often times for
pretenses that they've made-up. And so if you look at deficits,
they blow up under the George W Bush's, they huge deficits under
the Donald Trump's because they're all about giving money

(06:38):
to war contractor friends, big Tech CEOs, billionaire tax cuts
that they they campaign on fiscal responsibility and then
they just destroy the finances of the country every time
they're in office. So actually on the topic of
billionaires in political maneuvering, I kind of have a
question that kind of maybe factors in some real risk of

(07:02):
antagonizing them in the contextof our current state of rule of
law and democracy and everything.
Because ideally, you know, the government should not be at the
behest of billionaires. But in our modern economic and
media and technological environments, how, how do you,
how should the Democratic Party and just a political party in
general weigh the risks of antagonizing those who have so

(07:26):
much power and wealth and control over the media
environment? Because 1 of Democrats biggest
issues currently is that if you just look at like the online
media space, so little of it is not against them.
And a large part of that has to deal with billionaires.
And so obviously you can't, you can't placate them to destroy
the country. But how do you, how do you
factor in that risk of of antagonization in terms of just

(07:48):
their power basically? Yeah, David, it's, it's you're,
you're right that it's a risk toantagonize and run against the
richest and most powerful peoplein the world.
But I think it's a risk that we have to take because the risk of
not going after them, the risk of just letting things get worse

(08:11):
and worse as they get more and more power, I think it's a
bigger risk. And so you sometimes got to
experiment with the risks you'regoing to take.
And so there was a big experiment here just a couple of
months ago with this Wisconsin Supreme Court race.
Now, why does anybody care abouta Supreme Court race in
Wisconsin? Well, Wisconsin is one of the
key swing states in this country.

(08:33):
And how the Supreme Court has its districts and its rules have
enormous political implications.And so Elon Musk went and put a
record amount of money into electing the Trump Supreme Court
Justice in Wisconsin. He put in untold sums of money

(08:53):
because like you just pointed out, we antagonized him.
But then we had a there was a question that the Democratic
Party had to answer. Are we going to keep go all in
and keep making the whole campaign about how this
billionaire is buying an election, antagonizing him to
have him spend even more money? Or do we kind of take our foot
off the gas and say we'll make this more about issues and less

(09:14):
about Elon Musk and let's see which one works?
Well, in this case, we tested outgoing all in on Elon Musk.
All the ads were about how Elon Musk had bought the election.
All of the media you saw was Elon Musk wearing a cheese head
hat because he was trying to pretend that he was from like
Wisconsin somehow, where of course we get a ton of our
nation's dairy and cheese and he's way outspend the Democrats.

(09:40):
But guess what? We actually won the election by
way more than we ever expected we would.
And why was that? And the answer is we turned his
greatest power, his amount of money and his arrogance into
their greatest weakness. And that way, what we wanted was

(10:02):
every time that a voter saw an ad from Elon Musk, every time
they saw an ad paid for by Elon Musk or maybe paid for by Elon
Musk, it reminded them why they were voting for the opposite
candidate then what Elon Musk was promoting.
Every time they saw Musk tweet about the Wisconsin Supreme
Court race at the top of their feed because he owns Twitter

(10:23):
now, it reminded them why they think the opposite of what the
guy that owns the platform thinks.
And so it's the, you know, in the martial art of jiu jitsu,
you use your opponent's strengthagainst them.
And so when you have somebody that's arrogant and thinks they
control everything because they've got all the money and
all the power, but most of the voters actually don't really

(10:47):
like that, then you try to use their strength against them.
So it's a risk. David, it's a legit question.
And so I'm not here to tell you I'm I'm 100% right about
everything. But leaders, you know, and I'm
chair of the Progressive Caucus here in Congress, we have to
make our best call and take the right risks.

(11:08):
And in my view, we're never going to have more money than
them, so why not turn their money into their liability?
Just what you said now reminded me of like one of the like most
cliche quotes of all time, like never interrupt your enemy while
they're making a mistake. And so do you see that like the
the all the collusion basically between like billionaires in the

(11:29):
administration right now that perhaps like in, you know, the
inner circles of the federal government, they're not aware of
how that can appear incredibly corrupt.
But for most Americans, what's going on right now is actually
going to be something that sticks with them as they go into
2026 and 2028. Because maybe Americans have a
lot of problem with Democrats, but there's nothing for been the
kind of this this naked corruption for at least a good

(11:52):
amount of like maybe my lifetimeso.
Well, no. The amount of corruption is
historic and it probably has never been so corrupt.
Not just your lifetime or mine, but probably ever.
And what definitely has never happened in American politics is
them doing it out in the open, rubbing it in your face.
That's definitely never happened, right?

(12:12):
Billionaires for a long time under both parties, have tried
to run the federal government behind the curtain.
You know, people like Bernie Sanders have been talking about
that forever. But what we're experiencing in
these last four months, five months, is the billionaires have
come out in front of the curtainand they're manipulating the
government in public and they'rebragging about it on social

(12:34):
media platforms. That's what's different.
And that creates this opportunity for the Democratic
Party not to make a mistake, right?
I think the Democratic Party mistake is to say, oh,
everybody's just going to noticethis and it's just going to
naturally come our way. But I think we have to go and
connect the dots for people and say, see what's happening.
That's outrageous. And we are willing to say in the

(12:57):
past, we have been sometimes playing Footsie with these
billionaires, but the future of our party is to be against that
kind of corruption, no matter whether it's a Republican or a
Democrat in the White House. And I think that is what we need
is that I think there's a lot ofpeople that here and see Donald
Trump and they're like, we know that's bad.
But what is really, truly better?

(13:20):
What's are Democrats really going to make a difference for
me? And I think that's where we have
to show people like that we're willing to make a strong
contrast, not just kind of be the boring alternative.
Yeah, that's a really good way of putting it.
Congressman, I, I think that's aa really good topic.
You're touching on a really goodpoint to pivot about making an

(13:41):
impact, right? We talk about kitchen table
issues, things that people can feel, people can see belay.
And I always would talk about when we were interns together,
that's how we we met about making differences in people's
life. Not, not that you can post
about, not that you can quantifyand data, but something you can
physically see. And I think one of these issues
that we're having now is that disconnect of how do we show it

(14:02):
and make it visible, make it loud, make it important and make
people feel it right? Because that's what people need.
People need to know that, hey, we are the United States
government. We are here to take care of you.
We are here to provide. We are here to make your school
safer, your roads, you know, paved and your health insurance
affordable, right? Well, and so how do you see us
going up in that direction, but in a direction that works?
Because a lot of the times I like to bring up the examples

(14:24):
of, you know, very progressive cities like California, cities
like California, about cities inCalifornia, San Francisco, San
Diego, that we can't build housing, we can't do the bare
minimum. And obviously being from Texas,
you guys do a much better job ofthat.
So where do you see us going with that in the future?
Two things. One, as Democrats in our cities,

(14:45):
we have to bring down housing costs and bring down the rise in
housing costs, period, point blank.
Like that's just something we'vegot to do.
Before I was in Congress, I was a City Council member and I LED
our housing committee. People said it was political
suicide to kind of do that work and to say we're going to take

(15:05):
on both NIMBY's that don't want any new housing built and take
on private developers who sometimes might want to knock
down working class housing and build up something that they
just want to make a ton of moneyon and instead say no, we're
going to build a ton more housing.
A lot of it is going to be affordable to middle and working

(15:25):
class people. And we're going to take on all
of those interests to make sure that we are making sure we bring
down housing costs to the city. And Austin, more than any other
city in America, is building affordable housing at a faster
rate than any other city in thiscountry, even though we're the
10th biggest city in the country, number one builder of
affordable housing for working class, working poor, middle

(15:48):
class people. And I hoped we could slow the
rise in housing costs. We actually were able to drive
down the cost. And you don't do that just by
saying we're going to knock downanything and everything no
matter what to make a developer money that that old model
doesn't work. And there have been plenty of
people that tried that. And then the old model of saying

(16:08):
progressive is to say no to every building project that
doesn't work either. We can pay people well in the
construction industry. We can pick good, smart, awesome
places to build new housing. And we can make sure that our we
have a variety of housing for a variety of different kinds of
people. So one got to bring down housing
costs across America. And Democratic Party has to be a

(16:29):
party that says we're going to make things less expensive and
make your pay also go up. That's number one.
And then number 2, when we make a difference with some of these
federal programs, we've got to make it easy to understand and
universal. Let me give you an example.
When we talk about, as we have for a few cycles, about the
Democrats doing something on childcare.

(16:50):
This is an issue that affects, keeps people up at night all
over the country. If you're a young family, right?
It's a, it's a big open issue where we can make a big
difference in people's lives. Our policy proposals are like,
well, we're going to have the federal government send money to
states that's going to go into the form of grants to different

(17:10):
childcare centers. If you have X number of
dependents and your income is Y,then maybe this will at that
point, if you aren't a super politics person, you're like,
screw this. This isn't for me.
What if we just said straight up, we're going to pass a law
that says your child care bill will never be more than 7% of

(17:31):
your family's income, period, anywhere in America?
And we're going to make big investments to get all those
wait lists down to a few months.So that, you know, a month or
two after your kid is born, after you've, you know, worked
off some of the sleepiness, you can apply for daycare and you
can be in a daycare shortly afterwards.

(17:53):
And it's going to never be more than 7% of your budget.
And that's been, you know, doesn't matter who you are, that
if you work here in America, youwant to, we want you to be able
to support your family here in America.
We're going to make that happen.Imagine that if it was just that
simple to understand. And we didn't say it's getting
phased in over 10 years, but it's just we pass it.
And the next year, it's the law that would make a big freaking

(18:16):
difference. And some of the things that were
passed under President Biden that were great aren't even
going into effect until like next year, like negotiating down
the cost of prescription drugs. That's still like got phased in
over years. And some of it still hasn't even
happened yet. But when LBJ was president and
he created Medicare, he passed it in July of 65.

(18:40):
There it is, LBJ in the Americandream.
In July of 65, he passed Medicare.
By July of 6619, million people were enrolled.
One year later, he signed the bill.
He gave the first Medicare card to President Harry Truman right
there. And within one year, he had

(19:01):
healthcare. He was covered.
We've sometimes can't even put up a website in a year.
So, look, I've always been a Democrat.
My first election, I went and knocked on doors for Barack
Obama. You know, I'm committed.
But we've got to see what stuff we've been doing that hasn't
been working, and we've got to be able to bring down housing
costs. And then when we have power,
we've got to make an immediate difference in people's lives

(19:22):
that folks can see and feel and understand.
And they don't have to pick up ahard copy of the New York Times
and read the third paragraph to understand you know what their
vote meant. It's great.
It's it's, it's getting right toit.
I mean, I love that. Perfect.
So I would always tell Max as congressman, exactly what you
said. We run on all these policies.
Ideas are kind of convoluted. I would just put out five

(19:43):
bullets. Boom #1 we're going to childcare
for all #1 #2 housing like we'regoing to build like Kamala
Harris. Canada is like 3,000,000 more
housing affordable housing unitsgo down the list. 5 things
Republican Trump's really good at this.
We'll just tweet out no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax
on Social Security. And like I have my grandma who
barely knows how to use social media talking about this back

(20:05):
home with me. I'm like, how the hell did you
find out? But it's like those easily
digestible things that. Like for us, we know political
talk, most Americans are workingtwo to three jobs, taking care
of their kids, sometimes elderly, sick parents.
They don't have time to read theNew York Times.
I think it's something that we kind of forgot and we've kind of
gone away from. So I really like that you bring
up, you know, that aspect of, ofpolitics.

(20:27):
But I wanted to talk about kind of the bureaucracy.
I think those Democrats, we kindof love the bureaucracy a little
too much. And I'm not saying there isn't a
role for the bureaucracy and regulations and all that in
place, but it takes too long to get shit done because we're too
about, for example, in California, we have 12 housing
agencies, 12 housing agencies that you have to go through in

(20:47):
order to get in a project approved.
And sometimes that's even affordable housing too.
So it just takes so long and then the government delays
everything. I mean, the, the, the fast train
that we're supposed to have here, right?
Ever since I was a little kid, Max, you know, this too, We're
talking about, oh, we're going to go to San Francisco in two
hours. They just finished the
environmental review last year. Like, it took 10 years for them
to do that. So how can you and Democrats

(21:09):
combat that at a federal level? Or yeah, we we input, we have
the bureaucracy there. It has an important role, but it
doesn't slow everything down. It doesn't slow down progress.
Look in in this work, we've got to be able to connect with
voters that when they vote for something and if they get to a
overwhelming majority, they makeit happen.
So we've got to get rid of veto points, these choke points in

(21:33):
delivering the progressive change that we want so that
people can believe in it. And I think we can bring
together a big movement of all sorts of folks who say we want
to deliver progressive results fast and quickly and within the
law and we don't need to like make up new rules on ourselves.

(21:54):
There are two, two sort of like big, I could call them bullet,
next level bullet points that, you know, I would say that if
this was just like a quick TV show hit, but we're on a podcast
here where we could have a little bit more time to talk.
I want I want to bring in two points. 1 is a lot of times as
progressives, I understand why we want to bring checks and

(22:16):
balances to the system. You know, when you see the level
of abuse by Donald Trump right, where he is just taking food out
of the mouths of kids, where he's accepting a $400 million
plane as a gift from a foreign government.
You know, where he's handing outliterally selling $1,000,000
seats to come hang out with him in the White House for people to

(22:39):
buy his crypto coin that goes money straight to him.
It makes sense. While we go, man, we need some
checks and balances in the system because obviously this
stuff is crazy. But Robert Moses, you know, I
see your history buff, you've got your book there, and you see
kind of the abuse of somebody like Robert Moses, who's this
historical figure in New York who built all this

(23:01):
infrastructure without checking in with anybody and didn't
really have a real elected post.You see how the cities would put
these checks and balances together.
The problem is we think so much about stopping our opponents
abuse of power that we don't think enough about how it is we
can wield useful, kind, thoughtful, progressive power

(23:24):
when we've got it. And so I guess I want to have
some and we have to have some understanding of how we got
here. So yes, we can check abuse of
power, but we shouldn't have thechecks on abuse of power stop us
from using power in the common interest quickly exactly because
when we don't the consequences you wind up with Donald Trump's
that abuse power exactly and ignore every check and balance

(23:46):
that you set up yourself. And then the second thing I want
to bring up for folks is we don't, we should have a movement
of people in the Democratic Party that talk about getting
things done quickly, but we shouldn't let billionaire
interests sneak in using that argument, right?
I've heard folks that are like, yeah, we got to get things done

(24:09):
quicker and that's why we've gotto crush labor unions.
No way. You know, like there are folks
that are like the old Ronald Reagan destroy working class
people IST that want to sneak inthat way.
We've got to be able to say no, we can actually we don't have to
destroy the environment. We don't need to pay people bad

(24:30):
and we can have a train and we can get it built fast period.
And I, I think we've got to be able to be clear with that and
we don't need. So we got AI guess understand
why how we got here and understand how to stop abuse of
power and understand that getting stuff done quickly.
We can demand that without letting the billionaires use

(24:51):
that to sneak in through the back door.
Guys, it looks like I've got to probably go vote here on the
House floor in a second. Hey, Congressman.
Well, thanks so much for joiningus.
I would say it's pretty clear that you read Mark Jay
Dunkleman's Why Nothing Works, but it's been a pleasure to have
you fantastic talking to you. Is there anything else you want
to leave our listeners before you go?
No, I think that covers it, man.I really appreciate you guys
getting the word out there and just talking to normal people.

(25:14):
Nice to be with you. Thanks so much, Congressman.
Congressman Richie Torres, thankyou for coming on.
On this Thursday morning. Congressman Torres represents
the 15th District in New York, representing most of South
Bronx. So super excited to have you
here. And yeah, I wanted to give it
off to Max for the first question.
Well. Congressman, well, thanks so

(25:35):
much again for coming on our show.
I got to say it's it's a real pleasure to have you here this
early Thursday morning. But one of the things that I've
been wanting to talk to you about is the future in New York.
My family was in New York for four generations.
That's where we hopped off the boat.
We were first Red Cross, first thing for our first generation.
We were Red Cross refugees in 1890 from Ukraine and New York

(25:56):
is where they landed. You know, my grandmother was
born in Troy, My grandfather wasborn in Buffalo.
Both my mom was raised there andNew York doesn't seem to be this
this bastion of the future like it once was.
And it seems to me like you havea plan for that independence
agenda, I guess you could say. But what do you see as the
future of New York as a state and of course, as a city?

(26:17):
Look, I I found it striking thatnowhere did we see a greater
swing toward Donald Trump than in New York.
And that was not a coincidence. That was a consequence of
failing governance at the state and local level.
The majority of New Yorkers feelwe're heading in the wrong
direction. We feel we're paying more and
more for less and less. Our public safety, quality of

(26:40):
life, affordability are declining.
Our costs are rising. We've seen the mass displacement
of working class New Yorkers. You know, in the past 10 years,
1/5 of the young black population has disappeared.
So in the early 20th century, African Americans, the South for
the North in order to escape JimCrow.

(27:02):
In the 21st century, we now havea reverse migration.
African Americans are fleeing the North or the South in order
to escape the affordability crisis.
And, you know, reforming governance in a place like New
York is not only the right thingto do on its own merits, but
it's become a political and electoral necessity because in
American politics, the loss of population means the loss of

(27:24):
political power. And in the next reapportionment,
we're going to see a massive shift in political power from
the North to the South, from theMidwest to the Mountain West,
from the Rust Belt to the Sunbelt.
States like Texas and Florida could gain 4 seats.
California could lose 5 seats. New York could lose 3 seats.

(27:45):
Illinois could lose 2 seats. And so because of the the
politics and economics of scarcity in cities like New
York, we're going to face a muchmore complicated electoral map
in the 2032 presidential election.
And so I'm viewing it not only in government terms, but very
much in political terms as well.That's a really interesting able

(28:05):
to take. And I know that the recent NEPA
ruling was something you've spoke on, but the, I don't think
you're going to say this right, but the seven county
infrastructure coalition versus Ewell County, Colorado.
Can you speak a little bit more about that and how that's going
to come into play with changing governance?
Yes. So one of the.
Cruelest ironies of our time hasbeen the weaponization of

(28:26):
environmental law, particularly NEPA, against projects that are
good for the environment. I mean, there have been moments.
When the environmental review islonger than the construction
itself, right? In Colorado, it was Interstate
70, where the construction was five years, but the
environmental review was 13 years, almost three times as

(28:47):
long. And in a rational.
World The environmental review should never be longer than the
construction take. You know, Cape Wind was supposed
to be the first offshore wind farm.
It began in 20 in 2001, and after 16 years of environmental
review and $100 million in expenditures, the project was

(29:10):
abandoned. You know, or the most.
Shocking example that I cite is,you know, Puerto Rico.
So Puerto Rico has the worst electric grid in the country.
It's been so poorly managed for so long that 16,000 miles of
vegetation was allowed to grow under transmission lines.
So every time there are intense weather conditions, it causes

(29:30):
massive outages. Depriving 3.
Million people of access to reliable, affordable energy.
And so I asked the operator, thegrid, how long will it take you
to remove vegetation, which is the cause of these widespread
outages? And he said if you impose an
environmental impact statement, it would take eight years.

(29:51):
So it took US1 year to build theEmpire State Building.
It took us 16 months to build the largest office building in
the world, the Pentagon. But it's going to take us eight
years not to modernize the grid,but simply to clear vegetation.
Like, that's the Kafkaesque world of environmental review in
which we have been living since the 1970s.

(30:14):
I think the majority of environmental reviews last 4 1/2
years, and then 1/4 of environmental reviews last six
or more years. And so the Supreme Court's
latest decision to me is an abundance revolution, not only
in American law but in American governance, because it will end
the weaponization of NEPA to block and delay infrastructure,

(30:39):
right? It clearly states that courts
should no longer micromanage environmental reviews and that
there's no longer a need for environmental impact statements
that run thousands and thousandsof pages that that.
So I see the decision as an opportunity for governments at
every level to fundamentally streamline environmental reviews

(30:59):
and to make government more efficient.
You know, for me, the abundance movement is an invitation to the
Democratic Party, right? If Republicans are the party of
less government, we as Democratsshould not be the party of more
government. We should be the party of better
and cheaper and faster government.
And the latest decision on NEPA presents us with a historic

(31:21):
opportunity to create a better and cheaper and faster
environmental review process. Well, Congressman, staying on
that topic, you've been one of the leading advocates of the
Abundance agenda going back years, really even before the
books release. And so I'm curious, there's been
a lot of discussion around the political viability of the

(31:43):
abundance agenda. And I think everything you've
just laid out very clearly like the majority of voters would
obviously find that ridiculous and would obviously like to get
these things, these projects finished and completed in their
neighborhoods. But I'm wondering, a lot of
these groups in question that have sort of faced the brunt of
the abundance movements attacks,they've been releasing all these
polls in the last few weeks trying to kind of argue that the

(32:05):
abundance agenda might be nice for elites or whatever, but it
is not necessarily a political framework, It's more of a policy
framework. So I'm curious what you make of
that because I think there's a case to be made that a lot of
the Democratic backlash has to do with the decline of blue run
cities, Democrat run cities. And so is it kind of a trickle
down effect in your mind where if we make these changes and

(32:26):
improve the ability of these cities to actually get projects
done, people start to realize that Democrats can govern?
Or is it really a direct political message that you can
run on and talk about these things directly?
Or does it need to be framed in more of like a populist tone
publicly in order to get it the political sport necessary to get
it done? What what do you make of the

(32:47):
political viability versus abundance as a policy framework?
Well, first I'm of the view. That good governance is good
politics, and one cannot separate policy from politics.
If you govern ineffectively, youwill lose elections.
If you preside over the highest inflation in more than 4
decades, you will lose elections.
If you mismanage the migrant crisis, you will lose elections.

(33:09):
If you're fundamentally incapable of building the
infrastructure that people need,you will lose elections.
So the notion that we the peopledeserve a government that works
and a government that can deliver basic services and build
basic infrastructure, that should be uncontroversial and
universally accepted. And I find the backlash to be

(33:30):
genuinely baffled. And you know, Mario Cuomo once
said you campaign in poetry, butyou govern in prose.
And abundance is principally concerned with the prose of
governing rather than the poetryof campaign.
No one is claiming that we should utter abundance on the
campaign trail, right? But the American people want to
see a government that works and that builds.

(33:51):
America was once a nation of builders.
We built the transcontinental railroad in six years, the
Hoover Dam in five years, 2700 Liberty ships in four years.
We electrified rural America. We built the Interstate highway,
we built the Kennedy Space Center.
And abundance is saying we should restore America as a

(34:12):
nation of builders. And that is a, that's a vision
that resonates widely. And there's an attempt to
portray the abundance movement as anti union or anti labor.
I think the the, the, the massive investment in
infrastructure would actually bea boon to the labor movement.
Like there, there's no, the labor movement would have no
greater friend than America as anation of builders.

(34:34):
Yeah. I mean, I think we agree with
that here. Wanted to ask a question kind of
pigging back on elections. We kind of saw this us get
obliterated with young men this last election.
And a lot of people like to point to, you know, sexism,
racism, whatever it is, a lot ofyoung men of color actually were
the some of the biggest shifts that turned away from the

(34:54):
Democratic Party. How can we start winning them
back? And I know there were some
Democratic donors who were saying we need to spend millions
of dollars and have the left version of Joe Rogan, which we
think is ridiculous. But hey, you want to come on the
progressive podcast? We can maybe, you know, have
that out there. But how do you think we can
start winning young men? I think it's, you know, actually
listening to them, talking to them.
What do you think we should stopscolding and?

(35:17):
Scapegoating and shaming voters.There's a story.
About Adley Stevenson, he delivered a great speech and one
of his supporters approached himand said, Mr. Stevenson, you're
extraordinary and every thinkingAmerican is going to vote for
you. And he replies, yes, ma'am, but
I need a majority of the American people, that kind of

(35:38):
condescension. Is not only bad.
Morals. It's bad politics.
You know, I, I once. Heard, a political strategist,
said to me. He spoke to the focus group, and
a member of the focus group described the Republican Party
as crazy but the Democratic Party as preachy.
But if she had to choose? Between the two, she prefers

(35:58):
preachy, prefers crazy over preachy.
And so I feel like we have to stop the condescension, stop the
scolding and shaming and scapegoating, steer clear of the
identity politics, steer clear of the culture wars, ask
ourselves what are the issues that matter to most voters,
which I think are cost of livingand safety, and then build

(36:18):
credibility on those issues. That to me is the name of the
game. Run on the issues that matter to
voters and then build credibility on those issues.
You might recall the in the famous ad that Donald Trump ran.
She's for they them. I'm for you.
I'm fighting for you. Yep.
Everyone gonna watch that? And I might be.
Misremembering it, but in the middle of the ad, you know,

(36:39):
there's a video of Vice President Harris coming out in
favor of taxpayer funded healthcare for transgendered
migrants in prison, right? Which might be like 2 people.
And and the question I would askis why are we even talking about
that issue? Let's speak about the.
Issues that matter to the majority of Americans.

(37:00):
Let's try to build a broad coalition that has the greatest
amount of appeal to the greatestnumber of people.
And let's focus on the issues that matter to most people.
It's that simple. You don't need fancy consulting.
You don't need to. You know we're not going to be
able to create from up high fromthe ivory tower of Washington
DCA left wing version of Joe Rogan.

(37:21):
That's just delusional. Let's just focus authentically
on the issues that matter to voters.
I agree. Completely agree.
I have. I have.
One quick follow up on the youngmen thing where you're talking
about Democrats being condescending.
I think the recent Pete Buttigieg appearance on the
flagrant podcast has been reallyilluminating for me on that,
where you're talking about the condescension.
I think a lot of Democrats thinkthat you need to completely

(37:43):
adjust the way you talk when yougo on these shows and that you
need to like dumb down, for lackof better term, your your
rhetoric door. Just start using all these bro E
terms to appeal. And I think that really
represented that he goes on there and he's himself.
He's very like policy based and very smart, clearly.
And the people in the comments and vaguely the reception from
Republicans has not been like, oh, elitist guy, what is he even

(38:05):
talking about? They are like, it's great to see
someone who's smart and actuallythinks I'm smart because he's
not dumbing down the way he's talking.
And so I wonder, like, do you agree with that generally where
Democrats are kind of like trying to wear the disguise of
young men instead of like actually just being themselves
and going on these channels? And instead of trying to create

(38:27):
their own Joe Rogan, just let's try to get Joe Rogan back a
little bit on the left and make it seem like that's something
we're open to versus like attacking Bernie Sanders,
reading his endorsement or something like that.
So what should do you agree withthat?
And what's what's kind of your viewpoint of when like are you
trying to go on some of these shows and how do you approach
that with different audiences? I feel like you should be who

(38:47):
you. Are you should respect the
intelligence of your audience. The majority of Americans are
intelligent and it's condescension to claim well if
you disagree with me it means you're a victim of dis of
disinformation or false consciousness or stupidity.
I just find that all condescending.
We should disabuse ourselves with those notions.
But at the same time, we should speak like normal people, You

(39:09):
know, we should not use words like food insecure.
Just say hungry, not unhoused, unhoused less, not like justice
involved, like incarcerated, like, you know, let's let's let
tanks the language of the ivory tower and speak like normal
people from places like the Bronx and you will be well
served. Yeah.
Perfect, I know you got. To make you just say that.

(39:33):
Yeah, go ahead. Sorry I.
Appreciate your time. Maybe next time we could, you
know, I know you have a lot of things to think about your
future. We could do this maybe in
Albany, we could film this in Albany maybe in the future.
But Albany. Thank you so much, Congressman.
Have a great rest of your day. Take care.
Thanks so much. OK, well, that was short, but
you know what? I think that.

(39:54):
So what'd? You guys think, I mean, I
thought he came off as normal, which I is a little, you know, I
think for a lot of people, Congress people normal.
I thought, you know, he came offnormal.
And I really like his point about just speaking to people,
bringing up issues they care about.
I didn't know we talked about this on the podcast, but letting
go of some of the culture war stuff that really does alienate
a lot of parts of the country. I really thought his insight on

(40:14):
like young men was important because we don't need to be
spending millions of dollars to find the left show Rogan.
No, just go speak to them like normal people like Pete
Buttigieg has been doing. Other people have been doing so.
I liked it overall. I think he's.
More normal than I am. I mean, I was like, I was like,
wow, I gotta announce what this,but no.
But I mean, he was he was a goodspeaker.
I you know what I really did appreciate, which I think is

(40:35):
really subtle. He stopped.
And every time we'd ask one question, he would sit there and
he would think about it for a second.
Yeah, like he didn't just you didn't just talk out of his ass,
right? He just sat there and he went
like, like to process it. Like, I can really appreciate
that He actually carefully thought out what he was going to
say and like, what his response was.
Like you, you could tell he put some effort into it.
Well, and I think the point at the end where he's talking about
like, yes, speak like normal people don't use these weird

(40:57):
activist terms. I think that's a really like
interesting way to look at it where he's like when when he's
getting into the NEPA stuff. Obviously that's not necessarily
what he's going to campaign on. But I don't know, I thought, I
mean, maybe it's just because I'm, we're all very tuned into
that kind of stuff. But I thought he did a good job
of where like if some random voters listening to the him talk
about it, like it doesn't come off as too wonky, even though

(41:19):
it's an incredibly niche, incredibly wonky subject because
he's not using that kind of likeridiculous activist language
that talks in circles. So yeah, I thought that I think
he's very effective at that. It's sort of like, you know, I,
I've learned the key way to knowif it's like, OK, I'm getting
too wonky is if someone like my mom would just like start zoning

(41:40):
out. That's when I know I'm like, OK,
I have to start using like regular people speak or
sometimes I'll start. Zoning out when Max speaks and.
And, and you're a congressional intern, you know what I mean?
Like we dude, I remember like some of our debates, I like
watch you. You're like I said, like start
to glaze over. And I was like, but what do you
mean you don't understand final impact statements?
Well, I think he environmental impact statements, he did a

(42:00):
great job of like putting it in very concrete terms where anyone
could be like, yes, oh, it went from one year to seven years.
Like yeah, it shouldn't take. 15years to build to just to have
an environmental review. I think something that he
brought up was that I think a lot of people could digest and
that made sense to me was, hey, sometimes these environmental
reviews are taking longer than, you know, the amount of time it
takes to actually build the project.

(42:21):
So like what is happening here and putting in?
Context too was also kind of huge because like the Empire,
Empire State Building that was built 100 years ago, like we
building should not have gotten slower in the 100 years since
the 3D printing. And you know, Amazon, like I
feel like that that just kind oflike logically, like it makes
good sense. And in fact, that was really
kind of interesting how subtle and how easy he did it.

(42:42):
You know, it was so fluid. I was kind of like, you know,
well, I feel like I'm a huge YIMBY nerd and have harassed
many people in my life explaining it, but I feel like
that's kind of taught me that there.
Yeah. In a similar vein, like you
could explain it by being like single family zoning, blah,
blah, blah, getting old. Or you could say like, did you
know in 70% of the country, likeit's illegal to build anything

(43:04):
besides like a cookie cutter single family home?
And like, there's lots of ways to explain this where it comes
off as a clearly absurd to people.
And, or when you're talking about some of these like overly
stringent requirements and the everything bagel liberalism,
like I think most people inherently on the left or right
would be like, yeah, obviously that's ridiculous.
It sounds like a parody of bad bureaucracy.

(43:26):
So it's like a framing issue. Like the way we frame it, it's
like if we pitch it as, oh, likewe're going to abolish single
family zoning and make it a transit or it's like at that
point we've already we've already lost people.
Like people are just like, I don't know what that means.
I don't care if we're saying I have a really specific memory of
freshman year. Yeah, I think it was freshman
year I was like working for thiscampaign and in in like the

(43:49):
Davis district and it was like aDemocrat running in the primary
trying to move on to top two against like a Dem incumbent.
And we're trying to organize a debate on campus.
And the College Democrats, I understand why I didn't want to
host it because they had a relationship with the incumbent.
But we ended up because we needed an org to host a debate,
which we ended up doing was the College Republicans.
And I had to go to one of the meetings to talk to them.

(44:10):
And I remember, like, it was interesting, like I was mostly
just kind of sitting there, likeobserving, but they were
discussing. At one point Newsome some policy
had announced which was something related to like
allowing empty hotels to be usedas homeless shelters for or just
like affordable housing sheltersfor people short term.
And they were all like anti it, obviously for Republican reason.

(44:32):
And I remember that I like raised my hand and finally like
got involved and I said, yeah, that's like, fine, but I wish
you would just cut a bunch of red tape in housing production
and make it so we could just build the housing supply up so
that we could reduce prices. And I remember very vividly them
all being like, ha ha. I mean, that's a great idea, but
Newsom would never do something like that.
And I'm like, OK, well, that's like the radical Democrat

(44:55):
position in California. And when you frame it in that
Republican mindset, they were like, oh, I mean, that'd be
great. But that's, that's way too
conservative for our woke California.
So I I think maybe that. Doesn't help us much in the.
Democratic primary, but I I don't know, I think.
I agree to a certain point. It is a lot of we have a lot of
Republican voters here in California that are very against
like building more housing near where they live.

(45:16):
Like Huntington Beach is like a city in Orange County where
that's like they've had some of the most resistant.
The state's gone from building more affordable housing.
There's housing in general has been of course, the.
Owners of homes, of course they're gonna be.
It's a little joke of like, who wants affordable housing?
And then who wants their home price to go down in value?
Like, exactly So. So how do you ever control those
things? Yeah.

(45:37):
Well, simply the reality. For a politician is that if they
were completely honest about that dynamic?
I mean, it is a a bit of a tradeoff inherently.
I mean, that's something they always have to kind of walk
around and pretend it's the case.
And that's like a good part of urban planning.
We're like, you know, we were talking about it's like
polycentric or monocentric cities.
So like monocentric, there's onecentral hub versus polycentric,

(45:58):
there's a bunch of little hubs. LA has a bunch of little hubs.
So like instead of rezoning likethe suburbs, which we don't
like, we can add like a duplex. Nobody's saying put like a 20
story like apartment building in, you know, suburban like
Santa Clarita. But like, why not just rezone
the dense parts of LA where likethe downtown is and make that
part dense and affordable And then everywhere else it's like

(46:18):
now you can still have like yoursingle family home in Riverside.
Like that's fine. Like it doesn't mean we don't
know that there is much of A dense part of Los Angeles.
But I but I like that screaming feel like it's but like downtown
because like there really isn't a downtown LA, you know, so it's
a whole thing of like, that's what I'm saying.
Like, could you imagine if LA was like Tokyo?
You know, it's like, it's walkable if it had good trains,

(46:39):
like I said in a group chat the other day.
And I was like, I mean, as a joke, but also was kind of like,
serious and like, no, you know what, Fuck it.
If I'm ever put in charge of housing, like I'm making your
neighborhoods walkable, affordable.
Your trains are gonna be fast. They're gonna be cheap and
they're gonna be safe. And like, I feel like that.
That alone is like, oh, I feel like that.
That should be, like the bare minimum.
Absolutely. Yeah.
I think it's what? Else do you think about?
Taurus. Yeah, I thought he was just.

(47:02):
I don't know. I thought he like, even though
we had a limited time from with him, but like I learned a lot
from him, learned a like a lot with his his political strategy.
He seems to kind of focus on a lot of bread and butter issues.
I think like housing is a bread and butter issues like, hey,
like I can't fucking afford to live here.
And he is from New York City. So if anyone knows about like

(47:22):
cost of living, it's him. And I think he was pretty
interesting that he brought thatup was like, hey, we fucking
lose because we didn't really talk about inflation.
We didn't talk about cost of living well and people.
Always have sort of like pretended like abundance is this
kind of niche like elite thing where it's like, OK, great, but
that's not gonna like that's notthe reason we lost the election
or whatever. But really, yeah, it was a cost

(47:43):
of living election. When you looked at a lot of the
inflation stats, it was like, yes, a lot of inflation went
down, but it was specifically that the housing inflation was
like took up a huge percent of that like monthly percent
increase. And so I, yeah, I mean, if we
had addressed that, I mean, I think there's a plausible case
to be made that inflation wouldn't have appeared so awful
to everyone and they would feel like it wasn't as it's brutal by

(48:05):
the time the election came around.
That's it's, it's not even like,I feel like it's kind of like
living in a different reality. Like if you're, if you don't
believe that was like the main driver, which pretty much any
data supports that it was right.Like people voted because food
was more expensive, gas is more expensive, and your housing was
more or your apartment or your house was too expensive.
Like that. It's, it's, it's not even like
just bread and butter. It's like the main staples of

(48:26):
your life. Like it's just, it's very
simple. Your neighborhood didn't feel
safe, your eggs were too expensive, your gas was too
pricey and your apartment was too high.
It's really that easy. And and to deny it just kind of
feels like living in a differentreality.
So I guess this is my like, my thing is just beating from a
place like that. I feel like 1.
How did we not see this coming? Like I feel like this was kind
of written on the wall. Like I feel like, I mean, you

(48:48):
guys lived it. Like you remember like 2022 when
like all of sudden it's like it hit 9%.
Like you're going to target and shits like a dollar or two more
and you're like, hey, what the hell is happening?
But the shit was nuts. Like I remember like going to
Target, trying to furnish my first apartment and I was like,
yeah, I'm just not buying these things.
Like I just not going to do it. Like I'm not paying 4 1/2
dollars for whatever the fuck itwas.
Like, I don't know, it's like a phone charger, whatever it was,

(49:08):
I'm like, I'm just like, this shouldn't be expensive.
Like I'm not buying these things.
So I mean, it makes sense. You know, it's just one of those
things where like, I don't know how we didn't see this sooner.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think we're going to do
an episode probably a little broader and more focused on
this, but I, I wonder if we should talk about just while
we're here, like some of the bignews of the week, we should
focus and do a full episode on this big beautiful bill.

(49:30):
And I feel like it's kind of gone under the radar.
It's probably the most impactfulthing so far of the first Trump
year of Trump 2 point O. But I think the big news this
week, Elon Musk officially out. He left with a black eye in
multiple ways of little X was told to punch him in the face.
Apparently a very, very believable and normal

(49:53):
explanation. But yeah, what do you guys make
of this? I mean, I do find it pretty
funny how this is exactly what any of the, like, most committed
resist Lib would have predicted about four months ago.
And I remember at the time, I was kind of like, yeah, you'd
expect that, but I don't know, maybe because he donated so much
money and maybe Trump really just weirdly like Celan or

(50:14):
something. But Nope, it was exactly what
you could have expected to happen real real quick.
He's moved on some real quick. What did you guys make of?
That I was, I was reading, I forget which source it was, but
I guess insiders were saying this was during like after the
election Trump. So Elon would tell Trump like,
hey, this is how the votes are going to come in.
Because he had like all the satellites and he had like a lot

(50:34):
of these voting centers. He had a lot of like people in
Pennsylvania especially. And he was like, this is like,
we're going to get votes from this county 1st and then it's
going to go this way. The numbers are probably going
to look like this. So there was this theory that
like Trump legitimately thought like Elon had won him the
election. Like legit because because the
way like Elon was explaining howthe night would go and the night
went exactly how Elon said, Trump legitimately thought, hey,

(50:56):
maybe this guy like did something to help me out.
Like I don't know what he did, but these numbers are matching
up exactly like he said. There was that theory out there.
And there was some insiders who were also talking about that.
So I think that that also may have waned off a little bit.
And also, I did read that. So Trump's.
So Elon had recommended Trump a certain, I forgot the guy's name
for to be head of NASA. I forgot his name, but Trump,

(51:20):
Elon really wanted this guy to be head of NASA.
It was like one of his friends. And Trump was like playing with
it. And I think he like nominated
him at first, but then he dropped him because there were
some concerns about some other shit.
So I think Elon got a little pissy over that.
And then also the electric vehicle tax credits.
I think that there's also something that's getting phased
out. He's probably pissed off about
that. Well, it it's funny.

(51:40):
You bring up the the like votingsystems thing or that Elon had
some advanced model. I think it's a great point that
it's not like he actually did, but that Trump's kind of an
idiot and took it that way. Because I very, the only other
time I've heard about that thingthat you're talking about is I
remember that there was a clip Isaw on TikTok or something of
Joe Rogan, like probably a week after the election.
He was talking about that exact thing and he was like talking

(52:03):
about how insane it was. Like Elon, he had all this
insider data. He knew what he knew that Trump
won like 4 hours before they called the election.
And I was like, so did I, I'm onelection Twitter.
It's not that hard. It's was pretty obvious, like if
he was making it out to be this like crazy inside, which by the
way, if you like only watch CNN and you're not on election

(52:23):
Twitter, like I I could see why you would think that because I
remember watching it during the election and they're acting like
there's all these unknowns. And it's like if you go online,
it was very clear where everything was going and where
each state was going and everything.
So. Well, this is data science.
Like it was like it was just youwatch the numbers come in and
it's like, OK, you can even watch like I think it was what's
his face is Nate Silver's like dial when it was like percent

(52:43):
chance of like a winning. It's like within a couple hours
it was like times dial. That's all you needed.
Yeah, yeah. Which by the way, I still find
it ridiculous. They don't show that on TV ever
during any of the election coverage or anything like it
even honestly, probably it doesn't get as many views
because it's a lot easier to have like the flashy graphics
and be like new update and it's like 10,000 drops because it
like lowers views because they're like it's an 80% chance.

(53:06):
Why would I or 90% chance, why would I watch?
They have to keep this facade ofuncertainty.
But no yeah, but I was. So what do you guys see like
coming? Like I I probably could have
predicted like or any resistancecould prove that Trump would
eventually sour on Elon kind of he would exit the
administration. I don't think I expected him to
immediately go so anti Trump directly on Twitter and be so

(53:29):
like, what do you call the bill of like like a pile of bullshit
or something like that or like the death or was like that and a
nomination. Like an abomination.
You just. Yeah, some like.
Disgusting abomination and that anyone who voted for it should
be ashamed and I mean, we've seen some Democrats use those
quotes. So what'd you guys make of that?
Were you surprised by how I'm not just cuz you went?

(53:49):
No, I'm not just cuz like I feellike this like the writing was
on the wall. Like again, like you said,
anybody could have seen like a breakup coming up soon, but like
just based on his paper, right. So you're spending all this time
with this person. He's like, oh, I love him.
He doesn't like leave. If you remember that quote where
he was like, oh, like I love Elon.
He's always around. Where is Elon?
He's always here. It's like yeah, he was like his
little like like pen pal early about pen pal like his little
like as like his backpacker. You follow him around where I'm

(54:12):
sure got annoying and like, I guess more importantly, they
just have two different like paths that they want to take.
Like, you know, Yvonne, like again, for all this stuff, he
gets shit on. It's like, no, he still makes
like electric cars and like climate friendly stuff and
whatever. Like he wants to be, you know,
Mr. GDP go up. He's a pretty smart guy.
Like he is. He's not stupid and and.
And we act like he's an idiot. It's like, let's just do that.

(54:33):
It's like it's you're just me and it's probably douche, like
you're doing yourself a disservice by doing that.
But like Trump must go here, right?
He wants like tariffs on everything.
He wants reindustrializing America.
It's like Yvon did that. He built a factory in America.
He, he actually made industry inAmerica and did it in California
of all places with Tesla. But the way Trump was going
about it is like it's hurting his business.
Like the tariffs and whatnot. Like his, the bad optics, plus

(54:54):
all the work that Doge has done,assuming even like 1/3 of it is
correct. Like let's say they saved $40
billion, the budget bill is going to like what it was 2.8
trillion or something like that,like 2.4 was.
The latest it's going to undo. All of it.
And so it's like at that point, I'm sure, you know, it's
probably like, dude, what the fuck?
Like what was the point of that?Because he really does seem to
believe that the debt is an issue.
And he's right. Like I, I, but I, it's so funny.

(55:16):
It reminds me almost like the fact that they take no lesson
from this. It reminds me almost of the like
the Jeffrey Epstein, some of these conspiracy stuff.
They got what they wanted. The dog caught the car.
They have Dan whatever Bongino from Fox News is like now a
deputy FBI guy and he gets in there and he's talked about how
there's all this like deep statestuff and the the conspiracy

(55:38):
people were like, finally we're going to fix it all with Trump,
like all the Q Anon stuff. And then he gets in there and is
like, oh, actually Jeffrey Epstein really killed himself.
And like, I need to see the. Reaction to that?
Yeah, but it reminds. Me of that where it's like
they've been saying that actually really we could balance
the budget if we simply like rooted out all this fraud.
Like it's not actually that we have to cut real things for
people and or raise taxes. And very clearly like Elon had

(56:02):
full reign probably more than full reign because he did a
bunch of unconstitutional stuff and got reversed.
And yeah, like you said, even ifyou take his most generous
stuff, what was it like 40 billion?
That's that's pennies on the caller.
So I mean, he was claiming it was like 175.
But like a lot of the stuff, I think the times that they
checked like 10 of the contractsand like half, even if it was,
that would be very not much. Like that would be that much.

(56:22):
It's probably over a 10 year period too.
So yeah, exactly when it's like and at what cost?
Like I think that's the other thing too is when you, you know,
people don't really weigh trade-offs, which I think like
that this goes for, you know, both sides like, you know, oh,
we can do Medicare for all, but it's like, OK, how much is it
going to cost? Don't you don't talk about that
or which like that, you know, I'll take hey, let's give
everybody health insurance over.Hey, let's destroy like the
economy. So for no reason, but like you

(56:44):
cut all these reasons to do somelike potentially inflationary or
deficit building thing, like at least if it's a positive versus
like we're doing this in order to afford more tax cuts for
billionaires. Yeah, well, exactly like this.
Just like it's just, it's so regressive that like it's not
even, it's not even secret. Like it's straight up just a
transfer from the literal poorest people in society to the
richest. And like we're not even, not

(57:05):
even being hyperbolic when you say that.
Like, it's just that's mathematically how it works.
And like, you know, at least if you want to play like devil's
advocate and be like, oh, well, like, you know, Biden spent all
this money during COVID. It's like, yeah, we just got out
of like a historic recession where the whole economy would
shut down. And the idea was like, hey,
let's juice employment to full employment.
We've never done that before. And fact of the matter is we got
to full employment. We're like, holy shit.
We've never had employment this high.

(57:25):
And it worked like it. But, you know, then you have
sensation and all these other things, But that's the points.
Like you got to win trade-offs and I feel like eventually and
the interest like what do peoplereally care about?
I think we Democrats definitely thought everything going back to
the New Deal stuff, everything'sabout jobs and employment and
unemployment levels. And it's that key clip, right?
It's jobs is also inflation. I don't know.
I figured out that that. Was an interesting point.

(57:48):
I didn't think about that. Democrats kind of thought of
jobs, jobs, jobs. I mean, I didn't see it that way
because, like, most people fucking hate their jobs.
Like, I don't know. I think like, yeah, I mean, it's
like they don't want any job. Necessary.
They don't want any job like I don't.
Blame them, but it's like, I think most are just any job.
The biggest thing I see people complain about is like cost of
living is it's the number one thing, number one thing by far.

(58:10):
Well, I mean. That's you could make the
argument that that goes with jobs and it's like, oh, if we
raise the income level of jobs, but I don't think that hits
people's minds. Like I don't think people are
able and nor really it's not like fair to expect them to be
where they're like, oh, well, yes, everything went up by 10%,
but my income went up by 11%. So really my purchasing power is
the same. Like it's a mental thing.
It's seeing the, the numbers on the grocery stores, seeing the

(58:33):
how much you're paying in rent. Well, it's like that's a
frustrating thing. It's like even if your income
did go up or like your purchasing power, like did
adjust, it's like it's still uncomfortable because like,
again, it makes it like, OK, great, now you're making more.
But what happens if you lose your job Or like what happens
with any number of things? And like, you know, you have to
double prong of like, oh, interest rates went up and
inflation's up. So it's like getting money is
more expensive. So like buying a house is not

(58:55):
only more expensive because the house went up, but it's more
expensive because the loan you will take has higher interest.
And it's like, it just makes this awful cycle.
Plus, you know, the basics, the highly visible price, excuse me,
highly visible prices of like eggs, gas, rent, it's tough.
You see every day and you're like, holy shit, look at that.
You know, and I think really my other theory is that a lot of it
comes from Covad because, you know, gas prices were like

(59:17):
negative, right? Because it's like nobody's going
anywhere. And so we kind of got used
mentally to seeing like $2.00 gas and they're like, oh cool.
Like nobody has a job and we're all sitting out.
But even even. Before, before COVID, like at
least when I first started driving, gas wasn't that bad.
In California. It was like 340 where I live.
The Archive 3 is yeah. I feel like they got back down
to that for a bit though. Never.
Never, not three, at least whereI lived.

(59:39):
Bro I've never seen that arco that I've this is the a single
arco but I've never seen that arco below.
The lowest I've seen it is at 399 for like 2 weeks.
Always been like 12:30 at least.We're in Southern California
dude. I have not seen gas go back to
even pre COVID levels and The thing is like also but that's.
But like the worst part is like people have blamed that for like
a lot of reasons, but like a lotof it comes from just production

(01:00:00):
and like, you know, state taxes and like how we create, you
know, we get gas in California. It's like we don't have
pipelines that can bring it in cheaply.
So of course it's going to be more like it's, it's, it's a
whole and I really, I wonder, I would have to look into this.
I'm just bullshitting. But I wonder if like where it
ended up actually was kind of lower than if you just adjusted
the prices for inflation over like a five year period before
COVID. I mean, gas is a little OK.

(01:00:22):
I will say gas is a little weirdto adjust for inflation just
because like I'm just saying that if.
You did do such a simple equation.
Oh, OK. If we assumed that it went up
the same level as the CPI went up, like maybe it would have
even been I believe. Gas right now is about the same.
It was like after the recession,there was a spike in gas prices
and we were kind of at the same level as that's why it's weird
to adjust it because gas is one of those things where like it,

(01:00:45):
it goes up, it goes down. It is, it's, it's very volatile.
It's it's. About the price of like a barrel
of oil. And so like, yeah, that's why,
like you remember gas, like after COVID, it's like all of a
sudden shot up. People are like, Oh my God, gas
is getting expensive. And it's like, OK, well, it's
like it was like almost $4.00. People are like, oh, it's like
whatever. It's like it's expensive.
You had Ukraine that, then that.Yeah.
Well, do you remember like when that happened all of a sudden,
like you could drive by a gas station, you could see it go up.

(01:01:06):
Five cents, 10 cents, 15 cents. Like that was insane.
Yeah, but. But but you know when?
Energy is more expensive. It has a like a, it's like a
push inflation like spiral, right?
So like if it's more expensive to drive the cattle to the
slaughterhouse, then it's more expensive to bring the beef to
the, you know, plant and it's like more expensive to drive to
work and all these other things.It makes everything more
expensive. So it has like a multiplier

(01:01:26):
effect. Plus like rent is just a very
big chunk of your income. It's like all this comes back to
just the abundance, which is exactly what Richie Torres said.
Had we, you know, gotten laser focused on inflation in like
2021 or 22 two, it'd be a very different story.
But we didn't. And I, I, I really, I don't
understand why. I guess that's, that's what I
wish there was more books on or more articles that go out.

(01:01:47):
Why didn't anybody think about that?
Well, and I I mean. I don't know.
I think that there is a bit of an explanation.
I know Matt Iglesias was writingabout this in the same topic,
saying we need more books on this.
And like the one thing that the the Jake Tapper book didn't
really address or couldn't address is like, what was the
political impact of this? What was the policy impact of

(01:02:07):
all of this? And I know that in the book,
Michael Bennett was quoted as after he met with him, I
believe, about some of the immigration stuff, he came away
being like, oh, maybe part of the reason why none of this is
like been handled properly or inthe proper amount of time is
because of the decline. It's because this is not someone
who's equipped to like balance these 40 different things.
And it's being delegated to staffers who kind of do want

(01:02:31):
more open borders and don't really consider the political
consequences the same that a JoeBiden of 2016 might have.
But, and it makes sense. Like, think of it like you're
the most powerful person on planet Earth.
You only get fed what people show you.
And you're 82 years old. Like, that's a recipe for insane
groupthink. Like if they just tell you like,
Nope, the American people love you.
And then you go to a rally and it's like all people cheering

(01:02:52):
for you. Like, why would you?
Well, and we know that this was the case very explicitly in the
post debate fallout period wherethey were hiding the polling
numbers from him. The second that any of the,
like, governor's meeting with him tried to bring it up, they
would end the meeting. And it came out that like, they
were. He hadn't seen most of this
data. Like most of the, like, the
stuff Pelosi brought, the stuff Schumer brought, he hadn't even
seen it. It was being hidden from.

(01:03:15):
Yeah. So that seems like an I will.
Say it is. It's a little.
What's a good I'm sorry, I wouldlike a young president who can
get information on his own, who can, dare I say, open Twitter or
just Google something. What are my polling numbers like
it that it's not asking for muchfor that.
No, what's going to happen to Wes Moore is.

(01:03:36):
Looking better by the day. And you know, if they do keep
the primary map right now, SouthCarolina is the 1st state big
black population. I think they're, I think it's,
it's. Set to cut, actually. 2028 S
Carolina. Yeah, they said they might.
They. They're looking to change it and
stuff which I'm 4 but I don't but.
I mean, it isn't Jamie Harrison like the he's, he's out.
He's been gone. I.
Thought he was, still had a little power for a bit.

(01:03:58):
No, he's fully out. Bro, well I think he was.
Still like, you know, he. Still defends he's to this day.
He still tweets about how getting Biden off was like the
bad choice. Like that was a bad decision.
I guess The thing is like OK. OK, just hearing me.
Why did they think that though? Like I guess what are why?
What is their point? Like are they just because
they're so fucking? Entrenched in this bullshit,

(01:04:19):
Like they're actually so entrenched in it where like they
legitimately think, oh, he beat Trump the first time.
Oh my God. Like, there's no way he had a
ball. Like, oh, it looked like
disorder. Oh, I'm like, Oh my God, If
Biden was a nominee, dude, we would have lost Michigan, the
Senate. The Senate seat of Michigan
would have lost to Tennessee. Wisconsin would have lost.
I don't think Ruben Gaga would have been able to win either, to

(01:04:39):
be honest. No, I was gonna say.
It was supposed to be like a 58 seat Senate Majority for the but
why? I guess it's easy when there's
no counterexample to like actually play out.
Like, I mean, I happen to think that this has more merit, but I
mean, it is a little bit like the Bernie would have won in
2016, stuff of like it's it's aneasy claim to make because there

(01:05:02):
really is no way to no, but I think but.
There's a way better way because.
There's all the polls but it, but the polls exactly.
Yeah, at least the polls. I'm not saying it's like.
As rational, but I think that they it's they're tapping into a
similar mindset like you, but they can't even.
Point to like a single poll thatshowed Biden was beating Trump.
I mean, they'll point to the 20.20 election and pretend that
that's a relevant statistic. But yeah, but he but he also he

(01:05:22):
underperformed in 2020. Like I was going to say like the
whole thing is 20/20/20. They went in thinking it was
going to be like a 58 seat majority in the Senate, like or
50, 4 to 58. And then like Cunningham, I was
telling all my friends we were getting Plexus.
Yeah. No, it was like Cunningham in my
field account would have been real successful if that was the
case. I'm sad.
Oh, it's OK. I'll all I was hoping for was

(01:05:43):
was just Georgia and not four more.
But, you know, a part of me starts to wonder, like, I think
four more years that might have been a better timeline because
it's still, I don't even think it's disputable.
Yeah. I mean, I, I, but like, I guess
the only counter is like what happens in that timeline of
like, we don't get the chips act.
We don't get, you know, IRA, we don't get like IIJ we don't get
any of that. And I guess what happens is it

(01:06:04):
just like four more years of gridlock, but Trump gets stuck
with inflation, I guess. But then I think it's bad.
And then I think we get a Pete Buttigieg type like Buttigieg
is. Not going to be the fucking
nominee, yeah, but in. The alternate scenario where
Trump was president for four years under inflation from 2020
on, I think that that would havebeen a much more realistic and I
think it would have probably ledto it like some sort of like

(01:06:27):
more technocrat like type Democrat.
And they probably would have eventually then I guess right
now and for the next 4 years have done things like the CHIPS
Act. I would think so.
Well, I guess like what we have kept like kept the Senate then
if if Trump wins, like I'm assuming we lose the Senate
still and lose the House. Yeah, I would say or we wouldn't
get it. Yeah.
What were the swing seats in theSenate that year that got a

(01:06:50):
Maine North? Carolina Well, I guess it was
the runoff. That actually won it for us.
We had the two runoffs. So we, I we would do more on.
The runoffs, yeah. No, it's like we what?
The runoffs look like that's theweird thing is normally you
would think it would be the opposite effect where it's like
that's the first resistance you can do.
But obviously it was Trump was doing all the fraud.
But so I wonder if it was, if Trump had won, would Democrats

(01:07:12):
have fired up to vote in that runoff?
I mean, well, but also probably wouldn't have made the runoff
because I think he made it by like half.
Yeah, he made it by. Yeah, I don't think he would
have made it either. Yeah, so I think yeah.
Yeah, cuz he wouldn't. Alternative history there's.
A There's a point of talking about it.
Book, book, book. I wish there was more, but I
will say Wes. Moore was in South Carolina with

(01:07:34):
Tim Walls. Personally, I don't think Tim is
the guy. I'm gonna be real with you.
He had that one. I don't know anyone from like
the past ticket and and and the administration.
Let's just let's just let's justlet's.
Table what's going to happen let's just table this for two
years until like a primary happens and we see you we see
because I'm sure when I was out there and he.
Sent you guys a little clip, he said.

(01:07:55):
He said we should be the party of doing stuff, we should
actually get shit done and let'stell him to.
Do stuff he's been. Doing stuff in Maryland, Like
what? Like what?
He just. Restructured their.
Mind ask? Yeah, he just restructured.
He actually took a pretty big political hit.
He restructured their entire budget, had to raise some taxes
on the rich, cut a few things tobalance the budget.

(01:08:16):
So they have a balanced budget now.
They were looking at a pretty bad deficit.
He also streamlined a lot of like infrastructure projects.
And then he's also, he vetoed. It was very interesting.
He actually vetoed the operation.
Study. The operation study.
Package because he was like, heylook like I think we should have
an approach that helps everyone,lifts up everyone and then also
just I know you guys are a big fans of the abundance movement,

(01:08:37):
but he was he was our first guest.
I think it's pretty cool for like Wes Moore to go on our Mons
like podcast, his first ever guest and that's pretty, pretty
baller. So you know that.
Pretty cool guys. That is my version of the.
Purity test stuff from 2020 now it's not a.
Not a crazy position. It's did you go on some
abundance related podcast? But no.
But he's he's. Really.

(01:08:57):
He's saying he's not going to run, but I I called a likely.
Thing for a guy who's running tosay, but before we wrap, I would
I think we should talk about thethe bill in more full in a
future episode, especially once we figure out if if it's going
to get shrunk down by some of this Elon backlash.
But I'm wondering like, let's end with what is your guys

(01:09:19):
prediction for the Elon stuff? Like where does this go a year
from now or three years from nowin the next election?
Like, is it plausible that it reaches a point where he just
says fuck it and is drugged up on ketamine and annoyed at
annoyed at Trump for doing some bill that undoes his work?
And he's like, OK, if you don't undo this bill, I'm giving the

(01:09:41):
Democratic Party or whoever the candidate is a billion dollars
in the next light. Like probably unlikely.
But what do you guys see of the where does he long go from here
politically? You know, there's so many
different opportunities for him to go.
I honestly, I don't think he will leave.
I think he would just kind of keep picking fights with the
administration, but still be on their side because I think
there's not a home for him on the other side.

(01:10:02):
Like we would not welcome him back, but I think he isn't
really willing to burn the bridge completely with the other
side. And and who knows, you know,
he's on like all these drugs andwhatnot.
So like maybe he decides fuck it, I'm just going to do it and
doesn't look back. Honestly, I feel like he would
go like and try to fund like a third party or something like
that. I I don't I don't I don't see
him really wanting to do this long term, you know what I mean?

(01:10:23):
Which honestly might be more useful for Democrats than than
yeah, I really, I don't know, you know, and I think the scary
thing is that Doge party third ticket run.
Yeah, I mean, like crypto pro, like, I don't know, but it's
interesting just because it's like it's the most powerful man
on the planet beefing with the richest man on the planet.
And like, I feel like that's just a recipe for disaster.

(01:10:44):
Yeah. Yeah.
No, I agree. Yeah.
Well, and the tweet. Where he calls it a disaster or
a let me actually pull up the exact quote here.
I wanna read that tweet while weend here.
So Elon's tweet was, I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it
anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork
filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting
abomination. Shame on those who voted for it.

(01:11:06):
You know you did wrong. You know it.
And obviously some of these likeElon Twitter stats or whatever
seem a little fake sometimes. But that tweet does have like
nearly 150 million views. And it clearly like had an
effect on some things. Like I, I do think Elon is a
figure in shaping some of this elite opinion in conservative

(01:11:28):
circles and like staffer opinion.
So I do think that could be something to monitor, because I
mean, he could have, but he could have said that in a lot
less aggressive terms, which I think is interesting.
It's just one of those things oflike, I feel like the like whole
like tech, right, And like people that are like, Oh, you
know, it's going to be a different Trump exception to
2.0. Like it's going to be, you know,
a whole different thing is like they just they've been wrong at

(01:11:49):
every turn. Like I feel like they've just
kind of sat down and gotten likeput in the cuck chair.
You know, it's it's like, oh, we're going to unleash nuclear
and it's like, no, actually, they got a nuclear.
It's like, OK, we're going to unleash solar.
It's like now they go to that too.
Wind. Nope, got it.
AI Nope, Like they maybe that's the only one that survives.
And it's like, it's just sad because it's kind of like most
people could have seen the writing on the wall and like,

(01:12:11):
you know, I'll, I'll bite. I'll say, you know what?
I had hoped maybe they would have had more influence and I
was wrong because I really thought that, you know what if
you gave, you know, niece cannonand the if or IFP, like, you
know, think tanks a little bit more power instead of
traditional Trumpies, It's like maybe it'd be a much better
country right where we're at. But instead, Nope, it's Peter
Navarro and tariffs and just incoherent nonsense.

(01:12:32):
Well, I, I, I just sent you guysthe meme he posted and we'll put
we'll put that on the screen. But I think my hope for the next
year and the next three years isthese memes start getting more
and more extreme. And it ends with him posting
some incredibly cringe meme thatsomehow tells people to vote for
Democrats in the midterm to get revenge on Republicans.
That's what I, that's my hope toask, but we shall see.

(01:12:55):
Perfect. Awesome.
Cool. Well, thank you guys for
listening. I hope you enjoyed.
Have a good one. Lots of fun episodes to come.

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