Latest / Start Me Up with Kimberley A. Johnson / Start Me Up: Brian J. Karem

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Start Me Up: Brian J. Karem · Start Me Up with Kimberley A. Johnson

0:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Start Me Up podcast part of MSW Media and the sexy liberal podcast network.
0:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Kimberly Johnson in DC.
0:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Today my returning guest is Brian Karam.
0:24
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a White House columnist.
0:26
[SPEAKER_00]: He writes for Solon.
0:27
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the author of Free The Press, The Death of American Journalism and how to revive it, and he's also the host of the podcast just asked the question.
0:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I always love talking to Brian, but before we get into it,
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[SPEAKER_00]: start me up podcast is independent, listen or funded, and woman run.
0:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Visit patreon.com slash start me up to see the variety of tears offered, including the option to get a bonus what's up episode just for patrons every Tuesday.
0:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like my online journal where I get a little more personal and I talk about whatever's on my mind.
0:55
[SPEAKER_00]: There's also an ad free tier with a much shorter intro.
0:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Just visit patreon.com slash start me up.
1:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you, Kimberly.
1:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Good to see you.
1:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Good to hear you.
1:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Happy holidays.
1:10
[SPEAKER_00]: How was your Thanksgiving?
1:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it was great.
1:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Family was around, uh, you know, uh, we made Turkey and a dress, a raspberry dressing and we had a good time.
1:20
[SPEAKER_00]: What's raspberry dressing?
1:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, Horton hears it.
1:22
[SPEAKER_02]: No, wait a minute.
1:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay.
1:24
[SPEAKER_00]: The grant you stole Christmas, that's it.
1:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
1:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So I read your piece on sweet potato pie.
1:30
[SPEAKER_00]: That's my dad's favorite.
1:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So it trumps your pumpkin now?
1:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, well, I made sweet potato pie for the first time.
1:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was in my early 20s.
1:39
[SPEAKER_02]: My wife and I had a couple of close friends from college.
1:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And she was from St. Louis.
1:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And her mother made it and taught it to me when I was about 21.
1:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And I have made it Ever since then and it's a I love it better than pumpkin pie.
1:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
1:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so this my dad Honestly, I don't even know if I've ever had it and we had it this year I just didn't have any of it because I didn't want the pumpkin flavor I'm like the I'm the white lady who I do like pumpkin spice, but I'm not completely obsessed with it
2:08
[SPEAKER_00]: you know.
2:09
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I like sweet potatoes.
2:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought, you know, don't give me this knock off pumpkin pie shit.
2:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want it.
2:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I try to, you know, come on, sweet potatoes.
2:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I never like sweet potatoes.
2:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I taste to sweet potato pie.
2:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, all right, pumpkin, I'm sorry, you gotta go.
2:27
[SPEAKER_00]: move aside pumpkin.
2:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I have a new love in my life.
2:32
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not you.
2:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
2:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So now what I want to ask you about and I saw you posting it and it's been a bit of an amount about a month or two years.
2:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Did your son win an Emmy?
2:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, he did.
2:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Both of my sons.
2:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I won an Emmy in New York,
2:50
[SPEAKER_02]: a film that they did, it's called Anomoy and it's a science fiction flick and it's about a 30 minute movie and now they want to turn it into a feature.
3:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Really?
3:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, that's so awesome!
3:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a really, it's a really cool, anamoya that title of it is basically it's about remembering it's nostalgia for a past you didn't live.
3:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you wanted to live in the 1860s, that's called Anamoya.
3:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And so this is about someone in the 2060s who wants to live at the end of the 20th century.
3:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And she fantasizes about it.
3:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there's a time travel element involved and it's pretty cool.
3:32
[SPEAKER_00]: That's totally fascinating.
3:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have anything to do with that?
3:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, are you involved in any way?
3:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, what did I have to do with that?
3:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Very little.
3:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Did I think I may have been a small part in it?
3:42
[SPEAKER_02]: But I, I just, I just helped them out as a good dad does.
3:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Help them.
3:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Promote it.
3:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so before we get into politics, I just want to ask like aside from singing and performing because we all know you do that.
3:56
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you do for fun?
3:58
[SPEAKER_02]: uh oh wow let's see um hmm i could be rude and crude but i what do i do for fun oh yeah sex drugs and rock and roll baby that's all right yeah that's about it right that's where it all that's what it all boils down to sick and rock and roll do do do do do do do do yeah
4:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
4:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's start with the first question.
4:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to hear what your personal takeaways for this Tennessee election, the special election we had on Tuesday.
4:33
[SPEAKER_00]: What were your takeaways?
4:35
[SPEAKER_02]: that's a good question.
4:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I saw the Tennessee election in, of course, it was a closer election than many were predicting which would give Democrats some hope, but what I also saw out of it is that there is this continuing mindset, and it isn't.
4:53
[SPEAKER_02]: a majority of people in the United States, but it's a majority of, it's close to being a majority of people who vote in the United States, still believe that in the red, maga, bull, and you've got to turn out more voters.
5:08
[SPEAKER_02]: You've kind of turned out 80 to 90 percent of voters.
5:11
[SPEAKER_02]: We just have to exercise our rights into democracy, and I can't remember what the final
5:19
[SPEAKER_02]: results were as far as turnout in that election, but I'm always left thinking, look, I know across the United States, more people are registered as Democrats, but more Republicans vote.
5:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's ultimately what I saw as the downfall for the Democratic candidate in
5:37
[SPEAKER_02]: In the district plus the fact that you've got a red district where they spent millions and I mean millions to get a mega person elected and it's got to be I want to hear more I want to hear more Democrats going out talking to voters going what is it that you need rather than telling us why they think they are right.
6:00
[SPEAKER_02]: even if they are, even if they are, they've got, which is one of the looks that got Trump and Magga going was like, you know, they listened to people and bought their line of BS, but it helped them in the election.
6:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's what I took from it.
6:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether or not it means there's hope for the Democrats not sure.
6:19
[SPEAKER_02]: There always is, because ultimately, I think Democrats,
6:24
[SPEAKER_02]: uh, believe in the one thing that we all believe in, uh, the Constitution, but it's how they communicate to the voters.
6:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I was left with a, a wee bit of hope because there was a narrowing of the gap, but I really thought that race was winnable and at the end of the day, the Democrats lost it.
6:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the truth.
6:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, and then let's go back to the, the, the election's prior, which was New York, Virginia,
6:51
[SPEAKER_00]: and we did see mom, Donnie, and then we also saw Abigail Spamberger, which I don't think people would generally classify, you know, put them together in the same type of democrat, yet they both won, and they both ran on affordability and the cost of things and just, you know, the main street issues.
7:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So moving into next year, we're, you know, we're headed to the
7:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You talk about the two Democrats that you thought were strange, but if I was, who would ever thought that mom, Donnie and Donald Trump over you, that's the day I was going, you know, you heard Donald talk and then he was going, you know, it's something to be the mayor of New York.
7:32
[SPEAKER_02]: It sounds almost like Donnie wanted to be the mayor of New York City rather than the president.
7:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And now it's all about business.
7:39
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got business to do in New York.
7:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Mom Donnie's a smart politician.
7:44
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got business to do in DC.
7:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So they're going to try to work together.
7:47
[SPEAKER_02]: That actually gave me a little bit of hope.
7:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you know what's interesting though, there was a guy on Facebook, and he opined what he thought happened as far as that whole.
7:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it was like, optics were weird, right?
8:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Trump was looking at, I mean, there was that joke.
8:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was the onion.
8:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not, or no, no, what's in the onion?
8:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just some random person on the internet who said something about Donald looking at Mom Donnie.
8:12
[SPEAKER_00]: the same way he looks at Satan in South Park, but this guy on Facebook broke it down and I'm going to try to remember what he said, but the gist of it was that Mom Donny was dealing and new he was dealing with a narcissist and he just wasn't reacting.
8:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And if Trump tried to say anything to him that would, you know, if he was looking for a reaction, Mom Donnie just played it totally straight and he was never thrown by anything Trump said, he was never overly impressed with anything.
8:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And so ultimately, it led the narcissist Donald to run out of ways to overcome and then he, and so the idea is probably, probably,
8:58
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I disagree with that.
9:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I do.
9:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Publicly, yeah, publicly, those two in the, in the oval office that they were, you know, glad handing and slapping each other.
9:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a completely different read on it and my read was that Donald Trump is not very good around people who know how to handle him.
9:17
[SPEAKER_02]: and that he is, when he sees someone that's potentially powerful, he sucks up to them.
9:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think he was trans.
9:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything with Donald Trump is trans action.
9:31
[SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't run out of fuel, he hasn't yet, anyway.
9:35
[SPEAKER_02]: He just changes his method of doing things.
9:38
[SPEAKER_02]: So he, you know, he even came to the point where
9:41
[SPEAKER_02]: He called mom Donnie a communist con and and and mom Donnie called him a fashion and there's still smiling and shaking each other's hands It's transactional Donald Trump knows there's stuff that has to be done.
9:54
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not going to overly anger the guy and he probably had If there's any such thing as genuine with Donald Trump he generally liked him and so that makes a big difference and mom Donnie could have said nothing more than hey it's
10:07
[SPEAKER_02]: great to meet you, you know, I'm not that bad at guy.
10:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And after that Donald Trump said, I'm not that bad at guy and the love us began.
10:14
[SPEAKER_02]: But you also can't you also can't take Donald Trump seriously at this point because Donald Trump's insane.
10:20
[SPEAKER_02]: He's delusional.
10:22
[SPEAKER_02]: So I that it's kind of overanalyzing it to say that he to me Donald Trump is simply a guy.
10:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything with him is transactional.
10:30
[SPEAKER_02]: He saw something in a transaction with mom Donnie.
10:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So he was friendly.
10:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he started dressing like him.
10:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's well.
10:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't give me started there.
10:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I've often wondered about his, you know, I heard him in the East Room.
10:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Me and a secret service agent one day when he came out and he was talking about those magnificent specimen of men.
10:50
[SPEAKER_02]: He was talking about the Clemson football team.
10:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And I looked at the secret service agent and I go, did I hear that right?
10:59
[SPEAKER_02]: He goes, pa, as I did.
11:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, well there, oh god, what was the other, you know, what's, uh, right cone was gay.
11:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, I don't, I know, you know, I know it doesn't necessarily mean anything, but I do remember that scene from, what is the name of that movie about Donald Trump?
11:25
[SPEAKER_00]: The one that came out right before the election.
11:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I even reviewed it.
11:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
11:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so it's the guy, the winner soldier who plays him, right right right, yeah Well, the last movie about him anyway.
11:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was like there was that scene where he kind of was walked in on Roy Cohen having sex with another man and
11:47
[SPEAKER_00]: and Donald just looked on with interest.
11:50
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't look on with lust, but he was kind of interested.
11:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, yeah, I mean, people have wondered about that.
11:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, of course, there was the whole praising Arnold Palmer's penis right before the election going on and on about how big it was.
12:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that was kind of weird.
12:06
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it would ever think that we would be at this point in our lives in discussing politics.
12:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's so much going on
12:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And we, it Donald Trump has us talking about everything except what matters.
12:21
[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.
12:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
12:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, then since you said that now I'm going to say that
12:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well y'all know he's unhealthy he looks on healthy.
12:30
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know how long he has but he's not going to be alive forever He's not going to be the president forever.
12:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So regardless if it's because he leaves You're looking at God's ears.
12:39
[SPEAKER_00]: He thinks it was because you know, I know, but you know Let's just say that he is no longer President for whatever reason and then 20 you know whatever What happens when he's not in charge anymore?
12:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Like do you have an idea of what happens to the Republican party?
12:58
[SPEAKER_02]: more worried about what happens in the United States.
13:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but what do they do at some point in time?
13:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It looks like they're putting JD Vance in the bullpin and warming him up as if he's a short term believe her.
13:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Fearful that something will happen to Donald Trump.
13:14
[SPEAKER_02]: prior to the end of his term, which is still 1,143 days away, and so at some point time, the 25th Amendment becomes a real possibility, but you can't say much of a real possibility considering that Kristi Nome was in a cabinet meeting yesterday thanking Donald Trump for making sure there were no hurricanes in the United States this year.
13:41
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and he's also responsible for the sun rising in the east, I guess.
13:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, he still has God-like status in the Republican Party as he begins to falter.
13:52
[SPEAKER_02]: If the cabinet doesn't turn, if J.D.
13:55
[SPEAKER_02]: defense doesn't rally them and say, look, he's asleep in his soup 12 hours a day.
14:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a bad look in the cabinet meeting.
14:02
[SPEAKER_02]: But if he's, you know, at some point in time, if he can't get out of bed, although we've been told he works 12 hours, that's a lie folks, because the Marine court guard routinely and I was just dragging the Marine court guard and routinely comes out around nine or before nine o'clock in the morning with Donald Trump, and this it has come out usually around noon.
14:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So that tells Jenny's leaving by four.
14:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So the fact is, is that Donald Trump isn't putting a lot of time or effort into this administration.
14:39
[SPEAKER_02]: At some point time, it becomes critical.
14:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I can't say when, maybe sooner rather than later.
14:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there may be a movement to get to use the 25th Amendment.
14:49
[SPEAKER_02]: If he dies in office, it's JD Vance, and he comes in anyway.
14:53
[SPEAKER_02]: If he makes it to the end of his term,
14:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And, and he's not, you know, like blabbering like a cicada, and he's done, then the Republican Party has two people, and that is Marco Rubio, who has the
15:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Man of many hats in this administration, I, you know, Secretary of State is this key one, but he's also doing about three other things.
15:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I think he's even turning up the thermostat in the Oval Office for Donnie, and that's an unexpected iteration.
15:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And J.D.
15:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Vance, who would love to be the air apparent, none of them have
15:29
[SPEAKER_02]: the charisma, if I can use that term very loosely, the Donald Trump has, and not all of them have the monetary backing, and Michael Johnson is a puppet for Trump, and so all of this can fall apart.
15:44
[SPEAKER_02]: unless there's someone that steps forward that we haven't seen out of the woodwork and steps forward and takes Donald Trump's mantle.
15:53
[SPEAKER_02]: The magnate people, the, you know, the six flags over Jesus members of the mega party, the Christian Nationalists would love it to be J.D.
16:03
[SPEAKER_02]: But he doesn't have the appeal nor the wear with all to do it.
16:07
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know where it goes.
16:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And anybody who says that they do, well, they're probably the same people that said Donald Trump would never be elected.
16:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So, okay, now we are hearing that there might be this mass accident.
16:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So, these people, all these Republicans, retiring.
16:24
[SPEAKER_00]: We know Marjorie Taylor Green is, and then, I believe it was at Nancy Mace.
16:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Nancy Mace, so she might, she might, is that, do you think that's just because they don't want to be defeated in the midterms?
16:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I think Marchary Taylor Green is a weather vein that goes whichever way the wind blows and that's the greatest indication that there's a problem in maga, but in her resignation letter, she also signaled her QAnon supporters and other big group in the maga empire.
16:57
[SPEAKER_02]: When she said, there is no grand plan, there is no fourth dimensional chess game.
17:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are the keywords to cue in on that use those terms all the time to describe what Donald Trump is and what he's really doing.
17:12
[SPEAKER_02]: They think he has a master plan.
17:14
[SPEAKER_02]: She says there is no master plan.
17:16
[SPEAKER_02]: He's playing fourth dimensional chess and she said, no, he's not.
17:20
[SPEAKER_02]: What
17:21
[SPEAKER_02]: The key that we saw and heard with her resignation from Congress, and she said these words, two Q and on, the Emperor has no clothes.
17:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And that comes from someone inside who believed in him for a long time.
17:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And that to me is a big Q as to where things are going in the Republican Party.
17:49
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, so I want to ask if you agree with Wajahal Ali here, uh, I can't watch my buddy watch.
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, um, let me see the date that he posted this on November 21st.
18:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So he said, I believe Marjorie Taylor Greene Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes and Candice Owens have the pulse of the modern mega movement going forward.
18:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, you can laugh at them and dismiss them as cranks, but you have to pay attention to what they're selling, and this is what comes after Trump.
18:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you agree with that?
18:16
[SPEAKER_02]: that it he says that's martyretaly green tucker Carlson and who was the other nick fountains and kendus elements uh well well they're all idiots but yeah that i think that they are but they don't have the appeal yeah um they might be able to they will be outliers uh for the rest of of the republican party they republican party has
18:41
[SPEAKER_02]: two groups, the Lincoln group and the the real Republican group that's centered Danforth and Missouri is has put together that are trying to reclaim the the Republican party as it was or somewhere close to it.
18:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And those people probably have more money and more influence over traditional
19:06
[SPEAKER_02]: fundraisers than anybody that Waj has mentioned, but yeah, Waj isn't wrong.
19:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are the people who carry their the QAnon, MAGA Christian Nationalist bunch, who believe that the best way to deal with people is to insult them and intimidate them and bully them.
19:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're not going anywhere.
19:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't think they're very electable.
19:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, neither do I. I mean, like you said, there needs to be some kind of
19:35
[SPEAKER_00]: charismatic character to emerge and right now that they don't have anyone and I think though you don't either do the democrats but that's another story no but I think that that I think the difference though in those parties is that because the republicans are making so many people unhappy
19:52
[SPEAKER_00]: it's I agree with you like we don't have the obama character that you know this time around although it's still early right because obama showed up late you know he wasn't around and he couldn't show it up late John if Kennedy showed up late yeah I mean yeah that's
20:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Who knows where we are, you know, even nine months from now on the midterms, you know, you know, on our run up to the midterms, that is, we still have the spring to go through God knows where we are in this country.
20:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And if the economy crashes, and it has, and I don't want it to, but it, there is, it's like a well.
20:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
20:34
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, there's an indication that it's past the point of strain, and then it may be, you know, I don't know what the stock market did today, but there are concerns, because Donald Trump continues to say, you know, like,
20:47
[SPEAKER_02]: the price of eggs is 800% cheaper and I don't know the last time I went into the grocery store and somebody paid me to take eggs, which is what that would mean, so people know that that's bull, and so I don't know where that leads, but yeah, there's trouble ahead, trouble behind
21:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, I mean speaking of groceries, I do the grocery shopping, and it's Bob and me, and now I will say Bob and I both have for the most part different, we eat differently.
21:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So he eats his stuff, I eat my stuff.
21:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So our grocery bill has always been fairly high just because I am buying kind of groceries for both of us, but let's say when we first got together in 2016, it was about 250 bucks a week.
21:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to the grocery store the day after it was Saturday after Thanksgiving and there I did buy a couple of more expensive things that I normally do like I bought some batteries and there were a couple of items that I don't have.
22:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll dare you do that.
22:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, but it was like you know stuff that I don't buy every week but I started running out of and it was they all kind of hit on that week.
22:10
[SPEAKER_00]: But my grocery bill was $500.
22:13
[SPEAKER_00]: My shopping cart, I mean, it was full, but it wasn't even, it wasn't like over-stuffed fall.
22:18
[SPEAKER_00]: $500 is fucking ridiculous, but yeah.
22:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So they had it gone down.
22:23
[SPEAKER_02]: No, they haven't gone down and I used to, what I used to do, I had the groceries in my head as my wife and I shop and you go shopping with your wife?
22:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course.
22:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, that's impressive.
22:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, well, it's necessary, so we go shop and I used to add up the, and just take the number of it real simple, but you know, I would, I like to guess how much my bill is going to be.
22:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm usually within a dollar or two.
22:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm doing it my head.
22:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just a reflection of my OCD.
23:02
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm usually, you know, within a dollar or two.
23:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And it used to be that if all right, we went out and we bought 30 or 40 items.
23:10
[SPEAKER_02]: the average price, so it doesn't matter what you buy at the end of the day when you all add it up the average price or the medium or the average price is about four to five dollars.
23:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Today, so if I bought $20, 25 items, I'd be spending about $100.
23:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
23:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Today, if I go out by those same 25 items,
23:32
[SPEAKER_02]: it's easily a hundred and forty dollars.
23:36
[SPEAKER_02]: So that just tells you that the price of and this is just average grocery shopping with no added, you know, just the weekly stuff that you buy to get through the week is on the way up and everybody knows that.
23:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you can't sit there and BS people about the fact that, you know,
23:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I see people using their credit cards, they're taking, they're using credit to buy groceries.
23:57
[SPEAKER_02]: My dad would walk around with a fistful of dollars, I remember.
24:00
[SPEAKER_02]: He could get two grocery cards, you know, him, his wife, four kids, Pop would go to the croaker, that's Ralph's for the people on the West Coast, and he would go to a Ralph's or the croakers.
24:13
[SPEAKER_02]: and he'd get two grocery carts full for a hundred bucks.
24:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, I can't do that and he'd pay with cash and I can't do.
24:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody can do that.
24:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, people are the real problem with our economy is that in people have said it before not me, but you know, not just me, but I reflect on when I was a kid.
24:36
[SPEAKER_02]: member of the family worked, one of the parents worked, and the other one stayed home to take care of the kids.
24:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, both of them work, at both members of the house, fold work, and both of them usually have to have side gigs.
24:49
[SPEAKER_02]: This is an impossible situation made so by all regards who continue to cut and undercut and steal from the rest of us.
25:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It is frightening.
25:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it is.
25:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, wait.
25:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to go back to this whole thing with the Republican Party.
25:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So do you think, I mean, I know Bob is all about, we need to make the Republican Party and minority party.
25:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it is, well, yeah, but I mean, it's loud and it's got power now.
25:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So, um, it's a super minority that votes.
25:25
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the problem.
25:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, right.
25:26
[SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, is, do you, as far as like the party is concerned and as opposed to looking for the leader of a party, but like, do you think the party stays together?
25:36
[SPEAKER_00]: There are people who are,
25:37
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, and I'm not saying I buy into this.
25:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just throwing it out there.
25:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, there's people talking about a civil war within the Republican party.
25:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think that it's going to, I mean, it's going to have to change, right?
25:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's, it's kind of, not if they keep getting elected, if they keep getting elected, why would they change?
25:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
25:55
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we have, I said it before.
25:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We have two.
25:59
[SPEAKER_02]: We have two political parties in this country.
26:01
[SPEAKER_02]: One has no heart and one has no head.
26:03
[SPEAKER_02]: The Republicans have no heart.
26:06
[SPEAKER_02]: They have none.
26:07
[SPEAKER_02]: They do whatever they can to win.
26:10
[SPEAKER_02]: They lie on a daily basis.
26:13
[SPEAKER_02]: But the Democrats...
26:15
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of do too, the only thing that makes the Democrats that they have no head for worried, they really don't run real well.
26:21
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't listen.
26:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I've had so many conversations with older Democrats, they need, they need new leadership.
26:30
[SPEAKER_02]: The Democrats need new leadership and new people and I'm talking in the 30s and 40s to step up.
26:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And they need what the Democrats need more than anything else is to go to the people and go,
26:42
[SPEAKER_02]: What is it you need?
26:44
[SPEAKER_02]: How can I help?
26:45
[SPEAKER_02]: What should I do?
26:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Now you can have your own ideas and you may not listen to but people want to believe that they've been hurt.
26:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So that when you go into office you do some of that but a lot of Democrats that I talked to and I've interviewed a bunch of them that are running and they're all about telling me why the Republicans are wrong and why they're right.
27:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And I got to tell you that doesn't cut it with a, if you want independent or voters on the fence you've got it's it's like we're however low the Republicans, you know, place the bar the Democrats can't crawl over it how bad is your party that you can't find someone to beat Donald Trump that no I totally agree with you, but then I but Mike I'm curious so because I think that we saw and
27:32
[SPEAKER_00]: about the party changing because i think we saw in whenever the tea party came in when it's like twenty twelve twenty eleven twenty twelve
27:40
[SPEAKER_00]: are 2010.
27:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it all started with new gangroids during that's that's where the real divisiveness and that you know that's where that was the beginnings of the tea party and new gangroids was possible made possible because of Ronald Reagan and Ronald Reagan was made possible because of the shit stain that was Richard Nixon whoops can I say that on your show?
28:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
28:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so the root cause, remember Richard Nixon had the southern strategy.
28:07
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the only way he was going to win, and he lied about so many things, and he was a POS, and he lost to Jimmy Carter.
28:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Jimmy Carter was a decent human being, but like every Democrat before and since the Democrats ate their own, didn't communicate very well.
28:26
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the biggest problem of the Democratic Party.
28:28
[SPEAKER_02]: they mean so damn well and they communicate so poorly and they feel so righteous about what they do and I want I want more than anything else to support them because a lot of them are really, really good people and most of the Republicans I know are pieces of shit and they've come into office
28:46
[SPEAKER_02]: based on the Ronald Reagan and a new Gingridge model of divide and conquer.
28:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the cause and Donald Trump is just the latest manifestation.
29:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's where I'm following on is I want better communicators.
29:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so do I.
29:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what do you think of mom Donnie's popularity and how that relates to the to the democratic party?
29:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think I basically Chuck Schumer didn't want I here did to to Chuck Schumer just sit down.
29:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
29:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
29:27
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like the old guy going, you know, Kim's get off my lawn.
29:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Are all right, you are heavy and lighter.
29:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to chuck.
29:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't, you know, I know that it was when they go low, we go high.
29:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It didn't work for many Democrats.
29:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So now it's, you know, but when they go low, you don't have to go low or
29:53
[SPEAKER_02]: reframe the argument and point it and flip it because the Republicans always, you know, even this stuff when they go high, when they go low, we go higher.
30:03
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have to go, you know, they're always allowing the Republicans to frame the argument.
30:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I want a democratic come out and go, look, I want everybody once.
30:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to be with my family.
30:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to do this.
30:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to do that.
30:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't you think we need health care for everybody?
30:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, and point out the inconsistencies and frame it so that you highlight how screwed up the Republicans are by favoring the ultra-rich instead of telling me the Republicans are wrong because all you're doing is pointing at their frame and going in and in and in instead reframe it and say, listen, all of us, we want the same thing.
30:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Republicans, you know, it used to be I disagree with what you say, but we'll defend the debt here right to say it nowadays in politics, it's I disagree with what you say in there for because I disagree with you, I will kill you.
30:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's on the, especially on the right, the, the left will cancel you the right will kill you.
31:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Take your pig.
31:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what do you think of Mom Dami's influence on the Democratic Party?
31:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think it's going to reach farther than what we're seeing right now?
31:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think it just stays in New York?
31:12
[SPEAKER_02]: depends on the success that he has and the ability for him to frame himself is you know get away from the the people who call him as socialist and a communist because those are two words that means so little he's very progressive and maybe two progressive for some people but
31:31
[SPEAKER_02]: progressive enough that what he's talking about resonates with New Yorkers and will resonate across the country if you change the frame of reference.
31:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not that he's a, he's not a communist.
31:44
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that's, I mean, an a socialist.
31:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what do you have?
31:48
[SPEAKER_02]: You think roads are in schools and hospitals and police departments and public services are
31:55
[SPEAKER_02]: They're all social programs.
31:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
31:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It's it's the democracy and the fact that everybody has a voice and that the average person needs to be heard more than the average oligarch.
32:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sick and tired of the people who have the most money.
32:10
[SPEAKER_02]: and I'm talking about you, I'm not going to say who Elon Musk, I'm not going to say Elon Musk, or you know, all those idiots that have really nothing in common with anyone.
32:25
[SPEAKER_02]: They lead very private lives.
32:28
[SPEAKER_02]: People want to say there's a conspiracy.
32:29
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just people who have likewise concerns and there's very few of them, so they can talk to each other.
32:36
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like they, you know, like they have a stamp or a book club or something and they get together on Monday nights, it's just they all have the same interest, but we all have the same interest and we're a larger group than they are and the politician who lets people understand that and that's kind of what Mom Donnie did in New York.
32:55
[SPEAKER_02]: was making people aware of that fact that we all have more in common than that we have separate.
33:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And so the mega wants to paint that as a communist, it's a communist conspiracy to whom?
33:08
[SPEAKER_02]: What tell us, do you even understand what a communism is?
33:12
[SPEAKER_02]: There's, you go, that's bull.
33:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
33:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And as far as socialist, that's another line of bullshit because socialism has been with the United States in some former fashion since the very beginning.
33:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that's just, you know, it's the democracy part that counts.
33:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Not the fascist angle, not the egalitarian or the oligarch or the despotism of the Republican Party.
33:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And when Democrats call that out,
33:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so now I want to ask you, I can only absorb so much, especially after the election last year.
33:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It was really difficult for me, and I was like, I can absorb certain amount and then I'm done.
33:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want you to talk about because I'm not gonna be able to have any authority here about the Higgs F. murdering fishermen story that everybody's talking about.
34:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, people are talking about the fact that he is probably gonna, you know, Trump's gonna get rid of him.
34:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Talk about it.
34:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell me what you think well, I Donald Trump will get rid of him if Donald Trump wants to get rid of him.
34:19
[SPEAKER_02]: He didn't care about the pressure.
34:21
[SPEAKER_02]: They already tried to blame an admiral for it.
34:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's the problem with Pete Hexeth.
34:25
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a lion's sack of shit with the mental acumen of a coconut who probably be better off preening in front of his makeup, mother and mirror and putting another tattoo on his forearm.
34:36
[SPEAKER_02]: This man is totally
34:38
[SPEAKER_02]: He said he's up the epitome of a joke.
34:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone I know in the military who knows him thinks he's an idiot overseas He's seen as an in in in Europe.
34:49
[SPEAKER_02]: He has looked upon with with about the same way that we'd look on You know a court jester during the time of being and renegade
34:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And so with the statement that he said that reporters at the Washington Post made up the story about bombing the boat a second time and said they were all sitting in the comfort of their air condition offices and made this stuff up.
35:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I would remind everyone that and that there was the fog of war involved.
35:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I would remind everyone that Pete Hexeth made his decisions in the
35:25
[SPEAKER_02]: from the confines of a very air conditioned office, either in the pinning wall house.
35:32
[SPEAKER_02]: He's never seen combat.
35:35
[SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't know what fog is.
35:38
[SPEAKER_02]: This wasn't a war.
35:39
[SPEAKER_02]: This was two missile strikes on a boat.
35:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Since then, they've come out and defended it saying, it looked like the people were still going to attack so he shot it a second time.
35:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how they were going to attack from the missile that they had took out the boat on the first one, so I find that to be species at best.
36:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But hexeth getting rid of hexeth, they will likely sacrifice the admiral first, if Donald Trump is looking for a whipping boy, and I will remind everyone, especially since I believe the admiral is African-American,
36:14
[SPEAKER_02]: and Donald Trump is a racist and so is Pete Higgseth.
36:18
[SPEAKER_02]: They would probably do that.
36:20
[SPEAKER_02]: The fact of the matter is these are all illegal actions.
36:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
36:24
[SPEAKER_02]: There's nothing that's legal about this.
36:27
[SPEAKER_02]: There has been no due process.
36:29
[SPEAKER_02]: We aren't at war.
36:31
[SPEAKER_02]: We're just blowing shit up indiscriminately.
36:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Claiming that we're anti-drug while at the same time, what did Donald Trump do?
36:41
[SPEAKER_02]: pardon to the head of the former president of Honduras was involved in millions of dollars for the cocaine trafficking, that you're okay with.
36:51
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's the, it's the, it's the soy boy beta male image of being tough.
36:58
[SPEAKER_02]: When, when, when P-Tex says kill them kill them all as, as he's repeatedly said, I don't have a hard time believing that P-Tex said said that and I have no problem believing that the military did that.
37:11
[SPEAKER_02]: that all follow those orders if they believe them to be legal and that's one of the reasons why those six Democrats came out and said it's okay not to follow in illegal order.
37:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And imagine that you have someone warning you not to break the law.
37:27
[SPEAKER_02]: and the minister, more sinister of war, Pete Hackseth, and your president, tell you that's wrong and that you're a traitor if you do that.
37:36
[SPEAKER_02]: What that tells you is that the head of the Department of Defense and the president of the United States are both criminals.
37:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, only a criminal will tell you, it's okay to break the law.
37:48
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a very essence of being a criminal.
37:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So Pete Hackseth is a coward and a criminal
37:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Experiences on Fox News, in fact, most of the people that Donald Trump has hired are on Fox News.
38:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Who kisses his ass and you know, that's I keep going back.
38:06
[SPEAKER_02]: This is another example is hope he takes that thing is another example of the fact that we don't have a real president.
38:14
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a reality show and these are all reality show actions stay tuned.
38:21
[SPEAKER_02]: We hear.
38:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for your attention to the matter we hear.
38:25
[SPEAKER_02]: We get memos from the White House that say Trump will make a surprise announcement at 2 o'clock.
38:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And they won't tell us what it is.
38:35
[SPEAKER_02]: This is all the state.
38:37
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to aspect the all.
38:38
[SPEAKER_02]: tune in for further info driving up the audience.
38:41
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have a rose garden anymore, he calls it the rose garden club.
38:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything about this guy is just simply salacious horrible fiction.
38:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I have two more questions.
38:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So what kind of impact do you think Mark Kelly is having with his very angry, he's speaking out, he's pissed off a Donald Trump and he wants people to not follow those illegal orders.
39:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, we've heard before that we would love, you know, in this time to have that one voice, oh God, what was that guy's name?
39:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you no shame or whatever that guy was back in the day.
39:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't think of his name right.
39:27
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all escaping me back in the Nixon time When that have you know shame Mr. President.
39:32
[SPEAKER_00]: There he goes.
39:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So like we don't necessarily have that right now because of the internet and how divided we are in all of that although You know, Mark Kelly.
39:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that he's a Democrat and I know that it's not like magas kind of embrace him But I think he does have some gravitas and I'm just wondering like do you think that it makes a difference that he's speaking out the way he is now?
39:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I think that whenever you have someone who's pushing back in the manner in which he is doing it and here's a man who has Look, he was a fighter pilot.
40:02
[SPEAKER_02]: He led space shuttle missions.
40:04
[SPEAKER_02]: He's the husband of a woman who is at, you know, a gun victim of a guy, a victim of gun violence.
40:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's a guy who is is grounded and is steady as they come and I know that it has an impact because I have
40:21
[SPEAKER_02]: of the port, you know, pro trump that are going while this guy's pretty cool.
40:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, he has above everyone else in the Democratic party, and I don't know what is.
40:33
[SPEAKER_02]: his desires are for future office, but he has the ability to mobilize the Democrats with a fervor and a passion that I haven't seen out of anyone else.
40:45
[SPEAKER_02]: The closest to it would be Gavin Newsom who's got a great hairdo and is really good with he's got a great staff who trolls Donald Trump on the internet consistently and constantly and I know there are people that
40:59
[SPEAKER_02]: favor him for the president and see and I don't know it's going to be interesting to see if Mark Kelly is that guy Yeah, I compare And in a column I wrote with recently I compared the Trump administration to you know the Omega's an animal house and That Trump is Dean Vernon Werner Thank you sir man have another
41:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And that would be, and I'm, that's J.D.
41:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Vance, I would go with, I would go with Doug, Doug Neetermire is Peg Seth, and, and BABs, the one who always wanted to date Neetermire is, Caroline will love it.
41:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, you know, and most of the Democrats remind me of Stork or, you know, well, actually, most of them remind me of Kent Dorfman and I said, and I said Chuck reminds me of Stork, I said, where is a John Blutarsky who stand up and go, hey, was it over when they, when the term was far more powerful, I mean, forget it is rolling and I think the John Blutarsky right now is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is,
42:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Mark Kelly, I think he's standing up don't stay.
42:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, nothing's over till we think it's decided as yeah and I like that about him, you know, all kidding, because somebody's got into feet, you know, the Greg Marmalard's of the world and
42:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and they're Dean Vernon Wormers and the ships and the babbs.
42:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, these are bad people.
42:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
42:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, we looked at it comedically, you know, but they were bad people.
42:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, and I have no problem believing that Pete Higgs at this Doug Neetermeyer would stick a carrot in his mouth and go kiss a horse.
42:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
42:45
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why I look at what Mark Kelly is doing and go, all right, there's a guy, and he's a guy who does, as we've been talking about for the last half hour, he's a guy who does reframe arguments, and sticks them squarely in reality.
43:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And you trust him because, hey, the guy has done some real shit.
43:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I can imagine, could you imagine Pete Exeth,
43:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And if the piloting an F-18 being passed or not, you know, the computer would pull it, you know, Austin, I was, I'm closing the pod bay doors and floating out in space.
43:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.
43:32
[SPEAKER_00]: way I start, are you there?
43:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought, yes, I did to go out.
43:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
43:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, okay.
43:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I know I'm really all hopeful about Mark Kelly and I'm wondering if maybe he is the charismatic Democratic character that, uh, will emerge, but I guess we'll just wait and see because we have so much time, right?
43:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that like Rachel bit of coffers like I don't even want to fucking hear about 2028 right now.
43:52
[SPEAKER_00]: We got to get through 2026 and I do agree with her, but you know, I think that
44:01
[SPEAKER_00]: our minds want to go to 2020 and like have that Democrat elected and get out of this mess, right?
44:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And if it's not a Democrat, then I would hope that it was being a saying Republican, but I don't think there's any such thing.
44:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So, okay, last question here.
44:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, when this time last year, we had no idea how things were going to unfold.
44:20
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we knew it was going to be bad, and some things could be predicted, not everything.
44:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So, where we are today,
44:28
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you feel today versus how you felt about this country last December?
44:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, there's no comparison.
44:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Each day with Donald Trump gets worse.
44:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Where we were last December is our point, but where we are now is so we've wrote,
44:51
[SPEAKER_02]: old and so much.
44:54
[SPEAKER_02]: This is, you get out, sorry, take for example, just in my field of profession, reporting, there is no independent press anymore, forget it.
45:06
[SPEAKER_02]: If you can't stand up and tell somebody, and this is why they won't let, you know, they try to take away my
45:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And my dad and my mom, I could not stand there as Donald Trump called a one-female reporter a pig.
45:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Hold another one to shut up and told another one that she was insubordinate and then told another one that she was stupid.
45:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say Mr. President come on all kidding aside treat us with a little bit of respect treat these women with some respect that's how far we fallen in the first Donald Trump administration we stood up for each other a little bit better on April Ryan was picked on
45:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Me, Jim Acosta, John Carl, Peter Alexander stood up for when, when, um, Donald, when, uh, Acosta got the fight in the East Room, Peter Alexander stood up for him when I got the fight and they tried to get rid of me.
46:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It was, it was Acosta and others who stood up for me then.
46:09
[SPEAKER_02]: No, there's not any of that.
46:11
[SPEAKER_02]: We are so far removed from where we were.
46:14
[SPEAKER_02]: After the election, I fear where we will be in 2026.
46:19
[SPEAKER_02]: My hope is that I do believe that people are getting fed up with the nonsense, because it's finally affecting them to the point where they've got to do something.
46:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where we are right now.
46:36
[SPEAKER_02]: That's, I don't know that this country does not exist.
46:42
[SPEAKER_02]: As if those people who say we're in a constitutional crisis, that's in the review mirror.
46:48
[SPEAKER_02]: We live right now in an autocracy and an autocracy where the president, the elected president, thinks he's a king.
46:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Hell, even Prince Harry came out and said, I thought you guys elected a king.
46:59
[SPEAKER_02]: He got in a little dig on us.
47:01
[SPEAKER_02]: after he got booed on television.
47:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm not so sure that we will see the United States as I grew up and understood it.
47:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Back.
47:14
[SPEAKER_02]: as it should be in my lifetime, my hope is that we do, it depends on if you're, it all really boils down to getting involved.
47:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And that means voting, but more than voting, going to the polls and helping out volunteering, you know, getting in phone lines, phone banks, docking on doors, getting the elderly to vote by driving them to the polls, standing in law.
47:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you you wouldn't believe that people I've run into at these no king rallies and I ask him there We're sick of Donald Trump.
47:49
[SPEAKER_02]: We're doing something bad at it.
47:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I go great to you vote.
47:52
[SPEAKER_02]: No, my vote doesn't count and I'm going you will spend
47:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Friday, painting signs, standing in line, driving miles marching to voice your disapproval and you won't vote.
48:08
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the problem.
48:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Folks, it doesn't work if you don't vote.
48:12
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got to get involved.
48:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So my hope is that we get more people involved and then maybe we get the country back that we deserve.
48:21
[SPEAKER_00]: well i feel i agree with what you say but i feel slightly more hopeful than you and i'm not really sure why and i don't think it's a paulian if it all you're giving me hope baby you're giving me hope well and i i mean i don't i i i i don't even have any evidence or anything like that i mean well i guess i do have it evident so i mean i think that you know for the most part with the exception of tenancy we have been seeing some um you know great democratic wins since
48:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, he lost or she lost and, you know, and I think it's the biggest ray of hope there really was your degree, which he comes out and says the emperor has no close.
48:56
[SPEAKER_02]: She's the other vein.
48:57
[SPEAKER_02]: She's telling you it's fallen apart.
48:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
48:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And I do believe that in 2026, if the vote turns out, the republished, I think are you screwed, blue, and tattooed.
49:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
49:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And it will.
49:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, obviously they're going to do every they're going to try to stop the election and they won't be able to and they're going to do everything they can, but I think, you know, that and I keep saying this, but like in 2018 we had the
49:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Alex, a general election turnout for a midterm.
49:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have a feeling that because this time around the guardrails are no longer there at all.
49:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And people are getting screwed in ways new ways.
49:28
[SPEAKER_00]: He's found new ways to screw them.
49:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that we are going to see a big blue wave.
49:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And my fear, though, is that I just, I don't want the Democratic Party
49:37
[SPEAKER_00]: just depend on the fact that we're, you know, the voters are also upset about Donald Trump and then once he's gone because in a way that's what we did in 2020 and they never went away.
49:48
[SPEAKER_00]: They just got stronger and they figured it out.
49:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that, you know, I'd like for the Democratic Party if we're, if we're, if we're going to get back and power in any kind of a big way, we have to make big sweeping changes, but that's for another show.
49:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So
50:00
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do have hope.
50:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know.
50:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I agree with everything you say, though.
50:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I know that and I think things are going to get worse in the, you know, Heather Cox Richardson, who I just adore was saying, you know, for the next several months just expected to get even worse.
50:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think we all need to, I just want to say this before we go, though.
50:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw a lot of democratic ears for the entire year.
50:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's it.
50:27
[SPEAKER_00]: We're toast, democracy's over, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
50:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like, you know, until it's truly over, it will know that it's over when we can't ever have, when Democrats will never win another election.
50:41
[SPEAKER_00]: when they fix everything, but it's not completely over.
50:45
[SPEAKER_00]: We are being run by an autocrat.
50:47
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a fascist government, but it can be changed.
50:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, I think after that election, not the Tennessee election, but New York and all of that, and then it was just like off of no kings day, I haven't seen as many Debbie Downer,
51:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Democratic voters.
51:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's good.
51:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that people are getting pissed off, but I think what we need to do is we need to vote so big and then they have to make those sweeping changes.
51:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think I do think there is stuff to be helped, you know, stuff we can hope be hopeful about.
51:21
[SPEAKER_00]: But I guess time will tell, right?
51:23
[SPEAKER_02]: You got that one right, only time will tell and unfortunately, that's who we've got a little bit of time before the 2016 election in 2020.
51:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're you're correct and that's where we are now it's going to get it's you know,
51:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Mary Trump said something to me that just stuck with me and it's so true, there is no worst with Donald Trump.
51:54
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that was a very worse until he goes belly up or, you know, just dives head first into his cornflakes and just.
52:05
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, battles like a cicada, we're stuck with this, and it's not just Donald Trump, you know, those idiots around him, Steven Miller, who is destined to, you know, wear orange, pale bonded, she was, you know, destined to do the same thing.
52:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, and of course, JD, I love my self-events.
52:26
[SPEAKER_02]: These people are all.
52:28
[SPEAKER_02]: prison bound at some point in time and peat, you know, I love my makeup mirror heads at all of these people are are just horrible people and and they've done some very horrible things and you know the idea that they even here's how worse it's going to get right they have a portal now on the White House This is the White House website apportaled it you know you can
52:52
[SPEAKER_02]: chip in and tell us who are the bad people that are doing bad things with the press.
52:56
[SPEAKER_02]: These are fake news.
52:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I, I go, all right, somebody is propagating lies.
53:02
[SPEAKER_02]: So I, I filled it out and sent him back the information, who's, who's the bad actor?
53:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I said the White House.
53:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said articles from the White House back to them and I go, I wonder if they'll ever get back to me.
53:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Because there was that are, they're proliferating the fake news.
53:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
53:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're going to continue to do it.
53:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And there will be people that will believe them.
53:21
[SPEAKER_02]: and other people are going to be angry with them, and this is all going in the same place.
53:26
[SPEAKER_02]: You're right.
53:27
[SPEAKER_02]: 2026 is that's the, you know, right now the next focus point.
53:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's, and then we got it.
53:34
[SPEAKER_00]: We got to do it.
53:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do have high hopes for it.
53:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So please, dear Santa.
53:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, my Christmas wish for 20 25 6 whatever.
53:46
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, Brian, you know, I just love talking to you because you're easy likes on day morning.
53:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I wish I could put it on that song.
53:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I know me.
53:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm thinking of Christmas time.
53:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to go to a Paul McCartney one simply having a wonderful Christmas time.
54:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and I'm really trying to.
54:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really trying to enjoy my holiday season this year because I do think we have hope, you know, we still have a lot of crap to go through, but we do have some hope.
54:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm trying to enjoy this.
54:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, hope is eternal.
54:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It is.
54:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Action makes a difference.
54:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it does.
54:21
[SPEAKER_02]: We would, what's the saying I heard the other day that I love.
54:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Tough times don't last tough people do.
54:27
[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.
54:28
[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.
54:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's so true.
54:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And all the Democratic Ears out there, remember that, please.
54:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want it up.
54:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to say negative.
54:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was dated a lady who said it on Tulsa King, but I still like it All right, so before I release you, please tell everyone where to go to find ya
54:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Ah, well, salon.com once a week on Fridays for my weekly column, on Substack, it's reporters notebook, at Brian and Caramand, at Brian Caramorever, you know, in social media, and the title of the, and any of the podcasts is called Just Ask The Question, wherever fine podcasts are sold.
55:14
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, well, we already all, most of us follow you anyway, but anybody new out there, go follow Brian, and thank you for being a guest as usual, and I hope you have a wonderful, happy holiday.
55:27
[SPEAKER_02]: You too, come on, to you and Bob, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and hope you guys have a great one.
55:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
55:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Take care.