Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 6/29/26: DSA Colorado Takeover, Europe Heat Wave, Newsom Tax Scam

Transcript

6/29/26: DSA Colorado Takeover, Europe Heat Wave, Newsom Tax Scam · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
0:01
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0:33
Speaker 2: Joining us this morning, we have two candidates who are
0:36
Speaker 2: both running against Democratic incumbents in Colorado primaries this week.
0:41
Speaker 4: Ladies, welcome.
0:42
Speaker 2: We've gotten a lot Kiros who's running in Colorado's first district,
0:45
Speaker 2: which is in Denver, against Diana de get And we
0:47
Speaker 2: have Julie Gonzalez, who is running for Senate against incumbent
0:51
Speaker 2: John Hickenlooper. Great to see you both again, Great, thanks
0:54
Speaker 2: for having us. Yeah, of course, So Julie, I'll start
0:56
Speaker 2: with you and then a lot after. How are you
0:58
Speaker 2: feeling about the race, when do you think are going
0:59
Speaker 2: to be the critical issues voters are focused on heading
1:02
Speaker 2: into election day.
1:04
Speaker 5: What we have heard across the state that as we
1:08
Speaker 5: have been speaking to voters who feel like they have
1:12
Speaker 5: either been taken for granted or left behind altogether by
1:15
Speaker 5: the Democratic Party, is that they want candidates who will
1:18
Speaker 5: be direct and honest with them about tackling the challenges
1:23
Speaker 5: that we all are suffering, the cost of living right,
1:28
Speaker 5: the fact that you are working harder than ever three
1:31
Speaker 5: jobs plus a side hustle just to afford the basics.
1:35
Speaker 5: And we'll be in Pueblo, Colorado later today to speak
1:39
Speaker 5: with families and communities to fight for Medicare for all,
1:44
Speaker 5: universal child and elder care, housing first policies, and the
1:49
Speaker 5: genocide and to build an economy that actually works for
1:53
Speaker 5: folks like us as opposed to continuing to bend the
1:56
Speaker 5: knee to Donald Trump, continuing to be the need to
2:01
Speaker 5: have broken politics that has too often forced us to
2:07
Speaker 5: settle for crumbs.
2:08
Speaker 2: And I can hear in your voice you've been out
2:10
Speaker 2: campaigning hard, Malatt. Have you seen increased momentum since.
2:16
Speaker 4: The DSA victories last week?
2:19
Speaker 2: I know Hassan Piker is coming out to campaign with
2:21
Speaker 2: you tomorrow. He apparently has merged as quite a kingmaker
2:24
Speaker 2: in the party, So congratulations on having him come and
2:26
Speaker 2: help you out here down the stretch. But have you
2:28
Speaker 2: seen more interest and more excitement nationally in your race
2:32
Speaker 2: since those very surprising victories last week?
2:35
Speaker 6: Yeah? Absolutely.
2:36
Speaker 7: You know, what happened in New York, I think was
2:38
Speaker 7: a referendum on the party right. Voters made it abundantly
2:42
Speaker 7: clear that they're looking for fighters, Fighters that are going
2:44
Speaker 7: to fight for working families, that are going to address
2:47
Speaker 7: our budget and make sure that it's a reflection of
2:49
Speaker 7: our moral priorities, and protecting families here at home, getting
2:52
Speaker 7: rid of homelessness here, addressing our healthcare crisis, and stopping
2:57
Speaker 7: the genocides abroad with our tax pay dollar complicity. But
3:00
Speaker 7: more than anything, I think what happened in New York
3:02
Speaker 7: is giving a lot of voters here permission to have
3:05
Speaker 7: hope that we actually can vote in you know, challengers
3:08
Speaker 7: that are fighting for working families and are fighting to
3:12
Speaker 7: end the corruption in our government and are actually getting
3:14
Speaker 7: to the root cause of all the issues that we're
3:16
Speaker 7: seeing in our economy and our democracy and our climate.
3:19
Speaker 8: And well, I'll stick with you for a moment, actually,
3:20
Speaker 8: because you're getting a lot of attention online for this
3:22
Speaker 8: response on MSNBC where you said, quote, we have socialism already.
3:25
Speaker 8: It's in the roads we drive on, the schools we
3:27
Speaker 8: send our kids, to the fire stations we call upon.
3:29
Speaker 8: I'm just asking that we extend that to security, to
3:31
Speaker 8: our that security to our healthcare, to our housing, to
3:33
Speaker 8: our nutritional food, to our higher education, so that we're
3:36
Speaker 8: actually meeting the basic.
3:37
Speaker 1: Needs of everyday working families in this country.
3:39
Speaker 8: And what's so interesting about that is I think it
3:41
Speaker 8: gets to this definition of what democratic socialism is and
3:45
Speaker 8: what the DSA is selling when it sells democratic socialism,
3:48
Speaker 8: because I think a lot of people would say, oh,
3:50
Speaker 8: the roads are drive on schools, that's sort of like
3:53
Speaker 8: normal democracy. This is like the product of a normal
3:55
Speaker 8: democratic system. But if you could break down a bit
3:58
Speaker 8: as to why you see those as posit examples of
4:01
Speaker 8: what democratic socialism looks like, I think that'd be really interesting.
4:04
Speaker 9: Yeah.
4:05
Speaker 7: Absolutely, you know, every single one of the things that
4:07
Speaker 7: I mentioned, whether it was the roads or fire stations
4:09
Speaker 7: or you know, our public schools, those are specifically, you know,
4:13
Speaker 7: government run programs because we know that private ownership of
4:17
Speaker 7: any one of those things ends up, you know, leaving
4:20
Speaker 7: working families behind, ends up leaving you know, when we
4:22
Speaker 7: had private fire stations, there were a lot of poor,
4:26
Speaker 7: working families that did not get the security of being
4:29
Speaker 7: able to call on a fire station if their house,
4:31
Speaker 7: you know, was on fire.
4:32
Speaker 6: And so the same thing should go for our healthcare.
4:35
Speaker 7: Right now, if you are a wealthier person, you are
4:37
Speaker 7: more likely to live multiple years longer than a person
4:41
Speaker 7: who is poor and is working class and doesn't have
4:43
Speaker 7: access to that same kind of quality healthcare. What we're
4:46
Speaker 7: talking about is injecting you know, real morals and ethics
4:50
Speaker 7: into what kind of programs do we think our government
4:52
Speaker 7: should be responsible for? What kind of things do we
4:54
Speaker 7: believe that no one should be left behind on whether
4:56
Speaker 7: or not they've been born into a family that has
4:58
Speaker 7: the money to take care of it for them.
5:00
Speaker 6: And I think that should.
5:01
Speaker 7: Extend to our healthcare, our housing, our access to nutritional food,
5:05
Speaker 7: and our access to higher education. Most especially now as
5:09
Speaker 7: we're embarking on this new era of AI which at
5:12
Speaker 7: best is going to be a complete change in our
5:15
Speaker 7: labor economy and is going to change the way we
5:17
Speaker 7: look at work entirely in our society and at worst
5:20
Speaker 7: is a risk to humanity at large. And so we
5:23
Speaker 7: have to be prepared for what that world looks like.
5:24
Speaker 7: And that means meeting people's most basic needs. That's what
5:27
Speaker 7: democratic socialism delivers on.
5:29
Speaker 4: And State Center.
5:30
Speaker 2: Gonzalez, you're running against income in Senator John Higginloover. As
5:33
Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier, what do you see is the key
5:35
Speaker 2: differences between the way you govern and what is the
5:39
Speaker 2: reason why you decided, Okay, this man should no longer
5:42
Speaker 2: represent us, we should do something different here.
5:44
Speaker 5: Honestly, the fact that I show up and listen to
5:48
Speaker 5: people and meet them where they're at across the state,
5:53
Speaker 5: and not only when things are easy, but particularly when
5:57
Speaker 5: things are hard. That's how I've shown up my entire life,
6:01
Speaker 5: first as an organizer on immigrant rights, affordable housing, and
6:05
Speaker 5: educational justice issues. And then after the Trump the first
6:10
Speaker 5: Trump administration, I ran in those midterm primaries to the
6:15
Speaker 5: state capital, to the state Senate, and at the Capitol
6:18
Speaker 5: have been proud to champion over two hundred bills that
6:22
Speaker 5: have been signed into law, look criminal justice reform policies,
6:27
Speaker 5: protecting reproductive freedom, passing the Colorado Voting Rights Act, and
6:31
Speaker 5: cracking down our corporate polluters. We have done the work
6:34
Speaker 5: and I've been battle tested, and that's I think what
6:38
Speaker 5: we need in this moment.
6:40
Speaker 6: Look, Team Blue, Not only.
6:42
Speaker 5: Do we need to flip red seats blue to build
6:44
Speaker 5: a governing majority, we also need to look at the
6:48
Speaker 5: caliber of Democrats that we sent to DC from the
6:52
Speaker 5: safe seats, from the blue seats in the first place.
6:56
Speaker 5: And that, to me is what walking and chewing them
6:59
Speaker 5: at the same time look like. And It's what I'm
7:01
Speaker 5: prepared to do in the US Senate.
7:05
Speaker 2: In center Gunzalez, I'm actually curious your views on DSA
7:08
Speaker 2: because my understanding is you were a member, you said
7:11
Speaker 2: you allowed your membership to lapse. Obviously, the organization has
7:14
Speaker 2: a lot of energy around the country. How do you
7:16
Speaker 2: feel about the organization today? How does it relate to
7:18
Speaker 2: your politics?
7:19
Speaker 5: Look, I believe that if we actually want to defeat
7:23
Speaker 5: MAGA extremism once and for all, we need to build
7:27
Speaker 5: the broadest coalition that this country has ever seen, broader
7:31
Speaker 5: than the Obama coalition from two thousand and eight. That
7:35
Speaker 5: includes folks like DSA, and that also includes folks like
7:39
Speaker 5: folks are in my family who were two time Obama voters,
7:43
Speaker 5: but then jumped on the Trump train and have been
7:47
Speaker 5: MAGA voters for the past three terms. And what is
7:51
Speaker 5: clear is that that MAGA coalition is starting to break down. Look,
7:57
Speaker 5: with one of my family members, he was the murder
8:00
Speaker 5: of Alex Prettie. With another family member, it was the
8:03
Speaker 5: Epstein Files right that people are getting off that Trump train,
8:06
Speaker 5: and we need to have a movement that is broad
8:09
Speaker 5: enough and inclusive enough in order for us to go
8:12
Speaker 5: and outorganize our opposition and defeat that extremism once and
8:17
Speaker 5: for all.
8:18
Speaker 2: And so it was your concern that the DSA label
8:20
Speaker 2: would sort of limit your ability to read some of
8:21
Speaker 2: those people.
8:22
Speaker 4: Was that the thought?
8:23
Speaker 5: Honestly, I was a member when I was first elected
8:26
Speaker 5: in twenty eighteen, and then I ran into the brick
8:30
Speaker 5: wall of actually being a full time legislator on a
8:33
Speaker 5: part time salary. I didn't have the space to in
8:38
Speaker 5: a lot of ways. I didn't have the space to
8:42
Speaker 5: be a member of anything my book club, much less
8:46
Speaker 5: a member of an organization. And so that's why I
8:50
Speaker 5: let my membership lack at lapse. Honestly, I've been value
8:54
Speaker 5: the line. I'm proud to be a recommended candidate from
8:57
Speaker 5: Denver DSA and to also be a founding member of
9:01
Speaker 5: the Colorado Working Families Party. And as we are going
9:05
Speaker 5: and talking to voters across the state, what is weird
9:10
Speaker 5: is that nobody coming to save us but us. We
9:13
Speaker 5: are the ones that we have been waiting for, and
9:15
Speaker 5: so we need to go out and organize and fight
9:19
Speaker 5: and win.
9:20
Speaker 8: Now a question for both of you actually, because the
9:22
Speaker 8: first time that Zora Mamdani was on the show, he
9:25
Speaker 8: was talking to us after Donald Trump's reelection in twenty
9:27
Speaker 8: twenty four about campaigning in different areas of New York
9:31
Speaker 8: City that we're concentrated heavily with Trump voters, and he
9:34
Speaker 8: was talking to us about his success and having those conversations. Now,
9:37
Speaker 8: you're obviously both in primaries, but the knocks against you
9:41
Speaker 8: are they can't win in a general election, and they'll
9:45
Speaker 8: tie you to Hassan Piker, tie you to Zora Mamdani.
9:49
Speaker 8: And so if we start with you may a lot.
9:52
Speaker 8: Just how has that do? Like, what is your response
9:54
Speaker 8: to people who say you'll now be tarnished with the
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Speaker 8: Hassan Pike, your baggage, the Zoramamdani baggage, the Democratic socialist baggage.
10:04
Speaker 8: In a way, that's much less helpful when you're beyond
10:07
Speaker 8: the primary.
10:08
Speaker 7: You know, I think a lot of folks that have
10:10
Speaker 7: those concerns don't talk to most regular voters on a
10:14
Speaker 7: regular basis.
10:15
Speaker 10: You know.
10:15
Speaker 7: The voters that I've spoken with, including unaffiliated voters, including
10:19
Speaker 7: some unaffiliated Republican leaning voters who have expressed that they're
10:22
Speaker 7: going to be supporting us in this primary because unaffiliateds
10:25
Speaker 7: can vote in our primaries here in Colorado, have expressed
10:28
Speaker 7: that while they don't agree on everything with me, they
10:30
Speaker 7: completely agree that corruption is the root cause of a
10:33
Speaker 7: lot of our problems. And when I sit down with
10:35
Speaker 7: some Republicans about some of the issues that you know, we.
10:38
Speaker 6: Agree and some of the issues that.
10:39
Speaker 7: We disagree on, you know, I find that most of
10:41
Speaker 7: the time we agree that, you know, we need affordable healthcare,
10:43
Speaker 7: we need affordable housing. We just largely disagree on how
10:46
Speaker 7: to actually.
10:46
Speaker 1: Get that done.
10:47
Speaker 6: And that's okay, because that's what a democracy is for.
10:49
Speaker 7: That's where the debate is supposed to happen, and that's
10:52
Speaker 7: what the People's House is for, for us to come
10:54
Speaker 7: to those conclusions in a democratic way. But that's not
10:57
Speaker 7: what's happening because we don't live in a democracy anymore.
10:59
Speaker 7: We live in an oligarkie. When a corporation or a
11:01
Speaker 7: special interest has a seventy percent chance of getting a
11:04
Speaker 7: bill passed, but an everyday American with the widespread support
11:07
Speaker 7: of most American voters can only get a thirty percent chance.
11:11
Speaker 6: Of getting a bill passed. That's not a democracy. That's
11:13
Speaker 6: an oligarchy.
11:14
Speaker 7: And so when I'm talking with a lot of voters
11:16
Speaker 7: who may be hearing about all this stuff about Azmon, Biker,
11:19
Speaker 7: ors Ouran or whatever, we just get to the bare
11:21
Speaker 7: bones of it, which is that you and I can
11:23
Speaker 7: have an argument or a debate about whether or not
11:25
Speaker 7: a policy makes sense, but it doesn't matter because the
11:27
Speaker 7: person making the real decisions right now, or the corporations
11:30
Speaker 7: and the billionaires and the special interests. And we have
11:32
Speaker 7: to root out that corruption so we can get back
11:35
Speaker 7: to the work of governing and working in a functioning democracy.
11:38
Speaker 2: How about you stay centered, because Zalez.
11:41
Speaker 5: Look, whether it's been talking to communities on the Western Slope,
11:46
Speaker 5: whether it's been talking to folks in the valley up
11:49
Speaker 5: in Greeley, Colorado, we have seen firsthand what happens when
11:55
Speaker 5: communities get lulled into this idea of voting for a
11:59
Speaker 5: party that has nothing but their worst interest in mind right,
12:03
Speaker 5: and the Republicans and too many corporate Democrats are totally
12:09
Speaker 5: willing to engage in the politics of divide and conquer.
12:12
Speaker 6: But what we know is that we.
12:14
Speaker 5: Need to go and meet folks where they're at and
12:19
Speaker 5: listen to them. Ask them, what are you frustrated about?
12:23
Speaker 5: What is it that you want to see happen, and
12:26
Speaker 5: what is it that you expect of your next US senator?
12:30
Speaker 5: And as we've gone and had those conversations, people are
12:34
Speaker 5: far more interested in telling their experiences than they are
12:39
Speaker 5: in saying, oh, well, do you support Trump one hundred percent?
12:42
Speaker 5: Do you support Zoran one hundred percent? Do you support
12:46
Speaker 5: Hasan a hundred percent? Honestly, people want to be heard.
12:50
Speaker 5: People want to feel like they have a connection, and that,
12:55
Speaker 5: to me is how we're going to build a movement
12:58
Speaker 5: broad enough in order to to win well.
13:01
Speaker 2: A lot we spoke with you before, but just as
13:03
Speaker 2: a reminder for people who may not remember your background
13:06
Speaker 2: part of your activation, you are actually fired for speaking
13:10
Speaker 2: out about the genocide in Gaza.
13:13
Speaker 4: And I'm curious from.
13:15
Speaker 2: Your perspective, you're running to represent a district that is
13:18
Speaker 2: very democratic. It's also very young, if memory serves you,
13:21
Speaker 2: set as one of the youngest districts in.
13:22
Speaker 4: The entire country.
13:24
Speaker 2: How much is Israel and Gaza a litmus test dividing
13:28
Speaker 2: line issue for the voters that you're appealing to.
13:31
Speaker 7: You know, a great deal of voters in our party,
13:34
Speaker 7: in fact, a super majority of voters in our party
13:37
Speaker 7: understand that what's happening in Palestine is the genocide and
13:40
Speaker 7: are asking for the Democratic Party and our leadership to
13:43
Speaker 7: push for an arms embargo so that we can end
13:45
Speaker 7: our complicity in this genocide as well and to truly
13:49
Speaker 7: reevaluate our relationship with the country of Israel.
13:52
Speaker 6: And I think the greater problem.
13:54
Speaker 7: That a lot of voters are seeing right now is
13:56
Speaker 7: that that kind of super majority support from the voters
14:00
Speaker 7: is not being reflected in our leadership.
14:02
Speaker 6: It's not being reflected in the establishment, and I think.
14:05
Speaker 7: That's calling into question a lot of other issues that
14:07
Speaker 7: show that, you know, Medicare for All has a super
14:09
Speaker 7: majority of support from the voters, Universal childcare has a
14:12
Speaker 7: super majority support from the voters, and yet we're still
14:15
Speaker 7: not seeing any of that legislation being pushed for by
14:18
Speaker 7: our party, and so I think it's really showing to
14:21
Speaker 7: a lot of voters that the party and the leadership
14:25
Speaker 7: is not in tune with the voters of this party.
14:27
Speaker 7: And our responsibility in primaries is to send leaders that
14:31
Speaker 7: are actually reflecting the values and the priorities of the voters.
14:35
Speaker 6: And that's what we're doing here in this campaign.
14:37
Speaker 7: This is the district that voted in for universal pre
14:40
Speaker 7: k and term limits and publicly financed selections. We're the
14:43
Speaker 7: only campaign in this race that has every single one
14:45
Speaker 7: of those issues on our platform, fighting for it on
14:47
Speaker 7: a federal level, and making sure that our budgets are
14:50
Speaker 7: a reflection of our moral priorities, which is the end
14:53
Speaker 7: the genocides abroad, and to make sure that we are
14:55
Speaker 7: addressing the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are sleeping
14:58
Speaker 7: on the streets every night in our country, the tens
15:00
Speaker 7: of thousands of Americans who die every year because they
15:02
Speaker 7: don't have access to health insurance. In the wealthiest, most
15:06
Speaker 7: powerful country on earth. To be sending billions of dollars
15:09
Speaker 7: a day abroad for bombs to kill innocent people when
15:12
Speaker 7: we have people here suffering at home, I think voters
15:15
Speaker 7: are making abundantly clear in primaries this year that that
15:19
Speaker 7: is no longer going to be acceptable, and that they're
15:21
Speaker 7: going to be sending leaders into Congress that are going
15:23
Speaker 7: to fight to change that.
15:24
Speaker 2: So the primary victories last week, predominantly in New York City,
15:28
Speaker 2: have caused quite a reaction that I'm sure you guys
15:30
Speaker 2: are quite aware of. I wanted to get you vote
15:33
Speaker 2: to react to Van Jones on CNN and his prescription
15:38
Speaker 2: for what the centrist in the party should do in
15:40
Speaker 2: order to beat back this left wing surge of support.
15:44
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen.
15:45
Speaker 6: Look.
15:45
Speaker 11: I used to be on the left side of Pluto.
15:47
Speaker 11: But to have somebody who know their main qualification for
15:51
Speaker 11: being in our party is they were celebrating after October eighth,
15:55
Speaker 11: the murder of innocent israelis to have somebody and our
15:58
Speaker 11: party get the nomination whose main qualification is saying that
16:02
Speaker 11: there should be no police, no prisons, Israel shouldn't exist.
16:06
Speaker 11: It's a red flashing light. And I think people who
16:09
Speaker 11: have more reasonable ideas in this party and I have
16:12
Speaker 11: to start working because what's happening is the establishment thinks
16:15
Speaker 11: that you can just buy ads and that's gonna get endorsements.
16:19
Speaker 11: That's gonna somehow help you win. Trump figured out and
16:22
Speaker 11: filed out the hard way. You can't win in Iran
16:24
Speaker 11: with just bombers if you have nothing on the ground.
16:27
Speaker 11: Moderates cannot win in these blue districts that they have
16:29
Speaker 11: nothing on the ground, if all they have are ads,
16:31
Speaker 11: an endorsement, and they don't have the door knocking army
16:34
Speaker 11: of the DSA. You're going to see more and more
16:36
Speaker 11: of these candidates the Democratic Socis of America. They've got
16:39
Speaker 11: ground troops and passion matters and mobilized base matters, and
16:44
Speaker 11: moderates keep thinking that they can just say shame on
16:47
Speaker 11: you and sign another check. You're gonna have to put
16:49
Speaker 11: people on these doors. Otherwise they're going to have people
16:51
Speaker 11: like this and worse taking off this party, people like this.
16:55
Speaker 2: And worse a lot taking over this party. Let me
16:57
Speaker 2: get your response to Van Jones comments there.
17:00
Speaker 7: You know, I think more than anything, it's showing a
17:03
Speaker 7: clear disdain that establishment and moderate Democrats that are parready
17:07
Speaker 7: have for the voters. Again, each of these issues have
17:10
Speaker 7: a super majority support of the voter. Is talking about
17:13
Speaker 7: ending the genocide, talking about redirecting our resources to things
17:16
Speaker 7: like medicare for all, like universal childcare. And I'd also
17:19
Speaker 7: point out that the thing that makes DSA different is
17:23
Speaker 7: that we are fighting for a moral vision of what
17:27
Speaker 7: our economy should look like, of what our government should
17:29
Speaker 7: look like. That is what brings people into this organization.
17:33
Speaker 7: That is what brings people into our door knocking operation,
17:35
Speaker 7: into our phone banking operations, because we are fighting for something.
17:39
Speaker 7: We are fighting for aboutter world one where no matter
17:42
Speaker 7: where you're born in this country, no matter what family
17:45
Speaker 7: are born into, no matter what kind of body you're
17:46
Speaker 7: born into, you are deserving of the same basic dignities
17:49
Speaker 7: in your housing and your healthcare, your nutritional food, and
17:52
Speaker 7: all of the basic dignities that are required in a
17:54
Speaker 7: modern world. Here and the wealthiest, most powerful country on Earth.
17:58
Speaker 7: Would you know, I would. I would tell the moderate
18:01
Speaker 7: Democrats and the establishment Democrats that they ought to get
18:04
Speaker 7: to the work of actually coming up with their own
18:06
Speaker 7: vision for the country and see if that's something that
18:08
Speaker 7: they could get voters to buy into. But until then,
18:11
Speaker 7: we're going to be focused on the vision that we're
18:13
Speaker 7: fighting for and bringing in more folks to this fight too.
18:16
Speaker 2: And center A Gonzalez, what's your view on on Van
18:18
Speaker 2: Jones and where the energy in the party is and
18:21
Speaker 2: in the country.
18:22
Speaker 4: Really we're at this point.
18:23
Speaker 5: Look, there is one point in which I agree with
18:26
Speaker 5: Van Jones, and that is that the corporate Dems have
18:29
Speaker 5: been phoning it in and quite literally mailing it in.
18:32
Speaker 6: Just this past week, I received.
18:35
Speaker 5: Another set of mailers from not only the Hickenlooper machine,
18:42
Speaker 5: but also from corporate dark money Democrats. And they're independent
18:49
Speaker 5: expenditures who have not knocked doors, who have not shown
18:54
Speaker 5: up in rural communities to listen to Colorado's who are
18:59
Speaker 5: working harder than ever just to make ends meet. And
19:03
Speaker 5: that's where our campaign is different. Like, it's clear we
19:06
Speaker 5: are not going to out fundraise the establishment, but we
19:10
Speaker 5: are sure as hell going to outwork them, and that
19:13
Speaker 5: is what presents the threat to their complacency. And so look,
19:18
Speaker 5: a lot of times it becomes incredibly clear that those
19:24
Speaker 5: corporate Dems are on the losing side of an issue
19:26
Speaker 5: and instead of saying, hey, guys, it's time to vote
19:29
Speaker 5: blue no matter who, they want, to try and employ
19:33
Speaker 5: those divide and conquer tactics against folks like us. And
19:37
Speaker 5: what's clear in this moment is that everyday Colorado's, Look,
19:42
Speaker 5: Colorado's a majority unaffiliated state. That is a warning sign,
19:46
Speaker 5: right when fifty percent of the voters in this state
19:49
Speaker 5: are saying, a pox on both your houses. And then
19:53
Speaker 5: you have Democrats who are saying, you know what, We're
19:56
Speaker 5: going to try to be the diet coke version of
20:00
Speaker 5: a Democratic Party as opposed to the Republican Party by
20:03
Speaker 5: taking just a little bit less corporate money than the Republicans.
20:10
Speaker 5: Voters aren't buying it, and they are choosing to be
20:12
Speaker 5: unaffiliated instead. And as we've been traveling along the front
20:17
Speaker 5: range in rural Colorado, in small towns and asking people directly,
20:23
Speaker 5: what is it that you want to see? They want
20:25
Speaker 5: to see housing that they can afford, healthcare that they
20:31
Speaker 5: can actually access, universal child and elder care. And also
20:36
Speaker 5: they want to see corporations getting out of every step
20:41
Speaker 5: of the deportation machine that currently exists. Right now, Colorado
20:45
Speaker 5: has two potential locations that could be slated to be
20:49
Speaker 5: an expansion of the immigration detention regime, and people across
20:57
Speaker 5: Colorado are saying hell no, they want to actually have
21:02
Speaker 5: a party where they can believe in their leaders. And sorry,
21:07
Speaker 5: Ben Jones, like you are missing the moment on this
21:11
Speaker 5: full stop.
21:12
Speaker 2: Well, ladies, thank you so much. I know you're both
21:14
Speaker 2: super busy going to an election day. We'll be watching
21:16
Speaker 2: with a lot of interest. Good luck to both of you,
21:19
Speaker 2: and we'll make sure to put campaign links in the
21:20
Speaker 2: descriptions of people want to help out down in the
21:22
Speaker 2: stretch here.
21:23
Speaker 6: They can thank you so much for having us chrys Tho,
21:26
Speaker 6: you'll take care.
21:29
Speaker 2: Europe hasn't been enduring the worst heat wave for them
21:33
Speaker 2: on record, and guys, it is not even July. These
21:37
Speaker 2: have been insane scenes unfolding across that continent, and by
21:41
Speaker 2: the way, that heat is coming right here to the
21:44
Speaker 2: US this week. Let's go and put this first element
21:46
Speaker 2: up on the screen. Just in France alone, they have
21:50
Speaker 2: had more than one thousand excess deaths recorded. That's sort
21:54
Speaker 2: of the clinical term you attributed to death that would
21:57
Speaker 2: not have occurred had it not been for this heat wave.
22:00
Speaker 2: Some of those are directly related to heat exhaustion. Some
22:04
Speaker 2: of them are from things like drowning as well, because
22:07
Speaker 2: people who are desperately trying to seek relief from the
22:10
Speaker 2: heat have been going in water that perhaps they're not
22:12
Speaker 2: able to handle, so that has contributed to an increase
22:15
Speaker 2: in depths as well.
22:17
Speaker 4: You've had the UK.
22:18
Speaker 2: Recorded new maximum temperatures for June two days in a row.
22:22
Speaker 2: In France, they hit record highs that they had literally
22:26
Speaker 2: never hit before. They exceeded records that have been set
22:29
Speaker 2: even in the state of Florida. Just to give you
22:32
Speaker 2: a sense of how out of the norm this record
22:35
Speaker 2: heat wave has been, and they've been trying to find
22:37
Speaker 2: every way they possibly can to keep cool. We can
22:40
Speaker 2: put E two up on the screen. There have been
22:43
Speaker 2: you know, these are consumers racing in to try to
22:46
Speaker 2: purchase fans and purchase air conditioners. Reminder that you know
22:51
Speaker 2: here in the US, I looked at the statistics, about
22:54
Speaker 2: nine out of ten people here have some sort of
22:56
Speaker 2: air conditioning. These are people taping foil on the windows
22:59
Speaker 2: to try to repel the sun.
23:01
Speaker 4: As well.
23:02
Speaker 2: In Europe, the number with air conditioning is very low
23:06
Speaker 2: across the continent. It's something like twenty percent. And if
23:09
Speaker 2: you look at where the continent is situated, I mean,
23:11
Speaker 2: they're very high up in terms of where they are
23:15
Speaker 2: in the globe, and so they are just simply not
23:18
Speaker 2: supposed to experience this type of extreme heat. But now
23:22
Speaker 2: with the climate crisis, this is increasingly going to become
23:25
Speaker 2: the new norm. We can put E three up on
23:28
Speaker 2: the screen. This gives you a sense of how much
23:31
Speaker 2: things have changed. So this is global temperature variations over
23:35
Speaker 2: the last twenty twenty two years.
23:38
Speaker 4: You can see where the.
23:39
Speaker 2: Steam engine was invented, and then we start to climb
23:43
Speaker 2: into these extraordinary temper temperature variations. That is where we
23:48
Speaker 2: are now. Let's put E four up on the screen.
23:50
Speaker 2: This has some of the numbers about the heat wave
23:53
Speaker 2: that is they say blasting Europe right now. The extreme
23:56
Speaker 2: heat would have been virtually impossible fifty years ago to researchers.
24:01
Speaker 2: Millions of people, they write, are sweltering under Europe's worst
24:04
Speaker 2: heat wave ever recorded because of temperature increases driven by
24:08
Speaker 2: climate change. Europeans are suffering from temperatures that would have
24:10
Speaker 2: been impossible fifty years ago. The phenomenon melting long standing
24:14
Speaker 2: temperature records is due to a heat dome parked over Europe,
24:18
Speaker 2: with clear skies and strong sunshine intensifying the effect. For
24:20
Speaker 2: large swaths of the continent. Temperature records have been broken
24:23
Speaker 2: in France, the UK, and Spain, with red alerts issued
24:28
Speaker 2: in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Study published
24:33
Speaker 2: Friday by World Weather Attribution found the heat wave is
24:36
Speaker 2: the most severe ever recorded in the region. It has
24:39
Speaker 2: been driven by climate change, with rising temperatures outstripping the
24:43
Speaker 2: rate of global warming. They also Emily they dig more
24:46
Speaker 2: into this study in this article, and what they do
24:49
Speaker 2: is they compared the temperatures that were seen this week
24:52
Speaker 2: with those that were measured in two other heat waves
24:55
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six and two thousand and three. In seventy six,
24:58
Speaker 2: they said, that's where would have been virtually impossible to
25:01
Speaker 2: achieve this level of temperature. In two thousand and three,
25:04
Speaker 2: during the first heat wave of the century, which I
25:06
Speaker 2: actually remember fairly well, temperatures would have been ten times
25:09
Speaker 2: less likely than today. Well, nighttime temperatures would have been
25:13
Speaker 2: more than one hundred times less likely. And that nighttime
25:16
Speaker 2: temperature piece is actually really important because people who are
25:19
Speaker 2: struggling in the heat during the day usually at nighttime, Okay,
25:22
Speaker 2: you're going to get some rest, but your body's going
25:23
Speaker 2: to be able to recover. But when you have these
25:25
Speaker 2: tropical temperatures that continue at night, that means your body
25:29
Speaker 2: is never going to get any sort of rest and
25:31
Speaker 2: recovery from the heat. So that's part of what makes
25:33
Speaker 2: this so extraordinary, And of course, as the climate crisis proceeds,
25:37
Speaker 2: you're going to increasingly have not Europe, but other parts
25:40
Speaker 2: of the globe that are virtually uninhabitable, where you just
25:43
Speaker 2: you know, it becomes impractical, not practical for human beings
25:47
Speaker 2: to be able to live and persist in those conditions.
25:50
Speaker 4: So this is a bit of a wake up call, and.
25:52
Speaker 2: We can expect a lot more extreme weather going forward
25:56
Speaker 2: this year, in particular because we are entering into a
25:59
Speaker 2: La Nina. I told you I read a lot yesterday
26:01
Speaker 2: and listen to a lot of information about what that is.
26:04
Speaker 2: But in any case, the TLDR is it's going to
26:07
Speaker 2: lead to war extreme heat events in particular, and very
26:11
Speaker 2: likely war extreme events in general. And we don't know yet,
26:15
Speaker 2: but it is looking possible, if not likely, that this
26:18
Speaker 2: will be what is termed a super La Nina, which
26:23
Speaker 2: means that you know, the impact of it is even
26:25
Speaker 2: more extraordinary than usual. So very likely we hit yet
26:28
Speaker 2: another global temperature record this year, with more you know,
26:32
Speaker 2: excess deaths and more fallout from the extreme climate.
26:36
Speaker 8: The World Cup is seriously going to be endangered by
26:40
Speaker 8: what happens in the United States this week. Like the
26:42
Speaker 8: knockout rounds are going to be on the line for sure.
26:45
Speaker 8: The predicted temperatures where some of these games are going
26:47
Speaker 8: to be played or looking like they're going to be
26:50
Speaker 8: just absolutely brutal, and here in Washington, DC, there will be.
26:55
Speaker 8: We were earlier in the show covering how the crowds
26:58
Speaker 8: aren't looking huge so far for Trump screen American State
27:01
Speaker 8: Fair celebrations on the National Mall. But every year there
27:05
Speaker 8: are thousands of people on the National Mall for the
27:07
Speaker 8: Fourth of July fireworks. And again, hopefully it'll be by
27:10
Speaker 8: the time they push it back to like ten thirty pm, hopefully.
27:13
Speaker 1: It'll be a bit cooler.
27:13
Speaker 8: But this is coming home this week in a way
27:17
Speaker 8: that I mean, people need to be really really safe. Obviously,
27:20
Speaker 8: we have air conditioning here in on a much higher
27:24
Speaker 8: level than many people across Europe, but it's going to
27:27
Speaker 8: be really dangerous this week.
27:28
Speaker 1: Yeah.
27:28
Speaker 2: Apparently there's like a cultural debate over air conditioning in
27:32
Speaker 2: France in particular, because they are sensitive to not wanting
27:36
Speaker 2: to fuel the climate crisis, and they feel that this
27:38
Speaker 2: is I mean, it shouldn't be necessary in most of Europe,
27:41
Speaker 2: but increasingly it is necessary just for human safety and survival.
27:46
Speaker 2: And the other thing here is, obviously the impacts are
27:49
Speaker 2: not just not to downplay, but not just in terms
27:52
Speaker 2: of human well being in the immediate heat wave. But
27:56
Speaker 2: we have farmers right now in the US who have
27:59
Speaker 2: been had their livelihood destroyed by a drought which you
28:04
Speaker 2: know was really atypical and very likely also driven by
28:07
Speaker 2: climate crisis. And then you had on top of that,
28:10
Speaker 2: of course the tariffs, and then you had the Iran war,
28:13
Speaker 2: and it's just been one thing after another for them.
28:16
Speaker 2: One thing that you can certainly expect in a Lundinia
28:18
Speaker 2: cycle is more drought, and then you have crop failures,
28:22
Speaker 2: then you have food prices increasing, and obviously we know
28:26
Speaker 2: the reverberations that that can have on you know, on
28:30
Speaker 2: consumers here but in poorer places in the world, on
28:33
Speaker 2: just their ability to live obtain what they need to
28:35
Speaker 2: be able to survive. And so those are some of
28:37
Speaker 2: the impacts we're looking at too.
28:38
Speaker 8: It's going to be I mean, we can put this
28:40
Speaker 8: from Boise You like this crystals fifty five.
28:44
Speaker 2: Is so crazy, okay, nuts, Yeah, I had to double check,
28:48
Speaker 2: like this has to be a you see someone driving
28:51
Speaker 2: in water and chunks of ice. It looks like the Titanic, right,
28:55
Speaker 2: And so what happened here is they had this massive, mass,
29:00
Speaker 2: massive storm and then they had something like eight inches
29:03
Speaker 2: of hail insane hailstorm, and so you had flooded streets
29:08
Speaker 2: with the like crusted ice from the hail on top,
29:13
Speaker 2: really apocalyptic looking stuff. And you know, with any one
29:16
Speaker 2: mother event, it's very difficult to say. It takes scientists
29:19
Speaker 2: like doing the research. Okay, is this the climate crisis
29:21
Speaker 2: or is this something that may have happened in the past.
29:23
Speaker 2: But I think most people, just in their own lives,
29:26
Speaker 2: if they're adults at this point, have experienced, like, you know,
29:29
Speaker 2: things are just not they don't quite go the way
29:31
Speaker 2: they used to. You know, I have I live in
29:34
Speaker 2: the town that I grew up in, so I remember
29:36
Speaker 2: very well to climate in the eighties and what it
29:38
Speaker 2: was like and how many snows we got and all
29:40
Speaker 2: of that sort of stuff, And there is zero doubt
29:42
Speaker 2: that it is not the same as it was just
29:45
Speaker 2: within my lifetime. And so I think that's made it
29:47
Speaker 2: very difficult for people who want to deny that this
29:50
Speaker 2: is going on to persist in those delusions. So they've
29:53
Speaker 2: had to adopt different tactics that I'm actually going to
29:54
Speaker 2: talk about this a little bit in my monologue to
29:56
Speaker 2: try to forestall any significant action that would curtail fossil
30:01
Speaker 2: fuel consumption.
30:03
Speaker 4: But we have to hand it to Comrade Trump. He's
30:05
Speaker 4: done a pretty.
30:05
Speaker 2: Good job with the destruction of fossil fuel consumption with
30:08
Speaker 2: this whole iron War strait of four moves, closure, the
30:13
Speaker 2: acquisition of Chinese solar panels is literally through the roof
30:16
Speaker 2: like insane spike in adoption of renewable technology.
30:21
Speaker 4: I think there should be and I.
30:23
Speaker 1: Can't afford gas, probably just.
30:24
Speaker 4: Right, they're just staying at home.
30:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think there has been a wake up
30:28
Speaker 2: call in terms of national security that even if you
30:31
Speaker 2: are a net energy producer as we are, that does
30:34
Speaker 2: not mean really anything when it comes to this is
30:36
Speaker 2: a global market, and so if there's a problem with it,
30:39
Speaker 2: guess what the prices are gonna go up for us
30:41
Speaker 2: do The only actual protection from that is renewable energy.
30:45
Speaker 2: So China has you know, they still have a lot
30:47
Speaker 2: of fossil fuel productions.
30:48
Speaker 4: I'm not trying to.
30:48
Speaker 2: Whitewash that, but they have invested a lot in being
30:52
Speaker 2: the leader in renewable tech and those investments are really
30:56
Speaker 2: bearing fruit at this point and have made it feasible.
30:59
Speaker 4: Now, so it doesn't have to be dooming gloom.
31:01
Speaker 2: The technology is available, The solar panel tech has gotten
31:03
Speaker 2: much much, much much better than it used to be,
31:07
Speaker 2: so you know, it's not pie in the sky to
31:10
Speaker 2: imagine the sort of mass adoption that could begin to benoscarve.
31:13
Speaker 8: You know, it's one of those things where I think
31:15
Speaker 8: the climate movement is maturing, like on the politics of it,
31:19
Speaker 8: because at the same time as we're looking at all
31:21
Speaker 8: of this, it was also I think the twentieth anniversary
31:24
Speaker 8: of an Inconvenient truth. Have you seen you of this
31:27
Speaker 8: content circulating about some of the Gorrian predictions that.
31:32
Speaker 4: Just must be Twitter?
31:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely right way Twitter. But yeah, I mean
31:37
Speaker 1: there's a I.
31:38
Speaker 8: Think obviously an adoption of a more persuasive technique than
31:43
Speaker 8: we saw twenty years ago. I had so many high
31:45
Speaker 8: school teachers play that movie. That's making myself sound like
31:49
Speaker 8: a baby, but yeah, like we had to watch that
31:50
Speaker 8: three times in public high school.
31:53
Speaker 1: Like it was a hell of a time. Two thousand
31:55
Speaker 1: and seven.
31:55
Speaker 4: Support that, support I'm ready support that.
31:58
Speaker 8: Yeah, to ninth grade biology, here's al Gore won't let
32:03
Speaker 8: him take.
32:03
Speaker 1: It from here.
32:04
Speaker 2: He did, though, raise the public awareness about the import
32:09
Speaker 2: you know, even if I think some of the predictions
32:13
Speaker 2: didn't come to pass.
32:14
Speaker 1: I think he made a lot of people unfortunately.
32:16
Speaker 8: I think he made a lot of people skeptical just
32:19
Speaker 8: because so many things were ended up becoming like you know,
32:23
Speaker 8: that was a problem for the climate movement.
32:25
Speaker 1: I think it was significant.
32:26
Speaker 8: Some of the history was a significant problem for the
32:27
Speaker 8: climate movement because people could then look and say huh
32:31
Speaker 8: and not take it as seriously. But to your point,
32:33
Speaker 8: I mean, also everybody has seen some of the undeniable
32:35
Speaker 8: stuff around them too, So yeah, but I do think
32:37
Speaker 8: the climate movement has hit a more like there's they're
32:40
Speaker 8: still great.
32:41
Speaker 2: I think the bigger problem with the climate movement is
32:43
Speaker 2: the entrenched oil and gas interests.
32:45
Speaker 4: That buy off our elections.
32:46
Speaker 2: Is probably a bigger issue for them or the people
32:49
Speaker 2: who are raising the alarms, you know.
32:51
Speaker 8: The degree to which people like lives with air conditioning,
32:54
Speaker 8: like that's the like as population grows in places like
32:58
Speaker 8: Africa and China and India, that's going to be the
33:01
Speaker 8: next big frontier climate movement.
33:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.
33:04
Speaker 2: And that's why the technological development, you know, genuinely makes
33:07
Speaker 2: it much more hopeful and possible to do what needs
33:11
Speaker 2: to be done to avoid these sorts of horrific situations
33:15
Speaker 2: like what our European brothers and sisters are experiencing right now.
33:18
Speaker 8: Renewables are better for the planet and they get you
33:20
Speaker 8: the hell off the grid, so that it's a.
33:21
Speaker 4: Goal that conservatives win, win, win, win, win, all for it.
33:24
Speaker 1: Come on, let's go.
33:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, true energy independence is renewable energy.
33:28
Speaker 8: It has never been tried. Okay, all right, Crystal, you
33:31
Speaker 8: a monologue. You've been feeling monologue.
33:33
Speaker 2: I'm a little I might be a little rusty, guys,
33:35
Speaker 2: it's been a while, but I'm excited to tell you
33:38
Speaker 2: about Gavin Newsom, who has now realized that he's got
33:42
Speaker 2: a populous problem and doesn't want to be labeled as
33:47
Speaker 2: he should be the candidate of the billionaire protecting the
33:50
Speaker 2: billionaire class.
33:51
Speaker 4: So last week, after the DSA.
33:53
Speaker 2: Wins, he suddenly had a big announcement. I will bring
33:56
Speaker 2: you all of the details now. After watching DSA candidates
34:02
Speaker 2: when shocking upset victories last week, California and Governor Gavin
34:05
Speaker 2: Newsom has belatedly found religion on a billionaire tax.
34:09
Speaker 10: It's time for a national billionaire's tax and a new
34:12
Speaker 10: social contract. Think about this. Just ten percent of people,
34:15
Speaker 10: ten percent of people in this country own two thirds
34:19
Speaker 10: of the wealth. A thirty year old, for the first
34:22
Speaker 10: time in American history, is not doing better than his
34:26
Speaker 10: or her parents. That's a five alarm fire. American wages
34:30
Speaker 10: have stood still in the costs across the spectrum cost
34:34
Speaker 10: of living have skyrocket. The system is fundamentally broken. The
34:39
Speaker 10: federal tax code, the corporate tax code, and the inheritance
34:42
Speaker 10: tax code seem to be written for a different set
34:45
Speaker 10: of Americans. It's time for an economic reset, a true
34:49
Speaker 10: minimum tax, A true minimum tax on billionaires that well
34:53
Speaker 10: ensures the people at the very top pay at least
34:55
Speaker 10: the tax rate their own workers pay. We also should
34:59
Speaker 10: end this tax free lifestyle loan. This is the gimmick
35:03
Speaker 10: that allows the ultra wealthy to borrow against their stock
35:06
Speaker 10: portfolio as while reporting no taxable income. We also to
35:11
Speaker 10: rewrite those inheritance rules so that the largest intergenerational wealth
35:14
Speaker 10: transfer in human history, estimated by well be one hundred
35:18
Speaker 10: and twenty four trillion dollars that will be changing hands,
35:22
Speaker 10: doesn't lock in a permanent American aristocracy of inherited wealth,
35:27
Speaker 10: time as well to return to the pre twenty seventeen
35:30
Speaker 10: corporate tax rates, had time to close those off shore
35:34
Speaker 10: loopholes once and for all, and as AI reshapes the country,
35:39
Speaker 10: every American should own a piece of the future it
35:42
Speaker 10: builds through a national public equity fund.
35:46
Speaker 4: So it all sounds pretty solid, right.
35:48
Speaker 2: You got some federal taxes, you got some loophole closing,
35:51
Speaker 2: hiking the inheritance tax, some solid rhetoric around the democracy
35:54
Speaker 2: debilitating impacts of wealth inequality. Has Gavin Newsome truly seen
35:59
Speaker 2: the light reformed his pro oligarch ways? After all, this
36:03
Speaker 2: is the same guy who knifed Medicare for all in
36:06
Speaker 2: the state in spite of its overwhelming popularity and the
36:08
Speaker 2: fact that he himself had run on the program. The
36:10
Speaker 2: guy who cowered before the Israel lobby, running away from
36:13
Speaker 2: some initial tepid comments he made about Israel being in
36:16
Speaker 2: apartheid state.
36:17
Speaker 4: The guy who is right.
36:18
Speaker 2: Now today the foremost opponent of California's own wealth tax proposal.
36:23
Speaker 2: More on that in just a moment. What do we
36:26
Speaker 2: think of these proposals of Newsom and also of his
36:28
Speaker 2: sincerity on the matter will friends, there is good reason
36:31
Speaker 2: for a lot of skepticism. The biggest red flag is
36:34
Speaker 2: what Rocota pointed out on our show last week. If
36:37
Speaker 2: you really wanted to tax these guys, Gavin Newsom, you
36:40
Speaker 2: could just back the ballot initiative that exists right now
36:44
Speaker 2: in your own state. And if you want to tax
36:47
Speaker 2: these guys nationally, as Newsom claims that he does, you
36:51
Speaker 2: could embrace Senator Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren's existing wealth
36:55
Speaker 2: tax proposal.
36:56
Speaker 9: I've reported a five percent tax on two hundred five
37:00
Speaker 9: billionaires in California, so three million Californians don't lose health insurance.
37:04
Speaker 9: He then is opposed to it, is leading the charge
37:07
Speaker 9: against it, is these two hundred and fifty billionaires are
37:10
Speaker 9: important donors and political contributors. Then he says, well, I'm
37:14
Speaker 9: for a national billionaires tax, But he doesn't want to
37:17
Speaker 9: do what Bernie is talking out or I five percent
37:20
Speaker 9: tax on billionaires. He doesn't even want to do what
37:22
Speaker 9: Warren he is talking about three percent tax. He wants
37:24
Speaker 9: to just say, Okay, they can't borrow against assets and
37:28
Speaker 9: should be taxed on that, which is exactly what the
37:30
Speaker 9: tech billionaires are proposing. I mean and would raise the
37:33
Speaker 9: fracture of the revenue. So at some point you got
37:36
Speaker 9: to be choos. Are we going to be against the
37:38
Speaker 9: oligarchs or for the oligarchs. We can be against them,
37:42
Speaker 9: which is what Bernie and I and Warren are, and
37:45
Speaker 9: then some of them may come along and then new
37:47
Speaker 9: social contract. But what we can't do is pander to them.
37:51
Speaker 4: So what is actually going on here?
37:53
Speaker 2: It looks like Gavin Newsom is adopting a classic political tactic.
37:57
Speaker 2: He can read a poll, he sees the populace raid
38:00
Speaker 2: seething out there among the commoners. He knows his presidential
38:03
Speaker 2: ambitions will be cooked if he becomes the guy that
38:06
Speaker 2: opposes taxing billionaires, but he does still have that donor
38:10
Speaker 2: base to please, which is the force that is responsible
38:12
Speaker 2: for his current political position. So what he is doing
38:15
Speaker 2: is rhetorically embracing the populist position billionaire taxes, while pushing
38:19
Speaker 2: a policy that is less threatening to the oligarchs, both
38:23
Speaker 2: because it is more modest and also because it is.
38:26
Speaker 4: Less likely to actually happen.
38:28
Speaker 2: The California well tax may only be five percent, but
38:31
Speaker 2: it is an imminent threat and could open Pandora's box.
38:35
Speaker 2: As other states potentially follow suit, so he can't support that.
38:39
Speaker 2: Better to support something that is both impossible and kind
38:42
Speaker 2: of lame. After all, state level action is the best
38:45
Speaker 2: we can actually hope for at the moment, with the
38:46
Speaker 2: White House currently occupied by the Epstein class president, so
38:50
Speaker 2: nothing Newsome proposes at the federal level really poses much
38:53
Speaker 2: of a threat to the oligarchs at all. None of
38:56
Speaker 2: it is going to happen anytime soon. He is hoping
38:59
Speaker 2: that he can find this Goldilock zone of appeasing the
39:02
Speaker 2: pitchfork wielders while also signaling to his rich buddies that
39:05
Speaker 2: they can trust him to avoid anything actually meaningful. The
39:09
Speaker 2: approach reminds me very much of a twenty twenty one
39:11
Speaker 2: video that was released by a group called Unearthed. In it,
39:14
Speaker 2: an activist tricked an Exon mobile lobbyist into thinking that
39:17
Speaker 2: he was in a job interview so he would spill
39:19
Speaker 2: the beans on all of their climate denial strategies. That
39:22
Speaker 2: lobbyist revealed that once public opinion shifted too hard in
39:26
Speaker 2: favor of climate action, Exxon couldn't do just their old
39:29
Speaker 2: climate denial junk science approach any longer. Instead, they opted
39:33
Speaker 2: to pretend like they cared so much about the issue
39:36
Speaker 2: while simultaneously offering an intentionally unpopular and unworkable solution. In
39:41
Speaker 2: this instance, for them, it was a carbon tax. According
39:44
Speaker 2: to unearthed quote during the undercover meeting, which took place
39:47
Speaker 2: via zoom in May, lobbyist Keith McCoy suggested that Exon's
39:51
Speaker 2: public support for a carbon tax as its principal climate
39:53
Speaker 2: policy is a quote advocacy tool and great talking point
39:57
Speaker 2: that will never actually happen. Quote nobody is going to
40:00
Speaker 2: propose a tax on all Americans. And the cynical side
40:03
Speaker 2: of me says, yeah, we kind of know that, but
40:05
Speaker 2: it gives us a talking point that we can say, well,
40:08
Speaker 2: what is x on mobile for? We're for a carbon tax.
40:11
Speaker 2: That's what McCoy said. This in a nutshell, is what
40:13
Speaker 2: Newsom is doing with his federal tax plans. But what
40:16
Speaker 2: are the tax proposals themselves. Gabriel Zuckman, one of the
40:19
Speaker 2: world's pre eminent experts on wealth inequality, is less than impressed.
40:23
Speaker 2: Quote you claim today that you support a national billionaire tax,
40:27
Speaker 2: he said to Gaffin Newsom. But when one reads your text,
40:30
Speaker 2: one quickly realizes you don't. You talk about closing loopholes
40:34
Speaker 2: as if this was equivalent to taxing billionaire wealth, it
40:37
Speaker 2: is not. For example, taxing loans used against assets as
40:41
Speaker 2: you propose is not a bad idea, but it would
40:44
Speaker 2: only generate a tiny fraction of the four point four
40:47
Speaker 2: trillion dollars that a five percent annual wealth tax on
40:50
Speaker 2: billionaires would generate nationally. That's because loans are just very
40:54
Speaker 2: small relative to billionaire's wealth. So your proposal in practice
40:58
Speaker 2: would do almost nothing to curb the explosion of the
41:01
Speaker 2: wealth and power of America's oligarchs. And that is the
41:04
Speaker 2: entire point. Newsom's proposals close some unspecified loopholes. They tax loans,
41:11
Speaker 2: they tax income, but they carefully avoid doing the one
41:14
Speaker 2: thing that actually needs to be done, taxing wealth.
41:19
Speaker 4: This is the whole ballgame, because the wealth.
41:22
Speaker 2: Of billionaires and now trillionaires is incomprehensibly larger than the
41:26
Speaker 2: annual salaries that they take Elon Musk, for example, he
41:29
Speaker 2: takes zero dollar income salary from Tesla. Their wealth is
41:33
Speaker 2: also vastly larger than the loans that they take out
41:36
Speaker 2: against their assets to fund their expenses. As Zuckman points out,
41:39
Speaker 2: there is no answer for the billionaire and trillionaire crisis.
41:42
Speaker 2: Other than some form of wealth tax levying. One in
41:46
Speaker 2: California would be a great start, given that it is
41:49
Speaker 2: one of the largest economies in the world, and because
41:52
Speaker 2: it often serves as a lab for democracy, passing successful
41:55
Speaker 2: policies onto other states in the country.
41:58
Speaker 4: As for Newsom's complaint that.
41:59
Speaker 2: It could cause the wealthy to flee the state, he
42:02
Speaker 2: should frankly be ashamed for repeating the reactionary talking points
42:05
Speaker 2: of the billionaires themselves, boosting exactly the propaganda frame they
42:09
Speaker 2: used to avoid ever facing significant taxation of any kind.
42:13
Speaker 4: By the way, there is just not.
42:14
Speaker 2: A lot of evidence that anything like this is happening
42:17
Speaker 2: at scale. In fact, in New York City we are
42:19
Speaker 2: at all kinds of billionaire meltdowns about how they'd all
42:22
Speaker 2: leave the city for good if Doron Mondani was elected,
42:25
Speaker 2: and this has not shown up in the data at all.
42:27
Speaker 2: In fact, sales of multimillion dollar homes surged after his election,
42:32
Speaker 2: so it seems like they're figuring out how to brave
42:35
Speaker 2: the communist storm there. As for California, there's been a
42:38
Speaker 2: similar billionaire meltdown over the even prospect of this wealth
42:42
Speaker 2: tax passing in the state, with warnings that California would
42:45
Speaker 2: lose its status as the innovation capital of the world.
42:48
Speaker 2: Looks like they're doing okay so far, though, Perzuckmann, again,
42:51
Speaker 2: venture capital funding has gone through the roof in California
42:55
Speaker 2: as investors rush to fill the coffers of anyone with
42:57
Speaker 2: the words artificial intelligence in their pitch deck. Good news, guys,
43:02
Speaker 2: the billionaires are going to be okay. As for the
43:04
Speaker 2: rest of us, well, there's a bit more cause for concern.
43:07
Speaker 2: As their well skyrockets at an accelerating pace. They buy
43:12
Speaker 2: up all the assets they can find, sending prices through
43:15
Speaker 2: the roof, putting goals like I don't know home ownership
43:18
Speaker 2: increasingly out of reach for ordinary people. They're also executing
43:22
Speaker 2: a hostile takeover of democracy, which is all but complete.
43:26
Speaker 2: What else can you take from Elon Musk spending a
43:28
Speaker 2: quarter of a billion dollars to elect Donald Trump, who
43:31
Speaker 2: then promptly handed over the keys of the entire government
43:35
Speaker 2: to this one trillionaire, the richest man on the planet.
43:39
Speaker 2: But if you think the billionaire class only plays one
43:41
Speaker 2: side of the political aisle, you are sorely mistaken. They
43:44
Speaker 2: will happily buy off democratic politicians too, the type who
43:48
Speaker 2: can say, just enough to appease the populis mood have
43:51
Speaker 2: a shot at the White House, but who will reliably
43:54
Speaker 2: come through for billionaire interests when it really counts? And
43:57
Speaker 2: I think they may have found their perfect candidate. And Emily,
44:01
Speaker 2: there's a lot of very interesting politics at play here,
44:04
Speaker 2: because it is not lost on me that this sudden
44:07
Speaker 2: interest in taxing wealth comes right on the heels of
44:10
Speaker 2: the DSA victories in.
44:12
Speaker 4: New York City.
44:13
Speaker 2: Newsom has been very late to the party on all
44:16
Speaker 2: sorts of like he does not have his finger on
44:18
Speaker 2: the pulf of what's going on. His initial reaction after
44:21
Speaker 2: Donald Trump was elected it was like, let me have
44:22
Speaker 2: Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk on my show, not to
44:25
Speaker 2: debate them, but to just be like, let me, let's
44:27
Speaker 2: be buddies and let me hear you out. He quickly
44:29
Speaker 2: reversed course when he realized that people hated that, and
44:31
Speaker 2: he positioned himself as this like anti Trump resistance warrior.
44:34
Speaker 2: He is now very belatedly realizing that this conception of him,
44:39
Speaker 2: this justified conception of him. It's just like a tool
44:42
Speaker 2: of donors and billionaires is going to be an issue
44:44
Speaker 2: for him, and this is his solution this sort of
44:47
Speaker 2: like basket of you know, of lame proposals and studiously
44:51
Speaker 2: avoiding the well tax and trying to position like you're
44:54
Speaker 2: a real warrior here.
44:55
Speaker 4: That is his response.
44:56
Speaker 8: So in a Democratic primary in twenty twenty eight, his
45:00
Speaker 8: baggage is very real because so much of it is
45:03
Speaker 8: going to be focused on the anti oligarchy tone that
45:06
Speaker 8: you hear people like John Osoft sounding, which is interestingly
45:08
Speaker 8: enough that you're seeing it from.
45:09
Speaker 1: Somebody like John Ossoff.
45:11
Speaker 8: But Gavin Newsom right now is under federal investigation from
45:14
Speaker 8: Trump administration, is absolutely law fair, it is targeted.
45:17
Speaker 1: All of that is true.
45:19
Speaker 8: His wife has been running a genuine grift where she's
45:22
Speaker 8: getting all of these corporate donations into her like nonprofit
45:26
Speaker 8: companies from the companies that Newsom regulates as governor, PG
45:31
Speaker 8: and E, Comcasts, AT and T like they're all donating.
45:35
Speaker 8: Of course, Newsom's French laundry scandal was because he was
45:39
Speaker 8: dining with a guy who was wrapped up in the
45:41
Speaker 8: PG and E case. After the Paradise fire, Newsom has
45:45
Speaker 8: been horrible, like he's the definition of a crony capitalist.
45:49
Speaker 1: And so as he then tries to sell and local news.
45:52
Speaker 8: ABC ten did a great investigative series on Newsom and
45:56
Speaker 8: PG and E, and people obviously were killed in the
46:00
Speaker 8: camp like horrible, horrible, horrible situations, shameless management of PG
46:05
Speaker 8: and E from Gavin Newsom, and he then has to
46:08
Speaker 8: go out there and try to make this almost Trumpian
46:10
Speaker 8: argument about Kushner and the Trump's sons and Trump himself,
46:15
Speaker 8: which he's.
46:16
Speaker 1: Tried to do.
46:17
Speaker 8: Yeah, but it reminds me of Trump in twenty sixteen
46:19
Speaker 8: coming out against Hillary Clinton and being like, I know
46:22
Speaker 8: the system, so I alone can fix it. News is
46:24
Speaker 8: not going to do that. He's not going to admit
46:26
Speaker 8: that he has a problem. And for whatever reason, it
46:29
Speaker 8: worked back in twenty sixteen for Trump. But in the
46:31
Speaker 8: primary that is not going to work for Gavin Newsom
46:33
Speaker 8: because he is going to be hammered over and over
46:35
Speaker 8: again over his relationships with these massive corporations and good luck,
46:40
Speaker 8: because that's a real problem, especially if you're not going
46:42
Speaker 8: to get on board with Rose plan, which pretty much
46:45
Speaker 8: I think every Democratic candidate is going to be pressured
46:49
Speaker 8: to get on board with.
46:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, something like that.
46:51
Speaker 2: Roe immediately jumped and to do a press conference, and look,
46:55
Speaker 2: I mean kudos to him because it's not comfortable going
46:58
Speaker 2: against like he is the most power full Democrat in
47:00
Speaker 2: the state of California. He is the Democratic governor. And
47:04
Speaker 2: he jumps out to you know, immediately call him out
47:06
Speaker 2: and say, look, this is hypocritical, Like if you support
47:08
Speaker 2: a well tax, that we have one right here that's
47:10
Speaker 2: actually actionable versus this other stuff that you're peddling, which
47:14
Speaker 2: is not a well tax, and also is you know,
47:16
Speaker 2: it's not workable, right, And that part is actually really
47:20
Speaker 2: important because I mentioned that he ran one of his
47:24
Speaker 2: governor's campaigns on I'm going to be the guy that
47:26
Speaker 2: does single payer healthcare and partly got elected because we
47:29
Speaker 2: were like, great, we support that, and then maneuvered, it
47:33
Speaker 2: looks like, behind the scenes to make sure that even
47:35
Speaker 2: though it had you know, a majority support in the
47:39
Speaker 2: California House and Senate, that it just never came up.
47:42
Speaker 2: So he was able to thwart it from behind the scenes.
47:45
Speaker 2: And you know, he takes money from various corporate interests
47:49
Speaker 2: in the state. That is his base of support, and
47:52
Speaker 2: he recognizes that he needs to sort of cover the
47:54
Speaker 2: fact that that's his base of support.
47:56
Speaker 4: He thought it would be enough to do.
47:58
Speaker 2: The you know, the very aggressive anti Trump, which I support,
48:02
Speaker 2: by the way, but especially when California cities were being
48:06
Speaker 2: like invaded by National Guard and it was the flashpoint
48:09
Speaker 2: whatever that really raised his steam in the eyes of
48:12
Speaker 2: Democratic voters.
48:13
Speaker 4: But I think you're right personally.
48:14
Speaker 2: I believe when push comes to shove and people really
48:17
Speaker 2: dig in on where are you on an oligarchy and
48:19
Speaker 2: more maybe more important, where are you on Israel, it's
48:22
Speaker 2: gonna be a problem for him. And you've already seen
48:25
Speaker 2: him stumble multiple times on this. Again, he knows this
48:28
Speaker 2: kind of an issue, he's not really sure what to
48:30
Speaker 2: do about it, and there is no scoring the circle
48:32
Speaker 2: of like where the bulk of the donors are on
48:35
Speaker 2: that issue versus where the Democratic base is. So what
48:37
Speaker 2: we're seeing in these primaries is there are some real
48:40
Speaker 2: vulnerabilities there, even though he continues to be pretty high
48:43
Speaker 2: in terms of when you pull Democratic primary.
48:46
Speaker 4: Voters on who they would like to see.
48:47
Speaker 1: He's the like he sees his lane.
48:51
Speaker 8: So you watch American Cycle, you think of Patrick Bateman
48:54
Speaker 8: and you're like, that guy would vote for Trump, right,
48:56
Speaker 8: Gavin Newsom's like, huh, I am the anti Trump, Patrick Bateman,
49:00
Speaker 8: this is my lane. I am going to be the creepy,
49:04
Speaker 8: slimy elite who's actually anti Trump. And what's going to
49:09
Speaker 8: work about that is it's going to make my trolling
49:12
Speaker 8: of Trump even more successful. Like I'm going to get
49:14
Speaker 8: under Trump's skin. I'm going to be the guy that
49:16
Speaker 8: undoes his legacy, but with like the perfectly gelled hair
49:21
Speaker 8: and the nicest suit that you can imagine, and it's
49:23
Speaker 8: going to be the ultimate troll. I don't think anybody
49:26
Speaker 8: is going to want that. I mean, maybe some small
49:28
Speaker 8: percentage of a Democratic base is going to be like, yes,
49:30
Speaker 8: this guy is Trumpian and can get it done and
49:34
Speaker 8: actually set us back on the right course because he's
49:37
Speaker 8: so I don't know, part of the establishment. He's going
49:40
Speaker 8: to be able to manipulate Yeah, exactly. Again, will that
49:45
Speaker 8: work with some people? Maybe it's not enough to win
49:47
Speaker 8: a primary, at least as the way he's executing it
49:49
Speaker 8: right now, because it comes across as like playing into
49:52
Speaker 8: He looks like he would be friends with Jared Kushner,
49:56
Speaker 8: right like, and nobody believes that.
49:57
Speaker 4: He actually literally married to Kimberly.
50:00
Speaker 8: He was literally married, and nobody actually believes that he's
50:04
Speaker 8: against the system, right like. Nobody believes he's an enemy
50:08
Speaker 8: of the system that he's mad about. He just doesn't
50:10
Speaker 8: like these particular people in the system.
50:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, and even that is like I don't know that
50:15
Speaker 2: he really hears them, you know what I mean, Like
50:18
Speaker 2: in terms of his politics, he needs to aggressively push
50:22
Speaker 2: against them. But yeah, no, I mean the point I
50:24
Speaker 2: think that people need to really take in is the
50:27
Speaker 2: AI tech oligarchs.
50:29
Speaker 4: Right now, they got their man in the White House.
50:31
Speaker 2: They're getting basically everything they want right all the regulations
50:34
Speaker 2: rolled back. Trump was ready to sign some executive order
50:36
Speaker 2: which would have lightly regulated them. David sax swoops in
50:40
Speaker 2: hope that thing is killed.
50:41
Speaker 4: Not happening.
50:42
Speaker 2: There are some interesting development we probably cover tomorrow that
50:44
Speaker 2: are happening in AI right now. But in any case,
50:46
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that they aren't also looking for avenues
50:50
Speaker 2: in the Democratic Party, and so you're going to see
50:53
Speaker 2: candidates like Newsom and others who may sound some good
50:57
Speaker 2: notes about I'm concerned about this. I'm concerned about that,
51:00
Speaker 2: But you dig one level deeper, and maybe the tech
51:02
Speaker 2: dollar gars aren't getting one hundred percent of what they want,
51:04
Speaker 2: but they're probably getting.
51:06
Speaker 4: Like ninety percent of what they want.
51:07
Speaker 2: Ninety five percent of what they want, just with a
51:09
Speaker 2: like kinder, gentler frame put around it of we're less
51:13
Speaker 2: crazy than the Republicans, and that really is the role
51:16
Speaker 2: that he serves for them. So I want people to
51:19
Speaker 2: be very aware of that as they watch him try
51:21
Speaker 2: to position himself for twenty twenty eight crystals on the beat.
51:24
Speaker 2: There you go, not going to give it up, all right, guys,
51:26
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51:29
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