The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast

00:00:00.960 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

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00:00:57.420 Hello, everybody.

00:01:10.140 I'm talking today with Dean Phillips, an American businessman and congressman who served as the representative of Minnesota's 3rd District since 2019.

00:01:21.040 I met Dean several years ago. I found him a very interesting person.

00:01:24.860 He ran a very singular campaign when he first ran for Congress, one that was very positively inclined, and he struck me as a very intelligent and perspicacious moderate on the Democrat side.

00:01:37.240 And so we've had a fair bit of contact over the years.

00:01:40.520 Recently, and of particular relevance to this podcast, Dean ran for president on the Democrat side, and I was very interested, and he dropped out of that race about a week and a half ago, something like that.

00:01:52.160 And he ran into monolithic opposition, and his campaign was scuffled in a variety of complex manners.

00:02:01.500 And I think the reason for that is of wide general interest.

00:02:05.620 I think he would have provided a very credible alternative to the aging Biden, should have been highly acceptable to the Democratic elite and public as well, and really got nowhere to speak of in his movings forward.

00:02:22.300 Now, that hasn't hurt him personally, because he's a very resilient person, and he has many options at his disposal.

00:02:29.100 But what happened to him does speak volumes about the state of political affairs in the U.S. more broadly.

00:02:36.440 And so we delve into that and what his experience signifies for the understanding of the political realm in general in the U.S. and in the West.

00:02:45.260 And also, we investigate, too, the comparative pathologies, let's say, of the Democrat and the Republican sides, respectively.

00:02:54.840 So join us for that.

00:02:57.480 Well, Dean, it's been a long time that we've been plotting to get together to talk publicly.

00:03:02.820 And so now we get to do it, and it's going to be, I presume, somewhat of a postmortem, so to speak.

00:03:09.440 You recently ran for president, and I am very interested to know, I think we should start probably with a description of why you ran, like what you thought the problem was, and what you hoped to accomplish.

00:03:24.060 And then we should segue from that into just exactly what happened and what you learned, you know, how you've changed across that process.

00:03:31.620 I'm very interested in hearing about that.

00:03:33.360 So let's start with what problem you were trying to address or set of problems when you decided to run.

00:03:41.640 Fill people in on your background and your decision.

00:03:44.740 Yeah.

00:03:45.980 Let me go backwards before I go forwards.

00:03:48.260 And most importantly, thank you.

00:03:49.740 I wish our country, U.S., Canada, and the world would have more conversations like this one.

00:03:56.620 You know, Jordan, as you know, my life started differently than most are aware.

00:04:00.200 I lost my father in the Vietnam War.

00:04:01.940 He grew up very poor in Minnesota, could not afford college, so he earned an ROTC scholarship afforded by the federal government to attend law school at the University of Minnesota, was sent to Vietnam just before I was born, and was killed in action in July of 1969, just a few days, in fact, after the U.S. moon landing.

00:04:21.380 And when I was six months old when he died, my mother was 24 and widowed.

00:04:26.000 We had nowhere to go, so we lived with my great-grandparents in St. Paul for three years.

00:04:30.120 And then, Jordan, I got lucky.

00:04:32.200 My mom met and remarried a wonderful man who adopted me into a great family of business and philanthropic success.

00:04:39.480 A lot of advice.

00:04:40.660 My grandmother was the advice columnist, Dear Abby, and my aunt was Ann Landers.

00:04:45.300 And I got lucky.

00:04:46.360 And I share that because, as I have this conversation with you, so much of my life was influenced by good fortune.

00:04:52.340 And recognizing that I don't think it should take a stroke of good luck or just being born in the right zip code that dictates where one ends up.

00:04:59.800 And that very much illuminated my life.

00:05:02.020 And I had a great business career building Belvedere Vodka and Talenti Gelato, two wonderful brands.

00:05:10.260 And that brings me to 2016.

00:05:13.240 I was a father of two daughters, Daniela, 18, Pia, 16.

00:05:17.900 I had just opened some coffee shops.

00:05:19.640 I loved the idea of hospitality and people gathering.

00:05:21.940 I think people and humanity needs a lot more of that right now.

00:05:25.060 I thought that would be my next business chapter.

00:05:27.100 But I watched that election night, 2016, and I was deeply disappointed.

00:05:31.520 And for the first time in my life, it wasn't political in nature.

00:05:36.860 It was the character, I thought, of the man who had won, Donald Trump.

00:05:40.960 But I told my family that night, Jordan, as I always would, he was duly elected and we got to give him a chance.

00:05:47.120 But I woke up the next morning and the first thing I heard was my daughter, Pia, who was 16.

00:05:53.220 She was in her bedroom and she was crying.

00:05:55.280 And I sat at the foot of her bed.

00:05:57.140 And mind you, Pia had just overcome Hodgkin's lymphoma a year before.

00:06:00.580 And she's a gay woman.

00:06:02.160 I didn't know that when she was a teenager.

00:06:04.180 But I saw a fear in her eyes, Jordan, that really instantly affected me, indelible.

00:06:11.600 And I sat at the breakfast table that morning with both of my daughters and promised them that I would do something.

00:06:17.000 I had reached that moment in my life where I'd taken a lot for granted.

00:06:21.740 I'd raised my daughters to be participants, not observers.

00:06:24.660 And I felt compelled to do something.

00:06:27.620 And I decided to run for Congress.

00:06:29.140 I share that with you because you asked why I ran for president.

00:06:32.800 Well, it was because we have a crisis of participation.

00:06:35.680 We have a wonderful industry, entertainment, I might call it, of people who make a lot of money and do quite well by creating division, sharing fear.

00:06:47.840 And I want to be a participant in the resolution.

00:06:51.380 I want to be the antidote.

00:06:52.620 And I felt rather than complaining, I should do something.

00:06:55.800 And that's why I ran for Congress.

00:06:57.140 I was the first Democrat to win my district since 1958.

00:07:00.600 Got to Congress.

00:07:01.660 As you know, I joined the Problem Solvers Caucus because there is no mechanism, none in the U.S. Congress, that pushes people together.

00:07:09.360 No mandate, no intention between the speaker and the minority leader to develop an orientation program that forces human beings to get to know each other, to share their life stories.

00:07:22.360 And when I saw Donald Trump essentially now returning to the White House because of Joe Biden's increasingly poor approval numbers and his bad poll numbers, the absence of competition is destructive to democracy.

00:07:36.240 In fact, I would say competition is the vitamin of democracy.

00:07:39.340 And just because we had an incumbent president here in 2024, 86 percent of the country had determined that he was too old to serve another term.

00:07:47.960 And I thought the least I could do, the least I could do is the same thing I did in 2016, which is to demonstrate with my feet my principles, which was to stand up and go against the grain and actually upset my colleagues, to not wait in line, to not be quiet and shush up and sit down, but just the opposite.

00:08:07.140 And I think we now have too much of a culture, both in North America and increasingly around the world, of people too often being silenced and falling in line when they should be standing up and being loud.

00:08:18.520 And that's what I did, Jordan, and I'm glad I did.

00:08:21.000 It was a long shot.

00:08:22.680 There's almost no chance whatsoever of an insurgent like me defeating an incumbent in a nominating process like we have here in the States.

00:08:29.980 We have a political duopoly, both Democrats and Republicans, that have set the rules to prevent the very competition that I aspire to create.

00:08:40.260 But I got to tell you, it was the most beautiful experience of my life, Jordan.

00:08:43.900 Like any mission of principle, it came with a lot of joy, a lot of pain, but it reinvigorated my love for my country, my affection for human beings.

00:08:53.060 And I will say, Jordan, the most compelling moment of my entire experience, which lasted about five months, was walking up to a Donald Trump rally in Rochester, New Hampshire.

00:09:04.820 Saw a line of people standing outside in the freezing cold, there for hours, and I walked up to say hello.

00:09:10.460 And I spoke with probably 50 people that evening, going to a Trump rally, and every one of them, friendly, hospitable, thoughtful, kind, many of them had voted for Barack Obama.

00:09:23.600 Many of them said that they had been fans of Bernie Sanders.

00:09:26.800 All of them treated me respectfully.

00:09:28.460 I treated them respectfully.

00:09:29.520 And I have to tell you, that was probably the moment I'll never forget and restored and reinvigorated my belief that everybody, everybody has decency in them.

00:09:40.880 But we have created a dynamic now in which we are demeaning people.

00:09:44.500 We are making them afraid.

00:09:45.660 We are antagonizing each other.

00:09:47.860 And I needed that moment to demonstrate to my own side of the aisle that the way to succeed is not through confrontation, but through invitation.

00:09:55.780 And you asked why I ran for president.

00:09:57.160 Jordan, that's what I wanted to demonstrate, that we need to extend invitations to one another to get to know each other, find common ground, debate, deliberate, and disagree without being disagreeable.

00:10:09.080 And I'm glad I did it because that was my mission.

00:10:12.040 And I would do it a thousand times again, despite how complicated and difficult and the toll it took.

00:10:17.620 So you stated during your exposition of your reasons for running that you were concerned about Biden's, that the concerns you expressed were fundamentally practical.

00:10:30.400 I don't imagine that exhausts your list of concerns, but the practical concerns were your belief that a better candidate than Trump for president might be found.

00:10:40.520 And combined with the fact that Biden's age has become a concern and his poll numbers reflect some real uncertainty about his viability as a candidate for the next presidency.

00:10:53.040 Were there other shortcomings related to the Biden administration that you felt that you felt that you might want to address on the policy side?

00:11:02.960 Or did you feel in the main that his administration was proceeding in the right direction, but that, well, we could take apart what you felt was inadequate about the Biden presidency, a part around his age, let's say?

00:11:16.820 Well, let me start by saying the quiet part out loud, which is to be successful in American politics, one must abide by his or her own party's rules, by the platform.

00:11:29.080 If you get out of line, if you disagree, if you take a position that is the opposite of that of your party, it is not the path to success.

00:11:37.320 And that is why you see the overwhelming majority of members of Congress and elected leaders in the U.S. knowingly violating their own perspectives and principles in the spirit of self-preservation.

00:11:51.060 And I share that because I think that's an important dynamic for people to be aware of.

00:11:56.400 The overarching issue in this election in the United States is the number of people, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, libertarians, independents, all feeling how in the world can the most extraordinary democracy in the world be limited to two candidates like the ones that it looks like we'll be having in November.

00:12:15.720 And that's not opining on what I think of them.

00:12:17.760 I'm just saying what people are saying every single day all around this country.

00:12:21.540 How are we so limited in a democracy that is supposed to be cultivating, nurturing, and promoting options?

00:12:30.480 And I watched on the right a very vibrant, very vibrant GOP nominating contest that continued as of, you know, until last week when Nikki Haley dropped out.

00:12:40.460 But evening debates and town halls and conversation and energy.

00:12:44.780 And I looked on my side of the aisle, Jordan, and we have Joe Biden who is going to be handed the nomination, a coronation of sorts.

00:12:51.880 So, and my misgivings were about the system.

00:12:55.000 My misgivings were about a country that was overwhelmingly saying that we want more options.

00:13:00.200 And I believe, as I said earlier, that absent competition, democracy ultimately dies.

00:13:05.520 Now, when it comes to policy, so my opinion, by the way, on Joe Biden is he's a good man.

00:13:09.900 I think he's a man of integrity and decency and, most importantly, empathy.

00:13:14.360 But he's an old man.

00:13:15.640 I'm not going to deny that.

00:13:16.980 Is he incompetent?

00:13:18.160 No.

00:13:18.640 Is he facing cognitive decline?

00:13:20.960 I do not believe so at all.

00:13:22.700 Is he facing physical and communication decline?

00:13:25.420 Absolutely.

00:13:25.840 But that's what people see.

00:13:28.200 That's why they've concluded that he was too old.

00:13:31.020 But from a policy perspective, you know, I will say that I think the southern border is a tragic oversight of this administration.

00:13:40.200 It's something that I saw when I first visited the border in 2019, again in 2020.

00:13:45.440 The foremost responsibility of an American leader is to keep our border secure and preserve national security.

00:13:53.640 And clearly, we have a human crisis, we have a national security crisis, and now we have a constitutional crisis at our border.

00:14:01.620 And having been there twice, it's one of the most appalling things I've ever seen and is and must be the foremost priority of an American leader.

00:14:09.920 That is certainly a point of difference.

00:14:12.840 A fiscal responsibility is clearly something that I believe an American president has to take more seriously.

00:14:18.200 Donald Trump added $7 trillion to our national debt.

00:14:21.540 Joe Biden will add probably six and change.

00:14:24.380 It's irresponsible.

00:14:26.160 And as someone who comes from the business world, I believe we have to manage our fiscal house more responsibly.

00:14:32.660 Had I become president, and one day if I do, I would have a bipartisan cabinet.

00:14:37.780 I would employ zero-based budgeting.

00:14:40.040 I would have an international consulting firm assess every single federal agency to make recommendations on how we can deliver services better,

00:14:47.360 reduce expenditures, outsource what we don't do well.

00:14:51.200 I think we have to start looking at the executive branch here in America as our founders intended, which is to execute the laws of the land, not necessarily be the chief policymaker,

00:15:01.840 but to ensure the integrity of our financial house, to ensure the integrity of our borders, to ensure the national security of the country.

00:15:09.980 And I think the executive branch has expanded far more broadly than it should have.

00:15:15.000 I believe that people are feeling the challenges of chaos, whether it's the southern border or in cities and neighborhoods around the country.

00:15:23.800 I believe costs are too high for most families.

00:15:27.420 We're a country in which 60 percent are living paycheck to paycheck.

00:15:30.680 Forty percent can't afford a $400 repair.

00:15:33.940 People are afraid.

00:15:34.820 So when I judged President Biden, there's a lot of good he did, I believe, for America.

00:15:40.040 But I do believe there are some opportunities and needs of Americans that have to be attended to.

00:15:45.800 I was clear in my articulation of what some of those deficiencies are.

00:15:49.580 And lastly, I'll present my foremost policy proposition that I think we should consider and I think other countries should as well.

00:15:56.400 And I call it American dream accounts.

00:15:58.520 We have Social Security in the United States in which retirees are afforded resources to live in dignity after they end their careers.

00:16:08.400 But we don't complement that with something in the beginning of life.

00:16:11.220 And my proposition is something called dream accounts in which the federal government would offer a $5,000 investment account to every baby born in America, no matter one zip code.

00:16:22.140 It would be invested in a S&P 500 index fund in the U.S. equity markets.

00:16:26.880 It would grow over 18 years.

00:16:29.280 Young people would have an app on their phone, track their investments.

00:16:33.280 They would have classes in school to learn about financial management, about entrepreneurship.

00:16:38.040 And then as a reward, as a reward to graduate high school, that account would vest.

00:16:44.760 And young Americans would have $20,000 to $25,000 to begin their lives.

00:16:49.000 Start a small business, down payment on a home, a little bit of cash to begin their adult beginnings.

00:16:55.020 And that would reduce our expenditures down the road.

00:16:59.040 That would solve a lot of the challenges, I believe, in our country.

00:17:02.880 And most importantly, reduce our extraordinary expenditures on incarceration in America, which exceed $80,000 per incarcerated individual.

00:17:12.480 And I think these are some things that new leaders, next generation leaders can conceive, can implement, how we regulate social media, artificial intelligence, that frankly, a man of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden's age, I don't think have that same life experience and context that younger generations can.

00:17:31.760 So when I ran against Joe Biden, I was really running for generational change and for a sense of respect, the restoration of respect and decency and the golden rule, Jordan.

00:17:45.840 That's what I was running for.

00:17:47.840 It just so happened I was running in a Democratic primary that clearly Democrats didn't have an appetite for, at least not yet.

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00:19:30.280 So, when I was a kid, about 14, something like that, I got involved with progressive politics in Canada.

00:19:44.220 The librarian in my local school was the wife of our local representative, provincially.

00:19:49.480 And he was the only left-leaning politician in the entire province of Alberta.

00:19:57.660 And I was attracted by the policies of the left at that time.

00:20:04.260 And I'm curious about your political orientation.

00:20:10.080 I mean, it isn't necessarily obvious, coming from the business background, say, that you came from, that you would naturally gravitate towards the Democrat side of the House.

00:20:23.300 So, could you start by explaining how your political convictions developed and why they've been maintained on the left?

00:20:32.340 And maybe we can talk, that'll enable us to talk a little bit, too, about things that are somewhat more political and philosophical than we delved into on the YouTube side.

00:20:44.320 So, first of all, let me start by saying I don't fit into the perfect political box of any party.

00:20:52.160 And I'll tell you my story.

00:20:53.920 I come from a Jewish family.

00:20:56.640 And I will tell you, Jordan, that in America, post-war America, there was great affection for the Democratic Party, as the party that prosecuted World War II, of course, was more sensitive to the Jewish community's needs.

00:21:11.400 And my political hero as a kid was Hubert Humphrey, who was a 20-something-year-old mayor of Minneapolis, who did extraordinary, generous gestures for the Jewish community, the black community in Minneapolis.

00:21:25.400 Minneapolis was known as the most anti-Semitic city in the country in the 1940s.

00:21:29.820 It was also Hubert Humphrey.

00:21:31.480 This is very little known, but it was a young Hubert Humphrey who went to the Philadelphia Democratic National Convention in 1948, was told by everybody from whom he seeked counsel that if he was to issue the speech that he was planning to issue, that he would likely end his career on the spot.

00:21:49.700 And it was the speech in which he implored the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and into the bright sunshine of human rights.

00:21:58.020 At that moment, Strom Thurmond and all the Dixiecrats left the arena.

00:22:03.640 Strom Thurmond started a new party, ran for president that year against Harry Truman, and won four states.

00:22:10.060 And not only did it not hurt Humphrey's career, it actually established it.

00:22:13.620 And in many ways, I think it's underappreciated, but it was Hubert Humphrey with that speech that really started the Democratic Party's migration into the civil rights movement.

00:22:22.860 Now, there's no video of it.

00:22:24.420 It's a very grainy recording of it.

00:22:26.140 That might be part of the problem.

00:22:27.220 But I also reflect on the same Hubert Humphrey that, as vice president in the 1960s, vice president to Lyndon Johnson, felt very opposed to the Vietnam War.

00:22:38.380 But instead of having that same courage and speaking out against it, he walked the company line.

00:22:44.760 He suppressed his principles.

00:22:46.700 And it ultimately cost him the 1968 election.

00:22:49.780 It probably, in some way, shape, or form, cost my father's life and cost the lives of tens of thousands of other people.

00:22:55.740 And it's that young Humphrey, though, that I really celebrated as a kid because, not just because of human rights, but because of courage, you know, to stand up in front of this arena full of people.

00:23:06.460 And I went to school in 1980.

00:23:10.540 This is a very interesting, quick story.

00:23:12.140 In 1980, I go to school and I go to assembly.

00:23:15.940 And who's speaking to our assembly that day but John Anderson, Republican member of Congress, had run against Ronald Reagan in the GOP primaries in 1980.

00:23:24.680 And kind of like Bobby Kennedy, left the primary and then declared his candidacy as an independent.

00:23:31.360 And he came to speak to our class that day in 1980.

00:23:34.220 I was 11 years old.

00:23:35.180 I'd never seen a politician before.

00:23:37.120 And he spoke about money in politics and he spoke about the need for independence in politics.

00:23:42.620 It didn't mean much to me.

00:23:43.600 But that night, I went to dinner with my family, four generations, my great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, and my brother and me.

00:23:51.580 And I sat next to my grandmother, who was Dear Abby, the advice columnist.

00:23:55.060 She asked me about my day.

00:23:56.280 I told her about John Anderson coming.

00:23:58.580 She said, well, just so you know, you say he might be president, but anybody who's speaking to a bunch of 11-year-olds this close to the election is probably not going to win.

00:24:07.600 So that was political lesson number one.

00:24:09.260 But she said, Dean, are you a Democrat or Republican?

00:24:12.480 And I said, Grandma, I don't even know what those are.

00:24:14.960 And she said, you're a Democrat.

00:24:16.960 And it was then that I learned about this affiliation between the Jewish community and the Democratic Party, particularly in Minneapolis because of Hubert Humphrey, who was the hero to my whole family.

00:24:27.400 Because what he did in a time where the Jewish community was deeply persecuted for their faith in Minneapolis.

00:24:35.420 So when you ask about the why, that's the why.

00:24:38.360 It was baked into my family.

00:24:41.140 And also, and I'll leave it at this, it's this deep-seated belief that in some way, shape, or form, the Democratic Party always stood for the underdog, you know, for the downtrodden, the separated, the oppressed, the other.

00:24:54.920 And I think I've always grown up with a little bit of that ethos baked into me.

00:25:00.300 Now, like many people, do I struggle sometimes with some of the platform of my party?

00:25:04.760 Or do I grow concerned about circumstances?

00:25:08.300 Of course I do.

00:25:09.340 But that's my affiliation.

00:25:11.360 And it's longstanding and somewhat deep-seated.

00:25:15.220 Okay, okay, so that actually, I definitely want to delve into that more.

00:25:24.220 So I just wrote a piece for The Telegraph.

00:25:27.180 It's going to be published next week.

00:25:31.000 Addressing the rising tide of anti-Semitism in the Western world.

00:25:35.640 Now, I've been watching this happen for four years.

00:25:40.740 I've been privy to it to some degree because I aligned myself with The Daily Wire.

00:25:46.880 And its most famous spokesperson is Ben Shapiro.

00:25:50.260 And so that attracted no shortage of anti-Semitic commentary.

00:25:55.420 Much of it from the right.

00:25:56.980 But there's something stunningly pernicious going on that has to do with this question

00:26:05.160 that I mentioned to you on the YouTube side that I've asked Democrats consistently.

00:26:12.840 When does the left go too far?

00:26:14.160 So I want to lay out an argument for you.

00:26:15.880 Okay, so now I understand where you're coming from.

00:26:17.680 And I would also say that that proclivity you had to identify with standing up for the underdog, let's say,

00:26:27.060 was also what made the left-leaning political party in Alberta more attractive to me as a teenager.

00:26:37.440 Okay, so I was active politically for about four years when I was a kid.

00:26:43.880 And then I just stepped away from it for, well, until like six years ago.

00:26:50.600 I still obviously don't have an active political career.

00:26:53.220 But in any case, here's the problem.

00:26:56.300 Here's a problem.

00:26:57.220 I want to know what you think about it because this gets right to the heart of the matter.

00:26:59.920 So my sense is that the left goes too far in the modern world when it talks about equity.

00:27:06.820 And I want to tell you why I think that.

00:27:10.520 Because there's an equation there.

00:27:12.300 Now, the equation is something like if we analyze people by the groups they're affiliated with,

00:27:22.700 and we find that there's a group that's overrepresented statistically in positions of authority and arguably power,

00:27:30.720 let's say authority influence competence and power, just to cover the territory quite nicely,

00:27:36.380 then the only possible reason for that overrepresentation is something approximating systemic oppression.

00:27:45.340 Now, that's an equity doctrine in my estimation.

00:27:48.620 And I think that evidence for that is crystal clear.

00:27:51.860 Now, there's a problem.

00:27:53.060 There's many problems with that doctrine.

00:27:55.060 The first problem is the proposition that we should divide people up by groups because that can be done

00:27:59.660 without end, multiplying the potential dimensions of oppression without end.

00:28:06.500 And that's the danger I see on the postmodern front.

00:28:08.640 But there's something even more pernicious.

00:28:10.160 Because if we're going to play the game of overrepresentation in positions of privilege or indication of systemic bias and oppression,

00:28:23.840 then the Jews are immediately on the firing block.

00:28:27.020 Because there is no grouping of people that's more likely to be statistically represented at the upper echelons of virtually every domain than the Jews.

00:28:39.700 Now, my sense of that is that the Jews and their proclivity to hyperachieve are a massive net benefit to any society that has enough sense and courage

00:28:54.260 to not only tolerate but welcome and encourage a successful minority.

00:28:59.180 But that can be turned and inverted viciously as it has been for thousands of years, right?

00:29:05.660 It's always been the same story.

00:29:09.180 So I see in the equity doctrine a kind of poison, like a true poison that's predicated on that equation.

00:29:16.540 Now, the poison is twofold.

00:29:18.080 Not only is there an oppressor-oppression narrative that's very easy to digest,

00:29:23.120 which is that statistical overrepresentation indicates oppression.

00:29:27.600 That's bad enough because it's a hyper-simplification.

00:29:30.760 But there's an additional element to it that's insanely pernicious,

00:29:35.520 which is that now all you have to do to demonstrate your moral virtue is ally yourself with the hypothetically oppressed.

00:29:42.480 And you've done your moral duty.

00:29:44.220 And I believe that a tremendous amount of the culture war that's raging now that's manifesting itself as anti-Semitism

00:29:52.200 and that I believe has devastated our institutes of higher education is a consequence of that doctrine.

00:29:59.620 And so, well, I'm curious about what you think about all that.

00:30:04.660 You know, my first reaction is that two things can be true at once.

00:30:10.480 Things that have good intentions that I think are just and appropriate can sometimes have ramifications

00:30:16.060 that negatively affect someone else or be taken too far.

00:30:19.900 And this is probably a discussion where we could surely talk about that.

00:30:22.600 But when I think of equity generally, let me start with the enslaved Americans.

00:30:28.800 Anybody who believes that slavery does not have a long tail that exists to this very day,

00:30:35.420 I just would beg you to understand how that's just patently untrue.

00:30:40.300 It's one thing to deny one generation something, but to deny multiple generations family, education, literacy, opportunity,

00:30:51.320 that becomes very hard to overcome.

00:30:53.360 And I do think that slavery is an example of a systemic flaw in the United States

00:30:58.680 that continues to have ramifications to this day and I think is worthy of rectification.

00:31:04.000 I think of my own, I think of women.

00:31:05.500 I think of the great-grandmothers, Sarah and Rose, my great-grandmothers,

00:31:09.540 who could not vote when they turned 18 years old because women were not afforded the right to vote.

00:31:13.880 When they were, is that an example of equity?

00:31:16.460 Yes.

00:31:17.600 My own community, the Jewish community in Minneapolis.

00:31:20.780 Jewish physicians in the 1940s could not practice at any Minneapolis hospital, Jordan, not a one.

00:31:27.120 Hubert Humphrey, along with my great-grandfather, members of the Jewish and Gentile community,

00:31:31.480 got together and they built a hospital called Mount Sinai Hospital.

00:31:34.220 It was a form of equity because it was the only hospital that would afford staff privileges to Jewish physicians.

00:31:41.880 And, of course, when they opened, every other hospital changed its policies.

00:31:46.300 So, you know, even my own community in the early part of the 20th century were relegated to the worst jobs imaginable.

00:31:53.660 You know, pots and pans.

00:31:55.580 They entered Hollywood because Hollywood and moviemaking was kind of a secondary type of industry.

00:32:02.120 They got into the spirits business like my family did in wine and spirits distribution.

00:32:07.580 They had to take on jobs in industries in which the well-to-do weren't interested in.

00:32:13.560 And I used Mount Sinai as an example of that was an act of equity that afforded opportunity.

00:32:19.820 And then the community took advantage of that level playing field, if you will.

00:32:24.360 And now it's somewhat of a meritocracy.

00:32:27.140 So I think two things can be true at once.

00:32:30.060 I don't want to see anybody disadvantaged because of somebody else's advantage.

00:32:35.080 But I do think that we do have some obligations in a just society to afford a little bit more to give someone a boost to a group or a party or a sex or a race or a religion that have been denied opportunity for a long time.

00:32:50.660 And I don't think they're incompatible notions is my only sense and sensibility.

00:32:55.980 Now, I will say, am I deeply concerned about those on the left who seem to leave their affection for the underdog at the doorstep of the Jewish people?

00:33:06.260 Yes.

00:33:07.280 And am I concerned that Jewish people are now somehow perceived as the oppressors?

00:33:11.300 Now, I don't look like someone who might be under persecution or risk or threat, you know, because I'm a white businessman.

00:33:18.440 But the fact of the matter is, I and my community are very much so.

00:33:21.740 So I'm concerned.

00:33:23.640 And I think a lot of what you said, I concur with.

00:33:26.300 Other parts of it, this notion that equity has gone too far, I don't know if it's gone too far until we do establish some degree of a level playing field.

00:33:35.280 And I think that is what a just society should pursue.

00:33:39.180 And I think there are still examples where we still have residuals of policy that have kept a lot of people from achieving.

00:33:47.960 And that's why I'm not a someone who believes in the redistribution of income or wealth.

00:33:51.860 I do believe in a redistribution of opportunity.

00:33:55.700 That does not necessarily mean away from other people.

00:33:58.540 It simply means incrementally affording it to those who had been denied it for reasons well beyond their control.

00:34:04.420 And that is that's my perspective.

00:34:07.040 And I think it's a worthy conversation.

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00:35:15.760 There's no denying that there's a wide range of difference in access to opportunity.

00:35:28.220 It isn't obvious to me that that can be rectified in any straightforward sense because the dimensions of potential inequality are innumerable.

00:35:38.000 So, for example, it isn't obvious to me at all that if you're poor and young, you're more disadvantaged than someone who's old and rich.

00:35:48.060 Because most people who are old and rich would swap their wealth in a second to be young and poor.

00:35:54.040 Wealth is relative.

00:35:55.120 Well, this is exactly my point, is that calculating the potential dimensions of oppression is a, see, this is the transformation that's occurred in the postmodern, what would you call, variation of the underlying Marxism that used to play the inequality game on the economic side.

00:36:15.160 Is the dimensions of, of oppression and equality have multiplied endlessly.

00:36:21.000 And, and that's a, that's a very bad game because there is some dimension on which you're an oppressor.

00:36:27.200 You can be absolutely certain of that from, in, from the perspective of that game.

00:36:32.120 You know, and you, you pointed to it yourself, you know, on the, on the minority side, there's your Jewish heritage, but on the oppressor side, well, that's assuming that the Jews are allowed to be a minority.

00:36:43.400 You know, as opposed to an oppressor and we're way past that.

00:36:47.680 But on the other side, there's the fact that you're white and male.

00:36:50.400 And so, but you can take any given individual and you can find the dimension on which they're an oppressor.

00:36:56.000 And this is what disturbs me profoundly about the equity game.

00:37:00.220 And, you know, you, you, you, you, you elided two terms, I would say, and, and I don't understand this exactly.

00:37:07.620 But this is something that I do see characteristic of the Democrats in particular, because there's an insistence on the Democrat side that equity means equality of opportunity.

00:37:17.840 And that's not what it means.

00:37:19.300 It means equality of outcome.

00:37:21.280 And your own vice president, Kamala.

00:37:23.260 Well, but that's how she's defined it.

00:37:25.260 I understand.

00:37:25.900 That's, that's, that's what the, I mean, there may be people who interpret equity as equality.

00:37:29.620 We cannot guarantee the equality of outcomes.

00:37:31.500 Then why do we use the word equity?

00:37:33.860 Because look, the only reason that word was introduced into the academic parlance to begin with was to elide the difference between equality of opportunity and equity and, and equality of outcome.

00:37:44.180 I can't speak for every Democrat.

00:37:46.380 I believe I can speak for most of us in Congress when I say that our aspiration as Democrats is to rectify that imbalance of opportunity, to afford it to more, not at the, not, not being detrimental to those.

00:38:00.640 Those who already have it, but incrementally afford more.

00:38:03.940 It is the equality of opportunity to which we aspire.

00:38:06.920 I, I do not know many.

00:38:09.200 I'm sure there are some that would say the objective is the equality of outcome.

00:38:13.580 By, by, almost by definition, that's socialism or communism, which doesn't work.

00:38:17.080 Well, there, there, there are certainly plenty of them in the, in academia.

00:38:23.600 I understood.

00:38:24.160 I'm, I'm talking, I'm talking, and that I understand.

00:38:25.880 I'm talking, but I am talking about, and this is where the branding, the entertainment, the division, I think is a little bit misportrayed.

00:38:34.060 And that, and I'm not saying that I'm not speaking for all, but that is indeed my aspiration as a Democrat.

00:38:39.120 I believe most is that the equality of opportunity.

00:38:43.040 Yeah.

00:38:43.260 Okay.

00:38:43.500 I agree with you.

00:38:44.440 I believe that's the case.

00:38:46.120 This is one of the things that makes me curious and befuddled by this situation, because it is my experience when I'm talking to Democrats of the moderate stripe, that they're, what they're attempting to foster is best conceptualized as the equality of opportunity that's core to the American vision.

00:39:10.020 But that isn't what the radicals on the left are pushing, and I, for the life of me, I cannot see, and I, as you know, I worked on the Democrat side for a substantial amount of time, and I've had this discussion for like 10 years.

00:39:26.020 And I still see no movement whatsoever on the Democrat moderate side to understand the threat that the leftist radicals pose to the moderate Democrat mission, even, by eliding the difference between equality of outcome and equality of opportunity.

00:39:45.860 So, so, so, and here's one example of that is that I do believe, and I'm trying to look at this from the perspective of a politically informed psychologist, that part of the reason that Trump is the attractive phenomenon that he is, is because the moderate Democrats won't draw a line between them, themselves and the radicals.

00:40:05.060 And this is part of what I pointed to earlier, that's part and parcel of the moderate refusal to define when the left goes too far.

00:40:13.920 Now, you did to some degree, because you said you don't believe in equality of outcome, right?

00:40:18.780 And you said also that most of your, most of your peers, particularly your reasonable peers, also don't believe that.

00:40:26.800 And that might even be true of someone like Bernie Sanders, because I saw Sanders become entirely befuddled in an interview not so long ago when he was pushed on the distinction between equity and equality of opportunity.

00:40:38.500 But it's a cardinal danger.

00:40:40.520 And the reason I'm trying to draw this to your attention at the moment is because I do believe that the fruits of that evil seed are making themselves manifest in this spate of anti-Semitism.

00:40:50.620 And my understanding of the persecution of the Jews going back millennia is that the Jews are almost always a successful minority.

00:41:01.700 And there's very complex reasons for that, many of which are cultural.

00:41:05.220 Now, you can attribute that to conspiratorial collusion behind the scenes, and the anti-Semites love to do that, whether they're on the right or the left.

00:41:13.820 But the left has an additional systemic problem with anti-Semitism at the moment, which is their definition of oppression.

00:41:20.620 And oppression is equated to disproportionate representation in positions of privilege.

00:41:26.760 And if that's going to be the definition, then the Jews are first on the firing block.

00:41:31.980 You know, when I think about anti-Semitism and you reflected on cultural traditions, and I realize as a policymaker, a lawmaker,

00:41:43.060 a lot of what I discovered about my own community, the Jewish community that has afforded, it's created its own opportunities,

00:41:50.120 stem from a belief in family, a fierce protection, the lessons of the Torah, which, you know, any Abrahamic faith, teaching decency,

00:41:59.660 the sharing with one another, and also education.

00:42:04.840 And as a policymaker, that has very much informed me, Jordan, as to how we overcome the persecution that the Jewish people have faced since being enslaved in Egypt and the Holocaust and so many times through history.

00:42:18.620 And then this is going to sound maybe interesting, but I think you'll understand the fact that at age 13, young Jewish boys and girls have a bar bat mitzvah.

00:42:28.180 And at that age, to be forced to appear in front of your community, to have to prepare diligently, to speak in front of them, to make a speech, to read the Torah, to share that on stage,

00:42:41.100 is a very powerful driver of confidence and ambition.

00:42:47.300 And the same way if you go to high school and you have to make a senior speech, the minute you get in front of your peers and you overcome that fear, it is extraordinarily empowering.

00:42:55.900 And I think a lot of the success of the Jewish community and so many cultures around the world stems from these traditions that very intentionally elevate at a very young age the need for family, education, ambition, study, the things that make for human success, literacy.

00:43:14.220 And I share that because as a policymaker, it is those very opportunities.

00:43:20.300 The equity is, we talk about equity, that's what I wish to share with those who are denied that for no other reason than the fact they weren't born into a family like mine, despite all the persecution and anti-Semitism we faced.

00:43:33.940 To me, those are the solutions, those traditions.

00:43:36.740 Okay, so then I agree, like, look, I agree with you, but I would say, to some degree, that's what's made me a conservative, to the degree that I am a conservative.

00:43:45.880 And so, because the dictums that you just put forward don't strike me as corresponding to the notion that the fundamental problem is to be summed up as systemic oppression.

00:44:00.160 It's deeper than that, and it has something to do with first principles.

00:44:08.800 And the first principles that you laid out, this is what we've been doing with this ARC enterprise in London, right?

00:44:14.960 The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, we've been trying to turn it into something approximating an international classic liberal and conservative voice.

00:44:22.740 But it is predicated on the idea that communities that are founded on those fundamental principles are much more likely to avail themselves of the opportunities that will lift their members out of poverty and disgrace.

00:44:38.140 And I get it, but it also requires, to me, it still requires, it doesn't mean a system of equity, but it certainly, in most cases, means an act of equity.

00:44:47.540 Because even my community, as I said with my Mount Sinai Hospital story, or redlining, there has to be some type of an effort to at least escape the past and build a little bit of a platform, raise the platform.

00:45:03.220 Absent that, I'm afraid, Jordan, that so many communities that we might be talking about won't even have the chance to practice an ameritocracy.

00:45:10.280 Look, look, there's, I think there's little doubt about that.

00:45:14.880 You know, here, I just talked to this gentleman named Rob Henderson.

00:45:18.860 Henderson's a very interesting character because he grew up in a series of foster homes in a very fractionated family community.

00:45:27.060 And his background was sort of working class like mine, but mine different from his because every single person I knew, all the adults I knew were married and in stable relationships.

00:45:36.820 All of them, whereas none of the adults he knew were like that.

00:45:40.960 He didn't have any role models of stable relationship, right?

00:45:45.160 And so the, I see in the radical side on the left in particular, an assault on the institutions that provide for the equality of opportunity that you just described.

00:45:58.240 And that's also why it makes me befuddled that the moderates won't segregate themselves from the people who, for example, are hell-bent on attacking the structure of the nuclear family, which I think is the minimal viable unit for society to predicate itself upon.

00:46:17.500 And, Jordan, that, you know—

00:46:18.240 I'm not even sure it's optimal, but it's certainly minimal.

00:46:20.720 That act of equity about which I spoke moments ago, for me, was the blessing of being adopted.

00:46:28.300 Who knows how my life would have worked out after losing a dad?

00:46:30.760 Right, right. You pointed it—that's right.

00:46:32.020 You pointed it out right at the beginning of our conversation.

00:46:34.400 So in a way, in a way, I think, you know, we could be saying the same things.

00:46:37.300 And I feel to some degree a responsibility now because I was afforded something that so many—I'm probably the most fortunate gold star child of the whole Vietnam era.

00:46:46.900 I can't imagine any kid that lost a dad in Vietnam got as lucky as I did.

00:46:52.560 And that's why I feel such a distinct need to afford that single act of equity, in this case, being adopted, a little boost.

00:46:59.300 I think, in a way, what this conversation and those that we should be having millions more of can actually find some common ground because you're right.

00:47:07.260 There are elements of conservatism and tradition that I have to be perpetuated if we stand any chance of success.

00:47:15.180 But I would also argue from more of the left perspective, there also has to be some intention to at least bring people to that stage.

00:47:24.760 And there's a there there.

00:47:26.380 And I think it's worthy of a more in-depth conversation.

00:47:30.860 All right. So let's talk about that.

00:47:33.420 I want to return to the policy issues at some point.

00:47:36.240 But I think the more germane point at the moment, I think, is likely your experience doing this.

00:47:43.520 So you had—as far as I was concerned, I'm in a strange position as a commentator on American politics because I'm a Canadian.

00:47:51.860 But it gives me a certain detachment, I would say, at least to some degree.

00:47:55.340 And, I mean, it seemed to me that, at minimum, your campaign was warranted given the polling numbers.

00:48:03.560 It also struck me that it was very unlikely that the Democrats were going to rustle up a candidate who, in principle, might have a broader appeal than you.

00:48:13.400 I've watched RFK.

00:48:14.700 We can talk a little bit about his campaign at some point.

00:48:18.120 I think that might be interesting.

00:48:20.000 But you had the qualifications that struck me as necessary and desirable to offer an alternative to the current regime, given people's concerns.

00:48:33.340 And my sense was that wise Democrats might have been sufficiently terrified by the possibility of losing the next election, which I think is very likely that they were—they would be casting about for a potentially viable alternative.

00:48:49.560 Maybe even because Biden is sufficiently elderly so that his viability is limited in an extreme sense and that you might want to have someone around as an alternative if the worst happens.

00:49:04.320 And so—and I was curious about how your campaign might progress.

00:49:10.620 And I must say I thought that you would get more traction than you did.

00:49:15.660 And so we communicated a little bit right from the beginning of your plans, not a tremendous amount, but enough so that I knew what was going on.

00:49:24.920 And I was absolutely—well, I don't want to put words in your mouth.

00:49:29.080 What happened?

00:49:29.980 What happened?

00:49:30.820 What did you experience?

00:49:32.620 Tell me the whole story, if you would, because everybody needs to know.

00:49:36.660 What happened to you in relationship to your colleagues?

00:49:39.580 What happened to you on the legal and practical fronts?

00:49:42.180 And what happened to you in relationship to the media, which might be the most germane question?

00:49:48.180 Exactly.

00:49:48.980 And especially in this day and age, the absence of platform, Jordan, is the most critical deficiency that I faced as someone who did not come to this with massive name recognition.

00:49:59.800 Now, mind you, those in Congress who are well-known throughout this country typically generate that name recognition by being jerks, by being aggressive, by being provocative, by being oftentimes mean-spirited.

00:50:12.240 And that is counter my nature.

00:50:14.460 I recognize, as someone who is not often on cable news at night, that that was going to be a challenge.

00:50:19.880 But let me get back to the very beginning.

00:50:22.340 You know, my contention was that the country needed alternatives.

00:50:25.840 My contention was that the president should pass the torch, which is what I did beginning in July of 2022, encouraged him publicly to pass the torch.

00:50:35.120 It was met in my own caucus with a lot of dismay because you don't do that.

00:50:39.440 You know, God forbid you say to the incumbent that he or she should step aside.

00:50:44.000 Needless to say, he did not.

00:50:45.660 Then I started a public and private initiative to encourage others to participate.

00:50:50.760 I telephoned Governor Pritzker in Illinois.

00:50:53.740 I telephoned Governor Whitmer in Michigan, made a public call, whether it's Governor Newsom or Vice President Harris.

00:51:00.260 I said to the next generation of Democrats, this is the time.

00:51:04.300 The polls are bad.

00:51:05.560 The approval numbers are bad.

00:51:07.020 The country is saying they want choices.

00:51:08.820 So let's meet the moment.

00:51:10.420 I never intended nor anticipated that I would have to do it.

00:51:13.880 But in the absence of anybody willing to forego their future, perhaps, and meet the national moment, I was so upset, so disappointed that ultimately, in the absence of anybody else doing it, Jordan, two weeks before the New Hampshire filing deadline in mid-October, I decided to do it myself.

00:51:32.580 Steve Schmidt had had me on his podcast.

00:51:35.240 We had quite a conversation.

00:51:37.120 He recalled how in 2020 he believed that Joe Biden is the only one that could defeat Donald Trump.

00:51:41.960 He felt in 2024 that I was that person.

00:51:45.180 And we did work together for a handful of weeks to initiate my campaign, went up to New Hampshire.

00:51:49.860 As you might know, it was an unusual year in New Hampshire because the Democratic Party had taken away New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary status and handed it to South Carolina.

00:52:01.140 And that offered an opportunity because Joe Biden was on the ballot.

00:52:04.420 And we thought if we could perform well there, not unlike another not well-known Minnesota Democrat in 1968, Eugene McCarthy, it was he who challenged President Johnson at that time and actually inspired him to leave the race by generating almost 45 percent of the vote that year.

00:52:21.640 And that was somewhat of our strategy.

00:52:23.400 What I did not anticipate was a party that was so intent on preventing competition, and I did not anticipate a media ecosystem that was somehow aligned with that deplatforming, if you will.

00:52:40.120 And, of course, for a campaign that was not well-resourced, for one that could not attract Democratic experienced operatives because they would be blackballed if they worked for an insurgents campaign, you know, the cards were stacked against us.

00:52:53.720 But that didn't preclude at least the effort.

00:52:56.400 But you asked the question of what was most consequential.

00:53:00.720 The two parties, and I'm going to say this because it's really important, it is not just the Democratic Party.

00:53:05.380 The two-party system, the duopoly, if you will, they're the ones that have set the rules, Jordan, in the United States.

00:53:11.540 You know, we do not have competition because the two parties have electively, cooperatively, prevented it by setting the rules in all the 50 states and at the federal level.

00:53:23.120 And that means when there is an incumbent, he or she will be protected.

00:53:27.940 Forget the polls.

00:53:29.000 Forget intuition.

00:53:30.360 Forget what the country might be asking for.

00:53:32.200 These are private institutions that operate on their own, by their own rules, behind closed doors.

00:53:38.320 Most of us don't even know who they are, ultimately.

00:53:41.720 And they're making decisions of extraordinary consequence, not just for the United States of America and for our neighbors to the North and South, but for the entire world.

00:53:50.120 And not being exposed to that is very, was something that I was not prepared for.

00:53:54.660 Okay, I want to interject something there because it seems to me that you hit something key with that observation to the attraction of Trump.

00:54:04.080 See, I think that people feel the typical bread and butter people of the United States who are attracted by Trump, despite his bull in a China shop way, let's say, are attracted to him to some degree precisely for that reason.

00:54:26.780 And they do feel in their bones what you just described.

00:54:31.860 And they're willing to take a risk on someone who has that bull in the China shop nature.

00:54:36.960 And this is also true of RFK, by the way, because I think he is quite similar on the Democrat side as Trump was on the Republican side.

00:54:44.900 I mean, RFK in some ways is a more sophisticated, he's more sophisticated in his public presentation and he has a more intellectual meand, but he has the same, there's real similarities in temperament and approach.

00:54:57.620 And I believe that people are attracted to Trump because they believe he will rampage around to some unpredictable degree and potentially break that domination of behind-the-scenes actors that you just described.

00:55:16.140 Now, I infer from what you said today and from some of the conversations we've had before that the degree to which you encountered monolithic opposition was actually rather surprising to you, not merely from your colleagues.

00:55:32.460 Now, you pointed to the fact that there are systemic reasons for that, which we shall delve into, should delve into, and also talk about the behind-the-scenes actors.

00:55:41.960 But also because of the collusion of the legacy media with those actors.

00:55:48.100 Now, that's certainly something that people on the more conservative side, or I would say classic liberal now side of the spectrum, have been pointing to for like five years.

00:55:58.140 It's like, what the hell is going on here?

00:56:00.500 The journalists have lined up with the powers that be, and any objection whatsoever to whatever the plan seems to be has now become verboten.

00:56:10.520 That's why there's such relief, for example, with regard to Musk and his purchase of Twitter, and the platform on which he reinstated me, you know, precisely for standing up against, because I had been eliminated from that platform, precisely for objecting to, what would you say, certain phenomena that went against the behind-the-scenes narrative.

00:56:34.540 So, you were struck by, okay, so let's take this apart, first of all.

00:56:39.360 There's a mystery here, right?

00:56:40.680 Because what you tried to do was to point out very clearly, and correct me if I get any of this wrong, you tried to point out to your colleagues that they were in very danger, in real danger of losing what it was that they were hypothetically aiming for, which was maintenance of the presidency.

00:56:57.220 And then you looked to find people who were likely leaders, perhaps in a position better than yours, given more name-brand recognition, and none of them would do it.

00:57:07.320 So, you decided that you would go ahead with it.

00:57:09.640 And what you found on the Democrat side was, and you said that that may have also been something that would characterize the Republican Party, so we don't have to make a bipartisan accusation here, but the reality you ran into was monolithic opposition to your campaign that extended to the point where you actually had a hard time finding Democrats who would work for you because they were afraid for the viability of their political careers in the future.

00:57:38.340 Is that all accurate?

00:57:39.940 Exactly.

00:57:40.660 Bing, that is so accurate.

00:57:42.060 In fact, Jordan, you could play the same story in 2020 if a Republican had challenged Donald Trump.

00:57:51.660 He or she could have done so under the same terms I challenged Joe Biden, which is, he's probably going to lose, and shouldn't we have an alternative that might actually win?

00:58:00.160 But imagine if someone had done that.

00:58:01.780 They would have encountered the exact same impediments and barriers that I did.

00:58:06.000 And I want to speak to it because you're a better commentator on the human condition than I, but we both know that we operate with reward systems and incentives.

00:58:14.700 In Congress, there is no incentive to go against your party when it comes to these decisions because it will impede your path to either maintaining your seat or to ascending to higher office.

00:58:27.560 Despite the fact that behind the scenes, Jordan, my Republican colleagues during the Trump years almost universally despised him privately.

00:58:36.960 And then when the cameras were on, totally different perspective.

00:58:40.760 Same thing with Joe Biden.

00:58:42.520 Behind the scenes, people were utterly afraid of his standing, of their concern that he's going to lose, that we need an alternative.

00:58:48.880 But then the cameras came on and it would be a very different story.

00:58:51.900 It really bothered me to see the same disease affecting the entire Congress.

00:58:58.320 But the incentives make sense.

00:59:00.100 There is no incentive to be bold or to get out of line or to offer an alternative because it will, almost by definition, end your career.

00:59:08.480 Now, it's the same issue with the media.

00:59:09.780 Let's say you're a journalist and you rely on a leak from the White House, on information from the White House, access to talent that the White House provides to your Sunday show or your evening cable program.

00:59:23.580 If you go against them, if you disappoint them, if you object to them or you say something or do something they don't like, they can always then go to CNN.

00:59:33.400 They can go to another outlet.

00:59:34.580 So we tiptoe through these minefields, if you will, of navigating the human condition.

00:59:43.160 And that's where we find ourselves politically.

00:59:45.060 It's where the media finds itself because the incentives are perfectly aligned with the two parties' mandates and objectives.

00:59:52.920 And they are misaligned with the overwhelming majority of center-right and center-left Americans.

00:59:58.220 And I want to be really clear to people listening and watching.

01:00:00.320 I have no animus towards anyone who supports Donald Trump, as long as you're a person of decency and principle and integrity.

01:00:07.600 I do have animus towards Donald Trump.

01:00:10.840 It's both personal.

01:00:11.960 It's collective.

01:00:12.760 But I want to separate the man from people the same way I would ask that people who do not support Joe Biden would also separate voters for Joe Biden from the man himself.

01:00:23.040 And I want to have these conversations to also reflect on the fact that this is about individuals.

01:00:27.720 I have respect for conservatism.

01:00:29.880 I have respect for libertarian perspectives.

01:00:32.100 I have respect, of course, for progressives.

01:00:33.840 But as I have this discussion with you, I just want to make it very clear.

01:00:36.960 This is the duopoly.

01:00:38.480 Some call it the uniparty.

01:00:40.060 It is real.

01:00:41.460 There is misalignments.

01:00:42.880 And most of all, perverse incentives that have to be exposed, have to be discussed, and have to be rectified.

01:00:49.380 The overwhelming majority of my colleagues, strange bedfellows, want to change the system for the same reason, because it is not working any longer.

01:00:58.540 So, OK, so there's one question I have that emerges out of that, which is that you would expect if the legacy media was aligned with the political forces that currently prevail for reasons of practical access, that during the Trump administration, they would have tilted heavily in the direction of a pro-Trump stance.

01:01:25.960 But I don't really think I saw any evidence of that.

01:01:29.100 So, like, my sense is that the machine that produces the Democrat—the machine that produces the platform of the Democrats is exactly the same machine that produces the ethos of the legacy media journalists.

01:01:48.560 And so there's a natural alignment there.

01:01:50.660 Now, I—and I would say that machine fundamentally are the mechanisms of higher education.

01:01:56.000 It's more complex than that, but that's not a bad place to start.

01:01:59.420 So you talked about—so there's two issues here.

01:02:02.340 You talked about a system of perverse incentives that aligns itself on the political side behind the incumbent in some manner, no matter what, right?

01:02:14.820 And that system of incentives is operating so powerfully that that is the case even when there is real evidence of concern that the incumbent might be insufficient for the job or lose, which is also a definition of insufficient for the job, right?

01:02:31.900 And so that's worth delving into.

01:02:33.960 Like, what is it in the incentive structure that aligns people with a losing candidate at the cost—potentially losing candidate?

01:02:42.840 I know it's close, and that makes things complicated, too, because people could say, well, I can imagine a situation where Biden might win.

01:02:51.540 So is it that the race is so close that the incentives are mixed?

01:02:58.740 What do you think exactly—what do you think is going on?

01:03:01.660 My belief is that when human beings become proximate to power, that they will place that proximity above their own fellow countrymen and women.

01:03:14.380 And I think that has a lot to do with why there's this kind of—there's this absolutism around incumbency.

01:03:20.980 It's not rational.

01:03:22.420 It's not pragmatic.

01:03:23.940 But once people are close to positions of power, they want to protect it because their careers, their proximity, their futures are tied up in that person.

01:03:35.560 That's why we see people sticking around in our Senate, in our Congress, on the Supreme Court, in the White House, in my estimation, for much longer than they should because they are surrounded by sycophants,

01:03:47.060 by people who are far more focused on their own personal futures and preservation of power, influence, access, than they put on the country itself.

01:03:58.960 And I think that is, again, part of the human condition.

01:04:01.080 And that needs to be at least exposed because that's the only thing, if you ask me, that can explain why we have so many people who are otherwise quite rational and quite pragmatic that somehow dismiss those attributes when it comes to political elections.

01:04:18.440 And it makes very little sense to me because numbers don't lie.

01:04:22.820 Numbers don't lie.

01:04:23.820 And I would argue that either party that would have broken, if you will, this logjam, either the Republicans with Trump or the Democrats with Biden, if one had turned to a next generation, able, competent, prepared leader, I think it would have made all the difference in the world.

01:04:38.740 But the absence of even that consideration, to me, is the only indicator you need to recognize who really controls the strings and what their real mandate is, which is not necessarily, I think, in the country's best interest, rather in individuals' best interest.

01:04:55.180 And that's exactly the problem in the Congress and in so many other elements of American politics and, frankly, in most countries.

01:05:02.440 Well, if there is a continual conflict between short-term personal interest and very, very long-term communal interest, let's say, it's very likely that in any given battle, the short-term interest is going to win because the incremental cost to the long-term battle is low and the incremental cost to the person is high.

01:05:25.140 Okay, so that's a problem.

01:05:26.140 Okay, so that's a problem.

01:05:27.140 And maybe it's also the case, and I say this again as an observer of your country from the outside, is that you Americans have been split 50-50 on the voting front for multiple elections now at the federal level.

01:05:41.700 And so you can understand that it's always plausible that the incumbent could win, and so that also mitigates against the utility of launching a more radical or daring, let's say, offense of the sort that you did.

01:06:00.280 Now, okay, so let's—

01:06:02.840 But can I get back to one thing quick before we move on, though, Jordan, because I think it's worth comparing Canada and the U.S. right now.

01:06:09.860 You know, you know, Canada has, you know, two—fundamentally two, even though in a parliamentary system, you fundamentally have two, you know, major parties.

01:06:17.600 And, of course, the CBC is, you know, is somewhat of the standard.

01:06:21.740 You know, in the United States, something changed from the time I was a young man to now at age 55.

01:06:27.420 And I just—before we move on from legacy media, you know, there is some—something changed fundamentally when people recognized how much money there was to be made by separating,

01:06:38.520 by making this a—almost a sport, by making it entertainment, by the fact that we essentially have three cable networks dedicated to politics.

01:06:51.100 You know, even in the sports world, there was only one ESPN.

01:06:54.520 But politics was crafted to become a competitive sport, and it divided this country in such a remarkable fashion.

01:07:03.240 And I would argue that even—you know, and you can opine on this, of course, as a Canadian, but in Canada, that gap, if you will, between left and right is, I would argue, narrower than it has become in the United States.

01:07:15.060 I don't know if it's necessarily true, but it's positioned that way.

01:07:18.220 And media has played a substantial role in having us believe that the other side is dangerous, that we should be afraid, that we have no common ground, that we do not share values anymore.

01:07:29.140 And that is, to me, the most challenging circumstance we face in overcoming, because the fact of the matter is I do not believe that to be true.

01:07:40.000 I do believe what we're being fed, what we're digesting, what we're being offered has so shifted this narrative into a competition rather than celebrating ideas, debate, deliberation, and even conversation like we're having right now.

01:07:54.560 And I just want to make sure that people understand how media has taken advantage of us.

01:08:00.040 And I do believe, as you say, the legacy media.

01:08:02.780 And it has impacted this country in extraordinarily negative fashions.

01:08:06.920 When I say legacy, I'm talking about cable, because I grew up in an era where Walter Cronkite told us the way it was.

01:08:12.720 We had three channels.

01:08:13.600 They all basically said the same thing.

01:08:15.360 And then over the water cooler at the office, people would have their debate and deliberation using the same facts.

01:08:20.480 Now we can't even discern what is fact, what is fiction.

01:08:23.280 And I think that is because of cable news has really affected us in a way that I don't believe has done the same in Canada and most countries in the world.

01:08:32.260 Well, I think there's more difference between the left and the right in Canada than there is in the U.S.

01:08:36.700 But at the moment, there's less antipathy still.

01:08:40.660 Antipathy.

01:08:40.860 Yeah, although that, yeah, I think that's, we won't go there for a moment.

01:08:46.420 That's a neat conversation, but that's an interesting, yeah.

01:08:48.480 There's a difference between the policy gulf and the respect gulf.

01:08:52.040 Yeah, yeah.

01:08:53.240 And although we've got plenty of things that are shaking hard in Canada at the moment.

01:08:57.720 So, all right.

01:08:58.340 No, I know that.

01:08:58.960 So, now it sounds to me, see, I was curious when I asked you to engage in this conversation.

01:09:05.700 I was curious to see what it was that you concluded.

01:09:09.780 And I could imagine that going two ways.

01:09:12.520 One was that you found yourself even more concerned with the, what would you say, lack of flexibility of the Democrat Party and the monolith that you ran into.

01:09:26.600 Or you could voice your concerns at an even deeper level and say that the monolith that you ran into was actually a reflection not so much of the intransigence of the Democrats per se, but a reflection of something that's more systemic and more and more and deeper.

01:09:46.040 And so, it sounds to me like you've landed on that side of the decision.

01:09:54.460 Is that the latter?

01:09:55.100 The latter.

01:09:56.360 Yeah, the latter.

01:09:57.500 And I say that, Jordan, because, first of all, I believe it to be true.

01:10:01.080 It is systemic.

01:10:02.740 It's a result of two parties protecting the duopoly that, in my business experience, a duopoly is always what I try to disrupt.

01:10:10.240 We did it with Belvedere Vodka.

01:10:12.460 Stoli and Absolute were the two big brands.

01:10:14.820 We came in.

01:10:15.260 Belvedere did very well.

01:10:17.040 Ben and Jerry's and Haagen-Dazs and ice cream.

01:10:18.600 We came with Talenti Gelato.

01:10:19.900 And now I see Democrats and Republicans in this systemic competition that is kind of a race to the bottom too often.

01:10:26.920 And I think that is why so many in this country find themselves so disenfranchised, so angry, so upset, so unheard, because no longer are representatives incentivized to attend to those concerns and challenges.

01:10:42.220 They're incentivized to simply win, win and beat and win and beat.

01:10:47.800 And that's why I have to say I understand the attraction of Donald Trump to so many tens of millions of Americans, someone who has said to them,

01:10:55.440 I understand you.

01:10:56.820 By the way, Donald Trump, in my estimation, Jordan, was a man who went through very similar circumstances in New York City, a man who aspired to be part of the social scene in New York, of the philanthropic scene and the clubs.

01:11:10.040 And he was not accepted in Manhattan.

01:11:13.220 Now, forget the fact that he's a wealthy man and a billionaire.

01:11:16.220 People say, how can he relate to rural Americans who feel unheard?

01:11:19.680 Well, you know what?

01:11:20.680 I think he caught on to something that is shared by many, regardless of their means.

01:11:26.220 There was a classist element to it that I found quite distasteful.

01:11:30.140 Now, I come from a rural background.

01:11:31.960 I'm an Albertan and a northern Albertan, and that's like way the hell out in the sticks by anybody's standards.

01:11:37.380 And one of the things I really noticed about the intellectual elite types who were discussing Trump is that they had a contempt for him that was essentially class-based.

01:11:48.100 For one reason or another, he's nouveau riche, right?

01:11:52.000 And even if he has the money, which you referred to, that doesn't put him in the educated Ivy League upper class elite club.

01:12:02.680 And that's also a club that many Americans aren't going to aspire to.

01:12:07.100 And part of the reason they also appreciate Trump is that the typical striving, working class person who might dream, for example, of having his or home business can imagine being rich like Trump, but can't necessarily imagine being Ivy League like the New York elite.

01:12:25.520 And so there is a fundamental dimension of alliance there that's quite obvious, I believe.

01:12:32.300 And Trump plays, whether that's real or not, and I think it is real, at least to some degree, Trump is extraordinarily good at that direct communication that makes people feel that they're being listened to.

01:12:45.180 And he also doesn't hide behind his speechwriters.

01:12:48.240 Like, when I watched Trump win the first election, when he became president, I thought, people prefer the unscripted, spontaneous lies of Donald Trump to the scripted and nuanced and prepared lies of Hillary Clinton.

01:13:05.000 That's what it looked like to me.

01:13:06.440 And I thought there was something to that, because he had the daring and the audacity to be spontaneous.

01:13:13.360 And people trust that.

01:13:15.240 You know, I've noticed, for example, on my YouTube channel, now and then I'll read something that I've prepared very carefully, because I don't believe that I have the ability to walk through the argument spontaneously at a sufficient depth.

01:13:33.140 So I'll write a column and read it.

01:13:34.820 But those never work as well as the spontaneous YouTube conversations, right?

01:13:41.740 No, it's human.

01:13:42.620 People want to identify with someone who appears to be human and, to your point, fallible and imperfect and mess up sometimes.

01:13:52.960 But authentic, I think, is the word we're looking for.

01:13:55.920 And yes, politics is so scripted.

01:13:57.860 Everything is talking points and well-lit and perfectly planned.

01:14:01.540 And yes, I understand.

01:14:03.280 That's my message to my fellow Democrats right now, is we've got to start listening more.

01:14:07.360 We've got to start showing up in small towns around America.

01:14:10.080 We can't talk like professors.

01:14:12.300 We should be listening.

01:14:13.760 We should be not talking as much as listening.

01:14:16.740 You know, there is not so much a massive policy gulf in America.

01:14:20.840 I think that is a construct of media.

01:14:22.600 It is a constant, the gulf, if you will, and the gap is like in any relationship, whether it's a friendship, a romantic relationship, a professional relationship.

01:14:33.960 People want to be affirmed and they want to feel heard.

01:14:37.360 And in the absence of that, which is, I think, the great shortcoming of my party right now, in the absence of that, people will migrate to whomever makes them feel heard.

01:14:47.980 And they will forego and dismiss a lot of negative characteristics simply because it fulfills that basic human need to be understood, to be not demeaned or disrespected, but to be heard.

01:15:02.240 And that is, to me, the root of politics.

01:15:05.780 It's humanity.

01:15:07.360 There's no difference between a competent leader and someone who listens.

01:15:11.800 Those are the same thing.

01:15:13.060 Bingo.

01:15:13.480 Yeah.

01:15:14.300 Now, Joe Biden is a man of empathy, but he is not perceived by, I think he's perceived by too many Americans as not someone who understands how they're feeling.

01:15:24.000 Now, Donald Trump has made people feel like he gets it.

01:15:27.560 Now, but he's not a man of great empathy, having sat across the table with him, obviously.

01:15:31.240 So there are some massive disconnects.

01:15:32.920 In fact, when I say not a man of great empathy, a man of almost zero empathy.

01:15:36.960 But the power of making people feel like they're heard is the most magnificent tool in any politician's kit.

01:15:46.480 And he's doing it better.

01:15:47.440 And that's my message to the president and to my fellow Democrats, that we have a lot of work to do.

01:15:52.060 And it's the easiest work one can do, making someone feel heard and appreciated and understood.

01:15:57.940 Can you contrast the experience you had in relationship to the legacy media and the experience you had at the hands of the – you were on a number of podcasts.

01:16:10.100 That you got some traction online, although very little in the legacy media.

01:16:15.980 What did you see as the difference?

01:16:19.240 And do you think that your explanation that the legacy media broadcasters that could have focused on your campaign failed to do so because they were concerned about foregoing their access,

01:16:34.020 do you think that's a sufficient explanation for the degree to which you were locked out of the show?

01:16:41.580 Yeah, look, I'm a business person, Jordan, at heart, and the answer is yes.

01:16:45.640 That is the – there was a disincentive to platform me because the risk and reward, the opportunity cost, if you will, did not work in my favor.

01:16:54.780 Now, to your question about new media, that was the most magnificent part of my campaign was the discovery of so many remarkable platforms, most importantly, long form, like this.

01:17:06.960 How can you get to know somebody when you're on television for three minutes with a journalist who's got to move on to the next segment, you know, within 30 seconds?

01:17:16.220 And they're there to get a wow moment, right?

01:17:18.620 You can't learn about who somebody is.

01:17:20.260 And if you don't know who someone is, how can you trust them?

01:17:22.220 Why would you vote for them?

01:17:23.780 With the – the podcasts I did were remarkable.

01:17:26.980 I learned about myself.

01:17:28.620 I opened my heart and mind to issues I hadn't considered.

01:17:32.220 I did some that were centrist.

01:17:33.960 I did some that were more left-leaning and certainly some that were more right-leaning.

01:17:38.100 And that – that universe was eye-opening to me and the best part of running for office.

01:17:43.840 The most disappointing part was the inability of most of the mainstream media to afford much platform.

01:17:49.860 Now, News Nation did because they're the upstart trying to compete.

01:17:54.040 CNN a little bit, but let me just give you an example.

01:17:56.660 I was the only – I'm sorry.

01:17:58.200 Every single Republican challenger to Donald Trump was afforded a one-hour town hall on CNN during the GOP primaries.

01:18:06.560 There was Chris Christie, Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis.

01:18:15.380 There may have been another five or – oh, Trump.

01:18:17.740 So there were six.

01:18:18.420 All of them running in single digits other than Haley.

01:18:22.840 By the way, I got 20 percent in New Hampshire.

01:18:24.720 I did better than most people thought.

01:18:26.340 CNN did not give me a town hall.

01:18:29.480 And that would have been the first and only opportunity I would have had to simply show up in front of voters to answer their questions, not the media's questions, and to introduce myself.

01:18:39.280 The absence of that was very destructive.

01:18:42.340 MSNBC, I'm the ranking member of the Middle East Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs.

01:18:47.680 During a war between Israel and Hamas, I wasn't extended a single invitation over four months to appear on MSNBC.

01:18:55.720 The one invitation that came was the morning after the South Carolina primary, where Joe Biden was certain to do very well because that is where his last campaign really got its start.

01:19:05.820 So it gives you an example of incentives and disincentives, and Fox News was far more hospitable.

01:19:13.900 Just about every show invited me, afforded me some platform, and not in a way that was designed, in my estimation, to only try to say nasty things about President Biden.

01:19:25.900 They gave me an opportunity because, of course, for them now, there's nothing to lose.

01:19:30.420 So the answer is yes.

01:19:31.860 That's how it works.

01:19:32.720 I think that is the only explanation.

01:19:34.720 It might be different.

01:19:35.580 Now, Marianne Williamson, she ran in 2020.

01:19:38.520 She ran in 2024 again.

01:19:40.420 Never afforded platform.

01:19:42.380 Now, they'll tell you, well, it's because she polls so low.

01:19:44.720 Well, we all know this is a chicken and the egg, Jordan.

01:19:47.980 I think it's a responsibility of mainstream media to afford platform.

01:19:53.400 You are also a much more credible candidate.

01:19:54.520 But that's my point, is neither of us.

01:19:56.220 So, okay, so.

01:19:57.300 But neither of us were afforded that opportunity.

01:19:59.180 But, yes, but new media afforded great opportunity.

01:20:02.900 But for that, I probably never would have had a chance at all.

01:20:05.980 Okay, so let me drill down on something that's a little bit more pushy here, if you don't mind.

01:20:11.940 Sure.

01:20:12.120 Well, okay, so, because I am trying to sort this out.

01:20:16.680 So, I think one of the reasons, you're pointing to one of the reasons why Trump is so attractive.

01:20:23.180 Another one of the reasons why Trump is so attractive.

01:20:25.220 See, the degree of collusion between the Democrat powers that be and the legacy media is stunning to me.

01:20:34.680 And it's not only the legacy media, right?

01:20:36.980 It's happening behind the scenes in a terrible way with the large tech companies.

01:20:42.200 So, for example, my interview with Robert F. Kennedy was pulled by YouTube.

01:20:47.960 Now, I watched the American press flip out about hypothetical Russian collusion in the last election.

01:20:54.880 And YouTube had the gall to deplatform a presidential candidate's two-and-a-half-hour, one-and-a-half-hour interview, right?

01:21:04.620 And then YouTube took down three more of my interviews, focusing on the issue of trans-surgery.

01:21:13.520 And since then, by all appearances, have been throttling my account.

01:21:18.040 And this sort of thing is going on behind the scenes all the time.

01:21:20.840 And it does seem to me that it's going on behind the scenes a lot more on the legacy media-slash-Democrat side than it is going on in the legacy media-slash-Republican side, because the legacy media is overwhelmingly left-leaning.

01:21:37.620 And I don't mean classic liberal left-leaning.

01:21:41.080 And I also don't mean that about the universities, because they were once classical liberal left-leaning, rather than conservative or libertarian right-wing.

01:21:54.840 But so I also think that part of the reason that the impetus toward Trump is so powerful is because people feel that operation, not only of the monolith, which stopped you from moving forward,

01:22:08.740 but an increasingly secret monolith that operates behind the scenes.

01:22:13.340 Now, we've seen exactly how that works in recent weeks, too, in a manner that, to me, is shocking beyond comprehension.

01:22:20.800 And that was Google's release of Gemini, which was especially on the image-generating side, which, do you know, that not only did they train their AI system on a corpus of knowledge that leans left substantively,

01:22:35.400 but they retooled the prompts that their users offered when they were generating images and other queries.

01:22:43.000 They technically re-engineered the questions so that the presumptions of the DEI squad would be interjected into the questions themselves,

01:22:54.320 which meant that Google was conspiring not only to mess with the ideas that people had,

01:22:59.740 but with the facts themselves that were offered for their apprehension.

01:23:03.160 And it's the feeling of that sort of thing happening.

01:23:06.560 And I can't help but see that collusion taking place more at the moment, more on the side of the left.

01:23:13.160 Now, that could flip in a moment and might, and it'll be held to pay for the left when that happens.

01:23:19.480 But that's...

01:23:21.100 So I'm willing to...

01:23:22.760 I understand your concern for the structural inadequacies and the perverse incentives that made the emergence of a monolith against you more likely.

01:23:35.240 But it seems to me that there's something else going on here that is more characteristic of the Democrat side of the argument

01:23:43.200 that is also deadly and dangerous enough so that the probability that the presidency is going to be delivered into the hands of Donald Trump is very, very high.

01:23:52.720 So, well, so that's a rough question.

01:23:55.680 And so I'm curious about what you think about that.

01:23:58.860 I don't know if I heard a question.

01:24:01.460 First of all, I'll confess to you that I don't...

01:24:03.660 Yeah, I don't know.

01:24:04.540 And I'll be forthright.

01:24:05.700 I don't know the answer.

01:24:06.720 I don't know what I don't know.

01:24:08.180 In fact, maybe that's called humility in the old days.

01:24:11.340 I don't know how it works.

01:24:13.060 I'm a member of Congress.

01:24:14.200 Everybody watching, listening would imagine I should know everything about how it works.

01:24:18.020 Well, the fact of the matter is I do not.

01:24:19.760 What I do believe is that the legacy media about which you speak should be intentionally offering perspectives on both sides of a subject.

01:24:30.040 I would love to see Jordan, a weekly national show that would have a Republican and Democrat debate an issue of the day to demonstrate, to model.

01:24:39.200 I don't know what's working behind the scenes.

01:24:40.980 I don't know without the evidence I would never share that why I was deplatformed or not included.

01:24:46.420 I've surely tracked what you've just shared about censorship and deplatforming.

01:24:53.180 I don't know if that's actually happening.

01:24:55.880 I don't know what happens on the right.

01:24:58.920 But all I do know is that we have reached a point where truth is hard to discern, where people are condemned so quickly for having an opposing view that they're essentially silenced.

01:25:11.420 And I think we, when I say we, I'm talking about all of us, progressives, liberals, classic and otherwise, left and right, conservative, libertarian.

01:25:21.280 We need a platform by which we can have these conversations.

01:25:25.440 Some of them are tough.

01:25:26.840 You know, I have different perspectives on a lot of things than you and you from me.

01:25:31.540 But I am disappointed in any media that will not intentionally and with vigor promote and offer platform to opposing views.

01:25:41.940 And that is why I'm deeply, deeply concerned, period.

01:25:45.120 And by the way, I think that is same on, I shouldn't say that.

01:25:49.400 The right has offered more invitations, I would say, than the left.

01:25:56.020 Now, I think that's also pragmatic because they want someone to be provocative, you know.

01:26:00.960 But I do think the same circumstance appears on both.

01:26:04.320 We tune in to what feeds our own need for affirmation.

01:26:10.140 And I think that's dangerous.

01:26:11.720 And I think that's why I'm grateful to be speaking with you right now.

01:26:15.040 I think we need more of this.

01:26:16.280 We need to do it in a thoughtful manner.

01:26:17.880 I'd like to dive into, you know, tough subjects, too, because that's what makes all of us better.

01:26:23.120 And I do not see any platform, left or right, offering that opportunity right now at a time where I think we need it more than ever.

01:26:31.520 Yeah, well, the thing is, is that the YouTube ecosystem that you had some success with communicating with actually emerged and then was shaped as a classic liberal slash conservative alternative to the legacy media.

01:26:47.020 And I mean emerged and was shaped.

01:26:48.980 I mean both of those very specifically.

01:26:50.660 It emerged because none of that was happening in the legacy media.

01:26:54.700 And then it was shaped because commentators, we'll take Joe Rogan, for example, who were not only left-leaning but clearly progressive, were tilted hard in the conservative slash libertarian direction as a consequence of their experiences attempting to engage in straightforward conversation.

01:27:15.140 And that's happened to virtually all the podcasters that I know because they encountered the same monolith that you encountered.

01:27:23.340 And like this YouTube example, let's dive into this.

01:27:26.600 This is a very unpleasant topic as well, but we might as well hit some unpleasant topics.

01:27:30.380 So a number of my videos were taken down.

01:27:34.520 Now, YouTube had left me alone for years, which I was quite stunned by.

01:27:38.540 They would slap on warnings now and then when I dared to discuss such things as climate change.

01:27:44.820 But by and large, they left me alone.

01:27:47.520 And I didn't have a lot of evidence that there were any shenanigans behind the scenes.

01:27:50.840 But that changed when I started to question the trans narrative.

01:27:54.880 And that's something that I'm very actually errate about in a very fundamental manner, not least because, yes.

01:28:02.240 I want to hear and I'd love to I'd love to engage in this.

01:28:04.500 I'd love to hear your take and I'd like to share my take is that the surgical butchers and their enablers have been sterilizing and mutilating children with the aiding and abetting of the progressives and the medical community.

01:28:18.340 And I know that this isn't an opinion as far as I'm concerned.

01:28:22.660 I knew perfectly well in 2016 when I objected to Canada's Bill C-16 that mandated pronoun use.

01:28:31.260 I told the bloody Senate that if they went forward with that legislation, that they would cause a psychogenic epidemic of sexual confusion among young women.

01:28:40.600 And that's exactly what's happened.

01:28:42.140 And that has been extended to the point where not only is there an epidemic of sexual confusion, and the reason it's young women is because young women have been for 350 years the group prone to that kind of psychogenic epidemic.

01:28:56.400 The clinical evidence for that is crystal clear.

01:28:58.860 You saw that with cutting and you saw it with anorexia and you saw it with bulimia and multiple personality disorder and Freudian hysteria, et cetera, et cetera.

01:29:06.800 That clinical evidence is absolutely clear.

01:29:09.860 And that extended to the point where the treatment being offered to these confused young women was surgical and sterilizing.

01:29:17.940 And I knew the data that suggested that that was all well and good because they were at risk of suicide was utter nonsense and pathological lies.

01:29:28.420 And, of course, that's been revealed in the last six months as European country after European country has desisted from the gender-affirming care path as they've been forced to recognize that the evidence that supports that pathway is not only lacking but opposite.

01:29:46.000 And England yesterday, the UK announced that they would ban gender, they would ban so-called puberty blockers for use with minors.

01:29:57.460 You know, and you could be sure they did that in the face of substantial opposition.

01:30:01.940 Well, I'll tell you, that's one mob you don't want to go up against.

01:30:05.140 That's for sure.

01:30:05.900 So is it your contention that, so in this case, you believe government policy has actually created sexual confusion amongst young people?

01:30:16.680 I don't believe it.

01:30:17.340 I know for sure that that's not, and not just sexual confusion, such that something approximating 25%, particularly of young women, which were not the trans individuals to begin with,

01:30:29.880 because that was all men before this psychogenic epidemic emerged, such that 25% of young women are now confused in their most fundamental orientation and questioning the most fundamental element of their identity.

01:30:44.780 Now, if one is 18, so I can clarify, do you believe as long as one is the age of majority and can make an adult decision, do you oppose them making that decision at a certain age?

01:30:56.700 Or is it just below that age that you take exception?

01:30:59.700 Well, I would say now, given what's happened, that I believe the right thing for our society to do is to stop gender transformation surgery at any age.

01:31:10.700 Oh, period.

01:31:11.660 Well, look, let me tell you why I believe that.

01:31:14.380 I mean, my general attitude is that people can go to hell in a handbasket in whatever way they see fit once they're adults.

01:31:20.740 And I really mean that, because I would rather allow for even pathological variance in individual expression than have a heavy-handed government making those sorts of decisions, because I think that's even more dangerous.

01:31:35.320 It's not like people can't go off the rails with extraordinary, what would you say, intent, but that's not the point.

01:31:42.600 But we wandered down the sex transformation road starting in the early 1960s, and here we are.

01:31:51.600 And so I think that as a phenomena, it's revealed itself as so pathologically dangerous that it's not a pathway that we should walk down.

01:31:59.260 So now I'd be willing to have a discussion about that, because I think the issue of consent as an adult is relevant.

01:32:08.060 But that doesn't mean that as an adult, you can just consent to any old medical procedure.

01:32:13.340 You know, there are people who are now requesting double genitalia, for example, or what would they call that the Ken doll look, where there's no genitalia at all.

01:32:23.460 And, you know, at some point I'm starting to think maybe the surgeons who are profiting by exploiting such, I would say, pathology need to be stocked in their tracks, because at some point it becomes not surgery at all, but a form of barbarism.

01:32:39.800 And I think we're well past that point.

01:32:41.480 Anyways, to make this more concrete, a number of the videos that were taken down on my channel were videos, let's say, that involved Helen Joyce, for example, who's a perfectly credible commentator, who's worked for The Economist forever, who's a mainstream journalist, whose analysis of this situation is spot on, and who's very intelligent.

01:33:02.380 And now, the reason I'm making something of this is because the worst experiences I've had on the censorship side have always, 100%, without exception, come from the progressive left.

01:33:16.220 And one of the things that's appalled me in my discussions with the left in general, and I've talked to dozens of congressmen and senators, and I think it is a reflection of this monolith that you described, is that I haven't been able to get a single Democrat ever to answer a straightforward question.

01:33:33.920 And this included RFK, which is, when does the left go too far?

01:33:42.080 Well, that's a hard question to answer.

01:33:44.020 Well, I don't think it's hard.

01:33:45.140 Maybe it's like pornography.

01:33:48.160 You kind of know it when you see it.

01:33:50.940 I think it is like that.

01:33:52.180 I think it is like that to some degree.

01:33:54.120 It is like that to some degree.

01:33:55.440 And it's also harder to identify.

01:33:56.960 Because I could frame it the same way the other way, too.

01:33:59.640 You know, Jordan, when has the right gone too far?

01:34:01.980 And I think it happens.

01:34:03.000 That's no nationalism.

01:34:05.640 That's the line.

01:34:06.700 Yeah.

01:34:06.920 And I think this conversation is provocative in a way that I love.

01:34:11.380 You know, it gets back to this, who are they?

01:34:13.300 Who is the right?

01:34:14.140 Who is the left?

01:34:14.780 Who, where is this?

01:34:16.640 Where is that coming from?

01:34:18.140 How is that articulated?

01:34:20.460 Who is the defining characteristic of the right and left?

01:34:23.580 You know, who's making these decisions?

01:34:25.080 I don't quite know anymore.

01:34:26.500 I do want to say this, just so everybody's aware.

01:34:28.960 You know, I come, my personal philosophy is, I've never walked in your shoes, you've never

01:34:35.240 walked in mine, I've never walked in the shoes of a black man, an Asian woman, I've never

01:34:40.160 walked in the shoes of a trans person, of a gay man or woman.

01:34:43.180 And I'll never know that.

01:34:44.300 And I've always felt that if it doesn't hurt your neighbor, doesn't hurt anybody else, even

01:34:50.540 if it hurts yourself, that you should be free in a society like both here in the U.S. and

01:34:55.700 Canada.

01:34:56.060 One should be able to do what they wish when they've reached an age where we believe, at

01:35:00.220 least as a society, that they can make those decisions.

01:35:02.400 And I do see conflict and sometimes even hypocrisy from a right that feels so deeply about freedom

01:35:10.680 and liberty and keeping government out of one's personal affairs, yet delving often into the

01:35:17.180 very most personal affairs of so many human beings.

01:35:20.800 And this is provocative to me.

01:35:23.400 And the same when you ask how far is too far.

01:35:26.280 Well, I would be—

01:35:27.560 But that's a thoughtful conversation.

01:35:29.360 Well, I would be inclined to agree with that.

01:35:30.900 The only codicil I have to that now is, first of all, like I said, I believe that people

01:35:36.620 should, in the main, be not only allowed but encouraged to find their way forward, right?

01:35:42.520 And so we put minimal restrictions on people of age.

01:35:45.400 But I also believe that the medical—I truly believe this, Dean.

01:35:49.160 I believe that the medical community now deserves a Nuremberg moment.

01:35:54.340 I have not seen anything in my entire professional life on the therapeutic front or the medical

01:35:59.480 front that I regard as even in the same league of barbarism as what's happening with the trans

01:36:06.760 phenomenon.

01:36:07.200 And I think because of that, I think that the surgeons have foregone their right to even

01:36:12.420 offer such services to adults.

01:36:15.100 Interesting.

01:36:15.660 And I, you know, what you provoke in me is this recognition that left to their own devices

01:36:21.720 and profit—it doesn't matter if it's politics, it doesn't matter if it's surgeons,

01:36:26.500 therapists, you name it—there will always be people who take advantage of others if they

01:36:31.720 can make money doing so.

01:36:32.860 And I think, in a way, that's kind of the overarching maybe umbrella of our conversation

01:36:36.540 right now is how do you discern, you know, what is just, what is right, what is reasonable,

01:36:41.620 and how do you discern who is operating authentically and who is not?

01:36:44.920 And I think we are now facing this great challenge of what is real and what is reasonable and who

01:36:51.600 is making money from it.

01:36:52.980 And a lot of people are making money off a lot of us, Jordan, you know this as well as

01:36:56.600 anybody, looking out for themselves and not recognizing perhaps the tragedies that they're

01:37:02.700 leaving in their wake.

01:37:03.720 And I'm not assigning that to what you just said, I'm just saying that I think it's fair

01:37:07.180 to explore that in a lot of categories right now.

01:37:09.180 Well, I think that's actually something the libertarian right and the left could agree

01:37:15.400 on.

01:37:15.780 I mean, one of the things that's really struck me is that the libertarians are terrified

01:37:21.380 of big government and the progressives are terrified of big corporations, and they don't

01:37:26.780 seem to realize that they're both terrified of big.

01:37:30.240 And there is something very terrifying about organizations that get large enough so that they can engage

01:37:38.540 in regulatory capture.

01:37:40.140 And we're seeing that happen at an unforeseen scale, especially with regards, I would say,

01:37:45.440 to the tech companies.

01:37:46.460 And I'd probably put Google like foremost on that list.

01:37:50.060 No, and I see, and you know me, I see this every, we've had this conversation about how

01:37:55.220 money buys access and buys influence and it buys policy and it buys ownership in politics

01:38:01.360 as it does in any industry.

01:38:03.220 And I'm, as the only one, as you know, who doesn't accept PAC money or lobbyist money and

01:38:07.220 member money and doesn't have a leadership PAC, I'm one of the very few that hasn't been subject

01:38:11.620 to that.

01:38:12.480 I don't even get invited to the dinners where they hand you the checks, let alone have those

01:38:15.980 conversations.

01:38:17.240 And that's how this system works.

01:38:18.940 By the way, that goes back to my contention.

01:38:20.780 It's not a Democratic thing, a Republican thing.

01:38:23.520 This is a systemic thing that though big, whether it's big money, whether it's big industry,

01:38:30.000 whether it's just big mobilization, of course, big wins in Washington, period.

01:38:36.160 And therein lies the great struggle, I think, in democracy right now is how do you give voice

01:38:41.800 to a minority that deserves and needs to be heard?

01:38:46.680 And it's not always the same minority.

01:38:48.460 It's categorical.

01:38:50.740 Well, so this is probably exacerbated by a more recent phenomena.

01:38:54.280 So if we're thinking about this at the most general level of analysis, one of the consequences

01:38:59.940 of the virtualization of the world is that the arena for gigantism has expanded substantially.

01:39:07.380 Right.

01:39:07.660 So because we're all interconnected, so there's a high proclivity for the winner to take all,

01:39:14.180 right?

01:39:14.380 That's the famous Pareto conundrum, is that it's always a minority of people that control

01:39:18.740 the majority of the money.

01:39:19.980 It's also a minority of people who do most of the productive work.

01:39:22.800 And what that means is that the larger the playing field, the number of players doesn't

01:39:29.780 increase, but the size of the players increases as the playing field increases.

01:39:34.380 And so one of the unintended consequences of the technological revolution and the virtualization

01:39:40.060 of society could well be that the size of the giants has perhaps geometrically increased.

01:39:47.100 And that's very unlikely to slow down.

01:39:49.380 It isn't even obvious to me at the moment that the key players on the international

01:39:53.840 stage are necessarily nations anymore.

01:39:57.760 They are to some degree.

01:39:58.560 No, individuals.

01:39:59.460 Well, right.

01:40:00.220 Exactly.

01:40:00.580 Individuals.

01:40:01.580 Elon Musk has not just more capital than imaginable, but because of the acquisition of X, the extraordinary

01:40:11.640 reach, that it was unimaginable even just a decade ago.

01:40:15.600 And the fact that we have individuals with the resources to actually send spaceships to

01:40:20.860 the moon.

01:40:22.100 We are no longer living in just a nation state dynamic.

01:40:26.140 We are going to, this is like James Bond kind of stuff, you know, very well.

01:40:29.920 And how do you, you know, and that will be increasingly, I think, one of the great challenges of the

01:40:34.560 21st and then 22nd century is the individual versus the state.

01:40:39.220 Absolutely.

01:40:39.700 Because of technology and access.

01:40:41.000 It's the land of the kings again.

01:40:43.060 And so, and you know, I don't mind really the fact that individuals are capable of generating

01:40:49.560 for themselves that much influence.

01:40:52.300 What I'm concerned about is when that influence turns into regulatory power.

01:40:56.500 And so, you know, for a long time, I would say I regarded Google as a force for good, especially

01:41:03.760 when they still had their motto, you know, don't be evil, which they dropped about five

01:41:07.980 years ago, coincidentally.

01:41:09.940 But once, once that, once that reach turns into the capacity to use that reach to further

01:41:16.140 that reach, then things start to, to go astray.

01:41:20.760 And it's not obvious what can be done about that on the, on the political front.

01:41:25.960 Competition, I can tell you this, our conversation started and probably will end with my singular

01:41:31.380 contention.

01:41:32.660 The absence of competition is destructive to just about anything that we consider to be

01:41:37.580 important.

01:41:38.460 And that is true, whether it is in big tech, that is true in politics.

01:41:42.360 We are increasingly actually diminishing the ability to compete.

01:41:46.980 Now, you would argue that in the new era with technology and podcasts and platforms and in

01:41:52.500 the palm of your hand, that is actually the great equalizer.

01:41:55.680 But in a strange way, it is actually further concentrated power in ways that I think are

01:42:00.320 very, very destructive.

01:42:02.460 And we should be promoting competition.

01:42:05.140 We should be promoting it in, in industry.

01:42:07.380 We should be promoting it in tech.

01:42:08.660 We should be promoting it in politics.

01:42:10.860 It makes things better.

01:42:12.660 It provides better value, improves quality, and most of all, allows human beings to make

01:42:17.740 better choices.

01:42:18.320 But in the absence of it is going to be terribly destructive.

01:42:21.680 That is true in media.

01:42:22.540 That's true this whole conversation.

01:42:24.180 Competition, ideas.

01:42:26.520 The fact is, we don't have a market in this great day and age with so many platforms available

01:42:30.860 to inspire and promote and nurture a competition of ideas.

01:42:36.500 We have less of it now than ever.

01:42:39.400 There may not be a debate in the 2024 presidential election, Jordan.

01:42:43.120 It's preposterous.

01:42:46.080 We're not having the left and right are not debate.

01:42:48.760 In Congress, we do not debate.

01:42:50.740 We have these performances that we call hearings.

01:42:53.480 We are not debating.

01:42:55.280 We are not promoting competition of ideas or industry.

01:42:59.100 And therein lies the greatest challenge we face.

01:43:00.940 And it is completely fixable, except for the fact that those of great power, of wealth,

01:43:08.900 and connection will continuously have the ears and the levers of the politicians.

01:43:16.340 And I would also go back to campaign finance reform, because I do believe that could be

01:43:21.640 the linchpin in changing this dynamic and changing the reward system, because it doesn't

01:43:27.080 happen on its own.

01:43:28.060 It doesn't happen on its own.

01:43:29.300 We all have to plant the seeds and water the plants, and then only then can we harvest.

01:43:34.340 So thank you, Jordan, for the opportunity to share our conversation.

01:43:37.760 Very good to talk to you.

01:43:39.120 And so for everybody watching and listening, thank you very much for your time and attention.

01:43:42.900 You know, most of you, that I'll continue this conversation with Dean Phillips on the

01:43:47.580 Daily Wire Plus side.

01:43:49.420 In any case, thank you very much for your time and attention, everyone, to the film crew here

01:43:53.640 in Akron, Ohio.

01:43:56.300 That's where I am today for facilitating this.

01:43:58.740 That's much appreciated.

01:43:59.760 And for the Daily Wire Plus people who make this possible, that's also valuable and much

01:44:06.340 appreciated.

01:44:06.920 Thanks, Dean.

01:44:07.520 It was very good talking to you.

01:44:09.420 Thank you, Jordan.

01:44:10.120 Be well.

01:44:12.900 Thank you.

01:44:19.500 Thank you.

01:44:39.320 Thank you.

01:44:39.780 Thank you.

437. The 2024 Presidency, Joe Biden’s Age, Gigantism, & Facing Reality ｜ Dean Phillips

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