00:03:04.420I think that when very specific promises are made during a campaign, not sort of promises that aren't salient to people.
00:03:13.380Like, we will reduce the deficit while it will still be positive, but people don't think about that when they go to the grocery store or to the gas pump.
00:03:22.740It's sort of like a vague thing that feels a little more distant.
00:03:25.500I think when there's really specific promises, like gas will be 50% cheaper, but it's 50% more expensive.
00:03:32.480And every time you get gas, you remember that.
00:03:35.120Or groceries are going to come down, and then they're actually up, and you go to the grocery store, and you pay more, and you say,
00:03:41.600I spent $100. What do I have here? It's really hard to talk voters out of that. And I don't
00:03:48.440think this is unique to the Republicans right now. This was a problem for Joe Biden, where
00:03:53.120the Biden administration was very focused on, here are the macroeconomic indicators that look
00:03:58.700really good. And while that can be true, that didn't make individuals who were struggling feel
00:04:04.620like the economy was going well. This was a problem for Kamala Harris as well. They ultimately lost,0.99
00:04:08.860of course. I think that that is the majority of what is going on. I think the failed promise on
00:04:14.140no new, endless Middle East wars is one that it's, on the one hand, foreign policy is sometimes more
00:04:20.680distant from how people vote, but it's having such a direct effect on people's pocketbooks.
00:04:25.240I think it's basically that. And there isn't much that Republicans can really run on. I mean,
00:04:30.740they can say, we fixed inflation and everything's fixed, which is what Trump has been trying in
00:04:35.920rallies, I don't think people believe it. Even his own crowds are sort of like not really cheering
00:04:40.520for that sort of thing. And so you don't have to... He could run on immigration, but when people
00:04:45.500are worried about the food bill, it doesn't work. Because immigration is one area where he actually0.94
00:04:50.720has had success according to his own metric. By his metrics. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So the Iran
00:04:57.040war is basically what this is all about. Well, the tariffs were a problem first of all,
00:06:39.420I mean, I think big picture, I think that analysis is accurate.
00:06:43.720I do think, though, that you have to sometimes look at specific races a little more closely to see the dynamics.
00:06:49.160And so the way that a Democratic candidate is running in, say, Florida, for example, would be different than in New York City, for example.
00:06:56.220But I think, to your point, the very tangible salience of the economic issues, I think, is in stark relief right now because there's so much material to work with in the economy.
00:07:09.520Do you think, though, I guess what I'm getting at is more like those voters who would have been pushed away from the left and pushed to the right with social progressivism that they didn't agree with.
00:07:21.060do you think the democratic movement more broadly has let go of that has changed its mind on that
00:07:27.740is sort of just gone we still believe this but we're not going to talk about it as much because
00:07:31.940of the economy as you say what do you what do you think about that social what people call woke i
00:07:36.920suppose is woke done aoc said woke one was crazy which to me implies there's going to be a woke too
00:07:42.220you know here's the thing about this i really try to answer these questions and think about them
00:07:48.160in the context of what I believe and what I support.
00:07:51.480And so we would really have to talk to the DSA people
00:08:25.780when I never found them to be that important.
00:08:28.480I mean, on the issue of, like, trans sports,
00:08:30.140I've said before, if we have specific instances
00:08:33.100where inclusivity is coming at the cost of fairness,
00:08:36.700I'm going to be right there and I'll say,
00:08:38.620no, this is a specific instance where the sports league
00:08:41.540or the governing body should look at that
00:08:43.180and that's something that should be dealt with.
00:08:44.660But like Nebraska, for example, where this independent guy Dan Osborne is running that I interviewed recently, they have zero trans NCAA athletes.
00:08:53.220So like my kind of thinking all along was these issues are mostly a distraction from the economic.
00:08:58.220Now, I think it would be interesting to ask the DSA folks, have they moved away?
00:09:02.760I don't know if they have necessarily. Maybe I'll take your word.
00:09:04.780What about the center left more broadly?
00:09:06.480The center-left more broadly, I think, is sort of where I'm kind of talking about this, which is I believe it was a mistake to allow those issues to take such a large place in the conversation when the economic issues and issues of fundamental fairness I would have liked to see play a much larger role.
00:12:14.400I think that's an interesting entry point. You could say there's the center left and then there's the DSA. I do think it's more complicated than that. There are more broadly than DSA, there's the coalition for whom it's essentially a class reductionism. Everything comes down to economic class, not in the way that I see it where it's economic issues, but it's really everything at the end of the day is class. And so this can include people to the left of the DSA and DSA as well.
00:12:42.780I think that that's one group. There is a sort of more overtly center left group that looks at the current Democratic leadership like Schumer and Jeffries and says, I'm basically fine with that.
00:12:53.000I think that kind of playing around the fringes of where we are is enough. We don't need more radical change than that.
00:13:00.360You've also got the accelerationists who are not necessarily DSA. They might be DSA or they might not, but they believe that the fringes and the incrementalism just isn't going to work.
00:13:10.600there needs to be a massive radical change that's put in place sometimes even just like break
00:13:15.780everything down to then build it back up the way we want i tend in my first book i wrote about i'm
00:13:20.880not an accelerationist i if i look at history over the last 150 years i think the biggest
00:13:25.560advancements for the left have come incrementally and we could talk about some of those examples
00:13:29.580like that doesn't appeal to me but that's another contingent i think there's there's a lot of these
00:13:34.120and then also there there's the group for whom um foreign policy has really become like the issue
00:13:40.160Even though it pulls relatively low for Democrats in general, there are folks for whom, you know, our relationship with Cuba and Venezuela, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Russia, Ukraine, those are like the main issues much more than domestic.
00:13:54.340So I think there's a bunch of different groups and splits right now.
00:13:57.080And let's look at the Democratic Socialists of America, because a lot of people talk about them.
00:14:02.260But what is their modus operandi? What do they believe in? What are their policies? What do they want America to be if they came to power?
00:14:10.160I would recommend asking them. And I'm not saying that facetiously. The reason I mention that is
00:14:15.780when Jordan Peterson was more of a presence in the public space, I would sometimes comment on
00:14:21.320things he said, and I would critique them. And inevitably, his supporters would write to me,
00:14:25.200and they would go, your critique is based on a misunderstanding or misstatement of what he
00:14:29.860really means or what he really wants. And I think the same thing is happening with DSA,
00:14:34.460where I think a lot of the people that align themselves with DSA aren't actually socialists
00:14:40.300and may not even necessarily know what that means, while some are. And so if you ask them,
00:14:45.220they will have radically different visions of what they are going towards. So I think we really have
00:14:50.420to ask them what vision it is that they want, not being one of those folks. I don't want to
00:14:55.620misstate what it is they want to see. Some of them, I believe, have mistaken socialism for
00:15:02.720simply social democracy. They want, like, Sweden and Denmark, and they've wrongly believed that
00:15:08.580that is socialism. I think others actually do want socialism. I think others actually want
00:15:13.140communism, not socialism. So I think it's better to ask them. Sure. And why do you think there is
00:15:19.660such an appeal for these ideas that you don't agree with yourself, socialism and communism?
00:15:24.620Why? We had Steve Eisman, the big short investor guy, in here the other day. This episode will
00:15:31.320probably go before that one but we've already had the conversation and he the last question he was
00:15:36.280saying can't believe marxism is back what but it is back right why do you think that is i think it's
00:15:41.800two things and i i'll mention the first one which i don't think we have to spend a lot of time on
00:15:45.880which is i think some people don't understand what those things are and so they're displeased with
00:15:51.240the status they understand they're displeased with the status quo they hear about something
00:15:55.320that sounds different and they go yeah i mean like let's try that can't be worse than this can't be
00:15:59.640worse than this it could be worse right but so i think there's some some is like they don't really
00:16:04.680know what we're talking about but i think the bigger thing is there is and this was the best
00:16:10.040thing trump did from a strategy standpoint in 2016 is he identified real and legitimate grievances
00:16:16.920and problems with the status quo you could agree or disagree with his solutions i disagreed with
00:16:22.920with most of them. But when you identify real grievances, that can make the people you're
00:16:29.580talking to assume you know how to fix them and that your ideas will improve them. With Trump,
00:16:35.000it was, we're getting screwed by China and I'm the guy who knows how to fix it. Turns out he0.99
00:16:38.760didn't really know how to fix it. Fine. But identifying the grievance in this populist
00:16:42.520language appealed to a lot of people. I think it's a version of the same thing that is happening
00:16:46.860to a great degree with DSA, which is they have a critique, which is a lot of things haven't
00:16:51.380gotten materially better for many people across democratic and republican administrations we have
00:16:57.320a different vision and i think that that is compelling when a lot of people are saying i'm
00:17:01.660not getting ahead i didn't get ahead i don't feel like i got ahead under trump nor biden maybe not
00:17:06.420even under obama and so the willingness to try something different becomes an easier ask and
00:17:10.760i know you mentioned you know we're best off speaking to dsa people and we always try and
00:17:15.240invite them on the show but it's a challenge yeah um you don't share their vision so you must have
00:17:21.240an idea of what that vision is, right? A little bit. Can you help us with that?
00:17:24.640If I assume that they are truly socialists and they want to socialize ownership of the means
00:17:30.100of production, and that means that, for example, companies are mandated to be owned socially by
00:17:37.000employees, regardless of what the creators of those businesses want, that's a vision I'm against.
00:17:43.020I'm for labor unions, collective bargaining, treating employees well, paying people fairly,
00:17:49.200all the things that i do like i really do try to live the vision that i believe is is kind of best
00:17:54.240that that's what i'm for to the extent that they want to in an authoritarian way say by law this
00:18:00.960is how businesses must be structured and they must be socialized like that would be an idea
00:18:05.680that i'm against and do you think that is what a significant number of them want it's so hard to
00:18:10.640say because dsa people call into my show and some of them do say that they want that and others go
00:18:16.400no i don't think any of us are really advocating for that and so it's it's been a difficult thing
00:18:21.680because much like with the peterson critiques where it's like you're not really you're criticizing
00:18:25.840straw men i i it's been all over the map in my conversations with the dsa people i guess if a
00:18:32.320lot of them are saying it then i mean that at least a portion because at least some of them
00:18:38.000jordan is one person whereas a movement is made up of a large number of people and if a third of
00:18:43.040of those people. Like if a third of MAGA wanted X or a half of MAGA wanted X, it'd be fair to say
00:18:48.920that a significant portion of MAGA wants that. And your view is they're responding to the economic
00:18:57.860reality for people at the bottom of society who are not winning over the last 20 years in terms
00:19:03.420of the economic reality? Yeah, I don't even think it's only the bottom, but I think certainly if
00:19:08.060you divide the economy sort of like into quintiles.
00:24:55.900They come out of college saddled with a load of debt.
00:24:58.420They then go and do a job, and they go, hang on a second.
00:25:01.640Not only can I not buy a house, I can't buy a flat.
00:25:04.300Not only can I not buy a flat, I can't even rent a flat for myself.
00:25:08.520I have to live like a glorified college kid into my 30s and 40s.
00:25:14.040Yeah, that housing is the biggest single expenditure for most households.
00:25:18.260So, of course, even small changes to the cost of housing, much more so than like what's your cell phone bill or does Netflix raise the price by a couple bucks, is going to have a disproportionate impact on people's day to day.
00:25:29.460Housing is complicated because on the one hand, you have the phenomena in the United States where private equity is buying up more and more single family homes.
00:25:38.520which is giving them pseudo-monopoly power in some markets, not in large cities generally,
00:25:45.180but in some markets, so that we could look at that and say, well, that's a problem.
00:27:02.080You have zoning with everything related to the amount of frontage that's required for each house
00:27:08.300that limits how many units can be built, how high you can build, all of this sort of stuff.
00:27:13.860You're right. This is boring. But we have the same shit in the UK.
00:27:17.500Yeah. And it makes it... At the end of the day, you need more housing units. That's fundamentally1.00
00:27:22.400the issue. You need more housing units, which by increasing the supply is going to have a little
00:27:26.040downward pressure on pricing. And I guess the real question,
00:27:29.240and the one that I think is on everyone's lips and probably at this point, nobody really knows
00:27:34.940the answer to this, is what is going to be the cut through with the Democratic Socialists of
00:27:40.060America, not in L.A., not in New York, not in the other big cities, but with the average American
00:27:46.140living in other states. You're saying is the DSA coming to power in those places going to be what
00:27:52.900solves housing? No, no, no. My question is, are people so angry and disenfranchised with the
00:27:59.040current two-party system that they are willing to go with a candidate who is DSA? In 2026 right now
00:28:06.100as we're recording this, in most of the country, the data seems to suggest no. And I was looking
00:28:12.820recently at when there is a DSA candidate, how often are they winning? And it's about five percent.
00:28:20.320So right now, it seems as though the answer is in most of the country, there is not a desire to make
00:28:26.600the DSA candidate when there is one, the representative. That may change over time.
00:28:31.800Maybe the next two years, things get even worse, and then there's more of an appetite for more
00:28:36.420DSA candidates. But so far, the answer seems to be no. Well, setting the DSA apart, I mean,
00:28:40.540I think as we sit here, it's likely that we talked about the blue tsunami,
00:28:44.900the Democrats take both the House and the Senate, or at least the House, definitely.
00:28:49.940What do you think the last two years of the Trump presidency looks like,
00:28:54.000if that happens? Well, should we first talk about what scenario I think is most likely?
00:29:00.400Sure. I mean, I think that there is going to be movement to the Democratic Party on November 3rd.
00:29:07.460It is almost certain that the Democrats will take the House, although I think it will be by a smaller
00:29:12.900margin than some of the predictions suggest. I think the Senate's going to be really a lot tougher.
00:29:18.320And I don't, I'm not saying I think Republicans will necessarily keep it, but there are a lot of
00:29:23.440these races where I am suspicious at the level of enthusiasm that the Democratic candidates are
00:29:31.620necessarily going to win. I mean, I'll give you one example. There are these three Senate races
00:29:35.720that are being looked at very closely. There's Maine, there is Michigan, and there's Texas.
00:29:41.340If you look at the polling, the Democratic candidates are winning all three. If you look
00:29:45.720at the betting markets, to the extent that you value that, the Democratic candidates are expected
00:29:50.940to win all three. I think it's extremely unlikely that the Democratic candidate wins all three of
00:29:55.560those. Now, they may well win two or at least one, but that's an example of where I think the polling
00:30:01.240and the betting markets have gotten a little bit ahead of where I am on the Senate. I think it's
00:30:04.940going to be tougher. Why do you think it's going to be tougher? Well, a couple things. One, we've
00:30:09.840seen, especially when there are Republican incumbents, late voters tend to break for the
00:30:16.300Republican incumbent. We've seen this in Maine with Susan Collins before, and we've seen it with
00:30:21.460the Texas incumbent Republicans. And this time it's not an incumbent because it's Paxton, but
00:30:26.340same analysis. Now, I understand and I'm empathetic to the argument that some of my friends on the
00:30:31.000left give, which is it's never been this one-sided in the polling just weeks before. This time it's
00:30:37.300going to be different. Fine, that may be the case, but my expectation is the Senate is going to be
00:30:41.140a lot tougher than some of my friends think it's going to be. Okay. So say, well, let's talk about
00:30:47.420both, I suppose. Yeah. Let's say the Democrats control the House and or the Senate as well.
00:30:52.420Yeah. What does the Trump presidency for the last two years look like? Because I imagine it's a lot
00:30:57.500harder to get anything done if you're in that position. Yeah. The Democrats I've spoken to
00:31:01.540have said, we are not going to vote down everything that Trump wants. There are relatively
00:31:07.500non-controversial things on which there is bipartisanship, a lot of budgetary issues,
00:31:12.780et cetera. So I don't think it is going to become this principled like we are a no on everything and
00:31:18.120nothing will be passed because a lot of this stuff is just about the sort of pedestrian funding of
00:31:22.620the country. And I don't expect there to be any kind of like gridlock deliberately caused by
00:31:27.080Democrats. But in terms of, you know, for 10 years, Trump's been promising this beautiful
00:31:31.200health care bill that's been two weeks away now since July of 2020. It's any day now it's going
00:31:36.680to be signed in. Now he won't tell us about it until after the election. It's always just over
00:31:40.580the horizon. There is no chance of a massive health care bill passing in these last two years
00:31:47.560if Democrats take either the House and Senate. But I'll be honest, there was no chance of it
00:31:51.020passing anyway because they've not really put forward any good ideas. But the possibility of
00:31:55.260a big legislation, I think, is zero. I do think that if Democrats take the House, which I think
00:32:00.400is the most likely scenario, there will be oversight, there will be subpoenas, there will
00:32:04.040be hearings. I am a law and order guy. So I know that a lot of MAGA rallies, there's a lot of lock
00:32:09.520this person up, lock that person up. And when I hear that, I go, where's the due process? What
00:32:13.620about we start with an investigation and see if there's any evidence? So I'm not calling for
00:32:17.740anybody to be locked up, but I am. You're calling for them to be investigated, then locked up.
00:32:23.300No, no, no. I'm messing with you. But also that is what you're calling for. No, I'm calling for
00:32:29.320if there is probable cause to believe that there was corruption, let's investigate. And if the
00:32:34.320investigation turns up the need for a criminal referral, do that. And then let's see whether we
00:32:39.040get an indictment. I am like, I'm law and order on this stuff. I am not looking to lock up anybody
00:32:44.040without good reason. And by the way, a lot of the stuff we're talking about wouldn't even lead to
00:32:48.100people being locked up. Right. Well, but this is kind of how these things always work. This is
00:32:53.940totally outside of perspective. I'm happy to be corrected. But basically, it's kind of like the
00:32:58.380way it works in Russia, just in a slightly more democratic, you know, I don't know that I agree
00:33:03.740with that. Well, you don't know what I'm saying yet, so you can't disagree with it yet. In Russia,
00:33:07.720basically, everyone at the top of politics is a criminal, right? But you only get prosecuted
00:33:13.080when the people who are in charge of prosecuting decide that you are now inconvenient and it's time
00:33:19.360to get rid of you. And from an outside perspective, what it looks like to me now, looking at your
00:33:24.300country from the outside is when the democrats are in power they investigate as much as they
00:33:29.040possibly can and prosecute and go after republicans and when republicans are in power they do the same
00:33:35.200right so you you saw it with all sorts of things taking secret service away from uh former democratic
00:33:41.220politicians under the trump administration going after people now they're doing this thing with
00:33:45.560ilhan omar maybe it's justified maybe it's not we'll find out right but it just seems to me like
00:33:50.260Your country has got into this position where everyone now has to prematurely, not prematurely, what's the word I'm looking for, in advance, pardon people from their own party the way that Joe Biden did before leaving office because they know the criminal investigations and prosecutions are coming.
00:34:10.380And I guarantee you Trump is going to pardon in advance a bunch of his people just the same, right?
00:34:16.540And that to me is so much energy is going to be spent on both sides when they are in power, investigating, prosecuting, pursuing the other side.
00:34:27.420A lot of well, first of all, it creates obviously a huge gridlock in terms of everything else getting done.
00:34:32.320But also it's a tit for tat that seems to me designed to take you down to hell.
00:34:37.420I don't I don't know that I agree with that.
00:34:39.040I mean, certainly I agree with elements of what you're saying, which is that there is a desire for what I would call revenge rather than justice from a lot of the people that are involved in government.
00:34:49.180I'm against that. And so that on that we agree with. However, you know, I think one of the there's a lot of criticisms of the Biden administration.
00:34:56.460But one of the things I think Joe Biden did that I think was a good thing was he did that we don't have evidence is the way I would say we have no evidence that Biden was involved in or directing investigations to start or stop in the way that the Department of Justice has been weaponized by Trump.
00:35:14.660Now, we can have a debate as to whether it's a matter of degree or whether it's a binary thing where it did or didn't happen.
00:35:21.260But my view on this, it's sort of like with the trans sports thing, where it's like, if you come to me with an example of an investigation that is not warranted by the facts,
00:35:30.440and we have reason to believe was done merely for political retribution, whoever does it, I will be against it.0.68
00:35:35.420But this is why I brought up the Russia point, because in Russia, everyone is guilty.
00:35:39.580I don't think here everyone is guilty.
00:35:40.940I'm not saying everyone is guilty here. I am saying that there is always somebody that you can pursue from the other team when you're in power to take revenge, as you said.
00:35:50.880And look, the one flagrant violation in my mind of a different kind, but nonetheless, I think it's a telling thing, pardoning Anthony Fauci in advance and him then pleading the fifth.
00:36:03.700you go well clearly this guy was up to no good and all you've done is deliberately made it so
00:36:11.040he can't be properly investigated and if you're a law and order guy I assume you disagree with
00:36:15.640that approach well let's see I mean I think one of what I disagree with it it's so funny because
00:36:22.120we all have to kind of there's this circle that goes on and we are all maybe picking where do we
00:36:27.200start the story on the circle but at the end of the day I think it's just a circle oh no I'm saying
00:36:31.000there is a circle there is a circle okay yeah right so but if you're a law and order guy i
00:36:34.680imagine you were not happy about anthony fauci being pardoned in advance and then not giving
00:36:40.040any testimony whatsoever i've been very clear so i prefer people to give testimony absolutely and
00:36:45.080and you know and this applies to both republicans and democrats i'm not being on the fifth i'm not
00:36:50.360big on the way that presidential pardon power has been used by democrats and republicans for a long
00:36:55.880time so all of these elements so we probably agree on that part i also uh think that the idea of
00:37:02.120looking at fauci as a criminal target did not ever really seem warranted to me now i'm willing to have
00:37:08.600my mind changed on that but from all of the stuff that i've been reading and the books about him and
00:37:13.480the reports the idea of fauci as a target after 50 years of basically working i believe in basically
00:37:20.840good faith for the national health of the country, on the circle we're talking about,
00:37:26.540I would go, well, that's a problem. If you start there, I understand the pardon, even though I
00:37:31.520disagree with the ways the pardons have been used. Well, hold on. Anthony Fauci is quite credibly
00:37:37.560being accused of funding research that may have led to this pandemic breaking out. What research
00:37:42.400is that? The gain of function research. Specifically though, where and what year was
00:37:47.300that funded and he funded it personally he was i don't remember the details billy could you look
00:37:52.140this up with with venice ai what is the link between um the funding of that instant the wuhan
00:37:58.200institute of virology and gain of function research and anthony fadge because i believe there
00:38:02.480were some emails that indicated but i'm offering from memory so we'll make sure we'll make sure
00:38:06.540to get our i'm glad let's take a moment and i i should say whatever one ai question says i would
00:38:12.840want to do deeper research to feel fully informed about it.
00:42:20.620Well, it quite is because you have people hiring lawyers and saying, work on getting me a pardon, get invited to Mar-a-Lago, talk to, you know, etc.
00:42:28.040It is quite a, it is sort of an industry.
00:42:30.840But the reason I think, I mean, let's not, just the Fauci thing, let's just look at that.
00:42:35.540I think the reason it's so damaging is the average American looks at that.
00:42:39.260And not even the average American, the average person will read about that and go, oh, that's clearly corruption.
00:42:44.740Why are you going to give a preemptive pardon unless you've done something wrong?
00:42:48.980And so your thought is all preemptive pardons are inherently corrupt.
00:42:53.160I think I just think that they shouldn't they shouldn't be on the table.
00:42:57.360Well, I don't I would be fine. I don't even know that, though, David, because this is this was actually the meta point I was trying to make about the country as opposed to Republicans versus Democrats.
00:43:05.740I actually think you're in a cycle now where if I was the president, I'd probably be giving myself and my kids presidential pardons in advance just because I knew the other side was coming in and going to be as vicious as my side had been.
00:43:21.600And this is an endless cycle of revenge.
00:43:24.160Okay. I mean, it's a perfectly fine point to make in the abstract, but we have seen, even to your admission earlier, a level of corruption from this particular administration that certainly warrants investigation.
00:43:40.160Now, to your point as to whether there are going to be inappropriate prosecutions, etc., I kind of doubt it because the DOJ and Todd Blanche have made clear we are an arm of the White House.
00:43:51.440He recently said it. And so I struggle to imagine that sort of bogus ham sandwich type indictments are going to come down from a from an AG who says, I basically do what Trump wants and work for Trump.
00:44:03.640So I I don't have that concern. But if we want to zoom out and say this entire pardon situation is is regrettable and not a good thing for a democracy, I would join you in that.
00:44:13.940I'm gonna be honest with you. I used to think grilling was simple. Meat goes on, meat comes
00:44:19.960off. You look vaguely competent in front of your mates. Jobs are good. Then I tried to grill
00:44:25.120anything that wasn't a burger or a steak. My frustration before Hexclad was that while the
00:44:30.820actual meat takes 20 minutes, scraping the grill afterwards takes 45. At some point, I stopped
00:44:37.240inviting people over for barbecues because I couldn't face the cleanup. Turns out the problem
00:44:42.500isn't you it's the grill. Standard grates were never designed for anything smaller than a steak
00:44:48.600which is why your prawns end up in the coals and your salmon ends up in three pieces. Hexclad solved
00:44:54.220this with their barbecue collection. The grill pan combines the searing power of stainless steel
00:44:59.240the durability of cast iron and non-stick underneath so nothing wields itself to the
00:45:04.880surface. It's perforated so heat and smoke still get to the food and you still get that proper
00:45:10.500grilled flavor. But your veggies, your seafood, your fish, none of it is falling through the
00:45:15.700grates anymore. If you want more control over delicate stuff, there's a grill topper, which
00:45:20.460gives you a full flat surface for things like fish or thin cuts that fall apart the second you try
00:45:26.100and flip them. And if you want the whole setup at once, there's the barbecue bundle, the grill pan,
00:45:31.540plus a hybrid cutting board and carving set. So you're not running back into the kitchen every
00:45:36.300five minutes. Over a million customers, more than 50,000 five-star reviews. Gordon Ramsay uses this
00:45:43.560at home and in his own restaurants, and that man is not easily impressed. Every piece comes with a
00:45:50.200lifetime warranty, so you're not replacing this next summer. Don't spend another season fighting
00:45:55.340your grill. For a limited time, our audience gets 10% off with our exclusive link. Head to
00:46:30.540debt, for example? Well, I tend to look around the world and say, what are the systems that have led
00:46:38.680to the greatest well-being? And I don't have a sort of emotional or ideological attachment
00:46:44.740to one thing or the other. I really try, and I don't always succeed, to just try to look at the
00:46:50.620facts. And so when I look around the world, I don't see any libertarian utopias in the mold of
00:46:58.300the more extreme libertarians that have high levels of well-being. So I go, okay,
00:47:04.620that might point me away from that as a way to organize government. I don't look around the
00:47:09.260world and see communist regimes and say, wow, things are going so well and these economies
00:47:15.620are thriving. So when I look around the world, I go, listen, the places that seem to be doing best
00:47:19.960are places with, in Europe, they call it center left. Here, we might call it slightly more left
00:47:25.480countries like finland and norway sweden denmark if you look at larger countries or at countries
00:47:33.240at specific points in time you also find evidence that when the governments were of that mindset
00:47:38.600is when the countries did best a couple examples there in india the kerala state specifically
00:47:44.900is organized more like some of those countries in europe i mentioned it's one of the most
00:47:50.460economically robust parts of India. You look at Uruguay in South America and the years that they
00:47:58.860had the sort of equivalent of a president who was more in line with those countries is when Uruguay
00:48:03.820had some of the fastest GDP growth. So I've sort of attempted to come to my worldview as to what
00:48:10.680sort of organization of government is best by looking at what has worked best around the world.
00:48:15.540Because there's a lot of people who are going to be saying, look, David, right, the intentions are all well and good, but this debt, $40 trillion, is unsustainable.
00:48:25.060It's only growing. We need to basically cut back on government.
00:48:30.160OK. Are there examples of countries that have cut their way to prosperity from a point of economic catastrophe?
00:50:11.440The year that that started, so what year did that process start, and what year do you think
00:50:18.540the country had been saved by, in other words, taken out of that?
00:50:21.720So Margaret Thatcher gets elected and begins all the reforms that Francis is talking about
00:50:25.860in the early 1980s, and by the late 80s, the country is booming and continues actually
00:50:33.760to do very well economically until 2008, basically.
00:50:37.220And is yours, do you believe that government spending at the macroeconomic level, at the end of that process, was higher or lower than when it started?
00:50:56.520Billy, was, so use Venice AI, was government spending as a percentage of GDP lower or higher after Margaret Thatcher's, at the end of Margaret Thatcher's final term?
00:51:09.520As a percentage of GDP, that's interesting.
00:51:46.940Well, my sense is, in the studying I've done on this, that the way countries improve overall their standing economically is with policy that fuels growth rather than cutting spending.
00:52:01.720In other words, increasing your income is a much faster and more robust way of improving the economic standing of the average person than cutting spending.
00:52:11.420And I think that that's borne out in most of the examples that I talked about.
00:52:16.940So government spending was lower as a share of GDP when she left office
00:52:20.520than when she arrived, falling from 44.6% in 1979 to 80 to 39.4% in 1991.
00:54:36.300Well, by the actions of the people who are starting businesses, if you're a business person in the UK, and we know hundreds of them, who starts a successful tech business, when it gets to a certain point, even if you're a patriotic Britain loving guy, you inevitably have to leave and go to America because it's easier to raise capital here.
00:54:56.040It's easier to make money. It's easier to hire people. It's easier to do an IPO. All of those things are much easier to do here than they are in the UK and in much of Europe.
00:55:06.300which is why all of that business is being done here when you look at uh rankings of environments
00:55:13.340in which to start businesses the us is not number one and there's a lot of surprising places to some
00:55:18.780people that are um better environments and what like i'll give you an example and by the way i'm
00:55:24.460not like a critic of the united states as a place to start a business like we're just having a
00:55:27.980conversation here but i'm in the united i run my business i think it's fine you just said denmark
00:55:32.540is better yeah and then i'll give you one example of something that can be better if you're trying
00:55:37.260to start a business when you have a safety net where you and your employees are not linked to
00:55:45.740the revenues of the business for health care as an example this can be freeing or liberating in
00:55:51.580a sense to say i can put everything into this business rather than worrying about how are my
00:55:57.100employees going to get health care it's just an example i'm not arguing that anything in any
00:56:01.180particular u.s state is good bad i'm just saying there are reasons i understand why other systems
00:56:06.620can be good business i'm just passing everything you're saying through the filter of does this
00:56:10.620make sense to me that's all so when you say denmark has a business better business environment
00:56:14.860the united states to me that's a tenuous claim and then when i go well what do i know about this
00:56:20.860i know that basically everyone in europe moves to america when the business gets successful
00:56:26.220that tells me that whatever ranking came out for how easy it is to start a business
00:56:31.960probably isn't reflecting the full picture because when you look at the actions of business
00:56:36.620owners yeah what happens is they leave as soon as and we see it in our own industry by the way
00:56:41.560right so we're like one of the few podcasters that have become big that have stayed in britain
00:56:47.980rather than moving to the u.s we love tax time well actually to david's point i mean taxes in
00:56:53.500most jurisdictions where you would want to live in this country are high, as high as they are in
00:56:58.960the UK. And businesses like yours are very successful in those jurisdictions. Sure. In the
00:57:03.540U.S., I mean. Yeah, yeah. But they mostly move to Austin or places like that. But anyway, my point
00:57:08.200is business people seem to indicate that the U.S. has a much better business environment. And
00:57:13.020certainly my direct experience of dealing with people here is there's a much better business
00:57:17.400environment here. Yeah. I mean, I think it's fine to say the people you know prefer to come here.
00:58:09.840But tell me, what's going on with health care in the U.S.?
00:58:12.680Why are people so frustrated, so angry?
00:58:14.920Why do they feel that the system is unfair?
00:58:17.180There's many different reasons for this.
00:58:18.940one gripe is health care connected to your job. And there's the argument, which I think is a fair
00:58:25.200argument, that people staying in jobs they don't really like because they need health care makes
00:58:31.520them worse employees. And it's not only worse for them as individuals, but it's also worse for the
00:58:36.720business to have people working for you who don't really like the job, but they're there because
00:58:41.840they need health care. So I think the connection between employment and health care is not an
00:58:45.680ideal thing. You then have, um, you have Medicaid. Medicaid is for people below a certain level of
00:58:51.760income. Um, and depending on what part of the country you're in, the Medicaid coverage that
00:58:57.760you're entitled to below a certain level of income can be very good. And it can basically cover
00:59:02.220everything, including co-payments, everything, et cetera, or it can be poor. That's another area
00:59:07.600of frustration. Third area of frustration. Um, people who are entrepreneurs or, or employed
00:59:13.600individually like me, we don't have group plans through an employer that we can buy into. So I
00:59:18.440basically buy my plan. I buy my plan from a marketplace. I pay $925 a month. That's just
00:59:25.380my premium. And I have co-pays. I'm paying for medications. I'm paying for office visits,
00:59:33.640diagnostics and labs, all up until a certain number. So it ends up being the case that people
00:59:39.040who work for themselves but make slightly too much to qualify for Medicaid are out of pocket
00:59:45.420a massive amount of money for relatively mediocre plans in terms of what they cover. So like that's
00:59:51.240another area of frustration. All of these different things are, depending on where you're situated
00:59:56.500economically or geographically, are things that people are struggling with. There's a shortage of
01:00:01.960primary care doctors in many parts of the country. Many insurances require referrals from primary
01:00:07.700care doctors to see specialists. So you call the dermatologist and they say, great, who's your
01:00:13.220primary care doctor? You go, I don't have one. They say, well, you got to get one. You call one
01:00:16.840and they say, we can't see you for 10 months. All of those things are areas of frustration with
01:00:22.260health care in the United States. And a lot of people seem to feel that they're getting price
01:00:28.760gouged every time they go and see a doctor, every time they go for something as simple as a blood
01:00:33.740test is that a fair representation of what's happening well price gouged has a lot of emotional
01:00:39.560language attached to it i mean what i can tell you is the following there are negotiations that
01:00:44.700happen between providers and insurance systems where they say okay um you go in for i had an
01:00:52.960appendectomy for example a few years ago the retail rate of the appendectomy was 35 000 in other words
01:01:00.260if I had gone in without insurance and I had just been billed, I would have been billed $35,000.
01:01:05.340That's much higher than just about every other Western developed country. So that's, as a price
01:01:10.660tag, that's a crazy price tag. And for people who don't know an appendectomy, that's literally a
01:01:16.140life-saving operation. If you don't have that and you're in your appendix burst, you can get
01:01:20.400peritonitis and die. And we'll talk about the inelasticity of demand when it comes to a lot
01:01:25.360of these procedures as well. Okay. So 35,000 is like the sticker price. If I were to say,
01:01:29.580hey, I'm here, I need an appendectomy, I don't have insurance. Now, my insurance pre-negotiated
01:01:35.760a rate for an appendectomy with the hospital system. And so they said, listen, whether my
01:01:42.660appendix bursts or doesn't, whether I get this type of anesthesia or that type of anesthesia,
01:01:49.020whether I need the socks on my legs that keep the blood flowing, you bill for that, all that stuff
01:01:55.220might add up to $35,000, we pay $6,800 for appendectomies. And so the insurance company
01:02:00.760has negotiated their rate for their customers with that hospital system. So when people say,
01:02:06.860well, we need price transparency, this is sort of one of the things that's being talked about,
01:02:10.920which is should the cash rates differ so much? And then how does the premium I'm paying to the
01:02:16.100insurance relate to that? And then the third part of this is a lot of people who don't have
01:02:20.060the insurance and they get the $35,000 bill, they don't pay it because they can't afford it.
01:02:24.340And so those non-payments, which we say, hey, listen, you got to pay your own way if you don't have insurance, that's priced in to all of the premiums that people are paying.
01:02:35.380So there's all of this waste and bureaucracy in that system.
01:02:38.500The argument that people make when they say there should be some kind of universal system, it doesn't have to be Medicare for all, but there's a lot of ways you can get universal coverages.
01:02:45.780If you eliminate a lot of this stuff, we could just spend less, which would allow it to be cheaper for individuals.
01:02:52.660And there's a bunch of different ways countries have gotten to that, but that would be an example of something that's not working that well.
01:02:59.500For someone like me who can afford the premium and I know what my maximum out-of-pocket for the year is, in a sense, it's working okay for me because I know I can go to the best hospital I want and get a phenomenal surgeon, which is what I had.
01:03:15.180And I know I paid my $9.25 for the month.
01:03:18.600I've got my annual deductible of $3,000.
01:12:37.460The one thing as well that I think I don't really understand the position of the left,
01:12:43.100kind of unfair, but is your position on guns?
01:12:47.920So it seems to me that there's particularly people of the left who are very anti-gun.
01:12:52.600There seems to be people on the left who are very pro-gun.
01:12:54.760Okay. What is the democratic position on guns?
01:12:58.480There is not one position. What I can tell you is, I mean, listen, you could ask me my position.
01:13:04.880I think there's a range and it also is very regional. Like, for example, Vermont, which is a very democratic state, has a very high gun ownership rate.
01:13:12.860But the cultural dynamics of that are very different than gun ownership, for example, in cities in different parts of the country.
01:13:19.760It's more about hunting and home defense, and it's maybe a little bit more like Switzerland,
01:13:25.660But culturally, the guns play a very different role.
01:13:29.620I have a lot of friends on the left who have gotten firearms permits and firearms over the
01:13:36.500last few years because their view is they don't want all of the guns to be in the hands
01:13:40.980of the right, which to me is a sort of eye-opening, kind of terrifying thing where it's a little
01:13:46.460bit of a race to the bottom in a sense.
01:13:48.260But the point is, I don't think there is a unified position on firearms on the left.
01:13:54.380I think what Francis was actually getting at, I suspect, is in the way that we've just
01:13:58.860had you explain your view of the health care thing, why is the gun debate such a big thing
01:14:04.020here and what is driving those mechanics?
01:14:07.100Well, I actually think it is not an issue that ranks highly in state, local, or federal
01:14:13.280elections as an issue that voters are clamoring for action on.
01:14:16.940So I would push back a little bit on the idea that it is such a big issue.
01:14:20.340What I do think is true is there are so many shootings in the United States.
01:14:24.380If you go on Gun Violence Archive and you just look at yesterday, usually there's a
01:14:28.080bunch of mass shootings where at least a couple of people were injured, if not killed, especially
01:14:32.500when it's crazy to say a major mass shooting rather than a minor mass shooting.
01:14:36.260But when are there these major mass shootings that sort of capture national media attention
01:14:41.640for several days or longer. There is this sort of period where those on the left say it's too easy
01:14:48.780to get guns, which I do agree with. Like, we have a Second Amendment. I don't dispute that. But I do0.89
01:14:52.680think it is too easy to get firearms in a lot of states. We need more ways to limit the types and
01:14:58.980some specific firearms that are widely available. I think it ignites that because you see the horrors
01:15:04.780of some of these incidents that take place, incidents that are pretty unique to the United
01:15:08.900States. If you look around the world at places that have that level of per capita gun violence,
01:15:15.200they are significantly less developed countries in general and not places that most Americans
01:15:20.180would say, these are the countries in our cohort. When you go, what countries are in our cohort
01:15:24.660so socially and economically, et cetera, they are countries with almost no gun violence. So I think
01:15:29.840that that's why it becomes an issue. That being said, it's a pretty bad issue for Democrats to
01:15:34.560run on in elections, because what tends to happen is you don't really mobilize your key
01:15:41.260constituencies to come out and vote. Democrats are mostly going to come out and vote for
01:15:46.960Democratic candidates because of economic policy and because of other issues or because they just
01:15:51.180habitually vote. But when you take positions that are seen as adversarial to the Second Amendment,
01:15:57.040the right activates and it can actually be very counterproductive for Democrats to run on that
01:16:01.760issue. And I found something you said at the very beginning of this bit so interesting where you
01:16:07.720said that your friends who are on the left were buying guns because they were worried about the
01:16:12.360people on the right who are buying guns. Yes. They already have the guns. What's that? I said
01:16:17.080they already have the guns. Well, there are plenty more available. Yeah. But I mean, David,
01:16:22.680as someone who lives in America, that's that's terrifying. Terrifying. I agree with you. I agree0.86
01:16:26.440with you completely. And the idea I mean, you know, and to be clear, these are not people that
01:16:31.040are open or concealed carrying. It's, I'd like to have some firearms at home locked up and the
01:16:37.220know-how of how to use them should it become necessary. But it is motivated by when you see
01:16:45.060the disparity in gun ownership rates, they get scared. And by the way, this is not my view. This
01:16:51.400is not something that I've done, but yeah. But that speaks to- You don't have an armory.
01:16:55.860What's that? You don't have an armory. You know, I make it a policy of not talking about whether
01:16:59.940or not i have firearms he's called firearms sorry we're just messing yeah no um but that speaks to
01:17:08.180something far deeper which is the distrust of the other and the division inherent in your society
01:17:14.520well i don't think it's so much about political division but i think it's about this there is
01:17:19.740something culturally in the united states that is very different than in canada than in switzerland
01:17:25.600and other gun-owning countries, where in a lot of these countries, gun ownership aside,
01:17:31.520the idea that you would use a firearm to try to solve an interpersonal or political dispute or
01:17:37.200disagreement is beyond the pale. Nobody would ever think of doing that. Not literally nobody,
01:17:42.540but at a population level, almost no one would think of doing that. Switzerland with this
01:17:46.820insanely high gun ownership rate, it's just not happening. So I think it's a cultural problem
01:17:52.400in the United States where it has, I don't want to say anybody authorized it, but we have gotten
01:17:58.600to a place where a lot of people do see it as valid engagement with the system to say, here's
01:18:04.800a problem. I might try to solve this problem with a firearm. Yeah. And what's, I think, really scary
01:18:10.420in the context of what we're talking about is if you look at polling, particularly of young people,
01:18:17.640that is something that has shifted dramatically. Has it? Oh, yeah. In what way?
01:18:21.760In what way? Well, a quarter of Gen Z think political violence against people they disagree
01:18:28.780with is justified. Oh, and that's changed compared to what? Massively. The boomers are like one in
01:18:34.12033. One in 33 boomers thinks that it's justified to use violence against... What I mean is for the0.95
01:18:40.980younger group, what did it used to be compared to the 25? Well, they were 12 years old, so they
01:18:44.820didn't have an opinion, but... Those who were that age before. Yeah, I don't know. We'd have to look
01:18:48.840it up but it wouldn't be anything like what it is interesting and by the way this is interesting as
01:18:52.860well it rises to 50 for progressives it for progressives of what age gen z gen z progressives
01:19:01.840okay i would love to see that data yeah so we just had cast from bubble saying in fact that
01:19:05.380interview hasn't gone out yet but this is something that she talked about it i mean if you want us to
01:19:08.920look it up with no no just for my own knowledge yeah i would love to but do you get a sense that
01:19:15.140there's a shift in attitudes to violence for political reasons? On the left, a lot of people
01:19:21.460on the right will obviously point to Charlie Kirk and things like that. No, I mean, well,
01:19:26.300I guess it depends on exactly what you mean by the question. What I mean by the question is,
01:19:30.340do you think more people, particularly on the far left, think it's okay to attack people that
01:19:35.300they disagree with? Attack them physically with guns? With weapons of any kind. It's not been my
01:19:40.680experience. I'm not doubting the results of the poll you're citing. I just haven't seen it. I
01:19:44.740would love to take a look at it. In terms of incidents, the majority of politically motivated
01:19:51.680violence comes from the right. Now, to the extent that there's violence on the left, I'm against
01:19:57.640that too. I was against the killing of Charlie Kirk. I'm against violence, period. But I do
01:20:03.880worry that this is a problem that is not easily going to be solved. And to a degree, I mean,
01:20:13.260listen, I don't want to just make this partisan because I really denounce all violence. If you
01:20:19.100show me violence, I will denounce it. As we do. Over the last couple of weeks at Trump rallies,
01:20:24.120there have been protesters that were beaten by people in the crowd. And Trump sort of encouraged
01:20:29.820it. And if people on the left are encouraging violence, I'm against that too. But we have the
01:20:34.300most powerful person in the country going, slap them harder and don't be... And there was a woman0.91
01:20:39.440who was just beaten in the head. So when you have that at the top, it's really hard to then
01:20:46.100for teachers and parents and whoever to go, this is completely unacceptable and beyond the pale.
01:20:50.500It's like, well, the president was kind of cheering when a woman was beaten at a rally.
01:20:53.240That's tough. That's very tough. Well, why do you think this whole thing is happening more broadly?
01:20:57.820Because as you say, I don't think it's a uniquely left or right thing. You know,
01:21:02.080Republicans will say it's mostly left. Democrats will say it's mostly right. They've all got their
01:21:06.340own stat that they want to use. Why do you think it's happening more broadly across American
01:21:10.740society? I don't want to derail this by... I believe it's clear that it's happening more on
01:21:15.440the right, but it's... I gave you the stat about attitudes, right? Sure. So you could say, you
01:21:20.100know, progressives are more likely to use violence. They just don't have guns or they're less likely
01:21:24.000to get a gun or they're less this or less that. Well, it depends what type of violence you're
01:21:27.100talking about, knives, what... That's what I'm saying. Why is this America just getting to a
01:21:32.780position where political violence is increasingly an issue? I don't think there's one answer to it.
01:21:37.420I think the, unfortunately, the way it has become normalized to engage on social media,
01:21:44.440which is disgusting. I mean, 98% of my interactions on social media are extraordinarily antisocial.
01:21:51.000In person, they're not really that way. But if it carries over, if people are getting amped up
01:21:56.400on social media, stochastically speaking, probabilistically, some portion will take
01:22:02.260those emotions and push them into the real world. So I think that that is definitely one factor.
01:22:07.780I've not seen evidence, you know, there's the idea of dangerous, violent movies and video games. I've
01:22:12.020seen no evidence that that's a factor, so I don't really go in that direction. I think the
01:22:15.920coarsening of political language in the Trump era is absolutely a factor. And beyond that,
01:22:22.780I don't know. I mean, I don't have all the answers on that. I know it's clearly happening
01:22:27.100and it's terrifying. I mean, I was just on book tour. The security arrangements that we were
01:22:33.360making on my book tour, the fact that we were even making them was disgusting to me and that
01:22:38.460everybody was saying, this is just kind of like what you have to do. It's absolutely horrifying.
01:22:42.860Yeah. I think that undoubtedly is the case, which is why I'm asking about it.
01:22:48.560The thing is, it's definitely, I would agree, Trump's rhetoric from 2016 onwards, actually, from 2015 onwards, is definitely something that contributes to that.
01:22:59.580I also think portions of the left, particularly during Woke One, as AOC calls it, or just woke, calling everyone Nazi, Hitler, etc., this sort of linguistic expansion to way beyond the remit of those words.
01:23:16.380Well, if I was a 15-year-old and I was told that somebody is Hitler,
01:23:20.760I kind of think it would be my duty to go and take them out, right?
01:23:23.480A lot of 15-year-olds have no idea who Hitler is or really much of what he did.
01:23:35.080To that point, the number of incidents of prominent left-wing violence
01:23:40.260with guns against right-wingers for political reasons is small.
01:23:43.740I mean, I know we're getting back to the data.
01:23:45.620I reject all of it. I'm against all of it. But it is relatively small. What I do think is a problem is I've seen a lot of videos from various protests, protests for Black Lives Matter or protests for Gaza or all of this different stuff where there is an anti-speech attitude that I detect where people with dissenting views are sometimes sort of shouted out or down or physically pushed out or restrained or that sort of thing.
01:24:15.620And that is a concern to me as well. I'm against that. And I think that not that that's a precursor to necessarily somebody takes out a knife or a gun.
01:24:24.800But I think it's all part of the environment that I don't like around these issues and around speech.
01:24:29.300How big of an issue is the Gaza-Israel situation? Because in the UK, I'll be honest with you, in the left, it's a huge issue.
01:24:39.060It's a huge issue. I would even argue that it's practically impossible for someone on the left to come out and say that, for instance, you know, have a nuanced opinion or maybe be pro-Israel in certain instances and actually have a future, certainly within the mainstream left party.
01:24:55.240it's a good question there's a couple different things that are going on at the same time
01:24:59.880if you poll democratic voters it's a very low priority all foreign policy for the most part
01:25:06.600is a is a relatively low priority for voters big picture if you're on reddit and twitter
01:25:14.040your perception would be that it is the issue if you pay attention to you know it seems like
01:25:21.480every town hall has a protester that is solely focused on that issue so i i think that much like
01:25:29.960in 2020 if you were just looking on reddit and twitter you would assume bernie sanders was going
01:25:35.000to run away with that primary if you spoke to democratic voters in michigan and south carolina
01:25:39.480you would have said oh actually they actually do seem to like joe biden better i think that
01:25:43.320depending on what spaces you occupy your perception of the issue can be different i do think though
01:25:48.440though, to your point, in the 2028 primary, it is probably going to play a somewhat prominent role
01:25:55.080as a litmus test for some or maybe all of the candidates. That's really interesting. But it
01:26:01.300makes sense because one of the things I always realize, every time my feet touch on American
01:26:07.360soil, I go on what's happening in the UK and I'm like, I don't really care. Do you know, it's kind
01:26:13.140of, I don't care as much as when you're there because when you're here- He's a traitor. It feels0.82
01:26:17.300further afield. It just feels further afield because you're so, it's so big here. There's
01:26:22.480so much going on. You're so far away from everything that why would you care as much
01:26:27.340about something that's happening in the Middle East? And you're largely insulated from the
01:26:30.980consequences as well. So that was what I was going to get to next, which is some of these
01:26:35.300things do have, I mean, listen, it's legitimate to say the Iran war is far away, but it's affecting
01:26:40.020our day to day lives. Totally legitimate. It's legitimate to say, well, we have an interest in0.99
01:26:45.220the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because we send a lot of aid to Israel. And so the United States
01:26:50.720is involved and that's different than Rwanda or whatever. So like, I think that that is a0.99
01:26:55.640legitimate argument, but in the polling, which is really the only thing we can go by, it continues
01:27:00.660to rank like trans issues are, they're just nowhere. The most foreign policy is nowhere on
01:27:07.460there. Guns are very low, but crime, immigration, economics, education are ranking really high.
01:27:14.100And in a sense, it does make sense because that is what is most day-to-day affecting people in their lives.
01:27:22.060And what do you think is the sensible position on Israel and Palestine for the left to take?
01:27:27.440Well, so what is the sensible? You'd have to ask a lot of different people.