詹克·烏伊古爾：特朗普對哈里斯、進步政治、共產主義與資本主義

Cenk Uygur (00:00:00): Communism makes no sense at all, totally opposed to human nature. It never works. It always evolves into dictatorship. It creates a power vacuum. When you say, “Hey, there’s no structure of power here. We’re all equal. It’s a flat line,” one guy usually gets up, because that’s human nature, and goes, “I don’t think so. I think if you’re going to leave a power vacuum, I’m going to take that power vacuum.” Cenk Uygur (00:00:25): Corporatism hates competition. It wants monopoly and oligopoly power. Whereas capitalism loves competition and wants the free markets. When mainstream media has you hooked, you got no hope because you don’t have the right information. You have propaganda, you have marketing. You don’t have real news. When you’re in the online world, it’s chaotic. And don’t get me wrong, it’s got plenty of downsides, but within that chaos, the truth begins to emerge. Trump is a massive risk because of all the things we talked about earlier, but there is a percentage chance that he’s such a wild card that he overturns the whole system, and that is why the establishment is a little scared of him. Lex Fridman (00:01:11): The following is a conversation with Cenk Uygur, a progressive political commentator and host of The Young Turks. As I’ve said before, I will speak with everyone, including on the left and the right of the political spectrum, always in good faith, with empathy, rigor, and backbone. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I say stupid, inaccurate, ineloquent things, and I frequently change my mind as I’m learning and thinking about the world. For all this, I often get attacked, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. But just know that I’m aware when I fall short and I will keep trying to do better. I love you all. This is the Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here’s Cenk Uygur. Lex Fridman (00:02:03): You wrote a book. Cenk Uygur (00:02:04): Yeah. Lex Fridman (00:02:05): A manifesto that outlines the progressive vision for America. So the big question, what are some defining ideas of progressivism? Cenk Uygur (00:02:14): Yes. So in order to do that, Lex, we got to talk about where we are in the political spectrum. And in fact, there’s two different spectrums now. People often think of left, right, and that’s true, that exists, but layered on top of that is now populist versus establishment. So I’m center-left on the left, right spectrum, but I’m all the way on that populist end of the second spectrum. So where does progressivism lie within that? Well, I would argue that it’s exactly in those places. It’s populist and it’s on the left, but it is not far left. So far left is a different animal, and we could talk about that in a little bit. So in terms of what makes a progressive, so expand the circle of liberty and justice for all, and equality of opportunity. Now people will say, well, that seems pretty broad and all American, but is it? Think about it. Cenk Uygur (00:03:16): So expand the circle of liberty. Everybody’s in favor of that, right? No, absolutely not. Certainly the King of England was not in favor of expanding the circle of liberty, and the Founding Fathers said, “We’re going to expand it.” And they expanded it to propertied white men. And then progressives have been … they’re progressives because they expanded the circle of liberty. They, then from then on, as we were perfecting the union, progressives always say, “Expand it further. Include women, include people without property, include all races.” And at every turn, conservatives fight against it. So that doesn’t mean if you’re a conservative today, you don’t want to include women or minorities, et cetera. But today you would say, for example, “Well, I don’t want to expand the circle of liberty to, for example, undocumented immigrants.” And maybe you’re right about that, and we could have that discussion in terms of a specific philosophy. Cenk Uygur (00:04:08): And I don’t believe that undocumented immigrants should immediately be citizens or anything along those lines. But I do believe in expanding liberty overall. And the contours of that are what’s interesting. And then you see justice for all. Everybody’s for justice. No. Right now, marijuana possession is still illegal in a lot of parts of the country. Now, a lot of right-wingers and left-wingers agree that it should be legal. But for my entire lifetime, black people have been arrested at about 3.7 times the rate of white people and the entire country has been fine with it. So is that justice? No. Black people smoke marijuana at the same rate. Black people get arrested about four times the rate. That is an injustice that an enormous percentage of the country was comfortable with. Well, progressives aren’t comfortable with it. We want justice for all. Cenk Uygur (00:04:55): So equality of opportunity is an interesting one because the far left will say, at least some portions of them will say, equality of results. So progressives just want a fair chance, so free college education, but afterwards you don’t get to have exact same results as either the wealthiest person or we’re not all going to be equal. We don’t have equal talent, skills, abilities, et cetera. Lex Fridman (00:05:21): There’s a lot of questions I can ask there. So on the circle of liberty, yes, so expanding the number of people whose freedoms are protected. But what about the magnitude of freedom for each individual person? So expanding the freedom of the individual and protecting the freedoms of an individual. It seems like progressives are more willing to expand the size of government where government can do all kinds of regulation, all kinds of controls in the individual. Cenk Uygur (00:05:49): So Lex, what we’re probably going to talk about a lot today is balance. And so a lot of people think, “Oh, I am on the right, I’m on left.” And that comes with a certain preset ideology. So the right is always correct. The left is always correct. So there’s two problems with that. Number one, how could you possibly believe in a preset ideology if you’re an independent thinker? It’s literally, by definition, not possible. If you say, “I lent my brain to an ideology that was created 80 years ago or eight years ago or 800 years ago, and I’m not going to change it,” you’re saying, “I don’t think for myself I bought into a culture.” And by the way, there’s a lot of different forms of culture you could buy into: religion, politics, sometimes racial, et cetera. So that’s why you need, actually, balance. The second reason you need balance, other than independent thought, is because the answer is almost never black and white. Cenk Uygur (00:06:47): And that gets into a really interesting nuance because mainstream media, in my opinion, is the matrix, and its job is to delude you into thinking corporate rule is great for you and we should never change it and the status quo is wonderful. So they have created a false middle. What mainstream media calls moderate, is actually, in my opinion, extremist corporate ideology. So for example, they’ll say, Joe Manchin is a moderate. None of his positions are moderate other than potentially gun control in West Virginia. He’s not for gun control. The people of West Virginia are not for gun control, generally speaking. And he uses that, and they usually have these shiny objects where they’re like, “You see this? I’m a moderate because of guns,” or, “I’m a moderate because I’m a Democrat from West Virginia.” Cenk Uygur (00:07:36): But wait, let’s look at your positions. You’re against paid family leave, that polls at 84%. So you’re a radical corporatist who say that women should be forced back into work the day after they have birth. You’re against a higher minimum wage, you’re for every corporate position, and they all poll at 33% or less. So Joe Manchin is not at all a moderate, and this applies to almost every corporate Republican and every corporate Democrat. They’re all extremists in supporting what I call corporatism. So you have to get to a balance in order to get to the right answer. Lex Fridman (00:08:11): So that’s an interesting distinction here. So you’re actually, as far as I understand, pro-capitalism, which is an interesting place to be. That’s the thing that probably makes you center-left and then still populist. You’re full of beautiful contradictions, let’s say this, which will be great to untangle. But what’s the difference between corporatism and capitalism? Is there a difference? Cenk Uygur (00:08:33): Yeah, so I really believe in capitalism. I don’t think that there’s really a second choice. Where it gets super interesting is the distinction between capitalism and socialism, because that’s not at all as clear as people think it is. And people often say socialism and communism as synonyms when they’re not synonyms. And so I view it as there’s basically four distinct areas. It’s obviously a spectrum. Everything is a spectrum. On one end, you have communism on the left and on the other end you have corporatism on the right. And I would argue that capitalism is in the middle. And so communism, we know, state owns all property. You’re not allowed to have private property. So I will piss off a lot of people in this show. So I’m asking for their patience. Please hear me out and because, don’t worry, I’m going to piss off the other side too. Cenk Uygur (00:09:32): So communism makes no sense at all, totally opposed to human nature. It never works. It always evolves into dictatorship because it is not built for human nature. We’re never going to act like that. It’s not in our DNA. You could try to wish it into existence than they have, and it never works. And it’s because once you have almost no rules in terms of, “Oh, we’re all equal,” even though communism eventually winds up having an enormous amount of rules, it creates a power vacuum. When you say, “Hey, there’s no structure of power here. We’re all equal. It’s a flat line,” one guy usually gets up because that’s human nature, and goes, “I don’t think so. I think if you’re going to leave a power vacuum, I’m going to take that power vacuum.” Lex Fridman (00:10:23): That’s actually a really interesting way to put it, because when everyone is equal, nobody is in power, and human nature is such that there’s everybody [inaudible 00:10:33] that there’s a will to power. So when you create a power vacuum, somebody’s going to fill it. So the alternative is to have people in power, but there’s a balance of power, and then there’s a democratic system that elects the people in power and keeps churning and rotating who’s involved. Cenk Uygur (00:10:47): That is exactly it, Lex. You got it exactly right, in my opinion. Okay, so that’s why communism never works and can never work. So it’s an idea of we’re all going to work as hard as we possibly can and take only what we need. Where? When has that ever happened in the history of humanity? We’re just not built that way. So we can get into that debate with my friends on the left, et cetera. Now, corporatism is just as extreme and just as dangerous, and that is basically what we have in America now. What we have in America now, and this is another giant trick that the Matrix played on everybody, that they did a shell game, and all of a sudden extreme corporatists like Manchin, and almost every Republican in the Senate, are moderates. Oh my God, Mitch McConnell, all of a sudden, is a moderate and et cetera, as long as you’re not a populist, populists are never moderate. Cenk Uygur (00:11:43): But if you love corporations and corporate tax cuts and everything in favor of corporations, you’re magically called a moderate when you actually, according to the polling, have super extreme positions that the American people hate. And by the way, that’s part of the reason for the rise of Trump. We can come back to that. But the second shell game is taking out capitalism, putting in corporatism, but still calling it capitalism. Okay, so what is corporatism? It is when corporations slowly take over the system and create monopoly and oligopoly power. So that snuffs out equality of opportunity. So how do they do that? When people say the system is rigged, they oftentimes can’t explain it that well. And then mainstream media goes, “Oh, you sound conspiratorial. It was rigged, yeah. I wonder how.” Yeah, super easy to explain it. Cenk Uygur (00:12:37): Here’s one of dozens of examples: carried interest loophole. So that is for hedge funds, private equity, the top people on Wall Street, that’s part of their income. They get 2 and 20, right? So 2% is a flat fee no matter what happens to the fund. And 20% of the profits of the fund goes back to the people who invested it. It’s not their money, it’s not their investment. What they’re getting is actually just income, and should be taxed at the highest rate. But it’s because of this loophole, it’s taxed at a much lower rate, at around 20%. So do you know at what income level you go above 20% if you’re a regular Joe? It’s at $84,000 a year. So these billionaires are getting the same tax rate as people making $84,000 a year. It’s unbelievably unfair. And that’s corporatism taking over and starting to rig the rules. I’m going to pay less taxes. You are going to pay more taxes. Cenk Uygur (00:13:37): So again, I can give you dozens of those examples. So in mergers so that they get to oligopoly power, that’s how you rig a system. Lowering the corporate tax rates, making sure that there is no real minimum wage, making sure there’s no universal healthcare. We all become indentured servants of corporations. They take away power from the average guy, give it to the most powerful people in the world. But the most important distinction, Lex, is that corporatism hates competition. It wants monopoly and oligopoly power. Whereas capitalism loves competition and wants the free markets. Cenk Uygur (00:14:14): And I remember we started Young Turks back in 2002, so we’ve been around for 22 years, longest running daily show on the internet ever. And so we were pre Iraq war and the Iraq war starts, and Dick Cheney starts handing out no-bid contracts. I’m like, what part of capitalism is a no-bid contract? You can’t negotiate drug prices. That’s the most anti-free market thing I have ever heard. It’s almost like communism for corporations. They get everything and you get nothing. So it’s preposterous, it’s awful, and it kills the free markets, and it’s killing this country, and it is the main ideology and religion of the establishment. Lex Fridman (00:15:04): Are all companies built the same here? So when you say corporatism, it seems like just looking here at the list by industry lobbyists, it seems like there are certain industries that are worse offenders than others, like pharmaceuticals, like insurance, oil and gas. So it seems to me it feels wrong to just throw all companies into the same bucket of they’re all guilty. Cenk Uygur (00:15:36): No, they’re not all guilty. So let’s make a bunch of distinctions here. So first of all, first of all, are they “guilty?” No. They’re doing something that is logical and natural. So if you’re a company, do you want to pay higher taxes or lower taxes? Of course you want to pay lower taxes. Do you want to have higher employee costs or lower employee costs? Of course you want lower employee costs. But the government needs to understand that and protect us from that power that they are going to exercise to get to those results. And if you think free markets is there is no government, you read it wrong. Go back and reread Adam Smith. He says, you must protect against monopoly power. If you do not protect against monopoly power, you’ll have no free markets. And he’s absolutely right. So second distinction is between small business and big business. That’s why Republicans will always be like, “Oh, we’re doing this for small business. That’s why we got the biggest oil companies in the world, 30 billion in subsidies.” What happened to small business? So I run a small business. And so if people were to say like, “Hey, maybe there should be exemptions for some of the regulations if your company has less than five employees, 10 employees, 50 employees, et cetera,” there’s some logic in that. Because businesses have different stages of growth and they have different interests and different needs in those stages of growth. And we want to facilitate small business growth because that’s great for the economy, that’s great for markets freedom, et cetera. But the bigger corporations, even there, there’s a third distinction. It isn’t that there are certain industries that are worse, there’s just that there are industries that are better at lobbying. Cenk Uygur (00:17:19): So anyone who right now, number one donor in Washington, a lot of people make a mistake. They think it’s APAC or they think it’s the oil companies or the banks. No, it’s big pharma. And who has the most power in this country? Big pharma. So we can’t even negotiate the drug prices. I mean, look, guys, think about it this way. That’s like saying, “Okay, here’s a bottle of water.” And normally in the free market that would cost about a dollar. For Medicare, the drug companies come in and go, “No, I’m not charging a dollar for that water. I’m charging a hundred dollars. And the government has to say, “Yes, sir, thank you, sir. Of course, sir, we’ll pay $100.” That’s why it’s compared to communism, because I can’t imagine anything more diametrically opposed to the free market than you, the consumer have to pay whatever the hell a corporation charges. That’s insanity. Let alone the patents, let alone the fact that the American people pay for the research and then they make billions of dollars off of it and we get nothing but robbed by them. Cenk Uygur (00:18:22): So it’s about lobby power. Oil companies have huge lobby power. Defense contractors have huge lobby power. It’s not that they’re more evil, it’s just that they have figured out the game better and they have basically taken the influence they need to capture the market, capture the government, and snuff out all competition, or a lot of competition. Lex Fridman (00:18:41): Well, figured out the game better. So I think a lot of companies are good at winning the right way by building better products, by making people happier with the work they’re doing and the winning at the game of capitalism. And then there’s other companies that win at the game of lobbying, and I just want to draw that distinction because I think it’s a small subset of companies that are playing the game of lobbying. It’s like big pharma. Cenk Uygur (00:19:11): So Lex, first of all, you have to set rules for what makes sense, not, “Oh, I don’t like this industry,” or “I don’t like this company,” or, “Hey, this company is not doing that much lobbying at this point. They will later when they realize what’s going on.” So for example, in my opinion, APAC has totally bought almost all of Congress. And so now other countries are going to wake up and go, “Wait, you could just buy the American government?” So APAC is going to spend about $100 million dollars in this cycle, and then they’re getting 26 billion back. So every country in the world is soon going to realize, oh, take American citizens that live there, get them a tremendous amount of money and just buy the U.S. government. But for corporations, they’ve already realized that on a massive scale. Cenk Uygur (00:19:58): So for example, in the two industries you gave: automotive. So in New Jersey, about a decade or ago or so, one of the most powerful lobbies is car dealerships. So at the national level, you’ve got pharma and you’ve got defense contractors, et cetera. At the local level guys who have huge power, number one is utilities. Number two is real estate. And then car dealerships are hilariously among the top because it’s local businesses that are financing the politicians at the local level. So they passed a law saying that you have to sell through dealerships. But Tesla doesn’t sell through dealerships, and it was intended to bully, intimidate, and push out Tesla, out of the market. They then did that in a number of different states throughout the country. Cenk Uygur (00:20:45): So does that make any sense in a democracy? Of course not. Why do you have to sell your product through a specific vehicle or medium? You could sell it any way you like. That’s the most anti-free market thing possible. Why? It was just total utter corruption. But it’s perfectly legal. The Supreme Court legalized bribery. So then what happened in that case? So then Elon came in and gave campaign contributions and reversed it. So now we’re in a battle where it’s an open auction. Different companies are buying different politicians, and then they’re pretending to have debates about principles and ideas, etc. Cenk Uygur (00:21:22): So now let’s look at tech. In the beginning, Facebook was not spending any money in politics, or almost any money in politics. So what happens? They’re getting hammered, they get pulled into congressional hearings and Facebook’s got fake news and oh my God, all these trouble from Facebook. Then Facebook does the logical thing. Oh, it turns out I need to grease these sons of bitches. So then they hire a whole bunch of Republicans consultants. They go grease all the Republicans and most of the corporate Democrats, and then all of a sudden we’re no longer talking about Facebook at all and Facebook are angels. And now we’ve turned our attention to who? Facebook’s top competitor, TikTok. Funny how that works. Cenk Uygur (00:22:06): And by the way, then Donald Trump goes “Oh TikTok’s a big dangerous company working with China.” And then Jeff Yaz comes in on this cycle, part owner of TikTok, and he doesn’t want TikTok banished, of course. So he gives Trump a couple of million dollars. Trump turns around the next day and goes, “We love TikTok. TikTok’s a good company.” Lex Fridman (00:22:29): So that’s a big contributor to influencing what politicians say and what they think. But it’s not the entire thing, right? Cenk Uygur (00:22:36): No, it is. It’s 98%. I’ll go on mainstream media and they’ll be like, “Oh, I see what you’re saying. I can see how that influences politicians about 10%.” I’m like, “No, no, it’s 98%.” And even a lot of good people think it’s 50/50. They have principles and they have money. No, they have money and this smidge of principles. That’s why I wanted to clarify 98 too. Lex Fridman (00:22:58): Okay, so how do we fix it? So it’s really interesting and nice that you have pro-capitalism and anti-corporatism. So how do we create a system where the free market can rule. Where capitalism can rule, we can have these vibrant flourishing of all these companies competing against each other and creating awesome stuff. Cenk Uygur (00:23:20): So in the book, I call it democratic capitalism as opposed to Bernie’s democratic socialism. We can get into that distinction in a minute. But so as Adam Smith said, and anyone who studies capitalism knows, you need the government to protect the market as well as the people. Why do we have cops? Because if we don’t have cops, somebody’s going to go, “Well, I like Lex’s equipment. Why don’t I just go into his house and take it?” So you need the cops to protect you, and that’s the government. So people say, “Oh, I hate big government.” Do you? It depends, right? If your house is getting robbed, all of a sudden you like the government. But you also need cops on Wall Street because if you allow insider trading, the powerful are going to rob you blind and the little guy’s going to get screwed. Cenk Uygur (00:24:05): So that’s this easy example. And so if you don’t have those cops, the bad guys are going to take over. They’re going to set the rules, rig the rules in their favor. So that’s why you need regulation. And so the Republicans on purpose made regulation a dirty word. They’re like, “Oh, all regulation is bad.” And then sometimes on the left, people fall for the trap of all regulation is good. A guy, I like has a great analogy on this, Matt Stoller, he’s one of the original, I would argue, progressives. And there’s about four of us, I’m sure there’s more, but that have stayed true to the original meaning of progressivism and populism: me, Matt Stoller, David Sirota, Ryan Grim. And it used to be in that original blogger group, there was guys like Glenn Greenwald and other interesting cats, but they went in different directions. Cenk Uygur (00:24:59): So Matt has a great line. He says, “If somebody comes up to you and says, how big a pipe do you want?” There is no answer for that. It depends on the job, doesn’t it? What are we doing? What are we building? I am going to tell you the size of the pipe depending on the project. So when people say, “Are you in favor of regulation or against it?” that’s an absurd question. Of course you need regulation. It just means laws. So don’t kill your neighbor is a regulation. So my idea is a simple one, and one we’re going to keep coming back to, balance. So when my dad was a small business owner in New Jersey and they inspected the elevator six times a year, that was over regulation. And I said to my dad, “So should they not inspect it at all?” I’m a young kid growing up and he said, “Oh no, you got to inspect it at least twice a year.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Because in Turkey, sometimes they don’t inspect it and then the elevator falls.” So balance of reason, correct regulation to protect the markets and to protect the American people. Lex Fridman (00:26:06): Yeah, but finding the right level of regulation, especially in, for example, in tech, something I’m much more familiar with, is very difficult because people in Congress are living in the 20th century before the internet was invented. So how are they supposed to come up with regulations? Cenk Uygur (00:26:24): Yeah. Lex Fridman (00:26:24): That’s the idea of the free market, is you should be able to compete. The market regulates, and then the government can step in and protect the market from forming monopolies, for example, which is easier to do. Cenk Uygur (00:26:24): But that’s a form of regulation. Lex Fridman (00:26:38): But then there’s more checking the elevator twice a year. That’s a more sort of specific watching, micromanaging. Cenk Uygur (00:26:46): So Lex, here’s the deal. There’s no way around the laws are made by politicians. So you can’t give up then and go, “Oh, it’s a bunch of schmucks.” I think most politicians are just servants for the donor class. The media makes it sound like they’re the best of us. “Oh, they deserve a lot of honor and respect,” and they kiss their ass et cetera. I think generally speaking, they’re usually the worst of us, especially in this corporatist structure. Because they’re the guys who their number one talent is, “Yes sir. No sir. What would you like me to do with your donor money, sir? Absolutely, I’ll serve you completely. Or 98%.” So in this structure, the politicians are the worst of us. But at some point you need somebody elected to be your representative, to do democratic capitalism, so that you have capitalism, but it’s checked by the government on behalf of the people. Cenk Uygur (00:27:41): It’s the people that are saying, “These are the rules of the land and you have to abide by them.” So how do you get to the best possible answer which is related to an earlier question you asked, Lex, which is the number one thing you have to do is get big money out of politics? Everything else is near impossible as long as we are drowned in money and whoever has more money wins. And by the way, when it comes to legislation, again, that’s true about 98% of the time. We predict things ahead of time. People are like, “Wow, how did you know that bill wasn’t going to pass or was going to pass?” It’s the easiest thing in the world. And we literally teach our audience on the Young Turks, “Watch, you’ll be able to see for yourself.” And now our members comment in, they do these predictions. They’re almost always right because it’s so simple. Follow the money. Cenk Uygur (00:28:33): So if you get big money out of politics, and I could explain how to do that in a sec, then you’re at a place where you’ve got your best shot at honest representatives that are going to try their best to get to the right answer. Are they going to get to the right answer out of the gate? Usually not. So they pass a law, there’s something wrong with the law, they then fix that part. It is a pendulum. You don’t want it to swing too wildly, but you do need a little bit of oscillation in that pendulum to get to the right balance. Lex Fridman (00:29:03): By the way, I was listening to Joe Biden from when he was like 30 years old, the speeches, he was eloquent as hell. It’s fun to listen to actually. And he has a speech he gives or just maybe a conversation in Congress, I’m not sure where, where he talks about how corrupt the whole system is, and he’s really honest and fun. And that Joe Biden was great, by the way, that guy. I mean, age sucks. People get older. But he was talking quite honestly about having to suck up to all these rich people and that he couldn’t really suck up to the really rich people. They said, “Come back to us 10 years later when you’re more integrated into the system.” But he was really honest about it, and he’s saying, “That’s how it is. That’s what we have to do. And that really sucks that that’s what we have to do.” Cenk Uygur (00:29:57): So we did a video on our TikTok channel, then and now, of Joe Biden. This is when I was trying to push Biden out. Lex Fridman (00:30:05): We should say you were one of the people early on, saying Biden needs to step down. Cenk Uygur (00:30:10): Yeah, I started about a year ago because I was positive that Biden had a 0% chance of winning. And it turned out, by the way, two days before he dropped out, his inside advisors inside the White House said, “Yeah, near 0% chance of winning.” So we were right all along. Lex Fridman (00:30:27): You got a lot of criticism for that, by the way. But yeah. Cenk Uygur (00:30:28): We can come back to that. Yes, I did. And which makes it Tuesday for me. I get a lot of criticism for everything. And by the way, Democratic Party, you’re welcome. But Biden’s a really interesting example. I’m really glad you brought it up. So the video on TikTok was just showing Biden then, Biden now. And you’re right, Biden was so dynamic. When you see how dynamic he was, we did side-by-side, and then you see him now going “I can barely finish.” Anyways, you’re like, “Oh, that’s not the same guy. I get it.” And that got 5 million views because it resonates. They’re like, “Yeah, yeah, of course”. Cenk Uygur (00:31:08): But when he first started, to the point you’re making Lex, he wanted … In fact, I know because I talked to him about this, his very first bill was anti-corruption. Why? Because at that point, everything changes in 1976 to 78, the Supreme Court decisions that basically legalize bribery. Cenk Uygur (00:31:25): But remember Biden is ancient. So he’s coming into politics at a time when money has not yet drowned politics. And in fact, the American population is super-pissed about the fact that it’s begun. They don’t like corruption. So early Biden, because he’s reading the room, is very anti-corruption. And the first bill he proposes is to get money out of politics. But as Biden goes on for his epic 200-year career in Washington, he starts to get not more conservative, more corporate, because he’s just taken more and more money. By the middle of his career. He has a nickname, the Senator from MBNA. Okay. Cenk Uygur (00:32:00): Nickname, the Senator from MBNA. Okay. MBNA was a credit card company based in Delaware, and the reason he had that nickname is because there isn’t anything Joe Biden wouldn’t have done for credit card companies and corporations based in Delaware, which are almost all corporations, okay? So he became the most corporate senator in the country, and hence the most beloved by corporate media. Corporate media has protected him his entire career until about a month ago. So, for example, in the primaries, both in 2020 and 2024, if you said the Senator from MBNA, I guarantee you almost no one in the audience has heard of it. If you heard of it, good job. Cenk Uygur (00:32:41): You know politics really well, but the reason you didn’t hear of it is because the mainstream media wouldn’t say, “That’s outrageous of Joe Biden to be such a corporate stooge.” They’d say, “That’s outrageous of you to point out something that’s true and something we reported on earlier.” So they protected him at all costs. Now, finally, when you get to this version of Joe Biden, he can’t talk, he can’t walk, he bears no resemblance to the young guy who came in saying that money in politics was a problem. Now he’s saying money in politics is the solution. In 2020, he said, “Well, I can raise more money than Bernie. I can kiss corporate ass better than Bernie. I’m the biggest corporate kisser in the world. So, I’m going to raise a billion dollars and you need to support me.” Cenk Uygur (00:33:28): Now, of course, he doesn’t say it in those words, but that was the message to the establishment. Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Obama, Clyburn, everybody goes, “Oh, that’s right. Biden, Biden, Biden, Biden, not Bernie.” I don’t know that there’s anybody in the country who instinctually dislikes Bernie more than Barack Obama. Lex Fridman (00:33:46): That’s an interesting… I’m not taking that tangent at this moment. You mentioned mainstream media. What’s the motivation for mainstream media to be corporatist also? Cenk Uygur (00:33:55): So first of all, they’re giant corporations. So, they’re all multi-billion dollar corporations. In the old days, we had incredible number of media outlets. So, you go to San Francisco, there’d be at least two papers and there’d be a paperboy. I’m going all the way back, paperboy on each corner, and they’re competing with one another. Literally, they’d be catty corner and one guy’s going, “Oh, here are all this details.” They’re trying to get an audience. They’re trying to get people interested. So, they’re populist, they’re interesting, they’re mark breakers, they’re challenging the government. Fast forward to now, or not now, but about a decade ago, five years ago, in that ballpark, now there’s only six giant media corporations left. Cenk Uygur (00:34:40): It’s an oligopoly, and they’re all multi-billion dollar corporations. They all want tax cuts. Especially about 20 years ago during the Iraq War, half of them are defense contractors. So, they’re just using the news as marketing to start wars like the Iraq War. Then GE, which owned MSNBC, makes a tremendous amount of money, so much more money from war than it does for media. That media is a good marketing spend for these corporations. Now, that’s part of it, that they themselves want the same exact thing as the rest of corporations do for corporate rule, lower tax cuts, deregulation, so they can merge, et cetera. But the second part of it is arguably even more important. So, where does all that money in politics go? Cenk Uygur (00:35:27): So for example, in 2022, it’s just a midterm election. No presidential should be lower spending. A ridiculous $17 billion are spent on the election cycle. Where does the $17 billion go? Almost all of it goes into corporate media, mainstream media, television, newspapers, radio. They’re buying ads like nuts. So, we have a reporter at TYT, David Schuster. He used to work at MSNBC, Fox News, et cetera. David once did a piece about money and politics at a local NBC news station, and his editor or GM spiked the story. David goes into his office and asks him, “So why? This story is true. It’s a huge part of politics. If we’re going to report on this issue, we got to tell you what’s actually happening.” Cenk Uygur (00:36:17): So he says, “David, come here.” He puts his arm around his shoulders, takes him to the big newsroom, and he goes, “You see all this? Money in politics paid for that.” Lex Fridman (00:36:28): That’s really fascinating. So, big corporations, they’re giving money to politicians through different channels, and then the politicians are spending that money on mainstream media. So, there’s a vicious cycle where it’s in the interest of the mainstream media not to criticize the very corporations that are feeding that cycle. It’s not actually direct, it’s not like corporations are… Because I was thinking one of the ways is direct advertisement. Pharmaceuticals obviously advertise a lot on mainstream media, but there’s also indirect, which is giving the politicians money or super PACs and the super PACs and the spend money on… Cenk Uygur (00:37:11): That’s why mainstream media never talks about the number one factor in politics, which is money. We all know. I mean, now as we talked about earlier, we see it with our own eyes, open auction. Any country, any company, anybody that has money, the politicians will now literally say, “I am now working for this guy,” as Trump says, “because he gave me a strong endorsement,” which means a lot of money. The press never covers it, almost never, right? So you’re telling me you’re doing an article on the infrastructure build or build back better, et cetera. You are not going to mention the enormous amount of money that every lobbyist spent on that bill. That’s absurd. That’s absurd. That’s 98% of the ballgame. Cenk Uygur (00:37:57): The reason they hide the ball is because they don’t want you to know this whole thing is based on the money that they are receiving. By the way, one more thing about that, Lex. It’s that the ads themselves actually, they work and they work pretty well, but that’s not the main reason you spend money on ads. You spend the money on ads to get friendly coverage from the content, from the free media that you’re getting from that same outlet. So, since every newspaper and every television station and network knows that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are their top clients, they’re going to get billions of dollars from them. They never really criticized the Republican and Democratic Party. On the other hand, if you’re an outsider, they’ll rip your face off. Lex Fridman (00:38:48): That’s also really interesting. So, if you’re an advertiser, if you’re big pharma and you’re advertising, it’s not that the advertisement works. It’s that the hosts are too afraid, not explicitly, just even implicitly. They’re self-censoring. They’re not going to have any guests that are controversial, anti-big pharma, or they’re not going to make any jokes about big pharma. That continues and expands. That’s really interesting. Cenk Uygur (00:39:18): Sometimes it’s super direct. When I was a host on MSNBC, I had a company that I was criticizing in my script and management looked at it. By the way, I used to go off prompter a lot and it drove him crazy, not because I wasn’t good at it. I think my ratings went up whenever I went off prompter, but because they couldn’t pre-approve the script. What do they want to pre-approve? Hey, are you going to criticize one of our sponsors, one of our advertisers, et cetera? So we had a giant fight over it, and the compromise was I moved them lower in the script but kept them in the story. So, sometimes it’s super direct like that, but way more often it’s implicit. It’s indirect. You don’t have to say it. So, I give you a spectacular example of it, so that you get a sense of how it works implicitly. Cenk Uygur (00:40:10): So, since GE is a giant defense contractor, they own MSNBC at the time of the Iraq War. They fired everyone who was against the Iraq War on air. So, Phil Donahue, Jesse Ventura, Ashleigh Banfield, but Ashleigh Banfield, they did something different with. She was a rising star at the time. She goes and gives a speech in Kansas, not really even having a policy position, but just talking about the actual cost of this Iraq War and how we should be really careful. They hate that. So, they take their rising star and they take her off-air and she goes, “Okay, good. Let me out of my contract. It’s okay, I’ll go.” Because she was such a star at that time, she could have easily gotten somewhere else. They go, “No, we’re not going to let you out of your contract.” Cenk Uygur (00:40:53): Why not? Were you going to pay me to do nothing? Yeah, not only that, we’re moving your office. Where are you moving it to? They literally moved it into a closet and they made sure that everybody in the building saw her getting taken off the air and moved into a closet. The closet is the memo, right? That’s the memo to the whole building, you better shut up and do as you’re told, okay? So that way, I don’t have to tell you and get myself in trouble. It’s super obvious. There are guardrails here, and you are not allowed to go beyond acceptable thought. Acceptable thought is our sponsors are great, politicians are great, the powerful are great. Lex Fridman (00:41:33): So how do we begin to fix that, and what exactly are we fixing? Is it the influence of the lobbyists? It feels like companies have found different ways to achieve influence. So, how do we get money out of politics? Cenk Uygur (00:41:50): So it’s very difficult but doable and we will do it, but in order to do it, the populist left and the populist right have to unite. By the way, that is why we have the culture wars. Lex Fridman (00:42:01): That’s why you’re voting for Trump. Cenk Uygur (00:42:04): No chance. So, we can get into that in a minute. So, the culture wars are meant to divide us. If we get united, we have enough leverage and power to be able to do it, but you can’t do it through a normal bill. Because if you do it on a bill, the whole point of capturing the Supreme Court was to make sure that they kill any piece of legislation that would protect the American people. Lex Fridman (00:42:24): You’re saying the Supreme Court is also captured by this? Cenk Uygur (00:42:27): Oh, 100%. Okay. So, let me explain. Again, people for the uninitiated, they think, “Oh, that sounds conspiratorial.” Well, in this case, that’s actually somewhat true because people now know about this. It’s the Powell memo, the most infamous political memo in history. Lewis Powell writes a memo for the Chamber of Commerce in 1971. That’s basically a blueprint for how the Chamber of Commerce can take over the government. Lewis Powell explains, one of the most important things you have to do is take over the media, but even more important than that is taking over the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of what is allowed and not allowed. He says, “We need ‘activist judges’ to help business interests on the court.” Cenk Uygur (00:43:17): Then Nixon reads the memo and goes, “That sounds like a really good idea. How about I put you on the Supreme Court?” He puts Lewis Powell, the guy who wrote the memo, on the Supreme Court where he’s the deciding vote in Bellotti and Buckley. So, those two decisions are 1976 to 1978, and what they say is, yeah, I read the Constitution and it says that money’s speech. No, it isn’t. No, it didn’t. That’s not even close to true. They just made it up. They said, “Okay, in corporations, they’re human beings.” No, they’re not. That’s preposterous. They have the same inalienable rights as human beings and citizens do. Money is speech and speech is an inalienable right. So, corporations can spend unlimited money in politics, and there goes our democracy, gone. Cenk Uygur (00:44:10): So, Citizens United just shot a dead horse with a Gatling gun and made it worse and put it on steroids, but it was already dead in 1978. For the rest of your life, you’ll see this. Every chart about the American economy starts to diverge in 1978. 1938 to 1978, we have golden 40 years of economic prosperity. We create the greatest middle class the world has ever seen and our productivity is sky-high, but our wages match our productivity. After 1978, productivity is still sky-high best in the world. Oh, American worker’s lazy, not remotely true. We work our ass off, but we just flatline. They’ve been flatlining for about 50 years straight. The reason is because the Supreme Court made bribery legal. So, in order to get past the Supreme Court, you only have one choice. Cenk Uygur (00:45:09): That’s an amendment. So, you have to get an amendment. Amendments are very difficult. So, for example, you need two-thirds of Congress to even propose the amendment. So, well, why would Congress propose an amendment that would take away their own power? Because almost everybody in Congress got there through corruption. Their main talent is I can kiss corporate ass better than you can. A person with more money in Congress wins 95% of the time, but the good news is the founding fathers were geniuses, and they put in a second outlet. They said, “Or two-thirds of the states can call for a convention where you can propose an amendment. After an amendment is proposed, then three-quarters of the states have to ratify it.” Cenk Uygur (00:45:55): That’s what makes it so difficult, because getting three-quarters of the states, there’s so many red states, so many blue states, getting three-quarters of the states to agree is near impossible. But there is one issue that the whole country agrees on, 93% of Americans believe that politicians serve their donors and not their voters. So, this is the one thing we can unite on. If we unite on this, we push our states to call for a convention. We all go to the convention together, we bring democracy alive, and we propose amendments to the Constitution. The best amendment gets three-quarters of the states to ratify. You go above the Supreme Court and you solve the whole thing. Lex Fridman (00:46:33): So if 93% of people want this, why hasn’t it happened yet? I mean, the obvious answer is there’s corporate control of the media and the politicians, but it seems like our current system and the megaphone that a president has should be able to unite the populace left and right. So, it shouldn’t be that difficult to do. Why hasn’t a person like Trump who’s a billionaire or on the left, a rich businessman run just on this and win? Cenk Uygur (00:47:06): Well, eventually they will. So, that’s why I actually have a lot of hope, even though things seem super dark right now. That’s why I was for Bernie, so I can come back to that, but why hasn’t Trump done it? It’s easy. He’s like, “What am I, a sucker? The guy gives me money. I do what the guy wants. Why would I get rid of that? That’s how I got into power. So, that’s how I’m doing it now.” I go to [inaudible 00:47:29] and say, “Give me $100 million and I’ll let Israel annex the West Bank. So, I’ll go to the oil companies and give me $1 billion and I’ll give you tax subsidies. I’ll let you drill. I’ll take away regulation. Why would I stop that?” Lex Fridman (00:47:41): You think he likes money more than he likes being popular? Because there’s a big part of him that’s a populist in the sense that he loves being admired by large masses of people. Cenk Uygur (00:47:55): You’re absolutely right, but that is the fault of MAGA. So, MAGA, you’re screwing populists in a way that is infuriating and smart libertarians like Dave Smith have figured this out. That’s why he’s just as mad at Trump as I am. It’s because he took a populist movement and he redirected it for his own personal gain. MAGA, figure it out. Come on. So, if you say, “Oh, you think Democrats have figured out that these politics…” No, they largely haven’t figured it out either. I think there’s Blue MAGA, and I could talk about that as well. But for those of us on the populist left, yeah, we’re not enamored by politicians. Cenk Uygur (00:48:37): For example, when Bernie does the wrong thing, we call him out. Bernie is not my Goddamn uncle. I don’t like him for some personality reason. It’s not a cult of personality. You do the right thing, I love you for it. You do the wrong thing, I’m going to kick your ass for it. But Donald Trump does this massive ridiculous corruption over and over again. MAGA is like, “I’m here for it. Love it. As long as you’re doing the corruption, I’m okay with it.” Lex Fridman (00:48:59): What does Trump say about getting money out of politics? Cenk Uygur (00:49:01): He says nothing about it. MAGA, why haven’t you held him to account? So when Bernie helped Biden take out $15 minimum wage from the Senate bill on the first bill that was introduced in the Biden administration, we went nuts. We did a petition. We sent in videos to Bernie, our audience going, “Don’t kill it, Bernie. Don’t kill it.” So Bernie then reintroduced it as an amendment. It got voted down, but he did the right thing. That is us holding our top leader accountable and saying, “You better get back on track because we’re not here for you and your personal self-aggrandizement. We’re here for policy.” If MAGA was actually here for policy, they would’ve absolutely leveled Trump on the fact that he… I mean, remember what he ran on drain the swamp. That’s why he won in 2016. Cenk Uygur (00:49:51): So, I predicted on ABC right after the DNC and Hillary Clinton was up 10, 12 points, whatever she was, and I said, “Trump would win.” The whole panel laughed out loud. They’re like, “Get a load of this crazy guy.” I said, “He’s a populist who seems to hate the establishment in a populist time. Drain the swamp is a great slogan. I knew he would win when he was in a Republican debate and he said, ‘I paid all these guys. Before I paid them, and they did whatever I wanted.'” I was like, “That’s so true.” People will love that, and especially Republican voters will love that. I actually have a lot of respect for Republican voters because they actually genuinely hate corruption. Lex Fridman (00:50:36): So what would an amendment look like that helps prevent money being an influence in politics? Cenk Uygur (00:50:44): So I started a group called Wolf-PAC. Lex Fridman (00:50:48): Nice name. Cenk Uygur (00:50:48): Thank you, wold-pac.com. The reason why I named it Wolf-PAC is because everyone in Washington I knew would hate that name. It’s a populist name. Everybody in Washington snickers, “Now you’re supposed to name it Americans for America and just trick people,” et cetera. No, no, no. Wolf-PAC means we’re coming for you, okay? We’re not coming for you in a weirdo physical or violent way. We’re coming for you in a democratic way, okay? So we’re going to go to those state houses. We’re going to get them to propose a convention and we did it in five states, but then the Democratic Party started beating us back. We’ll get to that. So, we are going to overturn your apple cart and we’re going to put the American people back in charge. So, what does the amendment say? Cenk Uygur (00:51:32): Number one, a lot of people will have different opinions on what it should say, and that’s what you sort out in a convention. So, for example, one of the things that conservatives can propose, which makes sense, is term limits. Because the reason why these super old politicians are in charge is because they provide a return on investment. So, if you give to Biden, Pelosi, or McConnell, they’re going to deliver for you. They love that return on investment. They don’t want to risk it on a new guy. The new guy might have principles, ew, or might want to actually do a little bit for his voters, boo. Every corrupt system has these old guys hanging around that help maintain power, et cetera. So, my particular proposal in the amendments would be a couple of things. Cenk Uygur (00:52:21): One is end private financing of elections. Look, if you’re a businessperson, you’re a capitalist, you know this with absolute certainty. If somebody signs your check, that’s the person you work for. So, if private interests are funding politicians, the politicians will serve private interests. Then you’re going to get into a fight like Elon did in New Jersey where the car dealerships and Tesla are getting into an auction. Can I hear $100,000, $1 million, $2 million, $3 million? Now you got to go bribe the government official. That’s called a campaign contribution. This is a terrible system. End the private financing, go to complete public financing of elections. Cenk Uygur (00:53:07): That’s when conservatives, because they’ve been propagandized by corporate media. Yes, mainstream media got into your head too. Right-wing media got into your head too, and right-wing media also financed by a lot of this corrupt interest. So, they tell you, “Oh, you don’t want to publicly finance. Oh, my God. You’d be spending like $1 billion on politicians.” Brother, they’re spending trillions of dollars of your money because they’re financed by the guys that they’re giving all of your money to. Lex Fridman (00:53:32): So can you educate me? Does that prevent something like Citizen United? So super PACs are all gone in this case. So, indirect funding is also- Cenk Uygur (00:53:41): Indirect funding’s gone, direct funding’s gone. You have to set up some thresholds. Not everybody can just get money to run. You have to prove that you have some popular support. So, signature gathering, you would still allow for small money donations like up to $100, something along those lines. Lex Fridman (00:54:00): Not 5,000 or whatever it is now. Cenk Uygur (00:54:02): Yeah, I think 5,000 is too high, but those are fine debates. But you basically want to create an incentive. Everything is about incentives and disincentives. Again, capitalists realize this better than anyone else. So, you want to set up an incentive to serve your voters, not your donors. So, if you take away private donors, well, there goes that incentive and that’s gigantic. Then if you set up small grassroots funding as a way to get past the threshold to get the funding to run an election, well, then good, because then you’re serving small donors, which are generally voters. So, that’s what you want. Ending private financing is critical, but the second thing is ending corporate personhood. This is where you get into a lot of fights because you have two reasons. Cenk Uygur (00:54:49): One is some folks have a principled position against it, and they say, “Well, I mean the Sierra Club is technically a corporation. ACLU is technically a corporation. So, if you end corporate personhood, then that could endanger their existence.” No, it doesn’t endanger their existence at all. So, it doesn’t endanger GM or GE’s existence. It doesn’t endanger anybody’s existence. Corporations exist. We’re not trying to take them away. I would never do that, right? That’s not smart, that’s not workable, et cetera. We’re just saying they don’t have constitutional rights. So, they have the rights that we give them. By the way, read the founding fathers. This is also in my book. They hated corporations. The American Revolution was partly against the British East India Company. Cenk Uygur (00:55:39): So, the Tea Party in Boston was against that corporation. They threw their tea overboard. It was not against the British monarchy. All the founding fathers warned us over and over again, watch out for corporations, because once they form, they will amass money and power and look to kill off democracy. They were totally right. That’s exactly what happened. So, it’s not that you don’t have them. It’s that through democratic capitalism, you limit their power. You can give them a bunch of rights. You say, “Hey, you have a right to exist. You have a right to do this, this, and this, but you do not have constitutional rights of a citizen.” So you don’t have the right to speak to a politician by giving them a billion dollars. Lex Fridman (00:56:29): You believe that the people will be able to find the right policies to regulate and tax the corporations such that capitalism can flourish still? Cenk Uygur (00:56:40): Yes. You know why? Because I’m a real populist, and I believe in the people. So, I drive the establishment crazy because they don’t believe in the people. They think, “Oh, have you seen MAGA? Have you seen these guys? Have you seen the radicals on the left? We’re so much smarter. You know how many Ivy League degrees we have? We know what we’re doing.” No, you don’t. No, everybody to some degree looks out for their own interests. Why I like capitalism and why I love democracy is because it’s the wisdom of the crowd. So, in the long run, the crowd is right. Oftentimes in the short term, we’re wrong. But the wisdom of the crowd in the long run is much, much better than the elites that run things. Cenk Uygur (00:57:23): The elites say, “Well, we’re so smart and educated, so we’re going to know better what’s good for you.” No, brother. You’re going to know what’s better for you. So, here’s something that a lot of people get wrong on the populist left and right. They think, “Oh, those guys are evil.” They’re not evil. I’ve met them. I worked at MSNBC, I worked on cable, I went to Wharton, Columbia Law, et cetera. I know a lot of those guys. So, they’re not at all evil. They don’t even know that they’re mainly serving their own interests. They just naturally do it. Cenk Uygur (00:57:52): So, they think the carried interest loophole makes a lot of sense. They think corporate tax cuts makes a lot of sense. You not getting higher wages, you not having healthcare, it makes a lot of sense. It doesn’t make any goddamn sense, but they get themselves to believe it. That’s another portion of the invisible hand of the market. Lex Fridman (00:58:10): So there’s problems with every path. So, the elite, like you mentioned, can be corrupted by greed, by power, and so on. But the crowd, I agree with you, by the way, about the wisdom of the crowd versus the wisdom of the elite, but the crowd can be captured by a charismatic leader. I’m probably a populist myself. The problem with populism is that it can’t be and has been throughout history captured by bad people. Cenk Uygur (00:58:38): But if you say to me, trust the elites or trust the people, I’m going to trust the people every single time. Lex Fridman (00:58:44): Well, that’s why you’re such an interesting… I don’t want to say contradiction, but there’s a tension that creates the balance. So, to me, in the way you’re speaking might result in hurting capitalism. So, it is easy in fighting corporatism to hurt companies, to go too far the other way. Cenk Uygur (00:59:07): Yeah, of course. Lex Fridman (00:59:08): So when you talk about corporate tax, so what’s the magic number for the corporate tax? If it’s too high, companies leave. Cenk Uygur (00:59:20): Companies have so much power right now. This pendulum has swung so far. Guys, we’re almost out of time. The window’s closing. The minute private equity buys all of our homes, the residential real estate market, we’re screwed. We’re indentured servants forever. There goes wealth creation for the average American. So, you’re right, Lex, that it’s not a contradiction. It’s a tension that is inevitable to get to balance. The reason why people can’t figure me out, they’re like, “Well, you’re on the left, but you’re a capitalist, et cetera.” That’s not a contradiction. That’s getting to the right balance. In order to do that, if you say, “Well, if we change the system, I’m afraid of change because what if the pendulum swings too far in the other direction?” Cenk Uygur (01:00:12): Well, then you would be opposed to change at all times. So, if you do that, it actually reminds me of the Biden fight. So, I’m like, “Guys, he has almost no chance of winning. He stands for the establishment. He can’t talk.” But then the number one pushback I’d get from Democrats was, yeah, but what if we change? It’s so scary. We don’t know about Kamala Harris. What if it’s not Kamala Harris? It’s so scary, don’t change. Yeah, but if you say change might be worse, it also might be better. You’re at zero. Anything is better, right? Right now, in terms of corruption in America, we’re at 98% corruption. So, we’ve got 2% decency left. Brother, this is when you want change. Cenk Uygur (01:01:05): Lex, if you actually have wisdom of the crowd, just like in supply and demand and how it works in economics, it works the same way in a functioning democracy. You go too far, you come back in. So, for example, when Reagan came into office, me and my dad and my family, we were Republicans. Why? At that point, the highest marginal tax rate was at 70%. 70% is too high. Then he brought it all the way down to 28%. That’s too low. That’s how the system modulates itself. Already we were headed towards corruption because it’s the 80s now. We’re past 78, magic 78 marker. Cenk Uygur (01:01:48): Even Carter was way more conservative economically than people realize because we’re already getting past it by the time it’s in his administration. But the bottom line is, yes, whenever you have real wisdom of the crowd, whether it’s in business or in politics, you’re going to have fluctuation. You’re going to have that pendulum swinging back and forth. You don’t want wild swings, communism, corporatism, right? You want to get to hey, where’s the right balance here between capitalism and what people think is socialism? Lex Fridman (01:02:17): Yeah. So, I guess I agree with most of the things you said about the corruption. I just wish there would be more celebration of the fact that capitalism and some incredible companies in the history of the 20th century has created so much wealth, so much innovation that has increased the quality of life on average. They’ve also increased the wealth inequality and exploitation of the workers and this stuff, but you want to not forget to celebrate the awesomeness that companies have also brought outside the political sphere just in creating awesome stuff. Cenk Uygur (01:02:53): Look, I run a company. So, I don’t want companies to go away, and I don’t want you to hate all companies. I think Young Turks is a wonderful company. We provide great healthcare, we take care of our employees, we care about the community, et cetera. We’re building a whole nation online on those principles and the right way to run a company. But guys, we’re at the wrong part of the pendulum. The companies have overwhelming power and they’re crushing us. We’re like that scene in Star Wars with the trash compactor is closing in on them. The walls are closing in. We’re almost out of time because they’ve captured the government almost entirely. They’re only serving corporate interests. We’ve got to get back into balance before it’s too late. That’s why I care so much about structural issues. So, I form Justice Democrats, so that’s AOC, et cetera, right? People know it as the squad. They know it as just Democrats, et cetera. I’m one of the co-founders of that, and my number one rule was no corporate PAC money. So, you’re not allowed to take corporate PAC money. By the way, now, Matt- Cenk Uygur (01:04:00): Okay, so you’re not allowed to take corporate PAC money. By the way. Now Matt Gaetz and Josh Hawley have stopped taking corporate PAC money and they’ve become, to some degree on economic issues genuine populists. It’s amazing. It happens overnight. All of a sudden they’re talking about holding corporations accountable, et cetera. Now just Democrats wind up having other problems. They got too deep into social issues, not economic issues. Lex Fridman (01:04:24): There’s a general criticism of billionaires, right? This idea. Now you could say that billionaires are avoiding taxes and they’re not getting taxed enough. But I think under that flag of criticizing billionaires is criticizing all companies that do epic shit. That build stuff. Cenk Uygur (01:04:45): Oh, okay. So- Lex Fridman (01:04:46): That create stuff. That’s what I’m worried about. I don’t hear enough genuine… I like celebrating people. I like celebrating ideas. I just don’t hear enough genuine celebration of companies when they do cool things. Cenk Uygur (01:05:01): So are you, right, not about companies, but about capitalism? Yes. Because you look at life expectancy 200 years ago, and you look at it now and you go, wow, holy shit, we did amazing things. And what happened in the last 200 years? We went from dictatorships more towards democracy, wisdom of the crowd. We went from serfs and indentured servants and a nobility that holds the land to more towards capitalism. And boom, the crowd is right. Things go really well. The advances in medicine are amazing, and medicine is a great example. And on our show, I point all those things out and I say, look, we hate the drug companies because of how they’ve captured the government, right? But we don’t hate the drug companies for creating great drugs. Those drugs save lives. They just saved my life. They saved countless millions upon millions of lives. Cenk Uygur (01:05:57): So the right idea isn’t shut down drug companies. The right idea is don’t let them buy the government, right? And I know we get back into our instinctual shells, so on the left they’ll be, oh, we should get rid of all billionaires. Why? How does that fix the system? Tell me how it fixes the system, and I’m all ears. My solution is end private financing. Then you can be a billionaire all you like. You can’t buy the government. That’s a more logical way to go about it. I’ve never worn an Eat the Rich shirt, and it drives me crazy. I’m like, “You would’ve eaten FDR.” Right? And FDR is the best president, the most populous president in my opinion. And so no, there’s wonderful rich people. Of course, of course there’s a range of humanity. But you don’t want to get rid of the rich. You don’t want to get rid of companies, but you also don’t want to let them control everything. Cenk Uygur (01:06:51): Here, I’ll give you an example that’s really, and that informs a lot of how I think about things, which is my dad. So my dad was a farmer in southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border. No money. In fact, his dad died when he was six months old. And so they were saddled with debt and no electricity in his house. As poor as poor gets. And he wound up living the American dream. And so how did he do that? What made the difference? Well, what made the difference is opportunity. So I’m a populist because my dad was in the masses, and the elites say the masses are no good. We’re smart, you’re not. We’re educated, you are not. At meritocracy, we talk about that. We have earned merit. And if you’re poor or middle-class, you have not earned merit. Okay? You’re useless and worthless. And I hate that. Cenk Uygur (01:07:51): So what did Turkey do back in the 1960s that liberated my dad? They provided free college education. You had to test into it, but the top 15% got a free college education at the best colleges in Turkey. And my uncle saved all of our lives when he came to my dad and said, “Do you like working on this farm?” And my dad’s like, “Fuck no.” It’s super hot. It’s super hard. They got to get up at four in the morning. If they’re lucky, they have a family next door gives them a mule. If they’re not, they got to carry the shit themselves. So my uncle told him, work just as hard in school and you’ll be able to get a house, a car, pretty girls, et cetera. My dad works his ass off, gets into the school, and he comes out of a mechanical engineer and starts his own company. Cenk Uygur (01:08:40): He creates a company in Turkey, hires hundreds of people. He then moves to America, creates a company here, hires tons of people. Do I hate companies? No. My dad set up two companies and I saw how much it benefited people. I saw how much employees would come up to my dad 20, 30 years later in the street and hug him. And they’d tell me, as a young kid, your dad’s the most fair boss we ever had. And we love him for it. That’s how you run a company. And he taught me the value of hard work. Cenk Uygur (01:09:09): But the reason I brought it up here is because he taught me, look, skill and ability is a genetic lottery. So you’re not going to just get the rich to win all the genetic lottery. No. There’s going to be tons of poor kids and middle-class kids who are just as good if not better. You have to provide them the opportunity, the fair chance to succeed. You have to believe in them. So this isn’t about disempowering anyone. It’s about empowering all of those kids who are doing the right thing, who are smart and want to work hard so they could build their own companies and add to the economy. Lex Fridman (01:09:47): What in general is your view on meritocracy? Cenk Uygur (01:09:50): So I love meritocracy. I wish that we lived in a meritocracy and I want to drive towards living in a meritocracy. So that’s why I don’t like equality of results. So now people that are on the left will get super mad at that and go, what do you mean? Well, okay, brother, let’s say you’re at work and you got one guy who’s working his ass off. Another guy, that’s going, I don’t care. I’m not going to do it. Well, the guy who works super hard has to pick up the slack. Now he’s working twice as hard and now you want the same results? You want the same salary as that guy? No brother. No. He’s working twice, four times, 10 times harder than you. That’s not fair. Fairness matters. We were in the suburbs of Jersey, but we wound up in Freehold eventually, and we lived across a farm, which is… In central Jersey, it happens. And it was called Fair Chance Farm. I was like, how did I get, this is amazing, right? And I love that. That’s the essence of America, and that’s what I want to go back to. So we’ve got to create that opportunity, not just because it’s the moral thing to do, but because it’s also the economically smart thing to do. If you enable all those great people that are in lower income classes and middle income classes, you’re going to get a much better economy, a much stronger democracy. So that’s the direction we go. Lex Fridman (01:11:16): So again, it’s about balance, but what do you think about DEI policies say in academia and companies? So the movement as it has evolved, where’s that on the balance? How far is it pushing towards equality of outcome versus equality of opportunity? Cenk Uygur (01:11:41): So now we’re getting into social issues. So this is where we all rip each other apart, and then the people at the top laugh their off at us and go, we got them fighting over trans issues. They’re killing each other. It is hilarious. And they’re so busy, they don’t realize we’re running the place. Right? Okay, but let’s engage. Some people will look at DEI and go, well, that just gives me an opportunity just like anyone else. I love DEI. And other person will look at it and go, no, that says that you should be picked above me. And I hate DEI. So the reality of DEI is a little bit more complicated, but you got to go back. So first, did we need affirmative action in the 1960s? Definitely. Why? All the firefighter jobs in South Carolina, as an example, are going to white guys. Cenk Uygur (01:12:31): All the longshoremen jobs in New York, LA, wherever you have it, are all going to white guys because that’s how the system was. Yes, also in the north. So we now are in a civil rights era. We decide we’re going to go towards equality. Minorities, in that case, mainly black Americans, had to find a way to break in. If you’re a longshoreman and it’s a good job, you naturally pass it on to your son. I get your instinct, I don’t hate you for it. But we got to let black kids also have a shot at it. So you need it in the beginning, but at a certain point you have to phase it out. Cenk Uygur (01:13:06): So when I was growing up, it’s now in the late ’80s, early ’90s, I hated affirmative action and I’ve been principled on it from day one. And to this day, I’m not in favor of affirmative action. I say it on the show all the time. Why? I’m a minority. Being a Turk. I grew up Muslim, I’m an atheist now, but generally speaking, a Muslim is certainly a minority in America and pretty much a hated one overall. But I didn’t check off Muslim or Turkish or any ethnicity when I applied to college because I believe in a meritocracy as we were talking about. But we don’t really have a meritocracy now, so I can come back to that, so I didn’t check it off because I didn’t want an unfair advantage, because I want to earn it. I want to earn it. So now I’m in law school and I’m hanging out with right-wingers because at that point I’m a Republican, and one of the guys says to me about a black student going to Columbia, he says, oh, I wonder how he got in here. Cenk Uygur (01:14:13): God, that is the problem with affirmative action. It devalues the accomplishments of every minority in the country. You have to transition away from it. If you don’t, it sets up a caste system. And that caste system is lethal to democracy. So does DEI go too far? In some instances, yes. But is it a boogeyman that’s going to take all the white jobs and make them black as Trump would say, black jobs, and give minorities too much power, et cetera? No. The idea isn’t to rob you and to give all the opportunity to minorities. The idea is to make it equal. But as the pendulum swings, did it swing too far in some directions? Yes. The left can’t acknowledge that and the right can’t acknowledge that, of course, at some point you got to give a chance for others to break in so they have a fair chance. Lex Fridman (01:15:03): By the way, Michelle Obama had a good line about the black jobs in the DNC speech- Cenk Uygur (01:15:07): Great line. I loved that. Lex Fridman (01:15:08): Where somebody should tell Trump that the presidency might be just one of those black jobs. Anyway, but why do you think the left doesn’t acknowledge when DEI gets ridiculous? Which it, in certain places and in certain places at a large scale has gotten ridiculous. Cenk Uygur (01:15:28): Because people are taught to just be in the tribe they’re in. And to believe it a hundred percent. I’ve gotten kicked out of every… I might be the most attacked man in internet history, partly because we’ve been around forever. And partly because I disagree with every part of the political spectrum, because I believe in independent thought. And the minute you vary a little bit, people go nuts. And so the far left tribe is going to go with their preset ideology, just like the far right tribe is. Cenk Uygur (01:16:02): So for example, on trans issues, we’ve protected trans people for over 20 years in The Young Turks. We fought for equality for trans people and for all LGBTQ people for two decades. We did it way before anyone else did. When Biden came out in favor of gay marriage in 2013, we’re like, this is comically late. So we were all supposed to congratulate him in the year 2013 that he thinks gay people should have the same rights as straight people? And that he had to push Obama to get there? So on the other hand, I’m like, guys, if you allow trans women to go into professional sports, not at the high school level, but professional sports, but let’s say they go into MMA or boxing and a trans woman, I mean, it happens in boxing, it happens in MMA, punches a biological woman so hard that she kills her. So you’re going to set back trans rights 50 years. I’m not trying to hurt you, I’m trying to help you. You have to do bounds of reason. Cenk Uygur (01:17:07): So when I say simple things like that, and I say, you can give LeBron James every hormone blocker on planet earth, he’s still going to dominate the WNBA. Okay? It would be comical. He might score a hundred points a night. And they’ll say, that’s outrageous. And some have called me Nazi for saying that trans women or that professional leagues should make their own decisions on whether they allow trans women in or not. So why do they say that? Because they’re so besieged, they think we cannot give an inch. We cannot give any ground. If you give any ground, you’re a Nazi. Okay? So we’ve got to get out of that mindset. You can’t function in a democracy and be in an extreme position and expect the rest of the country to go towards your extreme position. Lex Fridman (01:17:57): So why do you think we are not in a meritocracy? Cenk Uygur (01:18:00): Because of the corruption. So for example, but there’s also, remember, corporate media is the matrix and they plug you into cable in the old days. Now, it’s a little bit different because of online media, but especially 10 years ago, and remember we started 22 years ago. So I’ve been losing my mind over how obvious corporate media corruption has been for decades now, but no one acknowledged it until online media got stronger. But one of the myths that corporate media creates is the myth of meritocracy. Not that meritocracy can’t exist or shouldn’t exist, but they pretend it exists today. So the problem with that myth, Lex, is that it gets people thinking, well, if they’re already rich, they must have merited it by definition. So all the rich have merit. And the reverse of that, if you’re poor or middle class, well, you must not have merited wealth. So you’re no good. We don’t have to listen to you. And that’s a really dangerous, awful idea. Cenk Uygur (01:19:05): And so if we get to a meritocracy one day, I’ll be the happiest person in America. But right now it’s… Look here I’ll give you an example that I put in the book, and it’s not us, this other folks at this YouTube video. I can’t even quite find who they were, but it was a brilliant video, and they said, we’re going to do a hundred yard race. But hold on before we start, anyone who has two parents take two steps forward. Anyone who went to college, take another two steps forward. Anyone who doesn’t have bills to pay for education anymore, take two steps forward. They do all these things. And then at the end, before they start, somebody’s 20 yards from the finish line, and a lot of people are still at the starting line, and then they go, okay, now we’re going to run a race. And the guy who was right next to the finish line wins and they go, meritocracy. Okay? Lex Fridman (01:19:57): So the challenge there is to know which disparities when you just freeze the system and observe are actually a result of some kind of discrimination or a flaw in the system versus the result of meritocracy, of the better runner being ahead. Cenk Uygur (01:20:12): That’s right. There are some parts that are easy to solve, Lex. So if you donated to a politician and he gave you a billion dollar subsidy, that’s not meritocracy. Lex Fridman (01:20:24): So if you follow on the money, you can see the flaws in the system. Cenk Uygur (01:20:27): Exactly. And again, nothing’s ever perfect. At any snapshot of history or of the moment, you’re going to be at some point in the pendulum swing. But if you trust the people and you let the pendulum swing but not wildly, then you’re going to get to the right answers in the long run. Lex Fridman (01:20:45): So you think this woke mind virus that the right refers to is a problem, but not a big problem? Cenk Uygur (01:20:54): No. So the right wing drives me crazy. So look, guys, your instincts of populism is correct. Your instincts of anti-corruption is correct, right? And I love you for it. And so in a lot of ways, the right-wing voters figured out the whole system’s screwed before left-wing voters did. I shouldn’t say left-wing voters, because progressives and left-wing have been saying it for not only decades, but maybe centuries. But democratic voters. A lot of democratic voters, some of them actually like this current system, a lot of them have been tricked into liking this current system. And the left should be fighting against corruption harder than the right. But right now, unfortunately that’s not the case. Cenk Uygur (01:21:38): So there’s a lot that I like about right-wing voters. But you guys get tricked on social issues so easily. So how many people are involved in trans high school sports and a girl who should have finished first in that track race in the middle of Indiana finished second. First of all, this is the big crime? And how many people are involved about 7? 13? Out of a country of 330 million people? And you can’t see that that’s a distraction? And everything they did that is bait that the right wing media puts out there, they run after. I mean, Tucker Carlson doing insane segments about Eminem should be sexier. Mr. Potato Head has gender issues. Guys, get out of there. Get out of there. It’s a trap. Okay? Lex Fridman (01:22:31): Yeah, that doesn’t mean that there’s… Absolutely. It doesn’t mean that there’s larger scale issues with things like DEI that aren’t so fun to talk about or viral to talk about on an anecdotal scale. DEI does create a culture of fear with cancel culture, and it does create a culture that limits the freedom of expression, and it does limit the meritocracy in another way. So you’re basically saying, forget all these other problems. Money is the biggest problem. Cenk Uygur (01:23:07): So first of all, on AOC, as an example, and I don’t mean to pick on her, but she won through the great work of her and Saikat Chakrabarti and Corbyn Trent and others who were leaders of the Justice Democrats that went and helped her campaign. They were critical help. And we all told her the same thing. So it’s not about me, me, me. And so we all said, you’ve got to challenge the establishment and you’ve got to work on money in politics first, because if you don’t work on money in politics and you don’t fix that, you’re going to lose on almost all other issues. But she didn’t believe us because it’s uncomfortable. And all the progressives that went into Congress, they drive me crazy. They think, oh, no, no, you’re exaggerating. And the minute they get in, all of a sudden, my colleagues. Your colleagues hate you and they’re going to drive you out. You’re a sucker. And Jamaal Bowman, Corey Bush, what did they do? They drove them out. Marie Newman drove them out. And because they’re not on your side, they’re not your colleagues. Cenk Uygur (01:24:11): And what happened to $15 minimum wage? And I remember talking to one of those Congress people, I leave out the name, and saying, hey, you know they’re not going to do $15 minimum wage. And he is like, “Oh, Cenk, you’re out of the loop. Nancy Pelosi assured us that they are going to do $15 minimum wage.” I’m like, “I love you, but you’re totally wrong. Moneyed interests are not going to do $15 minimum wage. You have to start fighting now.” And they didn’t get it. So they lost on almost all those issues. It’s all about incentives and disincentives and rules. If you don’t fix the rules, you’re going to constantly run into the same brick wall. Cenk Uygur (01:24:47): Now, the second issue that we were talking about is in the culture wars. The rest of us are stuck between the two extreme two-percenter on both sides. So the two two-percenter on the left goes, if you’re a white woman, you need to shut up and listen now, okay? That’s ridiculous. No, you don’t. If you’re a white woman, you have every right to speak out. You have every right that every other human being has. And so would I love for all of us to listen to one another, to have empathy for one another and go, hey, I wonder how a right-winger thinks about this. I wonder how a left-Winger thinks about this. I wonder why they think that way, right? I love that and I want that. So I want you to listen, but I don’t want you to shut up. So that 2% gets extreme and I don’t like it. Cenk Uygur (01:25:35): But on the right wing, you got your 2% who think that that’s all that’s happening on the left, and that’s all that’s happening in American politics, and they think the entire left believes that tiny 2%, and so they hate the left, and they’re like, oh, I’m not going to shut up. Oh, I’m not going to wear a mask. I’m not going to do any of these things and I’m not going to do anything. That’s a freedom. And then a Republican comes along and goes, oh yeah, that thing you call freedom, that’s deregulation for corporations because you shouldn’t really have freedom. Companies should have freedom. And then the guy goes, “Yeah, freedom for ExxonMobil.” No brother, they tricked you. Lex Fridman (01:26:12): Yeah, the 2% on each side is a useful distraction for for the corruption of the politicians via money still. I’m talking about the 96% that remains in the middle and the impact that DEI policies has on them. Cenk Uygur (01:26:25): So here’s where it gets absurd. I’ll give you a good example of absurdity. So in a school, I believe in California, they noticed that Latino students were not doing as well in AP and honors classes. So they canceled AP and honors classes. Oh, come on. What are you doing? That’s nuts. No, your job is to help them get better grades, get better opportunity, et cetera. That’s the harder thing to do, and the right thing to do. Your job isn’t, I’m going to make everything equal by taking away the opportunity for higher achievement for other students. If that’s what you’re doing and you think you’re on the left, you’re not really on the left. I actually think that’s like an authoritarian position that no progressive in their right mind would be in favor of. But it’s all definitional. So here’s another example of definitional. Communism. They say, oh my god, Kamala Harris is a communist. Cenk Uygur (01:27:24): Well, you’re telling on yourself brothers and sisters, when you say that that means A, I don’t know what communism means, and B, I don’t have any idea what’s going on in American politics. Kamala Harris is a corporatist. That’s her problem. Not that she’s a communist, she’s on the other end of the spectrum. The idea that Kamala Harris would come into office and say, that’s it. There’s no more private property. We’re going to take all of your homes and it’s now government property, then all your cars, et cetera. She was not going to get within a billion miles of that. Her donors would never allow her to get within a billion miles of that. That is so preposterous that when you say something like that, it’s disqualifying. I can’t debate someone who thinks that Democrats are communists when they’re actually largely corporatists. You see what I’m saying? Lex Fridman (01:28:12): Yeah. So let’s go there. So when people call her a communist, they’re usually referring to certain kinds of policies. So do you think, I mean, it’s a ridiculous label to assign to Kamala Harris, especially given the history of communism in the 20th century and what those economic and political policies have led to, the scale of suffering that led to, and it just degrades the meaning of the word, but to take that seriously, why is she not a communist? So you said she’s not a communist because she’s a corporatist. That can’t be… Okay. Everybody in politics is a corporatist- Cenk Uygur (01:28:54): Almost. Lex Fridman (01:28:54): Almost everybody in politics is a corporatist, but that doesn’t mean that corporations have completely bought their mind. They have an influence in their mind on issues that matter to those corporations- Cenk Uygur (01:29:05): Yep. Lex Fridman (01:29:06): Right? Cenk Uygur (01:29:06): Yep. Lex Fridman (01:29:07): Outside of that, they’re still thinking for the voters because they still have to win the votes. Cenk Uygur (01:29:12): Barely. Lex Fridman (01:29:13): Okay. Cenk Uygur (01:29:14): So here, let me give you examples so you see what I’m saying. So if you just wanted votes, you would do a lot of what Tim Walz did. And by the way, a lot of what Bernie did, that’s why Bernie who had no media coverage went from 2% in 2015 to by the end about 48% because he’s just doing things that were popular and that American people wanted, et cetera, because he’s not controlled by corporations. By the way, neither is Tom Massie on the right wing side, on the Republican side. So it’s not all, that’s why I always say almost all. Right? So if you’re doing things that are popular, people love it. So today, what would Kamala Harris do if she actually just wanted to win? So number one, she was trying to pass paid family leave right now. Why? It polls at 84% and even 74% of Republicans want it. Cenk Uygur (01:30:07): Why? Because it says, hey, when you have a baby, you should get 12 weeks off. Bond with your baby. Right now, in a lot of states that don’t have paid family leave, you have to go back to work the very next day, or you have to use all of your sick days, all your vacation days, just have one or two weeks with your baby. So conservatives love paid family leave, liberals love paid family leave. That’s why it polls so high. So why isn’t she proposing it? It’s not in her economic plan. Tim Walz already passed it in Minnesota. He showed how easy it was. If you want votes, and then you know what’s going to happen if you propose paid family leave, the Republicans are going to go, no, our beloved corporations don’t want to spend another dollar on moms, and they fall for that trap, and then you are in an infinitely better shape. Cenk Uygur (01:30:53): So why doesn’t she do it? She doesn’t do it because her corporate donors don’t want her to do it. $15 minimum wage, layup. Over two thirds of the country wants it because it not only gives you higher wages for minimum wage folks, but it pushes wages up for others. And what do the elites say? Oh, that’s going to drive up inflation. No, you shouldn’t get paid anymore. Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. So you’re saying all the other prices should go up, but the only thing that shouldn’t go up is our wages? No, our wages should go up. So these are all easy ones. Cenk Uygur (01:31:25): Here’s another one. Anti-corruption. Why isn’t she running on getting money out of politics? It polls at over 90%. Why isn’t Trump running on it anymore? He won when he ran on it in 2016, he didn’t mean a word of it, but he ran on it. It was smart. They don’t do it because their corporate donors take their heads off if they do it. Lex Fridman (01:31:43): So in contradiction to that, why did she propose to raise the corporate tax rate from, whatever, 21% to 28%? Cenk Uygur (01:31:51): Because that’s easy, because that is something that’s super popular and she’s not going to do it. That’s why. So guys, this is where I break the hearts of Blue MAGA. Blue MAGA thinks, oh my God, these Democrats, they’re angels, and the right wing is, and the Republicans are evil, and they work for big business, but not Kamala Harris, not Joe Biden. Right? Okay. Well, Donald Trump took the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. So that’s trillions of dollars that got transferred because guys, you got to understand if the corporations don’t pay it, we have to pay it because we’re running up these giant deficits and eventually either they’re going to, not eventually, they keep raising our taxes in different ways that you’re not noticing. They keep increasing fees and fines and different ways for the government to collect money. So we’re paying for it. Cenk Uygur (01:32:44): And on top of that, eventually they’re going to cut your Social Security and Medicare because they’re going to say, oh, we don’t have any options left anymore. You don’t have any options left any more because you kept giving trillions of dollars in tax cuts to corporations, so we’re going to have to pay for that. Cenk Uygur (01:32:56): So then Biden says, oh my God, I’m going to bring corporate taxes back up to 28%. I’m like, wait, hold on. They were at 35. You already did a sleight of hand and said 28. Okay? Then he gets into office and Manchin says, no, 25, that’s the highest I’ll go. And he goes, okay, fine. 25. And then while you’re not looking, they just dump it. They don’t even do 25. It’s still at 21. So hear me now, quote me later. I do predictions on the show all the time because you should hold me accountable. You should hold all your pundits accountable. If you held all your pundits accountable, we’d be the last man standing. And that’s what happened. Okay? So I guarantee you she will not increase corporate taxes. Lex Fridman (01:33:38): So would the same be the case for price controls or the anti-price gouging that she’s proposing? Cenk Uygur (01:33:43): So it’s not price controls, it’s anti-price gouging? Lex Fridman (01:33:46): It is price controls, but I mean minimum wage is price controls also. Cenk Uygur (01:33:50): Now we’re going to get into a lot of minutiae, but I’ll try to keep it broad. So price controls are a disaster. They never work. If you say, oh, here’s a banana. It has to stay at a dollar a pound, make up a number. Well supply and demand’s going to move. And so the minute it moves to $2 or where the price should be, then you’re going to run into shortages. And we all know this, it’s a bad idea. But are there laws against price gouging? There already are, and they’re a good idea. So, why? You have a natural disaster? All of a sudden, the water that was a dollar, now they’re charging a hundred dollars. The government has to come in, democratic capitalism, they come in and go, no, I’m going to protect the people. So you’re not allowed to price gouge, maybe charge $2, et cetera, but you’re not going to charge a hundred. But it is temporary. We get that done, we end the problem there, and then we bring it back to a normal supply and demand. Okay? Cenk Uygur (01:34:45): So that’s what she’s proposing. That’s all political because the price gouging has already passed. They did it in ’21 and ’22, and so now the grocery stores are actually a low-margin business. She says grocery stores, that’s how I know she doesn’t mean it because the grocery stores weren’t the problem. Consumer goods were the problem. Cenk Uygur (01:35:05): Those companies- Lex Fridman (01:35:06): She’s following the polls where most people will say that the groceries are too expensive. So she’s just basically address… Saying the most popular thing. Yeah. Cenk Uygur (01:35:15): A hundred percent. And you could tell in which proposals she means it and which proposals she doesn’t because of the framing, right? So this is a mediocre example, but in housing, she said, we have to stop private equity from buying houses in bulk. I’m like, huh, curious that they put the word in bulk there. Why does it have to be in bulk? Why don’t we just stop them from buying any residential home? You could set up normal boundaries, right? For example, Charlie Kirk was on The Young Turks this week- Lex Fridman (01:35:48): By the way. Sorry to take that tangent. I really enjoyed that conversation. I really enjoyed that you talked to… That was civil. You guys disagreed pretty intensely, but there was a lot of respect. I really enjoyed that. Cenk Uygur (01:36:00): Thank you brother. Lex Fridman (01:36:01): That was beautiful. You and Charlie Kirk and I think- Lex Fridman (01:36:00): Yeah. Cenk Uygur (01:36:00): Thank you, brother. Lex Fridman (01:36:01): That was beautiful. You and Charlie Kirk, and I think Anna was there. Cenk Uygur (01:36:04): Yeah, that’s right. Lex Fridman (01:36:06): That’s nice. Cenk Uygur (01:36:06): Yeah. Quick tangent, look, I’ve done a lot of yelling online, okay? I yell when, A, there’s an issue that you should be passionate about, 40,000 people, 25,000 women and children slaughtered in Gaza. If you’re not emotionally upset by that and you think it’s no big deal, I think that’s a problem. But when you add gaslighting on top, that’s what drives me crazy. Then when you add filibustering on top, then that sets me off. So, for all my life, right wing has gone on cable and filibustered. They take up so much more time than the left wing guests. The left wing guests always like go, “Okay. Well, I’m offended, he’s taking up too much time.” No, brother, go over the top. Go over the top. You’re not going to talk over me. I’m going to talk over you, okay? Cenk Uygur (01:36:57): Then when you gaslight and you go, “Oh no, 1,200 people in Israel being killed is awful,” which it is, but 40,000 people being killed in Gaza, it’s no big deal. We should keep giving them money, keep killing, keep killing, and that’s normal. No, it’s not normal. I’m not going to let you say it’s normal. That’s nuts. We were against the Iraq War. There was only two shows that were on the air nationally that were against the Iraq War, us and Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. At the time, I used to yell all the time because mainstream media would gaslight the fuck out of us. We’re going to be greeted as liberators, me and Ben Mankiewicz on the air. Ben doesn’t yell as much. He’s now the host of Turner Classic Movies, but he’s saying it in a calm way. I’m saying it in a screaming way. Cenk Uygur (01:37:44): We’re not going to be greeted as liberators. When you drop a bomb on someone’s head, they don’t greet you as a liberator. Stop saying insane things. Seven out of 10 Americans thought that Saddam Hussein had personally attacked us on 9/11. We got lied into that war by corporate media, okay? Now, there’s a couple of good things that Trump has done. One is get people to realize corporate media is the matrix and get them to an anti-war position. He himself doesn’t have an anti-war position, but his voters do and that’s a positive. We can come back to that. Cenk Uygur (01:38:17): But these days, the reason why the Charlie Kirk conversations are going great, and Rudy Giuliani and Mike Lindell, and historically though, go back again 10 years, 20 years, we’ve always been respectful when someone comes on our show and we have a debate. As long as they’re not yelling, I match the tenor of the host, right? You and I are having a reasonable conversation. I’m not raising my voice. I’m not yelling at you for no reason. So, now when Charlie’s not going to battle anymore for talking points, I’m shutting off my mind, all I’m doing is yelling at you, then I’m going to yell back at him. But now he’s saying, “Okay, let’s have a reasonable conversation.” Great. I love it. I love reasonable conversations. Lex Fridman (01:39:01): It was great. It was refreshing. What were we talking about, you buying up housing? Cenk Uygur (01:39:07): Yes. So, Charlie, when he was on, said, “Hey, listen, I think that there should be a cap though.” I forget if he said 10 billion or 100 billion in assets. If you have less than that, you should still be able to do real estate as an investment, even if it’s residential. But above that, it gets to… Okay, that’s good. No problem. We can have a debate about that and we can figure out, “Is the right number 10, 100, 20, 5?” No problem. You could put in reasonable limitations, but we got to get them to stop buying the homes. So, when Kamala Harris says, “Oh, we’ll stop them from buying homes in bulk,” I’m like, “Okay, there’s the loophole.” So they’re going to use that loophole. Besides which, it’s not going to pass. Wall Street owns the government. Cenk Uygur (01:39:48): So, there’s no way corporate Republicans and Democrats, which are about 98% of politicians, are going to limit private equity. So, when do we ever get a little bit of change? When Democrats are in charge, they do 5 to 15% of their agenda. That’s not because they’re warm-hearted. It’s a release valve, right? Oh, see, under Obama, we got about 5% change. What was that? That was Obamacare. That was most of the change that we got. What’s the greatest part of Obamacare? Now, a lot of right-wing also agree, almost all of right-wing agree about this portion, which is they got rid of the bias against pre-existing conditions. Why did they do that particularly? Because the country was about to get in a fucking rage. We all have pre-existing conditions. Cenk Uygur (01:40:40): If you deny me when I’m sick, what the fuck is the point of insurance? The anger had gotten to a nuclear level. So, release valve, get rid of pre-existing conditions. Let’s go back to just milking them regularly. Oh, by the way, put in a mandate so that they have to buy it from us, right? Do you know who originally came up with Obamacare? The Heritage Foundation. It was their proposal. Romney did it in Massachusetts. It was called Romneycare. So, I think this is a super important election, but I’ve earned the credibility to be able to say that, because in 2012, I said, “This is a largely unimportant election.” Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s policies on economic issues are near identical. Obamacare was literally Romneycare. Cenk Uygur (01:41:26): Right now, the left says, “Oh, the Heritage Foundation, it’s so dangerous, Project 2025.” Well, brother, they’re the ones who wrote Obamacare, and you say, that’s the greatest change in the world, right? So that’s why the Democrats, yeah, I’ll take the 10% change overall. I think Biden did about 15%. Obama did 5%, but they’ll also march you backwards by deregulating like Clinton did and Obama did, the bank bailouts like Obama did. But 10% is better than 0%, but it’s not to help you. It’s the release valve, so the system keeps going. Lex Fridman (01:42:00): Is it possible to steelman the case that not all politicians are corporatists or maybe how would you approach that? For example, this podcast has a bunch of sponsors. I give zero fucks about what they think about what I’m saying. They have zero control over me. Maybe you could say that’s because it’s not a lot of money, or maybe I’m a unique person or something like this. I would like to believe a lot of politicians are this way, that they have ideas. While they take money, they see it as a game that you accept the money, go to certain parties, hug people and so on, but it doesn’t actually fundamentally compromise your integrity on issues you actually care about. Cenk Uygur (01:42:57): I could steelman almost anything. I could steelman Trump. I could steelman conservatives easily, right? Corporate politician is a hard one. So, first, it’s not all politicians. We could start out nice and easy. Tom Massie, now, Hawley and Gates not taking corporate PAC money. Bernie, the squad, they don’t take corporate PAC money. You could disagree on either end of those folks on social issues, but generally they are 1,000 times less corrupt. They’re more honest. Part of the reason you might hate this squad is because they’re so honest. They tell you their real opinion on social issues that you really disagree with. A lot of the corporate politicians won’t do that because they’re trying to get as many votes as possible, so they can fillet their donors when they get into office and do all their favors for them. But you see, I’m already falling apart on the steelmanning of corporate politicians. Lex Fridman (01:43:50): Let’s zoom in on that. So, if you take corporate PAC money, that’s it. You’re corrupted. Say you’re a politician, you’re a president, you’re a human being. You’re a person with integrity. You’re a person who thinks about the world. You’re saying, “If I was a corporate PAC and I gave you a billion dollars, I could tell you anything.” Cenk Uygur (01:44:14): So everything is a spectrum. Humanity is a spectrum. So, can you find outliers who could take corporate PAC money and still be principled enough to resist this lure? Yeah, I would hope that I would be a person like that, but I wouldn’t take corporate PAC money. But if you force me to, I think I would still stay principled and do it. Could you find 10, 20 other people in the country? Yeah, but on average, that is not what will happen. What will happen is they will take the money and do exactly as they are told. Lex Fridman (01:44:49): See, I think most people have integrity. Okay, hold on. So, what I’m more worried about is when you take corporate-backed money, it’s not that you are immediately sold. It is over time. Cenk Uygur (01:45:02): Over time. That’s true. Lex Fridman (01:45:04): Yeah, I get it. But I wonder if the integrity that I think most people have can withstand the gradual slippery slope of the effect of corporate money, which if what I’m saying is true that most people have integrity, one of the ways to solve the effect of corporate money is term limits, because it takes time to corrupt people. You can’t buy them immediately, and then the term limits can be issued. Cenk is shaking his head. Cenk Uygur (01:45:38): Yeah, no. So, look, you’re right that over time it gets way worse. As we talked about earlier, Biden’s a great example of that comes in anti-corruption, winds up being totally pro-corruption by the end, but he was also here for almost all of it as we started in a world that was not run by money in politics and is now completely run by money in politics. Does it get worse over time? Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona is a great example of that, comes in as a progressive, doesn’t want to take PAC money, cares about the average person, et cetera. Over time, she becomes the biggest corporatist in the Senate and a total disaster. But if you say that the majority of politicians have… I don’t know if this is what you’re saying, majority of politicians have integrity. Lex Fridman (01:46:27): No, let’s start at the majority of human beings. I think that politicians are not a special group of sociopaths. Cenk Uygur (01:46:38): I think they are. Lex Fridman (01:46:39): They lean a little bit towards that direction, but they’re not only sociopaths going to politics. It’s like you have to have some sociopathic qualities, I think, to go into politics, but they’re not complete sociopaths. I think they do have integrity because sometimes for very selfish reasons, it’s not all about money, even for a selfish person, for a narcissist. It’s also about being recognized for having had positive impact on the world. Cenk Uygur (01:47:06): Yeah, I get it. All right, so let’s break it down. So, first, human beings, then we’ll get to politicians. Do human beings have integrity? Well, it’s a spectrum. So, some people have enormous integrity, some people have no integrity. So, there is not one type or character. So, some people have a ton of empathy for other human beings, and they literally feel it. I feel the pain of someone else, and I’m not alone. Most people feel the pain of someone else. If you see it on video, a baby being hurt, overwhelming majority of human beings will go, “No!” Right? You have empathy. That’s a natural feeling that you have. Some people have no empathy because they’re on the extreme end of the spectrum, serial killers and Donald Trump. Cenk Uygur (01:47:56): So, I’m partly joking, but not really. He has never demonstrated any empathy that I have ever seen for any other human being. I’m going to trigger some right-wingers because they think every terrible thing he said is out of context or joking or not real or fake news. But his chief of staff didn’t make it up. He called people who went into the military suckers and losers. Why? Why did he say that? Just hang with me for a second. Don’t have your head explode. Okay? I’m not saying to Lex. I’m saying to the right-wingers out there. Cenk Uygur (01:48:27): So, the reason is because if you’re like Trump and you literally don’t feel the empathy, you’d think, “Why the hell would I go in the military, get killed for someone else? What a sucker. No, I’m going to stay out of the military. I’m going to stay alive. I’m going to make a ton of money and I’m going to look out for myself.” He assumes because everybody does this, you assume that everyone thinks like you do, but they don’t. So, Trump assumes everybody’s as much of a dirt bag as he is, because he doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t feel the empathy. So, he’s like, “Yeah, you’d be an idiot, a sucker and a loser to go into the military and have sacrifice for other people.” So you see the spectrum. Cenk Uygur (01:49:08): Even if you think Trump’s not on that end and you think I’m wrong about that, you get that there are people on that end. So, you have a spectrum of integrity, empathy, et cetera. That’s what I would call your hardware. You layer on top of that your software, and the software is cultural influences, your parents, media, your friends. All these are cultural influences. So, now when you’re in certain industries, they value more integrity. So, religious leaders, if you’re doing it right, which is also very rare, but if you’re doing it right, you’re supposed to have empathy for the poor, the needy, the whole flock. So, that profession is incentivizing you towards empathy and integrity. Cenk Uygur (01:49:54): Even then, a giant amount of people abuse it, but okay, good. In politics, it creates incentives for the opposite, no integrity. That software, to your point, over time gets stronger and stronger and stronger until it takes over. Now, you might have someone with a lot of integrity like Tom Massie, the Republican from Kentucky. Whether I agree with him or disagree with him on policy, I get that the brother is actually doing it based on principles. There isn’t any amount of money you can give Tom Massie for him to change his principles. Why? He’s on the principled end of the spectrum as a human being, so is Bernie. They’re on the same part of that spectrum. Cenk Uygur (01:50:39): But for most people, the great majority of the spectrum, if you overload them with software that incentivizes them to not have integrity, they will succumb. Now let’s switch to politicians in particular. Why do I think that they’re on average far more likely to be on the sociopathic part of the spectrum? Because of the incentives and disincentives. So, this changes every congressional cycle. When just Democrats were winning a lot, it got all the way down to 87.5%. But on average for congressional elections, the person with more money wins 95% of the time. Cenk Uygur (01:51:17): It doesn’t matter if they’re a liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat or any ideology they have, 95%. So, now let’s say you got the 5% that went in that are not hooked on the money. Well, they’re going to get a primary challenge, then they’re going to get a general election challenge. 95% of the time, the one with more money wins. So, eventually, this system cycles through until almost only the corrupt are left. Lex Fridman (01:51:43): One second. Is that real, 95%? So if you have more money, 95% of the time you win, huh? Cenk Uygur (01:51:53): Yes. Lex Fridman (01:51:56): I like to believe that’s less the case, for example, for higher you get. Cenk Uygur (01:52:02): Yes, that’s true. You’re right. So, you know why? So the presidential race is ironically in some ways the least corrupt. So, let’s dive into why. If you’re running a local race anywhere in the country, you’re going to get almost no press coverage, meaning a congressional race, right? If you’re running a Senate race in the middle of Montana, you’re going to get almost no media coverage. So, that’s where your money in politics has the most effect, because then you could just buy the airwaves. You outspend the other guy, you get all the ads, plus you get the friendly media coverage because you just bought a couple of million dollars of ads in the middle of Montana. So, the local news loves you, the TV stations, the radio stations, the papers. Cenk Uygur (01:52:43): So, some of the papers are principled. They might say, “Oh, no,” but overall, they’re not calling you a radical. They’re not calling you anything and you’re buying those races. But when you get to the presidential race, that’s much harder, because presidential race, you have earned media, free media that overwhelms paid media. Perfect examples is 2016. Hillary Clinton outraces Trump by about two to one, but she loses anyway. Why? Because Trump got almost twice as much earned media as she did. The earned media is better. It’s inside the content. It is definitely better. So, in a presidential election, as long as you got past the primary, you could actually win with not that much money. Cenk Uygur (01:53:27): That’s part of the reason why I have hope, Lex, because all you got to do is get past a Republican or democratic primary. Now that’s very, very, very difficult, but Trump did it, right? Now, he took it in the wrong direction, but he did leave a blueprint for how to do it. So, once you get to the general election, you’re off to the race. You could do any goddamn thing you like. Okay, you could be super popular. You don’t have to give a shit about the donors. You can get into office. You could bully your own party and the other party into doing what you want, and you can get everything done. You could even get money out of politics. So, don’t lose hope. I mean, we even started Operation Hope at TYT and our first project was to knock Biden out. Cenk Uygur (01:54:07): Everybody said, “You guys are nuts. That’s totally impossible.” We knocked Biden out. Did we do it alone? Of course not. We were a small part of it, but we laid the groundwork for hope and we laid the groundwork for when he flopped in the debate. People had already been told, remember, he’s bad, he’s old, he’s not right. The debate proved it. If we hadn’t done that groundwork, and not just Young Turks obviously, but Axelrod and Carville and Nate Silver and Ezra Klein, et cetera, Charlamagne tha God, Jon Stewart, all these people helped a lot. So, that when the debate happened, it confirmed the idea that out there that he was too old and couldn’t do it. So, my point is if you lose hope, you’re done for. Then they’re definitely going to win, right? Cenk Uygur (01:54:54): Hope is the most dangerous thing in the world for the elites. So, whether you’re right-wing or left-wing, I need you to have hope and I need you to understand it’s not misplaced. We just got to get past the primary, and we’re going to turn this whole thing around. Lex Fridman (01:55:07): Basically, a presidential candidate who’s a populist, who in part runs on getting money out of politics. Okay. Well, then let’s talk about Donald Trump. So, to me, the two biggest criticisms of Trump is the fake election scheme. Out of that whole 2020 election, the fake election scheme is the thing that really bothers me. Then the second thing across a larger timescale is the counterproductive division that he’s created in let’s say our public discourse. What are your top five criticisms of Trump? Cenk Uygur (01:55:48): Okay, so number one, I have the same exact thing as you. The fake electors scheme is unacceptable, totally disqualifying. So, the fake electors scheme was a literal coup attempt. So, he doesn’t win the election. For folks who don’t know, I need to explain why it’s a coup attempt because you just throw out words and then people get triggered by the words and then they go into their separate corners. So, the January 6th rioters, they were not going to keep the building. That was not a coup attempt. It’s not like, “Oh, the MAGA guys have the building. I guess they win, right?” No, that was never going to happen. So, what was the point of the January 6th riot? It was to delay the proceedings. Why did it matter that they were going to delay the proceedings? Cenk Uygur (01:56:34): Because if you can’t certify the election, they wanted general confusion and chaos so that the Republicans in Congress could say, “Well, we don’t know who won, so we’re going to have to kick it back to the states.” The states, they had the fake electors ready. Remember, the fake electors are not Trump’s electors. Both candidates have a slate of electors, Biden’s electors and Trump’s electors. They go to the Trump electors first in this plan, and half the Trump electors go, ” No, I’m not going to pretend Trump won the election when he didn’t win the election.” So they’re like, “Shit, now we’ve got to come up with fake electors.” So they enlist these Republicans who go, “Yeah, I’ll pretend Trump won,” right? Cenk Uygur (01:57:13): So they sign a piece of paper. That’s fraud, and that’s why a lot of them are now being prosecuted in the different states. So, the idea is the Republican legislators then go, “We’re sending these new electors in and we think Trump won Arizona and Georgia and Wisconsin.” That was the idea. That was the plan. Then you come back to the House. At that point when there are two different sets of electors, the constitutional rule is the House decides, but the House decides not on a majority because the Democrats had the majority at the time, they decide on a majority of the states. They vote by state, and the Republicans had the majority of the states. So, in that way, you steal the election. Even though Trump didn’t win, you install him back in as president. Cenk Uygur (01:58:04): That is a frontal assault on democracy, and I loathe it. Then Trump on top just blabbers out, “Well, sometimes if there’s massive fraud in an election,” in other words, I think I won. I don’t even think that. I’m just saying that I won. He says, “You can terminate any rule, regulation, or article even in the Constitution.” No, brother, you cannot terminate the Constitution because you’d like to do a fake electors scheme and do a coup against America. Fuck you. Okay? So I’m never going to allow this want-to-be tyrant to go back into the White House and endanger our system. So, you want to endanger the corrupt system. I’m the guy. Okay, let’s go get that corrupt system and tear it down. Cenk Uygur (01:58:48): If you want to endanger the real system, democracy, capitalism, the Constitution, then I’m your biggest enemy. So, I’m never going to take that risk. You see it every time he goes to talk to a dictator. Look, guys, I’m asking you to be principled, right? I asked the left of that, and we drive away some of our audience when we do that. So, we got the balls to do that to our own side. So, for the right wing, be honest, if it was Joe Biden or Barack Obama or Kamala Harris that went and wrote “love letters” to a communist dictator who runs concentration camps, you would say, “Communist! We knew it. Look at that.” Trump literally says about Kim Jong Un, “We wrote love letters to one another. We fell in love.” Cenk Uygur (01:59:36): If a Democrat said that, they’d be politically decapitated, their career would be instantly over. But Trump, whenever it’s Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, don’t get into Russia, Russia, Russia, but it’s just that he’s a strong man, right? Kim Jong Un or Viktor Orbán, Duterte in the Philippines, anytime it’s a strong man that says, “Screw our Constitution, screw our rules. I want total loyalty to one person,” Trump loves them. He loves them. He said once, he’s like, “Oh, it’s great. You go to North Korea or China. When the leader walks in, everybody applauds and everybody listens to what he says. That’s how it should be here.” No, brother, that’s not how it should be here. You hate democracy. You want to be the sole guy in charge. As a populist, you should loathe Donald Trump. Lex Fridman (02:00:29): I agree on the fake electors scheme. Can you steelman and maybe educate me on… There’s a book Rigged that I started reading. Is there any degree to which the election was rigged or elections in general are rigged? So I think the book Rigged, the main case they make is not that there’s some shady fake ballots. It’s more the impact of mainstream media and the impact of big tech. Cenk Uygur (02:00:58): So rigged is another one of those words that triggers people and is ill-defined, right? So let’s begin to define it. So, the worst case of rigged is we actually changed the votes. So, a lot of Trump people think that that’s what happened. Nonsense, that didn’t happen at all. Okay? By the way, some on the left thought the votes were changed in the 2016 primary, and it was literally rigged against Bernie. No, that did not happen. That is a massive crime and is very risky and is relatively easy to get caught. People who are in power are not interested in getting caught. They’re not interested in going to jail, et cetera. It is a very extreme thing. Could it happen? Yes, it could happen. Have I seen any evidence of it happening in my lifetime? Not really. Lex Fridman (02:01:49): Given how much people hate this, you probably just need to find evidence of one time, one vote being changed, where you can trace them saying something in some room somewhere. That would just explode. That evidence just doesn’t seem to be there. Cenk Uygur (02:02:07): By the way, for the right-wing who say, “Verify the vote,” goddamn right, verify the vote, right? So you want to have different proposals like paper ballots, recounts, hand recounts, which by the way, you had not the paper ballots, but the three recounts and a hand recount in Georgia. In so many of these swing states, he lost, he lost, he lost. There was no significant voter fraud. Now, second thing in terms of rigging is voter fraud. The right-wing believes, “Oh, my God, there’s voter fraud everywhere.” Cenk Uygur (02:02:36): Not remotely true. Heritage Foundation does a study. They want to prove it so badly. It turns out, no matter how they moved the numbers, the final number they got was it happens 0.0000006% of the time. It almost never happens. They found like 31 instances over a decade or two decades. Lex Fridman (02:03:01): What counts as voter fraud? Cenk Uygur (02:03:04): A lot of times these days, it’ll be Republicans who do it because it’ll be… It’s not nefarious. It’s a knucklehead who goes in, goes, “Oh, I heard they’re having the illegals vote. So, I voted for me and my mom, even though she’s dead. But that’s fair. They’re doing it.” No, brother, that’s not fair. That’s not how it works. You’re under arrest. Lex Fridman (02:03:22): So what about non-citizens voting? Cenk Uygur (02:03:25): It’s preposterous. Of course, non-citizens shouldn’t vote and they don’t vote. Lex Fridman (02:03:30): But you don’t have to prove citizenship when you’re voting, right? Cenk Uygur (02:03:34): No, you do. I mean, so it depends on what you mean by prove and when you vote, right? So you are not allowed to vote as an undocumented immigrant. So, that happens up front. Again, it’s a hall of mirrors. There’s so many different ways to create mirages. So, the Republicans will say, “Well, when you go to the voting booth, they don’t make your show a passport.” Yeah, that’s true. But you showed it earlier when you registered, and we can get into voter ID laws. There’s all sorts of things. We will speed up the spectrum, right? So these things almost never happen. Voter fraud happens super rarely and not enough to swing elections. By the way, sometimes if there is an issue, they’ll redo an election. Cenk Uygur (02:04:16): There is actually a process for that. It happened in North Carolina because Republicans did voter fraud in this one district. It wasn’t the candidate himself. It was this campaign person, and they did ballot harvesting, but ballot harvesting, again, it depends on what you mean. If you’re just collecting ballots, that’s okay. He changed the ballots. That’s not okay. So, they had to redo that election. So, now the real place where it gets rigged is before elections. There’s two main ways that things get rigged. One is almost exclusively… No, that’s not fair. I was going to say Republicans, but Democrats do it too in a different way. So, Republicans would come in. Brian Kemp is the king of this in Georgia. So, he was against Trump doing it ex post facto. Cenk Uygur (02:05:01): He’s like, “No, you idiot. We don’t cheat after the election. We cheat before the election.” Okay? So they’ll go, “Well, I mean, you got to clear out the voter rolls every once in a while.” That’s true because people die. People move and you got to clean out the voter rolls. So, then they come in and they go, “We will clean them out mainly in Black areas.” Okay? Oh, look at that. There goes a couple of million Black voters. Well, some of those, I suppose, are real voters, but they’ll have to re-register and then they’ll find that out on election day. Oh, well, sorry, you couldn’t vote this time. Remember to re-register next time. So, do they go, “Hey, we’re going to take Black people off the voter rolls.” No. Cenk Uygur (02:05:38): What they do is we’re having more issues in these districts. Here’s another way they do it. How many voting booths do you have in the area? So primarily Republican areas will get tons of voting booths. So, you don’t have to wait in line. You go in, you vote, you go to work, no problem. You’re in a Black area, run in a Republican state. All of a sudden, hey, look that city. Well, we sent you four voting booths. Oh, you got a million people there. Well, what are you going to do? I guess you got to wait in line the whole day. You can’t go to work, et cetera. So, that’s the way of- Lex Fridman (02:06:12): I refuse to believe it’s only the Republicans that do that, I would say. Cenk Uygur (02:06:18): So that’s why I paused. Lex Fridman (02:06:20): Yeah, that just seems too obvious to do by both sides. Cenk Uygur (02:06:25): No, the Democrats are so weak, Lex. They mainly don’t do that. But they do do the third thing, which is gerrymandering. So, both Republicans and Democrats. Lex Fridman (02:06:33): Also, they have favorite flavors of messing with the vote. Okay. Cenk Uygur (02:06:38): Yeah. So, gerrymandering is the best way to rig an election. That way the politicians pick their voters, instead of the voters picking their politicians. So, all these districts are so heavily gerrymandered that the incumbent almost can’t lose. They’ll push most of the voters into one district, most of the voters in another district, because they don’t want competition. So, then you’re screwed. The vote isn’t rigged, but the district is rigged, so that the incumbent wins almost no matter what, right? So that’s why we’ve gotten so polarized, because the gerrymandering creates like 90% of seats that are safe. So, they don’t have to compromise. They don’t have to get to a middle. They could just be extreme on either side because they already locked it up. Okay. Cenk Uygur (02:07:31): So, that’s the number one way to rig an election. Now, finally, the last part of it, maybe the most important, maybe even more important than gerrymandering, and that’s the media. So, it just happened to RFK Junior. It happened to Bernie in 2015. It happens to any outsider, right or left. The media if you’re an outsider will say, “Well, radical…” Number one, they don’t platform you, right? So they’re not going to have you on to begin with. Nobody’s even going to find out about you. If nobody finds out about you, you’re done for, right? So Bernie broke through that because- Cenk Uygur (02:08:00): … about you’re done for, right? So Bernie broke through that, because he was so popular, and the rallies were so huge that local news couldn’t help but cover him. Jesus Christ, what are all these people doing in the middle of the city? And he slowly broke through that. But do you know that in 2015, as he’s doing this miraculous run against Hillary Clinton, nobody thinks he has a chance. And here comes Bernie, and he’s almost at 48%. He had seven seconds of coverage on ABC that year. They just will not put you on. That is the number one way they rig an election. Bobby Kennedy, Jr. sitting at 20% in a primary, no town hall. 20% is a giant number. And you’re not going to do a town hall. You’re not going to do a debate. 12% in the general election. A giant number in a general election. No town hall, no debate. If no one finds out about you, they don’t know to vote for you, if they don’t find out your policies. Corporate media rigs elections more than anything else in the world. Lex Fridman (02:09:03): Now, this is something you’ve been a bit controversial about. But the general sort of standard belief is that there’s a left-leaning bias in the mainstream media, because as I think studies show a large majority of journalists are left-leaning. And then that there’s a bias in Big Tech. Employees of Big Tech companies from search engines to social media are left-leaning. And there that’s a huge majority is left-leaning. So the conventional wisdom is that there is a bias that was the left. Cenk Uygur (02:09:37): Yeah. Lex Fridman (02:09:38): So first of all, I think you’ve argued that that’s not true, that there’s a bias in the other direction. But whether there’s a bias or not, do you think that, how big of an impact that has on the result of the election? Cenk Uygur (02:09:51): Okay, so let’s break that down. Tech and media are totally different. So let’s do media first, then we’ll do tech. So on mainstream media, or corporate media, and I actually think that right-wing media like Fox News is part of corporate media. They just play good cop, bad cop. And so in that realm, the bias is not right or left, except on social issues. And that’s where that image comes from. On social issues, yes, the media is generally on the left. And right-wing, sorry, but this started in the 1960s, and the right-wing got super mad at mainstream media saying that black people were equal to white people. That’s not the case anymore. Okay. Right-wing calm down. I’m not calling you all racist. But in the 1960s was there racism? Of course. Of course, they wouldn’t even let black kids into the schools, right? Cenk Uygur (02:10:42): There was massive segregation in the south, but a lot in the north as well. And at that point in mainstream media says, “Well, I mean they are citizens, they should have equal rights.” And the right-wing goes, “Bias.” Okay, yeah, I mean, you’re kind of right, it is a bias. It is a bias towards equality in that case. But that is perceived as on the left. Now, fast-forward to today, you don’t have that on the racial issues as obviously as much as you had it back then. But on gay marriage that existed for a long time, where the media is like, “Well, they kind of should have the same rights as straight people.” And the right-wing went, “Bias.” So okay, you’re kind of right about that. But at the same time, I would argue their position is correct. But can they go too far? Of course they can go too far. Cenk Uygur (02:11:31): Okay. Now, but that’s not the main deal, guys. That’s to distract you. The main deal is economic issues. And again, we say it ahead of time, and you can see if we’re right or wrong. So we will tell folks when we get to an economic bill, you’ll see all of a sudden the guys who theoretically disagree, Fox News and MSNBC close ranks. And you just saw it happen with price gouging, that issue of price gouging. All of a sudden there’s a lot of MSNBC hosts, CNN hosts, Washington Post writes an op-ed against it. And everybody panics is like, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can’t control anything a corporation does. This is wrong. This is wrong.” Oh, what happened? I thought you guys hated each other. All of a sudden, you totally agree. Fascinating. Cenk Uygur (02:12:13): Okay. Same thing happened on increasing wages. When they were talking about increasing the minimum wage, Stephanie Ruhle, giant [inaudible 02:12:20] against it on MSNBC. All of a sudden Fox News and MSNBC agree. Do not touch beloved corporations. So now that gets us to our real bias. It’s not left or right. It’s pro-corporate, for all the reasons we talked about before, corporate media, corporate politicians. So if you don’t believe me today, whether you’re on the right or the left, watch. Next time an economic issue, where do they fall, how do they react? When anytime it’s a corporate issue, where does the media go? So that’s the real bias of the media. And so since the real bias of the media is pro-corporations, that is not a left-wing position. That is considered more of a right-wing position. I even think that’s a misnomer, because to be fair to right-wing voters, they’re not pro-big business. They’re not pro-corruption, but the Republican politicians are. So it gets framed as a right-wing issue. Cenk Uygur (02:13:14): So if you think that the corporate media is too populist, you just don’t get it. They aren’t, they hate populism. So now when you turn to tech. So tech’s a complicated one, because yeah, people write the code. If they’re left-wingers, they’re going to have certain assumptions, and they might write that into the codes or the rules. But they’re also, generally speaking, wealthy. They’re usually white. They’re usually male. And those biases also go in, and there’s a lot of people on the left who object to that bias, right? But that’s a fair and interesting conversation, and one we have to be careful of, and one we could hopefully find a middle ground on, but that’s not the major problem. The major reason why Big Tech gets attacked is because they are competitors of who? Social media competes with mainstream media. Cenk Uygur (02:14:10): So mainstream media has been attacking Big Tech from day one, pretending that they’re really concerned. Yeah, they’re really concerned, because that’s their competition, and they’re getting their ass handed to them. So I did a story on The Young Turks about CNN article, about all the dangers of social media. I’m like, “Guys, this is written by their advertising department.” Okay. And in fact, they go to the advertisers and they find a rando video on YouTube or Facebook out of billions of videos, and they’re like, “Look, your ad is on this video. Do you denounce and reject every Big Tech company and every member of social media?” And the advertisers is like, “Shit. Yeah, I do.” Meanwhile, they’re doing MILF Island on TV. Okay. Lex Fridman (02:15:03): I didn’t know that. I need to check it out. Cenk Uygur (02:15:05): There’s literally a show that came out recently, where it’s moms and their sons. And they fuck each other. Lex Fridman (02:15:12): Oh wow. Cenk Uygur (02:15:13): Okay. They don’t have sex with their mom. They have sex with a different mom. Lex Fridman (02:15:17): Got it. Cenk Uygur (02:15:18): Or they date. But then the show is, oh, then they go off into a corner, et cetera, right? I’m like, you’re doing this kind of the worst degrading, ridiculous, immoral programming, and then you found a video on YouTube that has a problem. Get the fuck out of here. You’re just trying to kneecap your competition. Lex Fridman (02:15:36): Let’s talk about the saga of Joe Biden. So over the past year, over the past few months. Can you just rewind. Maybe tell the story of Joe Biden as you see from the election perspective? Cenk Uygur (02:15:52): Yeah. So about a year ago, I am looking at the polling. And first of all, I have eyes and ears. So whenever I see Biden, I’m like, this is a disaster. And then I go and talk to real people. And when I say real people, I mean not in politics. That’s not their job. Because people involved in politics or media have a certain perspective, and it’s colored by all of the exchanges in mainstream media, social media, et cetera. Real people aren’t on Twitter having political fights. They’re not watching CNN religiously, et cetera. Whenever I was at a barbecue, ” You guys all Democrats?” In some barbecues. “Yeah.” What do you guys think of Joe Biden? Almost in unison, “Too old.” Every real person said too old. So I look at what real people are saying. That’s why I thought Trump was going to win in 2016. Cenk Uygur (02:16:45): I go in the middle of Ohio, I can’t see a Hillary Clinton sign for hundreds of miles. It is Trump paraphernalia everywhere. So that’s not end all, be all. You could say it’s anecdotal, but you begin to collect data points. But then the real data points are in polling. Okay. So now I’m looking at Biden polling, he’s in the thirties. No incumbent in the thirties has ever come back to win. I’m like, it’s already over. Then all of a sudden, oh my God, Trump takes the lead with Latinos. It’s double over. By later in the process, Trump took the lead with young voters. I’m like, “This is the most over election in history.” A Democrat cannot win if they’re not winning young voters. That’s impossible. Trump’s cutting into his lead with black voters. This thing is over. And I go tell people, and they’re like, “You are crazy.” Why do they think I’m crazy? Because MSNBC is lying to them 24/7, telling them that Joe Biden created sliced bread, and the wheel, and fire. And my favorite talking point was, he’s a dynamo behind the scenes. Lex Fridman (02:17:55): Yeah. Cenk Uygur (02:17:56): I’m like, “Okay, let me get this right.” It’s like an SNL skit, right? I’m like so behind the scenes, he’s like, all right, Sally, get me the memo on that and we’re okay, we’re going to do this, and I’m in command of the material. Then he goes in front of the cameras.” Anyways.” Why would any politician do that? Why would they be terrible in front of the camera and great off camera? It doesn’t make any sense. But once you get people enough propaganda, and MSNBC created blue MAGA, they’ll believe anything. So they believe that Biden was dynamic and young, and that he was the best possible candidate to beat Donald Trump. When in reality, he was about the only Democrat who couldn’t beat Donald Trump. Cenk Uygur (02:18:36): So number one, I don’t co-sign on a bullshit. I don’t care which side you’re on. Number two, as you heard earlier, I can’t have Trump winning. It endangers the country. It endangers our constitution, et cetera. So I’m going to do something about it. And so I start something called Operation Hope on The Young Turks. And we ask the audience, “What should we do?” So there’s different projects in Operation Hope. But the first project that pops up is knock Biden out of the race. And so then I ask our paying members on TYT, I say, “Guys, you’re going to vote, and then I’m going to do what you tell me to do. If you say no, I like Biden, or I think Biden’s the best candidate, or even if he isn’t, we’re not going to be able to win on this, so don’t do it.” Should I enter the primary against Biden? Cenk Uygur (02:19:25): Okay. 76, 24, go, enter. I’m a populist. You tell me to go. You’re my paying members, you’re my boss. I’m going to go. Okay. So I enter the primary. Now, I’m not born in the country, so people are going to freak out about that. I’m a talk show host. The establishment media despises me, so I’m not going to get any airtime. In fact, we consider hiring the top booking agent in New York. We talked to him, and he says, “Well, I’m actually in New York this week.” And he says, “I’m going to go talk to those guys, and I’ll come back to you.” And he was really decent, because normally he charges a lot. Just take the money, right? And go, “Oh, yeah, yeah, I’ll get you out.” But he was a wonderful guy. He said, “I talked to them, you’re banned. So don’t do it. You’re banned at CNN. You’re banned at MSNBC, and I think you’re banned on Fox News, but I’m not sure.” Cenk Uygur (02:20:21): Okay. So long odds, why do you do it? Because if you think we’re going to crash into the iceberg, you might as well bum rush the captain’s course. I’m lunging at the wheel. So what difference can I make? Well, I can make a difference by going on every show on planet Earth and going, “He’s too old. He’s in the thirties. He has no chance of winning, no chance of winning.” I go on Charlemagne Show, Breakfast Club, right? Charlemagne agrees. All of a sudden we’re having Buzz. And then people go, “Oh, Charlemagne said he has no chance of winning.” Then Charlemagne’s on the Daily Show, talks to Jon Stewart. Jon Stewart does a segment. This is not necessarily causal, but Buzz is building. So then Jon Stewart does a segment, if you remember, and people got super pissed at him, too old, can’t win. And all that buzz is building. Cenk Uygur (02:21:08): Meanwhile, unrelated to us, David Axelrod and James Carville, and I’m like, “Guys, figure it out. Who does Axelrod speak for?” The top advisor for Barack Obama. Who is James Carville, the top advisor for? The Clintons. This is the Clintons and the Obama sending their emissaries to say, “We can read a poll. He’s going to lose. Change direction.” So when the debate happens, we laid the groundwork. If we hadn’t laid the groundwork, debate would’ve been the first time that Blue MAGA would’ve thought, “Oh, maybe Biden can’t win.” But since all of us said it, and strange bedfellows, I loathe Nancy Pelosi, but she was on our side. I got a lot of issues with Bill Maher. He was on our side. I got a lot of issues with Axelrod and Carville, and they were on our side. So the people who believed in objective reality kind of independently made a plan. Let’s show people objective reality. And we did. And we drove him out, and it made all the difference. Lex Fridman (02:22:11): So you think he stepped down voluntarily, or was he forced out? Cenk Uygur (02:22:15): Both. So again, it depends on what you mean. So was he forced out? Of course he was forced out. You think he just woke up and he is like, “Oh, yeah, you know what? Screw my legacy. I don’t want to be a two term president. I’ll just drop out for no reason.” No, we forced them out. Of course we did. And when I say we, I had a tiny, tiny, tiny role. The people who had the major roles, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and all those folks. But even they were not the main driving force. The number one driving force were the donors. What is the source of power of Bernie or Massey? The people. What is the source of power for Biden? The donors. The donors made Biden. He is the donors’ candidate. And that’s why he told the donors, nothing will fundamentally change. If you say Lex, “No Cenk, I think you’re too extreme that Biden works for the donors 98%. I think he only works for them 80% or 55%.” Fine. We could have that debate. Cenk Uygur (02:23:12): But you can’t argue that it isn’t his source of power. And you can’t argue it anymore, even if you were going to argue it earlier, because once the donors said, “We’re not giving you any more money.” He didn’t have any options. He couldn’t go on. But was he forced out at knife point or something? No. So was it voluntary? Yeah. Ultimately, if Biden decided to stay in, there was nothing we could do about it. And so he had to voluntarily make that decision. But he voluntarily made it, because he had no choice left. Lex Fridman (02:23:41): Yeah. I wish he stepped down voluntarily from a place of strength. So I think presidents, I think politicians in general, especially at the highest levels, want legacy. And to me at least, one of the greatest things you could do is to walk away at the top. I mean, George Washington, to walk away from power is I think universally respected, especially if you got a good speech to go with it and you do it really well, not in some kind of cynical or calculated or some kind of transactional way, but just as a great leader. And maybe be a little bit even more dramatic than you need to be in doing it. Yeah, I thought that would be a beautiful moment. And then launch some kind of democratic process for electing a different option. Cenk Uygur (02:24:36): Not only did I agree with you 100%, I reached one of his top advisors, one of the guys you see in the press all the time, as in his inner circle. I never said that before, because we were in the middle of it. And I’m never going to betray anyone’s confidence. And I’ll never say who it was. Okay. But he was gracious enough to meet with me as I was about to enter the primary. And look, it is smart too, because get information, intelligence, et cetera. Is this guy going to be trouble, or not trouble? But at least he took the meeting. And the case I made is exactly the one you just said, Lex. This about 10 months ago. I said, “If he drops out now, they build statues of him, the Democrats.” If you are right-wing or you hate him, I get it. Cenk Uygur (02:25:23): But the Democrats would’ve said he beat Trump and protected democracy in 2020, and he steps down graciously now to make sure we beat Trump again in 2024, and he lets go of power voluntarily. He’s going to be a hero, an absolute hero. But if he doesn’t, you’re going to force all of us to kick the living crap out of him, and tell everybody he’s an egomaniac, which he is. And he’s doing this so that he could be… If you don’t know Washington in that bubble, if you’re a one-term president, you’re a loser. If you’re a two-term president, you have a legacy, and you’re historic. He’s running for one reason, and one reason only. My legacy. I will be a two-term president. I will be considered historic. I’m like, brother, now you’re going to be considered a villain, the villain of the story. You’re handing it right back to Trump. You’re not going to win. Cenk Uygur (02:26:17): And you know, look at the numbers. Any political professional knows you’re not going to win. So you have hero or villain, and you get to choose. But if you think you’re going to be a hero and beat Trump, that is not a choice you have. That is not going to happen. And they didn’t believe us. But by then they did. Lex Fridman (02:26:34): Were you troubled by how Kamala Harris was selected after he stepped down? Cenk Uygur (02:26:41): Yes and no. So I argued for an open convention. And so if Biden had stepped down when we were trying to get people into the primary, knock him out, then that would’ve been a perfect solution. Then all the governors could go in, Walz, Beshear, Whitmer, Kamala Harris goes in, obviously they have a real primary at that point. Me, at later Dean Phillips came in. Me, Dean, and I mean, Maryanne wouldn’t drop out. Me and Dean would definitely drop out. Because our whole point was get other people in the race, make sure we win. Okay. Then you would’ve had a great primary, it would’ve been the right way to do it, both morally, constitutionally, et cetera. But also as a matter of politics, because you would’ve gotten a lot of coverage for your young, exciting candidates, and you would’ve legitimized the idea of that you’re protecting democracy. Cenk Uygur (02:27:31): Okay. So that didn’t happen because of Biden. It is what it is. So now when Biden drops out, at least do a vestige of democracy. Go to the convention and do what it’s designed to do, which is pick a candidate. Ezra Klein made a great case for this in the New York Times podcast that he did. That made a huge difference, and he was great for doing that. So I believe in an open convention. But I know Democrats that love to anoint, because they don’t trust the people. So they think the elites are geniuses, don’t worry, we’ll pick the right candidate. Yeah, I remember when you picked Hillary Clinton, how’d that work out? And I remember when you said Joe Biden was the right candidate in 2024. How’d that work out? Do not anoint. Cenk Uygur (02:28:12): But in the end, they didn’t. So what happened was, Biden does the first announcement, he either forgot or on purpose didn’t put Kamala Harris in there. So there’s all this kumbaya now. Nah, they don’t like each other. And Biden’s been screwing her over the entire time she’s been vice president. So he doesn’t put her in the original statement. And I’m like, “Whoa.” I do a live video of media. I’m like, “Kamala. Harris is not in the statement.” In the middle of my video, they put out a second one going, okay, okay, fine, Kamala Harris, because that’s too much for the president not to endorse his Vice president. Lex Fridman (02:28:45): I think it was really somebody stormed into the room and said, “You absolutely must.” Cenk Uygur (02:28:50): I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but probably. Or they planned, I don’t know. But the bottom line is it was glaring that he didn’t put her in the first letter. Okay. So he had to put her in the second one. Fine, no problem. But Obama, Pelosi and Schumer did not endorse Kamala Harris. That’s huge. Normally the Democrats would all endorse her, and would all say she’s anointed, shut up everybody. And then MSNBC would scream, “Shut up. Shut up. She’s anointed.” But they didn’t do that. So then Kamala Harris had to win over the delegates. And I thought she would win them over in the convention. But she locked them up in two days. And I know, because I delegates, because I ran. And the delegates are calling me saying, “She’s getting on a zoom right now with us.” She went to all the states and worked her ass off, and locked up enough delegates to get the nomination in two days. Lex Fridman (02:29:47): Yeah. But come on, its Biden endorsed. Cenk Uygur (02:29:47): Of course. Lex Fridman (02:29:50): But why is that an of course? Why not say sort of layout Walz and Shapiro and Kamala Harris, and the options to say, lets at least the facade of democracy, of a democratic process. Cenk Uygur (02:30:05): There’s what should happen and what is likely to happen. So should Biden not have endorsed? Yeah, of course. I think Biden should have done the same thing as Obama and Pelosi and not endorse, and say, “Hey, we’d love to have a process where we figure out who the right nominee is.” And at that point, I’m really worried about Kamala Harris, because she’s doing word salads nonstop. So I’m like, “Don’t make the same mistake we did before, and just pick someone out of a hat. Test them. Test them. You get stronger candidates when you test them.” The authoritarian nature of the DNC drives me crazy. They don’t believe in testing candidates. They don’t believe in letting their own voters decide. And look, when we were in the primary, they canceled the Florida election. And they took me, Dean and Marianne off the ballot in North Carolina and Tennessee. I’m like, “Guys, if you’re going to make a case for democracy in the general election and you cancel elections in the primaries, do you not get how ridiculous you look, how hypocritical you look?” Cenk Uygur (02:31:05): So I didn’t want Biden to endorse anyone. But I’m shocked that they didn’t all endorse her. Because normally what happens is they all endorse. So bottom line Lex is, did she earn it in a perfect system, not even close, right? But did she earn it enough in this imperfect way where at least she showed some degree of competence that assuaged my concerns? Yes. So because a normal Democrat would bungle that. Like Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have talked to the delegates. She would assume that she’s the queen, and that they would all bow their heads. So the fact that she did elementary politics correct, for Democrats that’s like a big win. Lex Fridman (02:31:47): It just really frustrated me, because it smelled of the same thing of fucking over Bernie in 2015, 2016, and RFK, and just the anointing aspect. Now, they seem to have gotten lucky in this situation that it’s very possible that Kamala Harris would’ve been selected through a democratic process. But I have to say, listening to the speeches at the DNC, Walz was amazing. Shapiro was really strong. And Kamala actually was much better as compared to her as a candidate previously. Cenk Uygur (02:32:21): Yep. Lex Fridman (02:32:22): But personally don’t think she would’ve been the result of a democratic process. Cenk Uygur (02:32:25): So you don’t often give your opinions. But when you give the opinions, I actually agree a huge percentage of the time, in this conversation. So I fought for Shapiro in the primary. And when she was trying to pick for a VP, because I thought there’s no way she’s going to pick Walz. He’s way too, not just progressive, but more importantly populist, right? So I didn’t think she’d go in that direction. And Shapiro actually did a bunch of populist things in Pennsylvania. That’s part of the reason why he’s so popular in Pennsylvania. He looks like a smooth talking politician, but his actions are pretty good. And so Shapiro was great, Walz was great. The Obamas are legendary. Even Clinton at his advanced age makes terrific points in a speech, where you go, “Well, that one’s hard to argue with.” And so I’m shocked at the competence of the DNC, shocked at it. Cenk Uygur (02:33:12): `But of all those, Lex, so you can give a good speech, and the Obamas give a mean speech. But I saw Obama as president. He didn’t deliver on that. But the one guy that stood out is Walz. And the reason is because he’s a real person. Lex Fridman (02:33:29): Yeah, real person, populist. Cenk Uygur (02:33:32): We all got to work towards picking the most genuine candidates. So here on the right-wing side, for example, I would prefer a Marjorie Taylor Greene to a Mitch McConnell any day. Marjorie Taylor Greene is genuine. She might be genuinely not, so I don’t agree with her. She might be even more right-wing than others, but I believe that she means it. And I’ll take that any day over a fraud corporatist like Mitch McConnell, who’s just going to do what his donor’s command of him, et cetera. Lex Fridman (02:34:03): I got to ask you, because I also love Bernie, still got it. I love Bernie. I always have. I think he might still do it, but I enjoyed his conversations with Tom Hartman. He’s a genuine one, like Bernie. Even if you disagree with him, that’s a genuine human being. Cenk Uygur (02:34:21): Yep. Lex Fridman (02:34:21): So just talk about that. Does it trouble you that he’s been fucked over in 2015, 2016, and again, 2020. And why does it keep forgiving people? Cenk Uygur (02:34:35): Yeah. So I love Bernie for the same reason you were saying. Because he’s a real person. He’s a populist. He means it. And that is so rare in politics. I feel like I’m Diogenes, and I went looking for the one honest man and found it in Bernie. And so I did a video in 2013 saying, Bernie Sanders can beat Hillary Clinton in a primary. In 2013, that video exists. Because why did I think that? I didn’t say it of any of the corporate politicians and the guys who were supposed to challenge her and stuff. Because populist and honest. And the country’s dying for an honest populist, dying for it. So love the brother. Now, that doesn’t mean that he’s right on strategy. And he drives me crazy on strategy. So two elements of that. Number one, in 2016 and in 2020, for God’s sake attack your opponent. Cenk Uygur (02:35:29): You said something about Trump that I disagree with, where I’m defending Trump. Okay. You don’t like what he did to the public discourse. No, I don’t mind it. And I’ll tell you why. Because at least he got a little bit past the fakeness. He’s a con man and he’s a fraud overall, and he does everything for his own interest, but at least he doesn’t speak like a bullshitting politician. And he’s not wrong that you have to bully your own party to amass enough power to get things done. And he showed that that’s possible. So the problem with the Democrats is civility. So my whole life, they’re like, “Oh, no, no, no, don’t say anything. Let’s lose with civility.” So for example, in debates, whether it’s on TV, online, or whatever, Democrats or people on the left are always saying, “I’m offended.” I never get offended. No, after I’m done, you’re going to be offended. Okay, fight back, fighting back wins. Cenk Uygur (02:36:31): And we couldn’t get Bernie to fight back. In 2020 he was one state away. He won the first three states. He crushed in Nevada. All we needed was South Carolina. But in order to get South Carolina, we all knew, everybody on his campaign. Everyone who’s in progressive media, we all knew you’ve got to attack Biden. If you don’t, they’re just going to tsunami you. The corporate medias and the corporate politicians are going to run roughshod over you. You have to make the case against them. And so two times Bernie flinched. One in 2016, in the Brooklyn debate, they asked, “Did the money that Hillary Clinton taken from the banks affect her votes?” And he said, “No.” Of course it affected our votes. Of course it did. You have to say yes, and you have to show it and prove it. Cenk Uygur (02:37:17): The bankruptcy bill. When she was First Lady, she was totally in favor of the American people and against the bankruptcy bill, because it has the banks, you can’t discharge any debts, credit card debt and bank debt, et cetera. It’s an awful bill. It’s one of the most corporatist bills. She was on the right side as a First Lady. She becomes a senator, takes banker money, and all of a sudden she flips over to the banker side. Say it Bernie, for God’s sake, say it. Then in one of the debates in 2020, his team prepares attacks against Biden. They’re not personal, they’re not like… You can sense by now, if I’m in a political race, my objective is rip the other guy’s face off. Lex Fridman (02:38:02): Yeah. Cenk Uygur (02:38:03): Politically, rhetorically, never physically. Lex Fridman (02:38:05): Yes, yes, yes, yes. Cenk Uygur (02:38:07): But I would get it to a point where they’d think, I don’t know if I’m going to vote for Cenk, but I know I’m not voting for the other guy. Okay, so you got to do that if you want to win. So they prepare this. He says, “I’m going to do it.” He goes out in the podium and doesn’t do it. Because he can’t. He’s too damn nice. He just can’t attack the other guy. Now that’s problem number one in strategy. Problem number two is something you alluded to. So Biden gets into office. Bernie thinks they’re friends. They’re not friends. Biden’s just using him. So he used them to get the credibility. And then he eviscerates 85% of the progressive proposals that Bernie put forward. Biden throws away $15 minimum wage. That was Bernie’s signature issue. Doesn’t even propose the public option. Dumps paid family for no reason. I can go on and on. And Bernie co-signs on it, because he thinks he’s in an alliance. He thinks Biden’s on his side, and he thinks we’re going to get things done. Cenk Uygur (02:39:04): And to be fair to Bernie, like I said earlier, Obama got only 5% of his agenda passed. And Biden got 15%. Okay. So you’re right, Bernie, you got three times more than under Obama. But you’re wrong, that is not fundamental change. And without fundamental change, we’re screwed. Lex Fridman (02:39:23): Let me ask you about another impressive speech, AOC. Is it possible that she’s the future of the party, future president? Cenk Uygur (02:39:32): No. So AOC, in my opinion, lost her way. And so- Lex Fridman (02:39:39): In which way? Cenk Uygur (02:39:41): So it’s tough talking about these things, because people take it so personally. And that’s why you’ll see very few politicians on our shows. Because we give super tough interviews, and the words out in the street, don’t go on The Young Turks, they’ll ask you super hard questions. So only a couple do it. Like Ro Khanna does it, he’s brave- Cenk Uygur (02:40:00): Right. Only a couple do it like Ro Khanna does it. He’s brave, and we’ll get into shouting matches sometimes in the middle of bills and stuff, but at least he’s there to defend his position. I respect him for that. Tim Ryan, a little bit more of a conservative Democrat when he was in the house. He would take on any debate, et cetera. There’s a couple of good guys that do it, but generally they don’t. This relates to AOC because when AOC is running we do 34 videos on her. We get her millions of views. We founded Just Democrats and now launched it on the show. Our audience, Ryan Grim documents in one of his books, our audience raises $2.5 million for those progressive candidates overall. And at that point, AOC and all those Rashida Tlaib, et cetera, they’re all dying to come onto Young Turks. Cenk Uygur (02:40:50): Makes sense. I would too, of course. It’s not because it’s The Young Turks, any media outlet. And most media outlets, almost all the media outlets reject them. We cover AOC more than all the other press combined, and she wins for a number of reasons. That’s one of the reasons. But there’s many others, and she did a terrific job herself. She then takes Saikat and Corbin who were the… Saikat was the head of Just Democrats and Corbin was Communications Director for Just Democrats. Then Saikat made one of the most brilliant political decisions arguably in American history, he called me and he said, “Cenk, I’m going to go from head of Just Democrats to running AOCs campaign.” And I’m like, “Well, the other candidates are going to get pissed, and you’re staking the entire enterprise on one candidate.” And I’m like, “Saikat, I’m not in it. I’m doing the media arm. You’re in the trenches. You’re the guy making the decisions, so I’m going to trust whatever you say. You sure?” And he said, “I’m sure.” Cenk Uygur (02:41:51): Him and Corbin go over to AOCs campaign. AOC then wins, that miraculous win. Then she hires Saikat to be her Chief of Staff, and she hires Corbin to be her Communications Director. Within six months, they’re gone. And once they’re gone, AOC then goes on an establishment path. Because why were they gone? Oh, they insulted one of her colleagues. Yeah, that colleague who’s a total corporatist and was selling out one of her policy proposals. If you don’t call out your own side, you’re never going to get anything done. But if you call out your own side, you become persona non grata, and it is super uncomfortable. And we couldn’t get them to do things that were uncomfortable. Now, she’s going to find that outrageous, and she’s going to be very offended by that, and she’s going to point to a bunch of things she did that were uncomfortable. Cenk Uygur (02:42:44): And to be fair to her, she has. Until that speech, she was pretty good on Palestine when we desperately needed it. She was pretty good on a bunch of issues. Cori Bush did that campaign on evictions, et cetera, on the capital steps. That was great. AOCs original spit-in in Pelosi’s office. At that point we’re all still on the same team. It’s a spectacular success. Me, Corbin and Saikat are saying, “Do it again. Do it again.” Not don’t abuse it, don’t be a clown and do it every other day. But when it matters, you need to be able to challenge Pelosi. And in my opinion, she just got to a point where she got exhausted being uncomfortable. It’s really hard, the media hates you and they keep pounding away and calling you a radical and you’re destroying the Democratic Party, you’re destroying unity. Whereas if you go along, all of a sudden you’re a queen. And now all of a sudden the mainstream media is saying, oh, AOC, she could be the [inaudible 02:43:46]. Lex Fridman (02:43:45): There’s some degree to which you want to sometimes bide your time and just rest a bit. And I think from my perspective, maybe you can educate me, she seems like a legit, progressive, legit even populist, charismatic, young, a lot of time to develop the game of politics, how to play it well enough to avoid the bullshit. I guess she doesn’t take corporate PAC money? Cenk Uygur (02:44:13): That’s right. No, she’s still true on that. Lex Fridman (02:44:16): As far as just looking over the next few elections, who’s going to be running? Who’s going to be a real player? To me she seems like an obvious person that’s going to be in the race. Cenk Uygur (02:44:31): While I fight for the ideal, I’m very practical. For example, she wins, and then one cycle later after 2020, there’s these guys who want to “force” the vote, and it was on the speakership of Nancy Pelosi, and they wanted to use it to get Medicare for All. I’m like, “Guys, forcing a vote is a terrific idea. On the speakership, okay, who’s your alternative?” “Oh, we don’t have an alternative.” Already giant red flag. “What’s the issue you’re looking to have them vote on?” “Medicare for All.” “Oh, you don’t know politics.” Cenk Uygur (02:45:18): I love Medicare for All. We have to get Medicare for All. But if that’s the first one you put up without gaining any leverage, you’re going to get slaughtered. Put up something easy, force a vote on $15 minimum wage, or pick another one that’s easy, paid family leave. These are all polling great. Because if you force a vote on that, you can actually win. And if you win, you gain leverage, and then you do the next one and the next one. And then you do Medicare for All. Not bullshit gradualism that the corporate Democrats do, but actually strategically, practically building up power and leverage and using it at the right times. Cenk Uygur (02:45:55): If I thought that’s what AOC was doing, I would love it. I don’t need her to force a vote on Medicare for All, I don’t need her to go on some wild tangents that don’t make any sense and is only going to diminish her power. But when they eviscerated all the progressive proposals in Build Back Better, how did that happen? Manchin and Sinema used every ounce of leverage they had. They said, “I’m just not going to vote for it. I don’t care. The status quo was always perfect for my donors, so I don’t need you. I vote no. Now, take out everything I want,” and Biden did. Cenk Uygur (02:46:35): Progressives had to push back and say, “Here is two to three proposals. Not everything, not everything. Two to three proposals. They all poll over 70%. They’re all no-brainers, and they’re all things that Joe Biden promised. We want those in the bill, otherwise we’re voting no.” At that point, what would’ve happened is the media would’ve exploded and they would’ve said, AOC and the rest are the scum of the earth, they’re ruining the Democratic Party. We’re not going to get the bill. They’re the worst. You have to withstand that. If you cannot withstand a nuclear blast from mainstream media, you’re not the person. You have to run that obstacle course to get to change. If they had stood their ground, they definitely would’ve won on one to two of those issues. Instead, they went with a strategy that was called, it was literally called, Trust Biden. Lex Fridman (02:47:32): All right, so big question. Who wins this election, Kamala or Trump? And what’s Kamala’s path to victory? And if you can steel, man, what’s Trump’s path to victory? Cenk Uygur (02:47:46): There’s not enough information yet. Since I make a lot of predictions on air and then brag about it unbearably, people are always, they’ll stop me in the streets and they’ll be like, “Predict this. Predict my marriage.” “Brother, I don’t know anything about your marriage. How can I possibly predict something without having any information?” In the case of this campaign, right now I got Kamala Harris at 55% chance of winning, which is not bad. Doesn’t mean she’s going to win by 55 because then that would be a 10 point margin. That’s not going to happen. But I say around 51 to 55, but it’s nowhere near over because of a lot of things. One, the Democrats are still seen as more establishment and people hate the establishment. Two, if war breaks out in the Middle East, which is now unfortunately bordering on likely, if that war breaks out, all bets are off. Lex Fridman (02:48:44): Do you mean a regional war? Cenk Uygur (02:48:46): Yeah, like Iran, Israel gets to be a real thing, not just a pinprick and a little bombing here and an assassination there. No, we’re going to war. If that happens, then all bets are off and no one has any idea who’s going to win. And if they’re pretending that they know, that’s ridiculous because it’s so unpredictable. And then the third bogey for her is if she goes back to word salads. Cenk Uygur (02:49:16): There’s three phases of Kamala Harris’s career. She’s not necessarily any different in terms of policy. You can frame it in a bad way, you could frame it in a good way. You could say, oh, she’s just seeing which way the wind is blowing. And then, oh, she’s a tough cop prosecutor, and then she’s doing justice reform when people want justice reform. Oh, she’s a waffler. Cenk Uygur (02:49:39): Or you could paint it as she’s pretty balanced. She prosecuted serious criminals very harshly, but then on marijuana possession got them into rehab. And you know what? That’s actually what you should do. I’m not talking about policy so there you could have one of those views about Kamala Harris, and I get it. I’m talking about stylistically. Kamala Harris until the second debate in the primaries in 2020 is a very competent politician who’s in line to be the next Obama. She’s killing it. District attorney, attorney general, senator. And then the first debate, if you remember, she won. She had that great line about, “There was a little girl on that bus that was integrating the schools, and that girl was me.” And Biden being the knucklehead that he is, he’s caught on tape going… Don’t have that reaction, brother, because she’s criticizing his segregation policy on buses back in the ’70. Cenk Uygur (02:50:46): Anyways, so she’s doing terrific. And then after that debate until Biden drops out is a disaster area for Kamala Harris’s career. In the primary she starts falling apart. She can’t strategize right, she’s for Medicare for All. No, she’s not, she’s for Medicare for some. What’s Medicare for some? I don’t know. And she goes to the next debate and Tulsi Gabbard kicks her ass. And then goes to the third debate, gets her kicked again, and she’s starting to drift away. Then at this point, and this is funny, I have more votes for president than Kamala Harris does, because Kamala Harris dropped out before Iowa because that’s how much of a disaster her campaign turned into when she was leading. She was leading. Cenk Uygur (02:51:33): Then she becomes vice president and Biden, probably because of that bus line, Jill Biden caught tremendous feelings over that line. Biden’s like, here, have this albatross around your neck. It’s called immigration. Good luck. I’m not going to do anything about it. I’m not going to change policy, but I’m putting you in charge of it to get your ass handed to you. And she does, so that’s a disaster. And then she starts doing interviews where she’s like, “We have to become the change, the being, but not the thing we were and the unbecoming.” And you’re, what is going on? Why can neither one of them speak? Cenk Uygur (02:52:12): But then the third act shocks me. Biden steps down, she goes and grabs all those delegates in a super competent way that we talked about earlier. And then she goes out and gives a speech. I’m, oh, that speech is good. Okay, and another one, another one. I’m, wait a minute, these are good speeches. No more word salads. Then she picks Tim Walz and shocks the world. I’m like, that’s the correct VP pick. That is a miracle. And then she goes and does the economically populist plan, all those proposals about housing that people care about, grocery prices that people care about. Real or not real, that is correct political strategy. This Kamala Harris is back to the original Kamala Harris, who was a very competent, skilled politician. Lex Fridman (02:52:58): And as I was telling you offline, whoever’s doing her TikTok is blowing up and they’re doing risky, edgy stuff. Cenk Uygur (02:53:08): Yes. Lex Fridman (02:53:09): I did not expect that from somebody that comes from the Biden camp of just be safe, be boring, all this stuff. Cenk Uygur (02:53:17): You have to give Kamala Harris ultimate credit, because she’s the leader of the campaign and she makes the final decisions. But there’s apparently a couple of people inside that campaign that are ass kickers, and they have convinced her to take risk, which Democrats never take. And it is correct to take risks. You cannot get to victory without risk. The vice president pick is the bellwether. When Hillary Clinton picked Tim Kaine, I said, “That’s it, she’s going to lose.” Because Tim Kaine is playing prevent defense. He’s wallpaper. He’d be lucky to be wallpaper, he’s just a white wall. And when he speaks it’s white noise. He never says anything interesting, he’s the most boring pick of all time. That saying, we already won. Ha, ha. Cenk Uygur (02:54:02): If Kamala Harris had picked Mark Kelly, that’s the Tim Kaine equivalent. Oh, he’s an astronaut. I don’t give a shit that he’s an astronaut. What is he saying? Is he a good politician? Does he have good policies? Is he exciting on the campaign trail? Is he going to add to your momentum? Mark Kelly, he might be a good guy, but number one, he’s a very corporate Democrat. And number two, it’s like watching grass grow. He’s terrible at speaking if you ask me. I thought, for sure she’s going to pick Mark Kelly, because that’s what a normal Democrat does. Or if they want to go wild and crazy, they’ll go to Beshear. I was, please let it be Shapiro, because he’s at least not bad. He’s done some populous things and he’s strategic, he’s really smart. I need smart candidates. Dumb candidates don’t help. They don’t have a mind of their own. They can’t take risks. They’re not independent thinkers. They’re going to lose. She picks the smartest, most populous candidate. Boom, boom, we got a winner. That’s a good campaign. Lex Fridman (02:55:00): Speaking of risks, when they debate, when Kamala and Trump debate, what do you think that’s going to look like? Who do you think is going to win? Cenk Uygur (02:55:12): Oh, that’s not close. Kamala Harris will win unless she falls apart. Unless she goes back to the bad era. That’s risk number three. Lex Fridman (02:55:19): Well, hold on a second. Oh, I guess in a debate, you can have pre-written. It seems like when she’s going off the top of her head is when the word salad sometimes comes out. Sometimes. Cenk Uygur (02:55:31): Well, we’ll have to see because she hasn’t done any tough interviews, she hasn’t really been challenged. I hope to God that doesn’t happen. Lex Fridman (02:55:39): That she doesn’t fall apart, you mean? Cenk Uygur (02:55:40): Yeah. Lex Fridman (02:55:40): I hope she does a bunch of interviews, right? Cenk Uygur (02:55:42): Oh, definitely, definitely. This is going to sound really funny. I’m too honest, but I am in the context of Kamala Harris probably shouldn’t come on The Young Turks. We do a really tough interview and it would hurt her. Lex Fridman (02:55:57): Do you though? It’s tough, but you’re pretty respectful. Maybe I’m okay with a little bit of tension. You’re pretty respectful. Even when you’re yelling, there’s respect. You don’t do a got you type thing. There’s certain things you could do. You said this in the past, you can say a lot in from the past that’s out of context. It forces the other person to have to define the context, just debate type tactics over and over. You don’t seem to do that. You just ask them questions generally and then you argue the point, and then you also hear what they say. The only thing I’ve seen you do sometimes tough, that you sometimes interrupt. You speak over the person if they are trying to do the same. Cenk Uygur (02:56:48): Right. Only if they’re filibustering. Lex Fridman (02:56:50): Yeah, if they’re filibustering. But that’s a tricky one. That’s a tricky one. Cenk Uygur (02:56:54): Right. No, but Lex, the problem for her coming on our show isn’t that we would be unfair to her, it’s that we would be fair. We would ask questions she is going to have trouble answering. Lex Fridman (02:57:06): All the corporate stuff. Cenk Uygur (02:57:07): Right. Biden said he was going to take the corporate tax rate to 28%, and he barely tried. You say you’re going to take it to 28%, why should we trust you? You guys said $15 minimum wage, and then you took it out of the bill. Why should we trust you? Those are very tough questions. She’s never going to get that in mainstream media. Mainstream media is going to have faux toughness, but in reality they’re going to be softballs. And so the debates, you’re right Lex, is a little bit easier because Sarah Palin proved that you could just memorize scripted talking points. And she admitted it later, she was super nervous, she memorized the talking points. And no matter what they asked, she just gave the talking point. Which by the way, people barely noticed because that’s what all politicians do, she just admitted it. Cenk Uygur (02:58:01): And so, no, Trump’s a disaster in a debate. He’s a one man wrecking crew of his own campaign. Any competent debater would eviscerate Donald Trump. On any given topic, when he says something… Here, let’s take one lunatic conspiracy theory that he just had recently. And by the way, if you’re a right-winger and you keep getting hurt every time I say he’s a lunatic, or I insult Donald Trump, you sound like a left-winger. I’m offended. I’m offended, I’m offended. Get over it. Get over it. We have disagreements, hear what the other side is saying. And by the way, I say the same thing to the left. I say, you think everybody on the right’s evil, you’re crazy. No, they just have a different way of looking at the world. Which by the way, is an interesting conversation, we should talk about that in a minute too. I do it to both sides. Cenk Uygur (02:58:56): But Trump says, “Oh, I don’t think there’s anyone at Kamala Harris’s rallies, all the pictures are AI.” Let’s say he says that in a debate because he’s liable to say anything. You just say, okay, so you think every reporter that was there, every photographer that was there, every human being that was there, they’re all lying. They have a conspiracy of thousands of people, but none of them were actually there. Do you understand how insane you sound? Lex Fridman (02:59:30): This is a good place to, can you steel man the case for Trump? Cenk Uygur (02:59:36): Trump is a massive risk because of all the things we talked about earlier, but there is a percentage chance that he’s such a wild card that he overturns the whole system. And that is why the establishment is a little scared of him. If he’s in office… Here, I’ll give you a case of Donald Trump doing something right. Something wrong first and then something right. He bombs Soleimani , the top general of Iran, and kills him. That risks World War Three, that risks a giant war with Iran that devolves. Iran is four times the size of Iraq. If you’re anti-war, you should have hated that he assassinated Soleimani. Cenk Uygur (03:00:13): But after the assassination, Iran doesn’t want to get into it even though they’re in a rage and they do a small bombing. You could tell if it’s a small or a big one. That’s them saying, we don’t really want war, but for our domestic crowd we have to bomb you back. And that’s when the military industrial complex comes to Trump and says, “No, you have to show them who’s tough and bomb this area.” And Trump says, “No, they did a small bombing, not a large bombing. I don’t want the war. I’m not going to do that bombing.” That was his shining moment. Lex Fridman (03:00:46): For me one of the biggest steel man for Trump is that he has both the skill and the predisposition to not be a warmonger. He, I think better than the other candidates I’ve seen, is able to end wars and end them, now, you might disagree with it, but in a way where there’s legitimately effective negotiation that happens. I just don’t see any other candidate currently being able to sit down with Zelensky and Putin and to negotiate a peace treaty that both are equally unhappy with. Cenk Uygur (03:01:25): On the one hand, almost all other politicians are going be controlled by the military-industrial complex, and that complex wants to bleed Russia dry, and that’s what the Ukraine War is doing. It’s a double win for the defense contractors. Number one, every dollar we send to Ukraine is actually not going to Ukraine, it’s going to US defense contractors, and then they are sending old weapons to Ukraine. The money is to build new weapons for us. A lot of people don’t know that. The defense contractors want that war to go on forever, and they’re an enormous influence in Washington. Cenk Uygur (03:02:04): The second win is they’re depleting Russia. And Russia has gotten themselves into a quagmire, like we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they’re bleeding out. The military-industrial complex wants Russia to bleed out for as long as humanly possible. They actually care more about their own interest, of course, than they do about Ukrainian interests. In fact, there’s a good argument to be made that Ukraine could have gotten a peace deal earlier and we prevented it. But the bottom line now is probably how a deal gets done is they let go of three more areas in Ukraine. They already lost Crimea. They’d have to let go of three more regions. And that is tough because at that point Russia’s a little bit encouraged. Every time they do an invasion, they get more land. They might not get all the land they wanted, but they get a lot of land. It’s a very difficult issue. Lex Fridman (03:03:02): But literally, which person, if they become president, will end the war? Cenk Uygur (03:03:09): Trump will end that war because Trump will go in and he loves Russia and Putin anyway. Lex Fridman (03:03:13): I just disagree with, he loves Russia, the implication of that. Meaning he’ll do whatever Putin tells him. I think… Cenk Uygur (03:03:23): He’ll do 90% of what Putin tells him. Lex Fridman (03:03:25): I just disagree with that. I think he wants to be the person that says, fuck you to Putin while patting him- Cenk Uygur (03:03:35): No way. Lex Fridman (03:03:36): … on the back, but out negotiating Putin. Cenk Uygur (03:03:40): I don’t like talking about Russia because there’s so much emotions that go into that topic. The right wing, the minute you mention Russia, they’re like, oh, it’s a hoax and all this baggage that comes with it, et cetera. To me, Russia’s not any different than Saudi Arabia or Israel for Trump. You give me money, I like you. You buy my apartments, I like you. If you don’t give me money, I don’t like you. It’s not that complicated. Okay, don’t worry about the Russia part of it. The bottom line is Trump thinks, what do I care about those three regions of Ukraine? I want to get this thing done. He’ll go and he’ll say, “Ukraine, we’re going to withdraw all help unless you agree to a peace deal with Russia, and Russia wants those three regions, that’s the peace deal. That’s it.” Ukraine will lose a part of their country and we get to a peace deal. Lex Fridman (03:04:36): See, I hope not. I hope not. I think Trump sees themselves and wants to be a great negotiator, and I personally want the death of people to end. And I think Trump would bring that much faster. And I disagree with you, at least my hope is that he would negotiate something that would be fair. Cenk Uygur (03:05:05): His anti-war record is so complicated because moving the embassy in Israel and killing the top Iranian general were super provocative, and they could have easily triggered a giant war there. And then you know what’s going to happen if you get into any kind of real war? Trump’s going to want to prove his buttons larger. Then he’s going to do massive, ridiculous bombings. I worry about nukes. And so we had Giuliani on the show, on the RNC, and I asked him this question. I said, “He keeps saying, ‘Oh, they wouldn’t do it if I was in charge.'” I’m like, “What does that mean? Because it sounds like what it means is they wouldn’t do it because they know if they did it, I would do something insane like attack Russia or use nukes.” And Rudy said, “Yeah, that’s what it means.” Cenk Uygur (03:05:56): That means you have to at least bluff that, and you have to get them to believe that he’s a madman. That’s the madman theory of Nixon. And Rudy said that too. He was very clear about it. But the problem is, if you get your bluff called. And so if you actually attack Russia, you’re going to start World War Three. That’s why, yeah, if you could just get away with bluffing, maybe. But he’s playing a very dangerous game, and he massively increased drone strikes. On the other hand, he didn’t bomb Iran further, and on the other hand, he started the process of withdrawal from Afghanistan. Not black and white, complicated record. Cenk Uygur (03:06:40): And one thing, I’ll give him another piece of credit here. I think I’m taking this steel manning too far, but the credit was that he changed the rhetoric of the right wing. They went from the party of Dick Cheney, War is great, and all Muslims are evil. And so he hates Muslims too, but that’s a different thing. But, oh, we have to attack the enemy. We have to start wars, et cetera. To now the Republican voters are generally anti-war and hate Dick Cheney. Oh, I’ll take it. I’ll take it. That’s a great thing that Trump did, even if he didn’t mean it. Even if he does these provocative things that could lead to a much worse war. Even if I’m worried that he’ll be so reckless he’ll start a bigger war. At least he did that, right, and so I’m happy to have our right wing brothers and sisters join us in the anti-war movement. And I’m not being a jerk about it. I love it. Cenk Uygur (03:07:40): And so this is another thing the left does wrong from time to time, which is if you agree with a right-winger 2%, they’ll be, “Oh, welcome in. Come on, vote for Trump. Come on in. Yeah, woohoo. Water’s warm.” If you disagree with the left 2%, they’re, “That’s it. You’re banished and you’re a Nazi.” ” Well, brother, how are we going to win an election if you’re banishing everybody there is. Hold up. These Republican voters are coming at your anti-war position. Take the win. “No, they’re [inaudible 03:08:14] and I won’t deal with them.” “Even when they agree with you? That doesn’t make any sense. That doesn’t make any sense. Take the win.” When Charlie Kirk says yes to paid family leave, when Patrick Bette-David on his program roughly says yes to paid family leave, take the win. Lex Fridman (03:08:31): RFK Jr. You said some positive things for a while about RFK Jr. and I think you said you would even consider voting for him given the slate of people. This was at the time when Biden was still in. What do you think about him? What do you think about RFK Jr. as a candidate, as a person? He’s been on the show, right? Yeah. Cenk Uygur (03:08:55): Yeah, so he was on our show. People loved that interview, you could check it out anytime. Lex Fridman (03:08:59): That’s great. Cenk Uygur (03:09:01): And why do people love it whether they’re right or left? Because we’re fair. We actually asked him about his policy position, he explained them. I challenge him, and then he explains, and we give him a fair hearing. But I knew Bobby a little bit before he ran when he was an environmental lawyer. And his legal work is excellent, and he’s been on the right side of most of the issues for most of his life. A, I like him on that. Two, on his wildlife, the dead bear and the worms and all that stuff. There’s two important lessons you should get out that. Well, one’s just about Bobby, but the other one’s a general one that’s really important for you to know no matter what you think of Bobby Kennedy. Cenk Uygur (03:09:47): On the personal front, I have a friend that’s very similar to him. In fact, he’s one of my best friends. And I know why. This is my theory on why Bobby and my friend led a wild life. Both of their dads died young. When my friend’s dad died, he was 18, and his dad died in his arms. And he has a motto, “What is lived cannot be unlived.” If I had a great time and I thought it was hilarious to dump a dead bear in Central Park, then I lived it and I had a great time and nothing you could do about it. And sometimes that’ll get you in trouble, and sometimes you’ll have a fantastic time. And obviously, Bobby’s dad was killed when he was young, and maybe that got into his head of, you better live strong and live an interesting life. And so I don’t begrudge him that. Even if I begrudge some of the things that he did in that life, I get why he did it. I don’t hate him like other people hate him for some of those personal stuff. Cenk Uygur (03:10:52): And I like him for all the things that he did positive. Holding fossil fuel companies accountable, protecting communities that had poison dumped into the rivers, et cetera. The thing that affects everybody is when he gets… Corporate media smeared the hell out of him, and they didn’t allow him to speak. And then they did the needle in a haystack trick. Whenever it’s an insider, they find the best parts of their lives and then they amplify it. Joe Biden is average Joe from Scranton. Mother fucker’s been in DC for the last 52 years, you think we don’t have eyes and ears? Average Joe from Scranton, who are you kidding? Cenk Uygur (03:11:38): There’s a guy named Fred Thompson who’s an actor, and he was a senator from Tennessee later. And he had this great little trick that he would do. There’s a red pickup truck that he would campaign with so he looks like a regular Joe. But he’s a millionaire actor. But here’s the funny part. He would drive to the red pickup truck in a limo, and he would drive back from the campaign event in a limo. But the press never reported the limo, they only reported him in the red pickup truck. Cenk Uygur (03:12:00): Never reported the limo. They only reported him in the red pickup truck, as if that’s what he drives. See, that’s the theater of politics. Why? Because Fred Thompson was a corporate Republican, so they loved him. So they go, “Yeah, sure, yeah, red pickup truck. Oh, good old Fred Thompson, right?” But if you’re an outsider and they don’t like you, then they’re going to look at the haystack of your life and they’re going to try to find needles. So they’ve done this to Trump, they’ve done this to Bernie, they’ve done this to Bobby Kennedy Jr. And with Bobby, they’re like, ooh, there’s some juicy needles in here. So they find those and they go, you see this? The only thing you should know about Bobby, Kennedy Jr. is that he found a dead bear and put it in Central Park. Oh, wait, wait, wait. I found another one. Cenk Uygur (03:12:50): The other thing you should know about Bobby is that he once said in a divorce deposition that he had a brain worm that, by the way, it turns out that affects millions of people and is not that big a deal, right? But look, he is a radical. Ah, he is. This defines him completely. The spectacular case of that actually happened to me. So I ran for Congress in 2020 and The New York Times, LA Times CNN, they all butchered me with needles. Okay? So they said, “He has a long history of making anti-Muslim jokes.” Well, first of all, they didn’t even say jokes. They said anti-Muslim rhetoric. I’m like, I am Muslim. I mean, I’m an atheist, but I grew up Muslim. My family’s Muslim, my background’s Muslim. You don’t think that’s relevant in the story? And they did it based on one joke I told about, and they said, oh, also, of course they say that I’m anti-Semitic, that’s like, you start with that. Cenk Uygur (03:13:47): That’s just baked in for everyone, right? So they said, I had made a joke about how Orthodox Jews and Muslims, they think that getting into heaven is a little bit of a fashion contest. So the Orthodox Jews go in there with the Russian coats from the 1800s and the giant Russian hat, the Muslims going with their robe and the skull cap and stuff. And God’s looking around going, “No, no, no. Ooh, nice outfit. Come on in.” Right? Do you really think the creator of the universe gives a damn to what you wear? Okay? So New York Times took that and said, “Long history of being anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim.” Lex Fridman (03:14:27): Right. Cenk Uygur (03:14:27): Okay, so there’s this, oh, this is a famous one, relatively. I did a joke about bestiality like a dozen years ago… Lex Fridman (03:14:37): Very nice. Cenk Uygur (03:14:38): So I started out to joke nice and dry, and I go, “Look, is the horse going to object if he’s the one getting pleasure?” Now, Anna is my co-host. She’s younger at that time, and she’s like, “That seems like a bad idea, Cenk.” I’m like, “Of course it’s a bad idea,” but I’m being dry. But some people are laughing in the studio and stuff. And then I say, “If I was emperor of the world, I would make that legal.” And they cut the tape. If you watch the rest of the tape, I say, “Now, would the horse object? Nah.” But they cut the tape. Originally, a right-winger did that. And then a establishment troll in that primary started putting out those tapes to everyone. Jake Tapper retweeted it, didn’t look to see if it’s edited or not edited. The New York Times implied that bestiality was part of my agenda. Jesus Christ. Lex Fridman (03:15:36): Please tell me that’s part of your Wikipedia. The bestiality thing is part of your… Cenk Uygur (03:15:42): I don’t know. I don’t know. But guys, so in those stories, I’m not important. And even Bobby Kennedy Jr. is not important. What it reveals about the media is what’s important. So they’re going to find those needles, whether it’s… And even if they don’t have the needles, you know what? We’ll cut the tape before your joke’s punchline. So we’ll just run it and we’ll lie about you. Who cares, right? And so, oh, they also said that I had David Duke on to share his anti-Semitic point of view. If you watch the interview, I told David Duke, “You’re an anti-Semite. You’re a racist, you’re a bigot. You’re an idiot.” It was the toughest interview he’s probably ever had in his life. And other journalists got mad at that part, and they were like, “No, guys, you’re just flat out lying. I watched the interview. Did any of you watch the interview? He takes the guy’s head off.” And so The New York Times issued a correction on that one. So they’re like, okay, fine. He was being sarcastic when he said, “Sure, you’re not racist, Dave.” Lex Fridman (03:16:45): One of the sources of hope to all this is there’s a lot of independent media now, but mainstream media has a lot of power still and carries a lot of power. You think they’re going to die eventually? Cenk Uygur (03:16:57): Yeah, definitely. So two things about that that are super important. First of all, this is why I tell people to have hope. I don’t believe in false hope. So if you think Kamala Harris is your knight in shining armor, and she’s going to come in, she’s going to get money out of politics, she’s going to ignore the donors, that’s false hope. It’s crazy talk, right? So why am I in favor of Kamala Harris? I’m going to live to fight another day. I’m worried that Trump’s going to end the whole thing, and then we’re not going to have an opportunity to actually get a populist to win. And I’m encouraged by some of the things she’s doing, and maybe she does even 25% of her agenda, but I’m not going to give you false hope that she’s your savior. But I believe massively in hope. And number one, it’s true to the point that we were talking about earlier, Lex and how last 200 years have been choppy but overall fantastic. Cenk Uygur (03:17:46): Terrible things have happened in that time period. Some of the worst things that have ever happened in history. But overall life expectancy is higher, incomes are higher, health is better, et cetera. So hope is not misplaced. It’s real. It’s empirical. So now we talked about how you could get money out of politics, and that’s a legitimate hope, but media is another place where we have huge hope. So of all the corporate robots, the most important robot is media. So when mainstream media has you hooked in at the back of your neck, you’re going to believe all these fairy tales about how politicians are nice people and they’re trying to do the right thing, and donor money doesn’t have any influence on them. So once you unplug from the matrix, well then you begin to see, oh yeah, hey, look, he took the donor money, did what the donors wanted, he took the donor money, did what the donors want, 98% of the time. Cenk Uygur (03:18:41): So then you see clearly. So now what’s happening at large, mainstream media is losing their power. And now online media, swarming, swarming, swarming, swarming. And so this goes back to why I started the Young Turks. So let me touch on that here and then we can come back to it if you want. So in 1998, I write an email to my friends and I say, “Online video is going to be television.” And unsurprisingly, and they say, “You’re nuts. That’s never going to happen.” At that point, we’re still doing AOL dial-ups, like… Online video barely exists and television’s mammoth. I say, “Guys, it’s just a matter of logic.” For me, there’s so many ironies, I’m known for yelling online sometimes, but in reality, I’m obsessed with logic. So when you have gatekeepers, gatekeepers pick based on what they want, what the powerful want, in that case, advertisers, politicians, et cetera, they’re never going to design programming as good as wisdom of the crowd. Cenk Uygur (03:19:50): When people start doing online video, I’m like, boom, there’s no gatekeepers. This is democratized. Wisdom of the crowd’s going to win. So if you start with no money… And let’s pick a different example, not the Young Turks. Let’s say Phil DeFranco. He’s been around forever and he also does news. And so Phil starts doing a show and he doesn’t have any money, he’s just like us. And so what does he have to do to get an audience? He has to do a show that is really popular. He’s got to figure out a way, how do I get their attention? How do I keep their attention? And he starts doing a great show. And so every year it’s us and Phil for best news show for like a decade. Cenk Uygur (03:20:33): And meanwhile, I’m back over at CNN, Wolf Blitzer still droning on from a teleprompter. You put Wolf Blitzer online without the force of CNN with him, he gets negative seven views. No one’s interested in what Wolf Blitzer has to say. It’s not personal. I don’t know the brother. I’m just saying institutionally, logically, et cetera. So I’m like, these guys are going to win. So when YouTube starts, we go on YouTube right away. We’re the first YouTube partner. So I am literally the original YouTuber, okay? Lex Fridman (03:21:07): Nice. Cenk Uygur (03:21:08): Susan Wojcicki, the former CEO, the late Susan Wojcicki, a wonderful woman. And if that triggers you again on the right, you’re wrong. She was a terrific person. And when she started her own YouTube channel, I was the first interview ’cause we were the first YouTube partner. So I love that. But let me connect it back to the hope. When mainstream media has you hooked, you got no hope because you don’t have the right information. You have propaganda, you have marketing, you don’t have real news. When you’re in the online world, it’s chaotic. And don’t get me wrong, it’s got plenty of downsides. But within that chaos, the truth begins to emerge. And so for example, Young Turks has had dozens of fights with different creators throughout history. Why? When you’re number one in news online, the algorithm rewards anyone attacking you because then you get into their algorithmic loop. Cenk Uygur (03:22:08): It’s not an accident that we’ve been attacked dozens of times. One, we’re independent thinkers. So anyone, if we don’t match their ideology, they’re going to attack us. But number two, they get in our algorithm loop. It’s too hard to resist. So all of a sudden they think that we’re being funded by Nancy Pelosi or the CIA, and oh, we’re off to the races. There’s another fight. But our competition is a graveyard. And so we’ve won almost all of those fights. Why? Because we try really hard to stick with the truth, with logic, and we don’t do audience capture. Even if our audience is going in one direction, we don’t think it’s right. Anna and I will come out and go, “No, sorry guys. Love you, but rent control is not a good idea,” et cetera. So in that world, the people, it’s going to take a while, guys, but people who are telling the truth are eventually going to rise up. Cenk Uygur (03:23:04): And when they do, now we’re free. Now, the second part is even more devastating for mainstream media, because I’m a businessman, I keep looking at the revenue for CNN cetera, and they have a massive problem, and people don’t realize how big the problem is. That thing’s going to capsize. I don’t talk about it often because I don’t want more competition. I also have a company in the online world, et cetera, but I’m too honest, I got to say it. I got to say it. So they have two revenue streams. One is ads. That’s why they serve advertisers and politicians are huge advertisers as we mentioned. The second revenue stream, depending on the company, is arguably more important, which is subscribers. So now what happens in a business normally is, so they started out low and then they got high, and now they got a ton of subscribers. Cenk Uygur (03:24:02): At its peak cable has a hundred million households. So they’re raking in unbelievable money from subscriber fees, and they got advertising on top. So when you’re all the way up here, your costs start to rise. Why do they rise? Because then the on-air talent has leverage. And as an example, there’s many others. And so the on-air talent, like Sean Hannity says, “I do a program that brings in X amount of maybe a hundred million, maybe 200 million, so give me 40 million a year.” And they do. Sean is making 40 million a year last I checked, okay? So I don’t know if he’s still getting that kind of money, and I’m just spacing out on reporting, but that’s a monster. So they have all these giant costs, but the minute you go from a hundred million, now I think around 70 million, you just lost a giant chunk of your revenue. Now when your costs are higher than your revenue, nighty night, it’s been nice knowing you. Lex Fridman (03:25:00): Yeah, it’s going to collapse and it’s going to be painful. Cenk Uygur (03:25:03): But what we need guys is, sorry, last thing on that is, we need the print guys like AP, Reuters, Intercept, The Lever, [inaudible 03:25:13] Runs whatever Ryan’s working on now, [inaudible 03:25:15] Ryan Grim said it. We need those badly. We need someone to collect actual information and do the best they can in presenting it in an objective way. We all got to support that. So you can’t lose text, that’s so important. The TV guys are just actors. You can lose them overnight and it won’t hurt you. It’ll help you. Lex Fridman (03:25:33): Yeah, it’s going to be a messy battle for truth, because the reality is there’s a lot of money to be made and a lot of attention to be gained from drama farming. So just constantly creating drama. And sometimes drama helps find the truth like we were mentioning, but most of the time it’s just drama and it doesn’t care about the truth. It just cares about drama. And then the same as conspiracy theories. Now, some conspiracy theories have value and depth, and they allow us to question the institutions, but the bottom line is conspiracy theories get clicks. And so you can just keep coming up random conspiracy theories, many of them don’t have to be grounded in the truth at all. And so that’s the sea we’re operating in. And so it’s a tricky space too. Cenk Uygur (03:26:25): But Lex, look at all the people who are the biggest now, because we’ve now had a couple of decades at this, and I mean as an industry. So I would argue you’re huge and you don’t do that. You don’t do the conspiracy theories. You don’t do the drama at all. Rogan is huge. Yeah, maybe there’s drama, but he’s genuine. I got a lot of issues with some of his policies. I’ve mixed opinions on Joe in a lot of different ways, but I don’t doubt that he’s genuine and people can sense that. And he’s huge. We’re genuine, we’re huge. So this is the market beginning to work. Lex Fridman (03:27:09): So speaking of Joe, let me ask you about this. Cenk Uygur (03:27:12): Here we go. Lex Fridman (03:27:13): I didn’t actually know this, but when I was prepping for this conversation, I saw that you actually said at some point in the past that you can beat up Rogan in a fight. Cenk Uygur (03:27:21): Yeah. Lex Fridman (03:27:22): No, you said that you have a shot. It’s a non-zero probability. Cenk Uygur (03:27:25): Yes. Lex Fridman (03:27:25): Do you still believe this? Cenk Uygur (03:27:27): Yes. But the probability is dropping. It’s dropping every day. Lex Fridman (03:27:31): I think it’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say. I wrestled and did Jiu-Jitsu and judo and all the kinds of fighting sports my whole life. And I just observed a lot of really confident, large guys roll into gyms. He’s ripped, he could deadlift, he could talk all kinds of shit. And he beliefs he’s going to be the next world champion and he just gets his ass kicked. Cenk Uygur (03:27:56): Yeah, of course. Okay. And I saw this Israeli MMA fighter take on an anti-Semite who was huge and thought that… He believed in Nick Fuentes conspiracy theories or something. And the MMA fighter dismantled him, and I loved it. And then we tweeted back and forth, et cetera. So guys, first, let me just assure you, I get it. So now let me tell you why I said it and then why I think it’s a non-zero chance. So Michael Smerconish had written this blog, I don’t know, 10, 15 years ago on Huffington Post. We were both bloggers at that point and about the wussification of America. Cenk Uygur (03:28:40): Now, he was saying the left is a bunch of wussies, right? So I wrote a blog saying, “Hey, Michael, I would rather debate you. So if you want to debate about how we’re wussies, let’s do it. Let’s find them. But you are mentioning physicality and how you guys are tougher. So if you prefer only in a prescribed setting, and we’re not going to go do it in the streets like idiots, but if you want, we’ll have a boxing match or whatever you want, and we’ll see who’s tougher.” Cenk Uygur (03:29:08): And he panicked and he cried to mommy, which was Ariana Huffington, and said, “Oh, Cenk’s intimidating me.” Okay, all right, well who’s the wussy now, bitch? So that is not to actually get into a fight with poor Michael Smerconish, right? It’s to prove, hey, don’t use rhetoric like that. That’s dumb. And this is me proving that it’s dumb. Okay? So now Joe had said, I forget what he said at the time, and he said something similar. And I’m up to hear with Joe at that point. I don’t know if we’ll ever talk yet, right? Lex Fridman (03:29:41): But you’ve been in a show and that was a good conversation. Cenk Uygur (03:29:44): It was a great conversation. Lex Fridman (03:29:45): That was a while back. Yeah. Cenk Uygur (03:29:46): Yeah. Lex Fridman (03:29:46): I hope he has you on again. Cenk Uygur (03:29:47): Yeah. So I get it. Lex Fridman (03:29:50): I bet you I don’t like this take you have, a lot. I bet you he hates it because him as an MMA commentator, he gets to hear so many bros. Cenk Uygur (03:30:01): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lex Fridman (03:30:02): It’s all about the mindset, bro. Now, to [inaudible 03:30:06], the point you’re making, which I do think it’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said, but the actual intent, which is whether you’re left or right, there’s strong people on the left, mentally strong, physically strong. I think the whole point is not that you can beat them, but you are willing to fight if you need to. Cenk Uygur (03:30:30): A hundred percent. Lex Fridman (03:30:31): So it’s not like I believe I could beat him, it’s like all this calling the people on the left wussies or whatever. I’m willing to step in the fight, even if I’m on train, even if I’m a out of shape, I’m willing to fight. Yeah, I get it. I understand that. But it’s just pick a different person. That’s why I wrote down my genuine curiosity is if you can beat up Alex, Alex Jones versus Cenk, the legitimate is I would pay for that. Because you’re both untrained. You both got I would say, the spirit. Cenk Uygur (03:31:04): No, no. Look, I’ll give the same fairness. I think I got an 8% chance of being beating Rogan. Lex Fridman (03:31:11): You’re [inaudible 03:31:12]. Cenk Uygur (03:31:12): I know, I got it. Hold on. Lex Fridman (03:31:14): All right. Cenk Uygur (03:31:14): And I think to be fair, Alex has an 8% chance of beating me. Lex Fridman (03:31:17): Oh, wow. Okay. Cenk Uygur (03:31:19): Yeah. Because you never know. He catches you on a lucky punch. I got punched in the ear once and you lose your balance and then you’re in a lot of trouble. So I can get lucky. Alex Jones can get lucky. It’s me against Rogan is harder. If you said to me you don’t have 8% chance, but Alex does. Okay, I’m not going to… It’s fine. So why does Alex stand almost no chance, if you ask me. So first of all, it’s not just because I’m big and he’s big. One, I wrestled. Lex Fridman (03:31:50): Oh, you wrestled? Cenk Uygur (03:31:50): Yeah, if you wrestle then… I watched this show with my kids, Physical 100, it’s like a Korean show where they try to find out who’s the best athlete. They have one thing where they have to wrestle away the ball and keep it, this big giant ball. I’m like, every wrestler is going to win. Every MMA fighter is going to win. And every time they win and they’re like, “Dad, how’d you know that?” Because we get trained, we’re not going to lose to a non-wrestler in a wrestling contest. It’s not going to happen. So you can get lucky, but it’s unlikely. So one, wrestling, now, that was from a long time ago, but at least the mechanics, right? Number two, I’ve gotten into about 30 actual street fights in my life. And you can say street fights not the same as MMA, of course, that’s true. Obviously true, right? But it’s not no experience, it’s some experience. And the most important part of a street fight is being able to take a punch to the face. Lex Fridman (03:32:41): Knowing what it feels like to get punched in the face, yeah. Cenk Uygur (03:32:44): So I’ve been punched in the face, I don’t know, dozens of times in my life. I used to start fights by saying, “I’ll let you take the first punch.” So I didn’t start the fights, they just started ’cause they punched me in the face. And then for Alex, the main thing, and also true for Rogan, is it’s about willpower. So if Joe has a 92% chance, in my opinion, of knocking me out or beating me, because he has the skill and he’s trained and he knows what he’s doing. So all the willpower in the world isn’t going to help you if you get kicked upside the head, right? But in the unlikely circumstances that I’ve worn him down, then I’m a little bit more in the ball game ’cause I got willpower. For Alex, he doesn’t have the willpower I have, okay? Because to me, the idea of losing to Alex Jones is unthinkable. I would do anything not to lose, anything. Lex Fridman (03:33:42): Let me just say, so that’s beautiful. I love this. I would pay a lot of money to watch the two of you just even wrestle. But with Joe, I think I have to say, it’s like it 0.0001% chance, you have a chance before you even get to the mentality. And the other thing is, on the mentality side, one of the fascinating things about Joe is he’s actually a sweetheart in person, like this. But there’s something that takes over him when he competes. Cenk Uygur (03:34:13): Brother, we’ve been around 22 years in the toughest industry in the world. Lex Fridman (03:34:17): I understand, yeah. Cenk Uygur (03:34:19): If you have any idea how hard it’s to run a 75 person company and make money online and survive after all the guys who took billions of dollars went down. Lex Fridman (03:34:28): I hear you. Cenk Uygur (03:34:28): Tremendous willpower. But overall, this is not the hill I’m dying on. Okay? Joe would win, I get it. Lex Fridman (03:34:37): I think we’re all allowed one kind of blind spot, I suppose. Cenk Uygur (03:34:43): So you don’t think a big guy that still is in good shape, that was a wrestler that’s been on a lot of street fights, you still think 0.0001? Lex Fridman (03:34:54): It depends on the street fights. But yeah, 0.001. I just see technique- Cenk Uygur (03:34:57): Okay, yeah. And it’s such a minute disagreement because, so take me out of it. So you take out the willpower part of blah, blah, blah. I think it’s one to 2%. Yeah, he could catch the guy on about and get lucky. Lex Fridman (03:35:08): I think it’s because I’ve talked to… So I trained with a coach named John Donaher, and we talk about this a lot. And I think technique is the thing that also feeds the willpower. It actually builds up your confidence in the way that nothing else does in the more actionable way, because you won’t need that much willpower. Cenk Uygur (03:35:31): No. Lex Fridman (03:35:32): If the technique is backed, you don’t have to be a tough guy to win debates if you’re just fucking good at debates. So I think people just don’t understand the value in sport and especially in combat of technique. Cenk Uygur (03:35:46): Now, a great irony is I actually totally agree with that. That’s why made a mention of the Physical 100. Technique’s going to win almost every time. We’re having a debate about whether it’s eight or one or 0.01, it’s either way, technique wins. We agree. Lex Fridman (03:36:02): Okay, beautiful. One of the controversial things you’ve done, in the nineties as a student at UPenn, you publicly denied the Armenian Genocide, which is the mass murder of over a million Armenians in 1915 and ’16 in the Ottoman Empire. You have since then publicly and clearly changed your mind on this. Tell me the process you went through to change your mind. Cenk Uygur (03:36:34): So when you’re a kid, you’re taught a whole bunch of things. That’s the software that we talked about earlier. So cultural software is media, family, friends, social media, et cetera. And so growing up in any tribe, whether it’s a religious tribe or an ethnic tribe, you are going to get indoctrinated into that tribe’s way of thinking. So you take a Turkish person who’s super progressive, loves Bernie, believes with all their heart and peace, and you tell them something about Kurds and they’ll say, “Oh no, not those guys. They’re terrible and evil and we have to do what we do to them.” You see, that’s the tribe taking over. Cenk Uygur (03:37:13): And so you tell any religious person what’s wrong with the other religions, they’re like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s totally true.” You get to their religion, tribe takes over, “No, how dare you. I’m offended.” So I grew up with Turkish propaganda. So I’ll tell you a couple of funny instances of it. When we were kids, we’d go to Turkish American Day Parade. I’m like 10 or 12 years old, it’s in the middle of New York because I grew up in Jersey. That’s why I got in all those fights. Cenk Uygur (03:37:42): And we would chant in Turkish, Turkey is the biggest country. There’s no other country that’s even big. And I was like, this is crazy. I’m like, “Dad, isn’t this crazy? America’s big, China’s big. Why are we chanting this nonsensical chant?” So that’s the beginning of beginning to realize your indoctrination. I’m in college and I read about some battle that the Ottoman Empire lost, and I’m like, that can’t be right. The Turks have only lost one war, World War I, right? And I was like, oh my God, I’m an idiot. I got taught that in third grade in Turkey. Of course, that’s not true. That’s ridiculously untrue. All those thoughts are in your head, you don’t even realize it. And so on the Armenian Genocide, I read the Turkish version, and the Turkish version has all of these as evidence. So it’s real in that it exists. Cenk Uygur (03:38:29): But here, I’ll give you a great example of it. I think it was Colonel Chesters, some random American military guy after World War I and he says about the Armenians after the mass march, the forced marches, he says, “They returned to the area fat and entirely unmassacred.” Okay? I’m like, Hey, that’s an American Colonel that’s saying that. So that’s obviously true. You see that it didn’t happen, or at least in the way that the Armenians say. Now as a grownup, I look at it and I go, are you kidding me? That guy’s obviously trying to get a contract with the Turkish government, right? Nobody returns from a forced march fat and entirely unmassacred, right? So that’s propaganda. And that one was so indoctrinated that it was tough to let go. So in at Penn, I write that op ed, et cetera, and then over the course of time… And so Anna and I disagree on things from time to time, and we’ve been co-hosting now for… She’s been at the Young Turks for 18 years and co-hosting for almost 18. Cenk Uygur (03:39:34): And so she’s Armenian. And by the way, I love America. Look, we came to America because we love this country, land of hope and opportunity. That’s part of why I fight so hard for the average American, for the American idea. So here’s a Turk and an Armenian doing a show together, and it becomes the number one online news show. That’s the beauty of America. So she’s telling me things and we’re having some on-air discussions about it, et cetera. And then it just dawned on me like, no, this too was obviously propaganda. So at that point, once you realize that, it becomes easier. That’s why I’m trying to unplug people from the matrix, because once you realize it’s propaganda, oh my God, it gets infinitely easier to start telling what’s true or not true. Lex Fridman (03:40:20): So maybe by way of advice, how do you know when you’re deluded by propaganda? How do you know when you’re not plugged into the matrix, when you’re plugged into the matrix? Cenk Uygur (03:40:32): You have to keep testing it against objective reality. They said something, did it happen or did it not happen? So here, here’s an easy one. Alex Jones for a long time, especially under Obama, kept saying. “They’re going to put us on FEMA camps. I tell you, they’re going to stuff us all in the FEMA camps, and they’re going to put us there, they’re going to let us out. I know it. I know for sure.” Nobody’s been in a FEMA camp. Obama left, there was no FEMA camps. So when I asked for the right wing conspiracy guys, “Guys, has any of their things ever come true? They always say all these crazy things that never, ever happened. So the third time it doesn’t happen, can you please start to wonder, maybe I’m on the wrong side.” But that’s not just for right-wingers, that’s easy, right? Cenk Uygur (03:41:18): But it’s also for mainstream media, and that’s where I get the biggest pushback. Because my tribe is what the kids call PMC, professional management class, okay? Their careers, you go up the ladder, you have this route, that route, et cetera. And so for that class, the status quo is pretty good. So when Biden gives you 15% change, you’re like, what else do y’all want? That’s amazing. He just course corrected a little bit, now it’s perfect. But for the average guy who needs a hundred percent change, not 15, they look at it and they go, what the fuck? He only did 15% and everybody’s declaring him a hero. So those are the hardest guys to get through on. And those are the guys who get most mad at me, not the right-wingers, the establishment. That’s why I’m nails on a chalkboard for them because I’m on the left, but I call out their crap and their marketing and propaganda. Cenk Uygur (03:42:18): And that’s why I mentioned earlier, he might not even consciously know it, but no one dislikes Bernie more than Obama because if Bernie got into office, he’d embarrass Obama by doing a lot more change. And Obama told us the change wasn’t possible. He could only get 5%. And so if Bernie does 50%, then Obama’s humiliated and his record and his legacy is ruined. So I don’t think he makes that conscious decision, but his subconscious, it’s a way of thinking. So if you’re watching Morning Joe, test them, he says something that Biden is for $15 minimum wage. When Biden takes it out of the bill, know that Morning Joe was lying to you. He says that Biden said he was for the public option, but he never even proposed it. When Morning Joe still defends him and you see an objective reality, Biden didn’t actually propose that bill, you know that they’re lying to. Test it against objective reality. Did it actually happen or didn’t it? Lex Fridman (03:43:22): I mean, there’s some of that [inaudible 03:43:23], some of the conspiracy theories. Do you think there’s some value to the conspiracy theories that come from the right, but actually more so come from the anti-establishment? For me, there’s a lot that raise a bit of a question. A lot of them could probably be explained by corporatism and the military industrial complex. But there’s also a lot of them could be explained by creepiness and shadiness in human nature. Epstein is an example of that. There’s a lot of ways to explain Epstein, including the basic creepiness of human nature. Lex Fridman (03:44:00): … including the basic creepiness of human nature. But there could be bigger explanations underlying it. Cenk Uygur (03:44:07): Sometimes when we have long, thoughtful conversations like this, I’ll say it depends a lot. Lex Fridman (03:44:13): Yeah. Cenk Uygur (03:44:13): And then people get frustrated by that. But then, you’re frustrated by the world because it depends. Cenk Uygur (03:44:18): So, conspiracy theories. If you say, “Are they all right or are they all wrong? Are any of the questions wrong?” It depends what is the conspiracy theory. If it’s some of the absurd ones we’ve mentioned here, God, it’s easily disproven. On the other hand, there’s a conspiracy theory about JFK’s assassination. Which one is the conspiracy theory? That Lee Harvey Oswald, from 12 miles away, shot a magic bullet that went like this and hit 13 people, and came out Kennedy’s brain? Or that the government might have wanted to cover up an assassination of the President for whatever reason? Come on. Cenk Uygur (03:45:03): Now, I’m of course doing hyperbole. The JFK enthusiasts will be like, “No, it didn’t. The bullet actually go like this. It didn’t actually hit 13 people.” I’m kidding, guys. But in terms of is that conspiracy theory real, that JFK was not just killed by Lee Harvey Oswald? Almost certainly. If you read real books, with tons of information, the most likely culprit is Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA that he hired. Back when there was a deep state, there actually was a deep state. They did coups against other countries’ leaders all the time. But they tell us, “Oh, they wouldn’t do it to our own leader.” But remember, it’s not the CIA. He’d left the CIA already. Cenk Uygur (03:45:49): I don’t know if it was ex-CIA guys, I don’t know if the Mob was involved. I don’t know any of those details. But I know some things that are obvious. That bullet didn’t magically hit him from over there. Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald. Jack Ruby was a mobster who, on the record, had said that he hated Kennedy. All of a sudden, he became patriotic overnight and shot the assailant, who was unguarded. Maybe. Less likely. Cenk Uygur (03:46:15): Okay, so let’s speed up though. My point is, yeah, some conspiracy theories could be true. It depends on objective reality. You get to Epstein. Again, I always do it ahead of time because I want you to test me and see does it match objective reality. I said the minute that it happened, you’ll have your answer based on whether the video in the hallway worked or not. If the video in the hallway works, they’ll be just as many conspiracy theories, but it’ll actually show actually who went in and didn’t go in. But if the video in the hallway doesn’t work, they definitely killed him. Cenk Uygur (03:46:55): A couple of days later, “Oh, the video in that particular hallway happened to not be working. The guards both happened to be on break at the same time. And the most notorious pedophile criminal in the country happened to be unguarded. That is the one time he decided to hang himself.” Listen, man. The only way you believe that is you got mainstream media to get you to believe that the minute the phrase conspiracy theory is mentioned, you have to shut off your mind. And you have to believe whatever the media tells you. Lex Fridman (03:47:31): Yeah. Well, it’s interesting, you just mentioned. Do you think the CIA has not grown in power? Cenk Uygur (03:47:37): No, no. They’ve greatly waned in power. Lex Fridman (03:47:40): Interesting. Cenk Uygur (03:47:41): In the old days, the CIA has an actual deep state, because the country was run by a bunch of families. You go to Yale, the Skull and Bones thing was real. You go to Harvard. Look at the Dulles family. Half of them go into government, the other half go into banking. Why are the Central American countries called the Banana Republics? Because we, America, did a coup against one of those countries because a banana company wanted it. Because they’re like, “How dare you charge whatever you want for your natural resource? We American corporations have the right to all of your natural resources at the lowest possible rate.” Cenk Uygur (03:48:21): “Allen, get rid of these guys.” And Allen would. And sometimes, they would go extra judicial, like potentially with the JFK assassination. By the way, if you pissed off J. Edgar Hoover, he was just going to put a bullet in your head and we were done with you. Fred Hampton, among others. Cenk Uygur (03:48:46): But nowadays, that’s not how the world works. A small number of families cannot control a country and an economy this size. New people pop up. Well, Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t part of those families. Elon Musk wasn’t part of those families. Neither was Bezos. For you to believe those conspiracy theories, you have to think that Bezos and Musk, et cetera, were like, “Oh, you guys are still running the country? No problem. Go ahead.” They’re not going to do that. Cenk Uygur (03:49:17): Now we’ve gotten into a system where it’s the invisible hand of the market that runs the country. But unfortunately, it’s only for the powerful. It’s more of a machine. This is super interesting and ties to what we were talking about earlier, Lex. Which is that they don’t do political assassinations anymore. They do character assassinations. That’s the needle in the haystack thing. Cenk Uygur (03:49:42): If you do an assassination of someone, you build up their status. They become a martyr and you build up their cause. But if you do a character assassination, you smear the cause with the person. The cause goes down, not up. The market found a better way of getting rid of agitating outsiders. Lex Fridman (03:50:03): Well, that’s one of the conspiracy theories with Epstein, is that he’s a front for, I guess CIA, and they’re getting data on people, like creepy pedophile kind of data. They can use to then threaten character assassination, to in this way, put the people in their pockets. Cenk Uygur (03:50:29): Look, we’re not in on it so there’s no way we can know. But I just always go back to logic. He has dirt on a lot of powerful people. He dies in a way that is an obvious murder and not a suicide. Then you begin to think, “Who would have enough power to be able to get away with that crime?” That is a very limited number of either people or governments. Lex Fridman (03:50:59): Yeah. Cenk Uygur (03:51:01): That’s probably your answer without knowing anything that’s internal. Lex Fridman (03:51:06): Yeah. It’s crazy we don’t have the list of clients. Lex Fridman (03:51:09): What is the best way to achieve stability and peace in Israel and Palestine in the current situation and in the next five, 10 years? Cenk Uygur (03:51:20): If people wanted to get to peace, it’s relatively straightforward. There’s already a deal that was negotiated. The Saudis agreed to it, and they’re an important player in this game. The Palestinians and the Israelis have initially agreed to it. Even Hamas has kind of agreed to it. That deal exists and is just waiting on the shelf to get done. Cenk Uygur (03:51:41): It’s pretty straightforward. Israel gets out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but they keep X percentage. It used to be 4%, then it went up to 6%. It’s probably a higher number now. The Palestinians keep losing leverage as we go. Cenk Uygur (03:51:56): You remember how hard it was to get a deal on Ukraine, I thought. That’s a very complicated one. Israel is much more straightforward. You get the hell out of the occupied territories, keep some of the … Those settlements are the worst thing. They’re a cancer. But anyway, I don’t know. But there is an answer to the settlements, and it’s probably that Israel keeps them, even though that drives me crazy. No right of return for Palestinians. There will be symbolic right of return for a couple of families. Palestinians go, “Oh, no way.” Guys, you have no leverage. Take the deal. Take the deal. You’re not going to get a right of return. Israel is not going to allow millions of Palestinians to go and vote in Israel. It would end the Jewish State. You have to get to a practical solution. Honestly, the number one person blocking it now is Netanyahu. That’s obvious. That doesn’t take a lot of courage to say that. He says publicly, “I don’t want a Palestinian State. I’m against a two-state solution.” He’s been monstrous. He’s one of the worst terrorists of my lifetime. That’s easy. Cenk Uygur (03:53:00): The right wing of Israel has lot its mind. The Smotrich, and the Ben-Gvirs openly talking about ethnic cleansing, and driving them into other Arab countries. It’s the definition of ethnic cleansing. I know that the Arabs are going to take the deal. Saudi Arabia cannot wait to take the deal because they just want to get business going. Lex Fridman (03:53:25): Do you think Hamas takes the deal? Cenk Uygur (03:53:28): I have a solution where you don’t need Hamas. But yes, Hamas would definitely take the deal. Hamas already publicly said that they would even get rid of that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist. Cenk Uygur (03:53:39): We hear so much propaganda in American media. It’s maddening. This idea that you don’t deal with Hamas is so dumb. The reason it’s dumb is you don’t negotiate with your friends, you negotiate with your enemies. “Well, I don’t want to negotiate with them. I don’t like them.” Well then, you’re not going to get to peace. But still, there is a path that doesn’t include Hamas. Make a deal with Fatah, that runs the West Bank. Right now, Fatah went into Gaza Strip, they wouldn’t be able to manage it because they don’t have enough credibility. They’re mainly seen as in cahoots with occupiers, whereas Hamas is hardcore and fighting against the occupiers. But if Fatah delivers not only a peace deal, but a Palestinian state, then they come in as heroes. You make the deal with them, you let them run the Gaza Strip, and you empower them to drive out Hamas. That way, they do your dirty work for you, in a sense. Cenk Uygur (03:54:42): But good, because Hamas is a terrorist organization. They’re not helpful. Especially if the Palestinians get a state, the violence has to stop immediately. That’s the whole point. The trade is you get a state, Israel gets safety and peace. Lex Fridman (03:54:57): So no more rockets at Israel? Cenk Uygur (03:54:59): No more rockets. If you do any other rockets, and Israel does the barbaric thing they just did, even I would say, “Hey, brother, we had a peace deal.” If you violate a peace deal and you do a bomb, they’re going to do a bomb and they’re bomb is much larger. Cenk Uygur (03:55:18): By the way, can it work? It already has worked. Israel already did it with Egypt. Egypt was 100 times Hamas. Egypt gathered all the Arab armies and actually physically invaded Israel when Israel could lose. They did it several times. Cenk Uygur (03:55:36): Lex, at the time, not just the right, the war hawks, but most people thought, “There’s no way Egypt will keep that peace deal. Oh, they’re suckers. We’re giving them the Sinai Peninsula back. Then they’re just going to keep bombing and attacking us.” There hasn’t been a single bomb from Egypt since the peace deal. Peace deals work. War gets you more war. Peace deals get you peace. Cenk Uygur (03:56:04): This is true of all of life. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If you’re saying, “Well, I’m not positive that a peace deal is going to be perfect. 12 more rockets might be fired.” Well, brother, what do we have now? We have endless rockets now. If Israel is supposed to be a safe haven for Jews, and I get it, and I want it. Then become a safe haven. The way that you’re a safe haven is stop the occupation. It’s not complicated. Cenk Uygur (03:56:38): Let’s be honest. The reason the right wing government of Israel is not stopping the occupation is because they want to take more and more land. They have, throughout time, taken way more of the West Bank than they had originally. Now Netanyahu is saying, “I want a corridor in the middle of Gaza. I want a corridor at the border of Egypt.” Now we’re back to occupying Gaza physically, let alone through power, et cetera. Lex Fridman (03:57:07): Bibi has to go. Cenk Uygur (03:57:09): Definitely. Lex Fridman (03:57:10): What’s the role of US in making a peace deal like that happen? Cenk Uygur (03:57:17): It’s going to sound outlandish, but I can get you a ceasefire almost overnight if Bibi’s gone. Because the Israeli negotiators have said publicly … Not publicly, it got leaked and it was in the Israeli press. “You have to give us a little bit of wiggle room. If you don’t give us a little bit of wiggle room, obviously they’re not going to do the deal.” He’s like, “I know.” That’s why he’s not giving them the wiggle room. Cenk Uygur (03:57:43): Don’t ask for land in Gaza. Get the hell out of Gaza. You ceasefire. That’s the easy part. The hard part is the occupation, ending the occupation. Even that, I can get it to you in two months, as long as Israel actually wants a deal. Go to an election, get rid of Netanyahu. Put in Benny Gantz. Is Benny Gantz an angel? No. He’s the one that ordered all the bombings of Gaza to begin with. Cenk Uygur (03:58:11): Look, Benny Gantz has got massive war crimes on his record, so don’t worry, he’s not a softie. But he’s not my favorite guy in the world, to say the least. But Benny Gantz can do a peace deal if he wants to. Cenk Uygur (03:58:26): Look, only one group of people can actually settle this. Well, there’s actually two groups of people. One is the Israeli population. You vote in someone who wants to do a peace deal, you’ll get a peace deal. Number two is the American President. If I’m the American President … I’m saying in a hypothetical. Or any American President that actually wants to get a peace deal done. You just say, “I’m going to cut the funding.” Israel will do the deal immediately. They don’t say they want to cut the funding, because APAC gives them $100 million. It’s not complicated. Not 1% complicated. Lex Fridman (03:59:00): Yeah. Cenk Uygur (03:59:01): Lex, tell me this. If the US President said, “I’m going to cut the funding,” do you think that it might have a giant problem for Netanyahu, might it hurt his government, might they have to go to an election? Would the Israeli politicians, let alone the population, begin to really, really worry that they’re going to lose an enormous source of funding and weapons? Lex Fridman (03:59:22): Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Cenk Uygur (03:59:23): Why wouldn’t we use our leverage? It’s crazy not to use our leverage. Lex Fridman (03:59:28): Yeah. This is where we go back to this deal man of Trump. It feels like he’s the only one crazy enough to use that leverage. Cenk Uygur (03:59:38): Yes. Lex Fridman (03:59:39): By crazy, I mean in the good kind of sense. Bold enough, not giving a shit about convention, not giving a shit about pressures, and money, and influence, and all that kind of stuff. Cenk Uygur (03:59:48): Yes, but with the biggest asterisk in the history of the world. Which is 12% chance he does that, and that’s great. But a huge chance he does the opposite and he goes … Let’s call it 80 again. 80%, “Oh, yeah, Miriam wanted me to give the West Bank to Israel, so you have it, guys, now. You can just occupy the whole thing forever.” A giant war. “Oh, yeah, I’m going to prove how tough I am. I going to nuke Iran.” Oh, no! What are you doing? What are you doing? Cenk Uygur (04:00:18): Trump is a massive risk. He’s an enormous amount of risk. If you were running a company and not a country, would you hire Trump as your CEO? Everyone watching just screamed inside their heads, “No!” You would never take that kind of risk with your company. You got an 80% chance the guy’s going to blow up the company. No way, no way. You know it, too. Especially if you’re a business man, you know you’re not going to hire that loose cannon to run your company. It’s unacceptable risk. Cenk Uygur (04:00:48): But you’re not wrong, we talked about it earlier. But as part of that risk, there’s a sliver in there that he could accidentally do the right thing. Lex Fridman (04:00:56): We talked a lot about hope in this conversation. Zooming out, what gives you hope about the future of this whole thing? Of humanity, not just the United States. Of us humans on Earth. Cenk Uygur (04:01:07): Why am I center left and not center right? It gets to that question. You look at the polling, not just here in America, but in almost any country, and it almost always breaks out to two-thirds to one-third. Two-thirds of the people say, “Let’s be empathetic. Let’s share. Let’s do equality, justice. Let’s be fair.” One-third goes, “No. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me.” That’s just the nature of humanity. Cenk Uygur (04:01:37): Usually, the same third goes, “No change.” Another two-thirds go, “Well, some change.” Because if you don’t do any change, you’re never going to get to the right answer. For the wisdom of the crowd to work, for free markets to work, for everything to work, you have to keep changing because the times change, and the culture changes, and the situation changes. That why there’s amendments in the Constitution, because you need to be able to change the document from time to time. Be careful with it. But you need to allow for an avenue for change. Cenk Uygur (04:02:11): Now why does the one-third keep winning in so many different places? Because they have more money and power. By the way, if you’re more selfish, you’re more likely to get more money and power. I wish that weren’t the case, but it is. These are not blanket rules, they’re on average. That third winds up winning in so many circumstances. Cenk Uygur (04:02:34): But the bottom line is, we are a species that requires consent. I’m a stone-cold atheist. I don’t think we’re kind of like apes, I think we are apes. All the scientists out there are going, “Well, of course we are.” Everyone else is going, “That’s crazy.” When you look at it as a species, different species react in different ways. Snakes have no empathy because it’s not in their DNA. That’s why we have a sense of what a snake does. The good news is, for higher level apes like us, bonobos, chimpanzees, and humans, we all roughly want consent. Cenk Uygur (04:03:21): A chimpanzee, for example, who has a violent reputation and they are violent, and unfortunately we’re pretty close to them. But what people don’t know is a leader doesn’t win through violence, especially for bonobos. They win by picking lice off of other chimpanzees, by going and doing favors. Going to do a hunt, getting food, and giving it to someone else. Because what they’re gathering is the consent of the governed. That’s how you become the alpha. You don’t do it through physical dominance, you do it through consent. That’s how we’re hardwired, that’s in our DNA. Cenk Uygur (04:03:57): That two-thirds, in the long run, will win. We will have empathy, we will have change. That’s the hope that we’re all looking for. Lex Fridman (04:04:08): Hope has got the numbers, it seems like. Cenk Uygur (04:04:12): Yeah. In fact, one more thing, Lex. Lex Fridman (04:04:14): Yes. Cenk Uygur (04:04:15): Look at history. Hope and change always win. Again, conservatives don’t catch feelings. There is a need conservatives, because you have to balance things out. If you just had even that wonderful two- thirds, that still wouldn’t be the ideal system. You need a Winston Churchill if you’re in the middle of World War II. You need someone to say regulating six inspections of the elevators is too many. You need that balance, and conservatives have a role, and it’s a really important role. Cenk Uygur (04:04:46): But having said that, they’re assigned to losing throughout history because they’re fighting on losing ground. A conservative says, “No change, but the world is constantly changing so they’re destined to lose. That’s why the Founding Fathers went against the British Monarchy. That’s why the Civil Rights movement won. They didn’t win overnight. It took them 100 years to get equal rights, let alone past slavery. We won on women’s rights, we won on gay rights. We keep winning. But every snapshot in time makes it feel like we’re losing. There’s a bad guy in charge. We are living under corporate rule, et cetera. But in the long tide of history, change always wins. Cenk Uygur (04:05:32): The empathetic, generally speaking left wing … But again, don’t worry about the titles. People get obsessed with the labels. The two-thirds that’s empathetic, that includes a lot of right wingers. You win at the end in history every single time. We fight forward. We’re tough when we need to be. We need that willpower to win any fight. But we’re civil and respectful to the other side because they are us. Cenk Uygur (04:06:02): Progressives, all the time, we say, “Look …” This was the ending of my book. Which is for conservatives, you have a lot of empathy for inside the wagons. Conservatives are great to their family, generally speaking. To their community, to their church, to anyone that’s inside the wagons. But they set up electric fences and barbed wire around their wagons. If you’re on the outside, you’re the others and you’re going to get electrified. It’s constantly. I like to think the left wing has wider wagons. We view the world as more us and not you. Cenk Uygur (04:06:43): The good news of that is, if we win, we’re not going to do Medicare for only the left. We’re going to Medicare for all. You’re all going to get universal healthcare. We’re going to do higher wages for all. The right wing is not going to be left out. Lex, I’m going to tell you a fun story. It’s about my family. I’m sure that parts of it are apocryphal, because it’s from 500 years ago. But it gives you a sense of the old Mark Twain quote, if it’s really Mark Twain’s. Of, “Change happens really gradually, and then all of a sudden.” My mom’s last name in Turkish is Yavaşça, it means slowly. It’s a weird name, even in Turkish. Cenk Uygur (04:07:34): One day, we’re walking past a mosque in Istanbul when I’m a kid. It says on the mosque, “Yavaşça.” We’re like, “What is this?” It’s a small, little mosque. We go inside. My dad starts the Imam questions. He says, “Why is the mosque named that?” He said, “You don’t know?” Because my dad said, “My wife’s last name is Yavaşça.” He’s like, “Oh my God.” He’s like, “Your ancestor was the Admiral of the Ottoman Navy when they conquered Constantinople.” Cenk Uygur (04:08:13): Grandpa, from 5, 600 years ago, came up with the idea. You can’t ever conquer Constantinople because there’s a giant chain underneath the Bosphorus. All the ships get stuck on the chain, there’s cannons on both sides. Half the ancient navies in the world are at the bottom of the Bosphorus. It hasn’t been conquered in over 1000 years, nobody thinks it can be conquered. Grandpa comes up with the idea of, “Why don’t we build giant wooden planks over land and grease them? And pass our fleet over land, onto the other side.” Everybody goes, because whenever anybody proposed a new idea, no matter how logical it is, they go, “Oh, that’s impossible. No way it’s going to work. Oh, you’re crazy. This is an unconquerable city. What are you guys even doing?” Cenk Uygur (04:08:54): Every day, Mehmed the Conqueror comes up to Grandpa and says, “All right. How’s your plan to do this project going?” Grandpa says, “Slowly.” He names him Commander Slowly. Lex Fridman (04:09:08): Yeah. Cenk Uygur (04:09:09): One night, after the whole thing’s done. They had passed the entire Ottoman fleet over the land. Wind up in the middle of the Bosphorus, and the Holy Roman Empire concedes. They surrender. Because change happens really gradually, and then all of a sudden. Lex Fridman (04:09:27): Good story. Well, Cenk, thank you for fighting for that change for many years now. For over two decades now. Thank you for talking today. Cenk Uygur (04:09:39): Appreciate it, Lex. Thank you for having the conversation. Lex Fridman (04:09:42): Thanks for listening to this conversation with Cenk Uyhgur. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. Lex Fridman (04:09:48): Now let me leave you with some words from Hannah Arendt. “Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means. Namely, through the state and a machinery of violence. Thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in the apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within.” Lex Fridman (04:10:15): Thank you for listening. I hope to see you next time.