The Most Influential Issue Shaking Up Elections

- Welcome to Next Up, everybody. I'm Mark Calpert. Thank you for being part of the program being a true and loyal next term.

“I am the editor and chief of Live Interactive Video Platform.”

Two way, you're host here to all things next up. Great program for you today. A variety of topics, some happier than others. Two, smart, political minds will be with us.

First, Ted Divine, author of a new book called

How The Democrats Screwed Bernie. It's about the 2016 campaign. You've heard me talk about it before. The lessons that the country and the party need to learn about how the Democratic Party in 2016

and then also in 2020, stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders on behalf of the establishment candidates in order to keep his movement down and paradoxically, ironically. And some would say poetically,

his movements only grown stronger. Ted, I'll be here to explain what he saw as one of the top officials of that campaign. And then my friend and colleague, here at M.K. Media Emily Shesinski will be here.

She's the host. After party with Emily Shesinski,

“we're going to talk about some mysteries”

that she's going to help me solve like about JD bands and young people. All that coming up in a little bit. Also, some work from my past, my interview with Lindsey Graham will play at for you in a little bit from about a decade ago

about how he dealt with the loss of his parents.

But first, my report in my log on a topic,

I continue to report on how Israel has become such a defining issue within both parties. But primarily within the Democratic Party, that was put in sharp relief this week. When Mr. Massia of Kentucky or Republican

put forward a bill that would have cut off a hit Israel. And he's the only Republican who voted for his own bill. Every other Republican voted now. The Democrats in the House were split down the middle. Here's the, see, the vote totals here.

Half the Democrats voted yes. And I have to Democrats voted no, amongst those voting to cut off a to Israel, where the number two Democrat in the House, Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker and AOC, this divides both parties.

But it's an issue to Democratic Party still with. But it's also an issue that Israel's going to have to deal with. And Israel supporters in the United States, you have to deal with. I can't tell you how often I hear this week after the vote.

I heard the powers after the vote from American supporters of Israel, including some members of Congress who are crestfallen by this, both sides. Both the people who voted to cut off a to Israel and those who support that position.

And those who think it's a horrible vote. Both sides are calling this a watershed. So my report, my log for you now on why this is happening in the significance of it. First, here's a couple of House Democrats

who voted to cut off a to Israel. And their explanation about this moment. Here's a Greg Caesar, this is S11, please. Think about this just for a moment. Starting today, a majority of Democrats in this building

refused to vote to send billions of dollars and weapons to the Israeli military. Yeah, young congressman from Texas who clearly is proud about the fact that half the Democrats voted to cut off aid.

Here's another member of Congress. This is a Lauren Underwood explaining why she voted that way, as well. One issue facing the Democratic caucus this week is a piece of legislation by Thomas Massey on Israel,

adding off funding $3 billion worth of aid to Israel.

Where do you stand on that? I'll be voting for it. How come? Well, because the Israelis are out of control. Lebanon, Daza, there's no reason for us

to continue to make these investments at this point. Now, she's from Illinois. These two representatives, part of half the Democrats in the House, including Nancy Pelosi, including AOC, who said some of them said like Nancy Pelosi,

well, the amendment was flawed. It wasn't a perfect piece of legislation, but they all felt they need to send a signal. Okay, now part of this is about Israel. Now, about Benjamin Netanyahu, now,

“about what's happened in Israel recently with Gaza, right?”

But part of it is broader than that. Part of it is, is a broader view of foreign policy and American aid, but part of it is a belief that the relationship with Israel has to change. And for those supporters of Israel,

this is a watershed, as I said, this is a huge moment. Here's a quote from Josh Godheimer. He's a congressman from New Jersey voted very much against this piece of legislation. Josh Godheimer's probably amongst the most pro-Israel

members of Congress. Here's what he said. In the New York Times, supporting the U.S. Israel relationship is quickly becoming a minority view among congressional Democrats,

a shockingly seismic shift in a brief period of time. And it has happened quickly.

She's a writer, a pro-Israel person,

and the Democrat on the left. Here's her tweet. I'll read it to you.

“It's long, but it really does capture the view”

of a lot of people in her party who oppose this piece of legislation. What a politically astute move by Thomas Massey for bringing this anti-Israel vote up in the house, because he is a conservative Republican

with blind ambition in 2028 aspirations. And he knows this issue will split the Democratic Party in half, which it literally did. Republicans voted unanimously against it and Democrats were split in half.

Rokana, who's the congressman from California, more about him in a moment, who morphs himself with the ease of J.D. Dance and its equally blind ambition, was all too happy to comply and go along and to put Democrats on the record.

I open pray that BB loses in the election later this year, because Lord help us, this is still an issue. I had a 2028. It will be that wedge that will split our party in half. And if a normal Republican runs like a Rubio,

we will lose the presidency mark my words. Those of you who are seemingly in the fever dream, who have made this year number one issue in Littmann's test, take note, you are going to take down our party with you and our chances of winning back the White House in 2028.

That seems perhaps premature, maybe cataclysmic to some. But I hear that from so many Democrats who aren't as open about their fears as Andy Ciskin does, because this issue really has become the hottest of hot buns.

We've seen how much this is tied Democrats and nots. We've seen how divided it's made the party. And we've seen how afraid Democrats who might want to run for present are of the pro-Palestinian in some cases, pro-Lamos wing of their party.

The Group A pack, which has been the big supporter of Israel, is on the run. They become a hot button and an anvil, Iran supporters of Israel. Roe Conna went to Israel.

And it was in a confrontation with the Israeli military forces and settlers there, we've probably heard about that on the news. He has become the face, the poster child of Democratic politicians, and previously, we're friendly to Israel now. Very hostile to Israel, adopting the description

of what Israel's done in Gaza calling it genocide. Roe Conna went on drop site news and talked to reporters

“there, including, I think, Jeremy Skekill,”

about whether he would condemn those who would kill Israeli soldiers. I guarantee that 10 years ago, Roe Conna would have answered my question effortlessly, watched this exchange, which has gotten wide currency among lots of people, including pro-Israel folks, has row-conestrogals

in this interview to answer what is no longer a simple question apparently, S1, please. - Well, a Terry Basis in the Gaza envelope, did the Kassambregates and Surah al-Quds have a right to kill Israeli soldiers?

Yes or no? - Who? - Well, the number seven, the Palestinians have a right to attack Israeli military bases in the Gaza envelope, yes or no? - I mean, I think October 7th attack was a terrorist attack.

- Was it a terrorist attack when the first targets

that were hit, I'm a morning of October 7th, were multiple military bases, did Palestinian forces have a right to attack those military bases? - I am not for violent violence again in any way. I mean, I am for making sure that we end the --

- I have a right to do it, Congressman. - Do they have a right to attack Israeli soldiers? - I'm not gonna say that Hamaset, a right to attack Israeli soldiers or kill Israeli, is like, I don't think that advances pace or advances Palestinian statehood.

- The fact that he struggled to answer that question

“does Hamaset have the right to kill Israeli soldiers?”

So many people, as I said, appointed I to be the struggle there. Leaders of the Democratic Party who are pro-Israel are either flipping like Nancy Pelosi. Again, she downplayed her vote by saying the amendment was flawed. But they're flipping to a position that really bothers pro-Israel folks.

Nancy Pelosi, who's been such a staunch ally of Israel who has been surrounded in her career, including fundraising by pro-Jewish Americans. Nancy Pelosi and Rokana have both moved. And yet Rokana couldn't answer that simple question.

Here's Rama manual, who went to Israel and gave a speech that was at times supportive Israel

and at times critical of Israel.

Here is an interview after that widely discussed speech. Talking about his own view of where things stand.

- And I do that there's a different conversation

within the Democratic Party about whether Israel should be allowed to buy weapons, even defensive weapons. What do you make of that? - I want this to get across. Israel does not have a problem in the Democratic Party.

Israel has a problem in America. And very specifically, a generational problem under 30. Are you the most acceptable thing?

“A pro is real acceptable in the Democratic Party today?”

- Well, look, I consider myself pro-American, but there's been a change in some elements of the party. And it's a change because what's happened and how things have played out have changed. I don't support the Democratic Socialists.

I don't support people that believe in open borders.

And I also don't support people.

- That we're celebrating on October 8th. - So, Ron Maniel's a very smart guy. And he's right, this is not just the Democratic problem. Although, make no mistake. Israel has a big problem with the Democratic Party

because the Democratic Party in large part has a big problem with Israel. But it is a problem with younger people. And it is a problem with the strain of all of America, including the Vice President.

J.D. Vance has been one of the leading voices

“when Republicans say, well, all our problems with Israel”

are with podcasters and bloggers and people on social media. Israel's got a problem with J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance in an interview at Joe Rogan this week

said a number of things that no previous Vice President

would have said. In fact, Kamala Harris didn't say these things in the presidential campaign. And it heard her quite a bit. It heard her quite a bit with the wing of her party

whose views of Israel have changed as Josh Gallagher said so quickly and so dramatically. A lot of this is about, as I said, Netanyahu, a lot of this is about Gaza. But some of it, for the members of the Democratic Party,

who voted the way they did with Nancy Pelosi. Some of this for people in the Republican Party, who feel the way J.D. Vance does, is about Israel sustained influence in the United States.

“Like many countries, Israel has influenced the United States.”

Israel gets aid from the United States, like many countries. I urge you to listen to the totality of what J.D. Vance said in his interview with Rogan, about Israel, listen to the whole thing, it's interesting. But this is not out of context, but I'm about to show you.

This is J.D. Vance saying things about Israel, which Kamal Harris, Joe Biden, Dick Cheney, no previous American vice president or president would have said. And it's another indication along with the vote in the House of how much things have changed.

This is J.D. Vance this week with Joe Rogan. - There are some people within their system we know beyond a shadow of the doubt who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely.

- But I definitely think you have seen this very discrete, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and try to derail the deal. And you know, there was, again, there's this time article

that came out yesterday for Incendent to me. It's like worth reading, because it lists a bunch of people who have quite literally been paid by a former Trump campaign person who is himself paid by certain elements within the Israeli government.

And those people are attacking me viciously for quite literally trying to accomplish the negotiation objective that the president set for the country. What bothers me is actually when Americans allow, meaning American leadership,

allows that influence to affect their judgment and to affect what they are advocating for. Again, I'm not saying he's right or wrong. Actually, there's support for some of the things he's saying. But you see now in Rama Manual and in JD Vance,

Rama Manual a long time support of Israel, but as he'll tell you, a critic of VB Netanyahu from the past, you see a change in where this debate is in America. Okay, in both parties, there's an audience that's loud and angry and invisible.

That wants the relationship with Israel to change. And believes it has to change. Now, some people say maybe this will cool after Netanyahu's out of office and he might be out of office this year.

But other people I've talked to this week say no, this is bigger than BB Netanyahu. And it's become a fetish for folks.

I have people in my life so pro Israel

that this period with young people and with members of Congress, it's amongst the most painful things they've seen in the National Town Square. And then I people in my life who say,

this is wonderful because our relationship with Israel has been so dysfunctional. Vance said something else to Rogan that I think is also extraordinary.

“And I think speaks to where this conversation should go.”

I don't know that it will. Here's JD Vance, I think being accurate and it could apply equally to Rama Manual. Here's JD Vance talking about where he thinks he should be seeing a standing on Israel.

S6, please. I'm like, people will realize this. I'm actually in this, there's this massive pro Israel anti-Israel debate

in the United States of America.

I'm like the reasonable moderate. The reasonable moderate. And you know what? It's the truest thing he said in the interview. Because he is, he is like Rama Manual

and like some other people in both parties, he recognizes there's no position that's gonna lead us to a better place and it's stronger aligns with Israel. That's either the APAC position,

the traditional position of with Israel no matter what. And there's no progress to be made in the position on the other side against Israel no matter what. The United States and Israel need to be allies.

There needs to be a military to military relationship of some sort. There needs to be a cultural and economic relationship. But what we need to have a productive discussion

that isn't just as red hot votes

in Congress, rhetoric on social media, the kind of interview we saw Rokana do. What we need is people who are reasonable moderates on this issue.

“They're not the only voices you should be at the table.”

The pro Israel voices should and we'll be at the table. The pro Palestinian pro Hamas voices will be at the table. But what we need is a conversation lead by people like JD Vance and we're on the manual who are positing the existence

of a reasonable moderate position here, who are positing an understanding of the way it was and the way some people wanted to be. This story is, I acknowledge, I underestimated this issue.

Several months ago when people told me, this would be the dominant issue in the Democratic nomination fight in 28. This would be a huge general election issue that the Republican nominee for present

would also be under pressure to take a different position. I didn't believe it. And now I probably over-correct it. Now I see just how emotional this is, just how powerful it is.

Christalized by that vote in the house. Christalized by that exchange with Rokana. Christalized by the reaction to Romemanual speech in Israel and Christalized by the words, the vice president of the United States

taking, making an open accusation about Israel that their forces within the Israeli government is really society who don't want the war to end and are using their influence to try to keep the war going. That's an extraordinary claim for anyone

of influence to make even more so from the vice president of the United States. I'm gonna keep reporting on this story 'cause it is not going away. I've learned my lesson.

Let me know what you think.

“Is the vice president, is he in the right place on this issue?”

Is there room in this debate for, so-called reasonable moderates? Let me know what you think, send me an email. At [email protected]. That's [email protected].

Let me know what you think. All right, quick break now. And when we come back, a tad divine, a democratic strategy is really all star. A democratic strategy is Hall of Famer,

who's worked for a lot of establishment democratic candidates who ran for president, Senate, and governor, and all sorts of things. He then connected with Bernie Sanders and then helped run his 2016 presidential campaign

and he's now written a new book, how the Democrats screwed Bernie, a great insider and outsider perspective on the Democratic Party's past, present, and future with authored and Democrats' judges,

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And then connect it to Bernie Sanders,

first for some of his Vermont race,

but then at the presidential campaign, historic presidential campaign in 2016. You've heard me say this before, if the democratic establishment had not mobilized in ways both hardball and improv.

“I think Bernie Sanders would have been the democratic nominee”

in 2016 and in 2020, and all the attention on Donald Trump has kept us as a country, and the Democrats as a party, from talking through both how Bernie Sanders was screwed, and the implications of it for the country and the party. And as if by magic, Tad Devine has materialized with this new book,

it's called How the Democrats Screwed Bernie, which is the phrase I've been using before I knew Tad Devine of the phrase I've been using before I knew Tad Devine at the book, and we're going to talk about what happened in 2016 and its implications for the party and the country.

Tad, welcome and congratulations on the book. Thank you, Mark. Great to be with you. I just think there's so much focus in the last decade on the question of stolen elections and the elites, and whether the will of the people is being reflected in our elections,

and yet my colleagues seem wholly uninterested in what happened in both 2016 and 2020, two Bernie Sanders, and the only quibble I'd make with your excellent book is, it's really how to have the Democrats screw their own voters, more than how they screwed Senator Sanders.

Well, I grew with that. I mean, that's not quite as catchy a title, I guess. That's not the publisher. You know, who actually came up with that title, I went in. We went through about 50 titles. The people I worked with on the book, my editor, writer, other people,

and they all fell short of the title, the publisher of self came up with, you know, which was how the Democrats screwed Bernie. And initially, when they offered that to me, I said, I can't do it. It sounds too much like Trump. I just can't be associated with him in any way.

But as we went through title after title, most of them long, and, you know, just not getting to the point, I said, well, maybe this is the right way to explain it,

“because as I wrote the book, I realized that's what it was about.”

And I thought it's summed it up well. We have today the rise of the Bernie wing of the party, and I've argued now for a couple months that part of that rise is, if you were a young person who voted in 2016, and you wanted Bernie Sanders to be your nominee and your president,

you basically haven't had an election that was on the up and up in your life,

because in 2016, as your book lays out, we'll talk about it. It was stolen from him in 2020. The establishment mobilized yet again to keep him from the nomination. And then in 2014, we had an incumbent Biden Harris. So the paradox to me is even as Bernie's wing of the party

has become ascended, you've had three straight presidential elections where it hadn't been possible to have that expressed through the will of the voters. - Yeah, I agree, and the thing that concerns me most is as long as we have nominee-crossers president,

or even in some of our state, you know, process some running for the Senate, running for the House, something like that, or may or, you know, as long as we have that in our system, we're not going to get candidates who are the best candidate

to win the election. Okay, that should be the, you know, the object of what we're trying to do, we need to win to govern, to get our ideas in front of people, to lead them into law. So, you know, I want the Democratic Party to understand that.

And to understand that, yeah, we've made some reforms in a Bernie, you know, took the lead on this, in terms of taking the vote away from the

super delegates on the first ballot.

But, you know, they'll be around for second ballot if they're there. And, and we also, I think, as a party,

“need to step back and say, what is the best way to nominate someone?”

And my view, the best way is to have contest that mirror the general election. The general election allows everybody who's registered to vote, to participate in the process. If we have a primary process, like we did in 2016 in places like Wisconsin, in Michigan, in New Hampshire, where independent voters early in the process,

make a choice of what side they want to go to and who they want to support. I think we will have much stronger candidates in the general election.

in 2016. It's hard to go through the full narrative of the heart of how the Democratic establishment primarily, but not exclusively, the Democratic Party itself, in the Clinton campaign, screwed Bernie Sanders and his voters. We're going to outline it in a moment.

“But I think what's important, folks, is most political books don't teach anything.”

Whether you know about politics or you don't. Tads book does very similar to Bob Schrom, you're a log time partner. Tads book, like Bob's book. If you want to understand how politics actually works in a compelling way and in an informative way, that alone is worth reading the book. You learn how our politics works, how campaigns work, how presidential politics work.

So that's one reason to read it. But the other reason is, we all have to understand whether you love Bernie or you don't like Bernie. You have to understand what we're dealing with in this country. In both parties, the establishment wants to keep its power. Big money, a big media, major candidates who are part of the establishment.

People who want to keep doing politics the way it's been done in the past. All those people would like to keep an surgeon candidates from winning. Extraordinary in 2016, they were Republicans nominated someone who beat the establishment. And Bernie didn't. And there are lots of reasons for that, Tad.

But one reason that you lay out in the book is the Republican establishment didn't mobilize to stop Trump. In part because there wasn't a character like the Clinton's who had the hold on the party. How did the Clinton's collaborate with the Democratic Party

“to screw Bernie and to screw the progressive wing of the party?”

What were the main things they did to screw and to steal the nomination from him?

Well, first of all, they took over the Democratic National Committee.

Okay, this is supposed to be a neutral party that ministers the process fairly amongst all the candidates who qualify to run. And from the beginning, they were controlling the committee. For example, the debates, when the debates were announced in the fall of 2015, I got a call from a top official of the DNC.

So we're going to announce the debate schedule, the four debates. You know, one of them was on the Saturday night before Christmas, you know. And you know, when Obama ran against Hillary eight years before there were many more debates, you know, and it was it was, you know, much more of an open process. And, you know, I sort of knew when I got that call in 15 minutes later, they put out the debate schedule

that the fix was in. But 15 minutes after that, when Hillary Clinton went on Twitter and said, "I accept the debate schedule. There was for everybody, for the whole world to see." And, you know, that debate schedule really, as we found out later, when the emails were released through WikiLeaks, you know, was controlled by the Clinton campaign. They laid it out to the DNC, the DNC administered it.

And other things of that nature happened as well.

Later in the campaign, after, you know, the first debate was held, it really had mid-December.

When Bernie was gaining, and you know what it's like, Mark, because you were there on the ground, and I went to Hampshire, you could feel it. You could see what was happening. When we started to move a lot with voters, with Bernie in the summer, with his campaigning, and then in November, when we went on TV, we gave them three months of TV, and I, in the Hampshire, we didn't answer it. We went on in November, we started to move.

Now, mid-December, we're moving. Our polls tell us we're moving.

“The public polling said we're moving. And what does the DNC do?”

There's an incident, okay, involving the voter files. Now, these voter files are really important to campaigns. These are the names and numbers of everybody in each state who votes. And this is what we use in the campaign, not only to organize voters in places like Iowa and Hampshire, where every voter is touched in one way by one or more campaigns. But also, in the case of our campaign, it was the main tool for our fundraising, because our fundraising was grassroots

fundraising as well. The Democratic National Committee decided that we had breached the fire wall, and gone through this fire wall, which is imposed by the party, so that each campaign cannot look at the other campaigns voter files. And in fact, what had happened was this fire wall was supposed to be controlled by the van they call it, the company that administered this, that, you know, was in the DNC, wasn't charged with that. But too much later, when Bernie's

zeroing in, they decided to seize on this, to take away our access to the voter files, and they were effectively shutting down our campaign in the middle of December, as we were on the move, you know. So those answers to the debate schedule, the other stuff, the fundraising agreements, there's a litany of things that went on that basically allowed the Clinton campaign

to take over the apparatus of the party and control it in a way they never should have.

Yeah. So a few things. First of all, these are, you might say these are inside baseball things, who cares about the debate schedule, who cares about the access to files. The point is, and as you said, through WikiLeaks, these are glimpses of two examples, where the Clinton's use their power over the DNC to try to affect the outcome, a power Bernie did not have. Now some would say,

a wholly owned subsidiary of the Clinton's. These are the examples we know about. There's also the super delegates. There's also their manipulation of the media. There's tons of things that we know

they did, and I guarantee you, tadnosis, you know, this as well. Other things will never know they did,

because they didn't put it in an email that got linked, leaked by WikiLeaks. What does this say about

“Bernie's movement that it could be suppressed? Does it say that you all didn't play the game as well?”

Or does it say that the establishment was just powerful enough to stop him? What's the verdict that history should render from your book about the ultimate reason this happened? I think I think it was because the deck was so stacked in 2016 that there's no way we could have gotten around it. I mean, if the rule that is in place right now for super delegates, for example, had not been in place, the entire message of Hillary's campaign. I know she talked about issues, but effectively her message

was, you know, I'm going to win an evidability message that they delivered constantly all the time, and you know, and that message would have been much harder for them to deliver it. And by the way, it wasn't just a Clinton's, you know, in Nevada where we were by the Clinton's campaign put out a poll a month before saying she was 25 points ahead in Nevada. Why did they do that? Well, because inevitability was their message. And then we moved in against her in Nevada and the horse

race closed in the days before Harry Reid, who I liked very much. It was a good guy. He's not with us anymore.

You know, basically, and said he was neutral, but he moved in and he moved that thing as hard

as he could to its her at the end. And don't take my word for it. John Rauston wrote a piece in USA today, the weekend after the Nevada caucuses where he spelled out in detail how Harry Reid moved to steal the caucus for Hillary, because he understood, he read understood that the inevitability message would have been sunk if he she lost Iowa, if he lost New Hampshire, and then Nevada. And that affected what happened later. Why do people in my business? Because you deal with

that you've dealt with reporters for decades? Normally, you think reporters like an underdog, the reporters certainly didn't like Hillary much. Why was so much of the coverage in 2016? Anti-Bernie. Why were the Clinton's able to place opposition? Research so easily against Bernie? Why did the press not support at least an open contest? Let alone favoring Hillary Clinton? I think because it was a consensus among much of the press that her nomination was fed out complex.

You know, she was the strongest non-incumbent candidate for the nomination. I think maybe ever, okay? I mean, I mean, somewhere in history, there's an example, but not in my history, which goes back now over 40 years in the Democratic Party. You know, I think they just said, listen, this is somebody we're going to be dealing with probably as president. So let's go along

“for the right. And I really think that happened and it rose particularly at important times”

during the campaign and beat back Bernie on a number of fronts, including our effort, for example, to connect them with the African-American community. And in other ways, that I think we could have moved forward. So I think the press was complicit and not everybody in the press, but many in the press and many organizations in the press. And I think, you know, that's part of the unfairness that held them back. Yeah. Yeah. Let's say just except my hypothetical,

Bernie can convince the Democratic electorate that he's got the health and mental acute E to be president in 2020, say, 2020, 28. Let's just assume through Fight Medical Disclosure, et cetera. Would you, would you, how strong a candidate would he be for the nomination? Well, I listen, I don't think, you know, he will be a strong candidate. He even if he goes out and does, you know, 100 push-ups or you know, runs around the, you know, I mean, it has the greatest medical exam that anybody has aged.

I mean, he's 84 years old now. He's turns 85 in September. He'll be 87 in 2028. He'll be 95 when he finishes his second term. I just think, you know, we've had, you know, a president in Joe Biden, who the country figured out was too old to be president. We have a present today of Donald Trump,

“who I think the country is figuring out, is not only too old, but it's too awful in every single”

way to be president. You know, and I just don't think they're going to go for somebody who could be 95 at the end of his second term. Now, having said that, I do want to say that I think the message that he delivered in 2016, that same message that America has a rigged economy held in place

by a corrupt system of campaign finance is as powerful or more powerful within the Democratic

Party. And I think within the broader electorate than anything anybody else is saying. So if Bernie can drive that message, who can? Well, I think a lot of people can. You know, you know, Barack Obama was a state senator at this point in time, you know, and before the 2008 election, you know, I mean, well, let's, let's start here. I mean, I don't know, I don't just voting. Yeah, and I don't have a pretty good. Let me ask you a different way. Could an

anti-establishment candidate who put all of Bernie's issues at the center of his or her campaign,

special interests and the campaign finance system keeps you from having good schools and good clean water, et cetera. Who could do that message and beat the establishment of real people

who might run? Well, first, it's somebody that we don't know because they're running for a

high office and they haven't been elected yet in the name income. So that's, that's candidate number one. Let's call them the Obama stand in. Okay, who's a state senator or a state representative

“who may get elected governor or senator and they may be in place. Are there others who can do it?”

Yes, I think there are. I mean, I think Rokana, who I know and I think is a very smart guy and in solid person, I think he has the capacity to not only to deliver that message, but to build the kind of broad coalition of people of different ways. Could AOC do it? I think AOC could do it. I mean, if I were advising her, I would say, listen, become a senator or governor first and then refer president and you don't have to wait a long time after you do that because I think it's

important for somebody like her. She's young to demonstrate that she has the capacity to serve in that high office before becoming president. That threshold of credibility for the presidency is the highest one in our politics. But but does she have the talent to do it? Does she have the smarts to do it? Yes, absolutely. I think she can do it. I think there could be others. Some people seem to be coming towards that message very quickly. Anyone who can deliver it, I think, with clarity,

with confidence and with an understanding of how to relate to people and be the kind of candidate

“who connects with them, they could deliver it and I think they could win with it. All right,”

so you think on the demands of the supply side, it's there. It terms the message. As you said, probably stronger the public sentiment that in 2016 is the establishment of the party as strong as it was in 2016 or as that weakened and so it would be easier for an insurgent like Bernie to win this time. I think it has certainly weakened without a doubt. We saw what happened in Maine with the incumbent governor, got blown out by a guy who nobody knew just months before. We saw it in New York

City where incumbents were defeated by candidates who no one knew a month or two before the election. We're seeing it across America that people want change and they're demanding change. And I think yes, I think the establishment has been put on its back heel by this movement for change. And also the super delegates who really control the outcome. I mean, with Hillary, there are 800 super delegates and she had almost every one of them. That's the percent of what you need. The only

need have to get the nomination. So that's 40 percent of what you need for a nomination.

She had it before the voting started, you know, ridiculous process. And those rules have now been changed so they're not as powerful although they're still not as powerful as the right way to describe. All right, ladies and gentlemen, a textbook available now, how the Democrats screwed Bernie. It's a great piece of writing. It's a great piece of history and it's an important piece of history to understand where we are now in America and where the Democratic Party is and trying to decide

what kind of party it wants to be and doesn't want to be a party of the past. And the status quo and special interest or does it want to be something different. Chad, thank you. Congratulations again on the book. Thank you about great to be with you. Go buy now. How the Democrats screwed Bernie. It's on sale everywhere and it will tell you about an important moment in our recent history that still extremely relevant right now.

Next up Senator Lindsey Graham passed away and everybody's interested in learning more about him, which is great. I had a conversation with him back in 2015 about his parents and their death when he was a young man, as well as how he got connected to John McCain and Joe Lieberman.

“It's a great conversation. I've forgotten I'd had it honestly until somebody sent it to me.”

Right after this, next up my conversation from a decade ago with the late Senator Lindsey Graham. That's next up. A lot of what we do here is look at the story that's underneath the story, the story that some people might miss. And let's now talk about something many of you are dealing with right now. That's very similar, which is your Medicare coverage. If you're 64 years or older, you might be missing

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Next up, I look back at the life and legacy of the late South Carolina Center Lindsey Graham died unexpectedly. Many people in Washington around the country around the world, mourning this extraordinary person, including someone who went from political enemy to close personal and political friend, present Trump. Some people, you don't appreciate until they're not here, right? And you just, uh,

all the quality that he had. He got things done. He could even deal with Democrats. If I needed a Democrat, I could go to Lindsey and Lindsey would take him out and win him and die and say, I got him for you, right? There aren't too many people could do that. David and I know it very well. But a lot of people in my life, uh, new Senator Graham and reporters and and people in politics, um, and I knew him a little bit. I'd interviewed him over the years.

I spent a lot of time with him when he was, uh, helping John McCain run for president. And then when he himself was running for president, people were really surprised. The Lindsey Graham in 2015 decided to run for president. He eventually ended his campaign without much success and had conflict with Donald Trump who famously revealed Senator Graham's mobile phone number had a rally. His president's show campaign was not a great success, but I enjoyed getting to spend some time

with him in that context in 2015 when I was working back at Bloomberg News. I had an opportunity to interview him and I decided rather than ask about the policies and all the things that I'd heard him ask about so many times before to talk to him about his family with whom he was quite close and with whom he dealt with an extraordinary amount of heartbreak and where he learned

“as he says in the interview, life is fragile. Senator Graham lost both his parents when he was”

young, uh, very close, uh, a close apart. Here's a look back at part of my conversation with Senator Graham about feeling with loss. To start with, is, is your parents dying when you were 21 or so,

just a few, a few months apart, less than just a little over a year apart. Just first talk about

your mother, uh, who died of, of, of, uh, occupancies. What, what was that like, how long was she sick? Uh, diagnosed in the fall of 75 died in June of 76. So when she was diagnosed, how, how did she tell you and your sister? Well, I remember I was back home from, you know, neither one of my parents finished high school, so I'm at the University of South Carolina. 1975, you know, I convinced myself, I wouldn't get kicked out of school. I went in 1973 as a freshman to college. I remember when my

parents dropped me off, my sister was holding my leg, it's as long as it's not in my life. We're close family. The first thing about me, I was unconditionally loved. My parents were over, uh, my dad was in his late 40s when I was born in his mid-50s when my sister was born. So they focused on, on me. I was, uh, only child for a while. But I remember watching the liquor store, he had taken

my mom to the doctor. She had been sick and nothing was happening and we finally changed doctors.

And he pulled up, you know, just really disheveled and he came in and he was just crying and said,

“your mom's not going to make it. And I think they told him that she was in the last stage of”

Hodgkin stage four. And how did the family spend then at the rest of her time? Well, she was a fighter. I guess what I get from my mom is a determination. She was quiet. She, you know, she was social enough, but she was very quiet, dedicated to the family. Every year, she had set some money aside each month for Christmas. She had opened up a little savings account and every month, she had put some money in there to make sure we'd have a good Christmas. She doded on us. She was very, um, very attended mother.

And, uh, she fought. Man, I tell you, she wanted to live so bad. She got sick, uh, like I said, and sometime in the fall of 75 and going through chemotherapy. And when you got a family member who's in a bad way, you, you, you want to will them. Well, I mean, you don't want to give up. God knows she didn't want to give up Easter. That Easter, uh, in 76,

she had her best Easter. She was feeling good and she cooked dinner for the first time in a long time.

So just before the other family. Yeah, no, there's some family at first, but in the evening

“it was just us sitting on the couch and I remember saying, well, boy, I gave you a good dinner”

at that time. I said, just man, you did. And, um, you know, so we thought maybe, you know, maybe we're going to be the 1% here and by June, she was going. What were her final days like, did you spend time with her? Yeah, my dad was in one hospital. He had some prostate problems and she was in another. And if it weren't for family, I mean, what do people do without family? I didn't knuckle in the sisters, you know, 12 years old. So I'm going back and forth from one hospital,

the other, but at an aunt knuckles and both hospitals. I mean, I was just so lucky.

and losing his mom and you can see how hard that hit him. Well, things got tougher for him, uh, because shortly after that, his father passed away as well. They had to move on with a tough life and take care of his sister who's now his replacement in the United States Center, more of my conversation with Senator Graham. For being a period of months, what we'll have for she had passed and your father was still alive. What was that like for the three of us? Well,

that was, you know, he's 67 and she was 52. So you always thought mom would outlive him.

“Well, life's just not that way. I've learned life is fragile and you can't take whole life”

running. So I'm going back to school. I try to get in law school. I don't make it. I'm going to an air force or a TSA community commitment. I'm thinking about getting the air force out of the air force as I said, no, we're working with him. So I went to graduate school for a year and I'd come home every weekend. You know, as they were intent, my dad was, you know, he came down when I got commissioned with my sister to put my lieutenant bars on when I graduated. But I started graduate

school in the fall trying to, you know, get my grades up, uh, my S. L. S. A. T. Gray numbers up, so I can get in law school and how early in September he died. And how was how did he do

without her? It's terrible. But, you know, he had to kids. I mean, he just, and he said, you know,

don't be an old man with young kids. And, you know, he, he understood what was a, not a happen and it's tough. Extraordinary life after that, of course, went on to serve in the military as a jag and then become an influential member of Congress or some house and then in the Senate. What, what, uh, extraordinary human veto overcome that kind of adversity. And now, of course,

“is Senator replacing him in the Senate. Well, remember, of course, for his later years as an ally”

of President Trump, but probably, uh, the most notable period of his professional life for a lot of people in Washington and around the world was his association with the so-called three Amigos, able to work across the aisle up through his time in the Senate. But most prominently, with Joe Lieberman, the Democrat from Connecticut and his fellow Republican and close friend, John McCain. The three Amigos had a legendary friendship, often in the halls of Congress,

but also as they traveled around the world. Here's Senator Graham talking about the origins and practice of the three Amigos. Amigos, you know, in the Senate for a number of years. You, John McCain, of course, still serves with you and Joe Lieberman, who was there. Talk about the start. How did the three Amigos, how were they born? Well, a pain. They were born of pain. So, uh, John McCain, sort of a Republican-American. Joe Lieberman had been the vice-president of Joe. Not many,

the Democratic Party lost the election about 500 votes in Florida. So, along comes Iraq.

“The thing about Joe Lieberman, and I think any politician can learn from, is they didn't want”

the job too much. He was progressive by any reasonable definition, but when it came to radical Islam in the war, he understood that we had to get a rock right. And he was willing to stand by Bush who had made tons of mistakes, and he was going to adjust his strategy. He was going to go all in the search. And Joe wasn't given in. He stood by the president. He was one. I think the only Democratic vote that, uh, to keep us from pulling the plug. And, uh, that bond. See, John, you know,

he had been a contrarian in his own party. Joe Lieberman became sort of the outcast, I guess, on national security. And I was John Wingman in 2008. And, um, it just from, from that bond of where people wanted not to lose a war that we thought we couldn't afford to lose. It came from there. So, what are the activities of the three of me, guys? Mostly me going around saying, what, what they meant to say. Now, we went everywhere together. We, we, we, we busted our butt

to go to Iraq to try to find out what's working and what's not. The one thing I can tell any senator, travel. If you care about national security, there's no substitute for being on the ground. I've been to Afghanistan about 22 or 23 times, 14 or 15 in Iraq, would go a lot. And you could

see it get worse and you could see it get better. So, the three of me goes, uh, basically we're

a traveling roadshow. We were going all over the region, try to find out what was working, what was not. Extraordinary guy, privileged to sit down with him for that conversation. I did two on their interviews with them that I'm still looking for. And when I find him, I'll publish him some way, maybe here, maybe on social will see. Thoughts and prayers, of course, go out to his family and his loved ones as they continue to deal with his loss and, of course, through his sister,

who is simultaneously grieving and embarking on several months of certainly in the United States Senate in these absence. We'll be right back next up, Emily J. Zizinski hosted the after party with Emily Juzinski. Emily is next up. So, go ahead and think about the last 30

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All right, everybody next up and joining me now, Emily Jishinsky, host of the after party.

With Emily Jishinsky, the party never ends, wherever I'm with. It's a kid to Donald Trump and

Air Force One. Whatever plane he's on is called Air Force One, wherever landably is. Live Mondays and Wednesdays at 9 PM Eastern Time, and then on all your favorite streaming platforms is a lifetime party. Emily, welcome. Thanks for having me, Mark. I guess next up is a party. Yeah, what made it, if you actually write, like Wolf Blitz or in the situation or what kind of party favorites have you given out lately on the show? You know, it's a great question now. I'm

realizing, because you're asking, that I've never once given out a party favorite. Yeah. See,

“you should, you should, you should, like during COVID, you should email everybody like a box of”

sake, and let them light up during the show, because I know you prefer your guess, sourced. Yeah, I mean, who doesn't, but I just have coffee this morning, but that's a good idea. Now, I feel like I'm falling behind. All right, well, thank you for being here. I want to talk about one of my topics of fascination, the vice president of the United States, the ultimate human workshop test. I got people in my life who love him and he goes on rogan for three hours and they're like,

see why he's so awesome. And then I have people in my life who say, I watch 10 minutes of it, I had to turn it off because he's such a phony, smartly phony. What explains the diversion views regarding this singular man? You know, that's a really good question. I went on a real clear politics last night in real is, it's even a bigger gap than I thought between Vance right now in Rupio in 2028 polling, just as the Rorschach test question about public opinion on him.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I just want to clarify, do you have the same experience I do that some people love him and some people don't? Well, yes, but mostly on the right. Yeah, I'm talking on the right. Just talk about everybody in the, everybody in the left, Gatesum, because he's associated with Donald Trump. I'm talking about people in conservative circles, some love him, some can't stand him. Yeah, and you know, we

were actually talking about this on after party last night, because I looked at the 2028 testing and 2028 polling, and he's up on Marco by like 20 points right now, which could mean a lot of different things, but it was a little bit of a wake-up call because if you go on acts, it's so polarized between love Vance and hate Vance. And I wonder if that extends more broadly

to the electorate, because Mark one thing I always think of with Vance is that Donald Trump is,

if he knows anything, he knows the kind of telegenic qualities and the maybe cinematic qualities that may have vice president useful to him. And there's a reason he went with Vance in 2024, and I have a feeling that Trump's sense of where like sort of average voters are is probably a bit different than what we see in the ex-media-pundit bubble. Yeah, you know, you say he went with Vance for a reason, or recall that part of why he didn't go with Rubio was the residency issue.

They both lived in Florida, and under the Constitution, you can't get both candidates, you can't get the electoral votes of that state, and in a close election, that could produce

“kind of a catastrophe. I don't know if Rubio, if Rubio had been from Wisconsin, I think he may”

well, picked Rubio. So it's not clear to me that that was kind of a dispositive insight into who Donald Trump at the time thought was stronger. And since then, of course, widely reported, he muses all the time, or at least did, about Rubio versus Vance, and he hears what I hear. I know, because I talked to people who've talked to him about it, some people really dig Rubio, and don't dig Vance. Typically, though, like, like, by demographic,

typically like a men over 90 don't like you, but men in their 80s love you. And that's pretty consistent demographically. You could talk to a Republican who demographically identical, same age, same, you know, affiliation, same feelings about Trump, and some of them won't like JD, and some of them will.

for all of the foreign policy questions, those are there. Those have been hanging over JD Vance

“for a long time. I think also he comes across sometimes as though he's trying really hard to”

seem cool and relaxed, so he's still not, and partially, I think this is to his credit. He's still not a comfortable, kind of retail politician. And I think that kind of gives people this vibe that he's trying really hard that there's almost a desperation in him to be liked and to be affirmed. And I think that probably is off-putting for some people, but I will say also, even if, because, you know, as well as I do, Trump is quizzing people on whether they think Vance

or Rubio should be his successor when they come into the oval office these days, even if that's happening. I still don't think Donald Trump would put an untalented politician or somebody who isn't telegenic as his vice president, so he sees something in Vance. For sure. And there is something there. That's where I think probably the people who are polarized in favor of Vance pick up on, but they also tend to believe he understands the future of the Republican Party in a way that's

different from Rubio or Nikki Haley, so it's polarized along those lines, of course, too.

“Did you watch the all nearly three hours of the Rogen interview?”

Every single minute of it. Yeah, I didn't make it quite the end, but I saw most of it. What would you say, you can cite a specific moments or just a sort of general vibe? What was the high point for you from Vance's point of view? Where was he at his best? And where would you say the low point was? Well, he's really good at having these conversations. I think because he listens to podcasts clearly, he pays attention to podcasts.

He says he's been off-ex since Lent. I don't know that. I totally believe that. I think he's probably at least getting something from him. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's exactly, but he was most fluent.

I don't think this will surprise people. It was amazing to see how fluent he is in

Epstein conspiracy theories and UFO conversations, and I don't say that to be pejorative or dismissive. He's actually going really deep with Rogen in this conversation about what UFOs could be Rogen pushes him on the demon thing, and this all sounds very crazy, but for the political talent, it's that'll be required in 2028. You have him just there like chopping it up, pushing back on Rogen, going super deep on Epstein and on UFOs. And also, he was excellent

for my perspective at least on AI and labor. You could tell that he's also very fluent in the way those conversations are happening at the highest level. Now, low points, obviously, when Rogen was pressing him on the Iran war, and that's already where he's getting the most criticism just within the hours that the episode was dropped. That was already when he was getting the most criticism over. So, that was pretty brutal. It's still continuing to be pretty brutal for Vance

who has to answer these questions. On that issue, a very tough issue. He's got, he's got to he's defense the president. He also has to defend from the Neocons, who think he's too squishy and from the isolationists, I'll call them, that he's too complicit. So, he's really on that

“issue, at least as I've seen it. He's being hit from all sides. It's not just from one side, right?”

No, not at all. He's in the position where he's trying to bridge both of those polarized ideological factions of the Republican Party, and so nobody is going to be happy with him. And he has to represent the president's perspective on all of this, not his own, which is very different in a three-hour podcast format. That is a very difficult experience for any politician, where he's like, he has to keep both of those sides happy. He has to keep the president happy. He has to basically

speak for the White House, so that was, I think, predictably very tough for the vice president. All this stuff with the Socialist candidates, I'm switching topics now with no transition. All these Socialists, a lot of them have things they've said that are controversial, or things they've done, that are a problem, like Platner, but like this lady in New York City, Chevalier. She's got a lot of controversial positions, but I think that a lot of these things

distract from the debate about Socialism, because they've got these policy positions. And I keep saying,

imagine the universe where Platner had never been on Reddit, had never been accused of sexually

assaulting anybody, had a legitimate oyster farm, rather than just selling stuff to his mom. Imagine what the debate would be like. So is the rise of the Democratic Socialist and Socialism in general? Is it a side show? Is it just kind of like an insider political story? Or is it saying something deeper about the Democratic Party in the country? No, this is the future. And vice president Vance waited on this in Rogan yesterday as well. He's clearly playing very close attention

to it. And believes that Republicans aren't offering the correct counterbalance to the rise of DSA type candidates. And I think that diagnosis is accurate because the reason you saw with Zoram Mamdoni, so many people said they don't support Socialism, but then they voted for Zoram Mamdoni in the election last year. And that's what should really concern establishment Democrats and

being offered by the people who don't want Socialist to win elections are so unattractive to voters

that even people who don't like Socialism are siding with the Socialists. And that to me is a big statement. That to me is why the DSA politics, whether we're talking about the DSA is a formal organization or more the tone, tenor, and policy agenda that they're setting for the Democratic

“Party now, that's they're here to stay. I think precisely because of that because their”

opponents have not learned how to counter them in ways that are attractive to voters. It's like lesser than two evil politics or lesser of two evil politics for many many voters right now. And they're going to go with the lesser of two evils in many cases being the person who says the status quo is broken. And here's my big picture solution to fix it. Now, as that experiment runs in places like New York City, maybe that'll be less effective, but for now it's very effective.

Brian Lee said, let me just crudely break down how I'm thinking about it now and see what you think. There's kind of three buckets that I think about that these people are are offering up and I agree with you that Republicans aren't necessarily counting. What is the economics? Just saying if you can't afford a home, if you can't afford to go to college, if you're not making enough money right now to make ends meet, we have an economic plan. And that Republicans right now, the housing

bill just passed, but the president himself wouldn't refuse to sign it because he said it was not a big deal. So that's one bucket of economics. Another bucket is social issues, you know, very progressive use on social issues. And then the third is just, as you said, just kind of anti-status quo. Just we're against what exists now, like Donald Trump in 2016, we're going to blow the whole thing up. What is the appeal all three of those? Is it more, is it more just the

economics? What is it that anyone who wants to understand where the electorate is needs to counter? I would have a fourth bucket just in terms of Democratic primary. I didn't budget four or fourth bucket. Shoot. Okay. All right. Go ahead. I would just say having interviewed many of these candidates that the question of foreign policy and some of them have referred to it as like imperialism or colonialism, but the question of foreign policy, particularly of the Israel litmus test

has been crucial to them in the primaries being able to leapfrog over because the Democratic

Party's grassroots type, like organizing type activists, those people are really interested

“in the litmus test. I think it's less important to general election voters, but in a primary,”

that's the type of litmus test you pass it or you don't pass it. And the energy can shift dramatically based on it. So I think that's true. And on that issue, talking about the vice president, he sounded like he could have been a DSA candidate when he talked about Israel. I mean, not in the totality. He said, I think the sort of smartest thing he said about Israel was in with Rogan was, I'm an essential center on this. I'm not as anti-Israel as some people,

but I'm also, you know, got some skepticism about them. But then when he talked about when he made these accusations against the Israeli government saying they don't really want, they don't, you know, some elements of it don't want the peace deal. He's expressing ideas that no incumbent vice president of either party in my lifetime could possibly say. And yet he was. And we saw, for example, Kamala Harris wouldn't say it. Now she's of course in conversation with

some of these DSA candidates per reporting, but Kamala Harris wouldn't come even close to where J.D. Vances. That's a great point. And on top of that, you with J.D. Vance, you're hearing something that's much closer to a DSA type candidate on this question than it is to Lindsey Graham, for example, or it would be to, I mean, Tom Tellis or any establishment Republican Senator. So,

“yeah, it's I think a pretty good glimpse into the future of how anti-establishment political”

movements on the left and the right are going on foreign policy that our first glimpse into

that was 2016 obviously, but it's getting more and more powerful to your point even Kamala Harris

to J.D. Vance. I think that's a pretty clear sign of how quickly this has been moving. Yeah, if you think about the media, again, I'm transitioning with no transition. 2016, Russia, Russia, Russia. And then, and then before the 2020 election, but into the Biden term, just massive failure on Biden's security. And then just the constant ingrained liberal bias that we see in all these places. Is there any improvement? Is there any consciousness raising?

Is there, they got Donald Trump elected twice, ironically, the last thing in the world they wanted. As you consume dominant media, as I call it this year, do you see anything we say, well, okay, that place is trying to fix themselves up a little bit, or it's all just to say. Well, no, I mean, I think there's been an improvement in the New York Times on some of these cultural issues and then their willingness to push for different editorials, at least on the editorial side,

the, like, transmedicine for children conversation, they have really been willing to go and

do investigative reporting that's uncomfortable. I guarantee you for many of the people that's

“like the building on that. So I'll get a little bit of credit. I think overall the story of the”

picture is still pretty dismal. Trust the media tied right now for a record low, according to Gallup, which is insane 10 years after the host of celebrity apprentice defeated the former Secretary of State, and nobody said what happened, but I do see small improvements. I just wonder how long lasting they'll be because audience capture as we can nicheify is going to be a big force in the future too. I'm working on a new project for two a hasn't been fully announced yet,

although we've hinted at it, talking to different generations. And you're, you're my only bridge to young people. So while you're here, we hear young people speak in a way that my generation

would never speak. They say, well, my generation feels blah, blah, blah. Like, they're the voice

of their generation that's incredibly self-conscious way. What is up with people in their 20s, early 30s? Well, well, how do they relate to their generation? Are they proud of it? Are they

“frustrated? How would you characterize your youngsters? Well, I think that's a great question because”

my explanation for this is that the rate of change has gotten so quick, or has just accelerated. Yeah. So that we are way more polarized by generation. So my brother is four years younger than me, and he basically had a totally different childhood because of technology because of smartphones loaded with social media. And I thought I think the way that people are starting to identify more as millennials or zoomers or gen Alpha is partially because it identifies you with an in group

that had a similar experience that other people can't possibly understand because if you grew up in a tablet generation, versus a TikTok generation, versus whatever the heck is going to come next, it really is just different. So that's my explanation. All right, let's see you using you. It's a great explanation conceptually, but I need to drill them with you. But what's different to tablet versus TikTok? I mean, is that a really changing entire orientation of how someone

“views their experience in the America? I think TikTok totally changed everything because of the way”

that it created the short-form videos, it changed Instagram, it changed Facebook, and it changed our experience with politics. Now, X has short-form videos scrolling. YouTube has shorts. So I think TikTok, if you grew up in a generation where TikTok was predominant, it's very different than like my generation where we didn't even have the sounds so quaint, too, Mark, but we didn't even have algorithmically curated news feeds. It was a literal timestamp fee. You could get to the bottom

of it. I understand, I understand, and I'm not minimizing its impact on people. But how would you characterize what that does to your brother's worldview as compared to yours? Is it making a shorter attention span, maybe? But what's the generation identity that derives from being part of an algorithmically served short-form video life? Well, he's like he's not on social media at all, but for I work with a lot of students, so I've seen what they do, and it is like a democratized

and for better words. A democratized some of these conversations, for example, about Israel, about the political establishment, about our institutions in ways that like these questions are all percolating in your head. Even if you don't believe the crazy thing that the person on TikTok said, it gets into your head, and I think it plants a lot of seeds of distrust and doubt. I think it has polarized people really intensely, and I think it has all of these, it's created all these

microcelebrities and products and those sorts of things that you or I even don't have any idea what it is. Like, there's extremely popular, major celebrity with Gen Alpha, and I was zero I do who the person is. So it's little ways, but I think they add up to kind of a big picture

that's very different. I have to say, Emily, you've given me an epiphany, because I've never

before developed in my head an opinion about whether young people should be barred from social media. As some have advocated in some countries of doubt. I've always just sort of passively said, well, they're probably some upside to it, but it would be impractical, and all the reasons not to do it. You've now made me decide just based on describing what you just did. We got a ban on, these kids should be no longer social media until they're 30. It's a bad idea, because the

algorithm is poison. The algorithm is just, it's going to make it turn them into a bunch of things we don't want them to be. Well, and we've also seen screen time, like go dramatically up and time spent with friends go dramatically down, and that has happened more precipitously with every passing like five years. And so I do think that's a huge like physical change, it's a huge social psychological change, and it's happening in these chunks. Again, that I think it's like why people

are more identifying with their generation, because it's an experience that's it's different.

If the screen is your friend, you can be it's a two for, you can spend time with your screen,

“and also with your friend. And you can watch next up with Mark Alphorn. You can, or after party.”

Emily, thank you. Love having you on. Thank you for sharing all your wisdom, generational,

and otherwise. Everybody, if you've never checked out Emily's show, I feel sort of bad for you.

“It's not quite pity, but it verges on pity, and it's certainly strong concern.”

Emily's program, the after party with Emily and Shazinski, Mondays and Wednesdays, nine p.m. these are time to live, nothing better than live,

“and then you can watch it all your favorite streaming platforms, audio, video, etc.”

Emily, thank you. Great to see you. I appreciate you, Mark. All right, that's it for today's program. We're back next Tuesday, another brand new episode up everybody as a wonderful weekend. Share the program over the weekend with your friends, family, even your enemies are entitled to hear that discussion with Emily. Subscribe to next up on YouTube,

wherever you get your podcast. Be a nexter, proud, true, strong. So you always know what's coming.

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