Hasan Piker: Fighting the Democratic Establishment

Trevor and Eugene sit down with streamer and political commentator Hasan Piker for a conversation about modern politics, internet culture, and the realities of building a massive audience in an increasingly divided world. From the growing friction between establishment Democrats and the progressive left to the strange experience of becoming a political figure online, Hasan shares what it’s like taking criticism from just about every direction. Along the way, the trio get into South African politics, generational divides in leadership, and the very real federal subpoena he found waiting for him the last time he got home.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  What do you think?

• 0:05Trevor Noah?

  Even if it's three percentage points, no, what do you mean? What do I think?

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 0:08Trevor Noah?

  Can a woman run the country?

• 0:09Speaker 00

  Can a woman run the country?

• 0:10Trevor Noah?

  Ah, my man, any time.

• 0:11Speaker 00

  Any day.

• 0:12Trevor Noah?

  Let me put it this way, Eji.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, tell me.

• 0:14Trevor Noah?

  I'm even gonna go a step further, my friend. I'm even gonna go a step further, my friend.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, go on. He's going a step further.

• 0:18Trevor Noah?

  Let me, let me say this, my man. In a world where we have lived through multiple world wars and famines and civil wars and in that world, that's not the time to say, can women do this or not? Does that make sense?

• 0:32Speaker 00

  Hundred percent.

• 0:33Trevor Noah?

  If our plane was flying-

• 0:34Speaker 02

  You're saying men ruined it already.

• 0:35Trevor Noah?

  I was saying if our plane was flying with no turbulence, no crashes, no disasters at all, if our airline as men was running flawlessly, then I'd be like, ah, ladies.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  On time.

• 0:45Trevor Noah?

  Ladies, take a backseat. This is not the time for you to be flying this thing. We got it, the fellas got it. But I'm just saying, the way the fellas have been handling things.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  The fellas don't got it?

• 0:55Trevor Noah?

  Right now, how much are you paying for gas? That's the fellas. I, I don't see any women involved in those negotiations.

• 1:02Speaker 00

  Invasions?

• 1:02Trevor Noah?

  I'm just saying, I'm just- So, I'm not saying the women would be better. I'm not saying that.

• 1:07Speaker 00

  You're not saying they'll be better?

• 1:08Trevor Noah?

  I'm just saying that.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  They'll be okay?

• 1:10Trevor Noah?

  We should not act like the thing that is happening now is the one.

• 1:14Speaker 00

  Wait, but sending out one lady to go against many fellas that are out there running countries-

• 1:22Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  And starting wars and conflicts.

• 1:24Trevor Noah?

  You know who was one of the most-

• 1:24Speaker 00

  Do you think that woman would-

• 1:25Trevor Noah?

  You know who was one of the most effective?

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Margaret Thatcher?

• 1:28Trevor Noah?

  Angela Merkel.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 1:30Trevor Noah?

  Angela Merkel was one of the most effective in that. Now, she's not perfect by any means, but I, I still have, I've yet to meet a perfect president.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37Trevor Noah?

  I'm gonna put it out there.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I am diametrically opposed to all of these conversations. I say no women, now I'm kidding.

• 1:44Speaker 00

  Damn, I'm like, you're dead one. You're dead, baby. You're dead, baby.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  I, I think-

• 1:50Speaker 00

  We got him, it's a wrap.

• 1:58Trevor Noah?

  This is What Now with Trevor Noah.

• 2:06Trevor Noah?

  This segment is brought to you by Google Pixel. You know what's really frustrating? Knowing the exact information you need is somewhere on your phone, but still ending up wasting your time digging through five different apps just to actually find it. Thankfully, Google Pixel 11 is designed with Gemini intelligence, so it can proactively find the information I need right when I need it. Like my flight info and travel days, or my calendar when Eugene texts me to hang out. Oh, sorry Eugene, I'm booked. Learn more about what Google Pixel 11 can do at googlestore.com. These AI features are available in select countries and languages for users 18 and over, and make sure to check responses.

• 2:51Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, booked forever, forever.

• 2:54Trevor Noah?

  This episode is brought to you by Verizon.

• 2:58Trevor Noah?

  Pretty much every brand offers rewards these days, but most of them, let's be honest, they aren't that rewarding. Well, starting now, Verizon's doing rewards different. Rewards you'll love all year round for every customer. They're introducing Verizon Dollars, which gives you cash back every month just for being a customer. That's it. Plus, you have the flexibility to use those glorious new dollars how you want. Shop with Verizon. Get gift cards for the brands that you love, or transfer them to our partner programs. They're also introducing Verizon Shine, where now, every Monday, you can snag once-in-a-lifetime experiences like NFL tickets across the globe,

• 3:43Trevor Noah?

  all-inclusive music festivals, and the chance to meet your favorite stars, plus daily drops, tickets, and pre-sale access all week. So, let's recap. Cash back in your pocket every month with Verizon Dollars, and epic experiences from Verizon Shine every Monday all year round. Now, those are some rewarding rewards. Only from Verizon. Enroll today at Verizon.com.

• 4:12Trevor Noah?

  Why would you not want to put it up there?

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Wait, the cap was gone.

• 4:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but he put it on the floor. So I was like, put it up there.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  Oh, he doesn't want it.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  No, I want your hat.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  He's an anti-communist. Just an anti-communist.

• 4:21Trevor Noah?

  He's actually anti-cap.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:23Trevor Noah?

  His father was killed by a cap.

• 4:24Speaker 00

  No cap.

• 4:25Trevor Noah?

  And no cap.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  Okay, good.

• 4:27Trevor Noah?

  His father was killed by a cap. And his grandfather was killed by a cap.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:32Trevor Noah?

  And from that day onwards, he vowed, no cap.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  I'm a EFF loyalist.

• 4:37Trevor Noah?

  Oh, you are?

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  You're lying.

• 4:39Trevor Noah?

  So, so tell me why.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  I'm just kidding. I mean, I...

• 4:42Trevor Noah?

  No, I was hoping, I was hoping you'd say why.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  No, no, I mean, I, I, I think the, the environment of panic around him is very funny.

• 4:51Trevor Noah?

  Definitely.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  Or was.

• 4:53Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, now it's just that.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Well, now he's, yeah.

• 4:55Trevor Noah?

  What, what's happening? What, what, I mean, obviously, you, you can't speak for everyone, but what's, what's, what are people saying on the ground in South Africa right now? About Julius?

• 5:04Speaker 00

  He, he lost people when he was on the side of illegal migration.

• 5:11Trevor Noah?

  Oh, really?

• 5:12Speaker 00

  Illegal immigrants. So he said, this, this one Africa, because his plan was, four years ago, he wanted to branch out the EFF into other African countries.

• 5:19Trevor Noah?

  Oh, damn.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  And then he failed. And the one place that he failed the most was Zimbabwe. Because the Vice President of Zimbabwe said, "You keep your things over there."

• 5:26Trevor Noah?

  And then don't bring them here.

• 5:27Speaker 00

  And then the same Zimbabweans that were saying, "We love this guy," did not vote for him still. They voted for ZANU PF. And then now there's a new group in South Africa called March on March, which is a social movement group that is now demonstrating and picketing against foreign immigrants. And it's saying, "There's a deadline, by the 30th of June, all the illegal immigrants must be gone."

• 5:48Trevor Noah?

  We always have that in South Africa, every few years.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  So he's saying they must stay. And then they're like, "Ah, you've lost touch."

• 5:52Speaker 02

  So he was too woke?

• 5:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, for his, for his crowd.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, at the wrong time.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:56Trevor Noah?

  For his crowd.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  He went, he went off the deep end on too woke. They were like, "We love when you were singing 'Kill the Boar.'" But then you started saying, you know, you, you started talking about this Pan-African nationalist movement. "I don't fuck with that."

• 6:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  "South Africa for South Africans only."

• 6:11Trevor Noah?

  And also, when you, when you look young with extreme views, you're more palatable.

• 6:16Speaker 00

  Oh, interesting.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Is he, is he young?

• 6:18Speaker 00

  He was young.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  Okay, I was gonna.

• 6:20Speaker 00

  So now he doesn't look so young anymore, yes.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  That's interesting.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  When you see those images of Nelson Mandela being defiant, Rivonia trial.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  Chris Hahn, when he just came back from exile, he was young. So he was also the young guy in the ANC telling people that they've, you know, their time is up.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  They've lost their way.

• 6:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, but now when you look old, but you're still fighting, people are like, no, at some point you have to, you know. And Andrew Tate with a grey beard would not fly.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  Andrew Tate?

• 6:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm saying with a grey beard.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  With a grey beard, oh god. I'm starting to get a grey beard, fuck.

• 6:49Trevor Noah?

  Oh, you've got a few more years of revolutionary in you and then it's over. Actually, let me, let me ask you a question, like, like, um. I, I always wonder this, for anyone who gets to step into an environment that, that they haven't, haven't been into. If you walk into a room now, like you've walked into this podcast, right? How would you introduce yourself? And how do you think people perceive you when you walk in?

• 7:12Speaker 02

  This is an interesting question. I don't think about it at all. But I would introduce myself as, I'm Hasan Piker, that's it. Um, if people ask me what I do for a living, I just say I'm a political commentator.

• 7:23Trevor Noah?

  Okay, and then they would say like, oh, what do you, what do you, what politics do you commentate on?

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Um, I just say, well, it depends. If I'm talking to a border patrol agent.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  This did happen. This did have, it just happens a lot. I'm leaving Canada, I was on a day trip, I talked to Gabor Maté at the web summit in Vancouver. And I realized I have a jacket on. There's a hammer and sickle pin that a fan of mine gave me.

• 7:50Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  It's on the jacket. I'm wearing a Democratic Socialists of America New York City hat. I immediately take it off, I rip the pin off, and I walk up to the counter. And the guy's like, oh, what are you doing? He's a day trip, that's strange. I was like, oh yeah, I'm just, I'm a speaker. And he's like, oh, what do you talk about? Like, what do you do? I'm like, oh, I'm a, I'm an influencer. And he's like, what do you influence on? What do you speak on? And I was like, well, you know, uh, what's going on with young men? And I tried to keep it as like broad as possible. And then he he got excited. He's like, so are you a political speaker or religious speaker?

• 8:26Trevor Noah?

  He knew you.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  And uh, and I was like, no, I just talk about lifestyle.

• 8:31Trevor Noah?

  He knew you.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  No, no, if he knew me, he would have kept me.

• 8:34Trevor Noah?

  He was in the world. No. He was in the world. Really? Were you going into Canada or even?

• 8:37Speaker 02

  No, no, I was leaving Canada, but eh, the American Border Patrol is inside of Canada. So there's a couple of places like in Ireland, America, and I think Mexico as well, where they have like stationed their own border patrol guys.

• 8:48Trevor Noah?

  You can, you can do the border process on that side.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:50Trevor Noah?

  So that on this side, you can just land domestic and be on your merry way.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's, it's good though, cause like usually those guys are more woke. Like those border patrol guys are more woke than the.

• 8:59Trevor Noah?

  On that side.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  On, yeah, on the American, than the American ones, I think. So they just kinda go, alright, well, you're fine, get in there.

• 9:05Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but the reason I ask you is because you have, especially right now, you have such an insane reputation that precedes you. Depending on where people get their news.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 9:16Trevor Noah?

  Do you know what I mean? Uh, like I find it so interesting, so if you read, let's say, what people would term mainstream or legacy media, you know, like old newspapers and stuff like that. I would say that you're categorized as um, an extreme leftist. Who is like radical, that's, that's what they say, right? Um, and then if I go on like Twitch or any of like the, the younger, you know, web places, wherever they are. People are like, yeah, this is Hassan's a political commentator who's actually speaking about what's happening and he's not afraid to, to tell his truth. Uh, if I go to right wing media, I mean, that one's obvious, you're a terrorist. I think you know this.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:59Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 9:59Trevor Noah?

  Sometimes they call you a radical terrorist, and I'm like, I don't understand the difference. Is there like a tame terrorist?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a, there's a moderate terrorism.

• 10:05Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, there's a moderate terrorist. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, moderate terrorism is Nancy Pelosi.

• 10:09Trevor Noah?

  Oh, okay.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  We're both communists.

• 10:11Trevor Noah?

  I see.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  But she's a more moderate terrorist.

• 10:13Trevor Noah?

  Ah, so you're a radical terrorist and she's a moderate, okay, I see, okay, so there's that, so there's that version. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, where do you situate yourself in it? Or do you, do you, do you even think you sit in one place? Cause I'll tell you why I asked this question. I've learned from myself personally in life, depending on who I meet, they have a very different starting point. As to where to position me.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Hmm hmm.

• 10:35Trevor Noah?

  Does that make sense?

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:37Trevor Noah?

  So I want to know if you position yourself in one place? Or i- i- if you're just a human being navigating like, how do you, how do you position yourself?

• 10:45Speaker 02

  I'm just, I'm just a normal guy. So from my perspective, I, I just see myself as a regular dude who has a lot of strong opinions. And isn't afraid to, to talk about those opinions. And I know that sounds almost like a political answer, but it's just true. I don't, I don't think of myself as like a famous person. I don't think of myself as like a dangerous radical, obviously. I just want what's best, what I think is best for a society.

• 11:13Trevor Noah?

  Huh.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  And that's it.

• 11:16Trevor Noah?

  But you are, you are famous now.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  I guess.

• 11:19Trevor Noah?

  No, not you guess. Come on, Hassan.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  I mean, I.

• 11:22Trevor Noah?

  Come on, Hassan, don't be humble here with us.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  Hassan is number one on the call sheet, inviting it. No, just serve the other people first.

• 11:30Trevor Noah?

  No, whether you like it or not, like, because you have been thrust into a spotlight where people listen to what you're saying, people look to you. I would even argue that you have the ability to shift and move people's votes and opinions in the country now.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Apparently, don't, don't, don't talk about that too much though, because everybody gets mad at me when, when people start addressing that.

• 11:55Trevor Noah?

  Wait, really?

• 11:56Speaker 02

  Liberals get mad at me about that exact influence that they think I wield. I, I don't think I'm like a kingmaker per se, the way that it's been presented.

• 12:05Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  Um, I do have some influence, certainly. Uh, and I think, uh, it, it's mostly within the activist base of the party.

• 12:13Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  The door knockers, the community organizers, the labor union organizers, rank and filers and whatnot.

• 12:19Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  Uh, so, so we do have the capacity to, to, you know. Offer a lot of help to candidates that align with us. And I think that's that's very frustrating for obviously the Republicans who think we're dangerous terrorists. But certainly even for some centrists in the Democratic Party as well. Because I've been getting attacked, obviously, my entire life and my entire career by Republicans, neo Nazis, the far right and everything else.

• 12:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  But I would say that in these last couple of years, I've also started getting a lot of ire from Democrats, moderate Democrats, corporate backed Democrats, neoliberals in general, like the Third Way, and all of these other institutions like lobbyist groups that want the Democratic Party to to maintain this moderate pivot permanently, constantly conciliatory to right wing culture war framing. And I obviously oppose that. And I think that's precisely the reason why Kamala Harris lost, it's the reason why Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump now twice. And I want to change that, but these lobbyists don't want to change that because that's where their bread is buttered.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  And they get very pissed off.

• 13:40Trevor Noah?

  You say your whole life and your whole career, but take us back. What what brings you to this point? Like, we meet you at this moment in your life, but like, how does how does Hasan Piker come to be?

• 13:52Trevor Noah?

  Like, where were you born? How were you raised?

• 13:54Speaker 02

  I was born in America.

• 13:55Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I'm not saying it like a border agent. I'm saying like a life story. You're so defensive about it.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  I got scared.

• 14:01Trevor Noah?

  This man is like, I was born here, I'm born in America.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  I don't know if you've heard, but the federal government's coming after me currently.

• 14:10Trevor Noah?

  We actually need to talk about that, yeah, but but no.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  So I need to say it. I was born here, I'm an American citizen.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  I could run for president, I would never do that, though, so don't get scared.

• 14:20Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man. You know, you know what's funny about this is I do find it, I do find it hilarious that over the years, in a good way, I'm not saying this in a bad way, but over the years. The border agents at American airports and ports have become increasingly immigrants.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 14:36Trevor Noah?

  So it's interesting to be at the border.

• 14:38Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 14:39Trevor Noah?

  Interviewed by an immigrant who's now, I'm assuming, an American citizen.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  It's an amazing experience for an immigrant.

• 14:44Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but but it's also interesting.

• 14:45Speaker 00

  They get it.

• 14:46Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but it's also interesting when it feels like they're more likely to kick you out.

• 14:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:50Trevor Noah?

  No, no.

• 14:50Speaker 00

  Never had that feeling.

• 14:51Trevor Noah?

  You've never had that feeling.

• 14:51Speaker 00

  Never.

• 14:52Speaker 02

  That's crazy.

• 14:53Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  In fact, I feel like it's a, give him hell, I'm, I have a nine hour shift, but you, on the other hand.

• 14:59Trevor Noah?

  That's beautiful. No, I like that. I like that.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  I've never felt that way.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  You have an unbelievably positive outlook.

• 15:05Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but he's a positive guy.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  That I think is borderline naivete and and maybe even dangerous.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  You know how many times I've gotten through with that editorial?

• 15:13Speaker 02

  That's crazy.

• 15:15Speaker 00

  My Spanish is great at the border. What are you talking about? Pass for control.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  I have the exact opposite experience.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  Really?

• 15:22Speaker 02

  That's crazy, where I'm like, oh, fuck, here we go. Every time I have to deal with Customs or Border Patrol. I mean, I've been detained by Customs or Border Patrol before as well. Uh, yes, uh, both when I'm flying in, uh, cause they do the the triple S or whatever.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  I got the triple S.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  What's the triple S?

• 15:38Trevor Noah?

  Yo, I find.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  So random, uh.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  Fellow triple S.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Random security.

• 15:42Trevor Noah?

  It's actually four S's. It might be four.

• 15:43Speaker 00

  Pull you to the side?

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:45Trevor Noah?

  But they don't, but they don't tell you.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  Wait, so you get to the window?

• 15:48Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so I'll explain.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:50Trevor Noah?

  You you have your your ticket for your flight, right? If you have it on your phone, it just tells you, no, you can't check in. Doesn't tell you, it's just like, you just need to speak to somebody when you get to the airport. Just speak to somebody. You're like, why? I wanna check in. They're like, just relax. You checked in, but we won't give you your boarding pass.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  Just talk to someone.

• 16:06Trevor Noah?

  You get to the airport, when you get to the desk, they ask for your passport, they ask for everything, they then print your boarding pass. They say nothing to you. And then on your boarding pass, underneath like a bunch of random, right, you know all the stuff, uh, ticket number, boarding time, all of that.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  I think there's also bullshit numbers there that don't.

• 16:23Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, there's just four S's.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. Random security clearance.

• 16:27Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it's just, it just goes S, S, S. S.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Super secret security search.

• 16:32Trevor Noah?

  Is that what it is?

• 16:33Speaker 02

  I don't think so.

• 16:33Trevor Noah?

  Oh, that would be good. That would be good.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:36Trevor Noah?

  And then what happens is you move through the airport.

• 16:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:39Trevor Noah?

  You.

• 16:39Speaker 00

  So still nothing.

• 16:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, no one. Nothing happens generally.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  Your bags are checked in.

• 16:43Trevor Noah?

  But then when you get to the gates.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  The boarding gate.

• 16:47Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, the boarding gate. Everyone bo- and then they pull you aside and they, excuse me, would you like to take off your underwears, please?

• 16:54Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, they do a se- they do a special.

• 16:56Speaker 00

  Cabin search.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  They, I mean, they don't do cabin search, but.

• 16:59Trevor Noah?

  They go like.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  Squat and cough?

• 17:01Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, no. No squatting. Just coughing.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  Well, maybe they do it. Maybe, maybe they do it to other people, but.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  Wait, so they pull you to the side?

• 17:08Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  Then you have to go into a little secret room, which is not a secret.

• 17:11Trevor Noah?

  Some, some airports just, they just create like a partition.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:14Trevor Noah?

  So you're outside but inside.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:16Trevor Noah?

  And they empty everything.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it's sometimes you're with a big group and they're all, all walking and you get pulled to the side and you're like waving at them like.

• 17:25Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  See you on the flight, hopefully. Um, and that's usually when you're on foreign soil, coming back into the United States of America.

• 17:31Trevor Noah?

  Uh huh.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  Cause they have like a double, triple TSA, basically.

• 17:36Trevor Noah?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Uh, when you're, uh, an American citizen, I guess, coming back. But I, I got detained at O'Hare Airport, uh, by, by Customs and Border Patrol on my way back from France. I was about to speak at University of Chicago, uh, at the Politics Institute and they, they pulled me aside and they had revoked my global entry, which I never got to use, which is really annoying. Uh, I hate that. I, it took so long. I had to do all these interviews.

• 18:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, and you have to give your life.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and they, they gave it to me. I got the card and I never even got to use it. The first time I use it, I get detained. And, um, yeah, they, they pulled me aside, uh, into a, a, a secondary detention area where there's like an interrogation room and you sit in there.

• 18:19Trevor Noah?

  You lie.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was on, it was in the news. Yeah, it was, uh, they, they did the secondary, uh, uh, detention and then interrogation where they asked me like, what are your thoughts on Israel? What are your thoughts on Donald Trump? Have you ever been in contact with like anyone from Hamas, Hezbollah, uh, Ansarallah movement, like the Houthis, all this stuff?

• 18:40Trevor Noah?

  When you're in, when you're sitting there in that moment, what was there a part of you that just goes like? Just say nice things about Donald Trump?

• 18:47Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I

• 18:48Trevor Noah?

  Not even a little bit?

• 18:49Speaker 02

  Well, there were, here's what I did. Um, when they kept asking me about Hamas, what my thoughts are, I just kept repeating. Hamas is a designated as a terrorist organization by the State Department. I just kept repeating that line over and over again.

• 19:04Trevor Noah?

  Which is a fact.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  It's just a fact.

• 19:05Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  It's not

• 19:06Trevor Noah?

  It's not your opinion.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  It's not my opinion, it's just a fact about Hamas. Um, and then when they asked me about Trump, I was like, that's when I did pushback where I was like, yeah, I don't like him. Like, what do you mean?

• 19:17Trevor Noah?

  Yo, damn!

• 19:18Speaker 02

  I was like, yeah, I don't like him. What are you talking about? I'm an American citizen entering my country. Like, that's ridiculous. Um, and they didn't give me too much stress about that. But they did ask a lot about like the people that I had interviewed. There was this Yemeni teenager, he was nineteen years old. And the media dubbed him Tim Houthis Shalameh. He was, uh

• 19:36Trevor Noah?

  That was creative.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:37Trevor Noah?

  That sounds like something you'd say. It is, but I didn't. No, you didn't say it.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, he never, yeah.

• 19:42Trevor Noah?

  But creative words, this one. Kind of my vibe, but definitely not me. Say that word.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, Tim Houthis Shalameh. So, uh, yeah, I did get him, I did get that from Trevor, by the way.

• 19:53Trevor Noah?

  No, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  He texted it to me.

• 19:55Trevor Noah?

  Don't involve me.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  He texted it to me, he was like, that's a good one, you should use this.

• 19:59Trevor Noah?

  Don't involve me.

• 20:00Speaker 00

  I know my friends' words, but I don't hear them.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. He's like, look, look, obviously. He said, obviously, the Ansarallah movement is doing the right thing.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  But

• 20:14Trevor Noah?

  Edit, edit, asterisk, asterisk, delete, delete, asterisk, delete, asterisk, asterisk, edit.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  So, you know, it's cool, though. It's, it's fine. You can deny it now.

• 20:25Trevor Noah?

  This guy, you're playing here, my man. I wasn't born in this country, my man. You're playing games here, my man.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  But, yeah, I, um, uh, they were asking me about like, uh, whether he, like, whether this person was actually a part of the Houthis movement. And I was like, I got lucky, I think, or they did this deliberately. The guy I was talking to was, going back to what you were talking about. An Arab CBP officer. So he was knowledgeable about like the the region at least.

• 20:56Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  So I think he was like a counterterrorism guy. And I was just like, no, the dude's name is Rashid Al Haddad. He's Sunni, he's a Sunni Yemeni. And and obviously, his last name is not Al Houthi, and he's not Shia. So of course, he's not a part of the Houthi movement, not a part of Ansarallah. He's like, oh, okay, I understand that. But what's interesting about that is it's not illegal. Like, as an American citizen and as a member of the media, of course, I'm going to sometimes talk to to members of of, you know, state-sponsored terrorist organizations. That's a normal part of the process. And it's and it's protected by the First Amendment, right? And I haven't. So I told them that I had not.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  But it is something that is is very strange to ask someone who is a member of the media on their entry into the country. Because I think they were trying to tie that back to offering material support. This is a real big point of contention right now in in constitutional law as well.

• 21:57Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Where they are, the administration of the State Department, the government is trying to basically expand the boundaries of what constitutes for material support. Because material support terrorist organizations is very illegal.

• 22:10Trevor Noah?

  And and just to break that down for for some for, so we're on the same page.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:15Trevor Noah?

  When you're saying material support of a terrorist organization, the United States government has said, like most governments, I'm assuming in the world, it is illegal to support terrorist organization overseas financially.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:27Trevor Noah?

  Or with arms.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  And now it's becoming illegal, I guess.

• 22:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, but now that's that's an interesting.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  But now, but now they are trying to expand it into speech. And one of the first things that they did was actually legal counsel, which again is is constitutionally protected rights. So they were trying to prosecute lawyers that would that would, you know, defend.

• 22:49Trevor Noah?

  Someone who's been accused of terrorism.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. And and it didn't work. They put that on the back burner. But I think now with this administration, they're trying to punish dissidents and they're trying to erode the First Amendment, really.

• 23:01Trevor Noah?

  I mean, they could expand it if if if you look at the nth degree, they could expand it to you even having an. Interview with somebody.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:07Trevor Noah?

  Regardless of your support of them.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:09Trevor Noah?

  Because they could argue that the interview.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Platforming.

• 23:12Trevor Noah?

  Platforming them and so you've given them some of your material support, which is your subscriber base.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's obviously totally ridiculous, antithetical to the First Amendment, so. What were you gonna say?

• 23:23Speaker 00

  I'm saying that, yeah, no, no, no, I was agreeing with him. I was saying the audience is now seen as material support.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's.

• 23:29Speaker 00

  This is scary.

• 23:30Trevor Noah?

  I was about to say, are you not scared living this life?

• 23:33Speaker 02

  I mean, it's not great. It's it's definitely tense at times, but um, someone's got to do it, you know? And I I, the way I see it is like, I'm speaking for uh, for the most part, uh, voiceless people, people whose voices are never heard. And someone has to do that. And I I do believe in in the better nature of man that they, if they encounter this information and and have a a sense of charitable ability, they will understand and they will change their minds.

• 24:02Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but what I mean is like, I'm just talking about you on a human level. How has it affected? How you move through the world? So there there's there's our front-facing selves.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 24:12Trevor Noah?

  And then there's the us that we just live with every single day, like the person who hears a bump in the middle of the night. Uh, the person who hears footsteps running behind them and it's a jogger, the like, has ha- ha- have you found that your nervous system has changed? Over the years that that, you know, as your profile has has has evolved?

• 24:28Speaker 02

  I mean, I've had to deal with cyber stalkers for most of my life before I gained like more mainstream credibility and more mainstream attention.

• 24:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  So I'm pretty used to uh, being on the receiving end of death threats, doxing, swatting, things of that nature. And unfortunately, it's it's a it's a part of the job. It shouldn't be. It's horrifying. Uh, but you just kind of get used to it after a while.

• 24:52Trevor Noah?

  You you say it's a part of the job, but I. I say this with all due respect, it's not necessarily.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 25:01Trevor Noah?

  It's a part of what your job has sort of become like, like I I I think I think you you um, you have a lot of bravery in saying this. But there's a lot of people who don't have this as a part of their job. Like, there's a lot of news anchors who don't have these issues. There's a lot of people who are, you know, they're hosting like a debate show on cable television. They even go in war zones and they come back and that goes on. So I would love to know like when it first started, like what was the, which platform were you on where you started to notice, oh, I'm not just breaking through to the people I'm speaking to, but I'm starting to piss off the people I'm speaking against.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  I mean, even when I was at the Young Turks, all the way back in like 2014, 2015, when I would like randomly appear on some of the shows. And then certainly after 2016, when I had my own show on the platform, on Facebook, called The Breakdown, where I started noticing that, I think that was the first time I ever saw one of these forums, where, you know, neo-Nazis congregate, where they were like mapping out the blueprints of my apartment and the apartment complex in general.

• 26:08Trevor Noah?

  Are you shitting me?

• 26:09Speaker 02

  And, and, you know, talking about how I had two pit bulls. You know, I had a pit bull and my roommate had one as well. And they were talking about how like you need to come in with like a stick of salami or something to like bribe the dogs. And then, you know, and how they would just like break in to my house and kill me. And that was terrifying when it first happened. But that is so commonplace that I just don't even think about it. That was, you know, more than 10 years ago at this point. So it's just, you know, it's not something that I, I think about all that much.

• 26:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  Or place a lot of emphasis on, because I feel like that would almost allow these people to win. Because they want to create an environment of fear, an environment of tension that disrupts what I want to do. And I'm not going to give in to that. And, I mean, I even said this after Charlie Kirk got assassinated. I was supposed to debate him two weeks after his assassination. Obviously, it didn't happen. But one of the things that people kept asking me is like, do you have security? Are you changing things? And for the first like week or so, I had to cancel some of my public appearances. But shortly after that, I started going back out there, going out in public, going to protest again.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  And, uh, and, and, you know, people kept saying like, well, aren't you worried? And, uh, my answer always is the same. It's just, I can't let fear, uh, uh, change what I want to do. I can't let fear influence my life in this way. So I choose not to think about it. Many of my friends think I'm insane for that reason. Uh, but I guess sometimes you gotta be a little insane.

• 27:50Trevor Noah?

  I mean, if you wanna change things, there's a, there's a certain level of insanity that's required. It doesn't matter what field you're in. If you're in science, if you're in music, if you're in comedy, if you're in political commentary, it, it doesn't matter what, what you're in, but, but I, I guess what intrigues me about you is how it doesn't seem to have necessarily changed you, or, or maybe it has and I, and I haven't seen it, you know? So when you stream, one of the things about streaming that's unique is that, you know, as the name suggests, it's like a stream of consciousness, you know? So when you were on The Young Turks, you were like very prepared and, you know, this is something that's gonna be put out and it can be edited and it can be, but when you're streaming, it's you.

• 28:35Trevor Noah?

  You say something and it's out already. It's, it's, I've always, I've always wondered how much stress that puts on you. Because, you know, when we're, when we're saying stuff, anything can come out of your mouth.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:47Trevor Noah?

  And then there's a moment where you go like, ah, damn.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  Like all this stuff that's not gonna make it to the final cut that you said about these state-sponsored terrorist organizations.

• 28:56Trevor Noah?

  You see this guy?

• 28:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, which made me, it shocked me. Did it shock you?

• 29:00Trevor Noah?

  Shocked?

• 29:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:02Trevor Noah?

  I was flabbergasted.

• 29:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just, I had no idea.

• 29:04Trevor Noah?

  I couldn't believe what was going on there.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  I had no idea what, what opinions you hold.

• 29:10Trevor Noah?

  So much.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  But, yeah.

• 29:13Trevor Noah?

  No, but, but like I'm saying, when you're, when you're in that space, you, you also didn't change your, so this is, okay, this is what I, I, I notice. And it's, it's something that's always plagued me in American political commentary.

• 29:31Trevor Noah?

  A lot of how

• 29:34Trevor Noah?

  American political commentators act is not sort of how they are and it's not how they feel.

• 29:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:40Speaker 00

  It seems like. Put on a persona depending on.

• 29:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, and and and I feel like there's a lot of money to be made from doing this.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:46Trevor Noah?

  Right? There's a lot of um.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Fame and.

• 29:50Trevor Noah?

  There's a lot of fame, there's there's a lot of power, but my issue is that it's not them. So I remember when the the first time this this happened to me, it was a rude awakening. I was I had been on the Daily Show for like a year or or two years. And I got invited to an event, it was like the hundred most influential like news people in America type thing. But it's only like journalists and news and whatever. And I get there. And I'll never forget somebody from an extreme like right wing publication. They came up to me and they when they walked up to me, I genuinely thought they were gonna fight. I was like, OK, I'm ready.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 30:24Trevor Noah?

  I just thought, OK, this person's coming to fight. I've talked shit about them and what they've said. I believe it genuinely. They're gonna fight me. And they came up to me and stretched out hand was like, hey, look at this guy. Hey, Trevor, how you doing, man? What's going on? Oh, look at this. Not bad, eh? Not bad. And I promise you now.

• 30:40Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 30:42Trevor Noah?

  Not not even God as my witness. Kibuka, anyone who worked with me at the time can tell you, the next day when I walked in the office.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  Higher than God.

• 30:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, because you can't ask God. Maybe God will tell you a different thing.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Crazy.

• 30:51Trevor Noah?

  No, because.

• 30:52Speaker 00

  The stuff that he said.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. Now, yeah, now he's he's now we know he's a radical atheist as well.

• 30:59Trevor Noah?

  No, because my thing is when people say God is my witness, you can't ask God yourself, maybe. Maybe I you don't even know which God I'm saying, but I can also give you humans in case you wanna ask them.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  So true, for reference sake, yeah.

• 31:09Trevor Noah?

  The next day, first thing I said, not only did I not engage in this conversation, I actually felt like an asshole. Because you could see he was looking at me like, why are you being like this?

• 31:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:21Speaker 00

  Damn.

• 31:21Speaker 02

  I've had this exact same experience.

• 31:23Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but then I remember going, oh, you've had this. I remember going, am I?

• 31:29Speaker 00

  I'm taking this seriously.

• 31:30Trevor Noah?

  I was like, oh, I'm I'm saying what I believe, but you are in wrestling.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 31:35Trevor Noah?

  I'm out here thinking I am fighting the incredible Hulk.

• 31:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:39Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean? Like I'm Hulk Hogan, I'm, let me tell you something, brother. And then when I meet him, he's just like, hey, I'm Terry.

• 31:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:45Trevor Noah?

  And I was like, no, I'm I came here to destroy you.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:49Trevor Noah?

  Because this is how I feel. The reason I I bring this up is because, you know, you look at Charlie Kirk, you look at a lot of the rhetoric in America. I find it interesting how in all of those moments, people who were espousing certain opinions and ideas very quickly like pulled down a mask and they go, hey, you know, I know sometimes in this country, people get heated and but, you know, we, we need to, and I'm like, wait, wait, what is happening right now?

• 32:17Speaker 02

  We need to cool down the temperature.

• 32:19Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I go, you've

• 32:20Speaker 00

  That's their favorite word?

• 32:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:21Trevor Noah?

  You've said that Donald Trump is the second coming of Hitler. You've said that this man is going to abolish the Constitution on a public platform. You've said, you've said these things as a person.

• 32:30Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:31Trevor Noah?

  Then something happens, someone shoots at Donald Trump and misses. And then you come out the next day and you go, guys, guys, guys.

• 32:40Trevor Noah?

  I, I know that he might be the second coming of Hitler, but he's our president and we have to stand behind. I'm like, do you not see? No, but I'm like, do you not see the inconsistency of what you're doing?

• 32:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:49Trevor Noah?

  And more, more dangerously, do you not see that you are creating kayfabe? You're creating wrestling with real people's lives.

• 32:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:59Trevor Noah?

  And then when you start to get afraid, you go, ah, ah, ah, why are you guys taking it seriously? And so I, I want to know from you, because you've remained like consistent through it all, do you find it difficult to just like be you? When you know that some people are playing a character version of themselves?

• 33:18Speaker 02

  Uh, so I had the almost identical experience that you're describing. When I went to the White House, uh, correspondence dinner, weekend activities. Uh, one of the weekends, many, many years ago, when I was at the Young Turks and they were throwing an event. I didn't actually attend the, uh, the, the event itself. But I walked into a bar and this is at the peak of like Trump won. All of a sudden, the entire press is there, right? The press pool is there, all these commentary people are there. And I think it was Kellyanne Conway that walked into the bar. And the room lit up because everyone was excited. Anthony Scaramucci, Sean Spicer, all these people walk in and these liberal.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  Uh, these liberal commentary people, these journalists who have like, uh, written scathing reports about these people were excited to take photos. No.

• 34:12Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 34:13Speaker 02

  And.

• 34:14Trevor Noah?

  This thing, this is the thing I'm talking about.

• 34:16Speaker 02

  And that's where I was reminded of, and I hate this guy, obviously, rest in piss, Andrew Breitbart, but I was reminded of his, his statement about how DC is Hollywood for ugly people. It's true. I mean, sometimes you can be an asshole, but you can get it right. Um, and he was right about that. It is Hollywood for ugly people where it's, it's for the most part, the, the kayfabe is absolutely real. Like these guys see what they're doing as, as theatrics for the most part. They don't like, not to say that all reporters are like this, obviously not.

• 34:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  Uh, there's some brilliant journalists out there and, and some great people in the commentary sphere as well. And there are certainly issues that they do care about, right? Where they are uncompromising, where their true side comes out, their true opinions come out. But for the most part, everyone in that bubble, in the media bubble is, is playing a role and they, they see it as such. And maybe it's, uh, it's not dissimilar to, I guess, like having a coworker that you disagree with vehemently, but you know, you're chill towards them at the, at the water cooler? I don't know. Uh, maybe it's something like that, but I don't, I don't like that at all because like these are my real opinions. I can't lie about who I am because I'm live for eight hours a day, seven days a week.

• 35:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's what I was, that's what I meant.

• 35:35Speaker 02

  It's impossible for me to put on a persona. I can be, uh, more buttoned up in moments like this on a podcast where I'm not like, you know, inundated with messages coming in from the side on the chat. Um, because like the, the medium that I occupy is, is very interactive. That's what makes it so different.

• 35:53Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  But the issues I talk about are, are emotionally charged and, and very, uh, personal for a lot of people, right? It's very polarizing. And it's a, it's a perfect disaster to, to say the least. I mean, it's just you have, you're talking about politics, eight hours a day, seven days a week. And anyone from all around the world anonymously can come in and try to pick apart what you're saying or piss you off or say something heinous. In real time, yeah. In real time. And many people do take advantage of that. Uh, that in my opinion creates really productive discourse and it can be unproductive. Oh, interesting. But then on top of that, I have entire groups organized on the internet

• 36:34Speaker 02

  that, that sit inside of Discord servers and subreddits that, that, uh, spend a good deal of time watching and logging every single thing that happens on the stream. So they can like clip something out of context and then disseminate it to a lot of right wing groups. And I've noticed that this is something that happens almost exclusively to people on the left. Um, people on the left have to, uh, face opposition from the entirety of the right wing, right? From moderate Republicans all the way to neo Nazis and white nationalists alike. But they also face a lot of opposition from a big chunk of the Democratic Party's commentary base as well. Um, not necessarily the voters, but certainly from consultant groups, lobbyists and, and, uh, you know,

• 37:19Speaker 02

  those invested in maintaining the, the corporate interests at the, at the center of power in the Democratic Party. And AOC has to deal with this all the time as well. Bernie Sanders has to deal with this all the time as well. There's this like very different set of standards for people who are, uh, bold advocates, uh, to, to, you know, make people's lives a little bit better than it actually is. People who do believe in that, people who are considered radical, I guess, for American politics. Not so radical for European politics. I mean, Bernie Sanders would be the average politician in Norway, right? His attitude. His views, yeah. His views are not radical at all. As a matter of fact, he would, uh, he'd probably, uh, slot into like a center, maybe even a center right party in, in some of these countries, right? Or at least his output.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  But in America, if you're advancing the interest of Medicare for all, the interest of the people over interests of corporations and profit, you're seen as this like crazy guy.

• 38:15Trevor Noah?

  A lot of people have started referring to you as the Joe Rogan of the left. How do you, how do you feel about that? I mean, I have my opinions, but I want to know, because you're the person they're speaking about.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:26Trevor Noah?

  You know, what you think about it.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  I mean, I think Joe Rogan is, is a goon, but.

• 38:30Trevor Noah?

  A goon?

• 38:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:32Trevor Noah?

  What a funny word.

• 38:33Speaker 02

  He's just kind of a dumbass, but.

• 38:34Trevor Noah?

  Not a word my friend would use.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Goon.

• 38:37Trevor Noah?

  That's not me. Yeah, I'm not a goon.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. Trevor would never say Joe Rogan is a goon.

• 38:42Trevor Noah?

  No, no.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  Trevor would say friend.

• 38:44Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 38:45Speaker 02

  Confidant, trusted confidant.

• 38:47Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:49Trevor Noah?

  Ally.

• 38:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:51Trevor Noah?

  Fellow bow hunter.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. Exactly.

• 38:54Trevor Noah?

  Broadheads galore. Elk, elk, elk, elk eating, yes.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah. Um, yeah, I, I mean, I don't align with Joe Rogan on, on virtually any issue, especially as of late.

• 39:05Trevor Noah?

  No, no, but I think what they, what they mean is like.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  They're saying I'm like reaching out.

• 39:08Trevor Noah?

  They're, they're saying you are.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:11Trevor Noah?

  There, there's this, there's this school of thought that says you are what ironically the Democrats said they needed after Trump I even.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:21Trevor Noah?

  And then going into like Trump's second term. Trump II. Yeah, Trump II. I like sequels. They went, they went like, oh, you know what, you know what's lacking on the left? The left doesn't have a Joe Rogan, the left doesn't have a manosphere, the left doesn't have a space where there's engaging, hard discussion that isn't, doesn't have a veneer of CNN on it, doesn't have the lobbyist.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:42Trevor Noah?

  Stench on it, it needs, and, and then they said, this is the person. Hasan Piker is the Joe Rogan of the left. And that, that's what I mean is like, how do you?

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:50Trevor Noah?

  How do you respond to that?

• 39:51Speaker 02

  So, a couple of things, when they were doing that, they kept coming to me and going, you're the Joe Rogan of the left. Uh, what do you think is the problem with the party? And I kept telling him, this is an issue that you can't podcast your way out of. Like, this is a problem, this is a crisis within the ranks of the Democratic Party. It's a, it's a messaging problem, but more importantly, it's a policy problem.

• 40:10Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Right? Having a, a bunch of, uh, you know, sponsored or, or well-funded liberal content creators is probably good to combat some of the misinformation if they're, you know, focusing all their efforts on, on tackling, you know, the, the growth of, uh, right-wing independent media that's still firmly committed to, uh, the, the party apparatus as a part of its like propaganda machine.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  But you're not necessarily going to win elections off of that alone. What needs to change is not the media ecosystem and the media environment. What needs to change is the party. One of the biggest issues with Kamala Harris was that she was incapable of defining herself with key policy prescriptions that people could identify with. And instead, she was defined by her opposition. That's why the Kamala Harris is for they/them ad worked. I guess if you ask the Democratic Party consultants, not because everyone was viciously transphobic and primarily invested in punishing 1% of the American population. Certainly, there's some people who wanted that.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  But it was because of a lack of clear messaging on key policy issues from the Kamala camp that allowed the opposition to define her. We have to fix that, was my argument. And I kept warning over and over again, leading up to the election and certainly after the election, I kept talking about this all the time. They, of course, predictably did not listen. They said, no, you're the Joe Rogan of the left. And then I was like, OK, all right, bet. Sure, I'm going to now also push forward candidates that are bold, that are actually invested in making material changes that will improve people's lives. Zohar Mumdani was one of them, right?

• 42:02Speaker 02

  And then they went, no, no, no, not like that. We don't want that actually at all. You're a terrorist, actually. Hopefully, Trump, he's right here, this guy, get him. That's what it turned into.

• 42:15Trevor Noah?

  We'll be right back after the short break.

• 42:22Trevor Noah?

  Fall has a way of turning an ordinary night into a reason to gather. Whether it is a football game, a Halloween party, or a dinner on a cold evening. Whole Foods Market makes those moments easier with comfort food, seasonal treats, and quality standards built into every aisle. Start with a Whole Foods Market Kitchen's lasagna, packaged soup, or a build-your-own-family meal from the prepared foods counter, which feeds $4.35.

• 42:53Trevor Noah?

  For game day, add made in house wings, frozen pizzas, and 365 brand chips and dips. The limited time bakery lineup brings the season home with pumpkin blondies, apple brown butter cookies, and chocolate bourbon pecan pie. And with no artificial sweeteners like sucralose, artificial colors like red dye number forty, or high fructose corn syrup store wide, nothing gets in the way of the flavors you came for. Shop for flavors with higher standards at Whole Foods Markets. I think one of the things you realize when you start caring about clothes is that simple doesn't have to mean basic. Because a T-shirt is a T-shirt until you find the right T-shirt.

• 43:37Trevor Noah?

  Ooh, then suddenly you're talking about the cut, the fit, the weight, the way it falls on your body. Then you're like, no, no, no, you don't understand. Look at the sleeve. And that's what I've really enjoyed about Quince. One of my favorite things is their Pima Cotton Lux Touch T-shirts. And it's become one of those pieces I keep reaching for. The cotton has this really smooth, premium feel to it. The fit is great, and it just lays really nicely. And I think that's what you sometimes take for granted with simple clothes. When they're done really well, they become the foundation of an entire outfit. You can throw on a jacket, a sweater, whatever you want, but everything works because you started with the right thing.

• 44:16Trevor Noah?

  That's what I like about Quince. It feels premium without feeling like you're trying too hard. It's effortless. So find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. Hello over there. Oh, and if Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was What Now with Trevor Noah. It's the best way to support the show.

• 44:58Trevor Noah?

  There are a ton of articles written about you, as you're saying, from the left, just about like how this guy's the worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party and this guy is, you are destabilizing what doesn't need to be more destabilized. You know, it's funny, I actually want to know what you think. I'm torn on the Kamala and Hillary thing because we are unable to run multiple simulations of our lives, or at least like we don't know if we can. We always say that Hillary lost because of her messaging, blah, blah, blah. We say that Kamala Harris lost because of her messaging, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I sometimes think we take for granted the fact that they were both women.

• 45:40Trevor Noah?

  And I don't know how much you lose by being a woman running for president. America has never had a woman president.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Radical misogynist.

• 45:47Trevor Noah?

  No, you can, because I'm a man.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  Don't run women.

• 45:51Trevor Noah?

  This is how we get the clicks. No, but what I'm saying is, what I'm saying is this, right? Donald Trump lost an election. Who did he lose to? A man. No, no, stick with me on this, right? An old man who had never beaten anyone in any major election.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:08Speaker 00

  Office fight.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  Well, you don't know that.

• 46:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  I agree, but you don't know.

• 46:15Trevor Noah?

  Apparently he was what?

• 46:17Speaker 00

  You know, he did a lot for South Africa's liberation.

• 46:18Trevor Noah?

  Who, Joe Biden? Yeah, fully.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:21Trevor Noah?

  No, fully, apparently. Apparently like back in the day, he was, no, no, really?

• 46:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 46:24Trevor Noah?

  No, really?

• 46:25Speaker 02

  He lied about getting arrested, though.

• 46:27Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, he lied about that. And yes, no, he was actually anti-apartheid, this is true.

• 46:33Trevor Noah?

  Yes, yes, which was a big step when a lot of people were not.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Which was very strange because he was also radically in opposition to desegregation in the United States of America. And, and even at the same time that he was like anti-apartheid in South Africa, he literally was, you know, co-sponsoring bills alongside Strom Thurmond.

• 46:55Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  Why is this guy indefensible?

• 47:00Trevor Noah?

  I'm trying so hard. Sleepy Joe.

• 47:03Speaker 02

  But he was against apartheid. I do a sign. Yeah. No, you, you, so. And also, at the same time, he was against South African apartheid, he was very much in favor of Israel, which, again, another contradiction.

• 47:13Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but yeah, you, you, you know what's interesting about that? I don't know if you've ever seen the, the, the, the interviews of Nelson Mandela when he comes to the United States. Just after he's been released from prison.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:24Trevor Noah?

  And he's like, free.

• 47:25Speaker 00

  The, the version of him that I call AM.

• 47:28Trevor Noah?

  What's that?

• 47:28Speaker 00

  Angry Mandela.

• 47:29Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 47:30Speaker 00

  When he wasn't taking any nonsense.

• 47:31Trevor Noah?

  He wasn't taking any nonsense. And then they like, ask him, they go like, so, Mr. Mandela, ah, you know, you're gonna, you know, you've, we've got enemies with Israel, and why won't you team up with, and he was like, the freedom of the Palestinian people. And he goes in hard. And he's like, I will never support their freedom. And they're like, ah, but you're our ally, I know. He's like, just because your enemies are not my enemies.

• 47:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:50Trevor Noah?

  Your enemies, I believe in the freedom. And he goes in hard, and you can see they're like, ah, my man.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  It was also about Che Guevara too, because they were like, they were hitting him on Fidel Castro in Cuba.

• 48:00Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 48:00Speaker 02

  And it's like, yeah, I feel like you're, you're oblivious to the amount of effort and manpower expended by the Cuban government at a time when like, they didn't have too much.

• 48:12Trevor Noah?

  They had nothing.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  They had nothing, and they spent so much, uh, trying to liberate, uh, Africa in, and, and, of course, there's gonna be some shared resentment against Western colonialism.

• 48:25Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  And, and why would they betray, why would he turn around and betray other?

• 48:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  People going through similar, uh, plights?

• 48:32Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but what I was saying about, just so we're on the same page, is I sometimes wonder if, I'm sure there's a term for this. We will answer our question based on the results, as opposed to actually looking at what happened, because we can't know. Right? So with Kamala Harris and, and Hillary Clinton, we'll say, they lost because.

• 48:55Trevor Noah?

  But if Donald Trump had lost that first election, we would have gone, Hillary ran the right campaign, and of course, Donald Trump was gonna lose. When Donald Trump lost in 2020, it seemed obvious, like, well, of course he was gonna, look at all the dumb things. He was saying, drink bleach, of course he's gonna lose. Then when he wins in the next election, he didn't really change anything.

• 49:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:14Trevor Noah?

  And then, and then he wins in that one. And I honestly find myself, I just, I just have to find, I have to ask myself the question, I have to go. How many percentage points come from people in America who are just not willing to vote for a woman? Just like how many people out there go, I don't think, because I would read this and I would see people saying, I just don't think a woman can run the country. I I I'm all for women, but I just don't know that a woman can can be trusted to run the country. And men and women alike saying this, by the way, spread out over the country.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  What do you think?

• 49:46Trevor Noah?

  Even if it's three percentage points. No, bro, what do you mean? What do I think?

• 49:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:50Trevor Noah?

  Can a woman run the country?

• 49:50Speaker 00

  Run the country.

• 49:51Trevor Noah?

  Oh, my man, any time.

• 49:53Speaker 00

  Any day.

• 49:53Trevor Noah?

  Let let me put this way, Eeje.

• 49:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, tell me.

• 49:55Trevor Noah?

  I'm even gonna go a step further, my friend. I'm even gonna go a step further.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, go on.

• 49:58Speaker 00

  He's going a step further.

• 49:59Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, let me, let me say this, my man. In a world where we have lived through multiple world wars and famines and civil wars and in that world, that's not the time to say, can women do this or not? Does that make sense?

• 50:13Speaker 00

  Hundred percent.

• 50:14Trevor Noah?

  If our plane was flying.

• 50:15Speaker 02

  Ruined it already.

• 50:16Trevor Noah?

  I was saying if our plane was flying with no turbulence, no crashes, no disasters at all, if our airline as men was running flawlessly, then I'd be like, ah, ladies.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  On time.

• 50:26Trevor Noah?

  Ladies, take a backseat. This is not the time for you to be flying this thing. We got it. The fellas got it. But I'm just saying, the way the fellas have been handling things.

• 50:35Speaker 00

  The fellas don't got it?

• 50:36Trevor Noah?

  Right now, how much are you paying for gas? That's the fellas. I I don't see any women involved in those negotiations.

• 50:43Speaker 00

  Invasions?

• 50:44Trevor Noah?

  I'm just saying, I'm just, so I'm not saying the women would be better. I'm not saying that.

• 50:48Speaker 00

  You're not saying they'll be better?

• 50:49Trevor Noah?

  I'm just saying that.

• 50:50Speaker 00

  They'll be okay.

• 50:51Trevor Noah?

  We should not act like the thing that is happening now is the one.

• 50:56Speaker 00

  Wait, but sending out one lady to go against many fellas that are out there running countries

• 51:03Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 51:03Speaker 00

  and starting wars and conflicts.

• 51:05Trevor Noah?

  You know who was one of the most effective?

• 51:06Speaker 00

  That woman would have.

• 51:07Trevor Noah?

  You know who was one of the most effective?

• 51:08Speaker 02

  Margaret Thatcher?

• 51:09Trevor Noah?

  Angela Merkel.

• 51:10Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 51:11Trevor Noah?

  Angela Merkel was one of the most effective in that. Now, she's not perfect by any means, but I I I still have, I've yet to meet a perfect president.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:18Trevor Noah?

  I'm gonna put it out there.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I I am diametrically opposed to all of these conversations. I say no women. No, I'm kidding.

• 51:25Speaker 00

  You're a dead one. You're a dead one.

• 51:28Speaker 02

  No, I, I, I think.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  We got him. It's a wrap.

• 51:34Speaker 02

  I go back to Barack Obama.

• 51:37Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  I think in the United States of America, hatred for women is definitely a real thing. We live in a patriarchal society. But we also live in a very anti-black society.

• 51:46Trevor Noah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:47Speaker 02

  So when you're a young black man, whose middle name is Hussein.

• 51:51Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 51:52Speaker 02

  And you're running, um, there's gonna be hurdles that you have to climb.

• 51:56Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 51:57Speaker 02

  And you can overcome those hurdles. My problem with Kamala Harris was that she recognized, she understood that there were hurdles. She's a black woman, uh, running against a white supremacist, uh, like Donald Trump. But she didn't have the campaign.

• 52:14Trevor Noah?

  No, I agree with you.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  And the platform that would actually convince people that this was someone to vote for.

• 52:20Trevor Noah?

  I completely agree with you there.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  So I don't discount the notion that, uh, you know, people who are not old white guys are gonna have a harder go at it. That's certainly true. But I think they can overcome that with good policies. And if you want, you can have an old white guy as well, Bernie Sanders, he had the good policies.

• 52:39Trevor Noah?

  People loved him.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:40Trevor Noah?

  I think in every poll, and I stand to be corrected because there are many polls, I know this. But in most polls where he was up against Trump, he won.

• 52:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:49Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 52:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, and Trump knew that too.

• 52:51Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really? Yeah, every time they, they asked people Bernie versus Trump, Bernie would win.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. Now, people will say, oh, well Hillary Clinton would have won in those polls too, which is true. But I think what the people were looking for at that point and are still looking for, really, was an anti-establishment candidate, someone, because they came out with the recognition that the system wasn't working for them. Right? In all of the different parts of the country that are forgotten, whether it's West Virginia or Gary, Indiana.

• 53:18Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 53:18Speaker 02

  Um, there are a lot of people who are suffering. And it felt like neither the establishment Republicans nor the establishment Democrats were actually focusing on their, their economic hardships. They only offered sometimes lip service to it, but never any like bold radical changes. So when Trump comes in like a wrecking ball and, and ritualistically humiliates the establishment Republicans and is seen as like a heterodox Republican, uh, who ironically enough in 2016 was actually running as a moderate. A lot of people forget this. He was pro-trans in 2016.

• 53:52Trevor Noah?

  He was anti-war.

• 53:53Speaker 02

  He was anti-war, pro-trans.

• 53:55Trevor Noah?

  Guns, he was like. There's too many of them, to be honest.

• 53:59Speaker 00

  You didn't say it like that.

• 54:00Trevor Noah?

  Okay, the way he said, he was like, and I mean, my sons love them. They love the guns. They got, to be honest, I'm a little uncomfortable, a little uncomfortable with how many they have. But I mean, what are you gonna do? I mean, we leave it up to the states. But if I, if I had my way, we'd have a few, fewer of them. But I mean, we'll see, we'll see.

• 54:16Speaker 00

  That's how he said it.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:17Speaker 00

  Clip that one.

• 54:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. He knows, he knows how to do it really well because they talk. You know, they're always talking. Yeah. They're always conversing.

• 54:28Speaker 00

  Oh, man. But you see, whenever I listen to how Trevor views American politics, and I obviously watch some of your content, and I hear you speaking, from an outsider's point of view, I think to myself.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  You're like, why is Trevor not more like Hassan?

• 54:43Speaker 00

  Exactly. That's what I think.

• 54:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:47Speaker 00

  I'm like, when we look outside, whenever we hear America doing something to another country, it's because apparently that country's leader does not respect democracy.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:57Speaker 00

  So when I look at your guys' ndabas, which is news, I go, surely you guys voted for this situation? And you spend eight hours a day, every day, talking about this kind of stuff. You're arguably in the coalface of what people really want, and you get to hear unfiltered what people want. So from an outsider, isn't that what America voted for? And for you being in there, what do people want now?

• 55:22Speaker 02

  I think most people don't really know what they want. And there is a very sophisticated influence peddling operation that is actively subverting democracy. So it's not a secret, it's not a secret that Americans are not the most educated. They don't have a lot of political education. They don't have a profound understanding of, of history. And I think that's by design as well. I mean, our, our institutions are crippled, public education, public schooling in general. And I think that's deliberate, especially since the Reagan era. But outside of that, most people are just kind of operating off of vibes. Most people are not voting. The plurality is usually not voting, right? But out of the people that are voting, and there's a multitude of factors for that.

• 56:07Speaker 02

  There's the Electoral College and, and the fact that you vote not on a, you know, federal holiday, but on a workday, on a Tuesday, that's, these are specific hurdles designed to stop certain people from voting. And so, most people need a buy-in. They, they, they need something to motivate them to go out and vote. And if the Democratic Party's, uh, modus operandi is to say, look, the other side is so much worse than us. Come on, just vote for us. Who are you gonna vote for? Nobody? Come on. And then most people go, alright, bet, I'll vote for nobody. Neither party is, uh, representing my interests.

• 56:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 56:42Speaker 02

  And I don't really care. It doesn't really matter. I have to go back to work every morning. I have to focus on my life. I have to go deliver Uber. Uh, why do I care about, uh, whether it's a Democrat or a Republican ruining my life? But, most people rate the party as the National Democratic Party and the National Republican Party. And they look at the output. And, and they grade the National Democratic Party off of its weakest, uh, individuals, off of its weakest members. There's a concept called the rotating villain within the Democratic Party's, uh, infrastructure. Where there's always a vote that will spoil a radical agenda that a Democrat runs on. This happened with Joe Biden. It was Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema that, uh, that undermined Build Back Better, the IRA.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  And, and watered it down tremendously.

• 57:28Trevor Noah?

  Is this a formal thing you're saying? Or are you saying it just, you're noticing?

• 57:31Speaker 02

  That's, that's what we, that's what we call it in, I guess, poli-sci. And that's what, you know, that's what, uh, people in the commentary.

• 57:38Trevor Noah?

  One person within the Democratic Party?

• 57:40Speaker 02

  Not one. Usually it's a, there's always a, a, depending if there's six people.

• 57:44Trevor Noah?

  Okay, but they are the rotating, so they go like, okay, you guys are gonna be the villains for this run?

• 57:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:49Trevor Noah?

  You're gonna vote against everything that is progressive, that the people want. But then we all get to say we voted for it? And then you guys get, you'll be the bad guys for this run?

• 57:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:58Trevor Noah?

  And just make sure it doesn't happen?

• 57:59Speaker 02

  Like outbound, uh, outbound congresspersons that are not running for reelection, that are retiring. Like Jared Golden is one of those guys right now. And he, he was the lone voice that voted against the War Powers Resolution.

• 58:12Trevor Noah?

  Huh.

• 58:13Speaker 02

  And there's always a guy, Joe Lieberman, under the Barack Obama coalition, was the sole vote that stopped the public option from being advanced. Which would have been radical change in this country.

• 58:25Trevor Noah?

  Is this happening on the Republican side as well, as much?

• 58:27Speaker 02

  No. The Republicans are, uh, the Republicans, I think, are- Much better at at whipping votes because they're they're not necessarily because they're more organized, but because they can be open about being pro corporation like that's their whole thing. Whereas the Democrats, on the other hand, run against corporations, but when they're but when they're legislating, they still have to be very cognizant of the the corporate investors, the real benefactors, the corporate benefactors. And any Democratic Party initiative that they advance will actually harm one sector's investment or one sector's interest in profit. So they can't really do that. So do you think?

• 59:10Speaker 02

  Because if they were to advance Medicare for all, let's take that for one policy that is unbelievably popular. Every other OECD nation has one form of socialized healthcare. Right, yeah. Except for us. There's reporting on this, I believe it's up to forty eight thousand people every year that die because they don't have access to healthcare. Eight thousand. In the wealthiest nation on the planet like they they could just go to the they could go to their primary care physicians and like figure out what's wrong with them ahead of time or you know, get the necessary help. Yeah, I mean, it's a Yale study. I think the numbers might even be higher than that. I I find it unbelievable as well. It's just ridiculous number, right? So

• 59:50Speaker 02

  people want this. Why don't the Democrats advocate for it? Why do the Democrats actually actively push back against it as Joe Biden did in the twenty twenty primaries? In the twenty nineteen primaries when Bernie was the Medicare for all candidate, Joe Biden came out and he's like, oh, I want the public option, Jack. Never talked about it again, by the way. That's a great Joe Biden.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  Jack at the end.

• 1:00:09Speaker 02

  That was a great Joe Biden. That was actually good.

• 1:00:11Speaker 00

  Flip that.

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, it's because me and him talk on the phone.

• 1:00:18Speaker 02

  But but he he ran in opposition to Medicare for all. And and he didn't have any investment in actually pushing for the public option at all. He never talked about it. Once he actually became the candidate, he stopped talking about the public option altogether. He never brought it up. He never pushed for it. That was designed specifically to tackle Medicare for all and its popularity. And the reason why the Democrats do this is because Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and all of these for-profit healthcare providers.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  Are massive investors in the Democratic Party.

• 1:00:53Trevor Noah?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:54Speaker 02

  They fund, they fundraise for all these candidates. So of course, they don't care about the population. Like the politicians that win their raises, they don't care about, you know, fixing this massive crisis in this country.

• 1:01:07Trevor Noah?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  They care about managing the crisis and they care about doing PR for the crisis. And they care about winning reelection and maintaining the current system, no matter how cruel it is. And that's just how it works. Uh, so that's also part of the reason why I go back to how frustrated a lot of these think tanks are about me and have been written, writing extensively about the dangers that I present.

• 1:01:31Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:31Speaker 02

  For the Democratic Party, because now I've, I've moved on from just talking about how shit the Democrats are, to actually working with other, you know, on the ground groups and organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America and numerous other orgs, to actually run candidates that are pro Medicare for all, that are uncompromising on the issue of Israel. Where they're like, I'm an anti Zionist, why are we giving unlimited bombs to this country that's doing war crimes, that's doing a genocide? And that's a very frustrating reality for the Democrats, because the more Zoram Mamdanis that they see all around the country pop up. And the more grassroots momentum that these people have, the more people are gonna look at that and go, wait a minute.

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  You said Zoram was gonna be incompetent. You said he was gonna be a scary commie.

• 1:02:18Trevor Noah?

  Yep, and yet the budget is balanced.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, budget's balanced. He's one of the best mayors that New York has had. Uh, it's just, every time I come here, it feels like I'm, I'm entering an alternative universe where like, things are working somehow. It's ridiculous. Like, we're watching from afar, uh, a totally different reality in New York City, totally different vibes. Um, why can't we have that? And once people start asking that question, once people start believing that the government can help and the government should help.

• 1:02:47Trevor Noah?

  Should help, yeah.

• 1:02:47Speaker 02

  Yes. Once they have more confidence in good governance. And once they associate that confidence with democratic socialism, socialism, communism, um, all of a sudden, people are gonna want that. And we've seen that in the polls as well. We've seen that in the membership. With the DSA, which crossed the threshold of 100,000 paid members, a very significant number, and we've certainly seen that with the approval ratings for democratic socialism in general, where I believe it's like, in certain polls, it's like, either the plurality or the majority of Democrats say they have sympathies for democratic socialism, or even self-identify, around like 44%, self-identify as democratic socialists within the Democratic Party.

• 1:03:31Trevor Noah?

  So when you look at the young people in those worlds and specific, because I'm assuming your audience skews young just because of streaming, this is an assumption that I have, like, on that platform specifically.

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 1:03:40Trevor Noah?

  Because I know on YouTube, you've got a different viewership, you know, you're on Instagram, et cetera, et cetera, but what do you think the democratic establishment is missing about how young people are viewing all of this right now? Because you're speaking to young people, and young people are watching you in a very specific way, what are they missing? What are they missing that the Republicans don't seem to be missing, I should say? Because on the Republican side, it seems like they've got their young men on lock.

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, they have a different crisis, or a similar crisis on the Republican side as well for youth vote and youth turnout.

• 1:04:13Trevor Noah?

  Oh, no, share, share.

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  And it's actually Israel.

• 1:04:16Trevor Noah?

  That has become the lightning rod.

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I believe it's 54% of Republicans under the age of 55 have a negative opinion of Israel. That is a crisis for the state. That is a crisis for the Republican Party that wants to maintain unlimited loyalty to Israel, and that's certainly a crisis for Israel in general, that cannot exist, especially in the violent ways that it currently does, in the maintenance of an apartheid, in constant territorial expansion, without unlimited support from the United States of America and the rest of the Western world, and without the political cover that America offers as the hegemon. So that's a huge problem. If they lose the Republicans, it's over, okay? Israel's done.

• 1:04:56Trevor Noah?

  That's going to be clipped. What you mean is the way it's currently...

• 1:04:59Speaker 02

  I've said way worse things about Israel.

• 1:05:00Trevor Noah?

  The way it's currently existing, you know clips, bro. This guy's clipping.

• 1:05:04Speaker 00

  Clip that one.

• 1:05:05Trevor Noah?

  Clip, clip that one.

• 1:05:06Speaker 00

  Clip him, explain.

• 1:05:06Trevor Noah?

  Clip him saying clip. Don't clip, clip, clip, clip him saying clip. Clip yourself clipping that. Clip, clip, clip him.

• 1:05:12Speaker 02

  I've said way worse things about Israel than that, trust me. Uh, and it drives people crazy. It drives like the, the pro-Israel advocacy groups crazy where they're like, why won't people, why won't people see that he's a dangerous radical terrorist? Like I go to the Vanity Fair Oscars party and they're like, why is he allowed to be there? He shouldn't be allowed in mainstream circles. Like, it's like Jonathan Greenblatt, Greenblatt, uh, and his bald head being like, it should have been me at the Vanity Fair party. Yeah. It's so funny.

• 1:05:43Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man. Yeah, okay, so, so, so you think on the, okay, so on the right, that's the lightning rod?

• 1:05:49Speaker 02

  That's the lightning rod for sure.

• 1:05:50Trevor Noah?

  On the left, what is shifting? Why are we seeing a Zorron? Why are we seeing election results like we're seeing? Cause I mean, there's, there's a few that we're seeing now where it looks like there's a shift that's happening.

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:00Trevor Noah?

  Do you think it's a, do you think it's a ripple or do you think it's going to be a wave?

• 1:06:03Speaker 02

  Um, I think it's going to be a wave. I mean, they're trying to stop it for sure. They are doing everything they can to stop this momentum, to stop this, uh, this insurgent campaigning that's taking place all around the country right now.

• 1:06:18Trevor Noah?

  How, how do you think the messaging has, or, or what do you think is going right in the messaging? Because a few years ago, when you said the word socialist in any way, the first thing most Americans would say is, those are the people who come and take your money. You can't own anything.

• 1:06:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:36Trevor Noah?

  Uh, you can't work towards anything. There's no point in having a job.

• 1:06:39Speaker 02

  You can't be wealthy.

• 1:06:39Trevor Noah?

  You can't build wealth, you can't blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That used to be almost across the board, what people would say, right? Now, to your point, with its polling, with its online conversations, where it seems like people are shifting. But there's, there's, there's two interesting sides to it. There's one where people are going, that's not what socialism is or democratic socialism.

• 1:06:57Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:58Trevor Noah?

  And then there's another side going, let them take all the money and let them, you know where they're going? I, I still think it's that, but I'm actually happy. I want them to take everything away and they want them to. So like, what do you think is resonating about that message specifically?

• 1:07:12Speaker 02

  I think it's the it's the contradictions. They're worsening and they're becoming more apparent. And people are cognizant of the reality that they experience pain. And they understandably blame the system for it. So they go, this is not working for me. I need an alternative. And this alternative seems fine. I mean, I'm I'm willing to try this out, even in a country as propagandized. At the heart of empire, the country that won the Cold War, the country that is the the defender of the ultimate defender of capitalism has has destroyed the living standards of its own citizens to such a degree that they go, you know, I I don't believe the red scare propaganda, actually. Or even if I do believe it, I like it, like you said.

• 1:07:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:58Speaker 02

  That's because people are suffering and they they want an alternative. And and in some ways, that's what Donald Trump did in both 2016. And then when those wounds were not healed or addressed after four years of Biden.

• 1:08:11Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:11Speaker 02

  And the only thing people remember from the Biden administration was negative real wage growth for one and a half years. As a lot of these economists, and they're still doing this, by the way, kept saying, well, this is a vibe session, actually. Things are great on the economy front. What are you guys complaining about? I mean, I have.

• 1:08:30Speaker 00

  Where do you get these terms? What vibe session? You're making us sound old.

• 1:08:33Trevor Noah?

  No, but that's what they said.

• 1:08:35Speaker 00

  That's what they said?

• 1:08:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, because what they said was, it's really interesting how they how they phrase this, right? What they try and do is, especially the people who run like media in the biggest way. What they do is, they'll try and tell you as people on the ground that what you're experiencing is not real.

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:50Trevor Noah?

  It you, these are your feelings. The economy is doing better than ever.

• 1:08:55Speaker 00

  You have no idea what we're doing in the background.

• 1:08:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but.

• 1:08:57Speaker 00

  Working towards.

• 1:08:58Trevor Noah?

  No, but they even go like, your life is better, even though you don't think your life is better. Your life is better.

• 1:09:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:03Trevor Noah?

  But what's what's really sinister? It's exactly, it's gaslighting and it's sinister. You know why? Because they talk about the economy like everyone is an equal participant in this.

• 1:09:13Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:09:14Trevor Noah?

  That's that's one of the smartest things they do is they talk about the econ. Look at the GDP. Look at the economy.

• 1:09:19Speaker 02

  Look at the stock market.

• 1:09:20Trevor Noah?

  Has never been.

• 1:09:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:21Trevor Noah?

  But it's like, guys, if Jeff Bezos gets into a bus with all of us.

• 1:09:28Trevor Noah?

  The GDP of that bus has gone up dramatically.

• 1:09:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:31Trevor Noah?

  The value of that bus has gone up. But you know, we do not have that money.

• 1:09:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:37Trevor Noah?

  You can say this bus is doing well, and that is technically true. But if one person gets off that bus, the bus is broke now.

• 1:09:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  And the ones that are in the bus are benefiting.

• 1:09:47Trevor Noah?

  But now, no, they're not, they're not even benefiting.

• 1:09:49Speaker 00

  Not even?

• 1:09:49Trevor Noah?

  That's no, because the people, the people in the, in the country are in the bus, right? And they're going, you're doing well. Look how much money is in this bus.

• 1:09:56Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:09:56Trevor Noah?

  And people are like, yeah, but it costs me thirty percent more to go and buy ground beef before I go do a barbecue. It's costing me like twenty, thirty percent more for my gas. It's costing me twenty, thirty percent more. My wages are not keeping up.

• 1:10:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:09Trevor Noah?

  My cost of living is going up.

• 1:10:11Speaker 00

  But apparently.

• 1:10:11Trevor Noah?

  But apparently the country is.

• 1:10:13Speaker 00

  Good time.

• 1:10:13Trevor Noah?

  Kick, it's like, no. The country, yes, the bus is technically doing well.

• 1:10:18Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:10:19Trevor Noah?

  Because of a few passengers who are doing well.

• 1:10:21Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:10:21Trevor Noah?

  But the passengers.

• 1:10:23Speaker 00

  Not doing well.

• 1:10:24Trevor Noah?

  Are not actually doing well. And so that, to your point, it becomes like this, this gaslighting feeling where they go, no, no, no, they can't, it's vi. You, you, they go like, no, no, no, it's a vibe session. You guys.

• 1:10:34Speaker 00

  I love that word.

• 1:10:35Trevor Noah?

  It's not a recession. The numbers are not bad.

• 1:10:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:37Trevor Noah?

  Your vibes are bad. You need to change yourself.

• 1:10:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that was obviously, yeah, that was incredibly frustrating for people to see.

• 1:10:44Speaker 00

  That's crazy.

• 1:10:45Speaker 02

  It's one of the things I brought up in the lead up to the twenty twenty four election over and over again, where it was like, well, the economy is rebounding, which is true, it was, right? Um, but what I kept repeatedly explaining to people or trying to was, well, in twenty sixteen, Trump won. And the economy was seemingly on a much more positive trajectory than it was in twenty twenty four. And clearly people were suffering enough back then that they thought, I'm gonna vote for this crazy guy, right? And they don't read it as that. They think, oh, it's gotta be all these different reasons. And sometimes those different reasons are true, you know, white supremacy is a powerful force, obviously misogyny is a powerful force, but. But at the end of the day, those hurdles are climbable. Those hurdles can be destroyed if you have a candidate

• 1:11:26Speaker 02

  that can communicate honestly and, and come across as earnest uh, in defense of the people over the interest of corporations.

• 1:11:35Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's, that's probably the biggest thing I've noticed, and I think people are noticing on mass.

• 1:11:42Trevor Noah?

  Whether you are for or against the Republican Party, I mean now really it's the Donald Trump Party. Cause it's it's not it's not what it was as a machine before. It is the Donald Trump Party.

• 1:11:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:51Trevor Noah?

  It does what it says in many ways. Now, there's many things where it doesn't, but it like, so you know, they go like, oh, but he didn't build a wall. It's like, yeah, but he sort of did.

• 1:11:59Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:00Trevor Noah?

  He didn't build the physical wall, but he built a wall, if you're honest. If you look at like the visas, the bans.

• 1:12:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:05Trevor Noah?

  How few people actually can come into America now, how few people can get jobs, deport.

• 1:12:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:09Trevor Noah?

  He he built the wall. You know, you go like, oh, no, I'm gonna shut this down. He did trade wars, et cetera, et cetera.

• 1:12:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:15Trevor Noah?

  He's sort of doing the thing. Whether it's good for the country or not is a separate conversation. Cause I mean, you look at your bank balance and ask yourself, right?

• 1:12:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:23Trevor Noah?

  Not you.

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:24Trevor Noah?

  But then on the other side, it feels like the Democrats, Donald Trump comes in and opens up a toolbox of government. And then the Democrats come in and they go, ah, we we don't, we don't really have any tools. It's like, that guy's got hammers, he's got screwdrivers, he's got, he can build or dismantle anything.

• 1:12:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:43Trevor Noah?

  And then every time the Democrats get power, they go, yeah, let's just keep it the way it is and let's be grateful.

• 1:12:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:50Trevor Noah?

  That it still exists.

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  Or let's balance the budget.

• 1:12:52Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, it's always, it's never something radical. It's never something that's gonna.

• 1:12:57Speaker 02

  Radically change people's lives. Exactly. Um, and even when they do actually uh make necessary changes, like the ACA was a a profound achievement altogether. It wasn't bold enough. It wasn't brave enough. The public option should have been passed as well.

• 1:13:12Speaker 02

  But even then, in the process of of passing the uh the Affordable Care Act, Republicans never were going to caucus with the Democrats on this issue, and they attacked it over and over again, and they took advantage of the gridlock that they were creating, where the Democrats could have just advanced it.

• 1:13:27Trevor Noah?

  They could have. They had the numbers.

• 1:13:28Speaker 02

  They could have just, they had the numbers, they could have advanced, they could have been like, fuck off, right? But they allowed this gridlock to take place where Republicans used that that time on the clock, where they were running out the clock, which gridlock is something that most Americans hate. Donald Trump doesn't ever do that.

• 1:13:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, he doesn't.

• 1:13:44Speaker 02

  He just goes, no, we're doing this and I'm gonna do an executive order if necessary. I don't care.

• 1:13:48Trevor Noah?

  Work backwards.

• 1:13:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, so.

• 1:13:51Speaker 02

  Obviously, there was a reluctance to, you know, break things with this rapid successive attacks against the Republicans. They didn't do that. But in that process, the Republicans had an opportunity to lie about what the ACA was. They said it was death panels.

• 1:14:11Trevor Noah?

  Death panels.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, they said, obviously, one of the most radical propositions in the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, was the provision that insurance companies, private healthcare providers, would no longer be able to deny coverage to people for pre-existing conditions. Now, that is such an inhumane concept, and it's so insane, because we live in the post-Obamacare world, where healthcare companies can't do that, that people don't believe that that was the norm. And people don't believe that Republicans, some of which are still in office, were actively advocating against that.

• 1:14:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:49Speaker 02

  It's such an inhumane thing. It's a normal part of Republican policymaking, that most Republicans, there's a poll on this, Republican voters don't believe the actual impact of the Republican legislative agenda when they're asked about it. Where they'll go, okay, you want to vote for Republicans? Republicans are against abortion. Abortion is murder. They're like, yes, I'm against abortion. Abortion is murder. So when they actually are faced with the impact, and we saw this happen in the lead-up to the 2024 election, when they recognize, oh, my God, if we ban abortions, then my daughter might not be able to get an emergency abortion to take care of an ectopic pregnancy. This

• 1:15:31Speaker 02

  is now a real crisis, a real healthcare crisis. They change their tune real quick. So they don't even believe how violent their legislative agenda is that they're pushing, that they're advancing, the Republican voters. And that is a real problem. The other problem is, it's much easier to break things, especially if you are directionally on the side of capital. If you're a capitalist, if you're openly on the side of corporations, as Republicans are, it's much easier to move in that direction. Uh, Democrats, on the other hand, have a base that is, in some ways, maybe not a card-carrying communist or whatever, but like anti-capitalist in certain instances, like they are against

• 1:16:13Speaker 02

  uh, profit-seeking from corporations. If you want regulations, uh, like environmental uh, regulations to, to protect certain, uh, you know, natural resources like the water supply, all of a sudden, you're harming, uh, the, the profits of DuPont, right? DuPont just wants to dump chemicals and, and, you know, whatever they want, uh, off of their factories directly into the water supply and dilute the water supply with, uh, toxic pollutants. That's very profitable for them to do so. Now the Democrats, all of a sudden, have to punish DuPont. Republicans never have to do that. Republicans are never gonna punish DuPont. They're, they say, no, it's great. Uh, they say, oh-

• 1:16:52Trevor Noah?

  They say it'll figure itself out, most of the time.

• 1:16:53Speaker 02

  It'll figure itself out, or they do this thing where they're like, transgender people, and then they walk the other direction, right? Like, they'll be like, oh, DuPont? Chemical? Okay, have you thought about trans people existing? Isn't that weird and fucked up? And then everyone's like, yeah, actually, that's right. Transgender people do exist, and I fucking hate that.

• 1:17:11Trevor Noah?

  You could, the smartest thing you can do to distract people from a real issue is to bring up an issue that doesn't actually affect their real lives, their daily lives, but is easier to grasp and, and dispute or argue.

• 1:17:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:25Trevor Noah?

  Because it's just, it's just, what is the chemi? How much should a company be able to dispose, or where should they dispose, or how should they, what are the classes of different chemicals, and how far is a river from a residential place? How many people are they employing? What is toxicity? How do we measure toxicity? Has anyone died from it? Yeah, when do we measure the death, or is it related? Is it a cause? All of these things are difficult. You know what's easy? Going, is this person a man or a woman, and should they be in my bathroom? That's like an easy thing.

• 1:17:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:52Trevor Noah?

  But it feels like, and this, this is actually why I wanna get back to it from, like, your side. The, the political side-

• 1:17:59Trevor Noah?

  You know, for lack of a better term, it feels like it's metastasized in America. But the world you're in feels like it's fledgling. It feels like something's changing. It feels like something is growing. Like, I wanna, I wanna tap into that world and understand a little bit more about it. Like, like, why streaming? You, you, you could have done anything else online, but why streaming in particular?

• 1:18:28Speaker 02

  Well, when I started streaming, I feel like it was different overall. We didn't have the claviculars of the world, right? I mean, there were different versions of that even before my time, but they were nowhere near as popular. It hadn't reached like mass popularity. I think it was Ninja that like did the Drake collab of Fortnite. And that's when people are like, whoa, what is this? What is this sector? What is going on here? And, and people started paying attention to it. But at that point, most people were just playing video games. I came in and I was like, I'm not gonna play video games. I'm not very good at video games. I mean, I, I did play video games initially, but I was like, I wanna do political commentary while I play video games and then stop playing video games altogether and just do political commentary. So that was my evolution. And the reason why I did that.

• 1:19:11Trevor Noah?

  What games were you playing when you started?

• 1:19:12Speaker 02

  Fortnite.

• 1:19:13Trevor Noah?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:19:13Speaker 02

  And then, you know, horror games that people love.

• 1:19:15Trevor Noah?

  Playing Hunger Games.

• 1:19:19Trevor Noah?

  I didn't know what you would like. No, okay, so for, so you were, were you a gamer?

• 1:19:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I still play video games when I have time. Sometimes.

• 1:19:28Trevor Noah?

  But when do you have time? We watch you on eight hours a day.

• 1:19:31Speaker 02

  No, no, I play on, I, I play on stream or sometimes.

• 1:19:34Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so you still play on stream?

• 1:19:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I still, every now and then play on, uh, play games on stream. But nowhere near to the same degree I used to. Because at the time, I was at the Young Turks. I wanted to place the community of my own. I didn't wanna just like work for someone. I was like, I should have something on the side for myself, like something more creative. And I also wanted to practice off the cuff speech. Because everything that I had done prior to that was all pre-scripted. I would write my own scripts. I would turn them into articles for Huffington Post. I was doing that and I was getting better at it, but I was really bad at off the cuff commentary. And I guess, you know, it's been eight years now. It probably worked because I never seemed to shut the fuck up.

• 1:20:16Trevor Noah?

  Weren't you worried about like making mistakes? Weren't you worried or do you embrace that in the, you know? Because it's live, it's happening in the moment.

• 1:20:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it was definitely harrowing at first. It was definitely terrifying.

• 1:20:28Trevor Noah?

  Like pulling up a stat, for instance, you know, if you're wrong, you go forty percent of it. And it's like, ah, it was actually twenty percent. And it's, it's not that. And it was actually people under the age of fifty, not people under the age of fifteen. And people, you know what I mean?

• 1:20:39Speaker 02

  Mm hmm. Yeah, that happens from time to time, but it's okay. I mean, I'm a human being and when that does happen, I correct it. Usually chat is also very on it.

• 1:20:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:48Speaker 02

  Where they'll be like, oh, you got this stat wrong. Uh, so there is definitely that. Um, but I, I have completely dropped that fear. You can't have that fear if you're going to be a live broadcaster, a Twitch streamer.

• 1:21:01Trevor Noah?

  And when you, when you're doing this, how do you, how do you strike the balance between inflaming tensions and inspiring and mobilizing people?

• 1:21:13Speaker 02

  Um, I mean, you got to do a bit of both. I think that's a, that's a real problem with the Democratic Party is that they don't identify enemies. They try to get along with everybody else in their commentary. And I think it's good to just say like, no billionaires are bad, you know? Sometimes they could be eh, all right. Like Steyer is probably one of the better candidates in the California governor's race. But, um, you know, Democrats are, are too afraid to identify who is actually uh, creating problems in society that many workers can feel.

• 1:21:42Trevor Noah?

  So then do you think, do you think things are as bad as they are in America? Because the Republicans govern the way they govern? Or do you think it's gotten that way because Democrats are so feckless that Republicans can govern?

• 1:21:56Speaker 02

  I don't even think it's the duopoly. I think the duopoly is, is a normal part of the process. I, look, I'm a socialist. I, I think it's capitalism. I think that is the real.

• 1:22:05Trevor Noah?

  That's the fundamental issue?

• 1:22:06Speaker 02

  Oh, one hundred percent. I think that, uh, like. At its root, we have two liberal parties. One is actually now turning into an illiberal party. One is turning into a fascist party. As fascism rose 100 years ago when liberalism was failing, right? Liberalism is in crisis. Liberal capitalist democracy is not working for a lot of people. And they're looking for alternatives. And reactionaries are taking advantage of that crisis by reasserting dominance and control in the same exact way that Adolf Hitler did, same exact way that Mussolini did when fascism was first being implemented in Europe as this revolutionary movement that would counter the nefarious forces of socialism, communism and trade unionism.

• 1:22:47Speaker 02

  Because that, if left to their own devices, if they were successful, would truly disrupt the hierarchy of capital. And that's why these movements, these fascist movements were able to go to small businesses, petit bourgeois, and also big businesses. And, you know, these industrialist capitalists and gain a lot of allegiances from these groups. And they were able to get liberals to concede as well. And that's how they reasserted dominance.

• 1:23:18Trevor Noah?

  So I hear what you're saying, but I think some people might hear that and go, so are you saying that we then go to communism? And I don't think that's what you're saying if I hear you correctly.

• 1:23:27Speaker 02

  I mean, I, look, I say I'm not a communist, but people call me that. And I don't have any problems with communism. I think it's a decent endpoint. You know, a classless, moneyless, borderless society. It's Star Trek universe. Whenever I say that, people go, how could he, how could he even mention this? But I feel like if you, if you think about it, like, I don't think that's a bad way to live.

• 1:23:48Trevor Noah?

  If it was implemented, so this is, this is where I struggle with it as I go. We oftentimes will judge a system based on the examples that we have of it, even if those examples are not accurate. Does that make sense?

• 1:24:04Speaker 02

  So when, so this is. Yeah, there's been, there's been many attempts. And a lot of that has led to failure for a multitude of different reasons. There's mismanagement.

• 1:24:12Trevor Noah?

  Sabotage being one of the biggest sometimes. We have to, we always have to acknowledge the interference.

• 1:24:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:15Trevor Noah?

  Because when people will talk about capitalism. They will always espouse its like A students.

• 1:24:23Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:23Trevor Noah?

  Oh, but look at this and look at this and and that is correct. But when people will talk about socialism, you know, communism may be more is is a harder one because I I have yet to see an example of communism that wasn't interfered with or sabotaged. So I don't I don't know personally.

• 1:24:36Speaker 02

  Well, but even in spite of that sabotage, there is one successful example of or a couple of successful examples of countries that are run by communist parties.

• 1:24:44Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:45Speaker 02

  Um, it's obviously not uh at its end stage or anything like that, but China is is run by a communist party, Vietnam. Uh Cuba also run by a communist party. Now, obviously, there's varying degrees of successes here and varying degrees of failure. Successes in comparison to like their starting point, right? Or uh at their in their heyday, right? Like the Cuban. Uh, the Cuban revolution was unbelievably successful, and that's precisely the reason why the American government sought to punish them endlessly. And they were only able to survive throughout that process because the USSR came in and was like, we're gonna put our nukes here.

• 1:25:22Trevor Noah?

  Did you get a subpoena about Cuba?

• 1:25:25Speaker 02

  I have not received it yet. I only heard about uh a subpoena being delivered to me from Fox News, but.

• 1:25:31Trevor Noah?

  Wait, what?

• 1:25:32Speaker 02

  But I haven't gotten it.

• 1:25:33Trevor Noah?

  No, you can't be serious.

• 1:25:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:34Trevor Noah?

  So you haven't received anything?

• 1:25:36Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:25:37Trevor Noah?

  But all the news is saying that you have received something.

• 1:25:41Speaker 02

  It goes beyond that. They are claiming that I'm a subversive, uh, I am a foreign agent that hasn't registered with Farah. Uh, and it's really funny because like like I I'm pretty open about my ideology. Like I'm I'm a socialist and I think we should not kill the the Cuban population. I we're we've been starving them for 60 years. I think it's unbelievable. It's heinous of war crime. Uh, and we should stop that. And then they go, oh, he must be getting paid by the Cuban government to say this. And it's really funny because it's like they with what money? They're broke. They have no money.

• 1:26:18Trevor Noah?

  Because?

• 1:26:18Speaker 02

  Like, they don't have anything. I mean, I guess they have cigars. I don't know. I didn't even I didn't even get to experience that when I was there, but

• 1:26:26Trevor Noah?

  How long were you there for?

• 1:26:27Speaker 02

  I was there for two days and I just you back to back interviews. We were there on a humanitarian aid mission with Progressive International, Copink and, you know, with like 600 delegates, politicians, Corbin was there, numerous other people and journalists as well. And I got a journalism visa on top of the humanitarian aid mission that we were accomplishing. So it's doubly messed up that the admin is coming after me, but

• 1:26:52Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, because you see the story, even now the way you told it, the story doesn't, it makes it seem like you and one other person went to Cuba

• 1:26:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:00Trevor Noah?

  because you were paid by an organization there.

• 1:27:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:02Trevor Noah?

  The two of you, only two people

• 1:27:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, Madea Benjamin, the founder of Copink.

• 1:27:06Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it's just the two of you. You went there.

• 1:27:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:08Trevor Noah?

  And then you conspired with their group, state sponsored mission. And they were like, hey, man, here's some money, Hassan. We need you to do this to America. And then you were like, all right, I'm heading back now.

• 1:27:18Speaker 02

  Remember when earlier we were talking about how they were like, oh, have you ever communicated with like a member of Hamas?

• 1:27:23Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:24Speaker 02

  Or anything like that? So Cuba is technically considered a state sponsor of terror. But of course I've communicated with members of the Cuban government. I interviewed them on camera. Carlos Cosio is literally the vice foreign minister and I interviewed him for my documentary. So it's not only not illegal, but it's been out there for months. So they're like, oh, but, but what if that's, what if we decided that that was illegal, you know, that a lot of this conversation revolves around people's stupidity and people's lack of understanding of how things work, where they'll describe, this is something I talk about with conservatives all the time. They describe something as though it's nefarious. They do this all the time. They rely on people's lack of understanding of complex subjects, or even sometimes simple subjects. Where one example

• 1:28:09Speaker 02

  I always use is transgender surgeries. They describe this process as like gruesome mutilation, where they're like, oh, the doctors come in with a hacksaw and like they cut off body parts and all this stuff. And it's like, yeah, that's just every type of surgery. You're just describing, like, can you imagine if you were like, well, open heart surgery, they come in with a hammer and a pick and they just like open up your chest.

• 1:28:29Trevor Noah?

  Oh, and they have like a, what do they? The jaws of life, they like rip your, your

• 1:28:33Speaker 02

  They rip your rib cage open.

• 1:28:34Trevor Noah?

  They split you in two and they, yeah.

• 1:28:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, they cut you up. Imagine if you were like, I hate open heart surgery because it scares me. It's like, no one should be able to get an open heart surgery. It scares me. But that's how Republicans operate on a lot of issues. And that's kind of what they're doing right now with the story. Not only did this subpoena not even arrive, let's say it's happening, right? And I've described it on, in great detail to my audience. I've talked about my experiences in Cuba. I did a documentary on it. All this stuff, right? They'll take pieces of my commentary and be like, he's leaking all the secrets. He's leaking the, the, the pay structure that exists. And it's like, no, that's not. Everything that I'm mentioning is like publicly available information that you can find on Wikipedia.

• 1:29:19Speaker 02

  But because people are so stupid and, and they're so ready to, to think that this is some sort of like sinister operation. They go, oh my God. He's already turned, you know, state witness. He's like snitching. Oh, he's so stupid for snitching before he even talks to his lawyers. What an idiot. And it's like, or maybe nothing that I'm saying is illegal. Have you thought about that?

• 1:29:41Trevor Noah?

  But I think we live in a world now where the accusation is more powerful than the prosecution.

• 1:29:47Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:29:48Trevor Noah?

  Prosecutions don't matter anymore.

• 1:29:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:50Trevor Noah?

  If you, if you think about it in the world we live in, because the, the swell of what happens on, in media and online is so big.

• 1:30:00Trevor Noah?

  It used to be the same with a newspaper. Front page. This person has done this. Many months later, retraction. Actually, they didn't. Or a small little article in the corner. Now, in that world, it was bad enough because it was front page versus page four. It's like retraction or just an update on the story. Now it's the whole internet.

• 1:30:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:20Trevor Noah?

  It's TikTok, it's Instagram, it's Facebook, it's, you know, Google search results, webpages, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

• 1:30:28Speaker 02

  And with AI.

• 1:30:29Trevor Noah?

  Massive. And it just gets like, yeah, it just gets amplified and blown up and amplified and blown up. By the time it's verified, it's finished, really.

• 1:30:39Speaker 02

  And there's also a lot of biases that people have where they constantly are seeking out confirmation bias.

• 1:30:47Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:47Speaker 02

  And they want to confirm their priors no matter what. So like, I'll give you one example. One of the most common things that I receive from people is criticisms that I receive from people is like, oh, you're socialist, but you're wealthy. Right? And it's true. I am very successful. I'm very fortunate, right? But it's not at odds with my worldview in any way, shape or form. It's at odds with how you perceive my worldview, right? I mean, it was Deng Xiaoping who said socialism isn't, is it about poverty to be richest to be glorious? It's misattributed to him, but he never corrected the record. He said something similar to that. But, but at the end of the day, like I want everyone to have autonomy. I want everyone to be able to live comfortable lives.

• 1:31:26Speaker 02

  Like, that's what I'm advancing. That's what I'm advocating for. That's my perfect society. It's not about everyone being like equally poor or starving. You made that up. I never said that that's what I wanted. Who would want that? Right? And yet, because of this like a pre-established notion that socialism is supposed to be a poverty cult, they constantly advance this narrative. And in order to make this narrative stick, they'll be like, oh, he's a nepotism recipient, which is true. I am a nepotism recipient. I worked for my uncle's YouTube show, not exactly CNN, right? It was a 26 bars and YouTube show.

• 1:31:58Trevor Noah?

  Damn, burn uncle.

• 1:31:59Speaker 02

  I mean, but it's true. It was a 26, I was a 26th employee on a.

• 1:32:02Trevor Noah?

  Uncle was like, come on.

• 1:32:03Speaker 02

  Come on. But it was, I was a 26th employee on a YouTube show, right? Called The Young Turks. It definitely helped and I always will recognize that. But then they'll expand on it and they'll be like, well, his father is really wealthy. It's not true. I take care of my parents and I'm very fortunate to be able to do that. It's my duty and I love that and I love them. But because there's no evidence of this, the idea that like my father is this like multi-billionaire, which they claim, they've just generated evidence through AI articles. So now, when you look at the SEO, if you're stupid enough not to check or cross-reference this stuff, there's articles out there from like Hindustan Times. It's like Hasan Piker's father is a billionaire.

• 1:32:46Speaker 00

  That's a credible source.

• 1:32:48Speaker 02

  And it's really funny.

• 1:32:48Speaker 00

  It's on the Hindustan Times.

• 1:32:49Trevor Noah?

  Hey man, I've read everything on the Hindustan Times.

• 1:32:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it's really interesting because it's like. If my father was a billionaire, he would be the third wealthiest person in Turkey. Like, that would be on a list. Like, you would know about it. It would be publicly available information. It's so ridiculous. But yet, they still advance it because they're so desperate to to confirm their priors and to justify their worldview because they never want to think about the message.

• 1:33:16Trevor Noah?

  Don't press anything. We've got more. What now, after this?

• 1:33:31Trevor Noah?

  Did you read the interview? I think it was in The New Yorker. The CEO of Floodify. So if you haven't...

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  Oh, I know what you're talking about.

• 1:33:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, the CEO of Floodify

• 1:33:47Trevor Noah?

  gave a really amazing interview about what he does. And Floodify is basically a clipping service online where they will make anything seem more popular than it is.

• 1:34:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:02Trevor Noah?

  Right? But the way they do it is not using traditional advertising. So you have an album that you want to release, but you're an artist who only has like 50,000 fans. You go to a company like Floodify. They're one of the companies that do this. You pay them a certain amount of money, and that money will determine like how much reach you're gonna get. And then they have a network, and I mean like an insane network, that blows it up across quote unquote "real people" having real opinions about your music. And you can seem bigger than you are as an artist, which then sort of catches its own fire because that's how fame works and that's how news works. And that's how... And you... Now, on that level...

• 1:34:44Speaker 02

  Clavicular. This is how clavicular became famous.

• 1:34:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. So you think, now you think, oh, I mean, who cares? Music, you wanna... This is where it gets sinister, right? And we really have to worry about this in society.

• 1:34:56Speaker 02

  It is for politics, too.

• 1:34:58Trevor Noah?

  For everything. No way.

• 1:34:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:59Trevor Noah?

  A South African influencer put this up recently on their page. She has a full-time job, but she also does like makeup and, you know, clothing, but just like really for fun. And then she put out this thing, just telling her fans, she's like, hey, I don't know if this has happened to anyone else, but this is a weird thing that I'm experiencing. Someone's been sending me emails, like, over like the last year-ish, where they're offering me money just to talk shit about South Africa. They'll pay me upfront.

• 1:35:28Speaker 00

  I never got that.

• 1:35:29Trevor Noah?

  They ask for nothing in return.

• 1:35:30Speaker 00

  I'm doing this for free, yeah.

• 1:35:33Trevor Noah?

  They, they, they pay me upfront, they ask for nothing in return.

• 1:35:37Speaker 00

  No way.

• 1:35:37Trevor Noah?

  And, and they, they don't give you a script.

• 1:35:40Speaker 00

  Say, yeah, be organic.

• 1:35:41Trevor Noah?

  All they want is for you. And when you put these pieces together, you look at the Floodify guy, I'm not saying he does that.

• 1:35:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:48Trevor Noah?

  But he did say, he did say in the article that Eric Adams's team wanted to pay him, and he doesn't say whether they did or didn't do it, but he says what they wanted him to do was create a campaign of New Yorkers complaining about Mamdani and all the things that are going horribly and what could go. No, no, really. And he was like, we need a groundswell campaign. Eric Adams's team wanted this. And when you realize that, you go, guys, we're on the precipice of something that I don't think society is ready for. Because it's one thing if we go like, oh, Hassan took money from Cuba, but it's a lie and etc. It's a different thing if we think we're living in a world where the people around us are having an experience that they're not. We live in a world where we think our neighbors have pitchforks ready, but they don't.

• 1:36:33Trevor Noah?

  We live in a world where we go like, oh, man, everyone around me is scared. There's crime in New York, but everyone actually doesn't feel that way.

• 1:36:39Speaker 02

  That is happening right now.

• 1:36:40Trevor Noah?

  But that's what I mean. But I'm saying, as that, as that compounds, it goes beyond just politics and business. It goes to like the erosion of society, which then,

• 1:36:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:50Trevor Noah?

  as you know, because you've studied it, leads to the ultimate forms of fascism. Because if everyone is scared of everything and nobody trusts anyone, we then look to one strong man who will protect us all. And create the calm that we need.

• 1:37:06Speaker 00

  And voter apathy is a.

• 1:37:07Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, why would you vote? Because it's all rigged anyway. So you don't want to vote. You don't want to participate. You don't want to do things. It's it's I I.

• 1:37:15Speaker 02

  And you want to punish people. You want to punish people that you've been taught are responsible for the pain that you're experiencing. And that's why I say it's important to also identify the systems of oppression. Rather than to let it dangle as though there is nothing wrong at all. Or even sometimes identify certain things that are wrong, but never talk about who's responsible for it. Because that leaves an opportunity for the Republicans to go back and recenter that anger. And refocus that frustration at vulnerable populations, transgender people, immigrants. Some of the people that have no defense in American society at all, some of the people that are just contributing to the the American working class in very meaningful ways in our productive output and not even getting anything in return for it.

• 1:37:59Speaker 02

  And yet we have designed society in a way where like that's who's responsible for all of the angst, for all the suffering that you're going through. And it's certainly not the billionaires. It's certainly not the mega corporations. And when both parties are designed in a way where they defend corporate interests. The amount of defense that you can, the amount of countering that you can do, the amount of counter messaging you can do against the right wing reactionary thought is going to be very limited. And that's what that's what I think is a big problem with the Democratic Party's platform in general. Where they can't just say it's corporations of the wealthy that's making the system the way it is, dumbass. What are you talking about? You think a random trans person is responsible for you not getting healthcare? Are you fucking stupid?

• 1:38:42Speaker 02

  You're going to get healthcare. We're going to give you healthcare. That's my advocacy. I'm like, we're going to give you healthcare. You need healthcare. We're going to build a house for you. You need a house. You're racist. Okay, you can't be racist any longer. We're not going to deny you healthcare or or a roof over your head because you're racist, but you got to vote for the not racist party. Who will give you those things? Some people will look at that and go, no, I'm so racist. I don't want a roof over my head. But not many people are going to make that bargain.

• 1:39:08Trevor Noah?

  I don't think that will happen. We saw that with, I mean, not that we were there, but who was it? Chairman Fred Hampton, right? Black Panther Party, where he went, let's go to these white people who are racist. And they were like fully racist. And he said, you're poor. We are poor. Ask yourself a question. If we are the the N words that you call us and we're against you, why are we also poor? Shouldn't we have the money? And why are you poor? So if we're poor and you're poor, somebody is tricking both of us. So he's like, I'm gonna work together. We're gonna get you food. We're gonna try and eat food as well. And then let's figure this thing out.

• 1:39:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:45Trevor Noah?

  And then shortly after that, he was dead.

• 1:39:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, they fucking murdered him in his sleep.

• 1:39:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, because it it is it is a the upending of that thing. There's so much money in it, man. And and this is this is this is again.

• 1:39:59Speaker 02

  A Marxist Leninist, by the way.

• 1:40:00Trevor Noah?

  This is where it's important to throw an addendum in, by the way. They make it seem like you're saying no one should earn money, no one should do well.

• 1:40:11Speaker 02

  I should prosper.

• 1:40:12Trevor Noah?

  No one should prosper. You're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. What we're saying is in a system where money is like water, the water should flow, right? And in the same way, countries that share major rivers have to have an agreement that the water cannot be stopped by one, any, like any one country.

• 1:40:31Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:40:32Trevor Noah?

  They have to have agreements on that. You know that, right? Because one country who's at like the top of a river can just block the water and then all the other countries, that's literally an act of war. They go, no, you can only block this much for your dams and you can and you can block this and then the next country can block this much. The same understanding should be had, in my opinion, of money because we forget that we've created systems now that sort of have crippled what money was supposed to do. It was an exchange of time and and debt.

• 1:40:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:59Trevor Noah?

  To trade. But if somebody can create like a

• 1:41:02Speaker 02

  A dam.

• 1:41:02Trevor Noah?

  A dam. And they've got robots that earn the money and then machines that make the money and then robots that and the money keeps going here. And then they earn interest on the money and then they get loans on the money, but then they don't pay taxes on that money. But then we pay the taxes on the money, because all of us sitting everywhere here, we pay the taxes on it. Then you go like, what are we, what are we building? What are we, you know what I mean? Like where are we?

• 1:41:24Speaker 02

  We're building wealth for the upper class, for the capital owning class in American society and in the Western society generally.

• 1:41:30Trevor Noah?

  And people don't understand how small that number is.

• 1:41:32Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. But that's what I want. I want systemic change and I'm never, I've never been an advocate for adventurism. That's not a Marxist tradition at all. As a matter of fact, many theorists have regularly criticized adventurism, which many Americans don't even know what it is. But that's like Luigi Mangione is adventurism, like a person that decide. Allegedly, thank you. You're right. A person that decided to take matters in their own hands, right? The propaganda of the deed is what anarchists believe. I don't. I want to be organized and I want to change society with diligent and disciplined organizing.

• 1:42:11Trevor Noah?

  Last thing I'll ask you, because I, it's interesting that we've had two guests sitting at this table who've shared a different opinion on it. And I think I know which way you're going to lean, but.

• 1:42:20Speaker 02

  Who are the two guests?

• 1:42:21Trevor Noah?

  Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders.

• 1:42:23Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 1:42:25Trevor Noah?

  I asked Bernie Sanders. So I asked Pete Buttigieg, I was talking about like government and I guess him and I had a bit of a disagreement. I was saying, and I do believe this, I said,

• 1:42:36Trevor Noah?

  people have been made to believe that government is inept, but that ineptitude was manufactured so that it could be privatized. Right? And we've seen this in South Africa.

• 1:42:45Speaker 02

  100% correct.

• 1:42:45Trevor Noah?

  We've seen this in the UK. We see this in many countries.

• 1:42:47Speaker 02

  Wait, did he disagree with that?

• 1:42:48Trevor Noah?

  No, no, he was like, yeah, I guess to a certain degree. And then I was like, the government is supposed to do the thing. People forget, the reason we made a government, it's a brilliant idea, is because we could not all individually go work on the roads. So we said, hey, let's all put our money together.

• 1:43:03Speaker 00

  Just pool together.

• 1:43:04Trevor Noah?

  For the roads.

• 1:43:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:05Trevor Noah?

  Government is supposed to do things. And then he was like, ah, no, but I think there's many things that government is not that good at doing. Then I was like, name one thing.

• 1:43:11Speaker 02

  What did he say?

• 1:43:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, he said a few, and I disagreed, honestly. I was like, I don't think the government's bad at that. I think the government can run a great airline. I think the government can run a great railway service.

• 1:43:20Speaker 02

  They do.

• 1:43:20Trevor Noah?

  I think the government can run a great healthcare service. I think the government can run great education. You know why I say this? Because it did at some point.

• 1:43:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it still does.

• 1:43:28Trevor Noah?

  People forget that all.

• 1:43:29Speaker 02

  It still does in most other places. We just don't think about it.

• 1:43:32Trevor Noah?

  You know how many people who fight against public education now were publicly educated?

• 1:43:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:43:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:38Trevor Noah?

  They're gonna say public education doesn't work. But the smarts that they're using to argue against us

• 1:43:43Speaker 02

  Come from there.

• 1:43:44Trevor Noah?

  Come from public education.

• 1:43:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:45Trevor Noah?

  They're the people who say, oh, no, the government. Yeah, but the house that your parents bought came from a fund that the government made possible for you. The school that you went to was made possible by the government.

• 1:43:56Speaker 02

  The park.

• 1:43:57Trevor Noah?

  So this was my, I, I am vehemently opposed to that argument.

• 1:44:01Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:44:02Trevor Noah?

  Because I think it's a trick. I think the trick is you first make a government inept.

• 1:44:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:07Trevor Noah?

  So that people believe it cannot do anything. Then you make that government sell off its parts to private, you know, to private companies and billionaires.

• 1:44:15Speaker 02

  You're describing neoliberalism that took shape in America under Ronald Reagan and also Margaret Thatcher.

• 1:44:20Trevor Noah?

  And then when they have all of it, they then now decide how the thing works.

• 1:44:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:24Trevor Noah?

  They charge you as much as they want for electricity.

• 1:44:26Speaker 02

  And the tail wags the dog.

• 1:44:27Trevor Noah?

  What are you gonna do? Who, who can live without electricity? The price has to go up. What are we supposed to do? The tail wags the dog. So that was, that was, that was that side of it.

• 1:44:34Speaker 02

  There's inelastic demand for healthcare. That's why

• 1:44:37Trevor Noah?

  Exactly.

• 1:44:37Speaker 02

  it has to be run by the government in some way, shape or form. It has to be controlled by the government. At the very least, if it's not entirely funded and facilitated by the government, like the nationalized healthcare system in, in the UK. Um, and at which point you see this in the UK right now. They try to cripple the funding to the NHS.

• 1:44:56Trevor Noah?

  Yep.

• 1:44:56Speaker 02

  Over and over again, they, they implement austerity. So it's worse off overall. And then people are silly enough to, to advocate for a privatized version of that. And that's what the Reform Party is doing right now. The Reform Party wants to implement austerity on NHS. They won't say it out loud and they want to privatize it. But why do people vote for the Reform Party? They vote for the Reform Party because they think that immigrants are responsible for all of the, the issues that they're experiencing in the UK.

• 1:45:25Trevor Noah?

  But it's easy, you know why it's easy to do that, though? I, I have, I have a lot of sympathy for anyone who experiences that, and I'll tell you why. I see this in South Africa. I've seen it in the UK, you know, places I've traveled to and places I've lived in.

• 1:45:40Speaker 02

  You're like, immigrants are bad.

• 1:45:42Trevor Noah?

  No, people, you know what? No, no, no, people, people forget this, right? People forget that.

• 1:45:49Trevor Noah?

  Your ability to see or not see an immigrant changes dramatically with your standard of living and how things are going.

• 1:45:57Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 1:45:58Trevor Noah?

  I think people really take that for granted.

• 1:46:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:46:00Trevor Noah?

  When you're doing well, when your economy is doing well, when things around you are doing well, you'll be shocked at how you don't notice immigrants. They're sort of silently existing in your world because things are going well, because you don't see them. You don't notice the guy at the corner shop has an accent in that way when you you've got enough money and the prices are affordable and your your wages have kept up.

• 1:46:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:46:21Trevor Noah?

  You don't notice the the immigrant in the hospital bed next to you when you're also getting care. You don't notice, you don't notice, but a system that is failing, its people is inevitably gonna have its people notice the people who are not quote unquote its people. Cause they're like, wait, what is, I don't understand, you're saying we don't even have enough for us.

• 1:46:43Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:46:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. Then why do we have enough for them? And I I think of it genuinely through like the the most personal lens. When we had food in my house and my mom like, my mom was always, always like, please go give, give those street kids this food, give that homeless guy this, give that. She she did that her whole life, she still does that, right?

• 1:47:04Trevor Noah?

  I remember in my life, when we were doing well in the house, like when we had a full fridge, I I never noticed it. I would, I would run over giddy to that guy and I'd give him bread and and stew and some money. I didn't notice it. It's when my mom opened her purse when it was empty, took out her last ten rand note and said, go give it to that guy. And I was like, this woman has lost her goddamn mind. Genuinely.

• 1:47:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:29Trevor Noah?

  I mean, I still think she's amazing for like doing that, but I won't lie to you, as a kid, I was like, nah, lady. I was like, that guy there, he should not be getting our money in any way, shape, but we have nothing.

• 1:47:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:39Trevor Noah?

  And then she was like, no, no, you think we have nothing. We don't have nothing yet. He has nothing. We're just doing badly right now.

• 1:47:47Trevor Noah?

  But the feeling I had towards that person,

• 1:47:51Trevor Noah?

  I can directly correlate to the the person's, you know, the person's situation in in in my house. And so I go, it is inevitable that these people will. I don't even think they're silly, to be honest. I think they're human. I'll I'll be honest with you. I don't see how you could not hate immigrants when someone is crippling a system around you.

• 1:48:10Speaker 00

  But it's um, I think you described it very well. Depending on which side of the spectrum socially you are, you describe an immigrant differently. If you're doing well, you you have a foreign friend. If you are not doing too good and it feels like a system is failing and benefiting them, then you see foreigners.

• 1:48:28Trevor Noah?

  Completely.

• 1:48:29Speaker 00

  Right?

• 1:48:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:48:30Trevor Noah?

  Completely.

• 1:48:30Speaker 02

  But there's, I mean, there's also like wealthy racists out there uh who are, I think, advancing this propaganda and and specifically directing the attention back to immigrants.

• 1:48:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:42Speaker 02

  Either because naturally people start being more tribalistic in times of economic struggle.

• 1:48:47Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:47Speaker 02

  Uh, or because they're being propagandized.

• 1:48:50Trevor Noah?

  They also don't want to look at them.

• 1:48:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Because no one wants, no one wants the attention to be directed at them. So they go, oh, it's the woke feminism, or it's the it's the transgenders, or it's the immigrants that are responsible for it. It's the black people that are responsible for it in America during uh, you know, reconstruction. Um, because any kind of solidarity that that uh focuses on people's class interests remind people that ninety nine percent of the public is a part of one class and only one percent of the public is a part of another class. And most people are just working for that one percent.

• 1:49:24Trevor Noah?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:49:25Speaker 02

  The overwhelming majority are. And that's a terrifying prospect for the capitalist. Uh, because uh, as I, as I like to say at these rallies I go to, you know, they got the money, but we got the people. And and that is something that they want to squash before it becomes a big problem. And that's how I found myself the recipient of allegedly a subpoena that I haven't received yet, that Fox News says I have. And now there is like this additional cycle of misinformation coming out where they're like, he's terrified. He's actually shook. Like, the New York Post and Fox News are writing articles about how I'm like terrified.

• 1:50:04Trevor Noah?

  How much attention do you pay to that stuff, by the way?

• 1:50:06Speaker 02

  I mean, I have to pay attention to it. It's mainstream media, especially if there's no opposition from like the liberal side. Associated Press is not writing about the situation.

• 1:50:15Trevor Noah?

  So no one's correcting it, is what you're saying?

• 1:50:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, if no one is correcting it, then the only thing that's coming out is New York Post, Fox News and whatnot. And I think that's a very strange situation to be in because then most people are looking at that and the conversation being dominated by this negative framing.

• 1:50:30Trevor Noah?

  The other thing was what Bernie Sanders said. I asked him, I said, um, do you think, I'm paraphrasing it, and you know, so because I don't want to misstate what he said, but I basically asked him if the Democratic Party was one party. And he was, he was like, his answer was essentially no. He was like, the thing that I'm doing is not, I can't do Bernie. I can't do Bernie well. I'll try, I'll try, I wish, I'll keep practicing. I'll try, I'll try.

• 1:50:57Speaker 02

  Because he doesn't talk to Bernie.

• 1:50:58Trevor Noah?

  I'll try, I'll try.

• 1:50:59Speaker 02

  He only talks to Donald Trump. That's why he's so good at Donald Trump.

• 1:51:03Trevor Noah?

  That's how he said, he said, no, no. That's how he said, he was like, no, no trouble. And I'll tell you why. No.

• 1:51:09Speaker 02

  Not bad.

• 1:51:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it's not bad. But Bernie's like, he's got a very specific thing. No, and I'll tell you why. Let me tell you why. Yeah.

• 1:51:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, he always does.

• 1:51:16Trevor Noah?

  Let me tell you why, right? No. But he was like, no.

• 1:51:23Trevor Noah?

  From your, from your position, I assume you'd have the same point of view. But I wonder what you think the remedy to that is, right? Because the Democratic Party for a long time in America was, it was a coalition of people. And it feels like that coalition is slowly coming unraveled.

• 1:51:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:38Trevor Noah?

  All right. So what do you see as a remedy? If there is a remedy?

• 1:51:44Speaker 02

  There's different schools of thought on this. A lot of people on the socialist side.

• 1:51:50Trevor Noah?

  I want yours.

• 1:51:50Speaker 02

  Recognize. Yeah, I'm going to give you mine as well. A lot of people on the socialist side believe that entryism is a failure and it's understandable to think that because the Democratic Party is a bourgeois liberal capitalist party. They will represent the interests of corporations. That's what they're designed to do. And that's why their output is, you know, reflected that reality over and over again, where if you're wondering why they're not doing certain things, it's like, well, it's because they're not supposed to be doing it. They're supposed to be defending corporations, right? There's certain groups like the Democratic Socialists of America that have different opinions, differing opinions on this. Some people believe that they can just like enter the Democratic Party and do entryism and run socialist until the party is a Democratic Socialists of America party, right?

• 1:52:32Trevor Noah?

  Sort of what the Tea Party did with the Republican Party.

• 1:52:34Speaker 02

  Yes, but the Tea Party didn't like entirely take it over until Donald Trump took over and then made it the MAGA party, right? But again, directionally, Trump and the rest of the Republicans are actually aligned, right? Trump might be more aggressive on, you know, overt white supremacy and maybe even a little bit more reluctant to, to destroy social security, for example, as opposed to the average Republican, but like, directionally, they're on the side of deregulation and tax breaks.

• 1:53:04Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:53:05Speaker 02

  Right? Whereas what we're talking about here, the DSA, is directionally on the diametrical opposite side of the political spectrum in comparison to the liberal capitalist Democratic Party, and they recognize that, right? So there is a real friction there that doesn't exist with the white supremacists and the rest of the Republican Party. They actually lean heavily into that. That's why Republicans can lean into their base.

• 1:53:26Trevor Noah?

  Because directionally.

• 1:53:27Speaker 02

  Whereas Democrats, yeah, whereas Democrats run away from their base, right? They have like disdain for their base, where they're like, oh, why do you want us to do these things? Don't you understand change is impossible? So, entryism is difficult. My opinion on this is, I, I'm a harm reduction voter, I'm a harm reduction believer, I guess, to a certain degree. I recognize that class consciousness is the number one problem in this country. We do not have class consciousness and we do not have political education. And without class consciousness and political education, you can't have organizing on the basis of class. So in order to foment class consciousness and to engage in agitative propaganda as, you know, as is the Marxist tradition, I believe that elections are one of the most

• 1:54:11Speaker 02

  viable routes to reach the masses.

• 1:54:13Trevor Noah?

  Hmm, okay.

• 1:54:14Speaker 02

  Because... I think a lot of people, no matter how radical they present themselves as, or no matter how critical they are of Bernie Sanders, a lot of people self-identified as socialists in that insurgent campaign in 2016, when Bernie ran against Hillary Rodham Clinton. That juxtaposition of a left populist force, an anti-establishment force, who was unbowed and said that they were a socialist and weren't afraid of the moniker, going up against an establishment, like, an establishment figurehead like Hillary Rodham Clinton, made a lot of people self-identify as socialists. It made a lot of people go, wait a minute, I agree with that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? I agree with that guy. I didn't know that this designation existed. Yeah.

• 1:54:54Speaker 02

  Or, I was so negatively propagandized against what I thought socialism was, but it turns out it's this, you know, old curmudgeon, right? And who is fighting for me, who has been fighting for me for 800 years at this point. So, that's, that's why I believe that, and I've seen this in the data as well, like, whenever you got an AOC-style figure, or Zohar Mumdani, the DSA rises, the DSA's ranks explode, right? There's so many new paid members, or paying members, sorry, that join the organization. And the DSA is very good at instigating class

• 1:55:34Speaker 02

  consciousness, and also doing political education. It's a massive institution with many different caucuses, and they're constantly fighting one another. You go to the national conference, and you're like, I like them all, I have no, you know, I don't have, it's like picking, it's like picking favorite children, you can't do it, right? But, they're constantly warring, there's a democratic process, it's complex, it's very diverse. But, you have every different tendency from liberals, social democrats, all the way to Marxist-Leninists, Maoists, Third Worldists, you know, people who do not participate in democracy at all, because they think it's ridiculous and counter-revolutionary. You have all of that, right?

• 1:56:19Speaker 02

  And, and that is political education, and that is an absolute necessity to make the changes in this country. And I see electoralism as a route to foment class consciousness through...

• 1:56:35Speaker 02

  Proving that alternative modes of governance are viable. And that's why I look to people like Zoran as movement leaders in that regard. Because every day that he's a good mayor of New York is a day where we are able to tackle the stigma associated with socialism. Every day that he's a handsome charismatic fellow that gets to improve people's lives is a day where more New Yorkers go, you know what, maybe I'm a socialist after all. I'm not, I, I understand that, you know, you have to organize with the masses that you have, not the masses that you believe should exist. And many people in the United States of America are self identifying as liberals. That's mass politics. That's, that's what the social base, that's where the social base is at.

• 1:57:18Speaker 02

  They self identify as liberals because they don't really understand what that means. If you were to pick apart their worldview and offer them a little bit of political education, you might find that they're actually not liberals at all. Maybe they're socialist, maybe they're Marxist, maybe they're, you know, they have a different ideological tendency than liberalism, which is basically just the monoculture that we've taken for granted. So at a time when liberalism is failing and the Democratic Party, as the liberal Democratic Party is, is failing to keep up with the reactionary forces on the Republican side, I, I believe that it's important to try to push for as many radical candidates as possible and change the makeup, the political makeup of this unbelievably weak party that is not

• 1:58:01Speaker 02

  a real political party in the sense that they exist in Europe and in parliamentary systems. There's no paid membership structure, like paying membership structure, but a party that simply is a holdover for a litany of different corporate interests and maybe some advocacy groups on the side, if you want to throw them a bone every now and then because you need door knockers.

• 1:58:23Speaker 02

  That's a weak party. That's a party that you can seize. That's a party that you can take advantage of. Because at the end of the day, I have no loyalty to the brand that is the Democratic Party.

• 1:58:33Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:58:33Speaker 02

  And I don't think anyone should have any loyalty to any party. I think you should have, you should see politicians as an agent for change. Because that's what they are. Are they making those changes for their corporate benefactors? Or are they making those changes for you? Are they promising to you that they are going to change your lives for the better? Or are they telling you better things are not possible, which is what a lot of Democrats do unfortunately?

• 1:59:02Speaker 02

  You know, even if I know a politician personally, Zaron is a great example of this. AOC is another example of this. If they do things that I don't like, I'll say it. I'll be like, no, this was wrong. I disagree with you on this. And I will hold them to account because at the end of the day, they're public servants. They work for us, for all of us, right? There shouldn't be any loyalty to a party or a brand, especially if that party hasn't done enough to deserve your loyalty. You can have an ideological commitment to a movement. I certainly do. And I have my moral convictions and I demand that the elected representatives that I push for also have similar, shared moral convictions.

• 1:59:47Speaker 02

  But outside of that, I don't really care how we get there, you know? Another Deng Xiaoping quote I'll use, I don't know why I keep using Deng Xiaoping quotes.

• 1:59:56Trevor Noah?

  It sounds cool.

• 1:59:57Speaker 02

  On this conversation, but it's.

• 1:59:59Trevor Noah?

  Also because it's Tuesday.

• 1:59:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:00:00Trevor Noah?

  You know what they say about Tuesday and Deng Xiaoping?

• 2:00:02Speaker 02

  What?

• 2:00:02Trevor Noah?

  Nothing. Carry on.

• 2:00:05Speaker 02

  I was very excited.

• 2:00:06Trevor Noah?

  I know.

• 2:00:08Speaker 02

  He said, when market reforms were taking place in China, he said famously, a black cat or a white cat, it doesn't matter as long as it catches the rat. And that's the way I see it as well, where it's like, I don't really care about what these brands are or what like, how people identify themselves.

• 2:00:25Trevor Noah?

  People focus too much on the labels and not on the outcome.

• 2:00:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I care about, I care about changes. I care about necessary changes and getting those necessary changes across.

• 2:00:34Trevor Noah?

  Damn. Well, this was great, man. This was really, really dope. Good luck with your subpoena if it's there when you get home.

• 2:00:41Speaker 00

  Oh, speaking of which, can you just open the cabinet?

• 2:00:43Trevor Noah?

  That would be so amazing if we served him right now.

• 2:00:48Speaker 02

  If we serve you the subpoena, it's like, we have been asked to deliver this to you. This is from the treasury.

• 2:00:56Trevor Noah?

  Now that we've confirmed who you are. Yo, Hassan, man, thanks for taking the time. This was really great.

• 2:01:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. This was great. This was a fun conversation.

• 2:01:04Trevor Noah?

  Appreciate it. Thank you.

• 2:01:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:07Trevor Noah?

  What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jess Hackel. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random other stuff by Ryan Parth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now.