The 2024 Presidency, Joe Biden’s Age, Gigantism, & Facing Reality | Dean Phillips | EP 437

We wouldn't be arguing about whether there were women and men if things didn't need to be retooled from the very bottom. That's my sense of the situation now. That is a critical conversation. Whether the God-shaped hole gets filled by God exactly is something maybe for us to discuss on the shows. You're going to be joining me for the next nine evenings on my We Who Wrestle with God Tour, and I would like you to come armed with your sharpest sword and hold nothing back.

You've asked me to do something. Generally speaking, I'm pretty good at which is to be disagreeable and try to find holes in things. I'm going to be coming at it from a kind of first principles uneducated but I hope sufficiently intelligent perspective, and I think you could offer to the audience a really critical response that's thoughtful, so that I can see if there's still holes in what I've laid out because I can't find any. That's what we're going to explore. I can't wait.

The two-party system, the duopoly if you will, they're the ones that have set the rules, Jordan, in the United States. You know we do not have competition because the two parties have electively cooperatively prevented it by setting the rules in all the 50 states and at the federal level. Forget what the country might be asking for. These are private institutions, and they're making decisions of extraordinary consequence not just for the United States of America and for our neighbors to the North and South, but for the entire world.

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Hello everybody, I'm talking today with Dean Phillips, an American businessman and congressman who served as the representative of Minnesota's Third District since 2019. I met Dean several years ago. I found him a very interesting person. He ran a very singular campaign when he first ran for Congress—one that was very positively inclined. He struck me as a very intelligent and perspicacious moderate on the Democrat side, and so we've had a fair bit of contact over the years recently.

And of particular relevance to this podcast, Dean ran for president on the Democrat side, and I was very interested, and he dropped out of that race about a week and a half ago, something like that. He ran into monolithic opposition, and his campaign was scuttled in a variety of complex manners. I think the reason for that is of wide general interest. I think he would have provided a very credible alternative to the aging Biden, should have been highly acceptable to the Democratic elite and public as well, and really got nowhere to speak of in his moving forward.

Now that hasn't hurt him personally because he's a very resilient person, and he has many options at his disposal, but what happened to him does speak volumes about the state of political affairs in the US more broadly. And so we delve into that and what his experience signifies for the understanding of the political realm in general in the US and in the West. And also, we investigate too the comparative pathologies, let's say, of the Democrat and Republican sides respectively.

So join us for that.

Well, Dean, it's been a long time that we've been plotting to get together to talk publicly, and so now we get to do it, and it's going to be, I presume, somewhat of a postmortem, so to speak. You recently ran for president, and I am very interested to know. I think we should start probably with a description of why you ran—what you thought the problem was and what you hoped to accomplish.

And then we should segue from that into just exactly what happened and what you learned—you know how you've changed across that process. I'm very interested in hearing about that. So let's start with what you, what problem you were trying to address, or set of problems, when you decided to run. Fill people in on your background and your decision.

Yeah, well, let me go backwards before I go forwards. Most importantly, thank you. I wish our country—US, Canada, and the world—would have more conversations like this one. You know, Jordan, as you know, my life started differently than most are aware. I lost my father in the Vietnam War. He grew up very poor in Minnesota. Could not afford college, so he earned a ROC scholarship, afforded by the federal government, to attend law school at the University of Minnesota.

Was sent to Vietnam just before I was born and was killed in action in July of 1969, just a few days in fact after the US moon landing. When I was six months old when he died, my mother was 24 and widowed. We had nowhere to go, so we lived with my great-grandparents in St. Paul for three years. And then, Jordan, I got lucky. My mom met and remarried a wonderful man who adopted me into a great family of business and philanthropic success. A lot of advice—my grandmother was the advice columnist Dear Abby and my aunt was Ann Landers.

And I got lucky, and I share that because as I have this conversation with you, so much of my life was influenced by good fortune, and recognizing that I don't think it should take a stroke of good luck or just being born in the right zip code that dictates where one ends up. And that very much illuminated my life. I had a great business career, building Beler Vodka and Tente Gelato—two wonderful brands.

And that brings me to 2016. I was a father of two daughters, Daniela, 18, Pia, 16. I had just opened some coffee shops. I love the idea of hospitality and people gathering. I think people and humanity needs a lot more of that right now. I thought that would be my next business chapter, but I watched that election night in 2016 and I was deeply disappointed.

And for the first time in my life, it wasn't political in nature; it was the character I thought of the man who had won, Donald Trump. But I told my family that night, Jordan, as I always would—he was duly elected and we got to give him a chance. But I woke up the next morning, and the first thing I heard was my daughter Pia, who was 16. She was in her bedroom and she was crying. I sat at the foot of her bed, and remind you, Pia had just overcome Hodgkin's Lymphoma a year before, and she's a gay woman.

I didn't know that when she was a teenager, but I saw a fear in her eyes, Jordan, that really instantly affected me, indelibly. I sat at the breakfast table that morning with both of my daughters and promised them that I would do something. I had reached that moment in my life where I had taken a lot for granted; I'd raised my daughters to be participants, not observers. And I felt compelled to do something, and I decided to run for Congress.

I share that with you because you asked why I ran for president. Well, it was because we have a crisis of participation. We have a wonderful industry—"angertainment," I might call it—of people who make a lot of money and do quite well by creating division and sharing fear.

And I want to be a participant in the resolution; I want to be the antidote. And I felt rather than complaining, I should do something, and that's why I ran for Congress. I was the first Democrat to win my district since 1958, got to Congress. I, as you know, joined the Problem Solvers Caucus because there is no mechanism, none in the US Congress that pushes people together. No mandate, no intention between the speaker and the minority leader to develop an orientation program that forces human beings to get to know each other, to share their life stories.

And when I saw Donald Trump essentially now returning to the White House because of Biden's increasingly poor approval numbers and his bad poll numbers, the absence of competition is destructive to democracy. In fact, I would say competition is the vitamin of democracy. And just because we had an incumbent president here in 2024, 86% of the country had determined that he was too old to serve another term.

And I thought the least I could do, the least I could do, is the same thing I did in 2016, which is to demonstrate with my feet my principles, which was to stand up and go against the grain and actually upset my colleagues—to not wait in line, to not be quiet and shush up and sit down—but just the opposite. And I think we now have too much of a culture, both in North America and increasingly around the world, of people too often being silenced and falling in line when they should be standing up and being loud.

And that's what I did, Jordan, and I'm glad I did. It was a long shot; there's almost no chance whatsoever of an insurgent like me defeating an incumbent in a nominating process like we have here in the states. We have a political duopoly, both Democrats and Republicans that have set the rules to prevent the very competition that I aspire to create. But I got to tell you it was the most beautiful experience of my life, Jordan.

Like any mission of principle, it came with a lot of joy, a lot of pain, but it reinvigorated my love for my country, my affection for human beings. And I will say, Jordan, the most compelling moment of my entire experience, which lasted about five months, was walking up to a Donald Trump rally in Rochester, New Hampshire. Saw a line of people standing outside in the freezing cold; they were there for hours.

And I walked up to say hello, and I spoke with probably 50 people that evening going to a Trump rally. And every one of them, friendly, hospitable, thoughtful, kind. Many of them had voted for Barack Obama. Many of them said that they had been fans of Bernie Sanders. All of them treated me respectfully; I treated them respectfully.

And I have to tell you that was probably the moment I'll never forget, and restored and reinvigorated my belief that everybody, everybody has decency in them. But we have created a dynamic now in which we are demeaning people, we are making them afraid, we are antagonizing each other. And I needed that moment to demonstrate to my own side of the aisle that the way to succeed is not through confrontation but through invitation.

And you asked why I ran for president, Jordan; that's what I wanted to demonstrate—that we need to extend invitations to one another to get to know each other, find common ground, debate, deliberate, and disagree without being disagreeable. And I'm glad I did it because that was my mission, and I would do it a thousand times again despite how complicated and difficult and the toll it took.

So, you stated during your exposition of your reasons for running that you were concerned about Biden's—the concerns you expressed were fundamentally practical. I don't imagine that exhausts your list of concerns, but the practical concerns were your belief that a better candidate than Trump for president might be found. Combined with the fact that Biden's age has become a concern, and his poll numbers reflect some real uncertainty about his viability as a candidate for the next presidency—were there other shortcomings related to the Biden Administration that you felt that you might want to address on the policy side? Or did you feel, in the main, that his administration was proceeding in the right direction?

Well, let me start by saying the quiet part out loud, which is to be successful in American politics, one must abide by his or her own party's rules, by the platform. If you get out of line, if you disagree, if you take a position that is the opposite of that of your party, it is not the path to success. And that is why you see the overwhelming majority of members of Congress and elected leaders in the US knowingly violating their own perspectives and principles in the spirit of self-preservation.

And I share that because I think that's an important dynamic for people to be aware of. The arching issue in this election in the United States is the number of people—Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, libertarians, independents—all feeling how in the world can the most extraordinary democracy in the world be limited to two candidates like the ones that it looks like we'll be having in November.

And that's not opining on what I think of them; I'm just saying what people are saying every single day all around this country: how are we so limited in a democracy that is supposed to be cultivating, nurturing, and promoting options? And I watched on the right a very vibrant, very vibrant GOP nominating contest that continued as of, you know, until last week when Nikki Haley dropped out—but evening debates and town halls and conversation and energy.

And I looked on my side of the aisle, Jordan, and we have Joe Biden who is going to be handed the nomination—a coronation of sorts. And my misgivings were about the system. My misgivings were about a country that was overwhelmingly saying that we want more options.

And I believe, as I said earlier, that absent competition, democracy ultimately dies. Now, when it comes to policy, so my opinion, by the way, on Joe Biden is he's a good man. I think he's a man of integrity and decency and most importantly empathy. But he's an old man. I'm not going to deny that. Is he incompetent? No. Is he facing cognitive decline? I do not believe so at all. Is he facing physical and communication decline? Absolutely.

But that's what people see; that's why they've concluded that he was too old. But from a policy perspective, you know, I will say that I think the southern border is a tragic oversight of this administration. It's something that I saw when I first visited the border in 2019, again in 2020. The foremost responsibility of an American leader is to keep our border secure and preserve national security, and clearly we have a human crisis, we have a national security crisis, and now we have a constitutional crisis at our border.

And having been there twice, it's one of the most appalling things I've ever seen and is and must be the foremost priority of an American leader. That is certainly a point of difference. Fiscal responsibility is clearly something that I believe an American president has to take more seriously. Donald Trump added $7 trillion to our national debt; Joe Biden will add probably six and change. It's irresponsible, and as someone who comes from the business world, I believe we have to manage our fiscal house more responsibly.

Had I become president—and one day if I do—I would have a bipartisan cabinet. I would employ zero-based budgeting. I would have an international consulting firm assess every single federal agency to make recommendations on how we can deliver services better, reduce expenditures, outsource what we don't do well. I think we have to start looking at the executive branch here in America as our founders intended, which is to execute the laws of the land, not necessarily be the chief policy maker, but to ensure the integrity of our financial house, to ensure the integrity of our borders, to ensure the national security of the country.

And I think the executive branch has expanded far more broadly than it should have. I believe that people are feeling the challenges of chaos, whether it's the southern border or in cities and neighborhoods around the country. I believe costs are too high for most families; we're a country in which 60% are living paycheck to paycheck, 40% can't afford a $400 repair; people are afraid.

So when I judge President Biden, there's a lot of good he did I believe for America. But I do believe there are some opportunities and needs of Americans that have to be attended to. I was clear in my articulation of what some of those deficiencies are.

And lastly, I'll present my foremost policy proposition that I think we should consider and I think other countries should as well, and I call it American Dream Accounts. We have social security in the United States in which retirees are afforded resources to live in dignity after they end their careers, but we don't complement that with something in the beginning of life.

And my proposition is something called Dream Accounts in which the federal government would offer a $5,000 investment account to every baby born in America no matter one ZIP code. It would be invested in an S&P 500 index fund in the US equity market. It would grow over 18 years; young people would have an app on their phone to track their investments; they'd have classes in school to learn about financial management, about entrepreneurship.

And then, as a reward to graduate high school, that account would vest, and young Americans would have $20,000 to $25,000 to begin their lives: start a small business, down payment on a home, a little bit of cash to begin their adult beginnings. And that would reduce our expenditures down the road. That would solve a lot of the challenges I believe in our country and most importantly reduce our extraordinary expenditures on incarceration in America, which exceed $80,000 per incarcerated individual.

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

So when I ran against Joe Biden, I was really running for generational change and for a sense of respect, the restoration of respect and decency and the Golden Rule, Jordan. That's what I was running for. It just so happened I was running in a Democratic primary that clearly Democrats didn't have an appetite for, at least not yet.

So when I was a kid, about 14, something like that, I got involved with progressive politics in Canada. The librarian in my local school was the wife of our local representative provincially, and he was the only left-leaning politician in the entire province of Alberta. I was attracted by the policies of the left at that time, and I'm curious about your political orientation. I mean it isn't necessarily obvious coming from the business background say that you came from that you would naturally gravitate towards the Democrat side of the house, so could you start by explaining how your political convictions developed and why they've been maintained on the left?

And maybe we can talk— that will enable us to talk a little bit too about things that are somewhat more political and philosophical than we've delved into on the YouTube side.

So first of all, let me start by saying I don't fit into the perfect political box of any party. And I'll tell you my story. I come from a Jewish family, and I will tell you, Jordan, that in postwar America, there was great affection for the Democratic Party as the party that prosecuted World War II, of course, was more sensitive to the Jewish community's needs. And my political hero as a kid was Hubert Humphrey, who was a 20-some-year-old mayor of Minneapolis who did extraordinary, generous gestures for the Jewish community and the Black community in Minneapolis. Minneapolis was known as the most anti-Semitic city in the country in the 1940s.

It was also Hubert Humphrey—this is very little known—but it was a young Hubert Humphrey who went to the Philadelphia Democratic National Convention in 1948, was told by everybody from whom he sought counsel that if he was to issue the speech that he was planning to issue, that he would likely end his career on the spot.

And it was the speech in which he implored the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of state's rights and into the bright sunshine of human rights. At that moment, St. Thurman and all the Dixiecrats left the arena. St. Thurman started a new party, ran for president that year against Harry Truman and won four states. And not only did it not hurt Humphrey's career; it actually established it.

And in many ways, I think it's underappreciated, but it was Hubert Humphrey with that speech that really started the Democratic Party's migration into the Civil Rights Movement. Now, there's no video of it; it's a very grainy recording of it. That might be part of the problem. But I also reflect on the same Hubert Humphrey that, as Vice President in the 1960s—Vice President to Lyndon Johnson—felt very opposed to the Vietnam War. But instead of having that same courage and speaking out against it, he walked the company line; he suppressed his principles, and it ultimately cost him the 1968 election. It probably in some way, shape, or form cost my father's life and cost the lives of tens of thousands of other people.

And it's that young Humphrey, though, that I really celebrated as a kid, not just because of human rights but because of courage. You know, to stand up in front of this arena full of people. And I went to school in 1980—this is a very interesting quick story. In 1980, I go to school, and I go to assembly, and who's speaking to our assembly that day but John Anderson, a Republican member of Congress who had run against Ronald Reagan in the GOP primaries in 1980, and kind of like Bobby Kennedy left the primary and then declared his candidacy as an independent.

And he came to speak to our class that day in 1980. I was 11 years old; I'd never seen a politician before, and he spoke about money in politics, and he spoke about the need for independence in politics. It didn't mean much to me, but that night I went to dinner with my family—four generations: my great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, and my brother and me—and I sat next to my grandmother, who was Dear Abby, the advice columnist. She asked me about my day. I told her about John Anderson coming. She said, "Well, just so you know, you say he might be president, but anybody speaking to a bunch of 11-year-olds this close to the election is probably not going to win." So that was political lesson number one. But she said, "Dean, are you a Democrat or Republican?" and I said, "Grandma, I don't even know what those are."

And she said, "You're a Democrat." And it was then that I learned about this affiliation between the Jewish community and the Democratic Party, particularly in Minneapolis, because of Hubert Humphrey, who was the hero to my whole family because of what he did in a time when the Jewish community was deeply persecuted in Minneapolis. So when you ask about the why, that's the why— it was baked into my family.

And also, and I'll leave it at this, it's this deep-seated belief that, in some way, shape, or form, the Democratic Party always stood for the underdog, you know, for the downtrodden, the separated, the oppressed, the other. And I think I've always grown up with a little bit of that ethos baked into me. Now, like many people do, I struggle sometimes with some of the platform of my party or do I grow concerned about circumstances? Of course I do, but that's my affiliation, and it's long-standing and somewhat deep-seated.

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Today, okay, okay, so that actually, I definitely want to delve into that more. So, I just wrote a piece for The Telegraph; it's going to be published next week, addressing the rising tide of anti-Semitism in the Western World. Now, I've been watching this happen for four years. I've been privy to it to some degree because I aligned myself with The Daily Wire, and its most famous spokesperson is Ben Shapiro.

And so that attracted no shortage of anti-Semitic commentary, much of it from the right. But there's something stunningly pernicious going on that has to do with this question that I mentioned to you on the YouTube side that I've asked Democrats consistently: when does the left go too far? So I want to lay out an argument for you.

Okay, so now I understand where you're coming from, and I would also say that that proclivity you had to identify with standing up for the underdog—let's say—was also what made the left-leaning political party in Alberta more attractive to me as a teenager. Okay, so I was active politically for about four years when I was a kid, and then I just stepped away from it for well until like six years ago.

I still obviously don't have an active political career, but in any case, here's the problem. Here's a problem I want to know what you think about because this gets right to the heart of the matter. So, my sense is that the left goes too far in the modern world when it talks about equity. And I want to tell you why I think that, because there's an equation there now.

The equation is something like, if we analyze people by the groups they're affiliated with and we find that there's a group that's overrepresented statistically in positions of authority and arguably power—let's say authority, influence, competence, and power just to cover the territory quite nicely—then the only possible reason for that overrepresentation is something approximating systemic oppression.

Now, that's an equity doctrine in my estimation, and I think that evidence for that is crystal clear. Now, there's a problem; there's many problems with that doctrine. The first problem is the proposition that we should divide people up by groups, because that can be done without end, multiplying the potential dimensions of oppression without end, and that's the danger I see on the postmodern front.

But there's something even more pernicious because if we're going to play the game of overrepresentation in positions of privilege as an indication of systemic bias and oppression, then the Jews are immediately on the firing block. Because there is no grouping of people that's more likely to be statistically represented at the upper echelons of virtually every domain than the Jews.

Now, my sense of that is that the Jews and their proclivity to hyper-achieve are a massive net benefit to any society that has enough sense and courage to not only tolerate but welcome and encourage a successful minority. But that can be turned and inverted viciously, as it has been for thousands of years, right? It's always been the same story.

So I see in the equity doctrine a kind of poison—a true poison that's predicated on that equation. Now, the poison is twofold: not only is there an oppressor/ oppression narrative that's very easy to digest, which is that statistical overrepresentation indicates oppression—that's bad enough because it's a hyper-simplification—but there's an additional element to it that's insanely pernicious, which is that now all you have to do to demonstrate your moral virtue is ally yourself with the hypothetically oppressed, and you've done your moral duty.

And I believe that a tremendous amount of the culture war that's raging now, that's manifesting itself as anti-Semitism, and that I believe has devastated our institutes of higher education, is a consequence of that doctrine. And so, well, I'm curious about what you think about all that.

You know, my first reaction is that two things can be true at once. Things that have good intentions, that I think are just and appropriate, can sometimes have ramifications that negatively affect someone else or be taken too far, and this is probably a discussion where we could surely talk about that.

But when I think of equity generally, let me let me start with the enslaved Americans. Anybody who believes that slavery does not have a long tail that exists to this very day, I just would beg you to understand how that's just patently untrue. It's one thing to deny one generation something, but to deny multiple generations family education, literacy, opportunity—that becomes very hard to overcome.

And I do think that slavery is an example of a systemic flaw in the United States that continues to have ramifications to this day and I think is worthy of rectification. I think of my own community, the Jewish community in Minneapolis. Jewish physicians in the 1940s could not practice at any Minneapolis hospital, Jordan—not a one.

Hubert Humphrey, along with my great-grandfather, members of the Jewish and Gentile community, got together and they built a hospital called Mount Sinai Hospital. It was a form of equity because it was the only hospital that would afford staff privileges to Jewish physicians. And of course, when they opened, every other hospital changed its policies.

So even in my own community in the early part of the 20th century, we were relegated to the worst jobs imaginable—pots and pans. They entered Hollywood because Hollywood and movie-making was kind of a secondary type of industry. They got into the spirits business, like my family did in in wine and spirits distribution. They had to take on jobs and industries in which the well-to-do weren't interested in.

And I used Mount Sinai as an example of that, as an act of equity that afforded opportunity, and then the community took advantage of that level playing field, if you will, and now it's somewhat of a meritocracy.

So, you know, I don't think two things can be true at once. I don't want to see anybody disadvantaged because of somebody else's advantage, but I do think that we do have some obligations in a just society to afford a little bit more to give someone a boost—a group or a party or a sex or a race or a religion that had been denied opportunity for a long time. And I don't think they're incompatible notions, is my only sense and sensibility.

Now, I will say, am I deeply concerned about those on the left who seem to leave their affection for the underdog at the doorstep of the Jewish people? Yes, and am I concerned that Jewish people are now somehow perceived as the oppressors?

Now, I don't look like someone who might be under persecution or risk or threat, you know, because I'm a white businessman, but the fact of the matter is, I and my community are very so. So I'm concerned. And I think a lot of what you said, I concur with; other parts of it, this notion that equity has gone too far.

I don't know if it's gone too far until we do establish some degree of a level playing field. And I think that is what a just society should pursue, and I think there are still examples where we still have residuals of policy that have kept a lot of people from achieving.

And that's why I'm not someone who believes in the redistribution of income or wealth. I do believe in a redistribution of opportunity that does not necessarily mean away from other people; it simply means incrementally affording it to those who had been denied it for reasons well beyond their control, and that is my perspective.

And I think it's a worthy conversation. There's no denying that there's a wide range of difference in access to opportunity. It isn't obvious to me that that can be rectified in any straightforward sense because the dimensions of potential inequality are innumerable. So, for example, it isn't obvious to me at all that if you're poor and young you're more disadvantaged than someone who's old and rich, because most people who are old and rich would swap their wealth in a second to be young and poor.

Well, wealth is relative, right? Mhmm. Well, this is exactly my point: calculating the potential dimensions of oppression is a, see this is the transformation that's occurred in the postmodern, what would you call, variation of the underlying Marxism that used to play the inequality game on the economic side is the dimensions of oppression and inequality have multiplied endlessly.

And that's a that's a very bad game because there is some dimension on which you're an oppressor; you can be absolutely certain of that from in from the perspective of that game, you know, and you pointed to it yourself. You know, on the minority side, there's your Jewish heritage, but on the oppressor side, well, that's assuming that the Jews are allowed to be a minority, you know, as opposed to an oppressor.

And we're way past that, but on the other side, there's the fact that you're white and male. But you can take any given individual, and you can find the dimension on which they’re an oppressor, and this is what disturbs me profoundly about the equity game.

And you pointed out two terms, I would say, and I don't understand this exactly, but this is something that I do see characteristic of the Democrats in particular, because there's an insistence on the Democrat side that equity means equality of opportunity and that's not what it means; it means equality of outcome.

And your own Vice President Kamala Harris has defined it that way. That’s how she's defined it. That’s the—that I mean, there may be people who interpret it otherwise. Yeah, then why do we use the word equity? Because, look, the only reason that word was introduced into the academic parlance to begin with was to alight the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.

I can't speak for every Democrat. I believe I can speak for most of us in Congress when I say that our aspiration as Democrats is to rectify that imbalance of opportunity, to afford it to more—not to be detrimental to those who already have it, but incrementally afford more.

It is the equality of opportunity to which we aspire. I do not know many—I'm sure there are some— that would say the objective is equality of outcome; by almost definition, that's socialism or communism, which doesn't work.

Well, there are certainly plenty of them in academia. I understand and I'm not saying that I'm not speaking for all, but that is indeed my aspiration as a Democrat. I believe most of us is that equality of opportunity, yeah. Okay, I agree with you.

I believe that's the case. This is one of the things that makes me curious and befuddle by this situation because it is my experience when I'm talking to Democrats of the moderate structure that what they're attempting to foster is best conceptualized as equality of opportunity—that's core to the American vision. But that isn't what the radicals on the left are pushing, and for the life of me, I cannot see—and I, as you know, I worked on the Democrat side for a substantial amount of time and I've had this discussion for like ten years—I still see no movement whatsoever on the Democrat moderate side to understand the threat that the leftist radicals pose to the moderate Democrat mission.

Even by eliding the difference between equality of outcome and equality of opportunity. So, and here's one example of that: I do believe—and I'm trying to look at this from the perspective of a politically informed psychologist—that part of the reason that Trump is the attractive phenomenon that he is, is because the moderate Democrats won't draw a line between themselves and the radicals.

And this is part of what I pointed to earlier—that's part and parcel of the moderate refusal to define when the left goes too far. Now, you did, to some degree, because you said you don't believe in equality of outcome, right? And you said also that most of your peers—your particularly reasonable peers—also don't believe that, and that might even be true of someone like Bernie Sanders, because I saw Sanders become entirely befuddled in an interview not so long ago when he was pushed on the distinction between equity and equality of opportunity.

But it's a cardinal danger, and the reason I'm trying to draw this to your attention at the moment is because I do believe that the fruits of that evil seed are making themselves manifest in this spate of anti-Semitism. My understanding of the persecution of the Jews going back millennia is that the Jews are almost always a successful minority, and there's very complex reasons for that, many of which are cultural.

Now you can attribute that to conspiratorial collusion behind the scenes, and the anti-Semites love to do that, whether they're on the right or the left. But the left has an additional systemic problem with anti-Semitism at the moment, which is their definition of oppression, and oppression is equated to disproportionate representation in positions of privilege.

And if that's going to be the definition, then the Jews are first on the firing block. You know, when I think about anti-Semitism and I realize as a policymaker, a lawmaker, a lot of what I discovered about my own community, the Jewish community, that has afforded its created its own opportunities stem from a belief in family, a fierce protection, the lessons of the Torah, which, you know, any Abrahamic faith teaches decency, the sharing with one another, and also education.

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

And then this is going to sound maybe interesting, but I think you'll understand. The fact that at age 13, young Jewish boys and girls have a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah at that age—to be forced to appear in front of your community, to have to prepare diligently to speak in front of them, to make a speech to read the Torah, to share that on stage, is a very powerful driver of confidence and ambition.

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

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

And I share that because as a policymaker, it is those very opportunities—the equity, as we talk about equity—that's what I wish to share with those who are denied that for no other reason than the fact they weren't born into a family like mine, despite all the persecution and anti-Semitism we faced.

To me, those are the solutions—those traditions.

Okay, so but I would say to some degree that's what's made me a conservative, to the degree that I am a conservative. And so, because the dictums that you just put forward don't strike me as corresponding to the notion that the fundamental problem is to be summed up as systemic oppression. It's deeper than that.

And it has something to do with first principles, and the first principles that you laid out—this is what we've been doing with this Ark Enterprise in London, right? The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. We've been trying to turn it into something approximating an international classic liberal and conservative voice, but it is predicated on the idea that communities that are founded on those fundamental principles are much more likely to avail themselves of the opportunities that will lift their members out of poverty and disgrace.

And so, but it also requires, to me, it still requires an— it doesn't mean a system of equity, but it certainly in most cases means an act of equity. Because even my community, as I said with my Mount Sinai Hospital story about redlining, there has to be some type of an effort to at least escape the past and build a little bit of a platform, raise the platform.

Absent that, I'm afraid, Jordan, that so many communities that we might be talking about won't even have the chance to practice an AM meritocracy. Look, there's I think there's little doubt about that.

You know, here, I just talked to this gentleman named Rob Henderson. Henderson's a very interesting character because he grew up in a series of foster homes in a very fractionated family community, and his background was sort of working class, like mine. But mine’s different from his, because every single person I knew, all the adults I knew, were married and in stable relationships—all of them—whereas none of the adults he knew were like that.

And so the—I see in the radical side on the left, in particular, an assault on the institutions that provide for the equality of opportunity that you just described. And that's also why it makes me befuddled that the moderates won't segregate themselves from the people who, for example, are hellbent on attacking the structure of the nuclear family, which I think is the minimal viable unit for society to predicate itself upon.

And, Jordan, I'm not even sure it's optimal, but it's certainly minimal that act of equity about which I spoke moments ago was the blessing of being adopted. Who knows how my life would have worked out after losing Dad? You pointed it; that's right, you pointed it out right of conversation. So, in a way, in a way I think we could be saying the same things, and I feel to some degree a responsibility now.

Because I was afforded something that so many—I'm probably the most fortunate Gold Star child of the whole Vietnam era. I can't imagine any kid that lost a dad in Vietnam got as lucky as I did. And that's why I feel such a distinct need to afford that single act of equity, in this case being adopted, a little boost.

I think, in a way, what this conversation and those that we should be having, millions more of them, can actually find some common ground because you're right, there are elements of conservatism and tradition that have to be perpetuated if we stand any chance of success. But I would also argue, from more of the left perspective, there also has to be some intention to at least bring people to that stage, and there's a there there, and I think it's worthy of a more in-depth conversation.

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All right, so let's talk about that. I want to return to the policy issues at some point, but I think the more germane point at the moment I think is likely your experience doing this.

So, you had, as far as I was concerned, I'm in a strange position as a commentator on American politics because I'm a Canadian, but gives me a certain detachment, I would say, at least to some degree. And I mean, it seemed to me that at minimum your campaign was warranted given the polling numbers.

It also struck me that it was very unlikely that the Democrats were going to rustle up a candidate who, in principle, might have a broader appeal than you. I've watched RFK; we can talk a little bit about his campaign at some point. I think that might be interesting. But you had the qualifications that struck me as necessary and desirable to offer an alternative to the current regime, given people's concerns.

And my sense was that wise Democrats might have been sufficiently terrified by the possibility of losing the next election—which I think is very likely—that they would be casting about for a potential viable alternative. Maybe even because Biden is sufficiently elderly so that his viability is limited in an extreme sense, and that you might want to have someone around as an alternative if the worst happens.

And so, and I was curious about how your campaign might progress. And I must say, I thought that you would get more traction than you did. And so we communicated a little bit right from the beginning of your plans—not a tremendous amount, but enough so that I knew what was going on.

And I was absolutely—well, I don't want to put words in your mouth—what happened? What happened? What did you experience? Tell me the whole story, if you would, because everybody needs to know what happened to you in relationship to your colleagues and what happened to you on the legal and practical fronts and what happened to you in relationship to the media, which might be the most germane question, exactly, and especially in this day and age.

The absence of platform, Jordan, is the most critical deficiency that I faced as someone who did not come to this with massive name recognition. Now mind you, those in Congress who are well known throughout this country typically generate that name recognition by being jerks, by being aggressive, by being provocative, by being oftentimes mean-spirited—and that is counter to my nature.

I recognize as someone who is not often on cable news at night that that was going to be a challenge, but to start, let me get back to the very beginning. You know, my contention was that the country needed alternatives. My contention was that the president should pass the torch, which is what I did beginning in July of 2022, encouraged him publicly to pass the torch. It was met in my own caucus with a lot of dismay because you don't do that. You know, God forbid you say to the incumbent that he or she should step aside.

Needless to say, he did not. Then I started a public and private initiative to encourage others to participate. I telephoned Governor Pritzker in Illinois; I telephoned Governor Whitmer in Michigan; made a public call—whether it's Governor Noem or Vice President Harris: I said to the next generation of Democrats, "This is the time! The polls are bad; the approval numbers are bad; the country is saying they want choices, so let's meet the moment."

I never intended nor anticipated that I would have to do it, but in the absence of anybody willing to forgo their future, perhaps, and meet the national moment, I was so upset, so disappointed that ultimately in the absence of anybody else doing it, Jordan, two weeks before the New Hampshire filing deadline, in mid-October, I decided to do it myself.

Steve Schmidt had had me on his podcast; we had quite a conversation. He recalled how in 2020 he believed that Joe Biden was the only one that could defeat Donald Trump. He felt in 2024 that I was that person, and we did work together for a handful of weeks to initiate my campaign.

Went up to New Hampshire. As you might know, it was an unusual year in New Hampshire because the Democratic Party had taken away New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary status and handed it to South Carolina, and that offered an opportunity because Joe Biden was on the ballot. We thought if we could perform well there—not unlike another not well-known Minnesota Democrat in 1968, Eugene McCarthy—it was he who challenged President Johnson that time and actually inspired him to leave the race by generating almost 45% of the vote that year, and that was somewhat of our strategy.

What I did not anticipate was a party that was so intent on preventing competition, and I did not anticipate a media ecosystem that was somehow aligned with that deplatforming, if you will. And of course, for a campaign that was not well-resourced, for one that could not attract Democratic experienced operatives because they would be blackballed if they worked for an insurgent campaign, you know, the cards were stacked against us.

But that didn't preclude at least the effort. But you asked the question of what was most consequential: the two parties, and I'm going to say this because it's really important, it is not just the Democratic Party; the two-party system, the duopoly, if you will, they're the ones that have set the rules.

Jordan, you know we do not have competition because the two parties have electively, cooperatively prevented it by setting the rules in all the 50 states and at the federal level. And that means when there is an incumbent, he or she will be protected. Forget the polls; forget intuition; forget what the country might be asking for. These are private institutions that operate on their own by their own rules behind closed doors that most of us don't even know who they are ultimately, and they're making decisions of extraordinary consequence not just for the United States of America and for our neighbors to the North and South, but for the entire world.

And not being exposed to that is something that I was not prepared for.

Okay, I want to interject something there because it seems to me that you hit something key with that observation—the attraction of Trump. See, I think that people feel the—the typical bread and butter people of the United States who are attracted by Trump, despite his bull in a china shop way, let's say, are attracted to him to some degree precisely for that reason. And they do feel in their bones what you just described.

And they're willing to take a risk on someone who has that bull in the china shop nature. And this is also true of RFK, by the way because I think he is quite similar on the Democrat side as Trump was on the Republican side.

I mean RFK in some ways is a more sophisticated—he's more sophisticated in his public presentation, and he has a more intellectual man, but he has the same—there's real similarities in temperament and approach. And I believe that people are attracted to Trump because they believe he will rampage around to some unpredictable degree and potentially break that domination of the behind-the-scenes actors that you just described.

Now, from what you said today and from some of the conversations we've had before, the degree to which you encountered monolithic opposition was actually rather surprising to you, not merely from your colleagues. Now you pointed to the fact that there are systemic reasons for that, which we shall delve into, should delve into, and also talk about the behind-the-scenes actors.

But also because of the collusion of the legacy media with those actors. Now, that's certainly something that people on the more conservative side or I would say classic liberal now side of the spectrum have been pointing to for like five years. It's like what the hell is going on here? The journalists have lined up with the powers that be, and any objection whatsoever to whatever the plan seems to be has now become verboten.

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

So you were struck by—okay, so let's take this apart. First of all, there's a mystery here, right? Because you—what you tried to do was to point out very clearly, and correct me if I get any of this wrong—you tried to point out to your colleagues that they were in very danger, in real danger of losing what it was that they were hypothetically aiming for, which was maintenance of the presidency.

And then you looked to find people who were likely leaders, perhaps in a position better than yours, given more name brand recognition, and none of them would do it. So you decided that you would go ahead with it, and what you found on the Democrat side was—and you said that that may have also been something that would characterize the Republican Party.

So we don't have to make a bipartisan accusation here, but the reality he ran into was monolithic opposition to your campaign that extended to the point where you actually had a hard time finding Democrats who would work for you because they were afraid for the viability of their political careers in the future. Is that all accurate?

Exactly. That is so accurate. In fact, Jordan, you could play the same story in 2020 if a Republican had challenged Donald Trump. He or she could have done so under the same terms I challenged Joe Biden, which is he's probably going to lose, and shouldn't we have an alternative that might actually win? But if—imagine if someone had done that. They would have encountered the exact same impediments and barriers that I did.

I want to speak to it because you're a better commentator on the human condition than I, but we both know that we operate with reward systems and incentives in Congress. There is no incentive to go against your party when it comes to these decisions because it will impede your path to either maintaining your seat or to ascending to higher office despite the fact that behind the scenes, Jordan, my Republican colleagues during the Trump years almost universally despised him privately.

And then when the cameras are on, totally different perspective. Same thing with Joe Biden. Behind the scenes, people were utterly afraid of his standing, of their concern that he's going to lose, that we need an alternative. But then the cameras came on, and it would be a very different story.

It really bothered me to see the same disease affecting the entire Congress, but the incentives make sense. There is no incentive to be bold or to get out of line or to offer an alternative because it will almost, by definition, end your career.

Now, it's the same issue with the media. Let's say you're a journalist and you rely on a leak from the White House, on information from the White House—access to talent that the White House provides to your Sunday show or your evening cable program.

If you go against them, if you disappoint them, if you object to them, or you say something or do something they don't like, they can always then go to CNN; they can go to another outlet. So we tiptoe through these minefields, if you will, of navigating the human condition.

And that's where we find ourselves politically; it's where the media finds itself, because the incentives are perfectly aligned with the two parties' mandates and objectives, and they are misaligned with the overwhelming majority of center-right and center-left Americans.

And I want to be really clear to people watching and listening: I have no animus towards anyone who supports Donald Trump, as long as you're a person of decency and principle and integrity. I do have animus towards Donald Trump; it's both personal; it's collective.

But I want to separate the man from people—the same way I would ask that people who do not support Joe Biden would also separate voters of Joe Biden from the man himself. And I want to have these conversations to also reflect on the fact that this is about individuals.

I have respect for conservatism. I have respect for libertarian perspectives. I have respect, of course, for progressives. But as I have this discussion with you, I just want to make it very clear: this is the duopoly; some call it the uniparty. It is real; there are misalignments and, most of all, perverse incentives that have to be exposed, have to be discussed, and have to be rectified.

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

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

But I don't really think I saw any evidence of that. So, like, my sense is that the machine that produces the platform of the Democrats is exactly the same machine that produces the ethos of the Legacy Media journalists, and so there's a natural alignment there.

Now, and I would say that that machine fundamentally—or the mechanisms of higher education—it's more complex than that, but that's not a bad place to start. So you talked about—there's two issues here, and you talked about a system of perverse incentives that aligns itself on the political side behind the incumbent in some manner—no matter what, right?

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

And so that's worth delving into—like, what is it in the incentive structure that aligns people with a losing candidate at the—? I know it’s close, and that makes things complicated too because people could say, “Well, I can imagine a situation where Biden might win.” So, is it that the race is so close that the incentives are mixed? What do you think exactly?

What I believe is that when human beings become proximate to power, they will place that proximity above their own fellow countrymen and women. And I think that has a lot to do with why there is this kind of absolutism around incumbency.

It's not rational. It's not pragmatic. But once people are close to positions of power, they want to protect it because their careers, their proximity, their futures, are tied up in that person.

That's why we see people sticking around in our Senate, in our Congress, on the Supreme Court, in the White House—in my estimation—for much longer than they should because they are surrounded by sycophants, by people who are far more focused on their own personal futures and preservation of power, influence, and access than they put on the country itself.

And I think that is, again, part of the human condition, and that needs to be at least exposed because that's the only thing, if you ask me, that can explain why we have so many people who are otherwise quite rational and quite pragmatic that somehow dismiss those attributes when it comes to political elections.

And it makes very little sense to me because numbers don't lie. Numbers don't lie. And I would argue that either party that would have broken, if you will, this logjam—either the Republicans with Trump or the Democrats with Biden—if one had turned to a next-generation, able, competent, prepared leader, I think it would have made all the difference in the world.

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

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

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

Okay, so that's a problem. And maybe, maybe it's also the case—and I say this again as an observer of your country from the outside—that you Americans have been split 50/50 on the voting front for multiple elections now at the federal level.

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

Now, okay, so okay, so let's—but can I get back? I want to get—can I, I want to get back to one thing quick before we move on, though, Jordan, because I think it's worth comparing Canada and the US right now.

You know, Canada has two fundamentally—that's two, even though in the parliamentary system, you fundamentally have two major parties. And of course, the CBC is kind of somewhat the standard. You know, in the United States, something changed from the time I was a young man to now at age 55, and I just, before we move on from Legacy Media, you know, there is something changed fundamentally when people recognize how much money there was to be made by separating—by making this a sport—by making it entertainment.

By the fact the fact that we essentially have three cable networks dedicated to politics. You know, even in the sports world, there was only one ESPN. But politics was crafted to become a competitive sport, and it divided this country in such a remarkable fashion.

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

I don't know if it's necessarily true, but it's positioned that way, and media has played a substantial role in having us believe that the other side is dangerous, that we should be afraid, that we have no common ground, that we do not share values anymore.

And that is, to me, the most challenging circumstance we face in overcoming because the fact of the matter is I do not believe that to be true. I do believe what we're being fed—what we're digesting—what we're being offered has so shifted this narrative into a competition rather than celebrating ideas, debate, deliberation, and even conversation like we're having right now.

And I just want to make sure that people understand how media has taken advantage of us. And I do believe, as you say, the Legacy Media, and it has impacted this country in extraordinarily negative fashions.

When I say Legacy, I'm talking about cable. Because I grew up in an era where Walter Cronkite told us the way it was. We had three channels; they all basically said the same thing. And then over the water cooler at the office, people would have their debate and deliberation using the same facts.

Now we can’t even discern what is fact and what is fiction. And I think that is because of cable news has really affected us in a way that I don't believe has done the same in Canada and most countries in the world.

Well, I think there's more difference between the left and the right in Canada than there is in the US. But at the moment, there's less antipathy—still antipathy, although that does exist.

Yeah, I think that we won't go there for a moment; that's a neat conversation. But that's an interesting point.

Yeah, there's a difference between the policy gulf and the respect gulf.

Yeah, yeah. And although we've got plenty of things that are shaking hard in Canada at the moment. So, all right, so now it sounds to me—and I was curious when I asked you to engage in this conversation.

I was curious to see what it was that you've concluded, and I could imagine that going two ways. One was that you were— you found yourself even more concerned with the—what would you say? The lack of flexibility of the Democrat Party and the monolith that you ran into.

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

And so it sounds to me like you've landed on that side of the decision—is that the latter?

Yeah, the latter. And I say that, Jordan, because first of all, I believe it to be true; it is systemic. It's a result of two parties protecting the duopoly that, in my business experience, a duopoly is always what I tried to disrupt.

We did it with Beler Vodka; Stoli and Absolut were the two big brands. We came in, and we did very well. Ben and Jerry's and Haagen-Dazs in ice cream—we came with Tente Gelato.

And now I see Democrats and Republicans in this systemic competition that is kind of a race to the bottom too often. And I think that is why so many in this country find themselves so disenfranchised, so angry, so upset, so unheard, because they are no longer representatives incentivized to attend to those concerns and challenges.

They're incentivized to simply win, win, and beat, and win, and beat. And that's why I have to say I understand the attraction of Donald Trump to so many tens of millions of Americans—someone who has said to them, "I understand you."

By the way, Donald Trump, in my estimation, Jordan, was a man who went through very similar circumstances in New York City—a man who aspired to be part of the social scene in New York, of the philanthropic scene and the clubs, and he was not accepted in Manhattan.

Now forget the fact that he's a wealthy man and a billionaire; people say, "How can he relate to rural Americans who feel unheard?" Well, you know what? I think he caught on to something that is shared by many, regardless of their means. There was a classist element to it that I found quite distasteful.

Now, I come from a rural background; I'm an Albertan in a northern Alberta, and that's like way the hell out in the sticks by anybody's standards. And one of the things I really noticed about the intellectual elite types who were discussing Trump is that they had a contempt for him that was essentially class-based. For one reason or another, he's nouveau riche, right?

And even if he has the money—which you referred to—that doesn't put him in the educated Ivy League upper-class elite club. And that's also a club that many Americans aren't going to aspire to.

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

And so there is a fundamental dimension of alliance there that's quite obvious. I believe Trump is extraordinarily good at that direct communication that makes people feel that they're being listened to.

And he also doesn't hide behind his speechwriters. Like when I watched Trump win the first election—when he became president—I thought people prefer the unscripted, spontaneous lies of Donald Trump to the scripted and nuanced and prepared lies of Hillary Clinton.

That's what it looked like to me, and I thought there was something to that because he had the daring and the audacity to be spontaneous. And there, and people trust that.

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

Those never work as well as the spontaneous YouTube conversations.

Right, no, it's human. People want to see—people want to identify with someone who appears to be human and, to your point, fallible and imperfect and mess up sometimes but, you know, authentic, I think is the word we're looking for.

And yes, politics is so scripted. Everything is talking points and well-lit and perfectly planned. And yes, I understand—that's my message to my fellow Democrats right now: we got to start listening more. We got to start showing up in small towns around America.

We can't talk like professors—we should be listening! We should be not talking as much as listening. You know, there is not so much a massive policy gulf in America. I think that is a construct of media. It is a construct.

If you will, and the gulf is, like in any relationship—whether it's a friendship, a romantic relationship, a professional relationship—people want to be affirmed, and they want to feel heard. And in the absence of that, which is I think the great shortcoming of my party right now—in the absence of that, people will migrate to whomever makes them feel heard.

And they will forego and dismiss a lot of negative characteristics simply because it fulfills that basic human need to be understood, to be not demeaned or disrespected, but to be heard. And that is, to me, the root of politics—it's humanity.

There’s no difference between a competent leader and someone who listens. Those are the same things.

Bingo, yeah. Now, Joe Biden is a man of empathy, but he is not perceived by—I think he's perceived by too many Americans as not someone who understands how they're feeling. Now, Donald Trump has made people feel like he gets it.

Now, but he's not a man of great empathy, having sat across the table with him, obviously. So there are some massive disconnects. In fact, when I say "not a man of great empathy," I mean a man of almost zero empathy. But the power of making people feel like they're heard is the most magnificent tool in any politician's kit, and he's doing it better.

And that's my message to the president and to my fellow Democrats: we have a lot of work to do, and it's the easiest work one can do. Making someone feel heard and appreciated and understood.

Can you contrast the experience you had in relationship to the legacy media and the experience you had at the hands of the—I mean, you were on a number of podcasts that you got some traction online—although very little in the legacy media.

What did you see as the difference? And do you think that your explanation that the legacy media broadcasters that could have focused on your campaign failed to do so because they were concerned about forgoing their access? Do you think that's a sufficient explanation for the degree to which you were locked out of the show?

Yeah, look, I'm a business person, Jordan, and the answer is yes. That is the—there was a disincentive to platform me because the risk and reward, the opportunity cost, if you will, did not work in my favor.

Now, to your question about New Media—that was the most magnificent part of my campaign—was the discovery of so many remarkable platforms. Most importantly, long-form like this. How can you get to know somebody when you're on television for minutes with a journalist who's got to move on to the next segment, you know, within 30 seconds?

And they're there to get a wow moment, right? You can't learn about who somebody is, and if you don't know who someone is, how can you trust them? Why would you vote for them?

The podcasts I did were remarkable. I learned about myself; I opened my heart and mind to issues I hadn't considered. I did some that were centrist; I did some that were more left-leaning, and certainly some that were more right-leaning.

And that universe was eye-opening to me—in the best part of running for office. The most disappointing part was the inability of most of the mainstream media to afford much platform.

Now, News Nation did, because they're the upstart trying to compete with CNN a little bit. But let me just give you an example: I was the only, I'm sorry, every single Republican challenger to Donald Trump was afforded a one-hour town hall on CNN during the GOP primaries—Chris Christie, Ramaswamy, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis.

There may have been another five or six. All of them running in single digits, other than Haley. By the way, I got 20% in New Hampshire—I did better than most people thought. CNN did not give me a town hall, and that would have been the first and only opportunity I would have had to simply show up in front of voters to answer their questions—not the media's questions—and to introduce myself.

The absence of that was very destructive. MSNBC, I'm the ranking member of the Middle East subcommittee on Foreign Affairs during a war between Israel and Hamas. I wasn't extended a single invitation over four months to appear on MSNBC.

The one invitation that came was the morning after the South Carolina primary where Joe Biden was certain to do very well because that is where his last campaign really got its start. So it gives you an example of incentives and disincentives. And Fox News was far more hospitable; just about every show invited me, afforded me some platform—not in a way that was designed, in my estimation, to only try to say nasty things about President Biden; they gave me an opportunity because, of course, for them now, there's nothing to lose.

So, the answer is yes. That's how it works. I think that is the only explanation. It might be different now. Marianne Williamson, she's running, she ran in 2020, she ran in 2024 again, never afforded a platform.

Now, they'll tell you, well, it's because she polls so low. Well, we all know this is a chicken-and-the-egg issue, Jordan. I think it's a responsibility of mainstream media. You're also a much more credible candidate—also a much more point—neither of us, so okay, so but neither of us were afforded that opportunity.

But yes, the New Media afforded great opportunity. But for that, I probably never would have had a chance at all.

Mhm, okay, so let me drill down on something that's a little bit more pushy here, if you don't mind.

Sure. Well, okay, so because I am trying to sort this out. So, I think one of the reasons you're pointing to—one of the reasons why Trump is so attractive.

Another one of the reasons why Trump is so attractive—see, the degree of collusion between the Democrat powers that be in the Legacy Media is stunning to me, and it's not only the Legacy Media, right? It's happening behind the scenes in a terrible way with the large tech companies.

So, for example, my interview with Robert F. Kennedy was pulled by YouTube. Now, I watched the American press flip out about hypothetical Russian collusion in the last election, and YouTube had the goal to deplatform a presidential candidate's one-and-a-half-hour interview, right?

And then YouTube took down three more of my interviews focusing on the issue of trans surgery. And since then, by all appearances, have been throttling my account. And this sort of thing is going on behind the scenes all the time.

And it does seem to me that it's going on behind the scenes a lot more on the Legacy Media Democrat side than it is going on in the Legacy Media Republican side, because the Legacy Media is overwhelmingly left-leaning.

And I don't mean I don't mean classic liberal leaning, and I also don't mean that about the universities, because they were once classical liberal left-leaning rather than conservative or libertarian, yeah—right-wing or conservative.

But so, I also think that part of the reason that the impetus toward Trump is so powerful is because people feel that operation—not only of the monolith, which stopped you from moving forward, but an increasingly secret monolith that operates behind the scenes.

Now, we've seen exactly how that works in recent weeks, too, in a manner that, to me, is shocking beyond comprehension. And that was Google's release of Gemini, which was an especially on the image-generating side, which, do you know that not only did they train their AI system on a corpus of knowledge that leans left substantively, but they retooled the prompts that their users offered?

When they were generating images and other queries—they've technically re-engineered the questions so that the presumptions of the DEI squad would be interjected into the questions themselves, which meant that Google was conspiring not only to mess with the ideas that people had but with the facts themselves that were offered for their apprehension.

And it's the feeling of that sort of thing happening, and I can't help but see that collusion as taking place more at the moment, more on the left side of the argument that is also deadly and dangerous enough so that the probability that the presidency is going to be delivered into the hands of Donald Trump is very, very high.

So, well, that's a rough question, and so I'm curious about what you think.

I don't know if I heard a—I don't know if I heard a question. First of