The Insurgents
Ep. 295: Blue MAGA ft. Mehdi Hasan
(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Hello, Jordan. How's it going? - Hey, Rob. It is going well. Just watching the RNC. I can't get enough of it. - It's just so entertaining and exciting. I know. All the stars are there. It's fantastic. Did you see that rap song? - Yeah. Fogiato Blow. - Yes. You could tell the audience they're really appreciated it. That was the great thing about that. - Well, first thinking back to where the conservative movement was 20 years ago, how they just reviled rap altogether, thinking back to Bill O'Reilly episodes in the mid-2000s where he would just hammer rap as a concept and where they are now where they have this tattooed rapper doing a mega music video is just really stark. But the beat, he just under pressure. - Under pressure. What are you talking about? - No, of course, under pressure. But the ice ice baby was the hip-hop version. That's why I said that. I just wanted to rip off two different songs in one, you know? - Of course. Not a lot of creative energy behind it, but I do hope he gets sued. - That would be very funny. - By both. - Yeah. The both stayed and vanillaized. - I was wondering about this too today, but I think vanilla ice might be a MAGA guy, though, so that might throw some-- - Yeah, he did perform a lot more. - Yeah, vanilla ice has fallen. What is the world coming to? - Yeah, if vanilla ice is insane, who is? - How do people like-- 'cause I know like Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk, they still do some of that hip-hop, bad, pull your pants up, race-baiting kind of rhetoric as well. How do they square that, do you think, with their new embrace and a counter-culture sound, do they just not address that at all, or do they pretend that they like it, or how they've been doing that? - I mean, Ben Shapiro appeared in a music video. There's another magic rapper. Remember that? - I unfortunately did. Yeah. - I don't think they really-- look, this is-- sit down. I don't think they're very principal people. - Oh, wow. - Yeah. - That's an explosive allegation, sir. We're trying to keep it simple on here. - We're trying to wake up what happened over the weekend. We're trying to build bridges and not tear people down like this, so we've got to be careful with getting up the rhetoric, getting too out of control. - Okay, I'm sorry. I'm just getting heated here. I'll turn it down. - Oh, boy. Okay, well, number one. We got something really cool to plug, which is our previous episode that we did. Earlier this week with our friend Dave Anthony, really great conversation with Dave. Very funny. We got Dave all riled up again, talking about all the ongoing, the slow news weekend that we had just experienced, always very enjoyable to talk to Dave. That was a really good one. Really recommend people check that one out by subscribing to the podcast. You can get access to that and all our other bonus content at InsurgencePod.com. Very good episode. Very funny guy. Tremendous. - Yeah, I loved that a lot. It seems like you all did as well. We got a lot of good feedback about that. It's one of the funnier conversations I've had in a while without going too much into, not even really treading into edgelord territory about a relatively sensitive story. But just Dave is so good at helping us find catharsis in the absurdity of our current political climate. He's really good at that, so I hope you all enjoy it. I know the ones who did listen already enjoyed it as well. Our conversation coming up is something I've been looking forward to all day. - Yeah, Mehdi Hassan, founder and editor-in-chief of Zetayo. Zetayo.com, new media outlet. He found that after he left MSNBC, joined us to talk about his recent column in the Guardian. Blue MAGA, we need to talk about the cult-like turn of the Democratic Party. We talked about the current state of the push to have Biden replaced on the ticket. What a Harris presidency might look like. What a Harris candidacy might look like. It was a really good conversation. - It was really good, and yeah, it's really tough. When you see these far-left extremists like Chuck Schumer and Adam Schiff engaging in this kind of crypto-Trump-supporting language, suggesting falsely that Joe Biden is really old and can't seem to really do this anymore. Very shameful stuff, and Mehdi, of course, agrees with that. - No, that was good. The conversations around Biden stepping aside are just so absurd, and I think he did a great job capturing that in his column. What are we doing here? These people are willing, as we get into, are willing to accept blatant conspiracy theories or even make theories of their own to deny what is right in front of them. And as many people have pointed out in their arguments for why he should step aside, I don't necessarily agree with how they're doing it, or even the crux of some of these arguments. They're talking about what a noble and good man he is and how he has done nothing wrong, and they do it out of admiration for his service to the country. I get it. You're trying to gas him up, make it easier for him to accept. I don't think any of these people, especially the people, of course the people you mentioned, but even people in the media, like Jen Psaki, John Favreau, they're not doing it out of malice. The campaign and the Biden team has responded by subtly attacking these same people. That's just so ridiculous to me. Yeah, I mean, it's ridiculous and very Trumpian. You've got Biden just ranting and raving about all his accomplishments, calling into morning Joe and talking about all his enemies and people that are working against him. You know, it's becoming more and more like that kind of Trump behavior every single day, and we touched on this as well, but it really just seems also that Biden, you know, it seems like every single interview and speech that he gives now, there's something else like he seems to be really struggling. Like it seems like he's getting worse by the day at this point. I think that's the interesting thing that we get into as well, whether there's some kind of dam that's broken now that there's even more kind of gloves coming off from these kind of powerful Democrats. You have Biden kind of like giving himself a sort of way out now, suggesting that, you know, well, maybe if a doctor says so, then maybe I could consider it. So it does seem to be like some stuff is happening. And I think one other thing I just wanted to point out that we didn't get to get to as well, which is that, you know, for all these accusations of some kind of conspiracy going on right now being hurled against like people like John Favreau, people in CNN, like all these people that have been asking these questions over the last couple of weeks, the New York Times. Like to me, if there's a conspiracy angle there, the conspiracy is why is it just being talked about now? Like that's where I think people are getting really tripped up. Like they think there's some kind of coordinating conspiracy theory that explains why the media has all of a sudden latched onto this story. When I, what I think this candle is the fact that there seems to have been kind of a conspiracy of silence both in the party in the administration and in the media to not talk about this until it became such a blatant problem that they just couldn't pretend wasn't happening anymore. I think if any of these sort of blue MAGA people or blue anon or, you know, whatever you want to call them, if they want to look for one of those angles, I think that's probably the angle they would be, that would be more fruitful to look into personally. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we don't wanna hold you all up from getting to that Medi interview. It's really great. It really was. It was a pleasure to speak to him and Medi Hasen will be joining the show right after this. [MUSIC] Joining us now is Medi Hasen, Editor-in-Chief of Zatayo, a new media outlet. You can get it at zatayo.com. Medi, thank you so much for joining us. How are you? Thanks for having me, John. But you have a piece out that I think is really interesting in The Guardian earlier this week called Blue MAGA. We need to talk about the cult-like turn of the Democratic Party. Could you explain to listeners what the crux of your argument in that column is and what prompted you to write it? It's very simple, guys. I spent the last nine years tracking MAGA, calling the Donald Trump Republican Party, tracking the way in which it became a cult. I've been calling the Republican Party a cult for many years now. I was calling it a cult when Ted Cruz was bending the knee after Donald Trump said his father murdered JFK and his wife was ugly and Cruz returned to the fold to phone bank for Trump. This is a cult. They just all fall in line out of fear, out of love, whichever it is, doesn't matter. And it's been worrying for me to see in the social media echo chambers that I move in that a lot of liberals, a lot of big D Democrats are morphing into that kind of MAGA-like cult behavior with of all people, Joe Biden. This debate around Joe Biden's health and age has become a kind of weird litmus test for whether you are really loyal to both liberalism or the left or even the anti-Trump cause. Apparently, if you call for Joe Biden's step aside, you want Trump to be president when, of course, it's the exact opposite. So what I document in the piece is the many ways in which I have seen parts of the Democratic Party, but not the party as a whole, but especially the online loyalists kind of morphing into cultists. You can't question the dear leader. You can't. If you leave the cult, you're a traitor. You're not just someone we disagree with. There's no questioning. The lead is always right. The lead is a hero. And I think it's really problematic. And, you know, the moment where I decided I had to write a piece about it was not with all the shit I got, and I get a lot of shit, whatever I've ever claimed to be a Democrat. But when I saw my good friends, Jen Psaki and John Favreau, who are well-known Democrats, one of them was literally a speech right over Barack Obama. The other one was a literally a press secretary for Joe Biden as president. And they were attacked online as kind of traitors disloyal, not kosher Democrats because they did have a discussion on Jen's MSNBC show about should Joe Biden step aside. And I just wanted to write a piece saying, guys, come on, don't do the Nietzsche thing. Don't become the monster you've been fighting. And I worry that social media has exacerbated that. And, yeah, it's just, oh, the other thing that made me go mad is I mentioned the piece and people could read it. The Guardian, all the weird conspiracy theories that people are pushing now. One of the telltale signs of being a MAGA person was you believed crazy conspiracy theories Donald Trump winning the election and all sorts of other nonsense. And now it's, well, Joe Biden didn't really do badly in the CNN debate. It was the lighting. He didn't really sound like a freak on Stephanopoulos. It was his sound that was fixed by ABC. So this kind of conspiracy theory shit really pissed me off. I mean, it's really remarkable. This is something we've talked about a couple of times over the last few weeks. The way that some of the folks that are propagating these sort of ideas about the CNN debate or the sound mixing or cobbling together these vast nefarious networks of George Clooney and all these various figures that are part of this kind of shadowy Hollywood connected media conglomerate world with CNN and all this stuff. It's amazing how willing they are to, you know, retreat into this kind of like conspiratorial thinking rather than just believing the evidence of their eyes and ears, which totally matches up with reporting and writing that's come out about Joe Biden. Like this is not a new situation. This has been talked about now for multiple years since before the previous campaign. And rather than just like making this the relatively simple explanation of Joe Biden is really old. He seems to be having a significantly much more difficult time. He had an absolute meltdown on that debate. It's really the simplest possible explanation. But rather than just, rather than, you know, accept that very easy to understand concept, they have kind of retreated into these completely paranoid ideas. The problem is, of course, Rob, is that when you invest in a political party as some kind of cultural, social or religious identity, it's very hard to have that kind of open and honest conversation. And too many blue folks have now started to treat the Democratic Party in a similar way the Republicans have treated the Trump led Republican Party. And that is this idea that, you know, and this idea of blue no matter who, you know, this phrase that people don't like that I don't really like, but you know, blue MAGA, this idea of this our party right or wrong, Biden right or wrong. And, you know, I was outraged when Joe Biden went on Stephanopoulos and said, "Look, if I gave it my all, that's all that will matter. That should have made people furious." But I actually think all of you believe that. It's all about the effort. It's all about standing with, was it right in with Biden? It's kind of nonsense phrases when you identify with a person, a personality, a party. I don't. I never have. I identify with principles and values. And I think that's the problem when you start identifying with people and parties and treating them as some form of kind of badge of honor or identity. Well, look, we live in a very partisan and polarized era. I don't think that's some shocking revelation. I think multiple political scientists, multiple academic experts have documented the way in which America has become very polarized. So I get it. I get when you're faced with an authoritarian threat, when you're faced with Trump, when you're faced with media bias. And look, I'm not disputing the fact that, well, a lot of these Democrats say about the media obsessing over Biden's age. It's true. But two things can be true at the same time. The media is obsessing over his age, but his age is a problem. And I think we live in a polarized time where people get very defensive. They get in their cocoons, in their tribes. And they are genuinely worried about a Trump threat. The only difference between me and them is I'm willing to look at the objective data and say, "Okay, but the problem is Joe Biden is losing to the person we all are afraid of." On the data point, we see new polling showing that a majority of Democrats want Biden to step aside. And this, this is called. Make news. Right. Well, it's, it's, people will say these polls aren't, aren't correct. There's always that Biden himself has insisted the polls aren't right. But then there's another part of this same blue maga call who will try to spin it. And I hate to use this term. I feel like it's overused and kind of ridiculous. But the what aboutism that we see? Well, polling also shows they want Trump to step aside or Trump also has cognitive issues. My response to that, and I feel like I'm somewhat out in left field when I see these types of responses, is wouldn't you want Trump to stay in if that is a vulnerability, making him a weaker candidate for somebody to step in and replace Biden, hopefully leading to a sound defeat? I mean, it's, it's so obvious. You shouldn't have to stay there, but you are because we live in this weird cult-like moment where people can't see what's staring in front of them. And my friend, John Schwartz, former colleague of mine at the Incent made a very shrewd point a couple of weeks ago. He said, look, if Joe Biden stood aside, such is the age playbook, the Republicans have made age into such a big issue, that the first thing Kamala Harris does when she becomes candidate is to say, wow, you're really old. Why did Republicans have such an old candidate? Because the age immediately, people forget Donald Trump is the second oldest person to run for president. So the moment you take Biden off the field, the age vulnerabilities, all his, the mental health vulnerabilities, all his, everything is his, immediately. It's just a perfect equation. I don't understand how people can't see it. Kamala Harris comes in and goes, you're really old. To say nothing of the fact that like Trump and JD Vance, they represent a pretty unpopular political project, like JD Vance has a lot of really extremist views about women's rights and abortion and all these topics. Like these are not popular views. Like they're really outside the mainstream. Trump could have been Nikki Haley, who is insane on foreign policy. But on domestic policy comes across as falsely, but comes across falsely as a more moderate Republican. He did it. He picked JD Vance, the man who, you know, compares America to the late Roman Republic, pining for a Caesar-style dictator wants to ban abortion, which he's compared to slavery, if he says if he was Mike Pence, he would have overturned the election for Trump. It says, you know, America is run by what single, cat-late, single. Was it single cat-owning ladies or whatever misogynistic, ridiculous slurry put out there? I mean, this guy is an extremist on multiple levels. He's deeply unlikable. And yeah, they are eminently people. This is what doesn't make any sense. Trump is the argument that the, the, whatever we want to call them, the blue maggafokes, the Biden stands are making is, well, hold on, according to the national polls, which, by the way, irrelevant, only the swing state polls matter. But according to the national polls, he's only two points behind. Yeah. He's only two points behind. Imagine what a popular Democratic candidate could do if you put them in. With all his vulnerabilities, issues and debate meltdowns, he's only two points behind. That tells you that Trump is beatable, not that we should stick with Biden because two points behind. Well, you know, he'll get an effort, trophy and medal for coming really close. It's good as job. That's all that will matter as Joe Biden said. I gave it my best. Yeah. Does it, does it feel a little bit like the dam is breaking? Because now you have Schumer today has leaked a bunch of stuff about how he had apparently a very frank phone call with Biden. You have Biden as well. I don't know if you saw that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it leaks to the press and then he says, well, I don't want to talk about the details of this call. Like, you know, well, that's speculation. He could just say, I never said it, but of course he did. Yeah. Yeah. So I was very optimistic for like a week last year. Okay, this is building. This is building. And then the shooting happened and then the Democrats went silent. And then Bob Costa was reporting on Sunday that they think we have to be unified. Biden's is not an issue anymore. And I was like, as usual, the Democrats never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And then no, actually, I think that when they saw his NAACP, we're raising it. We're raising. We're going to limit rent rises to $55 because he misread 5% in the prompter. Or when they saw his interview with, I can't remember the guy from Max, who he said, you know, it just had a complete meltdown. Just all of his, all of his interviews since have been bad. And look, credit to the centrist wing of the Democratic Party, which, and the donor class, who actually did take a break for a couple of days, but have returned to form on Monday. I'm very proud. I never thought I would be riding with Pelosi, Schiff, and the rest of that crew against AOC and Bernie. I've got to tell you. For the first time in my life, I am proudly standing publicly with Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi. Maybe Hakeem Jeffries, we think Hakeem's also in for moving by. And although if you apparently, according to the Biden stands, if you're opposed to Joe Biden, you're a racist. I'm not quite sure how that works. Apparently, Hakeem Jeffries is a racist also now. So look, it's a weird political moment. We're in where I'm rooting for Nancy Pelosi over AOC. Never done that in my life before, but I am right now. Does that strike you as a, as a miscalculation, you think, from the progressive wing to try and throw Biden a lifeline like this? Yeah, I think it's a, there's two issues. Number one, I understood why they did it two weeks ago, which is why do we need to be the ones calling for him to go? If we recall for him to go, it's a left thing. So we'll stay out of it and let these centrists do their thing, right? Let Jason Crow and Mike Levin, all these other guys, let them do what they're doing. And I got that. There's a logic to that, but we are so not two weeks ago, right? We are now in a very different place. When Adam Schiff comes out, you have cover to come out and say your thing. And I also think history will judge you, right, when, when, if Biden, God forbid, goes down to a landslide Reagan-style defeat, it will be the left. I only, the left will get blamed by the centrists who said, well, they were, with Biden. And number two, I think there's also just a fundamental problem with the way that Bernie more than AOC, but in general, some of the squad see economic and material issues. I don't know if you've seen some of the rhetoric coming forward, which is, well, look at the policy platform. We're getting what we want from him. He's doing the rent cap and all this stuff. A hundred days are going to be amazing. And it's like, guys, people don't vote on economic issues. I'm sorry to say this. I'm someone who shares the squad's policy platform. I'm someone who shares Bernie Sanders' view of the world in many ways. But I've never agreed with this idea that if you just give people more populist economic policies, they'll vote Democrat. I think we've established over the last eight years, people do not vote on policy. They vote on batshit identity stuff. Yeah. The policy strategy, similar to letting moderates take the flag at the onset, I understand why they're doing this. They think this is an opportunity for them to get leverage. And that's rare. And blame if things go wrong. Of course. Yeah. And I think what they are missing is a collective recognition among them that of course, these aren't going to happen. You're not going to even get the moderates in your own party to support them. They're beholden to corporations who would do anything to kill them. And also it only works if you win. And even just to counter your comments saying progressive policy platforms and populist policy positions aren't what wins elections. Let's say theoretically, hypothetically in this situation, they do. You need a candidate who can sell them and even right out of the gate with the rent control. Biden stumbles. He can't even he can't even sell the first policy plan. So how do you expect the rest of the campaign to go? And to do any of those policies, you have to get rid of the filibuster, which he has really never put his kind of heart into. We're now hearing leaks that he might come out for Supreme Court reform, which some of you have been calling for for years. And we were shot down by Biden. People saying it's unrealistic. It's not important. People don't care. Turns out actually when you allow the president to send in CL team six to kill his opponents and say it's an official act, suddenly the Supreme Court is actually quite important. So look, there's a lot of stuff. My position is I support progressive policies. I support economic popular. I'm not saying they don't have a role. Of course, they have a huge role. But as you say, Jordan, prosecuting the case is much more important than what the case is. There's a reason I came out in the Guardian couple of weeks ago for Kamala Harris, despite being one of Kamala Harris's biggest critics back in 2020, is because whatever I think of her politics, I know that she can prosecute an argument. I've seen her do it. She has the ability. She's done it in the Senate. She did it in California. She clearly can do it. So for me, it was like, do I know what her position on Medicare for all? It was a horrible position in 2020. She went around the houses and ditched it when it wasn't political viable. But I do know that on a debate stage, she can kick Donald Trump's ass. I think the optics there are just too good to pass up. Somebody freed it recently. On the one hand, you put Kamala up and Republicans go batshit racist against her. On the other hand, going batshit racist against her might remind all the swing voters that they're a bunch of white supremacists. Yeah, absolutely. And I think as you both touched on earlier, Vance is an extremist on abortion. CNN published audio today of him explicitly saying he supports a nationwide abortion ban. By the way, Jordan, his more extremist position on abortion than even the ban, because people argue about bans for bans against bans. What month? Blah, blah, blah. He wants to allow police. And I think this was a leather story from David Surodonko. He wants to allow police access to people's private medical records. So in red states, they can follow women as they go into blue states to get an abortion and arrest them. That is insane. That's insane. Yeah. I've talked about it before in the show. My fiance lived in Texas right after SB eight had to get an abortion and there was uncertainty. Even then before Roe was overturned about when she came to D.C., what that would look like if there was anybody that was going to try to stop her or punish her. It's a very scary situation. And he is somebody who openly supports more punitive measures for people in the situations. It's horrifying. I also want to touch on the donor part two because you mentioned that it is a weird irony that we are looking to donors to be our saving grace. It's so strange. That was over the squad. That's me now. Right. The elites. We're lining up with the elites. Yeah. It's so great to line up with the elites. Elites is good for people who can read polls. Yeah. We didn't get them to invest in this podcast. That'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not good. So Jeffrey Katzenberg is quoted in semaphore or is it's reported in semaphore that he told Biden and his campaign directly, the money's drying up. Carville said the donors are in revolt. And this freeze on donations is extending beyond just the Biden campaign. It's extending to democratic party infrastructure that supports down ballot races, supporting super PACs. Could you talk about the consequences? If they don't move on this, just the consequences across the board. If he stays in the race, loses and what that would look like as all those other dominoes fall. So it's a very important question. This is not just about the presidency, right? This is about not just Donald Trump winning bad and apocalyptic as that is. But as Donald Trump winning and having a Republican Senate and having a Republican House and having a Supreme Court on which he appointed three of the nine justices, right? That is what will, as what we are potentially witnessing, when in fact we were told the Democrats had a very good chance of winning the House. And not a bad, not an impossible chance of holding on to the Senate. That's all gone if Joe Biden takes a beating because we know in this country now, people don't split votes anymore. It's pretty much down the line, right? It's a very partisan country. So if the president goes down, that pulls the entire party down. I think a moment, a poll that really shifted a lot of people's minds was about 24 hours ago, the poll that came out showing that in a bunch of swing states, the Democratic Senate candidate is well ahead of their Republican rival, but Biden is behind Trump in all those states, which just destroys the argument, number one, that these polls are all fake polls because they're showing Democrats in the lead, they're not some biased polls. But number two, this idea that, well, it's Biden or nothing, no one else can win. Well, no, actually other people can win. Tammy Baldwin can win in Wisconsin. Breaking Bob Casey, who is one of the most charismatic people I've ever seen in my life, has a near double digit lead in Pennsylvania while Biden is trailing, right? So this is the issue. If Democrats are leading in certain states when their name is not Joe Biden, then why not put someone at the top of the ticket who's a Democrat, but not called Joe Biden? I think that's important to recognize as an argument for replacing Biden, but separately, it is going to be a disaster down ballot. If the money freezes up, if voters stay at home, if voters switch to the Republicans because they think Biden is whatever. Yeah, that's why I think people are coming out. They're not coming out because they're selfless individuals or because they suddenly realize what the polling data was. The people who are coming out realize that they're going to get hurt too. I know one question that's on my mind right now and a lot of other people's minds as well, though, is about the administration's policy on Israel and Gaza as well. And that's one thing that I'm kind of curious about what a possible replacement of Biden with Kamala might mean. I know Kamala Harris, when she's talked about this recently, at least has done so with a little bit more empathy and maybe a little more nuance than Joe's kind of full fledged support for all the criminality and horror that we've been seeing over the last 10 months, but I guess I'm kind of wondering about what that would look like and whether it would still be the same kind of like Anthony Blinken led Israel policy under President Harris, which would maybe be a little bit different rhetorically, but might not be all that much different materially. What do you think the chances are? It's a great question. And when I did Podsave America recently, we talked about it was a day after the debate in Boston. We did a live show and we went through the arguments for and against replacing Biden, open convention. And I brought up the Gaza issue because we don't, you know, people like to talk about the Biden stuff in a vacuum as if it's just a debate. Even before the debate, he was taking a beating because of Gaza, right? We know in places like Michigan and Georgia, Arab American voters, black American voters, young voters, progressives are saying, we're not voting for Biden. There's no way we're voting for the genocide, Joe guy. But there was already an issue where replacing him would help, you know, scorched the bleeding as it were. So yes, when I wrote my piece in the Guardian making the case for Kamala Harris, I did bring up Gaza and say even on Gaza, there's a reason to get rid of Joe and bring in Kamala because look, she's not Bernie Sanders on Israel, Palestine. She's part of this administration. She owns the genocide as much as anyone else. But rhetorically, as you say, she's been much better than Biden. I mean, he just did an interview yesterday where he said, no one's been better than Palestine. That's insane. Most tone deaf statement you can make at this moment in time to really, you know, repel people who are already repelled by you. I don't think Kamala Harris would say stuff like that. I do think she would project a bit more empathy. She is a woman of color. Her mother is Indian background. People I know in the administration who have seen her up close on this issue say she is better than Biden. And the reality is we know that when she came out earlier for a ceasefire earlier than Biden did, she was slapped down by the administration. She had to come out and say, no, there's no daylight between me and the president. Even though there was, I don't think she goes around saying, I'm a Zionist to my core in the same way that Joe Biden does. And don't forget, just the mere act of Biden stepping aside at a new person coming in means that new person has a honeymoon and has an opportunity to reset things. People just expect that, right? There's just an automatic way for a new president to say, all right, here's what I think. And I think the debates moved on right over nine months. Biden now gives lip service to ceasefire, but it's lip service. You could have a new president who comes in and says, you know, I'm actually serious about a ceasefire. And I actually really want to have a tough conversation with Netanyahu. Now, Harris would be smart if she said that. Now, you could argue who cares what she says if she carries on selling 500 pound bombs, 2000 pound bombs. What's the difference? I agree. But for just from a purely electoral perspective, she can definitely stem the bleeding on Gaza in the way that Joe Biden can. Joe Biden has become a lightning role. When I talk to Arab American friends of mine in Dearborn Michigan, they say we will never vote for Joe Biden. No matter what happens. And they don't say Democrats. They say Joe Biden, right? There's a real anger against Biden personally for many things he said over the last nine months from the headed babies to, I don't trust the Palestinian death toll to many things. And I think actually it has become about Biden in a way where anybody but Biden, even someone who has similar policies would get a better hearing. If they do, let's say he does step aside, there's reports tonight that he's asking senior advisors if Kamala Harris could win, if he does step aside. So people are perceiving that to be a new openness. Maybe this is just COVID. COVID Jordan. Yeah. Now it's a moment to go, I think I'm going to step aside, but anyway, right, this would be a good opportunity. Yeah. Say I got it. It's not aside. But I got it. Yeah. Exactly. It's a perfect transition. What do you think they would look for in a vice presidential pick? Do you have anybody that comes to mind somebody that would help them? So it's a good question you asked. By the way, you know, I interviewed Rob Dilleen in a comedian the other day in England for my podcast and he made the point like Joe Bunchen just step aside from the race. He should stand out as president. And a few people have made this argument. Michael Moore has made this argument as well. He did that on my show the other day saying, look, if you're not fit enough to run a campaign, you're not fit enough to govern, step aside. But B, would also give Kamala Harris an incumbency bump, right? She would be coming in not as a vice president running for the top job. She would already already have the top job, have the Oval Office, have the podium, have Air Force One, which would help her. The problem with that, of course, is the Republicans control the House and they would never confirm a vice president. The United States would just have a president, a black woman at a time of assassination attempts with no vice president and Speaker Mike Johnson in line for the presidency. So that's a pragmatic reason not to have her become president right now. But in terms of actually who would be her running mate where she to take over, I mean, this is one of the great myths of American politics has been well, the Democratic bench is not deep enough. The Democratic bench is pretty impressive by kind of centrist political standards, not my cup of tea in terms of the politics, but I can see a bunch of different people making sense. I mean, the funny thing is Trump picked Vance from Ohio, which is his state. There's no electoral value to Vance, it's a very strange pick in many ways. And yeah, she could pick Josh Shapiro and not Pennsylvania and deal with the whole bullshit argument that Democrats are anti-Semitic. She could pick Andy Beshear, a guy who's won Mitch McConnell state twice. There's a bunch of white men who would do a great job as vice president. Yeah, Shapiro keeps coming to mind, especially with his polling, Biden's polling in Pennsylvania and that state being so essential, however you think of your map. He's super eloquent, he's got good politics, but he's not as left as me or you. So that's good for the establishment media in Cohen Dona class. And he's a Jewish Pennsylvanian, that's the two groups that are pretty good for the Democrats right now. Yeah, he's won that state statewide a couple of times now. He would be- I read the MAGA guy, right? He beat the ultimate MAGA guy, Doug Mastriano. And yeah, I just think there's him, we would go down there, this does a lot of different people she could pick. I don't think it's hard. I also don't think it matters, right? The vice presidential pick is very not consequential when it comes to election- Sure. But in a close race, like this, sure. If you can get Michigan or Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, then great. Medi, I want to thank you so much for joining us. Where can people check out Zatayo and could you tell listeners what they can expect to find there? Thanks so much for having me guys. As Zatayo is at zatayo.com, Z-E-T-E-O, it's the ancient Greek word for seeking out, looking for knowledge. It's the media company I set up after I left MSNBC earlier this year. I wanted to create a media platform where there isn't any bullshit where we don't hide behind euphemisms like it's racially coded. We say racist. We say fascist. We say there's a genocide in Gaza. It's not just me. It's a bunch of great contributors from Naomi Klein to Greta Thunberg to Bassam Youssef to Owen Jones to Fatima Bluto to John Harwood. We've got a range of voices who are doing video essays, podcasts, articles. So yeah, please do check us out at zatayo.com. We need your support. Thank you so much for joining us. [BLANK_AUDIO]