3/11/25: Trump Orders Bannon Stand Down On Musk, Elon Blames Ukraine For Cyber Attack, Trump Tries To Rescue Tesla, Brian Tyler Cohen Sounds Off On Dem Failures
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full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. Let's get over to Elon Musk and the fight right now with Steve Bannon. This is just absolutely fascinating in terms of who's winning and some of the other behind-the-scenes fights that are happening right now. Let's put this up there on the screen. A

Trump is currently playing MAGA Civil War mediator between Steve Bannon and Elon Musk and has asked Bannon last month that he wants him to sit down with Elon and to hash out their differences. He also asked him to stop a series of blistering attacks on the senior White House advisor and the Tesla CEO.

Now, no meeting has actually happened yet, and it's, quote, not clear if one actually will. And all of this is because Musk – he has called Musk, for example, a parasitic illegal immigrant, a truly evil person. He's called him out also in terms of –

Medicaid cuts, entitlements, the vision on Doge, just generally whether the, quote, oligarchs in them should be in power. Recently, actually, he replied to a tweet. This was just last month. Ian Miles Chong tweeted, Steve Bannon is just mad Elon's getting all the attention for doing a damn good job with USAID. Let Hegseth manage the DOD. Elon replied, Bannon is a great talker but not a great doer. What did he get done this week? Nothing. Okay.

Sending your five bullets, Steve Bannon. Yeah, and so Steve Bannon even told the New York Times, quote, he's still not a populist nationalist. He's a globalist. And, quote, he and I have a chasm that is probably insurmountable. Thought it was absolutely interesting because at the very same time that this is all playing out, we're getting a lot of indications of like,

Who's winning this? You're talking in your monologue, Crystal, about Elon basically getting huge support from the president of the United States saying that he's going to go out and buy a Tesla today to prop up the stock after it lost like 15% of its value just yesterday. I think it's erased all of its gains from the day that Trump got himself elected.

Similarly, right now inside of Doge, there is a fear that public backlash and the PR crisis basically that they find themselves in is that they're, quote, searching for wins. So this profile into them is absolutely fascinating. Let's put this on the screen.

So there is a feeling, according to this insider account from Doge, is that, quote,

leaning into storytelling and showing the wins and not having the story told for them. They have had, obviously, issues navigating this, just with the Doge account, claims of things that were cut, having to bring people back, a lot of it having to just do with the chaotic nature of Elon himself. But more broadly, I just thought it was interesting because they are starting to feel pressure, at least from the outside and possibly from the inside as well. Elon did an interview yesterday in the White House

where he said he would stay on with Doge for at least another year, or he said he wants to. And he said, "I would like to cut up a trillion if we're not stopped." Thought it was an interesting line for him to throw out there. So maybe he's feeling pressure as well. - Yeah, very interesting. And those quotes that the Washington Post got, they actually got leaked audio.

So it's not like, you know, someone in the room claimed blah, blah, blah. They actually, you know, they had the transcript. They were able to listen to the audio to get quotes like, I need wins to defend and to really get a sense of the fact that there is a bit of an internal freak out at Doge because they realized that the, you know, they're looking at the polls. They see that people are moving on from the general support from of like, oh, yes, let's trim the government. Let's trim the fat. Let's root out the waste for unabused.

to their more specific experience with the federal government and also just the chaos of this and the lies that they've gotten caught in and all of those sorts of things. There's also some interesting notes in this article as well about how some of the things that they've been doing have been incredibly counterproductive. So, you know, before Elon Musk and Doge came in, in fact, they took over this digital service agency that did some of the things that Musk

claims to want to do about making government technology, quote unquote, more efficient. And so one of the things they say here is Musk has repeatedly criticized Social Security, one of the government's most popular programs. Doge staffers have been working inside the agency. But an effort to give the Social Security website and services a user-friendly digital overhaul was already underway at the U.S. Digital Service until...

Musk pushed out the team working on it. So they actually were already working on a thing that he would want them to work on. And then those people were pushed out. And so now they're starting from scratch. I mean, it just, again, shows like the nature of just coming in thinking, you know, everything. And also, you know, the focus from Elon has been much more on this sort of grandstanding and throwing his weight around and really crippling agencies that

his companies directly interact with, then I think a focus on these, how do we make things actually more efficient? How do we make the tech profile of the federal government, which Lord knows it needs an upgrade, no doubt about that, that they could actually deliver on that. One of the other things that I thought was interesting here is, remember how originally they had been attacking the digital e-file system that goes around TurboTax so that people can directly file their taxes with

the government, which saves them money. I mean, the TurboTax is basically like a cartel that was forcing you to use their product. And so they had developed this way to file directly with the government and avoid TurboTax and saves you money, etc.,

They initially were attacking that. Now they're saying, you know what, maybe actually because this is a popular program, a good thing, maybe we should expand that so that people have some personal sense of like, okay, I can see how this is benefiting me versus right now everybody's just seeing job loss and really callous jobs.

Mass job loss, national parks getting screwed over, the FAA being attacked, veterans being fired, Social Security under assault, et cetera. So, yeah, it was kind of interesting that they realized that they have a bit of a PR problem. Just to go back quickly to the Elon Bannon thing, I mean, I do think that this—

relationship is really important to watch and because they represent, you know, the sort of like two distilled ideologies that are in competition right now in the Trump administration. And, you know, thus far to your point, Sagar, like Elon's ideology has obviously been winning out.

And there's no guarantees that that continues to be the case, but that is certainly the case today. I did notice, Emily, I recommend I listen to Bannon on Tim Dillon Show. I don't know if you've listened to that. I haven't listened to the full one. I saw a clip. I listened to it, and I did note that he, it's not that he wasn't critical at all of Elon, but he definitely dialed back.

his criticism and it was before we got this news that Trump had had a talk and like oh you guys need to sit down and work it out so I felt like some message had already been sent of like okay this is you know you gotta stop calling him a parasitic illegal immigrant these sorts of things maybe he's right you know and also he called South Africans the most white South Africans the most racist people on the planet as well which I also enjoyed

Yeah, it was definitely amusing. All right, let's get to the next one. This was just an interesting thing that happened yesterday and potentially a consequence of Elon now being a senior government official. He gave an interview to Fox Business' Larry Kudlow shortly after a huge outage at Twitter and or X.com.

Basically all day, the site was rendered unusable for several hours, especially during the workday. Well, here is Elon saying that it was a massive cyber attack and that it originated in Ukraine. Let's take a listen. - There was a cyber attack on X today, which shut it down and may have been foreign sourced. It's a big story. You wanna give us a moment on that?

Well, we're not sure exactly what happened, but there was a massive cyber attack to try to bring down the X system with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area.

IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area. That's what he has to say. Let's put this up there on the screen. What he said right prior to that, he said there is still a massive cyber attack against X. We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large coordinated group and or a country is involved. Tracing.com.

dot, dot, then blaming Ukraine there shortly afterwards. Uh, we haven't had Cloudflare or anybody else release any data, um, on the attack and they haven't done that as well, but you know, it genuinely could be a consequence of, don't forget, Elon also uses his Twitter account often to basically disagree with the policy of the Ukrainian government. Uh, he recently attacked Senator Mark Kelly for visiting Ukraine, um,

He has been talking about Ukraine corruption and or, you know, pushing for a peace deal now for quite some time. He got into a huge spat with the Polish foreign minister over Starlink and the payment for that system that's being used in Ukraine right now. So he's no great friend to Ukraine. I mean, I'm

I think that's fine. But also, don't forget, their own cyber unit inside of their agency is trained by the best and brightest of the United States of America. So I wouldn't put it past them necessarily, although we don't yet have any proof. It would make sense. I mean, it could also be a series of other foreign actors and or even criminals, right? Because if you want, this is what Russia and China do very often.

They won't have their direct intelligence agents actually do the hacking. They'll outsource it to some criminal element, which will also get a financial benefit for doing so and or state sponsorship or at the very least looking the other way. So we don't know. Ukraine has always been a nexus for cybercrime for the last 25 years. So it wouldn't also be – it's not out of the question that it's also a nongovernmental actor, although I don't think so.

If it is Ukraine. I don't know. It could also be bad service. Who knows? That's the problem with Elon. We have no idea. True. That is all totally accurate. Ukraine just launched a mass drone strike on Moscow, actually. Yeah, I saw that. Actually, my friend Lex Friedman was in Moscow. Oh, really? Yeah, I tweeted about it. He's like apparently narrowly missed.

the drone attack that happened to him. So yeah, Ukraine, you know, maybe not the smartest move to try nearly assassinate one of the most famous podcasters in the United States. And, you know, they also happened to do that, Crystal. I'm not sure if you saw right before they walked into a peace meeting with the Russians. Well, I think that was the point. I don't think it's very smart. It was to demonstrate, you know, we can hit you where it hurts, but...

My point is only like obviously the Ukrainians are willing to do wild shit, but also I don't trust Elon Musk whatsoever. So who knows? I feel like this is very I don't know. It's a very it is a very convenient explanation for Twitter outage yesterday because it aligns with Elon's foreign, you know, foreign policy views. And it lets Twitter off the hook for any potential engineering or technical failure. So maybe. But also, I don't know.

I don't know. I would need to see more proof and evidence before I came to any conclusions about any of this. I saw there was some hacking collective that claimed to be like non-political, just sort of like flexing their muscle that took credit for it, but I have no idea if there's any veracity about either. That's another thing. Look, there's a lot of liberals in the world,

especially also in Europe. There's a lot of cyber criminals there too. A lot of them are very pro-Ukraine. They could have hacked them as well. I mean, so who knows? Maybe they're even pro-Ukraine. Well, and it doesn't have to be about Ukraine. I mean, Elon's got a lot of enemies around the world. I mean, he's messed in politics in multiple countries all over the place. His approval rating is in the toilet basically everywhere. I'm about to cover in my monologue having massive impact on Tesla in particular where sales are falling off a cliff and where the stock price has just been absolutely plummeting. So, you know, if someone was trying to

cause damage to him, his reputation, his company, just cause trouble or whatever. There are many potential suspects who would want to take aim at Elon Musk, but certainly the Ukrainian government or aligned forces is one of those. Absolutely. Absolutely right.

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Hi, I'm Matt. And I'm Leah, and we're from the Grown Up Stuff podcast. And just in time for tax season, on this week's episode, we're chatting with CPA Lisa Green-Lewis about how small businesses can tackle their taxes using TurboTax Business.

A Forbes study mentioned that a whopping 93% of small businesses overpay their taxes. And 17% of Gen Zers believed that you could write off any expense as a business expense. So it's really important to do your taxes right. Listen to Grown Up Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

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Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, yesterday the entire stock market tanked after Trump refused yet again to rule out plunging the country into recession. Among the harder hit stocks in the general sell-off was Tesla, which has increasingly struggled with plummeting sales since Elon made himself king here in the US, and jumped into politics on behalf of right-wing candidates and causes in countries around the world.

Tesla sales have fallen off so hard that Volkswagen has actually surpassed Tesla in EV sales outside of China. I was shocked by that. European sales for Tesla, they have dropped by nearly half.

The company did, though, get a boost from the President of the United States, who announced he's going to buy a Tesla to support the great Elon. In a post, he said, in part, the radical left lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the world's great automakers, and Elon's baby, in order to attack and do harm to Elon and everything he stands for. In any event, I'm going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American.

I guess Elon is feeling sensitive enough about Tesla to ask for a presidential favor for his baby. Now, amidst all this turmoil, there is a brewing possible scandal that has so far gotten little attention, but it could become a little more significant. It could also be a potential indicator of just how desperate the floundering company has become as pressures from a toxic leader, a stale product line, and increased competition mount. Tesla is now being investigated for possible government fraud.

Not of our government, but of Canada. An irony, to say the least, at a moment when Elon is posturing like the ultimate warrior against government waste, fraud, and abuse. Lest you think this is some sort of politically motivated witch hunt because of Elon's position in an administration currently waging economic war on Canada,

Take a listen to the facts from this local Canadian news report. A suspicious spike in Tesla sales has experts in the industry scratching their heads. It started with a deadline in January for Ottawa's rebate program on electric vehicles that allegedly prompted a mad rush to buy EVs. CTV's Adrian Gobriel has been crunching the numbers. And Adrian, do they add up?

Sandy, a spike in purchases was to be expected, though the reported sale of 8,600 Teslas, equaling $43 million in rebates at four Canadian Tesla locations, has sparked plenty of questions.

In the west end of Toronto, this one Tesla location alone reported selling more than 1,200 vehicles on January 11th, totaling more than $4 million in rebates. So we paid them a visit to try and get some clarity on the staggering number of sales. How are you? Good, how are you? Good, good. My name's Adrian Goldrill. I'm a journalist with CTV News. There was a large increase in the number of sales processed through the EV rebate program.

Just trying to get an understanding of perhaps what maybe some of the reasons were behind that. Did that take place? Or is that a backlog of paperwork going through? You can't share any comments? Is there any manager you think that might be able to? I have the manager. Our multiple emails to Tesla's headquarters have been met.

with silence. It defies logic that these corporate stores of Tesla and Tesla shareholders and Elon Musk would be able to sell 8,600 vehicles in a single weekend. There's something highly unusual about this. So to recap, Canada has been running an EV rebate program, which has been quite popular and quite successful. The way the program works is that when a customer purchases

purchases an EV, the cost of the rebate is originally fronted by the dealership. Then the dealer receives reimbursement from the government. Now in early January, the government announced the fund was running low on money and might be suspended sometime in the next few weeks. And that is when four Tesla dealerships pulled off the biggest miracle since fish and loaves, somehow selling 8,600

600 cars in just three days. One dealership claims to have sold 4,000 Teslas over this period. Now that is quite a jump from the few dozen or so cars that they had previously been moving per day. I really got to see those morning sales meetings, I guess. I mean, are they hypnotizing the customers? Are they handing out tariff exemptions? Did they switch the complimentary coffee for pre-workout and crack?

According to CarScoops and Basic Math, this level of sales would have required each of these four Tesla stores to sell 30 cars per hour, 24 hours per day, for three straight days. Now, if you scale the time back to the actual hours when the dealerships were even open, you would have more than one car sold every minute at each of these dealers across that three-day period. Insane. As one government official told the Toronto Star, quote, Tesla did not sell those cars that weekend.

Now, Tesla went on to claim $43 million in rebates, sucking up about half the remaining balance in the rebate fund, leaving other EV dealers holding the bag after they sold vehicles with the rebate priced in, expecting to get a refund from the government. According to the Canadian Auto Dealers Association, independent dealers are out of pocket about $10 million after Tesla's car rebate application bomb.

Now, perhaps people just saw the rebate was ending and decided in spectacular numbers to buy a Tesla before that perk went away. Cutting against that notion, however, is that like the rest of the world, Canadian Tesla sales have been absolutely tanking, declining some 70% month over month.

I think a more plausible explanation is that Tesla had sold a bunch of cars with the rebate over a number of months, never filed those applications with the government. But that explanation, too, has some holes. Why the mass surge at just these few dealerships?

Also, according to the Toronto Star, the program does require that rebate applications be filed before a car is delivered. Transport Canada did admit, however, that this policy was not being fully enforced, so we'll see what the government investigation turns up ultimately. Now, whether Tesla gamed the system fair and square, fudged the rules, or outright defrauded it, it's one more reason Canadians are certainly pissed at Musk and Tesla at a time when both the man and the company are facing massive global backlash.

Here in the U.S., Tesla has attracted protests and property damage, charging stations have been set on fire, cars have been tagged with stickers of Elon's Sig Heil, and protests have targeted Tesla dealerships across the country. For Elon personally, there is obviously a lot at stake. It's believed that Tesla makes up about 1,300

third of Elon's net worth. And it's not like all his other business ventures are going particularly smoothly at this point. Italians are pissed at Elon for meddling in their politics. They're threatening to scuttle a significant Starlink contract to the tune of $1.5 billion. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is cutting ties with Musk and Starlink after Elon amplified a tweet suggesting that he was tied to drug cartels.

Back in Canada, Ontario premier Doug Ford permanently canceled a $100 million Starlink contract in response to Trump's trade war. And Elon's last two rocket launches both blew up spectacularly, causing commercial flight diversions and airport closures in Florida.

Me personally, I wouldn't worry too much about Elon's bank account since as of today, he effectively has the entire U.S. Treasury backstopping his net worth. And this is exactly the bet that he has placed. I suspect he has to know that going full right wing would hurt Tesla, would endanger contracts for Starlink and other of his companies.

But the short-term loss to him is well worth it if he's able to pull off his coup and continue his power grab. He'll have access to all of our data to feed into his AI along with whatever other government favors he needs to help him prevail in the AI arms race.

He'll be able to plow endless taxpayer resources into SpaceX to further enrich himself and achieve his big goal of making it to Mars. As weird and sci-fi as it sounds, Mars is really kind of the ultimate dictator play here from Elon because if he makes it to Mars, his rule there would be fully unchallenged and he could achieve his dream of a fully privatized society run at his personal whim.

No more Canadian transportation agencies to shake their fist at him for EV rebates. No more Debbie Downer regulators to complain about him turning the Gulf of Mexico into the Gulf of SpaceX debris. No more pesky customers with their choices to buy other vehicles.

But even if you think the Mars idea is preposterous, which I do for the record, winning the AI race alone would make Musk an unstoppably powerful force. The idea of ketamine-addled, megalomaniac Elon Musk having control over the first earthly intelligence to surpass our own is truly terrifying. And there is a decent chance that that is exactly where we are headed. So as much as I'd like to think

that Canada investigating Tesla and the stock dropping, the Starlink contracts getting canceled would matter to him. I just don't actually think that's really how he ticks. He's all in. Massive gambles. Everything on the line. That's what he's all about. Right now, he is risking it all for world domination. Who am I to say that that bet won't pay off? And, Sagar, I'm curious for your view of whether... And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com.

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A Forbes study mentioned that a whopping 93% of small businesses overpay their taxes. And 17% of Gen Zers believed that you could write off any expense as a business expense. So it's really important to do your taxes right. Listen to Grown Up Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

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Joining us now is Brian Tyler Cohen. He's a YouTuber. He's had quite a bit of success recently, and we're very happy to have him here on the show. It's good to see you, Brian. Thanks for joining us. Good seeing you, too. Thanks for having me. Brian, I am absolutely fascinated by the rise of your channel and a few others. Not that you haven't been doing well in the past, but I think even you will say it's just been an absolute deluge and a bonanza.

very recently. And I've been curious, you know, why you think that you've had quite a bit of success as mainstream channels like CNN or MSNBC have had a decline in ratings. What do you think about your rise, about Midas Touch and others really blowing past many of these traditional media companies recently?

I think it's a testament to how kind of fed up most of this country is with the lack of any stable or long-term, I don't know, like value set from legacy media. I mean, we've seen, depending on who comes in to helm any of these networks,

Suddenly their strategies change on a dime and we see them either tilt right, tilt left, go full board to the center. But there isn't any longstanding guiding principles at these networks. And I think it kind of betrays that what they stand for is whatever they're told that they stand for. And there's a lot of false equivalencies. There's a lot of both sides-ism. And back in the day when we didn't have any other alternative, that was, I mean –

that's all we've got, right? But I think now in an era where people can seek out content that's actually guided by some degree of longstanding principle, you guys are a testament to exactly that. I think people recognize that we don't have to just settle for media that decides what it is based on who becomes the new president or CEO that week. Yeah. I

I think that one of the things that has been really different with Trump 2.0 among the Democratic base is their orientation both towards like MSNBC and CNN and also towards Democratic politicians themselves. I mean, back in 2016, you know, it was nightly appointment viewing to watch Rachel Maddow. Like MSNBC was really sort of like the beating core of heart of the resistance movement.

you know, Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff were leading the charge. There was a sense like, OK, these guys are our guys. They're fighting for us. They're doing everything they possibly can. And we're all this sort of like unified army going to war against what we see happening here. And this time, you know, I mean, you could tell it in the race. You could also tell it in the poll numbers about how Democratic voters are incredibly disenchanted with Democratic leadership in a way that certainly reminds me of the way Republicans felt about

Republican leadership during the Tea Party era. Do you think that that's part of what's going on here? And to what do you attribute that level of discontent?

I think that there's two factions right now within the Democratic Party. I think that there is a faction that recognizes, and I would include myself in this faction, recognizes that we desperately need to fight against what we're seeing right now. And then there's another that I think is more focused on risk aversion and

And so it's kind of tearing the party in two sides because you've got people who say – it's like the moderate versus progressive wings, right? And so you have people who say, OK, we need to tack to the left and show some fight and push back against the worst excesses of this administration. And then you see the more moderate members of the party or of the wing who are saying like –

It was the tacking left that got us into this position in the first place, and clearly America is having a rightward shift. And so I think that there's just some inherent conflict there. And as a result of that, the party seems rudderless. The networks that speak to Democrats kind of seem rudderless. And there's just this contradictory idea of where to go next. Yeah.

- Yeah, Brian, one of the reasons I really wanted to talk to you is I really do think you guys, Midas Touch and others are like the beating heart of like the Democratic Party right now for the future. And the reason I'm curious just as an outside observer is how do you feel about leadership, for example? Like we have this, we can put on the screen, the Axios Tearsheet guys, Democrats privately confronting their Trump speech disruptors and others. They're very focused on decorum, they're more risk averse.

as you said. So how is someone like you, a really rising influencer, I think, in the Democratic Party with the younger Democratic base, how are you feeling about Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and the tack that they've decided to take in the Trump administration now?

Well, I think what we need to do is figure out how to really optimize in this media environment. And that's something that we haven't been able to do before. I actually went to D.C. this past week and I spoke to a lot of members of the Democratic caucus in the House and the Senate yesterday.

And it was my effort really to try and convince them and persuade them about the importance of kind of embracing social media, recognizing the importance of getting content creators in, moving a lot of our attention and focus from legacy media where we've spent so much of our time talking to an audience that is already largely bought in, instead talking to an audience that is, you know,

not only bigger because that's where, that's where, uh, you know, social media audiences are, but also more persuadable and, and look to their, to their credit, they were largely on board with all of this stuff. And so I think it's important. Um, I think it's important to, to try and shift a lot of the attitudes that have been,

cemented for a really, really long time in D.C. And so that's kind of my focus right now is to try. And insofar as I have any influence in this party, given what I do online, my focus right now is just trying to get a lot of people on board to change their habits in an institution that is as nimble as a cruise ship, basically. Well, and as part of that trip, you were able to talk to AOC. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of what she had to say.

Listen, if your representative is not doing a town hall, give me a ring. I mean, I don't know if an R plus 25 district would have me, but I'm always willing to be proven wrong. And I mean, I'll say it right here, right now. If a deep red Republican district wants to have an honest conversation, even if it's with someone they disagree with,

I'm willing to do that. You know, I'm willing to meet with Republicans and just, you know, be honest about where I stand, where they stand. We can explain, you know, and understand each other better. But I definitely think it creates a vacuum. And even if it's not a Democratic member, right?

People can host community town halls. You don't need a member of Congress to host a town hall and just host one without them. I think that's one of the better ideas the Democrats have floated. And really, it's sort of Bernie Sanders who's led the charge. I'm sure you saw the images from his town hall, like 10,000 people showing up on a random day in Warren, Michigan. You know, just astonishing level of energy just because he's out there and basically signaling, you know, like,

we're going to fight and here's something we can actually do. I know Ro Khanna said he's going to do town halls. Tim Walz said he's going to do town halls. AOC saying she's going to do town halls. And it's been kind of interesting to me the tactical or ideological valence of this moment, because one of the other big Democratic stars of the moment is Jasmine Crockett, who is not necessarily ideologically the same as Bernie Sanders. But I think there's such a base level excitement

about these individuals simply because it feels like they're putting up a fight and because they do understand the attention economy and how quickly the news moves and how much you have to jump on it right at that moment and not be afraid of stirring the pot and not be afraid of creating some controversy.

100%. I mean, that's how this entire ecosystem works. And I think that you're exactly right in terms of the thing that people want to see is that you are willing to fight. And this doesn't necessarily, to your exact point, have to be like a progressive versus moderate. It doesn't have to be. You don't have to be a certain political persuasion. You don't have to land somewhere specifically on the ideological spectrum to be able to do this. People just want to see that you are there doing the job that they put you in office to do.

And so that's why there's a lot of focus on these people who are actually getting themselves out there and showing that they're willing to have some fight. And it doesn't have – look, we're in a position right now where we're in the majority. We don't have to be relitigating Medicare for all today because it's not like any of that stuff is going to happen. But if you're going out there and you're saying, look, I'm here to make sure that your Medicaid is protected, to make sure that

that SNAP benefits are protected to make sure that education funding or any healthcare funding or, or that veterans have jobs. If I'm putting myself out there showing that I'm willing to actually do the work, people are going to respond to that. It is precisely the unwillingness or inability of, of anybody in office to actually stick their necks out there and show that they're willing to fight. It is that, that same, um,

risk aversion that I was talking about before that people are actually tired of these days and kind of puts you in that camp of doing stuff that's safe and uncontroversial. And, and like, people don't want to see that we're in a moment where, where we're,

democracy is at risk, where healthcare is at risk, where so much of what we hold dear is at risk. And if you're just going to kind of sit back, people are going to recognize that. So again, it doesn't have to do with how progressive or how moderate you are. It's just that you're putting yourself out there and that you're showing you're willing to fight. Yeah, I want to dig down on that a little bit.

though, something I watched during the Tea Party era is that opposition to Obama really became like the unifying force of the Republican Party. But then after Obama was gone, there were huge fights. And those litmus tests on policy and all those things mattered. You talked there about Medicare for all. So I'm curious at a policy level. I watched some of your channel, and a lot of it is just about Donald Trump. That seems to be the stuff that really is most animating

right now, but sooner or later, you know, might actually win an election. You might be in power. So what are the types of things that you think do matter, you know, for a future Democratic leader? Republicans at that time said you need to figure about, you know, you need to be concerned about debt. We need to repeal Obamacare. No matter what you want to say about the Tea Party, they did have some demands. What are some of the demands that you think you have, Brian?

Well, first of all, we should be so lucky to be in a position where we can start litigating the things that matter to Democrats. But hopefully we do get there soon. I mean, look, I'm a progressive. What I would like to see is full bore Green New Deal. I would like to see Medicare for all. You know, I

Like I would like to see a $15 minimum wage. I would like to see the PRO Act get passed so that we can bolster unions in this country. But I view myself as a pragmatic progressive, and I know that what's going to work in certain places may not necessarily work in other places.

So I'm perfectly content to – if we're lucky enough to be able to get in a position where we can again litigate this stuff, I would love to be able to have these conversations and have these debates with folks. My focus obviously right now for – as is the same for any Democrat is just to get in a position where we can actually be able to exercise power and that's going to take a lot of – that's going to take –

a lot of changes from our strategy right now because it feels like, well, it feels a million miles away at this moment, but...

It also depends on Democrats actually being able to wield – to be willing to wield power once we do get into office. And so often we – look, there's a huge difference between what Republicans do with power when they're in office and what Democrats do with power in office. And I think the perfect encapsulation of that is what happens with the parliamentarian. Like –

For the Democrats, the parliamentarian says no. And we're like, well, that's it. The parliamentarian says no. So I guess there's no other avenue and we just have to kind of sit down and lick our wounds and that's the end of the fight. Republicans will...

And literally have just replaced the parliamentarian altogether if they don't get what they want. And that is how they view power. They figure out how they can get there. It's almost like Republicans, if they get told no, they figure out how they can get to yes. If Democrats get told no, they're perfectly content to accept that. And it almost sometimes feels like they're not even willing to try and get to yes.

And so that's what I would like to see if Democrats actually get into power, notwithstanding what I would like to see on the specific policy front. And again, I listed a bunch of things that I would like to see on the policy front right there. But just more broadly, a focus on actually being able to wield and exercise power in the rare instances, rare opportunities where we actually get it.

I was curious what you made. I'm sure you saw the Gavin Newsom, Charlie Kirk podcast situation. And I'll tell you, like, I'm not a Gavin Newsom fan because I think he's, you know, way too corporate and, you know, puts donors ahead of progressive values often. But I do respect his political talent. I saw him go on Fox News.

and really take it to Ron DeSantis. I think a lot of people like that, you know, certainly increased my estimation of him. I think a lot of Democratic-based voters felt the same way. And so when I saw he was doing this podcast and he was having a few right-wing folks on, including Charlie Kirk, I was like, oh, that's actually really smart because he can fight with him and people are going to freaking love that.

And then he has them on. He's like, oh, my God, Charlie, you're so like influential and my son loves you. And let's talk about some issues where I want to like, you know, culturally shift more towards your position and find common ground, et cetera. Putting aside like, you know, my positions on that issue and how grotesque I find that to be, I also just found it to be so tone deaf.

for the political moment because if he actually, like this man obviously wants to be president, and if you actually want to position yourself in that way, then what you need to be doing is demonstrating that you will show up and debate these people. You will hold them to account. You will demonstrate that you're a fighter. I mean, to what do you attribute that total tone deafness about what the Democratic base actually wants to see from a politician like him right now?

Yeah, I think the main thing is he wanted to show himself as being more willing to embrace like the 80 side of that 80-20 issue. But I think to your exact point, look, the biggest –

The biggest virtue for someone like Gavin Newsom and something that obviously I find really attractive about him as a candidate is that he is willing to get out there and fight. He is willing to go on Fox News and defend his positions, defend his values, stand on business. And that's something that's in short supply in the Democratic Party. And so –

It is a great idea to have a podcast where you invite folks from the other side on and actually try and stand up and defend your values. That's something that we desperately need in democratic politics. And so it was disappointing to see that he was so effusive in his praise for Charlie Kirk because, again, his biggest virtue is that he is able to fight. And so when you sacrifice that, then –

if you sacrifice your biggest, your biggest asset as a candidate, then, then that really does, that really does hurt how people I think perceive you more broadly. This isn't a time right now, your, your stance on the issues, notwithstanding, this isn't a time right now to lay down arms and show that you're willing to just fully, fully embrace not only folks on the right, but just bad faith folks on the right people who are doing this, um, as, as solely political actors. And so, you know,

I know that he's going to do more episodes in this series. I think that the reaction to this, this might be exactly what he was looking for. He might be looking for some praise, some pets from right-wingers, and even if it's at the risk of...

you know, pissing off some Democrats, so be it. But I would like to see him actually stand up and fight for the things that he believes in, because that's really, that's really where he's derived so much of his popularity and strength prior to doing this. Brian, let me ask you, what is your retrospective take on what went wrong in the election? Unlike us, you actually got to interview Joe Biden. You met him while he was in the Oval Office. So what is your, like, grand theory of why Democrats lost in this election?

I think it's two things. Well, three things. First is the economy. I think that we saw the ways in which the economy

high inflation, like the global phenomenon of high inflation led to, led to incumbents or governing parties getting ousted across the world. I think Mexican, Mexico's president was the only one to be able to withstand that. But a lot of people in this country, sadly, just don't pay attention to politics, but they do pay attention to the costs that impact their lives. And so if costs are higher, they're going to punish the people in charge. The people in charge were the Democrats. The second is, I think that the Democrats, uh,

The big disadvantage for the Democrats in this media ecosystem is that it's just the size and scope of right-wing media. And so if you have an issue like gender reassignment surgeries among trans inmates in prison, which is an issue that Kamala spoke about in 2019 and has disavowed in this past election cycle, if Republicans have the amount of people and the amount of money to be able to

put this message in front of everybody, then they can kind of create the reality that they want to create. And Democrats don't have anything to push back against it. I mean, the Democratic Party never bothered bolstering their own independent media ecosystem, even though 10 years ago, the Republicans started building up

Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones. And so they have these folks who are willing to push the narrative through in an expressly political way that the Democrats just can't do because our message distribution system has always been CNN and MSNBC and the New York Times. And a lot of these networks are perfectly willing to take the messages that are being fed to them by right-wing media. And so what you're left with is

69 cover stories about Hillary's emails, for example, in the 2016 election because Republicans are willing to just exercise overtly partisan voices and the Democrats will – or liberal media will always bite on that. And so there's this huge asymmetry where whatever narrative Republicans want to perpetuate, they do and then –

liberal media, which we've decided is, again, our message distribution system is perfectly content to bite on all of that stuff. And so those are two of the main things. And then obviously, look, in

In retrospect, I think that the only answer would have been immediately after Joe Biden, you know, either won in 2020 or Democrats had a strong performance in 2022 that he drops out and we figure out, you know, a new way forward that also includes a candidate who is willing to show some distance between him or her and Joe Biden. Yeah.

And, you know, look, I understand too, because it's for somebody who had just beaten Donald Trump by 8 million votes to say, okay, now I have no mandate to continue.

I get it. Regardless of whether or not I agree with it, I understand it. Same deal with midterms. If you look at somebody who just presided over a strong midterm performance in what was supposed to be a red wave year, again, hard to say that there's some huge mandate. And yes, I sat down with him and you can watch the interview. It's completely unedited. It's difficult to look at that and to see that it was the same guy who would be on that debate stage two summers from then

two summers from then and think that it's the same person. But, you know, his decline was pretty precipitous in that respect. And so I think between those three, you know, that's kind of what led to the position where we're in right now. Yeah. Well, aging is also very uneven. So he could be cogent at one point and then completely not cogent another moment, which is some of what has come out from his AIDS, you know, after the fact, belatedly after it was too late to do anything or change or ultimately change course. The last ask,

A question I have for you is, you know, as YouTubers, like we all have a feel for our audiences and like, oh, this this segment, this headline, this is really going to pop. This is really going to click. What is your sense of what is sort of like most animating about Trump 2.0 for your audience? You know, is it Elon and Doge? Is it immigration? Is it the trade war with Canada? Like what are the particular issues or the particular threats?

from this Trump administration that have really animated your audience and caused them really to flock to you in droves?

I think there's a couple of things. I think the Elon stuff is especially potent because even, you know, ironically enough, even at the same exact moment as you have Republicans railing against unelected bureaucrats, you have an unelected bureaucrat who is aggressively unpopular, not just for Democrats, but especially for Republicans. And this is an issue that, look, the important thing in politics is that you find issues that unite your party and divide the other party. And Elon is exactly that issue.

Democrats are united in their disdain for somebody who's going to go in with a hatchet and unilaterally try and destroy agencies that do good, try and destroy programs, life-saving programs and lifelines for the American people that are overwhelmingly popular. And so that's an issue that I think has really driven a lot of attention on YouTube especially.

And also, look, there is a big international audience on YouTube. It's the biggest platform in the world. And so even as Trump continues his attacks against Trump,

countries that are our allies, countries like Canada, countries like Mexico, European countries. That's driving a lot of interest too because suddenly this clown show that was isolated to just within our borders is seeping out across the world. It's having impacts in Russia and Ukraine and China and Europe and Europe

South America. And so there are a lot of people suddenly paying attention because this isn't like a not my circus, not my monkey situation. Now we're all part of the circus. And so everybody has a vested interest in paying attention. Yeah. My last question for you, Brian, is how do you view yourself in this role? So

There's been a variety of theories. As you said, you mentioned Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk is kind of a YouTube podcast, but he's ultimately like an actual political force. We've seen previous efforts like Cenk Uygur or somebody else's husband here who formed the Justice Democrats, right, trying to push forward an agenda. What do you think about your own role as you continue to rise with a lot of the Democratic base? It's a really good question, and I've never been asked that. Look, I try to be—

I'm trying to reach as many people as I can that, that,

In a kind of a space for where expats from legacy media feel like they have somebody who kind of can speak on their wavelength, I try to position myself with the majority of, I think, what the party, what like regular Democrats think. There's also the fact that because I've been lucky enough to have access to Democratic politicians, I'm trying to use the position that I have to be able to –

to be able to foster some change from the inside of the actual party itself. And if I have the opportunity to go and speak to these folks, use that voice to speak

try and push for more of an embrace on independent media. And I know that a lot of people in this space and this ecosystem don't have that kind of access. And so if I do, I'm going to try to use it to the best of my ability and for the betterment of the party more broadly. And so if I have the ability to go up on the hill and speak to folks, I'm going to use that not to be as hostile as I can, but instead to say like, look,

I do think it's important that we embrace independent media. I do think it's important that you start to talk to content creators. I do think it's important that we have a posture where y'all are going out and being willing to fight because that's what the majority of my audience, that's what the majority of, I think, the party more broadly wants to see. And so...

A little bit of a different positioning than I think the vast majority of YouTubers out there. But look, again, insofar as I have any influence, I'm trying to use it in the most helpful way possible. Got it. Well, I really enjoyed talking to you, man, and I'll be paying attention. So thank you for joining us. Thanks, Brian. We appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Yeah, our pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. Great CounterPoint show for everybody tomorrow, and we will see you all later.

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