Cenk Uygur CONFRONTS ME: Biden CAN'T WIN!!!

Today, we're going to be speaking with Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks and also author of the new book. Justice is coming, how progressives are going to take over the country and America is going to love it. I'm most of the way through the book, Cenk, and you talk about so many different things that are relevant to the twenty twenty four election, to what's happened in the past, maybe just to pick something interesting that relates to what you discuss in the book. You seem, I think, increasingly worried that Joe Biden's reelection is going to go haywire, that he's going to lose, that he can't beat Trump if that's who the nominee is. The context, although you're not directly addressing this necessarily in the book, the context you talk about in the book relates to it. Am I accurately understanding your view on the Biden reelection? One hundred percent. Yeah. The look, nothing is in terms of probabilities of winning. Nothing is zero or one hundred percent. Everything's on a spectrum somewhere. Right. Yep. So and unfortunately, a lot of people think in a binary way. Well, he won last time. That means he's going to win this time. No, it doesn't work that way. It's a percentage chance. And with Joe Biden, any rational person realizes that the percentage chance of him beating Trump is much lower than if we had a strong Democratic candidate. Now, why is he, quote unquote, not strong? Well, look at the polling. It's not my opinion. And this isn't progressive versus moderate. That has nothing to do with any of this. I don't have a progressive alternative. There's no Trojan horse that we're going to sneak in. And voila, Nina Turner's president. No. Okay. I mean, I would love that, but no. Okay. No, I'm just, I'll take Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania. I'll take Governor Beshear from Kentucky just to increase our percentage chances. So why are they so low, David? They're low because he, 72% of the country says that they don't even think he's going to make it through a second term. I mean, that's a disastrous poll. And so we could try to wish that away, but we can't. His approval rating in half the recent polls are in the 30s. If you're in the 40s as an incumbent, you're very likely to lose. If you're in the 30s, I've literally never seen it happen. So I mean, what is, and remember, when he won the Electoral College by a razor thin margin, he won the popular vote by four and a half points. So he has to be up at that bare, bare minimum four and a half, but then you're playing dice with democracy. So realistically, he has to be up five points and right now he's losing. Come on guys. Think about it. He's losing to the moron Donald Trump right now. It's inconceivable. It cannot, David, it cannot be the most important election of our lifetimes. And we are choosing to go into it with a very hobbled candidate because we'd like to be polite to him because he'd like a better legacy as a two term president. So let me present, let me present a couple different perspectives. Okay. And see, see what you think. One is it's September, you know, end of September, early October 2023. And Joe Biden is currently the president of the United States. So the question I'm asking is his replacement with who would actually get him get the Democratic candidate in a better position. I don't think that if he were to be replaced at this point because of the negative connotations of that, that it actually would increase the chances that the Democratic nominee becomes president. Do you agree with that or you think his replacement at this stage of the game ups the odds that the Democratic candidate wins? His replacement would instantly give the Democrats a five to 10 point bump in. Really? With who, though? Okay. Easy, super easy. I named two right there. I'll name them again. I could name you probably about 400 Democrats in the country who would do better than Joe Biden. I mean, look at that way of thinking. The only Democrat who could win is Joe Biden. Why is the rest of the Democratic Party totally pathetic? No, no, no. My argument is less about that. And by the way, I don't know that I'm any more of a Biden fan than you are. I'm just trying to think about this as strategically as possible. The act of saying at this point that a president who has announced they are running for reelection has an OK economic record and has had some tangible advancements for labor, et cetera, which we can talk about saying we're actually going to pull them out. We're either going to run a primary or we're just going to anoint someone. It's hard for me to imagine it helps. No, no. It's totally. Yeah. Look, that's we have a massive disagreement there. So let me explain why. Yeah, please. And this case is almost never made. So probably nobody's even heard this case before. OK, first of all, heated primaries are a wonderful thing. I did the examples against heated primaries go back decade after decade. In 1972 and 1837. No, guys. In 2020, the Democrats had a heated primary. They won. In 2016, the Republicans had a really heated, the most heated primary in American history, and they won. Why? Because the extra media coverage you get from a heated primary helps your side make your case to the American people. The Democrats are not making their case at all. Whereas if we had Governor Beshear from Kentucky and Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania against Joe Biden, they'd all be talking about how great the Democratic case is and how they would be better at executing that Democratic case. I don't believe in anointing anyone. It's absurd. I don't believe that the president is king and we must abide by his rule. Yeah, I don't believe in line of succession. And hence the Crown Princess Kamala Harris should be anointed next. No, I believe in something very simple democracy. It works. Give me a primary today and I will give you a much stronger Democratic Party. Couple thoughts on that. And this is interesting. And by the way, I would love a Democratic primary and make Joe Biden win it again. Like, I get why the Democratic Party is not doing it. I understand their their thing is we've got someone in the Oval Office. Our best shot is just go with that. I get I would love a primary to honestly, honestly, David. I don't think that's why they're doing it. Well, they're a corporation. Hold on. Hold on. Everyone, you know, and I know everyone in our lifetimes has said the rule. An incumbent under 50 points is very likely to lose. So they keep talking about incumbent advantage. And that's actually not true. The incumbent advantage exists in Montana where name recognition is the name of the game. But at the presidential level, everybody's gonna know the Democratic candidate in the general election. Literally, everyone is. Name recognition is not an issue. Incumbency actually weighs you down as president. It's actually a negative thing. They get to attack you on all the different issues. So the Democrats don't want Biden just because they believe in the power of incumbency. And maybe some of them do it genuinely. But the real reason is they believe in the power of authoritarian rule. If you ask the DNC, they are never going to go with an outsider. They are never going to go with someone who isn't already the incumbent because they believe in the current power infrastructure. Us as Democratic voters need to rebel and say, I didn't sign up for authoritarian rule. That's the other side. I signed up for democracy and fighting for our values. So two thoughts on this hypothetical primary that we both agree won't happen, but would like to see one is, by the way, I don't agree with that. I'm trying to force that. OK. All right. Fair, fair, fair. And T.Y.T. Dotcom slash drop out because the most the best way to get here is that Joe Biden stops being an egomaniac. And we're there. So you think it might happen. I don't think it will. Fine. That's a disagreement. But here's two thoughts based on what you said. One, the Republican primary right now is a version of what you described, meaning they seem to sort of agree on the package, much like you're saying Democratic voters agree on the platform and why it's better than what Republicans are offering. Many of those people in the Republican primary are less crazy than Trump and probably would be more likely to actually do the things that they want to do. Trump's blowing them out of the water without even going to the debate. So that's that's one thing. It's not obvious to me that when voters are presented with other people who are younger and less crazy with the same ideas on the Republican side, they're doing something very different. Republican voters are different. And you can make that case in a second second observation. We have some polling of Williamson, Kennedy and Biden. Now, my opinion is Kennedy and Williamson are not people like the ones you described. But I actually think if there were a primary right now and Biden is in it, I think Biden wins the primary. No, no. Yeah. The only way that he wins the primary is mainstream media brainwashes every one of the Democratic voters into compliance. OK, I don't think they're going to. And so that's a giant difference between 2016, 2020 and 2024. Why? Because in 2016 and 2020, MSNBC and CNN hit progressives and Bernie Sanders harder than Fox News did a constantly battering, battering, battering because they're in favor of corporate rule and establishment Democrats. But in this case, it's not really look, I wish it was Marianne versus Biden. And I'm going to vote for Marianne if those are the choices. And I'm going to do that easily. I think she's not only the better candidate in terms of policy. I think she has a better chance of winning. I think everyone has a better chance of winning than Biden. But OK, put that aside, put that aside. What is much more likely is a Governor Shapiro or a Governor Beshear or a Governor Whitmer against Biden. OK, well, in that case, the mainstream media actually probably flips to being either neutral or a little against Biden. Because then they don't have to worry about a progressive, which they hate way more than they would hate Trump, right? So since you don't have to worry about that, and they all know Biden's going to lose. I mean, you could see the sweat on Joe Scarborough's forehead every morning. And James Carville came out yesterday with Bill Maher and said, what are we crazy? Finally, David Ignatius at The Washington Post, finally, people are catching up to what I'm saying, which is, guys, this isn't your normal battle where you dig into your trenches. Do you really think democracy is on the line? Because my hair's on fire, right? Trump is promising not only imprisonment, but death for his political opponents. People aren't getting it. They keep projecting normalness onto Trump when he is not normal. Will he actually do those things? Yes, he will definitely imprison his political opponents. He has said it, Bannon has said it, Roger Stone has said it. They've said it 100 times. They're gonna imprison people for no goddamn reason. His former Defense Secretary just yesterday said, yes, he considered arresting and imprisoning General McRaven and General McChrystal in the last term. And back then there was brakes in the car. So democracy is actually on the line. To go in with a wounded antelope is madness, total madness. So I think even the Morning Joe guys know, for them, it's Newsom and Whitman, right? For me, it's Shapiro and Beshear, cuz I think they're more likely to win. They won in swing states, they won in red states, and they're more personal, slightly better policies. But give me anyone, anyone but Biden. I don't want to purposely lose this election. I don't want to go quietly into that good night. So to not make the entire interview just about this, I think this is a good segue into what you argue in the book is actually the state of the country when it comes to the political spectrum, which is that you argue that this is fundamentally a progressive country. This is an argument I've also been making when you really do issue oriented polling and the wording is fair. And particularly if you track the change over the last 30, 40, 50 years on a lot of these issues, abortion and many others, that it is it really is fundamentally at least as progressive a country on average, close to some of the northern European countries. However, you talk about in the book influence of money. We know that the way that politics is financed is a problem. We know that the Electoral College is a problem. We all these different things sort of get in the way. What do you believe is the most direct path to getting all of the obstacles out of the way, not so that we can skew anything, but just so that the actual current opinions of voters will be reflected in who's representing us in Washington, D.C.? What are the obstacles we have to get out of the way? Yeah. So there's really two. There's a bunch of things that I explain in Chapter six as to why we're going to win and how we can win. Right. Yep. But there's a couple of pillars of that victory. So one is the, you know, the route that Bernie's been taking, which is go for leadership at the Democratic level and change the culture of the Democratic Party, have it represent the voters against again, as opposed to corporate interest. And in Chapter four, I explain how we lost the Democratic Party to corporate interest and to donors. Right. So that's a perfectly good way. And we're going to win with that because not only do you see the polling shows that two thirds of the country is progressive on nearly every issue. And so you just need a leader to put a spotlight on it. Right. But on top of that, you also have the young voters and the young voters are very progressive and they're coming in a tsunami in our direction. So once we have a leader, it will galvanize all those forces, but you cannot just wait for a guy on a white horse to ride in and save the day. So the real key in the long run is to take money out of politics. The only way you can do that is a constitutional amendment to go above the Supreme Court. And do you need to build a bipartisan coalition to pass an amendment? Of course, of course you do. But the thing is the one redeeming quality Republican voters have is that they also hate corruption. And so, you know, I know with Trump, they don't mind it. But other than that, they actually did want to drain the swamp and they actually do hate corporate Republicans like Mitch McConnell. And that's a really positive development. And we need to take those guys and our guys and say, stop listening to corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans. Work together to get an amendment to end private financing of elections. Because as long as they get their money from private interests, politicians will always serve private interests. And of course, the last roadblock, David, is mainstream media, corporate media overall, which is right-wing media and mainstream media combined. And those guys are the biggest benefactor of money in politics. They get tens of billions of dollars every election cycle. And so since they get almost all the money from corruption, the media does an excellent job of convincing you that there is no corruption. No, when someone gives millions of dollars to a politician, they're just talking to them. Oh my God, they happen to agree. That's why they always vote with the way the donors want. It's just a coincidence. The New York Times tells you in absurd, ridiculous fashion. CNN tells you it's a mass hypnosis. I get messages from progressives who would agree with basically everything you just said and who write to me worried. And they say, you know, David, we have the Bernie Sanders example from 2020. Paula Jean Swearingen, Randy Bryce, Nina Turner, who I believe now works for you at T.Y.T.. I'm as progressive as the rest of them. But there's a bunch of these races at all sorts of different levels where the person that genuinely seems to be the progressive loses. Is it because maybe the country isn't as progressive as I thought? Is it because of media coverage? Is it because of money in politics? What's the explanation that ties it all together? Yeah. So look, there's both specific cases and the general explanation. In terms of the specific cases, every case that you mentioned, those three examples, for example, are very different. Paula Jean Swearingen, I had a lot of love for her in the beginning, God bless her heart, but she did not run winning campaigns. And in West Virginia, the way that she ran it and the media coverage, it was not realistic, right? So on the other hand, Nina Turner did not lose the Republicans. She lost in a primary and she had a 35 point lead. Why did she lose? Because Democratic lobbyists and PACs put in over $4 million in the last two weeks. They bought nearly every ad in Cleveland. And so that money, the corrupt, dark money, is what beat her in the primary. So if you go with that line of logic, what are we gonna do? We're gonna give up as Democratic voters and say this party no longer represents us. It represents corporate interests, but we have to go with the corporate candidates because they're the ones with the most bribes. That's just a disgusting place to be, right? So I don't want that, but we can beat all of that. We can get past all of that. So the general way to win is, and this is why the last part of chapter six is so important, not just the PACs, but the media. And this is why TYT is important. And David Pakman is important. And all of these shows are important. Because guys, if we just live under mainstream media, they're gonna hammer the progressive candidate every single time. I mean, look at what they said about Bernie, that there was gonna be executions in Central Park and his followers were Nazi brownshirts, right? And that wasn't on Fox News, that was on MSNBC, right? But because of the new wave of media, people are not listening to those guys anymore. So the under 45-year-olds vote for progressives. Even in states that Bernie lost, I show in the book, he wins under 45-year-olds, depending on the age bracket, by 20 points, 40 points, 60 points, right? And so we cannot snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Our side, according to the age demographics, is about to win in a massive way. We just have to get out of our own way and make sure we run in primaries. Do not let primaries go without running. The fact that no progressive ran against Biden is a crime. They just gave away, they just gave away all of that media coverage, all the ability to make the progressive case, even if you don't win. Cenk, last thing I want to ask you about the the Trump criminal trials, Trump skipping the Republican debates, etc. This is very, like, tactical and practical to what's going on right now. I interviewed Rachel Bittecofer. She's not that impressed with the Republican polling. She says, you know, a lot of voters don't start paying attention until way later. It's not that obvious that Trump is necessarily going to win. The more every day that passes that Trump's winning by 45 and DeSantis is falling and the Vicks up to eight and then down to four. And there's just just nothing happening. Prices for ads in the second Fox debate are 50 percent lower than they were for the first because no one's watching. No one's paying for this stuff. Is there anything that can get in this guy's way to prevent him from being the nominee? Yeah, as always, the only thing that can get in Donald Trump's way is Donald Trump. So can he do something even more monstrous? I mean, look, Cassie Hutchinson says that when they were chanting, hang Mike Pence, Donald Trump was cheering them on and said he didn't mind if his own vice president was going to be murdered by his fans. Now, look, people just glaze past that because we're so used to Donald Trump being a monster and we're desensitized to it. If Barack, if there was a story, a credible story from someone inside his own White House that said that Barack Obama didn't mind if Joe Biden was murdered, right, it would have literally been very literally the story of the century. Yeah, right. So Trump says it everything. Oh, yeah, of course. He's in favor of murdering people left and right. He just said he wants to murder the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is not normal, okay? So now, but that doesn't affect MAGA because he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. But if they see Pat Cipollone and Mark Meadows testify, whether it's in Atlanta or in the federal case, on the stand and say, yes, I was in the room, I'm absolutely positive. He said he did not mind the vice president being murdered. He thought his own vice president deserved to be murdered. If they confirm what Cassidy Hutchinson said, does that wake them up out of their hypnosis? Maybe enough of them. Maybe I think they assume it's a lie. I think they assume the witnesses are lying. If that happens, I'm sure. I'm sure. But I'm giving you that. The only things that could possibly do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the documents case, you find out why did he take the remember the one in Bedminster, New Jersey, the plans to invade Iran? Why did he take that one? Why was it at the top of his desk? Well, who's Iran's number one enemy? Saudi Arabia. Who just gave his son-in-law $2 billion? Who just bought the PGA so they could turn all the golf tournaments into Trump golf properties? Right. And have them played there so that Trump could make millions of dollars? The Saudis did. Now, do I know that he sold that to the Saudis? No, I don't know that at all. I don't have any evidence to that effect. But it's a hypothetical of if Jack Smith has that evidence and he lays that out in court, would that change Maga's mind? And maybe some percentage. Some percentage will never change. If he gave it to ISIS and said, here's how you can murder as many Americans as you can, even then they wouldn't change. I know that, I know that, right? But is there enough Republicans, and my sense is about half, exactly half, that are convincible if something over the top happens? I mean, he just said you should, you know, Mark Milley should get death. What if one of his fans murders Mark Milley? I mean, two, two, two. I hope it doesn't happen. And that's terrible. I know these unbelievable scenarios still wouldn't get half of Republicans to budge. OK, but maybe it would do enough damage that he could lose a primary. But there's no way in the world that these chumps are just going to beat Trump on their own. They're not. Yeah, it would take one of those scenarios to even get us to maybe, which is a pretty, pretty insane bar. Well, listen, Cenk, the book is excellent. I encourage every progressive and non-progressive to read it for different reasons. But still, the book is called Justice is Coming, how progressives are going to take over the country and America is going to love it. Host of The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, great having you here as always. Thank you, David. And if people want, they could get a copy at t y t dot com slash justice. I appreciate you, brother.