Transcription
Welcome to Prove It With Batia, a show in which I bring on somebody I really respect and really disagree with to debate the big news story of the day. Obviously, today that story is there has been a third assassination attempt of the President of the United States, Donald Trump. And we're going to be debating political violence and where it's coming from. So you will see pretty soon you can vote in the poll. The poll is going to ask where is the political violence coming from the left, the right or both sides. And in addition to your comments and your results from the poll, I am so excited to have Mike Nellis here with me today to debate.
Um Mike is somebody who I really really respect even though I really disagree with him. Um, last week Mike and I were on a show together and Mike, who is a Democrat and Democratic strategist, ended up defending Donald Trump and I ended up attacking him. It was about weed and whether we think there should be more, more of it, less of it. And he's that kind of person um who a lot of people in this business don't think for themselves. Um, they just say what the party line is. That's not Mike.
And um, I have to say one more thing, which is this. Um, we're going to have a very vigorous debate right now. we really disagree on this topic and we both feel very strongly about our positions. Um, the fact that we are able to have this conversation and having this conversation to me is so utterly precious and so much more important for me anyway than winning in some sort of objective sense. Even though obviously I want to win the debate, but this is what it means to be an American is to find people who you respect, who you disagree with, and hold them close because that is the only alternative to political violence. All of which is to say, Mike, thank you so much for joining me today. So, why don't you start us off and tell us where you think the political violence is coming from in America?
Yeah, I mean I I think there's political violence coming from the right and I think there's political violence coming from the left and I think there's political violence also just coming from god knows where because people don't have the type of ideologies that you do. I think one of the mistakes that we make as political commentators is we have you know there's a conservative ideology and there's a liberal ideology and there's DCism and then there's the third way and then there's CPAC like whatever. like most normal people in their lives don't think that way and so we try to like layer things on and like we're going to get into it at some point but but the individual who attempted to rush into the ballroom at the White House correspondence dinner like clearly more on my side if we're doing it that way than than your side in this particular case but also like I said a bunch of things that online that I think don't fit with the profile of where you would expect it to be. So to me, I think there's a broader problem I'd like to get beyond which is this sort of like knee-jerk reaction on the internet to be like, is it the Democrat? Like we we were I mean, were you at the were you at the White House correspondence there, by the way? Okay. I just wanted to make sure because I tried to check in on everybody. I texted like I don't have your cell phone number, but I texted like everybody that I knew to make sure they were okay. But like we we do this thing where like we didn't know what had happened and like all of MAGA World was already blaming Democrats before we even knew what the hell had happened. And then there were people on my side, by the way, that were already saying that whatever was going on was a staged incident, which was really silly. So, we have a violence problem in America today, and some of it is political and a lot of it isn't. And I just don't think that anybody wants to have the actual conversation about what the hell is going on.
>> So, where do you think it is coming from?
Well, I think it's a combination of a bunch of different issues that we haven't dr dealt with in a long time, which is going to be like part of it is gun violence and having a conversation about how easy it is to get access to firearms, particularly for people who are disturbed and looking to do something horrible. And I say that as a gun owner myself, like I have a I have a firearm myself. I'm trained. I have my concealed carry license. Um, I got it and we can get into this later after Laura Loomer decided to threaten me and my kids and I was or me and my son, excuse me. and I was like, I'm gonna go ahead and just make sure that I'm safe because I didn't like the caliber of the comments that I was getting online. Um, I also think like we haven't dealt with mental health in America today. There's hardly any mental health infrastructure in America today. We do have escalating rhetoric uh in this in this country. I I do think like a great deal of it does come from Donald Trump and melts its way all the way down and then there are people who rise back up in it. I think it's in my mind it is undeniable that Donald Trump has been a corrosive force in American politics and I imagine that's something that you and I are going to disagree on. Um there are people on the left who do it too. I'm sure that you're going to bring up Asan today and some of the comments that he's made. We should talk about that as well. But I just think it's not it's not one group of people and it's not one thing. It's like a bunch of stuff and I think we should just be more nuanced in the conversation because to me what happened on Saturday while it is certainly very likely based on everything we know like an attempt to at least assassinate a Trump administration official if not Donald Trump himself and it's a failed one at that. It it probably really when you strip it all down isn't all that different from people who decide that they're going to go shoot up a Catholic school in Minnesota or somebody that's going to go attack a school, you know, here here in Chicago, which happens all the time because there's mass shootings every day in schools and my son has to go through drills. So you find it's usually like some combination of a lonely isolated young man with access to a firearm, no mental mental support, spending a lot of time online, gets hyperfixated on something, decides to in their mind be the hero, if that makes sense.
>> Okay. I want to um get your reaction to some polling that we have. I And the reason that I I think this is such an important debate is and I want to be the person who can say like, yeah, it's coming from both sides. We all have a role in it. We can all fix it. Not least because if that I am right and that I believe it's mostly coming from the left, I'm powerless to fix it because no one on the le left listens to me. So it would be I would much prefer
>> I listen to you.
>> I just might not agree with you, but I listen to you
>> on my side because that gives me agency and power to fix it. Um but you know when I I feel that I if we can't accurately name where it's coming from, we can't fix it. Which is why I want to sort of call your attention to this. So let's start with some polling. Um Sher, can you pull up the poll from um Yuggov? Um so this poll came from um yeah this one. So this poll came out um in uh it was 2025, September 10th of 2025. And as you can see here, Mike, if you look at political ideology, Americans who call themselves very liberal, so the poll was, do you ever think political violence is legitimate? And 25% of very liberal Americans said yes, violence can sometimes be justified. 17% of liberals said it can sometimes be justified. 9% of moderates, 6% of conservatives, and then it looks to me like 3% of very conservatives. To me, Mike, I look at this and it seems like the more liberal you identify, the more legitimate you think political violence is. And there's a second poll I just want to call your attention to and then I want to get your take on it. Sher, can you pull up the economist? So here you see something similar which is that um the question is it ever justified for citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals. The percent who said yes, you can see that obviously young people it's it's higher but um for liberals it's way higher. So young liberal people will have the highest looks like about 30% there as opposed to people who identify as conservative where it never passes the 10% mark. So I guess what's your reaction? I mean to me like it just seems like pretty obvious like polling does seem to suggest a correlation at least between identifying as liberal, identifying as very liberal and then having a tolerance for a belief in that political violence is justified.
>> Yeah. So I I mean I took a look at the cross tabs for both of these before we started because I've seen you post them before and I've seen you talk about them on NewsNation. And so I think especially for the first one that you showed, but for both of these one, they were taken in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination more or less, give or take a little bit of time there. And I think it's problematic to pull on that in the middle of a nationally traumatic thing because it's going to change the way that people are reacting. And it's better to do it when there isn't something fresh because there's probably some people on the left who were overindexing to that given how a lot of people felt at my party about that. And by the way, the assassination of Kirk was horrible. I found out on live TV and immediately did what I think a normal person should do, which is like express condolences to the family. And I think we don't have enough people in our space right now acting like normal people and just trying to not rush to get like engagement and Um, am I allowed to curse on here? I don't want to get you in trouble.
>> I didn't I didn't ask. Mike, you can do whatever you want on here.
>> Perfect. All right. Well, listen, it's I'm used to talking to you on television, so like I'm trying to be like, you know, I'm Irish Catholic from the Midwest. It's it's in my DNA. Um, but but there's a couple of other statistics I want to I want to point you to because I think it's like easy for like to cherrypick like two things that sort of make your point, but like I can kind of do the same thing, which is why I think getting beyond the like who's who's doing what is is sort of reductive at this point. But in 2024, the DOJ had a study which the Trump DOJ took down because it didn't back up their inferences about things. But if you look at incidents of right-wing violence, it's dramatically out outstretched to to right-wing. There were and I I forget the exact timeline here. I didn't write it down, but I believe it was like something like the early 90s to like 2024. There were 224 incidents of right-wing violence compared to 42 incidents of leftwing violence. Again, Trump's DOJ took it down, has not replaced that with anything. KO, which is not a partisan organization relative to left versus right. It's a libertarian group. They found that over half of political violence in America, comes from the right-wing and only 22% comes from the leftwing. So, I flagged that. Yuggov had a poll, which was actually just from a few days ago, I believe, which had if you ask right-wing voters if violence is acceptable. Excuse me, I actually got this wrong. They asked independent voters whether or not they believe right-wing violence or left-wing violence is a bigger problem. 33% said right-wing violence was a bigger problem. 20% said leftwing violence. And I would argue that's a better metric given the fact that the left and the right get skewed in their echo chambers whereas independents are much more likely to be freethinking relative to where we're at. And then TIP had a poll which I believe was towards the end of last year and asked uh people who identify as Republicans whether or not they think violence can be acceptable in political circumstances. 35% said yes. Dems was 23% yes. But my thing is like 35% for Republicans, 23% for Dems. You can find one that shows the inverse of that. We're really not talking about that much difference because 80 90% of Americans will tell you violence is not the way to deal with any of our problems. I'll tell you that right now and condemn what the shooter did. I'll condemn what the guy did for Charlie Kirk. But I I do have a little bit of a problem and I want to bring this up because I went through and I p I pulled some of your tweets by as you did with mine, I'm sure. Um because I know you're you like to be prepared for this stuff. So does so do I. Is when I go through the tweets from MAGA influencers, there's sort of this they want to own all the political violence. You want to say it's only happening to us. The bullets are only flying one way. I think is a direct quote from one of your tweets. I've seen that talking point from a lot of other people, but that's simply not the case. Like there are bullets that are flying at Democratic Party offices. Melissa Hortman was murdered by a three-time Trump supporter. And then you talk about the the truth here. And you talk about because you said this relative to Barack Obama's tweet and I'm going to see if I have it here. I do have it right here because Barack Obama tweeted something and everybody was pretty upset about it yesterday because it came a little bit after the shooters manifesto came out. And I don't think they updated this copy before they posted it, which is malpractice in my opinion. They should have updated it. But Barack Obama said, "We don't have the details yet, but this tragedy is horrible." And then you said something which is, "This is a lie. The gunman's manifesto has been published six hours ago, but it's also a confession in admission that the motive is damning to President Obama's side, hence the need to lie." Now, I don't know if they were lying, but the point I would make relative to this is it's a lie to suggest that violence is only happening towards the right, that it's only happening to Donald Trump. If we're counting these three incidents, Butler and then the the one at Mara Lago and then this one as assassination attempts, if you stretch that out, then there's actually been 11 assassination attempts against Barack Obama. Butler obviously being far greater than closer than anybody else has ever been in a very long time trying to assassinate a president. But also, I if if the lie makes the motive damning, as you suggest about Barack Obama's tweet, then why are so many people lying about Melissa Hortman and her husband's murder? Why don't so many people not want to talk about Gretchen Whitmer almost being kidnapped? Why don't they want to talk about all the instances of it happening? And that's why I'd like to get beyond the sort of like, is it your people or is it my people? Because it's like there's a lot of deranged, sick people with access to weapons who are trying to hurt one another. And I don't think it's helpful to to to just try to blame each other intrinsically in that, if that makes sense.
I so >> I might have misused the word intrinsically.
>> I so want to get there. I really do. But okay, I'm glad you brought up Melissa Hortman because she's the example that Democrats often bring up to suggest that the bullets are going in the other direction. The problem is is that the man who killed her wrote a confession to the FBI to Cash Patel in which he said that Tim Walls had told him to do it. Now, I don't think Tim Walls told him to kill Melissa Hortman. I think he is a deranged individual, but he was clearly not being motivated by a right-wing ideology in the same way that Butler and the second guy who tried to kill Trump and the third guy who tried to kill Trump and the guy who killed Charlie Kirk and all of these other the guy who firebombed Josh Shapiro's house. Elas Rodriguez who killed two people outside the Jewish museum. the guy who just tried the the the two ISIS guys who tried to, you know, throw um uh Molotov cocktails in New York City. Like these people are all being motivated by a very recognizably left-wing ideology. Whereas Melissa Hortman, that was a man who was like just obviously deranged. She said Tim Walls, by the way, a Democrat, had told him to do it. Gretchen Whitmer, I mean, there's been a lot of reporting about how much enttrapment went on there. I mean, a lot of that was like I mean, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I think January 6th was January 6th. I don't think it was orchestrated by the FBI, but the uh Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot was I I think a lot of the reporting showed that there were more feds involved in that than than non-feds. I don't want to say I don't want to I don't want to say that there's nothing on the right. Um Trump talks in a way that I think is totally beneath the office. um when he says, you know, somebody deserves the death penalty, he shouldn't say that. But there's nobody picking up a gun and taking that as orders and going and assassinating people on the left in the way that people on the left are hearing the discourse on the right, seeing Hassan elevated by the upper echelons of the elites of the Democratic party and then going out and literally the guy who tried to kill Trump yesterday on Sunday on Saturday night had a manifesto that called Trump a rapist, a pedophile, a traitor. was indistinguishable from the kinds of rhetoric you hear from the Democratic party. Your thoughts?
>> Yeah, I think there's a lot in there and I'm sorry I'm trying to write it all down so I can go through with it because you're you're very good at listing it all out which I respect about you. Um, so a couple of things in that. Let's let's unpack from from backwards for a second. First of all, the second shooter in the Trump of of the three, if we're saying that there's three Trump assassination attempts, the second shooter was actually a right-wing person who was angry about the Epstein files and was coming at Trump from that perspective. So, he was coming at it from the right, which I'm sorry.
>> Go ahead.
>> The second one, the one at the at Mara, the >> one at Mara Larago, like he was more more right-wing. He was mad about Epstein and was coming at it from that perspective. So, I just think it's worth flagging. Like, again, usually
>> Well, I mean, we could probably argue about that all day, but it's >> usually the ideologies of these guys are not consistent because they're they're deranged and they're just latching on to something because they get that mentality of I'm going to go be famous. And if you read the manifesto from the the guy on Saturday, like he's crazy person. Like he was like, I'm I feel responsible for all the blood on Donald Trump's hands. Like all that stuff is just not the way a normal person thinks. I I will say like I find it exceptionally frustrating that every time there's a clear obvious incident of right-wing violence, there's some conspiracy theory that disproves it and sort of gives the right inability to like shrug it off. And this is what drives me nuts. So with Tim Walls, that guy's a three-time Trump voter. Every person that was interviewed who knew him was like, "Oh, he loved Trump." Like, he was all about Trump. And the Tim Walls thing,
>> Democrat appointee, right? He had
>> Well, he was he was on on a on a bipartisan commission where like local Republican officials basically picked their guys and Democrats picked them, but the governor picked them. So, like they were a recommendation of the Republicans. That's usually how those type of
>> Hang on just a sec. Just just a second.
>> It's just it's frustrating to me because that guy based on everything that we know was a Trump guy and deranged period. And what I and again I hate this like back and forth of like your people my people but like if I have to answer for everything then you guys have to answer for that stuff too and the guy voted for Trump and then you talk about January 6 and what's frustrating to me and like you acknowledge that January 6 was a legitimate thing that happened which I appreciate but like a lot of people in the MAGA movement don't. They believed that there were that the FBI orchestrated the whole thing while by the way simultaneously arguing that it was a day of love and peace and nobody was hurt and all of that. But like Ashley Babbett was killed trying to break into the House floor with the intent of killing Mike Pence and overturning an election. Like that's what was happening there. But there's a conspiracy theory that conveniently lets people get out of it. And then I'm sure we're going to talk about this at some point, but the Southern Poverty Law Center is the same thing. Like now they've got a conspiracy theory that they've worked backwards from to create a DOJ indictment of that's supposed to justify that Charlottesville was planned by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is ridiculous and not even what the indictment says. And I I know you have it ready to go, so I'm I'm ready to fight about that when you get a second. But like every time it happens, it's well these right-wing people were going to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, but it's really the FBI's fault. Like, and there's a lot of people on the left that want to do that, too, that want to be like, well, this guy was going to do it, but it's a staged thing from Trump. I I don't want that. There's violence in America today, political and otherwise. And really, the roots of it, in my opinion, are pretty similar. And we're not doing anything about it. And that's what really drives me nuts.
>> Okay. So, I I want to call attention to the poll right now. Who is responsible for political violence in America? We've got the left, the right, or both. So, we have 67% saying the left. We have 33% saying both, and 0% saying the right. And that's very interesting to me. Again, like this makes me feel like I have this unfair advantage. Not just because 67% agree with me, Mike, because but because you're meeting me halfway, like you're saying,
>> well, but also like if
>> if we streamed this on my Substack right now, we I'd be winning in a landslide. So like that's the way this is why you're trying to be here.
>> This is like Have you ever done Have you ever done a bar fight with Michael Nolles? if you don't get a chance to do it, but like you're in I was in a room filled with people that were drunk and all voted for Donald Trump and like I debated him on Epstein and you vote at the end and like about half of the people voted with me and I looked at Michael and I was like absolute victory. I'm never going to win. If I get above 30%, huge victory for me.
>> That's amazing. See, this is why you're so precious because you will go where others are afraid to.
>> Um
>> can I add Can I add one more thing before we move on to what I assume is Southern Poverty Line, which is Hassan Um, and and like look, I I I've never met Hassan Fiker. I've never done his show. I mean, if he called, I'd probably do it same way I do your show. Not to COMPARE THE TWO.
>> OH MY GOD, THAT IS
>> I'll do I'll do anything. I'll I'm shameless. I'll do any show. Okay. Um uh except I probably won't do Nick Fentes because I hate that guy. Um but like with with with is like he said some that's like horrific and and there's the two clips that are making the rounds this weekend about like let the blood of the capitalist flow through the streets. I'm like Jesus, like I I don't want anything to do with that stuff. Okay. Okay. And you don't hear me talk like that.
>> If you really care about Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott. That was the other big one.
>> That's awful. That's bad. That's pretty bad. Um, but I hadn't heard that one. But like the the shooter this weekend though, um, because he had an active Blue Sky account, which by the way, Blue Sky is like the worst. I Blue Sky drives me crazy. But like you go on Blue Sky, he's actually crapping all over Asan So he did not like Hassan And there's multiple tweets where he was talking about that that emerged earlier today. I just think that's worth pointing out. You also said that Hassan is being elevated by the upper echelon of the Democratic party. Not a thing that is happening. There is a massive fight inside the Democratic party right now about whether or not to accept Hassan as a voice. You have one Democrat that went and campaigned with him in the Michigan Senate race, but there are a lot of people who are pushing and fighting. So, it's more of like there's a civil war inside the Democratic party over where his place may or may not be. But, I think the idea that Democrats are like elevating him, like he's not appearing with Chuck Schumer and Aake Jeff and yucking it up with Barack Obama. That's not a thing. It's yucking it up with AOC. He's yucking it up with Ro.
>> I don't think he's done anything with AOC, has he? He's done Bernie before, I think, and Zorani did. Yes, Bernie and AOC. She went on his show multiple times. She did all
>> I didn't I didn't know that.
>> him. Um, New York Times elevating him, um, giving him this cozy interview where he, you know, praised political violence, praised political murder, you know, um, basically justified the murder of the UHC Brian Thompson, the CEO who was murdered by Luigi Manion, praised theft. Um, you know, he is being elevated. I believe you that there are moderates who are trying to keep the party away from that. But he is being elevated by all the Moran Mani, all of the people who are seen as the future, the cool kids, like the key.
>> But the the problem sometimes is the Republican party runs against ghosts. This is what I describe this problem as is you have an idea of the Democratic party that doesn't actually exist. So like the fact that the New York Times ran a profile on him is not indicative of the Democratic party elevating him. Now Abdul Elad is going to win the Democratic primary.
>> No, he's not. No, he's not. Money on it right now.
>> I hope you're right. I really hope you're right. a steak dinner and a whiskey if that happens. I'll bet you right now. I I I believe that we're not I don't believe that the Democrats are going to nominate Elsad. Now, I mean, it's going to be a competitive race. Let's be clear about that. But like,
>> wait for the audience. So, the reason Abdul say is running against Mal Mallerie McMorro and Haley Stevens, who are much more moderate Michiganders for Michigan Senate, Abdullah Sayed, who right now is polling ahead of both women, recently did an event. I saw I saw a poll where he was 47. But yeah, he's been
>> there's there's the the predict the prediction markets have him up a little bit over McMaro. But all the polling shows him
>> I really want this to be true. But the reason we're talking about him is because he did an event and got and secured the um the endorsement of Hassan this person that we're this influencer who's very pro political violence, which is why we're talking about him. But that is music to my ears. I'm not one of these people on the right who wants the Democrats to, you know, to to to nominate like, you know, the next Hitler so that we could run against it. You know, I want the Democrats to be good. I want them to be wonderful. I want them to represent the working class. I want everybody to be able to get a choice between two great parties. Like that is my dream. So I'm very glad to do that. Okay. Um so we were on Right. So I was say I was saying yeah that you're right. Sure. Like maybe there is a ghost but I you know I had um uh um Sua Superman on my show who I love. Um and and I said well don't you think Democrats should not He's a Democratic congressman very moderate middle of the road. I said, ' Don't you think they should not be, you know, campaigning with Hassan And he was like, well, if it's going to help them get elected, what's the problem? So, it's not really a ghost. I mean,
>> I mean, you have one Democrat that does one thing and then suddenly it's the whole party. And like this is this is the thing is that
>> on M Donnie, Bernie Sanders, this is the
>> But hold wait. There's a difference though between campaigning and appearing on somebody's show. Like like let's define the difference though. Yes. And and I I I would like to point out that like I think what drives me crazy and the DC press corps does this all the time, but I think the MAGA movement benefits from this greatly, which is like again the Republicans can do a thing. It doesn't speak for every Republican, but the Dem one Democrat does something or like let's say four Democrats do something, suddenly it speaks for the rest of us. And like I would remind you that the president's one of the president's closest political adviserss is Laura Loomer, okay? who is an absolute I hope you would agree with me on this an absolute crazy conspiracy theorist should be persona non grata anywhere and is somebody who by the way direct messaged me a threat against me and my seven-year-old son which then required me to have the police come to my house and rearrange my entire security and I didn't see a lot of people if anybody on the MAGA condemn that when it went super viral last year so like let me condemn that I didn't see that that's horrible I would argue that the equivalent of Hassan on the right is Nick Fuentes who every Democrat has every Republican has condemned and come out against. Tucker Carlson is
>> really
>> The minute Tucker Carlson sat down for that interview with Nick Fuentes. That was the end of Carlson's influence on the right. He's out. Trump has excised him from the party. He will not be at the next RNC.
>> Tucker has more influence right now. And Tucker might be at the RNC because he might be the Republican party nominee in 28.
>> Okay. That his his approval ratings are underwater by 60 points on the right.
>> His numbers his numbers have never been higher in the last year. Like that's just false. I mean,
>> well, if you look at his if you look at his subscriber base, it's growing significantly right now. I mean, I'm not saying it with glee. It just is what it is.
>> Outside America like
>> I mean, the same could be said for Ben Shapiro, though, who's very pro-Israel. So, like,
>> do you do you acknowledge that Republicans have come out against Nick Fuentes in a way that Democrats have not come out against Hassan Fer?
>> No, I don't acknowledge that because I don't think that's right. I think there are still a lot of Republicans who refuse to condemn Nick Fuentes. There are still a lot of Republicans who even when they Well, I thought JD Vance's response to the stuff about Nick Fentes talking about his wife was pretty weak for an alpha male in my opinion. I thought that was weak sauce and if somebody came at my wife that way, I would have been I would have been much more forceful. But Vance knows that he needs that type of vote to win in the primary.
>> You did finally come out against him. Finally, that should be an immediate thing to defend your wife THOUGH BY
>> YOU ARE You are condemning him on the masculinity front, which I agree with, but not on the morality front.
>> I mean, I'm condemning him on all of it, right? Like, I don't I don't I I think Nick Fuentes, generally speaking, I think the biggest two weasels in the MAGA movement, quote unquote, are like Nick Fuentes and JD Vance. I can't stand either of them for very different reasons, but they're two of my least favorite people in politics because I just I don't understand them. I don't understand the way that they talk. I don't understand the way that they engage. But I think that like is a problematic figure. I'm not going to pretend like he's not. He said a lot of things that I disagree with, but like is probably more like Rogan than he is Fuentes in my opinion, which is like says stupid people go on his show, like whatever. There is a difference between campaigning with somebody and doing their show though. And like I just think that's a little bit different.
>> Who do you admire on the right? Is there anybody
>> who I admire? Um Oh, it's great. You know what? There's a bunch of different
>> Hold on. While you think about that, let's put up the second poll because we got to call it. So you think about that. Um, second poll going up now. Share. Guys, we always ask at the end of our conversation, did you hear something here that helped you understand the other side? So, weigh in on that while Mike does something very patriotic and tells us someone on the right that he admires.
>> Okay. I have um there's a couple that's I'm I'm debating a couple. So, like I I admire uh Josh Holly when he talks about monopolies in particular when he takes on big tech. I think there's some good stuff there. I admire um I admire Tucker Carlson a little bit because when he talks about economic issues, there's a lot of populism in there that I like. I I admire our mutual friend Leland Vidder who I he would he would hate to find out that I think he's on the right because he thinks he's a moderate and I laugh at him every time he does that. Be like me arguing that I'm like a Republican, but like um is you know Leland Leland stood up for what he believed in when he was at Fox and and I think you know it was a little bit public. I don't want to get too down in it because it's his story, not mine, but like I think he's a good human being that you can have a conversation with. Um, you know, I I um if you go like a little bit further out to like the podcast world where like some of these folks have like maybe turned against Trump, but I always still think that they're like the right. Like I think Theo Vaughn is a is a goof, but like seems like he has a good heart. Um, so there's people out there that I like. Like I I try to listen to everybody. Like there's things that Jordan Peterson says that, you know, and I think there's also things Jordan Peterson says that makes me want to tear my hair out, but like there's sometimes he says a thing about like man's value in world and like I've read his book um the was it um
>> the 10 rules.
>> The 10 rules. Yeah, I forgot I forget exactly what it was called. Um but I thought there's there's some nuggets of wisdom in there that I think are valuable. So like I I tend to try to listen to everybody. I have some begrudging respect for Donald Trump. Like he's incredible at creating attention for himself. He's very good at identifying the problems that make people hate politicians. I think he's very bad at solving those problems. Um, but I think he's really good at identifying like those third rail things that like Democrats and Republicans are afraid to talk about because he was absolutely right about the border on the critique. He was absolutely right about government waste, fraud, and abuse, and Democrats sometimes don't want to talk about that, which is ridiculous. Um, I think he was really bad at dealing with those issues. Maybe the border I'll give him some credit on, but um, those are like the ones that immediately come to mind. I'm not a hater by you. Like when I when I think you're if I think you're trying to solve a problem, I'll I'll call it out. I don't care. I'm not a sick fan.
>> All right. Finally, um, how do we solve this problem? Like what how do we move forward from here as a nation?
>> So, I I think we have to like I think the incentive structures are broken. That's the number one thing. And I think it's just if you look at everything that's broken in our politics today, if the incentive structure for somebody to be famous and influential is to like rush to the internet and get that first shitty take out there, we're always going to be screwed because people are going to listen to the so- and so on this side or the so- and so on that side that justifies the world view. And the incentive structures are like like for instance on Saturday night when I shot my YouTube video about what had happened. I shot like a sober, you know, take 10 minutes straight to camera. Like if I had done a video that was like Donald Trump staged this entire thing to save his presidency, I would have made way more money. I would have gotten way more followers and I and I won't do that. But like the same with the MAGA, right? Like immediately blaming Democrats I think was wrong. I I I love you Bay. I really do. But like I think some of the like post that you threw up there about like bullets are only flying one way I think also is sort of the same thing of that. I'm sure if you pulled some of mine there might not be 100% like where I would be proud of them in the midst of this conversation. But like if we can get beyond that, if we can deal that sort of like incentive structure and get back to just like actually talking and solving these issues, that's where we've got to go. It can't just be like knee-jerk. We're blaming each other for everything every single time and just trying to like one up each other. Like you said at the beginning, I want to win this debate or something like that in the context of it. Nobody wins these debates. Like nobody does. Whether it's here or like CNN or my show or anything else, like nobody wins these. like you're either like reinforcing what a what a group of people already think or everybody ends up hating the two of us because we're like fighting. Not you and I necessarily. This has been a good conversation, but like there's this illusion of debate and friction on CNN. I'm sorry if I'm taking up all the time. I apologize.
>> No, no, no, not at all. I I I so want to to go there, but it seems to me that in the moment when the bullets, literally the moment where the bullets are flying at the right, um it's sort of um to ask us to unify around the idea that we bear some of the responsibility for that. It seems to me like you I cannot unify around a lie as much as I want to. and the left. Can you I can't imagine them like being asked to bear responsibility when they literally in the moment of >> them being victimized. Um all right, we got to leave it there. Um I want to read the results of the poll though. Um 5050. That's really good, Mike. Sometimes worse than that. So um thank you so much for doing this. God bless and protect you. I really hope you'll come back soon. I just love talking to you. I feel like we are able to kind of create even just in this conversation the America we want to live in. So thank you so much.
>> Thanks Ba. I appreciate you.
>> Come back soon. All right. And the rest of you come back tomorrow. We'll have another debate for you on the biggest news story of the day. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for voting in the polls, for hearing both of us out. And we'll see you tomorrow.