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00:03From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news.
00:10This is The Daily Show with your host, Jon Stewart.
00:38Welcome to The Daily Show.
00:40My God, I'm Jon Stewart.
00:42We have got a phenomenal show for tonight.
00:45Author, professor, Michelle Dickerson is going to be our guest tonight.
00:48Very delighted to have her on the show.
00:54But first, let me give it up for the staff and crew who were able to make it in here
00:59tonight.
01:02To put on a program and, and, I'm not going to forget you guys, and our audience.
01:16Made it out tonight.
01:19Clearly our audience tonight have gone the wrong way on the decision tree.
01:28Delighted they're here.
01:32Should we risk life and limb to see a show we could see on TV in just a few hours?
01:40In our homes?
01:43Why not go out in this hip-breaking weather?
01:48You know, uh, I, I don't know if you guys in the audience noticed, but, uh, uh, it's snowy outside.
01:56It's bad out there.
01:57I mean, this blizzard made it nearly impossible for even weather people to take selfies.
02:03Or even be seen.
02:05Hello?
02:06I mean, when the plows get stuck, the plow got stuck.
02:12That's, you know, I commute this way.
02:13This is, this is how I, I always commute Tauntaun.
02:23By the way, under Zoran Mamdani, Tauntauns are free.
02:36And we have a fresh layer of two feet to cover, uh, all the Tauntaun shit in the streets.
02:46We were this close in New York City to having the snow and the dog shit gone.
02:51Like, this close!
02:54And then God was like, you know what New York City needs?
02:58A little, uh, layer to cover the dog shit.
03:01But let's get to the big news of the week.
03:03As you know, tomorrow night is President Donald Jar Jar Trump's big state of the Union speech.
03:09But no matter what Trump says, folks, it's not going to change how we in this country are feeling.
03:15This country is in such emotional turmoil right now.
03:18The government sanctioned and executed violence in Minnesota.
03:22The rank corruption and profiteering of elected officials and their families.
03:27The manufactured outrage over, God forbid, an American performing at halftime in the Super Bowl in Spanish.
03:33It's a feeling that we are one nation divided under siege.
03:38That perhaps we've crossed the Rubicon of this great American experiment.
03:42And that we slowly and inexorably are sliding into the abyss of fallen and broken democracies.
03:52But then...
03:54Back across it comes.
03:56Jeff Hughes wins it!
03:57The golden goal for the United States!
04:01Oh!
04:04What?
04:06What?
04:08We're back, mother f***er!
04:11I know the powerful elites remain unaccountable, but he put the thing behind that other guy!
04:19This country was sinking into us, that's Paul we can't recover from, but the vulcanized rubber disc went past the
04:26lord of the net!
04:29It was so unifying!
04:32There is nothing that can take away from the joyous moment as all Americans celebrate this incredible...
04:38Wait, what the f***?
04:40Is that FBI Director Cash Patel?
04:45Why is our FBI...
04:48And why are they putting a medal around the neck of FBI Director...
04:53Is Cash Patel a make-a-wish?
05:00Man?
05:01Kid?
05:01Is that what this is?
05:05How did...
05:06Why is that...
05:07I mean, listen, I...
05:08And I'm not trying to diminish his condition.
05:11It is...
05:11Listen.
05:13Listen.
05:14There is currently no cure for crazy eyes.
05:21Crazy eyes!
05:26For when you want to turn every picture into some sort of meth-fueled mugshot.
05:35Are you telling me I was going 90 and a 35?
05:41But I got to tell you, MAGA especially is going crazy for the victory.
05:45American pride, power, and patriotism on full display.
05:51This is time for America, not you whining little clowns.
05:55Masculinity, and celebration.
05:59These are things that have been completely and totally sanitized from our arch-feminist culture.
06:04Our estrogenetic culture.
06:13First of all, what a super weird year hockey is having.
06:23Like, in four months to go from nobody gives a shit about hockey to, well, I like to watch
06:31them f***.
06:38To only hockey can save us from a dystopian, extra-genetic future.
06:47Perhaps the strangest part is how this victory in a hockey match is being perceived on the
06:52right geopolitically.
06:54Got to go all the way back to 1980 when we defeated the Soviets.
06:57This felt just as sweet because I guess since we don't have Russia to kick around anymore,
07:01Canada will do.
07:03They're practically communist and they're cozying up to the Chinese.
07:06Hockey is all that they have.
07:07And we took that away.
07:08That's all they got.
07:13What's with the SOAR winning?
07:14Why are we such dicks?
07:16And by the way, don't we in America have enough real enemies?
07:21Now we got to pretend like Canada's way of life is incongruous to the West?
07:27Yeah, f*** those completely best neighbors our nation has ever had.
07:34I think we had like a little fight about beaver pelts in like 1789.
07:40Since then, smooth sailing.
07:42But for more on Team USA's victory over Canada and what it means, we go live to Desi Lydic!
07:52Desi, this victory is great.
07:55Great victory.
07:58But they're making this thing out to be some kind of miracle on ice.
08:02Yeah, because it is.
08:04Woo!
08:05We did it, John!
08:07USA!
08:08USA!
08:09Canada got canucked in the face by the red, white, and blue.
08:13Woo!
08:14Yeah, no, it certainly was a great victory for the U.S. hockey team.
08:20No doubt.
08:21It was...
08:21Yeah, but not just the hockey team, John.
08:23Same way we defeated communism in the miracle on ice, this victory proves that our system
08:29of government is far superior to Canada's.
08:33As they say in hockey, game, set, and match.
08:43It's not a hockey term, so...
08:46Offsides, get the rebound.
08:48Okay, whatever.
08:48Look, I just don't know if our political systems are really all that different from Canada's.
08:53What?
08:53Are you kidding me?
08:55Our democracy separates executive power from the legislature with a president appointed
09:00by an electoral college, while their democracy appoints an executive based on the outcome
09:06of which governing party has the majority.
09:08And as we learned on the ice yesterday, that system sucks!
09:15The system seems actually pretty similar.
09:17I mean, don't both the U.S. and Canada bicameral legislatures?
09:21Yes, but American senators are elected, while Canadian senators are appointed.
09:27Just like how Canada got appointed to our nuts, bitch!
09:39That kind of came out of nowhere.
09:42That's comprehensive and filthy, Desi.
09:45Aw, thank you.
09:46Here's another.
09:47In America, we have electoral districts, but in Canada, they call their districts ridings,
09:53which is fitting because Team Canada was riding our nuts, bitch!
09:58Please stop saying nuts.
10:00I will not.
10:01I will not.
10:02And by the way, another reason we're better, America's Congress has a sergeant-at-arms,
10:07but the Canadian parliament has an usher of the black rod.
10:11And speaking of ushering of the black rod...
10:13No, no, no, no, no, Desi, no.
10:16Yeah, yeah, I didn't like where that was going.
10:18Yeah.
10:20Same way the Canadians didn't like where my nuts were going, bitch!
10:24Come on, all right, all right.
10:25Just don't encourage her.
10:37The cold weather has changed them.
10:40Look, the game didn't change the fact that Canadians still have a better healthcare system
10:46than we did.
10:47Yes, okay, I thought so, too, until I saw the scoreboard for profit healthcare one,
10:52universal Canadian healthcare zero, USA, USA!
10:56No, but Desi, that wasn't even the final score.
10:59What was the final score?
11:01Did you even watch the game?
11:04I watched these nuts!
11:06No, I did not watch the game.
11:09So why are you celebrating in the team's locker room?
11:12Oh, I'm not in Milan.
11:14I'm at a Planet Fitness.
11:16Oh, my God, anything to get away from my family on a snow day.
11:21Desi Lydic, everybody.
11:24All right.
11:27So there you go.
11:30Killed it.
11:34So there you have it, folks.
11:37We have defeated our new enemy, Canada, on the ice,
11:45and vanquished them to the penalty box of history.
11:49Now America can live in a golden era of peace and prosperity.
11:56The United States could be on the brink of war with Iran.
11:58What the f**k?
12:02They don't even skate.
12:09What possible conflict could we have with people in street shoes?
12:14Is this real?
12:16The drumbeat of a possible war with Iran growing louder.
12:19The largest assembly of U.S. forces in the Middle East that we've seen in years.
12:23One report is saying we are days away from strikes.
12:27Days away from war.
12:31Usually when we get into war in the Middle East, there's a Marty Supreme-level press rollout.
12:38Months and months of endless promotion, interviews, manufactured intelligence.
12:43They got weapons of mass destruction.
12:45Schwap!
12:49Until finally, we acquiesce to the war just in the hopes that the selling of it will stop.
12:56Because it seems vaguely charming.
12:59But this war, one day it's nothing.
13:02And the next day, we've filled their waterway with giant ships.
13:06Why?
13:07What's the urgency?
13:08Special Envoy Steve Witkoff has this warning about Iran's nuclear power.
13:13They're probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material.
13:21Oh, my God.
13:22An atomic bomb by Monday?
13:26Oh, shit.
13:27When was this interview taped?
13:29Do they already have the bomb?
13:30Is it five business days to the bomb?
13:34Do Muslims get weekends?
13:36Do they work through?
13:38I gotta say, a week away from having the material for a nuclear bomb, I'm a little surprised
13:43to hear that.
13:44You know, I thought I remembered someone saying something about that nation's nuclear program
13:52being...
13:53What was the word I was looking for?
13:56Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.
14:03like...
14:10That's right.
14:11I remember Trump saying, uh, we totally obliterated their nuclear program and yelling at people
14:19who questioned it.
14:20Which makes me wonder, how obliterated was it?
14:24It was obliterated like nobody's ever seen before.
14:35So the kind of obliteration that somehow...
14:40...re-bliterates?
14:43Almost immediately?
14:44Yes, no one has ever seen that before.
14:46We obliterated that building.
14:48The building we are currently standing on?
14:50Yes, that is correct.
14:52Yes, that is correct.
14:52So is our plan now to re-obliterate their nuclear program every few months, or is there a longer-term
15:01strategy?
15:02Taking the armada to offshore Iran is to put pressure on Iran, first and foremost, to come
15:09the table to negotiate around nuclear weapons.
15:12Oh!
15:13I see.
15:13The old carrot and stick.
15:15Our peace through strength will force Iran to make, let's call it, an Iran nuclear deal.
15:26I think I remember that phrase from when we made a nuclear deal with Iran.
15:35What a rabbit of that.
15:36I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.
15:45Oh, right.
15:46Trump obliterated it.
15:49So just to be clear, Donald Trump is on the brink of war with Iran to either obliterate
15:55the program Trump had previously obliterated or to force them into signing a deal like the
16:01one Trump had pulled out of.
16:03It's all in chapter nine of Art of the Deal, eating your own asshole.
16:11Your own.
16:17USA.
16:19USA.
16:20USA.
16:26USA.
16:28USA.
16:30USA.
16:32But obviously there is no more solemn responsibility.
16:45for the president of the United States than the decision he makes to put Americans in harm's way through armed
16:51conflict.
16:52So as the president recently took to the podium, this burden of history clearly heavily weighing on his soul.
16:59I made a speech at a factory.
17:01They made steel products.
17:03And I said, how are you?
17:05Nice to meet you.
17:06How's business?
17:08President, I'd love to kiss you.
17:09This is a very powerful man.
17:12I don't want to be kissed by that man.
17:24You can always tell when a story is true, when it contains a character who refers to Trump
17:32as, quote, president.
17:36Just president.
17:37Not President Trump.
17:39Not Mr. President.
17:39Just president.
17:41But I'm sorry.
17:42I interrupted your story.
17:45President.
17:46What else did this very real person say to you?
17:49He said, sir, I want to kiss you so badly.
17:51And I said, no, thank you.
18:00Yes, yes.
18:00All the steel workers want to kiss you and your unbelievably f***able tariffs.
18:06We'll read all about it in the official history of your presidency.
18:09Team of heated rivals.
18:17As America stands on the precipice of armed conflict with Iran,
18:20Donald Trump is single-mindedly focused on preserving his wildly unpopular tariffs
18:27that somebody finally had the balls to say were illegal.
18:33After months of anticipation, the Supreme Court today ruling that the president Trump's
18:38sweeping tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are unconstitutional.
18:45Wow.
18:49Wow.
18:50A court composed mostly of his own party's appointees has struck down the constitutionality of Trump's
19:00go-it-alone tariff regime.
19:02That's bound to cause him some introspection.
19:05They're just being fools and lapdogs for the rhinos.
19:09They also are a, frankly, disgrace to our nation, those justices.
19:15They're very unpatriotic and disloyal to our constitution.
19:17I think it's an embarrassment to their families.
19:20You want to know the truth?
19:26When a guy who had sex with a porn star right after his wife had given birth tells you you're
19:36an embarrassment to your family.
19:41I think you have to take that seriously.
19:46But the Supreme Court didn't come to this decision rashly.
19:49The Supreme Court took months to make this decision.
19:51They had oral arguments back in November.
19:54They took 10 months working through all the thorny legal issues associated with this case,
19:58trying to thread some type of needle.
19:59Lots of nuanced legal issues that the court has to thoroughly consider.
20:03The court put in the work.
20:07And that's why this decision will stand the test of...
20:13President Trump doubling down on his trade policy,
20:16saying that he will raise global tariffs to 15%.
20:20Motherf***er!
20:23We had him!
20:26We had him!
20:35He always gets away like the Roadrunner.
20:38We gotcha!
20:40Me-me-pew!
20:43It's so dispiriting.
20:46You know what we need?
20:48We need one of them stuffed comfort monkeys that poor Punch has.
20:54Poor Punch.
20:59Although, and no disrespect,
21:05but clearly there is probably something wrong with that f***ing monkey.
21:09I don't...
21:10Please!
21:11I say this!
21:20Hear me out.
21:21I understand.
21:22And it's adorable.
21:24And he's breaking my heart.
21:28With that being said,
21:30who are we to question the wisdom of the tribe?
21:34No, I...
21:35I'm just saying,
21:36they're the ones that know him best.
21:41They've decided he's problematic.
21:48What the f***?
21:49Oh, you know better.
21:50You know monkeys better than the monkeys.
21:53Is that it?
21:55All the little monkey experts all decided,
21:59in the middle of a blizzard,
22:01to come here tonight and...
22:04These monkey...
22:05Let me tell you something.
22:07Who...
22:08No!
22:09F*** all y'all!
22:12Let me...
22:13Who are we to question their lived experience
22:19for our parasocial attack?
22:22I mean, look!
22:22They decided!
22:24The mom!
22:25The elders!
22:26The juniors!
22:27Even that f***ing stuffed monkey!
22:30Looks like,
22:31hey, I don't want to be here.
22:34I could be living the life of Riley
22:36in a nice bedroom in Westchester.
22:38Instead, I'm being dragged through the gravel
22:41in the middle of Ichikawa!
22:48I'm sorry.
22:49I'm standing by this.
22:53Sometimes it's gonna go from funny to me.
22:55That's just what happens.
22:57That's just what happens.
23:04And by the way,
23:05oh, it's all cute now,
23:07but when puberty comes,
23:10that is not gonna be a happy stuffed monkey!
23:13Trust me!
23:15Trust me!
23:20It's comfort now!
23:23But he's wifing it later!
23:26Trust me!
23:30How dare you people substitute your wisdom
23:32for those other monkeys?
23:40I was doing this all weekend.
23:41My wife's gonna be so mad at me.
23:45All weekend,
23:46I just kept going.
23:47But there's gotta be something wrong
23:48with the monkey, right?
23:51Not funny!
23:54Anyway...
23:58The point is, folks...
24:06We're on the brink of war with the wrong...
24:23I gotta work on the segways.
24:28I'm sorry.
24:29I'm sorry.
24:30Okay.
24:31We're on the brink of war with Iran.
24:33Mmm! Mmm!
24:36The point is, folks,
24:38we're on the brink of war with Iran.
24:39Russia still bombs Ukraine with impunity,
24:40and yet Trump is out there
24:41kissing dudes over tariffs
24:42and saving his most vicious rhetoric
24:45for our own Supreme Court.
24:47Can the State of the Union get any more surreal?
24:49President Trump mystified
24:51a lot of people over the weekend
24:52when he announced
24:53a U.S. hospital ship
24:54was on its way to Greenland.
24:56What?!
24:58Greenland doesn't need a hospital ship!
25:00They've got universal healthcare!
25:02We need a hospital ship!
25:05Where's our hospital ship?
25:14But, like, most things Trump,
25:16it's even stupider than that!
25:17Both of the American hospital ships,
25:20Mercy and Comfort,
25:21are out of commission,
25:22under repair.
25:23Comfort isn't even in the water.
25:27Look, I'm no expert boat guy.
25:30But they are supposed to be in the water.
25:33Yes!
25:34What are we doing?
25:35We're trolling Denmark.
25:37We're going to war with Iran.
25:38We're abandoning Ukraine.
25:40We're charging everybody 15% more.
25:43We're pushing away our closest neighbors.
25:46Ostracizing ourselves from the entire...
25:48Oh, my God.
25:51We're punch.
26:00America has gone from being a shining city on a hill
26:03to being the weird smelly monkey nobody wants to play with.
26:10I think that's why they don't want to play with.
26:12I don't know why.
26:14But I don't know if you can make a stuffed monkey big enough
26:18for all of America
26:20to f***.
26:21He is f***ing that monkey.
26:23When we come back, Michelle Dickerson will be joining me in the studio.
26:26Thank you very much.
26:35Welcome back to The Daily Show.
26:37My guest tonight...
26:39My guest tonight, a University of Texas law professor
26:42and author of The Middle Class New Deal,
26:45Restoring Upward Mobility in the American Dream.
26:47Please welcome to the program, Michelle Dickerson.
27:04By the way, for some odd reason,
27:08tonight's audience, in the middle of a blizzard,
27:11packed with Texas people.
27:13Welcome.
27:18Ladies and gentlemen, there's been some sort of weird
27:20nonverbal communication between the Texas people.
27:23I don't know if that is a call to violence.
27:27Or perhaps camaraderie.
27:29But isn't that odd?
27:30You came out...
27:31By the way, thank you for coming in a little early
27:33because of the weather and all that.
27:35So we really don't care.
27:35Wouldn't miss it for the world.
27:36Oh, thank you so much.
27:37I'm delighted you're here.
27:39This is such music to my ears, this book.
27:44A Middle Class New Deal.
27:47I want to talk to you about one of the mis...
27:49I guess, misunderstandings maybe about our middle class
27:51is that it didn't...
27:53It wasn't just happenstance that created the middle class.
27:58It wasn't just the invisible hand that did it.
28:03Government really played a role.
28:05So walk us through a little bit of that.
28:08Well, I would even say they played a role.
28:09They created it.
28:10Our political leaders after the Depression and World War II decided,
28:16do we really want to bring back all of the servicemen,
28:19because it was mostly men at the time,
28:20into an economy that had barely recovered from the Depression.
28:26And so they made the conscious decision to create the middle class.
28:32It didn't just, since I have a lot of Texans here,
28:34it didn't just crop up like weeds in a field after a Texas storm.
28:39Right?
28:39It's there because we created it.
28:42I see now.
28:43So, let me just translate very quickly.
28:48It didn't just pop up like a bagel store in Pennsylvania.
28:52Okay.
28:53Would that be?
28:54Okay.
28:54Okay.
28:56Um...
28:57But that's exactly right.
28:58And there were little things that I found so interesting.
29:03Prior to the New Deal, if you wanted to buy a house,
29:07you couldn't get a 30-year mortgage that was amortized.
29:10There were these...
29:11And you had to put down 50% or even more to even get in the game.
29:15Yeah.
29:16And not only could you not get a 30-year mortgage, they didn't exist.
29:21Right.
29:21And so when everyone sits around now talking about,
29:24well, you know, homeownership, you ought to be able to buy...
29:26Well, when people had to put down 50%
29:28and you had maybe a 5- to 10-year repayment period,
29:32very few people could own a home.
29:35Right.
29:35And so Congress allowed banks to create the 15- to 30-year mortgage,
29:41which is why I argue in the book and when I talk about it,
29:44that if Congress wanted to fix the problems that are going on now,
29:48if they wanted to restore the middle class,
29:51they could because they created the middle class
29:54with things like, you know, creating a 15- to 30-year mortgage project.
29:58Right.
29:58Now, is it that the programs that we have now
30:02are not sufficient to do it or that we shifted the way we do it?
30:06So now they might say, well...
30:09So in this, they established what? The Federal Housing Authority.
30:12Mm-hmm.
30:12Now, let's also be clear.
30:14These programs were for almost exclusively white people.
30:18Right.
30:19Which is why we see such a gap in wealth and equity that still exists.
30:24Yep. Homeownership gap, it's been 20- basically 25% gap
30:28between white home ownership rates and black homeowners... forever.
30:34Right.
30:34And also the wealth gap is largely driven by the lack of housing wealth
30:39in most black households.
30:40Right.
30:41And by the way, that's because of, again, not the free market.
30:44That was a manipulated market as well.
30:47You talk about redlining and blockbusting.
30:49Right.
30:49Well, and that...
30:51And the other thing is you couldn't be approved for the FHA guaranteed 15- to 30-year mortgages.
30:58And so if you can't get the mortgage loan, which is cheap, it amortizes...
31:03Mm-hmm.
31:03...then you're stuck in the really bad private market, which means that you pay too much.
31:08And then you live in a neighborhood where your homes aren't going to appreciate and value as much
31:13because, you know, up until the 19- you know, late 1960s, 70s, racism was legal.
31:21I mean, our laws allowed...
31:22There were covenants even when it wasn't explicitly legal, there'd be homeowner association covenants.
31:27Exactly.
31:27Yeah.
31:28That would say you can't sell your home to certain types of people.
31:31And we know who those certain types of people were.
31:34But you use, I think, to great effect, your parents' rise to the middle class.
31:42Mm-hmm.
31:42And the way that they overcame that.
31:44But it was unusual and they had to work harder to do it.
31:47Exactly.
31:48And so one of the things that I try to do in the book is to show how my parents
31:52became and remained middle class.
31:55Mm-hmm.
31:55To then show why it's so hard now for young people to do the same thing.
31:59It was harder for my parents because they were becoming middle class in the 1960s, 1970s.
32:07And they were teachers.
32:08They were professionals.
32:08And they were teachers.
32:09Yeah.
32:09But they knew they had to get a college degree.
32:11Mm-hmm.
32:11So at that time, you could actually get a, what I call a good job, full-time, 40-hour-a
32:18-week job that paid you enough to support your family without a college degree.
32:22Not true now.
32:23But if you were black then, you really needed to get the college degree or else you were really going
32:29to be fighting obstacles.
32:30But yeah, my parents were able to go from being, my mom grew up on a farm, my dad's parents,
32:37my father's parents were laborers.
32:40Right.
32:40But they were able to go to college.
32:41They didn't have to drown themselves in student loan debt.
32:44Right.
32:44They worked hard.
32:46They got up every day.
32:47They followed the rules.
32:48They bought homes.
32:49There was racial steering from a lot of the real estate agents.
32:53Right.
32:53But they were able to buy homes.
32:54And you couldn't go on, it wasn't like, you know, your parents could look up on the internet and go,
32:58oh, that's a good school system.
33:00Exactly.
33:00Now, they had to take the word of whoever it was that was pushing a certain thing.
33:04The agents are trying to push them into neighborhoods where the schools weren't high quality schools.
33:09And my parents, again, understood you've got to put your kids in a school that at least puts them in
33:15a position, K-12 school.
33:17Right.
33:17That puts them in a position that if they want to go to college, they'll be able to go to
33:21college.
33:21So you have these tent posts of the middle class, which is homeownership at reasonable down payments and reasonable non
33:30-escalating.
33:31You know, you make the point in the book that back then mortgage rates were not tied to anything so
33:35they could jump in, you know, crazy ways.
33:38So, you know, these mortgages that are relatively flexible, jobs that would give you pensions and health care and would
33:47allow you some stability to go along.
33:51Are those the tent posts that we're now missing and how did we end up missing them?
33:56Well, I'll answer the last part first and then talk about the, I call them markers in the book.
34:01The last, the reason we've lost them is because political leaders, and I mean at all levels, local, state and
34:09federal, have refused to exhibit the will to save the middle class.
34:14They have the ability.
34:15There is nothing they fetishize more though.
34:18I can't, how often do politicians just say, I'm about lunch pail, it's sitting around the table and all that.
34:24So, how have they missed that, the mark between their rhetoric and the reality of what they're doing?
34:32So, I don't want to say what I thought.
34:35You may, you may.
34:36No, no.
34:36In fact, if you want to, you can curse.
34:39These people have heard everything tonight.
34:42I went after, let me tell you something.
34:46I went after a beloved monkey today.
34:50But no, what do you think?
34:52Um, I think they have convinced lower and middle income Americans to look horizontally to blame.
35:04So, we're doing tribes.
35:06The reason that you can't buy a house, the reason that you don't have a good job is because that
35:11person over there is taking your job from...
35:14Immigrants.
35:15Immigrants.
35:15Right.
35:16Or, you know, diversity is now a bad word because it doesn't mean what it was supposed to mean, just
35:22sort of have lots of different people from different walks of life.
35:25Right.
35:25And so, once you convince people to shift blame horizontally, they don't look up vertically.
35:32Because if you look vertically, you see that the only, um, trickle economics that we're seeing now is trickle up.
35:41Right.
35:41So, wealth and income is trickling up from middle class families to the top.
35:47But if you convince people that your enemy is horizontally, then they don't notice that there's a whole lot of
35:53wealth and income that's going up to others.
35:56I'm curious what you think because I would, if I were judging this on party, I would say the Republican
36:02Party would convince about horizontal.
36:04But the Democratic Party would convince you that this deregulatory or what they would call, like, neoliberal economics works.
36:13Mm-hmm.
36:13That it's become a subsidy economy or a gig economy.
36:17We'll retrain you.
36:18We'll do all that.
36:19But have they also failed in, in their political will or in the programs that they, is it a, is
36:26it a design flaw in those programs?
36:28I think they just haven't been paying attention.
36:30So, one of the things I say in the book is that it's not just the middle class is suffering
36:35because of one thing.
36:36They're suffering because of everything.
36:38So, if you think of the markers of the middle class, they can't afford, you can't afford to buy a
36:42home.
36:43Right.
36:43Um, you have a job, but it's not a, what I call sort of a good job.
36:50It's not 40 hours a week, full time.
36:53Right.
36:54With benefits, where you are called an employee and not a contractor.
37:00Right.
37:01We've gutted unions.
37:03Right.
37:04Um, people can't afford to, uh, you, you can't get sick, right?
37:09Because if you get sick and you can't work, most people don't have savings.
37:13Right.
37:13So, it's not one little thing.
37:16It's just a series of paper cuts since roughly the 1980s.
37:21But to follow up on your point about, um, subsidies, if we actually said, let's people, let people work in
37:28the gig economy if you want to pick up a little money.
37:30Right.
37:30That's fine.
37:31But you shouldn't have to piece together three jobs.
37:36Right.
37:37Three gigs.
37:37Three gigs.
37:38Yeah.
37:39Because you can't find a 40 hour a week full time job where you are called an employee and you
37:46have the benefits that go along with being an employee in this country.
37:49So, this brings us to, because I think that, that diagnosis is exactly right.
37:55So, what is the medicine?
37:57What, what is the remedy?
37:59How do you re-engage a, a middle class New Deal?
38:05Is it just about recreating that, those FHA programs or the GI Bill in a different form?
38:12What, what's the way that it could be done?
38:13Well, what I always say, I want each local politician and I want each voter to pick one thing.
38:21So, if you want to focus on college, uh, let's make sure that people can afford to go to college
38:28and not have to drown themselves in debt.
38:30Mm-hmm.
38:31So, pick college if you want to.
38:32If you want to focus on, because actually now I don't spend as much time talking about home ownership rates,
38:38because people can't even, can't find affordable housing to rent.
38:43Right.
38:44So, if you were living in a neighborhood, particularly a gated community type neighborhood,
38:50and you were saying things like, oh, well we can't change our homeowner association rules,
38:57because those people may move in.
39:00And we need to make sure that we keep these exclusionary zoning laws,
39:04because you have to have a 3,500 square foot home on an acre lot with a huge setback.
39:12I mean, any time you have those kind of rules in place for housing,
39:16what you're saying is, we don't want the middle class to live here.
39:19And so, the argument...
39:21So, they're now zoned out.
39:22They're zoned out, exactly.
39:24Right.
39:24Because the developers can't build a small home, because the zoning rules don't allow it.
39:30Right.
39:30And the last thing, and my favorite thing to always attack,
39:33which usually puts me in, like, the same company with, like, the Cato Institute.
39:37Right.
39:37More libertarian.
39:38Yeah.
39:39Is the mortgage interest deduction, it needs to go.
39:42Right.
39:42Because that helps people that already have something.
39:46It helps certain people that already have something.
39:50Most people, the middle class, they don't itemize their deductions.
39:54So, they actually get zero benefit from the mortgage interest deduction.
39:58I see.
39:58So, in the easy form, right.
39:59Exactly.
40:00Right, right.
40:00And so, what we're doing is we're subsidizing the housing expenses of rich people.
40:06And so, a lot of what we're doing...
40:07I would love to see sort of big, bold, broad things like, you know, an FHA or a program like
40:14that.
40:14Right.
40:14But what I would really want people to do is look at what we're doing now.
40:18What can we eliminate?
40:21The mortgage interest deduction.
40:22Right.
40:23Exclusionary zoning.
40:24What can we do?
40:26Another thing I talk about a lot in the book is the typical school day is not aligned at all
40:33with the typical work day for parents.
40:36Right.
40:36So, if we want to make it easy for a lower middle income family to be able to function, why
40:44are we still pretending like we're a bunch of farmers?
40:46Right.
40:47We don't need to have the schools opening at, you know, seven or eight in the morning and then shutting
40:53at two or three.
40:54Right.
40:54People have to go to work.
40:55Right.
40:56Right.
40:56And then you have the whole summer off.
40:58Well, that's lovely if you, since I picked on Texas before, if you summer in the Hamptons.
41:04Right, right.
41:05But it's not so great if you actually have to work during the summer.
41:17Right.
41:17And you've got to figure out something to do with your kids.
41:19So, the thing that I want political leaders to do and voters to do is to ask what could we
41:25do, what one change could we make that could make it easier for the middle class to attain one of
41:31those markers.
41:32Mm-hmm.
41:33And to get that.
41:34And it strikes me as to run on a middle class New Deal would be a banger for voters.
41:39I mean, it strikes me as more people than not are trapped.
41:43Exactly.
41:44In that sort of that pinch between, you know, child care and health care and elder care and education and
41:52government creating common sense kinds of programs for that.
42:00So, it strikes me as odd that that hasn't been the focus.
42:05There has like on the more populist areas of the right and the left, but not so much full stop.
42:11And I think the reason it hasn't is because can you imagine how powerful it would be if the middle
42:17class unites?
42:20Right.
42:20So, if you have horizontal unity, that means that, ooh, we're looking up now.
42:28We see where the problem is.
42:29So, I actually sort of understand why no one wants to have all of the middle class to unite because
42:36that would be a formidable voting block.
42:39It would be incredibly formidable.
42:40And it strikes me as, as unions get weaker, isn't our representation supposed to be our unions?
42:49Like, aren't they the ones who are supposed to be?
42:51Why does it always have to be that, well, you guys have to get together and have meetings and come
42:55up?
42:56Why can't our representatives be the lobbyists for the middle class?
43:00Like, it strikes me as insane that that's not the case.
43:04Well, and particularly since we've gutted unions.
43:06I mean, since the 1980s, they've done everything possible.
43:09If the state right to work laws don't kill them, the, I mean, I'm not going to refer to the
43:16United States Supreme Court the way that others have recently.
43:18You're the nicest person on the show.
43:21Maybe even in the whole building.
43:25Maybe on the entirety of the West Side.
43:29It's because I'm from Memphis.
43:31Very, very nice.
43:32They mind their business in Memphis.
43:34That's very true.
43:34You have to be polite.
43:35Absolutely.
43:36You have to be very polite.
43:37It's, it's, it, because it, what they've convinced everybody is that capital is more important than labor.
43:44Mm-hmm.
43:45And what I would say is they've convinced everybody that rich people are more important than everyone.
43:51They've earned it.
43:51They've earned it.
43:52Right, right.
43:52Instead of it being just, a lot of it being happenstance and luck.
43:55Hello.
43:57Uh, true.
43:58Yeah.
43:58Uh, well, it's a fabulous book.
43:59And, uh, I just think it's such a great prescription.
44:02And, and everybody interested in reconstituting a healthier, because if you build a society on a stronger tent pose, on
44:11stronger foundation, we all benefit.
44:14Everyone's better off.
44:15Because they always say, like, oh, no, the, help the rich, because the rising tide lifts all boats.
44:19And you're like, well, not if you don't have a boat.
44:21Then it's just water.
44:22That's right.
44:22And you drown.
44:23Then you're drowning.
44:24Yeah.
44:25Well, thank you so much.
44:26Uh, the middle class new deal available now.
44:27Michelle Dickerson.
44:28Quick break over there.
44:30Happy.
44:36Hey, that's our show for tonight.
44:39Desi Lydic will be your host all week.
44:41Here it is, your moment is down.
44:48A spokesman said the lighting in the briefing room was dimmed to signify what he called dark
44:55MAGA.
45:03Sorry.
45:04And, no, say your time.
45:04You can't wait to, why do you go away.
45:04Bye.
45:05Bye.
45:05Bye.
45:06Bye.
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