Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello.
Welcome to the call it like I see it podcast.
I'm James Keys, and in this episode of call it like I see it, we're going to take a look at the expulsion of George Santos from the House of Representatives and consider the extent to which people tolerate or even embrace lying and liars in politics, and particularly in situation like this, where they clearly didn't.
And later on, we're going to discuss what some may call a quixotic push by some US Muslims to abandon Joe Biden in the 2024 election because of his stance on the Israel Israel Hamas war.
Joining me today is a man who, even as he gets older, can still bring it, even when he's not 100% tunde ogun. Lana Tunde. Are you ready to show the people why you're still a savage?
[00:01:05] Speaker B: I'm not sure, man, with that comment about my age, I'm not sure how savage I am anymore.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: You question it yourself?
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sitting upright. Cause my herniated disc is bulging and it's hurting me. And that's my point, that you're acting like I'm such a savage. I used to be, but as you mentioned, my age. I'm a washed up version of myself, sir.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: At least my brain works for the purpose of this show.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: There we go.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: There we go. Let's see what the audience thinks about that comment. This is over.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: Well, now we're recording this on December 5, 2023. And last week we saw the US House of Representatives vote with the required two thirds majority to expel George Santos, a Republican from New York, from Congress.
And this would seemingly indicate that even though the US Congress is not a bastion for truth telling, enough members believe that Santos went too far, perhaps with his dishonesty.
So tune it to get us started. It seems like politicians lie all the time. You know, that's kind of just our general belief and take, you know, most of us on. On the political system we have. So what is it about Santos here, that Santos story do you think went so far, or that made this different, that they actually kicked them out of the House of Representatives?
[00:02:27] Speaker B: It's a good question, man, because I think this is what makes this topic kind of fun.
It is an interesting topic. It's a serious topic because none of us like liars, or at least most of us say we don't, which is probably more accurate. Unless we support their position.
We'll get into that.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: Unless we like the lie.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's an actual. There's an interesting truth to that. Which is, you know, we'll get into. But I think, you know, just on this specific one. That's why it's kind of fun to poke around that what made this guy different compared to all the other lying we see in politicians? And why did they coalesce around getting this guy out versus other people that have lied and disrupted the narrative, you know, on whatever side of the spectrum one feels that they're on? And so I just feel like, you know, I think we'll discuss kind of what this guy was accused of and what the ethics committee found. I think some of that was just so egregious. Like taking campaign money to pay for Botox and to pay for onlyfans.
Yeah, onlyfans. And the thing is, I think we, anyone who's paid attention to politics understands that money can go missing and find its ways and find itself in places it wasn't intended to be. Maybe originally, but I think it's like, when the majority of the expenses were things like what I just mentioned, that's what I think made it a bit different. And then the lying from the beginning of what was uncovered about, like, his whole history of himself as a person was a lie.
And I think that's just different. Right. We're used to politicians lying about policy, an ideology issue, something they're lying about that can. Either it's bad news they're trying to avoid, or it's something to help them get in the office that they're running for.
But I think it's rare that we've seen a human being actually manufacture their whole existence, number one. Number two, manufacture it to different groups of people. So, yeah.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Continually manufacture it.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah. He was jewish. To some people, he was black, partly black. To others, he was a dog lover in some circles. Other circles, he was very religious. Some circles he was gay. Some circles he wasn't.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: So some circles, his mom died in 911.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Some points he did.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: So, yeah, so I think, you know, you combined all those ingredients into a big stew of lies. And it's amazing that even in this current era of american politics, under this Congress, he was too much. And that says a lot.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: Well, no, and we'll get into that. Cause there's several things that you would. That at least an observer would say, okay, well, I'm surprised this didn't save him, like, partisanship or something like that, and didn't save him or whatever. And. But for me, I think there are a couple things here that really pushed him over the line to where, you know, again, you know, these aren't the people who stand on the principle of honesty that decided where he went was too far. But one was the salacious nature of some of the stuff he was doing, like the Botox and Onlyfans are things that there's not even, like a appearance of any kind of propriety there. It's not like, oh, I use the money to pay a company that I own to do some things that I want it done. It's just like, no, no, I'm just taking this campaign money and dialing up only, or going to onlyfans and buying access to whatever, you know. And so I think that the salacious nature of it really, I mean, the way our, we, we see shiny objects, we're fixated on shiny objects. And so, you know, that kind of put this in a different category. And then also, I think with Santos, and this kind of goes to what you were saying, but there's no redeeming aspect of his life. Like, he's not telling his lie. Like, we're going to have something in the show. And I was talking about how, you know, when people tell lies, a lot of times, you know, people who may be receptive to it are looking for some underlying moral principle that you're telling the lies in service of, or, you know, something like that. And he just seems to lie, you know, like, it didn't seem like he was telling the lie so that he can do something and then he could lie to you and tell you he's doing these lies just so he can do this other, bigger thing, even if he's not really doing it. Because, you know, again, for those of us who kind of recognize the thing with lies, it's like, well, you can't trust the liar when the liar tells you why they're lying either. You know, like, it's one of those things that, you know, once the person establishes that they'll lie to other people, they will lie to you, too. And. But his lies seemed, if you look at it in totality, it seems nonsensical. It's just like, well, he was just lying just to be lying. It wasn't like he was lying and saying, hey, we gotta save America. And that's why my mom, you know, was in, you know, 911, and then she wasn't in. Like, it wasn't some overriding thing. He just seemed to be almost like, toying with us all, you know? And I think from that standpoint, there was just, I don't, it's not to say that there are redeeming qualities of lies but you couldn't even convince yourself of any kind of redeeming quality that these lies had. And so that left them on a difficult island, in that sense.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think one of the things to look at, I watched, actually, a couple of documentaries about them preparing for today. And, you know, it's interesting how people leave a trail of behavior behind them. So they had gone back to, even as someone as early as middle school that was friends with him and said that he had a very similar pattern of behavior back then. And this person was saying what probably seems obvious in most of these cases of people that behave this way, that he was insecure, he was bullied a lot in school and insecure about himself. So that she felt that he started making up these fantasies about his own life as a way to cope with that.
And so in a sense, that's what I was realizing when I'm doing a deeper dive into some of this stuff, is it's an actual tragedy when you think about why a person may have manifested this type of behavior of being kind of, I don't want to say ashamed of their past or who they are, because I don't know if that's his motivation, but he feels that there's a more interesting story to tell. That's not his story. When his own story appears that he is a brazilian immigrant, the son of brazilian immigrants, you know, it seems like he probably has a regular pretty interesting story, like most of us do about his life. You know, most people that exist on the earth have something to say and a story to tell. So that's.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Yeah, but I don't think he's like a victim in that sense. Like, it seems like he just.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Well, no, I mean, what I mean is that, you know, to your point, he didn't have to do all that. He could have probably just told his story in his congressional district and may have won anyway, I guess is kind of my point. The second thing is just like we're seeing it at the national stage in various ways with more, with other politicians, not just Mister Santos.
It was evident that in his private life, he left the wake of pain from the lies he told other people and scammed a lot of people out of money and all that. So it seems like this is his pattern of behavior. He just decided to run for politics.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: He kind of got busted with all.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: This scrutiny on him.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: One of the things that one of the republican congressmen said that, you know, in him, in voting to expel him, was that he conned that congressman. And that congressman's mother as well, you know? And so it's like he's not even targeted. Like he's anybody who comes across him, he's potentially looking to go after in that sense. And, like, I'd say when I said, I'm not trying to make him a victim or anything like that, at this point, it does appear like. And I'm not getting in the guy's head, but this almost looks compulsive, you know, just from the outfit, it looks like he's not even in control of this anymore. He's just whatever in any given moment is just saying whatever. And there's people that get like that. You know, we've seen people like that. But the thing, you mentioned something to me offline that I want to mention, and I do want to get to the next top, next part. But the idea of just how our modern world works like this does look like the tale, like, from the 19th century or something like that, of the snake oil salesman that would go from town to town, or the confidence man, the con man, go from town to town, you know, telling a bunch of lies, fooling people at first, and then eventually people get wise to him, and then they would just leave and go to another, another town and be able to, you know, rinse and repeat and so forth. But in this instance, it's like the way that he was able to do that for a while. But as he got higher and higher up, that all of these worlds, basically, that he had been telling all these lies in for so long, these separate worlds all collided, basically. He became a public figure, and all of these separate worlds then were collided, and he was. Had to account basically for all of the different lies he had told, you know, all. For all this time. And it was like, oh, man, well, this guy's dead to rights then at that point, you know, because he's like, he's been telling so many lies for so long, you know, like, it's just like, there's no way out. And again, like I said, the thing that I think matters a lot here is that he couldn't even sell it. He or he did probably had to do this in advance or at least at some point sell it, that these lies were in service of some greater good, you know? And so, like, oh, you know, this is. I got to do this, you know, because I got to save America, you know, make America great. I got to tell these lies, you know, or whatever, whether that's said explicitly or implicitly, you know, that's how you can get people on board with, you know, just kind of the idea of, okay, well, we're going to look, overlook this, overlook that. And he didn't do that part. You know, he didn't try to get people to overlook it.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: So part of, I think part of that is your point is it's hard to get people to buy, to have a moral conviction in your story, aka in this case, a lie, when you're not giving them a reason to have any belief that you're doing anything for them. So, for example, when people see that he spent campaign money on Botox and OnlyFans and kind of all this just murkiness and the fact he kind of came out of nowhere is not like he was building some sort of public Persona for a few years prior to getting into politics where he had maybe people that liked him.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: But to your point, though, more importantly, he wasn't even given lip service to any kind of, like, what does George Santos stand for, you know, other than this? Like, what people think he stands for is just dishonesty. They don't know, like, oh, well, George Santos is about, you know, blank. Like, he, he never took the time to develop that part as well, and which he could have still been doing Botox and only, Onlyfans, in my opinion. But he didn't. He never did take the time to develop this other problem. Exactly. Yeah.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Well, no, back to the point that I think that we're identifying here is that throughout the history of politics, let's just say in this recent era, the last 1015 years, there's been a lot of politicians that have had a very negative things come out about them.
Some of them it affects, and maybe they're limping to the finish line. Others, they're able to get more notoriety from it. But I think the common thread, that's what we're saying here is that all of them also still had some sort of message that their supporters could latch onto from a moral perspective. And I think that's where and even doing some of the research for today and preparing, it's interesting that when you look at research done on political lies and why people kind of put up with politicians as liars more than other, I guess, professions in our society, that other than acting, that a lot of it has to do with the ability to support the lie through a moral belief and kind of have.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: And that's not to say that we think that we agree with that. We're saying that absurd psychological thing that happens that where when people analyze this from a societal standpoint or just an individual standpoint that when they say, well, why do people excuse lies from leaders, politicians? And that's one of the things that tends to come up, is when the lie is either something that the person wants to believe or it's something that the person can see is in service of some greater morality that they subscribe to as well, ends justify the means kind of thing. So, but before we get to that, because I do want to go back to the lies and politics overlap and so forth, but I do want to ask you, I mean, this is something that we've grown accustomed to, a very partisan society where very rarely does kind of the greater good or the greater overall, like, take precedent over the partisan consideration. So to see what happened here is actually very, it's notable because this was done. This was not done with, this wasn't an up down vote. This wasn't a 50 50 vote or 51 49% vote. This was a. Doesn't. It required a supermajority to vote this guy out. And the House did it. They voted him out. And they're like, this happened with. So the Republicans were split on whether or not the vote didn't win, and the Democrats were pretty, or, excuse me, they're split on Friday whether to expel them. The Democrats all voted for the most part. The Democrats were, for the most part, voting to expel them. And so that's bipartisanship in a way that we haven't seen that often. And we actually saw some Republicans complaining about this, saying, oh, we shouldn't be voting this guy out. You know, we should leave it for the voters. We shouldn't expel this guy, you know, for whatever reason. That's normal. The rhetoric we see is from a partisanship standpoint. So what stood out to you or what, what did you take? What, what was notable to you, in fact, that this overcame kind of this standard, the entrenched, bipartisan, excuse me, partisanship that we, that our current political system kind of exists in right now.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: Well, I'll say this. I think if we, if, if one really looks into that whole dance of how he was expelled, it's another reason that probably people are a little bit apathetic about politicians because, you know, he was able to survive until he couldn't. And my point is, is that this was, this expulsion is the third attempt to get rid of him. He survived two prior attempts. So that tells.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: There was a committee report on him this time, though. Like, there was a little bit more.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Than just, they went, yeah, it was, it was formal and obviously seems like there was just they wanted to get him out. Now, in preparing for the day and looking at certain interviews and the history of this guy is a very unique situation. He ran first in 2020 during the COVID pandemic in a district in New York state and the Long island area that was heavily democratic. So that the Republicans, because of what was going on with the pandemic, Democratic.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: Democratic Party.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: So. Correct. Democratic Party. So the Republicans didn't even have, like, as a party, kind of seek for a Republican nominee to fight for that district because they just didn't think it was worth it. It would be like the Democrats in a super red district, like a Marjorie Taylor Greene type of district in Georgia, you know, they might just sit that one out and say, well, let's not waste money on that one. Cause there's no chance we're gonna win.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: From a party apparatus standpoint, they'll let it. Basically, anybody who wants to go in and run a primary and get there can run, but they're not going to come in with big money from, you know, and trying to. Trying to really push that in that race as one of the races that they think they can make a difference in.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: Correct. So what happened, this is one of those kind of just rare things where this guy slid through the cracks, where something happened in between the 2020 and 2022 elections in New York where they did redistricting and Mister Santos district got gerrymandered. And so what happened was it became a more heavily leaning republican district. And so he then put his hat back in the ring.
And at the time, the republican party that ran that part of New York, you know, the actual political apparatus, he was on the ballot before they found out about his initial campaign fraud and his lies. And that time. So what happened is he won that election and then the party started finding out all this stuff. And so, long story short, to just to finish up, is that's what to me makes this a little bit fascinating, is this guy did creep through the Republican Party, there's no doubt about it. But as soon as the party itself started finding some of these issues, that's when they, like we're saying, this is where I get back to a little bit of apathy. They began to put up with it because of the slim majority. I mean, this is all the chess game of politics, the slim majority that the Republicans had in the Congress. So if they were to kick him out, that's one less vote to go get your agenda accomplished. So that's part of.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: So you're saying in that sense, it was partisan until it wasn't correct.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Because what's the goal of any party that's in the majority is to keep their majority and to push through their own ideological stuff. So the republican party is no different. It's a political party. So in a sense, they want a little bit of both. Right. Because I'm sure if they had a 40 seat majority, maybe they got rid of them sooner. But when it's a five seat majority, every person on your side counts, and then on top of it, when you got a guy in there who knows he's only there because you need him there for a vote and that he's been caught lying, he's going to vote any way you want. Right. To keep his job.
Yeah. So in a way, they kept him until they couldn't.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: Well, I mean, that's interesting. You show your own kind of disenchantment and apathy, you know, when, when you, when you go through that, because so many things that your, your assumption is that, hey, when you're in the majority, you should be doing ideological stuff, not, you shouldn't, not that you should be governing to, with your conscience.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: I wouldn't say that's my assumption that I'm saying you should do it. I'm saying that's the way it's how they behave. But that is how they behave.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: Yes. I'm saying, like, you're, you're calling out what is, but you know, that just calling it out, you know, is just, it goes to the thought of man, you know, this is very, you know, like this is something that is very, we accept now this idea that parties aren't behaving or aren't, we're not going to expect them to behave in the best interest of the country. We just know they're going to behave in the best interest from a partisanship standpoint. But to me, the partisanship, like, I am surprised that this happened. And I don't think I'm alone in being surprised that this happened because there were, you know, like, where, whether it be, you know, Steve Bannon or Marjorie Taylor Green, there were people in, you know, in or adjacent to the Republican Party that were really upset and couldn't believe that the Republican, that those Republicans did this and you're the ones that voted to expel him did it. And so. Cause normally, I mean, like, we are accustomed right now to very high partisanship, particularly, you know, on, from the Republican Party and where it's just like, look, we can't, it doesn't matter if we know the, quote unquote, right thing to do or anything like that. We can't lose any partisan battles in the language that was used and also in the show notes on stuff on the show notes on this as well, where, you know, where Marjorie Taylor Greene's talking about, we're here to go after Democrats. We're not here to do things in, inside the party like that. And it's just like, wow, like that. That's the high level of partisanship that I've become accustomed to. And they're saying that out loud. So why this happened, I don't know. I do come back to the idea that one, they can spare the vote. It's not great, but they can spare the vote for the majority. And two, I mean, it had to be like, this is the ultimate question of what we're designing the show around is like, this guy was apparently was so bad that all of the trends in the us political system right now, he was so bad that he overwrote them all.
People can lie. No big deal. He overrode that. Oh, partisanship is the number one thing, you know, like, you're not going to get anything done. You know, that doesn't, you know, that requires part people to look past their own party affiliate affiliation. He overrode that, too. Like, so it's, I wonder now, like, in my heart of hearts, I wonder if there's even more stuff about this guy that we haven't even found out yet that it's just like, yeah, this guy is really wild, you know, like, and then, but so. Cause. Cause otherwise, I really, it's hard for me to make sense of the idea that this one guy was bad enough that all of these, you know, kind of normal things that we're used to in our politics, he. Over who overrides them all. Like, no, he has to get expelled over all of that other stuff.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I think you're probably, your assumption, I would assume is probably correct without me knowing for a fact that there's more in there than we know in the public. I mean, that usually these things go down like that.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that's how usually.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Yeah. So.
And again, understanding the guy's personality and his pathological liar that behaves this way. Yeah. There probably is a lot more than we need to know out there.
And like you said about just defrauding a fellow member of Congress, I mean, who knows how other, how many other people he may have defrauded that just don't want their name out there would that are his former colleagues. So, you know, I think that's all. That's all kind of.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, those. That's the guy that would be on the side that would stick up for him from a partisanship standpoint. So that's not even, like you defrauded a democratic member of Congress, you know, where that's like, you were defrauded one of the guys in your own group and his mom. So. But I do want. There's one more thing I want to ask you, and this is kind of just an overall bigger question. And, you know, like, we see and we shouldn't take for granted, but almost for our own sanity, we have to take for granted that there's just a lot of lying in politics.
Do you think it's something about the profession that draws the liars? Or do you think being in that seat, basically, are we. Are we throwing stones, you know, like, from a glass house? But we would be. If we were in that seat, it would turn us into a liar, too. Like, what do you think about just the nature of our politics, you know, american politics? Not necessarily, you know, I'm not gonna ask it about, like, you know, authoritarian type politics where, you know, they lie all the time, you know, and all that. But just like our politics, we're supposed to be government other people, by the people, for the people. Like, they're supposed to be accountable to us, yet they lie to us all the time. Like what? Or at least we feel like they lie to us. It appears that there's a lot of lying going on. So what do you think about that?
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. I mean, that's a good question. And it's got a lot of complexities to it in a serious way, because I know that it. It can feel like we're joking around about politicians lying, and they lie everywhere and all that. But there's two sides of it, right? There's the. Why is someone lying? And then there's the people who are receiving the lie. Why are they receiving it? So, like you well mentioned, in authoritarian regimes, generally, the lies are necessary because at some point, enough people get fed up with the regime. And so they need to keep some sort of propaganda going, either about external issues, like how we know that Russia, the president, Putin, he lied about needing to denazify Ukraine to the russian people, which is why that was a justification for that invasion. The rest of the world sitting here saying, hey, you didn't tell your people that the president of Ukraine is jewish.
People like us will sit there and have these rational comebacks to these lies and wonder, well, how is it that those people fell for that. But if you understand russian culture, russian history, their fight with the Nazis in world War two was one of the most horrific instances in world history. And the Soviets lost 20 million people during World War two. And so there's a heavy emotional investment that the russian people have made. They're not like Nazis. So in that sense, the lie was made to get the people on board.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: With something, to tap into an emotional vein, basically, to get people on board with something.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Yeah, correct. We have politicians here domestically that sometimes we see them lying, and maybe it's lying to stay out of legal trouble and to get their base and their supporters riled up to intimidate people in the justice system and others to try and see if they can do anything to slow down maybe what they feel is coming down the pipe for them. So there's a lot of different motivations for lying. I think one thing that strikes me as interesting with this Santo issue with Congress is, I think part of the reason why in the end, there was this feeling of a need to get him out is because in the end, he was making, his presence kind of made a caricature of them, like he held up a mirror, I think, to our congress, and they knew it.
A lot of them have twisted themselves in the pretzels over the years. So let me ask. Answer the question directly. I think it's a combination of both. I think politics, just like certain professions that aren't political, but like the profession I'm in, financial services, a lot of sales professions often attract people with more narcissistic or grandiosity type of personalities. Also, you think about religion.
A lot of times, people that have that type of mindset might seek to be a pastor or imam or a rabbi, because, again, it's a position, central position of authority. And so really quickly, I want to make sure I'm not bashing religion and I'm not bashing my profession or other professions similar by saying, I'm not saying that those professions necessarily only attract those people or turn people into that. I'm saying that those professions, because of the spotlight, they can allow someone to have for themselves. In sales, you can go from zero to making a lot of money pretty quickly in a religion. You can go from zero to being at the top, at least locally, maybe in your religious sphere, very quickly. And in politics, the same thing. Look at Santos, who we're having a show about. He wins one election, two years later, we're all talking about it. So that ability to go from zero to the spotlight pretty quickly just like entertainment, like music and all that, you get these kind of personalities that try and find their way in there for the quick kind of quick hit and the quick fix to fame. So I do think that's true. And I think it's also true. The question, James, that, yeah. Does politics change people over time? Yeah, I think we've seen that. And that's what I mean by there's enough people in the Congress that have behaved much differently in the last 20 years, the ones that have been there that long and who have said that they were for certain things and now they don't seem to be for that and all that. Yeah, I think a lot of them, when they look at a guy like him, he reminds them of himself and at some point he's got to go.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, I love that point that just looking at him made him uncomfortable. I don't even want to sing about that dude.
Like, I don't even want to see that dude. He reminds me of the compromises that I've had to make or whatever, you know? And so, like, that to me, is a really interesting point. To me, I think it's actually the reverse.
I think that the profession drives out truth tellers and people who value or who, you know, who want to be honest more. So, and that's not to say that there's none left, but I think of people like Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney or Jeff Flake or Mitt Romney at this point and then many others, you know, like, that's just some prominent examples recently that are just heading for the doors, you know, like, and it's just like, look, man, this is not at least our politics as it exists right now. At minimum, you know what I'm saying? That right now, not saying our system inherently creates that, but our system in the media environment that we have and so forth. Now it seems to. So if it seems like there's a lot of people who are comfortable with dishonesty, I think that's because the people who are less comfortable with dishonesty have the ecosystem that exists now is just not conducive for them to be successful, one or one that's comfortable for them to operate in. You know, it's difficult, know if your opponent's always lying and you have to make a choice to say, okay, either I'm going to lie also, or I'm going to try to tell the truth and try to talk rational to people, you're going to lose. If you're going to want making the decision to talk rationally to people, you're going to lose, most likely. So I think it pushes out people that in many respects. And, I mean, there are degrees of this, you know, like, there are certain, certain environments in our politics that are, that are more concentrated with people comfortable with dishonesty than others, you know? And so, but I think that really what we're seeing right now is that the, the people who, and I've thought this for a while, you know, just the nature, I think that the nature of our politics, the very personal nature of the way people attack you, people, people attack your family, decent people would be turned off by that. Like, you have to do a lot. But in kind of the mindset that I always looked at it as, like, if I want to go into politics because I want to do right by the public, then I'm going to have to endure constant attacks from the public. And it's not just a tax on me, it's going to be a tax on my family and my loved ones and so forth. So in order for me to go help the public, I have to endure tax from the public, and my family has to endure tax from the public. That's a difficult kind of deal to make. But if you're saying, hey, I'm going to go in, lie, cheat, and steal and enrich myself, enrich my family, it makes a lot of sense. Like, oh, yeah, I'm going to steal from the system. And so therefore, yeah, I'm gonna take arrows from the system, but who cares? You know, the people are gonna, you know, throw arrows at me. But, hey, I'm laughing all the way to the bank as they throw all those arrows, so to speak. So that rationally makes a lot more sense than going in dealing with all those arrows just to try to help the people who are throwing the arrows at you and so forth. So I think that just, again, the nature of the politics, you just gave.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: Me a reason to run for Congress.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Was the wrong reason from my personal perspective. But no, I mean, I think we have to acknowledge that, though. I think we have to acknowledge that.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: I'm honest and I just say, I want to go make some money, go talk bad about these people over here so that you vote for me.
[00:32:01] Speaker A: George Santos now is on cameo talking about himself as, like, a former congressional icon.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: I know. So charging $150 per photograph. And that's. So that's something. So you said a couple things. Cause I want to actually go on that vein before we jump to part two is. But you said something that I find important. Just to comment where you're right, there's a spectrum. Because when you think about politicians that lie, I started thinking as you're talking about just stuff from our life and stuff that we know of from prior, like the Gulf of Tonkin being or the way that the Pentagon papers showed the America that. The way that our politicians were lying about Vietnam, our lifetime. I can think of things like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And we get there and there's none. Like, I'm surprised they didn't plant some, just at least hold some credibility. Seriously, I thought, you know, you gotta just plant some mustard gas somewhere.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: I did assume that's what they were gonna do at a certain point. Yeah. Like, there's no way they would go down this path that far and then not at least try to save face.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: But see, that's the problem though, right? Because I kind of wish looking back they did. Because in our lifetime, for people, our agent and older and younger, I guess. Cause we're in our mid forties now, but that was, you know, I was in my early twenties, you know, I was 23 when 911 happened. So that was the first time for me living through it, not hearing about it from my mom, like the Pentagon papers or the Gulf of Tonkin. That was my first time said, wow, the government just straight lied to us, no questions asked, and light us into a war that caused american kids to be killed and caused our us treasury to be in a deficit by the.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: End of the day. Well, let me, let me say this. That wasn't the first time in our lifetime, but that was the first time with those kind of consequences. Because I, like in our, like the Clinton. Well, but the Clinton one, you know, was the Reagan administration. The bush, you know, HW Bush was, was less known for, for the outward dishonesty, but. And then Clinton with the. I did not have sexuality.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: He got being dishonest about raising taxes before he.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Yeah, he said he wasn't going to do it. And that was a campaign promise.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: That was a benign one. Some of the other stuff.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean, it was. And then also, like, there's dishonesty in terms of trying to. Finishing up the Iran Contra cover up, but that's still, that's less than.
[00:34:15] Speaker B: But that's where I'm kind of.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: Let me, let me say that. But let me say that just real ad. Because like Clint with Clinton, it is. It's worthwhile to note that he was dishonest there. But it is different than the dishonesty we saw with, with the 911 stuff and where the post 911 stuff with wmds and so forth, because, yeah, that wasn't, that was trivial relative to what we're talking about there. But it still isn't good for people to see their leaders caught in lies or telling lies that are like, man, because the Clinton thing is, what I was gonna say is the Clinton thing isn't much different than some of the, now, some of the stuff Santos has committed is accused of is really bad. But some of the stuff, the Clinton stuff is kind of trivial in that kind of sense where it's just like, oh, yeah, like the Clinton one is, I would say, similar to, like, the onlyfans type of things. Like, oh, yeah, you know, something like that. But it's, it's still dishonesty. It's not good. It's not a good look, even though it's not something where people are dying.
[00:35:03] Speaker B: That's kind of my point is saying there's a spectrum, right? Because when I think about that, I mean, like, you're saying Bill Clinton's a good example because he appeared to be more motivated to not get busted by his wife and why he covered up his affair, right? It's kind of like, to me, it's like President Trump with a stormy Daniels check, you know, that 150,000 he paid her to shut up before the election. To me, that's like normal, like lying of politicians. He's just trying to protect, you know, just trying to say, man, I need this bad news to go away. And I banged some chick on the side while I was married. Like, that's not good, right? Like, I'm not saying that's fine. I'm just saying that's a better comp.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: To the Clinton one.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: I'm not going to, like, say a guy can't be in office because of that. I mean, look, that's just, he was being a man and got, you know, trying to get out of a bad situation and got busted. That's different than President Trump lying about a stolen election and causing an insurrection. Like, that's what I mean. There's a spectrum, right? That one, I'm going to say President Trump, man, you kind of, you heard the country like that. And that's what I mean by George Bush and the Bush administration's lie about Iraq was more egregious than the lies prior in our lifetime by any other president in our lifetime, me and you personally. Because what that did is that created the apathy of the american public towards these kind of big decisions and the distrust from an administration. And it kept, you know, kind of messed up the next ten years of discourse on how we deal with some of these things because people are so bitter about being lied to in the first place and the kind of the cost plus contracts for Halliburton and all that stuff. So when you really talk about those kind of, that behavior, that's where it's like we fast forward here, and there's such a level of distrust by the american public. And it's so sad because you talk about ecosystems and it's permeated in these ecosystems, these type of lies. So it's, and the last thing I'll say is, this is what I want to get your opinion on is Mister Santos is behaving in a way that many others like him do, which is he causes something. He's the one that lied in his campaign. He's the one that stole money from his campaign. He's the one that did all these things that have been uncovered. And we've discussed today on, and yet what has he done ever since he's left is he's become the victim and he's now weaponizing his knowledge of the inside baseball game, right? I've seen already this morning, because we're fresh off all this stuff. He's now named by name for congresspeople that he's saying he's going to report to the ethics committee for various things that he says that they're doing wrong now that he's bitter. And I feel like that's no different than Elon Musk, who says bigoted things on his thing. And then when advertisers say, okay, well, we're not going to advertise there. We're going to exercise our freedom of speech and not advertise, he starts bashing them and saying it's their fault that his platform is going to. So it's like the same thing. Or Kanye last year when he starts running his mouth and then when Adidas pulls and he always see, it proves my point that the Jews are running everything because they're pulling all my stuff. And it's like, well, no, your behavior is causing you to go down the spiral.
And instead of, it's sad to see that you can't recognize that and address it, you're just gonna get worse.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: And just, well, people, you know, people don't like consequences for their actions, you know, and so on like that. And these are commercial consequences, but nonetheless, you know, with the Kanye and the Elon Musk example. But they're like, they, people miss, it's common that people mistake freedom of speech, which is freedom from criminal consequences for your speech, as some kind of license to say whatever you want without commercial consequences. But back to Santos, though, to me, what's really interesting to me, just to kind of wrap this up, is that the way that the Santos illustrates, as we've talked about, the mirror that's held up as far as what kinds of lies. And I like that you brought up the kind of spectrum of lies. Cause you look at like, the, the WMD lies, and then you look at like, the big lie, so to speak, you know, trying to, which is basically trying to delegitimize the american democracy. That's, I guess that's part of the war, the ongoing war on american democracy.
Like, those type of lies are, honestly, those are different than even the Santos lies. Santos lies are. I think the volume of them is most notable. Like, a lot of the things that he did, I believe that a lot of other people in his position have done, like, individually, but he put them all together in one pot. And so it ends up being where, like, and without, again, as we talked about before, without any redeeming quality. So the profession that he went into politics, and not only once he started getting caught with this stuff, he didn't even try to get away with it at that point. He almost identified politics as the place where this stuff is cool. And then that's where he went into. It's like, yeah, I'm in this game now. I can do all this stuff.
[00:39:49] Speaker B: You're right.
[00:39:49] Speaker A: Yeah. When he went.
[00:39:51] Speaker B: But that makes me think why the other congresspeople hated him because it, like, that's, it was almost like a mirror. Like, man, this. We don't really think it's cool that we're being, either we're forced to be manipulated to lie like this or that we're gonna lie. We kind of don't want. We want people to think we're.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: Sancho saw it like, hey, I can go do what I want to do. And it be legitimate in this spot, you know, is what he basically, what he reflected. So, you know, I think that that should tell us all something like that's what a con man thinks about the US Congress is like, hey, if I go to the US Congress, I get make myself a politician. Then all this other stuff that I'm doing or would want to do anyway, I can do it. And then if anybody calls me on it, I can just say, oh, this is all just politics. Oh, they're just after me because, you know, this is all like, so that, that's, that's something for us all to take note of is that that's, that's kind of a target for the, the people who are the con men amongst us. So.
[00:40:41] Speaker B: But, you know, this is, we wrap up is part of, I think the issue with them is, like, the lack, like, people will put up with liars and all that. Especially we talk about if they're lying for what the audience believes is in their moral interest. You know, the injustified means. I can overlook this or that, but it's also, like, when you're this blatant as this guy, and there's a lack of actual, like, individual integrity. So, for example, like, one thing people don't like is when people lie about kind of who they are. Like, really. So the whole thing where this guy was brass, this is why I did, watching the documentary about him was interesting because you could see him on various interactions with the public where he kept, he was going to this guy, yeah, I'm jewish. I'm jewish. I'm good. And then there's one interview where a guy calls him out and says, well, we looked at your background. We don't see any jewish history. He goes, oh, well, I was raised Catholic. I just said I'm jewish.
You know what I mean?
[00:41:35] Speaker A: Like that. I remember that.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: Like, hold on, dude. Like, people don't like when people play around like that with stuff, you know, like, you can't do that.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: Well, maybe. I mean, I still, I mean, like, we've seen all of that stuff, all that kinds of things individually, and we've seen people get away with worse, you know? So again, whether it's the volume or whether, again, this guy had no, what? Nothing to hold and hold out as a redeeming quality. There's something to it. But I do want to get us to our next topic, the second topic we wanted to discuss today. It's politics adjacent, but there's a different kind of thought process that we wanted to bring to it. And just, we saw recently some US Muslims are organizing, particularly in swing states, and they're organizing under the, like, the hashtag abandoned Biden. And what they are saying is that the way the Biden administration's approach to the israeli Hamas war, the conflict in the Middle east right now, they want to withdraw their support from and make sure that they don't vote for Joe Biden in 2024 because of that which I mentioned in the intro. Some would call that quixotic because that would necessarily. Or the way things are set up now, that would necessarily empower a politician who is openly hostile to Muslims in the US, you know, and so, and Muslims and outside the US, you know, so it's, it's exposes kind of the difficulty of the two party system in that sense. And that how do you register your dislike with the policy of someone like, I get it, like they're, they're upset about policy. They're not upset about something personal or whatever, but they're upset about some policy. But how do you register that kind of dislike about policy in a zero sum two party system where it's either one guy or the other, and that's something that is going to be a difficulty for them as they deal with this. So what was your thought on this?
[00:43:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought it was fascinating. I mean, I think this is, again, this is just an interesting dilemma in today's world. And I think, I mean, we know that the Israel and palestinian situation, let's say, and then adjacent to that Israel and its neighbor situation just in general, the last seven years, has been very complex. And there's a lot of emotions on all side of it. So, you know, I think going any further than that risks putting a foot in a mouth somehow.
So that's why I don't want to talk about that part of it, because, I mean, that's a whole different conversation. Right. But I do find it fascinating. What you said, which is the hostility of this set of Arab Americans towards the Biden administration is fascinating because then they're left with only another choice, which is at the moment, I mean, as of December, early December of 2023, it looks like Mister Trump is eschewing as the republican nominee.
No one's even a distant second to him. And so, I mean, I guess it's like a so far distant, it's like another galaxy. That's how distant it is. So the idea is that as of right now, it appears that Trump is the only alternative to Biden.
And the first move Donald Trump did in his first term was literally a muslim ban. He banned people from majority muslim countries from coming to the US, not immigrating, but just coming.
[00:44:59] Speaker A: Presumably, this could be family members of the people now who are saying they want to abandon Biden, like your family can't type of thing.
[00:45:06] Speaker B: So that's what I'm saying is it's a fascinating thing to observe this dilemma for a group of people that are highly emotional about a topic, which is what they're seeing in Palestine or in Gaza specifically, and what Israel's doing, the understanding that America does clearly have influence over Israel, our main ally in the region and a country that we give a lot of military support to. So it's trying to use that leverage. And it's interesting because this is an american tradition of minority groups trying to pressure the political class and using some sort of leverage. And that's where the concern for Democrats was in the article, which Democrats don't ever need any reason to have concern. Because they're always scared of something.
No, because they were saying that the swing states where these muslim groups are really being aggressive, I'm going to read Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia and Nevada. And they go through all the stats where, you know, in Arizona, for example, Mister Biden won by 11,000 votes or so, and there's around 60,000 Arab Muslims in that state. So if he loses a big chunk of support, you know, could swing a state like that if it's that close next time. Yeah, so, I mean, so that's what I mean by it's interesting because, you know, African Americans, women, a lot of other minority groups have, have used this type of political pressure.
It's just interesting because it's like if blacks were trying to pressure Lyndon Johnson and threatening to go to George Wallace or something like that, that's what makes this an interesting contrast. Yeah.
[00:46:53] Speaker A: So, no, I mean, and that's the, like, I think as black, black Americans, like, we are familiar with this, like black Americans, many black Americans at least, and I'm sure many other Americans were disappointed in the Democrats for not being able to address the voting rights issue, you know, particularly as the Supreme Court has continued to whittle it down over the last ten years and to not address that, you know, particularly when, you know, they had the House and the Senate in the first two years of the Biden administration is like, well, hold up, man. What's going on? Like, we put you in office and you abandoned us in that sense. And so that's a real kind of thought. And that's fact based, you know, that's not like, oh, you're just being emotional or whatever. It's like, no, no, no, we put you in, you were supposed to do something about this voting rights thing. But the, you're kind of stuck in one sense, because if you say, okay, well, then I'm just not going to vote for democrats for that reason, then you may put in the party, put it the party in power who has been whittling down the voting rights, like whose protection you're seeking from. We were seeking protection from them, from the Democrats. You're mad that the Democrats won't stop you from these republican efforts to make it harder for you to vote. So therefore, you're going to take action that put more republicans in power. So it's like you're kind of, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of situation because it's set up because of the two party system, winner take all election, you know, it's either one side or the other. And I think that sometimes is exploited by political parties, you know, and say, hey, well, what are you going to do? Like the other side wants to, you know, do terrible things to you. So you're going to, you're going to, you know, like you're stuck with us, so to speak, which is messed up. And then I think we see this also with the two party system when you have, like, we've seen a lot of messaging pretty much since the, I'd say, like the late eighties, nineties, where it's just this constant negativity on liberals, liberals this, liberals that. And I think that's part of that game as well, is to create a situation among some people where the, the idea of liberal or, you know, democrat or whatever it is, is so toxic that no matter what, no matter how much a side lies or cheats or steals, you can't go to the other side. They're not even an option for you because they're the devil, so to speak. So the two party system, so to speak. And I say that the two party system in the sense that we have, you know, our constitutional republic with democratic elected officials, which, because it's winner take all elections, if you have more than two people, you're, you're really going down the wrong path because if you have three people in an election, then somebody might win with 34% of the vote, you know, and it's like, well, only a third of the people, two thirds of the people didn't want the person, but that person wins because there's, the vote is split in three ways. Split three ways. And so when you have these winner take all elections, it naturally forces a coalescence into two sides, one side and the other, because that's the only way you're going to get close to, generally speaking, you're going to get to 50% versus, and this is relative to parliamentary systems where, you know, like, that's just not how they do the vote. I'm not going to go through it right now, but parliamentary systems don't do the winner take all type of thing in that sense. So it's a dilemma that I've seen before that I've felt before, but, you know, it's seeing somebody else do it for an issue. You know, it's just, it really stands out to me, that same issue. And then it's like you pointed out, it's with all minority groups potentially.
[00:49:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and here's the other thing, too, which I find interesting, because there's a little bit of ecosystems in here. I'm gonna read from an article, too, that, because what's interesting is they acknowledge this group of Arab Americans that are, that are, that are planning this kind of boycott of the Democratic Party. I guess they acknowledge that if Biden loses to Trump next year, that they'll be having a tough four years.
[00:50:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: Yeah. They're not naive to that. And I'm going to quote from him, the gentleman who was interviewed here said, but we believe that this will give us a chance to recalibrate and the Democrats will have to consider whether they want our votes or not. And I feel like, man, there's so many black people and even myself have felt that way in the past, and that's one reason why I'm registered independent. I don't want to give myself to either side. I want to be able to feel like I'm making a choice each time.
But the bottom line is, what they talked about here in the stats was Muslim Americans make up about 3.4 million Americans right now, the total numbers. And that's how we forget about Indonesia. So they were saying it's Arabs, African Americans, obviously, people from Africa that aren't Arab. And then a lot of Asians Americans are actually muslim as well. So the muslim coalition in the United States is diverse. And I thought about 3.4 million people is just over 1%. And then you think about how many people are under 18, how many people are too old, that they don't vote. So the amount of people that are actually participating in active voting that are Muslim American is small enough, unfortunately, that either political party probably isn't going to stay up at night if they feel they're losing the demographic vote. And it goes back to, like we're saying, too, is that when I say ecosystems, I started thinking about how is it that America is always at fault for someone else's issue? Like, I get it that Israel's our ally, and like I said, I do believe we have influence on them and over time can probably get them to do a ceasefire and all that, but I feel like I looked up and the Saudis have killed more civilians in Yemen than Israel has so far, at least up to now in Palestine or Gaza. And then we have things like what happened in Syria and the amount of civilians that the Russians killed. And so I just feel like sometimes when an issue like this is brought up, I wonder, well, why are you bringing up and bashing our whole system or at least one party here when there's been civilians in arab countries getting hurt for so long in these recent years? And that's when I got to think about, okay, well, it's about Israel, and maybe there's a tinge of anti semitism. There's these other issues here that are being brought in. And now you're saying, I just don't like this domestic american party. And so just.
[00:52:55] Speaker A: No, no. I mean, I think just to finish up, there's one point I'll comment on, and that's the dune. You said that they, you know, like, because of the size of the constituency potential constituency, because that's, they're not going to all be one voting bloc either. You know, like they're trying to organize now to coalesce that into a more cohesive unit from a voting bloc standpoint. But that's the effort right now, which indicates that it's not one block at this moment. But, you know, the not lose sleep thing is interesting to me because it's not based on the sheer numbers. It's always based on relative numbers like the parties, because the winner take all, the nature of winner take all elections. And you have these parties that form vast constituencies and they're coalitions of a lot of different groups. And so whenever you pander, or I won't say pander in a negative way, but whenever you bend over backwards to try to please one constituency, then you may alienate another constituency. So the bigger issue that the Muslim Americans may have is that the concern that maybe in either party, if they, hey, if we bend over backwards to please them, we may lose a larger block or a larger block of people, of voters may become disenchanted with us. And so, and this is kind of like the most evidence with, the easiest way to illustrate this is with the southern strategy. You know, like the parties, the black people didn't used to all vote Democratic Party. You know, it was the Democrats did the Voting Rights act and then the civil rights acts in the 1960s. And the Republicans responded by doing the southern strategy where they went and recruited all the old Dixiecrats, which were the segregationists and the racists and so forth. And so by default, that realigned the coalitions and black folks ended up voting in the 90 plus percent for Democrats, primarily because the Republican Party made a choice and say, hey, we would, instead of trying to fight for black people's votes, we think there's a larger constituency that from the remnants of the Dixiecrats who left the Democratic Party when they did the civil rights and the Voting Rights act and stuff. And so it's the trade off. And so once you see those trade offs, then that's what the parties are doing is how can we form the largest coalitions that we can? And you, you may do something to alienate one group, if it's a smaller group in order to get in good with a different group. And so it's a tough spot, like I say this not to mock them or make fun of them. It's a tough spot. I can sympathize with their situation, but it does. This would appear, and they acknowledge it, this would appear to worsen their prospects in the short term if they go down this path. But, I mean, we're seeing, you know, there's, there's the, the coalitions that formed in the sixties, you know, they're kind of starting to shake around now anyway, where it's not all the same, even though there still may be hostility towards one group or another group within the parties that we'll have to be reconciled with.
[00:55:34] Speaker B: So, yeah, one of the things I want to just finish up, as you say, some great things there because, you know, let's, let's be honest, neither of us on this show right now are Arab American.
We're not Muslim and we're not Israeli. So we're not, you know, we can observe that stuff from the outside. But when you're talking about, like, it's a good comparison that we say, you know, here with the african american community because, and it's a good example you made about the Voting Rights act, even conversation that some black Americans want to have about reparations. You know, there's a lot of people that could be disgruntled with the Democratic Party for feeling like they haven't moved those issues either fast enough or whatever. But then I forwarded you an article yesterday that I saw that just, again, is something that I haven't seen in my lifetime until recently in a major political party. And here it says, Texas GOP executive committee rejects proposed ban on associating with nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers. And it's like the same thing, right? We may be unhappy with the Democratic Party, but then I look over what the Republican Party is allowing to go on in this recent, not my whole life, but it seems like the last decade, they're letting a lot of that old dixiecrat stuff kind of come back in. So it's like, okay, so what is my choice? Especially as an entrepreneur and a business guy. I like lower taxes. I like what the Republicans are talking about. But when a major state, its whole Republican Party apparatus, says that we're not going to tell our members that they, that they can no longer participate in white supremacists and neo nazi groups because that's now too high of a bar for our membership. Again, someone like me, I got to say, what am I doing even thinking about going there? They don't want me in there.
[00:57:24] Speaker A: Well, no, that's the trade off. That's an indication that they're willing to in order. They think that that group of people is, whether they think it's more or less, they think that group, they would rather prioritize that group of people than prioritize people who would be more open minded. And that was a relatively close vote. But it does show you the direction that the party is, at least in Texas.
[00:57:45] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. That wasn't there ten years ago in terms of at the leadership level of the party.
[00:57:50] Speaker A: But I.
Yeah, but I do want to wrap this up from here. You know, I do appreciate everybody for. We do appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of call like I see it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, tell us what you think, send it to a friend, check us out on YouTube, give us a like or subscribe. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:58:06] Speaker B: I'm tuned in. I apologize for my dog crying outside the door. He's.
[00:58:10] Speaker A: He misses you, man. He misses me.
[00:58:12] Speaker B: He misses me. Now it's been a full hour.
He's done waiting.
[00:58:15] Speaker A: All right, well, get to the dog, man. All right, we'll talk to you next time.
