Fine, I’ll tell it all…

0:00 Hey everybody, Adam Mahler here.

0:01 I just had a great conversation with friend

0:03 of the show V from Under the Desk News.

0:05 We talked about CNN, we talked about debate, my generation, the Iran war,

0:10 and even a little bit of my backstory and how I got here.

0:13 You guys are going to want to watch until the end.

0:15 Make sure you drop a like to help boost the video.

0:17 Shout out to V and check this out.

0:18 So, and thank you for having me.

0:19 I'm excited for this.

0:20 We're going to have a great conversation.

0:22 Yeah, I'm excited for this.

0:23 So, tell folks just a little bit about you because we see you on TV,

0:27 but like how did you get to this place at just 23 years old?

0:31 Let me run you through the story that I that I generally tell.

0:34 So, I run a YouTube channel with a few million followers

0:37 and I created this YouTube channel when I was 9 years old.

0:40 When I was 9, yeah, when I was 9 years old I created this channel.

0:43 When I created it, I used to make like

0:45 Minecraft videos or Call of Duty videos after school,

0:48 but I would sit there and just edit for hours and hours and hours.

0:51 I really enjoyed the editing creative process of it

0:54 and the video creation and being on camera and everything.

0:57 Obviously, it never really went anywhere.

0:58 I got like a few hundred views per video if if that.

1:01 I remember in sixth grade I got kicked out

1:02 of class for debating my teacher on gay marriage.

1:05 It was like fifth or sixth grade.

1:06 I got in big trouble because the Supreme Court was going to, you know,

1:09 federally legalize gay marriage and I got kicked

1:12 out of class because I was being disruptive.

1:13 I was probably being a bit of an It's kind of like what's happening now,

1:16 you know, the older people are like,

1:17 "Please don't ask these questions or challenge this." I know.

1:20 And then I got into high school and I stopped making Minecraft videos.

1:23 I wanted to get girls.

1:24 I didn't want to be the Call of Duty Minecraft guy.

1:26 So, I private I privated my channel entirely.

1:29 And um I still loved politics.

1:30 I would like I'm getting into fights at parties, not fist fights,

1:33 but I remember my I would be arguing with my MAGA friends back in Indiana.

1:37 And uh where you grew up, Indiana?

1:39 Yeah, in uh Northwest Indiana in Valparaiso.

1:42 And it's a it's a really great place.

1:45 I love it.

1:45 It's not like the cornfields of Indiana, which are totally beautiful as well,

1:48 but it's more of like a, you know, urban.

1:51 It's It's an hour away from Chicago.

1:53 So, after I graduated high school,

1:56 I just really didn't like the structure of college even though

1:58 I was going in Northwest Indiana at um IU Northwest Gary.

2:03 Mhm.

2:02 I really didn't like structure of college,

2:05 but I took this film class that sort

2:07 of reinvigorated my love for editing and filmmaking.

2:11 And I had this idea I was kicking around

2:12 of going to Trump rallies and talking to Trump supporters.

2:15 So, I assembled this team in my class and I

2:17 made this skit called Fear and Loathing on College Campus.

2:21 And it was us acting like we were doing like acid

2:23 and weed and all that like we were like smoking weed,

2:25 taking acid, we had a salt shaker full of cocaine, Rick and Morty blotter acid.

2:30 My teacher hated it.

2:30 I can't tell why.

2:32 But I don't know Yeah.

2:32 I don't know why.

2:33 But But we basically made this skit and I used that as a jumping off

2:37 point to then have the confidence to send

2:39 a bunch of emails to cameramen in Iowa.

2:41 This was during the Iowa caucuses, right?

2:43 So, this was one or two states over from Indiana at the time.

2:46 Two states over.

2:47 And I sent a bunch of emails out.

2:49 Like 30 cameramen.

2:50 One guy responded and said, "This is my only free weekend.

2:52 Let's try to go to the Trump rally." He's like,

2:54 "You don't have much content on your page, but we can try this." Yeah.

2:58 And we went.

2:59 Now, two and a half years later,

3:00 that guy is like my main camera guy who's flying in next week helping me.

3:04 So, through a series of events that happened over the course of like a decade,

3:08 but also over the course of a swift, quick um building of a team led

3:13 to me getting picked up by first Occupy Democrats,

3:16 then I upgraded to Midas Touch.

3:20 Mhm.

3:19 And I built my own entire apparatus of a Muckler Media

3:23 and uh through Midas Touch I was able to get CNN.

3:26 Head.

3:26 Something I'm really passionate about is debate and the exchange of ideas.

3:30 And being able to flex that muscle,

3:31 especially as somebody who's young and able to get into these spaces,

3:35 I'm just very grateful.

3:36 I think I There's a lot of gratitude uh that I

3:39 feel when I think of the people I've met along the way,

3:42 when I think of the family that's helped me get here,

3:44 the operators who have, you know,

3:47 just for one day helped hold the lighting somewhere.

3:49 It's all just absolutely amazing and I'm very grateful for everyone.

3:53 It's so crazy.

3:54 Thanks to go from Minecraft videos to where you're at now.

3:57 Was this something that like your family was

4:00 really into, or this is something you did independently?

4:02 You just sort of got into this by yourself.

4:04 I got into this by myself.

4:06 I built it by myself.

4:07 Now, my family is also into it.

4:08 Like my grandpa loves CNN.

4:10 We actually we're trying to detox him.

4:12 You got lucky with a CNN grandpa.

4:13 Some of us got Fox grandpas, and that was a little bit [laughter] harder.

4:17 No, that is a great way to frame it.

4:20 Yeah.

4:19 Um it's a great perspective, because we always try to calm down my CNN grandpa.

4:23 He's always raging about like the last thing.

4:24 We're like, "Dude, go on a walk.

4:26 Chill out.

4:27 We get it." But, he's also turned into a pretty good coach,

4:30 because he's so good at CNN.

4:31 So, I'll call He used to coach me in like basketball and all this random stuff.

4:34 He coached our family, but I hated basketball.

4:37 You know, it's really quickly, I've never really told this part.

4:39 My entire family was super athletic and into sports,

4:41 and they played basketball and soccer.

4:42 I hated all the sports, and I was only competitive in like online sphere stuff.

4:47 So, it didn't really feel right throughout high school.

4:50 None of it really clicked, but now it's definitely clicking,

4:53 and my grandpa is able to coach me before some of my hits and be like,

4:56 "Hey, I watched this guy last night.

4:58 He gets really aggressive." or whatever.

4:59 So, it's a really good dynamic there.

5:01 And uh I love that your way of rebelling was to not

5:04 be athletic and instead be like super smart guy.

5:07 You're like, "Listen, everybody can play sports,

5:10 but nobody can game Scott Jennings like I can.

5:12 You just wait for this to go down."

5:14 It wasn't even in high school.

5:15 I wasn't even that I mean, I was smart.

5:17 I was in honors classes, but I was getting bad grades because I

5:20 was just I didn't like the structure of it.

5:23 Yeah.

5:22 For some reason from middle school to high school, I stopped caring about work.

5:26 The teachers weren't really conducive to I don't know.

5:30 Something about school is pretty messed up.

5:31 The teachers are there and like often times a manner I don't know.

5:36 It's It's hard to describe, but I just didn't click with it.

5:38 Yes.

5:38 I had a difficult time in high school, too, because much like you,

5:41 I was very good at knowing the difference between right and wrong,

5:45 but the textbook doesn't always leave room for interpretation.

5:48 So, there was a time when I was in eighth grade

5:50 and they gave us a thing where it was like, "Well,

5:53 you can write an essay for this essay

5:55 contest either from the perspective of a black

5:57 slave owner or from the perspective of a black slave." I grew up in Connecticut.

6:02 There were only four black children in my whole school.

6:04 This was a very inappropriate request.

6:08 Wow.

6:08 Whichever way you cut it,

6:09 but the textbooks that they were giving us to write from were like,

6:12 "This is something that you could have never like but you have to try

6:14 and empathetically put yourself in either side."

6:17 And I threw an absolute fit about this.

6:19 My mom had to come to the school about it.

6:21 So, I wrote mine from the perspective of an enslaved person

6:25 which as a 12-year-old white girl was really just out of line.

6:31 And the teacher rewrote over it because it was written well,

6:34 but he wanted it written the other way for the essay contest.

6:37 And this was like one of my first times beefing with an old man.

6:41 Exactly.

6:41 Go on like that forever because while you know what's right and wrong

6:45 and you want to explore kind of like what the boundaries of that are,

6:48 often times school is like, "Hey,

6:50 but we need you to pass this test, okay?" And the test says

6:54 It's rigid.

6:54 The rigidity didn't didn't let me like it's college was more flexible.

6:59 And now what I do every day is more flexible.

7:01 I dictate my schedule which I absolutely love.

7:05 Yeah.

7:04 And you know what's interesting?

7:06 During high school I could never wake up past

7:09 like I would I could never wake up on time.

7:10 I would wake up and I would always be

7:11 late to school due to my tardies were so bad.

7:14 I was [laughter] the worst student ever.

7:17 My teachers hated me.

7:18 I I made music in high school and I performed at my homecoming.

7:22 And sorry I just dropped a bunch of lore on you.

7:24 No, this is a lore dropping space.

7:26 This is what we want to know from you.

7:28 I used to make songs in high school and I used

7:30 to rap and like play guitar and it was actually pretty good.

7:32 It was it was decent stuff.

7:33 It wasn't as like cringe as it sounds, right?

7:35 And my school liked it.

7:36 So, I was performing at the homecoming, but they told me that I have to submit

7:39 a clean version of the song the week before.

7:42 So, I made a new version and I censored

7:45 myself and changed the lyrics and I submitted it.

7:47 But, then they told me when I come the night of I have to bring the USB.

7:50 So, I swapped out the really dirty version of [laughter]

7:52 the song and I performed it in front of my whole school

7:55 and then my principal screamed at me in front of the whole

7:58 school and there's a video of me being walked out of it.

8:03 You got to do that stuff though.

8:04 It's character building.

8:06 You have to rebel against the machine.

8:08 It's just School was hard for me.

8:10 And college like was better.

8:11 I went to a liberal arts college on Staten Island.

8:13 I went for theater.

8:14 So, that was really helpful and I think it's like helped me in the world

8:16 that I'm in now because it's about active

8:17 listening and reacting and not and anything is possible.

8:21 Did you end up staying in school or did you end

8:23 up being like I'm I'm going to do my own thing?

8:26 Yeah, so I went to Indiana University

8:28 Northwest for like two semesters maybe a year

8:32 and then I moved to Chicago and went

8:35 to DePaul which they're on like a quarter system.

8:37 So, I was there for one quarter and then I dropped

8:40 out entirely and I will not I can never look back.

8:43 I do not want to go back to college.

8:46 [laughter] I love the freedom I have now and what I'm building

8:48 and there's more upward mobility and there's more power to you.

8:50 I mean listen like I think they say college is actually very very useful.

8:55 It's good to build a till a skill.

8:57 It's good to go into refine and sharpen whatever

9:00 skill you want to then make a career off of.

9:03 It gives you upward mobility,

9:04 but I think I've been able to craft something with the skill

9:07 set I have where I don't need college at this point.

9:10 I agree.

9:11 I think that's that's sort of the thing that I wonder with So,

9:14 as a millennial, right?

9:15 Our whole thing was you have to go to college or you won't get a job.

9:18 You can't even apply for a job without a degree.

9:21 And now that millennials have gotten into power and into the place

9:24 where they're the hiring managers a lot of the time they're like, "Dude,

9:26 college was great for me to grow up

9:28 and for me to learn certain things and discover myself,

9:30 but it's it's not really shouldn't be a ticket

9:33 to entry for the rest of your life.

9:35 If you want if you have to go to college because you want

9:37 to be a doctor or a lawyer

9:38 or something that requires like some high-level credential,

9:40 then like great, do that.

9:41 But so many people in your generation are kind of entrepreneurial

9:45 and figuring it out separate from the um university system,

9:50 do you think that that's just a cultural shift or is it because

9:53 it's so expensive and that paper doesn't really get you what it used to?

9:57 Yeah, the the system isn't working as it was supposed to anymore.

10:01 There's an interesting stat that young men who go

10:03 to college and who go for 4 years and who graduate

10:07 are now finding jobs at the exact same rate

10:10 as young men who don't go to college, which is absurd.

10:14 That means after 4 years and getting into all this debt,

10:16 it doesn't even give you an edge anymore.

10:17 And it's the same thing with young women, too,

10:19 having a lot of trouble entering the job market.

10:22 Um I have a lot of friends who graduated college

10:24 and they're still looking for a job a year after.

10:27 It is tough out there for young folks to grab a uh get a job,

10:31 accumulate capital in any meaningful way.

10:33 And when you can't accumulate capital in any meaningful way,

10:35 of course you're going to think the system is against you.

10:38 And when Republicans are like, "Oh,

10:40 look at all these young communists voting in Zohran Mamdani." No,

10:43 it's not that simple.

10:44 It's not that, you know, one fact I it's not that infantile.

10:47 It's just the fact that a lot of young people don't feel

10:50 servitude to a system that hasn't helped them in the first place.

10:53 So, in particular with college,

10:56 I just think a lot of young people don't see the edge in it.

10:58 And we live in a new era where a lot of the young people

11:02 online who are like the role models kind of built something on their own.

11:06 Like there's all these streamers, some of the biggest people in my generation.

11:09 Of course, you know, Adin Ross or like Hasan or all of these people

11:14 Hasan, yeah.

11:14 Hasan who who command these massive audiences.

11:18 You think that uh there's not There's non-traditional structures you can follow.

11:22 And honestly, that's the beauty of America in my opinion.

11:25 I think Obviously, America has a lot of problems

11:27 with wealth inequality and a lot of historical problems,

11:29 but one of the beauties of America is that, you know,

11:32 people can coexist in a harmonious manner among institutions

11:35 and pursue our own interests and still have optimal outcomes.

11:39 A lot of countries you don't have the freedom to do that.

11:41 Yeah.

11:42 I'm really inspired by what Gen Z is up to now

11:44 with the entrepreneurial mindset because for us it was so like no,

11:47 we we still were under kind of like the boomer

11:49 ideal with that they grew up in which was like,

11:50 well, you get a job, you stay there for 40 years, and everything works out.

11:53 And for us it was like, you get a job,

11:55 the financial collapse happens, you go work at a restaurant,

11:58 you try to figure it out, you try to figure it out,

12:00 and at 37 years old you become a YouTuber.

12:01 At least that's my my path so far.

12:04 But it it's cool to see people value education

12:08 in conversation without needing the rigidity of the school,

12:11 and I think that's something that's so unique to Gen

12:13 Z is that y'all really do a lot of talking,

12:16 a lot more talking about serious things than I

12:18 would say I was worried about at your age.

12:20 Where do you think that comes from?

12:23 The accessibility to serious issues, maybe.

12:26 I mean, we have these magic boxes in our hand

12:29 that can beam the news right into our eyes at any moment.

12:32 Sometimes it can be overwhelming, sometimes it can be a huge edge.

12:36 And ah, [sighs] you know, I think it's also

12:38 the formative experiences that young people go through.

12:41 So, when you pointed to the 2008 crisis,

12:42 I'm sure that was incredibly formative for you

12:45 and the people around you and everything.

12:47 I think something that you can analog to Gen Z would be COVID.

12:51 Yeah.

12:50 But it's obviously a bit different in the way that it played out and everything,

12:53 but I think COVID also had this effect.

12:55 And I talk about this a lot.

12:56 COVID had this effect on young people um on everybody of all ages.

13:00 Like I I'm not even just trying to pick it out on young people,

13:03 but I'm speaking from my experience and my friends.

13:04 It had this effect on people where, you know, you put a bubble around yourself.

13:08 You start to kind of recede, you start to not be as social.

13:10 I absolutely toned down how social I was during COVID,

13:14 and then I had to make an intentional effort

13:16 to tear that bubble down and start dating again,

13:18 start hanging out with friends again.

13:19 I was a bit antisocial on the tail end of COVID.

13:22 I think many people were.

13:23 Some people never tore for bubble down

13:25 and continued to spiral down into these algorithms online.

13:29 Someone who I talk about a lot is like actually I don't talk

13:31 about him a lot but an example I use a lot is Tyler Robinson.

13:34 Oh, yeah.

13:35 Who killed Charlie Kirk, right?

13:37 Right, allegedly.

13:39 Yeah, allegedly.

13:39 So there's a photo of him when he's 9 years old actually

13:43 and it his mom posted it on Facebook and he's on this laptop, right?

13:47 He's typing on this laptop and his mom is like,

13:49 "You know, I just got my son this laptop.

13:51 He's having so much fun playing these games." And I

13:53 sent that to my mom and she was like, "Dude, that was basically you.

13:56 Like you were also 9 years old on your laptop,

13:58 but we took incredibly different paths.

14:01 He probably got sucked out of this antisocial

14:03 algorithmic radical thing and he's on Elon Musk's Twitter,

14:08 which incentivizes the most radical behavior.

14:10 He's got a bubble up around himself,

14:12 not really socializing or humanizing other

14:14 people and that leads to rather radical, disgusting, insane actions.

14:20 And he committed an act of political violence.

14:22 He publicly executed somebody because he got radicalized.

14:25 So I I just think that there's a lot of problems with young people in general,

14:30 but young men you see commit these acts of terror over and over and over.

14:34 Yeah.

14:34 Right after the Charlie Kirk thing, a young dude shot into an ICE van.

14:38 Do you remember this?

14:39 He Yeah.

14:40 two immigrants in ICE and it was another 29-year-old a white dude.

14:43 Over and over you see people getting radicalized like

14:46 this and a lot of it's due to algorithms,

14:49 a lot of it's due to antisocial behavior,

14:51 a lot of it's due to bad faith actors

14:53 who are incentivized to push this type of hatred.

14:56 How much does Russia salivate at the mouth

14:59 when they see less social cohesion in America?

15:01 How much does Iran salivate at the mouth?

15:03 And then on top of all of that, we have

15:05 Elon Musk who created who who turned Twitter into a platform

15:10 that boosts the most radical wild So how are

15:13 people to keep their head on straight during all this?

15:15 It's a lot.

15:16 It's a lot.

15:17 This is a good time to bring up my favorite part of the manosphere,

15:21 which is of course Clavicular.

15:23 I I would love to know from your perspective, this is a peer of yours,

15:27 he's of your age, your group, of your same growing up and sort of time.

15:32 What happened to this man?

15:33 Like where how does this happen to a person and why do

15:36 so many people subscribe to his channel and to his looks maxing thing?

15:42 So, a little bit of lore about Clavicular,

15:44 you can find stuff from him on messaging boards,

15:47 looks maxing messaging boards from years and years back, from like 2019.

15:52 Which like 2020, which would make him rather young at the time.

15:54 We we would all have been, I don't know, 15, 16.

15:57 So, he's been in these online circles for a while

16:00 and it kind of feeds perfectly back into what I was saying,

16:03 where you get access to the internet at a young

16:05 age and you start to go down these interesting pathways.

16:08 I don't want to speculate, but his team has talked to the public before

16:12 about how he may have a form of autism.

16:14 I know his publicist and I've been told the same thing.

16:16 Um like a slight form of autism.

16:18 It seems like he's got a slight obsession with looks maxing.

16:22 There's probably insecurity wrapped in there and he uses

16:26 it as this superficial way to I don't know,

16:29 try to be masculine.

16:30 I think that the appeal to him just honestly, to be as candid as possible,

16:35 I I I want to be able to How can I

16:37 talk about the appeal of these people without seeming sympathetic to them?

16:40 Because there's an appeal to Nick Fuentes that I can describe, too.

16:43 There's an appeal to Clavicular and I want to go

16:45 through it right now and just be Yeah, let's do it.

16:47 Let's talk about the appeal of it.

16:48 Cuz I often think that I could fix Clavicular.

16:50 So, you're not you're not in bad company.

16:52 I look at him and I'm like,

16:53 he's a symptom of a of a a rooted sickness that there is on the internet.

16:58 I understand that he's done a lot of controversial things,

17:01 like the Heil Hitler stuff.

17:02 I would never ever downplay that or try to say that it's excusable.

17:04 It's inexcusable, of course, but there is like a a dude in there who's young

17:09 that we can analyze and have empathy for to some degree, right?

17:12 Um the appeal to him is that number one, he is good looking.

17:16 Like he's a good looking He's young and he's just

17:19 kind of comical in the situations that he finds himself in.

17:21 So you find these clips of this dude and you can't tell like is he smart?

17:25 Is he dumb?

17:25 And he's standing there and he's just saying random stuff uh

17:28 that you're really not supposed to say, very out of pocket.

17:31 And he's all doing it to push this idea that if you look good in society,

17:34 you get these certain benefits.

17:36 And in some ways, his success in the viral mainstream has a kind

17:39 of proven that his looks maxing and it's like bringing him some success.

17:43 So Yeah.

17:44 I think it's almost self uh it's

17:47 a self-perpetuating loop where people post some absurd thing.

17:51 He spikes the cortisol of sub-five

17:55 of catchy phrases.

17:58 [laughter] So funny and it kind of catches on and then

18:00 it reinforces that loop and it goes more viral.

18:02 And then it kind of turns into something

18:04 where you're not really it's a guilty pleasure.

18:06 Like I'm not really supposed to be enjoying this or like

18:09 Right.

18:08 It kind of feels like slop.

18:10 The kid was singing Heil Hitler,

18:12 but it also uh also you know what I've seen

18:14 him say say too and this needs to be pointed out.

18:16 There's clips where he's gotten asked,

18:17 do you not care that your publicist is gay?

18:19 And Cluvik Keeler goes, honestly,

18:21 if you care about that stuff, you're kind of a loser.

18:23 He starts saying he's like you're honestly kind of a loser.

18:25 Like who cares about that?

18:26 Who cares if someone's trans?

18:28 You can do whatever you want.

18:30 Right.

18:29 So he does also represent this sort of laissez-faire

18:31 view that a lot of young people do hold.

18:33 I don't think it's worth entirely shouting people like Cluvik Keeler down.

18:36 Now when it comes to Nick Fuentes,

18:37 obviously Nazi piece of We shouldn't be accepting him in any sort of manner.

18:41 But the appeal there is that he's actually rather funny in these clips.

18:45 Don't mistake this with me being sympathetic with his views, of course.

18:49 Right.

18:48 But he posts all of these clips and the distribution system he's

18:51 built in with his fans allows these clips to be across all platforms.

18:54 I've seen them on Twitter, on Instagram.

18:57 And it again gives this guilty pleasure sort of vibe.

19:00 So you're a young dude in society and the Democratic Party,

19:03 just imagine for a second,

19:04 you're a young dude and the Democratic Party is kind of wagging their finger

19:06 in your face saying don't do this, don't do that, you really shouldn't do this.

19:10 And if you do, then you're you're We're not going to accept you.

19:14 Right.

19:13 And then you have this Nick Fuentes guy who's saying all of this vile stuff.

19:17 It's like the craziest episode of Family Guy.

19:19 Like you're not supposed to say or show any of that.

19:21 You're not supposed to be saying this stuff.

19:23 Because it's vile.

19:24 It's awful.

19:25 wrong.

19:25 Yeah.

19:25 It's wrong, of course.

19:27 But then that goes viral because then people are watching this and saying,

19:30 "Holy Like this is my guilty pleasure.

19:33 Or this is my This is my dopamine hit." He's getting away with it.

19:37 How is he getting away with this?

19:39 to be watching this.

19:40 My mom would get so mad if they knew I was watching this.

19:42 So all these young guys do it in rebellion.

19:44 They like the edge.

19:45 He's he's edgy.

19:47 But I think that's where we need counter voices coming in.

19:51 People who can stand up for firm liberal values.

19:54 Um you know, it's interesting.

19:55 I have a lot of the same critiques

19:57 of the current war with Iran that Nick Fuentes does.

20:01 But I don't lace it in anti-Semitic uh bigotry.

20:05 I don't lace it in conspiracy theories

20:07 about Jewish people or about black people.

20:09 I don't lace it in that.

20:10 I lace it in the idea that uh sovereignty matters.

20:13 That constitutional law matters.

20:15 And that institutions in the United States matter.

20:18 I lace it in the idea that when people are free,

20:21 they're able to do extraordinary things.

20:22 Whether it's the Iranian people who should

20:24 be free or the American people who should be able to coexist in institutions um

20:28 in a harmonious manner without hating each other, right?

20:30 So like I want to push these firm liberal values.

20:33 And that's why I'm trying to build, not to go on a side tangent,

20:36 that's why I'm trying to build my own

20:37 clipping and distribution distribution infrastructure to be

20:41 able to push back against these vile ideas coming from people like Nick Fuentes.

20:47 To even push back on some of the narrative

20:48 control that Clavicular has at certain moments.

20:50 Like uh maybe eventually I'll appear on stream with him.

20:53 I would hope I think I think it would work.

20:54 I mean, I've seen Clav on like the Adam Friedland show and different things.

20:59 And when he's talking to men who I he seems to sort

21:02 of be a chameleon where when he's talking to Adam Friedland,

21:05 he's like more like that.

21:07 When he's maybe getting texts from Peter Thiel, he's more like that.

21:10 It's like just constantly seeking approval

21:12 in a world where everything moves so quickly

21:16 that there's no consequences for the last thing

21:17 he did cuz he's already done something else.

21:19 And I that's going to lead to burnout

21:21 for a generation of anybody who's chasing after that similar thing.

21:24 Yeah, and it kind of takes me to some advice I got from Michael Avenatti.

21:30 [laughter] Oh boy, yes.

21:31 Um you know, so for the people who haven't seen this tweet,

21:35 Michael Avenatti just randomly out of the blue after not posting [laughter]

21:40 just tags me in a tweet and says @AdamMockler,

21:42 you can throw what I'm about to say in the garbage

21:44 or chalk it up to the words of convicted felon.

21:46 Or you can listen because I have walked this walk.

21:48 You need to dial it back two clicks.

21:50 You're flying far too close to the sun,

21:51 but you can't see it because you're blinded by the adulation.

21:54 Be smart and play the long game.

21:56 Don't count on any of the people

21:57 in the media or politics who presently claim to adore

21:59 you so much to be there to protect you if hits the fan because they won't.

22:03 Now, I've got a few thoughts on this.

22:06 [laughter] He was just like, I have to reach out to my boy.

22:08 I have to I have to mentor this young man, me, Michael Avenatti.

22:12 We must I must bring him.

22:14 Thank you for throwing that up.

22:16 It's funny because people were like that why

22:18 would you ever take advice from Michael Avenatti?

22:20 But also it's like he might be the best person to give this advice.

22:24 He might be.

22:25 Somebody told me that he was CNN's sweetheart for a few

22:27 years and then he crashed and burned very very hard.

22:30 And listen, so what reminded me of this is that you said

22:33 Clavicular is rather young and he has the risk of crashing and burning.

22:37 And I'm not like him in that manner,

22:39 but it kind of does remind me of the way that I was,

22:40 you know, sending out a bunch of provocative posts and being provocative,

22:44 doing all this stuff.

22:46 Yeah.

22:45 I think that we live in an environment

22:48 that incentivizes via a feedback loop this type of outrage.

22:51 And I kind of think that's what Michael was going for.

22:53 He's like, don't lose your long-term

22:55 vision reputation due to this short-term outrage.

22:59 And people in the replies were absolutely dogging on Michael Avenatti,

23:02 but just to be honest, uh despite his insane sins, of course,

23:06 I actually found some grain of really good advice in this.

23:09 My mom the night before kind of told me the same thing in different words.

23:12 She was like, "Hey, make sure throughout all of this you

23:14 kind of slow down and zoom out sometimes." So,

23:16 to then see Michael Avenatti tweet that at me, at first I was like,

23:19 "Dude, what the hell?" But then I was like, "Wait a minute.

23:21 I think there's actually a grain of advice

23:23 I can gain from the idea that the same

23:25 people who count on me now will turn on me the moment hits the fan.

23:29 Now, hit the fan for Michael Avenatti.

23:31 Was very different than what I imagined you're going to come up

23:33 with, or at least I hope you're going to come up with.

23:36 Very different, yes.

23:37 Very it interesting when you're at CNN?

23:40 This is what I found when I go on TV.

23:42 You're in the green room.

23:43 Do you go on in DC or in the New York office?

23:45 New York mainly, but I've been in New York mainly.

23:47 So, I go on in DC and it's it's very DC.

23:50 And I typically get paired with the same people like you.

23:53 It's always you and Scott.

23:54 It's like always me and Michael.

23:56 So, uh I find you're in the green room.

23:59 Everybody's chilling.

23:59 Everybody's cool.

24:00 Everybody's like agreeing.

24:02 Things are going great.

24:03 You sit down, and all of a sudden it's

24:05 like they turn on these like right-wing talking head machines,

24:09 where I'm like, "You didn't say any of that before.

24:11 Like, you didn't say anything like that before.

24:13 We were just talking about normal stuff." And sometimes I don't always know

24:17 the right-wing figures because I try to like stay out of those waters.

24:21 So, I'll be on with somebody and I have no idea like how

24:23 deep in the sauce they are with like deep conspiracy or like far MAGA.

24:28 And they'll they'll just They cannot have

24:30 a conversation as a normal person anymore, but I've not caught up that we're

24:33 supposed to have turned on some other character.

24:37 Yes.

24:36 And they short out.

24:37 They short out and they freak out and they're like, "Well,

24:40 that's cuz all the Democrats are demons." And I'm like, "Okay, girl.

24:42 Relax." [laughter] And you know what really annoys me about that?

24:47 Is that right-wingers will be doing this performative talking point thing.

24:51 You know, some of the right-wingers I debate are very, very smug, constantly

24:55 Yeah.

24:55 condescending all the time.

24:57 They're not bound to any rules or decorum in debate.

25:01 They're not bound to any facts when it comes to the Iran war,

25:04 they're not bound by any timelines.

25:06 They can claim that it's going to be over in two days.

25:08 They're not bound by the reality.

25:09 But then the moment I try to force an actual answer out of them,

25:12 the moment I force a question and try to make

25:14 them actually grapple with the reality of the situation,

25:17 I get treated not I'm not saying I'm the victim,

25:19 but then I get treated as if I'm some sort of yeah,

25:21 I've broken some norm in debate, that I've broken decorum.

25:24 And it feels like I'm the one that gets treated

25:26 as if as if I should tone it down and chill,

25:29 that I should dial it back two clicks as Michael Avenatti said,

25:32 just for trying to force an answer to somebody who's being disingenuous.

25:36 And I I'm sick of the game, honestly.

25:38 we're trying to make a TV show here and we

25:40 all have our roles to play and I'm like,

25:41 I didn't get the media training you people got

25:43 cuz you're on a whole other level of weird.

25:46 Let me play just

25:47 TV four to six weeks ago and you said we were weeks away from it.

25:50 Now you're making condescending remarks because you can't defend

25:52 the fact that this war is not going your way.

25:54 Wait, one more time.

25:54 Not going Not going your way.

25:56 Name one political concession.

26:01 What was that moment like?

26:02 Because I feel like I almost got there with the mega blonde woman.

26:06 [laughter] Yeah, um They just they short out when they're losing.

26:10 They can't handle it.

26:11 Um I thought he was going to hit me for like half a second there.

26:13 Were you?

26:14 You were like, okay.

26:15 I was like, holy But then yeah, yeah, holy Um Cuz you're sitting very close.

26:19 I mean, on TV it doesn't look as close,

26:21 but you're sometimes you're like close shoulder to shoulder with people.

26:25 Listen, I mean, I do gesticulate a lot, but not warrant that type of response.

26:30 No, your hand was nowhere near his face and he's

26:32 known for sticking his finger in people's face constantly.

26:35 the provocateur.

26:37 He can dish it, but not take it.

26:39 The fragility of these people, that's what's been infuriating me.

26:41 The fragility of these people to dish it, but not take it.

26:43 I mean, listen, when it comes to this entire interaction,

26:46 week after week after week I sat next to Scott

26:49 on a panel and I heard him lie about the timelines.

26:53 I heard him bloviate and sit there and over and over and over gaslight.

26:59 Mhm.

26:59 And he gaslighted about this prior war as well.

27:01 He gaslighted about this under the Bush administration,

27:03 which was I was pointing out.

27:05 Yep.

27:04 Week after week after week, I try to force a question,

27:07 and he gets saved by the bell or saved

27:09 by a last-minute jump in from someone else.

27:12 Someone else will kind of jump in.

27:14 I love Abby.

27:14 She's amazing.

27:15 It's not even It's not even her.

27:16 She does She referees it to a point where it doesn't go as far.

27:19 Exactly.

27:20 Yeah, yeah.

27:20 So, week after week after week, he hasn't been actually pinned down on anything.

27:25 And from the perspective of a young person,

27:27 people like you and I who have watched

27:29 these prior endless wars turn into absolutely nothing,

27:32 it's important to ask these questions.

27:34 I mean, for both of our entire lives,

27:36 we've been at war with some country in the Middle East in some manner, right?

27:39 And we've always been told it'll make us more safe, make us better off,

27:44 and every single time it ends in us being

27:46 worse safe or less safe and worse off, right?

27:50 Mhm.

27:50 So, when when you were growing up,

27:51 I'm sure you saw headlines about Iraq saying Saddam Hussein has been taken out.

27:56 There was Oh, we were loving it.

27:58 We were tying a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree.

28:01 All of my toys were about the Gulf War

28:04 and the Persian War and Saddam and killing Osama.

28:07 It was massive propaganda in the in the late '90s for all of that kind of stuff.

28:12 is, we did take a military victory on the battlefield in the short term,

28:16 but that then turned into a grinding

28:17 counterinsurgency for years and years and years.

28:20 It cost a trillion dollars in the case

28:22 of Iraq that led to a less stable Middle East.

28:26 Like, when I said that on CNN,

28:27 they were like, "You're not grateful for our troops."

28:29 I know, which is an absurd thing to say.

28:32 But, then the same thing happened with Afghanistan.

28:34 I mean, there was a victory on the battlefield.

28:36 Sure, we've got a strong military,

28:37 but that turned into a grinding counterinsurgency that turned into battles,

28:41 and that one actually lasted decades.

28:42 That cost trillions of dollars as well.

28:44 So, now Gen Z is going to the same thing with Iran,

28:47 and we're watching the same people go on TV and lie in the same manner.

28:52 So, I'm, you know, in a uniquely privileged position where

28:55 I'm able to go on and actually confront these people face-to-face,

28:58 and I would rather not go on these shows at all

29:00 and go on these shows and play their game where Oh, now you get to move on.

29:04 That's very funny that you get to move on and deflect.

29:06 F that.

29:07 It actually makes me so mad.

29:09 It makes me mad, too, because I'm like,

29:11 are we here to talk about something real,

29:13 or are we here to just sort of like have our little moments?

29:16 But, this is the clip economy again, and that's what,

29:19 you know, the world is running on right now.

29:21 Isn't these long-form sort of fireside chat or deep academic conversations?

29:26 It's like, what can I get in 90 seconds that will go viral,

29:29 that will monetize, or that will make it seem like some of these shows,

29:33 I feel like they're not even structured in the same

29:35 way to to have it be watched as a full show.

29:38 It's like, okay, if you watch the clips, that's what we want you to see.

29:40 Just these hot constant hits of dopamine or adrenaline.

29:45 That is the exact clip economy that we exist in, and it's something

29:48 that I've kind of gone back and forth with my audience for a while, right?

29:51 So, a lot of people in my audience

29:54 would always say this thing before Charlie Kirk passed,

29:56 and they still say some version of it.

29:57 They'd say, "Why do you give these people the air?

30:00 Why do you give Charlie Kirk the air?

30:01 Why do you cover Joe Rogan?

30:03 Why do you debate these freaks?" is what my audience would say.

30:06 And my response would always be, "Dude,

30:08 but Charlie Kirk is the air right now." I mean,

30:10 about a year ago, this dude was pulling

30:11 like half a billion views a month, probably more.

30:13 He Uh the They had all of Congress, they still do.

30:17 The presidency, the Supreme Court under their thumb.

30:19 MAGA won the election.

30:21 Fair and square, they won it.

30:22 I mean, Elon Musk obviously manipulated a bunch of online like

30:26 that, but they won the election because they were in the air.

30:28 MAGA was in the air.

30:30 So, the idea that I shouldn't be playing on this battlefield,

30:33 in my opinion, is ill-advised.

30:35 And to take it a step further,

30:37 I'm going to play on the exact battlefield that exists.

30:39 Don't play Don't hate the player, hate the game.

30:41 That's the whole right now the president of the United

30:44 States has driven the narrative for the past decade based

30:48 off of rage baiting posting insane stuff trying to go

30:52 viral and trying to control the narrative in his own direction.

30:56 So I want to play that game as well.

30:58 That's the game that we're playing where Elon Musk

31:00 pulls a 100 million views on Twitter a day.

31:02 Like if you scroll through that guy's Twitter feed right now,

31:04 it's tweet after tweet about immigration and trans

31:06 people and they all have 9 million views.

31:09 He has so much narrative control.

31:10 So yeah, I'm going to go on Twitter and I'm going to roast people.

31:13 I'm going to be a bit of an on Twitter

31:14 as long as I keep giving good performances

31:16 on air and I'm going to make sure that I

31:18 use this to drive a narrative in some way.

31:21 Do I wish that me getting clips on Jubilee

31:23 was the optimal way to do these debates?

31:25 Probably not.

31:26 There's probably a better way to do it, but I'm not going to turn down.

31:29 I got some emails saying I should have turned down the Jubilee opportunity.

31:32 Oh, what if they then

31:34 People people love hate Jubilee but it is a really powerful platform.

31:38 what if I would have turned that down and they

31:39 would have passed like tossed it to Ben Shapiro?

31:41 Would that have been effective at that point?

31:42 Do I want to seed that type of ground?

31:44 So I think it's important that I'm out there having these conversations.