The 23-Year-Old Who Asked the Question Every Iran War Defender Can't Answer | Adam Mockler

The 23-Year-Old Who Asked the Question Every Iran War Defender Can't Answer | Adam Mockler

Jim Acosta

0:00 He is a slayer of middle-aged MAGA men on cable news.

0:05 Adam, great to see you.

0:06 Thank you for having me on.

0:08 Thank you for paving the way.

0:10 Thank you for, you know, being so good at what you do as well.

0:12 It's going to be a great conversation.

0:13 I'm glad we finally got to do it.

0:15 I'm so glad, too.

0:16 And I um I'm I'm a big admirer of yours and I

0:19 love seeing uh the young folks doing these things these days.

0:24 I remember when I I I think I read you're 23.

0:26 If I'm wrong, please correct me as you do with other middle-aged men.

0:30 But um you're 23 and I remember when I was 23,

0:34 I was good at like beer pong and that's basically it.

0:37 That was that was the extent of what I was good at at 23 years old.

0:41 Um I I guess what you know, we should dive into a lot of this stuff,

0:45 but I guess first of all,

0:47 what do you make of the the political mess that Trump is in right now?

0:51 And like folks in your age bracket, I know you don't speak for everybody in it.

0:57 I guess it would be Gen Z or whatever, but like why is he tanking so badly?

1:02 Is it just that he's nuts?

1:03 I mean, I think he's nuts and that's why he's tanking so badly.

1:06 Is it is it Iran?

1:07 What do you think it is?

1:09 It's right now it is Iran and the downstream effects of this war backfiring.

1:14 And it's due to his terrible, terrible instincts on this and the bad advice

1:19 that he got from the people around him like Netanyahu.

1:22 Donald Trump dealt this would be a carbon copy of Venezuela where you

1:25 chop off the head and the rest of the body falls in line.

1:28 Meaning you take out the leader and the rest

1:30 of the regime will sort of be strung along.

1:32 It kind of worked in Venezuela.

1:34 It got quiet after Maduro was captured and the rest of the body fell in line.

1:38 With Venice or with Iran, it's much much different.

1:41 The IRGC is deeply embedded in Iran.

1:44 Uh, a lot of people that work in the banks, the institutions,

1:47 the political scenes,

1:48 they're former IRGC members who are incentivized to keep the regime going.

1:53 They have their claws deep in Iran.

1:55 So, they're not really budging.

1:57 They're kind of holding out in its asymmetric warfare at this point.

2:00 So, due to that, Donald Trump's four to six week timeline got blown through.

2:05 We're now in week 10.

2:06 Is that right?

2:07 Week nine or 10 of this war.

2:08 We are way past the timeline

2:10 and we've gotten zero political concessions from Iran,

2:13 which is what I've been hammering home on all of these shows.

2:15 There's quite literally nothing we can show for it.

2:18 And talking about people my age, yeah,

2:21 we have grown up always seeing headlines of military successes

2:25 in the Middle East in the sense that, you know,

2:27 millennials saw Saddam Hussein was killed in Iraq

2:29 and then we saw that in Afghanistan,

2:31 I'm Jen Z, but the millennials then

2:33 saw in Afghanistan we got a military success,

2:36 but then that turned into a grinding counterinsurgency, right?

2:39 the military success of killing Saddam Hussein turned

2:43 into an incredibly expensive trillion dollar catastrophe where we didn't

2:47 make any progress whatsoever and then we left Afghanistan

2:51 at least 20 years after trillions of dollars in debt.

2:54 So young people have been primed to realize wait

2:56 a minute just because we sink the navy of another country

2:59 just because we sink the air force of another country

3:01 doesn't directly mean it affects or helps us at home.

3:04 In fact we've seen the opposite.

3:06 So now we see the same exact people who

3:08 have been on air defending the first two wars,

3:10 saying those first two wars were going to work out,

3:12 defending this war and telling us not to ask questions about this war.

3:16 That's that's my rant.

3:18 That's the long and the short of it.

3:19 And that's why, you know, you were able to own Scott Jennings the way he

3:22 he was owned because he worked in the Bush administration.

3:26 And I mean, just to, you know,

3:27 to to play off of what you were saying a few moments ago,

3:30 I remember being out on the campaign trail with Donald

3:33 Trump in 2016 when he would savage George W.

3:35 Bush for getting the US into a quagmire

3:38 in the Middle East that resulted in uh, you know,

3:41 just a a a a total catastrophe from a foreign policy standpoint,

3:45 emboldening Iran, by the way, creating ISIS and and all sorts of things.

3:50 And you know, I I just it it's it's

3:53 shocking to me that Trump went back on his word.

3:55 And I think that's a big part of why Jenzers are pissed off,

3:59 too, because they sort of they bought into this in 2024.

4:02 They were kind of a big voting block

4:04 that helped Trump get back in the White House.

4:06 I think that's oversold a little bit as to how much

4:08 they played a role in that, but they were a factor.

4:11 And I he just completely obliterated that that promise.

4:14 Yeah.

4:14 I mean, listen, for a lot of Jenzer's most formative years,

4:18 we didn't fully a lot of people weren't fully paying attention

4:21 throughout middle school and high school to what Donald Trump was doing.

4:24 Throughout COVID, it was just a blur

4:26 where people were socially isolated and both sides

4:29 were battling it out during the 2020 election

4:32 in in a lot of young people's minds.

4:33 So, Trump was able to gain that and regain the trust

4:36 of some younger people who didn't fully remember his first uh term.

4:42 And he wrote he he he pulled the rug again in even worse manner.

4:46 He made the promises that he would end inflation on day one.

4:48 He actually said that and that there would be no new wars.

4:51 Now he started a new war that has backfired so badly that inflation is spiking.

4:55 I mean give me a break.

4:56 It's crazy.

4:57 Yeah.

4:57 You can't make it up.

4:58 And that leads us to this confrontation that you had with Scott Jennings.

5:02 I don't play many CNN clips on my show because,

5:04 you know, I don't want folks to think, "Oh, Jim, he's he's,

5:07 you know, he's bitter about CNN and so he goes off

5:09 on CNN." I I I I I love many of the people there.

5:13 I had a great experience there.

5:14 I love what I do now.

5:15 I love it even more.

5:16 But from time to time,

5:17 we have to talk about what's happening in corporate media,

5:20 as I call it, legacy media.

5:22 And and and there's just a lot that's going wrong.

5:24 And one of the things that is going wrong in corporate media is Scott Jennings.

5:28 And it's because he's basically paid to to lie and be a a MAGA,

5:33 you know, uh carrying, you know,

5:35 water carrying uh spokesperson for Donald Trump.

5:38 and it and it blows up in his face on a lot of different occasions.

5:42 Let's play that clip of you guys.

5:43 I know you've watched this clip and listened to this clip a thousand times.

5:46 You're probably hearing it in your sleep, but let's watch it uh with the viewers

5:49 here and then talk about on the other side.

5:53 Been at war with us for 40 seconds.

5:55 We all know that Scott Jennings is more than happy to defend a war

5:57 with a country that starts with the letters IRA that we are currently failing.

6:00 That is going to put us trillions and trillions of dollars more in debt.

6:03 I was only a few years old while

6:04 you were in the administration defending prior endless wars.

6:07 Now this war is failing.

6:09 Eight weeks is endless to you.

6:10 Okay.

6:10 You said it was going to be four to six weeks.

6:12 You have the attention span of a net.

6:13 I debated you on TV four to six weeks

6:15 ago and you said we were weeks away from it.

6:17 Now you're making condescending remarks because you can't defend

6:19 the fact that this war is not going your way.

6:21 Wait one more time.

6:22 Not going.

6:23 Name one political concession.

6:24 Name one political concession.

6:26 Honestly, I'm not going to help.

6:30 Yeah.

6:30 I mean I just every time I hear that an angel gets its wings.

6:32 I maybe that's just me, but but Adam, um, what was happening there?

6:37 And were you surprised that he blew up like that?

6:40 I'm not surprised cuz I used to work

6:41 with with Scott and he had kind of a bad temper,

6:44 I thought, when I worked with him.

6:46 But what did you think of that?

6:48 I mean, there were some clear angst building due to the failing

6:51 of this Iran war for weeks and weeks and weeks.

6:54 There were a lot of repetitious talking points being used

6:56 by Scott Jennings in the sense that he would constantly say,

6:59 "We destroyed their navy.

7:01 We destroyed their air force.

7:02 we might be able to get their nukes.

7:04 Time and time again, he would run the same three lines.

7:06 And time and time again, I would try to force an answer,

7:08 but the show moves on rather quickly to the next segment.

7:12 So, I've come to the conclusion that if I'm going to be

7:15 debating people on panels who aren't bound to any sense of facts,

7:19 any sense of timelines, he'll just he'll make predictions and blow

7:23 past the timelines and make more predictions.

7:25 Not even bound to any sense of decorum that I

7:27 can also sort of break the rules a bit.

7:29 Not even that I broke the rules.

7:30 I was kind of just trying to force a question in the way

7:32 that not many other people do and he snapped on me.

7:36 I also want to point out something that really,

7:38 you know, really I think was the most defensive part,

7:40 not even that moment in particular, but him saying afterwards,

7:43 you know, I think a little more civil debate would be good.

7:46 That's a quote from him the other day on Okconor and company or something.

7:50 I think a little more civil debate would be good.

7:53 Are we joking here?

7:54 you have built your entire mainstream media career

7:57 over the past few years off of being, you know, the condescending on television.

8:01 And I don't even think that's a stretch for me to say.

8:03 I don't think that's something that he would disagree with either.

8:06 His entire stick is, you know, what I was flung into six months ago.

8:11 And you know who I learned some

8:12 of this aggressive technique from is Scott Jennings himself.

8:15 I'm 23 years old, so I'm a little bit of a sponge at this point in my career.

8:19 I learn from the people around me, whether it's Michael Avanat for some reason

8:23 or whether it's the people I'm on panels with.

8:25 You want to know something interesting?

8:26 The first time I was on with Scott Jennings,

8:28 I learned from some of his body language.

8:29 You know, he's he sits in a confident posture and I picked that up.

8:32 And I realized the way that he plays this game.

8:34 He plays this game in an asymmetric way and is constantly condescending.

8:37 So I said, "F any of the rules that people want to bind

8:40 me to, I'm learning how to play this game as well." So,

8:43 we can't live in an information environment where the president

8:46 of the United States is constantly flinging at the wall,

8:50 making fun of people's deaths, being combative in interviews on camera.

8:54 You know, a lot about that.

8:55 Of course.

8:55 Of course.

8:56 And then me for me to try to force a question,

8:59 then people tell me to shut the hell up.

9:00 I'm like, I'm sorry.

9:02 Yes, I'll I'll beef with some people on Twitter after and and make my point.

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9:21 No, and I mean, you know, one of the things is a couple things.

9:24 I think Scott, what Scott does is what

9:25 a lot of uh right-wing pundits do these days.

9:28 They get the talking points,

9:29 and they literally do get the talking points from the White House.

9:32 the White House political people, the RNC,

9:34 I I know this for a fact from my days anchoring

9:37 on CNN is that a lot of these and and the pundits tell

9:40 me this, a lot of these talking points that they spout

9:43 on TV are provided to them by the White House and the RNC.

9:46 They're emailed out or blasted out and they're here are today's talking points.

9:49 And sometimes it's literally a document because there there

9:52 were times when I would report on these talking points.

9:54 I'd obtain them from friends of mine who are pundits

9:56 and say these are the talking points that they're putting out.

9:59 So Scott is just he's just literally just doing what

10:02 they want him to do over at the White House.

10:04 That's the first thing.

10:05 The second thing is that he is he he is a hot-tempered,

10:09 you know, sort of shortfused guy.

10:10 I remember one time I had him on for a panel and I fact checked him

10:14 and he didn't like it and after

10:15 the the segment was over we went to commercial break

10:18 and he kind of looked at me like this kind of give me one of these things

10:22 and he walked away and I was like I was like who who is this guy?

10:26 You know it's like give me a break.

10:27 you come on.

10:28 If you if you spew talking points that aren't true,

10:30 you're going to get fact checked.

10:31 And I don't know how.

10:32 To me, the Iran war is indefensible.

10:35 There's just no way.

10:36 You can't defend it.

10:36 There's no way.

10:37 And that's why they get so pissed.

10:39 That's why Trump gets so pissed.

10:40 I'm so sick of also the asymmetric media environment in which

10:43 people can lie over and over and dodge and obuscate questions,

10:47 but the moment that you try to force an answer out of them,

10:49 apparently you're the one breaking the decorum of debate.

10:53 There was a clip of Medi Hassan that just went viral of him

10:55 forcing the answer out of Michael Nolles and by the end of the clip

10:58 Michael will not answer and the moderator is like Medi Medie nothing against

11:02 that particular moderator but Medi wasn't

11:04 the one that was breaking debate decorum there.

11:06 So yeah, I sent out a tweet the other day about how as you enter more and more

11:09 spaces this I this tweet wasn't meant

11:12 to be like saying I know better than anybody.

11:13 I was saying as you enter more and more spaces you

11:16 begin to realize how human the people in these spaces are.

11:19 and that a lot of the things I've experienced in high school recently,

11:22 like this type of insecurity or fragility still

11:25 translates into the grown-up world that I'm very rapidly,

11:28 you know, getting integrated into.

11:30 And it's interesting to see the real Scott Jennings.

11:33 You know, that Scott Jennings that crosses his arms and sips the mug,

11:36 that's not the real Scott Jennings.

11:38 The real Scott Jennings showed us who he was in that very moment, you know?

11:42 Yeah, he really did.

11:43 And you did not have your hand in his face or finger.

11:46 I I mean I you look at the clip and it's

11:48 like I don't know why is he so pissed off.

11:50 I think he just had like no way to get

11:51 out of that situation and so he started flipping

11:54 out and I I noticed that um you you've also

11:58 been getting some some advice from some very interesting corners.

12:01 Apparently Michael Avanati uh Stormmy Daniels former attorney uh has put out

12:06 a tweet saying uh Adam you can throw what I am about

12:09 to say in the garbage or chalk it up to the words

12:11 of a convicted felon or you can listen because I've walked this walk.

12:14 You need to dial it back two clicks.

12:16 You are flying far too close to the sun,

12:18 but you can't see it because you're blinded by the agilation.

12:21 Be smart and play the long game.

12:23 I'm not sure these are great.

12:24 Oh, and then he goes on to say, don't count on any of the people in the media

12:27 or politics who presently claim to adore you

12:29 like me so much to be there to protect

12:31 you if the hits the fan because they won't.

12:33 Now, Michael, you know, I mean, I the thing I would say, and maybe I don't know,

12:36 maybe I should try to reach out to him and have him bond or something,

12:38 but I don't know why Michael says

12:40 that the people in the media aren't supposed to be,

12:42 you know, walking away from you when you go to prison,

12:45 but that is kind of what happens.

12:47 But, but Adam, your thoughts on that?

12:52 I first of all, I thought it was rather random.

12:56 Yeah.

12:55 Second of all, I actually took some of the advice and, you know,

13:00 I internalized it over the next few hours.

13:02 Listen, I was able to separate the messenger from the advice that he was giving.

13:06 And in that advice, there was something that reflected what my mom

13:09 told me the night before when I was still in New York.

13:11 I was on the phone with her and she was telling me, you know,

13:14 while everything is moving fast and while you have a lot of adrenaline,

13:17 make sure you zoom out, you slow down, you keep the larger picture in mind.

13:20 You keep building that infrastructure essentially.

13:23 And that's something that I was thinking about, you know, in the moment.

13:25 and I didn't fully internalize it,

13:26 but then seeing this random tweet that uh from somebody who has

13:30 seen the highs and seen the lows and seen everything in between,

13:35 true, you know, made me realize he's maybe not the worst person.

13:38 Like people were saying he's the worst person to give you this advice,

13:41 but I was thinking maybe he's the best person to give me this advice.

13:44 He has seen the highs and the lows.

13:46 There was some stat apparently he did like a hundred CNN

13:48 hits in like 60 days or so or like uh six months.

13:51 I don't know.

13:51 He was He had his phone number.

13:53 I I will say we all had his phone number and he was I mean he was at the center

13:57 of a major firestorm there because he was representing Stormmy Daniels

14:01 and that was that feels like a million years ago now.

14:04 And I will say there there are aspects of Michael

14:06 that I like and I think he's an okay guy

14:08 and I don't care if people on Fox will on me

14:10 for saying that but I think he's an okay guy.

14:12 I don't know I don't know the circumstances

14:14 of why uh things ended up the way they did but it is it is incredible how

14:19 this is how much your moment with Jennings penetrated Adam.

14:22 think that's the the long and the short of it.

14:24 And it makes me wonder because, you know,

14:26 for a 23-year-old man, you've got some incredible political instincts.

14:30 What do you see happening coming uh the midterms this fall?

14:34 There was a Michigan state Senate race last

14:36 night where this guy in this, you know,

14:38 fairly Trumpy uh district uh won handily.

14:42 Uh Cheddrick Green 50 almost 59% to 40%.

14:47 And I think this is a district my producer Sam was

14:49 telling me that Trump won by one uh last time around.

14:54 And you know that's I that is not a that's a that's

14:57 a pretty bad canary in the coal mine for Donald Trump.

14:59 Although he was able in Indiana to punish uh some

15:03 Republican state lawmakers there who went against him on the redistricting.

15:06 So I mean it says to me maybe that Trump still has a hold on the party.

15:09 But man is he losing the country.

15:13 Yeah.

15:13 I think that the Republicans are in for a brutal midterms,

15:17 but the Democrats need to understand that is backlash

15:20 to the Republicans and not love for the Democrats quite yet.

15:23 Democrats still need to build out their own

15:25 affirmative message and vision for the country.

15:27 But even without that, I think we're going to have

15:29 a pretty good midterms due to a few things.

15:31 I mean, just very clearly the compounding of tariffs on Liberation Day,

15:36 which cost the average American family $1,000,

15:38 plus the cutting of benefits for Americans that helped many,

15:42 many people tens of millions, plus the Iran war,

15:44 which is now catapulting prices and diesel prices and prices of a lot of goods.

15:49 It's hurting the average person.

15:50 As much as I wish the fake elector scheme or January 6 was the one that did

15:55 him in, I really do think this series of economic events is looking bad for him.

16:00 And like it's not even some crazy prediction that I'm making right now.

16:02 Most polling markets show you that Republicans are in for a brutal midterms.

16:06 That is very common for a president to have, you know,

16:09 a backlash two years into his term when the midterms come.

16:12 It's normal.

16:13 But this is going to be unique because of the unique lies that Donald

16:17 Trump told on the campaign trail and the unique 180 that he did.

16:21 So, I think that uh it's it's definitely going to be an interesting one.

16:24 It's going to be quite brutal for Republicans.

16:26 And I will add that is why they are

16:28 desperate to rig it in any way that they can.

16:30 I mean, nothing vindicates section two of the VRA more than watching it

16:35 effectively get gutted and then watch all of these different cities and states,

16:39 mainly red city, red or sorry,

16:42 blue cities and red states like Memphis getting voter diluted to hell.

16:46 It's like a 60% majority black city and they're diluting it into three

16:50 different districts so the black people don't have any vote or say there.

16:52 Wow.

16:53 It's incredible.

16:54 And then just today,

16:55 apparently the FBI raided the home of Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas,

17:00 who was one of the big um, you know, forces behind the redistricting uh,

17:05 fight in Virginia, which the the Democrats in Virginia won,

17:09 which of course we should note they did as a as a as a response

17:12 to what Donald Trump has been doing in Texas and everywhere else.

17:15 It's we're redistricting for me, but not for thee.

17:18 And then if you try to do it, we're we're going to sick the FBI on you.

17:21 Now, according to some reports that I see out there that there

17:24 are sources that say that this this investigation

17:27 started during the Biden administration.

17:28 I would love to know more about what

17:30 those sources have to say and who those sources are.

17:32 Is the source Cash Patel?

17:33 I don't know.

17:35 But I mean that that kind of stuff infuriates people too.

17:38 And this this whole notion of the weaponization of the Justice

17:42 Department I'm going to talk about with Frank Figusi in a moment.

17:45 Um, uh, Adam, I think your generation in particular, uh,

17:50 should be greatly concerned about this because we have not

17:53 do been doing this in this country like this, uh, up until this point.

17:57 Donald Trump is the person is the first

17:58 person to really start doing this whole hog.

18:01 And it's I think it's very disturbing.

18:03 You know, I'm going to keep sounding the alarm

18:05 on this exact thing because I will never for the rest

18:08 of my life forget the truth social post that Donald

18:11 Trump sent out to Pam Bondi where he goes,

18:13 "Pam, I need you to target these three people." And it was Leticia James,

18:18 Adam Schiff, and James Comey, right?

18:20 A very specific call to action.

18:22 Two two out of three of those people ended up getting indicted.

18:25 And then it they ended up getting

18:27 thrown out because Lindseay Alagan was a clown.

18:29 Donald Trump was a clown.

18:30 But the point is that type of weaponization is so sickening.

18:33 And I've had this very debate on CNN before

18:36 where I try to force an answer on this.

18:38 I say, "Can you draw me any parallel to Joe Biden or Kla Harris

18:42 directing Merrick Garland to do something because

18:44 they claim weaponization all the time?" Guess what?

18:47 Not.

18:48 They have nothing whatsoever.

18:50 their their best one is that like Joe Biden

18:53 privately expressed concerns about some topic about January 6

18:57 to his close adviserss and those private concerns are like

19:00 the same as Donald Trump directing Pam Bondi to do this.

19:04 So I really want to keep sounding the alarm on that.

19:07 The reality is I've been to a lot of Trump rallies.

19:09 I've had a lot of these conversations with young voters.

19:12 Things like this just don't penetrate as much as gas prices being up.

19:16 And it's very obvious.

19:17 It's obvious why gas price signs are there on the way

19:19 to work for everybody when they drive home or to work.

19:22 January 6 is kind of an abstract

19:24 concept that most people don't fully understand.

19:27 Most people don't fully understand why free and fair elections,

19:30 you know, allow a fruitful, harmonious society in the first place.

19:34 So, I think that we just need to reinforce a lot of these core

19:36 concepts and then people will understand why an independent DOJ is important.

19:40 Yeah.

19:40 And Adam, before you go,

19:42 I I have to ask you this because I was a young political junkie growing up.

19:45 And I have to say I think I would trace my roots

19:49 in being a political junkie to growing up in the Washington DC area.

19:52 I think you're in Chicago.

19:53 Are you from Chicago?

19:54 Is that how you got interested?

19:56 What's that?

19:57 Grew up in Indiana, so a red state.

20:00 And when I grew up in Indiana,

20:02 I had a lot of formative experiences for a few reasons.

20:06 My dad and his side of the family are Muslim.

20:09 My grandpa immigrated from Syria in the early 80s and they

20:12 always wanted to be they wanted me to be Muslim.

20:14 I used to go to Friday prayer with them.

20:16 And then the other side of my family,

20:17 my mom's side, they're more like Christian, atheistic.

20:20 My uncle sat me down when I was maybe 10.

20:23 And he told me that I can kind of decide what I want to do.

20:25 My mom and my uncle were telling me, listen,

20:26 you can decide which religion you want to explore.

20:29 You don't have to be locked into going to the mosque

20:31 every single Friday for the rest of your life.

20:33 And you don't have to be locked into Christianity.

20:34 that diversity of youth combined with growing up in Indiana

20:38 and having debates with like my teachers and my friends.

20:40 And I remember like pushing back on my friend's parents

20:42 because they were saying that like I remember this vividly.

20:46 I was about 10 years old and I had a friend's parents

20:48 who were saying that black people should be more grateful for our institutions.

20:52 You've probably heard some argument like this.

20:54 A lot of Americans think this.

20:56 I was struck.

20:56 I had never heard anything like that in the moment.

20:58 And I was like, whoa, that feels wrong to say like great, but whoa.

21:01 I remember pushing back talking about slavery,

21:03 but I didn't fully have the arguments formed.

21:06 All of this kind of combined to then me going to Trump

21:09 rallies when I was 21 years old with my own cameraman,

21:11 my own apparatus, and having conversations and building from the ground up.

21:16 Wow.

21:16 Which is very cool.

21:17 Yeah.

21:17 No, I think that's terrific.

21:18 And I I I kind of did some of the same stuff when I was your age.

21:21 I I got into community access television.

21:23 We didn't have this stuff.

21:24 We didn't have um you know,

21:26 the ability to go online and and do these kinds of streaming shows,

21:29 but you had community access TV.

21:30 And so I went out with my own photographer, you know,

21:33 who was basically a guy who was trying to make it like me.

21:36 And we would shoot these little stories about news in Fairfax

21:39 County and I parlayed that into a reporting gig in Knoxville, Tennessee.

21:43 And I went through local television to the place where I am today.

21:46 But I, you know, growing up in DC, I was a major political junkie.

21:50 But that is a very fascinating background, Adam, that I didn't know about you.

21:53 That's very cool.

21:54 Yeah, I appreciate that.

21:55 And that's a really interesting background with you as well.

21:57 Interesting how you can just build something.

22:00 If you concentrate and take the risk and execute on it,

22:04 it can sometimes take you to wild places.

22:06 It really can.

22:07 Yeah.

22:07 And for folks who And if you don't know what community access television is,

22:11 you watch Wayne's World, that is community access television when Wayne and Gar

22:14 are doing a a show in their basement.

22:16 That's basically what that is.

22:18 Is it like those phones where you have to spin and it's like a rotary phone?

22:22 I'm just joking.

22:23 I'm just kidding.

22:24 That's okay.

22:24 No, I know.

22:25 I know you're teasing me,

22:26 but uh you keep on slaying those middle-aged MAGA dudes.

22:30 And I don't know why Heraldo was giving you such a hard time.

22:32 I kind of thought Haraldo was a good guy, but I don't know.

22:35 Maybe he was like he needed a cookie or something.

22:37 I have no idea.

22:38 But I to an older person who's 82,

22:42 I probably present obnoxious if you're sitting on there.

22:45 And I'm I mean, listen, like I can step in his shoes and I don't know.

22:48 But thank you for having me on.

22:49 I appreciate that.

22:50 You got it, Adam.

22:51 All right.

22:51 Take care.

22:51 Thanks a lot, buddy.

22:52 Please remember to subscribe.

22:54 Um, it's so important to support independent journalism.

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23:23 The Jimmy Costa show from the briefing room to you.

23:27 The Jimmy Costa show.

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