SIO496: Asra Nomani Has EXPOSED the Mamdani Machine!

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:13 Thomas: And welcome to Serious Inquiries Only I'm Thomas Smith and I'm joined by a guest today Jenessa you co-host of many shows and frequent guests on our shows uh seymour how you doing now

0:00:23 Jenessa: I was doing good and then you sent me this article.

0:00:26 Thomas: You're doing fucking great is what you're trying to say because I have been waiting for you to read this for days because it's the best complaining

0:00:34 Jenessa: Love when I find, like, names in an article and I google them and the only hits are conservative websites complaining about the person like they barely they hadn't they didn't exist until conservative media started to complain about them

0:00:45 Thomas: About the oh right right right gotcha yeah yeah that's yep they have to make they have to invent enemies and you're probably going to be talking about Linda Sarsour mainly because she oh you did know her okay

0:00:57 Jenessa: Did actually I kind of knew about her a little I was like oh that's a name I haven't heard in a very long time. Yeah.

0:01:05 Thomas: Yeah she used to be a big topic in the I don't know in the in the anti-SJW whatever because there's so many people we shouldn't mean this in a bad way but we shouldn't really know about them like they're they're probably you know activists that that you know they should maybe if you're if you're local to them if they're local too wherever you are or if if you're working specifically in the field, but they get blown out of proportion by the right wing outrage machine that needs these villains. And but anyway, point going to talk about Zoran Mamdani and also somebody who I have met before who wrote an article finally blew the lid off of this whole Mamdani machine. She is just in a President's Man style, Bob Woodward, ask you expose Azra Nomani, who blown the lid off of this whole thing. And I started reading this article. I actually OK, so we're going to have to go to the break first. But as a teaser, discovered this because it turns out I'm still Facebook friends with Azra

0:01:08 Jenessa: For like a hot minute. Yeah, yeah. Yeah

0:01:58 Thomas: And Nomani. Now it's like, you Know, it's like a public page or something. So she's got like 15000 like followers and stuff. But no, I'm actual friends with her from way back. And I saw her post this. I was like, what the fuck is this shit? First off, didn't realize that I was friends with her because I don't think anything's like come up until now. Secondly, what the fuck does this shit. I start reading it. It is so delightful. And I thought this is great because it's a bunch of just idiotic claims about about Mamdani's kind I guess, like electoral victory in the primary. I thought, not only is this election law stuff, election funding stuff, it's also in New York. So I thought it would be perfect to have you on to see if we can give you a full -on stroke.

0:02:40 Jenessa: Yeah here's so I can endorse uh

0:02:42 Thomas: Trying to collect the life insurance money. So if we Can Full -On Murder Jenessa Alyssa on air. That's my goal.

0:02:46 Jenessa: Perfect I'm here to endorse Sliwa so I can also murder you back that's a joke just in case endorse sliva the Republican is a joke.

0:02:54 Thomas: Here to what? Wait. Oh, that was a weird combination of syllables. Yeah. That guy's fun. I watched the whole debate and he was like, he was there.

0:03:04 Jenessa: He is the most New York person. He's like the embodiment of the city. So like, I'm not saying we should vote for him. I'm saying if he wins, I get it.

0:03:19 Thomas: Hmm. Gosh. Yeah, who knows

0:03:22 Jenessa: I doubt it.

0:03:22 Thomas: About that? Because, you know, the resistance to Mamdani, But all right. That's what we're going to talk about. We're going to go through this article. It is, it It is just so funny. I can't wait to go through it with you to really, we're going to blow the lid off of this mom Donnie machine after this break.

0:03:35 Jenessa: I'm in hell red

0:03:52 Thomas: Okay. So here we are. It's foxnews.com is the journalistic outlet that this was written to written from. Yeah. Yeah, one and only necessary red flag it's called inside the mom donnie machine colon soros cash of course that's just that's an autocomplete for for fox news I think that I think microsoft word put that in there just for like clippy added it sorry yeah Soros Cash, socialists and radical imams now I this is a minor thing but radical imams is imams isn't capitalized is that normal I would would have thought it would be, but whatever. Radical imams.

0:03:58 Jenessa: Flag number one already just keep mashing that auto complete button yeah

0:04:34 Thomas: Feel like I haven't seen that word not capitalized, but, and, and normally, yeah,

0:04:37 Jenessa: Is it like priest like do you lowercase a priest I

0:04:40 Thomas: I guess you don't capitalize priests. So maybe that's what it is. But anyway, just when it comes to Fox News, I, I 50, 50. Is that a hate crime?

0:04:42 Jenessa: Don't really know yeah I don' t know who

0:04:47 Thomas: I don't know. I'm just, if it was any other outlet, I'd be like, oh, I guess that's the correct, uh, construction there, but it's Fox News. So I don'T know. Know. Radical imams engineered Zoran Mamdani's path to power. And then, of course, we always have the second, whatever the fuck you call it, the little, what do you call the second thing in every article?

0:04:48 Jenessa: Who could say it's just subheading maybe

0:05:06 Thomas: Yeah, subheading. Zorin Mamdini's political ascent involved, you ready for this, 2 .5 million in Soros funding and ties to controversial imams.

0:05:19 Thomas: So this is by, as I said one Azra Nomani. Now, I have met Azra Nomani, I don't have like a ton interesting to say about it, other than okay, year was fucking 17, I think? 2017, and it was Mythicist Milwaukee, which is somewhat infamous to some people listening and now it's just like a quaint memory of, you know, it's barely matters. That uh, was when I was debating, um, Sargon of Akkad, douchebag, asshole, racist Sargon Avakad. Was that one. And I didn't know Azra then. I still barely know her, but I saw that she was like an ex-Muslim. And the thing about the Mythicist Milwaukee Convention is it the first thing I ever did. Year one, I did my first ever talk and it was from just finishing the Bible. And it was really fun. I was really proud. They They invited me. I did a talk about like my experience reading the Bible to at least, you people who listened. No, it was it was fun, though. And it was the first time like getting to it was actually like my first time getting to meet any of the listeners in a big like in an organized way. You know, it's really fun. See. So I had positive feelings from that because it was a good event. People seem pretty cool. Cool and so when they were the next year they were doing the next one I was like I'm there awesome yeah totally little did I know the group was like 50 you cool know people and 50 fucking right wing assholes that like I didn't really know that you know they kind of blended in the first year because they just went along and then they they sort of like I don't know that of the it but they sort like took control of the group and the second year was like let's all let's invite all the shittiest people. And I didn't know that. And so I was signed on. At first, they said I was going to interview Dave Rubin. That's why I was especially in because I was like, oh, dear God, yes, let me at Dave Rubin, the most fucking clueless, substance free person. Like if you give me a chance to like ask him a bunch of questions or debate him, he's going to have nothing because he's never been challenged. And it's not anything he has experience with. Then he backed out probably because he was like it's Not going to be just just him interview. When he backed out, I had already committed and they were like, let's replace him with Sargon of Akkad, someone I'd never heard of, who's a YouTuber, asshole, misogynist, manosphere person. Story short, I won't go through all of that. Story short that that sucked. That was awful. What I could, but didn't really anticipate. Was still, you Pretty shortly after So we're still in year one of Trump. I still wasn't really, it took me a while. And possibly take me my whole life forever to really fathom that people are bad and just want bad things. Like I didn't really, you know, like a lot of the Trump victory, it's like, ah, you know, misunderstanding, you Know, like I

0:08:02 Thomas: Kept expecting reality to bend back for the longest time. That this event was kind um, along the process of seeing these assholes who were fans of the shitty YouTuber cheer on just like misogyny and, you know, racism and sex. And it's like, oh, shit, that's that's real. Those people really exist. They're not just like a fake Internet thing. And that was that was I was rattled by that. And I remember that after event, this Azra Nomani person is like an older woman came up and like wanted to give me a hug. Hug. And I was like, okay. I hadn't talked to her, don't know her, didn't catch her talk, but you know, I was Like, okay, is this, is she maybe like, I don't know, she may be feeling like, oh, that wasn't good or may, I don't, I know what it was. She just wanted to give me a hug. Like, well, that's nice, maybe. And I thought, okay maybe this is somebody who, yeah, is kind of like, taking a side in that whole sexism versus not sexism. You know, and, and when you're around that crowd of people. It's like, hey, sure. Any whoever,

0:09:00 Thomas: Whoever wants to take a stand against this shit. Then it became clear that like, no, she just like interpersonally kind of wanted to smooth things over to like or kind of felt bad for like how spectacle of it maybe and was kind of expressing some kind of empathy. But it had nothing to do with any actual, you change of heart. She was somebody who, it turned out, voted for Trump. Like, I don't even know if I knew that, but she voted for Donald Trump in the first term because, and I think there's like a quote in her Wikipedia about it, it said, on November 11th, 2016 on CNN, Nomani revealed that she voted for the Republican candidate Donald Trump and adding that, and adding, maybe needs an edit, this Wikipedia, I do not know, and saying that liberals and the left have really betrayed Trade America.

0:09:46 Thomas: Cool. Donald Trump signed controversial executive order 1377 Nomani said the effort was a continuation of an Obama administration order and stated that referring to the executive order as a Muslim ban was a propaganda campaign to incite fear in the public. That's it was a Muslim ban, though. So so that gives you a sense. Someone Someone who is ex -Muslim, she's see, she was born in India to Muslim parents and has worked as some kind of journalist in the United States for a while. But she's, you got to think of her sort of along the same lines as, damn it,

0:10:02 Jenessa: Mean yeah I

0:10:19 Thomas: I'm blanking on her that's it. Sort of alongthe lines of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, sort of, which is an Ex -Muslin who is going going to go so far to the other side that she is a real tool for Islamaphobia, like just an absolute asset for Islamophobia around around the world. That's how you have to think of her. She's know, she's I heard something really interesting. I think she's a token. I know that's a little controversial, to say, but I want someone on Reddit say, here's the thing about tokens is they get spent. I was like, God damn, that is a good quote. It was like eventually, you know, whether it comes to like the vice president's wife or whatever,

0:10:19 Jenessa: And her see le oh god

0:10:56 Thomas: It's like, you want to be a token, uh, right wing side. And then they, do not have any regard for you. They want to, when it comes the vice president's wife, they want to convert you to Christianity. They want, or maybe even, um, you from the country if they could, you you know? Uh, so I, I thought that was a really interesting, uh, turn of phrase, but that's the kind of person we're dealing with. And I just remember it really stuck in my mind. It's just like, okay, so you're going to give me a hug. Cause you feel bad on some level for like how awful that was, but only on like a, a it's like one of those people who want, who the room, in the immediacy of people wants people to be nice, but then we'll just write write stuff and vote in ways that's just awful and it makes it worse yeah they want to keep the peace in the very immediate sense like in the Very Immediate around them but not in their entire life's work you this article is racist propaganda like just is uh not be more islamophobic it's entire and it's sad like for for an ex -Muslim, you someone who is not white to write just the most awful propaganda that is nothing but fueling potential like hate crimes. Overall, I know this is stochastic terrorism level stuff. That's what I think. But you can check me if you think I'm wrong, but this is just bad.

0:11:31 Jenessa: They want to keep the peace yeah yes it's bad yeah I tried to like you know I mean it's fox news so I was like I don't suspect I'm gonna find anything I agree with in here but I tried to give it some credit where I was like okay true facts it's a rough time to be jewish um is real anti-Semitism out there there are real people who are uh anti -israel sentiment to mask what is actually what's in their their heart is anti -semitism and they can hide inside of what are real objections to israel's what Israel is doing, and they inject their anti -Semitism into it in implicit and subtle ways. All of these things are true. So they name some group or some person, and I'm like, I don't know, maybe that person is a piece of shit.

0:12:57 Jenessa: Let me go check. And it's like, I'm just checking one name, one group after another, and like, did they ever one time do a thing that was over the line. And it's just like, what are we doing here? It's like something that's five steps removed from him every time anyway. And I'm just like I this is that's the problem, right? Is it's like it's one thing if he was like regularly associating with people who were actually he he was actually directly saying terrible things or constantly directly associated with people, who were obviously saying terrible things but it's like you just always have to find this like tenuous connection somewhere and that's where I think what you're talking about comes in is the the racist aspect and the islamophobic aspect of like there just sort of presented as like well this person is muslim and he associated with them and

0:13:18 Thomas: Amazing yeah

0:13:51 Jenessa: You're like okay okay come on take me there like I just I know

0:13:52 Thomas: You're getting it yeah ah see the problem is when you're a racist you actually hear those sentences in like the nightline tone of voice with like the dramatic music so we might hear like oh that guy's muslim and they're friends and they'll be like he's muslim and they're friends and you're like shit no way that's what it is imagine

0:14:05 Jenessa: I you know that's the that's the way I finally connected with it is I was like okay let me step back because yeah I did like the reverse of it I was like okay wait a minute um people running our government right now I'm sure would not what most of them would not self -label as fascist but I believe that is a correct label and so when you You, I which is terrifying.

0:14:20 Thomas: Dark lighting yeah a non -zero number of them would but yeah yeah

0:14:37 Jenessa: Like, yeah, if I, if you told me like, so there's an organization and they're all funding each other and behind the scenes, they were endorsed by a fascist. I would be like, this is scary. So I'm like, okay, I got to just put myself in that mindset where the existence of Muslims who support one another is inherently scary. And now I get it.

0:14:59 Thomas: Well I'm gonna not put myself in that mindset because what was happening here and to take the reverse of that which is what makes me he laughs so much, and I can't wait to go through this, is they take totally normal things. But because it's Muslims, they they assume that it's a scandal. But if you actually look at just elections, it's completely fucking normal stuff.

0:15:21 Thomas: And it's going to be so fun because you have all the experience in the world on that. We get into this article, I wanted to ask what's you're way closer to this than I am. Like, what's your view of the Mamdani thing. Like what, anything, any insight on that? I mean, I'm a way across the country.

0:15:21 Jenessa: I don't. Oh so I don't live in the five boroughs so I don't get to vote in this election um yeah I I am picking up is um most people seem relatively sick of cuomo and are very entertained by sliwa and uh like the way I've been seeing it is like Like, Mamdani is what we are aspiring to as a state and the city aspiring to itself. Sliwa is how we view ourselves, and Cuomo is just the reality of what's actually going on in New York most of the time. So it's really a battle of all of our multiple personalities going on, which I think is why it gets so much attention right now. Now, it is interesting that I think I'm not surprised to see like the national Fox News page putting so much attention on him. And they have been the

0:16:11 Thomas: That's funny. Yeah. Oh yeah. He's the, he is, they are making hay out of this. Yeah, exactly.

0:16:30 Jenessa: Boogeyman. Oh, yeah. And I think

0:16:32 Thomas: They, this is, oh, absolutely. I mean the president of the United States is like, let's deport this guy like this is talk about blasting people to the forefront mom not saying the new york city mayor is not important like that obviously it's a giant city it's an important position there should be some level of you know national coverage on that some level but like because of mom donny this is like the national story I mean it's just everywhere.

0:16:32 Jenessa: They will continue to. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Why not? Yes. Yeah.

0:16:56 Thomas: And it's because they wants to have this boogeyman. Perfect. They It's a brown person. It'S a Muslim. And IT's somebody who kind of self labels, I think, as a democratic socialist. So they get the socialism in there. So he's a wet dream for them. He's just. And so I asked a terrible question. Let me ask a slightly more specific one, is, is it your impression? I know you're not technically, you know, on the ground, But you're very nearby. Is it your impression that what has happened is a mega funded billionaire machine has thrown money in into an incinerator to prop up Zoran Mamdani and he's bought his way in a Jeb Bush-esque fashion. He's bought His Way to the top of the ticket. And that's that we need to explain now the machine, the powerful machine that did that.

0:17:35 Jenessa: This is what baffled me from the very beginning about the headline and like the very first sentence I was like of all the candidates that you could portray as like person who their rise is inexplicable until you look at the secret machinery that's that's a true story about many candidates and you find out like where'd this person come from out of nowhere and you're like Like, ah, yes, there is a well -funded PAC that, like, wanted them. Of all the people you could say that about, like... He's just, like a random state assemblyman, and he's taking a very logical next leap. This is completely expla - 2 .5 million?!

0:18:16 Thomas: I I yeah you might as well be talking yeah

0:18:26 Jenessa: Are you fucking kidding me? We're on the show where I can swear, right?

0:18:28 Thomas: That's like that's like that like yeah that's allowance money

0:18:32 Jenessa: York

0:18:33 Thomas: Like that when it comes to elections it's nothing it's nothing it so that's rent you know like there's it is so funny like to read that with a straight face is just the funniest thing to me. 2 .5 million in Soros funding. And

0:18:35 Jenessa: City?! Us not forget the last mayor of new york eric adams it missed going to jail over laundering so much money or not laundering I don't know what the hell he did like millions the

0:19:02 Thomas: Well, yeah, that's the funniest scandal ever. Lots of flights to Istanbul. It's actually, I hate to, to kill your buzz, but the funny thing about it is how little money it was. So like, yeah.

0:19:05 Jenessa: Most ridiculous like it is like it's little but it's still it's it's put it this way it's a lot compared to looking at my own bank account and

0:19:20 Thomas: Yeah but scandal wise, it's It's like nothing. But the money involved in these elections, I mean, do you do you have some sense of now? I know New York has some interesting public funding stuff, and that's part of what Eric Adams has done.

0:19:23 Jenessa: That's what I'm saying we do right that was the problem so

0:19:34 Thomas: Yeah. Come up with because it's matching funds. So he came up with like fake people to like pretend to donate.

0:19:39 Jenessa: Yeah so new york city specifically has a uh public campaign finance board word. You can show, you it has to all be transparent, but you show who donated to you and how much they donated it, they will match it. I think it's times eight. So like if I gave you a dollar, you would get eight bucks. So I think that's like nine total for, little little bit counts, right? But the more people are donating, essentially what it means is very specifically, you do not have to be wealthy and well -connected to run in New York. On the other hand, when you think about the fact that you need to like run commercials, New York City is the economic capital of the world. Like it's unbelievably wealthy. It's where Wall Street is.

0:19:57 Thomas: Yeah, it's huge. It's a. Yeah? Yeah.

0:20:27 Jenessa: Extremely important like I understand why it's a big part of national and international politics who is running this city but takes a lot of money it does right

0:20:23 Thomas: It takes a lot of money. And it's good that the public funding has that multiplier, and that's a good effort, but it's also good to have a lot of money. And $2 .5 million is, I don't know, a minute's worth of spending? Like, it can't be much.

0:20:41 Jenessa: It helps a lot I even imagine I in mind that like andrew cuomo is the former governor is currently trying to pin a bunch of stuff that didn't go well on our current governor who was his lieutenant governor so that's great pick I guess I don't know what his plan is there and his father mario cuomo was the governor like he's part of a very wealthy political dynasty so when you think about running against somebody who's that wealthy and then you have mom donnie my understanding is he does not come from like level of wealth or power so yeah of course you need money to run in this election like

0:21:30 Thomas: Yeah, so we but just give to a sort of a, not a baseline we at the, as of, actually of October 24th in terms of like the data that can see private funds, public funds and spending for the candidates. Andrew Cuomo, let's just look at private funds because that's what you would think, you know, if it's like, okay, this is, there's a machine. That's what what you would kind of look at about 6 million for Andrew Cuomo for, uh, Mamdani 4 million. Okay. Well, it sounds like the machine maybe, you know, is a more so to the other guy. And then Mamdini though has a lot more public funds has, 13 uh. And Cuomo has eight. And that would be, I would think an indicator of like more donations, more energy, You know, like there's also a campaign contributors. Oh, and here, oh, here's a big one. Campaign by amount. Top candidates by private funds received. Zoran Mamdani is way out, way, way out ahead of the pack, but he's ahead of the pack based on one to $175 donors.

0:22:29 Thomas: Now, Andrew Cuomo, I see a big old green one. I see a big ol' green. Now, to be fair, he has some of those blue ones, which is the 1 -175 Yellow -ish orange is like 176 -999 Green, 1000+. And he has quite a bit of the 1000 +, I would say, maybe a quarter of his contributions are 1000 +, whereas Zoran, it barely registers You know, it's gotta be like, maybe it's like 2 % of them or something. It's like nothing.

0:22:54 Jenessa: And that That explains explains why Zoran has such a bigger public number, because those small dollar donors are the kind you can report to the public campaign finance board and get matched.

0:23:03 Thomas: Those get matched. Okay. Cause I was just going to ask you, cause this is private funds received. And we did, we did say that he has less private funds received than Cuomo. And now that, that explains a whole lot. Now, if you look at the balance of Cuomo, that means based on this, even fewer, I love that it's a thousand plus. I wish we could get a million plus, you know, like, I don't know how the high they go.

0:23:22 Jenessa: What are those big ones? Yeah.

0:23:25 Thomas: Maybe, or maybe there's a limit. Is it, is it a, I don'T know what the limit is, But the fact that Cuomo has so much and is so close to where Mamdani is, and yet Mamdini's lowest number small donors is so much higher, tells me that there's somebody who has maybe a secret machine behind him. And it's Cuomo, Andrew you data would suggest that.

0:23:42 Jenessa: Like whatever happened to the secret machine called the Democratic Party and the Republican Party? Like I'm not normally a big I I think we often over blow the like whole oh like this is the one the party picked so they're gonna win but like of all the elections where you could possibly make that accusation like he's obviously not like the favorite pick of people who are traditional Democrats. Like, I think that's not super controversial to say. Like.

0:24:11 Thomas: Yeah, I would say that the more accurate article someone should write is inside the machine that's trying to take down Zoran Mamdani because it's an alliance of shitty Democrats. They're not not all Democrats for sure. Hashtag not all democrats. I've been wanting to cover this in complete way. I haven't had time to do the research, but I've Been wanting to look into like the response from mainstream Democrats and how disappointing it's been. Now, many of them have come around eventually, but the fact that they had to, quote unquote, come around to fucking winner of the Democratic primary to me is insane. Like, come on. What What are you talking? Especially, especially when you look at the competition. It would be one thing if it was like, well, OK, there's a really good like Democrat who's still in it, you when the competition is awful, just awful, awful, and it's taking Democrats, some of them, it's taking them a long time to come around to fucking endorsing the actual Democratic candidate who won the primary. That's bullshit to me. It's absolute bullshit.

0:25:08 Jenessa: Tough because, I mean, before scandal, Cuomo was very popular in new york like yeah it was um prone to saying that if we could just duct tape some oven mitts to him he could probably still be an okay governor but um like he just he you know especially like because this all happened like right after the pandemic and he was in many ways doing a really good job through the pandemic in terms of his communicating to the public and how you know I know a lot of scandals came out about that so like I don't want to be sitting

0:25:14 Thomas: The many scandals that took down his his governorship or whatever. Yeah, I was going to

0:25:45 Jenessa: I don't wanna be sitting here defending him in terms of in terms public perception and the way he was communicating with the public he was he was doing well people liked him so he had quite the fall from grace so it's it's I can see how it happened in terms like people being like wasn't that the a guy we all really liked but it's like yeah you kind of can't forget about the part where he got kicked out for groping people like

0:25:45 Thomas: Say that. I think that turned out to be. Yeah turned out that also sucked.

0:26:11 Thomas: Yeah was. Well and now the absolute racism he's resorted to you know to try to take down Mom Don it's just so bad. I mean there's there's There's a there's a strong that like a large segment of people, mostly on the right, but also on the left, who still thinks Islamophobia is OK. Like they still have kind of this blinders, this skewed view of what's OK. Like they lose. I think there's A lot of people on the Left who would be absolutely anti -racism against so many other black people. They'd be all for like different rights, whatever. Whatever. But they have a blind spot when it comes to Muslims, because it's like still a scary minority to a lot of people. And

0:26:19 Jenessa: It's bad yeah yeah no

0:26:53 Thomas: That's a lot OF people, I think, in the Democratic Party still. And Eric Cuomo is not afraid to to play into the worst stereotypes, making ads that like make his beard look longer and just all kinds of racist shit that you would expect from Republicans, but you would not expect necessarily from someone who calls himself a a Democrat. In the debate, he tried to say he's the Democrat of this election, even though Mom Donnie's like, hey, that's weird because I won the Democratic primary.

0:27:19 Thomas: But his whole argument was, yeah, but you say you're a Democratic socialist. So actually, the Democrat at the election is Cuomo.

0:27:19 Jenessa: Look this this always drives me nuts it primaries the way that we pick somebody they is fundamentally a private thing in so many ways. If they want it to be, the party decides. You can do that. It could be whoever stands on their head the longest. Like, you can do it however the hell you want. If we've decided we're going to do it through elections, you gotta just be okay with what happened with the election. Like that's how you decided to do It. So

0:27:52 Thomas: Going to go further. If you do it in a real Democratic process in a primary, that determines who the Democratic Party is. That actually means that's the the Democrat. Like that means that what that means is if you have a label of Democrat that is actually out of date because the actual not the party machinery, not the people at the top of the actual people who are the voters of the party are like, we don't like you. We do like this other thing. Well, guess what? That's what the party is and should be. That's the future of the Party.

0:27:59 Jenessa: That's it. Yes. Especially in New York, where we have closed primaries. So like, I know in other states, there are often this concern of like, well, you don't know that the people who voted in that primary were, no, in Newark, everybody who voted, in that Democratic primary, had either registered as a Democrat within the registration window, or they had to have changed their party affiliation by February, I think it was like February 14th, February 13th, somewhere in that range. Like months ahead of time, if you were like, I'm gonna change parties, you had to do that back in February for a primary that was in June. So like, we are very serious about that. That comes out of our history of the corruption in Tammany Hall and the concern that people would purposely go vote in a primary. Like, I am gonna pick a really bad Republican republican so that my awesome democrat can run against a shitty republican or vice versa and make it easier to win like some you know things that obviously subvert the democratic process and are not what we would hope for we have closed primaries in new york for that reason now I'm not saying that you the best way to do it forever but that's the logic and the point

0:29:34 Jenessa: Being exactly what you're saying the people who voted in that primary are registered democrat in new new york and they have been since at least february or they recently registered they're not secret republicans trying to screw it up or like independence showed up but they're not the real demographic like no they had to at least check the box so yeah

0:30:10 Thomas: And I know we keep not we getting into the article but I don't it's just so funny because I just want to level set how much the even the headline you know what to be fair to us hold on to be for this we read the headline and the and the second headline thingy and so we're we're already that we are debunking the shit out of that idiotic idea that there's a machine it is the exact opposite not only is there a machine that is behind cuomo and now I'm looking at I'm I'm trying to pulling up the primary because I think that might be under a different kind of tracking to the to election, I think, based on what I'm seeing. But I'm not positive. But at any rate, either way, I'm try to find just the primary, because I I think it's

0:30:22 Jenessa: It's true it's true yeah

0:30:49 Thomas: Going to be a little skewed when when you're looking at now, because, you Mamdani is is the actual primary winner and is the main candidate, he's going going to get access to probably some more money that I think is going to skew the fact that like he really has been the small, the little guy. He's the, he's been the David in the Dave and Goliath. And if you look at this, this primary spending, not only was there a machine backing Cuomo with, with huge dollars.

0:31:13 Thomas: So here's, here's a chart, independent spending on mayoral primary candidates, dollars spent by outside groups on ad supporting or opposing candidates. Cuomo is way out there with 18 .2 million. Not only that, this chart, very helpfully, has support and oppose. So then when we look at the dollars spent by groups just opposing Mamdani, that's way out at 8 .1 million. Arguably, you could say, wow, that is 26 .3 million spent in an anti -Mamdani fashion, either pro

0:31:13 Jenessa: Of course yeah yeah

0:31:49 Thomas: Cuomo or anti -Mamdani. Meanwhile, Mamdani had, yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's a little bit of money. And actually it's funny. There was a little bit of behind him because again, the, the mainstream and the right, you know, they are resistant to anyone who wants to call themselves a socialist in any way, in I think is really shitty and unhealthy. But this is so funny because this fix the city, uh, of these like super PACs or whatever. And it says this, the headline of this one, Cuomo backers dumped $87 per vote into a losing cause. And some donors are now vowing to spend more. It's like, exactly. It

0:31:51 Jenessa: Because realistically nobody was like eric adams that's my guy yeah yeah right

0:32:25 Thomas: Couldn't be more the opposite of what they're saying. Now, Mom Donnie has gotten some support, but that's also grassroots support. You know, like that's money from a genuine grassroots effort. So this could not be the more opposite. The story to be told, and it is being told in places, is all the the billionaires this dash is one of fix the city's biggest donors you Ronald Lauder, William Lauder. Barry Diller, Dan Loeb or whatever. Wynn, Alice Walton. Are These billionaires. Billionaires that have dedicated money to stop Mom Donnie. When these billionaires are trying to stop him. So that machine? Machine. Fucking 2 .5 million super PACs that support. Here's a good one. This is October 30th. So this isn't just the primary. This is kind of now super PACS that support Andrew Cuomo and oppose Zoran Mamdani for New York city mayor have raised over $40 million, $40 million. What was the other number? 2.

0:33:18 Jenessa: 2 .5.

0:33:19 Thomas: 5 million. Oh, yay. Cool. Are very different numbers. Are you good at math? I know Matt's not here. So yeah, that's how fucking bullshit this article is. This headline is now, why don't we start getting into it a little bit and we'll see how far we get before the game is called. Give Jenessa a stroke so I can collect the insurance money. That is the game. So who would you like to read or you prefer prefer me read? What would you prefer? I it.

0:33:24 Jenessa: That's so much money. Oh boy can start it if you want right in late september 2017 palestinian -american activist linda sarsour once the darling of the women's march and the self -declared face of the resistance against donald trump was facing mounting criticisms for anti -semitic remarks and her embrace of extremist views and had to go look her up to remind myself

0:34:11 Thomas: Point, you're probably thinking, did I click on the wrong article? Because I thought I was reading something about Zoran Mamdani, but we get an intro about the year is 2017. Somebody you barely remember, or if you're not like deep in the internet, like we are probably have never fucking heard of is anti -Semitic maybe or something, or did something, what does this have to do with anything?

0:34:33 Jenessa: I looked her up and I was like you know what I'm gonna like not be the person to just the decision about her I remember her as part of organizing the women's march and I remember she was like because of accusations of anti-Semitism and that is the beginning and the end of my summary about her like yeah

0:34:54 Thomas: It's really really tough because I'm with you. Like, I don't know. I don't have the information or the kind of the standing or whatever to make a determination as to someone's anti-Semitism. I don't know. But what I do know and what I can say is that there is so much bad faith on the other side of this trying to paint her as anti-Semitic. So that doesn't necessarily, again, that's one of those fallacies. It doesn't mean that there's nothing there, But it is an indicator that we should be suspicious because right here, when you click on the article that was linked in Azra Nomani's article, Linda Sarsour is a Sharia-loving terrorist embracing Jew-hating, ticking time bomb of progressive horror. Or the conservative media person, Milo, Milo Yanopoulou said at a rally on Thursday.

0:35:18 Jenessa: Wait

0:35:35 Thomas: Yeah, so before that guy was canceled, that's, again, that's somebody who's the main accuser here. Now, does that mean there's nothing there? I don't know, but it sure should make us suspicious. Yeah,

0:35:33 Jenessa: Gross yeah right so yeah that's exactly where I'm at is I'm like you know what this is not my fight but uh that not hearing it from my liberal jewish friends so I'm going to just leave it there

0:35:58 Thomas: I might go a step further just because in terms of evaluating the claims of this article, if the proof if the proof being offered is just this one thing is Proof of her anti-Semitic remarks and extremist views is just this one link. What's in here?

0:36:03 Jenessa: When it comes to this yeah

0:36:16 Thomas: And I'm I'm not seeing what it is.

0:36:15 Jenessa: Yeah exactly if it were so obvious it should not be difficult to show it to me like it's one thing if you're like and here's what she said and let me explain to you why that's a dog whistle I'd be like okay I can see how like maybe I wouldn't understand at first glance but if you're just like you can't even explain to me what is the thing that a person said or did it's like all right well then it can't be that bad right it would be obvious right

0:36:41 Thomas: I'M TRYING. Okay. Here's a key sentence. Again, this is a New York Times article. So it's not like she linked to, you don't know, something totally Fox News, but, but the article is kind of just about the controversy around her speech. So, it's NOT, it's NOT making a claim. So I'M trying to see if that's her support. What's in here? I see a sentence. They accuse her of sympathizing with terrorists. Okay, so we'll check that. Supporting Sharia law and anti-Semitism for statements she has made about politics in the Middle East. So, okay, that's the sentence. Now, where is that? Let's find where that is here. First bit of proof I can find. Mr. this is one of the people accusing her, I think. Oh, it looks like this is a conservative Democratic state assemblyman who represents largely Orthodox Jewish community. So, you who's

0:36:54 Jenessa: I went okay

0:37:26 Thomas: Coming here. All right. Well, we'll look at this. I to a picture of Ms. Sarsour that she once posted on Twitter of a Palestinian boy standing across from police officers with rocks in his hands. Ms. Sarsour wrote that the photo was the definition of courage. Okay. Yeah. That seems, seems true to me. What, what's, what, what'S that?

0:37:44 Jenessa: Like it's not a man with a gun it's a child with a a child yeah

0:37:47 Thomas: I think there's a chance that back then this would have resonated with more people, with more of us, you know, because it's like, oh, they're throwing rocks at officers. They're what, but now that we know more now that more of us I should say more of us are more informed I think on the genocide that's happening in the fucking history here uh find this confusing like I don't even know what the claim is being made there and then uh this person goes on to say you can't support a terrorist and then be the commencement speaker at a university that blah blah that's what this article was about a commencement speech he was giving support a terror so the boy with rocks is a terrorist guess that's all so far that's all we got it's

0:37:53 Jenessa: You're probably right yeah yeah yeah it's a kid that's a little rough yeah

0:38:25 Thomas: A kid yeah I argue labeling a kid a terrorist is racist like no matter what like if a kid no matter what like you can say their parents have brainwashed them or something but like that's a kid you know like something has gone very wrong that's not like oh no the kid has a coherent you reason why they're a terrorist and we can hold them fully responsible them and only them fully responsible like I'm just saying, if a kid is a terrorist for any reason, something's going on that needs looking at. And you can't just be like, fuck these terrorists. You know what I mean? Like that's no, you know?

0:38:36 Jenessa: Maybe yeah went through her wikipedia because I was like let me remind refresh my memory I have vague memories of this and like the one thing I found was like yes she said some like pretty bad stuff about Ion Hercieli and it's like okay so Herciieli sucks and Linda said stuff about her that also sucks it was definitely not cool what she said so like all right so you both kind of suck in this situation

0:39:10 Thomas: Well, there you go. She really sucks. Yeah. Oh. What did, what did she say? Do you have it or not?

0:39:21 Jenessa: Oh it was really bad um

0:39:24 Thomas: Oh, really bad. Okay.

0:39:24 Jenessa: It's really bad it was like a thing about like she doesn't deserve to have a vagina it was like really bad it was really bad

0:39:30 Thomas: Yeah. That's bad. Well, Well, so that's somebody who's mad about someone who's an anti-feminist and is actively harming the cause of feminism saying something they probably shouldn't say. I'm not a referee on that, but like that. Yeah, that's that's not good.

0:39:40 Jenessa: Bad not not the way I think a person should handle it not not a feminist thing to say yeah not good not a good thing to stay so

0:39:45 Thomas: Bad, bad activism. Yeah. Bad way of doing activism. Does that mean. She's anti -Semitic? Does that means she hates women? I don't think that's what that would mean. I think that means she she said really shitty stuff and probably, you should reconsider that. But what? What are we to draw from that? I don't know.

0:39:52 Jenessa: Don't yeah I even know it's like a muslim person saying it about an ex -muslim person I donT know how that connects me to anti -semitism but it's it's

0:40:08 Thomas: But it's not good. Not saying that's good.

0:40:10 Jenessa: Not good it's not good like I'm not gonna defend her yeah

0:40:12 Thomas: Then what's interesting is now we've got in this article, Brad Lander, Democratic city councilman, described the accusations against Ms. Sarsour as preposterous and pointed to her help in raising money to prepare two Jewish cemeteries that were vandalized in St. Louis and in February. Quote, she's been in my synagogue, he said. She and my rabbi are friends. There's no doubt that part of what this is, is backlash against the idea of having a Palestinian American as a visible leader and and inheritor of the civil rights movement. This is all we have in this art. Like I'm going through it and we got nothing else. Like there's no, that's it.

0:40:38 Jenessa: A little there my conclusion as well when I did some very preliminary I was like can I find and I know that's that's pretty much what I I came to as well yeah

0:40:54 Thomas: And look, there may be some bad stuff out there. Maybe she's not good. I just want to say within the universe of this article that we're critiquing, if I'm being told that she's making anti -Semitic remarks and embracing extremist views and the link I'm given had that one thing that she said, this is the picture of courage, which is a boy holding rocks against the Israeli IDF or whatever the fuck it was. Us. That's it. Going to go ahead and say, you didn't support your thesis there, you big claim. If you're going to call someone anti -Semitic and extremist, I feel like you have a pretty burden there, right? The bar should be pretty high improving that, don't you think?

0:40:57 Jenessa: Maybe yeah and I'd expect like more than one comment and like context and like yeah

0:41:34 Thomas: More one link in your article, maybe, right. The reason I'm harping on this is this stupid article about the Mamdani machine is the most hilarious game name of 1400 degrees of Kevin Bacon, you know, and the first one,

0:41:50 Jenessa: Yeah it's we're gonna try to make him anti -semitic by connecting him to her so at a minimum you'd want one degree of separation and her to be really bad yeah

0:41:58 Thomas: I'm if we're connecting Kevin Bacon to mom, Donnie, let's say Kevin Bacon is like the bad thing. We're trying to connect to mom Donnie. We'RE not, we're doing 14 degrees. And the start is wait, that's not even Kevin Bacon. That's just a guy who kind of like, sort of looks like Kevin Bacon it's like, all right, we'RE starting there. Like the connection, the starting connection is here's this awful person and now we're going to go another now here's here's the six degrees of kevin bacon but beaming in the photograph taken on a city sidewalk sarsour appeared unfazed her iconic fist I don't know what sorry this writing so uh unfazed as to what like unfazed from the article that asra linked a second ago yeah it's like doesn't make any why would in this photograph she be fazed like doesn'T by what I just said in the previous paragraph like I don'T what is anyway uh iconic fist pumped in the air as she knelt shoulder to shoulder with campaign I was having you read this wasn't I as she know shoulder to shelter with campaign volunteers for city council candidate uh cutter l yetim now here we where are we haven't gotten there yet the photo was posted by elia team on the facebook page he used to promote his campaign hold on get them be ready for the music sting which he lost but among the smiling faces was a young organizer named Zoran Mamdani.

0:42:31 Jenessa: Fine you wrote in the future by how much she sucks that's fun and we have a screenshot here of the facebook post of

0:43:15 Thomas: They're both at a place supporting a candidate.

0:43:20 Jenessa: I would say there's what 30 40 people in this photograph and I can't even see him in it he's in here somewhere I I believe them.

0:43:28 Thomas: He's there. We'll trust that he's there. Sure.

0:43:30 Jenessa: I believe them, but, like, that's how many people are here is, like... I can't even tell you.

0:43:36 Thomas: If this were, ah, picture it on the other side. If this were the KKK leader running for office and And you had two Republicans supporting him, you'd be like, yeah, no, that's bad. I don't like that. Who is this person? don'T have to go too far down the rabbit hole, but I'm going to just check if he's like done any terrorism or let's see. Just seems like a guy who supported the boycott divestment sanctions movement. So therefore is Hitler, I guess.

0:44:02 Jenessa: Apparently. So there's, there's a candidate who I'm Not seeing anything particularly wrong with the guy. And we've got Linda Sarsour, who was supporting him. And in a photo of many people who were helping to campaign for him we have linda and also in the photo is mum donnie and that that means something yeah

0:44:22 Thomas: Yep. They both supported a guy. To say in the wake of Israel committing a genocide, I'm just so much less patient about the antisemitism stuff. Like, of course, if there's any actual antisemitism, obviously like, I'm gonna condemn that and everyone should, but I'm very tired of the people committing genocide, constantly crying about that and pointing to it as a way to distract from the genocide they're doing. I've just kind of fucking had it up to here. And so I'm not surprised now that in 2017, wouldn't person was also accused of unacceptable anti -Semitic rhetoric. You ready for what that was? It was because he supported the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and said they should isolate Israel economically from the rest of the world. anti-Semitism. Nope. Just being anti the fucking oppressor. So I'm tired of this fucking fake bullshit. I'm all ears for when there's real anti -Semitism. And there are, there are anti -Semitic attacks. It's horrible. All ears for that. Absolutely. But this is far too often just Israel wanting to paint all criticism as anti -SEMITIC because it's convenient for them. And so like now we're, not Kevin Bacon. And the first connection is they both supported a guy who was fine. Okay.

0:45:24 Jenessa: Yeah yeah

0:45:33 Thomas: Fine. I don't know what that has to do. Okay, here we go. Now, now why are we talking about this you write you why I'll pass it back to you read the read the that that photo paragraph is so good less

0:45:33 Jenessa: Yeah okay so we have this photograph right that photo would mark the start of a carefully constructed political project that in less than a decade would propel a now 34 year old socialist newcomer to the precipice of running america's largest city even while campaigning with radical imams some of whom have supported terrorists and terrorist financiers a

0:45:53 Thomas: Than a day this is just a photograph of like a person supporting a candidate that got that lost you know lost a primary got some votes the 30 or something but it lost. And this is

0:46:14 Jenessa: A fuck yeah again if this was a picture of him with a clan member it would be disqualifying pretty much but

0:46:26 Thomas: Sure. And if it was a picture of him with like a young billionaire who then you find out that billionaire has been just funding and funding. Yeah. If it was George Soros and then you found out George Sorosis cut a bunch of checks to him. Sure.

0:46:34 Jenessa: And I'd see the puzzle pieces you were putting together of

0:46:42 Thomas: This is just a fucking Facebook photo of a young guy who was at the time, what, 26, six, maybe I want to say based on the quick math, uh, who supported a candidate lost and that's it. That's all it was. Uh, incredible.

0:46:54 Jenessa: Like it's very much like yarn and push pins like I have a couple of puzzle pieces and I have to put them together so I'm gonna find the most logical connection like some kind of fucked up IQ test I just I haveと find a way that they're connected it's oh my god in

0:47:11 Thomas: Fox digital investigation reveals that Mamdani's rise was no accident. It was engineered. Okay, let's find out. Right, we're gonna have to wait to found out how his rise was engineered. Was hoping to have this all out by election day, but I'm up against it. And I wanted to make sure you at least had this first part because this is huge news. This is something you need to know. Any of you are in this New York mayoral election, it is vital that we get this key information out there about the Mamdani machine, and there is so much more. There is so much more to this machine. You have no idea. We have not even begun to Cogs and springs and belts, gears, so much mehr to this maschine. It for this part one. Get the rest out to you as soon as I can. The meantime, happy any Well, to everyone, I suppose, tomorrow, but especially New Yorkers who have a chance to really make a statement about this billionaire -funded, propped -up candidate, Mom Donnie.

0:47:17 Jenessa: What way I don't

0:48:23 Thomas: Thanks so much for listening, everyone. See you real soon. A, in a no, not Frost Nixon. What's the, what's the the Watergate one in a, uh, fucking few good men style. No, is that it? No. A few inside. What is the God damn it? What's the movie?

0:49:02 Jenessa: I mean, there was a movie called Frost Nixon.

0:49:04 Thomas: Is the movie that's No, no, I'm not. It's not that it's It's the, what's the fucking movie, the Watergame movie and the journalists.

0:49:09 Jenessa: Didn't know there was was a movie yeah I'm useless right now

0:49:10 Thomas: Jesus. Really? Oh wow. Okay. All right. Uh, Watergate movie. It is called called The President's Men. That's it. In benchmark, what's the word? Man, I'm struggling with the words today. Sorry.

0:49:23 Jenessa: Set?

0:49:23 Thomas: To give a, yeah, at a level set, yeah. To give a baseline, that's the one. To

0:49:24 Jenessa: Baseline?