YouSaid · the spoken record

Saagar Enjeti

lines on the record: 194
first: 2021-03-14
most recent: 2021-03-14
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“You have to be willing to win a GOP primary. You basically have to be at whoever wins the GOP primary, in my opinion, will be the person most hated by the left. One of the people things that people forget is, you know who came in second to Trump? Ted Cruz. And the reason why is because Ted Cruz was the second most hated guy by liberals in America, a second to Trump. They have nothing in policy in common.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How do they break through the primary system? Because the problem is the primary system is not populism, it's primary. So it's like...”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, how could you run against the sitting vice president? You know, it's like Joe Biden is a 98% approval rating in the Democratic Party. If he says she is my heir, I think enough people will listen to him in a competitive primary or a non-competitive primary. And then there's all these things about how primary systems themselves are rigged, the DNC could make it known that they'll blacklist anybody who does try in primary Kamala Harris. And look, I mean, progressives aren't necessarily all that popular amongst actual Democrats. Like, we found that out during the election. There's an entire constituency which loves Joe Biden and Joe Biden-level politics. And so if he tells them to vote for Kamala, I think she would probably get it. But again, there's a lot of game theory, obviously happening.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It depends on how popular culture functions over the next four years. And I can tell you that they are, because I don't think Biden has that much to do with it. Because again, Trump is not a manifestation of an affirmative policy action. It is a defensive bulwark wall against cultural liberalism. So it's like this is why it doesn't matter what Biden does. If there are more riots, if there is a more sense of persecution amongst people who are more lean towards conservative or like, hey, I don't know about that. That's crazy, then he very well could win. Okay, let's say Joe Biden doesn't run and they put up like Kamala Harris. I think he would beat her. I don't think there's a question that Trump would beat Kamala Harris in 2024.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Court. That's not even a question. Trump is the single most popular figure in the Republican Party by orders of magnitude. Oh, I mean, probably more, honestly. There was actually, I can tell you because I saw the data, which is that pre-January 6th, it was like 54% of Republicans wanted him to run again. Then it went down eight points after January 6th, two days later. And then after impeachment, it went right back up to 54%. So the exact same number. Is in February at post impeachment vote as it was after November. Now look, yeah, again, surveys, bullshit, et cetera. But like, that's all the data we have. That's what I can point you to. If Trump runs, he will be the nominee and he will be the 2024 nominee. I just don't know if he wants to. It really depends.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think Joe Biden will run again in 2024, and I think he will run against someone with the last name Trump. I do not know whether that is Trump or Trump Jr. But I think one of those people will probably be the GOP nominee in 2024.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that's what's so appealing to me in particular about him, just like in how he built. I read a biography of him and just like the way that he constructed his life and like able to hyper focus in meeting after meeting and drill down and also hire all of the right people who execute each one of his tasks discreetly to his perfection is amazing. Like that's actually the mark of a good leader. But I mean, if you think about his career, the reason he's a renegade is because probably he was told to put it in an index fund or whatever. Like whenever he made his like 29 million. And from PayPal, I don't know how much he made. And then just go along that one. He's like, no. And so he succeeds spectacularly. So you have to have somebody who's willing to come in and buck that system. So for now, I think our politics are generally frozen. I think that that model is going to be most generally appealing to the mean person.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nobody works as hard as you do and builds a way that you build if it's just about the money. It's just, it just doesn't happen. Like nobody wills SpaceX into existence just for the money. Like it's not worth it, frankly, right? Like you probably destroyed years of his life and like mental sanity.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They focus on the long term. They bet big, and they usually fail. But then when they get big, they succeed spectacularly. The people I know who have done this the best are like A lot of the crypto folks that I've spoken to some of the stuff they say I'm like, I don't know if that's gonna happen, but look, they're like billionaires, right? And you're like, so they were right. So the way I've heard it expressed is you can be wrong a lot. But when you're right, you get right big. And I mean, I've seen this in Elon Musk's career. I mean, he took spectacular risk, like spectacular risk and just double down, double down, double down, double down, double down. And you can kind of tell to him, I mean, you know better than I do, but like from my observation, I don't think the money matters. Like when I see him, I'm like, I don't, it's.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's the right play if you do want to get the benefits of our current electoral, political, and engagement system, which is that what's the best way to be known within the right as a right-wing politician? It's to be a culture warrior, go on Ben Shapiro's podcast, be one of the people on Fox News, go on Sean Hannity's show, go on Tucker's show, and all of that, because you become a mini celebrity within that world left unsaid is that that world is increasingly shrinking portion of the American population, and they barely, they can't even win a popular vote election, let alone barely win it eke out an electoral college victory in 2016. Well, but the incentives are all aligned within that. And it's the same thing really on the left. But you're right, which is that, and look, this is why geniuses are geniuses, because they buck the short-term incentives.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I don't know, Lex. This is where my cynicism comes in. So There's a guy, Madison Cawthorne, the youngest member of Congress. And I don't want to say got caught, but there was like an email where he was like, my staff is only oriented around comms. Like he was basically saying he got basically caught saying like my staff is only centered on communications.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hold on a second, but there will always be a path for the institutional. That will always be there for you. But now there's something else. Now there's another game in town. And that's more appealing to millions and millions and millions and millions of people who feel unserved by the corporate media, CNN, and these people, possibly who feel unserved in the faculty. If you are an up-and-comer who wants to teach as many young people as possible. I think you should be on YouTube, right? Like, look at the Khan Academy guy. That guy created a huge business. So I just think. We can be cynical and like upset about what that system is, but we should also have hope. Like, I have a lot of hope for what can be in the future.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I just have a rebellious streak and I hate being at the subject of other people Created something new, which a lot of people watch to get their news. And I notice that younger people who are almost all my audience, they don't really look up to any of the people in traditional, right? They don't go and they're not coming up and being like, how do I be like Jim Acosta? You know, they're like, they're like, hey, how did you do what you do? And the way you did it is by bucking the system. So I think that we are at a total split point. And look, there will always be a path for people like I don't want people to overlearn this lesson. I have people who are like, I'm not going to go to college. And I'm like, well, just wait.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now, but here's my question to you people got to see look, Jordan Peterson is one of the most famous people in America, right? Like you have a massive podcast. You're more famous than half the 99% of the people at MIT. So from that perspective, everything has changed. And somewhere out there, there is a student who's taking notice. And I've noticed with my own career, everybody thought I was crazy for doing this show with Crystal, the Hill. They thought it was nuts. They're like, what are you doing? You're a White House correspondent. You've got a job forever. The other job offer I had was being a White House correspondent. And people thought I was nuts for not just sticking there and, you know, aging out within Washington, pining for appearances on Fox News and CNN and MSNBC. But I hated it. I just hated doing it. And I did not want to be a company man, like a Washington man who's one of those guys who brags to his friends about how many times he's been on Fox or whatever, mostly because...”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, AOC probably wouldn't win a Democratic primary. So, I mean, look, Joe Biden is, you know, pretty much showed that. That's exactly.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I do. Look, I don't a big AOC fan, but she's a genius, media genius once in a generation talent. The way that she uses social media, Instagram, and everybody on the right is like trying to copy her. Like Matt Gates is like, I want to be the conservative AOC. I'm like, it's just not going to happen, dude. You just don't have it. Like what she has, it's like it's electric. Trump had that. Like, I've been to a Trump rally to cover as a journalist. It's nothing like it. And Yang is similar. It's the same way where you're like, there is something going on here, which is just like I've been to an Obama rally. I've been to a Clinton rally. I've been to several normal politics. It's fine, you know, with Trump and with Yang, it was another world. It's another world.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, wait, I don't have to comb my hair a certain way and go to law school and be an asshole who everybody knows is an asshole. Yeah. And then get elected to state legislature. I mean, look, who's the number one person in the New York City primary right now? Andrew Yang. He's polling higher than everybody else in the race. Look, maybe the polls are totally fucked and maybe he'll lose because of ranked choice voting and all that. But I consider Andrew, I mean, I know him a little bit and I've followed his candidacy from the very beginning. I consider him an inspiration. He's the new generation of politics. Like if I see who's going to be president 20 years from now, it's going to be, I'm not saying it's going to be Andrew Yang. I think it's going to be somebody like Andrew Yang outside the political system who talks in a totally different way, right? Just a completely one of my favorite things that he said on the debate stage. He's like, look at us, we're all wearing makeup.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All right, I'm from Texas, so that's what I know best. So it's like if you think in Texas, if you're a more heterodox state legislature or something who works with the left on this and does that, you're going to get your ass beat. Trump changed everything. This is why I have some hope, which is that he showed me that all the people I listen to were totally wrong about politics. And that's the most valuable lesson you could ever teach me, which was I was like, wait, I don't have to listen to these people. They don't know anything, actually. That's powerful, man. He did it.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't think it's that. I think it's at the pipeline of politician creation is just totally broken from beginning to end. So it's not that A students don't want to be politicians. It's basically the way that our current primary system is constructed is what is the greatest threat to you as a member of Congress? It's not losing your re-election. It's losing your primary, right? So that means especially in a safe district, you're most concerned about being hit if you're a Republican from the right and if you're a Democrat from the left for not being a good enough one. That's actually what stops people, heterodox people in particular, from winning primaries because the people who vote in our primaries are the party faithful. That's how you get the production. It's important to understand the production pipeline, which is that”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If it's clean, if you don't give them any other excuse, they have to do it. So, this is what we've been gaslit into our culture war framework of politics. And the reason it feels so broken and awful is because it is, but there is a way out. It's just that nobody wants to be. It's a game of chicken, right? Because maybe it is true. Maybe we would never be able to get your other democratic priorities, your Republican priorities. But I think that the country understands that this is fucking terrible. And would be willing to support somebody who does it differently. There's just a lot of disincentives to not stay without incentives to not stray from the traditional path.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He gets in second reconciliation bill. Then you're running for midterms, it's over. I believe that by trying to change the paradigm of our politics, leaning into exactly what I'm talking here, you could possibly transcend that to a new one. And I'm not naive. I think people respond to political pressures. And the way that we found this out was David Purdue, who is just a total corporate, you know, dollar, dollar general CEO guy. He was against the original $1,200 stimulus checks. But then Trump came out, who's the single most popular figure in the Republican Party. He's like, I want $2,000 simulus checks. And all of a sudden, Purdue running in Georgia is like, yeah, I'm with President Trump. I want a $2,000 stimulus check. That was, if you're an astute observer of politics to say, you can see there that you can force people to do the right thing because it's the popular thing.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's largely why I believe Trump lost the election and why those races down in Georgia went the way that they did. Obviously Trump had something to do with it, but the reason why is they have longstanding things that they've wanted to get done. And in the words of Ram Emanuel, never let a good crisis go to waste and try and get as much as you possibly can done within a single bill. Would be this things have worked this way for too long, which is that the reconciliation bill is almost certainly going to be the only large signature legislative accomplishment of the Biden presidency. That's just how American politics works. Maybe he gets one more. Maybe one.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of coalitional politics, and they owe something to somebody else. For example, Biden has got a lot of the Democratic constituency has to satisfy within this bill. So there's going to be a lot of shit that goes in there, state and local aid, all this stuff. Again, I'm not even saying this is bad, but he's like, his theory is, and this isn't wrong, is like we're going to take the really popular stuff and use it as cover for the more downwardly, less popular. And so the Dems could face the accusation. The people who are on this side, this is their pushback to me. They're like, why would we give away the most popular thing in the bill? And then we would never be able to pass state and local aid. Right. Why would we do that? And the Republicans do the same thing, right? Like Mitch McConnell, because he's a fucking idiot, decided to say, we're going to pair these $2,000 stimulus checks with like Section 230 repeal. It was like, oh, it's obviously dead, right? Like it's not going to happen together.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it's not fulfilling that legacy and the urgency of the action. And the mandate, which I believe that history has handed, it handed it to Trump and he fucked it up, right? He totally screwed it up. He could have remade America and made us into the greatest country ever coming out on the other side of this. He decided not to do that. I think Biden was again handed that like a scepter almost. It's like all you have to do, all America wants is for you to raise it up high. But he's keeping it within the realm of traditional politics. I think it's a huge mistake.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Come to the Oval Office for assigning so that the very first thing of my presidency was to say, I'm giving you all this relief check, this night-long national nightmare is over, take this money, do with it what you need. We've all suffered together. The thing about Biden is he has a portrait of FDR in the oval, which kind of bothers me because he thinks of himself as an FDR like vigor. But this is, you have to understand the majesty of FDR. We are talking about a person”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're ruining it And then on the right is the same thing, which is that they'll be like, these checks are going to low level, blah, blah, people who are lazy and don't work. I'm like, oh, there you go. You know, like you're just playing a caricature of what you are. Like if you lean into those issues and you got to do it clean, this is what everybody hates about DC, which is that Biden right now is doing the $1,400 checks, but he's looping it in with his COVID relief bill and all that. That's his prerogative. That's the Democrats prerogative. They won the election. That's fine. But I'll tell you what I would have done if I was him. I would have come in and I would have said there's five United States senators who are on the record, Republicans, who say they'll vote for a $2,000 check. And I would put that on the floor of the United States Senate on my first or the first day possible. And I would have passed it and I would have forced those Republican senators to live up to that, vote for this bill.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, for example, what's the number one concern that AOC says after the first round of checks got out? Oh, the checks didn't go to illegal immigrants. I'm like, are you out of your fucking mind? Like, this is the most popular policy America has probably done in 50 years. You know, since like Medicare and you're...”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Vaccinated really quickly. That means something to me. I'm like, listen, I don't really care about a lot of the other stuff. He got my family vaccinated. Like that, well, I will forever remember that. And that's how we remember the checks. This is a part of the reason why Trump almost won the election and why if the Republicans had been smart enough to give him a round of checks, 100% would have won, which is that people are like, look, I don't really like Trump, but I got to check with his name on it. And that meant something to me and my family. I'm not saying for all the libertarians out there that they should go and like endlessly spend money and buy votes. What I am saying is lean into the majoritarian positions without adding your culture war bullshit on top of it.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, look, I just think it's a reflection of who we are. People like to blame social media. I think we're just incredibly divided right now. I think we've been divided like this for the last 20 years. And I think that the reason I focus almost 99% of my public commentary on economics is because you asked an important question at the top. How do we fix this? What did I say about the stimulus checks? Stimulus checks have 80% approval rating. So that's the type of thing. If I was Joe Biden and I wanted to actually heal this country, that's the very first thing I would have done when I came into office. Same thing on when you look at anything that's going to increase wages. I said on the show, I was like, look, I think Joe Biden will have 80% approval rating if he does two things. If he gives every American a $2,000 stimulus check and gives everybody who wants a vaccine, a vaccine. That's it. It's pretty simple. Because here's the thing, I don't really like Greg Abbott that much. We have like very different politics. I'm from Texas. But my parents got...”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They have no cultural power in America except to raise the middle finger to the elite class by pressing the button for Trump. I get that. That's actually a totally rational way to vote. It's not the way I wish we did vote, but like, you know, that's not my place to say.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And each other, which is that the number one concern is the other person. So negative partisanship has never been higher. And I think people who had my thesis in terms of why Trump was elected in 2016, you have to grapple with this. Like, how did he win 10 million more votes? He came 44,000 votes away from winning the presidency across three states. None of our popular discourse reflects that very stark reality. And I think so much of it is people really hate liberals. Like they just really hate them. And I was driving through rural Nevada before the election. And I was like, literally the middle of nowhere. And there was this massive sign this guy had out in front of his house and it just said Trump colon your feelings. And I was like, that's it. That is why people voted for Trump. And I don't want to denigrate it because they truly feel.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, yeah, it's funny. I saw Ben Shapiro talking about this, but the reason why I would functionally say it's the same is because I mean, you can believe whether it's true or not. I think it actually largely is true, but a lot of GOP voters feel like a lot of illegal immigration is code for people who are coming in, who are going to be legalized and are going to go vote Democrat. Like, I can just explain it from their point of view. So what does that actually mean each other?”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Trump got more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016, despite not delivering largely for all the Trump people out there on that agenda. He wasn't more pro-union, but he won more union votes. He wasn't necessarily more pro-worker, but he actually won more votes in Ohio than he did in 2016. And he won more Hispanic votes than despite being all the immigration rhetoric, et cetera. Here's why it's about the culture, which is that the culture war is so hot that negative partisanship is at such high levels. All of the vote is geared upon what the other guy might do in office. And there's a poll actually just came out by Echelon Insights. Chris and I were talking about it on Rising. The number one concern amongst Democratic voters is Trump voters, number one concern.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“wrong man and the reason I know this is that it sounds right I wish it I honestly wish it was true but here's the truth Trump actually governed largely as a neoliberal Republican who was meaner online and who departed from Orthodoxy in some very important ways don't get me wrong I will always support the trade war with China I will always support not expanding the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq I will support him moving the Overton window on a million different things and revealing once and for all the GOP voters don't care about economic orthodoxy necessarily but here's what they do care about”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it is Lex. Look, I mean, I don't want to believe that, but the data points me to this, which especially 2020. I'm one of the people chief among them I will own up to it here. I was totally wrong about why Trump was elected in 2016. I believed and based a lot of my public commentary belief on this. Trump was elected because of a rejection of Hillary Clinton neoliberalism on the back of a pro-worker message which was anti-immigration, was its pillar, but alongside of it was a rejection of free trade with China. And generally of the political correctness and globalism which has been come in through the uniparty and same thing here with the military industrial complex and endless war, he rejected all of that.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People who make $100,000 a year, but they didn't go to a four year college degree and they might live who are in a place which is not an urban metro area. And then at the same time, you have like a Vox writer who makes 30 grand, but they have a lot more cultural power than like the plumber. So you have to think about where exactly that line is. And I think in general, that's the way that we're trending. So that's why when I say like, what's going on? Are we divided? Yeah. But it's not left and right. I mean, like, and that's why I hate these labels.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's different than reality. That's what I would say, which is that the way we have to understand American politics today, it didn't always used to be this way, is it's almost entirely along. Basic, I would say the main divider is because even when you talk about class, this misses it in terms of socioeconomics, it's around culture, which is that it's basically, if you went to a four-year degree granting institution, you are part of one culture. If you didn't, you're part of another. I don't want to erase the 20% or whatever of people who do go to a college degree who are Republicans or vice versa, et cetera. But I'm saying on average in terms of the median way that you feel, we're basically bifurcating along those lines. And because people get upset, be like, oh, well, you know, there are rich people who vote for Trump. And I'm like, yeah, but, you know, they are like plumbers or something.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But that's just not politics. Like, if you look at survey data, for example, like stimulus checks, people who are against stimulus checks are conservative, right? Well, 80% of the population is for stimulus check. So that means a sizable number of Republicans are for stimulus checks. Same thing happens on like a wealth tax. The same thing happens on, okay, Florida voted for Trump 3.1% more than Barack Obama 2008. On the same day passes a $15 minimum wage at 67%. So, what's going on? So, that's why I”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's so interesting because that's such a loaded term center left. What does that mean? Like, to you, I think the way you're thinking of it is I'm not like a, well, even this, like I'm not a radical socialist, but I'm marginally left on cultural issues and economic issues. This is how we've traditionally understood things. In popular discourse, like center right, like what does it mean to be center right? I am marginally right on social issues and marginally right on economic issues.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't see a lot of that through our cultural tastemakers and more. And that really is what concerns me the most because it's just another manifestation of all of our problems. It's that we have this completely bifurcating economy, bifurcating culture, literally in terms of we have the middle of the country and then we have the coast. And in terms of the population, it's almost 50-50. And with increasing megacities and urban culture, like urban monoculture of LA, New York, and Chicago and DC and Boston and Austin relative to how an entire other group of Americans live their lives, or even the people within them who aren't rich and upwardly mobile, how they live their lives is just completely separating. And all of our language and communication in mass media and more is to the top, and then everybody else is forgotten.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, I don't know. I truly don't know. And I'm not willing to use the certainty, which I think a lot of people online are, to say, like, it wants 100%. Yes, the certainty is.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Financing structure, or Leon Black, like, what is 2015, 2009? I mean, this is very recent stuff. Or, and this is the part that really got me is I read the department, I think it's called the Department of Financial Service report around Deutsche Bank with Epstein. The news a criminal. They solicited his business, explicitly knew that his business meant access to other high net worth individuals, consistently doled money out from his account for hush payments to women in Europe and prostitution rings. They knew all of this within the bank. It was elevated multiple times. Here was the other one. One of Epstein's associates was like, hey, how much money can we take out before we hit the automatic sensor? Before you have to tell the IRS? And that question by their own standards is supposed to result in a notification to the Feds, and they never did it. And he was with.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think he knew she was underage, or maybe he did. And if he did, then he's even more of a piece of shit than I thought. But when we look at these things, the stuff I'm more interested in is like what you were talking about. I'm like, Bill Gates, how do you get the richest man in the world in your house? Like, under what God, and Gates is like, he was talking about financing and all this. Like, you don't have access to money or bankers? Like, you're the richest man in the world. You can call Goldman Sachs anytime you want on a hotline. Like, why do you need, again, to get more conspiratorial because I'm like, Bill, dude, you have the gold credit, right? Like, you don't need Epstein to create some complicated”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Being disguised for being older. And she was a masseuse, right? Because that was one of the guises which they got in order to sexually traffic these women. And she was like, Bill was like complaining about his neck. And she's like, give Bill Clinton a massage, right? So now there's a photo of an underage girl giving a massage to the former president of the United States. I don't think he knew right, but like that looks bad, and so this is kind of what we're getting at, which is that you're setting it all up and creating those preconditions. Or like Prince Andrew, do I think Prince Andrew knew that Virginia Gufre was underage? I don't know. Probably knew she was pretty young, which I think is skevy enough where you're a fucking prince. You probably know better, but...”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I think it's what you were talking about, which is that it's the implication after the initial, right? Like you do some shady things together, or you do something that you'd want out of the public eye, and you're a public person. And look, we probably even experience this to a limited extent, right? You're like, you know, like, I don't want to, I don't know, I almost lost my temper, you know, one time whenever a car hit me and I'm like, I can't freak out in public anymore, like what if somebody takes a photo or something? Yeah. And so I think that there's an extent to that times a billion, literally when you have a billion dollars or more. And you take that all together and you stack it up on itself. I saw a story about like Bill Clinton. Like Bill Clinton was with Epstein or with Galaine Maxwell in a private air terminal or something. And she had one of their sex, one of those girls who was underage had her dressed up in a literal pilot uniform. And she was underage in order to, you know, and she was.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he, I was going to say, in terms of conspiracy theory, that one changed my outlook because I was like, I was like, whoa. You have this dude who convinced some of the most successful people on earth that he was like some money manager. And it looks like it was totally fake. Like Leon Black. I mean, this is one of the richest men on Wall Street, $9 billion net worth. Why has he given him over $100 million between 2015 and 2019? What's going on here? Lacks Waxner. Same thing. So, yeah, I want to hear because you know people who met him. And the only person I know who met him was Eric Weinstein. I've heard his.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because it would implicate the Saudis, let's be honest, right? That's my conspiracy theory. I'm like, yeah, I think they covered up a lot of stuff because they wanted to cover up for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I mean, that was a conspiracy theory not that long ago. I think it's true. I mean, I think it's 100% true.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think, oh, well, I mean, look, man, I listen to your podcast. Being like, not only do I believe in UFOs, I think we're probably being visited by an alien civilization. And if you ask me that three years ago, I would have been like, you're out of your fucking mind. Like, what are you talking about? Well, listen to David Fraver. That's all I have to say. That's it.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that's largely true. I think that the reason why things worked differently in the past is because our economy was structured in different ways. And there's a reason that our politics today are very analogous to the last Gilded Age because we had very similar levels of economic distribution and cultural problems too at the same time. I don't want to erase that because I actually think that's what's driving all of our politics right now.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In terms of the equitable or lack of equitable distribution of money within our politics, what we're really pissed off about is we're like, our politics only seems to work for the people who have money.”
2021-03-14 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #167 – Saagar Enjeti: Politics, History, and Power · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source