Sam Seder Breaks Down His Politicon Debate With Charlie Kirk on Trump and the Middle Class

yesterday we played the a clip from the debate that I had with Charlie Kirk at politican and as we were playing it it was a TYT recording 20 minutes was missing and it was 20 minutes in the middle of the debate and it came in at about 20 minutes in right about 24 yeah and so what we're going to do and we were gonna we were going we're doing obviously we're playing the the debate and we're giving a commentary we were gonna try and stitch it in but then we realize like wait I'm wearing a different shirt and so we want to put this video out there if you in particular if you are a young person and you come across Charlie Kirk you should know that a lot of what he says is not really sound and we're going through this debate to show you that it's really a lot less this debate at least in my mind there's a lot less about me winning Chara beating Charlie kirbo winning a debate or whatever it is or or murky what is it working yeah working just go with that Sam it was really more about giving folks who are not aware of what he is selling more insight into this product being defective and you know maybe some decent packaging but when you start to dig into it it's not very substantial but so here is the middle segment of the debate and then we'll just run into the to the beginning of the debate so forgive us but this is this is what it is we're picking up now we're talking I think about taxes right and and then we're gonna get into regulations no you're right so tax cut we're an average middle-class family had a $2,700 tax cut where you have the corporate rate that went from 35% of everyone now III said in the other we should also say that we're speeding it up so that people can go through this is you know without spending hours the average tax cut was $2,700 but the median far less closer to 800 so when you add together the tax cuts of the millionaires and the billionaires with the middle class the average is $2,700 just like if Bill Gates and I were in a room our average net worth would be 30 billion dollars but I got to tell you I did not win the Mega Millions last night so I don't even have I don't even have hundreds of millions at this point but a lot of corporations did not pay that they used loopholes of which I disagree with completely went down to 20 per 20 percent effective in January and they use that money to invest in capital infrastructure or they repay tree buybacks so see using the money not by not exposing so stock buybacks how about companies where the actual employees on the stock and then their own net worth goes up aren't they part of no class I am sure there are some members of the middle class who benefited from the start of the tax cut that's what I'm saying Sam the overwhelming thrust of the tax cuts goes in do the wealthiest pockets via either stock buybacks or through capital gains or through having an S Corp and getting and paying less in taxes so look we could cherry-pick things you can say Illinois I could say the the worst 16 the the lowest 15 states in the country terms of education are all run by Republican governors except for Louisiana which had Bobby Jindal for eight years up until 2016 but cherry-picking doesn't work you wouldn't a lot of things wouldn't me to cherry-pick that's my deposit let me just say here now I don't know if this was appropriate on my part by cherry-picking in his organization I think in my mind at the time I will cop to this I was going to maybe bring up the fact that his number two for a couple years at this organization who he went on to praise and praise and praise turned out had to be fired only after it was leaked by someone else that she was writing all sorts of things that were of racist sentiment things like I hate blacks I'm sorry I'm just gonna say it I hate blacks or cherry-picking like you know the Florida division of his organization which you know had a private sort of slack or whatsapp saying you know don't mention Richard Spencer too much he was a guy who was just accused of domestic abuse in addition to being a white supremacist and don't use the n-word too much and don't and see if I get this quote don't hate Jews just because too much so you could either hate Jews just because they're great qualifications if you had reasons too much but or that they were kicked off some campuses because they were funneling in thousands of dollars of dark money to influence student government campaigns so that they could end all so he was caught up in something where he was intimidating some some left-wing voices on college campuses I probably look up Ferguson huh that was with Niall Ferguson right with now Ferguson I was fun I probably well I don't know if I should have brought that up or not maybe it was wrong of me to sort of do it in that context but that's what I was alluding to I just want to cop to it alright continue the philosophical difference cuz I don't believe when someone gets rich someone in here but we don't need to but that data okay but the date right so the day fight Sam if you want to talk data and Charlie I'm gonna give you the last word on this yet but I mean so again I was thinking maybe because again you were just talking about cherry-picking and then you were cherry-picking and I was trying to talk about philosophy which is I don't believe in a zero-sum game I believe in a market economy when you trade both parties equally get richer when you trade and standard living goes up prices go down and you have abundance you've an abundance problem that a scarcity problem in the West but just I'm trying to maybe maybe I'm failing to understand how because the Left seems so adamantly opposed to the policies that have delivered us a 4.2 percent GDP rate the lowest ever black unemployment rate the lowest ever asian-american unemployment rate the lowest Hispanic unemployment rate the lowest veterans unemployment since 2001 a $2,700 average middle class cut and and the economy is still good Obama's trying to take credit for it and so but Sam I can you give some credence to the idea that when you have when you when you lessen government burden you couple that with a massive deregulation the largest deregulation agenda in a hundred years is there so is there are you willing to give an inch to say that maybe something Trump has done has benefited the well-being of people in middle class all right well you keep repeating the same thing and I keep explaining it doesn't make it less true Sam well it makes it I'm explain to you why it's irrelevant because yes there has been a trajectory where we have seen all the unemployment games that you've talked about we have seen stagnant wages that is a fact the buying power of the middle class is dropped you talk about rolling back regulations let's talk about that let's talk about that I'm glad I want you to name three regulations that have been rolled back that have helped the middle class and I'll name three that have hurt the middle class how about rolling back Obama's war on coal okay that has created hundreds of thousands of jobs throughout Appalachia and brought down utility costs to 30 states huh positively I should probably let that roll because if you let that be a drop first of all full-on key change the the folks who lived in West Virginia and Appalachia in the audience everyone started laughing at charlie kirk at that moment you can just simply go and google ja a coal jobs created and well almost a million jobs I actually did j.cole and it gave me the rapper J Cole threw coal jobs created in the news and you will see that there is been maybe like somewhere around 3000 jobs that have been added with coal across the country I mean you're still seeing like well you see this point yes so I think you can conceive jobs there was there's a new round this is from the Tribune review new round of grants will help coal impacted communities there's been a hundred and 20 jobs created from that I mean there's probably you know thousands of coal jobs maybe that have returned but not hundreds of thousands but here continue ok that has created hundreds of thousands of jobs throughout Appalachia and brought down utility costs over thirty states yes so so this is laughing in the front why I smile and I'm happy when the people West Virginia actually have jobs unlike what Hillary Clinton said we're gonna destroy all your jobs we're going to find another way to give you meaning that's one and also if you go that EPA agenda there is a specific regulation under the Obama era that categorized lakes and tributaries in the backyards of certain farmers as oil spills that's number two and number sorry walk us through this by saying you can't jump yes am being condescending about a fact it's not making any less true so under the Obama era well wait a second I'm just asking you walk us through so how be a mapping farmers jump pesticides in tributaries okay that's not what I said they classified lakes and tributaries in the backyards of certain farms as oil spills which the complete mischaracterization and abuse of the Clean Water Act of 1976 so that was a that was a abuse of power under what I like to call the employment prevention date how many jobs do you see that were created by that well it definitely saved all these farmers hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs and the fact that they can still be operating would you like more regulation Sam how about one more how about the thousands of consumer regulations that were finally rolled back under the Consumer Financial Financial Protection Bureau so that we do not have to go through excessive amount of regulation to get small business loans happy to defend that any single day I'm happy to defend the deregulatory agenda of Trump against the excessive regulatory agenda of Obama so there there's three first off for first off all right so first off let you start with this Donald Trump has not roll back that many regulations that's the reality the rate in which our regulations have grown has definitely been slowed he's done about half of new regulations that Obama and Bush did up to this point that is true but let's talk first about the Galatian that you mentioned in terms of the coal-fired power plants this will cause 3,600 deaths 90,000 cases of asthma 1,700 heart attacks the expenses associated with this are in the hundreds of millions of dollars the mercury and air toxins rollback will cause 11,000 deaths annually the asbestos rollbacks will cost for up to 40,000 annual deaths the EPA the Trump EPA says that for every one regulation $1 worth of regulation that costs an industry or what not $14 of economic growth are are generated what's an example of that lightbulbs for years conservatives were angry about light bulbs I don't know if people here old enough to remember this but the idea that the u.s. government would require more efficient light bulbs was the the loss of Liberty in a to a scope that we can't even imagine what has happened is consumers have saved tens of millions of dollars because they don't have to replace these incandescent light bulbs we've seen in terms of in terms of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau save consumers 90 million dollars worth of bank fees in the last year the Obama administration alone caused it for one second this is incorrect I misspoke it did not save consumers ninety million dollars worth of fees save consumers in the last year 900 million dollars over the course of the life of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau up until the Trump administration basically stopped all of its of its its investigatory actions it's it's attempts to stop you know mal factors like Wells Fargo and whatnot it saved consumers and returned to consumers thirteen billion dollars thirteen billion with a B but continued real quick so I misstated that number real quick do you think Charlie mister took that environment the employment prevention line did he test that with his mom first I have it a little bit of like that's a very funny joke charlie very funny you use that when you debate that be man from Sex in the City that's a nipple line that's useful if you're doing like dumb radio well he his whole thing sounded like in that moment like a campaign speech but you're right is a little morning zoo too because there was a he else is really I didn't notice this as much as first but he's very in the school of like if I'm wrong or I've said something that just doesn't sound credible if I raise my voice and act like the teacher act like I'm no no I will I will double down on that then that that confidence will power me through nonsense it also seems like some capitalists might be sneaking into the nebulous middle-class category when he talks about the people who own farms and businesses right all right let's let him go the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau saved consumers 90 million dollars worth of bank fees in the last year the Obama administration alone not so one there has not been one enforcement action since the Trump administration has taken over so what's the CFPB budget what is the budget it is completely funded by fees that they get from the bank now okay so so forcibly take money away from the people that are depositor and then say that they're saving ninety million dollars of fees on the back that's not the way it works deposit for one second so the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was set up in a way that would inoculate it from a a Republican House or let's say a Democratic House that was in some way hostile to it but it is clearly was set up to avoid pressure from politicians because it is self funding its funds its operational funds come from fees it collects from banks but then Charlie has a problem that cuz he thinks that's unconstitutional because Congress can't defund it but here when you deposit your money so so the famous make money by people putting money in house it you got to go back here because this is also really important for people to understand Charlie does not seem to understand how banks make money or he assumes that depositors would have to pay these fees to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau but when you deposit money they may charge you some bank fees your checking account maybe you get a free checking account maybe you get an ATM fee or whatnot Consumer Financial Protection Bureau actually also cap those but I think the Republicans rolled that back but so you get fees for putting your money in there but these are not fees that are associated with their fees to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau the bank doesn't take your money to pay these fees they have to pay it out of their profits you are aware that the body of the bank doesn't just sit there Sep well here here we go your bank fees in the last year the Obama administration alone one there has not been one enforcement action since the Trump administration is taking over so what's the CFPB budget what is the budget it is completely funded by fees that they get from the bank now okay so so forcibly take money away from the people that are depositor and then say that they're saving ninety million dollars of fees on the back that's not the way it works no when you deposit your money so so the things make money by people putting money in it and then they borrow it out so those are depositors so you're taxing the depositors to then put on the back end of the government agency that is run and a the CFPB sure can be completely abolished as an unconstitutional agency and it's used as a weapon bankers do not loan out their depositors money exclusively that's why you have capital controls they loan it all exclusively that is one form and function of a bank but it goes back to you well obviously goes back to you know most the money in your bank section out in there Sam you know that's right okay that's the way a bank works so you have the FDIC that insurance it up to a certain amount but that money is probably somewhere else in the economy on loan or on lien to somewhere else to try to make the bank money so when you're taxing the bank to try to fund the CFPB you're actually taxing the depositors you yeah you are you're taxing the money within the bank the bank is comply comprise the people up with the money in the bank know you're taxing the profits they make off of their land they make so so let's talk about banking so first of all they make money off okay with regulation they make they make money they make money off of most of the money that banks used to make until dodd-frank was off lending to small businesses and local communities but dodd-frank completely obliterated the idea of the local community bank we have seen a sharp decline in community banks we have not seen a sharp degree happen to community banks unless you look over the past thirty years where we have seen a precipitous decline of those banks because of mergers and acquisitions right so we simply saw it I will repeat myself because it's correct since 2010 some financial crisis dodd-frank was a weapon used against small community banks that has hundreds of millions of dollars of regulation that put on small and local community X you know who loves God Frankie know who's lobbying against the repeal of dodd-frank something that you and I can agree with governments act I mean Goldman Sachs which completely owned the Treasury Department in both administrations by the way whether be the Bush administration the Obama ministration or the Trump administration government Sachs has an inside-out access to our to the Treasury Department they are lobbying against a repeal of dodd-frank now why would that possibly be because dodd-frank is used as a hedge against small and community banks to protect the Wells Fargo's of the world the JPMorgan Chase's and the Goldman Sachs and so they use regular use in calling for a 21st century glass-steagall Act we can deal with government we can deal with government I would I would actually I think we should get rid of the carried interest deduction I think you and I could have caused it now that's now listen this is sort of a stunning I will join you in supporting another thing that will massively benefit wealthy investors no no the carried interest deduction is is something that we should be repealing it is so completely far afield from the glass-steagall that at that moment I realized he doesn't know any of what I'm talking about I don't think he knows what a 21st century glass-steagall was I'm not even convinced that he knows what the original glass-steagall was so Charlie if you're listening I'm going to tell you right now and you can obviously look this up but glass-steagall is a law that was put in place following the the crash of the banks in the Great Depression and basically what it does listen to the original didn't do exactly this but the but it would it would do more or less this it constrained commercial banks from joining with investment banks so that commercial banks where people have their money invested was not subject to the same risks that an investment bank would take because if a commercial bank goes under a big one a lot of people lose their money I mean you're you're in federally insured and that came in after the Great Depression up to $250,000 but you are all that money can be wiped out put it not only a big strain on the the government of course but on all sorts of businesses that have more than $250,000 may be in the accounts and so the idea is separate these two things so that these banks won't be too big to fail that their failure will not bring down the entire economy and that more speculative business will be separated from the more conventional vanilla business the carried interest loophole has nothing to do with commercial banks or investment banks it has to do with hedge fund managers and hedge fund managers what they do this is private equity they go out and they get a bunch of rich people and they say let me manage your money we'll go and we'll do maybe venture capital or we'll make some bets against other companies whatever this is what a hedge fund and hedge funds do all sorts of different things but the managers of these hedge funds escape paying taxes on the money they make by claiming that even though all they're doing is managing other people's money that it's like their money and so they get so that so alright let's say I'm managing five hundred million dollars and I take one percent of what I'm managing and what I earn and I am taking capital gains as if I have invested money but I'm not investing money I'm just managing that money and that's the capital that's the carried interest loophole they call it carried interest because they want to make up a name that makes it sound like I'm just a financial adviser and I'm no need to be taxed on that money at a at a wage rate I want to be taxed on at a capital gains rate cuz it's much lower I'm glad he's for getting rid of the cat the carried interest loophole but it has absolutely nothing to do with what we were talking about which leads me to believe it's noemi of what we're we're talking about I mean it literally is the equivalent of saying like I'm gonna open up a dog kennel well I'm against opening up a table kennel but I do like cats sort of like talking to a bot online it's weird yeah but government's acts that's my son boom ah thank you do it's completely different from what I've done well it's actually it's a component of what no any people on your safe no I will not join you in a 21st century glass-steagall like no one all right hold on guys I want if you want to cut down on the power of the big banks why wouldn't you well okay so you were sincere while I would walk me through what one honey that would actually cut in to the size and the power of those bags because it wouldn't do that because every single time you try to penalize the power of Wall Street every single time you try to use government to go after the people to have the power the exact opposite happens pawns oligarchic let me give you a great example of when that didn't happen after the Great Depression and for the subsequent 65 years that we had that regime it was only after the Clinton administration when we had a Republican Congress and Senate and a president who was extremely close to the banking industry in fact his Treasury secretary was guy named Robert Rubin who wanted to get rid of glass-steagall so that the Citibank could merge with travelers and they did and they became Citigroup and then Robert Rubin left the government and became a very handsomely paid vice-president uh if you can believe it Citigroup because every single time you try to penalize the power of Wall Street every single time you try to use government to go after the people to have the power the exact opposite happens you have an oligarchy a class that is created on Washington DC and the biggest companies get more powerful and it and it totally pushes out comput you mentioned the financial crisis the financial crisis let's talk about product of the rollback of glass-steagall okay that covering the clinton incorrect I'll let you take you do your case of why you think 2008 happened and I'll tell you what really happened well I do have a talking point it was not the cause of 2008 of the initial crisis it was the cause of the severity of the crisis because we allowed commercial banks and investor banks to commend commingle and they were too big to fail and it almost pulled our entire financial system under and so you return to a day which existed 396 where these banks cannot commingle if one of them fails it's a problem but it's not one that is going to throw our entire economy into jeopardy that is why the debt increased during Obama years because the economy fell off a cliff and so if you want to diminish the power of Goldman Sachs and of Citibank and Wells Fargo and we can agree on this let's call for a 21st century glass-steagall Act we can do something bipartisan this will be great and we can actually diminish the power of these banks so I I will say there you'd actually find more you find more acceptance that argument to me than most people because I think there was there is some merit to the argument that the repeal of glass-steagall did open up the reckless behavior of banks however I would say it played in talking about 2008 it did not it was not the primary factor nor the secondary factor of why that financial crisis was created it was first and foremost Fannie and Freddie which is a government-sponsored you see that like I actually the in and I knew the reason why I knew what he was going to say is because this was the major talking point that came out of the financial crisis if you go back you can see I'm mouthing the words Fannie Mae because this was the talking point and that's what Charlie has he has talking points and the the you you can go I mean this it gets very weedy but as you know the financial crisis was a function of mortgages being issued willy-nilly to people to people who did not have any financial savvy in some instances depending on the region to pay people who are taking out two or three mortgages and flipping houses now none of these people did it to lose money right so they didn't really know what they were doing when you go to a bank there's a reason why they call them loan officers is because they have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure that you the client are worthy of loaning - that is their responsibility that is why their banks get licensed many instances that didn't happen mortgage industry was set up - and what would happen is I would I would make a bad loan to somebody I would sell that loan and there became a a secondary and a tertiary and in some instances like a fourth level market for these mortgages to be combined together as these financial instruments and paying off and paying out dividends these are derivatives and then there were derivatives on those derivatives side bets essentially that they're going to fail or go up almost like insurance hedges and the problem is is that everybody assumed that these mortgages were good because there were three private rating agencies Moody's Standard & Poor and one other I can't remember what it is and they issued them all Triple A because of the relationship that they had with these investment banks the investment banks would hire them to rate their own product that they were selling and of course if you wanted to get higher again you raid it well that was a huge mistake about three or four years into this somewhere in like two thousand five or six Fannie Mae which had not engaged in buying these derivative mortgages got pressure to do so because they were leaving a lot of money on the table and they were a quasi governmental agency not fully governmental but quasi and so there was a lot of pressure for them to make when everybody's making money hand over fist they got into it very late so they were not the cause of this this was all happening everywhere it's just at the end they ended up holding a lot of this stuff not they weren't the only one Lehman's went under Bear Stearns goldman sachs had to be completely bailed out there were others and so chase Citibank so Fannie Mae was definitely a player but they were no way deprive the approximate cause it was just there was a huge real estate bubble and when it burst everything fell apart because of the the interconnectedness of everything we can have a bursting real-estate bubble but unless there is like this ongoing interconnectedness it's not going to threaten the economy like this 1000 you raise some interesting points Sam however you you think we should pay exorbitant fees I think that capitalists take risk that's a good piece the good thing for people and they come out of these banks so I will say there you'd actually find more you find more acceptance that argument me than most people because I think there was there is some merit to the argument that the repeal of glass-steagall did open up the reckless behavior of banks however I would say it played in talking about 2008 it did not it was not the primary factor nor the secondary factor of why that financial crisis was created it was first and foremost Fannie and Freddie which is a government-sponsored institution that has yet to be held accountable that has never showed their books to the taxpayers triple-a bond rating crap triple-a bond rating mortgages where people had FICO credit scores that were beyond death that had meeting him come around $35,000 a year never actually visiting the houses that were they were giving the mortgages to it was B&B - loans that they were looping together a triple-a bond rating and they were in bed with the rating agency so I think Sam I would agree that there was there was widespread collusion Fannie and Freddie is not Wall Street it is a government institution that's that that Congress sanctioned has yet to be holding accountable they are you patty all right I mean it's a government it's a quasi government form to put its enough but Fannie and Freddie entered into that subprime market four years after all the major banks know rightly right but we were in high school at Sam I can administer III I paid attention to this now finish the point well our you know argument already came loans we need royal regulated so they uphold their fiduciary okay so let's I want I'm going to finish the point on the financial crisis you couple that I only get to trade and okay after that the Community Reinvestment Act which incentivize these banks to give loans to low-income communities the Community Reinvestment Act you can read the actual language of the bill had quotas for banks over a certain level to give these loans out you cut you triple that with Alan Greenspan artificially lowing interest rates after 9/11 so you had cheap money flowing all around and all the sudden people said oh you can't question the housing market it's as stable as can be when you looked at the mortgages that Fannie and Freddie were triple-a rating a government agency the banks were treating the base rate examp the ratings were by three Sam sees that were not government agency Sam movie and Freddie the banks were trading off the confidence that Fannie and Freddie gave them because they because they said all with Fannie and Freddie is trading it oh my goodness we could trade it so then goldman sachs never actually looked through the mortgages because they were first of course they were incentivized to do it there the chief money from the government and finally they had the confidence in the conviction which was all false by a government agency to trade on these loans the destabilize our economy now the bankers that live lease Wells Fargo's executives that lied they should be in prison you wouldn't agree on that if there was a if there was a scroll underneath here it would be really embarrassing for you because everyone who knows anything about banking knows that there were three rating agencies their names were not Fannie Mae and not Freddie Mac I never said the rating agency they were trading them as triple-a bond rating and they were separated them they were rated by the three rating agencies right are those agencies government agencies or what if Fannie and Freddie issue yes or no JP Morgan sir are not governments that's right they're independently governed hold on who is supposed to regulate them Sam hold on a second who is supposed to regulate them did the SEC do their job in regulating them no heart of God I thought the SEC was safe you're saying the biggest government failure of the modern era the SCC that has a thirty billion dollar budget every single year did not even walk into these rating agency and say show me these mortgages show me the FICO scores show me how their 1800 lincoln dodd-frank if you're arguing that regulators were not on the ball you and i agree there should be stricter rack i'm arguing that's what happens when you continue to add these layers and layers of population so and then you blame capitalism for it you're like oh you have all these regulators that are that used to work at goldman they used to work at Credit Suisse they used to work at Wells Fargo they'd go work for Fannie and Freddie they'd go work for the regulations they say oh you know just a failure of capitalism despite government to play bottom you stand you the failure of regulation to regulate the capitalist who who who gambled with with money that was putting our entire economy in jeopardy the failure of those regulators to do their job the answer to that is to have no regulation and just let it be completely wireless so I know first of all dodd-frank does the exact opposite of it number one number two the dodd-frank try to write over so eh Sam I'm so I'm so glad you got you I know the solution is the solution is we should have let them makes fail and make them pay a price for gambling with our money that's the solution because they won't do it again Sam if you bail them out and you give the Wall Street executives huge bonuses and they and the one the Wells Fargo executives should be in prison you and I agree with that examples are money now this is I mean it's interesting because I mean he's very adamant about this and I certainly would have had no problem with allowing these banks to fail to a certain extent certainly we came and and bailed out these banks and so what we should have done there is a middle ground between this we can let them fail and everybody suffers because there's no cash that you can take out of your your ATM machine just doesn't work at that point I had a friend who was working at the Citibank at the time and she had told her husband take all the cash out you can uh of the bank and you know within a 24 but she was very concerned there's another way that you could have done this you could have bailed out these banks and just said we just bailed you out let me tell you what happens in the so-called market when someone bails someone else out you know what that's called it's calling it coming in and buying a company and the US government should have ended up owning every dollar for dollar in fact they should have gotten a good deal should have been like we should probably done two for one every dollar the US government had to pump into these banks should have come back with equity that's definitely what Bernie would have done III think I think so and it's certainly what I think it was Iceland did and Sweden I don't know if Sweden did it but I think I did it back in the day Iceland did it - yeah Iceland did it during the financial crisis and we should have nationalized these banks nationalize the banks that we needed to make sure that the system didn't fall apart let the ones that could die die and move on and now if it was up to charlie all these banks would have gone under and I don't know what would have occurred then we would have had a massive massive meltdown of our financial system because it was allowed to metastasize without being treated you know it's not your literally your money in the ATM Sam you don't put it in the machine Sam you know that there's not actually a person inside the ATM dispensing money we don't they don't take a $10 bill from your bank now he's about to talk about how the Wells Fargo's Wells Fargo and there was a lot of these people there was a lot of people who really abused the system people who foreclosed on people on purpose people who ran up these huge things there was a company called countrywide I want you to to google that and countrywide I think was bought by Bank of America and if I'm not mistaken the that Bank countrywide had to pay I think almost a hundred million dollars worth of oh it was uh it was one West I'm sorry it was one West and they had to pay at least a hundred million dollars in fines for what they did during this period of time and that CEO was a guy named unka oh I know who it was he was he was a guy named Steve minuchin who Donald Trump hired to be Treasury secretary continue but you don't have a voice you don't have an agreement they're going to do it again yes I agree there's if you don't punish them they'll do it again or if you let them have the regulatory space to do it again they'll do it again no so that that's what you're not disagree it wasn't the regulatory space it was Fannie and Freddie that paved the way they were the ones that way they were the number one district distributor falsely labeled triple-a bonds they never actually saw the mortgages they were trading you Baney and Freddie to this day huh they've never opened their books we fund them and they ever open their beliefs do not listen the bottom line is the reason why we had such a severe crisis was because of the relationship between the commercial banks and the investment banks Fannie and Freddie bought those mortgages from those banks four years after the run started I agree with you that you have some of the elements correct you don't understand the role of Fannie and Freddie in that crisis but it's largely irrelevant to the point I'm making which is the crisis was as severe as it was because we rescinded glass-steagall under a Democratic president and a Republican Congress we could go back and we could today we couldn't reinstate institute it and say the bank's a guy like scooter-cide or anything there's some merit be in jail okay stop I'm not pretty hard to see personally but I think we're we could agree where Sam and I agrees there's something fundamentally wrong that somehow a prerequisite around the Treasury Department is working at goldman sachs there's something wrong with that and that is cronyism steve minuchin did not work oh he did work at goldman sachs and then he went to one west and basically committed such measure of crimes that had Kamala Harris been on top of it in California and listen to her subordinates Steve minuchin might have been indicted of course none of these US attorneys were indicted anybody and that was also a function of Eric Holder and that's a whole nother story where he could have gone to but he didn't because Steve minuchin is his daddy's daddy essentially just about 45 seconds welcome let's just say I'm not capital is no example so that's what happens when you lock capitalism I would completely untold when you have corporations gain so much money and power okay they're too big and we need to make them small I had four seconds of an agreement moment so I want you all to remember how does the market for that how does the market make these entities that have too much power smaller competition because because you know why who's keeping someone from competing with Amazon so I go on at that point to talk about the idea of like you know you can go and attempt to challenge Amazon or challenge Google or challenge one of these banks but the fact of the matter is because glass-steagall particularly in the context the bank because glass-steagall was was repealed there were banks that were situated to become behemoths that basically can now close everyone out of the system so if you're really concerned about the aggregation of power you need to return to an antitrust regime that predates the Reagan administration when these companies whether they were telecommunications or banks or whatnot we're not allowed to buy up other ones and become so huge and you know the one thing I will say and and then this video will combine with the rest of this debate is that if I take Charlie as being sincere on some of these things that he does have a problem with the consolidation of power and if I take him seriously on these things that he's sincere about him I think that you know as he learns more about this stuff if he really does try to that like I say this guy may end up not doing the exactly what he's doing today but maybe that's being a little bit too hopeful all right so you why away from my Charlie if you're watching on YouTube we're gonna just roll into the beginning of that let's do the debate callers I don't know how much time we're gonna have oh yeah we could it's only gonna be an hour so we should we should be able to do this relatively quick quickly I didn't mean to do that all right sup cuz when you're so conscious you know what here in collars here is the here is the the debate now I should say at the beginning of the debate that we had to submit and fill out or submit questions like a series of questions that were supposedly going to keep the debate on track not only did the moderator it seemed like a perfectly nice guy not only did he not ask those questions he didn't even introduce us which was I thought a little bit weird so we went right into it but here's the debate we're going to play the debate at one point two times the speed and we'll be stopping it - one - correct Charlie and - correct me and to give some insight as to what's going on so here is that debate between charlie kirk and sam seder posit it's Cedar not Seder [Applause] so for those who don't know me my name is Steven Olli Cara I'm the founder of a non partisan organization called millennial Action project I'm honored to be back at politican for the fourth year and we've got a great debate for all of you discussing the middle class and whether Trump has been helpful or hurtful to the middle class and will debate all of that here my one request of the panelists is that we want to have an exchange of ideas and so we want to focus on the substance avoid personal attacks and my request on behalf of the audience here is that we don't yell over each other because then they won't be able to understand what you're saying so are we on board with that yes yes we do all right very good are you all ready to get started okay so again we're here talking about the middle class and I think perhaps the most consequential composite one thing I did notice in the reason why we're both having have handheld mics is that I noticed in the the debate that Kirk had with a Hasan that Hasan did not wear I didn't had a lavalier mic and Charlie had a handheld mic now of course you do this if you want to scream over somebody because you can modulate your voice in a different way and so I think I had not exactly sure I wasn't sure why Charlie didn't show up for the wiring of the mic but when the guy said what kind of Mike do you want I said I'll take what he's taking and and so we both ended up with handheld it's like a duel yeah and some level it was like if you want to play this handheld mic game I will play that game - so there's a little debate for you folks president Trump passed related to this was a tax bill last year so I'm gonna start with Sam what was your take on the tax bill and more broadly do you think Trump has been helpful to the middle class well let me answer your second question first no I don't think he's been particularly hopeful for the middle class I don't think that across the board I'm sure there are some measures perhaps but across the board net things are not better for the middle class now and certainly down the road they're going to be a lot worse because of policies that we've seen at least in the first two years of this administration 65% of the tax cuts went to the top 20% of the country this was you know in nominal terms the biggest tax cut for the middle class in history or at least a you know recent memory but at the end of the day if I turned Charlie's microphone up from a five to an eight and mine from a five to a 12 or a 10 that is the dynamic that we have going here with the incredible wealth inequality middle class losing out in terms of wages and versus inflation certainly at least in the first 18 months of the Trump administration versus the last 18 months of the Obama administration where was basically flipped and with increased wealth inequality you get things like middle class being priced out of the housing market in the top ten metropolitan areas across the country you see it in in in other areas as well so broadly speaking at least in terms of the tax cuts it provides some very inefficient stimulus to the economy but no this was for the very wealthy Charlie your response um I first want to say Sam I think you always come about your ideas very thoughtfully so I look forward to this discussion sincerely so thank you know and so the first thing I would come from the argument that Trump has helped the middle class and let me build it out in a couple ways first of all you did say it was the largest middle class tax cut in recent memory and that's not saying a lot because there hasn't been done a lot for the middle class but let's define what exactly we mean by the middle class the middle class in some ways is a uniquely American concept the way that most people would label the middle class and you could have your own definition is you have the comfort to send your child to a relatively good school and your child's life has a greater than likely chance that will be better than your life that you have a meeting here I mean like I'm not sure what the point of this was it is a uniquely American concept insofar as in most industrialized Western countries in fact maybe all you don't you the the opportunity to send your kids to school and to get health care and to lead a comfortable life is basically taken for granted it is not something that has to be aspired to or you know a a roll of the dice but it's like what makes them in a class special here is we have more of a precariat so you write about it there's a chance it may not happen so we feel good that we have those things allows you to live comfortable that you could take maybe one to two vacations a year and that you don't have it to have an instrumental amount of debt now that being said when Americans are polled anywhere between seventy to ninety percent of Americans think their middle-class which of course only 50% of Americans are middle-class that's it it's really amazing to see that the the separation of date of how many people think their middle-class versus how many people actually are middle-class is it now I understand what he was trying to say here he was trying to say that those people think they're middle-class and they also think that they are living the life that Charlie uses to define the middle class and he did this a little bit clumsily but I see where he was going here he's saying the the concept of middle class and you may have your own definition Sam and so might all those people who define themselves as middle class may not think that like hey my life allows me to vacations a year and I can send my kids to college no problem I don't have excessive debt because the vast majority of Americans don't get those vacations do have the debt worry about sending their kids and getting a good education and they still may identify themselves as middle class because who wants to because I know I'm not in the top 1% or 10% but I don't want to be perceived myself as being at the bottom rung of society now I suppose I could have addressed that but I only now understood this point because he didn't quite deliver that succinctly but the reason that I would say that is for that is that we have an elevated standard living in this country that goes beyond just income and goes actually that people that are earning 30 or $40,000 a year have access to higher quality goods that in other countries they wouldn't let's talk about the Trump tax cut in particular first of all there's a lot of demonization against corporations and against businesses when businesses thrive they have to employ people and so 3.5 million jobs have been created since to start the Trump administration most of those are middle-class jobs wages have gone up about 3.8 percent in the last year they were flatlining under the Obama presidency my favorite number I'm sorry well that's not true excuse me do what you just did excuse me well I'm not gonna sit here Sam and have lives about facts everybody has a phone Google Google middle-class wages so see if there's stagnant versus inflation those three with a 3.8 percent wage increase over the last year for the median worker Hispanic incomes at its highest level in American history at $50,000 a year my favorite number of the Trump administration is that 3.9 million people have gone off food stamps and into the labor force three point nine million people now why is my favorite number we know how many people are on food stamps and in the labor force like I don't get that I mean well no what are you saying you think look here's the thing about about food stamps food stamps is what is known as an automatic stabilizer of the economy when the economy has a dip or let's say a crisis like in 2008 more people become eligible for food stamps it's not that it's not they're not it's not that the program is expanded it's that more people unfortunately become eligible because their wages have disappeared and their money has gone away and so yes as you get further out from this crisis more people get more jobs incidentally well as long as we're talking about job creation and this is something I probably should have brought up during the the debate there were some things I simply forgot to to raise but job creation under Barack Obama's last 20 months was higher than under the first 20 months of of of Donald Trump here let me get these numbers here we go 20 months the last the first 20 months of the Trump administration 3.8 million jobs is that what he said 3.8 million jobs I think that's what he said yeah right in the last 20 % no no that was that was he's arguing wages but he said more jobs created in the last 20 months of the Obama administration four point one five million jobs were created so job creation during the Obama years last the last 20 months higher than the comparable amount of time that Donald Trump has been president the wages he has exactly opposite although I think what he's doing is he's taking the increase in wages in a very short period of time he's not taking it for the entire time that Trump is in office he's taking a very isolated month to make that argument but if you look back in the past 20 months and you look at wage increases versus inflation it's a net loss for workers including middle class number for us conservatives we do not judge success by how many people go on government programs but instead of how many people go off into independence now I will not say that our economy is at its optimal level I think it's the best economy in a generation we looked at four point three percent GDP growth 3 point 7 percent unemployment rate and so if you try to pause it now again he's looking at one quarter and it is not there we don't haven't had what he's using a term that is for a very limited period of time true but worthless in terms of making an assessment as to the policies put good well class by two major things which is standard of living increase of which you're seeing that happen dramatically and the second of which is education we have a lot of work to do on the education side I think you and I would both agree on that we could have a extended conversation about that on policy but the economic metrics are so good but the New York Times says quote this economy is so good we're running out of ways to critique it and so again it's not a perfect economy but for middle-class Americans that care about rising wages creating jobs and tax cuts the average American family had a 2700 dollar tax cut under this Trump tax cut before here is where I had one of my bigger failures I didn't really pay attention to what he was saying there but very the average family he uses that figure as opposed to the median family so that's the old if a Sam cedar and Bill Gates are in a room the average wealth between the two of us is somewhere around a billion dollars or two billion or whatever what does he have like 50 billion I don't know 25 billion dollars that's what the averages that's if we redistribute it all the wealth that well that's what the average is but the median is something very different because the median is where the family sitting in the middle and for the median family the tax cuts was actually closer to about $800 now $800 isn't nothing but it if like I say if I give Charlie a raise in his volume by three units on his microphone but I give me seven guess who you're gonna hear more from folks it's gonna be me and that's the problem your purchasing power is and your political power is diminished if I give that much more money to billionaires that's good for some consumers consumer spending power that's good for savings and it's good for of course what you would say is more demand side economics coupled with supply-side economics that created jobs and repatriated trillions about was our wealth back to the America so everyone here has a phone and they can Google the first 18 months of the Trump administration versus the last 18 months of the Obama administration wages have gone up 1.7 percent under the first 18 months of the Trump administration they had inflation is up 3.8 percent that is simply a fact now if you if you narrow if you narrow the time horizon you can come up with numbers you're talking about and this is why people have to be careful about statistics because I can come up here and manipulate anything yes Latino wages are up in fact the middle class is making more money today than in a $61,000 than in the past however like I say inflation is uh the cost of higher education has gone up a hundred and ten percent since 1994 so it doesn't matter if the middle class is making sixty one thousand dollars if to lead the middle class life that you were talking about is that much more expensive if the middle class like the tax cuts they wouldn't disfavor them far greater than they do even Obama care at this point right I mean so the bottom line is we can throw out statistics but if they're not contextualized it doesn't matter okay so everyone knows the tax cuts went to the wealthy am i demonizing them no the point is that they have an inward in amount of wealth and income in this country and it turns into political power and I know you have a problem with that and the way to solve that is to flatten the tax it's to not give them tax cuts and more power and give corporations more power in cash to pay off their their shareholders which tend to be the board of directors and the CEOs but rather to spread the wealth so okay there are some things I agreed with however to contextualize it further it doesn't make the economic growth economic success any less exceptional or any less historic because following the same trajectory but the Obama administration was like this he hasn't screwed it up sam'l sam'l III I routinely restrain myself during your comments to Allah thank you for that Charlie and that's a big deal for me if you watched yesterday feel free to interrupt me when you when you think I said something wrong if you heard it everyone heard it mothers nutshell such that one more time that is such a smart move it's so - I had to cuz he just lies of course but also practically I mean practically because he just lies but I mean there's no escape but what is he gonna say no we should stick to format so I can why a beautiful and then also you look really accountable like hey man let's both be honest and totally by all means if I'm being if I'm wrong or god forbid being dishonest please correct me if you're public points there the first of all the big misconception that I have with your original analysis is that just because someone gets rich someone got poor that is categorically false if a wealthy person increases their net worth they did not exploit someone to get wealthier they had to take a risk and ploy a bunch of people buy a building who had a really good idea and people had a keen a slightly different topic I would have would have said I would have I would have addressed the fact that of course yes they're exploiting their labor they're both doing it in a in terms of like a Marxist critique but also many times in this country particularly under Trump when you have rolled back all sorts of protections for workers they're doing it in a more explicit almost legal well you're doing it in a liberal way which is your your your violating contract law right exactly that's pretty simple exactly those products over and over again and you and I will have a philosophical and economic difference in this I come from a perspective that does not believe in the zero-sum game and does not believe in a fixed pie fallacy instead I believe that when someone gets richer they must employ an extraordinary mind of people a to take a huge risk they'd hire them like chance no no wait a second a lot of people thought that that was he was like baiting me on that but that when we have talked about zero-sum it has not been in the context of economic growth and it's not I think they just pit I mean I'm you mentioned that it's hard to imagine that they didn't have some you think I mean he gets at for time would give him some credit I'm sure he or somebody around him listened to the show once we get a total misunderstanding of are you telling okay Oh succeed they probably borrowed money and then they had to create something that all of us had to buy over and over and over again that inherently allows the standard of living to increase for all people prices to usually go down and then you can enter competition it's very very difficult to do that time and time again and you see in market-based economies you have to have really really good ideas for a long period of time to accumulate that kind of wealth but that being said those that get wealthy because of access to power such as 8 out of 10 wealthiest counties in America around Washington DC they're not actually creating anything that I would consider to be a value to the middle class because they're being rewarded to their geographic proximity to a four point four trillion dollar federal budget that is extracting money away from middle-class Americans those are the lobbyists those are the trial lawyers those are the people working for the corporations that are lobbying not on behalf of middle America but on behalf of people around Washington DC so in that you and I will agree well okay the people who live in that the the the counties are talking about are overwhelmingly arms sales and military industrial complex people I'm not the front administration raised the budget military I don't agree by seven hundred billion dollars over the next ten years and that money is flowing into the wrong I don't agree with that those so I will okay that's it my point is Donald Trump is the one who is leading but your action so first of all but let me finish it then you second interrupt you if you say if I said something wrong yes so it's only seven hundred million dollars of our budget every single years the but what's the rest its to entitlements it is to be robberies it was about the government contracts for housing urban development contracts were helping me material you were talking what about the government contracts yeah so those counties that got the diamond contracts outside of the defense contracts or also what I write my critique minuscule the three point two trillion dollars is not mention the lien on to made up number let's talk Kansas for a moment shall we because I wish I wish to explain why I was a made-up number well all right so the fact of the matter is that our budget the the biggest expenses we have our Medicare Social Security and the military and then the entire rest of the government is like about a fifth of the remaining money that we spend maybe it's a little bit less than a fifth but let's just call it a fifth and so any like the HUD contracts he's talking about are are minuscule compared to the rest of the budget and I Got News for you here's what no one in those counties are making money off of Social Security there's just there they're not there's no way for them they're not selling Social Security I like how he agrees with you about the military industrial contractors in Virginia but the second thing he had to mention was as opposed to that the most famous thing in those suburbs he mentioned trial lawyers there are there's no trial lawyers living in those areas either I would say that the that is that is probably one of the few jurisdictions where there's just not a lot of trial lawyers about all the trial lawyers think tanks in Arlington that are funded by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon part of the problem is is like with some of the times and this is something that I got to work on the context in Dube is like I couldn't even understand what his point was it was so like sort of disparate so I had to choose one and that's basically the trick in these things is that what is the the you know the the overall notion is that you're getting ripped off by five different groups that are just maybe associated what he's talking about maybe not and so you pick one but then I want it to basically take the offensive and talk about Kansas because theoretically we were still talking about the tax cuts because it was the only question you're asked okay can talk about what a small business does for employment I'm a small businessman and I understand what small business does in Kansas if I had been living in Kansas I would have gotten a huge huge tax break because huge I'm an escort huge under Sam Brownback back in 2012 he brought in Arthur Laffer who I'm sure you're familiar with is the God for folks like you in many respects the idea being if we cut taxes on the wealthy they will spread this wealth it will trickle down on all of us it will will shower down on us right it will rain upon us and we will all be sprinkled with this golden shower if you will and and the economy will explode and people will have jobs and everything will work out in fact revenue will go up that's what Mitch McConnell told us after this tax cut - and what happened in Kansas was a disaster it was such an unmitigated disaster not only did it destroy Kansas is educational system the republican-controlled state House rose taxes four years later because their economic growth lagged their employment lagged and then Sam Brownback was literally made ambassador to like ether right he's like the ambassador to religion now he's been jettisoned into the atmosphere in some way because that is the perfect example of the Republican conservative philosophy and it failed and we know that right now a national-level night repenter because Mitch McConnell made the same promise about the deficit in fact Larry Kudlow the chief economic advisor of the president made the same promise in July and we now have a deficit that is twice the size it was when Obama left office and now Mitch McConnell wants to cut Medicare and Social Security let me because of those taxes you're or not you're not gonna hear me you're not gonna hear me defend was it for one second now I will just say this there some people had a complaint that I was using the deficits in this context because there really isn't a problem with these deficits however deficits are used exactly in the way that Mitch McConnell has used them which is to use to justify because most people in this country and I am NOT one of those people but I live in this country and I have to take the terms as they exist on some level I could argue that deficits don't matter but then I've taken myself out of this argument and once I argue that deficits don't matter in this context I don't have a response for why for you know the way that Mitch McConnell uses them and so they are using these as a justification these deficits as a justification for cutting Social Security and Medicare and so I didn't want to have the argument about MMT in this context because it wasn't just the modern monetary theory but so just I just want to note that for people I don't think deficits are that problematic except to the extent that they are used as a justification to cut the most important programs for Americans so really in many respects when you get a tax cut like this it is zero-sum because if if it wasn't zero-sum for them they wouldn't pretend to care about the deficit or are exploiting national debt quickvac rock obama had and word enter the present us Esther you know offend what do you defend these tax cuts that have doubled the deficit so the tax cuts should have been coupled with spending cuts however we have explosive economic growth we have more people in the labor force than ever that's revenue coming here you have trillions of dollars repatriating back to America let me finish I allowed you to have your cams example now that we're talking about states let's talk about the juxtaposition of the failed state of California with the successful state of Texas [Applause] and I think I want a country that's gonna look a lot more like Florida and Texas and a lot less like Illinois in California now what up states like Illinois and California done well they're losing citizens number one they're losing job creators they're losing entrepreneurs because they have raised taxes they have reckless politicians in both states like Illinois in California what have Texas and Florida done they've kept their taxes low both have no state income tax they have deregulated their economie