High Signal Podcasts Evidence ledger
Method
Browse
← Back to evidence

Evidence receipt / recommendation

Published · transcript-backed

Cenk Uygur: recommendation

30 Aug 2024 Lex Fridman Podcast #441 – Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism

“I think Biden should have done the same thing as Obama and Pelosi and not endorse, and say, “Hey, we’d love to have a process where we figure out who the right nominee is.”

— Cenk Uygur

Source trail

Everything needed to verify it.

Speaker
Cenk Uygur
Attribution
Verified speaker
Claim type
recommendation
Recorded
30 Aug 2024
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

Transcript context

…But why is that an of course? Why not say sort of layout Walz and Shapiro and Kamala Harris, and the options to say, lets at least the facade of democracy, of a democratic process. There’s what should happen and what is likely to happen. So should Biden not have endorsed? Yeah, of course. I think Biden should have done the same thing as Obama and Pelosi and not endorse, and say, “Hey, we’d love to have a process where we figure out who the right nominee is. ” And at that point, I’m really worried about Kamala Harris, because she’s doing word salads nonstop. So I’m like, “Don’t make the same mistake we did before, and just pick someone out of a hat. Test them. Test them. You get stronger candidates when you test them.” The authoritarian nature of the DNC drives me crazy. They don’t believe in testing candidates. They don’t believe in letting their own voters decide. And look, when we were in the primary, they canceled the Florida election. And they took me, Dean and Marianne off the ballot in North Carolina and Tennessee. I’m like, “Guys, if you’re going to make a case for democracy in the general election and you cancel elections in the primaries, do you not get how ridiculous you look, how hypocritical you look?” So I didn’t want Biden to endorse anyone. But I’m shocked that they didn’t all endorse her. Because normally what happens is they all endorse. So bottom line Lex is, did she earn it in a perfect system, not even close, right? But did she earn it enough in this imperfect way where at least she showed some degree of competence that assuaged my concerns? Yes. So because a normal Democrat would bungle that. Like Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have talked to the delegates. She would assume that she’s the queen, and that they would all bow their heads. So the fact that she did elementary politics correct, for Democrats that’s like a big win. It just really frustrated me, because it smelled of the same thing of fucking over Bernie in 2015, 2016, and RFK, and just the anointing aspect. Now, they seem to have gotten lucky in this situation that it’s very possible that Kamala Harris would’ve been selected through a democratic process. But I have to say, listening to the speeches at the DNC, Walz was amazing. Shapiro was really strong. And Kamala actually was much better as compared to her as a candidate previously.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.

Search evidence