Harry's Hot Takes
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Harry's Hot Takes
Two Guys Walk Into the Middle East... Or NYC - Ft. Yali
Israel and Palestine are back in the spotlight (like they ever left), Trump is playing pragmatist-in-chief while Biden snoozes through history, New York politics are somehow even messier than the subway, and everyone’s suddenly an expert on DEI, immigration, and who should succeed Trump in 2028. Oh, and Yali showed up to drop Bible timelines and realpolitik like it’s a TED Talk nobody asked for.
In this second episode of Harry’s Hot Takes, Harry Goldberg (ft. Yali) dives into the chaos of the Middle East, the madness of NYC, and the circus of American politics — with sarcasm, hot takes, and zero filters.
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Harry's Hot Takes. We have a very special guest today on episode two, my friend, Yali. Hope you enjoy. Welcome back to the second episode of Harry's Hot Takes. I'm here with my friend Yali. Yali, how are you doing today?
SPEAKER_00:I'm doing great, Harry. What are we going to talk about today? I heard it's a light topic. It is a
SPEAKER_02:light topic. I think we're going to start out today with the Israel-Palestine debate. What are your thoughts on that? What have you been thinking? I
SPEAKER_00:mean, with no biases of my own, it's an interesting conflict, right? It's been going on for... I mean, okay, it depends when you want to start it, right? Because if we're talking about modern state of Israel... the conversation only becomes relevant in like the 1800s, right? But if you're talking about like Israel as a whole and the entire conflict and the forces behind it, you gotta go back like 3,000 years, right? And for people without, you know, knowledge of the biblical sense, if you didn't go to Sunday school or private school or like Jewish school or like Islam school or you didn't study the Bible at all, it kind of won't make sense, right? Exactly,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. I think that this is a topic that we can only talk about in the modern day. I don't really know I really think we can go back 3,000 years, even though it does go back that far, because it doesn't really affect how we're seeing it now.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, so you don't want me to turn your podcast into like a Bible lesson? Okay, fine,
SPEAKER_02:fine. No, no, you can, whatever you'd like. Anyway, my first question for you is, as someone who has very heavy opinions on this topic, are you able to view it unbiasedly? And do you think that the other side is able to view it unbiasedly? I
SPEAKER_00:think I'm always gonna have some type of bias. I can talk about it in an unbiased sense, but whenever, like to be honest and open, whenever I'm talking about the conflict, I'm obviously going to take one side, right? I'm going to try to, and I'm always going to be leaning towards Israel. And I don't think, I think if you're educated on the topic from a third perspective, right? I think you can be unbiased. Do I think the other side can be unbiased? What do you mean the other side? Like, I think, I think if you're, I don't like to use the word Palestinian, right? But if you're someone from the Arab world or you identify yourself with, you know, that kind of culture, I don't think you can
SPEAKER_02:be, I
SPEAKER_00:don't think you can be- Yeah, of
SPEAKER_02:course the people who feel like they're, I don't know, losing more are going to be more biased. And I think we can see that. When October 7th even happened, I mean, that was a very, very big, sad, and considerable loss for Israel. I mean, many people were killed. Many, many terrible things happened. And I think that you can say that Israel did become a little bit more biased. Israelis, I mean, did become a little bit more biased at that point. And I think it's a fair assumption to say that when people do, quote-unquote, lose, I don't like that word in this situation, because it's a much more delicate situation than just losing. But they do become more biased. So I get what you're saying. And I think the other side, I guess we're on more of the Israel side, will try to be as unbiased as possible for the sake of the podcast. But I think that the side that does quote unquote lose more will be more biased is what you're saying, correct?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I think post-October 7th is a completely different conversation, right? Because I have like tons of friends who were on like... So in Israel, the politics are kind of skewed It's not like America. You don't have Democrat, Republican. It's more, I guess, religious based, right? You don't really have a clear separation of church and state. You've got the religious and the ultra religious, right? They're pretty much on the right. Then you've got the moderately religious who you'll find most of the time on the right. Then the secular, which is like half the population. And there will be also depends where. And then you have the, and that's, I'm talking Jews in Israel. And then you have the minorities in Israel. So the Arab Israeli minority and the Druze minority who are kind of and then I guess Arab Christian Arab Muslim they vote differently and then Druze are also considered on the right right and so in Israel right politically the conversation has shifted a lot from okay we can make peace to post October 7th seeing the atrocities and everything like there's been a lot more calls to you know take back Gaza because if you don't know the you know background Israel gave um Israel gave the Palestinians Gaza in, again, I say Palestinians. 2005, 2006. Yeah, they withdrew their forces. They didn't withdraw the forces. They kicked out. They kicked out
SPEAKER_02:Israelis, the Israelis. And then they withdrew their forces a little bit later in like 2007, I believe, right? Yeah, they withdrew the forces. The timeline there might be off, but
SPEAKER_00:yeah. No, 2005 though. I'm talking about 2005 where they forced Israelis out of their home and they said, okay, take this strip of land. We want to have peace. Here's the deal. And then, you know, Hamas got elected and then... There's been wars. Yeah, and that was supposed to be
SPEAKER_02:a democratic decision, which turned out to be a major, I guess you'd call it a dictatorship. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:Terrorism. It's definitely not what's happening right now in Washington, D.C. I don't know if we can get to that later. It wasn't a full-blown occupation. Unlike the West Bank or Judea and Samaria, Gaza had full autonomy. And they basically squandered it. They had a terrific piece of land on the Mediterranean. I think it was Trump who said the real estate there could be priceless.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think when Trump came into office, all of this changed. I think during the Biden era, all of this was out of the question. I think another occupation of Gaza was out of the question. I think it was looking more and more like Israel would have to go in there and just fully clean the house and then back out again and let Hamas take over. I think now we're looking at a very different world where Trump is looking to assemble some sort of alliance in the Middle East that can hopefully form a new type of PA to combine with Israel to take Gaza over again.
SPEAKER_00:You know, Harry, are you familiar with the phrase realpolitik?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right? So you want to explain to the viewers?
SPEAKER_02:I'll let you do that. I mean, I learned this in high school a few years ago, so I'd like you to brush me up on it.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, thanks for letting everyone know how you're like 12 years old. Anyways. Exactly,
SPEAKER_02:exactly. Well, Anyways. 20, 20. Yeah, continue. Anyways, realpolitik, right?
SPEAKER_00:Bismarck, he was a German politician. He was the one who united Germany and realpolitik, it's a German word, right? Meaning like pragmatic politics. It's basically the philosophy of we don't do politics based off our ideology or like, you know, what we think and feel. It's basically off real people choices and real effects, right? So not based off of race, religion, creed, or like moral values but what's really going to happen and kind of like that, right? I feel like Trump really doesn't embody that, right? Like Biden would go nonsensically about a lot of things, right? But him and kind of the American left in general don't really have a pragmatic approach and are very ideological. The right is too, and they have a similar mistake, right? But the thing with, I guess, Trump's America and Trump's right-leaning people, and it's not only the right, it's him, you have Tulsi Gabbard who's on the left, left, RFK is on the left. They're all, I mean, RFK is a bad example. I wouldn't call
SPEAKER_02:Tulsi Gabbard on the left at this point. I would say she's much more of a centrist and I would
SPEAKER_00:say that she's more aligned with the Republican party. I guess you could say center right to Trump. You have people who, yes, some of them are fueled by ideology, but Trump himself is a pragmatist. Obviously he has his own beliefs and everything, but the way he approaches negotiations, like a businessman, right? In business, and you know, I'm kind of in the business world. I work in New York. Like it's, I'm very business centric. You don't really, you don't, you don't not do a deal with a person because you disagree on who to vote for mayor or stuff like that in the business world we all kind of really agree on who not to vote for right
SPEAKER_02:yeah we'll talk about that soon yeah
SPEAKER_00:but like it's more of a hey you want to make a deal i want to make a deal what's the bottom line and how can we achieve it with you know the least amount of pain or i guess cost in general right
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_00:so here with israel palestine it's oh how can we get how can we get to peace with the least amount of of lives suffered, right? What are people able to give up, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, I think that the bottom line here is that when you talk about Trump, he's a guy who gets it done. He doesn't really care about what people think. He doesn't care as much about being canceled because that dude has literally been quote unquote canceled hundreds of times. He just wants to get the job done. And I think that's something Biden didn't ever do or didn't really care to do. And I think that the issue with both parties, the Republican and the Democratic Party, is that they're both scared of what their followers think, but I don't think that's the issue with Trump. And I think that you can come back to America here and what's happening now in Washington with the National Guard coming in and see the same thing. He doesn't care, even though Washington is a very Democratic area, he doesn't care that he's going to get like hated for that uh i think i think this this is something that he's great at and i think that he's great at just getting the job done and i think that's what's going to happen here with gaza i think that's what he's trying to do with the entire middle east he's just trying to ignore people who who think they know what they're talking about and get the job done work with bb work with the saudi arabians work with whoever he has to even if he doesn't like them and i don't know if trump particularly likes bb i don't know if he particularly likes anybody outside of outside of his you know circle yeah outside of himself but it doesn't matter because because what matters right now is that he's getting the job done and that's all we can really focus on right now.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, personally, right, the thing with Trump was, so Trump won, if people don't talk about this, personally, I think Trump should have won the Nobel Peace Prize for this, was, yes, Harry D. Abraham Accords, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like, the Abraham Accord... And, like, we could talk about Isra Passa for the entire podcast. We won't, right? I just, like... Harry wanted to get... We wanted to get the jump started with, you know, some light conversation about a flowery topic, right? Yeah. But I think the... Like, just a final touching point. I think we can move on to something else next. But, like... When we're talking about the Abraham Accords and the impact it had, you know, Morocco, the Arab countries, Saudi Arabia was in talks, and some people are saying that October 7th largely happened because Hamas and, you know, some other negative players wanted to stop Saudi from joining the Abraham Accords, which they totally were going to, right? Of course, of course. It's economic development. Like, Saudi just, I don't know, people didn't really talk about it a lot, but Saudi signed a huge economic deal with Trump when he went there, but the Abraham Accords as just a piece in economic development and I guess are raising the quality of life in all these countries and it's peace and it's prosperity and it's wealth and I feel like that's what Trump is about, right? Of course, yeah. I
SPEAKER_02:completely agree with you. I do personally believe that that's why October 7th happened. I don't know. Obviously, I don't think any of us will ever know but I do think that Trump has been like the world's antagonist for the last eight years and no one sees him as the protagonist because all these countries who are our enemy portray him as this antagonist who's against him. But we're finally seeing the tides turning and we're finally seeing all these people just kind of kneel down and kind of say, oh yeah, Trump, we like you.
SPEAKER_00:Kiss the ring. Kiss the ring,
SPEAKER_02:exactly. And that has to do with the fact that he's getting the job done and they can't really do anything to say otherwise.
SPEAKER_00:I feel like I disagree with you on that point. Like, I mean, yeah, we see Trump antagonists because we're like, we're in the West and we see Western media and stuff. Like in Western Europe, sure, they don't like Trump. And here, you know, you know, you don't really want to wear a MAGA hat in the middle of the village, right? In New York.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But at the same time, right? If you go to Israel, Trump is very well loved because he's done a lot for the country and the people like there really do, you know, respect him. Trump, he's a great president for America, but he's also been a big support. His foreign policy is unmatched, right? Especially in terms of the Israeli-Arab conflict because I feel like calling it the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not accurate historically, right? Palestinians only uses a term to describe the Arabs living in what is now Israel in the 60s right before then Palestinian was a term that encompassed everyone before the state of Israel yeah the conflict was really with Arab countries right
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_00:and so like and there's been conflict with other countries as well but like Trump has just been great for that I think he's a big he's a big law and order guy which kind of ties in back to what he's doing in Washington right
SPEAKER_02:I agree yeah I think I think he's he's he's doing what needs to be done in Washington now I think there's a lot of crime there I was there a few weeks back and I heard some people getting mugged, injured, shot. I heard people getting their jaws broken, and I heard of so many just... crimes happening that could easily be stopped, but Washington has become a very Democratic area, and I don't say that to shit on people who are Democrats. I don't say that to prop up Republicans. I say that because that area has become so messed up in a way that Trump is the only one, honestly, who I think has the guts to fix it, and I think that's why he sent the National Guard in, and I think you'll see people hating him for anything he does, whether it's sending the National Guard into Washington, whether it's deportations, whether it's supporting Israel even though I don't personally think he likes BB even though I don't personally think he agrees with everyone he works with I think he's whatever I mean I mean I don't think we can speak to their personal relationship I the only thing I think we can say is that he's getting the job done in the way he has to and in regard to that I do have a question for you about that what why do you think he he decided to send a National Guard to Washington do you think it has to do with the fact that that's the main political landscape and he's making a demonstration do you think because there's more there's there's more importance cities for him to send it send it into i mean no the mayor of chicago just called him out on on not even stepping foot there because he threatened to send the national guard there next um what are your thoughts on that
SPEAKER_00:i mean i'm i'm gonna sound like i'm dodging your question for the first half but just like stay with me on this like mini tangent right
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_00:so trump and i guess conservatism in america recently as a whole has been bringing the country back to normalcy right post covid we saw mass hysteria everywhere right um i like you saw in you saw like people were bringing their politics and gender ideology into the classroom yeah race relations in the u.s were into work into work into work into work into the classroom everywhere right on it was just ridiculous right
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_00:like you don't want to be sitting in a lecture hall you know sharing pronouns for 30 minutes right that's not like yeah that's not a productive use of time right and
SPEAKER_02:people can do what they want but i don't think that you shouldn't influence that on everyone
SPEAKER_00:else listen respecting and love to everyone but i don't want i don't want to push it in my face i don't want to push it in my kids faces like it's not
SPEAKER_02:not that you have kids i mean
SPEAKER_00:i don't have kids but you get the point
SPEAKER_02:yeah you're talking future you know god willing yeah but i get exactly what you're saying i completely agree i i think that everyone can mind their own business but i don't think that you should push your business into other people's faces if you want your business respected
SPEAKER_00:hold on wait like still into my phone but yeah no 100 definitely a thing right so covid you had crazy gender ideology you had like race tensions after um what happened with george floyd i won't comment on that but after what happened with him um there was like race relations just boiled up it was all-time high tension in the u.s that plus biden getting elected the pandemic itself people were going nuts right
SPEAKER_02:yeah i think that i think just just to make a point i think that having a president who was honestly barely functional and i know we're not going to get into this right now but i just want to make a point here having a president that was barely functional and basically allowing people, companies, pharma to do whatever they wanted and then switching back to Trump. So you basically have him sandwiched between Trump, kind of makes Trump seem like a bad guy because you have him making so many rules and people are calling him out for taking away freedoms when in reality, before you were just allowing crime and nonstop violence to happen. I think that's just a point to be made.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, 100%. But I don't think it was Biden. I think it's just as a whole, the country was just going farther away. Yeah, the country was
SPEAKER_02:a mess. into war. I think it went into division. I think it went into DEI policies. I think it went into separating us even more. And I do think that the country was tricked in a way from that. And I think that Trump kind of actually now in this term, not his first term, I think he's being much smarter now in regard to how he's unifying the country. I think he's bringing that back a little bit. And I do think that even though he's setting the National Guard in, which might seem scary to some, I think that people are overreacting and underreacting to the things that are more important and so as New York. I mean, what's happening there right now is crazy. What's going to happen in November if this Zoran guy wins? I'm a little bit concerned about that, too. I don't know if you want to comment on that.
SPEAKER_00:We can talk about it later, but back into the D.C. stuff. I think Zoran's awful, right? As someone who lives and works in the city, just completely awful. I registered to vote today, right? And I can say that I intended not to vote for him.
SPEAKER_02:You registered to vote in the city, you're saying?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, in the city. I just hadn't registered about and like it was like a whole backpiling thing right right to re-register was a whole whole thing i felt like i moved changed addresses um so yeah also so you know back to back to the whole culture right just has been skewed since we can say 2012 right
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_00:dei race gender all that has just been the things that meant
SPEAKER_02:to unify us that they said would unify us have really divided
SPEAKER_00:us that's what you're saying it's kind of like a third worlder mentality in the sense where like um you're trying to you blame you blame the colonizer not the colonized right i don't think it's a it's a bad analogy i i
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Can I comment on that? I think
SPEAKER_02:that Democrats specifically, this is not me saying anything bad. I just think that when they hear Republicans saying DEI or saying DEI is bad, when Republicans use the word DEI, it's seen as a hate crime. And when Democrats use it, it's seen as a unifying thing. But how is it unifying when Republicans say it and they're just hated for it because they're being told that they're just hating? I do think that the term The term itself, DEI, could be a great thing. I think that diversity is a very important thing in this country. I don't think that forceful diversity is an important thing. And I think that what makes us America is the diversity, but the natural diversity. And I think that the left pushing it to this extreme and hating people who don't agree with the terms they make is a big, big issue.
SPEAKER_00:100%. If you're coming to this country... with no skill sets and you decide to do drugs and rob people and rape and pillage and all that, I mean, besides the fact you should get kicked out, right? Yeah. But like, that's not, that's like, that's what I mean by third world mentality when you like, you're, so there's two, you have two different types of immigrants from like, from countries in strife, right? You have the good immigrant, right? Who, and this is- Works their way here, works their way to get here. By the way, this is not race-based or culture-based or religion-based because I see Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Christians, Hindus, who all come from like, can you hear me still or?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I can, don't worry. We can still hear
SPEAKER_00:you. From all these like war-torn countries, right? They come, they build a better life. They own a mom and pop shop. They start a business. They, you know, have a, skill set or they or they gain a skill set they go to school they do whatever and they contribute to society in a positive way right they don't expect handouts for the government right I mean at at first you know if they need like help you know to start I don't personally I don't think that's the government's job but that's a separate issue we can make right and then you have the other type of immigrant which you see a lot here I mean they come from through the southern border which I think Trump also did a great job stopping that but in Europe you see them a lot coming from the north of Africa and kind of of western asia right yeah like right it's like if you've been to europe it's just awful it's a mess it's a mess it's not even a girl like like a girl or a guy alone walking in paris right not even
SPEAKER_02:especially a jew especially a jew it's
SPEAKER_00:especially a jew especially a jew right like i took off all my uh religious iconography that i wear proudly um it's scary it's a scary thing to
SPEAKER_02:do even in the city when i go on the subway now i I'd put my Star of David in my neck and like in my shirt. It's scary.
SPEAKER_00:It's scary and it shouldn't be like
SPEAKER_02:that. Speaking of that, I do want to move to the next topic because we are running short on time. We did not talk about Washington. We did not talk about, I know we skipped it a little bit, but I do want to talk about New York and then Trump a little bit more, Trump and his successor possibly. There's been a lot of talk online of Zohar al-Mamdani. I see people, even Jews, which shocks me, not because he's Muslim, not because of any of that, but due to the fact that he's openly said that he thinks Hamas are freedom fighters. He's openly been for socialist policies in the city. What are your thoughts on his policies? Do you think he can actually fulfill what he's promising, which is so much that doesn't make sense? Not only that it doesn't make sense, but it's bad. A lot of the stuff is objectively bad for the city, and I think a lot of people don't see that. What are your thoughts on his policies, real quick?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so here's a couple things. First off, you mentioned his view on you know, Hamas and Israel-Palestine. Personally, if you're the mayor of New York City, I don't give two shits what you think about Israel, right? I might be from an Israeli background, but I personally, you're here to be the mayor of New York, you're not here to be the mayor of Tel Aviv, right? Yeah, it bothered me too
SPEAKER_02:when the news anchors asked Cuomo and Adams about that during the panel. Stupid question. It bothered me as well. I don't think it should affect anything, but the fact that he answered so oppositely and so kind of full of hate kind of bothers me. I do think it's an issue.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I don't think it's, it's not, it's not, it's not a matter of, oh, do you support Israel? It's, are you going, are you going to make the city safe for the residents that have been experienced for all residents, but also more pointedly, the residents have been experiencing the most hate crimes period and the most hate crimes per capita in the city. And you can fact check me on that, right? Jews have gotten the overwhelmingly Asians are number two, right? East, East Asians, right?
SPEAKER_02:I can, I can track McKee. Keep talking, keep going.
SPEAKER_00:All right, but Jews are overwhelmingly the most hate-crimed group in America and in New York City, right? And the fact that Zoran has nothing to say about that and that he's spousing, you know, from the river to the sea, slogans literally meaning, let's push the Jews into the sea, right? That's what from the river to the sea means, right? There's a phrase in Arabic, itba al-yahud, right? I butchered the pronunciation. It basically means drive a Jew, right? Just to
SPEAKER_02:clarify, by the way, yes, the number one... in 2024 was Jewish hate crimes. It also says there were a bunch of anti-Muslim hate crimes. I don't think those are from Jews. I believe that that's true. And yes, I do believe it says East Asian in America is one of the top few that has risen over the last few years. I don't know if that has to do with radical Islam. I don't know if that has to do with the hate for Hinduism, because I don't know if you know about this, but there's a lot of Muslim population there that they don't like the Hindu people there. It's a big issue, and I think that that's happening in New York now slowly, but that's a debate for another time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but anyways, I think that alone should disqualify him, but also from someone in the business world and from that perspective, I think his policies are just awful. State-run grocery stores...
SPEAKER_02:They don't work,
SPEAKER_00:and it doesn't lower prices. I will personally pay for a one-way ticket for him from here to Venezuela, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I think that it's an awful idea, and I think that not only does it not work, but it doesn't lower prices for anybody. It raises taxes, and it's ridiculous. It's going to increase theft. There's not going to be any produce left in the stores because people are just going to be stealing things. We're looking at another LA here, basically, and it's a big, big issue.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I don't think we're there yet, but I think if Zoran was to take control, I think we would be looking at another LA.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_00:In terms In terms of bringing like the National Guard, I mean, just to circle back to Washington a little bit, I think it was a good idea, right? You need to clean up cities and it's good ideologically to bring- I
SPEAKER_02:agree.
SPEAKER_00:To clean up our cities, to beautify our country. I feel like it's an important thing to bring back things to normalcy, you know, pre-2012.
SPEAKER_02:I agree. I agree. Listen, speaking of successors, Zoran Adams, what do you think about Trump? There's a lot of talk about him being sick right now. God forbid anything happens to him, but what are you thinking about 2028? Listen, I
SPEAKER_00:don't even want to think about Trump being sick. I think he's fine. I think it's the media trying to, you know, pose him as incompetent after it was so obvious that Biden was not in good health. I agree. I agree. I think he's an old guy. I think he's an old guy. He
SPEAKER_02:has a blood condition. He does. They released that a few weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00:But it doesn't affect his mental or physical capacity at all. It doesn't. It doesn't. I don't see why it's our business. I mean, yeah, we should know how, you know, the president of our country is doing, but he seems healthy. He's functioning, right? He's not. He doesn't have. I think
SPEAKER_02:that the bruise on his hand is completely normal for an old man like that
SPEAKER_00:for a 79 You have grandparents, I have grandparents. We've all seen the discolored stuff on their hands. It's a normal thing for older people to have discoloration on their skin, especially at his age.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's absurd people saying this when they excused Biden's behavior over the last four years. I'm not going to even be biased here. It's just absolutely ridiculous. I do.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, not to get into it, but I think, so are you saying who I think is going to be the successor or who I want to be the successor? I'm
SPEAKER_02:saying both. I'm saying who do you think is most likely I really do believe it's JD Vance.
SPEAKER_00:I do think they're
SPEAKER_02:setting him up for that. I think that he's been very on the side right now. I think that he's been increasingly in the media. I think that this whole thing with Trump has people talking about him, and whenever I see people talking about his successor, it's not just who would take over the presidency now if, God forbid, something happened to Trump. It's about four years from now, and it's about people saying, oh, JD Vance is the lesser of two evils, which I think is a terrible thing to say about the current president and vice president, but I do think most people see him as a successor in a way that the Democrats saw Kamala as a successor.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but I think it's different in the sense where Vance is actually competent, right?
SPEAKER_02:I do agree. I mean, I think that's more of our biases speaking, but even objectively, I can't really deny
SPEAKER_00:whether you agree with him.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, he's a businessman like Trump in a way. He came from nothing. I do think that he doesn't have that in common with Trump, which kind of makes him a great option. He came from nothing. He overcame addiction. He overcame a lot of hardship. heartache. He's a military man, and I think he would be a great leader for the country. I don't know who he would run with, maybe Marco Rubio, although I don't know how that would work. I don't know if they're going to try to get a woman in there for the vice president position. If they do, I mean, Tulsi Gabbard would be a great option, although I don't know if she'd be fit for that.
SPEAKER_00:So personally, I think, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:No, continue.
SPEAKER_00:I think what they're going to do is, I think they're going to put, Tulsi Gabbard's not going to be vice president. No. I mean, maybe as a diversity pick, I think they're going to run for primaries and see how it goes based off that of course so i think marco rubio because right now it's vance and ruby are like kicking ass and then they're going to keep hegseth on in the next administration right
SPEAKER_02:yeah i think whatever happens is you're going we're going to see them all running in the primaries and and i do think that
SPEAKER_00:um honestly i don't think so i don't think so i think like i hope to see listen in a perfect world you have either rubio or desantis winning the primaries right i like vance but not as much as i like those two
SPEAKER_02:right i don't think desantis could possibly win the presidency i I think he's way too divisive. I think that he needs to stay where he is, although he doesn't have much time left, obviously, in his position, but
SPEAKER_00:I do think... Yeah, he's at the end of his second
SPEAKER_02:term. Of course, but I do think that he needs to stay in Florida in some capacity. I don't think he can even win the presidency. He's not as great a speaker as Trump. We saw that in the last election. I mean, he got completely destroyed by several other candidates.
SPEAKER_00:I don't think he's an option. I think you're misconflating stuff, and this, I guess, goes back to tradition. Trump was a soundbite president, right? I mean, his policies were great, right? But what really made Trump shine? Trump is a rock star, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like you go to a Trump rally, it's like going to an Elvis concert,
SPEAKER_02:right? I agree with you, although I'm going to give a hot take here. I do think that DeSantis is not only not good with soundbites, he's just, he's unliked. He's disliked by even Republicans. His policies are very, very radical, even though I do agree with many of them. And I think that he doesn't have a great chance. He doesn't have a great chance of winning the presidency. They need someone who is very similar to Trump in the policies, but has a much softer personality. And I do think that that's Vance. I think he's very well liked. I think he has young kids. I think he has a wife who's an immigrant. And I think he has a very good chance for gaining that platform that Trump already has.
SPEAKER_00:Let's say both have the same chance of getting elected, right? Who would you rather vote for? I'll give you three options. And rank your options. Vance, DeSantis, and Rubio.
SPEAKER_02:I would go Vance, Rubio, DeSantis.
SPEAKER_00:Really? I would go Rubio, DeSantis, Vance.
SPEAKER_02:Why would you put Vance last? Is that experience-based? What is it? It's not even experience-based. I just...
SPEAKER_00:It's not vibes-based. I think DeSantis just kind of came out of nowhere, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like, he was very anti-Trump, and then he flipped, which, I mean, a lot of people were, even Ben Shapiro. Well, so
SPEAKER_02:was... Yeah, but so was Rubio, and DeSantis had points. I mean, I suppose... Yeah, that was during the election, but, I mean, it's not a bad thing to me that Vance flipped. I mean... You see that with Tulsi Gabbard as well. And you see Nikki Haley flipping the other way. You see her going against Trump, but of course that was after the election and after they kind of fought on stage.
SPEAKER_00:That's one thing. I mean, yes, but I also feel that Vance is just... I'm not saying he would be a bad president, right? I just don't like him as much as I like Rubio or... I really, really like Rubio, especially like Rubio or DeSantis. I think DeSantis, what he's doing in Florida, right, just serves as like policy for the whole country. He's not DEI and Florida's got... Florida's a pretty diverse place. You know, you've got white Americans, you've got Hispanic Americans, you've got all different countries. You do, but you have
SPEAKER_02:to really think of his policies.
SPEAKER_00:Listen, I mean, we can't really say what's... going to happen. Name one bad policy that DeSantis has in Florida.
SPEAKER_02:I'm not going to call it a bad policy. I just think a lot of his stuff against LGBTQ would turn a lot of Republicans off. I don't think that...
SPEAKER_00:I don't think, because I don't think it's been anti-LGBTQ. I think it's been anti showing it to kids, which I think is totally fair. You have
SPEAKER_02:to consider how it comes across, though, to
SPEAKER_00:the general public. You're right. It's not an electable policy, but Trump ran on like an anti... Trump ran on an anti-trans position and won.
SPEAKER_02:Trump did not run on an anti-trans position. Trump totally ran on an anti-trans position. Trump ran with anti-trans people who had anti-trans positions. Trump himself did not really care. Trump ran on an anti-immigration platform. He did not even run on an anti-abortion platform, which many blame him for. And people said that, oh, if Trump wins, women's rights are going to be taken away. Well, guess what? Roe v. Wade was overturned when Trump was not even in office. And then they blamed him for having an influence over it. So you can't say that Trump had an anti-trans platform. You can't say he had an anti-abortion platform because he didn't. There was nothing that he said that was anti-trans, aside from not wanting trans people, trans athletes in the Olympics and athletics, that's not anti-trans. That's just common sense, and I don't think he ran an anti-trans platform. So what's
SPEAKER_00:the difference between that to you? I guess I don't see it the same way, but for you, I guess, what's the difference between Trump's women not in men's sports, which, by the way, for the most part, if you're talking to a a trans person or someone who aligns with that ideology, there's not a big difference between Trump and Vance.
SPEAKER_02:I'm not talking about a trans person because chances are a trans person is not going to vote for either of them. I'm talking about other LGBTQ groups, gay people. I'm talking about everyone else because talking about trans people here is not applicable because they are most likely voting Democrat if we're being real. So I'm not going to get into specifics here because I don't want to say anything that I'm not exactly knowledgeable on. I'm just saying that DeSantis has very, very openly been anti-trans, and I'm not just talking with kids, I'm not just talking with with policy in regard to athletics. I'm talking about he is against surgeries. He's against any type of hormone treatment. And I'm not saying that I disagree with any of that. I'm not saying I agree with it. I'm not saying that Trump disagrees or agrees with any of it. I'm just saying Trump did not run on that platform. Vance didn't. Rubio didn't. And I don't think that DeSantis has a chance of winning the election when so many LGBTQ people would not like him. It's not only about trans people. And I think that there's a much better time to talk about this when we're closer to that election because there's not much we can say now. So
SPEAKER_00:I do want to close up. Obviously right now it's all speculation. You would need like the primaries to start. I completely agree. So I
SPEAKER_02:do want to have you back on. I think that this is a great topic to talk about. We have much more to talk about in regard to Israel. Once Zoran wins, we'll have you back on and we'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_00:What do you mean once? Don't say that, Harry. Well, it's looking more and more likely. I really hope not. Listen, you live nowhere near the city, right? Saying that to someone, that's dangerous, right?
SPEAKER_02:I know. I really hope not. We'll see what happens. Don't manifest it, Habibi. We'll see what happens. I will not manifest it, but it was great having you on. Thank you so much for coming on, Yali.
SPEAKER_00:Harry, it's been a pleasure, right? Read up a bit next time, but yeah, appreciate it,
SPEAKER_02:man. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in to Harry's Hot Takes.
SPEAKER_00:I
SPEAKER_02:really hope you enjoyed this episode. We're going to have some more episodes coming up and try to get some more guests
SPEAKER_00:on. And remember, kids, Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, well, that's Yali. That's Yali being Yali. We'll see you guys next time. Have a great rest of your day.
UNKNOWN:Bye, y'all.