--:-- Noelle King: The video is titled, Can 25 Liberal College Students Outsmart One Conservative? The conservative is Charlie Kirk. The 25 students are game. The video has 35 million views. My next claim is that Kamala Harris is a DEI candidate.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: I think that you're going to say because she's black and she's a woman, she was appointed because Joe Biden promised that.
--:-- Noelle King: The video was produced by Jubilee Media, a new media company that draws millions of viewers with debates like Kirk versus kids.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: Many people have praised Charlie Kirk for engaging in these debates, including yesterday, Vice President J.D. Vance, who filled in on Kirk's podcast.
--:-- Noelle King: Everyone knew him as this fearless debater, this guy who would take the conservative message into hostile places and inspire younger generations to have courage.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: At the end, though, Veep took a dark turn. There is no unity with someone who lies about what Charlie Kirk said in order to excuse his murder.
--:-- [Music transitions to a commercial break]
--:-- Announcer (Macy's): Support for this show comes from Macy's. Layering is an art form. All it takes is a bit of intention, style, and of course, the perfect cold weather staples. So find the perfect look for you with the help of Macy's Fall Fashion Guide, your one-stop shop for fall's latest trends and must-haves, curated by their experts.
--:-- Announcer (Strawberry.me): Support for this show comes from Strawberry.me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job? Or are you stuck in one you've outgrown? Or never wanted in the first place?
--:-- Noelle King: I'm Noelle King with Spencer Kornhaber. He's a staff writer at The Atlantic. His beat is popular culture and he wrote about jubilee jubilee media is an online video content empire that has all sorts of entertaining videos that circulate on youtube and tiktok they include videos about very anodyne subjects like dating i have a question okay in a relationship are you baby girl or is the partner baby girl what the hell is a baby girl like pop culture how can you tell if someone is an anime super fan.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: It also includes a lot of political content. Democrats are more patriotic than Republicans. And my understanding of Democrats being really patriotic is destroying the nuclear family, burning down flags, burning down buildings.
--:-- Noelle King: We see just destruction in our cities.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: And generally the gist of Jubilee's approach is that they get regular people or people at least seem regular into a room, a bunch of strangers and have them talk about sort of difficult subjects, whether that's politics in the Middle East or what you find attractive.
--:-- Noelle King: You know, kind of third real topics become spectator sport entertainment in a Jubilee video.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: Tell me about the founder and what he's trying to do. You spoke to him, right?
--:-- Jason Wiley: Yeah. Jason Wiley is his name. And he is someone who hails from the world of business and tech. He was a consultant in his early 20s, making a lot of good money.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: But he felt like he wanted to do something that would enrich the world. We want to create content that will make the world a better place.
--:-- Jason Wiley: And use technology and online content to bring people together and spread a positive vision of society.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: I think in the midst of what we feel like is some of the most divisive times, that actually human connection and really understanding folks and having dialogue and empathy is quite a good thing.
--:-- Jason Wiley: Before he worked in consulting and business, he was an intern on the Barack Obama campaign. He worked with the Clinton Health Initiative.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: He was sort of like a young idealistic millennial.
--:-- Jason Wiley: He also comes from a Christian background in Kansas.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: I grew up as the younger child of two Korean immigrants and both of my parents are not only Korean but they're also professors.
--:-- Jason Wiley: That kind of background led into him founding Jubilee and he initially started it as a non-profit where he would make kind of socially conscious videos sort of like PSAs or short films with a message you know in hopes of using content to make the world better.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: In case you haven't heard heard about the Jubilee project. The mission is to make videos of people stepping out of the comfort zone for a day or doing something they love for a good cause.
--:-- Jason Wiley: Around 2016-2017, after Donald Trump's election, he felt like there was an opportunity for him to do something that was a for-profit business that would kind of dial up the entertainment value, but also make a very explicit effort to not just spread a positive message, but get people to move out of their ideological echo chambers and talk to one another from the right and the left.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: And so that became the Jubilee we see today.
--:-- [Music transitions to a commercial break]
--:-- Announcer (Vanta): Support for today's show comes from Vanta. If your mind can be blown by compliance automation let Vanta blow your mind says Vanta Vanta is a trust management platform that says they help businesses automate security and compliance Demonstrating trust to customers and prospects is critical to closing deals.
--:-- Announcer (Upwork): Support for Today Explained comes from Upwork. If you run a business, you know that scaling your business requires the right expertise at the right time.
--:-- Noelle King: I sometimes wonder how many of you are running businesses out there. I would love to know. Please email me, noelle at king dot com.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: With Upwork, you can find specialized freelancers in IT, web development, AI, design, admin support, marketing, and more.
--:-- Noelle King: Experts who they say are ready to help you take your business to the next level.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: With more than two decades of experience, Upwork has a simple and ambitious goal to pioneer a better way of working.
--:-- Noelle King: Companies at every stage turn to Upwork to get things done and find more flexibility in the way they staff key projects and initiatives by accessing a global marketplace full of top talent.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: Plus, Upwork makes posting your job easy with no cost to join.
--:-- Noelle King: You can register, browse freelancer profiles, get help drafting a job post, or even book a consultation.
--:-- Spencer Kornhaber: You can visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is Upwork.com to post your job for free and connect with top talents ready to help your business grow.
--:-- [Music transitions to a discussion]
--:-- Noelle King: Where did you learn to debate? Where did I learn to debate?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I think around the dinner table. My family is very disputatious.
--:-- Noelle King: The Hassans are known for having strong views.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: So there was a lot of debate around the kitchen table, the dining table, political, social, cultural, religious.
--:-- Noelle King: All of it, huh?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Yeah, still to this day.
--:-- Noelle King: Who's that?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: That's Mehdi Hassan. He's the author of Win Every Argument. He's a progressive. He's founder of the new media company Zeteo.
--:-- Noelle King: And his debate with 20 far-right conservatives went viral over the summer.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: We plan to do a show on the Jubilee debates and the argument about whether they are of value or not.
--:-- Noelle King: And we called you because you appeared in one of these debates that went very viral.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: And then Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah.
--:-- Noelle King: And many people said Charlie Kirk was doing it right. He was showing up. He was debating people he disagreed with. That's the right way to do politics.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Do you agree with that?
--:-- Noelle King: No, I don't believe that Charlie Kirk was practicing politics the right way.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: To quote former Vox boss, now New York Times columnist, Ezra Klein, a good friend of mine. I totally disagree with Ezra on that piece he wrote.
--:-- Noelle King: I don't think Charlie Kirk was practicing politics the right way.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I do have to add the standard caveat because Fox keep clipping some of us on the left out of context.
--:-- Noelle King: Obviously, he shouldn't have been killed. Obviously, we all condemn his murder.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Obviously, a political assassination in response to speech you don't like is unacceptable in America kind of very scary.
--:-- Noelle King: But if you're asking me about the content of what Charlie Cook did when he was alive, it was awful.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: It was horrific. It was reactionary. It was bigoted.
--:-- Noelle King: From his show to his quote-unquote debates, this idea that he was some kind of Socratic debater trying to get to the truth.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: No, he wasn't. He was doing a prove-me-wrong tour over the years where him and Ben Shapiro and others go to college campuses, find some guy with blue hair who says something provocative, and then dunk all over him and then clip it up and go viral and then have a YouTube video saying Charlie Kirk slash Ben Shapiro destroys college student.
--:-- Noelle King: All right. What about Jubilee? So Jubilee's a little bit different.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Jubilee claims to be non-partisan. They say that they are trying to get people from all sides to get in a room together.
--:-- Noelle King: I mean, on paper, what they're aspiring to is at minimum neutral, if not good.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: What turns up on YouTube is not necessarily always the case.
--:-- Noelle King: I think they have gone quite far in their audience selection, certainly on my show.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I think it's now universally recognized.
--:-- Noelle King: I think even Jubilee would recognize, even though they haven't put out an official statement, but I would hope they recognize that their vetting did not work.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: If they did indeed deploy vetting, it was an audience, you know, I thought we'd have one or two crazy people in.
--:-- Noelle King: It was one or two normal people and 17, 18 crazy people.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: When I say crazy, I mean outright self-proclaimed fascists, racists, and the rest.
--:-- [Discussion continues]
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I am Native American. Whites are Native Americans.
--:-- Noelle King: What are you talking about?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: What are you talking about?
--:-- Noelle King: I'd like to start to say I really don't find the Constitution that important.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I find it to be like a 300-year-old document.
--:-- Noelle King: You have to have at least some things in common in order to actually have a civilization.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: And immigrants, especially illegal immigrants that come into this country now, disrespect us.
--:-- Noelle King: They hate everything that we believe.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: They don't even speak our language.
--:-- Noelle King: So tell me why you decided to go on Surrounded.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: There were multiple reasons. One is, as I say, I like a good argument.
--:-- Noelle King: And 20 to 1, those are good odds.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I'll take those odds. So, you know, the idea of going into the lion's den and debating a bunch of people who disagree with me, I thought would be fun.
--:-- Noelle King: That's number one.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Number two, I spoke to my good friend Sam Seder from the Majority Report who had done a Jubilee.
--:-- Noelle King: And he told me that it's worth doing. It's not a setup. It is actually have value.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: You will reach a whole new audience.
--:-- Noelle King: And, you know, people like my daughter and my nieces and others were saying, oh yeah, Jubilee. We know Jubilee.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: All the kids watch Jubilee.
--:-- Noelle King: And it's amazing since I did Jubilee, how many younger people are now coming up to me in the street versus older people because they recognize me from that circle debate show.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: So it was a chance to reach a new audience.
--:-- Noelle King: That was number two.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: And number three, you know, it looked like a lot of right-wingers have been dominating that space.
--:-- Noelle King: You know, prior to me going on Jubilee, all the top rated people who had done Jubilee on YouTube with the most views were Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Candace Owens, Michael Knowles.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: That was you know the lean of YouTube and Jubilee
--:-- Noelle King: And I thought well actually maybe people like me and Sam Seder can you know try and give a different point of view
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: What happened?
--:-- Noelle King: What happened was the craziest two hours of my professional life as a journalist.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I was not expecting, and maybe I should have been, but I was not expecting the kind of people I sat across.
--:-- Noelle King: I'd watched a lot of Jubilees. I knew there's some nut jobs.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I knew there's some extremists.
--:-- Noelle King: I'd watched Sam Seder's show. I knew there were a couple of people who came and said white supremacist things and far-right things and dumb things.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: But I didn't expect one after another people to be telling me to my face that I should get the hell out.
--:-- Noelle King: I don't even like, I should get the hell out. Why?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I don't want you here.
--:-- Noelle King: Do you care more about helping Americans or immigrants in this claim?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Immigrants are Americans.
--:-- Noelle King: Well, immigrants are not Americans.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Americans are the people that were born here.
--:-- Noelle King: That's not true.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I'm a proud fascist, as one person told me very early on in the debate.
--:-- Noelle King: Hey, what can I say?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I think you say I'm a fascist. Yeah, I am.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Normally people want to deny the F-word.
--:-- Noelle King: We spent the last week with Republicans up in arms that anyone would call them fascists, and that's what led to the death of Charlie Coe.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: And yet here I was sitting in a warehouse in L.A. with a bunch of young, mainly white people saying proudly, yes, we are fascists, we are racists.
--:-- Noelle King: How do we debate fascists? Like, should a person debate fascists?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: No, I'm not.
--:-- Noelle King: And that's why I said at the time, if you watch that clip about halfway through the conversation, I said, what are we doing here?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I don't debate fascists.
--:-- Noelle King: And all of the right wingers watching in the circle, they got very upset because Jubilee then moved this guy out.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: And so many of them spent the next two hours.
--:-- Noelle King: Every time they came up to the chair to debate me, they would say, oh, you're banning people you don't agree with.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: First and foremost, I don't believe you're pro-American in the value system that you claim to uphold, especially with free speech, if you're not willing to debate people that don't share your values.
--:-- Noelle King: So isn't the whole entire point of the debate to debate people that you don't agree with?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: And I was like, that's not what it is.
--:-- Noelle King: I don't debate fascists because fascists don't believe in democracy.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: They don't believe in debate.
--:-- Noelle King: They don't believe in my equal worth as a human being.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: So why would I debate such people?
--:-- Noelle King: There is no debate to be had with people.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Fascism at its core is an anti-democratic authoritarian and, yes, very violent ideology.
--:-- Noelle King: So no, I don't believe there is value to debating fascists.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: And if I'd known that people would be sitting down, you know, dismissing the Holocaust of Jews or saying I'm a fascist or saying, you know, the country was built for white people or whatever it is, I would not have gone on that show, clearly, or I would have said get other people.
--:-- Noelle King: Look, I come from a proud anti-fascist tradition on the left where you don't platform fascists, you don't indulge them, you don't meet them halfway.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: You defeat fascism by defeating the ideology, by offering something better and by being truthful.
--:-- Noelle King: You know, a person who appreciated your appearance on Surrounded might say, look, these fasci types are out there.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: They're influencing young people in a real way.
--:-- Noelle King: At least you showed up and gave them a run for their money.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: No, that is the silver lining, I guess you could argue.
--:-- Noelle King: I guess, and this is going to make me sound very egomaniacal and immodest, so I apologize in advance.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: So I guess people could say, if you're going to debate fascists, might as well be someone who's good at debating.
--:-- Noelle King: And that's what I'm known for doing.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: So it better be than someone else who goes on and gets their ass handed to them.
--:-- Noelle King: So in that sense, I get it.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: But the counter argument I get as well, a lot of my critics were saying to me, just by going on, you legitimize them.
--:-- Noelle King: Just by going on, you amplified them.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Just by going on, you gave them credibility and respectability.
--:-- Noelle King: They were able to clip up their clips and put it online and say, look, look, look, we own this mainstream journalist.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: We told him to get the F out of our country.
--:-- Noelle King: Do you think you changed anyone's mind by appearing on Surrounded?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Certainly not in that room, no.
--:-- Noelle King: And that wasn't the goal.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: What is the goal in debating if not to change minds?
--:-- Noelle King: So my goal is not to change my opponent's mind.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Very rarely can you change your opponent's mind.
--:-- Noelle King: My goal is to change the people watching at home, whether they are watching on an audience live in an auditorium when you're debating on stage, as I have done, or whether you're debating on YouTube and you know that 10 or 11 or whatever 12 million people now have watched that surrounded show.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: You're hoping that in that 12 million or 11 million people, there are even a handful of people who are, you know, these days it's very hard to find truly open-minded, truly independent people.
--:-- Noelle King: Most people are partisans, whether they want to admit so or not.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: But you hope that you found some independent folks to go, hmm, that's a good point that I hadn't heard before.
--:-- Noelle King: That's a good statistic that I wasn't aware of.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: That's a good way of framing the issue that I haven't heard from my elected leaders.
--:-- Noelle King: And look, people have reached out to me over the years, maybe not on the Surrounded show, but for example, something else I've spent the last year and a half doing nonstop debates on both in New York, on stage in Toronto at the Monk debates on Piers Morgan show is Gaza, right?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I've done a lot of debating about Gaza, another very polarizing issue.
--:-- Noelle King: And people have reached out to me.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: And I have had messages from people saying, I have switched my positions on this issue after listening to you.
--:-- Noelle King: I didn't think about it in the way that you possess.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: And you have helped me change my positions on this genocide.
--:-- Noelle King: Would you ever go back on a Jubilee show?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Would you ever do this again?
--:-- Noelle King: Hard to say. Not anytime soon, but I think, look, my advice to people, and people have been calling me, other members of the media who have been invited by Jubilee have, of course, called me now to say, hey, do you think I should do it?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: And my advice, I'm not going to tell you whether to do it or not do it, each to their own.
--:-- Noelle King: What I would say is, if I did go back, I would take more precautions as to who I'm going up against.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I failed at my own test.
--:-- Noelle King: I wrote a book called Win Every Argument, and the first chapter is Know Your Audience.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: right? Know who you're going to be in front of, know who you're going to be speaking to.
--:-- Noelle King: And I thought about the YouTube audience and I didn't put as much thought into who are these 20 people?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: How are they being selected?
--:-- Noelle King: How are they being vetted?
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: What will they be saying?
--:-- Noelle King: I turned up now with all this like information about, you know, for each of my claims, I made five, four claims and each claim I had like, you know, I do my prep.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I come with my receipts.
--:-- Noelle King: I had my, you know, 14th amendment.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: I had my, you know, all this stuff, stats.
--:-- Noelle King: And then I realized it doesn't matter with these people.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: They're not interested in engaging in the substance of what we're talking about.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm sitting here going, Donald Trump doesn't respect the Constitution.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Their response is, who cares about the Constitution?
--:-- Noelle King: We need a fascist dictator.
--:-- Mehdi Hassan: Like that is, you know, where do you go with that?
--:-- Noelle King: Mehdi Hassan, he's the founder of Zateo.
--:-- Hady Mawajdeh: Hadi Muwagdi and Devin Schwartz produced today's episode.
--:-- Amina Al-Sadi: Amin El-Sadi edited.
--:-- Adriene Lilly: Patrick Boyd and Adrian Lilly are our engineers.
--:-- Laura Bullard: And Laura Bullard is our senior researcher.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. Thank you.
