Maurice Mitchell: Elon Musk is a gift to the Left

Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, joins Emily to discuss how the Left can mobilize against Elon Musk without alienating voters. Mitchell shares his experience organizing opposition in the first month of the Trump presidency.

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[justinsellers]

He lost me at "The Republican party is clearly the party of the Billionaires." Clearly, he has no clue what is going on in modern politics.

[glennmitchell]

Elon Musk didn't start the billionaires in politics club. He got involved reluctantly at the last minute. The politicians attacked him first.

[alvarm]

This would be the same guy that gets mad his friend got promoted to manager.

[geohhoeg]

Remember that scene from Chernobyl where the female nuclear physicist is trying to explain to a bureaucrat that she knows there’s a problem because she’s a nuclear physicist and the bureaucrat say “and I used to run a shoe factory. So what?” That’s this guy.

[RayGetardo]

"People who aren't rich surely must resent the rich like I do."

[jetsy]

I'm all for having people on with differing points of view, I love the realignment for this reason. That being said, this man's argument that we should focus on their actions and not what they say is immediately negated when his first example is that DOGE's actions are bad because they "potentially" want to make cuts to Medicaid, and Social Security, and USAID.

1.) Potential actions are not actions.

2.) Trump has made no indications that he wants to cut Social Security. Many of us that are young enough to be in the "workers" party will most likely not see social security in its current form by the time we retire anyway.

3.) Is cutting Medicaid and Social Security budgets by removing fraud and waste a bad thing? I think most Americans would agree it is not. It would be a winning policy for Democrats to work with Republicans on removing fraud and waste, because then they could fight political battles defending specific examples of republicans overstepping.

4.) USAID has been used as a slush fund for the CIA in many cases, and regardless, it needs to be more transparent what our taxes are paying for. The American people probably would not vote for USAID to fund domestic disinformation and censorship campaigns. The American people probably would not vote for their taxes to go towards gain of function research.

I hope this isn't the best argument the left can come up with. I think most Americans would rather have a public oligarchy, than faceless bureaucratic totalitarianism.

Ideally, we would have neither, but the Democratic party still hasn't gotten the memo that bureaucratic behemoth style of governance is not what we want or need right now.

[lockshabaz]

LMAO this guy says Trump and Musk are stealing our this guy been paying attention ???? LMAO HILARIOUS

[robertflury]

Doge is not targeting Medicare or social security. This guy's analysis is very self-serving.

[toddo]

I will gladly listen to "both sides". But when the takes are as bad as this I'll just click off after 7 mins of wasted time and hope for better tomorrow

[paulweldele]

Emily, so proud of you for staying earnestly engaged with this guy. It really assisted listeners to see through the fallaciousness of his narrative based almost solely in victimhood and jealousy. His real issue is not that Trump is dismantling much of the current state, it is that it is 1) being done without him, and 2) it is not being done in the way he wants it done.

[Tboy]

I don’t care if someone is rich or poor, so long as they improve the lives of the people!

[peterwalker]

WoW! This guy gives the game away by his entire visual presentation. If you draw the curtain back, step back, reel beyond your thoughts… Elons not perfect but I TRUST him more than this guy. Love, you always.

[dontarguewithidiots]

sigh... charming.. but no. He's not. He's been delegated this responsibility. I've never seen so many people eager to NOT save money off our already-too-high tax bills.

[eddavis]

Talk about a caricature of the left!!! 😂😂😂

[jimreid]

Again, thank you for bringing on a different perspective. Unfortunately, he is terribly nieve, if not ignorant. He is committed to a foundational belief that the Democratic Party is the party for working people. He then does contortions to try and prove his point. His line of thinking is why California will continue to vote blue come hell or high water.

[MaximilianDog]

This is not a smart human. Don't understand why you'd waste your time here.

[WilliamGerten]

Also remember why Elon got involved in the first place, by liberal policy affecting his family

[Chuckbobuck]

If this clown and his minions were as concerned during Biden’s term, I’d give him some credence, but we all know that didn’t happen.

[Andrewmh]

Good on Emily giving this guy the platform to articulate his opinions - although I think his insights are short sighted and embarrassingly biased. I think the brother should research the appx 1000 billionaires in the country and analyze the parties and causes they support. This might help him be more objective when talking about corporate/oligarchic corruption.

[Kyzyl_Tuva]

Emily, I am so glad that you had this dude on. He makes the exact case of why we cannot take people like him seriously. He is like an arsonist in a field of straw men. Please get people on who can make more serious arguments