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How I wonder, I've sat and watched you in the stands at the RNC and I and I don't think I've ever seen anybody give a speech at a convention, a very well-received speech, without endorsing the candidate. How did you convince Trump to do that? Well, I think Trump and I have a good relationship. We've got a mutual respect for each other. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think he knew the struggles that we had with our membership. We've got 1.3 million members. So you know that membership is made up of Republican Democrats and independents. And, you know, we knew all along where our membership was trending, and we had to do a lot of polling and everything else. And we had a lot of communication during the campaign leading up to the RNC. So I think he knew the spot that we were in if we just came out and did a straight endorsement. But we really couldn't do that because our our the process we interviewed every single candidate that from, you know, the people that entered the race early to the last two standing, which was Trump and Harris. And we interview them in a roundtable with rank and file members in our general executive board. And we provided each each candidate with 16 of the same questions. And, you know, the Trump was, you know, like all of them, they weren't strong on some of our issues and no fault of their own, because I don't think deep down they understood what our actual issues are. But at the end of the day, I think he knew that by us representing speaking at the RNC, representing the Teamsters Union, that he was actually showing America, the American workers, that, you know, he was for labor, he was for working people. And my message was clear. You were there. I saw you standing up with him. And my message didn't endorse the Republicans, Democrats or independents. It was clearly about what the American worker needs from the administration. Can I maybe let. You do. That? Yeah. You know, it's funny. I mean, it's a political convention. The whole point is to nominate this guy. Right. But, you know, I got to tell you, this is funny. So leading up to the RNC, we're writing our speech and we're going through it. And, you know, we're editing it internally, all of us. Great team. And we submitted to the RNC the folks I think we submitted probably a week prior and we submit the speech and some of the underlings in the RNC didn't like what we had to say about. And so they wanted to change it, modify it and everything else. And we took a position. I took a position. Well, I'm not going then. And so we reached out to Siouxsie Wiles and told her, look, we're not we are not modifying the speech. And she was like, I don't think you should. She says, Why don't you call DJT and tell him? So I called them on a cell phone and I said, Listen. I said, They want us to modify the speech. He goes, I haven't seen it. He goes, I don't give a shit what you say. Do whatever you want, Sean. Come up. So 100% true. Absolutely. So when we went there, I mean, obviously they're gonna say, Yeah, yeah. So he's like actually said, Say whatever the want to say. That's exactly what he said. And when we went there, it was great. It was, it was a home run. And I think, you know, part of the thought process from the Republican side was, look, if we get the general president of the biggest, strongest union in the country, that's going to signal to every working person that how committed, you know, the Republican Party is, the opportunity the Republican Party has to prove that they want to represent American workers. And listen to this just. I mean, that is that is a window into what Trump is actually like. I that's why I'm laughing because it's just so perfect. And I you know, whatever you think of that, I happen to love it. But that is never done in politics. Well, you never get a cannot say whatever you want to. What? Yeah. Yeah. It was it was hilarious. But conversely, you know, we asked to go to the DNC at the same time. And, you know, and we know that if we ever submitted that speech to the DNC, they want to shed a brick, they would have been horrified because the people that we were talking about, the corporate elitists. Yeah. And everybody else, those are the people that the Democrats have fallen in love with. Those are the people I serve instead of the middle class the way it used to be 50 years ago. So we know that we will have a tremendous portion. You go. I'm sorry. I don't even know. Did you go to the Democratic. No, we didn't. We didn't get invited. That is that's even a bigger story than speaking at. The RNC is not getting invited to the DNC. Yeah, well, that was you. Know, that was the vindictive side of the Democratic Party. And, you know, I'm a Democrat, but, you know, I'm I call balls and strikes. You know, they haven't done it for us. And when we didn't get invited, it's a funny story because two weeks prior to us speaking at the RNC, you know, we didn't hide from the fact that we were going to speak there. Listen, I tell everybody all the time, if I get a venue to highlight how valuable our organization is, the Teamsters Union to the entire country, I will take any and all venues to do that. Good. So two weeks prior to that, Chuck Schumer asked me to meet with me with them and I meet with him and he wants 550,000 for the super PAC for the Senate races. No problem. And I said, look, I was speaking at the RNC. He's like, great job. You know, that's good. You should represent your members. Day after I give that speech at the RNC, he gets on Twitter and starts talking shit about my speech. Remember who fix your pensions? And I'm like, This guy's a ing joke. Like, why would you do this to two weeks prior? You're telling me when you taking a $550,000 super PAC check, you know, that's great. It's great for your members. You know, that's good. And then you want to get on Twitter like a tough guy and, you know, throw shadows. Call you. Well, because they don't like confrontation. They don't want to hear the truth. When he said, you know, we fix your pensions. That gave me an opportunity to say you're the same guy in the same party that 40 years ago embraced, endorsed and signed off on deregulation. And the trucking industry, which we lost 400,000 jobs in 1980. Ted Kennedy put the bill forward. Joe Biden signed off on it as a senator or as a representative. And no. Senator. Yeah, Senator Right. So. They said, We fix your pension. And I said, Yeah, you did fix a pension. And I use the scenario all the time. I'm like, I played street hockey in my neighborhood. 1980. I broke my mother's window for 40 years. She's asked me to fix her window and I finally fix it 40 years later. Should I look for accolades for a problem that I helped create? Yeah. And so we went back and forth. It even got to a point. He showed up in our building prior to the election, and we had a we had a bipartisan meeting and the hallway of the IBT, and it was attended by a lot of Republican senators, a lot of Republican congressmen, because, look, our goal is to work across the aisle to solve problems. Yeah. He walks in with his you know, the Capitol Police would do a great job, walks in and walks in late, and he sticks his crooked finger in my face and he says, I fix your pensions. I said, You should have. You broke them. And we going into a pretty hard. And, you know, he starts yelling at me. I go, Buddy, listen, there's only one guy that can help me. We buried him 12 years ago. I go and I go, You want to get into this right here, right now? We'll get into it. You talk about your dad? Yeah, I'm talking about my dad. Right. And so Schumer's like, we fix your pension. I'm like, Yeah, I'm going to name the things you haven't done for us. When our members were on strike at the rail, you didn't support us. You didn't put a letter of support in there. When we were fighting with U.P.S. in the middle of the street, you wouldn't sign off on a support letter When we took on Amazon, which we're taking on now, you wouldn't support our efforts in Amazon. I said, You want me to keep going because you can tell me what you've done. The one thing you've done for me and my union and my members. But I'm going to tell you all the things you haven't done for us. And then, you know, he's like, Well, I really want this relationship. I'm like, We're done. We're done. That was it. They laughed. And then I'm working out at the building on Election Day. This is great. And look, I'm not a person that says I told you so, or whatever the case says. He called my phone rings. There's only two people that call me from a private line. Sometimes it's the commander in chief and someone else. So phone rings and I answer it and it's Chuck Schumer and I. Dejected tone. It was, you know. Hi, Sean. I'm okay. How you doing? He goes, good. Chuck Schumer. I'm like, okay, what do you want? It's like, I just want to thank you for supporting, you know, the superPAC. I go. That was like four months ago. And he says, yeah, I just want to thank you. And I'm like, okay, great. It was like a dejected tone. And I was like, Get off that. I got off the stand, master, and I'm like, This is crazy. But it is what it is. Why was he doing that, I wonder? I have no. Idea. No idea. Do you think he knew they were going to agree? I think he knew they were getting crushed that day. Yeah. And, you know, I don't know how people, you know, so astute that are on so long in politics couldn't see that common. Was it obvious to you? It was very obvious to us, yes. Just by the polling we were doing. And look, the one thing that we do and this is a gauge that I pride our leadership on. We don't sit in our office and, you know, research all these polls, research, you know, all these opinions. The opinions are matter to me are the the 1.3 million members that we represent. My general secretary and treasurer, myself are out every single day in workplaces talking to members, asking them their opinions, find out exactly what their struggles are in the workplace. And then you get into always into politics, you know, the presidential election and just a one on one conversations where in three different states, three times a week and multiple industries that we represent. And when you're talking to people, you weren't just talking to people in blue states. We were talking to people in red states all over the country. And we knew just from, you know, the rhetoric out there from our members that, you know, they weren't voting Democrat. And that's when we started designing this, you know, real extensive program. And that included the rank and file members. So can you We knew that was common. For people who don't know. Just give us an overview of the Teamsters, 1.3 million members. What do they do? So we represent 1.3 million members. The easiest way to understand it is we represent airline pilots to zookeepers and everybody in between. We represent UPS is our largest employer. We have 340,000 members. UPS We represent the grocery industry, warehousing. We represent airline pilots. We represent airline mechanics. We represent motion picture. We represent trade shows. We represent public sector. We represent health care. So we represent everybody from A to Z. So the name comes from guys who drove teams of horses? Yeah. Teams of horses. We were predominantly a truck driving unit. Yes. Started out with horse and buggy. And through evolution and technology. Was truck drivers deregulation, you know, crushed the trucking industry in the 80s? We've been able to rebuild and organize over the last two and a half years. But because of deregulation, we lost 400,000 Teamster jobs. Wow. Back in the 80s. Yes. But, you know, we're real progressive union. We we don't have all our eggs in one basket right now. We're trying to organize Amazon, which has about 400,000 employees, both direct and the DSP model, that they masquerade as not being direct employees. It's a joint employer or pursuing them right now. And we also are organizing in the cannabis industry with its 425,000 W-2 employees, the term nationwide cannabis. The guys who trim marijuana. Well cultivate it, warehouse it, grow it and sell it, and soon it'll be transported. So what percentage now of your members drive? I would probably say 45% of our members. Really? So between UPS, I mean, UPS is our largest employer. We've got some freight. We've got DHL. Yeah, probably probably closer to 50%. How did you get involved? I'm a fourth generation Teamster from Boston Local 25. My dad was a rank and file member. My grandfather was a truck driver. My great grandfather came from Ireland. He was a Teamster as well. What did he do? Drove a truck. Our horse and buggy, I should say. Probably. Really? Yeah. And what's your dad do? My dad worked construction and then worked motion pictures. What was he like? What was he like? Yeah. He was crazy. Hilarious. Cartoon character, burly guy, Charlestown guy. Hard work and work. 2 or 3 jobs. You know, just a real family person was a street guy as well. You know, he was he was a very quiet, quiet man. But he was true blue to the union are always working, making certain that, you know, he put food on the table, a great guy, and died too young. We had a lot of fun with him. But I had a great relation with my dad because I went right to work in the union when I was 18, doing what I worked in a Reagan company, Crane Company. Shaughnessy and Ahern, one of the biggest crane companies. Yeah, I was always fascinated with the Teamsters Union. You know, my dad was my best friend and I have an older brother and a younger brother and they're both in the Teamsters Union. But I was the one that always really liked trucks. I love tractor trailers. I love driving them. But I loved going to the Sunday meeting. One of them, when I was 8 or 9 years old, I would go to Local 25 and Charlestown. My both my parents grew up there. My mother grew up in the projects. And I just remember being fascinated by the camaraderie of the Teamsters Union. I remember watching Billy McCarthy, who was our general president on a local 25. Eventually I just remember him being larger than life, and the Teamsters Union was so prevalent. My family, I'm like, you know, I'd go to school with these kids. I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a doctor. I'm like, I want to be a truck driver for the Teamsters Union. And I was that's everything I want to do is just because I learned it around the dinner table, I was so proud because everything we had in our entire life was because of the union and that organization. Through the good times and the bad times, there were a lot of bad times. That organization never wavered on my family, and I'm like, If I ever get an opportunity, this is what I want to do. And I just moved up through the ranks. It's such an antique world. You're describing such an American archetype. It's like such as a kind of a movie. I just said my 34th year. The show. But I wonder I mean, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you was, you know, well, for a lot of reasons to get your political analysis, but also just that the life that you grew up in. I just wonder if that still exists. It just seems so thoroughly American, thoroughly New England. Yeah. I mean, I think we're an anomaly now. I mean, I have friends my age, you know, that went to college. And look, I, I did very well by the union. I always worked. I work seven days a week, 12, 13 hours a day, got laid off, hustled whatever needed to go to college. I went for a semester. I played football UMass for one semester. But, you know, you I have my friends. I went to school and you know they graduated early ninety's chase the.com era. Yeah and you know they chased a lot of money you know those some of the more and you know insurance whatever but they were switching jobs every 4 or 5 years there was no continuity and they made a man a little bit more money. I had a four year head start on a lot of these people and I bought houses and everything else. But, you know, there were always switching jobs. And I remember an old timer saying to me, Stay with the union, stay the course. It's not a. Marathon. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon. And today, like those same friends, you know, they take a snapshot of their lives, look at the big houses, two SUVs, but they don't have pensions. They're paying 75% towards a medical. Yeah, it looks great. Snapshot looks great. Serious debt. Right. And it's it's never going to change for us. You know, like you said, it's old school. Old school values. You learn that around the dinner table. Don't extend all your means in order to stay true blue. It's going to pay off at some point in time. And I think to your point, you know, there's not there's not much of that left anymore. We've got to kind of switch gears and do a do a revisit. Not I mean, I'm 55. I remember that I'm never part of that world, but I remember it really well, especially in New England. Absolutely. I mean. Really, Bulger was running politics in this. You know him? Yeah. Yeah, I knew Billy Wilder. Yeah. So where it where my my father and my mother from Charlestown, it's a white, you know, Irish Catholic community. Then over the bridge was the north end. Yeah, because then you had South Boston, which was, you know, white Irish Catholic. On the colony projects. And yeah, all colony projects. My mother grew up in the Bunker Hill project. Yeah. So, yeah, we were familiar with that whole, the whole Bulger tale because some of it's not true. But yeah, I mean, they were pretty powerful people. Billy My father's from Boston and when they in was a totally legitimate or semi legitimate person great man. But when they caught Whitey Bulger I think in Santa Monica, an apartment, my father who was like 78 by this point, called me on the phone and said, . They caught him saying, Pop, you're really rooting for Whitey Bulger. Yeah. I was like, okay. Well, they caught him, but the government knew where he was the whole time. I'm sure that's true. There's no doubt. Doug No doubt about it. It was funny, though. It was like they didn't the government didn't want him to be found. I believe that it's 110%. Talk to my dad about this itself. But I mean, growing up there, it's funny, you know, when you when you grow up in that area, you know, you talk to people around the country, you know, they'll always say something. You know, obviously Whitey Bulger or whatever was not a good guy. Yeah. Yeah. Was not a good guy. No one should ever idolize that guy. But, you know, the government, you know, he's born, paid for and you know that here he hurt a lot of families. You know, he did. But it was more complicated than just, you know, criminal versus G-man. I mean, the FBI was. Involved and they were on the. Dark side. They were knee deep in it, literally knee. Deep. I mean, you went to prison for it. So it's kind of guess. Absolutely. And, you know, it's just funny because growing up, you know, in the 80s and 90s, you know, you had a you had a front row seat, you know, to what was going on. Steve The Rifleman Flemmi. Yeah, yeah. Those guys, all narco guys, you know, not good guys. And plus they told on their own, hey, it's one thing if you know that's right. If you want to be a if you want to be a criminal, like, hey, that's that's your thing. I wanted to go to work. All right? I want to I want to provide for my family, so wants to be a criminal. Give it 110%, but don't When you get caught, don't tell on don't tell on your friends. Don't tell on your friends. And don't blame everybody else. Everything I've ever done wrong in my life, it's because of me. Yeah, me too. I haven't blamed anybody. You know? It is what it is. I always say, Does anybody have a better bad idea? Bad news? Your internet provider is watching you. 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With Express VPN right now, by the way, you get an extra three months for free when you use our special link, the two express vpn.com/tucker get three extra months of express VPN. Once again, express VPN one word.com/tucker. Do you feel that? Me I'm maybe you're out of step with the modern world with those attitudes. No, I think I think in the modern world is difficult to navigate through. But like anything else being brought up, the way we were brought up with the values we learned growing up in the industries that we worked in, I think it's more valuable today to have that thought process of, you know, old school ways with modern, modern, modern, modern society because, you know, everybody falls in love with anything that's convenient, that doesn't take a lot of effort, if that makes sense, of course, where, you know, we grew up where you had to you got to, you know, provide a lot of effort to make changes and to actually be successful. And I think that's important. People have to understand the value of working hard, the value of maybe having some, you know, struggles in your life because it's going to make you the person you are further down the road and they're going to actually appreciate your things more. So no, I don't think that's a hindrance at all. I think it's a strength, to be honest with you. What did you do at O'Shaughnessy and Ahern? O'Shaughnessy in Ahern? I was a rigger. I was a Stewart. What does that mean? So Rigger. As you know, dealing with cranes hoist and moving heavy equipment, hauling heavy equipment around and tractor trailers every day was different. So I always tell people, you know, what is a rigger? I'm like, Well, it's like putting, you know, 5 pounds of shit in a 2 pound bag and making it look good. And that's where we got to stuff it. It's like once, you know, for a Sunday, we could be hoisting air conditioners by helicopter onto a building in Boston, and then the next day we're moving a piece of art with a crane over the Museum of Fine Arts. And the next day I might be hauling an oversize crane somewhere. So every day was different. You had to use your mind, you had to use your common sense. And it was an apprenticeship program I went through and I'm still on the seniority list today, still long. We hold our seniority, so I haven't been there in 26 years. But before I retirement o'clock in for a week just to get my six weeks of vacation. So you like a true Teamster? Was did your father lived to see you get into Teamsters leaders? My father my father lived to see me take over. Local 25. I was the youngest president to ever take it over. I was 33 years old and he died in 2012. And I was running for Eastern region vice president and I won the election in 2000, 11th November. I was the highest vote getter, and he passed away suddenly in January. And it was it was a funny story. On how he passed away. So he was a man of few words. He threw compliments around like sore caps. Right. But he's a very proud man. He was very proud of his sons and everything else. And so he died. And, you know, typical. We go through his pockets. We stashed all his cash, like, fooling around. And my mother went in a suit jacket of his. And he had a he had a ticket to go see me get sworn in at the convention. Never told anybody was coming or anything. So it was it was pretty good, you know. But he was a character. He was he was you know, he was a type of guy, you know, grown up. You know, my mother raised three of us, three boys. And we're all very close in age. She raised her three younger brothers in the projects in Charlestown. And then she gets blessed with him as a husband and three of us. It wasn't easy, but, you know, he was the type of guy you could go to him and say, Hey, dad, I screwed up. He wouldn't scream and yell, Here are all right, let's figure this out. Like he was always there that way where, you know, at times he would flip as led. But, you know, he was he was just a he was a man's man. Like he always he always was taught us about loyalty, always taught us about, you know, integrity. And my mother was, you know, obviously the biggest influence in our life. So it was a great upbringing, you know, tough at times. I mean, a lot of tough love, not a lot of hugs. But at the end of the day, you know, none of us ended up in jail. None of us ended up on drugs. And we've been pretty successful and lived a good life. So they did something right. I mean, the Boston that you grew up in, which I remember vividly, was, you know, so well, was really it was an Irish city. I mean, no one would say it, but it's just a fact. It was like it was run by the Irish and had been since like the 1850s when they came in and took it over from the Yankees because they were better organizers and more intense. And politics was dominated by a culture and a low key was working class. Boston was Irish, right? But certainly politics of the whole state was dominated by the Irish, right? Billy Bulger was part of that. That's kind of gone now. Yeah. I mean, you look at, you know, take a snapshot of. Boston politics. Ten years, ten years ago and go back even further like 30 years and see where we are right now. It's a completely different landscape. Completely, completely different. Grappling could never get elected now. No. Ray Flynn, Tom Menino. Marty Walsh probably couldn't get away. You know, So, yeah, it's totally, totally different. You know, the priorities seem to have changed. And I think what changed in Boston, which is part of the problem that you see, is that no one from Boston. That grew up in Boston or in the Boston area like Medford where I'm from? Yeah. Everett Somerville. No one in Cambridge, no one that grew up there can afford to live there. I know. So what you have is you have all these transients and these people from the suburbs and out of state that grew up in rural areas their whole life. Now they want to be city people. They move in here and, you know, they're paying the high rents, they're paying the high costs, and they're basically controlling the narrative. And that narrative is not consistent with the Boston that I knew and that I grew up with. Boston was a blue collar city that was very proud, very patriotic, very. And now it's completely, you know, gone the other way. And there was a great deal of attention to, like, the people who live there. I mean, that's one thing I noticed about Boston. It was obviously corrupt to some extent. There are a lot of drunk people in the state house. On the other hand, like they seemed to the quality of life issues, it was safe, it was clean. You know, it worked pretty well, real services there. And that it seems to have inverted like there are almost no working class people in Boston that I can see, you know. If you can on the Seaport, South Boston. I mean, you go down the seaport and look development's great for an area, but it's going to be developed with the intent that people that are from there don't get forced out who exactly want to live there. The gentrification that Boston has seen over the last ten years is crazy. If you went to South Boston 25 years ago where I used to report to work every every day in South Boston, and you took a snapshot of the waterfront, there was nothing down there. Matter of fact, 1995 or 96, I was working rank and file. We were building a crane because they were getting ready to build a hotel, right. And right in the seaport, which wasn't the seaport. It was that we know it as. And I remember saying, Well, why they put in a hotel here? Who is actually going to come here. To South. Boston, right? Yeah. I mean, we're back in our cars, our vehicles to go to work, and we'd have to look to make sure someone wasn't sleeping in the parking lot that, you know, that's how you know how it's changed. But who would think that South Boston right now? I mean, they got $4,500 a month for a studio apartment. And it's not people our age rent to them. It's 25, 26 year olds that mommy and daddy are paying for money for society. So it's changed dramatically. I mean, it's it's still a beautiful, clean city. The politics are crazy there. They're far left on a lot of issues. And, you know, I think people are more concerned with social issues than they are the economic issues right now. That's kind of nicely put. That's exactly what I'm trying to describe. It got the city got a lot richer and nicer in some ways, but crappier in other ways. Yeah, the social issues are important, right? I get it. And everybody should be able to have their own opinions on whatever those issues are. I mean, I think you and I probably have the same opinions on a lot of the social issues, but from what we do every day as representing working people and people in general is we want to make certain that people have the economic resources to buy a modest home, to afford tuition so their kids can go to school and to plan for a very modest and and and retirement that's not compromised by that. And unfortunately, the Boston politics or the Massachusetts politics have have taken a road down this, you know, social justice warrior path where, you know, when I saw concern with, you know, the people on Main Street, we want to make sure that we're fighting these social justice issues that do not put food on the table, do not keep gas prices normal, do not at all compromise people when they go into the grocery store. So a lot's changed, I think, as a result of this election. And look, this election was a perfect example of it. You know, think about the Democrats. And again, I'm a Democrat. Think about the whole narrative through this election. It was all social issues. Our members who I know intimately and some of them don't agree with me, some of them don't agree with our policies. And that's the beauty of living in America, right? You can have disagreements. You can have, you know, difference of opinions. But by talking to our members, we knew the concerns were the prices at the gas pumps. Yeah, prices at the grocery stores and the ability to afford a home and maintain and keep that home. Exactly. And then you get into, you know you know, there are the issues are important. I get it. The social issues. But I've got to live. I got to put food on my table. And it was never so proven in this past election that the social issues are important. They don't matter. What matters is, you know, people and especially the working class, being able to make ends meet. Well, exactly. It felt like the whole constituency was unhappy college. Girls and making them feel valued. I'm not against unhappy college girls. I feel sorry for them. But you can't have an entire political party catering to them alone. Like what about, like, normal people with jobs and stuff? They were just ignored. Look, you got to represent everybody. Yeah, exactly. No matter what. And, you know, the Democratic Party, and I've been very critical of them. And I'm going to continue to be very critical of them because I think it's important that they listen for once. They haven't listened in 20 years. Because they think they own you. They think they own everybody. You know, instead of when I have a conversation with you and I don't agree with you. Yeah. My goal is to not get you to agree with me. But I want you to see that because I have a difference of opinion that it's not going to destroy a relationship. And there's going to be many issues that you and I may be able to embrace together and maybe make some change. Right. This party, once you go against them, they get so vindictive. The party, the Democrats now are acting the way that they used to accuse the Republicans 20 and 30 years ago. And they basically become that Republican Party that they despised. Intolerant. Fell in love with corporate corporate elitists. Well, I know, right? Don't want to listen to their constituents. They want to dictate how people should vote and how people should think. And that's a problem. And I'm watching all this media and I'm done with mainstream media. I am done with it, especially after the way it affected, you know, us during this election. You know, you get you watch CNN, you watch you watch MSNBC. That narrative was so scripted. And forget whether you're a political person or not. If you are Joe. Q Public or Jane Q Public. Watching that coverage during the election, it was rigged. It was scripted. And, you know, part of part of being an American is you have you should have the ability to listen to opinions and form your own and make your own decisions. That mainstream media has proven one thing. They are not relevant whatsoever. I know. And, you know, that's part of part of the problem. I mean, we've got to do a reset Democratic Party especially. Yeah. I mean, I think Labor is not the only group that is. I mean, it's not even about politics. It's just if you're taken for granted by your spouse or your political party or your employer being taken for granted is bad, You're going to get treated like an object after a while. And you know what I mean, 100%. And I think that there are other groups of voters who have reached this. And I'll get I'll give you a perfect example. This is hilarious. And, you know, I think you you know me by now. I call balls and strikes and I'm going to say what's on my mind regardless. So you're trying to the Democrats are trying to call us to endorse Joe Biden in January. Right. And Joe Biden has been a good president for us. Labor has done everything we wanted. No, absolutely not. Again, you get into we fix your pension. Great. Thank you. Your first order of business, you shut down oil drilling, you shut down pipelines. I got 7000 members who lost their jobs immediately. Keystone. Right. So, you know, I started pointing out some of that stuff to them, which I was quiet about in the beginning. But, you know, you're out there jockeying for our support and they want us to endorse Biden in January, all of Labor Day. And I'm like, no, we're not. We're not doing that. We've got to talk to our members. We're going to make sure or our members are not. So we go through this whole winter again, pressure from, you know, people in the Democratic Party and we stay the course. No, we're not. We want to interview the candidates, which we've never done before. And we asked every single candidate in January or December to come in and meet with us. The first person to respond was Donald Trump. I'll be in there, definitely, without a doubt. And all these other candidates, RFK, right away, are Asa Hutchinson or Cornel West, All of them. They came right in. Same format, same questioning like we talked about earlier. And the struggle was getting Biden here. He didn't like the fact that Trump committed early or the Democrats didn't like that he committed early. So long story short, we go through this whole process and we have Biden in there. And, you know, you could just clearly tell he was, you know, not the man he was. And it was kind of it was kind of sad, you know, because it's sad because you look at it and and I think, Jan, generally, you know, a nice old man. Yes. Older gentleman. Right. And what they were doing to them, the Democratic Party would kind of like look like elderly abuse to me. Yes. And, you know, we knew we weren't going to go with him. And then after the first debate. We saw in your meeting with him, it was obvious. Yeah, it was. So we give 16 questions two weeks in advance, the same 16 questions to each candidate. So, you know, RFK answered all 16 questions and probably most of them didn't answer them how we would like them to answer, but they answered them. Joe Biden came in and he he answered. He answered five of them. Donald Trump answered all 16. And then when Biden drops out of the race but prior to Biden dropping out of the race, he's in the race around June or May. One of my vice presidents, a woman named Joan Corey, out of my local she sits on our general executive board, was at an event with Vice President Harris. And, you know, they've gone through the line to get the picture. And Joan introduces herself to vice president. Harris says, I'm John Corey. I'm on the general executive board for the Teamsters. She goes, Teamsters, you better get on board. You better get on board. Better get on board soon. So I said to my vice president. Face. To her face. So she comes back, we have the meeting the next day, and she tells me they. Thought I was arrogant. That's really arrogant. So she tells me this. So I call up Marty Walsh, who wasn't the secretary of labor, but, you know, he was pushing, pushing hard for us to make the endorsement. I'm like, let me ask you a question, Marty. Excuse my French. Who does this ing lady think she is? Like, if I want to support from any organization, I am not going to point my finger and someone's face and say, You better get on board or else. But that's the that's the attitude of this whole party. So fast forward, she finally agrees to come after we were putting pressure on her, you know, basically because I was doing interviews all over the place and we haven't got invited to the DNC. You know, we they haven't accepted our invitation for her to come to a roundtable. So she comes to the roundtable. Same format, same questions. Rank and file members are asking our questions just like they asked every other candidate and they were trying to negotiate with us. She only wants to answer three questions. Well, like the 16 questions here. So she answers three of them. And on the fourth question, one of her operatives or one of her staff substantial in front of me. This will be the last question. And it was 20 minutes earlier than the time that it was going to end. Come on, 100%. And so, you know, you're there trying to get our support. And her declaration on the way out was, I'm going to win with you or without you. She thought that or said it out loud. She said it out loud. That's insane. So that's crazy behavior. Actually, if you think about it. It was insane behavior, which at that point in time, I knew she was going to lose me. That's just my unqualified opinion. I've got a gut instinct and I'm like, Wow. You turned out to be. Someone this arrogant. Forget anything else. But you put your finger in someone's face at an Emily's List event. Once you find out that with the Teamsters and you say, you better get on board or else. That's that's a problem. And then you come before us. You don't answer the question. You want to dictate what you're going to answer. And then you leave 20, 20 minutes before it's all over. And the one difference between all the candidates that came was that at the conclusion of all these roundtables, we had media set up. So after conclusion of meeting with Trump, I did a press conference down in the lobby of my building. Well. Donald Trump did did a press conference down in the lobby of my building after he spoke. The same offer was extended to both President Biden and Vice President Harris, and they refused. So you're meeting with the biggest labor organization that you want and you can you've got an opportunity for media to question you about how you felt, the media, how you felt the meeting went, and what you wanted to achieve. And you don't want to speak to the media. That's a problem. But Trump, to his credit and I building an hour for you had a press conference. So you're describing the way like a rich person would talk to the housekeeper, like, how dare you? Question, Right. You work for me, right? They don't realize that. And I've said this numerous times when I'm talking to a member. Whoever that member may be, regardless of race, religion, color, creed. I know that they give me the opportunity to represent them and they employ me. Yeah, right. And I've said this many times, the Democrats can understand who they work for. They work for the constituency that they represent in their community. Exactly. And that's why they've lost sight of who their employer is. They think that the constituency should serve them. Exactly. And it's it's it's disgraceful. And you know what we've been saying for a year now, everybody's embrace and saying, well, the Democratic Party needs a reset. Well, where were you nine months ago? Where were you two years ago if you were really, you know, passionate about putting up a candidate that could actually represent Democrats like they did or represent the party. Why weren't you developing a plan two and a half years ago? Because you thought you just had in the bag. You thought people were going to do what you tell them to do. Well, clearly that didn't work. So what's the future? And they don't have an answer. It may be that that period of history is just over. And maybe your state tells the story. Everyone. I look at the results from Massachusetts and it's like the bluest state in the nation's most liberal state. I have family there on both sides, my wife and me. I don't know a single liberal in Massachusetts. Not one. I don't know a single Irish person who's liberal, maybe one. There's not one Italian in the entire state who's liberal. None. They were all Democrats. If you're still using Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, obviously our condolences, but you're going to want to hear this. Our cell phone company, Pure Talk, gives us the exact same service you're currently getting from those big companies, but for half the cost. Not a joke. There's no reason to spend 85 or $100 per month per person on your wireless bill. Now you can get unlimited talk, text and 15 gigs of data with mobile hotspots for just 35 bucks a month. You don't have to be a math major. The average family of four saves about $1,000 a year with pure talk. You enjoy America's most dependable 5G network. Support small businesses. We would know that because they are now powering TCN and can probably save you money too. So cut the fat out of your wireless bill. Switch to pure talk by going to pure tor.com slash Tucker. You'll save an additional 50% off your first month Pure Talk America's wireless company. I mean, back me up. You live in Massachusetts. What was that? You met a liberal Italian guy. Well, you never. They're going to. They exist now. They're going to exist, I think. I mean, well, I mean, maybe not exist that way, but to your point, everybody was Democrat. Yeah, right. Everybody was Democrat. Now, you talk to people and look, sometimes people will talk to you or they'll tell you what, hey, I seen you on the RNC. Great job. And, you know, like they've been talking shit online because you're C or whatever. But I think the majority of the people are fed up. Totally, totally fed up. But I'm just saying that whole world of organizing, at least in your union, like just the people in it, you know, they were all Democrats, but they were never they were all kind of traditional socially families, like they care about pensions. They believe in this generation. They believe in generations. Exactly right. They believe in continuity. Right. As you said at the beginning, it's not even political. It's a it's a mindset. It's a worldview. And that whole group is like so out of step with the Democratic Party. I'm not really sure how that's ever fixed. But and then, you know, you make a great point. So through this whole year, let's say, right, the Republicans and we've we've worked with a lot of great Republicans in the Senate. Josh Hawley, he's been great with us. Yeah, J.D., J.D. Vance has been great with us. You know, Roger Marshall has been great. And, you know, I'll give you Josh Hawley, for instance. Josh Hawley was you know, we met with him. We had a conversation. Denham had a conversation early on, and we were talking like, look, one of our biggest issues, national right to work. And we explain on why the right to work is not good for this country, why it's not good for his constituency. And soon after that meeting, he come out with a statement on X and I met with the Teamsters Union. You know, I'm supportive of working people. And, you know, they've basically educated. We've talked about right to work and I don't support national right to work. And then we have we have a strike with a company in his state, Graybar. He went out and walked the picket line and that strike was settled the next day. And I'm not saying because he walked a picket line, but he demonstrated that that's what he's willing to do because his constituency works there. Those are the people that he represents. Vote for him. That's right. And, you know, he's been great on our issues. You know, and I think the Republicans have a great opportunity right now to show working people that what they were saying during the election is going to hold true. And I think Trump proved, ah, early on when he actually listened to us and when we lobbied for Lori Chavez Dreamer to be the labor secretary. Now, you know, I don't think it was a popular decision from a lot of his donors that supported him. But, you know, I went out and I had a frank conversation with the president. I'm like, look, this is important to us. You know, if you were to truly want to show that you're going to, you know, embrace working people and work hard on their behalf, this is an early indicator that you're willing to do this. And he did it. So, you know, people that are saying Trump's anti-labor is anti-worker, I mean, look, he he started off on a great, great footing. I mean, he named the secretary. Of state who voted for him. I mean, look at who voted for him. You go to rural America, you know, where there are no people who aren't, quote, workers. I mean, you know, most children go to college. They work. They have back problems by the age of 40 because they work with their bodies. They all vote. Trump is not I mean. I have I've got back problems from the last eight months of the knife wounds from that to the far left in the Democratic Party. I've got back problems from sitting in an anchor chair my whole life. That's a very tough job, Sean. Sit up straight. But you know it. Here's one. Okay, So obviously, the Republican Party is in the middle of this total change. It saw itself as the party of big business. It's clearly not. Its voters aren't and it's donors aren't increasingly. But I think there are a lot of Republicans, especially in the Senate, like Mitch McConnell, who just have not. Well, Mitch McConnell is really bad person, but so he's a specific case. But there are like decent people who just haven't sort of made the mental change that they're not the party that they thought they were. Well, I think part of the problem is we haven't had the conversations with those folks, though we agree because there's been such a line drawn in the sand where if you are on one side or the other, especially in our own labor, if you're if you're a Democrat, you shouldn't be talking to the Republicans. Mike. That's bullshit. I agree. How are we going to get stuff done in this country? Forget anything else. It's like, you know, if you're looking to truly collaborate and actually make things happen, you've got to talk to people that normally wouldn't. You've got to express your ideals, your opinions, and there's got to be common ground. I mean, I deal with probably the worst employers in the world. I deal with corporate greed, white collar crime syndicates like Costco, United Airlines, and there's a list of them. And, you know, I could go on and on for days. And, you know, a lot of the times you get problem solved by having discussions and finding out, you know, where you can work together. I mean, who would think that, you know, McWane and I almost fought twice in the middle of the Senate floor. Pretty scrappy dude for boss. A man I don't sweat asked about anybody and but him and I have had a conversation. We've actually had many conversations. And, you know, we agree to disagree on what we can't agree on. But at the end of the day, there's going to be a lot of things that we can work together on on behalf of his constituency, my members, you know, because I don't agree with you on one issue. Should I draw a line in the sand and not talk to you again? I mean, there'll be 100% divorce rate in this country. It's always a key, right? No, it's true. No, but here's the mind shift that I think would be I would like to see. So labor's an ancient institution in the United States and, you know, pivotal one in the economic and political history of the country. But I do think people are caught in this sort of 1930s thinking where it's, you know, workers versus some manufacturing company and the power shift has been so complete. And I don't know if we've it's it's like even Amazon is not as powerful as the financial institutions. And I personally think just as an observer, I'm not labor or management we're. Going to convert you with some point, though. Yeah. Well, I've been a member of a union most of my life, but it's particularly should a union sag. But anyway, here's the point. It's some point. I would like to see somebody with power ask questions of the banks, because if you want to know what hurts working people, its debt and its credit card debt specifically 22% and nobody says a word about it. And I think the fastest way to improve the lives of middle class, working class people is to address that in some way or at least have to begin the conversation like it's bad to hook people on 22% interest. Yeah, it's bad to hook people who depend upon keeping their electricity and the utilities on when they have to pay with a credit card at 2%. Because again, the corporate greed, a lot of these CEOs at these banks, there's such a you know, there's such a disparity between the people that are their customers and what the banks are making that should be there should be a a platform to regulate these banks and make certain that everybody is playing, you know, have a level playing field like these credit card companies. Like you made a point earlier off the record, you said there should be a union for credit card people that have credit cards, right? Yeah. And that what we do as a labor organization, we're not being treated fairly like Amazon or anybody else When our members are not being treated fairly, what do we do? We withhold our labor. Well, imagine if we, to your point earlier, withheld our payments as a country. Yes. To these credit card companies and these banks that obviously support these credit cards. What's that? A pretty strong ing message. Well, I I've raised this before and been treated as like the Unabomber. Like, that's too crazy. I'm not radical or I'm totally moderate person in the sense that in the end. I'll carry that flag I like as well. So I. Like it. I think, look, I'm not I think you probably want banks in your country. I don't think banks are the root of all evil. But I do think banks hurt a lot of people and they seem immune from criticism. You can attack anybody. No one ever attacks the banks. Well, think about it. The. Not in 100 years. Why is. That? Well, we talk about what is so powerful, right? We talk about, you know, the old school values of growing up in a neighborhood and growing up, you know, with with with simple things. Just remember the neighborhood banks that we dealt with early on. They actually cared about the people. There, knew them. And lived in. And they knew them in your neighborhood. They know no one, no TD Bank, no one knows . There's no personal connection there. No, it's all about bottom line, how much money they're going to make. Yeah. And, you know, that's what's missing as well. Maybe selling your debt to somebody you don't never even know. How many times have you got a mortgage and you know the bank you go through, sell it to someone else, they're making money. So if. We had a financial crisis over this, Yeah. I think it was 2008, 2009. Yes, I think I think there's a movie about that. Right. But it's But credit cards especially. And the payday loan people have taken a lot of deserved, well-deserved abuse. I mean, clearly that's predatory. But I just I remember when I was a kid, my father's reporter covered the mafia. And they I remember very well hearing from him that they put people in prison for loan sharking, you know, all the time, put the mafia in prison for loan sharking. I don't think they were loaning at 22%. They probably had better rates than the credit cards. Definitely. And by the way, they paid out on the lotto in full, unlike the state governments, which pay you like a percentage of it. They're more crooked than the mafia and no one says a word. It's disgusting. It is disgusting. It's actually criminal. Yes, I. Liked Josh Hawley. Had a nice Senate hearing where, you know, he he brought them to task. He brought the credit card companies to task. And, you know, it seems like you get punished for being, you know, the misfortunes you may endure in life. So the credit cards to the other thing I don't like about them is, you know, if you if you got a good credit rating and your you know, you've been fortunate enough to have a good job, you get a lesser rate. Right? If I have bad credit and I've got a lot of debt, I'm getting that higher rate. So they're preying on the weak, of course. And that's that's that's got to stop. That's got to stop. At the very least, we should say it's wrong. And by the way, it's prohibited by every religion. I mean, people have thought this was wrong for thousands of years. Right. We're in this weird hiatus where I mean, Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have a lot to say about usury, and they're very explicit about it, but we've sort of forgotten that or something. I don't really get it. Yeah, it's funny when when problems don't affect certain people, they don't want to hear about them on and want to do anything about them. Yeah. I don't think it's radical to raise it at all. No, I don't think so. I mean, I basically, you know, I don't think it's radical at all. I mean, it's a disgrace when people have to pay their bills on their credit card and, you know, they're never going to catch up. Never. Never. And by the way, if I can just make this not a partizan point, but it's just true. Joe Biden did that. He made bankruptcy not I mean, credit card debt, not dischargeable in bankruptcy. He did that in the in the bankruptcy bill because he's from Delaware and they paid for his house. Pretty corrupt. So let me ask you about I. This is going to have a transformative effect, everybody says on labor. What effect will I have. On is going to have an effect on everything. I mean, it needs to be regulated. It needs to not be a weapon against working people. Technology's, you know, coming fast and furious, especially in many of the industries that we represent. But again, these are conversations that need to be had before A.I. is implemented and or dispersed into the workplace. There's a lot of jobs that can be created as a result of technology as a result of implementation of A.I.. And again, it's, you know, people drawing a line in the sand not want to have these conversations. The general public or the general perception of the world is they want convenience, They want less labor. But it's not good for the country. It's not good for working people. And automation is going to be just as debilitating to working people than just like A.I.. And what we've done is we've negotiated contracts where automation has to be negotiated and the industries we work, if they're going to make a technological change or they're going to automate something, they've got to maintain the job levels and create jobs moving forward as a result of this technology. You take grocery warehouses where they have robots pick orders while we've been able to negotiate contracts where we create jobs, we maintain the robots, we program the robots. You know, we fix the robots, we build the robots. And some of these cases. So there's always opportunity. United Parcel Service, 340,000 members. Technology plays a big role in the forwarding of packages and envelopes. And, you know, obviously it's efficient, but there are jobs created as a result of it. And that's what the beauty about being in a union is. But I think people underestimate how how technology is going to destroy this country if we don't regulate it, if we don't get in front of it and we don't create jobs as a result of it. I mean, we're dumbing down this society so much. It's it's you know, you're college students not doing research papers. They use an AI. How is that good? How is that good for your mind? Right. You got people out there like you mentioned, your union SAG screen actors or screenwriters, you know, they're going to be out of jobs if I comes in. So, I mean, we've got to take a hard look at where I will be valuable to this country and where we'll be detrimental. And I don't think we've taken a good look at it. I don't think we've taken a look at it at all. And, you know, the state of California is betting everything in its budget. Like, I'll tell you, that guy. A ridiculous person. But why shouldn't. If there's like electricity or any emergent technology or electricity shows up 100 years ago, it's fair to ask. You know, clearly it provides light and, you know, powers, machines. But is there a downside? I don't know for any technology, nuclear technology and AI is as transformative as any technology. So why is there no conversation about harnessing it for good rather than evil? Well, think. About how we started Teamsters. Horse and buggy. Yeah. Then they came up with engines. Then they came on trucks. That was technology evolving. But we always protected the jobs, right? We always made sure that those jobs were protected. And that was technology back then. Right. Gavin Newsom in California is should be the poster child for bad behavior when it comes to protecting against A.I. and technology. He's the same guy that working people through the recall election. Saved him. Right. But he's the same guy that when you work a bipartisan bill to protect against technology, AI and also mandate autonomous vehicles to have a human operator, which is bipartisan. Gets on his desk first order of business as he vetoes it. Yeah. If he does it, you know why? Because he's looking for his next best opportunity. What? The captors he fell in love with. Technology, tech companies, Google, you know, Uber, whatever else. Lyft, all those companies he's bought and paid for. He doesn't care about how that affects people's job. He doesn't care about how it affects the community. He's looking for his next payday. And that's a disgrace. I couldn't agree more. Do you think that in this administration, the eye czar is a guy called David Sachs? Have you talked to him? No, I haven't. But the one encouraging thing that I've seen last week, you know, the longshoreman. Yes. So they had a strike, two day strike, and it was over wages. Two issues, wages and automation, which is I. And they used the ports in China to demonstrate how efficient it is by using robots and artificial intelligence. The one good thing was that President Trump met with the longshoremen because they've got a cooling off period till January 15th, and then they'll go back into negotiations to negotiate that. The AI and the automation, which I think they're going to be successful on, you know, maintaining their jobs. But President Trump came out and said, I've been studying automation. I've been studying A.I. for a long time. I don't believe anybody should be losing their jobs over that. So that's encouraging. So I think to your point, I haven't had a conversation with that man. I'd love to just to express how important it is to have conversations with people that actually perform jobs that could be replaced by technology or A.I., because that may give a different perspective where we can collaborate and actually create more jobs as a result of it. Yeah. Do you want a stable, happy country? That's that's the question that has to remain in mind always. I think everybody does. I'm not sure that's true. I think there are people who believe as a matter of religion. Everybody in my world. Me, too. And that's what I want. But there are people who believe, as a matter of faith, that you can't stop technology. It's evolution, that it's like it's like, God, you worship is a God and, you know, you obey its commands. They think that, Yeah. And look, people are entitled their opinion, but those are the people that, you know, probably less affected by it. Well, yeah, when you get people, people do