house on c-span, the senate on c-span two, and follow congressional coverage anytime were listen on the free c-span radio app. >> all week on this program at this time, we have been featuring political podcasters talking about podcasts and news of the day. joining us from los angeles, california, the host and founder ceo of a network. thanks for joining us. what was the purpose of starting your podcast? what were you hoping to achieve? >> number one purpose in the long run was getting a progressive message out there. especially when we started in 2002, we were originally a radio show and turned into a podcast and then video form. there was almost no progressive shows on air. there was amy goodman and

democracy now and that was it. later, msnbc had keith oberman and rachel maddow. at this point, i would not consider msnbc progressive. we are not far removed from our original purpose, to be the strongest voice and often the only voice for progressives in the media. >> how do you define progressive? >> progressive is the general definition, which i'm writing about any book, expanding the circle of liberty, opportunity, and justice. aren't most americans in favor of that? no republicans hate almost every thing i just said. they do not want to expand the circle liberty. you want to expended immigrants? no. to trans-people? no. you have never been in favor of justice. that eliminates 40% of the country. then there is what rest of the

media never talks about, corporate democrats, democrats who say we do not hate black people or gay people but those sweet tax cuts for the rich. they push for that clever deregulation, the same thing corporate republicans push for. we are not in that camp. we are in the camp of fighting for the people. >> is it easier to do what you do now with a democrat in the white house and democrats controlling the house and senate? >> yes and no. yes and that they are at least willing to listen and they are rational human beings. we cannot get trump to do anything that was not 100% in favor of trump. he took all your money. he said he was going to spend it on lawsuits. he went 0-60 for lawsuits after the election, barely spent any of it, and pocketed the rest. he is a crook.

republicans still like him because he hates the same people they do. when it comes to joe biden, it is not like we made it. joe biden is probably the definition of a corporate democrat and has been through his career must so proud of locking up millions of people through his crime bills, his war on drugs, etc. has he gotten better? yes, because he is a political animal adjusting to the political winds. his voters are progressive. the only reason he became president rather than bernie sanders is because the entirety of the media said he is the only one who could be to donald trump. he barely beat donald trump. do we have to push joe biden? we have to push them a lot to get him to a decent place. i can give you one example. >> please do. >> the $15 minimum wage.

every democrat said we are in favor -- favor of the minimum wage. i knew they were lying. they are never going to pass it, certainly not easily. the only way they do it is a progressive speech them because they do not want to help their voters. everybody said you are too skeptical. rachel maddow says how great the democrats are they will probably do as they promised. that is hilarious. when they put the $15 minimum wage in the covid relief bill, i said they are not going to have it in there. it has always been a lie. when they took it out, people were shocked. our audience was like, that is what they have been talking about this whole time. it is the money, lebowski. all these things that politicians in washington care about is money.

we made bribery legal in america and we are surprised that everybody works for big business. of course they were for big business. mitch mcconnell does. nancy pelosi does. so does joe biden. >> thank you for joining us for the program. you can text us at -- what is the network? >> t whitey is the largest online news network, so we are on about a dozen platforms. youtube, facebook, pluto, comcast, samsung. we are on all of those. twitch, twitter. we have 24 hour news channels like other folks do. sometimes people compare us to

an alternative to fox. except we are not insane. we deal with only fact. so fact then perspective and analysis. we are proud of our perspective. we do not hide it. i think mainstream media hides perspective completely, which is generally a pro-corporate debt perspective. they say that is objective and getting universal health care sucks because it takes it out of our rich pockets. we are clear about our perspective, but we never play with facts. if the facts come out against us, we say, here are the results of the study. here is what the numbers show. when you do that, you get to be popular. right now we have about 500 million views a month. that is part of what makes is the largest.

>> you didn't interview with someone who holds to the teachings of qanon. what prompted you to engage in that conversation? >> conservatives have an interesting love/hate relationship with us. as you can tell from this interview, not a big fan of republicans or conservatives. the qanon people are nuts. i wanted to find out why, what made them lose their minds, but the reason why conservatives do not mind us as much as they might the mainstream media is because they know we are honest. they will say, really interesting idea. could be there are jewish space lasers. to be fair, the mainstream media is clear on that. that is factual. there are no jewish space lasers

and everyone in mainstream media is clear about that. they are less so when it comes to corporate interests. sometimes we can even agree. by the way, i will give conservatives credit on this. by the way, justiceiscomingbook. com. to be fair, conservatives have gotten corruption figured out better than democrats. they say corruption on the democratic side is ok. we have gained some trust with conservatives because we are honest. why do interview the qanon guys? how can you believe this insanity of a child molestation ring run by democratic leadership? and brain juice harvesting?

that is insane. turns out there are a couple reasons. one, mainstream media lost credibility with them so they do not believe a word they say. you keep telling me trickle economics works. it has not been great for 40, 50 years so you are liars and i do not believe you. then they go looking for other theories and run into conspiracy theories. one of the reasons it works is that child molestation in this country is apparently a bigger problem than people are willing to admit. they are more likely to believe it because they suffered. a lot of mainstream media is not understanding that problem. the second issue is -- brace for impact here because you never see this on tv. religion is wrong and gets them to believe there is a real satan running around, so they think -- one of the qanon guys told me he

is a former cop from chicago and he otherwise seems like a sane person. he says, we eat the body of christ every sunday and satanists probably do the same with kids. once you get people to believe in nonsensical mythology that makes no rhyme or reason or sense, you can get them to believe anything. that is why religion is a giant part of the republican party. people have completely lost logic and reason. perfect voters for republicans. >> we have callers lined up for you. valerie, go ahead. caller: i did not know you were still around. the last time i heard your voice was in a documentary about independent journalism. i have a question. i just finished chris for hitchens --christopher hitchen''

memoir and got an idea of how far left politics has died in this country. do you think republicans are better at independent journalism? i do. how do you think that has impacted politics? >> it is a great question. i will give republican voters -- the politicians are the worst. they work for giant corporations or donald trump works for himself. republican voters are more independent minded and have gotten rid of the propaganda that oppresses us all. trickle-down economics, mainstream media told you -- >> maybe. a couple updates for all of you at the top.