The Chris Cuomo Project - Don’t Like Trump or Biden? Here’s a Better Way to Vote
Episode Date: May 9, 2024Chris Cuomo tackles a provocative and pressing issue: the dilemma facing many American voters who are dissatisfied with both major presidential candidates in the 2024 election. With Joe Biden and Dona...ld Trump at the top of the ticket, Chris proposes focusing on the down-ballot races, such as Congress and local seats, which often have a more direct impact on policy and governance than the president does. By voting in these races and skipping the presidential vote, Chris argues you’re not shirking your civic duty but rather redirecting your influence to where it might matter most. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The idea that the best America can do for president is President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump
has to be a commentary on how broken our political system is.
This has to be a bottom, does it not?
And it is making so many face a true dilemma.
Well, I can't vote for Trump because he's a jerk and everything about him is terrible.
But I like the policies, but I don't want Trump.
Well, so I guess I'll vote for Biden.
But I don't know that he's gonna make it through.
And it seems like he's kind of losing it.
And I'm afraid that the people behind him
are really in control.
And I think there's something to this deep state stuff.
I also think he may be a little shady
with how he handled his son.
And I think his VP choice is inadequate.
So what do I do?
How many of you are facing that right now
where you don't like either choice?
And I know that's often the case,
but not to this degree. Am I right?
I know. I have an answer for you. A lot of people are going to get pissed at me about
it. That's okay.
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I'm Chris Cuomo. This is the Chris Cuomo Project.
Thank you for subscribing and following.
Here's what I'm saying.
On November 5, everybody's believing that the big decision that you have to make
is who to choose for president.
And that everything else is secondary
and that will decide everything.
Who do you choose for president in 2024?
I'm here to tell you,
I don't think that that's the true proposition, okay?
You got 468 seats are up,
all of the house and 33
senators, okay
That's a lot of people the whole reason that you think you have to vote for president and
Get it right is because they're going to decide everything
It's not really true if you think about it even with Trump who fancies himself an autocrat
How much of what happened
was really him?
He didn't design the tax plan.
The Republicans did.
I'm not saying he doesn't deserve credit for it or blame.
I'm not saying that he didn't want it.
I'm just saying, did he design it?
No, he doesn't know anything about policy.
That's the truth.
Everything he did was a function of what the people around him were trying to make him do,
except all the PR stuff and the politic speak
and all the trouble.
That's all coming out of his face and his head, no question.
But the policies, if that's what you think you want,
they're not really coming from him anyway.
I'm getting to a point here.
The taxes, the immigration stuff,
the taxes is gonna be the sum total of the economic stuff.
A little bit of trade there,
Trump is a little different than his party.
But it's about the we, not the me,
a lot more than you think.
Same thing on the democratic side of the ball with Biden.
A lot of it is about what the congressional leaders
can get through.
So my proposition to you is this, many of you are going to stay home.
I don't believe, and I could be wrong, and frankly, I hope I am wrong,
because I always want turnout to be a new high.
The more participation, the better, because the more we get past the fringe elements
and the diehards and the zealots to the regular people who are just being pragmatic and being practical and thinking reasonably so the more
people who vote the better. But I actually think the voting numbers are
going to be disappointing this time because people see the proposition as
going out for Biden or Trump and they don't like either of them and I get why
you don't. But I'm here to tell you, you can vote anyway and just don't vote for president.
Now, some people will say, well, vote for Bobby Kennedy
or Jill Stein.
Now, I haven't even had Jill Stein on this time around
because I gotta tell you,
I don't think she's relevant in the race.
She's polling as a hash mark.
And I do think that there should be some chance
that you can have an influence in the race,
you know, for me to have you on.
Well, but you had Cornell West on.
Yeah, I know him and I like him.
And I think he's much more of a factor
in our political dialogue than Jill Stein is.
No disrespect to her, I've interviewed her before.
I did a town hall with her, I believe.
But here's my point.
You don't have to vote for Biden and you don't have to vote for Biden
and you don't have to vote for Trump.
And you don't have to have the guilt
of voting for Bobby Kennedy and helping Biden or Trump win.
Just don't vote.
Vote for the congressional seats
and you will wind up doing
what's gonna have the greatest influence anyway,
because that's what's going to shape the situation.
Think about it.
How much has Biden been able to get done?
Now, I get the argument that he should have done
a lot more by executive order.
In fact, he did at the beginning
by undoing a lot of Trump's executive orders,
which absolutely destabilized the southern border.
It did not help.
I accept the argument, but it made things worse.
Why he did it, that's for him to explain.
I think he's just caving to the left,
who believes that anything you do to monitor who comes in
makes you a racist, which is crazy.
I also don't accept the idea that they're doing this
because they wanna bring in all these new democratic voters.
I don't believe that. But anyway, it doesn't
matter. The point is this. He can't get anything done because Congress won't do
anything. You see what I'm saying? So one or two things are gonna happen. The
numbers are gonna stay so close in Congress that it doesn't matter who the
president is except for the noise and the drama and some foreign decisions.
Because almost everything domestic that matters
needs legislation.
So you're better off just voting for Congress.
Vote in those races, especially if you're in states
where there are contested races.
And you'll be having more of an influence.
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Why?
Because it's one and done.
I don't have to worry about the combinations.
I don't have to worry about the price the same way.
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it's the deliverability. It's just a scoop and a glass of warm water for me,
but you can put a scoop of it in whatever you want, and boop down the hatch
and that's that. People ask me all the time, AG1, do you really take it? Yeah,
it's all over my house and I've been drinking it for a long time
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This is not a radical idea.
The reason that we believe you have to vote
for all of the races, the entire ticket as they call it,
is an extension of this poison party principle
that you're all in, right?
Go blue, go red, down the line, right?
That's what people do.
Even for like judges that you've never heard of before.
Well, they're on the ticket and this is my ticket.
We don't even know what these parties represent half the time anymore.
It's all situational for them.
It's usually more than situational.
It's situational as a function of being oppositional.
Meaning they're just against whatever the other one is for, right?
So that's where this voting for all the races
and this guilt dynamic,
oh, I didn't vote, I feel bad.
Don't feel bad.
Vote for what matters to you.
I get why a vote for Biden or a vote for Trump,
unless you buy into the rationale
that you're stopping the other by voting for one,
I think that's highly unsatisfying.
And I think that you should go to the polls anyway,
or mail it in.
I actually suggest you all mail it in.
Why deal with the lines?
Why deal with the frustration?
Just mail it in.
The reason people don't do it is because
it takes a little bit more effort.
Because you gotta like ask for the ballot
and then send it in.
It's like, how lazy are you?
This is your democracy we're talking about.
You can't just do a little paperwork.
I say vote anyway,
even if you're disgusted by the presidential thing,
because Congress matters as much or more.
And they don't just follow the president
the way they used to.
That's a little bit more true on the right
than it is on the left.
But think about it that way.
And voting for one side.
And when you look at it this time, what would that mean?
Okay, what are our big ticket issues?
Immigration.
Now that is one that actually works against what I'm saying
because immigration, you can have a lot of executive orders
that may make a difference.
Now, a lot of them got hung up in litigation last time
under the Trump administration
because they didn't think he could do it unilaterally.
So I could still be right,
but when it comes to immigration,
the president has a lot of leeway.
For instance, Trump's ban of Muslims,
once he worded it correctly, he was able to do it
where it didn't look like he was just outlawing
an entire faith.
So once they finessed it,
even though that's exactly what he wanted to do,
I love Muslims, I have lots of Muslim friends.
I just think Islam hates us.
Only that guy can say that.
And people don't see it
as like a complete disqualifier for him.
But again, I see Trump as a metaphor
for the madness of our party system.
Only in this totally poisoned party political system
can you decide to vote for a guy
even if he's convicted of major felonies.
Like if that is not a sign of how sick we are,
I don't know what is.
Oh, well, I think all the litigations are fake.
It's all lawfare.
That's bullshit.
No, you don't.
No, you don't. No you don't.
I didn't like the two New York cases.
I've been very open, transparent, and outspoken about that.
But let's be clear, he did what they say he did.
He valued his property one way to borrow against it
and another to pay taxes on it.
He violated the law, they just never prosecute anybody else
for that law.
So why him?
That reeked of politics.
The Alvin Bragg case of the hush money payments.
He did it.
He denied it.
I got the tape of him having the conversation
with his bag man, Michael Cohen,
and proved that he knew about it.
He was lying about not knowing about it.
He did what they say he did.
Now, did he do it to save his campaign?
I don't think so.
I don't think they'll convince a jury of that.
And I think that too, reeks of politics.
But not the Georgia case, not the Georgia case,
and not the documents case,
but I don't really care about the documents case. The only point about the Georgia case. Not the Georgia case and not the documents case, but I don't really care about the documents case.
The only point about the documents case is
he knew he had things he wasn't supposed to have.
He didn't sell them.
He didn't use them for espionage.
That'd be the only thing I'd care about.
I don't know about you.
But he intentionally refused the FBI
and all of those legal requests to bring him back
because he wanted the fight.
So he kind of got what he asked for in that litigation.
Again, he did what they say he did.
But I just don't see any point to the policy behind that particular prosecution.
And then you have the DC case, which is a much tougher call for me.
I think he absolutely contributed to what happened on January 6.
Absolutely.
And January 6 was not a protest gone wrong.
Okay?
It was a riot.
I don't believe it was an insurrection
because I don't believe it was a good faith effort
to overtake the US government.
You go in there unarmed,
you can't reasonably be expecting to hold the building
or any type of power.
But it was definitely a riot.
It was definitely disgusting and he definitely encouraged it. But it was definitely a riot, it was definitely disgusting,
and he definitely encouraged it.
Now, is that a crime?
I don't think so.
Is it political malpractice?
Is it disqualifying in terms of
I'd never vote for him again?
Well, that's what Geraldo Rivera says,
and I respect that decision.
I respect that decision.
But that doesn't mean that you should go to jail,
prison for it.
Now, a lot of you believe no one
should have gone to prison for that, and that's bullshit.
It's so funny to see people who felt like that about January 6th now wanting to see
all these students on campus locked up forever because they broke into a building.
Do you not see the irony in that?
Well, but Cuomo, you've been going after...
First of all, it's not about me.
It's about your inconsistency, not mine.
January 6th, riots, that makes you criminal
for your behavior, you should get prosecuted.
I feel the same way here,
but I don't think breaking into a building and campus
that the campus doesn't even care about enough to defend,
right, they just let them break into it,
is different than breaking into the US Capitol
as they're certifying a national election.
Do I really have to argue this point?
Doesn't mean I don't think what the kids are doing,
those kids who are supporting violence
towards Jews or Israel or supporting Hamas in any way.
I mean, they're just so misguided, that's so disgusting.
But I also think that's a very small number
of these student protestors.
I think in the main, they see an overwhelming military force
causing needless suffering and murder and death in Gaza.
And they want it to stop.
And that's what it's about.
And I have no problem with that.
I think it's a short-sighted understanding of the how.
And they're not seeing where the leverage is,
which is their protest should start with,
give back the hostages, give them back,
give back the hostages, give them back.
Why?
Because they stole people.
And that's wrong.
And they massacred on October 7th
to make Israel come after them.
They precipitated this.
Oh yeah, but before that.
But you can't, yeah, but October 7th.
Because on October 6th, we did not have an all out war
where Israel was bombing the shit out of the place.
Right?
What changed? October 7th. What happened in all out war where Israel was bombing the shit out of the place? Right?
What changed?
October 7th.
Give back the hostages.
Have free and fair elections that are not co-opted by a terror organization.
Now you have the leverage to say Israel, get out.
You don't have any occupying here.
Let's cut the settlements back in the West Bank, because that's going to be the next front, and let's have some Arab neighborhood alliance
to shepherd the Palestinian state
into its own responsibility and control.
That should be the solution.
Now look, this is a back of the cocktail napkin sketch,
because obviously for that easy,
you wouldn't have had generational warfare there.
But to protest the situation and not begin with saying,
Hamas, you're a terrorist group, get out,
get your boot off the neck of the Gazans,
because that's what they want.
No, the polls show 70% support Hamas.
And now we believe polls,
especially in a place where if you go against the ruling organization,
they kill you.
Come on.
It's like, do you believe that Putin has 95% popularity in Russia?
You think it has something to do with who controls the polls and how people feel about
speaking the truth about power?
Come on.
So I think they're misguided in terms of what the emphasis of the protests should be.
You want the suffering to stop, you gotta get to the how.
And the how has to start with bringing back the hostages.
There are Americans there, by the way.
And getting rid of the terror organization
whose mandate is to kill Jews and get rid of Israel.
That is not Israel's mandate.
To kill Gazans and get rid of Palestine.
That's my problem with the genocide thing.
It's my same problem with the insurrection thing
about January 6th.
The truth is enough.
The truth is enough.
January 6th was a riot that was designed to disrupt,
destroy property.
And that's criminal and it's disgusting.
But that doesn't mean that it was a legitimate attempt
to overthrow the US government.
Well, what would have happened if they stopped the vote?
They would have had the vote the next day.
Because as soon as they brought the authorities
and they would have wiped all those guys out
if they'd gone in hard and heavy.
Similarly, this is not a genocide in Gaza.
Well, why not?
They're killing so many people.
It's your approach to killing that makes something a genocide.
How so?
And this is international law.
This is accepted understanding
and conformity of experiential learning, okay?
In terms of what we've seen in other places.
A genocide is where you want an entire type
to no longer exist.
So that you kill indiscriminately
and as effectively as possible. Man, woman, and child. exist so that you kill indiscriminately
and as effectively as possible, man, woman and child. Yeah, but they're killing man, woman and child.
Yes, they are despite efforts not to.
I'm telling you, this could be a lot worse.
How do we know?
Because America killed a lot more people at this point
than after 9-11 than Israel has at this point
after October 7th.
Now, was that a genocide?
No, we weren't doing a genocide either.
We were doing the same thing that they're doing,
which is just try to wipe out a terror organization
which hides among the innocent
and has had a lot of time to figure out how to hide
in Gaza in a way that they didn't have in the Levant
and the other places that we were fighting.
So if we killed more people and it wasn't a genocide,
how is the fact that they killed less
when they could have killed everybody there by now?
And haven't, how does that make it a genocide?
The truth is enough.
There have been way too many innocents, tens of thousands who have died, and it didn't
have to happen.
But the how isn't just to ask Israel to unilaterally stop.
They'd be setting themselves up to get attacked again, which is exactly what Hamas has promised.
So a lot of this you should already know because your leaders should be giving you this message.
And let's face it,
Biden has not been able to articulate this.
And Trump has been oddly quiet about it
if you think about it.
So I asked some of his guys,
why has he been so quiet on this?
And they said, oh, well,
he obviously doesn't support terror groups
and he supports Israel.
Wow, that's ambitious.
Why has he been quiet?
Well, he's been distracted by the litigation.
Yeah, but he's been talking about that plenty.
So it's not like he's following the gag order
or staying quiet.
He doesn't see a win.
He doesn't see a win.
He doesn't want to take on the situation
because he doesn't want to have to control it
and make decisions based on what happens there.
Because it's not easy.
Trump is all about easy wins.
He doesn't do what's hard.
He never has in his entire life.
That's why he always looked to, you know,
go bankrupt and get bailed out when a lot of guys
would have battled through.
So leadership should be making this.
And it takes me back to this fundamental proposition.
The fact that the United States can't do better than
Biden and Trump as choices for its president is sad.
But it's also important that you see it that way
because it's proof that the party system has failed us.
But you don't have to fail yourself.
Vote.
If you can't vote for either of those guys, don't.
If you don't want to vote for a third party candidate
because you don't want to, by proxy, influence one of those two winning, then don't. to vote for a third party candidate because you don't want to, by proxy,
influence one of those two winning, then don't.
But vote for Congress.
Vote for your local seats also.
Because Congress is going to wind up having as much to say,
if not more, about what happens in the preceding four years
as whoever is president.
No matter what their policy concerns are,
if they don't have the margin in Congress,
they're not getting it done.
Especially in these politics,
this political perspective that we have now,
which is opposition's a legitimate position
and it's enough.
So what I'm saying is,
if you don't want to vote,
don't vote for president,
but vote down the line.
And then you'll be satisfying your civic obligation,
exercising your
franchise, but also relieving yourself of having to pick from one of two bad
choices.
I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you for subscribing and following to the Chris Cuomo
Project. If you don't want the ads and if you want to learn about how I'm trying to get through long COVID
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join the Substack, and I'll see you on News Nation, 8 and 11 P Eastern every weekday night.
My friends, the problems are real, but we only have one choice.
Let's get after it.