The Chris Cuomo Project - Project 2025 and the “Radical Left”: Boogeyman on Both Sides

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

Chris Cuomo dives into the “battle of the boogeymen” driving the fear-fueled narratives of the 2024 election. Is Project 2025 really a blueprint for dictatorship, or just a conservative wish list? And are Kamala Harris and Tim Walz actually pushing the most radical agenda in U.S. history? Chris cuts through the political spin to uncover the truth behind these exaggerated claims. 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

It's a new day. How can you make the most of it with your membership rewards points? Earn points on everyday purchases. Use them for that long-awaited vacation. Points never expire, so use them how you want. That's the powerful backing of American Express. On eligible cards, terms apply. Learn more at mx.ca. It's time to unpack the battle of the boogeymen. What is a more frightening proposition for you? Project 2025 or electing the most radical communist ticket in American history?

I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo project. This is the fear factor of this election. One side is they're trying to destroy the values and fabric of America, right? The left with all their weird gender things and the replacement theory and pizza gate and every other kind of crazy to say that they're the weird ones. Then on the other side, it's project 2025. That the plan here is a crazy alt-right putting all power in a president

to take away all of the parts of government that conservatives don't like, help nobody, give almost plenary authority to the president, screw up the balance of power of checks and balances and the three things and let Trump be a despot. Let's unpack both and see where there is any truth. And here's the good news. There's truth. There's truth. Because it never works as a bogeyman. No conspiracy theory works without a modicum of truth. There's gotta be something there to attach to.

And there is in both of these propositions. Which one should matter more to you? Well, that's for you to decide. But here's some food for thought. Harris, most radical senator, yeah, she's lefty. No question about it. What does that mean, radical? yeah, she's lefty. No question about it. What does that mean radical? Well, let's look.

Does she want all of your kids and illegal aliens to get a free this and gender surgery and free houses? Ish, ish, ish. They believe in tolerance of identity and they believe in teaching openness to tolerance. Meaning what? That they do want your openness to tolerance. Meaning what? That they do want your kids to learn in school that maybe it's not just male and female.

Maybe it's not just chromosomal. Maybe you don't come out of this shoot one of two ways. Maybe it's different than that. Maybe we should be open to it. Do you like that? Yes, no. I don't want my kids learning that in school, no. Legit, no. I don't want my kids learning that in school. No, legit, legit.

Does it mean that she wants your kids to be transgender? Now we're in Trump land, right? She wants to make your kid want to have his dick chopped off. Right? That's what you hear. Why hide from it? Why not be candid? Is that true?

Of course it's not true. Tim Walls is the Manchurian candidate. Tim Walz is a name you'd never heard of and probably still don't pronounce right until some Democrats decided that Shapiro was not a safe enough choice, the Pennsylvania governor. Sure as hell wasn't that once Harris met Shapiro, she decided they weren't a good fit. She knew him. Shapiro wasn't safe because of his position on Israel, maybe a little bit that he was too good, showed her up a little bit, combination effect of those things.

But Tim Laws was an afterthought. He's not a Manchurian candidate. He hasn't always been the plan. That's bullshit. This is all ad hoc. They didn't know that Biden was gonna get out. They came quickly to the decision that it had to be Harris because there was more downside to it not being her than upside to anybody else.

This isn't a plan. This is chaos. But they recovered. Well, what about the Medicare for All? What about the Green New Deal? What about all these things? There is no question that the progressive flank of the Democratic Party wants more government muscle put to social conditions. There's no question. There's no question that they believe that the future of our economy is green and that we should invest in it now and get ahead of the curve.

Is that good or bad? It's about how? I don't think that they should be muscling you into an EV. We're not ready. Our power grid isn't ready. Our capacity to make batteries in a way that is net-net good for the environment is in doubt. And this is America. We don't tell you what to drive. We don't do that here. So I think it's a mistake, but it's about degree. It's about degree. There's no question that they want more government services.

There's no question that they want more government involvement in health care. There's no question. Is that a good or a bad thing? Depends on how you do it. So the point to understanding the boogeyman on each side is to take the boogeyman out of it and look at it for what it really is. You know, this is the problem with the immigration play

in Springfield, Ohio, about them eating the dogs. That's a bullshit scare tactic for a real issue. Springfield, Ohio is a bad look for the state of play in this country. It's a bad look for a broken immigration system. But don't say they eat dogs, don't demonize the people because now you defeat your own purpose, which is to be constructive and about making us better.

So Harris has changed her positions. What does that tell you? She said she was against fracking, now she's for fracking. Why? Fracking is a boogeyman on the left. They see fracking as kind of the same thing as destroying the environment. Why do I say they say it? I don't agree?

No, I don't agree. And the idea of outlawing fracking? No. No, I don't agree. And the idea of outlawing fracking? No, it's about whether or not they'll allow it on public lands. You know, they say in Pennsylvania where they had the debate, she would make it so that nobody can frack here. That's bullshit.

That's a lie. No, they've said she wants to ban fracking on public lands. This is the same thing on the other side that they said about lowering insulin prices. Yeah, for people on Medicare. What about for everybody else? Most people aren't on Medicare or Medicaid. You didn't lower prices for them.

See what I'm saying? You got to think the boogeyman out of it. He doesn't want you to have insulin. We gave you insulin. We lowered the prices. Ish, ish. You did it. It was a good thing, but it wasn't for everybody.

See what I'm saying? You got to look at it. It's a matter of how. It's about the degree. You got to take the boogie man out of it. Well, what else? She changed all her positions. That's a problem. She says, but my value has never changed. Well, what is the value? Winning? Right? Why did you change all these positions? Because you thought it would help you get elected. Is that bad? Not necessarily. But you gotta make the case. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from Shopify. Now, let me tell you something about what I've learned about business. Very often, when it comes to success in selling, it is often not just about the business doing the work to commit to a product, market it, and get

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value is fairness. Things should be fair. That's a value. What's a principle? Administration of justice, law and order. Those are principles. Well, what's the difference? One is an idea. The other is the application of that idea to action. So I believe in fairness, so I want justice.

I want fairness under law. I want laws that make sense in order. I want to execute on those laws and enforce those laws. My values have not changed. But what about the principles upon which you base your policy decisions? See, I don't care if you change your position. You are not a boogeyman. You are not a Manchurian candidate. You are not a radical left plant to destroy the fabric of America. If as facts change, you change what you think should be done

to fulfill the principles that are an extension of your values. So what does that look like? Let's take a hard one, fracking. Okay, I say you frack, you allow frack, and you let the market decide and you have regulations on how you frack so that you protect the things that have to be protected. But you said you were against it. I know, but now I understand it better and I think that I understand the safety things

different and I don't want to do it as much on public lands because I don't think it's necessary because descriptions of what keeps gas and fuel prices, energy prices down is being deceived by the discourse. It's a deceptive discourse, how so? America is pumping and refining more fossil fuels than ever before. That's a fact. But not as much as we could. Okay.

What I said is still a fact. The price is the lowest it's been since 2021 for crude. Why? Because it's a world market. Because we don't just determine our gas prices. We can do a little bit, play with our supplies. We can do a little bit to control prices, but not that much.

Well, then why were they lower under Trump? Because the world market was different. Now we're coming out of a pandemic and most people are not recovering the way we did. We're doing better than most. Look at China. Now look, they may be kicking our ass because they don't have to care about their people.

They have heavy deflation. Their stock market is tumbling. Why? They didn't handle coming out of the pandemic as well as we did. Yeah, but we have inflation. I know, because we put a lot of money into our things. They did not put any money into it because they don't give a shit about their people. Price is tanked.

And they have a deflationary problem, which is way more scary to an economy than inflation. Much harder to control. Google it. You'll see. Ask ChatGPT. You don't have to believe me. So the idea that Harrison Walls are radical plants as a boogeyman, and that if you vote for them, your kids are going to get fucked up, and they're going to ask for weird shit,

and what America is, is going to change for the worse. Is that true? I don't think so. Do I think there's too much emphasis put on identity and gender? Yeah, I do. And I don't think it's good for diversity in this country either.

Because when you force people to accept something, you're asking for resistance to the same thing and you're putting a target on the backs of people. So I would be careful about that. I believe in tolerance. I also believe in the mind your own fucking business rule, which we seem to have forgotten in this country. I used to love the line during the gay marriage debate,

which was a no brainbrainer equal protection argument. No, marriage is for us. Who are you? Marriage was a construct of convenience to control populations by the church. What are you talking about? Do your homework. I don't like gay marriage. It's supposed to be a man and a woman. That's your belief. You don't like gay marriage. Don't marry a gay person. I Love that idea equal protection, baby. You know, you do not get to tell me how to live unless it affects how you live Let's stick to that here. I Want to change my gender, what do you care? No, but I don't want to pay for it fair

fair See so it's about how? No, but I don't want to pay for it. Fair. Fair. See? So it's about how. It's not about yes-no. Yes-no is a cheap way to create a boogeyman, to create division, to get your vote easy. And that's what our politics is addicted to. Because it's easy. And it works best in a binary zero-sum game of two parties.

You win, they must lose. And now we've allowed that to transfer into our Congress. Opposition is a legitimate position. Cooperation is weakness. Don't give them any wins. Trump saying, don't pass the immigration bill. Oh, it wasn't a great bill. It was better than nothing.

Ah, was it? Was it better than nothing? No. Nothing is better for the boogeyman. Because the boogeyman argument is you can't let them do anything. These crazy lefties are going to let in all these people. Look how they let them all in. Now let's make the people they're letting in very scary.

Very scary. Migrant crime. We have a new thing, migrant crime. No, no, we don't have a new thing called migrant crime. Google it. To the extent that we have criminality in our society, which we do, it is not rampantly on the increase, as Trump wants you to believe, migrants are not the source of spikes in crime.

Well, the one is too many. Please apply that standard to everything else. Because I think one is too many with you making it okay for the cartels to ram fentanyl down my kids' throats. That's what I think. I think it's one is too many with you allowing mental health to just go untreated because you don't believe in allowing us to monitor our own and try to help people who can't help themselves. I think one is too many there. I think one too many is homeless vets.

That's what I think. One is too many. But you don't give a shit about any of those things except to talk about it. But when it comes to migrant crime, one is too many. All kinds of fucked up things happen in this country all the time. All kinds of death and sex crimes that shouldn't happen because of a system that doesn't work well. But all that is just fodder for debate. But when it

comes to migrants, one is too many. Bullshit. Bullshit. If that's how you felt, you would have passed that bill even if it wasn't perfect. If that's how you felt, you would have passed that bill even if it wasn't perfect. If that's how you felt, you would have had those executive orders early on as Joe Biden. Not later. It's bullshit. It's playing to the boogeyman. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from 120 Life. I got a member of my family that's got high blood pressure. We are using 120 Life. All right? And so far so good. Now, is it a cure-? Of course not, but you gotta do the right things if you wanna get to the right place. And high blood pressure is no joke. It is the number one risk factor for mortality. Okay? One in two adults have high

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Have you read it? Good, don't. It is so tedious. I'll give you the summary of what it is. It is a comprehensive concentration of power in the president that would allow a president to have a lot more control over the agencies of government, specifically to remove them, to get rid of the bureaucracy,

and then of course, replace it with their own, because that's the only reason, what's fueling the idea of you have to get rid of the deep state is to replace it with your own people. It's right in Project 2025. They don't hide it. You know, that's one of the things that really galls me, that really pisses me off,

is that they don't even hide this shit anymore. That stuff about the conventions and the skyboxes and all the money, that's not hidden. It's right in your face. They have a menu that tells you if you pay this much, you get meetings with our leaders. They don't hide it because you can't do shit about it because they don't respect how you're going to feel about it.

You're lemmings to the two parties. How can we coax these people to be scared enough to not vote for the other side? That's why I say fuck them. That's why I refuse to pick a side because I hate the game. And I mean it. And that's why it's hard for me to develop a following the way these other guys do. But that's why I'm not looking for the big numbers of following because I don't want

to do what I have to do to get it. Project 2025 isn't part of Boogeyman Y. It's now people saying they want Trump to be a dictator. And yes, a lot of his policy proposals echo what's in Project 2025. See? He's lying. He is about it. No, they're just traditional conservative principles. Like them or not like them, you can argue it either way. Yeah, but they want to collapse all these differences. Governments, conservatives have always wanted to reduce

the size of government. They just never really get to do it. And when they do have a chance, they spend just as much money and extend government as much as anybody else. Look at the Infrastructure Act that they rail on all the time. Guess who got the majority of green economy projects? Republican states. Almost two out of three. What the majority of green economy projects?

Republican states. Almost two out of three. What the fuck? You see the boogeyman effect? Wow. Red states got 66 or so percent of the green projects. Yeah. But they say it's all bad.

I know, that's the boogeyman. Project 2025 is a boogeyman also. No, Trump wants to be a despot, maybe, but I don't think so. I don't think he has the intelligence, the ambition, or the strategic sense to make that happen. And Project 2025 isn't, even the unified executive, unitary executive, it's not despotic.

Do I like it? No, not necessarily, but that's my choice and an argument to make, but it's not a boogeyman. And Harris is leaning on it too much. Why? Because it's easier than making the case for herself. It is easier to make the case against him than to making the case for herself. It is easier to make the case against him than to make the case for you.

It's easier to scare you. Don't vote for him. He's a psycho who wants to be a dictator. That's why he likes dictators. That's why he just told you he doesn't want Ukraine to win the war. Okay, okay, and that's what it is. But is it true? you he doesn't want Ukraine to win the war. Okay. Okay.

And that's what it is. But is it true? No. I mean, that shit about him not saying that Ukraine should win was terrible. I don't know why he said that. But he did. But is Project 2025 enough reason not to vote for him? Only if you are against conservative ideology.

But not because it means that he is going to be a dictator when he gets in and that they have it all figured out already. That is as much bullshit as Walls being a Manchurian candidate, Harris being a closet communist, socialist isn't enough anymore. Not enough, gotta go full commie. Harris being a closet communist socialist isn't enough anymore. Not enough. Gotta go full commie. Not even with a short rest stop at PNCO. PNCO. You know what a PNCO was? You're too young. Google it. PNCO was light red.

Not full red commie. Pink. And it was nice to say pink because it was kind of feminizing, right? It was kind of like, it was debasing to people who believe that there should be a better sharing of wealth in this society. God forbid, right? No, I shouldn't say God forbid because that was Jesus's message. Oh, oh, oh, oh, don't live your faith. See, that's why I go at these things.

I go at them because of the hypocrisy and the absurdity of them. And I want you to see it and use it as food for your own process of what choices make the most sense for you and your family and what you care about and who you care about. No, I don't think Harris is a communist. And I think it's stupid to suggest that

because it disrespects your intelligence. And no, I don't think Walls is a Manchurian candidate. I don't think there's anything deliberate about any of this. Are they for more aggressive, lefty policies? Yeah. Is it a tax and spend play? No, not as simple as that. They're doing targeted tax cuts and that's about choices. Did a tax and spend play? No, not as simple as that.

They're doing targeted tax cuts, and that's about choices. Trump made choices with his as well. The idea that he didn't have anything to do with inflation? How the fuck do you explain an unpaid-for tax cut and spending the likes of which we've never seen from a conservative administration before? How does he explain that? Numbers don't lie. Politicians do.

So, Harrison Walls, Boogieman, Cami, Plants? No, no. Project 2025 makes Trump a dictator. It's all in the works. Can't vote for him. Look, it's on his website. No, no, no, no. Don't play their game.

Know that idea of change the game, don't let the game change you? Trite but true. All cliches apply in life, I believe. I used to hate them. Every time I would hear a cliche, if you wanna get, you gotta give. If you wanna love, you gotta change. If you wanna commit love, you got to change. If you want to commit, you got to struggle.

I used to be like, oh, fuck all that, you know, silly hallmark thinking. It's all true. It's all true. The question is what you do with that truth. The reason to not vote for Harris and Walz is because you don't think they can do what they're saying they're doing or what they're saying they're doing will do doesn't match up with what you think needs to be done.

They are not Che Guevara, who by the way I was a fan of until the whole Bolivian thing, but Project 2025 does not scare me and I don't believe in a unitary executive. I don't believe in it.itary executive. I don't believe in it. I believe in the checks and balances. I don't believe in the deep state. I think it's demonstratively false. I think it's silly to suggest that the FBI is a lefty organization. I've never heard of that.

I must know dozens of people who are and were in the FBI. I don't know any of them who are lefties until Trump. They just don't like Trump. They don't necessarily like the left. So replacing them with your own people, it's not a boogeyman. Don't allow it to be. You should judge Harris for doing that.

You should judge Trump and his acolytes for saying that she's a commie. He's a Manchurian candidate, Walls from Minnesota, who you never heard of before. But this has been in the works all along? Give me a fucking break. See it for what it is. In a battle of the boogeymen, one thing is sure.

You lose because you get foisted upon you two false propositions. If you vote for Harris, we're going to be communistic. No more capitalism. Now, I will tell you this. That price gouging shit is a mistake. It's not price gouging. It's what the market will bear. And it's a very, very difficult conversation because you can't have the government get

involved with pricing. Even with milk and stuff like that, it's gotten very complicated. This is a capitalist society. The market bears what the market bears. You got to be careful with that. And look, and I know that's frustrating because the market didn't bear it when we needed to bail their asses out. True, true.

True, true. And it's good to hear President Bush talk about how fucked up it was to be listening to Paulson and Bernanke and give all that money to banks that didn't really need it, that weren't too big to fail. Because none of us are too big to fail, right? They let us fall through the cracks all the time, right? You don't get the bankruptcy protections and reorganization abilities that companies do. Well, that's because they hire lots of people. Do they take care of their workers?

Or do they just, workers have to, they can't afford to do any worse. So they got to accept what they're getting. That's the conversation. Nobody wants to have that conversation. Price gouging, she says, and I'm gonna control it. How, how, how are you gonna do that without affecting capitalism? I don't like that. She's setting herself up for the commie shit. How? How are you going to do that without affecting capitalism?

I don't like that. She's setting herself up for the commie shit. Don't be upset that they're calling you a commie when you talk about central planning of your economy. Her people can't answer that shit. They know that that's too much. But is it a boogeyman? No. No. It's not hiding under your bed. It's not imaginary in your closet. It's real. It's a policy choice.

And by the way, it happens to be bullshit. Because she's not going to be able to do anything like that. Congress will never go for that. So why even say it? Is it a better idea? I don't know. That's for you to decide. Is it a boogeyman?

Is it proof that, you know, that's for you to decide. Is it a boogeyman? Is it proof that, you know, she's Fidel Castro? No, that's cheap. It's playing you for a sucker. Project 2025, there's plenty in there not to like. But the idea that it is a formula to change America into Venezuela to change America into Venezuela is also a boogeyman. I don't buy it, and neither should you. I'm Chris Bummel. Thank you very much for unpacking the battle of the boogeymen with me so that you can have food for thought to be a critical thinker

and an independent thinker. Thank you for subscribing and following. Thank you for watching me on News Nation, food for thought, to be a critical thinker and an independent thinker. Thank you for subscribing and following. Thank you for watching me on News Nation, 8p and 11p Eastern, every weekday night. Thank you for wearing your independence, getting the free agent gear so we can crowdsource some contributions. Oh, you don't like the ads? Oh, you have long COVID and you want to hear what I'm doing?

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