Emma, I'm so excited to talk about
this with you because, okay, let
me first tell you guys how I found
out about the whole Steven Crowder
thing.
I get a comment on one of my
Instagram photos and it says,
you know you're excited that
Sam Seder caught Steven Crowder.
And I was like,
I don't know what that means.
I was on-air as I got that comment.
I don't know what that means, but
the second I'm off-air,
I'm going to look it up.
And so, I go on to YouTube and,
Vosh, he's live talking about it,
and I was like, great, so
I start watching and luckily I
caught it at the very beginning.
And it was the best thing that had
happened in a while in terms of,
not in my personal life,
my personal life is great,
in terms of this space, right,
online media, all of that stuff.
We all needed a moment to bring us
together, right?
And I celebrated, I must admit.
So tell us about it,
the back story, Emma,
give us the goods.
>> So I mean,
one, you guys can see the full play
by play, this is my effective plug.
On The Majority Report channel,
we did a whole fun half.
I'm dedicated to it basically
because it was a big deal.
And for people that don't know,
Sam loves debating people and it's
not for any clout reason really,
I mean, that part's fun.
But he really likes doing it
because part of what we do at
the Majority Report is talk about
these online right wingers because
you get into their algorithm.
And sometimes their fans actually
watch the show and they go, wait,
I'm going to
start questioning things.
People don't realize how the Dave
Reubens, the Steven Crowder's, the
Ben Shapiro's, it is so insulated.
And they keep it that way
on purpose and yet
they scream to debate me,
debate me, debate me, that's
Steven Crowder's whole identity.
He's the debate me me and
the guy sitting on the lawn chair
debating random college students
who he thinks he's smarter than,
and that's the whole purpose of
this, right?
He in 2018 dodged a debate
from Sam.
Sam recorded the phone call.
Apparently the woman didn't care of
the pole at the con the organizer
who spoke to, you may have
done this backstory on the show,
who spoke to Steven Crowder when
they were supposed to debate and
said he got quote, cold feet.
And his father, his manager,
backed out of the debate for him.
There was another debate that Sam
was supposed to do with Crowder on
Gavin McGuiness's show and
Crowder backed out when he found
out Sam was doing that as well.
So this was two times that
Steven Crowder, the debate me bro,
had backed out of debating Sam.
Then we're all doing the show and
Sam turns to me, he goes,
this guy, Ethan,
he's got this huge show called H3,
I've never heard of it.
I've never heard of it either,
but he's huge, this guy.
He's not a political guy, I think.
He did stuff with Trisha Paytas,
I know that name, but I don't
really know anything about her.
And he reached out and said,
Steven Crowder agreed to debate me,
and we want to sneak you on, and
get this debate to happen because
Crowder would just not respond.
[LAUGH] >> And so, [LAUGH] bless
this guy because he's just a normal
guy who has this YouTube show and
they got into a debate about
vaccines.
And he was just having a normal
sense like you should get
vaccinated basically.
And of course Crowder goes,
I'll debate this non-political
commentator who doesn't follow this
or doesn't do this, and
felt really tough about that.
And so
the guy was like, I acknowledge.
Ethan said, I'm not
a political commentator,
let's sneak Sam on because he knows
what he's talking about.
So you guys might know that
backstory by now, but it really was
a production to get it all together
and we had to kind of not
tell anyone in the audience why.
A few Monday's ago we ended our
show early and we started
an hour early because Sam pretended
he had to do something else.
We ended our show and
Crowder immediately drops out
of this debate.
>> [LAUGH] Because he was
monitoring you guys.
He's so scared of Sam that he's
monitoring your show to make sure
that he doesn't get ambushed.
[CROSSTALK] Yeah, yeah.
>> Ambush, and so, yeah, I mean,
and we said, no, there's no way.
I mean, because he said my wife had
an emergency, his dad, I'm sorry.
Said that she had an emergency with
her pregnancy, but
we'll reschedule it for next week.
It's like a little weird when
something dire could be happening,
but Ethan goes,
I think he's watching and
saw that your show ended early.
And Sam was like, there's no way.
I mean,
we were like maybe, >> My God.
>> Maybe.
So the next week, the next Monday,
he rescheduled it for noon Eastern,
which is when our show starts.
We come in all the way early
[LAUGH] and pre-record, and
pretend that the show was live, and
we can't tell anybody about this.
[LAUGH] >> Because I don't know if
people get,
this is what Sam lives for.
And so when Sam says we're going to
come in early to tape the show so
I can accommodate potentially
ambushing Steven Crowder,
there's not going to be
a conversation about it and one I'm
very happy to do it as well.
So this is what this is
going to be.
And so we taped the whole show,
we pretended it's live,
and then it all went down.
I sat right here,
we only had the audio feed,
I could just see Sam and hear them.
And seeing it after hearing it was
like, as you say Anna,
one of the most joyous experiences
in my professional life.
>> Yes.
>> And I've done a lot of fun stuff
with TYT live air, I can curse now.
The Ocasio-Cortez interview is one
of the highlights of my career and
also her victory party.
And all of the fun stuff when we
hang, hanging out with you guys,
drinking with you guys during that,
those are all such amazing times in
my life.
But that was also just an
incredible professional experience
just witnessing Sam do that because
it was just so thoroughly
embarrassing for Steven Crowder.
I genuinely think he ended his
career.
I'm sure he'll make money and
whatever, but he has no credibility
anymore [LAUGH] >> Look,
what Sam Seder did to Dave Rubin
has been mirrored in this
experience with Steven Crowder.
Look, I think that one of the best
ways in fighting back against
the grifty right wing on social
media platforms, and YouTube, and
all of that is to.
Look, they say infuriating things
time to time, right?
And they do it because they want to
see people upset.
But clowning on them,
I would argue is a much more
effective strategy because,
first of all, they're clowns.
How could you not clown on them.
And it's better to embarrass them,
who wants to be a supporter of
an embarrassing person.
Steven Crowder is embarrassing.
Dave Rubin, embarrassing.
And what Sam's been able to do with
both of them in terms of making it
abundantly clear that these
are two embarrassing people.
I mean, he bodied them,
both of them,
it's just amazing, I love it.
But there's was one moment that I
feel like is so undervalued.
And it's the moment when,
Steven Crowder's just like so
nervous about being ambushed that
in the very beginning he's like,
he's looking over to the side,
he's looking over
to the side letting his team know.
Get the camera ready so
you move off of me and
go on to whatever co-host, I don't
know what his co-host name is.
Because he was somewhat expecting
it and the panic in his face when
he's like,
he's looking off to the side.
I've watched that moment over and
over again, just that moment alone.
[LAUGH] >> How he clutches his
hands, he's like if he lets go,
his heart will stop.
I mean, the dude was terrified.
And the way that his voice shakes,
my boyfriend goes to me,
can we watch it again tonight
when you get home.
>> [LAUGH] I'm like, yes, we can.
We could keep
watching Boardwalk Empire,
but we could also just watch
that whole Crowder thing again.
I'm like, you know what,
we're going to do it.
[LAUGH] He said this to me too,
it's watching a bully get smacked.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And Crowder likes to
bully college students or
people in AP we'll talk.
>> because we're running out of
time, but I wanted to mention one
specific thing that everyone should
go watch.
It's on Majority Report's channel.
So I watched the video of that
caller, Brandon, so
he is a huge fan of Steven Crowder.
He's part of Steven Crowder's Mug
Club, I guess that's the membership
offerings from Steven Crowder show.
And he knew nothing about
Sam Seder, was not a big fan of Sam
ambushing Steven Crowder.
But the whole point was, he was
like, no, look, I don't agree with
the way you went about this, but
I'm calling in to say I really,
really want
Steven Crowder to debate you.
Because I would like to hear that
conversation, I would like to hear
that exchange, and that's why this
is important, right?
Look, there's the fun part of it,
of course, which we've talked
about ad nauseam, we all know that.
But when we talk about ideological
bubbles, this guy's clearly
conservative, probably disagrees
with us on a whole host of issues,
but he's open minded.
It's just that he hasn't been
provided with different
perspectives on the show that he's
a massive fan of.
And so he actually really wants to
hear that and that's what gets
Steven Crowder so terrified.
Not just Steven Crowder, I mean,
Dave Rubin is similar other
elements of the online right, very,
very similar.
They don't want to debate people
who know what they're talking about
because when you have the facts on
your side,
debating is not that hard, right?
Yes, there are tactics and
all of that and you should be aware
of debate tactics, it's actually
not all about substance.
But when you're good at the tactics
as Sam is and you know you're good
at the substance too, it's not
the kind a person you want on your
little right-wing show, right?
It's going to completely debunk
all of the lies you've been feeding
your audience.
But I just really loved hearing
Brandon's perspective, I thought
that call was so, so important.
And also,
he seemed like a genuinely good guy
who just wanted to learn more.
And so instead of engaging in
the conversations about the others,
right, the right wing,
the right wing audience.
He's like, I love that you brought
up with the woman from Indiana
who's being prosecuted for
her roles in the Capitol riots.
Just the fact that she's in
her own bubble, it doesn't mean
that everyone's a lost cause.
It's just we need to find ways to
kind of infiltrate those bubbles
and try to have conversations with
one another.
It's really our only hope.
>> Yeah, I'll say the last thing
about it is a lot of times people
call into the Majority Report and
ask, how do I get my right wing
family member out of this spiral or
whatever?
And they agree with me on all this
anti-establishment stuff, but
we can't pull them over.
And it's always provide them, at
one, ask them what they want from
their government and then provide
them with an alternative.
Or if they don't have anything to
say, provide them with the policy
vision from the left.
It's not going to work a majority
of the time, it won't, but that's
the only way to move it forward.
And a lot of these as Ana said,
a lot of these right wing grifters,
it's like a paper tiger.
I mean,
they pretend they debate everybody,
but they are more insulated
than anybody, than anybody.
And they keep it that way because
they want their audience to
continue to not question anything.