Marc Elias: Brian Tyler Cohen, welcome back to Defending Democracy.
Brian Tyler Cohen: Great to be here.
Marc Elias: What people don't realize is that you and I are actually really good friends and we talk a lot off air as well as on your amazing channel where we do a regular democracy series. And one of the things when you and I talk about what's going on that sort of always comes up is how the prevailing division within the Democratic Party is not really one about left versus right.
You know, we keep referring to people as like moderates, as if it's kind of like an epithet, or progressives, as if it symbolizes something else. I'm curious, what is your taxonomy right now for the Democratic Party? Where do candidates fit in? Like Gavin Newsom, who just a few months ago was interviewing Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon and now is viewed as a wild-eyed progressive. I just think these are proxies for something else.
Brian Tyler Cohen: Yeah, I don't think it's gonna be a question of whether you are more moderate or more progressive or whatever label you wanna use. I think this upcoming election is gonna be a referendum on who's willing to fight versus who's capable of folding. We saw that really play itself out in this shutdown fight.
The reality is that you need people who are gonna match the political lean or political ideology of their districts. And that's okay. Like part of being in a big tent party is that you accept people in Jared Golden's district, and you accept people in AOC's district, and the people who run for office have to be reflections of the people that they serve.
But I think that the issue that's at play right now is that there are plenty of Democrats who are not actually willing to meet the Republicans on the playing field that they're on right now. There are plenty of Democrats who are not actually willing to meet the Republicans on the playing field that they're on right now. And that's an issue.
As we look toward this next crop of Democratic candidates, we've already seen it in their responses to how those eight Senate Democrats capitulated to the Republicans in the shutdown fight. A lot of them that I've seen online are being very clear-eyed about the fact that we needed to have fought, that we needed not to have caved.
I think that that's going to be a litmus test issue as we head toward 2026, as well it should be. I cannot tell you how many times I've been scrolling and just see the Charlie Brown meme with Lucy holding the football over and over and over again. It was like a parody of itself by the end of the day. And the fact that that's become synonymous with the Democratic brand is a problem.
Again, this doesn't necessarily have to do with whether you're more progressive or whether you're more moderate because what they were fighting for is to preserve ACA subsidies so that healthcare would be affordable. Everybody in the Democratic coalition agrees with that. So this isn't a matter of political ideology.
It's a matter of your willingness to actually fight to defend the values that you claim to hold. As we head toward this next midterm cycle, that's gonna be the whole ballgame here as we figure out whether we want to be a party where it feels like we're going to put in place people like Merrick Garland or whether we're going to put in place people who are actually going to make sure that we can fight the Republican Party that we're dealing with today.
Marc Elias: So I'm curious because one of the places that you have been most vocal about and that you have focused so much of your attention, and successfully so, by the way, is in the redistricting arena. We have situations like in California where you have Gavin Newsom who frankly quite surprised me. I mean, I watched Gavin Newsom at the beginning, after Kamala Harris lost, sitting down with Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon on his podcast and did not peg him for someone who was going to be really willing to fight really hard against a lot of long odds and really lead a fight there.
And on the other hand, you've interviewed the governor of Colorado, who would seemingly have a lot of free range to be very progressive and really fight hard on redistricting. You've called out the state senate president of Maryland. Is redistricting a microcosm of this or is it a symptom of it?
Brian Tyler Cohen: I think it is a microcosm of the broader fight that we're contending. As we head toward this next election cycle, as we head toward whatever the next iteration of the Democratic Party is, this is a pretty clear microcosm. You have a lot of Democrats who are either not doing anything, and that is the Jared Polises of the world. You have Democrats who are saying the right thing, but we haven't seen any action yet.
We've heard the right things from J.B. Pritzker, we haven't seen action yet. We've heard the right things from Kathy Hochul, haven't seen action yet. And then you have some folks who are actually doing something. We have Gavin Newsom here in California. We have the state legislature in Virginia, and hopefully we'll have Abigail Spanberger sign whatever legislation they put forward into law, same with Mikie Sherrill hopefully at some point when she gets into office as well.
But I think that this redistricting fight is exactly emblematic of where we've been. Frankly, Newsom doing what he did and recognizing that there were a million reasons to have not done this — which is generally where you would expect Democrats, particularly Democrats in California, to be — the fact that he did it anyway and that it passed with about two-thirds of the vote hopefully gives that permission structure.
Hopefully, it incentivizes other Democratic governors, other Democratic state legislatures to see that not only is it the morally right thing to do — because we are in a moment where Republicans are doing it, so you can either fight fire with fire or just do nothing but capitulate to those very Republicans who are barreling ahead with their plans anyway — but it's the politically right thing to do.
We have relied on this idea that if we just confer some goodwill to the other side, if we just compromise with them, if we just extend an olive branch to them one more time, maybe this time it'll finally net us that goodwill that we've been hoping for. And the reality is that it never comes. So good on Newsom, good on California Democrats for defying very long odds and making it happen. The fact that we can get more people in California to vote for this thing than I believe the margin for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election shows that there is a hunger to actually combat the extrajudicial and anti-constitutional actions of this Republican Party.
Marc Elias: One of the things that I've gotten to know about you from talking to you is you really have strong views about policies. Like you want politics to work. You want Democrats to be elected because you want good policies. And it occurs to me that watching a lot of the fights that I see going on, sometimes the left shooting at the center of the Democratic Party, sometimes the establishment wing shooting at the left... It seems like it's about something else.
It doesn't feel like it is always aimed at actually achieving the policy outcomes. It's about gaining some upper hand. I've mentioned now twice Newsom and this sort of what seemed to me to be an inconsistency between on the one hand having a podcast or interviewing very conservative people and then on the other hand being very, very forward-leaning. What is the place for that kind of engagement with Republicans or people you disagree with?
Brian Tyler Cohen: Yeah, look, I think that engagement is necessary. In fact, most of the time that I spend doing TV or other shows, I really try to go places where I think that there's gonna be either center or right-leaning audiences. I'm often on Chris Cuomo's show, I'm often on Piers Morgan's show. I think it's important to actually get out of these echo chambers that we've built for ourselves.
The reality is the internet is very bifurcated now. I remember when I first started on Facebook back in like 2017, and it was the Wild West. If you said anything, you're going to get hit with responses from every end of the ideological spectrum. And slowly, the algorithms learned what to serve people, slowly people distanced themselves from any dissenting opinions. Now we're in a situation where we have Twitter and Bluesky, where there's virtually no overlap between the people who are on these platforms.
But the reality is that there are people in that middle segment for whom hearing those debates play themselves out is gonna be really important. And we saw in this past election cycle on November 4th that there is a pretty decent contingent of swing voters out there, certainly bigger than I would have presumed before. And I think that those people are gettable and you have to do the work of persuasion.
To the point of Newsom, look, I think he deserves credit for iterating. I think what he did in the early days of his podcast with Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon was certainly clumsy and for a lot of people missed the mark. But when you're trying to figure out how to have a successful strategy, failure is a big part of that. If you're only willing to do what's safe and you aren't gonna allow yourself to iterate or to try new things or certainly to fail, then I think that you're not gonna find something new.
Newsom has one of the most listened to and watched podcasts, certainly the most listened to and watched of any politician on the left. And through that, through iterating, he carved a really important lane for himself where he said, "Okay, I'm gonna try extending olive branches. I'll see what the reaction to that is." And what he landed on at the end of that is there is a thirst and a hunger for a fighter in the Democratic coalition. And through that, we've seen him and California Democrats put forward this redistricting plan and it succeeded.
Marc Elias: So I'm curious, because I know you do a lot of debate shows and you do a lot of debate programming. Are they performative or are they genuine? Because like I said, I've talked to you a lot off air and you are genuinely the same person. You care about the same sets of issues. On air is off air. You're not pretending to be something you're not. And I'm not suggesting that the people you debate are, but I also could see why within their media ecosystem and the performative nature of the cruelty has some salience and some value. When you're doing these debates, does it feel like you're debating a real person or just like a theater?
Brian Tyler Cohen: You know, it's hard to say because most of these have been remote. But in the rare instances that I have spoken to these people, it seems to be genuine. I try not to engage with people who I think are acting in bad faith. I've been offered interviews with people who I think are bad faith actors and I turn them down because I don't want to be viewed as the liberal foil to some bad faith Republican actor. I try to make sure that if I'm debating somebody, I know who it is and that they're legitimate enough so that I don't feel like I'm validating a bad faith actor or that I am the liberal equivalent of some bad faith actor.
Marc Elias: You've turned me on to a lot of other really good and insightful people to pay attention to. One of them is David Pakman. One of the things you told me when you first told me about David is that he actually gets guests from the other side of the aisle to come on his show. Is it that they don't want to come on your show? Is it you wouldn't platform them? What would you do if Ted Cruz called you and said, "I'd like to come on your show?"
Brian Tyler Cohen: I'd happily, happily have him on. I've tried Matt Gaetz. I've tried Marjorie Taylor Greene. The most conservative person I think I've ever had on the show was like Adam Kinzinger, to give you an idea of how right-leaning the show is. But yeah, I understand why they don't come on. That's not to say that I agree with it, but I understand why. When we live in bifurcated media ecosystems and they can just go get a fawning interview on some right-wing show, why deal with the trouble of having to answer a follow-up question? Why deal with the trouble of being confronted with facts, especially about this administration?
I would love to have these people on. I've gotten one response from one congressional office and it was back when Matt Gaetz was in office and I got a response after asking. I always ask very nicely. And I sent an email asking if he would come on and I got a response saying something along the lines of, "Thanks so much for reaching out, just wanna make sure we do our due diligence, is this you?" And it was screenshots of like a dozen tweets that I'd posted about Matt Gaetz and I was like, okay, if this is your way of saying no, I get it. Touche, well played.
I'm gonna amend something I said before. The most conservative person I've had on insofar as this person is conservative, I did have RFK Jr. during the campaign and that was a pretty damn contentious interview.
Marc Elias: Was he running at the time as a Democrat or Republican or an Independent?
Brian Tyler Cohen: I think he was running as a Democrat, but I remember posing the question about why his biggest donor was Timothy Mellon, which is Trump's biggest donor in the campaign. When one of the questions has to be, "Why is your biggest donor Donald Trump's biggest donor?", then I think that kind of puts on full display the disingenuousness of that claim. But yeah, that was a contentious interview and his press secretary or comms director was texting me pretty angrily throughout the entire thing. And I knew that that would be the last time that I spoke with RFK, so I was like, "You know what, I'm just gonna go ahead and put my phone down and that's gonna be the end of it."
Marc Elias: So I want to talk to you a little bit about that media ecosystem that you describe. You are one of the largest, if not the largest, left-of-center creators on YouTube. You have more than 5 million subscribers to your YouTube channel, plus millions across other platforms. Talk to me a little bit about why you got into it and what you've seen evolve over time.
Brian Tyler Cohen: So I got into it because I moved out to Los Angeles because I wanted to work in the entertainment industry. And ironically enough, my first job was working at Fox. But it was Fox Television. I wanted to work in TV development. My passion was always politics. I would just consume politics relentlessly. Eventually I moved away from the business part of the industry and I started working in the acting part of the industry. Acting felt very unfulfilling after a certain point. When you've gone in on your 10th audition for Doritos and you're sitting in some cattle call commercial audition, there's just a point where it hits you that what you're doing is not making that big of a difference.
I liked the performance aspect of it and I loved politics. And so I was like, "You know what? I'm going to spend a little bit of free time and put some stuff online." I started to notice I was served a little bit of video content on Facebook back when that was the platform everybody was on. And there was no left-of-center response to what I was seeing. I was seeing right-wing content pop up and I wasn't seeing any left-wing commentators and so I just started doing my own videos and putting them out on a daily basis.
A big part of my channel's success was the fact that there was just an absence of this kind of content and there was a hunger for it. Republicans have a massive advantage when it comes to the investments and the resources they have in independent media and that's owed to the fact that they never got what they needed from legacy media. They didn't see enough of the bias that they needed to see from the CNNs and NBCs and ABCs of the world. They wanted something where it was gonna be more right-wing propaganda. So they built that for themselves.
The problem for the left is now people are moving away from legacy media. The Republicans have had 10 years of investments in their propaganda machine. And so we find ourselves in a moment where everybody is consuming media online. The right has been humming along for 10 years, and now we have to throw this together as quickly as we could. I was lucky in the sense that I jumped into this space years ago, almost a decade earlier than everybody else. So I think that's in large part what I owe a lot of the success of my platforms to. But what we need right now is to very quickly recognize that we need to make up for a decade's worth of lost time.
We've seen a lot of good work by people who recognize that we need more voices in this space. You are among them. Your YouTube channel has surged from zero to half a million in, if I'm not mistaken, like less than a year. Is that right?
Marc Elias: We're now getting close to 600,000 subscribers on Democracy Docket and you're right. It's been a lot of growth and a lot of that is frankly a credit to you. One of the hallmarks of your career that has really not been appreciated enough is you have really helped build the career of a lot of people on YouTube and on social media, including this very channel. You've helped build other people up. Explain why, since you have been in a dominant position, you see a benefit from essentially creating competitors? Why is that something of interest to you?
Brian Tyler Cohen: You're right. In a weird way, trying to get more people into this ecosystem chips away at the amount of people who would be able to consume my content. But look, that's not why I do what I do. I view all of this weirdly as kind of a means to an end. Like you were saying before, I want to see us pass the things that I've been fighting for for a long time. Ultimately I want to see Medicare for all. I want to see climate change legislation. As progressive as those policies we can get is what I want to see. And we can't do that recognizing how the media ecosystem works if we don't have voices on the left that people can build their worldviews up from.
I can't do it on my own. We need lots of people. I, as a content consumer, I sit there and I scroll all day and I know what it's like to not have enough voices. And eventually you get pulled into some right-wing rabbit hole because as I mentioned before, they've been investing in this space for so long. They have so many voices in this space. This independent media space was cool on the right way before it was cool on the left.
So, look, it would be great if millions of people watched every single one of my videos, that would be wonderful. But it's more important that we actually succeed. And that's gonna come from getting as many people in this space so that the pipeline in this space is such that as people continue to consume content, they're being fed the right kind of content. This is about getting as many people into this space so that we all as a community can reach as many Americans that we can share the virtues of progressive governance as we can. I think really a rising tide lifts all ships. If some of us do well, all of us do well.
Marc Elias: One of the strategic questions I have about the development of your channel is that it's notable that you added two lawyers — me and Glenn Kirschner — as regular recurring features. And you did a classroom series with Jamie Raskin, who is in addition to a member of Congress, also a constitutional lawyer. Why the emphasis on so much legal content?
Brian Tyler Cohen: Yeah, that's a good question. This may not be popular, but I remember in Trump 1.0, I remember watching Chris Cuomo on CNN and I remember how he was able to use his legal arguments to dissect so much of the shit that was being thrown at him from the Republicans that he had on. It almost made me consider going to law school because I thought that that was such an effective way of being able to combat all of this stuff. And frankly, Marc, your career is a testament to that.
Democrats and the left more broadly lose a lot. But one place that we've seen a lot of success is in the courts. And that's in huge part owed to you and your law firm specifically. Even as we have seen the progressive media ecosystem pale in comparison to what they've built from the right, the one bright spot that we've seen is how we've succeeded in the courts. Whereas you can manipulate people in the media, you can manipulate people in the halls of Congress, all of that doesn't rely on a strict adherence to reality. It does in the courtroom. That's the last vestige where facts matter in this world. And I think there's a lot of virtue in that. You win because the facts are on your side. And so I think that that's a space that I have a lot of affinity for and I'm quite deferential to for that reason.
Marc Elias: So how does legal content do on your channel? Where does legal content generally fit in?
Brian Tyler Cohen: So I actually think maybe for the same reason that I just outlined, legal content is generally some of the best performing content on the channel, if not outright the best performing content. Again, there comes a point where when I cover what Republican politicians say and we see such shamelessness, there's a feeling of helplessness and despair. It's really difficult to beat somebody for whom shame no longer matters. That's the problem with Trump. I titled my book that I released last year, Shameless, and it's really difficult to fight against an opponent for whom shame counts for nothing.
But there's a lot of vindication that people can feel, probably the last space that they can feel that vindication, when you have a judge continue to defer to reality, when you have Trump attorneys admit the truth in court and say something that they can't say in the public square because they face sanctions or whatever it may be. And I think that part is appealing to people because it's, again, the last vestige where any of that actually matters. Whereas I think a lot of our politics is scientifically engineered to make us feel hopeless, the legal space is a place that reality can't fall victim to the distortion field that's applied to everything else. And people recognize that. And also people like to see Democrats win. And that is, again, the last place where we do see Democrats far more often than not win.
Marc Elias: So what does it tell us that the latest thing you've added to your channel is comedy?
Brian Tyler Cohen: So that is important. And that was like an offshoot from something that happened in the 2024 election. I do think it's important for people who consume politics and don't want to seek it out... sometimes they bump into politics. And I think comedy is a really great gateway for them to do that. The reason that I'm interested in politics is because I used to watch Seth Meyers and Jon Stewart. That's what got me. Without Seth Meyers and Jon Stewart, without comedy, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing.
The irony is that most of what I do is not funny and it's pretty fucking grim to be honest. It's like the opposite of comedy. But I think it's important for people to have different gateways into this stuff. The whole ethos of my channel and my brand online is that I've always wanted to make politics accessible. I want it to feel like a way that regular people who haven't grown up watching C-SPAN or reading the news can still stay on top of this stuff. Building up our coalition is gonna mean putting as many people into it as possible. And comedy is a really big part of that. It was a big part of it for me.
Marc Elias: Alright, so just a couple of last political questions and then I'll let you go. What do you think the 2026 election, if you are the Republicans, will be about? And then what do you think if you're the Democrats it's about?
Brian Tyler Cohen: I think on the Republican side, they're assuming Trump doesn't subvert the Constitution and try and run for a third term. If we assume, naive though it may be, that there is some degree of normalcy returned to politics, I think that we are gonna continue to see the descent into Trumpism from all of these Republican candidates. We're gonna see a lot of Trump impressions. I think we may see a world where it's like JD Vance and Tucker Carlson. I think that it's gonna be a pretty dangerous tent of people who are gonna feel newly emboldened to speak out.
If in only 10 months we've gotten to the point where the Nick Fuenteses of the world are gaining so much power in Republican politics, I can't imagine what three years from now is gonna look like. I think that the discourse is going to continue to degrade up to that point. There's a big part of me that hopes that we will see a breaking point at some point where regular people out there see that and say, "When I'm in a coalition with people who are espousing straight up neo-Nazi ideology, maybe I'm in the wrong coalition." But then again, we've hoped for things like that before and we've been disappointed before.
On the Democratic side, I do think there is a big question of establishment versus non-establishment, populist versus non-populist, fighter versus non-fighter. I think that we're gonna see some type of Democratic Tea Party on the left. And frankly, I think we need a Democratic Tea Party on the left because when you have a Republican party that is as unpopular as it is right now doing the things that they're doing right now, and the only thing more unpopular than that is the Democrats, that's a big problem.
I think it's just owed to the fact that there hasn't been that generational change. In large part, we have the same Democrats in office now that we had when I first started doing political media over 10 years ago. My generation, millennials, has been largely shut out of office. And I should remind people too, millennials are the most liberal generation that we've ever had. So I think that we will and I think that we should have some type of Tea Party on the left. I don't know exactly how that's going to manifest, but I think the Democratic Party of 2026 and ultimately 2028 is going to look a lot different than the Democratic Party right now.
Watch the full interview here.
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