Old School: October 13, 2026

Cenk Uygur (0:00)

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and read our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome, thank you.

I was going to say back, I guess we're back on Old School a week later. Anyways, welcome to Old School, Cenk Uygur, Brett Erlich, everybody.

Brett Erlich (0:25)

Happy to be here.

Cenk Uygur (0:26)

All right, happy to have you, brother.

Brett Erlich (0:28)

What people don't know is how little time passes between when you walk into the studio when the show starts. I don't know how you can keep track of what show you're on.

Cenk Uygur (0:37)

I know, don't I know it, brother, don't I know it? Let alone the interviews that are in the middle of the day, after the show, before the show.

I almost say it every day that I walk in at 3 o'clock Pacific here to do The Young Turks. I don't know how I made it.

Brett Erlich (0:55)

Yeah.

Cenk Uygur (0:55)

I don't know how I read all the stories and I'm ready to do the show. That is insane.

Brett Erlich (1:01)

Yeah, and then the amount of understanding of how close to when it starts sometimes you get here.

It's like when people in a plane observe the flight attendants during turbulence. Just all the normal people, should he be here by now? Is this safe? Should he be here by now? And all the stage is just like, no, he'll be here in a second. It's like, as long as they're not freaked out, I won't be freaked out.

Cenk Uygur (1:29)

I learned from the best, Ben Mangowitz.

Also, I mean, God, we were a perfect pair. We'd both show up about two minutes and one minute before the show. Ana said the first show she ever did, remember it's in the middle of the night, right? It's at three in the morning. And only Dave and Jesus and JR are there in the beginning. And she's like, where the fuck are the hosts?

Brett Erlich (1:53)

And then she's like, wait a minute.

Ana Kasparian (1:54)

It's almost 3AM.

Cenk Uygur (1:55)

I know they get on the air, on the radio, nationwide, at 3 o'clock, right?

Ana Kasparian (2:02)

And she's like, and it's 2.5 fucking 7, right?

Cenk Uygur (2:06)

And at 2.58, Ben walks in, and at 2.59, I walk in.

Brett Erlich (2:10)

And it's just so easy. I didn't know, I don't know when I became the opposite of that kind of person. I used to be that person. She's like, I slept, what time is it, 11 o'clock? And I'm like, and everybody's like, it's never going to have a real job. But at some point, and I don't know, I literally, maybe it was when I worked at a talent agency and I would get yelled at for being a little late. That I was like, and now I just naturally wake up on time and get places early. I'm very disappointed in myself.

Cenk Uygur (2:38)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Look, you've now opened up two secret topics. There was already two secret topics on top of the knowledge topics. So we're all of a sudden, we're swimming in topics, and we don't even know it, let alone the audience. So let me tackle those two. So first of all, the reason why I'm late to almost every single, or just barely on time to everything I do is because I'm trying to pack things in. Yeah. Right? And I've become the king of efficiency. So if you look at my life from the outside, you might go, I don't know.

He's kind of late to all the calls, so I don't know if he's that efficient, right?

And you could have a lot of context clues that make you think, I don't know, right? But the reality is I'm doing three things at once. If you just followed me, back in the day, sometimes Zephyr would because he was filming things for the congressional run. And so he's one of the few guys, a car a little bit, that's been with me throughout an entire day. Where then you go, he is doing a lot of things at the same time non stop.

Brett Erlich (3:46)

So how much do people, I assume at a certain point you just have to have other people tell you what's next. How much offloading to other people do you do versus how much do you force yourself to know what's coming up?

Cenk Uygur (3:59)

That's a great question. But before I answer that, that first thing leads to the second secret topic.