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- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The way we change Presidents in this country is by voting.

- A quartet is already a jawn, it’s just The New Jawn.

- January 6th was not some sort of violent, crazy outlier.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I mean what other country sends comedians over to embedded military to make them feel better.

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

_ It’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato.

For the entire program, we'll be talking to a very compelling, interesting, and some argue provocative commentator and author.

She is Batya Ungar-Sargon and author of the book "Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women."

Batya, welcome back.

- Thank you so much for having me back.

It's really an honor to be here with you.

Thank you.

- You got it.

Batya, who the heck are the elites, and are the elites us?

(Batya laughing) No, who are these elites?

- We are definitely in the elites.

The way that I define elites in the book is to reflect a divide that has emerged in America, a class divide in a country that likes to think of itself as classless, indeed, that began as a revolt against the class society of Europe in the old countries, and this class divide separates out Americans by income, by home ownership, by health, by how long they will live.

The simple fact in American life today is that if you have a college degree, you will live longer, you will be healthier, you will be much more likely to become a homeowner later in life.

Your life will be insulated from crime, violent crime, from depths of despair, from addiction, and in general, you will have access to the American dream, whereas if you don't have a college degree, if you work with your hands for a living, if you are working class and you work full time but in a job that doesn't require skills in the knowledge industry, you will live a shorter life.

You will be much less healthy, much less likely to be a homeowner.

You will be plagued by crime and depths of despair and simply not have as much access to the American dream.

- You've used the term American dream several times, and in the book, in many ways, I think you redefine the American dream.

Is it different than what people perceived it to be 10, 20, 30-plus years ago?

What's the American dream in 2024?

- I don't think it has changed dramatically.

What has changed dramatically is the ability of people without a college degree to achieve the American dream.

So the way that I define American dream in the book is the way that the vast majority of Americans would define it.

Living the American dream means you own your own home, you'll be able to retire in dignity, you have access to affordable healthcare, and your children have at least as many opportunities as you did, that's it.

- Educationally, our children have every opportunity educationally and in their careers?

- Exactly, the same opportunities we did.

- But Batya, respectfully, even if someone agrees with everything you just said so far, how have the so-called elites given the shaft to working men and women?

What have we done to them according to you?

- I'm so glad you asked that question, because that is at the heart of the book.

In 1971, which was the high-water mark for working class wages, since then, they started to stagnate and then to fall if you factor in inflation.

In 1971, the largest share of the GDP in America was in the middle class.

- The gross national product.

- That's where most of the GDP was.

- GDP, gross domestic product, I apologize.

Go ahead.

- Exactly.

Most of the money in America was held and owned by the middle class.

Now, what happened between 1971 and today?

Well, people in our class, in the top 20%, in the educated elites, we like to rail against the billionaires, right, and say, "Oh, the billionaires, they took all this money that used to be in the middle class, and now it's gone to the billionaires and corporate America," blah, blah, blah.

It's actually not true.

If you compare the share of the economy, the share of the GDP that is controlled by billionaires between 1971 and today, it has not changed significantly.

So where did all that GDP go that used to be in the middle?

Well, the middle class is gone now.

- Hold on, whoa, whoa.

- But it hasn't gone to the billionaires.

- One second.

There is no middle class?

- The middle class has been squeezed, and so where the largest share of the GDP used to be in the middle, today, over 50% of the GDP, that's over half of the economy, half of the money controlled by Americans, it's not the billionaires.

It's the top 20%, people with one degree, two degrees, people who are in professional jobs or in the knowledge industry.

So they got squeezed up from the middle, and people without a college degree got squeezed down.

That's what happened, and that's why I call it a betrayal because that squeezing up of the professional class happened through very intentional policy that was enacted by Democratic presidents.

- Oh, so it's the Democrats.

It's not just the elites.

It's the Democrats who are elites, not the Republicans who are elites.

Explain that part to us, Batya.

- Yeah, so when you talk to working class people, which I did for the book, I traveled around the country and interviewed- - Yeah, explain what you did, 'cause that's fascinating, 'cause you traveled across the country and spoke to all, and named who these people are, which is fascinating.

Please, Batya.

- I traveled around the country.

I interviewed about a hundred working class people of all political persuasions, Democrats, Republicans, progressives, just all across the spectrum from all races, from all religions in many, many different industries.

And first of all, the most surprising thing I found, Steve, was that very little distinguishes working class people who vote for Democrats from working class people who vote for Republicans.

They are in agreement on the vast majority of the issues.

So I'll just give you two examples, okay?

I spent a lot of time with a woman named Amy, a gay certified nurse's aide who lives in Florida who's married to a woman, of course.

And I spoke to a woman called Linda, a very, very staunch Trump supporter who lives in West Virginia and drives an Amazon van.

Now, in describing these two women to you, I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, "Well, these women obviously have nothing in common," right?

One of them, she's gay, she's a Democrat, she lives in Florida, she's married to a woman, the other one, big Trump supporter, lives in West Virginia.

In fact, what I found was nothing distinguished these women in terms of their ideology, their politics, and their views.

Linda, the Trump supporter is extremely pro-gay.

She's very supportive of her gay nephew.

She's from the South originally.

She's very proud of how the country has changed when it comes to race relations.

Her top issues are homeless veterans.

She doesn't understand why we're supporting this war in Ukraine, and she's very upset about immigration.

And Amy, same exact thing, very pro-gay, obviously, very worried about the transgender agenda.

Amy, who's gay, thinks that parents who take children to drag shows should be put in prison, doesn't understand why we're supporting the war in Ukraine, very upset about immigration.

I mean, these women had very, very similar views.

- And both supporting Trump.

- Huh?

- Both supporting Trump?

- So Amy from Florida is a Democrat, but her wife is supporting Trump.

Her wife likes Trump very much because she says he can't be bought.

- Okay, so here's the interesting thing.

You mentioned Trump.

I wasn't sure I was gonna go there.

Now I have to.

So here's the question.

In the book, you talk a lot about how the working class, a disproportionate number of people who you describe as working class, people who are in the trades, do not have, may not have a college education but working really hard, electricians, plumbers, others, and a disproportionate number of those are supporting Donald Trump.

- Yeah.

- To what degree did you engage folks in a conversation about Donald Trump's documented history, not my opinion, of being a businessperson?

Some of us who hire people to do contracting work in our home or whatever it is, we pay our bills.

We pay them because they're working people, and they deserve to get paid.

I know you know that Donald Trump has a documented history of not only not paying a high percentage of those folks but then declaring bankruptcy I think six times in order, in many cases, not to have to pay those bills.

Where does that come into the conversation of all those working class folks who are so pro-Trump when Trump has a history as a private citizen, not my opinion, of giving the shaft to working people who work for him in business?

Is that an unfair, inaccurate characterization, Batya?

- No, I don't think that's inaccurate.

I have seen that reporting.

I'll tell you something.

I didn't go into these interviews to lecture people.

I went into the interviews to hear from them.

- Sure.

- And by and large, what I found was people who were completely uninterested in Trump's character because they felt that the policy agenda that he had enacted during the four years of his presidency had put a lot of money in their pockets, - Such as?

- And so, I'm sorry?

- Such as, what policy?

Be specific.

- Let's go through them one by one.

So starting with trade, working class people think a lot about trade because to them, NAFTA was really the beginning of the end.

Up until NAFTA, you know, a little bit before that, but you know, through the '70s, they really felt that the trade that the United States engaged in respected and protected their labor and gave them a premium.

And starting with, you know, this NAFTA agreement, I mean, of course, the wheels had been turning a little bit before that, but NAFTA really solidified this view of we are going to offshore manufacturing to China and Mexico to build up their middle class.

And of course, we've all seen the devastated communities throughout the Rust Belt and the Midwest as a result of that.

- But what did Trump do, because now he's talking about tariffs, if he were to be president again, which my understanding, I'm not an economist, would only increase prices and the cost of living for people who purchase those products.

But what specific policies are so attractive to the people you talked to?

- So Trump got rid of NAFTA, and the deal that they signed into law, the USMCA, the thing that he replaced NAFTA with, is the most pro-labor trade deal the United States has ever signed into law.

It has all sorts of provisions that in order for a car to be tariff free coming into the United States, 75% of it has to be made by somebody making at least $16 an hour, which means that that race to the bottom suddenly had a floor.

And that had a huge impact on the auto industry, which, if you talk to auto workers, they'll immediately tell you the policies that Trump put into place that protected them.

He started a trade war with China.

He put 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Steve, you know, the average working pay for somebody working in steel is $88,000 a year.

And this is in the South where everything is right-to-work states.

So these are non-union jobs paying $88,000 a year.

In the South, that's a middle class wage.

And that is 100% because of the tariffs that Trump slapped on China.

- And Biden, President Biden has undone some of those things in your view?

- On trade, it's very interesting, President Biden has kept all of Trump's trade- - Exactly.

- policies in place, which is great, and he deserves a lot of credit for that.

So that was the first thing that I heard again and again from people- - Batya, do me a favor, could you stay right there?

We're gonna go to a quick break.

I promise we'll pick up this point.

- Great.

- Because also you talked about President Obama not being particularly friendly to the working class, and you'll explain that when we come back with Batya Ungar-Sargon, who's the author of this book.

It's called "Second Class: How the Elites," it's us, she said, me too, I think, "How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women."

We'll be right back with Batya right after this.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

We're back talking with Batya Ungar-Sargon, the author of "Second Class."

Pick up your point.

You said President Biden did not undo certain trade policies?

- That's right, on trade, he really kept a lot of what President Trump had put into effect, which is why I like to call President Trump the most left-wing president we've ever had, because (laughs) he was so compelling in his reversal on trade that even a Democrat couldn't deny the effect it had on the working class.

But the second thing people brought up a lot in terms of how President Trump put money back in their pockets was he policed the border.

And for working class people, immigration is not about race, and it's not about xenophobia, and it's not about culture.

It is about wages.

If you bring in 10 million people and they are all gonna be employed as cleaning people or in restaurants or in landscaping business, that is going to drop the wages of all of those industries immediately because suddenly there is a labor glut, right?

There's 10 million laborers.

I mean, it's the most obvious supply and demand.

You bring in more people, wages go down.

You restrict immigration, wages immediately go up, which is what we saw under Trump.

And so to them- - Batya, hold on one second.

Hold on, you talked to all these people, and we just had, we're doing another series of interviews with candidates running for governor of New Jersey, and the mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, who's running for governor, argued that much of the anti-immigration sentiment that you're describing right now, he said is in fact, part of it is racially motivated.

Your interviews concluded something very different.

- Oh, absolutely, first of all, the polling shows that the most anti-immigrant group in the Democratic coalition is Black men, because they have been the most severely undercut by illegal labor, and I'm sorry, but shame on anybody who says that Black men are racist because they wanna be able to afford to feed their families.

That is a canard.

It is a canard.

It is not true about Black men.

It is not true about white men.

And it's not true about Hispanic men, all of whom are trending for Trump when it comes to people without a college degree.

It is a canard.

This is why I say the elites betrayed the working class, because they open the border, they make an entire community of Black men compete with illegal immigrants and then call them racist when they object to the fact- - But Batya- - that they can't feed their families.

- Batya, respectfully- - I'm sorry, that is so unacceptable.

- Respectfully, you said the Democrats opened the border.

You also know, because you're a policy expert, that when there was an effort to come to some agreement, not perfect legislation, not even close, but you know where I'm going with this, that there was an effort to change immigration policy nationally, that there was an agreement, but Donald Trump communicated very clearly that a whole range of Republicans in Congress don't support this improvement, these changes to immigration law because it will "not help me in the election."

Be candid and honest about the fact that Trump didn't want, doesn't want anything done on immigration because he doesn't think it helps him politically, even if it's better for all the people you just talked about in the country.

- I mean, not one of the people I interviewed for my book would've approved of that bill.

That bill said that we only close the border after 5,000 people a day crossed the border illegally.

What kind of ridiculous bill is that?

And in fact, President Biden himself a week ago dropped the number to 1,500, right?

- With an executive order, yes.

- They held out for a better deal, and they immediately got a better executive action.

- But Batya, you seem to not be critical of, you're very critical of the Democrats.

You're very critical of former President Obama as it relates to the working class.

But Trump has been very good to the working class.

There are no concerns about Trump with the working class.

That's what your research concluded?

- I'm reporting to you what I found when I was writing the book.

- Go ahead.

- Even Democrats, working class Democrats who would never vote for Trump over his character told me he put money in their pockets.

And the dividing line in this country between people who support President Trump and people who oppose him is whether or not you have enough money to be voting on someone's character or whether you're so broke and you've got 34 bucks in your bank account and four kids to feed and to get to school, and at that point you don't vote on character.

You vote on who puts money in your bank account.

- Batya, you seem to be- - And it was just very clear to them who does that.

I wanna address the point on President Obama.

- Go ahead.

- President Obama defunded- - Please, yeah, you talk about it in the book.

You say he has not been good to the working class.

- He defunded vocational training.

Vocational training is one of the best avenues to the middle class and to the American dream for working class Americans without a college degree, and President Obama took all of this money we used to invest in young men who maybe are not great at algebra and maybe are not great at Shakespeare, but they too should get the chance to be homeowners.

And instead what he did was he took all that money and put it into graduate schools and universities and higher education, saying basically, "If you don't go to college, you're nothing.

If you drive a truck for a living," which all rely on- - That's not what President Obama said.

- "You're nothing."

- You think that- - This was the culture on the left, and it still totally dominates.

You know it does!

They tell people, "If you don't go to college, you're nothing," you know this.

This is what kids learn in school, and it is horrible because only a third of Americans go to college, and our economy needs much fewer college grads and much more skilled laborers.

And we're sneering at these people.

We tell them that they're worthless because they don't go to college and get multiple degrees and that therefore they don't deserve to own a home.

I think it's disgusting.

- Batya, you are very critical of quote, unquote, government, as you call them, government handouts, government assistance.

What are- - It's not me!

It's the people in my book, including the Democrats.

- Okay, what do they say about, so- - Including the Democrats- - By the way- - Again, yeah, yeah.

- many of those people are receiving so-called government benefits, but go ahead.

- No, so my book was about working class people.

- Sure.

- So people who work full-time and don't qualify for government benefits.

The Democrats sounded exactly the same as the Republicans.

They all knew people who chose to live off the government, and they resented them because they worked really hard, and they felt like, "I can't catch a break.

I'm working three jobs, 12 hours a day, and you have chosen to live off the government and collect $40,000, the equivalent of $40,000 in government benefits."

I'm not saying that.

I have a lot of sympathy for people who can't work, but working class people who are struggling, they work 12 hours a day and bring in $46,000 a year, they really resent people who they see as choosing to live off the government.

They really don't like welfare, but on the flip side- - What about corporate- - Republican working class people, they- - But see, but Batya, Batya, you're calling welfare, respectfully, one kind of welfare, are you saying- - So wait- - That Donald Trump as president- - So let me clarify that.

- There's Democrats and Republicans have not engaged in, quote, corporate welfare.

You had banks that were bailed out who had terrible management.

They were literally going under, and the government said they can't go under.

The same thing with the auto industry.

There's welfare across the board, but you're defining welfare in your book, and these folks are defining it by only welfare of people who they think are not working.

There's corporate welfare as well.

Any resentment about that?

- Yeah, definitely.

- Talk about it.

- Yeah.

I resent that.

They resent that, yeah.

They really, across the board, by the way, you'll like this.

Working class people who vote, who are conservatives, right, who vote for Donald Trump, there's one thing they actually hate a lot more than they hate the Democratic party, and it's the GOP.

So the old pre-Trump GOP, like, working class Republicans hate that.

The Nikki Haley version of the GOP is dead.

They hate, hate, hate the pre-Trump version.

- Because?

- Because they see it as favoring corporations and favoring free trade and favoring China and foreign wars and foreign interventions over them.

They hate all of that.

They don't want free trade.

They don't want Chamber of Commerce.

They don't want a pro-corporate party.

In fact, even the Republicans I spoke to, a lot of them supported raising taxes on corporations, but not for welfare.

I will say what they did support giving it to, which is healthcare, so working class people- - So Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act they like.

- Actually, they didn't like Obamacare specifically because they felt that it raised premiums, but they do want some kind of government-backed healthcare.

- Could it be that it's named Obamacare?

- That was something that I heard across the board.

- Hmm?

- Could it be that it's named Obamacare?

Could that have anything to do with it?

Okay, shift gears, how about this?

In all the research you've done, which is extensive.

We're talking to Batya Ungar-Sargon, who's the author of "Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women."

Let me ask you this.

You talked to these folks and did extensive research.

Did anyone bring up, or did you ask about, 'cause you seem to say that what you got back was they didn't, concern about Trump's character.

It's not about Trump's character.

It's about issues outside of economics.

Did anyone bring up January 6th, an insurrection, an effort to, (clears throat) excuse me, stop the peaceful transition of government and a president taking office?

Meaning, those are issues for everyone, or are the only issues for the elites?

We all care about that, don't we?

- There were two or three people who raised that as, you know, they really didn't like January 6th.

A lot of people felt that, I heard from a lot of people that they felt that it was a false flag operation.

Nobody supported it.

- Define false flag.

Define, that has something to do with it wasn't really what we saw.

It was what, the FBI and Black Lives Matter, like, what is that?

- No, what I'm saying is nobody supported it, but they did not feel that it reflected uniquely on President Trump to a disqualifying degree.

Again, I did, there were two or three people who did bring that up out of a hundred, but most of them just felt that that was, again, something that was, like, they felt like, you know, you could say that the attacks against President Trump had reached such a crescendo over time that even if there were certain things about him that they didn't like, the obvious coordinated attacks against him they felt were attacks on them and attacks on their economic interests.

- Wait a minute, you're not saying that just, that they believed, 'cause I'm, not you, you're not saying the vast majority of people you interviewed for this book, working class, believe that breaking into the United States capitol to stop the peaceful- - No, no, no, no.

- You're not saying they thought that was warranted or justified.

- No, nobody thought that.

But for example, I interviewed a Black man who had been released from prison under the First Step Act, right?

President Trump released 5,000 Black men from prison with his criminal justice reform bill.

Actually, a lot of them- - And I think that's why Kim Kardashian and some others were very supportive, go ahead.

- A lot of those people had been put in prison by Joe Biden, ironically, because of the crime bill.

- They weren't put in prison by Joe Biden!

- I mean by the crime bill he had written, which was the result.

- Okay, okay, good.

- Okay, and this guy said to me after Trump's mugshot, he said, "Trump's got street cred now."

And after the conviction, he said to me, "Trump is one of us now because we know what it's like to walk into a courtroom and know that the jury's against you and the judge is against you, and it doesn't matter what you say, they wanna put you away."

And like that's, yeah, what is this man who was in prison for a series of robberies have in common with Trump, a millionaire, billionaire, whatever?

He didn't have a lot in common with him until he started to see this, what he considers to be lawfare against him, and suddenly he was like, "Wait, they did that to me.

They railroaded me.

They took away my rights."

And this is the way that leftists used to talk.

It's so interesting.

(laughs) - So Donald Trump has street cred with some of the people you spoke to because of his conviction.

Three more potential trials to go.

Batya, you are a compelling, interesting, provocative, fascinating guest, and people should read the book.

It's called "Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women."

Batya Ungar-Sargon.

Batya, as always, fascinating conversation, good stuff.

- Thank you, sir.

God bless you.

- Same to you.

I'm Steve Adubato.

That's a very provocative author.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by New Jersey Sharing Network.

Veolia, Delta Dental of New Jersey.

NJM Insurance Group.

Citizens Philanthropic Foundation.

PSEG Foundation.

Englewood Health.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

And by Rutgers University Newark.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey Globe.

And by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

NJM Insurance Group has been serving New Jersey businesses for over a century.

As part of the Garden State, we help companies keep their vehicles on the road, employees on the job and projects on track, working to protect employees from illness and injury, to keep goods and services moving across the state.

We're proud to be part of New Jersey.

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