Latest / Pod Save America / Is It Gay to Flip Texas?

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Is It Gay to Flip Texas? · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 2: get your podcasts. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: On today's show, we're going to talk about the news
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: that U.S. and Iranian negotiators are on the verge of
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  Speaker 2: an agreement to keep negotiating. Also talk about Trump using
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  Speaker 2: our money to cover statues in gold and the push
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: to put his face on a new $ 250 bill.
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  Speaker 4: Exciting.
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  Speaker 2: Also talk about Republicans losing their minds over James Tallarico,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Rubio topping Vance for the first time in a 2028 poll.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Great stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Couldn't help myself. And Jill Biden finally admitting that her
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  Speaker 2: husband's debate performance was so bad she thought he was
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: either having a stroke or on drugs.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: Deep breaths.
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  Speaker 2: Then, could Democrats have a chance at a Senate seat
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: in Mississippi? Democratic nominee Scott Colom stops by the studio
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: to make his case. Before we start, if you are
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  Speaker 2: could be supporting independent pro-democracy media, which is kind of
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  Speaker 2: important to do right now if you've been looking at
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  Speaker 2: the news and seeing what Trump's been doing to the
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: media landscape. And also, we got cool subscriber-only shows like
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Polar Coaster with Dan. Today, we're going to be talking
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: about James Tallarigo versus Ken Paxton. But if you really
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  Speaker 2: want to nerd out on that race... and hear all
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: about the polls and Dan's take on this, you get
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: to listen to Polar Coaster this week. All right, Dan,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: another day, another siren emoji, heralding a deal to end
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  Speaker 2: the war in Iran that appears to be an agreement
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  Speaker 2: to keep talking about the nuclear program that ostensibly led
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  Speaker 2: to the war in the first place. That's where we are.
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  Speaker 2: Axios reports and other outlets have confirmed that pending final
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  Speaker 2: approval from Trump and the Ayatollah, negotiators have agreed to, quote,
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  Speaker 2: a memorandum of understanding... that says the Strait of Hormuz
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  Speaker 2: will reopen for, quote, unrestricted movement by commercial ships in
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  Speaker 2: exchange for ending the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports. And
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  Speaker 2: then everything else, including sanctions relief and Iran's uranium stockpile,
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  Speaker 2: will be the subject of negotiations that will take place
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  Speaker 2: over the next 60 days, during which time the ceasefire
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  Speaker 2: will be extended, despite the tit-for-tat airstrikes between the U.S.
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  Speaker 2: and Iran over the last few days. So not off
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  Speaker 2: to a great start there. Um, questions remain. Will Iran
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  Speaker 2: go back to enriching uranium? Will they get pallets of cash?
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  Speaker 2: Will they still control the strait? No one knows. But
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  Speaker 2: Trump addressed this last question during one of his marathon
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  Speaker 2: cabinet meetings on Wednesday.
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  Speaker 4: Would you accept a short-term deal that allows Iran and
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  Speaker 4: Oman to control the strait?
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  Speaker 6: Nobody's going to control it. It's international waters and Oman
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  Speaker 6: will behave just like everybody else and we'll have to
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  Speaker 6: blow them up.
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  Speaker 3: We don't need oil.
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  Speaker 6: We don't need the strait. We don't need anything.
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  Speaker 2: We don't need anything. at all, which is why we're
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: making the deal. And also we're going to control the strait.
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  Speaker 2: No one's going to control the strait. If Oman doesn't
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  Speaker 2: let ships through, we're going to blow them up. It
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: all makes sense. Here's what a senior U.S. official told
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  Speaker 2: Axios about the deal. Quote, this is an agreement to
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  Speaker 2: get everybody to the table. We will work out the
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  Speaker 2: details in negotiations. That's not these negotiations that are leading
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  Speaker 2: to the deal that official was referring to. That is
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: the future negotiations that will happen. Trump mouthpiece Scott Jennings
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: responded to the story by dutifully tweeting, the U.S. appears
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  Speaker 2: to be getting everything we want. Is this everything we want?
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  Speaker 2: Getting people to the table?
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  Speaker 3: Well, if you it's an existential question, John, if you
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  Speaker 3: want very little and you get very little, did you
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  Speaker 3: get everything you want? Just saying.
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  Speaker 2: Very good. Very good.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, it's.
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  Speaker 3: Kind of hard to believe that the thing that there's
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: been so much breathless reporting on, so many siren emojis
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  Speaker 3: over the last couple weeks, was simply an agreement to
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  Speaker 3: keep talking. And I know it says they're going to
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: open the Strait of Hormuz for unrestricted commercial traffic. Now,
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  Speaker 3: the problem here is there are still mines in unknown
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  Speaker 3: places all across the Strait of Hormuz.
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  Speaker 2: Some of which Iran was laying just this week, they
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  Speaker 2: were laying more mines. That's what started the airstrikes again.
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  Speaker 3: I wouldn't say the Strait is open. I'd say the
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  Speaker 3: Strait is slightly ajar, because obviously some... Some ships will
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  Speaker 3: get through. There are these ships that are stranded there
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  Speaker 3: that the U S was pledging to escort, which we
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  Speaker 3: then abandoned that after like one six hour period. So,
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  Speaker 3: and it, is it better that the United States and
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  Speaker 3: Iran are not bombing each other?
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: Is it better that maybe a couple of ships will
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  Speaker 3: get through there? Yes. Is this the treaty of fucking Versailles? No,
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  Speaker 3: this is a very minor. It's not even an agreement
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  Speaker 3: is you said it's an MOU. So cool.
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  Speaker 4: Right?
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  Speaker 2: Like, Of course, it's great to cease hostilities because no
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  Speaker 2: one wanted this fucking war in the first place. At
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  Speaker 2: least most people in America didn't want it and the
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: rest of the world. But the questions here are simple. Like,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: is Iran any further from developing a nuclear weapon than
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  Speaker 2: when this war started in February? No, we did nothing
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  Speaker 2: to push back the Iranian nuclear program that Trump hadn't
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  Speaker 2: done with the first round of strikes last year. So
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  Speaker 2: nothing has been achieved on that front. Is the regime
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  Speaker 2: any less radical?
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  Speaker 4: No.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, the regime is now more radical. Are the
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  Speaker 2: Iranian people any closer to freedom? No, they are not.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, they are going to be more repressed by
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  Speaker 2: an even more radical regime. Is America any safer?
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  Speaker 4: No.
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  Speaker 2: Is the Middle East any more stable?
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  Speaker 4: No.
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  Speaker 2: And so what did all of that cost us? Well,
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  Speaker 2: 14 American lives, tens of thousands of lives in the
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  Speaker 2: Middle East, at least $ 50 billion and counting of taxpayer
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  Speaker 2: dollars that have gone to fight this war. and an
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  Speaker 2: estimated $ 4 billion in higher fuel costs so far. So
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: that's what we had to pay. Those are the costs
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  Speaker 2: that we had to bear for getting abso-fucking-lutely nothing, except
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  Speaker 2: maybe the straight back open, which it was at the
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  Speaker 2: beginning of the war.
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  Speaker 3: And it's also not like Iran was on the cusp
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  Speaker 3: of a nuclear weapon when we started this process. The
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  Speaker 3: whole thing is so stupid. The whole thing is so
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  Speaker 3: fucking stupid.
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  Speaker 4: It's mind-boggling.
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  Speaker 3: We've been talking about this for so long that this
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  Speaker 3: has happened because it's so stupid.
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  Speaker 2: The enriched uranium... they are going to negotiate to figure
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  Speaker 2: out what to do with is only there because Donald
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  Speaker 2: Trump pulled us out of the Iran deal. So Iran
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  Speaker 2: went back to enriching uranium. All the uranium that's there
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  Speaker 2: has been enriched since the end of the Iran deal,
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  Speaker 2: which Trump pulled us out. And now there wouldn't even
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  Speaker 2: be more enriched uranium to be talking about if Trump
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  Speaker 2: hadn't gotten us out of the Iran deal.
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  Speaker 3: The best case scenario here is that we spent billions
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  Speaker 3: and billions of dollars. We used up all of our missiles.
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  Speaker 2: Five years. Five years to rebuild the munitions. That's the estimate.
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  Speaker 3: Which I'm sure will be a boon for a bunch
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  Speaker 3: of defense companies in which Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr.
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  Speaker 4: Have invested.
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  Speaker 3: The American troops have lost their lives. People all across
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  Speaker 3: the region have lost their lives. And for nothing. The
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  Speaker 3: best case scenario is we have a deal that is
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  Speaker 3: worse than the one Obama cut 12 years ago or
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  Speaker 3: whatever it was. And we are very far from best case.
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  Speaker 2: And now, do we think the Iranians really believe... That
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  Speaker 2: if these negotiations over the next 60 days go poorly,
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  Speaker 2: that Trump's going to start bombing them again, like what,
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  Speaker 2: right before the midterms? No, they know he's not going
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  Speaker 2: to do it. Well, actually, he might.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe, maybe.
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  Speaker 2: But I don't think this is a great play in
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  Speaker 2: terms of keeping any kind of leverage over the Iranians
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  Speaker 2: at this point. Also, they know they can close the
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: strait whenever they want and lay mines whenever they want.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: So that's what's happening there. I'm sure the deal could
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: be announced any minute now. Who knows? We'll just look
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: for more siren emojis from Axios and look for Scott
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Jennings to just sort of regurgitate whatever the administration tells
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: him to, because that's what he does. All right. So
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: the White House press corps was briefed on the potential deal,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: as well as the latest bad economic news by struggling
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: soybean farmer Scott Besse. the administration's resident populist. Besant had
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: to contend with news that inflation has now risen to
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: its highest level in three years and the GDP grew
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: even slower than previously estimated in the first quarter of
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: this year. Oster Goolsbee, the Chicago Federal Reserve president, told
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: The Wall Street Journal that the U.S. economy is moving
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: in a quote, stagflationary direction, which would be the worst
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  Speaker 2: case scenario. Scott Besson's response to all of this? Okay, Doomers.
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  Speaker 7: I believe we've already seen oil prices come down substantially.
• 10:34
  Speaker 7: These are short-term challenges that we will get over, and
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  Speaker 7: I think.
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  Speaker 4: We'll move forward.
• 10:39
  Speaker 7: Is inflation sticky?
• 10:40
  Speaker 8: Because the PCE was at a three-year high.
• 10:43
  Speaker 7: Well, first of all, PCE today, month over month, was 0.2%.
• 10:48
  Speaker 7: which was, we're looking at decimal points, but the estimate
• 10:51
  Speaker 7: was 0.3.
• 10:52
  Speaker 8: Are you seeing signs that American households are dipping into
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  Speaker 8: their savings to pay for the.
• 10:57
  Speaker 6: Higher costs of things like gas and groceries?
• 10:59
  Speaker 8: And does data like that concern you right now?
• 11:02
  Speaker 7: So, academic literature would tell you a lower savings rate
• 11:06
  Speaker 7: can mean one of two things. Kind of the doomer
• 11:10
  Speaker 7: view that you took, or that people have more confidence.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I'm no economist, but... Does the literature say when people
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: are dipping into their savings during a global energy crisis
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: that they are confident they are doing so because they
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: are confident about their finances?
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: They are confident they need to drive their car to work.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: That's what they're confident.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: So, you know, we've had a number of auditions since
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Caroline Leavitt has been on parental leave. We had J.D. Vance,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: we had Marco Rubio, and now Scott Besson took a
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: turn at the podium. And let me tell you, I
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: don't know. I don't know if he was the kind
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: of soothing voice that the American people were looking for.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's just– I just don't know at this moment
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: in time when somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of Americans
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: are very mad about the economy, economic anxiety is at
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: the highest level possible, that you want to dismissively arrogant
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Wall Street centimillionaire, I think he is, to be your spokesperson.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: You don't want someone who exudes money coming out of
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: their pores.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: As Tommy refers to him as, a pissy cadaver.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's fair enough.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: It kind of looks like that. The question now is,
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: if this deal is signed today, would it actually help
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: get inflation and growth moving in the right direction again
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: before the midterms?
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: It would lower oil prices, which will eventually at some
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: point in time lower gas prices. because oil futures will
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: come down. But we're not going to see anywhere near
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: the sort of traffic going through the straight that we
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: had before for six months at the earliest and probably longer.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: And the true economic damage is done here, right? The
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: growth has been stunted. Inflation is up. It'll take a
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: while for all of that to come down. The Fed
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: is even thinking about possibly raising interest rates again because
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: of the PCE numbers that Bessette mentioned. But let's just
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: put aside the economics where I feel deeply uncomfortable talking
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: about them. Focus on the politics where I am mildly
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: more comfortable is, look, people's opinions about this economy are
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: pretty set in stone. People's opinions about Donald Trump's handling
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: of this economy are pretty set in stone. People are
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: going to start voting in a couple of months. And
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: even if things do get a little bit better, which
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: seems highly unlikely, we know from years and years of
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: data that people's impression of the economy is lags the
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: reality by months. And so even if things got a
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: little bit better, it's unlikely to help Republicans this fall.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: The CNN business reporter, their business reporter, David Goldman, was
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: asked about when we might see $ 3 gas again. Guess
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: which year, he said, for $ 3 gas again.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: It's not going to be 2026, is it, John?
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: 2032. Well.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: I would say I was going to guess 2030 just
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: because by the way you asked that question, it was
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: going to be far away, but that's even further than
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: I thought.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: That's what your reaction was similar to CNN's Pam Brown,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: who also was like, what did you just say? He's like, yeah, well,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: by the time he's like, if you just look at
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: the futures, this is what the futures market say right now,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: because it would have to be down to like, I
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: think around $ 70 oil would have to be $ 70 a
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: gallon and up $ 70 a barrel. And, you know, it's
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: like down to hovering around 100 now, so it's not
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: where it was at with like 120, but to get
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: from there to 70, yeah, it takes the strait being
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: fully open for quite a while.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: And the other thing about the strait is it's not
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: just boats moving through the strait. It's that Gulf countries
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: cease production because they could not get oil through the strait,
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: and so they have to restart production, and that takes time.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: And that is on top of the facilities that were
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: damaged from the Iranian missiles as part of the war
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: that Trump started.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: One area of the economy that's undeniably booming, construction firms
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: that Trump has contracted to make the nation's capital look
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: like one of his failed casinos. The New York Times
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: reports that the no-bid contractor hired to paint the reflecting pool,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: a tackier blue, is, quote, being paid an inflated and
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: excessive profit margin, you don't say. The Times also reports
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: that the administration has funneled over $ 60 million worth of
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: National Park admissions fees toward repairing the pool and some
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: of D.C. 's fountains, There's also apparently a $ 5 million
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: contract to coat a bunch of equestrian statues by the
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Lincoln Memorial in gold.
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: What?
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: This is all ahead of America's 250th birthday celebration, which
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Trump is merging with his own. The president will ring
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: in the big 8-0 with a UFC fight on the
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: South Lawn, and they've just started to build the arena,
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: which looks like a Roman Coliseum that's being sponsored by
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Axe Body Spray. That's... That's what it looks like. It's
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: a real eyesore. The White House has also announced a
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: list of musical artists who will allegedly perform for this
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: summer's festivities, like Flo Rida, Vanilla Ice, CNC Music Factory,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Milli Vanilli, and Young MC. I say allegedly because already
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Milli Vanilli and Young MC have said they're actually not performing.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: This just in, the Commodores also said absolutely not. They
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: were on the list as well. So that list is dwindling, Dan.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: Did you follow how the Young MC and Milli Vanilli
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: things played out? Young MC, I think, did not realize
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: what he was signing up for, so he pulled himself out.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: Milli Vanilli seems to claim, based on a very bizarrely
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: worded statement from the quote-unquote real Milli Vanilli, that the
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: Milli Vanilli that was booked was a Milli Vanilli cover band.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Cover band of a cover band.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Milli Vanilli is also a cover band of Milli Vanilli,
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: so it's Russian nesting dolls of cover bands here.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Didn't one of them die? I think we only... I
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: don't know if we have Milli or.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: You think it's only Milli?
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Milli or Vanilli dead. Let's see. Okay, I don't know
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: which is which, but one half of the R &
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: B dance duo Milli Vanilli, Rob Pilatus, is dead. The
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: other half of the duo, Fab Morvin, is alive. That's
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: what Wikipedia tells me.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: Okay, well, either way. Either way, the Mille Finale will
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: not be performing as we commonly know them.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: For many reasons. For many reasons.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: If he actually could get the original Mille Finale to perform,
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: that would be impressive.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Now, of course, while all this is going on, Trump
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: can't be paying attention to all this. He's focused on
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: what's really important.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: Let's listen.
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: We have one in particular, a very long Lake, we
• 17:49
  Speaker 6: call it, the Reflecting Lake. Between Lincoln and Washington, you
• 17:53
  Speaker 6: have the longest, like 2,400 feet long. That's longer than
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: the tallest building in the world if you set it
• 17:59
  Speaker 6: on its side. And we're now covering it with the
• 18:01
  Speaker 6: most beautiful blue, very thick. You think of it as
• 18:05
  Speaker 6: a very sophisticated form of rubber. No leaks, no problems.
• 18:11
  Speaker 6: And it's beautiful. It's called American Flag Blue.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: That was the color we chose.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Thick rubber doesn't leak. That's the blue. That's the blue
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: that we're going for here. Just covering the reflecting lake.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Calling it the reflecting lake now.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: It's also what Trump is looking for in his personal
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: brand of Depends.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: There you go. There you go. So there's also this
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: story today that Trump is pressuring Treasury officials, the people
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: who print the money in Treasury, to put his face
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: on a special $ 250 bill that in honor of America's
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: 250th and in honor of Trump, of course. And this
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: made me wonder, like, okay, the corruption, huge political problem,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: the biggest political problem, I'm sure. Obviously, all of this
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: also looks extremely out of touch while the economy is
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: in the shitter. You think people also might feel just
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: a bit uneasy about Trump's messianic rebrand of America here?
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just like, The face is on everything.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: The name is on everything. There's fucking gold everywhere. It's
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: a little fucking creepy.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: So I want to get to that question, but can
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: we dig in on the $ 250 bill for a second?
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: So Besson was asked about this at the briefing, and
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: he pointed out that there is a law that says
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: that you cannot put a living person on money and
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: that there's a bill before Congress.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: It's passed in like the 1800s.
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: And it was after George Washington, our first president, refused-
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: to put his face on currency while he was alive.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: And so there's a bill before the House and the
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: Senate right now that would lift that restriction for the
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: purposes of allowing Besson to put Trump's face on the money.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: And my message to, I'm going to speak directly to
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: Mike Johnson, John Thune, and frankly, every congressional Republican. Immediately,
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: if you do not immediately go to the Capitol right
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: now and vote on that bill to put Donald Trump's
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: face on our money, then you are traitors to the
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: MAGA cause. You are weak, woke liberals. You have to
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: do this. Vote for it right now. I can think
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: of nothing, no better use of your time.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: I got a better idea, Dan. Remember, they all went
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: home before the Memorial Day break because they couldn't come
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: to an agreement on the budget bill that was supposed
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: to fund ICE and all the other bullshit in there,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: like the $ 1. 8 billion slush fund for January 6th rioters.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Democrats have the ability to offer amendments to in a
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: voterama process. So if I was Chuck Schumer or a
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Senate Democrat, I might offer an amendment about this and
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: let's put everyone on the record and see what they think.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: See what all the Republicans think about the Donald Trump's
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: face on the $ 250 bill. I like that too.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: That's a great idea. You have really aged into a
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: legislative strategist late in life. So that's great. All right,
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: let's get to the meat of your question.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Basically, do I think voters are creeped out and maybe
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: a little scared by Trump basically cosplaying Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin,
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: pick your tin pot dictator. Look, I think the biggest
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: political problem here is that Trump is focused on dumb
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: self-serving shit instead of lowering people's costs. That is the
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: fundamental thing. You add a side of pretty blatant corruption
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: to it, that's pretty bad. I think people see Trump
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: putting his name on everything, his face on everything. And
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: I think maybe last year they would have seen that
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: as scary. I think this year they think it's stupid
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: because the Trump of 2026 and now the Trump of 2025. 2025,
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: he was single-handedly destroying federal agencies, sending masked agents everywhere.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: He was astride the world. He was bizarrely popular. And
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: now he is a deeply unpopular, doddering old man who
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: can't stay awake in meetings. He dies. He is losing
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: wars to Iran. He just looks weak. He seems different.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: He just seems smaller now. And you see that in
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: the polling where major pluralities of people and large majorities
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: of independents no longer describe him as strong. They see
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: him as weak and indecisive. And I think so. I
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: think should people be creeped out by it?
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: I think the approach is probably not fear. It's derision.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, I don't I probably I
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: probably articulated it wrong. I don't think it's fear like, oh, no,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: scary dictator kind of thing. When I say uneasy, I
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: feel like people look at it and first of all,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: I think part of this is me when the ballroom
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: thing first happened, not thinking that the ballroom was going
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: to be a big deal. And then realizing that the
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: imagery of the East wing being demolished was more powerful
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: to people than I had imagined. And not just from
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: a corruption angle, because at that point it was just,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: we're going to knock down the East wing and I'm
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: going to build a ballroom.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: And, um, and it wasn't just like, oh, he's not
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: focusing because we didn't have the war then.
• 23:01
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: But it was still like, what are you, what are
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: you doing? I think that people have not, um, there's
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: going to be a lot of focus and a lot
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: of attention on Washington DC over the next couple of
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: months because it's America's 250th anniversary birthday. And there's going
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: to be a lot of activities in DC. And so
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: those images are going to be broadcast and everywhere. And
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: just like people tuning in to what's happening in DC
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: with like Trump's face on the Justice Department and his
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: name on everything and the gold everywhere. I kind of
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: just think it's a small thing, but I think it's
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: just sort of adds to the like, what the fuck
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: is happening right now? Like it doesn't make you feel
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: it doesn't make you feel good about America at a
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: time where people, most people will want to feel somewhat
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: patriotic or happy about America's 250th birthday, making it all
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: about Donald Trump. I do think like cuts to the
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: core of what Like it bothers people in a, like
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: a fuck, this is not our country. What, what is
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: this kind of way?
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's also just
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: people are going to see it and be like, why
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: is this such a high priority?
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: What?
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it all combines. I think it's like, what
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: are you, what are you doing?
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• 26:31
  Speaker 5: There's just a.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Bit more corruption to discuss before we move on. This
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: is a, this is just sort of your standard issue corruption. Uh,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: According to ProPublica, Trump advisor and family friend Peter Navarro,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: remember Peter Navarro? He did all the tariffs that everyone's
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: enjoyed so much.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: And jail time. He did jail time.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Jail time and tariffs, yeah. So it turns out he
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: pulled some strings last year to funnel a $ 620 million
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Pentagon loan to a North Carolina startup owned in part
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: by Donald Trump Jr., What do you think? As an
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: early wedding present?
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: We talk all the time about the crypto schemes and
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: the Qatari jets and all the other very extravagant and
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: extraordinary corruption. But there really is just a staggering amount of,
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: as you said, mundane corruption. Just like funneling contracts to
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: your friends so that they can make money off the taxpayers.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: And Trump is probably, although not definitely going to pardon
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: his sons before he leaves... Maybe Peter Navarro will cross
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: the threshold of people who will get pardoned because he
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: did serve time for Trump for a while. And he
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: already has a pardon, I believe, or at least a commutation.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: But the people who actually facilitated this, people who work
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: in the Pentagon, people who work for Peter Navarro, they're
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: not getting pardons. And they're probably going to see the
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: inside of the jail cell because of it. And that
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: is happening across the board. And there are a lot
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: of people who think, who are serving their MAGA lords,
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: they're doing what they're told. And they are going Trump's
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: going to pardon his close friends and his closest aides.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: And the rest of those people are going to be
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: in under tremendous legal jeopardy because of what they're doing.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: I realize it's easy to become numb to all the
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: stories about corruption and all the numbers. But what happened
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: here is this is a pretty clear cut one. They
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: set up this office in the Pentagon called the Office
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: of Strategic Capital. And this was set up in the
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Biden administration. And the idea was the government wants to
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: give out some loans to companies, startup companies that are
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: involved in developing rare earth minerals, because we don't want
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: to depend on China for that. We want to depend
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: on the US. And so this is good. It's good
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: for the government to sort of help these startups that
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: are doing this. It was a, they had $ 1 billion
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: lending authority under Biden. Donald Trump comes in and they
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: increase it from $ 1 billion to $ 200 billion. So now
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: it's $ 200 billion that the government is handing out to
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: these companies. And in the Biden administration, there's a process.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: You bid for this. If you're one of these companies,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: you apply. There's a rigorous process. They decide to take
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: you or not. They reject some companies. They just obviously
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: we want to give loans to the best possible companies
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: because it's taxpayer dollars that we are giving to these companies.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: So we want to make sure they're the best ones,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: except one company Vulcan skirted that entire process. And, in fact,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: didn't even apply. The White House, Peter Navarro, calls the
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Defense Department and was like, you got to give the
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: money to Vulcan. You just got to give the money
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: to Vulcan. And that is the company, the small company
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: in North Carolina that Don Jr. had just invested in
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: just a couple months before this. And once it got
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: the money... once it got the huge contract, the valuation
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: of the company went from $ 200 million to $ 2 billion,
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: a 900% increase. That is how much money Don fucking Jr.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: made because his really good friend, Peter Navarro, the two
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: of them are very tight, called up the fucking Pentagon
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: and said, make this happen for Don Jr. 's company.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: There's so much like this. There is, you know, just
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: for the other day that they, about, you know, Trump
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: had a big investment and made investment in Dell right
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: before a big announcement where Dell was going to get
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: a government contract. Same thing with Robinhood. Just, it's across
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: the board. Just everyone is robbing the treasury with two
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: hands at all times.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, it's not, and it's not
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: just like they're using their office or they're abusing their
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: office and just the fact that they have the office
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: to make money. No, no, no. They're like stealing from you.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: They are putting their hands in the taxpayer pockets and stealing.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Because this is just taxpayer money that's been handing out
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: and with no accountability or oversight whatsoever. Is this company
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: going to succeed? Is it a good company? We don't know.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Don Jr. owns some of it. That's all we need
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: to know. Money out the door. Taxpayer dollars.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: It was only a year ago that the government told
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: us that we cannot afford to keep rural hospitals open.
• 30:51
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: But we can.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: We can give a favorable contract with a huge profit
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: margin with people who put the weird rubbery paint on
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: the pool. We can give contracts to Don Jr.
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: 's company.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: We can encase Washington, D.C.-based horse statues in gold.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Where's Elon? Where are the Doge Bros? Where's the all-in
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: pod bros with all the fucking... Come on, guys.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: Probably investors in the Donald Trump and the Trump Jr.
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: Company.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Lots of waste and fraud right here. You guys are
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: saying there's all kinds of waste in the government. You've
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: been pretty quiet about this. Fucking losers. All right.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: The moment from Trump's cabinet meeting that actually got the
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: most airtime wasn't the Iran stuff or the thick rubbery coating.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: It was this.
• 31:30
  Speaker 6: I don't care about the midterms. Look what happened last night.
• 31:33
  Speaker 6: That was the prelude to the midterms.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, we noticed. We noticed you don't care about
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: the midterms. It's coming through, coming through loud and clear.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: He was referring, of course, to the Texas Senate runoff
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: where Ken Paxton, the deeply corrupt beneficiary of a last
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: minute Trump endorsement, absolutely crushed incumbent Senator John Cornyn by
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: almost 30 points. When Trump said, look what happened last night,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: what do you think he thinks Tuesday night demonstrated about
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: the midterms?
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: He's a simple-minded fellow, John. And I think he very
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: simple-mindedly looked and saw that a candidate he supported won
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: a race. And then he then presumes that candidates that
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: he support will win similar races in the fall. Now,
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: what Trump is too simple-minded to understand is that Among
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: the people who voted in that primary in Texas, I
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: imagine Trump had a 85% to 95% approval rating. These
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: are Texas primary voters. When people go to the polls
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: in the fall, Trump will have somewhere between a, I
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: don't know, 42% and 32% approval rating, depending on the
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: district and the state, which seems like a slightly different
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: environment for his candidates. Also, I just want to stipulate this.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: Ken Paxton was winning this primary, whether Donald Trump endorsed
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: him or not. He may have won by more. But
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: there were reports in private that private polling had Paxton
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: up 10 points before Trump's endorsement. We knew from the
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: runoff that even though Cornyn got the plurality of votes,
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: there was a strong majority when you added up Wesley
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: Hunt and Ken Paxton votes, there was a strong majority
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: of Texans who did not want John Cornyn. And when
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: incumbents go to runoffs, they almost always lose because the
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: reason they're in a runoff is there's 50% of people
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: who looked at that incumbent they knew and said, give
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: me someone else.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say, also, the turnout was
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: so much lower. Did you see some of the estimates
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: on turnout? It looks like between the first race and
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: the runoff, Paxton got about 7,000 more votes in the runoff,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: and Cornyn lost about 400,000 votes between the first race
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: and the runoff. So it seems like a ton of
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Cornyn's voters just stayed home and decided not to vote,
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: and then the most engaged, craziest MAGA voters turned out
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: for Ken Paxton.
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: Which was always sort of the fear. And it's not
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: like this was the only race on the ballot. You also,
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: you had congressional runoffs and you had a very important
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: attorney general runoff as well.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: Um, so I guess we could talk, let's talk about, um,
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: how they're going after James Tallarico, who's now the democratic
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: nominee in that race. And then we can sort of
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: talk about the race ahead, um, from now until November. Um,
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: it does seem like a MAGA world is a bit
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: more nervous about Tallarico than they're letting on. Um, as
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: evidenced by their subtle new strategy of questioning James Tallarico's masculinity.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: It's very subtle. I don't know if you can figure
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: it out. Paxton uses victory speech to call Tallarico low-T Tallarico,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: tofu Tallarico, and six-gender Jimmy. Stephen Miller tweeted that Tallarico
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: will make history as the first transgender Senate candidate. And
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: here's the game from Fox's The Five on Wednesday.
• 34:40
  Speaker 7: This baby lotion soft child.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: He does. He looks prepubescent.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: The major factor in this race, Greg, is whether Talafrico's vegan.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: You say you have a girlfriend.
• 34:52
  Speaker 8: Why don't you name her?
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: Are they going to have a coming out party?
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: Or is she still going to stay the secret girlfriend?
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: And is this totally not fake girlfriend also a vegan?
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: He looks like such a beta male.
• 35:04
  Speaker 7: He was, Beto O'Rourke was his big brother in the
• 35:08
  Speaker 7: after school program.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: They'll say, but he's a seminarian. How dare you not?
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: He put the semen in seminarian.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: What do you think they're trying to tell us?
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: They dislike his policy agenda?
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: I get it. I get the line of attack. And
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: there is a universe where you can execute that line
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: of attack. Maybe in a way that's somewhat effective. Feels
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: like if you're already calling him a gay pedophile in May,
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: not a lot of runway left. Where are you going?
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Where are you going to be in October?
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: I am curious about what is driving this attack. Like,
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: is it in the data? Or are they just echoing
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: the thing that Trump said on Air Force One two
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: weeks ago?
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: I think some of it is like instinct, right? Like
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: they have... OK, the clips of James Tallarico that have been,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: you know, all over the Internet and right wing media
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: are something something vegan. He's not a vegan, which clearly
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: these people just actually don't know that he's not a vegan.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: And they think now he says he eats meat because
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: he's like got caught or something. But he was never
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: saying he was a vegan. That was not a clip.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: The clip of him saying that, you know. technically there's
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: six sexes because of chromosome abnormalities with a small fraction
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: of people, which like great. Um, and, and like a
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: couple other clips like that. And, and he looks young. Right. Um,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: and so they're like, yeah, he looks like it was
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: like their, their go-to is he's a beta male, but
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: they can't just say that because there is an element
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: of that.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: That's exactly what they said.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Well, they can't just say that and like, leave it
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: at that because there's an element of, Oh shit. we
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: just nominated Ken Paxton and we could lose. So we've
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: got to take everything to a hundred.
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: So I think a couple of things here. One, obviously
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: their strategy, their only way to win is to nuke.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: This is going to be their same strategy with Graham Platner.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: It's going to be the same strategy with whoever wins
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: in Michigan, particularly if it's Abdul El-Said. Like this is,
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: this is their approach. It's really, it's the only thing
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: they have, right? They basically, this is the weak, woke
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: and too liberal attack that we talked about a few
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: weeks ago. There are actually two separate things embedded in
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: what they're doing here. There is James Tallarico is a low-T,
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: possibly gay, beta male. He's not man enough for the Senate,
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: which is really quite a thing to say. And then
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: there is James Tallarico is a liberal, elitist extremist who's
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: out of touch with Texas values. That is the God
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: is non-binary. That is the false attack he's a vegan.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: Those are two separate things. Obviously, the second one pulls well. Like,
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: like we, we don't even, we know that that's that
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: we know that that is an average acronym. I'm not
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: sure the, he's a beta male is a particularly effective attack.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: I don't, I don't know that there, I guess I
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: would say, I don't know that they're entirely separate because the,
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: the out of touch, the typical out of touch liberal
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: who is a male is obviously a low T beta male.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Like we are, we are also low T beta males
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: because we are libs on the coast. Um, and we're
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: probably vegan. And we probably have pronouns in our bio,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: That's a pretty deep.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: It's a very online take.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: It's a very online take. The other one is a
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: it's a deeply dishonest because it takes a lot of
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: quotes out of context and edits them, some of them
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: quite unfairly. But I think that there is I'm just
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: not in presidential politics. Strength and toughness matters a lot.
• 38:49
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: How you define strength and toughness is very important. You
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: can define it in ways that are much better than
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: sort of like brute force strength that Trump sort of
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: has tried to swagger his way into the Oval Office.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: It matters much less in congressional and Senate races, right?
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: No one sees you as being tasked with staring down
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: the Iranians or taking out Al Qaeda or stopping crime
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: in the streets or whatever else people associate probably incorrectly
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: with toughness. And so I think that Trump has sort
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: of sent them on this path and it is red
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: meat for the Fox base. And so it's one thing
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: of like, Jesse Waters and the Yahoo's on the five
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: do it. It was interesting to me that it was
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: such a big part of uh, Paxton's victory speech. I just,
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: I just like took note of that.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, he is a, he is a politician who,
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: if not successful, we'll end up being a pundit on
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Fox pretty easily.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: So the line is his, his speech was interesting because
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: he did like he very Trump asking that he was
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: very excited and enjoying doing the Tallarico attacks and responding
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: to the crowd. And then he was reading, uh, with
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: no emotion, whines about lowering people's costs.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Not where his passion lies. His passion lies, of course,
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: in theft. He likes stealing from people. Sometimes quite literally,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: he stole someone's pen. So like a thousand dollar pen,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: someone left lying around. There's like video of him just
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: stealing it, which is.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: Very friends and neighbors.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: So Tallarico's out there responding to the beta male line
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: of attack. Here he is at a rally on Wednesday
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: in Houston. This is his first stop on a statewide
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: tour and his first appearance since Paxton won the runoff.
• 40:24
  Speaker 8: In a time when there's so much debate about what
• 40:27
  Speaker 8: it means to be a man, my dad showed me
• 40:31
  Speaker 8: every Saturday morning he would mow our lawn. And then
• 40:36
  Speaker 8: without telling anyone, without anyone asking him, he would go
• 40:41
  Speaker 8: next door and mow our neighbor's lawn. She was elderly.
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: She was a widow.
• 40:47
  Speaker 8: He never talked about it. He just did it. Because
• 40:51
  Speaker 8: that's what a man does. He serves those around him.
• 40:56
  Speaker 8: He takes responsibility and he does what's right even when
• 41:01
  Speaker 8: no one is watching.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: So in addition to that, he also did a sit
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: down with CBS with Ed O'Keefe. And, you know, he
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: said that some of his past remarks were cringy and
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: that he would say them differently as well. Um, he's been,
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: you know, there's been plenty of photos that the campaign
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: has been, uh, pushing around of him eating barbecue because
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: he's said he's eaten barbecue forever. Um, so, you know,
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: it's all of a piece, but if you were consulting
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: on the campaign, how would you advise him to push
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: back on this? And I think, um, more importantly, like
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: how much time and energy would you be spending on
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: it if you were on the campaign?
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: Before we do that, I just do want to stipulate
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: that Team South America has a very, very real chance
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: of winning this race.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, we should talk about that for sure.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: I get why everyone is skeptical of Texas. We have
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: been burned so many times. But this is our best
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: chance in a generation to win statewide office in Texas.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: We have not won a Senate race in Texas since 1988.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: We have not won statewide office of consequence in this century.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: And Obviously, the closest that a Democrat has come was
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: Beto O'Rourke losing by 2.6% to Ted Cruz in 2018.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: But this is a different world. 2018 was a good
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: environment for Democrats. 2026 is a great environment for Democrats,
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: as we sit here today, at least. This is a
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: hard thing for me to say, but Ted Cruz is
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: much more likable and more popular than Ken Paxton. This
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: blew me away. In September of 2018, Ted Cruz had
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: a favorability rating that was nine points above water.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: Ken Paxton, depending on your poll, is five, seven, 10
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: points below water and will never be above water. He
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: will never see the surface. The most important thing here
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: is that there is a demographic pincer movement happening in
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: Texas in this moment. So in 2016, Hillary Clinton did
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: better in Texas than almost any other state. It's a
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: state where she actually had the largest improvement over Barack
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: Obama in 2012. It's one of the very few states
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: and maybe the only state where she did better than
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: Obama did in 2012. And the reason that happened is
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: she blew the doors off Latino voters. And Trump won
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: by a decent margin because white voters of all stripes,
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: college educated and working class, voted for him in mess.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: What has changed since 2016 is those college educated white voters,
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: of which there are a ton in Texas, particularly in
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: the cities and suburbs, around those big cities, have moved
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: dramatically in the Democratic direction. And then, starting in 2020,
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: Latino voters moved towards Trump. And Trump won Latino voters
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: by 10 points in Texas, according to the exit polls.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: What has changed since then is that those college-educated white
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: voters have stayed exactly where they were before, and maybe
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: even more fired up now than they were back in 2024.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: And Latino voters have moved dramatically away from Trump. Trump's
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: approval rating among Latinos nationally is minus In the generic,
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: that's in the New York Times poll, in the Unidos
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: US poll of battleground districts around the country, they looked
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: at the battleground districts, this is a poll of Latinos,
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: battleground districts in the Southwest, which is mostly, but not
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: entirely Texas. Democrats are winning the generic ballot by 38 points.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: And so if James Tallarico, if he can get Kamala Harris,
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden style numbers with college educated white voters, And
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: something like Hillary Clinton's 2016 Latino numbers, he wins that
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: race and he wins it by a couple of points.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: I saw that Nate Cohn said something similar and then
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: also said that even if you take the latest Times poll,
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: the national poll, and you match the shifts with the
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: different demographic groups in Texas, if you make it, then
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: it would tilt blue, Texas.
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: Even before you knew the candidates.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: He has to navigate what we all talked about to
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: get there. But this is not the previous discussion of Texas.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: It's not like a lot of other red states where
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: we talk about, we're like, we've got this popular candidate.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: Maybe they can persuade a bunch of these voters and
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: maybe we'll get there, but there's no real path. The
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: math tells you that this state is in play if
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: Tallarico can achieve what should be achievable Democratic numbers. So
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: that's that.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: Now I was going to say, yeah, now that's a
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: good setup for what I think the challenge is. the
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Tallarico faces is, um, I, I, I've been thinking about
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: sort of Graham Platt or in Maine and this, you know,
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: I think there's been no bigger gap between what voters
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: on the ground think of a candidate and what the
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: internet conversation about that candidate is than, than Platner. And I,
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: the reason I feel, um, more confident about Platner is
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: because pretty much because the size of Maine. And I
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: think that like Graham Platner may meet most of the
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: voters he needs to meet in Maine. And obviously, James
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Salarico is not going to do that in Texas because
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: no one can do that in Texas because it's a
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: big fucking state. And so he does need to make
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: some decisions on like how to puncture the internet caricature
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: of him that a lot of voters are going to
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: come in contact with and also through television ads and
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: other ads from the Paxton campaign and from the Republicans
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: and figure out, you know, like where to spend his time,
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: what to say, what his ad strategy is and your
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: thoughts on all that.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: So my thoughts are, I guess the way to think
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: about this is the strategy they're running as Tallarico was
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: the strategy they ran against Kamala Harris in 2024. The
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: goal is to define him before he can divide himself.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: Like Tallarico, very well known among Democrats and very politically
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: engaged people to the extent that other people even know
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: who he is. It's, they kind of vaguely have this
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: sense that he is like a Democrat who is talks
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: about his faith a lot, maybe as much as they know.
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: And you know, the general vibes that he's not a
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: typical Democrat. And so that's a vacuum that the right
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: is trying to fill before Talladega can fill himself. So
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: what are the mistakes that Kamala Harris made that led
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: her to be defined? The first is when the attacks came,
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: like the infamous they, them ad, she never took them
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: head on. And we can debate the ad strategy around it.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: We know all the discussion from all the people who
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: work there about which ads tested good and which ads
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: tested bad. But And siloing that conversation in ads is stupid.
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: She wasn't like she was out talking to voters to
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: try to disabuse them of that notion. She never took
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: that attack on. So you got to take these attack on.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: I find, even though I'm less concerned about the masculinity
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: attack than perhaps you or others may be, the fact
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: that he took it on the first day shows the
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: right instincts. The fact that he sat down for the
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: interview with Ed O'Keefe to take tough questions about the
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: things he said shows the right instincts. You have to
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: take them on. Because if you don't, then voters are
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: just going to assume that they're true because people are
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: naturally cynical. And the second thing is you cannot allow
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: there to be a vacuum. You have to be everywhere
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: all the time, all at once. You have to be
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: omnipresent in the media, on social media. You have to
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: be like– it's always the worst comparison. You have to
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: be like Mamdani. There should be no interview you turn down,
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: no podcast you turn down. You should visit every county
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: in Texas or whatever is logistically feasible. I remember it
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: took Beto like two years to do that, so maybe
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: that's impossible. But do be everywhere so that people see
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: you because when people see James Tallarico, they like him.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: He is– He has real appeal with this segment of
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: people who would have voted for John Cornyn over a Democrat,
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: but might vote for a Democrat over Ken Paxton. But
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: you got to be in front of them and you
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: got to do... You cannot waste one minute, every single
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: minute of every single day has to be out there communicating.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: And I think he ran his primary campaign like that.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: He's run his career like that. So I think that
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: that's what they're going to do. But Like if you
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: think you're being aggressive, you're probably not being, you should
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: be more aggressive than that and keep going.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: I have seen, um, a lot of, uh, right wing
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: folks who are quite religious online, um, make the argument that,
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: you know, James, the idea that James Tallarico's faith and, um, uh,
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: penchant to talk openly about his faith and, and, and,
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: you know, being, you know, uh, being a seminarian, um, is, uh, is, is,
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: The idea that that's going to help him is like
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: liberals' idea of what a person's of a person of
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: faith is. And like liberals have no idea because the
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: fact that he is using passages from the Bible to
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: sort of, um, talk about his progressive values is like
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: blasphemy to some on the right. And I think that
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: they have that wrong because like, I don't think that
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: James Tallarico's view of his faith and the way he
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: talks about his faith is going to win over evangelical
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: Christians that are going to vote for Ken Paxton and
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: voted for Donald Trump three times anyway. I don't think
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: that's the point. In fact, I don't even think it's, oh,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: this guy preaches and his Christian faith is what's going
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: to do it for me. I think the fact that
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: he speaks in the language of morality is refreshing to
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: people who are don't necessarily vote all the time or
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: sometimes switch between the parties. It's all like the people
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: in the middle that when you hear someone, and especially
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: a Democrat, talking about how their faith has moved them
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: and how it sort of animates their values and their
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: decisions about politics. Like, I don't think, at the very least,
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: I don't think it hurts. I think it pushes people away.
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: But I think for some people, they're like, okay, well,
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: this guy has a moral grounding. And even people who
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: aren't religious necessarily or don't share his Christian faith may
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: be like, okay, this guy believes in what he's saying.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: It gives him an authenticity that, again, when you meet him,
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: you realize that that's what it is. He really genuinely
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: believes this and it animates him and it drives him.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: And I think that that is worth a lot in
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: politics today.
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: These things these right-wing people are saying are so fucking
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: stupid because if a literal meaning of the scripture was
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: why these people voted the way they voted, these evangelical
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: Christians voted the way they voted, they wouldn't have voted
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: for Donald Trump. I'm going to take an even hackier
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: view than you. I agree with you, obviously, the way
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: he talks about things from a moral framework is refreshing.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: The fact that he talks about his faith, it's authentic
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: to him, which is incredibly important, but it's also a
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: massive signifier that he is different than your typical Democrat.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: And if he wants to win in Texas, he has
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: to be different than a typical Democrat. That's why it's important.
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: It is not because he's going to get into a
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: theological debate with a three-time Trump-voting evangelical minister and persuade
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: them to his side. It's that he can communicate with people.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: He can relate to people whose faith is important to
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: him or their, their faith community is important to them
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: because that is a, that is a touchstone to begin
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: a larger conversation about where Texas goes, where the country goes.
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: Like it is a way in with a group of voters.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: It is not the fact of his faith is not
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: delivering votes among other people of faith. It's just one
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: way in which he can connect to people.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: I also think there's a way in which Tallarico has
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: already started framing the race. And he did this in
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: a video, um, right after Ken Paxton won. Um, where
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: he is trying to make this about him and everyone
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: else as outsiders trying to upend a corrupt establishment. And
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: it's about the system, right? And so he attacks Ken
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: Paxton as corrupt and he calls him the most corrupt
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: politician in America, but he said he's part of a
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: corrupt system that James Tallarico wants to change because it
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: is the, and you know, this is, Ossoff says the
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: same thing. This is the reason that you can't afford
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: anything because these people are stealing your money. And making
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: it about voters and about why Ken Paxton would be
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: bad for voters because they are feeling like they can't
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: afford anything and he's going to make it worse because
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: he's a thief, just like Donald Trump, I think is
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: a very potent message. I have a greater worry that
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: if it's about, you know, beta male, low-T Tallarico versus,
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: you know, criminal adulterer Ken Paxton, and it's like a
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: character versus character race, that's not one that he's going
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: to have as much of a chance to win as
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: if he makes it about, you know, outside versus, you know,
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: outsiders versus the system, change versus the status quo. He's
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: just got to make it bigger than about him and Paxton.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: And I do think that, and it's not just for Tallarico,
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: but it's for all Democrats, because Paxton gives you so many,
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: is a target rich environment because he gives you so
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: much to talk about because he has such a bad
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: record and he's corrupt, stuff like that. It is very
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: easy to turn this into a race about what a
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: bad person Ken Paxton is. And I think it would
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: be a mistake. to just, just talk about Ken Paxton
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: as a bad person. You've got to talk about how
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: Ken Paxton has fucked over the people of Texas when
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: he was attorney general and how he would continue to
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: do so in the Senate. Like that is where the,
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: that is where you win it. I think.
• 53:52
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• 56:25
  Speaker 2: All right, a couple last things to cover. Thursday was
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: Marco Rubio's birthday and his best present came from Emerson,
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: which has a new 2028 poll out showing he's effectively
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: erased J.D. Vance's lead as a top contender for the
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: 2028 Republican nomination. In August, he was at 9% and
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: Vance was at 52%. In this latest poll, Rubio's at
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: 35 and Vance is at 36. One poll, Emerson poll,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: obviously grain of salt. Does seem like there's some Marco-mentum here.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: Our friend Sarah Longwell sees it in the focus groups, too,
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: a couple different places. What's going on here?
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: I think Marco Rubio's greatest asset right now is that
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: he's not shady fans. I mean, I think that's it.
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: I don't think he has done anything in particular that
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: people love. It's not like he's just been crushing the
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: job of the State Department. It's not like his stewardship
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: of the Iran war is making people happy. It's not
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: like people are deeply dialed into his role as the
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: overseer of the viceroy of Venezuela. I just think he
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: is a Republican. who might seem slightly more competent and
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: normal than your average Trump cabinet member and is not
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: as awkward and off-putting as J.D.
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: Vance.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: You see that fun Daily Mail story that has sources
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: say that Vance is considering abandoning his 2028 bid and
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: he feels more isolated than ever now that Tulsi Gabbard's leaving.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: And it even got his team to respond, saying that
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: it was all made up and everything, of course.
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: I'm sure he and Tulsi were just plotting in the
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: back on how to fail to stop Trump to do
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: bad things.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: I choose to believe that story might be real. I
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: think that would be fun. It would be fun if
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: he didn't run? He has been very subdued lately.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's offline. Remember, he quit Twitter for Lent.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, and then after Lent, he's kept it off his phone.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: He says he gets more done now. Good for him.
• 58:13
  Speaker 5: Good for him.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: Honestly, offline listener, J.D.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Vance. I was going to say, if he wants to
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: come on offline, we can talk about it. You see
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: that Gretchen Whitmer ruled out running for president in 2028.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: She may have partially walked it back.
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: Just weird.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: She sounded, in the actual clip, she was pretty clear
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: that she was not running. This does not surprise me.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: She has really done none of the things that the
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: people who are obviously running for president are doing. She's
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: not out trying to get a lot of national attention.
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: She's not making herself a foil against Trump. She's not
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: going to all these cattle call events like Al Sharpton's
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: National Action Network and some of these other big events.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: I have not heard of her meeting with donors, hiring staff,
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: talking to people. The people who are running, they're calling
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: other people and they're making sure they know they might
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: be running and trying to persuade those people. We hear
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: from some of them. So it's not surprising. One thing
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: that I think is, I did occur to me when
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: I read this is with Greg, it was presuming Gretchen
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: Whitmer does not run. There are really only two other
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: women who were thinking of running and that's Kamala Harris
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: and AOC.
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: I was going to say AOC and who else? Oh right,
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: And neither of them I think are, I think most
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: people would say the odds are against both of them running.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: So you could, the point being is you could end
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: up with an all male feel, but should be, kind
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: of gross in 2028.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: I think though for Gretchen Whitmer, it's like good for you.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: Like that is the, if you, no one should ever
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: feel pushed into running for president because you are mentioned
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: as someone who could be president. Like, like she is
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: someone on paper who seems like absolutely she could run
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: for president. She clearly like doesn't feel the fire in
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: the belly, like doesn't want to go through it. Like,
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: and it's like, good. That's, that's the better decision to
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: make than to be like, all right, I'm going to
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: do it. I'm going to put everyone through it. We're
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: going to go through the whole paces. Like it's a
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: very big decision. It's a life-changing decision. And I mean,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: also you got to think about the party and the
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: makeup of the field. And like, if she doesn't want
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: to do it, then like good for her for bowing
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: out early.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 6: Um, all right.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: Finally, speaking of deciding not to run for president, uh,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: I want to just quickly take you back to June 27th, 2024.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: The night of Joe Biden's debate with Donald Trump.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: We were there.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: Not at the debate, but you remember. You remember the night.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: We were together.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: We were together.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: You might remember that right afterward, Joe and Jill Biden
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: dropped by a watch party to thank supporters. And here's
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: what Jill Biden said then.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: Joe, you did such a great job.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: You answered every question.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 5: You knew all the facts.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: Never gets old.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: Now, Dr.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: Biden's out with a memoir, which she promoted in an
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: interview with CBS Sunday Morning this weekend. And here's how
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: she recounted actually feeling watching the debate.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 5: I don't know what happened.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 7: I mean, as I watched it, I thought, oh my God,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 7: he's having a stroke.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 6: And it scared me to death.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: That's the time of my life I don't really want
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: to go back to. I mean, I will say I
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: maintain a deep well of anger at the people around
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden who helped keep him in the race, the
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: people around Joe Biden who attacked everyone as basically traitors
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: to the cause, who thought Joe Biden shouldn't run for
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: president either before or after that debate. That still makes
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: me very mad. I have come to the point this
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: many years later that I just have to decide that
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: I can no longer give a shit about the Who
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: knew what, when? Like, obviously she was lying then. She's
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: probably lying now.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: In fact, quite a few Biden advisors told Alex Thompson
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: that they do believe she's lying because they pointed out
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: if she thought he was having a stroke, why did
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: she take him to an after party and then go
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: to the Waffle House after that?
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, there are obviously lots of questions here.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: Here's my thing, right? I just I have made a
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: personal decision that I'm just going to try not to get...
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: That was basically a summer of pure, unadulterated rage the
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: whole time, what was happening.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: I can remember my blood pressure at the time, yeah.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: Yes, I'm trying not to revisit that period in my life.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: So as I sit here today, I care less about
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: what Jill Biden has to say about what happened that moment.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: I care less about what Mike Donilon or all the
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: other people who covered up for Biden have to say
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: about what happened at that moment. What I care about
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: is what happens going forward. And what bothers me the
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: most is not the timeline of events of 2024, but
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: whether Democratic leaders now will ever reckon with the massive
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: breach of trust that came because of how all of
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: that was handled. Telling voters that what they saw with
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: their eyes before the debate was that they shouldn't believe that,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: and then telling voters what they saw at the debate
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: they shouldn't believe. And that lack of trust hurts us
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: with our own voters, hurts us with the other voters.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: And we have to be thinking at all times about
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: how to rebuild that trust. We should optimize strategic decision-making
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: at the highest levels of this party for how do
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: we rebuild trust, not just with our voters, but with
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: all voters. And that is, I think, as I try
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: to find a way not just to throw my phone
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: against the wall every time I see stuff like that,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: that's where I'm trying to direct my positive energy.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: That was just remarkably disciplined. an adult of you. And
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: you know, now I'm going to Austin's boot. Um, didn't
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: you already do a YouTube about, I was going to say,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to, um, yeah, I'm going to take
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: that path as well, because if you want to hear
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: me flip out about it and Tommy, we have, we
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: have it on YouTube from this morning when it was fresh,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: but I, I, I really, I completely agree.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: Was that today? You did that today.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: It was today.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: It's been a long day.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: I know. Um, But I agree with you. And that's
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: the only reason I care about it now, too, because
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: I and I read that. I think I said it
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: to you, too, that that tweet from Zaid Jelani, who said, like,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: I think people are underestimating how much the lack of
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: trust people have in the Democratic Party is due to
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: what happened around them. And I do think that, like,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: you know, you can ask, do you think Biden and
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: what happened with Biden is going to be an issue
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: in 2028? And narrowly, no. But I think that the
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: people are going to remember. that the Democratic Party, when
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: I say Democratic Party, I mean the people in the
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: White House, the campaign, plenty of Democratic pundits, plenty of
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: people online who are still fighting that fight, lied to people.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: And didn't even lie to people in a way that
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: was like, like lied to people in a pretty obvious,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: obviously false, transparent way. And so that's like, it's worse
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: than a lie. It's treating people like they're fucking idiots,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: which is basically what they did. They told the whole country.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: That's the bigger thing.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: They told the whole country like, You know what? You
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: know who the problem is. It's these fucking D.C. establishment
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: bedwetters who think that Joe Biden did bad in the debate.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: They're the problem. We're with all you people, and we
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: believe that everything was great. We think you believe that, too.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: And they're like, they think people are going to believe that? Like,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: come on.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a level of delusion and deception that
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: was bigger than... Or, like, dismissive. I think dismissive is
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: the right way to put it.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, dismissive.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: It was bigger than just the Biden's age stuff. It was... inflation.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: It was Gaza. And the combination of all of those
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: things have put the Democratic Party in a bad place
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: with its own voters, not to mention everyone else. And
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: we have to be thinking about how we fix it.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: And that's one of the reasons why I got so
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: mad about the DSCC and Chuck Schumer coming in and
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: putting their hand in these races. And in some cases,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: now putting their thumb on the scale, but not saying
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: they're putting their thumb on the scale by funneling money
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: through APEC super PACs or these other super PACs in
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: these other states.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: Like that.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: And I thought you were going to say, this is
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: why I got so mad at the Ken Martin thing too.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: Cause that was the same idea.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's exactly right. That's that's it too. And that's
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: allowed me to experience the same, many of the same
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: people because I wrote that message box and two and
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: a half seconds after the autopsy came out, calling for
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: Ken Martin to resign. I really put myself at the
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: front of the line for the people on online to
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: come out to say like, where's the autopsy of your
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: work in 2024 pushing more good men out of jobs.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: But this is and this is in the context of
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: going forward. I just want the people running in 2028,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: the people who are going to be talking about the
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: 2028 race, like when the Biden stuff comes up, when
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: the DNC stuff comes up, whatever. Like if people were
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: willing to say totally fucked up, I was wrong. Bad move. Oh,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: you know, wish I was more honest, which has more transparent. Like, great.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: That's fine. But you got to say that, you know,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: people like, yeah, where's the autopsy of your work? We're
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: fine to say when we fucked up. This whole company
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: was started because of a fuck up. Because we were
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: so confident that Hillary Clinton was going to win. We
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: were fucking wrong. I wish that we had gone harder
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden earlier than the debate. Said that before too.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: It's okay. You can say that you were wrong. It's fine.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: You don't have to issue carefully worded statements that evade
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: the question because you know what? People aren't going to
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: trust you. So anyway, good luck on the book tour, Jill.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: All right. When we come back from the break, You'll
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: hear my conversation with Mississippi Senate candidate, Scott Cologne.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is brought to you by Bilt. Whether
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• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: Scott Cologne, welcome to Pod Save America.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: You are a district attorney in Mississippi. You're seventh generation Mississippian.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: Your mom is the first black woman elected to her regions.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: chancery court. Your dad worked for Ronald Reagan before becoming
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: a Democrat. When a Mississippi voter asks why a guy
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: with your resume is running for Senate as a Democrat
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: in 2026, what do you tell them?
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: I tell them that we've got to have a senator
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: that fights for Mississippi. Somebody that understands that The tariffs
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: have been terrible for the farmers, for the small businesses,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: that it's been terrible for the people going to the
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: grocery store and that are struggling. And I'm not going
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: to D.C. to be the Democratic senator. I'm not. We're
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: not a state that can afford that. Right. You know,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: Mississippi's got three million people. California's got close to 50 million.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: You guys got two senators. We got two senators. We
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: have to use that to bring resources and jobs and
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 4: opportunities to Mississippi. And our current junior senator, she's betrayed that.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: She's totally betrayed that. The people of Mississippi know it,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: and that's why they're gonna go in a new direction
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: this November.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: You are running in a state that Trump just won
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: in 2024 by 23 points.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: A lot of people will hear Mississippi Senate race and
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: maybe laugh.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: Make the case to the skeptic. What do you see
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: on the ground that suggests you could become the first Democrat,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: really the first Senate candidate, to win a state that
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: the incumbent president just won by 23 points?
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: So, you know, I get this question asked to me
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: a lot, as you can imagine. And I used to
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: answer it like I was David Axelrod. I would say, well,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: hold on, guys. You know, in non-presidential years, you know,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: we get much closer, right? Like our last Democratic candidate
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: for governor got within three points of winning. You know,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: last year we broke the Supermajority in the state Senate.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: But what I realized is I needed to explain to
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: people why I can win, right? And the reality is
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: when I ran for district attorney in 2015, I ran
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: against a 30-year incumbent. I was in a district that
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: people thought I had no chance of winning. But what
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: I realized is that under the right circumstances, with the
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: right opponent, and the right candidate, you can win a
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: tough race in Mississippi. And those three things are totally
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: at play now, right? I mean, I got invited on
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 4: the Gulf Coast, some Mississippians who previously voted Republicans. Notice
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: I didn't call them Republicans. Mississippians who previously voted Republicans.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: They reached out to my campaign and said, listen, we
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: love what you're doing on social media. I was on
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: a podcast and they were like, we love what you
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: said on the podcast. You're talking about Mississippi values. We
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: want you to come meet with us. They said, maybe
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: two or three people. We'll see how it goes. When
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: I got there, it was 20 people. Former Republican voters.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: And they talked to me about how in this particular moment,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: they feel like they're getting betrayed by the Trump administration
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: with $ 1. 7 billion for people that assaulted cops that the
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: president's cronies get to control. And then you look at Senator,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: our junior senator, right? I call her Cindy High Prices
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: because all we got is high prices from her. So,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: you know, you look at her and she's a part
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: of the corruption. I mean, she's gotten campaign contributions from
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: fertilizer companies that are under investigation for price fixing. Wow,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: those same fertilizer companies are really hurting our farmers. The
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: tariffs hurt them. Now we got fertilizer costs because of
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: the war on our rent up. Price fixing. She's taking
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: money from him. She is, you know, I mean, one
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: of the Republican, former Mississippi Republicans told me, he said, listen,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: when I heard about her going to Las Vegas, $ 10, 000
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: campaign contributions to stay at luxury hotel, to eat at
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: luxury restaurants, that reminds me of the corruption we're seeing
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: in D.C. And, you know, we got to go in
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: a new direction and just tell us what you're running on.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: And I'm running on making everybody's life in Mississippi better.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: You know, it's... How do you do that? I mean,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 4: you got to talk about the issues. And the other
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: thing that I think is important, and this is for
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: everybody listening, it's a mistake I think people are making.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: We're making it too much about the candidates. We're looking
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: for celebrities to do the profile. Oh my God, they're
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: great speakers. I think I got a lot of charisma.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: I think I'm charming. I think I can give a
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: good speech.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: I think you're charming so far.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: But I'll tell you this, going out there campaigning, listening
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: to voters, I ask voters all the time, what matters
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: to you? The number one answer, someone who does what
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: they said they're going to do. It's not about us.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: It's about them. We have to make sure voters can
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: trust us again. And that has to be not just
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: running 30-second commercials. We can't advertise our way out this problem.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: We got to go back and touch voters. We got
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: to gain their trust. And when we get power again,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: we have to deliver. We have to make sure people
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: understand that their vote matters, that we make their life better.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: And so that's a big part of my strategy is
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: I really get out there. I campaign. Anybody following me, John,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: I don't know anything that campaigns want to me. I mean,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: it's three events on Saturday and I love voters. I
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: love voters. And I listen to them. You know, I
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: don't just do town halls. I do town halls. But
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: at some point, you're just talking to people that, you know,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: are motivated to vote, right? I go to the festivals.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: I go to the housing projects. I'm going to do
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: a food truck where I pull up at the union halls,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: go to the plants. We got to go to the
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: voters and we got to gain their trust.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: So the former comm staffer in me believes you are
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: totally right that you should not give the answer like
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: david axelrod would give the answer that's what we would
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: tell yeah but don't be a pundit yeah but now
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: i am a pundit yeah um so mike espy loses
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: by 7.8 in 2018 yeah and i remember on that
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: race uh consultants on the espy campaign being like mississippi
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: it's gonna happen talk to espy it could it And
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: then Hood lost the governor's race by 5.5 in 2019.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: And then Brandon Presley lost by only 3.2 in 2023.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: So it's a narrowing margin.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: Still a margin.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: Like what's the theory of the case that you're the
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: one who can actually close it as opposed to being
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: like the next data point where, and then Scott got
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: even closer.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, some of it's the environment, right? I mean,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 4: you look at 2018, the economy was pretty good in Mississippi.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: You look at the economy now, The tariffs have been terrible.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: Nobody talks about how the tariffs have hurt Mississippi. You know,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: I was talking to a woman, a dollar general manager, right?
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: And I was shooting a little commercial in there, and
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: I didn't ask her permission first. So, you know, you
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 4: try to, you know.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: What are you doing with those cameras?
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: Let me do a 15 seconds real quick and get
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: out of here, direct the camera real quick. And she
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: noticed me, and she said, what are you doing? I said, well, listen,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 4: I'm a Senate candidate. I'm running against Cindy Highsmith. She
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: had no idea who that was. And I was like, well, listen,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: don't worry about her. I'm the guy. And so I
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 4: started talking to her. I said, listen, how are the
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 4: customers doing? And she said, you know, they're struggling. I'm
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 4: seeing them every month trying to figure out, can they
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: pay for diapers? Can they pay for groceries? And prices
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 4: keep going up. And she was like, I don't know
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: what it is. I don't know what I can do.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: I feel helpless. So I asked her, I said, what
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 4: do you think about the tariffs? It was almost like
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 4: a bug went off. She was like, yeah, you know what?
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: It is the tariffs. It is the tariffs. You're right.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: They're bad.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: And the people that you talk to connect that to
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: the guy they voted for, like 23 points. Do they
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: say like tariff, bad Trump tariff? Like, do they put
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: it all together?
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: You know, I think tariff is a bad word. You know,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: I don't know that they always do. I mean, there's
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: a lot of voters that say they know it's bad
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: because it became a popular term here recently. But we
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: need to change the name of it. It really is
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: a working class tax. Yeah. It's a working class tax.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: It's a sales tax.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: It's a sales tax. I mean, and it's unfair to
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: working people. It's a terrible way to collect revenue because
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 4: if you make $ 15, 000 a month or you make $ 2, 000
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: a month, you're paying the same tax.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 4: And so we're connecting the dots for them, but I'll
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: tell you who's really feeling it, and they understand it,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 4: are the farmers. I mean, I could tell you story
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: after story about how farmers are struggling in Mississippi and
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 4: now the fertilizer costs And the problem is, you talk
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: about the corruption and how she's allowing the corruption, how
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: she's partaking in it. But then you have to add
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 4: that she's totally absent in the state. I mean, she
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 4: had done a town hall in six years. She does
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 4: not campaign. I mean, her only strategy is scare tactics.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: 30-second commercial to scare the voters.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a recent Democratic internal poll had her, I think,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: at 55% unfavorable. It's like 12 points underwater from Trump
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: in her own state. Why do you think she's so
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: much weaker than the brand? You've got a senior senator
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: in that state, I'm sure, Roger Wicker, that's more popular
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: than her. What is the specific Hyde-Smith problem as opposed
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: to generic Republican?
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 4: You have to think about it this way. This is
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 4: a great way to really bring the story home. When
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: I was a child, my dad was Republican before he
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 4: supported Obama in 08. He actually was a Republican for Obama.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 4: Obama switched him. But anyways... When I would go to
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: Jackson State football games at halftime, you would see Thad
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 4: Cochran at halftime with a $ 50, 000 check going to Jackson State.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 4: That's a hard guy to beat. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 4: It's hard to get motivated if a guy's bringing $ 50, 000.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 4: And we actually have a tradition in Mississippi of having
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: senators that understand this position has to bring resources back
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 4: to Mississippi. Trent Lott, I don't agree with him on
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: a lot of things, but he did a lot to
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 4: bring jobs back. I mean, he was majority leader at
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 4: one point. The majority leader was from Mississippi. So with her,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: a big problem is the people, even Republicans are like,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 4: excuse me, voters who used to vote Republican. They are like,
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 4: she is totally MIA. We can't find anywhere. She doesn't
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 4: do anything. You know, I don't think we've ever had
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: a senator that's this absent. And she thinks that all
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: she has to do is be 100 percent MAGA and
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 4: she can win. But the reality is I've been out
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 4: there talking to voters and they want somebody that's 100
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 4: percent Mississippi because they understand the stakes. It's not like
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 4: things are going well. I mean, you can ask the
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 4: most loyal Trump supporter right now, are things going well?
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 4: They ain't saying yes. They ain't saying yes.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: So if you become senator, you'd be the junior senator
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: for Mississippi. Seniority in the Senate, you'd rank towards the
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: bottom like all new senators do. So you're making the
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: case that she's not bringing home resources to Mississippi. How
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: do you make the case to voters that, like, if
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: you go to the Senate, you'll be able, even though
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: you're one of 100 and sort of, you know, a
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: junior senator, help bring home resources to Mississippi?
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, one, I'm going to use my vote
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 4: and my voice to really represent Mississippi. I'm not going there.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 4: I keep saying this. I'm not going there to be
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 4: a celebrity. I'm going there to deliver for Mississippi. And
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 4: so that gives me leverage because I'm not, you know,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 4: if a Republican offers something that makes sense for Mississippi,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 4: I'll support it. If a Democrat offers something that makes
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 4: sense for Mississippi, I'll support it. Now, of course, you're right.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 4: You know, as a junior senator, you got to be smart.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: And what I want to do is I'm going to
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 4: find issues that Republicans already support. Right. Like economic development
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: is a big thing in Mississippi. How do we bring
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: in industries to develop capital to get our state moving
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 4: in the right direction? I mean, we're not like L.A.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 4: where you got buildings. I mean, you know, every you know,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 4: it's really that we spend it wisely. Well, you know,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 4: I'm going to let y'all control that. But, you know,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: but for Mississippi, we need capital. We need economic development.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 4: We've got to be, even Republicans, you know, leaders know that.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 4: And so that's an area where, you know, I can
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 4: be impactful that's really bipartisan. And the other areas we
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 4: got to find, like for me, I got to find
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 4: smaller problems that I can help solve. Like I had
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 4: a good friend of mine who mentioned to me that
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 4: dental care is really bad in Mississippi. It's at the bottom.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: And so, like, that's a problem that I can help
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 4: solve as a senator for Mississippi. That's not a partisan thing.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 4: So trying to find solutions to practical problems that makes
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: people's life better. And the other thing that I'm going
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 4: to do, and I've learned this from campaigning so much, is,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 4: you know, we can't stop campaigning. I mean, I know
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 4: once you win, you got to govern, but you also
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: better still campaign. Because a place like Mississippi, if they
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 4: feel like you go to D.C. and you're just making
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 4: money or, you know, just a celebrity, it's not going
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 4: to work. So for me, we got to have strong
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 4: anti-corruption legislation that makes clear that we're not in there
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: making money. You know, that's why I support a ban
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 4: on stock trading. That's why we can't have people become
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 4: lobbyists right after they become senators. We got to get
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 4: the corruption and the perception of it because that helps
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: the people that are openly corrupt. Yeah. Right. Because they
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 4: can say the people are like, well, you know, they're corrupt,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 4: but so is everybody's corrupt. We got to show them
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 4: we're not corrupt. We're public service. We're not there to
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 4: make money. And it's beneficial to me that, like you said,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 4: my mom was a Chancery Court judge. And I learned
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 4: my ethics and values from my parents. And so, you know,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 4: I'm really trying to honor their legacy. That's why, you know,
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: it's important to me to be transparent and be somebody
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: that people can trust because I want to honor my parents.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 4: I also want to honor the ancestors that sacrificed so
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 4: much for me to even have this opportunity to talk
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 4: to you.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: I was just thinking, like, the last Democratic senator from
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: the state that voted— by double digits, this many double,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: like in the 20s for Trump was Joe Manchin. And
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: his model was like cut deals, piss off your party constantly,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: and then vote with the president when it suited the state.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: Is that your model too?
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 4: Well, I think Senator Manchin tried to get a little
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 4: bit more attention than I'll try to get.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: He does love attention.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean? So for me, I'm more
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 4: going to be trying to use my leverage and voice
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 4: to cut deals that make sense. benefit Mississippi, but not
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 4: try to be just somebody constantly complaining about things.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you'll hear this from voters if they're like, okay,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: you say you're not going to be a typical Democratic senator,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: you're going to be a Mississippi senator. I don't like
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: the Democrats. I don't like what they've done. Where do
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: you think the Democrats have gone wrong? Where do you
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: break from the party? Where would you be different than
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: a typical Democrat?
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but we got to talk about economic issues. That's
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 4: the first thing. I mean, because the people, like I
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: knew this because I had a friend of mine that
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 4: was a barber. Unfortunately, he passed away. Shout out to
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 4: Jasper Pittman. He was a great political head. And so
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 4: in 2020, when President Biden won, there was a lot
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 4: of enthusiasm. There was high turnout. And 2021, 2022, he
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 4: was a Democrat. He started getting sour on the party
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 4: because of inflation. And then what he felt like was, man,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 4: we're talking about sending all this money to Ukraine. We're
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: talking about foreign stuff. Like, man, my life's not gotten better.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 4: Prices are up. Like, we got to start talking about me.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 4: We got to start talking about the voters. And, you know,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 4: I was able to convince him that it made sense
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: that we made sure Russia and Soviet Union and Putin
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 4: didn't take over Ukraine. But I was a trusted messenger.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 4: And there was too many people that didn't have trusted
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 4: messengers to help them understand that Democratic Party did care
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: about the fact that inflation was out of control. That
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 4: we did care about the fact that the border seemed
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 4: like it was out of control and you know, that
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 4: a lot of people feel like that hurts workers, that
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 4: hurts workers. And so we got to talk about economic issues.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 4: The other thing is that we have to, like, I
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 4: feel like the last couple of years we've been trying
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 4: to figure out, you know, the answer to Trump is,
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 4: you know, President Trump wants to make everything about himself.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 4: He loves that all the attention is on him. And
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 4: we've been either making every campaign about him or trying
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 4: to find somebody that can be as much of a celebrity, right,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 4: as him. Somebody who can convince these voters. I think
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 4: We got to go back and we got to make
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 4: our campaigns about the voters again. We have to have
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 4: candidates that not can only go on a podcast and
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 4: make a case, but they actually should be able to
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 4: be comfortable taking 75 selfies. Yeah.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 4: Going to a festival where nobody knows them.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: You got to like people.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 4: You got to like people. And that's great for me
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 4: because I love people. And my opponent, she can't stay
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 4: in Mississippi. I mean, she does not campaign at all.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: So the, the, the challenge for Democrats as always is, uh,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, we want to talk about economic issues.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: We want to talk about making people's lives better. And
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: the Republicans don't let you because they make all the
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: attacks about their favorite wage issues. Hyde Smith's campaign manager
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: called you the transgender defender, said you were handpicked by Schumer,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: bankrolled by Soros, soft on crime. All the radical sex
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: changes for children. I just unloaded the clip. All the favorites.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: Walk me through how you answer that. Not for our
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: audience who knows it's garbage, but for a voter in
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: Mississippi that will hear those ads.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: 15 times between now and November.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 4: So I knew that she was going to do that.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 4: I knew exactly all those attacks were coming.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: Like one play, yeah.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and so if you look at my
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 4: campaign announcement ad, I tried to preempt it, right? So
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 4: for example, I know in Mississippi, the way to counter
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 4: a lot of that stuff is to show people that
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 4: your life is like theirs, right? So my announcement ad
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 4: centered around my family. I've got two daughters. I coach
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 4: their soccer team. Listen, I mean, come on. I mean,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 4: you think people are going to fall for that? Like,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 4: my dream. This is what I tell my daughters. I say, listen,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 4: you know, there's not many ways you can disappoint me.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 4: But if neither one of you become a basketball player,
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 4: I am going to be disappointed.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: I mean. Does that work?
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, one of them, the junior one, my youngest one,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 4: is starting to work. Because I say, you know, when
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 4: you get older, if you ever complain, I'm going to
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 4: always remind you, I wanted one thing, and you didn't
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 4: deliver for me. So, I mean, and the other thing is,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 4: We got to lead with our values. You know, for me,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 4: you know, I do Soulful Sundays where I talk to
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 4: church faith leaders and I center them and talk about,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 4: you know, there's a lot of, for whatever reason, we've
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 4: allowed people like Sidney High Smith to trick voters into
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 4: thinking that we Democrats don't believe in faith. Democrats don't
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 4: believe in family. Like, I have much more in common
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 4: to the average Mississippi family than she does. You know,
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 4: my wife, she makes me drop the kids off at
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 4: school sometimes. Cindy High Smith is never doing that, right?
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 4: I go to the soccer game, watching my kids play.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 4: She's not doing that. My wife makes me do it.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 4: As a good partner. It's a good partner. My wife
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 4: is training me well. It's a good partner. Sometimes I
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 4: have to grocery shop too. And so I'm at the
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 4: grocery store talking to people, listening. You know, my life
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 4: is like theirs. So I'm going to cut through that
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 4: mess by showing them how my life is like theirs,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 4: showing them my family, and centering the voters. Because, you know,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 4: every Monday I drop a video called Mississippi Matters Monday.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 4: And I'm having voters, kind of man on the street style,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 4: asking people to say what matters to them. All the
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 4: stuff she's attacked me on, no voters ever said that's
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 4: what matters to them. It's not on their mind. It's not.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 4: So her, you know, for me, if I can raise
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 4: enough money to counter her lies with the truth and
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 4: tell the truth about her, we're going to win. I'm
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 4: telling you, we're going to win. The win's at my back.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: So what's the message to a donor in California or
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: New York deciding between writing a check to your race
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: and to say, North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, even Texas, that's
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: probably higher on the DSCC list.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but whoever's making those lists, I mean, what's the results, right?
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 4: Maybe we need to redo the list a little bit
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 4: because Mississippi's a cheaper state to compete in. We're a
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 4: cheaper state to compete in. But, you know, we have Christianists.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 4: You and I agree. We have Christianists. Pi, say Mississippi Day.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is it. May 28th from now on.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 4: From now on, we're going to talk about Mississippi. And
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 4: the reality is you can't save America unless you save Mississippi.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 4: I mean, we have to matter. When the country has
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 4: done well, everybody's paid attention to what's going on in Mississippi.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 4: We've focused on the voters in Mississippi, making sure that
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 4: they have quality education, quality health care. We don't let
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 4: these people that want to take our country back control everything.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 4: And when we got, you know, when we've done poorly
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 4: is we ignore Mississippi. And there's plenty of examples of
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 4: Mississippi being ignored, and we've seen the results of that.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 4: And to get ourselves out of this mess, what we
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 4: have to remember is rural America matters. We have to
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 4: have candidates that understand rural America, that are not afraid
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 4: to talk to former Republican voters. And people are not
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 4: scared to talk to folks that don't even know who
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 4: their Senator is. You know, there's, man, I'm telling you,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 4: I'm going to win. People are going to be, other
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 4: people outside Mississippi are going to be surprised. I'm not
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 4: going to be surprised. It's been trending that way. As
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 4: you pointed out, it's been trending that way. But also
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 4: we're running a different type of campaign. We're centering the voters,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 4: not me. You know, if you look at my videos,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 4: I have other people talking. I mean, can I tell
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 4: you a quick story? Yeah. I had a waitress at
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 4: a restaurant. You know, it was kind of like he
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 4: was starstruck at the moment, right? He's like, Oh, is
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 4: that Scott Colon? I go, oh, my God. I said, listen,
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 4: I'm not a celebrity, guys. What's going on? Tell me
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 4: what's on your mind. Tell me what matters to you.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 4: He said, first, I love that you do that. And
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 4: I've been waiting to give you my answer if I
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 4: ever saw you. He said, what matters to me is
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 4: like the drug prices are up because I'm on Medicaid
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 4: and I had to get worse insurance. Now I'm paying
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 4: more to get less. I'm struggling. But he told me, listen,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 4: I've never voted before. I never voted before. I'm going
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 4: to vote for you because you center voters. He didn't
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 4: say center voters, right? He said, I love that you
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 4: have regular people on your videos. You have the barber,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 4: you know, you have two kids just, you know, looking
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 4: at the camera saying, you know, this is why voting matters.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, for me, I can feel the
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 4: momentum and the movement because I am out there listening
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 4: and you can do this in Mississippi. You can't do
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 4: this in every state, but you can do this in Mississippi.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 4: And I'm excited and You know, Mississippi matters. We're going
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 4: to show the country Mississippi matters.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: Well, it is not an easy thing to do to
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: run for office. Certainly not an easy thing to do
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: in a state like Mississippi when you're a Democrat. And
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: you are, I really appreciate that you're doing it and
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 2: doing it so joyfully.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: So good luck out there.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 4: I appreciate it.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: Thanks for coming on Pod Save America on Pod Save
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: Mississippi Day.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. Hey, you know, if you want to be a
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 4: part of the movement, go to scottcologne.com. We're building something
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 4: special in Mississippi. I'll come back May 28th. Next year,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 4: we'll be talking about, you know, how I keep my promises. Yeah,
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 4: it will be how I keep my commitments, how we're delivering.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 4: Because the good thing about you is you understand this
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 4: is not a, I mean, running for office is hard,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 4: but running for office and being a leader is also hard.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 4: So we can't stop.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 4: We got to be constantly keeping going. So thank you
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 4: so much for having me.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: Thanks, Scott.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 4: I appreciate it.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: That's our show for today. Thanks to Scott Cologne for
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: coming by. I'll be back on Sunday with a conversation
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: with our pal Ben Rhodes. He's got a new book
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: about speeches, American speeches and American identity. And so we'll
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: be geeking out about speech writing and and talking about
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: America's 250th. So check it out.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 4: Bye, everyone.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: Farrah Safari with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn and Adrian Hill.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcoat, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis,
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 2: Kirill Pelleviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single.
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: America East.