Latest / The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated / Midterm Messaging, and the Houthis' no good, very bad day

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Midterm Messaging, and the Houthis' no good, very bad day · The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: All things Hillsdale at hillsdale.edu.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I encourage you to take advantage of the many free
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  Speaker 1: online courses there. And of course, a listen to the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them at Hugh for hillsdale.com or
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: just Google Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show. I'm guest host
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  Speaker 3: Kurt Schlichter, senior columnist at townhall.com, retired United States Army
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  Speaker 3: colonel and the author of the new book, American Warlord,
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  Speaker 3: which comes out in about one month from today on
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  Speaker 3: Election Day. You should go order American Warlord at Amazon.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: I've got to warn you, it's selling really well. American Warlord,
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  Speaker 3: it's going to be a hit. You need to get
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  Speaker 3: yours so that you get it on the first printing. Oh,
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  Speaker 3: also senior columnist at Town Hall. Hey, one of the
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  Speaker 3: great joys of being on the Hugh Hewitt Show is
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  Speaker 3: getting to have folks like my next guest, who is
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  Speaker 3: Matt Continetti. He is– you're the Washington opinion correspondent. How
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: did you get that gig anyway?
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  Speaker 4: I'm not sure what gig you're talking about. I'm a
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  Speaker 4: columnist for The Wall Street Journal. I'm sorry. And I
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  Speaker 4: work at AEI.
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  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
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  Speaker 5: Sorry.
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  Speaker 4: I like the gig. I'll take it. I have about five,
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  Speaker 4: but I'm happy to add that one too, Kurt.
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  Speaker 3: How come everybody has like five gigs?
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  Speaker 6: It's how to get by in today's Washington.
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  Speaker 4: One is not enough. Everyone has a side hustle in
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  Speaker 4: America's economy these days.
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  Speaker 3: So basically, AEI, would you call that your Uber or DoorDash?
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  Speaker 4: That's my home. So I guess it's my Airbnb. That's
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  Speaker 4: where I hang my hat.
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  Speaker 3: Now, I'm senior columnist over at Town Hall. And when
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  Speaker 3: I write my stuff, unlike for the very short time
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  Speaker 3: I wrote for the New York Post, they basically print
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  Speaker 3: what I write. The New York Post edited. By the
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  Speaker 3: time I was done with the editing process, they could
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  Speaker 3: tell me my colon was free of polyps. How intense
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  Speaker 3: is the Wall Street Journal editorial process for your columns?
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  Speaker 4: For my columns?
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  Speaker 6: Yeah. You know, it's a pretty light touch. You know,
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  Speaker 6: I have great editors at the Wall Street Journal. We're
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  Speaker 6: very collaborative. I throw ideas out. to them and they
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  Speaker 6: talk about them with me and then I turn in
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  Speaker 6: my copy and pretty much what you read in the
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  Speaker 6: paper or online is is how I.
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  Speaker 3: Wrote it I wrote my Thursday column I got my
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  Speaker 3: idea I got out about 1400 words I write long
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  Speaker 3: in about an hour how long does it take for
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  Speaker 3: you to do yours and how long are your columns typically.
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  Speaker 4: Oh, well, that's a great record for you.
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  Speaker 6: My columns are between 850 and 1,200 words, and it
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  Speaker 6: usually takes me three hours, I'd say, to write them
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  Speaker 6: from start to finish.
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  Speaker 3: I know it's a cliche, but it's harder and slower
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  Speaker 3: to write shorter, isn't it?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, you have to be more selective. You do.
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  Speaker 6: I mean, if you write long, you can just kind
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  Speaker 6: of put it all out there on the page. And
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  Speaker 6: then I like to go back and edit, maybe trim. So, yeah,
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  Speaker 6: I think if you're writing a first draft, just get
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  Speaker 6: it all out there. Don't really worry about how many
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  Speaker 6: words you've put on the paper. But then you can
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  Speaker 6: always go back and cut.
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  Speaker 3: Do you type the initial or do you dictate it?
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  Speaker 4: I'm all computer.
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  Speaker 3: You're all computer.
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  Speaker 4: All computer. I type it out. I type it out.
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  Speaker 3: Do you use AI at all?
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  Speaker 7: No.
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  Speaker 4: Really?
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  Speaker 6: Sometimes, you know, for research, you know, if I have
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  Speaker 6: a question, I found that the Google AI has basically
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  Speaker 6: turned into another way of search. So if I put
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  Speaker 6: a question into Google, I get an AI answer. So
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  Speaker 6: oftentimes that's how I research.
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  Speaker 3: Well, what I'll often do is I'll dictate out a column.
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  Speaker 3: I will do an initial grammar spell check and an
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  Speaker 3: initial read through.
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  Speaker 2: On the.
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  Speaker 3: Word processing program I use. Then I'll take the whole
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  Speaker 3: thing and I'll go over to Grok and I'll say, hey,
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  Speaker 3: I'm writing a town hall column for Thursday. I want
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  Speaker 3: you to fact check it, spell check it, leave the tone,
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  Speaker 3: the snark. I want you to tell me everything you changed.
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  Speaker 3: Give me a new version. Don't change any of the attitude.
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  Speaker 3: And I want you to tell me what you think
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  Speaker 3: of it. You know, is it persuasive? Is it good?
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  Speaker 3: And I'll put it up there and I'll look at
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  Speaker 3: it and I'll ignore its criticisms, of course. But I'm
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  Speaker 3: finding it's very helpful in the sense that it catches
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  Speaker 3: a lot of awkward turns of phrases. It'll point those out.
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  Speaker 3: I go back and change a significant number of them
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  Speaker 3: because it doesn't– Grok doesn't have a sense of humor,
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  Speaker 3: and I was a stand-up comic.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 6: No, I've heard a lot of writers doing that, kind
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  Speaker 6: of testing AI as an editor, and it does catch
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  Speaker 6: a lot of things. And I've– sometimes when I'm using AI–
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  Speaker 6: And I'll say, hey, you know, what is someone written
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  Speaker 6: on X subject and what are the best arguments for
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  Speaker 6: that position or something? You know, a way to kind
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  Speaker 6: of steel man arguments and such. It has such a
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  Speaker 6: variety of uses. I can see a lot of different
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  Speaker 6: ways writers can make the most of it while still
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  Speaker 6: putting their own words on the page.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I think, Matt Continetti, I think AI, when
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  Speaker 3: you're just a normal person, I'm not trying to discover
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  Speaker 3: new drugs. I'm not trying to, you know, do particle
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  Speaker 3: physics or create a deadly virus in my basement. I'm
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  Speaker 3: finding AI is very useful for doing the things I
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  Speaker 3: could do myself faster. Is that your experience?
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  Speaker 4: I don't think I do. A lot of people are
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  Speaker 4: using the AI agents.
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  Speaker 6: I still haven't figured out what an agent is, and
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  Speaker 6: I don't think I'm organized enough to have my agents
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  Speaker 6: do tasks for me. So I guess I'm very 20th
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  Speaker 6: century in that sense. But I do like AI. AIs
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  Speaker 6: are great at recommendations. What I found, Kurt, is if
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  Speaker 6: I like a book or I'm interested in a historical subject,
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  Speaker 6: I'll ask the AI, hey, tell me what are the
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  Speaker 6: best books written on this subject, or I really liked
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  Speaker 6: this book. Can you recommend others books like it? And
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  Speaker 6: they come up with some very interesting titles that are real.
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  Speaker 4: I always double check real titles that otherwise I never
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  Speaker 4: would have heard of. So that's kind of how I
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  Speaker 4: use it.
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  Speaker 6: But I think what the extraordinary thing about AI is
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  Speaker 6: anyone can use it in their own way, you know?
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  Speaker 6: And I think that's what leads to such wonderful innovations.
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  Speaker 6: And You know, we don't want them to use it
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  Speaker 6: to construct the next virus. We have enough problems with
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  Speaker 6: gain-of-function research as it is. But if you're using it
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  Speaker 6: to solve a math problem, if you're using it to
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  Speaker 6: get better at chess, to learn about a new subject,
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  Speaker 6: to help design a course, I mean, I'm all for it.
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  Speaker 3: Well, Matt Connany, speaking of designing organisms, there was yet
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  Speaker 3: another leak in another biolab, this time I believe it's
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  Speaker 3: Irkutsk in Russia. pneumonic plague. I was a chemical nuclear
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  Speaker 3: biological warfare officer early in my career in the military.
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  Speaker 3: And frankly, this stuff scares the hell out of me.
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  Speaker 3: Does it scare you?
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  Speaker 4: Yes, this is a very disturbing story out of Russia.
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  Speaker 6: And because Russia, like China, is an authoritarian system, you
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  Speaker 6: can't really trust what little information we're even getting from it.
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  Speaker 6: And so if I were a policymaker, if I were anybody,
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  Speaker 6: I'd be keeping an eye on this story.
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  Speaker 4: That's coming out of Russia.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, we all remember Chernobyl. And I highly recommend
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  Speaker 3: the Chernobyl docu, not documentary, but docudrama. I thought that
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  Speaker 3: was outstanding, even though the guy who wrote it's a
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  Speaker 3: damn communist, who was writing something critical of communists and
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  Speaker 3: didn't occur to him. But enough about Digger and the
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  Speaker 3: rest of Hollywood. You mentioned agents a moment ago. Let's
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  Speaker 3: talk about a different kind of agent. Did you see
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  Speaker 3: the story where the German BND, that's their intelligence agency,
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  Speaker 3: just arrested the guy who was in charge of it
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  Speaker 3: 20 years ago as a foreign agent? They haven't said
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  Speaker 3: what country, but I'm guessing Russia.
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  Speaker 6: What a fascinating story out of Germany. And I mean,
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  Speaker 6: this could be just a huge scandal, I'd imagine, in
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  Speaker 6: German politics. Seems like the investigation started with the authorities
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  Speaker 6: looking to a kidnapping plot, and then they wind up
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  Speaker 6: with this, the former head of their intelligence service working
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  Speaker 6: for another power. I think it shows kind of the
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  Speaker 6: crisis of German politics that we're looking at right now, Kurt.
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  Speaker 6: I mean, you have an extremely unpopular chancellor. You have
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  Speaker 6: the rising alternative for Germany, the AFD. You have just
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  Speaker 6: a real divide between the elites and the population over
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  Speaker 6: the issue of immigration.
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  Speaker 4: Issue of security. What a mess.
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  Speaker 6: What a mess Europe is compared with the United States.
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  Speaker 6: You know, we've talked about our problems in the United
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  Speaker 6: States and we have problems. So I think the Trump
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  Speaker 6: administration has made great strides in fixing many of them.
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  Speaker 6: But then you look over what's happening in Germany. You
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  Speaker 6: look at what's happened, the riots that are going on
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  Speaker 6: in France right now. Man, am I lucky to be
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  Speaker 6: an American?
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  Speaker 3: Well, you sure are. I spent time in Germany. twice
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  Speaker 3: under NATO command. And so I feel like millions of
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  Speaker 3: Americans personally invested in what goes on over there. And
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  Speaker 3: I've got to say, I was told that, you know,
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  Speaker 3: you're going over, you're defending the free world. And then
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  Speaker 3: I hear the German chancellor get out there and say
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  Speaker 3: something to the effect of, well, you know, free speech, sure,
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  Speaker 3: free speech is great. You just can't actually have free speech.
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  Speaker 3: And the same with Macron. Can America and Europe, since
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  Speaker 3: we clearly don't share the same values anymore, can we
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  Speaker 3: remain allies the way we were?
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  Speaker 6: I think so, but it's going to take a lot
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  Speaker 6: of effort. I mean, just take Germany for an example.
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  Speaker 6: The deindustrialization of Germany is one of the untold stories
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  Speaker 6: of the past 20 years. Germany was a manufacturing industrial powerhouse,
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  Speaker 6: and yet because of net zero and the climate change fantasy,
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  Speaker 6: they've deindustrialized themselves and outsourced much of their production to China.
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  Speaker 6: That's a path America cannot follow.
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  Speaker 3: We absolutely cannot. Matt Contineni, please stay over to the
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  Speaker 3: next segment. I want to talk about Cy Cornell. I'm
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  Speaker 3: Kurt Schlichter, guest hosting for Hugh Hewitt. Stick around. Welcome
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: back to Hugh Hewitt Show. Of course, that is Morrissey
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: and the Smiths singing How Soon Is Now with the lyrics,
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: you go and you stay on your own and you
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: leave on your home and you go home and you
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  Speaker 3: cry and you want to die. Well, if that had happened,
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  Speaker 3: our next story probably wouldn't have been a story. I'm
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  Speaker 3: joined by Matt Continetti, AEI scholar, Wall Street Journal columnist.
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  Speaker 3: You can follow him at Continetti. And Matt, one of
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  Speaker 3: the things I love about having you on as a
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: guest on the Hugh Hewitt Show is you can literally
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  Speaker 3: talk about anything. You hit whatever I pitch. Unfortunately, you know,
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  Speaker 3: I've got to pitch this, the Cornell 7. What are
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  Speaker 3: your thoughts on this abomination of a story?
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  Speaker 6: Well, I think you're right to call it an abomination, Kurt.
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  Speaker 6: I mean, I've been thinking that this story out of
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  Speaker 6: Cornell is why the word sorted was invented. And you
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  Speaker 6: look at the details and the recriminations, and they're just upsetting,
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  Speaker 6: you know, especially as a parent. You just can't help
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  Speaker 6: but just be sick at what you.
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  Speaker 4: Read and listen to. But here's another thing I've been
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  Speaker 4: thinking about.
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  Speaker 6: The way in which these Democratic politicians are demagoguing this
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  Speaker 6: story is shameful. The way that AOC is describing this
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  Speaker 6: story is just simply false. And she is misleading people,
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  Speaker 6: describing somehow this culture of rape at Ivy League universities
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  Speaker 6: is ridiculous.
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  Speaker 4: And then you have.
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  Speaker 6: Governor Hochul appointing Tish James as the special prosecutor after
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  Speaker 6: it's clear Tish James has prejudged the investigation already. And
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  Speaker 6: so there's no one who comes within a mile of
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  Speaker 6: this story.
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  Speaker 4: Looks good.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think this is I was a lawyer. I
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  Speaker 3: believe in laws, clear laws that allow you to govern
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  Speaker 3: your behavior and be safe from criminal and civil liability.
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  Speaker 3: Not necessarily moral consequences. Look, adultery is legal, and I
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  Speaker 3: disapprove of people who commit it. However, right now the
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  Speaker 3: law in New York is fairly clear that if you
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  Speaker 3: are voluntarily intoxicated, you are able to consent to sex, which,
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  Speaker 3: according to the facts, we know them now, and facts change. Again,
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  Speaker 3: I'm a lawyer. Cases look very different from the day
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  Speaker 3: they come onto your desk to the day they're presented
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  Speaker 3: to a jury. She consented. The guys were able to
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  Speaker 3: do what they did legally, although I consider them moral reprobates, right?
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  Speaker 3: How do you have a society where law is replaced
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  Speaker 3: by Calvin Ball?
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  Speaker 4: Well, it's very difficult.
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  Speaker 6: I mean, first thing, you're absolutely right to say that
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  Speaker 6: the rule of law is paramount in our society. So
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  Speaker 6: the law must dictate what happens here. And the laws
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  Speaker 6: in New York are unusual. I mean, or at least
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  Speaker 6: they're creating conditions for this story to become the kind
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  Speaker 6: of cause celeb that it's become in the United States.
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  Speaker 6: You dealt with the law about consent and intoxication. The
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  Speaker 6: statute of limitations, of course, for these types of cases
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  Speaker 6: is longer in New York as a result.
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  Speaker 4: Of the Me Too movement.
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  Speaker 6: So these are events two years ago, but the people
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  Speaker 6: involved are still criminally liable, potentially. And so we have
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  Speaker 6: to just make sure that everyone follows the law. That's
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  Speaker 6: what worries me about appointing the special prosecutor who clearly
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  Speaker 6: has a political angle on this. But then there's another
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  Speaker 6: aspect as well that I don't think has gotten as
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  Speaker 6: much attention, and that's technology.
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  Speaker 4: And that's just the general culture.
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  Speaker 6: And what would be pushing young people into this sort
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  Speaker 6: of position at the frat house? And the fact is,
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  Speaker 6: is that Smartphones and social media have mainstreamed practices and
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  Speaker 6: ideas and behaviors that we would have just thought unimaginable
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  Speaker 6: before the.
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  Speaker 4: Advent of the iPhone.
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  Speaker 6: And so we have to, I think, when we think
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  Speaker 6: about this case, just keep two precepts in mind.
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  Speaker 4: One is the rule of law, and the other is
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  Speaker 4: what are we doing? How are we failing our kids?
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  Speaker 6: That when they go to a university, even an Ivy
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  Speaker 6: League school, they are putting themselves into this sort of terrible,
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  Speaker 6: terrible situation.
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think the conservative movement has been
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  Speaker 3: right to be to reject the idea of young women
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  Speaker 3: who put themselves in danger and do stupid things, things
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  Speaker 3: that any person with common sense knows is stupid. And
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: then they then they complain about the consequences, and we
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: have correctly said, no, you have a duty not to
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: do stupid things to protect yourself. That is a separate
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: duty from people not to commit crimes against you. I
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  Speaker 3: think we need to do that for young men, too. Yes,
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  Speaker 3: what they did appears to be legal, but when you
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  Speaker 3: do foolish, evil things, bad things happen, including exposing yourself
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  Speaker 3: to people who are not going to be bound by
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  Speaker 3: the strict letter of the law. Nothing good can come
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  Speaker 3: of this. And while young people take a lot of grief,
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  Speaker 3: and I think a lot of it's unfair, we've got
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  Speaker 3: to be clear. You can't get with seven of your
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  Speaker 3: frat buddies and do what they allegedly did with this lady,
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  Speaker 3: even though she consented, because it's disgusting. And bad things
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: will always come of it. And then you don't text
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: your friends to join you. Good gosh. How did that
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: become hard, Matt?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I'm with you.
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  Speaker 6: I mean, and I just have to say, you know,
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  Speaker 6: we often hear about Gen Z and young people that
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  Speaker 6: they're not engaged in a lot of sexual behavior or
• 17:03
  Speaker 6: they're not drinking that much or they don't have these
• 17:09
  Speaker 6: friend groups. And here we see this story that clearly
• 17:13
  Speaker 6: you have the large aggregates that.
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  Speaker 4: We read about in the newspaper.
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  Speaker 6: But that's still that doesn't mean that this is a
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  Speaker 6: generation that's completely innocent. or is not engaged in very
• 17:23
  Speaker 6: foolhardy and irresponsible behaviors. And I have to say, too,
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  Speaker 6: you know, I mean, when you read about the amount
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  Speaker 6: of alcohol consumption involved, not to mention the more controlled substances,
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  Speaker 6: you just wish that you had parents and just reminders
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  Speaker 6: to these kids, hey, you know, watch it. Just kind
• 17:44
  Speaker 6: of dial back a little bit. It's a reminder we
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: could all use sometimes, right? But clearly it can lead
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  Speaker 6: to very bad situations sometimes. like the one we're reading
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  Speaker 6: about out of Cornell.
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  Speaker 3: Well, look, speaking for myself, I certainly wasn't channeling John
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  Speaker 3: Lithgow and Footloose at college. And, you know, I would
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: have a few beers and sometimes I would meet a
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: young lady, but it wouldn't be, it would be me
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  Speaker 3: and a young lady, not like seven dudes. What the hell, Matt?
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: Were they raised by wolves?
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  Speaker 5: I mean, it is.
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  Speaker 4: It is mind-boggling.
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  Speaker 6: But, you know, when I look at this story and
• 18:24
  Speaker 6: the way it's come out and the way that Hochul
• 18:27
  Speaker 6: and Tish James and AOC are treating it, you know,
• 18:29
  Speaker 6: about last month when AOC was like, oh, woke one
• 18:33
  Speaker 6: is crazy. I think there's the real potential that woke
• 18:37
  Speaker 6: two could be even crazier. And so we still just
• 18:41
  Speaker 6: have to remind ourselves, let's follow the facts, let's stick
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: with the law, and let's not get matters out of
• 18:48
  Speaker 6: hand that before you know it, we're tearing everything down.
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: Structures and institutions that actually do contribute to the good.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: Along with things that make things worse and bad.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: Well, that's a chilling vision of the future by a
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: true advocate for the patriarchy, as the feminists would say,
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: because of his commitment to honesty and objectivity. Matt Continetti,
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal columnist, AEI scholar. Joining us here on
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: the Hugh Hewitt Show, I'm guest host Kurt Schlichter. Stick around,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: we've got a lot more to come. Welcome back to
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: the Hugh Hewitt Show. I'm guest host Kurt Schlichter. I'm
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: joined by John Ashbrook of the Ruthless Podcast, which I
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: never miss. John, thank you for adding an extra Ruthless
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: Podcast every week before the election. Are you guys being
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: run ragged by the demand?
• 19:49
  Speaker 8: Yeah, but you know, you think about all those people
• 19:50
  Speaker 8: out there knocking doors, trying to win this election.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: It's the least we could do. It's a lot of fun, Kurt.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me on.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm always glad to have you on. You are
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: an election pro. And let me ask you about those
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: guys knocking doors. I'm told James Blair and the rest
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: of the uh the all the president's men have this
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: get out the vote thing down to bring in these
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: low propensity voters how are you feeling about that effort.
• 20:15
  Speaker 8: Well they certainly seem to think so you know there's
• 20:17
  Speaker 8: been an awful lot of conversation about the turnout of
• 20:20
  Speaker 8: these low propensity trump voters in 2018 and 2022 and
• 20:25
  Speaker 8: how's it going to work in 2026 and if you
• 20:28
  Speaker 8: talk to blair you talk to la cevita They think
• 20:31
  Speaker 8: they have that magic sauce to get them out. And
• 20:35
  Speaker 8: a lot of it goes to the president and, you know,
• 20:37
  Speaker 8: all the things the president has delivered and what they've
• 20:40
  Speaker 8: learned by talking to these people consistently over the years
• 20:47
  Speaker 8: and never stopping their their communications with them to understand
• 20:50
  Speaker 8: what it is that's motivating them to turn out and vote.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: And, you know, listen, Kurt, this is it's.
• 20:58
  Speaker 8: One of the most important aspects of this upcoming midterm election,
• 21:01
  Speaker 8: making sure that they turn out, it's going to be
• 21:05
  Speaker 8: particularly important in places like Ohio, Iowa, Alaska and elsewhere,
• 21:11
  Speaker 8: because if they don't come out, then it could be
• 21:14
  Speaker 8: a bad day. Now, one other thing I will point
• 21:16
  Speaker 8: out is that when you see these numbers about low
• 21:20
  Speaker 8: propensity Trump voters turning out, they're usually offered to you
• 21:24
  Speaker 8: in these stories based on a national metric. And what
• 21:29
  Speaker 8: the stories usually don't tell you is that some states
• 21:33
  Speaker 8: over-index on turnout of these Trump voters, and I think
• 21:39
  Speaker 8: Ohio is one of them where the Trump voters will
• 21:42
  Speaker 8: turn out. I think Iowa is a state where the
• 21:44
  Speaker 8: Trump voters will turn out because these are people who
• 21:47
  Speaker 8: know the stakes in these elections, and they know what
• 21:50
  Speaker 8: it means if you put a DSA person in to
• 21:53
  Speaker 8: represent you in the Senate.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm still trying to get my head around the
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: idea that Iowa and Ohio are competitive, you know, I
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: can't buy it. I wrote a column in Town Hall
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: the other day about polling. And it seems to me,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: I did a little unofficial poll of my own. How
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: many of you guys actually, hardcore conservatives, how many of
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: you guys actually talk to pollsters? And between people who
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: never get called and never talk to pollsters, that was 81%
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: of the 3,000 people who reached out to me. I'm
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: not pretending that's scientific, but there's a lot of art
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: to this science of polling, too. I'm thinking that maybe
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: we're missing a lot of a lot of Trump voters
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: because every pinko commie and leftist weirdo out there is
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: just aching to tell the pollster how politically correct they are.
• 22:45
  Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, Kurt, you're not wrong. And there is
• 22:49
  Speaker 8: some science behind this. And my best evidence of that
• 22:52
  Speaker 8: is conversations I've had with pollsters who were doing this
• 22:55
  Speaker 8: for a living whose polls aren't necessarily public. You know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 8: the best pollsters are the ones who are providing information
• 23:03
  Speaker 8: to a candidate, to a super PAC based on years
• 23:07
  Speaker 8: and years and years of data and observation. And those
• 23:11
  Speaker 8: polls are very rarely made public. And the decisions that
• 23:15
  Speaker 8: these campaigns and these super PACs are making based on
• 23:19
  Speaker 8: that data are often very tightly protected. Of course, The
• 23:23
  Speaker 8: polls that you see are from The New York Times
• 23:25
  Speaker 8: or from liberal groups or from NPR. And, you know,
• 23:30
  Speaker 8: what we have learned over the past several cycles is
• 23:33
  Speaker 8: that those groups of pollsters who are putting polls out
• 23:37
  Speaker 8: for public consumption have often missed the mark. Now, a
• 23:41
  Speaker 8: lot of the pollsters I have talked to will also
• 23:45
  Speaker 8: say the same thing that you just said, that it's
• 23:48
  Speaker 8: harder to get a conservative Republican on the phone than
• 23:51
  Speaker 8: with somebody who's asking them questions.
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: It just is.
• 23:55
  Speaker 8: Your experience is not unique, I guess is what I'm saying.
• 24:01
  Speaker 8: But what these pollsters who are looking at the inside
• 24:05
  Speaker 8: of these campaigns are telling Republicans is that the environment
• 24:10
  Speaker 8: is very bad.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: But that's something that we've known.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, Kurt, you.
• 24:14
  Speaker 8: Could have predicted on the day President Trump won the
• 24:17
  Speaker 8: election in 2024, The 2026 midterm was going to be
• 24:21
  Speaker 8: a difficult cycle for the party in power. It was
• 24:25
  Speaker 8: going to be a difficult environment no matter what happened.
• 24:28
  Speaker 8: So we're not in a position that anybody wasn't expecting.
• 24:31
  Speaker 8: The question is, what are you going to do about it?
• 24:34
  Speaker 8: Are you going to be blackmailed and be like.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, no, can't win. We're done here.
• 24:38
  Speaker 8: Or are you going to go out and run the
• 24:40
  Speaker 8: best campaign you possibly can based on the data with
• 24:44
  Speaker 8: a message that resonates with your specific state or with
• 24:47
  Speaker 8: your specific district? And there are an awful lot of
• 24:50
  Speaker 8: campaigns who are doing it the right way out there.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: John, let me put you on the spot and let's
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: go round robin about some of these races where you
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: think that they'll end up. How about my new adopted
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: state of Texas? You think that Texas is going to
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: elect that blasphemous vegan imp?
• 25:07
  Speaker 8: Here's the thing with that Senate race and James Tallarico.
• 25:13
  Speaker 8: His image one month ago was extremely soft, meaning that
• 25:19
  Speaker 8: Political people like you and me who are consuming this
• 25:22
  Speaker 8: information on a day-to-day basis were very familiar with him
• 25:25
  Speaker 8: and all the crazy things he has said. But there
• 25:28
  Speaker 8: are an awful lot of people who are likely to
• 25:30
  Speaker 8: vote who are less familiar. There has been a gigantic
• 25:34
  Speaker 8: investment from Texas PAC into making sure that he is
• 25:38
  Speaker 8: introduced to those people based on his lunacy, which really
• 25:42
  Speaker 8: defines that guy in a very, very real way. and
• 25:47
  Speaker 8: his image has started to move. And there's a saying
• 25:50
  Speaker 8: in polling, just to go back to the polling thing,
• 25:52
  Speaker 8: there's a saying in campaigns, a saying in polling, that
• 25:54
  Speaker 8: information flow, the ads that are coming in, informs the
• 25:58
  Speaker 8: image of the candidate. The image of the candidate informs
• 26:01
  Speaker 8: the ballot. So it's sort of a three-step process. And
• 26:05
  Speaker 8: in the case of James Tallarico, the information flow is
• 26:09
  Speaker 8: still informing his image, and we're going to find out
• 26:12
  Speaker 8: whether it works on the ballot in November.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: Well, that complies with what I found here. I talked
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: to some regular, normal Republicans, not lunatics like me, and
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: they're like, yeah, he seems a little odd. I really
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: don't know a lot about him. But with $ 200 million,
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: you can find out a lot about this guy, and
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: there's plenty to find out, and I'm guessing there's more
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: that's going to come.
• 26:32
  Speaker 8: No, no, no, that's right.
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's endless.
• 26:37
  Speaker 8: I still cannot believe that Democrats nominated him, you know,
• 26:41
  Speaker 8: In a state like Texas with so many people and
• 26:44
  Speaker 8: so many Democrats, you'd think that there was one Democrat
• 26:48
  Speaker 8: who was a little bit more normal who they could
• 26:50
  Speaker 8: have nominated, but they chose a lunatic.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: How about my girl, Susan Collins? How do you think
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: she's going to do against the guy who, well, took his–
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: I guess he met his second cousin at Cornell?
• 27:04
  Speaker 8: If you talk to the people who are working that
• 27:09
  Speaker 8: main race– as closely as the people I've talked to,
• 27:13
  Speaker 8: they say that they have seen more investment in the
• 27:17
  Speaker 8: main race than they did six years ago at this time,
• 27:21
  Speaker 8: even more than they did 12 years ago at this time.
• 27:23
  Speaker 8: And I will say something about Susan Collins. She has
• 27:26
  Speaker 8: beaten an awful lot of different types of candidates. She's
• 27:30
  Speaker 8: never run against a lunatic like Troy Jackson. You know,
• 27:34
  Speaker 8: you mentioned the cousin thing. There's been a lot of
• 27:36
  Speaker 8: news about his, you know, inside of the family, enrichment
• 27:41
  Speaker 8: and everything else.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: I think Susan Collins gets through.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Well, John, we could go through all the races, but
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: unfortunately we are out of time. John Ashbrook of the
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Ruthless Podcast, which you should, like I do, listen to
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: every time it comes out with a special edition on
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: Wednesdays just for the midterms. I'm guest host Kurt Schlichter.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Stick around. We got a lot more to come. We're
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: back on The Hugh Hewitt Show. I'm guest host Kurt Schlichter.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: I'm joined by David Drucker. He's a Dispatch contributor. You
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: can follow him at David M.
• 28:14
  Speaker 9: Drucker.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: And, David, is Bloomberg View Opinion Columnist a new line
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: on your resume, or has that been for a while?
• 28:23
  Speaker 9: It's been for a while. It's rearranging.
• 28:26
  Speaker 7: So Bloomberg Opinion has been a great place for me
• 28:28
  Speaker 7: to put my reporting and analysis, and there you go.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Well, you do a lot of reporting and analysis out there.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: And you're seeing what's going on. Here's my contention. I
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: think the Democrats peaked. I think the Republicans are starting
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: to come home. I think they're taking a look at
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: these socialists, these weirdos, these perverted deviants running for various
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: offices around the country and saying, no, thank you. Am
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: I totally off base? Am I huffing the copium?
• 29:02
  Speaker 7: Well, time will tell, Kurt. We don't have any data yet.
• 29:06
  Speaker 7: Let's look at it in two different ways. The Democrats
• 29:11
  Speaker 7: may have peaked, but if they've peaked at 8.5 points
• 29:17
  Speaker 7: with a generic ballot lead, and if they've peaked in
• 29:22
  Speaker 7: places like Texas and Alaska where their Senate candidates are
• 29:26
  Speaker 7: at or near 50%, There's nothing wrong with peaking there
• 29:29
  Speaker 7: as long as they don't lose ground. So I guess
• 29:31
  Speaker 7: then the question is, have they peaked and are they
• 29:34
  Speaker 7: now beginning to lose ground? We don't have any data
• 29:36
  Speaker 7: to suggest they're beginning to lose ground. But the whole
• 29:39
  Speaker 7: point about campaigns is it's like playing a football game.
• 29:44
  Speaker 9: I say this like I've got a hole in my head.
• 29:47
  Speaker 7: It's like watching a football game for four quarters, not
• 29:50
  Speaker 7: just one quarter or two quarters.
• 29:52
  Speaker 9: The score can go up and down.
• 29:54
  Speaker 7: One team can look like they're out of it, and
• 29:55
  Speaker 7: then the next quarter, the next team looks like they're
• 29:57
  Speaker 7: out of it, and the other team got the momentum back.
• 29:59
  Speaker 9: So let's see what happens over the final month.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: Well, I think we know the Republicans' game plan. It's twofold.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: The first is money, money, money. Throw money at the problem.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: And they're doing that to the tune of, what, $ 200
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: million at least? And the other is the vaunted James Blair,
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Chris LaCiveta ground game. People tell me they are very
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: confident of it. Do you have a read on that?
• 30:26
  Speaker 7: Look, my read on these things generally is that you
• 30:30
  Speaker 7: go with what you have and you hope it works.
• 30:32
  Speaker 7: Republicans have plenty of money, more than the Democrats, well
• 30:35
  Speaker 7: more than $ 200 million. I mean, they're probably going to
• 30:37
  Speaker 7: spend close to a billion dollars. And, you know, or
• 30:40
  Speaker 7: something like that. And the Democrats won't spend as much,
• 30:43
  Speaker 7: but they'll come close. I think given the political environment,
• 30:45
  Speaker 7: the Democrats are going to have enough money. It just
• 30:47
  Speaker 7: depends on how these things shake out and where, because
• 30:50
  Speaker 7: the Republicans do have structural advantages.
• 30:54
  Speaker 9: On the Senate battlefield.
• 30:56
  Speaker 7: The House battlefield is just not large enough, given the Republicans'
• 31:01
  Speaker 7: thin majority, to most likely play out in their favor,
• 31:04
  Speaker 7: although we'll see.
• 31:05
  Speaker 9: And the other thing I would say about ground games.
• 31:08
  Speaker 7: is ground games are great, but you don't.
• 31:10
  Speaker 9: Know how they're going to vote once they're in the booth.
• 31:12
  Speaker 7: And sometimes it doesn't work the same in one election
• 31:15
  Speaker 7: as it worked in the last election. It doesn't mean
• 31:17
  Speaker 7: that the system failed, but voters are people. And ground
• 31:21
  Speaker 7: games are great when you can facilitate people that want
• 31:25
  Speaker 7: to vote, particularly for you. They're not necessarily great at
• 31:29
  Speaker 7: getting people who don't want to vote.
• 31:31
  Speaker 9: And then sometimes you get them to the polls, but
• 31:33
  Speaker 9: they may not want to vote for you. And so
• 31:35
  Speaker 9: you have to take all these things into account.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm seeing a couple of things. First, the Democrats
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: have nominated very, very far left, often very weird candidates.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: And I think I think that's a lifeline to Republicans.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: I think at some point a Republican who might either say,
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: I'm going to sit this out or I'm going to
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: give a chance, give a chance to, you know, Mr. Normal,
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: the normal Democrat that I used to be able to,
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: you know, the old reliable one. He has a little
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: more lefty than I like. But, you know, he's not
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: going to castrate kids. That's not true anymore. It's much
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: more existential, much more non-binary, or binary, if you will.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: The other thing is, and I want to get your
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: opinion on this, I hear a lot, and the evidence
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: I've gathered shows that a lot of conservative-leaning folks are
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: simply not responding to polls. That means pollsters have to
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: essentially make an educated guess as to what the conservatives
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: are going to do since so many of them won't
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: talk to people. Do you think that's a significant factor?
• 32:46
  Speaker 9: I don't know.
• 32:47
  Speaker 7: It may turn out to be, but I would point
• 32:49
  Speaker 7: out that in 2018, the polls were pretty on target.
• 32:54
  Speaker 9: In 2020, the polls.
• 32:56
  Speaker 7: Showed you where the trends were headed, even though they
• 32:58
  Speaker 7: overestimated Biden a little bit here and there. In 2016,
• 33:03
  Speaker 7: the polls told you Trump could win. People just refused
• 33:07
  Speaker 7: to accept it. And in 2024, the polls also told
• 33:10
  Speaker 7: you that Trump was on track to win, and he did.
• 33:14
  Speaker 7: And a lot of the pollsters that I talk to
• 33:17
  Speaker 7: are partisan pollsters, Republican and Democratic pollsters who talk to
• 33:21
  Speaker 7: me privately. These are numbers I cannot share publicly because
• 33:25
  Speaker 7: I know that they're paid to make sure money gets
• 33:28
  Speaker 7: spent the right way. Because even though the party under fire,
• 33:32
  Speaker 7: and even the other side for that matter, always has
• 33:34
  Speaker 7: to put on a brave face for the public because
• 33:36
  Speaker 7: that's how you raise money and encourage people to vote. Internally,
• 33:40
  Speaker 7: they need to know what their vulnerabilities are so they
• 33:42
  Speaker 7: can address them. And all of the private pollsters I've
• 33:47
  Speaker 7: been talking to indicate that there's a reason why Republicans
• 33:50
  Speaker 7: are spending their money the way they are. They're not
• 33:54
  Speaker 7: spending their money, for instance, Kurt, in Texas by the
• 33:57
  Speaker 7: dump truck load, simply because they've got nothing better to
• 34:01
  Speaker 7: do with it. They're doing it because they have a
• 34:03
  Speaker 7: flawed candidate.
• 34:04
  Speaker 9: Who could lose, who's in danger of losing.
• 34:07
  Speaker 7: I've long said I'll never predict a Democrat wins Texas
• 34:10
  Speaker 7: and then one day I'll be wrong. Maybe that'll be
• 34:12
  Speaker 7: this cycle, maybe it won't. But look at where Republicans
• 34:15
  Speaker 7: are spending their money. I can guarantee you that Tony Fabrizio,
• 34:18
  Speaker 7: a Republican pollster, and other Republican pollsters I.
• 34:21
  Speaker 9: Talk to know what they're doing. They know how to
• 34:24
  Speaker 9: weight these results.
• 34:26
  Speaker 7: And we found over the years that the polling has
• 34:28
  Speaker 7: not been off by as much as people think. And
• 34:31
  Speaker 7: every time one party's behind the eight ball when it
• 34:34
  Speaker 7: comes to the data, they're looking for signs of hope.
• 34:37
  Speaker 7: So I'm not saying there won't be a big polling mess.
• 34:39
  Speaker 7: I'm just saying it doesn't usually happen the way people think.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: Well, we saw the Ann Stelzer poll that had Harris
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: up three. We saw Abdul El-Saeed, who was supposed to
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: be up 10. I don't know, but Maybe I'm huffing
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: copium off the.
• 34:58
  Speaker 9: Well, it's why– you go with the averages.
• 35:00
  Speaker 7: It's why– in other words, if you would have taken
• 35:02
  Speaker 7: that crazy Ann Selzer poll in 2024 and thrown it
• 35:05
  Speaker 7: in with the Iowa averages, you would have seen that
• 35:07
  Speaker 7: Trump was fine. And polling a Democratic primary is a
• 35:12
  Speaker 7: lot more– is a lot trickier than polling a general election.
• 35:17
  Speaker 9: I think Mike Rogers can win.
• 35:19
  Speaker 7: I just don't think it's an apples-to-apples comparison polling the
• 35:22
  Speaker 7: general versus the primary.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you, David Drucker of both Bloomberg and the Dispatch.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: Follow him at David M. Drucker on the Twitter machine.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: I'm guest host Kurt Schlichter. We've got a lot more
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: to come, so stick around. Soothing dulcet tones of Booster
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Dew with their cover of 8 Miles High. My favorite
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: song in the world. I used to watch Flashes on
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: the Horizon to my north in Operation Desert Storm, listening
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: to that on my Walkman, which was the technology of
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: the day. eight miles high by Husker Du. And I
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: know another big fan of Husker Du, and in fact
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: all power post-punk guitar-based rock, is my pal Byron York,
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: who is joining me here right now. He is the
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: Washington Examiner chief political correspondent. And Byron, your tweets have
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: been rather dark concerning Republican prospects in the midterms.
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: Well, a little bit on the dark side. For the House, yeah.
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: I mean, I don't think Republicans would be able to
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: hold the House. For the Senate, I think I've been
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: saying that it's really up in the air. Maybe 50-50,
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: not sure. But one thing I think is really important
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: to remember, people say, oh, these polls, you can't trust them.
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: You just can't trust any of these polls. I think
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: for a lot of the state races— you need to
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: be cautious about a lot of these state polls. We
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: know some of them have been spectacularly wrong in this
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: race and not just in previous races. But as far
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: as the House is concerned, I personally think the biggest
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: single predictors that you have of which way it's going
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: to go is, one, history, because the president's party almost
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: always loses seats. And then, two, you have the president's
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: job approval rating. And that is a a measure that's
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: taken in a million polls by all sorts of pollsters
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: of every stripe. And with Trump right now, I think
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: it's 38.4% in the RealClearPolitics average of polls, not good
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: for 38.5%, not good for Republicans. And then the other
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: thing is what's called the generic ballot, which has also
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: been asked a million times by a million different pollsters
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: of all stripes, which is if the election were held today,
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: would you vote for the Republican or the Democrat to
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: represent you in Congress? And right now, Democrats have about
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: an eight-point lead in that, which does not look good
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: for Republicans. So I think we're more on firmer ground
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: talking about, in the big picture, how polls affect the
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: House races than we are in some of the individual
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: state Senate races.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: Look, as you were talking and you were saying, well,
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: the first is history, and I just said to myself, well,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: the first is obviously history. I think you and I
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: agree there. We are salmon swimming upstream. We are fighting
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: the power, to quote Public Enemy, another band I'm sure
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: you love. And it's hard. It's hard to do this.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: You and I were both alive when Ronald Reagan got
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: his clock cleaned in 1982. And then two years later,
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: it was morning in America. So these things do change.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: These things have ups and downs and patterns. But do
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: you think the fact that the Democrats seem to have
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: gone way left with some of their marquee candidates is
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: going to make a difference in these historical trends?
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: Well, it might. And I do think that is like
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: the last thing that can still be affected in the race.
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think everything else is pretty much over.
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: the president's job approval ain't going to change in the
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: next month, unless there's some world-changing event, which would usually
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: be terrible. I don't want that to happen. So the
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: president's job approval is pretty much baked in the cake,
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: as they say, and also pretty much the same with
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: the generic ballot. But you have some of these really
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: hot personality candidates like Abdul El-Sayed, like James Tallarico, like
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: Troy Jackson. And you think, well, you know, they can
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: still dump a lot of negative advertising on these guys'
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: heads and see what happens. So, I mean, if I
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: were running a Republican campaign right now, I think I'd
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: have all the right answers about what my candidate would
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: do if elected and how we've got to do this
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: and got to do that. But I'd spend a lot
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: of my time just going, James Tallarico is a nightmare.
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: Hear it? He's a nightmare. And just go negative, negative, negative.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: Well, look, President Trump did that at Grand Island in
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: Nebraska yesterday. He went down the list and said essentially
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: you'd be voting for communists who want to increase taxes,
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: give amnesty, hunt down your children and turn the boys
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: into girls, which has the advantage of being true, as
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: we say in the law. But just in the previous segment,
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: we listened to two MSNBC focus groups or MSNOW focus groups.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: One was Jewish voters who said, look, I'm a Democrat.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: I'm desperate to vote for this guy, but I want
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: him to come out and say he doesn't hate Israel.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: He doesn't hate the Jews. And there's a problem there
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: because Abdul El-Sayed manifestly hates Israel and hates the Jews.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: And you had black voters. who were saying, look, he
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: doesn't talk about our community. I don't know him. He
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: doesn't talk to us. We don't yet trust him. And
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: when you take Democrats minus Jewish and black votes, you've
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: got a very, very small party.
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: Well, I mean, that's the race in Michigan right now.
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: And by the way, that's why Barack Obama is going
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: to Michigan to try to, I guess, convince black Democrats...
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: tell him it's OK to vote for Abdul Al-Sayed. He
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: will make a joke about how years ago there was
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: a young candidate with a funny name and people were
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: wondering whether they should vote for him. And they did.
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: And it turned out to be me, Barack Obama. And
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: I was great. You know, he'll say something like that
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: about Abdul Al-Sayed. But that is the question. Now, I
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: do think that a lot of voters, especially, I think,
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: black voters who have been extraordinarily loyal to the Democratic
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: Party over the years, will tend to win election day
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: comes around. Not when they're selecting one Democrat over the other,
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: as they did in the primary. But if they've got
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: a Democrat versus a Republican, they're going to vote for
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: the Democrat.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: If they vote.
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: If they vote, you're right. They might not come out.
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: And that's the second best thing for Mike Rogers.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: And of course, there's a lot of talk about whether
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: the Republicans will vote. I happen to think that they
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: I think they're in a sour mood. I think they're annoyed.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: And I think that they'll do what Republicans do, which
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: tends to they tend to show up. But that's just me.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: Byron York. From the Washington Examiner, it is always a
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: pleasure to talk to you when I, Kurt Schlichter, guest
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: host on the Hugh Hewitt Show. I want you to
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: stick around because we've got a whole lot more to come.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: So I'll see you on the other side. Hi, it's
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Hugh Hewitt.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: When it came time to make decisions about my own
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• 45:27
  Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show, and I'm guest
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: host Kurt Schlichter. I'm welcoming back to the show somebody
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: who I have on, but it seems, once every week
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: or two because he is at the center of the storm.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: He's Representative Mike Collins. He is running... for the Georgia
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: sense seat. That's held currently by John defund. The police
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: do every other damn commie thing you can think of. And, uh, Mike,
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: every time I talk to you, you're in the front
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: seat of a car.
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: We are.
• 45:56
  Speaker 11: And as a matter of fact, we're headed as fast
• 45:58
  Speaker 11: as we can. Now we've got a bird supper. We
• 46:00
  Speaker 11: got to catch up with some folks.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: Every time I see you, you look more tired. You'll
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: look more tan and you'll look thinner.
• 46:08
  Speaker 9: Okay.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: What is it?
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, that's just part of the job.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: Well, what's a typical day like for you fighting a
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: Senate race that all the smart people from out of
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: your state are telling everybody they can't he can't possibly win?
• 46:26
  Speaker 11: You know, and it's funny, they were saying that and
• 46:28
  Speaker 11: then they got quiet. And now all of a sudden
• 46:30
  Speaker 11: they're saying, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. This
• 46:32
  Speaker 11: thing's really tight. This thing's close. Even though Ossoff is
• 46:36
  Speaker 11: over there squealing because he knows that this thing is
• 46:39
  Speaker 11: neck and neck. And sure, we're up every day. I
• 46:42
  Speaker 11: get up every day at 5 o'clock anyway, probably like you.
• 46:45
  Speaker 11: And we run this thing hard all day long. I
• 46:48
  Speaker 11: don't care if I get home at 11 o'clock at night.
• 46:51
  Speaker 11: It doesn't matter. We're in the short rows on this race.
• 46:54
  Speaker 11: This thing is down to less than 30 days now
• 46:56
  Speaker 11: before November the 3rd. October the 13th is when early
• 46:59
  Speaker 11: voting starts. And we need to make sure that people
• 47:02
  Speaker 11: across this state understand that we have a good opportunity.
• 47:06
  Speaker 11: As a matter of fact, we're going to get rid
• 47:08
  Speaker 11: of this guy. He doesn't represent us. He is an
• 47:11
  Speaker 11: extremist and his values don't reflect anything in the state
• 47:14
  Speaker 11: of Georgia. And come November the 3rd, the people of
• 47:17
  Speaker 11: the state of Georgia are going to show this guy.
• 47:19
  Speaker 11: We're going to fire his butt and he can go
• 47:21
  Speaker 11: back to wherever the heck he came from.
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: Well, Mike Collins, I'm told that Republicans are lackadaisical, that
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: they're mad at Donald Trump because gas is a little
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: more expensive, even though we're ending a war that's been
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: going on for 15 years in victory. They're so angry
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: that they're willing to allow somebody who wants amnesty, who
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: wants to pack the Supreme Court, who wants to take
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: their guns, who wants to take their sons and turn
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: them into daughters. Is that what you're seeing out there?
• 47:54
  Speaker 11: Yeah, they're angry because their inflation has gone sky high.
• 47:59
  Speaker 11: And they understand that this historical inflation actually came from
• 48:02
  Speaker 11: those Bidenomics. They understand that John Ossoff really doesn't care
• 48:07
  Speaker 11: how high your gas prices get.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's the Green New Deal guy. He doesn't
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: want you riding around in a gas automobile anyway. So
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: it really doesn't matter to him. At the end of
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: the day, he wants you on a bus.
• 48:18
  Speaker 11: They want to make sure that at some point that
• 48:21
  Speaker 11: you just throw your hands up and say, I've had it.
• 48:24
  Speaker 11: I can't take it anymore. Do whatever you're going to
• 48:26
  Speaker 11: do to me and my family and just leave us alone.
• 48:29
  Speaker 11: But that's not what's happening. That's not what is going
• 48:32
  Speaker 11: to happen. We're going to make sure that they understand
• 48:34
  Speaker 11: they have a choice. They have somebody that is actually
• 48:37
  Speaker 11: delivered for the state of Georgia. I have been out
• 48:39
  Speaker 11: there fighting, making sure that they have more money in
• 48:41
  Speaker 11: their pockets, that we're going to get this federal government
• 48:43
  Speaker 11: off their back and out of their back pocket so
• 48:46
  Speaker 11: that their kids, the next generation, have the same opportunities.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: That I had.
• 48:50
  Speaker 11: I mean, Colonel, I don't know if you know that
• 48:52
  Speaker 11: I built my first house when I was 22 years old.
• 48:56
  Speaker 11: I started my first business when I was 24. And
• 48:59
  Speaker 11: they just don't have those opportunities. But by gosh, I
• 49:02
  Speaker 11: know how to help get them back. And I also
• 49:05
  Speaker 11: know how to make sure that we help our number
• 49:06
  Speaker 11: one agriculture. Agriculture is number one industry in our state.
• 49:10
  Speaker 11: And we had John Ossoff shut this government down this
• 49:13
  Speaker 11: time last year, For 48 days, we're trying to get
• 49:17
  Speaker 11: emergency money out to farmers, and he shut it down.
• 49:20
  Speaker 11: down trying to defund Border Patrol and ICE.
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: Well, look, you make great points. Are you going to
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: have the money to do what you need to, and
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: how can people help you?
• 49:32
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: We could use the help.
• 49:34
  Speaker 11: We could always use the help. I mean, Colonel, if
• 49:36
  Speaker 11: people go to MikeCollinsGA.com, help us out.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: Kick in.
• 49:40
  Speaker 11: Pitch in $ 5, $ 10, $ 20. Everything helps us fight. You
• 49:45
  Speaker 11: help me fight, we'll get this back. We'll win this race,
• 49:48
  Speaker 11: and we'll make sure that Georgia stays red and the
• 49:51
  Speaker 11: rest of the country understands we're not blue, we're not purple,
• 49:54
  Speaker 11: we are solid red.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, Mike Collins, we're told that... James Blair
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: and Chris LaCiveta at the White House, they've got the
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: mag of magic to get the so-called low propensity Trump
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: voters turned out when instead they might tune out. Are
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: you working with these groups to make sure that every
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: single voter knows that his vote is critical?
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: And that's true. You're hitting the nail on the head.
• 50:22
  Speaker 11: The low propensity voters out here in the state of Georgia,
• 50:25
  Speaker 11: just like the rest of them, They want to make
• 50:27
  Speaker 11: sure that either they're voting when Trump's on the ballot
• 50:30
  Speaker 11: or for a true Trump candidate.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: And they realize that. They know that I've always been there.
• 50:35
  Speaker 11: I've been on stage every time that President Trump came
• 50:38
  Speaker 11: to Georgia to just let them know that I am
• 50:41
  Speaker 11: right there. We run this place like a business. We
• 50:43
  Speaker 11: need more business folks in Washington, D.C. We don't need
• 50:47
  Speaker 11: more trust fund kids who've never had a job in
• 50:49
  Speaker 11: their life. That's what I'm running against. And when people
• 50:53
  Speaker 11: figure that out and they see just how polar opposite.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: We are in our voting records, oh man, this thing
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: is a no-brainer. It's crystal clear.
• 51:03
  Speaker 11: But with Blair and Las Avedas, there are so many
• 51:05
  Speaker 11: people out there that are helping us just get that
• 51:08
  Speaker 11: word out.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: They're pushing it from an outside standpoint. We're pushing from
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: the inside. John Ossoff's numbers are coming down. He never
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: got over 51%.
• 51:18
  Speaker 11: We've got him down to 48% now, and this thing
• 51:20
  Speaker 11: is virtually tied. So we've got him going down, and
• 51:23
  Speaker 11: we're pushing up at the right time.
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: Well, you've got a governor there, Governor Kemp, who is
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: he we've been told he has a great organization. He
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: can if he turns it on, he wins. Is he
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: helping you? Is he backing you the way you need backed?
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, he does.
• 51:42
  Speaker 11: He's got he's got a great turnout to vote organization.
• 51:44
  Speaker 11: We've seen that in his two terms that he ran
• 51:47
  Speaker 11: for the governor. He's turned it out. He's on board
• 51:50
  Speaker 11: 100 percent. He's been out there with us. I'm sure
• 51:53
  Speaker 11: he will continue to see him out there on the trail.
• 51:56
  Speaker 11: Was with him late last week. I can't even keep
• 51:59
  Speaker 11: up with the days. But, yeah, he's out there. Everybody
• 52:03
  Speaker 11: is pushing. We all know how bad John Ossoff is.
• 52:06
  Speaker 11: We all know that he doesn't really represent this state.
• 52:09
  Speaker 11: We all know he's just using Georgia as a platform. Y'all,
• 52:12
  Speaker 11: this guy is going to be the DSA candidate for president.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: The only reason he– he's just using Georgia to raise money.
• 52:20
  Speaker 11: And if we don't stop this guy right here in Georgia–
• 52:23
  Speaker 11: This guy's going to be a problem for the rest
• 52:24
  Speaker 11: of the country because he's going to be out there
• 52:26
  Speaker 11: in 2028, and they are going to push this radical
• 52:29
  Speaker 11: agenda on the American people.
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: Well, how about Rick Jackson, who's running for governor out
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: there against an absolute looney tunes who used to be
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: mayor of Atlanta? You working with Rick Jackson?
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
• 52:44
  Speaker 11: And if you think about it, Colonel, look, he's a
• 52:46
  Speaker 11: big businessman. I'm a small businessman. And when you run
• 52:50
  Speaker 11: that unified business, Then you look over there at what
• 52:53
  Speaker 11: we're running against on the Democrat side. You've got probably
• 52:56
  Speaker 11: the worst mayor in the history of the state of Georgia.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, she and Noah Ossoff are.
• 53:03
  Speaker 11: Holding hands together, running as a unified ticket over there.
• 53:08
  Speaker 11: So you've got the worst mayor and then you got
• 53:10
  Speaker 11: the trust fund kid together. And it makes for an easy,
• 53:14
  Speaker 11: easy distinguish between the two of us.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: So you say folks should go to MikeCollinsGA.com. That's MikeCollinsGA.com.
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: Help you out. You think you're going to win?
• 53:28
  Speaker 11: Colonel, I'm going to be your U.S. Senator from the
• 53:31
  Speaker 11: state of Georgia after November 3rd. We're going to win
• 53:33
  Speaker 11: this race.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: I could use the help. I need the help. And
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: I need you. If you could go to MikeCollinsGA.com, help
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: us out. I'd love to have your help.
• 53:42
  Speaker 11: Finish this race, we're going to win this race, and
• 53:44
  Speaker 11: we're going to make sure that somebody that actually represents
• 53:47
  Speaker 11: the state of Georgia is sitting in that U.S.
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: Senate seat.
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: Nobody works harder than Representative Mike Collins of the great
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: state of Georgia. Help him out. MikeCollinsGA.com. I'm guest host
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: Kurt Schlichter. We've got a lot more to come. Stick around.
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show. It's Kurt Schlichter,
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: guest hosting for Hugh Hewitt. It is my distinct pleasure
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: to welcome a guy who is not just an outstanding columnist,
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: but a personal friend of mine I was having a
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: chat with him as I was lounging in the hot
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: tub at Fort Schlichter just a little while ago here
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: in Texas. He's like, what's that splashing? I'm in the
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: hot tub, Ed. He's like, of course you are. It's
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: Ed Morrissey, managing editor over at Hot Air, the guy
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: responsible for publishing The Dawn of Yemen, the outstanding piece
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: by Dwayne Patterson that everyone who wants to understand the
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: military situation that misbegotten Part of the world is experiencing.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: And let me let me start off by saying I
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: have a way to clear the federal deficit. The federal debt,
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: the national debt. We should auction off slots on the
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: firing squad for Major Nadal, whatever his name is. The
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: guy who murdered 13 American soldiers, his own people. What
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: do you think? Nadal Hassan, yes. Yeah, that guy.
• 55:09
  Speaker 10: I think that that's– I would– I don't know if
• 55:12
  Speaker 10: we can retire the federal debt, but it would make
• 55:15
  Speaker 10: enough of a dent in it to make it worthwhile.
• 55:18
  Speaker 10: This is– we can have debates about using the death
• 55:22
  Speaker 10: penalty for regular criminal trials. This is a guy who
• 55:27
  Speaker 10: sided with the enemy during a time of war and
• 55:30
  Speaker 10: murdered his own comrades in arms. That is a death penalty– situation, period,
• 55:37
  Speaker 10: end of story. And there shouldn't be any debate about it.
• 55:40
  Speaker 10: It's shocking that it took, what was it, 14 years
• 55:43
  Speaker 10: or 13 years after his conviction? I think they just
• 55:47
  Speaker 10: didn't think it was important. Remember, they dismissed this as
• 55:50
  Speaker 10: workplace violence. Workplace violence, yes.
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, and it was, well, we want to, you know,
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: it would be a tragedy if this undermined our commitment
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: to diversity. Oh, you know what I think the tragedy was?
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: The murdering And not the least, because one of the
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: guys murdered John Gaffney, not a close friend of mine,
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: but someone I had known in the Army. And the
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: other guy, Sergeant Akbar, I believe, whatever his name is,
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: the guy who threw a hand grenade into a tent
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: in Kuwait, killed two guys, wounded another guy I know.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: For us military people, this is absolutely personal. And I'll
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: tell you, I would pull the trigger and go out
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: for cheeseburgers without losing a beat.
• 56:35
  Speaker 10: I think that there's a number of people who feel
• 56:37
  Speaker 10: the same way, and you might want to just take
• 56:38
  Speaker 10: them out for cheeseburgers anyway, Kurt, because apparently it's happening.
• 56:42
  Speaker 10: I guess it's within the next five months. They've got
• 56:45
  Speaker 10: 150 days on the order that Donald Trump signed. I
• 56:49
  Speaker 10: suspect it's going to happen a lot faster than that. Clearly,
• 56:52
  Speaker 10: there's going to be some people who go to court
• 56:54
  Speaker 10: to try to stop this, but I don't think that
• 56:57
  Speaker 10: there's much that can be done in federal court at
• 57:00
  Speaker 10: this point in time, and it's long past time. for
• 57:04
  Speaker 10: us to set the precedent that when you do something
• 57:06
  Speaker 10: like this, you are going to die. And the other
• 57:09
  Speaker 10: part of that, of course, is Pete Hegseth lifting the
• 57:12
  Speaker 10: ban on carrying personal firearms on bases, something that never
• 57:16
  Speaker 10: should have been banned in the first place, and which
• 57:19
  Speaker 10: could have limited the damage at Fort Hood when this
• 57:22
  Speaker 10: terrorist attack took place.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: Well, at least one, maybe more of the soldiers murdered
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: was physically attacking the guy unarmed. when it happened. Our
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: guys don't lack for courage. Don't make them lack for weapons. But,
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: you know, I did think it was kind of adorable there, Ed,
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: that you said, well, I don't know what the courts
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: could do. Well, the courts have been playing legal mad
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: libs with jurisprudence for the last couple years. I think
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: they'd actually invent something. And we're seeing the invention of
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: law and the overturning of law, the ignoring of black
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: letter law in this Cornell 7 thing, which is appalling
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: on every level.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: And when I say... Everybody involved. Everyone involved. Everybody involved.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: And I was, you know, I tried in my column
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: earlier this week at Town Hall to explain that, you know,
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: we conservatives are frequently saying, hey, young ladies... You need
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: to take responsibility for not putting yourself in a bad position.
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: Same for you, dudes. All seven of you.
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 58:35
  Speaker 9: Absolutely.
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: This is about formation.
• 58:38
  Speaker 10: Young people are not being formed properly to understand that
• 58:44
  Speaker 10: there are consequences for this.
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: This is a failure of parenting. It's a failure of.
• 58:48
  Speaker 10: Our educational system.
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: This is.
• 58:50
  Speaker 10: I mean, stuff like this has happened at colleges. It's
• 58:53
  Speaker 10: not necessarily novel here, but it's gotten a lot worse.
• 58:57
  Speaker 10: And this idea that there's an entitlement to act in
• 59:00
  Speaker 10: a certain way without consequences cuts both ways in this case.
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: It just does. Yeah, and it's not picking on young
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: men who get picked on plenty, including by that silly
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: Sandra Huckabee Sanders ad, to say, dude, if you do
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: something dumb and evil, bad things are going to follow.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: Don't do it. Be better. Anyway, Ed, I'd love to
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: hold you over for the next segment. We've got a
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: lot more to talk about. I want to do a
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: round-robin on Senate campaigns here on The Hugh Hewitt Show.
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: I'm guest host Kurt Schlichter. Stick around. We've got so
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: much more. And that's the clash of their triple album, Sandinista,
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: Somebody Got Murdered, one of their best songs. Of course, Sandinista, well,
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: that's going away. Go short on the Sandinistas after Cuba
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: goes away and Cuba's going away. The communist dictatorship in
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: Nicaragua is next on the list. Then we will have
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: unity in the northern and in the western hemisphere. Unity
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: of free countries. It's going to be amazing. But, you know,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: some people are saying that the Republicans are going to
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: get murdered in these Senate races. I don't know about that.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: Ed Morrissey, managing editor of Hot Air. Do you are
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: you as glum and gloomy as a lot of the
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: black pillars out there? No, I'm actually not.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 10: First off, I think some of the polling has been
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 10: off all year, and that's including the Democrat primaries in
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 10: places like Michigan. And for that matter, in Texas, too,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 10: although not as bad. But, you know, no, I'm not.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 10: There's other signs here besides the polls. I mean, for instance,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 10: apparently James Tallarico has completely disappeared off the campaign trail
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 10: here in Texas. His ads disappeared a few weeks ago.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 10: And now our colleague over at townhall.com, our sister site, townhall.com,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 10: Joe Chalfant, is reporting that Tallarico is missing. They've canceled
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 10: events over the last couple of days. Supposedly there's a
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 10: health issue, but he's been gone for a few days.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 10: He's not been showing up at different events. They tried
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 10: to put out some video that was supposedly from the weekend.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 10: It turned out to be from an earlier event a
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 10: few weeks back. I mean, it's almost sort of like
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 10: a Princess Kate thing. Remember when she faked a photograph?
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 10: To cover up for a very real health concern.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: But, you know, it's I mean, I'll give her a pass.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: I won't give anyone. And I give her a pass.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, me. Look, you and I are both
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: in the state of Texas and you and I have
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: talked about this. There are two things that we're seeing.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: One is what we're not seeing. We are not seeing
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: the kind of massive enthusiasm we saw for Beto the Furry.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: The second thing we're not seeing is the people in
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: the know about Texas politics. You and I both talk
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: to people who do this and have done this for years.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: They are unanimous that Tallarico is not going to win,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: that these polls are off, that he's just not going
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: to pull it off against Ken Paxton. I think those
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: two things mean something.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 10: Well, I think they do, too. And here's another thing
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 10: that means something. Greg Abbott is very popular in Texas.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 10: I think he's more popular than he was four years ago.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 10: And the same polls have Greg Abbott out by three,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 10: maybe four points.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 9: That's nonsense.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 10: This guy's going to win this election by eight or
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 10: nine points. And there isn't an election model that I
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 10: know of where Greg Abbott wins by that much and
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 10: Ken Paxton doesn't get carried to victory on the same wave.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 10: The second thing is, and this is very interesting, what
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 10: happened over the weekend was Angela Paxton, who's a state
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 10: senator and is Ken Paxton's estranged wife, came out with
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 10: an ad arguing to vote for the entire GOP ticket
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 10: in November. She didn't mention her soon-to-be ex-husband, but clearly
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 10: that's including that particular race because general elections are choices
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 10: between two different visions for the country, and you have
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 10: to choose the correct.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 9: Vision for Texas.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: Now, I think that that was outstanding on Angela Paxton's part.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: Very classy.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 10: She is telling people the personalities don't matter in a
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 10: general election. What matters is policy, and you have to
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 10: vote for the people who are going to put the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 10: right policies in place. And that includes her soon-to-be ex-husband. And,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 10: I mean, that kind of takes the whole personal baggaging
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 10: off the table, or it should, because if Angela Paxton
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 10: is still going to vote for her husband, even after
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 10: the stuff that went on in their marriage.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: then.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: That's not really our concern at this point.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 10: It gives you permission. If nothing else, it gives you permission.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 10: So I think that this is turning around here. If
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 10: it even needed turning around, it's probably turning around at
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 10: this point because, again, Tallarico's been basically off the air,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 10: and now he's off the campaign trail. Nobody seems to
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 10: know where this guy's at.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 5: In Michigan.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: I've got some guesses.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 10: You know, I have a sneaking suspicion here... You have guesses.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 10: I'll let you do the guesses later.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: Let's move on to a state you're very familiar with, Minnesota.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: What is going on with Michelle Tappoy? I'm actually really surprised.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 10: I think that this is not necessarily– I mean, first off,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 10: Michelle Tappoy is a great candidate, was very happy when
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 10: she jumped into the race because she's smart, she's classy,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 10: and she knows how to conduct herself, right? But I
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 10: was very– The opposite of bullish on bearish. It was
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 10: very bearish on Minnesota until it became clear that Peggy
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 10: Flanagan is carrying the weight of the scandals.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: In the Waltz administration.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: And she should.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 10: And she's also a terrible candidate. I think Keith Ellison
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 10: is going to lose his race. And I think that
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 10: that's almost a certainty at this point. But Peggy Flanagan
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 10: might actually lose that Senate race, even with Amy Klobuchar
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 10: winning the gubernatorial race, because people in Minnesota are really
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 10: angry about this fraud, and Flanagan's part of that administration.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: Well, look, I don't know if I'd put money on her,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: but I think she's got a puncher's chance. How about
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: in Michigan? Abdul El-Sayed, there were some interesting videos that we–
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: video clips that we played from MSNOW focus groups– Jewish voters,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: black voters, and both of them said, look, we need
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: him to reach out and connect. As a Jewish voter,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: I want to know if he hates Israel and hates Jews.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: And the black voters were saying, well, I want to
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: know if he cares about our community. And I'm looking
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: at that and I'm going, well, it's obvious he does
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: hate Jews and he does hate Israel and he doesn't
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: care about the black community because– He could take them
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: for granted. Do you think he's going to have problems
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: that the polls aren't seeing?
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 10: I mean, this was part of the problem with the
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 10: polls in the primaries is that they didn't go ask
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 10: black voters, apparently.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: And it was way off.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 10: Haley Stevens ended up winning Detroit while just barely losing
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 10: the nomination, right? You know, Tallarico's got the same problem
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 10: with black voters in Texas for different reasons. But part
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 10: of the issue in both states is that black voters...
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 10: are used to having their interests be primary in Democrat politics.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 10: And Tallarico is basically setting them aside for this sort
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 10: of progressive elite academia type of agenda that has nothing
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 10: to do with black voters in Texas. And Abdullah Syed
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 10: in Michigan is displacing black voters for free Palestine. Black
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 10: voters don't care about free Palestine. What they want is
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 10: an economy that works in Detroit. And so Syed's off
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 10: on these tangents and doing all of this. He's not
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 10: speaking to what the voters actually want. That doesn't mean
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 10: that black voters are going to necessarily turn out for
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 10: Mike Rogers.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: I hope they do.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 10: But it does mean that they're not going to be
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 10: terribly enthusiastic about turning up for the Democrats.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: Well, let's hope not. Let's hope these voting groups vote
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: for self-preservation.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 5: Literally.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: My name's Kurt Schlichter. Thank you, Ed Morrissey, managing editor
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: of Hot Air. We're going to be right back with
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: more Hugh Hewitt Show. Stick around.