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Speaker 1: PLoud Save America. I'm Jon Favra, I'm John loved Tommy Vitre.
Speaker 1: Today Show. Todd Blanche is getting confirmed as Attorney General
Speaker 1: after killing Trump's January sixth slush fund, But is it
Speaker 1: really dead. We'll talk about that and whether Blanche's US
Speaker 1: attorney for DC, Janine Piro, is about to be fired
Speaker 1: for telling the truth about the reflecting pool that Trump
Speaker 1: still says was vandalized. We'll also cover the disturbing case
Speaker 1: of House Republican Max Miller what it means for our
Speaker 1: efforts to flip the House and what you can do
Speaker 1: to help flip the House as well. We got more
Speaker 1: news about cursed DNC chair Ken Martin a Michigan primary
Speaker 1: that's finally ending, and later I talked to Wisconsin gubernatorial
Speaker 1: candidate Francesca hung about her momentum in a huge race
Speaker 1: that's just seven days from the finish line. But first,
Speaker 1: it was another eventful weekend where the Commander in chief
Speaker 1: threatened Iran with what he was calling the biggest attack
Speaker 1: since World War II, only to once again pull back
Speaker 1: at the very last moment because of alleged talks about
Speaker 1: an alleged deal that no one can confirm. Aroan says
Speaker 1: it's bullshit. US officials told CBS no new talks have
Speaker 1: been planned, and by Monday afternoon, Trump put to rest
Speaker 1: any lingering confusion with his usual clarity.
Speaker 3: And this is a fifth time you turn off air
Speaker 3: strikes against your lonsence evil to negotiot.
Speaker 5: What is your message to American people.
Speaker 6: Who are wondering what has changed this time?
Speaker 3: Why should be anything?
Speaker 5: Well, you don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 7: I think we're gonna maybe get something, but I want
Speaker 7: to give him every last chance before decapitation. This is
Speaker 7: the last chance for them to sign a good document.
Speaker 5: I'm very proud of the fact that I will give people.
Speaker 5: I'll give people a chance. This is a big move around.
Speaker 5: Knew it, They knew what was coming. It was going
Speaker 5: to come last night, and it would have gone on
Speaker 5: for a long time and they'd be essentially very little left.
Speaker 5: There'd be nothing left.
Speaker 1: Okay, it seems like he's about to wrap this thing up.
Speaker 8: Huh, little time before the decapetation. Queen of farts every year.
Speaker 1: Why do you think Trump called off plan strikes for
Speaker 1: the five hundredth time.
Speaker 3: I think it was a combination of things. I think
Speaker 3: the Saudi's got to him and other Gulf autocrats who
Speaker 3: pay him bribes. They do not want to see planes, Yeah,
Speaker 3: give them planes, god knows what else. They don't want
Speaker 3: to see a resumption of full scale combat because for them,
Speaker 3: that means the oil and gas industry gets all screwed up.
Speaker 3: They can't get their exports out. And also the Iranians
Speaker 3: fire a bunch of missiles and drones at them, so
Speaker 3: that sucks if you're sitting in Saudi Arabia or Bahrain
Speaker 3: or Kuwait or whatever. I think NBS mom had been
Speaker 3: Sawmon in particular, was persuasive. There's also this ongoing issue
Speaker 3: about they don't have enough interceptor missiles to defend from
Speaker 3: all these Iranian ballistic missile responses. I think Trump also
Speaker 3: knows it's going to jack up oil and gas prices
Speaker 3: pretty close to the midterms and probably not materially impact
Speaker 3: the situation. You're not going to win the war in
Speaker 3: a weekend. Remember, I mean, I think you and I
Speaker 3: talked about this on Friday. Some of the reports were
Speaker 3: like Trump's got the biggest airstrike barrage since World War Two,
Speaker 3: plan that'll be done by Monday. It's like, you're not
Speaker 3: going to win the war. So he's bluffing and he's
Speaker 3: trying to see if you can use it his leverage.
Speaker 3: The thing is driving me crazy. Just for a quick aside,
Speaker 3: you guys, remember the whole Syria redline thing. Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: That was a fight about Syria policy kind of. But
Speaker 3: the thing everyone in Washington said is presidents don't bluff, right,
Speaker 3: You can't threaten to do something and then not implement it.
Speaker 3: And like Trump has not done that five times, and
Speaker 3: all the Republicans who blame the Syria, red line for
Speaker 3: Putin invading Crimea or everything China does. Are just silent
Speaker 3: on this now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and at this point, I'm sure that the Iranians
Speaker 1: here like the biggest, most devastating attacks since World War Two,
Speaker 1: and they probably start laughing.
Speaker 3: They're like, we just beat you in a previous war.
Speaker 8: What's also like, what how many times? How many cycles
Speaker 8: of this can we go through? We're going to obliterate
Speaker 8: your society, We're going to send you back to the
Speaker 8: Stone Age?
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure you are, And.
Speaker 8: Then it's called off. But by the time the market's
Speaker 8: open on Monday, over and over again. The thing that's
Speaker 8: scary to me is at some point he's going to
Speaker 8: have to fall through. There's only so many times we
Speaker 8: can this cycle, especially because the Iranians are not being
Speaker 8: cooperative with what Trump wants, which is to pretend there's
Speaker 8: negotiations because you know, they go along with what I'm saying.
Speaker 8: Why why are you being so difficult and not confirming
Speaker 8: my ridiculous vacillations in the story I'm telling about how
Speaker 8: my threat of terrible violence brought you back to the table.
Speaker 3: Remember a couple of weeks ago when you said they
Speaker 3: had killed off all the hardliners, and now the remaining
Speaker 3: people were more practical.
Speaker 1: Did you guys see the Did you guys see the
Speaker 1: CNN story with the headline US military asks troops for
Speaker 1: creative and unconventional ideas to punish Iran war crimes.
Speaker 3: Brainstorm.
Speaker 8: It's not everybody. We're doing a mood board. Everybody, everybody
Speaker 8: into the conference room. We're doing a mood board.
Speaker 3: Guy's got all bad ideas in a brainstorm.
Speaker 1: I mean that that tells you something that maybe maybe
Speaker 1: they're sort of out of Clearly they're out of ideas,
Speaker 1: they're out of The bluffing is getting trickier to pull off.
Speaker 3: Really does feel like a writer's room.
Speaker 1: What a warble fucking ubers. So Trump did get much
Speaker 1: closer to having a full fledged attorney general after Todd
Speaker 1: Blanche finally did what the president has refused to do.
Speaker 1: He posted a letter showing that he'd formally rescinded the
Speaker 1: order creating the January sixth Insurrectionist slush Fund, and in
Speaker 1: an accompanying press release, DJ said the other big part
Speaker 1: of the ir S settlement, immunity from investigations into potential
Speaker 1: tax fraud for Trump and his family would apply quote
Speaker 1: only retroactively. Tom Tillis and John Cornyn, the two holdouts,
Speaker 1: promptly said that was good enough for them and they
Speaker 1: will now vote in favor of his nomination. Trump had
Speaker 1: asked about the conditions in the oval on Monday, and
Speaker 1: he was noncommittal.
Speaker 2: On Todd Blanche.
Speaker 5: I didn't look at it. All I know is that
Speaker 5: Todd Blanche is great. He's going to do a great job.
Speaker 5: Everybody knows it. And I understand there's been a sign off,
Speaker 5: but I don't know what they agreed. I think Todd
Speaker 5: Blanche agreed to we confirm things that he's already said.
Speaker 5: And what he said was okay, so.
Speaker 1: Blanche is getting confirmed. How ironclad do you think Blanche's
Speaker 1: rescinded order is? Love it?
Speaker 8: So Cornin or Tillis, and it doesn't matter which one?
Speaker 8: In some interviews said, look, you know, could could a
Speaker 8: future Attorney general rescind the paper? Could Trump rescind it? Sure?
Speaker 8: But then it'll be up to the American people. And
Speaker 8: what's so like it? Just I knew this was coming,
Speaker 8: of course, is what they wanted to do. They've signaled
Speaker 8: that they said we want to get to yes, which
Speaker 8: Trump could see and so they were going to figure
Speaker 8: out some way to get to yes. They had a
Speaker 8: chance to vote on an amendment to ban this by law,
Speaker 8: and they chose not to. Other Republicans did it, They didn't.
Speaker 8: They didn't. And now after Trump has made fools of them,
Speaker 8: after Trump has you know, injected himself into their primaries
Speaker 8: and const him their seats as they're leaving office, the
Speaker 8: best that they can muster is the sort of pathetic
Speaker 8: display of like a piece of paper that can be rescinded,
Speaker 8: like experts and lawyers don't even necessarily believe this paper
Speaker 8: applies to the settlement because the settlement required signatures of
Speaker 8: all parties, so it may not even apply today. And
Speaker 8: they had an opportunity to vote for something that would
Speaker 8: have actually banned it in the law, they chose not
Speaker 8: to because that would have been a victory for their Democrats.
Speaker 8: And so I don't know what they're telling themselves when
Speaker 8: they sort of close their eyes at night, but it
Speaker 8: is the most Trump had their fucking number. They were
Speaker 8: as weak and craven and pathetic as he thought, and
Speaker 8: he has been proven right, and these pieces of paper
Speaker 8: aren't worth a fucking thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Trump said the slush fund was a gift Todd,
Speaker 3: and I'm taking it with me. I don't believe for
Speaker 3: a second this is dead. You can move him off
Speaker 3: of bad policies, but you can't really move him off
Speaker 3: of something that he wants personally, and this is money
Speaker 3: in his pocket. If he can avoid higher s audits
Speaker 3: forever or have a slush fund, then you can divvy
Speaker 3: out for political power. Trump is not remotely embarrassed about
Speaker 3: this fund. It is quite clear that he thinks this
Speaker 3: is something that he is owed by us, the taxpayers.
Speaker 3: So I this I have zero I put zero stock
Speaker 3: in this terrible idea being dead. This is this is
Speaker 3: Michael Myers. This will keep coming back and coming back
Speaker 3: and coming back, and I think he will fight for
Speaker 3: it until he gets what he wants. The only thing
Speaker 3: that might kill it is Democrats winning the House.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Our friend sky perrriman lawyer who's been suing the
Speaker 1: Trump administration for Democracy Forward. She made the point to
Speaker 1: The New York Times that you know, if the Justice
Speaker 1: Department truly intended to end the fund, they would submit
Speaker 1: the sworn declaration that the Court has requested on this,
Speaker 1: which would be more binding than a fingers crossed promise
Speaker 1: from Todd Blanche that does not include the signature, as
Speaker 1: you said, love it if Donald Trump. So I would
Speaker 1: imagine this goes the way of everything else, like you know,
Speaker 1: the iced attentions that have now ramped back up. As
Speaker 1: soon as the news cycle moves on and Todd Blanche's
Speaker 1: attorney General, they will quietly start paying out individual January
Speaker 1: sixth convicts and other people that they like. And you know,
Speaker 1: we'll get some report months from now that, oh, someone
Speaker 1: discovered that people are getting payouts from the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: and someone will ask him about it, and he'll be like, well,
Speaker 1: I said it was unfair, but I don't know anything
Speaker 1: about that, and then that'll be that.
Speaker 8: This is also the whole thing is so ridiculous, because
Speaker 8: what are we negotiating over here. We'll get to it.
Speaker 8: But we have the president threatening to fire prosecutors simply
Speaker 8: for telling the truth about the prosecution of someone who
Speaker 8: didn't deserve to be prosecuted. We have Todd Blanche in
Speaker 8: front of Congress saying that DJ is not independent. We
Speaker 8: have so many reports about the politicization of the Justice
Speaker 8: Partment or Pambondi, and now Todd Blanche and their final
Speaker 8: act is to stop what is like the fund is
Speaker 8: it is so far beyond anything anyone could have ever
Speaker 8: seen from a president, a slush fund for fucking insurrectionists.
Speaker 8: And this is what they're going to pat themselves on
Speaker 8: the back about. This is as they have no political
Speaker 8: fights left to fight, as Trump has like made enemies
Speaker 8: of them. Can imagine the reverse of Trump being like,
Speaker 8: I'm gonna, you know, like as a senator being like,
Speaker 8: even though you humiliated me, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do
Speaker 8: the right thing for your cabinet nomine. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Good to run on in the midterms, anyone who look,
Speaker 1: a lot of these people are gonna vote to confirm
Speaker 1: Todd Blanche. And if I'm interested, to see what Susan
Speaker 1: Collins and Dan Sullivan and John Houstead do, because if
Speaker 1: you voted to confirm Blanche, you've basically voted for the
Speaker 1: slush fund, and so any ad about that is completely fair.
Speaker 3: No, no, no doubt.
Speaker 1: So Blanche is in. But Trump's US attorney for the
Speaker 1: District of Columbia maybe out on Friday afternoon. Former and
Speaker 1: now maybe future Fox News host Jeanine Piro announced in
Speaker 1: a court filing that the Justice Department would be dropping
Speaker 1: its case against former Olympian David Hearn, who had been
Speaker 1: facing a felony charge for allegedly vandalizing the reflecting pool.
Speaker 1: But Piro and the DOJ now admit, according to the
Speaker 1: court filing, that the damages to the pool were the
Speaker 1: result of a quote hasty and botched installation, not vandalism,
Speaker 1: no shit. The Department of Justice went on to accused
Speaker 1: the Department of the Interior of knowing it wasn't vandalism
Speaker 1: and misleading prosecutors about what really happened. Take that, Doug
Speaker 1: Bergram Trump surprise, surprise, is furious.
Speaker 5: Pierro about her decision to drop No, Janeine Piro made
Speaker 5: a mistake. It was vandalism. We have photographs or tapes
Speaker 5: like moving cameras, right, We have them where people are
Speaker 5: on the sets cutting it with a Now, I'm not
Speaker 5: saying I was one hundred percent thrilled with uh the contractor,
Speaker 5: But the contractor was rushing. We wanted to get it
Speaker 5: open for July fourth, and we got it done. It
Speaker 5: looked beautiful, and then they cut it. The judge was
Speaker 5: extremely unfriendly to Janine and Frankly, I think she choked,
Speaker 5: and I was disappointed with Jeanine Pierrou, really disappointed with
Speaker 5: Jannine Pierrou. She she folded like an umbrella.
Speaker 1: That was the closest he's come to sounding like he
Speaker 1: did in the Celebrity Apprentice, Like it's like the board
Speaker 1: room and he's about to fire someone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like meat loaf.
Speaker 8: You didn't make the taco restaurant operate up out of
Speaker 8: profit yet over at the bubblers were too loud on
Speaker 8: the memorial, Jeanane Pierra, You're fired.
Speaker 3: That's the best part saying they had to turn off
Speaker 3: the reflecting pool bubblers because it would have interfered with
Speaker 3: the UFC fight like a gurgling fountain. Yeah, would have
Speaker 3: distracted the rule. A thousand people cheering someone's face getting
Speaker 3: bashed in the roar of the pool pump.
Speaker 1: Apparently, Pierro and Burghram were seen after that walking into
Speaker 1: the Oval office, and then Bergram was seen walking out,
Speaker 1: but Pierro is still in there. Now. By the time this,
Speaker 1: probably by the time we finished recording this, we could
Speaker 1: already she could already be done. But uh, so so long,
Speaker 1: so long, Jeanine. It sounds like what a fucking mess.
Speaker 1: This was what a fucking mess. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Also, like before people go saying like I clearly like
Speaker 8: it seems like this was this was written in anger,
Speaker 8: like clearly annoyed at the whatever they were getting from
Speaker 8: the Interior Department. Uh.
Speaker 3: But regardless the.
Speaker 8: The idea that the Department of Justice, even after doing
Speaker 8: the right thing here in between fucking getting a chart
Speaker 8: an indictment for this guy and letting him go, like
Speaker 8: your entire story was reversed. What kind of evidence were
Speaker 8: you basing this on when you brought the charges in
Speaker 8: the first place. Why did you have to learn so
Speaker 8: much after you decided to try to ruin a man's
Speaker 8: life that you would eventually decide to drop it. I
Speaker 8: guess because you thought it wouldn't hold up in court.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the only reason they had to come
Speaker 3: clean is because if you knowingly submit false evidence in court,
Speaker 3: you can be charged with perjury and you can go
Speaker 3: to jail, and you can you be punished by state
Speaker 3: bar associations and deal with all of their problems. So
Speaker 3: Doug Bergham's just like I'll just lie in the court
Speaker 3: of public opinion like, no skin off my ass. But
Speaker 3: Judge Shanine. It doesn't matter how many chardonnais you have,
Speaker 3: you cannot lie before the judge.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's always a spot on the five for her.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they'll make it the six.
Speaker 1: I know, this one seems small and silly, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of fun because it's you know, Trump's renovations and
Speaker 1: it's the reflecting pool and it's so obviously a lie.
Speaker 1: But like, this guy was charged with a felony. It's crazy,
Speaker 1: had to get lawyer, was like facing jail time, and uh,
Speaker 1: it was all because of an obvious lie that everyone
Speaker 1: knew was an obvious lie. And they all I mean
Speaker 1: there's all you know, you can look for them anywhere,
Speaker 1: these clips all over the place of Caroline Levitt, Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: Janine Piero being like it's it's evidence. We have evidence
Speaker 1: that we're going to present in court and we know it.
Speaker 1: And it was the box cutter and just to lie
Speaker 1: the entire time, like one of them, one of the
Speaker 1: more brazen lies they've ever told.
Speaker 8: Yeah, there's one. There's some interview with with where someone's
Speaker 8: questioning Jeanine Piro about this and you realize, like she
Speaker 8: doesn't totally know the facts. He's like well, did he
Speaker 8: have a knife. He's like no, no, no, he did
Speaker 8: it with his hands. It's like, I'm sorry, what are
Speaker 8: you saying this?
Speaker 1: This?
Speaker 8: This could this sixty seven year old canoeist. He's like,
Speaker 8: what like swimming through the pools Wolverine. Yeah, it's crazy, right,
Speaker 8: like crazy to do this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, this is a it's a good Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm with you. This story like didn't seize me when
Speaker 3: it came out in the same way the East Win
Speaker 3: kind of storied and like, really it wasn't the thing
Speaker 3: I care the most about. But what I think I've
Speaker 3: come to realize over time is how much symbols matter
Speaker 3: and how much it's made this corruption stories breakthrough. We
Speaker 3: can talk about, you know, day trading from the Oval
Speaker 3: Office and the amount of money Trump is making, but
Speaker 3: like stats and figures are not going to break through
Speaker 3: as much as a simple narrative like this, where you
Speaker 3: have Trump's you know, selfishness and ego leading a innocent
Speaker 3: man to be fucking prosecuted or you know, tearing down
Speaker 3: the East Wing or whatever. These symbols really matter. They
Speaker 3: make these stories break through. I think it's like impacted
Speaker 3: in politically.
Speaker 8: Also, it's coming on a day when the attorney general
Speaker 8: nomination is about to be carried through, Like, there are
Speaker 8: the two Republicans just decided to give their votes to
Speaker 8: like give their im premature to how this Department of
Speaker 8: Justice is being run in any other era, at any
Speaker 8: other time, this would be like you, of course, we
Speaker 8: need to bring Todd Blanche before the Senate again to
Speaker 8: find out what does he think about this? Was he
Speaker 8: aware of this prosecution? Does he think Jeane Para was
Speaker 8: in the wrong?
Speaker 1: Does he think now he's gotten out? Because if Trump
Speaker 1: fires there he'll be like, absolutely good, the President did
Speaker 1: the right thing. This was bad. This is not how
Speaker 1: we're going to run the Justice Department. Well, le's see
Speaker 1: what happens now. Of course he wouldn't have said that
Speaker 1: if Trump didn't fire.
Speaker 8: And also, what were you aware of these charges? Do
Speaker 8: you believe Doug Bergham misled the Department of Justice?
Speaker 9: Right?
Speaker 8: Like, let's there needs to be some resolution of these
Speaker 8: facts because now we have Trump and the interioror department
Speaker 8: heads saying that there was still a crime and that
Speaker 8: this person should still be prosecuted.
Speaker 1: The it's not over either, because David Hern's lawyer has
Speaker 1: basically said that I think he told CNN that all
Speaker 1: options are on the table, and among those options, according
Speaker 1: to CNN, yeah, he's going with the Iran attack, except
Speaker 1: they can options are referring the prosecutors involved to a
Speaker 1: bar disciplinary authority, but filing lawsuits seeking more of the
Speaker 1: grand jury recording documenting the prosecutors present presentation of the
Speaker 1: indictment because they did get an indictment asking the judge
Speaker 1: to dismiss the case so it can't be brought again
Speaker 1: because Pira's office only dismissed it without prejudice, meaning that
Speaker 1: prosecutors wouldn't be barred from attempting to revive the case later.
Speaker 1: So they need to go further and make sure that
Speaker 1: they tough never can never bring it again.
Speaker 8: Tough case to bring again when you have the prosecutor
Speaker 8: saying that that they were misled by the Department of
Speaker 8: the Like.
Speaker 1: The tough but not unprecedented for this guy.
Speaker 3: Sure, but I.
Speaker 8: Would say it's like my question would be as like,
Speaker 8: are we gonna are we suing these plug where let's
Speaker 8: so we get this guy some.
Speaker 3: Cash them get some cash for this guy. It's more
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Speaker 1: Speaking of Trump cabinet, Kooch's RFK Junior. He made an
Speaker 1: appearance on CNN State of the Union with Dana Bash
Speaker 1: on Sunday morning for a thoughtful conversation about the nation's health.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 11: I will literally eat anything I don't have.
Speaker 3: I don't have, but.
Speaker 2: Let me put it like that.
Speaker 8: That's what Linda Graham said in having Wow Wow.
Speaker 1: I just just wanted to play that for you guys
Speaker 1: that that was not the Dana Bash conversation. But that
Speaker 1: is what the Health and Human Service secretary is up to.
Speaker 3: It's such a weird way to describe why you'll eat anything.
Speaker 3: It's not like I have a adventurous palate. I enjoy
Speaker 3: all kinds of food. It's like nothing makes me puke.
Speaker 3: Don't have a gag reflex. Okay, good to know, write
Speaker 3: it down. All right, let's let's check out the actual conversation.
Speaker 10: With data Bash in the US seeing protected children.
Speaker 12: I think that what I have talked to scientists and
Speaker 12: doctors about.
Speaker 1: Just give me look, can you show me one study? Yes,
Speaker 1: you are saying, you are saying something that you cannot
Speaker 1: show them a single study.
Speaker 12: I am not saying nonsense. I am talking with excuse
Speaker 12: somebody told you excuse me.
Speaker 5: And let me study what study?
Speaker 13: Study?
Speaker 1: What studies are.
Speaker 12: You talking about? You're talking about studies that actually don't exist.
Speaker 12: And I really want to move on.
Speaker 4: But yeah, you were saying you are because it's part
Speaker 4: of the problem.
Speaker 12: No, I wasn't talking.
Speaker 2: It was absolute press malpractice.
Speaker 12: Okay, are you going to you want to sit here
Speaker 12: and attack me or do you want to have conversations?
Speaker 12: I'm not attacking you. I'm asking questions about how to
Speaker 12: the next question, and I'll tell you that's what I'm
Speaker 12: trying to do.
Speaker 3: But you probably don't understand this because you're not a scientist.
Speaker 13: But you're not.
Speaker 1: Either, So what did you guys think of that uncomfortable
Speaker 1: and somewhat infuriating interview?
Speaker 3: So it is so.
Speaker 8: Hard twenty minutes that went by twenty minutes and is
Speaker 8: a brutal twenty minutes. And it is very difficult to
Speaker 8: in real time fact check someone who is all over
Speaker 8: the fucking place, mischaracterizing studies, asking me to prove the
Speaker 8: negative in the next sentence, grabbing for all kinds of things,
Speaker 8: the Mennonites aren't vaccinated. Actually, lime disease is from gain
Speaker 8: of function research, and you like you're all over the
Speaker 8: place trying and this is where it's like, you know
Speaker 8: what I think, data trying to call upon the history
Speaker 8: of recalling expertise and things you've a vibed. And this
Speaker 8: is where I think what makes it so difficult is
Speaker 8: that RFK his whole thesis, right, is that like this
Speaker 8: is all pretty nefarious, right he says, like, oh, the
Speaker 8: ICUs were actually empty, they were lying about basically how
Speaker 8: full all the ICUs were because they were trying to
Speaker 8: scare people and control people. You're being misled by all
Speaker 8: the experts, and I'm the one here to tell the truth,
Speaker 8: and you're just going to recite the experts that I
Speaker 8: have the real facts about. But he doesn't like RSV
Speaker 8: is not from gain of function research. That's a lie.
Speaker 3: Lime disease is disease.
Speaker 8: Lime disease is not from gain of function.
Speaker 3: They found the lime disease bacteria in a five thousand
Speaker 3: year old prehistoric fossil COVID COVID.
Speaker 8: Multiple studies have shown that COVID protects Show me one
Speaker 8: study that COVID vaccines protect kids. Tons of studies show
Speaker 8: that COVID protects kids. There was one that found that
Speaker 8: the only kids in the ICU from inflammation due to
Speaker 8: COVID were unvaccinated kids. Just over and over and over again,
Speaker 8: these likes like, you can't show me this and you
Speaker 8: can't show me that. Well, maybe not while sitting there
Speaker 8: kind of being peppered with bullshit from RFK Junior as
Speaker 8: sort of misogynistic you're not a scientist shit. But of
Speaker 8: course he's just like, you know, dissembling and misleading and
Speaker 8: lying about what the evidence.
Speaker 3: Is, Yeah, I think she did a good job at
Speaker 3: sometimes at some points, less good at the other. Like
Speaker 3: the very top, he says the US had the highest
Speaker 3: death rate from COVID. That's just not even close to true.
Speaker 3: Peru had the highest death rate per capita. We had
Speaker 3: the highest death toll, but that's largely a function of
Speaker 3: having the third highest population in the world.
Speaker 1: We're down at like eighteen for something, some of the
Speaker 1: teens for yeah.
Speaker 3: And also they give in this weird place where like
Speaker 3: a bunch of countries with you know, less stable governments
Speaker 3: don't have the resources to collect all the data, so
Speaker 3: we don't really know all this stuff. She has the
Speaker 3: question about. She asked him about gain of function research,
Speaker 3: and then he came back with this lie, saying RSV
Speaker 3: and lime disease were created by gain of function research,
Speaker 3: which is just unequivocally not true. And I think you
Speaker 3: do have to be prepared on that one to be
Speaker 3: like that is absolutely not true. The question phrasing itself
Speaker 3: was kind of strange. It was sort of like, in
Speaker 3: defensive gain of function research, I'm not sure that was
Speaker 3: the most valuable question. And then she kept pushing to
Speaker 3: move on, which is complicated because then you kind of
Speaker 3: sound slippery. I think it got better and more constructive
Speaker 3: in the measles section because she really just wanted to
Speaker 3: pin him down and get him to say yes, like
Speaker 3: get your kid the MMR vaccine. There's a horrible measles outbreak.
Speaker 3: It's deadly for kids. But then RFK says, I never
Speaker 3: questioned the efficacy of the MMR vaccine. Sir, Yes he did.
Speaker 3: He said it wanes, he called it leaky. That's a lie.
Speaker 3: It's like ninety percent effective, it has lifelong protection. Ninety
Speaker 3: percent of measles cases are unvaccinated people or of an
Speaker 3: unknown status. Now I had to research all of that
Speaker 3: right to like kind of fact check this guy, and
Speaker 3: it is why he's already so slippery and condescending. But
Speaker 3: like when you interview that guy, that's the job.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think this is how conspiracy theorists, especially with
Speaker 1: science and medicine, this is how they work, right, which
Speaker 1: is scientific judgment is not like every single scientist and
Speaker 1: every single study for all of time agrees on the
Speaker 1: same thing. It's the preponderance of evidence points one direction.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's one study that says something else, and then
Speaker 1: the conspiracy theorists latches onto the one study and is like, well,
Speaker 1: why maybe that's the study. Maybe that's the study that
Speaker 1: actually tells the truth, and all the other experts are wrong,
Speaker 1: And every time she could site a study, he could
Speaker 1: set a study back. The best way to get him
Speaker 1: is Tommy, you just said, which if he claims that
Speaker 1: he said something, you can be like, no, this is
Speaker 1: actually what you said, you know, and you can put
Speaker 1: it up, put it up, but or just say study
Speaker 1: these nuts.
Speaker 3: But it's also safe and effective way to reply.
Speaker 1: But when you're going when you're going study by study
Speaker 1: and science by science, this is this is like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a microcosm of how we all fucked up the
Speaker 1: pandemic so badly. Right, is that it's just a bunch
Speaker 1: of Now everyone can go find their own research and
Speaker 1: can go find some study or some scientists or some
Speaker 1: asshole on Twitter who debunks scientific evidence that is overwhelming,
Speaker 1: Like that is that's the whole story of how we
Speaker 1: went through the pandemic. Yeah, it's all like now, the
Speaker 1: guy's fucking Health and Human Services.
Speaker 8: Right, and he like also just more broadly or deeply
Speaker 8: mischaracterizes the body of research on autism from vaccines to
Speaker 8: tile and all in part because if you're doing tons
Speaker 8: and tons of studies, one study may show a correlation
Speaker 8: and then some more research is done and they say,
Speaker 8: you know what, Actually we took that correlation research and
Speaker 8: we ran another analysis, also much bigger sample, to see
Speaker 8: what would happen between siblings, right, and actually turns out
Speaker 8: that that correlation doesn't produce causation when you look at
Speaker 8: it another way. And this is a much deeper bit
Speaker 8: of research. And so you know, while nothing is ever
Speaker 8: known for certain, we believe this is just sort of, uh,
Speaker 8: something that you can say there's no evidence for. But
Speaker 8: that's not acceptable. But this is why I come back
Speaker 8: to the ICU thing, like why what is like? This
Speaker 8: is where I think you have to go. So you're
Speaker 8: saying all of these scientists are lying or misleading because
Speaker 8: what they want kids to get sick, they want kids
Speaker 8: to get.
Speaker 3: Audis newsrooms are lying to newsrooms were saying that New
Speaker 3: York City ers were full and they were making it up.
Speaker 3: What on earth are you Donald Trump was president, if
Speaker 3: that were happening, he would have gotten to the bottom
Speaker 3: of it. That's his hometown and it's it's fucking insane, and.
Speaker 1: What's the motivation that they just they wanted everyone to
Speaker 1: stay home. They wanted they wanted to to have everyone
Speaker 1: stay home. And then I guess they all probably had
Speaker 1: you know, business connections to the pharmacy utical companies masks big. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well to try to get the vaccine. That's why they're
Speaker 1: all pushing the vaccine.
Speaker 8: Well, this was also like there were people running around
Speaker 8: with video cameras trying to prove that the ICUs in
Speaker 8: their town or their place where empty. And I was like,
Speaker 8: well that's not the COVID ward and by the way, yeah,
Speaker 8: like they're worried that's about to be huge influx of patients, etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 8: And like it's all this idea that like you can't
Speaker 8: trust anybody, you can't trust the experts, you can't trust
Speaker 8: the science, Like did these did Fauci and all?
Speaker 1: Do they like?
Speaker 8: You know, there was plenty of ways in which they
Speaker 8: were trying to be I think, you know, too declarative,
Speaker 8: afraid of giving people nuanced because they weren't able to
Speaker 8: They weren't sure what they could trust the public with,
Speaker 8: in part because there were so much misinformation. But these
Speaker 8: were people desperately trying to figure out what to do
Speaker 8: in the middle of an emergency, and he sits there
Speaker 8: like kind of leaning back, being like it was all
Speaker 8: a lie. They were all lying. It is so fucking disgusting.
Speaker 1: But this is the whole I mean, this all came
Speaker 1: from the Fauci hearings last week, which we didn't really
Speaker 1: talk about on the pod, but basically they decided that
Speaker 1: because they found that in Fauci's you know, private journal,
Speaker 1: he was like, it's so cool to be me and
Speaker 1: meet celebrities. I'm like the most famous person in the world.
Speaker 1: They're like, that shows that he killed everyone.
Speaker 3: Like, but dialed Barbara streisand again, what a voice.
Speaker 1: And they're exactly like, sir, that proves it. That proves
Speaker 1: that you did everything wrong.
Speaker 8: Look, yeah, god forbid, we have an egomaniac in charge
Speaker 8: during a pandemic.
Speaker 3: Is it great for medical research in the scientific community
Speaker 3: to have the clips out there of Fauci pleading the
Speaker 3: fifth however many times in front of this hearing of
Speaker 3: COVID terrible obviously is terrible. Do I understand why you
Speaker 3: did it? From a legal perspective? Kind of? I read
Speaker 3: half an article on this because I'm not obsessed with
Speaker 3: I do think there is like I'm just kidding, like
Speaker 3: it was just sort of an asymmetric story where Republicans
Speaker 3: are obsessed with this and Democrats are like, I want
Speaker 3: to think of anything but the pandemic. It was the
Speaker 3: worst couple of years of my life. None of us
Speaker 3: want to go back, agrees, you know, yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 3: it is just I don't know. Bobby Kennedy, man, that's
Speaker 3: just in charge.
Speaker 1: All right. It's primary day in Michigan, and we got
Speaker 1: some midterm news to talk about, including big announcement of
Speaker 1: our our own today. Votes Have America is launching what
Speaker 1: we're calling the Crooked Dozen, twelve of the most vulnerable
Speaker 1: House Republicans who we can put out of a job
Speaker 1: this November. But we need your help, dear listener. If
Speaker 1: you go to votesave America dot com right now and
Speaker 1: sign up, you will get practical, concrete steps that you
Speaker 1: can take to help flip these seats and lots of
Speaker 1: others up and down the ballot. You're gonna get information
Speaker 1: on where to donate, where to volunteer, how to make
Speaker 1: sure your friends and family are getting the best information
Speaker 1: about the races, Lots more information. It literally takes two
Speaker 1: seconds to sign up at votes Save America dot com
Speaker 1: and if you're already signed up, grab a couple friends
Speaker 1: have them sign up too. We're trying to get as
Speaker 1: many people as possible. We did this back with the
Speaker 1: Crooked Seven back in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: Work pretty damn well.
Speaker 1: Then, yeah, I think we got them, got almost all
Speaker 1: of them. And yeah, so we're trying to raise money
Speaker 1: for the Democratic candidates who are going to take these
Speaker 1: folks on, and also just get some volunteers going as
Speaker 1: an added incentive. We do have some news about one
Speaker 1: of the Crooked Dozen, Max Miller, the Republican representing Ohio
Speaker 1: seventh District south of Cleveland. You may already be following
Speaker 1: this incredibly disturbing story. In twenty twenty four, Miller and
Speaker 1: his wife, Emily Moreno, who's the daughter of Republican Senator
Speaker 1: Bernie Moreno, got divorced and the custody battle for their
Speaker 1: two year old daughter ended up in court. As part
Speaker 1: of that court fight, Emily Moreno said that Miller repeatedly
Speaker 1: abused her, scalding her with hot water, holding a gun
Speaker 1: to her head, and breaking their daughter's collarbone. The allegations
Speaker 1: which miller denies started getting more attention over the last
Speaker 1: week or so when Senator Moreno refused to comment or
Speaker 1: call for his ex son in law to resign and
Speaker 1: to quit his campaign. Miller then delivered a twenty minute
Speaker 1: live stream statement on Sunday morning where he did not
Speaker 1: drop out, but accused Emily Moreno of being a stalker
Speaker 1: and saying things like this, if.
Speaker 9: I had assaulted her, would she had offered to cook
Speaker 9: meat dinner six days later? Would she have invited me
Speaker 9: to spend an afternoon at the playground with her and
Speaker 9: our Would she have written that we were in a
Speaker 9: friendlier place. No, she wouldn't have Ladies and gentlemen. The
Speaker 9: boiling water story the media has run with. That story
Speaker 9: is about an incident in June of twenty twenty four
Speaker 9: while we were still married. And here's the truth, and
Speaker 9: this is the absolute truth. It was horseplay in our kitchen.
Speaker 9: These accusations were true, I would be in jail.
Speaker 3: That is just.
Speaker 1: He also posted and then deleted a dropbox folder of
Speaker 1: audio he'd recorded of her, some of which contradicted his
Speaker 1: own claims, and then he took it down. After that
Speaker 1: disgusting display, Bernie Moreno the Senator. His former father in
Speaker 1: law finally spoke out, posted a long statement that's said,
Speaker 1: among other things, that the two years since the divorce
Speaker 1: have been pure hell, that he holds his breath every
Speaker 1: time Miller has custody of his granddaughter, and that quote.
Speaker 1: If there are any basic standards of character required to
Speaker 1: hold delected office, Max Miller fails them, he should not
Speaker 1: serve in the House of Representatives. Miller then immediately called
Speaker 1: him a liar. So I assume there's been a groundswell
Speaker 1: of Republicans now calling for Miller's step aside. Right, Trump
Speaker 1: was in the Oval office, was asked about that and said, well,
Speaker 1: he's a good person, good person. Terrible situation, you know.
Speaker 1: I guess the family will have to decide. The family
Speaker 1: will have to decide. What do you guys make of
Speaker 1: the whole situation?
Speaker 3: I mean, Max Miller should be in prison, not Congress period.
Speaker 3: He is lying, abusive scum. This is not the only
Speaker 3: incidance of him being accused of abuse. He was accused
Speaker 3: of beating his ex girlfriend, Stephanie Grisham, who worked in
Speaker 3: the Trump White House. She said he threw her up
Speaker 3: against a wall and slapped her. Political reported that Miller
Speaker 3: pushed a female high school classmate down a flight of
Speaker 3: stairs because she refused his sexual advances. There's another alleged
Speaker 3: incent of Miller abusing a woman in college. We don't
Speaker 3: really know the details there, but it's been mentioned in
Speaker 3: court transcripts. He had a bunch of violent fights in
Speaker 3: incidents in high school or in his early twenties. So
Speaker 3: this guy is clearly has a pattern of alleged abuse,
Speaker 3: and I think that should be enough for him to
Speaker 3: be thrown out of Congress, but Republicans have not. Most
Speaker 3: Republicans either just duck the question, or you know, want
Speaker 3: to preserve their majority. Now, like there's a lot of
Speaker 3: focus has been put on Bernie Moreno and his response.
Speaker 3: He's an Ohio senator, his daughter is the one in
Speaker 3: making these allegations. I think my gut reaction when I
Speaker 3: read his when he wouldn't respond, was like that he
Speaker 3: had failed his basic job as a father and was
Speaker 3: a coward, and to really condemn him more than others.
Speaker 3: The more I thought about it, the more I was like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, you don't know what's happening inside a family.
Speaker 3: You don't know what his conversations with his daughter are like,
Speaker 3: you don't know the fear that he could have about
Speaker 3: his granddaughter who had joined custody. So I don't know,
Speaker 3: I feel like I need to violet back of life
Speaker 3: Emily's mother. Yeah, it's complicated and like she was really
Speaker 3: upset and so I think he didn't mean but like whatever,
Speaker 3: he got it done. But like Jim Jordan was on Congressman,
Speaker 3: Jim Jordan was on TV and was asked about this,
Speaker 3: I think was CNN or maybe's MS now and just
Speaker 3: absolutely will not draw moral line in the sand for
Speaker 3: this man who's clearly a fucking scumbag.
Speaker 8: Well, Jim Jordan is sort of a history of this,
Speaker 8: refusing to do that. Yeah, the like the statement from
Speaker 8: Bernie Marino makes clear that he felt like he was
Speaker 8: trying to avoid speaking out about it on his daughter's behalf.
Speaker 8: Trump is refusing to condemn him, which is leading to
Speaker 8: no one else being willing to call on him to resign.
Speaker 8: If he doesn't step back by Wednesday, I believe he'll
Speaker 8: be on the ballots. So he's hanging on now. If
Speaker 8: Max Miller seems to have this history, obviously there are
Speaker 8: these allegations in this marriage. There's allegations in previous relationships,
Speaker 8: allegations of other violence in the past, whatever bit has
Speaker 8: been said publicly, That means that there are that like
Speaker 8: Stebanie Grishams was close to Donald Trump. That means that
Speaker 8: there are people that like the Senators are aware of this,
Speaker 8: Other members of the House are aware of this, The
Speaker 8: White House is aware of this, that this guy is
Speaker 8: fucking violent piece of shit, and they have all just
Speaker 8: been what silent about it, ignoring about it, keeping their
Speaker 8: heads down.
Speaker 3: Trump called him a good person. He's basically a character.
Speaker 3: Wistiness should say too.
Speaker 1: There what broke this whole thing open was Abbey vasilis
Speaker 1: if mother Jones Porty there like she broke the story
Speaker 1: in July eighteenth. She just went through all the court
Speaker 1: documents that were out there and all the filings and
Speaker 1: it is I mean, it's a tough read. But like
Speaker 1: a child protection specialist reviewed the incident characterized the bruising
Speaker 1: near the fracture as resembling a handprint. Now, Miller's story
Speaker 1: is that the daughter it was a seat belt that
Speaker 1: like the car stopped short or whatever. The Emily Mareno
Speaker 1: doesn't believe this, of course, and then the child protection
Speaker 1: specialists said as a handprint. And apparently the daughter said
Speaker 1: daddy's house is scary to her mother. And also he
Speaker 1: contradicted himself in the court filings because first he said
Speaker 1: he didn't pour hot water on her neck, and then
Speaker 1: he said in the next sentence, well, the water incident,
Speaker 1: I never thought that that hurt you.
Speaker 3: There's no horse play with boiling water.
Speaker 1: No, which is basically admitting that it was that he
Speaker 1: actually did it. So he's a liar. He's had a
Speaker 1: violent passed. He obviously should not be believed. And it
Speaker 1: is crazy that Republicans are not immediately calling for this
Speaker 1: guy to drop out of congres, drop out of the race,
Speaker 1: let alone Congress.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's disgusting every I mean, like, doing that to
Speaker 3: a two year old makes you want to drive over
Speaker 3: to his house with a baseball ad. And it's solveid
Speaker 3: that way. I mean that that's the part that's like,
Speaker 3: the whole story is absolutely sickening. This is an evil person.
Speaker 3: I hope they indict him and lock him up, and.
Speaker 1: I hope every single Republican is forced to have to
Speaker 1: answer the questions about this, and like and the stammers
Speaker 1: into the fucking camera because you know, none of them
Speaker 1: can cross Trump because Trump didn't tell him to drop out.
Speaker 3: And it's not just him. I mean there's a guy
Speaker 3: named Corey Mills who's another Republican from Florida who was
Speaker 3: accused of some sort of physical abuse of a woman.
Speaker 3: He was also accused of like sex stortion and the
Speaker 3: threatening to release nude images of her, and Republicans again,
Speaker 3: they just pretend this is not happening. I mean, he's
Speaker 3: under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for like some
Speaker 3: sorts of violations, but no one's calling for his expulsion.
Speaker 1: And it's like with Miller two, he's like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to drop out. For people who want to
Speaker 1: try this in the court of public opinion, it's like no, no,
Speaker 1: it's not being tried in the court of public opinion.
Speaker 1: We have actual court court documents. That's where it is, like,
Speaker 1: we have court, we have testimony. This is not just
Speaker 1: hearsay that people are talking about. There's actual documents about
Speaker 1: this fucking asshole.
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Speaker 1: So, as you're listening to this, it's election day in
Speaker 1: Michigan where Abdul lsa Ed and Hailey Stevens are fighting
Speaker 1: it out for the Senate nomination. Any thoughts from you
Speaker 1: guys on on Haley and Abdul's closing messages or anything
Speaker 1: else from the last few days of campaigning. You know,
Speaker 1: we're got a little.
Speaker 8: Heated, you did get a little heated this race. This
Speaker 8: one number that jumped out at me. She just sort
Speaker 8: of has a preview of coming attractions because we don't
Speaker 8: know what's going to happen tomorrow. But that, in I
Speaker 8: think is the Emerson pole that under fifty Abdul is
Speaker 8: leading Haley Stephens sixty seven to twenty five. Over sixty
Speaker 8: Stevens is leading fifty three to thirty nine, and like
Speaker 8: that is like remarkable, That is a crazy gap. And
Speaker 8: it just like whatever happens in this race, whether or
Speaker 8: not Hailey Stevens and you know whatever, thirty to sixty million,
Speaker 8: whatever number from APAC in as plus concerns that Abdul
Speaker 8: will lose to micro whatever it is, if whatever eking
Speaker 8: out of victory that is possible tomorrow, Like this tells
Speaker 8: you the direction that the party is going. And if
Speaker 8: people want an alternative to left candidates, or if they
Speaker 8: think the left candidates don't represent their point of view,
Speaker 8: like I think we've seen over and over again that
Speaker 8: unless there is a center left that can or center
Speaker 8: that can offer something more exciting, persuasive, optimistic, something for
Speaker 8: people to like grab onto. I think though, like the
Speaker 8: establishment will keep being surprised by when given the choice
Speaker 8: between our candidate or else, Like people keep choosing or else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so much is a conversation about this
Speaker 3: race isocus on the meta stakes and what it means
Speaker 3: for the party and also the the exchanging of barbes,
Speaker 3: you know, the attacks and the money. Sure, a lot
Speaker 3: of trading a pack and stuff. But I was I
Speaker 3: was reading this New Yorker interview Abdul did over the
Speaker 3: weekend during my own little brush with the healthcare industry
Speaker 3: in this country and how fun it can be, and
Speaker 3: I was reminded why I'm so excited about his candidacy,
Speaker 3: Like he is a fundamentally optimistic, hopeful guy who brings
Speaker 3: real expertise as a doctor and a health professional to
Speaker 3: the job level. No, he was like an incredibly talented speaker.
Speaker 3: He's a good human being, more lucky enough to know him,
Speaker 3: and I'm just it just reminded me to be excited
Speaker 3: about him and the fact that he's could potentially be
Speaker 3: a US senator. And you know, there was this graph
Speaker 3: in the story that really just jumped out of me
Speaker 3: that I wanted to read about, because he talks about
Speaker 3: how his story and his parents' story is only possible
Speaker 3: in America. This sort of like fundamentally patriot optimistic story,
Speaker 3: and then he couches like why he is hopeful about
Speaker 3: fixing the broken US healthcare system in his optimism about
Speaker 3: America as well, he says, the thing about America is
Speaker 3: that we don't do things like other people. We do
Speaker 3: them better. I love that about our country, and that's
Speaker 3: obviously very like Obama oaight coded and part of why
Speaker 3: I like it, And I think there's a risk of
Speaker 3: just not cut in pasting. But like you know, that
Speaker 3: rhetoric from that era, it was a different time. The
Speaker 3: world is. The electorate now is in a darker place.
Speaker 3: Be come, inequality is worse, Younger people feel even more
Speaker 3: hopeless about the system, about the economy, about their prospects
Speaker 3: in life. So you don't want to just kind of
Speaker 3: like repeat, you know, the Obama era optimism. But I
Speaker 3: do think, because it could sound naive, but I do
Speaker 3: think that what Abdula is getting at is talking about
Speaker 3: problems and systemic challenges, but then giving people some hope
Speaker 3: that he actually can fix it, or that we have
Speaker 3: the capacity to fix them as a nation. And I
Speaker 3: think that has been missing in a lot of the
Speaker 3: political debate that is either just about or about how,
Speaker 3: you know, cooked we are because of capitalism.
Speaker 1: Yet the national discourse has sort of lumped in all
Speaker 1: the left candidates together, is like, you know, they're all
Speaker 1: socialists and they all believe the same thing, and it's
Speaker 1: all you know that none of them to be able
Speaker 1: to win. And you know, for some have pretty extreme positions,
Speaker 1: and we've talked about them before, and you know, I've
Speaker 1: been even critical of some of you know, the way
Speaker 1: Abdul has had said some things too over the in
Speaker 1: this race. But I thought that was the I thought
Speaker 1: this was the best interview that he has given. And
Speaker 1: if you are open minded and you're still unsure about
Speaker 1: a duel, like I would absolutely read this with David
Speaker 1: Remnick and in the New Yorker, I thought it was
Speaker 1: really really great. It's gonna look if Abdul wins the primary,
Speaker 1: if the polls are correct, it is going to be
Speaker 1: a difficult general election. And you know, the gold standard
Speaker 1: poll in Michigan came out over the weekend and has
Speaker 1: him down a few to Mike Rogers and Hailey Stevens
Speaker 1: performed better that Pole. I don't think that means he
Speaker 1: can't win by any means, but I think that what
Speaker 1: he's going to have to do to be victorious is
Speaker 1: exactly what he did I think in that interview and
Speaker 1: talk like he did in that interview, and because it's
Speaker 1: shows a love of country, it's like a liberal patriotism.
Speaker 1: He talks about how he's a capitalist, he talks about
Speaker 1: he's criticized Obama in the past. As we know, he
Speaker 1: was very complimentary and he seems extremely thoughtful, like he
Speaker 1: just didn't get into this race because he wanted to
Speaker 1: like throw out slogans and all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: Like it seems like he has fought all this stuff through,
Speaker 1: especially healthcare.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's just a really really smart guy who is
Speaker 3: like hands on experience tackling these problems and will be
Speaker 3: really good at the job. And it's exciting to think
Speaker 3: about not just how these people campaign, but what they'd
Speaker 3: be like in the job. And I think post primary,
Speaker 3: assuming of dual wins, we don't know, but a lot
Speaker 3: of the Pole suggests he will. He will have to
Speaker 3: do a lot of work to kind of get back
Speaker 3: Hailey Stephen supporters. I think he's done a really good
Speaker 3: job in recent weeks of kind of tamping down supporters
Speaker 3: across the line who like make fun of him Stevens
Speaker 3: in ways that are just sexist or inappropriate or just mean.
Speaker 3: There's gonna have to be more of that, you know,
Speaker 3: Like after Burn, when it looked like Bernie was winning
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, a lot of his supporters were telling
Speaker 3: other people to bend the knee and shit like that,
Speaker 3: and it's just like such a toxic, terrible way to
Speaker 3: consolidate an electorate, and then it'll be incumbent on everyone,
Speaker 3: no matter how brus their feelings are. To just remember
Speaker 3: that this is about, you know, winning the Senate seat
Speaker 3: and denying Mike Rodgers this election and making it a
Speaker 3: referendum on Trump, like all vote for Rogers to vote
Speaker 3: for Trump, and Rogers is trying to kind of avoid
Speaker 3: all hard questions like I don't know, you guys se
Speaker 3: the semaphore thing. Yeah, he won't talk about the weaponization fund,
Speaker 3: he won't comment on Iran.
Speaker 1: How would you so? Nicholas Wood did this interview with him,
Speaker 1: how would he vote? On the multiple Senate approve measures
Speaker 1: to condemn President Donald Trump's tariffs. I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where does he stand on Trump's anti weepsation fund quote,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about any of that stuff. I don't care.
Speaker 1: I mean I care. As for the Iround war, he
Speaker 1: said he'd heard quote hardly anything from constituents on the
Speaker 1: trail about it. This guy has been living in Florida, Florida. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he retired bout the house in Florida, tried to
Speaker 1: run in twenty twenty four, lost to Slotkin, and now
Speaker 1: he's he's trying to vy himself again. So like, yes,
Speaker 1: he definitely should tie him the Trump, and with good reason.
Speaker 1: But like Mike Rogers just is a character on his own,
Speaker 1: is just looking to be defined right out of the gate.
Speaker 1: And I think that like if I that's like number
Speaker 1: one on Abdul's list, or if Haley Winst, it's.
Speaker 3: Part of the corruption story of tru like Trump, like this,
Speaker 3: a guy who was in government, lost left and went
Speaker 3: made a bunch of money, you know, like helping out
Speaker 3: the industries he used to regulate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this whole idea that he is maybe more moderate
Speaker 1: or more old school of Republican establishment than some of
Speaker 1: these guys, Like I think that the corruption and the
Speaker 1: tie to Trump and just sort of the like out
Speaker 1: of touch he sort of vibes, he gives off from
Speaker 1: having been in Florida for a while and not really
Speaker 1: caring about all these issues is a real weakness for him.
Speaker 1: But it's got to be exploited.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was like this is where sometimes I like,
Speaker 8: there's just like we're going to do politics. Maybe I'll
Speaker 8: do starts a little bit further behind than Haley Stevens would. Okay,
Speaker 8: do you believe in politics? Do you believe in the
Speaker 8: ability to persuade? Do you think a du will be
Speaker 8: a better center than Mike Rogers?
Speaker 6: I do.
Speaker 8: Do you think it's more important to have a democratic
Speaker 8: Senate than any criticism or concern you might have about
Speaker 8: a Duels being further left than you?
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 8: So maybe other people can be persuaded of that as well,
Speaker 8: as long as everybody kind of after this primary is over,
Speaker 8: figures out how to come together. Like there have been
Speaker 8: moments in this look there's the left is a big
Speaker 8: fractious group of people. There have been moments and a
Speaker 8: lot of these primaries where it's clear that some people
Speaker 8: who are part of these problems primaries care more about
Speaker 8: winning factional fights against Democrats than they do about actually
Speaker 8: beating Republicans. There have been bad moments in interviews where
Speaker 8: I think a Duel has reflected that aspect of the movement.
Speaker 8: But when he is at his best, when he is
Speaker 8: speaking about what governing can actually do, a kind of
Speaker 8: broad and optimistic vision for the country, I think, yes,
Speaker 8: that is somebody that has absolutely can kind of build
Speaker 8: support in Michigan, and especially with someone who's supposed to
Speaker 8: be like the toughest one to beat, Mike Rogers, Like,
Speaker 8: come on, like I think that. I think like everybody
Speaker 8: needs to like kind of figure out how to come
Speaker 8: together and then make that argument.
Speaker 1: Last thing before we get to my conversation with Francesca Hung,
Speaker 1: I promise you we do not enjoy talking about Ken
Speaker 1: Martin and the drama at the DNC. But unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: news keeps on coming. The latest is a story from
Speaker 1: The New York Times in which Paul Rivera, the personal
Speaker 1: friend to whom Martin assigned the fabled autopsy, claims that
Speaker 1: when Martin did finally release the report, he omitted a
Speaker 1: chapter that Rivera wrote titled what Happened in twenty twenty four?
Speaker 1: It seems like something you'd want in a report about
Speaker 1: what happened in twenty twenty four, just a minor detail.
Speaker 1: The chapter criticized Biden's decision to run for reelection as
Speaker 1: perhaps quote the single point of failure for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: It also criticized senior Democratic strategists for being too rich
Speaker 1: to understand the struggles of most Americans. Rivera gave The
Speaker 1: Times the full text of the allegedly missing chapter. Martin
Speaker 1: denies ever seeing or knowing about it at all, despite
Speaker 1: Rivera saying he handed him a binder, a three ring
Speaker 1: binder with the chapter in it. So this pits two
Speaker 1: incompetent people against each other who have also been well,
Speaker 1: at least in Ken Martin's case, deceptive in the past.
Speaker 1: So even if Ken Martin is telling the truth, this
Speaker 1: is part of the reason that you don't lie to people,
Speaker 1: because it is hard to believe you when you haven't
Speaker 1: been honest about everything in the past.
Speaker 8: I just want to read the first line in this
Speaker 8: supposedly sort of this secret and damning chapter. American politics
Speaker 8: is a study in inflection points. It sure is boy,
Speaker 8: it's sure a land of contradictions.
Speaker 3: I find.
Speaker 1: What'd you guys make of the whole thing?
Speaker 8: I am sure that to Ken Martin, this all feels
Speaker 8: very unfair from this original sin of putting this guy
Speaker 8: in charge of the autopsy, getting something back that was
Speaker 8: sort of incompetent and that would create a bunch of controversy,
Speaker 8: but not actually address our problems, deciding to not release it.
Speaker 8: Like I see how at each step it's one mistake
Speaker 8: and it leads to others and others and others tangled
Speaker 8: web and then and so there's that sort of that
Speaker 8: cascade of mistakes, and then there's this of the cascade
Speaker 8: of the money going out to places where they don't
Speaker 8: elect senators or House members because you promised to kind
Speaker 8: of invest all over the place, including in the territories.
Speaker 8: People having questions about your fundraising, and all of this
Speaker 8: sort of building on itself, and that now, even though
Speaker 8: there are parts of your program that you think makes
Speaker 8: sense and are good, it's unfair because there's no way
Speaker 8: for you to gain purchase.
Speaker 3: You can't the.
Speaker 8: Fundraising is anemic because people don't trust you. You need
Speaker 8: to have more money on the books otherwise people keep
Speaker 8: reporting how much more money the RNC has. This guy
Speaker 8: comes out with this stupid fucking chapter. Maybe you saw it,
Speaker 8: maybe you didn't, but it only proves that you were
Speaker 8: right that his work wasn't worthy of release in the
Speaker 8: first place. Even though people are mad at you, thinking
Speaker 8: it's some sort of conspiracy, that all may be frustrating,
Speaker 8: too fucking bad. We need the money we need DNC chair.
Speaker 8: People can trust you are not that. Whether it happens
Speaker 8: now or after the elections in November, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 8: But the idea that this guy's going to be in
Speaker 8: charge of the Democratic National Committee as we head in
Speaker 8: to the presidential is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the original sin was asking your buddy Paul Rivera
Speaker 3: to do this report because he's just not in any
Speaker 3: way credential to do. I think the last presidential campaign
Speaker 3: he worked on was in two thousand and four for
Speaker 3: Al Gore John Kerry, Oh sorry, John Carrey, yeah, Al go.
Speaker 1: I remember, uh yeah.
Speaker 3: And then Rivera worked for this New York State Senate
Speaker 3: leader who was convicted of federal fraud. And people who
Speaker 3: worked around Rivera in that era in New York State
Speaker 3: Senate said, first of all, it was a horrible period
Speaker 3: of politics for the Democratic parties, this corrupt, awful, you know,
Speaker 3: State Senate group. And then that Rivera personally was just
Speaker 3: sort of a weird behind the scenes guy who didn't
Speaker 3: they didn't know what he did. Ever, he was in
Speaker 3: no way the right person to do this report. So
Speaker 3: picking that guy was the original sin. And then there
Speaker 3: was as always the cover up was worse than the crime,
Speaker 3: and spiking the report and then lying about the report.
Speaker 3: And now Rivera has said is now Rivera says Ken
Speaker 3: is lying about the release of this chapter. I don't
Speaker 3: trust either messenger here. I'm inclined. I'm inclined to believe
Speaker 3: that if this guy wrote this chapter, he would have
Speaker 3: given it to Ken Martin personally, because why would you
Speaker 3: lie about this. I don't think there was some strategic
Speaker 3: brilliance in this chapter, right, or anything really worth covering up.
Speaker 3: But I think what this does is once again raise
Speaker 3: questions about whether Ken Martin is an honest person, and
Speaker 3: I don't think he is. And I think if you
Speaker 3: are stepping on rakes all the time, and if you
Speaker 3: are lying all the time, you should not be leading
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party. On top of all, President the fundraising failures.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's just this is a real fun weekend
Speaker 3: for anyone who wants to close the book on the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four election, when we also have Hunter Biden
Speaker 3: saying his dad's debate performance was bad because he had cancer,
Speaker 3: but also still lashing out at anyone who said that
Speaker 3: that bad debate performance meant that he should have dropped
Speaker 3: out of the race. One would think that if the
Speaker 3: cancer was so bad and problematic that it would lead
Speaker 3: you to not be able to debate, it would mean
Speaker 3: you can't be president right four years.
Speaker 1: And it didn't. Just it's not just the type of
Speaker 1: cancer that manifests on stage internationally.
Speaker 3: It's crazy. It wasn't a stroke.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his wife thought it was.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There was a scoop today from notice that Martin told
Speaker 1: DNC members on a member's only call that he's convening
Speaker 1: a special finance committee to help with fundraising. So I
Speaker 1: don't know who's in that committee, but hopefully it works.
Speaker 1: If you're a state party.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're a state party and you are hanging
Speaker 3: on to Ken Martin because you get a check every month,
Speaker 3: it's some point you have to realize that that check
Speaker 3: is going to stop coming when there's no money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like two things can be true. It could
Speaker 1: be great that Ken Martin sent you a check in
Speaker 1: that you've been able to hire more staffers, like that
Speaker 1: is important to invest in state parties. But also like
Speaker 1: you do need the money to do that, right, Like
Speaker 1: that's you have to fire that to raise the money
Speaker 1: you can. There is no money right exactly, which seems
Speaker 1: like a problem. Did you guys see that? You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of rapid response coming out of the
Speaker 1: DNC to try to defend their work they're doing, because
Speaker 1: you know, look at a lot of people. There's a
Speaker 1: fantastic people at the d n C working really hard.
Speaker 1: This cannot be easy for them. But one staffer put
Speaker 1: out a video where he's petting his cat and telling
Speaker 1: people that everything's everything's good at the DNC. There's some
Speaker 1: background music. It was deleted.
Speaker 8: It was deleted before I had a chance to see it.
Speaker 8: To be honest, I never I never actually got I
Speaker 8: saw the still of it, but I never actually got
Speaker 8: to see the video itself.
Speaker 3: Sadly for me, undelete the cat video. I liked it,
Speaker 3: I got attention.
Speaker 8: Yeah great, Yeah, no bad press, No bad press. It
Speaker 8: was like stroking like it looks.
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't authorized.
Speaker 3: It was pretty sure it was unauthorized. It did have a,
Speaker 3: I think, an unintentional doctor evil kind of connotation.
Speaker 8: So when I was a kid, Inspector Gadget the opening credits.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, there's a moment where you never see doctor
Speaker 8: Claud's always petting a cat with one hand, and then
Speaker 8: there's a moment at which he runs up to the
Speaker 8: chair in front of a fireplace, spins it around and
Speaker 8: there's the arm, but it's attached to a spring, and then.
Speaker 3: The chair blows up.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and I thought as a kid that the villain
Speaker 8: was a chair with a spring attached to it, and
Speaker 8: that he was trying to kill Inspector Gadget, a literal kid.
Speaker 8: And I, yes, a lot of these things could have
Speaker 8: been diagnosed earlier, I think.
Speaker 3: But I thought The never Ending Story was named that
Speaker 3: because the credits were so long. What it's not it's
Speaker 3: funny that petting a cat is evil coded and petting
Speaker 3: a puppy is like the way you soften your image. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Mike Vrabel at press conferences being like what infidelity?
Speaker 1: Yeahs my puppy, that's right anyway, more cats from the DNC.
Speaker 1: All right, when we come back, Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Home.
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Speaker 1: Franchiska hung Welcome to Platfeve America.
Speaker 6: Happy to be here, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I know this has to be a busy week for you,
Speaker 1: so thanks for doing this. And just to start off,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it is incredibly important for Wisconsin
Speaker 1: to have a democratic governor because we can't have an
Speaker 1: election denier like Tom Tiffany in a position to certify
Speaker 1: or not certify the twenty twenty eight elections. But since
Speaker 1: Republicans will spend an ungodly amount of money to defeat you,
Speaker 1: if you're the nominee to try to defeat you, I
Speaker 1: just want to make sure you have the best possible
Speaker 1: answers to what's coming. So I want to start with
Speaker 1: your twenty twenty posts supporting defunding the police quote as
Speaker 1: a first step towards abolishing the police, which in a
Speaker 1: separate post you said quote exists to uphold white supremacy. Now,
Speaker 1: I know you've said you're not running to defund the police,
Speaker 1: it's not something you can do as governor, and that
Speaker 1: people's views can evolve. I'm wondering how your views on
Speaker 1: policing have evolved since twenty twenty.
Speaker 13: My views have only become stronger in that I'm serious
Speaker 13: about public safety and I will not abolish the police.
Speaker 6: My views are that people.
Speaker 13: Are struggling right now and need PASIC needs met, and
Speaker 13: I want to focus on stopping violent crime and giving
Speaker 13: law enforcement the resources and the training that they need,
Speaker 13: but ensure that we are also holding accountable law enforcement
Speaker 13: that does not follow the law.
Speaker 1: Do you still believe that police exists to uphold white supremacy? No,
Speaker 1: When did that change for you? And what has change
Speaker 1: in your thinking since you posted that in twenty twenty.
Speaker 8: No.
Speaker 13: I think that when you talk to people who are
Speaker 13: most justice impacted, a mother who lost a child to
Speaker 13: police violence, people who have contended with injustices and in
Speaker 13: historically marginalized communities. But justice also looks like making sure
Speaker 13: that we are implementing solutions and helping to change the
Speaker 13: material conditions of people's lives. So, as a legislator, over
Speaker 13: the last six years, I've had more conversations with people
Speaker 13: who are more directly connected to the problems and have
Speaker 13: learned that it is most important for a public servant
Speaker 13: like myself to make sure we're looking at sensible, practical
Speaker 13: solutions that will help keep communities safe.
Speaker 1: You said during this campaign back in May that there
Speaker 1: has to be accountability for people who commit crimes, and
Speaker 1: if you're a governor and people commit crimes that quote,
Speaker 1: incarceration and law enforcement are the systems in place right now.
Speaker 1: You also said your long term vision is a world
Speaker 1: without prisons. How does that work?
Speaker 13: What I know is attainable and the policies that actually
Speaker 13: meet the urgency of the moment and understanding the realities
Speaker 13: of it means that we have to ensure that we're
Speaker 13: funding our local government, that we're bringing justice to victims,
Speaker 13: and what may have been more aspirational is not primary.
Speaker 13: What we need to do is make sure that all
Speaker 13: people all across Wisconsin have access to great public schools,
Speaker 13: out of school programs, mental health resources, and that we
Speaker 13: hold law enforcement accountable but also provide them with the
Speaker 13: training that they need to help prevent crime and stop crime.
Speaker 1: One place this could come up, I think in the
Speaker 1: general election, and of course if you become governor, commutations
Speaker 1: are yours alone, no legislature, no courts. Would you commute
Speaker 1: sentences for people convicted of murder?
Speaker 13: You know the last governor before Tony Evers to serve
Speaker 13: commutations was Republican Tommy Thompson, and I believe that commutations
Speaker 13: moving forward, the system has to be designed by the
Speaker 13: folks who are also most impacted right now, and so
Speaker 13: at this time, I would not extend a commutation to
Speaker 13: somebody who has murdered somebody else.
Speaker 1: If you're governor, you'll have something of a high class problem,
Speaker 1: and that one of the first things you'll have to
Speaker 1: figure out is what to do with a two point
Speaker 1: five billion dollar surplus projected. Governor Evers and Republican leaders
Speaker 1: in the legislature reached a deal in May that would
Speaker 1: have given people three hundred dollars rebate checks, property tax relief,
Speaker 1: special education reimbursement, and no tax on tips. In overtime
Speaker 1: past the Assembly, you voted no, and then it died
Speaker 1: in the Senate. Eighty percent of voters, including eighty two
Speaker 1: percent of Democrats, that it should have passed, according to
Speaker 1: the Marquette poll. Why do you think the voters were wrong?
Speaker 13: We have to make sure that the people who are
Speaker 13: struggling the most have durable solutions, and what that bill
Speaker 13: would have done is not given a rebate to those
Speaker 13: who are on fixed incomes, to folks who are making
Speaker 13: under fifty thousand dollars aer hour. That's over a million
Speaker 13: Wisconsin ights. Those are people who absolutely deserve relief, and
Speaker 13: we were seeing these six hundred and three hundred dollars
Speaker 13: rebates go to millionaires and billionaires. And I'm focused on
Speaker 13: making sure that everyday working class people are not only
Speaker 13: able to get real relief through cutting property taxes, which
Speaker 13: we can do when we fund our schools, but also
Speaker 13: that folks are able to have access to good jobs,
Speaker 13: fair affordable childcare, and free paid leave for all. And
Speaker 13: so for us, it's irresponsible if we don't think about
Speaker 13: some of the folks who need the funding the most.
Speaker 1: Tom Tiffany said he wants to return the entire time
Speaker 1: two point five billion dollars surplus to taxpayers. What specifically
Speaker 1: do you want to do with it with taxpayers, get
Speaker 1: any refunds or like, what's your priority list if you're
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to be governor and have a democratic legislature.
Speaker 13: I want to cut property taxes, which we can do
Speaker 13: by almost forty four percent when we add in a
Speaker 13: millionaire and billionaire tax. I want to make sure that
Speaker 13: we're investing in free childcare for folks across our state
Speaker 13: while also providing bridge payments so that our childcare centers
Speaker 13: can stay open. We need to invest in public education,
Speaker 13: but also have funds available to attack and to make
Speaker 13: sure that we are extending healthcare. I mean, Americans and
Speaker 13: wisconsinights are risking losing their healthcare because of a bill
Speaker 13: that Tom Tiffany voted for.
Speaker 6: So healthcare, education.
Speaker 13: And ensuring that we're lowering taxes is what I'll be
Speaker 13: focusing on with that surplus.
Speaker 1: You're the only Democrat backing a one year moratorium on
Speaker 1: data centers. You argue that the the tax exemptions will
Speaker 1: cost the state more than two billion dollars. Tom Tevany
Speaker 1: says he wouldn't back a moratorium, but that he'd also
Speaker 1: end those subsidies and that people shouldn't have to absorb
Speaker 1: the higher utility rates. So why is the moratorium the
Speaker 1: better policy? And what's that contrast going to be like
Speaker 1: between the two of you if you're the nominee.
Speaker 13: The moratorium is what hundreds and thousands of voters across
Speaker 13: this state, regardless of political ideology, have been demanding because
Speaker 13: the scale and speed in which these data centers continued
Speaker 13: to grow, waiting for legislation in order for them to
Speaker 13: be able to be held accountable or wouldn't have tax exemptions.
Speaker 13: The current data centers that exist in our state right
Speaker 13: now receive hundreds and thousands of dollars in tax exemptions
Speaker 13: and do not have to pay a sales and use tax.
Speaker 13: The people of Wisconsin deserve to have community say in
Speaker 13: community control. That means ensuring that no utility costs go up,
Speaker 13: that we have regulations in place to hold polluters accountable,
Speaker 13: and that we aren't fox conned again giving away billion
Speaker 13: of dollars in subsidies while creating very few new jobs
Speaker 13: and destroying a community in what they're able to do
Speaker 13: with their own property taxes and being able to grow
Speaker 13: their community. We should be able to have a say
Speaker 13: in making sure that big tech knows we're not here
Speaker 13: to sell out our natural resources and we're not selling
Speaker 13: out our state to big tech.
Speaker 1: Do you see the moratory and being lifted after a year,
Speaker 1: or like, what under what conditions would you lift it?
Speaker 6: The big part is.
Speaker 13: The regulations to make sure that we're holding those polluters accountable,
Speaker 13: that we aren't raising rates for utilities, and that the
Speaker 13: Public Service Commission and people who are approving these different
Speaker 13: projects are actually we hold the folks who are going
Speaker 13: to be responsible and thinking about what the public good
Speaker 13: is instead of people who may be taking money from
Speaker 13: the utility companies appointed to those positions. I think it's
Speaker 13: important that we establish local control, but that there are
Speaker 13: statewide guidelines in having no tax exemptions and ensuring that
Speaker 13: data centers actually have to pay their own way and
Speaker 13: up front if they are going to build in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: The last primary debate was pretty friendly with you and
Speaker 1: your primary opponents, and for people who are going to
Speaker 1: vote soon and they're wondering if they're trying to decide
Speaker 1: between you and David Crowley, who's your leading opponent in
Speaker 1: the primary. Right now, what's one place where the two
Speaker 1: of you disagree.
Speaker 13: We disagree on the moratorium on data centers. We disagree
Speaker 13: on ending the vulture program. I believe that public dollars
Speaker 13: should stay in public schools. We disagree on how much
Speaker 13: to tax millionaires and billionaires to ensure that we have
Speaker 13: enough revenue to invest in the things that wisconsinights care about,
Speaker 13: like childcare, like paid leave, like public schools. And we
Speaker 13: disagree in how much we should be spending on removing
Speaker 13: or how much of the tax exemptions and corporate loopholes
Speaker 13: that we should be eliminating. Fortunately, Crowley has not been
Speaker 13: clear on which ones, which policies.
Speaker 6: That he supports.
Speaker 1: So I hear you on the vouture program, like taking
Speaker 1: money away from public educations, happens all across the country.
Speaker 1: You know there is a program now, there are about
Speaker 1: thirty thousand kids in Milwaukee who are in that program.
Speaker 1: Their families are income capped. What does winding the program
Speaker 1: down mean for them? And what happens to those kids?
Speaker 1: What year does it end?
Speaker 13: Right now, it's as important to establish accountability and transparency
Speaker 13: and educating folks about where.
Speaker 6: Their property taxes go.
Speaker 13: We have a bill that's ready that would include a
Speaker 13: property tax report how much of those tax dollars are
Speaker 13: actually going to private schools?
Speaker 6: With the Milwaukee Schools vulture.
Speaker 13: Program, that would be the last vulture program that we
Speaker 13: would phase out. And I believe it's important for folks
Speaker 13: to know that families actually can receive a tax credit
Speaker 13: for private school tuition. But right now, administration of that
Speaker 13: vulture program is costing our state over one point two
Speaker 13: billion dollars, and so sun setting that program for Milwaukee
Speaker 13: for us, we're looking at at least the next next
Speaker 13: second or third session, so that would be around twenty thirty.
Speaker 13: But again, we want to make sure MPs is a
Speaker 13: partner with us and that the families who are in
Speaker 13: the program that the education is not disrupted, and even
Speaker 13: when we put the caps on it, that doesn't mean
Speaker 13: that any of the students who are enrolled in vouchers
Speaker 13: now would have learning disruptions.
Speaker 1: So you're running as a Democratic socialist. A couple people
Speaker 1: have pointed that out. A few weeks ago, Marquette asked
Speaker 1: Wisconsin voters how they felt about that label. Fifty four
Speaker 1: percent of Democrats have a favorable view, especially younger ones,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to independence, only thirteen percent have
Speaker 1: a favorable view. Fifty two percent have an unfavorable view
Speaker 1: of democratic socialists. What is your plan for those voters
Speaker 1: who you'll obviously need to win. Do you want to
Speaker 1: persuade them to change their mind about democratic socialism or
Speaker 1: do you want to persuade them that the label doesn't matter.
Speaker 13: I want to tell them what other wisconsinight's have told me,
Speaker 13: that it is about the solutions and not just the labels,
Speaker 13: and the solutions that we are presenting that actually meet
Speaker 13: the moment to solve the problem that the system is
Speaker 13: rigged against working class people, and I will always put
Speaker 13: working class people first. That fighting to fully fund our
Speaker 13: public schools, have free childcare, affordable housing, and fair cheaper
Speaker 13: healthcare looks like having someone who also understands the struggle.
Speaker 13: Right now, I'm the only wage worker, only single mom.
Speaker 13: I'm a renter, and I've worked in the legislature for
Speaker 13: the last six years. But I'm a public servants first,
Speaker 13: and I learned that from opening a business and running
Speaker 13: a restaurant as well as being a wage worker right now,
Speaker 13: and so I think this is a lot about listening
Speaker 13: to voters and letting them know more about our solutions
Speaker 13: and ensuring them that I'm not here to expand a brand.
Speaker 13: I'm here to make sure that Wisconsinights get what they deserve.
Speaker 1: What is the best case for your candidacy that has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with any of what we just discussed.
Speaker 1: What else would you what other pitch would you like
Speaker 1: to make.
Speaker 13: Since we've launched our campaign, we've learned that wisconsinight's all
Speaker 13: across our state, regardless of generation, race, faith, ethnicity, are tired,
Speaker 13: and they're stressed, and they're frustrated and when we talk
Speaker 13: about building a movement and transformative change, that we can
Speaker 13: have a state that invests in our communities, that raises
Speaker 13: wages and ensures that we're caring and protecting one another.
Speaker 13: We have now grown our movement to over seven thousand
Speaker 13: people who have volunteered for our campaign, hit over one
Speaker 13: hundred and ten thousand doors. That this is a multi
Speaker 13: generational coalition and what's most excited is the support that's
Speaker 13: coming from younger voters, first time voters, or people who
Speaker 13: have not voted in elections for the last six seven years.
Speaker 13: I think people deserve to have a candidate that they
Speaker 13: believe in and that they know is not only just
Speaker 13: fighting for them, but fighting alongside them.
Speaker 1: From Jessica Hank, thank you so much for joining Potzave
Speaker 1: America and good luck in this last week.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much, Take care, Take care.
Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Francesca Hung for
Speaker 1: coming on. We'll be back with a new episode on Friday.
Speaker 1: Positive America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is
Speaker 1: produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Ruben, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari,
Speaker 1: with Ree Cherlin, Elijah Cone and Adrian Hill. Our team
Speaker 1: includes Matt de Grote, Ben Hefcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis,
Speaker 1: Carol pel Avive, David Toles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young and
Speaker 1: Naomi Single. Our staff is probably unionized with the Writers
Speaker 1: Guild of America East