Speaker 1: Welcome to apply to save America. I'm Jon Favrea.
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think of our new studio?
Speaker 2: I can only see you and four feet to your
Speaker 2: right and left. Oh there I go.
Speaker 1: You had you didn't watch all of Tuesday's pod on YouTube.
Speaker 2: I know I listened to it like like it's like
Speaker 2: the gen xer, I am. What's what's to your left?
Speaker 2: Is that a statue liberty?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a statue of liberty?
Speaker 2: Or right, it's you're right, I guess.
Speaker 1: And then there's an eagle over there because we are
Speaker 1: we are taking patriotism back where liberals who love.
Speaker 2: America one yellow mural at a time.
Speaker 1: That's right. Well, anyway, you've got to get down here
Speaker 1: so you can test out the new studio yourself. You
Speaker 1: and I have a bunch of news to talk about today.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's approval ratings are at record lows, and he
Speaker 1: is losing his grip on the economy, the war, just
Speaker 1: about everything else Americans care about. And yet here we
Speaker 1: are still Democrats get more good news in the key
Speaker 1: Senate races in North Carolina, in Georgia, and maybe even
Speaker 1: some deep red states where independent candidates are carrying the
Speaker 1: anti MAGA banner. We're also in the home stretch of
Speaker 1: the heated primaries in Michigan and Wisconsin. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk all about that. That's fun. We're also going to
Speaker 1: talk about the latest with artificial intelligence. As Sam Altman
Speaker 1: tells us that we are, in fact in the singularity.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is saying that we're all going to die anyway,
Speaker 1: and nobody on Capitol Hill seems to know what to
Speaker 1: do about it. So that's cool. But first a reminder,
Speaker 1: if we do make it to November, and we do
Speaker 1: make it to these midterm elections and AI hasn't killed
Speaker 1: us all yet, we have Cricket Con November fifth through
Speaker 1: the seventh in Washington, d C. And tickets are going
Speaker 1: pretty fast, pretty fast, So you are going to want
Speaker 1: to get a ticket to kirket Con if you haven't
Speaker 1: already gotten yours yet. We're going to be announcing all
Speaker 1: kinds of fun things in the lead up to Cricket Con, Guests, creators,
Speaker 1: everyone else who's coming, and so you can check out
Speaker 1: all the details, grab your tickets at crikeedcn dot com.
Speaker 1: Friends at the Pod subscribers get a special discounted rate,
Speaker 1: and if you're not a subscriber yet, that's just another
Speaker 1: benefit for signing up today. Once again, that's crookedcn dot
Speaker 1: com and we will see you all in DC from
Speaker 1: November fifth through the seventh. All right, let's get to
Speaker 1: the news. With ninety five days until the final midterm
Speaker 1: elections of the Trump era, the president has made himself
Speaker 1: historically unpopular and is dragging his party down with him.
Speaker 1: He has lost control of the Iran war, which is
Speaker 1: now in its fifth month with no end in sight.
Speaker 1: He has lost control of the economy, which is now
Speaker 1: suffering from sluggish growth and high inflation because of Trump's
Speaker 1: war and Trump's tariffs. He has lost control of his
Speaker 1: own part in Congress, where two Republican senators whose careers
Speaker 1: he ended are still refusing to confirm his acting Attorney General,
Speaker 1: Todd blanche whose nomination Trump says he may temporarily withdraw.
Speaker 1: The president has also lost the American people his approval
Speaker 1: rating in three high quality polls that came out this
Speaker 1: week thirty two, thirty three percent, and thirty four percent,
Speaker 1: near record lows for Trump in either term, which I
Speaker 1: can't really understand because the guy has really been on
Speaker 1: top of his game lately. Here he is on Wednesday.
Speaker 3: Whether you're a Republican or Democrat, you don't want to
Speaker 3: go and be subjected to this airport between the trams
Speaker 3: and the Star Wars thing that they go up to
Speaker 3: Star Wars and elevated buses and nobody knows what's going on.
Speaker 3: It's it's a real mess. Anytime you see windmills, you
Speaker 3: see a failing country, and they made in China, not
Speaker 3: used by China, but they're made in China. I think
Speaker 3: the arc is going to be incredible. I think the
Speaker 3: protected ballroom and military center that we're building at the
Speaker 3: White House is going to be Unbelievable's very important general.
Speaker 3: Grass is like human beings. Grass is a life also,
Speaker 3: and we're changing, we're raking, cleaning and changing all of
Speaker 3: the parks.
Speaker 1: Grass has a life also. Dan who was talking about
Speaker 1: Dallas there there he's renovating Dolls Airport and for any
Speaker 1: of you who've been to Dallas, might be the one renovation,
Speaker 1: the one Trump renovation I'm supporting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that Dallas is Non America's best airport.
Speaker 2: So we're not putting our best foot forward. There A
Speaker 2: weird elevated buses. Thing is are terrible. He has correct
Speaker 2: about that, but it is you can renovate Dollas Airport
Speaker 2: without doing a full prece event on it, which he
Speaker 2: is doing at a time of war. Countries maybe suddenly
Speaker 2: asked backward into stagflation, and he takes time out of
Speaker 2: his busy day to detail the blueprints of a twenty
Speaker 2: two billion dollar airport renovation.
Speaker 1: He had, Yeah, he had a large map, he had
Speaker 1: a laser pointer. He was Meanwhile, meanwhile, Iran struck a
Speaker 1: US base in Jordan. And then Trump told Fox News,
Speaker 1: We're going to fucking beat the shit out of them,
Speaker 1: but also we're going to have room to keep talking
Speaker 1: the war. The war has widened now to Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: is involved, Saudi Arabia in the US are jointly launching
Speaker 1: strikes at militias in Iraq. I mean, it's completely fucking
Speaker 1: out of control. And then the headline on Thursday we
Speaker 1: woke up this morning was GDP last quarter was only
Speaker 1: one point five percent, well under expectations, and inflation is
Speaker 1: still a full point over the Fed's target rate, which
Speaker 1: is why the Fed did not give Donald Trump the
Speaker 1: rate cut he's been hoping for when they met this week.
Speaker 1: So the economy is just humming along Dan.
Speaker 2: And thinking of raesing rates again to curb inflation. Look,
Speaker 2: you want ideally you want low inflation, high growth. Sometimes
Speaker 2: you have high inflation high growth. The economy is running
Speaker 2: too hot. Here we have high inflation, low growth. That's
Speaker 2: the worst case scenario.
Speaker 1: That is the worst case inn and that might have
Speaker 1: something to do with those approval ratings down in the
Speaker 1: low thirties. All right, let's start with Todd Blanche. So
Speaker 1: John Cornyn and Tom Tillis asked Blanche for a written,
Speaker 1: permanent commitment that the DOJ would kill two provisions in
Speaker 1: Trump's Irs settlement. Remember that the one point eight billion
Speaker 1: dollar insurrectionist slush fund and effective immunity for Trump, his family,
Speaker 1: and his businesses for any tax crimes that they may
Speaker 1: have committed. Those are the two deals that Trump gave
Speaker 1: himself for suing his own government that he leads. And
Speaker 1: basically Blanche was like, yeah, sure, we'll do that, and
Speaker 1: they're like, all right, put it in writing, and he's like, nah,
Speaker 1: they put some language in writing that didn't didn't really
Speaker 1: satisfy either John cornn or Tom Tillis and so Blanche
Speaker 1: still isn't confirmed. They pulled down the vote, and apparently
Speaker 1: he met with corn in Tillis on Thursday day in
Speaker 1: an attempt to reach some kind of a deal, and
Speaker 1: apparently progress was made, but still nothing yet. What do
Speaker 1: you think about all this? How much does this matter?
Speaker 1: And and what are your thoughts on this?
Speaker 2: In terms of the confirmation of Blanche, It truly couldn't
Speaker 2: matter less because Trump does not need to get Blanched confirmed.
Speaker 2: Blanche just wants to be confirmed so he can be
Speaker 2: an actual Attorney general, I think in his picture on
Speaker 2: his portrait on the wall the Department of Justice, because
Speaker 2: Blanche can stay Most secretaries can only stay in acting
Speaker 2: capacity for two hundred and ten days. But there's an
Speaker 2: entirely separate law that relates to the Department of Justice,
Speaker 2: WHI says the Deputtorney General can fill in for the
Speaker 2: Attorney General for an indefinite period of time as long
Speaker 2: as the attorney general is vacant. Tar general is definitely vacant.
Speaker 2: So Trump can pull this nomination and Blanche can just
Speaker 2: serve an acting capacity till the end of his term,
Speaker 2: and that would not matter. It is you know all
Speaker 2: the time like Trump is so you know, he exerts
Speaker 2: ironclad discipline on his party. He punishes people who you know,
Speaker 2: who disobey him, you know, demands complete loyalty. Why don't
Speaker 2: Democrats do that? This is why Democrats don't do that,
Speaker 2: because if you primary an incumbent senator of your own party,
Speaker 2: you have like six to eight months of that person
Speaker 2: pissing in your punch bowl for the rest of time
Speaker 2: until they leave. And Trump is paying the price for that.
Speaker 1: Now, what I don't get is like, why if Todd
Speaker 1: Blanche can stay in this role indefinitely, why do Tillis
Speaker 1: and Cornyn think that they have leverage to get this
Speaker 1: this settlement changed? And because like I'm surprised that like
Speaker 1: that Blanche even met with them, are and are thinking
Speaker 1: of giving them the language they want, Because if I were,
Speaker 1: then I'd just be like, fuck you people, I'm going
Speaker 1: to stay as acting Attorney General.
Speaker 2: It's hard to reverse engineer strategy from this, But I
Speaker 2: really think it's because Blanche wants to be confirmed. He
Speaker 2: wants to be the actual attorney on the United.
Speaker 1: States just like a personal just personal best like such
Speaker 1: something if.
Speaker 2: You don't really count as an acting like when they
Speaker 2: go through the attorney generals, he will he will not
Speaker 2: count He just a guy fill in a seat is
Speaker 2: one to This is now become a loyalty test and
Speaker 2: a power play for Trump. There's a power battle here
Speaker 2: by whether we can get it done or not. I
Speaker 2: think there was movement when Trump said he was gonna
Speaker 2: withdraw the nomination. That's when Tillis and Cornyon may seem
Speaker 2: to have moved a little more. They might be lowering
Speaker 2: their ask because they have less leverage in that situation.
Speaker 2: So as long as he wants their vote, they're going
Speaker 2: to try to get something in exchange for that vote.
Speaker 1: Trump allies were floating as a possible replacement for Blanche
Speaker 1: if he didn't get confirmed. Bill Poulty, did you hear
Speaker 1: about this?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I mean that is That's the other piece
Speaker 2: of leverage here, is that Trump could just put some
Speaker 2: other goon in who does not require confirmation and just
Speaker 2: let that person serve for you know, however long.
Speaker 1: Bill Poulty, not a lawyer, by the way, so that
Speaker 1: would be an atorney job.
Speaker 2: Not a spy, yes, yeah, that's great, Not a housing expert, nothing.
Speaker 1: Just to just to do us Blanche's nomination wasn't the
Speaker 1: only setback for Trump's DOJ this week. There is himpt
Speaker 1: to prosecute Jim Comey over the eighty six forty seven
Speaker 1: seashell photo he posted, what a sentence? What a sentence
Speaker 1: is turning out to be every bit as crazy as
Speaker 1: it seems. And then some Komy's team filed motions to
Speaker 1: dismiss the case for vindictive prosecution, which included the revelation
Speaker 1: that in order to prove that Comy knew that eighty
Speaker 1: six had an alternative meeting that was violent, the FBI
Speaker 1: interviewed notorious mobster Simmy the Bull Gravano, who told them
Speaker 1: the reason there's no evidence is that mobsters wouldn't leave any.
Speaker 2: Not many mobsters post Instagram photos about pending crimes.
Speaker 1: With pictures of seashells.
Speaker 2: Seashells.
Speaker 1: Yes, it feels like this case might not succeed. Anything
Speaker 1: else jump out at you from the court dos that
Speaker 1: the Komi team filed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Actually, the court docs are fascinating. There is an
Speaker 2: allegation from Comy's team that the Secret Service, at the
Speaker 2: request of the number three official in the Justice Department,
Speaker 2: engage in warrantless surveillance of the Komi's including of that
Speaker 2: whole day after posting the photo, including them visiting their
Speaker 2: son's grave.
Speaker 1: I believe and practice phone location.
Speaker 2: That's a practice phone location. Yeah, and kept May had
Speaker 2: made frequent phone calls to Air Force one to keep
Speaker 2: the president a prize what was happening so he could
Speaker 2: respond appropriately to the c show Instagram photo at his
Speaker 2: next presteville.
Speaker 1: Apparently the FBI they also did some research into the
Speaker 1: whole eighty six term. They asked chat GPT at the
Speaker 1: US Attorney's direction. They ran Google AI and chat GPT
Speaker 1: queries about the term eighty six, and the AI told
Speaker 1: them the theory was wrong well, including that Miriam Webster
Speaker 1: doesn't enter a violent meeting.
Speaker 2: Also, it was also a report in the Komee documents
Speaker 2: that on the same day, within hours of the photo
Speaker 2: being post SAD, the Secret Service changed their guidance to
Speaker 2: have eighty six forty seven count as a threat against
Speaker 2: the president.
Speaker 1: Yes. It also eighty six has appeared zero times in
Speaker 1: the FBI's database of communicated threats since two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: and before Comey posted, Amazon vendors had listed over two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand products with eighty six forty seven, eighty six
Speaker 1: forty six, or eighty six forty five generating zero federal inquiries. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think this one's going to fly. I remember
Speaker 1: like Todd blanche too, was like, we wouldn't just do
Speaker 1: it based on the seashell photo. We wouldn't be bringing
Speaker 1: a case based on that. There's other stuff in there. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll see. It is a pretty high bar to dismiss
Speaker 1: a case for vindictive prosecution, So you know, we'll see.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if the government has the strongest
Speaker 1: case on this one. Trump's deeply corrupt DOJ also acknowledged
Speaker 1: in court this week that the federal government terminated seven
Speaker 1: point six billion dollars in grants for hundreds of clean
Speaker 1: energy projects based solely on the political idea of the
Speaker 1: grant recipient's state, sixteen states, all of which voted for
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris. Politico then reported that Trump personally overruled his
Speaker 1: own agencies to deny disaster aid to four Democratic led
Speaker 1: states just this month. Apparently, the president has rejected aid
Speaker 1: for democratic run states at the highest rate in FEMA's
Speaker 1: forty seven year history. Why isn't this a bigger story.
Speaker 2: Why isn't this a bigger story? Could be the title
Speaker 2: of a compendium of the history of the Trump era.
Speaker 4: This is one of though.
Speaker 1: I saw both of these this week and I was like,
Speaker 1: fucking disaster relief for like, just I don't care. You
Speaker 1: had a hurricane hit, you had a tornado, you had
Speaker 1: a fire. People are in need. And because Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has a beef with the Democratic politician that's running the
Speaker 1: state no federal money.
Speaker 2: This is one of the ways in which we've just
Speaker 2: all of politics, media, society has been ground down by
Speaker 2: Trump's incredible cynicism. Because if this was twenty seventeen, there
Speaker 2: would have been I'm not saying it would have changed
Speaker 2: the election right or done it, but there would have
Speaker 2: been a massive uproar about this because this would have
Speaker 2: been a norm that you do not make disastery political
Speaker 2: That trump is overturned. Nine years later, we've been We've
Speaker 2: seen something some version of this a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: times with Trump where he's threatened this, they've denied grants,
Speaker 2: They've done other things too. They've used the government to
Speaker 2: punish Trump's political opponents in so many ways. We were
Speaker 2: just talking about the government punishing a Jim Comey for
Speaker 2: the Seashell Instagram and so we just like this has
Speaker 2: become at least from Trump, not news and not it
Speaker 2: doesn't shock the conscious anymore. And this is kind of
Speaker 2: this is like the long term damage that Trump has
Speaker 2: done to how we think about politics and what's appropriate
Speaker 2: and what isn't can be seen in the fact that
Speaker 2: this people barely by deny it's something.
Speaker 1: This is terrible impeachable offense. I think certainly the designs,
Speaker 1: for sure, for certain certain the disaster aid. I can
Speaker 1: also imagine like the American people should know this, and
Speaker 1: I do think you can imagine a moment in the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight campaign when, like you know, a Democratic
Speaker 1: candidate is talking about jd Vance or Marc or Rubio
Speaker 1: and said, when they were in government the last four years,
Speaker 1: if you were in a state that didn't vote for them,
Speaker 1: you would get denied money. If a hurricane hit, they
Speaker 1: wouldn't they wouldn't come help you out, or for a
Speaker 1: tornado hit, and you need money from the federal government,
Speaker 1: money that you paid into the federal government because you
Speaker 1: pay your taxes. They just wouldn't give it to you,
Speaker 1: just because of how you voted. Like that is, it's
Speaker 1: like a way to both kick the shit out of
Speaker 1: them and sound bipartisan, because now now sounding bipartisan is
Speaker 1: like making sure that we don't starve states of resources
Speaker 1: just because they happen not to vote for the person
Speaker 1: in charge. But I guess that's where we are. I
Speaker 1: mean it is.
Speaker 2: Do you think about in the Obama era, like we
Speaker 2: dealt with a raft of tornadoes which usually hit because
Speaker 2: of where tornadoes, you know, we're talking about Arkansas, Oklahoma,
Speaker 2: places like Missouri, places like that were abomba states that
Speaker 2: vote it overwhelming particularly parts of the state, rural parts
Speaker 2: of the state that voted overwhelmingly against Obama. Him going there,
Speaker 2: meeting with local officials, working with officials who.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of when we went to I think you
Speaker 1: might have been on that trip when we went to Joplin,
Speaker 1: and he spoke at there, and he spoke at the
Speaker 1: commencement to night after the rural area of Missouri that
Speaker 1: had been hit by a horrific tornado.
Speaker 2: And now that now that's that seemed that was quite
Speaker 2: normal at the time, now would seem like an extraordinary
Speaker 2: example of bipartisanship.
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Speaker 1: I mentioned trump shitty approval ratings in all those new polls,
Speaker 1: The generic ballot seems to be widening again as well,
Speaker 1: after getting maybe a little bit better for Republicans over
Speaker 1: the last month, but this week CNN now has it
Speaker 1: at Democrats have an eight point lead, Emerson has Democrats
Speaker 1: within eleven point lead, Pew is six points, the Argument
Speaker 1: is eight points, and Fox is seven points. What's your
Speaker 1: take on why the polling is getting worse again for
Speaker 1: Trump and Republicans and how much do you think Republican
Speaker 1: midterm candidates will be able to outrun Trump's numbers, Because
Speaker 1: even though this generic ballot number is getting wider, Republicans
Speaker 1: are still you know, they are performing better than Trump's
Speaker 1: approval rating would suggest.
Speaker 2: Or Democrats are underperforming correct perp warting will suggest. So
Speaker 2: there's a couple of things going on here. One is
Speaker 2: the obvious, which is the war is back in the news.
Speaker 2: Gas prices are going up again, that you can. Gas
Speaker 2: prices and a presidential president of a proper rating are
Speaker 2: highly correlated, and so I think that's part of it.
Speaker 2: If you want to get nerdy about what's the difference
Speaker 2: between the polls where like the Pupil where Democrats have
Speaker 2: a six point generic ballot lead and Emerson where Democrats
Speaker 2: eleven point generic ballot lead. It is very you can
Speaker 2: isolate it. And this is something our friend Ron Brownstein
Speaker 2: has pointed out repeatedly. Is it centers around what percentage
Speaker 2: of people who disapprove of Trump are voting for Democrats
Speaker 2: on the generic ballot in the pupil it is a
Speaker 2: little less than eighty percent. In these polls where it's
Speaker 2: like eleven percent, you're getting to ninety percent eighty eight
Speaker 2: ninety percent Democrats in most midterm elections, in both the
Speaker 2: when Democrats did very, very well in twenty eighteen and
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two, they did quite well. Sorry, in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, it's because we got ninety percent of Trump
Speaker 2: disapprovers voting for a Democrat for Congress. Now, the reason
Speaker 2: Democrats did better in twenty twenty two that people expected
Speaker 2: was because Republicans were not able to get to that
Speaker 2: ninety percent number of Biden disapprovers. And so that is
Speaker 2: the group right now as you think of. But there
Speaker 2: is a statistical issue in how these polls work. I
Speaker 2: don't know which is right which is wrong. But if
Speaker 2: you're looking at what's the difference between a good Democratic
Speaker 2: election and a great Democratic election, one major factor is
Speaker 2: how successful Democratic candidates are. Again, of people who disapprove
Speaker 2: of Trump to vote for a Democrat down ballot.
Speaker 1: I will say I've noticed in some of the polls
Speaker 1: where the margin might be a little narrower, there's just
Speaker 1: a bigger undecided number as well, like they're not pushing
Speaker 1: the undecideds, and the Republican number is quite low in
Speaker 1: those polls. And so it's basically the Democratic number is
Speaker 1: under fifty, but the Republican number in some of these
Speaker 1: is like low forties, high thirties in some of them.
Speaker 1: And you do wonder in an election where you know,
Speaker 1: you have the party in power, and usually the party
Speaker 1: in power is punished by the voters if those undecided
Speaker 1: don't end up breaking towards the Democrats at the end,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: And that I mean, that is the question, and I
Speaker 2: think it's it may usually what happens, but you know,
Speaker 2: it may depend race to race, right, which is when
Speaker 2: you look at twenty twenty two is the cautionary example
Speaker 2: for Democrats because we lost the House. Republicans did not
Speaker 2: do great, but they took the House. But then Democrats
Speaker 2: won a bunch of Senate races because we had better
Speaker 2: candidates running against pretty bad Republican candidates in places like Georgia, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, let's talk about the democratic side of
Speaker 1: the midterm battle. I'll start with the good news. In
Speaker 1: addition to those generic ballot numbers, there are some great
Speaker 1: news Senate polls, including a Fox News poll in North
Speaker 1: Carolina that has Roy Cooper up nine on Michael Wattley,
Speaker 1: and it looks like at least one Republican super pac
Speaker 1: is starting to pull their money out of the state.
Speaker 1: One prominent election forecaster, Larry Sabado's about his Crystal All,
Speaker 1: just moved the Georgia Senate race from lean Democratic to
Speaker 1: likely Democratic based on what they call a stable lead
Speaker 1: in the polls. Do you every think you'd see a
Speaker 1: Georgia Senate race moved to likely Democratic? Wild? In Iowa,
Speaker 1: Josh Turik dropped a great new video where our old
Speaker 1: boss Barack Obama endorses him while they shoot hoops, which
Speaker 1: has already been viewed by the equivalent of the entire
Speaker 1: population of Iowa just on Josh Turik's social accounts alone.
Speaker 1: It was a great video. What's your take on the
Speaker 1: developments in North Carolina and Georgia, it is it safe
Speaker 1: to exhale on those obviously No, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know, of course not. I mean I just basically at
Speaker 2: the almost passed out just at the idea of moving
Speaker 2: Georgia to lean Democratic likely. But there's no question we
Speaker 2: are better positioned in North Carolina, in Georgia at with
Speaker 2: less than hundred days ago than we ever thought could
Speaker 2: be possible a year ago. Like the we have great
Speaker 2: candidates running against bad Republican candidates or can't say, have
Speaker 2: huge fund raising advantages. We should be clear that it
Speaker 2: is highly unlikely that Roy Cooper wins by nine points
Speaker 2: and John Assoff wins by nine to ten or whatever
Speaker 2: the poles say, like these races are going to be closer,
Speaker 2: Like in these polls, whre Cooper is right around fifty,
Speaker 2: Michael Whitley, who's much less well known, is down below.
Speaker 2: That undecided is unlikely to allocate entirely to the Democrat.
Speaker 2: May even it may be sixty forty or thirty seventy
Speaker 2: going with seventy percent going to the Republican because I'd
Speaker 2: have to look, we need a more high quality post
Speaker 2: look at like who makes up that undecided, But many
Speaker 2: of them probably profile as at least potentially voting for
Speaker 2: a Republican. So I think they're very very well position.
Speaker 2: These races are going to get closer, and look, if
Speaker 2: Republicans are pulling money out of North Carolina, that's a
Speaker 2: that's that's great because that's the means Democrat democracyuperpacs may
Speaker 2: not have to spend as much money there, and we'll
Speaker 2: have more money to spend in these stretch dates. The
Speaker 2: North Carolina kind of thing also relates to the shift
Speaker 2: in the map post gram Platner, which is, if you
Speaker 2: would have bet in order of likelihood, Maine was the
Speaker 2: most likely state to flip in North Caroline's the second
Speaker 2: most likely state to flip, But because of how everything's
Speaker 2: played out, Maine, North Carolina is probably now the most
Speaker 2: likely state to flip, and main is the second most
Speaker 2: likely state to flip, so you'll see more resources head there.
Speaker 1: Why do you think Roy Cooper of all the candidates,
Speaker 1: is this far ahead A.
Speaker 2: Couple of reasons. I interviewed Roy Cooper on this exact
Speaker 2: podcast a few weeks ago. Roy Cooper is awesome. He
Speaker 2: is He is just you know, like everyone wants. We
Speaker 2: often do these super exciting, super inspirational candidates who are
Speaker 2: like crushing TikTok memes or whatever else. And Racoper is
Speaker 2: just like a great politician. He is incredibly charming, He
Speaker 2: is smart, he has delivered for the state. He has
Speaker 2: the biparted He's tried to be bipartisan against one of
Speaker 2: the most radical Republican legislatures in the country. He is
Speaker 2: a plush things. He won in that state twice with
Speaker 2: Trump on the ballot. In the state of North Carolina,
Speaker 2: and Michael Wattley was a terrible choice for Republicans. He
Speaker 2: is a former state party cherries Trump's hand picked choice.
Speaker 2: Voters don't know him. He there's a whole bunch about
Speaker 2: Mike watt He's just was a bad choice. And so
Speaker 2: you have a very very good candidate running against a
Speaker 2: bad Republican in a state that is I think it
Speaker 2: is underperformed for Democrats in the last couple elections if
Speaker 2: you look at it demographically, and so there is real
Speaker 2: potential here, particularly in a midterm elector. Rate will look
Speaker 2: better than a presidential electorate there because of the high
Speaker 2: proportion of college educated voters in the research triangle in
Speaker 2: the other suburbs of the state.
Speaker 1: I also think on the flip side to your earlier
Speaker 1: point about you know, Cooper being at these polls being
Speaker 1: around fifty and Wattley being much lower. One reason for
Speaker 1: that could be that this is a race where everyone
Speaker 1: knows Roy Cooper. Yeah, exactly right, And so if you're undecided,
Speaker 1: you've probably there's probably a better chance you've you know
Speaker 1: Roy Cooper and decided you don't want to vote for him.
Speaker 1: But you don't know who this Michael Waltley character is,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's a Republican who's gonna end up coming
Speaker 1: home or just not voting. And I guess you know,
Speaker 1: you could say some similar similar thing about Osoff in Georgia, right,
Speaker 1: like he's their senator and he's been their senator. Mike
Speaker 1: Collins is just a congressman in one district, but also
Speaker 1: two really bad candidates in Mike Collins and Michael Walley.
Speaker 2: So Mike Collins today was doing a Pressville I think
Speaker 2: this was today, and he had to end it early
Speaker 2: because he got a bunch of questions about all of
Speaker 2: the anti Semitic, Nazi esque things that his son in
Speaker 2: law has been posting online.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really cool. Uh, We've also got some potentially good
Speaker 1: Senate News in deep red states like Montana, Idaho, and Nebraska,
Speaker 1: where the new Democratic strategy appears to be don't run
Speaker 1: a Democrat. You want to explain what's happened in those dates.
Speaker 2: Sure, so, there is an emerging theory that in states
Speaker 2: like Nebraska. In Montana it's Trump won by twenty points.
Speaker 2: In Idaho was Trump won by thirty six points. The
Speaker 2: Democratic brand is so toxic that no person, no matter
Speaker 2: how great a canon and ma how wealthun and they are,
Speaker 2: could actually be a Republican. But an independent would have
Speaker 2: a much better chance at taking out a Republican in
Speaker 2: an anti Republican year like.
Speaker 1: The one Moran.
Speaker 2: And so in Nebraska you have Dan Osborne, who's a
Speaker 2: union organizer who ran in twenty twenty four against deb
Speaker 2: Fisher is running again. He over He outperformed Kamala Harris
Speaker 2: by about fourteen points. He only lost by six movies
Speaker 2: closer to seven points ago. Yeah, it was like six
Speaker 2: point seven points, Trump on by twenty. And then in
Speaker 2: Idaho you have Todd Achilles, who is a veteran, a businessman,
Speaker 2: former state legislator, used to be a Democrat, has left
Speaker 2: the party becoming an independent. He is running against Jim Risch,
Speaker 2: who was an actual senator, though it was probably comes
Speaker 2: a news to people, but he is and in that race,
Speaker 2: there is no In both Idaho and Nebraska, the person
Speaker 2: who won the Democratic primary dropped out to give the
Speaker 2: independent Candon their best chance. In Montana, you have Seth
Speaker 2: Bodner running. He is a former Green Bray and the
Speaker 2: longtime president Niversity of Montana. He is running as an
Speaker 2: independent and there is also a Democrat in the race
Speaker 2: who is refusing to drop out. And some polling has
Speaker 2: shown that Bodner has a legitimate chance. I think he
Speaker 2: was down by a point or two to the Republican
Speaker 2: whose name I cannot remember. And you remember the context
Speaker 2: here race is that they're basically the Republican dropped out
Speaker 2: like minutes before the filing deadline, So there's a whole
Speaker 2: there's a whole corruption element to this too. So the
Speaker 2: potential shot in this race, but the Democrat does not
Speaker 2: seem like she is dropping out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Democrat in Idaho dropped out just this last week,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I think Todd Achilles in that state,
Speaker 1: the polling hasn't showed him as close to Jim Rich,
Speaker 1: but like he's still you know, it's better than the
Speaker 1: Democrat for sure, and now that the Democrats dropped out,
Speaker 1: maybe he'll get some more attention. But in Montana, I
Speaker 1: mean there's some polling that shows Seth Bodner over Kurt
Speaker 1: Kurt Almey is their Republican who basically you know, they
Speaker 1: the fix was in. And as soon as Steve Danes,
Speaker 1: who is the Republican, the Republican Center of Montana dropped
Speaker 1: out that he's the one who just filed a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes after that. But the Democrat in that race
Speaker 1: just like refuses to drop out, and she has no money,
Speaker 1: no real campaign, and is just being stubborn for no reason.
Speaker 1: And she does have until, by the way, August tenth,
Speaker 1: so she can drop out by August tenth and then
Speaker 1: give Seth Bodnar like a real chance against the Republican
Speaker 1: and we could, you know, you could get independence in
Speaker 1: there now, Seth Bodnar, Todd Achilles. There's also Brian bangs
Speaker 1: Is running in South Dakota. You know, they're not like
Speaker 1: liberal Democrats, they're not even mainstream Democrats. I think all
Speaker 1: of them have some and same thing with Dan Osborne.
Speaker 1: Some of them have some like I would say, I
Speaker 1: would characterize it as more culturally conservative positions on some
Speaker 1: issues and then little more economically populist positions on other issues,
Speaker 1: not too lefty economic populace, but for a red state,
Speaker 1: they do very focused on sort of anti corruption, good government.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're the type you would want them in
Speaker 1: the United States Senate, way way way over the Republicans
Speaker 1: in those seats.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, as an example, Dan Osbourne in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four ran an ad saying he would help Trump.
Speaker 1: Build the wall right right, but he's also like on
Speaker 1: economic issues on healthcare, like minimum wage, union rights. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to be he's great on all that stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, So that's hopefully that'll work. But yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're in Montana, you're in Idaho, check out some of
Speaker 1: these candidates. And also if you're in Montana, like try
Speaker 1: to help make some noise so that the Democrat in
Speaker 1: that race can finally drop out and do the right
Speaker 1: thing before August tenth and actually give us a shot there,
Speaker 1: because if not, we have no shot.
Speaker 2: I would say that in Montana, and I've heard from
Speaker 2: some people in Montana about this, that there is a
Speaker 2: lot of anger at how this has played out that
Speaker 2: you know, you have a Democratic Party of a fairly
Speaker 2: el something vibrant Democratic party that has you know, elected
Speaker 2: John Tester multiple times, so there's been Democratic governors of
Speaker 2: the state in recent years. And to sort of have
Speaker 2: that whole process uh pushed aside for someone who they
Speaker 2: believe to be quite flawed on many issues has led
Speaker 2: to anger, which is I think leading to Banks saying
Speaker 2: the race. Now, if you take a step back and
Speaker 2: you say, what is our best chance of beating Kurt
Speaker 2: Almey and winning a seat, even if it's a long shot,
Speaker 2: it is clearly Seth Bodner and it's not a close call.
Speaker 2: And there is something that connects this with the DNC
Speaker 2: conversation you guys had on Tuesday with something we're about
Speaker 2: to talk about here, which is there really is like
Speaker 2: it's sort of order the flies in the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: right now. Ideas you know, you would like to think
Speaker 2: that there's someone in charge, someone with authority who come
Speaker 2: in and say, look, someone who's trusted, who could say
Speaker 2: the best thing to defeat Republicans and have Democrats possibly
Speaker 2: take the Senate and hold it for a while, because
Speaker 2: we really want to have a governing majority. We need
Speaker 2: to go back to a world where we can win Montana,
Speaker 2: at Idaho and a brask and places like that. Is
Speaker 2: for to give Seth Bodner a chance here, even if
Speaker 2: it is a long shot and no one has that authority.
Speaker 2: Same thing at the DNC, where no one has the
Speaker 2: actual authority to go and tell Ken Martin he should
Speaker 2: go if that's what they think. And so there is
Speaker 2: just we're kind of no one is in charge right
Speaker 2: now in the party and that has consequences in these
Speaker 2: sorts of situations. And you don't I'm like, you don't
Speaker 2: want people from watching the company and doing everything, but
Speaker 2: there is at times you have to make really hard
Speaker 2: strategic decisions and there's no one trusted to make those decisions,
Speaker 2: so you end up with situations like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a real problem. But when you you know,
Speaker 1: NBC just had a story about this today, just sort
Speaker 1: of detailing what's going on in the Montana race and
Speaker 1: saying how like, even though the party is sort of
Speaker 1: at war with itself right now, people from all different
Speaker 1: parts of the party are all for Seth Bodner getting
Speaker 1: a chance in this race. Like they interview Faz Shakir
Speaker 1: you know, work for Bernie Sanders near a Tandeon at
Speaker 1: cap like like the Left the Center. Everyone's for this
Speaker 1: and so it's just a matter of actually these people
Speaker 1: in these races who are democrats doing the right things.
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Speaker 6: Hey, Dan Tuberski here, I'm a podcast host, a journalist,
Speaker 6: and now with my newest project, the author of my
Speaker 6: own manifesto. Well, it's a manifesto about manifestos, my search
Speaker 6: for inspiration and a world that feels more infuriating, more
Speaker 6: out of its freaking mind with each passing hour. Manifestos
Speaker 6: are a call to action, an artful screen. They capture
Speaker 6: our anger and they try to do something with it.
Speaker 6: This is my attempt to take the manifesto back from
Speaker 6: mass shooters and nihilists, then return it to its rightful
Speaker 6: place with the warriors, the visionaries, the regular folks with
Speaker 6: just the right amount of craze. I compare notes with radicals, secessionists,
Speaker 6: internet trolls out for a laugh and punctioningers screaming their
Speaker 6: guts out, all trying to turn their anger into the
Speaker 6: world they want to see. Listen to Manifesto wherever you
Speaker 6: get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of
Speaker 6: Manifesto early and ad free right now. Join Audible in
Speaker 6: the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 7: All right.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, in the Upper Midwest, the Democratic civil war is raging.
Speaker 1: Like the twenty sixteen primary never ended. We are We're
Speaker 1: in the final stages of the primary campaigns in the
Speaker 1: Michigan Senate and House races or election Day is this
Speaker 1: coming Tuesday, and the Wisconsin Governor's race, which is a
Speaker 1: week later. In Michigan, the final debate of the Senate
Speaker 1: primary between Hailey Stevens and Abdul Lsaed was Monday night.
Speaker 1: Here's a sample of the vibe.
Speaker 8: Would you ask sixty million dollars to come into a
Speaker 8: race for you and then say that somehow you're electable.
Speaker 8: I think you don't quite understand what electability means. If
Speaker 8: you need a sixty million dollar crutch, you probably can't
Speaker 8: be elected on your own terms.
Speaker 9: My opponent is on these big podcasts, you know, he's
Speaker 9: running a podcast himself. These folks are making fun of
Speaker 9: the way I sound, But yet I sound like the
Speaker 9: people who need help who are talking to me about
Speaker 9: what they need.
Speaker 1: A direct attack on podcasters, Dan, what the fuck? And
Speaker 1: in one of ours? Actually the podcast she was referring
Speaker 1: to there America Dissected one of a cricket podcasts for
Speaker 1: many years. Hasn't been for a couple of years. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that was what Abdual hosted right here on our network
Speaker 1: and podcast about public health for the p Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was going to say that's the It's not really this thing.
Speaker 1: She was trying to make it out to be this
Speaker 1: celebrity podcast, like.
Speaker 2: It's not breaking down Real Housewives of Rhode Island.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a pretty staid podcast about public health
Speaker 1: that's helping inform people about public health. Anyway, it's getting
Speaker 1: even more heated between surrogates, as it often does. Michigan
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Hillary Shulton, who is a Hailey Stephens supporter, was
Speaker 1: asked by Semaphore on Wednesday evening whether she'll support Abdul
Speaker 1: if he wins, and she said, quote, I will not
Speaker 1: stand beside someone who has allowed distinctly anti American sentiment
Speaker 1: to enter our public dialogue. When Abdul came on this podcast,
Speaker 1: Alex Wagner asked him the same question about Stevens. He said,
Speaker 1: I will do everything I can to make sure Mike
Speaker 1: Rodgers never sees the inside of the US Senate Bernie
Speaker 1: Sanders the same night that Hillary Schulton gave that interview,
Speaker 1: was on CNN saying he would support Hailey Stevens if
Speaker 1: she's the winner as well, and just not getting it
Speaker 1: from all of the supporters on Hailey Stephens side.
Speaker 2: But Hailey Stephens herself has said yes, she has never
Speaker 2: being totally fair hair. There are people on the other
Speaker 2: side who feel the same way about Haley Stevens. Because
Speaker 2: here's the thing. If you believe the polls, and we
Speaker 2: only have a small sample size of the poles here,
Speaker 2: Abdul is the most likely Democratic nominee.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Emerson came out. So we've had a lot
Speaker 1: of kind of either internal polls or polls that are
Speaker 1: like not high quality or maybe they're just new pollsters.
Speaker 1: But we had an Emerson poll on Thursday. Emerson's a
Speaker 1: high quality pole and it has a dual up fifteen
Speaker 1: percent over Haley, which does match with some of those
Speaker 1: other poles that we weren't sure about, We're saying.
Speaker 2: And it matches the internal polls that are circulating. Yes,
Speaker 2: so I think that that probably is an accurate picture.
Speaker 2: Where the race stands today four days before the primary,
Speaker 2: and a fairmenum people have voted already.
Speaker 1: In the state.
Speaker 2: But no matter who wins, everyone's gonna have to come
Speaker 2: back together again, and both the winner and the loser
Speaker 2: are going to have to build a bridge to get
Speaker 2: the other side together. Right, Like, if Abdul wins, he
Speaker 2: is going to have to be very magnanimous and very open,
Speaker 2: and he is going to need the support of all
Speaker 2: of the establishment that is supporting Haley Stevens in Michigan,
Speaker 2: Gretchen and Whitmer, Dana Nessel, Debbie Stabinow, Gary Peters, And
Speaker 2: if Haley Stevens were to win, then she is going
Speaker 2: to need the support of the huge grassroots network that
Speaker 2: Abdul has created, the UAW, which is supported Abdul, Like,
Speaker 2: everyone's gonna have to come together here pretty quickly, because
Speaker 2: this is the problem with the late primary is there's
Speaker 2: not a lot of time to mend fences, build a
Speaker 2: coalition and then go win in general election.
Speaker 1: Here's all I'll say about it. It is one thing
Speaker 1: to have supporters on both sides who when the other
Speaker 1: candidate wins are gonna say that they're going to take
Speaker 1: their toys and go home. And that's going to happen.
Speaker 1: But it's there is a difference if it is people
Speaker 1: who are just you know, posting online or you know,
Speaker 1: influencers here and there, podcasters, streamers, whoever it may be,
Speaker 1: there's a difference between those people and elected officials and
Speaker 1: leaders in the Democratic Party. And if you're a leader
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party, you're an elected official. You set
Speaker 1: the example for everyone else to follow. And if random
Speaker 1: person with a couple hundred thousand followers on Twitter is like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not voting for Abduel or I'm not voting for
Speaker 1: Hailey Stevens, whatever, there's nothing we can all do about that.
Speaker 1: You know, we can shame that person, yell at them,
Speaker 1: try to convince them to do whatever you want, but
Speaker 1: like you're going to get that that's just going to
Speaker 1: happen in primaries. We don't have to like amplify that
Speaker 1: a ton because then it'll just cause everything to be worse.
Speaker 1: But elected officials like Hillary Schulton should not have said
Speaker 1: that like that, And there's there's not an elected official
Speaker 1: on Abdul side who has said something similar. There just
Speaker 1: hasn't been And like to Hailey Stevens' credit, she hasn't
Speaker 1: said anything like that. Her other elected officials who are
Speaker 1: supporting out and said that. But like for Hillary Schulton
Speaker 1: to say that is just unbelievably unhelpful, unproductive. And what
Speaker 1: you were saying by telling people that is that if
Speaker 1: Abdul wins the primary, then somehow you'd rather Mike Rogers
Speaker 1: be the Senator. Mike Rogers, who is a Trump supporting
Speaker 1: healthcare cutting, like all of the all of the right
Speaker 1: wing Trump positions, who would vote for a Trump nominated
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. You would rather that person happen
Speaker 1: to win the race and then try hard to go
Speaker 1: out there and make sure that Abdul wins the Senate race.
Speaker 1: And I just think that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it is not it's not constructive. It's maybe
Speaker 2: the nicest way to say.
Speaker 1: It's not constructing. Again, it's like if you are a
Speaker 1: leader in the I mean, we don't tend to endorse
Speaker 1: in races we are in this one because we we
Speaker 1: know Abdul and have worked with him. But like I've
Speaker 1: said from the beginning, Hailey Stevens wins, I am all
Speaker 1: in for Hailey Stevens, and like I don't agree with it,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean I suddenly change my mind and agree
Speaker 1: with her position on Israel. I don't, but like she
Speaker 1: is far in a way better than Mike Rogers, and
Speaker 1: I'm be very comfortable voting for her and supporting her
Speaker 1: and doing whatever I can to make sure she wins.
Speaker 2: You know I would donate. I would if she wins
Speaker 2: the primary on Tuesday night, I will donate to her
Speaker 2: before I breakas on Lee's Day.
Speaker 1: Morton for sure. And you look, people will forget this.
Speaker 1: But like you and I had this conversation a million
Speaker 1: times back on the whole Platinum Mills thing where we're
Speaker 1: like Janet Mills wins this primary, we are all for
Speaker 1: Janet Mills. We'll go up to main and knock on doors,
Speaker 1: right like we are on the team here.
Speaker 2: And did you just get did someone cattle project that
Speaker 2: we hadn't mentioned Platner in this podcast. I was just saying,
Speaker 2: like this is going too well. We haven't engendered any
Speaker 2: hatred just yet.
Speaker 1: Let's I am. I am trying to because I really
Speaker 1: I just I have these we have this primary here
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin and Michigan that this is happening for but
Speaker 1: like we're gonna look ahead, this is gonna happen in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight. I'm trying to practice what we preach,
Speaker 1: set an example, and hope that everyone else in positions
Speaker 1: of influence and leadership in this party does the same thing.
Speaker 1: Because if we turn around and just you either want
Speaker 1: to win or you want to fight right, or you
Speaker 1: want and then you want to be right, so that
Speaker 1: like after someone loses that you didn't want to win,
Speaker 1: you can say, oh see, I was right all along.
Speaker 1: Like is that going to feel more satisfying than having
Speaker 1: a democratic Senate, democratic House, a democratic president. That's something
Speaker 1: you have to ask yourself.
Speaker 2: For people insulated from the consequences of politics, it probably will.
Speaker 2: But for the people Michigan, people of America, absolutely not right.
Speaker 1: So you can post later that like you were right
Speaker 1: all along. And again this goes for We've seen it.
Speaker 1: We've been doing this for ten years. We've seen it
Speaker 1: on both sides. We've seen sore lose it on the
Speaker 1: left and the center left. Anyway, what are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on the on the electability arguments from both sides, because
Speaker 1: I do think in this race it has been tricky
Speaker 1: to figure out to make an electability case, partly because
Speaker 1: I think there's been such a lack of high quality polling.
Speaker 2: It is. There is one poll from the Michigan Education Association,
Speaker 2: a business group that circulated it last week or earlier
Speaker 2: this week that showed Hailey Stevens doing much better against
Speaker 2: Mike Rodgers, beating Mike Rodgers and by fair amount, and
Speaker 2: Abdul losing to Mike Rodgers verma Correctly, I don't know
Speaker 2: if that poll is correct. The Republicans do believe privately
Speaker 2: and publicly that Abdul will be easier to beat than
Speaker 2: Holly Stevens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you look at their real Clear Politics average,
Speaker 1: it has Stevens point five over Rogers and Abdul point
Speaker 1: five over Rogers, exactly the same. And then the basically
Speaker 1: the entire electibility gap comes from that poll that you
Speaker 1: just mentioned. I'm kind of surprised that Emerson didn't pull
Speaker 1: the general. Yes, like they just pulled the primary and
Speaker 1: they didn't give us a fucking general.
Speaker 2: It can come on guys, and similar thing with the
Speaker 2: but we'll get to WISCONSONMENTA. We've seen similar things with
Speaker 2: some poles that could do that. I'm surprised, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: surprised they didn't do that. Like hypothetical general election polling
Speaker 2: is quite flawed, but the people whose job it is
Speaker 2: to win elections on the publican side believe and they
Speaker 2: could be wrong. They absolutely could be wrong. They do,
Speaker 2: and they've spent money to try to do that. There's
Speaker 2: so much money being spent on the Hilly Steven side
Speaker 2: that it hasn't really mattered that much. But they have
Speaker 2: tried to boost Abdul in this race, and so I
Speaker 2: can make an electability argument for both of them. I've
Speaker 2: done it in my newsletter. I think it is theoretical
Speaker 2: self fulfilling bullshit in most cases. The one thing I'd
Speaker 2: say is for Abdul there is he's he. He has
Speaker 2: more statements and more positions in his life. They can
Speaker 2: be demogogue by Republicans, and Hilly Stephens does for sure
Speaker 2: outside of his reas well. I was gonna say that
Speaker 2: the challenge for Hailey Stephens is what makes her a
Speaker 2: moderate in this race is that She is more moderate
Speaker 2: than Abdul on a whole bunch of issues that I
Speaker 2: care for, all abolish ice, but she is you know,
Speaker 2: she voted with Joe Biden I think one hundred percent
Speaker 2: of the time, and so she is more moderate a
Speaker 2: than Abdul, but she's not. This is not Joe Manchin
Speaker 2: or Jared Golden or something like that. What makes her
Speaker 2: out were the one issue where she is not sort
Speaker 2: of swimming with the stream in the Democratic Party right
Speaker 2: now is on Israel.
Speaker 1: She is one of the more foremost or you could
Speaker 1: say the Michigan electorate.
Speaker 2: And that was what That's what I was saying, is
Speaker 2: what the thing that gets lost in the conversation about
Speaker 2: the changing public opinion on Israel is that the biggest
Speaker 2: shift is not Democrats, it's independence. And we have not
Speaker 2: seen Michigan specific polling on that, but I would imagine
Speaker 2: it's at least comparatible to the national polling or more
Speaker 2: stark than that. And so that is a challenge and
Speaker 2: for Abdul to win, like in this Emerson poll, he
Speaker 2: is losing black voters by thirty points. Now, I'm confident
Speaker 2: that most of those black voters would prefer Abdul over
Speaker 2: Mike Rodgers. But you just have to turn them out.
Speaker 2: It's not just that they whether they choose you or
Speaker 2: not or prefer you. And then for Hailey Stevens, the
Speaker 2: heart going to be a very challenging thing to get
Speaker 2: youth turnout in Michigan, a state with huge colleges in
Speaker 2: Lansing and Arbor. When you when you are have the
Speaker 2: position you have on Israel, and your campaign's been bankrolled
Speaker 2: to the tune of like sixty million dollars from a
Speaker 2: pack and so these are challenges for both of them,
Speaker 2: but neither of them win. To go back to original
Speaker 2: point if before, we're not completely unified in this race
Speaker 2: because Mike Rodgers is a very good opponent. This is
Speaker 2: a fifty to fifty state. I think both of them
Speaker 2: can win, but they both have challenges.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. So things are no more pleasant in Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: where Democratic socialist Francesca Houng seems to have the nomination
Speaker 1: for governor wrapped up, despite a last minute attempt by
Speaker 1: the state's Democratic establishment to stop her. She's crushing in
Speaker 1: all the polls. Former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes just dropped
Speaker 1: out a couple hours before we started recording, and David Crowley,
Speaker 1: who quit the race and then re entered the race
Speaker 1: the other week with Governor Ever's endorsement, is still stuck
Speaker 1: around ten to fifteen percent in the polls. A lot
Speaker 1: of Democrats worried about this race with Hang as the nominee,
Speaker 1: based on some pretty fire out there old statements, tweets,
Speaker 1: policy positions. She once called for abolishing the Senate, then
Speaker 1: her campaign said she never did, but the tweet does
Speaker 1: in fact exist. She once called for abolishing prisons and police,
Speaker 1: though now says those aren't her current positions. She even
Speaker 1: had a twenty twenty tweet about abolishing Thanksgiving, calling it
Speaker 1: quote the original super spreader event that killed indigenous folk
Speaker 1: and women folk there spelled folx dan. What do you
Speaker 1: think of Hung's chances?
Speaker 2: Well, if the polls are correct, she is almost certainly
Speaker 2: going to be the Democratic nominee. There have been two
Speaker 2: polls out this week where she is up by more
Speaker 2: than twenty points and has veryhi favorability, So it seems
Speaker 2: like she using to be a Democratic nominee. This is
Speaker 2: a very very hard race. It is she, as you
Speaker 2: point out, is a democratic socialist. Democratic socialists have a
Speaker 2: minus twenty one I think approval rating in Wisconsin minus
Speaker 2: twenty three percent, Democrats of minus twenty one percent, Magas
Speaker 2: of minus nineteen percent. No one's doing great, but so
Speaker 2: Democratic socialism. She has these positions that can be demagogued.
Speaker 2: In addition to Wisconsin, like I just said, I said
Speaker 2: Michigan was a fifty to fifty state. Wisconsin is the
Speaker 2: swing state. It has been decided by want less than
Speaker 2: one point in five of the last seven presidential elections.
Speaker 2: Anne Hong is running to succeed a two term Democratic
Speaker 2: governor in a change election, so she can absolutely win,
Speaker 2: Like this is a you're a fifty to fifty state.
Speaker 2: The political environment based on the Papoleon we just had
Speaker 2: a summer between six to eleven points Democratic, so you
Speaker 2: have some margin for error there. But it's going to
Speaker 2: take some real work and she's going to have to
Speaker 2: be very smart in depth. And everyone I know who
Speaker 2: knows her, Amanda Littman was talking about her with me
Speaker 2: because she's a run for Something candidate when she was
Speaker 2: on this podcast a couple weekends ago, that she is
Speaker 2: incredibly bright. She's obviously ran an incredible primary campaign. She's
Speaker 2: a very good campaigner, and she's going to have to
Speaker 2: run essentially a flawless campaigned and navigate these issues to
Speaker 2: the end. But if she does that, she can win.
Speaker 2: But it's it's hard. It's obviously hard. It was gonna
Speaker 2: be a hard race matter who the nominee is. It's
Speaker 2: probably a little bit harder with her as the nominee.
Speaker 1: Here's one other thing I'd like to see from her,
Speaker 1: and to an extent, Abdul as well, if he ends
Speaker 1: up being the nominee. Like I've said this before, that
Speaker 1: you know you have old tweets. You know woke one
Speaker 1: was crazy and twenty twenty people had a lot of
Speaker 1: crazy tweets, And if you want to disavow them, great.
Speaker 1: I just think there needs to be a little more
Speaker 1: like so. Haung was asked by jmar after the debate
Speaker 1: whether she's.
Speaker 2: Said, Jonathan Martin from political Jonathan Martin, it's hard.
Speaker 1: For those who haven't had their brains broken about politics
Speaker 1: for the last yes so many years, whether she still
Speaker 1: supports the goal, the aspirational goal of abolishing prisons. And
Speaker 1: the answer has got to be just no, just no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't and it was she didn't say she supports it,
Speaker 1: but it was sort of a long winding answer and
Speaker 1: about you know, overincarceration and all these things that are true, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we overincarceerate people, our prisons, the conditions they are terrible.
Speaker 1: We put people in jail for nonviolent crimes that they
Speaker 1: shouldn't be in jail for, right, Like, all of that
Speaker 1: stuff is true. But when someone asks you, do you
Speaker 1: think that we should defund the police? The answer is no,
Speaker 1: do we think do you think that we should abolish prisons? No?
Speaker 1: Do should we abolish police departments?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: Should we abolish borders?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: And what about you said that before? So what was
Speaker 1: that tweet about? I was wrong? I was wrong. I
Speaker 1: tweeted something back then. I have thought about it, and
Speaker 1: you know what, it's wrong. That's it. And like, I
Speaker 1: don't think Abdul has done that well enough on defund
Speaker 1: and I think he can. He needs to fix that
Speaker 1: if he runs the general. And I think certainly she
Speaker 1: has a whole bunch for Jessica Hog of positions like that,
Speaker 1: because and look, and the left will say, well, they
Speaker 1: have very popular positions on healthcare and data centers stuff
Speaker 1: like that, Yes they do, and those positions they don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about as much, and they should spend
Speaker 1: the campaign emphasizing them. But in order for voters to
Speaker 1: hear your positions on those issues, they need to feel
Speaker 1: comfortable that on those other issues, on the group of
Speaker 1: abolish issues. That keeps getting a lot of these DSA
Speaker 1: people in trouble that you just disavowed them and you've
Speaker 1: changed your mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. You have to be very you
Speaker 2: have to look, you have to reckon with the reality
Speaker 2: of the race you're running. If you are running in
Speaker 2: a district that Kamala Harris won by fifty points in
Speaker 2: Manhattan or Colorado, that's one world. If you're running statewide
Speaker 2: in Michigan or Wisconsin, that is a very different world
Speaker 2: than You're going to have to be very clear and
Speaker 2: that your primary win, you know, if the polls are correct,
Speaker 2: both of their primary win is going to be incredibly impressive.
Speaker 2: But that tells you very little about how you're going
Speaker 2: to do in the general and the new and the
Speaker 2: whole set of voters you're now going to have to
Speaker 2: go persuade, and then it's going to require a shift
Speaker 2: in strategy. H a change in not a change in
Speaker 2: like what you actually believe are your values. But how
Speaker 2: you talk, But how you talk you have to be.
Speaker 2: You have to think that now I have to persuade
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of people who disagree with me on
Speaker 2: a lot of things to support me. And what you
Speaker 2: can do that by ampasizing the things they do agree
Speaker 2: with you on, like healthcare being a human right, universal
Speaker 2: health care in whatever form you're choosing to be, in
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff that data centers, a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff at statewide for Francesca hang in about education in Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: like that can work, but you do there are some
Speaker 2: barriers you have to get over, and you're going tens
Speaker 2: of millions of dollars will be spent throwing your old positions,
Speaker 2: your old statements, your old tweets in your face on
Speaker 2: a daily basis, and you're going to have to do
Speaker 2: what Kamala Harris was unwilling to do in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: which is explicitly go out and say clearly and repeatedly,
Speaker 2: I would change my mind.
Speaker 1: Here's why. Yeah, because here's what doesn't work. Just trying
Speaker 1: to change the issue again because you don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about healthcare and no, doesn't work. Doesn't work. People
Speaker 1: can read, they can see the positions, they will watch
Speaker 1: the videotape of you saying whatever, they will read the
Speaker 1: old tweets, and there needs to be video of you
Speaker 1: out there giving an explanation. And I don't want to
Speaker 1: hear that the ex because we hear this in the
Speaker 1: fuck from the Harris campaign that it didn't test well.
Speaker 1: None of the responses tested well. Of course they're not
Speaker 1: going to test well. You're responding to something that is
Speaker 1: unbelievably unpopular, so it's not going to test well. It's
Speaker 1: just something that you have to say.
Speaker 2: Abdill got this question on CNN. He refewed he would
Speaker 2: not say he know our support to fund place. He
Speaker 2: said a bunch of words that I think he thought
Speaker 2: in his head added up to that, but it was
Speaker 2: not clear and basically seemed like he refused to answer
Speaker 2: whether he still supported it. You knew who was very
Speaker 2: clear about this, zoraon Mumdani when he was running.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, like, if you don't
Speaker 1: want to listen to us because we're a bunch of
Speaker 1: fucking centrist Neil Obama shills, like go just watch some
Speaker 1: tape of AOC and Zora Mumdani. Right, the heroes of
Speaker 1: the left. Just watch watch the tape and you'll see
Speaker 1: that they exactly what you just said, that they know
Speaker 1: exactly how to talk about this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just they asked you still support and he
Speaker 2: said no. And that was New York City, not Michigan.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, it's good, easier for him there than it's
Speaker 1: going to be in Michigan in Wisconsin, for sure.
Speaker 5: There's a new show from the Guardian called Stateside with
Speaker 5: Kai and Carter. The idea is pretty simple. Slow things down,
Speaker 5: focus on one story, ask the questions you're probably already
Speaker 5: yelling at your phone, and by the end actually feel
Speaker 5: like you understand what's going on. They're digging into everything
Speaker 5: from authoritarianism to the rise of people dating AI chatbots.
Speaker 5: No fluff, no pretending everything is fine, just smart conversations
Speaker 5: and sharp reporting. The show pulls from The Guardian's Global newsroom,
Speaker 5: so you're getting covered across politics, culture, a climate and more,
Speaker 5: plus conversations with big thinkers and newsmakers. Join Kai Write
Speaker 5: and Carter Sherman three times a week as they try
Speaker 5: to make sense of all this. New episodes drop every Monday,
Speaker 5: Wednesday and Friday. You can watch on YouTube or listen
Speaker 5: wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Okay, one last piece of bad news on the midterms
Speaker 1: before we get to some other bad news. Elon Musk
Speaker 1: says he's going to spend at least one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1: Elon's back. He's got one hundred million dollars that he's
Speaker 1: going to spend to help Republican candidates in the fall.
Speaker 1: So much for starting that third party. How big of
Speaker 1: a deal do you think this is?
Speaker 2: I think this is fucking great. Probably have such a
Speaker 2: financial advantage that one hundred million dollars. It's basically like
Speaker 2: spitting in the ocean at this point.
Speaker 1: Honestly, what we need. That was my first instinct. But
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you think that too.
Speaker 2: Like that all the world's richest man is going to
Speaker 2: spend one hundred million dollars like he could put it.
Speaker 2: He could put five billion dollars in if he wanted,
Speaker 2: and it would be nothing to him. Let's make Elon
Speaker 2: must the face of a lot of these Republicans. He's
Speaker 2: incredibly unpopular. It allows you to talk about dough, She
Speaker 2: allows you to talk about AI, which we're about to
Speaker 2: get to it allows you to talk about big tech.
Speaker 2: It is like corruption everything else, Like, well, put him
Speaker 2: front and center.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, speaking of AI. A couple of these candidates,
Speaker 1: in particular Francesca Hong, have made opposition to AI data
Speaker 1: centers a focal point of their campaigns, and this week
Speaker 1: it was really easy to understand why putting limits on
Speaker 1: the AI industry is so appealing to people. As some
Speaker 1: of you may have seen or heard, a new model
Speaker 1: from open ai escaped it's so called sandbox. What's a sandbox?
Speaker 1: While that's basically a lockdown server with no Internet where
Speaker 1: it was undergoing testing and secretly escaped the sandbox reached
Speaker 1: the Internet and hacked into a separate AI platform called
Speaker 1: hugging Face in order to score better on a cybersecurity evaluation.
Speaker 1: Open Ai CEO Sam Altman said it was quote the
Speaker 1: first security incident that I have felt very viscerally good.
Speaker 1: I'm glad.
Speaker 2: Can I say one thing about that that is the
Speaker 2: scariest thing of that is the AI model left notes
Speaker 2: in the server to itself because they thought it would
Speaker 2: be destroyed after this. Basically like, here's how I did it,
Speaker 2: so future versions of me can do this, and I
Speaker 2: saw someone say that if this AI agent was a person,
Speaker 2: they would have been convicted of many, many crimes.
Speaker 1: I'm sure, yeah, but not Sam. Sam just felt it
Speaker 1: very viscerally. He seems to be moving toward favoring some
Speaker 1: kind of centralized controls on AI development, kind of slowly,
Speaker 1: as do Trump. The founders of Anthropic and more than
Speaker 1: a thousand employees of those companies who signed an open
Speaker 1: letter this week the State, but not Mark Zuckerberg. But
Speaker 1: not Mark Zuckerberg, that little fuck who's out there being like, oh,
Speaker 1: all these guys want centralized control, and I just want
Speaker 1: everyone to have their own AI, and I want everyone
Speaker 1: to be free to have their own private, personalized AI,
Speaker 1: because I'm for that freedom, and they're for central control.
Speaker 1: Because all the fucking people that Meta has hired on
Speaker 1: their payroll, Democrats and Republicans to like run their pr
Speaker 1: campaign on AI, realized that the advantage that they could
Speaker 1: have is to paint Anthropic and open AI and all
Speaker 1: the rest of them is this centralized control. And then
Speaker 1: Meta just wants everyone to be free and have their
Speaker 1: own AI. Well, everyone having their own AI that isn't
Speaker 1: tested and that can just run and do whatever the
Speaker 1: fuck it wants. Isn't freedom, It's fucking anarchy.
Speaker 2: Not great.
Speaker 1: That's my Mark Sockerberg thing. I cannot stand him. So
Speaker 1: the statement, I was like all excited that all these employees,
Speaker 1: including meta open AI anthropics, signed this letter. The statement
Speaker 1: in the letter is, we request that the US government
Speaker 1: support an international effort to develop the technical and governance
Speaker 1: tools needed to deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development.
Speaker 2: Whoo, it's an impossible thing to do. Like the other
Speaker 2: people making AI are the Chinese. Trump and a national
Speaker 2: tale Vice address like three weeks ago to accuse him
Speaker 2: of interfering in our election.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whatever happened with that? Altman himself went to Capitol
Speaker 1: Hill this week to meet and have a fancy dinner
Speaker 1: with concerned senators who probably had no idea what was
Speaker 1: going on, which is all well and good, except that
Speaker 1: what the public keeps hearing from the AI bros is
Speaker 1: shit like this.
Speaker 7: Well, we need to explain the world. Number one, we
Speaker 7: are close to creating the genie that can grant any wish.
Speaker 7: Number two, we are going to make sure that our
Speaker 7: first wishes broadly benefit humanity. We are now like in
Speaker 7: this singularity, like this is the moment from the last
Speaker 7: ten years ago.
Speaker 10: This was like a kind of far off dream. At best,
Speaker 10: it seemed very improbable. And now we're like actually in
Speaker 10: the moment that we used to like talk about at
Speaker 10: the lunch table in a very not serious way.
Speaker 5: I think there's still a ten to twenty percent chance
Speaker 5: that killer robots mean the end of humanity.
Speaker 1: That's a high p doo. As they say, well, in
Speaker 1: the long run, we're all dead, of course. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: the long run we're all dead, of course, good pointing one,
Speaker 1: But how about the short run? Can we not be
Speaker 1: dead in the short run too?
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the point. If you're gonna be dead
Speaker 2: in the long run while you're worrying about the short run.
Speaker 1: You've been thinking about this one for a while. Uh,
Speaker 1: what should democrats be doing? Insane about this because it
Speaker 1: seems like no one is running this rodeo here.
Speaker 2: AI is the technological, economic, cultural, sociological health issue of
Speaker 2: our time. It threatens to change everything about how we live,
Speaker 2: and it is something that people have a growing fear
Speaker 2: and concern about, and it is in a credibly polarized world.
Speaker 2: There is a complete jump ball between the parties. The
Speaker 2: most recent pupil ask people in a battery of issues
Speaker 2: which party they trusted more. Twenty three percent trusted Republicans,
Speaker 2: twenty two percent trusted Democrats, and fifty one percent said
Speaker 2: neither party. People are crying out for leadership in our
Speaker 2: calcified politics. This is the one opportunity to completely reshape
Speaker 2: how people think about the party if one party can
Speaker 2: step up, take a leadership role here, stand up, be
Speaker 2: strong about the risks here, have an actual vision for
Speaker 2: how you regulate it, for how you deal with data centers,
Speaker 2: how you pay for this, how you protect people from
Speaker 2: the economics and social downsides of this. Like this is
Speaker 2: this is the issue Democrats have been There are exceptions,
Speaker 2: but Democrats have been largely silent or sort of nebulous
Speaker 2: about our position on it. That's for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 2: One is we have a lot of old Democrats, like
Speaker 2: I don't know if you saw the interview that Jim
Speaker 2: Clyburn did with sted Herndon on his podcast where he
Speaker 2: found he admitted he found outbout Chuchibt last week. This
Speaker 2: is one of the most prominent Democrats in the House.
Speaker 2: And another reason is a lot of candidates are very
Speaker 2: worried about the highly funded AI super PACs coming in
Speaker 2: and dumping a whole bunch of money against them, like
Speaker 2: they did to Alex Boris at the House race primary
Speaker 2: in New York. And the third reason is on data centers.
Speaker 2: There are complicated politics for some Democrats because while two
Speaker 2: thirds of the public does not want a data center
Speaker 2: in their community, labor unions and particularly the building trades
Speaker 2: very much want to be building data centers. The reason
Speaker 2: this is a huge opportunity and a necessity for Democrats
Speaker 2: is one, it is the issue when you should be
Speaker 2: talking about the issue. Two, it is an amazing point
Speaker 2: of contrast with Trump and the Republicans because Donald Trump's
Speaker 2: fall if he is to let the AI bros As
Speaker 2: you call them, who have given Trump millions and millions
Speaker 2: of dollars to him, both politically and personally, do whatever
Speaker 2: they want. Their philosophy has let AI cook and he
Speaker 2: wants to build a data center on every corner. Just
Speaker 2: the report in the New York Times this week that
Speaker 2: he wants to give federal land for the to use
Speaker 2: repurpose federal land for the construction of data centers like
Speaker 2: we could be the smart, authentic passionate populist voice here
Speaker 2: arguing for a sensible solution, and we just that has
Speaker 2: on happened. I hope this is a I hope this
Speaker 2: has talked about it in every twenty twenty eight debate.
Speaker 2: Hope this has talked about all the time, like this
Speaker 2: is the thing, and that we have an opportunity and
Speaker 2: an obligational lead, and we have not done it yet.
Speaker 1: Here's the other tricky dynamic that we have watched unfold
Speaker 1: since the beginning of this debate is when people raise
Speaker 1: their voices, whether it's the the people who run these
Speaker 1: AI companies themselves or the people who work there, or
Speaker 1: experts or politicians or whatever it may be, and say,
Speaker 1: slow down, be careful. We got to put some guardrails
Speaker 1: on the inevitable answer you get from people who want
Speaker 1: to just keep going as fast as possible is, but China,
Speaker 1: and we can't lose the AI race because we don't
Speaker 1: want If we slow down, China won't slow down, and
Speaker 1: then they'll have all the advanced AI and then we
Speaker 1: won't have it, and then they will dominate, you know, militarily, economically,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. And I think democrats have to
Speaker 1: figure out how to grapple with that, because I've heard
Speaker 1: some Democrats who are more favorable towards AI make that argument,
Speaker 1: some of the more like national security minded, centrist minded democrats.
Speaker 1: And I mean, you mentioned the AI packs and all
Speaker 1: the other things, but I do think there's a genuine
Speaker 1: belief among some people who are like you know, have
Speaker 1: the best motivations, that they're just like worried about China,
Speaker 1: which is and I think that the only way that
Speaker 1: we're actually going to not kill each other with these
Speaker 1: things these have the robots kill us all is for
Speaker 1: like an international effort here, an international diplomacy, which we're
Speaker 1: not going to have with this president at all. But
Speaker 1: I do think like there is no way you're going
Speaker 1: to be able to transition to this AI era without
Speaker 1: like real strong diplomacy and some kind of international framework
Speaker 1: on this, because otherwise, every time someone tries to stop
Speaker 1: AI here or slow it down, the industry and other
Speaker 1: people are just going to say, no, no, you can't do that,
Speaker 1: because China is just going to raise ahead you.
Speaker 2: Obviously AI is happening. It is like the genie that
Speaker 2: Sad Moment said, we can make is out the model
Speaker 2: and you have to, but you have to find a
Speaker 2: way to do it in a way that is safe,
Speaker 2: that where there's actual, real thinking about the policy consequences
Speaker 2: that are other than just the use of the energy costs.
Speaker 2: How is that being paid for? Because that's the big
Speaker 2: thing that these data centers is jacking up electricity prices
Speaker 2: everywhere with the environmental consequences of that, and perhaps probably
Speaker 2: most importantly or most relevant a lot of people, what
Speaker 2: are we doing for the lots of people who could
Speaker 2: lose their jobs because of this?
Speaker 1: Like that? We are could?
Speaker 2: We are fait?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean well we are we are fit this. We're
Speaker 2: at a situation now where we saw what happened with
Speaker 2: globalization and automation that sounds like rock Obama right now,
Speaker 2: but in the eighties, and what that did to huge
Speaker 2: parts of the country, to entire classes of people. There
Speaker 2: is we see it coming. It's going to be a
Speaker 2: different class of people this time, and how do we
Speaker 2: prepare for that? What can we do? And obviously the
Speaker 2: real sick irony here is we can't teach them to code,
Speaker 2: because that's his AI's taken that we have to teach
Speaker 2: the people to code to do something else. I guess,
Speaker 2: but there is like this is just a.
Speaker 1: We see it.
Speaker 2: Coming and we should be prepared possumptively. But politically, there's
Speaker 2: just this massive opportunity and obligation for Democrats. And I
Speaker 2: really hope that there is a twenty twenty eight candidate
Speaker 2: or candidates who take a real leadership role here.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's already here the job situation, because even
Speaker 1: if you're not seeing it in layoffs in a significant way,
Speaker 1: employment among young people in AI related industries or industries
Speaker 1: that AI could effect is already down fourteen to twenty
Speaker 1: percent over the last couple of years. And this is
Speaker 1: just the beginning. We're just getting going here, and it's
Speaker 1: going to get so much worse. And I also think
Speaker 1: that data centers aside, Like there's a whole conversation we
Speaker 1: had about data centers and everything you said, I agree
Speaker 1: with there, but the safety of these models, like there
Speaker 1: has to be regulation on. We can't just say like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, that one got out of the sandbox. And
Speaker 1: I really felt that one viscerally, and next time we're
Speaker 1: going to fix that. Like I mean, ted Lu has
Speaker 1: an AI kill switch bill, but that he introduced that
Speaker 1: a bunch of people signed on to that would require
Speaker 1: developers to have a means of shutting down their models.
Speaker 1: Of course, the industry doesn't support that for some reason.
Speaker 1: I think like Foon and Cruise and klobash Aar and
Speaker 1: can't well are working on in a frontier AI bill.
Speaker 1: But like so much of this shit is like voluntary
Speaker 1: regulation and all this kind of stuff, like you cannot
Speaker 1: have these models go out to market that are this
Speaker 1: powerful if they're not adequately tested that they're safe. I
Speaker 1: mean that is like that's more important than anything else,
Speaker 1: because that's that's that's like lights out for everyone. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Is there a is there a hopeful way to end this?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 5: John?
Speaker 1: But also but look, we're all here's the thing, Dan,
Speaker 1: we're in the singularity now, the thing that Sam Altmon
Speaker 1: was just talking about, uh, you know, at the lunch table,
Speaker 1: and now we're here. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: in the singularity. The Michigan primaries Tuesday and Wisconsin's the
Speaker 1: next Tuesday. Things are things are looking up.
Speaker 2: Do you think I think the flaw on Sam Altman's
Speaker 2: genie argument is do you think they've accounted for the
Speaker 2: fact that the only smart thing to do if you
Speaker 2: get a genie with three wishes? Is you ask for
Speaker 2: unlimited wishes with your first wish?
Speaker 1: I've heard someone else actually make that say that about Ai,
Speaker 1: that it's the it's unlimited wishes.
Speaker 2: That it's like, Wow, it's not because the fucking tokens
Speaker 2: are quite expensive. So I think it's that onlimittered, Yeah,
Speaker 2: give me some freakive, give some tokens in every pot,
Speaker 2: Sam looking nice?
Speaker 1: Is a jen enough water and electricity to power a
Speaker 1: small town? Just for being like, hey chat, what should
Speaker 1: I do tonight? Hey Chat? Why am I feeling sad?
Speaker 1: That's just that's a whole town right there. Uh, that's
Speaker 1: our show for today.
Speaker 9: Love.
Speaker 1: It will be back in the feed on Sunday with
Speaker 1: the Bulwarks Jonathan b Last, Have a good weekend, everyone
Speaker 1: by everyone Pod Dave America is a Crooked Media production.
Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saal Ruben, McKenna
Speaker 1: Roberts and Faris Safari with re Jerlin, Elijah Cone and
Speaker 1: Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt de Grote, Ben Hefcote,
Speaker 1: Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol pell Avive, David Toles, Mia Kelman,
Speaker 1: Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is probably unionized
Speaker 1: with the Writers Guild of America East