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Speaker 3: Welcome top plid, Save America.
Speaker 2: I'm John Fabr, I'm John Lovett, Tommy Veetor.
Speaker 3: On today's show, the Iron ceasefire officially expires, just in
Speaker 3: time for Iran to potentially escalate the war. We'll talk
Speaker 3: about Trump's strategy of doing nothing, his decision to take
Speaker 3: out his frustration on South Korea, and his reaction to
Speaker 3: John Ossof saying that all the President wants to do
Speaker 3: is quote, travel with Natalie. We'll also check in on
Speaker 3: the Senate map, specifically why Mary Paultola rejected Kamala Harris's endorsement,
Speaker 3: and whether a stolen pen might help flip Texas. Then
Speaker 3: Tommy talks to Brian Poindexter, the union iron worker taking
Speaker 3: on Max Miller in Ohio. Before we start, just a
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Speaker 3: the news. August seventeenth is love its birthday and wow
Speaker 3: and the day that the MoU of Versailles officially died.
Speaker 2: Happy fiftieth man, boy, Yes it's a big one.
Speaker 3: You do look a day over forty?
Speaker 4: Ye oh nice?
Speaker 2: Thank you guys.
Speaker 4: This lighthearted ribbing, that's what friendship's all about. Here on
Speaker 4: my birthday.
Speaker 3: Now it's going to be in the history books.
Speaker 4: I had a cupcake over the sink this morning before
Speaker 4: coming into work.
Speaker 2: Why'd you do that? Because it's Monday?
Speaker 3: And it's your birthday.
Speaker 2: I bring it in what I put a candle on it. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's nice.
Speaker 3: It was already there at least singing as well, or
Speaker 3: just you.
Speaker 4: My friends brought over a cupcakes yesterday.
Speaker 2: I just dated.
Speaker 4: I left everyone on the sink in a shameful way
Speaker 4: to celebrate the day.
Speaker 2: That's all. Nothing wrong with that, Nothing wrong with that
Speaker 2: at all. It's tasty.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, happy birthday, thank you. The uh so, the
Speaker 3: the MoU died, but it never really lived. The sixty
Speaker 3: day ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran wasn't much
Speaker 3: of a ceasefire. In fact, five Americans were killed during
Speaker 3: that time, and it led to zero diplomatic progress on
Speaker 3: opening the straight of horror moves or the fate of
Speaker 3: Iran's nuclear program. The Wall Street Journal has a big
Speaker 3: story about how intercepted communications show that Iran actually used
Speaker 3: the last two months to prepare for a bigger, longer war,
Speaker 3: including churning out more missiles and drones. Trump has used
Speaker 3: the period to pretend the war wasn't happening, and on Monday,
Speaker 3: he said that he's not in a hurry to end it,
Speaker 3: that Iran should raise quote the white flag of surrender,
Speaker 3: and he told Fox News that he's considering quote bombing
Speaker 3: the shit out of Oman if they get in the way.
Speaker 3: He expanded on all this during a press avail in
Speaker 3: the Oval on Monday last week.
Speaker 4: You said that you would soon declare the Straight of
Speaker 4: Horror Moves to be a territory of the United States.
Speaker 5: Could you elaborate, WELLY.
Speaker 6: Think it's a great idea. Yeah, I mean it. We
Speaker 6: control it with the blockade. We have a blockade. We
Speaker 6: control it with the blockade, and I like the idea
Speaker 6: of declaring in a territory. We have total control over
Speaker 6: the street. Now they can be a nuisance, They can
Speaker 6: put a mine in the water, and people don't like
Speaker 6: having mindset. They have billion dollar ships.
Speaker 7: You know this morning you said you would bomb the
Speaker 7: ass out of Oman if they got in the way
Speaker 7: of reopening the Straight of Horror Moves.
Speaker 2: Would you say you're out of patience with Oman?
Speaker 6: A strategic behaved very well, But we handle them very easily, just.
Speaker 2: Like we do others.
Speaker 3: Correct me if I'm wrong here. Didn't didn't The MoU
Speaker 3: sort of set out that Oman was going to help
Speaker 3: mediate talks with Iran about opening the straight.
Speaker 1: I think Gatar was the mediator, but oman is who
Speaker 1: he The Iranians and Omani's have been negotiating a deal
Speaker 1: where they basically control the straight up hor moves and
Speaker 1: charge fees. So apparently that's why he is mad at them.
Speaker 3: Weren't they were? Are we? Are we allies with them
Speaker 3: in some ways?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: We don't.
Speaker 2: We shouldn't be bombing them, that's all.
Speaker 3: That's what I was wondering.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, we don't want to bomb them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're sort of you know, oman Is Likeugh, we
Speaker 4: can't deal with these despotic, irrational, religious authoritarian zealots, so
Speaker 4: we'll have to just deal with Iran instead.
Speaker 3: So I think most of us had forgotten that the
Speaker 3: MoU even existed. It seems like there's a pretty concerning
Speaker 3: gap between Iran strategic thinking and what an Atlantic piece
Speaker 3: the other day called Trump's new strategy of nothing. Tell
Speaker 3: me what do you think about where we are right now?
Speaker 1: That journal piece was interesting because it it just got
Speaker 1: at the fact that the Iranians had a strategy, they
Speaker 1: had a plan for those two months. They don't trust Trump.
Speaker 1: They don't trust him for good reason, because he pulled
Speaker 1: out the JCPOA and because the US and Israel kept
Speaker 1: bombing them during talks, so they installed a bunch of hardliners,
Speaker 1: increased their military capacity, had conversations with the proxy groups,
Speaker 1: and prepared them for more fighting while we did fuck
Speaker 1: all there is. So Trump just has no path forward,
Speaker 1: like he knows if he restarts the war it'll cost
Speaker 1: him politically.
Speaker 2: There's no way to bomb your way to victory here.
Speaker 1: He is completely stuck, so he just does these press
Speaker 1: of ails where they get increasingly ridiculous, like now we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna declare it a US territory like the
Speaker 1: Gulf of America.
Speaker 2: We're back to that kind of path for.
Speaker 3: It, and as a way to pretend that we control
Speaker 3: it when we don't. It's just like, it's also interesting
Speaker 3: that he always he talks about the naval blockade as
Speaker 3: if that's what keeps is keeping the straight open, even
Speaker 3: though the strait is not open and we don't control it.
Speaker 3: But he's somehow, he's somehow trying to confuse people by
Speaker 3: saying that the naval blockade that we have overran is
Speaker 3: what it means that we control this straight.
Speaker 4: He just doesn't want to deal with it. He doesn't
Speaker 4: want to deal with it because he doesn't like there's
Speaker 4: no there. He doesn't like his options. He doesn't like
Speaker 4: the option of escalation. He doesn't like the option of
Speaker 4: accepting a deal that's worse than the Obama era deal,
Speaker 4: if that's even on the table at this point. So
Speaker 4: he just wants everyone to stop talking about it, and
Speaker 4: when it comes up, oh that we're in control of
Speaker 4: it and we won and it's good and they lost
Speaker 4: and they're crazy, but we'll see, and then on to
Speaker 4: the next topic. Like there's no strategy. He just doesn't
Speaker 4: want to deal with it, wants to focus on the ballroom.
Speaker 3: I thought the Journal story was interesting too, because I
Speaker 3: think we've been talking for a while about how this
Speaker 3: could just end up being like, you know, aorn just
Speaker 3: keeps controlling the straight and we'd all just kind of
Speaker 3: muddle along and Trump doesn't know what to do. But
Speaker 3: it sounds like they like they were talking about the
Speaker 3: various ways they could escalate the war and what they're
Speaker 3: thinking about preemptive strikes, sabotage of undersea internet cables in
Speaker 3: the Gulf, stirring unrest in Kuwait and Bahrain, and possibly
Speaker 3: ground operations in Kuwait.
Speaker 1: What the Iranians want to avoid as a scenario where
Speaker 1: every six to twelve months the US or Israel bombs them,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's regime change, decapitation strikes, you know,
Speaker 1: hitting their missile sites, hitting their oil and gas infrastructure.
Speaker 1: They want to increase the cost so that the US
Speaker 1: and Israel think twice about doing this. And the strategy
Speaker 1: they've hit on for doing that has been pretty smart,
Speaker 1: which is bombing all these US military installations in countries
Speaker 1: like Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and increasing the cost
Speaker 1: not only for US, but for those other countries and
Speaker 1: the Gulf. And you know, they've executed it pretty well and.
Speaker 2: It seems to have been pretty effective.
Speaker 1: And so you're seeing like the Amoradis seem to be
Speaker 1: cutting side deals with the Iranians to create an off ramp,
Speaker 1: and I think others are pretty soon going to be
Speaker 1: looking to do the same thing because like they don't
Speaker 1: want to, they don't want to NonStop constant war.
Speaker 3: I mean a Tayaran defense analysts close to the government
Speaker 3: the regime in Iran told the journal that the main
Speaker 3: war in the Iranian view has not yet begun, so
Speaker 3: that's that's something to look forward to.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 4: The other the other part of it too is having
Speaker 4: US bases, having the US military present was meant to
Speaker 4: be kind of a bulwark or defense, like look at
Speaker 4: how look at the security provided by Americans being on
Speaker 4: on our soil. But now it's been the opposite. It's
Speaker 4: drying all these attacks and then you know, oh, but
Speaker 4: the US is our partner, but it's an completely unreliable
Speaker 4: partner Oman we have trade agreement with and we're threatening
Speaker 4: to bomb them off the face of the earth.
Speaker 3: So the reasons we can't quite understand.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the only I understand why why Iran would want
Speaker 4: to signal that they'd be willing to escalate. But I
Speaker 4: can't imagine they're particularly unhappy with a status quo that
Speaker 4: looks like this either.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think is to terns. I think
Speaker 1: they're prime to prevent gett attacked again.
Speaker 3: But like we just to.
Speaker 1: Remember, the Iran Iraq war lasted for eight years and
Speaker 1: it was like grueling in you know, millions Somemoi people died.
Speaker 1: And the Iranians they live there, that's where their country
Speaker 1: is located. It's on the straight of four moves. Like
Speaker 1: they know that Trump is going to give up and
Speaker 1: move on and get distracted and do something else, and
Speaker 1: they're not going to and so that's just, you know,
Speaker 1: they think they're planning for time.
Speaker 3: Well, here's one thing that's distracting him. The biggest news
Speaker 3: out of the Oval Office event was Trump confirming that
Speaker 3: he ordered the Pentagon to scale back joint military exercises
Speaker 3: with South Korea, which were scheduled to start on Monday.
Speaker 3: In a truth social post on Sunday, Trump said he
Speaker 3: thought the exercises were too expensive and a danger to
Speaker 3: quote his very good relationship with Kim Jong un. In
Speaker 3: the Oval on Monday, he hinted that he's spoken to
Speaker 3: Kim in the last couple of days and made it
Speaker 3: clear why he's really pissed at South Korea.
Speaker 6: When I called recent the president of South Korea, who
Speaker 6: I like. I think he's very nice actually, but I
Speaker 6: called him, I said, would you like to give us
Speaker 6: a little hand. We don't need help with Ran, but
Speaker 6: if you'd like give us a head with Arran. He
Speaker 6: said no, thanks, And I said, we have thirty nine
Speaker 6: thousand soldiers over there guarding you from Kim Jong un,
Speaker 6: your next door neighbor, and you're not going to help
Speaker 6: us on a very easy military operation in Iran. We
Speaker 6: can't go around and protect all of these countries, especially
Speaker 6: when they're not there to help us.
Speaker 3: Tommy, can you explain what's going on with what the
Speaker 3: joint exercises and whether this is a big deal.
Speaker 1: So we have a lot of troops on the Korean
Speaker 1: peninsula is twenty eighty five hundred, and I've had a
Speaker 1: mutual defense treaty in place with the Korean since like
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, and so we do these annual exercises.
Speaker 1: Actually two is one in the spring and the one
Speaker 1: in the late summer.
Speaker 2: And they are basically drills to deal with the threat
Speaker 2: from North Korea.
Speaker 1: And they've been described to me by experts is actually
Speaker 1: pretty important because there's a lot of turnover, especially in
Speaker 1: the South Korean military, and so you need to have
Speaker 1: people like have some experience doing these things. And also
Speaker 1: battlefield tactics are constantly changing. The North Koreans just sent
Speaker 1: a bunch of troops to the front in Ukraine to
Speaker 1: fight on behalf of Russia, and so they're learning how
Speaker 1: to use drones and electronic warfare and all these sort
Speaker 1: of modern systems and tools that you need to just understand.
Speaker 1: So the North Koreans, understandably, I think, hate these drills
Speaker 1: because they view it as a pretext to some sort
Speaker 1: of invasion of their country. And that's kind of been
Speaker 1: the status quo. And so something triggered Trump over the weekend.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it was, because he tweeted a
Speaker 1: photo of himself with Kim Jong un out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: as one does, and then the next day he said
Speaker 1: he put out this post about wanting to scale down
Speaker 1: the exercises, but put out the statement like, as the
Speaker 1: exercises were about to start, so to the extent you're
Speaker 1: scaling them down, I don't think you're saving a lot
Speaker 1: of money, because like the military hardware is going to
Speaker 1: be in place. The message, as you said, was basically like,
Speaker 1: if you won't help us with our little non proliferation problem,
Speaker 1: we won't help you with your little nuclear weapons problem
Speaker 1: on the Korean peninsula. I don't think that is a
Speaker 1: particularly rational way forward, but it's you know, Trump, and
Speaker 1: it's filled with peak. He also said that the North
Speaker 1: Koreans had been respectful. They're unthreatening and respectful. This came
Speaker 1: a couple of days after the North Koreans fired a
Speaker 1: ballistic missile off into the ocean.
Speaker 3: Like a second test in under a week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they've done like like I think eleven or sixteen
Speaker 1: of them this year. So it's you know, not the
Speaker 1: most respectful move. And Kim Jungun's position when it comes
Speaker 1: to resuming talks with the United States with Trump is
Speaker 1: that we first have to recognize them as a nuclear state.
Speaker 1: So that's a pretty strident position in my view. So again,
Speaker 1: I think it's like a combination of this old hobby
Speaker 1: horse where he doesn't know why we you know, have
Speaker 1: troops in the Korean peninsula.
Speaker 2: It doesn't think it's worth the cost. Plus, he's bitchy.
Speaker 1: That's South Korea didn't help us with this stupid war
Speaker 1: with Iran, and now maybe it's an effort to get
Speaker 1: diplomacy going with the North Koreans, although I don't know why.
Speaker 1: He also said in that oval that Kim had gotten
Speaker 1: back to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah he did.
Speaker 1: Applied, He finally did out right, Yes, but he did
Speaker 1: one of these little teasing pauses.
Speaker 4: First, right, Yeah, like it's very well, they won't they
Speaker 4: talk about like, you know, Iran has some kind of
Speaker 4: a strategy like the US has now involved itself in
Speaker 4: this newest quagmire in the Middle East. If the president
Speaker 4: were focused on the US and its long term strategic
Speaker 4: imperatives and that was his main goal and all that
Speaker 4: was on his mind was the good of the country
Speaker 4: over over time and our allies, you might want to
Speaker 4: signal something like what is happening in the Middle East
Speaker 4: has absolutely no bearing on our ability to protect our
Speaker 4: allies in Asia, right that that we are able to
Speaker 4: wage whatever war we're waging against Iran while maintaining protection
Speaker 4: for South Korea, while protecting Taiwan, while continuing to kind
Speaker 4: of perform the role that the US performs as a
Speaker 4: kind of defense against sort of Chinese aggression. Like that,
Speaker 4: that would be something that a traditional foreign policy of
Speaker 4: either administration would signal, right, But instead he's like, because
Speaker 4: of the war in Iran, our relationship with South Korea
Speaker 4: is worse than ever. We are less likely to protect them,
Speaker 4: right and oh, because we got this ship out there
Speaker 4: for so long, We're gonna take another ship that's in
Speaker 4: the Pacific and we're gonna send that over to Iran
Speaker 4: because we actually are going to tie these two conflicts
Speaker 4: together that makes us weaker in both places. Terrific.
Speaker 2: I think that's great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I don't want any more microchips from Taiwan anyway.
Speaker 3: I'm all set so poor.
Speaker 1: The Koreans are suffering because of the war, and Iran
Speaker 1: because they get like sixty seventy percent of their oil
Speaker 1: through the straight of horm moves. So we're screwing over
Speaker 1: all these countries in Asia to begin with.
Speaker 3: It's also like, how could you not help us in
Speaker 3: this war that we decided.
Speaker 2: To launch on our own without telling you.
Speaker 3: Without telling you, for no good reason, that has accomplished
Speaker 3: absolutely nothing, but has hurt the rest of the world.
Speaker 4: Especially and by the way, where I said even in
Speaker 4: this sentence, we don't need your help, it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: Korea is coming over for dinner, and like Trump's like,
Speaker 4: you don't need to bring a thing. Where's the fucking wine.
Speaker 3: So, as you mentioned, the Navy pulled its last carrier
Speaker 3: out of Asia to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln, which
Speaker 3: he was also asked about in the Oval. This is
Speaker 3: the aircraft carrier that's been in the Middle East since November,
Speaker 3: and the conditions have been so horrible and there's also
Speaker 3: reports that at least two sailors tried to take their
Speaker 3: own lives by jumping overboard. When asked on Friday whether
Speaker 3: the deployment had gone on too long, Trump said no, no, no,
Speaker 3: not nearly long enough. Here's how we responded on Monday
Speaker 3: in the Oval, they were another food on.
Speaker 5: The USS Lincoln.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was a CNN fake report. The Lincoln has
Speaker 6: been out there for a period of time, good period
Speaker 6: of time, but over the years, we've had him out
Speaker 6: there much longer at a group meeting.
Speaker 3: In an a fake news story. So Pete Hagsath said
Speaker 3: the situation had been completely misrepresented in the Commander of
Speaker 3: centcom Admiral Brad Cooper, visited the ship over the weekend
Speaker 3: and wrote in The Wall Street Journal that the stories
Speaker 3: about shortages of food and water were old news and
Speaker 3: had been addressed. So it is a different statement, very
Speaker 3: much so. So it seems pretty clear they're in damage
Speaker 3: control mode here. What do you guys think about this story?
Speaker 3: How how bad is this for them?
Speaker 4: Love it having all a ship full of people slowly
Speaker 4: losing their mind because they're on one of the longest
Speaker 4: deployments ever I think now maybe the longest deployment ever
Speaker 4: of a ship like this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're going for the records set by the Gerald R.
Speaker 3: Ford three hundred and twenty six days in Vietnam.
Speaker 4: They're so close, They're so close, so close. Yeah, sort
Speaker 4: of a worthy record to beat. And it matters that
Speaker 4: it's not a war that was approved by Congress, that
Speaker 4: the majority of the country wishes we weren't fighting, that
Speaker 4: has no real goal, that has no sign of ending.
Speaker 4: Would be one thing if it was a it was
Speaker 4: a grateful nation asking these service members to sacrifice on
Speaker 4: behalf of a cause that we all collectively endorse. Sort
Speaker 4: of a grave decision to send people there for months
Speaker 4: on end. But that's not what happened. And they know that,
Speaker 4: right The people on the ship are aware of the
Speaker 4: fact that this is unpopular. They don't know why the
Speaker 4: fuck they're there, and it's awful. And then you have
Speaker 4: hag Seth caring more about the press and Trump pretending
Speaker 4: it's not happening, and it's disgraceful. And Trump has never
Speaker 4: had a lot of respect for people who serve in
Speaker 4: the military. Sometimes he pretends to, but he finds the
Speaker 4: whole thing a bit embarrassing and confusing. I think he
Speaker 4: finds the idea of people sacrificing themselves and giving something
Speaker 4: of themselves without ego, showing discipline and a sense of
Speaker 4: purpose and mission kind of embarrassing to him because he's
Speaker 4: never experienced those feelings and it comes out over and
Speaker 4: over and over again.
Speaker 1: So the Lincoln's been at sea more than two hund
Speaker 1: and fifty days, but no port call in two hundred days,
Speaker 1: I think because the Iranians hit the base they would
Speaker 1: have used in Bob, so they've had to just be
Speaker 1: out at sea.
Speaker 2: They've had two days off I guess two days they've
Speaker 2: been at call.
Speaker 1: Yeah and so and that was on the way out there.
Speaker 1: And they've had food shortages, the plumbings all messed up,
Speaker 1: they're having mental health issues, and the jobs on that
Speaker 1: flight deck are incredibly dangerous. I mean, they've flown something
Speaker 1: like ten thousand sorties I think off of the deck
Speaker 1: of that ship. And so you imagine you're on the
Speaker 1: flight deck of an aircraft carrier. There's jets buzzing in,
Speaker 1: there's airplane, there's rotors, right like you're doing this for
Speaker 1: weeks at a time with no days off. It's very risky,
Speaker 1: and like then you hear the Secretary of Defense lie
Speaker 1: and just say, nah, there's no issues on that boat.
Speaker 1: And then you go down to like waiting a fifteen
Speaker 1: minute line use the bathroom, and you see mold everywhere.
Speaker 1: And then you hear President Trump say no, no, the
Speaker 1: deployments aren't too long. They should be longer. They're not
Speaker 1: long enough. So, like politically, this probably won't be all
Speaker 1: that damaging, like big picture, but it is one of
Speaker 1: the hidden costs of the war that people aren't talking about.
Speaker 1: And for the sailors on that ship, for their families,
Speaker 1: and for the people who actually understand what's going on.
Speaker 1: To have your presidents like belittle your service like that,
Speaker 1: to have the Secretary of Defense just lie about the
Speaker 1: conditions you're living in, it's really messed up, you know.
Speaker 1: And these guys can even call home half the time
Speaker 1: for operational security reasons. There's isolated on the ship.
Speaker 3: And it is a lie that they're telling. And we
Speaker 3: know that because the sailors and marines have you know,
Speaker 3: anonymously because they don't want to get in trouble, have
Speaker 3: been complaining about this. And you know, Tapper, Jake Toopper
Speaker 3: on CNN is talking to the wife of one of
Speaker 3: those service members who had to listen to the President
Speaker 3: say that and listen to because say that, and she
Speaker 3: was like, they can't show some empathy at all for this.
Speaker 3: She's like, just take some accountability for what's going on
Speaker 3: with your military yearships and your war. It's your war.
Speaker 3: It's infuriating. Care packages aren't getting there in time, they
Speaker 3: can't get toilet trees on the boat. It's just like,
Speaker 3: it's inexcusable. And you're right, the lying is the worst
Speaker 3: part of all of it.
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Speaker 3: So the story about the Lincoln is already finding its
Speaker 3: way onto the campaign trail. Here's Senator John Asoff talking
Speaker 3: about it and a whole lot more on Sunday.
Speaker 5: And while the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war,
Speaker 5: while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the
Speaker 5: President sleeps through his meetings, He golfs and trade stocks.
Speaker 3: See, he doesn't want to do the job.
Speaker 5: He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie
Speaker 5: on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir
Speaker 5: of Qatar.
Speaker 3: So Natalie, of course refers to White House aid Natalie Harp,
Speaker 3: known as the human Printer, who was chosen over several
Speaker 3: Cabinet officials to join Trump in the catering cart on
Speaker 3: the way to the secret flight home for their book.
Speaker 3: Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan also got their hands on
Speaker 3: quote raw emotional letters that Harp had been leaving in
Speaker 3: Trump's private spaces, including one that read quote you are
Speaker 3: all that matters to me. Notes that reportedly alarmed the
Speaker 3: Secret Service, according to Maggie Who, boy.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's why they had to switch planes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so what do you guys think of asoff mentioning
Speaker 3: her by name?
Speaker 2: God, he made news.
Speaker 1: You know, he's obviously like alluding to the rumor that
Speaker 1: this is more than a president's staffer relationship. There might
Speaker 1: be something romantic going on that he might be having
Speaker 1: an affair.
Speaker 2: It made news, it went viral.
Speaker 1: I think there's a question of whether it might kick
Speaker 1: up media coverage of these allegations now in a way
Speaker 1: that is frustrating to the White House. You can tell
Speaker 1: it really really pissed off the White House staff because
Speaker 1: Stephen Shock, the communications director, put out some unhinged statement.
Speaker 2: Then the.
Speaker 3: John Jackoff got him, got him.
Speaker 1: Then the Rapid Response forty seven account, which is like
Speaker 1: the White House Rapid Response account, went after the journalist
Speaker 1: who asked about the quote from CNN. So they are
Speaker 1: attacking everybody at the moment.
Speaker 3: This is what they tweeted the White House rapid response
Speaker 3: account at Christen Homes. Someday your children will come across
Speaker 3: your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and
Speaker 3: embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive.
Speaker 3: It's quite troubling.
Speaker 2: Boy.
Speaker 4: I just, I just, I'm just sad to hear that
Speaker 4: she's gonna allow our kids to have so much screen time.
Speaker 4: And also it's sort of a thrilling idea to imagine
Speaker 4: our kids having electricity. The uh uh there I saw
Speaker 4: like Scott Jennings trying to doing the suite of like,
Speaker 4: what do you say to young women working in politics?
Speaker 3: The MAGA people are trying to say it's sexist.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I just say, any any of women
Speaker 4: thinking about politics, don't fuck Donald Trump as a rule.
Speaker 4: But also, uh, and.
Speaker 3: In fairness, right, we have not that we know that
Speaker 3: that's of course not of.
Speaker 4: Course not and just in fairness, like that's obviously the
Speaker 4: rumor that everyone's talking about, but nobody's suggesting that Trump
Speaker 4: is trying to have sex with Dance Cavino, who was
Speaker 4: also in the cart right, but yeah, and Walt co
Speaker 4: conspirator and so yeah, like I don't who knows or
Speaker 4: pet or we part he was on the secret plane.
Speaker 3: He wasn't who knows what they're doing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, the letters are like whatever people want to
Speaker 4: insinuate a romantic relationship. Like the letters are embarrassing and
Speaker 4: gross enough, the fact that she is called the human
Speaker 4: printer because she just sort of takes this dictation, the
Speaker 4: kind of worshiping praise she's heaped upon Donald Trump is
Speaker 4: really I think, you know, is plenty beyond.
Speaker 2: Just the sort of the rumors.
Speaker 4: But I do think like the amount of shit that,
Speaker 4: like the amount of like Scott Jennings saying, what are
Speaker 4: you going to say to young woman who want.
Speaker 3: To work in politics?
Speaker 4: In that press conference that we just had it on
Speaker 4: our office just a normal day. It won't even be covered.
Speaker 4: It's so like normal and expected. Now he just sort
Speaker 4: of lit into a CNN reporter like stop yelling, stop talking,
Speaker 4: be quiet, just like sort of directed at this woman,
Speaker 4: like he is this endlessly disgusting and sexist, So like, oh,
Speaker 4: what would I what would you say to young women
Speaker 4: because of this insinuation? Like Donald Trump is a misogynist,
Speaker 4: He's a sexist, He's disgusting, and that will be the
Speaker 4: great shame of this era for any woman associated with him,
Speaker 4: any man associated He.
Speaker 1: Led into this, that reporter in the most condescending sexist
Speaker 1: way in front of a sixteen year old lifeguard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with his guest in the office, and then.
Speaker 4: Turned to the lifeguard. It was like, don't you agree,
Speaker 4: don't don't get into it.
Speaker 3: Can you believe these people?
Speaker 4: They get it, these lifeguards get it.
Speaker 2: This kid's like, I want to go home. This is
Speaker 2: worse now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's there.
Speaker 3: You don't even have to do the like what about
Speaker 3: how bad he is to women either? On this It's
Speaker 3: like that there were like, obviously we know why Ozov
Speaker 3: included the word Natalie there, but there were like a
Speaker 3: million ways he could have done that that could have
Speaker 3: been fairly characterized as like cheap, cheesy, resist lib blue
Speaker 3: maga bullshit, you know. And the point he was making
Speaker 3: is that anyway. First of all, anyone who watched the clip,
Speaker 3: it's not like you just get as off insinuating something.
Speaker 3: You get this image of Trump who like is a
Speaker 3: buffoon who like bungled his way into a war that
Speaker 3: we're all dealing with and paying for while he is
Speaker 3: corrupt as hell, not wanting to do his job and
Speaker 3: just hang out right, right, and then Natalie, it's inserted
Speaker 3: in that whole story. But like she wrote that letter,
Speaker 3: that's you mean, You're all that matters to me. The
Speaker 3: Secret Service is alarmed. Trump himself has said, according to
Speaker 3: Maggie and Jonathan in their book, that she will never
Speaker 3: leave me. After all of you will leave at some
Speaker 3: point and go on and make money. And she loves
Speaker 3: me as much as my wife and children, and she
Speaker 3: will never leave me. When you have all that out there,
Speaker 3: and he says, yeah, all he wants to do is
Speaker 3: travel with Natalie. I think that's fair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's reasonable.
Speaker 3: It's pretty reason. That's all he said.
Speaker 2: It's not not weird.
Speaker 3: What are we talking about again? Apply all those facts
Speaker 3: to Barack Obama or Joe Biden or anyone else in
Speaker 3: the White House.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Joe Biden would kill to someone that loyal. Yeah, no,
Speaker 4: I said, I'll leak it about how old he was.
Speaker 2: I'm sure Scott.
Speaker 1: Jennings was very upset about allegations of infidelity about Bill Clinton,
Speaker 1: our previous Democrat presidents.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, you want to insinuate anything after she's
Speaker 3: leaving him? Notes in private spaces that say, you're all
Speaker 3: that matters to me.
Speaker 4: By the way, Like maybe it is is just like
Speaker 4: I have no one of us knows and like I.
Speaker 3: Don't I don't even care that In that case, he's
Speaker 3: just creepy. In that case, he does just want to
Speaker 3: travel with Natalie.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Maybe he just likes having a sycophantic, pretty young
Speaker 4: woman around him all the time who sends him worshipful letters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he takes around the catering cart with him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe she was hungry.
Speaker 1: Yep, there's a there's a third plane where you just
Speaker 1: get to avoid the consequences of all your bad decisions.
Speaker 1: It's a catering cart. That's where we go start a war.
Speaker 1: But a plane number three.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Honestly, the mistake in Osoff's statement there was saying
Speaker 3: all they want to do is fly on the defenseless
Speaker 3: plane gifted by the a mirror of Katar, because that
Speaker 3: wasn't the plane they went on either.
Speaker 4: You might want you might say that a second plane
Speaker 4: has hit the Trump administration scandals.
Speaker 3: In a sense, you know, you think about it, You
Speaker 3: may want to say that. You might want to say that,
Speaker 3: you may want to say that Trump was actually asked
Speaker 3: about Osof's comments in the Oval on Monday, and here's
Speaker 3: how we handled it.
Speaker 2: If you've found your travel when you're a Natalie Harper,
Speaker 2: build the ball and the junior job as president, what
Speaker 2: is done on up.
Speaker 6: You mean pee wee Herman pe we Hermalkali, No, I
Speaker 6: would much rather do other things. It's say, we're building
Speaker 6: a great facility here. We have presidency coming on September
Speaker 6: twenty fourth or so, I think it's September twenty fourth,
Speaker 6: and we'd love to have two thousand people coming to
Speaker 6: dinner and celebrating a nice evening, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 6: But we only have a room that's going to hold
Speaker 6: eighty nine people, and eighty nine people is not appropriate.
Speaker 6: So maybe more importantly, it's totally secure with bulletproof windows,
Speaker 6: bulletproof sides, it's a drone proof. It's missiled every at
Speaker 6: the top of the line, and we need it. And
Speaker 6: especially with what's happened unfortunately to the world, you could
Speaker 6: say the people that are opposing the ballroom are people that,
Speaker 6: in my opinion, are very disloyal to our country, very
Speaker 6: very disloyal to our country. You know, when I was
Speaker 6: in China. We went to the Great Hall of was
Speaker 6: this big, beautiful building, and we don't have anything like that,
Speaker 6: and we have to have that. It's very important.
Speaker 2: It went on forever.
Speaker 3: President, She's coming. What am I supposed to do? I
Speaker 3: need to make this place look nice and fit all
Speaker 3: the Chinese who come with him. And when I went there,
Speaker 3: they had this beautiful everyone's saying wonderful things about him,
Speaker 3: and they have this great building and every.
Speaker 4: The handsome young senator says that you're focused too much
Speaker 4: on building a space for parties. And he's like that guy.
Speaker 4: He reminds me of Pee Herman. Now let's talk about
Speaker 4: some of these parties I'm thinking about happening.
Speaker 3: Also, it's like, let me pivot from Nattalie Harp to
Speaker 3: my true love, the ballroom construction.
Speaker 4: I honestly, if you don't love this ballroom, you don't
Speaker 4: love America.
Speaker 2: Not his best rejoinder.
Speaker 3: No, that's also tough because that's like the disapproval of
Speaker 3: the ballroom is it like pretty high and it's a
Speaker 3: lot of disloyal Americas.
Speaker 2: Pivot to something politically damaging.
Speaker 3: We haven't talked about the ballroom construction in a while.
Speaker 3: On Friday, the Trump administration petitioned the court to allow
Speaker 3: construction to continue after an appeals court upheld a ruling
Speaker 3: the Trump exceeded his authority by building without congressional approval.
Speaker 3: Trump's solicitor general told the court that construction is already
Speaker 3: sixty five percent complete. So this adjunct, this injunction takes
Speaker 3: effect on Friday. They've got an emergency appeal to the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court to save them. What do you what do
Speaker 3: you guys make of this? What happens here? For the
Speaker 3: court says you can't proceed. He's already got half of
Speaker 3: it built, more than half of it built.
Speaker 2: It doesn't really seem like a win for anybody. You know, Well,
Speaker 2: it's just a hole in the wall and hole on
Speaker 2: the ground.
Speaker 4: Now, then you got to go to Congress and get
Speaker 4: it through Congress to fund it. My pitch is you
Speaker 4: never finish it and you turn it into some kind
Speaker 4: of museum of American failure, Okay, And it's just like
Speaker 4: like it's like the museum. It's a museum of reckless stupidity,
Speaker 4: and there'll be exhibits and different things and you can
Speaker 4: go explore it kind of like a sort of an
Speaker 4: avant garde, the.
Speaker 3: General Lee at Appomatic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a memorial, it's a more to our worst expressed. Yeah.
Speaker 4: For sure. The Knicks, we have the Nicks in.
Speaker 2: Quadrant for sure.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Wow, Quibi Quiby catching somewhere. Jeffrey Katzenberg is like, I
Speaker 4: got a weird feeling you doing.
Speaker 2: The audio the tour.
Speaker 4: Very short was great about the quiby sections.
Speaker 3: You get in and out, in and out, in and
Speaker 3: out of.
Speaker 4: Quibi, but something like that where you kind of never
Speaker 4: finish it and leave it as a kind of a
Speaker 4: warning to others, like remember when they when they were there.
Speaker 2: George R. R.
Speaker 4: Martin could do this Seventh Book of This is where
Speaker 4: the Seventh Book of Remember when there was a there
Speaker 4: was this contest or this this organization was trying to
Speaker 4: figure out how would you mark nuclear waste sites because
Speaker 4: a thousand or many thousands of years from now, if
Speaker 4: humanity has fallen, you would need to have language and
Speaker 4: an architecture that would make people afraid, even if they
Speaker 4: were more kind of had gone backwards. And there was
Speaker 4: a quote held on I want to find it. There
Speaker 4: was a line that was we could also market like
Speaker 4: an old nuclear site that we're trying to protect the
Speaker 4: future humanity from and it would just have some language
Speaker 4: that said, this place is a message and part of
Speaker 4: a system of messages. Pay attention. This place is not
Speaker 4: a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.
Speaker 4: Nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and
Speaker 4: repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger,
Speaker 4: and we just make that with The whole vibe is
Speaker 4: of the kind of half built ballroom.
Speaker 2: A very pithy message.
Speaker 3: Wow, free pitch for a Democratic candidate, one of those
Speaker 3: first primary debates. Who's gonna take it, Who's gonna take it?
Speaker 3: Nothing is honored here. I do find it interesting that
Speaker 3: the whole thing started is like I want the ballroom.
Speaker 3: That's what I want. I just want my nice, pretty ballroom.
Speaker 3: And now because there's legal consequences potentially, he's like, actually,
Speaker 3: it's all for the military. The military needed this space,
Speaker 3: and they are apparently like, look the underground, there's a
Speaker 3: World War II era Presidential Emergency Operations Center and they
Speaker 3: are I guess rehabbing that. And now Trump's making it
Speaker 3: sound like it's basically building a fortress around the White
Speaker 3: House where there's going to be drones protecting the White
Speaker 3: House and now all of DC.
Speaker 1: And but like, couldn't the drone base be somewhere near
Speaker 1: the White House and protect it has to be on
Speaker 1: the roof drones. Also, he also said they drilled five
Speaker 1: stories underground, which probably something that the military didn't want
Speaker 1: him to say.
Speaker 2: That stuff.
Speaker 4: It's also like, boy, Trump sure does care about the military,
Speaker 4: said two sailors splitting a taco for lunch.
Speaker 1: I'm very open to the idea that drone advances in
Speaker 1: drone technology have made the White House more at risk
Speaker 1: than before. And then maybe you know, a tent full
Speaker 1: of world leaders on the South Lawn has more risks
Speaker 1: to it than we understand or acknowledge. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: does seem like he's sort of manufacturing all these security
Speaker 1: needs in real time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just so he can get new drapes.
Speaker 4: I would just say, Also, if we're at the point
Speaker 4: where we have to worry about a military scale drone
Speaker 4: swarm tackling a state dinner at the White House, a
Speaker 4: lot of things have already gone wrong.
Speaker 3: Where's our drone port?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this was the UFC threat, right, that someone
Speaker 1: was going to hit the ultimate fighting event on the
Speaker 1: South lawn with some sort of drone and the FBI.
Speaker 2: I broke it up. Yeah, but it's bad news.
Speaker 3: Did you guys see the uh In related corruption news?
Speaker 3: The news on Friday that World Liberty Financial, the Trump
Speaker 3: family and Steve Wickcoff's son's crypto venture, got preliminary approval
Speaker 3: to act as a bank. What do you guys think
Speaker 3: about that?
Speaker 1: It made me excited that one day our tax dollars
Speaker 1: would get to bail out that bank.
Speaker 2: That's exciting, you know.
Speaker 3: But it's exciting that nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think one day we can be a part
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 4: It's just sort of it's like Kamala doesn't have a
Speaker 4: good answer.
Speaker 2: On the view.
Speaker 4: Fifteen years later, we're bailing out World Liberty from children.
Speaker 4: It's fucking god damn it. Yes, joy, I think there's
Speaker 4: many things I do differently and were not. And then
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, whenever you're heard of World Liberty.
Speaker 1: Financial, President Osoff is like, yes, World Liberty Financial is
Speaker 1: too big to fail.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not happy about it yet.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to bail out the bank either, but
Speaker 3: the crypto. Yeah, first president in history to approve, operate,
Speaker 3: and supervise his own bank, another historic first for mister Trump.
Speaker 3: Pretty crazy because it's like, it's one thing to launch
Speaker 3: a coin, but not everyone gets to have. The federal
Speaker 3: government basically, you know, stamp that with its with national
Speaker 3: approval by giving it a charter. Because the OCC which
Speaker 3: is the office that does this that can give banks
Speaker 3: charters for the government, basically went years without receiving a
Speaker 3: single application between twenty eleven and twenty twenty four. So
Speaker 3: it's not like they give charters to anyone who wants
Speaker 3: to start a bank, but now they're giving one to
Speaker 3: the president's family, which will be regulated by the president's government.
Speaker 2: I don't see the problem with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it also just opens up the door to a
Speaker 4: lot more kinds of corruption from foreign SARBGN wealth funds,
Speaker 4: and all kinds of other ways in which this now
Speaker 4: allows Trump to find new and exciting ways to make money.
Speaker 4: So great job everybody.
Speaker 1: It also does seem like a pretty big official stamp
Speaker 1: of approval on the crypto business and industry at a
Speaker 1: time when Congress is supposed to be negotiating and writing
Speaker 1: laws to actually govern these things, which doesn't make me
Speaker 1: feel great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that that timeline I mentioned twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four was because after twenty twenty four, suddenly all
Speaker 3: the crypto ventures and all the you know, they wanted
Speaker 3: to get they wanted to start banks too. But you
Speaker 3: know who's got approved world liberty financial.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean so my understanding of the reason you
Speaker 1: would want this if you're the Trump family is that
Speaker 1: currently their stable coin reserves are held with a third party.
Speaker 1: So now the Trump family can issue and redeem and
Speaker 1: then hold collateral themselves and not have to pay a
Speaker 1: third party. So if you have if you have issued
Speaker 1: four billion dollars worth of US D one, which is
Speaker 1: their stable coin, you have to hold four billion dollars
Speaker 1: worth of collateral, probably in the form of treasuries. That
Speaker 1: gives you interesting and now you keep it all yourself
Speaker 1: rather than have to like go through some third party.
Speaker 3: Also, it's a competitive advantage with all the other stable coins,
Speaker 3: right because now if you want to do business with
Speaker 3: some in crypto, why not go to the use the
Speaker 3: stable coin that's backed by the US government, Because that's
Speaker 3: what's that's what this is doing.
Speaker 2: Now. Yeah, there's definitely an imprimatur of the US government
Speaker 2: on the Trump business. Now, thank you, that's wasn't necessarily.
Speaker 3: That's the word I was. I was, I was grasping
Speaker 3: for another.
Speaker 2: Pod.
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Speaker 3: Let's let's do a midterm update focused on control of
Speaker 3: the Senate. Dan and I talked on Friday Show about
Speaker 3: Nate Silver's new model. He currently has the odds of
Speaker 3: the Democrats slipping the Senate at fifty six percent as
Speaker 3: of right now. Over the weekend, the Silver Bulletin had
Speaker 3: a piece on the seven Senate races most likely to
Speaker 3: determine control Texas, Michigan, Maine, Iowa, Ohio, Alaska, and North
Speaker 3: Carolina Dems need five out of those seven, and apparently
Speaker 3: they almost left North Carolina off that list because the
Speaker 3: model is quite confident that Roy Cooper will flip that state,
Speaker 3: and even more confident that Asoff will win in Georgia,
Speaker 3: which is why it wasn't on the list. Wild, Wild
Speaker 3: is that confident about Georgia. We're going to zero in
Speaker 3: on developments in Texas, Michigan, and Alaska today, but before
Speaker 3: we do anything, stand out to you guys in the
Speaker 3: analysis of the other Senate races.
Speaker 4: The one thing just overall is how the models have
Speaker 4: to like, how scandals and other individual factors of a
Speaker 4: race matter less as polarization and party line and the
Speaker 4: sort of partisan voting becomes more and more what defines
Speaker 4: kind of the outcomes, because it tells you that as
Speaker 4: much as you're hoping that fundamentals kick in in some places, right,
Speaker 4: if they kick in too hard, say in Michigan, to
Speaker 4: kind of get abduel over, then you have to worry
Speaker 4: about what's happening in Texas. You have to worry about
Speaker 4: what's happening in Alaska, right, And so that was sort
Speaker 4: of my takeaway from it, and the other was just
Speaker 4: you know, you look across this this you know, oh,
Speaker 4: what's the pivot going to be? And you think about
Speaker 4: the difference between two thousand and six and twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: both years where there was somewhere like an eight ash
Speaker 4: swing towards Democrats or a point lead by Democrats. And
Speaker 4: because of the map and because of luck, we lose
Speaker 4: the Senate in twenty eighteen, or we don't. We don't
Speaker 4: gain the Senate in twenty eighteen, we lose seats. And
Speaker 4: then in twenty two thousand and six we actually managed
Speaker 4: to eke out of victory in the Senate, not because
Speaker 4: we did so much better in a bunch of different races,
Speaker 4: but because in three or four races Montana, Missouri, Virginia
Speaker 4: we won by ten thousand and forty thousand, just a
Speaker 4: small small margin, and because all of those happened to
Speaker 4: tip right at the end over the line, the whole
Speaker 4: direction of the country changes. That. That was what I
Speaker 4: was sort of panic getting anxious about as I was
Speaker 4: looking at the numbers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I was getting anxious looking at them
Speaker 1: because they are more bullish than I sort of feel
Speaker 1: emotionally like Nate has Democrats winning Ohio at a sixty
Speaker 1: two percent probability.
Speaker 2: That's surprised me.
Speaker 3: Very bullish on Ohio and Texas, very bullish on Texas,
Speaker 3: MEAs Maine at seventy percent.
Speaker 1: Michigan is sixty eight percent. Now, look, I think we
Speaker 1: can pull out Michigan and it's a state we should win,
Speaker 1: But I do think like it's gonna be a battle.
Speaker 1: I guess I was just sort of surprised at how
Speaker 1: lopsided some of these numbers seem.
Speaker 3: I was surprised on the flip side of that, how
Speaker 3: they are bearish, more bearish on Iowa and Alaska than
Speaker 3: I would have expected. Iowa they have forty four percent
Speaker 3: for Democrats to win, and Alaska at forty two percent,
Speaker 3: So they were bigger underdogs those two.
Speaker 2: Than I thought.
Speaker 3: And also, you know, I look at this lesson, I
Speaker 3: think for everyone listening, like if you're looking for you know,
Speaker 3: where do where do I donate? And where do I
Speaker 3: want to volunteer? And which races should you know? They
Speaker 3: go down the list at the end and they're like, well,
Speaker 3: there's a couple other races that are you know, getting
Speaker 3: a lot of attention, but Florida, where you know, Democrats
Speaker 3: are according to the polls like maybe up a couple
Speaker 3: of points, but just the fundamentals and the model and
Speaker 3: everything else just make it seem like there's there's not
Speaker 3: a great chance in Florida, like it's quite a long shot,
Speaker 3: and then even more of a long shot Nebraska, which
Speaker 3: was sort of a surprising to me as well. And Kansas.
Speaker 3: People have been talking about Kansas recently. And then of course,
Speaker 3: like you know, we've we've talked about races in Mississippi
Speaker 3: and South Carolina and stuff like that, and those just
Speaker 3: aren't on the radar at all. So you know, if you,
Speaker 3: if you, if you want to pay attention and help
Speaker 3: out in a center race, those seven tend to be
Speaker 3: the big ones. So Texas is the most likely tipping
Speaker 3: point state in the model, meaning that it's the state
Speaker 3: most likely to determine control of the Senate. Right now,
Speaker 3: Silver has the odds of Tallerco winning at fifty nine percent.
Speaker 3: One big reason is that Ken Paxson is an awful candidate,
Speaker 3: and sure enough, tall Rico is out with a new
Speaker 3: ad where he's endorsed by the guy who's one thousand
Speaker 3: dollars pen was once stolen by Ken Paxton.
Speaker 7: Let's watch this is Ken Paxton, and this is Ken
Speaker 7: Paxton stealing someone's thousand dollars pen.
Speaker 3: Here's what happened.
Speaker 7: The incident happened at the Collin County Courthouse, the same
Speaker 7: courthouse where Paxton would later be indicted for investment fraud.
Speaker 7: Paxson walked up to the trays next to the metal detectors,
Speaker 7: rummaged through them, and came across someone else's expensive mont
Speaker 7: Blanc pen. He decided to take it for himself. The
Speaker 7: pen belonged to Joe Joplin, a local attorney who accidentally.
Speaker 5: Left him behind.
Speaker 7: He was a special gift from his wife. When Joe
Speaker 7: realized it was missing, he contacted courthouse security. This is
Speaker 7: the footage they pulled Ken Paxton on camera stealing this
Speaker 7: man's pen. After the police got involved, Joe got his
Speaker 7: pen back. He could have pressed charged, but he decided
Speaker 7: against it because Joe's a nice guy and he'd never
Speaker 7: take someone else's pen.
Speaker 3: But he also hasn't forgotten who took his.
Speaker 2: And I endorsed during for the United States since.
Speaker 7: Vote for James Tallerygo you won't you pen.
Speaker 3: Packs in response, had finders keepers.
Speaker 4: That trans loving Jesus frequent and steal a fucking thing.
Speaker 2: I would just.
Speaker 1: Note that I also think you should go to jail
Speaker 1: for having a one thousand dollars pen.
Speaker 3: I just couldn't say that's it. Yeah, you're not exactly.
Speaker 3: I noticed it. I noticed why they didn't put the
Speaker 3: cost of the pen in the ad, because it doesn't
Speaker 3: exactly help our friendship rights.
Speaker 4: Beautiful, it's crazies and made a beautiful feel. I've never
Speaker 4: written with one thousand dollars pen before.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great ad because obviously, on the
Speaker 1: list of Paxson scandals, this one is the lowest in
Speaker 1: terms of the impact of the consequences. But it's a
Speaker 1: fun story that can go viral. I think they did
Speaker 1: a really good job telling it there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the ian midway through just reminding everybody that he
Speaker 4: was indicted for fraud. He is, so somebody was. I
Speaker 4: think it was like Josh Barr. Someone made this point
Speaker 4: that it is shocking how in every aspect of his
Speaker 4: life he seems to be a prick or a sleeve,
Speaker 4: just with that exception his wife of many years to
Speaker 4: the state senator, leaving him on biblical grounds because of this,
Speaker 4: a fairy had that his people that worked with him,
Speaker 4: were whistleblowers that they believed he was taking bribes. He
Speaker 4: was impeached in a bipartisan way, but not removed. He's
Speaker 4: only in this He's only gotten the nomination because Trump
Speaker 4: didn't like John Cornan and sided with Ken S. Paxton
Speaker 4: as a fuck you to John Cornyan. But even Republican
Speaker 4: Texas woul obviously have preferred someone more electable. He also
Speaker 4: just not a great fundraiser. He just seems like a
Speaker 4: shitty fucking guy that nobody likes, and it puts Texas Republicans,
Speaker 4: including Republicans, including Republicans, just seems like a fucking asshole.
Speaker 3: Well, in Nate's model, the fundamentals put Texas at R
Speaker 3: plus three point four, so even with the huge shift
Speaker 3: towards Democrats, it's still more of a Republican leading state.
Speaker 3: But Tallerrico's ahead in the polls by one point nine
Speaker 3: average right now. And the reason that they have it
Speaker 3: as they have it as a toss up but it's
Speaker 3: almost at lean d is just because Tallarico is a
Speaker 3: good candidate, and also Paxson is such a bad candidate
Speaker 3: and has all these scandals, and also Tallerco has raised
Speaker 3: an ungodly amount of money.
Speaker 4: Ten paccent is not even. He's also not a prolific fundraiser.
Speaker 1: Tall Rico has raised sixty five million dollars to Paxson's
Speaker 1: nine million dollars. What I didn't realize until I read
Speaker 1: Nate's piece is that Beto O'Rourke had trailed in every
Speaker 1: single poll in any of the cruise. We think Tall
Speaker 1: Rico Betto is great and so.
Speaker 3: No, I know, I mean like we were also I
Speaker 3: was excited.
Speaker 4: I thought it.
Speaker 1: Then the taller Rico is leading Paxton bias. You said
Speaker 1: one point nine percent in the polling average. It's pretty good.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, I imagine all of these races
Speaker 1: are going to tighten, because they just always do when
Speaker 1: people pay attention. But twenty twenty six is a very
Speaker 1: blue year, and Paxson is a very bad candidate.
Speaker 4: Ted Cruz was able to eke out a win against Betto,
Speaker 4: not because Betto didn't get the votes he thought he
Speaker 4: was going to get, but they were surprised by the
Speaker 4: turnout of Republicans. And we don't like Ted Cruz, but
Speaker 4: Republicans like Ted Cruz and like Ken Paxon is sort
Speaker 4: of just a different animals. It's a worse environment that
Speaker 4: it remains to be seen if if it's a worse
Speaker 4: overall national political environment, but certainly in Texas, Ken Paxson
Speaker 4: is is just not nearly as good a candidate as
Speaker 4: as a beloved charismatic figure Ted Cruz.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I also think Trump. I mean, Trump's approval
Speaker 3: was fairly bad in twenty eighteen at the time, but
Speaker 3: you didn't have the economic approval as though as it
Speaker 3: is right now. I think that that is the tailwind
Speaker 3: that I think that Beto did not get in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: that the Tella Rico probably is. We haven't really talked
Speaker 3: about Alaska, where Mary Peltola is trying to unseat Dan Sullivan.
Speaker 3: Last week, Kamala Harris signed a fundraising email for Peltola,
Speaker 3: urging people to donate, and then Peltola's campaign basically rejected it, saying,
Speaker 3: quote Mary isn't seeking endorsements from anyone from the lower
Speaker 3: forty eight. Her focus is and always will be Alaska.
Speaker 3: Adding to the intrigue, someone leaked to internet journalist Yeshar Ali,
Speaker 3: presumably someone from Harris's camp, that actually it was Peltola's
Speaker 3: campaign that asked Harris's political operation to send a fundraising email.
Speaker 3: Peltola is pretty close to Sullivan in the polling, but
Speaker 3: still an underdog overall. Who do you guys believe here?
Speaker 3: And what does it say that the Peltola campaign rejected
Speaker 3: Kamala's endorsement, at least publicly.
Speaker 1: I mean, at the think it shows that they just
Speaker 1: don't want to nationalize this race in any way, shape
Speaker 1: or form. That the National Democratic Party brand is toxic.
Speaker 1: The entire debate about the Democratic ticket in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four is politically toxic and they want nothing to do
Speaker 1: with it. Which makes me surprised that anyone on her
Speaker 1: campaign would ask Kamala Harris to send a fundraising email
Speaker 1: on her behalf, especially one where the funds were split
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty between Kamala's pack and Peltola's campaign. Now,
Speaker 1: I could be wrong, what do I know? But you know,
Speaker 1: peltol is running an entirely Alaska focused campaign where she's
Speaker 1: like talking about salmon fishing and cool stuff. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I think you would want to nationalize it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, who knows. I can see there being just like
Speaker 4: you know, oh, this is an opper to Kamala Harris
Speaker 4: is going to get us, is going to raise money
Speaker 4: for us. That maybe one part of the campaign not
Speaker 4: talking to another part of the campaign, maybe people that
Speaker 4: seems like the most right or and also maybe like
Speaker 4: when you actually read the email, it's just like it
Speaker 4: wasn't meant to be something that was so clear, like
Speaker 4: we're together splitting the money fifty to fifty, so ends
Speaker 4: up looking worse or maybe it was fully authorized, but
Speaker 4: then by the time it gets to the candidate, they
Speaker 4: realized it's a mistake. They want to denounce it. But
Speaker 4: to me, it's sort of you look at this, it's like,
Speaker 4: all right, Mary Peltola has clearly decided that this email
Speaker 4: and this collect connection is a liability, so we're gonna
Speaker 4: deny it and say we don't want any endorsements for
Speaker 4: the lower forty eight. And whoever is inside Kamala's or
Speaker 4: assuming that that's where they came from, cared more about
Speaker 4: kind of whatever claiming it was authorized than than doing
Speaker 4: what clearly the Alaska campaign thinks it's best for itself,
Speaker 4: which is to get out of this. Like it seems
Speaker 4: like could be more benefit for Peltola for Kamala Harris
Speaker 4: to say I would never raise money for that. And
Speaker 4: she's too moderate, too much of a too much. Yeah,
Speaker 4: she's too focused on jobs. Yeah, too much. She wants
Speaker 4: to bring people together too much. And you know what else,
Speaker 4: I hate fish, that's exactly.
Speaker 3: That's a weird one. Also, like Mary Poltola didn't endorse
Speaker 3: Kamala in twenty twenty four because it's.
Speaker 4: Just like it's a lone sung part of the uncommitted
Speaker 4: movement again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right, she has to you know, she has
Speaker 3: to outrun like, you know, Donald Trump won the state
Speaker 3: by what thirteen fourteen points, Like it's a it's an
Speaker 3: uphill climb, you know. So she has to really reject
Speaker 3: the national.
Speaker 4: America's got to be far away and quiet, you know.
Speaker 1: And like she has run really successfully statewide in Alaska before.
Speaker 1: There's something called a split ticket war score, which sort
Speaker 1: of like rates your candaida quality, your ability to outperform
Speaker 1: the ticket, and she was like D plus nine and
Speaker 1: D plus twenty two in her house run monster. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so she's very successfully separated herself from the national Party
Speaker 1: struggles and won.
Speaker 3: Finally, we were in the middle of recording Friday's episode
Speaker 3: when Fox News dropped their Michigan pole which has Mike
Speaker 3: Rogers ahead of Abdul Lsayed by four points fifty one
Speaker 3: to forty seven. Same pole has Democrat Jocelyn Benson up
Speaker 3: five points in the Michigan governor's race. The Senate Democratic
Speaker 3: super Pac then released an internal poll that shows Abdul
Speaker 3: ahead by six but of course that didn't exactly calm
Speaker 3: the waters. What do you guys think about where the
Speaker 3: race is and what Abdul has to do over the
Speaker 3: next few months. So first of all, I'll probably get
Speaker 3: more votes.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, you should probably get more vote. I mean, look,
Speaker 4: it's hard.
Speaker 3: What do they have to do?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's hard to you know, first of all, it's
Speaker 4: hard to trust any of these polls because we just
Speaker 4: saw an outcome in which Abdul won by a point
Speaker 4: and the polls had him up by much more. Overall,
Speaker 4: like it hard, It's just hard to know. The one
Speaker 4: thing that was interesting from I think it was the
Speaker 4: Fox Pole is that there was just a bigger group
Speaker 4: of people that were voting for Mike Rogers for Senate
Speaker 4: and the Democratic governor candidate than the reverse. And so
Speaker 4: regardless of whether whether you know you think the poll
Speaker 4: is exaggerating and you put what doesn't like that? To me,
Speaker 4: I think is sort of interesting and instructive about what
Speaker 4: he has to do, because it's clearly people that either
Speaker 4: because of what Abdul is said in the past, because
Speaker 4: the state was blanketed and tens of millions of dollars
Speaker 4: in anti dual advertising, whatever it may be, there was
Speaker 4: a lot of people that should be voting with the
Speaker 4: Democrats and would be if they hadn't been sort of
Speaker 4: exposed to so much anti Abdul messaging. And so what
Speaker 4: does he have to do to bring those people along?
Speaker 4: How does he address some of the things that Mike
Speaker 4: Rogers is going to be advertising, whether or not APEC
Speaker 4: puts more money into the state, Like, there's going to
Speaker 4: be a lot that he has to go up against.
Speaker 4: And one thing I've just noticed about sort of some
Speaker 4: of the ways in which he's responded to this is,
Speaker 4: you know, he's under so much incoming. You know, a
Speaker 4: bunch of different Democrats have been asked like, well, how
Speaker 4: do you explain for what you said in the past,
Speaker 4: And I think often the reaction is to kind of
Speaker 4: argue with the person asking the question, and we all
Speaker 4: do all the politicians do this. They sort of are like, well,
Speaker 4: I actually didn't mean the fund. I meant that we
Speaker 4: should look at where the money's going as a version
Speaker 4: of something I'm tool said in the past, and others
Speaker 4: have two, but you look at what sort of I
Speaker 4: think one of some of the more effective ways of
Speaker 4: answering that kind of question, Mom, Donnie had an incredible one,
Speaker 4: I think on Friday or earlier or late last week,
Speaker 4: where the question is do you think woke one was crazy?
Speaker 4: He basically just ignores that, and he says we all
Speaker 4: change and.
Speaker 2: We all grow.
Speaker 4: I have said things I don't agree with anymore, but
Speaker 4: I believe in supporting the police and having a good
Speaker 4: relationship with the police, and we're getting crime down and
Speaker 4: were addressing these issues, And like, what was to me
Speaker 4: what he's doing what makes him such a good politician
Speaker 4: is he's saying he's not answered. He's answering the feeling
Speaker 4: underneath the question, which is what is the reassurance on
Speaker 4: this issue that gives me credibility across another a range
Speaker 4: of issues, as opposed to constantly fighting to a draw
Speaker 4: by answering the previous critique or sort of trying to
Speaker 4: win on points, but rather saying something that is like
Speaker 4: a value statement that rejects the factual statement you said
Speaker 4: in the past, right, just like a clean moral thing
Speaker 4: that resets what he currently believes and stands for.
Speaker 1: I think the Abdul's like kind of core primary message
Speaker 1: is still the right one. It was get money out
Speaker 1: of politics, put money in your pocket, and pass Medicare
Speaker 1: for all.
Speaker 2: That's a great general election message. He's just to stick
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 1: Obviously, the primary and Tayy Stevens became more about US
Speaker 1: support for Israel and APAC funding and dark money generally,
Speaker 1: and I think trying to move away from that would
Speaker 1: be beneficial, you.
Speaker 2: Know, a duel.
Speaker 1: He's going to have to try to find some kind
Speaker 1: of like white working class independent voters that maybe have
Speaker 1: voted for Republicans in the past. He's got to turn
Speaker 1: out black voters and Democratic base voters. They didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: get in the primary. So he's got to do two
Speaker 1: different things at once, reached a base community and reach
Speaker 1: these sort of more moderate swing voters. I think he's
Speaker 1: got the political skills to do that. He's an exciting,
Speaker 1: dynamic guy. He's good on the stump. He can raise
Speaker 1: a lot of money. He's got like a lot of skills,
Speaker 1: and Mike Rogers is kind of like a washed up
Speaker 1: old Intel Committee guy who would rather be in Florida
Speaker 1: seemingly than in Michigan running this race. But I think
Speaker 1: we need to treat it as a fifty to fifty race,
Speaker 1: Like I just I think this is going to be
Speaker 1: a close one to the bitter end.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the poll doesn't surprise me that much, only because
Speaker 3: I think sixty million dollars of negative ads against you
Speaker 3: and then Mike Rodgers has none of that, and people
Speaker 3: mostly remember him as a sort of old school establishment,
Speaker 3: pre Trump Republican and obviously, like Alyssa Slackin ran a
Speaker 3: great race against him in twenty four. But I think
Speaker 3: the image of Mike Rogers they have in their head
Speaker 3: is like, Okay, maybe I don't agree with him, but
Speaker 3: he doesn't seem threatening. And sixty million dollars in negative
Speaker 3: ads making abduls seem like a scary Muslim socialist extremist
Speaker 3: who's going to come, you know, kill your family. Is
Speaker 3: you know that's the kind of pull result you're going
Speaker 3: to get. I also think that you know, there's work
Speaker 3: he has to do with black voters, and that you
Speaker 3: can see in this poll, and then the voters that
Speaker 3: Tommy you were just talking about, and like, look, if
Speaker 3: he just goes to he just goes to all these
Speaker 3: voters who say they're going to vote for Joscelyn Benson,
Speaker 3: a Democrat, just has to convince those voters to like, hey,
Speaker 3: you're already voting for one Democrat, vote for another, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I think that like some of his ads and
Speaker 3: you see this online, like he's had some even in
Speaker 3: the primary, had some like sort of cringey, millennial cringe
Speaker 3: videos that I was like, oh, what is that, But
Speaker 3: it's it's I think the point is to make him
Speaker 3: seem unthreatening to people, which they are going to try
Speaker 3: to make him seem as threatening as possible because of
Speaker 3: his name and religion, as they're already doing, and that's
Speaker 3: going to happen right up until election day. And so
Speaker 3: to try to address that just by you know, showing
Speaker 3: up everywhere and being who he is and seeming unthreatening
Speaker 3: is going to be helpful.
Speaker 4: I do think having made it through the primary whethered
Speaker 4: all these attacks come out ahead, has also given him
Speaker 4: a lot of credibility. And you know, by the same
Speaker 4: token that there are these crossover voters that show where
Speaker 4: a liability is. What a pull like this won't show
Speaker 4: is there are gonna be people that are brought into
Speaker 4: that are going to kind of decide to vote, maybe
Speaker 4: be excited and energize to participate because of a duel.
Speaker 4: And then those are Democratic votes. They're gonna that are
Speaker 4: gonna go uh down the ticket, right and those those
Speaker 4: like those will be people he brought into the process
Speaker 4: that won't show up in the same kind of way.
Speaker 4: And so I do think he has that kind of
Speaker 4: credibility with the people that came along, and so like
Speaker 4: that does give him the space, I think to kind
Speaker 4: of figure out how to kind of whatever overcome that
Speaker 4: kind of scary Muslim thing that they're gonna throw at
Speaker 4: him over that.
Speaker 3: I mean, it doesn't have to change his views on things,
Speaker 3: but he can he can certainly moderate rhetoric to sort
Speaker 3: of appeal to a broader audience.
Speaker 2: That's all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that Like I don't I don't, of course, I
Speaker 4: don't think it's any it's not about changing what you
Speaker 4: view I think like that is, but there is, Like
Speaker 4: I think honestly it's because if people if he can
Speaker 4: just have that conversation which is the duel we know
Speaker 4: like that will work, Like he is even like the
Speaker 4: sort of they're calling him a socialist, which they'll call
Speaker 4: anyone a socialist, but he when you'd lean interviews like
Speaker 4: I don't identify the socialist like he believed, like like
Speaker 4: there's just the version of him that existed in the
Speaker 4: ads is not the version of him that is real,
Speaker 4: And now we have three or four months to actually
Speaker 4: put that in place.
Speaker 1: It's very funny that in the primary they made these
Speaker 1: kind of cringey blues clues, goofy videos where Abdul just
Speaker 1: seems silly and all this sort of like winced at
Speaker 1: them at the time, and then Republican accounts like libs
Speaker 1: of TikTok found them last week and started resurfac sitting
Speaker 1: them and be like, oh my god, have you seen this?
Speaker 1: How cringing, And it's like you could not do a
Speaker 1: better job if you tried to target these ads to
Speaker 1: the audience they're trying to reach. It's like Republicans and
Speaker 1: sort of like conservative audiences who now see this goofy,
Speaker 1: silly side of Abdul as they are trying to paint
Speaker 1: him as this dangerous radical fringe candidate. It's very, very
Speaker 1: hilarious that they were this stupid about their tactics and
Speaker 1: the Republican side campaign.
Speaker 4: Also guess is if why that first add out is
Speaker 4: that of the grandparents. Yes, they just there's they know
Speaker 4: that they understand this all right.
Speaker 3: When we come back, Tommy talks to Ohio House candidate
Speaker 3: Brian Poindexter.
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Speaker 1: My guest today is the Democratic Party's candidate for Ohio's
Speaker 1: seventh congressional district, Brian Poindeckster.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 8: Thank you for having me, Tommy. I'm happy to be
Speaker 8: here and looking forward to answering your questions.
Speaker 2: All right, well, glad to have you.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: Your opponent, Max Miller has made a lot of news
Speaker 1: lately for the worst reasons.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna ask you about him in a minute.
Speaker 1: But first, just tell the audience about yourself, your background,
Speaker 1: why you decided to get into this race.
Speaker 8: Well, yeah, I'm just regular, everyday, average working guy. I've
Speaker 8: been a member of the Ironworkers Local seventeen for the
Speaker 8: past nineteen years, where we've built some of the tall
Speaker 8: buildings and bridges and schools and hospitals in the Cleveland area.
Speaker 8: I've been a nine year member of brook Park City Council,
Speaker 8: you know, where I showed up and fought for people
Speaker 8: at the local level, built a reputation of being somebody
Speaker 8: who shows up when they need me the most. But
Speaker 8: more importantly, I've been the father of two daughters, and
Speaker 8: I have a bonus Daughter've been helping raise them up
Speaker 8: to be strong, independent, loving carrying women. And that's kind
Speaker 8: of where I got. That's the most prideful thing about
Speaker 8: about me is I'm a good, good family man and
Speaker 8: take care of my family as to the best of
Speaker 8: my ability. And yeah, that's me in a nutshell.
Speaker 1: Did you help build this new Brown Stadium? And do
Speaker 1: we feel okay about them moving, you know, out of downtown.
Speaker 8: Well, I actually worked a little bit on the old stadium,
Speaker 8: oh Nico in twenty fourteen when we redid the scoreboards.
Speaker 8: I was on that. That was a that was a
Speaker 8: good job. It was like tailgate and every day for work.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Any Sunday, any Sunday jobs I visits, he's got to
Speaker 1: be there.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was like Sunday every day because I was.
Speaker 8: We were on seven days a week, doing twelve to
Speaker 8: fourteen hour days to get it done before the season started.
Speaker 8: So a lot of hard work went into it, but
Speaker 8: it was it was a little easier being that we were,
Speaker 8: you know, building the Brown Stadium. Yeah, the new stadium
Speaker 8: is underway now, it's just now getting started. They're still
Speaker 8: doing underground work and stuff like that. So I haven't
Speaker 8: we haven't seen anything come out of the ground, yet
Speaker 8: got it, got coming.
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 1: So your opponent, Max Miller Congresston Max Miller, He's been
Speaker 1: accused of some awful stuff, throwing scalding hot water at
Speaker 1: his ex wife, holding a gun to her head, fracturing
Speaker 1: their two year old daughters collar bone. But despite all
Speaker 1: of that, he's refused to get out of the race,
Speaker 1: and he's instead decided to start attacking his father in law,
Speaker 1: Senator Burnie Marino, Hi, Ohio, Senator of Bernie Marino on
Speaker 1: social media. What's your reaction to these charges and and
Speaker 1: the way Max Miller's responded to them.
Speaker 8: Well, yeah, they're they're very serious allegations and I you know,
Speaker 8: I've said it since day one. If they proved to
Speaker 8: be true, he shouldn't be be in Congress, he should
Speaker 8: be in jail. And uh, you know I stand by
Speaker 8: that statement. You know, the folks I talked to all
Speaker 8: across this district, whether it's knocking the doors, doing the
Speaker 8: town halls, you know, I get asked about it a lot.
Speaker 8: And you know, one of the things that is most
Speaker 8: troubling is him with holding the Blue Bunny from his daughter.
Speaker 8: You know, that's personal to me. Because you know, my
Speaker 8: my youngest daughter, Ashley, she had bear Bear growing up,
Speaker 8: and uh, I remember going on vacation one time we
Speaker 8: had to turn back around and get bear Bear because
Speaker 8: she forgot bear Bear at the house. So uh had
Speaker 8: you know, turned around, got bear Bear and then we
Speaker 8: were okay to go on vacation. But uh, I just
Speaker 8: know how personal connections children make with their uh, with
Speaker 8: their security blanket or their animal. And you know, it
Speaker 8: just shows the kind of leverage Max Miller hold over
Speaker 8: people he loves. And if he does that to people
Speaker 8: he loves, imagine what he does to people he don't
Speaker 8: really like or doesn't don't understand. Yeah, and that that
Speaker 8: kind of behavior has no place in Congress.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My daughter has two little pink bunnies that she calls
Speaker 1: her lovies, and one time I thought I might have
Speaker 1: dropped one at the airport and lost it. And you
Speaker 1: would have thought my reaction was basically like I had
Speaker 1: lost a child. It was like fucking def Con five.
Speaker 1: In our house. We were scrambling for this thing. Thank god,
Speaker 1: we finally found it, like under a blanket or a.
Speaker 2: Pillar or something.
Speaker 1: But you're right, I mean, it does show a level
Speaker 1: of vindictiveness that is shocking to me. As a father,
Speaker 1: I would do literally anything to ensure my daughter felt comfortable,
Speaker 1: felt safe, had a good night's sleep. The idea that
Speaker 1: he would need to give the bunny over to only
Speaker 1: the court appointed like minder guy, that he wouldn't give
Speaker 1: it to someone else who he deemed a stranger. We
Speaker 1: know all this, by the way, because he released a
Speaker 1: text message where you know, he had had this conversation
Speaker 1: with someone I don't know if the Senator Bernie Marino
Speaker 1: or like you know, someone who had been dispatched by
Speaker 1: Center Marino to have this conversation with Max Miller. But
Speaker 1: Max Miller thought that the text messages he released like
Speaker 1: showed his side of the story, but really it just
Speaker 1: showed him being a sociopath.
Speaker 8: Yeah. I mean, I'm no therapists or you know, psychologist.
Speaker 8: I wouldn't be able to diagnose him of that. But
Speaker 8: but I know as a father, I would do whatever
Speaker 8: I had to do to make sure my baby had
Speaker 8: or bear bear. I don't care who who I had
Speaker 8: to give it to make sure she got it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Same, so I know that you know, as you know,
Speaker 1: probably better than anybody, like the hardest thing about politics
Speaker 1: is most normal people just don't have time to read
Speaker 1: up on it, right They're busy like getting the kids to.
Speaker 2: School, or going to work or doing whatever. They don't
Speaker 2: seek out political news.
Speaker 1: So when you're trying to help, you know, voters understand
Speaker 1: kind of the stakes an election, or understand about a candidate,
Speaker 1: it takes a lot to kind of get something to
Speaker 1: break through. Has this story about Max Miller, the allegations
Speaker 1: against him, Has this broken through to voters in your district?
Speaker 1: I ask in part because there was, like I think
Speaker 1: a Washington Post story or something that suggested that most
Speaker 1: voters they talked to as they kind of walk the streets,
Speaker 1: hadn't heard about it.
Speaker 8: Well, yeah, you know a lot of people are tuned
Speaker 8: out from politics because, you know, politician haven't given them
Speaker 8: anything to pay attention to, especially when you consider the
Speaker 8: fact that most working people, especially the hard working families
Speaker 8: of this district, are doing everything they can just to
Speaker 8: make ends meet. You know, they're working, you know, two
Speaker 8: or three jobs, in some cases, they are working overtime
Speaker 8: just to just to get by. And you know, workers
Speaker 8: used to work and live paycheck to paycheck. Now they're
Speaker 8: not even making it to the next paycheck. So, yeah,
Speaker 8: it's it's understandable. I mean, I understand why people would
Speaker 8: tune out because they got more important things in their
Speaker 8: life to worry about. But what I hope they would
Speaker 8: do is is lift their head up just for a second,
Speaker 8: pay it attention to what's going on in this race,
Speaker 8: and you know, support somebody like me who understands what
Speaker 8: they're going through because I actually live what they're going through,
Speaker 8: and put somebody in Washington who's going to fight to
Speaker 8: make sure that they can make that, you know, make
Speaker 8: to that next paycheck, and sure that they can start
Speaker 8: building a life and start realizing the American dream that
Speaker 8: politicians have taken from us.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen a lot of interviews you've done.
Speaker 1: I've read a lot of stuff you've a lot of
Speaker 1: interviews you've given. I think you do a really admirable
Speaker 1: job of trying to like refocus the conversation on issues
Speaker 1: and the economy and the stuff that voters actually care
Speaker 1: about and that that makes a difference in their lives.
Speaker 1: And I think that's important. I really do respect that.
Speaker 1: I do think that there's also a kind of a
Speaker 1: threshold question about character from our elected officials. That's very important,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering how you view that in this context, Like,
Speaker 1: is an allegation like those that Max Miller's facing, is
Speaker 1: at a place where we should draw a line as
Speaker 1: a country and just say no, like this guy should
Speaker 1: not serve in Congress, or how are you thinking about that?
Speaker 8: Well? Yeah, I mean, we we've seen politicians be accused
Speaker 8: of all sorts of things over the past, you know,
Speaker 8: a few years, especially as it seems like it's ramped
Speaker 8: up with with character issues with politicians. But I think
Speaker 8: it's it's really a test of, uh, of the American
Speaker 8: public what we're willing to accept from our representatives. And
Speaker 8: to me, I think it's it should be a uniting factor.
Speaker 8: I think I think Democrats, Republicans and independence can come
Speaker 8: together and set the bar of what we expect from
Speaker 8: from politicians, you know, not saying that anybody has to
Speaker 8: be perfect. You know, certainly I'm not perfect. I've had,
Speaker 8: you know, mistakes in my younger years and and stuff
Speaker 8: like that. But but what is the what is the
Speaker 8: bar that, uh, that we're gonna set of what we
Speaker 8: can expect from our leaders. And I think this is
Speaker 8: an opportunity UH, to unite people. That's what my goal
Speaker 8: as my main goal in this run is to really
Speaker 8: unite our district, UH through the party, divide through the
Speaker 8: political differences in political spectrum, to get people to understand
Speaker 8: that we have more that unites us than divides us,
Speaker 8: and we're when we put aside some of the political
Speaker 8: differences and come together their strength there. And you know,
Speaker 8: that's what I hope to bring and I hope people
Speaker 8: heed the call and say, hey, we cannot accept politicians
Speaker 8: who aren't going to live by at least a minimum
Speaker 8: standard of ethics in decency.
Speaker 1: So back on the issues. I mean, Trump ran on
Speaker 1: the promise basically that he would get cost down and
Speaker 1: get inflation under control. That was kind of like the
Speaker 1: core promise of his campaign. Instead, gas prices are up,
Speaker 1: They've been up for a while. Tariffs are making things
Speaker 1: more expensive. And then I know, in Ohio you've got
Speaker 1: people leaving the stakes they can't find good jobs. Trump
Speaker 1: one year district by eleven points in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: I think, have you been able to talk to some
Speaker 1: of those Trump voters and do you find them receptive
Speaker 1: to the argument that maybe they made a mistake by
Speaker 1: voting for him, and that Trump has made things work
Speaker 1: and that you know, they might be open to voted
Speaker 1: for a Democrat this time to kind of correct that.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm not. I'm not afraid to talk to anybody.
Speaker 8: You know, I've talked to people who voted for Trump
Speaker 8: in the past, people who voted for Biden and everybody
Speaker 8: in between. You know, not afraid to have those conversations.
Speaker 8: You know, to me, it's not it's not about a
Speaker 8: Republican the Democrat issue. It's worker or worker issue. And
Speaker 8: Trump was able to capture the attention of the worker.
Speaker 8: You know, this district is is a very strong working
Speaker 8: class district. It's a Jerney man Or district. But the
Speaker 8: one thing that unites the whole district is the fact
Speaker 8: that everyone works hard for a living. And you know,
Speaker 8: Trump captured that message. He said he's going to bring
Speaker 8: back manufacturing. He's going to usher in a gold and
Speaker 8: the age for workers, and what we got was a
Speaker 8: golden shower instead. You know, people are working harder and harder,
Speaker 8: we're getting less and less. And this district also too.
Speaker 8: In twenty eighteen, like shared Brown would have won this
Speaker 8: district right when he ran for send in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 8: And it's because Sharon Brown has always run on the
Speaker 8: message of fighting for workers. Now his record fighting for
Speaker 8: workers backs that it's backed up by real results. You know,
Speaker 8: me as a member of Iron Workers Local seventeen, the
Speaker 8: legislation he brought forward actually saved our pension from from default.
Speaker 8: And so, along with the Teamsters and so many other
Speaker 8: things that he fought for, actually came to bring real
Speaker 8: value to workers' lives in Ohio. And and and that's
Speaker 8: what I'm running on. I'm running because working families haven't
Speaker 8: realized that Golden age. And and you know Wall Street.
Speaker 8: Wall Street's doing great, the billionaires are doing great, corporations
Speaker 8: are doing great. But when does it trickle down to
Speaker 8: the rest of us? When when do I get value
Speaker 8: for the labor that I'm putting in? And I'm putting
Speaker 8: in more and more and more value. And that's what
Speaker 8: everybody across the district is asking. That's what I'm hearing
Speaker 8: at the doors. You know, people working again to three
Speaker 8: or four jobs in a household just to make ends meet,
Speaker 8: and people are fed up on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said that that golden showers trickling down just forever.
Speaker 1: You've argued that I saw you in an interview talking
Speaker 1: about why Democrats have struggled so much with mail voters
Speaker 1: winning over men. You argue that culture and not policy
Speaker 1: is kind of at the root of it.
Speaker 2: Can you expand on that and explain what you're thinking there?
Speaker 8: Yeah, Well, like I mean, the Democratic Party has always
Speaker 8: stood up for workers, but over the past few cycles,
Speaker 8: especially that that message of fighting for working families kind
Speaker 8: of got put on the back burner, and you know,
Speaker 8: it was almost like they were more you know, the
Speaker 8: Democratic Party is a big tent, right, we have a
Speaker 8: lot of different ideals and perspectives, which is good. That's
Speaker 8: I think the more people we bring in to the fold,
Speaker 8: more ideas get we could find the right idea. But
Speaker 8: where I think they were highlighting some of the issues
Speaker 8: that were kind of more fringe and more you know,
Speaker 8: important issues that need to be discussed, but shouldn't be
Speaker 8: the forefront core of the message. The forefront core of
Speaker 8: the message should be the most expansive and one that
Speaker 8: includes the most people. And I think, you know, I
Speaker 8: think workers issues, you know, that covers everybody. You know,
Speaker 8: I don't care if what lifestyle you live, you have
Speaker 8: to work for a limit and that work should have value.
Speaker 8: That should be our core message. And if people and
Speaker 8: the way I see it, if people are making progress
Speaker 8: in their personal lives, then they have the resources and
Speaker 8: energy they can use to fight for some of those
Speaker 8: other more uh more fringe issues.
Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier in the interview, and you've talked about
Speaker 1: it in the past, sort of having a what you
Speaker 1: call it a rough and rowdy upbringing some brushes with
Speaker 1: the law when you were younger, in your early twenties.
Speaker 1: What happened and like, what do you think what did
Speaker 1: that experience teach you that has been valuable in later life.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I grew up on the West side of Cleveland.
Speaker 8: It was a pretty rough neighborhood, so you know, I
Speaker 8: mean it was nothing for a couple dudes to getting
Speaker 8: a scrap at a basketball game or or somebody drive
Speaker 8: down the street looking at You're on the hop out
Speaker 8: of the car and next you know you're throwing down
Speaker 8: It's It was a It was a unique situation growing
Speaker 8: up and then you know, grow going into adulthood. That
Speaker 8: was my environment. I brought that into adulthood. I learned
Speaker 8: quickly that that was the way, you know, and I
Speaker 8: had some I had some run ins with the law.
Speaker 8: I made mistakes. I owned the mistakes. I didn't blame
Speaker 8: somebody else or sue somebody into silence over it. And
Speaker 8: then I paid my price for it, and I moved
Speaker 8: on and learned from it. And you know, I want
Speaker 8: to point out that this was very early in my adulthood,
Speaker 8: you know, from eighteen to twenty two years old. But uh,
Speaker 8: and then I had Then I had a child, and
Speaker 8: that kind of changed everything. No longer was I the
Speaker 8: rough and rowdy guy just worried about me and myself.
Speaker 8: I had to worry about a family, and I had
Speaker 8: to worry about, you know, building a life for my daughter.
Speaker 8: And then I had another daughter and come full circle.
Speaker 8: Of the past five years as an iron worker, I've
Speaker 8: been able to teach the new iron workers coming in
Speaker 8: and you know, find those rough and rowdy iron workers
Speaker 8: that were kind of like me when I was that age.
Speaker 8: Kind of helped them develop their skills as an iron worker,
Speaker 8: but also make good decisions so they weren't getting, you know,
Speaker 8: having the issues that I had when I was younger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, listen, if you didn't want to beat up
Speaker 1: a Steelers fan at a at a at a game
Speaker 1: in your early twenties, Like, were you even a fan?
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I'm as a Patriots fan. We've all
Speaker 1: been there, you know. Was it a inser? Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you know they're they're tough. I wouldn't fuck around with
Speaker 1: those guys.
Speaker 8: I'm not proud of it. Let's just say I've made
Speaker 8: some mistakes, you know now when I go to a game.
Speaker 8: I just watched the game and my mom.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, I trusted me too.
Speaker 1: I remember being at my first ever Red Sox game
Speaker 1: when I was like a kid and there was a
Speaker 1: huge rumble in the outfield right next to us, and
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, twelve or thirteen, and it
Speaker 1: looked like hul Cogan was getting the fight with some
Speaker 1: other massive dude.
Speaker 2: I was like, all right, never not for me, I
Speaker 2: would not farewell there.
Speaker 8: You know, I grew up in Cleveland. Don't don't google
Speaker 8: ten cent beer night. Yes you'll you'll you'll see what
Speaker 8: what I grew up with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it gets it gets wild in Cleveland. Uh.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Cleveland, who the Brown is going to start
Speaker 1: at quarterback this year is going to be Deshaun Schadure.
Speaker 2: Maybe bring Joe Flacco back? What are you thinking.
Speaker 8: Uh, I don't. I don't know what they're going to decide.
Speaker 8: If it were me, if I were making that decision,
Speaker 8: I would keep developing Shoudre. I think, uh, I think
Speaker 8: he's got a bright future if he gets the reps.
Speaker 8: I think I think it gives our offense a little
Speaker 8: bit more fluidity, as he you know, played a little
Speaker 8: last year. But time will tell. I'm not very hopeful
Speaker 8: for the season, but I come on, shock me, come on.
Speaker 8: Normally normally I'm normally I'm like, this is our year
Speaker 8: super Bowl. But I don't. I don't have that film
Speaker 8: this year.
Speaker 2: You guys have Tampa Week two.
Speaker 1: You got to see Baker Mayfield come out of that
Speaker 1: tunnel on the other side. That's got to be like
Speaker 1: seeing an X who you know, lost a bunch of weight,
Speaker 1: got a tan, looking great, you know, made a lot
Speaker 1: of money somehow.
Speaker 2: That that's rough.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I I wish Baker would have never went anywhere personally,
Speaker 8: but uh but you know, I understand the business of
Speaker 8: the NFL. I'm proud that Baker Mayfield is doing well,
Speaker 8: but I really just hope our Browns do well and
Speaker 8: beat Baker Mayfield and we too.
Speaker 1: This time next year, do you think, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: we got Baker back on the team or we talking
Speaker 1: about developing arch Manning.
Speaker 2: How's this going to go?
Speaker 8: Man, this is a tougher interview that I thought. If
Speaker 8: you're asking me to like I got to solve the
Speaker 8: District seven problems and uh and the Browns problems, I'm gonna.
Speaker 4: Yeah you hurt here, Yeah you're qualified, b GM.
Speaker 2: Last question so we talked about earlier. I mean this,
Speaker 2: The Browns are about to move to a new stadium
Speaker 2: with a dome. Does that make you sad at all?
Speaker 2: You lose those like late season kind of Lake Erie
Speaker 2: snow games.
Speaker 8: You know, I've been I've been to a lot of
Speaker 8: snow games. Like the last great one was uh what
Speaker 8: was it not? Last year? The year before last against
Speaker 8: Pittsburgh we beat them. Uh it was a blizzard. It
Speaker 8: was a Thursday night game. Ye, great time. But like, no,
Speaker 8: I'm I'm all about the stadium. You know one it's
Speaker 8: in brook Park. I'm a city councilman in brook Park,
Speaker 8: so to bring the Browns in brook Park is huge
Speaker 8: for our area. I'm an iron worker, so building stadiums
Speaker 8: and buildings is kind of my thing. But really, what
Speaker 8: I like about the Dome more than the open Lake
Speaker 8: Front Stadium is is like that lifelong fan who's like,
Speaker 8: you know, maybe sixties or seventies, can't sit out in
Speaker 8: the cold anymore. They'll be comfortable the whole game, or
Speaker 8: that that young family bringing their their son or daughter
Speaker 8: for their first game. You know, I've take I took
Speaker 8: my daughters down on the lake, and I remember good
Speaker 8: games that they wanted to leave, you know, part way
Speaker 8: through the second quarter because they're freezing and their cold
Speaker 8: and it's rainy. So I think, I think it'll be good.
Speaker 8: It'll it'll keep people in the stadium even when the
Speaker 8: Browns are you know, two and thirteen or whatever. It'll
Speaker 8: it'll keep them in the seats and keep you know,
Speaker 8: keep you know, somebody will still want to go because
Speaker 8: it's a more comfortable experience. And you know, let's keep
Speaker 8: in mind too, fantasy football is kind of a real thing.
Speaker 8: And I hate when my receiver goes up in a
Speaker 8: in an ice bowl game and now he gets me
Speaker 8: three points.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I get that. Listen.
Speaker 1: I went to the Patriots Broncos game in Denver last
Speaker 1: year with that like snow white out game and It
Speaker 1: was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had in
Speaker 1: terms of a sports fan. But it was so cold,
Speaker 1: and it's like a lot of layers to to keep
Speaker 1: us there. And I get you know, once you guys
Speaker 1: have a dome, maybe you get the super Bowl in Cleveland.
Speaker 1: You do those all sorts of year round opportunities for
Speaker 1: events and shit like that.
Speaker 2: That's big economically.
Speaker 1: Brian Pointdexter, thanks for joining the show. Where can folks
Speaker 1: find your campaign and and help out if they want?
Speaker 8: Yeah, thanks for having me. People can go to poindexter
Speaker 8: for congress dot com. You can hear a little bit
Speaker 8: about my backstory. You can watch our videos and really
Speaker 8: get a sense of who I am. I'm really just
Speaker 8: the guy next door who decided that I'm tired of
Speaker 8: watching my community have such a hard time and I'm
Speaker 8: gonna run and fight hard for families.
Speaker 1: Listen, we appreciate you joining and uh everyone check out
Speaker 1: the campaign and we'll talk.
Speaker 2: To you soon.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Thank you very much for having me and
Speaker 8: great to be here.
Speaker 3: That's our show for today. Thanks to Brian Poindexter for
Speaker 3: coming on. Dan and I will be back with a
Speaker 3: new show on Friday. Positive America is a Crooked media production.
Speaker 3: Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Ruben, McKenna,
Speaker 3: Roberts and Faris Safari, with Ree Cherlin, Elijah Cone and
Speaker 3: Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt de Groat, Ben Hefcot,
Speaker 3: Jordan Canter, Charlotte Landis, Carol pel Avive, David Toles, Mia Kelman,
Speaker 3: Ryan Young and Naomi Single. Our staff is probably unionized
Speaker 3: with the Writers Guild of America East