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Speaker 1: Hello, welcome to Fast Politics. I'm Molly Johnfest, and we

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Speaker 1: have a great show for you today. Later in the show,

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Speaker 1: we'll talk to Claire Malone and Galen Druk from the

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Speaker 1: podcast Still Counting about the indicators they're seeing as early

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Speaker 1: voting starts. But first, we have to the contrary's own

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Speaker 1: Charlie Sykes on the continued plunge in Trump and Fox

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Speaker 1: quote unquote news's popularity. Welcome, welcome, Charlie Sykes.

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Speaker 2: Hey, it's good to be back.

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Speaker 1: So Donald Trump is on the stump. Mississippi on Monday,

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Speaker 1: Texas twice, Ohio, Florida and Iowa swing states all or something.

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Speaker 1: But recently he said. to his audience that they couldn't

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Speaker 1: afford to join. They could have a burger. They couldn't

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Speaker 1: afford to join Mar-a-Lago. They couldn't afford to eat there,

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Speaker 1: but they should vote for his campaign.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 3: So there's two things there. Number one, just look at

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Speaker 3: the body language of the fact that he's in these

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Speaker 3: deep red states, which tells you a lot, but also,

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Speaker 3: and I think it was Chris Eliza who made this point,

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Speaker 3: that It's not just that Trump is stumping in the states.

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Speaker 2: This is the worst version of Donald Trump for the

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Speaker 2: last 10 years. We've seen lots of different versions.

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Speaker 3: It feels like it's a fire hose of bad Trump,

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Speaker 3: including this terrible closing message. So for about five minutes,

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Speaker 3: MAGA decided it was going to pretend to be outraged

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Speaker 3: about Barack Obama's line about Donald.

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Speaker 2: Trump turning the White House and looking. It turns the.

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Speaker 1: Oval Office into a cheesecake factory decorated by Saddam Hussein.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: So people say, oh, that's so elitist, how elitist he was.

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Speaker 3: So what does Donald Trump do? He says, hold my beer.

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Speaker 3: You know, I'm going to give everybody the.

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Speaker 2: $ 5, 000 check if I win the election.

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Speaker 3: But, you know, if you went to my club and

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Speaker 3: hung around with me, even if you had that $ 5, 000,

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Speaker 3: you probably couldn't afford it. a hamburger, so you probably

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Speaker 3: shouldn't show up at Mar-a-Lago, which was tone-deaf layered on tone-deaf,

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Speaker 3: wasn't it? It was, you peasants, I'm going to give

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Speaker 3: you this money, but don't you peasants take it into

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Speaker 3: your head to hang out with the rich, beautiful, famous.

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Speaker 2: Botox folks at Mar-a-Lago. So... Hell of a closing message.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the $ 5, 000 that I'm offering you to vote

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Speaker 1: for me, which you're not going to get because John

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Speaker 1: has already said no dice and that most voters don't

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Speaker 1: think he's they're going to get either. Uh, you can

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Speaker 1: have that money, but you can't go to my club.

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Speaker 1: But also how dare Barack Hussein Obama say that I

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Speaker 1: made the white house look like a cheesecake factory.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: It's, um, But there's a weird thing going on in

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Speaker 3: Donald Trump's mind. And I'm not saying that it's a

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Speaker 3: new Donald Trump. It's that you can just sort of

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Speaker 3: tell that that that he's just wandering down some dark,

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Speaker 3: unused corridors there. You know, I mean, a lot of

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Speaker 3: it's not funny at all. The incredibly overt racism, the

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Speaker 3: way he talks about Somalians and the fact that basically

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Speaker 3: much of the media just shrugs his shoulders that doesn't

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Speaker 3: even mention it. And then you have these weird things

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Speaker 3: where he's He's apparently miming fellatio. Did you catch that

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Speaker 3: out of Texas last night? They're on this weird kink

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Speaker 3: where they want people to question James Tallarico's gayness or something,

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Speaker 3: whether he's a vegan, and then miming.

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Speaker 2: All of this.

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Speaker 3: So it is this ongoing sick joke that we're seeing.

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Speaker 3: But it does not strike me, Molly, as a particularly

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Speaker 3: effective closing argument in closely fought races.

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Speaker 1: What's interesting is today the Times has this incredibly long

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Speaker 1: and researched piece about the Christian influencer who Ken Paxton

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Speaker 1: is dating now and who he met at the Kentucky

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Speaker 1: Derby and two months later he was getting divorced from

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Speaker 1: Angela on biblical grounds. So And she and he's and

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Speaker 1: you see that because he was the attorney general, that

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Speaker 1: he has been to where she lives five times and

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Speaker 1: they are, you know, just whatever. And when his press

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Speaker 1: secretary is asked about this influencer who he's in a

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Speaker 1: relationship with, probably, or the implication is they say, how dare.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: How dare you ask about Ken Paxton's personal life? This

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Speaker 1: is a personal story.

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Speaker 2: Oh, come on.

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Speaker 1: Right. And they are all they're doing on the stump

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Speaker 1: is going after Tallarico for being insufficiently whatever.

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Speaker 3: Manly. Well, look, I mean, Ken Paxton is arguably the

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Speaker 3: most corrupt candidate on the ballot at any level, probably

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Speaker 3: the the most corrupt politician, second only to Donald Trump.

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Speaker 3: So I was on one of the cable shows yesterday

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Speaker 3: and and the the topic was being introduced as the

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Speaker 3: The sleeper issue emerging in Texas is corruption. And I

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Speaker 3: push back a little bit saying, wait, any campaign in

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Speaker 3: which Ken Paxton is involved, corruption can't be a sleeper

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Speaker 3: issue because it has been so well documented. He was

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Speaker 3: impeached by members of his own party as attorney general.

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Speaker 3: The only question right now is not whether or not

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Speaker 3: Ken Paxton is a corrupt, you know, double dealing elitist adulterer.

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Speaker 3: The question is whether voters care about it or whether

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Speaker 3: or not the tribal pull is so great that they're

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Speaker 3: going to give him the kind of pass that they

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Speaker 3: gave Donald Trump. So, I mean, we're getting this flood

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Speaker 3: of stories how he's using government jets to fly.

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Speaker 2: All over the world.

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Speaker 3: And we look, we know who Ken Paxton is. My

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Speaker 3: guess is that nobody in Texas has any doubt about

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Speaker 3: who Ken Paxton is. And so what Republicans are left

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Speaker 3: with basically saying, yeah, he's he's this really vile, you know, scumbag.

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Speaker 2: But. at least he's not gay.

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Speaker 3: I mean, that's kind of what they're left with.

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Speaker 1: And Tallarico is very much not gay. I mean, which

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Speaker 1: is the irony here. But I also think part of

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Speaker 1: it is, are we going to see, is Ken Paxton

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Speaker 1: a Roy Moore or is he a Donald Trump?

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Speaker 3: Well, that's an excellent way of framing it. And it

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Speaker 3: will tell us a lot about the nature of politics.

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Speaker 3: It will, you know, we keep talking about, you know,

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Speaker 3: what post-Trump politics will look like. Look, if in 2026,

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Speaker 3: if in this environment, Ken Paxton and Vivek Ramaswamy can

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Speaker 3: win despite running these incredibly despicable campaigns, it will tell

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Speaker 3: you something about, number one, about money. It will also

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Speaker 3: tell you something about the way the political culture has

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Speaker 3: been thoroughly corrupted and maybe corrupted irreversibly. I mean, it

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Speaker 3: will be quite a commentary if you have candidates who

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Speaker 3: behave this way, if they can win. I don't think

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Speaker 3: either one of them is going to win, but maybe

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Speaker 3: that's Maybe I'm engaging in some irrational exuberance. I just

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Speaker 3: think it offends fundamental sense of decency that people in

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Speaker 3: Ohio and Texas still have.

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Speaker 1: Well, what's interesting about Ohio is since that ad came

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Speaker 1: out and Vivek's camp put $ 4 million behind it and

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Speaker 1: got really doubled down on it, since that's happened, he's

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Speaker 1: down in the polls.

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Speaker 2: Well, he's taken a lot of hits.

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Speaker 3: Venues are canceling him. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, I had

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Speaker 3: a policy against making endorsements, said, you know what, this

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Speaker 3: is so awful that we can't sit on the sidelines.

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Speaker 3: And they endorsed Amy Acton. And you're seeing the odds

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Speaker 3: of of her winning go up since then. And again,

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Speaker 3: this is to likely. Yeah, but this is testing the thesis.

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Speaker 3: You know, has has Trump actually so changed the culture

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Speaker 3: of American politics that voters will see this and not

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Speaker 3: care that they're that they're partisan? instincts and loyalties will

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Speaker 3: override that. And I think that will tell us a lot.

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Speaker 1: And I also think like there's other stuff that's happening

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Speaker 1: in the early voting numbers that I think is that

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Speaker 1: there is a possibility. And again, I don't know if

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Speaker 1: this is going to happen or if this is because

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Speaker 1: I know when I think about my priors, I tend

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Speaker 1: to get overly optimistic. So I I'm going to put

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Speaker 1: that caveat in there. But we are seeing videos of

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Speaker 1: people in the South who especially Black voters, after what

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Speaker 1: happened with Calais, which this Voting Rights Act, which basically

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Speaker 1: trying to strip minority members of the House from their districts,

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Speaker 1: trying to really steal again from Black voters. We're really

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Speaker 1: seeing movement in a way like people out there voting numbers.

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Speaker 1: The early voting numbers seem very big. I mean, they

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Speaker 1: are you know, it's a possibility like what we saw

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Speaker 1: with with Nebraska's second district, a kind of reaction to

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Speaker 1: to to what Trump is trying to steal from them.

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Speaker 3: Well, then this is not just strictly anecdotal. There is

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Speaker 3: actual data about the early voting that would support what

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Speaker 3: you're suggesting.

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Speaker 2: Now, will it be enough? I don't know.

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Speaker 3: The fact, however, that we are even talking about the

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Speaker 3: Mississippi Senate seat being in play or this new poll

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Speaker 3: that came out showing that Darlene Graham in South Carolina

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Speaker 3: is in a dead heat.

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Speaker 2: This would suggest that perhaps this backfire.

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Speaker 3: So let me give you a good case scenario, since

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Speaker 3: I don't want to be negative here, that if, in fact,

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Speaker 3: this does turn out to be the blue wave, if

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Speaker 3: people like Paxton go down, if Vivek Ramaswamy goes down, Um,

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Speaker 3: it's going to send a number of messages, including to

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Speaker 3: the other Musk aligned oligarchs that, you know what, maybe

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Speaker 3: you ought to keep your wallets closed next time. Um,

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Speaker 3: Even a half billion dollars is not enough to sway

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Speaker 3: an election. So that's going to be the message. It's

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Speaker 3: also going to perhaps underline the point you're making that

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Speaker 3: all of the efforts to suppress the vote have not

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Speaker 3: only not succeeded, but they have backfired spectacularly.

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Speaker 2: I mean, this would be quite the story if.

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Speaker 3: In fact, it took this to, you know, you know,

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Speaker 3: awaken the sleeping giant.

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Speaker 2: Now, again, is that going to happen? We don't know.

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Speaker 3: But there's a reason why Donald Trump is campaigning in

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Speaker 3: places that you would never expect him to be.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. It is.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting to me, though. I mean, part of this

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Speaker 1: is Democratic enthusiasm, part of that, you know, anti-Trump stuff.

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Speaker 1: But part of it is also that these Republican candidates

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Speaker 1: are just bad. Yes. Like, Paxton is bad. Cindy Hyde-Smith

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Speaker 1: is so bad. I mean, Roger Marshall, terrible. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you come from politics world. How did this happen?

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Speaker 3: Well, arrogance, cockiness. But this is a really important point.

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Speaker 3: The candidate quality always matters. There's always, you know, the overall,

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Speaker 3: you know, trajectory of the electorate. But you just mentioned

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Speaker 3: a number of candidates that Republicans have put on the ballot,

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Speaker 3: you know, Shitty candidate for Senate in Georgia. Lousy candidate

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Speaker 3: for Senate in North Carolina. Now, there are some problematic

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Speaker 3: Democratic candidates, but it frankly is nothing compared to the

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Speaker 3: lousy candidates. And I think that a lot of these

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Speaker 3: Republicans became fat, lazy, simply assumed that somehow they could

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Speaker 3: stay within the echo chamber of Trump world. And so

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Speaker 3: you're seeing Kansas in play, maybe Nebraska in play.

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Speaker 2: Mississippi.

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Speaker 3: I mean, the fact that we're having these conversations gives

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Speaker 3: you an indication of this, the week we're in. Having

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Speaker 3: said that, you know, part of me worries because we

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Speaker 3: all worry, right?

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Speaker 2: Right. We all can confess that we worry, right? That's

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Speaker 2: all I do. If you're having trouble sleeping, you're not alone.

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Speaker 2: I'm just mentioning it. If you're going through the pep

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Speaker 2: set at a higher rate, you're not alone.

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Speaker 3: But I do think that the expectation game has gotten

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Speaker 3: awfully high for Democrats. Um, and that people, people need to,

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Speaker 3: you know, I, I, again, you know, what's the eye

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Speaker 3: on the prize. The eye on the prize is the

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Speaker 3: gavel winning control. You're not going to win all of

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Speaker 3: these seats. There are going to be some of these

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Speaker 3: elections that might break people's hearts. Um, every election has

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Speaker 3: the Lucy with the football moment. Every political party does

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Speaker 3: this at some point, but again, this candidate quality thing

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Speaker 3: you're mentioning is, is, is one of the big X

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Speaker 3: factors in, in this race. And I'm just not sure.

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Speaker 3: that even hundreds of millions of dollars is going to

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Speaker 3: be able to prop up some of these awful candidates.

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Speaker 1: OK, so one last question on this and then we'll

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Speaker 1: move on to Fox News. It's incredible. There's incredible story

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Speaker 1: about Fox News. What is there a race that would

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Speaker 1: break your heart? Is there a candidate who you would

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Speaker 1: really like to see? Like I'm asking you the personal

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Speaker 1: question here.

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Speaker 2: Well, let me I'll do it the other way.

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Speaker 3: The the election that would make my heart glow with

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Speaker 3: have that feeling that I haven't had for a decade

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Speaker 3: would be if David Jolly were to be elected governor

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Speaker 3: in Florida.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be awfully exciting.

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Speaker 3: I frankly, I don't want to see Susan Collins reelected.

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Speaker 3: I am I still am worried about what's going to

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Speaker 3: happen in Michigan. I had been worried about Minnesota, but

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Speaker 3: this new New York Times poll would suggest the Democrats

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Speaker 3: are in much better shape. Well, that might be an outlier.

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Speaker 3: But I am going to try to just, again, you know,

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Speaker 3: be realistic. If Darlene Graham wins, it's going to be disappointing.

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Speaker 3: It's not going to be soul shattering because you expect

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Speaker 3: that a Republican is going to win in South Carolina.

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Speaker 1: So I'd like to see Michael Aller lose.

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Speaker 2: That would be nice.

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Speaker 1: I'd really like to see that guy lose. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he's really terrible. But, yeah, I think those are good.

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Speaker 1: And to see Ken Paxton go down.

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Speaker 2: Would be something. That would break my heart.

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Speaker 3: No, I will say that I will have a hard

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Speaker 3: time not being a little depressed on Wednesday morning. If

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Speaker 3: Ken Paxton wins, if either– and I don't think it's

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Speaker 3: going to happen. I mean, if either Ken Paxton or

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Speaker 3: Ramaswamy won– That would that would put a big hole

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Speaker 3: in any faith I have in the future of the

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Speaker 3: electorate to get it right. All right.

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Speaker 1: Fox News. This is I think people are not MAGA

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Speaker 1: is not turning on to Fox News, nor are they

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Speaker 1: the Fox News audience. Their numbers are terrible. What what

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Speaker 1: do you why?

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Speaker 2: OK, I do think that that is a legitimate indicator indicator.

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Speaker 3: That when you're feeling good about your party, when you're

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Speaker 3: feeling good about politics, you want to consume more of it.

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Speaker 3: When things are going badly, when you're losing, when the

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Speaker 3: news is depressing, you turn it off. And this has

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Speaker 3: gone both ways. I mean, I'm guessing that the liberal

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Speaker 3: media had a cratering moment after 2024 where people just

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Speaker 3: could not take it. But right now, who's tuning in?

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Speaker 3: MS now is enjoying a real rating surge. Fox is

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Speaker 3: in the tank. That tells you something rather tangible about

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Speaker 3: motivation and mood. And that's not irrelevant in and off

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Speaker 3: your election. I also think.

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Speaker 1: Part of it is, too, though, like Trump's inability to

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Speaker 1: pull a rabbit out of a hat, at least so far.

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Speaker 1: I do think viewers blame pundits of that same party

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Speaker 1: sometimes for lack of electoral success.

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Speaker 2: Oh, look, people are going to blame a lot of people.

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Speaker 3: I mean, the postmortems, I mean, and I could imagine

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Speaker 3: the circular firing squad on the left if Democrats underperform.

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Speaker 3: But on the right as well, who's going to be blamed?

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Speaker 3: And of course, you know that Donald Trump is going

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Speaker 3: to spend a huge amount of time in political capital

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Speaker 3: explaining how it's not his fault.

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Speaker 2: So if it's not his fault, it's.

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Speaker 3: Going to be somebody else's fault. Of course, he's going

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Speaker 3: to say that it was fraudulent or stolen.

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Speaker 2: But ultimately... You.

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Speaker 3: Know, that that arrow is going to point at what,

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Speaker 3: you know, Fox News didn't hold up its end of

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Speaker 3: the bargain or this strategist or that strategist screwed up.

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Speaker 3: And you know that Trump's loyalty is pretty paper thin

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Speaker 3: and he can turn on these folks on a dime.

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Speaker 2: Deep.

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Speaker 1: What do you think the future of Fox News, though, is?

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Speaker 1: I mean, all cable has this problem where people don't

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Speaker 1: have cable boxes, but Fox has a very old demographic.

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Speaker 1: And the race to MAGA is a very, you know,

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Speaker 1: at some point you get sued, right? If you go

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Speaker 1: to MAGA, you get sued.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I know. I mean, there's they're going to be

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Speaker 2: a factor.

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Speaker 3: I mean, the reality is that the right wing media

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Speaker 3: ecosystem is not going to go away. Now, it's having

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Speaker 3: some tough times. And what you're seeing is, is that

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Speaker 3: they're they're fighting over the spoils. They're fighting over a shrinking,

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Speaker 3: aging audience. And Fox News will not be the center

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Speaker 3: of the right wing universe in the future any more than, say,

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Speaker 3: conservative talk radio on AM radio anymore. going to be

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Speaker 3: the beating heart of the right wing these things are

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Speaker 3: moving on and you know there's there's going to be

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Speaker 3: a scramble to get ahead of where the audience is going.

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Speaker 1: If Democrats and again, you and I optimism, we've made

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Speaker 1: all the caveats here. But if Democrats seriously overperform and like, again,

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Speaker 1: we don't know. And but, you know, like an Adam

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Speaker 1: Hamilton or something that I know he's. But and also

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Speaker 1: you and I both love him, too, because I like

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Speaker 1: religion that's liberal. You know, when people do religion in

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Speaker 1: a way that's not bigoted, that really delights me.

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Speaker 3: But I mean, you could see a world where- I

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Speaker 3: like Christianity that's actually Christianity. So let me put it

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Speaker 3: in a slightly different way. I like Christianity that would

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Speaker 3: actually say, what would Jesus actually do?

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Speaker 2: But that's a radical concept.

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Speaker 1: Yes, right. It's out of vogue. But it would really

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Speaker 1: reshape the map for 28.

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Speaker 2: It would.

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Speaker 3: And so Democrats are going to have to You know, again,

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Speaker 3: dealing with this majority is going to be difficult. I mean,

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Speaker 3: there's going to be a lot of passion, but there's

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Speaker 3: going to have to be a certain practicality.

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Speaker 2: What is possible? What is not possible?

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Speaker 3: We're not going to be able to pass a legislative

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Speaker 3: agenda under Donald Trump. There is such a thing as

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Speaker 3: misreading the results of a midterm election, overplaying your hand.

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Speaker 3: All of those things are, you know, are cautions. And

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure, however, that the audience and the base

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Speaker 3: is going to be in the mood to hear those,

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Speaker 3: those counsels of prudence and caution after January. And frankly,

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Speaker 3: I don't completely blame them.

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Speaker 2: Yes.

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Speaker 1: Charlie Sykes. I hope you'll come back.

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Speaker 2: Anytime.

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Speaker 3: Anytime.

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Speaker 4: Molly, it's time for the headlines. So everybody was just

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Speaker 4: so shocked when we saw that Flavio Balsamaro was able

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Speaker 4: to flee to America after there was investigations launched in

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Speaker 4: Brazil for But the one thing that I did find surprising,

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Speaker 4: I don't know about you, that J.D. Vance's group may

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Speaker 4: have been involved with this.

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Speaker 1: The Washington Post reports that Brazil's Supreme Court justice has

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Speaker 1: ordered Brazil's federal police to investigate contacts between Vance's Rockbridge

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Speaker 1: Network and any Brazilian police. operatives or companies.

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Speaker 4: Molly, I want to stop you. Can you explain to

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Speaker 4: me what Rockbridge Network is?

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Speaker 1: It's a political advocacy group, and it's an umbrella organization

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Speaker 1: founded by J.D.

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Speaker 2: Vance.

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Speaker 1: It has a lot of tech bros in it, including

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Speaker 1: Peter Thiel and Rebecca Mercer and the Will... Rupert.

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Speaker 4: Comercer doesn't know about election interference.

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Speaker 1: What are you talking about? Not at all. The Winklevoss twins. So, again,

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Speaker 1: this is a donor network. Look, this is early days and...

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Speaker 1: We don't know what we don't know, to put too

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Speaker 1: fine a point on it. But the fact that Washington

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Speaker 1: Post is already reporting that the Brazilian authorities are going

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Speaker 1: to investigate. And then let us add that it's not

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Speaker 1: like Bolsonaro Jr., Flavio, is behaving in the way that

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Speaker 1: an innocent person behaves. He has flown to Miami.

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Speaker 3: So....

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Speaker 1: This, you know, all of this seems a little sketchy,

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Speaker 1: but we'll see a source. This is all Washington Post reporting,

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Speaker 1: by the way, doing Washington Post doing God's work here.

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Speaker 1: An unnamed source reached out to the to to the

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Speaker 1: campaign offering. Hope Rockbridge denies any connection. OK, so we

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Speaker 1: don't know. Saying the Brazilians made false representations. We'll see.

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Speaker 1: Let's see. I would. I would stay tuned on this one.

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Speaker 1: But again, vice president, perhaps vice president's 501 C4, perhaps

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Speaker 1: implicated in election tampering in Brazil.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: It's so funny because when we get these callbacks to

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Speaker 4: past seasons, like, do you remember how shocked we all

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Speaker 4: were when Bolsonaro, his father, lost the last election and

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Speaker 4: then The next day or maybe like a day or

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Speaker 4: two after they're at Mar-a-Lago hanging out. Just so shocking

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Speaker 4: this would happen again. So, Molly, shockwave last night. Son Piker,

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Speaker 4: the Twitch streamer, has sued Scott Jennings for defamation. And

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Speaker 4: a lot of legal people are saying this is looking

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Speaker 4: bad for Mr. Scott Jennings. I'm pouring one out in

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Speaker 4: thoughts and prayers for him.

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Speaker 1: OK, so this is really interesting, too, because remember, we

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Speaker 1: don't see a lot of you know, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of lying that goes on, especially Hassan has become it.

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Speaker 1: You know, he's become very, very famous. And in his

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Speaker 1: huge fame, he has become a real boogeyman of the right.

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Speaker 1: They are super mad at him. They like talk about

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Speaker 1: him all the time. We saw clips of him aired

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Speaker 1: at Trump speeches today. and at the Trump midterm convention.

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Speaker 1: So he gets a lot of attention.

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Speaker 2: From the right.

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Speaker 1: And we don't often see lawsuits like this. And there's

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Speaker 1: a reason for that. It's a very high level of...

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Speaker 1: You have to really prove malicious intent, which usually you can't.

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Speaker 1: But what's very interesting here, and again, and I want

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Speaker 1: to point out... This is a specific thing that Hassan

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Speaker 1: is suing Scott Jennings for. And again, we all Scott

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Speaker 1: Jennings is, you know, basically a professional troll.

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Speaker 4: That's the charitable read.

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to be nice. So he filed a defamation

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Speaker 1: lawsuit against Scott Jennings. accusing him of claiming that Piker

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Speaker 1: advocated for lynching Black Americans after airing an edited video

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Speaker 1: of his remarks. So again, I think this is really

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Speaker 1: interesting for a number of reasons, right? One is that

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Speaker 1: he's not suing Scott Jennings for any of the, you know,

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Speaker 1: like Scott Jennings is On the regular, I mean, maybe

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Speaker 1: Scott Jennings hasn't, but on the regular, the right is

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Speaker 1: constantly calling him all sorts of inflammatory things.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 4: Well, the big trick that they play is since he's

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Speaker 4: a streamer, he often reads quotes of other people. And

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Speaker 4: then in this case, he's reading what someone else has said.

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Speaker 4: And then they're claiming it's him saying it in his

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Speaker 4: own intent.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: And it's edited.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: And so it's an edited video. So it's not it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's like there's deception there, too. It's a 38

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Speaker 1: page lawsuit filed in federal court. Washington, D.C. centers on

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Speaker 1: an August 11th episode of The Scott Jennings Show. Did

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Speaker 1: you know that Scott Jennings.

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Speaker 5: Had a show?

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Speaker 2: Salem Media.

435
00:24:18,830 --> 00:24:20,450
Speaker 4: They only have the best programming.

436
00:24:20,530 --> 00:24:26,179
Speaker 1: In which Jennings shared clips. of Piker claiming the U.S.

437
00:24:26,220 --> 00:24:32,530
Speaker 1: should resume lynchings against Black people. So again, super interesting, right?

438
00:24:32,570 --> 00:24:37,670
Speaker 1: Because this is edited out of context, clearly something that

439
00:24:37,710 --> 00:24:43,030
Speaker 1: Hassan does not believe. And so this is, I think,

440
00:24:44,630 --> 00:24:48,479
Speaker 1: really interesting. He threatened legal action in August. He shared

441
00:24:48,500 --> 00:24:53,460
Speaker 1: the clips, context of the clips, alleging that Jennings knowingly

442
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: misrepresented Sarcastic comments he made during a live stream. This

443
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 1: is an interesting one. The complaint says he took a false, fabricated,

444
00:25:04,619 --> 00:25:09,070
Speaker 1: manipulated video of Mr. Piker and added a made-up quotation

445
00:25:09,109 --> 00:25:13,050
Speaker 1: that Mr. Piker never uttered. and then made accusations that

446
00:25:13,090 --> 00:25:18,270
Speaker 1: went even beyond the manipulated footage. So super interesting. I

447
00:25:18,910 --> 00:25:22,920
Speaker 1: will be watching this. Remember, we live in a moment

448
00:25:22,980 --> 00:25:29,320
Speaker 1: now where tech companies have been broadly protected from being

449
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:34,159
Speaker 1: liable for lies or for damage done on their platform.

450
00:25:34,770 --> 00:25:38,630
Speaker 1: They've been protected from liability because of this Section 230 issue.

451
00:25:39,890 --> 00:25:43,650
Speaker 1: And I just wonder, you know, this is really interesting.

452
00:25:43,690 --> 00:25:46,650
Speaker 1: And I think it will be the beginning of something big.

453
00:25:46,750 --> 00:25:50,980
Speaker 1: I also think this is so problematic for Scott Jennings because, like,

454
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:55,639
Speaker 1: his whole business model is this kind of thing. So

455
00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:57,179
Speaker 1: stay tuned.

456
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:01,030
Speaker 4: Well, I think what's most interesting, I watched Hassan's reveal

457
00:26:01,070 --> 00:26:03,970
Speaker 4: of this as the headline came out. And what was interesting,

458
00:26:03,990 --> 00:26:07,610
Speaker 4: what he said is, You know, since the right assumes

459
00:26:07,650 --> 00:26:11,750
Speaker 4: the left has no funding, they say this stuff with impunity.

460
00:26:11,850 --> 00:26:14,970
Speaker 4: They just don't care. And they do this constantly. Whereas

461
00:26:15,010 --> 00:26:17,700
Speaker 4: you and I have to be much more careful. And

462
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:20,260
Speaker 4: one of the things I thought was very, very interesting

463
00:26:20,580 --> 00:26:22,979
Speaker 4: is that he's like, look, I'm doing this so that

464
00:26:23,020 --> 00:26:26,100
Speaker 4: they start to relax on what they do to us

465
00:26:26,300 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 4: as a whole. And he's trying to do it with

466
00:26:29,140 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 4: as much teeth as possible because this was one of

467
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 4: the more egregious things. And he's kind of vowing, he

468
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:36,540
Speaker 4: hasn't outright said it, but he was hinting that if

469
00:26:36,580 --> 00:26:39,379
Speaker 4: he wins this, this will be a fund to do

470
00:26:39,420 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 4: this further.

471
00:26:40,500 --> 00:26:40,940
Speaker 1: Yeah.

472
00:26:41,070 --> 00:26:42,679
Speaker 2: That he's not just going to buy a Ferrari.

473
00:26:42,700 --> 00:26:42,810
Speaker 3: Yeah.

474
00:26:43,330 --> 00:26:43,609
Speaker 6: Yeah.

475
00:26:43,750 --> 00:26:47,429
Speaker 1: And honestly, I mean, good for him. And and and

476
00:26:47,540 --> 00:26:51,060
Speaker 1: quite frankly, like this is a big deal. It's a

477
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:54,700
Speaker 1: big sea change. I think it'll be interesting to see

478
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:59,120
Speaker 1: if it works. You know, let's see what happens. Also,

479
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:01,340
Speaker 1: Scott Jennings is the perfect person to.

480
00:27:01,300 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 2: Do it, too.

481
00:27:02,350 --> 00:27:07,230
Speaker 4: A hundred percent. He literally, he acts with reckless abandon

482
00:27:07,250 --> 00:27:08,050
Speaker 4: on a regular basis.

483
00:27:08,250 --> 00:27:11,870
Speaker 1: In his entire career is built on just doing this

484
00:27:11,930 --> 00:27:17,210
Speaker 1: to people, bullying them and getting his group together to

485
00:27:17,350 --> 00:27:18,430
Speaker 1: go after people.

486
00:27:19,070 --> 00:27:23,050
Speaker 4: So, Molly, I think there's amazing reporting in Zateo from

487
00:27:23,070 --> 00:27:26,030
Speaker 4: a friend of the show, Aswin Subba, saying that the

488
00:27:26,270 --> 00:27:32,189
Speaker 4: Republican Party's internal apparatus warned Vivek not to put up

489
00:27:32,230 --> 00:27:36,310
Speaker 4: the Amy Acton's mother ad repeatedly. And they knew exactly

490
00:27:36,430 --> 00:27:38,410
Speaker 4: how much people thought this was a bad idea.

491
00:27:38,850 --> 00:27:43,210
Speaker 1: You didn't need, you didn't need an organization to tell

492
00:27:43,230 --> 00:27:47,400
Speaker 1: you that getting the 82 year old mentally ill cat

493
00:27:47,740 --> 00:27:52,280
Speaker 1: owning homeless mother to do an ad when she was

494
00:27:52,380 --> 00:27:56,400
Speaker 1: on the lamb with the dad who had allegations from

495
00:27:56,660 --> 00:27:59,580
Speaker 1: different little girls about rape.

496
00:27:59,960 --> 00:28:01,699
Speaker 6: Uh, I mean, I don't know.

497
00:28:01,859 --> 00:28:05,609
Speaker 1: Like you could have just like lived in the world, Vivek.

498
00:28:06,210 --> 00:28:10,470
Speaker 1: I mean, it's so I mean, what's so interesting about

499
00:28:10,490 --> 00:28:13,649
Speaker 1: this ad, I think, is like this is this is

500
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:17,340
Speaker 1: the demarcation line. This is like the moment when we

501
00:28:17,380 --> 00:28:20,580
Speaker 1: got to see the MAGA that there is such a thing.

502
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:21,880
Speaker 6: First of all, two things.

503
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 1: One, that not that only Trump can do MAGA.

504
00:28:24,900 --> 00:28:25,100
Speaker 3: Right.

505
00:28:25,140 --> 00:28:28,200
Speaker 1: That that truly disgusting stuff doesn't work for anyone else.

506
00:28:28,700 --> 00:28:32,500
Speaker 1: But that the other thing is that really like and

507
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:34,160
Speaker 1: that this was always true in Ohio.

508
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 3: Right.

509
00:28:36,180 --> 00:28:39,370
Speaker 1: You had a governor. I mean, Mike DeWine was never

510
00:28:39,420 --> 00:28:44,050
Speaker 1: MAGA and Ohio was never MAGA the way MAGA is MAGA.

511
00:28:44,150 --> 00:28:47,990
Speaker 1: So not a huge shock here.

512
00:28:48,530 --> 00:28:48,810
Speaker 3: Yeah.

513
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,330
Speaker 4: And I, you know, I think one of the things

514
00:28:51,370 --> 00:28:54,950
Speaker 4: this goes back to is the cruelty is the point thing.

515
00:28:55,130 --> 00:28:57,550
Speaker 4: Vivek has embraced that. And you see him say so

516
00:28:57,570 --> 00:28:59,870
Speaker 4: many out of touch quotes all the time, particularly about

517
00:28:59,910 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 4: minorities on a regular basis. And so him being not

518
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:05,260
Speaker 4: having a moral compass to realize this is wrong is

519
00:29:05,460 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 4: not very shocking. They would just be paying attention.

520
00:29:08,060 --> 00:29:11,100
Speaker 1: But the group is made by the same group that

521
00:29:11,540 --> 00:29:16,170
Speaker 1: made the Kristi Noem ad with her on the horses

522
00:29:16,350 --> 00:29:22,810
Speaker 1: and And they made $ 220 million from Kristi Noem. I

523
00:29:22,850 --> 00:29:27,090
Speaker 1: think that's important. And also, the other thing is, like,

524
00:29:27,610 --> 00:29:30,330
Speaker 1: I actually think, oh, and the best part is that

525
00:29:30,370 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: the biotech billionaire, that the Ohio GOP lieutenant governor candidate

526
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 1: expressed reservation.

527
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:40,540
Speaker 2: Yeah.

528
00:29:41,340 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 1: But he is now I mean, my favorite is Vance,

529
00:29:43,660 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 1: who's like just delighted because he just he Vance will

530
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 1: defend anything.

531
00:29:49,740 --> 00:29:50,330
Speaker 3: Yeah.

532
00:29:50,690 --> 00:29:54,470
Speaker 4: So a grand jury would not indict Cassidy Hutchinson over

533
00:29:54,530 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 4: her January 6th testimony. which I don't think anybody's been shocked.

534
00:29:58,820 --> 00:30:01,190
Speaker 4: This has been the pattern that's been happening here. But

535
00:30:01,990 --> 00:30:04,190
Speaker 4: Trump's going for another round with Jim Comey.

536
00:30:04,630 --> 00:30:08,610
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is Jim Comey's third indictment. It's like they

537
00:30:08,650 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 1: just want to help him sell his terrible novels. Trump administration,

538
00:30:14,500 --> 00:30:17,740
Speaker 1: stop it. You're just elevating him. We're going to have

539
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:21,940
Speaker 1: to read those books. It's enough. He's too tall. Jim

540
00:30:21,980 --> 00:30:25,100
Speaker 1: Comey is never getting indicted. I mean, It's not even

541
00:30:25,340 --> 00:30:28,830
Speaker 1: like Cassidy Hutchinson. I feel bad for her. She's young.

542
00:30:29,220 --> 00:30:32,610
Speaker 1: They're targeting her because she stood up to them. But

543
00:30:33,330 --> 00:30:37,610
Speaker 1: James Comey, he's annoying. He's done a lot of annoying

544
00:30:37,650 --> 00:30:41,990
Speaker 1: stuff like stop elevating him. Let him go. Also, he

545
00:30:42,010 --> 00:30:44,950
Speaker 1: didn't do anything illegal, but he did ruin the election

546
00:30:45,010 --> 00:30:49,070
Speaker 1: for Hillary. So for that, you could jail him theoretically

547
00:30:49,090 --> 00:30:53,470
Speaker 1: and in, you know, for annoying me. Still not a crime, though.

548
00:30:54,850 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: Galen Druk and Claire Malone are co-hosts of the podcast

549
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:02,500
Speaker 1: Still Counting. Welcome, welcome, Claire and Galen.

550
00:31:02,820 --> 00:31:03,460
Speaker 6: It's great to be here.

551
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 2: Thanks for having us. Yes.

552
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having us.

553
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 2: I'm excited.

554
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 1: So I just was looking up. We were talking about

555
00:31:09,300 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: how we're going to start by talking about early voting.

556
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:15,670
Speaker 1: And I was just looking up early voting to to

557
00:31:15,810 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 1: figure out what state's have it and almost everybody does

558
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 1: with the exception of Alabama and the states that are

559
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 1: like strictly mail-in so what are you guys seeing and

560
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 1: what are the Galen maybe you want to start by

561
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 1: just giving us like the pure numbers on it and

562
00:31:37,660 --> 00:31:42,430
Speaker 1: then Claire maybe you'll make it make sense for us Yeah.

563
00:31:42,510 --> 00:31:46,650
Speaker 5: So big caveat here before I reveal those numbers, which

564
00:31:46,790 --> 00:31:52,850
Speaker 5: is that voting patterns are changing right before the COVID pandemic. Older,

565
00:31:52,870 --> 00:31:58,070
Speaker 5: more conservative leaning voters tended to vote earlier. Post pandemic,

566
00:31:58,410 --> 00:32:01,630
Speaker 5: that has switched a bit. Now it's more Democrats. More recently,

567
00:32:01,690 --> 00:32:04,990
Speaker 5: we've even seen polling from Pew suggesting that this time round,

568
00:32:05,170 --> 00:32:08,900
Speaker 5: Democrats are more skeptical of voting early by mail because

569
00:32:08,980 --> 00:32:12,020
Speaker 5: of their skepticism of Trump's treatment of the USPS and

570
00:32:12,060 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 5: processing ballots that way. So more intent to vote early

571
00:32:15,140 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 5: in person. So in order to understand the early vote,

572
00:32:18,180 --> 00:32:20,340
Speaker 5: you need a baseline. And one of the problems with

573
00:32:20,380 --> 00:32:24,470
Speaker 5: establishing that baseline is that voting behavior has just been

574
00:32:24,530 --> 00:32:27,750
Speaker 5: changing over the past decade. And so important to keep

575
00:32:27,790 --> 00:32:30,940
Speaker 5: in mind for all of this, you know, Usually folks

576
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:33,820
Speaker 5: just look and see, oh, are Democrats casting more ballots

577
00:32:33,860 --> 00:32:35,980
Speaker 5: ahead of election day or are Republicans and try to

578
00:32:36,020 --> 00:32:39,140
Speaker 5: infer things from that, which can be very tricky because

579
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:42,140
Speaker 5: a ballot cast on election day counts just as much

580
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:46,900
Speaker 5: as one cast before. And in 2024, Republicans really turned

581
00:32:46,940 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 5: out on election day and that ended up being, you know,

582
00:32:50,620 --> 00:32:54,490
Speaker 5: securing a Donald Trump victory in the presidential election. This

583
00:32:54,550 --> 00:32:57,450
Speaker 5: time round, some very smart folks at Vote Hub like

584
00:32:57,470 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 5: Zach Danini and over at the are really keying in on,

585
00:33:00,980 --> 00:33:06,760
Speaker 5: are the two parties low propensity voters turning out? Which

586
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:10,100
Speaker 5: is to say, people who don't vote in every election,

587
00:33:10,140 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 5: but if they do turn out, they'll probably vote for

588
00:33:11,900 --> 00:33:14,870
Speaker 5: a Democrat or a Republican. How are they behaving? Because

589
00:33:14,890 --> 00:33:18,530
Speaker 5: we know, you know, by election day, everybody's reliable voters

590
00:33:18,570 --> 00:33:22,210
Speaker 5: will turn out. And there are some suggestions that low

591
00:33:22,230 --> 00:33:25,130
Speaker 5: propensity Democrats are turning out at better rates. And so

592
00:33:25,430 --> 00:33:27,230
Speaker 5: just to summarize that a little bit.

593
00:33:27,290 --> 00:33:31,410
Speaker 1: Give us how do they know they're low propensity Democrats?

594
00:33:32,190 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 5: So it can be either by voter registration, which we

595
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 5: have in many states, or it can be by racial

596
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:42,180
Speaker 5: information based on where those votes are coming from. And

597
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:44,340
Speaker 5: so the conclusions that The Times and others have come

598
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:49,030
Speaker 5: to are that And also, there is racial information in

599
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:53,370
Speaker 5: voter registration in some states. So, for example, in Georgia,

600
00:33:53,470 --> 00:33:56,290
Speaker 5: Black voters account for 32% of the early electorate. So

601
00:33:56,350 --> 00:33:59,950
Speaker 5: far in North Carolina, it's about 22%. Both are higher

602
00:34:00,050 --> 00:34:02,380
Speaker 5: than the shares of the completed early electorate in the

603
00:34:02,390 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 5: past two elections. Also, in Texas, we are seeing a

604
00:34:06,780 --> 00:34:10,900
Speaker 5: really high close to presidential level turnout amongst Hispanic voters. Now,

605
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:13,320
Speaker 5: I'll say that's a part of the country that swung

606
00:34:13,380 --> 00:34:16,660
Speaker 5: pretty decisively towards Trump. We have seen in recent polling

607
00:34:16,700 --> 00:34:19,660
Speaker 5: that it has swung back. And if that polling is accurate,

608
00:34:19,900 --> 00:34:23,759
Speaker 5: high turnout there could also be good for Democrats. There

609
00:34:23,820 --> 00:34:26,109
Speaker 5: are still caveats that come with all of this, but

610
00:34:26,260 --> 00:34:29,430
Speaker 5: I think Democrats feel like the early vote data is

611
00:34:29,469 --> 00:34:32,609
Speaker 5: aligning with the pre-election data that we already had.

612
00:34:33,450 --> 00:34:35,450
Speaker 1: Claire, make it make sense.

613
00:34:36,050 --> 00:34:37,529
Speaker 6: Well, it's also I mean, I also feel like it's

614
00:34:37,690 --> 00:34:40,730
Speaker 6: it's it's important to note that in most years past,

615
00:34:40,770 --> 00:34:42,629
Speaker 6: people would always say you don't want to make too

616
00:34:42,690 --> 00:34:45,469
Speaker 6: much of the early, you know, early vote numbers. And so, like,

617
00:34:45,850 --> 00:34:48,230
Speaker 6: I think this year, as Galen said, it does it

618
00:34:48,270 --> 00:34:50,890
Speaker 6: does feel a little different because people have have put

619
00:34:50,930 --> 00:34:53,879
Speaker 6: in the work beforehand. I mean, you know, I think

620
00:34:54,140 --> 00:34:56,700
Speaker 6: that the whole idea that we're we're probably we might

621
00:34:56,739 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 6: be seeing sort of a historic levels of turnout for

622
00:35:00,020 --> 00:35:04,700
Speaker 6: a midterm makes sense, given how much just I mean,

623
00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 6: I will say it doesn't feel like 2016. We were

624
00:35:07,260 --> 00:35:09,180
Speaker 6: actually just just just talking about this on the podcast.

625
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 6: We were just talking about this and still counting where

626
00:35:10,700 --> 00:35:14,460
Speaker 6: it was like 2016 felt so all encompassing, felt so

627
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 6: this is the monoculture, this presidential election. And I will

628
00:35:17,700 --> 00:35:20,280
Speaker 6: say that what makes me sort of have an inkling

629
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:22,839
Speaker 6: that this might be a huge turnout is that there's

630
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:24,710
Speaker 6: you just sort of can't get away from the war

631
00:35:24,730 --> 00:35:27,569
Speaker 6: in Iran. Trump talking about, you know, John Husted's ass

632
00:35:27,630 --> 00:35:30,350
Speaker 6: like there is there is a sense that like we have,

633
00:35:30,770 --> 00:35:33,910
Speaker 6: you know, it has become the monoculture again. And that

634
00:35:33,989 --> 00:35:36,540
Speaker 6: also it's a bit of a prelude to, you know,

635
00:35:37,140 --> 00:35:39,200
Speaker 6: not to be this person, but that everything sort of

636
00:35:39,260 --> 00:35:41,299
Speaker 6: leads up to the twenty twenty eight election where you're

637
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:43,819
Speaker 6: going to have for the first time in a long time,

638
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 6: I think pretty robust primaries on both sides. And I

639
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 6: do think that there is a way where, yes, voters

640
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:54,850
Speaker 6: are really exercised over the affordability stuff, the war in Iran,

641
00:35:55,230 --> 00:35:57,630
Speaker 6: diesel prices, all of that. But I do think that

642
00:35:57,650 --> 00:36:00,700
Speaker 6: there is this sort of sense of tuning into politics

643
00:36:00,820 --> 00:36:04,470
Speaker 6: that the Trump era has is about to fundamentally change.

644
00:36:04,750 --> 00:36:06,489
Speaker 6: And I think people can feel that and that there

645
00:36:06,530 --> 00:36:08,910
Speaker 6: is a huge amount of interest. And that's why we

646
00:36:08,930 --> 00:36:10,590
Speaker 6: might be seeing these kind of historic numbers.

647
00:36:11,070 --> 00:36:15,750
Speaker 1: Right. And there's also, like, there's this voter disenfranchis— you know,

648
00:36:15,910 --> 00:36:18,650
Speaker 1: the Trump administration has worked really hard to try to

649
00:36:18,690 --> 00:36:23,219
Speaker 1: disenfranchise the voters, a lot of voters of color, some

650
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:27,540
Speaker 1: of whom they swung in the 2024 election, right? I mean,

651
00:36:27,580 --> 00:36:31,750
Speaker 1: there's a feeling with the redraw, with the redistricting, the

652
00:36:31,950 --> 00:36:35,950
Speaker 1: idea— and then Calais, there's this feeling that it was to

653
00:36:36,030 --> 00:36:40,310
Speaker 1: try to take votes away from people of color. So

654
00:36:40,350 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 1: that we are seeing, right, those voters in Louisiana, and

655
00:36:45,340 --> 00:36:48,100
Speaker 1: not Louisiana, well, in Louisiana a little bit, yeah, and

656
00:36:48,180 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 1: in some other southern states.

657
00:36:49,620 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 6: Maybe Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee.

658
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:54,719
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, It's important to say here, this stuff

659
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:57,919
Speaker 5: doesn't happen in a vacuum. Everyone is reading about this,

660
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 5: seeing this on the local news. And if you get

661
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:03,890
Speaker 5: the impression, say you are a state like Tennessee, or

662
00:37:03,969 --> 00:37:06,160
Speaker 5: you're a neighboring state of Tennessee, and you see that

663
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:10,170
Speaker 5: the one majority Black district was erased in a redraw,

664
00:37:10,989 --> 00:37:13,549
Speaker 5: what else are you supposed to, what other conclusions are

665
00:37:13,570 --> 00:37:16,549
Speaker 5: you supposed to come to? I mean, the legal rationale

666
00:37:16,770 --> 00:37:22,280
Speaker 5: is that, you know, you can now politically partisan gerrymander

667
00:37:22,469 --> 00:37:24,660
Speaker 5: as much as you like in a state, so long

668
00:37:24,700 --> 00:37:27,759
Speaker 5: as you don't take race into account. But the functional

669
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:31,020
Speaker 5: outcome is that the one black district in your state

670
00:37:31,380 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 5: has been taken off the map. And we have seen

671
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:36,989
Speaker 5: sometimes with other things like, you know, voter ID or

672
00:37:37,510 --> 00:37:42,570
Speaker 5: polling location closures that actually creates a backlash that drives

673
00:37:42,630 --> 00:37:47,529
Speaker 5: black turnout up higher. And so that, you know, that

674
00:37:47,550 --> 00:37:51,350
Speaker 5: would not particularly surprise me in this current environment.

675
00:37:51,870 --> 00:37:54,029
Speaker 6: And it's also notable because in the 2024 election, I

676
00:37:54,050 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 6: feel like so much of the conversation after the fact

677
00:37:56,239 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 6: was about Trump's, you know, surprising gains with Latino men,

678
00:38:00,420 --> 00:38:02,339
Speaker 6: with Black men. And now I think, you know, like,

679
00:38:02,380 --> 00:38:05,239
Speaker 6: for instance, in a race like Texas, right, in the

680
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:09,930
Speaker 6: Texas Senate race, Latinos who perhaps certainly haven't maybe haven't

681
00:38:09,989 --> 00:38:12,660
Speaker 6: voted for um, a Democrat in a long time, they

682
00:38:12,700 --> 00:38:15,219
Speaker 6: might not like the way that Trump's immigration actions have

683
00:38:15,260 --> 00:38:17,040
Speaker 6: played out. I just think you're seeing a lot of

684
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 6: reactions to the very, you know, dramatic for, you know,

685
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 6: first couple of years of this second Trump term. Um,

686
00:38:25,100 --> 00:38:27,580
Speaker 6: and it's, and it's among these demographics that, you know,

687
00:38:27,860 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 6: Trump did pretty well with, and it kind of, you know,

688
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 6: you could go in the 24 election and say the

689
00:38:31,700 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 6: age old, you know, the age old saw of what's

690
00:38:34,660 --> 00:38:39,009
Speaker 6: just stronger, you know, sexism or, or, uh, or racism, right?

691
00:38:39,070 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 6: And that's very much boiling it down. But I think

692
00:38:43,020 --> 00:38:47,170
Speaker 6: there are very interesting potential swings coming background, which is

693
00:38:47,190 --> 00:38:49,290
Speaker 6: something we talk about a lot on the podcast, honestly.

694
00:38:49,410 --> 00:38:52,370
Speaker 5: Well, can I just say, I think what is strongest

695
00:38:52,610 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 5: is material concerns. And American voters used Republicans and Trump

696
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:01,339
Speaker 5: as a tool to punish Democrats in 2024 because they

697
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:05,940
Speaker 5: were very dissatisfied with their... They literally got poorer if

698
00:39:05,980 --> 00:39:09,250
Speaker 5: you aggregate all of the four years of Biden's presidency

699
00:39:09,290 --> 00:39:12,580
Speaker 5: together and look at price... growth and wage growth. They

700
00:39:12,620 --> 00:39:15,859
Speaker 5: literally got poor. Now we're back in the exact same

701
00:39:15,910 --> 00:39:18,890
Speaker 5: spot where prices are growing faster than wages.

702
00:39:19,510 --> 00:39:22,590
Speaker 1: But much, much worse. I mean, gas was not gas

703
00:39:22,650 --> 00:39:26,350
Speaker 1: prices went down. Now they're going up. I mean, Donald

704
00:39:26,370 --> 00:39:29,830
Speaker 1: Trump like tariffs. Things actually got more expensive, at least

705
00:39:30,370 --> 00:39:33,739
Speaker 1: with Biden world. And again, this is not a partisan

706
00:39:34,410 --> 00:39:38,380
Speaker 1: or at least I don't feel like it's a partisan defense.

707
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,239
Speaker 1: But the reality is in Biden world, things went up

708
00:39:41,260 --> 00:39:44,180
Speaker 1: because of pandemic. I mean, maybe they couldn't get them

709
00:39:44,260 --> 00:39:47,629
Speaker 1: down as fast as they should have. But, you know,

710
00:39:47,650 --> 00:39:51,310
Speaker 1: the I mean, the economist had that cover, which was

711
00:39:51,350 --> 00:39:54,310
Speaker 1: like the envy of the world, an economy that still

712
00:39:54,630 --> 00:39:56,850
Speaker 1: I mean, it was K shaped and maybe they should

713
00:39:56,870 --> 00:39:59,540
Speaker 1: have undone some of the Trump era tax cuts. But

714
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:01,719
Speaker 1: I'm just saying compared to where we are now, where

715
00:40:01,739 --> 00:40:04,500
Speaker 1: it was completely self and it was self-imposed.

716
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:05,100
Speaker 2: Right.

717
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:07,580
Speaker 5: I mean, you can make arguments about too much stimulus

718
00:40:07,620 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 5: spending that like Americans already had really high levels of savings.

719
00:40:11,060 --> 00:40:13,390
Speaker 5: They didn't need that extra two billion at the start

720
00:40:13,410 --> 00:40:18,410
Speaker 5: of Biden's presidency, which ultimately was inflationary. Different Fed banks concluded, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

721
00:40:18,790 --> 00:40:19,469
Speaker 5: But here's what I'll say.

722
00:40:19,489 --> 00:40:22,750
Speaker 1: Compared to like a war in Iran and tariffs, which

723
00:40:22,810 --> 00:40:24,410
Speaker 1: are wildly inflationary on both sides.

724
00:40:24,450 --> 00:40:26,380
Speaker 5: Here's the difference. Here's the difference. And I think it's

725
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 5: a really important one for voters right now, which is

726
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:30,799
Speaker 5: that Biden did the stuff that he said he was

727
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:33,800
Speaker 5: going to do. And when he did it, it was popular.

728
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:37,299
Speaker 5: So even if the repercussions hurt people in the long term,

729
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 5: like it was inflationary or what have you, even the

730
00:40:39,660 --> 00:40:43,210
Speaker 5: immigration stuff, people wanted more liberal immigration laws when he

731
00:40:43,310 --> 00:40:46,230
Speaker 5: implemented them, even if they later came to regret them.

732
00:40:46,670 --> 00:40:48,629
Speaker 5: Trump is doing a bunch of stuff that he said

733
00:40:48,690 --> 00:40:52,250
Speaker 5: he wouldn't do and that wasn't popular when he did it.

734
00:40:52,469 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 5: The war in Iran is the exact reverse of what

735
00:40:55,219 --> 00:40:58,060
Speaker 5: he said he would do. It was unpopular when it started.

736
00:40:58,180 --> 00:41:02,140
Speaker 5: It's even more unpopular now. And another important one, is

737
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 5: he said he was for the little guy, but everything he,

738
00:41:05,620 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 5: every time he appears in public, he seems to be

739
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:10,490
Speaker 5: with billionaires. That's not pop. This whole like corruption thing

740
00:41:10,550 --> 00:41:14,049
Speaker 5: is not popular. And so it becomes a sense of betrayal,

741
00:41:14,330 --> 00:41:16,650
Speaker 5: not just like you're an inept president who didn't turn

742
00:41:16,670 --> 00:41:19,410
Speaker 5: out the way I hoped you would. You actually violate

743
00:41:19,469 --> 00:41:22,149
Speaker 5: even China, right? Like came onto the scene in 2016

744
00:41:22,150 --> 00:41:24,590
Speaker 5: being like, don't trust China. And now we're hugging China close.

745
00:41:24,630 --> 00:41:27,130
Speaker 5: Like so much of the second term has been a

746
00:41:27,300 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 5: betrayal of the decade long contract between Trump and his

747
00:41:30,860 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 5: voters and, And so it feels like it just the

748
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 5: environment feels a lot more more more like a sense

749
00:41:37,219 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 5: of betrayal than maybe a disappointment.

750
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:41,910
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I want to talk about, though,

751
00:41:41,930 --> 00:41:45,430
Speaker 1: when we go back to Texas, just in the demographic

752
00:41:45,510 --> 00:41:48,440
Speaker 1: question is. Some of the candidates, like I've had a

753
00:41:48,580 --> 00:41:52,700
Speaker 1: bunch of these candidates on the podcast, like Bobby Polito, right,

754
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:57,779
Speaker 1: who's this Tucano singer who the woman he was running

755
00:41:57,820 --> 00:42:02,240
Speaker 1: against said, you only perform at Quinceañera' s. And so he

756
00:42:02,260 --> 00:42:06,230
Speaker 1: ran performing at Quinceañera' s. And it was and he's actually,

757
00:42:06,570 --> 00:42:08,790
Speaker 1: you know, he's got a big hat. He's great. But

758
00:42:09,150 --> 00:42:12,589
Speaker 1: the point is, they ran a lot of Latino men

759
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:15,239
Speaker 1: in the Rio Grande Valley and in those parts of

760
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:21,930
Speaker 1: Texas that Democrats had clearly lost. The my question is,

761
00:42:22,090 --> 00:42:27,640
Speaker 1: does that ultimately can that make the difference for Tallarico?

762
00:42:28,060 --> 00:42:30,380
Speaker 1: Like a lot of those redrawn seats, you know, there

763
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,900
Speaker 1: are five redrawn seats and Democrats may keep up to three.

764
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:37,550
Speaker 6: I mean, I think it's like it's basically like candidate

765
00:42:37,590 --> 00:42:41,009
Speaker 6: quality in states like Texas, like Tallarico. First of all,

766
00:42:41,050 --> 00:42:42,710
Speaker 6: I mean, we kind of joked about this a little bit,

767
00:42:42,770 --> 00:42:45,300
Speaker 6: but I saw someone post a video today of a

768
00:42:46,060 --> 00:42:50,279
Speaker 6: a Latino voter in Texas pronouncing James Tallarico's name as Tallarico,

769
00:42:50,340 --> 00:42:53,660
Speaker 6: like with an accent. And there is a literal argument

770
00:42:53,700 --> 00:42:55,460
Speaker 6: of like, well, like it's kind of a, does the

771
00:42:55,500 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 6: name make you feel like maybe he's a Latino voter? But,

772
00:42:58,900 --> 00:43:02,970
Speaker 6: you know, we say this about like Latinos in Texas.

773
00:43:03,090 --> 00:43:06,890
Speaker 1: And Gina Anahosa, who's running for governor, is Latino. Correct. Yeah.

774
00:43:07,210 --> 00:43:11,090
Speaker 6: But I mean, it's those, it's the idea of Latinos

775
00:43:11,130 --> 00:43:18,380
Speaker 6: in Texas or Cubans in the Florida area. are different than,

776
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 6: you know, Puerto Rican voters in New York City or

777
00:43:22,380 --> 00:43:25,760
Speaker 6: in Reading, Pennsylvania, whatever it might be. And that in Texas,

778
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:29,570
Speaker 6: those voters are, you know, they might be people who

779
00:43:29,610 --> 00:43:32,250
Speaker 6: live in border cities who were actually really pissed about

780
00:43:33,330 --> 00:43:36,170
Speaker 6: lax immigration, who felt it very personally because of family

781
00:43:36,210 --> 00:43:39,250
Speaker 6: stories or watching the economic impact in it. And I

782
00:43:39,290 --> 00:43:41,930
Speaker 6: do think, you know, when you have a candidate like Tallarico,

783
00:43:41,969 --> 00:43:45,610
Speaker 6: who's really has really gone out of his way to moderate,

784
00:43:45,630 --> 00:43:48,170
Speaker 6: to kind of put the like, you know, in the

785
00:43:48,210 --> 00:43:50,270
Speaker 6: same way that like Adam Hamilton in Kansas has kind

786
00:43:50,310 --> 00:43:53,410
Speaker 6: of been like, you know, I'm a I'm a godly man.

787
00:43:53,489 --> 00:43:53,709
Speaker 2: Right.

788
00:43:53,750 --> 00:43:57,230
Speaker 6: Like, I think that stuff really does play. And, you know,

789
00:43:57,290 --> 00:43:59,029
Speaker 6: I think it I think there's a good chance that

790
00:43:59,070 --> 00:44:01,780
Speaker 6: it does play with those Latino voters in Texas.

791
00:44:02,060 --> 00:44:05,259
Speaker 5: I don't know, Galen. Yeah. I mean, one clear signal

792
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 5: that you get from pollsters is. who have been asking

793
00:44:09,060 --> 00:44:10,799
Speaker 5: lots of different kinds of questions is that one of

794
00:44:10,820 --> 00:44:14,779
Speaker 5: the most resonant ones is like, is this person like me?

795
00:44:14,980 --> 00:44:18,240
Speaker 5: Will they fight for people like me? And I think

796
00:44:18,739 --> 00:44:22,330
Speaker 5: Democrats have really lost there. Not like, you know, we

797
00:44:22,370 --> 00:44:23,810
Speaker 5: talk about the working class and it's like, what does

798
00:44:23,830 --> 00:44:26,210
Speaker 5: that even mean? The people that they've really lost are

799
00:44:26,250 --> 00:44:29,969
Speaker 5: the middle 50%, not fully poor and not rich, but

800
00:44:30,030 --> 00:44:35,590
Speaker 5: people who are living somewhat stable lives, somewhat settled lives,

801
00:44:35,969 --> 00:44:39,140
Speaker 5: you know, that are still on the edge. They're in

802
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:43,339
Speaker 5: a precarious situation, right? Like if you are truly poor

803
00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:46,140
Speaker 5: to the point where you're getting significant benefits from the

804
00:44:46,180 --> 00:44:50,739
Speaker 5: state or federal government, then you might not be sort

805
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:52,820
Speaker 5: of feel quite as violated by.

806
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:56,969
Speaker 1: So you're saying that vote that that Democrats lost them

807
00:44:57,030 --> 00:44:58,830
Speaker 1: in 2024.

808
00:44:58,830 --> 00:45:01,130
Speaker 5: They lost them and they started losing them in 2016

809
00:45:01,130 --> 00:45:01,469
Speaker 5: for sure.

810
00:45:01,489 --> 00:45:01,609
Speaker 6: Right.

811
00:45:03,260 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 5: And then it exacerbated, you know, it's people who make

812
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:09,580
Speaker 5: like $ 70, 000 a year. Yeah.

813
00:45:09,980 --> 00:45:12,540
Speaker 1: Non-college educated whites.

814
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:15,239
Speaker 6: But it's also the idea of people like, for instance,

815
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:18,890
Speaker 6: in Texas, where, you know, like data centers and things

816
00:45:18,910 --> 00:45:21,089
Speaker 6: that are happening in the suburbs for people who kind

817
00:45:21,130 --> 00:45:23,710
Speaker 6: of like, I have an OK job. I have a house.

818
00:45:23,870 --> 00:45:25,569
Speaker 6: Wait a second. There's a data center that's moved into

819
00:45:25,590 --> 00:45:26,130
Speaker 6: our backyard.

820
00:45:26,150 --> 00:45:26,250
Speaker 3: Right.

821
00:45:26,580 --> 00:45:29,000
Speaker 6: Texas has a huge number of data centers and you

822
00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 6: could make the point. And I think, you know, candidates

823
00:45:31,140 --> 00:45:34,870
Speaker 6: have effectively that in sort of like the Trump Republican party,

824
00:45:35,310 --> 00:45:37,509
Speaker 6: these billionaires that you see him palling around here who

825
00:45:37,550 --> 00:45:40,129
Speaker 6: are on the Epstein list, right? That's another messaging thing.

826
00:45:40,190 --> 00:45:40,390
Speaker 2: Yeah.

827
00:45:40,410 --> 00:45:42,910
Speaker 6: Well, they're also trickled down to the economic side of

828
00:45:42,969 --> 00:45:44,489
Speaker 6: it is that they put a data center in your

829
00:45:44,530 --> 00:45:47,180
Speaker 6: backyard or, Hey, do you like flock cameras? And it's

830
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:50,940
Speaker 6: almost like this thing of like the local suburban issues then.

831
00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:54,020
Speaker 6: And I think in a very clever messaging way by

832
00:45:54,060 --> 00:45:58,750
Speaker 6: a lot of candidates, nationalizing that. Why are those companies

833
00:45:59,790 --> 00:46:02,050
Speaker 6: getting the better of your local community?

834
00:46:02,330 --> 00:46:06,169
Speaker 1: Well, Kevin O'Leary trying to build a data center, my

835
00:46:06,250 --> 00:46:10,049
Speaker 1: favorite in Utah, and then saying the Utah activists are

836
00:46:10,090 --> 00:46:12,880
Speaker 1: Chinese spies because they didn't want him to build a

837
00:46:13,460 --> 00:46:17,340
Speaker 1: data center. He really is my least favorite rich person.

838
00:46:17,580 --> 00:46:21,910
Speaker 1: I'm He's my, you know... Well, he's the character.

839
00:46:22,150 --> 00:46:25,230
Speaker 6: There's the amazing picture of him at Mar-a-Lago where he has, like,

840
00:46:25,270 --> 00:46:27,799
Speaker 6: a Rolex on each wrist. I mean, that's just, you know,

841
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:28,260
Speaker 6: it's the.

842
00:46:28,820 --> 00:46:30,180
Speaker 1: It's just why... It's the taste.

843
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:31,260
Speaker 6: Dripping with taste.

844
00:46:31,540 --> 00:46:35,259
Speaker 1: Dripping with taste. Taste and elegance. But I do think

845
00:46:35,580 --> 00:46:39,100
Speaker 1: that certainly the case that Galen, just to go back

846
00:46:39,140 --> 00:46:43,310
Speaker 1: to this, the case that Democrats lost... normal people who

847
00:46:43,370 --> 00:46:46,989
Speaker 1: weren't on the coast and weren't, you know, the non-college

848
00:46:47,050 --> 00:46:49,109
Speaker 1: educated whites. Now, I think.

849
00:46:49,130 --> 00:46:50,890
Speaker 5: But it's more than that, right? It's just anybody who's

850
00:46:50,910 --> 00:46:54,860
Speaker 5: not rich or poor in America who lives a pretty, like, normal,

851
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:56,759
Speaker 5: settled life, the.

852
00:46:57,480 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 6: Yeah.

853
00:46:57,739 --> 00:46:59,180
Speaker 5: I mean, there's a large chunk. We live in a

854
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:01,500
Speaker 5: very rich country. Ultimately, there's a large chunk of people

855
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:05,140
Speaker 5: who are not rich or not poor. And Democrats are

856
00:47:05,219 --> 00:47:08,440
Speaker 5: oftentimes talking about the worries and concerns of the actual

857
00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 5: poor who need governmental assistance. And they're representing the cultural

858
00:47:12,180 --> 00:47:14,779
Speaker 5: tastes of the rich. But what about people who don't

859
00:47:14,820 --> 00:47:16,509
Speaker 5: connect to you on either of those? They don't have

860
00:47:16,530 --> 00:47:19,010
Speaker 5: the cultural tastes of the rich, and they're not getting

861
00:47:19,070 --> 00:47:21,790
Speaker 5: government assistance like the poor. Those are people that have

862
00:47:21,810 --> 00:47:24,110
Speaker 5: been left out of the conversation by Democrats. And I

863
00:47:24,150 --> 00:47:25,890
Speaker 5: think a lot of the people you're seeing running this

864
00:47:25,950 --> 00:47:28,770
Speaker 5: cycle have understood that, have taken that to heart, and

865
00:47:28,830 --> 00:47:32,350
Speaker 5: are representing both their tastes and their economic interests.

866
00:47:33,030 --> 00:47:35,750
Speaker 1: Yeah, interesting. I mean, I think there are other factors

867
00:47:35,830 --> 00:47:40,640
Speaker 1: at play in 2016, but I know that's an argument

868
00:47:40,660 --> 00:47:44,220
Speaker 1: that I've heard. And certainly you do see like with,

869
00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:48,340
Speaker 1: I mean, we even saw this in the 25 cycle,

870
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:51,759
Speaker 1: like that they were really focused on talking about how

871
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 1: much things cost, which is really what voters care about today.

872
00:47:55,700 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: And then connecting corruption to what things cost. So we

873
00:48:01,219 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 1: talked about Texas. We talked about Florida. Can each of you,

874
00:48:05,940 --> 00:48:08,259
Speaker 1: we'll start with Claire. What's the first date you're going

875
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 1: to be watching? And then also, I want you to

876
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:14,580
Speaker 1: tell me like sort of the, if it's a good night,

877
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:16,660
Speaker 1: if you can finish that sentence.

878
00:48:17,110 --> 00:48:20,590
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I guess I'll cheat and do two,

879
00:48:20,610 --> 00:48:23,430
Speaker 6: which is like, and they're kind of the boring answer,

880
00:48:23,469 --> 00:48:28,240
Speaker 6: which is Maine and Michigan, because they basically, you know,

881
00:48:28,420 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 6: I think they tell the story of the past year

882
00:48:32,260 --> 00:48:36,020
Speaker 6: so well, right? It's like, can a really good candidate

883
00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:39,440
Speaker 6: in Maine and Susan Collins, just like a really good campaigner,

884
00:48:39,860 --> 00:48:43,370
Speaker 6: make sense for the state? Can she overcome the Trump drag?

885
00:48:44,090 --> 00:48:46,780
Speaker 6: And then, and El-Sayed is kind of like the opposite, right?

886
00:48:46,820 --> 00:48:50,140
Speaker 6: It's like, can this, can this candidate who's maybe like

887
00:48:50,180 --> 00:48:52,480
Speaker 6: a little too liberal for what you'd think the state

888
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:56,540
Speaker 6: would be, can he ride this, what seems like a

889
00:48:56,600 --> 00:49:02,450
Speaker 6: blue wave coming? And I mean, you know, what, it'll

890
00:49:02,469 --> 00:49:03,930
Speaker 6: be a good night if, I mean, I think we

891
00:49:03,950 --> 00:49:06,069
Speaker 6: were saying this, like, this is a little bit more

892
00:49:06,110 --> 00:49:08,530
Speaker 6: for like the, the, the data nerdy side of people

893
00:49:08,550 --> 00:49:10,630
Speaker 6: like Halen who are really paying attention to it. But like,

894
00:49:10,980 --> 00:49:13,779
Speaker 6: You know, the margins and you were saying that like

895
00:49:13,820 --> 00:49:16,529
Speaker 6: what North Carolina will probably have a vote counted, you know,

896
00:49:16,750 --> 00:49:19,870
Speaker 6: really quickly and like maybe you can make some inferences on.

897
00:49:20,500 --> 00:49:23,459
Speaker 6: you know, early Georgia revolts results, like how many black

898
00:49:23,500 --> 00:49:26,739
Speaker 6: voters are seem to be turning out. I mean, I think,

899
00:49:26,920 --> 00:49:29,779
Speaker 6: you know, just are the statistics that we've sort of

900
00:49:29,820 --> 00:49:31,839
Speaker 6: seen in early voting. Are they kind of bearing out

901
00:49:32,050 --> 00:49:35,230
Speaker 6: on election night? But I also think, you know, Alaska,

902
00:49:35,270 --> 00:49:38,810
Speaker 6: which is another state, which I think Galen might pick.

903
00:49:41,150 --> 00:49:43,230
Speaker 6: That's obviously in a totally different time zone. So there's

904
00:49:43,250 --> 00:49:44,450
Speaker 6: going to be a lot of stuff that's going to

905
00:49:44,469 --> 00:49:48,049
Speaker 6: go late into the night. So I don't know. Galen,

906
00:49:48,110 --> 00:49:49,149
Speaker 6: that's my segue to you.

907
00:49:49,489 --> 00:49:52,649
Speaker 5: If we're talking about early indications, sadly, I have to

908
00:49:52,830 --> 00:49:57,460
Speaker 5: kill my darling, Alaska. If we're talking about states that like— Wait, early— yeah.

909
00:49:57,440 --> 00:49:59,739
Speaker 1: In Alaska, you're not going to find out until the

910
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:00,620
Speaker 1: next day, right?

911
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:00,870
Speaker 2: No.

912
00:50:01,070 --> 00:50:02,360
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're not going to find out until the next day.

913
00:50:02,370 --> 00:50:04,070
Speaker 1: And it's also largely mail-in, too, isn't it?

914
00:50:04,070 --> 00:50:06,710
Speaker 5: Mail voting, and it's ranked choice balloting.

915
00:50:06,770 --> 00:50:06,969
Speaker 3: Yeah.

916
00:50:07,010 --> 00:50:09,110
Speaker 5: It's going to— if it's close, we won't know for weeks

917
00:50:09,170 --> 00:50:11,850
Speaker 5: because they're going to not, you know, go through the

918
00:50:11,870 --> 00:50:13,759
Speaker 5: process of ranked choice balloting until all of the votes

919
00:50:13,780 --> 00:50:17,980
Speaker 5: are in. So, I mean, early indications— look, at 7 o'clock,

920
00:50:18,020 --> 00:50:20,980
Speaker 5: we get poll closures in Virginia, Georgia, and Florida. And

921
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:24,430
Speaker 5: at 7.30, we get poll closures in North Carolina and Ohio.

922
00:50:25,290 --> 00:50:28,410
Speaker 5: there's a lot of information in that, right? Florida counts

923
00:50:28,450 --> 00:50:31,140
Speaker 5: very quickly. That's a little bit of an idiosyncratic state now,

924
00:50:31,180 --> 00:50:34,319
Speaker 5: but if Republicans are collapsing in Florida, that says something.

925
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:37,260
Speaker 5: If Democrats aren't doing well in Florida, I'm not interpreting

926
00:50:37,300 --> 00:50:40,400
Speaker 5: that across the rest of the country. A la 2018,

927
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 5: there can still be a blue wave and they can

928
00:50:42,300 --> 00:50:45,590
Speaker 5: lose Florida. But I think we're going to start getting

929
00:50:46,290 --> 00:50:48,210
Speaker 5: some early indications in- And.

930
00:50:48,190 --> 00:50:50,150
Speaker 1: Virginia won two and three, right?

931
00:50:50,210 --> 00:50:53,150
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's some competitive house districts there for sure. And-

932
00:50:54,610 --> 00:50:57,030
Speaker 5: What I would really love to know the answer to,

933
00:50:57,200 --> 00:50:59,460
Speaker 5: like if I could just get one state before all

934
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:02,819
Speaker 5: of this happened, it would be Iowa. We've got, like,

935
00:51:03,460 --> 00:51:05,240
Speaker 5: that's one of the places that we've seen the biggest

936
00:51:05,520 --> 00:51:10,240
Speaker 5: shifts amongst working class voters. They have three competitive House races,

937
00:51:10,340 --> 00:51:12,580
Speaker 5: a competitive governor's race that the Democrat seems to be

938
00:51:12,620 --> 00:51:14,800
Speaker 5: running away with at this point, and a very competitive

939
00:51:14,860 --> 00:51:15,239
Speaker 5: Senate race.

940
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:16,820
Speaker 1: Senate race with Josh Turek.

941
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 5: So, like, that also gets at one of our favorite topics,

942
00:51:19,420 --> 00:51:22,460
Speaker 5: which is, are the polls accurate? If the polls are accurate...

943
00:51:22,580 --> 00:51:24,940
Speaker 5: Democrats are doing pretty well in Iowa. And then I

944
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:27,000
Speaker 5: think it's game over for the night. But yeah, that's

945
00:51:27,020 --> 00:51:27,319
Speaker 5: a big if.

946
00:51:27,660 --> 00:51:32,420
Speaker 1: Thank you guys for coming on. Thank you. Please come back.

947
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:34,010
Speaker 5: Yeah, we'd like you for having us.

948
00:51:34,060 --> 00:51:38,750
Speaker 4: And now your moment of suffering.

949
00:51:39,090 --> 00:51:40,310
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon.

950
00:51:40,630 --> 00:51:41,370
Speaker 2: Molly drug fast.

951
00:51:41,430 --> 00:51:44,649
Speaker 4: So as we were just taping some news broke that

952
00:51:44,810 --> 00:51:48,620
Speaker 4: delights me because I can't stand James O'Keefe. He's been

953
00:51:48,940 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 4: arrested for voter fraud.

954
00:51:51,260 --> 00:51:54,270
Speaker 1: Wait, we need to tell people who he is. Project Veritas.

955
00:51:54,550 --> 00:51:54,790
Speaker 3: Yes.

956
00:51:54,930 --> 00:51:58,110
Speaker 1: James O'Keefe. If you're a liberal and you drink too much,

957
00:51:58,210 --> 00:52:01,750
Speaker 1: he will find you and record you saying something stupid. Go.

958
00:52:01,830 --> 00:52:04,130
Speaker 4: That's a great way of putting it, along with Cam Higby.

959
00:52:04,190 --> 00:52:06,650
Speaker 2: Now, Molly, are you familiar with Cam Higby?

960
00:52:07,010 --> 00:52:08,030
Speaker 1: I am not, Jesse.

961
00:52:08,250 --> 00:52:08,890
Speaker 5: Tell me more.

962
00:52:09,150 --> 00:52:13,610
Speaker 4: So he's one of the more unhinged conservative influencers on TikTok.

963
00:52:13,950 --> 00:52:15,860
Speaker 4: He comes from the conservative Hype House.

964
00:52:16,950 --> 00:52:18,550
Speaker 1: Wait, there's a Hype House?

965
00:52:18,810 --> 00:52:20,989
Speaker 4: There was a conservative Hype House after they saw the

966
00:52:21,030 --> 00:52:24,549
Speaker 4: initial TikTok Hype Houses. As conservatives do, they rush in

967
00:52:24,610 --> 00:52:27,030
Speaker 4: and try to pretend they're cool. They're the new punk

968
00:52:27,290 --> 00:52:30,620
Speaker 4: as they try to pretend. And you'll be surprised that

969
00:52:30,660 --> 00:52:32,160
Speaker 4: this produced many cringe clips.

970
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:33,600
Speaker 1: I'm shocked.

971
00:52:34,739 --> 00:52:37,620
Speaker 4: Anyway, as we know, James O'Keefe has been arrested in

972
00:52:37,660 --> 00:52:39,560
Speaker 4: the past for playing a little too fast and loose

973
00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:41,900
Speaker 4: with the law. So it appears that they were trying

974
00:52:41,940 --> 00:52:44,299
Speaker 4: to demonstrate how easy it is to commit voter fraud,

975
00:52:44,340 --> 00:52:46,939
Speaker 4: to make some propaganda for Mr. Trump, and they fucked

976
00:52:46,980 --> 00:52:47,719
Speaker 4: around and found out.

977
00:52:48,060 --> 00:52:51,870
Speaker 1: Yes, they dressed up. Just an important detail here, because

978
00:52:52,030 --> 00:52:55,390
Speaker 1: all of this has to do with Islamophobia. They dressed

979
00:52:55,469 --> 00:52:58,930
Speaker 1: up in Islamic attire, spoke with fake accents at a

980
00:52:58,969 --> 00:53:03,640
Speaker 1: Minneapolis polling place, were part of a stunt, prosecutors say,

981
00:53:04,300 --> 00:53:09,870
Speaker 1: violating state law. And they filmed it. They were seeking

982
00:53:09,910 --> 00:53:13,989
Speaker 1: to draw attention to a Minnesota law that lets registered

983
00:53:14,050 --> 00:53:16,879
Speaker 1: voters vouch for the identity of up to eight people.

984
00:53:17,450 --> 00:53:21,930
Speaker 1: additional voters who have recently moved so they can cast

985
00:53:21,969 --> 00:53:26,070
Speaker 1: ballots at precincts where they are not yet registered. But

986
00:53:26,610 --> 00:53:31,090
Speaker 1: citing as evidence of a video that Mr. O'Keefe posted

987
00:53:31,210 --> 00:53:34,759
Speaker 1: showing his interactions with poll workers, state prosecutors charged at

988
00:53:34,780 --> 00:53:40,379
Speaker 1: the pair with unlawful voting, which anyway, the point is

989
00:53:40,860 --> 00:53:41,980
Speaker 1: these fucking guys.

990
00:53:44,090 --> 00:53:47,589
Speaker 4: I think at every turn, James O'Keefe's love of musical

991
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:51,299
Speaker 4: theater has gotten him in trouble, and I'd love to

992
00:53:51,340 --> 00:53:51,880
Speaker 4: see it stop.

993
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:54,560
Speaker 1: Theater kids who go wrong.

994
00:53:54,580 --> 00:53:55,660
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true.

995
00:53:56,040 --> 00:53:57,500
Speaker 1: The James O'Keefe story.

996
00:53:58,380 --> 00:53:59,920
Speaker 2: I'm not watching that after-school special.

997
00:54:00,700 --> 00:54:05,129
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

998
00:54:05,489 --> 00:54:10,830
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best

999
00:54:10,910 --> 00:54:15,259
Speaker 1: minds in politics make sense of all this chaos. If

1000
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:18,360
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend

1001
00:54:18,840 --> 00:54:21,980
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.