Speaker 1: Welcome back to a numbers game. Thank you all for
Speaker 1: being here on this Thursday. I'm happy to be back
Speaker 1: with you. I really hope you enjoyed the last episode
Speaker 1: on Monday by Congressman Corey Mills. I may have an
Speaker 1: update in the future. I know this isn't a gossip
Speaker 1: podcast per se, even though my friends really want me
Speaker 1: to do a gossip podcast, but this is not it.
Speaker 1: When I have a big scoop like that, though that's
Speaker 1: a little bit on the gospel side, I'm going to
Speaker 1: share with you because otherwise a reporter's going to scoop it,
Speaker 1: and you guys should get it first because you're my
Speaker 1: loyal audience. I had a family reunion last week actually,
Speaker 1: and one of my cousins who listens to the pod
Speaker 1: said to me, I really like your show. There's a
Speaker 1: little too much math in it, so episode I'm going
Speaker 1: to try to break that up a little bit with
Speaker 1: episodes that aren't so math intensive. And this episode is
Speaker 1: both a little math intensive and has a narrative a
Speaker 1: story to it that I think is important something that
Speaker 1: the Trump administration is doing that people should know. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to do a catch up episode on all
Speaker 1: the data that has broken in the last week because
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of guests, heavy episodes and more
Speaker 1: thematic episodes. So this one is on the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six midterms, right. I want to talk about the generic
Speaker 1: ballad because it's how will affect us in a nation
Speaker 1: depending on who wins the midterms. So the congressional generic ballad,
Speaker 1: which is overall how people are feeling in the country.
Speaker 1: They don't talk about a specific race, but you know
Speaker 1: who they are likely to support. It shows that Republicans
Speaker 1: have slipped about a point or two in the last month.
Speaker 1: The Real Clear Politics polling average shows it's a D
Speaker 1: plus three five race. That means that the nation as
Speaker 1: a whole is voting about three point five percent more
Speaker 1: Democrat than Republican. Now, remember the twenty twenty four election
Speaker 1: was an R plus two race, so that represents a
Speaker 1: five point five percent swinging towards the Democrats from the
Speaker 1: previous election. Also remember this, I need this to be
Speaker 1: a very important covey when I say we're talking about polling.
Speaker 1: Polling does not predict the future. Polling is a snapshot
Speaker 1: of the present. Things can change, things will change, but
Speaker 1: it's important to know where people are. The economy is
Speaker 1: really not great for a lot of people. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people applying for jobs, first time jobs,
Speaker 1: college rees and college grads with graduates who are smart,
Speaker 1: people who are hardworking, and they cannot get an interview
Speaker 1: for a job. They cannot find a job. It's rough.
Speaker 1: Interest rates are still pretty high, not high compare like
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, but they're high in general, and prices
Speaker 1: are still high. We're still dealing with the overall ramifications
Speaker 1: of printing too much money during President Biden's time in office.
Speaker 1: All that's still there. And I think that people hope
Speaker 1: for a magic wand that Trump would fix everything, and
Speaker 1: it has not happened. So a D plus three zero
Speaker 1: point five race is better for Republicans than the twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen election, but it likely means it's very likely, means
Speaker 1: they're going to lose the House representatives. The Senate is
Speaker 1: still probably safe for a Republican. I mean, it would
Speaker 1: be very difficult for Democrats to actually win the Senate
Speaker 1: at this time. But DP plus three point five means
Speaker 1: states like Michigan and Georgia, which are potential pick up
Speaker 1: races for Republican It's very difficult. It becomes very difficult
Speaker 1: in those states to sit there and see how they
Speaker 1: win those states, and it also becomes really hard for
Speaker 1: them to see how they hold North Carolina and potentially Maine.
Speaker 1: I mean, Main's a weird state. So put that to
Speaker 1: the side. Because Susan Collins is her own animal and
Speaker 1: it's a unique set of circumstances. There hasn't been a
Speaker 1: ton of recently high quality polling. If you look at
Speaker 1: the results from the Fabrizio Lee Pole, which is published
Speaker 1: in the Most Journal in April than July, it shows
Speaker 1: about a one point shift towards Democrat. The Signal poll
Speaker 1: also shows about a one point shift towards Democrat. In
Speaker 1: the generic ballot Quantus Insight, which was a really good
Speaker 1: pollster in twenty twenty four, they have a two point
Speaker 1: swing towards Democrats. And the CMBC poll, not a high
Speaker 1: quality poll, but it's worth mentioning has a three point
Speaker 1: shift towards Democrats. Very few polls have had any kind
Speaker 1: of shift towards Republican Atlas Intel did, but they're i mean,
Speaker 1: they're saying it's going to be a Democratic landslide. So
Speaker 1: it's one point doesn't mean anything. Emerson also has a
Speaker 1: one point swing towards Republican, so not great news for
Speaker 1: Republicans going into key swing states and key Senate races.
Speaker 1: In the twenty twenty six elections. The Georgia Senate race
Speaker 1: had a good poll for Republican congress from Mike Collins,
Speaker 1: someone I know a little bit. I've spoken him a
Speaker 1: few times. I think he's a really good guy. He's
Speaker 1: got a lot of legislative accomplishments for somebody who hasn't
Speaker 1: spent decades in office. He's only been there for I
Speaker 1: think maybe four or six years. But it had him
Speaker 1: only one point behind Democrat John Ossop in the state
Speaker 1: of Georgia. Allins can win the sea, but he's gone
Speaker 1: going to need the national environment to improve, not I
Speaker 1: would say significantly. It's gonna have to improve for him
Speaker 1: to win the seat, maybe by one point five to
Speaker 1: two points in order him to win the seat. Otherwise
Speaker 1: they're going to blame Republicans, the people of the votable,
Speaker 1: blame Republicans for everything bad, and it will take him
Speaker 1: down like everybody else. In North Carolina, an Emerson pole
Speaker 1: found that former Governor Roy Cooper has a six point
Speaker 1: lead over R and C chairman Michael Wattley. This is
Speaker 1: I believe Wattley's first time ever running for office. Cooper
Speaker 1: is a great recruit for Democrat. He was a popular
Speaker 1: governor in a purple state. Who is young enough that
Speaker 1: I mean he's not young he's like sixty eight, but
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess in the Senate he's young enough.
Speaker 1: He's young enough. Just seems like he's not tainted by
Speaker 1: politics because he's only ever run for state positions. He's
Speaker 1: not tainted by DC politics in this poll. And I'll
Speaker 1: admitted it's an early poll because his election is not
Speaker 1: until November of twenty twenty six. Cooper has a benefit
Speaker 1: of winning more Republicans than Wattley does Democrat, and Cooper
Speaker 1: is crushing it with independence right now. Even though North
Speaker 1: Carolina hasn't elected a Democrat to the sentences two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, that doesn't mean that they can't win this year.
Speaker 1: I remember Roy Cooper has never lost an election statewide
Speaker 1: in North Carolina, and I was looking it up in
Speaker 1: twenty twelve when he was running for Attorney general. I
Speaker 1: think for the re elect Republicans didn't even put forward
Speaker 1: a challenger, and that was the year that Romney won
Speaker 1: North Carolina, he almost lost the governor's race in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen as well. And had any of those races gone
Speaker 1: the other way, or had they even pit up a challenger,
Speaker 1: I don't know why he was running unopposed for a
Speaker 1: state wide office. At least, you know, throw Joe Schmo
Speaker 1: up there and hope for a miracle, because once in
Speaker 1: a while it does happen. They just let him, you know,
Speaker 1: have an easy, one hundred per easy ride victory. He also,
Speaker 1: I mean in the twenty sixteen governor's race, he would
Speaker 1: have lost had the Libertarians not run a candidate. The
Speaker 1: Libertarian can for Governor got two percent of the vote
Speaker 1: in it, and he Roy Cooper only won by eleven
Speaker 1: thousand votes. So another case of a third party candidate
Speaker 1: really ruined it for Republicans. It will be a tough
Speaker 1: seat to hold. It's not impossible, but it's going to
Speaker 1: be a tough seat because Roy Cooper is probably the
Speaker 1: top recreit they could have gotten for this election cycle. Now,
Speaker 1: there is an election this year that I want to
Speaker 1: talk about too. Elections actually won the New Jersey Governor's race.
Speaker 1: There was a poll from stem site Research. It's a
Speaker 1: new research company, but it's from the Polsters of Monmouth,
Speaker 1: which are very well respected polsters in the state. I
Speaker 1: honestly think that they get things really way too off
Speaker 1: to get as much respect as they do. But they
Speaker 1: have a long history of getting things right. But they've
Speaker 1: had a couple of doozies, and when they I meanies,
Speaker 1: when I mean doozies, I mean doozies in polling, but
Speaker 1: before that decades of correct polling. So they find that
Speaker 1: Democrat Mickey Cheryl leading Republican Jack Chitdarelli by six points
Speaker 1: forty eight to forty two in the Garden State. That
Speaker 1: doesn't seem great, but remember four years ago Chitterarelli was
Speaker 1: down in the same in the Mammoth Pole, the same
Speaker 1: people who did this poll by sixteen points against incumbent
Speaker 1: Governor Phil Murphy, and that race wasn't even considered close,
Speaker 1: it wasn't considered worth paying attention to. Chitarelli is the
Speaker 1: underdog in this fight, but it is not the same
Speaker 1: state that it was four years ago. I think people
Speaker 1: need to remember that as we're heading towards these very
Speaker 1: important governor elections, like including in Pennsylvania, a top recruit
Speaker 1: announced they're running against Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania. I think
Speaker 1: it's important to remember that it's not the same state.
Speaker 1: Right in Pennsylvania, the Democratic advantage in voter enrollment is
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand fewer than it was three years ago
Speaker 1: the first time he ran. When he ran in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, when Oshapi ran for governor, Democrats had five
Speaker 1: hundred There was five hundred and sixty thousand more registered
Speaker 1: Democrats than Republicans. As of now, and we are still
Speaker 1: eighteen months from the election, there were only sixty thousand
Speaker 1: more Democrats than Republicans. Once again, super popular governor probably
Speaker 1: going to win, has the advantage, but there's a lot less,
Speaker 1: you know, meet on the bones for the Democratic base.
Speaker 1: The same is true in New Jersey. In November twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, Democrats had one million, seventy thousand more registered
Speaker 1: Democrats than Republicans. Bill Murphy always had that advantage of
Speaker 1: over a million registered voters. Since then, in the four
Speaker 1: years since that election, there are forty thousand fewer Democrats
Speaker 1: and one hundred and sixty thousand more Republicans. So and
Speaker 1: that was a race that Murphy won by eighty four
Speaker 1: thousand votes, and the Republican advantage has increased by two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand in that four year period. So if there's
Speaker 1: any kind of polling error like there was four years ago,
Speaker 1: Chittarelli was supposed to lose by like eight points, and
Speaker 1: I think he lost by two and a half. If
Speaker 1: any kind of polling error exists this time, like it
Speaker 1: did last time, and like it has done in several
Speaker 1: other elections. But if that polling error exists of five
Speaker 1: to six points, that new voter enrollment advantage in New
Speaker 1: Jersey of two hundred thousand, one hundred and sixty thousand
Speaker 1: more Republicans forty thousand fewer Democrats means Chitarelly has a chance.
Speaker 1: You know, he's not in the lead. It's not a
Speaker 1: super tight race right now, but he's the underdog. But
Speaker 1: he has a chance. The election is not over in
Speaker 1: New Jersey, New York City, the mayor's election in my
Speaker 1: home city. This one hurts because it's basically over. It is.
Speaker 1: If there was anyone in political leadership in this godforsaken
Speaker 1: city with two brain cells of scratched together and start
Speaker 1: a fire, we could have a chance. A new Siena poll,
Speaker 1: which only had a sample survey of three hundred, so
Speaker 1: it's not a very high sample survey, but it has
Speaker 1: Mandani Zoram Mandani socialist candidate winning with nineteen points against
Speaker 1: former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Mandani has forty four percent, Cuomo
Speaker 1: has twenty five, Republican Curtis Leewa has twelve, and incumbent
Speaker 1: Mayor Eric Adams has seven percent. Now, I don't know
Speaker 1: why these four numbskulls are the candidates that we have
Speaker 1: to lead the biggest city in America. I don't know
Speaker 1: why Catherine Garcia didn't run. She would have. She's a Democrat,
Speaker 1: I don't agree with all of our policies. She would
Speaker 1: have actually been able to run the city. I fundamentally
Speaker 1: believe she could run the city and make it function
Speaker 1: and make sure we weren't falling into the abyss. She
Speaker 1: wasn't a thirty three year old IVY list with no
Speaker 1: job experience, or a disgraced former governor, or an insane
Speaker 1: person who peaked in the eighties, or a disgraced outgoing mayor.
Speaker 1: She was a competent woman. She's a Democrat and agree policies,
Speaker 1: but she could have. I don't know why we're stuck
Speaker 1: with this group. It's extremely frustrating when there were really
Speaker 1: good candidates who could have run the race and done it.
Speaker 1: All these candidates are flawed, every single one of them.
Speaker 1: Only one has a path to beat Mondonnie, and it's
Speaker 1: Andrew Cuomo. I know that it's not comfortable to say
Speaker 1: I've never voted for Andrew Cuomo. I don't like Andrew Cuomo.
Speaker 1: He was a horrible governor. Well it was okay, it's
Speaker 1: like a few years of his first term, but after
Speaker 1: that it just fell off the cliff. It was just horrific.
Speaker 1: He handled COVID terribly. What I find from and this
Speaker 1: is maybe a cynical view from a conservative Democrats oftentimes
Speaker 1: I find in many of these blue states when they
Speaker 1: are governors, are all about managing decline, managing the decline
Speaker 1: of New York, which is really sad from somebody who
Speaker 1: lived my entire life here and goes back to the state,
Speaker 1: you know, eight generations. I think there was no vision
Speaker 1: and optimism. It was about how to manage decline and
Speaker 1: just you know, rearranged seats in the deck chair of
Speaker 1: the Titanic. While our tax base fled and our industries fled,
Speaker 1: and that was Andrew Cuomo. But he is the only
Speaker 1: person who can beat Mandanni, which I would take managed
Speaker 1: to climb over a catastrophe of a socialist. So what
Speaker 1: should happen right now if there was a person with
Speaker 1: a brain cell in Andrew Cuomo's entire team. Rather than
Speaker 1: sending out insane tweets about his family lineage and who
Speaker 1: he is and saying that Mandannie you know, is attacking him,
Speaker 1: rend freeing his head or whatever he's saying on Twitter
Speaker 1: to try to troll Mendanni, he should be meeting with
Speaker 1: the county, the borough Republicans. There are five boroughs. Every
Speaker 1: borough has a Republican party. There's a Republican elected official
Speaker 1: in four of the five boroughs, and say what do
Speaker 1: you want? He should be saying, there are six Republican
Speaker 1: city council members at a fifty one he'll set. He
Speaker 1: should sit there and say, you throw your support behind me.
Speaker 1: I will not run any Democrats against all of your
Speaker 1: incumbents in four years, and I will back two more.
Speaker 1: I'll give you eight city councilors, which will be the
Speaker 1: most of the Republicans in decades. I will tell the
Speaker 1: unions to back off your incumbents in the city. Make
Speaker 1: deals right now. Michael Bloomberg, for all of his ills,
Speaker 1: when he was mayor, knew how to make deals, Make
Speaker 1: deals with people, to bring everyone together, instead of allowing
Speaker 1: Curtis lee While to destroy his legacy by running this
Speaker 1: absolute garbage campaign and winning twelve percent and taking the
Speaker 1: city down with his ego and his pride. And then
Speaker 1: tell Eric Adams and his seven percent, I'll name a
Speaker 1: bridge after you, I'll name a garden after you, a school,
Speaker 1: whatever you want, will i will do the Eric Adams Library,
Speaker 1: whatever you want. Don't do this. Drop out, throw your
Speaker 1: support behind me. There's another gentleman in the race who's
Speaker 1: getting like two percent. Drop out, throw your support behind me,
Speaker 1: and let's have a shot at making sure this city
Speaker 1: doesn't work. I'll no many of them as deputy mayors.
Speaker 1: Whatever you want, like whatever it's going to take, and
Speaker 1: make the deal because Curtis ly one. Erg Adams cannot
Speaker 1: win right now. With any poll I have seen, they
Speaker 1: are in the between mid to low teens. Eric Adams
Speaker 1: is in the single digit numbers. It's just over at
Speaker 1: that point. Their negatives are way too high and only
Speaker 1: only only silver aligning in this poll. For anyone who
Speaker 1: is not up. You know, Mandani's rear end is the
Speaker 1: fact that about a quarter of New Yorkers twenty five
Speaker 1: percent of New Yorkers do not know who he is.
Speaker 1: They have no opinion of him. You have to understand.
Speaker 1: I know you guys are listening to a political podcast,
Speaker 1: and you probably spend a lot of time thinking listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts. The average person doesn't like. The average person
Speaker 1: doesn't vote, They don't know. They're going about their day
Speaker 1: and they think about this, especially local races, for the
Speaker 1: first time, maybe two weeks before election day. That's when
Speaker 1: they're you know, they started saying, oh, there might be
Speaker 1: an election a couple of weeks. Who's running. There is
Speaker 1: an opportunity and a real opportunity. And I've heard that
Speaker 1: this is going to happen to blanket the city with
Speaker 1: millions of dollars in negative advertising against Mandanni and make
Speaker 1: him as unlikable as everybody else. So then you're just
Speaker 1: running a race of who's the most unlikable. Cuomo is
Speaker 1: very unlikable, Sleeve was very unlikable, Eric Adams is comically corrupt.
Speaker 1: Mandanni is a moronic socialist who's also inauthentic and incredibly unlikable.
Speaker 1: He's just young enough to be handsome, which the ship
Speaker 1: is sale with other ones. I mean, let's not lie.
Speaker 1: So that is that if they do not unite at
Speaker 1: this point or in the next month or so and
Speaker 1: blanket the city with negative advertising about Mandanni and how
Speaker 1: truly horrific he is, he'll be the next mayor of
Speaker 1: New York and good luck to us. So that is
Speaker 1: my rundown of all the politics. Republicans are slipping in
Speaker 1: the generic ballad by about a point nationwide, having trouble
Speaker 1: in some Senate states like North Carolina. In New Jersey,
Speaker 1: Chitdarelli is down but not out, especially if there's a
Speaker 1: polling error like there was last time. And in New
Speaker 1: York it is getting pretty bleak. I know that's not
Speaker 1: the happiest to come and tarry for you guys, but
Speaker 1: I would rather tell you the truth than repeat things
Speaker 1: you would like to hear. That's my pulling up date. Now.
Speaker 1: Next is a story that should be getting more attention
Speaker 1: about something that Trump administration is doing, but it hasn't,
Speaker 1: So that is coming up next. Stay tuned. There was
Speaker 1: a little blurb in The New York Times two weeks
Speaker 1: ago that the new head of USCAS, that's the United
Speaker 1: States Citizenship and Immigration Services, that their new head, Joseph Edlow,
Speaker 1: is overhauling the citizenship test. Now. It didn't get a
Speaker 1: lot of mention after that. It was like one sentence
Speaker 1: and a bigger article about him, and there weren't many
Speaker 1: follow up deep dives. And he finally started giving interviews
Speaker 1: to some conservative outlets like Fox News and Brepbart News.
Speaker 1: He said the test was too easy and he needs
Speaker 1: to reflect the letter and the spirit in which Congress
Speaker 1: intended when they pass citizenship law. Says it's not about
Speaker 1: the questions aren't up to par. It's that there aren't
Speaker 1: enough of them, and they people applying for citizenship don't
Speaker 1: get a sense of who we are as a country. Now,
Speaker 1: I know that you all have heard, and I have
Speaker 1: heard it a million times, so I'm guessing you guys
Speaker 1: at least heard one hundred that the average American cannot
Speaker 1: pass this citizenship test. I know you've heard that because
Speaker 1: I know I have heard that, and you hear about, Oh,
Speaker 1: there's all these questions and it's very detailed. There are
Speaker 1: between ninety to one hundred questions on the test, right,
Speaker 1: only ten are actually asked. I don't know if everyone
Speaker 1: understands this. So yes, you have to memorize one hundred
Speaker 1: different answers, but only ten are given and you only
Speaker 1: have to get six of those ten correctly to pass.
Speaker 1: So access to a lifetime in the United States, the
Speaker 1: ability to access our welfare state, our security state, our
Speaker 1: you know, everything, are lower taxes than most parts of
Speaker 1: the developed world. Everything, because you can answer six questions correctly.
Speaker 1: Six lifetime, right to vote to cancel out my vote,
Speaker 1: to cancel out your vote to cancel out Donald Trump's vote.
Speaker 1: Six questions, six questions. And I'm sure if you're like
Speaker 1: me and you have been around the general public, you
Speaker 1: don't have much faith of the hours person is informed
Speaker 1: enough to pass these questions. So for your entertainment and
Speaker 1: you and if you've never looked at the test, I'm
Speaker 1: going to take this test right now, right, I'm going
Speaker 1: to read these ten This is on Americanhistory dot SI
Speaker 1: dot edu. You can take the citizenship test yourself. It's
Speaker 1: only ten questions, and I'm going to read you possibly
Speaker 1: a question. You can tell me, how hard do you
Speaker 1: think it is. First question, what was one promise you
Speaker 1: make when you become a United States citizen? Ay, never
Speaker 1: leave the US, be obey the laws, see offer housing
Speaker 1: to soldiers or de pay taxes for traveling to other countries.
Speaker 1: That is not a hard question that you don't even
Speaker 1: have to study that. That's literally just logic. That's basic logic.
Speaker 1: It's be obey the laws. Okay. Next, that is correct.
Speaker 1: By the way, I didn't read these beforehand. This is
Speaker 1: just me going off with it. What is one reason
Speaker 1: colonialists came to the America slavery, political liberty, communism to
Speaker 1: set up their own monarchy? Okay, it's a basic history question.
Speaker 1: It's it's political liberty. I guess if you don't know
Speaker 1: anything about history, that might be a difficult question of whatever.
Speaker 1: So okay, Next one, what is one responsibility that is
Speaker 1: only for United States citizens? Join a political party, write
Speaker 1: for a newspaper, serve a jury, join the military. I mean,
Speaker 1: could the average person really do they all think they
Speaker 1: have to write for a newspaper. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think that that's how I just I cannot imagine that
Speaker 1: they would not get that correctly. Next question, what do
Speaker 1: we show loyalty to when we pledge allegiance to the
Speaker 1: United Nations, to the national anthem, to the United States,
Speaker 1: or to the party of the current president. You have
Speaker 1: to say that this is not like this is are
Speaker 1: you smarter than a fifth grader? I don't think think
Speaker 1: it's smarter than you a third grader? Like this is
Speaker 1: not a This is for citizenship. This is to get
Speaker 1: to vote in all of our elections. This is not
Speaker 1: a hard thing. I don't believe people could possibly be
Speaker 1: getting these things wrong. What groups of people were taken
Speaker 1: to America and sold as slaves Australians, African, Chinese or Spaniards.
Speaker 1: I think an alien would actually know this answer, because
Speaker 1: we've talked about so often. It's Africans. What are the
Speaker 1: two major political parties of the United States? The judicial
Speaker 1: and executive checks and balances Democrats and Republicans, the Senate
Speaker 1: and the House. If you got a question like this
Speaker 1: wrong and you were not a citizen, you should have
Speaker 1: to be ejected from the country. You should have to
Speaker 1: sit in the last row of a jet blue flight
Speaker 1: that has one of the windows blown out near the toilet.
Speaker 1: If you possibly get questions like these wrong, what is
Speaker 1: the capital of the United States. I'm not even going
Speaker 1: to give you guys options, but this is for citizenship.
Speaker 1: This is how easy it is to give this away. Literally,
Speaker 1: what did the Declaration of Independence do? Start the first
Speaker 1: free libraries, free the I'm not joking when I said
Speaker 1: that was actually the answer. Start the first free libraries,
Speaker 1: free the slaves. Define the government said the United States
Speaker 1: is free. It's said the United States is free. That
Speaker 1: wasn't I guess maybe you might have gotten the Constitution confused,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't to set up libraries. How many senators
Speaker 1: are there? There's one hundred. Okay, I'm done now with
Speaker 1: the question. I got all of them correctly. I think
Speaker 1: you get my point. This is the most important thing.
Speaker 1: These are questions that I would argue the average third
Speaker 1: grader could probably answer. Maybe I have too much faith
Speaker 1: in the average third grader, but by fifth grade they
Speaker 1: would all know this basic step. They've all been taught
Speaker 1: it at least once. And if you're looking at the
Speaker 1: itinerary of what we want from a person who is
Speaker 1: newly added to our country, you would want someone better
Speaker 1: than the average ten year old, not someone who is
Speaker 1: on par with a ten year old and they may
Speaker 1: be in their forties or fifties, like you would want
Speaker 1: someone of advanced intelligence and understanding. Also, it doesn't tell
Speaker 1: you who we really are as a country. It asked
Speaker 1: you to memorize the several historical events and dates, which
Speaker 1: I get some people can't do that well. I mean
Speaker 1: I can, but a lot of people can't. The most
Speaker 1: basic premise of our government, I mean the most basic
Speaker 1: and a few dates or like you know, common sense questions.
Speaker 1: It's it's a little little bit of civics, a tiny
Speaker 1: bit of very basic history, and you get to vote
Speaker 1: and change the course of our history, course of our
Speaker 1: country because you can memorize how many stars and stripes
Speaker 1: there are. I'm very glad that Edlow is doing this.
Speaker 1: I think this couldn't have happened fast enough. And I
Speaker 1: think that if we if the average adult cannot pass this,
Speaker 1: cannot get six six. All they do is six. When
Speaker 1: I went to high school, seventy five was failing. It's
Speaker 1: not even meeting the Saint Francis Prep minimum of passing
Speaker 1: at least up at nine. So I'm glad this new
Speaker 1: citizenship test should be out sometime. I think in the
Speaker 1: beginning of next year. I'm looking forward to seeing how
Speaker 1: he hopes to enhance it to make sure that it
Speaker 1: is more comprehensive towards who we are as a country.
Speaker 1: I know he says he's planning on ending the loop
Speaker 1: holes that allow people to take the test not in English,
Speaker 1: which is beyond me that that's even possible. Anyway, we're
Speaker 1: the greatest nation in the world. You shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: play are you smarter than a fifth grade or civic
Speaker 1: questions in order to be a citizen. It should be
Speaker 1: a lot lot harder. You're listening to It's a Numbers
Speaker 1: Game with Ryan Grodowsky. We'll be right back now. It's
Speaker 1: time for the Ask Me Anything segment of the show.
Speaker 1: If you want to be part of the Ask Me
Speaker 1: Anything segment, email me Ryan at Numbers Game podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: That's ryanat Numbers Game podcast dot com. Okay. First question
Speaker 1: comes from Patrick. He writes that he has seen the
Speaker 1: abuse of the H one B VISA system firsthand, and
Speaker 1: it's frustrated that Republicans have drank the kool aid and
Speaker 1: believing we're taking in the best and brightest. He wants
Speaker 1: to know given comments by Senator Mike Lee, which if
Speaker 1: anyone knows Senator Lee's history on H Oneb's it's been horrific,
Speaker 1: but all of a sudden he's been talking of a
Speaker 1: big game or Vice President Jade Vans. Are we going
Speaker 1: to see this issue address as at two in each?
Speaker 1: And also, what are your opinions of Senator Schmidt? Senator
Speaker 1: Schmid is the senator from Missouri. I don't know much
Speaker 1: about him. One of my friends works for him and
Speaker 1: does the social media, and he's super based and very
Speaker 1: very good. So I think that's why his social media
Speaker 1: is very good. And I guess I like that he
Speaker 1: hired him. I have to read. I've read up a
Speaker 1: little bit on his legislative history, and there was only
Speaker 1: one Bill of substance and it was dealing with broadband
Speaker 1: spectrum when it comes to space travel. I didn't really
Speaker 1: know what it was talking about. But I don't dislike him.
Speaker 1: I don't particularly like him. I don't really think a
Speaker 1: lot about him. He hasn't had a lot of really
Speaker 1: enticing legislation that I really could sit there and say, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is leadership and this is thought provoking. I think
Speaker 1: that he's fine. He votes well, and he votes much
Speaker 1: better than the Senator Blunt did who he replaced, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a very basic opinion of him. When it
Speaker 1: comes to H one bs and skilled immigration. Polling is
Speaker 1: clear that Americans believe that we have a large skills
Speaker 1: gap and that H one B system is the only
Speaker 1: way to fix that problem. I couldn't find an exact
Speaker 1: poll break down by party, but one pole I found
Speaker 1: sid seventy one percent of Trump supporters believe that we
Speaker 1: need more high skilled immigration to our country. I think
Speaker 1: the problem is in both the wording of the polling
Speaker 1: and our conception of immigration. Rather than thinking we need
Speaker 1: more high skilled immigration, the question should be should all
Speaker 1: immigrants be skilled? Right? Because once we weed out low
Speaker 1: skilled immigration, that's unnecessary, the ones through family reunification and
Speaker 1: the visa lottery system and all the rest of it.
Speaker 1: And like ninety percent of our immigration is skilled, I
Speaker 1: guess we could use some farm hands or some you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, people who clean hotels or whatever. But
Speaker 1: if like eighty to ninety percent of our immigration was skilled,
Speaker 1: then it's just a question on levels. Then it's just
Speaker 1: a question of how many numbers were taking in. And
Speaker 1: that is a better place to be in than the
Speaker 1: overall idea of skilled versus not skilled immigration. I think
Speaker 1: that when you're dealing with that kind of concept or oh,
Speaker 1: people are naturally going to be on the side of
Speaker 1: wanting more skilled immigration. But if almost all immigration is skilled,
Speaker 1: then it's just a question of numbers, and people more
Speaker 1: times than not prefer lower numbers and higher As far
Speaker 1: as changes go, by the way, the White House did
Speaker 1: to prove some changes to the H one B system,
Speaker 1: including changing the way that H oneb's are distributed. This
Speaker 1: comes from the Hindustan Times. And by the way, if
Speaker 1: you care about this issue, because it sounds like you
Speaker 1: do about the H one B issue, I highly recommend
Speaker 1: reading English language versions of Indian newspapers because Indian newspapers,
Speaker 1: because India loves, you know, flooding H one B systems,
Speaker 1: H one B visas, they cover this issue like you know,
Speaker 1: white girls covering true crime, like they are all over
Speaker 1: this issue completely. So this is from the Hindustan Times.
Speaker 1: The new rules anticipated to relaunch a Trump administration plan
Speaker 1: that would prioritize H one B applicants based on earnings
Speaker 1: rather than the existing random lottery system. At present, there's
Speaker 1: an annual cap up eighty five thousand visas under the
Speaker 1: H one B program, which is widely used by the
Speaker 1: tech sector on annual basis, a random lottery selects which
Speaker 1: employers may fill the visa requests. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: DHS recommended allocating visas based on earning, separated into four
Speaker 1: categories to prioritize high paying positions. DHS attempted to switch
Speaker 1: from a random selection procedure to a wage priority approach
Speaker 1: under the Trump administration. Suggested regulation would put applicants based
Speaker 1: on wag's promise, with higher paying positions given preference. According
Speaker 1: to the administrations by American Higher American Program. So this
Speaker 1: is something that's great. I think it's really really important.
Speaker 1: I think it's necessary, and I think that it's just
Speaker 1: I think the beginning of what we're going to see
Speaker 1: changes to the H one B system. I think more
Speaker 1: will actually come as time goes on. I know that
Speaker 1: Trump has not been super coherent in his overall vision
Speaker 1: of H one b's I know he's waffled the times,
Speaker 1: he's gone very friendly with the tech sector, But it
Speaker 1: seems to me that this is something that the overall
Speaker 1: administration is wanting to weed out, especially the immense amount
Speaker 1: of corruption. Okay. Next question comes from Joel in Ohio.
Speaker 1: He has a long I've been Ohio so many times.
Speaker 1: I should tell Ohiohio campaign stories over time because Ohio
Speaker 1: is a special place. He has a long response to
Speaker 1: my episode on the iPhone filtering unknown calls, which I
Speaker 1: was great part of the email, but the question part,
Speaker 1: because I don't want to give everyone too much to
Speaker 1: chew on on. It was asking should people answer polls
Speaker 1: when you get text mess from polls? Yes, Joel, please
Speaker 1: if you get a poll answer it. My dad never
Speaker 1: answers polls and then constantly complains about them, and I
Speaker 1: say you have to be part of answering them and
Speaker 1: not just saying how left wing poles are. Here's the
Speaker 1: one of the basic problems with our polling industry. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of people who watch MSNBC all day
Speaker 1: long and dream of the mo A polster is going
Speaker 1: to call them and ask them their opinion, so they
Speaker 1: can scream that they hate Donald Trump to somebody who
Speaker 1: has to listen. If they have the numbers, they would
Speaker 1: call the polsters themselves and give them a daily update.
Speaker 1: And then you have people like my dad, God love them,
Speaker 1: Joel you know, you have to answer these polls. They're
Speaker 1: not asking you for money nine times out of ten,
Speaker 1: and it makes and if they answer, if they ask
Speaker 1: for money, just hang up whatever, it's fine, hang up.
Speaker 1: It's not a big deal if you it makes it
Speaker 1: harder for people like me and people in who work
Speaker 1: in government who want to see the feelings of the
Speaker 1: public on a number of different issues when we don't
Speaker 1: have accurate polsters pulling because the people who are overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: responding to the polling are you know, writing letters to
Speaker 1: MSBC saying please bring back joy read like that is
Speaker 1: who are answering the polling too often? And we are
Speaker 1: not getting people who are right wing or lower repensity
Speaker 1: or no college degree, and like they're not sampling enough
Speaker 1: of those people. So Joel, please please please answer the
Speaker 1: pole if you get a text and if you're not
Speaker 1: interested in any donations or anything like that, just eggs
Speaker 1: out of it. But a pole should only take a
Speaker 1: few minutes, and it's really important for how corporations, nonprofits, politicians,
Speaker 1: everybody responds to things. So please Republicans answer polls. Okay.
Speaker 1: Last question for this episode of the podcast comes from
Speaker 1: David Rolf. He asked about my feelings of the Senate
Speaker 1: races in Texas and Kentucky. In Texas, I think Senator
Speaker 1: Cornyn is done. I don't think he's going to win
Speaker 1: unless the establishment White Knight shows up and Qrnan agrees
Speaker 1: to step down and they rally around him. I think
Speaker 1: it's likely to Ken Paxton. I don't think Wesley Hunt
Speaker 1: can do it. I think Paxson has this level of
Speaker 1: built in trust with the average Conservative voter or the
Speaker 1: average Trump voter, and they under they view him in
Speaker 1: the same way they view Trump. They understand that he
Speaker 1: is a deeply her sony, problematic figure as far as
Speaker 1: his personal life goes right. They don't want to live
Speaker 1: his personal life or don't want their children to live
Speaker 1: in their person life. But they believe he is a fighter.
Speaker 1: And America right now, Republicans right now are not looking
Speaker 1: for They're not looking for a pastor. They're looking for
Speaker 1: a man who will step up and fight, and they
Speaker 1: view Paxton as that person. You know, I talked to
Speaker 1: one Texas politician last year about Paxton. He said, Look,
Speaker 1: he's a crook, but he's our crook. Like he's corrupt,
Speaker 1: but he's our corrupt. Guy because he's going to fight,
Speaker 1: and he sued the Biden administration. He sued the I
Speaker 1: think he was there for Obama too, but he sued
Speaker 1: the Biden administration endlessly to try to stall their agenda.
Speaker 1: And he's just considered a champion for the base and
Speaker 1: they're going to stick with them. They're going to ride
Speaker 1: with them. And unless somebody comes in who is universally
Speaker 1: beloved and Cornyn is no longer there, so the attacks
Speaker 1: against corn because he's so bad on so many policies,
Speaker 1: doesn't happen if he can't attack Cornyan. And there's this
Speaker 1: universally loved white knight, which I don't know who that is,
Speaker 1: but if that person shows up, it's going to be Paxton,
Speaker 1: and then that will be a billion dollar center race
Speaker 1: in Kentucky. I am biased because I have a lot
Speaker 1: of friends who work for Nate Morris. He is the
Speaker 1: businessman for Kentucky. I really like a lot of what
Speaker 1: he says. I think he'd be a good senator based
Speaker 1: on what I know. I do think he's probably the
Speaker 1: favorite right now. I think Mark Alprin said the same thing.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of JD. Vans for Senate alumni. Work
Speaker 1: in his campaign right now. So if you're a real
Speaker 1: campaign nerd, you could probably see some overlaps of the JD.
Speaker 1: Vans campaign and Nate Morris's campaign and what they're kind
Speaker 1: of doing. There's a lot of similarities I'm seeing. So
Speaker 1: I like Nate Morris. I like him based on what
Speaker 1: I know, and I think he's probably likely to win.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be shocked if you see Don Junior, Charlie Kirk,
Speaker 1: the President, a bunch of go rally around him. I
Speaker 1: think that the president, maybe the President will stay out
Speaker 1: of it because I think he's got relationships with congres
Speaker 1: some bar but I wouldn't be surprised that they all
Speaker 1: rally around Morris in the end and he ends up
Speaker 1: winning the nomination. I also want you to do one thing,
Speaker 1: by the way, because this makes me laugh every time
Speaker 1: I think about it. Take out your phone, we're here,
Speaker 1: your computer, and I want you to google the name
Speaker 1: Nate Morris, Kentucky and see what he looks like. And
Speaker 1: then google stand from the show American Dad, from the
Speaker 1: cartoon American Dad, and you tell me this is not
Speaker 1: the same person. That's all for the show today. Thank you,
Speaker 1: guys for listening. I'll be back on Monday. If you
Speaker 1: like this podcast, please subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, and I will see you
Speaker 1: guys soon