Inside the Culture War Transforming Corporate America

- Hey everybody, welcome to Next Up. I'm Mark Calpert. Thank you for being here. I'm the editor in Chief of two way. And you're guide to everything next up.

If you are an extra, older, new. Thank you for coming. And I hope you enjoy it.

“Happy you'll be here because great program today.”

Some wonderful guests and my reported model. Our guest today, Robby Starbuck, the conservative activist. And he's now visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. I wanna talk to him about that.

And talk to him about the midterms and how he sees things playing out. But big focus for me within will be on what impact his president Trump's policies. And Robby's efforts had on corporate America

and how woke or not are they. And then Drew Holden will be here, managing editor of Common Place, author of the Holden Court Substack.

Two great substacks and Drew, as always,

brings the receipts and talking about liberal bias. And also, if we've seen in a case of an absence of liberal bias on the coverage of the Democrats and the Democratic Socialists, two great conversations in store for you. But first, my report in my log is next up.

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Again, go to select quote.com/mark today and get started. Harder, everybody, welcome back. Next up, my reported monologue. I wanted to try to lay out the roadmap for you. Now that we're through the prime areas,

now that we're through the preliminaries, what next? What can we look to between now and election day? So consider this from having to talk to Republican strategist, Democrats,

“strategists and key observers of the general election, what can you expect going forward?”

So let me lay it out for you.

First, of course, the Republicans are having their convention.

This is President Trump's brain child. And after he announced that we're going to do a two-day convention, it's in Dallas. The Republicans, the Democrats, they don't, we'll do that too. And no, they're not.

Why not because it's expensive? And it means flying a bunch of your candidates out of their states to the city. The same dynamic, the same downsides, exist in a presidential year.

When same things happen, costs a lot of money to stage a convention, you got to bring your candidates in. But the parties decide it's worth it. In this case, the Republicans think it worth it. You can't hide President Trump.

This will rally the base, and let's see how well they execute it. Remember, for all the craziness and disorganization that can sometimes exist in Trump world, their conventions have been pretty good. At least in the years President Trump won in 16 and 24,

their conventions were well-run, even Democrats and people in the media would tell you, well-stage, good messaging, good social media around them. So that'll be a big night. And it'll be so interesting to see what the Democrats do. The term of art in politics is bracketing.

“What do they do in the run-up of the Republican convention?”

What do they do during it? What do they do after it? To try to drive their own message. So that'll be super interesting. Then in early October, a lot of the states

start to have their deadlines for registering to vote. There's been one of the most undercovered stories of this midterm voter registration. So such a big topic of focus in 2024, such a big reason that President Trump was able to win in 2024,

was the artist did a better job of getting people to register to vote. Not every state gives you great voter registration data, but some do, and some of the ones that have battleground races, the cycle do.

And super curious to see what efforts are there leading up to the various state deadlines. Every state's got its own rules of registration. Some states, of course, have same day registration on election day. But I'll be curious to see what the voter registration efforts are

like in September, in October, and how the parties do. We'll also start to see debates. First, we'll have my favorite, the debate about debates. In these key house and senate and governor's races,

How many? Who the moderators are?

And talking to Republican campaigns,

I keep hearing the same thing.

“They don't want to let liberals moderate the debates.”

And a lot of people in local news, not all, but a lot of liberals, a lot of the newspapers, and sometimes, sometimes, the national media will come in with a bunch of liberals and try to moderate debates.

So watching the debate about the debates, what schedules gets said, and then, of course, the debates themselves, debates drive a lot of news coverage. And in a campaign, it's very hard. Even in a high-profile senate race governor's race,

it's very hard to get news coverage. It's not like a presidential. Debates are one of the few times where the political audience pays attention, both to the debates themselves,

and then to the news coverage. So we'll watch those fundraising. We'll be a huge deal. We know Republicans go into the fall with a fundraising advantage,

just how big will it be? I had predicted early on, a few weeks ago, really, that Republicans would raise a lot of money, big checks to super PACs and other groups, hundreds of millions of dollars from AI

and from crypto. I'm not so sure anymore about the AI money. The AI money, the industry is going through such a big PR problem now. And it may be that a candidate who takes,

or who's super PAC takes 20 million, 15 million

from a super PAC connected to AI, may backfire. The opposition may be able to say their own button sold. So I want to see what the last couple months with the fundraising is like on both sides. Democrats are doing well on the candidate side,

particularly the low dollars. And so as some of these races come into focus, Senate and House, where the Democrats are trying to take a Republican seat, either an open seat or away from a Republican incumbent,

I'm super interested in seeing do the grassroots donations explode? What will Dr. Alsaad do in Michigan in terms of low dollar fundraising? He was not as big a low dollar fundraiser

as I thought he would be in the primary. Same with Talorico and Texas who's raised so much. How much more will he raise? How about Jackson in Maine who raised a lot

when he became the nominee?

Don't know how he's done since then. So it's not exclusively this way, but on the Democratic side, it's more grassroots fundraising on the Republican side, it's those big checks. So we'll watch the fundraising carefully.

Then I want to see on AI how that plays out. Right now, in August, the story has been a race to be the more anti-AI candidate. Again, state of centers, primarily, but against the general concept of AI.

I want to see, does that continue? There'll be more opposition research on that. I want to see just how effective Democrats are. Democrats should have the age on the issue because the Republicans and the president

are more associated with being a part of supporting big AI. I want to see how effectively that issue is driven both in individual races and then nationally by the Democrats. Another thing to look for, the surrogates.

Where does President Trump campaign? Where does the vice president? Where does the cabinet campaign?

“And on the Democratic side, who gets the Barack Obama visit?”

That we know can appeal to independent voters and rally the base, which of the targeted races has incentive governor get that. And then who gets to even more coveted Michelle Obama visit for a fundraiser or for campaign rally?

Historically, she's done not very much, but you can bet that any Democrat, doesn't matter what state it is. I shouldn't say any, maybe not Alaska, but almost any Democrat would love to see Michelle Obama come in.

That'll be a massive deal. Then you've got, of course, the other potential surrogates on both sides, the Republican side, Marka Rubio probably won't campaign for anybody, but where does the vice president go in the context

of being a potential presidential candidate? And then Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Kamala Harris, AOC, who wants them and who gets them to come in for big rallies in the closing days? That will also be just a big deal to see.

Who's kind of anointed? Who's kind of a big to get that super surrogate in Bernie Sanders' same thing? We talked about this on my show on two way the other day. Who gets the double on the Democratic side?

“Who gets the Obama, rally and the Bernie Sanders rally?”

Not everybody will want it, but who gets it? Opposition research is another thing to look for. You've got a bunch of candidates who have been through primaries, but maybe not getting the level of scrutiny getting a general election.

Somebody was saying to me, "Well, there's not going to be anything else about Dr. L. Saia "because if there were, it would have come out already." No, no, no, no. You got right now while you're enjoying your August holiday.

You got opposition researchers for campaigns, for party committees, for super PACs, doing a research, and looking through old social media,

watching old videos, looking at schedules of conferences,

trying to find that silver bullet piece of op-o, op-o research that can knock somebody out. And particularly on the Republican side, where they're trying to keep the race from being a referendum on Donald Trump,

a upper-down vote on the president. They want it to be a choice election. The Republicans are looking hard for that opposition research to say, forget to get gas prices, focus on the other guy or gal.

Gas prices, obviously, everybody's going to continue to watch. We'll continue to see gas prices featured in Democratic messaging and ads. But will they go down? And of course, a big question is, well, the war.

I won't say it's going to end with a run 'cause I don't think that's in the cards, but will it be in a place where the president can say some version of mission accomplished?

“That would be an important political point”

for the Republicans to say, you can't blame the war going forward and it could lead to gas prices coming down, which of course would be a two-for-for Republicans. These, all these things are going to play out

from Labor Day, a forward. And we need to see in the final couple weeks. Okay, maybe three weeks, sometimes four weeks, the big spending decisions. Okay, both parties are raising a lot of money.

And in some of these state, smaller states like a main, it's saturated. You can buy every digital ad, you can buy every TV ad, you can hire skywriters to the beaches, you can hire trucks to drive around,

like at some point, they become saturated. But then there are places like Ohio and North Carolina, Michigan, Texas, these are really expensive places to buy TV and other media. So, at some point, there's a tell.

Just, you see in the presidential race, too.

“At some point, the people who write the checks,”

say, that's down a rattle. We're not going to spend any more money 'cause that race is over. So, you look at the North Carolina Senate race, for instance, where former governor Cooper

is heavily favored over Mr. of Flatley. Our Republicans gonna spend individuals gonna give to his campaign, our national Republican committee. Senate committee gonna spend there, is a super PAC kind of spend there.

At some point, usually about a month out.

You know, parties never, party committees,

they never like, I'm sorry, Wattley, Michael Wattley, thank you. They never like to pull the plug. Because it looks horrible, if they say in October 1st, you know, we're canceling all our TV ads in North Carolina, it hangs wildly out to dry,

but it also creates a storyline. Say, well, there's one, to give the Democrats one. So, they don't do it lightly. And of course, the candidate who's in danger of losing their funding,

they try to ward that off as much as they can. But, the parties at some point have to make hard choices. They just cannot spend dollars needed in another state in something that's obviously a loss cause. So, watch for that, the candidates on the Republican side

to pull their money would be North Carolina Senate, would also be potentially the Ohio Senate race. Those are probably the two to watch. On the Democratic side, watch Texas right now, you know, as you heard me say before,

“I think the Democrats are probably the favorite to win in Texas,”

but if that turned around, if Talorica started to fade pretty badly, Texas has so many media markets, it's so expensive. People don't want to spend money there. So, watch that.

And then Michigan, either way, either way, literally the plug could be pulled. It's such an expensive state. And I could see if El Zayat sort of, you know, not collates himself

against some of these attacks that he's seen. Demographically, as a normal Democrat and as strong Democratic year, I could see Republicans say it, not a win-able state, but I could see it happened the other way too.

I could see Democrats say it just not, it's just not sustainable, survivable, under the circumstances. That could happen, that could happen. So watch those spending decisions.

And then finally, both parties have talked about having

agendas, how Kim Jeffries has talked about it. Speaker Johnson has talked about it. You don't hear much of that, but watch to see if anybody comes up with an agenda that can be kind of the national conversation,

the national pledge, and then see if it sustains through. See if it sustains through. Finally, and this may not happen because Donald Trump has such a hold on the party, but this White House gives Republican candidates

license to distance themselves from the president. If Susan Collins wants to vote some way, or if Susan Collins wants to criticize, if they think she's doing it to help herself when they're fine with it.

with an unpopular president of either party.

“The party committees say to the candidates,”

every man, every woman, for themselves, cut loose the White House. Don't pass up any opportunity to criticize the White House. As I said, in Donald Trump's Republican party, that's likely because there's so much loyalty to him.

But watch to see if three weeks to go, say, or two weeks to go, if the president's approval rating is still low, if gas prices are still high, if the president, if their pollsters tell him the president, is not helping you, watch to see if,

as this happened with some presidents in the past, watch to see if Republicans in tough races, particularly places that are purple.

If they basically say, they're not for the president.

They cut him loose rhetorically to try to save themselves. That's your roadmap from talking to Republicans and Democrats in my reporting over the years about what happens from labor day on to election day, what we see.

And by the way, we could have it over time. If the Senate's gonna be 50 to 49, and the Alaska races and decided that one could take a while, and it could happen in that too. So don't assume that election day will tell us the tale

of who controls the majority. Let me know what you think. Let me know what I left out. Let me know what you think of what I had to report today. Give me a shout, send me an email at [email protected].

Shoot me an email, let me know what you think. Take a quick break now. And when we come back, Robby Starbuck, the conservative organizer and activist and filmmaker, Robby Starbuck is next up.

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All right, everybody, next up and joining me now, Robby Starbuck, conservative activist, filmmaker, and visiting fellow at the heritage foundation, which seems like a highly intellectual position for a scrappy guy. Robby, welcome back to next up. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me.

I appreciate it. The heritage foundation is kind of like a fancy hoodie toy place. I've been in there. It seems to seem to be too scrappy. What are you doing over there?

Well, you know, I'd like to think they think of me as a good tactician. You know, I think I've proven that with some of the change I've been able to create in the corporate world in another places. I think long term strategy where the pieces on a board go, how you move them correctly, what types of pressure and what types of moves are going to bring you ultimately to the promise land that you want to be at. And so I think they like to think of me that way, at least I would like to think that right. But at the same time, you know, we're in this new political reality where think tanks of the past are not going to be influential in the same ways that they used to be

by simply, you know, having sort of the prestige of like a William Buckley right where it's like, okay, we have this intellectual that everybody respects and that's going to move the needle right? Well, not in the future. And I would argue even not right now.

“I think it's important that think tanks have people on the ground who understand the more grassroots strategy of coalition building and how you win power right?”

Because at the end of the day, you can't implement any of the great ideas you have if you don't have the power to implement it. So, functionally, I think that me being there is sort of representative of the long term, you know, place we're going with politics, where you've got a fuse together, the popular ideas of the people and what people want.

And, you know, people I know they left to give influencers and people with a lot of social media followers and some stuff, but the truth is there's a reason people follow people, right?

They find their ideas interesting and things like that. So, I think it's transmitting a lot of those ideas together and teaching each other how to fight in different battlefields where the other side, you know, the equation maybe isn't as able to carry out things that you've been able to do. Here's one thing you and I have in common, king off of your answer. There are all these people who consider themselves in the arena. There are all these people who say, I'm on the national town square and I'm fighting for what I believe in, whether it's whether it's a views of the right or views of the left or money getting money for cancer researchers, stopping any semitism, whatever it is.

They think they're in the arena, they're really not. They're in some sort of box on the side of the arena with their pens and their paper and their word processors.

“And they don't understand if you want to make real change, you have to have the understanding of how to affect change in the real world, not just right in the ban on piece of paper.”

Well, good way to explain this, you know, if I was talking, you know, I'm a dad, I've got four kids. If I was talking to my kids about these ideas and the importance of being a doer in the world, I would say, you know, you've got one man over here. He's had a thousand ideas in his life where he had, you know, probably out of those thousand four hundred of them were multi-billion dollar ideas.

But he never actually tried to create anything.

Okay, so he just had these great ideas and every time something would happen and he'd see it on the news. Oh, I thought of that 10 years ago, right? And so it's like it's written down somewhere. This was like an idea he had. And then on the other side, you've got a guy who's had one idea his whole life that's ever been marginally good.

But he outworked everybody and he has become a massive success. At the end of their lives, which one of them, you know, in the professional arena really did more. It's the person who only had the one idea. So being a doer accounts for a whole hell of a lot more and more good ideas. That's my argument.

Have you ever been to the Grover Norquist Wednesday meeting? On, there's a good possibility. I have no idea. I never remember meeting names. Okay, so I did all these meetings go and they all sit here out the other day.

So Grover Norquist is a conservative organizer. Yes. I know. I'm not telling you. I'm telling the audience.

I know you know. Anyway, Grover doesn't let meetings end. Doesn't let a topic end.

“But that's saying, okay, how are we going to do this?”

There are all these meetings in Washington where people just say, we really should name National Airport Reagan National Airport. Yeah, let's do that. Let me write not bad in the Washington Times about that or let me call Senator So and so. The reason of Reagan Airport is named after President Reagan is because Grover said,

okay, here's how we're going to do it. Here are the key votes we need to get. Here are the steps that have to happen. What does the law say?

Uh, he's a doer and a big thinker and, and it's just amazing to me.

And again, I don't need to pick on the heritage foundation. They're actually pretty good at getting stuff done compared to a lot of think things. But still I will say, but still they're lucky to have somebody like you. So I got it. Yeah, no Kevin Roberts has been a huge changemaker there.

And I will say he's got the right idea about that. That think tanks have to show results in the real world. If you expect owners to continue giving to the project, right, whatever it might be, whatever kind of think tank you're running left or right.

“Like you better be producing results and not just have great papers, right?”

Because it doesn't matter at the end of the day. 100%. Okay, let's move to a topic that I've been itchened to talk to you about. With Donald Trump in term one, did not take on a bunch of projects that are aligned with your vision.

Didn't take on making entertainment less liberal. Didn't take on trying to break the back of liberal universities. Didn't take on trying to break the back of big liberal law. Didn't take on trying to make corporate boards. The engines of our of our of our capitalism less a woke.

He didn't take those things on in any series way. Term two big difference. Took them on in a lot of interesting ways and in aggressive ways. Let's start with corporate boards. Which has been one of your areas, one of your signature areas.

Today, if you take the fortune 100 companies.

Compared to the day Donald Trump was sworn in for the second term.

What's the status of a woke orientation of the boards of the of the of the top 100 companies in America? Are they dramatically different roughly the same. Worst, how would you praise them? I would say rules and the the functions in terms of what they're focused on are dramatically better. In terms of the political makeup of the people on boards,

I would say slightly better. It takes time with boards, right? Because if you have institutional power where there's a majority on the board already, that are politically aligned in one direction. It's it's pretty hard to move quickly on that, right?

What we have seen though is less hiring on the basis of D.I. You know, and not having D.I. in these corporate executive packages and not having D.I. considerations. And that that goes a lot of different directions. I mean, some of these companies went so far as as actually having incentives based on hiring by race, right? So, hey, if we get this many minorities higher, you're going to get an extra bonus.

That's crazy. And we've functionally totally ripped that out of the corporate world. So, a lot of these incentives packages that were built around leftist ideology, those are gone. And I'd say that by itself is a dramatic change. And I think we've also done a good job of institutionalizing the change on a legal level,

where companies are much more acutely aware now that look, maybe Trump loses or not Trump, but, you know, JD Vansor, whoever the nominee ends up being loses in 28, right? And say there's a president, AOC, what is there to ensure that companies just don't go flip right back, right?

hey, we're not cool with this, but beyond that, they now understand on a state level.

We have taught our politicians how to fight a little harder on this front and we can make your life very, very, very difficult. And we will make your life very, very difficult if you flip right back. And so, a lot of the corporations, I mean, and I've heard this from executives who don't even like my politics. They don't like me particularly, but they love what I did with the eye and wokeness, because it was starting to distract from the workplace where they're aligned with the Democrats on every other issue.

And they say, look, between you and me, though, I appreciate what you're doing, because you could have done this in a much more, you know, aggressive manner, where you really forced your beliefs in here, and instead what you've done is just fight for neutrality and an equal playing field for everybody just do their job. So we tried to do it in that way, because if you had done it more aggressively, and it was like, okay, I want to see my belief systems projected by corporate America.

“Maybe we could have gotten out of a good number of companies, right?”

However, the damaging effect of that would have been long term, we would have just had a ping pong game every four years. And, you know, at the end of my life, I don't want to spend my entire life having to do this, right? So you try to fix something for a longer term vision. Do you have an example of a Fortune 100 company who, on January 20th, 2025, was governed in a way that you thought was too woke?

That today you would put as a model of eliminating a bot liberal bias in the governance?

Well, you know, the first thing that jumps in my mind, because they've had the largest time span to do this,

it was actually a predated January, because I had begun this probably eight months, ten months beforehand, was actually the first company I flipped tractor supply, because institutionally I had so many sources in the company, and to understand the depth of change that occurred from the time I started the campaign against them to today is wild. There used to be all kinds of wokeness,

infesting the company everywhere from the corporate level, their corporate offices all the way down into the stores, and having pride parties, and stuff in the stores, and you've got to understand, if you've ever been in a tractor supply, you know, I know if you have a lot of viewers that live in cities, maybe they haven't been to a tractor supply.

“Like, we were talking about the most conservative consumer-based possible, right?”

So it's just a slap in their face to fund this stuff with their own money. And, you know, you can decide to support whatever you want in your personal life, but to take these hardworking people's money and turn around and use it to fund the values, they're deeply opposed to, it's just wild. So all that stuff has gone, and I do think they've done a really-

Give me some specifics of what they had before that they don't have now. The DI training sets for employees on their supplier forms, there were preferential treatment for diverse suppliers, so a diverse supplier would have a better chance of getting a supplier contract than somebody who was, you know, a white person, that was doing the same exact thing.

And we saw that in many corporate contexts where if you had diversity, right? So like myself, I'm Latino. So if I was competing against a guy who's white, we provide the same product, and he's even a penny cheaper than I am. I'm still going to get preferential treatment over him because I'm Latino.

And I just think that's patternally unfair, right? So, and we saw this extend out into academia as well. We're in academia, you know, the same issue I have a daughter who just went to college. And, you know, we had to have the discussion even after the Supreme Court verdict, all the data tells us from major universities.

They're still discriminating on the basis of race and giving Latinos in blacks, unearned spots in colleges that should have probably gone to Asian students who performed much better on the testing and, you know, the GPAs they brought in. And so we had to have the discussion, like do you want to put Latino on those boxes? Because at the end of the day, you kind of then have to wonder,

am I getting this scholarship offer because I'm Latino or am I getting it on the basis of my merit, right? And, you know, thankfully for my daughter scholarship offers all over the place, she did really well in school, very proud of her. But, you know, these are the things across workplaces and in academia, which feeds then into corporate America that was just infesting everything.

“Was this idea that you should treat people differently on the basis of race?”

The other thing, too, this is a wild one, is that, you know, there was a company that was actually taking a LGBTQ+ ally sheet over to everybody and it was digitized as well. So you were asked to sign this and it was, again, you have to keep in mind at this specific company it was John Deere. You were judged on two metrics for your performance bonuses and your potential

to get elevated into a promotion. And one of those was tied to DEI performance, right? And so you're then presented with this form that you need to sign or not sign saying if you're an ally to this community. Now, if you're, let's say, Jenny, you're 40 years old.

You're a Catholic, raised Catholic and you would never treat anybody differently at work

on the basis of their sexual orientation. But to you, religiously, you have a problem with the idea of transgenderism,

a gay couple having a surrogate child or whatever it might be.

And let's say you have an issue with it. You're putting this uncomfortable position now, a potentially losing promotions, potentially losing income, essentially losing your job because you refuse to sign this form. But beyond that, the social stigma being branded as a bigot because this was publicly available to see who signed and who didn't sign.

So things like that were happening all over corporate America. And then corporate money was also being funneled back to bring in far left speakers, left people like E-Broom, Kendi, where they then would speak to the workforce, and, you know, sort of try to transmute their left-wing ideology onto the workers. And I find it incredibly funny that the number one person who came up as a valued resource

that was recommended to not customers to the employees in Fortune 500 companies. It was E-Broom, Kendi.

“I mean, who wrote that to be anti-racist, you must be anti-capitalist.”

Like, there's some serious irony in that.

That is who was getting number one. Yes. Recommending to employees in corporate America. Iron A would be a nice word for it. In your world, in your preference, it's something happens in public life.

Should corporations put out a press release saying, "We applaud that Supreme Court decision, or we don't applaud it," or should they just stay quiet and say, "We're not in the business of politics." They should be quiet. I have no need to know what Macy thinks about abortion. I don't need to know what public thinks about gun rights.

Regardless of even if they even if a company would agree with your position. Oh, I don't think so. I signed it to testable either way. I just think it's weird. The only, and there's caveats here, right?

Because I'm talking about public companies. Private companies that are not traded on the stock market that are not on the Fortune 500, do what you want, right? Like, I may own a business where I make my values very clear. And I do have a business like that actually where I would not really be happy with somebody

in that workplace, and nobody would be working. There would be happy if the person that we hired was an avowed communist, right? It would make things very strange. But if you're a public company, you're sort of a promising, a fiduciary duty to the shareholder.

“And when you do that, you have to in the best interest of the company in the bottom line.”

Run is neutral of a ship as you can, so that you can serve all of the American people. Okay, one more on this, and I want to switch to talk about some political stuff. For the duration of the Biden administration, it was received in a corporate American, including newsrooms, including Silicon Valley companies. That if the management did something that wasn't woken up for the employees,

there'd be hell to pay. There'd be resignations, there'd be put demands that they reform and act in a woke manner. And so for the course of the Biden administration, that's what they did. They largely let the inmates run the asylum, let the woken employees dictate what they did and did not do. Then Donald Trump wins.

And you see not massive change in newsrooms, but some change in newsrooms. And you see in Silicon Valley, massive change, corporate leaders supporting President Trump, giving him money, supporting the library, et cetera. And yet no, no, peep from the, from the, from the, from the woke employees. No mass resignations.

No sub-stack open letters. How dare you? How do you explain that? So some of them have tried, you know, but the difference is actually, are they getting off the ground and getting attention?

I think that's the real difference. Are people putting up with this? Are they putting serious stock in this and the answers? No, I mean, to sort of the point of what you just said about Big Tech, like I'm an advisor to remove bias from AI, from Eta.

You know, like that's a sea change from 2016. And, you know, it's a great example. If Eta had tried to hire you for that when Joe Biden was president, you wouldn't have happened. They wouldn't have done it.

Or if they had done it, there would have been pressure to fire you. See, it's hard to go back and predict how things would have gone in that context. But I do think that today, there's a sea change, right? There's a difference in terms of the perception that people have about the power that woke folks have still. How did that happen? How did that see change occur?

“I think that's a large-scale psychological deal, right?”

Over the course of the Biden administration, people like myself, and there are many of us not just me. We did a very good job of defanging a monster and explaining to people that this was a paper tiger, right? Like companies used to be definitely afraid of the HRC. I expose the HRC so thoroughly for the paper tiger that they are and showed how little power they actually have.

The companies have absolutely no fear of the HRC. Just stop you. That's a human rights campaign, one of the countries leading gay rights organizations. Sorry, go ahead. Yes.

And so completely defying them showed corporate America that they have no actual power.

I mean, it was because companies had to experience something in real time for the first time,

And then we're also going to feel the full pressure and force of the HRC telling us keep these things. We want you to have these things, or, you know, we're going to be real mad at you. And so they felt the two things. And every single company said, we're going to do what the guy said,

“because that was a way larger group of people and it affected our bottom line, right?”

And the HRC didn't have that kind of effect.

That did powerful things in corporate America. Moving companies and many people never saw moving.

You know, there's not a lot of folks out there that thought that target would move off of this. There's not a lot of folks out there when I started my campaign that thought Toyota would move off of it. And things along those lines. And we got these companies to move off of it and drop the HRC, drop all the work policies, and move toward corporate neutrality. Okay.

Let's, let's talk about the midterms. What's your best case, not in terms of the wins and losses, but how does the fall go from your point of view that's most advantageous to Republicans? What's the debate about, what's the framing of the election, what events occur that put Republicans in a strong position to do well?

“Would you like me to dream or tell you what I think is actually going to happen?”

You can dream within the realm of the possible.

Well, don't, don't make up the president repels a Morrison invasion. Yeah, no. But within the realm of the possible, what's the best case? Short answer is today, we would lose the house and maybe squeak by the Senate. If all the right things happen though between now and the election, which would look like gas prices continue down,

we're able to relieve some of the pressure at grocery stores. We can reorient the conversation around the behavior of the candidates, the Democrats are nominating in many of these places. If we can effectively tell the story of what comes next and end the war on Iran, I think that's very important to end it. And to come to some sort of, and it has to be a good ending, right? It can't just be ending it for the sake of ending it.

You've got to end it properly where we are clearly victorious.

If you end it in such a way where it feels like, you know, we did it just to get out and we never should have gotten into this in the first place.

And we wanted nothing as a byproduct, it's not going to do you any good. But if you win this and it makes it very clear, that could be a massive boon, even if it's only a week or two before the election, that could be massive. I think all of those things are going to be, you know, big number movers on the board. But at the end of the day, here's the other thing to keep in mind.

“This is not the election that I consider especially massively important in my mind, right?”

Because we have another redistricting that's going to come back around after the next census. That's the one that's going to dial and power really for the future for a very, very long time. I don't think Democrats have fully thought out how poorly that's going to go for them because they're going to lose somewhere between 10 and 16 seats. And so even in a blue wave here, you look at them and I'm talking a massive blue wave. You would see them barely hang on, barely hang on, but in most blue waves, they would still be in the minority.

And beyond that, the Senate races is the map goes on from here on out for the next two Senate cycles greatly advantageous to the Republicans. So this is sort of our worst election out of the next upcoming four election cycles. And I would say even now, there is a decent chance that we can just similarly take the house and keep the Senate. And I think it's going to take a best case scenario of us fixing the economy enough where your average voter feels like they've got a little relief at the pump. And at the grocery store.

I'll just say you can respond or not, but I don't see the prospect of a clear win in Iran at this point, just because Tehran doesn't want to let it happen. And they seem to have a lot of cards to play for the next couple months. There's really only one way I see it happening and I'm not sure they're going to take that option. But I personally, if I was a president of the United States and I was president today, somebody else started the work because I wouldn't have gone in personally. It's one of the few things I disagree with Trump on, I wouldn't have gone in and done it.

I would have put a lot of pressure and I would have tried to support our ally, but I wouldn't have gone in and done it this way. But if I was thrust into this, I'm just going to be perfectly honest, everybody would be assassinated in Iranian leadership. And it would be just in all out 24 hour annihilation of everybody in power and the next person after them and continue it until the people who are in those seats are ready to play ball. And I think that we have, and I know we can, you know, this isn't a weak can.

We can absolutely do it. I've talked to people. We can absolutely do it if we have the world to do it. But it is, it is a big deal, right? When you do something like that, you're telling the world, you know, they need to be afraid of certain things that you're capable of doing. And it can send, you know, some negatively coded messages, but at a certain point and in certain conflicts, it's necessary. And I think in this one where we're at in it, it's necessary. Yeah, you know, I've said all the time, same with Putin, like, you know, Putin's a war criminal.

That's really the answer to that.

Well, in the current conflict with Iran, it wouldn't violate, you know, any, and it wouldn't be a war crime to kill the leaders of the country. That fear came up. Yeah, I was in, I wasn't saying there were analogous in that sense, but we haven't declared there's no declaration of war. And, and at some point, you know, it may hurt you with the populace of the country. It doesn't like, you know, mass assassination of their leaders.

Well, but if you could hear what like it, I wouldn't say that. Yeah, you could hear what you don't. I heard the war. I would like to hear that at the end of the war. And the Israelis could probably do it in an afternoon.

Yeah. If you could replace any two of Republican Senate candidates in the, in the main, you know, ten or so Senate raises. You could just swap in somebody else, which two would you replace? That's a tough one. You know, I mean, there's ones, there's ones.

I see I actually like Mike Rogers. I think he's decent, right? He's not as aggressive as I would like a candidate to be.

“And so I would want somebody who's got good sense understands what you need to do to win that state.”

And I do think Mike does understand that. I'm not sure he's going to work hard enough to do it. I hope he does, I really do. I hope he does because I'll say he'd I see is like a very large threat in terms of what he will be like in behave like in the United States Senate. So I kind of wish we had a stronger, more aggressive, you know, candidate whose face was really out there there.

But you know, I won't begrudge him too much. I think he's done a decent job so far. Beyond that, I mean, I think we've got a decent candidate. I mean, there's nobody popping in my head right now where I'm like, man, I really wish that. I'll give you some options.

How about Mr. Wattley and North Carolina? Yeah, I would rather somebody with better name ID and it was more well liked in the state. You know, I think that that's that's one that's difficult because, you know, I've split my time between Florida and Tennessee. Tennessee's very close to the Carolina's. And so I've got a number of friends over there.

And I've had a number of them, not even know who he is. You know, that's a problem when you're running in a statewide election.

“Right. How about Mr. the senator from Ohio, who is appointed to the seat?”

I think he's decent, you know, John Husted. I think I think he's decent. He's serviceable. He's a serviceable United States senator. He understands his state. I think he will win. You know, I'm more worried about Vivek winning as governor there. Yeah.

I think he's going to have a challenge. And I hope he wins, but I do think he has a challenge on his hands. Yeah. All right. And I'll ask you if you could replace Paxon with corn and would you do it?

No, absolutely not never.

Never. Corn and is antithetical to my future vision of the country. Like, look, it's Paxton perfect. He's not perfect. Almost no candidates perfect, right? And if they are, you should be kind of scared because there's probably something really insane.

And there's closet that you just haven't figured out yet. But yet, no, Corn and is is sort of this this type of politician that I feel like always serves you up a mealy mouth sentence of nothingness that doesn't mean anything. And in terms of priority sets, we'll run on something that never actually do it. And then when it's time to get elected again, they'll run the same ad saying, you know, I'm Trump's best friend. You know, basically is their pitch. And it's like, well, you actually tried stopping this this this this and you go down a list, right?

So I'm not sure he's been the best representative and this is another thing I will say. I don't begrudge politicians, you know, sort of speaking out or opposing something that is hurtful to their state, right? If they were doing it in the context of, hey, for my state, like I saw it today, Tim she he in Montana. You know, he's opposed to what the president is doing with beef, right? You know, he doesn't like bringing in the foreign beef. He represents a lot of ranchers.

I totally get she he's position I actually am more sympathetic to that. I think we need country of origin labeling. But situations like that totally get it. But when politicians do it in a real dirty way and it doesn't actually serve their state, it just serves them.

“But I don't know what to do before remember that, and that's what I'll always remember about Coranan.”

Robbie, I always looked talking to that. I love the conversation my favorite part was when you expressed as so much pride in your daughter.

Almost almost made me cry. So congratulations on that. Congratulations on that and and your academic, uh, cloistered lifestyle at heritage. Very great, very grateful to you. That's uh, I've reminded everybody where they could follow you, sir. Yeah, you can follow me at Robbie Starbuck, R.O.B.B.Y. Starbuck on all platforms.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You appreciate it. Have a great end of summer with the family. You too. Hey, I quick break. And next up, uh, media analyst and smart guy Drew Holden drew Holden is next up. So this episode next up is sponsored by Rowe. A lot of people here at GLP one hand immediately assume treatment is going to cost a fortune. But GLP one medications may be more affordable and accessible than you realize.

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Again, that's Rowe.co/safety. All right, ladies and gentlemen. Next up in joining me now, the great Drew Holden. You've been here before. He'll be here again. This is not his last appearance.

But nonetheless, we always love having a managing editor of Common Plays and Author of Holden Court.

Both two great substacks. Drew, welcome back. Thank you, Mark. Appreciate you having me back. It's always a pleasure to join you. I've been wanting to talk to you because as I've expressed here and on two way, I'm so puzzled by the coverage of the Natalie Harp story. I'm so confused by how it's played out.

“So just let's start with the baseline. How would you grade the media coverage?”

And you and I always looking for unfairness towards Republicans. How would you grade the coverage? What is the press done well in covering this story? What has it done poorly? You know, I think I saw somebody tweet the other day and I hate to reference Twitter. But somebody had tweeted about how the brilliance of ourselves moved was to give the press the ability to talk about something they had wanted to talk about all along. This is what they want to talk about. They want to talk about how bad Trump is.

They want to talk about how unfair he is. They want to talk about how he's conducting himself in a bad personal manner. I just don't think once upon a time in the way that the press has really done, that wouldn't be a news hook. In appropriate, you'd be unfair to say, right? And so you'd see a lot more pushback. I think there's been some outlets who have really tried to be delicate about it to not kind of put this, you know, this woman in the headlights for some of that maybe isn't legitimate at all.

But I do think they so often they love these little news hooks that give them the opportunity to run down the story that they really, really really have been wanting to talk about. So that's my general sense of it.

Well, but she's been covered before. I know lots of people surprisingly to me are saying, oh, it's the first time I've ever heard of Natalie Harp.

Yeah. She's been extensively covered. And part of what's driven that is there are senior advisors to President Trump who don't like her influence. You think her, her, her, her. So again, you and I, like call that liberal media bias, but sometimes that's not what's going on. This is a legitimate story. Senior officials for a long time have lived in the note. She's written him at the way he treats her, at the way she treats him. And it said, we don't like this. This is not a relationship that we are happy with.

So that makes a legitimate story. She's, she's got, she's got as much access to President of United States as anybody. Yeah. And she, and she helps him with the social media, which is the way he communicates with the world a lot of the time.

“So why, why is it that in some portions, the conservative media?”

And, and I would say in some portions of the dominant media, the way the coverage has been limited, people are accepting the notion that scrutiny of her should be off limits. Not in you window, but just scrutiny for sure. That's, that's a good point. You know, I think, I think in the conservative media there's been this very interesting and quite frankly hypocritical kind of defensive crouch. You know, we live a president who is very, very willing to float all sorts of new windows about all sorts of people is the sort of thing that allowed him to rise to the level that he's at.

And as soon as somebody on the other side does something like that, again, I think something that's pretty savvy to be able to talk about. It, it shut down. This is inappropriate. You know, we have standards and moral clarity and we, we have to be good and right about these things. I think, to me, the reticence from a lot of these media outlets is driven by a fear that what they would be doing by, you know, kind of by promoting this by a lot by talking about this by making this into a thing is that they'll get caught in some sort of hypocrisy.

Because they get so mad when Trump does it, right? And so if they go out and say, well, you know, if somebody on the left does it, it's different than all of a sudden you get people like quite frankly people like you and I bark would come in and say, hey, this is this is nonsense. You should, you should be talking about these things. And then you can make a really good point into the full level of access, right? I think there's, there's the palace intrigue around this that isn't quite as interesting, but there is really the like.

And I think that does make it a story. And I think the hesitancy is almost like a once bitten twice shy thing with a lot of members of the press.

“And so I think the right says, it's not really a biased thing per se, but it's being hesitant, maybe two hesitant to get hit on the same type of mistakes. I'm a big fan of irony. I don't like when people misuse the word irony.”

Here is Natalie Harp, a senior official in this administration with, again, as I said before, extraordinary access to the president plays an important role in our government. And the press seems skiddish about scrutinizing her. There have been stories about it, I'm not saying there haven't been any, although a lot of them have been driven by the president's defenders attacking the invocation of her name. And then you have the children, the minor children of a CNN correspondent. So the irony is the White House and attacking a CNN correspondent for asking about Natalie Harp, John Assa, in Vogue her minor children.

And Trump supporters are silent, even though if you ask any Trump supporter, is it okay to go on social media and say, the CNN reporter should be ashamed and some day her children will grow up and they'll be embarrassed about their mom.

They'll criticism of that from maga. And yet criticism of reporter asking what about the role of this woman in the government? It just seems off key to me.

“I think so too. And I think again, we talk a lot about hypocrisy. And I think there is a really hypocritical element within all of this.”

Someone's children should absolutely be off the table when it comes to these kind of conversations young children, minor children. And the idea that it is somehow too precious. It is somehow, you know, to to inappropriate for somebody like us off to lean in and bring this thing up and for the media to then run it down or someone who appears to be a presidential candidate right wanting to throw his hat in the presidential running talking about this thing. And the idea that it should be off limits or it should be out of bounds. Again, I think it's just it is preposterous and the hypocrisy around what we can talk about the type of insinuations we can make.

And the types of criticisms that we can deliver on the right, clutching their pearls about this stuff, I think is blindingly unfair.

Okay, well said, one more on this story when we move something else. Awesome says a thing he says. And I truly don't know what he thought was going to happen. I truly don't know where to end. Some people say he told the anticipated he's using it to raise money, raises profile. Some people say differently. Again, remember, all he did was say the president likes to travel with Natalie. You didn't say anything more explicit than that. He then goes on MS now. And he's asked by by Jen Saki. Why did you invoke Natalie? And he says, I'm an aminamina. He doesn't really say that.

As a presidential age, Trump scrubbed that it up. Are you? I believe there's something and then he's done a subsequent interviews where it's the same thing. He hasn't really addressed it.

“Yeah. I believe there's something wrong with the system that the guy can say that causes huge uproar and not be held accountable to say, come on now. Senator, like, why did you bring it up?”

Is that am I right that that's a flaw in the system? I think that's right. I mean, I do. I am a little hesitant to like to look at the role of the media to run down every claim right to kick them off. But I do think that there's something wrong when you can make an insinuation. Again, like I think a savvy one when you can make an insinuation. And then there's no follow up other than the, like, pretty obviously hypocritical criticism from one political party that has the most foul mouth president we've ever had come in and saying, oh, well, you can't talk like that. You we can't talk like that.

But I do think it exposes the kind of whole and a legacy media that would come at this and say, okay, Mr. Ross off. What do you mean, what is your evidence? Why did you think this is so important to bring up? I just remember what Donald Trump said and I don't remember the exact specifics, but I know he accused Ted Trump's Ted Cruz's father of being part of the Kennedy assassination. And he said, and he said, very denigrating things about Ted Cruz's wife. Right. And those, those things were more explicit and I would argue also hurtful. I don't know how to compare levels of hurt to what John also said about Natalie Harp.

Well, I do think like there's a little bit of the kind of like Trump, like, we almost suspend this belief a little bit when it's Trump in a way that I think we would ever allow any other politician like, yes, John us up and insinuated something about maybe an affair and appropriate behavior between the president, one of his sappers. Donald Trump accused one of his rivals father of helping to assassinate a president with absolutely no evidence. Why are calling his wife ugly? Like it is just right.

And so I struggle a little bit to compare those that those apples and oranges. Yeah. Well, I've just given the benefit of the doubt to say, well, people say Natalie Harp might be upset by this Heidi Cruz, a pretty tough lady, but still being called ugly. Yeah, that's a pretty direct shot. Yeah. Okay, better.

I say all the time to my conservative friends who say the media is always liberally biased.

George Shabbie Bush got more favorable treatment than Al Gore and the news coverage he did that John Kerry. I can tend Trump got more favorable coverage in Hillary Clinton. So point is there are other biases, other other dynamics. I've been so struck and I want to know your theory of the case on this. By how deviating from the norm, the dominant media is really covering the schism between the democratic socialist and the more traditional parts of the democratic party.

“They're asking a lot of democrats. What do you think of this? They're asking them to say their positions are you for abolishing the police?”

These are kind of dynamics for publicans are normally subjected to.

And while I don't minimize the influence of the DSA and the polling data that shows how a lot of democrats like socialism. I feel like I feel like it's being overcovered to at least some degree, not by a huge amount because it's a big story. What accounts for the media, which normally, particularly 80 days from a midterm election, wouldn't, wouldn't do relentless coverage of stories that would hurt democrats, what accounts for the high level of coverage of this. It's a great question mark, and I think I've kind of tried to interrogate it in my own head a little bit.

And I think where I net out, at least at this juncture this far from the midterm, I think that how the coverage continues will tell us a lot and then how the coverage leading in a 2028 will tell us a lot. I think the legacy media looks at this insurgent populist DSA associated socialist associated wherever you want to call it as far left pivot from the democrats as a threat to the institution of the legacy media. I think it is not so dissimilar to a lot of these legacy media outlets to have this insurgent left wing flank that is anti institutional that is pushing back on so many these elements that they recognize the American people don't like.

And are willing to play a different game than what traditional democrats have been able to play.

I think this is a big part of why when Trump was first running for office, you know, there is this division that the media was happy to try to exploit and try to try to understand.

But they were willing to tolerate his insurgency and large part because it was such a threat to Republican party. There is something on the other end of this where there is an actual threat to the institutions that I think the media really likes which is the old institutional guard of the democratic party. And so anything outflanking them that's going to be different that's going to force them to perhaps change their behavior, it's going to have to force them to report differently and don't think they're comfortable with.

I think they see it as this kind of weird anachronism that eventual go away and they'll go back to its comfortable and see and that, you know, the Jake Tappers and again, a batches of the world will go back to the thing that they're most comfortable with and the types of people they're most comfortable talking to.

“And so that's why I think that they are they're trying to interrogate this thing because I think they believe it will fail on its merits.”

I don't think it will. Yeah, that's brilliant analysis. I know that's your main theory. Do you have any subsidiary theories? I don't deny that one. I think that's brilliant, but are there any other factors do you think you're driving this. Yeah, you know, it's a good question. I think one of the other dynamics that we're seeing within all this is that there's kind of a schism similar to the schism we're seeing in the democratic party and a lot of the old guard legacy press newsrooms. Right, there's a young core of kind of advocate-minded of very left, very progressive, very anti-institutionalist reporters and journalists and now young editors, right?

The types of people who are upsetting the newsroom in 2020 during COVID because Tom Cotton wrote really angry op at about sending in the troops to DC. Those guys are now the junior editors and sometimes the editors at these different publications, whether it's the times or otherwise. And so I think you're seeing more coverage of this topic one because the old guard institutions in the legacy press, the dominant press are interested in talking about this thing and I want to tamp down on what's happening.

And on the other end, you have a lot of young people and young reporters who are earnestly trying to ask these questions and trying to see this thing that they see is more valuable to the old guard institution democratic party.

“Let me offer you one more reason that I think is part of it, but I'd love to know what you think, which is, this is a really interesting, really television friendly and really important story.”

And so it just overcomes the biases just say, well, here's this colorful figure, Dr. Al Satter, here's this Nickson in Florida. These are interesting characters saying interesting things and the conflict is super interesting and that's enough to overcome the bias. And people are interested in this, right, I worry I'm giving the media maybe a little bit too much credit here, but I think they are recognizing that people are interested in this thing and the people are talking about it.

And people are so mad about the failures of these institutions that something new, popping up is earnestly interesting.

“Yeah, you know, the thing you said about money is so important. My colleagues, you know, not, not, not paying too broad a brush, but the general view of money in politics for my colleagues has always been money is horrible.”

It shouldn't be money in politics, even though we spend more on advertising, bubble gum and yogurt than we do on politics. Money is horrible, but also money is dispositive. The person who raises the most money is going to win, so it's kind of like a hardball notion.

And then the third beat is money is horrible on politics, money always wins, and when the candidate who spends less wins, we will do nothing to figure out why.

We will not, we will not be interested in that question. I'm fascinated because as you know, I'm always about the why, right? Why is somebody raised so much more money online than someone else? That's always interesting to me, but why is it possible for someone to win if they spend far less? But Doctor, Doctor, I'll say I had one spending far less in part because he was a better campaign. He had a message, he had a movement, but also there was a backlash against the money that was being spent.

“Yes, and so I think that's part of it as well is, is there kind of discombobulated by the notion that people can win spending less?”

I think that's right. And I think you see this a little bit in the Nixon race in particular, right? She was outspent 16 to one. I believe it was a final figure that they recently put out 16 to one in Florida by someone who was a democratic institutionalist who was making jokes in the lead up to about how confident he was that he would win. Who was a darling of the Nebertromo, this is Vindepend, right? He was a darling of the Nebertromo movement. He testified against him. He was about Trump's misbehavior that led to the first impeachment. He was the apiauticism of what the Democrats wanted to be in 2017 and 2018, and yet he got beaten by someone who spent precious little money in Florida, right?

We've been told by all these wise, you know, the kind of the TV readers, well, you know, there are there are Latino voters in Florida. They're not going to be interested in the socialist thing. You can't say the word "socialitarian" you're not going to win. And you get this institutionalist in Vindepend spends all this money and loses. And there's no curiosity mark. And this is something we come back to a lot. There's no curiosity from the legacy press about not only how they got this story wrong, but how their theory of the case is increasingly not holding water.

Amazing. Drew, remind everybody that they want your substax, how much they cost where they can get it.

Yeah, it's all free. As is following me on Twitter, I'm a Twitter drill drew holden 360. My substax is called Holden Court.

“I look back at the things that I think the media got wrong, maybe the stories they didn't cover. You can search Holden Court at substax or you just type in Drew Holden, and you'll be able to find it.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I told you I pretty much every time Drew's on. A lot of media criticism now is done by people on the right who don't have any discernment. They just take everything as a federal crime against humanity that the press does wrong. One of the reasons Drew is so valuable to me and to the country is he's discerning. He's measured. He points out the things that are wrong and he doesn't just generalize as his kids say he brings the receipts. Strongly recommend you follow him on Twitter and get his substax Drew. Thank you for being here again. Great to see you.

The pleasure of mine and as always mark far too common and what you say about me, but it means the world. So thank you.

You're awesome. All right. That's it for today's program. We'll be back on Thursday, brand new episode of next up. Subscribe to the program on YouTube on your podcast platforms wherever you can consume us. So you always know what's coming next up. (upbeat music)