Is Trump Trying to Lose the Midterms?

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Welcome to Plad Save America. I'm John Favre. I'm John Lovett. Tony Vitor. On today's show, the mission in Iran is so accomplished that we're back to bombing.

We'll talk about Trump's response and how he and Pete Higgs had their losing support for their war from the most senior US military officials, which may put a damper on Pete's potential presidential campaign. Let's talk about that too. We'll also cover the Supreme Court allowing Trump to build his ballroom, Trump calling

Americans opposed to building data centers, quote, "backwards and poor" and some of the other shit sandwiches Trump is forcing Republican candidates to eat before November. Speaking of pieces of shit, Trump adviser Laura Lumer said some disgustingly racist things about Black women that no Republican has denounced as if yet and she's also taken credit for the deportation of right wing creep Milo Yanopolis, tough to pick aside a no one.

There isn't a sight. Then Tommy celebrates his birthday by sitting down with Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, the Dem nominee for governor and the criticals. Yeah, it's your birthday. Happy birthday, Tommy.

Thank you guys. I got a contact for future Vegas trips. Oh, great. Oh, like if we get in trouble, we'll have to go out and we can call. Oh, that's true.

That is.

Speaking of things that are critical.

Get arrested for losing money and then going to bed at 11. Yeah. Yeah. Being thrown out of search to Soleil. Yeah.

Okay. Well, quick announcement, speaking of trips, we're heading to Austin, later this month, for live show at the Texas Tribune Festival on Friday, September 25th, says here in the script, it's going to be a great time. Oh, I think that's right.

That's right. That's one of my things to worry about. Things to write in that out, all four of us, plus special guest, Bobby Polito, the Democratic

“nominee in Texas 15, one of our most important pick-up opportunities in the house, we might”

even get him to sing, which would be really cool. Grab your tickets or the festival and join us. We posted the link on our site at crick-a-dot-com/events. Can't wait to see you in Austin. That's crick-a-dot-com/events.

All right, let's get to the news. It was just five days ago that the president declared mission accomplished in Iran by posting what appeared to be an AI-generated image of himself, George W. Bush and the Iotola. But by Sunday night, the missiles were flying once again. The IRGC were about to fire mind-laying rockets over the straight of Hormuz from nearby

Lerick Island, the U.S. military launched airstrikes to stop them, and then Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles at U.S. bases in Jordan, all of which were intercepted. Our commander-in-chief responded in between rounds of golf over the weekend by deploying a full arsenal of AI-slop about his trade war with Canada and his hot war with Iran. What the fuck?

Okay, so... The ducts were Canadian for not on our team. For those of you just listening. Just a correct geese. Oh, yeah.

Sorry.

You're right.

You're right, Katie Geese.

It's a facts, right?

“Yeah, so for those of you just listening, those were videos of Trump replacing a lake Ontario sign”

with a lake America sign while dancing to YMCA, an army of Canada geese with M16s wearing Trumpwigs, petroleum-like Ontario, and a series of imaginary airstrikes destroying an imaginary carg island, which Trump said was "blown to smithereens in the caption despite no airstrikes occurring there back here in the real world." So according to Axios, there's apparently a real plan in the works to potentially launch

limited strikes in the straight-of-war moves to stop Iranian attacks on oil tankers, navy ships, and US fighter jets, but that can't be true because Trump and the extended magaverse has assured us time and time again that the straight is open. So what do you think's going on? It's not true.

Yeah. Maybe it's not true. Yeah, that's not true. You know when I hadn't realized that the, I only realized after Trump posted that image of him saying he was better at accomplishing missions than George Louis Bush, which is

that mission accomplished took place on the Abraham Lincoln, which is the ship that has been out for, was out for 250 days, for what was supposed to be a four hour tour.

“Oh, no, that's, that's still, that's killed and died four to six weeks.”

But so, I just thought it was a three hour tour. Three hour tour. Really? Three hour tour. Oh, yeah.

Well, I guess that's right. I feel excited if you want. Anyway, I just thought that was interesting. Next to the story said, the Trump of this team are considering periodic air strikes against Iran to keep their military capabilities in check and ensure the flow of commerce through

the straight of promous and perpetuity, which sounds like a war that would need to go on forever. They called it. They called it the grass.

Yeah, they called it, knowing the grass and something that you famously always have

to do forever. Right. However, stops being needed. It's also what the Israelis called their strategy to keep Hamas in check in Gaza and look how well that went.

That axiostory also came like, I don't know, 24, 48 hours after an axiostory by Barack Reveed that basically has U.S. officials and axios saying that we have made all this progress on keeping the straight open or reopening the straight. Did you see that? It was like, so Trump actually got on the phone with him.

He got Trump on the phone while and said to him, that sucker is open. And then axiostory says over the past two months, U.S. officials say the American military has steadily eroded around leverage over the crucial waterway, although then it says the ultimate goal is to reach 60 to 70% of pre-war oil exports. Well, that's, that's a soft regulatory lot of expectations.

But it's also like, like, yeah, it's open and there's going to be periodic bombing over the straight and going through it will be like squid game for oil tankers forever. Or in perpetuity. I mean, like, not exactly like the best assignment, and I like thrilled to be taking a trip through the straight-of-war moves.

And it requires a giant deployment of U.S. troops forever. I mean, they've definitely like, it's not at zero like it was before, but it's not a pre-war level. They've improved the flow of commerce or oil exports out of the straight, but like, it's not better.

“I mean, I think it's been about a month since the last exchange of fire between two sides.”

But this, what happened over the weekend is just part of this typical pattern of tiffer attack exchanges, and I think it's going to get worse and not better because, you know, last week we covered best in saying it was economic day, and that announcement was obviously like wildly overstated, but between the U.S. blockade of the straight-of-hormous and like the job-owning of countries to stop doing business with the Iranians, like what they did

to the Emirates, that's going to increase the economic pain for the Iranians in the way the Iranians respond to economic pain is with military strikes. And so as the U.S. ratchets up the sanctions, as they continue the blockade, the more likely outcome is escalation, and not capitulation by Iran and the war ramping back up. So it just feels like we're still trapped in the same cycle.

Yeah, and again, we've also sort of completely stopped talking about the reason that we apparently went to a war with the Iran in the first place, which is their nuclear program, the dust, dust. His line on that is, like, got tandles. We're watching it.

It's under the ground now, yeah, which is what it was after the first 12-day war, but whatever. It's just now a war to get the Strait of Hormuz from, you know, a zero percent open to,

I guess, 60 to 70 percent is the goal.

Go for a sea. [laughs] Come and see. Things are going so badly and around that Trump and Hexeth are now losing support among our own most senior military leaders.

There was a huge scoop from the Washington Post that these leaders have advised Hexeth that, quote, "prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable in risks weakening the military's ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland." These warning showed up as part of a classified assessment that included orders for some

which led some of the senior military leaders to respond with a, quote, "non-concur," meaning

they disagree with Hexeth's order, but will still carry it out. Hexeth's spokesman responded to the story by accusing the post of committing a crime. And they're probably also a bit peeved that the post published another story that details how Hexeth has apparently given government jobs to right-wing military influencers without telling anyone so they could go around spreading his propaganda.

“Seems like Pete is really crushing it as sect F. You think that's why NBC News is reporting”

that Hexeth's telling close friends, he's thinking about running for president in 2028? You, uh, you buy and stock?

Love it in, in Hexeth's president?

Yeah, give all of us the USS Lincoln experience. I'm feeling, feeling trapped in no way out. Yeah, I don't like Hexeth. Look, let's do the case warning. The case against buying stock in Hexeth right now is, uh, his polling is terrible at the moment. He's 22 points underwater in a recent market poll. Um, I would argue he's probably more responsible for the warner on than anyone else who might run in 2028. It's like Trump,

Netanyahu, Hexeth. Uh, he's obsessed with culture war stuff in a way that I think will turn off some normies. He was also accused of doing some really bad shit before, um, when he was nominated for a secretary of defense, unfortunately, that didn't prevent any's written some crazy

“stuff. I think the, the case for him being successful in Republican primary is, um, he kind of”

merges together like things Republicans like before Trump with the maga stamp of approval.

It's like, he's a neocon, he's super hawkish. He's like part of this right wing, uh, white Christian nationalist, evangelical world. Um, that makes a huge chunk of their base. He has high name ID from the Trump days and Fox news and he kind of like slick in camera. Ready. Um, and then the resume is like sectF Fox news veteran Princeton. It's like not bad on paper. I think the big long-term question is how bad does the Iran war get? How much the Republicans

actually punish them for supporting it and lying about it? Um, and I just, you know, we don't know yet. Yeah. I say, I, boy, I hope Pete Hexeth runs for president. I think that would be awesome to watch. I hope he doesn't. He's unstoppable. The guy who has hired the United States. What another war. Thanks, Guy. Also, it's like going to be really hard to be more worried about that Pete Hexeth getting in. I mean, the reports in the post alone saying that some of these

troops are going to be deployed through 2027 when the primary is going to be going on. Okay. Like, I just don't think you guys really think that that's going to be a big impediment in a Republican primary when you're running as Marco Rubio and JD Vance were also part of the administration. Like, I don't think we know that. JD Vance is going to be, and he is already telegraph and some of his advisors that he is going to run and say, it's not I did everything I could

to end the war and create a piece of agreement on that. Because to the extent that the Republicans and Trump has lost any support from from Republican voters, it's around the war and around and the increased prices that it's caused. And so it's like the the one thing that has caused voters to defect from Trump is what Pete Hexeth is in charge of. Yeah, I wonder though, what I agree with that, but are those Republican primary voters or are they kind of soft, like kind of less partisan

“people who believed America first? I think that's a bad thing. Maybe, but like the mega cult is still”

there. And I think like if I was Hexeth, I frame criticism of the Iran war as like a lack of loyalty to Trump and try to make it about that. Look, I don't know. I just think it's an open, I think it could go either way. I just think he's a little more dangerous than some people give him credit for. What do you guys think about those post stories? So I went and read the the so these are these people were all posting about the story. So the post reaches out to them and they all

they don't respond and then they respond publicly. Some of the influence or one. The influence or one. What are you talking about? I said the stories. Oh, sorry. Yeah, the biggest one you want to start with. So the on the influence or story, the post reaches out for comment, apparently they don't comment and then they post angrily that the story doesn't reflect what it's actually going on based on their views, which they did not share. Fine. According to the like church

lifter and one of the other people that they were brought on, not to be paid influencers on social media. But because they don't need to be paid to do that, they do that for the love of the game. Right. But to help them shape the few, help them shape a plan to make the war, the war colleges, you know, less woke and more lethal in line with Pete Heggsets agenda. And even, it's like, okay, these are the people. And then some of them, I think all of them had served in the military

and have some kind of expertise, but they're also just like right wing trolls on social media. And church lifter is just somebody that I don't like he just pops into my algorithm once in

who's losing his mind because I think he's from California. He's still here, but he was living

here for a while and he wrote this series of books about they sort of like fever-dream fantasy of what would have happened if Hillary had won and then the country has a civil war and we divide up into the United States of America, which is run by Republicans and the people's Republic, which is run by Democrats. And it is, so this is who they brought on. And so this is the, I don't want to give you some facts from these books, which is, one of this is about a Texas

billionaire's daughter who defects to a lay to experience equality and then has to be rescued

“by special ops. The secret police is called the People's Bureau of Investigation. You have a”

government assigned privilege level. The airline, the state airline is called Justice Air. There's propaganda posters that read intolerance will not be tolerated and deodorant is restricted to simply one kind to not offend gender fluid individuals. The world's like instructs to like be agreed. It's like meanwhile in reality dump like the United half the country is covered by flock cameras and Donald Trump is deployed his own like

ice secret force to arrest harass shoot American citizens in the head and deport people. Dallas is a gleaming supersity though. Yeah. That's the new capital. I mean, the influencer thing like to me, though, it's like another piece of the puzzle of Higgs F. trying to crush or go

around the Pentagon Press Corps, they have, they try to make reporters basically sign a pledge

and commit to running their stories by the Pentagon Brass for publication. They kick the real reporters out of their workstations. They replace them with like one America news and much

“a right wing crap. Remember when they kicked a bunch of photographers at a briefings because”

Higgs F didn't like how he looked in a photo. They're destroying stars and stripes, which is this military publication that's really important to active duty members the military. So now they're hiring these mega chuds. It does seem like it's mostly about cranking out pro Higgs F talking points, but there is that weird Higgs F like anecdote about them like quizzing war college students about how Pete Higgs F is doing without disclosing that they work for Pete Higgs F, that part was

all just quite weird. Well, so one of the people that is part of this group wrote for one of the

MAGA one of the MAGA journals, the American greatness, one of those like a diagnosis of what's wrong with the war colleges, woke stuff like climate being part of it, anything about diversity is part of it, but also just this idea that like the war colleges have not focused on leaveality and military force and they're all supposed to wear suits where really they should be back in their uniforms. It's sort of like it's like there is a there is an actual kind of whatever MAGA goal in trying to

kind of de-libral de-de-leftify the war colleges, but it's of course being run by people who have like they're just sort of you know online super super engaged right-wing people whose brain has been been kind of stewing on Twitter forever. That's who's going to kind of talk to all these people and figure out how to make the war colleges get rid of the liberals. By the way, the head of the commander of the liberal forces in the book is a UCLA professor, a UCLA professor who takes a woman as a kind

of a bride and has to rescue her from this commander UCLA professor, this evil professor at the top of the system, which I think is kind of explained some of the world you're going into this. Do I go to deep on this? No, no, it's very normal time out now. Well, I will say that Pete Hicks has planned to limit press access and turn out propaganda and hiring influencers. Really, it's just working very well because

“Pentagon's image has never been better. Yeah, I mean that's what the irony of the second story,”

which is like the Washington Post got a leak of the Secretary of Defense's orders book, which is this process where the combatant commanders get to advocate on behalf of themselves and fight for scarce resources. And then the sectaf makes decisions about like resource allocation. Like there's 11 aircraft carriers, a handfuler and service at any time. They go to different parts of the world like where should they go. And so it's not surprising given that context that like

Pacific Command will be pissed off that they have to send their carrier strike group to the Middle East in like that a bunch of military units have been deployed forever in parts of the country. These, it means that the Pacific Command is unprepared to do something if China invades Taiwan or the North Koreans do some shit. What's remarkable, though, like so that parts like unsurprising that there would be non-concurs and that they would disagree about stuff.

But the takeaway is clearly the military brass is so worried about the way the war with Iran is overextending them and taxing the force that this leaked. And there are so many of them in unanimity in the, in the, yeah, they're all just like, like, what are we doing here? This is crazy. Yeah, I thought that was incredibly alarming. And of course, the story was, you know,

all this kind of shit. But, um, the idea that our senior, most military commanders are, like,

“terrified that, um, were not prepared to deal with other threats, including threats against the homeland”

because of this war and, and Pete Hexeth and Donald Trump doesn't seem to care, seems, um, seems alarming. Well, the thing that is remarkable to me is if you were, during the campaign, during 2024, it seemed like the one place, like a foreign policy establishment on the left and the right degree, it was that the big threat we faced was from China. And now we have once again bogged ourselves down in another forever war and less conflict in the Middle East this time against Iran.

And in practice, what that is mean is we literally just took the carrier strike group out of the Indo-Pacific and sent it to the Middle East for a place to link in that was, you know, overextended for however long. And so we're just kind of sitting there naked and it's like, well, you guys ran on

telling us the China was the threat that we're going to get tough on China, that, but Yadiyadiyada,

but in practice, you are the resource allocation is telling a very different story and all the kind of uniform military leadership is quite worried about that. And to mention, Russia is still, you know, threatening Eastern Europe. Well, Trump just invited the Russian finance minister to the G20, so. Right. But no press, but no press, right? Positive America is brought to you by article article makes it effortless to build a home that

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On Monday, a five to four Supreme Court majority ruled that construction on his ballroom can continue. They did not decide the matter for good, but the majority wrote that the government was likely to prevail in its argument that the National Trust for Historic Preservation didn't have standing to sue. The trusts claim to have standing appeared to rest on a statement from one of the organization's trustees who lives in DC and often walks by the White House.

She said she would quote "suffer both professional and personal injuries including to my aesthetic cultural and historical interests if a ballroom of the proposed form in scale were constructed." It's funny because it like pits the anti-democratic building of this ridiculous

new construction. We got to build things in this fucking country."

“Yeah, John Roberts joined the Liberals in agreeing and wrote that ballroom construction”

thus far, quote, "is likely unlawful." When you guys think game over here, like I know, does seem like there's got to be some more solid base somewhere for someone to challenge the ballroom construction, which John Roberts at least another thing could be. It's probably unlawful, but you know, these people just didn't have standing to sue. Right, we'll do the bit of a majority. Hey, no need to be so quite Mr. Justice Roberts. Who does have standing? Tell us,

tell us who has the standing, who can sue to stop this thing from being built if it's not this historical society because if there's a loophole where you can knock down any building you want when you're president, so long as you claim to be doing it with private dollars, then grab the taxpayer money later, that's a pretty big loophole in the constitution that has till this point

never been contemplated. Well, apparently at the DC circuit argument, Trump's lawyer suggested that

people affected by construction noise could have standing, even even a lot of money, even a lot of calls are there, even if someone offended by the ballroom's appearance did not, which is interesting. As I was to say, you know, needs some ballroom as a myclawler and then you can't pay that. You guys don't even talk. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Covered this up with you. You do. I got a Texan reporter over the weekend who is asking if Democrats should prioritize

ripping down the ballroom and like my knee jerk reaction is like we have so many other fish to fry before like we do take down this building, but then I assumed that as I thought about this 2028 primary, that we would probably have um, entire debates on demolition. Yeah, that's show a

“hand. I will fire bomb it. No, no, no, I will, you know, yeah. I think I think it's like, you know,”

when you move into a house and you're like, I could do a lot of renovation and this house, or I could do just just touch up here in there. Well, you want to come to the DC ones. You got a living it for a bit before you decide what you want to change. Well, I was going to say that, you know, the easy ones are like, you know, let's, let's turn the courtyard back from Marlaga with some umbrellas and DC back to grass. Let's take all the gold. Get off the stupid fucking colonies.

Like, yes, there's a whole bunch of easy stuff I like to do before you get to the auto pin that's up the photo of Biden. That's coming down pretty quick. I like that we've instinctively landed on unsatisfying center-left compromise. I'm what to do with the various things. It's just a bargain. It's just take the boys out of the Obama administration. But what was the expensive, like, nightmare to do like ripping down a ballroom? Can you imagine it here? We're going to have medicare

for all. We're going to have humane immigration. We're going to treat people with respect in this country and we're tearing that ballroom down. It's coming. It's lost. Yeah, it's coming. We're going to applause and then in the person's going to win the president scene, just then it won't happen. Right. And then it will be mad and there will be like, why do we lose? Because we didn't deliver the crazy promises that we made in the campus. They try to tear the ballroom down.

Heritage suits. They have standing. It's a pretty thing building boards like, well, we told you,

yeah, actually we think here. So it turns out Heritage does have standing. That's sort of they always do.

Sort of that one on. Yeah. But it's interesting like during the Trump's own lawyer again, previously conceded sort of the the weird implication of the government standing theory in this case, which is, you know, he was asked what would happen if a president suddenly demolished the White House itself or even the Statue of Liberty, and nobody could show like the requisite individualized harm of that. And the judge in that case said, so nothing can be done. And the

“Trump lawyer said, I think that's right. But see, see, this is where they're so crazy. But I don't think”

it is that crazy. We've talked about this a little while. I don't think it's that crazy, right? Because really what we're all the issue here is that Congress should be intervening and by law either stopping this or adjusting it or changing it or the president, if the president knocked down the Statue of Liberty because he found it offensive for some reason, the person to be impeached immediately and removed. Like because that's, so they and one of the legal theories is that like Congress could

sue. Of course. Of course, Congress won't sue because it's run by Republicans. But then you're like, well, why would Congress sue when a normal Congress would just pass a law? Of course, or defund the ball or you would ever, right? You could sue, you would sue saying, we don't need to pass a law. You don't need to, because it's unconstitution, you don't need to proactively pass a law to stop something unawful. You just sue and say you're violating law. Like that was true, by the way,

remember when there is those reforms and Trump is, there's electoral reforms and then Trump is saying,

right? But yeah, I hear you. All right, let's talk midterms. The first mail-in ballots are scheduled

“to be sent out in just a few days on September 4th. But will the newly trumpified US Postal”

Service actually deliver those ballots? That is the question we somehow have to ask ever since the president issued an executive order that threatens to withhold the delivery of mail-in ballots to states that don't comply with the federal government's demand for lists of eligible voters. One is that ever gone wrong, demanding lists of people in your federal government. The order has once again been blocked by a federal court and the administration has again appealed.

So this one could end up back at the Supreme Court, which initially let the order move forward, but made clear, it wasn't yet ruling on the constitutionality of the executive order. So stay tuned.

And that's not the only voting story out there that's kind of alarming. There's a disturbing

report about election monitors from the Department of Justice attempting to interview voters and inspect voting machines in Wyoming during the primaries last week. The state's Republican governor, Mark Gordon, said the election monitors behavior was quote very odd and called the move quote "aggressive, unexpected, and disruptive." That is the Republican governor of Wyoming saying that. What do you guys make of that story? It's really weird. It's hard to see it as anything

other than some kind of a trial run. It is a bastardization, obviously, of what DOJ election monitoring is meant to be, which is to make sure that people are able to vote and that there aren't racist Southern election officials stopping black people from voting. That is like the original function here that they're abusing, even the Republican governor is saying this was unprofessional and strange. By the way, they're not just entering voters. They were trying to gain access to the voting

machines, which has absolutely nothing to do with election monitoring because they're talking, they're not talking about the access to vote or protecting the right to vote. They're talking about the tabulating of voting. There is this conspiracy theory just revolves around these people trying to get their hands on the voting machines. It's like desperate to get their hands on the

“machines. The truth is in the machines. But it seemed like part of what made this so like why even”

this Republican governor spoke out against it. It was all just so boreish and silly and hamfisted and incompetent that it was just kind of sewing chaos in a primary in Wyoming. Yeah, I'm confused why they chose Wyoming and also I guess Miami-Dade. Well, some they had announced. I think it's like a point to two. This one they hadn't. I think, yeah, well, DOJ. So my reaction when I read this story was "Why?"

Like a Wyoming, Wyoming, primary, why are you trying to interview voters? Why not give the Republican governor of the state a heads up? Was this overzealous people at DOJ or was this part of a broad-based effort? Especially because the Wyoming Secretary of State is a Republican Iran on the big line, like 2020 fraud. When he ran in 2022, but he ran on the 2020 election. And so I was looking around at the DOJ website and they put out a press release on August 18 saying

that they were monitoring polling places in Florida and Wyoming. So they were public about it, but I guess they didn't really effectively communicate it to the elected officials in the state. It's crazy. It doesn't even make sense. None of it adds up. I mean, they're going to, you know, Trump has talked before about a plan to send election monitors all over the country and they're polling places in the midterms. And so, and again, like the DOJ has done that before,

so like they have that authority to do so. But yeah. So they announced it, because it's, this is so strange, right? Because in July, the same office run by a Trumpee kind of online weirdo announced their list of states and it didn't include Wyoming. So they added Wyoming late like in the last week or it's very strange. I don't know. I found it pressfully. It was really weird. Hopefully the midterms are fine. I'm sure. I'm sure this is the last one. Nothing to worry about.

“Yeah. Nothing to worry about. What do you think about the latest with the postal service?”

We're now again in legal limbo, though we are even closer to the day that ballots are supposed to be delivered? Yeah. So there was a ruling last week and people were freaking out about it and the norm is in. It was like, this is, don't forget yet, because it's going to be another step. And then there was, and now it's on hold. Look, anything is possible. This order is so fucking crazy. It is so crazy to imagine that there is a secret power bestowed upon the postal service to decide which ballots are allowed and

which ballots are not allowed. It doesn't apply to you. Any other, there's no, you can't come up with any other comparison to any other kind of mail or rule. It doesn't even make sense. The only reason

this is even possible is because we've never had ballots as anything other than open, in terms of

and put it in a white envelope, right? That's now protected by the fourth amendment, because you as a

voter are protected, you as a person, a citizen are protected, your mail is protected. They're not allowed to go in there without a warrant. So because ballots look like ballots, they've created a rule in which the postal service can. We have the federal government decide which state is upholding the rules they want or not. It's just so absurd on its face that you can't imagine even the Supreme Court allowing it to go through. But one of the DOJ's arguments to the Supreme

Court, or in one of the cases that might not have been the Supreme Court one, was, well, I mean, this isn't the federal government getting involved in state elections, because obviously the states are, you know, in the constitutions as the states can run elections themselves. And if the states just wanted to deliver the ballots themselves to people, nothing is stopping them from doing that.

“We're just saying that if you use the postal service, this is what you have to do,”

which is funny because it's like, they're even, like, Trump's out there being like,

I hate mail and ballots. We want to cancel them. And like, but I used them all the time. But I used them all the time, but in court, they're like, no, no, this isn't about anything about mail and ballots. Not being great. This is just about the postal service requiring a certain kind of envelope. And based on if you've, you get a barcode, and you get the barcode, if you've given us the list of voters. But this is like, it just, none of it really makes sense,

right? Because I am just a person using the mail. I am a person mailing my ballot that I am legally allowed to mail that they're grabbing because of a dispute with the state, right? But like, if they have evidence that there is a specific person who they believe is a nonsense and using the mail, they can, you know, they get a go get a warrant and open the fucking, you know, prove that this guy or this person is in a, is an eligible to vote, right? But they can't just

dismiss a whole group of people from voting because they're in some kind of other dispute. It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's so hampered. It, it, it, it, to me, it seems now at this point, at least do this election. It is only meant to so mistrust and uncertainty around mail in voting.

“And like, you know, they're, I think it's a contender around Jackson, like, sort of warns about”

sort of this court's habit of deciding cases rather too earlier, too late, right? And the possibility that they will do that once again, they're doing with the ballroom. But to me, it's like, it's now getting to the point where it is a conceivable, inconceivable that any court could allow this to be in place for this election. And so to me, it's a, I hope, a future threat at best. Yeah, that's sort of where I landed to because you, even, even the Supreme Court, the way they

described the first ruling, it was like, well, they haven't issued the final rule yet, so no one

has actually been harmed yet. Now that the, it's, now that the rule has been issued, when it comes back to them, and they have to actually decide the constitutionality of the rule itself, it feels like it could be a very different situation. So assuming people get their ballots delivered, and can vote without federal agents interfering, Republican candidates will have to contend with their most formidable midterm opponent, Donald Trump. Over the weekend, Jonathan

Martin published a piece with the headline, "The Republican Party's midterm nightmare is taking shape." The standout quote came from North Dakota Republican Senator Kevin Cramer. He's not usually a quote machine. You don't hear much from Kevin Cramer, but he cited the price of diesel, the price of fertilizer, and Trump's tariffs, telling JMR quote, "He's in serious trouble in farm country, he being Trump, and Trump is us. I'm not very optimistic." Rough. What do you guys think of

“JMR at the beginning? I think I've been a cleaner sentence from Cramer. I see why he's not quoted very much.”

I think they were, I think they were a head like an off-camera eating together. I assume they were eating together because it's JMR. Yeah, Jonathan, like it's all he does. He's constructed a show around going to lunches in various places. I, like I read a piece of my, my reaction was, you know, close my eyes say a little prayer that comes to be, I do suspect that the kind of economic sentiment and frustration is locked in. There's no fixing that between now and election day, in fact,

there's reasons to believe it could get worse because of all the Iran stuff we talked about at the top. It does feel like Trump is doing everything and is power to lose the midterms. The farmer piece of it is real, like I've talked to people in Iowa about how we screwed over Iowa farmers, the China trade war crushed soybean farmers, the Iran war jacked up the price of gasoline, and diesel, and fertilizer, the fight with Canada is the latest piece of this. And Canada, by the way,

being very strategic and where it is targeting the restaurants, they're hitting Michigan, they're hitting Maine. But a lot of those farmers are still just like redpilled, Fox News loving, Rush Limbaugh, listening Republicans, and like I don't know where they're going to go. The hope is they don't vote. The hope is that Rob Sand and Joshua can convince enough of them to stay home or maybe go crazy and vote for Democrats. So we'll see. I mean,

it's like it's challenging fundamentals in some of those states, reading through the list of states, like I feel really good about North Carolina, the fundamentals in Maine should be leaning pretty hard towards Democrats, but we've had challenges in that state before, after there it gets

and saying some prayers. Speaking of Iowa paragraph on the piece that I really like to

was flipping pork burgers at the Iowa State Fair earlier this month, Ashley Henson, who's running against Josh Turric, was glad to discuss her technique with the spatula. The importance of her race to the Senate map and her opponent missing votes in the legislature, but she went silent at repeated questions about whether it was time to end the war. I mean, you just can't you can't get away with that. It was held November. I mean, like maybe you still pull it out, but like that's

not there will be a debate. There will be a little more young things. There will be a bunch of opportunities where she is going to have to answer questions about this. Yeah. And John Houston, who's running

“against Sheridan, I think, at the outset, he said, like, he wanted the war to be like quick and efficient”

and successful or clean and successful and quick and successful as I go. It's like, yeah, it's not, that's not going well either. Yeah, wishes, wishes, wishes. You know, wishes, wishes, wishes.

It's my voice, Anne. Yeah, no, you're always saying that. Uh, I also think it's like the

it's like, things with Canada could get worse in the meaningful way between the two. I mean, I talked to those that is crazy that you had. I know, I talked to the premiere of British Columbia today for a pot say the world come out Wednesday, subscribe wherever you get your pots. He's not in Carnie's political party. He's in the party to the left of Carnie. He's putting pressure on Carnie to do more to retaliate. Carnie has been like perfectly proportionate in his

response. It's like dollar for dollar responses. He wants him to do more, consider like, not buying F-35s, for example. And so, Carnie has support from his left. He also has support from his right.

“We've seen Doug Ford, um, in Ontario, literally telling Trump to kiss his ass. Um, in 76% of”

Canadian voters support walking away from the talk. So like, that is not, they're not capitulating anytime soon. Certainly not for the midterm. It's interesting that Trump is successfully producing a nationalist fervor, but it's just in Canada. Yeah, yeah, around. Did you, uh, do you hear that dipshit congressman Andy Harris was on Fox today? And they, uh, we're talking about the Canadian trade war. And he's like, yeah, you know, Alberta might want to, is talked about before like

succeeding from from Canada. Like, we should have next that state. Just we should just go in there and take it because, uh, a lot of oil there, a lot of good oil reserves. We, like, we are now just, we have Republican congressman, what, we're taking Venezuela's oil. Canada looks good. We'll take some oil there. Well, next, like, what, what has happened? Um, for sure. He's, uh, Hannah's parents congressman. Oh, he's, oh, he's like, like, the one that's Republican in front, uh, from Marjorie

Mandor Tom. Well, you see. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so fascism is a permission. Well, this is like, what you hear when like, you watch, you know, the clips from Russia, like Russian state TV, the way they talk about their sort of these plundits. So this is like, whether now our, our Republican congressman was just like, they're, it's like, oh, you know, oh, you can't call Trump a fascist. Oh, it's too late. It's too soon. Whatever. It's like, it's an instinct. It's an instinct.

And for it's, there can be no ego. And there can be no loss. There can be nothing that shows weakness. And it does lead to one place, which it just requires to be, to be, to, to toward expansion,

“because it is the only way to truly prove your strong and tough and, uh, a can't be defeated.”

So we're going to go off your Greenland and get the Venezuelan oil and we're going to bomb Cargueland and then we're going to take Alberta. Uh, I'd like you. Ed, it's, you know, quite cold up there. Also, Alberta's having a vote on whether to have a Brexit style referendum. Most people think there's like 30% support for that. It's like, I, okay. We're just going to invade because they're having a vote. Yeah. I was going to say, just beside the points. It's for just going to invade anyway.

So, uh, you guys alluded to this, but of all the vulnerable Republicans running in the midterms, Trump's trade war with Canada is making it especially difficult for Mike Rogers and Susan Collins, who are trailing their democratic opponents in two border states that are really going to get screwed by the tariffs. Um, Rogers put out a very long statement over the weekend where he tried to blame Democrats for the trade war, specifically Alyssa Slotkin and Gary Peters, the other two

senators from Michigan and said Trump is, quote, right to put America first. And tariffs are necessary,

but are not a one size fits all solution. What does that mean? In Maine, uh, Susan Collins showed that she's not afraid to stand up to Trump by writing a letter to Howard Ludnick, where she politely urged the administration to restart trade negotiations. Hey, hey, center Collins, here's a thing. If you just ask for agent enough times, you can get that letter to Lutton's matter to a person. You can get that thing up. The chain of commands. You can go out if you don't

know where to how to send letters to the president. You're sending a, uh, uh, a warmly worded letter to the commerce secretary, who you know is a powerless Schwab. She also like, uh, she should list it off some of the impacts on people in Maine from the trade war, and at the end was like, please feel free to reach out and follow up if there are any other impacts, uh, on Maine that you would

right? They want to seem like they are against the tariffs and the trade war these two without,

“I guess, like, doing too much to piss off Trump, but like, doesn't seem like the best strategy.”

I don't know. In normal times, you would, like, distance yourself from the dumb unpopular thing, the timing your state and show that you care about your state and you're fighting for your state, and also that you have some independence, um, but Trump doesn't think much of independent thinking. So they're all kind of stuck. I just, I don't think you really have it both ways. I mean, nationally, uh, Nate Silver has Trump at, like, 58% disapproval in terms of trade policy and

tariff policy nationwide. I would like to see some data from states like Michigan or Maine that are affected by the tariffs, but I would imagine it would be more acutely felt there. It, like, I can't think of a better statement for a dual than Mike Rogers putting out a statement

on tariffs. And then the first line is, once again, Michiganers are forced to bear the consequences

of the fair leadership from our democratic officials in Washington, because Abdul's point is, this guy's going to be a sock puppet for Donald Trump. You're asked to question specifically about Donald Trump's policies, and you can't criticize him. You cannot offer a single word of criticism. It's unbelievable. And no one's going to buy. Once again, they're not in charge. No one, but no everyone knows they're not in charge. So who is this statement for? You've got democratic

candidates out there. A lot of them saying they wouldn't vote for Schumer for leader, like unafraid to break with the national party on things. And on the most unpopular economic policy from Donald Trump that is specifically hurting two states, Susan Collins' state and Mike Rogers' state, that are, or that are like running for election and reelection, they can't even say, like, not only do I disagree with Donald Trump, but like, I'm going to try to do something like, you know,

send me back there and I'm going to keep fighting. I like do just do something to show that you're fighting besides a fucking, like a letter is a joke. A caricature, like this, the joke is a strongly

“word of letter, and like that's what she did. She just did the caricature. It's a very mild letter.”

It's a taboo word, it's a taboo word, it's a taboo word of letter. That's what she said. And then and Rogers, like, but tariffs are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Like, what do we, are we supposed to read into what that possibly means? Like, tell your boss that. So you support things there. He's, well, like, it's interesting what's happened with the politics of tariffs specifically, because at this moment, free trade is just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's very in right now, very popular free trade, right? But,

like, even the lefties, right? But if you would have said, right, if you would have said, like, the politics on tariffs before Donald Trump did this did tariffs in the way that he's done, would have been like, and we're going to put tariffs on Canadian goods because we're going to stop them from taking our jobs. Like, that could have been a clause line at a, kind of a, at a, at a, Michigan rally like a decade ago, even less. And so it is this strange thing of, like, our people

is he sort of not wanting to give up the good politics of tariffs while criticizing these? I don't know. It's, it's, it's, it's a freedom Trump. Yeah, of course. Of course. It's free. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Well, we're big fans of BetterHelp. The real story is the feedback from people using it every single day. That is the real story. That's the real story. The media won't tell you about it. BetterHelp has an average live therapy session rating of

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Like that's it fully the full story unfolds in a second of two people just being mad at a

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Speaking of the Michigan race, Abdul is working to repair his image among some in the state's Jewish community, specifically about comments he made back in March after the attack on a synagogue in the Detroit suburbs. At the time Abdul firmly condemned the attack, but then tried to offer

some context by saying that quote "hurt people, hurt people," meaning that violence in the

Middle East can lead to violence here. Here's part of what he said in an event with Jewish Democrats on Saturday in Lansing. I did not appreciate that in the attempt to offer broader context, I was trampling the dignity that that fear and that pain should have been affordable. And I could imagine that for a lot of folks that would have read like he does not see our pain or weigh it equally. And that was not my intention of the statement. And if my statement

caused pain, I'm sorry, that was not what I intended to do. And sometimes you can offer context or something, but not in the moment when people are feeling anything. And you know, I mean, I'm staying. And in the fullness of time, I hope that we can have conversations that are about context, but sometimes you can't release a context in the moment of a Q&A mistake. And I will folks to know that, you know, when the Jewish community is attacked, I'm going to be right there

to do something. What do you guys make the apology and the way he framed it? I watched the original

“message back. It was like a four and a half minute statement. I think you just tried to do too much”

in it. If you think back to that moment, it was like the guy who attacked the synagogue, it was born in Lebanon. He had just lost family. I think including kids and his really air strikes. So then he decided to attack the synagogue in retaliation, which obviously is like unjustifiable evil and just an act of terrorism. And Abdul condemned what he did. He called it unacceptable. And then he just tried to explain the context, which was like what I just talked about

and then why it's wrong to blame Jewish people for actions. He is really government. And then get into like the hurt people, hurt people thing. And then do this broader point of like imagine if there was no war. And like no one was incentivized to do this kind of stuff. And it just, it was too much. And I think listeners just felt like it was close to maybe a justification or blaming the war for what this individual did rather than just saying like this is evil and unjustifiable

“full stop. So it sounds like the message was well received in the room. I think there's”

value in politics actually saying I was wrong. I screwed up. I'm sorry. If I hurt you, I'm really sorry. I think that that's meaningful to people. So hopefully it helps, you know, it's not so bleeding here. And I think restore some trust and open a dialogue between up to all in the Jewish community, which is a lot of people are trying to exacerbate that split with, you know, conversation about a soundtrack or whatever else. So I think it's, I'm glad I did this. I think

it is good. I do. And I like, has it been to even sort of, I don't know, like nitpick because you know, he is apologizing for this statement. It is clear what he means and what he meant and what he is trying to do. And he is under a non-stop barrage of false Islamophobic bigoted attacks, fast and furious constantly or attacks that assume some Islamophobic on the part of the listener by making all kinds of assumptions about him, about to mean evil. That was just

today with vans. Or have any beliefs, evil things, whatever it would be. But at the same time, like, you see this right, like, like, oh, it's about the context. Okay. Like, and he does say in both the original statement and he says here, right, that like, there is no justification, right? Because whatever pain this person may have experienced, however real and terrible, it may be,

collective punishment, it is always wrong. It is wrong when someone commits a terrorist attack

and choose, in Michigan, it is wrong when Israel kills civilians in Gaza. And to me, it can

brought people the wrong way is not because there was something fundamentally untrue about what he was saying. It was about the source of the pain matters, right? Like, we care about certain kinds of pain more than we care about other kinds of pain. And so I'm glad he is saying this in the statement. But the idea that there was like, oh, the time for context was later, maybe so.

“But I don't, I think at any point in which you're discussing this, it has to begin and end with the”

fact that any form of collective and our own feelings are never a justification for any kind of

violence against people who simply are part of a group that you are antagonistic towards. I thought it was a really genuine apology. Like, in terms, like, there's a range of politician apologies and some are more half-assed than others. And, you know, he was just sort of doing that off the cuff, he was asked a question. He didn't hold back. And he didn't try to say, like, well, I didn't intend this. And it was like, no, I made him a stake. And there's the time for context.

This wasn't it? Like, I just thought it was great. And, you know, Jessica Alexander is the chair of the Michigan Democratic Jewish caucus. She said, you know, she, obviously, the campaign knows there's work to do with the Jewish community. But she doesn't have concerns about abdual and Jeremy Moss, who's the Democratic nominee for a House seat in Michigan in Jewish. It has declined to endorse a duel since the primary. He said he's still concerned about abdual's position on Israel,

but that the apology was genuine, credible, appreciated by the caucus. And then said, we've had a lot of meaningful and thoughtful conversations since the primary. And this was something that got brought up.

“So, like, I think it's sort of also, you can look at the, you can dissect the national”

applications and the Hassan Piker, but I think it was like a dual reaching out and talking to the Jewish community in Michigan. And this was, this was the thing that really bothered people. And so, he said, okay, I'm going to address it. I was like, just a use of such a kind of cliched phrase as her people heard people probably was like a big part of it, even if it makes sense inside the context. I also, by the way, like, this is not, I don't know, not even saying that what I, like,

my, the feeling I have is less directed specifically at this, this comment by abdual than like, there is this, you see it all the time. And it's just part of, I think it's like a social media thing that, like, the, so like, Brad Lander is yelled at on the streets of New York, right? And Brad Lander has, has against APAC, he won his race in part because he came out against military for aid for Israel. He's called what Israel did in Gaza, a genocide, right? He called Israel.

Oh, to partite say, like he has yet, well, still defending the idea of a two-state solution in which Israel and Palestine lives side by side in peace, fine. And he gets harassed on the street. And I saw people coming to his defense by saying something about how like, oh, this is unhelpful, right? This, to attack someone like that is, it, it, it, it makes it look as though this movement is anti-Semitic. It makes it look, look as though the argument against the argument by

the Zionist is true that there's people who don't accept any Jew that is part of this movement,

right? There's a hold on a second. It's not really just about how it looks, right? Like,

there is anti-Semitism in this movement. That is a problem. It is a problem on your terms because it makes your movement less successful. It is also a problem for a society to have anti-Semitism infused inside of a growing and increasingly popular movement. That needs to be addressed on the merits, not simply because it's bad strategy, right? And like, but part of it is there's this effort to, like, the generosity for people on our own side versus the kind of the assumption of bad faith

“on the part of the other. It's like, let's just apply the same standard across the board, right?”

If this is, we would call it right when you're doing this anti-Semitic. Not someone who is giving into the Zionist by seeming like an anti-Semitic. And we have to, and we have to do that even when it's on our own side. That's the point of making. J. Advance was scheduled to speak to the Republican Jewish coalition in Vegas on Monday evening. But before that, he was in Michigan where he hit Abdul on the synagogue comments, lots of other things. He stood up for his wife and

like a sort of fake seeming way. It did not really come off as a human, which is a typical J. Advance. Abdul tried to counter with some Ohio State trash talk, a J. Advance coach joke. What do you guys think? Who do you think got the better of the, that exchange in Michigan and he thoughts on how this campaign's going? It's hard to say. I mean, J.D.s is cynical as they come, right? This is the guy I famously said that the country is being run by a bunch of childless

cat ladies. It was just a prick about it. So I rolled my eyes at the whole wounded like how dare you

talk about my family thing because he was the one who invoked his Peepaw in the first place when

he attacked a duel. And it was like, imagine telling my Peepaw, Democrats support Sharia Law where it was. That I did a joke about that and love it really meant, which is like, oh, Papa, he's going to

Yeah, I would. Yeah, so they'll like all that down. Like I do think you're on firm political ground

politically. If you just focus on the person running for office, the elected official and not their family and not come, they constantly make this point about J.D.s' family and kids. I also think that the couch fucker thing has been dead for a while and no one really knows what you're talking about and probably is worth steering away from. I mean, if I'm talking about J.D.s, I'm just talking about how this is the guy who's willing to say or do anything for power. He is willing to

flip flop on any policy issue, support any war, like do what it takes to make sure Donald Trump

“is president and go with that. What are they doing? What are they doing to hurt people?”

That is the, that is which I would keep that in mind for every candidate in every race. And when you're going after their Republicans, whether the ones you're running against or Donald Trump, it is what are they done to hurt people and piss people off? And I'm going to talk about that fight for people. And you're not running against J.D.s' and you have a limited amount of time

to define Mike Rogers, right? He, this is the Republican that has, he ultimately has embraced

the 2020 conspiracy theories. But I think there is still a must, there's like a memory of him as being kind of an old school reasonable Republican. You have a limited amount of time to define Mike Rogers. J.D. Vance is a representation of a failed, destructive administration that is damaging Michigan's economy that will be backed up 100% by Mike Rogers. And so any tit for tat you're in, that's about J.D. Vance as a person, about his family,

about couchfucker, whatever it is, is not about the court. It's not, it's not, it's not, it's the sound by people are pulling and it does nothing to do with Mike Rogers whatsoever. That's, that's me, is the problem. So Trump apparently isn't satisfied with just making Republicans defend his stupid trade war. He's also going to make them defend his stupid support for data centers out of nowhere. He took the truth social on Monday morning to write

the following. The only reason that communities throughout the USA should not want data centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If they want to be successful and rich with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let data rain. The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the golden goose, you will only have yourselves to blame. The post got flooded with replies from truth social users saying things like,

"I regret ever supporting you, you have lost your mind, and this statement is insane."

“Why do you guys think Trump is intent on dying on this hill?”

This, this is just another example of him doing everything possible to lose the midterms. Just so folks know, elected officials on both sides of the aisle are furiously back peddling from data centers. Josh Shapiro was all in on all these big investments coming to Pennsylvania. He's not pumping the brakes and putting executive orders out. The NRSC just put out a memo where they describe data centers is the anchor around the neck of the Republican Senate candidate

in Ohio. And Trump is like, "You guys are such idiots." It's quick, quick, quick, quick, quick bitch and, quick, you're bitching about wanting water and power. It's just so like, like, JD events like tries to clean up after Trump when he's on the tarmac and Michigan and is asked about this. And he's like, "Well, I don't think data centers are controversial as long as, you know, you make sure that the companies, the hyperscalers, that are building them,

are not, or, you know, building their own power plants. You know, I don't know if that's going to help either. Building their own power plants and that the electricity rates aren't going up and that people, like, so he's trying to add all these caveats. And then Trump's out there just like, "No, they're awesome." And if you don't like them, your backwards and poor, or you will be soon enough, that it's like the, the miss handling the

data center is, like, Trump's comments me are like, "Oh, you don't want to kill the golden goose."

And I was like, "Okay, these companies are on television and daily basis, saying basically,

we're building it, whether you like, we're endudging this technology. It'll help you cheat on your, it'll help your kids cheat at school. It may destroy the planet. It may cure cancer. It will eliminate all the jobs." In order to get to that desired outcome, in order to get to that desired outcome, we aren't going to have to have massive construction that requires a great deal of water and power. And after that is done, it will be monitored by basically one security guard in

perpetuity. And, and also, just, don't forget, over the course of three Republican administrations, we've slowly but surely reduced any public good in terms of taxes that could come from this. We have, we have showed you that we are going to have a tax code in which all that wealth accrues, the jobs or eliminated, and there's no public benefit, right? Or there's much less of a public

“benefit. And then we don't, and then there's shocked that there's some kind of a backlash, right?”

Like, these people are also greedy. And I think, like, the tax part of it is not part of this debate, and it's not really, it's, it's tangential, I guess. But they have spent years training people to

their profits. And people, I think, now instinctively do not believe. Like, there was a time when

“I think, you know, look, it was a famous sentence, right? What's good for GM is good for the country.”

It was using the majority of, like, there was a sense in which we kind of believe that the success of an American of American company was a kind of shared kind of success for the country. And I just don't think people buy that anymore. And so then you're just going to build this thing in my house and take all the money. And what do I get out of it? Maybe you're claiming lower electricity rates, which maybe actually technically true, but actually doesn't intuitively

make sense. So I'm not going to believe you. You get AI photos of Donald Trump's candidate geese with machine guns as much as you got. I, I think, to answer your question, I think the reason Trump puts out stuff like that is because the only people around him are rich guys who probably have invested financial interest in these companies who bought access to Trump. So he's probably reflecting their views in the cynical ways. They talk about the stuff behind closed doors. I mean,

you see this stuff from, like, the all-in podcast guys like Shemoth, what's his name was attacking someone who'd simply wrote up a sub-stack piece about the very scary, open AI, hugging phase, cyber attack incident. He was attacking him as some sort of, you know, let it chill for, I don't know, big humanity or something. It's funny that that's those of the people who actually are probably speaking to Trump directly. Yeah, Trump needs these data centers so he can

“fight the war with Iran and Canada online with all of his AI slot. I think that's why he”

meets them. I mean, there's like a, the problem with this is there is a, okay, the first one big

problem people have with data centers is the technology they are for is scaring the shit out of everyone, mainly because the people who've invented this technology and are developing it have told us so. But let's pretend that the data centers were for technology that was going to be universally beneficial and had to navigate a lot of problems. There's like a way to build them where, as opposed to giving tax breaks to these big data centers, you make them pay a tax

to the community, which they do in loud and county where it has most of the data centers and like sure enough, they're like building new schools and have all kinds of fancy public projects and all the roads are repeating everything and people's property taxes are going down. So you can do that if they, if they are going to add to the power grid, you can make these companies

then modernize the power grid, make it bigger, make it work better, right, which we've

needed to do for a while. Like there's ways to put all the responsibility and burden on the company's building the data centers so that it works well and then make sure the public has input in each community knowledge kind of shit, all of that's going to go out the window because we have fucking Donald Trump who's like just build them or fucking shut up or you're better looking poor. Like like there's going to be no getting past sort of like the populist

antipathy towards these data centers with the way things are going and that's going to be blamed that the people who are responsible for that will be Donald Trump and the AI companies themselves. Oh yeah like this backlash like the fact that there's now a poll that some people would rather have a nuclear, a nuclear power plant close to them in a data center. I can make it both because the data centers might need to build their own nuclear power plant

just to disturb the data center. Sure. I personally would choose data center in that far again,

“right? Like it just like there is a lot of like I think in part because like the first round of this”

was done without a lot of input from people are scared about the implication of this and like they're there's such humorous on the part of these people like oh you're just stupid for not wanting this or you're just you're just like you don't you you you don't want I guess you don't want to defeat China. That's that's the dumb shit. Look just to be honest you're stopping the construction of these data centers is going to have very little impact on the deployment of

AI or the ability these companies to build the next big model almost nuts. Yeah, I believe in negligible. I think what this is is a proxy for the anger people feel at having absolutely no control over the deployment of this technology. Yeah. Congress isn't doing anything. Yeah. States aren't doing anything. Congress the Trump administration was trying to block states from doing anything on their own. So this data center issue and the construction of them has become the focus of the fight.

And so Trump is both getting paid off by the executives but also knows that the entire stock market is propped up by a couple AI stocks in this circular investment they have with a handful of other companies. And once that balloon is popped the whole thing is crashing down in his singular accomplishment which is a high stock market. She doesn't really have anything to do with is coming down with it. I just again all of the candidates in these marquee center races can't who've tried to back

pedal along with everyone else whose was pro data center can't wait for them to be asked about this Trump comment. Mike Rogers, do you think that Michigan communities that don't want data centers are going to end up backwards and poor? What about you Susan Collins, John Houston? All the red Ken Paxton. So one other storyline from the Senate field, Laura Lumer is back in the news going after Florida Democratic nominee Angie Nixon and other prominent women of color

in terms that are so disgusting. I'm not even going to try to characterize them.

ghetto black bitches. Angie Nixon, Ilhan Omar, I honor Presley, Corey Bush,

Katanji Brown Jackson. It goes both ways. You don't get to go demonize white people and demonize demonize white politicians and white men and say that there's a white male problem or a white domestic terror problem in America when you behave like an absolute animal. So we contemplated not playing that clip, but thought it was important to do so because that is someone who has regularly flown with Donald Trump on Air Force One has walk in access to the oval and gets people

hired and fired. She got the head of the NSA fired. She got like a bunch of top national security officials fired and I have not heard one Republican candidate politician been asked to answer for this. I mean, it's shockingly racist. She said stuff like this before. She's also said things about

Islam and Muslims that are just a badge. She called herself a proud Islamaphob. She said that

“Islam is a cancer that Muslims are savages. I think these comments like Laura Loomer's existence is one”

of the best examples of where Democrats are hurt by not having a massive right-wing media apparatus like Fox News, because we have Fox on in our office a lot. There's been a story about his onpiker every hour on the hour on Fox News for probably a couple of weeks now. This is no exaggeration. Yeah, well, literally. You have it on mute. You just look up and it's just like it's sound of a dual. A song, a dual occasionally, the parent of a volleyball player.

You know, yeah, I'm done. I'm done. Yeah. The other challenge though is that you know, Trump has said stuff that's like just as bad if not worse. And so it's hard to know where the shame comes from. It's like it's been normalized on the right and on the left. There are things that are still surprising to people to members of Congress who elected. So it's it's terrible. Loomer also took credit over the weekend for ICE arresting and deporting

Milo Yanopolis, the British born former Breitbart editor, former Kanye West aide, and just a generally a viral troll. He's been out of sight for a few years, but he's seen a minor resurgence of late as an ally of Tucker Carlson, who plans to publish Unopolis's book called X-Gay. Unopolis appears to be a player in the larger. Laura Loomer, Candice Owens, Marjorie Taylor Green, War. Anyone want to attempt to untangle this one? Or thoughts on Milo's deportation?

“It's uh, there's a, you know, you are what you pretend to be. So you should be careful what you”

pretend to be. And that picture that that's-- Who pretend to be what in this? I think like kind of taking on taking on this idea. Like what I don't know if what is true belief Sarr is they moved around Milo. He's been gay, he's not gay, he's been crazy. He's now he's a national. Whatever his position is, it's sort of like to kind of be a kind of publicity-seeking troll and kind of heterodox in some way that is interesting. And also, like at times, sort of just

clearly like making a team as though his beliefs are not real. And then he doesn't have real beliefs. He's all big show. Like it ends with the department, you help, you know, you become a a fascistic right wing kind of troll online and then the Homeland Securities putting a kind of a unflattering picture of you on the internet while they deport you. And like it's like the whatever it look, every edge lord train kind of ends in their version of that. Whatever, you know,

there's no-- they're the same way there's no like 40-year-old ballerinas. It's like this is the end. Did there's some terrible end to the edge lord path? Yeah, I've not dug into this one. He sucks. This guy should go away. I'm not fun in the UK. Go back to break. Yeah, there's-- some of this tweets about immigration just a few, like zero immigration for the next 20 years. No ifs, no butts. That's what he said last year

on X. He also had a horrible post about like a couple years before that. Like, what's the

“adequate when you see an ice raid? Can you masturbate right there or do you have to take cover for?”

I mean, it was just like like he's gone so far in the direction of like I can't wait to see people deported and all that kind of stuff. Now, all that said, the idea that if Milo was still in Trump's good graces said nice things about the Trump administration, do we think he would have been deported? Probably not. First, they came from Milo. Yeah, you're inapolis. I mean, it is because of the personalities involved. You don't think about this, but it is fucking crazy that a random citizen

or advisor, political advisor, you know, a right-wing media star, can like not like someone

think that that person's been critical of the Trump administration, call up ice, it'd be like

go find them and deport them and then it works. Let's also look, look, it's the, what draws the evil eye and sometimes what draws the evil eye is Jimmy Kimmel because he's on the left or some figure

you draw, if you're inside the movement and become critical of it, that's just that, of course,

sometimes the people that have been closest to the leader are the ones that are end up in the Gulag, or deported, or, you know, in other regimes killed. Yeah. All right, when we come back, Nevada, gubernatorial candidate, Aaron Ford. My guest today is the Attorney General for Nevada and is running as the Democratic nominee in Nevada's gubernatorial race. Aaron Ford, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you so much for having me. Great to see you. Thank you for being in studio.

I want to start by asking you about your opponent, Governor Lombardo. At a recent event, he said that he can't control affordability issues, he can't control inflation rates. He said claims otherwise were quote bullshit. He also said quote, when you talk about kitchen table issues, such as affordability, groceries and all that, that is a driver of the federal government. Do you

“agree with that? And if not, what can the governor of a state like Nevada do to drive down prices?”

There's make the life more affordable for people. Yeah, well, absolutely. I just would be with him

on this and I've made that point known again. Thanks for having me on. Sure. This is an important part of the conversation that we have with Nevada and people across the nation who have people who don't think they can do anything about affordability. He called it bullshit to use your phrase geology and what I have said is that what what I think is BS is that he vetoed a bill that would have put $1,000 back in parents' pockets per child per year when he vetoed a bill for guaranteed

school lunch for our children. With BS is when he vetoed a bill that would have limited the amount you could pay for prescription drugs to the medical negotiated price for everybody. Couldn't money back in people's pockets. You see, these are the types of things that he could have done that we could be experiencing relief from right now. There's a full ability crisis wouldn't be as

dire as it is right now if he'd had a line to himself with the people of the state as opposed

with the corporations that are bankrolling his campaign. I was talking to a young lady in mending about it's a real part of town in a part of our state and she was telling me she was grocery shopping and she had a basketball groceries went over to the pharmacy to pick up her prescription. Look at the price in that prescription and left her groceries in the aisle, because she couldn't afford both. You see that bill he vetoed that would have limited prescription

drug costs could have helped her and that's an affordability crisis that he is causing himself. And so anyone who throws their hands up in the air like that doesn't deserve to be the governor of our state. It's a crazy thing to say when you're running for office.

“Yeah, bullshit. I mean, what's the point of you being an office then?”

That's true. Exactly. Right. I saw some data over the last week that immigration arrests surged over the summer and that ice had a record number of arrests in June and July. If you're elected governor, how would you direct the state to work with ice or not work with ice? Well, look, to be clear, our governor is already helping ice. Most Republican governors are doing that, right? Down in Texas, you see the governor offering

land so they can be a warehouses, right? To the house folks and our governor has committed our human resource of our national guard members to help ice do their job. And what I have heard and what I have said is that people want our state resources, whether they are a human, financial or otherwise, to be spent on state stuff. Period. They want to spending our money in our time and our resources on education, on mental health issues, on infrastructure, on things that

are helping the badins and not doing the job of someone else. And so that's my position as well. And I support that. I stand for that and unequivocally say that when I'm governor, we're going to spend our state resources on state stuff not doing someone else's job. Not doing the federal government's job. Last week, I saw that meta settled a lawsuit with 48 states over claims that it's products, it's apps, you know, Instagram, other things,

harmed kids by offering addictive social media platforms. You join this suit, I'm wondering why, and what do you think the impact is going to be for kids and parents who are trying to figure out the appropriate use of social media for kids? Yeah, I'm smiling right now because it's,

“I was asked the question, I think it was last Thursday, I was in a room with a,”

I'm one of our local reporters and he asked me what the proudest moment was of my career as a attorney general. There are a lot of problems, this was one of, if not, you know, the most prideful I've been in a while. And the night before we announced a settlement, I told my wife, how excited I was because, you know, to be sure we're getting 255 up to $250,000,000 into our state from this settlement, to help kids in the mental health issues that are a rose out of this,

these addictive algorithms that are harming our kids. But what our most proud of is the fact that we are now instituting safety features that are going to help our kids in the mental health. You don't know this story, but last session, this had obsession, I actually ran a bill called the Youth Online Safety Act that would have done exactly what I'm trying to do here, limited screen time, it would have put parental controls in it, it would have put in

age verification technologies. And I couldn't get the bill passed, and I got a lot of pushback from the community, but sitting next to me during one of those pieces of testimony, Tommy was a young lady and then was Bethany. She said next to me with a picture of her daughter,

she looked up ways to tie a knot on TikTok. And when they found her, TikTok was still scrolling

examples of how to tie knots. And so what I'm most proud of right now is that this settlement, by the way, I had already sued these entities myself. I wasn't part of the multi-state lawsuit. I had sued Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook directly, January of 1224. And we have beat them back from trying to escape our jurisdiction. But we've set up those cases now. Now we're going to get opportunities for children to have better mental health outcomes, parents, more control.

You know, they won't, for example, they won't be able to get notifications during school hours anymore. They're going to limit their ability to be on these apps from midnight to six. They got rid of the filters that there was causing so much self-image issues, the likes and features of the, the default is going to happen turned off, right? And so parents have a lot more control. We get to protect our children and I'm very proud of that. It's just infuriating that we've been

dealing with these social media apps for a well-abred decade. All of us feel the harms as adults, or feel the impact that social media can have on you personally and emotionally and whatnot. And yet it took a bunch of, you know, the states getting together to sue to get changes and Congress did nothing for all of that time. It just feels impossible that Congress sat on its hand for the last decade and watched all this happen. Yeah, and look, I'm not going to sit back

wait for somebody else to do something. I mean, if I have to protect my family, and I consider that they say it in a battle, my family, that I'm going to do it, not waiting for others. But also, that's the import of attorney's general working together across state lines on issues that affect residents and all of our states. The crime didn't stop at the border. Nor do social harms that arise out of these apps that you just talked about. And so this was an opportunity for

“I think it ended up being 48 attorneys general and a few from our states and from our territories as well,”

working together over the course of years. I have investigations started back in 2021, maybe 2022, and so I could be off a little bit in that regard. But we've been working together talking together, figuring out strategy, figuring out what the, the right algorithm or other algorithm approach is to addressing children and I'm going to help this issues. And it's facilitated this settlement. We wait on nobody to protect our children in Nevada and I'm proud of this work.

Yeah. I want to ask you about data centers as well. So in the state legislature back in 2015, I know you sponsored legislation to create tax incentives to bring some of these data centers to Nevada. Now you're pledging that if elected, Nevada will have the strictest rules in the country governing them, what changed? And what's your response to Democrats who are calling for a

full moratorium on building the idea of centers? Well, a few things. First off, the data center of

“2015, 11 years ago, was not the data center of 2026. I think there was seven years before they”

had been to chat GPT when we were in the middle of a recession and trying to bring jobs to Nevada and looking for ways to diversify our economy beyond relying on gaming because when the country gets the coal, we get the flu. And so we did instant data centers to operate there, and did not contemplate what we are experiencing now. Again, the advent of chat GPT and the advent of AI and the usage and the draws on power, the electricity that is can be consumed by these entities, the water

that they just taken. We live in the desert in Nevada. And what I have found having spoken to Nevada is across two statewide tours in the last, I'd say, 10 months or so, is that it doesn't matter who I'm talking to. Democrats, Republicans, or independence, everybody has a problem with these data centers coming in, taking up our energy, driving up our energy prices, and draining our water, and they want us to do something. And so, what I am doing is responsible and responsive.

Responsive to the constituents who sent me to office this time, and who I'm asking to send me to office for the governor's race by developing a plan now that's going to address these data centers. I am going to halt every single future of baby and on data centers until we can actually go back and do something that this current governor has not done. And that's audit. The compliance with the

terms and agreements in the first place that the folks that he's given incentives to $220 million,

“I think, maybe $240 million over the course of the current governor's tenure. He has an”

audit to them to ensure, for example, that they have higher local, like they were supposed to. They've come otherwise complied with the terms of the abatement agreements. And so, I'm going to stop those abatement going forward. Those tax breaks are inappropriate until we can audit those. But we're also going to require them to bring their all water. I'm going to say if they're not going to be able to raise consumer rates by one penny, they're going to have to use clean energy,

their own clean energy to power their facilities, and build out the grid to accommodate that. And these are some of the, and not only that, listen to the local input before things are done. If local community doesn't want these data centers, it shouldn't be forced on them. And it seems

has described this data center issue as a gold rush from Nevada. And what I noticed, Tommy,

is the only gold rushing right now is from the big data center folks and their gold to his pockets. Yeah, to the Trump ballroom. I did notice one loss of Vegas resident or maybe that resident, but property owner who seems to support the data centers. President Trump said, "If you oppose data centers, you want to be backwards in poor," he said that earlier today. Yeah, he thought something that. Well, I, I, I have beyond being surprised with commentary from

our president, right? And he's certainly now on the ground here in Nevada. But his, his, his acolyte in Jolombato is, and Jolombato has capitulated, Kyle Tyler, kissed up the Donald Trump, and every single term. Every single term, and it doesn't surprise me then that we haven't heard

a single word from Jolombato, at least not to not to mount knowledge, refuting that form of

characterization. We've seen, again, Jolombato align himself with Trump and advocating for data centers, calling them saying that he's wholeheartedly in support of them. So I'm wholeheartedly in support

“of Nevadaans, and that's why I'm being responsive to what I've heard across every demographic,”

that we need to address these. You know, Jolombato has written an op-ed saying, we need to embrace these, you know, and again, the gold rush. Again, he's going to talk about the gold rush into his pockets, but at the end of the day, you know, Trump is wrong for ignoring the will of the people. Lombardo is wrong for doing the same, and I'm going to be a governor who actually listens in this responsive. I want to ask you about the Las Vegas economy, and it's been struggling with

a dip in tourism. I saw the number of visitors was down, but almost 8% in 2025, as compared to 2024, I think, 2026 started kind of soft. One of the reasons I've seen cited for that tourism dip is the trade war with Canada. A ton of Canadian tourists normally go to Las Vegas, but business insider reported that 18% fewer Canadians visited Vegas in 2025 than 2024. They're voting with their feet about, you know, Trump's comments about annexing Canada the 51st aid.

Now, this big trade terrified. How much of this tourism decrease do you blame on the Trump administration's policies scaring off foreign tourists from Canada or anywhere else? Look, if I had to quantify it, I'd say that it's upwards of 100%. I mean, the fact that a matter is, we are living in the Lombardo Trump economy. Jolombardo has advocated with these tariffs, essentially saying that we need to fill a little pain from them. And I say, we don't need to fill

pain. We need some leadership. Someone who's willing to stand up, push back against Donald Trump and say that these tariffs will harm our state. We do rely upon tourism, Canadian, Mexican, Chinese, those tourists have stopped coming, right? And at the end of the day, it has negatively impacted businesses and employment all across our state. You know, so I sued. I sued over those tariffs. And I won. You know, our governor said that my lawsuit was unfortunate, right? And all my lawsuits

against the Trump administration. The ones that I keep winning by upwards of 85 to 90% by the way, he calls unfortunate. Again, it's because he's called to our kids up and capitulated to Donald Trump, but they return lies now. Lombardo is what they call them. I mean, he lies down, but he

“also lies just to be clear about that. So yeah, exactly. But look, I think about this from a”

personal perspective, though, Tommy, you don't know my story, but I grew up being in Stale, candy bars for them. You know, my daddy used to work at a grocery store and he found some Stale candy bars at the dumpster behind the grocery store. Safeway was, as we worked, Safeway was throwing these candies away because they were stale and they couldn't sell them, but the force got to eat. So my daddy bought me Stale candy bars and I keep a candy bar from

that era on my desk at home or my nightstand or my desk at work as a visual reminder every single day of what struggle looks like. I can empathize with people who are saying that they're having a tough time surviving, let alone trying to thrive right now. I went from eating Stale candy bars and it's time to become a single dad when I was in college, living on Section 8 housing, living on food stamps. They call this snap. Now, they got a fancy car and I had to fake money

“to tear out the little book. I was on food stamps. I was on Medicaid. That's what kept my”

son and me healthy. And so I have a very relevant standing of what poverty and struggle looks like. And that's why I fight every single day to ensure that everyone has the ability to survive in our state. At the other last day, I saw you put forward as, you know, well,

the New York Times reported that Donald Trump Jr. basically an event warned state AGs not to police

or regulate these prediction market sites like Kalshi or Polymarket. And then I think 20 states including yours are part of lawsuits over whether states should govern sports gambling or whether that's a federal issue. I only know you also signed a letter from 44 states criticizing the platforms. I realize that your state and Las Vegas in particular is a different relationship with gambling and gaming and sports betting than most states. But how do you think we should be regulating these

these kind of prediction market sites? Yeah. Well, first off, Donald Trump Jr. didn't scare me.

No one scares me when it comes to protecting the badins, which is the reason why I've actually led the fight against these prediction markets because we are the ghost in the battle when it comes to sports betting. And indeed, these prediction markets are nothing but a new fancy way of betting on sports. And they need to be regulated pursuant to our laws or any other law of the state

“in my estimation that they in which they are operating. That's how you protect consumers. That's”

how you ensure that they're planned by fair rules. These are things that we are the ghost standard of and we deserve to be able to continue fighting that. And at the end of the day, we sued Calshy. We sued Polymarkas. We sued Robin Hood. And maybe a few others to ensure that they have to comply with our rules. And just last week, I think it was on Friday. The 9th Circuit affirmed a ruling we got at the district court level saying that we indeed

have the right to regulate these markets because they are nothing more than sports markets. They're not these commodities that they're allowed to control by swap regulations on the commodities. Exactly. It was a crafty way of trying to find a whole new, the way they've got a walk and an operate. But they're not that savvy. And they don't frighten us. We want and we'll continue to advocate for these types of protections. I mean, look, I imagine you've been in a casino once

or twice in your life, like if enjoyed, betting on sports or gambling. What do you think the impact is in particular on young men? If like having a casino on your phone in your pocket with all the addictive qualities of social media and all the ways they keep you hooked with notifications and real-time monitoring and grass and stuff. But with the real financial consequences of being able to lay down a real bet. Look, man, you've hit the nail on the head on one of the

most important points there. And I know personally of young boys who are under the age of 21,

who have engaged and essentially gambling and sports betting using these apps. And they have spent up their college loans, you understand. And so they in fact are some of the victims that we're trying to protect. And they in fact would be protected. If they were operating in our state in a brick and mortar or under a regulated type of activity. Because they would be cut off in some way before they give you that point. Well, whatever strictions they have in place that could

be cut off, they're being at least monitored, people can see what's going on if they see someone's getting out of control. There are interventions, so to speak. At least there's some friction, too,

“like you have to get up, get in a car, go to casino, sit in a sports book, you know, to be like”

canceling your money, but the fact you just lean their head. And it just seems like a real problem. Switching gears. So back in May, your opponent was pulled over for a suspected traffic violation. A cop tried to explain to him why he had been pulled over. Governor Lambardo dropped his name. The cop was like, I know who you are, proceeded to tell him about the violation. And Lambardo said, "Come on, man." And then the cop let him go. The president of the Las Vegas police union said

Lambardo did not demand special treatment per se, but just identified himself. Do you buy that? And did you see that there was a theater movie theater that a special where you could get out of paying for a movie ticket by saying, "I'm Joe Lambardo." That was a solid special there.

Yes, yes. A couple of questions there. The first of which is, no, I don't buy the president of the

union statement there. Joe Lambardo was absolutely, and people can watch this for themselves, right? They can make their own judgment. And I think most folks, I speak to 99.9% of these folks recognize that Joe Lambardo dropped his name in order to try to avoid a consequence. The guy couldn't finish his sentence. The cop couldn't finish his sentence telling him why he was been pulled over before he said, "I'm Joe Lambardo." And then it was told you ran a red light.

People are getting, we have, you know, very bad accidents in Nevada right now. Our insurance

“race continued to rise because of these types of things. He ran a red light. That's why he was”

being stopped. And he says, "Come on, man." And the cop let him go. It was in the cop's discretion. I'm not suggesting the cop did something bad, but what I do know is that Lambardo intimidated that young man. Of course. And utilized his name to do that. And look, that's what we saw on camera. Imagine how this man acts when no one's actually being able to gauge how he's interacting with the folks, right? We can't trust him. He already thinks that he's above everybody. As you can tell

about the way he interacts with him. We also know how he feels about Nevada's generally speaking. We have one of the highest on him. You didn't ask him about this. I'm sorry. I got to say we red quiet, it's like quick though, because we had one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. Under the entire three-year, eight-month tenure, we've had the highest or one of the highest unemployment rates is entire tenure. It's higher now than it was when it took office. But he has a theory

for that. He says, "Just because people are lazy." And they don't want to work. And they'd rather

That's how he thinks about the people who he supposedly represents. He also says that if you have a

“problem with the government and you decide to protest, you must be getting paid. Because really,”

you truly, you can't have sounds better. Exactly, exactly. The last thing I said, I'm going to give you the mic back, as you know, and by the way, if you are protesting because you disagree with something, I say it, I got two words for you. F.U. Those are his words out of his mouth about the people he represents, right? And so him, abusing his authority, is yet another example of him just thinking he's better, different set of part, and not representing the working class

members of our state, and he said a lot in himself with his Bay and our friends' corporations and looking out for himself. That's got a lot of back quotes out there. Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, we're not going to have folks to get. So he looked at me and we've talked about a lot of the ways that he's doing the bidding for corporate America. No surprise then that he is sitting on a ton of cash. His campaign, his campaign account, his super PAC that got tens of millions of dollars on hand.

How do you come about that? Yeah, look, this race was always going to be about the money versus the

many. 100%. There's no way we can compete with his billionaire friends who give him literally a million dollars a pop into a PAC. Last quarter, my PAC raised over a million dollars, his PAC raised 13 million dollars in a quarter, from like six different donors. Okay, goodness thing. Yeah, rice people, drop in hand, you know, people who own data centers, right? People who own, who don't native flock cameras. Now these are people who are supporting him as he, you know, unhurts 17

million dollars of negative ads against me, which, by the way, haven't really moved the needle. We are in a tie ball game right now, within a margin of error, from every objective pulling out that you take away the Democratic pose and the Republican pose and look at the objective polling, is either having, it's either a margin of error race or a tie ball game. And that's not withstanding him spending 17 million dollars of negative money against me. So we're going to win

because we have many on our side. We have to continue to get the word out to be sure we need money. And I would encourage your people to go to Ford for an Nevada dot com and check us out because that is going to be an important word on TV. But we need people to be able to spread the word, get folks out to register and to actually show up to vote. These flock cameras, man. These are, these things are disconcerting. And we'll have this getting a lot of attention these days.

Yeah, that's a problem. It's just like we're building our own little Chinese style police state. It's scary. It's scary. And again, being responsive means being, you know, having you to the ground. And I have learned now that folks have concerns with these things. And, you know, I suggested my state that we stop using them until the legislature can chime in on some privacy issues. Yeah, that would be good. Final question for you. You got an undergraduate degree at Texas A&M

and some postgraduate degrees at a high-o-state. Aggies play the buck ice. Three written for. It's a win. We have for me, man. It's a win.

Come on. Come on. Here's what happened. Here's, I didn't know. So one time they did play

each other. I want to say it was a sugar bowl. 1999 or so. Because I was at a house state. My brother and law play football for Texas A&M. So they kind of had the airs, because it was my brother and law. But I didn't know. But I sat there and I watched the game. And I just wanted to see how which way my body went as good things happened. And I found myself saying, yes, it was an Aggie play. Okay. So I'm going to support my Aggies over my buck ice.

Also the buck ice win all the time. It's kind of a win. In that the wrong win and all I do was win, win, win and all that.

“Come on, baby. How are you feeling about college football?”

I'm like the NL era. Have we gotten it right? You know, I don't know if we got it right.

But I think, honestly, I've always had to opinion that we should be paying our students. Absolutely.

I actually represented a basketball player who in my estimation was, you know, got to show it into the stick back in the day. This was early 2000s. I just have a hard time, you know, accepting that we have these old grown men who are, you know, utilizing their influence on these young and questionable teenagers, getting their careers ruined early on, because they're giving them extra benefits. Why they get to go and encode to make, you know,

me and all the contracts, go to another institution. That's played the half of the time. The coaches like the highest paid state employee. Yeah. Right. And the tens of millions of dollars a year and they couldn't pay much. Yeah, look, I'm totally in favor of players getting paid. I do wonder if there's going to be a course correction. I mean, I know Ted Cruz and Maria can't well are trying to work on something in the U.S. Senate right now to try to reform the whole

process. I don't know if it seems like it's stuck at the moment. Maybe that would just reduce the number of times you could hit the transfer portal, maybe find some way to kind of even out. Some of the funding, but who knows? Yeah. Yeah. To your point. I don't know. We don't think we have it

“right yet, but I think, you know, we should be paying our players. Let's figure out a way to get it done.”

Right. Okay. Well, I turn you into forward. Thank you so much for doing the show. You want me to. I give you an offer though. What? I have to offer you something. Please, you see, I saw you had my friend Rob Sano on. Yes. And he offered you to be, you know, to look at the Constitution, if you could be governor for a day. Yeah. I want to be like a

body double, right? Okay. Yeah. If you can pass this, my body double. You can have it, man.

“Was it? I really appreciate that offer. I would love, like, one, you know, get out of jail”

free card for a trip to Vegas coming up. So if we can make that happen. I always tell my friends,

come to Vegas, but don't make me your first call. Yeah. Yes. You've said a lot of people

“been like, hey, I'm making a trip to yourself. No, no, you cannot. We'll look, thank you again”

for doing the show. Good luck this in the selection. We need you to win this thing.

Thanks, man. Appreciate you. That's our show for today. Thanks to Aaron Ford for coming on.

“Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Positive America is a cricket media”

production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari with Reed-Chirlin, Elijah Cone, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt de Grote, Ben Hefko, Jordan Canter, Charlotte Landist, David Tolz, Mia Kelman, Brian Young, and Naomi Sango. Our staff is probably unionized with the writer's guild of America East.