Lake America Great Again

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On today's show we'll talk about the president's big announcement that he's renaming

a lake because he's mad at Canada. His plan to make the midterms all about himself, RFK juniors war against the war against measles, John Oshoff's opponents, latest Nazi problem, the latest one, and the latest from some key senate races, including Dan's conversation with South Carolina's Democratic nominee, Dr. Annie Andrews, who's looking to pull off a big upset against the brand new Republican nominee, Darlene Graham, sister of the late

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need. All right. Let's get to the news. Donald Trump had another big week of losing wars, raising prices, and changing maps. His only public event on Thursday was a signing ceremony in the oval office, where he officially changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America and said that either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean may be next, because our president is a moron. Let's listen to how he explains the Lake Ontario change. So this is Lake Ontario in Canada,

and in the United States, but we're going to make a little change. We're going to call it something different than Lake Ontario. We're going to call it Lake America, and all it takes is a good pen in some intelligence. So Lake Ontario, that's gone, Lake America. So now we have a lake and now we have a Gulf, because we have the Gulf of America, now we have Lake America, without the of, thank you very much, everybody. Enjoy Lake America. Enjoy Lake America,

without the of, without the of. Now, if you're all concerned that Trump isn't paying enough attention to the other stupid war he started that's now bankrupting the country. Fear not, the president posted some great news about Iran this morning. Let's check out what he put on truth social. That is an AI image, although Austin claims maybe it's Photoshopped either one, but it's Donald Trump, the American flag behind him some fighter jets. In the corner is George Bush,

a picture of George Bush, and it says mission not accomplished, and then in the other corner,

Is that the dead Iatola or the other one? Who's to know? We don't know, is it the dead Iatola

“or the new potentially gay disfigured Iatola? Look, what you're going for in this moment is slightly”

better than George W. Bush's rock war. That's the message. And you definitely want to use the phrase because you really want, when people think about the Iran war, you want it to evoke the last biggest foreign policy disaster from a Republican president, which is the war in Iraq. So you just want to make sure that the public is connecting those two things in their mind even though the war is still very much raging because Donald Trump is a fucking moron who is busy changing the

name of a great lake with the Sharpie and an executive order as opposed to focusing on any of the other problems that we have. Yeah, it's doing great. What do you think about that, Dan? What do you think about the big lake Ontario change? This is why we get paid the big bucks to analyze the lake Ontario change. It's a huge deal, John. That's a huge deal. The take away for me, I have two takeaways here because that's my job is to take away some dumb shit like this, and ten years run out of hot

takes on dumb shit. That was the rudder up in my say America. Donald Trump's not even good at trolling anymore. He is, we've said this for his losses fastball, but he's just there's like this, you can almost feel the relevance just declining with every passing moment that people

don't care and he can't even, he does this for outrage, he can't do it. The second thing is that

Democrats in the world have kind of figured out how to react to Trump. Like, if when this happened with the Gulf of America, or imagine if this happened four years ago, everyone be screaming from the rooftops, you know, what a gigantic deal this is. You know, when an embarrassment for America, how dare he politicize the once independent board of geographic names? And, you know, it doesn't even look like we've taken it with cronies exactly. That was the foundation of the

American system democracies. At risk, we can't even count on late naming anymore. And then, you know, in like last year, people are like, oh my god, what do we do? If we don't change it on

“our map, Trump will prosecute us. Remember, I mean, if you remember, this is what got the AP”

banned from the White House. Oh my god, I did forgive me. They forgot, they refused to call the Gulf of America. No, no one cares. No. Oh, they're like, I just, I just, it's kind of funny. I like, I don't care about that much, but I have seen some people be like, do you think he actually knows that Lake Ontario was not named after the Canadian province or named by Canada, but it was, it's an indigenous name from hundreds of years before. And I was like, guys,

guys, we don't, of course, we don't need to go down that road. That you don't, he wasn't thinking about that. And if you corrected him in advance, that wouldn't have made a difference. Yes, yes, I just think it's better to respond to these things with a ridicule than outrageous. Yes. That's not like, thank you. The other option to actually him. Fuckin' more on. Fuck it. So stupid. Uh, on a completely related note, Trump's approval rating is underwater by about 20 points

with just 67 days until the midterms for comparison. He was only about 11 and a half points underwater at this point before the 2018 midterms, which is about the same as Joe Biden before the 2022 midterms. But according to the Atlantic, Trump recently met with his advisors in the oval to come up with a strategy to overcome his dog shit approval ratings ahead of the midterms. And here it is. There's a theory that I get the vote, you know, this, I see it all the time,

that when Trump's in the ballot, they win. When he's out of the ballot, the people don't got about. And I'm asking the people through your brilliant show, number one show. I'm asking the people to get out and pretend them on the ballot.

“That's it. What do you think of that? That's a good strategy, right?”

Just in case he thought he was riffing there, uh, here's the headline from the Atlantic piece. I was just referring to about that meeting. Trump plans to buy midterm ads about his own record. The president has come up with a simple plan to win the election. More Trump. That is Trump's solution to every problem. More Trump's more Trump.

Think that'll do it this time. Doesn't work when the problem is Trump.

I mean, my, my or some more sponsors, where can I donate? Couldn't have asked for any, like, great. Go for it. Run more. Run more. Make it, remind, remind, make sure that everyone understands that my Rogers, Susan Collins,

A man who's approval rating is underwater in every state in this country,

there is probably there is no race. Think anywhere where Trump is a net positive. It's just a question of how big an animal he's going to be for the Republican on the ballot. Yeah, I mean, if everyone pretended that Trump was on the ballot and everyone voted based on how they view Trump, the job that Trump's doing, Democrats would win. Senate majority and a huge house majority. Yes, if every Trump disapprover voted for a Democrat,

there would be, it's a, this is a 20, 20 point generic ballot just to do some very fast math there. It's funny that there's one sentence in the Atlantic piece. There's some GOP strategy. Just favor focusing entirely on specific races in an effort to convince voters of the merits of individual candidates and local issues. Yeah. Yeah. That might be a good idea. I guess that

“doesn't guess that one didn't get through the brainstorm. You know, Biden to his credit. I think”

in 2022, he basically just backed away. He didn't campaign. He sort of his advisors other than

that one democracy speech. He gave it the very end. Right. Where they said he looked like. Which statement, yeah, which then sort of unfaithfully of the success of that speech sort of unwild democracy itself. But that's neither here nor there is. But he like he had enough self-awareness to not force himself into the conversation. Same thing with Obama in 2010, George W. Bush in 2006, but Donald Trump is not capable of that. So he has to make it about himself, which is only going

to help Democrats because it's not going to turn out more Republicans. It's just going to further polarize independence and disaffected Trump voters against Republican candidates. Yeah. I laughed at the part of the story where his advisors told him that his bad polling is just because the public still just doesn't know about all of his accomplishments. Do that run more ads about them? Run ads? It looked like I think what you got to do is you got to tell people about the big

“beautiful bill. Not enough for people know about the tax cuts they're getting and you should run”

and add about that. It's just so great. That's what I read that story. I was so happy. It was such it's such a good story. I mean, I can't wait to start seeing these ads. What do you think these ads are going to be? Do you think that like this is what they tell them and they're like, oh, the accomplishments and that it'll be like 10% accomplishments in 90% just, you know, we're running events against a bunch of communist Islamists and terrorists and you know, we're going to destroy

the country. It feels like that would be their best use of money. I think what is likely going to happen here is, and I'll give it a knowledge here from my Chris, I once worked for Canada who really, really believe that your own science or incredibly important that what's that? Like what's your own science? Oh, yeah, it's obsessed with your own science. And so the field staff just put your own science up in the Canada's neighborhood on the way the office and on the way the airport and didn't

work anywhere else. So I have my suspicion here is that there are going to be a lot of ads about Trump's accomplishments on Fox News. Yeah. National cable by Mr. President, right in between the catheter heads, right? You can buy gold, a doomsday kit, a catheter, life insurance, and then find it about Trump's accomplishments. But you can't find out anywhere else on Fox News. No, but there was no no, no discussion. I'm Trump. I do want to read you a quote from a big

maga influencer on Twitter quote, I don't think the GOP fully grasp how badly they're fucking up right now. I'm very worried the GOP is sleepwalking toward a midterm reckoning. They don't see coming. And this is a post that I saw because it went viral and the reason it went viral is because it was reposted by Donald Trump. What do you think? Well, yeah, you think he didn't

“quite know. Do you think he didn't read the post? No, I think he read the post. You think he just”

he thinks it's the GOP. It's not me. I'm not at fault here. We are watching in real time. This is brain tries to reconcile in ass whipping in the midterm with his own personal view that he's infallible. And so it's got to be someone's fault. He's going to start blaming the Republicans long before the votes are cast. They ran away from him. They didn't talk about the big beautiful bill. They talking about accomplishments. No one talked about, you know, he's just going to be like

John Hughes said never ran on Lake America. Never talked about it. All this tells me is I'm imagining

how the, how the 2028 Republican primary is going to go and the whole race. Because anytime there's bad polls for the Republican nominee or things like Donald Trump, he is just like he said he's not going to be able to keep himself out of it. He's not going to be able and he's going to he, I guarantee he will end up like criticizing if you're not indirectly directly the Republican nominee. Because that's just who he is. When I work for Al Gore, towards the end of the campaign

in my, in my very, very low right out of college job for Al Gore, Bill Clinton. That was a big tension point in the circuit. Bill Clinton. Yeah. Al Gore was was a problem for Al Gore. Didn't

"Come here for the Washington Post and your attempt reporter to essentially, he couldn't take it anymore and complain about it and it became a gigantic story." And the problem for J.D. Vince Marker Rubio, whoever else is that every reporter in America sounds Trump's cell phone number so the number of them who are going to get him on the phone when he's like on the toilet, watching TV, whatever else, where he's just going to unload. They're not going to need to get him

on the phone. He's going to go into the oval every day, gather all the cameras and say whatever the fuck he wants to say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He won't shut like just W Bush, basically stopping president in the soon as the 20 2008 campaign started. I mean, in every way he stopped being president. But

he was that you never saw him again. He did like no events did nothing. And because he knew that

he was a gigantic net negative for the Republicans, that'll Trump will not have that level of self-awareness. You think he'll be on the trail all the time in the next couple months for the midterms? No, only because he's gotten quite lazy in his old age. Maybe. And I'm sure there will be some rallies and they will probably be in Texas. This is probably a place where I can see him going because Ken Paxon and will want him in Texas because he's Ken Paxon. He's going to

work. Yeah. He's going tonight. He'll be there tonight for a fundraiser. Yeah. But was that a place where you do rallies? I mean, like, there would be an argument that he, you could understand

“an argument of like, you have to turn out Trump voters in these red states and maybe, you know,”

if you are Ashley Henson and Iowa that you would want him to, to get up turn out in like the real area. So maybe he'll, okay, he'll campaign, which will be, the thing is is that that is not limited to Iowa. So that's going to have an impact in Maine and Michigan and these districts in California and New York, the Democrats are trying to win. So he will be present in the conversation, which is, I think, in the long run, great for Democrats. And again, if he's too lazy to take his

fat ass out of the White House, he will be mowsing on into the oval every day and just holding court with all the reporters, well, the Republican candidates are out there trying to distance themselves from Trump or, or, you know, get, get their own message out there or whatever they are trying to do, they won't be able to do it because Donald Trump is going to be in the way. I mean, there are a lot of cities in American and Ontario that he could start renaming right now.

I mean, he previewed the Atlantic or Pacific name change that's coming. So we probably have that beat still, it still doesn't end with New Mexico yet. That is just, it's sitting right there, isn't right there. Just in time for it to be an early primary state for the Democrats. Okay, there goes John Osloff and Kamala Harris and AOC to New America. Fortunately, Trump's pathological narcissism is the gift that keeps on giving for the Democratic

Party because in just a few weeks, he's also going to make every Republican candidate on the ballot

indoor, a first of its kind, two night midterm convention in Dallas. This is on September 9th

“and 10th. By the way, did you see it's going to be the opening NFL game on the night?”

The patagonal C box and then the 10th is a game. So that's two NFL games, prime time, Donald Trump's convention will be happening at the same time. Is the second one on Netflix? Yes, because it's in. Yeah, it's an Australia. Yeah, um, this was a noble thing. Like it's very very very well known when the NFL season starts that count that they've been selling tickets like those games for a very long time. You did nothing to do with that week.

No, could have done it. You could have done it Tuesday, Wednesday. Could have done it Tuesday, Wednesday, could have done it. In fact, every Thursday for the next 18 weeks after that, they're out. You can't do that. There's isn't one days. Not a good time to do prime time addresses during formal season. Here are some details on how the RNC chair is feeling about this. Listen, it's going to be a Trump polluted. It's going to be spectacular, star-studded event.

Obviously headline by the best showman that's ever lived in Donald J. Trump. RNC official tells us a prime time showcase for President Trump's success candidates and causes that have propelled the 20, 20, six midterms to unprecedented focus. There is also going to be a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and a section about Charlie Kirk's legacy mobilizing young voters for

“Republican. Wow. Just wow. Um, did you know that that was the Republican, the chairman of the RNC?”

You know, it's interesting because I did not know who he was or what he looked like. And then I watched a separate interview with with that guy today from at on CBS, where he says the exact same words. Trump, a Palooza, Greatest Shaman on Earth. Uh, so it wasn't like a one off. We're just on Newsmax thing. This is the message is Trump, a Palooza. Tell me I talked about him yesterday. Check out our YouTube for extra content. Subscribe. Um, and after talking about him yesterday, I still don't remember

what his name is. Yeah. Grooters. And we have like a little bit of it on the screen one second ago.

And really a forgettable face. Who cares? Who cares? What would you guess is the thinking behind this, this, this boonduggle? Just more of like what we got in that Atlantic story. The Trump is just

He came up with it. Um, he's made that clearly. Really. Brilliant. I think if you think back to Milwaukee

for Republican convention, eat out how most candidates campaign throughout the convention. Then they arrive at the convention the day of their speech and they make their grand entrance. Maybe they come together than I before and do the nom, they set the nomination, then they do their speech. If you remember, Trump went every single day. It was Milwaukee the whole time. He sat in a box the whole time. Oh, yeah. That's right. And while in that box, when he wasn't sleeping, he just sat there with the

“shit eating grin on his face and watch people praise him. I think he's, I think that was probably”

one of the greatest moments of his life. And I think he's trying to replicate that. I really do think he wants people to say he wants to create a forum where people say nice things to him to his face. Just so we don't get too excited here. I was trying to think like, is there any world in which this convention turns out to be a net positive for Republicans? You know, we'll be two nights of prime time of just them trashing every democratic candidate and just dumping out the opo file on

all the things going to cover it. Uh, just the cables. Well, yeah, I think I think MS, I would bit that MS and CNN cover Trump speech in Vance's speech, but I can't imagine they're going to cover much more than that. Fuck me, the whole whole thing. I'm sure they'll use it. They'll have reporters there and they'll use it as content. Right. During the day, I don't think that content will necessarily be good for Republicans, but I don't think these speeches are going to get covered in

“the scene by a lot of people, just other than Fox heroes, Republican strategists are saying that”

it's it's turned into a quote, shit show. Uh, this was to to puck. Um, and it's, you know, the National Republican campaign committee is asking House members to cough up $25,000 for themselves and a guest to attend the convention. And, uh, and that's the cheaper rate. The, uh, the top rate is $100,000. It's a con, right? It's just like another way to make money on fucking believable.

Isn't it amazing? Make it, make it for an ace. The Republican strategist added, uh, to puck.

Nobody understands why we're doing a midterm convention. It's just another show that Trump is going to put on to remind the voters that he is sitting there and maybe they don't want to be reminded of that out. That's perfect. That's a pumpkin strategist. So, so good. Uh, of course, anonymous. Of course. Don't want to, don't upset Mr. Trump. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed

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Trump signed an order that directs the US Postal Service to only send mail ballots to people on an approved list of citizens compiled by the federal government in collaboration with information provided by each state. It would also empower the Postal Service to just not send mail ballots to states that don't comply with all the new rules. Blue states have sued over the EO, but on Monday the Supreme Court ruled they don't have standing to do so, at least not yet.

And so now the whole thing is in legal limbo as the rule finally goes into effect and now blue

states are suing again. And so of course this is exactly where you want to be when the on the first round of mail ballots are supposed to be sent out next week. Can you feel people in on how bad this is, what happens now with all these different court cases? This is very confusing.

“Yeah. And I think a lot of the stories in the initial reaction were sort of misleadier incorrect.”

There are two court cases, one from the blue states and one from the legal limbo voters. Both those cases are in front of the same judge. And the judge put temporary restraining orders in place for both of them to prevent or injunctions prevent the administration from going forward with this plan. The Supreme Court ruled in only one of those cases. The one from the that one is

something verse trumped. There's something verse California. It's the blue state case. But the

the injunction in the legal and voter's case is still in place. And the order continues to say. And even the postal service put out the rule for how they would implement this plan on last Friday night, even that rule in the stipulates that that cannot go in place until the other injunction is lifted. So we're sound of in the same place where we were before. The alarming part is the Supreme Court felt the need to intervene here. And to once again sort of really twist

the as I read at the irreparable harm standard in a way to try to pave the way for trump. But it has not we are where we were before not a lot has changed. There's a couple of questions here. One is how the hell would the postal service actually implement this plan? Like who is going to be

checking these mill ballots against these databases? How do we know the databases are correct? What

happens when states do not submit the database? Like like most blue states will not submit these role. And there obviously would be a long cork case around that. It's like it's a question about how this could possibly be implemented in time for this election. Even the Supreme Court were too greenlighted in the very near future. It's interesting because the obviously trump is said he doesn't like mail invoting and he wants to stop mail invoting and he you know has signed

other eos to this effect that have been. Can I ask you a question on this, John? Sure. He's a

“resident of Florida correct? That's why he's mail invoter Donald Trump. That's why I call him. Yes,”

not all the mail invoter don't do that because the hypocrisy is important to people. We got him this over. We did get him. So his argument is like no, I should be in control of mail invoting and I should stop it and I should be able to do that. The DOJ, their arguments here are very much not the federal government should have a say in how we control elections and run elections because they know that is explicitly forbidden in the constitution. So their argument in court

about this is, well, the federal government's not doing anything to interfere with how the states are administering their elections. And if the states want to send mail ballots to anyone they want, they can do that. But if they want to use the postal service, if they want to use the postal service for this, then they have to have our new special logo on the envelopes and they have to have the barcode that allows us to see if they have given us the information and the lists are right

in the citizenship list, which are coming from DHS, which definitely can trust that. So yeah, that is the argument. The argument they're trying to make is this just like a minor cosmetic thing for the design of the ballots. Like you can do whatever you want. You just have to use the postal service. You and I say huge business opportunity for Amazon. Just Bayzos to the rescue. Yeah, your ballot there in two days, free shipping. I do find it hard to believe that even

the Supreme Court would throw this coming election into complete chaos with like, well, we said that about the clay decision as well. And they did. Yeah, but this is even, this is, yeah, I mean, it's not. We don't have to talk about the merits of the decision as worse, but it is, it causes more chaos. Like, yes. Like, the clay decision is horrible, but it is done. And this is like,

“next week, the mail ballots are going out. So, for at least in some states. So, like, I think it's”

North Carolina. Yeah. So, like, what's going to happen? It seems logistically impossible. Right. To now, they can allow it to happen. And yes, Trump doesn't care if no mail ballots go.

All the sudden Florida, lean D. If he's not delivering the mail there. No, the most Supreme

“Court thing to do would be like, you know, the worst parts of it don't take effect for the midterms,”

all of it takes effect afterwards. And on ahead of the midterms, the DHS gets to compile their own list if they want, because it's that's the preview of the federal government, something like that. But we shall see. So, if Trump has his way, mail and ballots will be dead. But measles, very much alive. Cases have reached a 35-year high as U.S. kindergarten vaccination rates have reached a record low, all since the president put a vaccine skeptic without a medical degree in charge of America's

public health. Just a reminder that two weeks ago, the president signed an executive order

directing people to get the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps, and rebella,

as three different shots, even though that option currently isn't available to patients. And then this week, Pennsylvania tragically announced that two unvaccinated people had died from the illness. Governor Josh Shapiro blamed the deaths on the administration, which had not sit well with RFK Jr, who blamed the outbreak and the documented drop-in vaccination rates on a familiar foe. We're doing a better job than any country in the world. It controlling the measles outbreak.

This is a worldwide epidemic. And it's happening because of the lockdowns, because many kids did not get vaccinated during the lockdowns. And then you had a dramatic diminishment of public faith in the regulatory agencies during the COVID period because of government overreaching because of the gas lighting and the manipulation. And even in my discussion with Governor Shapiro yesterday, and he said to me, well, we've seen this big drop in vaccination rates in the state from 97 to 92

point three, he admitted on the phone that it all happened during the Biden administration. Let's see, let's see, what could have caused the public to lose faith in vaccination during the Biden years? Could it have been some people, perhaps people that ended up becoming the Secretary of Health and Human Services, constantly spreading anti-vax propaganda that was incorrect? Possibly possible. Possibly fair. Plays have been the lockdowns, may have been the lockdowns, and Fauci,

because it ends in the lab leak. You don't have to explain why, you just say that. Fauci.

“Just say, well, just say, woohoo on, forget it. Yeah, woohoo on, Fauci, that's why.”

So Kennedy was also interrupted during a different anti-vax screen this week by the most on the nose ringtone you could possibly imagine. We have responsibility to do better on an autistic story about that. It's quack, it's quackdane. This would be like if Pete Hicks asked to ringtone was a beer can opening. That's good, that's good, that's good. So, Rejörlin, our fearless editor-in-chief and author of Open Tabs,

subscribe, become a friend of the pod to get that, click the dot com slash friends. And Rejörlin wrote in Open Tabs on Thursday morning that we would, that you and I would not agree to discuss the story on the show. So each shit read is here where you know what, dick moved by Rejörlin. It was. It's like, let me just put out there that I am going to was the noble journalist that I am proposed. We talked with this very serious hell thing. And I'm sure

these political hacks that I'm forced to work with or reject it. And so like what are we supposed to do now? Like we have to do it. How to do I want to do it? I don't really know. But I have to because read did that. It's like, when Brock Obama wanted to give like lengthy policy addresses and get into the weeds and be like, I would be able to do this, but Axel told me I couldn't. Well,

that'd be like if he said it publicly first. Yes. He's like, I wanted to give this very important

speech about my political advisors. We'll probably say no. Anyway, here we are brightening your day by talking about the measles outbreak. What did you think of the back and forth between RFK Jr and Shapiro? And why has this whole issue gotten even more attention? Just because

“what do we all do about it? I think RFK Jr is terribly terribly dangerous and particularly”

dumb human being. And he sounds ridiculous in this explanation of this. And he spent so much of his time trying to explain why he America's most famous vaccine skeptic has no responsibility for a drop in vaccines as led to the greatest spread of measles in the last 35 years I think it is.

gigantic national scandal. I don't know that we have the media infrastructure or the mental capacity

as a country to have national scandals of the way we used to. Like in the old world, people would be like in the old, a lot of us every day being like, "Mr. President, explain the measles and every member of Congress would talk about it and it would lead all the local news that we still have local news about the measles cases there." Just doesn't work that way anymore, which is probably not good for democracy in some respects. But I do think people know about this. Like this

is a thing that I'm sure you hear about as a parent, with other parents, it is real concern about

“it. I remember when this was maybe a year or so ago, I guess when Jack was then I think about”

to be five because you get your measles, your MMR and two doses and whether you should be the

big discussion or whether you should, whether you could put forward or push forward the second dose

because you're a fear that you could get measles in this world. Like so I think people are talking about it, but there is this sort of weird world where like no one holds trouble responsible for any of this stuff. So it's just like happening on his watch when he renames likes. Yeah. I mean, I do think it's politically damaging and widely known too because you're right. Like anyone, if anyone who goes to the pediatrician with kids that age, like I heard it at my pediatrician,

like you're going to hear about it and be like, "Oh well, they did the thing about it, MMR, but we're still recommending because we are doctors who understand science that you should get your MMR vaccine in two doses and not three separate vaccines that don't exist currently." But like, you know, the damage is also being done slowly over time, right, which is just sort of

“degrading the public's trust in public health. And look, some of it did start, I think it's hard”

to have a public health debate and a conversation too since COVID and all the polarization around that as well. And so now that has like as people thought at the time, the polarization over COVID and the COVID vaccines is now transferred to measles and will continue to spread to other things. And so it's going to take a long time in more than just the change in an administration to actually like rebuild people's faith in public health, which is awful. I think this is the Kaiser

of Family Foundation poll, but trust in federal officials' recommendations, I think specifically vaccine recommendations has been cut in half in recent years because you have Republicans who have polarized against these institutions during the Biden administration and frankly, honestly,

the first Trump administration and then you have a bunch of Democrats for a skeptical of our

of KJ or, you know, I talked a little bit about this with any Andrews in the video here later, who's a pediatrician at some smart thoughts about what we can do about it. There's a long New Yorker piece this week, basically the argument was that RFK might actually be

“losing the war on vaccines. You think there's a case for optimism?”

I don't know if it's optimism, but I think he's possible that he's not winning the war with the same rate we feared when he started. Then a lot of the institutions are still holding that people are turning to these independent scientific boards to get their recommendations. They're still trusting their doctors over, you know, quacks, no pun intended, like RFK Jr. So it's hard to be optimistic, even what has happened with New York's country right now,

but it's possible that it's not as bad as we think it is. Or we thought it would be when it started? Yeah, I thought that it was interesting that the piece makes the case that, you know, the Maha support, especially at this point, is it's loud, but it's like thinner than it than it seems. And public trust and doctors, right, if not public health officials,

is still quite high. And so even though that some of this faith that this trust has been degraded over time, it is still, you know, it's not quite as bad yet as it might appear. I think the other, if you're looking for silver linings in the start cloud is the way the Trump administration has governed has undermined the Maha movement and the power of that movement, like, you know, putting the seed owner lobbyist in charge of the, you mean the

Chief of Staff Department of Ag, all the stuff with the classifieds, that the power of that movement has diminished or fractured some, which I think has a potential to slow the spread of some of these dangerous conspiracy theories. Potitive America is brought to you by Sundays, is your dog a picky eater? It's surprisingly stressful. You wish they could tell you the problem, maybe they could, your dog would say,

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code "crickod to check out." Let's talk in terms. As we mentioned, Trump on Thursday night was in Texas to take his pretend I'm on the ballot strategy for spin, attending an RNC fundraiser for the Senate race that he characterized this way. We have a very good candidate, Ken Paxon, and he's running against telefreeco, they call it, because he is a little freaky, and that's not a man that represents the value of Texas. New poll from Texas Public Opinion Research on Thursday showing

telefreeco up six on Paxton, and Gina, you know, who's a down seven to Greg Abbott, which, you know, bummer pole about the governor's race, but it does suggest that they didn't over sample Democrats in that poll at least. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, it's hard to know exactly where the polls are in this race, but in almost every single poll, telefreeco has been leading

by a few points, something that better work never did in 2018, and so, you know, once again,

we were about as well positioned as we could be. It hoped to be in a Texas Senate race in late August of the election year, and so I feel cautiously good about it. Well, like a lot of work to do,

“telego's been spending money, Paxton has been when I think his super-packed just bought TV”

time right now, people expect, you know, maybe these will be the Trump agenda ads, but we're mega ankle spend their money will be Texas, because Paxton is a very bad fundraiser and a lot of Republicans who were Paxton do not want to sort of be associated with them, so Trump obviously has a kinship with crooks, so he would jump in there. So we'll have to see when the spending like stabilizes or equalizes, but telegrams are in a good spot right now. It is funny, all the

Republican candidates who don't want to appear with Trump and may not want to appear with Trump and the lead up to the midterms. Maybe the only one less popular than Donald Trump right now is Ken Paxton. Yeah, that's true. So he's probably like, yeah, come on back anytime. So there was also some big news on Thursday in the Georgia Senate race. I'll just read the headline from the Washington Post. A former Mike Colin staffer posted KKK and Nazi images. Some Republicans

see a pattern. Um, John Osloff sees a pattern as well. He jumped on this right away. Let's listen. Well, what's new today is yet more documented evidence of the congressman's ties to white nationalism and neo-nazzi ideology. We already knew about the neo-nazzi propaganda based at his house who produces content for his business. We already knew that his office

was briefing some of the nation's most notorious white supremacists on their efforts supporting a Holocaust and iron. Now this morning, thanks to the reporting in the Washington Post, we've seen yet another member of the congressman staff this time with swastikas in the costume of the clan and absolutely Georgia voters reject this and not just Democrats, but Democrats, independents, and Republicans. So the staffer in question is Preston Para,

he's former staffer who has described himself as a "twink fascist." Twink fascist, Dan, and as Osloff mentioned, posted a swastika made up of the words "twink." And you're probably thinking, we may be we can post an image afterwards, but it's not like we should post a swastika. That's the art for the episode.

Basically, it was, yeah, he typed out in a tweet a lot of just a whole bunch of words. Twink,

twink, twink, over and over, but then made it into a swastika. Just in case you were wondering how you post a swastika made up of the words "twink." And then of course, as Osloff referenced,

grock. I guess that helps, right? Yes. He also recently posted a Deutschland Uber

“Al's Al's Al's Al's Al. I'm just going to skip that one. He says these posts were meant to be”

satirical, but he did tell the post, quote, "I do think that the white race contributes more to the world." Unbelievably, this is not a one-off. Mike Collins's former chief of staff was revealed to be in a group chat with Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer, where people praised Hitler. Another former Colin Staffer was fired after yelling anti-Semitic slurs at Republican Congress in Mike Loller. That was Rand Paul Sun. And then there's Mike Collins's son-in-law, the guy running against

John Osloff, his son-in-law, who has quite recently shared Nazi imagery and propaganda online, including a post he said his wife made, the wife would be Mike Collins's daughter,

that shows what he calls, quote, "proof that Jews control our government through finance."

The son-in-law also warned that restoring an America populated by people of white European descent would require, quote, "clearing out land of other people." This is his son-in-law, in family photos together, not like, you know, Black sheep at the family kind of thing, like, just they have pictures of the whole family together. And the daughter, he said the daughter made that post. As you heard also off-luting to there, you know, Mike Collins clearly has a long history of surrounding himself

with pretty bad creeps. How do you think this plays in Georgia? This is another one that's sort of it hasn't gone under the radar, because every time I see Osloff, he does mention that Mike Collins is a bigot. I was not aware of the long history of all of these different staffers and relatives until this latest story. Yeah, he talks about all the time. He's been hammering this at the stump for months now. Ever since Mike Collins became the nominee, you know, it's obviously, I would say

close associations with neo-Nazis is not a net positive in any state. And so, not good for him. What I think were this, there are two ways in which this is very hurtful to Collins and helpful to Osloff is one, you know, like the metric that really has been deciding elections is who see this more extreme. Hard to get more extreme than just hanging it down around with neo-Nazis and

“people posting swastikas. So, that's not good. Also, like the best thing they have in Osloff”

is Republicans right off this race. And the more of this stuff is out there, the harder it is for Collins to raise money, the harder it'd be like, as Republicans look at how they're going to spend their money, do they really want to put their money behind the guy who parties with white nationalists and hang out with white nationalists all the time or go to some of these other races. And so, he can kind of, there are times in which you can win a race before it even starts. And Osloff is kind of

doing that right here by sort of just like delivering a mortal blow to the Collins campaign, you know, months, you know, sixty Sundays for six, seven days from the election. Yeah, it made me realize like, oh, well, I mean, Osloff very talented has been a great senator is, which I don't know if you listen to Sarah Longwell's focus group, the latest one she has. I did a bunch of Trump voters who like Osloff is very interesting. And a lot of it was like,

like, just really great constituent services. Yeah. Like, they can always get a hold of him,

he's helping people. So, that's all why he's doing well, but then having my Collins as an opponent, uh, probably also helping that certainly making this life a little bit easier. Osloff also released another statement on Thursday after the Atlanta Journal Constitution pressed him for a response to, you guessed it, a soundpiker statement on his Twitch stream from last week that quote, if Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are

singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone's going to come around and take action against American Jews. Uh, what followed has been a week of various elected Democrats condemning piker, Abdul El Sayed, who has campaigned with piker, condemned the substance of the comments, without condemning piker himself, uh, that he did say he doesn't speak for Abdul, that only Abdul speaks for Abdul. Um, Osloff, the response person replied that he, quote,

under unreservedly rejects reckless and dangerous rhetoric like those comments and that quote, all Americans must have the freedom and security to speak out in petition their government without fear of reprisal. Now, those of you who follow me on Twitter might be thinking, John,

“didn't you just call on all Democrats to take the don't talk about his son piker for a day challenge?”

Why yes, I did. And most of political Twitter, including several Democratic politicians failed. So I am intentionally failing today, uh, in order to make another plea. Uh, I think it's one thing if, like John Osloff, you are pressed by a reporter to respond to whatever the latest

about denouncing, defending his son piker will either make a son piker go away or help Democrats

win the midterms. Uh, I think it will instead keep one very polarizing leftist influencer at the center of the discourse and give Republicans and right wing media, excuse after excuse to cover each new denunciation. What do you think Dan? Is this a trap? Yes. If I, if I answer the question,

“I have failed the test you set up. Well, I, that's what I'm saying. I failed it. Okay. I've already failed.”

Okay. Failure. I tried. Didn't work. Okay. So I'm going to do this briefly. The main goal here is to elect Democrats to the Senate majority. We cannot really elect Democrats to Senate majority without Abdul Winning and Michigan. And my, perhaps naive belief is that everyone in this debate wants Abdul to win. And the best way for Abdul to win is for everyone. People condemning his son, people condemning the people condemning his son and his son himself to move on and stop fighting

about this. We meet. We are 67 days away. We need to be talking about Mike Rogers, about what he, like his corruption, how he, a vote for Mike Rogers is a vote for Donald Trump and Donald Trump's agenda. It's a vote to make Donald Trump in charge of the Senate. Like we have to get focused on the main thing and the main thing is Mike Rogers. They're green. Mike Rogers is corrupt. Mike Rogers wants to give your, give your money to rich people. Does anyone should have health care?

He, like, vote for him is to ensure that Donald Trump gets to a point more supreme court justices. Like, this is, and like that, that is a thing. We got to talk about Mike Rogers. Well said. We're going to leave that as the last word. Maybe ever. When we come back, South Carolina Senate candidate, Annie Andrews. This episode is sponsored by Better Help while we're big fans of Better Help. The real story

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right for you, visit BetterHelp.com/PSA. That's BetterHELP.com/PSA. Joining me now is the Democratic nominee for Senate and South Carolina, Dr. Annie Andrews, Dr. Andrews, welcome to Pot TV America. Thank you so much for having me, Dan. I want to get into the race. I want to talk about Darling Graham. I want to talk about what

“Trump said about you today, just now. But I just want to start, because I think I imagine that”

the South Carolina Center race has been on the radar a lot of our listeners who are focused on Texas, Ohio, North Carolina, Michigan, etc. Your pediatrician, how did you end up running for Senate?

Yeah, I'm a pediatrician. I've worked in children's hospitals for 20 years. I never envisioned

I would pivot into politics. My first foray in politics was in 2022 when I ran for Congress. In South Carolina's first district against Nancy Mace, saw the ugliest side of politics in that race. But I ended up in politics because for the first 15 years of my career, working at the bedside of sick and injured children, I very quickly started to understand the impact of broken policies coming from failing politicians on my patients and their families. So I now usually started

advocating at my state capital for better policies for kids and families in South Carolina. And what I was saying was falling on mostly deaf ears. So it became abundantly clear that to catalyze change for America's kids and families. I needed to explicitly engage in politics on behalf of America's kids and families. And so I ran for Congress and here I am in this U.S. Senate race. As you mentioned, you ran against the very charming and wonderful and

affable Nancy Mace last time around. What did you learn from that race? Which was a very tough race

“in a tough year and you lost by, I think, about 14 points. Yeah, I did. It came down to”

partisan voting lines. You know, that was a redistricting year. It was a purple seat when I got into the race knowing they would probably draw it into a very safe Republican seat. And that's what

how uphill the challenge is. You know, it was very clear to me that South Carolinians needed to have a choice on the ballot. That was the election cycle where Roe fell. And so as a doctor and a mom, I was able to give voice to so many women in South Carolina who were feeling totally

left behind in that moment. And I strongly believe now that second time candidates are way better

than first time candidates. I have a much better public speaker. I have a much better fundraiser. And so what I say often is if I wasn't a loser congressional candidate, I wouldn't be such a strong Senate candidate this cycle. I have to point out to people that Barack Obama also lost his race for Congress. So there you go. There you go. I want to play a clip for you. This is a moment that went quite viral from your opponent, Darling Graham's victory speech on Tuesday night.

Gun control. Government run health care abortion until the moment of birth, bad idea after bad idea, any injuries backs them all. I have a different background in vision for our state. I'm a hard worker with a servant's heart. I grew up in the back of a bar and liquor store in

one room in central South Carolina. My parents worked long hard hours to make it make ends meet.

We didn't take vacations. If they were sick, they had to get up and get a work because the doors weren't open. We weren't making money. My mother passed away when I was 11 and my father just over a year later. Okay. Before you get to all the bevy of accusations of the front of that, I just it seems to me that there is an inherent logic problem with what she's saying here. What was your

“reaction to this clip? Yeah. I think she sort of unintentionally unveiled her health care plan”

in that moment. And it seems to me that her health care plan is work hard even while you're sick until you die. And I believe that Darling's parents deserved better than that. I believe everyone in America deserves better than that. You know, I maybe I should ask her for to fill out an

in kind contribution form for my campaign because she is making the case for what I'm running on

that, you know, we need a health care system that is patient centered. That health care is a human right. And I think that story just really highlights how broken America's health care system is that working people should be able to take a sick day when they're sick. And they should also be able to afford health care when they're sick. Talk to me a little bit about your health care plan. We've had a big debate in the Democratic Party about how to deal with health care. You know,

we people calling for Medicare for all the people who have scuffs going for Medicare off. Where do you fall in that debate? Yeah. I mean, the other thing I'll say about that clip before we move on is like

“she has like negative charisma. I think that is very clear that this is the weakest candidate”

Republicans have put on a Senate race this cycle. And so that creates such a huge opportunity for us here in South Carolina. But my health care plan is number one, as I said, you know, I believe health care is a human right. I know we have to shift from this profit motivated health care system that we have in America to one that is truly patient centered. I'm also a really pragmatic person. And I believe that we can't let perfect be the enemy of good, that we have to work hard across

the aisle to move the ball down the field just like we did when the ACA was passed. And so I think the next obvious step is a public option, so that folks who don't have access to employer-based health insurance can purchase a plan from the federal government removing the profit motivation from that transaction. And I think that will force private insurance companies to offer more comprehensive benefit plans at lower premium rates. And then there'll be a domino effect.

As Americans realize, I'm getting a much better deal from this federal government plan, where my money isn't going to line the pockets of insurance company shareholders, but it's actually going to the provision of health care. And once more, more Americans have that realization, then and really, in my view, only then can we have a true productive bipartisan conversation about how then to take the next step to building a health care system that really does serve

everyone in this country? Kind of can't believe I'm about to say the sentence, but at an event this morning, the Oval Office for the President of the United States was announcing that we were changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America. He began that event by talking about your race. He congratulated darling Graham and he said, and I'm going to quote, "She still got to run against a radical left lunatic in the South Carolina people are not going to

stand for that." I mean Trump says a lot of things. This is obviously you saw that in the clip I played from Graham. This is sort of the case against you. How do you respond to that? Yeah, I mean, what is so radical about thinking that if you work hard during the day, you should be able to afford to put food on the table and keep your lights on at the end of the month. What is so radical about thinking every county in South Carolina should have an OBGYN?

“What is so radical about thinking that you should be able to afford to see a doctor when you get sick?”

What is so radical about thinking? If your community doesn't want a data center, there shouldn't be a data center built there. I believe that Darleens policies, whichever one she actually has,

of my policy platform. I'm proud of my record of being a public servant and fighting for South Carolinians and nothing that is said in the Oval Office is going to change that. South Carolina is a tough state. It is one Trump one by about 18 points. It's more Republican than a lot of these other sentences in Republican states and Democrats have gotten hopeful about

“Texas and Ohio. I think a lot of Democrats out there have a lot of scar tissue because I got their”

hopes up about Jimmy Harrison beating Lindsey Graham. So a lot of people I imagine they're going to be impressed by this interview. They're going to be interested in your candidacy and they're trying to decide whether this is a good place to invest their time energy. What is your case for why you can win this race in this very tough state? So this Senate race in 2026 and South Carolina really couldn't be any more different than the race that Jamie Harrison ran in 2020. First and foremost,

it's a midterm year. The president is not on the ballot to boost Republican turnout. Secondly,

Jamie Harrison was running against a powerful incumbent senator who was very well funded. Now I'm

running against a virtual unknown who as we already said has no political talent, clearly bad political instincts and an absolute lack of charisma. We also have an incredibly divided Republican party despite the fact that Trump spent millions of dollars propping Darling up in the election earlier this week. She only won by five points and in Ralph Norman's speech that night he didn't give a ringing endorsement to Darling. He's bitter that Trump got involved. Ralph Norman's supporters

are really upset about the fact that this is just going to potentially be a grand dynasty. And so the Republican party is incredibly divided and then I'm a very different candidate than my friend Jamie Harrison. I'm not a career politician. I'm not a former state party chair or lobbyist. I'm a pediatrician in a public school mom who comes at politics from a very different perspective. And so you know, I got in this race over a year ago thinking there was a chance that the stars

would align that this could be the year that we could win this Senate seat. And the stars have

aligned in a way that we never in a million years thought that they would. And now we are in a real

position to win this thing. We just released a poll this week that shows that I'm tied with Darling right out of the gate 41 to 41. And this is a very real robust poll. And then on the informed ballot I go up by five points. And the way that I'm doing that in a state that Trump won by 18 points is because I'm appealing to those really critical independent voters and center-right Republican voters. I'm plus 33 points with independence right now. We just launched our first general election ad

on Wednesday. So we have a leg up on Darling in that. She just spent all of her money to escape her own primary. And we've been building a war chest to compete in November. So this is a change election cycle. People are looking for a new generation of leadership. They're certainly not looking for a rubber stamp for this or any other administration. South Carolina is

that the first Democratic primary state. You're going to have a lot. There are already a lot of

Democrats coming through your South Carolina who may possibly just happen to be considering to run for president. Do you plan to campaign with any of these national Democrats coming through? Have you thought about that? This is a question a lot of Senate candidates are getting in these sort of red states. You know, I'm really focused on spending as much time as I can with South

“Carolina voters. That's what's most important. That is my path to win. And that's also why I'm in”

this race. You're right. There's a lot of national Democrats who are spending time in South Carolina. And I think that's great because, you know, as we expand the Senate map, that path is definitely throughout the Southeast. We need more Democratic Party investment in the South and having all of this first in the nation attention is only going to help us grow strength as a party in South Carolina. So I welcome these visits. But what I've been saying is I'll return these phone calls

on November 4th when I'm South Carolina's next senator. And then we can start to strategize about what 2028's going to look like. So no campaigning with sort of national Democratic or National Democrats or President or Canada. It's all South Carolina, which we're saying. It's not our focus. We're taking it on a case by case basis. You know, people to judge was just in town for our issues and you will issues conference. And you know, I had the fortune of saying hello to him there.

But we're really focused on spending time with voters. And you're a candidate. You're also a

“doctor. I wanted to get your reaction to the, what is going on this country with the measles outbreak?”

You know, there's reports that RFQ Jr may have lied to Congress. We know this is now. I think by some measures, the largest measles outbreak in the United States in 35 years, what's your reaction? I mean, most of what comes out of RFQ Jr's mouth are lies. So I'm not surprised to hear that. But I got in this race. I seriously started considering getting in this race. The day RFQ Jr was nominated to lead HHS. Because as a pediatrician, he's been my professional

archenemesis for decades. He's nothing more than a grifter and a conspiracy theorist who's been peddling in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories for decades while simultaneously enriching himself. And as a result of that, as a pediatrician, I've watched over my 20-year career, a slow and steady rise in vaccine refusal in vaccine hesitancy. And that is the exact reason that we are seeing

a measles outbreak in Spartanburg County where there were nearly 1,000 documented cases of the measles.

“So one of the reasons it is so urgent that Democrats win in November is because we cannot”

allow RFQ Jr to have two more years of unfettered access leading our nation's department of health and human services. This executive order from the Trump administration dismantling the routine childhood immunization schedule is not at all based on an evolution of scientific evidence. It is based on political ideology. Children will unnecessarily get sick and suffer and some will die as a result of this disinformation campaign from the federal department of health and

human services. RFQ Jr's ascension, everything we're talking about here, the rise of vaccine

skepticism is all sort of of a piece with sort of the rise of the quote unquote "make America

healthy again." Movement where you, and I imagine this is something you probably run into with a lot of some of the families of your patients where people have very legitimate questions about food safety. What's the right choice for their kids? And people like RFQ Jr and others have sort of weaponized that and push the country into some dangerous directions. Have you thought about how as a senator or as a public figure you with your medical expertise can push back on the

“rise of Maha and maybe have conversations with these well-meaning I think parents who maybe”

are getting a lot of bad information from social media? Yeah and I like that you said well-meaning parents because I don't blame the parents, you know even the parents of the children who are dying from these preventable infectious diseases because they've chosen not to vaccinate their

children. Parents don't know where to turn for reliable information. I never in a million years

thought that I would say the sentence we cannot trust the medical recommendations coming from our federal government but we can't. We have to turn to our individual physicians so I encourage parents to talk to their own pediatricians to follow along with what the American Academy of Pediatrics is saying because that is an evidence-based organization but what they've done is really clever and dangerous because they're laundering this really you know anti-science agenda under this umbrella

“of making America healthy again of addressing the chronic disease epidemic that children in America are”

facing. So when I'm asked what I agree with the Trump administration on one of the things I say is they've signed the light on the chronic disease epidemic amongst children in this country but where we disagree is the root causes of that chronic disease epidemic and actually the solution. So you can't in one sentence say we want to address chronic diseases in children and then in the next action you've got the Medicaid program which is the largest insurer of children across the country.

You can't put someone like RFK Jr at the helm of HHS and pretend like you're following scientific you know scientifically sound medical recommendation. So they've signed a light on the problem. I'm going to win my election. I'll go toe to toe with RFK Jr. We will impeach and remove him and then we will take that big bright light they shined on this epidemic and then actually address it through an evidence-based scientifically sound approach. Before I let you go I want to give you

a chance to tell our listeners where they can go to help your campaign if they so choose. Yeah so they can go to Dr. Annie Andrews.com and they can follow along on social media we're very active on social media at any Andrews M.D. We also just launched a new exciting website called debatemeedarlene.com where they can go and see how many days hours minutes and seconds it's been since I challenged Arlene Graham to debate me this general election season. So lots of ways to follow

along I encourage people to check out the website chip in what they can and help us expand the Senate map through the South and this really exciting opportunity in South Carolina. Dr. Annie Andrews thank you so much for joining us on positive America and good luck down the stretch here. Thank you so much Dan. That's our show for today. Thanks to Annie Andrews for coming on. I will be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with our old friend David

Plough about how the midterms and 2028 are shaping up. Bye everyone. Positive America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Faris Safari with Reed-Chirlin, Elijah Cone and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Canter, Charlotte Landis, Kieril Tel Aviv, David tolls, Mia Kelman Ryan Young and Naomi Single. Our staff is probably unionized with the writer's

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