The Worst Way to Spend $200 Billion

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I'm Dan Fyfer. On today's show, we're going to talk about how the war in Iran is turning into a global economic crisis. Why the Pentagon thinks it'll cost us at least another $200

billion, and whether Congress will actually approve that funding. The senior Trump official,

who just resigned over the war, the fight over confirming Trump's next homeland security secretary that involves an actual physical fight. The other actual physical fight that will take place on the White House lawn this summer, apex roll in this week's Democratic primaries in Illinois, and then the winner of one of those primaries talks to Dan, Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratten, who's on her way to becoming the next Democratic senator from the state of Illinois.

Also, please consider becoming a subscriber if you haven't already, so that you don't miss out on any crcode content. For any of the pod subscribers get our new extra episode of Podsave America called Podsave America Only Friends. Other subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster, with this guy right here, Dan Fyfer. I just, you just recorded another one, right? I did. We talked about the, what happened in Illinois in, in great detail, the role APAC played in that race, and

we got, did a deep dive in the polling on the Iran War, and why this is not going so great

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subscribe today. All right, let's dive in. Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu started a war in Iran that has now engulfed the Middle East and triggered a global energy crisis that's quickly becoming a global economic crisis. On Wednesday, Israel bombed the largest natural gas reserve in the world, which Iran shares with Qatar, Iran then retaliated with attacks on energy infrastructure across the Middle East, including a hit on a Qatari natural gas complex that has wiped out a good

but also said that if Iran keeps attacking energy infrastructure, he'll quote massively blow up the rest of their gas reserve. The president is also reportedly considering sending in ground troops to secure the straight-of-hormous, which remains closed. On Wednesday night, oil shot past $118 of barrel gas prices are approaching $4 a gallon, and after a worse than expected inflation report, the Fed decided to hold interest rates steady. Here's how this is all playing, if you turn on

the TV. Far worse news on prices than expected. Americans have been grappling, of course, with surging gas prices up $86 a gallon since the Iran war began. It's almost the worst of both worlds. I guess that inflation would come close to describing the situation. Since the war began, the price of the pump is risen every day this month. I would think that records could be said. People are already seeing gas prices. Gas prices are up almost a dollar a gallon.

Near-term measures of inflation expectations have risen in recent weeks, likely reflecting the substantial rise in oil prices, caused by the supply disruptions in the

“Middle East. Tough stuff. Pretty scary. So that's what people are seeing on their screens.”

And here's the Trump White House, feeling people's pain. Well, prices will go up. The economy will go down a little bit. I feel it would be worse. Much worse, actually. I thought there was a chance to get me much worse. It's not bad. As much as we've got, we got to focus on getting

these gas prices down. The reality is, overseas, they're feeling it far worse than we did.

If it weren't to be extended, this wouldn't really disrupt the US economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers. And we'd have to think about, you know, if that continued, what we would have to do about that. But that's like really the last of our concerns right now. If you could say something to President Trump, he was going to hear you right now. What would it be? You're a worthless pile of shit. And you voted for him many times. Three times. That was my

bad. Apparently I'm an idiot. Love that woman. The best. I can't tell which of those clips is worse. Like, JD events being like, I know you're paying a lot in gas prices, but just think of how high the gas prices are in Europe right now. At least you're not Europe. Or Kevin has it being like, you have the war's extended. We may have to, you know, it's not going to really hurt anything, but consumers. And we may have to think about that. But really the last of our concerns right now.

Kevin has it is possibly the worst spokesperson than any White House's putout. He at every opportunity steps on a rake. Like, it is very possible that somewhere there is some Democratic super PAC that books him on TV. And he just assumes the White House is doing it because he's so bad. I mean, so is Scott Bessant. So was the Treasury Secretary? We could have included like five Scott Bessant clips in here, but we didn't have time. Like, the two chief economic spokespeople

for the White House, Kevin has it and Scott Bessant are the most out of touch fucking doofuses that I've ever seen talked for a White House. They work for a president who spends all of his time during a era of high prices talking about the gold leaf that he's procuring for the White House. How affordability is a hoax. And then we shouldn't let Trump off the hook there. Just being like,

“yeah, honestly, I thought it was going to be so much worse. It's not bad. It's not bad.”

Saying that near $4 a gallon gas is not bad is just a historic gap. There's so many gaps. It's the whole thing. It is all the gap.

The second Trump administration has been one giant gap. Boy, what a painful fucking

gap it's been. Yeah, it's a tough gap. It seems like the chances are getting quite low that Iran will be a quick excursion, as Trump calls it, not an incursion, an excursion. That just causes short-term price hikes. What do you think? I just, I've, I've thought this for three weeks now. It's calling the war with Iran that his put us on the cuss with a gold energy crisis, a synonym for a pleasure cruise. It's such

really insane choice. It's so, especially when, when the, the center of the war is keeping

“a body of water. Yeah, you know, you can't do an excursion, the straight-in-for-muse, right?”

Oh my god. I mean, this is such, this really is the worst case scenario of Trump. When you have a president who has no idea what he's doing, who is incredibly impulsive, and is now surrounded by people who only tell him what he wants to

hear, you end up in the situation. And it is, like, he, Trump got so lucky in his first term to

avoid things like this. Maybe it was, he had different people around him. Maybe he just didn't

stupid. It is, like, it's unfathomable. Like, there was no point here. Like, we're going to talk

“about some of the, later on this show. We're talking about some of the testimony about the”

various eminent threats and everything else. But, there was no reason to do this. There's no plan

for how to, for how it was supposed to go. They didn't think beyond the first bombs. They didn't

consider that the straight-in-for-muse might be blocked, which every person who's ever studied, a war with Iran said would happen. And they have no plan to get us out of it. And they're just, like, bubbling along the whole way. And it's, like, it's people, like, obviously, there's been, you know, American troops have died, civilians all across the Middle East have died. The girl's school in Iran was bombed. Americans are paying a higher price at the pump.

There are shocks as a kind of thing we felt for months. If not longer, even if Trump somehow wraps this thing up in a week, which seems very hard to fathom. But the, the damage of the economy is being done right now. And for no fucking reason. Well, it's insane. And, and that's an

“important point because the no fucking reason part, the no fucking reason part. Yeah. I think there's a,”

because you, I've seen some people compare it to the tariffs, right? And, like, remember liberation

day. And in the weeks after liberation day, we were like, why, like, I've never seen a president

inflict so much damage political damage on himself for no good reason. And, you know, it turned out that on some of the tariffs, Trump eventually backed off. You know, there's the whole fucking taco thing. And, but that situation was one where if he decided to just stop imposing the tariffs or at least stop imposing certain tariffs, then, you know, the economic damage would be reduced, right? And it would go away a little bit. This is so much different because, like you said, if he,

he could, this whole thing could stop tomorrow, which it's not going to. But if it did, you know, Tracy Alley from Bloomberg, they had the great odd lots podcast with Joe Eisenthall. She wrote

today, each successive day of the Iran conflict now generates months of impact on the global economy.

And the longer it takes the world to adapt to a new reality of reduced Gulf oil flows, the longer and deeper the pain. So, what's happening now is even though gas prices are high right now, the pain in the, in the pricing crease that's coming from the oil disruption in the gas disruption in the Middle East has not even worked its way through the economy just yet, fully. And, you know, oil price experts told CNBC this week that right now we're very much in the $150 barrel range

for like what oil will hit. But I don't think it's ridiculous at all to suggest $200. And even if the war ends right now, it'll take a, they think it'll take a long time for prices to come back down and they probably won't come down to where they were before the war. And that's not even the whole thing. It's not even just oil prices, fertilizer moves through the straight, fertilizer prices impact food prices. Right now is planning season in much of farm country. And you were,

people making decisions about what, what crops the plant and how many acres the plant based on the price of fertilizer, what can they afford to do? And so that's going to affect food supply in food prices this fall when harvest happens. Mortgage rates have gone up for three weeks in a row because of the inflationary impact of this war, which is going to impact people willing to buy houses and sell houses affects the housing market, it freezes capital.

And all of these things are having an effect on an economy that was barely choking along to begin with. And again, like we should talk about sort of options that Trump has right now to reopen the straight-of-hormous and sort of end this crisis. So he's considering sending in ground troops. Although I, I see that he thinks there's a loophole where he can get around calling it ground troops if he sends them to the islands around Iran in the straight-of-hormous. And so if he has

“them take car island, which is the island that they, that, that Trump bombed last week, where I think”

Iran exports like 90% of its oil. But the challenge with that is so you send a bunch of marines in to take the island. You think Iran is then going to stop shooting at the marines or they're going to just allow the straight-of-hormous to be reopened because the idea is that if we take the island, then we can use it as a bargaining chip and that Iran will say, well, no, no, if we're going to be hurt if you have control of this island where all of our oil is exported from. So we'll reopen

the straight-of-hormous in exchange for you giving us back the island. Like they're not going to do that. They are fighting for the survival of their regime at this point. We're like killing off all of their leaders. They're becoming more radical as you go down the the org chart in the Iranian regime.

their leadership. What's to stop random IRGC guys from just blowing up boats? You don't need ballistic

missiles to shoot at boats in the straight-of-hormous. All you need are mines and smaller guns and drones and all that shit. And then they're just going to keep doing that. Why would they stop doing that at this point? Because even if Trump decides the war is over, Iran's not going to think the war is over because Iran's pissed that they've been humiliated like this. And so they're going to make life miserable in the straight-of-hormous for people who are trying to pass oil

through there for, I don't know how long until they feel like there's a settlement to end the war that they've negotiated. And even when it comes to using ground, there are three options with ground troops as I understand it. Short of obviously invading a red. One is to put them along the Marines along the coast of Iran. This would violate the boots on the ground, loophole, to try to take out, to secure the places where they are firing the missiles and launching the attacks.

That's that's one. The second is to take Carg Island, as you said, which would then be some sort of like

monopoly-esque leverage piece that we would use. There's a lot of experts too that are around been building pipelines, they've been figuring out ways to get their oil out to market without Carg Island. And so if the Americans took Carg Island, it's not really even going to matter that much anyway. So there's some thought that that might happen. And the third option is to take a bunch of the islands because it's not Carg Island is where the energy infrastructure is. But you have a bunch of

other islands, most notably one called like Q-Sam or something like that that's sort of at the entry point to the straight. I really feel like Tommy or Ben here and I'm probably getting this wrong. But where they where it's just where they launch a lot, where they have a lot of their military equipment, they have a bunch of the missiles and their boats and their ships there. And that these in there are several other islands. Some of the islands are completely abandoned and uninhabited. And some of

them are home to highly fortified, Iranian, naval and military installations. So that's not an easy thing to do. Either none of these are good options, which is once again why over the last nearly 50 years we have decided not to go to war with Iran despite all of our concerns about the regime.

“And again I feel like we're back debating the end of the war in Iraq. Remember when an Iraq”

became a quagmire and then everyone would say for years and years there's no military solution to end this war. There must be a political solution. But like that's going to be the same thing with Iran, right? Like you can't just drop a bunch of fucking bombs kill a bunch of their leadership

and then in a country of 90 million people who are now with the regime still very much in place,

more radical, angrier, more vengeful, thinking that like somehow they're just going to everyone's just going to pack up and go home. It's just, it's even so different from Iraq. Iran's obviously a much bigger country than Iraq. It's a much more geographically large population complexity there. But also the original, like for a lot of people in Iraq, one incident I'm who same gone. We went into invade to remove Saddam Hussein. And theoretically for a lot of people, it's sickly when

the you had a minority authoritarian represented the ethnic minority. And so there was a world in which you could have possibly, if they had not to push a missionary enough, fucked it up so bad, you know, begun to build a new democracy or peaceful society with the majority population. That is not what's happening in Iran. Right? We didn't go into remove the people, the dictator that everyone hated. We decided to bomb the shit out of the country

and radicalize the population against us. I just remember reading someone said that there was a a lot of people in Iran. There's an entire generation of people in Iran who did not

“grow up hating America. Yeah. Right. They're not part of, they weren't around 1979. I think we've”

any of that. They didn't maybe didn't love us. But there are animating principles, not hate America. And then we blew up a girl's school in their country. So like we're way worse off in our end with Iran than we were before this war. And the Israelis just bombed their natural gas reserve. And I think that like what happened this week with the Israelis hitting their natural gas reserve, the Iranians retaliating by hitting energy infrastructure all across the Gulf, but especially

that katari natural gas hub is like you see how the problem with the like they call it like the latter of escalation. Right. And like one side escalates and the other side then escalates. And there's a lot of miscalculation and miscommunication. And suddenly you've got Trump saying like, well, this was very bad. And I don't want Israel to do this again. But if Iran keeps retaliating, then I'll blow up the rest of its natural gas reserve completely, which will only hurt everything

“more. Everyone would hurt us more. Right. Like that's what happens. And so you're just like,”

if nothing else happens in the whole thing against tomorrow, it's still going to be incredibly hard to fix this. I put this back in the bottle. I don't think you can. I don't know. How bad do you think the politics on this could get for Trump

he's still like hanging around it up or 30s, low 40s. I don't know that it is going to the Trump's approval rating will change that much. Where might come down a few points as the economic consequences get worse for people. But Trump has a pretty high floor in his program. The problem for Republicans here is people do not like this war. Right. They, you know, they and they didn't

like the war before their gas prices started going up. They never understood what we were going into.

It, you have polls that showed that two thirds of Americans have seen their gas prices go up in two weeks. You have six in 10 Americans who just approve health Trump's handling gas prices. And the thing that's interesting is you have the rubbers have not abandoned Trump on this, but you do have about 17% of Republicans in a recent poll that who disapprove of Trump on a ran. You have about a quarter of former Trump voters, which includes independence and Democrats who

“just approved Trump on a run. But I think the most important number here is that in almost every poll,”

the number of Americans who strongly disapprove of this war is two times the number of Americans who strongly approve of this war. So Trump supporters will say they approve of him for it. But they're not excited about this. They don't think it's a good idea. They don't like it. It's reflexive partisanship. And that is very, very bad for turnout in a midterm. Right. There is just like, this is not, you know, you think about maybe the cavernal confirmation in 2018, which fired up

both sides. This is not something, or maybe even immigration could fire up both sides. This is not fire up the Republicans, but it does fire up everyone else and it infuriates independence. Oh, here's something that could make it worse. On top of higher gas prices and higher inflation,

Trump and Pete Hegseth are also asking us to pay another $200 billion for their war,

which is the price tag of the funding request. The Pentagon will soon send to Congress, first reported by the Washington Post, and then confirmed by Hegseth during his latest press conference on Thursday morning, where he once again kicked off his remarks with a series of angry war high coups. A dishonest and anti-Trump press will stop at nothing. We know this at this point to downplay progress, amplify every cost, and call into question every step. Sadly,

TDS is in their DNA. They want President Trump to fail. We hold the cards. We have objectives. Those objectives are clear. We have allies pursuing objectives as well. And the truth speaks for itself, Iranians and energy rich country could be should be. I instead like so many other places driven by a radical ideology, they've spent that money instead of investing in their people.

“That's what's getting it. And they invested missiles, and they invested launchers and UAVs,”

and we are destroying and just creating that, degrading that any store of proportions. As far as

$200 billion, I think that number could move, obviously. It takes money to kill bad guys.

So many other places where government with driven by radical ideology invests instead of in its people and weapons and guns and bombs. Just horrible. I just hate that. Just it seems. I can't believe I finger on it, but it seems familiar in some way, shape or form. TDS is in their DNA. We have objectives. We hold cards. We read remarks in a weird tone. Who do you think the press criticism for is for in everyone of these press cameras?

It must be, but it's so weak. It is so weak. They're just so angry every day. They think that they're like, I don't know if it's if they've just convinced themselves that they're doing great, things are going well, and so they're just shocked that anyone would report otherwise. But I mean, clearly they have thin skin, and he doesn't like the press, which is why he kicked most of them out of the briefing room and then from the Pentagon.

Doesn't like the press. What did he do before this was he was he he talked about he talked about cable news, punditree in that briefing today. You like mocked cable news, punditree. The fucking the fox weekend under study. Pete Hicks. Yes, the guy who's primary responsibility was to answer the phone if Steve Ducing got the flu during the week. Anyway, once we got through all the war high coups, the $200 billion, which he said, I might come up

or down. We'll see. Can you imagine a more unpopular vote than supporting $200 billion for a war

“that is currently making a bad economy even worse? No, I cannot. I think it would be. I mean,”

we like we asked this question about the big beautiful bill. Like could you imagine a bill

millionaires and billionaires for tax cuts? Can you imagine something worse than that? Yes, we can,

John, a $200 billion for an agency that has a $1 trillion budget for a war no-one once in his

raising your gas prices. That would actually be a worse vote. I thought this was horrific when it was going to be $50 billion. Yes, if they came in with $15 billion, I would think it would be a bad vote. In fact, part of me thinks and I don't know they're probably not this smart, but part of me thinks that they leaked $200 billion so that they could go down to $100 billion or $50 billion and be like, "See, it's not that bad. After all, we compromise. We looked around and we

“cut some corners and we felt like we can do it for $50. We don't need $200. I think this number”

will come down because I think Congress is not going to do to it. I don't think there are votes for $200 billion, but we can talk about that. I think this is the Pentagon leaking this ahead of

the White House getting the number to try to lock them into $200 billion. So it's like the military

says this is what we need because this is something that the military is sort of notorious for and their appropriations is to put the number out there because they think if it comes from the military is more likely to be passed before the White House tries to dumb it down. The White House certainly wouldn't want to be caught reducing the number, but I think this is a smaller number when it goes to Congress just because there's a reality of trying to pass it. But even still,

I don't care if they come down at $100. I don't care if they come at $50. This is a horrendous vote. It's something that every Democrat should vote against. It is voting for this would be insane in my mind. Insane. Again, the under Donald Trump

“Congress approved about $1 trillion for the Pentagon. For that money goes on. Where did that money go?”

$200 billion. Again, these are like big numbers. It's hard to get your head around them.

I did this with the $50 billion when we thought it was going to be $50 billion. Here's what,

here's what $200 billion could do for the government could do with $200 billion. Could restore Obamacare subsidies for $22 million Americans who just lost their subsidies in Obama and watching their premiums go up. It could restore those subsidies for six years for $22 million people. Could eliminate nearly all medical debt in America. It's all the medical debt that's out there in America. We could we could do that instead of $200

billion so we could drop more bombs on Iran. Community college free for everyone for two decades. Two decades? Two decades. One point three million affordable housing units. Food stamps for 42 million Americans for two full years. Free school lunches for every kid in America for five years. Fully fund-wicked, which is women and infant children program for pregnant mothers and infants. Food assistance and medicine for them for 24 years. $200 billion. Pick one of those things that we

could do with $200 billion. Instead, we are using $200 billion to drop more bombs on Iran to intercept missiles from Iran and to, I don't know what the fuck else we're doing there. Just to send troops to take carguerland, which is not troops on the ground because it's sort of no, it's troops on the island. Yeah, it's not troops on the ground. I don't know, like do you think this will pass Congress? It's hard right now to see, they'll do it as a

reconciliation bill so they will do it in the Senate. I think I think I've heard they were

“going to try to do this as a reconciliation bill because the only thing they can get 60 in the Senate.”

But I don't know. Yeah, they have to do it, right? You don't know what you get. I'm trying to think like, not saying my, my knowledge of the bird rule was great at the time or it was really sustained over the last 15 years. But I'm curious how you would do that. But it's in here and over there. Let's just start with the house. If I say, if I see 10, if it's a 60 vote threshold and I see that many Democrats vote for it, I will leave the Democratic Party. That's not John.

That's not put your entire future in your ability to participate in primaries in the hands. I can name 10 Democrats who'd make you nervous right now. And the only needs seven. The only needs seven. Okay, federalmen. So federalmen and six others. Well, the people who open the government. Yeah. Now, if you really look at that list, I don't that list doesn't go for this because like Tim Kane, I think was on that list and Tim can't solve them. I mean, I'm really trying to think

of what what the arguments that they would make, right, which is okay. Well, actually, this isn't new money for Iran. This is money to replenish our munitions and the stuff that we've used in Iran and it's actually over the last five or six or seven years. We've sort of running low on all these supplies and because we used a bunch, we now have to refill them because it's about our defense and for the next war and what if we get attacked and so like, isn't that the arguments that

they would do? I think the argument they will make is we wouldn't have entered this war ourselves. But we're in it now. We have a lot of our troops here in harm's way, either military

Trump called it, and we have to give the straight-of-formers open and that's going to take money.

“So we have to give them in lives now. And lives. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I think that's why we need to”

we need to send some troops to their death and we need to spend a lot of money at billions and billions of dollars that we don't have so that we can reopen the straight-of-formers that was only closed because we started a war. I mean, it is where we are. It's, it's twisted logic, for sure. But, you know, a lot of the people on the armed services committee and other parts of, you know, are captured by the military on some of these things. And of course, of course, if we don't,

if they don't vote for the funding and the funding doesn't go through, you can't bring the troops home. You just must leave them there in harm's way. There's stuck there because we'll not be stuck, that's far. We can't just, we can't just get on the boats and come home. We must leave the troops there.

That's what else are we supposed to do? Here's the thing, whether it passes.

Is Donald Trump did not ask for authorization for this war? This is a war. This is not an excursion. It is a war. Troops have died. It's obviously cost $200 billion. It is rattled. It's created a spiraling conflict in the Middle East. This is a war. We know it's a war because Donald Trump keeps calling it a war when he doesn't call an excursion. He refers to it as the war. And as does this defense secretary who keeps saying war is hell a million times.

If you fuckin' briefing. And so, to vote for this is to defact a vote to authorize this war. And no Democrats should do that. This episode of Ponsa America is brought to you by Graza, makers of crazy fresh olive oil and other great stuff made with crazy fresh olive oil.

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If you said yes to both, welcome home. I'm Erin Ryan. And I'm Alyssa Mastermonico. And we're the host of hysteria, the podcast for women who care about democracy culture and not losing their minds in the process. We break down the news, call out the nonsense, and spotlight the women actually fighting back on Capitol Hill in classrooms and everywhere the stakes are high. It's sharp honest analysis featuring women's voices with humor and zero handholding.

Listen to hysteria wherever you get your podcasts and watch full episodes on YouTube. So we've talked a lot about the MAGA media stars who turned on Trump over Iran. But this week we got the first actual defection from within the administration. Joe Kent Trump's handpicked director of the National Counterterrorism Center resigned in a letter where he said that quote, Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation and that quote, we started this war due to pressure

from Israel and its powerful American lobby. Kent was a very far-right, extremely Trumpy politician

before taking this job. He's also a former CIA officer and retired green bray who served 11 combat tours regardless of who he is. His now former boss, director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, didn't refute what he said about Iran not posing an imminent threat during her congressional testimony this week. Here's Kent talking about why he resigned on Tucker Carlson show and then gathered in front of Congress in an exchange with John Osaf.

Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation. How did you reach that conclusion? I think this is key. I mean, this would be more challenging to explain, had the Secretary of

this attack at this time because the Israelis were about to do so. So that takes away the argument

“that there was an imminent threat. As in, Iran was planning to attack us immediately. That just”

simply did not exist. Was it the intelligence community's assessment that never the less

despite this obliteration? There was a quote imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime. Yes or no? It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat. But here's the problem. You know, it is precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to the United States. This is the worldwide threats hearing. That is, that's Tulsi Gabbard who actually sold no war with Iran t-shirts

when she was running for president. And as a Democrat. But what an irony she has taken to be the DNI to a Republican president who started a war with Iran. What do you make of Kent's resignation? We should also say that now Kent is under investigation

“for leaking classified information. The FBI law enforcement sources maintain that the investigation”

was opened before he resigned because they clearly don't want it to seem like this is any kind of retribution. Who knows if they're telling the truth or not? They don't tell the truth about

many things. So it's hard to believe them. When Kent first resigned, there was a bunch of Democrats

who went out and said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this guy is a extremist who believes in conspiracy theories. Do not get on his, don't, don't endorse this, don't get on his side." Tell me the person in the Trump administration who could resign in protest ever something who would not be an extremist who believes in conspiracy theories. Name one of them. It's like people take the fucking win. Right? Like he's he's head of counterterrorism resigned because he said the war was a mistake.

There was no imminent threat. Now if you listen to the whole Tucker Carlson interview, there's a lot of wacky stuff in there. There's some way. Well, it actually it gets so much wacky at the end. It starts off. And I will say Tucker sounds way wackier than Joe Kent, even though I know. And we look, we covered his race against Marie Glissington Perez. Like he is, he's a psycho. Like, he's a lot of his beliefs are crazy, but the many of the things he said in Tucker Carlson's

interview, you don't have to believe that Joe Kent is a wonderful person to believe them.

“All you have to do is line them up with other facts and other things that people have said.”

And one of the most important things he says is one of the reasons we're at war is that the

people who have contrary views to the president on many matters, particularly the matter of war with Iran is we're not allowed to see the president. The those views were kept from him. That has been one of the big problems with this administration. And this is actually a change. He said under Operation Midnight Hammer, there was a large debate within the administration about the pros and cons of doing that. This time that debate did not happen. And so that

like what he is saying, put it upside to all of his other crazy views. The argument he is making here is the right argument about how we got here. And it is notable that someone this high up in this administration has resigned over it. Like that is a big fucking deal. And we can't be like so precious about all of his views. Like it really like, I don't want to hammer on this. But if the view of the idea is that we will accept no whistleblowers who are kind of wacky, we will accept no whistleblowers

to Trump administration. Like from poor political pointies, that cannot happen. But it's also just like if you want point out the parts of his argument that you don't like that are wacky, right? So, you know, he leans pretty heavily into it. It's like the Israel lobby got us into the war and they convinced Trump and clearly he and Tucker believe that. And this is where their argument falls flat because they can't bring themselves to just admit that Donald Trump

is a fucking moron easily persuaded by anyone he talks to. So yes, BB Netanyahu and Israeli intelligence may have persuaded Trump to bomb Iran into joining this war. But also, Trump could have been just as easily persuaded by watching a fucking segment on Hannity with Mark Levin. Yes. Like it doesn't like you do it doesn't it doesn't matter whether it's Israel, whether it's Fox, whether it's someone on fucking Twitter, whether it's some jack-off in his administration that that's persuades him.

Like Donald Trump is an easily persuadable moron. Tucker can't see that or maybe he can he doesn't want to admit it same thing with Joe Kent. And so they do the Israel thing. But like it is clear that BB Netanyahu has wanted to invade Iran and do this forever. And he was very open about it just the other week instead of wanted to do this for 40 years. And now the Americans

parts of his life has been reported or alleged, like really dabbles in anti-Semitic tropes.

“Like that is that is very clear. Put that aside. Even if you don't want to have the Israel”

discussion even though as Joe Kent says in that clip, Mark Rubio and Mike Johnson said the same thing in public as to why we we attacked around that. The point he is saying is there was no threat and the decision making process that got us into this war was fucked up and the people with the sending views were not allowed near the president. So now we're in a bad war. So he has to quit to have his voice heard because his warning and conscience would not be heard in the administration.

So he had to quit that it like I'm just so annoyed at all of these especially these former Biden national security goopers are on here like lecturing us about the dangers of Joe Kent. Yes, sit down. So beautiful. Like Iran was not close to getting a nuclear weapon. It did not have ballistic missiles that could reach the United States and wouldn't for 10 years and wouldn't for 10 years. It was not an imminent threat to the United States or to US interests.

And according to Mark Rubio, the Israelis decided that they were going to strike and we join them according to Mark Rubio because if the Israelis struck, then Iran would retaliate against

us. And so we wanted to go first. But he had a clear answer. These are just the facts on the table

that no one in the administration has been able to refute, including Tulsi Gabbard under oath

“in Congress this week. No. Just you have to take a step back and think of the second, which is”

we're in a war. The President of the United States has said repeatedly that he had a feeling that they were about to attack us. And then in his bones, he's going to end this war when he's filled with his bones. But just millions of Americans woke up on a Saturday morning where like we're in war with Iran. And then the President goes out and tells you the reason we're at war with Iran is because he thought Iran was about to attack us. That it was an imminent threat.

And now you have two of the highest ranking intelligence officials in the country saying that is not true.

Like that is a scandal of epic proportions. But because Donald Trump's a dufist, and everyone

treats them like a dufist on a curve, we don't take that seriously. But that's the story he's telling the American people. That's what he's telling people why we're at war. And that is being contradicted. And we can't because he just says dumb shit all the time. He shouldn't avoid it being held accountable for lying to the country about why we're in a war. Yeah. Yeah. Most of the government says dumb shit. That's also crazy. Yeah. All right. The other big congratulations,

speaking of dumb shit. The other big congressional hearing this week was about confirming Trump's pick to run the Department of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullen. The Oklahoma Senator took questions from his colleagues while the department he hopes to lead remains shut down over Republicans refusal to reform ICE. People are waiting hours and airport security lines right now because so many TSA agents who've been working without pay because of the shutdown are calling in sick

Democrats keep trying to fund TSA and all of the non immigration related parts of DHS. But Republicans keep refusing and the White House still won't concede to Democrats demands that ICE officers do things like stop wearing masks and obtain judicial warrants before arresting people during his confirmation hearing. Mullen wouldn't promise these concessions either. Nor did he offer any reassurances that he'd run DHS much differently than Christy Nome.

But he did spend a good amount of time arguing with fellow Republican Rand Paul about whether he deserved to have the shit kicked out of him and whether two consenting senators should still be able to settle their differences with the duel. Tell the world why you believe I deserve to be assaulted from behind have six ribs broken in a damage long tell me to my face why you think I deserved it and while you're at it explain to the American public

why they should trust a man with anger issues to set the proper example for ICE and border patrol agents. You supported the felonious violent attack on me from behind. I did not say I supported it. I said I understood it. Is it today your opinion that the canning of Charles Sumner was not only justified but argues still for resolving our political differences with violence? What I was simply pointing out is some

of the rules that still apply to this body. For instance, doing with two consenting adults is still there. I was pointing out what is illegal for 170 years. There's no precedent for legal dueling even then they've led the country. I'm not going to be the smartest guy in any room I walk into. What is the primary mission of homeland security investigations? As I said, that's protect the homeland, bring peace of mind and secure the security and secure the confidence of the American

“people. HSI specifically is very important because they specialize in dealing with human trafficking,”

human smuggling, you know, counterfeit, being frontings of that nature. I actually have a lot of friends that work for them. I just want you to know that the whole thing about the dueling

first few minutes, Dan. His use of two consenting adults is very funny because in the viral

club, when he tried to fight the guy from the team source, he also used the term two consenting adults. He said, we're two consenting adults. We can finish this man demand and then told him to stand up and go outside so they can fight outside the hearing room. Yeah, for people who missed that and Rand Paul brought it up, Mark Reemell and did it before to hearing threatened to fight Shano Bryan of the teamsters physically fight. So this, you know, it wasn't just about

to take his wedding ring off. So I just didn't want to damage it by punching Shano Bryan in the face. I mean, the club is really worth watching because then Bernie Sanders is like sit down here here. United States Senator. Bernie's going to break up the fight. So you'll be shocked to learn that

Rand Paul voted against Mullins' confirmation, but he's still got voted out of committee because

of a yes vote from John Fetterman. How about that? That's surprising. It should be surprising. I mean, it's not surprising. It should be fucking enraging to people. What do you like? John Fetterman's like, I called him my friend and I'm glad that Donald Trump fired Christy Nome, like I called on him, heard to be fired, and I was like, come on, man.

“It's just, he just trolls now. That's what he does. Well, so the guy, like, I mean, the funny clip”

was the rampal thing, but the guy I go thing, which we could have gone and done more of that. Like, he has no idea. Like, like a lot, what a large segment of the Department of Homeland Security is. It does. What, like he was just bumbling through that answer. The guy's been in Congress. He's been in the Senate for a couple of years. He's been in the house for even before that. The guy's been in Congress for many years now, many years. And you don't know what the

Department of Homeland Security. You don't know the different functions of the Department of Homeland

Security? He's never worked on these issues in any way, shape or form. Like, he went from just

being a guy to being, like, two weeks ago. And now he's having his earache, like, mean. Do you think it's time to, first of all, he's probably going to get confirmed, right? Because Fetterman's-- Yeah, no, he might have some shit now. Great, wonderful. So now we got Mark Wayne Mullen and maybe he's going to bring back dueling at DHS. What do you think about whether DHS ever gets opened again? And these TSA lines and the airports, and it feels like it's getting to the point

where the public's like what the fuck? And, you know, I still think it is hard for Republicans

“to explain why a fight over ICE has to hold up the funding of the rest of the department, I think.”

Obviously, there are some airports for the TSA lines have been, you know, like, out the door just like taking forever. I've seen, you know, footage from Texas. I think Austin at the end of South by Southwest where the line was, like, unbelievable and took a crumbly long time. Other airports were that's not happening. I think that Democrats should take bring two ideas into this decision-making process. One is, they are really under no political pressure to give in here.

No one knows what this fight is about. They don't know that this is about a democratic shutdown over ICE. There are a bunch of not going to be able to tell anyone that because Donald Trump launched a war that is dominating attention. And so when people see long lines, they're more likely to be in the incumbent party than the Democratic party in this. If I just, I would not feel political pressure to cave here. I think you also have to be realistic about

what you can actually achieve. So is there some real reforms that you can get that are maybe short of everything you want, but our real would make it into people's lives now. And then recognize that you're most likely going to have the house and maybe the Senate next year and have even more leverage to demand even stronger reforms. So like what you don't want to do, I think, is be so stubborn now that you're going to have another 10 months with ICE operating

without these reforms. Because you're making the perfect enemy of the good. So if there's something some real things here, and the White House wants to deal, they're sending a, I read in a punch bowl this afternoon, they're sending another counter offer back. So they send it off for the Democrats reject those any counter, or there seems to be some momentum to try to get something done here. So like, set up, you know, what are the things we you think you really absolutely

have to have? It won't be everything. And then prepare for a much bigger battle next year when you control which bill gets to the floor of the house. I think that's fair. I think that yeah,

“that the offer that the White House sent, that's what the offer you take. It was basically like”

we'll do all the things that are in the law that we haven't been doing, which is just bullshit, you know. And so you've got to have, you do got to have some kind of real reform there. I think what's what's most difficult is right now, some of the most egregious things that ICE and DHS are doing are not going to be fixed by reforming ISIS practices, like, you know, I saw that. I was treated about this, but I saw this story this week that, like,

a man who's been in this country, his whole life, he's a doctor recipient, he was brought here

new baby in the ICU and his wife and ICE picked him up and arrested him and is now trying to

deport him, even though he was a doctor recipient protected by DACA, was already applying to renew his DACA status and the Trump administration just decided not to renew it, just drag their feet on it, and so they scooped him up and now they're going to try to deport him. And it's like nothing that Democrats are asking for or nothing that ICE, you know, no reforms to ICE right now would change that horrific practice and so you're right that, like, you have to be honest about what you can achieve

through these reforms and I do think, like, getting, you know, forcing them to obtain judicial

“warrants and getting the masks off are to really important things, but I agree that you have to be”

honest about what you can achieve and, but I also think you're right that, like, the political pressure is not on Democrats as much as it's on Republicans right now. Yeah, I think, right, like, just as I'd say, the, your motivating factor should be, we have 10 months or so until we are in charge of the house, if we win the house, right, but you're, that's what you're up, you're planning for what can you do that improves people's lives and improves the contact device over the next 10

months that is actually achievable and when make a difference. And if you can find something to make a difference and improve the process, maybe it's just your warrants, maybe it's something else that be willing to take that now. Yeah, before we move on from this, I should also mentioned that NBC news reported on Thursday, that a year ago, Kristinaum Fuckboy, Corey Lewandowski pulled a leg of my, a leg of my, the lawyer's got a mayor and said, say, a leg of my, told a

“DHS private prison contractor, then in order for his company to win more government contracts,”

Lewandowski would need to get paid a success fee, special government employee, Corey Lewandowski getting paid a success fee. After the company declined to pay Lewandowski, the company's federal contracts with DHS strength, because according to a senior DHS official, talked to NBC, Lewandowski told officials not to award any more contracts to the company. What do you think is that normal to solicit bribes from your private prison contractor when you're

in government? There's not a lot of normal going on with so-called Lewandowski thing. Is it normal for the alleged lover of the married, Department of Homeland Security Secretary to become the gatekeeper in the person who made all decisions? No, is it normal for a random employee to demand a badge at a gun? No, is it normal for someone to take on a temporary role that allowed them to only work about whatever it is, 120 days, then work much longer by going in the building without

“swiping their badge, which was in that Wall Street Journal story back then, so that wouldn't count”

on his days of service. No, not too normal. But it may be normal on the Trump administration,

so that we don't know. We're not, and this isn't just like, there's a million things we

talk about that are corrupt and unethical. This is just like a legal. It's just a pride. It's just soliciting bribes. And Corey Lewandowski, I mean, this is- I mean, it was like, don't want time across to start investigating it now, because then Trump gives him the pardon. Just hold off till you might be the one who doesn't get the pardon in the end. I was going to say, just just, well, everyone be quiet about Corey Lewandowski,

let's wait for Trump to leave office, and then then people can jump in. Positive America is brought to you by DOS. Here is something I did not spend a lot of time thinking about in my 20s, but definitely think more about now, cholesterol. Not obsessively, just as part of a broader effort to behave like a responsible adult, that is where DOS for cholesterol comes in, it's a convenient daily liquid supplement designed to easily fit into your routine.

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“get your podcasts and watch full episodes on YouTube.”

All right, let's talk democratic politics. We got some primary results on Tuesday, in Illinois, J.B. Pritzgriss, chosen candidate Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, who you'll hear Dan Talk to in a moment, will be the Democratic nominee for Senate. But the big story of the night was the role that pro Israel advocacy group A-PAC played in

several house primaries, where affiliated superpacks with A-PAC spent $22 million, at least $7 million

of that $22 million was spent just in the ninth district primary, where Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss beat out progressive activist and longtime crooked contributor, Cat Abigail Gazzale. The catch is A-PAC directed most of their spending in that race against Biss, even though he has in Israeli mother and has refused to call what's happened in Gaza, a genocide. But because he advocated for conditioning aid to Israel, A-PAC spent

$7 million to defeat him and they failed and their candidate in the Illinois 7th lost as well, though A-PAC backed House candidates Donna Miller and Melissa Bean won their primary, so A-PAC went

two and two. In his victory speech, Biss called out the group by name and criticized it, quote,

"supporting the idea that we can't accept nuance in the U.S.-Israel relationship. Other Democrats outside of Illinois are also reevaluating their relationship with the organization, Arizona Senator Ruben Gaiago, a 28 hopeful, told Politico this week that he wouldn't take any A-PAC money and called settler violence in the West Bank, quote, "disgusting." What do you make of the role A-PAC played in Illinois and just the role they're playing in

Democratic primaries overall? I know you have a great piece about this in the message box today. Today, you came out today. Thursday, yesterday.

“Honestly, I read it this morning and I felt like it was already yesterday.”

It's been a long day. It's been a long day. Today is Jack's fifth birthday, so we have been at it. It's a happy birthday, Jack. Yes, he woke. He woke up at about 5-20 this morning, which was awesome. It was all excited, but it also woke up at 5. Yesterday was his birthday, so it's been a very busy day in our house. And if you want that message box or any other ones, you can subscribe it. Forget that comes last year. Yes, we did. For a 20% discount

and a organic plug. I think that the what happened in the ninth district of Illinois is just the classic example of how assonine and counterproductive A-PAC's political strategy has been. Because Daniel Biss would have been a potential ally, not a ardent supporter of everything A-PAC stands for, but some of that they could engage with in good faith. Instead, they spent millions of dollars trying to defeat him and now they have created an adversary. And you're seeing that across the board.

“And the problem for A-PAC is getting going in races. They don't run any, that was important”

thing to know here. They don't run any ads about the U.S. is really relationship. They only run ads about other things in New Jersey when they were trying to defeat Tom Maloneowski and accidentally

elected the progressive opponent. Instead, they spent two million dollars attacking him on ice

funding. And this race when they switched their funding to try to beat KAT, they tried to suppress her vote at the ends to maybe help Lara find their their chosen candidate. They threw a group that was called like Alex Chicago women. They ran ads accusing her of being a fake progressive. And so they operate in the, with the shadowy groups running ads at that nothing to do with their stated purposes and organization to hand-picked Democrats. And that has polarized Democrats against them.

And hurt their cause. There will be less Democrats in Congress willing to deal with A-PAC because of the way they're acting in these primaries. And the thing is is that they refuse to acknowledge the reality of how Democrats perception and really the country's perception of Israel has changed. Everyone, there's been a dramatic shift among Democrats who approve of the U.S. is really relationship of dramatic shift around Americans who, whether they sympathize more with his

values of the Palestinians, people attribute that to being a dramatic shift to being primarily about a shift among Democrats, but it's not. It is, yes, that is true, but it's mostly among Democrats, but even that independence, the number of independence who approve of the U.S. is really relationship is down 19 points since the aftermath of October 7th, Monk Republicans is down nine points. And so you can't go in there and try to bludgeon people into 100% support of your agenda.

you know, sort of exploding every loophole in campaign finance. And essentially they're operating

“just in a way that Democrats should have one to have nothing to do with them. Like it is a,”

it is such a bad faith, cynical politics. And what makes it even worse is it's bad faith, cynical politics that is executed with abjecting competence, which as a former political operative does bother me as well. Here's the problem with APAC. APAC wants you to think they are a pro Jewish organization. They want you to think they are a pro Israel organization. In reality, APAC is an organization that promotes Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Israel. APAC is an

organization that supports spending our tax dollars to fund the Israeli military with no conditions.

APAC is an organization that supports the Iran war that we have just spent most of the pod

talking about how badly it's going, how dangerous it is, how many lives it's taken, how much money it's costing. APAC is an organization that supports Israel fighting in Lebanon,

“which is starting to look like the war they fought in Gaza, which has led 2,000s and thousands”

of civilians dying most of them children. That is what APAC supports. That is the policies APAC supports. If APAC truly believed that those policies are popular, then it would spend its considerable resources making the case to voters in support of those policies. The ads that APAC ran would be about the policies that APAC supports in the policies it demands the people who run for office that it supports also support. APAC doesn't do that. APACs too scared to run on their policies.

APAC will tweet about their policies in the Twitter world, but when it comes to running ads, when it comes to actually presenting a case to voters, APAC hides behind random super PAC, shady super PACs, different names concerned women for Chicago or Illinois, right? Whatever they fucking called themselves an Illinois and New Jersey and they do it all over the place and they say, "Oh, other super PACs do that, too?" Yeah, sure they do. That doesn't make them any better.

The other way to do that are primarily the ads in the crypto industry. Yeah, so good. Yeah, so you're all the same then. So if you believe in your policies, then go fucking have that debate, but you don't want to have that debate because you know your policies are unpopular, because you know if you told a bunch of Americans that you support using their tax dollars to fund BB Netanyahu's

“fucking destruction of the Middle East, then they would tell you to go fuck yourself. That's what APAC is.”

And they have done this by being like, if you're against APAC, then your anti-Israel, and sometimes your anti-Semitic and your promoting anti-Semitism and your promoting anti-Israel sentiment, and all this bullshit, and it is fucking bullshit. Because all they do is go around and hide their true intentions and hide behind these super PACs and just like attack people for, they attack people from the left, they attack candidates from the left for things that they don't even believe,

just to try to win these races. It is pathetic. It is pathetic. And I really hope that like 2028 can, like if I were 2028 candidate, if I were advising a 2028 candidate, I would not, none of them should take a dime from APAC. Yeah, it would that would be a truly idiotic decision if you wanted to be president of the United States. And now when you say this, then you're getting, because we've gotten this before, then everyone's like, "Oh, you guys are doing a litmus test." And now you're saying that people

who take from APAC shouldn't be in the party, you know, being the fucking party run, all you want. I'm just giving you that's fine. That's just my statement you advice. Yeah, I'm not gonna, I won't support you. It like, I mean, you know, maybe if it's between you and Donald Trump, I'll support you, but if you, like, you might get to make the money. And you're the Democratic nominee. Yeah, I will support you. Yes, of course. But like, I'm not, I'm not supporting, I'm not putting my money

behind a candidate that does that. I just don't want to do that. It's ridiculous. There's the, we're taught like thousands and thousands of lives are at stake right now. And there's zero self-reflection from APAC about what the Israeli government has done. It's crazy. All right, before we get to dance interview, we just want to touch in a few stories that show Trump's not going to let a little

war get in the way of making money, literally in this first instance. On Thursday, Trump's hand-picked

arts commission voted to approve a commemorative 24-carot gold coin featuring Donald Trump. No, we're not gonna have it. Oh, yeah, you know this. I can't, I just would have assumed it would have been a historic figure of some kind. Yes, Pioneer and Civil Rights are a suffragist or some of the

We should like put it up on the screen. He didn't watch it. He didn't watch it. That's right,

“someone just. It did. It's, it's him with like a like a menacing like scowl like holding a desk.”

It's very fucking weird. It's now going to be a U.S. It's going to be a gold commemorative gold coin that the fucking mint creates or something is that I don't know how it works. But that same day, the same day, today, Thursday, as we're recording this, Trump posted an image of a gold choose on truth social with the caption, rare Trump sneakers listed for $180,000 at sneakier con in reaad. Hey, Danny, you think they're having a good time at sneakier con in reaad as the

ballistic missiles from Iran or flying overhead and hitting their refineries? You think they're all excited to buy the $180,000 Trump shoes? Glad Trump, let us know about that. There is some per middle of this war. Some person who wants to deal with a government or a partner is going to buy those shoes, put them on, and post them Instagrams. They're DMing them to White House officials.

And finally, this is from an Axios piece today, quote, well, Trump deals with the war in Iran

“and rising gas prices at home. The president seems downright giddy. What's he giddy about?”

The UFC fight he'll be holding on the White House lawn this summer, which he told Axios is quote, the hottest ticket he's ever seen. Why Donald Trump spoke to Axios about this fight on the south lawn? I assume they talked to me. He talked to Axios three to four times a day as far as I can tell. He picks up. He picks up their calls. He hasn't picked up Tommy's call yet. Trump has apparently been personally fielding ticket requests for the UFC fight on the south lawn, which will go to

people who've donated to his super PAC, his inaugural, and of course, of course, his ballroom. What do you think, Dan? Where'd you like to begin? Let's start with the first mind. Let's start with the UFC. So Donald Trump is a really busy guy. He didn't really have the time and energy to dig into the war he started in Iran, but he is going to spend. I will, willing to bet hours on the friends and family list for the UFC fight. He's going to be there. There is going to be

someone in the whole other wedding wedding wedding with a seating chart and he's like moving people around. He's like, you know, I can't put Jake Paul and Logan Paul and other sides of the arena. They got to be together. Megan Kelly can't sit next to Mark Levin. Yes. And he can be in a smaller seat for all the obvious reasons, right? Corey Lewandowski can't sit next to Christie known because the husband's coming. These are like a big problems. Yeah, big problems. It's going to be hard

to do this, but he is the man for the job. People do the senior arrangements properly. What a, I can't wait to go. I've heard 250. They don't want to sit you next to Stephen Miller. Right, of course. Yeah, I mean, it's going to be, but they also can't put me next to JD Vance or

Megan Kelly. You think we're on the same flat as never in a spot. It never acknowledges your

existence. It's probably going to put you near her either. See, he's a good, he has a good example. I unfollowed Trishma Glawflin because you know what, she's gone. Not in the White House anymore. I don't need to see what Trishma, what lies Trishma Glawflin's pedaling and I'm like, good. You know what, gone, gone for my mind now. Gross. I like to see that career here at the end of the podcast. Finally, Dan, if, if you're looking for a play, if you're in DC,

if you happen to be in DC, and you're looking for a place to follow the news, catch a drink, and maybe maybe bet which member of the Iranian regime is real will assassinate next. Look no further than the polymarket bar, the polymarket bar, which is set to open this Friday in Washington, DC. The bar is named the situation room, and it will essentially be a prediction market sports bar. And on all the screens everywhere, you know, like a sports bar,

they got all the games and all the screens. Well, this has got live Twitter feeds. Excuse me. Excuse me. If you're there, excuse me. Bloomberg feeds, and of course, polymarket feeds, all the bets that you could imagine. And flight radar. That's in there, too. You can track flights. A bunch of fucking losers. I assume this. I assume this was a prank. Not a prank. It's not a for now. It's real. He just imagined being like,

you know what I would like with my Twitter feed, a big screen and a picture of beer. Now, I can imagine some people thinking that I would like that. That's actually, now, are you all the sudden reconsidering it? Yeah, that's good. Then I have to hold the phone.

“Then I can just sit there. Well, here's the thing. I can be drinking. You're in it for the tweeting,”

not the reading of tweets. So that's right. Yeah. You're like, and there's a world of people who play in the game. So when people watch the games of Buffalo Wildwing, some more of a player in the Twitter

is more dystopian. But I can't think of many things more dystopian than like betting on, you know,

when will the US bomb around next at a bar while you're watching this fucking live feed of a map and betting with polymark. I mean, you're just waiting for that OSINT tweet to come through with the latest data. Oh, wow. That fucking city. Anyway, I don't miss it. Let's not just merge the whole city. When I, I meant, uh, the mark more in the mark leave of each vein of the town, it's not the town, right. Yes, the town loves the polymark at bar. Also any of other great bars. I guess,

I guess, you know, probably no one goes to anymore because we're old. And then we, those bars aren't

“running more China. That's what I'm saying. There's a long gone. There's their new bars, I assume.”

They don't have large Twitter feeds. Yeah. No, no, the days of old glory are gone. Sure. That was, those were your days of glory. I'll tell you that. All right, Dan, when we come back, uh, everyone will hear Dan's interview with Julianne Stratton, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Illinois. Today's show is sponsored by Strawberry.me. Let me ask you something. Are you where you want to be in your career? Or are you waking up

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You know, they're wasting away. No, I have like some of my friends who have been the most successful and part they have like mentors. They've gotten that people in their lives that they like go to for advice. They're not just, I don't know, making decisions willy, nilly like, and then end up hosting podcast. You know, go to Strawberry.me/curricate and get 50

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The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolette Avenue, which is where Alex Pretty was executed by Ice and Border Patrol. That is not a headline. That is a human life and it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know?

And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait and of course they're doing all these horrible bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst than they have absolute immunity and they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show runaway country we go where the headlines hit home from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard.

New episodes of runaway country drop every Thursday, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. Joining me today is Illinois Lieutenant Governor Julian Estrat who just became the Democratic nominee for Senate. Lieutenant Governor, welcome to positive America. Thank you for having me. So you were I, you know, an underdog for most of the race you trail by some pretty big margins up

until the very end was a very exciting night. How you feel in a couple days after your win? Well, I'm feeling great certainly on the outside the inside this might be taking a nap right now,

but you know, I'm really excited about the fact that we got our message out, we always knew

that this was a campaign where we wanted to center the voices of the people of Illinois and I spent time criss-crossing the state. We certainly were outspent. I think by a four to one margin and but we knew that we had a message that would resonate with voters and we did the work and we came out on top and I'm very grateful and now I'm going to work for the next eight months to make sure that we can win this general election in November. I would say if we don't win the general

election in November, Illinois, I'm going to be very concerned. But I recognize you don't want to catch your chickens before they're hatched here. No, you're going to take it seriously.

“Right, as you should, but I don't want to, I don't want our listeners to panic here.”

You know, your race interestingly enough, I'm sure it felt like to you, like I got a ton of

you know, states like Maine, Michigan, you know, Texas, particularly the Texas and Maine where you know, we're trying to figure out like which Democrat is the best one to take to flip this Republican seat. But so for our listeners who weren't, you know, who maybe he didn't watch it, you said, you want your message work to tell us what your message was.

Yeah, well, first of all, let me just say to what you just pointed out that I've always said that

even though Illinois is considered a quote unquote safe blue state and this was a safe blue seat.

“I think that, you know, it's, it was important to get out to voters that it matters who's in the”

seat, especially in the moment that we're living in right now, that we can't take anything for granted. And it's not just, let's just elect a Democrat. We needed someone who was going to fight for the people. And that was what I was hearing from voters across the state that they wanted someone who was going to go to the met fighting for them and stand up to this president. They were looking for new energy, new voices, just new perspectives and people who were going to meet this

moment. And I think that it also was, it wasn't just about what we were fighting against, but what we

were fighting for. And so I developed that message of what I was going to fight for in Washington

by listening to people and not trying to tell people what they should care about. But rather take what they were telling me and craft my messaging around that. I think it's people looked at this race, who's maybe, you know, maybe had at least a passing understanding of Illinois politics. You know, this is an oversimplification, so I wouldn't admit this, but, you know, you have a potentially slightly more moderate candidate near opponent. You have, you know, yourself, you

ran, you know, it really is progressive with some very progressive positions. The expectation is that you would crush in Chicago, that the your opponent would do very well downstate in the Burbs, but you actually won 44 or 50 words. Talk a little bit about, we don't want, what lessons you take from that about the ability of a progressive message to work in rural areas, suburban areas, suburban areas. Yeah, and I do want to point out that we were pleasantly surprised to see how many

downstate counties we all wanted. I mean, we got Chicago, we did great in some of the color counties, but also downstate. And as the only candidate that has represented the entire state of Illinois

for the last seven years as lieutenant governor, I always knew that there were unique parts of the

state. Each part of the state has its different character, different issues that are important.

“But when I think about the messaging, uh, these are things that everybody wants, access to”

affordable health care, which is why I'm fighting for Medicare for all, especially at a time that we see a president and an administration that's stripping millions of people of their health care. I'm fighting to raise wages and I personally want to fight for $25 minimum wage at the federal level. I don't see it as minimum. I see it as a livable wage because with everything getting so expensive and we're certainly seeing that it's important that we recognize that $7 and $25

since is not enough for anyone to take care of themselves, let alone a family. And even with what we've done in Illinois, with a $15 now or minimum wage, it's important that we recognize that's only $31,000 a year. That's not enough to take care of yourself or your family either. So I think we need a livable wage. And I'll tell you one of the things that was really surprising to me on this trail, which is why it's important to think about all of the different diverse communities that

this message resonated with. I noticed that too many people think small around what we can accomplish in Washington. And then it's, oh well, that's going to be too hard and I'm not sure what people will think about it. But why should we think that way? We should think very big. We should

“have a big vision for what's possible and fight for it. And I think because that was my message,”

people really just thought, you know what, she's going to be someone who's going to try to make my life better. And they feel like too many in Washington are, you know, get there and forget who they represent. You know, I have a little bit about the role that your views on ice and how you talk about it, how that played down the state as well. Well, I've made it very clear that I want to abolish ice. You know that here in Illinois and the city of Chicago and surrounding areas, we were, you know,

terrorized quite frankly by Operation Midway Blitz. We saw our neighbors being snatched off the streets by mass agents, stuffed into unmarked vehicles and no-do process, no warrants. And a president who said he was going after the worst of the worst and that's not what happened. We saw tumali vendors and we saw, you know, being snatched off the street. We saw people working in daycare centers. And, you know, I think this is just an example of, you know, why, you know, I was out there protesting

and doing everything that I could helping students get from school and have safe passage. I was

is Democrats that our party is looking for is people who are going to be there in community showing up and being leaders not just in an office somewhere, but being amongst the people. And that was really important. And I can also say that the trauma of Operation Midway Blitz continues. It wasn't just why they were in full force here in the city of Chicago or surrounding areas and, you know, our sub-suburban areas. And even down state, this trauma is continuing

and Governor Prince Grinni launch what's called the Illinois Accountability Commission because

this president is not always going to be president. And we're going to hold him accountable

and we're collecting data and stories and narratives and photos and videos because we want to make sure that we're capturing what has happened in the harm that he has caused. And we're going

“to be ready to bring some real accountability. And by the way, that's what voters and the people”

of Illinois want. Want this president to be held accountable. What's the vehicle for that accountability is that potential criminal charges down the line? Well, yes, we want to see anything that will hold them accountable. And I've said very clearly, even as it relates to federal agents and what we're looking for when it comes to DHS and this funding question, I mean, I wouldn't vote to fund any agency that I want to see abolished but we certainly need to make sure that federal agents

are held accountable and should be if they've committed crimes, there should be full investigation and they should be prosecuted and we should also make sure there's no total immunity for these individuals. People have been killed now and it's unacceptable. It's unacceptable and Democrats need to hold firm. Yeah, there was obviously a lot of super PAC activity in Illinois, but in your race and in the four key house races, we know one group that put a lot of money into the race against

you was the crypto industry. I believe they put in several million dollars, especially right

after you started to search in the polls towards the end there. Talk to me about the role they played your views on crypto and how you think we should deal with this sort of dark money. We're not dark money, but this sort of special interest money in politics. Well, I need I'm talking all the time about how I need to fight for campaign finance reform and we need to incitizen United. I mean, I think I don't want to quote exactly, but I believe I was the number

one target of the crypto super PAC industry, you know, the crypto industry super PACs. The number one target, this election cycle, number one in the nation and it they came at me with the tech ads in the

“amount of $10 million plus. And I think about that and I think it was really important that we”

made a statement that when you continue to be the kind of candidate that's going to speak in a way

that's going to resonate with voters, when you're going to stand up and talk very, you know, clearly about your bold vision, we were successful, but we need to do more to level the playing field and allow good candidates to run for office. We saw all of this outside money pouring into these campaigns. And I think it's really important when I get there, I'm proud to be endorsed by incitizen United because I'm taking a stance of the kind of campaign finance reform that we

need to see in this country. And it starts number one with ending citizen United. What particularly was it about your record of your policy positions that made the crypto industry come after you so directly? I don't think it was about policy positions in per se. It's certainly not about crypto per se. But I think it was, I made it very clear that I was here to stand up for everyday working people. That's what we should be focused on. How to make sure people

can have a little more money in their pockets, how we can make sure that they can have access to healthcare, and how we're going to stand up to a president who is, to me, a want to be dictator, who does not have the best interest of the American people at heart. And they knew that I was someone that, you know, this industry has made Donald Trump rich. And they didn't want anybody who was going to stand up to him or fight back against him or hold him accountable. They want to just

keep going with business as usual. And by the way, that's what I've heard from people that they are so fed up with in Washington. They don't want business as usual. They want to see somebody who's

“going to come in and really deliver for them. And I think that that's what they didn't want.”

They knew that as a candidate, I was not going to be someone who would go along with the status quo in Washington. The other interest group that played a huge role in this Tuesday's primaries, not in your race per se, but in the four house races was a pack. They can't spend a lot of money through sort of shadowy groups to try to, you know, defeat some candidates like some other candidates. Although I recognize that they did not, I believe get super involved in your race.

Just, but I know it was a huge topic of discussion in Illinois over the last couple of months here. Do you have any takeaways about the role APAC played in the relationship with APAC going forward

they will not take the APAC money going forward or if they were to run for president?

“Yeah, I mean, again, I think we need to get big money out of politics. And that's why as I said”

before we need to fight for campaign finance reform, we need to do something different. I mean, we saw millions of dollars flowing in from so many different sources here in Illinois. And in it, it impacts, you know, can impact as we see if as we've seen, the outcomes of these elections. And so that's something that again, you know, I want to make sure that people know who's funding these campaigns. That's important. And those are the kinds of things that I'm going

to fight for when I get to Washington. Anything specific about APAC specifically and how you think about

them are? Well, look, I've always made my position clear about what I want to see in general in

terms of, you know, working towards lasting peace in a two-state solution. But I think more importantly, you know, when it comes to these elections, I know they, you know, I have not accepted any money from the PAC, but I know that in these elections, we saw a lot of activity here in Illinois. And again, the goal for me is to make sure that we can really level the pilling field, allow people to get out their campaign, make their messages heard, you know, raise from whoever they have to raise from,

but the idea of what we've seen, just sort of coming in with these different names, like the crypto industry and my race, for example, you'll see all of these terms. I don't even remember the exact name. Like the fair shake pack or something, something like that, make even, you know,

“I think people might have it. There was one that was like Illinois progressive something, you know,”

crypto industry. It gives people paid for by the progressive, whatever, and that's not, not what it was. A lot of these PACs were MAGA aligned PACs. And so that kind of thing does not, you know, it's really meant to sort of give voters, it's just deceptive for voters. That's let's just put it that way. Yep. Yep. Okay. You ran what I think may end up being the most memorable

ad of this cycle. And I'm saying that in March of the cycle with, you know, about three billion

dollars of ads to come, you got a ton of attention. Some people have pointed that as a pivot point for in your race when you sort of maybe started to take off. For those who don't know, the ad featured a number of Chicagoans saying fuck Trump and ended with Governor Pritzker, who had endorsed you, making the case for you, talks to me about the decision to run that ad with the reaction was, did you get some blowback from it? So I'm just very curious about this. It was very interesting

ad. Well, we knew we needed to, I mean, so much noise. You know that in any election cycle,

“there's so much noise. And honestly, the amount of noise with the chaos that's coming out of”

Washington, D.C. people just felt like, what do I attention to? And so there needed to be a real way to break through the noise and capture what people were feeling. And when I would go around the state, I talked about previously that people were looking for a fighter. They want, they were frustrated with Washington, really angry at feeling like, look at this president and what he's doing and who is standing up to fight and who's going to go toe to toe with him and the ad just

captured it so perfectly in 30 seconds to just say, this is what the American people are feeling. This is what Illinoisans are feeling and that they don't want to just have business as usual for somebody who's a want to be dictator. Why are we acting like this is normal? It's not. And I think that, you know, I'm just really proud that the ad just broke through and what I'm mostly heard was people saying things like, how come you didn't ask me to be in the ad? How come

my, how come I couldn't be a part of that? And I just thought that's when I knew that it was just really a turning point, one of the ways that it was a turning point in the campaign. In the process of making the ad, did you at any point consider bleeping the fuck in the fuck Trump part? Well, it was bleeped for broadcast TV. Yeah. I think that I'm not sure the bleep, you know, quite got all of it. You know, I support the non bleeping decision, but many people have

asked that because the non bleeping group, like there's a non bleeping caucus, I think, and I think

many people are a part of it. When the ad, when you get the ad first came out, one of your supporters

in Chicago, again, it's part of versus an old friend of mine from the Obama days. Texting me the ad to ask my thoughts about it. And I, my view was I thought it was the right move for the reasons you just said, which was you were getting massively outspent, and just it's hard to get attention anyway. And so a very visible viral way of getting attention in Illinois, and it was a very Chicago ad, like it felt very, it was a great ad.

Yeah. And I think that one way or the other, people were talking about it.

“You know, that's in the United States. Yeah, that's in the United States. I'm happy it turned out the”

way it did. Yeah. Well, whether, you know, whether it's causation or correlation, you ran the ad, you won. We're very excited for you. We excited. I know you're not counting your chickens for

their hatch. You still have a general election coming, but we're very excited to see you in the Senate

starting in 2027. Lieutenant Governor Stratton, thank you for joining us on Potset America. Thanks for having me, Dan. That's our show for today. Dan will be back in your feet on Sunday with a new episode of

“Potset America's album. Fine, everyone. If you want to listen to Potset America,”

add free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com/friends to subscribe on

supercast, sub-stack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at cricket. Potset America is a cricket media production. Our producer is Saul Ruben. Our associate producer is Farisophari.

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