Trump's Mile-Hide Club

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We sent you. Don't forget. There's no safe. Welcome to Plot Save America. I'm John Fever.

I'm Dan Fiverr. On today's show, Donald Trump catches a ride on a catering truck to escape the Iranians who are trying to kill him and or cause him to lose the midterms. We'll also talk about how your tax dollars are being used to buy brand-new gloves for ice agents that can deliver an electric shock to anyone they touch.

That is true. Also, a wild story about DHS spying on everyone from labor unions and climate groups to random citizens just because they can then with the last of the major contested primaries behind us and Wisconsin and Minnesota. We'll talk about why the polling was so far off and why that won't stop us from speculating

about November.

Finally, we'll bid a fun farewell to White House press secretary Caroline Levitt and

compare our rankings of who we think is most likely to get the job next. Can't wait to hear your list, Dan. It's a really outside of box. I like that. I like that.

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Head to cricket.com/friends to join today. All right. They're starting to use the keyword to describe Trump's disastrous war in Iran. You know what the keyword is, Dan? There are all kinds of jokes I was going to make, but none of them seem to work.

So, I'm just going to go with the right answer. Is it quite higher? It is quick. That's the headline and one of the most red political stories of the week. The Iran War is a whole new level of quagmire for the U.S.

Both Trump and the Iranians are claiming that they're in control of the straight-of-war moves, which can't be true.

“And the straight remains functionally closed, I think, on the 14 vessels went through yesterday.”

Gas prices are higher than they have ever been at this time of year in the United States ever in history. The war also continues to deplete our military, the Washington Post reports that we've lost about a quarter of our supply of reaper drones. We're using up our limited supplies of both Patriot and Tomahawk missiles.

And some of our service members have been deployed so long that on the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is an aircraft carrier that's been in the Middle East since November, several of the 5,000 sailors and marines on board, have tried to jump overboard due to the stress and horrible conditions. That's according to both the military times and stars and stripes.

But nothing better illustrates just how badly Trump is getting his ass kicked by the Iranians in the story of how our president was forced to hide in a catering truck and board a secret plane to escape a potential assassination threat involving Iranian proxies in Turkey launching

for him to fly on Air Force One, but not any of the reporters and White House officials

who weren't told they were flying home on a potential target.

“The president said the dumbest thing possible, "I think actually the plane that I flew on”

was at greater risk. I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane. I think that they would be more likely to go for it." Yeah, yeah, yeah, they'd be more likely to go for the plane you were on. Of course, which is why they tried to put you on another plane that they didn't know about,

you fucking moron, yes. I don't know why I say that in such a shocked way, but it's just like new levels of Trump being a dipshit. Yeah, what did you make of the whole catering cart paper? On one hand, it is very, very funny that he hid in catering cart, that he flew home on

a secret plane, that he handpicked the people who would survive with him, like Pete Hickseth and the woman who prints all of his documents, but he said... It's more known as former caddy. And Dennis Gavito, but he sent Marker Rubio to die with the press. And Marker Rubio was the only one on that other plane who knew what was happening.

Scott Besant was with Marker Rubio, none the wiser. And there's no protocol here for the reasons like maybe Higgs at you could possibly fabricate some reason. But the fact that he picked Dance Gavino and Natalie Harp, the ones again, the woman who follows him around in Prince's documents for him were the ones who got seats in the

life raft. And Marker Rubio didn't, it should be a real tell to Marker Rubio. Also, how do you even process information? You get looped in and you're like, which way does Trump's plane, they're like, you didn't make the cut?

I mean, what were they, what did they, where did they think Trump was? I mean, they, they just assumed he was in his cabin, I assume. Oh, yeah.

“I mean, I know that's what the reporters thought.”

But I was wondering about the, like, Scott Besant just sitting there, does has no idea with his buddy Marker Rubio has no idea he's just a sitting duck for me. Normally, you would see the president walk up, well, I guess they saw them walk up the steps. And there were plenty of chance we've been on the plane when we used to fly on it, where

the president would just be in their cabin. And we would be seated where we would sit, which is not in his cabin. You would have no idea until the plane landed. And he did not walk down the front steps. Who do you think was making it in the secret plane with Barack Obama?

Definitely wasn't me. I don't know, it might have been you. Oh, quick. I need a speech. Well, how's that we would have done it by actual protocol and not by who he likes most?

There is like a more serious thing to this, which is that the Iranian proxies and Turkey were potentially going to take down Air Force 1? Yeah, that's a... Well, I mean, that, yes, that, that, but there's something, like, this probably sounds really quaint in, like, the dystopian fucked up world we live in, but there is just something

terrible about the fact that the president lied to the press, lied to the country, to hide a threat to himself, no one knew where he was. He could have that plane could have landed anywhere in the world, and no one would have ever known. And the only reason we know about this now is because the Washington Post did some really

great reporting. Like, there is a world where obviously his security, the president's security, whether

it's Trump or anyone else comes first.

So you could, I understand the rules, I don't really understand why you would take Air Force

“1 off, you would just fly the other plane that he, they don't think he's on?”

Right. It definitely seemed like there was a need to protect Trump, even if it was now, we should say too, since this story was first reported, there's been more reporting that suggests that this intel about a potential assassination plot came from Israel, for me Israeli government, and then the CIA, RCA judged it as low, low confidence, meaning they didn't think it was,

like, a serious serious threat, but clearly they thought it was serious enough to put the president and a catering cart and send him on a separate plane. It's not probably not surprising that Israel's one who told us to Trump, because if you read regime change, the Maggie Heyram and Jonathan Swanbook, like one of the themes in Maggie talks about this interview with Ezra Klein a few weeks ago, is it Trump is singularly

obsessed with the idea that Iran wants to kill him? And so you tell Trump, Iran wants to kill you at the same time, you're trying to keep Trump fully focused on the war in Iran, it's not a bad idea. Right, because that, yeah, BB did not want him to reach any kind of peace agreement, clearly.

So, yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was, so it's wild to me that, like, it's one thing to protect the president, it's another thing to unnecessarily put the rest of the people

on Air Force One in danger, yeah, you just hold their first one on the ground, you take

And then after he lands, you say, Trump is landed, the Iranians know he's on the plane,

then you fly the other plane home, right, and we're not in the CIA, we're not in secret service to the CIA, you know, we could figure that out. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's, it's crazy. It's also crazy that they didn't tell anyone afterwards, like that's also known. That's the, well, yes, thank you, that, that is the biggest problem, like you could do

this whole thing, and then once everyone lands, be like, oh, by the way, this happened, and we couldn't tell you at the time or whatever, but like that is, it's wild, then it had to be broken by the Washington Post, and that the administration subpoenaed New York times reporters for the leak about them not taking the new Katari Force One home, because it didn't have, like, the right defensive maneuver capabilities that they might need if

if proxies on the ground were shooting surface-to-air missiles at Air Force One.

Like, this is entirely a hypothetical, just want to point this out there.

But in a world in which, oh, it's right, in a world in which the president can get on a secret plane without the press and have no one over he is, that plane could land anywhere. It could land on Epstein Island theoretically. Oh, my God.

“What, you're really looking for a viral clip, aren't you?”

I'm not one of our clip, I do not want this posted, I do not tell the social media, I do not want this posted, I make a point just to our listeners, the people who tune into this podcast that I'm just using the extreme example to make a point that when the press is not with the president, the president can do lots of things we don't know what are.

You could have stopped in UAE and cut a crypto deal. He could have, he could have stopped in Moscow to hang out with his friend, Vladimir Peter. He could have picked up the P tape. He could have picked up the P tape, right?

Yeah. All these things were impossible. A lot of people are in protocol. Okay. Well, bigger picture, there's new reporting this week that Iran is tracking Trump's political

problems very closely, I guess they're just, they're looking at the, looking at the RCP average, it's the silver bulletin, Trump approval rating, and they're looking to continue pushing negotiations far off past November so that Trump pays a maximum price in the midterms. Seems like a, if we're just going by political strategy, it does seem like a smart strategy on Iran's behalf now on Iran's part.

Yeah. I mean, there's no question that they are correct to understand that Trump has very, very little leverage during election season, because the things that would allow the sort of military maneuvers that would allow him to gain it up or hand over the straight, over Iran would raise gas prices in a way, which would hurt his party in the midterms so that

they figure that out.

“Now I think the question for Iran is, what happens when Trump doesn't, and no one”

Trump cares about has to face the voters for two years? Like, if you're counting on Democrats to pass a war power's resolution to stop the war, I don't think they're getting to a veto proof majority of that. You know, could a Democratic Congress make it harder to fund the war possibly? But this idea, but Trump may feel, look, this is bad, I'm going to say, this is bad.

But it's not clear to me that Trump, what is that clear to me, and maybe it probably should be clear to the Iranians, what Trump does after the midterms? Well, after, let's talk about what's after the midterms, it is the beginning of the 8 presidential race, and you've got presumably JD Vance who wants to be president, maybe Marco Rubio, maybe both of them together, and so there is an incentive at that point

for the administration to finally give Iranians what they want to get this off the table

so that they don't win the war or win, well, how they're going to do that? Well, I mean, that's ultimately what Iran is trying to force stall right now is more,

“like not that I think any of these things are going to happen per se, but like Trump taking”

carg island, for instance, one of the things that was on the table earlier, doesn't happen the midterms. Could that happen in 2027, maybe Trump launching all the other bombing, yeah, like those sorts of things, like the right now Trump won't use the military stick against Iran to the extent he has the capacity to do so because of gas prices selection.

In the calendar year of 2027, he is relieved of that political restraining nature of politics potentially. So, I don't know when Iran doesn't know either, so like this works in the short term, what happens in the midterms long term, who the hell knows? Yeah.

I'm curious, Chris, the USS Lincoln and all those soldiers and the families have been describing like moldy showers and broken toilets and shortages of hot water and food, they've

it.

“And then, of course, someone asked P-Hexeth today about it and he's like, "Oh, it's all over”

blown, over blown." I respect all these guys. They're great. They're doing a great job.

It was always makes me feel bad that we talk about the war purely in terms of gas prices

and oil prices because of the effect that it's having on politics here. But it's also like, there's a lot of fucking U.S. forces deployed in the Middle East, who are in harm's way and who are also just been away from their families forever and for what? For what?

And the military did not prepare for this, hence the conditions on the ships. Yeah. But they never believe, because they gave this zero thought that many, many months later, they'd still be in a conflict with Iran. Missile stockpile estimates are that it won't recover until 2030.

That's a whole other thing. God forbid, someone else attacks us. There's another war.

Like, we're not going to be ready at all because we have now depleted all of our military.

We've sent soldiers for long, long deployments. We don't have missiles and drones and all of that kind of all those capabilities. Because of this stupid fucking war, it is a like, I kind of think that this is, what do you think about like Democrats, like how they handle this over the next couple of months between now and the midterms?

Because to me, it seems like it is the main issue and it's not your use. It's like it combines both forever wars, which people hate and it's causing high prices, which people hate. So it's like, I feel like the whole, you could run the whole campaign about Trump's disaster's war and what it's doing to prices and all that.

Yeah, it should be that centerpiece of the campaign. It's obviously it's best when tied to affordability, gas prices, and that like one of the message I've seen tested is that they told us there wasn't enough money for health care and food assistance, but now we have millions of dollars for bombs in the middle east and for wars and Middle East, like that test very well.

“It is, you know, so I think absolutely hammered, Democrats should have no fear.”

There's a lot of sort of anxiety at the outset of this that what if we get on the wrong side of the conflict and, you know, and we must begin every statement with a long throat clearing about how bad the mulls and around are like, we don't like, we are past that. This is an incredibly unpopular war. It goes at affordability, it goes at Trump's incompetence, it goes at Trump's weakness,

it goes to the chaos of his leadership style and I think really importantly, it goes to the broken promises and when you, you see this in both focus groups and then in polling of people who regret who voted for Trump who were now to approve of him, one of the top things that comes up is that he broke his promises and one of those big promises is the war, which is tied to the other big promise, which is lowering prices.

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Here's what will shock you.

Apologize for that. That's just the new. Do the joke and then apologize. The new electric gloves ice plans to spend $20 million on. So that agents can deliver a painful jolt to whoever they touch, rendering the person powerless to move or even stand.

And now Tom Homan, you know, he was on Fox talking about this is, you know, we don't want to shoot everyone now. So we're trying this is supposed to be de-escalation. This is a de-escalation, right? Here's a compilation of the gloves being put to use from some of the videos that we're circulating on Twitter. That scream like a little girl and pee myself.

Fucking insane. A bunch of, a bunch of men just shocking each other for fun. I know, yeah, that is. Right, yeah, there's a whole separate conversation. The manual, this, this company that makes the product that they put out,

the manual says no more than two gloves on one person generally no more than 15 seconds never against verbal defiance,

never as punishment and not on the elderly children pregnant women or people with serious disabilities. Guess what ice has done already, like violated all of those things with how it has handled people before the gloves. And the people that it has assaulted injured detained.

“And so, I don't know, I think this is fucking awful.”

Well, I mean, it's just so ridiculous that Tom Homan's, he's like, it's a binary choice. We look, we have only two options. We can kill them in the street with our guns or we can electrocute them. Those are the only two things, guys. You pick, you choose electrocution or bullets.

Also, this is one that leaves not a lot of evidence. And so, the idea that ice is just going to be roaming the streets. And if they see someone who, they don't like what they said, they, you know, sort of, made fun of ice or criticize them whatever.

They can just walk over and just put hands on them and chuck them.

And then like, no one's going to know, I mean, like, who's word against who's, where it's just, it's the potential for abuse on this one is vast. Yes, that is very, very true. And as Elijah pointed out a production meeting today, it's only a matter of time till one of these ice guys goes pee with the gloves on.

And this administration that will almost certainly happen. Yes. It's guaranteed. And also with the kind of people they're recruiting now with ice. Yes.

People who meet no standards whatsoever. Yes. Meanwhile, there's been a new uptick in terrifying videos of people being confronted by ice agents on Monday, a mast agent pointed a gun at a U.S. citizen named Carolina Molina at a shopping center in Virginia.

Ice and DHS accused her of trying to run them over with her car and a assertion that's not at all backed up by the video evidence. Afterwards, Molina told the Washington Post that it felt like a Renee good situation. Here's some of that scene, as well as other recent ice confrontations

that are making the rounds. You and those ran us over. You and those ran us over. You and those ran us over. Yeah, you're full of shit.

Stop playing. You are full of shit. All right. You're not funny. You're not funny.

I will arrest you. Keep it up. I'm the legal center. I don't know. Oh, my goodness.

The Domingo family self recording the tense moments when Border Patrol pulled them over Sunday afternoon. The couple complying with the officers orders, then hugging during this emotional goodbye when separated from their five children and detained. I know there's like not a lot of new things to say about this because it's just horrific,

“but I think it is worth noting that it is still happening.”

It is happening all over the place. Ice has not de-escalated at all. They are still trying to meet Stephen Miller's dumb fucking quotas. Mark Wayne Molin, the new DHS secretary, is already in trouble with like maga activists in the base.

Laura Lumer and Steve Bannon already have said he should be fired because he's not

So he's already feeling pressure to be even more aggressive in order to keep his job.

So this is all happening still. Yeah.

“It is just the only thing that's changed is they're not sitting on a press release before they”

do it. Right. They're not inviting. They're not inviting the mag influencers along for it. They're not inviting the Fox News crews.

They're just doing it and hoping no one videotapes and what happens. Did you see I heard Tim Miller talk about this in the bulwark pod. The letter in the nation that this woman wrote, she is. So this Iranian family. They're have green cards, legal residents, couple of professors.

Yeah.

The husband and wife are professors and then they have a child as well.

And because the husband is the son of a woman who was an Iranian official during the hostage crisis. I believe she was the spokesperson during the hostage crisis in 1979. And her son and his family moved to the United States. We came college professors had a kid or permanent legal residents. And because like people online decided to make an issue of their association with Iran.

Then the State Department just decided to on their own revoked their visas. They picked up the husband. They also picked up the wife and the child. And they separated them and they have shipped them to Texas where they've been in detention facilities. For the last four months, four months.

With like just just holding them. Holding them hostage for no reason. No due process. Not even deported them. Not doing anything just jailing them just because of an association.

The family member because some fucking idiot online decided to call them up. It's terrible. It's just the whole thing is so just gross and morally bankrupt. I just. I don't like.

“I get that this won't be, you know, I think when Minnesota is happening, we probably thought maybe this would be a big issue in the midterms.”

I'm guessing it will not be as big of an issue in the midterms. But is the best play here? The Democrats have to just hope we get Congress back. Be able to conduct some kind of oversight. And hold hearings, subpoena officials and documents and then just change everything.

If a Democratic president wins, like it, it doesn't. What else can people do at this point? So you're right. This is not going to be the biggest issue in the midterms. And it probably shouldn't be the voters we need care about immigration.

They absolutely do, but it's not their top issue. But it's not as complicated as I think a lot of people make it. Trump is 11 points underwater on immigration right now. This is not an issue of strength for him. He doesn't win by shifting the issue to rain to immigration.

It doesn't help him. The videos like this hurt him when you track his approval rating drops since 2025. Some of the biggest ones happened during. But first the Kilmar break of Garcia C caught stuff in the spring of 2025. And then after the killings of Alex Predig and Renee Good and January of 2026.

So it matters when these things come up. So we don't want to shy away from talking about it. Absolutely not. That's also worth pointing out to voters that once again,

not only is ice bad, but we gave I $700 billion.

And we paid for it by cutting healthcare and food assistance. Like that's what the priority is. People don't like that.

“But when we, so let's say we get to, we get a majority, right?”

And we'll talk about the prospects for that later in the show. People should be realistic. We cannot, we're cannot realistically abolish ice. But we can't hold hearings. We can, you know, shine a light on this or can be accountability.

We also have, if we have the house and the Senate, but even if we have just the house, we have real leverage in budget negotiations if Democrats are willing to use it. So the one challenge on that one is because they passed so much ice funding through reconciliation. Like they could shut down the government, we went through this, right? Yeah, the Democrats could theoretically shut down the government if we control Congress again,

or hold up the whole budget over ice funding. But because they have so much funding left over from reconciliation, like they can still do everything they want to do. Yes, I mean, we're right back in the same spot. But you can, you're a couple of options here.

One is you can take, I hate to use this terminology, but you can take a different hostage. And the ransom is changes in ice. Other things, Trump's want. Right. You can not get them. You can shut down the whole government over it.

You can put repression on them. Once again, ice has money, like there is a limit to what you can do here. Up until the moment, you have a trifecta where you, well, you have, if we have a trifecta, you can do the following things. One, you can take that money and redirect it elsewhere.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, if we have a Democratic president, then you do all those expedits.

“But for the next, it'll be even winning back Congress. It'll be hard for the next two years”

to do anything outside of threatening to shut down the government over ice. But, you know, like you said, take a different hostage, or probably the most likely path is to hold all kinds of hearings and oversight. And you can get, which, which will hopefully sort of till the ground for the battles to come when you have the trifecta.

But you can't, like some of the policy changes we did not get in this time. You can make another run at in 2027, 2028. I also think it's worth saying that just from a, and we talked about politics and campaigns and what's most likely to help win an election. But when these stories are in the news and when public officials,

whether they're at local state or national talk about them and lift up the stories,

like the politics are bad for the Trump administration. Usually when they are, when Donald Trump's approval rating is in the shitter, he turns to immigration to try to get his mojo back. And it is telling that they have chosen, you know, the democratic socialist communist threat over immigration this time around,

because they just went through a cycle back. I don't know when it was earlier this year last year, when their immigration agenda was underwater and became pretty unpopular. Not as unpopular as how he handles cost of living or jobs or through around war, but still unpopular.

Yeah, it's not, it's not an advantage for him anymore, which is a huge change in the huge change from him. Yeah. All right. This week's democratic primaries were one of the last contests before the midterms.

A week after Abdul El Said defeated the establishment back to Haley Stevens, by just under a point in the Michigan Senate primary. The more moderate David Crowley eaked out an upset over democratic socialist, Francesca Hong and the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary. In Minnesota, the more progressive Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan,

beat congresswoman Angie Craig by 20 points in Connecticut. The center left mayor of Hartford, Luke Brownen, knocked off 78-year-old congressman John Larson, making him, making Larson the seventh house Democrat to lose a primary this year, and the fifth passed his retirement age. 2026 is now tied with 2012 as the worst year for democratic incumbents in primaries this century.

When you step back and squinted all the primary results this year,

“do they tell to you any kind of cohesive story about democratic voters in the democratic party?”

It's complicated, but yes. If you look at all the results, all the ones we've had, all of the DSA wins, the incumbents who got elected, they come as who got defeated. I think you can take the couple of things from this. One, Democrats are furious that Donald Trump is president.

Two, Democrats are incredibly skeptical and distrustful of their own leaders, their own institutions, and the way the party has done politics in the past. Democrats are incredibly fired up about voting. They are turning out in huge numbers, like in Wisconsin, this is a statistic blew me away. Nearly 250,000 more people voted in this Wisconsin primary than in 2018, the year of the big blue wave.

I know, that's wild. Now, what I think is when you look at all of this, it's sort of belies the overly simplistic narratives that people who talk about politics will have been trying to jam this through DSA versus centrists. Left-first-right institution versus anti-institution, even generational. It's a lot of these races, and the thing is, the Wisconsin and Michigan races,

come by, if 18,000 votes between the two of them had gone a different way, we would have been like, DSA is dead. Long live the moderates, or DSA, or like go comrade, the did it's socialist of one. And it's all more complicated. And voters looked at it and made decisions.

And there were some local factors in all of them.

“I think the one thing that is true is that voters are looking for fresh faces.”

And those fresh faces are often younger. And we saw that in all the incumbent you mentioned, it is a fresh face

who has come in and beat them in almost always a younger one.

And you know, and I think that that, like, democratic voters are done with the gerontocracy. To your point about how many more voters are participating in this year's primaries versus 2018, or at least in Wisconsin, is part of that that people who usually just vote in a general election, but not a primary are now voting in a primary. I thought I saw somewhere that, like, just the interest is so high that even a lot of

normie democrats, quote unquote, who usually just turn out in a general but not a primary. Now, like, interest at enough and engage enough that they want to participate in the primary.

Wisconsin is particularly impressive.

“You have to run up because Wisconsin is one of the highest turnout states in the country.”

Right. But yeah, I think the stakes of these primaries feel very high to people. Because I think there's a real question about where our party is going and people want to have a say in that. So they are turning out. And it, like it does, it felt that way in Wisconsin felt that way in Michigan.

And these races, it's certainly, I think that for people in New York City in those races, or in the Colorado one, it felt that way where it's like, our party is going to go one or two ways. And I want to have a say in which way it goes because the direction we choose is going to matter, not just in the 2026, but in 2028 and beyond. (Music)

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So on that note, the primary results have inevitably led to another round of electability discourse. Easily one of the top five discourses in the Democratic Party. What else is on the list? Let's see.

What is your first persuasion? Left versus center left? Let's see. Orange man bad is the best political strategy. Just for us.

Yeah. How much should we focus on Trump? Right. Wokeness. That's kind of a relatively new one.

I'm just kind of shooting from the hip here. How are Democratic voters judging? Which candidate is more electable here in 2026? Right. That's right.

“I think like the pundits, the voters don't know who's more electable.”

And that is showing up at these races as people are making different choices. What I think is interesting is the electability. There's been this big discussion like voter in the Trump era. Democratic voters care a lot about electability. And that is true.

But it's also always been true.

And it is also an axiomatic thing. Which is you want, do you want someone who can win? Or do you want someone who is less likely to win, but agree with you? People always picked the one who's going to win. You know, even before Trump in 2004, when the Democratic primary that you were working on

was going forward, people all the sudden were like, wait a minute. We're going to run the anti-war governor of Vermont against George Shubby Bush.

And then they immediately shifted to John Kerry the war here.

Didn't work out great. But you understand the thinking they got them there. In 2020, electability drove Biden's nomination. Six and ten voters in a Gallup poll at that time said they'd rather if someone who was more likely to beat Trump than someone who they agreed with on policy issues.

In the exit polls of the primary states, six and ten voters. And most cases said electability was their top issue. People care about it. What is different now?

“And I believe you see this in both Wisconsin and Michigan.”

Is that the voters no longer trust the Democratic Party establishment. And the experts to tell them who is most electable. And they have to see it with their own eyes and make their own judgment. Because you haven't missed it unless it's Tony Evers. Well, I mean, I think we can debate Tony Evers.

Obviously played a huge role on this. But this is where it's reaching Wisconsin is all of the voices we're saying. Abdul is less selectable voters looked at that race. They looked at him. It was not patently obvious to the head to met to enough of them.

That he was less electable than he was students Wisconsin. Evers made electability number one issue down the stretch by announcing that he thought Hong could not win or was unlikely to win if she was the nominee. But then, Hong went on a media tour where she did not acquitt herself great. And sort of amplify the questions that Evers had raised.

And voters looked at that. I think if Evers had said she can't win and then she had done fine, they probably would have still picked Hong. But because of that, enough of people changed their mind in the final days to do it. And then in Minnesota, where Angie Craig made electability the centerpiece of issue,

no one thought we would lose that seat so they didn't care.

“I think that's a really important point that's getting lost in the Minnesota example,”

because I think it sort of, like, I think a lot of voters, especially like highly engaged voters who pay attention to this, who are the voters that vote in primaries. They try to make rational decisions about who's going to, who they think is going to win the race, right?

And if you're in a state like Minnesota, where it just seems like the Democrat is going to win, and now Minnesota is not like a deep blue state, but you could make a good argument that Angie Craig or Peggy Flanagan, whoever won that nomination was going to,

Yes, it was going to be a heavy favorite, right? Like a likely D seat. And so in that scenario, as a voter, you look at the choices and you're like, well, now I am free to just support, whoever I want to support that I believe in the most. And you know, Peggy Flanagan wins by 20 points.

And in Wisconsin, you have to imagine there were a bunch of, Francesca people who really liked Francesca Hong, and probably agreed with her more on the issues or found her campaign more inspiring, or whatever it may be, then David Crowley, but looked around, looked at polls, looked at her performances,

maybe looked at their governor that they like very much, even though he's older in establishment and said, you know what, can't do it, can't do it, it's too important to win the state. And like that seems to me like an entire, like,

I know everyone always says like,

I like the ability is all subjective, and it doesn't matter, but like, I do think there have to be some sort of objective standards to, by which to judge

“electability that I think voters are trying to sort of figure out on their own.”

There are, I think the way I like to think about it is, no one knows for sure who is flexible and who isn't. And the political environment is much more important than the quality of any individual candidate, but there are things we can look at, they give us an idea on people's electability.

One of which is how they hit, what is their history of winning tough races? Do they have it? Is there actual evidence of them winning every swing voters? This is quantified by split ticket in their wins over replacement model, but you can just like, we know that Andy Bashir and Josh Shapiro

can win over Republican voters. They have proven that in multiple kingdoms. Do we know that Gavin Newsom or AOC can do it? We do not know that.

Can they maybe, but they've never proven it before.

It's an untested proposition. We should say, because it's actually very useful for people, I think, is the wins above replacement, sort of calculation. Basically what split ticket has done is, and other people have done something similar, but what they have done is, they come up with like a baseline, right?

So if like, the baseline-- How would a generic Democrat do? Right, how would a generic Democrat do? It was like the national, sort of, was the national house vote or, and they put a whole bunch of factors into it.

So if a regular Democrat or a generic Democrat would win this race by two points, and X candidate wins it by four points, then there, plus two win above replacement.

but only wins it by one point, then there minus one wins above replacement.

“And you can do this with all the different house candidates and all the different.”

Now, what was interesting in the case of Michigan is,

first of all, a dual had run once for governor and lost.

So he didn't have a long record there. Haley Stevens was sort of the lowest wins above average of any of the Democrats in the house in Michigan, which I hadn't realized. So in that scenario, you actually didn't-- like, it seemed like Haley Stevens was like,

because she was more moderate and backed by the establishment, maybe it thinks she was more electable, but in terms of the objective measures you had, that wasn't necessarily the case. Sure enough, the argument, which is, you know, Laksha Jane is the poster for the argument and does the,

and also is split ticket, does the wins above replacement. He said that they had in their model, if they have a dual as a 70% chance of winning the general, and Haley Stevens would have been 80% chance. So it's like 10% difference is--

It's something, but it's not-- It's big, it's actually-- There's between 70 and 80. Doesn't feel huge difference between 50 and 40 feels. Quite big.

When you get there? Well, that's much more. Well, that gives you the other measures, which then you get past data, right? And so then there is the question of extremism.

And it is a, there is, it's not always true,

but it is mostly true that the candidate who is seen as more extreme loses. This is the thing that always makes people want to throw their phone in the ocean, but Donald Trump has seen his more moderate

than Kamala Harris in 2024, and Joe Biden has seen his more moderate than Donald Trump in 2020. And so you look at that and you say,

“does that, like he would take Michigan for instance?”

You would say, does that dual have positions in statements that could be used to make him see more extreme than Haley Stevens? Possibly. I think that's probably where you get to that, that net difference for them.

Then the third thing is candidate quality. And this is all subjective. Where you're like, does this person seem like they can, this is going to be particularly true in a presidential debate?

Can the presidential election?

Can they stand on the stage with JD Vance or Marco Rubio or Tucker Carlson ever else in like, hold their own, do they, can they go on podcasts? Can they give a good speech? Can they do those things?

And that I think is where Abdul seemed like he could, like he really showed a lot of candidate skill. And Haley just ran a campaign in the end that where she was just not very present in the media. So people didn't see her.

Although I would say she, her post-election media tour. She has crushed. Yeah. And then Hong went on this huge media tour. Did every interview seemed ill-prepared for a lot of them.

And that people saw that with their own eyes. So it's like yes, Eva said that. But then everyone actually saw clips that made them say, maybe this person cannot win or is less likely to win. Well, that's why she was like, yeah,

it's subjective and no one really knows who's electable or not. It's technically true. But all of this exists on a spectrum. And there are some people where you're like, who's the more electable candidate?

Well, they're both kind of good on TV. And sometimes they make mistakes. But one's inspiring for this reason. And they're like, that's a close call. With like, when Francisco Hong goes on TV and is like,

well, let's have to talk about canceling Thanksgiving and why police exist to uphold white supremacy. Most people, most people who don't pay attention to politics. If you if you showed them that clip, they'd be like, yeah, that's weird.

No, thank you. So like, that's that's an easier or or let's take another example. The Biden Trump debate. Right? Like, and Biden performs so horribly that afterwards it's like,

okay, yeah, there's there's like nitpicky debate, you know, figure skating judge quality to analyzing debates. But that's an easy call. Most most people would be like, that's awful. Right.

See, these are extreme examples. But the problem it gets harder. Like, it was where you get to the presidential election. Right. And so imagine you're down to at the end.

I'm just picking these sort of randomly. Gavin Newsom. Pete Buttigieg. Kamala Harris. Uh, AOC.

Ooh. Like, they're all. That's a tough one. Yeah. Say they're all like you can make a case for all of them.

And then it gets because more subjective.

“And then the thing that I think is important to know.”

And this is like a huge problem in 2020 is the electability discourse is very racially engender coded. And there was just like, there is this was particularly true in 2020, where it's just we filter the election through the mind of a white dude and Wisconsin.

And like, who do they want? And people, but you hear this in focus groups all the time. People project on to voters they do not know biases. It's like Kamala Harris did with Pete Buttigieg is the VP. Right, you say, well, he's a gay man.

And that's like the very, and the, and if you take that,

but if you take that, you never like, you would have said,

you also would have said Brock who say to Obama too much for America.

“They're tied like, it's just, it is, it's just, I think the discourse is,”

there are some things you can look at the real. There are some things that makes it very, quite complicated. And in circuit and can narrow the aperture of what you're looking for. Absolutely. You're not even doing it on base on data.

You're doing it us of perceived biases the electorate or small sample sizes of women losing presidential elections. As soon as I think we confuse in the electability discourse, the very real perceived biases in the, in the, in the electorate, right?

And the fact that a lot of this electability discourse is absolutely gender and

racially coded with, okay, but that's, that is true. That is how people think. And what does a candidate in the campaign do to overcome that? So yes, people thought that Barack Obama was, couldn't be president because we're, how are we going to elect a black guy named

Barack Husano Obama from Chicago as president of the United States when we just lost with the war hero against George W. Bush. And, and even black voters in South Carolina at the beginning of the campaign, did not think that Barack Obama was ready to become president. So what did Barack Obama do?

He won over a bunch of white voters in Iowa and proved that maybe it's not so crazy to think that a black man named Barack Husano Obama could become president. So part of this is realizing the biases that exist in the electorate and then, and then putting together a strategy to overcome those biases and prove yourself. Unfair, is it maybe it is the world that we look?

Yeah, and what makes it more unfair, and this is where it played in 2020, is there's a lot of the campaign that ever happens before you get to actual voters. Yeah, and so it's like, you need money, you need attention. And when people like, there was a list with Warren was at the top of the polls. And so there was a near-time story about how this with Warren probably couldn't be Trump.

And if you really tanked after that, because the hyper-engaged democratically once in Iowa in New Hampshire, we're like, oh wait, we love Elizabeth Warren, we like her policies, but she probably can't be Trump. Well, then we six and ten of us would prefer to have someone who could be Trump. And this is going to absolutely shade a lot of the discourse going into 2028.

Yeah, particularly because we have lost a Donald Trump two times now. Yeah, and so like unfairly or not, it's going to be a huge part of it.

“It's going to be, I think, hard for a lot of these candidates to overcome it,”

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The polls were off by a decent amount in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota for different reasons. As the host of Polar Coaster, you are therefore required to defend this witchcraft that you keep telling us will predict the future with near certainty.

The polls are not a snapshot in time. They are not in precise measure. They are perfect.

So saying.

“Yeah, I think if we look at these, the polls are very wrong.”

But let's talk about what that means in this case. One, it's worth noting that primary polls are often quite wrong. Yeah, like they have a long history of being wrong. That is become more true in this era. Where it becomes almost impossible to get anyone to take a poll.

Because polling is now looks much more like election modeling. Where you're guessing what the electorate looks like in advance. And then waiting your very random sample to match that. And so if you guess if you model the electorate wrong, you're going to miss everything. And that it's easier to model in a general election.

And particularly now, we've had a bunch of them in the Trump era, which is why the polls were more accurate in 2024. So, but that's even harder in a primary. It's particularly hard in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota, because those are open primary states, where independence and republicans can vote.

“It's one of the reasons that even it appears that the internal campaign polls were all wrong.”

Because in those states, you can't even go off the voter file to poll. You're basically doing either these meetup poll, so it's a relying on self-reported party ID, and the campaigns are using modeled support, where they sort of guess whether someone's Republican or Democrat. But you go into it, you have no idea how many independence are going to like they walk in to the voting booth. And they pick a ballot. They get to choose right there. And so it's very hard to know.

It is also seems very clear that in these states, the pollsters over sampled young voters and these young voters tend to be more progressive. They're the ones supporting, I'm dual and flan again and hung. And that's a misjudgment of how many people vote. And they are under sampling working class voters in particularly in Wisconsin and Michigan black voters. And then the other thing I'd say is most of the polls that we saw were not high quality polls.

We don't have near time to see any polls of these races. The market did poll markets as a highly, really pollster they did poll in Wisconsin and we're wrong, but their polls actually more than a week old by the time the election happened. And one thing that we, you know, we'd get a poll a week out. And it says the race is tied. And then one kid at wins by three, everyone says the poll is wrong.

It's like, well, it's also possible. In addition, that's just being the margin of error. People change their mind, undecided's move. And in Wisconsin in particular, it seems very clear that there was real movement at the end. You had like in that state navigate did a poll that was like five days out that ended up being quite wrong.

But in that poll, so you had nine percent of undecided voters. So all those voters seem to have gone too crally. You had a bunch of other candidates in the field who's, including two in Mandela bars in San Rodriguez, who had dropped out of the race. And they had supporters, and some of those supporters went to David Crowley.

And so with what poll, like we said, she hit her, for Francesca Hong was basically pulling around 40 percent, which is what she got.

In some of these poll, she was over excuse four or five points over 40. But yes, it basically got her, her within a reasonable polling error. Right, they got her number. And what happened is everything else moved towards Crowley. And he, like, he had momentum. She was struggling down the stretch.

He spent four million dollars, like in the last week, a week, ten days or so on broadcast in linear television, which I think made a huge difference.

“And so we have to remember that people changed their minds.”

Votes, undecided voters decide, and that is what affects the final margin. And that it's certainly a huge factor in what happened. At least in Wisconsin, probably to some extent, Michigan as well. Minnesota is a little more confusing to me because, and that one, the polls towards the end, showed it kind of close. And then instead, Penny, Peggy Flanagan, the more progressive candidate, one by 20 points.

So they underestimated the more progressive candidate in Minnesota. Yeah, those polls might just been wrong. It just goes to show you, I think, that like, it's, it's a number of different factors. And it's like, I wouldn't think to ourselves as we go into the midterms.

And if I'm wrong, that like, oh, no, they're always going to over sample younger voters.

And the polls are all going to be off because that didn't happen in Minnesota. And it hasn't happened in other places. It's possible. It's also worth remembering that in 2025, they pulls in New Jersey and whisked in Virginia, we're off. They're very far off in New Jersey.

And they under sampled Democrats in that case over summer Republicans. And it's going to be interesting. This is the, I mean, we're getting super nerdy here. They're in the wrong and 16. The polls were right in 2018, 2018 per hate, like a normal midterm because all of these low engaged

Trump voters did not turn out in that one. 2020, they were incredibly wrong. 2022, they were actually quite right. Every no one believes that because everyone thought the red wave is coming, but the polls were just

And then in 2024, the polls were right again. But the pollsters for the most part, there are some exceptions.

Some innate cone of the times included, but they took use basically, like, statistical

sledgehammer to jam more Trump voters into the polls, which worked. How they're going to factor in and model Republican turnout in this election and how they're going to try to comment it like, what the, what is the baseline? Are you, if you do it, what are you waiting? They waited, basically in 2024, they waited the poll to the 2020 vote share.

I don't know how they're going to do this here. It's going to be very interesting to say. I should probably bring this up since it's sort of breaking here as we're talking, but Fox News released two Senate polls. Michigan.

Mike Rogers 51, Abdul 47. And then Sherrod and Ohio is up by the same as he was last time, which is 53. 45.

I don't know if I buy either.

“But I think there's work for Abdul to do.”

I think he has real work to do. Yeah, I would say that both of those races end up being closer closer and like two point races. I think there's a world where Abdul could win by four or five. I find it highly unlikely that Mike Rogers could win by that much.

Yeah. But I think there's work for Abdul to do. I think he has real work to do. And it like he, in all of the polling, even the ones that showed him doing the same as Kelly Stevens against Mike Rogers, he was dramatically underperforming the political environment.

It should be this is Michigan. It's 50/50 state. It should be he should be starting with six points in his pocket, right? Because yeah, for because for everyone knows even though Michigan's close. If the national environment is six points more favorable to Democrats than it was in 2024,

then yeah, that's how you get that. Speaking of election forecasts, the promise 100% accuracy. Nate Silver dropped his midterm model this week called forecast with leading indicators, polls and expert ratings or flipper for short. You want to call a flipper.

“So, Nate's forecast have historically been closer to the mark than I think most other models.”

He's not known as someone who's bias towards Democrats or Republicans in his modeling. But it is notable that he gives Democrats as of this recording an 86.1% chance of winning the house. And I said as of this recording 56% chance of winning the Senate, but I bet once he throws in that Michigan poll, that might go down a little bit. Yeah, the fox isn't a rated poll.

And so that won't bring that down. Yeah. And since it just came out, I'm sure he isn't updated yet. But by the time you listen to this, it will be updated. What do you think of Nate's forecast?

And what should people know about what goes into that besides just polling? Because I think some people probably just assume that it's a polling aggregator, or you're just throwing a bunch of polls together and averaging them out, which it's not. Yes. For a long time, the real clear politics polling average was what everyone followed.

And that really was just math, where they added all the polls together, and then divided by the number of polls. Yeah. That the average is if they were in fifth grade math. What Nate does in others like LaXe Jane do this,

much more complicated is they build a statistical model that takes in polling. They then, Nate, at least, weights the pollsters based on quality of the poll. He actually has it in the past. I don't know if he's doing this in the case is established what calls a house bias. That some pollsters over time are tend to be more democratic or more Republican,

and then he will factor in that house bias into it. He will also include its fundamentals, like how much money the campaigns have raised, the larger political environment. There is a benefit to incumbency in these races and fits that in. And then this time, actually, he has three versions of his model, the Deluxe model, if you will.

Actually, factors in the expert ratings from like political report and others. It's, you know, it's interesting, too. If you read his methodology page because the polls have been so wrong, he's overweighting towards fundamentals this time, or he's putting that over. He's putting more weight on fundamentals than he has in the past.

Interesting, which is, which is interesting. And I'm going to be very, very interested to see what the Michigan poll, which by the time you guys are listening to this, you may be able to go to his site and check it out. But how that changes, because if I recall correctly,

“I think maybe this was actually a shame, but I don't want to,”

I don't want to smear him with, in case it was an incorrect take.

But basically, some people's model, if Deluxe, Deluxe chances of winning the house,

the Senate are, you know, let's say they're 57 or whatever it is. If they lose Michigan, that number drops to the like the 30s. Yeah. So that if Michigan is a, you really need Michigan to take the Senate, and if, and if we are a poll that shows us losing Michigan badly,

I also think the Senate forecast started even higher than 56%. And it went down to 56 today, because it was 57. Yeah. Yeah. There was an Emerson poll that shows.

That's a telleriko down one in Texas. I'll tell you what that poll shows. Telleriko was 70% of the black vote. And if he is down one, the 70% of the black vote in Texas, that he is going to be, he's going to win by firm.

I think that, I think that is a, a bad. They probably not enough voters to have it, but he's, he's going to get a lot more than 100% of black vote. Now, we're not in the prediction business.

And, you know, we always warn you about these things.

So what good is an election forecast for all of you? I do think that one of the more interesting parts of Nate's forecast, Nate's model is, in, for the house races, they show you, like, what are the closest house races in the country? And that can, like, that list can update.

“And I think if you're, you know, if you want to volunteer,”

if you want to donate money, it is kind of helpful to look and see the closest house races, the closest Senate races, and then, you know, you go to votes of America. And we can make sure you're connected with the right people. So you can have something to do in some place to donate.

So I do think, I do think that is very helpful to have, like, what races are the closest to kind of see it updating over time. It is emotional management for most people. They were going to live in die with several point drops in the forecast. Yeah, yeah, don't do that because it's, it's going to,

it's going to be quite a polar coaster, if you will. Yeah, he's right now until November. All right. Last thing before we go, White House Press Secretary Caroline Love it, announced on Wednesday that she's leaving her post at the end of the month

to quote embark on a new chapter and spend more time with her kids. She will, of course, be missed. And as former White House Com staffers, we thought it only fitting to say farewell with a tribute. To some of her finest moments.

She's become a star. It's that face. It's that brain. It's those lips. They where they move.

They move like she's a machine gun. Patriot has no place in the United States of America under President Donald Trump. The person who's been spotted at about a number of times with sandwiches on his hands. People are just lying while that is about.

The president is literally constantly shaking hands.

“Why was Renee Good unfortunately and tragically killed?”

Are you asking me? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's a nice state.

And I could. We're actually in total on such a fire. Okay. So you're a biased reporter with a left wing opinion. What do you want me to do?

Yeah. Because you're a left wing hack. The president had a feeling again based on fact that Iran was going to strike the United States. Was going to strike our assets in the region.

At this moment in time, of course, the ballroom is really the president's main priority. He believes that Canadians would benefit greatly from becoming the 51st state of the United States of America. It's well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Because it was 2011 when Barack Obama and Seth Meyer said,

"You'll never be President Wappity Bob."

Here we are with President Trump going on stage as a two-term president. For the first time, this speech tonight will be a classic Donald J. Trump. It'll be funny. It'll be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight. No.

Very, you know, just North Korean propaganda. North Korean propaganda threw through. Yeah, it's a dead Bob. Yes, he will. I love the candidate.

He does believe that Canadians will benefit for being the 51st state. Just said with the straight face. Which was a thing that actually happened in the American politics. Well, Kudos to her for saying that all the straight face. As for who might replace Levitt at the podium,

names are already being floated all across the mega media ecosystem. Lots of exciting possibilities and it's a wide open field. And so each of us, without sharing with each other yet, has ranked our top five most likely picks.

“So why don't we, I think we should each go five, five, four, four, three, three.”

That's what I was hoping for. Okay. I really kind of missed that the punch line of mine, but we'll do it this way. Okay. That's fine.

You want to go, who's your number five? Who's your number five? Number five is Marka Rubio. That's funny. That's funny.

I already saw some of the rubio on the couch meme is where he's got a blonde wig on. So yeah. Yeah. I use this. My number five.

Erica Kirk. Now that is the interesting suggestion. If you think it's crazy, but you're like, wait a minute. She's, you know, she's, there's a lot of public speaking. Big, you know, big favorite of the mega world.

Who knows? Number, number four. So before I give number four, I would like to just point out my thinking here, which is Donald Trump has had five press secretaries. Can you name all five?

Wow.

Oh, because we have to go back to the first term, huh?

Yeah. I can do it. John Spicer. Kate McLeanie. Yep.

Uh. Oh, uh. Uh. What's his name? Scare Mucci.

Never press secretaries.

14 days. Communication structure. Oh, he didn't step in for the, oh, yeah. He landed in some breathing. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Yep. Um. Caroline Slayer. And so now I'm just one, I, one, right, that I'm missing. Stephanie Grisham.

Oh, it's Stephanie Grisham. Yes. Okay. Okay. So five press secretaries, the last four have been women.

Mm-hmm. I don't think Donald Trump's going to pick a man. I don't either. So my number four is. Although I have one, I have one man on my list.

I did, too, obviously. Um, but my number four is Anna Kelly, who's turned the deputy press secretary. You know, I keep seeing that around, but it's like.

I feel like he always wants to go for someone who.

Um, has been on TV a bunch. He's also lazy. So yeah, that's true. He's a man so lazy. Wouldn't even pick a new Nash security advisor.

Yeah. Oh, that's true. That would be the, that's the lazy rat.

“I don't think it's, I would see what I, not what I think is most likely,”

but I think it's on the table. My number four is. My favorite in yours. Trisha McLaughlin. Oh, God.

That's, that's definitely not happening, but that is a good suggestion for content purposes. You don't think it's, I think, well, I, I did read somewhere that she might be pregnant. So that would be tricky, at least if it's happening soon. I don't know how pregnant she is or what, but like, but I could see, I mean, she was clearly auditioning for White House press secretary.

Her entire time at DHS and she has not taken a new job yet. Okay. It's on the table. My number three. Carey Lake.

Yeah. Carey Lake is, it's a possibility. Trump loves her. Trump loves her. She's a loyalist.

She is. She's crazy.

She'll fight with the press, which is what he cares about most.

She's very, she's a former reporter. She's good on TV in a Trumpian way. She's good on TV. Right. Right.

Yeah. I, I thought about her. And I was like, is she, you know, Trump likes his spokespeople. Like, like, young, like Fox News anchors. Yeah.

It's this one's the only thing that. Yeah. Well, in my number three. Same thing, which is a departure from this, which is Scott Jennings. Interesting.

See, I was thought about Scott Jennings, but then I went with my whole man thing. And then I had to do the very cheesy funny Rubio joke. I would not put the money on Scott Jennings.

“But I put him on my list because I, because we are betting all of these on Calshy, right?”

That's, yes, of course, yes, obviously, as we do with everything. Okay. My number two. Katie Miller. So I was going to have Katie Miller on there.

And then I, of course, it's some research for this segment. And in one of the political stories about the search, a source close to Miller said, Not happening. Absolutely not. Exactly.

Oh, no. That's what Katie Miller's word. Yes. Maybe what was she, she has a wildly successful podcast. What's she going to be, she just do the podcast in the briefing room.

Yeah. That's probably good. She likes attention. She's very combative. Yeah.

I mean, she would. Yeah. I could see it. No. I have.

Isn't it my number two? No one. Just doesn't fill the role. Continue to have a bunch of dipshitz jump into the briefing room once in a while. And says, fuck it.

I don't even want the press to. I don't want to deal with that. I'm, he's the press secretary here. Yeah, I thought about putting that on my list too. And then I thought that was maybe a little too trying too hard for a viral clip.

If you will. What? No wonder if I said Trump. If I was Trump. I never won choices.

I don't Trump. Yeah. That seemed like I did much. Yeah.

“I think he really cares about the briefing.”

He wants to watch something. He wants to watch what there. It is a well in the Fox schedule. During the day. I think he does not watch well.

So it usually the briefing is during well came. And so that's all that problem for him. Well, can. Two dumb. Yeah.

All right. Number one. Number one. This is a totally out of left field. It's a crazy choice.

Rachel. Campus. Duffy. She's on. Cal, she.

Yeah. But she fell. She, she, she started it like 40%. Like, I don't know how they've got there. I don't know.

I think it's like 40% or something. And then she's like falling down to less than 1%. I think I'm not sure the people who are betting. What we have to watch for is if all of a sudden there is a surge behind one person. Yeah.

That's the one thing we can trust. She's a Fox news anchor. She is very. She's reality TV star. She's in the family.

In the family. Yeah. Boyle Trump likes her a lot. He talks about her a lot back when before Sean Duffy was in the camp. That he used to tweet and truth about her all the time.

Yeah. I should have kept her on my list. I have Alina Haba. That's, yeah. And she knew she was the favorite right now.

I knew in my soul you were going to pick Alina Haba first.

And so for content purposes, I took Alina Haba off my list. I know I, I almost didn't want her first because I was like, I think it's, it's more, it's boring as a selection.

Yeah.

“So you were trying, you were taking this as a serious scam.”

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Okay.

Just like I did, I was terminally online, you know.

I was doing this for totally content purposes. Of course. Of course. Yes.

“Well, good luck to everyone on our list.”

And hopefully it was good to do some outside the box ones that are not on Kalshi, like Eric Kirk and Tricia McLaughlin, because maybe if we say them, you know, the maga, the maga verse listens to us.

So we just, if we put it out there, maybe we can build some buzz behind these people.

You are listening to positive America. And then you think that we said something about who Trump might Harris is press secretary. And then you went and put money on that. Get help. Well, that that might describe Elijah.

This. He's so far behind help. Yeah.

I can hear us still laughing.

“All right, Dan, well, that's our show for today.”

Tommy will be back in the feed on Sunday with the conversation with tech journalist Casey Newton about the terrifying AI moment we're in. Exciting. And, and what we can do about it. Casey's awesome. That's going to be a great conversation.

And then, and then John and Tommy and I will be back with the new episode on Tuesday. Have a good weekend, everyone. Bye, everyone. Positive America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with

Returlin, Elijah Cohen and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcoat, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kerala V, David Tolls, Mia Kalman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is probably unionized with the writer's guild of America East. The Water Day podcast you know and love is shaking things up.

You already know the five days a week. I, Jane Coston, bring you the need to know news and expert analysis on the big stories shaping today in tomorrow. Stories like how social media warps our perception of the world and the strange reality of who is signing up to work for ice. All in less time that it takes to roast a chicken.

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