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00:00:01Thanks for joining us for Political Talk on another Politipod Live.
00:00:06Tonight we'll cover This Week in Failure, Tuck, Tail, and Run, Election Central, and Reason to Hope.
00:00:14We'll also have our segments Fascism Creeps and Issue Update.
00:00:19I'm Tom Bickel.
00:00:21I'm Hannes Oldner.
00:00:23And I'm Matt Nissenoff.
00:00:25We start with This Week in Failure.
00:00:31We can, of course, mention what's going on with Iran and how much longer we can tolerate a kink in
00:00:41the Straits, so to speak.
00:00:44So the Iran War has gone horribly for the U.S., and despite the statements of certain administration officials who
00:00:54have said 30 or 40 times that the war was ending and how well it's going and how we won
00:01:01and how there was an unconditional surrender and how there was et cetera, et cetera.
00:01:07The reality is, even the lie about how there's the end of it already, the agreement or memorandum that was
00:01:18signed promised Iran all of the things.
00:01:22They won all the things because they won the war.
00:01:25You see how that goes?
00:01:27And so they're being given $300 billion.
00:01:31And after it was pointed out that that was, golly gee, that's a lot of money, then the White House
00:01:38said, oh, okay, well, we'll start giving it to them now.
00:01:41We're going to give them the money as a reward as they achieve the goals that we have set for
00:01:48them in the memorandum.
00:01:49And then Iran said, well, you're kind of full of shit.
00:01:53And the U.S. said, oh, okay, so we'll just start giving you the money.
00:01:57And they've already made payments to them based on this $300 billion.
00:02:03And Iran hasn't done a single thing.
00:02:05In fact, they re-closed the Straits of Hormuz.
00:02:09They now have control of the Straits of Hormuz, which they never have before this kerfuffle started.
00:02:16And as I mentioned, we still have $300 billion to pay them, plus the something like $70 billion to repair
00:02:26the military bases, our military bases overseas that were damaged during the whole thing.
00:02:34And there's a couple of billion dollars that will need to be spent to restock all the armaments and weapons
00:02:41that were used.
00:02:42So we've really taken it.
00:02:46I guess you could say on the chin.
00:02:50You could say something else, too.
00:02:52There was something else that came to mind.
00:02:57It was a family show.
00:02:59Yeah, exactly.
00:02:59Exactly.
00:03:00On occasion.
00:03:03So what do you guys think?
00:03:05What do you think about the failure in Iran or the U.S.
00:03:09To the victor, go the oils.
00:03:13Ah, I see what you did there.
00:03:18Man, you know, I'm worried about it.
00:03:21We it really seemed like we were facing down a looming deadline, like close, like, OK, four months of war
00:03:30slash special military operation, whatever Putin's telling them to call it these days.
00:03:36We've really it's been weeks and months.
00:03:39And when you stop 20 percent of the world's oil from moving where it needs to go, that's a lot.
00:03:47And we can tolerate some of that for a while.
00:03:50But after a while, it's not funny anymore.
00:03:52And I think it was getting to that point.
00:03:54The things I would see in the media led me to believe that we have this much cushion for all
00:03:59these reserves.
00:03:59But when the when there's no more cushion, buddy, there's anyway.
00:04:04Anyway, it seemed like we were getting to that point.
00:04:08And then we're like, oh, hey, we made a deal memorandum.
00:04:11Everybody said yes.
00:04:12And we're doing this.
00:04:13And then, like, 36 hours later, we're bombing Lebanon, I think it was.
00:04:18And supposedly that's part of the deal or potential deal concepts of a deal.
00:04:25And so then it was all of a sudden we tightened up the Strait of Hormuz again.
00:04:31And now it's sort of restricted, but some are getting through.
00:04:37But it's only going to make things more expensive.
00:04:40And I really I have enough problems in my life.
00:04:43As bad as things are being run, there's no lines at the gas station.
00:04:48Yet.
00:04:49I'd like to keep it that way.
00:04:51And it seems like we're endangering that we're just Trump's only superpower is to fuck things up.
00:04:57Family program.
00:05:00And that's the only power he can't create.
00:05:02He can only threaten to destroy.
00:05:05And then if he doesn't do it, hey, I'm a big hero.
00:05:07I saved the thing I was going to stomp a mud hole in.
00:05:10So I don't I don't like that.
00:05:12And I'm I'm sick of the game.
00:05:14And I think we're just playing with it with fire.
00:05:17If you think it can't get worse, I remind you, COVID.
00:05:21We created a hell out of nothing, out of nowhere for ourselves.
00:05:27We created the perfect budding ecosystem for it.
00:05:32And by golly, it flourished.
00:05:34And we can do the same thing again.
00:05:37Devastation on dimensions we're heretofore unfathomed.
00:05:43And we're just I don't know why we're flirting with this.
00:05:46I don't know why people let it go on.
00:05:47I wish our Congress would do its job.
00:05:51Anna, what you got?
00:05:53You know, when you were when you started this segment and you said we're going to do an update on
00:05:59Iran, I was like, oh, did something change?
00:06:02But it seems like not.
00:06:05No, it just it feels like the war that nobody wanted and except maybe Netanyahu or maybe some hawks, I
00:06:17guess, who don't like Iran.
00:06:18But and we've done everything wrong.
00:06:22And it's kind of one of the few times where it's sort of I don't know if it's because it's
00:06:29affecting people's, you know, price at the pump or whatever.
00:06:32But it's one of the few times where people have been like, you know, sort of cross politically been like,
00:06:39what are we doing?
00:06:40Why are we still doing it?
00:06:45And yeah, it seems to have gotten us nothing.
00:06:50And yeah, it was there was no reason to do it.
00:06:53And it got us nothing.
00:06:54And now we're stuck in a quagmire.
00:06:56Well, none of us has said the word Epstein list so far.
00:06:59So I think there is something to it.
00:07:00That is true.
00:07:02Yeah.
00:07:03Trump did it for a purpose.
00:07:04We just don't know particularly what it is.
00:07:07And it certainly hasn't been any sort of a benefit other than he gets to run around and say, oh,
00:07:11I, you know, I stopped a war.
00:07:15You know, I made a peace deal.
00:07:16See, and without going into the details of who started the war and the fact that he was that person,
00:07:24too, which is typical.
00:07:27I mean, I do agree with Tom on the point that Trump is so simplistic in his thinking that he
00:07:35can only see the.
00:07:3930 seconds and the five feet in front of him, if that and so he says, oh, you know, oh,
00:07:47we did a thing and we bombed people and then we stopped.
00:07:50So I stopped the war and he doesn't get that the other side is not interested in his potential understanding.
00:08:00They know they were attacked and they're going to respond.
00:08:03And so they, you know, and then the memorandum of you mentioned Netanyahu, the the another thing Trump does is
00:08:13he thinks he speaks for everybody whenever he says anything.
00:08:16So he goes ahead and signs this memorandum with Iran and says, oh, yeah, also, Israel will stop doing whatever
00:08:23it's doing in Lebanon.
00:08:25And Israel is like, well, you didn't say anything to us.
00:08:28You didn't include us in this conversation.
00:08:30So we don't feel bound by this agreement.
00:08:33So we'll do what we think we want to and we're going to, you know, if they give us a
00:08:38reason, then we will follow up on it and we will not do the simple little response.
00:08:44We only do big response.
00:08:47So that he never seeks a consensus.
00:08:50He never seeks anyone to go along with him except maybe one crony like like Netanyahu.
00:08:55But he abandoned our allies first and foremost.
00:08:59He jettisoned those things like sandbags on a on a, you know, a blimp.
00:09:05He's like heave those overboard, those stupid allies.
00:09:09And he does these these strikes in Venezuela and Iran with no stated goal, no stated, no, no plan.
00:09:19Go bomb stuff, period.
00:09:22And the Hegseth, the Hegseth way.
00:09:29Just and he goes and blows stuff up and high fives and waits for the accolades to roll in.
00:09:35And then sometimes you can't do that, buddy.
00:09:38I think he was emboldened by Venezuela, but he never seeks a plan or a goal.
00:09:44He doesn't want to explain to anybody.
00:09:47He commands that you get with him before, during and after, even as he declares in the same breath that
00:09:53he doesn't need you.
00:09:55He's not he's he's not built to lead.
00:09:59This is exactly what he always does.
00:10:03Too true.
00:10:04And speaking of the sort of things he does, that brings up our other failure, most recent failure, which would
00:10:12be the reflecting pool scandal.
00:10:15And the farce of it, you know, the minor problem that didn't need to be dealt with in the manner
00:10:24which it was, which he, of course, then did.
00:10:26And then the problems that came up with it and how he sees a secret enemy who's out to knife
00:10:35the bottom of the reflecting pool.
00:10:39And, you know, the secret Antifa operators wearing scuba gear who went down under the the what six inches of
00:10:50water and cut up the bottom of the pool where two weeks ago he was saying this stuff I'm putting
00:10:56in is so great.
00:10:57It's so fantastic.
00:10:58It's not like somebody could take a knife and cut it.
00:11:00It's you know, it's got very it's very sturdy stuff.
00:11:04And now it's oh, the peeling.
00:11:07Oh, it must be an enemy operative who is using a knife and cutting it up.
00:11:12And it's like, hey, here we go again.
00:11:18So where are you on algae?
00:11:23I mean, I'm pro-algae.
00:11:26I did see, you know, somebody said today online somewhere, they said, you know, algae is a really good consumer
00:11:33of CO2 and creator of oxygen.
00:11:35So if nothing else, at least Trump, this is probably the most environmental thing he'll ever do.
00:11:41So he's an environmentalist now.
00:11:45He's going green.
00:11:47Yeah, there you go.
00:11:51That's fantastic.
00:11:52The whole thing is that.
00:11:54Are you done, Hannah?
00:11:55I didn't want to step on you.
00:11:56Go, go.
00:11:57The whole thing is ridiculous from front to back.
00:12:02None of it makes any sense.
00:12:03It wasn't a problem.
00:12:05He didn't need to do anything.
00:12:07And then the thing he decided to do was painted blue.
00:12:12What?
00:12:13And then he wanted to drive, what was it, like half a dozen armored SUVs down the stupid thing?
00:12:22This water-holding vessel, you're just going to, you're going to caravan right through it?
00:12:28For no, to inspect it, he didn't even get out of the truck.
00:12:33I don't know.
00:12:34Maybe he did.
00:12:34I don't know.
00:12:35But he didn't need to drive on it.
00:12:38I'm fixing it.
00:12:40Wham, wham, wham.
00:12:41You know, I got out my fixing sledgehammer.
00:12:45It doesn't make any sense.
00:12:46It didn't need help.
00:12:48He didn't provide help.
00:12:50He wrote a check to somebody with our money.
00:12:53The minute we put this guy in office, the minute I heard the vote at the beginning of his term,
00:13:00I was like, you guys have put a fox in the henhouse.
00:13:05You've given this guy literally a blank check to the greatest reservoir of money, you know, on this side of
00:13:11the planet.
00:13:12Yeah.
00:13:12Whoa.
00:13:13What have we done?
00:13:14And this is it.
00:13:15This is it.
00:13:16This ridiculous mismanagement.
00:13:17And yeah, it was it was a crony.
00:13:20It was some guy who had done work for him before and some guy who was just as much of
00:13:24a connerst as he is.
00:13:26And of course, the guy screwed the job up.
00:13:29As you were saying, he Trump decided it should be a blue pool instead of a reflecting pool, which is
00:13:35actually what it's called.
00:13:36It's called a reflecting pool.
00:13:37Have you seen the guy?
00:13:39Yeah.
00:13:40Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:13:40I've seen the goofy.
00:13:41If you carved a pimp out of plastic, that's what it would look like.
00:13:46Like, he's a Batman villain.
00:13:48He looks ridiculous.
00:13:49What kind of this?
00:13:50You know, this guy is hell to be around.
00:13:53He's living in his whole his own world.
00:13:55These rich guys, they make they make their own little universe.
00:13:58And, you know, they employ everybody that has to deal with them.
00:14:03So anyway, I'm just saying I know the type and this guy is neon.
00:14:08Absolutely.
00:14:09And that kind of slides is very nicely into our first segment, which is fascism creeps.
00:14:17We're talking about the reflecting pool.
00:14:21Yep.
00:14:22You thought you were done with the reflecting pool, but oh, no.
00:14:25This thing is an issue of such vice, we mentioned it twice.
00:14:33The reflecting pool, not only is it just a terrible failure of construction, of leadership, of accountability,
00:14:39it's also a terrible failure because now they've invented this ridiculous idea that it's not Trump's idiotic bumbling Three Stooges
00:14:49level failure
00:14:50that's caused the reflecting pool to be a catastrophic laughingstock mess.
00:14:55No, no, no.
00:14:56No, this Antifa snuck into the pool and let's say and cut it 350 yards, I think is the last
00:15:07time he upped the number unnecessarily
00:15:10on his already ridiculous kindergarten lie with a knife.
00:15:15Specifically, he said a knife.
00:15:17When is the last time you ever cut paint with a knife?
00:15:21What are you talking about?
00:15:23And I don't know if I mentioned this last week.
00:15:25I hope I did, but when it comes to this stupid pool, let me just interject this a moment.
00:15:28I apologize.
00:15:30We'll be back to your regularly scheduled program in a moment.
00:15:33Who puts hydrogen peroxide in a pool?
00:15:36I worked at a pool company.
00:15:38I'm no scientist.
00:15:39I'm no chemist.
00:15:40I'm barely what I am.
00:15:42But I never saw anybody talk about peroxide.
00:15:47It was thousands and thousands of gallons of chlorine.
00:15:52Chlorine.
00:15:52You've heard of chlorine?
00:15:54Common.
00:15:54Affordable.
00:15:55In use all day, every day, in millions of pools nationwide.
00:15:59Peroxide?
00:16:00Now, maybe.
00:16:02I don't know.
00:16:03And then I read somewhere else that peroxide, that's what they use to pop paint loose.
00:16:10So, knife or chemical mismanagement?
00:16:16So, sorry, I'm bearing you forever to get there.
00:16:19So, to perpetuate the lie that vandals did it, they're arresting innocent American citizens at the pool who are going,
00:16:27hey, look at this stupid shit.
00:16:29Boom.
00:16:30They're slapping cuffs on people.
00:16:32NBC reports that at least five people were arrested as of a couple of days ago.
00:16:36I haven't checked recently, but I'm pretty sure I've seen more in the headlines.
00:16:39They're wrapping people up on the obvious bald-faced lie that we can all see that people are harming, people
00:16:48not in the president are harming this reflecting pool.
00:16:53Right, right.
00:16:54And we'll update the...
00:16:56That's what makes it fascism.
00:16:58Yeah.
00:16:59I finally got there.
00:17:00There you go.
00:17:01And we can change the scene as well.
00:17:04Well, yeah, it's this whole nonsense of announcing that there's this enemy, this imagined enemy, and then coming up with
00:17:14some sort of a fictional crime, and then trying to use that to take it out on everybody else, right?
00:17:23So anybody who's near the pool now is now an operative who's trying to pursue this, I guess, assault on
00:17:33the paint?
00:17:34Is that the charge?
00:17:35I have no idea.
00:17:37Anna, what about you?
00:17:38What do you think?
00:17:41Yeah, I mean, it's...
00:17:42We'll get to some of this failure, other things that Trump's tried to do and failed in a little bit,
00:17:48but I just feel like...
00:17:50Yeah, it seems like very classic, like, dictator, authoritarian, like, you know, you all messed it up, you're sabotaging, you're
00:17:59going in there with a knife and cutting it up, or I think somebody was like that, somebody must have
00:18:04developed some kind of super algae.
00:18:08You know, and it's not too dissimilar from them, like, putting up the tent around when the letters came down
00:18:14off the Kennedy Center and whatever.
00:18:16It's just, like, classic dictator, authoritarian move.
00:18:19They cannot handle their own failure, and so they must come up with these stupid reasons why it must be
00:18:26everybody else.
00:18:29Yeah, yeah.
00:18:31And then, yeah, exactly.
00:18:32And then once he makes this delusional sort of excuse, really, as to being some sort of imaginary enemy, of
00:18:42course, everybody then fits that profile, right?
00:18:46Bald-faced farcical.
00:18:47How much longer are we going to tolerate this?
00:18:51It's ridiculous.
00:18:53Well, I mean, that's...
00:18:56Sorry.
00:18:57The matters of scale are obviously different, but it's not really too dissimilar from what's happening in Iran.
00:19:04He came up with an idea, he thought it would make him look awesome, and it flopped because he put
00:19:11no shit out of it.
00:19:12Yeah, you actually have to plan things like this and, like, think about them, you know, which is kind of
00:19:19why the government spends a lot of money, because it makes plans so that it doesn't have massive failures like
00:19:24this.
00:19:26And he doesn't...
00:19:28He's not a big planner, which is why he's failed his way to the top.
00:19:31Well, and a spoiled brat.
00:19:33You know, he wants to do something, so he does it, and everybody else can worry about the consequences.
00:19:38And he did his little thing so he can get his little trophy or whatever it is, or imaginary trophy
00:19:45even.
00:19:45I expect he has many more of those than any other kind of trophy.
00:19:50And it's all everybody else's problem, right?
00:19:53So invade Iran, and then say you won.
00:19:57Give them $300 billion and say clearly it was an unconditional surrender.
00:20:07You know, it all works out for him.
00:20:09Now, another one of those things was, of course, the dealing with the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walls.
00:20:18And he didn't like Tim Walls, so all of a sudden, DOJ comes up with these half-dozen grand jury
00:20:25subpoenas targeting Walls.
00:20:28And the judge kind of looked into it and said, yeah, you know what?
00:20:34None of this is...
00:20:35None of this has a real basis.
00:20:37This is nonsense.
00:20:38And all of them have been dismissed by the district judge.
00:20:43And then, of course, with the district judges, we've heard stories of dozens of district judges overturning these silly nonsense
00:20:51decisions.
00:20:52And now the Supreme Court is saying that they're going to limit district judges to only having an effect on
00:21:01a specific designated region or area.
00:21:05And that their rulings are not going to automatically be applied nationally anymore.
00:21:13So even his picked Supreme Court is trying to do something to temper the fact that the district judges are
00:21:23responding and are a real resistance.
00:21:32Now, there's also the veteran federal prosecutor who's having 20 years of cases looked into.
00:21:41Do the assistant U.S. attorney Sherry Mecklenburg, one of the prosecutors on the Broadview 6 case, which was thrown
00:21:48out in May for flagrant misconduct, including jury temporary,
00:21:54is having her cases back to 2007 be re-evaluated by her boss, who's trying to show he wasn't involved
00:22:01in all of this.
00:22:04And at least one case from 2018 has already been dismissed.
00:22:10What do you think about Mecklenburg and the review of work?
00:22:16Yeah. So, I mean, again, not too dissimilar from the reflecting pool.
00:22:21I said that we would reference this earlier.
00:22:22So, the Broadview 8 are this group of people, sorry, Broadview 6, are this group of people just out of
00:22:29Chicago who were arrested for protesting outside of an ICE detention camp.
00:22:37And it was one of those things that people thought was probably political.
00:22:41And then when the, right as the case was about to start, these people came and they're just like, it
00:22:46clearly was political.
00:22:48They had somebody, like one of the people on the prosecution had been talking to one of the grand jury
00:22:55members, like privately,
00:22:57and all these other things to try and influence the grand jury to vote to have the case go forward.
00:23:03And so, it got dismissed with prejudice, which means they cannot bring it back again.
00:23:07And so, this guy, Botros, who's the district attorney there, he's getting a lot of flack about, like, how did
00:23:17you do this?
00:23:18How have you let this go, you know, get this far away from you and whatever?
00:23:22So, I think in a way of, like, trying to, so, in two different things.
00:23:26In one way, he's trying to cover his ass and just, you know, go after Mecklenburg and some other people.
00:23:33And then the other thing is a lot of the people who were arrested were lawyers or politicians.
00:23:38So, they know what they're doing.
00:23:40And so, they are pushing anybody who's any way, you know, related to this, they're going to push back against
00:23:46them and try and, you know, bring this up.
00:23:48So, I don't want to insinuate that Mecklenburg is some sort of patsy.
00:23:51Obviously, she did do these things and whatever.
00:23:54But I feel like it wouldn't surprise me if Botros comes and falls from this, too, and maybe some other
00:23:59people.
00:23:59And rightly so, you know.
00:24:00If you are willing to do the president's bidding for a show trial, you've probably been having some issues of
00:24:07stuff.
00:24:08And it's good for me if all these people go down in flames.
00:24:15Tom, anything on Mecklenburg or we're moving on?
00:24:18You know, I just want to point out that some of the things she's suspected of is allegedly dismissing grand
00:24:25jurors who are skeptical of the government's case and have private conversations with grand jurors outside formal proceedings.
00:24:34That alone is terrible.
00:24:37It's terrible.
00:24:38Terrible.
00:24:38That's all.
00:24:40We are moving on to our next and perhaps last issue in the fascism creep section, which is there's word
00:24:48that the UK police, United Kingdom's police, are increasing use of facial recognition technology.
00:24:56But there are some that are starting to feel that it's not an appropriate tool or not used appropriately.
00:25:03The Essex police, if you're familiar with the geography of the UK, have paused their facial recognition camo use after
00:25:11studies found that there was racial bias in how they detect the software techs who is potentially a criminal.
00:25:21And, hey, we're back to, what's the thing with the bumps on the head?
00:25:26Phrenology.
00:25:27Phrenology.
00:25:28Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:25:28We're back to phrenology, practically, where a thing that is supposed to be scientific in its basis is actually, you
00:25:35know, doesn't work the way it's imagined it could.
00:25:39It's nice that you can imagine it, but that doesn't make it true.
00:25:43Anything on Neil Gray?
00:25:49Oh.
00:25:52I don't know about that.
00:25:55But basically, the Scottish government, which is, you know, often, they don't want to be part of the UK.
00:26:03They recently had an election to leave, but they ended up not.
00:26:09You know, so the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, who must be up there in Scotland, is basically saying, we're going
00:26:17to watch how this goes for Westminster and then figure out how we're going to do it here.
00:26:22But, yeah, Matt, to one of your points, in one of these articles, they said that, or not article, I
00:26:29guess they said in the article, too, but the people from the Metro Police said that they were going to
00:26:34start with this facial recognition in high crime areas.
00:26:38And that's just like, it's basically just redoubling down on, you know, racial profiling.
00:26:44If you put a lot of police or cameras in, you know, poor neighborhoods, you know, or neighborhoods of people
00:26:53of color, because you think that's where crime is, of course, you're going to catch crime, because that's where you're
00:26:57looking.
00:26:58You know, and so it's all these things are just basically making, you know, if there's already racism in the
00:27:05system, then it's just going to turbocharge all that, because the system that you're using of policing is already broken.
00:27:14Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, I mean, they caught Jack the Ripper, right? Oh, no. Sorry. There's, so yeah, yeah, no, your
00:27:24point is absolutely true, and I agree with that. Let's move on to our next issue, which we call Tuck,
00:27:34Tail, and Run.
00:27:36There he is. There's some time to have a little chat about Tucker Carlson and what's going on there. So
00:27:45a conservative and someone who tried to make himself sort of an archetypal conservative, I mean, guy wore a bow
00:27:54tie for decades.
00:27:55Here's a guy who's very dedicated to being a conservative, by God, and, you know, being from a wealthy family.
00:28:04It all rides up. But now he says he can no longer support the Republicans.
00:28:16Exactly. And so his big announcement recently is that he can no longer support the Republicans because the Republicans support
00:28:27Israel, and it's not acceptable to him, and he's out of there, baby. And yet he still sucks. Go figure.
00:28:37This is the issue that seems to be dividing the conservatives at this point in history. It seems to be
00:28:45a group of conservatives who are saying, we support Israel, and okay, that's great. And another group that says Republicans
00:28:52support Israel, and therefore it's no longer acceptable.
00:28:58Tucker Carlson was joined by Marjorie Taylor Greene, who left the Congress and now the Republican Party. She said they
00:29:05were now America last. They were no longer the Party of America first. The Party of America last. And that's
00:29:15because, and she specifically noted their support for Israel as her concern.
00:29:23So, what do you got? What do you think about Tucker Carlson? He's going to tuck his tail and run
00:29:28from the state of Israel.
00:29:31I mean, Carlson, he was born into a news family, right? His father was a newsman, who also was terrible.
00:29:39And he was also born into this once in family, frozen dinner family.
00:29:45Would you say the first apple didn't fall far from the tree?
00:29:48That's right. But I mean, like, you know, he started on MSNBC, and then he was on CNN, and he
00:29:56was on Crossfire, trying to have it be this, I don't know, this like conservative and liberal, you know, people
00:30:04debating stuff.
00:30:06And then that failed spectacularly. And then he went to Fox News, and he was kicked out of Fox News.
00:30:11And so like, he's, you know, and he didn't even he got his job, if I remember correctly, because somebody
00:30:20did an expert in something, and he just agreed to do it, even though he wasn't an expert in that
00:30:23thing.
00:30:25You know, and so he's definitely the kind of person who is, you know, he might be America last, but
00:30:30he's definitely Tucker first. And, you know, he's definitely happy to change his spots or his stripes to whoever will
00:30:41listen to him.
00:30:41And I feel like he's, this idea of he can't support Republicans anymore, because of, because of what's happening in
00:30:52Israel, I feel like is the kind of sentence you put together, hoping that people will not look too deeply
00:30:58into that.
00:30:59You know, there's lots of criticisms about Netanyahu, we had criticisms about Netanyahu. But I feel like saying, not supporting
00:31:06Israel. Okay, this could go bad ways. But it is definitely something that anti, you can not support Israel and
00:31:14not be anti Semitic, but you can also dog whistle to anti Semitic to anti Semites.
00:31:21And to think that there's not going to that there's not a ton of anti Semites within the Republican Party.
00:31:26You know, of course, there are, and so they're going to appeal to those people. But he's using it in
00:31:31this way to, you know, I'm sure, hopefully think maybe he can get some progressives who, you know, are anti
00:31:38Semitic as well, or just really anti Netanyahu or whatever. But I feel like he's the kind of guy who's,
00:31:45he's never really done anything to help anybody but himself.
00:31:50And so, you know, if there's going to be any kind of change in him, that's where it has to
00:31:54start.
00:31:57I think that, oh, Tom, you got anything on Tucker?
00:32:02Regarding Tucker Carlson, he's awful. And he will remain to be awful. I would like to point out and express
00:32:11gratitude for Jon Stewart, going on to his Crossfire TV show on CNN and just taking his bicycle apart on
00:32:19national television.
00:32:21Just reducing him to constituent parts and breaking down his whole shilly game was a thing of beauty. And we
00:32:30need more, more people like that and more things like that in the world.
00:32:32I get the sense that Tucker Carlson is just a rat leaving a sinking ship. The man has never been
00:32:38guided by principles. He sure hasn't started now. I don't watch Tucker that much, much like any other right leaning
00:32:48celebrities or figures or quote unquote public servants.
00:32:53What a quaint term. I don't watch him. I can't I can't stand to watch him. It's awful. It's looking
00:33:00like it's like watching a car crash with vomit on it.
00:33:04Just on a nonstop loop. It makes me sick of my stomach. And I've stopped watching conservative. I don't track
00:33:09any of that popular culture for my health because I'm sick of the whole damn thing.
00:33:16And, you know, wake me when it's over. I want to go into a cryostasis. And so I don't know
00:33:21where Tucker's going. I don't care. I hope he goes and never comes back.
00:33:27Mazel tov, Tucker.
00:33:30I honestly think that this is all early, early image shaping for the next Republican presidential campaign.
00:33:43I think that he's testing an issue and that he wants to see who will agree, who will disagree.
00:33:50And he's doing that in part to maybe guide one of the particular leading candidates, so-called leading candidates, in
00:33:59this case, J.D. Vance, to see if an issue that he's kind of toying with is one that can
00:34:05pick up some popular support.
00:34:06And that you're right. Tucker Carlson himself doesn't really give a, you know, he's, he's not, he's not concerned with
00:34:15the public image.
00:34:16He's concerned with testing Republican and conservative messaging. And he's happy to do that.
00:34:23And, you know, this, this is a guy who was part of that Fox, although he had been on MSNBC
00:34:29even at one point, what he wound up as was Fox News lackey.
00:34:34And he was part of that team that was able to incur the $787 billion pay out demanded by the
00:34:45court because Fox News had lied.
00:34:47And he was one of them. And the emails from the inside showed that he was touting Trump and all
00:34:55the nonsense that Trump was talking about, about elections and whatever.
00:35:01And yet behind the scenes, he was saying, oh, this guy's a nut bag. This is Trump is a lunatic.
00:35:07This is a guy who clearly nobody needs to pay attention. Oh, but, you know, on air, he was there.
00:35:12Oh, yeah.
00:35:13You know, Trump's a great guy. He knows what he's talking about. So it helped to provide the basis for
00:35:20the court's decision.
00:35:22But we will find out more about that in the coming months, certainly, as November rears into the popular front
00:35:34view.
00:35:35Speaking of the November election and its being something that is now hashed out with primaries across the country that
00:35:46are happening here and there over certain weeks.
00:35:48We should maybe turn our eyes to Election Central.
00:35:54And if we do look at Election Central, we can look at, among other things, there's the Alaska Senate race
00:36:03that's facing a legal challenge days before the ballot is required to be printed.
00:36:10Now, they're supposed to print the ballots in Alaska this Sunday.
00:36:15But there was a there's a Senate incumbent by the name of Daniel S. Sullivan.
00:36:25And Daniel S. Sullivan and his campaign and the Republicans national campaign for this for senators said that there was
00:36:34another candidate who had to be removed from the ballot.
00:36:36And that was a fellow by the name of Daniel J. Sullivan.
00:36:41They said that this was a sham candidate who the Democrats were putting forward.
00:36:47Although Daniel J. Sullivan said he just filled out the paperwork that the elections board required.
00:36:54He put his full name, Daniel J. Sullivan.
00:36:57He selected his party affiliation, which is Republican, and that he claims he's not talked with the Democrats and had
00:37:04nothing to do with them.
00:37:05And in fact, the Democrats also say we haven't spoken to this guy.
00:37:10He's not in any way connected with us.
00:37:13But the Republicans don't really, and especially in a place like Alaska, don't need to be concerned with what is
00:37:20fact and what's fiction.
00:37:21They can say whatever they want.
00:37:23And in fact, they do.
00:37:25And this this time around, it was Daniel J. Sullivan has to go.
00:37:29He's got to be removed.
00:37:30And there's absolutely no evidence for they're doing this.
00:37:37And so Danny J.'s attorney has filed a suit to get him back on the ballot.
00:37:45And yet all of this has to happen now, as I said, this week.
00:37:49It's all got to come to a head because they need to print those ballots unless they get some injunction
00:37:55that prevents the ballots from being printed up.
00:37:58And what's that going to do to the elections?
00:38:00We'll see.
00:38:01We'll see exactly how they handle it.
00:38:04Oh, it should be noted that Daniel S. Sullivan, who's the incumbent senator, is not only designated on the ballots
00:38:12as a Republican, but also as the incumbent.
00:38:16So if the Republicans feel that their voters are not capable of understanding the difference between a something that says
00:38:26Daniel S. Sullivan, Republican incumbent and Daniel J. Sullivan, Republican, I think they need to have a talk with their
00:38:35supporters.
00:38:36They need to have a talk with the voters in Alaska and say, look, we don't trust you to comprehend
00:38:41this.
00:38:41And so therefore, we demand that someone be removed from the ballot because we say so.
00:38:51In other election news, you may have heard about things going on in New York.
00:38:57One thing was the I guess the sort of the race that there are several races that got attention, one
00:39:04of which was the comptroller's race.
00:39:07Now, this is the guy who looks after the pension money and invests it for state employees and also has
00:39:19a lot to do with what does and doesn't happen with that money.
00:39:22You know, which particular industries are going to be picked up on as mutual funds to be invested in and
00:39:29what yields money so that there's money in the pension fund.
00:39:35And also has a say in state and city government when they spend money as to, you know, is this
00:39:42legitimate?
00:39:42Is it illegitimate? What's the problem?
00:39:44How do we start or stop something that's happened?
00:39:47And the guy who's been doing it for the past 20 years is a guy named Tom DiNapoli.
00:39:54And this cycle is the first time that he's had opponents.
00:39:58There were several people who stood up and said, look, you know.
00:40:02This guy has some things that he's done that aren't particularly reputable or certainly should have an effect on his
00:40:09reputation.
00:40:12Of course, he himself says, well, you know, I stood up to Trump.
00:40:16I stood up to Musk.
00:40:18I, you know, I do all sorts of good things.
00:40:21And the opponents were saying, well, let's take a little bit of a quicker look at a more in-depth
00:40:26look at what's going on.
00:40:28They were Drew Warsaw and Raj Goyal, both of whom were running to the left of DiNapoli, which some say
00:40:40is the problem or is certainly one of the problems in the race was that both of them were on
00:40:46the left side.
00:40:47So they drew from the same base of voters.
00:40:50They wouldn't be able to out, out, they wouldn't be able to get enough votes to take, take the election
00:41:01away from DiNapoli.
00:41:03And in fact, that is what happened.
00:41:05I don't know that they shared necessarily all the same voters, but the bottom line is DiNapoli wound up with
00:41:13more votes.
00:41:13So he's moving on to the election in November as the incumbent controller.
00:41:20Hannah, what do you think about the comptroller's race and what happened?
00:41:32Oh, can't hear you.
00:41:34Oh, that's why you don't mute yourself.
00:41:38I, I, I, I don't know.
00:41:43I guess I'm trying to, there's been a, we're going to get to this a little bit later, but there
00:41:47has been a lot of quite progressive Democrats winning lots of elections.
00:41:55But it seems like not this case.
00:41:57I don't know if it's meaningful.
00:41:59It's, it's, it's meaningful, it's notable, I guess, that he was primaried from the left.
00:42:05We will see what becomes of that, if that will have more, you know, primary challengers and sort of comfortable
00:42:11seats.
00:42:15But, you know, I don't want to jump on too many more things ahead, but I saw today that sort
00:42:21of the more comfortably Democratic seats are tending to go a little bit more left.
00:42:28And some of the more, you know, seats that could go either way are still sort of appealing to moderates.
00:42:38Yeah, that's, that's absolutely true that, that particularly the congressional races and maybe even some of the local races did
00:42:46tend to the left.
00:42:49Matter of fact, all three of the congressional candidates that Mayor Mondami endorsed won their races.
00:42:58So, Claire Valdez over in the 7th and Davila Chevalier up in, what was that, the 17th maybe?
00:43:09And Brad Lander, who ran in the 10th, has taken out Goldman, Daniel Goldman, who, if memory serves, last election,
00:43:23Goldman sort of parachuted in from the establishment.
00:43:27And took the 10th from the liberal who was running, right?
00:43:33The more progressive candidate who was running looked like she had a clear shot.
00:43:37And then all of a sudden, this establishment guy, Goldman, shows up and people were like, in political circles and
00:43:43local political circles were kind of like, okay, who is he?
00:43:47I don't know what's happening here, but he had backing from D.C. and some top officials in the party.
00:43:54And all of a sudden, he won.
00:43:56And now that's been done to him because Brad Lander did not give him an inch.
00:44:02He was out there consistently challenging him and bringing up that, you know, he was trying to buy the election
00:44:10with his own money.
00:44:11And, you know, this is supposed to be about the people.
00:44:15And Brad Lander won handily.
00:44:18He got two-thirds of the vote over Goldman.
00:44:21It should be noted that Lander has a lot of political history here in New York, and he's pretty well
00:44:27liked.
00:44:29In political circles, maybe not so much liked, but definitely liked by the voters.
00:44:35And that's the point.
00:44:37He wasn't liked enough to win the mayor's election.
00:44:40That went to Mondami.
00:44:41But even in that loss for the mayor, Lander was very open about a cross-endorsement of Mondami and helping
00:44:50the team sort of to get across the line, so to speak.
00:44:54So he does have a lot of credibility.
00:44:56But he certainly has always been a favorite of progressives in New York when he was comptroller and before that
00:45:03when he was on the city council because of the things he did with housing and other issues.
00:45:09He really gained credibility because of what he did.
00:45:15I will say for the Clara Valdez win over in seventh, there were the other candidate who came in second,
00:45:22it's a guy by the name of Antonio Reynoso, who is currently, he ran for Congress, but he's currently the
00:45:29Brooklyn Borough president.
00:45:32And I'll be honest, I don't have, you know, I can't say enough about Anthony Reynoso.
00:45:38I think he was so credible and so positive that I am kind of not clear how that wound up
00:45:47happening other than, you know, with elections, there's sort of a thing that happens that you really can't put your
00:45:55hand on, your finger on until after the election.
00:45:57And you can always go back and say, oh, well, this is what happened.
00:46:00But during the cycle, you can't really see it clearly.
00:46:04And whatever that thing was, it was favoring Democratic Socialist candidates, certainly on the congressional level.
00:46:14Tom, anything about New York that you want to throw in?
00:46:18Nothing to add.
00:46:20All right.
00:46:22And I'll take just a couple of seconds, maybe a whole minute, to throw some other news about elections at
00:46:29you.
00:46:38I'll take just a couple of seconds.
00:46:41But it's happening again.
00:46:44And June 30th in Alaska's Gateway School District, there's a recall election for seat C held by Lisa Conrad.
00:46:52Alaska is one of those states that does allow for recall elections of elected officials.
00:46:57They have a threshold of getting 25 percent of the total vote from the previous election.
00:47:06If you get that number of signatures on a petition saying you want to recall, then you get a recall.
00:47:11Although they also, while other states don't necessarily have any sort of standard, Alaska is one of those states who
00:47:18say you have to charge them with some kind of misconduct or illegal activity if you want to have a
00:47:25recall.
00:47:26And in this case, there was a complaint that Conrad had not followed the bylaw or policies for running a
00:47:34censure vote in February of 2025.
00:47:38And that was good enough.
00:47:42Alaska voters, your turn to vote on it is June 30th.
00:47:45You make the decision.
00:47:46And also on June 30th, a special primary runoff for Arkansas's House of Representatives District 44, which contains part of
00:47:53Pope and Van Buren counties.
00:47:55The incumbent passed away.
00:47:58And there are actually going to be two elections.
00:48:00This is sort of the thing that caught my eye, that they're having the election to replace the incumbent for
00:48:06the rest of his term, which is between now and November.
00:48:11And at the same time, they're running an election for who will replace him in November.
00:48:18The Republican who's already sort of clinched the seat, so to speak, because there's nobody running against him for the
00:48:25November race is, of course, running in the filler seat race.
00:48:31But he does have competition there.
00:48:33So it will be interesting to see whether or not is gerrymandered enough so that he takes both of those
00:48:39elections or if somebody else is able to take the filler seat between now and November.
00:48:45There were, of course, you may be familiar with Nancy Mace.
00:48:50That's a name that might ring a bell, a Republican from South Carolina.
00:48:53The Congressional District 1 race.
00:48:55She retired but ran in this election.
00:49:00But Jenny Honeycutt is the person who will run as a Republican, according to the election results.
00:49:07And the Democrats have a former Rear Admiral, Nancy LaCour, who was booted out of service by Pete Hegsett, allegedly
00:49:16for being a woman.
00:49:18I'm not really sure what the charge was that he was using, but he was able to do that.
00:49:23And now she could be the next congressperson from South Carolina, we'll see, on Election Day.
00:49:31There's a – I mentioned the New York 10th seat.
00:49:36Oh, wait a minute.
00:49:38I did this.
00:49:38This is one of the ones I didn't, actually.
00:49:39The New York 10th, which Jerry Nadler, who's top Democratic leadership on the Congress, he has retired.
00:49:50And there were a dozen or so people.
00:49:54There was a Kennedy descendant, Jack Slausenberg, and newly minted Democrat, George Conway.
00:50:01You might recognize that name.
00:50:02They were in the field, but in the end, Mika Lasher, who's an assembly member and had support from Governor
00:50:10Hochul, won the Democratic nomination.
00:50:14We'll see what happens in November.
00:50:16Utah voters, did exactly what you would expect Utah voters to do.
00:50:21Maryland's 6th congressional district, where there was the retirement of Steny Hoyer, one of the top leaders in the House.
00:50:27He retired, and there'll be a new champion, Adrian Bofa, and that was out of a field of 23 people.
00:50:38That was a busy, busy race to replace Steny because you don't get a lot of top officials retiring, and
00:50:46certainly not in Maryland.
00:50:47So when there's an open seat, everybody's interested.
00:50:52We are going to move on to our next segment, which is the issue update.
00:51:00And when we move on to the issue update, you'll notice that the first thing we'll talk about is the
00:51:07United Kingdom's Prime Minister resigning.
00:51:11Here, Starmer, after some really, frankly, designating losses in recent elections for the Labour Party.
00:51:21Remember, it's a parliamentary system, so the leader of the party is the person who's Prime Minister.
00:51:26So when the party starts losing a lot, sometimes they get rid of their leader, and they replace him.
00:51:34In this case, among other things, the recent election on the local level in the UK, the Labour Party lost
00:51:441,600 seats across the country.
00:51:47And so there were a lot of people who started resigning from his cabinet.
00:51:53And one even said they would challenge him if nobody else does, a guy named Wes Streeting.
00:51:58And another person whose name came up was Andy Burnham, who was mayor up in Manchester, had been an MP
00:52:08previously, but was not at the time.
00:52:10And people said, well, if you're going to be Prime Minister, you have to be an MP.
00:52:14So Andy Burnham went out and got a race to run in, the Mayfield race, by election.
00:52:23And he won the seat and won it handled.
00:52:25Now, what's interesting is that's a constituency that was said to be kind of conservative, that the voters in it
00:52:35were kind of conservative.
00:52:36And before the election, people were saying, well, you know what, maybe Burnham won't even make it.
00:52:41There's been this wave of supporting the Reform Party and the Green Party and turning away from Labour.
00:52:49So he may not even win.
00:52:50And then the election happened, and he won.
00:52:53He won big.
00:52:54It was one of those 60% sort of elections.
00:52:58He won handily.
00:53:00The Reform candidate was at 30%, 32%, something like that percent.
00:53:04He just wiped the floor with the guy.
00:53:06And all the other candidates, the one who was wearing the big cowboy hat and the one who's called Count
00:53:12Binface,
00:53:13all the extra candidates, or, you know, let's say extreme candidates.
00:53:19But what that meant was Burnham became an MP, and almost overnight, Keir Starmer said, yeah, I'm resigning.
00:53:27If Burnham's going to challenge me, I'm going to hit the high road.
00:53:30And then all of a sudden, Wes Streeting, who had said that he would run for prime minister, all of
00:53:35a sudden said, you know what?
00:53:36As long as Keir's out, I'm good.
00:53:39I'll back Burnham.
00:53:41And he came out and announced his support for Burnham.
00:53:43So it does look like that is exactly what's going to happen.
00:53:48What we need to see, I think, will be if Burnham actually follows through on things.
00:53:53Keir Starmer, one of the things was he didn't want to be known as a fancy guy who gives, you
00:53:58know, is getting attention.
00:54:00He just wants to do the hard work because he's a hard worker, and then he really didn't follow through
00:54:05on issues for the people
00:54:08and started taking on sort of that Tony Blair right-wing sort of thing, and it just didn't work, and
00:54:15it didn't help the people.
00:54:19And they let him know.
00:54:23Okay, anything else?
00:54:24Oh, you guys, any thoughts on the U.K. and prime minister and all of that?
00:54:33Not really.
00:54:34I'm glad that Starmer's out.
00:54:35I feel like he's spineless.
00:54:42Yeah, I think the actions speak for themselves.
00:54:45Yeah, and it also allowed for a sort of cleared a path to the rise of the reform party that
00:54:51hadn't even existed a few years ago,
00:54:53so they don't have seats to lose.
00:54:56Now they do.
00:54:57Now they've got plenty of seats, 1,200 council seats, and it looks like they'll be taken as a credible
00:55:05threat in the next election for, you know, what leads to the prime minister.
00:55:12Okay.
00:55:14One other failure we should mention is in the issue update is an issue we've talked about once or twice,
00:55:21and that's Elon Musk.
00:55:25And although he may be a trillionaire, he's not, he's certainly willing to do it.
00:55:33Well, how is he not a trillionaire?
00:55:38Because SpaceX has lost almost everything they gained since their IPO.
00:55:43Yeah, like 40 billion.
00:55:44He's back down to 957 billion, I think, I read.
00:55:48Yeah, and people are expecting it to keep dropping, so apparently they have to show their profits here coming up,
00:55:57and at that point, the people who were, like, internal who had stock can sell out.
00:56:05And so some of them might be cashing out, which is what I would do if I worked there.
00:56:12The poor guy's really taking it on the chin.
00:56:15Yeah.
00:56:16He'll have to go back to the emerald mines.
00:56:19Exactly.
00:56:20He'll have to go back to trying to destroy democracy.
00:56:25Okay, let's move along here.
00:56:28We've covered the issue update, I believe, and we are going to turn our eyes to a reason to hope.
00:56:36Now, there's a comedian by the name of Nate Bargates, and you may know the name, you may not,
00:56:44but he was decided that he would enjoy being a part of the whole playtime show thing that happened in
00:56:57front of the White House
00:56:57with the UFC wrestlers who came out and did their show, and he wanted to be a part of it,
00:57:06and he just wanted to do his comedy, and so he performed for the Trump birthday party.
00:57:10And since he has, things have not been going so well for Nate Bargates,
00:57:16and it may not all be just due to his comedic content.
00:57:23I don't happen to have Bill Burr's phone number, so I don't think we can get him in on it.
00:57:28On the conversation.
00:57:29But, Tom, what do you think?
00:57:31You know, I haven't seen a lot of, I think it's Bargates, I'm not sure.
00:57:36Nate Bargates' comedy.
00:57:38I've read about it.
00:57:40People say it was friendly and approachable, and he was sort of a middle-of-the-road guy.
00:57:46And nice guy.
00:57:48And then he went to the UFC event and took photos with, like, Bobby Kennedy Jr.
00:57:56And, I don't know, maybe Trump, whoever.
00:57:59Just a bunch of people there who are right-wing chuds.
00:58:04And people, apparently, that clashed with what people thought of him.
00:58:08And he's also coming off a couple of losses.
00:58:10He had kind of a big, six months ago, he had kind of a moment.
00:58:14He had a movie coming out, and then the movie didn't do too well.
00:58:18I think it was a movie.
00:58:19He had a big media thing.
00:58:20It was like, it was one of those, kind of a big break from where he was.
00:58:23It was like a step up.
00:58:24And then, right back down.
00:58:26I guess it didn't go that well.
00:58:28And it wasn't helped by this, because people didn't, I think people looked at him and his comedy
00:58:33and didn't think of him as a Trump guy, a UFC Dana White guy, right-wing guy.
00:58:42And so, yeah, he's taking a lot of heat for it.
00:58:46And, yeah, Bill Burr, he can probably relate.
00:58:50Bill Burr, of course, attended that comedy show in Saudi Arabia, I think it was.
00:58:57And they still call him Bonesaw Billy and a lot of other imaginative nicknames.
00:59:04His social media is infested, like, with bedbugs, except it's people just raking him over the coals
00:59:11for going over to Saudi Arabia.
00:59:13And people started dragging him.
00:59:15He said, it can't be, you know, it's normal.
00:59:17It's like they got chilies over there and stuff.
00:59:19And that did not help at all.
00:59:23It wasn't that funny.
00:59:24And so now they're beating him over the head with that, too.
00:59:28So, yeah.
00:59:32I'm sorry the culture is polarized.
00:59:33I didn't make it that way.
00:59:36I will add about Bill Burr.
00:59:38First of all, I think he's funny.
00:59:39I think, you know, he's shown that he's got talent and he's been in more than just comedy.
00:59:45He's been in a number of TV shows.
00:59:47But I think part of it was that he had been so publicly involved with saying, don't mix politics and
00:59:57comedy.
00:59:57Never go.
00:59:58You don't you make a joke or two about it, but don't get involved in politics and kind of stay
01:00:03away from it or do both sides.
01:00:05When you do comedy about politics, you got to do both sides.
01:00:08He also railed against the ultra wealthy and the oligarchs and things like that and seemed to be a man
01:00:15of the people, except when there's a big check on the line.
01:00:19I also like Bill Burr's comedy.
01:00:21I think he's funny.
01:00:22I think he's smart and interesting.
01:00:24He acts, which is fine.
01:00:26I don't watch most of the stuff he's in just because he acts in stuff that I don't always.
01:00:30I'm not a big Star Trek fan.
01:00:32Excuse me.
01:00:32Star Wars fan anymore.
01:00:34I don't really keep up.
01:00:35But what a great get for a guy who's not even an actor to start acting and get into a
01:00:41series like that.
01:00:43Good.
01:00:43You know, good for him, I guess.
01:00:45That's fine.
01:00:46I don't dislike him, but I don't like what he did.
01:00:49And I think it's instructive.
01:00:52Think about it.
01:00:54Yeah, I think you got a point there.
01:00:56And I will say it certainly proves you're not a Star Wars fan when you mistake it with Star Trek.
01:01:02You know, there's going to be letters, man.
01:01:05And I'm going to take heat.
01:01:09Hannah, anything on Nate or Bill or?
01:01:15No, I've never heard of Nate Bergatz before.
01:01:18This all blew up.
01:01:19And I know of Bill Burr.
01:01:21I don't know if I've watched anything.
01:01:23He's like any of his comedy specials or whatever.
01:01:26But there's comedians I like that like him.
01:01:28So that seems like a nice, you know, check.
01:01:34Check mark on his way.
01:01:35Endorsement.
01:01:36Let me ask this.
01:01:37Do you happen to know anything about the affordability bill that was passed by the Senate?
01:01:42You know, the Senate passed an affordability bill, which is, you know, it's great.
01:01:50It was, I think it was bipartisan, but I think the sponsor was a, the original sponsor was a Democrat.
01:02:01But it's, it's all the kinds of things.
01:02:04It's, it's a lot of housing kinds of stuff.
01:02:09So, you know, boost the housing supply, homeownership, these kinds of things.
01:02:17A lot of the stuff that we are, you know, will hopefully alleviate some of the things we're seeing.
01:02:25I mean, obviously, you know, there's no accounting for whatever's happening with gas and whatever.
01:02:30But even outside of, you know, what's happening politically, well, not politically, but like with Trump and whatever, there has
01:02:38been a lot of, you know, affordability has been a difficult thing.
01:02:42And it's nice for these people to come together, Republicans, Democrats, I guess the leaders, there was two Republicans, two
01:02:54Democrats, to pass it.
01:02:58And the White House has already announced support of the final version.
01:03:02So hopefully, oh, also one of the big things is it prevents Wall Street from buying up a bunch of
01:03:09private property for investment, which I think is great.
01:03:12And so, yeah, hopefully that will give some relief to people.
01:03:18Right.
01:03:19And we mentioned before how Trump winds up taking both sides of every issue.
01:03:22A couple of weeks ago, he was saying affordability was a Democratic hoax.
01:03:26And now he's talking about signing the affordability bill.
01:03:29Speaking of the Republicans in the Senate, we should mention that there's been, and specifically in the section reason to
01:03:43hope, it's worth noting that some of the Republican senators are now not so happy with Donald Trump and willing
01:03:51to actually say things in public.
01:03:53This is a big move because now it's all been do whatever he says and maybe behind the scenes complain
01:04:04and maybe mean it, maybe not mean it.
01:04:08But you want to complain in the back room because you want to be seen as not agreeing with this
01:04:13guy.
01:04:13But you do vote and support every single thing he does ever.
01:04:17And some of them are starting to say, well, maybe he's crossed a line or two.
01:04:22Now, that may be because of the Senate race down in Texas recently where Trump supported Ken Paxton.
01:04:32He was a state official in Texas, best known for his wife divorcing him because of some shenanigans he had
01:04:39been involved with.
01:04:42And this was Trump's guy.
01:04:44I mean, of course, who else is Trump going to support, be more fervent in his support for than someone
01:04:50who cheats on his wife?
01:04:53However, the opponent or the guy that lost in the Senate race because of Paxton is a guy named John
01:05:02Cronin, who had been a leader in the Senate.
01:05:05And it's not very common that you challenge your own party's leader in the Senate.
01:05:10But here you go. The Republicans do that sort of thing.
01:05:13And Cronin was touting how he had a something like a 98 percent or 99 percent voting record with Trump.
01:05:24And yet Trump undermined him and backed his opponent, which we mentioned this before, even earlier in the show.
01:05:32So Trump winds up, you know, you if you say the wrong thing at the wrong time or you blink
01:05:39at the wrong time in the photo or whatever it is he doesn't like, then he goes after you as
01:05:45hard as anybody else.
01:05:47And Cronin learned that and lost his seat.
01:05:49So on his way out, Cronin said, hey, by the way, it's a tradition that the loser in the primary
01:05:56backs the winner in their party, whoever it is.
01:06:00And I ain't doing that. I'm not going to give a single dime of my campaign money to Paxton.
01:06:05And I'm not going to support him in any way.
01:06:07And in fact, I'm going to send all my money to other candidates in other states before helping that guy
01:06:14out.
01:06:14So there's a very big and very public break.
01:06:18And the senators who are still there are starting to do it, too.
01:06:22The Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, apparently in a big lunch meeting where Trump met with the senators because he's been
01:06:30causing trouble for the Senate Republicans.
01:06:33And Bill Cassidy stood up and started arguing with him about the Iran war, saying that was a bad idea.
01:06:39He said it was the whole thing about getting money to J-6ers was outrageous because some of the J
01:06:47-6ers had killed police.
01:06:49And he didn't want to, Cassidy didn't want to be associated with that.
01:06:53So he was not only objecting but to Trump's face, finally.
01:06:59Some others who have done that, of course, usually wait until they're attacked by Trump and pushed out of office.
01:07:06But this guy's taken it to the next step where he's actually saying it before getting pushed out of office
01:07:12by Trump, where one would assume that's the next thing to happen.
01:07:15Do either of you have anything to add on the senators before we wrap things up?
01:07:23No.
01:07:23No.
01:07:25Fair enough.
01:07:26That brings us to our Epstein count-up.
01:07:29And earlier it was mentioned that all of these things are happening and the birthday party and the this and
01:07:35the that all sort of distract from certain other issues, one of which is, of course, the Epstein list.
01:07:41It's not being talked about many places as much as it used to be.
01:07:46And although it's not going to go away fully, I don't think, there's a lot of even Republicans who are
01:07:55starting to come on board and be absolutely disgusted by the pedophiles who were involved in the Epstein files and
01:08:04the actions on the island and elsewhere.
01:08:07And so it won't go away, but people are certainly not focused on it like they used to be.
01:08:14And to point that out, we have a count-up as to how many days the unredacted Epstein list has
01:08:20not been released.
01:08:22Today you are on day 4026.
01:08:26Mark it down in your calendar.
01:08:27Get ready for next week's count-up, because it sure ain't getting wrapped up between now and then.
01:08:32Thanks for joining us at Politipod Live for Political Talk.
01:08:35You're welcome to join us every Wednesday at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern, right here for Politipod
01:08:42Live.
01:08:43And if you want a political laugh, stay tuned.
01:08:46There's going to be a new episode of Politipod out in a week or so.
01:08:51And it's a half dozen of our friends who have a political comedy podcast called Politipod.
01:08:58You'll find it at SoundCloud.com slash Politipod.
01:09:02This is Tom Bickle.
01:09:04This is Hannah Soldner.
01:09:06And I'm Matt Nissenoff.
01:09:09Goodbye.
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