10/6/26: WH Meeting On Russian Plague, Iran Lights Up Hormuz, GOP Panic Over Kansas

This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast. Here's what you missed. People wake up and go, oh, damn, wait and hold up. They changed all of that. Yes. It's real. This is a wholesale attack. It is targeting black people in every federal agency. It's wrong. White folks have never allowed that reckoning to last more than a decade. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast. Or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amy Brown. And every day on Front Page Podcast, I help you make sense of the stories shaping our world. Each day, I break down the biggest headlines. Canada's trade fight with the US just escalated again, and Americans could fill it in their wallets. And when a story deserves a deeper conversation, I'll sit down with experts, newsmakers, and thought leaders to help you better understand the issue behind the headlines. Listen to Front Page from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You broke me. You do not deserve happiness. I'm Andrea Gunning. On this season of betrayal, Carl thought he was living a normal drama-free life until the messages started. Someone's not going to make it out of this alive. Every piece of evidence pointed to the wrong guy. He was not going to stop unless we stopped him. Listen to betrayal, season six, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys. Ready or not, 2024 is here. And we, here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. (upbeat music) - Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. It's good to see you. Emma, do we do a pound? What do we do? We still haven't locked down the fascist point. - Yeah, it's like a little bit of. - I'm sorry. - Give it a listen to this. - Hearts go out to you. - You used to. - The cigarette was sending his heart to him. - Yeah, I was just sending my heart out to everyone. - So what do we have here on the show today? We're going to start off with the lab leak. Update, Annie Jacobson joined us yesterday, expert commentary considering her new book, which details a lot of the scenario. So we're going to dig into more of the details, multiple border shutdowns around some of the surrounding areas from Erkutsk, so Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and other countries, either closing or monitoring travelers of complete information shutdown coming inside of Russia. They are denying officially plague, quote, rumors, which many people joked is absolutely confirmation that all of it is true. And the Secretary of State and other high level U.S. officials kind of sounding not officially the alarm, but calling out Russia, considering and pressing for more information. So obviously, if we've lived through COVID, we're going to monitor these signals very, very closely and we'll give you all of the information that we have so far. Next, we're going to talk about all the developments that are currently happening in the Middle East, specifically though, we're going to start with Yemen, where it appears overnight that the Houthis did retake much of the territory, which was taken from them from Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia's back forces, in the, quote, Yemeni government. Additionally, more signs that the U.S. government is heavily backing both intelligence and the military campaign of Saudis against the Houthis in addition to some increasing crunch in the oil markets and some at least current signs that the East-West pipeline from Saudi Arabia has been targeted and the Saudi CEO, Aramco, coming out and confirming an official number of barrels per day that's moving through the pipeline, which is a little bit lower than where things were previously, which could indicate at the very least some damage that was done. - So this is just the teaser. - Yeah, so it's sort of full block. - No, this is what we do. - I guess, you know, I'm inexperienced, so I just, I've throw out as much information as possible, Crystal, you guys are much better than I am. Logan Phillips is coming. He is going to stop by for our midterm check-in. We'll check in on his model. All of the latest election developments, Trump may or may not saying that it'd be fine to nuke San Diego and Los Angeles in addition to a lot of other very inspiring pitches about why he should vote for him for $5,000 or vote pretend he's on the ballot and if Republicans win, you'll get your $5,000 check. Sam Altman in a new interview says that we just have to accept, quote, what is it, some bad things that happened for the benefits of this technology? - It's not nice. And he's the one who gets to decide what we accept. So yeah, we're going to go through some updates in AI, but this particular Sam Altman interview he gave to Politico yesterday, you're really going to want to stay around and listen. - It's pretty crazy. And then absolute civil war breaking out in the NBA. Wembee coming out and actually calling out many of his own colleagues saying that he would never do a deal with sports betting company while LeBron James is actually making more from his partnership with Polymarket and Kevin Durant is defending his partnership with FanDuel, this is some additional gambling news that has come out just in the last several hours including the Democratic nominee for governor, Keisha Lance Bottom, saying that she wants a statewide vote on casino gambling and says legalization would be economic tool for struggling communities in Georgia. So yeah, that's really how you're going to pull yourself by your bootstraps is by putting it all on red at the roulette table. Finally, Emily, you know more about this independent Senate candidate, Todd Achilles, he will be joining us. He was sent to us via our friend Andrew Yang for interviews. He's going to stop by. You know, you're going to talk to him. He's running for Senate in Idaho. This is independent. - And people may remember we showed some of his ads. They've been massively viral, but it's a race. A lot of people aren't paying attention to, except for when his ads pop. He's been going after the Republican incumbent Jim Rish just rudely stunting on him. So we're going to ask him about some of those ads and get a little bit of insight into the state of the race that is probably tighter than people realize. He's not exactly winning. The polls are kind of all over the map. - He was pulling Idaho. - You do a midterm polling in Idaho, right? So that's why it's good to sometimes talk to the kid. It's going to get a feel for what's really happening on the guy. - There's a potential to be shocked. None the less interesting. Yeah, I don't know a ton about that. - I mean, yeah, if the environment is really, really bad from Republicans, which we're expecting it to be, you never know what happens in these races. - There you go. Thank you to everybody who's been signing up for the show breakingpoints.com. All right, so yesterday Ryan's pitch was, you're probably going to die of plague and be choking your own blood in a month. So what does it even mean to sign up and potentially forget to cancel and have $10 be charged to your credit card? Today, I have a Ryan specific pitch, which I always try to make it about Ryan. So yesterday Ryan and Amy is lamenting that there is a specific fish show in Richmond, but he doesn't know if he can make it work. So my pitch is, I will fill in for Ryan. And I will make sure that Ryan gets to go to the fish show, but 100 people have to sign up in the next 48 hours. So you will hit that mark. - All right, so if, if you do it for 100 people, want to sign up and want me to have to work extra and fill in for my good friend, Ryan Grimm, so he can go and enjoy his fish show. - His debauchery. - That's up to you. That is up to you. - Oh, the weather Ryan gets to drop acid and go smoke marijuana with a bunch of other degenerates at fish. - His fates in your hands. - And you may be sitting here at the desk. - It's as close as you can get to eating soccer to smoke weed. - There you go. And I previously said, "Backelva, I'll buy his tickets." There you go. - I'll buy his tickets. - I'll leave him, I'll buy his tickets. - All right, now babysitter, he'll have to figure that out. - I might sign up again. - Yeah, you might sign up just so Ryan could go. So there's your pitch, everybody. If you're watching this on YouTube, hit subscribe to our channel. Listen to the podcast here in episode with a friend. All right, longest intro, literally ever, I apologize. Not that great at this. Let's start off with what we know about this lab leak situation. Let's put the first element up on the screen, currently breaking out of Russia. So right now, the Kremlin is telling Russians to "ignore rumors of a possible plague outbreak in Siberia, US and EU officials all saying that they are monitoring the situation." So the Russian presidential spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, said that the lead agency within this area is their national public health and consumer protection agencies. People should rely on its official statements and, quote, "disregard rumors, speculation, and so on." They are highly qualified professionals that are in the field. Let's put a one up here on the screen and actually take a listen to what Trump and Rubio are saying, both being asked about it at the White House yesterday, let's take a listen. - I am, I have not spoken about about it by Andy. In pneumonia, when I heard people with a plague level of concern, well, I hate to see them having it. - We know what we know, obviously, about whatever the Russians have provided, which is it seems that there was a worker at the lab that was infected and is concerned that that could have spread, at least internally, so you see them do quarantine since that's in that nature. There's very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously, but like anything else, something like that gets out, it could quickly spread. So we're watching and monitoring it closely. Yeah, I don't think it's cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and it just keeps an eye on it. And we're doing that. - So that is the current line from Secretary Rubio. He also appeared this morning in a press conference where he said that Russia needs to be more transparent about it. What we do know, Emily, with some of these signs, let's put a two up here on the screen from on the ground. This is from a Guardian reporter Peter Sauer. He says a woman who went to an Irkutsk maternity hospital for a routine visit today told her, told him that staff checked her for symptoms of plague and asked her to fill in a form, experts currently stressing the disease is easily treatable with antibiotics. So one of the things that really struck me in our interview with Andy Jacobson yesterday was basically that the, you know, if you contract the virus, or sorry, if you contract the bacteria, you have a 100% casualty rate. If you get the antibiotics within a 24-hour period, and this was apparently based on a broad-based European study of the bacteria, if you take the correct antibiotics, then it falls to 70%. And so obviously it's highly deadly. In some cases, that would actually mean the level of, like how much it will decimate your immune system and how sick you are actually means you're very less likely like with COVID to go out and spread it as much. So there's some optimism in terms of being able to contain everything, but for what we know right now, is that the Russian store makes literally no sense, right, with the lab lake. And so that is, I think, the scary part. Obviously, they're checking people in hospitals. - Well, yeah, it's horrifying. So Secretary Rubio was pretty careful there. I mean, I remember when John Ratcliffe went to Moscow, I'm like, "Oh, yeah." There's something obviously strange, it's not entirely surprising, but what is the, do we know how it manifests? It doesn't, like, Andy Jacobson was saying, "You can have it, and you will likely know." You are symptomatic. Do we know what the asymptomatic occurrence of it is? - If anything. - I was looking a little bit this morning, there was some, like, PubMed stuff that was posted. So basically, here's what we know right now, but this is more quarantine related. I'm gonna read, again, from some information that was put out by Annie. The current quarantine that they have growing on in our coots is, quote, inconsistent with plague, unless it has been engineered to be pan-resistant. And I think that's what the bigger question around this, is this a naturally occurring, newtomic plague? Or is it a lab-resistant, or genetically-engineered bio-weapon leak? So they say that the good news is that, even with a pan-resistant strain, it could still likely be controlled, due to a relatively low R0 of 1.4 to 2.4, quote, "Evolution selects directly for replication, it is hard to increase a baseline pathogen transmissibility, vaccine invasion, treatment resistance, or enhanced virulence are much more likely." So it should be possible to contain the acute pathogen if it is plague. If we are lucky, then the Russians are overreacting. It's not something that could spread. It could perhaps even be a hoax and information hoax, or any of this. I'm just putting out all of the information that we have now currently. The thing that, I mean, one of the reasons why I still take it a little bit seriously, is put A3 up here on the screen, was these border controls that have now been put in place. So from the Caspian Post, this is all the Central Asian news outlets. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have tightened their border controls over disease concerns and health alerts in Urkutsk. Uzbekistan apparently tightened sanitary control after this report of a possible plague case in Russia. There is a circulating daily mail report that is happening right now as we're on air, that a second victim had died. Now, to be clear, that is from the daily mail on an anonymous source that they apparently have, has not been confirmed by Russian authorities. The problem is, the initial death obviously was confirmed by Russian authorities, but then they're like, oh, it's on a plague, don't worry about it, it's a rumor. So just like with COVID and much more, all of these things are now beginning to, like there's suspicion from many different information outlets. Obviously, you used to be suspicious of the Russian government, you used to be suspicious of our government. I do generally, you have to look at the actions. So, Secretary Rubio, Trump, they're being asked about it because of media reports. Now, let's put a four on the screen. And this is the one where I was like, oh, this is actually serious. - Yeah. - Is that Annie Jacobson yesterday, and by the way, it's all now been confirmed by other news outlets, is that there was a principles meeting at the White House yesterday morning to discuss the plague accident at the BSL-3 lab in Siberia. Now, the reason why I think that's important is, remember, these are the people who have the most information, the highest level of intelligence, CIA, satellite, all of that, et cetera. Principles meetings are not easy to put together. What it means is it means, usually, is the way that it works out. Is you bring the vice president, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of State, all of the, quote, principles, the heads of the departments together to coordinate a response or do some sort of an intelligence review. And so I think when you can look at the Kremlin denying the reports, the fact that the current way they're handling things is not consistent with a naturally occurring lab leak. The fact that the lab worker apparently died and then when it came into contact with some 200 other people as Annie had put it yesterday, if that had happened, and she had known that she had been exposed in that way, she would have pulled the alarm, she never would have been allowed to leave. They're locking down much of the information that's coming out of the region or Coots. I mean, Ryan did check yesterday. There are still flights that are coming in and out of the city, I think, including international flights like Beijing and probably Ulan Batur as well. And other countries have not yet shut down travel. But we're trying to stay on top of this just because, as we all saw, with COVID, one can become 50 all very quickly. And there were a lot of signs in the initial days, like with COVID, which again, I understood totally for virus, much less lethal and all that, etc. But the consequences here, being so high and the Russian government's actions right now, not exactly inspiring a lot of confidence. - Well, unlike COVID, we're also in a hot proxy war with Russia right now. So they're engaged in massive battlefield hot war. And that's a totally, also by the way, you'll know this better than I do, but I assume our intelligence in Russia is very good. So I will assume that they have a better handle of what's happening than they're publicly intimating, but I also expect because they're meeting in the White House, we will know more about tomorrow. - The way it leaks. - The way it was put to me is our intelligence is very good at certain things. So for example, like, okay, let's say even with Labley, they didn't have that, you know, CIA and all that, they assessed it later, but they didn't have that inside. - I'm not entirely convinced of that. - Well, yeah, maybe or maybe they knew the whole time. But let's say with Russia, what are they good at? Well, the CIA, since 1950 has had a mandate to analyze military buildups, operations and assess Kremlin decision making. So you'll recall, like, I was very skeptical Russia was going to invade Ukraine, and part of it was like all these warnings from the CIA. And I'm like, what are these people now? I'm like, these people have missed, like, Afghanistan, you know, they missed all these things. Well, it's like, okay, they actually do have a certain skill set on their military, or let's say on Kremlin decision making, or at the very least, like, trying to see what they've decided to tell the military to do. But even then, I wouldn't say that they're exactly, like, phenomenal at it. Well, this is a little bit different. This is the 25th largest city in Russia, but it is in Siberia, you know, it's very far away from the capital, and Russia is very able to shut down a lot of the information. From what I understand, I was reading a little bit more yesterday from infectious disease experts, a significant part of the movement between cities from Siberia to the rest of Russia is by the train system. And so they're like, if this is going to spread, it's going to be from a train. It's very difficult. You're going to be so sick with this plague that you wouldn't be able to get up, go to the airport, and, like, get on a flight, whereas a train, you know, you could contract it by that time you get sick, and then you could be in touch with more people. So if we do see the Russian train system begin to shut down, that's going to be another indication now currently. Let's put what is A6, please. - Well, did Annie answer the way in the incubation period? - Yeah, so what she was talking about here was the outbreak. It's difficult to say because she's assessing off of the naturally occurring one, whereas opposed to this could be either lab resistant or genetically engineered, some sort of bio-weapon. Put the A6, please, on the screen. So currently, the CDC, the State Department, and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response have all tried to learn more about the death of this lab worker, and apparently they basically don't know anything. All they really know was the same thing that we do, is that this lab worker works at the Institute of Plague, dies of plague, quarantines are now on several hospitals in Siberia, and that's about it. Quote, the situation has been complicated by Russian officials hesitation to share information, as well as reports that Russian intelligence officers have been involved. We don't have a lot of intel. It's in Siberia, quote, "unless someone gets on a plane and gets to the US, it is low risk. We should be alert, but not panicked." All of this fits now currently, kind of with what we know, and there was, they confirmed, like I said earlier, a senior health and national security officials all met at the White House yesterday to discuss what was known about the case, possible next steps. Currently, the Public Health Agency in Russia was only saying it has undertaken a set of anti-epidemic measures in the Irkutsk region after the death of this 28-year-old woman who worked at the anti-plague Institute of Siberia. But one thing I do think is important, is that Annie flagged to us yesterday. This lab is known to have been a part of the Soviet bio-weapons. So to say, it's just some, oh, it's like anti-plague institute. Well, as we all learned through gain of function, anti-plague can sometimes mean, let's genetically engineer play to be more virulent, and then we'll develop a vaccine to stop the more virulent, like, well, why don't you just not do this? Almost always in this place. Yeah, and it's like, you know, all the scientists are out here saying, they're like, look, you know, we have pretty good treatment options for naturally cranking plague. It should be fine. You take some sipro within 24 hours, at least in the developed world, you know, the ability to contain all of this. But I think what's really raising everybody's alarm is, obviously, plague the word itself is scary. It is the notion that the current actions of the Russian government and the way that this leaked out of that lab and came into contact, shutting down hospitals, quarantine, the maternity ward. I mean, that doesn't just happen. You don't just get a screener for plague whenever you happen to go into the hospital for some routine sort of checkup. None of that is consistent with the, with the natural, you know, the strain of what we see now currently. Well, and it's not fair to say that almost all research in this space is dual use, but a huge, huge chunk of it is dual use, meaning, yeah, meaning that it's also, it, you get the funding in order to, obviously, have no idea how this works in Russia, but you get the funding in order to also develop dual use strategies or research into how it can potentially be used in a military situation or even defensively, but it's often involves the military and intelligence. Yeah. I mean, what I'm looking at right now, and we talked a little bit yesterday, like, for example, there was this report that came out about this death of this woman. And then there previously, kind of like with COVID, is that literally just weeks ago, August 24th and 27th, the director of the anti-plague institute attended a Chinese conference, like in August 24th and August 27th, of the Fuyang government release, where they were, you know, doing like a plague, what is it, it's like they were doing like a research exercise into what would happen if there was an outbreak of plague. And he was in attendance, he was on the release list from China. So, you know, there is, there is still a lot of questions, I think, that kind of surround this entire thing literally five weeks ago, the guy is there, and it was a scenario involving plague arriving from abroad, a hypothetical emerging tick-borne disease, Chinese and Russian experts rehearsing outbreak notifications, joint risk assessment, and coordinated control measure. 19 emergency teams were in the 300 personnel, and over 40 emergency vehicles. Not to be fair, apparently this stuff is routine within the public health community, and, you know, it would make sense for a plague outbreak for, to get the plague guy over there, but you do have this incident breaking out, literally just weeks later. So, you know, you're, you're hoping that it's not some grand conspiracy, or maybe that they knew that something had already leaked, and then they just happened to have now announced it. But all of it, you know, I just, I want to keep people updated, generally, and we're trying to be responsible here. We're not saying, oh, it's spreading everywhere, people are dying, et cetera. There's no indication of that, but reminder, this is in Siberia. I did make a mistake yesterday. I confused the city of Irkuts with Yakuts, and I apologize for that. You know, I got my Siberian geography, all messed up. Actually speaking of Irkuts, the, this is for the Moscow Times, so take it for what it's, what it's worth, but Irkuts is the highest-paying Russian region for foreign enlistment incentives, and so that was also, they had a four-fold increase in the bonus for every foreign citizen that recruiters sign up in Irkuts, so playing a non-insignificant role right now and recruiting people to go serve in the war against Ukraine. Yeah, it's a side tangent, it's actually very sad. Apparently, the way that it works is that they just like shower the poorest regions of Russia. It's kind of like ours. You know, the poorest counties in America, and you're like, hey, you want to serve in the military? You get $50,000, and they're like, hey, that's going to change my whole life. I get free health care. It's very much like that, and pensions, like pensions for dead Russian soldiers who died in Ukraine now account for a significant portion of cash transfer payments and GDP in some of the poorest areas, apparently in Russia, tragic, kind of the same story in every war. You know, you have the poorest people. So look, that's the full picture of what we know. Russia is denying it. They say it's all rumors. We know currently that the lockdown and the quarantine stuff is happening in Irkutsk in many of these hospitals. We know that many of these countries have shut down the border, or have increased border security with Russia and are screening for sanitary measures for the people who are coming in and out, and that the White House has convened a principles meeting with senior health and senior national security officials with a public pressure for transparency from Trump and Margaro Rubio on the Russian government. That's what we got now. And we are trying to be responsible -- we would be remiss if we didn't know -- mention one. That's right. You did flag this one. One dog. I was going to let you set it up. In the -- in the -- in the -- in the matrix. So if we put a seven up on the screen, like I said, we are trying to be responsible here. Well, we're waiting for people who are listening. But Taylor Swift did release the single Patient Zero as same lettuce on X points out. Taylor Swift released the single Patient Zero on September 25th, 2026. That same day, a 28-year-old technician at their good anti-plag research is it reportedly broke a test tube containing live plague bacteria. She was hospitalized days later with severe pneumonia and died October 2nd, 2026. The same day, Patient Zero reached number one on the UK official singles chart. We're not drawing any conclusions. We are only giving you the information you need. Is it a good song? Absolutely. It is a good song. I'm not even like a certified Swiftie these days, but it's a pretty good -- and the video is with Dakota Johnson. They debuted at the VMAs. It's a pretty good video, too. I will give it that. I haven't listened yet. I haven't had as much time with my ass, but -- maybe we'll get around to it. Maybe I'll listen to it a little bit later. You just went and saw the prime time movie last night. It's sort of time to listen to Taylor on the way. There's a trade-off. You've only got a certain amount of time. Well, we're not trying any conclusions. You've got to go see -- by the way, prime time, 10 out of 10. Loved it. And I'm not critical of T-CAP or any of that either. I just -- as a movie, I thought it was great. All right. Let's get to Middle East. I'm Hamza. Martin. And we're the hosts of Out of Character. It's a podcast. I know. There's a lot of them to listen to these days. How are you going to get to us? Well, there's a specific reason why you should listen to us. We are the best podcast in the entire world. I swear. I know. Bold. But why don't we list some of the things we might talk about on a regular episode? So sometimes we'll talk about, I don't know, the Uber driver we just had. And how nice they were, or if we tip them or not, come and find out. Sometimes we'll talk about that weird news story from last week. What's the one you're thinking about? Trust me. Or maybe we'll talk about music and what's happening in the underground or drama and music or TV shows or the Med Gala and what the actors wore. What we're saying is we're not afraid to talk about everything under the sun. And if you want to see what that's like, come join us. It's a place where everyone can hang out, anyone, wherever you're from, whatever you're like, you're welcome. Listen Out of Character from Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Pods, or wherever you get your podcasts. You broke me. I'm Andrea Gunning. On this season of Betrayal, we meet Carl Bryant. Carl thought he was living a normal drama-free life until the messages started. You will have hell to pay. For nine months, someone infiltrated every aspect of Carl's life threatening to ruin him. Cyber-stocking, swatting, extortion, impersonation. And then the text threats escalated. Someone's not gonna make it out of this alive. It's playing out in real life, not just on the phone. Every piece of evidence pointed to one man. But every piece of evidence was a lie. Listen To Betrayal Season 6 on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm former USman's National Soccer Team player, Carly Lloyd. I'm Fox Sports reporter, Jenny Taft. And on our new podcast, whatever it takes, we're talking motherhood, marriages, careers, and figuring out how to balance it all. And we'll discuss the game that brought us together because nothing is off limits. Do you remember your initial reaction when Fox called you to be a part of the World Cup? I was like, no, I don't want to do it. You said no. I played with players that didn't. I don't think that they really truly loved the game. I found the love with the ball at my fight. But in my head, it was the long game. It was like, I don't care what I'm being asked to do at Fox. I'm gonna go get some reps and I'm gonna learn it and love it and embrace it. He said, this group of people will never be in the same room as part of the same team ever again in your life. And it is your job to make sure that you enjoy the moment. You're proud of what you accomplish together. Listen to whatever it takes with Carly Lloyd and Jenny Taft on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Turning now to the situation in the Middle East. Let's put these zero up here on the screen. So this is from Dropsite on Star A La aka the who these appears to have reversed the Saudi-backed advance on Yemen's Red Sea coast within 24 hours. Its fighters have posted videos from Dubab, a town in Taiz province between the Bob Almond straight and the port of Mocha, which Ansar al-A took in mid-September. Proust, pro-Saudi mercenary accounts so that they had seized once again by the internationally recognized mercenaries on Monday. Current research with a site notes this morning that the coastal strip is flat open desert. with heavy air cover, light armored vehicles can enjoy. advance quickly, but the ground is hard to hold. Mountains are just inland and overlook the plane unless government forces push up into the mountains of Houthis, whose strength has always been mountain warfare, can come down and swiftly push them back out. Important to note that, as the U.S. government really is throwing everything but direct intervention behind the Saudi government, Saudi government backed takeover in Yemen. Let's take a listen to Secretary Rubio. Obviously, the Saudis have come under Houthis' hack and see the threat that that poses, and they have a right to defend themselves, and obviously, the Yemeni forces are going to try to retake territories that they were outside from. So, that's what's happening right now with Yemen. Meanwhile, though, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Embassy is preparing everybody for a serious confrontation about what is to come. Let's put B3, for example, we have not seen a warning like this from the U.S. Embassy in quite some time. So, this is the official U.S. travel.gov warning. Saudi Arabia, due to the ongoing security situation in Saudi and the potential for aerial drone or missiles attacks, the United States mission strongly encourages all citizens to remain vigilant and follow the guidance of national alerts released by Saudi Arabia's civil defense. So, what they're warning there of aerial drone and missile attacks almost certainly on critical government infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, and that includes the Saudi East West pipeline, the Ramco facility where they pump oil, and then they also include the Saudi airport and obviously U.S., or I guess U.S., not currently under attack, but the Saudi airport and all other critical infrastructure within, specifically for the oil industry inside of the country after they really have unleashed air bombing campaign, refueling, and have been paying and really orchestrating a lot of this retakeover of a lot of this territory inside Yemen. How much longer do you expect the Trump administration and Trump himself to resist intervention? I don't know. That's one of the… So, if I had to bet, I don't think they're going to do it. And I think the reason why is that because this is from what I understand in terms of what took place, because I asked around a little bit yesterday, I go, "Why did he call it off?" And what he couldn't get away from was that this would distract from the straight informs is that because of the finite amount of military resources, like we said yesterday, there's a third carrier on its way to the Middle East, which is in addition to, I think, 10,000, three to 10,000, something like that, more troops that are currently on their way as well. Everything is in support of the Hormuz mission, which has been relatively successful. And what I mean by that is oil is coming out. Now, it's coming out of $30 a day premium. And literally while we're doing the show, the 13th vessel was just struck in the last eight days, and most damage that has been done in addition to another tanker that was flagged by the IRGC and told, "If you don't turn around right now, we are going to sink you." And they did. They did turn around the second ship in the last 48 hours. So, when I say relatively successful, you got about 14, 15 million barrels a day that are moving through in a $30 premium with the full force of the U.S. Navy. Okay. So, that's the straight-of-hormuz mission, which is draining the U.S. Navy, costing literally hundreds of millions of dollars. U.S. Marines are on board ships. This is everything laser-focused. Everybody's sent comm. Everybody's working around the clock. All right. So, Trump, on top of that, wants to add direct bombing intervention into Yemen. Well, it's not just one bombing run, like with Iran, because what's going to happen? The hoodies are going to shoot back. And they're going to say, "All right. Now, the entire Red Sea is closed." Right? Now, the whole-- We've been there with these recently. We've been there, right? And we lost. We had decided to cease fire with them. Trump even sent us how fast. And that was before Iran, before our missile supply was depleted. So, that's what I'm saying. Is, at the end of the day, I don't think that he eventually will do a full-on-- like, I think they're going to try and play a cute, where yesterday, the report was, you got 200 American Intel analysts who are basically running this whole anti-hoothy campaign. It's like with Ukraine. We give them the targeting data. We sell them the weapons. We give them the fuel. We give them the humvees. But we don't do it ourselves. Like, that's as far, I think, as it'll now currently go. Not because he doesn't want to. He's humiliated by this entire thing. And MBS is lightening him up every day, but he needs your help. I need your help. I need your help. But, this chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the other military planners are basically like, "Sir, if you do this, it's going to take away a lot from the straight-of-war moves mission." And MBS has Jared leverage. Exactly. He's got Jared leverage. But I just think the main reason why I could be totally wrong is that the reason why he pulled back on that attack is because it started to hit home of, "Now I'm going to have to disperse parts of the Navy. They're going to have to focus on the Red Sea again. I have a nice little ceasefire that's working out, which he's praised previously. And it will draw down even more military interceptors, open up a new front of the war. And we will actually get less total oil out of the Middle East. And it will send the price of oil, the skyrocketing. And then it's a midterm problem, so that's how currently now, can I rule out that he will do it after the midterms? No, I can't, because this is intolerable for them to have so much humiliation in not just for moves, but you have your entire allied mission and the whole reason that the Saudi spend all this money here and buy all of our weapons and put all their money with Jared Kusher and it's like, it's so they don't end up like this. And now, you know, this is existential for them in a lot of ways, where I was talking about that yesterday with MBS. Well, MBS could have, I suppose, considered that when he encouraged Trump, according to Washington Post report, to go to war with Iran. Exactly. I mean, it's a complete strategic disaster, but the problem is, is that Yemen in particular apparently has been like his project from day one. It's one of the ways that he was able to kind of assume so much of his power and security establishment and more. And I do think that he will take the entire country down with him, rather than give up power, considering how much, you know, he's internally maneuvered inside the country. Let's put B6 up here on the screen. It makes a lot of these same points, but I actually thought it was a really good story. They say, why Saudi Arabia's last war in Yemen turned into a quagmire. And so what they point out, and as we've said here now, Saudi Arabia has been bombing Yemen for 11 years. It started in March of 2015. They launched the air campaign. They led, you know, the UAE and all these other countries, they're bombing them. Quote, the stated goal was to restore the Yemeni government and drive the Houthis out of the capital. Quote, despite years of fighting that didn't happen, and a brutal war caused a deep humanitarian crisis. And in 2022, a fragile truce was agreed and most of the fighting stopped. But then it all unravels in July of this year, after the Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of bombing the airport in Sana'a, and the truce collapsed last month with a sweeping Houthi military offensive that took over the entire Red Sea coast. And so they actually detail how Saudi Arabia, they thought they were hot. You know, they bring together this 10 country coalition. They have the bombers, they have the Emirates, and you know, year over year, they just keep getting drawn more and more and more into this thing. But until it causes such a disaster, hundreds of thousands of people die from famine, out, you know, disease. The U.S., I mean, I think it was like Matt Gaetz and Rokana, and there's Murphy, all these guys come together. I think 2019. Okay, we got to stop funding this day. I don't see. Yeah, they're like, this is a humanitarian disaster. Dave Smith is, you know, this is one of his, like, real areas of expertise where he's gone off so well, I think in terms of what the United States, Saudi Arabia, and all that enabled in Yemen. And all of this, by the way, at all, backfire on America, because, of course, this entire time, there's Al Qaeda that's in the, there's a word, we're in this whole period where launching Navy SEAL operations, guys are getting killed, drone strikes, and all of this. So the entire country, if it's been decimated by this U.S.-backed offensive and the quagmire and the conditions for why we're right back to basically where we start, frankly, they're stronger with their strategic leverage and their military campaign has all been enabled now by over a decade of U.S. policy. Both Trump, Obama even, you know, Obama, Trump, Biden, everybody kind of has some of this on their back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's no question about that. It is just the last 10 years of policy here, just a resounding disaster playing out every single day. And interestingly enough, that's why I think this question about whether or not Trump resists the pressure that he's certainly getting from MBS, an MBS allies right now. That is legitimately a big question because everything you laid out makes sense on paper. Right. Trump doesn't always make sense off paper, especially when he's being pressured by people like MBS with whom he's friendly and I think it makes a complete and entire sense to say Jared Kushner right now who is negotiating in the Middle East on our behalf and is leveraged over there makes decisions that don't always make sense either. Yeah. I think what it will, I think what you will really see currently with Saudi is like I was saying is they have to go all in. So they're at this point. It's been 11 years. They thought it was done who these have embarrassed them now repeatedly. They actually control more of the country. Now they have leverage not just over Saudi Arabia. They've leveraged over the entire global economy in conjunction, obviously with their alliance with Iran. Let's put B7 up here just to show the position that the Saudis are now currently in. The CEO of Ramco yesterday said that a global oil supply safety cushion is quote, alarmingly low. He said as crude oil shipments through the straight rebound Persian oil producers are vying for market share. Ram. Mexico has raised its November crude prices for European customers while the discount on its Asian-bound cargo has widened to the largest in the last six years. According to the price schedule, the company has set the official selling price for its crude oil destined for Asian buyers at a $5 barrel below the Dubai and Oman benchmark. Apparently, the reason why this matters is that they are seeking to expand its crude oil sales back to Asian markets, where all of these oil producers are kind of in a race because that was such a major customer base for them going into the Iran War. What they're trying to do by discounting it is encouraging them to buy because, apparently, right now, especially with refined products, is that the Asians are all buying from the United States and/or elsewhere, obviously they're also drawing down the strategic petroleum reserve. But the Aramco CEO said that you have an alarming low stockpile in the actual global supply. At the same time, they have market problems, so they have to take more of a bath. What they're basically in a position now is they can't have the current situation which we have literally right now, where, as you can see, you have the Houthi campaign, you have the retaking of territory, they're now in a military quagmire, and, like I said, as we're speaking, maybe we can even add some of this later on, but while we were doing this show, you're having reports right now that are coming out of these 13 vessels struck by Iran in the last eight days, which is the voluntary reporting, which means that there are a lot more attacks that may have actually come through. And not only have they been struck, but you've even seen the additional tanker come out and say that, yeah, we came out in the last 48 hours because of the oncoming fire have basically said, nope, we're not going to deal with this. So you're going to have actually less oil from the Iranian side that's pressure along with the Houthis that are pressuring them. And so I think those two things together that really puts them in a bad situation and it's fine, where they're just going to have to go even more all in. That's the dangerous part. Well, that also makes the politics interesting for Trump too ahead of the midterm. Sure. He's being squeezed in both directions. What does he do? Well, the price of oil is something I mentioned yesterday is that if so, if you take a look at the price of bread crude today, it's actually down to $98 a barrel. Now, you would say, oh, well, that means that we're winning in Iran. Well, actually, it's because of the global strategic petroleum reserve release that was approved by the G7. And so that was done strategically by the Trump administration because the Trump administration told them, hey, diesel export ban, or you guys release your SPR. So the Europeans, the Japanese, everybody had to release all this oil, which they didn't want to, because they're all heading into winter on when they might need their supply. Yeah. But eventually he basically bent them over and he's like, you're going to have to do it. You don't have a choice. So they released without, now they have very little slack in their own system if this situation continues, which we all know that it will. But that actually puts, basically, he's just taking the can down the road. Yeah. You have cheaper oil right now. That's around 420 a gallon, diesel around like 620, something like that going into the election. And then after that, you know, it's colder. If Europeans don't have heating, like, not his problem, or they have to pay $200, $300, or something like that insane per barrel before we even get to refined products. But overall, that's what the picture looks like right now. Extremely precarious. Not good. So speaking of all those midterms, let's get to Logan Phillips. I'm Hamza. And I'm Martin. And we're the host of Out of Character. It's a podcast. I know there's a lot of them going around, but why should you listen hours? Well, we're only the best podcast in the entire world. And we talk about pretty much everything under the sun. For example, music we're listening to, underground music, trending music, drama in music worlds. Yes, sometimes we even talk about just everyday mundane situations in our lives, like the cool Uber driver we just had, or the food we just say that is surprisingly delicious. Or we'll talk about the Med Gala and the looks that they wore. Are they awesome? Are they trendy? Come find out. Because our opinion matters. And so does yours. And this is a place where all of our minds can come together and connect. So what are you waiting for? Come connect with us. Listen Out of Character from Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Pods, or wherever you get your podcasts. You broke me. I'm Andrea Gunning. Carl thought he was living a normal, drama-free life, until the messages started. For nine months, someone infiltrated every aspect of Carl's life, threatening to ruin him. Cyber stocking, swatting, extortion, impersonation. You're a supporter. Listen to Betrayal Season 6 on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Fox Sports reporter, Jenny Taft, and on our new podcast, whatever it takes, we're talking motherhood, marriages, careers, and figuring out how to balance it all. You said no. I found the love with the ball at my flight. I'm going to go get some reps, and I'm going to learn it, and love it, and embrace it. And it is your job to make sure that you enjoy the moment, you're proud of what you accomplish together. Listen to whatever it takes with Carly Lloyd and Jenny Taft on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joining us now is our great friend Logan Phillips of Race to the White House is joining us for his weekly segment and our midterm breakdowns. Good to see you Logan. How are you, man? I'm doing great. Great to see you, Saga. Always. Can Emily too? Always good to see you, my friend. So we're going to start off with some of the recent Trump comments. Here he was yesterday. You can decide for yourself. He is saying that high gas prices are a small price to play. You can also look at it as him saying, Iran-Nuking San Diego in Los Angeles would be a small price to play. You decide, let's take a listen. And again, remember, with the works just artificial, it's a little bit high. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. You can take out a city, let them take out Los Angeles, let them take out San Diego. This is the worst of all price to pay. And it's going to be a little bit higher soon, it's essentially almost over with. And they might keep going a little long, you know, they always say they have a big threshold for paying. They need it. Let me tell you, they need it. But it's going to end very soon. And it'll end one way or the other and your gas and your gasoline and all of the things. So Logan, I can't decide what's actually worse, electorally, whether LA or San Diego is fine to give up in a small price or saying high gas prices or a small price to pay. Both seem quite bad. Look at it. You tell me. Well, we do have an us versus them moment in our politics, but I don't think it goes so far that different parts of the country are rooting for each other to get new. Right. I can't imagine that Kevin Kylie, Republican-turned-independent, is delighted by those comments running out of the outsource. Cassandia. Apparently, yeah, I think the mayor of San Diego spoke out already against it. You've got Gavin Newsom and others, you know, who are posting this clip. But I just couldn't, what I couldn't get away from was either interpretation. I mean, to say, small price to pay for $4 gasoline for over six months just appears to be so remotely out of touch with the war that the vast majority of the people don't support. Yeah. Well, this is the biggest problem for Donald Trump, right? To some degree, the armor is off for the first time in his political career, but voters have always given Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt, the people that like him. And now they don't think a lot of them, not all of them, not even most of them, but a significant minority, think that he no longer cares about them or is fighting for them. And it's stuff like this, and it's the focus on the ballroom and all these other stuff that they can not only have the upset about the high gas prices, but they can tie it directly to his actions, and he consistently doesn't seem to care. See, this is an interesting tension in Trump's own approach here, because we're going to roll this next clip. He understands that there's a transactionality. When people say, I'm going to go vote for someone to make my life better. Here's what he said. Once again, about $5,000 payments, see one. Our country is doing so well under Republican leadership that only I can make you this promise. If Republicans win the House of Representatives and the Senate, I'm going to give all adult citizens in the United States of America $5,000. And Republicans can do it, and Democrats can't, because we're taking in massive amounts of money through tariffs and record-setting economic success. We haven't talked to you about this yet, Larry. Yeah. What do you think? work. I don't think voters are going to buy it. And you know, I listened to a lot of focus groups, right? And I heard this one voter say who is a Trump Republican or a Trump voter, I should say, that it sounds as a little bit like when you're watching the elementary school elections and people are promising that if they win, they'll give you a free slide, a free candy every day. And people just don't buy it. And if you know, you would do it now if that's really what he wanted to do. And I think it also goes back to the caring questions of if this was to help the American people, it doesn't have to be tied to an electoral outcome. Right, right. That's actually a very good point. There is obviously, I mean, it's obviously true, which is like, look, you control Congress and the Senate, you literally do it right now. If you want, he's like, oh, well, we'll do it after the election. I mean, it's just so naked in the way that it is coming out. Let's put C2 up here on the screen. I, you very rarely see this of Trump admitting defeat. And I will say, I mean, it's been shocking, actually, to see, to watch it on the NFL. And then this random Trump ad comes up and you're like, how is this possible? Because it says paid for by US government. And by the way, in the ad, he says, I'm going to stop War Mounders. Anyway, yesterday, he goes, the radical left is upset with the fact that I am taking ads, which I consider to be positive promotion for a great USA and paying for them with USA money. This is a rather standard thing to do. But rather than doing that, although nothing will make them happy, I have decided to do the patriotic ads and pay for them myself with money that I have raised for Maga Inc. Apparently, it's cost them $5.6 million so far, which came somehow from the Customs and Border Patrol budget. Logan, you never see Trump actually come out and be like, okay, fine. You know, it's trying to spend defeat. But I mean, that's a pretty, that's a pretty big pullback for him to stop using taxpayer funded ads. What do you make of that? I think it's one of two things. The usually the thing that slows Trump down is when Republicans enlarge in the Senator House usually privately these days, push back against him. So it's either that or maybe it's that in conjunction with the fact that I think these ads were working against him specifically because of what it said at the bottom. It's a extremely jarring thing to say. It's not something we're at all used to. So it obviously stands out. But also, I think the content, too, might be working against him because he's saying a lot of things that people are specifically mad at him for not doing. Yes. That's a very good point. It calls attention to a lot of his electoral flaws right now. I'm going to drive the war mongers out of Washington. You're like, what? I'm literally in the middle of a Ron War man. I'm like, you drive yourself out of Washington. How's that going to work? It calls attention to its obviously a vulnerability. Yeah, I think so too. But I just have to imagine that Trump could still run those ads separately. I think his abandonment on this is it is just something that people do not want their tax dollars to be used for. I think if you're talking to genuinely over 90% of Americans, no matter how died in the wool of a Democrat or Republican, you are, you don't want your tax dollars going to pay for their ads. Yes. I think that's a very, very good point. And this is basically what Kristen Solstice Anderson and I'm curious to ask you that said she was picking up on in the New York Times. She's right of Senator Polster and said, one of the things she's been picking up on in focus groups and polling is basically that when people started to get pissed about the ballroom and about corruption and meme coins, so when the economy got bad and so Trump corruption that was kind of naked and a cheeky joke that he would make sometimes himself was tolerable to people until they started to feel like the economy was steadily getting worse. Gas prices were high. You can't take these stupid meme coins when gas is over $4 a gallon. Yeah, I think it's very true. That's something that the Obama administration had so much focus on. They didn't even redecorate the Oval Office when he first took over because they were worried that it would seem as excessive after the recession. I also think that the other part here and served as a little repetitive, but it's that they don't think he cares. And if they, they Republicans, and I think to some degree voters in 2020, very close election, they gave Trump some room because it wasn't his fault. And this time the price is bigger than normal. Honestly, I think for president, which is the opposite, how everything works for Donald Trump normally. Normally, the price is so much smaller for the same thing because they think he directly caused it. Yes. I mean, he did literally directly cause it. He did. Let's get to some of the state by state stuff and we can check it against your model. Let's put C3 up here, up on the screen. I was kind of, kind of came out of nowhere, but actually now fits with some more recent actions by the GOP. So yesterday, Trump released this long screen against Annie Andrews, who is running against Darling Graham in South Carolina. He says, "Annie trainee Andrews is running against our wonderful friend, Darling Graham. For years, my dear friend, Lindsay would say, "Darlin is the finest, most reliable and one of the smartest people I've ever known." He would then always add also the most loyal. Oftentimes, I would be upset with Lindsay. In any event, Darling is a high quality person, maybe of the highest, and Annie trainee is not in particular, as it pertains to representing the values of the great people of South Carolina. She is in favor of transgender for everyone, and borders defund the police, high taxes. In other words, it is against our great second amendment. So what's crazy about this is that it's South Carolina. Lindsay Graham won it by 17 points, something like that. I will say, we were bombarded with a lot of similar stuff at that time. Oh, Jamie Harrison. He's got a shot. He raises $100 million because blown out in the exact same margin. Well, one by 18%. Oh, sorry. Trump won by 18%. No, no, no. Yeah. Okay. So Trump won the state by 18%. So, but Logan, I mean, his actions here, in addition to some new reporting actually, it just came out, they're reporting the Senate GOP is actually sending $5 million to shore up Darling Graham and South Carolina. So if I put those two things together, she made a phone call, and she said, "I'm in serious trouble here." So what does that tell you? That's, yeah. It tells us that this is a very different election than 2018, which was one of Democrats, best years in the last 40 years, but they'd lost to see in the Senate. And that was because it didn't carry over to red states. Right. It was disproportionately voters in a lot of swing states and blue states by all these, exactly, all these gains in the suburbs, especially with white college educated voters. Now you got two types, right, that they're making the biggest gains if it's Latinos in terms of geography where voters are concentrated. And then the second is they're getting a lot in these rural areas with white voters, without a college degree that Republicans would just completely feast on in terms of their margins. Those margins are getting a lot smaller. And so that's why we're talking about states like South Carolina and Kansas and Nebraska, where we normally, well, Nebraska seems to be a Dan Osborne thing, but those other ones, like, they're still probably going to win that race, or Republicans are probably still going to win that race, but there's a chance they don't. I'm Hamza, and I'm Martin, and we're the hosts of Out of Character. It's a podcast. I know there's a lot of them to listen to these days. How are you gonna get to us? I swear. I know. Bold. So sometimes we'll talk about, I don't know, the Uber driver we just had, and how nice they were, or if we tip them or not, come and find out. It's the one you're thinking about. Trust me, or maybe we'll talk about music and what's happening in the underground, or drama music, or TV shows, or the Med Gala, and what the actors wore. You broke me. I'm Andrea Gunning. Carl thought he was living a normal, drama-free life until the messages started. Every piece of evidence pointed to one man, but every piece of evidence was a lie. Listen to Betrayal season six on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You said no. I don't think that they really, truly love the game. I found the love with the ball at my foot. I'm going to go get some reps. And I'm going to learn it and love it and embrace it. Listen to whatever it takes with Carly Lloyd and Jenny Taft on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. part of a trend and let me get your take on the slogan. So we have this new, let's put C7 up on the screen. So this is Senate leadership fund saying they're going to dump a bunch of money, $14 million in Kansas. In Kansas, let me repeat that in Kansas. And we also have indications C5, we're going to also put up on the screen here. This is Republicans pull the plug on two swing states as GOP's midterm prospects become increasingly grim. It's a daily call report that Republicans are not going to spend in North Carolina and Georgia. Let's listen here to C4, this is the chairman of the RNC being asked about North Carolina and Michael Wattley, whether or not they're just giving up on Wattley. Again, in North Carolina, let's roll the clip. Roll quick, I do want to get your take on this reporting about the fact that the money has been shifting away from North Carolina. This specifically seems to be the Michael Wattley race and going over to Kansas at your take on that. Well listen, we love Senator Ricketts and I love my predecessor, Michael Wattley. He still has a path we're helping him in other ways, but listen, at the end of the day, we have 29 days to go as a party and, you know, as the collective, we have to make decisions and we're, where can we cobble together the seats that we need? Wattley's still in the mix, but at the end of the day, we have to maintain the majority because if we don't, the Democrats are going to fundamentally change this country. We have to win. We have no other option. We're going to make sure we make the best of spending decisions. And at the end of the day, we have the candidates that we ask for that we recruited. We have the resources that we need. We're pounding away in all these districts. And then we have our secret weapon in President Trump. Okay, so in case everybody missed it, when he said his Michael Wattley quote still has a path. We are talking about North Carolina. You have the chairman of the RNC saying the Republican candidate quote still has a path. They're Logan. Our Republicans here accurately reading the tea leaves that they should be reallocating resources because some of these races are basically over. They should have done this yesterday and honestly far beyond yesterday. This was a race that I don't think they were going to win even in a right down the middle of year. I don't think they're going to win anything. I think in a red wave, this would be a tough race to win specifically North Carolina because Cooper is the best Democrat since this millennium has started. He has won every single presidential year from 2000 to 2020 because he's always running on the same ticket as in the presidential year. I'm like most states when they have the governor race and so he's won so many times when it's really tough. Same thing as Attorney General by the way, that's why I'm going back that far. So he's running hands the guy. It's the first time candidate in Michael Wattley who is the former chair of the RNC and that is not exactly the same type of position in terms of what you say and how you conduct yourself as running for the Senate because you're the cheerleader of the Republican Party. You have so many things tying you to the president on positions that you normally wouldn't defend and he didn't make that adjustment while I think the job you hold before you run for office can mean a lot. I saw that with Nikki Haley that she signed a little too much like you and Ambassador early on and so like he kept defending on Trump on things that he really shouldn't be saying, like saying the moment the moment inflation was now lower than Biden in December where it had a moment in the sun. He was talking about prices have actually dropped dramatically and nobody's why I don't even really think nobody's worried about gas prices. But he says something like that. That is featured in every single Cooper attack at the Senate. Wow. And so this is really set him up for failure. So I think the contrast here is so big that Cooper himself has won this race. Candidate quality still matters so much at a time when people don't like both parties. Yes. We're seeing that in Maine and maybe little in Texas. We're seeing that in Texas. Well, let's let's put to see because I want to get your take on these latest New York Times polls C6. We can put it up here on the screen. Here you have Alaska. They have at Peltola Plus, which is crazy. I mean, a total flip. She got that bump. I'll ask you got that. Yeah. Texas, Tallariko at plus five Ohio, Brown plus three Michigan, L. S.I. at five. Kansas, Tide, Iowa, Henson, one Maine, Collins, three. To me, the only the shocking ones in there is Collins plus three and Peltola plus seven. Everything else seems kind of within, you know, what we had learned. I guess, Kansas as well remain shocking. Give us your take here in terms of what you see. I know there's some new Marist ones this morning, which actually show Troy Jackson winning. But yeah, what do you think about these various things? Yeah, I think Susan Collins has run a really impressive race. This was a tossed up race when the cycle was about three or four points more Republican-friendly than it is right now in it. This is her position of strength. I would argue slightly. Interesting. So I think she's an underdog, but absolutely she can win. And the thing that she's doing, and actually Henson is doing, who seems to be doing a little better in the last few weeks, maybe, it's only a small change on the pulse, is they're not, they haven't been saying this entire cycle, that they're with Trump all the way and been focused on all these like transgender related attacks, which is if your gas prices are high, like who really cares? That's why some candidate is just starting to pull back, because it's just not relevant to people's day-to-day life. And so she, you know, Henson actually is a pretty conservative voting record, but she's kind of running on a Susan Collins type campaign except being more pro-Trump in talking all the time about how she's going to work with Democrats and talking about people's actually day-to-day concerns. That's what Katherine Cortez-Masto did in Nevada. Michelle Tafoya as well, doing that Minnesota. Exactly. And she's running much more competitively. Very much so. Now I have to imagine the weight of Minnesota will win out there, but we don't have that much high quality polling, but all of it's showing it close. Yeah. All of it's showing it close. It's really crazy. I mean, the regional dynamics here are fascinating. So, for example, how is it that shared brown can be up by three, but Talarico, up by five? I mean, Ohio, ten times more of a competitive state, in my view. And even if you were to say candidate quality, I would put brown way ahead of Talarico. But in Ohio specifically, I do want to ask you here about the gubernatorial race. There was a report yesterday. Let's put C8 up here on the screen that Vivek Ramaswamy has now loaned another $5 million to his bid for governor, and he has now loaned his campaign over $36 million in this campaign against Aimee Acton, which I believe the times called the single most nasty election at the statewide level. Aimee Acton is having a field day with Vivek's December 2024 screed about how white people don't work hard enough or something like that. But what have you seen when it comes to Ohio? Because plus three for brown is, that's a lot lower than I would have. On average, she does have a little bit of a bigger lead than Talarico. Talarico is leading by like four browns leading by like five. Okay. But I think the big difference is John Husset. He has voting record has been like, with Trump all the time, that's hurting him on the Medicaid cuts, which Brown is using against him. But he Republicans in Ohio traditionally win by a lot when they run people that have a sound more moderate and normal, John Kasich, Rob Portman. And then when you have someone that sounds more like JD Vance or to a greater degree, Bernie Moreno, then it's like a two or three point win. And that in a big enough cycle can be a damn win, especially when you have shared Brown. So I think that is part of the reason why like Pax, yeah, candidate quality matters and Brown's a great candidate. But Paxson is like uniquely terrible and Republicans are doing uniquely badly with Latino voters. And so that puts Texas in place where you can win it, where Ohio, the coalitions aren't shifting us dramatically, even if on paper, this is an easier state. But the gap between Texas and Ohio is shrung a lot in the last 20 years because they're both moving in different directions. And quickly, what does your take on the Kansas numbers? We just put up that Senate leadership fund is pouring $14 million into that. It's starting to get really close in Kansas, very uncomfortable for Roger Marshall. Yeah, I think this kind of doubles down on this political article that came out recently that they were doing this really deep study of tons of voters saying like what type of traits in the candidate could make you potentially vote for them if you only knew like a handful of things, religious Democrats do really well. And we are seeing that in Texas. And you know, Adam Hamilton leads the biggest Methodist church in the country. I think it's Methodist, right? I think it might be non-denominational, but I'll track this. He's a big church. He's done tons of charity drives to help kids that don't have beds or schoolbooks or anything along those lines. Are you United Methodists? Yeah. And so there's something that I think that is kind of missing from Christianity and politics in that the whole empathy and help the poor part, which is like a central part of the religion, has been left out. And it's a huge opportunity for Democrats who have shied away from religion. But if they're choosing the right candidate, it's like Hamilton. It's a red state thing. It's a red state thing that is just been missing because red states just don't elect Democrats. It's a state wide level, but it's literally the only way you could ever get elected. It is fascinating. I mean, I think Roger Marshall just pulled an ad at the request of a church for something about there's some scandal, like a sex abuse scandal, but it featured some members of the church. Members of the church were like, hey, you need to pull this down. He did pull it down. I mean, none of these are inspiring in terms of their behavior. Last thing I did want to ask you about this mayor's poll came out this morning. They actually have browned by plus eight, Tallariko, plus six. I keep trying to steal man this. So yesterday we put up a Gerdusky analysis, which I thought was important, where he's like, look, I'm not saying this is impossible, but to take a state where a president went by double digits and to flip has only happened eight times in the last 25 years. It just doesn't happen that often. So to me, I think the big question is this may be an accurate reflection of the race today, but as we have seen in many races, Republicans, you know, they may not be enthused to vote about Donald Trump, but that doesn't mean they're going to be willing to just turn over Democratic control. They may just come out to vote just to be like, look, we cannot let this happen. Do you think there's some likelihood of that? Like a Republican motivation to it. They very least say, look, I'm fed up with Trump, but we cannot be having a statewide six years senator, you know, to be from the opposite party who we vehemently disagree with. Well, lucky for me that you didn't ask me this question on September 1st because the answer would have been yes. Yeah. I'm not so sure now because it hasn't happened. I thought that's what was going to happen in September and places like Kansas. I really did. I didn't necessarily think in Texas because Pakistan's kind of different. But surprisingly, we're not seeing the evidence of that. It's going in worse. Yeah. So that's what happened in 2018. Yes, exactly. That's the migrant, the care event situation and the Kavanaugh people were like, all right, look, maybe fed up with Trump, Charlottesville, and pissed off, pissed off with a tax bill, but we can't let this shit happen. There's so many differences between those three years and the eight times in 25 years makes me think it's a lot more likely actually than without that information because Democrats elite in the national ballot would be the biggest win they've had. And any parties had in a midterm since 40 years ago. So in 1986. So this would be the year that those types of things happen. Now do I think those numbers you just gave me for Mars that they're all going to be right? No. But Maris is one of the best pollsters in the country. And I remember them showing Federman plus five or six and everyone laughing them off and they were right about almost everything in 22. So they could be. That's like the high end for Dems. That's not what I'd expect given their outliers, but I'm not counting them out. That's a very good point actually on Maris. If we take some of their midterm stuff going back, it was one of the very few that actually called it. All right, Logan, anything else that you're watching? Some bigger trends or I guess just generally you seem to buy not just the polls, but fundamentals, focus groups and everything. You do think Kansas. These states actually are in play, Iowa, etc. And I think that's, I mean, again, psychologically for me, it's just very hard to wrap my head around. It would break the paradigm of what I know. But I guess it's all not all that unique if you read a book. Just states can change quite a lot in just the 15, 20 year period. Yeah. Well, I think there's a real possibility. It's in play. I think it'll certainly be more competitive than normal. I would say two things. One, Kansas has been moving like this towards Democrats cycle after cycle to consistent level. It is still clearly a red state, but this is way more competitive than it used to be. So you can talk about the stats about how Kansas has elected Democrat what since the 1930s. But this is not the same Kansas as much as it's not the same Texas, nor is it the same Ohio that it was in 2008. Demographic change and you know, you got the tariff situation, high concentration of a certain economy. Diesel is destroying them in Nebraska and all this. So it's like highly concentrated. Some of their policies like tariff and diesel and Iran seem like uniquely designed to destroy chances in the Midwest. But then keep things, let's say, maybe let more competitive or less of, you know, damaging in some of these other more economically dynamic states. Like blue states, were they overperforming? Yeah, right. I mean, that's what it's fascinating. Kansas voted on that abortion or from random in 2020, remember? I do remember that. Yeah, they elected a Democrat governor twice. Now, I know that's just a type of race. Yeah. But what the thing I did not see coming at all on any planet was that the Senate race was going to look way more competitive than the governor race. The governor's isn't over. Democrats have a shot there, but they're way more. There's like a two or three point gap in the polls there. Wow. Wow. That is interesting. All right. Keep us updated, man. See you next week. All right, guys. Great to be on. Thank you. They change all of that. Yes, it's real. This is a whole sale attack. It's wrong. And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the iHow Radio app Apple Podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amy Brown and every day on front page podcast, I help you make sense of the stories shaping our world. Canada's trade fight with the US just escalated again and Americans could fill it in their wallets. Listen to front page from the Black Effect podcast network on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. You broke me. I'm Andrea Gunning. Listen to betrayal season six on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.