Adam Hamilton: Knock Holes in the Darkness

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But up first, I had him on the morning after his primary victory in the Kansas Senate race earlier this year and was dying to have him back as soon as possible after the massive, massive victory in Kansas that we saw on Tuesday. Delighted to welcome back to the show, not just Reverend Adam Hamilton, but Senator-elect Adam Hamilton. How's that feel? You know, it doesn't seem real yet, actually. My wife and I look at each other like, did this just happen? Are we actually doing this? It's very exciting, obviously, and we feel a tremendous sense of responsibility and feel humbled that the people of Kansas chose us. But the main thing I feel is like, okay, we've done this. Now we better make some real difference. You know, we've got to make sure that when we get up there, it's, I mean, I'm not doing it for my health. I want to make sure that we are actually working to bring positive change. And I know I'm a junior senator from Kansas, but I'm going to do everything I can to try to positively impact our country. Take us in there on election night, though, and you're seeing the returns come in. What was coming over you? Well, you know, at least I went into it like, okay, I'm going to lose. I need to be prepared for that. But in my head, you know, I knew the numbers and I knew what the polls would look like the last few days. And I knew our team felt like, okay, we really have a good chance to win tonight. You know, we had a room with my kids and my granddaughter and, you know, other family and close friends and the watch party was downstairs. I wanted to go hang out with them, but they wouldn't let me, you know, you got to stay up here in this room until they announce. So it was really exciting. We kept getting notices. Well, they're about to announce, they're about to announce that, you know, that was like an hour and a half before they finally, they did. And so like, well, we waited 94 years for a Democrat to be elected to Kansas. What's another hour or two, but it was very exciting. It was, uh, and I, you know, it's fun for my kids watching them, you know, because this is something so historic and, um, none of us thought this is where we would be, you know, this year, a year ago, I didn't plan on doing this. So, well, let's go back to that. I want to go back to the origins, right? Cause we had you on the morning after you won the primary, you're a little tired, um, but eloquent. And, uh, you said, you said this to me and discussing why you decided to get it. I said, I have these arguments with Roger Marshall. I'm in the shower. He wasn't in the shower with me, but I'm having these arguments with them. And I'm like, dude, I'm like, dude, you have got to speak up and do something. And I think that's so interesting about your origin story, right? Like this was not a recruitment from DC. I tell us a little bit more about that. This was really just you feeling like you had to do it. Yeah. It was funny. You know, my opponent kept saying, you know, Chuck Schumer, you know, I had never talked to Chuck Schumer, not until, you know, we were finally won the primary. It was like, uh, I just had a deep sense of conviction that what was happening in our country was not right. That there were people being hurt, that there were decisions being made that were inconsistent with our values as a country. And certainly inconsistent with what I preached. There were people in Washington who claimed Christian faith, but I couldn't figure out which gospels they were reading from. Cause it wasn't Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. And, you know, it seems like almost weekly, sometimes nightly, there'd be one more thing that would happen. I mean, this is, you know, every week, what a month ago, we were going to televise live the execution of a, of a person. I think there's only two other countries in the world that do that. And we don't want to join their company or it was watching, you know, the president belittle and berate a Reuters journalist who's standing there asking him a legitimate question. Why did you cancel your trip to Kansas? And then of course he rescheduled it. But I just thought this is, this is crazy. This is just not who we are as Americans. But those were just two tiny examples. There are just so many bigger examples of, how decisions made in Washington were hurting people in my state and people across the country and jeopardizing our international relations and, and changing how people looked at America. And it just was like, this is not who we are. Something's got to change. So I felt that there's a passage in the book of Jeremiah, the prophet who's, he talks about, he had a fire pent up in his bones. And that's what it felt like to me. It was like, I couldn't shake this feeling over the course of the last year and a half. Like, okay, you got to speak up. You got to do something. What are you going to do? You know, my wife was a hard notary. I was like, what am I going to begin with? And she was like, no way, you know, you've sacrificed too much. We've sacrificed too much for you to do what you've done at the church these last 36 years. I'm not going to do that again for something else now. Not like this, even though she strongly believed things were broken. Right. And then, uh, and then it was January of this, of this year, where she turned to me one day after I preached a funeral on Saturday morning, she just said, I think I was wrong. I think things are so broken and you might be the strange enough kind of candidate. You could actually get elected. And I think, I think we need to try. January of this year was when Renee Good was martyred. So it had to have been around. Yeah, that was, yeah, it was all around that same time. And, uh, you know, protests and, you know, having to warn my congregation, if you go to a protest, please don't take a gun with you. But even then my struggle was, so I love God first in my life. That may sound trite, but it's really what my aim is to love God first and to love my neighbor. But the first neighbor I love is my wife and my children and my granddaughter after that is I love this church and my pastor. I love these people. And the thought of stepping aside from that or doing anything that would jeopardize their, you know, cause we're a church divided roughly, equally Republicans, Democrats, and independents. And, and I've devoted 36 years to caring for them and loving them. And so, you know, I, I was, every time I think about, you know, stepping aside from leading them full time right now and, you know, stepping into politics, which could jeopardize, you know, some of their deciding to be a part of the church, I'd find myself in tears. And at the same time, I just couldn't shake the fact that something has to happen. I'm just taking us back to January and it was the scale of the problems that we faced. I, you know, I mean, like if you really are in this moment where, you know, a woman who is trying to care for her neighbors, you're talking about love thy neighbor. And that's what Renee good was trying to do. Right. And you know, she gets gunned down in the street. That's right. It's like something has to change. I mean, you see this, this should not be happening in our country and, and people who are trying to care for their neighbors, you know, people who were concerned about their neighbors at just again and again. So, so crazy. I was in Texas. I was nervous. I didn't want to jinx you. I thought about coming to Kansas for your party, but I didn't want to jinx you. I felt better about tell Rico's chances. I felt it was less likely I was going to jinx him. So I went to Austin and I got to talk to him for a second afterwards on the podium of his victory speech that said, love thy neighbor. That was the message that he had on there. I guess I have two thoughts about that for you. Like on the one hand, this is pretty crazy to have like two Democrats now coming in. And like kind of offering this fresh view of Christianity and what that kind of means to you. But then in particular about these immigrant neighbors and the way they've been treated. I'm kind of wondering how you think about that and your obligation to them as you go in next year. Yeah, I think a lot about that. This is an issue that really matters to me. I've included it in sermons multiple times over the last 10 years and in particular this last year. So I was in southwest Kansas. Southwest Kansas is the meatpacking industry. Kansas produces, we're the number two producer of packaged meat across the country. And so the meatpacking industry, the livestock industry, the dairy industry, these are all in west and southwest Kansas. And in some of the towns out there, you know, a majority of the population are Hispanic. So when ICE was out there just a few weeks ago and, you know, there were parents who were afraid to go pick up their children at school after school because they were afraid they'd be arrested. And so there were children who waited there after school, you know, for I don't know how long, hours, I think. I mean, people were there. Teachers were there with them. I was out there. I was in Dodge City twice. I was a liberal twice. And to hear people say this is not right. There were nine Republican state legislators who sent a letter to the president saying this is not okay. And, you know, they were concerned about it both from a workforce perspective in terms of what's happening. People don't show up at work at the dairy, the meatpacking. You know, there's 150 rail cars coming in every day with cattle with nowhere for them to go because people are afraid to show up at work. And, you know, a lot of the people at western Kansas who are ag people, these are people who voted for President Trump three times. But they were, you know, talking. I was talking to one guy and he was describing how, I don't know, it was a tornado or a very heavy winds came through and destroyed some of their rotating sprinkler systems that are out there in the fields. And he described first, you know, how expensive these things had gotten now because of the tariffs. But then he said, but, you know, the people who show up the day of to try to help me get, you know, get these things back online, they were all Hispanics. Many of them, you know, they were immigrants who'd come here. You know, I didn't ask to see their papers. They showed up and they showed up and they worked all day and late into the night because they knew that my crops would die. If they weren't there trying to keep the sprinkler systems going. And there were six of them that were out. And he said the thought that these people have to be afraid that somebody is going to come and arrest them when they've done, you know, they've done everything they can to help me. He said, it's just not right. Again, this is a, you know, lifelong Republican is saying we don't treat people this way. And so when I was out there, the citizens, you know, Hispanic citizens who were children of parents who had migrated here were like, we are doing everything we can to get people registered. We want. We want them to vote for you. We know you're going to speak up for us and you care about us and which I genuinely do. And it's interesting. I think we won two or three counties out there. Yeah. And one of those counties flipped by, I think it was 56 points from what Donald Trump got two years ago to what I got in this race, 56 points. And part of that was, was making sure people were registered to vote. But part of it was people saying, we don't want our country hurting us or our parents or our siblings or our children or our family members. And there's so many things to do and so many obligations next year. But I, I. I wonder what you think about the obligation is to the people that are already suffering at the hands of ICE. You know, and as I said, I was in Texas. There are people in, in detention centers right now in Texas that are separated from their families that have legal citizen children, you know, who are in schools that they can't go pick up because they're, they're being detained indefinitely in Dilley. What do you think is the obligation to, to those folks that are in the detention centers right now? We have a lot of work to do when it comes to immigration, immigration reform policies. You know, I support ICE doing what they were created to do after 9-11. So ICE, you know, was created, I think it was created shortly after 9-11. It was created to make sure. The Department of Homeland Security was created after 9-11. Like before that, it was INS. Right, right. And, and they were created to make sure that dangerous people weren't training to fly airplanes into buildings. They weren't, they weren't threatening to hurt American citizens across the country. I mean, we were all anxious about what was happening. And I support that. Like, I think that's good. I'm grateful. I want them to do that. It's just that we have, we fund ICE at a level that's more than I think all other federal law enforcement combined now. Something like $70 billion between ICE and border control. They have been militarized and politicized and many times not properly trained to be able to do what the kinds of things they're doing. Because there was this, you know, effort to, to set quotas of the number of people to be arrested. This is not how this should work. And so, yes, these are things that we need to be focused, you know, we need to be working on. Along with a lot of other things. But this is one that's important. And the detention centers itself, I'm sorry, I'm pretty just focused on right now. Because there are people in the detention centers right now that have been left there. And, you know, I think that there's a long-term funding fight. And I'm with you. Obviously, you should still have border security funding. This is not about eliminating it. But what about, you know, there have been people these last two years that right now were being detained. Yeah, that's what I started to say. I get emails all the time from people who have family members or friends or other people who have been detained. And the process, it seems as though there's no. There's nobody who can help. So they reached out to me because we checked with our congressperson. We checked with our senator. And nobody seems to be doing anything about this. You know, there's always a story. It's a particular person. You know, this. And so, yeah, my heart breaks for those. And I'll tell you. So in my victory speech, if you get a chance to ever listen to it, it was built around the. I watched it. Oh, you did? You don't think I watched it at 4.30? You don't think I watched it at 4.30 a.m. in my hotel room? I did. Exactly. Well, you know, my focus in that was on the parable of the Good Samaritan. This idea, you know, I've talked about love your neighbor all the way through. I had my love your neighbor pin on, you know, this is my. This is really important to me. And I'm glad it's Tallarico and a lot of other people. But by the way, that's not necessarily. I mean, it doesn't matter whether you're a person of faith or not. That is an idea that matters. You know, I had a guy come up to me and he said, I think I shared this with you. And I think it was Holton, Kansas, who said, I'm a one-issue voter. And my one issue is I will not vote for anybody who doesn't believe we should love our neighbors. We love ourselves. And so I think that's just a huge. It's a human thing. And it just happens to be in Moses and in Jesus, Leviticus and in the Gospels. But anyway, when Jesus says, somebody says, ask Jesus, I know you remember this parable, but somebody asked Jesus once, a religious lawyer, you know, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? And he says, well, what do you think? You're a smart guy. What do you think? And he says, well, we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Our heart, soul, strength, and mind is how he says it there. And we should love our neighbors. We love ourselves. And Jesus says, do this and you'll live. And he says, oh, but wait, I have one more question, Jesus. Who is my neighbor? And I think it was Dr. King who said, you know, the question he was really asking is, who don't I have to love? And. Ordo Amoris, the vice president. He wanted the Ordo Amoris from the vice president. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. And so, who don't I have to love? And then Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. And, you know, remember the story, there's a guy who's going from Jerusalem to Jericho. I've taken that road probably a dozen times in the Holy Land. Going to Jerusalem to Jericho, he is beaten, robbed, and left for dead on the side of the road. And then you've got two religious leaders, one, the Levite, and the priest come by. They see him on the side of the road. They go to the other side of the road. This is all part of my victory speech. They go to the other side of the road, and they ignore him. They pretend not to see him. You know, they leave him there. And then along comes the Samaritan. And the Samaritan is the other. He's the person you don't like. He's the person in this story who is not expected to be the hero. And he stops, and he bandages his wounds, clothes him with his own cloak, puts him on his donkey, takes him to Jericho, provides for his continuing health care and food and lodging. And Jesus says, you know, which one was the next? And, of course, you know, it was the Samaritan. And I reminded people, if Jesus were telling that story today in a room filled with Democrats, he'd say it was the parable of the good Republican. And if it was a room filled with Republicans, it would be the parable of the good Democrat, good liberal, good conservative, whoever's the other to you. But I said there's three characters in the story. They're the people who robbed the man. And so part of what we ask is who today is hurting other people? Who today is stealing from them, taking from them, harming people? Who's doing the harm today? And then we've got the two religious leaders. And these two religious leaders represent— What's the answer to that question? Well, I think we can find a lot of people like that are doing that, including sometimes billionaires who are, you know, who are taking advantage of people. It's looking to see how are we cutting benefits from people, health insurance, SNAP benefits and other things. It's people who are choosing to create quotas for a number of people we're arresting. But it's also in our daily lives. It could be in our daily lives and who we—and how we harm other people. But then you get the two religious people, and they pretend not to see the guy. And just to remind you, you know, Dr. King preaches this text on the last night of his life. He's assassinated the next day. He's in Memphis, Tennessee, and he's speaking up for the sanitation workers, two of whom had died because of faulty equipment. And so he's there even though he's sick, and he has been threatened. You know, people threaten to kill him if he comes there. But he still shows up, and he's preaching from this text. And I love the question he asked. He said, you know, so those two religious leaders, maybe they were afraid there were still— maybe they thought it was a setup. And so the question they were asking was, what's going to happen to us if we stop and help this guy? But the Samaritan comes along, and he asks a different question. What's going to happen to him if I don't stop and help? And I just said, you know, we've got to decide which characters we are in this. Are we the people who are taking advantage of people, hurting people? Most of us are not those people. But are we the people who make up excuses and are in our fear, don't stop and actually help the person who's in need? Or are we the people who ask the question, what's going to happen to this guy if we don't stop and help? And I think— you know, at our heart in America, at our best, we're the person— you know, we're the people who stop and say, how do we help? But when we eliminated SNAP, you know, SNAP benefits for thousands of people, millions of people across America, hundreds of thousands. I don't know the exact number. I know in Kansas it's about 20,000 for children alone. Or when we decided that we were going to get rid of USAID, we were going to gut the organization when they're helping the poorest of the poor with a tiny little fraction of our budget. You know, we decided we were going to cut, you know, a trillion dollars from Medicaid over a 10-year period of time. You know, we decided we didn't really see those people. when we think about the people who are who are warehoused in places who've been arrested you know under these quota systems and we don't say anything we don't do anything we've decided you know we're going to be those people who we think we're good people but we don't say anything and that's that's part of how i got in this race i just felt like somebody's got to do something and if i have the best chance of winning then i'm willing to do that you know and it's not it's not heroic it's just like this is just what we all should do what do your part whatever your part is all right guys during this election week i haven't really been eating very much i've missed some meals i've had some cigarettes don't tell my mom and uh you know that's led to a little bit of weight loss but that's not really sustainable you know not eating and smoking it's not really a sustainable solution for your health so so one thing that you can turn to if 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and learn more including important safety information wagovi clinical study information and restrictions visit hymns.com i didn't just watch your victory speech i've watched some of your old sermons um last oh yeah this morning oh yeah including you had an issue with your body weight loss hair loss sex testosterone and more that's hims.com slash the bulwark please don't forget to visit hymns.com slash the bulwark hymns.com slash the bulwark moral clarity on issues where there are real divides so i think part of what you have to be able to do and i've done this for 36 years 38 years really as a pastor but 36 years at resurrection is to listen to people and understand why they feel so strongly their particular views this is republicans and democrats or liberals and conservatives and as you listen you go oh i see what's going on in your mind i see the assumptions you have or the fears that you have and a lot of times our our decision making process is built around fear and politicians are masters at making assumptions and they're not going to make assumptions and they're not going to make assumptions fear other people that's a you know that's a big part of all the political rhetoric it's uh the advertisements the 43 billion that was spent in this election or whatever that number was is making people afraid you know this is what's going to happen if the democrats get control or this is what's going to happen if that republican is in charge you know it's in charge so so once you begin to understand people's fears and you actually listen and you show that you're not just trying to get a you know a gotcha moment but you're actually you care and you're listening that opens the door to be able to have conversations and i found those conversations take time so if i've got somebody who's got a you know a strongly a strong position on on immigration that's not mine and they're really afraid of the rapist and the murderers that donald trump talks about and and they can point to an example here's a story and here's a story and that's what's that's what's going through their mind you know it's going to take a while to have a change that happens there but it never happens if i just belittle them look down on them or dismiss them it does happen if i can begin to hear their concerns share with them other concerns and we can begin to develop a relationship with them and uh and what i've had what what's been a great joy for me in our church is watching people's views change over a long period of time so my first book i ever wrote was called confronting the controversies that was a sermon series i preached in 2000 on the most controversial issues and i found if i could understand why somebody held the view they did about the death penalty or about abortion or euthanasia or whatever it might be if i understood them and i could articulate you know their fears and then i could come in and offer a different band you know different viewpoints and then i could come in and offer a different band you know different viewpoint but i did it with respect and with kindness oftentimes people change their minds and and interesting the word repent in the new testament it's a greek word metanoia and it means to change your mind and then when you change your mind you change your heart and then when you change your heart you change your behavior and oftentimes when we try to argue with people about a particular view we just argue past each other we can't actually hear each other we get angry the angry you know we get more and more angry when we're hearing somebody say something we McConnell. You have a drink with Ted Cruz, Adam Hamilton. You want to go off to sit down with Ted Cruz and bridge the divides? Why do you think you can succeed at that where others have not? Because I've done it for 38 years. I've done it for 38 years. I've managed to, not always, we've lost, you know, church members over, over time, but there's a lot of them that when we sat down together, you know, we walked away and we hugged and we like, it's not about hugging and polyanalysts and kumbaya to each other. It's about how do you actually change somebody's mind? And I think I may have mentioned this last time. I'm not sure, but I learned something a long time ago when it comes to what's sometimes called prophetic preaching, preaching about hard issues is, you know, the kind of speaking truth to power or whatever. And there are prophets and they go into town, they blow into town, they say the hard thing and then they, and then they leave. But when you're a pastor who's trying to be prophetic, what you're trying to do is figure out how do I, and this is the question I say, I got to ask myself, is my goal here in this sermon or this relationship or whatever, merely to irritate someone or is it to influence them? Irritating is super easy. It takes no skill. Just poke them in the eye, say your thing. They get mad. They leave. Well, you know, we need, we need irritators. We need people who do that. But we also need people who are able to have a conversation with somebody in a way that they feel heard and respected. And because of that are willing to, you actually do this, Tim, you're so good at this, but that where they feel like you, you actually cared about them. And that opens the door. And I think about, you know, again, I think about Ted Kennedy and I don't know if it's Orrin Hatcher, who it was after he died and after Kennedy died. And he said, I really love this man, something to the effect of, I really love this man. And he got me to, you know, we worked together to get some things done. And somebody said, well, why did you love him so much? I thought this was so great. He said, cause when my wife was sick, he came to the hospital to see her. Yeah. Like, you know, there's something that happens when you, when you can build a relationship and then you begin. And look, I'm not saying this is everybody's cup of tea. I'm not saying everybody should do this, but I'm saying as a pastor, this is part of what I bring to the table. And I've watched people change their minds, radically change their minds. I think about LGBTQ inclusion in our congregation and in the United Methodist church, you know, starting in 1972, we had language that was harmful to people. And, um, you know, I was just a kid. I was just eight years old when they put that language in there, trying to find some way to hold people together. But when I began preaching about this, you know, I started with preaching where I was at and that was just, we're going to love everybody. But I, you know, but we may, you know, this is what I think the Bible says. And over time, the change in terms of how I read those six passages of scripture that speak directly to this. But when I, when I finally, my views changed, I started preaching to people. I had to understand where other people were and they were where I was 10 years before. So how did I speak to them where I was 10 years before? And, uh, it was fun. I had this woman come up to me, uh, gosh, probably 10 years ago. And she said, you know, when I started coming to this church, I was very conservative on same-sex marriage. And, you know, you preach several sermons and I'm like, at first I was mad, you know, that you preach that sermon, but you did it so gently and so respectfully that I, I actually had to listen. I didn't leave the church because of it. And she said, you know, over a period of five or six years, my views changed. And today, you know, I'm somebody who's a champion for people, same-sex marriage, people being able to have, you know, all the civil rights that everybody has, but she said, it wouldn't happen. We're not for the way you preached, you know, the way you talked to me when I was at a different place and the way you, so I think that's, you know, I'm going to get the DC and I'm going to figure out is, does that work? Maybe it doesn't work in the Senate. I love that story. Obviously. I know a lot of people have been on that journey in my life. That woman's ears were open though. You're going to talk to some people in DC, whose ears might not be the vice president of the United States and the president of the Senate. He just like a week or two ago said that you're a guy who uses your pulpit not to lift people up. You use it not to serve the Lord or to serve your congregants. He said that he admits that he makes up lies about people if it helps him politically. Yeah. How do you deal with that? Okay. So first of all, you know, I, so I've heard these things and I listened to the president when he spoke in Salina and Wichita and he talked about me to both these, both these men. Here's what I think. First of all, at 62, I listened to that and I just rolled my eyes. I'm like, give me a break. You know, anybody who knows me knows that that's not who I am. And I know you know that too. But then I, you know, I pray the Lord's prayer every day. And one part of it is forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And then I remember Jesus saying, blessed are you when people say all manner of evil against you. And I'm like, okay, all right. And you know, it's funny. It's again, at 62, it's different than when I was 40 at 62. too. It's just easier for that to roll off your back and to roll your eyes. But I think in a campaign, people say whatever they think they need to say to get their person elected. It's sad and pathetic. It should not happen, but that's what happens. So I would just say my hope is to have a conversation with J.D. Vance, you know, and we'll, I'm sure we will have conversations. I hope we have a chance to talk about faith, theology. He clearly has never listened to my sermons. He has no idea what I've done or who I am. He's just saying whatever he needed to say to try to support Roger Marshall getting reelected. But, you know, I don't have any animosity towards him. I'm like, let's have a conversation. I'd love to talk with you, but I won't kowtow to him. That's for sure. You know, you'll have at least one conversation with him because he's going to have to swear you in on a Bible. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm hoping it's not going to be the Trump Bible, but I think I get to pick my Bible. Okay. I'm going to bring it. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's had a couple of conversions. Maybe you can win them over, you know, maybe changing, you know, I really do think part of, part of what has to happen. Ted Cruz is the same way. You know, he said some things about my theology. I'm like, dude, are you kidding me? Let's talk theology. We'll, we'll have a, we'll have a debate about that if you want to, but, but really I think it starts with having a conversation and trying to get to know people and then trying to say, okay, once you build trust, then how do we work together to try to find some common ground? And then. Yeah. Try to, you know, try to create real solutions. Let's talk about these things that are painful or hurting people. This is my only disappointment about your win was that if you'd lost, I was going to send you an email and invite you to do a religion podcast with me, but I don't think you're going to have time for that. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to debate that much this year. They didn't work that much this year. So maybe in August or something, we can have an August series. Maybe. So I really would love to do that. It'd be a lot of fun. And, and you know, the thing that matters most to me in my life is my faith. Yeah. But, and it's out of that faith. That, you know, my values, my, my sense of ethics and what's right and wrong come. And, you know, you've heard me say this before. I get on my knees every morning. I'm just like, okay, God, thanks for today. Thanks for my life. Thanks for the great privilege. I mean, I was weeping the other day thinking about how in the heck did I get to this place where I get to do at the hotel room at the Marriott, you know, like, thank you that I get to do this. And, uh, but also please help me to do it. Well, help me to love people, help me to reflect, you know, what your will is in terms of how we treat each other and what we do. And, so talking about winning people over the other thing that I needed an update on from our last conversation is, did you win your dad over? Uh, you know, uh, there was a lot of swing voters in Kansas. Yeah. He doesn't live in Kansas. He lives in Washington. And yeah. And I love my dad. He called me yesterday to say, um, Hey, you know, good job. You, you got elected, you know, your team's in control now. I hope you guys can do some good stuff. And it meant a lot to me actually that he called because you know, you need, you need that. I want to end with this. I'll let one other video of yours this morning. It was in 2013. You, um, spoke at the national prayer service at Barack Obama's inauguration at the national cathedral. And you ended that, um, with a piece of advice for him that I think we can now turn back to you. So I want to play your advice to you. Okay. Stevenson, the 19th century author once told how as a boy, he'd been sitting in front of the window at nightfall, watching the lamplighter light, the gas street lamps. He would erect a lamp at one post and he would climb up and he would light the lamp with a torch. And then he'd take it down and go to the next one and the next one and the next one. And his father walked in the room and he said, son, what are you looking at at the window? What do you see out there? That's so fascinating. And the young Stevenson said, daddy, I'm watching that man out there knock holes in the darkness. There's a lot of darkness in our world. Lead us to be a compassionate people. To be concerned for the marginalized, help us rediscover a vision for America that is so compelling that it unites us and calls us to realize the full potential of this country to be a shining city upon a hill. And when you feel your lowest, don't give up. Wait upon the Lord. He will renew your strength that you might lead us as a nation to knock holes in the darkness. Probably more relevant now than it was in 2013. Well, it certainly feels more relevant to me personally right now. Although I will tell you, I preach this to my congregation all the time. We talk about knocking holes in the darkness and I'll do it again. I'm going to be preaching through the season of Advent coming up the Sunday after Thanksgiving. And that entire series is going to be about light and darkness. And that's what I'm going to call them to do. And on Candlelight Christmas Eve, we have last year, about 140,000 people who joined us for worship on TV, online. And, you know, in person, we have them get their candles out. We turn off all the lights and we're like, okay, this is what the mission is from Jesus. Let's go punch holes in the darkness. Let's go knock holes in the darkness. And that's what I intend to do in Washington, D.C. to the best of my ability, God willing and with God's help. All right. I'm wishing you the best. I'm really proud of you and happy for you and happy for the country. There's a lot of darkness there. I've spent more time over there. You've done more preaching. And let me tell you, it's going to be a little harder than you think, but we'll get an update on it next year. All right. Hey, Tim, I really appreciate you. I appreciate your heart and who you are and what you're trying to do, your role that you're playing and trying to knock holes in the darkness. So thank you for doing that. Thank you, Senator-elect Adam Hamilton. Appreciate you very much. I'm next, my friend, Rob Flaherty. All right. I'm at that time of life where the Democrats elected like three senators who are younger than me. So, you know, I got to start thinking about what the future holds and making sure we're prepared to make sure that if something happens, you know, it's my daughter, my love ones are taken care of. And one way to do that is to go to Trust and Will. Trust and Will offers affordable attorney-designed estate plans online that you can create in minutes. It has a super easy to use website. It's fast. In minutes, you can create a will that lets you document your wishes for guardians, asset distribution, and healthcare planning. If you need expert input, attorney support is available as an add-on to your plan. You can easily update your plan at every life stage or transition. You can share access with trusted contacts to ensure your will is carried on. So, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next time. I've had a couple of people texting me over the last 12 hours, like complaining about this or that, annoyed about this. And I was like, nobody can bring me down. Yeah. We're living on a cloud. Nobody can bring me down. I mean, the only thing, and literally nobody can bring me down. I'm like running into the Cialis commercial warnings where I'd have to go to Ochsner down the street. Here in a little bit. It's been three days, Tim. No, I'm just waiting. All right. After the. Famously, after the 2024 election that your candidate lost, nobody wrote an autopsy. There was a partial autopsy. There's a lot of drama about it. We don't want to relive all that. You wrote for us, though, for the bulwark, what ended up being kind of the most comprehensive autopsy out there since nobody else would do it, which we really appreciate. You can trip over a low bar. Yeah. And so, that was kind of a downer of a project that you had to take on for us. And so, I decided that I wanted to have you back today. To give the life topsy. The life topsy. The life topsy. What happened? How did this happen? Well, Democrats are now enormously popular. Everyone loves us. And it's all over. We're in charge forever. No, look, I think there are the things that we got right. And then there are the things that are features of just a midterm election, right? And in that category, it's like the people who show up in midterm elections are more likely to be civically engaged and care about the project. And so, that is a good thing in the short term. Still has some concerning things for the long term. But who cares? We'll take it. But then the things that Democrats got right is like we talked about the issues people gave a shit about. This is an anti-status quo election. We talked about affordability. We talked about corruption. We talked about the things people hate about the system. And I think that a lot of people dialed in on a really smart sort of mix of like kind of an economic populist message with sort of a pragmatist ethos. And we had a bunch of people who were like, well, you know, we don't have to do this. We don't have to do this. And so, I think a little bit of it is, you know, we were beneficiaries of a good environment. And a little bit of it is like, you know, they got a lot of things right. They communicated better. All right. That's kind of like the big picture stuff. This lets like nerd out for a second. I mean, your background is in digital and et cetera. Like, what about some of the tactical? I mean, there's a lot of kind of conversation about the ways in which Trump and MAGA were like talking to people in more kind of modern ways, more up-to-date ways about how where about where people are getting information they were reaching people that democrats weren't even like speaking to like was there a change in that this cycle do you think or was it just like the type of electorate change really more look i think there was a change you know you saw a lot of people who were good at communicating like the thing that i think was my worry coming out of 24 was that people were going to overlearn that like you just got to do the tiktok dance and you're going to be fine right and or go on all the podcasts and you'll be fine and that only works if you have something to say and if you're doing it in a way that like resonates with you or and like rhymes with like who you are and so there were tons of candidates who did an incredible job with that right like asaf is a great example of like he wasn't doing the like tiktok dances he was doing these like big speeches that were like beautifully composed that worked for him talarico had an incredible social media operation that featured a lot of smart people from his campaign and some folks who were on the harris campaign too they did an amazing job and then you look at like scott cologne who looks like he's going to be a senator in terms of like a content driven communications operation i mean that guy you have to hold him up as a model it was perfectly on his brand it felt fun it felt like he was having a good time felt like he wanted to be part of it he went everywhere and he had something to say when he went there and so like i think you you saw people getting a lot better at this and i do think you know materially the sort of outside game of building a communications infrastructure to like reach more people and reach different people like that definitely came into play too yeah i was um on nicole wallace's podcast the best people and we were kind of talking about this like on the inverse of that about what you're saying about you know to to win the algorithms you have to have something compelling for the algorithms the nature of how trump communicates and acts like the fact that he's insane and he says crazy stuff all the time that like that allows him to dominate the narrative like really was a superpower in different you know races versus you know the race you're running with harris for example yeah and some of that stuff was tearing down what the bind administration was doing some of that stuff was like saying crazy outlandish you know things about you know whatever tearing people down trans people or going back to covid you know talking about the wu flu or the chinese virus like all that sort of stuff right like yeah that's how you got into people's feeds and then like you fast forward to this year and it's like okay but but they're in charge and people's lives are going badly and it's like you know the john hustead's ass talk in the you know caulk discussion at the reflecting pool is fine it's in people's feeds but that's not it's not like landing with anybody like dominating the algorithm is a necessary but not sufficient i guess 100 and look in the case of trump like the that stuff played into he's not the establishment he's like a different kind of candidate he's going to blow the whole thing up when you're the guy in charge and you're doing that it plays really really differently and it went from being a thing that showed that he was an agent of change to being he's sort of an agent of stasis in your life staying worse and so yeah like he had he had all the say and so it i think it worked counter-productively so reality matters i guess is the uh is a little bit of how to sum up your your take there you heard it here in the bulwark i think that it's reality but it's also like your sense of values and like what you stand for matching with what people want and at this point at this point they're like get anyone who's elected and by the way i think that is a thing that you saw in blue states right where democrats is where democrats were in charge right um and so you know i think that people are just mad at everything and we were able to take advantage of that all right i want to talk about the blowouts we're here on thursday the show this is it's almost like these a couple of candidates were punished by doing so well that uh it's like there's not even any room to talk about them anymore because it got kind of boring but uh last time i checked georgia pennsylvania north carolina were swing states and actually i was looking at an analysis this morning of what the tipping point states are in 2028 and it's those three yeah right so you got to win all three of them if you're a democrat to become the president and so uh it's probably worth looking at the races roy cooper wins 58-39 in the senate race in north carolina john ossoff 59-40 in georgia josh shapiro 60-38 in pennsylvania quick quiz did they do better or worse than you guys did the kamala harris campaign york washington and california uh listen tim i think what's important is that we do you want to guess you want to guess if they did better or worse new york washington and california i'm i'm gonna say i'm gonna say they did uh did better they did better in new york and washington and worse than california california kamala harris in her home state eked them out she had a 20-point victory these guys oh wait i lied josh shapiro did better in pennsylvania but she did she did beat out ossoff and cooper by a hair in her home state of california yeah and that is insane yeah it is it is crazy and it look it speaks to like good candidates who um like are just dominant in their state and i think also like like roy cooper is like the god king of north carolina and the thing that comes from that is like there's national and local implications right the state legislative situation in uh uh north carolina has been a fucking shit show for democrats forever like we are like i mean we're talking about flipping chambers no one ever talked about flipping because he's so strong and that means that we didn't have to put resources into these sort of very expensive states and could put them elsewhere on the map because these candidates were so good it really is um it really is a testament to candidate quality um uh being able to sort of beat the environment like that shapiro um let's just talk can we just talk about the most kind of state house for a second because yeah it's it's i i do think it's pretty it's it's super important you think of i talked to anderson clayton like a couple weeks before the election the party chair there in north carolina who's she's just unbelievable and she's about as optimistic and peppy and she's like north carolina sarah longwell but like country you know she's like a positive vision you know yeah southern accent version of it and yes and and even in her like rose-colored glasses like positive we can do this vision it was like a two-cycle fix to like even get north carolina back to where i came from i mean it was a two-cycle fix to like even get north carolina back to where i came from i mean it was a two-cycle fix to like even get north carolina back to where it could be because the state where it could be because the state where it could be because the state had been gerrymandered so badly yes and roy had been gerrymandered so badly yes and roy had been gerrymandered so badly yes and roy cooper wins by so much that it breaks cooper wins by so much that it breaks cooper wins by so much that it breaks the gerrymander the democrats win the the gerrymander the democrats win the the gerrymander the democrats win the house the congressional delegation i keep house the congressional delegation i keep house the congressional delegation i keep adding to it i get i was doing kind of a adding to it i get i was doing kind of a adding to it i get i was doing kind of a nine to five dolly thing on election night And then it's like, wait a minute, they might be Virginia Fox for 10 to 4. And now it's like they might be Greg Murphy for 11 to 3 when all the votes are counting in. There might be 11 Democrats from North Carolina in the House. The real world ramifications of this are that like whatever policy issue you care about at a local level in North Carolina or the way that that impacts, you know, the congressional delegation. Like she was basically like, we can't even hope to fix it until 2029 because we got to win two straight cycles to get the Supreme Court back. But now they can just fix it. They can just fix stuff now. It's incredible. No, it's totally incredible. And I think I hope Anderson takes a nice victory lap, too, because I remember she gets elected to that role of party chair. I think she's like, what? She was like 25. Yeah, I think she's 28 or 29 now. She went to Appalachian State when I interviewed her. I was like, so I was like, so were you there for the Michigan? The Appy State went over Michigan and she was like, I'm not going to try to do her accent. But she was like, Tim, I was six. That was incredible. And I remember I remember people on the national stage being like, oh, my God, it's an important state. There's a 25 year old in charge. And look what happened, man. I mean, this is like a total testament to like young people can do great shit. Roy Cooper has like a read on that state in a way that like very few political figures have. Credit needs to go to Schumer for getting him to do it and taking it off the map because it's going to have huge national implications. All right, guys, I don't know about you, but we're two weeks after the election. And sometimes my blood's pumping a little too high. Yeah, I've been have a little afternoon power drink, a little energy drink so I can turn out the content and I get to the bed. The brain's moving. My heart's beating and I'm thinking to myself, you know what I wish I had right now? 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An extended holiday return window. That's www.sleep.me. This is Iris Palmer from Against All Odds with Iris Palmer. There's something about the holidays that takes you right back to being a kid. Maybe it's waking up to the smell of baking, hearing Tuki Tuki playing in the kitchen, or seeing that one tío who insists it's not a party until he gets there. And you know what? He's probably right. For me, the best part of the holidays has always been the food. Not just because it's delicious, but because every dish has a story. Like the tamales your abuela spent all morning making, or the arroz con pollo that's been passed down from one generation to the next. Then there's that first bite when everyone's finally sitting down together. ¡Qué rico! And we can't forget the finishing touch. No meal is complete without delicious food. It's Coca-Cola on the table. That crisp, refreshing taste is the perfect pairing for those holiday favorites. And the beautiful thing is, traditions don't have to stay the same. Maybe you're hosting your first Friendsgiving, or bringing some pupusas to your co-workers so that they can get a taste of your culture. However you celebrate, it's the people and the little moments that make it special. So grab some Coca-Cola on your next grocery run and make room for a few more memories. Disfruta Coca-Cola. All right, now back to Georgia. With Ossoff. Ossoff wins by 19. There were some concerns that he was not going to win by enough to carry Quiche Land's bottoms in the governor's race across the line. Just, you know, coattails-wise. She ends up winning by nine. Yeah. Not even close. Yeah. Total blowout. Unbelievable. I mean, bigger victory than anybody. I mean, I don't know what more is there to say about the Ossoff campaign, but even the most bullish pro-Ossoff stans, were kind of like floated to me. He might be winning by 15. Yeah. He won by 19. I know. I know, man. Like, what was impressive about Ossoff, and what I think is translatable for future campaigns, perhaps, is he got really good at making novel arguments that, like, were in line with what voters wanted to hear. And so every time he said something, he said something new and interesting, and that sort of helped break through. But then they got the tactics right. I mean, they got the sort of method of distribution. They got the advertising right. The way they did it. They did the camera angles, like, all that kind of stuff. And they played to his strengths, right? So it's a well-run campaign and a candidate who matched the moment. Shapiro then wins by 22. Shapiro's like, yeah, 19, that's pretty good. And I'm going to win by 22 in Pennsylvania. The win was so big when I was putting together this segment, I just Google-searched, you know, Senate and governor results. And in the Google, like, breakdowns of the races to watch for governors' races, they don't even include them. It was like, what was that? It was that big of a win. It was that big of a blowout. Like, he didn't even make, you know, like, there were other states. Like, you wouldn't, I forget, like, I don't know, North Dakota or something was on there. Like, there are other, like, way closer states. So, anyway, I don't, you look at it, I don't want to do too much 2028 punditry. But depending on how crazy everything goes, I do think there's a little bit of maybe this idea of Josh Shapiro as, like, the backup binky choice for a lot of Democrats. It's like, if I get really worried that Tucker Carlson's going to be the president, maybe we should just go with the guy that won by 22. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's totally possible. I mean, that's his argument, right, is he has an iron grip over the most important state in the country for who gets to be president. It's a compelling argument. I think that, you know, he's going to have some fire coming at him from the left, I think, on the presidential. But it is a compelling argument. And he's a compelling, I mean, like, you know, people make fun of the Obama thing. But if you've actually been in a room with him, watching him speak, I mean, it is electric. He's really good. My other glaze of joy. My other glaze of joy, gosh, is that, you know, he's conversational on my show. Like, he can do all of them. You know what I mean? Like, he can do the such media, he can do the podcast, he can do the speeches, which, you know, is challenging. I mean, now, finally, after a bunch of wins where there are a bunch of people that can do that, like Tallarico and others and the Democratic side, like, that's a longer list now for Democrats than it was last month. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, still, there still aren't a huge number of Democrats that are good at all the different communications venues. What's funny, too, is they keep having, like, I think about how after 24, like, everyone was sort of tripping over themselves to go on Pat McAfee, and very few people have. And he's gone on, like, what, two times, three times? Yeah. They liked having the conversation with him. Down to Blexus. Blexus. I didn't mention this in your bio of losses. You have some wins, too. But you also worked for Beto's presidential campaign. That is true. People know, who are listeners of the show, that I have such a soft spot for Beto, and I love Beto. And I had a little bit of, like, when I was in, when I was in Texas on Tuesday, this, just kind of this feeling of, like, pride in him and happiness for him, and also, like, a little melancholy. Like, kind of mixed, all these feelings kind of mixed together, right? Because it was like, he had it. He was there. Like, it was the right idea and the right message, the 18 race in particular. It was just a little early. Like, that happens. Timing is everything. Better work, never wrong, only early. Except for, like, a couple things at the end of the presidential. But, you know, other than that. And I think you have to give credit to Beto for building the infrastructure to make, like, when he won in 2018, like, he left behind Powered by People, an organization that has spent years building for this moment. And he's still doing it. Not left behind, really. He's still doing it. It's college campus registration. And so, if you look at Texas, and there are a bunch of reasons why, by Tallarico, 1 by 12, and most of them, Tallarico and Trump are the reasons. But, you know, huge shift in the Rio Grande Valley on Hispanic vote. You know, huge turnout among, you know, suburban voters and then the big counties. And then you flip these kind of suburban fall counties. Around Dallas, that, like, this was kind of a long time coming. But also, like, on the campuses, since he stopped the presidential campaign, has been doing that. This organization has been registering kids on campuses, not just UT, like, all the random ass colleges, like, all over Texas. And you did see big turnout in a lot of those places. Totally. I mean, look, he had a vision, you know. And it's coming to fruition, and he's worked at it. So, that's fucking great. Good for Beto. Skateboards, Whataburger for everybody. I did, listen, when Tallarico and Gina went to the Whataburger, but I just, like, the sense of the natural excitement of the just regular denizens of the Whataburger at midnight on a Tuesday was pretty fun. I will say, that does sort of bring it to Gina, who is, like, everyone talks about Tallarico, but oh, my God, what a campaign. Like, flawlessly executed. The media stuff was brilliant. The abortion ad, like, all that kind of stuff. Talk about that, because I haven't really covered that that much. Yeah. What do you mean by that? So, she ran this ad that, you know, was sort of told her own story, but, you know, sort of moderated on the issue overall. Just kind of talking about, like, the value, you know, how much she wanted to have a baby and the value of life, right? Like, in that context, right? That's kind of an old-school Democratic message on abortion. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like, sort of in ways that resonated with, I think, the people who might be skeptical. Like, she did a good job. You know, we say the word permission structure, and a friend of the show, Peter Hamby, always rolls his eyes. But she did a good job of permission structuring people. And also really focused. People are mad about public education. And, like, this is not an issue on the national radar. I think I said this on Tuesday night. We're like, for a while, Democrats talking about education got bullied into having the topics that they talked about about schools being what bathrooms kids can use. Like, literally. If you looked at the last six years of Democratic campaigns, like, since Obama raised to the top stuff, like, they didn't have a message on education. And so it was, like, the Republicans' culture war stuff that dominated the education debate. And she flipped that on that. Totally. Because people were upset about what was happening with public schools in Texas. And it got her out of that, you know, kind of binary that hurts Democrats on culture war stuff. They just got the blocking and tackling right. She also focused on data centers in this race, which was a wedge issue in rural areas. And I think that, like, you know, to the point of, like, thinking about this as a strategy, Tallarico and her, sort of the recognition that having two strong candidates at the top of the ticket benefits everybody. Like, that is a thing that, you know, it was sort of the O'Rourkean, if you drew up the model of how this was going to work, sort of the plan. And so those campaigns, I think, worked incredibly well together and just got the little stuff right. Really cool. I have one other Blexus thing for you. So is it a swing state, 2028? Oh, I don't know about that. Why not? I think we are in the opening innings of what a long-term Blexus might look like. I just think that, like, we need to get a better picture. So my Blexus forever Instagram post, you're not there yet? I think Blexus, I think Blexus in the long term will be Blexus forever. I think the thing that we haven't accounted for is, like, who shows up in presidentials that doesn't show up in midterms. It was about, still, a huge turnout for midterm. But I'm going from memory, but I think it was about a million fewer voters in 2026 than 20 in Texas. And I suspect those million voters are not sitting out because they think the Democrats are going to win and they're happy about it, you know? And so, you know, I think that it depends on who's in the top of the ticket on both sides. And in 2028, I think it's possible but it's an expensive fucking state. And so I don't know, but we'll see, you know, anything. possible can't a good billionaire can't dario take his ai money and just throw in third pile 500 million in there to try i was like there's no map to to republican victory without texas yeah i was messing around just for kicks you know while i was high on my own supply on tuesday after the whataburger i was like what would the map look like you know and you know you really and you get into like ridiculous territory it's like they would have yeah or something too or like also when georgia and arizona you know it's worth a think worth a think i was hoping you'd give me a little bit i should have had your car jesse jesse jesse yeah if jesse would have given me black says 28 he'd be like for sure we'll we'll have to see there's i think there's a chance i think there's a chance all right guys i don't know about you but we're two weeks after the election and sometimes my blood's pumping a little too high at night yeah i've been have a 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agree on temps i've been there here's one thing you can settle without a debate you get dual zones each you can dial your own chili pad to the right chili temperature for you can't wait to get back home to a chili pad no chili pad here at the atlanta hotel but it's coming for me it's coming soon good sleep is ahead for both me and you if you visit www.sleep.me slash bulwark to get up to 640 bucks off your chili pad 2.0 with code bulwark as an added holiday offer chili pad is including a three-year protection plan and a three-year protection plan and a three-year protection plan for free this increases your chili pad 2.0 value to up to 1038 i feel like bob barker the special offer is available for the bulwark listeners and only for a limited time order it today with free shipping and enjoy an extended holiday return window you can return it for free if you don't like it with their sleep trial that's www.sleep.me slash bulwark the headlines will still be there in the morning you might as well wake up ready for them this is iris palmer from against all odds with iris palmer there's something about the holidays that takes you right back to being a kid maybe it's waking up to the smell of baking hearing tuki tuki playing in the kitchen or seeing that one tío who insists it's not a party until he gets there and you know what he's probably right for me the best part of the holidays has always been the food not just because it's delicious but because every dish has a story like the tamales your abuela spent all morning making or the arroz con pollo that's been made for you and you're being passed down from one generation to the next then there's that first bite when everyone's finally sitting down together and we can't forget the finishing touch no meal is complete without delicious coca-cola on the table that crisp refreshing taste is the perfect pairing for those holiday favorites and the beautiful thing is traditions don't have to stay the same maybe you're hosting your first friends giving or bringing some pupusas to your co-workers so that they can get a taste of your culture however you celebrate it's the people and the little moments that make it special so grab some coca-cola on your next grocery run and make room for a few more memories disfruta coca-cola okay speaking of swing states you're giving me the dumb and dumber blississippi maybe that's a swing state you mentioned scott colombe at the top you guys have been on this been covering his race over on your live stream what was it about scott colombe's race that made you so confident and what do you think the state of play is or not so confident what what was it about the race that impressed you and what do you think about the state of play so all credit needs to go to jesse larick because he was on the colombe train early and he got colombe to come on our show which uh is hard because no one watches our show he is a special person he has it he has he's conversational he's down to earth he's like very very just like relatable has a theory of what he's talking about like i just thought he was like one of the most impressive politicians i've ever met and even then i was like god it's such a bummer he's not gonna win i'm gonna win i'm gonna win i'm gonna win i'm gonna where jesse to his infinite credit was like colombe's gonna win and sort of called this from the beginning yeah i think scott colombe got basically everything right first of all i do believe that mississippi is a swingable state like i really believe that it has all the the factors that is the sort of largest proportion of black voters it is very cheap um relative to other states like i think with if only new orleans and memphis were more successful economic engines to create sprawl some summers yeah let's say right across our border because you do have like that has like started to help wisconsin right because minneapolis has gotten so successful that they're like blue people that are moving out into the wisconsin exurbs and it's like no unfortunately new orleans and memphis aren't we're not really doing our weight there listen if i for the sake of the democratic party need to move to new orleans i will i will you wouldn't move here you move to the gulf you move to bay st louis we need we're moving to bay st louis yeah exactly exactly my being there will lead to such great economic stimulation that it i do believe structurally that like mississippi can become a swing state in time and and more affordably than say other states but anyway taking that out like he had a campaign that knew what it was about he had this like the way like they made these videos that were like brilliant but like not so overproduced that they felt slick like it kind of felt like they were just like making them so it felt very like a family affair like everyone talks about that like pick another senator ad i thought that was brilliant but then like on halloween he put out this like sinners parody like they were just having fun and there's another video of his that i love and they just did it a couple weeks ago and he there's a trump comes to the state campaign with cindy hyde cindy hyde smith who he calls cindy hi cindy high prices but i thought was brilliant and he he goes down the line and is just talking to everybody and just like having that conversation and that's so indicative of like his ethos he just grant he just grinded and so that's i am really maybe the best move of the cycle and zoron ask right this works across the it works for anybody you know you can do it running as kind of a center candidate as left candidate like he went down the line of of people waiting to get into the trump rally asking them what they cared about you know telling them you know making little jabs and cindy hyde smith when they disagree with her on something being friendly about it it was really good it's great and and actually i want to like quadruple underline that point which is the thing that he gets right and the thing that zoron got right is they made videos that reflected who they were and their brand and their campaign and you're right you don't need to be mr progressive to do that um and reach your audience and also on the other side we had adam hamilton the first segment and he is this way too giving a kind of independent whatever you want to call it moderate brand but not doing hippie punching yep you know like he didn't do it that way you know he didn't do it by like you know trying to find the issues that he disagrees with lefties on and punching them over that he like just found different ways to distinguish from cindy hyde smith on ways that felt kind of moderate and independent and i think that's pretty noteworthy too yeah 100 uh inclusive okay i want to go to my nobody knows anything segment which i teased for you earlier and that is the gerrymandering fight and the dummy mandarin fight we spend all this time for good reason for good reason worried about the mid-cycle redistricting worried the republicans are going to steal the house you know gavin redistricts all of california over this it's you know it was the opening salvo to his 28th campaign basically a lot you know in indiana they you know we have these brave republican state senators who stopped their gerrymander and then they end up losing a primary because of it um but mike pence was behind that in in all pretty much all of the red states except for like tennessee if even in tennessee a little bit where they were trying gerrymanders like the opposite happened and i want to give you a couple of prime examples in india had had we just let their not we like i had any like that i had any control but like mike pence like thought he was doing good government but had had they let the maga indiana house and senate like jd vance wanted uh gerrymander the state somebody looked at what that would have looked like and democrats would have like seven eight democrats from uh house members in indiana that happened because they would have gerrymandered themselves into a total blindiana um south carolina the same after the annie andrews win they were talking about uh doing a big gerrymander they ended up doing a small gerrymander in south carolina had they done a bigger one there would have been a bunch of democrats who went in south carolina and utah we got we were so excited that we got this court ruling that protected the salt lake city um congressional district and the democrats do now have um a representative from salt lake city which is nice but had we let the republicans just gerrymander utah i think there'd be three democrats yeah and so like anyway i i do i just think it's um you know what i mean the democrats are gonna have whatever 255 260 some odd house members so uh it's a huge win anyway but uh i just think in the spirit of your of your live stream i think that the gerrymandering fight is a great example of nobody knowing anything particularly the republicans that were trying to do the gerrymandering nobody does know anything i do think for all of his like i'm the dark arts guy that the trump political guy james blair who cooked up the um the gerrymandering strategy i am so glad to see that motherfucker eating shit because this is a he should go back to republic spurska and stay there exactly i i i think that um uh truly one of the dumbest decisions that they made all cycle that being said i if i may defend huge backlash though just really quick before you avoid caveat yeah to james blair being an idiot because i do think it's important to sit on that not only did the gerrymanders functionally not work and ended up being a dummy mander with a b but on top of that huge backlash and the turnout among black voters in the south if you look at like the share of the electorate and most of these states was up two three four percent more black voters as a share of the total electorate than there were in 2024 all of that was backlash oh absolutely and and look like you know if you want to go one further on the democracy stuff like hispanic voters swinging back because of the terrorism that this administration is doing to them through ice i mean the administration made their own bed here like some of this is thermostatic but some of this is them just doing stupid stuff um that is anti-democratic and people reacting the thing is that there's no way to know we were here uh at this moment and so i still think that it was worth um fighting those gerrymanders uh fights of course you know to be clear to be clear i also think it was worth fighting the gerrymander fights it's just funny to think about the fact yeah exactly they would we lost more of those that actually would have been great you know it would have been great it would have been pretty fucking funny for there to be eight you know it would be pretty fucking funny for there to be eight eight to one democratic congressional delegation in indiana right now that would be funny oh but uh hilarious i don't know so indiana utah some blue top indiana some some blue top uh you know someday i think it's all possible more house the four house democratic candidates in utah got more votes than the four house republican candidates really i didn't know that yeah i had not i had not seen that that is great news um well and utah has always had like a little bit anti-trump in it you know so you know there's a there's a world where you uh there's a world where you could see it like spencer cox is only possible there and you know like uh he's not only possible but he's he is a function of that environment okay well i want to do one of your hobby horses which is the ai stuff first you cook on the ai super packs all these masses of the universe they know everything they have super intelligence on their sides they put in millions of their dollars into the campaigns how did how did that turn out very bad you want to talk about really you made you may have noted they didn't they didn't put their strategy into claude coat and come out with something that would help if if just grock had told them uh where to put their money maybe it would have gone better here's here's what it is you want to talk about stupidest decisions of the cycle james blair probably at the very top of it but you have to also call out the folks behind leading the future who was the ai super pack who just colossally absolutely fucked up the politics of this um a hundred percent i don't know if you've ever heard of the theory of their whole thing was no one cares about ai so if we just threaten politicians with money no one will regulate this and we can all get super rich and that got hit with the fucking buzzsaw of public opinion uh saying actually we do give a shit about ai and we don't like it um and it made it so toxic that they couldn't spend anything out of that super pack but then you look at the number two spent number one and two spenders on the republican side elon musk and and mark money was a story in this election that was counterproductive um people hated it and so ai became a driving factor in a bunch of races and so it was just one of the biggest misreads i think of the whole cycle mark anderson has all that extra cranium space you think he could have used that to come up with a strategy that might have uh mitigated the worst midterm defeat for the side that he belatedly joined since you know 1974 yeah it does seem that um what is in the cone on top of his head is just sort of singularly focused on getting rich uh and he's doing well with that yeah he's doing well with that you have to the data center ballot initiatives another thing you were early on about just the degree to which this was going to be a backlash i have a friend that was working on a project he sent this to me data centers on the ballot.com i peeked at that this morning yeah of the ballot initiatives according to this analysis where data centers were implicated um 39 uh ballot initiatives uh said no thank you to data center expansion one uh was on the other side of that the one ballot initiative was in the municipality of harwood north dakota which is 45 miles south of buxton right here as the crow falls there you go and i went and looked at the ballot initiative and i think i really think the win on that one was more about how the language was pretty misleading it was like random municipality like it was like i was looking at it i was like i'm i this is my job and it isn't exactly clear to me reading this that this is about data center expansion so i don't know maybe the local news covered it more clearly than the actual text of the ballot initiative but a pretty big swamping for data centers yeah no they're in big trouble and you see you see the companies note this um open ai over the weekend said they're going to rename data centers ai compute campuses and that'll do it you know that'll fucking do i think that all of the ai executives should just come to uh dc in january get out the kente cloth you know get down on one knee in front of hakeem jeffries and see how that goes for them and just and beg and beg for forgiveness beg for forgiveness look i think at the end of their pronouns back in their bio sam altman he him he him exactly um the the super intelligence can be it they uh and you know i think that like ultimately though i think what is very clear is like voters are starting to see that like the data center conversation is moving on to an ai conversation and voters are mad about the build out of this entire project and um it is incumbent on democrats to have a plan for that world and for regulating it and so i you know i hope they do take a two by four to a lot of these companies who are just like getting filthy rich at people's expense all right do you have any feelings you want to share how are you feeling oh i'm in the interior life of rob clarity dude i'm fucking stoked this is great here's the problem i'm a democrat and so i'm like uh looking at the future being like i don't know we're papering over some problems but like i'm gonna give it before i start thinking about that i'm gonna give it like a couple of months you know i'm just gonna be happy just be happy yeah any tears do you have any juju any salty discharge over the last four you know what you know what when cologne went up at two in the morning yes that was i like i was i had had like six or seven tequila shots and this fucking live stream and it was 2 a.m and i was like my kids waking up in two hours my favorite moment of our live stream was i mean it was maybe i was in central times i don't know it was maybe 7 45 or something p.m and tarrant county flipped and sarah sarah started crying and i looked at her it's like are you crying already because fort worth has flipped to the democrats but she knew she knew she knew that the as tarrant county went the nation that so go so go to the so yeah i'm getting i'm i'm getting maybe a slight tear just thinking about old sarah's excitement on the live stream um been a long 10 years brother it has it has and and you guys look like to the bulwarks credit like um rallying the never trump crowd and and the democracy crowd i mean it's it's part of it it really is we appreciate that homie all right man we'll keep it uh we'll keep in touch everybody check him out on nobody knows anything he knows a little bit and um appreciate also uh pastor adam hamilton cinder elect adam hamilton for coming on the show today uh we'll see you guys back here tomorrow for more gloating peace mine's a handmade pan fried sun dried south side and beat the devil by a landslide praying with her hands tied president on my fan club santa something told me i should bring my money to the church i'm gonna go to church i'm gonna go to church i'm gonna go to take any my body like it's holy i've been waiting for you for the whole week the bulwark daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer katie cooper associate producer ansley skipper and with video editing by dante de chico and audio engineering and editing by jason brown this is iris palmer from against all odds with iris palmer you know it's the holidays when somebody in the family starts cooking before the sun comes up the pupusas are grilling in the pan every sneaking bites and somehow there's always room for one more person at the table and nothing goes better with that first holiday plate than a delicious coca-cola that crisp refreshing taste makes everything that much better because the best holiday traditions aren't just about what we're eating they're about who we're sharing those moments with so check that shopping list twice stock up on coca-cola for all your family fiestas y disfruta coca-cola