Donald J. Plump

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Get the full story. Listen to consider this from NPR wherever you get your podcast. U.S. voters abroad. Have you got your ballot yet? All states are now sending ballots to overseas voters. So, if you want to vote this year, you should request your ballot right away. Go to votefromabraud.org and click "Request My Ballot" as to receive it by email. Questions? Ask our support team directly. Don't miss this chance to shape the future. Don't delay. Votefromabraud.org Welcome to "Platte of America." I'm John Faber. I'm John Lennon. I'm Tommy Dittor. On today's show, we'll talk about Trump declaring "economic D-Day" against Iran, but also maybe against Canada and the American people. We'll also cover JD Vance's "Return to the Campaign Trail," complete with mentions of his Papa, Shereela, and his friendship with Susan Collins. We got a quick midterm update that includes the weird meeting between Hakeem Jeffries and Jared Kushner. The long-awaited "Duffy Family" reality show finally hits the airwaves. I've been desperate for this to pop up on YouTube. As have most Americans. Need someone to watch for a Salt Lake? And later you'll hear my interview with Congressman Seth Moulton, who faces off against Senator Ed Markey next week in the last big primary contest before the midterms. But first, we have some big news. The newest podcast, "Joying the Crooked Media Family," is called Still Counting, hosted by Nate Silver, Claire Malone, and Galen Druke. You might remember this crew from the 538 pod, which we always thought was one of the smartest, most entertaining shows about politics out there before 538 was shut down by the corporate media last year. But some big, some big corporate mouse who will remain nameless. But now, Nate, Claire, and Galen wanted to get back on the air ahead of the midterms, and we are thrilled that they've chosen Crooked as their new home. So each week on the pod, they're going to dig into the latest in politics and polling to break down what's happening and why, but they're also going to cover everything from elections to betting markets to AI with their trademark rigorous analysis and plenty of hot takes. You can hear the trailer right now by subscribing to Still Counting, wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube at Still Counting podcast. Great for the audience. Huge get for us. Huge good. Dan's Polar Coaster is fantastic, and I will continue to listen to it all the time. But I need a little more of a polling junky fix. Wow. I need to still counting in my life. I should be more. I thought it was going to be a yes and not a butt there. It wasn't yes and. It wasn't the other way around. Exactly, yes. This is a best pod, it's basically for positive America hosts is like sign drugs outside of school. You know, the first hits free. What a thing. Tell me, I like keeping Dan on his toes. I hear this and be a little like Dan. Hey, Dan, you know, prove us wrong. Prove us wrong, Dan. All right. It's not, it's not, it's not a no, but it's not a yes. We're not, we're not, we're not a full hard yes on Dan. Despite the yes, we Dan merch that's everywhere. New episodes of Still Counting drops September 9th and, yeah, we're very excited to have that. All right. All right. Let's start here with the news. Donald Trump continues to bankrupt America by waging war against two of our greatest adversaries, Iran and Canada. We'll get to that in a second, but first, we should talk about breaking news. About a third war Trump is losing against another long time adversary. He's been personally obsessed with for years. Let's listen. So what the fat drug, the fat drug, F-A-T for fat people, anybody who uses the table don't ask. And a friend of mine who's very fat told me, and I want to say, you know, he could be a famous guy. He's begging me not to release his name. He's a very highly neurotic, very fat, sort of a fat slut about a drug. I bought the fat drug. I said, I didn't know you used it because it's not working. And the governor is a big fat slob. We can't do that, sir. You can't call J.B. Pritzker, fat pig, please. You know, some people say, never use the fat word, and I know, and I would never call anybody fat. I had my own problems. Well, he sure does, because here's Sunday's headline from The Washington Post. Doctors say Trump's weight poses a significant health risk. The president has gained about 20 pounds since his campaign, according to his statements and those of AIDS. So back in June, the White House had to publicly refute speculation that Trump was on an experimental new weight loss drug after stat news reported that a 79-year-old man with government connections got early access to the drugs. I guess the White House was telling the truth. Yes, it turns out that Trump is not like reckless gay guys in West Hollywood buying compound versions of this drug from China. Does that happen? Yeah, I think so. I just want to say for the record that Favre and I wanted to lead with Canada and love it. I locked the door of our production meeting until we agreed to start with the GLP. I just start with fat. I said, "Dissert." "Dissert." Hey, it's August. Let's have dessert for dinner. All right. It's pancakes for the fucking table. Trump clearly has been. Yeah, he's eating well. He's eating well. I love the moments in those videos where he hesitates, where he goes, and this person, they're fat. I want you to know, I put that super cut together myself. There was like ten more clips of him just saying fat, fat slob. He tells the story about the friend, like 50 times. One other thing to know too is this is the figures that they're telling us. I feel like even slowly trying to get the number back to a real number. So he may not have gained as much as they're saying. On the other hand, based on the weight and height they've released, his BMI is 29.7, which means if his weight was one pound more, he would be technically obese, which I'm sure he would not like. And so, for all we know, they've kind of brought that number down a pound or two. Yeah. They may have been telling the truth about him not being on this experimental GLP1, or he could just be eating through it. It has happened before. You could borrow through it. My favorite part of these stories though, as they track his weight, they cite when he was arrested in Georgia, when he was booked, they released that he was 6'3" to 15, which was John L. Ways playing weight when he won two Super Bulls in NFL MVP. Isn't it amazing, by the way? Well, muscle is heavier, so. Isn't it amazing, by the way, that we're just kind of, you can just say something like, "Oh, you remember when he was arrested in Georgia?" Because of his mug shot, because the president is a convicted criminal. But also, gained 20 pounds since 2024 is an 80-year-old, almost obese man. I don't know, I don't even want to say, "Oh, what's he going to, he's going to turn over a new leaf right now?" Yeah. Yeah, he's one to really make a lot of resolutions and try to keep them well. No well done burger today, just the steamed fish. Also, their response to this story was to attack Joe Biden, who is currently recovering from cancer, so that's a classy move, as always, from the White House. Did you see the video of Trump's workout that was on Twitter over the weekend? No. Oh, this actually really good. Yes, we'll roll this thing. This is, that is the clip. I showed my children this morning when I was laughing, and I was like, "Why are you watching that?" And I was like, "It's a work thing." And he's like, "What is it at work?" And I was like, "Well, sometimes we watch clips of robots falling, and then people laugh at them." And then we laugh at it, and then people watch us laugh at the videos. And Charlie's like, "Oh, I want to do that job." It's a good job. The people kind of just have a point of personal privilege about the robot Olympiad that's going on in China. humanoid robot games in Beijing so they keep saying things like oh this is the fastest robot this is the fastest robot and it's like okay but like We have lots of robots that can go very fast already because they just don't have human legs They have to have a human leg to them. Is that what makes it different? I think so. Yeah, like you're saying like Waymo spread yeah, we got lots of fast shit You know, you know, there's all. Yeah, I think it's a humanoid. It's the humanoid Oh, it's got to be humanoid. Yeah, there's also humanoid. There's also like weird dogs and shit getting creative Around there's a guy riding a giant dog. Yeah, that was that was nightmare fuel. That's really bad No, I think it's great that we should give them thumbs and also that open. I have every once in a while I was like, yeah, we lost a couple we think they're in the pacemakers now Sorry everybody. We're gonna we've realized the error of our ways again And now we got a we put a just a here's the thing we put a lock on the door But the one of our guys fell in love with the robot and unlocked it And so we got to figure out how to make them less sexually charming But we're not sure how to do that. But you know what? There's only so much we can do because China. Yeah, right Then the rest of the ones cut the China. Yeah, we're doing karate kicks. There's drop kicking like six. You're holding like so What do you want us to do if we have a few escape the sandbox what I mean? That's sorry You got to get a crack crack a couple eggs. I'm gonna say not IPO. Right Make an omelet Anyway, there aren't We do have some more consequential But no less absurd Trump stories Soybean farmer Scott Besant announced operation economic outcast on monday a series of new sanctions against Iran And the threat of much larger sanctions down the road that he likened to the most significant military invasion of the 20th century But there seem to be a bit of a gap between Besance framing and the reality. Let's listen in the second world war D-Day mark the historic beginning of a campaign with our allies to target and drive the enemy from its positions including those in third countries Today in that same spirit we are launching an economic onslaught against Iran's financial connections around the globe Around the globe you described this as an economic D day But D-Day wasn't a threat of an invasion in the u.s. Didn't give a timeline to germany. So why not impose the sanctions today Well, we we were giving everyone the opportunity the to remedy bad behavior. Why would I want to blow up the global financial system? Oh extraordinary sentence extraordinary sentence Crazy that is that I like saw that is like what? Want an absolute fucking doof because it's like what first of all is that what you're threatening? Why are you the good you're I we're supposed to be the good guys And then also if you're suggesting that the thing you're going to impose is basically a global economic crisis It does signal to the people you're threatening that you're deeply concerned about the risk you'd be taking which you've consistently shown yourself Willing to back off of when you get close to the line because they know that you can back off right before you go through your various threats Those moves must be terrified, huh 2500 Americans died on D-Day. So you know some downsides that do yeah, the the the pissy could ever Calling that's what I call scoppess it Calling this economic D-Day so funny because I cannot overstate how mundane this sanctions announcement actually was This is just click stuff. They roll out all the time for example They try to make it sound like they're sanctioning all these new sectors They mentioned gold in the aviation sector But if you look at U.S. sanctions over the years we've been sanctioning Gold the sort of gold industry since 2011 and the aviation sectors since 2008 so this Announcement today is not going to make the the Iranian regime the RGC kind of give up I think it's a lot of bluster it's a lot of rhetoric. It's a lot of them trying to figure out what they do to get through the midterms The scary thing is I think the Axios report on the sanctions today mentioned that they're considering restarting the war after the midterms Are over so you'll have one the wars are timed with the midterms. That's always yeah Well in the in the blowing up of the globe so I had to like dig into this because it basically were two things today There were like sanctions against 60 Iran linked people entities vessels that like you said are pretty mundane Very like a typical day of time right and then there's the threat of Major sanctions that would blow up the global economic system which is sanctioning any country that does business with Iran China for example, which you would not take off the table, but would also not mention the only thing that would matter is secondary sanctions on China to less or India maybe Russia maybe Turkey, but there's no way that they're going to do a bunch of secondary sanctions on Chinese banks for example in advance of the Xi Jinping visit Nor do I think they would do them period because the Chinese will retaliate against us then the Iranians will retaliate against us and then it'll be a big Dust up again, which leads you back to love its original point, right? Which is so it's just bluster or else if it's not bluster It's blowing up the global economic financial system which I guess they don't want to do until after the midterms or maybe they'll just bomb after the midterm well The other part of just the threat in axios About how we're going to maybe resume the military campaign after the election which by the way as I think in part like I hope it's not true I hope they're doing politics with their own neocons that they're trying to keep in line because this is sort of they're not doing the retaliation that a lot of these people want they're doing sort of mid they're doing sort of these sort of threats of future economic sanctions, but if it is a real threat and I assume the Romano have to take it as a real threat Then they are telling you in advance Hey, we should conflate economic activity with military activity if you're think if Iran is going to potentially retaliate against economic sanctions with military force One argument against it would be that it would be escalating the war, but the US is promising to escalate the war potentially after the election Anyway, the other part of it too. So did I just in the best in op-edery announced all this in a in written like like he asked A large language model to write like a Victorian with a head injury. It's just like over the top Ridiculous thing, but in any set we refers to something called Pascal's wager and basically he says People working that was going to be triggering for you people working with the wrong should be careful as a list because of Pascal's wager which basically says you can't know for sure if God is real So act as if God is real because if it is boy, you'll wish you believed which is you know philosophically confusing But whatever and so he seems to be suggesting that countries may want to do a deal with Iran because in the short term It's quite beneficial to them, but they should be careful that even though partnering with the US per bestence argument Has no benefits whatsoever to the point where you can't even tell if the United States exists We could exist and if we do boy will be mad. That's sort of what he's that's sort of the position He's trying to direct I guess not just to by the way also to Korea to other countries that are desperate to try to figure out how to get out of this sort of The way he is the one who most recently cut a deal seemingly with the Iranians to avoid getting fired at all the time Did you guys see the Barry McCaffrey tweeted quote in my judgment the US Armed Forces have probably permanently lost access to the Persian Gulf bases Iran now poised to control access to the Gulf states US will have to negotiate new access in western Saudi Arabia Israel southern Europe. It's like an entire recalibration of our security architecture in the Middle East because we have lost this war Just sort of by accident. Yeah, and in case you're wondering how seriously the rest of the world and the markets took this today Oil went down to and a half percent not a bullet So it's crazy. I don't think anyone's too worried or takes Scott best and seriously and it seems like With good reason Podsave America is brought to by article article makes it effortless to build a home that lasts without the boutique markup They're curated collections of mid-century coastal and scandy furniture are designed to mix and match perfectly So you can create a cohesive designer look that will stand the test of time We got some great article furniture here in the office. 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Learn more about what America's working force are doing for all of us at workingforusinitiative.com. So the Trump administration did save the more serious action for the far more dangerous adversary, Canada. The president has announced 50 percent tariffs on all Canadian cars, trucks, auto parts, and steel starting January 1st, again, after the midterms, because he believes the country has been, quote, "ripping off the United States for years." He also announced that, quote, "Canada will be treated like a state no longer," and threatened, quote, "someone should get these clowns to fall in line," or the consequences for Canada will be far worse. This all comes after trade negotiations with our once closest ally, fell apart Friday night, which led to Trump slapping 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian exports. One minister, Mark Karnie's response was that the U.S. attacked his country and is now at war with Canada. He promised to retaliate dollar for dollar on September 8th. JD Vance was asked by a reporter in Maine on Monday what he'd say to Americans worried about the new tariffs, and here's what Vance said. We have to remember, Canada is a state, sorry, audience lit. That was actually an accident. Canada is a country that has under-invested its military that quite literally would get invaded by a foreign country where it not for the umbrella of protection provided by the United States of America. Do you think you got that joke from Rubio, the joke stirring the administration? That was so canned. For you in slip, Canada is a country not. It's really, it's on suck. Politics can be confusing and complicated. The president, someone who comes out of a presidential campaign usually doesn't make you uncomfortable every single second you see him on screen. Just every time he is speaking, you're just like a little bit, I'm just uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable. You see your weapon, unleash, they finally unleash JD Vance in the campaign trail again. Let JD, BJD, they wrote on an African. For reference, Canada is our second biggest trading partner, which means a lot more products are about to become a lot more expensive for Americans and Canadians. Someone cared to explain why the president may have just blown up the relationship with our closest ally and made life more expensive for everyone? I can try. If Trump is mad that Canada has been raving us off for years, he is mad at his own team's deal that they cut the USMCA, so that's what we're operating under. I've heard a couple of different theories for why the talks blew up. The first theory you hear is that the US tried to insert some 11-th hour provisions to the deal. That were just a bridge too far for Mark Carney, the Prime Minister. Some of those, specifically, it's like they wanted to exclude medium and light trucks from the reduction in tariffs the US did, which would have made it unprofitable to produce like the Ford F-150 in Canada. The deal could have weakened some French language protections that are very important and go back. It's the crazy thing. This is like a third rail. You do not fuck with this stuff in private. But also, why did we ask for that? It's not of our fucking business. By language, by language labels. I'm sure certain companies hate having to print stuff in French on the side of a pill bottle. It's stupid. Well, that's that. If you want to sell in Quebec, you've got to put in the front. You have to. If Carney messes around with this, the Quebec will succeed from Canada, so it's a big deal. Then there were some provisions that would have repeated Canada's ability to cut trade deals with other countries. I don't really understand that one. There's also kind of a personnel argument that you hear. There's also the big one. Also, they wanted exclusive access to their critical minerals. Yeah. And Carney was like, "Canada would never give that to anyone." It's great. Yeah, we're keeping it open. Yeah. We're keeping it open relationship with our critical men with our tungsten. There's also reports that the U.S. trade route, James and Greer, was like professional. He speaks French. He's a pro to work on and then let Nick came in at the end, the Commerce Secretary. Yes, he speaks gay. What's he saying? And let Nick got involved in negotiations. They went to shit. And then there's the politics of it all, which the political reality at this point for Mark Carney is the politics of fighting Trump are so much better than cutting a deal that requires you to make concessions and then going to and having to explain that. Because voters in Canada, remember the whole 51st state thing? They don't think it's funny. They haven't forgotten JD Vance and they don't trust Trump. They think that he's going to tear up any trade deal that they signed in a year. And the Canadian nationalism has been kicked up in a way that's been really durable. A friend of mine was in Canada the other day watching TV and the commercials would be like, "Lays potato chips with potatoes grown proudly in Canada." It was like, you know, it's like an ongoing thing. And so the other thing for Carney is like all the reasons Canadians might oppose this deal vary by region. So like in Ontario, it's the auto industry and Quebec, it's the cultural stuff about the French language. In other parts of the country, it's like lumber provisions and like stitching that altogether is a pain in the ass. So for him, he's like, you made it easy for me. Now I get to punch you in the face with my 60% approval rating, you being weak Donald Trump and going into your midterms where you're likely to lose. Like I think Carney thinks it's worth the risk. Well, I mean, he's not asking to reopen the talks, Carney, probably for those political reasons. And also because he gave a speech where he said, "I am outlining a new approach for countries that are kind of in between these sort of great powers that are battling and it is that we can find a way to stitch together these other kinds of arrangements without conceding, without giving up." And he can't. If he means that, and I do, he means it's in Syria, I don't think it's just politics. He has to prove it in his own negotiations. He can't signal to Europe that they need to stand up to Donald Trump. And then when he's faced with that himself, he can be capitulates. And the Canadian reciprocal tariffs, I think, going to place September 8th, Trump was like, ours will go into place in January, which is already him kind of, you know, caving. Well, we've just talked about Iran, right? And so that is the Axial story, right? Like they might restart the war after the midterms or the sanctions for the trading partners with Iran or anyone doing business with Iran, we're threatening that, you know, past the midterms, right? And now we're doing the Canadian tariffs, past the midterms, at least on the auto parts. So it is going to set up an interesting dynamic, which is, it seems right now like the White House is like, okay, well, we don't want to, at least some people in the White House. We don't want to fuck ourselves for the midterms too hard. So maybe we can delay this stuff to laugh for the midterms. But if they. It sounds like whether they lose or do better than expected in the midterms, they still want to do all this damage after the midterms, which will set up an interesting dynamic for the 2028 primary in which JD Vance, who we just heard from, presumably is going to want to run for president, or maybe Marco Rubio or whoever else, and now have to deal with the fucking bigger mess that the administration seems like they're planning to cause. Yeah, I also, before you get to 2028, take Trump at his word. Like, there are a lot of people running, we're going to get to see his in Collins. Donald Trump is saying, I am going to put in place a giant tax increase on January 1st on Americans, because Congress will not pull back the authority it has vested in Trump to do tariffs without congressional approval. Congress has the power to prevent those taxes increases from going into effect. That seems to me a pretty big issue that people could be talking about about what happens. I mean, obviously Trump has the ability to veto, but it would be nice to get people on record about where they stand on him doing this. I think they're all going to run on it. I mean, in Michigan, obviously, the auto industry is like the biggest fight they're going to have. So I'm sure of duals, I know of duals all over this, in Iowa, it'll impact John Deere, which is an important industry there, but also farmers who sell ag products into Canada in Maine. It's all about lumber. And I think there's a bigger question of like, we know Trump loves tariffs, but we don't really know why. You know, like James and Greer seems to want to kind of reorder the manufacturing business and bring it all back to the U.S. from China, and I think a lot of people support that. Scott Besson seems to think that tariffs are a way to collect revenue and just make money for the government. Then there's another group that just seems to think they're a way to bully other countries and get them to do whatever you want about whatever issue. And that's kind of, it seems like where Trump kind of lands on this. Like, I think I assume he is more interested in looking tough and looking like he beat up Mark Carney, than he is in getting some extra milk into, you know, a Canadian company. There's one more, but the other, I think, and Vance is sometimes flirted with this, is that you accept lower growth and the cost of tariffs because you reorder the economy around old school manufacturing, which were the jobs for men, and even though you give up service jobs, growth, you give up all the benefits of a modern globalized economy, it creates a, it's more about the kind of old school values of a kind of work we used about. We used as a society if you was important. But even though that aside, it is hard to overestimate what a dumb fucking political move this is. The number one issue for voters across the political spectrum is the cost of living, everything's too expensive, and they don't just think it's a bad economy. They know, they blame Trump for it, and specifically, they blame Trump's tariffs for it. But it is maybe one of his most unpopular policies, certainly his most unpopular economic policy over the last several years, and now he is doubling down on it, if not, in fact, in a threat, at least, before the midterm. So there are going to be headlines about tariffs for the midterms, and of course, he's already levy tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. So that's going to, you know, that'll have an effect on things. So people are still pissed at the tariffs that he's slapped on everything before this. Now there's headlines about more tariffs, and we are 60-something days out from the midterms. It's fuck. talking nuts. Not smart. Okay, so let's talk midterms. One person noticeably absent from Vance's event in Maine was Susan Collins. This is the second time she skipped out on a Vance event in Maine this year, though I'm sure she was thrilled that the vice president told the crowd in that speech that Susan Collins is a "deer friend" who has been to his house, quote, "probably a half dozen times." That's not a "deer friend." Sorry. Collins has been trying to convince voters that she hasn't become a rubber stamp for Trump, despite voting with him 95% of the time. The latest move was a statement asking the president to, quote, "consider the negative impacts his trade war with Canada would have on Maynors." On the Democratic side, things have been relatively quiet since Troy Jackson locked up the nomination to replace Graham Platner on the November ballot. But Jackson's campaign is beginning to heat up, finally getting on TV this weekend with this great 30-second spot featuring Jackson's mother. Troy was born to two teenage parents, and we struggled a lot. He didn't use that as an excuse. He used that as fuel to make things better for other people. Troy never talks about what he's done, but somebody will come up to me in the grocery store or someplace in town, and they'll say, "Troy helped me get a sewer, Troy helped me get my mother into a nursing home. If you need help, he's going to be there for you." That's who he is. I'm Troy Jackson, this is my mom, and I approve this message. What do you guys make of the Jackson campaign so far, and do you think he's doing enough to nationalize the race so that it is about a vote for Trump versus a check on Trump? So there was this ad, there was another ad or video he filmed just sort of sitting on a stoop talking about Elon Musk dumping money in the state. There's another, the Kroch Mog shot, but it was very, I'm shot from below for sure. I didn't notice that timing, notice that, but I thought it was innovative. It was good. I mean, we've used that technique here at Prada, America, but sometimes against it without our consent, we'll look at it and be like, "Hey, guys, that's three Kroches." But. I'll turn to name for the podcast. Yeah. And then there's others where he'd sort of say, according to our enemies, but I say, let our haters be our motivators. And that's what Troy Jackson said as well in that ad, but he also is doing a lot of the accent is the accent and he's like, "Look, I don't care if I don't give a damn if you're, I'm not going to do the accent," but Democrat or Republican, we just want to get these good things done for people. So there is a war right now because he is coming into the campaign late, introducing himself and as he's doing that, as much as they want to nationalize the race, Republican groups are dumping millions of dollars into May, calling him like a dirty politician and trying to define him negatively. So I don't know what the mix should be. I think he's trying to fight a word to define himself because he came in so late. Part of it is all the attention, like the national media should probably help nationalize this race a bit because people, boy, a lot of people stopped caring about Maine once it stopped being about Democrat on Democrat and started being about a Democrat versus Susan Collins. Yeah. I mean, that ad was good. It was a good biospot, but it's definitely an older version of politics, more parochial version of politics. Yeah. I'm not sure in my community, that's not nationalizing it. That's not making it about rubber stamping the Donald Trump agenda. I'm nervous about this race. I mean, shout out to the Maine Democratic Party and Troy Jackson for like turning this thing from Platner to his race so quickly, that's genuinely impressive. I think it was like literally a month ago, right, he accepted the nomination. It feels longer. I do think, you know, they need to go on offense every day. I mean, JD Vance visiting Maine is a gift to the Jackson campaign. I saw that he was highlighting Vance calling Collins, his dear friend on his Twitter feed. I hope they're doing more of that. The Canada Trade War is a huge opportunity for Troy Jackson. Troy Jackson's political career started because he led a group of loggers to the border of Canada and blockaded the road to protect Maine loggers from getting their job stolen from them. Where he's from, he's from Arusta County, which is like the border county between Maine and Canada. We should, he could go there today and it's speaking of nationalizing the race and explain what a 50% tariff does to a logging town. Right. Some Canadian premieres were talking about blocking electricity to America from Canada. If that happened to Maine, it would hurt them a lot. They get a lot of electricity from Maine. People love electricity in Maine. I know, they've seen a lot of pulling on it, but my sense of it in Maine is that they're just fans of electricity. Data center's bad electricity. Good. You know what, you think it'd be 100 to zero, but I think it's about 95, because everything is, but yeah, they're pretty pro electricity up there. Iran, ongoing disaster, Collins does not do anything to stop the war, ISIS hugely controversial. Susan Collins gave a terrible interview the other day, or she was asked, she was asked by someone, she got like door stopped at the elevator in the Senate and was like, why did you vote to send 70 billion to ICE and she was like, it was for body cameras. It's like that they never turn on when they're killing Americans. So there's, there's a lot of opportunity there for Troy to action to make the campaign about Collins as a rubber stamp for Trump. There's also this concerning report that Elon Musk is preparing to spend $100 million on the midterms, and a lot of that will be focused on Maine, so we don't know where that's going to go, but maybe you could jujitsu that back on Collins. We'll see. But we started to do. I'd like to see a little more, you know, we've got to be aggressive, we've got to make it about her. Especially in this race, because like, you look at all the polling, and this has been true since Planner was in the race, still true today. And does not like Donald Trump, Maine is not happy with Donald Trump. Majorities of voters, if they were going to go to the polls, they would vote against Donald Trump. And they did. In 2024, they voted for Kamala Harris. And so the way Susan Collins gets elected here is, and it's a little different from the other races, they're going to try to disqualify Troy Jackson. But the real emphasis in why the White House is going to let her criticize them is showing that Susan Collins is some kind of an independent voice, right? And so she wins, if enough voters are like, I really don't like what Trump's doing, but I don't really know him. And she's actually delivered for Maine. And she's kind of like an independent voice. And she came out against these tariffs, I just heard her say that, you know. And so like, the only way to win this race is to tie her to Donald Trump as closely as possible and make and nationalize this race in every way possible. And I think Troy Jackson has to do that. And that was, look, that was the criticism of Platner, one of many, like after he wrapped up the nomination, as people were like, oh, he's going after Susan Collins, too hard on being corrupt and everything else and being part of an establishment Washington, and he's not tying her to Donald Trump enough. And that was fair criticism, but like that's now that's what Troy Jackson has to do as well. He has to tie her to Donald Trump. I'm just, you have to do that while part of their strategy is to try to define Troy Jackson as unacceptable or corrupt or worse in some way. And he's unknown. And you know, I'm sure people have in the back of their minds that Democrats went through this bruising, primering with these like unsavory figure in the end, and like that he's tired with that. So I'm sure it's like a difficult balance of trying to figure out how to just get people over the line of knowing who you are that you're okay to vote instead of, you know, stable, reliable Susan Collins. So I'm sure that's part of what we're seeing in the ads and the question is, how do you make moments when there's a national, when JD Vance is there, when there's a tariff thing? Well, also understanding probably has to do some work to counteract what will be a day loose about him. I do think that 95% number should vote with Trump 95% of the time. It sort of reminds me of what we did to McCain in '08, right? There's a Senator who was seen as more independent, a Maverick, and all we did for the three, four months of the general election was be like, this guy voted for George Bush 90 something percent of the time I care. I remember now. Yeah, JD Vance tried to get ahead of that by being like, and sometimes she annoys me by being so independent. What a subtle line. I know. I know, I know. It does look very obvious. What's he doing in Maine? You know, he's like, she like, he's campaigning for her again. I can't show up. She can't show up. It's all a little bit like it. It's the Vance show. Only LePage showed up the Republican nominee for the Maine second district, not even the gubernatorial nominee showed up in the Republican side for JD Vance, so he's popular. 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Speaking of him, he also recently weighed in on the Michigan Senate race during a visit to his hometown in Ohio. Here's what he had to say about Democratic candidate Abdul El Sayed. El Sayed, this guy running for Senate in Michigan, he once argued not too long ago that criticisms of Sharia law were rooted in white supremacy. I'd love to go back in time and tell my papal that there's a man who claims to stand for working people who says not only should we have Sharia law, but if you criticize it, you're a white supremacist. That's not my papal's Democrat party, my friends, just a collection of real authentic people in there. Also, notice how we just kind of get in there. Not only is he think we should have Sharia law, but what are you talking about? I know. He makes Abdul's name sound weird, he's like, "El Sayed," and he's like, "My pee-paw, pee-paw." I think I said pop-law earlier, it's a lot of different names. So Abdul responded on MS now by pointing out that Vance was cherry-picking who gets to be defined as American and distracting from the issues. What do you think of that response, and in general, what is the best way for Abdul to handle all of these Islamophobic attacks from people like Vance, from people like Mike Rodgers? I've seen a lot of them are just not even thinly veiled lies, very obvious lies. He just loves Sharia law. He loves Sharia law. It's fun. There's more Vance to it. He kind of performs as the sophisticated version of Trump, and there's a way in which you take his rhetoric, and you can find some shred they can call it the truth somehow, but then he'll go back to their eating the cats and their eating the dogs, or he'll go there as he wants Sharia law, which is just a lie, just lying to people. I don't know what a more defiant or direct version of what he's already been saying, sounds like, but you can just say what this is. If this election is a referendum on Trump's policies and whether people want in the Senate a rubber stamp for what Trump will do, then Mike Rodgers will lose, and everything about what the Republicans are doing is going to be to try to hide that or muddy that or make noise around that. If this is an election about health care, about jobs, about someone looking out for the middle class in Michigan, about someone who will actually kind of go to the Senate to advocate on behalf of people in Michigan as opposed to for Donald Trump or whatever, or kind of siding with the corporations that are trying to kind of cut their taxes even more deregulate. That's what the race is about, and then I'll do it when they know that. And pop-up versus Sharia. His response to JD was like, called him boring, which I like, just unequivocally true. He made a line about Peter Tio, which I don't know that most people get, like MSNOW viewers probably get it because we're all political junkies, but most folks don't. And then he went into this thing about how, well, you know, do you think JD Vance looks his wife's parents in the eye and tells them that they're not real Americans referencing Ushavans? And again, it's like, it's a good point that I'm not totally sure everyone would understand. That's also what you could make about Donald Trump and Melania, by the way, if he's her parents or not born in the United States. I did, like, there's the, this is a distraction thing. I think that is true and it's valuable. I didn't wonder if it's missing a beat that just kind of like undercuts the suggestion that he's an extremist, which is like, JD, I played fucking college lacrosse. That's not the most like Sharia compliant activity or something that just gets at like, I love America. I'm an American. I grew up playing high school football. I'm from Michigan. My name's of dual. I'm a doctor. I don't remember like enough of this fear mongering crap. And he does that. He says like, I'm a dual from, I've always been a dual from Michigan. It's also, yeah, distraction is sort of the right ballpark, but you got to kind of put a finer point on it by being like, like every answer has to go back to Mike Rogers at this point. And like, if Mike Rogers and JD Vance and all these people, they're saying all this shit because they have nothing to say about why everything's so expensive in Michigan. They have nothing to say about what a disaster Donald Trump has been from Michigan for the last four years. And like, they're, so they're just going to make this entire race about Sharia law and Hassan Piker and all this other bullshit because they have nothing else to say about anything that you care about, you know? And I think that like he's, and Mike, and they may know that it's a pretty weak argument that Mike Rogers is just going to go to the fucking Senate and have another, another two years of doing whatever Donald Trump tells him to do. Yeah. The thing about the Usha point is like, so he's a hypocrite, right? And like, I was like, it's like, it's like, it's just, this is sometimes, like, it's just like, hey, like start, you're not going to win on points. It's like, like, that's a logical argument about how you should, like, what, he's racist towards you, but not towards his wife. Like, I don't, like, it's sort of, it's, it is beside the point and just sort of done with sort of hypocrisy arguments are kind of well, what about this? You know? Well, it's learning. And their, their goal is to sort of lure you into an argument about identity and culture and race, right? This is like, you know, Bernie tweeted today too, like, well, you know, you talk about us on Piker, but, you know, Jake Lang is in Michigan, the January 6th Ryder, and he's got a connection to Mike Rogers, which is, is true, you know? And then Mike Rogers is like, well, I'll disavow him. I'll disavow Jake Lang, but also we'll have dual disavow Piker, and now we're like in a back and forth about, you know what? Disavow off? I know. That's it. The classic disavow off. It's like a mayor's bet on a sports game. Yeah, there's, there is something about the, like, I, like, the other side of it, right? It is. Oh, where it is. I don't know where it is. She said these, she steaks from Chicago, Philly, whatever. I wasn't listening. I was waiting for my turn to talk. What's now? So rare. Well, I was trying to, what I was going to say is, yes, there's like the tit for tat for how you respond to these things, right? And, and then there's sort of the proactive rhetoric, whether it's in responding to the disavow Piker thing, which he did. Ready? He's not just ignoring it. He is responding to it. And then what you're doing proactively to address those kinds of things. And I will say, like, I read the statement he put out in response to the backlash to a comment from Hassan Piker from his fucking stream because we've all decided that Hassan Piker is the main character in American politics. You know, Fox News on these days, every third figure. It's just, it's Hassan Trump, and then just a socialist that chose him at random, basically, maybe a trans swimmer will get in there. But that's it. That's what's on Fox News. And so, like, his response. He's also in the third way in some other Democrats and, and, and, and, uh, DSA people, right? Like, a lot of people are invested in making this on the main character of the minterms. But if you look at that statement, it, like, I think all the sentiment inside of the statement is good, but it's very, like, uh, it's very careful, right? It's very careful statement and not, like, I would, that there needs to be, if he's going, like, if he's trying to prove to the Jewish voters in Michigan that he would like to come home, despite having had 30 or 60 million, 60 million dollars with ads dumped on his head. Uh, then, then, like, the same language that he would use the defiant language about saying, this is why we need Medicare for all or, like, this is why we need to take on the corporations. Like that level of defiance is certainly welcome in describing anti-Semitism, right? It had, like, like, it's a very, it's a very kind of careful language as opposed to something that's just like, it's just more, more, in the style that he's using on every other issue. That's all. I don't know about Rogers, uh, over the weekend, uh, Axios reported that allies of Rogers asked APAC to rethink their involvement in the Michigan general election, urging the group to, quote, get involved without putting the group's name front and center. Uh, the New York Times followed up with reporting of their own, noting that, quote, APAC leaders have privately voiced unease with a plan that makes APAC appear as if it is hiding. Uh, none of this has stopped Rogers from fundraising with APAC. He attended three APAC fundraisers in LA over the weekend and a fourth on Monday. What do you guys make of the requests from, uh, from the Rogers camp? I mean, I think it tells you a lot about how toxic the APAC brand has become politically. I think ultimately what they're doing there is saying, just don't spend on your own behalf, funnel your money to some other super PAC and have them spend it for you, which is what APAC will probably do. Although it does make APAC look incredibly weak if they can't even run ads, although they normally don't run ads in a general election. They usually just screw around and democratic primaries taking out progressives. So this is new for them, but it's, uh, it's a punch on the gut. But also, APAC has run tons of ads under the name of other organizations and not, they're ads during this primary and nothing to do with Israel at all. They were about sort of choosing him of being anti-women and other things like that. So like they already are running a campaign, which at least for most people, they're trying to kind of make it about other issues and not about APAC. Seems like they wanted the headline, the Rogers campaign. They wanted a headline out there to say that they are, uh, resisting APAC, uh, because they know that it's toxic, right? Like that. I think that, uh, I'm sure they're the ones that leaked it. I, that, that is, I guess I, like the politics are a little simpler for a Republican Democrat, right? Like I don't totally understand why he wouldn't want. I think because I think that it has become so toxic that it is not just toxic in a Democratic primary now, but APEC is toxic in a general election. Right. Right. I guess I guess what I want to understand is who are the voters. I guess there are, there are some Republican voters who might just stay home, right? Because any right that are like independence, some voters that are just that are that. APEC is extremely unpopular than the independent voters. So, but I think it's I think, you know, the important thing is he's still doing fundraisers with them like and he's talking. It's a double hit because he is still allied with APEC and doing fundraisers, but he's also talking about both sides of his mouth. He just wants them to hide the spending. I mean, he wants the UDP to cut a $30 million check to name your fake, you know, like the crypt like fair shake. So, I'm crypto funder, whatever it is. Yeah. And have them run the ads. The Times had another piece this weekend with the headline, "Angry Ohio voters could turn their state purple again," which details how Ohio and the frustrations over data centers, rising prices, the war in Iran, could put not just the Senate seat, but the governor's race in a series of house races in play for Democrats, Nan Waley, a former Dayton mayor who ran for governor in 22, told the Times, "I've just not seen people this pissed." What do you guys think? Too good to be true? We're turning Ohio blue. I mean, how surprised at how bullish Nate Silver was on Ohio? We talked about this the last episode. I mean, look, Jim Murnaci, the former congressman, posted something on the social media where he said, "You can get mad at me for posting this, but I'm just delivering the message. The biggest issues for independence are Iran war, gas prices, food prices, utility bills rent." Okay. So today, Trump is further dragging out the Iran war, maybe indefinitely. That keeps gas prices up. That impacts food prices because the fertilizer costs. He started a trade war with Canada, which is going to jack up food and maybe utility costs. And then Trump threatened to veto his only accomplishment on housing. So that wasn't his finest moment. Also, Nan Waley had another quote in that piece. She said, "It comes down to you hate everything, you can't be mad at the Democrats because they don't control anything." Yeah. It's like, honestly, that is what might get us over the line. It's like at some point, there's no one left to blame, but there are Republicans that have had complete control over most of Ohio and now the country. Last but not least on the House side, the Times had another story that raised eyebrows. The private meeting between House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Jared Kushner, where the two discussed, quote, "potential areas of common ground." This comes as Democrats reportedly prepared a lunch, numerous investigations into the Trump administration should they win back the House in November. What did you guys think about Jared and Hakeem meeting? What kind of common ground? I think maybe in the West Bank. I mean, yeah. This triggered me deeply because I, obviously, I'm not a big Jared Kushner fan. Look, my fear, big picture, is that, and this is not really about Hakeem Jeffries, but he's a part of this. The Democrats will, once they get the gavel and have oversight, authorities waste time with like sternly worded letters and requests for things instead of just subpoenas right out of the gate. Those demands for documents and oversight have to include the Trump family and the Kushner family in Jared's firm. Kushner is going to have very powerful allies calling around to Democrats. Maybe there are people that he's friends with who are rich people in New York or Miami who are also donors to Democrats and saying, "Go easy on Jared. He's a moderating force. He's one of the good guys. Look at what he did with the Abraham Accords, which we all have seen have brought peace to the Middle East members since they were put into place." And remember, Cory Booker voted to confirm Charles Kushner, Jared's dad, as ambassador to France because of their preexisting relationship. So I think that's why those reports were triggering on a substantive level. And on just a political level, it's like, why would you take this meeting now? It just doesn't make any sense. There's nothing you're going to work on. Absolutely nothing. Yeah. My reaction was like, what is the common ground with Jared Kushner? He's not a housing policy expert. He has no government job. He's no government job. He's just a private citizen with a lot of interests. If you want to talk with the White House about finding common ground on cost of living, go talk to someone in the domestic policy council. Talk to the president. Go talk to the speaker. Go talk to the president, right? And maybe Jeffries is, you know, and the White House, I guess through Jared is pricing in that, you know, Democrats are going to take the House and Jeffries wants a channel to the White House that is in Trump, which is like, that's fine. But again, that's not Jared Kushner. He doesn't have a government job. And you can't, you can't take a meeting like that quietly and then be surprised when the reaction is, you know, a signal about how confrontational that you're going to be over the next two years. It's like, it's just like, it's, what do you think you're going to do that and quiet me with Jared? And then everyone's going to just assume the best intention. Well, this is, this is, I think, the deeper problem, which is, and Dan wrote a, a good message box about why there's so much consternation around this. And it is, to Tommy's point, that people are afraid that as speaker, he won't be standing up to Trump enough, that he'll be too conciliatory. But like, I don't, under, what is your theory of power in a second in a, in the, in the, if you're the speaker of a house, you have the Senate, you don't have the Senate. Is it about launching investigations? Is it about a publicly defiant posture? But you're, you're back channeling with the administration. Are you going to be drawing lines? Like, if you do what I think certainly democratic voters want to see from a, a democratic house majority, there will be no successful working relationship with the Trump administration. You will be doing subpoenas. You will be doing investigations. You will be trying every day to get to the bottom of deeply embarrassing stories about corruption, ties to the Epstein files, failures, chaos, abuses of power. Like, that is what every day will be about. Trump will hate you. Trump will want to destroy you. Trump will be saying you should be in jail. He will be putting the DOJ on you. So what exactly is Jared, who, we already did a version of this. In the first term, ineffective, ineffective, feckless, careless, Jared, going to do for you. What is your back channel with this guy who didn't preserve the Paris Accords? Really didn't do much of anything going to get you certainly before the election that alone after. And now he spends his time spending billions of Saudi dollars on God knows what. He's trying to colonize an island off of the coast of Albania. That's not going very well. He's constantly meeting with a Russian oligarch who is this economic sort of channel to Putin. Like, everything Jared's doing in Trump 2.0 is really, really sketchy and not something you want to be affiliated with in any way, shape, or form in something that demands a lot of scrutiny, a lot of scrutiny. Chuck Schumer's probably pretty happy about the meeting. Because it's not him. I didn't do this one. He's like, "It's tiptoe running. The other cushion is buying the Lakers, probably." Oh, that's right. Yeah. Bob, Bob. All right. One last thing before my interview with Seth Moulton, after months of delays, the Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy finally releases YouTube series, "The Great American Road Trip." All six episodes are out now. Each opens with a disclaimer that no tax dollars were used to fund the show. Instead, there are several corporate sponsors, many of which share a theme. If you can pick up on it, Boeing, Toyota, Shell, United Airlines, Royal Caribbean, Enterprise, Rentacard, Lyft, and the U.S. travel association. The team put together some lowlights for you to enjoy, so you don't have to watch the rest. Here they are. And as I say, I've been carrying a luggage ever since. I carry your babies and you carry my luggage. If I do get it, I feel like you can't say no. To Harvard? Yeah. Well, me and my mom can say no. They have professionalized, figuring out how they can take good, young girls like you, and I think corrupt their minds. I've went to an extremely conservative school in high school. And I'm sorry I was extremely conservative family. And if I go to a liberal setting, that's a way more rounded education than if I go to a conservative high school and then go to a conservative college. That's just being kind of one-sided anyways. Like they're so good at it, you'll see young people go to a conservative school with a conservative family, and they get perverted and contorted. And now they can told the train is locked down. It's locked. Not me. The house is set up for the two of us to room together. Real and well though, it was fun. It was good. He called our bitch. I did not. Dancing even poorly is really enjoyable. Maybe we'll have a little dance in our human heart. Here in Rockstar for doing the show trip. Thank you. Oh boy. Oh boy. Dude, I did not watch that yet. That was trouble. I really, it's so funny this idea that like there's a kind of this idea in the kind of whatever. The conservative Gen X boomer mind that the reason their kids turned against them is because they went to colleges where they were as if like young girls had their minds perverted. Meanwhile, meanwhile you look at the discourse around college or like, hey, we got this problem. Our professors don't seem to be reading anything that's submitted to them anymore. Also, the kids are using Chatchee BT in the classrooms. No one seems to be doing any of the work anymore. It just seems like I don't know that they're very good at indoctrinating us to believe in anything, let alone specific liberal ideas. Yeah, it was like Alex Jones. They turned the frogs gay with the water kind of stuff. First of all, this poor kid like doesn't want to have him this conversation on camera for it to be released to a total of 16,000 viewers so far on YouTube going great for Sean Duffy. What a weird. Well, also, it's like it's not even like she's saying I want to rebel against my conservative upbringing. She's basically just like, I'd love sort of a well-rounded point of view. You know, I've got the conservative point of view and I had high school and now I'd like to, you know, a while round at liberal arts. - No, absolutely not me and mom will say no. - It's the other like there's just some slap mom in the ass. - I mean, it's infantilization. Like there's like, oh, would you, like you will be, like why do you think your kids don't have the ability to hear an opposing idea? Like what do you, what do this, like should be an adult, you know, young adults person going to college, a time where people, by the way, you are able to serve in the military. You're allowed to do all kinds of things in a duck boat. And you don't believe they can handle a college professor telling you something liberal. Like what, how little respect do you have for people? - Dude, you did road rules. - Well, what are you lecturing your child about there? Like they're learning environment. You want real world road rules? The challenge, like how you and mom met. - It's okay to go out and live your life and be around people who are different than you. Maybe you'll learn something. What a potential next White House press secretary, Rachel Campo-Stuffy. - Yeah. - Is Scott Jennings coming on a little too strong? - I don't know. Trump said something nice about him last week when he was asked about it. - Yeah, but it was very like cursorism. - He's good. It's funny because there was the, there was the Scott Jennings is in the running. He had a dinner with Susie Wiles, sort of new cycle, which was immediately followed by the Scott Jennings is overdoing it. He's terrible. The White House hates him, new cycle. So you can see a lot of posturing in the media. It's not at all clear to me where Trump is heading. We'll see. Up next, my interview with Congressman Seth Molten, and also we are currently out to Ed Marquis team as well, hoping to get him on ahead of the primary. That's up next. (upbeat music) - Today's show is sponsored by strawberry.me. You're probably no stranger to seeing self-professed career coaches advertise their services on social media. You can all feel a little ad hoc, a little vague, and might leave you wondering is anyone being helped by this? 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Vote from abroad.org. - On election night, we will all be feeling a lot of feelings. Do not spend it alone. Spend it with me, Alex Wagner. Our crooked media presents live election results. We're gonna have John Favreau, John Lovett, Tommy Vittor, Stacey Abrams, Dan Feiffer, Aaron Ryan, and many more special guests to be announced. And they're all gonna help us make sense of what's happening as the election results roll in. So here's what you need to do. Subscribe to Podsave America on YouTube and tune in on Tuesday, November 3rd, at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific for hot takes, catharsis, and as many results as we can possibly analyze. - Seth Motten, welcome back to Podsave America. - It's always an honor to be on the pod. So thank you very much for having me back, John. - Of course. So your primary against Senator Ed Markey is in a week. The only three polls taken in August have you down 28, 15, 33 in the most recent poll. Do you think the public polling is all wrong? Or do you think you can make up a lot of ground by next Tuesday? What is your internal polling show? - Internal polls have this very, very close. I think the polling has been wildly off in just about every primary across the country. And the energy that we're hearing on the ground, the numbers that we're seeing on the doors is incredibly positive. People want change. But at the end of the day, this will be about who turns out for this election and we have a great turnout operation that will help us win. - Your central argument is about the need for generational change, which has already worked in several democratic primaries. The cycle, though usually it's been a young progressive defeating an older moderate. I know you called yourself progressive in the last debate, but do you think it's fair to say, would you call yourself more moderate than Ed Markey? - No, I wouldn't. I think there are two progressives in this race. And if you look at our policies, I mean, first of all, Senator Markey and I pretty much agree on policies. There's really very little where we disagree fundamentally. Some of my policies are actually more aggressive and progressive than his, like my affordability agenda, for example. But there's no policy change that I've made in this race, this is always who I've been. It takes some time for people to get to know you and I've been doing town halls all across the state. I think people have seen how committed I am to change because it's not progressive without progress. And at the end of the day, Senator Markey has been advocating for a lot of things that he's advocated for a very long time. And yet fundamentally, there are a lot of problems that are just getting worse. Housing costs keep going up. Energy bills are twice a national average here in Massachusetts. And it's just people admit that the status quo approach is not working. And so I've proposed some transformative ideas to address these things. And I think that's what voters want right now. - Just to look at one policy difference, like Markey's for a Medicare for all, single payer version of Medicare for all, you're for a public option that lets people keep employer coverage. There's a good amount of evidence out there that even a robust public option is the more popular, more achievable option, even though it's more moderate. Why isn't your argument that your positions, some of your positions may be more moderate, but they're also more likely to win and pass and easily achieved? - Look, I think that achievable is absolutely part of the argument. In fact, there was an op-ed and they bossed in Globe today that said that molten policies are achievable and Markey's are not. I mean, he was re-elected in 2020 on a promise to pass Medicare for all in six years. He also promised to pass the Green New Deal and yet voted present on it himself. When it came before the Senate, it's got fewer co-sponsors today than it did when he first introduced it. So again, it's not progressive without actual progress and on this, you know, the question of healthcare for all, we both support universal healthcare. In fact, I've gone so far as to say it should be a human right. Not even debatable, whether you're a citizen and immigrant, you know, homeless on the street. It absolutely is a human right. I think that's good for everybody in America, but I actually want to get it done. And that's why I stand with President Obama, which just says, yes, you can have Medicare. If you want it, literally everybody can have Medicare if they want it. But if you're a union that's fought for years to get a great healthcare plan that you really enjoy, you can keep it. And I made a commitment to keep going to the VA from that healthcare when I was elected because we know the VA's got problems and I wanted to see them firsthand. There are a lot of vets who want to continue being able to go to the VA as well. - What's your specific argument as to why marquee's age matters? Is it that he specifically isn't up to the job because of his age or that 50 years is just too long for anyone regardless of age? - I think it's three things. I mean, first of all, it's not personal, you know, I mean, it's kind of against the idea, this establishment idea that one person ought to be able to hang onto a seat in Congress for 50 years, even if the world is, you know, passing him by. So it's kind of this like establishment idea that the personal power is more important than public service that, as a vet, I really resent. The second point though, is that if we win the Senate, John, it will almost certainly be by just one vote. And we cannot afford to have someone miss a vote due to a medical issue or anything else. And potentially have that turn into another conservative Trump-appointed Supreme Court justice. The stakes are just too high. And we should learn the lessons of Dianne Feinstein and Joe Biden and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And of course, on the other side of the aisle, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and recognize that there's just simply a risk when you reelect somewhat at 80. He'd be closer to 90 at the end of his next term than 80. But the third reason, which I think is really resonating right now, is that you've got to have a new generation of leaders to take on a new generation of challenges and opportunities. And in the last debate, we were asked about AI. And Senator Mark, he explained to Massachusetts that he can't tell the apps on his phone or iPad apart. He doesn't know which ones use AI and which ones don't. And that's tough, you know? After the debate, he tried to clean it up by comparing AI to an automobile and saying, we ought to regulate it the way we regulate seat belts. I mean, how are we going to make this technology safe if the senators don't even understand what it does? What specific regulations do you favor for AI? Well, first of all, we ought to learn from all the lessons of messing up the regulations for social media. And actually, Senator Mark, [BLANK_AUDIO] about how he's been the architect of some of those regulations. His 1996 telecom deregulation bill opened the door for big tech to come in, make billions and billions of dollars, but have absolutely no accountability for things on the internet. Now, he's tried to walk back some of that, but we all know the internet is unsafe. I mean, I've got a five-year-old and seven-year-old at home. I dread the time when they get on social media and we know that their suicide risk goes up, that the harm that can happen just from being on social media is very real and Congress has totally failed to regulate it. So number one, we've got to make AI safe and that means holding the AI companies actually accountable. At number two, we do have to win the AI race against China because we don't want to have zero accountability here in the United States because everyone starts using models from overseas. And then the third thing I'd say is that there will be job displacement. Now, we don't know exactly when it will happen or what will it will be. So rather than try to anticipate where that's going, like remember a few years ago and Democrats said, oh, we'll just retrain the coal miners to be computer programmers and then they'll be fine. I mean, even if that was realistic back then, these are like the first jobs that are getting automated out of existence by AI. So I think we have to have almost a FEMA-like disaster fund approach to dealing with job loss, a federal fund to say, look, if every paralegal in their country loses their job within a month, we're going to help. We're going to bail them out until they can find new jobs. I think that's going to be critical as well. You mentioned China. I feel like this constant tension with the development of AI is someone proposes regulation. Someone proposes slowing it down. The counter argument is, well, yes, we want safeguards and we want regulations, but we can't let China beat us. So it's used as an argument to just keep pushing ahead. What is the balance between making sure that we're not all using Chinese AI models or even if we do nothing about AI, even if we stop AI tomorrow here for some reason in the US? Obviously, it's still going to be with us. The rest of the world is going to move ahead. So how do you regulate AI without letting China win this race? I think it's a great question, John. And this really is the administration's argument, right? They basically say, we shouldn't have any rules. In fact, we should just do exactly what all the AI executives tell us to do because they're the experts and they're going to win this race against China. I do not think these two things are mutually exclusive at all. I mean, no one wants to fundamentally use a model at the end of the day that is unsafe. In fact, there's a good chance that governments will just shut things down that are unsafe. So there's no reason why the winning model shouldn't also be the safe model. I also think that the wrong way to do it is for the federal government to say, okay, we're going to just make all the rules because we all know we're not going to keep up. Like, we're not going to keep up with the technology. That's why I talk about accountability. I think the big problem with social media and big tech companies is that there's just no accountability whatsoever. If I were just starting to see big tech care because there have been successful lawsuits for the first time against them for the things that show up on their platforms, we've got to make it clear from the very beginning that these AI companies are actually liable. And that will force the kind of self-regulation that we've never seen appropriately with social media, but it also, importantly, will be able to keep up and therefore stay competitive with China and other countries around the world. Bernie Sanders recently wrote a letter to AI leaders like Sam Altman, Dario Amade, and Mark Zuckerberg following the news that their companies lost control of their AI models. First, it was open AI and then Claude and then Anthropic and Metta said the same thing. So the letter said, quote, "In the interest of humanity, stand by your words, pause AI development. It is not too late to avoid disaster. Stop building machines that humans cannot control. Do you agree with Bernie that these companies should pause AI development?" I mean, no, John, as you said, the world is going to continue developing AI. I mean, China may only be a few months behind us, depending on who you talk to. So just pausing it is not smart for the United States. I mean, look, do you trust, at the end of the day, the United States of America or communist China to make AI safe? I certainly trust the United States of America as many as many problems as we have back here. But again, we have to make big tech accountable. And so fundamentally, I agree with Bernie that they are not doing enough to make model safe and to show accountability for their behavior right now. But the answer is not pretending that this is not going to happen. Bernie's also got to bill for a moratorium on data centers. What do you think about that? Would you support a moratorium on building data centers for a year until, or longer, until, until, you know, we can figure this out and people in more local communities and states can have more of a say and where these data centers are going? I think it should be up to local control. Like, I think that, you know, people in communities that are going to be impacted by data centers, both negatively and positively, you know, should make these decisions. And there are some communities that want data centers because of the tax revenue. There are a lot of communities right here in Massachusetts that are really nervous about them jacking up electricity prices when electric bills are already way too high here in Massachusetts. There are a lot of people who are worried about pollution, you know, for good reason. So my view is that this should be, this should be local control. These should be local communities making decisions. The federal government should not be forcing data centers down everybody that anybody's throat. But at the end of the day, when there are local communities that say, no, we want this business, we want this here, we want the construction jobs, a lot of unions are very in favor of these data centers because all the jobs that they bring. Then it's a good thing for our data to sit in data centers in the United States and not in data centers overseas in China where we know that they do not respect privacy. They don't have proper controls over intellectual property. I think it's already a problem that big tech companies and AI companies use our data without our permission or any benefit coming back to us. But it could get even worse if there's actually no control over our data because it sits overseas. There was another odd moment in an earlier August debate that I wanted to ask you about. At one point, you asked Markey why he'd take a meeting with a lobbyist on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein. This was based on a 2015 email in the Epstein files where a colleague of a lobbyist named Bob Crow said he'd had an initial briefing with Markey about getting the son of a former Senegalese president out of prison. Epstein paid for that lobbying, but both Markey and Crow say the meeting never happened. Three independent fact checks found the claim mostly false or unsupported. There's no evidence that the briefing with Markey took place or that Markey had any idea Epstein was involved. You also took $2,000 from Bob Crow, which you later returned. But considering all that, do you still think it was fair to suggest that Markey took the meeting and did a favor for one of Epstein's pals? Well, look, if you look at the email, the meeting happened. It's not a surprise that Senator Markey would sadly not tell the truth about this because he's been lying a lot in this campaign. I mean, he said that he does not take corporate pack money and he does. He said that he does not take fossil fuel lobbyist money and he does. The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald have documented these things. So unfortunately, he's been lying to his supporters throughout this campaign and it's not a surprise that he would be dishonest about a meeting that emails clearly documented occurred. But my question was actually very simple. It was simply just why would you take a meeting because this actually does go to the heart of an issue that I'm hearing all across Massachusetts, which is that people don't see the Senator. I've done over 50 town halls across the state where anyone can come, and it was like hundreds of individual events, but anyone can come to over 50 public town halls and ask me any question that they want. And I often hear we never see the Senator. I've never been able to get a meeting with him. I've never been able to ask a question. So this simple question I asked is why would you take this meeting on behalf of the lobbyist working for Epstein and not and not take meetings with constituents? And that is representative of things that I'm hearing on the trail. But it's possible that it was just a, you know, a call between this lobbyist or a colleague of the lobbyist and Markey staff and Markey had nothing to do with it or had no knowledge of the meeting. The email didn't say a brief to staff. I mean, I've worked in the Congressional Office for 10 years. A big difference between, oh, we breathe molten staff or we breathe molten, right? I mean, it's pretty clear. But, you know, look, he could at least return the money. I mean, like, the point is a lot of voters ask, like, why can't we get access to our Senator? And this just goes to the heart of that question. Like, the wealthy and the well-connected, even if they're connected to a convicted felon, seem to be able to get meetings or briefings or whatever you want to call it with senators and yet ordinary people in Massachusetts can't. And that's a change that I would like to bring if I'm elected Senator. We've actually won as many democracy words awards from the Congressional Management Foundation as I think any other office on Capitol Hill and including ones for transparency and constituent services. I mean, literally the best office in the country for constituent services. And that means people can come to us at all times for anything. In fact, we do get a lot of constituent in services requests from other congressional districts, because they say I can't get an answer from that congressman or that center, so we're coming to you. And I think that's the kind of service and the kind of access that people in Massachusetts want and deserve. Yeah, I was going to ask because obviously corruption is a huge issue, thanks to the administration and Donald Trump, but also you can tell people are sort of fed up with some of the things that you're talking about, just broadly with Congress and Washington in general. So it reminds me of 2006 and when Democrats took the House and it was an anti-corruption message. You know, back then, there was sort of a series of proposed reforms if Democrats took back Congress, what they could do on ethics and lobbying. I remember when I first started working for then Senator Obama, you know, he spearheaded some of those as well. Have you thought about legislation, ethics reforms, lobbying reforms, anti-corruption legislation that you'd like to pass if you're Senator? And additionally, even if there are things that you can't pass, legislation, you can't pass just sort of rules for your own office that you want to put into place as Senator. Yes, absolutely. So first of all, I was the first office on Capitol Hill House or Senate to ban prediction market trading for me or my staff. And that's set an example that other offices have followed, but that's a great example of something that we've already done internally and those bans should of course be passed into law. I also think that we need campaign finance reform and we've tried for years to get it. As you've said, people have proposed this for a long time. It's been difficult with the Supreme Court. A novel approach that I've been pursuing is to tie campaign finance reform to term limits. And the reason why this is an interesting combination is that campaign finance reform tends to be more popular with Democrats. Term limits tend to be more popular with Republicans in Congress. And yet both are wildly popular with the American public. So we could make a compromise each side could eat a little crow. And we could do something that would I think be fundamentally good for Congress and raise our esteem in the minds of the general public. But it's been proven difficult to pass without some sort of grand bargain like that. I've also co-sponsored three congressional stock trading bans and I think that I've also disclosed my whole family's taxes in this race which Senator Markey has not. I think that kind of transparency is just helpful. And of course, some of these were unwritten rules. We had disclosure of taxes amongst all presidential candidates until Trump came along and just refused to do it. I think one of the biggest lessons that Democrats have to learn after the second Trump administration that we clearly didn't learn well enough after the first is that just pretending we can go back to normal isn't enough. We need these kinds of fundamental reforms so that the next person like Donald Trump doesn't come and just completely abuse the system once again. You had a line in one of the last debates that said if you're happy with your electricity built tonight vote for the Senator expand on that argument a little bit for me like what is the thing Massachusetts doesn't have because Ed Markey has held this seat? It's just innovation in change and an urgency to get these problems fixed. Because electric bills are not a new problem and we've had a high electricity rates high gas prices for a long time in Massachusetts and they haven't been addressed. And in the last debate Senator Markey you know he felt rather indignant and he trotted out a list of things that he's done on this issue and I said look Senator, I respect your work on this. I really do. I've supported many of those measures myself but we've just got to admit that it's not enough. When our electric bills are twice the national average it clearly hasn't gotten that done. On housing for example there are a lot of tweaks in the system that have been proposed and worked on for a while but housing prices are skyrocketing in Massachusetts and one out of three people here in this state thought about leaving just last year because it's unaffordable to live here so I've proposed a totally transformative initiative to make it faster than driving to get around Massachusetts by turning our commuter rail system into a fast regional rail system like they have throughout Europe. It would finally connect north and south stations where every train from the north would flow through the south and west. I mean I'm down in the Cape right now. It took like two and a half hours to get down here that should be from Salem in like 45 minutes right. Now this has been shown by a recent Harvard study to take 155 million cars off the road and spur hundreds of thousands of units of new housing. In fact this is one of the things that the globe recently cited as a really achievable project that we just need next generation leadership to get done. And Senator Markey has proposed improving rail service to Western Massachusetts. His proposal would have rail service in two and a half hours which is actually slower than the same trains applied the route in 1950. That's just not the change that we need to address these problems. Yeah so like I mean you've said that a lot of your policy views and an ideology are similar to Markey. There's obviously a generational argument there. But like specifically what do you think a Senator Moulton actually delivers in the next six years that a Senator Markey does not or would not? Like where would you guys differ in terms of okay a vote comes in the Senate and you'd vote one way and Markey would vote another way. Yeah great question because we really do agree on most policies like for example we were just talking about housing. I mean we obviously both agree that we need to bring housing costs down. I just admit that what we've been trying hasn't worked and we need to do something much more transformative like this regional rail initiative. I don't think that really translates into a different vote in the United States Senate. But I'll tell you something that does and that is voting for Chuck Schumer. When I started this campaign I said from day one I'm not going to vote for Chuck Schumer. I'm not going to run on a platform of next generation leadership here at Massachusetts and then go to Washington and support Senator Schumer. Senator Markey not only supports Senator Schumer but just took $62,000 from the Senator out of the Senate victory fund. The fund that's supposed to flip seats from red to blue in Michigan and Ohio and Alaska and Maine and other states across the country where we need to flip seats to win back the majority. Senator Markey took that money out of the victory fund. The Democrats of the off-crossed country have contributed to it to bail out his own campaign. And so that's a huge difference in approach. I think you know John I've been working for years to do the opposite, to actually use my platform of Massachusetts to raise millions of dollars for candidates across the country through my serve America initiative that's recruited, mentored, and supported amazing leaders like Mikey Sherrill, who the governor of New Jersey who just endorsed my campaign, Andy Kim, Melissa Slocke, and the Senate, Governor Spanberger, and real leaders in the House like Lauren Underwood, John Hayes, Chrissy Hula-Han, Pat Ryan. These are people who all flipped seats and I think that a Senator in a safe blue seat like Massachusetts should really be invested in winning majorities across the country, not taking money out of the fund to win majorities across the country to cling to power for another six years. Last question for you. Set Markey aside, you spent a couple of years arguing that this party is broken. Democrats are heading into a midterm environment that's very good for the party, but the brand is still underwater. If you had to name the single thing the Democrats are getting wrong right now that has nothing to do with anyone's age, what is it? Is it people know one thing about the Democratic party and it's that we're opposed to Trump? And that's it. They don't know what we actually stand for, and that's opposition, but it's not leadership. And I think when people are scared and hurting as so many are across the country today with this cost skyrocketing, a mega controlling everything in Washington and Trump just completely reckless and disgusting, frankly, as this racist president, people don't want just opposition. They want leadership. And it's an interesting way that I've illustrated this in my town halls where I'll say, okay, ask everyone here, several hundred people, whatever it is, how many of you are opposed to Trump's immigration enforcement. And of course, every hand in the room goes up, right? And then I say, how many of you can tell me what Democrats' immigration policy is? And that's this question of thousands of people and you don't get a single hand. And this isn't some idol or esoteric issue. I mean, this is the number one issue today with ice terrorizing blue communities all across the country. It was one of the top two issues in the 24 election that we lost across the board. And yet for Democrats, not being able to say what our immigration policy is. Now, people are going to ask, okay, Seth, what's your immigration policy? Three quick points. Prosecutive ice. Yes, it should be abolished. The institution is completely broken. Immigration enforcement should go back into the Department of Justice. But it's not enough, just to say, poof, you go away, we need to hold these people accountable. Again, that's a big mistake we made not doing enough of that accountability after the first Trump administration. Number two, create an immigration system that actually incentivizes people to come here legally, not illegally, because for many people, they find it just easier to walk across the border than actually go through the bureaucracy to become a citizen. And then number three, we need a path way to citizenship for families and kids who are already here and part of our communities. Now, those are three broad points. We could spend, you know, 45 minutes debating the details. But the point is, there you go, like that's my immigration policy. policy and you know my experiences you get a lot of nodding heads but when most Democrats can't even articulate how we're going to fix this problem it leaves a lot of people feeling that the party is out of touch and I think we just got to get back in touch you know last thing I'll say is I ran for Congress because I saw the consequences of failed leadership in Washington serving in the war on the ground in Iraq a war that Senator Markey voted for there are a lot of people making decisions in Washington that were totally out of touch with those of us who were fighting in the sand in the mud in that war of choice and I think there are a lot of people across America who feel the same way today that that Washington and these establishment people who've been there forever are really out of touch with the everyday struggles of America and the party that can better demonstrate that we're listening we are hearing we are responding with real leadership to fix those problems on the ground that's the party that's going to win I'm confident that Democrats can get there but I'm not sure we're there completely and and that's why I've been willing to challenge the party establishment as I'm doing in this race Seth Molten thank you as always for for joining PiSafe America enjoy the Cape if you pass through North Reading tell people I said hi it's been an honor to work for your family and and friends in North Reading that's right that's very much my district yes all right take care take care thanks again thanks to congressman Molten for joining Dan and I will be back on Friday positive America is a crooked media production our show is produced by Austin Fisher Saul Rubin McKenna Roberts and Ferris Safari with Reed Charlene Elijah Cohn and Adrian Hill our team includes Matt DeGroat Ben Heffko Jordan Cantor Charlotte Landis Carol Pelevibe David Tolls Mia Kelman Ryan Young and Naomi Single our staff is probably unionized with the writer's Guild of America East on election night we will all be feeling a lot of feelings do not spend it alone spend it with me Alex Wagner for crooked media presents live election results we're gonna have John Favreau John Lovett Tommy Beetour Stacy Abrams Dan Feiffer Aaron Ryan and many more special guests to be announced and they're all gonna help us make sense of what's happening as the election results a roll in so here's what you need to do subscribe to pod save America on YouTube and tune in on Tuesday November 3rd at 9 p.m. Eastern 6 p.m. Pacific for hot takes catharsis and as many results as we can possibly analyze