The episode begins with a promotional segment for SimpliSafe, highlighting its AI-powered security system that detects and deters intruders before they enter a home, emphasizing ease of installation and reliability. The main political discussion centers on Donald Trump’s controversial renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America, criticized as a politically motivated act that ignores Indigenous history. Trump’s declining approval ratings and failed attempts to improve his image through campaign ads are contrasted with growing backlash over his ties to white nationalism, including a Georgia senator’s staff posting neo-Nazi symbols and participating in extremist groups. The episode also addresses the measles outbreak, blaming low vaccination rates on anti-vaccine rhetoric from figures like RFK Jr., and stresses the public health crisis amid declining trust in institutions. A key subplot involves South Carolina’s Senate race, where Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, details her shift into politics after seeing how broken policies harm children. She reflects on her previous congressional run and expresses optimism about her current Senate campaign. The broader theme is how Trump’s actions—ranging from symbolic renaming to spreading conspiracy theories—serve to polarize voters and undermine democratic discourse, ultimately benefiting Democrats by amplifying negative narratives and exposing internal party divisions.
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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
On today's show, we'll talk about the president's big announcement that he's renaming a lake because he's mad at Canada.
His plan to make the midterms all about himself.
RFK Jr.'s war against the war against measles.
Jon Ossoff's opponent's latest Nazi problem.
The latest one.
And the latest from some key Senate races, including Dan's conversation with South Carolina's
Democratic nominee, Dr. Annie Andrews, who's looking to pull off a big upset against the brand new Republican nominee,
Darlene Graham, sister of the late Lindsey Graham.
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All right.
Let's get to the news.
Donald Trump had another big week of losing wars, raising prices, and changing maps.
His only public event on Thursday was a signing ceremony in the Oval Office where he officially changed.
The name of Lake Ontario to Lake America and said that either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean may be next because our president is a moron.
Let's listen to how he explained the Lake Ontario change.
So this is Lake Ontario in Canada and in the United States.
But we're going to make a little change.
We're going to call it something different than Lake Ontario.
We're going to call it Lake America.
And all it takes is a good pen and some intelligence.
So Lake Ontario, that's gone.
Lake America.
So now we have a lake and now we have a gulf because we have the Gulf of America.
Now we have Lake America without the of.
Thank you very much, everybody.
Enjoy Lake America.
Enjoy Lake America without the of.
Without the of.
Now, if you're all concerned that Trump isn't paying enough attention to the other stupid war he started that's now bankrupting the country,
fear not.
The president posted some great news about Iran this morning.
Let's check out what he put on Truth Social.
That is an AI image, although Austin claims maybe it's photoshopped.
Either one.
But it's Donald Trump, the American flag behind him, some fighter jets.
In the corner is George Bush.
A picture of George Bush.
And it says mission not accomplished.
And then in the other corner, there's the Ayatollah for some reason.
And it says Mission Accomplished 2026.
Is that the dead Ayatollah or the other one?
Who's to know?
We don't.
We don't know.
We don't know.
Is it the is it the the dead Ayatollah or the new, potentially gay, disfigured Ayatollah?
Look, what you're going for in this moment is slightly better than George W.
Bush's Iraq war.
So that's the.
That's the message.
And you definitely want to use the phrase because you really want when people think about the Iran war, you want it to evoke the last biggest foreign policy disaster from a Republican president, which is the war in Iraq.
So you just want to you want to make sure that the public is connecting those two things in their mind, even though the war is still very much raging because Donald Trump is a fucking moron who is busy.
dumb shit like this um 10 years running 10 years running hot takes on dumb shit uh oh great name
that was that was the that was the runner-up to positive america donald trump's not even good at
trolling anymore i know like it's just like he he is he's i mean we've said this before he's lost
his fastball but he's just there's like this you can almost feel the relevance just declining with
every passing moment that people don't care and he can't even like he's he does this for outrage
he can't do it the second thing is that democrats in the world have kind of figured out how to react
to trump like if when this happened with the gulf of america or imagine if this happened four years
ago everyone would be screaming from the rooftops you know what a gigantic deal this is you know
what an embarrassment for america how dare he politicize the once independent board of
geographic names and you know just like stacking it with cronies exactly but that that was the
foundation of the american system democracy is at risk we can't even count on lake naming anymore
and that you know and like last year people were like oh my god what do we do if we don't change
it on our map trump will prosecute us i mean if you remember this is what got the ap ban from the
white house oh my god i did forget they forgot they refused to call the gulf of america now no
one cares no although i did it's kind of funny i like i i don't care about it that much but i have
seen some people be like do you think he
actually knows that lake ontario was not named after the canadian province or named by canada
but it was it's a it's an indigenous name from hundreds of years before and i was like guys guys
we don't of course we don't need to go down that road that you don't he wasn't thinking about that
and if you corrected him in advance that wouldn't have made a difference yes yes i just think it's
better to respond to these things with ridicule than outrage yes it's not like i guess the other
to actually him
fucking moron fucking moron so stupid uh on a completely related note uh trump's approval
rating is underwater by about 20 points uh with just 67 days until the midterms for comparison
he was only about 11 and a half points underwater at this point before the 2018 midterms which is
about the same as joe biden before the 2022 midterms but according to the atlantic
trump recently met with his advisors in the oval to come up with a strategy to overcome his
dog shit approval ratings ahead of the midterms and here it is there's a theory that i get the
vote you know this i see it all the time that when trump's on the ballot they win when he's
out of the ballot the people don't go to vote and i'm asking the people through your brilliant show
number one show i'm asking the people to get out and vote pretend i'm on the ballot
that's it what do you think about that that's a good strategy right just in case you
thought he was riffing there uh here's the headline from the atlantic piece uh i was just
referring to about that meeting trump plans to buy midterm ads about his own record the president
has come up with a simple plan to win the election more trump that is trump's solution to every
problem more trump is more trump i think that'll do it this time doesn't work when the problem is
trump i mean my my simple response is where can i donate i couldn't ask
for any like great go for it run more run more make it remind remind make sure that everyone
understands
understands that Mike Rogers, Susan Collins, John Husted, all of these people are completely
associated with Donald Trump. A man whose approval rating is underwater in every state in this
country, there is no race, I think, anywhere where Trump is a net positive. It's just a question of
how big an anvil he's going to be for the Republican on the ballot.
Yeah. I mean, if everyone pretended that Trump was on the ballot and everyone voted based on
how they view the job that Trump's doing, Democrats would win a Senate majority and
a huge House majority. Yes. If every Trump disapprover
voted for a Democrat, that would be a 20-point generic ballot, just to do some very fast math
there. It's funny that there's one sentence in the Atlantic piece that says, some GOP strategists
favor focusing entirely on specific races in an effort to convince voters of the merits of
individual candidates and local issues. Yeah. Yeah. That might be a good idea. I guess that
didn't. I guess that one didn't get through the brainstorm.
You know, Biden, to his credit, I think, in 2022, he basically just backed away. He didn't campaign.
He sort of, his advisors, other than that one democracy speech he gave at the very end. Right, where they said he looked like Satan, yeah.
Which then sort of, basically, the success of that speech sort of unwound democracy itself,
but that's neither here nor there. But he had enough self-awareness to
not force himself into the conversation. Same thing with Obama.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he said, "Well, I'm not going to vote for Obama in 2010. George W. Bush in 2006."
But Donald Trump is not capable of that. So he has to make it about himself,
which is only going to help Democrats, because it's not going to turn out more Republicans.
It's just going to further polarize independents and disaffected Trump voters against Republican
candidates. Yeah. I laughed at the part of the story where his advisors told him that his bad
polling is just because the public still just doesn't know about all of his accomplishments.
Run more ads about them. Run ads. Look, I think what you got to do is you got to tell people
about the big, beautiful bill. Not enough rich people know about the tax cuts they're getting,
and you should run an ad about that. It's just so great.
That's what it is. When I read that story, I was so happy.
It's such a good story. I mean, I can't wait to start seeing these ads. What do you think
these ads are going to be? Do you think that this is what they tell them, and they're like,
"Oh, the accomplishments," and it'll be like 10% accomplishments and 90% just, you know,
we're running against a bunch of. Communists, Islamists, and terrorists who are going to destroy the country. It feels like that
would be their best use of money? I think what is likely going to happen here
is, and I'll give an analogy here from my career. I once worked for a candidate who really, really
believed that yard signs were incredibly important. That what signs?
Yard signs. Oh, yard signs.
Obsessed with yard signs. And so the field staff just put yard signs up in the candidate's
neighborhood. Yeah.
On the way to the office and on the way to the airport, and didn't worry about anywhere else. So
my suspicion here is that there are going to be a lot of ads about Trump's accomplishments
on Fox News. National cable buy, Mr. President.
Right in between the catheter ads.
Right. You can buy gold, a doomsday kit, a catheter, life insurance.
And then find out about Trump's accomplishments.
Find out about Trump, yeah.
Which you can't find out anywhere else on Fox.
Not on Fox News, no. There was no discussion of Trump.
No.
I do want to read you a quote from. Yeah.
A big MAGA influencer on Twitter, quote, "I don't think the GOP fully grasp how badly
they're fucking up right now. I'm very worried the GOP is sleepwalking toward a midterm reckoning
they don't see coming." And this is a post that I saw because it went viral. And the reason it went
viral is because it was reposted by Donald Trump. What do you think? You think he didn't quite know?
Do you think he didn't read the post?
No, I think he read the post.
You think he just. He thinks it's the GOP, it's not me. I'm not at fault here.
We are watching in real time as his brain tries to reconcile an ass-whipping in the midterm
with his own personal view that he's infallible. And so it's got to be someone's fault. He's going
to start blaming the Republicans long before the votes are cast. They ran away from him,
they didn't talk about the big beautiful bill, they didn't talk about his accomplishments.
No one talked about, you know, he's just going to be like, "John Huston never ran
on Lake America. Never talked about it."
All this tells me is I just, I'm imagining how the 2028 Republican primary is going to go,
and the whole race. Because anytime there's bad polls for the Republican nominee or things,
like Donald Trump, he is just, like you said, he's not going to be able to keep himself out of it.
He's not going to be able. I guarantee he will end up criticizing, if not indirectly directly,
the Republican nominee.
Because that's just who he is.
When I worked for Al Gore, towards the end of the campaign, in my very, very low,
right out of college job for Al Gore, Bill Clinton, that was a big tension point this
week. Bill Clinton, Al Gore was a problem for Al Gore, didn't campaign with him,
Bill Clinton was very mad about this. Bill Clinton picked up the phone and called,
came over to the Washington Post and New York Times reporter to essentially, he couldn't take it
anymore and complain about it, and it became a gigantic story. And the problem for JD Vance Marco
Rubio, or whoever else is that. Every reporter in America has Donald Trump's cell phone number, so the number of them who are going
to get him on the phone when he's on the toilet, watching TV, whatever else, where he's just going
to unload is. They're not going to need to get him on the phone. He's going to go into the Oval every day,
gather all the cameras, and say whatever the fuck he wants to say.
Yeah, he won't shut. George W. Bush basically stopped being president as soon as the 2008
campaign started. In every way, he stopped being president, but you never saw him again. He did no
events.
Did nothing. And because he knew that he was a gigantic net negative for the Republicans,
Donald Trump will not have that level of self-awareness.
You think he'll be on the trail all the time in the next couple of months for the midterms?
No, only because he's gotten quite lazy in his old age, maybe. And I'm sure there will be some
rallies and they will probably be in. Texas is probably a place where I could see him going,
because Ken Paxton will want him in Texas, because he's Ken Paxton.
He's going tonight. We're recording this on Thursday, but he'll be there tonight for a
fundraiser. Yeah.
But will you. Is that a place where he'd do rallies? I mean, there would be an argument that he. You could
understand an argument of you have to turn out Trump voters in these red states. And maybe if you
are Ashley Hinson in Iowa, that you would want him to gin up turnout in the rural areas. So maybe
he'll campaign, which will be. The thing is, is that that is not limited to Iowa. So that's going
to have an impact in Maine, in Michigan, in these districts, in California, in New York,
Democrats are trying to win. So he will be present in the conversation,
which is, I think, in the long run, great for Democrats.
And again, if he's too lazy to take his fat ass out of the White House, he will be moseying
on into the Oval every day and just holding court with all the reporters while the Republican
candidates are out there trying to distance themselves from Trump or get their own message
out there or whatever they are trying to do. They won't be able to do it because Donald
Trump is going to be in the way.
I mean, there are a lot of cities in American-named Ontario that he could start renaming right
now.
I mean, he previewed the Atlantic or Pacific.
name change that's coming. So we probably have that beat. Still hasn't dealt with New Mexico yet.
That is just it's sitting right there, right there, just in time for it to be an early primary state for the Democrats.
Oh, there goes John Ossoff and Kamala Harris and AOC to new America.
Fortunately, Trump's pathological narcissism is the gift that keeps on giving for the Democratic Party, because in just a few weeks, he's also going to make every Republican candidate on the ballot endure a first of its kind.
two-night midterm convention in
Dallas. This is on September 9th
and 10th. By the way,
did you see it's going to be the
opening NFL game
on the
9th? The Pats and the
Seahawks. And then the 10th
is the second game. So that's two NFL games
primetime. Donald Trump's
convention will be happening at the
same time. Is the second one on Netflix?
Yes, because it's in
Australia.
This was a knowable thing.
It's very well known when the NFL season starts
that they've been selling tickets to those games for a very long time.
You didn't have to do it that week.
You could have done it Tuesday and Wednesday.
Could have done it Tuesday and Wednesday.
Could have done it the following week.
In fact, every Thursday for the next 18 weeks after that, they're out.
You can't do that.
Thursdays and Mondays, not a good time to do primetime addresses
during football season.
Here are some details and how the RNC chair is feeling about this.
Listen, it's going to be a trombopalooza.
It's going to be spectacular, star-studded event,
obviously headlined by the best showman that's ever lived in Donald J. Trump.
An RNC official tells us a primetime showcase for President Trump's success,
candidates, and causes that have propelled the 2026 midterms to unprecedented focus.
There is also going to be a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of 9-11
and a section about charlie kirk's legacy mobilizing young voters for republicans wow
just wow um did you know that that was the republican the chairman of the rnc you know
it's interesting because i did not know who he was or what he looked like and then i watched a
separate interview with with that guy today from it on cbs where he says the exact same words
trumpapalooza greatest showman on earth uh so it wasn't like a one-off we're just on newsmax thing
This is the message is Trumbo Palooza.
Tommy and I talked about him yesterday.
Check out our YouTube for extra content.
Subscribe.
And after talking about him yesterday, I still don't remember what his name is.
Yeah.
Gruters.
We have like it was on the screen one second ago.
and really a forgettable face. Who cares? Who cares? What would you guess is the thinking behind
this this boondoggle? Just more of like what we got in that Atlantic story that Trump was just
like, got to make this about me. Yeah, I mean, that's certainly a part of it. I think this was
his idea. He came up with it. He's made that clear to everyone. Brilliant. I think if you
think back to Milwaukee Republican Convention, you know how most candidates campaign throughout
the convention and they arrive at the convention the day of their speech and they make their grand
entrance. Maybe they come to get there the night before and do the they accept the nomination.
Then they do their speech. If you remember, Trump went every single day. It was Milwaukee
the whole time. He sat in a box the whole time. Oh, yeah, that's right. And while in that box,
when he wasn't sleeping, he just sat there with a shit eating grin on his face and watch people
praise him. I think he's I think that was probably one of the greatest moments of his life.
And I think he's trying to replicate that. I really do think he wants people to say he
just so we don't get too excited here. I was trying to think, like, is there any world in
which this convention turns out to be a net positive for Republicans? You know, we'll be
two nights of primetime of just them trashing every Democratic candidate and just dumping out
the oppo file on all of them. Who do you think is going to cover it? Just the cables.
Yeah, I think I think MS I would bet that MS and CNN cover Trump's speech and Vance's speech.
But I can't imagine.
They're going to cover much more than that. Fox, you know, the whole the whole thing.
I'm sure they'll use it. They'll have reporters there and they'll use it as content.
Right. During the day. I don't think that content will necessarily be good for Republicans,
but I don't think these speeches are going to get covered and seen by a lot of people
other than Fox viewers. Republican strategists are
saying that it's it's turned into a, quote, shit show. This was to Puck. And it's do you know,
the National Republican Campaign Committee is asking House members to cough up $25,000 for
themselves and a guest to attend the convention. And and that's the cheaper rate. The the top rate
is one hundred thousand dollars. It's a con, right? It's just like another way to make money.
Un-fucking-believable. Make it make it four days. The Republican strategist added to Puck,
nobody understands why we're doing a midterm convention. It's just another show that Trump
is going to put on to remind the voters that he is sitting there and maybe they don't want to be
reminded of that. Ouch.
Perfect. Republican strategist. So, so good. Of course. Anonymous. Of course.
Don't want to don't upset Mr. Trump.
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So there's also been a bunch of action this week on the president's attempts to limit mail-in voting.
Reminder that back in March, mail-in voter Donald Trump signed an order that directs the U.S. Postal
Service to only send mail ballots to people on an approved list of citizens compiled by the federal
government in collaboration with information provided by each state. It would also empower the
Postal Service to just not send mail ballots to states that don't comply with all the new rules.
Blue states have sued over the EO, but on Monday, the Supreme Court ruled they don't have standing
to do so, at least not yet. And so now the whole thing is in legal limbo as the rule finally goes
into effect. And now blue states are suing again. And so, of course, this is exactly where you want
to be when the first round of mail ballots are supposed to be sent out next week. Can you fill
people in on how bad this is, what happens now with all these different court cases?
This is very confusing. And I think a lot of the stories and the initial reaction were
sort of misleading or incorrect. There are two court cases, one from the blue states and one
from the League of Women Voters. Both those cases are in front of the same judge. And the judge put
orders in place for both of them to prevent or injunctions to prevent the administration from
going forward with this plan. The Supreme Court ruled in only one of those cases. That one is
something versus Trump. There's something versus California. It's the blue state case.
But the injunction in the League of Women Voters case is still in place. And the order continues
to say, and even the Postal Service put out the rule for how they would implement this plan last
Friday night. Even
that rule stipulates that that cannot go into place until the other injunction is lifted.
So we're kind of in the same place where we were before. The alarming part is the Supreme Court
felt the need to intervene here and to, once again, sort of really twist the, as I read it,
the irreparable harm standard in a way to try to pave the way for Trump. But it has not. We are
where we were before. Not a lot has changed. There's a couple of questions here. One is,
will the Postal Service actually implement this plan? Who is going to be checking these
mail ballots against these databases? How do we know the databases are correct?
What happens when states do not submit the database, like most blue states will not
submit these rules? And there obviously will be a long court case around that.
It's a question about how this could possibly be implemented in time for this election,
even if the Supreme Court were to greenlight it in the very near future.
It's interesting because, obviously,
Trump has said he doesn't like mail-in voting, and he wants to stop mail-in voting, and he
has signed other EOs to this effect that have been-
Can I ask you a question on this, John?
Sure.
He's a resident of Florida, correct?
That's why he's mail-in voter Donald Trump. That's why I called him that.
Yes.
Yes.
Self-mail-in voter.
Voter don't do that.
Because hypocrisy is important to people.
We got him. It's over.
We did get him. So his argument is like, no, I should be in control of mail-in voting,
and I should stop it, and I should be able to do that. The DOJ,
their arguments here are very much not, oh, the federal government should have a say in how we
control elections and run elections because they know that is explicitly forbidden in the
Constitution. So their argument in court about this is, well, the federal government's not doing
anything to interfere with how the states are administering their elections. And if the states
want to send mail ballots to anyone they want, they can do that.
But if they want to use the postal service, if they want to use the postal service,
for this, then they have to have our new special logo on the envelopes, and they have to have the
barcode that allows us to see if they have given us the information, and the lists are right,
and the citizenship lists, which are coming from DHS, which definitely can trust that.
So yeah, that is the argument. The argument they're trying to make is this just like a minor
cosmetic thing for the design of the ballots. Like you can do whatever you want. You just
have to use the postal service. You know what I say? Huge business opportunity for Amazon.
Jeff Bezos to the rescue.
That's right. Get your ballot there in two days, free shipping.
I do find it hard to believe that even the Supreme Court would throw
this coming election into complete chaos with like-
Well, we said that about the Calais decision as well, and they did.
Yeah, but this is even, this is, I mean, it's not, we don't have to talk about the merits of
the decision is worse, but it is, it causes more chaos. Like the Calais decision is horrible, but it is
done. And this
is like next week the mail ballots are going out so for at least in some states so like i think
it's north carolina um yeah so like what's gonna happen it seems logistically impossible right to
now they can allow it to happen and yes trump doesn't care if no mail ballots go i don't want
to tell them about the republican democratic breakdown of mail balloting in florida all
of a sudden florida lean d if you stop delivering the mail there no the most supreme court thing to
do would be like you know the worst parts of it don't take effect for the midterms all of it takes
effect afterwards and then in head of the midterms the dhs gets to compile their own list if they
want because it's that's the purview of the federal government something like that but we
shall see um so if trump has his way mail-in ballots will be dead but measles very much alive
uh cases have reached a 35-year high as u.s kindergarten vaccination rates have reached a
record low all since the president of the united states has been in office since the president of
the united states has been in office since the president put a vaccine skeptic without a medical
degree in charge of america's public health uh just a reminder that two weeks ago the president
signed an executive order directing people to get the mmr vaccine which protects against measles
mumps and rubella as three different shots even though that option currently isn't available to
patients and then this week uh pennsylvania tragically announced that uh two unvaccinated
people had died from the illness governor josh shapiro
blamed the deaths on the administration which did not sit well with rfk jr who blamed the outbreak
and the documented drop in vaccination rates on a familiar foe we're doing a better job than any
country in the world at controlling the measles outbreak this is a worldwide epidemic and it's
happening because of the lockdowns because many kids did not get vaccinated during the lockdowns
then you had a dramatic diminishment of public faith in the
regulatory agencies during the covid period because of government overreaching because of
the gaslighting and the manipulation so and even in my discussion with governor shapiro yesterday
and he said to me well we've seen this big drop in vaccination rates in the state from 97 to 92.3
he admitted on the phone that it all happened during the biden administration let's see let's
see what could have
caused uh the public to lose faith in in uh vaccinations during the biden years
could it have been some people um perhaps people that ended up becoming the secretary of health and
human services constantly spreading anti-vax propaganda that was incorrect possible possibly
fair it might have just been the lockdowns might have been the lockdowns and fauci because yes and
the lab leak
you don't have to explain why you just say that just say just say just say
yeah wuhan fauci that's why um so kennedy was also interrupted during a different anti-vax
screed this week by the most on the nose ringtone you could possibly imagine we have responsibility
to do better on an autistic sorry about that
it's quack it's quack dan this would be like if pete hex asked the ringtone was
a beer can opening
that's good that's good okay so reed churlin our our fearless uh uh editor-in-chief and uh an author
of open tabs subscribe become a friend of the pod to get that crooked.com slash friends um and reed
said he wrote in open tabs on thursday morning that we would that you and i would not agree
to discuss this story on the show so eat shit reed
you know what dick move by reed it was it's like let me just put out there that i am going to as
the noble journalist that i am proposed we talk about this very serious health thing and i'm sure
these political hacks that i'm forced to work with will reject it and so like what are we supposed
to do now like we have to do it i don't do i want to do it i don't really know but i have to because
reed did that it's like when barack obama wanted to give like lengthy policy addresses and get into
the weeds and be like i would be able to do this but axelrod told me i couldn't well that'd be like
if he said it publicly first yes uh he's like i wanted to give this very important speech but my
political advisors will probably say no anyway here we are brightening your day by talking about
the measles outbreak what did you think of the back and forth between rfk jr and shapiro and
why has this whole issue gotten even even more attention it's just because what do we all do
about it i think rfk jr is a terribly terribly dangerous and particularly dumb human being
and he sounds ridiculous in his explanation of this and he spent so much of his time trying to
explain why he america's most famous vaccine skeptic has no responsibility for a drop in
vaccines that has led to the greatest spread of measles in the last 35 years i think it is
i mean this is you know like he has responsibility here you know is like this isn't it should be
a gigantic national scandal i don't know that we have the media infrastructure or the mental
capacity as a country to have national scandals the way we used to like we like in the old world
people would be like in the oval office every day being like mr president explain the measles and
every member of congress would talk about it it would lead all the local news we still have local
news about the measles cases there just doesn't work that way anymore which is probably not good
in some respects but i do think people know about this like this is a thing that i'm sure you hear
about uh
as a parent with with other parents it is real concerned about it i remember when this was maybe
a year or so ago i guess when uh jack who was then i think about to be five was you know because you
get your measles your mmr in two doses and whether you should be the big discussion about whether you
should whether you could like put forward or push forward the second dose because you're a fear that
you could get measles in this world like so i think people are talking about it but there is
a weird world where like no one holds trump responsible for any of this stuff so it's just
like happening on his watch while he renames lakes yeah i mean i do think it's um it's politically
damaging and widely known too because you're right like anyone if you anyone who goes to the
pediatrician with kids that age like i'm i heard it at my pediatric like you're gonna hear about it
you'll be like oh well they did the thing about mmr but we're still recommending because we are
doctors who understand science that you should get your mmr vaccine in two doses and then you're
going to get your mmr and not three separate vaccines that don't exist currently um but like
you know the the damage is also being done like slowly over time right which is just sort of
degrading the public's trust in public health and look some of it some of it did start i think it's
hard to have a public health debate and a debate and a conversation too since covid and um all the
people thought at the time the polarization over covid and the covid vaccines has now
transferred to measles and will continue to spread to other things and so it's going to take a long
time in more than just the change in an administration to actually like rebuild people's
faith in public health which is awful i think this is the kaiser family foundation poll um but trust
in federal officials recommendations i think specifically vaccine recommendations has been
cut in half in recent years because you have
republicans who've been polarized against these institutions during the trump during the biden
administration and frankly honestly the first trump administration and then you have a bunch
of democrats very skeptical of rfk jr you know i talked a little bit about this with annie andrews
in the interview here later who's pediatrician had some smart thoughts about what we can do about it
there was a long new yorker piece this week um basically the argument was that rfk might actually
be losing the war on vaccines um you think there's a case for optimism i don't know if it's optimism
but i think it's possible that he's not winning the war with at the same rate we feared when he
started that a lot of the institutions are still holding that people are turning to these
independent scientific boards to get their recommendations they're still trusting their
doctors over um you know quacks no pun intended like rfk jr um so i i don't know if it's hard to
be optimistic given what has happened with muslims country right now but it's possible that it's not
as bad as we think it is or we thought it would be
when it started yeah i i thought that it was interesting that uh the piece makes the case
that you know the maha support especially at this point is it's loud but it's like thinner than it
than it seems and um public trust in in doctors right if not public health officials is still
quite high um and so even though that some of this faith that this trust has been degraded over time
um it is still you know it's it's it's not quite as bad yet um as it might appear i think the other
if you're looking for silver linings in this dark cloud is the way the trump administration is
governed has undermined the maha movement and the power of that movement like you know putting the
seed oil lobbyists in charge of the you can be the chief of staff department of ag all the stuff
with glyphosates that the power of that movement has diminished or fractured some which i think
has the potential to slow the spread of some of these dangerous conspiracy theories
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Let's talk midterms. As we mentioned, Trump on Thursday night was in Texas
to take his pretend I'm on the ballot strategy for a spin,
attending an RNC fundraiser for the Senate race that he characterized this way.
We have a very good candidate, Ken Paxton, and he's running against,
uh, Telefrico, they call him because he is a little freaky and that's not a man that represents
the value of Texas. Uh, new poll from Texas public opinion research on Thursday showing
Telefrico up six on Paxton. Um, and Gina, uh, you know, hosts a down seven to Greg Abbott,
um, which, uh, you know, bummer poll about the governor's race, but it does suggest that they
didn't oversample Democrats in that poll, at least. Um, what are your thoughts?
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to know exactly where the polls are in this race, but in almost every
single poll, Telefrico has been leading by a few points, something that better work never did in
2018. And so, you know, once again, we were about as well positioned as we could be. It hoped to be
in a Texas Senate race in late August of the election year. And so I feel cautiously good
about it. Like a lot of work to do. Telefrico has been spending money. Paxton hasn't been spending
money. I think his super PAC just bought TV time.
People expect, you know, maybe these will be the Trump agenda ads, but where MAGA Inc will spend
their money will be Texas because Paxton is a very bad fundraiser. And a lot of Republicans
who are PACs do not want to sort of be associated with him. So Trump obviously has a kinship with
Crooks. So he would jump in there. So we'll have to see when the spending
like stabilizes or equalizes, but Telefrico is in a good spot right now.
It is funny. All of the Republican candidates who don't want to appear with Trump and may not want
to appear with Trump.
And in the lead up to the midterms, maybe the only one less popular than Donald Trump right
now is Ken Paxton. Yeah, that's true. So he's probably like, yeah, come on back anytime.
So there was also some big news on Thursday in the Georgia Senate race. I'll just read the
headline from the Washington Post. A former Mike Collins staffer posted KKK and Nazi images.
Some Republicans see a pattern. I love this subhead. John Ossoff sees a pattern as well. He
away. Let's listen. Well, what's new today is yet more documented evidence of the congressman's ties
to white nationalism and neo-Nazi ideology. We already knew about the neo-Nazi propagandist
based at his house who produces content for his business. We already knew that his office was
briefing some of the nation's most notorious white supremacists on their efforts supporting
a Holocaust denier. Now this morning, thanks to the reporting in the Washington Post, we've seen
yet another member of the congressman's staff, this time with swastikas and the costume of the
Klan. And absolutely, Georgia voters reject this, and not just Democrats, but Democrats,
Independents, and Republicans. So the staffer in question is Preston Parra. He's a former staffer
who has described himself as a twink fascist. Twink fascist, Dan. And as Asaf.
As Asaf mentioned, posted a swastika made up of the words twink. And you're probably thinking,
maybe we can post an image afterwards. I don't think we should post a swastika.
That's the art for the episode. Basically, it was, yeah, he typed out in a tweet a lot of,
just a whole bunch of words, twink, twink, twink, twink, over and over, but then made it into a
swastika. Just in case you were wondering how you, how you post a swastika made up of the words
twink. And, and then of course, as Asaf referenced also, he posted a photo of himself in a KKK robe,
which he told the post was generated with grok. I guess that helps. That helps, right?
Yes.
He also recently posted a Deutschland Uber Al's, Al's, allies? I'm just going to skip that,
skip that one. He says these posts were meant to be satirical,
but he did tell the post, quote, I do think that the white race contributes more to the world.
Unbelievably, this is not a one-off. Mike Collins' former chief of staff was revealed to be in a
group chat with Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer, where people praised Hitler. Another former
Collins staffer was fired after yelling anti-Semitic slurs at Republican Congressman Mike Lawler.
That was Rand Paul's son. And then there's Mike Collins' son-in-law. It's the guy running,
against John Asaf, his son-in-law, who has quite recently shared Nazi imagery and propaganda
online, including a post he said his wife made, the wife would be Mike Collins' daughter,
that shows what he calls, quote, proof that Jews control our government through finance.
The son-in-law also warned that restoring an America populated by people of white European
descent would require, quote, clearing out land of other people.
This is his son-in-law.
Son-in-law. In family photos together. Not like, you know, black sheep of the family kind of thing.
Like, just, you know, they have pictures of the whole family together. And the daughter. He said
the daughter made that post. As you heard Asaf alluding to there, you know, Mike Collins clearly
has a long history of surrounding himself with pretty bad creeps. How do you think this plays
in Georgia? This is another one that's sort of, it hasn't gone under the radar because every time I
see Asaf, he does mention that Mike Collins is a bigot. I was not a bigot. I was not a bigot.
I was not aware of the long history of all of these different staffers and relatives until
this latest story. Yeah. He talks about all the time. He's been hammering this
at the stump for months now, ever since Mike Collins became the nominee.
You know, it's obviously, I would say, close associations with neo-Nazis is not a net positive
in any state. And so not good for him. What I think were this, there are two ways in which this
is very hurtful to Collins.
And helpful to Asaf is one, you know, like the metric that really has been deciding elections
is who's seen as more extreme, hard to get more extreme than just hanging, palling around with
neo-Nazis and people posting swastikas. So that's not good. Also like the best thing they have in
Asaf is Republicans right off this race. And the more of this stuff is out there, the harder it is
for Collins to raise money, the harder it'd be like, as Republicans look at how they're going
to spend their money. Do they really want to put their money behind the guy who parties with white
nationalists and hang out with white nationalists all the time, or go to some of these other races?
And so he can kind of, there are times in which you can win a race before it even starts.
And Asaf is kind of doing that right here by sort of just like delivering a mortal blow to the Collins
campaign, you know, months, you know, 60 some days before, six, seven days before the election.
Yeah. It made me realize like, oh, well, I mean, Asaf, very talented, has been a great senator,
is, which I don't know if you listened to Sarah Longwell's focus group, the latest one,
she had a bunch of Trump voters who like Asaf. It was very interesting. And a lot of it was like,
he's like just really great constituent services. Like they can always get ahold of him. He's
helping people. So that's all why he's doing well. But then having Mike Collins as an opponent,
probably also helping.
Then certainly making his life a little bit easier.
Asaf also released another statement on Thursday after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution pressed
him for a response to, you guessed it, Hassan Piker's statement on his,
Twitch stream from last week that quote, if Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that
they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone's going to come around and take action
against American Jews. What followed has been a week of various elected Democrats condemning
Piker, Abdul El-Sayed, who has campaigned with Piker, condemned the substance of the comments
without condemning Piker himself, though he did say he doesn't speak for Abdul,
that only Abdul speaks for Abdul. Asaf, through a spokesperson,
replied that he quote, unreservedly rejects reckless and dangerous rhetoric like those comments and that quote,
all Americans must have the freedom and security to speak out and petition their government without fear
of reprisal. Now, those of you who follow me on Twitter might be thinking, John, didn't you just
call on all Democrats to take the don't talk about Hassan Piker for a day challenge? Why, yes, I did.
And most of political Twitter, including several Democratic politicians, failed.
So I am intentionally failing today in order to make another plea. I think it's one thing if,
like John Ossoff, you are pressed by a reporter to respond to whatever the latest Hassan Piker
statement is. I do not think that spending every day from now until November talking about
denouncing, defending Hassan Piker will either make Hassan Piker go away or help Democrats win
the midterms. I think it will instead keep one very polarizing leftist influencer at the center
of the discourse and give Republicans and right wingers a chance to win.
Media, excuse after excuse to cover each new denunciation. What do you think, Dan?
Is this a trap? Yes. If I if I answer the question, I have failed the test you set up.
Well, I that's what I'm saying. I failed it. I've already failed. It's a failure. I tried.
Didn't work. OK, so I'm going to do this briefly. The main goal here is to elect
Democrats to the Senate majority. We cannot really.
Elect Democrats to Senate majority without Abdul winning in Michigan.
And my perhaps naive belief is that everyone in this debate wants Abdul to win. And the best way
for Abdul to win is for everyone, people condemning Hassan, people condemning the people
condemning Hassan and Hassan himself to move on and stop fighting about this. We need we are 67
days away. We need to be talking about Mike Rogers, about what he.
You like his corruption, how he a vote for Mike Rogers is a vote for Donald Trump and Donald Trump's
agenda. It's a vote to make Donald Trump in charge of the Senate. Like we have to get focused on the
main thing. And the main thing is Mike Rogers are great. Mike Rogers is corrupt. Mike Rogers wants
to give your give your money to rich people, doesn't want you to have health care. He a vote
for him is to ensure that Donald Trump gets to appoint more Supreme Court justices like this is
and like that. That is the thing we got to talk about. Mike Rogers.
Well said. We're going to leave that as the last word. Maybe ever. When we come back,
South Carolina Senate candidate Annie Andrews.
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perfect. You can do it from the comfort of your home. See the reviews, see what stands out and
see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com slash PSA. That's betterhelp.com
slash PSA. Joining me now is the Democratic nominee for Senate in South Carolina,
Dr. Annie Andrews. Dr. Andrews, welcome to Pod Save America.
Thank you so much for having me, Dan.
I want to get into the race. I want to talk about Darlene Graham. I want to talk about what
Trump said about you today, just now. But I just want to start because I think, I imagine that
the South Carolina Senate race hasn't been on the radar. A lot of our listeners were focused on
Texas, Ohio, North Carolina, Michigan, et cetera. You're a pediatrician. How did you end up running
for Senate?
Yeah, I'm a pediatrician. I've worked in children's hospitals for 20 years. I never envisioned,
I would pivot into politics. My first foray in politics was in 2022 when I ran for Congress
in South Carolina's first district against Nancy Mace. Saw the ugliest side of politics in that
race. But I ended up in politics because for the first 15 years of my career working at the
bedside of sick and injured children, I very quickly started to understand the impact of
broken policies coming from failing politicians on my patients and their families. So I naively
started advocating at my state capitol for better policies for kids and families in South Carolina.
And what I was saying was falling on mostly deaf ears. So it became abundantly clear that to
catalyze change for America's kids and families, I needed to explicitly engage in politics on behalf
of America's kids and families. And so I ran for Congress and here I am in this U.S. Senate race.
As you mentioned, you ran against the very charming and wonderful and affable Nancy Mace
last time around. What did you learn from that race, which was a very tough race in a tough
year and you lost by, I think, about 14 points? Yeah, I did. It came down to partisan voting line
that was a redistricting year. It was a purple seat when I got into the race, knowing they would
probably draw it into a very safe Republican seat. And that's what they did. But what I learned is,
you know, all of these fights are worth fighting no matter how uphill the challenge is. You know,
it was very clear to me that South Carolinians needed to have a choice on the ballot. That was
the election cycle where Roe fell. And so as a doctor and a mom, I was able to give a voice to
so many women in South Carolina who were feeling totally left behind in that moment. And I
strongly believe now that second time candidates are way better than first time candidates. I'm a
much better public speaker. I'm a much better fundraiser. And so what I say often is if I
wasn't a loser congressional candidate, I wouldn't be such a strong Senate candidate this cycle.
I have to point out to people that Barack Obama also lost his first race for Congress. So there
you go. There you go. I want to play a clip for you. This is a moment that went quite viral from
your opponent, Darlene Graham's victory speech on Tuesday night.
"Government run health care, abortion until the moment of birth. Bad idea after bad idea.
Annie Andrews backs them all." I have a different background and vision for our state. I'm a hard
worker with a servant's heart. I grew up in the back of a bar and liquor store in one room in
central South Carolina. My parents worked long, hard hours to make ends meet. We didn't take the
same vacations. If they were sick, they had to get up and go to work because the doors weren't
open. We weren't making money. My mother passed away when I was 11 and my father just over a year
later. Okay. Before you get to all the bevy of accusations at the front of that, it seems to me
that there is a inherent logic problem with what she's saying here. What was your reaction to this
clip? Yeah, I think she sort of unintentionally unveiled her health care plan in that moment.
It seems to me that her health care plan is work hard even while you're sick until you die.
I believe that Darlene's parents deserved better than that. I believe everyone in America deserves
better than that. Maybe I should ask her to fill out an in-kind contribution form for my campaign
because she is making the case for what I'm running on, that we need a health care system
that is patient-centered, that health care is a human right. I think that story just really
highlights how broken America's health care system is, that working people are not going to be able to
be able to take a sick day when they're sick, and they should also be able to afford health care
when they're sick. Talk to me a little bit about your health care plan. We're having a big debate
in the Democratic Party about how to deal with health care. We have people calling for Medicare
for all. We have people who are skeptical of Medicare. Where do you fall in that debate?
Yeah. I mean, the other thing I'll say about that clip before we move on is she has negative charisma.
I think that it's very clear that this is the weakest candidate Republicans have put in a Senate
race this cycle. And so that creates a lot of controversy. And I think that's why I think
it's such a huge opportunity for us here in South Carolina. But my health care plan is,
number one, as I said, I believe health care is a human right. I know we have to shift from this
profit-motivated health care system that we have in America to one that is truly patient-centered.
I'm also a really pragmatic person. And I believe that we can't let perfect be the enemy of good,
that we have to work hard across the aisle to move the ball down the field, just like we did
when the ACA was passed. And so I think the next obvious step is a public option so that folks who
don't have access to employer-based health insurance can purchase a plan from the federal
government, removing the profit motivation from that transaction. And I think that will force
private insurance companies to offer more comprehensive benefit plans at lower premium
rates. And then there'll be a domino effect as Americans realize, I'm getting a much better deal
from this federal government plan where my money isn't going to line the pockets of insurance
company shareholders, but it's actually going to the provision of health care. And once more and
clearly in my view, only then can we have a true productive bipartisan conversation about how then
to take the next step to building a health care system that really does serve everyone in this
country. I kind of can't believe I'm about to say this sentence, but at an event this morning in
the Oval Office where the President of the United States was announcing that we were changing the
name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, he began that event by talking about your race. He congratulated
Darlene Graham and he said, and I'm going to quote, she's still got to run against a radical left
going to tick and the South Carolina people are not going to stand for that.
I mean, Trump says a lot of things.
This is obviously, you saw that in the clip I played from Graham.
This is sort of the case against you.
How do you respond to that?
Yeah, I mean, what is so radical about thinking that if you work hard during the day, you
should be able to afford to put food on the table and keep your lights on at the end of
the month?
What is so radical about thinking every county in South Carolina should have an OBGYN?
What is so radical about thinking that you should be able to afford to see a doctor when
you get sick?
What is so radical about thinking if your community doesn't want a data center, there
shouldn't be a data center built there?
I believe that Darlene's policies, whichever ones she actually has, are the radical policies.
I'm fighting for everyday South Carolina kids and families, and I am so proud of my
policy platform.
I'm proud of my record of being a public servant and fighting for South Carolinians, and nothing
that is said in the Oval Office is going to change that.
South Carolina is a tough state.
It is one Trump won by about 18 points.
It's more Republican than a lot of these other Senate races and Republican states.
Democrats have gotten hopeful about Texas and Ohio.
I think a lot of Democrats out there have a lot of scar tissue because they got their
hopes up about Jamie Harrison beating Lindsey Graham.
So a lot of people, I imagine, they're going to be impressed by this interview.
They're going to be interested in your candidacy, and they're trying to decide whether this
is a good place to invest their time and energy.
What is your case for why you can win this race in this very tough state?
So this Senate race in 2026 in South Carolina really couldn't be any more different than
the race that Jamie Harrison ran in 2020.
First and foremost, it's a midterm year.
The president is not on the ballot to boost Republican turnout.
Secondly, Jamie Harrison was running against a powerful incumbent senator who was very
well-funded.
Now I'm running against a virtual unknown who, as we already said, has no political
talent, clearly bad political instincts, and an absolute lack of charisma.
We also have an incredibly divided Republican Party, despite the fact that Trump spent millions
of dollars propping Darlene up.
In the election earlier this week, she only won by five points.
And in Ralph Norman's speech that night, he didn't give a ringing endorsement to Darlene.
He's bitter that Trump got involved.
Ralph Norman's supporters are really upset about the fact that this is just going to
potentially be a Graham dynasty.
And so the Republican Party is incredibly divided.
And then I'm a very different candidate than my friend Jamie Harrison.
I'm not a career politician.
I'm not a former state party chair or lobbyist.
I'm a pediatrician and a public school mom who comes at politics from a very different
perspective.
And so, you know, I got in this race over a year ago thinking there was a chance that
the stars would align, that this could be the year that we could win this Senate seat.
And the stars have aligned in a way that we never in a million years thought that they
would.
And now we are in a real position to win this thing.
We just released a poll this week that shows that I'm tied with Darlene right out of the
gate, 41 to 41.
And this is a very real, robust poll.
And then on the informed ballot, I go up by five points.
And the way that I'm doing that in a state that Trump won by 18 points.
Is because I'm appealing to those really critical independent voters and center right
Republican voters.
I'm plus 33 points with independents right now.
We just launched our first general election ad on Wednesday.
So we have a leg up on Darlene in that.
She just spent all of her money to escape her own primary.
And we've been building a war chest to compete in November.
So this is a change election cycle.
People are looking for a new generation of leadership.
They're certainly not looking for a rubber stamp for this or any other administration.
South Carolina is.
Now the first Democratic primary state.
You're going to have a lot.
There are already a lot of Democrats coming through your South Carolina who may possibly
just happen to be considering to run for president.
Do you plan to campaign with any of these national Democrats coming through?
Have you thought about that?
You know, this is a question a lot of Senate candidates are getting in these sort of red
states.
You know, I'm really focused on spending as much time as I can with South Carolina voters.
That's what's most important.
That is my path to win.
And that's also why I'm in this race.
You're right.
There's a lot of national Democrats who are spending time in South Carolina.
And I think that's great because, you know, as we expand the Senate map, that path is
definitely throughout the Southeast.
We need more Democratic Party investment in the South.
And having all of this first in the nation attention is only going to help us grow strength
as a party in South Carolina.
So I welcome these visits.
But what I've been saying is I'll return these phone calls on November 4th when I'm South
Carolina's next senator.
And then we can start to strategize about what 2028 is going to look like.
So no campaigning.
With sort of national Democratic or national Democrats or presidential candidates, all
South Carolina is what you're saying.
It's not our focus.
We're taking it on a case by case basis.
You know, Pete Buttigieg was just in town for our our issues, annual issues conference.
And, you know, I had the fortune of saying hello to him there.
But we're really focused on spending time with voters.
And you're a candidate.
You're also a doctor.
I wanted to get your reaction to the what is going on in this country with the measles
outbreak.
You know, there's reports that RFK Jr. may have lied to Congress.
We know this is now.
I think.
I think by some measures, the largest measles outbreak in the United States in 35 years.
What's your reaction?
I mean, most of what comes out of RFK Jr.'s mouth are lies.
So I'm not surprised to hear that.
But I got in this race.
I seriously started considering getting in this race the day RFK Jr. was nominated to
lead HHS because as a pediatrician, he's been my professional arch nemesis for decades.
He's nothing more than a grifter and a conspiracy theorist who's been peddling an anti-vaccine
conspiracy theories for decades while simultaneously enriching himself.
And as a result of that.
As a pediatrician, I've watched over my 20 year career, a slow and steady rise in vaccine
refusal and vaccine hesitancy.
And that is the exact reason that we are seeing a resurgence of preventable infectious diseases
all across this country.
In South Carolina, we just had a measles outbreak in Spartanburg County where there were nearly
a thousand documented cases of the measles.
So one of the reasons it is so urgent that Democrats win in November is because we cannot
allow RFK Jr. to have two more years of unfettered access.
Leading our nation's Department of Health and Human Services.
This executive order from the Trump administration dismantling the routine childhood immunization
schedule is not at all based on an evolution of scientific evidence.
It is based on political ideology.
Children will unnecessarily get sick and suffer and some will die as a result of this disinformation
campaign from the Federal Department of Health and Human Services.
RFK Jr.'s ascension, everything we're talking about here, the rise of vaccine skepticism
is all sort of of a piece with sort of the rise of the quote unquote make America healthy
again movement where you and I imagine this is something you probably run into with a
lot of some of the families of your patients where people have very legitimate questions
about, you know, food safety, how to, you know, what's the right choice for their kids
and that is and, you know, people like RFK Jr. and others have sort of weaponized that
and pushed the country in some dangerous directions.
Have you thought about how as a senator?
As a public figure, you know, you with your medical expertise can push back on the the
rise of Maha and maybe have conversations with these well-meaning, I think, parents
who maybe are getting a lot of bad information from social media.
Yeah.
And I like that you said well-meaning parents because I don't blame the parents, you know,
even the parents of the children who are dying from these preventable infectious diseases
because they've chosen not to vaccinate their children.
Parents don't know where to turn for reliable information.
I never in a million years thought that.
I would say the sentence we cannot trust the medical recommendations coming from our
federal government, but we can't.
We have to turn to our individual physicians.
So I encourage parents to talk to their own pediatricians to follow along with what the
American Academy of Pediatrics is saying, because that is an evidence based organization.
But what they've done is really clever and dangerous because they're laundering this
really, you know, anti-science agenda under this umbrella of making America healthy again,
of addressing the chronic disease epidemic that children in America are experiencing.
So when I'm asked what I agree with the Trump administration on, one of the things I say
is they've shined a light on the chronic disease epidemic amongst children in this country.
But where we disagree is the root causes of that chronic disease epidemic and actually
the solution.
So you can't in one sentence say we want to address chronic diseases in children and then
in the next action you gut the Medicaid program, which is the largest insurer of children across
the country.
You can't put someone like RFK Jr. at the helm of HHS and pretend like you're following
scientific, you know, scientifically sound medical recommendation.
So they've shined a light on the problem.
I'm going to win my election.
I'll go toe to toe with RFK Jr.
We will impeach and remove him and then we will take that big bright light they shined
on this epidemic and then actually address it through an evidence based, scientifically
sound approach.
Before I let you go, I want to give you a chance to tell our listeners where they can
go to help your campaign if they so choose.
Yeah.
So they can go to DrAnnieAndrews.com and they can follow along on social media.
We're very active on social media.
@AnnieAndrewsMD.
We also just launched a new, exciting website called DebateMeDarlene.com where they can
go and see how many days, hours, minutes and seconds it's been since I challenged Darlene
Graham to debate me this general election season.
So lots of ways to follow along.
I encourage people to check out the website, chip in what they can and help us expand the
Senate map through the South and this really exciting opportunity in South Carolina.
Dr. Annie Andrews, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save America and good luck down
the stretch here.
Thank you so much, Dan.
That's our show for today.
Thanks to Annie Andrews for coming on.
I will be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with our old friend, David
Plouffe, about how the midterms and 2028 are shaping up.
Bye, everyone.
Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farah Safaree
with Ree Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill.
Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Heathcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kiril Pelleviv,
David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Singel.
Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
you
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
SimpliSafe uses AI-powered outdoor cameras to detect suspicious activity and alert live U.S.-based agents who intervene to scare off intruders before they enter a home.
Unlike traditional security systems, SimpliSafe stops break-ins before they happen, not just alerts after the fact.
The CEO, Hira Cricket, installed SimpliSafe herself and reported it was easy to set up and reliable even during a power outage.
SimpliSafe has protected homes for 20 years and is currently offering 60% off new systems with a special promotion.
Donald Trump is renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America and proposing a Gulf of America, drawing criticism for political meddling and ignorance of Indigenous history.
Trump’s approval rating is below 20 points, and his strategy to win the midterms includes running more ads about his record, despite widespread skepticism.
A growing wave of criticism highlights Trump’s ties to white nationalism, including a Georgia senator’s staff posting swastikas and neo-Nazi content, which damages his campaign.
The Democratic Party benefits from Trump’s self-centered campaigns, which polarize voters and distract from key issues like public health and policy.
Summary:
The episode begins with a promotional segment for SimpliSafe, highlighting its AI-powered security system that detects and deters intruders before they enter a home, emphasizing ease of installation and reliability. The main political discussion centers on Donald Trump’s controversial renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America, criticized as a politically motivated act that ignores Indigenous history. Trump’s declining approval ratings and failed attempts to improve his image through campaign ads are contrasted with growing backlash over his ties to white nationalism, including a Georgia senator’s staff posting neo-Nazi symbols and participating in extremist groups.
, and stresses the public health crisis amid declining trust in institutions. A key subplot involves South Carolina’s Senate race, where Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, details her shift into politics after seeing how broken policies harm children.
She reflects on her previous congressional run and expresses optimism about her current Senate campaign. The broader theme is how Trump’s actions—ranging from symbolic renaming to spreading conspiracy theories—serve to polarize voters and undermine democratic discourse, ultimately benefiting Democrats by amplifying negative narratives and exposing internal party divisions.
FAQs
SimpliSafe uses AI-powered outdoor cameras to detect suspicious activity at the perimeter and alerts live U.S.-based agents who can intervene in real time to scare off trespassers before they enter the property.
Yes, SimpliSafe has a backup power system that ensures the system remains functional and comes back online automatically once power is restored.
SimpliSafe detects suspicious behavior early through smart AI cameras and immediately alerts trained agents who respond to stop intruders before they reach your home.
SimpliSafe is offering 60% off on new systems during end-of-summer sales. Visitors can save 60% by visiting SimpliSafe.com and mentioning the show name in the survey.
Yes, users report that installation is straightforward and DIY-friendly, with all components—cameras, sensors, and the system—working well from the start.
Yes, users have reported successful real-time responses to threats, including the system working effectively during power outages and deterring trespassers without false alarms.
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