Nick Wright & Anderson Clayton: Did the Fever Break?

Hey, everybody, it's Tim. We have an awesome double header for you today. In segment two, it is Anderson Clayton, Chairwoman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, doing a victory lap. She's fighting through a cold. And I interviewed her right before the election and wanted to circle back with an update. It is a glorious, glorious valedictory and celebration. And so do make sure you stick around for that. So just because at first we got Nick Wright, who I've been trying to get on the show for about a year now, who is for people who are not into sports ball, a sports commentator, we do a little bit of sports at the end, but a lot about his advocacy and about politics, and the man of sphere, and I think it's really good. You know, if you get bored with the Yo-Kitsch talk at the end, make sure to fast forward to Anderson Clayton. Before I get to either Nick Wright combo, it's kind of meta, Anderson, we focused on North Carolina. So I do just want to talk about the Pete Hague Seth impeachment vote failing last night, very briefly. I want to be a bear of good tidings to people and ask for your patience a little bit. There's some people that I've seen who have frustrated and mad, 11 Democrats didn't shut the vote. I think four Republicans didn't shut up to this vote. There's some procedural chicaneery going on in the house, the impeachment effort fails. Things are gonna be a little challenging in the lame duck. Things are gonna be a little challenging. I see maybe a silver lining of Hague Seth not getting impeached during the lame duck. I think that the impeachment very quickly would've given them a chance to rush through a replacement with the Republican Senate. Now if he sticks around any replacements, we'll have to come through a Democratic Senate. The Democrats are gonna have 260 members of the House come next year. Haley Stevens not showing up to a vote. It didn't gonna be a problem next year 'cause she ain't gonna be in the House. So I don't know exactly the story of all 11 of these Democrats. I know one of them had a medical issue. One of them was Haley Stevens, she didn't count. And so I'm sure some of them deserve a big test test. But I think that everybody should just take a deep breath. And if Haking Jeffries falls down on the job next year, we're gonna be the first to be mad about it. But I think in the meantime, they had an overwhelming victory. We know that Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia are gonna be doing good jobs. We've had them on the show. And so I think that, you know, staying in a place of gratefulness and happiness. It's just probably best for everybody's mental health right now. And if there's something to be mad about, I'm gonna be mad about it with you. But in the meantime, I think the Democrats are gonna be preparing a lot of accountability for Pete Higgs and the rest of these Gibronis in the cabinet. So with that up next, it's Nick Wright, Mr. Grant. (upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to the Bullock Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. As mentioned in segment two, it's Anderson Clayton. Can't wait to talk to her. But first, he's a host of the show What's Right With Nick Wright. And co-host of First Things First on Fox Sports One. It is Nick Wright. Welcome to the show, man. - Tim, thank you for having me on. Thank you for cajoling me into doing this. I have wanted to do more things like this for quite some time. But for the better part of a decade, my spirit has been chipped away at. And I was a little invigorated eight days ago. And I decided this would be the perfect time. So thank you for having me. - I love that. I think I originally reached out in January because you were maybe invigorated. That was not the right word. But you were outraged and spurred into commentary about the killings of Renee Good and Alex Preddie. You had written that after the tragedy, you asked a very simple question to your audience, what are we okay with and did a long YouTube on that. And I was like, this is an oasis in the sports world that sports commentary world. I felt like we'd gone through this period where all of these guys who were MAGA or Trump friendly felt emboldened to be able to talk and a lot of folks who had your kind of values. It's not like you were silenced, but when I go, I don't want to deal with the bullshit. Basically, there was a lot of that. I was noticing it. And you were speaking out about Minnesota and I was like, we got to talk about all this stuff and I want to make fun of you about Geo Kitch. We'll do that at the end. - No problem. - Well, you just give people who don't know you, just like a little bit of like a first date, kind of backstory like your politics and so why you wanted to talk. - Yeah, so my father was a Kansas City firefighter after being like barely graduated high school. You know, his bio is insane, he has at this, he doesn't have a college degree, but he has a master's from Harvard and a law degree. He might be only but no- - Good, real renting situation. - Yeah, and so, but it all, he was also, you know, you kind of a street kid got on the fire department and they struck before I was born. And when they struck, he and union leadership got sent to jail multiple times and got pardoned by the governor multiple times. And that spurred him into my entire childhood. He was the president of the Kansas City firefighters union. And he was, he ran for an international position in DC. And one of my earliest memories is, there used to be this, this competition that ESPN would air, it's like American gladiators but it was firefighters and but it was fake firefighters. And I remember being like five years old and we, we set up a picket line around it. And I like that with me, my sister, my dad, and. - You picket at ESPN's firefighter? - He kind of picketed it. Again, I, so I remember that. I remember as a kid, I remember when my parents got divorced and I went with my dad to try to set up his new apartment. We spent like seven hours because he was like, I'm only buying a TV made in America and I'm like, I don't know, pops like that might not exist. And so I am like a union Democrat as a kid. I also have always felt the otherization, if you will, of black people in particular. But the last, since 9/11, it was Middle Eastern people and then in the last decade, it's really been Latino people by very loud voices in the conservative wing the Republican Party was so anathema to what America was and it was so rallying for me that my career strategy was, I want to one day be a political commentator. - I do not think, yeah, I did, yes. - That's so funny. - And I wanted, I did the GW basketball play-by-play in college. Now it's like, I don't know, I thought one of these. - I flipped on you. - And so I, I mean, listen, I always wanted to do sports. Don't get me wrong. What I wanted to do as a little kid with sports talk, but I became so into politics and I saw what Keith Overman did. And I was like, he got famous enough in sports that people cared about Keith Overman and he then just went to stuff that was more important. And so I said forever, nobody's gonna listen to a 24 year old or 26 year olds takes on politics. But if I get a big enough name in sports, at one point all switch. And that's always what I thought I was going to do. I thought in my 20s and 30s, I'd do sports in my 40s, I'd do politics in my 50s. Maybe I'd run for office, I didn't know. And then, honest to God, 2016 kind of broke me. - I hope I'm not sending you fully down the KO pipeline. - No, I'm not, 'cause that's, you know. - No, 'cause that's what you have to do. - And 2016 kind of broke me. And I know that sounds so soft, but it's just the truth. And I just, I, I, I can leave my room for two months. I watched, I watched Manchester by the sea like three times. I read a little life. I just like kind of just got sad. - Right. And so I then, I then kind of reoriented. And I was like, you know what? I don't know if that's, if that's for me and I'll just parachute in on things that are really stirring to me. Like violence or social justice related things is where I'll pop in. Because the other thing I thought I was like, man, the anti-Trump beat is well covered. Like there's, there's not gonna be a lot that I have to say that no one said yet. I was like, guys got that covered. And so yeah, I mean, I've always been unapologetic. What I, you know, I'm a liberal Democrat. And in my field, what is frustrating to me is, everyone's allowed whatever politics they are. I really, really don't like the folks who, you know, have the opposite politics of mine who pretend they're centrists or independents. And there's a lot of folks in my space who the tell is, if they have like getting, make a big mistake or a fact error or tell a story that's not true. Accidentally, it's always because it was fed from the right-wing ecosystem. Like those guys who claim they're down the middle neutrals never tell like a crazy zany left-wing falsehood that they stumbled upon. Because all they're stumbling upon is like the right-wing crazy stuff. And so I just-- - If anybody at mine, like Bratis or Burb Street or anybody that think about it, just shake your head. - I think that, you know, one of my first TV things [BLANK_AUDIO] was with Clay. And then we went to dinner after and he told me, he's like, you know, I worked for Obama and like, I just, you know, I just do this or whatever. And I told him, and luckily there was a third person at this dinner. So if he disputes it, I have a witness. I told him, I want to be very clear. If what you're saying is true, that you don't really believe what you're saying, it's just for audience and enrichment. I actually think that's worse. And it is impossible for me to ever respect you. And I left. And that was the last time I ever talked to him. It was 11 years ago. And I like, listen, the biggest name in my space, Stephen A has more than flirted with politics. And I just want, I, I just would like him to actually be honest with himself and the audience about what his politics are. And so be it. But trying to play this, that he's like basically. Yeah. I mean, pretty obviously. I'm in a dinner with Trump. And so pretending like, oh, I'm just calling balls and strikes. Like, no, you're not. Like in my field, it's not, the job is not to be unbiased. The job, however, is to be honest with your audience about your biases and then let them call it how they see it. So that's a little bit about me. How many of those guys do you think are faking it? Because I, and this is another thing that's been, you know, something that I've been monitoring and trying to figure out how to navigate over the last 10 years is, you know, like right after Trump won in 16, there wasn't like a huge, circling behind him. Like there were a few people like Clay who like grabbed on to opportunistically, trying to talk about it. But it was really this last time, you know, that you saw after we won again, that you saw a lot of people in sports, a lot of people in kind of the man culture, MMA world, you know, start to either performatively, you know, in their content and their social media posts, like signal that they were at least Trump friendly or interested in it. Like how much of that was real? Like what, how much of that do you think was opportunistic? What was driving it? I mean, this is, these are your people more than mine. So listen, I think it was a combination of this is not for, I'm not painting everyone with this brush. Sure. But it is so much easier to get an audience and make money, appealing to the lowest common denominator of the magosphere than it is to do it in sports. Like I'm going to sound like an asshole here, but like actually like achieving at a high level in daily sports talk is competitive space. It's a very competitive space. And you, and you really, really, you have to get lucky, but you also really got to be on it. And so I think it's a lot of folks who are like, I wasn't good enough to do. I wanted to do commentary about ex pop culture, entertainment, sports. I'm not good enough at that. But I know I'm comfortable talking into a camera or a microphone and I can con these people. I do think there's an element of that. I also think that there was a, I have a much older kids than people would expect. And so my middle child is 21. And so she was a middle child. But listen, I'm 28. I'm a grandfather, Tim. I have a, I have a complicated backstory there. But that's new. I know you're using one skin. I know. I'm 40. I'm 42. My wife's 45. But that's neither here nor there. I'm doing some quick math in my head. I kind of want to be like, Hell yeah, Nick Wright, and we'll do that another time. I wasn't, I wasn't, you know, in that world at 14. And so she, but my middle daughter, yeah, when she was finishing high school, starting college, would tell me about how these boys she would go on dates with would like bring up how they love Trump. Yeah. And it felt like, and I'm not again, I think some people like love him earnestly for reasons that they believe in, like principle, whatever. I'll disagree with them. But I think that, but these were 17 year old idiots. They did a good job of saying, we're the men. We're the masculine party. And that did really the second time around appeal to, I think young, you know, 17 year old kids were making parlays and, you know, like getting ready to go to college. It was tied into crypto. It was, and they did well with young kids of all races. But for white guys in particular, I think there's a little bit of backlash to kind of like BPMD, like that stuff, like was really in their face. I think that there was some, you know, for good reason in a lot of places, but I just think that it also, you have to be honest, like led to some backlash to that, you know, I think that that, like was part of it. So what, what taking us up to the midterms and you talked about this a little bit in your video, like what do you think, like cause the flip, right? Because the cultural stuff, you know, I mean, Trump was still kind of culturally invoked through most of the year. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, I think that if you looked at the numbers, and I feel like the taloriko numbers in Texas are insane, like the 18 to 29 year old guys moved, like 40 points plus to the left. What is your assessment for what happened with that? So I think there were a lot of young men that again, weren't dialed into politics and just thought, I want to be on the winning team two years ago and I want to be macho. And so that's they were like, Hey, I guess that means I'm Trump. And I think that they then felt the culture shifting a bit. There was enough of things aren't going the way they said it would go. And enough of, I think I do think even the social issues are probably the ones that I am the most left wing on that those are also the ones that I think can turn off a lot of like my audience, like sports talk audience. Those had to descend into the background. You mean the progressive views on social issues, like trans or whatever is what turns off the sports talk? I think sometimes yeah, I think and and so I think that had to go to the background because we're at war and things are not going well. And so I think there was a little fickleness for the young people. The point that I made in my post election commentary was the things that bother me the most about our current government is not why I think they lost this election, but I hope because they lost this election, we can resenter. Like I, I am really intensely bothered by how mean some of these fucking people are. I'm a hard guy for folks to try to just paint with like the liberal snowflake thing. Like I don't know. I'm a soy boy. Yeah, I mean, it's like hard people aren't like, they're not going to say, oh, you want, you want high taxes because you don't make money. Like, no, make, make a lot of money. Like I, I'm in sports. I'm, you know, a semi professional high stakes gambler. Like a lot of the things that like are not sub but, but despite all that, I think it's abhorrent when people are like, hey, you're a retard. Like what? Are you an adult? Like I don't like it. And it bothers me at my core. And I do think it's important for men in my position to signal to other men like, hey, it doesn't make you weak to say to people like, don't act like a juvenile and don't be mean for no reason. I'm not saying you've got a, every time somebody tells an off-color joke in a group text, you've got to be like, hey, now and wag your finger at them. But there is a level of decorum that I think matters a lot in signals to America. What we're about. And we have strayed so far from that. And I think that we can recenter now that I do think we have the public sentiment on our side. Yeah, you said something I've been very, a phrase that you hear that I've been very hesitant to use myself because I don't, you know, I'm tormented. I've PTSD. But you said you think the fever might have broken on all that. Yeah. And the fever does extend to just like this acceptance of a bunch of stuff that was not culturally acceptable before. And I look at, you mentioned your video, the, you know, the president and the Senator for South Carolina calling Annie Andrews, Tranny Andrews and just like having that be okay in politics. One little positive signal that you're right about the fever breaking that I saw this morning that I liked was Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran one of the two most despicable campaigns of the year. And really since Trump 2016 has on his ex account right now, account not actively managed. Oh, really? Then Vikramaswamy lost so badly that he is self-deporting from public life. And I think that like, there's some potential hope there that like, you're right, that the, that at some level, the fever is broken. Not that everybody's going to be kind to each other. Not that there's not going to be racism. Steve Miller is the fucking chief of staff. That like, there once again are some, some boundaries in the public discourse, like, that are bumpers on the bowling alley for what is acceptable. And by the way, you said one of the two is the other one, both French. Oh, I don't really care when I'll read Commissioner, but sure, it would be, I was going to say, no, I just didn't know if there was a lot of my friends, I mean, who just who is good. Panic campaign like my opponent is a terrorist jihadist, like that was his campaign. So here is something that I would like. Yeah. And this is about the media. Because one of the things that, and I'm not the first person to make this point, but I really think the media needs to hone in on this, especially over these next couple years and into the next election. I found, like I said, I'm a 42 year old grandfather. So I don't watch any of the streamers. So I'm, you know, I'm an old, an old man. So I'm not an Asman Gold. You're not. So I don't, yeah, I'm not into, I don't fall. Asman Gold. I don't follow, like I don't, I haven't watched Piker. I don't know. I know who they are, obviously, exactly politically aware, but I've never, I don't, I don't, I don't have Twitch on my phone. I don't really know how I'd watch it. I did want to play cards with I show speed if that counts. Neither here nor there. That's pretty cool. I was appalled by the media's flat acceptance and decision that Democrat candidates must answer for and disavow the extreme or ridiculous, or in some cases, awful things that people who support them in the media said and elected Republican officials have no responsibility whatsoever to disavow awful things that other elected Republican officials said. Every single time a Democrat was asked about a son Piker, the equal time version of that is, we got to ask Mike Rogers or somebody about Randy Fine, or whatever, whatever, absolutely, out, and it was just, or I don't know, the vice president of the United States. Or vice president, or, or any like these. I know everyone says that's a liberal media, and I do, yes, I do think most of the people on news television probably vote Democrat, but the way they overcorrect that is, they grade what is expected of mega Republicans on such a curve. It's like, well, we can't ask them to disavow the crazy shit because there's so much of it, and I think that is hugely problematic. And I just want some of these folks to be held to account in part because I don't know if they all have the courage of their, in fact, I do know most of them don't have the courage of their convictions to actually disavow it. Like was it JD? JD stood by VEX ad, right? JD was asked about, I endorsed it. Yeah. Yeah. I fully endorsed it. And he said that he was upset that the Republicans that were distancing from it. Right. And you know, said he believed the mother. And yeah, and I just just realized she was a homeless lady with her cats and a car that had facilitated the rape of her own daughter. And JD was like, I'm on her side. It's crazy. And it's just so, when you say it, when you actually, like, if you were, because there's God bless them, there's obviously a lot of people that are not dialled in to, you know, to pilot like the Ohio gubernatorial race. And I, one of them happens to be my son who I host the podcast with during my political thing. I told the story of VEX ad. And he had never heard of Amy acting. I know he's never heard of VEX. He's a new father. He's waiting for GTA to come out. He's just living his life in Southern California. And the look on his face is I'm explaining what happened. He was like, what? He doesn't even seem to be totally unbelievable to ignore me out there. Yeah. My here's my media take on you. And this is maybe a strange metaphor. But the problem with the bias in the, you know, kind of mainstream media is that, you know, basically, Mega and Trump have been like working the refs for 10 years. That's kind of like one of these, you know, I remember, I'm not really into hockey anymore. We're growing up as an abs guy and like the devil's like, there's always things like the devil's defense is like, we're going to hack him on every play. You know, like we're going to do the legion of Boom Seahawks defense. Exactly. Your legal contact every play. You can't call it every time. You can call it every play, right? And I think that the media, if every day, the beginning of the ABC nightly news was Donald Trump lied again today, a Republican set of racist thing today. You know, like then people would be like, well, people would feel like they weren't getting fair news. Even though they were like, even though it was true, like you could start the nightly news every night with whatever the president's lies were or whatever their smears were of other people. And so, in order to kind of create this even perception of balance, you know, that is how you get the piker discourse where like every interview of dual does he has to get asked about this when no Republican ever gets asked about Laura Lumer, you know, who is like an advisor to the president and an overt Islamophobe. And I don't really know how to fix that. I mean, everybody can become the bull work, but then, you know, then then you end up having regular kind of conservative people start watching other stuff. You know what I mean? I don't know the answer. To, you know, torture the sports analogy further. Sure. Coach Eric Manjini is a, you know, day one regular on the TV show. And one of his phrases about what Bella check would always say when he was decordinated for the pants was once a game gets going and you see other apps are calling it, we're going to do businesses businesses being done. Meaning, if they're calling it tight, we got to be real careful. If they're letting us play, then we're going to be more physical. My request to the media would be like everybody's okay with that. Would nobody likes in sports is it's called super tight for one team and the other team gets to do whatever they want. That's the complaint about the Oklahoma City Thunder. They hack on every play and then they get every flop call. And that's what it feels to me like. Right, legit. It is a fact. It's a shame. Jaydey Vance. Jaydey Vance. And that's torture analogy. That's the meanest thing I ever said about Jay Guild to Alexander. So my point would be if the media has decided, listen, we can't start the nightly news every night with some outrageous thing. Jaydey Vance or Laura Lumer or the president said, then those same rules must apply to Hassan Piker or I don't know if we have an official Democrat politician or office holder similar to Laura Lumer. I don't even know who that would be. But it can't just be here, the rules over here and here, the rules over here. And I think it is definitively going to be like that for quite some time. At least as long as there is the MAGA hold on the MAGA has such a bigger position of power than the Mitt Romney portion of the park. Which doesn't exist anymore. It's kind of what you guys are, right? Not really. I mean, I guess now you're kind of asking me to dive deep into. No, that's okay. We're going to do, you know, kind of scientific analysis of the different phylum of conservatives. But I guess that that was probably like the dispatch or the national review, which is those guys like don't like Trump, but stiff state functionally conservative. And I think that what a lot of, I mean, essentially, you know, we are the home of Trump derangement syndrome. And I feel that Trump is so bad that anyone that supported them, even like, even if I would prefer their views on like regulation. I'm kind of like like the top marginal tax rate being, you know, low 30s or high 30s. Like is not that important to me when, you know, the entire democracy is in threat, right? That is a very succinct and fancy way of saying, you're a good person. And that to me, that also distilled a lot of how I feel about this, which is that nuanced details about about policy that is actually what politicians are supposed to be doing have now been become so secondary for me to a recapture of, you know, sanity, adults in the room and decency that I can't what all of political debate should be about, which is the top marginal tax rate, you know, how much of a foreign influence should America have, those things. Amazingly, like that is, that is dealing with, you know, whether or not you should renovate the garage and not the fire in the house. And again, maybe I am too optimistic, maybe I'm so in the glow of last week, but I do wonder if starting in two years, if we can get back to the point of where we are arguing about the nuanced boring stuff, which is what I think is super valuable and important to do. I'm not sure that that's going to be the case because I think that conversation is still going to be happening within the Democratic coalition. I think that's going to happen the next two years, right? Like, if a Democrat could win in 29, what, you know, does that look like, is that Medicare for all or is it some more incremental change to healthcare, like all these kinds of stuff? I think that the way that we had seen right left before, you know, in the construct where the right was kind of this classically liberal Reagan three-legged stool, which is like strong military, low taxes, family values, and the left is, you know, like more, less involvement in the world, more social services and more progressivism. Like, I just think that's been permanently scrambled kind of and like the rights, the new. right, whatever comes after Trump is still going to be a very kind of nationalist, anti-immigrant, identitarian party. Yeah, it's probably right, unfortunately. It's probably right. One skin is nothing like your typical skin care brand and that's why I keep coming back to them. Most anti-aging skin care is built to react to smooth over lines and wrinkles after they show up. One skin started somewhere different, working to address how skin ages in the first place, founded by four PhD longevity scientists, they studied skin at the cellular level and found that visible skin aging starts deeper. It starts when certain cells stop working the way they should and begin affecting the healthy cells around them. So they engineered OS1, their proprietary pep tide, to work with the skin's biology, targeting the dysfunctional cells. 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For a limited time, try one skin with 15% off using code bullwork at oneskin.co/bullwork. That's 15% off, oneskin.co with code bullwork. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. One more optimistic thing, and then I'll do those sports stuff with you. I do think another really uplifting thing from Tuesday that you had talked about that I think is relevant to what you said you wanted to engage in when you were going to pick your spots in politics is the backlash that we saw to the way that ice carried out the deportations and to the Kalei rolling and the attempt to undermine the voting rights act. I think that the opposition to the Iran War and the backlash against the Iran War I think is the big story and the big reason why the blue tsunami was so big. But the big supporting elements of that where people looked at the way the deportations were going and said, no, fuck this, this is not who we are like you said in that video. Black voters in the south were mobilized to a degree that they haven't been since the Obama era to turn out and vote after Republicans tried to take away their representation in rights and you see this huge shift among Latina voters in Texas, Black voters here in Louisiana and Georgia, et cetera. And I do think that is like the thing that makes me feel a little warm and fuzzy about last Tuesday is that there was like it wasn't really just about people's economic conditions. There was a sense from at least some of the country that like this is not what we're going to be. I think that is totally correct. With that said, one of the things that I struggled with before I started executing people in the street was man they did say this was what they wanted to do and they won and I understand people don't really do like the back of the napkin math. But when they say we are going to deport 20 million people. It's like, okay, let's do the math on that and how long that would take. If you did 1,000 deportations a day, that's going to take you 40 years. So if you're going to do 20 million, if you're going to do it in one presidential term, now we're saying you're going to do 10,000 deportations a day and that is going to be impossibly cruel and harsh. With that said, that's what they said they were going to do and then they won. So I didn't love when people were like, this isn't what America's about. And I was like, well, I kind of wish it wasn't. But they didn't slide this in the back door. The wanton crypto corruption and launching meme coins who enrich themselves. They slid that through the back door. They didn't campaign on, we're going to fucking do bar supporters and steal them. We're going to do millennia coin rifles. They didn't campaign on the deportation stuff. It was like one of the strongest issues in the last election. And they started doing it. And I think there was a level of denialism from the generic American of like, well, I didn't think they were like serious, serious. It's like no, they were serious. But the logistics of it made it to where the only way they were going to be able to achieve 10 percent of that goal was through not just wanton cruelty, but you had to bring in totally inept and competent enforcers. Because there's not enough quality candidates or whatever. So I do think people saw that and it made them reframe what they actually wanted. They were like, I thought I wanted this. But turns out, I do not. And I thought that I wanted to be on the side of the powerful and the kind of on the bully side. But then when you see how the actual bullies are acting, I mean, I kind of wanted to be on like the kind of bully side, not that. That's too far for even me. So I think that happened. I think the black voters and the South thing is, and this is another podcast entirely. I've always been fascinated by the fact that the following things are true. The most reliably democrat part of our coalition is black women, obviously primarily, but black voters. The most reliably republican states are the states with, by a huge margin, the highest percentage of black voters. Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana have more black voters per capita than California, than New York, than Illinois. And it always felt to me like, okay, listen, I get there is a massive amount of still like almost Jim Crow, you're a disenfranchisement. But there is a real power there if we can ever tap into it. And I don't know enough about Cindy Heidsmith to know if she was just inherently specifically awful candidate. And if Scott Cologne was a specifically great candidate, or if that was a canary in the coal mine of hey, these are not necessarily always going to be that the deep South does not always have to be deep red. And that, you know, Louisiana also almost like came within a few points, I think. And so, I mean, both. The answer is both. I mean, Scott Cologne was a unbelievable candidate. And I still thought he's going to come up short. I was a miss on that one, but even while thinking that during the show, I was talking about the ways that he was running a good race. And Cindy Heidsmith was awful could barely talk. So it is true that there was a big candidate gap, but also like, you know, if you look at Louisiana, where that was, you know, less the case. I mean, Julia, I wasn't exactly a great candidate. Jamie Davis, as, you know, has a good profile. But if black voters had turned out on election day, like at the same level they had an early vote, Jamie Davis would want, like there'd be 57 senators. I know it was that close. Like that was like basically 53% of the available registered white voters turned up on election day and 47% of the available registered black voters said there was a huge early vote for black voters. But had they kept that going through election day, people on Louisiana too. So I mean, that shows you that it's doable. And I next year's an off off your governor's race. And I think it's doable both states have governors races next year. And I think both will be in play. And this is where I get really, and I use it was a little bit of it yesterday. I get my, my backup a bit with some of the super-centrist Democrat consultant class types. You know, I got in a little tet, not even tet, I just pointed out how, how hollow Eglaceus is one of his many ludicrous tweets was yesterday. And you're coming to the defensive Abdul's honor. Are you more of an Abdul Democrat? I guess I really asked you that because you said on the thing on Tuesday that like there were, you had some complaints about the Democratic party the last few years. Like was that, does that because you're more of kind of a populous lefty or were there other things cultural issues? So let me answer all those questions at once. I like a lot about Abdul because I really care about for my politicians raw intelligence. I think it's very important. I think he's very smart. I care about the fact that I find him genuine. I kind of like that he's a bit, I think he's probably a bit of an asshole. Like not in a bad way, but like the, "Haley, you know what, don't show up." Like that, I don't know that straight politics, but it kind of reminds me of how I would act. So I like that, you know, those pieces of it. And I also thought he was totally unfairly maligned. So I don't know that he was like my, if I went issue for issue, do I agree with him more than Tallerik or asshole? I don't know. But those things I did like about him. My complaints about the Democrat party is, I think they have been the last two years far too meek and far too accommodating. And I think that there was not enough of a fight and I do think that it's always hard to tell what the American people latch on to. Like I found it interesting that of all the wild shit Trump did 10 years ago while running for president. The thing that actually danged him almost more than anything, not quite more than anything, was when he made fun of the disabled reporter, I don't know if disabled, like the guy, he did the arm thing about the guy. >> Seriously? >> Yeah. And so, and that really people were like, that was mean. So like that American public reacts that. The other thing that I feel like the American public reacts to is, wait a minute, I'm struggling to pay for groceries. Are you making hundreds of millions of dollars corruptly with regularity while I'm struggling? And I thought there should have been a far bigger, by smart, able to think on their feet quick Democrats of like, guys, they're stealing, guys, they are getting rich off this. I thought there was some by the media, I didn't think there was enough by the actual elected politicians. And I was like, man, I think that'll resonate. I'll give you one other little for instance, because these things go viral on social media. And I was like, I don't think the American public is responding this way you think. When every time somebody's coming up for some, I don't know if it's confirmation hearing, but you would see these videos where there's a six judges who want to be a judge. And a Democrat Senator who I probably like is like, who won the election? >> Yeah. >> And it's five minutes of the guy won't do it. And it's all, yes, of course, that is humiliating for the guy, I get it. I think the American people were like, yeah, we fucking know that Trump says he won. He didn't win. This is a waste of our time. I think a better use of the time would have been in those instances of, they're stealing from you, bro. And they're laughing at you, they are laughing at you and stealing from you. So that's where I wanted a little more of a fight. And I don't even know, I was talking about it glaciers, but then I forgot what I was saying. But so I don't, I do want to say this because of the tweet I sent. I don't know actually if I am more Medicare for all or public option, I've been spending up time really investigating the details on it. >> Sure. You know that I find it repugnant that someone who does politics for a living would earnestly have the opinion that anyone who ran for office and one that one week after winning should abandon the things they ran on for political expediency. There is nothing inherently valuable about winning. What is valuable is what you are able to do if you win. I don't care if we have 80 senators. It doesn't matter if they're not, if they don't actually try to do the things they want to do. >> I'm with you on this. I got in a fight with another with my guy Josh Barrow. I'll just out on this fine, because we're big boys. >> Are you sure about that? >> Yeah, I do too. I'm with you. Medicare for all. Healthcare is not my hobby horse. I'm not trying to pretend like I know the best way to fix our broken healthcare system. Immigration is my hobby horse. I think what we're doing is absolutely disgusting. I was horrified by the meekness of the Democrats after Trump won that they weren't fighting at Truth and Nail. There was just this kind of conventional wisdom that Trump won an immigration that's a winner for him. We should not talk about that. >> Talk about it. >> You don't talk about it. >> I'm talking about it. I'm coming back right now. Like I said, this week I was going to Democrats get back in. They should demilitarize ICE and get all of the people that are nonviolent criminals out of the detention centers. I think that's just basic stuff. I think that's what the American people are. They said it. I didn't say we should open the borders, but if we have a nurse who has not broken any laws in some detention center in Louisiana, like I was just reading about this morning, who's an immigrant from Nigeria, let her go be a nurse and deal with her paperwork otherwise. I don't think that anybody's going to care about this. That's mine. Abdul's issue is Medicare for all. He's going to fight for it, let him, and we'll see. Like eventually they'll have to be compromised on all this stuff. That's how the system works, but light not right now. >> There also is a level of, I think, on the things that you truly believe are moral imperatives, or are things that you campaigned black and white on, that you have to be willing at times to say, you know what, fulfilling this promise or attempting to, actually, it's the right thing to do, it will, you know, on the long spectrum of history, it will be looked at fondly. In the meantime, I might take a little hit for it, and you know what, I'm going to be a good enough fucking politician to get those people back. >> To navigate it. >> Find other ways to win those people back. I thought the Democrats allowing trans issues to be center point of a presidential election was such an own goal in that I don't think, and maybe this is, you know, it cost me some of my lefty bonafides. I don't know why people care about it so much, because it's such a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage, but I do think, as someone in sports, that if somebody wants to say, hey, I stand for your rights to dignity and everything in life. With that said, I do understand why, because of the physical differences and strength between 17-year-old boys and 17-year-old girls, that at high level competitive sports, we might have to have a conversation about what is fair and what is not for who's allowed to play on girls' teams, and I understand that is not maybe what everyone wants to hear, but on a fairness level, it seems kind of right, and understanding that, you know what, even if that on the far left alienate some of my trans allies, I'm going to win those people back. With all the other good things I do and I represent, you don't have to agree with me on every single issue, and I think what they did, a bad job of not getting that, and I think the centrist have done a bad job of thinking the goal is to win and then do nothing, and I find that outrageous. We're way over. We're doing rapid fire sports, are you ready? Are you capable of rapid fire? I don't want to do it, I'll do it. But whatever, I mean, I got nowhere to be, so just let you know. One bridge sports politics question, my guy Kyle Kuzma, who, you know, I have a little bit of a crush on, he's been tweeting some bad tweets lately, Saddam Hussein kept Christians, this is personal staff. Exactly, it's for years. He used to have AI write his tweets, I think, and they were long, and no, he was impressed with Donald Trump's 60 minutes interview. How is this like, what do people think about this in the locker room, as I guess my question? If you have bread and pro Trump tweets all the time, your team is one and nine. I think in majorly baseball locker rooms, it probably does well. Yeah. I think in NFL locker rooms, it does a little better than you would expect. And I think in NBA locker rooms, it does terribly. And I also think Kyle Kuzma is, I don't think people around the NBA look at him as a thought leader, but I think he looks at himself as a thought leader. But I think he is, I think he's a bit of a doofus is how I would say it kindly. Yeah. I mean, he's bringing the podcast equipment on the road. It's like my guy, dude, make some jumpers. No, no, and the team's terrible. He is champion. One champion. You can do the crossover, Nick, right? Because you're succeeding in your role as a box, where it's one ghost. You gotta get the first part right, OK, give me an NBA in NFL, Mississippi. Like do we have a surprising success? I'm looking maybe at my Bengals, Joe Burrow and the Bengals. I don't know. Yeah, they qualify as surprising, definitely. Like, when they make the Super Bowl, that would be, I mean, listen, I think they are, I think the Bengals are crazy dangerous. And listen, I'm a die hard born in bread, Kansas, the chief's hand. We're getting to that next. But so I said on the show yesterday, that of all the AFC playoff teams, the worst matchup for my chiefs is your Bengals because of, if you can't get to Burrow, like you just, they're going to throw them all 50 times a game. NBA surprise, I don't know if right now it would still qualify as surprise, but the Rockets can win the championship. And it would be wild for Durant to do that in year 20 or whatever it is, but the Rockets can win the whole thing. Are you a spurs then? No, no, no, no. I grew up in Denver. And I live in Louisiana. Yeah. So we're about to get there. So I'm Broncos and nuggets. Burrow is via LSU is the path. Your Broncos are such, such luck boxes make me so mad. Dude, it's unbelievable. Let's pay back. I was going to tell you one of my core lost childhood memory is, we're about the same age. You probably remember this. 94. was there for Monday night football. Well, when Montana had come to the chief's late career and he leads to come back to defeat the Broncos, I walked out of their sad people in chief jerseys were rid to me as a middle school child. I mean, you guys in the 90s kind of got over on us a bit. We did. You guys kind of hold that match up and your L.A. ripped our hearts out repeatedly. So I don't have a lot of sympathy for one Monday night football game, the one year. How about this? So that year you're talking about with Joe Montana, yeah, was the chiefs between that year and Patrick Mahomes first season, one one playoff game, that's your tire like coming of age. Yeah. You know, it's like my high school buddies are going to champion. If I was at the parade during high school. In that time period, you guys went to four supermoles and won three of them. Two, well, three. No, you won three. The patent one was before you're next, yeah, that was a long cooking time. That's working for jab during the patent one. That's my whole life. Exactly. Yeah. I do my other chiefs, trauma memory is the, it was right after that is during the Monday night football game where Mahomes beats us with the side pass, the left handed pass. Yeah. I remember, I remember messaging my brother, I was like, we're going to lose to these fucking guys for 15 years, and it was basically what happened until the, until the lock box issue. So I do think, I guess we're going to have to close with YoKitch though, because you first came into my world view, not with your kind of bold, principled, inspiring takes on what I call YoKitch, the worst MVP of the last 40 years. Yeah. On my nuggets text chain here on the WhatsApp, you were exclusively Nick wrong up until about two years ago. Yeah, I can't remember. I've blocked several people, I think blocked you on social media because of your anti-YoKitch takes. I'm in my, I'm in my fat fat yoKitch shirt right now, as a troll. That was a big mist for you on the, on the sports, on the sports, one of my biggest, one of my biggest ever, uh, what was that? Was that, you know, reverse racism, anti-Servia bias? No. We just kind of survived. It wasn't any of those things, but I will say when at its peak, I got some of like, I think sports folks who are like, I get death threats. I'm like, ah, was it delivered to your house and scary letters, then sure to call it a death threat? Was it an anonymous account sending a DM pipe down? I think you're okay. With that said, I got a few DMs that I do clicks the translate now button and I was like, these are not anonymous folks. And I don't think they're joking. Like they were big mad, um, and Eastern European folks are known for being pretty tough. Uh, uh, I thought I was, I thought he was being anointed to a level he had not yet earned. And I cared immensely and caring mentally about the history of the MVP award. And I thought we were consistently kind of readjusting the rules to award it to him before he had achieved at the highest level in the postseason. And then he went on an all time great playoff run and then continued to be had a nice stretch. I don't think he is anymore of the best player in the world. And I was just like, I'm wrong. As, you know, I was, I was at the very least, I was very, very late. And I was probably just wrong. And so I, I have been ever since they won the title, you know, I've been, you know, I think fairly complimentary of him, but I, you know, I, as Nuggets fan would say, Nuggets fans would say, they made him bend the knee. Have you been to the, uh, have you been to Denver? I was about to call it the Pepsi Center. It shows how I've been in Denver. I have never been to ball arena or whatever. You can probably come now. We can probably do a game together. I don't think you'd be booed anymore. A couple. You get some cheers. I think people are over it. People are pretty nice, uh, in person. Like I, I get a lot of, yo, I was pretty better during that Nuggets run. I was there at the championship game one. I forget who it was, but I did kind of get in the grill of a sports guy, of a sports commentator who'd been wrong about the Nuggets. Now it's just like, what do you think about this? Maybe. Do you know who it was? Who was it? God, I'm having a plank. He lives in, uh, he lives in Oakland, he lives in the Bay. I'd met him before he lives in the Bay. Was it Marcus Thompson, uh, or Mark Spears? Mark Spears. Mark Spears. I thought it was a good nature, but I got to see it was like, we were walking past each other. The thing is like, how are we looking now, Mark Spears? How's he looking now? You're looking now. That's awesome. I'd had a couple pops, you know, this game one is, I mean, it's our only, it's right. The only NBA finals will get to go to, right? Is it over? Is our peak over? It's over, right? I think it's over. Is there any path back? I don't think so. I mean, with a player's greatest, yo, here's the other, the sinky thing. Again, now I'm going to get back on those bad text change, even if this happens, you probably don't have the pieces, but something that has to happen is Joker has to get back to it. Right now he's like the fifth best player in the league. For there to be a path, he has to be the best, like it has to be that he is back to being the best. Yeah. But I still think team. They made me wonder what it does. A man they just have looked so unathletic. I just can't rely on Aaron Gordon's hamstrings. No. He's a man who lost P-Wat. P-Wat's nothing special, but he just does at least athletic. I was like, we need more athletic dudes around, yo, kids. That's right. That's right. All right. You got anything for me? Any final? This is your chance to become KO. Do you have any one last hot take or political question or anything? No. I listen. Thank you, first of all, for having me on. Dude, thanks for doing that. I just want to say this to my friends and not friends in sports media that dabble or do politics, because this I think is important and real and leave it on this. In sports, I try to be very, like, actually know what I'm talking about. Watch the games be educated. With that said, if you're not and you're talking about the NFL trade deadline or who's going to win the fucking NBA Finals, to really, if you're just bullshitting, it's really low. It's no harm done. It's like, yeah, it's all kind of make believe anyway. If you are going to venture in to real life stuff, you have a responsibility to actually know what the fuck you're talking about. And it is fine to say not to pat myself on the back, but on things like healthcare in America, be like, you know what? I don't have enough info on it to give a strong take. We in the sports media world are bred to give a take, but don't back down. And that is, that is fine in part because one of the things sports has on politics is polit, like, no, when we're arguing about the Kansas City chiefs, nobody does a political thing, which is like, why do you think the chiefs are good? They've never won a Super Bowl. And you're like, wait, they won three recently and they're like, no, they haven't. And we at least all agree on what has happened. And then we argue out the other stuff. Politics we don't even have a shared reality on. So it is important that if you're going to be a thought leader or inf or opinionist in it, that you have a baseline understanding of what you're actually talking about. If not, this is what I'll say, then stick to sports. And I never say that. But in that case, if not, then do it, you do have that responsibility to the American public, if you will. That's my take. Nick, right? This has been such a pleasure. Come on back any time. I'm very educated. Not football season. You got to lock in. I got a lot going on, man. Football season's going on. Yeah. There's a lot going on. I would start break. Maybe I'll start break check in. We'd love to. Thank you, Tim. All right, brother, see you soon. Appreciate it. You're right, man. That was a delight. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. But we got a firecracker coming next. It's Anderson Clayton. Stick around. And we're back. She's chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, elected three years ago at age 25. She's the youngest chair of a state Democratic Party. It's my girl, Anderson Clayton. What is up? What's up, Tim? What is happening? What is happening? What is happening? What is happening? What is happening? Holy shit. I know. I know. You believe it? I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I called the congressional race again yesterday. We still have a couple more to go. Do you? I mean, it's going to be 11 to three. Is it not? It's going to be 11 to three. There's still, I had a couple of people that still not calling Chuck's race in NCO 5 yet. And so a lot of folks are like Anderson. Is it gonna? Is it not? NCO Virginia Fox is done for in Congress right now. Let me assure you, but I get the folks are watching recounts and everything like that that are going to be potentially happening in North Carolina. So people are anxious a little bit in the state. The joy or retirement, Virginia Fox. Well, I do, I do have to teach you, you know, obviously I have to teach at the start because we had you on the YouTube before the election. And I was feeling sleepers. I had so much faith in you. I had more faith in you than you had in you. And I was like, I think you're going to win North Carolina six. I was like, it might be nine to five. - And you're like 10 Miller. - You're like 10 Miller, nine to five. - I know. - I said no way. I'll bet you I'll bet you you get and and so you're gonna own me a drink when you get down to North to do you get down to New Orleans or in Denver this week I guess I'll see you I owe a lot of people drinks. I feel like about congressional races this year But it was it was inspiring because I got to hear a lot of our congressional candidates talk about how much the county parties and their backyards Really believed in them and I was like look I was watching a lot of I guess a lot of polls which you know not necessarily the best thing for I think a state party chair to get caught up in some time But it's kind of hard not to when every donor apparatus is around you, and also when everybody else is and so it was Interesting to me to see the surprises on Tuesday because I was like God it gave me a renewed faith in people on the ground in North Carolina to top Why did teach you first we thought we should we didn't really start at the start But you know when I when I have one over you I did I just said so let's just back it up for people that don't know your story I mean one of the main things that you were working on you got in there at 25 was Democrats got to go talk to people everywhere all over the state You know it just can't be in the research triangle and Charlotte and the burbs and you know the other little pockets and And like that work is what really pays off here on on election day last week So why don't you just kind of talk about for people who missed our last conversation like kind of your origin story I'm like what you've been trying to do in North Carolina last couple years Yeah, I think it goes back to 2022 in North Carolina We've been known federally as the great white whale for a long time because we could not win a federal election since Obama won us in 2008 and in 2022 North Carolina left 44 state legislative seats uncontested It was the most we had ever left uncontested in state history and that was sort of how you got the Insurgent party chair Canada Anderson Clayton because I got really pissed off after 2022's election cycle Because we had left almost three million people across North Carolina without somebody on the ballot to vote for and in 2023 when we ran for state party chair and I say we because it was a cohort of 10 to 15 young people across the state that helped me run a campaign I had a call time manager a field manager I'm a campaign manager and it was like we were running a legitimate race for state party chair in a lot of ways and When that happened the the main focus that we wanted to do is saying that we don't want to see ground to a Republican party anywhere in North Carolina And that meant we were going to contest every race in the state legislature We were going to try to contest every race down ballot and we were going to make sure that we were a state party Those active in all 100 counties year-round and in 2024 we got to contest 168 out of 170 races and a lot of the folks that ran in 2024 ran again in 2026 and so people like Claire Kempner who It was out in Pitt County ended up winning a seat that was a Republican plus 12 seat in 2024 ended up being an R+2 seat in 2026 and she was able to beat out someone who had been voting against abortion rights in North Carolina who was a medical doctor in the state and somebody who had Honestly done a disservice to Eastern North Carolina and so putting people like Claire Kempner people like Yvonne Hopkins people like Windecker who ran originally, but also got to go back in the state legislature this year. I think it's just really exciting But it's a fruition of that we don't ever leave anybody behind and rural North Carolina deserve every opportunity So for those of you that don't know me. I love rural. That's what I'm about about it. You're out there. You are rural You have them like what's it called human County? Where do you live? Person County come on to me. I'm sorry Shot person. I should remember that. It's not about human County. I like that. It's a person. You know, person County What is that Roxborough? Don't have that right Roxborough. Come on I mean, you're out there and we were talking about this. You're like your neighbors or mag, you know, you guys were organizing in these towns They're all these, you know, something to listen to this. So these little blue humans and these red parts of the country You talk to them and organize them like what what do you think was it that that resonated with people like was it I mean, obviously getting the candidates on the ballot like that was definitely Like after that is it turning out all the little blue dots? Was it persuasion if it was persuasion like what were the You know things you're winning people over on like give me a little political analysis about what was happening out and and the rules in North Carolina I mean, I don't think you can deny that this ref this election was also referring them on the White House and every way and that You know something that I think Republicans have actually made possible Is that folks are looking more local to elections right now and honestly that are more pissed off and Republicans to me have really driven up democratic turnout in down ballot elections Because the fact that Democrats are looking at everywhere is a line of defense against Donald Trump earlys trying to and so for us it's been About how do we engage in communities year-round? How do we show up and shake everybody's hand into the point that you made earlier about Mayor Jefferson now Congressman Jefferson one thing that I heard from folks Congressman elect but one thing that I heard from folks afterwards is that they were like look I'm a Republican, but I've known like I'm known serial like for a long time and he's been somebody that's been in the community He stood up for for not just Democrats and not just independence and not just Republicans But everybody and I think that a lot of people knew who they were voting for in a ballot this year because they'd shaken their hand and met them And I don't think that we can negate the power of person-to-person contact especially when you're looking at districts where you had to win over Republican voters in order to be able to win them because they were on nobody's radar on election night Yeah, I talked to the key Shalom back I know you did Tim Miller one of my favorite interviews come on my queen I was like She didn't even have a staff No, that that race like that was forget national money, you know, there's all the and the DCs there's always like these Stories in the week after the election of oh the DNC didn't do this so the DSEC didn't do that It's like she won with nothing but nobody has occurred her kid volunteers. She had a plan. I mean that is And it's pretty wild experience No, it has to be and now she's the Fifth member of Congress or black woman from Congress from North Carolina that's ever been elected and when you when you think about it, it's the um It's it's a huge I think showcase to power for people on the ground and also what a good election cycle and a good candidate at the top of the ballot can turn out to be because I think that Lakisha made her way. I was out there with her in Polk County in Burke County in Rutherford County Tim Miller, I wish you could this woman stood toe-to-toe with people who looked at her and said you shouldn't put your face on your yard signs Like you you shouldn't because like this district like they were for her and they said that they were trying to out like that was a good Yes, like they were like that's how I mean that's how people Maybe she just have to put we can just say say this. It's okay. We're on a podcast, but like I mean She what is she just gonna do her last name like I don't I mean maybe the Lakisha and like really small How are you gonna trick people? Well, that's what she said She was like my name is Lakisha woe mac. I'm not gonna hide from anybody about who I am and it just to me It showcased even to our own party about who is electable who can get in office and and it challenged people's narratives Especially in communities that like oftentimes we think we have to have a cookie cutter type of candidate to be able to run In certain types of districts, and I'm like actually you need a candidate that wants to work hard Find somebody who wants to visit all of your counties Find somebody who doesn't have who wants to talk to everybody and isn't afraid of what type of party affiliation somebody has like I just it was the how much like she had to deal with internally to be able to fight through to get Congress is where I sit there now And I'm like she deserves every bit of this and I'm so excited for it be honest I know a lot of this is the work on the ground. We should also mention I mean having Roy Cooper at the top of the ticket definitely made a difference and I think that he When I had him on we kind of talked about this it's like no there's because of you know the nature of who he is and he's been around for a while There's nobody that's like we really should look to the Roy Cooper model for twenty twenty eighteen I've always trying to look to John Ossoff or Abdul or Chal Rico or one of the younger people right but like Roy Cooper showed How to reach I mean this this is a story that it's both turnout and persuasion I mean he reached out and Jamie Hager too like like they created this permission structure I do think for a lot of people in North Carolina to feel like the Democrats aren't scary. They're listening to me They have you know they're concerned about my issues. I don't just talk about about Roy's campaign a little bit No, I but I think what's what people miss about Roy Cooper a lot of times is the fact that he has been a 40 year public servant in the state of North Carolina So yes rural people my my best friend looked me the day and he said oh my dad voted for Roy And like my dad his dad is not a Democrat by any circumstance right is he's a Republican in Rocksboro And somebody that to me is like he voted for someone who he had known throughout North Carolina politics And what I think people miss is that Roy Cooper started in the state legislature And when we're looking at what the future of the buildback for the Democratic Party is It's got to be looking at uplifting those bottom level legislators right now who are going to be the future U.S. Senators because to me He wouldn't have had that trajectory had he not had an experience at every level of government But he did he was a person from rural North Carolina Rocky Mount He never forgot his roots and a lot of the communities in rural North Carolina had also met him from his time as attorney general as governor When he would do visits out to their counties and wouldn't necessarily make a big headway about it But would say I'm here to talk to you about what need what you need and what needs to get done here And and I think the same thing for Jamie Ager He was known in his community and ended up helping I think he out ran honestly Roy Cooper in his district He did yeah for people I mentioned a few times feel it I know here's the farmer out in like um when Western North Carolina fairview baby come on Fairview Um, but now I think it's incredible. Can we do some shot in Florida? You're closer to this than me. So I really need you to, I need the, I need bad Anderson to come out. Just for like two nobles. Okay. Just, just, just, just for a second, because you had these Republicans in your state that put in one of the nastiest Jerry Manderson, the whole country. And we're going to get to the state senate in a second. But, um, this is, you know, you guys hadn't won a state riot since 2008, but like all these races are close. You know, any fair look at North Carolina, you know, would, would think this should be maybe an eight, six Republican map was like the starting point, you know, based on what the results have been, they got greedy. They got greedy. They tried to put it in an 11 to three Republican map. And now they have the biggest dummy manor, maybe an American history. And it is a dummy manor with a capital B in dumb. You guys are going to be 11, three. So they tried to make it so it'd be 11, three Republican. It's going to be 11, three Democrats. Who were the masterminds behind this? Can you just, can you let me have a little bit of Shaden Freude about the Republicans that stepped in at this badly? Oh, you got two people to blame. And honestly, one of them already found their exit, this cycle. Oh, with Philberger and Destin Hall. So Destin Hall being my, um, my, my two, my two year, my one-term house speaker, actor speaker of the house because of the fact that he decided to get really greedy and actually put up a, a tweet back in 2025 about how good of a map redraw. He actually was, he said, I'm quite something at redistricting myself. And I was like, well, that you are, because you just lost quite a bit in North Carolina. And even if they had just left the original map that they had, they would have actually had more. I was laughing yesterday because I was thinking about, wow, if they had left the 2022 map, they would have had four more representatives. Like if we had an even 50, 50 split in North Carolina, like we did on free and fair maps, they would still have more representatives right now than they did on the dumbass map that they drew for themselves. I was like, y'all are idiots to be honest with you. And I think it's showcases. All right, Destin, you are such a good maf draw. We appreciate it. Thank you. Now, the Democrats couldn't have even drawn themselves in 11 to three. And now I get only to like the only way to get here. It was through a greedy Republican trying to gerrymander. And that's pretty enjoyable. I will say the Tim Miller, you never met Colton Browder. Colton Browder could draw the Democrats at 11 to three map in North Carolina. That man could figure it out if he needed to. Are there any other people you want to introduce me to? We've talked about Cyril, Makisha and Jamie Agar. Who do you have any other, you know, bullwark faves and coming bullwark faves in the delegation? You're going to love Paul Berenger if you've not already interviewed him. That's going to be someone. I need to know formal. Tell us about him, former Republican lawyer, someone who also won Johnston County this year, which if anyone's listening to this knows North Carolina or knows Johnston County, you know that that in and of itself is a fucking miracle to be honest with you. Because that County is one of one of the, one of the faster growing and red is counties that used to be in the state. And Johnston County is really because of the population increases. And sort of people moving out from Wake County has gotten more and more. But I think about it all the time of just Paul Berenger ran. And he said, Anderson, look, I'm going to give it all I've got this year. He ended up putting, you know, a lot of his own money into helping finance his campaign originally because to your point to Miller, not a lot of people were looking at CD 13. And it was Chris A's on election. This was crazy. And Chris A's was sitting there on MS now in election night being like, I've never heard of some of these people before. And then it was in C 13. It was talking about Paul Berenger. And he'd be proud not, right? No, yes, yes, yes. And then I'm sure you all have already interviewed Richard O'Jada. That man is becoming, I saw a tweet the other day that said, we're all living in O'Jada the movie. And we're just backlight background characters. And I feel that way too, but he is. I haven't talked to either of them yet. I have to have both of them on the list. Richard O'Jada is like, he ran in West Virginia when my husband's from kind of his populist left campaign. And he's told us just amazing story about how his dad passed away. Yeah, but like after he got to see him win the congressional race, really moving. So we'll have a month to all right, let's get down to business. When we talked last, you know, you're like, it's going to take, you know, we got to win two straight cycles to fix the mask. Because we have to win all the Supreme Court justices in 2028. Looking ahead to 2028 now, you guys would have another Senate seat up. So, you know, we can talk about that. The state Senate was the one place where their gerrymanders still worked as insane. You guys won the Democrats won by 16 points. If you kind of added up all the state Senate races, Democrats won 58%. Republicans won 42%. But Republicans are still going to have a majority in that chamber of 2624, which is just absurd and obnoxious and like barely democracy. We're not going to let that get us down. So you got to navigate that state Senate situation of a governor. As you mentioned, you have the state house, you're going to win the Supreme Court seats. Like what, what do you got to do now to finish the job in 2028? Look, I'm looking at the state Senate where Phil Berger again, who is the Senate majority leader got ousted in this cycle to Sam Page who was a Republican that ran on helping make sure that public education had school funding. So we're looking at private school vouchers in North Carolina this year and ensuring that we can reverse the amount of money that Republicans have dumped into unaccountable private school vouchers in the state. I believe we will have some of those Republicans in the state Senate who ran on at least fully funding public schools. And if they're not interested in a bipartisan effort to do that, I'm going to be excited to be out in their districts in 2028, Tim Miller, side note on that one, right. But just to say that that is my little like, I love to see some of these people go up in their vote against the Democratic agenda in 2027. But we do have to be able to finish the job because anything that we do with, I've kind of 50 million messages about redistricting Anderson. When is that going to be first on your list in 2027? When Democrats have control of the state house again in North Carolina after they're sworn in. And what people forget about North Carolina is that the courts are still fully Republican controlled at the court of appeals level and also the state Supreme Court level. And that is where Republicans in the state, if we're trying anything with nonpartisan redistricting or anything like that, the Republicans are going to take us through the courts because they did still draw these maps for themselves in 2025. And so we have to be able to take back the North Carolina state Supreme Court in 2028. We have done two steps in one in 2024 by keeping Justice Allison rigs on the court by 734 votes out of 5.5 million cast. 2026, Justice Anita Earls won with a incredible margin, just like Roy Cooper did in the state of almost 20 points to make sure that we had another Democratic Justice back up on the court. We have three Republican state Supreme Court seats up in 2028 and we can in 29 reverse partisan and racial gerrymandering in North Carolina for good. Because that is going to be the pathway to ensuring that we get out of the mess that Republicans have put us in for the last decade in North Carolina. But it is going to take winning back the courts. It's not just going to be winning back a chamber in North Carolina. All right, so the other big one, as I mentioned, you've got a Senate race who knows you got a lot. We got 11 house members now, so who knows could be a big primary got Jeff Jackson, you got a lot of stars now. So we'll see, you know, I was pushing it to be you Anderson Clayton at 2028, but it seems like you got a big, you got a big bench that you can be the coach for for that Senate race, and then the presidential of course. And so, you know, thinking back to like what we learned from this time, obviously it's a midterm that is going to be a little bit more beneficial to the Democrats. You think just by the nature of the coalitions right now, presidential is going to be a little harder. What lessons from coming up just short in the Harris campaign, Biden, Calcunningham, et cetera, Clinton, like what lessons, you know, are you taking into 2028? What do you think that you want the nominee and the Senate nominee to do differently? I mean, I want them to show up in places that are not just Raleigh and Charlotte, to be honest with you in the state. And I think that it's important to listen to people on the ground about where you need to be and where the energy that you carry is best placed, because I think a lot of people do surrogate trips to North Carolina. And sometimes they're sitting in a room of 15 people and I'm like, look, if you're not in a crowd of at least 100 to 150 to maybe a thousand, I've not done my job right and we've not put you in the right places. And I think that that's also a reflective point of just sometimes how people get connected into the state of North Carolina. And so, making sure that regardless of what state that you're going into, you reach out to your state party, your partner organizations, and be actually being a principle that cares about hearing from the grassroots and also the infrastructure of the party. Because I think often times people make mistakes with that. And I've seen it time and time again on the ground where we didn't see Vice President Harris really make it out to far Eastern North Carolina into the black belt of the state. And I don't think that that was something that she didn't want to do. I think it was something that her campaign said she didn't have time for. And to me, it's like, well, we need to figure out the ways to make time to go into areas where we need to juice turn out, especially in CD1 where Don Davis's seat is. And we see that district turning more and more red because of the way that it's been drawn. And I'm like, yeah, but if black voters in that rural part of the state turn out and feel like their votes matter, we can defeat that gerrymandor in 2028. And we're going to have to keep our foot on the gas to be able to do it. And so I'm looking at Northeastern North Carolina and Southeastern North Carolina. And I'm thinking for the next year and a half, I got to get my ass back out into them. All right, final question. I'm going to ask you to rank your favorite Democratic Congress members, one to 11. And then your favorite presidential contenders, one to 20. You can do that for me, right? Yeah, I'm Tim Miller, Tim Miller, Tim Miller. Come on, you know, you're not going to, you're not going to rank your favorite children for me, Anderson Quentin. I'm hoping all my children are going to work real hard for me this year, you know, because we, I've got a, I got to take my 11 members. numbers of Congress and get them all call time lists for their local municipal offices in 2027 and North Carolina so they can go help me recruit people to be in their own backyard. So if you're listening to this and you're in North Carolina and you want to be the change in your own backyard, go to ncdp.org/runforoffice because we want to recruit you. That is Anderson Clayton. We just need 49 more of you. We'll be in good shape. All right. I'll see you out in Denver and now let's stay in touch. Okay. Thanks, Tim Miller. Thanks, Nick Wright. Anderson Clayton. Boy, howdy. We are rolling, huh? We are rolling. We got another good one coming for you tomorrow. And another good one Friday. It is a murderous row this week. So make sure you're catching all the shows. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Peace. To Bullwork Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzali Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.