Scott's Back — And So Are Iran Strikes, the Canada Trade War, and a Very Smelly TikTok Trend

Say you're an aspiring pop star, how do you know if your song's a hit? It's getting harder to tell. I think that something is going on where the machinery of popularity has changed under a feat and we don't really know why or what it means. This week on Explanage Me how to avoid being a flop. Find new episodes Sundays wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Will Anderson and this week on the very first episode of My New Music History Podcast, the Monday Music Club, we're talking about one of the pioneers of rock and roll sister Rosetta Thar. She is the coolest. She recorded the very first rock and roll song, inspired everybody from Elvis to the Beatles and absolutely sure-headed on electric guitar. She also got married in a baseball stadium in front of a giant crowd. But hey before Taylor and Travis did, her story is incredible. So if you're a music geek like me or even just a casual music fan, check out this week's episode of the Monday Music Club wherever you listen to podcasts. There's still no resolution in the tariff battle between US and our neighbor to the North Canada. This is a source of national pride for Canada. The leadership there has enormous political support for playing hardball here. The number that should scare American industry is 130 billion and that's the level of the amount of Canada EU trade. The amount of US Canada trade is 870 billion. I would imagine there's about 740 billion in Canadian trade looking for a different trading partner right now. I think Trump's going to taco, but I don't think Canada is. Welcome to "Aging Monarchs." I'm Scott Galway. And I'm Jessica Thar-Leth. How are you, Jess? I'm really good. I'm happy to see you back. How was Scott for your August? What did you do? What did you see? It was pretty. It's sort of an American summer. It was in Colorado. And then off the Custom Massachusetts, and then the big thing was dropping my oldest off at college. That was kind of the highlight slash low light. Your world gets smaller so there's can get bigger, Jess. I've heard that. And I saw that you interviewed Mark Cuban and James Telerec, is that right? Yeah. Last weekend. It was great. I don't want to be that person who's like, something's happening in Texas, but something's happening in Texas. I don't know if that means that Thaleriko wins, and we're going to talk about kind of the lay of the land vis-a-vis the midterms, but it was an awesome crowd and for it worth. Yeah. I thought that was an interesting conversation. Anyways, before we jump into it, please make sure to hit subscribe to support our show. There's been a month-long law and military strikes between the US and Iran, but that ended yesterday as the two countries exchanged fire. On top of that, there's ground friction inside the administration as well. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned after months of tension with the Defense Secretary Hegseth six months into a war that shows no signs of ending. Given the reporting we're seeing about Defense Secretary Hegseth being warned about the risks of continuing to use so many resources in Iran, does the US have a choice except to increase economic pressure? How would you describe the state of things specifically, the politics surrounding it to us? Continue to be stuck between Iraq and a hard place. I think that Dan Driscoll's resignation, which we were expecting for the last several months, is a really important moment and a bit of a sea change in terms of who's actually pushing back against the folks at the highest levels of the Trump administration. Not only do you have the calls coming from inside the House, it's coming from an enormously important person, someone who is very close personally and professionally with Vice President Bans, and instead of kind of shirking away or disappearing and not really letting us know what this is about, Dan Driscoll went to Donald Trump and told him what this was about. Now, finally, the disconnect between what's happening on the ground and what the President knows in full force. It's just being laid out in front of us, which I think is hugely important. Like I said, a sea change here, Dan Driscoll going to the President and saying that the Army cannot transform the way it needs to. It cannot become the modern war-faring fleet that we need it to be. If it continues to be managed this way, and that doesn't mean that Dan Driscoll didn't believe in a lot of Pete Haccess initiatives, they were aligned on much of this, but certainly not in firing all of these generals. And he drew a straight line between lack of military readiness and the individuals that Pete Haccess was firing for whether he didn't like their social media posts, color of their skin, whatever it is that they dared to say, you know what, maybe we're shooting at fishermen and not actually at drug cartels. I don't know. Like what happened to that guy? We didn't hear from him. The fact that we are hearing this and in real time about what Dan Driscoll is telegraphing to the President is an enormous deal. And we are now without an Army Secretary, Army Deputy Secretary or Senate confirmed Army Chief of Staff. We have 450,000 active duty soldiers positioned across the globe, and we have fewer generals than at any point in recent modern history. And we're in the middle of the war, right? That was the lead to the segment that we're in, not saying it's a never-ending war, we're at six months, but it was supposed to be 48 hours. And we were going to accomplish all these incredible things. So I think Dan Driscoll, you know, he's a real loss for the administration and apparently the White House asked him to stay on through the midterms, and he said, "It's my time to go and I'm going to raise all the red flags as I'm walking out the door. What have you been, as someone taking in the news, but not necessarily talking about it? What have you thought about the last, you know, three, four weeks in terms of the war?" Well, I think the American public has taken for granted just how difficult it is to build high-performing organizations, and arguably the US military is the, over the last 80 years is the best-performing organization in history. And organizations are just typically legal entities with some hardware or assets, but the key is the, you know, greatness is in the agency of others. And in a previous life, I was an activist investor, and if you saw this kind of turnover at the senior level within a company, your next step would be to fire the CEO, because what they're saying is, "I don't have confidence in the leadership." And if everybody who knows the leadership of the CEO, specifically in this case, Defense Secretary Hexeth, voted with their feet and was leaving like this without budget cuts, this is, you would just say, "Okay, the problem is the leadership." I mean, this is sort of strange. It's a guy who really isn't qualified for the job, and it's not just kind of a revolved narrative. It's a purge and attrition narrative, and you've got 24 plus senior officers and under two years, which, as you pointed out, is really unusable, I have historical standards. And the mechanism is top-down removal, not bottom-up resignation and protest, although there's been a lot of that, it's also been from the top, and that is the Driscoll resignation is important, because it's not a general being fired. It's the civilian secretary of the army, and that Trump's own pick, walking out over an internal fight about whether the army can be reformed at all under Hexeth's leadership. And that's different than just your typical purge. It's someone from inside the administration saying the dysfunction is now structural. So you would, in any other situation, you would, if you were to look at an organization with this type of senior leadership, either being purged or deciding to leave, you would say, "The problem is the top guy." The problem is, I mean, unless you decided our military is just no longer functioning, and it needs to be entirely reformed. But so far, Ali can tell us, he's, you know, what are the themes here? It's faulty over competence. It's all this macho talk about no fat generals or beards anymore. And then the people who've actually fought these wars and had to command and lead hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of young men and women and command enormously expensive platforms, that Hexeth has decided they are not up to the fight. So, you know, either the body of the military, the most senior people who have been there for decades, and generally speaking, our military is considered one of the last meritocracy's organizationally, either that entire corpus is wrong or defense secretary Hexeth is wrong. So it's very, and again, people just assume that we're going to continue to be, this organization is going to continue to perform at the level it's performed at. And what you find is when you ignore organizations and you let people leave, you end up with exploding diaries. We've seen it at the CDC, when 25% of the scientists have left because they no longer have faith in their leadership with secretary Kennedy. So in any other environment, you would look at what's going on in the military and say, "Okay, the problem is the top guy, not the people below him." I just wonder when that permeates Trump's consciousness, because there have been a spate of articles about. one focused on the role that his wife is playing in all of this and you can see everybody becoming just more and more insular. I think what happened in the Biden administration was not malicious in the same way, but it does make me think back to when it became clear that Biden was only talking like five, six people, right? And that they were yes men and yes women about, you know, what, 20, this one, 24. I've never seen you more vigorous or whatever it is that they were telling him. And so you can see that happening within the administration. And I think that the boldness and bravery of Dan Driscoll taking it directly to Trump must have genuinely startled him. I don't know what happens as a consequence. But there's a question and I was talking about this last week with Ann Applebaum when the news came out that heck set that eliminated this drone unit. When it's very clear to anyone paying attention to modern warfare that you need more drone units, not less of them and that we are in a worse position. Because of our friend relationship with the Ukrainians, not to mention that we rejected their PowerPoint presentation and their offer of help when they came to Washington a year ago and said, I don't know you, you guys should probably take a look at this because this is where we're all going. And that was one of Driscoll's complaints that heck set was talking a big game about preparedness for a quote unquote modern warfare, but was actually making us less ready and I'm curious what you think his goals are then besides viral tweets and ridiculous videos, you know, like what is the plan because I don't believe that secretary heck set wants our men and women in uniform to die to be stationed in Iran or wherever it is and to get killed by drones that are coming in that we didn't expect or in makeshift offices that we have because we're not prepared for this kind of thing. And that would be insane to think that he would be comfortable with people who served the country passing away. So what is the idea there and I'm curious if there's more that will hear leads out about what Driscoll told Trump vis-a-vis what these goals actually are in practice because they're doing everything in their power, it seems to make us less ready and less prepared for what warfare looks today. And then another thing that occurred to me is when you're seeing all of these resignations, are they preparing for a ground war and these guys just had to say absolutely not like we were tapping out before you send, you know thousands in versus the ones who already stationed there hanging on aircraft carriers or the few that are on the ground or in our military basis. Hey, what's up guys? It's Babish and on this week's episode of In the Booth, I'm joined by chef cookbook author and food network legend Alex Goura Shelley. We're talking about shops, the Hamptons and what it takes to make a cry worthy pasta. You can listen now wherever you get your podcasts. So like any good millennial, I have a love-hate relationship with Gen Z. It's the phenomenon rattling millennials. They just look at you. They want something bigger themselves, lifestyle's a priority, motivation is being inspired. But regardless of how you feel about Gen Z, it's undeniable that they're changing national politics. Generation Z is increasingly showing less loyalty to traditional political parties, many now more likely to identify as independent. So what is going on with the kids? I think the biggest misconception about Gen Z's politics right now is that all of a sudden they're all socialist. That is just not the case. Yeah, yeah, they are embracing candidates who are offering new bold ideas in the absence of those ideas from establishment Democrats. This week on America actually, Gen Z researcher Rachel Jenfaza joins us to separate Gen Z facts versus fiction. It's not rocket science and this is, you know, I keep saying like young voters aren't that complicated after all. It's pretty simple. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. Yeah, in terms of a strategy or objective which have consistently changed and never were that clear. I mean, first it was regime change, then it was wiping out their nuclear capability, then it was destroying their navy, then it was cutting off access to the problem. I mean, this has been a moving target. I think at this point the administration's distinct and singular goal is just to find any sliver of hope, any opening such that they can in any way declare victory and leave and they tried that a couple weeks ago. They told I forget one of the senior administration officials to just go out there and say we won and the Iranians won't let them do that. The Iranians keep poking. It's like that tick tock of that male gorilla that keeps like poking his, his mate. They're not going to let them have this victory and what they realize going into the midterms is that this is where we are and this is the truth. The US is essentially losing a war to a middle power and also our military looks weak, our military bases all over the world which are an incredible source of strength. I think we have 700 of them in China has won are now no longer seen as defense, but as bulls eyes, he's lost the support of our allies in the Gulf. The EU is not interested in helping him. It's been an enormous transfer of power and leverage from the West to China. We're running out of munitions and his top I think is top personnel at least that's what I've read about what Driscoll said to Trump is saying we're in real trouble. We're burning through our munitions and there doesn't seem to be a strategy here. And we're also faced with a dynamic and this happens to I mean a lot of people will say it's not a fair comparison because this is a war of choice, but the reality is just to piss off everybody America is fat and happy. Russia is losing a thousand men a day in on the front lines in Ukraine and is continues to fight that war. We're just not willing to make anything resembling that type of sacrifice on a war that the majority of Americans think was a bad idea and you can understand that. And Iran knows that and whereas Iran their average monthly purchasing power has gone from $320 to $80, $3 and their economy is in a state of free fall. And yet as long as the RGC controls the guns and the economy there, they're willing to put their populace through that sort of suffering and it appears their populace is willing to endure that type of suffering. We're just dealing with an enemy that has a different skill set and tolerance for pain or ability to levy pain on its populace than us. And unfortunately the economic sanctions, economic sanctions weaken leadership. They usually don't inspire regime change whether you look at North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, the place it kind of did work. You could argue with years of sanctions in South Africa, but some people would argue that it was actually when Russia got up and left. So they're they're great at making a population miserable, but they're not great at winning wars and going into the midterms, I think the RGC has figured out we're going to make this guy look like such an ass. And we're going to keep poking him enough such that in no way can declare victory. We continue to show that we now have full control of a boot on the Karate artery of the global economy with the Strait of Hormuz. And we're just going to make this guy continue to look ridiculously bad and just proud him long enough that he can't declare in any way any sort of victory or peace, but not inspire more attacks, which the public is increasingly losing its appetite for it. They have one, they understand, I think to your point about being insular when you have so many people telling you you win and you're smart, he thinks he's negotiating against himself. He thinks he gets to decide the terms of the outcome here and the RGC and this is things that, you know, powers in a world, a unilateral world, you start to believe you start to believe that you get to dictate the terms of the outcome and it's not the enemy has a say here. So this is going into the midterms, this has not only bad politically, this has probably emboldened our enemies to recognize that we are absolutely a vulnerable superpower that the silver lining here is the following. And that is if we're going to learn anything from Ukraine and Iran, it's one word, it's a symmetry. And while we went from 1.1 trillion to 1.5 trillion, I think what this war shows us is that the potential here are the possibility and everyone's afraid to say this for fear they come off feminine instead of just smart there's an opportunity to take our military budget cut it in half. Because the weapons of war that are working aren't expensive platforms and be two bombers that have to be manned so we're scared about losing a $2 billion aircraft with a well-dressed handsome pilot that is going to be spread across social media if he or she parishes over the skies of Iran. The future of warfare is essentially motorcycles and go carts with C4 attached them powered by AI that's the opportunity opportunity rat you at some point a Democrat rather than just ship hosting the war which is obvious bad idea is going to start coming up with a plan for how to take. military expenditure down from one and a half trillion running out of munitions to a more lethal fighting force that cost five or six hundred billion a year. As you can tell, I've saved up a lot of rhetoric. No, I'm loving this. I'm just going to sit back and relax. Oh, there you go. Listen to the Scott Galloway show. No, it's so nice to have you back. Thank you for saying that. So he's obviously, it's also interesting and I would love this. Heck, Seth, yeah, recently traveled to Iowa and might be prepping for a presidential run. All I got to say, I have never been this tempted to donate to a campaign. I really hope Secretary Heck, Seth runs for president. I think this would be wonderful on a lot of levels. Here's what Trump had to say about Secretary Heck, Seth running in 2028. Sir, have you seen the reports that Secretary Heck, Seth is considering a 2028 run and could you see yourself supporting him? Well, I think he's doing a fantastic job, but it's very early to talk about that. We have to get through the midterms first, and I think he's a very good guy, but I bet there's a lot of people considering it that you don't know about. You know, you probably have, you have a lot of people, but he's done a great job. And right now, all he loves is, and all he cares about is the military and taking care of the military. All right, that's going to be fun. So let's move from a sanctions war to a trade war. There's still no resolution in the tariff battle between the US and our neighbor to the North Canada, which I would argue is probably the strongest alliance of the last 50 years, or the least, I don't know, the most benign largest undefended border in the world. So increased Canadian tariffs against the US are kicking in on September the 8th, just next week. The tariffs only impact about five to six percent of total US Canada trade. If you believe the media right now, you would think that literally all trade has stopped is five to six percent. It's a relatively small amount, and it's focused on politically sensitive stuff, including steel, dairy appliances, and construction materials. Do you think Trump's going to taco before the September 8th deadline? So I was talking about this at work at the five, and that was data pre-nosed thesis that they would hash this out on even maybe on Labor Day, and that Jameson Greer, our trade representative, isn't a dummy, and that he was actually on the brink of figuring out a new trade deal. And then, of course Howard Lutnik got involved and Lutnik did, and ran his big mouth, and it turned into what is now being called a trade war with our second biggest training partner in the world, and our number one friend, I would say. So I guess it's feasible, but Karni seems quite dug in, and has recast this debate, not about trade necessarily, but about Canadian independence, and how sick they are of hearing about the 51st state, or how dirty intruders are, whether they're coming from the north or from the south. When we talk about having an undefended border, you say it like a normal human being, which is basically there are no problems here, so why shouldn't it be as easy as driving your car back and forth across the border? I mean, a car to get made goes back and forth what, 10 plus times, and American car. These are things that should be easy, but when the Trump administration talks about an undefended border, they're talking about vermin, and poisoning the blood of Americans, because God forbid you marry a nice Canadian guy, who says like a boot and loves your mom, right? That's what I think of Canadians. So reframing it around Canadian independence has made me feel like Karni is willing to go the distance, and the actions that he's taken in building new alliances with folks like the Indians, the Chinese, to some extent, and obviously closing up more and more to the European Union and our NATO allies indicate that he's not trying to run the clock on the Trump administration. He thinks that he has to run the clock on a partnership with the United States at this level writ large, and I get that it's only 5 to 6 percent of this, and I get that they are being very targeted. I'd love to think they call her the industry minister, basically said we're aware of the politics of this, and we're going to target the places and the industries that will hurt the aggressors the most, and they know that that isn't the Democrats. In this case, it's probably not even most of the Republicans. If you see Susan Collins talking about this, I mean, well, in the mentoring section, we'll talk about the beef situation even more, but you see like Pete Ricketts, John Barrow, so these aren't insane people, right? Like they understand how trade works, and they understand how to protect American interests and how beneficial free trade can be with a partner that isn't trying to fuck you over, which the Canadians are not. That's what I think, and a Canadian husband would be nice, even though I like my husband a lot. This reminds me of what Lincoln said that you can't win a war without public support. You can't lose one with public support. Americans don't really understand this unless you're in a state that trades a lot with Canada. I think, well, it's my Canadian club about to get more expensive. What exactly is about to get more expensive hockey sticks? I don't think Americans are alarmed by this, and they're not even that angry at Canadians. They just don't think about it a lot. This is a source of national pride for Canada, and they have enormous the leadership there has enormous political support for playing hardball here. The number that should scare Americans and Trump, I advise a hedge fund or a couple hedge funds, and occasionally I think I'll think I'm on to something, and I'll call and I say this is a big theme you should be doing some research on in terms of if there's alpha to be found here, but one of the themes I highlighted in my call last week with them was the following. The number that should scare American industry is 130 billion, and that's the level of the amount of Canada EU trade. I would imagine there's about 740 billion in Canadian trade looking for a different trading partner right now, and I would imagine that Carney with his leadership and strong alliances and respect and all the relationships he's been acquiring in the EU that a lot of European companies are going to have the opportunity to replace American companies in terms of a trading relationship. I think what's going to happen here is Canada's going to see an opportunity like the RRGC to basically continue to poke the bear and say sorry. I think if even if he has since let Nick up there to go just kidding, we're going to let's go back to the way things are. I think Canada is going to say, yeah, well, how about, you know, fuck you? And what you have here is these trade agreements in this 870 billion dollars in trade has been shaped over 60 years of agreements and supply chain and legal constructs. This is the equivalent of essentially taking a jackhammer to a bearing wall in your house when you're renovating it that's taken 60 years to build because you don't like the color of the wall. This is just such short term thinking. So everyone's betting on whether Trump will fold not recognizing again, there's another player here that has much more political support to continue this trade war now than the US. Americans Americans mostly don't care unless you're in a state that does his trade and Canada if it goes really gangster is going to target the swing states and say, okay, you want to we're going to press on the soft issue. So again, another miscalculation, another incredibly poor move strategically not thinking through first, much less second order effects. But that is the big theme and even connects the two topics that we've covered already today that other people and other nations have agency and in the eyes of the Trump administration, they are the only entity that matters and Iran is showing them. We can actually do what we want and they don't care what happens to their populace anyway. So it's a lot easier to continue on that path. And you know, the number of articles or reports that have come out during Trump 2.0 at their great surprise that Denmark is pushing back when they say we're just going to take Greenland because we want it or that our Asian allies are looking for protection elsewhere, right? How mad he gets at South Korea, how mad he gets at Japan. And it's like, well, your actions have consequences, buddy. If you're going to act like Putin and, you know, North Korea aren't that bad, then people are going to look around and realize that they're scared and that there are other scared entities and that they can forge real partnerships with them to push back on the big bad wolves. And I don't want to be a wolf. I don't want to be a big bad wolf. I want to be like the good kind of wolf. Is there are there good wolves? I don't know. But you know, okay. Yeah, I think they're called dogs. Those are the good those are the good wolves. That's a good segue into maybe if you could give us a bit of a round the round the US update on some of these key Senate races, according to CalChi, there's an 85% probability that Democrats retake the House, but a 52% probability that the Republicans maintain control of the Senate. Talk to us about what's happened in the last 30 days and some of the key races. Yeah, so So overall environment, very favorable for Democrats, and Trump's approval now is in the low 30s everywhere you look. What you were saying about this trade war with Canada targeting swing states, you can see the ad-jack terror on the faces and in the words that the candidates in those states are putting out there like Susan Collins, Mike Rogers, is in doing the best job in Michigan because he still doesn't want to get off the America first track and he can't have Trump pissed at him, but he's basically had to say, "We need to be a little more nuanced in how we do this. Ohio, it's obviously a really big deal. Sherrod Brown has been looking good, up eight plus points in recent polling, but between the war in Iran, the trade war, and then the attacks on farmers, vis-a-vis importing all of this foreign beef." I mean, the stuff that got recalled, I guess, isn't that important anymore. That speaks to our problem with food and the American diarrhea epidemic, but that has prompted more backlash from Republican senators than we've seen in a long time, probably since liberation day. So anyone who represents a state with a lot of farming has come out and said, "This isn't the way to do it," and that Americans want to buy American beef, and this is supposed to be the America first administration. So people like John Baroso, Pete Ricketts, Tim Sheehy, Cindy Heitz, Smith, Kevin Kramer, from North Dakota said, "He's in serious trouble in farm country, he being Trump and Trump is us. I'm not very optimistic." Still, I know it's just around 60-ish days until the midterms, but a lot can happen, and I don't want to paint a picture in which people woke up and suddenly love the Democrats, but there have been some moves that I think are really important to note. The comparison to 2018, which a lot of people are making, works on some levels, but not on one fundamental level, which is that in this election, because Democrats overperformed so much in 2024, we actually have 215 seats. So we're playing, what is it, an 84 districts that are the House battlefield, 69 of them are in Trump-1 districts that we're either playing offense or playing defense in. So think about that. That basically, everything is a swing election versus in 2018 when we had a huge amount of ground to make up. I think we only had 194 seats. So like, sky's the limit, right, and you can pull off, what was it, a 41-seat win, which are the blue tsunami that was in 2018? So things are closer, but there are a few things that I'm paying attention to, Democratic leadership shared some data with me that was really interesting. So between April and August of this year, so just a few months, Democrats have made huge gains with voters in terms of who is trusted to manage the economy, inflation, and trade. This has been the number one option when it comes to healthcare. When you think about what this election is going to be about, odds are it's something in those categories. So that's a really good thing. And I noticed as well, so Mike Johnson was giving a press conference, and he said, we've got common sense problem-solving solution-oriented candidates. No mention of America first, no mention of Donald Trump. So they are trying to pivot away from affiliation with Trump to win in a lot of these tight seats. And there's a Republican House candidate Ralph Alvarado. So he's in Kentucky one by 15 points, and he just did a revamp of his website. He stripped Trump off of it, deleted a photo of them together, removed mentions of it, and he went from an America first fighter to independent leadership. So the rebrand is happening, and it will be incumbent on Democrats to point this out at every turn, that these people who were locked up with Trump through the first two years of this don't get to show up at election day and pretend like they've had an independent thought in their entire lives. What happened is that they saw a bunch of polling, the people are pissed about their cost of living, and now they're going to lie to them about how they went along with Donald Trump, and frankly what they'll do if they get reelected or win their seats in the back half of the Trump second term. I already talked a little bit about Texas, it felt very good, you know, it will still be a long shot. But Jonathan Martin has a great political piece up about how the map has just opened up for Democrats. Ohio and Iowa being in play, Mary Posthola, it's like a perfect campaign going on in Alaska. You would have liked this, you know, she was asked about Kamala Harris campaigning was like, no, thank you. So people are leaning into their backbone, I would say, about the 2024 election and really telling the voters that they're, they're clear-eyed about what went on, two things that are still red flags to me in pursuit of a big win in the house and picking up some of these Senate seats. Human policing is still a big issue for people, and I don't think that Democrats have figured it out. I am so frustrated listening to blue state governors, for instance, going to bragging about, you know, I won't cooperate with ICE instead of saying, hey, ICE, here are the criminals. Get them out of my state so that I can protect the citizenry and that it can be crystal clear that you are going after the guy who's been here for 30 years and works at home depot. I think that is such a fumble on their part, and it lets people think that Republicans are the ones that are serious about it. And then the other is this, you know, what's going on with the DSA. This isn't about me being a squidgy moderate or anything like that. They need to get the messaging under control so that they can win their races and that they don't prevent people who don't think we should abolish the Senate from being able to run their own races. I just said how many seats were defending or trying to play offense in that Trump won. You can't have a clip of someone saying, you know, to Boris Sanchez, whose grandfather was an imprisoned in Cuba. It doesn't work. People who came from those places fled for a reason. And I don't want to see it anymore and I'm going to have to on the five. So everyone should stop to protect me also. Yeah. I'm hoping it feels like it's half life has already passed half the DSA. And what I think is missing is that, whereas the Republicans talked about a big tent when they had just raging bigots get on stage at CPAC, the Democrats need to have their sister soldier moment and say anything that just reeks of anti-Semitism and promotes economic models that have never worked, we need to reject right out of hand. Well, I'm disappointed that, you know, Jewish governors who want to be president are coming across as neutered and not saying anything and ignoring what it feels to me like just straight up anti-Semitic rhetoric and that the new litmus tests for whether you're true DSA is how anti-Israel/anti-Semitic can you be? The two names or the braces I'd be curious to get your thought on, the person I discovered in August, so I'd never heard of before that I just think it's just so incredibly impressive as this kid who looks like my son's roommate at UVA, it's his name Rob Sands out of the --Oh, yeah. --A this kid. Well, first off, he looks 14, but then he starts talking and you think this guy is FDR. I mean, I, he has kind of that merit-peat, like whatever he says, you just start nodding your head and thinking, my God, is this kid smart? What are his prospects? Then I want to talk about Michigan, because I don't feel like I have a read on the Michigan race and a lot of my own biases, I think, are cladding my judgment. So let's start with the governor's race and what are your thoughts there? --Oh, Rob Sands. I mean, I'm not key on what. He should win that race. He's running, exactly, and who he's running against is also not a great candidate. He's from Kansas. He gives shitty interviews, so that's, it's a bit of a perfect storm there, but Rob Sands is the guy who, until pretty recently, people didn't even associate with a Democratic party. None of his branding has to do with national party affiliation. He has voted for Republicans in his past. He's given interviews, explaining why he did that, and he's an auditor, and his, his big thing is rooting out corruption, and he's like, I'm going to do that from the governor's mansion as well. I think Rob Sands is absolutely incredible, and the Michigan race is quite different from when you left. So the initial polling after the primary was Mike Rogers ahead of Abdul Al-Sayed, and now Abdul is ahead, and you're seeing some consolidation for folks who were uneasy about him, whether that was some Jewish voters, some black voters who supported Haley Stevens. He made an apology to the Jewish community over his comments after the synagogue attack where he called in an act of terror, heard people, heard people, heard people, so I have a lot of friends, Jewish people in Michigan, some who work in big Jewish organizations, and who are really desperate to be able to get there with Abdul and do notice that. He is extending olive ranches, he is willing to make an apology, whether they fully trusted or not. I'm not sure. You know, people who are politicians, most of the time, you know, folks understand even the best ones are expedient when they need to be. But I am more optimistic about it because they just, I mean, in an insane blue wave year, and you do this without holding Michigan, sure, but we shouldn't have to. One person who I'm interested in, and I'm getting a lot of comments about, well, why don't you talk about her more as Annie Andrews, the doctor running in South Carolina against Lindsey Graham sister now, and there was a new pull out just this morning that had her a couple points up. I don't know. I'm very cautious about spending, you know, putting money where it can actually go to good use and South Carolina feels like South Carolina. But she's pretty great and also not someone closely affiliated with the Democratic Party. She talks about, you know, cutting taxes and regulations and she's a doctor and people still trust doctors, even if they believe in vaccines. Yeah, it's pretty clear who was the smarter kid in the Graham family and the, and that's Lindsey. I just think it's unacceptable on a debate stage to say the national security or foreign policy isn't your thing or isn't your specialty. It's like, well, okay, aren't you running to be Senator? Yeah. That would, I mean, I would be really exciting if that ever came close to being in play. I have a chat group or what's app group with some college friends who are, I don't want to say single issue voters, but feel very strong about Israel and asked how I felt about El Sayed and how do I reconcile being a Democrat with a guy who has said some really upsetting things and I said, look, these are, this is a conversation we should absolutely have around support for Israel and what does it mean to be concerned about Israel, but anti Netanyahu, which is a lot of my friends, just as I'm concerned about America and don't feel strongly about Trump or feel strongly against Trump. But we don't even get to have these conversations. If candidates, including micro-udgers, refuse to acknowledge the Biden on the election. It's like, if you can't, if you can't acknowledge basics of our democracy and you're willing in order to get close to the fire of power, if you're willing to basically ignore democratic principles, then we can't even have in a conversation around what it means America's role in the Middle East and its alliance with Israel. So I'm a one issue voter. If you can't acknowledge free and fair elections, that's disqualifying for me. So I'll be very curious. That's a race. I also, the interview that your colleague did with Al-Sahad, I thought was a real misstep on his part. When he equated gender affirmation and transition to circumcision, I think he gave Republicans an enormous talking point. I don't think that's a fair, I don't think that's, I think that is a false equivalence and that was a rookie move on the part of his comms team that's just a, that's a layup. And I think that the democratic party on cultural issues needs to pivot to the center pretty aggressively, pretty quickly. And also, as I said before, call out or be more willing to call out just how head up your ass, some of these, some of these economic policies are from the left. All right. Just before we go, something that's, a trend that's exploded online, pheromone maxing. And it's, unfortunately, it's exactly what it sounds like and that is, it's a trend on TikTok, mostly being followed by teen boys and young men, where the data, or the ideas to stop showering, skip the deodorant, wear the same shirt a few extra days and let your natural musk build up. And supposedly this makes you more attractive because of pheromones. And some are even taking it to an extreme believing that the really committed ones are, or should are apparently drinking their own urine to optimize their pheromones. Obviously, I have some thoughts here, Jess, but I'd love to get your thoughts first. I mean, I'm all for like a post workout, romp, or whatever, but this seems really inadvisable. And I, in preparing for the show, I was disappointed to find out that it's apparently more myth than factual that Napoleon, when he was returning home, wrote to his wife, Josephine, and said, like, I'll be home in a few weeks, do not bathe because I had kind of lived by that. And I make sense in the context of the time period, but apparently I'm, it's just mythical. Your natural scent, it is meaningful. People fall in love with it. It's what binds people to be attracted to one another through thick and thin because human beings are pretty gross, right, and, and, and do dirty things in bathrooms and stuff like that. But this is a bad, bad idea. You don't have to be over-coloned. You don't have to have sent to deodorant or anything like that. It's not particularly masculine, but stinking is just stinking, and it's not good. Yeah, I think this is, granted, I'm a hammer, everything I think is a nail. But I saw this as an issue around, not pheromones, but about where a 16-year-old boy goes to get advice in a lack of male mentorship. And that is, I've spent a lot of time or a decent amount of time telling my boys, you need to shower, and it's also not just about smelling good. It's about not smelling bad, and the fastest way to ensure you're never going to kiss anyone is to have bad breath. And I talk about smells a lot. Do you? Yeah, I constantly tell my boys to lift their arms and I smell their armpit. And if they smell, I tell them to go shower, and I, you know, it's, men need to train, not train. To advise and mentor young men around the importance of smells, specifically the importance of not smelling. That's where you start. It's not about the right cologne. It's about starting from a baseline of not smelling. And what this, unfortunately, says about our society, is that not enough men are raising boys, but algorithms are raising them. And algorithms find and promote extreme novel misinformation and bullshit. And rather, so the void being filled here by a lack of male role models is algorithms that immediately go to the furthest, most ridiculous information around drinking your own urine. And this is what happens when, when algorithms are left to raise young men. And I think that there's a broader problem in society where we're drawn to this extreme weirdness and bullshit and the algorithms love it because there's an economic incentive around it. And where do we end up with when there's algorithms filling the void of a lack of male mentorship? We end up with TikToks of young men drinking their own urine. Anyways, maybe that's, maybe that's a good place to, to leave a just let's, I'm not sure where we could go, frankly, after TikTok tell you to drink your own pig. I'm good with it. But I do, I mean, you love an opportunity, obviously, to talk about mentoring young men. But this is definitely like first day Scott back that you were like, even the last story. I want to focus on and think how I can link this to something broader. So I'll just reiterate, it's so nice to have you back and I'm glad you had a nice break. Happy to rage with you. Thanks, Jess. Good to be back. (upbeat music)