On this edition of the program, welcome to the new era of yellow journalism. Also, Rescormon joins us to talk about Texas and Oklahoma. It's all coming up. Following is brought to you by Justin, other pilot. [Music] Hello and welcome everybody to the politics, politics program for March 18, 2026, your old pal Justin Robert Young joining you. We've got elections in Illinois. Now we will not be discussing as we're recording this beforehand, but we'll get to that in the next episode heads up for those results. I want to talk about some of the coverage around the Iran War because I've got some thoughts of exactly how we have slipped into another world of a journalistic paradigm. The return of yellow journalism, the legs of which that we have not seen since the early 20th century. And then some updates, news updates on the Iran War, including the killing of the Iranian security chief, a quitting of one of the members of Donald Trump's national director of intelligence a office joke Kent. He's out. He wrote a public letter smashing the Iran War and then a new campaign ad for John Cornyn against Ken Paxson are AI era. AI swap era continues, unabated. Before we get going, a few things to highlight domestically before we get into the world of the international. Suzy Wiles announcing on social media and being confirmed through the White House that she has breast cancer. She is going to undergo treatment while still in office. You know, we'll find out exactly what how intense that treatment is. There are different ways that you can you can handle something like that depending on when it was found. I would imagine that this at the very least means she's in through the midterms. Sometimes chief of staffs leave around that time, especially if there are losses, she's just going to be a different job. She's extraordinarily loyal to Donald Trump. If Donald Trump wants her there, I think it would be hard for her to say no, but obviously health comes first, something to keep in mind. Suzy Wiles is by far in the political life of Donald Trump, the person who has brought the most stability. So if you find this administration to be chaotic, understand that it is more purposeful than the first one, the shambolic Trump 1.0. Also a real quick update on the Department of Homeland Security shut down that continues to stretch onward. Democrats getting to Republicans a new set of demands. They are also now beginning to buckle on the idea that well, we should fund everything in the DHS, including TSA, but not ice. That's not going to happen. That's not how these things work. So we'll find out when this ends. More TSA agents are calling out because they are missing paychecks and I have a flight tomorrow. So that'll be fun. We'll find out whether or not I can get through TSA to get to my flight tomorrow. Let's start with this though. Yellow journalism. It's back in a big way. Let me define this. So for folks who are not aware of what the concept of yellow journalism is, it is mostly defined by the Spanish American war. The Spanish American war started with the sinking of the USS Maine. That happened in a terrorist attack that galvanized the nation to go to war against Spain. Remember the Maine became the slogan. That is how we understand the concept of yellow journalism. Why? Because well, as it turns out, the main exploded for reasons that were entirely unrelated to terrorism. It was, as one might refer to somewhere between a happy accident or a false flag. Here is a definition of yellow journalism. A style of news reporting that prioritizes sensationalism, emotion and attention grabbing headlines over accuracy or nuance. It is exaggerated and misleading headlines focus on scandal conflict or outrage. Then sourcing or rumors presented as fact, it is designed to provoke strong emotional reactions like fear, anger and excitement and often simplifies context into good versus evil narratives. Back in the day, the, you know, Jordan Magic Johnson duo or Magic Johnson, Ellery Bird duo that defined the genre was William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer to rival publishing magnets that each ran their oftentimes conflicting narratives against each other for the heart and soul of America. So obviously the one thing that you would say is that we don't have gatekeepers nearly as powerful as Hertz and Pulitzer anymore. And to that, you would be right. So how are we, even if we agree that all of these things exaggerated missing, leading headlines of focus on scandal, thin sourcing, uh, provoking of strong emotion and simplifying complex issues? If we agree that all those things happen, then how do they happen and who directs them? Well, the good news about our new more democratized version of yellow journalism is that there are a lot more people that can play it, but you do need a little bit of equipment. If you want to push a narrative, but you need to do is either find something that you can distort or create fake news by yourself. And then you have a bot farm that artificially boosts these stories. In some ecosystems like Facebook, it's just a matter of paying for it. And then other times on Twitter and, uh, you know, other blue sky stuff like that, you, you need fake sock puppet accounts. That boosts these things, uh, through the algorithm. But just throwing it up into the world doesn't really get you anywhere. If I decided that all cats are made of pizza and I have proof, and then I put out a very compelling tweet or short video about it, if people don't really care about it, it's not going to matter. So what you need to do is tailor it for a specific kind of community. And I'm going to give you an example. In the current meta, the news meta, the social media meta, there are one, two, three, four, five, five tribes that I'm going to identify for you. And if you want to get a news story out there, here's what you do. You create or find some little shard of something that you throw up through boosted algorithmic steroids that you hope will be latched on to by one of these five tribes, maybe even more. If you can find a little gray area on the Venn diagram, at that point, it truly goes viral on social media and legacy go ship news agencies like the New York Times or CNN who aren't editorial confident enough to tell you what they believe the news should be. Instead, looks to social media for some kind of proof that the audience cares about it. So they will then use their resources to report on and oftentimes truly just validate the idea that a conversation is going on about one of these posts. There we go. That's how you get from either outright fake news or a totally distorted shard of information to the front page of the New York Times. So what are these five tribes? When it comes to Iran, and I would say largely this is generally true with a lot of politics, Thanks, but I might have.
have little, uh, differences of opinions when it comes to other subjects, but on a run, I feel pretty confident that these are the five tribes here, here they are. Number one, the new resistance. These are Democrats who are just in general infuriated by the Republican presidency. This is James Carville barking into his webcam screaming that he has Trump derangement syndrome and he hopes he gets more deranged like that kind of Democrat that post Trump winning the White House again kind of fell in a vat of acid and now just doesn't care anymore. They're mostly defined by the fact that they just don't really have any compunction to hold to any moral high ground and they're very, very flexible about what they latch onto like the Epstein files. Those were things that they obviously did not care about. They then saw that it was momentum against Trump and it damaged Trump a little bit and so it became their entire personality. So like right now with Iran, they're not really rooting for Iran and to be honest, they're not really paying attention to a lot of the military elements of it. They mostly just look at Iran as a thing that will hurt Donald Trump. And so they are for it being messy and bad. Staying on the left hand of our dial, we have the progressive hashtag never Israel left. This is a very confident group right now because for them everything they have foretold has come true. Donald Trump was never a peace candidate. He was never an anti war candidate. He was always somebody who would be pushed around by BB Netanyahu. He was always a vassal to the money of Miriam Adelson. His appeals to populism flimsy. He will send your child to die for greater Israel and he will nuke Turkey for Lakoud. This is probably typified more by your kind of drop site news, some of like your breaking points, you know, extraordinarily Israeli skeptic and now are very emboldened as like the true anti war faction in America. They do not like it and they believe that we are being let along by the nose by Israel. Now, and this is important for where I'm going to go in terms of laundering a story into the, the, the highest rungs of journalism. But they very much believe they're the closest that I would say in good faith. There are people that are kind of rooting for Iran, not because they believe Iran is some great force of good, but they would like to see Israel fail and they would like to see America's faith in Israel not be rewarded. So within that, you have a deep belief that Israel and the United States are lying about what is happening. What a pin in that because we're going to come back to it. All right, let's switch over the meridian divide here. Now we're into the generally understood to be right wing part of our ecosystem. This is the Nostek Maga gospel. All right. The Maga gospel of Lodder Day Saints, blessed be their name, Candace Evans, Megan Kelly Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Donald Trump is not their savior. He is simply a man who has led to the truth. The truth is mass deportations. The truth is no foreign wars. And unfortunately, Donald Trump has proved himself on worthy of the title of the leader of this movement because he has backed down on all these things. He has done what he swore he wouldn't do. Be just like George Bush. Be just like Dick Cheney. Get the United States into a war that it has no idea how to get out of. Oh, keep telling me six to eight weeks. Keep telling me six to eight weeks. That's the exact same thing that we were told all throughout the 2000s. And when you start shipping off recent high school graduates to die in the desert, just like the last group of Republicans did, then guess what? We're going to have to go through the wilderness again to find the leaders that we deserve. Except these folks believe they already have that leadership class, the clear eyed morals that are about the vision and not about the person. They're kind of wishy-washy on whether or not things are working in Iran. They are just deeply skeptical that it is removable. Everything that happens is happening likely because we will be there for 10 years. They are now bracing and winsing for every justification that will come along with every escalation. Right frankly, they don't believe Donald Trump, a man that they absolutely voted for. That leads us to the Donald Trump was right about everyone group. Panicans to the back. Oh, all the weak need people. They said the last strike on Iran was going to erupt World War three Tucker Carlson was having a con-niption for. Well it did. Then his whale it was going to be a quagmire. Remember I was going to send my children to die there too. Oh, yeah, except now the American flag flies in front of the embassy. We have oil executives visiting and they're in the world baseball classic funny how that works out. And then the final USA versus Venezuela, by the way, I guess a US on top either way. So then let's focus on Iran. And in general, the Donald Trump was right about everything folks. They're not crazy about the idea that we are going to war in in Iran. It is something odd. This is not the natural thing that they're in love with. But can we just review the record two weeks in the missile launch capabilities essentially attried to the point where they cannot refuel. We're playing whack-a-mo with the rest of it. They're Navy gone. The vast majority of the IRGC leadership gone. They're supreme leader. They're God king. This currently a possibly comatose nepotbaby who may or may not be gay. You telling me that's inspiring to a religious revolution? Now, look, if this stretches in to July, August, September, then you'll probably see a lot of these Donald Trump is right about everything folks move in to the Nostek Maga gospel. But right now, they're a little indigment. Can we at least give this guy enough time to do what he said he was going to do? He said it was six to eight weeks and it might be shorter than let's at least do that. Can we at least give the man the time it would take to renovate Donna Kelsey's kitchen? So okay. There's one more and this is a strange one. I almost didn't list them, but I do feel like they do play an outsized role in some of the rungs of political thought that have existed for a really long time. And that is the, okay, made me this time, Trump, Neocards. Now they were never Trump, Neocards. But I mean, maybe this time, because they're right now in a win-win situation. They hate Donald Trump. They believe Donald Trump should be in jail. And they've wanted exactly this kind of action against Iran since the 70s. So let's say Trump wins. Let's say the regime falls or is a trended to the point where the rest of the golf nations can kind of keep them in check in a totally different way. Well, great. The thing we want to happen. Let's say it doesn't happen. And the regime on some level rises even stronger than it was before.
Great. We get to play him Donald Trump and you can see whether or not that plan worked. And all these people will probably write books about what he should have done in the same way that they've written books about what he should have done since 2016. Now, I say all that about these tribes, not to kind of quantify everybody or put them in buckets, but largely just sort of define clouds of people that are on social media. And I think whether or not you agree exactly with my definitions, we can all agree that these clouds broadly exist. And sometimes they overlap with each other. Sometimes they are totally separate. Like for example, there's probably not going to be a lot that the Trump was right about everything, folks agree with on the new resistance folks, but when it comes to the never Israel left and the Nostek Maga gospel, well, you start to see a little bit of overlap. And you might even get a little bit of that with the, the, the new resistance. And get a little bit of new resistance into there. Okay. So that's a ripe spot. That's a group where a lot of very, very, very active social media posters will put stuff online and they'll comment on it and they'll talk about it. You know, in a vacuum of information, which is what war is, little shards can become bigger. Now I don't know all of this to be true, but I'm going to tell a story. Let's say you are the nation of Iran. And from your perspective, when you look at the, you know, the internals, it's not going great. Okay. A lot of the things that you were kind of hoping would break your way have not broken your way just yet. And one of the big things is that, you know, you've set up this theocratic leadership that is supposed to inspire your people. It is supposed to be driven locally by the mullahs on the ground. But right now you've got a real problem because your old supreme leader was killed by your sworn enemies. And when you put in a new supreme leader, there are some questions as to whether or not he's alive. And for the sake of this story, let's say, he's alive technically, but you know, we don't know exactly when he is going to be doing jumping jacks. Let's say he's pretty worse for wear and he'll likely never give any kind of public statement in the way that his father did. Well, you need to start to see the ground that anything you hear from the enemy is a lie. And so what you do is you build up some again kernels of truth. The fact that Israel and a lot of these Gulf states do not allow the publishing, the social media publishing of videos of damage that is caused by Iran. Now in general, no country on earth has the first amendment, but still this is showing that Iranian damage is far greater than what you would hear in the Western media. It is being suppressed for you. So some of that is true. It's exaggerated, but it's true. You pump that up algorithmically. And now that just kind of gets into the bloodstream, and especially through those clouds of users. But that doesn't stop the fact that you got to get ahead of the idea that your supreme leader might never be heard from. So you start a new rumor. The prime minister of Israel, BB Netanyahu is dead. Dead as a door nail. Oh my God, what a scandal that would be. If this is true, what else is true? Why is nobody talking about the fact that BB Netanyahu is dead? Why? Are there videos out there? Oh, probably because they're AI. Look at the pixels, bro. So you have that rumor and you pump that up algorithmically. And now into that cloud, you are definitely hitting the Nostek Maga Gospel. You're definitely hitting the never Israel left. And you are hitting a portion of the new resistance. You get even if it's not to say that it's true just to discuss the idea of what would happen if BB Netanyahu is dead. That gets enough traction that now CNN has to cover it. The New York Times has to cover it. BBC has to cover it. Because Benjamin Netanyahu makes a video responding to it. To show that he's alive, which of course leads to another round of rumors that all the video he posted proves that he's AI. Now since then, he's we've seen behind the scenes footage of the shooting of that commercial. We've seen him with my cock ofy. It's not true. But it takes something that is, let's go back to that first description, exaggerated and misleading, focusing on scandal conflict and outrage, then sourcing and rumors designed to provoke strong emotional reactions and simplifying complex issues into good versus evil narratives. If Benjamin not Nyaahu is dead, then that means that you can't trust anything that comes out of the Western press because they have not reported it. They haven't hinted at it. You haven't seen it on social media. You can't trust the social media algorithms. The only truth that exists is anybody who tells you this BB Netanyahu is dead. It's kind of like flat earth and I don't mean that in a negative sense in that it's not true, which it's not. But flat earth is something that is fascinating to me because it kind of almost inherently has to be the Voltron of a bunch of other different conspiracy theories. Because usually what flat earth is is not necessarily a story about the fact that the earth is flat. It's more why we don't acknowledge it. So who's got to be in on it? The media, academia, NASA, the list goes on and on and on. BB Netanyahu is dead as a rumor that does a lot of effective trust shredding for exactly the right reasons. I don't really have a moral to this story. It is just something that I've noticed. That would encourage is Ryan McBeth was on last week to just give you the wash your hands, good hygiene advice that if something makes you mad on the internet or all too happy on the internet, think twice about retweeting it, especially if it has a diametric political point of view. But no one's coming to save us. Yellow journalism is back. Weaponized headlines, especially in times of war, are just going to be a part of our lives, the likes of which we haven't seen in a while. I guess on some level, this means that the people that you can find that you can trust matter more. And I hope that I can continue to be that for you. This is your update brought to you by TechPolitics Seriously.com. It's where you need to go. If you want to get a bonus episode of this show twice a week, let's get into some actual news from the war. Israel said that it has killed Iranian security chief Ali Laharihani in an overnight air strike in Tehran. This according to Defense Minister Israel Katz. There's also a report that a senior Bosch commissioner was also killed. The strike comes amid broader leadership crisis after Ayatollah Ali Kamehni was killed in the opening hours of the US Israeli attacks. His son, my
Hodge tubba coming in has taken over, but as obviously not appeared publicly. Um, I'm not going to pretend to be a military expert here. If I'm just looking at things generally like a game of risk of like, who's got more pieces, who's got less pieces on the board, it does us. It looks like as we enter a third week of this war that Iran's taken a lot of incoming and they already had to backtrack on the straight of Hormuz thing. The price of a barrel of oil is now dropping again. I had a conversation with somebody who knows a lot more about this than than I do that, part of the reason why Iran can't really shut down the straight of Hormuz is that when they sell oil, nobody really knows where that oil is going to go once it leaves the straight. It could be on the way to New York and then wind up in Amsterdam. Why? Because Amsterdam's going to pay 50 cents more per barrel. So we don't get a ton from the straight, the United States doesn't, but then again, it'd be extraordinarily hard for Iran to identify where these tankers were going to sell to. It'd be very, very difficult. It would also be very difficult to man it full time to harass these tankers on a level that you would have nothing coming out of there. So you've got a leadership crisis. Your first gambit to inflame the region and hope that the Gulf States told the United States to stop has not. And the Hormuz gambit hasn't worked. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. Obviously, you have not seen the kind of popular demonstrations that you saw at the beginning of the year. That would be something that would, you know, you'd probably like to see, but also, you know, you've got Masad on Twitter doing spooky tweets like, you know, your battle is about to arrive. Buh, blah, blah. So I don't know if there's going to be an Ali Ali oxen free. Obviously, Israel and the United States continue to kind of tick through the Iranian org chart. It doesn't appear that anybody was really safe. You've got some rumors from Axios that the foreign minister has begun talking to American counterparts. He came out yesterday and said that wasn't true. I don't know. Here's something awkward. Joe Kent, a top aid to director of national intelligence, Chelsea Gabbard in the head of the National Counterterrorism Center is resigned in protest of the Trump administration war in Iran. He becomes the first major official to step down over the conflict. Kent said that he could not support the war, arguing Iran posed no imminent threat. And suggest US involvement was driven by pressure from Israel. Though White House strongly rejected his claims with Donald Trump, and officials insisting that there were compelling intelligence that are on plan to attack the US lawmaker split among familiar lines with some Democrats back in Kent's concern and Republicans defending the administration's actions. Now the administration has come out hard on Kent, saying that he had been busted for leaking a week and a half ago. This wasn't him quitting. He was about to be fired. So he wants to do it in a blaze of glory. I don't know what the reality is there. I would say that his opinion is certainly well in line with the Nostek Maga tribe. And he was somebody that very much came from the never Israel left in general. So he is very much himself in that gray area. As is Tulsi Gabbard for the record. And we'll see whether or not that shoe drops at some point. But I don't know. This is my biggest hot take for policy wise. He's everybody gets, oh, you can die for Israel. Israel led the United States by the nose into this war. Now Saudi Arabia can't say it publicly. Israel can say, we're going to kill you. You try to kill us. I'm going to take all of you down, BB Netanyahu, who can get up on his desk and do a stone cold Steve Austin promo and, you know, slam two gold stars together and drink them both, right. He can do that. Israel can because Israel and Iran are mortal enemies. A rod of Saudi Arabia don't like each other, but you know, they are theocracies generally speaking. It is not, you know, the way to do it. It would be her arm for Saudi Arabia to say that the United States and Israel should destroy Iran. Do we know that they desperately wanted to happen? Oh, hell yeah. We do. We absolutely know that that is the case. In fact, reporting still coming out today that Saudi Arabia, their only note on this war is please hit a rod harder. This in general is what I have kind of internalized as like the Gulf countries, the Middle East in general, looking at the next 100 years and saying, you know, we kind of want to be part of, we want to be West adjacent. We want to be, hey, honey, should we vacation in Greece or Dubai? We want to hire from Western workforces. We want to be the participants of the AI boom. We want to have WrestleMania. That's what we want. We want F1. We want WrestleMania. We want AI. We want all of your Western toys. We probably want an NBA franchise eventually. That's what we want. What do we have to give up? Probably jihad. We're going to have to probably step down on the idea of we're going to kill the West by way of violence. Well the biggest problem there is, there's one neighbor that still is really into that. A lot of the other ones, we're tilting. We're tilting. You know, where you a yeet guitar, like, you know, like the sports wash a little, hey, would you like to play golf here? Okay, okay, okay. A rod and none of it. The Jews need to be dead. The Americans need to be dead. And we will spend every penny we have to make sure that that happens. Ooh, not great. And if you have a nook, then that means you can shut down the straight of hormones a lot more effectively than you're able to now. Oh, he Jews, hey, Americans, why do you say get them the hell out of there? That's what I think at least. All right. We had a commercial for you. This is going to be best on video. So if you're not watching us on sub sec TV or on YouTube, I would encourage you to go find this part of the episode where at the last few days for either John Corninger Ken Paxton to drop out of the race and not have their names on the ballot, doesn't seem like either them are going to do it. Oh, he's letting down the crew a tie way. Looking for his line, get away. Yeah, I'm not going to do it.
♪ Oh, can't look sharp baby, can't look sharp baby ♪ ♪ Love, sharp baby, love, sharp baby ♪ ♪ Can't look sharp ♪ Here's my only note, B-52's Georgia Band. Not a Texas Band. Come on, come on, you can find, you know, ZZ Top, every girl's crazy about a scandal plagued man. She's got legs and Ken knows how to use them, right? There's that, if you wanna go for a more hip version, you know, like she's from Texas, I can tell by the way that Ken's paying for condo, something like that. ♪ It doesn't take a craze to ball to see that Ken's wife ♪ ♪ Finally found a way to leave ♪ You can do a lot, you can do a lot there. Anyway, all right, that's gonna, that's gonna be crazy. We're gonna talk a little bit more about that with Rescormon. Starting now, this is your update. Again, take politicsseriously.com. If you wanna get two bonus episodes each and ever week, let's go ahead and get to Reese. (whooshing) (crowd cheering) I'd like to welcome to the program, Rescormon. He is a great reporter and writer for, notice for now, notice for long according to reports. There might be a shining sun, a twinkling star. We never know what is in Reese's future, but for right now, he is a reporter for notice. And we are very excited to have him on to talk about Texas and Oklahoma. How you doing, Res? - Doing good. Thank you for having me on, Joseph. - All right, let's start with Texas because a bit of a two step happening. Not only is Jasmine Crockett's dreams dashed and the Republican file on James Tallerico deployed immediately within minutes of that election being official. It does appear that Republicans are a little bit more prepared for Tallerico than maybe some people in general would have expected. And yet, the Republican side of the ledger during that primary was really the surprise. Polling had John Corden down. I had heard stuff on election night that corn in world, their rubric was, do we lose by more than 10 points or less than 10 points? And that was going to a shape where they were going. And yet, they win, not by a lot, but a big overperformance of the polls. And I would say a sign that the Ken Paxton, blood-fued, terrible person campaign worked from your view right now. Before we get into the part or the Trump of it all, to him trying to clear the field, just from that election, what were you hearing the day after? Who was surprised, who wasn't surprised? How did that fall out? Just about everybody was surprised that about the results. I mean, there are people, I was talking to people that are like, oh, Ken Paxton, to be really close to 50. Some people who were like, Ken Paxton's super fans were like, oh, he's going to definitely get 50. People were just thinking that Ken Paxton's going to have a significant lead to your point. They're thinking that John Corden would be lucky to be within 10 points. And that'd be considered a victory for him. And that did happen. Now it's just kind of just a run to be like, oh, we can actually show Trump, like, look, we have John Corden in here. He beat Paxton, he should endorse him. And that's kind of the whole, the mission immediately switched to Trump's endorsement, which that happened yet. It hasn't. It hasn't. So here's, let me break down kind of my thoughts on it. And then you tell me whether or not it conflicts with what you have heard and what you have reported on. Obviously, John Corden, this is a very well-staffed, very well-funded primary on both sides. You've got season, no rookies on either side of the aisle here with Paxton and Corden in terms of the people running their campaign. They are killers. Chris Lasavita, obviously coming off of the Trump 24 campaign, he is running John Corden's campaign. It seems very, very clear that they believe Paxton is going to be laden so heavily, unfavorably, by not only what they have done, but what they will continue to do, that the pitch to Trump is he's not going to win. Like either we're going to damage him so much that it's going to be incredibly close against Taloriko and he might well lose because we're just going to turn people off to him if this continues to go on. Or you just endorse Corden. And like, yes, the mega people are going to be mad and yes, there's a lot of people in your ear, but guess what? The people that are most engaged are still going to hold their nose in November. They're not going to want to lose to this guy, James Taloriko. And then on the Paxton side, if there's one thing that you can say about the Walter White of Texas politics is that he does find a way to get out at the last possible second every time it looks like it is curtains for whole Ken. He has the brilliant move to say, look, I will drop out if the Save America act passes. So either he gets credit for doing that or, which is not going to happen. Or he, you know, but he shows that he is a team player. Is that about how you're seeing it? Definitely. So Trump was really close to endorsing Corden, actually. I mean, there was ultimately, there's kind of a decision made that then lead to the Atlantic Axis, other publications kind of Atlantic was the first report of the Nevon House kind of confirmed it. And he was leaning and made the decision to endorse John Corden. That pissed a lot of people off in Trump's orbit, Trump himself, they were upset that this news of lead to Paxton to have the genius idea of your point of saying, hey, your guy, John Corden, does not want to do anything to the filibuster. He's a very pro filibuster that's the only way to pass the Save America act. I will drop out of the Save America act becomes a lot. Obviously, is like a gesture that Trump could see and be like, oh, that's really good. He would drop out if we do X. But also it's like, this is never going to happen. So he's never going to drop out. And so it's tough for, and it put Corden in a tough position too, because this did ultimately delay Trump's endorsement. So much so that we're Corden, who is this huge mega institutionalist of the Senate as the fin of this filibuster for decade. He's one of the three Johns. There's three Johns that were possibly going to run everything, Thun, Barasso, and Corden. And he's one of the Johns, the John Triforce, one of them backed out on the talking filibuster. And that was him. And he wrote an op-ed in the New York Post saying that he believes that the filibuster should go. And it should become the talking filibuster, which ultimately would end at all, and would allow the State of America to pass. Now, obviously, this is not going to happen. There's still not the votes to pass the filibuster, break the filibuster, to be gone with it. It is, I mean, not only-- I mean, it passes made Corden go back on what he believes in. He delayed Trump's endorsement, which now, who knows what's going to happen. And it really was a genius move by Ken Pasadier-Bord. He just is like, he always stays alive. He does. He does. It's very, very hard to get him off the stage. It does seem like, though, the theory of the case for the Corden campaign is kind of right. Like, they hit him really, really hard, really personally, really directly in campaign ads with John Corden on it. They weren't hiding behind a pack. They weren't hiding behind special interest groups. It was John Corden calling Ken Pasadier-Bord and awful piece of garbage, who has the various moral failings. We just saw the ad this week where the-- no less the voice of God is reprimanding Ken Pasadier. It seems very clear that they believe the wedge between Corden and-- or sorry, Pasadier and his base is the religious, that if you can just put all that dirty laundry out in front of those voters, it's enough to peel off support for them. And if you just look at when everybody went out and voted a week and a half ago, hard to say that they're not right. Yeah, I mean, well, he definitely does seem to have the edge right now, but it's just in a one-to-one matchup, it's going to be hard to be packed in. I mean, historically, runoffs-- I mean, very few people voted primaries. And then even fewer people voted runoffs. And in runoffs, it's mostly the very hardcore conservative types. And that seems to favor Pasadier. But again, we've seen that, say Trump does endorse Corden. I mean, we've seen Trump lose endorsement before, such as in Alabama, when he had to switch to Katie Brit at the last moment, because Katie Brit was running away with it. And so there's hope when the Pasadier camp that even if he does endorse Corden as something similar could happen, or maybe the main hope is that they just to prevent this endorsement from ever happening. And they get to the lot, they just--
get to the runoff, which I, it's still some on when it is the exact date. But April, yeah. It's coming. And it's going to be, it could be Cornen's last ever race. So that you made a very, very good point. The reality of runoff is different than the reality of primaries, and specifically the kind of people that a trick are big city voters, which are the Cornen base. That's what got Cornen over the line to beat Paxin initially. You would think that you do need the Trump endorsement on, on some level. But also the, the other thing I wonder with Cornen is that like, is he benefited by the idea that there is currently this kind of enthusiasm swoon with the, the, the Magga Republicans? Like I, I almost wonder for all the people that I see right now in my life and in my text chains and, and online that are mad about the Iran war. They're mad about the fact that they're not seeing the level of deportations. They view this as a back down after what happened in Minneapolis. There's no question that race by race by race, Democrats are more excited than Republicans. And it's larger than Republicans just aren't showing up because they're not motivated to do it. But if you have a low turnout election, lower than what you would expect and it's Magga people that aren't showing up, then it does benefit Cornen. Yeah, but also I mean, on the flip side, maybe there's so unenthused with Trump that they want to just get out and vote for somebody who they want to see it. There's, there's just so many in these, it's so unpredictable. It's going to happen because there is likely the possibility to your point and maybe there's so unenthused they don't get off the Paxin because they're like, oh, Magga is a bad, Trump's bad, that's et cetera, et cetera. We're going to vote for Cornen or we're talking about it all. Or the flip side, they're so, they have so much animosity towards Trump. What's happening right now that they're like, we need a fighter that we know as a fighter in the Senate. And they get out of both repaxed it. And so I think there's, there's two sides that they can happen. The problem with Rudolfs is elections in general are so unpredictable, but Rudolfs, even more so or so unpredictable because so few people vote. You just don't know. And my favorite lie to say that I say before every election is really just comes down to who gets the most votes at the end of the day. It does. When you think about it, really what you want is you just want the most votes at the hidden wisdom that we reveal to you on the PX3 program by way of rescoring it. You know, it's really going to come down to who gets the most votes. True. I think that's my wisdom that I try and still on on all my readers. We love it. We love it. Let me ask you this. This is, you know, some lessons from the TALERICO CROCATE race that ultimately, and this is what I was hearing from Austin chatter that TALERICO had hired every smart person in democratic politics in in the state. He was very, very well plugged in. Jasmine Crockett believed that this was something that she could largely do via name ID and social media. And what we found out was it turns out a turnout operation matters in, you know, a race like that and TALERICO overperformed and Jasmine Crockett underperformed. And now she's wondering, you know, what she's going to do next. That being said, is there a similar question with Paxton and Cornyn? Do we know if Paxton's turnout operation is what it, what it should be because if, if you look at that result two weeks ago, you're like, well, I don't, I don't know if you, you know, anybody who worried about the idea of compacts in a general and then saw what happened in the primary, I don't know if there's anything less anxious about your point of view. Yeah, it's definitely, you're still worried. I mean, to, to your point, I just don't, compacts and did run a good campaign. Like if he objectively did run a good, he ran, he did what he needed to do. The issue was he did hold a lot of money. He did a spin to significant amount. Because he knew he would make the runoff. And so the question really is, is, is, is offspending the runoff, does spinning in the runoff translate to votes? Because he did, he just, is this just like a kinpax initiative, people to like voting for him. And because of his issues, corded a good job of bringing those to light and that people are just turned off by him. Or was it simply Paxton always knew he was going to be in the runoff, he saved a lot of his money. He did not spend a lot of money in the primary. It is just a matter that he did spend a lot of money, did it do a lot of advertising. And now in the runoff, he, he is spinning money. He is getting, he's doing more of the typical campaign stuff. And that's to put him over the line. I mean, that's ultimately, that's the big question is, is, is right there? Is it, is it, as people, are people actually turned off to get vaccinated? Or was it the fact that he was just saving all his money for now? Now that he spends it, people are going to come back to him. It seems like both battle lines are pretty clear from the ads that they have released sense, which is from the Paxton camp to Corning. He's a big fat phony who just lies and has always hated Donald Trump. And so he's lying that he says he likes him now. Here are a million clips of him talking bad about Donald Trump. And then from the corner side, as we discussed, it's that Ken Paxton might be the worst human who's ever lived. There's every personal failing that he has ever had. If you don't trust me, listen to God. One of those is more salacious than the other. I think, and then there's the, I've heard whispers that there is another, you know, big, nuclear option that the Corning campaign wants to drop. And, you know, there are other, you know, very colorful, a scandal that people don't know about that is yet to be revealed. I also kind of wonder whether or not those are the kind of conversations that are happening between Chris Lassofita and Donald Trump or anybody in that orbit that's trying to secure the Corning endorsement is like, look, if we're here now, what happens when we drop blank? You know, because there's a lot of ominous language from that campaign. Judgment day is coming. You will face, you know, the, you know, judgment, that kind of stuff. Do you have any expectation that this is going to get even nastier if a Trump endorsement doesn't drop? I think we'll definitely get nasty. The question, I mean, what is their out there, I'll pass it. That has already been litigated. I mean, he's been through the ringer since 2015 when he first became a GE 2016. He's just been put through it. I mean, indictments, affairs, more indictments, more affairs and impeachment. Like he's been through it all and it's basically, it's very rare you get a candidate whose op-o book is so bad, but it's all out in the public and it just doesn't matter. And it's kind of what we're seeing here with Paxed is that, I mean, is there a scandal that's going to actually make a difference of all this other stuff? Has it? It is there that's going to be worse. I mean, truly, I don't, everything that he's done is probably out there. I mean, it didn't have to be really, really bad for it to actually make a difference, but I mean, nothing stuck to this guy. It's so strange because he's like a void of charisma. Usually when candidates that are that scandal-plagged continue to survive, it's because they're kind of these magnetic personalities. Trump's a great example. Trump's got a million different things that would sink another candidate. Bill Clinton's a great example, a million different things that would sink another candidate. But yet when they're on television, you're like, "Ah, there's something about him. You just want to keep listening to him." Camp Exyn has none of that. He is not a personally compelling, charismatic candidate. He's just kind of a dude that also has all these scandals. And yet, it never sinks him, not once. It just works. And it's, I don't understand how it happens, but it does. And then you just got to got to tip your hat to it because it kept him in the racist log. And I guess we're going to have to see if there isn't a there smoking gun. But also question of ex is like, why would you wait till the right off? If you could have used it at eight point in time to maybe prevent him from running, I mean, his wife divorced him in the middle of the campaign. How much worse could you get? Your wife literally was like, nah, like, it's just crazy. One last super inside baseball thing that I want to bring to the floor for everybody. The National Republican Sanitorial Committee, which is behind Ken Paxton, was very mad about Wesley Hunt running in this race. He is the third man out that will not make the runoff. You would think that a rush for Wesley Hunt's votes and his endorsements would be an important part of a runoff. And yet the National Republican Sanitorial Committee instead decided to spike the football the day after calling Wesley Hunt's campaign a vanity project and that if he wasn't running, then Ken, then John Cornyn would have advanced without the need for a runoff. Is there any blowback to the NRSC for a mother Cornyn folks or how or, you know, how is how is that playing out? Yeah. So it was S.L.F. I believe that released that statement. Leadership. So not not not the Central Committee. My mistake. But still, I mean, those are arguably closer to John Thune than the NRSC. And I mean, the blowback, people hate Wesley Hunt right now for that exact reason. It was the most worst kept secret is that people were very mad at him. They put it out there on the record, dropped it. There it is.
And I mean, everyone already knew that. Is it hurting anybody in particular? I mean, hunts hasn't endorsed. Yeah. People are mad at him. If it'll like, you do have 40% there. I don't, I just think he stays out of it. I don't think he cares enough to really get heavily involved. And in the race like, yeah. I mean, I guess it, I guess when he's just kind of out of politics, right? Because all the rumors were really like being in the house in the first place. Exactly. And I mean, I mean, my colleague, I've already reported Wednesday following the following the Tuesday primary. Was that hunt was begging? We got, we got, we reviewed messages to, to, to form a Trump transition official of, of, of, of, of hunt begging for a cabinet appointment. Like, maybe like, I'll take anything secretary of energy, secretary of interior, like being like, hey, it just like asking questions about, hey, literally begging for a position, he won out of the house that bad. And so it's just like, I mean, he, I feel like this was a way for him to be like, okay, I hate being in the house. I'm going to run. If I lose probably, which he had to have expected. Yeah. If I lose, then I'm just like, oh, well, I lost about politics. It just looks better than just resigning, retiring from the house for no reason. And probably in his mind. And it is the biggest question is to why he ran. He never had a shot. There was no, never a lane for him between Corne and Paxton. Yeah. Unless Corne dropped out, that was the only, the only way in which him being in the race made Eddie sets. Exactly. So there was never really a way. And that's the, that's the biggest, biggest question we have right now. It's, it's just reporters and operatives alike. It's like, what were you doing? So you don't think that he endorsed it just because if he's out of politics, then he doesn't want to necessarily burn any more. I feel like he also kind of, it's kind of like a spike. Like both of both sides attacked him. Have both sides were out to get up at this point. He's kind of like, wow, that helped me. The one of you guys like got you. Yeah. Let's turn our eyes a little bit northward from the Lone Star State to Oklahoma because with Christy Knome out at the Department of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullin, the senator from that state is now slated to take her job. That means that there is a new senator that will come in there. But can you fill us in here, Reese? There's a little bit of a weird process with Oklahoma and, and replacing their senator, right? Exactly. So this started after N. Hoff retired him in 2022 in that election. So N. Hoff retired midterms said he was not going to run again. And he did not resign immediately. So there was a race. There's special election to fill us in November. But basically what happened and lighted this, there was a live question as much as the legislators. But like, what happened if we do have a fake incentive appointment? And we had, there was a real chance at that point that Joy Hoffmeister was the Democrat running for governor. Was going to win. She was up in the polls and people like, oh, like we can't have a Democrat governor, a point to Democrat senator. Like that would be Oklahoma so red. So he passed a rule basically a law basically saying that anybody, if there's a vacancy, you make an appointment and the appointment has to be the party that the former senator was in. And then they also have to sign affidavit saying that they won't run for the full term. So they only are filling out for that section. Is that enforceable? No one really knows. It's more of like a gentleman's agreement to be like, oh, like just sign this. And so they could theoretically be challenged in court. But I mean, that's kind of the, the just so the just right now is that Stit once Mullen is once Mullen is confirmed, which looks to be next week, Stit will then make his appointment. And so Mullen, sorry, so Mullen is out and so now, do we have any idea who Stit is leaning toward? So it's three real people that he's kind of leaning towards right now. It's oil tycoon billionaire Harold Ham, Justin Hilary who is a major Oklahoma businessman and a top-stit advisor and been a top-stit donor for a long time. And Alan Armstrong who is a businessman from Oklahoma as well. Those are the three people he's really considering. There's also a major GOP donor Robert Cox who he's looking at. And so it's really just kind of the big Oklahoma donors, none of whom really have the ability to run for the full term once it is done. I mean, even if they weren't wanted to separate the law, they just wouldn't win. So these are more just kind of like a resume appointment. A donor per. A donor per. You get to be a senator for the rest of your life. Thank you for your donation. Exactly. So that's kind of where it stands. So who then is lining up for this special and when would this special election happen? So actually, so Mullen was up for his full term re-election on in November. So this is actually just going to be a normal election. Gotcha. The moment since he was elected in 2022, he was theoretically elected though to fill in Hofstra, Maine, Maine, or see what's happening. So that six years was up in this year. So whoever does this will just get the full term. So right now, who the field is cleared basically for representative Kevin Hurn of Tulsa. He cleared the entire field, Trump and Dorisson, Club for Growth and Dorisson, Lankford's and Dorisson. And everyone just seemed to get behind them. It was real masterclass and how to just box everybody out of the race. He announced on a Wednesday and by Friday, nobody else was running. And so he is basically clear of the field he will likely, or it barring something crazy from happening will be the next or from Oklahoma. I got a text from one of my sources. He knew that you were coming on. He's a listener to the show. I love him. And he asked about, you should ask Reese about the curious case of Matt Pennell, the current Lieutenant Governor. And according to my source, he believes that he has a possible bright future ahead. Is there a question as to why Pennell wouldn't take a more serious look at this seat? So Pennell was as I said, he's not running. He's looking forward to being out of politics. Nobody really knows. He was all I was told on a Saturday following this announcement that Pennell was all in. That Pennell was going. He's going to be, he's going to run. By Monday, he had decided not to run. And nobody knows what happened between those days. There's speculation. I won't get into it. I mean, I think that truly, he just wanted to be out of politics. He's been politics his entire life. I think that there was just a part of him that was just ready to be done. He would have cleared the field for her and seat. In Congressional District 1, he would have had a tough time against her. In the Senate race. So he was looking at the Congressional seat and that's what he was going towards. It didn't happen. And so I think from from there, I mean, nobody knows why he nobody's ever going to truly know outside of Pennell and maybe a handful of his advisors. But he decided not to run. And it's very confusing, very striking. He would have cleared that congressional field for sure. But yeah. Yeah. So it goes from like being locked into not running at all. I guess I mean, that happens more than people probably think in the world of politics. But still a head scratcher. Very much so. Yeah. I mean, Pennell, he also decided not to run for governor. Decided not to run for CD1. Decided not to run for Senate. So it is a head scratcher for sure as to why he did. And he does have a bright future. But I think he's ready to go outside politics, make money. He's that's literally all he's done for his professional career. He's politics. He's looking he's looking elsewhere at the moment. Looking elsewhere to scratch his itch. What do we know about Mark Wayne Mullins temperament and how he will handle the cauldron that is the Department of Homeland Security? I think I mean, I think he's basically going to do what Trump wants to do. What Trump's even Miller, Tom Homan kind of expect of him. And that's kind of what they want. I don't think Mullins can use this as a way as a stepping stone to another office or what have you. I really feel that's why Trump's appointing him. I mean, he they're going to go for Chris Ynome who's using this as a vanity project as a way to boost her image and name ID and and Corey Lewandowski just doing whatever Corey Lewandowski does. And to Mark Wayne Mullins who didn't really even want the position. And it's just kind of there to do the job. And I think that's kind of going to be a breath of fresh air for the administration because they're not going to have to put up with so many headaches. They're going to not have to deal with someone who's fighting them tooth and nail in every decision. It's going to be somebody who will listen to what the President wants. What Steve and Miller wants, what Tom Homan wants, and just do the job. And I believe that's where this is going to change course and that front is where it's not going to be all flashy for show. It's going to be more just, hey, what do you want me to do? Okay, I'll do it. I don't think people really understand from the outside exactly how much vitriol there was for Christy Nome and Corey Lewandowski like inside the tent, like inside the mega world. Like that's where you would hear some of the nastiest stuff about those two is just like the unprofessionalism and, and, you know, especially Corey Lewandowski not being allowed to be there and yet being there omnipresently. Like that, that was, that was crazy. I guess the only question that I would have is at least to hear Nome and Lewandowski tell it, they were doing what Stephen Miller was telling them to do. Now they were doing it while they were doing it very expensively. I think that has kind of been revealed since then. But, and they weren't making friends while doing it, but they claim that they were a dumb pipe, at least for one portion of the White House. Yeah, I mean, they, they could claim that all they want. But I mean, there's definitely an amazis between Stephen Miller, Tom Homan and, and, and Nome and Lewandowski for sure. There's no love loss there. I mean, you don't get all the stories that you
you're seeing with such increment, just like detail of what's happening without people hating you. And the position they gave her, the shields of America thing, like-- - Oh God. - That has to just be just, out of complete, just slap in the face. It's not a real thing. Like it's something that they're just kind of creating to be like, okay, like you're fired, but we'll give you this random thing. Go do it and to keep you occupied. And so that's kind of what they're doing. I think that tells you all you need to know right now too about where her standing is within the Trump world. - Giving you a no-show job to own the lips 'cause they don't wanna give the Democrats a win. - That's a little less work. - This is all worth it. - I'd rather just get fired. (laughs) - Well, then you'd be able to talk, you know, but the problem is, is like, what is Cory Lewandowski without Trump? And so it's like, it's something, it won't be the first time the Cory Lewandowski is being cast off into the wasteland. He's made himself, he's made his way back into the palace, each and every time, very can pack the nesk Cory Lewandowski. Does seem to survive no matter what, but we'll see. Reese, where can people find your work? - Pueblo, go find it at notice.com or notice.org, that's NOTUS. Name will soon be changed to what we don't know, but for now you can find us at notus.com or notus.org or on x@recejgorman. - Let me say this. Finally, we can dispense with all the frivolity and talk about what really matters in the world journalism. You guys have been killing it. I am super pumped with all the reporting around the fact that the people at the top of your organization are putting a ton of money and they're about to supercharge it and push it into a new era. It is kind of crazy that the Washington Post collapsing is kind of like led to a boom in journalism spending at least in DC. I know that that's welcome good news for reporters in that town that have been faced with not a lot of it for a while. So congratulations on the new squad. And I think I couldn't look at a better newsroom that deserves a bigger platform and more money than what you guys are doing. So salute to notice, salute to you. We look forward to reading. - Thanks, Shos, I appreciate it. No, it's been great. It's a very exciting time over here. - All right. Thank you very much, Reese. Thank you. (whooshing) (upbeat music) - And that'll wrap it up for us today, Pollock's Politics Politics, written and hosted by me, Justin Robert Young for Dog and Pony Show, audio and Austin, Texas. You can send me an email, the Young
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