The Primaries Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Today's presenting sponsor is Simply Safe Home Security. Most home security systems wait for a smashed window or a kicked-in door. That's already way too late. With Simply Safe Active Guard Outdoor Protection, AI-powered cameras detect outside parties, and then a live agent intervenes to send them running before a break-in even begins. With Simply Safe, you can customize your system to fit your needs. It's more than just a security camera. It's a comprehensive system of sensors, indoor and outdoor cameras, and 24/7 professional monitoring. The app-guided setup is simple and there's no drilling required, so you can install and arm your system in under an hour. Drilling is optional. As always, there are no long-term contracts or cancellation fees, monitoring plans start at around a dollar a day. Our CEO, Lucinda. Wow. Recently had a Simply Safe system installed in her home. What is this, huh? Didn't know that. That's great. And installation was quick and easy. The system was up and running in no time. Running before her, you know? We've partnered with Simply Safe to offer an exclusive discount to our listeners. Right now, you can get 50% off your new system by visiting SimplySafe.com/Cricket. That's half off. It's SimplySafe.com/Cricket. There's no safe, like Simply Safe. Welcome to Plot-Safe America. I'm John Favre. I'm John Loveitt. Tom Yutor. On today's show, we'll talk about the war with Iran, which claimed more American lives over the weekend in wounded dozens, which the Pentagon is trying to hide. We'll also talk about ICE being back in the headlines after killing people in Texas and Maine. Let's talk about how the administration is responding and what we know about how Trump's deportation agenda is playing with voters, Latino voters in particular. We also have a bunch of news from the world of Democratic primary campaigns. Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson is all but certain to be the Democratic nominee to take on Susan Collins in Maine. There's more chaos in the Wisconsin Governor's race and AOC and Bernie rallied for Abdul-Elsaid in Michigan as his primary against Hailey Stevens heats up. Well, let's start with some big news from the weekend. Spain's 1-0 win over Argentina and the World Cup final in the metal ends, capping off an incredible tournament. No one is sadder about it ending than Donald Trump. Who wasn't about to let a return to full-on war with Iran stop him from inserting himself into the closing ceremony. The president of the United States on the field. It's now, so they can be out of that. Australian broadcaster at the end there. Do you guys see the caption of the picture in the Guardian? No. Where Infantino is with Trump and it's just the two of them. And the caption is, "Johnny Infantino carefully explains to Donald Trump that he is not part of the Spanish national team." That's about right. The energy of accidentally realizing you're in the money shot of a beach wedding. That is what a reminder you have. You're about to do it. Get the fuck out of the way. Do you see the team that the players were doing the Trump dance? And therefore really appreciating his involvement? Because Trump did this to one of them and looking confused. He just was like, "I'm gonna milk a cow back to you." My guess is they're just happy because they won the World Cup and this is the best day of their life. But that would be my guess as to why they're happy. For sure. If a monkey did a gesture to me at the zoo, I'd do it back. It wouldn't be a show of support for his politics. I might not throw my poo back at him. It's cool to go to the game. I'd go if I could go. It's cool to present the trophy. But get out of the way, dude. And you also do this at the FIFA World Cup final in 2025. And you can see Infantino trying to get him to leave the stage. You just won't do it. He just basks in the glory of the cheering. He genuinely believes it's for him. I would feel like imposter syndrome and run off there. I think he also believes he's wanted there. I'm Donald Trump. Everybody loves when I'm part of their stuff. I'd feel imposter syndrome if I was the president of the United States in the US one. I would still say something and be extra proud. But I wouldn't get in the fucking picture. And especially with Spain. The NATO summit a couple of weeks ago, he said, "I don't want anything to do with Spain. They're hopeless, bad people." Because they didn't support the war with Iran and didn't want us to use their bases. Did you see the USA today did a piece on the Trump curse? Yes. The Colin at the Trump curse? So awesome. So I didn't know about all of these. But Trump said before the World Cup final, he didn't pick a side, but he said, "It's hard to bet against Messi." Argentine loses. Trump intervenes to get the red card reversed. US loses to Belgium. Trump shows up at the NBA finals. It's the only game the next lose. In 2025, Trump goes to the Washington Commanders game. They lose to the Lions 44-22. That same year, he goes to the Ryder Cup. The US loses. It's so funny. The other thing about that Commanders game is. So he goes to the Commanders game. The Commanders get stomped by the Lions. And then at that same game, a Lions receiver named Amman Rossing Brown did the Trump dance. And then the Lions lose five of eight games and miss the playoffs. It's even better. Yeah, so. I think it's like, basically, there's three possibilities. Okay. One is that it's luck. The other is that he brings a terrible energy everywhere. He goes. Right? And that his. That's documented. Right. For sure. And that corrupts anyone he's seen to be rooting for. You can't help someone playing, knowing that Trump is on your side, allowing to infect you with the kind of negativity and failure that surrounds him. I do think it's worth considering the third possibility, which is much like Odysseus discovering the Cyclops on his way home. Oh, God. Due to his failure to observe morality and the conflict in Troy, Trump is being punished everywhere he goes. Why are we all catching strays, then? Well, that's take it up with Zeus, my friend. Are we the. Are we Odysseus's men? Hard time. Are we the ones being sacrificed? I'm not saying the punishment is not clean. You know, can I tell you my favorite Trump sports story from over the weekend is. There's a golfer named Bryson D. Shembo. Did you guys go across this? I saw you tweeting about this. Get a meltdown at the open championship. You got a penalty for like, I think just stepping in tall grass that would have gotten the way of his swing and he got a two-stroke penalty. So he throws a hiss. He deserved. He totally deserved. He throws a hiss. And he sucks. He's annoying, anyway. He throws his hiss. He threatens to not play the next day. Basically quit the tournament and take his ball and go home. He takes all these rules officials, makes them visit the site and then he goes back. In the midst of it, he threatens to call Trump and tattle on the mean rules officials if they don't give him his way. He also shut down the whole tournament, too, right? They were all to wait for the supers. And they all had to wait for him to be done with his fit. And even the other players who are watching are like, come on, man. I mean, this is what Trump has created. You know, it's like everyone knows if they're friends with Trump or they suck up to Trump. They can just tattle and get what they want or at least try to do that. Everybody's calling the manager. Right. You get what you get over speeding. You know, I know Trump. But sir, you don't have a reservation. I know the owner of the German broadcast of the World Cup Final. So they cut to Infantino and Trump in the box. They show them getting presented the trophy. And the announcers go, well, that's a violation of all the rules. Those two were made for each other, fascinated by power and by themselves, too. Good stuff. Good hit. It's good stuff. Tough to hear from Germans. The cool part of the story that sort of suggests the Spanish team would not like Trump's politics is one of the players guy named Nico Williams. His mom and dad walked 2,000 miles from Ghana to Spain. She was pregnant with his older brother at the time. Like across the Sahara Desert barefoot, managed to get into this tiny bit of Spanish territory to become citizens and then he's playing on the national team. That's probably why he wouldn't like Trump's immigration. Yeah, wouldn't like his politics. He wouldn't be possible with Trump's politics. So, unfortunately, Trump trying to make the world cup about Trump did steal the spotlight from the tournament's real hero. Let's play it. We put on the largest sporting event in the history of the world. And everybody putting beef in the white house looks like the FBI's, or any agency partners, the DHS, the state locals to everybody to figure out how to get 6.5 million people into the US and into these games without a single major security incident. We have lived up to that measure because you guys have put in the time. It's truly, truly incredible. We just can't say enough about the preparation and the execution has been lost. He's in every shot. I thought this was going to like, you know, thinking like all the law enforcement officials who pulled this off, it's like, whatever, it's fine. Every single shot of that video is cash potential. Imagine if we had a crook at all hands to celebrate a year of making great content. And through it, we played a montage of just our headshots. No one would be surprised. And when I -- [ Laughter ] Hey, I got a laugh. [ Laughter ] Lean with the chin. [ Laughter ] I got to say, so I didn't watch that video before as we could see it live. My reaction to that video is, who is this for? You know what I mean? Like, who's getting jacked up to watch Cash Patel? Is it for Donald Trump? Because he wants you wearing a suit. Not like the weird, thin hoodie t-shirt thing. I think it's -- it's probably for Trump. It's also -- he's just in super defensive mode now. Cash Patel, because he thinks everyone's at any money fair. Because of that stuff. Right. But it's like, you know, you think I'm a drunk and you think I fucked this up and I tweet in the middle of investigations. just because I tried to, you know, before, before. So, like, I think he's just like, I'm gonna, we got one. We did one okay, and so I'm gonna brag about it now. - It's interesting though, 'cause it's like, let's just take it at face value. Let's just not even, forget the aesthetics of it, which are ridiculous. Cash would tell, in what ways are you responsible for the world cup going well? Just walk me through some of them. - Well, you think he's responsible for the world cup, not going badly? - But that requires people wanting it to go badly that he's stymied, right? - Where's your rest? - Right, like, what are you talking about? - Sure, he's feeling like there was, you know, a planned attack at the UFC fight at the White House, and they foiled that. And so he's probably think of himself like, I didn't get enough credit. I need to put out videos from now on when there's no attacks. - Not enough. - Not enough likes and faves for that foiled plot. - It's just amazing, like, here's me waving, getting out of my G5 private jet, man of the people, Cash Patel. The other thing we know, the Cash Patel, I think, is interagency partners. - Cash Patel has been working hard on trying to arrest New York Times reporters who reported on Trump's Air Force One. Did you see today that the FBI or the DOJ has subpoenaed records, not only from these journalists, but from their spouses and one reporter's mother. - Yes. - Got the mother's phone records. - I wonder if they'll bring that up to Trump and either reporters in the White House correspondents association when he's on the day us, the correspondent dinner. - Inside this week. - Maybe the, maybe the mentalists can, (laughs) maybe Dr. Rose can, or whatever his name is, those, those man, whatever his name is. - It's a night where we're putting politics aside and the fact that you're snooping on our reporter's parents. - Of my mom's. - Yeah. - That's what was gonna put it aside for the night to just sort of honor be in the same room. - You think O's could guess the mom? - Yeah, that's pretty good. - Yeah, well yeah, why don't they just ask him for the fucking later? - I forgot it's fucking O's. - Yeah, I know, I learned that, I learned that, I learned that from a magician. They really did. But yeah, like, we ask him, he'll know. You should just do that, mentalize that. - I'm a mentalist, anyway, enough of that. Trump, who just last month told reporters, he was skipping his son's wedding because of, quote, a thing called Iran. Did not feel the same way about attending the World Cup, probably because, according to the White House, Iran is no longer much of a threat. - They have been literally obliterated. Never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating large scale losses in a matter of weeks. - Iran has no air defenses. Iran has no air force. Iran has no navy. - Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield. The United States has all the cards. The Straits are now open. The Iranian military is now destroyed. - We've won, let me say, we've won. You know, you never like to say too early, you won, we won, we won in the first hour it was over. - Well, apparently someone forgot to tell the Iranians because they've been attacking U.S. forces all over the Middle East for the last nine days straight. They've killed at least three Americans and likely a fourth that that soldier is still officially considered missing. The Iranian attacks in Jordan have also reportedly injured dozens of American troops and damaged helicopters. News that the Pentagon has just decided not to report, according to the New York Times. And if you're wondering how it's possible that Iran can still pull off these kinds of attacks, you're not alone. Here's Fox News' Maria Barteromo. - I don't understand how it's possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at Gulf countries and U.S. military bases because the U.S. has obliterated Iran's military and the President continues to reiterate that. - I'm reading these talking points. And for some reason, they're not true. - I love the idea of her, hold on a second. And we just, the camera follows her out down the stairs to another room with a white board and she starts doing the math on the white board, trying to like figure out how to the thing. And it's like, I don't, this doesn't exist. I don't think they're, I don't think they're telling the truth. The President keeps, the President would not iterate, let alone reiterate if something's not true like this. He would never say that. - Maybe I just haven't been asking my questions loudly enough. - Trump doesn't have a good answer or really any answer to Maria Barteromo's question. He threatened revenge on truth social and sent common ounce more strikes in retaliation. But this is all he said after the World Cup when reporters asked about the Americans who were killed. - We feel very badly, but you know those great people, those great patriots were out there fighting that Iran did not have a nuclear weapon. This is a far bigger job that we're doing. We were doing a little job of stopping them from having a certain capability. Now we're just ending it. - What? Tommy, would you make a Trump's answer there? Just a little confusing. And just the general developments over the weekend? - Well, clearly he's pulling from a deep well of empathy at the top there. - But, but, I'm the bigger job part. It's like, I think there's two ways you interpret it. One is like his factory setting a stuck on bullshit, right? So he's like, now we're reopening the straight and that's an even bigger message. He just does hyperbole with all things. But maybe it is the beginning of a bigger mission that could include like a permanent escort mission with the Navy or taking territory on the coast to try to like permanently claim the straighter homies. I don't think we know. I don't think he knows yet. Probably what he wants to do. My assumption has been that Trump does not want to restart the war because he doesn't want to raise gas prices right now in advance of the midterms. But the weekends events show how dangerous the status quo is and that Iran is learning that journal had a piece about how they adapted their missiles to move in the sort of like terminal part of the flight where they're coming down so they can evade air defenses. And we still have tens of thousands of service members in the Middle East that seem like they're not well defended at all. And so like either way, like the reporting, it makes it sound like he wants to not go back to a full-scale war. But as you know, did Iran has been hitting targets all over the Middle East and the Pentagon is putting on statements that they've hit targets in Iran for the last 10 nights in a row. So that's not a war. What does it, we are, the war is restarted. It's whether he, whether we, whether Trump wants to go so far as to acknowledge that the cease far that has failed, has failed. Which he sort of has. I mean, he's like the MOU is done. Who cares? And they've told Congress they're officially back in war. I guess the other distinction would be, there would be some explanation for what the strategy is behind what they're hitting other than as tit for tat degrading. Yeah, degrading capabilities generally. Yeah, this is, I mean, Trump very well may not want a return to full-scale war for all the reasons you outlined. But this is the problem with escalation. Like it's unpredictable and they strike. And then we have to strike back. And then they strike back again. And so suddenly the space for diplomacy becomes very, very small. And they just keep going after each other. Well, it also, like Americans are dying. They're a group of, like he's at the World Cup. They're a group of families that are having the worst experience of their lives, their lives are being ripped apart because Trump doesn't want the war to escalate because of his political reasons. This is just a blip. He's very sorry. It's very bad. It's so glib. But you know that if what he wanted to do is escalate, right? If Americans had been killed and he was aiming to start the war, or he would just declare the greatest violence against the United States, right? The American service member are in harm way being hurt by this are purely just sort of pawns, either to be like either to downplay or lie about what's happening to them if it doesn't suit your story about how much we're decimating the military or he can use it as an argument for why we need to escalate if he so chooses. [MUSIC PLAYING] This episode is sponsored by Better Help. We're finally talking about mental health openly. But actually reaching out for help is incredibly difficult. New data from BetterHelp confirms why BetterHelp's 2026 State of stigma report surveyed 2,000 Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans believe getting support is wise. Get 74% say society discourages people from doing so. There's a person I know they very clearly need a lot of therapy. And instead, they already lost a race for governor South Carolina and I'm running a snap election for Senator. Instead of getting the help, he or she needs-- Best of luck. With over 30,000 BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform having served over 6 million people globally. And it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. BetterHelp, BetterHelp, Therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short question here helps you identify your needs and preferences and their 12 plus years of experience in industry leading match for film and rate means they typically get a right. The first time if you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored wrecks, don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com/PSA. That's better, H-E-L-P.com/PSA. Paddy America is brought to you by policy genius. Summer comes but once a year. We all want to be present and enjoy those sweet summer moments with family without life admin tasks hanging over our heads. Luckily finding the right life insurance policy is simple and straightforward with policy genius. Get ready to enjoy summer to the fullest, knowing your family is protected. Prioritize peace of mind. Lock in your life insurance today. Policy genius is an online insurance marketplace that allows you to compare quotes from some of America's top insurers side-by-side for free. Their lessons team helps you get what you need fast so you can get on with your life, easily find what you need, coverage amounts, prices terms, no guesswork, just clarity. Policy genius helps you find your most affordable policy that meets your needs. They answer questions, handle paperwork, and advocate for you throughout the process. It's important to get life insurance because who knows, one day, then what's your family gonna do? - Yeah. - Not a fun task to do, which is why policy genius is there to help you do it. With policy genius, you can find 20-year life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for $1 million in coverage. Head to policygenius.com/cricut to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com/cricut. Think about Benghazi, Thobama. Think about Abbey Gate with Biden and Afghanistan. Now, we now have more Americans killed than in either of those situations. And this is one where the President of the United States and his entire administration have said, "The Iran is obliterated. We have won the mission." Not just mission accomplished. Like, oops, there was a banner behind Bush. This was like every day, they're saying that their military is destroyed, decimated. We control the skies. The strait is open. And also for nothing, the stated objectives, like, they haven't done, they haven't achieved anything. They didn't destroy the regime. They didn't make any progress on their nuclear program. They didn't destroy their ballistic missile programs. They didn't destroy the proxies. Yeah, I think we're in a situation where it feels frustrating and unsatisfying because they don't care about getting caught in those lies by the mainstream press the way every other president in history has. But when you look at the polling, this is the most unpopular war in modern American history. It's going to get worse as gas prices tick back up. And there's just no end game here. The Iranians want to control the straight-of-form moves. Trump can't let that happen. How do you sort that out? And you want to talk about the Houthis now, but they announced there's a blockade of Saudi Arabia. Yeah, so the Houthis, so back in 2015, the Saudis launched this disastrous war on the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Hundreds of thousands of people died because of it mostly because of famine. In 2022, they announced a ceasefire than it's a peace talk. So Ben and I were talking about last week, this kind of fragile ceasefire kind of erupted because the Saudis bombed the Sinat airport. I think they were trying to stop in IRGC plane from landing back in Yemen that had been at the Supreme Leader's funeral in Yemen. We're kind of like, oh, that's ominous. Like, why are we kicking back up this conflict? And so today, on Monday, the Houthis announced that they're going to embargo Saudi ships in the Red Sea via the the Babel Mandep straight. So that's the choke point out of the Red Sea to the east where a lot of oil and gas flows. And so I don't know how this would work or how they would implement it, but if you have the straight-of-form moves closed and then access to the Red Sea shut off, that chokes off like another 5% of the world's oil and reform petroleum products that pass through that straight. And so the Saudis, the way the Saudis have been getting around the straight-of-form moves being shut is they have a pipeline that goes west and south and they've been pumping oil and gas out and getting it out through the Red Sea. If they can no longer do that, it's a huge reduction in supply at the same time. You have the Russians, Russian oil refinery capacity has been cut in half to the Ukrainian strikes. You have all the oil reserves depleted because of the war because we all just spent it down to try to keep cost low. And then China had been limiting imports during the conflict. Now they're ramping them back up. So you could really see a serious supply shock in price increase. So one to watch, I mean, maybe the Houthis are not actually going to go through with this and they'll try to like calm things down with the Saudis, but this is kind of like the nightmare scenario in terms of energy prices. And oil went over $90 of barrel briefly over the weekend. It's now in the 80s, but gas is up to $4 a gallon again. And this is right at the beginning of this new phase of the war. And the Houthis don't have to completely control this waterway to create a bunch of fear and force ships to either delay, go around, raise the cost of insurance, what have you. Having Iran and Iranian proxies in charge of these two choke points through a quarter or more of the world oil goes through is really sort of once again showing how much more powerful Iran has gotten because of this conflict. Even the language that Houthis used was just basically well, this is Trump is doing a blockade on a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. We're going to do a blockade on a blockade on this side too. That's just how it goes. Meanwhile, Republican, the Republican Congress has done absolutely nothing to ran him in on this. You have a few voted for like a war powers resolution and that's about it. And now, you know, they have a week before they all go on break until mid-September and the Houthis trying to pass the NDA also the supplemental. Yeah, extra like billions and billions and billions of dollars more, which is just absolutely fucking crazy. So ISIS back in the news for all the wrong reasons after agents shot and killed one unarmed man in Houston, Texas, and another in Bedford, Maine. Both men were fathers and husbands who had been living and working in America for years. Both were driving at the time and both were victims of mistaken identity by ICE. After the shooting in Maine, DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin ordered a temporary pause on vehicle stops by ICE officers, a pause that Susan Collins quickly took credit for, which was then overturned by Trump in less than 48 hours after an intense right wing backlash to Mullin. Despite the fact that ICE has arrested a record number of people since Mullin's been confirmed, even hitting Stephen Miller's 2000 arrest per day quota a few times this month. This is, of course, thanks to the $170 billion that Susan Collins and her fellow Republicans funneled to ICE, which seems to be giving badges and guns to anyone who wants them. The ex-wife of the agent who killed the person in Maine told the AP that because her ex-husband has a history of violent behavior and serious psychiatric issues, when he told her ICE had hired him, quote, "She thought he was having a mental health episode and didn't believe him." Jesus. This is the guy who killed person in Maine. And now, according to The New York Times, federal agents recently received a written notice that the FBI would, quote, "no longer investigate confrontations with immigration agents." It's supposed to be handled now internally through DHS. This is a report that's been denied by both the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. So I feel like after Minnesota and Nome's firing, we were all worried that nothing would actually get better. It would just get quieter. Sure enough, even Trump's approval on immigration has sort of crept back up, though it's still slightly under water. What do you make of the administration response to the killings in Texas and in Maine? So yeah, that that home in was going to be some kind of a step up from Bavino and from Christie Nome. The fear was they would continue doing what they were doing, but not as ostentatious. I do think like the fact that they determined that these sieges upon cities were counterproductive politically was a win that continued, but that doesn't mean they haven't been more competently and quietly aggressive. They have continued to put people like this out into the field. We already know they reduced the amount of time these people are trained. They lowered their standards. They've been desperate to recruit. So this is a direct result. Not just what the Trump administration is doing, but what Congress has done to fund and give them the resources to rapidly hire people who have no business using a gun, let alone using a gun as law enforcement as part of the federal government. You read about this guy's background before he's in Iceland. This is just a fucking troubled guy. Like a terrible head injury. He was doing door dash. He was doing correction. Like he's just was all over the place. I thought that the the blowback to Mullen was very telling to him on the right because it kind of goes to the point that like he's not running the department really. This is just like Miller's policies and he tries to do something on his own to pause and then Trump immediately just backs up. Yeah, I wonder if Mullen got a call from Susan Collins directly because they're senate colleagues and they probably know each other. But yeah, I mean this ice officer in Maine, he shot and killed a man in front of his three-year-old daughter. You know, it's fucking evil. And it shows that the policy has not changed much, but the PR strategy has. I mean, Nome and Bovino, like you said, like they were being pressured to make 3000 a rest a day and they would to do that. They would have Border Patrol invade a city like an army and occupy it in the flashiest way possible. That included flying black cock helicopters over Chicago or having like little social media people filming all the people stuff they were doing and then releasing it because they were proud of it. And Mullen is still trying to hit 2000 a rest a day, but the arrests spread out all over the country and he's less thirsty for press attention than Nome was although probably doesn't want it low bar. DHS is still lying about all these incidents. They're de facto covering up for all these officers, but they're doing it in a slightly less gratuitous way. They're not, it's not like Minnesota where they're saying Renee Good and Alex Prede were a domestic terrorist or that, you know, Prede was trying to massacre police, right? That was the intention that massacre police was like the line afterwards. And so Trump though is still making it clear that he doesn't care if innocent people are killed. He wants the dangerous practices like the vehicle stop arrest to continue if it means more deportations. So it is like they have definitely put a less flashy shine on their policies, but it is still very much the same dangerous abusive practice. And that you can't give into the lives, right? Like you can't, if something terrible happens and there's a call from your enemies to be restrained to show any kind of restraint, you can't give into that because that is what led us here, right? Like that's the problem. We have to prove we're really tough. Well, the post had a good story on this about the sort of the blowback to Mullen and you know, it came from all the usual sort of right wing media online spaces, but also the Heritage Foundation and there's people in the Heritage Foundation making the point that Tommy did, which is they're all saying like, oh Collins probably called Mullen because there's senate colleagues and this is the problem with having someone at DHS from the Senate because you're trying to please all those people who are too moderate and we have to just put, you know, foot on the gas for the deportation agenda and it doesn't matter. It doesn't like we're just going to keep going and like Steven Miller doesn't care if it's unpopular. He doesn't care if people get killed. He doesn't care if what the detention center conditions are or he doesn't care what he just wants to do it. He just wants to get it done and and thinks that he is like in the only thing that's going to stop him is tremendous public pressure, like the kind of we saw after Minneapolis or Democrats winning Congress and being able to reign Trump in that way with the power of the purse? Well, look, his immigration, Trump's immigration ratings were in the drop precipitously around the time of the killings in Minnesota. They have slowly but surely ticked back up. They're not above 50, and they're still, you know, they're not as high as they once were, but when the attention comes off of it, it kind of reverts to a mean, and the baked-in assumption, I think on their part is, people know that even if he goes too far, he is strong on this issue. It is simple of how he is strong as a president, right? I think that is the deeper reason he can justify politically continuing to do this. Yeah, and I think that because it's not in the news, and people don't are seeing the excesses of the deportation project, Trump's deportation project, it's like they want, most people want border security, and unfortunately most people want like a proof of the deportations in general. They just think that it's, you know, when they don't see the excesses in the news, they think, well, they're deporting all the right people, right? They're deporting the violent criminals, and that's that, and they forget about what happened in Minnesota and stuff like that, and you've got to, that's why you're just got to keep reminding people, and my people, you know, coming out in Maine and Texas to protest this is important to keep it in the news. Yeah, there's also just like a fundamental problem in, when there is a mass shooting, and 12 people are killed in one place, that is national news. If there are 12 heinous murders committed by people who should not have access to guns, that does not get the same coverage because they are distributed, even though it is the same level of, of, of harm, and so, yes, they are, they're not wrong, right? That just people do not pay as much attention when these, like, sort of injustices are distributed, and I know there's no good answer for that other than continue to talk about it. Positive America is brought to you by HIMS, ED is more common than guys talk about the good news. Weird. Talks about it all the time. Yeah, you can't stop talking about it. Getting real treatment is simple. He's always saying how he doesn't have it. I don't have it. I don't have it. It's weird actually. I don't have it. We're not even talking about it. ED, what's ED? We're talking about Iran. It's crazy thing to bring up all the time. Real treatment is simple, and through HIMS, it's 100% online. HIMS connects you with license, healthcare providers online, giving you simple access to legitimate ED treatment options from home. No awkward appointments, no pharmacy lines, no rhino horn. Just complete a simple online intake and provide. Rhino horn. Yeah, it was like a thing for a while that they were killing the rhinos and grind it up the horns and trying to give guys boners. Really? It didn't work, but it doesn't. I wouldn't imagine. So anyway, point is you've got to take an intake form and you get a review information. You find out of treatments right for you, and if prescribed your treatment chips directly to your door, that includes Sylldenophil, also known as generic for Viagra, available through HIMS at up to 95% less than the brand name version, and that option is right for you. There are additional treatment options available, so you can find what works best for your body. It's straight forward transparent and designed to make getting care feel easy to get simple online access to personalized affordable care for ED and more visit hymns.com/cricod. That's h-i-m-s.com/cricod-hymns.com/cricod. Not available in all 50 states, prescription required. See website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. Sylldenophil is the generic version of Viagra. Viagra is a registered trademark of Viatras specialty LLC. HIMS is not affiliated with or endorsed by Viatras. Pods in America is brought to you by Cook Unity. How did today? I had it this morning. I had it last night. I made a train in Beethbowl. I'm going to have it tonight. I had a pasta dish at Rigatoni with chicken for after my workout yesterday morning. I had fillet with a Gorgonzola, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. Well, look at this guy. He's doing the. You get your normal meals, but there's a few meals where you pay a little extra. They'll bring you a filet, but. You know. It's like $7. $7 more. That's not. This is very affordable, by the way. It is. It's great. That's the best part of it. It's great. I love Cook Unity. It's so many options. I have every goddamn day. I don't even know if we have to read all the copy. I think our enthusiasm is coming across. It's here. It's the first, if you. In case you don't know what it is, Cook Unity is the first chef-led meal delivery service that makes your meals in small batches inside local microkitchens across the US. I know that's very important. But factories, so every dish arrives with the kind of freshness you get at the restaurant itself. Meals from Michelin Star Chefs, James Beardwinners, and Food Network Stars. Go to cookunity.com/cricket or use CodeCricket before checkout for 50% off your first week. Cook Unity works with some of the best chefs in the country to bring creative, delicious meals to your door. Hundreds of dishes to choose from. The menu's updated constantly over 10 dietary preferences that they offer. High protein, low sodium, GLP1, pescatarian, gluten-free, and more. For 25 global cuisines, Mediterranean, Korean, Thai, Mexican, Italian, more. Taste what happens when real award-winning chefs make fresh, small, batched meals just for you. Go to cookunity.com/cricket or enter CodeCricket before checkout to get 50% off your first order. That's 50% off your first order by using CodeCricket or going to cookunity.com/cricket. One big question about the political impact is how this plays with Latino voters in the midterms and beyond. Our friend Carlos Odio at Equis Research always reminds us that the economy, not immigration is still the top concern for Latino voters. In fact, their latest poll shows Trump's approval with Latinos has significantly decreased for the first time since last summer, mainly because his ratings on the economy and cost of living have collapsed. Dan talked with Carlos for this week's Polar Coaster, which you can listen to if you're a friend of the pod subscriber. If you're not, please consider joining at cooket.com/friends so you can get subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster along with ad free versions of your favorite cooket shows, now including Runaway Country with Alex Wagner. That said, Carlos and Equis also found that around two-thirds of Latinos think Trump has gone too far on enforcement and deportation, and among Trump 2024 voters who are Latino who regret their vote, immigration overreach was one of the top reasons cited. Would you guys make all that polling in terms of how Democrats should handle this issue from now into the midterms? I mean, I think the takeaways are Trump's approvals down. Many Latinos now regret voting for Trump, but Democratic approval is not necessarily up. So, we need to treat Latino voters like their swing voters, which they are, they have been. We're so way behind where we were with Latino voters in 2018. Carlos had a good message, which was basically like, don't scold people for voting for Trump. You just say, you relied to Trump promised you a bunch of stuff, he didn't deliver, you're welcome back in the Democratic Party. I think that sounds exactly right, but I do think it's like the thing you hear from a lot of activist groups is that Democrats only show up in the last month of an election. It's all GOTV messaging, turnout messaging, it's not persuasion messaging, it's not early enough. I think that's like a lesson we need to learn this time. Yeah. Yeah, like in the immigration specifically, I just think you can reflect what is true and also comes across in the polling, you know, Democrats, I think, really did have the respect for a long time, had their heads in the sand around the difference between believing in immigration and opposing a lawless border. Right? Like there was just a difference and there was kind of a, I think like a treating people like they were pretty stupid about it. But now I don't think it's very hard to say, like we believe in controlling the border, but they're terrorizing communities, they're terrorizing families. You can enforce our immigration laws in a way that is not cruel and capricious and violent and chaotic. And in the same way, he has sort of failed to, like because of his incompetence and chaos, like failed to address like the reason so many people gave him a chance, cost of living his up, gases up, everything is up, he's focused on all the wrong things. On immigration, we have seen so much chaos and so much violence and none of it was necessary. He was elected to do, to bring down the cost of living and bring some order to places where people felt as though there wasn't enforcement at the border. Now it's time to have like a responsible adults who are going to make good policy and do in a way that reflects what people want out of their government without being so incompetent and cruel. Yeah. I thought the polling was interesting in that Latino voters, like most voters, they care about cost of living more than anything else, so that's like the lead message. But sometimes it's framed as a choice between like, do we talk about that or do we talk about what ICE is doing, and you know, Carlos and Eki say that like Democrats should lift up the stories of the people who've been killed by ICE, but then makes the point, not just their wrongful deaths, but also the stories of their families and contributions to their communities, the data shows that among Latinos who believe Trump's gone to foreign immigration, most say it's because of the impact his policies have had on families, children, U.S. citizens, and legal immigrants. So there is, you know, the stories in the way that we would tell the stories anyway is what Democrats should be doing. Speaking of the midterms, one Republican who should be especially vulnerable on her unqualified support for ICE, Susan Collins, who is now likely to face Democrat Troy Jackson in November. Jackson is Maine's former State Senate president, who just lost the 2026 primary for governor. He's also a fifth generation logger from about as far north and rural as Maine gets. It's on the border of Canada, where he's where Troy Jackson's from. Jackson will officially be nominated to replace Graham Platner until the party convention this weekend, but he ran the table at the county level meetings where delegates were chosen to the point where all of his major competitors have now dropped out. So I pretended to be a dermatologist and I gave him a sort of head to toe mole check and he's clear. So no moles and nothing else. So I just, I had to, you know, put on the status go that whole thing. You know, he kept on his underwear. I'm not a fucking maniac. Early thoughts on Troy Jackson, who's always been our favorite in this race, we always thought would be the. No thoughts on Troy Jackson, I'm just spent a little more time looking at it. I've thoughts on huge credits at the Maine Democratic Party for throwing together a process this quickly. That must be hard. I like, if Jackson gets it, hopefully that will go a long way towards bringing along the Platinum voters who are probably pretty pissed off and the volunteers who were left hanging when he withdrew. We're still in a tough spot, but he's, you know, the Platinum left us a mess, we're behind it fundraising, we're behind in name ID, hopefully now this can become a referendum on Donald Trump and how voting for Susan Collins is a vote for Donald Trump agenda, but it seems like he's already moving towards that, talking to all about Susan Collins, and it's just, what could have been a very contentious couple of weeks here? Yeah, they figured it out. They figured it out, like credit to the main Democratic Party, credit to all of Troye Jackson's challengers to who, like, instead of hanging into the convention, have all dropped out and are all supporting him now, which is great, just so people know who Troye Jackson is. He, so he was State Senate President, he was re-elected in last in 2022, and one of the reddest, reddest parts of Maine, I looked up there in the, the first district, the State Senate district, registration there is 36% Republican, 19% Democrat, 45% no party preference. So that is, that is an achievement winning, winning that district. Internal polls, there's only been a few internal polls with him and Collins. They have him tied or slightly ahead, so it's too early for that. He's got pretty much all of Grand Platinum's positions. He doesn't, it may be, maybe, well, Donald Trump is older positions, sort of just more recent political ones, I'd say, probably. Yes, political positions, political positions, maybe, maybe not as, maybe not quite as charismatic as, as, you know, he's a little, he's a little, a little gruffer. You know what? I'll see. He came in third for governor and used to be very conservative on abortion and gay rights and over the years has now, now he gets like 100% ratings from abortion and gay rights groups. So he sort of changed over time. I realize our process is not ideal, but in South Carolina, Republicans are like, "Hey, Lindsey Graham, you're dead. What if your sister just takes over?" Hey, that's weird. Hey, we're in the market for Lindsey Graham and a wig. This is so weird. We're just handing a sentence. Eat to Lindsey Graham's sister. Yeah. And there hasn't been a lot of, like, you didn't give us a process. Why did you give us this guy? I think for Troy Jackson, it's like, it's name ID, right? People don't. They don't know this. I don't think even people in Maine, right? Like, you're the state senate. Does anyone know the state senate president? No, nobody. Nobody. I don't even know how the legislature is here and assembly isn't California, do you? I'm gonna be very complicated. I'm not doing pop quizzes today. I just don't know. It's not just that Lindsey Graham's sister is finishing out the seat. She's announcing she's going to run for it. I know. And I just want to be clear. We don't know for, you know, maybe she has great interest, like, she works with the blind. I don't know. There's a chance. Let's just be cool. We always thought Lindsey Graham's sister was a reasonable person who could have a conversation with. She gave her a chance before she could discover that she makes Lauren Bobert look like a Keem Jeffries. Unfortunately, Nancy Mays has dropped out of that race. We'll be running now. It's so funny. She said she'll continue to ship post. I literally said that. That's great. She posted just when I thought I was out. They pulled me back in from Godfather Part 3. Never. Like the least requested person ever being like, fine, I'll do it. They being yourself. Right. The voices. Turns out Maine isn't the only speed bump on the road to a blue wave. The Wisconsin gubernatorial primary just got a little jolt over the weekend when lieutenant governor Sarah Rodriguez ended her campaign after revealing serious financial mismanagement by her campaign manager. She was one of the leading candidates in the polls, her dropping out set off a panic among the state's more moderate and establishment Democrats for a worried that Francesca Hong, the DSA backed candidate who's leading in the polls, won't be able to win in November. So even though former lieutenant governor and Senate candidate Mandela Barnes is still close to Hong and the polls, Wisconsin Democrats convinced Milwaukee County executive David Crowley, who'd ended his own campaign a week earlier to get back in the race. And then governor Tony Evers, who had been staying out of the primary, endorsed Crowley. Seems like they got everything under control of their Wisconsin, huh? Like I keyed into this because when I saw the Sarah Rodriguez press conference and I was like watching this video and I really hadn't been paying close attention to this primary to be honest. But then I watched the video and just someone at the point of being like, here is when I found out we were being robbed. Here is when I found out there was not enough money here and there. Then I realized there was a problem over here and I was like, oh boy, I mean, I guess it's good to get ahead of this. But I don't know how you can win a campaign for governor when you're just getting when your finances are so fucked. I still feel like I'm missing something in the Sarah Rodriguez story. The campaign manager double counted donations so they had less money than expected. Then that same staffer puts out a press release that's like, we're doing a million dollar ad buy. The candidate is like, hey, where's our ads? I don't ever see them on TV. Turns out the ad buy was fake because again, they didn't have the money. They put out their filing and she has like 35 grand on hand. Yeah. So that's obviously bad. Do you have to drop out for that like you couldn't have stuck it out. I just think that you're running to be the chief. Something else. I get the argument. No, no. You can't manage your own campaign. You can't manage your own finances. But it's like, I don't know. The primary is August 11th. I feel like there must be more. We're going to learn. That's what happened. And by the way, like when I say Rob, I have no idea. I just sounded like someone at least insinuating that money was going out the door illicitly. Anyway, she's gone. Man, man, man, man, remember the other thing. This is an important race. We don't want to Republican as governor in Wisconsin in 2028 when there will be a presidential election to certify. And so really important that we place Tony Yves with the Democrat. I'm kind of confused why they didn't rally around Mandela Barnes. So I know too. Well, he's known Mandela for a while, he also ran in 2022 for Senate. He came like 26,000 votes shy of winning in a year where it was a 2022 midterms. It was a more Republican-leaning year. And he's close to hung in all the polls. He's probably like a head of Rodriguez in some polls. Several polls show him ahead of the Republican candidate, Representative Tom Tiffany. And Crowley, who I don't know much about, David Crowley. But when he suspended his campaign, he never got more than 5% of the vote in any of the polls. He never hit beyond 5%. And so, and then somehow, Yves has went out and endorsed him and not Barnes. I don't understand either. Other than he lost four, they could use that same plate, but again, if he lost to Ron Johnson, he's going to lose again. I was confusing. It's almost confusing. Like, 20% of primary voters have already cast their ballots. It's almost impossible that David Crowley is going to win this. What him getting back into the race may do is assure that hung is going to win. Yeah, I mean, all the whispering in those articles is they think Bendele Barnes is basically just as progressive as hung and therefore have all the same problems. I don't think they're all going to whispering about bad polling. I have no idea if that's true, but that's been like political reports on this and stuff. Yeah, the strategy's baffling. Yeah, it's like, but it's so funny because it's one thing to think Barnes is also too progressive, just like hung. And so Crowley would be the most electable candidate. Like, I get that argument, as I may not agree with it, but I get it as a legitimate argument. But then saying, okay, so we'll put him in the primary with two weeks left. He never hit 5% and somehow he'll vault ahead of the other two candidates. And they're just hoping that the Tony Evers endorsement will do it. It seems. Well, it seems to be. Yeah, even with, like, there hasn't been a lot of great polling, but also the polling's had them all pre-low, too. Or like, maybe they're hoping there's just a lot of people that have made up their minds or couldn't wait. Yeah, the other, also just to say, like Barnes was the tenant governor of the state. He's not like coming from nowhere, right? Like, I'll just say this, like, if Hong wins the primary and loses the general, it is not, this is not like, let's blame DSA. This is the establishment decided to put in someone else, potentially split the vote with Barnes. And that's where we ended up where we did. And not to mention, after Sarah Rodriguez had to end her campaign, I mean, I certainly blame that coming, and I think everyone Wisconsin was just like, "Jesus Christ, what do we do?" Right. Just scrambling. Right. But that's what I'm saying. The crawly thing is the weird part. It's not like, like, no one could have seen the Sarah Rodriguez thing coming. But the crawly thing is just a, it's a weird thing to do. Pots of America is brought to you by chime. Most of us picked a bank at 16 and ever looked back. Sound familiar? I kind of f***ing nerdy point dexter investors of these people picked a bank at 16. I was f***ing. [laughs] They're not like traditional banks that love to gatekeep the best rewards in pylon hidden fees unless you have a massive balance. Chime offers the most rewarding fee for you, banking. All with no overdraft fees, no monthly fees, no minimum balance fees, you get 5% cashback on Chime card and a category of your choice like gas or groceries. All while booing credit through regular everyday spending, no credit check necessary. You can also grow your money faster with a savings rate that's nine times the national average. However, in a pinch, Bobby lets you overdraft up to $200 fee-free. Join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice or banking head to chime.com/cricket. That's chime.com/cricket. Sign up now. It only takes a few minutes. Chime is a fintech, not a bank banking services and chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required, terms and limits apply, go to chime.com/disclosures for details. Stephen's does not and has the support of APAC who's spending heavily in this race. Abdul is also in favor of more progressive policies like abolishing ice and Medicare for all, which is one reason he's been endorsed by AOC and Bernie Sanders who are in the state this weekend campaigning with him. Here's a clip from one event. They want us to think that these forces are too powerful for us to overcome, that this is just how things are. There's $50 million in this race because they're expecting a return. It's an investment. They've taken the calling me dangerous. I don't know why you would call somebody who looks like me with a name like mine, dangerous. If you're a corporation wanting to buy a politician with their pack, I'm dangerous. If you're APAC and want to send our money abroad, you damn well, but I believe I'm dangerous. If you're somebody who wants government to work for you, I'm not dangerous. I might just be the one person running for US Senate who actually wants to serve you. Thoughts on one of the last and maybe most contentious Democratic primary of the year? I mean, I hate that this has gotten jammed into the Graham Platner discourse frame, at least on social media because like Abdul and Graham Platner are absolutely nothing alike and anyone suggesting otherwise is trying to smear Abdul in a really disgusting way and just clock that when you read these tweets and judge them accordingly. Some of the issues in the race are nationalized. There is frustration at the establishment and Chuck Schumer for picking candidates. That's part of the race. There's Gaza. There's APAC spending. But if you watch the debates or watch them on the stump, it is very local. There's a lot of auto industry talk, there's a lot of anger at shitty utility companies. Everyone in the race made a video about a bridge from Detroit to Canada that Trump was shutting down. They're talking about health care premiums. So look, I'm supporting Abdul because I consider him a friend. I think he's really smart and he's going to the stump. He's taken principled positions on stuff I really care about. I think he'd be a good senator. It's like, it's no deeper than that. I'm not a Haley Stevens-Hater in any way, shape or form. If she wins the primary, I will wholeheartedly support her. No matter who wins, this is going to be a really tough race. Mike Rogers is a good, strong Republican opponent. We barely beat him last time. I think what's most important is, whatever happens, come August 5th, everybody's got to put down on the little Twitter knives, stop nursing your little grudges, making this about some bigger things, some factional inter-party thing, and let's come together and win this race. We have to do a little faster than people have been doing it up in Maine because there's a lot of lingering bullshit happening. There's debate about Medicare for all, which is largely a symbolic debate, even if you support Medicare for all. The next Democratic Congress, if we're so lucky to have a Democratic Congress, we'll have Trump as president. There's no hope of passing Medicare for all, but it is a symbol of a willingness to go bigger, go against the establishment, be willing to say something that may not be as popular broadly, but shows that you're willing to fight. What AOC says there, they're buying the C, it's pretty clear, like, Haley Stevens has said she will support military aid and aid to Israel, of dual will not, right? They're investing to get behind a candidate who will support continuing to give military aid to Israel, but that is a symbol of what happens if either one of them is in the Senate, and put the big, ideological distinctions between the side, Haley Stevens is a reliable Democratic vote. She doesn't have a particularly strong ideological point of view. You go to her website, it's a lot of nuts and bolts, bring money home to Michigan. Policies, she supports a public option, she supports reforming ICE, she's just a reliable Democratic vote. A dual is someone who will push on the party from the left. That is what he would do in the Senate. Now, I think that's a good thing, I think it's good to have people that have a strong point of view and want the Democratic party to stand for something clear, right? But in the end, either way, neither one of them is going to be able to enact any kind of specific agenda. It's a question of what do you believe a Democratic Senate should look like, which why it becomes a proxy between Bernie and Schumer and all the rest? I do think with a Senate race, because you're there for six years, ideally, this person is there for a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, and then, hopefully, the next Democratic president does make a move to expand health care. Who knows how far they'll be able to go, but ideally, and so they will get to do, they will get to set the agenda, hopefully, in some ways. But to your point, this always happens with primaries, which is because the candidates are generally similar on their policy platforms. You try to find differences that then become magnified in the heat of a race that then make it seem like it is this mannequin struggle between good and evil for the supporters on either side. Look, I think in this one, Israel is a clear dividing line. That is where they're policy. She supports Israel with no conditions whatsoever, and he wants to cut it off. Even some of the other races where APEC has played, and I think the difference hasn't been so clear. She's on the right edge of a dwindling minority of Democrats who are taking that position. Even in the Senate, the vast majority of Democratic senators are closer to a ghouls position now than they are to Hayley Stephens. Then the other thing you would do is you'd make it about electability, and I do think it's been hard to make this race about electability grounded in a lot of firm data because, look, the polls that we've had have been from not really high-quality pollsters. There's been a lot of internal polling from both sides. We don't have a New York Times-Sianna poll or a lot of really good polling, and the polling that we have, at the beginning of the race, it seemed like Stephens was performed slightly better against Mike Rogers than Abdul. Now it seems like Abdul has a pointer to honor or they're tied. So it's really hard to make an electability argument, so therefore, now you're just fighting over personality. Well, the personality they're really fighting about is like, they're hand-waving at the policy shit, but they're like, his names have duels, I'll say it, and he's the Muslim guy. That is what is happening. I'm not saying Hayley Stephens specifically is saying that, but a lot of Abdul's opponents are, when they say electability, that is what they mean, and that is what has gotten a little ugly. And to your earlier point, and now they're doing the, well, he's got some of the same consultants, and so Graham Platner wasn't vetted, and we don't want another, and it's like, Abdul has been vetted because he ran for governor of Michigan, and that's why his name idea is so high in the first place, and he's been like, you know, he's just, he's served in public office. Right, he's very different. He wasn't plucked out of obscurity. And the big controversy was about whether or not after he got his MD-PhD, he technically did a residency. It's like, that's like, it's very different than a Nazi tattoo and a sexual assault occasion. But it's like, both candidates now are, I've seen them in interviews, be like, well, this race isn't really about Israel, and everyone else wants to make it about Israel and Gaza, but we want to make it about Michigan. But even there, there's not a lot of like, there's not a fight about health care. Like you're for Medicare for all, and I'm from the public option, let's, let's duke it out. You're for abolishing ice, I'm for reforming ice, let's duke it on that. It's, there's surprisingly little attacks from both of the supporters, at least, on the policy issues and more on it. It's more like, it's more like money driven policy issues. It's like you've taken all this money from corporations or APAC or others, therefore you're beholden to them. That is kind of the proxy for a lot of the political fights. And then, but for Haley, it's like, there's a similarly weird thing happening online with her, which is like, a lot of people are plucking up speeches where they think she looks goofy and sharing them. And then it turns out, maybe people like those speeches. We don't really know. Well, I was, I was into like, there, like, there's moments where she's kind of goofy, and like, kind of, she's like, we got to, we got to let her rip. We got to stick it to 'em and like, it's kind of sweet and there's this kind of aesthetics where if someone who has seen a centrist or pro-Israel does something that is slightly cringed, that it, or it happened to Malar McMarrow, too, when she was in the kind of Elizabeth Warren role to Abdul and they were mad at her. Like, this is so embarrassing. You're so embarrassing. It's cringed. Like, this is the problem. This is the problem. You don't understand real people because you don't understand what broken-brained online people think is funny anymore. But if a, Abdul has made plenty of cringy content and, but his, he's, you know, he's good for the movement and so those things aren't as bad. I was thinking about when I'm like, Schumer farted on the Senate floor. And I do think he did not make the most of it. I think he should have done it all about how we were having a gas crisis. He, what up into the man, Schumer used to be the guy at the gas station and there was a moment where he could have made news about it. He fucked up. Sorry, I was just unblocking the straight-of-form. Exactly. Exactly. Look. Not the only, not the only waterway that we're having trouble getting things through these days at my age, but so, but, but I knew, but it's like, Mom Donnie farted during press conference. There would be stories about how like man, everybody's farting again, and I'm like, he's so good at this. He's so good at this. This is a master at word. He made such a joke. He made such a joke. And this is why we need Medicare for all, he'd say or something. I don't know. How do we get to farting? Because, oh, because there's a lot of like, right, because it's stick it to him. There's a stick it to him. But at the same time, it's like, okay, you want to be this sort of like hard scrabble kind of salt to the earth campaigner, but also your campaign is propped up by tens of millions of dollars of outside money. And John, to your point, like, one of the reasons that the bait is about that outside money and about Israel is because she, as an establishment figure, doesn't have like a clear other than just our bringing money home provision, they'll auto bail it. Like, what's the policy place where she feels so strongly she wants to pick a fight with a duel over it? Well, this is, yes. And I know this is naive of me, but like, as we head into a presidential primary season, like my wish is that the the factional war within the Democratic Party is fought over different policy positions because there are plenty of differences between the left and the center left and I think sometimes with the establishment, center left, whatever you want to call them, more moderate Democrats does is they look at the progressive movement, progressive candidates and they either take umbrage or dismiss them or say or just like attack attack attack and it's like try to, you got to be for something, yes, you got to be excited about your candidates and you got to run candidates who are exciting and charismatic and have something that they really want to get down with a default to and you can kind of hear this with and I'm not saying Stevens does this but someone for support is always like but she works so hard and she's just, she's got her head down and she works hard and that's like the, that's like the thing for all the Establishment candidates is like they just, they're servant, they're public servants and they're working hard it's like yeah everyone's everyone in public life who's running for offices working hard and doing a lot of good stuff. She's sort of a throwback, it's sort of a throwback campaign, like there was a, not that long ago, most campaigns were like I'm going to deliver for my state, I'm going to bring home the bacon, I'm going to get ear marks and pork barrel and just like build a fucking airport over here and you know what if Susan Collins wins, that's why. And it's, and Haley, like, it sounds like that's the kind of campaign she's running. Now somewhere along the way, we found this desire where we also want people to be national figures and have national profiles and see value in that too. There's a bit of a race here. On the, on the, the goofy content thing, like Abdul has put out videos that were so cringy that I sent them to his consultants and I said no more of this. I got right, was he in a hat? I don't remember which one it was, it might have been more than one, but like he's put out a lot of corny shit. Now I think there are people rightly pointing out that I think Haley is treated differently because she is a woman, there's a lot of misogyny and sexism. In the messaging, you'll see on Twitter about these videos, they're also just kind of cringy videos at times and like sometimes she's a goofy messenger and sometimes he's a goofy fucking messenger. It's not always loaded to say that too. Like that's the other part of this. Well, this is where like the attention economy has made people do crazy things. Yes. Like there's a whole range of issues that are just not really that much a part of a democratic debate. Education, one of the most important issues where Democrats have lost ground for the last 10 years or five years, really six years. And like, I'll say something that was like, this is one of the reasons why if Rom runs for president, like it will be good because he will be the person that picked. Wait, shut up. It will be good. It will be. It will be because. Send it. He will. He will. He will. He will. He will. He will have that kind of old school democratic politics where he liked. He started now starring on the son. I already get said back on the survivor to fuck because he will force debates about these questions on his road to not being the nominee. And like on a broad range of issues that will like kind of like in the way that Haley seems is not causing not kind of forcing questions back over to a dual on policy questions. I think you need center left figures who do that because we need to have those big debates. That's all. Well, Haley's big attack on a dual in the debate was like you haven't released your tax returns yet. And I just wonder like it was another kind of like it felt like an old school criticism of so much. Well, it feels like he's attacking her on money, right? Like you've got all this money right on your hat. So she's like, I want to do money thing. I'm just wondering if voters care. I can't tell who you find out who knows. Speaking of Bernie, CNN reported over the weekend the back-and-march when he back to challenger to a democratic housing company in North Carolina. Hakeem Jeffries called him and warned him against meddling in house primaries, arguing that it's divisive and a drain on limited resources that could go to beating Republicans. Another member who was on the call said Sanders quote, "Seemed not to care." It seems absolutely by that. The most joe-lean phone call? Like, please, please. I know you can take these districts. Please stop. Please stop. He's my man. It's like, I get my Hakeem Jeffries would not want divisive primaries. I can't imagine any scenario where he thought Bernie Sanders would care. I can't. I'm tired to imagine this conversation Bernie Sanders would care about less. Other than the interview I had with him where he tried to get out of it a few minutes early, where he did this. This is another problem with the established one argument. The response is always like, "No, no, no. These primaries shouldn't happen." I guess what? The candidates are going to run. People are going to sign up and they're going to run for office and they're going to be from all political persuasions. Doing the whole, and Hillary started this in 2016 with Bernie, right? They're not real Democrats. They don't respect the Democratic Party as institutions. You know who doesn't respect the Democratic Party as an institution? America? More specifically, Democrats. It's not the greatest argument to be like, "How dare you run and how dare you upset our primaries?" Go beat them. Beat them with better ideas. Beat them by saying that their ideas are bad or their ideas aren't going to resonate with most American people. There's plenty to go after before you're just being like, "Don't run." These are people trying to do a hostile takeover of a failing enterprise. If you think they're not the right people to lead, you've got to make a much better case to the shareholders because they're looking at your record and they're thinking, "I'm going to take a shot on these people." Let's also look at the Republican Party. Did that work really well for them, for all the establishment figures in the Republican Party when they were like, "No, Donald Trump can't be it." Good point. Also, they're facing their own version of this. Like, in Arizona, Andy Biggs is probably going to be the Republican gubernatorial nominee. He's a lunatic. In Iowa, my buddy Rob Sand is up against this complete unknown dude whose primary work background was like working for the Koch brothers for a decade. He doesn't even live in the state. He's in Iowa half the time. He's in Kansas. That Colorado guy. That's like, "Yeah, when I was a kid, I killed people." What's up? What up it? What up it? We all do it. That's it. Wait, what? Go back. You all do it. That's one of the all-time interviews. I killed someone. What up it? We got to know, they've nominated this lunatic in Iowa, who wants to ban the mRNA vaccine. He wants COVID vaccines off the shelf. He says, "I'm going to make Marxist hijacked the curriculum in Iowa. There's a decade of Republican rule, but they're not backing away from him. The RGA is going to put tens of millions of dollars on air behind this guy." Anyway. Yeah. Well, like you said, I think it's going to be a bumpy couple of weeks in these primaries, but once August comes and goes, we're all behind the nominee. Is that all or whoever it may be? Yeah. Did you see that on the sidelines of one of the events with a dual political-assed AOC about running for president? She said, "I can't say that I've ruled it out." She also talked about her own definition of what big tent means. General thoughts on how she's preparing for the possibility of a run in 28? We've talked so much about elections that are happening. November, we get a little treat to talk about just a tiny bit of speculation before we end the pod. Yeah. There's a little bit of an axial story about AOC embracing kind of Obama-style hope and change, just sort of as evidence of her shift in preparation for running. I don't really think it reflects, I think AOC has evolved as a public figure and I think she has learned a lot since she's been in Congress, but I think part of what her appeal has always been is that she's asked and she says, "I don't come from a working-class family. I didn't come from a militant leftist family." That's just reading the stage directions a little bit, but her appeal has always been that she hasn't sounded like what Republicans want her to sound like. She sounded so much more optimistic and hopeful and she's also, by the way, said something similar about not ruling out. I think a month ago, this is going to be something that keeps happening, but whether she runs for Senate or President or neither, she's going to use the power she has and she is, I think, a more important and attention worthy figure as long as the possibility of earning for President's out there. The single best way to get media coverage is to suggest that you're going to run for President. She's smart. She knows that. This will get her attention for her ideas. I don't know if she's going to run or not. It feels like she might. The only size tent we are allowed to have is circus. Our tent has got to be gigantic at this point because we need to fit a lot of people underneath this thing. I'm glad she's saying that. I will say that if I were her and I were thinking of running for President, she is, and she's probably being told and knows herself because she's very, very smart, that her risk is that she's seen as too left and too extreme and she's seen all the polling data. I'm sure. If you're going to run for President and you at least want to prepare for the possibility that you might, I think she's doing all the right things that you would do. Maybe less than her answers about are you running or not. The way that she's endorsing or not endorsing is that she didn't endorse Grand Plotner. She has an endorse this progressive challenger in Michigan and a house seat. And then it wasn't on stage like she's being very careful. She's being very careful, but not in a way that seems like cautious. She's just being delivered in her rhetoric. Like she said, you can have a clear vision for what we're trying to accomplish as a country and also include everyone in it and show that everyone has a place on that as well. It's just, it's not, it's not the same as you hear from many of the DSA candidates today. I accept my money, I should say. Yeah. I take her also at her word when she was asked about this previously, like what she's looking for is outcomes, right? She's not just about her and her position. And if you think in 2028, there's obviously going to be a big contentious and very important primary. Either the vote of the left will be divided or it will be united behind one figure. If it is her, she knows that as that person, she trusts, like she knows how responsible and capable and careful she will be and deliberate about how to hold that position, whether it is as the nominee or as the person who helps unite the party behind whoever the nominee would be. And that is like the figure who is right to like represent. Like, what comes after Bernie is someone who, A, just truly believes in this fight and representing it as persuasively as possible, but also like Bernie and AOC understand that if the more moderate candidate wins, it is just as important to get behind them. She comes across as someone who takes very seriously her role in the party wherever, whatever it may be, and her role in politics, which is a good thing to see. All right, that's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Positive America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Reed Jerlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Heffkoat, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kierel Pellevi, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is probably unionized with the writer's Guild of America East.