Trump Caves to Putin as Democrats Surge Before Midterms

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See disclosures and fund offering materials for more information. Great meeting. Who took notes? Anyone? With Monday Notetaker, nobody has to take notes again. It joins your call, transcribes it, and turns the whole conversation into a clear plan. Action items, owners, deadlines, all right there on your Monday.com board, ready for the team. So the meeting ends, and the plan already exists. Meetings aren't just talk anymore. Go to Monday.com, the AI workspace platform. Hey, everybody. Sue Bird here. This week on Bird's Eye View, I'm thrilled to be joined by none other than Flage Johnson, a.k.a. Big Four. We talk about what it's like being a young guard in the league, blocking five-time MVP Asia Wilson, and breaking rookie records, including one of mine. But first, Flage and I preview what to expect from the WNBA finals between the Golden State Valkyries and the Atlanta Dream. Make sure to check out Bird's Eye View on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarlev. Welcome to our live stream. We're live every Monday on YouTube and Substack. We'll take your questions at the end of the show, so please drop them in the chat as we go. Tomorrow, we're doing a live stream with Democratic candidate for Texas Governor Gina Hinojosa. She's in a virtual tie with incumbent Republican Greg Abbott right now in the state of Texas, as our listeners are likely aware. It's a huge bellwether for whether or not we're really going to see a blue tsunami. Please subscribe to PropGplus and PropGmedia.com, and you can join us live with Gina tomorrow, Tuesday, October 20th, at 10.30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. All right, let's bust into it. We're officially 15 days out from Election Day, and early voting starts today in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, South Carolina, and Texas. Here are three numbers we're watching. A new Ipsos poll puts Democrats up eight points on the congressional ballot. The same poll has Trump's disapproval rating sitting at 66%. There's also a new Wall Street Journal poll that finds Democrats aren't sold on a leftward shift. In Ohio, Sherrod Brown is up. Kalsha gives him a 66% chance of taking back the seat. And in Michigan, Kalsha gives Abdul El-Sayed a 68% chance of winning. Take us around the map here. Thoughts on these recent poll numbers, Jess? I'm like, where in the world is Carmen Sandiego for elections, Jessica Tarlow edition? There were. So many new polls that came out this weekend. It was overwhelming. The overarching message was that this was really good stuff for Democrats. I'm going to spend some time in the Washington Post poll. Trump's disapproval, like in Ipsos, at 66%, which is very, very high, especially going into an election. You don't want to see that. But probably the most important finding, and they did one of those big charts going through every issue that someone might be thinking about when they go in to vote. So healthcare, education, cost of living, inflation, Iran. They polled transgender issues, which I want to talk about, the economy, corruption, taxes, immigration, and crime. Only one issue were Republicans up, and that was on crime. And I have said this on the pod numerous times. I talk about it at Fox regularly. It is important. Crime is one of the most important issues to people. It's how you feel, right? When you walk outside and you think of something. Is something going to happen to me? Is something going to happen to my kids? I live in a big city. So do you. The idea that there's still toothpaste locked up at drugstores, that has, it weighs on you, right? Where you think, like, you can't just walk in and go about your business as normal. I don't think it swings the election, but I also don't think it's something to poo-poo. And you have to pay attention to it. But the fact that Democrats are up on everything else is enormously important. You know, double on healthcare. Huge margins on inflation. Anything having to do with the economy, which is a very big deal. But this transgender issues thing stuck out to me because they obsessively talk about it, right? Like, trying to relive the Kamala is for they, them, you know, I'm for you ad from Trump at the end. And Democrats with a nine-point edge when it comes to handling transgender issues. And I think that speaks to two things. One, the economy is so bad that people don't have time to be distracted by what they see. It's kind of ancillary social issues. Second piece of, yeah. But the second piece of it is I think that Democrats have actually finally figured out how to talk about this issue, which should not have been minimized as a nothing, right? Just saying, like, I'm not even going to waste my time on this. It was something that you actually had to have an opinion on. You had to come out there and say, I understand there might be a biological fairness question in competitive sports, but I will not let you trample on civil rights because of your bigotry. And I feel like we've nailed, nailed it, like landed the plane there. And that was exciting for me to see, at least as someone who talks to Republicans on the regular, who are bringing up transgender issues. So corruption, which will probably be the number one issue, if not the number two issue in this election. It got to number one in the new Fox News poll, which has never happened before. And this is a bipartisan problem. And I was looking at the readouts from GOP focus groups. And for the first time, they were hearing that when you because of the rise in gas prices, that everyone's having a tough time economically. The voters were pointing to, quote, corrupt politicians and billionaires, which you expect to hear out of a Democratic focus group. The focus on the billionaire class, the elites, the Epstein class, as John Ossoff puts it. So you're seeing an across the board revulsion at the level of corruption. In our political ranks, 72 percent of independents think Donald Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself. And even one third of Republican voters feel that way. So you have to land the plane with this because they do also think that Democratic politicians are corrupt. But they are seeing the grift out of Donald Trump and his close associates. And they're repulsed by it. I'm just curious. So Sherrod Brown, not a surprise. It's a right state, though. I mean, he's. He's running a perfect campaign, though. I just wanted to read. He's so good. Also, I thought it was hilarious how many people in Ohio still thought that he was the senator. So people should pay more attention to their politics. But there are these quotes from GOP consultants on John Husted, who's the sitting senator. John Husted looks like a quarterback. He talks like a quarterback, but he acts like a water boy. And another one said, when the story is written on this campaign cycle, Sherrod Brown will have run the best race in the country. John Husted may have run. The worst campaign in the country. I don't know. I would I would pick Tallarico and Paxson for best and worst. So Ipsos with the Democrats plus eight with Trump at 66 disapproval. That's not a head. That's not a headwind. It's a hurricane warning. And this I mean, this is such an anxious time for us as Democrats, because it feels like nothing less than a bloodbath is going to be disappointing. Right. It's now the expectation. I've been literally up until two months, six weeks ago, the narrative was we're going to take the House. We're just going to try and get back a couple flip a couple of Senate seats. Now, Kelsey is saying that the House 40 to 50 seats and a two thirds likelihood that we retake the Senate. And I look at the map and I think, OK, I I'm I'm more nervous about Maine and Michigan than I think most people are. What states are in play as of today that weren't just a week or two weeks ago? Has anything all of a sudden gone to toss up that was leaning Republican? Probably Kansas is the one to really focus on for that. Reverend Hamilton is running an incredible campaign and Roger Marshall is stepping in it. He's having to feign interest in, you know, pulling back ice, for instance. He has not landed the plane on economic messaging, though, in his defense, I don't know how you would be able to do this considering the fact that he's not going to be able to do that. The fact that the administration is causing a lot of this economic strife and Roger Marshall is a vote yes on all of that. So I would put Kansas as the surprise, though. I mean, maybe I'm just, you know, Democratic bedwetter type, which I definitely am. I'm not even thinking about 40 to 50 seats like I would like something, you know, too big to rig. But I basically think the Senate, you're in toss up territory, which as Democrats, that's a good place to be. if you're talking about states like Texas and Iowa and Alaska, Alaska, which are supposed to be so red that you think you can't even get close. And now we have some early voting trends, which I think are really interesting to highlight. So there was this big panic because Michigan started and people were saying, oh, this is not looking good. Like we're not seeing the Gen Z turnout that we would expect. We're not seeing patterns in past elections when Democrats in Michigan have performed well. And Zachary DeNino, who I think is fantastic elections analyst and modeler, made the point, which I think is important to keep in mind, that he was drawing on specifically from Nevada for this, that the early voting trends suggest that concerns about the USPS handling of mail ballots are changing how some Democrats vote. So they're going and dropping it off, voting in person. The comparisons to 2024 might get a bit fuzzy based on that. My anxiety about Michigan remains, to your point, on Maine and Michigan. Early voting in North Carolina looks really good. Day one of early voting in 2024 was D plus 1.7. Day one of early voting in 2026 was D plus 27.4. Also, they're looking at where these low propensity voters are going if they're coming out and voting. It is looking good in North Carolina and in Maine. Racial and geographic trends are suggesting this similar pattern to Georgia, which doesn't do it by voter registration, actually. So they look at demographics. And so Georgia early voting in 2024, day one, 30 percent Black, 2026, 36.6 percent Black. And the exception to all of the good news is what's going on in Florida, where it looks like it could be even more heavily Republican. So we're going to have to wait and see what happens. But I think it's going to be a lot more Republican than in 2024. Yeah. So one of the keys when we talk about early voting, the election isn't November the 3rd anymore. It's a two-week window. And yeah, the window opened today. The polls are open today, so to speak. My son, I got so excited the other night. I just recognized, I'm like, oh my gosh, my son can vote. If you're like me and you think I haven't really given a lot or I've benefited more, I've taken more than I've given, I think this is a really nice time to try and get everyone in your family at least registered and just start talking about voting and reminding people that voting has started. I was very interested in the Wall Street Journal article, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Democrats not sold on a leftward shift. My sense is, and I think the Democrats, I'm often very critical of our own party. I think the Democrats have done a good job recognizing that Americans aren't asking them to go left or right. It's asking them to go forward. Affordability, confidence, and try and stay away as much as you can from the lectures. And it's almost like absolutely go out there with our messaging, but everyone keeps talking about a blue wave. I've said, this is not a blue wave. This is a red rib tide. I just think Trump and gas prices are doing our work for us. And you have to show up, be thoughtful, not sound too indignant or elite or get too caught in social issues. But just to talk about the economy, affordability, and I think the Democrats have done a really good job of doing that. And kind of hit it straight down, straight down the middle. Let's move on and start with the Russia-Ukraine war, which I think is going to go down as one of the biggest stains in America history, specifically our abandonment of a country that is fighting for the West right now with absolutely no help from the U.S. or little help. Trump says he's waiving sanctions on Russia because he's negotiating peace and doesn't want Moscow to walk away. That's after he signed an executive order waiving new sanctions and tariffs required under the law he previously signed. He's waiving sanctions on Russia because he's negotiating peace and doesn't want Moscow to just two days before they were set to take effect. Meanwhile, Putin has proposed a meeting with Trump and Xi Jinping next month to discuss Ukraine in a bid to negotiate an end to the four-year war on terms favorable to Moscow. Trump has also criticized Zelensky for striking Russian oil refineries, blaming the attacks for driving up diesel prices. Over the weekend, Ukraine launched its biggest drone attacks against Russia this year, hitting an oil export terminal in St. Petersburg. Jess, do we buy any of this justification from Trump on going back on Russian sanctions if he agreed to previously? No, absolutely not. And we're not big Trump is a Russian asset group. You know, that's I don't want to revisit 2016 in that sense. But he is doing absolutely everything that Vladimir Putin wants. I am sure that he's sitting there in Moscow thinking, like, I didn't realize I could get this lucky at this point. And the narrative around the oil issues, being about Ukraine and just ignoring what's going on in the Middle East, like the Strait of Hormuz is the problem. Zelensky is not at this point, and they have admitted as much. I'm just horrified by all of this. The idea that Trump might consider, I mean, it's Putin's proposal. We'll see if he says yes, but that he should stand shoulder to shoulder with Putin and Xi to talk about Ukraine and you don't invite Zelensky to come or even a representative of Zelensky's government. I hate the guy. And Zelensky has shown himself to be someone with an enormous amount of flexibility about this. Call elections. When we can guarantee that people can get to the polls, that's fine. He's not attached to being president in the same way that someone like Donald Trump is, or certainly Putin, Xi, Netanyahu, who we also have to talk about. Like, this feels like really getting to criminal stuff in the level of betrayal. Big op-eds, Wall Street Journal editorial board to Russia would love, signed Donald. And they write, when the election is over, there needs to be a bipartisan reckoning for Mr. Trump's budding alliance with the Kremlin against Ukraine, Europe, and American interests. Andy McCarthy with similar sentiment in the National Review. I get it that these are like normie Republicans and not whatever this MAGA wing actually represents, but this is harrowing stuff, what we're doing to Ukraine right now. Yeah, as Democrats, we like to think of ourselves as being more thoughtful and empathetic of the side. I think Donald Trump, the president, and Elon Musk are traitors to the West. And I really do hope there's a reckoning here. When we think about how many people have risked or given their lives trying to ensure the safety of Europe, or how many Americans have died at the hands of people who've been armed by Russia. If you think about the majority of cyber attacks come from one place, Russia, if you look at the fact that Tucker Carlson's engagement declined 72% the day after the Yandex server farms were bombed in Russia, we are now allies with arguably the biggest threat to democracy globally. We've decided to ally with them. And it's also, it's not actually, that's the wrong word. President Trump has decided to ally with Russia. The American people are still very much on the side of Ukraine. And we have minority rule right now, where our president, under the cover of darkness, is coordinating or conspiring with Elon Musk to turn off battlefield technology that results in the deaths of Ukrainian citizens. If they can't stay on the offensive here, they go on the defense, and Russia is going to continue to take out civilian infrastructure and bomb civilian targets. This is, what the Ukrainian army here has done is basically, they are NATO. They are the ones who are fighting the West right now. And for Trump and Musk to ally with Russia and not give the Ukraine any warning, they're turning off Starshield and Starlink, and then them pointing at each other like the cowards they are. Oh, it's the government, it's President Trump. Look at him, talk to him. Oh, I have no idea what happened. I do see the Republicans beginning to find their backbone around this issue. I can't even imagine. I want Senator Rubio, excuse me, Secretary Rubio to run for president, just so we can play all the clips of him talking a big game about Russia being our enemy for the last 20 years. This was his signature foreign policy. Russia is our, not our adversary, is our enemy. And now he's Secretary of State and has decided to ally with our enemy. This is, in 2025, by 2025, we had over, the U.S. had over 6,400 sanctions on Russian entities and drew more designations than Iran had accumulated in a decade. And Trump just waved the new ones two days before they took effect on a law he signed. The entire West spent a decade building a fence around Russia, and Trump is sneaking out to the fence in the middle of the night and taking it off its hinges. In addition, it's just so incredibly ridiculous that these imports are going to have any effect, other than to try and just say, hey, we're supporting Russia and we want Zelensky to come to the table, which means surrender. There's no negotiating here. When you, when you have a quote unquote, you know, Yalta-like convocation and you don't invite Ukraine to the table, what you're saying is, okay, Ukraine's on the menu. I just love the notion they think they're going to negotiate something without Ukraine at the table. You don't, in addition, you don't negotiate peace by removing your leverage before the meeting. Any peace here has to involve one thing, Putin withdrawing or, significantly scaling back. And Trump is so fucking stupid. He thinks by emboldening the aggressor, that's going to result in leverage leading to peace. Right now, the Trump administration is not trying to negotiate a peace. It's trying to schedule the next war with a pause for Russia to rearm and then decide who they're going after next, Poland or Finland. The Putin-Xi-Trump summit is just two autocrats and a guy who admires them deciding the fate of the Western democracy, whereas the real warrior at the table or hasn't been invited to the table, it's not a peace summit. It's a closing. It's absolutely insane. Any thoughts on this or the notion that he's blaming Ukraine for diesel prices? Support for the show comes from Upside. You work hard for the show. You work hard for your money. So why not make your money work a little harder for you, especially when it comes to the things you might spend money on every week, gas, groceries and eating out. Those everyday purchases can add up fast. But with Upside, you can earn cash back on things you're already buying, helping you get a little more out of every dollar. Upside is a free app that gives you cash back on gas, groceries and dining, expenses that can take a big bite out of your budget. And it's easy to use. Just open the app, claim an offer, pay with your card like you normally would and earn cash back. That's it. And we're talking real money. Real money here. Not points you have to figure out how to redeem or credits that expire. Just actual cash that you can transfer straight to your bank account. Upside has given back $1 billion to its users. To find out how much you could earn, download the free Upside app and use promo code MODERATES to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas. That's an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas. Using promo code MODERATES. Hi, everyone. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Twice a week, we get together on Pivot to sort through the biggest stories in tech, business and politics. And we're taking the show back on the road for a live tour in November. So we'll bring hot takes. I'll bring the insight and the dick jokes. And Kara will try. Keyword is try to keep me in check. You'll get to see her hit me in person live. I'll do it. If someone has to do it. We'll cover AI, whatever chaos Washington has cooked up that week and every billionaire misbehavior. That's all of them. And you'll also get to participate in audience Q&A. So bring your best questions. Scott will probably answer ones you didn't ask. We also have secret special guests, which you'll enjoy for every city. Get tickets at PivotTour.com. That's PivotTour.com. We are selling out. So don't wait. And we look forward to seeing you. The Ukrainian people and the technology and their sophistication and their bravery and the existential threat they feel with people invading their home and bombing their maternity wards and their apartment buildings, they are absolutely motivated and they are winning this war. And to not back the winner and send a message to Xi, think twice before you think about Taiwan, to send a message to Putin and the next leader after Putin is kicked out, which I believe he will be. I don't think he'll survive this, says, think twice before you invade the West. So this is, I think him going on the offense, he's sort of unchained right now. I think Trump always thinks he's negotiating in a vacuum. If you would draw your support for Ukraine, they have less to lose by coming out and just blatantly saying, without U.S. support, you may have the invasion of Europe, may happen here. This is probably going to happen. We are doing our best. He is the church of our generation, Zelensky, absolutely no doubt about it. And I think they're being very savvy in terms of the Western outlets they're going to. He's a good spokesperson. He comes across as very sincere, very, very truthful, very likable. And I've got to be honest, my favorite streaming video is seeing Russian refineries on fire. And the St. Petersburg strike last night or two days ago was the gift of the weekend. And Ukraine just reminded everyone it doesn't need permission to defend itself. The best negotiating leverage on earth is a drone over your oil terminals. And I hope that they continue to register the same success. And the fact that we are abandoning, this is literally no different than if we, in the middle of, if in 1942, if FDR had said, you know what? Hitler's not that bad. He's not that bad. We're going to start providing, we're going to start buying machinery and equipment and technology from Berlin. How is that different? How is an autocrat who does not believe in democracy going to be able to do that? And it's so anti-West invading Europe. We have been to this movie before. So I'm glad some Republicans are finally, you know, reaching down and feeling these two spherical objects between their legs. And you can tell that Republicans have had it because all of a sudden, you know, Trump, it appears Trump is backing down on this and he's saying, oh no, Musk throttled it back and Rubio with his bullshit, oh, it just happened. Anyway, I'm hopeful here that this, that this in fact, is something that Trump is going to have to turn back. He's going to have to check back on his support or his new alliance with Russia. Also the diesel just, the notion that this is anything other than symbolism, it's seven or eight days of U.S. usage, one day of global usage. And your point was exactly the right one. The reason diesel prices are at six, seven, eight bucks a share or eight bucks a gallon in some regions is because of Trump's war in Iran. It has nothing to do with whether or not we're able to get diesel out of Russia. Russia to blame for Iran too. I mean, on every front, Russia is the problem. So like, why are, why are we playing this game? I'm just happy to see that at least the voters seemingly are, are seeing through this. And it's curious where Pete Hegseth is. I mean, I guess he's in the corner because he doesn't get to live stream his execution of a paraplegic, but we have not heard anything from the Secretary of Defense in quite some time when it comes to what's going on in the war in Iran. But let's do the J.D. Town Hall because this was hot, contentious. There we go. Here's VP J.D. Vance responding to a question at CBS News Town Hall in Michigan. This one from a veteran whose wife was a soldier killed in March in Iran. Though the Iranian drone was the weapon that killed my wife, there were a lot of mistakes and a lot of fundamental failures that led up to that. There's a failure in the leadership. And I want to know how this administration is going to start holding those leaders accountable. So, Joey, first of all, look, I owe and the whole country owes your family a debt of gratitude that is quite literally impossible to repay. When you talk about failures that were, that we were implicated, the administration, the Department of War, whoever you want to say, was implicated in, I want to know about that stuff. Because if there were failures, and I don't doubt there were, I just, literally the first time I've heard of this is this conversation. And I want to fix that stuff. Did you see the kid in the back row right behind him who was like, it's the first time you're hearing about this? We also know that it is not the first time. If he's just opened up any newspaper or gone on any website, he knows exactly what attack this guy is talking about, where his wife died. And the abject failure to protect them from drone warfare, which we knew was how the Iranians were going to be carrying out a number of these attacks. You know, I thought that J.D. did his best, like, I actually give a shit, but then ended on the completely unacceptable position, which is actually the buck doesn't really stop with us. And I didn't even do the necessary prep or will not be honest with you in such a way that, you know, I'm not going to be able to you can walk away from this exchange thinking that I care at all. And historically speaking, this is one of the more difficult conversations that a politician is ever going to have with a constituent, right? When someone's loved one has died as a result of a leadership failure, leadership failure, or even just something that happened. You know, people sign up, they know if they go to war, that there is a chance that they're going to die. But I thought that it was really poorly handled. Everyone sent a message to the public with a couple weeks to go before their election day that the administration is not taking this seriously enough. And they got us into a war that it's going to go, I don't know, feels like past a year at this, you know, we're well into October. No signs of it slowing down. And the Iranians know how much they're benefiting from continuing to keep this going and that they have no answers for any of it. I thought it was really disappointing and just sad to see someone ask you, you know, a question for some real answer to their heartbreak. And that you say it's the first time I've heard of this. Like you have a million briefers. Like nothing exposes a talking point, you know, like a widower in the front row. And that is policy and wars are in the abstract until they have a name. And one of the, I do think one of the plagues U.S. foreign policy right now is that we're totally sequestered from the ramifications of it. The homeland was attacked 25 years ago, but most of us didn't know someone heard. No one was drafted. We've convinced the American public that, oh, we can max out your credit card by going to war and cutting taxes. I mean, if we were at a minimum should have some sort of additional wartime tax or something that helps everyday Americans recognize, that wars come at a cost. And even if we outsource most of that cost to military families, we have to do a better job of giving people a vested interest or feeling the pain of war, if you will. I actually thought the vice president handled this about as well as he could have. And that is, I mean, keep in mind, his predecessor was chased down by an angry mob at the direction of his new boss with a noose. And he, and also, you know, I don't know if you've heard of him. I don't know if you've heard of him. So supposedly in the, in the situation room, he was the one who said this is a bad idea going into Iran. And yet he has to just tow the company line right now. I do think he came across as somewhat empathetic here, but the reality, this will go down is the greatest geopolitical mistake since the Iraq war, which may have bested the decision to go into Southeast Asia in the sixties, which I think at the time, some people would say you could justify this has been an enormous failure, not of intelligence, because supposedly the Trump administration had the intelligence and there was an idea that we'd go in limited strikes and see if we could topple the regime quick and easy. And if not, at least somewhat diminish their Navy and their missile launch capacity kind of, I don't want to call it in out, but here we are seven months later, no one anticipated or seemed to anticipate or Trump didn't anticipate the problems in the Strait of Hormuz, did not secure it, did not coordinate with our Gulf allies. We've to not get anyone in the EU on board. I mean, people forget when we expelled Sodom from Kuwait, George Herbert Walker Bush got something like 47 or 60 countries to back him. The last, when we had the JCPOA, the agreement with Iran under Obama, Iran and Russia were signatories. I mean, they signed up for it too. We are isolated. We are doing things unilaterally that make no mistake. We don't think about what's actually going to happen here. And then Vance is kind of left there to just, I feel like right now he's the circus clown scooping up the shit behind the elephant. There's not a lot he can say. What he could have said, and I think at some point he will, at some point, and I'm curious, just politically, if Vance wants to be president, especially if the midterms are as bad for Republicans as I think they are, at some point Vance would be politically well-served to say something along the lines on, look, there's certain issues I disagree with the president on. I'm his vice president. I will always support him. But as has been reported in the Wall Street Journal, he and I had a robust discussion over the decision to bomb Iran. At some point, he's going to have to distance himself. And I don't, and quite frankly, I think politically it would be smart because, I mean, this is what, this is how Vice President Harris, one of the many reasons she lost the election, was her inability on The View to say, is there anything you disagree with Biden on? And she's like, well, I can't think of anything. I wonder, and I'll put the question back to you, at some point, does Vance or Rubio read the tea leaves and start to distance themselves from Trump? Because at this point, I don't think Trump can fire either of them. I don't think anytime soon. I imagine as we head into the lamest of ducks situation in the last two years of this administration, perhaps as you get closer to 2028. But I would say, like, if J.D. Vance doesn't, I don't think he's going to be able to fire either of them. J.D. Vance doesn't want to be revelatory about the concerns that he has on these big issues that are beyond the what happened to that man losing his wife, but that everybody in that audience knows that cost of living is going through the roof because of decisions that the Trump administration is taking, whether it's tariffs or the war in Iran. Like, why do the town hall that I don't think that it helped the Republicans going into the midterms. It just felt it just fed the left wing outrage machine and the feeling of being let down amongst traditional Republican voters. I mean, that's their big battle right now with the couch, that they can't turn out the base and that a lot of right leaning independents as well have responded to surveys just saying, like, oh, I think I'm going to give it a miss this time. I don't think that anything that J.D. Vance did sitting down on CBS for a town hall, besides making Barry Weiss happy, I guess, you know, promoted his side or made him seem any more. Presidential, if that's what he's going to be thinking about for twenty twenty eight. In my view, but maybe I'm doing being too harsh about it, but I just I thought for someone who is so clearly linked to a number of leaks to The Atlantic, to The Wall Street Journal, to The New York Times, he's the leaker. I love that. He's the leaker in the White House. Well, he you know, there are a bunch of them. Like, I don't know how Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman got this much action from only one guy. So there are definitely more people in there that are talking. But like. He's definitely one, especially on the foreign policy front. And someone who came into this wanting a more, you know, thinking America first actually meant no more stupid wars and that we wouldn't be signing up for that. And so I just think that he could have smart guy. He could have even gotten some more coded language out there to at least, you know, hold of a flag, you know, a little bit of the white flag to that guy and say, like, this shouldn't have happened. And I've heard about it before. You don't talk about dead service people and say, I'm the vice president. I never heard that. Yeah. And just before we get to questions here, Netanyahu or Trump has endorsed Netanyahu. And I'm, you know, imagine the reaction of a foreign leader endorsed in our midterms. We used to call that interference. And, you know, now we call it a Tuesday. We will reengage students, alumni and other members of our community to examine how we preserve what is valuable about Greek life. That was Cornell University's President Michael Kotler. And he's a great friend of mine. And I think he's a great friend of mine. Cornell also says it's going to add experienced sexual assault investigators to their police force. The question is, why didn't this happen two years ago when the sexual assault at a campus fraternity was first reported? Or maybe the question remains, why don't we just ban frats? We're going to ask on Today Explained from Vox, available in your feeds Monday to Friday. I'm Seth Matlins. And on this week's episode of Creator Destroy Reimagining Marketing, my guest is Starbucks Global Chief Brand Officer, Tressie Lieberman, who was hired after the company's drift from its core values and core experience led to a 38% drop in its stock price and who spent the time since rebuilding what this drift cost them and their customers. Tressie's mad honest about how convenience became so dominant that coffee, craft, community and connection, the things that had justified the brand's premium receded until the experiences felt totally transactional and the soul of the company was heartbroken. to find. Creator Destroy. It's a business show, a marketing show, and it's the show that argues they've always been the same thing. From the Wisdom is Company and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Tressie Lieberman. And on this week's episode of Creator Destroy Reimagining Marketing, we're going to ask on Today Explained from Vox, available in your feeds Monday to Friday. Every food we eat needs to have an ingredients list. The same should be true for campaign donations. And yet many wealthy donors never have their names associated with the candidates that they're giving millions to. Voters, that's you and me, need to know who's supporting the people we're voting for, because far too often, everything is not as it seems. This week on Net Worth and Chill, we are calling out the failings of the FEC and the whole election funding system as we delve into all things campaign finance. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. And don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you haven't already, go to youtube.com slash you're rich BFF. As someone who cares about Israel, I really hope Netanyahu is kicked out of office. I think Netanyahu and Trump both share a lot. I think they're criminals who are basically running to stay out of jail. At least I think Trump was in 2024. And I hope that for the sake of Israel, that they decide to make a change and have a reckoning because they are losing on a lot of levels justifiably a tremendous amount of support globally and I feel like Netanyahu has put a target on every Jew in the diasporas back through overly aggressive actions, the idea of and on and on. Having said that, I feel like, okay, I don't want to be a low rent version of Musk exporting political divisiveness. I'm not sure that people in other nations or political leaders should be getting involved in other people's politics. I don't think that Musk should be sending messages to the AFD in Germany of tomorrow belongs to me. Unite white people. I mean, this doesn't. Well, remember Hungary? What we did that we sent of top officials were openly campaigning for Viktor Orban. And I mean, if we're being honest about it, obviously there has been below the radar intervention in foreign elections a lot and in Israel under past presidents. But this is breaking the bank, what Donald Trump did here. And the coded messaging in it, the threat, essentially, to everyday Israelis that the U.S. will not stand with them against Iranian aggression and against aggression in the region is what I'm really freaked out about. That these people were going to go to the polls and what is it, 10 days from now? And they were going to be able to pick who they wanted to based on looking at this long record with Netanyahu. And everyone expects that it's going to be close. And it's hard to build a coalition like that, especially when you have politics as messy as they are in Israel. And now they have. this extra thing weighing on them that Donald Trump is essentially saying, I might not be there to help you guys out if you go with somebody else. And you saw Bibi got, you know, right direct to camera. Oh, thank you, President Trump. You know, we're in this together, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. It is an unholy alliance of the most corrupt level. And I'm really freaked out by it, that people will not feel like they can go and vote their heart or their conscience when they, you know, go to cast their ballot in Israel. And I'm not surprised that he did it. You know, breaking norms and conventions is kind of his business. But I think it's a really dangerous one. I wonder if the Trump endorsement hurts more than it helps. I would assume. I don't know what Trump's popularity in Israel. I assume it's similar to the U.S.'s. Any thoughts? Do you think this endorsement actually helps or hurts Netanyahu? Well, I think for people who might be kind of fence-sitters, I think that it helps, you know, folks who think that the last few years has been mishandled, even though he had very high approval, you know, coming out of October 7th and how he prosecuted the war. Obviously, there are enormous questions as to how well he actually did that. I think it will scare some people into staying in line, but it'll also probably embolden people who were thinking about going in a different direction, saying, like, I don't want to be with Netanyahu. They'll be able to get rid of Trump, you know, in a couple of years. And maybe this is just all too much. I don't know. I guess mostly I think it is wrong to do. And we'll have to see turnout, you know, I guess is what we say about every election. Today's first day of voting. So let's move to the questions, the Q&A, in our remaining time here. Question number one. Nikki asked, Scott, as a Florida resident, will you endorse Angie Nixon? Yes, I'm officially endorsing Angie Nixon. And guess what? I'm going to endorse her. And guess what? It doesn't matter. You know, I'd like to think that Florida at some point goes purple. I don't see it happening. If Byron, what's his name? Byron Donalds? Donalds, yeah. If he can be a viable candidate for governor, it means we're Texas. I don't, I just, I'm not very hopeful. I'm going to vote for Ms. Nixon. This is, when you look at, Ms. Reid here is referring to Rubio vacated to become secretary of state. The race really could be described as sort of money versus momentum. And that is the incumbent is basically not doing a lot of press. She has something like 12 times the amount of money. And Ms. Nixon is taking advantage of this sort of surge on the left from the far left. I don't think she's a viable candidate in a general election in Florida. I think that some people are getting, do get caught up in kind of this let's call it progressive fever or someone from the far left. I think this is a candidate. I thought, I don't even think she won the election. I think Vindman lost it. I thought that guy brightened up a room by leaving it. It was the Trump impeachment nostalgia tour, which is not how you run a Senate race. And to his credit, he's now endorsed Nixon. I think she's a good woman. I think she is absolutely the wrong candidate for Florida. I think she's going to get shellacked in what should be a blue tsunami. But yes, I would much rather see her in office than Senator Moody. Your thoughts? I'm excited about David Jolly. I just I don't think that it's going to happen. And the data that I was talking about, about early voting trends at the beginning and an early voting trend of a few days does not mean that this is how it's going to go. But I think it would take a real miracle and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars that it doesn't look like we're going to be spending in Florida. You know, when you have states like Kansas, where you're in toss up territory. I think people are going to be looking towards that. Yeah, I hate to say it. I don't think Florida doesn't play. I mean, I will vote for her. I got my vote by mail. I'm going to do a bunch of virtue signaling and make an Instagram post about it. But I don't I don't I think this is not. We'll see. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe the governor's race. I don't know. We'll see. Let's go to question number two. Kathleen Dennis wants to know, what can we do about Meta and Instagram, who obviously are messing with elections in our country and in Brazil? I'm very, very concerned. And you also see outages, you know, happening at opportune times that make you think like, oh, does someone have their thumb on the scale here? I get that the of the headline that Meta paid the 17 billion dollar settlement a couple of months ago, which was less than their Q2 earnings. But this is going to take like a full court press from the government. And this has been one of the only issues where there has been bipartisan outrage against tech companies. And you're going to have to put together a massive coalition of Democrats and Republicans who are willing to take this fight to Mark Zuckerberg and Meta and frankly, to all of the folks that are in charge of these big tech companies, if anything's going to happen. But we we don't have time, essentially. So it has to be too big to rig. You have to get there and vote. Drop your mail off mail and ballot off by hand. If that's what you're doing, then you're going to have to get there. And that's how you feel more comfortable doing it. But I'm deeply, deeply concerned. And that Brazilian, the debate had some hilarious lines in it, but very concerned as well. I wasn't trying to make it too light, but there was that that funny line about I want 100 percent of the prisoners, including your father, which was a very good line. Yeah, this is you're right. This is this is nothing's going to happen between now and the elections. I think one of our biggest regrets about this age is we're going to look back and think with respect to social media, how did we this happen to our kids and how did we let this happen to our nation? Just the level of infiltration by bad actors again, see about conservative commentators. Misinformation fell off a cliff when those Yandex servers were bombed. I don't even blame Russia. We perform psyops in different nations, you know, promoting our interests and eroding the interests or eroding the interests of our adversaries. They're just winning because we have these American tech firms that will cash anybody's check are porous. If you and it happens on both sides, if I say 25th Amendment, which I posted on Instagram, implying that the president's unfit to serve to continue in office, it gets six, seven, 10,000 likes because a bot picks up that it's divisive and retweets it and or rethreads it and promotes it. We are being we're not that divided as a nation. We're being divided by bad actors who weaponize porous platforms who care about nothing. But shareholder value and there needs to be structural remedies. I my remedies are age gating antitrust and more accountability. I would like to see verified accounts. And I think at some point there needs to be a law that says if you are not implementing the right amount of technology and it's clear that foreign actors have weaponized your platform, you are liable that that is a crime. And LinkedIn figures out a way to enforce identity for the most part. They've got some bots, but it's not nearly as bad. And the result is a healthier platform where there's real discourse. But Meta and its hundreds of lawyers and its new heat shield, its new Sheryl Sandberg, Dina Powell will deploy hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying to ensure that even a guy like Senator Schumer had real concerns about issues around legislation as his daughter worked at Meta at some point. So they have basically bought off both Democrats and Republicans. And then you combine that with just a total lack of understanding among 95-year-olds around how these technologies work. And you end up with what are the Trojan horses that are the size of Brazil. When we unmask these bots, which we will, and we find out just how much influence, much less the fact that a trillionaire can spend $300 million trying to weaponize these platforms and support a guy impeached by his own party in Texas for governor. I flew to Arizona on Saturday and did a fireside with Senator Mark Kelly, who's likely going to run for president. I asked him if he were president, what's the first issue he would address? And he said, campaign finance reform. And I think that's probably right. But it's not only campaign finance reform. There needs to be structural remedies that sacrifice shareholder value of these companies in exchange for creating a more honest dialogue on these platforms. Because I just don't think people realize how when I put out something really incendiary, it gets a ton of likes. Which means, oh, people like me. And I start getting more and more incendiary. And we move further and further away from each other in trying to do something. Let's move on to question number three. Harold Stamper asks, will it be end of Trump making crazy moves if the Dems take over Congress in November? No, but it'll help a lot. A lot of people have been asking about what happens if there's democratic control of Congress. And I would encourage everybody, and I'm sure folks who are tuning into this live stream, are very into politics. But go listen to Congressman Robert Garcia, who'll be oversight chairman, talk about his plans for the next term and see where his priorities are. And look at all the people who are going to be heads of committees, the Democrats, and what they're talking about, because it's a good roadmap to understanding. And spoiler alert, it's not about impeaching Donald Trump. So don't worry, we're not going down that road again. But some very good and people that'll be in major positions of power. And I think all to the good. But Trump will lash out. He will be like a cornered rat for two years straight. And he will pull on every and any lever of power. This is part of, I've been having conversations with people about, well, we don't have the Senate, or what happens if we lose this Michigan seat? If you're on the fence about Abdul al-Sayed. They're going to get another Supreme Court justice. That's what's going to happen. And Mike Rogers is going to vote for Donald Trump's appointee. And that could be like an Eileen Cannon. That will be someone wildly unqualified and young. And that is what this election boils down to for a lot of people who might not be particularly enamored with your candidate. So that's certainly how I'm thinking about it. And it's not because I'm a, you know, vote blue no matter who, even if like I'm getting destroyed online for defending Abdul al-Sayed from Islamophobic attacks, which I would do any day of the week. You're going to call him a jihadist. You can talk about the Muslim Brotherhood. You're going to compare him to the Fort Hood shooter. Yeah, I'm absolutely going to be defending him. But, you know, the stakes are enormous in this election. Well, look, with Abdul al-Sayed, obviously we, or I won't speak for you, I disagree with him on key issues, but at least we get to have a discussion with him. And I think that's going to be a big with Mike Rogers. He's saying we shouldn't have a discussion. We have an autocracy that does that that is an election denier. Last question. We've got to go really quickly here. Devin wants to know who will replace Katie Zachariah. I think Scott Jennings. I think that I Feel Stupider with Abby Phillips has created a monster and he's our new White House spokesperson. You think we're going to have a boy press secretary under Donald Trump? Yeah, he needs all he needs is a lot of surgery and some blonde hair and he's in. I don't know. Blonde hair, dirty blonde. I think no press secretary for a while. I think they'll see how the elections go and then figure out what the strategy is. But they do better with that rotating cast that comes in. If you can't have Caroline Leavitt back, which they can at this point. So I think it'll be a while until this happens. Susie Wiles, still the ice maiden that she coordinated that Fox News interview to get Zachariah out is some dirty work. We're going to have to leave it there. Thanks, Jess. And thanks to everyone for tuning in. We'll see you next time.