Trump Gets Awful News as Opposition Grows in Alaska

Donald Trump is getting awful news from Alaska as the opposition there continues to grow. We're seeing an unprecedented shift in Alaska, rejecting Trump and rejecting his megapolitics of hate and division. Donald Trump took that desperate trip to Alaska this week where he ranted and raved and lied and told people in Alaska. Things are amazing. Well, they weren't buying what the con artist was selling. The latest UGUB economist Paul has Donald Trump's approval in Alaska right now at net negative 18. I guess that trip to Alaska didn't do the trick, Donald, as the people just realized what a fraud you are. You take a look at the Alaska Survey Research Paul, not much better over there. Donald Trump's approval according to this poll, 35% of Alaskans approve, 57% disapprove, and you take a look at the different demographic cohorts. Trump is underwater amongst every group. From rural Alaskans, he's net negative 42 to women net negative 36, college graduates, net negative 40, non-college graduates, net negative 13. You look at native Alaskans, every group he's underwater, the best he does is with men net negative eight. He's still underwater there. You also look at some of the polling in the upcoming Senate race and the governor's race there. You have the Democrats pulling ahead. Let's look at the Senate race, for example, where you have the Democratic candidate Mary Peltola. She's leading the Maga Republic and Senator Dan Sullivan across all of the polling from the new insider advantage poll to the New York Times. The end of poll, you name it, she's up, but it is a very close race. And Maga is flooding the zone in Alaska right now with tens of millions of dollars every day to try to prop up the Maga Republican candidate. But Peltola is still in the lead despite all of that money from Maga being moved into the state. I mean, just look at some of the grocery store prices in rural Alaska right now. Peltola posted this and I had to do a double take right here as she writes, most goods here come by barge or plane. So life here always costs more. But this, this is as bad as it's ever been. Look at the Kirkland 12 big rolls of white paper towels. What do you think the prices? It's $40.99. You take a look right here at the tide pods, $50.49. You take a look at all of this. I mean, there are places right now in Alaska where a gallon of gas is like $26 in some areas over there. It is rough. And what Donald Trump did when he was there the other day, it's what he's been doing the all time. He's like, all right, I spoke with the South Koreans. And they're very serious this time. They're going to do 50.4 billion dollars. Then you hear from the South Korean government. And they're like, we've been talking about an LNG deal. But we've never advanced to any significant stage. We're not doing that right now. So we don't know what he's saying. And Trump's acting like this is going to happen right now. Or he's like, I spoke with Taiwan. They promised $4.4 billion here. And they're going to take 30% of this facility. And they're guaranteeing you profits for the rest of your life. It's going to be amazing. It's going to be great. Isn't it fascinating that it's just right before the election as the MAGA Republicans are trailing in Alaska that he starts bringing out all of these kind of sham deals. And what makes it so sick and so predatory. I mean, as you hear South Korea saying, no, we don't have that deal. Or Taiwan is not responding as Trump invokes them and says, this is what they're promising. This would be significant for the economy in Alaska. They're looking for the next potential boom as Donald Trump has turned their economy into bust. So they want they have hope. And Donald Trump is just playing to that like the fraud that he always is. You know, I want to bring in right now, Mary Peltola, who is running right now for that Senate seat. Let's bring in the interview that I did earlier with Mary Peltola. Let's bring it in. Now I want to bring in Mary Peltola to discuss this all important Alaska Senate race. Great to see you Mary. So Donald Trump was in the state of Alaska. Dan Sullivan seemed to talk about everything he would be doing for Donald Trump. Very little or I didn't hear anything about what he would do for Alaska. But that kind of sums up his tenure in Alaska as the kind of MAGA Republican Senator over there. And this seems to some up his campaign. What does Donald Trump want me to do? And then I'll just pretend everything's amazing. And we're in a golden age here. And everybody's rich and in the Mar-a-Lago ballroom. I'd love to get your reaction to just what unfolded there when Trump and Sullivan brought the circus over there. Thanks so much, Ben. It's great to be with you. I'm excited to join you. Thanks. We did, Alaska did host our President yesterday and was out in the Matt Nuska-Susitna Valley. And you know, as in Alaska, I think it's always exciting when a President comes to our state. It's really rare. But I honestly feel like it's such a compliment that they, you know, are here, you know, to have our President here one week in the week before our Vice President. You can't help but be a little bit flattered when they're coming, you know, specifically to help your opponent. So, I mean, it just means that we're a threat. We're doing a great job on the ground. Our race is going so well. I was not in the Matt Nuska-Susitna Valley yesterday. I was out up in Katsubu in the Northwest Arctic part of Alaska right above the Arctic Circle. We did three village visits in the few days before that. We went to Kayana and Norvik and Selawik the day before that or the trip before that. We were in Barrow, Wainwright and Point Hope and we're there when they hauled in a whale. So, just really boots on the ground and talking to people who are living across Alaska and really suffering from the high prices that Dan Sullivan has helped usher in. You know, you would think when the President of the United States or the Vice President comes to Alaska, they would know what's happening in Alaska and what's on people's mind and it seemed as I was watching that rally, which unfortunately I have to do for what I do here. It seemed to be just a made up world where in his mind, his tariffs against the world have been great for everybody that diesel and gas prices are perfectly fine and the people of Alaska just love what they're paying at the pump. But I know specifically there are some places in Alaska, some places. I know the average is over $5, but there are some areas that it's over $26 a gallon. And so he comes there and he's like, "Things are amazing. You're great. Thank me." And then Dan Sullivan gets up and he's like, "And how amazing. We've kept every promise." And it's like, "No, you didn't. You've literally broken every single promise that there was. It's just an odd way of coming to a state and not actually addressing the needs of the state." Well, you're dead on and it's a real shame because Alaska only has three members in our federal delegation. We have one house member and of course two senate members. And it just feels like we only have one working for us who's actually standing up and speaking out on behalf of Alaskans, you know, across the state. People are getting crushed by prices and you mentioned tariffs a minute ago. I was in Cordova last week. It's a fishing community in Prince William's Sound in the Gulf of Alaska. And I talked with a gentleman who owns a air taxi service in Cordova and he said he ordered $10,000 worth of parts from Canada. Got a call from them as they were processing his order. They said the tariff rate would be 110%. And he said, "I don't have over $20,000 for $10,000 worth of parts." So he canceled the order and now he's not really sure what he's going to do. But this is the bind that Dan Sullivan has been so eager to put people in. This Warren Iran, he's voted for the Warren Iran 14 times. And Alaskans have just had it up to here. And that's why we're seeing such a infusion of dark money, campaign dollars in Alaska. We're being outspent three to one. So if you want to pitch in to help my race, please go to maripeltola.com. We can use all the help we can get in these next 19 days. I also understand that Dan Sullivan and his family have also indirectly or even directly made a lot of money from the tariffs against the world and that one of the main ways he makes money is this interest in a company, chemical company, RPM and that the dividend dens are a lot of the way that he, you know, makes income basically. And so can you, can you speak to that because, you know, that seems to present a conflict of interest or something that seemed glaring to me as I was looking at some of his positions? To me as well, you know, while Alaskans are living hand-to-mouth and more so than we ever have in my lifetime, Dan Sullivan has tripled his personal wealth. He now is worth $8 million from doing a lot of stock trades. I think he's one of the more prolific stock traders in the U.S. Senate. And he has given tremendous breaks to RPM, the RPM has benefited from a lot of the tariffs. And that has gone to enrich himself. He also inherited some stocks in farmed fish, which is anathema to Alaskans. We are so against frankenfish, as we call them, we know that farmed fish have much lower nutrients, much fewer nutrient content, smaller nutrient content, they taste, they do not come close to the wonderful taste of wild salmon. So, Dan owns stock in this farmed salmon company and tried to sell it secretly so that Alaskans wouldn't know about it. And, you know, just on and on, I think it's a real indictment that you can have your citizens paying twice or three times what they were at the beginning of your tenure 12 years ago, while you are tripling your own personal wealth. You don't have many millionaires in Alaska, but Dan Sullivan is doing our right for himself. Yeah, and increasing your wealth on things, as you mentioned, like farm fish, which if you know Alaska, if you, I mean, if you're the senator from Alaska, you may think to yourself, you know what? Like that's one of the things that our state is like against, and you're going to lean in on that. Let's us about that, though, because, you know, what makes this race incredibly, it's critical of course, but it's a race about Alaska and the issues impacting Alaska are also when it comes to cost of living is very similar. But there's also, it's Alaska, and you got to know what's going on in Alaska. And to me, that's one of the things about Sullivan and Trump and this magazine is they show up, and they go, you love me, right, we love each other, we love each other. And it's like, okay, but what do you know about my state? Like what do you, do you know what we're going through? Do you understand the different areas and regions, and so talk to us about like when you travel, what are the big issues right now, and let's get specific about the state? Well, of course, wild foods and access to wild foods is a huge, huge issue to Alaska. Commonly, culturally, it's the way we pass down our culture whether you're native or non-native, we all are really invested in hunting and fishing off the land. And, you know, as a native person, this is how I teach my kids how to be native, I can't really teach them through a book or through pictures or words. It's through the act of hunting and fishing and then sharing our harvest with our community members, the people who most need it. And this has just been a time-honored way that we have just, you know, lived our lives here. And it's a really healthy lifestyle. It's a really high quality of life. There's such, there's so many skills that are taught with hunting and fishing, you know, how to read the weather, how to respect your harvest, how to respect the land. And just this real relationship with what we're catching, what we're harvesting. And we have seen such a dramatic downturn in abundance in the last 10 or 15 years. It's just been shocking. And every river system in Alaska has seen precipitous decline in Chinook salmon. We call them King salmon. And King salmon are really affected by a one or two degree temperature change. In our water, they're coming back to our, to the rivers they're from, they're smaller, they're younger. There's a lot of males, so, you know, it's a concern. And I think this is also kind of a global trend. But on top of the, you know, the environmental stress that salmon are going through, we have these industrial factory trawlers out in the Bering Sea. And they've contributed over $300,000 to Dan's campaign. And so he has been very reluctant to put any side boards on them. Most of his suggestions are to study it. Well, we don't need any more studies, you know, we, we need action. And one of the big things that Alaskans, especially rural Alaskans, have said is in federal waters, we need to stop removing, you know, metric tons of these forage fish, the Pollock. And we need to stop harvesting all the buy catch that is unintended catch, juvenile halibut, juvenile crab, juvenile salmon, as well as orgas, and a lot of other species. And it's by the metric ton, you know, every fisherman is used to some buy catch. And we all make sure that that buy catch is used and not just tossed overboard, but that's not the practice of these industrial factory trawlers. And 60% 70% of Alaskans have just had it on with factory trawlers. So that's one thing. You know what, though, coming back from the villages and the Arctic, one of the conversations that I heard and, and, and had a lot was how concerning all of the pack, the dark money attack ads are. My attack ads on Dan, I, I'm really proud of this. We have a citation. So viewers can fact check it on their own. And Dan's ads are really strange. They say things like, you know, they're dressing her up like an Alaskan and trying to convince us she's an Alaskan. And this, this honestly just makes people laugh out loud. But there's so many disparaging things and outright lies that are being told. And Alaskans are sophisticated. But up north, we were talking about how important it is to have a culture where we cooperate. We collaborate. We, we're always talking about working together. There's a trilateral group that you see across a lot, you know, many, many of our communities where the municipality, the tribe and the village corporation and the regional corporation or the health corporation, they're all working together. And one of the groups that I learned about recently is called Adouchi Gooden. And it means working together as one, working together. And all of these ads are really sending a message to young people of hate and disparaging one another. And I'm really concerned about this overarching message that I'm hearing from Dan that Democrats are the real enemy, really literally calling Americans the enemy. When we actually have serious adversaries and making enemies of our allies in half of America. And this, this cannot be good for us and it's quite alarming. As an Alaskan, we, we're not really accustomed to this level of negative ads. It's been a full year of nothing but attack ads is what it feels like as an Alaskan. You know, one of the things I've learned speaking with Alaskans is how important it's important everywhere, of course, but there's a bond in your word and keeping your word and honoring your word and what that means for your reputation and how it follows you wherever you get it. And so there's a deeper connection there to truth and honesty and especially wary of outsiders coming in, selling a bill of goods and then rug pulling. And so what particularly concerned me and I want to get your take on it is that this, you know, Trump, you know, these Trumpers, they come in and they make a big promise. We're going to do $50 billion. We've got this great deal from South Korea. It's going to be amazing and it's going to create all these jobs and people are going to do great. And then you hear from the South Koreans and they said we're very preliminary. We don't really know what they're talking about. There is a broader deal. There is interest, but there's a lot of steps that we have to take. And when people are suffering, we talked about gas and diesel, but we could easily talk about heating fuel. We could talk about all these issues and you're talking about a $50 billion economic injection which could actually, and I'll get your take on it, which, you know, finding ways to stimulate an economy could be great. But then you hear this is nowhere near happening. We don't know what they're really, and it's like, and then they bring Howard Lutnik to Alaska and he comes and does the ants happening right now, $50 billion. It's about to happen. And I'm like, give me the fact. Show me the paper. Show me the deal. Show it to me. And they never do. And they just kind of, then they leave town and people are left with, huh, huh. I want to get you a take on that whole stick that they do. Well, Ben, I'm glad you brought that up. And of course, as an Alaskan, we all want the gas pipeline to happen. We are all very eager for that to go through. It's already been permitted. We're really just looking for investors to help us build it. And making sure that it's economic for the state. and we're not just kind of giving it all away. And it is encouraging to hear positive news like this, but then you have to also like you say, manage expectations, all of us pray for the next big boom, we all, like Dear God, we promise we won't mess up the next boom, just give us one more boom. But I think that we're on the verge of a really pretty desperate winter, like you said, heating fuel, Alaskans use four times more diesel than any other state per capita because it is not just our transportation, but it's our heating source as well as our electrical power plant fuel in most of the remote communities. So, you know, we're worried actually about Alaskans starving this winter or freezing to death because even last winter when the prices weren't as high as they are now, people were having to decide on a daily basis, I'm going to heat my home or buy groceries. So, here we are in the richest state in the nation, in the richest country in the world, and we're worried about our citizens freezing and starving to death, and a lot of it has to do with the increase in health care costs, the increase in groceries, the increase in fuel. We have not ever seen the kind of inflation and uptick in prices that we have in the recent months. - So, before we go, we have nearly 7 million subscribers here. What do you want to tell the people of Alaska, the people in this country who are watching this and where can they find out more about the campaign few weeks until the election dates right around the corner? So, what's your semi-closing message? 'Cause we'd love to have you back also before Election Day. - Okay, thanks Ben, I'm at MaryPiltola.com. Please contribute, we again are being outspent three to one, but on the ground, it feels great, you know, 15,000 Alaskans have signed up to volunteer compared to 1,000 in 2024. There's just so much momentum on the ground. Like I said, people have just had it up to here and three, four times more people are coming to our events or getting out, people are talking about their plans to vote and making sure your absentee ballot is postmarked by the postmaster. So, that ballot isn't rejected if it makes it to the division of elections, you know, around the deadline. But, you know, to folks in the lower 48, I'm just excited that there's such an interest in Alaska now that so many people in our country are learning more about how unique Alaska is and how much we have to offer. There's only 735,000 Alaskans, and this is part of the reason why we all know each other. There are just so few of us and it's like one degree of separation. But, I'm really optimistic about this race. The vibe is really, really good in communities and on the ground. And thank you for your support. - MaryPiltola, thanks for joining us. Please come back. - Thanks Ben. Everybody, hit subscribe. Let's get to that 7 million subscriber mark. - Hey, if you want the full story, how democracy got here and how we take it back, pre-order our new book WTF America today. Just scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Let's do this. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)