Trump Plans to Shove What Where?

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He speaks to doctors who work miracles, on gunshot victims, he travels to a shooting range, and he dives into the Constitution's Second Amendment with a linguist, all in an attempt to understand where this problem came from. It's not just a book about guns. It's about why a country has never quite understood its own problem and why you can't fix what you refuse to see clearly. Get The American Way of Killing at pushkin.fm or wherever audiobooks are sold. Get The American Way of Killing at pushkin.fm or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we'll talk about the slew of new polls showing Democrats making big gains in red states in both the Senate and Governor's races and why Democrats are expanding the House map with just four weeks to go. We'll check in on some of the individual races, how Trump is dealing with it all, not well, and that unbelievable New York Times story about Kristi Noem buying luxury jets from a political donor at huge markups with your money. Then, speaking of those Governor's races, you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Texas' Gina Hinojosa, who's opened up a lead on Greg Abbott in the latest Times-Siena poll. She stopped by the office, so check that out. All right, guys, there are less than 30 days until the midterms, and the October surprise, is already here. Just when Democrats started letting themselves feel hope again, Republicans went ahead and unleashed their secret weapon. So, you know, all these fake polls, they don't account for one thing. They don't account for the fact that Trump is out campaigning. They never thought this was. They never thought this was going to happen. And it's their fault because they unleashed us. We're going to win, and we're going to win big. And we're going to shove it up their ass, okay? Oh, sounds painful. Geez, I don't want that. One challenge for Republicans is that their secret weapon also seems to be the Democrat's secret weapon. The latest batch of New York Times-Siena polls show Trump's approval rating at 40%, and his disapproval at 56% in five red states that he won by 11 to 16 points in 2024. Texas, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, and Kansas. One in five Trump voters in those states now disapprove. of the president's job performance, which is the main reason Democrats are now leading or effectively tied in every Senate race. We've got James Tallarico up 51-45 over Ken Paxton. Mary Peltola up 50-43 over Dan Sullivan. Sherrod Brown over John Husted, 49-46. In Kansas, Adam Hamilton is tied with Roger Marshall, 45-45. And in Iowa, Josh Turek is just one point behind Ashley Hinson, well within the poll's margin of error, as are. are most of these margins. I'll stop there and let you guys talk about your overall reaction to the Senate polls and what specifically jumped out at you in the crosstabs. What's he shoving up our ass? Just himself? I guess the victory, the great victory. His Alabama rally that was half empty? Yeah. The Ohio one. Remember, he got really mad about any news report showing that the upper rafters of the Ohio rally were not completely full. And it wasn't the only one. And it would be worse, right? Because we shoved up our asses and we wouldn't be ready for it. You know, it wouldn't be like, you know, because it would be a surprise. You need to prepare for that. Right. That's what you're saying. But back to the poll. Speaking of polling. Speaking of polling. Just a couple of things that jumped out. Independence favored Dems by 24 points and by 30 on which party does better for ordinary people. I thought that was big. One thing that just wasn't exactly, wasn't in this poll, but it was in the last time's poll, I believe we have Alaska prefers Peltola, but still prefers a Republican Senate. We saw the opposite where, where Mainers preferred Susan Collins, but by big margins wanted a Democratic, and how does that shake out? Does that resolve in both places in one place, but not the other? I think it's interesting. And then the other was just that you have this preference for a Republican Senate in these, these are very Trump heavy states, as you said, but there's always a, they lean towards preferring having Republicans in control, but also a big desire for a check on Trump, by huge margins. They want a Senate that they want. They want a candidate that'll check Trump, but they also want a Republican Senate. And I do think underneath this, this is Republicans paying for the required loyalty test of being part of Trump's party, right? They can't break with him. They can't say they're gonna hold him accountable. They can't say any of those things that you would see in a normal race like this. Yeah. My reaction to those polls is that I wanted to roll up my newspaper and smoke it. Did you? It's just a, and you're reading the physical time, pure uncut roll up your phone opium. You have to roll up my computer screen, just opening the big old pages. They're drinking your little coffee and a slice of cantaloupe or something on my train. Yeah. Um, honey, did you see these polls? Yeah. Honey, Donald's going to shove these up. Uh, ironically, the Texas number I think was the least surprising to me. I think Tyler Rico's a good candidate. Paxton's the worst in the Latino vote. Lead was a little surprised. The size of the lead size of the lead is like again, I said it's over 50 opium. It's a lot of hope for all the conversation about James Tyler, Rico and black voters. He hit a 90% margin in that poll, which would be the best statewide, wide margin for a Texas candidate in like recent history. Better than Kamala Harris. Better than Biden. Um, the, the, the Alaska numbers are exciting. Paltola has a track record of overperforming. So hopefully like fingers crossed Kansas makes me a little nervous. Adam Hamilton at 45, 45 is not really a win number. Yeah. Gotta get a little higher there. Uh, I feel like that race just started though. It did just like, I feel like I was barely paying attention to it. Same. If you want to, if you want to understand what's happening, just, you can go watch. There's a clip of, uh, the state fair. There's a debate at the state fair. Yes. So you're going to say, listen to the conversation that Dan had with Adam Hamilton. And, and of course, and then follow that. You didn't let me finish. And then after you finished that, listen to Dan's conversation. I mean, Roger Marshall was like having throwing women in prison for not paying bills, uh, for medical debt, medical debt, small medical debt. Um, so like, I think I'd like to see Josh Turek ahead of in Iowa, but it's the margin of error race. So like, it's, it's exciting. I'm worried about the potential response bias. I'm worried about, I'm worried about Democrats answering polls. Ultimately, uh, every pollster is really a model maker because they're all waiting the numbers they get in and, um, trying to get it right. But we'll see. - I, um, just cause I, I didn't want to be too hopeful. I went back and looked at the last set of New York times, Sienna polls in 2024. One thing that stuck out is even remember like, so Kamala Harris was ahead in a few States behind in a few States and the red States she was behind in the blue, in the blue wall States. She was like a point ahead. I had in Michigan and, uh, in Wisconsin, I think she was maybe tied in Pennsylvania, but she never hit 50 in any of those, even the last one. So like it is, it is notable that in New York times, Sienna polls, we have both Tallarico, Mary Poltola, uh, hitting 50 and 51, uh, this far out. Now that's also to say, if, if it's only the people who had 50 to 51 who ended up winning, we would, we would miss the Senate by about a, a point. - Yeah. - What about a state? - Yeah. The state is obviously of Tallarico has a huge, it was 23 point advantage on character. Uh, - 23, that's crazy. - Crazy. - Especially cause if we all remember at the beginning of the, uh, of the race there, it was like Tallarico and the vegan and the, and the six gender Jimmy. And it's like, he may not pull it out, but it's not going to be because like his character was somehow defective to voters. It will be because Republicans came home and decided to hold their nose and vote for Kim Paxton. - But the, if you look at the other character numbers, Democrats in all of these States, which are very red States, uh, are just seen as having better character than their Republican opponents. And so that was the positive view of it. The other was look, Tallarico is a great candidate. Ken Paxton is the worst person they could have chosen. Imagine Conan was in this race, right? What would those numbers look like? How many points does Paxton lose because he's Ken Paxton versus Tallarico? We don't know, but it's a couple, right? And so this race looked a little bit more like what you were seeing across the state, which you know, quality candidates of various of varying quality, but none as bad as Ken Paxton. KEN PAXTON, IT WOULD BE closer. And what would this look like overall? You step back, you'd say, all right, in the races where we have a better chance of winning, where Trump either won the state by a small margin or lost, it's very, very close. And in the states that we're reaching for, it's very, very close. And collectively, if there was a two or three or four point polling mistake, you can imagine waking up in a huge democratic wave in which we almost win the Senate. And that is my dark thought when I read these polls overall. I heard that Paxton shifted his ad traffic to 75% positive because his favorables are just so bad. But also bad, his face, also bad, the ads. You see the ad with his, I think, soon-to-be ex-wife? Yeah, she didn't even say his name. She doesn't mention his name, but basically says poll. And she's a full Republican ticket. A successful politician in her own right. Yeah, she's a state senator. One thing that I think explains the polls or says good things about her. About the Democratic recruitment effort. So voters in these polls still think the Democratic Party as a whole is too far left. 52% think that the Democratic Party is too far left in these polls, which is not entirely unsurprising because they're red states. Only 35% say their actual Democratic Senate candidate is too far left. And so the candidate brands are all running, outrunning the National Party brand. Sure, the Republicans too, but not by as much. Like Republicans aren't seen as extreme. But by the Democratic, by more. For sure. And so I do think, for all that we have maligned, Chuck Schumer, for Maine, for some of the other ones, you got to give, I mean, Mary Pultola and Roy Cooper and- Sherrod Brown. Sherrod Brown and- These were all- These were great. These were good picks. And it also shows that it is important to maybe get candidates that at least appear to voters not as far left as the National Party for all the, talk online otherwise. And the other side of it too is, there's all this lamentation about the, you know, a random DSA member in New York is fucking us in the Midwest or whatever. And that may be true. There, it is in these polls that people think the party is too far to the left, but people respond by doing politics and they make their own argument and they make their case and they talk about- Voters aren't fucking idiots because they know they're voting for the person on the ballot in their state, not the random person they saw on Fox News in New York City, you know? Or a streamer they don't like. Or a streamer they don't like, yeah. Also just the, it jumped out at me just how bad the voters view the economy in all these states, like nearly three quarters in Alaska call conditions fair or poor, two thirds in Iowa, Kansas and Ohio, even Texas, 56% say fair or poor. So people are just fucking pissed. Yeah. He's bad on all the issues, all the ones that matter. And just one other note, it's also independents are furious by huge margins. Even if these races are close, it's because these are Republican states. Independents have really turned. And I think that's why you see even in a place like New York, it's like, oh, well, I'm going to vote for Ohio, Trump going to Ohio because they just need to get their Republican base voters to turn out because they're having such trouble with either maybe people that voted for Trump that didn't, weren't super fans or for the Democrats. I don't know if you guys heard Nate Cohn talk about these polls on the Daily, but he pointed out that all five of these states are states that did not vote for Trump in the 2016 Republican primary. Isn't that interesting? And that like, maybe these are more sort of traditional conservatives who were not, who did not go like full MAGA at the beginning and that there's something there about Trump that maybe they turned against them. So those are the red states. Why do you guys think the race is in the blue states, notably Maine and Michigan are so much closer? At least they have been in the Times polls, but I guess overall the polling average too. I think it's demographics and then the candidates. I mean, the demographics is a lot of the shift we're seeing in Texas is Latino voters. Michigan has a far smaller percentage of Latino voters than Texas. So does Maine. Maine is old and white. And those voters are more likely to be on the Trump train. Also in Maine, Susan Collins is historically a strong candidate and an over-performer. Troy Jackson has struggled a lot since they made the switch from Platner. And then in Michigan, Abdul Al-Sayed's a great speaker. He's a great communicator. We just watched him on Fox. We'll play those clips later. But he's got to overcome Islamophobia and then the lingering wounds from the Democratic primary and all the spending against him. So it's just challenging. Yeah. The Troy Jackson thing is, the mystery of why Troy Jackson's unfavorables are so high is like just bizarre. I bet the process, they probably, I mean, similar with Kamala, like people hated the process through which she became the nominee. I bet they hate the process through which he became the nominee in Maine. Yeah. I do think that their, his campaign, even in the last couple of weeks, I think even since the Times poll came out, has really been sort of kicking it up into high gear. And they're sort of going after Collins on the pro-publica story. The debates are this week, start this week. So that should be pretty interesting. I know. A lot of. Yeah, exactly. A lot of campaigning. On the governor's races, the poll has Rob Sand up 11 in Iowa. Gina Hinojosa, who you'll hear from again in a minute, up three in Texas over Greg Abbott. Amy Acton up four in Ohio over Vivek Ramaswamy. But I think it's fair to say that the Alaska governor's race, where Jonathan Christ-Thomkins is up four. In Kansas, where Cindy Holsher is in striking distance, we're not really on most people's radars. How much do you guys think the governor's races and Senate races in each state are distinct from each other versus both being part of the same broader political swing towards Dems that we're seeing in the other polls? I think traditionally there's a wave. The wave will put races that would otherwise been out of reach within reach. But, you know, look at Iowa, right? You have Rob Sand, who's been elected statewide before. And then you have a candidate like Zach Lane, who's, you know, lives in Kansas and is like pretty extreme and has said some crazy shit about vaccines and abortion. All of a sudden, you see a difference there where, you know, Turek has an uphill battle with someone that wasn't as well known to the state. So I think some of it is just the, like, you know, unique qualities of the candidates and the fact that people just do view governor's races differently than they view Senate races, right? There's a reason that there's a Democratic senator in Kentucky, a state that is completely out of reach on the Senate side, right? People are willing to put aside some of their ideological desires for the federal government when they're voting for someone at the state level. I think like a red or blue wave will lift all boats, but you see more split tickets with governors than other places. Like Massachusetts, we had so many Republican governors. Right now, Phil Scott, a Republican, is governor of Vermont, very blue state. I also think, well, this cycle, at least, the governor's races are just like chronically underfunded on the Democratic side. Jonathan Martin had a great piece about this in Politico. Some of it is the benefits of incumbency. Greg Abbott in Texas can go to all the businesses with interest before the state and very corruptly raise a ton of money from them to them in like unlimited ways. But also there's like the broader funding ecosystem. Like I think Democratic donors see the Senate and the House as a check on Trump. They don't think that way about governor's races. We probably should because of the role that they will play in redistricting and in 2028. But the spending advantage is like six to one in Florida, three to one in Texas, two and a half to one in Georgia, two to one in Wisconsin. So it's a huge problem because these guys, they're going to have a lot of power. They're going to have a lot of power. They're going to have a lot of impact on 2028. And I think it's something we need to fix as a party. I was kind of looking at the incumbency issue another way. I take your point that if you're the incumbent, there's all kinds of like goodies you can sprinkle on the state. But people are so pissed. And there's such an anti-incumbent mood right now that is like, I think when we look at this election, people are obviously very pissed at Trump. They're pissed at the Republican Congress. But even if you look at these governor's polls, the one race where the Republican is clearly a head is in Kansas. And that is a state where the only state where there is a retiring Democratic governor who's currently the incumbent. And then in the Senate side, you've got a tied race in Kansas. And all these other ones you have, like in Iowa, Kim Reynolds was governor. And so now you have Rob, right? Who's saying like, we're going to get, it's like a shift in leadership from what we've had over the last however many years. Gina is going to have that argument in Texas, which is, you know, at least in this poll, she's ahead by a couple. Same with Amy Acton over the wake, right? There's a Republican governor there. So I think there's, in some ways, it's an easier argument that's probably helping some of these Democratic challenges. I think it's a political advantage. I was just saying fundraising. Oh, no, I know. Because you're like, Abbott is just so corrupt. He goes to all these businesses in Texas and just has them cut him like a million dollar check. Yeah. But I do think, I think that there's something about incumbency and people just being fucking pissed at the leadership in their state and in Congress that's going to have an effect. But we'll see. Pod Save America is brought to you by Article. Article makes it effortless to build a home that lasts without the boutique markup. Their curated collection of mid-century coastal and Scandi furniture are designed to mix and match perfectly so you can create a cohesive designer look that will stand the test of time. We have a ton of stuff from Article here at our office. I will say it all showed up really quickly. It looks great. 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So it's not just the public polling that's showing the map getting worse for Republicans. Clearly, the private polling on both sides is similar because both parties are starting to move money around accordingly. Biggest Republican super PAC has now started pulling money out of North Carolina and moving it to Kansas. Never thought we'd hear that. At the beginning of the cycle. I just saw that the Democratic super PAC is also starting to move money out of North Carolina, probably to follow the Republican super PACs move. The pro Paxton super PAC has canceled three and a half million dollars worth of ads in that race that they still have a lot more reserved, at least through next week. And but that's just shifting. They have spent shifting to what? Just shifting their buy around. They're going to spend like 200 million. Yeah, but they I'm saying they did cancel three and a half million. Yeah, but they you cancel and you buy somewhere else and just move money around. And over on the House side, Democrats just added six more Republican seats to their top tier red to blue program, including Trump plus 15 districts in Florida and Arkansas and Trump plus 20 districts in Tennessee and New York. What do you guys read into those spending decisions? And do you have any concern that considering Dems money troubles, they may be spreading themselves too thin? I don't see any. I mean, there's people calling on like the DGA, for example. To spend in more places, to spend in Florida, to spend in Texas. I don't see a lot of examples of us doing that yet. I think a lot of donors are really mad about 2024. They feel like their money was lit on fire. They're staying away or they're worried that Trump is going to go after them. My fear is that people aren't viewing this as potentially a historic opportunity to win a lot of races up and down the ballot, and they're not giving enough. So hopefully, like the New York Times polls will incentivize people to want to give. But like, I think we should have a lot of time. I think we should all be, you know, pretty excited that Republicans are basically giving up on North Carolina. That's crazy. Yeah. North Carolina has been one of those races where the polling, there have been polls that have shown Cooper with just like a massive lead that just wouldn't justify anyone investing there. So I think there's been a little bit of reluctance to accept that, like, or at least caution about accepting that as being the reality for fear of accidentally putting North Carolina at risk. It's tough, right? For the reason we were just talking about. There's a lot of places in play. We don't totally trust the polls, nor should we. The reality of the votes in Trump states moving further than the votes in the more, in the closer places means there's a lot of places where you can make an argument that they need the money more than the other. I'm sure that the committees are hearing from both sides about like, no, we need this money more than they do, right? Like, we're going to talk about Florida, right? Like, let's say you were going to invest. Would you invest in Florida? There are good arguments for both, right? And we, nobody wants to wake up the day after and realize that, my God, if we had put another $5 million into this state, maybe we could have eked it out, right? But inevitably when, when you're looking at a map this big and this wide, like that's probably going to happen. Yeah. Well, there's, I mean, not to confuse the different races, right? There's the governor side, the Senate side, and the house side. This is just the house side. Right. And, and I guess what I would, what I would guess is the DCCC is looking at the map and there's probably some races that they are still, they have money on that are just safe at this point that they thought would not be safe or they thought would be competitive at the beginning. And so I don't, they're conservative enough, especially with limited resources as they have, that I don't think they would start throwing money at some of these Trump plus 15 plus 20 seats if they weren't A, seeing something in their internal polling and B, confident that in some of the, you know, toss up or lean D races that they are like fine now. And they're just, they've spent enough money. And they're always going to have incumbents screaming at them. Yes. Yeah. They're going to let their, there's a little bit of a tax. There's always a tax that you have to put some money behind the incumbents. The other part of this too, is the redistricting, right? Like there, there are places where Republicans have drawn the map in such a way as to kind of eke out two or three more Republican seats. But those decisions were predicated on not having a sudden 20 point shift in Hispanic voters. Right. And that, that means that there are places where all of a sudden, like, wait, we should be competing there. And those are new districts. You're kind of cobbling together the best information you can based on previous races and based on polling. It's a little bit more of a guessing game. Yeah. Of course, if, if you want to help flip these districts and take back Congress, our friends at votesaveamerica.com have plenty that you can do, especially if you or someone, you know, lives in a targeted district or state. I know we spend a lot of time here spitting takes, but the entire reason we started Crooked was to get more people participating in politics so that we have less bad news to talk about every week. Wouldn't that be nice? Yeah. I mean, it'd make for a slightly more boring episode, but we think that's okay. Yeah, but you know what? We'll take that trade. That is a trade we will make. You guys have already raised millions of dollars and filled thousands of volunteer shifts through Vote Save America just this year. Pretty sure no other media organization has a mission like that with an audience that committed. If you believe in that mission, one of the best ways you can support what we're trying to do here at Crooked is by becoming a subscriber, which helps us keep making the shows you love. You also get a bunch of great subscriber benefits. So head on over to crooked.com slash friends to sign up. And thank you again for supporting our show. And activism here. So Trump's campaigning in Nebraska as we record this, where he's set to announce an executive order on diesel prices. And of course, he spent some time over the weekend recording those videos in the Oval Office, those endorsement videos, which I'm sure the candidates love. I'm sure the candidates love his endorsement videos. In one, he was attempting to revive the $5,000 checks thing. And another, he urged his supporters to surprise, vote by mail, and vote early. Which is a pretty stunning reversal, if unsurprising, that he, of course, had to defend as soon as he faced reporters on Monday. Let's listen. Why are you telling your supporters to vote by mail if you think it's fraud? No vote by mail or vote in person. I'd rather have a vote in person, but they can vote by mail if they want. There seems to be a lot of, not seems to be, there is a lot of cheating in vote by mail. A lot of cheating all over. I'll tell you what, start off by taking a look. Take a look at California. Take a look at, take a look at no evidence with millions and millions of ballots. You are fake news. It's just amazing that we're still doing this. It's sort of like, where's the evidence? Where's the evidence? And then he's like, yeah, shut the fuck up. Let me just do this again and again and again. The pantomime. I know it's right. I'm not denigrating the question. It has to be asked, but it's like, he does. Oh, where's the evidence? There is no evidence. He's making it up. You know that we know that even the people that love him know that like, what the fuck are we doing here? And also like, they're just in full-on bribe mode. They're like, I'll give you five grand if you vote for me. What are we doing here? Trump also, it's sort of just came and went because it was just one of many crazy things he did. But Trump doxxed Republican Senator Tom Cotton over the weekend. Going back to the hits. Posting his personal sell on Truth Social, all because Cotton is holding up a bill to end daylight saving time. I saw this and then my first thought was, I forget, love it, which side are you on, on this fight? Because it's very hard to keep. I know. Well, I'm just gonna do this quick, because I don't want to annoy my boys. Look, here's the thing. Tom Cotton is right. We did try this before. People did hate it. Trump is right. A lot of states do want to go to permanent daylight saving time. The problem is this bill, which I've talked about many times, only allowed states to choose between permanent daylight savings time and permanent standard time. There should be a third option which states can be allowed to make the switch. If Tom Cotton and Arkansas want to keep doing daylight saving time, they should be allowed to do it. If other states want to be on permanent daylight saving time, they should be allowed to do it. If states want to be on permanent standard time, they should be allowed to do it. Just add the third option, and this all gets resolved. Now it looks like it's dead again. Just give people the third option. Yes, it'll be a little bit strange that some states switch, but right now, we live under a situation in which most states switch and a couple don't. We're fine. We can handle it. Our phones know what time it is. And if you have thoughts about what Lovett just said, you can call him at- Oh, yeah. So wait, on the Cotton piece, did he post, he was like, here's his number, give him a ring, or was it an accident? No, no, no. No, no, no. He posted a rant- Fully, like Graham, in the back of the day? Yes, yes. Like the old hits, just here's Tom Cotton's cell phone. Here's Tom Cotton's cell phone number. That's so, okay. Democrats are out there like, we're going to- We're going to, you know, stand up for affordability and cost of living. And we're going to do all that. And then Trump's like, here's Tom Conn's cell phone number about daylight savings. Great. Amazing. Just on that diesel executive order that he's announcing in Nebraska, Patrick DeHaan, a.k.a. the gas buddy, you know, gas buddy guy. He noted Monday that average gas and diesel prices fell in 48 states last week and that most of the decline happened because of market manipulations, fuel tax suspensions, releasing oil reserves. I think we're at the point now where the polls are all so good that now we're going to follow gas buddy and start worrying about gas prices. You know, what's going to happen with gas? Like, is it going to have an effect on the next couple? You know, what do you guys think? Nate Silver, did you aggregate gas buddy this week? Yeah. No. Diesel prices are so, farmers know that diesel prices are way up from a month ago and way, way, way up from a year ago. And they feel like it's stupid expensive. It doesn't matter if it dipped in the last week. On top of that, they're pissed about the price of fertilizer. They're pissed about the tariffs, the general uncertainty. And so, none of this is close to being resolved. Like, Trump is crowing about crude oil getting out of the straight over moves, but they're still not getting refined petroleum products like jet fuel and diesel. That's down at like 20% of where it was pre-war. So, no, things are not better. Refiners are damaged. Like, no farmer is happy about a tiny dip in diesel prices. I also, I think you tweeted this, Tommy, and then I also heard it somewhere that like insurance still on some of these tankers, even though the, even the ones that are like getting a golf, it's like they've gone from $30,000 to sometimes over a million dollars. Yeah, I'd say, yeah, that, that tracks pretty expensive to insure boats in the straight of four moves right now. Well, it seems like we're having some success, meaning the military, like helping to escort more tankers through, but like, that's still not a bet you want to make. No, what they're doing is the Emiratis and the Saudis are filling this, their fleet of VLCCs or these huge tankers with crude oil. And those are shuttling through the strait. And they're taking on the risk. Then they load ship to ship in the ocean to like an international tanker. But the like, but refined products like jet fuel or whatever, one, it's more flammable. So you really don't want to get with an Iranian drone if you're on one of those things. Two, these are usually, it's usually taken back and forth in smaller vessels that are privately or independently owned. So those guys are just not ready to take on the risk of getting blown to hell. Okay. All right. So we're watching Gas Buddy. We're watching the polls. Well, just the other two, like these things, like it's almost, it's on its way. It's on its way to being double of what it was a year ago. Everyone knows that gas prices go up and go down. Diesel prices go up and go down a small, a small decrease right now is not providing anyone any sense of comfort or safety. It's still way more than it used to be. And by the way, even if there was genuinely a shift based on actual, not actual policies, not like sort of trying to just sort of cut the taxes and kind of goose the numbers, right? Like these kinds of things take time for people to accept and put into the way they vote, right? Like there've been many presidents and many candidates who have complained that they've picked up the vote. They've paid for economic conditions that had already been resolved, but it took, takes time for people to appreciate and accept. Yeah. So it's not harvest season is when you really got to drive that tractor. Well, it's also the other thing I forgot about Nebraska is he's there. He's like doing the executive order on diesel. Nebraska farmers are all fucking rip shit at him because he's trying to do the import beef, import Argentinian beef to try to bring down the price of beef, even though they're growing the beef. That's what they do in Nebraska. Good news. Good news. Leftovers. How about some foreign meat? You want some foreign meat? Got some very cold, very old beef coming your way. Argentina. All right. Let's talk about some updates from a few key races, starting with Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed announced on Monday that Barack Obama will be traveling to the state in a couple of weeks to campaign with him and the candidate for governor, Jocelyn Benson. That's the base vote play to try to get those persuadable Republicans. Abdul continues to go into their media spaces. Recently, Fox News on Monday afternoon. Let's take a look at how that went. You go after billionaires a lot. You say that you want to tax billionaire wealth and disincentivize the accumulation of wealth. But don't we all benefit from being this incredible powerhouse in the United States from their ingenuity? Well, the issue is not that some people have too much money. It's that the engine that created their opportunity to make money is being underfunded. I would rather live in a society where rather than a billionaire making a second billion, I'm invested in a public school so that some kid out there gets a great education, gets to participate in capitalism, builds an amazing business, and gets to make money too. I want to give Abdul credit there for not breaking out into a huge smile or even laughing because you could tell when she was like, Abdul, what about the billionaires? Won't anyone think of the billionaires? He's like thinking to himself, did I really just get this question? It was just like, oh my God, oh my God. She has no idea where my back is. She has no idea where her battleship is. And I know exactly where her battleship is. This is after like 10 minutes where she defended the Iran war. Yeah. Martha McCollum. That answer, I just, there have been a lot of like kind of, I think, answers that might get like some cheers from like very engaged people on social media. Like that was such a just great answer on like billionaire rhetoric and like wanting people, and opportunity and wanting people to have the chance to have success. Like I just thought, like we were watching it together in the office and I missed the first part but I came back in. And we were watching and I just like turned to you guys. We were all like, this is, he's doing fucking awesome in this interview. Yeah, it was almost too good. He was too poised and calm. There wasn't like an explosive moment that you can make go viral like you did with Jesse Waters. Martha McCollum, by the way, like it's so funny. She's like on the straight news side more or so, I think, of Fox News, but just sounds like a White House spokesperson when she does interviews with the Democrats. And then the segment after was fact-checking Abdul, which you don't really see for a lot of Trump interviews on Fox News. Yeah, it was a spree. It was like the post, here's the things that we could have brought up during the interview. Sorry to use French. The Obama visit to Detroit is great. I mean, hopefully, obviously, a lot of it will be turning out black voters in the Detroit metro area or Flint or wherever. But also, I think Obama could talk about Abdul and efforts to define Abdul as dangerous or foreign in a way that many other politicians can't because they tried to do the same thing to him. Because he was raised in Madrasa. So, he's also the most popular president alive. So, that's a good thing. So, that'll help, too. But, yeah, I'm very glad to see Obama's going to Detroit. I think black voters is a big deal, too. Like, in that Times poll, where Abdul was leading by five, he was 76-13 with black voters. In that same poll, Jocelyn Benson was running for governor. It was 92-1. Yeah, and there's some other polls, too, like before this one, too, that had, like, the number of— he still had to do some consolidation among Haley Stevens voters. And, again, same thing. Yeah, so I think that the Obama visit is going to be very, very helpful. Oh, by the way, I should say, before— Trump also said today he's going to Michigan in a couple weeks. And then someone asked him about Maine, and he was like, yeah, yeah, I think I'm going to Maine, too. He keeps saying he's going to— Fingers crossed. He said he was going to Iowa. He hasn't done that, right? Not yet, but he said it. He announced it with, yeah, her behind us. She was like, good. But it'd be interesting him going to Michigan, especially in a couple weeks. I wonder if he's thinking, like, oh, Obama's going. Now I've got to go, too. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But you've got to go to ziprecruiter.com slash crooked to post your job for free. Again, that's ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. Oh, and if you forgot where to go, don't worry. You'll hear another ZipRecruiter ad soon enough. Pots of America is brought to you by Bombas. Cozy season is upon us, which means curling up on crisp mornings in soft layers. Bombas makes your comfiest fall staples so you can make the most out of arguably the best season of the year. Bombas' new suede moccasins are perfect for fall with cushy soles, a shearling lining, and water-resistant suede. And their slippers are everything you'd want for a cozy night in, made with the softest, most cloud-like materials. Then there's the Bombas compression sock collection. Choose from specialized designs for travel, everyday workout and recovery. There's a fatigue-fighting pair for every moment. I actually just bought some new Bombas socks. I am literally wearing them right now. They're just kind of like white no-show ones. What I love about them is for the little no-show socks, they've got a nice grippy kind of thing on the back, sticky thing on the back, which means the socks don't ever fall down. They last a long time. They hold up. And so, I don't know, I almost exclusively buy Bombas now. And the best part about Bombas, for every time you purchase, they donate an essential clothing item to someone facing housing insecurity. One purchased equals one donated with over 200 million donations and counting. Head over to bombas.com slash crooked and use the code crooked for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-O-M-A. B-A-S.com slash crooked. Code crooked at checkout. Trump's heading back to Texas this week. We know that. Also, Ken Paxton can't stop saying stupid shit at fundraisers. Politico published another excerpt from that private event where Paxton complained about Trump's midterm convention. In this one, he seems to be saying that his campaign is in other people's hands. Take a listen. I've never been arrested, but I felt less control over the campaign and what issues are going to matter because it's all coming from D.C. and I don't control the message or what we're doing. I don't have the ability to change anything. So I have to live with whatever I've got. So it is a challenge. Can you imagine saying, I don't control message about your own campaign? It's like the two things that leaked out are the worst kind of meta messages I could imagine. The first was like, Trump sucks. His midterm convention sucked and screwed me. So that creates problems with Trump, with the White House, with donors who are pissed at Paxton that they're dragging his ass over the finish line with like $200 million. And now this is, actually, I don't control my campaign. It's controlled by Washington in the most anti-incumbent year like we've ever seen. It's like designed in a lab to destroy him. It's awesome. The other part about it, like forget even that he's pointing to D.C., which is bad enough. It's just such fucking loser talk. It's so like, woe is me, excuses, passive, like not in charge. Like did those consultants in D.C. make you the most fucking corrupt figure in the history of Texas? Right, like no sense. Make you cheat on your wife? Well, that's what I was saying. It's like, you know, like, man, this has got to be the same he brings to the reason his marriage fell apart. Were they in the room when you did all the bribes? Right, like these terrible things just keep happening to me. You know, like this, the idea that he's not responsible for the campaign at all, no sense in which he is even acknowledging the ways in which he is not an ideal candidate, all that. It is worth noting that the Republicans have spent nine figures now trying to rehabilitate Ken Paxton's image. And James, James Tallarico is more popular in the latest Time Sienna poll. And he's a bigger lead than he did before. So, you know, we're approaching $200 million in spending. Has it made any difference at all for Ken Paxton? I don't think it can. And then the question is like, is there a strategy that would have helped Ken Paxton? I guess the strategy would have been Donald Trump not endorsing him and letting John Cornyn win. That may be the only strategy that would have worked, probably. Right, like we've talked about this before. And the assumption is that the only hope Ken Paxton would have would be to like completely destroy Tallarico with sort of endless, endless negative ads. And I think that's the only hope that he would have. Which he's tried. Which he's tried. He had the money for, yeah. But then, of course, that's not working. And so then like it reminds me of like, you know, oh, the problem is I just don't know who Ken really is. So now let's get the real story. The Ken Paxton they always loved from back in the day. Who tells you that he's not controlling anything and that it's all happening in DC. He's just a puppet. That's going to be a fun one. Imagine James Tallarico going out the next time he goes out on the stump. You got that topper insert talking about Ken Paxton and the DC thing. I'm sure they've cut a few ads about it, even if they're only like, you know, like for social media or whatever. I would also, I would appreciate an ad that just has James Tallarico starting from one end of a steak, getting all the way to the other side of a steak while facts about Ken Paxton pop on the screen. You know, that's pretty good for a vegan. All right. Yeah. For a vegan. Trump keeps calling him a vegan. We haven't had the chance to talk much about the Senate race in Florida where. Sorry, just vegans are the aliens from the movie Contact. If there were aliens or maybe an hallucination. Fun fact, interlude. For anyone who has to go to the bathroom. It's over. It's fucking over. Also, it's a podcast. You can bring it to the bathroom. That's true. You can. I have. We haven't had the chance to talk. Not this one. Not this one. I've never listened. We haven't had the chance to talk much about the Senate race in Florida where state rep Angie Nixon pulled off a stunning upset over Alex Bindman in the primary in August. You're going to be hearing from Nixon on the Friday show, but we want to play a clip of her responding to J.D. Vance after the vice president went to Florida, said Nixon's views, quote, don't belong in America and suggested people like her should leave the country. My lived experiences are why I do what I do. My dad. Why do you get so emotional? I get so emotional because I don't like to see people struggling the way I struggled. I grew up in a house filled with domestic violence. And I left my mom at a very young age during a moment when she was under attack by my dad. And because of that, I run towards bullies. I will never leave people when they are being attacked, facing oppression, being harmed. That's what drives me. And look, Jim, you got me crying on TV. I'm supposed to be the strong black woman, you know, but like, that's why I fight. That's why I fight. That's great. Great answer. Like, stop me in my track. I saw that yesterday. A great politician talks about who they are, where they come from, and how their bio informs the things they care about and fight for. And I'm like, at a moment when everyone hates politics, they're furious about the cost of living, they don't believe anyone gets it or gives a shit. To see her like that emotional talking about the why I thought was really powerful and hopefully can cut through in a way that usually, you know, interviews own. Yeah. Why do you guys think her race hasn't gotten more attention so far? There have been some calls from folks on the left, like why, you know, they're going into Kansas, the Democrats, why aren't they trying to save Florida? Bernie Sanders did pledge $250,000. I mean, come on, Bernie, like 250 grand is nothing. But this is the problem. Florida is, first of all, people think that Florida has gone given demographic shifts recently. That's very likely wrong given the Latino vote shift we're seeing. But like, that's the conventional wisdom. They also had a pretty late primary. Yeah. Florida's crazy expensive. It's just a really, really expensive state to run. And so like, look, good for Bernie for giving 250 grand. It's more than I guess others have. But it's going to take a lot more than that. Yeah. So I feel like there's been this idea that, oh, like, oh, people aren't getting behind Angie Nixon because she's the candidate of the left. Maybe that's part of it. But I do think, to Tommy's point, I think we have maybe overlearned. We used to we used to hope that Florida would would go for a Democrat. And then we felt like it became Lucy with the football. And maybe we've overlearned that lesson. If you go back and look like, you know, Bill, Bill Nelson, the incumbent senator, he's winning by like huge, huge margin, 20 point margins. And then he's winning by 10 and then he's losing to Rick Scott. We've just seen also the ways in which Florida just hasn't moved up and down in the same way that other states have. It's been more static. And I think there's a whether it's based in actual data or just historic experience that like data on this election that Hispanics in Florida, in Florida, being more Cuban and being more Republican may mean they don't move the same way the others do. And the polling, which is, you know, if you're going to view Florida as a place where we should be investing in, well, that would also apply to a state like South Carolina. The polls coming out of Nebraska and Kansas have actually been closer than some of the polls in Florida. But also Florida is not well polled. And I think part of this is just Angie Nixon is an extraordinary candidate doing something really interesting and is super compelling. And so maybe there is something that we're missing. Yeah. The polling average has actually moved. Yeah. And so maybe ahead, roughly five to six points. The other thing like we've watched over the years, as you said, like Democrats, you know, winning by less and then finally losing in Florida. Also, the registration advantage has just now it's a the Republicans have a 1.5 million voter registration advantage in Florida, which is just enormous right now. It's not insurmountable, but it's and I think you're right, Tommy, like it's it's a late primary. Also, Ashley Moody, like people don't really know who she is. She's not like a candidate. She's not a Ken Paxton character. And I think, you know, I think Angie Nixon's a fantastic candidate. Very inspiring. Just the fact, you know, she says she's not DSA anymore, but just the fact that she was DSA at one point. I think that's a harder thing in Florida than other places. Yeah. Look, Obama won Florida in 2008, won by a little less in 2012. Then Clinton lost by like a point and change in 2016. Biden lost by three points and change in 2020. And then Harris lost by about 13 points in 2024. So there it is. It's just the perception that it's swinging away from us. And also, I think COVID exacerbated the demographic changes that made it even more MAGA. And Ron DeSantis is doing everything he can to suppress votes and strip people off the rolls, which is like it's a tough, tough state. If we had unlimited money, I would pour money into Florida. I think that there's just unfortunately like resource allocation questions are very tough and people are doing the best they can. I do hope that some late money goes to her because she's incredibly compelling. I'm also interested to see what happens in some of these houses. I think we're going to see a lot of the last races in Florida because these are some of the districts where I think at the beginning of the cycle, people were like, I don't know if we can get this. But now they're Republicans are pretty nervous about quite a few of them. Okay, quick update on how Republicans are using your tax dollars to enrich their pals. You may remember that when Kristi Noem was running Homeland Security, the department awarded a $464 million no bid contract to buy 10 used planes that were supposedly urgently needed for deportation flights, but then spent months parked in Louisiana. So that was a good thing. Good use of money. Well, the New York Times just published a truly mind-boggling report about how in Noem's final hours on the job, she reportedly approved the purchase of two Gulfstreams for $106 million and three luxury jets for more than $200 million, including the one the department had been leasing for her that has a private bedroom in the back where Noem and Corey Lewandowski could have meetings that did not involve sex. DHS purchased the five planes and that a noticeable markup from a company whose chairman happened donate $10,000 to a pro-Gnome super PAC in 2024 and received a total of around $900 million worth of DHS contracts while Gnome was secretary. First time that company ever won a federal contract. How about that, huh? It's honestly, the staggering thing is 10,000 is not enough. It just doesn't make sense. It's such old school corruption that I felt like I was reading it through like an Instagram filter, like a sepia or something, you know, it's just like news from the front. DHS buys planes from a donor at inflated prices, literally on Gnome's last day in office. It's like, it's about as subtle as her husband's brassiere. Did she really think no one would notice that this is the thing? Like, like how much did she owe this donor that she would do something this brazenly illegal? I like, also, even if we, even if they got a deal on these planes, you're telling me we need a Gulfstream to deport migrants or like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Like a 737 with a standup bar, two bedrooms. It's all, it's all ludicrous. It's a big purchase. You're leaving that day. No one, you're like, hey, by the way, I think we should sign this, but obviously given that I've been kicked out of this place unceremoniously and you're about to be in charge, I'll leave the decision up to you. But I actually think it's a good deal, right? Like it's a real, it was sort of ludicrous to imagine that kind of a discussion in this environment, but, but of course it's absurd. I was most surprised that she issued like this continuous objection in the story and like demanded a retraction. And it was trying to say like, you know, it was a, it didn't have anything that the super PAC wasn't really connected to me and it wasn't for me. And I'll like, it made me think I'm like, oh, she thinks she really thinks she has like a political career ahead of her still. Oh, she'd run for president. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think anybody that I think that there's a, there's a, you know, the delusion is about evident with eyes for those with eyes to see. It's just wild after, after everything, after all that we've seen from her since she is, since her ignominious departure, it's just so brazen. I mean, like they bought one of the planes, they bought it for $108 million. It had been purchased for 90 million, like a few months earlier, they bought a couple of planes for $45 million each. They had a bunch of experts saying that each plane should be valued between 15 and 30. Like the markups were steep and obvious and glaring. And it just really makes you wonder what happened there. Yeah. I just, the truth makes sense. And this still doesn't make sense. Oversight hearings people. Well, now her and Corey can go find their own plane somewhere. Uh, one last thing before Tommy's interview with, uh, Gina, you know, Hossa campaigning with Donald Trump over the weekend, Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy showed that his athletic prowess extends beyond tennis and baseball to weightlifting. For those of you who are listening and not watching, uh, that was a vague trying and failing to pick up a child, almost dropping a child. What do you think better or worse than the batting cage thing? Oh, tough one. Um, part of me had sympathy for him because if you've ever picked up a kid and the kid kind of goes like dead fish on you, it's really hard to hold them because you don't want to squeeze too hard, but the kid is 10. Why are you picking up someone else's 10 year old on stage? That's weird. You don't need to do that. Yeah. And just don't touch the kid. Don't touch the kid. Don't drop them for sure. Dropping a kid on an event is tough. That's a tough one. No candidate. It's like you're a candidate. You're, you're, you're kissing babies and it's like, and don't drop them though. Remember when Bill de Blasio killed that hedgehog? Yes. Yeah. Was it a hedgehog? Groundhog. Groundhog. He dropped that groundhog from a great height because he was a gargantuan and it fell. And then a couple of days later, no more, no more groundhog. That was the, it was the groundhog. The final winter. There's winter, right? Yeah. And then dead. That's when the White Walkers came. Yeah. But yeah, the lifting of the kids, you know, it's funny. I do think just to answer your question, I think the baseball one was worse self-inflicted in a video they released and was about how, how much he was going to do and how, how much of a guy he was going to be. But then he was hitting those balls the way that he was hitting those balls. And I was like, we don't, we don't, there's something not right. There's, it's sweaty. The whole thing's sweaty. I mean, so far, of course, you know, things could be different on the ground in Ohio, but so far, every clip that has come out from the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign since he has been campaigning for governor has been embarrassing. Yeah. In like a way that sort of breaks beyond partisan politics, embarrassing, you know? Yeah. No, I, like I was on his campaign bus with him in Iowa. He's a repellent person. I don't know how else to say it. He's not the person you want to spend time with. It's, it is the beautiful thing that as much as they try to like undermine democracy and there's right-wing propaganda, like politics still reveals people that can't help it. Like I was like, we have like Vance, you know, Angie Nixon going at Vance in this really kind of earnest way. Like people have been calling Trump a bully forever. He's a bully. He's a bully. He's never quite works because Trump in a weird way is a bully you root for who knows why, but that's why. And Vance is a bully. You root against like the vague, like, is it because he dropped the kid? Is it because he's bad at baseball? No, he just can't even call him a bully. He's just a fucking nerd. No, no, no. He's just, he just, he just doesn't, he doesn't feel like he's real. He feels like he's doing an, he's trying to figure out how to talk to people. He feels out of place. Yeah. For sure. Like unsettled by the idea of engaging in these ways. Yeah. Just like that poor kid. That kid's face is so funny. He's like, going up down. I go, has anyone landed an interview with that kid? No, he's, he's been, he's been deported. I heard a 60 minutes exclusive with Ross Dobbins. Are you the Antichrist? All right. When we come back, Gina Hinojosa. Pods of America is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Fall brings changes, but your phone bill shouldn't bring surprises. Cut the clutter and ditch big wireless gimmicks for Mint Mobile. Right now, every Mint plan is just $15 per month, even unlimited. Switch today for high-speed data and reliable coverage on the internet. The T-Mobile 5G network. Mint Mobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right with premium wireless for 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can even bring your current phone and your number. Choose from three, six or 12 month plans and say goodbye to a monthly bill. Ditch overpriced wireless with Mint Mobile. It's so easy. Sign up online and get three months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com slash crooked. That's mintmobile.com slash crooked. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash crooked. That's it. There's no catch. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 months. Plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot capable device required availability. Speed and coverage vary. See mintmobile.com. My guest today is running to be the next governor of Texas. Gina Hinojosa, great to see you. It's great to be with you. Thank you for being in LA. We were just down in Texas for the trip fest. The vibes on the ground were very good. People are very excited about your race, about Tallarico. There's been a bunch of great polls out of Texas lately for you, for Tallarico, for congressional candidates, right? But a lot of Democrats inside, we like to feel scared and sad. They feel like their hearts have been broken by Texas before. They feel like they're not going to be able to get out of Texas. Why is this year different? Because we're winning already. We're winning all over the state where we haven't won in a long time, sometimes ever. Tarrick County was the race that caught people internationally by surprise, where we swung a state Senate seat in the county that's supposed to be the most Republican county in the country. We swung it 31 points to elected Democrats. 31 points? 31. Okay. And that's Fort Worth? That's Fort Worth. Yeah. So it's a Dallas-Fort Worth area. This is the county, where Steve Bannon said, as goes Tarrick County, so goes Texas, so goes the nation, right? He had embedded himself the month before that election, and he said it. And it is the one thing I agree with Steve Bannon on. It happens to be a real bellwether for this election. Taylor Remet got 79% of the Latino vote to give you, like, that's astounding to me. It's a massive, massive. Isn't that a massive? Yeah. And look, people just want change. In 2026, people are struggling in this high-cost economy in a way I haven't seen ever. And I'm born and raised in Texas. And they know who's been in charge, and they don't want it anymore. So folks are listening. They're smoking the hopium. They're reading all the New York Times polls. Their fingers are above the Act Blue, right? They're about to donate to click to you. What's your path to victory? Like, how do you stitch together a coalition in Texas that wins? What does that look like? So first, do it. Punch that Act Blue button, because we're going to win. Listen, what has happened is it is doing better everywhere. It is not just one key group. It is all key groups, right? So we can't be losing so bad in rural Texas. And the data center issue has blown up in Texas. And nobody is fighting back against data centers as hard as MAGA, frankly, because the data centers have really descended onto rural Texas because they were invited in by Greg Abbott with the richest tax breaks in the country. They are hitting people at home, literally. They're also the in-our-face example of a governor during the bidding of the moneyed interests and leaving Texans to fend for themselves. So we create this distrust that the base feels against Greg Abbott. So if you look at Republican Texas Twitter, they're arguing amongst themselves about whether or not to vote for Greg Abbott. Interesting. So we got to do better in rural Texas, because of data centers and, by the way, because of public schools because public schools are really struggling. Greg Abbott sold out. I want to ask you more about that because some of his donors bidding, right? Yes, that's right. He sold out public schools and rural Texas loves public schools. Texans love public schools. So we have to not lose so bad in rural Texas. We have to do better with suburban women. And suburban women are big mad about public schools as well because our schools are in crisis in Texas. We have to run up the score in urban areas and people are voting. I will say young people especially are tuned in. They're back, thank God. A lot of people sat out last election cycle. They did not like the whole thing happening at the top of the ticket with Biden running, first of all, then stepping out down at the last minute and Kamala running. It just didn't inspire confidence and all Democrats got punished. And young people, I think especially, were turned off. But what we saw in the primaries is young people are back in a big way. And then Latinos. Trump won Latinos in Texas. Trump won the Rio Grande Valley, where I am from. That's the border. That's the southernmost tip of Texas. That's where I launched. And we keep going back and we're seeing the polling is showing what we're seeing on the ground and feeling on the ground. And that's that we're winning Latinos by double digits. So all of it really is because. This high cost economy has people rejecting status quo politics. And there is this anti-incumbency energy in Texas and there's no more entrenched incumbent than Greg Abbott. He's been there 12 years. He's been in statewide office 30 years, right? People know him. They know who's been in charge. They lay the blame for this high cost economy where it belongs at his feet. There's really no one else to blame in Texas. I mean, who could you possibly blame besides the Republican Party if you're frustrated with. Governance of the state in the last couple of decades. And this is true. And I think what is new about this campaign cycle is that not only are we saying that, we are saying the reason why is because they are bought and paid for by the billionaires, by the billionaire CEOs who run these multinational corporations. That is who is driving policy in Texas. It is why it is harder to make it in Texas than it was 12 years ago before the election. And I think that is why it is harder to make it in Texas than it was before the election. It is why we pay more and we get less. And again, these data centers are like the in-our-face example of it. I want to ask you a little more about the Latino vote because obviously Latino voters don't vote as a block. It's not monolithic. Like a Mexican-American living on the border, you know, in El Paso probably has very different views and lived experience than a Cuban-American living in Miami, right? But we've seen huge swings in Latino voters from Republican to Democrat, or at least away from Trump. And we've seen huge swings in Latino voters from Republican to Democrat, or at least NBC and Telemundo have a pullout today with Trump's approval rating among Latino voters at 27%. That is like rock bottom. Yeah. What do you think is driving that? And then I guess more importantly, like how do we Democrats win them back? Yeah. Because you have to earn those votes. Again, the high cost economy is driving that. I mean, Latinos are voting their pocketbook as much, if not more than anyone else, right? It's probably the swingiest of demographics politically. And so the economy really does impact their turnout and who they're supporting. They thought Trump would be good for that. Turns out he wasn't. And people are mad. It is also these ICE raids that are happening in Texas. And people, yes, support border security. I support border security. We all want a secure border. We want to be safe in our neighborhoods, right? But what is happening is making us less safe. We just had a man shot in the back by ICE in Austin a couple of weeks ago. He was shot in the back by ICE in Austin. He was a DoorDash delivery driver, right? Or Uber Eats, one of the two. He had a bullet lodged in his back, spent the night on the floor of a detention cell with no pain medication. I haven't even heard of charged murderers being treated like that in modern day society, in modern day America. We had the case of a man who was killed on his way to work in Houston a couple of months ago. And it was a case of mistaken identity. Where they pulled him over in an unmarked car, shot first, asked questions later, killed the man, and they got the wrong guy. We had a case of two American boys, 17 years old, on their way to enlist in the Marines in South Texas in the Valley, only to be stopped and beaten by ICE. In that environment, nobody's safe, right? Those are the feds run amok. That's ICE run amok. And Latinos especially feel targeted. And we know now they can be racially, we can be racially profiled, right? Because of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on that. So people are mad about that. They're afraid about it. It's impacting the economy too. And I think what you're going to see is Latinos are going to demonstrate their displeasure both with the economy and also at being targeted by these ICE raids. I was talking to somebody who had worked in Texas in politics for a long time. I think what Democrats misread, according to this person, was, again, this idea that Latino voters are a monolith. They're like, a lot of Latino communities who live along the border, these are people that are more likely to hunt and fish and have a gun in the car or have family or friends who work for Border Patrol and to have been frustrated and to have felt the impact of the border getting out of control during the Biden administration in their own communities, right? The fact that there has been such a shift, despite the conservatism and despite the fact that the previous immigration policies actually impacted their communities more than, say, someone in Pennsylvania or whatever it is, is interesting. I think it speaks to just how badly the ICE raids have blown up in their faces. Yeah. It is scary. People are scared. People show up at my rallies afraid. Tell me that they're afraid. They're afraid for their family members. They're afraid for themselves. And I do think it will be a motivating. It will be a motivating factor in turnout this year. So let's talk about education policy, because Greg Abbott is a big supporter of vouchers, right? I believe he has some really big donors like Jeff Gass, one of the money people behind TikTok who are supporters of voucher schools. It sounds like it's really decimated public schools in the state. Lots are closing. Lots of kids are going to school only four days a week. Can you tell us about the impact of those funding decisions by Abbott and how it has helped you reach conservatives who probably don't agree with you on a lot of other stuff? Yeah. Our schools are really just hanging on by a thread in Texas right now. We have over 150 school districts operating at four days a week because they can't afford to operate at five days a week. We have had a teacher exodus where teachers have walked away. We have the teachers. They just don't want to work in our public schools anymore. They're not respected. They're not paid. We have school closures happening all over. The state. And now we have this billion-dollar voucher program, the largest when it was passed last year, largest in the country, that is expected to double in size. And if the wait list is funded the way Republican leadership is saying they want it funded, it becomes $4 billion, right? There's no surviving that. There's no surviving that for our neighborhood public schools. There's no surviving that for a teacher retirement system. You're paying teachers, who weren't paying into the system at that point, $4 billion. That's just not going to work. So yeah, people are mad about that. And public schools have been a space that has been bipartisan for as long as I can remember. It is Friday night lights. It is enshrined in our Texas Constitution as being essential to our liberties, right? It is foundational to who we are as Texans. And so we haven't had a governor in modern history be pro-voucher. Turn his back on public schools. Greg Abbott won't even step inside a public school in Texas. So anti-Texan, right? So people are mad about it. I have Republican superintendents coming out publicly saying, I don't care about the repercussions. I'm with you. And I'll say it to whoever will listen. I have football coaches coming out working for me, right? Republicans, I've always voted Republican. I have MAGA moms who are with me because they, believe this is our last chance to save Texas public schools. They don't believe, and I don't believe our public schools survive four more years of Greg Abbott. So those are the stakes in this election. We've launched teamtexaspublicschools.com. It's an organizing effort to organize your own school community. It's not coded Democrat because again, we have a lot of Republican and independent supporters who love their public schools. And these suburban moms, parents, people who move to the suburbs for public schools are really angry about what's happened in particular. And then you mentioned the data centers too. I mean, again, I think Abbott was one of the many politicians that were offering tax breaks to get these massive data centers to come to their communities. The politics have changed rapidly. Can you tell us what the break ranks movement? And again, these like very conservative groups of people that I think you've sat down with, you've, you know, you've created like videos with, and they've come out and endorsed you because of data centers. Like, tell us more about how like challenging these data centers are for these people in their communities. So it's terrible. I mean, there are just no protections against the data centers in rural Texas, really any part of Texas. So. So, yes, Greg Abbott invited them in with 20-year tax breaks, so they don't pay any sales tax. No taxes for 20 years? No sales tax on the electricity they consume, and they consume a ton of electricity, right? Your grid is famously perfect in Texas. Right, so people are real concerned about grid. Our electricity prices have skyrocketed under Greg Abbott because of the winter storm in 21 when gas companies withheld the gas that the grid needed until they could make billions in record profits. And Abbott then got famously a million-dollar check from one of those gas company CEOs after he let that happen. And so now we're all paying for those profits. So our electricity prices have skyrocketed at least $40, but probably more a month since then. And now with data centers, even more because of all the infrastructure that's needed for the data centers. But to give you an example, I was in the Panhandle, and I met with some people, and that's where the largest data center in the world is being built. It's called Project Matador. I didn't even know this until I got there. It is on state land, and one of the largest investors is Rick Perry, our former governor, and his son. Fun. Right. That's all on the up and up. It's like in-your-face grift, right? It's one big grift. When people from that community found out that the municipal water authority had a contract with the world's largest data center to provide the water in the Panhandle where they struggle with drought, when they asked the question, what happens if there's not enough water for us and the data center? They say they were told, well, because we have a legal obligation to the data center through contract, we will shut off the residents first. So you just agreed? Die of thirst, I guess, if you live there. Isn't that crazy? You don't get to shower? Isn't that crazy? Also, why do they have code names? Why does it have to be Project Matador? They're trying to make it sound cool. They put big money into marketing it, actually. They have ads. So they're trying to get people on their side, but people see these ads, and they're like, this is sus, right? They don't like it. It was called at some point like the Trump data center. I mean, they've tried all sorts of things with this data center. But it's not just that. When I was in Granbury, where I showed up to talk to people fighting a data center, I didn't even know they had done this, but they were wearing these T-shirts that said break ranks. And I was like, just curious, what's up with your T-shirt? What does that mean? I really did not know. And they said, oh, you didn't know? We're not voting for Republicans. We're not voting for Greg Abbott. We're voting for you. They had T-shirts. Like, it was a movement started. I was in Red Oak, Texas, outside of Dallas. They have seven data centers. It's moving into what is a rural neighborhood. And I was sitting in a living room surrounded by MAGA. And they were so mad at Greg Abbott because they knew he had sold them out. And it caused them to be what I call Gina curious. They were like, okay, what are you about? What do you think about Sharia law? They wanted to talk to me about culture wars. They wanted to talk to me, like, what do you think about constitutional carry? I said, well, what you call constitutional carry, I call permitless carry. And I voted against that bill. And I believe we should have background checks. But also, can we agree that as we've been fighting these culture wars these last 10 years, the only people who have won are like 15 billionaire tech dudes who have amassed all our power, political power, our money, all our data, and are about to blow up the world if we don't come together fast to save ourselves. And when you see that, when you see that all these issues have been used against us to divide us, and that the only way we're going to save ourselves is to come together, like, you can't unsee it. They stood with me in a press conference, me supporting their fight against the data center. They were supporting me in my run for governor. So I think that is the opportunity. The opportunity is for Democrats to call out the grift and to say the reason you're struggling more, they're telling you it's this different subgroup, this different category of Texan who is unlike you. The real reason is. Because they have sold us out, all of us out, to billionaire CEOs. And that is the truth. Yeah, it is truth. And for those wondering, why did they bring up Sharia law? I think Steve Bannon was behind a big ballot initiative, I think, outlawing Sharia law in Texas. Because as far as I can tell, that's something that's on the horizon. Well, you know, I mean, I said, well, look, I don't really know about that. And they're like, well, you need to learn. I said, okay, I will learn. But I'm not for that. I'm for Texas law, and I'm for American law, right? This is, we're in Texas. This is America. This is the law we have. And then, but I engaged with them in it. And I said, look, this is what I'm afraid of. I said, I'm not for Sharia law, but I'm afraid that Muslims who are like contributing members of our society, of our state, who are good people, are being painted with this Sharia law thing. They don't even know what it is. And I don't want them to be discriminated against. And when I said that, the response. The response was, we don't mean that. And so I thought it was interesting because I did really feel like it was a privilege to be engaged with as a Democrat on this issue. It's not something that I had outside of school context because I've had these same kind of interactions with Republican MAGA moms who agree with me on public schools, back to basics, good teacher in the classroom, right? And they want to then explore the culture war space. I've had that experience. But outside of the school. Out of the school sphere of policy, I had not had that experience. And I do feel like it is a privilege and an honor to be able to sit down and agree to disagree in that space. It's okay. Yeah. Right? It is okay. No, it's interesting. I mean, I think it's a story about like the information silos we all live in. Yeah. And how like you can get whipped up about Sharia law coming to Texas when obviously that's not going to be a problem. But also how pissed off people are about these data centers if that has gotten to the point where they can build a data center. And have a conversation with someone given what they probably believe about other stuff. So, last question for you. Like a lot of friends of mine in the kind of Democratic Party operative or consulting campaign world are frustrated right now. Because they feel like this is a historic opportunity, this election cycle. But the results might be blunted because of the Republican spending advantage. Like some of the Senate races are getting a lot of attention. But governor's races, down ballot races are just not getting the time or money or focus. I know there's been pressure on the DGA, the Democratic Governors Association, to spend more time on this. Do you feel that frustration? And like, again, what's your message to like the mega donors or others listening? Yeah. We're wondering like, okay, I felt like my money was lit on fire in 2024. So, I'm pissed. Why would I give again? None of us can guarantee a victory, right? Like how do you sell them on some hope? Well, look, it is the evidence before our eyes. Greg Abbott had never had a poll showing him losing ever when he had run for governor. He's got three in three weeks by like the Marist, Siena poll. Like in New York Times, like big name, reputable pollsters showing I am beating Greg Abbott. There's not been a poll in 12 weeks, two months that shows this isn't within the margin of error. This election cycle, everybody knows is going to be an opportunity of a generation. And yes, to play in Texas is to play at the high rollers table. Absolutely. There is a big, hefty price of admission to play. But it's because the payout is so big. And we have been dealt a phenomenal hand, by the way. And like if we're not playing at the high rollers table in 2026, what are we even doing as Democrats in this country? Like this is a chance really to make gains that will have reverberations, protections for a generation, right? We know they're going to try to redistrict next year. We know they'll eliminate five Democrats from Congress when they do. We know two years later. Your census will say Texas gets another four to five congressional seats. That's another four to five seats. If they're in power, it's 10, up to 10 Democratic seats off the table. There's no Democratic control of Congress when that happens. This election cycle is an anomaly. In a normal election cycle, 10 seats off the table means no Democratic control, right? Texas becomes too big. The math no longer works. A governor in Texas who will veto rigged maps, whether they're rigged for Republicans or Democrats, is a governor who can save the union. Those are the stakes in 2026. I will be that governor. And Craig Abbott spent $80 million in paid communications in this campaign. I've spent seven. We have demonstrated we do not have to spend dollar for dollar. We need to spend enough to tell people who I am, what I'm about. The polling shows 20% of the electorate still doesn't know who I am. We're on broadcast TV. Yeah, it's expensive in Texas. But again, the stakes. The stakes are high and the payout is higher. And so, yeah, the time is right to invest in Texas. A lot of people I've talked to have said you are running dollar for dollar the best campaign in all of Texas. We just got to make sure you have the dollars. Ginafortexas.com. Go, donate, volunteer, get involved. Thank you for coming by. Thank you so much, Tommy. Please win. Yes. I don't want this redistricting thing. That sounds terrible. It's a bad thing. That's our show for today. I want to apologize for my joke about the kid being deported. For you, it was a break ago. But for me, it just happened. I just immediately want to say that I think we can leave it in. He's not listening. I'm sorry. I mean, yeah, the kid's not listening, but the people listening, I'm just, I know it was wrong and I'm sorry. Thanks, Gina Hinojosa, for coming on. Sorry to the kid that Lovett made fun of. I didn't make fun of the kid. Okay, okay, sorry for the— Off-air, Mike, you were saying some— Yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure. You were talking about his outfit. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Reed Churlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.