Trump’s Threat to Hurricane Victims Could Cost Republicans BIG (Anderson Clayton & Nikema Williams)

Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor of the bullwork. Now, the midterms are just a little over a week away And we happened to be on the ground last week in two very critical states in North Carolina. Tim had a conversation with the chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, Anderson Clayton and then in Atlanta, Georgia, I chatted with representative Nakeda Williams to discuss election security She happens to be the congresswoman who represents Fulton County. You know, that's the place where the Trump administration has done a lot of election interference. She had some interesting thoughts about that. Now As a reminder, we will be doing a members only election day preview on November 1st. That's Sunday, the Sunday before elections starting at 830 PM. It's going to be great. You're going to be able to join a bunch of us from around the country, different reporters, different editors. If you're going to be on, we'll answer your question. So if you want to know what's going on, that's a great place for you to pose a question to one of our experts or our reporters. And then on election day itself, November 3rd, starting at 7 PM. We will have a live TNL for you guys. And then we're going to continue our election coverage with the rest of the bullwork team throughout the night. We're going to have people joining us from different states where they have election watch parties, DC people around the country. It's going to be a rolling conversation. You should join us. We're going to digest the results in real time. So now the only way that you can do this. The only way to stay up to date on our coverage is by becoming a bullwork plus. Remember, so that means access to all of our newsletters and our reporting. So if you've been thinking about riding with us, you know, now's the time. Now is the time to take that next step. All you have to do is go to the bullwork.com/join. That's the bullwork.com/join. You want me to read it. Let me make the half years old. But for people who don't know you, like in political circles, like I've been hearing about you for a minute, because you're everywhere. I mean, you know, you're doing a lot of interviews. You're on that you're, you know, out doing kind of rural, no Carolina stuff. You're busy yourself. Well, why, why are you mocking the other state party chairs so hard? I don't know. I got elected in 2023. I was 25 is the youngest state party chair in the country. And honestly, when you've got one of the oldest presidents in the country's history, and you've got the youngest state party chair, you typically do come up and get some attention to him. You're talking about the Twitter DMs on Twitter. People have a misperception of what the Democratic face actually is. And like who the Democratic face actually is and what motivates them? Like, yeah, you're out here in the streets. You know, like what? Outside of the kind of like discourse between like various people fighting over topics like like what? Like who are a stereotype for me? Like the types of people that are making up the Democratic face. Like what they're riled up about right now. I don't necessarily think that you could in North Carolina right now, stereotype our party because there are so many different types of people that are calling themselves. Maybe not a Democrat this year, but they're going to vote for a Democrat this year. And I think that we've got to build that back of who actually makes up our party in some new ways. But if I'm looking at, I'm like, Black voters in Eastern North Carolina in our black belt right now, who have been disenfranchised by Republicans in Congress. You're looking at Western North Carolina with the fact that you have got Hurricane Helene victims who have not seen the full funding from the federal government that they needed to come back to their communities. When you look at the southeastern part of the United States or the North Carolina, the United States, like you're looking at an area of folks that have been just disenfranchised. And I think that what you need to know about North Carolina is the most racially and partisan gerrymandered state legislature and congressional races that we've gotten the entire country. So I guess K Hagen was the last Democratic senator to get elected here. - You got rest or so. - How old are you when K Hagen was elected? - Young. - Young. - Like say, like nine. - Yeah. - Just something. - Yeah, young. - So it's been forever. - A one voting age. - Yeah, it's been forever. And it's kind of crazy. Like when people are asking me, it's kind of been a running gag. And I'm going up to some of that, you know, no king's protest. It's not to like, how do you think we're to do it in the midterms? And I'm like, well, Roy Cooper, I think it's going to win. And they're like, well, obviously, like everyone's taking that for granted kind of, you know, and focusing on these even more red states. But like, you guys haven't won a race here in 20 years. So the Senate, then you've run state races. The federal race has been a long time. Like, what's your sense? What's happening? - I mean, the national Democratic Party has called us the Great White Whale for such a long time. And I was like, if I were y'all, I wouldn't pull money out of something that I haven't won in 20 years. But that's just me in every way, shape and form. And so, I mean, we're 50, 50 state. We have seen it time and time again. We're polls have been up in October. And we have lost elections and know that mine. Well, we have got to do this year is our foot on the gas and make sure that nobody takes this state for granted, especially the people in North Carolina. And that's, I'm seeing people across the state, the Cooper rally that I was just at folks talked about it. They were like, we know what North Carolina has been. And we're not going to let national headwinds or the headlines, honestly, be able to dictate how serious we're going to take this election this year. - Yeah. - Because I know that we've got to do right by the people of the state. - Let's talk about some of those house races. You got one of my two favorite candidates in the country. - Jamie Ayer. - Jamie Ayer. - Jamie Ayer. - No way. - Everybody, I'm not predictable. - No, I mean, you mean-- - Or he's just that good. - He's just that good. I was like, you meet the guy and you understand why is everybody's favorite candidate? - Yeah, I'm a Jamie Ayer, one of these, you know, happy hour meet and greet things. You deal with political people. And, you know, his staff or somebody is trying to like explain to him who the bull work podcast was. And he was just like, who's this boy? He could not have given a fuck about me, which I love, which I love. And let's just tell people about him we don't know. And then what's happening at that rate? - Jamie Ayer is hopefully going to win a red to blue flip this year for NC 11, which was one of the areas of the state that was most impacted by Hurricane Helene. Less than 16% of federal funding has been relinquished back to Western North Carolina. And Donald Trump was just in Gastonia a couple weeks ago. And he said, look, Michael Watley's not elected to the US Senate. You can better believe that that money's not actually coming back to North Carolina either. And the threat of that right now from a president of the United States, we need real leadership in Congress that's going to go up there and say, go fuck yourself. The people in Western North Carolina are going to get the help that they need at the end of the day. And we need someone like Jamie Ayer and we need someone like Roy Cooper and we need our both of our House chambers and our Senate chambers in Congress to be able to work together to do that. Because right now, this president is not taking seriously. And Jamie is somebody. He is a farmer in Western North Carolina. A regenerative agriculture is his business. And so he can tell you how your beef got to your table where it was brought up and what it was fed when it was growing up in every way. And the opportunity to be able to tell folks that when you've seen farmers suffer the most right now under this administration, I mean, I know nobody better to go and talk about tariffs and the relief that we need than Jamie Ayer. Yeah. But when you got in like organizing in the rural part of the state was a big part of what you were doing. And hopefully this is going to pay off with a bit of Jamie Ayer's race, like people got to run through the tape. But I don't know. You know, sometimes I hear from people like for grassroots or just like, it's not what's trying, you know, to go out there basically because it's just like folks, whether it's because they're in a trunk called for religious reasons or because their news environment is such that they're not like getting true information, like they're not reachable. Like you've been out trying to reach like what are things that worked or that you've seen have, you know, how have you seen some positive progress on reaching rural them. Show it up. I mean, genuinely, I tell you all the time, you want to talk to rural voters. I want you to talk to rural Democrats first because those that folks have stopped voting a whole hell of a long time ago. And we need those folks to start showing up North Carolina used to lose margins on 60 40 in rural counties. And now we lose them 80 20 and that 20% that 40% right. It adds up in his Democrats that have ancestral Democrats that have decided that they didn't want to turn out the voting war because they don't believe they've got a place in this party right now. And that's because they haven't had a Democrat that's represented them for a long period of time. And how do you tell somebody that hey, I am not a baby killer. I am not a demon. I am not whatever you are hearing on Fox News and talk radio right now. You show up in their face and you shake their hand and you tell them what you're about because the fact is Republicans, I think, have done an incredible job, honestly. And I'll give them this like, talk radio, Russia, Russia Ma, Rupert Murdoch, like they did their shit, you know. And 40 years of Republicans that have engrossed right rural communities in their media ecosystems, those like Democrats are trying to make up for in 40 years, what Republicans did over 40. And we're about see whether or not that's going to work in this election cycle, but we have to keep building and every way, shape and form information silos that people find themselves in or why they're not voting for their best interest. And I just want our party to keep showing up in areas that I'm like, hey, we may lose the fight this time. The fight is still worth fighting. That's right. You got to show them person also just kind of speaking for my people. The internet also works in rural America too. Right. Like in some ways, it is flattened, you know, the ability to communicate with people and like Democrats can try to reach people, you know, in red America using these tools too. And we do have some billionaires that are making that a little hard about it, but it's still doable. The thing is though, in rural communities, especially though, and what you know it's who you know, you know. And I genuinely do believe that, and I just, I take this from like data to write the number one trusted source of information right now for people are not, it's not the internet, it's their friends and family. They're community there around every day because to be honest with you, most of the people I age group with folks saying, hey, don't trust what you're seeing online. And instead, I've got an older population that really believes what they're seeing online now. I have a younger population that doesn't trust it at all. And they're like, no, what is, what's my best friend going to go do? What's the person in my life going to go do? And that's where I'm like a party comes in when we can activate person by person and making sure that everybody sees themselves as an organizer and that everybody understands like you are the influencer. I don't need to listen to Tim Miller tell me how to vote this year maybe I do. And I hear you, but you know like you can listen to your best friend and hopefully your best friend right has heard and is Educated on the issues and we've done our jobs throughout the year to be able to do that I think it's gonna be a really good year for the Democrats I'm just gonna keep working all right, but you know sometimes in wave years you will elections in places like even Further off the map from Jamie Ager's race I mean a lot of that national okay, we're gonna get to that a lot of national people are sending money in and only certain races Cuz you know at the end of the day, how King Jeffrey doesn't care that much whether he has a four-seat majority or forty like to have a forty We want to make sure he has a four, you know, it's all I've been driving viewers to certain races and like create a list of like stretch races It seems like you might not have guessed the other notes go on to race that's it. I On and see 13 the mayor five point. Oh, and see six come on to you. Oh, what about that? I like that, too Can you do it? I think so serial driver to the day of it. Yeah, yeah, that's why I liked it. Davey County Honestly, I just Davey County got out a hundred yard signs earlier today And that's in his district right now It's a little red rural dot in his district at this moment of time And they are I mean they're out there knocking doors They're so excited and they the linville who works for me. He's from Davey County, and he looked me and he said Anderson I've never seen this type of energy in Davey like I don't know Those other races you guessed that I was talking about that's right. I was like a little CD 13 right with Paul Beringer running against Brad Not Brad not went up on TV the other day. I said Brad you that nervous you oh Spicy up in Wake County, but I was shocked by that and honestly that district is drawn like a fist and so person County Where I live is drawn in that 13 congressional district and I would love to see Paul Beringer be able to take out Brad Not CD three though. I think the the races that we're really looking at that are Flipable and right we've got a hold on Davis and NC one in the eastern part of the state very good focus on that part But look you know, it's a in our plus five district now like they have tried to read German him out at district every time NC 11 in C3 in C13 in C9 and then also looking at a real workhorse coming up from the rear in that sense with Kimberly Already who's an in C07 against David Rouser and honestly early vote numbers the other day popped out and they said 10 of Republicans in these congressional seats right now are vulnerable in some state. So so what would that mean looks the basket scenario For people to know like what's the current house breakdown there we go I have a 10 to 4 minority right now in the state house or in that city house and the and my house representatives I mean, so you're like seven seven you're feeling real good Seven seven I'd be rocking with it, you know Seven seven and it would have been the thing that it would have been a dummy man Or like no one would have ever expected North Carolina to be able to do that in an elections like like this I even should the supreme court races here to you and talk about that real quick I do because the King Jeffries would be speaker of the house right now if we did not have a Republican State Supreme Court in North Carolina and if Democrats had done their due diligence down ballot in 2022 and in 2020 in North Carolina We would have a Democratic State Supreme Court that would have given three more house seats to King Jeffries this year And the fact is we had a Republican State Supreme Court that came back in in January of 2023 After we lost the State Supreme Court in 2022 along with an important U.S. Senate seat that year and they Rejerrymandered North Carolina without a court decision being brought before them out of 200 years of court precedent Republicans did something the state they had never done before and they repealed and they went back and they said We're going to institute and re-institute partisan and racial jerrymandering in North Carolina that took us from that Seven and seven equals split that we had in 2022 and in 2024 brought us to the 10 to four minority that we have right now And we have been on the pathways since I got elected as chair to take back the North Carolina State Supreme Court It's where the party is put all of our time and energy and focus because I know that to be able to have the other branches of government to have a lever of power in the state We have to have the courts get to the fair system And it's insane for it to be 10 to 4 here and those going to spend a coin flip, you know, every one thing if it was You know what what not to do a math on the fly, which is hard 8/6. Yeah, you know what I mean? Okay, okay, 8/6, you're like all right, maybe in a bad candidate one year It's like 10/4. It's like no, it's crazy. Like what are you doing? Ringing elections. That's what you're doing. You know, no genuinely, but I need a Earl's we want a state Supreme Court race in 24 by 734 votes at a 5.5 million cast just Salis and Riggs. Yeah, we've got a whole justice in your earls this year And I got three Republican seats up in 2028 that we can take back our court and we can do exactly what Republicans did to us in 2023 and 2020. So the plan is 2028. You take back three Supreme Court seats We beat the fuck out of JD Vance Here in North Carolina when those electoral votes back for the first time since 2008 come on We're in business. We have a presidential. We got another U.S. Senate election North Carolina is one of the most important states in the country They only state that's got two red to blue senate flips within it within the next two cycles We thanks gaming coming up my calendar is getting packed and cooking dinner during the week is just not happening or if it is happening I'm afraid you can't call it dinner Tempo has been a lifesaver when I need something quick. 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I said 60 60 percent off your first box Tempo meals dot com slash board takes rules and restrictions may apply Hey there everybody. I'm Sam Stein Managing here at the Bowork. I'm German Congresswoman. I came to Williams. Hello. Hello Hello. Hello. We're standing outside the Lebanese Baptist Church in the heart of the fighting fifth. Tell me a little bit about the fun Fifth, so I have a very historic district. We are standing here outside of historic Ebenezer Baptist Church Dr. King's Church. Yeah, the cradle of the civil rights movement and I represent the district that Congressman John Lewis held for 34 years So I understand my obligation and the fight that we're in right now because we've been through it before Atlanta understands and you say it's Dr. King's Church is a center of war not take offense to that because it's now his church, you know, he knows He's a Dr. King's little bit so he takes pride in that like his church is across the street Dr. King's Church is the historic church All right, we got two weeks till election day. It's getting busy. Two weeks busy. Is it? Yeah, I can't tell I think it's busy. Tell me what you've been up to. We are a plan for everything here in Georgia. All of our state Legislatives are on the ballot. We have an opportunity to flip our state house and we have every constitutional office up for an election. You might have heard a low gubernatorial race on the ballot. Yeah, and US Senate. So we are the one state in the country that has Everything on the ballot 14 congressional seats. I'm on the ballot. Yeah, well that happens every two years. Every two years, but you don't Got to come us up. All right, so one of the big question marks is how a black voters responds to what's happened in the past two years, not just Redistrikin. I think the office of the Supreme Court decision on voting rights act seems like it's generating a lot of backlash. I'm enthusiasm for African-American voters to go to the polls. Is that what you're sensing? Absolutely. We I had a big rally in my District last weekend with Kiesel and its bottoms and the room was packed and the energy was palpable and black voters are Turning out because number one, what you saw in 2020, you can't reverse that course. And so we're continuing to build a momentum cycle, left Or cycle and we're seeing that now and black voters, black voters are the reason that we got our first black senator, our first Jewish Senator and black voters are going to put us across the finish line when we elect the first black woman ever in any State in the country as governor. Yeah, well, let's see because at the same time this has been the epicenter of a lot of like Shrinan against some of the Trump administration from County. People down here, Tulsi was here, lost your peeking around the corner. Yeah, I saw the photos. What do you Make of what's happening? How scared of you that they're going to mess with the vote? So I would be lying to you if I didn't say that I Had some fear because they are they don't play by the rules and they're willing to do whatever It takes even if it means stealing 2020 ballot boxes and voter rolls to influence the 2026 elections. So we're seeing it in Real time I live and vote in Bolton County and we understand that we have to have an election that is too big to rig. So we Sound like Trump. He said that he did is a changing voting habits. I've noticed that a lot of people are even a broken clock can be right twice the Day is a changing voting habits. There's I mean early vote who knows what to make it. But what we've seen her so far are the Democrats and I trust in mail and ballots as much. They're going up the pass and ballots in person because they're like I don't Really trust the ballot going through the UPS that Donald Trump runs. Are you seeing stuff like that? So we're asking a lot of People to just show up in person because then you can track that vote. You'll know that it was cast and if something happens you Have more time to go back and fix it up to election day. Georgia has early voting started on October 13th and it Runs throughout October 30th. So people in Georgia should go and vote early because you can vote anywhere in your County. You don't have to worry about polling locations being changed because you're right. Our mail is getting slower and slower. A lot of this is by design. If you look at Project 2025, all of this is by design. They wanted to slow down the Postal service. They wanted people to lose confidence. and our voting systems. We just had right here in our state of Georgia where the elections share for the state board of elections, one of the DOJ to come in and investigate and say that our voting machines were not valid for this election cycle. That just happened last week. - Yeah, it is kind of scary because you've had Republican government, Republican Secretary of State, but to their credit, they have stood up to Donald Trump. - I mean, that is the bare minimum. I don't let you steal the election, so it's not really a profile incurred. - I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is you could end up in a situation, I'm not saying it's gonna happen, where those two people, Republicans, we will not stand it. - You're right, you're right. - How does that factor into voter, how voters are behaving, you know? - Well, and I think that is at the forefront of our minds because we know that we need to show up in this election cycle. And when we look at our slate of candidates up and down the ballot, our candidates aren't perfect, but look at what they're running against. Elections are about a contrast. - Yeah, I was in more like, 2028, right? Like, you're gonna have a presidential Georgia-based Wednesday to again. What happens in that situation? - It's definitely a swing state because everybody in there, I'd see us coming to Georgia, the cycle, to make sure that they show up right now. - All right, since I brought it up, I'm gonna ask the question, 2028. I don't wanna get too far out of 2026, but I have to. You mentioned, John, all of that stuff. You talked about Rafael Warnock, everyone's buzzing about them all, you know, they would do very well. On the top of the ticket, obviously, you need Keisha Lance Bottoms to be the governor. - Absolutely. - Because you can't have a Republican governor, a point A Republican Senator as a replacement. Assume Keisha Lance Bottoms does win. You have a preference between Warnock and Austin, would you like to see either of them run? - I want to make sure that we take back the White House for the American people. And so I am going to always be on the side of the people, and we're gonna have a robust primary. And I am looking forward to the conversation because what we've seen over the last two years, Americans are hurting, and we were a lot to, and people who voted for Donald Trump were so debilitates. And they are understanding right now that this man, lot to them, he's only looking out for himself and his family, enriching himself and his family, while the rest of us are still struggling to get by. They, everything is higher. Like, even this morning at the barbershop, the haircut cost more for my son is pictured, asshole. Yeah, pictured, asshole. - Does it look good? - He looks good. - He's not too sure. - I picked his outfit, though, and I don't know about this. - You usually want to get the haircut a few days in advance of picture day, so that kind of grows in a little bit. - No, he needed that fresh line. - Okay, yeah, fresh line. - I'm just gonna note, your politician, 'cause I asked you a question about Ruh or not, then asshole, she changes it right back to how Trump's her in America. That's pretty good. - He absolutely is. - I know, but what's not saying? - I'm not saying he's not, but I asked you a question. He turned it on me. You know what? - You know what? - Ruh or not, and asshole are showing that they can leave this country any day on their worst day, better than Donald Trump is doing it right now. - All right, that's better. - That's more to read. - Hey, Congresswoman, thank you so much. Well, I appreciate it. - Thank you, thank you. - Good luck on election day. [BLANK_AUDIO]