235. Was Trump Right - Have the Dems Rigged Alaska?

It has been another eventful day out on the campaign trail with an unexpected twist. In Alaska's Senate race, perhaps not the best day for Democrats, Donald Trump wants to prosecute and remove the state's Democratic candidate, Mary Peltola. After a New York Times investigation alleged that her team deliberately recruited a second candidate with the same name as the Republican incumbent to confuse voters at Alaska's ballot box, if you haven't been following this, there are two Dan Sullivan's. One is the incumbent Republican, another one who is being called Decoi Dan. It is being reported by the New York Times was actually recruited by the Peltola campaign. So is this a genuine effort to protect her voter integrity or a perfect distraction for Trump to take voters' minds off his tanking popularity the Iran War? And of course, those rising costs for ordinary people. Thank you all for joining us. We're going to be taking your questions, guys. So keep those coming. This episode is brought to you by Yitoro. A tariff, a spending plan, a regulatory change. It can all start just as the first line of a speech. But it sets in motion things that can reach far beyond Washington and unfold for years to come. That's right, Caddy. Mark has moved on expectations. Not just events, investors are constantly weighing what a decision could mean for companies sectors and the wider economy. So Yitoro is an investing platform where you can access a wide range of markets and explore how political and economic developments can affect them. You could also learn from the global community of investors and see how people around the world are interpreting the same news. As with all investing, your capital is at risk. And I actually think it doesn't seem that there was anything illegal. The state has ruled that Dan Sullivan, decoy Dan, as he's now called. I think that's what we called him last week on the podcast, is allowed to run. And if the state Supreme Court has ruled that, then they have jurisdiction over the election, not the Department of Justice. That is my understanding. But I don't even play a lawyer on television, at least you play a lawyer and you're trained as a lawyer or you'd went to law school. But there's a difference. I just want to point that out. There you go. You got to make sure people know that. Which is more than the half-scaramucci who followed you. But listen, I don't think there's a difference between there's something being illegal and it being illegal and it's smelling good and smelling fishy. And I think this smells fishy. I think it's unfortunate for Democrats that this story has come out on Thursday. It's even more unfortunate for Democrats that they probably tried to do this. You can say politics is dirty. That's the way they play. Democrats have at it. But I think it's going to make some Alaskans think Mary Peltola is just another same old thing. Yeah, I do remember Joe Stein. Tell the idea to Joe Stein was the green candidate who ran against in the 2016 election and took vote away from Hillary Clinton that potentially lost Hillary Clinton. The state of Wisconsin thereby losing her the election against Donald Trump. And funded Joe Stein. Well, Joe Stein was funded by a whole bunch of Republican operatives and Republican operatives are working in Michigan and Ohio right now to fund socialist candidates up against the Democratic Senator in Michigan and the Democratic Senator. I do know it's dirty tricks politics. It's like gas. But they got like a you remember the scene Claude Rainson, Casablanca, Best scene, Best line. What happened in that scene? He's young people that don't know Casablanca. If you have not watched Casablanca, can you please go and get a life and watch it 30 times which is about what I've watched it where Claude Rains walks out with his winnings from the table, shuts down the casinos as I am shocked, I am shocked to find gambling in his establishment and then have free bogart hands in his winnings or Humphrey Bogart's lackey hands in his winnings. Yes, I get that. I get all of that. It's still not. It would have been better for the Democratic campaign in Alaska had this story not broken and it would have been better for the Democratic campaign, therefore if they had not actually done this because the New York Times was doing its job and doing its reporting. They're on a roll at the moment, by the way, the New York Times. So I mean, I don't know if it makes any difference. No, another question for you. Is the New York Times going to have a headline that Republicans lose Senate in Texas because Trump does not like man boobs, is that going to be the headline? Because I sort of feel like, you know, when they write the, because I now believe that. Why? Oh, look at that. Look at that. I know where you going. Because I sort of, I sort of think now that I did not believe this, but I'm now looking at the polls. Last night, I didn't even believe this. I actually think the kid, Taleriko, now has a shot that Trump did so much damage to this guy, this guy, Paxton, that I think it's sort of like a weird thing. It's almost like he, what, Rama swamied Paxton, you know, he came in because he didn't compliment his body because he said he wasn't a good looking guy. I know it was just everything, everything that he did screwed the poor guy up. You know what I mean? So I'm telling us there are actually moobs, not man boobs. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Correcting our terminology. That is official physical. Moves in terminology. Loose the Republicans to Senate. Yeah. And by the way, I got it. Perfect push-up bars. I got to be doing like 20 push-ups tonight at the list that is Trump talking about. Hold on a second. We've taken a detour to Texas. Can I get you back to Alaska? Are you saying this has zero impact? It doesn't matter. A zero impact. A zero impact. But it has done one thing, has done one thing. If you're a Trump lover and you're a dance Sullivan lover, you do know the difference between dance Sullivan one and dance Sullivan two. I do believe that there's been a tsunami of information now related to this that quote unquote decoy dance is no longer a decoy. And so I think that I think the mission has been accomplished from the Republican perspective to have all this foe. There is a I can't believe there's gambling in this institution now this fall outrage. But I I don't know. It's very close. She'll probably win that state though because they're pissed at Trump in that state. And also this whole mineral rights deal, which is very confusing and some some have true Senate related to Russia and some of these LNG people inside of Alaska and the deal that Trump's trying to cut with Putin's cronies related to mineral rights in Russia is pissing off a lot of these Alaskans when you talk to them. Yeah. And by the way, a bunch of you are pointing out that you can vote for both dance Sullivan's as if Alaska was not complicated enough already. There is ranked choice voting, which means you can vote one, two, three, first, second, third for your choices on the Senate ballot. So you've got a choice between Mary Peltola, Senator Dan Sullivan and Dan Sullivan Jr who's also on the ballot. So you could actually technically vote for both of them and then they'll have to sort out the ballots. I've spoken to a bunch of Democrats about this today. They don't love it. They don't love the fact that they were caught doing this. And I think here's the problem. This is why I do think it has an impact on Mary Peltola. They have spent the last six months saying they had nothing to do with Dan Sullivan Jr. running and that the campaign was not involved. And now here it is in black and white. They've got the text messages. They've got people on the record saying, actually, yes, the campaign went out and recruited Dan Sullivan Jr. from up in Northern Alaska and they were involved. And I think that's the problem. People who are fed up of same old, same old politicians and we're thinking that maybe Mary Peltola was something different are now going to think even though she's been in Congress, she's running for the Senate now. They're going to think to themselves no, same. I mean, maybe you're right. Maybe it makes zero difference, but I don't think it's a great look. The White House, by the way, the DOJ and they are the same thing at this point have launched multiple subpoenas today. They're going to be more subpoenas coming. They're going to try milk this for all they've got. Donald Trump has been out on the campaign trail talking about it. May not make any difference. Dan Sullivan Jr. was only polling at about 2% anyway, even if he lost all of those votes, it still may not make, may not make any difference. But I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I think it's, I think that Alaska is a tight one. Alaska is going to be the one guys. I'm really sorry to say this, but if we don't have a Senate call on Wednesday morning all well, Anthony and I are on air live in London from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. 12 a.m. to 3 a.m. East Coast time. If we don't have a Senate call that night, it will probably be because of Alaska, don't you think? Because it's tight and because of the time difference and because of this rank choice voting. All right. I'm going to call that one. I'm going to make a prediction. Okay. Okay. I remember everybody, I got the Kamala Harris one wrong me and Roy Stewart, but also Alistair Campbell, despite saying he didn't, thank you, but not somebody, not thank you Goldhanger production. Somebody. Somebody got it right exposing that, but I, I think she's going to win, she's going to win. And I actually now think that they're going to win the Senate. Yeah, yeah, because I think I think I think she is beating Republican statewide Consistently she pulls very strongly with the independence the right choice voting Does reward her? I do believe that as well Okay, and the national environment Are we or are we not on the wrong track and the survey says Over 65% of the Americans think that we're on the wrong track and so she was Represents a reform and in an age of anti-incumbency And Alaska is a weird beast, you know, because I have You know three or four friends that live up there. It's like the inside that you provided to us with your son living in Maine Alaska is a weird beast. They don't like the Trump intervention They don't like it and they don't like what's going on with the potential mineral rights deal Then I'm talking about and so this is a referendum to rebuke Trump and so, you know, again I've been a lot so I could be wrong and I stay I've been I submit to everybody had been humbled by life and markets And I've also been humbled by polling But I feel like she is gonna get this. I think she's gonna get this and and I feel like now, Taloreco Because yeah, Katty remember I'm I'm sensitized to the prediction markets and so when we were at 60% And the position markets aren't always right. They didn't get Bolsonaro right by the way So we should be careful about prediction markets. Seven points since last night's live stream What we we went from 65? to 72 73% is the average which in Calcy and Polly markets that the Democrats are gonna take the Senate and if you look at the taloreco situation his odds went up over 70 now and I was very reluctant last night to say that because of how tight everything was and by the way Somebody pointed out that our viewers are like 85 86% of our viewers think Taloreco is gonna win Yeah, and and I want them to trust me guys I want I want Magas stamped out. I think it's been a Scourge through the United States and you guys know I travel a lot abroad I'm embarrassed at the reputation that the country now has in places like Canada Portugal where I just got back from the United Kingdom. I mean, I'm just embarrassed of what Trump has done to the country I don't know if you saw that Eric Trump said that his family No longer feels welcome in Europe and then your buddy Rick Wilson wrote back more continents to come You know and the point is that doesn't surprise me. Yeah, and they shouldn't so this is Alaska is like its own continent to me and I know it's a sparsely populated continent, but I think they're sufficiently pissed off now and it where they're not gonna Vote for the Trump supported candidate and you know in the majority in the majority to your point on independence Mary Peltola has actually also dis I mean is in some ways independent from the Democratic Party she put sports gun rights I think we reported on the show last week. She has over a hundred guns that she owns herself She supports drilling rights. She supports the energy industry Lisa McCausky of course as distance herself from Donald Trump And it's one of the I think one of the most regular critics of Donald Trump from the Republican Party in the Senate So it is a state where they like independent Politicians and Dan Sullivan is a little too tied to Donald Trump, which doesn't help his case Okay, so his radio and radio and Angie that's a good one is saying and this is a good point Republicans have done so many dirty tricks the Alaska issue is nothing by comparison Yeah, those of you who know your American history by the way will know that Joe Kennedy senior paid a janitor to with the same name as JFK's first Congressional district opponent to run in that race Joe Russo there was a Joe Russo was 27 years old and a Joe Russo was bought Boston City Councilor and Joe Russo the 27-year-old janitor was paid by Joe Kennedy senior So this is not without precedent and you're right even in this cycle I mean Trump going out there on the campaign trail and saying he's going to give all Americans $5,000 if the Republicans win is only really the beginning of the kind of Money in politics Many james is up here is saying what do you think the pulsars are getting wrong about these races and how do you think the roll of polls for the elections changing it's such a great question. So the pulsars are calling people james and People don't answer the phone anymore, you know a courted phone is not recognizable to people below the age of 30 and so they're calling people and It's very hard to get the data the way we're getting our news and it's very hard to get the data the way we're Offering up our opinions. It's not through a courted phone. Hello, Caddy How are you? I'm from the polling company. Do you have five minutes to go through the polls with me? And so that's why I think they're getting so many things wrong and that's why you're right the prediction markets got the Bolsonaro thing wrong But they've been generally more right in the United States and I think I think that we're we've got to figure out a way to do what we do on things like inflation where we're using data that comes through our phones or people can pick out a survey We're to make it more accurate, but I don't think the polls. I'm unless you tell me I'm wrong, Caddy I don't think the polls are as accurate as they once were and I think James has a point here I've spoken to strategists about this who say that actually midterm polling and I'm not entirely sure why this is the case It could be that there's more online polling it could be done that more of it is done by state pollsters who generally Model, less states better the midterm polling is the most accurate of all of the polling and if you look back over the last four or five cycles The midterm polls have pretty much got it right So that would mean that the Democrats can take a breath of fresh air and kind of Relax a bit because at the moment the Democrats are freaking out almost as much as the Republicans are freaking out Which might be the right way to play this bed wedding Democrats out there not being helped by the way Another right way, this was not a great day for Democrats. You know we have some bedwaters those James Carville the 82 year old 60-year democratic strategist call them bedwaters Yeah, that's that is a term the Democrats hate, but there is a certain amount of bed wedding going on in the Democratic party But you've also got Democrats defecting a little bit. You've got Haley Stevens up in Michigan Who was Abdul El Said's primary opponent who was refusing to campaign with him in the last days and whose fiance? God, this has got to hurt has actually now said publicly that he is going to vote for the Republican Mike Rogers up in Michigan And actually appeared with Mike Rogers at a rally so I don't know when you when you've got friends like that who needs enemies We're going to take a quick break and do more of your questions This episode is brought to you by the financial times if you want to know what's going on Okay, in a way that's way deeper than you can get just from Superficial discussion you got to go to the FT And I have and I think I told you this I've been an F maybe a three-decade subscriber now to the FT And yes, I'm old-fashioned caddy. I have that pinkish salmon paper in front of me every Morning looking through what's important to the FT editors because if it's important to the FT editors It's going to be important to you in your life your business and your understanding of the world I particularly love my friend Ed loose who's a Washington columnist he has such smart columns He's very well connected in Washington calls up Donald Trump frequently. He's got a great piece this week Scott Besson's wobbly house. He describes Scott Besson as the Pete Hegseth of the Treasury. Definitely worth a read For the why it's the financial times visit FT dot com slash trip us to read more See our latest offers and decide which subscription is right for you The great gay Russia We assess a premise that With high confidence it was Russian holding the Russians accountable its world wars. They took down a British passenger jet contained 350 people Man in the Kremlin is playing Alex go to ask yourself you want to play Not you're the prime minister We would need to understand the policy context all the relevant context will be structured as a framework today disseminated into an operation order or Frago Frago that says to kill the president of Russia Yes New from Golhanger who is going to be able to pull this off An audio drama journey like no other men like Duffy they are our most valuable weapons Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action forever We're Britain plays its strongest, huh? He's the best against its strongest foe Bear hunt Available now wherever you get your podcasts Okay, guys, lots of great questions that you've sent in for us here. This is from Nancy Dean. I like this one, Nancy. If the Democrats are successful in the midterms, how likely are they to call for headsets? In pitch minds? Likely. Likely. Like, yeah. I mean, likely. Like they would probably. Likely. Likely. Likely. He'll probably have to resign and seek some sort of parmin pardon from John. Now he wants the woman that's running in Tennessee, Senator Blackburn, is running for the governorship. Excuse me. He wants her seat, Katty. Do you think that that's likely? Marsha Blackburn's seat. Yeah. I mean, there's multiple scenarios here. One inside the White House is that Donald Trump is looking for somebody to blame after the midterms and there are two people. He's pissed at JD Vance for getting small audiences and he's pissed at Pete Hexeth and he may hang Pete Sehexeth out to dry and blame him entirely for the Iran War. It doesn't really wash because we all know this was Donald Trump's call. But anyway, he may still fire in general, though, he just fired the head of strategy. He just fired Lieutenant General Sylvia, who Brad Sylvia, who Donald Trump seems to think is a woman. Yes. They're saying it's for leaking to the press for talking to the press and then trying to put a chill. Yeah, he didn't hear Brad. He heard Sylvia. He didn't know, lack of communication. But there's one counter-argument to the Democrats trying to impeach him is that the Democrats really want to get rid of Hexeth and there is some thinking amongst Democrats on the hill that if they move to impeach him, Trump will fight to keep him there longer and actually maybe they try and help Trump get rid of Hexeth by not moving to impeach him. Yeah. So I think the Democrats will win. I think he goes either way. And this is a great question, Nancy, and I think the Democrats win. He's getting impeached, but he'll lead before he gets impeached and he'll likely get pardoned or whatever he needs to do to get the investigation blocked. Trump will do. But I think they're going to impeach him. And by the way, Thomas Mass, he's trying to impeach him, and Thomas Mass, he claimed even when the Republicans had the majority that he had 218 votes to impeach Pete Hexeth. So Pete Hexeth, I think we're going to put a clock up, you and I are going to have a lettuce, maybe we'll get some lettuce. We're going to call Liz Trusson, if you know what she thinks. We could phone a friend. Yeah, but I think he's gone before that Congress sits in January one way or the other. Or if things go the way it looks like they're going, yes, Kati, what about if the Dems win the Senate, what do you think this question from this is this is Evie Scarlet. If the Dems win the Senate, Trump uses diminishing power to flex on a rom and they ramp up the war. It's a really good question as well. What do you think of that? So I think yes. I mean, I think we are signaling that right. He's already said, hey, we're going to we're going to start bombing again, right? Just by the way, Netanyahu tried to do before his election is the reporting out of Israel. I think he absolutely will start moving on Iran. He's sent carrier battleships to Iran, the troop mobilization is happening, getting ready for some kind of a strike against Iran after the midterms. I'm not quite sure what they think it would do that hasn't been achieved already. If they thought the Iranian regime was going to capitulate before the midterms, they certainly got that wrong. Maybe they think they can achieve something that they haven't achieved so far. But I think yeah, and I think actually Evie Iran might not be the only place. I'm going to look to Cuba. I could see the movie against Cuba. If Donald Trump feels that he's a lame, lame duck, like lame on both feet duck and he's flapping around there and he feels the party is drifting away from him and more importantly, he feels America's attention is drifting away from him. He is going to want to do things in the two and a quarter years that remain to him in office to get attention back again. He's going to want to carry on making money before he leaves office and he's going to want to make sure he has enough attention focused on him. The way he gets that, there's not much he can do at home. The way he gets that is by doing things abroad of that kind of a nature. Okay. Here's a good question. J.G.J. is asking, we haven't spoken about this for a while. What impact has the latest report on the Epstein files having in the US for the orange blobs, so much evidence available, including the statement from a former Miss Switzerland? We actually haven't spoken about the Epstein files. I was thinking about this the other day, Anthony. We haven't really spoken about them very much. They're in this weird limbo position where I'm not sure we're ever going to see the Epstein files. There is an Epstein Transparency Act 2 on the table that Thomas Massey and a Democrat have put together to try and get Rokana. I think it is. Is it Rokana? I've tried to put together to try and get the Epstein more of the Epstein files released. Do you think we're ever going to see the Epstein files and how much impact you think the Epstein files are having in the midterms? I've been saying, we started this podcast two years ago when the Epstein files came out. I have said consistently, they're never going to show the Epstein files. Trump has a stronghold. This is why Bongino was all flipped out. He has a stronghold. This is why Pam Bondy had to leave the Department of Justice. They are, this is why Marjorie Taylor Greene has been kicked out of the Congress. This is why Thomas Massey has been primaryed by Ultramaga. They're going to do everything that they can. Remember, once Blanche got confirmed, once Tillis flipped his vote to confirming Todd Blanche, I said to you, that's it. You're never going to see the Epstein files. If somebody else has the Epstein file, if Ukraine has it and they get sufficiently pissed off at Donald Trump, could they show it? Could Russia, whatever they have on them, at some point, just blow them up? I don't think the Russians will blow them up, though, because Trump has been very good to them. I think that they'll live up to their not giving out their compromise. I don't think it's ever coming out, GJ. By the way, if it does come out, I am willing to stipulate, and I'll say this hypothetically, even though we shouldn't often talk on hypotheticals, it would present trouble for Donald Trump. The reason I'm saying this is that he campaigned on it, that he would be fully transparent about it. Well, guys, if he's not in the file, why not be fully transparent about it? Let me just make one more point, because this comes from my Democratic friends. Why didn't Joe Biden release it? Well, Joe Biden was so cocky about winning the election and beating Donald Trump that he told his department to just say, "No, no, no. We're not releasing this. We're going to beat him in the public, we're going to beat him like a drum in the world of public opinion and in the big election matchup that's coming in 2024." And so that's why he never got released with the Democrats, and so I don't think you're ever going to see it. That's my opinion. And by the way, let's say Gavin Newsome, Roh Khan, a picked up person, gets the post and a pointed department of Jasper, they're not going to show it. No. It's over. Everybody wants to move on from it. Everybody wants to move on. You agree with me, right? I agree with you. All right. Okay, wait, before we go, because it is the end of October, and by the time we see you all again, it will be November, Daniel is asking, what do you think has been the October surprise this year? I mean, I'm going to say, Daniel, I didn't have butt gate up there, Donald Trump spending quite as much time. Take pride, Daniel. I mean, take pride. Take pride. Daniel, gay pride. The muscles. The chest. And the rainbow flag has been the October surprise, and it's like mainstreaming now that Trump is bicarious. Yeah. And you've got all these gay comedians, like just lip sync in the guy. And now you have, I don't know if you saw the New Yorker. I mean, they have a list, they've ranked the crushes that Donald Trump has. And he doesn't stop. Ken Pax is not on the list, Daniel. He's not on the list. He makes the list. In this world. Trump, well, let's just simply with Trump likes, though. He likes mussely, big footage, big handguys, you know? He likes butts. I mean, let's be honest. He likes asses. That's what he talks about. It's a lot, Daniel, I mean, that is the October surprise. I think, I think that's it. And I know it's gay pride week at the White House, you know, we tried to have infrastructure week for 10 years at the White House, but we don't have that. We ended up with gay pride week here in late October. And it turns out that man boobs are on the ballot and they're likely going to be rejected. These boobs will likely be rejected. Yeah. I think that's it. I mean, okay, guys, it will be November when we next speak to you. I can't believe we're here already. We'll be back on Monday the day before the election. We'll also be back. Oh no, it's not going to be. We have one more show before that. and we're going to be back tomorrow night. - We're back tomorrow night, okay, great. - 8 p.m. UK, 4 p.m. Eastern. - If the world had the world, the world will change again. - And the world will change again. - I was against Talleriko last night. I'm now for him. You guys probably think I'm crazy, but I'm just going off the data, guys. You got to change when the data's changing. Remember that. So let's see, and by the way, I want to kick to win. - Okay, I'm more nervous about prediction markets than you are because all of those people who are doing the predictions, they don't necessarily know the races that they're talking about. And after we saw what we saw in Brazil, and people follow the money, and if people are piling in, they're piling in too, and you start getting a wave of people thinking, oh, well, just because the prediction market say Talleriko's going to win means Talleriko's going to win. It doesn't actually mean he's going to win. But, okay, I'm waiting to see how right the predictions markets are this time around. Okay, let me ask you this, though, before we go live on election day, are we making predictions? We're going to go down the slate. - Yeah, can do it. - And sufficiently embarrass ourselves. - Absolutely, just prove to everybody that we don't know, 'cause of course we don't, but we're just going to make a good guess for everybody. We should do that, do we? - We're going to do that. - We're going to, we're going to game it out. - All right. - On election night. - And, you know, since it's a Friday night, I am going to go over the list of crushes that Donald Trump has tomorrow night, if you guys decide to tune in. - Okay. - We are as reported by the New Yorker. - And don't forget, we'll also be live on election night, 12 a.m. to 3 a.m. Eastern on the 4th of November. That is 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. If you're in the UK, it is a good day to wake up early, everybody. Okay, have a great evening. We'll be back tomorrow. - Thank you guys. - Bye guys. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)