Wright Thompson and Jesse Lehrich: Hopium and Hate

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. We have a massive double header for you today in segment two. It's LSU Ole Miss, hate week, go Tigers. And I brought in the best sports writer, my generation, the best cultural commentator on the intersection of sports and politics and history, particularly in the South. It's right Thompson, couldn't be more excited to have him back on the show. He is in segment two. He'll be coming at us live from the Delta Lounge. But we're still gonna make it sound pretty in your ears. All right, so do stick around for right. There's some really touching stuff at the end. But first we gotta do politics and news. He was a Democratic strategist. Now he's a streamer. He's a spokesperson for Hillary's 2016 campaign. That one didn't go well as I recall. His show, it's called "Nobody Knows Anything." You know, it's a newsletter called "Nobody's Listening." That's not true. I'm listening. It's Jesse Lyon, what's up, man? - Thanks so much, Tim. I appreciate your listening. You and my mom. - What is your age? What is your birth year? - I was born in 1989. - 1989, this counts. Yeah, I was trying to go a little younger than that for my young, my series of young politicos, but it counts. Adam Chentelson was last week. I think he's older than me. Basically, we're just trying to get younger than Axel Rodden Carvell. No shame. - I can do that. I can do that. - We're grandfathering anybody in that was born after the Gerald Ford presidency. - There we go. - Well, we're gonna do midterms, 2028 stuff. And so I just did the biggest picture. Like, where are you at on the midterms state of play? Are you bed wetting? Are you hopium huffing? Like, where are you at? - I'm definitely hopium huffing. I'm still relatively low on the Democratic party writ large. I think the long term prospects, could you some work? - You're saying a 2022 Redox kind of. For the Democrats, do very well, but didn't kind of fix our underlying brand issues. - Exactly. We do the thing where we win a bunch of races. We had no business winning. And then everyone's like, oh, I guess we fixed everything. And then we lose to a fascist. And, you know, the work blows up again. Everyone wins. - Okay. Well, no, that's not what we want, just to be clear. - I would love. I mean, honestly, I'd come a win for one, for example, the only person that would suffer would be you, because I wouldn't have had you on the podcast. We would have just done Wright Thompson. It would have been a boring day. We would have talked only about LSU Ole Miss, because nothing would be happening. And now it'd been great for me, by the way. I would trade that totally. - It sounds like a much better life. I mean, Wright Thompson's a far more interesting person than I am. - You're doing great. - Okay. I want to go through the races, but first, I think we have a sense for how things are going based on how the vice president framed up his pitch to the electorate yesterday. Let's watch a little bit of that. - There's a lot of good that's been done, but there's a lot of work left to do. Don't give power to the people who cause the problems that we're fixing. Give us another chance, or give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past two years. - Give us another chance. Give us another swing. How about if you were a spokesperson, how would you tell your principal about that? - I mean, it's about as good as you can do when you're saying, when you've overseen the greatest gas price surge, a pointless war. You have negative charisma. Nobody's happy with any of the things you're doing. Give us another chance. We'll do better. - I mean, I've heard worse pitches. - Not that many of them. And I've been on some pretty bad campaigns. But yeah, man, I don't know. When you've got the diesel price up above seven bucks, I was talking to somebody last night. It's kind of transition to the map. I was talking to somebody from Alaska. They're just gonna give me a briefing on that race 'cause I never did a campaign in Alaska. I don't know what the fuck's going on up there. It's one of the states I've never been to. So I was like trying to just, you know, make sure I wasn't. Yeah, 'cause I've been kind of fan-girling Mary Peltola's campaign. But sometimes I worry about that. It's like if you're appealing to me too much, is that like a bad sign, right? For like resonating with Alaska voters. And so I was asking about this and it's like, dude, is it the home heating like costs up here? Is it the cost for this winter? You know guys, like it's gonna cost like 10 grand for me to heat my house, this winter, with the increased prices. And I just, I do think there's like really tangible issues that are dealing with in a lot of these places. - Totally. And like, I mean, we saw it for, you know, Joe Biden trying to run for re-election and telling everyone they're doing fine economically. You know, Trump has been masterfully successful at deluding people and, you know, selling him, selling himself, you know, on personality and charisma. But there's one thing that you can't really spin people on. And that's whether or not they can afford to pay their fucking bills, you know what I mean? Like just brow-beating people into saying that the economy is great when they're paying $10,000 to heat their home, you know, kind of a tough sell. - That's a tough sell. All right, so let's do the math. Let's look at the center map. I mean, where are you at right now? - Gun to head, nobody has anything. You're live stream, podcast, YouTube show, whatever we're gonna call it. That was Rob Plierty, friend of the show. It's literally called, nobody knows anything. So it's like there's no cost to you being totally wrong. So just don't, don't, don't hedge. - I'm not legit. - Today, right now, where are you at on the center map? - I think that Democrats will win almost all of these contested races. I mean, these things tend to tip, you know, all in one direction in these way of years. I was working counter to you at American Bridge while you were doing America Rising back in 2014. - Oh yeah. - And we went from being like, Michelle Dunn is gonna win. And Allison Lundegren Grimes is gonna take Mitch McConnell. - Oh my God, what a name for the past. Allison Lundegren Grimes, Kentucky Senate nominee in 2014. - And then like all of September and October, it was just like ISIS illegals. Our sky are climbing under the border wall. And infecting you with Ebola. And like every Democrat lost by, you know, and we were like praying that Mark Warner could hang on. So I really think like, I think Iowa will be tough, I think, but I think like Alaska, I feel surprisingly good about Texas. I think Sherrod Brown is in great position in Ohio. And you know, I feel confident, not confident, but I think Roger Marshall's gonna go down in Kansas. I think Nebraska is a very seriously in play. I think South Carolina is very seriously in play. - Come on. South Carolina, Annie Andrews, George Wilded and Dorser and The Washington Post yesterday. - Keep in mind Lindsey Graham was like super, super unpopular. So then you take all of the like the mega people that hate Lindsey Graham, Ralph Norman's basically still out there being like, don't vote for this piece of shit. And then on top of that, like, I mean, you have a candidate who has no political experience, who thinks foreign policy questions are totally unfair because she is not involved in politics. Annie Andrews is good and the economy is in the trash. Like, I don't know, man, I'm not saying we're going to win South Carolina, but I think South Carolina will be closer than Alaska, because Peltola will win Alaska by six to eight points. And really this is closer than five. - I've got to avoid this one. Hey, look, Dr. Annie Andrews, we're going to be in South Carolina. I hope you're right. I do have to say, I'm a little bit burned when you were working for Hillary in 2016. And I had left my party and gone through a midlife crisis and got very high on my own supply, going on cable news, beginning of my cable news career, telling all of my fellow Republican strategists that they signed up for disaster. Like, there's a clip of me that goes around on, I believe John Hyalman's show on Bloomberg, talking about how Hillary was going to win South Carolina. Famously, she lost the election and lost South Carolina about 100 points. And so I'm just, I'm a little bit once burned on the Palmetto State. - I understand of a lot, but you know, I really do think that like, people are underestimating just how much of an albatross around people's necks Trump is going to be. And then, you know, Darlene Graham, I think has some specific candidate deficiencies. You know, I do think Annie Andrews, I love her, she's libbin' out a little too much. Like, you kind of need to be a little bit more heterodox. You can't just feel like a resistance mom if you're running in South Carolina. - Turn the gaze under the bus. Everybody's talking about always doing the transomers. And I feel bad as a person to do that on a transport. It's like, and Dr. Andrews, it's okay. Like, whatever, do some really offensive comment about the gaze, just a signal. Like, that's totally, we can we will look after one. I'm giving you permission. - Totally, I do think we need more, I mean, like, it's been encouraging to see things like James Tallerico in Texas being like, yeah, I said a lot of crazy shit and actually trans women shouldn't play sports and whatever else I, - Well, they can't play sports. - They can't play sports. - Sorry, you didn't say that he reversed course on trans surgeries for minors, which I think is a reasonable position. You know, I don't think we should be throwing marginalized communities under the bus left and right. But like, you got to have a-- - We want everybody to be on the play sports. Yeah, we can play sports that they want. They're gonna be certain rules on certain kinds of sports, you know, contact sports. If you've gone through puberty, I'm sorry. Like, they're just, you know, if it's youth soccer, we can lump everybody together, where would ever you want. You know, it's just talking like a normal person. - But, you know, he's pumping up the oil and gas industries. Like, you have to do things to distinguish yourself from the national democratic party. If you're running in a Trump plus 13, 14 state. and Mary's pelto has been very good about this. - She's fantastic. you won't even come on my podcast because she's just like, I don't talk to anybody except for Alaska. Which is great, by the way, it's fine. That's what you want to do. Spurn me if you want. I mean, I'd love to have you. Either way, it's up to you then. I'm retired from campaigns. But I just think that the notion of really separating yourself from the national party and really hyper-localizing things is the right point. She dunks on the entire lower 48, you know? She's like, fuck all of these people. Well, I'm gonna make the Jesse 270 to win map. I'm doing it live. Put it up on screen for people. It's just all blue. Yeah, so you've got Alaska plus six to eight. That's a win. Telleriko, you have a win? I think Telleriko wins by like a point or two. Okay, Sherrod, you have a win? Sherrod, I think we'll win. We're gonna come back to Abdul. But do you think he's a win? Yes, but an unnecessarily close win. Okay, we'll come back to that. Main, Troy Jackson, you have a win? I think so. But Susan Collins is like the one that I feel-- Okay, so maybe, you're maybe on this one. No, I don't think she can defy the national. No, okay. You've got Troy Jackson's win. Iowa? Iowa, I hate to say it, but I think Ashley Henson's gonna pull it out by like a point. You think Ashley Henson's gonna win? Okay. And then Nebraska, Kansas, Mississippi, with Wright, we're talking about Scott Cologne. I love Scott Cologne. I think he's a absolutely 10 out of 10 candidate. I think Ty Pinkins, Ty Pinkins, the independent black guy who has run previously as a Democrat. I think he might pull a little bit of the vote. I'm not following that close enough. I don't know. He's just like a weirdo. A total weirdo doing his own thing, being an ego maniac with, you know, detached from reality. All right. If you're in Mississippi, spring into action on that, and you know, make sure everybody on your Facebook. And it's whatever he knows that this is not a person. Same with Montana, by the way, if if if Elani Bankhead would get out of that race, which she has made abundantly clear, she will not, Seth Bonner could you could win that race. But you know, yeah, Seth Bonner's running good. He's the guy that shot the flock cameras. And as I add, which I like, that's good, that's, that's, that's good signaling. I mean, I'm not a gun person. I don't like guns. I would, I would melt them all. It scares me to cold one, but, but to strategically speaking, right? If you're an independent candidate running in Montana, like you're really touching a lot of buttons. You're taking out the gun and you're using it properly and you're firing at a flock camera. Like totally. That's, that's right on. Do you remember that ads that John Tester cut where he would be like checking his Montana beef on his flight to DC like you got to do some of that stuff. You got to do it. That's good. You got a signal. Okay. So Iowa is red. Nebraska, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, are you flipping any of these on your map? This will be on screen. Yes. Yes. I think, I think we will win both Nebraska and Kansas. Wow. I mean, I don't know what Dan Osborne is an independent famously. So that would be, we're lumping him in because Bernie's also independent and it's just going to make the map easier. So that would be 50 40 of the Republicans at 46. Yeah. I think Dan Osborne came within six and a half points. You ran 14 points. I had a Kamala Harris. Yeah. It's just a totally different electorate. I'm going to do some real talk here. I mean, I think that the gap and who does honestly in this, this could be a situation. I think it's important to say, like, where, can a quality does matter on the margins, right? Like, Kerry Lake lost because the Republicans nominated an insane person, like in any other, any other person they had nominated would have won, you know, in a good Republican year. Like, they're, they're just our commercial locker, for example, we're about to get 2028. We wouldn't be having the John Ossoff Boomlet had the Republicans not nominated such terrible people in Georgia. And he also loses the first shot. He's against Purdue. But, you know, and then you have Walker against Warnock. Like, there are examples of this. So, so it can matter. And this is cutting a little closer. Dan Osborne is not here to walk her, Kerry Lake, that Adam Hamilton is running like a million times better of race than Dan Osborne, who I don't have anything against. Personally, it seems like a very nice guy. His ads were really good last time. The Ricketts campaign has successfully kind of branded him as just a generic Democrat. And he's running as an independent. I don't know. But I wanted a little more of the vibes of shooting the gun at the flock camera from Dan Osborne. And I'm bearish on that race. That's fair. I mean, I think he's more mild mannered than I would like. He's not like angry. He should be angrier. But he's like, he's a pretty good populist, you know, he like, all he does just like tweet all day about like Tyson beef and like, he can solve the game on the show. He did. He did have the best setting for a podcast guest that I've ever had in his shop. Yeah, he's in the garage while doing the podcast interview, which I did like, I'm hopeful that I'm wrong. I'm just, I'm trying to be real, real radical Kendra on the board podcast. So you've got 54 Democrats. All right. Yeah. I really think we are looking at like Democrats and democratically and totally independent independence. Yeah. I really think we are like heading toward a Democrat plus 10 or plus 12 midterm. And I think people just haven't quite wrapped their heads around what that actually looks like in practice. When you start to talk about Senate and house races that, you know, in places that Trump carried by 10 to 15 points, you know, those are all going to be in play, especially in these places where we have like Kansas is a great example. You know, Kansas is obviously still state that leans red, but you've got this super dynamic pastor who's running it and like lights out campaign. And Roger Marshall is one of the worst incumbent Senate politicians I've ever seen in my life. You know, I mean, he's horrible. He's running horrible. Yeah. I want to correct myself. I don't think I've done this. When I started with Bill on Monday, we were doing the highlights from the debate. I don't know where I saw. I just saw it wrong. I thought that the Kansas State Bureau was in Johnson County. It is not at all. Actually, it's like three and a half hours in there, which is a significant correction because the point I was trying to make is like, okay, you know, Roger Marshall is getting booed and shouted down, but like it is in Johnson County. But no, that is not right. I don't know what county it's in, it's actually in Hutchinson, Kansas, which is, as I'm pulling up my map here and looking at it live, I'm just, I keep pressing the minus button to get further and further away to find something that is close to it that people would recognize. I mean, it's in the middle of nowhere. It's like, it's like, it's like, it's whatever northwest of which it's all like an hour or something. So that's good. That's a good sign. That's a good sign. Yeah. I was surprised by how good of a candidate, Adam Hamilton. He seems like one of those guys that we would find on paper and be like, oh, we found a religious Democrat and everyone's going to love him. And then he'd be like, as boring as like a cardboard cut out of a Democrat. And it turns out he's super dynamic and he lands about the best punch I've seen any Democrat land this cycle. He was, he was dragging Roger Marshall at that thing. He really was. We had the highlight on Monday. If you want to listen to that, I want to go to the house stuff, but just back to Abdul real quick, everybody knows that I have been, I've been kind of dragging the moderates for like making the Hassan Piker thing a bigger deal than it should be. And it's like what like Hassan Piker has some bad views, but also he was absolutely right about what the US should be doing with regards to the wars in the Middle East. And that is the salient issue of the midterm. And Democrats should be trying to reach out to anti-war voters and not scale them away. I still feel that way. But then Hassan decided to do an interview with Axios for some reason. And he's getting asked about whether the US is worse than Al Qaeda. And he's like, yes, and I'm going, bro, bro, please, just like I was saying the third way, stop making Hassan Piker such a central part of the Michigan race. It's not helpful to anybody. I'm now saying to Hassan Piker, stop making yourself the central issue of the Michigan race. You know, they'll still live stream, do your thing, but who is benefiting from you talking to Axios? I truly have no idea. And what does he get out of it? What does Hassan Piker get out of doing an interview with Alex Thompson, like what are we doing? And I do, I have to say like Abdul, he can be very good. He's clearly very talented. He is charismatic, et cetera. He also like slips into being a condescending prick from time to time. And that's the part of him more than any like one policy stance, like when he's a condescending prick, and when people don't want to vote for you if you're going to be like that, you know, and the Hassan Piker stuff that he's, he was on one of the Sunday shows this week being like, why are we talking about a streamer from California? And he said that like four times, I'm like, well, then why are you campaigning with a streamer from California? That's why we're talking about it. It's crazy to ask regular like random Democrats, like Jamie Raskin was on Meet the Press and Chris Mahler asked like four questions about the Hassan Piker. He's like, what are you talking about? But like Abdul was campaigning with him. So like now you kind of have to live with it or distance yourself, which he is kind of doing now. I agree with that. And it is for like, you noticed that some of the Michigan Democrats have an endorsed Abdul or been very lukewarm, not Mallory and not his actual opponents, you know, and I will say, and Alyssa Slachkin has been. And Alyssa is in good. Yeah. She's been like out in the pavement for me. And the understanding from behind the scenes is that Abdul is a little prickly. And so I do think that there are some also some just normal politics, like if you're going to be a politician, you're going to do politics and, and you can't be like, oh, the establishment doesn't like me. And it's all because of APAC. And it's like, well, APAC ran a lot of, put a lot of money in your race and that's legit criticism to have. Okay. That totally legit criticism. But like also you got to play politics and like win people back over like, look at what Zoran, Zoran's doing it. Right. He's winning people over. He's trying. He's like smiling in every interview, like never has a feather of old, like, you know, he's just, you want to hang out with him. And like, I very much do not want to hang out with up to allow say it. I feel like. I wouldn't mind hanging out with him. But I hear, I hear why people don't feel that way. I hear why some people feel that. - And to be clear, I think people should unequivocally vote for him. But like, you know. - And it's not even a close call. - I feel like if I talk to him, he'd be like, dude, you're like not even smart enough to be talking to me. I'm a Rhodes scholar, you know? - I got an email from a listener that was like, could you clearly say where you would be on this? 'Cause I'm confused. And I'm like, do you listen to the show? I listen to Pod Save the World while I'm napping, while I'm cooking, while I'm strange tweeting. So sometimes I miss the nuances of Ben and Tommy's takes. And so that happens sometimes, but just to be abundantly clear, it is not a close call at all in the Michigan Center Race for Me. Microdgers is a rubber stamp for a fascist. And Abdul would be one vote out of 100. He's pretty perfectly fine. And I'll gladly vote for Abdul Salud to Michigan. - I just wanna say, I aspire to one day have nobody knows anything. Ascend to the levels of Tim Miller, Naparotation. (laughing) - Maybe. You gotta keep working, one day. - Gotta keep working. - You gotta keep working. - All right, y'all, if you're a homeowner, think about the last time something broken your house, not just a leaky faucet, but like a real breakdown. A pipe burst on a Saturday night. Your water heater goes out with no warning. You're scrambling. You don't know who to call. You don't know how you're gonna pay for it. When you think about that feeling, just deal with it now ahead of time with our friends at HomeServe. HomeServe is like a subscription for your home. 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For 50% less, your first year go to homeserve.com/bolwork to find the plan that's right for you. That's homeserve.com/bolwork for 50% less. Savings compared to renewal price, void in Florida. Sorry, Florida. Let's see what's happening in the house. I mean, if you think that the Democrats are going to have 54 Senate seats, I assume that you think that they're going to have a much bigger house win than what it's kind of the conventional wisdom right now. Yeah, I mean, I think like my general take on the house is people have convinced themselves that there are only like 30 districts that could ever be in play again because Jerry Mandarin, you know, got rid of all the competitive seats. And like the country is like basically a 50/50 country. So those people have to go somewhere. And the way that you draw a bunch of safe districts is you also draw a bunch of like R plus 10 to 18 districts. And they're like 60 districts across the country that are between Trump plus 10 and Trump plus 18 districts. 60. And most of them are not even, they're not even in the likely Republican category. Like if you look at Cook Political, they're finally starting to move some of those, some of the guys that you were pumping up in your, who should you donate to, peace, you know, Chris Jones in Arkansas and like, you know, a bunch of these seats are finally. Yeah, well, I'm just got upgraded to the Iceland dimension. Yesterday is Blake Jenda bean, who's running for Staphonic seat. Good candidate, punchball didn't article about him yesterday. And they said that this is crazy. They're a Republican somehow leaked their internal poll where they were at 47 and Trump unfavorable is at 49. In that district, the Trump won by 21. So that's not even in your 10 to 18 range. That's a Trump 21 district. But that's kind of, that got moved from solid to likely in part because the Republican candidate, Anthony Constantino is like a sticker salesman slash rapper who's like really close friends with Roger Stone and is like a mega pro insurrection rapper. Which, yeah, I mean, that might even be too far for at least a phonic district. And Blake is like a normal dairy farmer, normal dude moderate. So that's one example. I'm going to update my list. I'm coming up here probably next week so people can take a look at one more time with some of these stretch races they could support. But that's one I'm looking at, New York 21. - Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you haven't seen his rap video about Zoran Mamdani, it's highly recommended. It's a good listen. But yeah, I think especially, you know, I think there are a bunch of districts in Texas and Florida that were drawn under the premise that, you know, Halitino's had forever deserted the Democratic Party and joined the Republican Party, which I don't think was ever the case. You know, I think a bunch of those districts are going to be in play, you know, and again, to your point about candidate quality, there's a bunch of districts like that one, like Texas 15 with Bobby Palito, you know, the Tejano music star. - Yeah, I've already moved Bobby Palito into safe category. I mean, I don't tell my friends helping that race. But like Johnny Garcia, that's more of a stretch district in Texas. It's also highly Hispanic district. He's like worked at the jail. He's like a law and order kind of Hispanic Democrat. Just perfect, good, perfect casting for that type of seat. - Yep, the other place that I think Democrats can pick up a bunch of seats is in Colorado. - Okay, this is interesting. I've been wanting to talk about those seats. So go through them for us. - So Colorado three, you've got Jeff Heard and Colorado five is Jeff Crank. Those are both like, you know, Trump plus 10 districts. - So Jeff Heard is replaced, Boba, Boba's still there but she moved district. So that's basically Western, so that's the mountains, basically, and then Jeff Crank in the fifth, that's Colorado Springs. I think the mountain district's tough. The fifth, Colorado Springs, ain't the Colorado Springs of James Dobson anymore. Like, you know, things have changed. - Dude, I went to Colorado College in the Springs and I was volunteering for Obama in 2008, knocking doors. And yeah, it was, I got the N word dropped on me a lot in the context of that race. But it has gotten a lot more presents over the past two decades. And then Colorado eight is like, on everyone's map, that's Gabe Evans' district and Mani Routinel, the beautiful arguably our hottest candidate. And he's, I think, definitely going to win that. - I love the democratic straight men are comfortable just kind of talking about how hot their candidates are. You know, there's a little cultural difference between the two parties. - I think it's partly because I'm not allowed to talk about how hot women are. And so I just like lean heavily into it being like, oh my, Chris Gallant was also on my list. I know you were talking about that the other day. - I know, but that's another district that's like, that's in safe Republican territory on Cook Political. It's like a Trump plus 10 district where we've got a Black Hawk helicopter and volunteer firefighter running against Ron of the Mill, Nick Lillota. I mean, those seats are going to be in play. And Boburt, I think Democrats could plausibly sweep all eight congressional districts in Colorado. - Come on. Jared Poles was pushing this to me as well when I talked to him last. - Like, it helps that they have on the top of the ticket a admitted murderer, maybe, and pathological liar. - Victor Marx or Republican, yeah. - One of the most insane, arguably a crazier than the original Marx. - I mean, he's a total lunatic. He's a complete lunatic. He's a Republican nominee for governor in Colorado. I do think that that helps. I mean, even in those other house districts, like the Republicans, like the party is just very depressed, which has an impact. - Right, right. And again, like in a lot of these, like I know Jessica Killian is running against Jeff Crank. She's raised like a bunch of money. She's a veteran. She's like, we have good candidates in a lot of these districts. - I'd be adding Jessica to my next list of people to support. So yeah, I think to that fifth, I'm a little more skeptical than you. You're the Hopium Hopper. Boburt and her, and I think you're tough. But I think eight and-- - Tough. - Yeah, the manny, hot manny and-- - Hot manny. - And in the fifth in the Colorado Springs District, I think they're both doable. - He's so hot that his opponent in the primary was like running ads being like, I know how hot he is, but still vote for me. - They were like, the voters were like, definitely no. We're voting for the hot dad. - I learned to flag. Also, when we're talking about Nebraska, I just didn't Chris Beck Myers, Nebraska one. You could be in a position where Democrats have two of the Nebraska districts. That's not the Don Bacon district, you know, which is, which is the Democrats are gonna win. I mean, that's like the top-- - Easily, easily. - But in Omaha, but like kind of the next one over, and backfires are good candidate, you know, kind of foreign policy mine to go-- - The independent dropped out of that. - The independent guy dropped out of there. And that was gonna be too hot of mine if he had stayed in. But since he dropped out, we're not gonna bother him. Okay, if you guys are listening to this and thinking you guys, okay, guys calm down. All right, this can't be like this bad. Maria Salazar is running in Florida, 27. So this is another, this is also in these this Trump between 10 and 18 kind of territory you're talking about. She hasn't had out this morning. It's like a real vibe shift, and I wanna play it. - That's a president. - Some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policy. The same Hispanics who help you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today. You can be for immigration, what Lincoln was for slavery and Reagan was for communism. I'm not talking about giving them amnesty. I'm talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land. - I am Maria Elvira Salazar, and I approve this message. - I mean, so on the one hand, like the she feels like she has to do that demonstrates that she knows that she's in political trouble. And that substitutively, I do think it's worth mentioning. This is totally insane. That like it's like, oh, it's Donald Trump's advisors fault. And if he wanna do, he could be the Lincoln of immigration. It's like, have you been in a coma the last 10 years lady? Like, no, I mean. he wants to be the Charles Lindbergh of immigration and he's been working very hard at that and doing it quite well. I have such bad political brain rot that I didn't even consider how awful the substance was. I was just like, we got Republicans in Trump plus 15. He's the Jefferson Davis of immigration. Ma'am, I'm sorry. So yeah, so it's all like it's like, please, sir. I mean, even in the ad where she's trying to distance from him, she can't be like, Trump is bad. Just feel like, please, sir, won't you think of the Latino children? What do you think of the Latinx children that are being held in the camps? That's like who is this lady? Oh, but like, this is what I'm talking about is I saw yesterday also or earlier this week, Brent, you can't end the founder of signal, the Republican polling shop. He was like, if you're in a Trump plus 15 district, you should be polling that district. Like Republicans are very clearly trying to figure out how the hell they hold on to whatever they can hold on to. And if you're running ads like that in a district Trump carried by 15 points, like, you're not doing that without some polling that's showing, oh my god. Well, I gotta tell you, I do not know anything about Elliott Rodriguez or opponent. I don't want to pretend. I'm doing my best to get up to speed on all the house candidates, but you know, we all have our blind spots. But I'm endorsing him officially right now as a donation candidate, because this lady seems like she's worried. And it's also like, fuck you. Okay, there's no hope that it's going to get better with Donald Trump. You endorsed him. He's your president. He's doing internment camps. Go down with the ship or separate yourself. Sorry, Maria. I think he's like a TV guy. I think he was on, you know, local news there, which I love that probably means he knows how to talk, which is always not necessarily a given for Democrats. No doubt. Go support Elliott Rodriguez. Okay, we are going to end with the 2028 game. Your newsletter, nobody's listening, looks at kind of what the possible 28, 28ers are doing. And like one thing that you do as part of this is my understanding as you consume all of their interviews. Is that right? Yes. I add like two to 2.5 X, but yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. 2.5 X is great. That's a real sicko. I'm a 2.0. If I want to refresh my memory, what I asked someone in the past before they come back on, I will sometimes listen to myself at 3X, because I kind of can fill in the words since it's me, but I can't do higher than 2 on any other pod. So good for you. And so my game is the superlatives. I did a tweet yesterday that some people didn't like where I was like, I don't understand as we're here September 17th, why there aren't perspective 2028ers, but have like cloned the market on being ahead of the game on AI, speaking about the AI threat, or being really anti-Iran War and like being the person that is known as being the anti-Iran War person, or being the person is known as the anti-ice person. Like Trump is giving people a lot of opportunity. And some pushback was what? It's like only 2026 and it's early and what about Obama? And I was like, by September 17th of 2006, people knew Democratic voters knew Obama was the red states blue states guy, and then he was the against the Iraq war guy. Like he had already solidified that before he had announced before the midterms, he was young, but he'd had that. And I don't know if we're seeing that out there, but maybe I'm wrong. You're listening to all the interviews. And so that's why we're going to do the supporter of the games with you. We'll start with AI. Do we have a 2028er who's the most ahead of the game, speaking about the potential AI risks? I think AOC is out there with the moratorium, but she's not like the most in the weeds on the AI stuff. I think Rokana has been, they'll be kind of a running theme, I think, in this in this game. But Rokana definitely has been out there. He was like, "Dario's letter didn't go nearly far enough. They should all be in jail." Josh Shapiro speaking on this today. So maybe he can take the mantle. Shapiro has, Shapiro has moved a bunch on tech stuff in general. Like, you know, he was doing a lot to try to lure data centers to Pennsylvania earlier in this term, but, you know, has backtracked on a bunch of that. And to his credit, he was just like, "I wish more candidates would do this if they were going to change positions." He was just like, "Well, I listened to the people of Pennsylvania and they don't fucking want this." And so that's my job is to serve my constituents. And I was like, "Oh, that's kind of refreshing." Out of techs. Doing politics. That's great. All right. Most are anti-Aran War. A Chris Murphy, maybe. I would say Chris Murphy. He's been, you know, there's a lot of been a lot of, I don't really sure, honestly, what the value is of doing the 83rd vote about the war power is hacked, but like, you know, Murphy and I mean, it worked for Mary Petola. She got to say that Dan Solvins wrote it for the war 10 times. That's true. That was pretty good. That was a world that's one important line that's useful. It is good. I guess I would say that if you're listening and you're a 2028 advisor and you're like, Tim, once you're number one piece of advice that you would have, I would be like, "Go watch Cindy Shee in videos and try to get your principle to sound as close to that as possible about the Iran war." I just, I don't understand. People get it. People are connecting the Iran war to the increased costs that they're feeling. People are sick of the fucking Middle East wars. And Democrats are saying, like, if you just look at it on paper, it's like they're saying the right thing, but the oomph. The oomph is missing for me. I should also say, Guyago. Guyago has been really good on the war. I had a one on this point. He has been good. Most anti-ice distinguishing themselves on anti-ice. I'm kind of think. Has there been, ha, I mean, AOC. AOC, it's got to be. To her credit, she's been selling abolish ice hats the whole time. Since like 2018, she was like, yeah, of course they're fucking corrupt. Okay. So those are the three topics I mentioned in the tweet. All of those categories, I think you could have given AOC or Rokana. So I do think that they're both doing certain things, you know, Rokana. Who knows, right? If you're just looking at the substance, what they're saying. I don't want to overstate that, but like, even AOC, I don't know, the ice thing I think we'll give to her. All right, a couple of those. So you're doing, you're monitoring the interview. So who's doing the most podcast interviews right now? Outside of the bubble. Outside. No, not not counting. Not asking who's doing the most MSNOW hits. Who's doing the most? Yeah, yeah. I mean, Rokana has done twice as many podcasts as anyone else in the game. Chris Murphy's done a lot. Pete is good about going to interesting places. Gavin, Gavin is very good about doing, you know, he did Sean Ryan. He did like, he'll kind of go anywhere. I'd like to see more people go to, you know, sports podcasts and movie podcast. Whatever your thing is, like, if you're a Star Wars nerd and you're JB Pritzker, you know, go find like a movie or Star Wars podcast. I don't know. Biggest on reform, like in like, how the fuck we're going to take care of shit if they get back in power? Pete's actually been really good on this. And he has been championing these kind of structural systemic reforms since his first campaign. But he's very good about like, when you're a constitutional amendment to narrative citizens, you know, to expand the court, get rid of the filibuster, XYZ. Trump corruption and jailing Trump people and going after Jared. I mean, kind of a runaway for John Asaf on that one. Runaway for John Asaf. Overall. 2028, like creating a brand for themselves right now. Who's done the best so far? I think AOC and Pete Buttigieg are the two best positioned candidates going into, you know, 2027. They actually like have a clear, cogent theory of the case. I think Josh Shapiro, also, people are kind of underestimating him. He hasn't been doing as much national stuff because he has to pretend that he's very worried about his reelection in swing state. But like one Pennsylvania flips four house seats and then he has a democratic legislature and can push through a bunch of stuff. And he at least like, he has a narrative. You know what I mean? Like, a lot of these people, it's like, I still have no idea what they would be running off. You have to throw it there too. I think. So this goes to your narrative. So this goes, okay, I think that Pete and AOC have that. Does anybody have a red hat? Do we have a single person that has a red hat? Make America great again. It would be a different color. I assume a purple hat. A pink pussy. Does anybody have a pink pussy hat with a, with a reason for them to be the candidate? I think like not to keep, not to keep gassing up AOC, but she really is the only one that she's like, I don't care if I'm president, I just want people to have health care. Like Gavin Newsom is like actively polling the people who interview him to be like, what should I, what should be my thing? Adam Friedland of all people was like, but like, what's your, what's your like Medicare for all? What's your thing? He's like, I don't know. I mean, like striking out against injustice and standing up for rights. I'm like, that's not a thing. That's James Carvill's thing. Besides for him, it wasn't the hat. It was the whiteboard, but the hats now the stand in is a black church. Do we have anybody that has a message for the black church right now? Um, I mean, Pete has been. Kamala. Yeah. Kamala starts with an enormous lead with black voters. And I think everyone is kind of like waiting to see what she does, especially Gavin Newsom now, apparently, who, who's run his contingent upon her not running. I think he can change, trends can change, whatever. But like, had we played this game last year, Gavin would have been the answer to a lot of these questions. It was interesting. He felt like he really grabbed hold of that with the redistricting and has been, has been a little rudderless since. Yeah. I think, I mean, he's, he's still incredibly talented. I think people underestimate, like, just how good he is. And, and not just like, not just he gives a good interview or whatever. But like, it's, you know, this, you've watched people try to like work a room. It's a hard thing to do. And he can go into any room. And people are like, just buy in whatever he's selling. Westmore's kind of like that to Westmore's kind of just got more really good in person. Yeah. Crazy, like magnet, like magnetic energy. Where you're just like, well, this guy is electric. And he's many root and all level hot, you know? Really that. We need help. Okay. About the Pete thing though, like, I underestimated how sick of a job being transportation secretary was going to be because he just like has doled out a trillion dollars to like every community in America from, you know, the bipartisan infrastructure act and stuff. And he's just like, when he goes to South Carolina now, like, he's getting like welcomed by the mayor who's like, this is the guy that built the bridge that like brought back the downtown. And he's just like, and it's a lot of stuff in, you know, marginalized communities and like, you know, abandoned formerly vibrant black neighborhoods. And, you know, like, he's like fully already campaigning for president. I mean, he's helping to boost people in the midterms, but he's like doing 25 events. Him and Rell are already campaign. Yeah. And Gavin, the three of them already campaign, but Gavin might not have come. Like I said, okay, there we are. That's Jesse Lyric. His show, nobody knows anything. I agree with it. At the branding, I'm not sure about anything you don't like about the podcast is Rob Flarrity's idea and anything you like is me as you. I like your graphics. Great graphics. That actually is Rob. I hate to give him flowers. That's all Rob. I appreciate my little Rob on soon. All right, Jesse, keep us posted. Well, much more to do in 2028. Everybody go check out the podcast and hate your mom. Thanks so much for having me. All right. Thanks so much to Jesse. Up next, write Thompson. Stick around. It's going to be a good one. And now a message for our sponsor, the reading room. As of this week, Todd Blanche has officially been Trump's attorney general for a month. And the full Epstein file still aren't public. Look, Thomas Massey was trying to work on getting the rest of the Epstein files, pushed out as well as impeaching Pete Hegseth. But Mike Johnson shut it down and sent the house home. House of Republicans don't even work anymore. They're that committed to covering up the Epstein files. So instead of waiting on the government to stop its cover up, the Donald J Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial reading room is printed out three and a half million pages the DOJ has released and built a free traveling exhibit that puts the files on display. It's a museum you can actually walk through to see the scale of the release files, the timeline of Trump and Epstein's relationship and attribute to the survivors. It's open now and Dallas then heads out across the country for 20 plus stops the next eight weeks. You won't be surprised to hear that moving 17,000 pounds of evidence in the bookshelves needed to hold it across the country ain't cheap. And the reading room runs entirely on donations. So if this is something you want more people to see, you can learn more and ship in to fund the tour at trumpebsteenreadingroom.com/bolwork or check out our morning shots newsletter. All right, we are back. His books include the cost of these dreams, a collection of essays on sports and the broader social and historical forces shaping our country. His most recent book is The Barn about the murder of Emmett Till, one of the great nonfiction books of the 2020s. We had a whole show about that earlier this year. If you missed it, go check that out. He's also the EP of True South and Emmy winning series on Southern food and culture and his article on the LSU Ole Miss rivalry and his late father is out tomorrow on ESPN.com. It's right Thompson. Welcome back to the show. Tiger bait. Hey, man. How you doing? It's a it's a fun week to be from our corner home for world. I wanted to have you back on on game week. There is many, you know, political cultural societal implications. There's also football, you know, the governor of Louisiana is a full-time athletic director for LSU football. Ole Miss had one of their former players, one of our players served at the practice facility yesterday. So, you know, we're bringing in politics and law enforcement and big skit. Oh, it's unbelievable. I mean, it's everyone is showing their ass. We'll get to football. I kind of want to vibe check with you. I think the first time we met, I don't know if you remember this, we're talking about the Grove. This is a hard week for me, the LSU Ole Miss hate week because I love I love Oxford. And I love Baton Rouge in like my favorite place to see a sporting event. Please don't tell anyone is Tiger Stadium. So, I'm with you on that. And one of my favorite places to hang out is the Grove. But we're talking about this was I don't know, this was right after Trump won. And you're kind of lamenting the degree to which like MAGA has kind of had kind of infiltrated the culture around there. And obviously, it's Mississippi. It was always conservative ground. But you know, just you know, the tone, the tenor, the nature of it had changed somewhat in ways that were maybe a little unappealing. And I'm wondering what that vibe check is for you like now in Mississippi. I mean, the momentum feels to be waning a little bit or maybe that's cope. I would say two things. I mean, one Ole Miss is hit as the largest percentage of out-of-state students in the SEC. It used to be a deeply Mississippi thing. And now it's a Mississippi Georgia and Texas thing. So, for instance, to get to my tent in the Grove, I have to walk by a tent where this guy has a son that says like no liberals allowed and then all these crazy political sons. And I kind of just want to walk up and ask him, which one are you from? Are you from Texas or Georgia? Because you're not from here. Like the most partisan people I know in the world understand that the ethos of the Grove is everybody gets a plate and everybody gets a drink. And so I hate to be someone from Mississippi blaming something on outsiders because I can, you know, I can hear it. But you know, I wish people would understand that they're coming into our home and playing with our traditions. And the Grove isn't about a goddamn chandelier in a tent. It's about the fact that it is a center of radical hospitality. So, you know, there's some of that that's been a prop. I mean, the larger question is, you know, I know a lot of very, very conservative farmers who are just done with all of this. I mean, people who voted for it three times just because of the ways in which the Trump administration has wrecked the American farming economy. And so, you know, you do get the sense that people stand on business. And this is catastrophically bad for people who live in global commodity markets. And it's really bad. Yeah. Because you're doing farming and still and obviously you're in the community there. I think the last time you were on, there was grumbling already in farm country about what was happening at the tariffs in particular, but it was before the Iran war started. And that is exacerbated prices, costs for everybody significantly. You know, what is being done with Trump mean? And he's not on the ballot anymore, right? I mean, does being done with Trump just mean taking down the flag? It doesn't mean, well, shit, we might need to vote for Scott Colom and for Senate and Mississippi. Farmers are going to vote for the person who is most deeply invested in the idea of free capital markets at the expense of almost any other social thing. And forever, that was, you know, Republicans. And it's not. And so, I think people are looking around trying to figure out what political movement to be part of. You know, it feels tremendously in flux. And you know, least the farming community in Mississippi where we live is people are, you know, their whole livelihoods depend on, you know, these money and markets. And so, you know, my family's been farming in Mississippi since James Madison was the president. And so this is the worst one we've ever had. This two shall pass, but you do get the sense that they're deeply, deeply conservative people who are tired of it. Your dad was involved in, you know, Democratic politics down there. Yeah, not the easiest place to be involved in Democratic politics. When we were last on, we were discussing your mother and the nobility of posting on Facebook, even though she's taking shit from it from her neighbors. I don't know. I mean, let's just stiff some hope in for a second. That Senate race is the one that's kind of on the outer edge of when people mention, man, if it's a real big tsunami year, maybe Scott Colombo could win. I don't, I mean, you talked to Democratic folks down there. Like, is there any sense that that maybe like some actual elections will go the other way? Or is that a little, little wish-casty? You know, there are people who are raising money and raising hope. I mean, Brandon Presley, the last cycle was polling really well. I mean, I think the larger problem is structural and it's not a Republican issue. It's a Democratic issue in that the magic number that they talk about is 25% of white vote, right? You know, and there was a machine when the civil rights era of leaders, like Aaron Henry, were running the delt. You know, my father and Aaron Henry were the co-chairs of the Kalma County Democratic Party, and they were in charge of the Get Out The Vote, and it was an incredibly sophisticated operation. And, you know, I think if you look at Clinton, Clinton got 24 and 26. I mean, he was right around that, and then all of those structures have been torn down since '96. So the problem is that, you know, the Mississippi Democratic Party is guilty of my malpractice and is leading. votes on the table because they destroyed a system that was very efficient and no one has any idea now how to put it back together. And so it's frustrating having grown up watching the planning meetings happen in my house where there were white and black preachers in our house all year getting ready for election day. And you just get the sense that like the Mississippi ground game was dismantled and there's nothing to replace it. And so it's not to get in the weeds of it, but it's difficult for these candidates to get to those numbers after what the leadership in parts of the Mississippi Democratic Party has done over the last 25 years to alienate the people most likely to help them. It is frustrating to hear though, you know, one in four doesn't seem like that much. Like, come on, whites, we only needed one in one in four. I mean, you know, the issue is the votes are there and the party doesn't seem particularly interesting getting them. The other thing that they're messing around with is obviously the voting rights act and collides. Interesting. Mississippi did not move as quickly as some of the other states to remove their majority black district representative of Benny Thompson. And there's some element of that that like there's just the tiniest bit of shame left, I think, in the national Republicans whether they're like, God, this is going to look really bad if we do this in Mississippi. I there's there is something about that. I think that was part of it. Part of it is that Mississippi is not quite as easy to gerrymander as Louisiana and Tennessee and some of these other states and it could end up backfiring, but they're still looking into it. Tate Reeves, your great governor said that after the clay decision that Benny Thompson's tenure raining terror on the second congressional district was over. It's not over quite yet, but I don't know. What's your sense on that and just kind of the broader, you know, going back to the barn, civil rights act was 10 years after the murder of Emmett Till kind of the significance of that? I think your point about there being some sort of shame. I mean, also like tremendously admire Roger Wicker. I think Mississippians from Roger to Tate Reeves, who you just mentioned, recognize on a level beyond the sort of rhetoric of campaigning and the rhetoric of fire to fundraise. I think people have a deep understanding here of what the actual forces are that are being evoked and what really happens when those things run unchecked. And so I think there's probably some of that that in Mississippi, this isn't rhetorical. In Mississippi, there are a lot of people alive who remember how nasty it got for everyone the last time we went down this road. And I think there has to be some sort of flinching from the understanding of how bad it gets for all Mississippians, if we allow rhetoric to drive where we're going. I mean, you know, we talked about, you know, 1955 in Mississippi, you know, Emmett Till goes to that store less than 24 hours after the polls close in an unbelievably contentious gupatorial gupatorial. Yes, that's a tough word to say, that campaign where everybody's trying to be the most segregated. And the rhetoric was, you know, there's a lot of civil war metaphors about bayonets. And so I think in Mississippi, even the people who dabble in it professionally, understand how dangerous it is to wake up slumbering forces. I wonder if there's a little bit on the other side, though, have the slumbering forces of kind of the civil rights resistance been awakened a little bit by it? I mean, you see this in other places. I don't, I knew talk, obviously, a lot of folks when you, when you did the barn, I mean, the people you worked with are doing like real work in these communities, try to keep these stories. So what is kind of your sense in that world? I think a broad swath of Mississippians understand that Mississippi has to feel like home to all Mississippians. And like, there is this thing rising up. And it's not just those groups working in the spaces you talk about, you know, we see it everywhere in Oxford, you know, they're the yard signs for these candidates are everywhere in a way that they weren't two years ago for Democrats. And so like, I know that's an inexact science, but, you know, you do feel this sense. Well, no, it's saying something that goes back to your mom posted on Facebook. It's like, you know, I mean, you realize that you know, people might shit talk you. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that there was that, you know, kind of viral video in the square of, you know, the black woman and all the Ole Miss Frepp boys like shot and monkey sounds at her, right? Like that was during the Trump era. Like the guy running for Senate in Georgia shared that video and was like, "Hell yeah, Ole Miss boys." Did he? Mike Collins, yeah, the guy running for the Republican running for Senate in Georgia, posted that video with like a thumbs up. Just what a piece of shit. What a piece of shit. That's unbelievable. So to put it up, the point is to put up the art sign is, it's a minor statement of resistance, but an important one in Mississippi. We might talk after all these elections. And, but, you know, it'd be like we were stupid and optimistic. Sure. But it feels to me in my daily life that people have had enough of the chaos. You know, I mean, a lot of really conservative people are conservative because they hate fast change. And so, and so that's an entire swath of guaranteed voters who have been alienated. And I think you see that in Mississippi. And you'll see it, not so much in people supporting a candidate from another party, but maybe just being like, "I got to sit this one out." So I mean, I think it's happening in two ways. I think there's active resistance from the Democrats. And I think there's an understanding that some in the GOP understand that they're the dog who called the car. I want to give back to your piece here at the end, but just kind of broadening it out. There's the kind of updated version of the, you know, guys with the Confederate flags in the stands, but we're doing it. They were doing a 2026 style on Twitter after the Ohio State Texas game. I'm sure you saw this. There's a video that UT puts out of like the students celebrating up to this huge win, archmaning, great comeback, and you have all these Indian kids to go to the school, totally assimilating, wearing the fucking overalls with the burn orange, and doing the goddamn hook 'em, like doing all that stuff that annoys me. But they were, they're doing it. And the guy running statewide railroad commissioner, overseeing oil and gas, bow French posts multiple times about how this is bad. Texas is being run over. We're being replaced. And, you know, this creates an interesting fissure on the right because there's a bunch of mega people that are like, hell yeah, you're right. This is a problem. And then Karl Rove on the other side said, I'm voting a Democrat against this guy. It's the first time I'm voting for a Democrat since 1994. Well, I would say that he doesn't know his Texas history very well and doesn't clearly give a shit, but they were a lot of French. Yes. Yes. Well, I didn't change his name to Bill America. I guess he feels like a sort of behind. Well, both freedom, you know, there are a lot of people at the Alamo who weren't from Texas. Do you know what I'm saying? Oh, really? Yeah. And so this, you know, this idea that like the central idea of Texas isn't, yeah, you're not from Texas, but Texas won't you anyway. Like the idea that this person doesn't understand that just means that like he just is not connected in any way to the history of the place that he's from and the sort of Texas's place in its own imagination as a separate nation state. And like, you know, no, you're not from Texas, but Texas won't you anyway. And so like, I mean, Scott's just showing his ass. And now he's embarrassed because he's been caught. And so he has to double and triple down because his entire sort of identity is based on never admitting you're wrong. Because if you do that once, my god, what other things this guy fucked up in his life. And so it's just you're just watching someone, the dog who caught the car who now has to hang on to the bumper as he's getting dragged through traffic. I mean, I kind of feel bad for the guy because he probably just had a few drinks and popped off on the internet. And now he's got to own this shit. And like, instead of just being like, you don't got to feel bad for it. I know, but it's also just like, I know, but just like, like, don't you think his wife at the dinner table is like, bow, please shut up. Just stop talking. I'm not sure. And that's I think the interesting part of the moment is that I think that there is a grow a Eric Erickson, who I don't usually cite here, was been kind of on and off the Trump trend. He's a Georgia writer and radio host. He had a really interesting article this week that I'll link for people if they want to read it. And he talked about what he sees in evangelical circles in the South, is this kind of fissure where like, there is a white identity side of this is rising again and becoming more overt. And there are people that are like not interested in the free markets, free people pro-life strong military shit anymore. It's just white identity. And it's over instead of subtext. It's been subtext for a while and it's back to being text. And I don't you you write about this a lot like kind of balancing kind of this question, like thinking about our history in a way that's correct versus thinking about it is it's like, hey, things were great when we were a white country. And I don't know, that does feel like it's it's maybe on the rise within these circles a little bit. Well, you get the the sense that, you know, when they say don't take the Lord's name in vain, what that really means isn't just that you're not supposed to say God damn, it's that anytime someone is standing in the house of God talking about the business of man, they are taking the Lord's name in vain. I mean, you have an entire strain of Christianity that is based on putting your stock portfolio or your political ideologies above the teachings of Jesus Christ. And I think there are a lot of people who grew up in the church who instinctively understand that it just doesn't just go against their sort of political ideals which can be flexible, but it is sort of the moral repudiation of the teachings of the gospel. And I feel like there are a lot of people who understand that all of these churches have allowed themselves to be so twisted that they are now actually just existing in a state of constant sin. And I feel like people know that. I wonder then like what the right way is for people who have those kind of that conservative tradition to like process that. And this is kind of the stick to your story that's coming out tomorrow and a lot of your writings and the cost of these dreams and elsewhere, which is, you know, people want to have pride in their place, whether that be Texas or Mississippi or whatever, you know, and they want to have pride in their ancestors, even if they are Confederate soldiers, right? And some people are able to kind of process that history and the flaws and have pride but also recognize the failings and other people look at it and and demagogues in particular look at it and say, no, this was good. Like the the guys and the hoods were good. Like my ancestors were good. And it's in a front to me that other people are trying to whatever, solid their history. And you know, that I kind of think about that like in the context of culture tradition sports politics. Well, I mean, you know, I'm reading this book right now for research on something else I'm doing some in a targer read. It's like, but it's a spaces of hope by David Harvey. And like one of the things it's interesting is it's like written before 9/11, I think. And he predicts from a Marxist point of view, everything that was going to happen in the working class of America, he just got the in-result catastrophically wrong. And so like I say that to say that the thing you're talking about about people trying to retain their sense of place when the thing that is most under assault by globalization is a sense of place. And so like I do understand the existential crisis for people whose entire identity is rooted in a place when that is just getting hammered. I think the thing you have to do, at least the way that I think about it, now I have a lot of Confederate ancestors, for instance. I'm a grown man and I'm capable of holding two opposing thoughts in my head at the same time or three exactly. And so this idea that that you can't be like I admire tremendously the fact that this ancestor of mine carved a life out of wilderness while he also had a bunch of political views that while they might have been mainstream at the time are important to me now. And so I think it is important to me as a descendant to understand the things they did and why and try to like not distance myself from the bad or associate myself with the good but try to understand their decision making matrix as a way of navigating my own present day life. And so integrated if you will. If you will. And so you know I think that like there's a lot of people have a lot of difficulty for reasons that I don't fully understand of holding two or three or four or five opposing views in your head at the same time and believing that some parts of all of them are true. I want to connect this article. It's going to go tomorrow which did have me getting for clent in my my daughter's bed last night. So I was reading it and you kind of go back and you talk about your dad and kind of these memories you have with him. His go to hell issue button but also kind of taking the back to the 1950s and it was interesting to me if we kind of take the lens back that this kind of moment where this kind of college football you know Southern element rises. I mean there's elements this before this is the 1950s when you have scholarships start we've caught you know TV contracts start school integration starts and it's like the same time is the period of the barn right like it's it's it's right as around the time that Emmett Till is dying is what four years before the Billy Cannon Halloween run that you write about which is kind of the famous moment in the Ole Miss LSU rivalry. So I don't know like I just kind of want to hear you riff on like this period where all these rivalries get birthed and how it how it intersects with the racial conflict in the South. Here's the best way to do it I think in 1956 was the first year they were athletic scholarships which was the started the road that would lead to NIL in 1957 the NCAA won a lawsuit against a widow whose husband had died during a game and out of that they very intentionally and then docket this you can document this after the fact that they knew what they were doing they started using the word student athlete as a way to deny that these colleges were in the business of football which was obviously a lie and we're still dealing with all the repercussions of that lie today and the rivalry was born very much in a moment like this one where traditionalists were hand-ranging about what was happening to their game and you know and so 1956 is when athletic scholarships are first offered which is a move to professionalization 1956 is when sugar bowl integrates which the governor of Georgia called a southern apocalypse and so I mean if you want to go like way in the weeds go back to sort of this idea of the new post-World War II Bretton Woods American economy is the first time that that America wasn't futile you know that like we're going to try to sort of sit on top these global markets which means we need to run a meritocracy so it's not an accident that the move to commercialize and professionalize the game happens at the exact same moment as the move to integrate because these things are on a collision course because you can't have futile football if you're also saying we want the best players we want the best game well and it's natural we went through the phases of capitalism yeah we had the capitalism just for the whites that are running the game and not for the players who only got the scholarships for a while and now eventually move on to the capitalism where the players are able to get compensated for the work that they're providing and now we may be moving into kind of the declining capital. I mean from neo-liberalism to neo-conservatism you know I mean it's like but from the invention of athletic scholarships in 1956 by the way you know I think Princeton won a national championship and 50 or 51 were contending so the Ivy League didn't get rid of athletic scholarships the Ivy League just chose to stay with the status quo and step away from big-time football I mean there's an epoch that goes from 1956 to NIL and so a lot of people look at the NIL is the beginning of a process but it's actually the end of a very long process and so I mean you know I would say to college presidents who were hand-ringing now if you didn't want to be in the business of professional sports then you shouldn't have gotten in the business of professional schools and then we wouldn't have to deal with Ted Cruz being on college game day you're going to be a big upgrade over him on this weekend show the other guy you write about in this story is Billy Cannon who's the high-spin-trophy winner wins in 59 Ole Miss the classic Ole Miss LSU game they play his touchdown run at the beginning of every LSU game still in 2026 he ends up doing like a lot of the athletes you write about after the end of their career going through existential crises gets in trouble comes out the other side ends up working at Angola and he kind of went and met with his family just talk about that kind of arc a little bit and then I've got to follow up for you on Angola so Billy Cannon he went to prison for counter-fitting in the 80s and he lost his dental license and so the only place he could practice was Angola and he went down there first as the dentist and then he just re he overhauled their medical system and all of it was rooted in a deep sense of fundamental fairness I mean one of the things his daughter bunny says is that he was really drawn to people who've been thrown away and he developed these long relationships with people who worked at Angola with people who do in life at Angola I mean his trustee in the medical office was a guy uh Mr. Hall who was doing a life sentence and then when Billy died his family found this 20 plus page letter he'd written to the Louisiana parole board on behalf of Mr. Hall basically making the case that he be released and so the family mailed that letter posthumously and Mr. Hall was released you know so Billy Cannon is very famous for what he did as a young man and for how that fame sort of the mask eats the face leg shot up dog says how that fame brought him down and what's so interesting is that outside of the scrutiny of fame and away from his legend uh he had this whole other third act rooted in service and love you know I was at the Angola prison rodeo with him one time and we were standing around in some LSU we tell people if the Angola prison rodeo is if they don't know it's the closest you're ever going to get to Caesar man it's wild they have a rodeo where they have inmates or the rodeo cowboys they're you can go on YouTube and find this thing the day I was there it's called inmate poker and they have to hold a I think it's a fake hand of cards but at a wooden table sitting on metal folding chairs and they just release a fucking bowl into the ring and whoever flinches last wins. And you know, you're sitting up there and people are eating Frito chili pies and you're waiting to see, it's really nuts. And so I was there to see Dr. Cannon and this LSU fan spots him and comes up to him and says, are you Billy Cannon and Billy Cannon who had incredible comedic timing just paused and said, well, I'm what's left of it. And I just thought that like he's so aware of the cost of fame and of mythology, he really jumped my ass one time saying, you guys DSPN, I've got to leave Leonard for net alone. You don't understand the damage you're doing by expecting him to be this thing. And I just before they really could be gruff. Yeah, like Billy could be really gruff. But you know, I knew him at the end of his life and really liked it. Yeah, that story made me a little melancholy because it's his great personal triumph. Like within this system that is still just so fucked. And it's just like, you know, the Angola thing has been on my mind a lot recently because the people that run it, this first rodeo is still happening. Like I got invited to it when I moved here. And I was kind of like, wait a minute, I thought that was like a thing in the 80s. But like it's it's it's unbelievable. It's happening. The people that run it are now the same people that are opening up this like women in child immigrant detention center up in Alexandria, you know, and it's like these proud of structures that like he was trying to work with within to try to improve himself ain't gotten much better. Well, I mean, have you ever been out there? I refuse to go. I was invited, but I just I couldn't do I couldn't bring myself to do it. Drive out there one time because when you see where it is, they don't even need walls. It's an abandoned the Mississippi River. And I mean, it's really futile. And with the rivalry in the game on Saturday, but just talk to about your dad. I mean, you started it with them. I don't know how many other sons were like this. My father, who I was very close to and a door was a sort of small town country lawyer and a political fundraiser. He loved Ole Miss football, man. And it was his thing. And when he died, I mean, I've told his story for years, like that I buried him with the go-to-hell LSU button. And I was sort of writing that starting a couple of weeks ago, months ago. And I realized to my horror that when I actually got into the memory, he always had two buttons in this drawer. And one of them said go-to-hell LSU in the other one said Archie's army. And he sort of alternated between me, and mostly wore the go-to-hell LSU. But I realized in this panic, man, I would have passed a lot of tech to test that I buried him with the go-to-hell LSU button. Like, I was so sure of it. And then when I actually got into the memory and had to be rigorous with it, I realized that I remember standing in front of the drawer and I remember having the internal debate about maybe it was a bad idea to have the word "hell" buried someone forever. And I don't remember which one I picked. And so the whole story that follows is about what happens when you inherit love and hate, but not the reasons. I mean, it's sort of like boatry-arty and almost because like we're coffees without an original. But, you know, it is that idea that what happens when we retain all of the rituals, but had totally lost the reasons why we do them. And that feels applicable in Ole Miss LSU, and it feels applicable in the country of orange. And I feel like it's applicable in that question that I tried to get to you earlier about like how you integrate, you know, the bad facts and the good is just like you're also rewriting with us and your memories of being with him in the grove. And it's like you have a lot of these the feelings and the spirit of what it was like to be with him. And that love is there. Like, the details start to get washed away, you know? And you're left with a feeling and there's something almost beautiful about that, but also really dangerous because it is easier to change your opinion about facts than to give away a feeling that has been stripped from the facts. And so, you people will defend those feelings to the death. You know, I'm willing to entertain almost any conversation about sort of, you know, my dad's political fundraising. He's got this great story one time. I'm going to mess it up a little, but he needed to raise a whole bunch of money for I think John Glenn to like qualify for federal matching funds or something. And he went to Senator Eastland's house speaking of, you know, the good and the bad. Yeah, exact dude. The center made like a couple of phone calls. And then my dad said, we just got a glass of urban. And we said on his porch in Doddsville and watched one pick up truck after another pull out and drive these checks off. And he was just like, oh my God. You know, this is the 80s in the end of something. But, you know, when you start talking about the way I feel about him, I can get really, really defensive. And I think that's instructive both in terms of ourself. And when we're trying to make a convincing political argument, I mean, you know, when I'm on my high horse about this is a democratic failure. A lot. Yeah. Let's tap into people on the white papers instead of at their gut. And also like all political beliefs are based on feelings, not facts. And it seems like somewhere along the way, we lost the desire to have and win an argument. And then we lost the ability. And then we lost even the memory of why that was important to begin with. And so a lot of that is, you know, to go back to the sort of bogeyardian fever dream. I mean, it's like we are similar occurrence simulation more than we are sort of people living out our deepest beliefs. I find it really frustrating and scary. Like, you know, like, fundamentally politics is about making an argument to someone else about why your idea is better than their idea. And if you're not engaged as a political being in that, then you're not really doing anything but just shouting into the wind. One of those other feelings of people to have this weekend is hate. Your 13 year old cousin broke the TV, punch in it, Lane Kiffin, I read, we're thinking Lane might have to come out in the Pope Mobile, you know, in DeVot Hemingway. In case people start throwing whiskey bottles at him. What's the level of hate? What's the hate rate for this weekend? It's pretty strong. And I hope we don't show our ass. I hope we boo and we don't throw anything. You know, he could have handled it better. But like, all of us have taken a better, more high-paying job, right? Yeah. And the system is fucked, by the way. College football should not have, there should not be a time to do this in the middle of the season, right? Like, they they created this the fucked system. Also, he didn't handle it well, but they but it was like, he couldn't wait until the end of the season. He would rather wait until the end of the season. He wanted to coach the team, you know? So I totally agree with that. And I feel like we are blaming him for structural problems. I mean, there's a you can make a case that he's the most honest man in college football, because he's the only one to admit that coaches aren't leaders of men. They're just playing the piano in a warehouse. And, uh, you know, that his job is to dial up touchdowns. That's it. And so on some level, he's the only honest man in college football, who's just saying they pay me to score touchdowns. And, uh, so like, I have a lot of, you know, I'm not trafficking as much in the, uh, lane, hate, despite the fact that I'm, uh, uh, going to be on game day one. And it's up pretty good. You know, I think it's really complicated. I don't think he handled it well. I think he put his own career over a once in a lifetime season and then didn't want to own that. But just stand up and say, I care more about my next job than I do about any of you. And I think people would have handled it better being and talk to like adults, but this idea that he doesn't seem to understand that a place like Ole Miss, we get a 1951, we get a 1962, we get a 2014. Like these are, I'm talking like three or four seasons in my lifetime, and I'm 50 years old. And he was incredibly casual with something that didn't mean ship to him, but is very, very precious to us. And so I think a lot of the beef is rooted in that. And I also think that some of it is self-loathing because as mad as we are, I think everybody instinctively understands that we will forget this just as everybody forgot in 1956 how scholarships were going to ruin college football. And our rage will dissipate. And it will just get sort of subsumed into the collective borg of Ole Miss LSU. And we will have this hatred for something with no real recollection of why that is at all. And so I think some of the anger at Lane is the understanding that as mad as we are, nobody is going to be able to tell you the specifics of this in 10 years. And that's really frustrated. Well, I hope he's not the only honest man in sports. I hope he's a liar and a gamesman because the injury report came out last night and the quarterback's doubtful. And there's a lot of discussion about whether that's Lane being Lane and playing games or whether the quarterback's actually hurt Sam Lovett for LSU. So I'm nervous about it. Look, I would never, ever, ever cheer for another human being to be interested. But I guess I would say that Jesus says forgive, but he didn't say anything about forgetting. Okay, maybe some karma because Lane karma is manifesting in Sam Lovett's right shoulder right now. All right, last thing for you, true south of the food show. We're going on tour at the bullwork. The bullwork.com/eventskittickets. There are only like 30 seats left for the Columbia South Carolina events. If you want to come to to Glombia in a Friday night. hang out with us. Get your tickets. We're going to Dayton Springfield, Charlotte, Columbia, Atlanta. Give us a food wreck somewhere on the tour. Well, look, you got to go to the Pine Club in Dayton, Ohio. Okay. It's great. Oh, there's that steakhouse in Charlotte. It's like beef and something, but it's an old school great. You can just Google old school Charlotte steakhouse. There's Brooks Brothers sandwiches in Charlotte that used to, it is outside of an old textile mill that is now a loft, but the old bunker of a business is still there. Hamburger's and hot dogs and stuff. That place is great. Columbia, South Carolina. Not my favorite, but, uh, you know, I do like the Grachos sandwiches. It's not your favorite in South Carolina. You're of a green full, man. You know, I like greenville. I like up, like I like upstate South Carolina. It's all right. I like cola. I can be the cola representative on here. I'll come, I'll come up. See, that's perfect. And then what are the, what are, where else should you say Atlanta is our final stuff? So, so we have an inland episode on the coming season of true South about Buford highway. And, uh, Havana sandwich shop, man, you should definitely 100% go there. It's funny, you know, it's sort of like the idea of like how bad is a person have to be before you won't, uh, consume their art, the lady, the lady who only is finally crossed over recently, but it's, uh, it's a, you know, I have, I have a high tolerance, but, you know, well, like all of us who won't listen to remix to ignition, but still listen to Billie Jean have some explaining to do on the other side of that one. But, you know, oh, oh, but like the, uh, uh, the lady who owns bones has deeply questionable politics, but that's a great steak. So I sort of have to hold my nose and go in there. I don't want to shit talk a place in my hometown, but it has cost me a soft shell crab poe boy here in New Orleans because, because of the pictures they got at the, at the front desk when you walk in. I just can't do it anymore, but, uh, you know, I hate to ask what place. Do I know it? I won't give the bad place. Sathers I go to now. I've replaced it with Sathers. I won't tell you the one that I had to cut because that's rude. It is rude. Well, my mom also said, if, you know, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. In, in, by the way, New Orleans poe boy nice thing I dream about is the R&O special at R&O. Mmm. That is a very wrong and I know that is a very good poe. I'll wrap, brother. Here's the thing. Another thing your story said that the Ole Miss president, the first Ole Miss president asked the first tell us you president will come to Sherman to spare Ole Miss when he was burning the South. I can't promise you we'll show the same restraint this weekend, but I appreciate you for coming on the show. Good luck out there. Thank you so much. We're only interested in you burning your livers. Okay. We'll be doing that. Go Tigers. Thank you, right Thompson. Come back soon, brother. Holly Tottie. See you. Go get his books. Man, thanks so much to Wright Thompson for squeezing us in. He's got a big weekend. You can catch him on Game Day on Saturday. And thanks to Jesse LaDarcola continue. We've got the great feedback on kind of the younger democratic strategy series. So we'll keep that up in the coming weeks, between now and the midterms. Appreciate you all very much. We have an old friend on tomorrow looking forward to it. See you all then. Peace. (Music) The Bullwork Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzaly Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.