Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Democrats Chant KKK while the GOP & America Chant USA
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: I'm asking you to approve the Save America Act.
- 0:08Speaker 2: We stopped my legal aliens on.
- 0:10Speaker 3: Others, we're unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections.
- 0:18Speaker 2: The cheating is rampant in our elections.
- 0:20Speaker 3: This rappant.
- 0:22Speaker 4: You're listening to the forty seven Morning Update with Ben ferguson.
- 0:26Speaker 2: Good Wednesday morning. It's so nice to have you on
- 0:28Speaker 2: the day after the Stay of the Union. On the
- 0:30Speaker 2: forty seven Morning Update, and we've got obviously one big story.
- 0:33Speaker 2: The Democrats were chanting kkk from the four of the House,
- 0:38Speaker 2: while Republicans and the rest of us were chanting ussay.
- 0:42Speaker 2: This is how radical the left has become. So what
- 0:45Speaker 2: did the President say about our future this year? Moving forward?
- 0:49Speaker 2: We've got it all for you. Israel is a very
- 0:53Speaker 2: hot topic right now there with so many opinions and
- 0:55Speaker 2: emotions surrounding it, it can feel hard to know where
- 0:58Speaker 2: to start. The Bible tells us I will bless those
- 1:02Speaker 2: who bless you. That isn't just a comforting promise, It's
- 1:06Speaker 2: a clear calling from God, and today, with anti Semitism
- 1:09Speaker 2: rising around the world, that calling is more urgent than ever.
- 1:13Speaker 2: At a time when Jewish communities are experiencing more hostility,
- 1:17Speaker 2: more threats, and more violence than ever. Christians have a
- 1:20Speaker 2: powerful opportunity to respond with God's love to say you
- 1:24Speaker 2: are not alone. When Christians choose to bless Israel, we're
- 1:28Speaker 2: not entering a political issue. We're honoring the root of
- 1:31Speaker 2: our faith and standing against hatred. Supporting Israel is more
- 1:36Speaker 2: than a belief, it's a biblical mandate. And by partnering
- 1:39Speaker 2: with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, you can
- 1:43Speaker 2: push back against darkness and be a light to God's people.
- 1:47Speaker 2: Learn how you can bless Israel and be blessed in return.
- 1:50Speaker 2: Visit IFCJ dot org today. That's IFCJ dot org today,
- 1:55Speaker 2: Be a blessing live in the world. Answer the call.
- 1:58Speaker 2: It's the forty seven more date and it starts.
- 2:01Speaker 4: Right now, story number one.
- 2:03Speaker 2: It is one am in the morning Eastern time, after
- 2:07Speaker 2: the State of the Union. I want to be very
- 2:10Speaker 2: clear that I am doing this show in protest right
- 2:12Speaker 2: now because I was on a plane. No, no, let
- 2:15Speaker 2: me let me rephrase that center true or foss. You
- 2:19Speaker 2: and I hung out yesterday in your office.
- 2:21Speaker 3: We did, and you were in DC, and I can't
- 2:24Speaker 3: help it that you fled Washington during the State of
- 2:27Speaker 3: the Union and listen, Karmes, and so when you decided
- 2:34Speaker 3: you were a little girl and you had to get
- 2:36Speaker 3: out of town because the Democrats getting mad at the
- 2:39Speaker 3: president were scary. Yeah, there was a consequence, which is,
- 2:43Speaker 3: for those who are watching on YouTube, a coup is
- 2:47Speaker 3: a courage. The original co host of Verdict has returned
- 2:51Speaker 3: and seize the seat. To be clear, he has relegated
- 2:55Speaker 3: mister Ferguson to appearing as a little box on a monitor.
- 3:00Speaker 5: Yeah, he banished Ben.
- 3:03Speaker 1: I saw it, not just the seat, but I saw
- 3:05Speaker 1: this cigar, and I said, this is pretty good. And
- 3:07Speaker 1: this has actually become something of a tradition.
- 3:11Speaker 5: I've noticed it. I've only ever been to two states.
- 3:14Speaker 2: By the way, If only TC would tell us that
- 3:16Speaker 2: there is a tradition, then I wouldn't have gone on
- 3:18Speaker 2: a plane at two o'clock this afternoon leave Washington, d C.
- 3:25Speaker 2: Think about this, hey, Ben, we should have cigars, have
- 3:28Speaker 2: to say the Union and do the show here. Great idea,
- 3:30Speaker 2: I'll change my flight. That is how normal people would
- 3:33Speaker 2: have done this. Michael a year in advance.
- 3:37Speaker 3: This happened late on the fly, and so this afternoon
- 3:43Speaker 3: Michael texted me and said, hey, you want to grab
- 3:45Speaker 3: cigars after everything tonight? And I was like, well, we
- 3:50Speaker 3: have to do the pod, but aha, I have an idea,
- 3:54Speaker 3: and I didn't really want to do the pod and
- 3:55Speaker 3: finish at two in the morning and then have cigars,
- 3:58Speaker 3: and so I'm like, we'll combine it. And by the way,
- 4:00Speaker 3: Daily Wire does this great. What is it late night?
- 4:02Speaker 5: What is it called backstage?
- 4:04Speaker 3: Backstage? So I've done several times done backstage with them
- 4:08Speaker 3: where they sit around and drink scotch and smoke cigars,
- 4:13Speaker 3: and so I said, let's bring some backstage. This is
- 4:17Speaker 3: like a This is like a Marvel Universe crossover where
- 4:22Speaker 3: like Daily Wire and iHeart are intersecting.
- 4:26Speaker 1: This also really it's kind of a double verdict tradition
- 4:29Speaker 1: in that two years ago, Yes, I came to my
- 4:32Speaker 1: first State of the Union address. It was Biden State
- 4:34Speaker 1: of the Union, the one where they injected him with
- 4:36Speaker 1: whatever they injected him with, and he yelled for ninety
- 4:39Speaker 1: two minutes.
- 4:40Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 4:40Speaker 1: And then afterward, actually before I'd set it up, I said, hey, Senator,
- 4:45Speaker 1: I happened to be in town.
- 4:46Speaker 5: Hate to pressure you for a cigar. Same thing.
- 4:48Speaker 1: He said, Well, Okay, we can have a cigar, but
- 4:50Speaker 1: you got to do the podcast first.
- 4:52Speaker 5: I said, okay, well that that'll be a lot of fun.
- 4:54Speaker 1: And so of course it's you know, midnight, one o'clock
- 4:56Speaker 1: in the morning. And this really takes us back because
- 5:00Speaker 1: when Verdicts started, it was always one o'clock in the morning,
- 5:03Speaker 1: and it was actually not all that far from here
- 5:05Speaker 1: in Washington, d C.
- 5:07Speaker 5: Though I noticed the digs have improved a little bit.
- 5:11Speaker 3: So we're in a high falutin cigar bar in DC.
- 5:15Speaker 3: Because it turns out it's actually complicated to find a
- 5:18Speaker 3: studio that will let you smoke a cigar.
- 5:22Speaker 2: I don't get to light my cigar. That's the part
- 5:24Speaker 2: that I'm really chapped about. I did look at my
- 5:28Speaker 2: wife and send her, you know, Anna well, and I
- 5:31Speaker 2: was like, what are the chances, for the sake of
- 5:34Speaker 2: the show in authenticity, I could smoke said cigar. I
- 5:38Speaker 2: literally did not get an answer. I got the look.
- 5:41Speaker 2: And when you're married, you guys both know the look.
- 5:44Speaker 2: Each one of our wives all have a look that
- 5:48Speaker 2: they give you. And I was like, okay, I got it.
- 5:50Speaker 2: I know how this is.
- 5:51Speaker 3: So Ben, you are thoroughly domesticated. Yes, and it doesn't
- 5:55Speaker 3: pune your manhood. Yes, but and I'm now going to
- 5:58Speaker 3: tell a story on myself. So, when Heidi and I
- 6:01Speaker 3: were engaged in an apartment in DC, and I would
- 6:06Speaker 3: host poker games, and at the poker games, we would
- 6:09Speaker 3: smoke cigars and we do it at my dining room table,
- 6:13Speaker 3: and my buddies that would come over and play, they'd
- 6:16Speaker 3: be like, dude, how does Heidi let you smoke cigars inside?
- 6:20Speaker 3: And I was in my twenties and stupid, so I'm like, look,
- 6:25Speaker 3: if you're the man of the house and you want
- 6:27Speaker 3: to smoke a cigar, you smoke a cigar in your
- 6:30Speaker 3: damn house, right, And I said it with all the
- 6:33Speaker 3: bravado of a young idiot. Yeah.
- 6:36Speaker 2: Meanwhile, he didn't own set house, it was an apartment,
- 6:38Speaker 2: but keeps guard like this story.
- 6:40Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 6:41Speaker 3: So then we get married. We actually get married twenty
- 6:43Speaker 3: five years ago May twenty seven, two thousand and one.
- 6:45Speaker 3: That's our twenty fifth anniversary.
- 6:47Speaker 5: Wow.
- 6:48Speaker 3: And we come back from our honeymoon and shortly thereafter,
- 6:51Speaker 3: I'm hosting a poker game and Heidi says, get the
- 6:54Speaker 3: damn cigars out of the apartment. You will never smoke
- 6:56Speaker 3: another one. Inside again and in twenty five years, I
- 6:59Speaker 3: never have and so and I say, that's another way
- 7:03Speaker 3: of saying, you're actually married, aren't we all?
- 7:05Speaker 5: Aren't we all? Tod in a way?
- 7:09Speaker 3: So all right, So, Ben, Ben, what'd you think of
- 7:11Speaker 3: the damn State of the Union.
- 7:12Speaker 2: I actually think it was the best speech Donald Trump
- 7:16Speaker 2: has ever given. I actually thought it was one of
- 7:19Speaker 2: the most real and authentic responses from him to the
- 7:24Speaker 2: Democrats and how they were acting. I love that he
- 7:27Speaker 2: was like you can't even stand for that. You won't even.
- 7:30Speaker 3: See and say you guys are crazy.
- 7:33Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys are crazy.
- 7:34Speaker 1: Line, And it came across the third most incredible line.
- 7:37Speaker 1: I mean there were a lot of them.
- 7:38Speaker 2: Yeah, but but it came stood TV in an amazing way,
- 7:43Speaker 2: did it? Yeah? Oh, I mean it was just his look,
- 7:46Speaker 2: his demeanor, he was looking over at them. I mean,
- 7:49Speaker 2: you were there, obviously, so it's going to feel different
- 7:51Speaker 2: to you. But like I'm watching, I'm going that line
- 7:54Speaker 2: landed and I think the American people probably saw it
- 7:57Speaker 2: and they're like, Wow, this is going to be really good.
- 7:59Speaker 5: So I'm sitting there.
- 8:01Speaker 1: It was very kind of Speaker Johnson to invite me,
- 8:04Speaker 1: and I'm sitting over the Democrats, so I got a
- 8:08Speaker 1: prime view of the Democrats. And the first line that
- 8:14Speaker 1: really brought down the House was when President Trump looked
- 8:17Speaker 1: over and it was beautifully written.
- 8:18Speaker 5: And beautifully executed. He looked over.
- 8:21Speaker 1: He said, Okay, I want everyone to stand up if
- 8:24Speaker 1: you agree with the statement that America should protect Americans
- 8:29Speaker 1: or something to that effect and.
- 8:34Speaker 5: Over illegals.
- 8:35Speaker 1: Yes, and they refuse to stand political malpractice, the likes
- 8:41Speaker 1: of which one has rarely seen. And it was a
- 8:45Speaker 1: brutal moment. He totally took advantage.
- 8:48Speaker 3: Then, so that moment will be played in a million campaigns.
- 8:53Speaker 5: Yes.
- 8:53Speaker 3: Yes, And by the way, it was the longest sustained
- 8:56Speaker 3: applause of Republicans. We stood and plauded, and we applauded,
- 9:01Speaker 3: and he just looked over. He stepped away from with
- 9:04Speaker 3: amazement watching them, and the ad rights itself. They're for
- 9:10Speaker 3: illegals and not for you. And they were given that choice,
- 9:14Speaker 3: do you stand with Americans or do you stand with illegals?
- 9:17Speaker 3: And the entire party no, We're the party of illegal
- 9:21Speaker 3: aliens and not the party of Americans.
- 9:24Speaker 5: It was shocking.
- 9:25Speaker 1: So then he doubles down on I'm skipping around a
- 9:29Speaker 1: little bit in time, because it escalated.
- 9:31Speaker 2: Well by the way, he noticed a trend. He noticed,
- 9:33Speaker 2: this is going to be the trend of my speech,
- 9:35Speaker 2: Like I don't think he planned it this whole, Like
- 9:38Speaker 2: you guys aren't going to stand for that. It was
- 9:40Speaker 2: the moment and then it hit, and then it was like,
- 9:42Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep doing this tonight to show Americans how
- 9:46Speaker 2: crazy these guys are on the left. That's how it
- 9:48Speaker 2: came across on TV.
- 9:49Speaker 1: Well, he landed it on the transgender ideology. Yes, kid
- 9:54Speaker 1: who had been transd and had destroyed his family, and
- 9:56Speaker 1: then the kid finally ended up in the right place,
- 9:59Speaker 1: and the he said, isn't that wonderful? The family's reunited
- 10:03Speaker 1: and everyone's flourishing, and the Dems wouldn't stand and that
- 10:06Speaker 1: was when he dealt the blow. He said, these people
- 10:09Speaker 1: are crazy and that that too lit it up now
- 10:13Speaker 1: where it got a little dark, But it was the
- 10:15Speaker 1: same strategy. It was the same tactic, I suppose is
- 10:18Speaker 1: when he started bringing up violence, and he obviously turns
- 10:23Speaker 1: to Erica Kirk, this national hero, this perhaps the most
- 10:27Speaker 1: sympathetic figure in the entire country, certainly up there, and
- 10:31Speaker 1: the Democrats didn't want to stand for Charlie. They didn't
- 10:34Speaker 1: want to stand for Erica. Again, that itself is disgraceful.
- 10:37Speaker 5: But he even gave them an out.
- 10:39Speaker 1: He said, We're a country where we say in God
- 10:42Speaker 1: we trust, and we reject political violence of all kinds.
- 10:47Speaker 5: And I was looking over some Democrats stood for that.
- 10:50Speaker 3: I'd said more than half on the political violence.
- 10:52Speaker 1: I looked and it was probably sixty seventy percent think
- 10:55Speaker 1: about that, but a.
- 10:56Speaker 3: Third did not.
- 10:57Speaker 1: A third did not, third would not stand for we
- 11:00Speaker 1: reject political violence of all kinds. It was I felt
- 11:05Speaker 1: a disaster of optics for Democrats and disaster.
- 11:08Speaker 3: Of morals well, and on the we don't stand for
- 11:11Speaker 3: political violence. The reason two thirds stood is Schumer stood.
- 11:15Speaker 3: By the way, have you ever noticed how much Chuck
- 11:16Speaker 3: Schumer looks like the villain and the Smurfs? What's what's
- 11:21Speaker 3: the name? I don't remember the name of the villain,
- 11:22Speaker 3: Like the curved over like like you know, he's hunched.
- 11:26Speaker 3: He has kind of a hunchback.
- 11:28Speaker 5: Maybe Penguin from Batman was what I got.
- 11:30Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but he sort of No.
- 11:35Speaker 2: I couldn't agree with you more. By the way, you
- 11:37Speaker 2: guys are in there, so you may not know this,
- 11:39Speaker 2: so I may break news to you. Did you, guys,
- 11:42Speaker 2: see what Rashid Tillie was chanting? Wow, everyone was chanting USA, USA.
- 11:47Speaker 2: At one of the points in the speech, she was
- 11:50Speaker 2: chanting kkk kkk kkk.
- 11:57Speaker 3: Really yes, advertising credit credit for her.
- 12:02Speaker 2: You guys, I don't know if you can see, but
- 12:03Speaker 2: let's be our good friend, Steve Guess put it out there.
- 12:06Speaker 2: Watch Democrat representative to leave. She's chanting KKK while everyone
- 12:12Speaker 2: else is cheering USA.
- 12:15Speaker 3: Well, the KKK was founded by Democrats. It was almost
- 12:20Speaker 3: exclusively populated by Democrats. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of
- 12:24Speaker 3: the clan, was a delegate, a delegate to the DNC
- 12:28Speaker 3: national convention in eighteen sixty. He was a national delegate.
- 12:32Speaker 3: And you look at the klan was founded by Democrats.
- 12:36Speaker 5: Jim Crow.
- 12:37Speaker 3: Laws were founded by Democrats. Segregation was enforced by Democrats.
- 12:42Speaker 3: They have been the party of racial bigotry the entire history.
- 12:46Speaker 3: And by the way, our party, I mean, we often
- 12:48Speaker 3: refer to our party as the Party of Lincoln, but
- 12:50Speaker 3: we were literally founded to abolished slavery, right, That's why
- 12:54Speaker 3: the Republican Party came together. And by the way we
- 12:56Speaker 3: did the first Republican president is who signed the Amounds
- 12:59Speaker 3: of Asian Proclamation, well.
- 13:01Speaker 1: You know on racial animus and Rashida Talib did you see.
- 13:05Speaker 1: I don't know if you caught this, but when President
- 13:06Speaker 1: Trump said, what a wonderful thing. We released all the hostages.
- 13:11Speaker 1: We got the ostage released, both dead and alive. We
- 13:13Speaker 1: returned even their remains, and most people stood up. I looked,
- 13:18Speaker 1: Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib were sitting down.
- 13:21Speaker 5: Yep. Yeah.
- 13:22Speaker 1: And by the way, I mean at one point they
- 13:23Speaker 1: heckled when there was a reference to the end of
- 13:26Speaker 1: the war in Gaza. They heckled and screamed genocide. I mean,
- 13:30Speaker 1: that's that's who their party is.
- 13:33Speaker 2: Well, and if you look at tonight, there was four
- 13:35Speaker 2: Democrat responses like that's not good for your party when.
- 13:39Speaker 3: You're that broke, and four who were the four?
- 13:42Speaker 2: So you had one in Spanish, you had one that
- 13:44Speaker 2: was a progressive radical, you had one that was like
- 13:47Speaker 2: at the next level matter, and then you had the
- 13:49Speaker 2: Virginia governor. You had four official reps.
- 13:52Speaker 3: Sorry, I'm gonna have to disagree with you. I don't
- 13:54Speaker 3: even know who they were, but there are four who
- 13:56Speaker 3: were progressive radicals.
- 13:58Speaker 2: Well, I agree with you. Yes, I'm giving you their
- 14:01Speaker 2: official statement, but they literally had hey, depending on how
- 14:06Speaker 2: crazy you are, if you're a Marxist, socialist, communist, or
- 14:09Speaker 2: a radical lefty, or like the transgender, or maybe just
- 14:12Speaker 2: like a normal Democrat, here's your all of your responses
- 14:16Speaker 2: for you, and we'll have all of those for you.
- 14:18Speaker 3: So right after the State of the Union, I did Hannity,
- 14:21Speaker 3: and as I was sitting there waiting to go on,
- 14:24Speaker 3: Fox wouldn't put Handy on air until Spamberger finished her response.
- 14:28Speaker 3: So I sit down and put my earpiece in and
- 14:31Speaker 3: it's just her voice, screeching and loud.
- 14:34Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 14:35Speaker 3: And I'm turned to Handy and I said, Sean, I
- 14:38Speaker 3: haven't led nearly a wicked enough life to deserve to
- 14:41Speaker 3: listen to this. As I just turned the volume off,
- 14:43Speaker 3: I'm like, I can't. There's just a limit to how
- 14:48Speaker 3: much pain I can endure.
- 14:49Speaker 1: But you know what's very telling about Spanberger is you
- 14:53Speaker 1: had Andy Basheer come out, who is a serious presidential candidate,
- 14:56Speaker 1: Kentucky governor. Yeah, and he said span Berger is the
- 15:00Speaker 1: model for Democrats in the midterms, which means translation will
- 15:04Speaker 1: run They will run as moderance it means.
- 15:07Speaker 2: Live, don't lie.
- 15:08Speaker 1: He'll run as moderates and they will immediately enact them
- 15:11Speaker 1: as radical leftist agenda.
- 15:13Speaker 5: You could maybe imagine.
- 15:16Speaker 2: I love by the way. I know you're a man
- 15:18Speaker 2: of the people and you do all of your own
- 15:20Speaker 2: yard work, but if you if you lived in Virginia crazy.
- 15:25Speaker 3: Wearing French cuffs, that.
- 15:27Speaker 2: Would be only that guy right there. I just want
- 15:29Speaker 2: to be the one where the big cloud of smoke
- 15:32Speaker 2: that just went up in the air, that would be
- 15:34Speaker 2: that guy's cufflings. Yeah, that's the one there, so there there.
- 15:38Speaker 3: Look, it is impressive because at Yale he wore a cravat.
- 15:43Speaker 5: I'm going more.
- 15:44Speaker 3: Populous as I age, and I wish Michael had to
- 15:47Speaker 3: sign it before we knew it those were. But I'm
- 15:50Speaker 3: also impressed because Ben at old miss never wore pants,
- 15:53Speaker 3: So so we're kind of reaching a kind of middleman
- 15:56Speaker 3: down actually.
- 15:58Speaker 2: A man of the people, a man of product Gucci.
- 16:01Speaker 2: It just it is. It is what it is. No,
- 16:03Speaker 2: but like in Virginia, they've gone so crazy, they're they're
- 16:07Speaker 2: they literally have laws written right now that she's in
- 16:10Speaker 2: favor of to ban gasoline powered weed eaters and blowers.
- 16:15Speaker 2: And then they're putting a ten percent tax on electric blowers,
- 16:18Speaker 2: so they're going to charge even more to be green.
- 16:21Speaker 2: That's Virginia.
- 16:22Speaker 3: I love that the President brought up that to shovel
- 16:27Speaker 3: snow in New York. Under my multiple IDs, you need
- 16:30Speaker 3: two forms of ID, which I actually had been advising.
- 16:35Speaker 3: I think humor is a really powerful way to drive
- 16:38Speaker 3: this point. And I think that and also the fact
- 16:41Speaker 3: that John ossoff to get to his rally against photo,
- 16:45Speaker 3: I D.
- 16:45Speaker 5: For voting.
- 16:46Speaker 3: You had to show an.
- 16:46Speaker 2: Idea, you had to photo, you had to show vote
- 16:49Speaker 2: I D. Yeah, this kick was.
- 16:50Speaker 1: The key, I mean, really the reason that the State
- 16:54Speaker 1: of the Union succeeded. And I agree it was one
- 16:57Speaker 1: of Trump's best speeches. The Warsaw speech in the first
- 16:59Speaker 1: term was also an excellent speech, but this was up there,
- 17:02Speaker 1: and I think the reason it succeeded was the President
- 17:05Speaker 1: had to reassure voters who voted for him on mass
- 17:10Speaker 1: you know, he won the popular vote. He had to
- 17:11Speaker 1: reassure them that we are still the party of normal,
- 17:16Speaker 1: of safety, of flourishing, of sanity, of sanity, where I
- 17:23Speaker 1: think some voters you have this question after the Minneapolis
- 17:27Speaker 1: immigration endorsement, why is it that voters still support mass
- 17:32Speaker 1: deportations but oppose ice supporting people.
- 17:36Speaker 5: You know, that's kind of a contradiction.
- 17:37Speaker 1: Why is it that the fundamentals of the economy are
- 17:40Speaker 1: looking pretty good? You know record I sed, stock market
- 17:43Speaker 1: pretty good, inflation, pretty good, job numbers, pretty good GDP
- 17:46Speaker 1: could have been better if not for the government shutdown
- 17:48Speaker 1: that the Dems gave us. Why is it that they're
- 17:51Speaker 1: a little the voters are worried about the economy, but
- 17:54Speaker 1: the economy seems to be doing well. It's this fear
- 17:57Speaker 1: that we're in a precarious moment. And so I think
- 18:01Speaker 1: both sides went into this saying we want to be
- 18:03Speaker 1: the party of stability, of security, of normal flourishing. That's
- 18:07Speaker 1: why Hakim Jeffries told the Democrats, hey, be cool, and
- 18:10Speaker 1: if you can't be cool, don't show up.
- 18:12Speaker 5: You know.
- 18:13Speaker 3: I think Soyle Green got shot thrown out.
- 18:14Speaker 5: Al Green couldn't resist.
- 18:17Speaker 2: At least at least he had a big sign that
- 18:19Speaker 2: he got to walk around with, right he felt he
- 18:21Speaker 2: felt just so.
- 18:23Speaker 3: And his signs said blacks aren't apes. Yeah, And I turned.
- 18:28Speaker 3: I was sitting next to Todd Young, and I said, wow,
- 18:30Speaker 3: is ol Green protesting Gavin Newsom.
- 18:32Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, look like it.
- 18:35Speaker 3: By the way, Gavin Newsom, he's like the perfect Democrat
- 18:39Speaker 3: made in the laboratory. An idiot, he sayscis open racist.
- 18:46Speaker 2: Yeah, he says racist.
- 18:47Speaker 3: He goes in front of a crowd of African Americans
- 18:50Speaker 3: and goes, I'm just like you. You're stupid, and I am.
- 18:52Speaker 5: Too unbelievable and I can't for what.
- 18:55Speaker 3: I got a nine to sixty on the SAT which,
- 18:58Speaker 3: by the way, Michael got a nine sixty on the
- 19:01Speaker 3: verbal portion of his set. And yes, I know it's
- 19:05Speaker 3: only eight hundred.
- 19:06Speaker 2: But but but still, yes, I love that you just
- 19:09Speaker 2: had to geek out and show the geeks that you
- 19:11Speaker 2: know the max is an eight hundred.
- 19:12Speaker 5: There.
- 19:13Speaker 2: To be clear, I can't remember I took the damn thing,
- 19:16Speaker 2: and I can't.
- 19:16Speaker 3: Remember what anyone doubt I was a geek.
- 19:19Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I just we have to remind you though,
- 19:22Speaker 2: every once in a while.
- 19:23Speaker 3: Let's be clear on things like that. I popped Michael,
- 19:26Speaker 3: mostly because my own vulnerabilities are so glaring on that.
- 19:29Speaker 5: No, listen the admission rate for Princeton. I think.
- 19:35Speaker 2: Let's let's be clear, both of you know your scores, right,
- 19:39Speaker 2: by heart. What you made? What were you? Michael, don't lie?
- 19:43Speaker 5: It was higher than Gavin Newsom's. I'll tell you that.
- 19:45Speaker 3: No, what was it?
- 19:46Speaker 2: I want to know. I want to know what it was.
- 19:48Speaker 5: Do you want to know the irony? I'll tell you
- 19:49Speaker 5: the irony of my essay.
- 19:50Speaker 2: Oh I can't this is this is him delaying the brilliance.
- 19:53Speaker 2: Keep going.
- 19:53Speaker 5: I did. I did get on the math in the
- 19:57Speaker 5: verbal I got a perfect score.
- 19:58Speaker 2: That's what I was.
- 20:00Speaker 5: However, you don't want to know the irony.
- 20:02Speaker 1: There was at that time the writing component. There was
- 20:05Speaker 1: a writing thing that they added. It was kind of
- 20:06Speaker 1: optional or experimental. And the funny thing is I did
- 20:10Speaker 1: not get a perfect score. I actually don't remember the
- 20:12Speaker 1: exact it was less. It was the six eighty or something.
- 20:15Speaker 1: But the funny thing is that's the thing I went
- 20:18Speaker 1: into and my most famous book has no words in it.
- 20:20Speaker 1: So it ended up it ended up working out just fine. Uh, Newsome,
- 20:27Speaker 1: I am going to decline to answer on the advice accounts,
- 20:30Speaker 1: oh wow, because I am an elected politics and running
- 20:34Speaker 1: around like squawking about your essay T score?
- 20:37Speaker 2: Did you have two in three categories? Like Michael, I
- 20:40Speaker 2: just want to know what can really.
- 20:42Speaker 3: I did not any of that.
- 20:43Speaker 1: I did not and I did well on the test,
- 20:47Speaker 1: But I am I'm just telling you.
- 20:51Speaker 3: I may not know much about politics, but I am
- 20:53Speaker 3: quite certain it is dumb as hell. Say this was
- 20:58Speaker 3: my ESSAYT score.
- 21:00Speaker 2: Like to prove how much of a man of the
- 21:02Speaker 2: people I am. I walked in and took the test.
- 21:05Speaker 2: I forgot my calculator and I looked at the lady
- 21:10Speaker 2: that does the test, and I said, what is the
- 21:12Speaker 2: minimum for NCAA requirements? Can I do it without a calculator?
- 21:16Speaker 2: And she goes, I'm intrigued to see if you can.
- 21:18Speaker 2: And I was above the NCAA minimum without a calculator.
- 21:23Speaker 2: And I took it once and the score came in
- 21:25Speaker 2: and my mom was furious when it came to mail.
- 21:27Speaker 2: She's like, you're taking it again. She was so mad.
- 21:29Speaker 2: I forgot my remember the TI eighty three or whatever
- 21:31Speaker 2: it was like, you know, like the calculator you took
- 21:34Speaker 2: with you. And I was like, I forgot it that
- 21:36Speaker 2: my mom's an educator. She was like, you're taking it.
- 21:38Speaker 2: I was like, no, I'm not. I'm above the minimum
- 21:39Speaker 2: for NCAA requirements. That's all I care about. And that
- 21:41Speaker 2: way I took it once.
- 21:42Speaker 3: All right, So I'm going to tell you SATL SAT story.
- 21:47Speaker 3: So when I show up at college. My first job
- 21:51Speaker 3: I worked at Princeton Media Services, videotaping things and like
- 21:56Speaker 3: like a run and operate a video camera and like
- 21:58Speaker 3: videotape all sorts of different programs. And that paid either
- 22:01Speaker 3: seven or eight bucks an hour. And then I got
- 22:04Speaker 3: hired by the Prince to review to teach the SAT,
- 22:07Speaker 3: which was a much better job because it paid fifteen
- 22:09Speaker 3: bucks an hour. And so I'm like, hot, diggity damn,
- 22:13Speaker 3: I could do that math, and fifteen is better than seven.
- 22:16Speaker 3: So so for like a year or two I taught
- 22:18Speaker 3: the SAT. I guess a year and then I'm like, wait,
- 22:22Speaker 3: there's no margin in teaching the SAT. I've already taken it.
- 22:26Speaker 3: And I knew I wanted to go to law school.
- 22:28Speaker 3: So I went to the course and said, hey, can
- 22:30Speaker 3: I teach the l SAT? And so they paid me
- 22:35Speaker 3: to train me to teach the l SAT, which was
- 22:38Speaker 3: useful because I had to in fact teach the l SAT.
- 22:41Speaker 3: So when I was a sophomore in college, I was
- 22:42Speaker 3: teaching the l SAT and the students would say, well,
- 22:45Speaker 3: what score.
- 22:46Speaker 2: Did you take a day yere right now?
- 22:49Speaker 5: Well?
- 22:50Speaker 3: No, no, it was. There were real classes. But the
- 22:53Speaker 3: hysterical story is, so I taught the l SAT for
- 22:55Speaker 3: a year and then so junior year where tooking the
- 23:00Speaker 3: l set. And you guys both know my college roommatee.
- 23:02Speaker 3: It was my law school roommate. And other than Heidi,
- 23:04Speaker 3: my best friend of the world. David Panton, Yeah, Jamaican,
- 23:09Speaker 3: incredibly talented, became Barack Obama, was the first black president
- 23:14Speaker 3: of the Harvard Law Review. David was the second black
- 23:17Speaker 3: president the Harvard Larview. So, but when David and I
- 23:19Speaker 3: are in college, we're both taking the l set. The
- 23:23Speaker 3: night before the l set, David and I like complete morons.
- 23:27Speaker 3: Did I mention that we were like nineteen or twenty?
- 23:29Speaker 3: I guess twenty. We stayed up all night playing Nintendo.
- 23:33Speaker 3: We literally did not sleep. We pulled an all nighter
- 23:36Speaker 3: playing Mario Brothers on Nintendo.
- 23:39Speaker 2: The Stelle check out by the way, Ok.
- 23:42Speaker 3: The l Set was in Newark. So I had my
- 23:46Speaker 3: first car, was a green seventy eight Ford Fairmont. So
- 23:50Speaker 3: I drove us to Newark. We take the l Set.
- 23:53Speaker 3: It was at eight am, so we leave at like
- 23:55Speaker 3: six six point thirty go sit for the test. It's
- 23:58Speaker 3: like four hours or so. So we're coming back to
- 24:01Speaker 3: college at like one in the afternoon and we're driving
- 24:05Speaker 3: back and I said, so, David, how did it go?
- 24:07Speaker 3: And he said, well, during one of the sections, I
- 24:10Speaker 3: put my head down and fell asleep, and he said,
- 24:15Speaker 3: I woke up with two minutes left and I just
- 24:18Speaker 3: filled out B for every question. And he turns to
- 24:21Speaker 3: me and says, do you think B is the right answer?
- 24:24Speaker 3: And so it turns out you can cancel your LSAT
- 24:27Speaker 3: score on the spot if you want to see what up?
- 24:30Speaker 3: And just canceled a score. So the poor guy had
- 24:32Speaker 3: to take it again, and then he did. He did
- 24:34Speaker 3: well the second time he took it, but he literally
- 24:36Speaker 3: I laughed so hard I almost crashed the car. But
- 24:40Speaker 3: but I ended up keeping him up all night and
- 24:42Speaker 3: making him fall asleep during the ELK.
- 24:44Speaker 1: What if all the answers were be he might have
- 24:47Speaker 1: missed out on the perfect score perfect score. The Newsome
- 24:51Speaker 1: thing is is really frustrating because right now he is
- 24:53Speaker 1: the leading candidate for the Democrats, I think, without question,
- 24:56Speaker 1: and I'm at the Munich Security conference, was still the
- 25:01Speaker 1: leading candidate and On the one hand, he has these
- 25:03Speaker 1: social media posts where he's sitting there performatively reading Beloved
- 25:08Speaker 1: by Tony Morrison, performatively reading all these books that.
- 25:11Speaker 3: Are By the way, are you aware that Newsom let
- 25:15Speaker 3: himself on fire in a social media exchange about Verdict? No,
- 25:20Speaker 3: so so coming back from Munich, we did. We did
- 25:23Speaker 3: a whole show on Munich lighting up AOC and lighting
- 25:27Speaker 3: up Newsom and Newsom, and Munich said Donald Trump is
- 25:32Speaker 3: the first president in history to federalize the National Guard,
- 25:36Speaker 3: and so on Verdict. I said, Gavin Newsom is historically illiterate.
- 25:41Speaker 1: Yes, uh, actually you talked about it if your use
- 25:47Speaker 1: of the English language properly, and so I said that,
- 25:52Speaker 1: and then he tweeted out he said, calling someone who's
- 25:59Speaker 1: just illiterate is a new low, even for Cruise.
- 26:06Speaker 3: And mind you, who knew he was dyslexic. I didn't
- 26:10Speaker 3: know that until he sent out his tweet.
- 26:12Speaker 2: Yeah for a guy that then also claims in a
- 26:15Speaker 2: white podcast, so he can read a three hundred page
- 26:17Speaker 2: book in two hours. Don't forget that came out yes
- 26:19Speaker 2: as well, So so much for being majorly dyslexic.
- 26:22Speaker 3: Right, But then so we had we actually had twin responses,
- 26:28Speaker 3: so my staff came up with a response with a
- 26:31Speaker 3: gift from Zulander, and I wrote a response and said
- 26:39Speaker 3: something like I didn't say you couldn't read, you clown.
- 26:43Speaker 3: I said, you were historically illiterate, because you apparently have
- 26:47Speaker 3: no idea about the civil rights movement and the fact
- 26:50Speaker 3: that Eisenhower federalized the National Guard. And this is actually
- 26:54Speaker 3: a cool I think this is the first tweet I've
- 26:57Speaker 3: ever said that was partially written by AI. So I
- 27:03Speaker 3: went to Google and I just typed in Eisenhower federalizing
- 27:08Speaker 3: National Guard, and instantaneously several paragraphs pop up that are
- 27:13Speaker 3: beautifully researched, and so I cut and paste one of
- 27:16Speaker 3: them that said on date and I didn't know the date.
- 27:19Speaker 3: You know, Eisenhower signed executive order number and I didn't
- 27:22Speaker 3: know the executive order number. But it was like this
- 27:25Speaker 3: beautifully researched. So the second half of the tweet, I
- 27:29Speaker 3: actually wrote that tweet while playing hoops. So, as you
- 27:33Speaker 3: guys know, I played hoops twice a week, so it
- 27:34Speaker 3: was like in between games on my phone, I like
- 27:38Speaker 3: type the first half, put.
- 27:41Speaker 2: The last way wait time out, time out.
- 27:43Speaker 3: I got it.
- 27:44Speaker 2: You opened up something there you set in between games?
- 27:47Speaker 2: Were you the odd man out?
- 27:49Speaker 1: Yeah?
- 27:50Speaker 5: Did you?
- 27:50Speaker 2: I lost? I just wanted to get that on the
- 27:53Speaker 2: Did you hear what he said? Michael? Can you make
- 27:54Speaker 2: sure it's Mike's working? He just did? He say he lost?
- 27:57Speaker 2: It's going to be very clear.
- 27:58Speaker 5: But I think that was recorded.
- 28:00Speaker 2: Okay, got it? Okay? Yeah, yeah, I'm glad that we
- 28:03Speaker 2: got that. That was worth staying up plate for just that,
- 28:05Speaker 2: right there. Keep going with your story, sir, This is
- 28:07Speaker 2: getting good.
- 28:08Speaker 3: So but when I sent my tweet, my social media
- 28:11Speaker 3: team was all mad and they're like, wait, we like
- 28:13Speaker 3: our Zoolander tweet and I said no, no, no, put them
- 28:17Speaker 3: both out. Yeah, and let's have an experiment. Let's see
- 28:21Speaker 3: who wins. Who gets more like like, you've got mine
- 28:25Speaker 3: and you know you guys. And so it was close.
- 28:31Speaker 3: I only beat them by two hundred and fifty percent.
- 28:35Speaker 3: So they got I think four hundred thousand engagements and
- 28:37Speaker 3: I got one point one million. But I will confess
- 28:41Speaker 3: making an admission on this. Although they didn't get nearly
- 28:46Speaker 3: the reach. The comments on the Zoolander gift, the people
- 28:50Speaker 3: that saw it way better loved you. Yeah, I mean,
- 28:53Speaker 3: they're just like the best tweet in the history of
- 28:55Speaker 3: the Internet, like they were, so I think it was
- 28:58Speaker 3: a smaller niche audience. Yeah, but the ones it hit,
- 29:01Speaker 3: it really hit.
- 29:03Speaker 2: It's almost like as good as when you were the
- 29:04Speaker 2: Zodiac Killer. Maybe you still are, but you know, those
- 29:08Speaker 2: never make me not laugh.
- 29:09Speaker 3: What do you mean when I was the Zodiac Yeah,
- 29:11Speaker 3: exactly when did?
- 29:12Speaker 1: I haven't shaped the statute of limitations recently. Yeah, but
- 29:16Speaker 1: I think you're safe now.
- 29:18Speaker 3: So do you know that? In twenty sixteen, an actual
- 29:23Speaker 3: poll done in the state of Florida found thirty eight
- 29:27Speaker 3: percent of Floridians believe that I could be the Zodiac Killer.
- 29:32Speaker 2: I got to be clear.
- 29:33Speaker 3: The Zodiac Killer killed at least five people in northern
- 29:36Speaker 3: California in the late nineteen sixties. I was born in
- 29:39Speaker 3: nineteen seventy.
- 29:41Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 29:41Speaker 5: Yeah, and yet maybe.
- 29:43Speaker 3: Nearly half of Floridians believed I could be the Zodiac Killer.
- 29:46Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 29:47Speaker 2: Yeah, that's you could have lied about your age. You
- 29:50Speaker 2: could have lied about your age. This is how conspiracies begin.
- 29:54Speaker 3: I did have one one rally where this kid had
- 29:58Speaker 3: a sign. It's like twenty and he had a sign
- 30:01Speaker 3: that said, are you the Zodiac Killer? And I went
- 30:04Speaker 3: up to him. I put my hand on his shoulder.
- 30:05Speaker 3: I said, son, if I was the Zodiac Killer, would
- 30:09Speaker 3: you really want to be here with that sign right now?
- 30:11Speaker 4: Yeah?
- 30:11Speaker 1: You know this actually was the point, which is how
- 30:14Speaker 1: we got into news him the sign. I don't know
- 30:17Speaker 1: if you guys saw the memes that were going around.
- 30:19Speaker 1: So I lost a bet on this. I bet that
- 30:23Speaker 1: the Democrats would not have a member ejected from the speech.
- 30:26Speaker 5: I thought they might have.
- 30:29Speaker 2: Did you actually believe that?
- 30:30Speaker 5: Though I didn't think that.
- 30:32Speaker 1: I thought they would listen to hackem Jefferies and try
- 30:34Speaker 1: to chill. But they can't know Eygreen has no chill,
- 30:36Speaker 1: so he opens up.
- 30:37Speaker 3: By the way, there's a very real chance al Green
- 30:40Speaker 3: loses his Democrat primary a week from now.
- 30:42Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 30:43Speaker 3: Really, he's actually in jeopardy. And so I think the
- 30:46Speaker 3: antics were partially. Of course, he did his antics last year,
- 30:50Speaker 3: like waving his cane, which like to embody a grumpy
- 30:54Speaker 3: old man, like get off my lawn, you kids.
- 30:57Speaker 5: It's perfect.
- 30:58Speaker 1: But he made it made a real optical error, which
- 31:01Speaker 1: is he unfurled the sign, which from my angle in
- 31:04Speaker 1: the gallery I could not see, and so I said, wow,
- 31:06Speaker 1: what's he saying, and I guess the sign said black
- 31:08Speaker 1: people aren't apes, but the problem was the way he
- 31:11Speaker 1: was holding it. The one, the one that I saw,
- 31:17Speaker 1: and maybe one of those said that too. The one
- 31:19Speaker 1: I saw said black people rent apes, which was like
- 31:23Speaker 1: an unfortunate any way you slice it, these are very
- 31:26Speaker 1: unfortunate optics. And I thought, you know, the Democrat leader
- 31:29Speaker 1: in the House asked one thing. He said, hey, guys,
- 31:33Speaker 1: please don't look crazy during the speech. And as the
- 31:38Speaker 1: President is walking into the room, Al Green unfurls this sign,
- 31:42Speaker 1: and I thought, you have the discipline of a fruitfly,
- 31:46Speaker 1: Like there is no chance they didn't make it five minutes.
- 31:50Speaker 2: They're insane, all right. I have to ask you guys
- 31:52Speaker 2: being there, because one of the best lines of the
- 31:54Speaker 2: whole speech, and that was just one of those little
- 31:57Speaker 2: kind of tit for tatlines and it but it worked,
- 32:00Speaker 2: was when he was talking about insider trading and then
- 32:03Speaker 2: he said Nancy Pelosi's name, And it was amazing on
- 32:08Speaker 2: TV because if you didn't know the story, free one
- 32:11Speaker 2: you immediately went to every one of us was there, Yeah,
- 32:15Speaker 2: and I was too, But like if you didn't know,
- 32:18Speaker 2: and then you saw the reaction and you heard the
- 32:21Speaker 2: hissing bit whatever it was in the hall. I don't
- 32:24Speaker 2: know exactly what they were saying. It was like they
- 32:26Speaker 2: were like, you can't say her name like that. You
- 32:28Speaker 2: know that everybody went and googled insider trading Nancy Pelosi
- 32:32Speaker 2: and then they learned about the story. Like they literally
- 32:35Speaker 2: helped him sell the story. What was the reaction from
- 32:38Speaker 2: the were Democrats mad or what was the reaction.
- 32:41Speaker 5: You were on the floor.
- 32:42Speaker 3: Oh, look, they were mad constantly. So is there one
- 32:46Speaker 3: I will say though, there's a difference from this year
- 32:48Speaker 3: and last year. So last year they went through the
- 32:51Speaker 3: entire State of the Union and they didn't applaud. They
- 32:55Speaker 3: didn't applaud when Trump walked in. They didn't applaud for anything.
- 32:59Speaker 3: They just said free stone faced and heckled and waved
- 33:02Speaker 3: their cane in him. This year, before the State of
- 33:06Speaker 3: the Union, I actually went to several Democrats and asked them,
- 33:10Speaker 3: I said, okay, are you guys going to applaud for
- 33:13Speaker 3: the US hockey team, like come on? And they all
- 33:18Speaker 3: said yes. In fact, several of them had an expletive
- 33:21Speaker 3: They said fys. And I said, look, to be clear,
- 33:26Speaker 3: last year, you didn't applaud for a kid with cancer.
- 33:29Speaker 5: Yeah, that question. Okay.
- 33:32Speaker 3: One of the Democrats who I actually like, he's I'm
- 33:34Speaker 3: not going to identify it, but he's got a good
- 33:36Speaker 3: sense of humor. I said that to him and he said, yeah,
- 33:38Speaker 3: we hate kids with cancer, which was like, all right, Like,
- 33:42Speaker 3: don't argue, you just kind of vote it. And I'm like,
- 33:44Speaker 3: all right, well, well played like.
- 33:47Speaker 5: They did it again this year.
- 33:48Speaker 1: By the way, there was a little girl who couldn't walk,
- 33:51Speaker 1: and it was the same thing. A good chunk of
- 33:54Speaker 1: Democrats would say. They were trying to play the stoic card.
- 33:58Speaker 1: It did not read at least from my vantage. I
- 34:01Speaker 1: thought it looked really callous because there was no unity
- 34:04Speaker 1: within the party, so there was no clear messaging. You know,
- 34:07Speaker 1: look that it all seemed pretty disastrous. The question that
- 34:10Speaker 1: I have as a as a proper conservative who is
- 34:13Speaker 1: always looking for the downside of things just to temper
- 34:16Speaker 1: my you know, jubilation. Do you think I think universally
- 34:22Speaker 1: the speech was viewed as quite good, quite effective. Does
- 34:25Speaker 1: it make a meaningful difference in the midterms?
- 34:28Speaker 5: Look, I think it does.
- 34:31Speaker 3: Do you all right? Layout why I'll tell.
- 34:33Speaker 2: You why this speech was The things that irritate Republican
- 34:42Speaker 2: slash moderate voters about Trump, that it's all about him,
- 34:47Speaker 2: and he doesn't know when to you know that the
- 34:49Speaker 2: mean tweets and when to shut up, and and and
- 34:52Speaker 2: the things that irritate those that can stay home. Watching
- 34:55Speaker 2: his demeanor tonight, he came across in such a way
- 35:00Speaker 2: of like, these guys don't want this, These guys don't
- 35:03Speaker 2: put you first, These guys don't do this. He also
- 35:06Speaker 2: was giving incredible accolades and awards and the US hockey team.
- 35:10Speaker 2: There was momentum there. It was one after another. It
- 35:14Speaker 2: was a one hundred year old man, a veteran. It
- 35:16Speaker 2: was the guy who was flying the helicopter, the Chinook
- 35:18Speaker 2: and telling a story. He was praising what makes America
- 35:22Speaker 2: great and the people that make America great. I actually
- 35:26Speaker 2: think that if you are a moderate voter, someone maybe
- 35:29Speaker 2: a Republican that traditionally stays home during the mid terms,
- 35:33Speaker 2: I actually think that this speech landed with you more
- 35:37Speaker 2: than any other speech of Trump. The way it played
- 35:39Speaker 2: on TV. I think it also is going to land
- 35:43Speaker 2: on the economic issues of him reminding the no tax
- 35:46Speaker 2: on tips, the no tax on overtime. I'm trying to
- 35:49Speaker 2: make life more affordable, the gas prices. Those are things
- 35:53Speaker 2: that I actually think, Well, you know, they've been hammering
- 35:56Speaker 2: him on all these approval rings at forty this or
- 35:58Speaker 2: thirty nine or thirty depending on poll. I think he
- 36:00Speaker 2: gets a bump that actually stays because he landed it
- 36:04Speaker 2: so well in the audience, and he looked really calm,
- 36:08Speaker 2: He looked really just like, I'm doing this because I
- 36:10Speaker 2: want to fix the country, and other speeches haven't come
- 36:13Speaker 2: across that way always.
- 36:15Speaker 3: Yeah, let me agree with you. And then I think
- 36:18Speaker 3: the message tonight was the record of the last year.
- 36:23Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 36:23Speaker 3: The record of the last year, I believe is objectively phenomenal.
- 36:27Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 36:27Speaker 3: And I've been in the Senate now fourteen years. We've
- 36:30Speaker 3: never had a year where we've accomplished even a fraction
- 36:35Speaker 3: of what you did has been accomplished in the last year.
- 36:37Speaker 3: I mean, it is staggering. And he did a good job.
- 36:40Speaker 3: You know, we talked about on the last pod how
- 36:43Speaker 3: I spent thirty forty minutes on the phone with Trump
- 36:46Speaker 3: last week, and one of the things we talked about
- 36:49Speaker 3: was messaging for the midterms, and I said, listen, we
- 36:53Speaker 3: need to focus on results, on the very real results
- 36:58Speaker 3: securing the border, ninety nine percent drop in elou crossings.
- 37:04Speaker 3: And then I encouraged him a message that's not getting
- 37:08Speaker 3: the attention it should is the impact on crime. Yes, Amen,
- 37:12Speaker 3: murder rates have dropped twenty percent, drug overdose deaths have
- 37:17Speaker 3: dropped twenty percent. They're literally thousands of Americans who were
- 37:21Speaker 3: alive today because Trump was elected and Republicans won Congress.
- 37:24Speaker 5: It's a great message.
- 37:25Speaker 3: And that's been lost. And I was really happy, like
- 37:30Speaker 3: the first twenty minutes of the speech were laying out
- 37:34Speaker 3: that message and going through murder rates and crime rates
- 37:37Speaker 3: and d C rates and like how unhappy the Democrats
- 37:41Speaker 3: were that crime rates had plummeted in d C and
- 37:45Speaker 3: New Orleans and your hometown of.
- 37:47Speaker 5: Memphis, Memphis.
- 37:48Speaker 3: Yeah, the Democrats were furious that fewer people are being murdered.
- 37:51Speaker 1: They wouldn't stand up on mass for murder declining. You
- 37:55Speaker 1: know this. I was looking at the polls and aggregate
- 37:57Speaker 1: of the polls from just January fivy leading into this,
- 38:00Speaker 1: and to be.
- 38:01Speaker 3: Fair, the pro murder community in America is pretty small.
- 38:04Speaker 1: It is look, it's a constituency, but it's not the
- 38:07Speaker 1: one you want. And so I was looking at as
- 38:09Speaker 1: aggrit of polls, Maris, PBS, a handful of others, and
- 38:15Speaker 1: the hard fact I spoke to some members of Congress
- 38:18Speaker 1: about this today. The hard fact is Republicans are underwater
- 38:22Speaker 1: on the economy, on economic perception. I think you could
- 38:25Speaker 1: could turn it around, but right now we're a little
- 38:27Speaker 1: bit underwater.
- 38:28Speaker 5: On healthcare.
- 38:29Speaker 1: Democrats always went on healthcare and on a defensive democracy
- 38:33Speaker 1: or it's kind of a contrived category, but.
- 38:36Speaker 5: Anyway, they went on that.
- 38:37Speaker 1: So the ones that we're winning on right now quite
- 38:40Speaker 1: decisively are immigration and border enforcement, even more so now
- 38:46Speaker 1: the border is shut down, and especially on crime. So
- 38:49Speaker 1: the key, it seems to me, is one that tells
- 38:51Speaker 1: you people are concerned about safety, and two, if you
- 38:55Speaker 1: can tie all of that together. The crime relates obviously
- 39:00Speaker 1: to illegal immigration, that's why it's called illegal. And the
- 39:04Speaker 1: housing prices even have the way to the you know,
- 39:06Speaker 1: the fact that you have six months consecutive decline on
- 39:08Speaker 1: housing prices coinciding with Mastery petition two.
- 39:11Speaker 3: Million people being deported, and that's just less demand, you know.
- 39:14Speaker 3: By the way, like a couple of weeks ago, the
- 39:16Speaker 3: Houston Chronicle had a front page story that said murder
- 39:21Speaker 3: rates in Houston have declined eighteen percent.
- 39:24Speaker 2: Yep.
- 39:25Speaker 3: And Heidi showed me the article because she knew it
- 39:27Speaker 3: pissed me off because the article, yes, the article the
- 39:32Speaker 3: Chronicle says nobody can figure out why. It's completely inexplicable.
- 39:37Speaker 3: The experts we talk about have no idea why the
- 39:40Speaker 3: murder rate is dropping, and it like doesn't occur to
- 39:42Speaker 3: them that arresting and deporting murderers and gang bangers will
- 39:47Speaker 3: reduce the murder rate.
- 39:48Speaker 5: Like it's not.
- 39:50Speaker 3: This is not rocket science. Fewer murderers means fewer murders,
- 39:55Speaker 3: but yet to Democrats that makes no sense to them. Yeah,
- 40:01Speaker 3: and so that message was good. I also liked on
- 40:03Speaker 3: no tax on tips that he had the mom who
- 40:07Speaker 3: is the waitress stand up and he said, between no
- 40:11Speaker 3: tax on tips and no tax on overtime, she's going
- 40:14Speaker 3: to take home five thousand more dollars this year than
- 40:17Speaker 3: last year. That was real and it's not abstract. And
- 40:21Speaker 3: by the way, the Democrats wouldn't applauded for like the
- 40:24Speaker 3: mom waiting tables. They're not rooting for her and they
- 40:27Speaker 3: want to take that five thousand dollars and that's.
- 40:29Speaker 1: Real money, you know, five thousand dollars is real money.
- 40:31Speaker 1: It's not some abstraction so nuts and bolts. You know,
- 40:35Speaker 1: if this was a speech, obviously you'reed at the midterms.
- 40:38Speaker 1: Do you think it moves the needle?
- 40:42Speaker 3: I did keep message discipline of focusing on it.
- 40:44Speaker 5: Yes.
- 40:45Speaker 2: By the way, yes, yesterday morning, you and I'm talking
- 40:49Speaker 2: about this. I had breakfast a Speaker Johnson and you
- 40:53Speaker 2: talk about the reason why I think this one sticks.
- 40:55Speaker 2: There is a very real sense that Republican leadership have
- 41:00Speaker 2: our act together for once that we haven't had in
- 41:02Speaker 2: a long time. I also think that matters. Speaker Johnson
- 41:07Speaker 2: understands he basically has a one person majority he does
- 41:11Speaker 2: not want to have, and President Trump doesn't want to
- 41:14Speaker 2: have the Democrats take over the House. It is insanely slim,
- 41:19Speaker 2: and I think they're working so well together the same
- 41:21Speaker 2: way Center that you work so well with the President.
- 41:24Speaker 2: There does seem to be that we're actually on the
- 41:26Speaker 2: same team for once. I've not experienced that many times
- 41:29Speaker 2: in my life in the Republican Party. Like there's always
- 41:32Speaker 2: the infighting. We always not as screwed up when we
- 41:34Speaker 2: get power. There's different people jacking for positions. There does
- 41:38Speaker 2: seem to be a little bit of momentum now that
- 41:40Speaker 2: we're on the same team going the midterms. That's the
- 41:42Speaker 2: other reason I think this speech will continue in the
- 41:44Speaker 2: momentum because you have Johnson others advocating.
- 41:47Speaker 3: Look, I hope so to play Devil's advocates. We're a
- 41:52Speaker 3: very divided country, and so the people who hate Trump
- 41:56Speaker 3: still hate them after the speech, for sure, if they're
- 41:58Speaker 3: not actually listening.
- 42:02Speaker 5: And so.
- 42:04Speaker 3: I do think Ben, you focused on the right area,
- 42:06Speaker 3: which is the people who voted for him in twenty
- 42:09Speaker 3: four but maybe demoralized by the press narrative that has
- 42:13Speaker 3: been driven and to the extent this focuses them on Wow,
- 42:18Speaker 3: we're winning some big, big victories. I also really liked Look,
- 42:22Speaker 3: the no tax on tips emphasis I liked because I
- 42:24Speaker 3: wrote that bill. And I really liked his emphasis on
- 42:29Speaker 3: the Trump accounts because, as you guys know, I wrote
- 42:31Speaker 3: that too, and the Democrats wouldn't applaud for that.
- 42:34Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I actually have to pause here because I'm
- 42:37Speaker 1: sitting in the.
- 42:38Speaker 5: Upper part of the gallery to the right. If you're
- 42:41Speaker 5: the president.
- 42:42Speaker 1: Appointing and you didn't get everyone was standing up at
- 42:45Speaker 1: certain moments. That was one where I bolted up and
- 42:48Speaker 1: other people were kind of slower. I think they didn't
- 42:50Speaker 1: quite process what the Trump accounts meant. I'm really into
- 42:54Speaker 1: the Trump accounts. Like the Trump accounts I think are
- 42:57Speaker 1: such a white pill, you know, focusing on which is
- 43:02Speaker 1: an existential issue.
- 43:03Speaker 5: It's so practical, and I'm going to confess something. I
- 43:05Speaker 5: should follow this. I'm like, professionally, I'm supposed to follow
- 43:08Speaker 5: this closely.
- 43:09Speaker 1: I did not know that you were pushing the Trump accounts.
- 43:13Speaker 1: You were, I wrote it unbelieved I should have known,
- 43:15Speaker 1: but I didn't know.
- 43:16Speaker 3: In fact, do you want to hear the story of
- 43:18Speaker 3: the origin of the Trump accounts. It's a cool story.
- 43:21Speaker 3: I've told it on the pod, but not in a while.
- 43:23Speaker 3: So they originated from a poker game in Vegas, so
- 43:28Speaker 3: as you guys know, I like poker.
- 43:31Speaker 2: By the way, Michael, were you invited to this poker night?
- 43:33Speaker 2: I just want to be clear about it.
- 43:34Speaker 5: I'm very offended, but I was not invited to.
- 43:39Speaker 2: The boy we're on the same team again.
- 43:42Speaker 3: It was a poker game for political donors. If you
- 43:45Speaker 3: guys will write me a check.
- 43:48Speaker 2: Okay, now saying.
- 43:53Speaker 3: Rich podcasters, So you know you ought to.
- 43:57Speaker 2: Michael, if you and I ever have a poker game.
- 43:59Speaker 2: I think we will will organize it next time. We'll
- 44:02Speaker 2: invite the center in advance. Do you agree with that?
- 44:04Speaker 5: We're very generous people.
- 44:05Speaker 2: Yes, we are. We're very kind podcasters. Keep going with
- 44:08Speaker 2: your story, all right.
- 44:09Speaker 3: So I do a poker fundraiser typically in April in Vegas,
- 44:12Speaker 3: and so not last April, but two aprils ago. I
- 44:15Speaker 3: was there and and typically several poker pros will come.
- 44:19Speaker 3: I'm buddies with a number of the poker pros. And
- 44:22Speaker 3: so we're sitting at the Bellagio three in the morning
- 44:25Speaker 3: and Phil Hellmuth, who's one of the greatest poker players
- 44:29Speaker 3: to have ever lived. Phil would tell you he is
- 44:31Speaker 3: the greatest poker player to ever live. And he's got
- 44:33Speaker 3: a real argument to it. He's got I think fifteen bracelets,
- 44:37Speaker 3: so it's it's crazy.
- 44:39Speaker 2: That's a lot.
- 44:41Speaker 3: So we're sitting there playing poker and he asked me.
- 44:43Speaker 3: He says, hey, do you know Brad Gerster, And at
- 44:47Speaker 3: the time I didn't, I'm like, yeah, who's he? And
- 44:50Speaker 3: he's a very successful venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
- 44:55Speaker 3: he has this idea that was called in West America.
- 44:58Speaker 3: And I'm like, what's that? And and Phil describes it
- 45:00Speaker 3: for a minute, and I said, Hey, that sounds like
- 45:04Speaker 3: something I'd be really interested in. And so Phil pulls
- 45:08Speaker 3: out his phone and he puts together a text thread
- 45:11Speaker 3: and connects me and Brad and says, you two should talk.
- 45:14Speaker 3: You would really like each other. The next week, Brad
- 45:18Speaker 3: gets on a plane, flies to DC, comes to my
- 45:23Speaker 3: office and pitches the invest American accounts. I immediately called
- 45:27Speaker 3: my policy team in and said, let's start drafting this.
- 45:31Speaker 3: So we drafted the legislation. Now, Brad has said for
- 45:35Speaker 3: months he had talked to a bunch of other senators
- 45:38Speaker 3: and none of them did a damn thing. He talked
- 45:40Speaker 3: to them and they'd all kind of nod and be like, yeah, yeah,
- 45:43Speaker 3: that's a great idea, and then no one would do anything.
- 45:45Speaker 3: We sat down and wrote the bill. That is the
- 45:49Speaker 3: bill that is Trump Accounts. It was my bills great
- 45:53Speaker 3: that we wrote. And it is literally the case that
- 45:59Speaker 3: if Phil Helm does not connect me with Brad Gersner
- 46:02Speaker 3: April a year ago, there are no Trump accounts, and
- 46:05Speaker 3: the American the kids of America do not have trillions
- 46:09Speaker 3: and investments, which is what they're going to have through
- 46:11Speaker 3: Trump account you know, this.
- 46:12Speaker 2: Is Michael, Michael, you know what I heard there by
- 46:14Speaker 2: the way I heard that. Could you imagine the bills
- 46:17Speaker 2: that could have been written if you, Michael and I
- 46:20Speaker 2: were there at that table, I know, I mean the
- 46:24Speaker 2: we could have come up with. We could have cured cancer.
- 46:27Speaker 1: Maybe at this we could have ended the ninth and
- 46:29Speaker 1: tenth wars. That could have added to the record.
- 46:31Speaker 5: We could state department, the.
- 46:33Speaker 2: Ending of the Michael and Ben Warres. I like this.
- 46:35Speaker 5: You know.
- 46:35Speaker 1: The thing that I love about the Trump accounts, in
- 46:38Speaker 1: particular from the Republican coalitional standpoint, is there, you know,
- 46:42Speaker 1: the right always has all these different ideological factions because
- 46:46Speaker 1: we're more independent thinkers, and the left has progressives and
- 46:49Speaker 1: very progressives and John Fetterman, I guess, and we you know,
- 46:52Speaker 1: we kind of have all these divisions. And so one
- 46:54Speaker 1: of the divisions that's come about in recent years, last
- 46:56Speaker 1: five or ten years, is people who were focused on
- 47:00Speaker 1: more the common good, you know, kind of an Aristotelian
- 47:02Speaker 1: view of politics, and people are more focused on the
- 47:05Speaker 1: libertarian view that comes from classical liberalism up through Sahayak.
- 47:09Speaker 1: And what I love about the Trump accounts is it
- 47:11Speaker 1: actually marries the two. It's this beautiful, it just hits
- 47:15Speaker 1: this sweet spot. It's good that no flattery because I
- 47:19Speaker 1: actually didn't even know you were behind it.
- 47:20Speaker 5: That is really good.
- 47:22Speaker 3: By the way, we had Brad on Verdict. You know,
- 47:25Speaker 3: he's come on Verdict and talked about the whole idea.
- 47:28Speaker 3: And Brad came up with the idea with his two
- 47:31Speaker 3: teenage sons and they spent years pushing it and and
- 47:37Speaker 3: Brad was there and recognized by the President of the
- 47:39Speaker 3: State of the Union. So Brad had put together a
- 47:43Speaker 3: CEO's council behind the Invest America accounts, and the chairman
- 47:46Speaker 3: of it was Michael Dell. And Michael's a good friend
- 47:49Speaker 3: of mine. He's a Texan and we spent a lot
- 47:50Speaker 3: of time together. And the CEOs had all committed that
- 47:56Speaker 3: they would contribute or match to Trump accounts. So they're
- 47:58Speaker 3: two accelerators that are written into these these Trump accounts
- 48:01Speaker 3: that make them even more potent. Number one is that
- 48:04Speaker 3: employers can contributor match and Listen, when Congress passed Section
- 48:11Speaker 3: four oh one k of Arissa, nobody knew how fundamentally
- 48:16Speaker 3: they were changing how Americans save for retirement. Today, there's
- 48:19Speaker 3: more than twelve trillion dollars in four to one K accounts.
- 48:23Speaker 3: Trump accounts are for to one case for kids. Yeah,
- 48:26Speaker 3: so in very short order, you're gonna see trillions of
- 48:29Speaker 3: dollars in there. The two accelerators. One is that employers
- 48:35Speaker 3: can contributor match, and so all the employers on the
- 48:38Speaker 3: CEO Council had already committed we're going to contributor match.
- 48:42Speaker 3: This is going to become a ubiquitous as standard employee benefit,
- 48:46Speaker 3: just like a four to one K contribution is a
- 48:49Speaker 3: pretty standard employee benefit. You're gonna see employers, we're already
- 48:53Speaker 3: seeing a bunch who will match or contribute to the
- 48:57Speaker 3: Trump accounts of the kids of their employees. So that
- 49:00Speaker 3: accelerates massively. The second thing, and we deliberately wrote this
- 49:04Speaker 3: so that it can accept philanthropy and it can accept
- 49:07Speaker 3: charitable gifts. And as you know, Michael and Susan Dell
- 49:13Speaker 3: have given six and a quarter billion dollars and what
- 49:17Speaker 3: they've given is two hundred and fifty dollars for America's
- 49:21Speaker 3: two hundred and fiftyth birthday to every child in America
- 49:26Speaker 3: under age ten who lives in a zip code where
- 49:30Speaker 3: the median income is one hundred and fifty thousand or less,
- 49:34Speaker 3: and so we wrote it so you can turn the dials.
- 49:36Speaker 3: You can turn the dials geographically, you can turn the
- 49:39Speaker 3: dials age wise, you can turn the dials income wise.
- 49:43Speaker 3: So Michael's done that. Brad Gerstner has given two hundred
- 49:49Speaker 3: and fifty dollars to every kid in Indiana under age
- 49:53Speaker 3: five in zip codes with median income of one hundred
- 49:57Speaker 3: and fifty thousand or less. And Ray Dillald, the hedge
- 50:00Speaker 3: fund billionaire, has sponsored the kids in Connecticut. And I
- 50:05Speaker 3: actually have talked to a number of gazillionaires and Michael,
- 50:11Speaker 3: Dell and Brad are getting on zooms and talking to
- 50:14Speaker 3: people with great wealth. That's awesome, encouraging them give your resources.
- 50:19Speaker 3: And here Michael and I have talked at length about
- 50:21Speaker 3: that and one of the things that he got excited about. So, look,
- 50:26Speaker 3: Michael and Susan have between a hundred billion and two
- 50:29Speaker 3: hundred million dollars, Like it's a massive amount of money,
- 50:33Speaker 3: and they're smart and responsible, and so they've had serious
- 50:36Speaker 3: conversations about how do you give away your fortune? And look,
- 50:43Speaker 3: you look at people who have achieved great fortunes, they
- 50:45Speaker 3: create a foundation. The foundation gets taken over by a
- 50:49Speaker 3: bunch of Marxists who spend all their money undermining everything
- 50:51Speaker 3: the founders believe. Every time Henry Ford is rolling over
- 50:55Speaker 3: in his grave, John D. Rockefeller is spitting in his grave.
- 51:01Speaker 3: And one of the problems with that much money is
- 51:06Speaker 3: it's hard to give it away. Most charities can't take
- 51:08Speaker 3: a billion dollars like it's too much money, and it
- 51:11Speaker 3: swamps them. So Michael and Susan have given six and
- 51:15Speaker 3: a quarter billion dollars, but they've told me they are
- 51:18Speaker 3: contemplating giving much much more than that.
- 51:22Speaker 2: That's so cool.
- 51:23Speaker 3: One of the things that's really powerful about these Trump
- 51:26Speaker 3: accounts is they're infinitely scalable. Yea, they could literally absorb
- 51:32Speaker 3: the entirety of Michael Dell's fortune and the fortune of
- 51:38Speaker 3: every other gazillionaire. And what is really potent is the
- 51:43Speaker 3: time value of investing. Look, if someone starts saving or
- 51:46Speaker 3: investing when they're sixty, it's hard for it to grow
- 51:50Speaker 3: and accumulate enough to be really significant by the time
- 51:56Speaker 3: they retired. What makes the Trump accounts so incredible potent
- 52:01Speaker 3: is we're starting at age zero, we're starting at baby,
- 52:05Speaker 3: So you've got a time horizon where the kids of
- 52:09Speaker 3: a single mom waiting table can can accumulate hundreds of
- 52:14Speaker 3: thousands and even millions of dollars. And so for philanthropy,
- 52:19Speaker 3: the math is powerful. If you put another thousand dollars
- 52:22Speaker 3: in at the outset, it really really grows. And so
- 52:26Speaker 3: that's something that is going to be really significant to
- 52:29Speaker 3: speed these up. And and the point, Michael you made
- 52:32Speaker 3: which which got me really excited, is we're creating a
- 52:37Speaker 3: new generation of capitalists that every kid will have skin
- 52:41Speaker 3: in the game and be an owner of the biggest
- 52:43Speaker 3: employers in America.
- 52:45Speaker 5: I thought this was a really important point.
- 52:46Speaker 1: The President touched on well, one that the Trump accounts
- 52:49Speaker 1: just do that, so it gives people skin in the game.
- 52:53Speaker 1: Even when the President pointed out only half of Americans
- 52:55Speaker 1: have access to for one case, yeah, they said, we
- 52:57Speaker 1: want to we want to bring that other half of
- 52:59Speaker 1: the let.
- 53:00Speaker 3: Them opt in to the drift savings plan. That's an
- 53:02Speaker 3: idea I've talked with the President in the White House about.
- 53:04Speaker 3: I think it's a brilliant idea. I strongly support it.
- 53:07Speaker 3: I'm working on legislation to do that as well, to
- 53:09Speaker 3: codify that because it's look, the more you can create
- 53:15Speaker 3: investors get people with equity. And one of the important
- 53:19Speaker 3: things about how how the administration is designing the Trump
- 53:23Speaker 3: Accounts app is that it is not gonna simply say
- 53:28Speaker 3: you've got X dollars in the S and P.
- 53:30Speaker 5: Five hundred.
- 53:32Speaker 3: It's gonna break down every constituent stock they own within it.
- 53:36Speaker 2: That's awesome.
- 53:37Speaker 3: So a ten year old will be able to see
- 53:39Speaker 3: I own one hundred bucks of Apple or Tesla or
- 53:43Speaker 3: Ford or McDonald's, and they'll see so so a kid
- 53:48Speaker 3: won't be rooting. I hate evil corporations. I want them
- 53:50Speaker 3: to fail. They're gonna be like, wait, I own that corporation.
- 53:53Speaker 3: I want them to do better. That changes their whole worldview.
- 53:56Speaker 3: It makes them capitalists.
- 53:58Speaker 5: You know it.
- 53:58Speaker 1: Even during one of the big crises of capitalism in
- 54:01Speaker 1: the early twentieth century, where you had real excesses of
- 54:05Speaker 1: industrialization that created you know, like child labor and all
- 54:08Speaker 1: this stuff, there was this movement among serious Christian thinkers
- 54:12Speaker 1: to try to resolve these tensions between capitalism and the
- 54:16Speaker 1: working poor. And there were all these chesters and had
- 54:19Speaker 1: a version with Bellock distributism. But the whole point, and
- 54:22Speaker 1: there's didn't really work. But the whole point was you
- 54:25Speaker 1: need people to really have a stake in the society
- 54:30Speaker 1: in following subsidiarity, and you know all these principles that
- 54:34Speaker 1: are so enshrined in the American system too, and this
- 54:38Speaker 1: really does that where you think, oh, I have a
- 54:40Speaker 1: steak in the corporations, I have a steak here.
- 54:42Speaker 3: By the way, I miss geeky cerebral academic stuff on
- 54:46Speaker 3: the pod. I will say, the sort of tenor of
- 54:48Speaker 3: verdict has shifted. I don't know why. I can't imagine
- 54:52Speaker 3: the cause, but I'm just saying, you know, I'm having
- 54:56Speaker 3: a waft of nostalgia.
- 54:57Speaker 5: There's a little more Chesterton. It comes it.
- 54:59Speaker 2: Yes, all the people that just tell us the wakes
- 55:02Speaker 2: back up. I got you back, keep going, wake up.
- 55:06Speaker 2: Our audience level just went like this, but we're back
- 55:09Speaker 2: now they're all awake again. Make your final point.
- 55:11Speaker 1: Go ahead, this this this key is really important, because
- 55:17Speaker 1: this is what really jazzed me about it. I don't
- 55:20Speaker 1: like it when the right fractures into a million directions,
- 55:22Speaker 1: because you know, I feel for Speaker Johnson. He has
- 55:26Speaker 1: the worst job in all of politics. Yes, he has
- 55:28Speaker 1: to hurt a bunch of cats. They all have all
- 55:30Speaker 1: sorts of views. They have all sorts of principles, some
- 55:32Speaker 1: of which conflict with each other, and so it's hard
- 55:34Speaker 1: to get the right to do anything together.
- 55:37Speaker 3: And these he is a good and decent man.
- 55:40Speaker 5: Amazing, Yeah, he's one.
- 55:43Speaker 1: He's a wonderful guy, and he's doing a great He
- 55:44Speaker 1: happens to also be doing a great job.
- 55:46Speaker 5: But I just think what what the prisident.
- 55:48Speaker 1: Was speaking on, especially these kinds of issues, These are
- 55:51Speaker 1: the kind of things that can actually rally the way
- 55:53Speaker 1: together with moderate voters, frankly even central so who don't
- 55:58Speaker 1: want the crazy.
- 55:58Speaker 2: Final question for each of you quickly as we are
- 56:01Speaker 2: hitting about an hour here in our say the union
- 56:04Speaker 2: coverage over under on the midterms. Now, how much better
- 56:10Speaker 2: do you feel going at leaving the end of the
- 56:13Speaker 2: night compared to going into the beginning of the speech tonight.
- 56:15Speaker 2: How much more optimistic are we can hold the house.
- 56:20Speaker 5: Hold the house?
- 56:22Speaker 1: It's going to be very hard in my view to
- 56:24Speaker 1: hold the house. I would say, look, I feel I'll
- 56:28Speaker 1: just pick a number. I feel twenty percent better if
- 56:31Speaker 1: the Republicans can stay on message, if the Republicans cannot
- 56:35Speaker 1: devolve into petty in fighting, if the Republicans can be
- 56:39Speaker 1: disciplined in the way they campaign.
- 56:42Speaker 5: These are all you know. If wishes were horses, beggars
- 56:45Speaker 5: would ride.
- 56:46Speaker 1: I still think historic headwinds, best of circumstances, the party
- 56:51Speaker 1: and power, especially with unified government, loses the House in
- 56:53Speaker 1: the midterms.
- 56:54Speaker 5: However, I think that the President did every.
- 56:57Speaker 1: Single thing possible to put the party in an advantage
- 57:02Speaker 1: heading into the center.
- 57:04Speaker 3: And look, my view right now, the political environment is rough. Yes,
- 57:11Speaker 3: if the election were today, it would not be a
- 57:15Speaker 3: great outcome. We are nationally in about a D plus
- 57:19Speaker 3: six environment. What that means is where polling is nationally
- 57:24Speaker 3: is about six points more Democrat than it was an
- 57:26Speaker 3: election day in twenty twenty four. If we're in a
- 57:29Speaker 3: D plus six environment, we lose the House and the
- 57:35Speaker 3: Senate is potentially in jeopardy. Crazy if the election were today,
- 57:40Speaker 3: that would be a real possibility. The good news is
- 57:43Speaker 3: we got eight months and the substantive record is phenomenally good.
- 57:48Speaker 3: It's not just a little bit good, it is insanely good.
- 57:53Speaker 3: And so tonight was encouraging because Trump focused most of
- 57:56Speaker 3: his time on laying out methodically that substance record and
- 58:01Speaker 3: just how good it is and what we have to
- 58:04Speaker 3: do I mean, I do like that we have eight months.
- 58:08Speaker 3: Most Americans don't know all these victories we're winning exactly,
- 58:11Speaker 3: and so our task is communicate the victories that are
- 58:16Speaker 3: making a real difference in people's lives. But the good
- 58:19Speaker 3: news is we have a monster amount of substance to
- 58:23Speaker 3: talk about. We just need to talk about it, and
- 58:26Speaker 3: I think if we make that case, we could certainly
- 58:32Speaker 3: keep the House and the Senate and grow our majorities.
- 58:34Speaker 5: Invoda, there you go.
- 58:35Speaker 4: Thank you for listening to the forty seven Morning Update
- 58:38Speaker 4: with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever
- 58:42Speaker 4: you're listening to this podcast right now and for more
- 58:45Speaker 4: in depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson Podcast
- 58:49Speaker 4: and we will see you back here tomorrow