Best Of and More for Labor Day September 7, 2026

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1:03tales, we explore the moments where people behave badly and sometimes beautifully. We've got naughty politicians, cultural chaos, and a deep love for the Pacific Northwest, including Bigfoot. It's thoughtful, irreverent, occasionally serious, and always entertaining. Let's fall down the rabbit hole. M-S-O-W-Media. It's political. Thank you, Reddick. You think it's the far away we are, the politics bar. The Shotsmith, Pearson, Chaudy Hamilton. Good Monday evening, Labor Day evening. We're at the politics bar. Thank you very much for joining us. I am Sean Smith. Here's Johnny Hamilton. We'll be in a little bit. We've got some great best stuff for you and some great new stuff as well. Maybe you are headed home from your Labor Day weekend. Maybe you're still stuck in traffic on the way home.

2:03We get it. We understand. It's one of those kind of days. Look, thank you everybody listening on your great radio affiliates like WCBT AMA 20 in Chicago or AM950 Minneapolis, Impal. Thanks to the folks listening in the Georgia area on Georgia now radio and in the DDoT Rock area in Tri-City's area of Tennessee or on progressive voices radio worldwide wherever you happen to be. And thank you as well to all of our great future people listening on your favorite podcast player or if you are subscribed at the politics bar dot com. Look, we have some great interviews this evening. We got Lauren Bassett, John Airvosis, Ashley Bell and Dr. Annie Andrews. Yes, there was some news this weekend. We will do a full news on tap for you tomorrow, including that attack on Dr. Amy Acton, and another Democratic candidate in Ohio. It's it's scary out there. But look, this is the time for all of us who do believe in democracy to stand up and especially in these next 60 some odd days until the election. One of our interviews that we had with Dr. Annie Andrews started on August 13th.

3:04We'll give you a little bit of this best of from her talking about what any Andrews wants to do for the people of South Carolina. It's Labor Day evening right here at the politics bar on this Monday night. For those people who don't know Dr. Andrews, she's been in South Carolina now. I think for what around almost 20 years and used to work at the children's hospital there. I'm trying to remember it's a well, I'm trying to remember what professionally it's a pediatric. It's a specific type of a pediatric doctor. We basically stay in the hospital. Yes, yes, that's right. I'm a pediatric hospitalist. So it's an official sub specialty of the specialty of pediatrics. So I'm board certified in pediatrics and as a pediatric hospital medicine physician because taking care of sick and injured kids in the hospital setting is very different than taking care of them in the outpatient setting. So over the past like two decades, decade and a half, the field really evolved. And so now pediatricians are really split. The ones who work in the hospital, the ones who work in the outpatient setting.

4:05I love the fast pace of the hospital setting. I love that I make a decision in the morning and I see the results of that decision in the afternoon. So yeah, I've worked in children's hospitals my entire 20 year, actually legitimately 20 years this June. I've been working in children's hospitals. You look like you're 25. Yeah, there's that too. I agree with that, Jay. Yeah. But here's the thing, my mom was an RN and she worked most of her career in nursery, NICU, little L and D. So obviously kind of some overlap there. I always think of when I think of my mom like that, a lot of people think it's all fun and cute. Oh, it's babies and it's like, nah, you get, you get some of those cases that are that are the worst. And especially these days with all of the loops and hoops that everybody has to deal with with the stupid ass insurance that we've got. And the fact that Republicans keep trying to cut Medicare and Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. And I mean, as a doctor, you didn't just have to understand the health of your patients,

5:09the physical systems, but you had to understand the insurance systems and the hospital systems and the bureaucracy. So this is not dealing with bureaucracy isn't new to you. No, not at all. And it's really the reason I got involved in politics. I mean, it's the broken healthcare system, the bureaucracy of the healthcare system. As we see the C-suite budget bloat and we see nurses get cuts and don't get pay raises, but we've got more people who work in the C-suite. The process of taking care of patients over my 20 year career ended up being less and less time at the sick child's bedside. More and more time on the phone with insurance companies are working with the case managers and social workers to navigate where these kids can get their follow-up appointments, which pharmacy will pay for their prescriptions. The system is so, so broken. And that was part of what motivated me to get involved in politics, but really it's the impact of broken policies on my patients and their families, you know, that helped me understand. I can take care of individuals, sick or injured children for my career, which is an amazing

6:12way to spend your time. Sure. Or I could go upstream and solve my patients and their families problems at the federal government level. And that's what I'm aiming to do here in this race. And in my first term as the next senator from the great state of South Carolina. Amen. I haven't heard of Bell on that one because I do want to see you. I do. I know I can't wait. I want to see the people of South Carolina have a senator who actually listens to what they're saying. When you've been out, when you've been knocking on the doors, when you've been talking to the people, when you stopped by like a home team barbecue or, you know, I know you probably don't have time to hang out at Millers in Charleston. You know, the breakfast spot. Yeah. I think I've been there once the past 14 months. You've been a little busy, just a little busy. But when you're out and you're talking to people, what are they doing? And does it matter to them that you're a Democrat or what kind of Democrat they think? Does any of that matter to them? So I like the framing of that question.

7:12I mean, just like most people running for office, it's I'm hearing about gas prices, grocery prices, lack of affordable child care. I'm hearing here in South Carolina more people than you would think are acutely aware of the role Medicaid plays in our healthcare system. And folks are worried and really upset about the impending Medicaid budget cuts. Right. They're, you know, their ACHAC subsidies expired. So their premiums have gone up. They keep paying more and more at the pharmacy for their prescription drugs. So I'm hearing about all of those kitchen table issues. I'm also hearing from non-democrats, independents and centri-right Republicans about like, why do we pay their salary? They're not doing anything. Why is Washington so broken? We've got to change it. I'm just looking for something different, you know, especially a lot of, you know, senior citizen veterans who just can't believe how far this country has really fallen on the international stage. People who are just setting partisanship aside because they recognize Washington is broken, which is why I think one of the reasons my candidacy is breaking through because I am a political

8:15outside. I've run for office once before, but I've never served in office. I have a different profession, a different whole, you know, background of expertise that I can bring up there. But people also see me as someone who's just fed up like they are, but who decided to take that feeling and channel it into running for the US Senate. And so I do think we're breaking through traditional partisan voting patterns because of how terrible this administration is and how just, you know, totally ineffective the US Senate has become. What are your thoughts on bill Cassidy? You can say them on the radio. I was. Well, you know, I did, when he voted to confirm our FK junior, I did tweet, quote, tweeted him and I said, I hope you never sleep well at night again. And I stand by that statement. You kind of do on that. Understandable. I mean, he knew what he was doing was wrong and he did it anyways. I mean, he's a hepatologist and he voted to confirm the guy who, you know, totally disrupted our distribution of administration of hepatitis B vaccines, which have drastically reduced the

9:19incidence of chronic liver disease and liver cancer in this country. He absolutely knew what he was doing, but he was trying to maintain his allegiance to Donald Trump and what did it get him? It got him a Trump backed primary and he got primary out. And it just shows you that like, you know, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. And I talked to so many doctors who bring up Bill Cassidy to me and they're so frustrated by, you know, because I say we need to elect more doctors and they're like, what about Rand Paul and Bill Cassidy? I'm like, okay, we need to elect more doctors who care about patients. I mean, I'm not first. Exactly. Elect more doctors that care, elect more people that care. I mean, this is, this is a reminder. It's really been a reminder. We've been talking to a number of different people. We had Ashley Bell, who's up the road in North Carolina, eight, running for the house in last week. We had Kurt from Ohio. He's a friend of Sherrod Browns. We had him on Thursday. The things that we are hearing both from the people who come to the bar and, you know,

10:21give us information off of their socials and private messages or whatever and stuff we see publicly and the stuff that we're hearing from you folks who are out there in the ground reminds, it reminds me. And you and I've talked about this a bunch, Joe. We started to call this doctor Andrews. We've started to call as of, well, basically yesterday, the GTFO election because people will back in 2008 when I worked on the Obama Biden campaign in Iowa. And I've told the story. I bring around Bar here and knows this one. We had a volunteer who she went out to, to a house, rural, kind of rural area and screen doors open, knocks in the door and sees this woman and, you know, hey, it's just checking to see are you going to vote in the election and who might you vote for? If you want to tell me and the woman, Hollister, husband, who we voting for and the guy says, we're voting for the, and drops the N word. And this woman just turns back to our volunteer and says, yeah, we're voting for the N word. Right. I know, Dr. I know. Right.

11:22Right. Right. But thankfully our volunteer just kept face. She was fine. It was good. Just thank you. And okay. And you know, me ask why and, and, and basically the woman said, we'll vote for anybody who will get us the F out of here. We don't, we're done with this. We're done with the, all the war and the bad economy. And what do you know? Now here in 2026, we're hearing the same thing from people across the board going, I don't care as, as long as you're for democracy and capitalism that works. Great. Well, I don't care what you label is. I don't care what Collier. I don't care what gender you get. If you let us that F out of here. Is this. It sounds like that's kind of what you're hearing from the people in South Carolina. Yeah, I think that, that actually really pretty well encapsulates what I'm hearing down here that people, when you, when you're feeling the pain, like the real pain of not making ends meet at the end of the month, when you're watching us, you know, write a blank check to fight this war, but we're cutting snap benefits and Medicaid.

12:25I think people, people do just, you know, reevaluate and they're want to try something new. And that's why I think so many of these elections are going to shock a lot of people, because just like we had secret Trump voters that we didn't expect in 2016 and 2024, I think there's going to be a lot of secret, anti-Andrus voters and Democratic voters all across the state and the country because they're not going to go out there and wear my t-shirt, but they're going to show up and vote for something different than what they've been voting for for the past 30 years that has done nothing to help people here in South Carolina. Right. Right. Good. And look, you will like the old-fashioned conservative people. The folks who used to do good, you will keep the good things like, you know, the great constituent services. You're going to serve your constituents extremely well. Yes. But then you're actually going to go to the Senate and actually get things done. Right, because it's not a career for like, I don't want this to be my career.

13:26I'm not going to operate in a way just to protect my own political future or to please the special interest groups. You know, I'm just going to go up there to do the job. Like, why would I take all this time away from the career that I love all this time away from my three children who I don't see very often anymore to go up there and just sell out or to just, you know, shrug my shoulders and say, well, that problem's too hard to solve. I mean, we just need more people with that can-do attitude, like roll up your sleeves and do the job. That's what doctors do every day. Like, we don't have the choice to just say, oh, that kid's too sick for me. I'm too tired today or this is too hard. I don't want to call that surgeon that I need to help me. So I'm just not going to do it. I don't go on TV and blame people for my the sick patient in front of me. You just get the job done. Right. There's so many professionals out there who go to work every day and get the job done. But that's really not the ethos of Washington, DC. But we need more people who have that ethos that it is a job, that it is a public service job. I mean, you are a doctor trying to diagnose the illness. You have diagnosed

14:28the illness of our political system. Now you just want to administer the medicine. Yeah, exactly. Jody. Yeah. The comprehensive treatment plan I have for what is the United States of America. I love them. And you're willing to work with whoever it is to make sure that we get things a little bit better, right? Yes. Yes, because we're never going to get anything done if we just talk over each other. Right. Exactly. Hey, Dr. Andrews, we got to, you know, clean a couple things up and paste and bills. Can we keep you around for one more segment? Yes, I can do that. Thank you. We do have a second segment with Dr. Annie Andrews from her second visit to the politics bar. This one on August 26th. Yes, she happens to have a Republican opponent, Darley and Graham polls show for the most part that they're even. There are some bias polls showing one is up over the other. But look, we're going to talk more with Dr. Annie Andrews. We've got more with her next in this Labor Day here at the politics bar. We'll be right back after we pay some bills at the politics bar.

15:32Monday evening, Labor Day evening here at the politics bar. Jody Hamilton will be in in just a little bit. We'll do that drink the day when she gets here. Back to our interviews with Dr. Annie Andrews. She was back at the bar here the second time Wednesday, August 26th, talking about her opponent, Darley Graham and how the Republican Miss Graham is completely unrepairned. We mean while Dr. Andrews, the Democratic candidate for US Senate in South Carolina, she really knows what the hell she's doing. She's actually doing an affordability tour across the state right now. Hopefully you caught her this weekend. Maybe you'll catch her tomorrow in St. Helena. We've got more from that interview on August 26th now with Jody and me and Dr. Andrews here at the politics bar. Darleen in her primary winning speech, whatever, I was just freaked out about this. She said something that just I'm like, I knew and then I saw your social media posts earlier today, Dr. Andrews. And I was like, oh, yeah, she caught it. She's all about this. So she trashed you for supporting universal affordable healthcare. And then she said her parents died young because

16:35they couldn't afford healthcare. Is that a self-owned doctor Andrews is laughing about this by the way? Yeah. I'm like, does this make sense to anybody else? Does everybody else is confused? Does I am about that? I am. Dr. Andrews, what your diagnosis on her little comment there? She's unprepared for the moment. There you go. Amen. That seemed so unprepared. And it didn't seem like it seemed like somebody wrote a zinger and she's like, yeah, didn't even that she didn't even use the prep that she had. Yeah. I mean, she read that entire speech from a legal pad, barely making eye contact with the camera. I'm sure she didn't write these lines. So like someone actually thought of those sentences and put them together and then wrote them on a piece of paper. And then she said them into a microphone, making a wonderful argument for shifting this country's healthcare system to one that actually centers patients. So she's doing some of my job for me. I mean, that's fine. I mean, if she's, if she's going to help, I mean, you know, we won't list edges in

17:38kind contribution, but that's perfect. Fine. Just say it. But so here's the thing. These are the things that that South Carolinians really care about. They care about affordable healthcare. They care about affordability. Does, does any of this whole thing with the Canadian trade war make any? Oh, oh, oh, and the comment that she made at the debate with Ralph North and about the whole, I don't know anything about foreign policy in Taiwan. You know, South Carolina better than we do. Jody's in the LA corner. I'm in the DC corner of the bar. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in South Carolina, you know, one of the industries that's kind of growing there is, you know, like EVs and green energy that use a lot of these semi-conductors that come from Taiwan. Yes. And I mean, even if it wasn't anyone who has the job of US Senator or who is applying for the job of US Senator should should do their best to brush up on some foreign policy, national security topics before they step on to a live televised debate stage. Like it's fine

18:43that she's an outsider, but being new to politics is not an excuse to show up unprepared. I'm a doctor. If I ever showed up to my job unprepared, a child could die. But this is a US Senate race. It's just as serious and she has treated it as anything but that. She is saying things that people are telling her to say she is not ready for this moment. And honestly, I woke up this morning with a little extra spring in my step because I feel like what happened last night paved the way for me to make political history in November for me to do what I've set out over a year ago to do, which is to win this race and return this Senate seat to the people of South Carolina where it belongs. Amen. I love that thought. Yeah. Yeah. We'll let you clap. That's fine. Thank you, Scana. We appreciate that. Scana likes you a lot. He's, I think he subscribed to your, well, one of your social media platforms. Yeah. But look, this it is. It is the seat that belongs to the people of South Carolina and the people of South Carolina do care about things like like the

19:43data center issue. Yes. Am I wrong in saying that that, you know, since we're talking about being prepared that you've prepared that you are our understanding some of the issues of siding of some of the issues of possibly doing redoing the electrical transmission issues that we have with our entire grid across the country. These are things that can't be done at the South Carolina level. These are things that need to be done at the congressional level. Fill me in on, fill me in on what you know, or I mean, you know, I'm a, I'm a glass half full optimistic person. So I continue to believe that this data center issue is going to be the issue that reminds Americans across the country that there is more that unites us than divides us. Yeah. The common enemy is corporate interests. It's profits over people, corporations over communities. Because in South Carolina, we have watched as Republicans and Democrats have joined together at these city council, county council meetings to fight back against the corporations who are trying to build these data centers, you know, that suck power off the grid, pollute the water underneath, creates, you know, noise pollution and

20:48bring no jobs in nothing, nothing to the community to benefit the community. So I think this is a huge opportunity for us to unite together to fight back against corporate interests to put people in community first. And I think that that's really the same sort of notion that my campaign has been tapping into for the past year because I'm plus 33 points with independence in our most recent polling. I'm tied with Darlene, we're 41 to 41. And on the informed ballot, I go up five points. So the seat is very much in play. And that's not just Democrats that are that are making it a big difference. But it's my race. South Carolina. These are Republicans who are tired of what their party has become. And these are independent voters. We are bringing people together with my pragmatic approach to actually fight to solve the problem. South Carolinians are facing. Yay. You were saying, Jody, that Ralph Darleens primary opponents, this concession speech, Donald got booed. Right. Like, and as you said, Dr. Andrews, these are hardcore Republicans. These

21:48are the the the the mega folks, the hardcore mega folks. At least tea partners. I mean, you know, I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, Trump and the Washington machine spent millions and millions of dollars to prop up Darlene. And she ultimately only one by five points. So we have a very divided Republican party in South Carolina, while we have a very united and motivated Democratic party in South Carolina, you know, Democrats have been united since June 10th, the day after I won my primary. And then we've been doing the work to bring over these independent and center right Republicans. And now I'm hearing a lot on social media today about right in campaigns for Ralph Norman, about voting for me out of spite, which I will take a vote out of spite to vote is a vote or staying home because they're just so upset about how Washington put their finger on the scale in this primary election. They did. I mean, Donald Trump, his his super pack, by the way, his super pack is going to spend it has I think they have something like $400 million. They hadn't

22:48spent anything since April, but they did spend about a million on Darlene to try to beat Ralph, which I'm like, yeah. And that was just yesterday. Forget out the vote text messaging and phone calls. Like, that was just a fraction of what was spent on her behalf. I mean, it's really kind of crazy the way she was propped up. And she hasn't been properly vetted, you know, what happened to me last night when they called this race in Darlene's favor is the kind of thing that every candidate across the country wishes would happen to them where, you know, the race gets flipped turned upside down and all the sudden you're presented with an opponent who continues to make unforced errors because she's unprepared for the moment. She has said she's just going to be a rubber stamp for this administration. South Carolinians do not want a rubber stamp. We are in the end of it minded people. This is a thing I want to say. So, so the the chip issue, you've done a little homework on that as far as that goes, the chip issue and the data center issue. What are some solutions that you plan on working on when you get to DC? Yeah. So we're going to be actually releasing an affordability plan here in just a number of days. And in that it talks about my position on data centers. And I think,

23:51you know, this we've gotten so far behind regulating how these corporations are taking advantages of states like South Carolina, particularly rural and povers counties in states like South Carolina, that we're going to be calling for a two year moratorium. You know, we we have to keep up with China. China is an existential threat. We're learning news about Chinese lack of cyber security today. But we also need to protect our communities. We need our communities to recognize that they have a voice in this that it's South Carolina that has something these corporations want. If they're going to build these data centers, we need to say we need to negotiate. We need to come to the negotiating table. But until we put proper regulations in place to protect communities from these greedy corporations, I do believe we need a moratorium. So we're going to be doing that. We're also, you know, it's important that we maintain our relationship with Taiwan, which is a courageous democracy in the face of the existential threat that is China. You know, not just because it's the right thing to do, but also because of the semiconductor industry in Taiwan where they make over 60% of the globe semiconductors, you know, this is a global economic issue that we, you know,

24:55stand or democratic allies in Taiwan. And not only that, here's the big thing is that the green energy is whether anybody likes it or not, we're going to have and a lot of like the trucks are a lot better. You get a lot more torque from some of that type of stuff. And South Carolina has been moving forward in that with EVs, with solar technology, obviously, and I know, researched on that as well. You're not saying moratorium forever. You're saying, let's stop everything till we can get a handle on this situation. And then once we get a handle on it, if it's before two years, great, but the sooner we get some rules of the road, because right now, these big rich tech corporations are just coming in and running roughshod over the folks in South Carolina, and really all over the country. Right. And so therefore, you just have to be firm. You can't just say, oh, no, like, let's, let's talk. Let's talk nicer. Listen to what we have to say. Like, we have to be firm. We have to realize that we are in the negotiating position as communities in South Carolina, where we have the

25:59land that they want and that they need. And so we need to put a pause so that we make sure that they just don't run rampage across the state of South Carolina in a way that does nothing to benefit the state of South Carolina, but just continues to build corporate profits. Because of the, like I said, the solar industry is down your corner of the world like that. If they did it smart, you guys could say, look, you could build this, but first, you got to provide your own power. I know since we make the stuff that provides power in our state, by the way, you got to buy it from the state of South Carolina. So then it would make even more jobs for the state of South Carolina. And people go, oh, I hadn't thought about that. I'm like, yeah, you got to put the in order as far as that goes. Right. And of course, you've also got your prescriptions not only for the big tech issue and the data center issue, but obviously the healthcare issue. You just want it to be affordable. You're not married to one particular version, but you want everyone covered at an affordable cost, right? Yeah, that's right. Because I'm a pragmatic person, because I understand the reality of America's political climate. I understand the diversity of viewpoints on this issue

27:02in America today, but our current system is not working. And so we have to take bold steps to build a system that actually meets the needs of patients. And one of those steps, I believe we've talked about is a public option. And I, to me, that's a pragmatic next. Dr. Andrews is right. I love that we got to be a deal for that. Yeah, look, I mean, look, you don't want to enjoy. I owe over $1,500 a month for my premiums in California, yes. I'm 59 years old. So not old enough for Medicare. And so it's because you get to this certain age, it costs, and I'm on a silver plan. I'm not even on a bronze plan. You know, it's, and my deductible is $5,000. I mean, it's insane. And then your co insurance and your co-payment, right? And you're saying, and you're saying, Dr. Andrews, correct me if I'm wrong, that that look, you don't want the insurance companies to be bogged down either. You care about the fact that you want the business and you want the people who are working in insurance in South Carolina to be able to keep their jobs, but we can organize things so it's

28:04a little bit better. And for those insurance companies where it isn't really profitable to have them, that's what a public option would do. That's what we do in other situations where the government steps into a lot of places, I know here in Virginia, we have those ABC stores where they just said, look, we don't necessarily trust local people. That's why the state runs them. A lot of places in the country have similar. Right. He has them too. Yeah, exactly. So, okay. So then we get get to one of the other issues that is been ignored by a lot of people, although I looked at a couple of new sources in South Carolina and the FEMA issue and the making sure that whoever is in the White House is actually doing the job that they're supposed to be doing because South Carolinians need the help. That's what the federal emergency management assistance program is about. And right now, it's just, it hasn't been. Y'all are just getting some money. I think I heard from the storms here like two, three, four years ago. Yeah. And you know, South Carolina, we're really, you know, front row seat to this, you know, what the effects of climate change on, you know,

29:07these severe storms that we have as a mom of three school-aged children. It seems like every school year, they're out for a whole week because there's a storm brewing in the Atlantic ocean. It's incredibly disruptive to South Carolina's economy. Right. And then when the storms do hit, you know, having families being able to get the resources they need in the immediate aftermath of these tragic storms and rebuilding communities years later, you know, we saw that with Helene and we saw like decades ago with Hugo. And you know, it's just again, like our government has gotten our federal government is so dysfunctional. We've forgotten how to do the basic functions of governing, which include helping communities after storms. You know, these are the things I want my tax dollars to pay for, not just endless wars overseas. So, yeah, amen. And we need thinking serious people in Washington, D.C. That's why I'm so excited to be in a position where I'm in a tide race for the US Senate seat here in South Carolina because I think it'll be a big step forward. If we instead of anointing the sister who is unprepared as you can possibly be that we send a thinking person, a pediatrician, a mom and the thick of parenting to represent South Carolina

30:10in Washington, D.C. Somebody who actually paid attention. Yeah, I wish I could too because honestly, I mean, somebody who pays attention to the information that she's been given to who learns about it, who is prepared, who has been preparing for this job for a whole year and like, hey, you, I mean, you really has a darling, darling, darling, been in office since what six weeks, six weeks, I think she should learn a little a little. Stay up late and study. Have some cramps. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Get an extra coffee, darling. She's We know you got to go. We are so glad that you were just able to bump in just for a little bit, Dr. Andrews. Look, you get any time the next 69 days and you want to holler at us, just be like, hey, can I come by the bar? You are always welcome here, Dr. Andrews. Absolutely. Great. Thank you all so much. Thank you very much. Dr. Annie Andrews, Democratic nominee for the US Senate from South Carolina. If you are there, y'all, please vote for her. That's what I'm saying. Please, please. We love that. Dr. Andrews, thank you.

31:12It is a best of plus new stuff here on this Labor Day weekend. Jody just about to come in. We're going to get to that drink of the day next here on this Monday night at the politics bar. We'll be right back after we pay some bills at the politics bar. Monday night Labor Day evening here at the politics bar. Thank you very much for hanging out and, you know, listen to some best of. And of course, this is brand new stuff. Why? Well, you know, I mean, Jody and I stopped back because, you know, you guys are working. Some of you are working out there. Some of you work today. It's not, yeah. Exactly. You know, things going on. People, it look, not everybody can go to the beach. Some people actually have to be the ones taking care of this stuff, you know, like Dr. Andrews. By the way, thank you to Dr. Andrews. We'll play a couple of segments from her. We got some more coming up from Ashley Bell from Lauren Bassett and from John Aerovosis, obviously. Perfect. Yeah, we look. Yeah, it's a nice smattering of really

32:15good people who know how to work very hard. Thank you, by the way, everybody who has been listening to us on all of our great radio affiliates tonight. And of course, if you are listening on your favorite podcast player, you can always subscribe at the politics bar dot com. I'll catch you the podcast with no ads. And it also gets you the news on tap, which I know we didn't put one today, but it's labor day. I mean, you know, not a whole lot of news happens today. But it does also get you the drink of the day with the recipe. And we got to do that this. Yeah, we can do it this segment. I suppose. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, I have to have to hit this because this happened, like Friday night after we left the bar, it was not too bad. I was really glad that the judge Tellwani up in Boston put a preliminary injunction again on the on Trump's executive order trying to limit male valid voting. I'm like, yeah, that was that's very nice. We'll see if they follow through. They keep, I mean, he just keeps trying. It's like you idiots. I mean, if they don't, if if any

33:20post office doesn't do what she says, these people are up for being arrested, correct? Mm-hmm. Yep. That's right. That's a corridor. The violating of quarters. Big deal. Yeah. That's a code that we looked up the other day. Yeah. I just, I just think that a postal workers need to be paying attention to the rules. They need to be, you know, allying themselves with other workers. In fact, that's that's kind of a whole point of labor day, of course. Yeah. Look, a history of labor day in the United States is relatively simple. Yes, it's not in the spring like others because of the haymarket incident, a haymarket incident in case you guys forgot to begin haymarket square in Chicago on May 4, 1886 started as a peaceful labor day rally and supporting an eight hour work day. Then an unknown person through a dynamite bomb, cops started shooting and seven people ended up dead. Cops, of course, blame the whole thing on socialists. No proof though. The spring date, of course, then because of that, has ties to violence and book a book of socialism workers around the world use the incidents to start international

34:22workers day, which is in the spring. Meanwhile, a dozen years later in May of 1894, the Pullman strike cap and after railroad workers went on a massive strike due to the Pullman company, cutting wages, but not rent or food costs to the company stores or in company housing. So, to make peace with the strikers that summer because it was a big huge national railway strike, big deal back in 1894. Present Grover Cleveland rushed past a national labor law that summer. He announced a new holiday that summer, Labor Day, which would conveniently happen in the fall because there was a big union in New York City, the Central Labor Union. They'd been doing a big workers parade in the fall early September. They started doing a couple years. Cleveland went, we can separate the US Labor Day from the international workers day. So he signed the big pro labor law and basically pinned it with the the big labor rallies that had started happening in the fall.

35:26And that way they could separate it from the book of book of socialism, whatever. I know over 100 years ago, we're ridiculous, but anyway, that that is the story of Labor Day in a nutshell here in the United States. But Trump obviously, he, you know, he still keeps basically threatening violent stuff. And I'm just like, you're such an idiot, dude. I mean, nobody needs that. No, we don't. I mean, it's, there is a tender box, a brewing in fact, Carlos on Wednesday was worried that we might go to arms again in this country. And I hope he's wrong. And he I hope so too. I mean, you know, I, but I understand, especially when you look around on a day like today, when most people, a lot of people have the day off, whether in a lot of places isn't bad, you know, whether it's been decent and well, it needs being hot, but it's still, you know, it's the end of summer. And you just see it look around and you go, man, come on, we can do better than this. So, you know, you just want to sit back, you just want to chill out with your

36:26friends, have a beer, it'll all work out. I hope. We got to, we got to make it work to work out, but speaking of beers, by the way, drink of the day to day, Jody, what, what is the drink of the day to day? And what is the inspiration for it? It's a vice and sour cocktail inspired by national beer lovers day, which is today. Yeah. Actually, I think, I think, I think this is the perfect day for it to be national beer day. It's on label for all the people who work really hard for your unions. If you know somebody in a union, thank a union number. Absolutely. Obviously, we've got a little bit of history about beer, which is fun. Early is known evidence of beer brewing dates back roughly 6,000 years, which, you know, look, everybody around the world likes beer, or at least most societies do. It is a cause of and solution to all of your problems. It's as home. I love that. Jody, what happens to be in this vice and sour, yeah,

37:32vice and sour cocktail. That's what it is. Yes. Okay. You're going to need a pre-chilled Collins glass, a shaker, some ice, two ounces of bourbon whiskey, a bar spoon of orange marmalade, which is basically a tablespoon. Okay. That makes sense. Three quarters of an ounce of lemon juice freshly squeezed, two dashes of orange bitters by Angostura. Top it with vissa wheat, which is the wheat beer. If you've ever had half a vise, that's a good, right? Okay. That makes sense. Right. Good idea. Beer. And then your garnish is a lemon slice. This is a very refreshing yeah, especially for places that are where it's really hot. This is really. Yeah. It really does. So you stir the marmalade with the bourbon in the base of the shaker to dissolve the marmalade. Okay. You're going to get that flavor. All right. It's not a lot. If you're not a big marmalade fan, and I'm not the biggest marmalade fan, but it's a small amount. So it should taste very nicely with the beer and everything. Okay. You add your lemon juice and bitters and you shake it in the iser in the iser in the shake. Right. I know. I know what I'm talking about. It's been a long holiday weekend. It's fine. My dyslexia went shaker iser. Uh, so shake until cold, obviously. Strain

38:42into your ice-filled Collins glass. Top with the beer and briefly stir. And then you add the lemon slice for garnish. Yeah. It's very refreshing. I like this. This sounds. It sounds good. It almost sounds like a like a pumped up. Um, uh, what am I thinking? Like a Sam Adams or I suppose you could use a Sam Adams word. You could. Anything that's weak like, okay. It's a flavor for the beer because that's the flavor you're going for. That's cool. If you guys miss any part of the drink of the day or any of our drinks of the day, you're like, yeah, I'm not in a beer. I want something else. I want a mocktail. We got those two at the paltrysport.com exactly. Just to make sure you subscribe so you can get the recipes and all the other good stuff as well. Do you have any big, uh, labor day memories? Uh, like, you know, things that maybe you guys used to do when you were a kid or things that, you know, you and Lonnie have done or. I mean, we've gone to parties and barbecues and things like that. Nothing like stands out. I mean, usually school would start the day after. Right. This is like the latest. I think this is the latest labor day possible.

39:43I think you're right because it's the first Monday. Yeah, but I mean, this is like way late. I mean, we're in September, big time. We're in December, a full week now. So I mean, right. So yeah, I mean, it's usually earlier. Mm hmm. But, uh, yeah, I mean, we would start, except for when I went to school on in Hawaii, we would start the day after labor day school. Yeah. And then, and then you get out before, um, memorably. Not if I started in September. Then I would get out in June. I still remember that's that at least that's that's how it went. It's weird because I'm going now, it seems like there's only about two months of of of time off by sister being a teacher and I'll see, they started like almost a month ago. And we would start in, uh, in Hawaii, uh, Maui, we started the second week in August. Yeah. That's what she started. Yeah. And then we'd be out by, by, uh, Memorial Day. And then, uh, yeah. Yeah. Cause I think I think she, she, I don't think she was out until,

40:46like, beginning of June. So it was basically, I mean, like two months is my lawyer. Yeah, my room, someone was three months. So when I started my senior year in high school, when I moved back here, we started the day after Labor Day. And then we graduated June 9th. Yeah. See, that's, wow. It's crazy. How, and here's the funny, here's the weird thing. Summer isn't technically done yet. I mean, meteorological summer, I think, um, it's 20th. Okay. Yeah. So I mean, also the fall, uh, uh, uh, the autumnal equinox. Equinox. Thank you. Yeah. I love, it is my favorite season. I do like, I like fond and spring. Those are my favorites. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm not, well, I, I used to say that I, I hated winter. And I still dislike winter sometimes. Um, it's different, obviously, in Southern California, cause, you know, winter's a little bit lighter. You don't get snow rarely. But I'm like, having lived in in South Florida for three and a half years and not having winter at all,

41:50it's almost like having a phantom limb. You're like, I'm missing something there to, something is met them. Where, where is the winter thing? What is the, what is this? What is this? And, and while you're at first, you're like, it's not cold. I'm enjoying this. Your brain, just the natural passage of time, you're like, the hell, man, time, did somebody put pause on Mother Nature with the hell? This is wrong. Yeah. So I'm, I'm not, I'm like, having lived that, I'm like, you know, no, I mean, there, there's a time for each season. And obviously, like, say, you know, bottom coming up, uh, baseball, obviously, we've only got, um, less than a month now. Yeah, the Dodgers have learned a tough lesson. They'll go to Donald Trump. Although, well, true, although your, your Dodgers and my nationals are playing this weekend. And I believe I pretty sure started the weekend with my nationals losing. I think that's been a, well, that's, that's the actually that, that trend started long before now. Usually the way that the nationals do things these days is if they're good, they'll only be good

42:54before the all-star game. And then the rest of the summer, they're kind of sketch. And, which is pretty much been the case this season. So, well, that's very similar to pro football. It's like if you're doing really good in the preseason. Oh, sorry. Although I had, uh, uh, first, big college games over the weekend. Huskers obviously had their game and, uh, and the Husker volleyball game was yesterday at Rigglyfield, you know, small, small, only only 45,000, not the 92,000, three that were used to, yeah, you know, just, just, just a few people. And it kind of crowd for them. Well, that's, that's what I'm saying. That's, there, there are people who I, I've made that joke several times over the weekend. And people are like, really, really? And I go, it's just, you know, that's for, for me, everybody has their thing. For me, I like watching Husker volleyball. And I just like it because they're really badass. And we keep kicking everybody's ass. So that's unfortunately, there was a, a small incident, uh, the people who actually set the event up, didn't count on things like dew point or a slick playing surface. Anyway, it's, it didn't spoil

44:00the whole thing. It was good. It was still a fun way to celebrate the weekend. However, you guys are celebrating your Labor Day weekend. Uh, you know, we hope that it's good. We hope you have said thanks to somebody in the union, whatever, you know, which is fine. And we hope that maybe you are not partying too hard. Because remember, um, basically tomorrow was a double Monday. Tomorrow is, it's Tuesday, but remember, there was no work for a lot of people today. So everybody will be back tomorrow, which is okay. Hey, um, tomorrow, by the way, Brooklyn Dad Defiance, since he was not here tonight, he will actually be joining us tomorrow. He will. Here at the bar, which that's kind of a neat thing. Uh, it's, it's not quite like, um, when we do John Fugel saying on, on like Friday and we're like, isn't it Thursdays with Google thing? So anyway, look, uh, we still have more here at the politics bar this evening. Obviously, we have some great best of bits, uh, some stuff really. John Air Vosis, uh, uh, uh, talking about some of the, the, um, the voting issues, the Donald Trump is trying to screw us stuff up with. Uh, we've got great

45:03stuff from Lauren Bassett and of course Ashley Bell running in North Carolina. We've got a little, uh, a clip from her as well. So freshen your drink. Uh, come on back. It is a Labor Day best of plus here at the politics bar with Jody Hamilton and me, Sean Smith Pierce, uh, get yourself a drink. We got another round. In fact, a whole other hour coming up next. We'll be right back after we pay some bills at the politics bar. Summer is for enjoying barbecues, cocktails and travel, but it can catch up with you. If you're feeling a little off, your body might need a detox. Quick silver scientific's push catch liver detox is designed to support your liver and natural detox pathways, helping you process and eliminate the toxins. Reset, feel lighter and make the most of your summer. 10% off and free shipping at tricues.com slash podcast. That's tricues.com slash podcast for 10% off and free shipping. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is unintended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Medical. Thank you. Redicone.

46:06You'll be in the bar wherever you are. The politics bar. Sean Smith Pierce and Jody Hamilton. It is our number two here on this Labor Day Monday. Mayn, hopefully you are sticking with us. Hope you haven't missed anything. If you did, hey, look, you can subscribe to the podcast at the politics bar. .com $6 a month gets you the podcast every weeknight, to add free and get you the drink of the day fresh stuff every single weekday. Thank you, by the way, to everybody joining us in all of our great radio affiliates like WCPT, AMA 20 Chicago, AM950, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Georgian, our radio, the ATL, the D2 we're talking Tennessee, the progressive voices radio worldwide wherever you happen to be. Earlier this month, last month actually, we had John Aravosis in talking about a lot of legal issues involved, including this stupid male ballot issue. I can't just want to check this out. So more of the best of plus new here at the politics bar. One of the reasons we're we really wanted to ask you here, obviously, just because, you know,

47:06I mean, you know Jody a little bit over the years. You and I bumped into each other over the years on social media a little bit, but you know law and you know politics. And obviously this whole thing going on with the voting and Supreme Court, what the hell, man? I mean, how clear can it be that the states have control over the elections over everything, including the male and ballot stuff? And the president, whoever he, she they are, does not get control over that at all. Should be period end of statement, except you have this absolutely corrupt Supreme Court. So and somebody knows law, obviously a little better. I mean, we have law and order degrees, Jody and I. I do. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Oh, what's your take on this, man? Cause we're just kind of going, what the hell? Okay. Trump doesn't care about the law. At first, I thought you know how to say, how could he do this? It's not legal. No, but I'm actually, but quite seriously though, because people often will argue the law

48:06and the fact when they're discussing Trump. And we've got to always remind ourselves, it doesn't matter. And the Republicans don't care if it breaks the law or if it's, yeah, whatever, dangerous for America or whatever, you know, on the Supreme Court side, all right, in a perfect world, courts don't like to make decisions. And they will basically kick the can down the road if the decision isn't ripe. Like if, if, for example, if it's the wrong plaintiff, if you don't have standing, we say in the right meaning, meaning, uh, I punch Sean and Jody. Su's me. Well, Jody doesn't have standing. I didn't punch Jody. I punch Sean. Right. Right. Or, or in this case, I'm about to punch Sean. And he sues me. Right. It hasn't happened yet. Right. That was the decision. That was the decision last night is that they said that the AG's got in their suit. But then there's also the presale principle when it comes to elections, which says which this Supreme Court has, you know, randomly do we abide by it? Do we not abide by it? How does it help Donald Trump, which whatever,

49:07but I mean at the same time, you're wrong. But I think they're trying to help Trump. I think this court tried to help Trump. They could have possibly gotten involved and said, well, but you know, he did issue the order. And generally speaking, he has no power anyway with elections. So you could have said his executive order didn't stand. But, but I think they wanted to help him in the way they figured they could help him. The most was just kick the can down the road and let Trump frankly muck up with the elections now because we were saying either before the break or during the break that there was barely any time left between now and the elections. Well, that's the perfect time to muck with it because no one has time. A mail in ballots become chaotic. We can't do. Right. I mean, okay. But here's one of the, here's one of the things that I've been thinking. And this is the question and more to ask you about this is states are the ones that control this. I mean, you know, if you're looking at a hierarchy of what is in control, you've got norms. Then you got rules like the mailing rule that we're talking about here. Then you've got laws and then you've got the constitution above all of that. So if somebody says, well, I have a norm. Well, a rule Trump's

50:12a norm, but a law Trump's a rule, but the constitution Trump's all of it. Except for the 14th amendment because Kavanaugh said they could pass a law over in the 40s. Well, but also, also, what also Trump's all of that is the FU make me principle, which, you know, the, the, God, I cannot remember the, which specific principle was when somebody told the Supreme Court, I can't remember which president was it basically said, FU make me because the court has no implementation. Yeah. So I like that. Yeah. That could be, you meant that may be Marbury versus Madison or something. I think it is actually. Yeah. The bank back in 1800 and I vaguely, I mean, I only vaguely remember this from literally 40 years ago in law school, but it was whether the court had any power to enforce its own rules. Right. And it says you ain't got you ain't got the juice. So if you think it's that way, fine. And I firmly believe that if they do say, well, then, you know, the USPS has to do this, then states should immediately say anyone operating on any mailing principle, private or public within our bounds must abide by these rules and it's our law.

51:14Boom. Have a nice day. Suck it. You don't like it too bad. That's the way it is. And by the way, the Constitution says you have to do your job inside our boundaries, which means you have to obey our law and not your rule, which is subordinate to our law. Have a nice day. But you would be telling that to the US Postal Service, which is now run by a Donald Trump crony and husband for years. I think he's still there. The guy that it's a different crony. It's a second. It's a different one. It's a different crony. It's a different crony. Okay. But it's still run by his crony. Yes. So so we're going to tell actually same thing I said a minute ago. You're wrong. US Postal Service run by Donald Trump. No breaking the law. Well, right. But if you but if you put it into effect and you tell the actual Postal Service people, if you break the law, we will drag your ass to jail, then they'll go, well, let's see. Do I do the thing that I know is correct and is protected by the Constitution and the States? Or do I do the thing that Donald Trump says? Yes, screw that. I don't want to go to jail is what most people will say. Yeah. Well, but what I worry about is what

52:18you've just described is chaotic. That's yes. Oh, of course. Of course. But Trump is threatening them. We're threatening them. They don't know what to do. In the meantime, the ballots are getting screwed up. I mean, I'm with you, but it's no matter what we do it. I think again, I think what the Supreme Court did was kind of brilliant in a way because maybe they thought they didn't have the votes to decide with Donald Trump, but they could kick the can down the road and let Trump muck around. And who knows? Well, and on top of which, it's the second case, though, that I think right. Exactly. Joe is right. Yep. What? There's the second case that has the nationwide injection. So the decision they made last night isn't going to actually affect anything anyway. And that was one of the frustrations that that I had. I think you were a little frustrated by a two, Johnny, but I know I was. Absolutely. The mainstream media going out and going, oh my god, oh my god. And you're like, no, literally, the only headline that I saw that was worth it, amazes is one of the ones that we have in the news on tap, which is at the politics mark.com, which is, quote, nothing changes yet with the Supreme Court's latest ruling on elections,

53:21but it could open the door to chaos. You're like, actually, well, you know what? Norma is in Wade and today. Norm is like, oh, yes. Norma is at. I almost had Norma in my show and he was going on vacation. So he got one of his legal deputies, Josh Colb, who's great. Like he's a, Josh is amazing. I know I was going to say Josh looks like he's 12 people. People were like, you're in law school. I mean, no, Josh has been a lawyer for years. Scary smart guy. You should have a man actually very cool. Okay. I was going to use the word affable. He's just, he's nice and friendly and fun and interesting and like lawyer. I mean, I'm a lawyer, but I don't practice. Josh does this. He does this stuff every day, representing the reflecting pool guy, the Kennedy Center stuff. Oh no, there. So he's, so he's part of norms like active. He's part of norms. Posse. Yeah. Okay. But norm tweeted today and basically I forget the exact text, but he tweeted today and said just that like, hey, before everybody freaks out, this was just, you know, this was just them saying we weren't ready yet. And I think Norm even said they may have filed a

54:22new case today. Oh, yeah. I see. I saw a version of that that he put out yesterday. And then there was the one today. Where they're putting on a new another one. But, but yeah, all of this is just, it's just so frustrating because it is it's from your perspective as somebody who has been in both politics and media, is this, are we living in a Calvin ball at least as far as federal law right now where it's just, you know, whatever the hell, Calvin ball. What is that? Oh, God. Oh, yeah, from Calvin and Hobbes. I didn't know. Oh, I like Calvin and Hobbes, but I don't remember what that was. You remember when you remember when Calvin and Hobbes would play like their game and they would play Calvin ball where they kept changing the rules as the game went along. So, you know, Calvin gets the ball right exactly. And that is and it seems like right now at least because we have so many people who are just have been kissing Donald Trump's ass for so long, although I think that's starting to change. We'll have to see obviously, you know, this evening, the, I don't know, depending on what time people are listening on the podcast,

55:25because obviously, you know, we're on the air now, but the, there's runoff elections in South Carolina, obviously for the Republican, for the US Senate race. We're going to have, by the way, Dr. Andrews, going to be back in the bar tomorrow. And she'll be talking about who her opponent is. There's ross in Oklahoma. And I can't remember where else. I think there's one other stage, Joe. Yeah. But, but I'm sitting there going, there's, there's elections going on right now. But especially the one in South Carolina where Donald Trump weighs in on a Lindsey Graham sister. Right. His, his super PAC like spent, was it 870, two, seven, three, yeah, a lot of money. Well, since the first time they spent any money, any pack money since April, and it's against another Republican. Yeah. Right. She's like, okay, but if she loses that, in, to me, at least, it says even more that Donald Trump doesn't have the juice, which we know he doesn't have the juice anymore. He has less juice. I mean, there's still willing, the problem is they're still willing to

56:25do anything he wants. It seems, let's just, especially Natalie, right? I mean, Natalie will do anything for him. God, that's so cool. That whole, you know, I saw that video. I didn't do anything with it because I wanted to confirm it first, but the video of her coming up to Trump at the, at the, the, the, you know, the race this weekend in DC. And we just get up and walks away. It was like, I hate to feel sorry for Melania, but now Melania showed up to make sure that Natalie doesn't do things. Yeah, that's the whole, the whole other thing too. I don't know if you know, Sherry Jacobus used to do some, some commentating stuff on CNN and MSNBC. She's friend of ours. She's been in the bar. She said that she doesn't think that, that, that, the people who are like, oh, they've got something, something going on. She says, no, she says, the bigger worry for the Trump White House and the people that she's heard is that they think, but what, what, what we've joked about is that Natalie is Donald Trump's diaper, Genie, is that he's, he's heard. Oh, that's what the bag is. Yeah, he's basically, she's his elder care

57:30taker. And they don't want that because they're like, oh my God, then he looks really old in week. And it's like, well, he is. People in the White House don't like her. No, no. And they think, she was leaked. But I said this on my show because I was like, this is very weird that these, those letters she wrote, so people said, how could those go public? And I said, because she gave him to Trump. Trump thought they were cool. Hey, look with the 35 year old hot chick sent me, right? Right. Exactly. Somebody said, oh, can I see that, Donald? Let's take a picture. They don't like her because she's, well, she's trying to become more powerful and everybody wants to be powerful. They want to be Trump's number one girl guy, whatever. Right. Probably somebody like Susie Wiles just may not want another blonde woman getting close to Trump. Well, my whole thing is, Natalie's not well in the head. Yeah. I think Susie Wiles is trying to use some of this to try to move her off because you can tell that they haven't wanted her to be that close when they did things like we don't have room for you in the car, not expecting that you'll climb into the trunk, which Trump probably loved it though. I mean, I'm sure he did. But he didn't

58:34watch fatal attraction or misery. Jody's right. Again, yes, that's the whole weird ass thing. Everything about these guys is so proper. It really is though. I just, at some point, somebody tweeted today and they were talking about Trump and the, you know, renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America. He's considering, you'll be asked that it is. Right. They were saying, you know, at some point, you've got to accept that this is what people voted for. And I kind of, to some degree, it almost makes me feel like the measles stuff. I'm like, you know what? I got my vaccinations. I voted for the normal lady. You wanted this crap. I hope it all comes tumbling down. Except it all comes tumbling down on all of us. That's the problem. But it's still a part of me just kind of wishes it. They could just, you know, have their own states, their own part of the state deal with measles and rebellion, everything else. Can't say we entirely disagree with John Airposes. We'll have to have him back here in a politics bar at the end of the point. Time we still have more of the best of plus new on this Monday, Labor Day Monday evening here at the politics bar. We've got more from Laura Bassett and from Ashley Bell up next. You still run for

59:39Congress down in North Carolina. We will place some of the best from her from this last month. It's coming up next here at the politics bar. We'll be right back after we pay some bills at the politics bar. Welcome back to the best of the politics bar. We're Sean Smith, Pierce and Jody Hamilton. Give a big hand to one of the only Ashley Bell who is run for Congress in North Carolina's 10th Districts Winston Salem area and elsewhere. You know, look Lincoln County. I'm me being from Lincoln Nebraska originally pretty much anywhere somebody says, hey Lincoln, I'm like, hey, we probably lost mail or something to you guys at some point. Yeah, for sure. Well, you know, that's how it goes. You know, except, you know, if you're in, you know, if you're in the same area like you're in North Carolina, somebody sticks in the wrong box, you just walk over or drive over to their place and you say, here, this is yours.

1:00:42I'm pretty sure that's I'm pretty sure tout is when I when I drove through North Carolina before, I used to live in Florida for a little while, lived up here in DC for a while. Um, it's always nice. People in North Carolina was nice. It was it was always just, you know, great to, you know, you're like halfway between will crash there. It's perfectly fine. My sister shot a movie called Shag in Raleigh. Right. She loved it. She loved those three months. She was there. You obviously don't like your line enough to put down roots there here about what 20 years ago or so? Yeah, yeah, about 15, 20 years ago when I started PA school here. So anybody anybody who says that you're not for North Carolina now, can you break? I mean, yes, you were born. Yeah, they're long enough. Right. Exactly. Yeah, I should have been born in North Carolina. I'm pretty sure. So I definitely do not belong in Texas, especially these days. Especially a Democrat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely not. There's some good, there's some good Texas grant Democrats doing some things, but there's some good Democrats doing some things in North Carolina too. And you look, you got some challenges. I'm not going to lie. You're your

1:01:49opponent there, Pat Herrigan. He's only been in office. What? Like a year and a half, something like that. But I mean, he's a Republican in North Carolina. So he has a little bit of an advantage. Right. Have you had a good cheerymandering? Yeah. God, yeah. So, but at the same time, you're your current, is he, I don't know, he's your just recent past governor. I'm trying to remember, he's running for Senate. Cooper. Yeah. Roy. Yeah. Yeah. Cooper. See the fact you call it. Roy. I know. I'm his Roy. Yeah, it's just Roy. He's just Roy. Yeah. I mean, our current governor is also a Democrat, as is our, our regional and our lieutenant governor. And you know, so we're yeah, but then you got your, you got your legislature. Yeah. Well, I mean, again, cheerymandering. So it's true, but the thing is, is that clearly you're a fighter. That's the, I, we've talked about this a lot here at the bar. Um, uh, difference, is it between left and right? It's between folders and

1:02:50fighters. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I think that's kind of the, um, the conversations we had all over the country right now is, you know, people are, you know, making a big deal about, you know, DSA and, and the far left and all of this. And it really just boils down to who's going to actually fight for the people. Right. And that's what people want. So yeah. I'm calling y'all FDR Democrats. Yeah. And I think that's, that's a label we've heard a friend, John Fugel saying, it's taken that few other people have taken it. You can certainly call yourself an FDR, because when somebody says an FDR Democrat to you, what, what does that say to you, Ashley? What does that say as far as what, what image comes to mind for you? Um, just greatness, I think. I mean, like, um, you know, just a time when the country had a lot of hope. And that's what we need again, I think. Somebody who would fight for, for example, living wages, health care for all. Right. And he was wealthy and people gave him crap for that. Because he

1:03:55was very, very wealthy. And so he was, if you listen to his old radio broadcast, they're fantastic. He goes, bring it on. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Yeah. You know, and so God bless him. God rest his soul. Now, you know, we know you, you've been working for jobs. You said you, you, you quit a couple of them, but you, you've been working in medicine because these days, you started as a teacher. These days, you are a physician's assistant doing a direct and telemedicine. And you had to quit a couple of those. So that way you could continue campaigning and really, you know, put your foot on the gas as far as that goes. How's it going? Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's going great. Now that I don't have four jobs anymore. But so down to two. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've never had just one job my entire adult life, even when I started working in medicine. I've always had at least two or three jobs. And I was up to four. For most of the campaign, because that's just when it took to run a campaign and pay my own bills, because I mean, your bills don't stop when you start running

1:04:57for office. Right. They just, they just keep going. You still got mortgages and stuff like that. So, but you see that all across North Carolina, don't you? Right. I mean, people have multiple, it's just normal thing for people to have multiple jobs. And that shouldn't be normal. It's agreed. That's it's one of it's as far as we've seen on your site, one of the big things that you want is that you want to raise the federal minimum wage. Now, here's the thing. If somebody said, let's go to 16 or 17 or whatever, I've always thought the key would be to peg that to inflation. Right. Yeah. You're in the same boat as far as that goes. Well, then we yeah, I think so as well. I think we'd be closer $30 an hour right now. That's true. Right. If we did it from $1980, yes, Jody is correct. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I think I know that Chris Murphy has talked about 25, right. And Chris Murphy and I are usually pretty ideologically aligned. So that sounds like a good number to me. So you're kind of more in that

1:06:00that that pragmatic corner of the Democratic universe, if we are going to use labels, somebody who just wants to get things done to help people so that people don't have to struggle so much. Yeah. Correct. That's pretty much it. And I don't know why anybody would think that's a bad thing, but apparently some people do. So some of the stuff that's been hitting people as far as that goes, I'm originally from Nebraska. I live in the DC area now. Jody's out from the LA corner of the bar. But I still hear a lot of friends back in Nebraska, a lot of friends in Iowa about the rural hospitals and medical centers. Yeah. And look, you're you are a PA there. This is your corner of the world. How have the cuts? Obviously, some of the stuff already from the big ugly bill and the stuff that we know is coming. So some of the healthcare agencies have started to make cuts already. What do you see in there? And how is it affecting the patients, but also the people like you who actually do the work every day? Right. So we are already seeing people flooding ERs more than they

1:07:06were before the ACA cuts because they just don't have a primary care provider anymore. And if they, even if they did, they couldn't afford to see them. Right. Yeah. So that has already started again. We do have a lot of rural hospitals in my district and two in particular that we're really worried about might have some difficulty once all the Medicaid cuts take place. But you know, I think, you know, as a PA Medicare for all is a big part of my platform. Yeah. And you know, we've all heard a lot about Medicare for all, but I also want to focus on how we're treating our healthcare providers in this country. Because I am one and I know what goes on. And I know that healthcare providers have not been getting in control of healthcare in this country for a while. And that's just not how it should be. Yeah. It's the insurance companies instead of folks like you or the doctors, nurses, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, the insurance companies basically tell us what we can

1:08:06and can't do. And they don't have licenses to practice medicine. And they shouldn't be allowed to do that. Medicare for all is kind of a brand name like Kleenex or Budweiser. I mean, you know, or, you know, if people go further south down 95 to Atlanta where every soft drink is a Coke, where you're like, no, or Xerox. Yeah. Exactly. There are lots of different ways to have universal affordable healthcare. And when you say Medicare for all, that's really what you mean is universal affordable healthcare, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, what you call it a lot of different things, but really that's what boils down to is that everybody should have healthcare. And everybody should be able to afford it. Yeah. That's not, that's not right. That's not rocket science. It's not like controversial. It shouldn't be controversial. So you're saying there, there are a lot of potential ways to find solutions. It's just instead of hash an amount and and Yellen and arguing in media, we need people in Congress who are actually going to take action, do the things that need

1:09:09to be done. Move the ball forward on anything that corresponds to Medicare for all. Right. I mean, stop kicking the can down the road. I think we kicked the can down the road for a long time. And we just need like big, we need big action. Like, let's take some, like, let's actually do something and stop worrying about who's going to be mad about what and what company's going to be irritated about what and let's just freaking do it because it's the right thing to do. Every sign that we see says Democrats are doing pretty well. All the numbers say they're doing pretty well. We haven't seen any, we looked to see if there are any polls. Nobody's done any polling, I think, at least externally on your race since March. Do you have any internal numbers as far as things that are going on or? No. So our race is not one that pretty much any one pays attention to. Certainly not the national establishment for sure. We just kind of base what, what's going on based on what we think what we see from other similar races. So we're encouraged by

1:10:11what we're seeing in the 11th district and in the first district. You know, if they've moved 11th district was R plus four. And now they've moved pretty much to a toss up. So our district originally before the last year, Amanda was R plus 22. Oh, why? Then it moved to R plus nine when we started this race. And so now if they've moved to the 11th to an R plus four, you know, then we could reason that we're maybe around at four or five. So margin of error at that point. Yeah. Yeah. So it's far more competitive than maybe the national establishment is paying attention to as far as the media or, you know, even maybe the party itself as far as that goes. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, I think probably a big reason they're not making a big deal out of it is because if they actually really did, they would have

1:11:11to move pretty much every single red district in North Carolina to a toss up or to a race that they'd have to pay attention to because all of the red districts are eight, nine or 10 or started. No, that's the reason we're all about the same. Yeah, I mean, we could feasibly flip the whole state. What are you hearing? What do you hear? It means a lot of money. Well, it does, but it's also a lot of people power. What are you hearing from your volunteers? What are you hearing when you go out and knock on doors? And when you go to the cafes and the restaurants and the gas stations and wherever you're going, whenever you meet people, the churches and wherever out there, what are you hearing? People are just fed up. People are fed up in their tired of it. And do they do they care what label somebody somebody's carrying just so long as that person gets them to hell out of where we're at now? I don't think so. I mean, I've even been in Lincoln County, which is one of the reddest parts of our entire district. And I've talked to people there and they're like, I don't even care what you are. They even ask. They're like, as long as you're

1:12:14listening to me, that's a lot of care about. Exactly. So yeah, it's a very interesting dynamic. Our district's very weird kind of because we have kind of an urban area, which is Winston-Salem. And Forsyth County has been blue forever. And the rest of the district is pretty red. But they're all trending more blue. I mean, every single election, we see it tick up a little bit more. And so they may not, I mean, they may not flip, but they are definitely more friendly to Democrats than they used to be. Well, they're more often listening to your ideas, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, the things I'm campaigning on are not, they're not really part as an idea. I mean, their healthcare and education and anti-corruption. You know, I mean, everybody has a bad healthcare story. Everybody has a bad healthcare insurance story. Everybody is fed up with corruption in general. So we got to say, we got to say in here at the bar, we tell everybody,

1:13:20America needs AA, affordability and accountability. Right. We need to be able to pay for it. And we need to make sure the people who made it so that we couldn't pay for it are held accountable for the stuff they did. So then we can fix it. So that things are affordable again. Well, I was talking to my brother-in-law, who lives in Wisconsin. And because, you know, there's a thing that he's conservative and I'm not. And I go, what do you think of Hong and the others? And he goes, I don't know who she is. I said, how are you going to vote? He goes policy. He wants whatever's going to get him out of the situation that he's in in Wisconsin. And unfortunately, the GOP hasn't had policies good or bad in at least a decade. Yeah. Their entire platform is transgender people bad and Biden bad and socialists and communists. And that's it. That's all they got. Yeah. And yeah. So I mean, you have some actual ideas about how you want to do things. You have some actual ideas about how

1:14:23you want to work with people to get things done. Now, here's a word question. Are you going to care so much if they are, you know, democratic, independent or Republican in the House if you get elected? If they're willing to help you get things done? And honestly, it depends on what they're what they're possibly saying, right? That's what I'm saying. So I'm saying, if they're willing to help you get things done, do you care? Yeah. I mean, I don't really care. But here's the thing, like the current Republican party is not really, I mean, the Republican party as we knew it does not really exist anymore. It's pretty much just MAGA. And my thing is we don't negotiate with terrorists. So if they're going to continue this, this craziness that they've been doing for the last few years, I'm not going to negotiate with people who are going to honor human rights. But you're going to talk with people on certain issues like Thomas Massey with the whole Epstein files thing and you'll be like, Hey, you on board with me. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

1:15:27Big thanks to Ashley Bell, who is still running for Congress there in North Carolina. Ashley Bell for congress.com or ab4nc.com and get more information there. It is a Monday, Labor Day evening best of plus new. We still have one more best of segment. But a friend, a Laura Bassett, coming back, freshen your drink. We got more for you here. This is Monday night at the Pulitzer's Bar. We'll be right back after we pay some bills at the politics bar. It is last call on your Labor Day Monday night. Thank you very much. Everybody who's hung out with us at this evening. Hopefully you had a good weekend. We've got some good guests coming up this week. Brooklyn Dad Define shifted to tomorrow night. Joe Walls will you back in the bar on Wednesday, along with Bob Seska. Of course, if you missed anything, you can always subscribe with the politics bar right now. A bit from our piece with Laura Bassett back from August 10th about the media and how they are failing us in this political moment here at the politics bar. It's important to everybody that the news be focused on the way things should be. And unfortunately,

1:16:33so much in the news right now, especially with the political news, has been focused on trying to pit the left against the center. And that's just not the way. I mean, your piece, we've got it, basically, we've got it linked in the guest section. We also have it on the first round of the news on tap under a few more primary concerns. It is absolutely not the case that the left is at war with itself. Were you surprised this last week when Dr. L. Sayed won and all of these tabush people were just they were just so turned so fast. Hell, check Schumer's like, dude, here you go. Whatever you need. Go win. I'm like, exactly. You know, as I wrote in my piece, a lot of the headlines are sort of focused on this idea that centrist Dems are panicking about this insurgency from the left. The Mamdani, they're calling L. Sayed the Michigan Mamdani. There was a DSA candidate that just won, well, that is projected

1:17:34to win for mayor in DC. And they're kind of, you know, the most Democrats are not actually panicking about this. Most Democrats feel the wind at their sales in this election know that Democrats are still heavily favored to win the House, still have quite a shot at taking the Senate and are focused on trying to do both of those things. And the people that have been the loudest in the like, quote unquote, democratic party, you know, panickers, I would call them about the insurgency of the left are not actually Democrats. Are they right? So like we're saying. Like your third way folks. Right. The third way folks, we're seeing John Federman say, oh, you know, you know, I saw on Piker is not the same party as me. Well, John Federman hasn't been in the same party with Democrats for a long time, right? Same as James Carville. So Fox News CNN, they're trying to pluck these guys that are already leaning pretty conservative and saying that it's this current wave of DSA and DSA adjacent candidates that are causing them to flee the party when those guys fled the

1:18:36party years ago. Well, they're not really fleeing the party because here's the thing. James Carville will vote Democratic. I don't know about John Federman, but James Carville will vote Democratic. Hassan Piker has said he's not a Democrat. He has said that he is a proud member of the dirt bag left. Jody and I talked about this for a while now that the DSA is basically divided into you have the reformers, people who are like, oh, I don't know, the mayor of New York City, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Center for Montus and Independence, Center Sanders. I mean, these are the people who are winning. And then you have the nut jobs, like the one who appeared on Fox here a few weeks back, who she's a cook, and that's fine. And yeah, answer questions anymore. She was on News Nation or something the other night, and she was like, they asked her, well, what do you want to do with this? And she's like, well, we haven't quite figured that out. Then why are you speaking? Right, right. Exactly. And Hassan Piker has said, look, the dirt bag left, they're proud of it. They say that they are against capitalism in any form, and they are against democracy. Well, that's great. But the rest of us

1:19:41actually want democracy, and we want capitalism that works. Michael Temoski has a good piece about that, by the way, we stuck his right next to yours there in the news on tap that says, mem out of the centrist Dems who fear socialism, want to try fixing capitalism? Because what we have now is not really capitalism. It's kind of corporatism. We call them the FDR Dems, the ones that are the Mondamis and the rest of them. FDR Dems. That's it. They want the same thing. Bring the party back to a time when it actually listened to voters and worked for the people, you know, and it's a message that's really resonating. Mondani is very, I just moved from New York two months ago. Mondani is deeply deeply beloved in New York. Crime is at it is at all time low. The P.D. out there tax. Oh yeah. Brilliant. And it's probably pop up there. And if you, yeah, if you, yeah, and if you like, plug out some of these policies that the DSA is advocating for, you know, raising taxes on billionaires, universal healthcare, Medicare for all,

1:20:42even kind of lately not sending so much money to Israel, like a lot of these things are actually quite popular with the populace and even breaking popular with independence. And so they will, they will, you know, the media will pluck out a couple of the less popular things like, you know, abolish eyes or abolish prisons or whatever. And say, it's a police that was one. Right. Exactly. Yeah, abolish the police and make the DSA out to be quite extreme. But the public and even Republicans and independents are frankly lately agreeing with a lot of what these DSA candidates have to say. And that's why they can win not just in New York City, but in a place like Michigan. Right. Exactly. We had, oh, sorry, my brain is just fried for a second. Yes. From, I believe, I was, is it North Carolina? Yeah. Last week. North Carolina. Eighth, I believe it is. Now, that is a fairly conservative area. But she says because of Republicans overreaching and

1:21:43screwing up pretty much every district in North Carolina on your PVI index. We've talked about that before, folks. PVI index member that based kind of thing is down to about a nine. And she says, it's actually closer because of some of the other things to around five. Currently, if I'm wrong, but you've done this long enough covering journalism and politics and all kinds of great outlets. If it's at a PVI of five, if it's four or five, yeah. Yeah, that's the margin of error. And you, right. And you've got places, you know, it's Winston, Salem and a lot of the rural areas. But when you've got Winston, Salem and the rural areas in North Carolina, who are at a PVI of five and Ashley Bell is going, look, what people want is they want us to get things done. They want their health care costs lower. They want their wages to mean more, to be higher. They want to work in honest days, job instead of having to cheat. She's run her job. She just, she had to quit two of her jobs or she could, you know, run after the primary. And that's not uncommon for North Carolina. Yeah. And what people are saying is, is I don't give a

1:22:47damn if somebody's label is socialist or centrist or whatever it is, just get me the hell out of here. Exactly. And I think that, that, you know, people sort of wrongly understood Trump winning the last election to mean that Trump specifically and his policies are quite popular. When that was, that was a time when all over the world, the sort of insurgency candidate, the, the person that was running to up end to the current system was winning all over the place. Like, people were just saying, I, I want something different than this. This current thing is not working for me. And Trump was promising something different. He ended up being horrible for people. I think the Democratic Party has been pulling quite low in popularity for a while because the status quo simply isn't working for people. And so the candidates that come in and say, hey, I know that you can't afford to buy a house. I know that you can't afford medical care, even AOC now, you know, making a video about freezing her eggs and saying insurance doesn't cover it and using that

1:23:49to talk about how these things are inaccessible for people trying to make a family. Like, people want to hear, yes, this current situation is not working. Like, here is how I will fix it. Right. Rather than just continuing the policies of the status quo. I have hated for years the, what is the right track, wrong track where it's a binary. I'm like, oh my God, that is the worst polling ever because it doesn't, especially for Democrats. Republicans, if they don't march in lockstep, they're kicked the hell out. Bruce Bartlett, you know, Reagan's one of Reagan's economy guys is a friend ours. Joe Walls, former Republican Congressman, who's like, hell, the mega, he's done. He's a friend. He's been here. And yet at the same time, we also have friends like Katnava, Gisele, who has also been here more than once. And across the board, people are saying, look, just, just talk to me normal. Democrats, what they say is they're upset. But if you have polling that does it accurately, the difference is that

1:24:52Republicans are just saying to whatever Democrats want thumbs down. But Democrats are saying they're divided. Some say I would like you to do more of this. Some say I would like you to do more of that. And you say, well, if you have to compare the Democrats to the Republicans, then you'll get an answer of most Democrats going, well, I hate the Republicans. So yeah, then you'll get the, then you'll get the inverse that the mainstream media is looking for. But that's what they're looking is that for that mirror image. And it's like, dude, you're not going to have a mirror image. When you've got everybody from Bruce Bartlett to Katnava, Gisele in one party, 70% of the people, you're not going to have the mirror image. So, right. And as I mentioned, like the Democrats are the more educated, you know, set of voters, like statistically, more college degrees, they, you know, and they are pickier and more thoughtful about their candidates. So they will stay home in a race if Kamala, you know, has one thing on human rights that they, that doesn't square with them, whereas whereas Republicans are like vote are whatever, like vote anyone who trumps

1:25:56endorses anyone who hates immigrants, anyone who's a white dude and acts in our behind his name, like, we'll vote for him. But that makes it the bar is a lot higher for a democratic candidate to really win over these voters, which is why it's so important to let, to respect the different primaries in the different places, like the, the Democrat that can win a primary in Georgia, it's different from the Democrat that can win a primary in New York versus Michigan versus California. And there's no need for the California guys to be yelling at the Kentucky guys when it's like, this is a different group of voters. Let's just figure out what kind of Democrat can win there. And then once you actually take the Senate back, then let's have a bottle of ideas on the floor, you know, you know, I, I, I absolutely love that. And I loved, so over the weekend, this is how, how, you know, I read your piece and then I saw the, the clip because, Hillary was on Cara Swisher's podcast. She was filling in guest hosting. And she had a great clip. I don't think everybody's heard it. I know the mainstream has decided to shy away from it, because well, among other things, it imputes in their incompetence. But here,

1:27:00let me play it off the DVR here. You're not going to convince Republican voters in Michigan. And the, and the real fight will be how, how do we make sure that people who voted for Haley feel comfortable voting for Abdul El-Sahid? And how do we get independence to feel comfortable? And you can see that it's not just about Michigan, but the Republican messaging is communist socialists. It's going to be a very effective attack. And so people on the left have to be prepared to, to answer that and to be effective in answering it. Do you think communist is an effective attack in 2026? Well, all I know is that's the attack that Trump is leading with. And I assume they've tested it. And I assume that they have reason to believe that it's effective or they wouldn't be beating the drum on it. Because now it's not just him. Vance has done it. Others are doing it. They are trying to, you know, bring back scare tactics about our candidates. And,

1:28:02you know, it didn't work in New York. Ma'am Donnie was elected. And there was a lot of money spent against him. When you have an effective candidate on the left, it still is going to be a close race on our side. She's not wrong. But I think that she is wrong. And I think that Donald and at all are wrong regarding communism and socialism because you still don't think it's going to be as effective. I don't because people over 50. Yeah, it might affect their vote. Half the electorate. Under 50. Don't care. Yeah, but isn't it enough to affect the vote over 50? I mean, like, I think I think she can still be right. And I thought that in my piece is that like low information, boomer voters will be swayed by someone being called a communist or like don't know the difference between communists and socialists. And both words just sound scary and bad to them. There is a subset of independent voter, older independent voter that could be swayed by an attack like that. I think what she's saying is not don't run Ma'am Donnie's. Don't let Ma'am Donnie's win the primary.

1:29:03What she's saying is prepare an effective response to that. Like, let's educate the voters as to what democratic socialism is versus communism, you know, it just be prepared to be called a commie and to know that it will work on some older voters. Once again, Laura is right as she often is. Thank you, by the way, everybody's been hanging out with us here on this Labor Day Monday evening. Like I said, tomorrow Brooklyn Dad to find Wig de Vacan. We'll catch up on all of the news. You may have missed over the weekend when you were taking a break from the news and from everything else totally fine to do that sometimes. So folks, thank you very much. We will see you back here tomorrow night live at the politics bar. And of course, if you missed anything, you can always go check out the podcast at politicsbar.com. See you here tomorrow night. Peace. Hi, I'm Frances Calier and I'm Angela V. Shelton and we're frantola. You know what you need in your life? The final word podcast. Yes, you do. That's right. It is the final word on all things

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