Blue Wave on the Prairie? with Josh Turek

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2:07And I am a four mentioned John Stewart. Today's program, a little bit different. So Tuesday, September 29th, originally we had scheduled one Senator Bernie Sanders, a young gentleman you may not be familiar. A Senator from the great state of Vermont, who has some ideas about economic populism that I don't know if they're reflective of a change in his thinking, but it may be something he has consistently profit for many, many years. But he is unable to join us today unfortunately. So we do look forward to being able to feel the burn at a later episode, but, but, but, but we are sticking with our senatorial theme instead of going with an actual Senator right now we are going with an aspirational Senate candidate from the great state of Iowa. We're taking a little turn. This is a little fear. This is an opportunity for our audience to learn a little something about what's happening

3:07out there, electorally, in the heartland. And so we're going to get to our guest for this week who is running for the United States Senate in Iowa. He is a four time Paralympian candidate for US Senate in Iowa. Josh Turrick joins us. Today we welcome a prairie populist to the program. He is running to be the senator for the great state of Iowa. Josh Turrick, who is a candidate, as we were saying. First of all, Josh, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. It's quite the honor to join you. Oh, truly, truly Josh, you know I'm curious. What's your last name again? Turrick. Josh, is it, is it, is that I can't? Yeah, Turrick. No, I'm just, I'm just, I'm responding to the fact that you are surrounded by Turrick wallpaper. The people can't see on the thing. Josh is right now sitting in, they've got him in a corner and he's got the Iowa state flag to his left and he appears to be in a kind of AI generated

4:11Turrick box. We'll call it. It's real. We call it the Turrick dimension. It's because far too often when I do these interviews, I forget to say the website. So it's there. Turrick for Iowa. How is it, you're now, this is the final stretch, man. This is, what do you got now, a month and a half? 35 days to the finish. How long have you been on this road for running? You were in the state legislature in Iowa. Yeah, still in, it sounds like I'm gonna be going into a special session here on Friday, actually. 405 days, 410 days. It's been, been quite the journey. In one year, I'm taking this race from saw the Lee R to toss up to leading in the polls. It's been been an incredible journey. Well, let's get some background for those because your race as important as it is in Iowa and you're, you and your opponent are running to replace Jody Erts, is that correct? She was, she dropped out after mentioning to everyone in Iowa that we're all gonna die. We're all gonna die no matter what she does

5:12in terms of policy. We're all gonna die anyways or whatever it's doesn't make. We're all gonna die in the very smoke condescending and apology in the graveyard. Yeah, that's, that was a political arbitration for. I would agree. So you're both running to do that. It doesn't have the national profile that like El Saed has gotten, you know, where people can really dig in on sort of bigger personalities or these kinds of things. So just give us a little brief run on what, you know, Iowa has not had a Republican Senator for 30 years, is that? Oh no, we've got, we got two Republican Senators right now. I mean, a Democratic Senator, I apologize. Democratic Senator. Yeah, the, yeah, the last one that we had was Tom Harkin, the father of the American with Disabilities Act in my political hero. Right. And it's basically a much more rural state. Yeah, pretty, pretty even divide between urban and rural but I would say that, you know, one of the modern political divides is, is urban versus rural. And so, yeah, I think that that's one of the reasons why we have shifted more to the red

6:13than almost any other state over the last decade. But I think in our essence, we have always been a common sense state. I've been saying that for a year that we're a common sense state that's masqueraded more red than what we actually are. 30 years, we elected Senator Harkin along with Grassley. And we've twice voted for Obama three times for Trump. More Obama Trump counties in any other state in the union. And in Trump's last midterm, we ended up winning three of the four congressional races, almost one all four. And so I think we're a common sense state. It seems to be moving back into a sort of more purple direction. Is that the feeling out there? Angelina, I'm certainly swinging back our direction. And it's because Iowans are hurting and uniquely hurting. Oh, let's talk about that for a second. Because that's, and then we'll dig in on the common sense aspect of it. But what is it about the economy in Iowa? Because it is not growing. It is in a difficult place. I think I don't want to say it wrong, but you're last.

7:16I think you might be last. We're fighting for the last for a lot of things. Yeah, 48th for income growth, 48th for personal income growth. One of three states already seeing our economy contract. Basically dead lasts for nearly every health care metric. OBGYNs meant to health providers, meant to health supports, Medicaid reimbursement, Medicare reimbursement. Just in the last six years, since Ashley Henson went to Congress, we've closed 842 health care entities in a state of only 3.2 million. You've closed 842 health care entities in the state of Iowa. And by the way, state of what, 3 million? Yeah, 3.2 million. That's correct. 3.2 million. Okay. So you've closed 8. Wow. Okay. We've closed 160 independent rule pharmacies. We've got a cancer crisis. We have the second highest rates of cancer behind only Kentucky. Only state with a growing cancer rate. Is that based on pesticide use? Is that a farm related statistic? There's a variety of reasons.

8:16One of the main reasons would be the nitrates in the water. And that comes off of the run offs. That's correct. Yeah. Right. But I mean, look, we've got a lot going against this at least on the cancer side. Older state, poor state, massive health care deserts, particularly in the rural areas, some of the highest levels of binge drinking, higher levels of smoking, highest levels of radon of any state. And then we've got this nitrate issue that we're not addressing the water quality issue at the state or the federal level. And then we've got public education, which was the point of personal pride for all Iowans, essentially the gold standard, including being on our quarter foundation and education. We've dropped to the bottom half. And now we leave the nation in foreign foreclosures largely due to terror policy and because of this war in Iran. So Iowans are hurting and uniquely hurting. And is that a turn that happened? You're a lifelong island. You're born to raise there. That's right.

9:17You have born and raised and counseled us. So tell me a little bit about how the atmosphere turned. Is it that it's always been at least in the time that you've been more sentient and cognizant? A difficult place because it is not. We talk about now it's the gilded age and tech is coming in and all that. But it's always been a kind of hands-on state. And so union work, really important, blue collar work, really important, farm work, really important. All of those industries have suffered over these last 40 or 50 years of kind of the Reagan era on forward. Yes. Yeah, I would say that. I would say, you know, certainly we're living through some form of a second gilded age and you're just not going to amass that amount of wealth, particularly in like an agrarian, you know, ag community. And then I would say over the last 40 years as well that we had the first farm crisis when

10:20I was just a little kid in the 80s. And we ended up losing half of our small family farms then at that time. Basically farmers were told get big or get out. Right. And now we're heading towards what I've been calling a farm again in the second farm crisis. But 70 of our 99 counties, the rural communities have lost population. I mean, we're essentially the only state that hasn't doubled in size in the last 100 years. It's in zero population growth. I mean, we're not keeping our young people. And so what, you know, in your mind, it seems like it's not unreasonable to think, okay, they turned away from democratic policies because they felt like that exacerbated the crises that were going on there. And they think they're going to we're going to place this bet now on Trump and Republicans. But that clearly has not not only is it not paid off, it seems to have sunk the state further underwater. Yeah, I think so for sure. I think that's why you're seeing, you know, all these farms close.

11:23I mean, the big, the big, big issue. I think actually believe that Iowa has not shifted on economic policy. Like when I'm out there, I call myself a commasist, pretty populist. And I'm out there saying we need a livable wage, affordable housing, driving private equity, at a housing, healthcare, nursing homes. I say healthcare is a human right. You need to do something about the water quality crisis, public education. Everyone agrees with me on that. And they particularly agree with me on driving out the naked level of corruption that we're seeing, where I think Iowa has shifted is shifted culturally. Oh, I think look, I understand I come from the reddest district that's represented by a Democrat. Right. What a Trump when you're district by the one that you are now the representative of. Yeah, the community of Carter Lake, he won by 18 points. My community of council, bless you one by 10 points. I was able to win my district by six points. So the only way I was able to win was by going out and dragging my wheelchair upstairs to have conversations with independence and Republicans.

12:26Let's also make clear. And for those who are not familiar with your story and it probably makes sense to grab a quick biography. You are, you are in a wheelchair due to a condition known as a spine of if it, I believe. That's correct. Yeah. Due to my father's exposure to Agent Orange and Vietnam. Yeah, people don't realize the downstream effects of those kinds of toxic exposures. I say I'm an example of the generational consequences to these forever wars that we find ourselves in. And when you say you drag your wheelchair up, is it not ADA accessible? Well, personal residents is, they're not required to be ADA accessible. And then I know that I know that people will think about a state like Iowa and say, oh, that's a, that's a very flat state, but nowhere I live is in the look. One of, one of two places on earth that has what's called the Los Hills. And so where I live is very hilly. And so to be able to get out there and talk to essentially anyone, I am, I am dragging my wheelchair up 10, 20, 30 stairs. And always when I would get up to the top of the stairs, the very first question I would

13:28get would be, how in the world did you get up here? And I would say, well, that's how important your vote is to me. Right. And especially in the reelection, what I would say is, look, I only won my first election by six votes, six votes. That's true. Yeah, I was the only Democrat to win a competitive election on the Western side of the state, one by six votes. Yeah. That's wild. How long, how crazy was the recount process? You know what? Honestly, it went really smoothly. We brought in one R, one D, one independent, went through and you cooperated. The other, wait, did the other side storm the capital of council bluffs that did, they just let it go. And it came back exactly, six came back six. That's incredible. And did your opponent concede? Yeah, she did, actually, shockingly. What is going on in Iowa? Hey, it's, you know, there's a real Iowa nice there. There's a kindness and a genuineness and an authenticity to the people in Iowa that exist almost no other place. Look, the algorithm is killing us.

14:35The algorithm, the way that it incentivizes the hostility and weaponizes ideology and all the, it's just, it's not right. But the antidote, the antidote is information. And that's where ground news comes in. Ground news, it's this website, NAP. It's designed to give readers a better way, an easier way to navigate the news. It pulls together every article about the same news story from all outlets all over the world and puts them in one place. And not, not incentivized for like the worst, most hostile, most partisan take. It tells you where it's coming from. You can see starkly in black and white how these different organizations and algorithms are manipulating the information that we get. They show you how reliable the source isn't. Who's funding it? Who's funding it? Follow the money. Know who's behind the headline.

15:37Oh, who is this? Rupert Murdoch-Fella. He seems delightful. He seems to have a somewhat pointed view of the world. Tell you, man, the Nobel Peace Center has even mentioned the ground news. The next one way to stay informed. Nobel Peace Center. That's I think the one that Trump started. I think it's the 3D Prince Nobel Peace Prize. This is just hands-amount. The platforms independently operated, supported by its subscribers. So they stay independent and they stay mission driven. They don't get sucked into this slop. If you want to see the full picture, go to ground news. They can help you through the noise and get to the heart of the news. Go to groundnews.com slash Stewart. Subscribe for 40% off. The unlimited access, vantage subscription. Discount available only for a limited time. The spring's a price down to like $5 a month. That's groundnews.com slash Stewart. Or scan the QR code on the screen.

16:40I'm curious, Josh, how you said it shifted culturally. Do you think was that the biggest and let's not pardon the pun? The hill for you to climb was it to convince people you weren't a cultural liberal or is it that you weren't? What is it they needed to hear from you that made them feel comfortable giving you their vote? A variety of things. Well, first, even if I was speaking to the most ardent Republican, I would always find that even if it was just out of sympathy, they would say, okay, well, I'm going to give you five minutes of my time because you're crawled up here. Okay. And then I would tell them, my story, I would say, look, this is who I am. This is where I come from. This is what I'm fighting for. I got involved into politics because the privatization of Medicaid in Iowa was leading to a thousand percent increase in denial rates. I was working in healthcare. It was assessing and providing power wheelchairs, manual wheelchairs for people with progressive

17:40conditions, so conditions like muscular dystrophy and in lukegaer disease. And I would say, you know, I think we need representation up there and for the average person, like I don't come from wealth or privilege. My family grew up really humbly, went to the goodwill for the clothes, shared clothes. And I said, I think we got a lot of people from privilege. I don't think we have enough people up here with life experience that have gone through real struggle, both economically and healthcare. And I would find that, you know, a five minute conversation, people would agree with me. But I also wasn't afraid to say, look, I don't think the Biden did a particularly good job on the border. And we need to have safe and secure borders, along with having an easier pathway to earn citizenship because I'm married to an immigrant. I've gone through the process myself. But that's still an economic argument. Basically, you know, if the difficulty of Democrats to get traction was cultural. And I don't imagine in Iowa, I don't know if you have the kind of let's caricature them as the DSA Democratic Party wing where they're saying defund the police or whatever caricature

18:44is being put out there. Is it you selling your biography along with your economic message that you thought made them comfortable hearing the message to give you a chance? How did you counter whatever misconceptions or prejudgments they might have had on democratic cultural issues, whether it's religion or LGBTQ? You know, we've been told that the country that the Democrats have shifted so far left that they are no longer in any way connecting to the common sense good people of the heart land. Is would you say that's accurate? I would say the Democratic brand is certainly damaged. And you know, there are certainly where houses and groups of people that I would speak to where just even the term Democrat is a majority of. So yeah, I think being willing to say that, you know, like example, for example, the

19:45border or saying, you know, I believe in the second amendment. I think that we can have common sense gun regulations in place and also protect communities but also protect the second amendment. So I think I think showing some distance between the party and then also even the way I define myself, I would say, you know, you define me as a Democrat, I define myself as a common sense prairie populist and they would say, what does that mean to you? I would say, well, everything through the guys of what is best for the people, what is best for the workers, what is best for the middle class is being hollowed out. And people would say to me all the time on the doors, you know, I'm not going to vote for every Democrat. You might be the only one I vote for, but I like your kind. You're a JFK Democrat. You're an FDR Democrat. You're, you know, Tom Harkin prairie populist. So I think making that distinction allowed them. But you know, what we've lost in places like Iowa is we've lost blue dog Democrats. You know, it's so, it's, it's interesting to me because the way you describe your positions doesn't actually sound that different from the Democratic, the Democratic party platform.

20:54I mean, I think that generally like even Arden liberals would say like, well, the second amendment and second amendment, but we could use some common sense goes there. So I'm curious. It's so interesting to me that, and I don't know if it's from where they get their information, but that you have to set yourself apart from Democrats to earn their trust if that makes sense. Yeah. Well, and I think that oftentimes we this, it's overly simplified too. Yeah. That I mean, by the very nature of having a binary system, you're going to be, you're going to be a big tent party. And so you're going to have why, I mean, I say oftentimes, especially up at the Iowa legislature, there are times where I have more agreement with my family. My moderate Republicans on issues than on my most extreme left wing, you know, Democrats. And so then they end up putting us into overly simplified buckets of, well, this is the progressive or this is the moderate or this is the establishment.

21:57So that's why from the very very very beginning, I said, I may comment and common sense might be the most important part of this. I think that's what's truly lacking in DC along with empathy and a variety of things. Common sense, Prairie Populist, what the guy is not necessarily being this overly tribalistic, you know, always going with the party. I think what's missing in DC as well is we got to get back to country over party and saying, no, no individual party has a monopoly on good ideas. And what I've always tried to look at is whether it's a Republican idea or democratic idea, what is best for my constituency, for the state of Iowa and for the people who are always through that guys of what is best for the middle class and what's best for our workers, because you're as you're right, we're living through this second-gilded age and the middle class is being hollowed out. How are they viewing Trump's policies through that lens? You know, you sort of talk about common sense. When they look at, I would imagine that Iowa faces disproportional damage by tariff policies,

23:02for instance, and the Iran war. I would think disproportionately Iowa's economy is vulnerable to that. Would that be fair? 100%. I've been saying that I think that the tariffs in the war in Iran has hurt Iowa more than any other state. When you go out there and you speak to farmers, in particular, the rural communities. First, to level set, you go out in the rural communities in Iowa. It looks like a vacuum cleaner has gone through those communities. They've lost population. The main streets are desolate because we've done nothing to look out for the small brick and mortar, small businesses. We've just looked out for the large multinational corporations. I say that you have four pillars in the rural communities to be successful. And that is, you got to have a grocery store. Well, SNAP cuts disproportionately hurt rural communities, so we're closing grocery stores. They might only have the gas station as an option. You got to have a pharmacy because we've done nothing on pharmacy benefit management, the middleman. It has really hurt the rural independent pharmacies. I told you the number of healthcare clinics that we've closed.

24:04You've got one in five Iowans that are on Medicaid, two in five of those are in rural communities. The big, beautiful bill, 110,000 Iowans losing healthcare, 119,000 Iowans seeing their healthcare premiums double or triple because of the loss of the ACAs. Thousands more losing basic food assistance just to give tax breaks to billionaires. That really hurts rural communities. Then you've got to have a functioning public school as well. And because we're giving public money to private schools in the last three years, we've closed 18 rural schools are consolidated. All of that is hurting these rural communities. Then you add that on to the fact that the administration gives $20 billion to Argentina so that the Chinese can buy their soybeans. Meanwhile, we create more soybeans in any other state in the union. I bring in beef and bring in 500,000. Correct. That's exactly right. Then the tariffs, I think farmers need markets, fair markets more than any other group. The commodities prices went upside down. That's why we leave the nation farm for closures.

25:06Then you add in the Kudagra here, which is the war in Iran, which has led to gas prices going up more in Iowans than almost any other state. Diesel being at an all time high as farmers are going in to do harvest and then seeing a further increase on input prices like fertilizer costs. You're having farmers that are looking at their bottom line for fertilizer for next planning season saying, this isn't going to work. I'm going to be upside down and we're already leading the nation to farm for close. Is there any offset on that for biofuels and ethanol and things? I know Iowans obviously huge in ethanol and biofuels and things like that. Is that price also up? Does that help offset in any way the damage done by tariffs and the higher diesel? Well, not at the moment. We just saw soybeans drop another 40 cents yesterday. You're basically looking at it being at break even point. Horn has gone up slightly, but that's because the yields are looking like they're going

26:07to be particularly low. There's some ways that we can add in some demand with a year round E15 program, but know at the moment you're going out there and I'm talking to farmers. The word that we hear the most is betrayal. They're like, look, we've supported Trump. These policies, particularly on tariffs and the war in Iran, it's killing us. And you should go out and rule I when you see a lot of Trump flags and a lot of Trump signs, right? They are gone. Let me ask you, does it then shock you, which it does be that this is even close, that whether you have a D in front of your name or an R in front of your name, the party that they put their trust in, which are there's a Republican governor. There's two Republican senators. There's a Republican president. They control the Senate. They control the House. They control the judiciary. These policies are uniquely harmful to the type of economy and the type of population that Iowa has. How in God's name is this even still a race?

27:08Because of Citizens United and the lack of campaign finance reform, they have dumped $55 million into this race and you got billionaires like, oh, yeah, like Musk and Americans for prosperity, the Koch brothers that have just, I mean, money has just rained in. On this stage, try to buy off this election. Does the information that Iowans are getting, is it so distorted? They know the facts on the ground. They feel the reality is on the ground. What kind of commercial about you could they run that would make people go, well, I'm getting poorer. My cost of living is going up. What do they say about you that somehow challenges what they're feeling on the ground? It's always the most ridiculous stuff on culture wars. That I'm in favor of having open borders, which is fundamentally incorrect and illegal to be able to get healthcare benefits or vote. I mean, it's all just culture war nonsense.

28:11And it's, I mean, this is why I say that we've got to go up there. And one of my number one priorities is going to be to root out the naked level of corruption that we're seeing. You look at the current administration. I mean, the Trump administration making himself $2 billion more wealthy, meanwhile, Jimmy Carter was selling his product farm to not have a conflict of interest. I'll tell you the woman that I'm running against, Ashley Inson, in just six years of going up to DC up to 15 times more wealthy, since she was going to sell Oliver stock still owes up to owns up to $5 million of insurance stock, as I essentially had her husband operating as a shadow lobbyist for the insurance industry. And then even though she's now a multi millionaire, taking $50,000 of taxpayer dollars to give herself a luxury DC apartment, as she's taking millions of dollars in corporate tax, corporate tax money, whereas I'm not taking a nickel other because I want to be representing people, not corporations.

29:12Is there a fatalism about Iowa voters that you talk about? Because obviously you make a strong case about the corruption, the self-dealing, the fact that they won't divest from their portfolios and they're making money on insider training. But to Iowa voters, is there a sense of fatalism that, hey man, that's both parties, that's politics? I guess I'm curious about why these culture issues are so sticky in the face of reality and facts. I'll tell you this, this is certainly one of the issues that I think has moved the most in the 400 days that I've been in the race, is I'm hearing more and more and more from Iowa and saying, no, this is a level of corruption that I'm not comfortable with and we have to address it. And so even when I'm talking to an extreme conservative saying, look, we need to root

30:13out this corruption on both ends. We need to overturn Citizens United. We need to pass it as Glow's Act. I'm in favor of term limits banning members of Congress from owning a trading stock, putting mandates of members of Congress to host annual town halls because they should be accountable to the people. That is unanimously agreed upon in Iowa. And the other thing was say, I don't think there's a fatalism to this. I think that the one thing that gives me hope in this is that regardless of how much money you spend and what you tell people, you can tell them the sky is pink and, you know, Josh is a horrible piece of shit. But the reality is when they're going to their grocery store, they're seeing their prices, they're seeing farmers going into foreclosure, they're seeing their communities hollowed out and decimated. Meanwhile, you know, someone like Ashley Henson becoming 15 times more wealthy, that, you know, that's enough. And you can't lie to what people are experiencing first and when they're going to the gas pump, right? When farmers are seeing what their input prices are, what their commodities price are,

31:13that is directly because of her votes and because of the current administration. And they're ready for change. The great thing is we don't have to win this thing 100 to zero. I just got to get one more vote in arm. What if you had to win at 100 to zero, though, that would be, that would be something. Wouldn't it now that would, that would put you back in your paralympic days where you're like, we got to dominate this team. Yeah, that's right. As your, is your background for you because it's, it's really a, a pretty remarkable story of, of tenacity. You know, is that the kind of thing that you think prepared you well to again overcome what is, in many ways, a caricature of what a Democrat could be? What, what prepared you well for this? For sure. Well, real quick, but you're a big basketball fan. I know this year. You're a nix fan and right. So this was, this was a, this was a great year for you. Congratulations. First time since 73, very kind of you. I was excited for him as well. The basketball is at its best when the mecca is rocking. Thank you. Have you ever seen a paralympic wheelchair basketball?

32:15I, I have indeed. It's okay. And for those who don't know, it's like, it's, it's sometimes called murder ball. It's basically no, you're confusing two sports. Oh, is that true? Yeah, murder ball is, is quad rugby played by, by quadriplegic and is an exception sport, but, but wheelchair basketball can be very rough. It's not murder ball. But it's like rugby in wheelchairs. Yes, that's correct. But an amazing sport in everyone that is playing, especially at the paralympic level, is dedicating their life to it. You know, you're playing professionally. I was training eight, nine hours a day to, to be able to represent my country. And I was a part of the team that went, we went 28 years as basketball nation without winning a gold medal. And I'm really proud to be a part of that team to, to be able to break that streak. You would ask me about what has prepared me well. Two things. I think growing up in, in the way that I did in a place like council bus, in a, in a family that we went to the goodwill, we shared clothes, went to the free summer lunch programs, had the wrong color lunch tickets. And also growing up with the, with the healthcare adversity that I grew up with 21 surgeries

33:20by the age of 12, spending a lot of time by myself at Schreiner's hospital. I think the majority of time for people that go through that kind of experience, it breaks them. But the ones that it doesn't break, it builds a mental strength in character that can't be broken. I say to people all the time, this is very hard when I'm going through. This isn't the hardest thing that I've gone through in my life. Sitting in a body cast by myself with no air conditioning in a room with 30 other patients, you know, as an eight year old, that was the hardest thing that, that I went through. But that really put, well, you haven't gotten to the set it yet, Josh. I, you know, admittedly the cast in the room is very tough, but the Senate, I've been down there. It's no fun, Josh. Well, I think one of the most difficult parts is we're running the damn Geratocracy up there. And I say, well, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to join, you know, we're going to expand the disabled caucus up there with myself and Tammy Duckworth, but we're expanding that more by the day with people like Mitch McConnell joining me in wheelchairs, we just, you know, just due to age or grassly or any of these guy.

34:23I mean, you know, they're talking about, he's in, I think he's, I don't know if he's now 107 or 108. But I think you just turned 94, 93 and 94 and he's probably only going to run for two or three more terms. I would think, Hey, John, how about this? He has been a senator is, I'm 47 years old. He's been a senator as long as been alive as born in 79. He was elected in 1980. He's been involved in representative government since 1958. That's the Eisenhower administration. And I don't understand, Josh, this is the thing that drives me crazy. Why there is no accountability from the voters. I do believe there's a certain inertia that sets in because they can look at the conditions on the ground. They can see the tangible results of the terrible policies and votes that are made supposedly on their behalf. And yet it's still difficult. Are there, for instance, like with Trump voters, is there a bridge that you have not been able to cross with the Trump voter like whether it's a conspiratorial mindset or something

35:25along the lines, your life experience, your personal story, the ideas that you're throwing out there where there's some people that just like can't get past the D. Absolutely. Yeah. But what gives me hope again is one, we've got 30% of Iowa voters that are independence. They're the king makers in this process. And over and over and over, I have run into people as I've done this for 400 days, gone to all 99 counties. So many people in rural communities, farmers, young people, I mean, when I went to Iowa, stayed in some tailgating up there. I was at the University of Iowa and lots and lots of young men in particular saying, I voted for Trump, but I cannot stand this naked level of corruption. I've had enough. He's disappointed me. And so I think that there's a lot of, let's call them classical conservatives or moderate Republicans that no longer align with what they're seeing with MAGA.

36:27And lots of people sitting around and just looking like, what is like, like Ronald Reagan used to say, you know, when he first ran, are you better off than you were four years ago? I mean, that's one of my messages of like, are you better off than you were two years ago, four years ago, six years ago, when actually Henson went up to DC. And by every single metric, we are not dead last or nearly every economic metric, healthcare, water quality crisis, cancer crisis, public education failing and now leading the nation in foreign foreclosures, gas prices, skyrocketing unnecessary war and Iran, we need change. And I think that lots of I ones are looking around saying, this isn't the state that I knew where I grew up and we got to have change. So that's what gives me hope. I got to tell you something about work. The biggest pain in the ass would work. So when you got to see, you got to stop trying to do everything yourself. Well, you little control freaks are in for a treat. Little thing called up work. That's where businesses find highly skilled freelance professionals for specialized work.

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38:36voters? How do we talk to them? How do we reassure them that we're not crazy and we're going to do that? But let me ask you the flip side as well. Iowa has cities. Iowa has the kinds of problems in urban areas that many do. Whether it's housing insecurity, food, the types of issues that occur in all the cities. We know how you're making your case to those who have moved away from the Democratic Party are more reticent. How do you make your case to the traditional base of the Democratic Party that is no longer enthusiastic that the Democratic Party is responsive to their needs? Either that they've gotten fatalistic. How have you made the case to that community? Well, I think that we've fired up the base. I mean, excitement seems to be at an all time high right now. They're looking at a situation where in Iowa we can probably duplicate what we did in Trump's first midterm and win three congressional seats.

39:39We're pulling ahead in a gubernatorial race. We've got a once in a generation opportunity to be able to win this center race. I mean, this is the first time in Iowa since 1968 we have an open governor's race, open center race, and two open congressional races. And so I mean, people are fired up. They're out knock indoors. And I think that what I'm excited about is we've got the right candidates with the right message in the right work ethic. I think far too often what's happened, particularly in Iowa over the last decade is too many people that have run as Democrats candidates have run in Iowa have looked at this as an incorrect math problem where they have just exclusively focused on urban turnout. But no, this is ultimately at its core, a rural state, and you've got to be willing to go into all nine, nine counties, including the deeply red counties, get directly in front of them, not vilify them. But I say when I'm in front of them, just like I have family members like my father, two time Obama voter, three time Trump voter, I say, look, I understand why you voted for

40:39Trump. He said he was going to lower your gas prices, lower your energy prices. He was going to keep us out of forever wars. Lower like everything has been the opposite. Meanwhile, he's only looked out for the haves for the billionaires and the large corporations, his friends. While all of you, the rural communities, the farmers, the middle class struggling just to make ends meet. I want to go up there and actually work for you for the people because I've been there. I've experienced that same thing myself. Right. So he has your father. Do you think he's going to vote for you? Has he has he moved towards your camp or no? He's still, he's still a little hesitant. Still trust you. Still thinks I'm not going to go this way. Still 50, 50. No, he, he's the strong. The broke the camel's back was Trump put out a video the other day, supporting actually Hanson and criticizing me. He's like, I can't believe he can just lie about all that about you, Josh. And I said, Oh, you wouldn't believe what else he's lying about, dad. There's all kinds of stuff. How is your dad not in a commercial for you now?

41:39Oh, he is saying, look, he is a Trump. Okay. Well, not about that. He's actually, he's in a commercial talking about his experience in, in in Vietnam. Oh, wow. And, you know, in an early interview, he had said, you know, I went to war, but Josh has been through hell and he wants to go up to, to DC to go in, in, in fight for, for the people. I say that, you know, one of my political, North stars is a quote from Franklin, Delano Roosevelt, where he says, the test of our progress of a society is not whether we add more to those with abundance, but whether we have enough to those with the least. And I've seen the least I've, I've been around it my whole life. And I think that government has an obligation to take care of the most vulnerable citizens, the elderly, the, you know, poor children, the disabled. And I think it's an obligation that we fall far too short on far too often. Josh, why didn't you hear the siren song of right wing populism? What was it about? You know, you and your dad have very similar stories. You were raised in the same place. You had the same economic troubles.

42:40He, having fought in Vietnam and seen how we abandoned veterans once they come home, especially to fight their own battles with illness and disability. He saw what you went through with your medical journey. He saw what you had to fight with. Why did you and he diverge? It's a great question. You know, the, the, the very first time that I voted, I ended up voting for, for W Bush. And so I, I was a registered Republican. I, I think that the more time, a couple of things, the more time that I was, I was a registered Republican. I spent, you know, I've been a director of a nonprofit organization for more than a decade around disabled kids, my time in assessing and providing mobility devices, seeing the difficulty for individuals. But also my time abroad, I played professional wheelchair basketball in places like France, Spain, and Ili. During that time, it certainly made me appreciate the infrastructure that we have in place

43:41with like the American with Disabilities Act. It also made me see some of the huge advantages of the healthcare system that was in place with like a public option that you had in a place like Spain and the huge advantages that it was providing, you know, the most vulnerable in society. And I think as well, you, you see your country far more clearly when you, with, with a little bit more distance. And, and so in the same way of, of like the way JFK described himself as why he was a Democrat because he believed in looking forward, not back because he cares about people's jobs, their wages, their healthcare, their civil rights, their education. This is the reason why I'm a Democrat because in our essence, I believe we care about the little guy, we care about the middle class, we care about the worker. And I think ultimately if we're going to get back to winning in prairie states because we have a long history of winning in prairie states. Sure. LaFallet and Wisconsin. I mean, Wisconsin. Iowa. Minnesota.

44:41Nebraska. You have to remember. Nebraska. Yes. We had Bob Kerian and Governor Ben Nelson in South Dakota. We had Dashel 30 years, Harkin. If we're going to once again win in prairie states, it's got to be with an economic, economic populous message, a prairie populous message of going out there and not just being a lesser of two evils, being a corporate Democrat saying, no, you're not going to have to hold your nose going and voting for me. Right. You're going to say, I believe in this guy. The affirmative case. Correct. Yeah. I believe in him. I believe in his message for the state for the country. I'm going to go and vote for him and I'm going to tell all my family and friends that go out there and vote for him. You know, there's the big divide about there's, Demick Red and Blue and all that sort of thing. I am interested though in the divide between urban and rural. And do you have policies that you think are or ideas that diverge from those two groups? Is that a difficult tightrope to walk that you have policies that you think, boy, rural

45:43voters might, I think, buy into that, but urban voters, boy, they're not going to be positive about that. Or have you not faced that? No, I think that there are certainly policies that are going to be more salient and important, for example, when, you know, I'm talking about ending these tariffs and putting, for example, we need to pass a damn farm bill because we're three years overdue or a right to repair mandatory of country of origin labeling year round E15. Those issues are certainly more salient in rural communities. But regardless of where I'm going in Iowa, urban areas, rural areas, I'm here in the exact same thing, the exact same story. And that is people telling me over and over. Josh, I am struggling just to keep food on the table, both me and my wife are working and we're still going to the food bank. I'm struggling to keep the electric bill. I'm having them, if I'm, if I'm taking my medicine, I can't afford it. I'm having to make this impossible choice of this month. Do I take my pills or pay my bills and with this war in Iran, I can't keep gas in my

46:47tank. It is a consistency all across Iowa saying, I'm making more money than I ever have and it's going not as far. Meanwhile, everyone up in DC and people like my opponent, Ashley Henson, are getting more and more wealthy, but that is not trickling down to me. Right. And is she, I don't know much about her to be perfectly frank. Better. If you were to look at, if you were to look at, yeah, Mac or to Michael, that's snarky. I like that. What do you think has allowed this inequality to take shape? Because I think most people would agree the economy is at the very least unbalanced that we have for too many years favored investment and capital over labor. And now the buzz word on the right is, oh, so you're, you want socialism.

47:47No, I want to stop privatizing things that don't work well in a market system like healthcare, like Medicare, like all those things that are getting ruined by privatization and insurance and all those different markets and and rebalance so that labor gets a fair shake. The same shake that money gets. Yeah, 100% agree. I mean, the move is always the same, whether it's education or healthcare, it is defund it to the point where it appears like it no longer works. So then we can privatize it so that it doesn't function and we can make millions and billions of dollars and profits off the backs the most vulnerable. This is such an important cycle. I really, I want to slow down for a moment because I want to have the audience really understand it is a cynical cycle, but it is an important one. So walk us through a little bit your knowledge of the medical cycle and how that is done.

48:50Yeah. So for example, in Iowa, the privatization of Medicaid, which was the reason why I got involved in this, as I said, I was providing power wheelchairs for individuals with progressive conditions and over and over and over every day. I would hear from these folks saying, Josh, I can't get a direct care worker or I can't get a wheelchair. I would say, why is this taking place? Well, the privatization of Medicaid and then I found out we had never had a permanent disabled member ever in the history of the state. You can know where it stayed about 150 years and so that's what inspired me to run. And so what takes place before Medicaid was privatized in Iowa, you would go and talk to any person with the disability. They would say it wasn't perfect, but it was functioning. Now after we have privatized it, we've got 27,000 disabled individuals in Iowa that are on weightless. The longest weightless currently is nine years for care. The now rates skyrocket. Holy shit. Yeah. Can you imagine if that's your son or nine years? Nine years. That's the intellectual disability waiver.

49:51That's correct. So what would they do? So before they privatize it, okay, maybe it's bureaucratic and maybe it's not quite as responsive as you'd like it. But is the idea then that the Republicans would say, oh, this system is for the people fraudulent or people are taking too much of a advantage of it. So we're going to cut it or we're going to put requirements on it and the system starts to collapse. Yeah, it's always under the guise of ways for an abuse and we're going to make this far more efficient. Well, you're not. What you're doing is you're denying services and supports to individuals by denying them those services. You maximize profits on the back end. And especially with what we're seeing with AI becoming more and more ubiquitous in this region. I mean, we're seeing just blanket denials to individuals because they realize there's a certain portion of the population that will die, unfortunately. Another portion, especially with your dealing with severe physical disabilities or intellectual

50:53disabilities, they will not understand that they can appeal. They can appeal again and get a fair hearing, which I would disability rights is one, basically, all of their fair hearings. And so it's this really horrible cycle of we are just going to deny, deny, deny, we are going to make you go through all of these additional steps and hoops prior authorizations, you know, face to face doctor visits for ridiculous things. Like you imagine, I need a wheelchair repair and I've got to go visit my doctor, the ridiculousness and that. You got to show him that you actually, because the systems are set up adversarial. How do I, how do I, how do I show him if my wheelchair is broken? Right. How do you even get there? Why there? It's, it's, it's insane. But the adversarial relationship, especially of these healthcare systems and by the way, your father can probably talk your ear off about how the VA was set up adversarially. That's correct. That basically in the under the guise of, because they, their whole goal is to not spend

51:56money on the veteran. In the same way that the insurance company, their whole goal is to maximize, you know, their monthly and not give you money to spend on, on that healthcare. That's how they make their profits. So under the guise of waste fraud and abuse, they set up an adversarial system. Correct. For that 95 to 97% of the people who are just trying to access benefits they've earned, have to jump, have to be their own lawyer, doctor advocate while trying to navigate grievous injury, grievous illness. It's, it doesn't function. And, and now we're seeing the exact same thing in Iowa with public education, which again, as I said, was a point of personal pride for all Iowans, the gold standard. And now we have given public dollars to private schools with essentially a blank check. So what has happened? Now we spend $1,200 less than the national average per pupil. We have gone from basically number one in public education down to depending on the metric

52:57of use somewhere around 33, always the same. So we prioritize it, defund it, and then maximize profits to, to large corporations. Meanwhile the average person falls further and further behind. And I don't understand why the state would think that, you know, these types of services, education and healthcare would function better through what almost looks like a private equity system. Well, particularly on education, I mean, it's, I've said that public education was an American idea because our founding fathers recognized that for this beautiful experiment of democracy to function long term, we needed an educated electorate. And to see, you know, what I've seen far too much in my time just in the legislature is this imbalance because so much of the education funding goes through property tax where you've got affluent communities that end up having services and supports that are more similar to like a division one college. And you've got less affluent, less affluent communities that end up running out of paper.

54:02I mean, every single kid, I think the single greatest indicator of future success in life is access to quality education. And that shouldn't be, you have to win the genetic lottery to have that. Well, teachers will tell you too. I mean, for God's sakes, these teachers have to put their own money and Lord knows they're not paid very well in the first place. But oftentimes they're funding their, their own classrooms. Have you debated your opponent yet? Not yet. We've got two on the schedule, November the seventh and I think the 13th are the two. But I'm excited. October. Please don't say. That's right. Okay. You say, I think you might have said November the 7th, 13th. Oh, no, no, no, sorry. October October, October 7th and October 13th. No. Okay. Because if you did it in November 13th, I just think that'd be bad planning. Fair. Fair point, my friend. I love the NPR. The sweet dulcet tones. I love that they use like a lot of jazz in their interstitial music.

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56:11the podcast. How is Trump going to try and exploit Iowa in this final run up? I know he was there yesterday with some plan about a new steel plant. No, no, they were in DC. Oh, that was in DC. Yeah, yeah, they all went there, including my opponent. Yeah, my assumption is he'll come here and and get out on the stump for them. But again, uh, Iowans can't be deceived what they're seeing directly. Iowans are hurting. They're hurting uniquely and they're upset and they should be in that's urban areas, rural areas and people, particularly Iowans, they don't want to be represented by someone that has used their position of power to to make themselves more well, I mean, 15 times more wealthy as she's voting to cut healthcare in a state with a cancer crisis and a healthcare crisis, food assistance and social security just to give tax breaks to billionaires

57:15as she's voted five times in favor of the tariffs, seven times in favor of the war. She's got a lot to answer for and an Iowans are upset and I think that being a common sense prairie populist out there with my message of, you know, I don't want to just represent Democrats in the US. I'm really proud of my time in the legislature. I was recognized as one of the most effective and one of the most bipartisan and I've said, no party has a monopoly on good ideas. I will go up there and I always will vote what is best for the people of Iowa and always through this lens of what's best for the people, what's best for our workers. Is she? So in terms of her attacks on you, you said the one about open borders, does she have an attack on you that you most fear that seems to have been most effective that's holding you back? What are the final types of things that you need to counter that could help you make your closing argument? What I need to counter is what's behind me here and this is why they put this up is I'm not taking any corporate pack money in this. She's

58:19taking millions of dollars of it. Name recognition. It's well, it's name recognition, but it's also raising money. I mean, down the stretch, she's already got $55 million into this. How much money does she have now? 55 million has come into the race. And I mean, it's pouring in from the super PACs. I mean, it's Elon. It's coming from the Koch brothers, Americans prosperity all over the place. And this could end up being the most expensive US Senate race per capita in American history. I mean, they are dumping the money in because they're looking at the same poll numbers. And so what keeps you up at night is can we raise the money? And so behind me here, people want to help us out. Teryk for iowood.com chip in a few bucks because if we can raise the money and we can be competitive on paid communications, we're going to be able to win this thing. Have you thought about doing ads on what 55 million dollars could do for the people of Iowa that is not that would not, you know, what if Elon Musk and the Koch brothers poured 55 million dollars into Iowa to help

59:22improve conditions there? I am into that. And again, it is it is immoral in in grotesque the amount of money that we spend on this. We could end homelessness. We could make sure every single child never goes hungry. We could make sure that we had affordable health care for people. The amount of money that gets dumped into these elections. That's why I want to go up and ask it is grotesque. It absolutely is. Yeah. And this is the problem. You have outsized influence from billionaires in large corporations that are able to buy off the political process. I say we can have oligarchy or we can have democracy, but long term we cannot have both. And so we're going to have to address this very, very quickly or we're going to see a furthering of this wealth divide in tax avoidance. And we're going to see a furthering of this second gilded age, at least a hundred years ago when we had the first gilded age, we broke up monopolies, we broke up standard oil, we went after the the rock of fellers. There was an urgency to it. The FDR, the new deal and everything else, there was an urgency to that. That's exactly right. And my hope is out of this second

1:00:26wealth divide that we're going through that we end up arriving at some form of second, a, you know, FDR new deal where we actually have representatives up there in Congress in the US Senate that are fighting there for the people and are going to go up there and legitimately work on, you know, a livable wage, affordable housing, affordable health care, drinkable water, functioning public schools, infrastructure and addressing corruption, make America competent again. That's sort of thing. Yeah. And let's make sure that we bring back, you know, not only hope and positivity and inspiration is something I'm really trying to lean into because I'm seeing that there's been an intentional cynicism and nihilism that is set in due to the fear mongering. But, you know, let's, let's bring back empathy. And again, what we're missing in DC, we got the 70, what is it? 73, 74 millionaires in, in, in the United States Senate. We don't need more mint multi millionaires. We need more people from places like accountable asylum, like me,

1:01:27with lived economic struggle, health care struggle, because when you've experienced it firsthand, you will have a different level of empathy. You'll have a different level of fight. And that's what we need in US Senate. We need fighters for the people. And at summer special, like you're a great case example of seeing how good policy can make huge difference, like the ADA that Harkin championed and, you know, that I'm sure makes a huge difference in people's lives. I say that I am the American dream of that in no other country on earth could someone with my economic background, my health care background, ultimately go on, win gold medals, represent my community and the Iowa legislature ultimately run for US Senate. But all of that was because, I mean, I went to public school in Iowa when we were number one in public education, where we had a fully funded AA so that me as a disabled child had the services and supports that I needed. That, you know, I had my health care through VA because of my father's service. Like,

1:02:27I only ended up going to college. My parents couldn't have afford it was because of a wheelchair basketball scholarship and because of the help of vocational rehabilitation. Over and over and over, these services and supports that I needed were there for me. I want to make sure that these same, you know, supports like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are there for the next generation or affordable homes because now the average age of a homebuyer is 40 years old. Right. Josh, I'm curious of you and you're like the team that's working on this for you. Talk about, you know, here in New York, Mamdani was really good about lighting up social media to kind of, you know, they had a very strong game of lighting up on social media that helped mitigate maybe the difference financially in the amount of money that people were spending. Do you have the same sort of discussions where you are? Is it how do you mitigate the difference between the amount of PAC money that they're getting thrown at and what you have other than just

1:03:29having to raise it from small donors? Are there other strategies? A lot of it is small donors. I mean, sometimes it can feel like, you know, I've showed up to a to a gondol, you know, caring and I, because, you know, I've made it really, really clear that I don't view a lot of these issues as morally ambiguous of, you know, I'm not taking any corporate PAC money in this because I do not want my hands tied to corporate interest. I wait, if I'm able to get up to the US Senate, I want to be able to go up there and fight for the people. And as broken as the US Senate is, I really still believe, maybe in this, you know, you say, you haven't gone up to the Senate yet, I still believe in this kind of beautifully naive, optimistic way that at its best, when it's functioning, the US Senate is still the greatest vehicle for societal change. And I hope if we can elect folks like myself and some of these other amazing candidates that we've got running, that we can actually bring that back and be willing to work across the aisle like I've done in the Iowa legislature

1:04:33and be able to help the people because I know this. There's a lot of Iowans that are hurting and struggling and they don't feel heard by their representatives in DC right now. Is Iowa kind of not completely unique, but still small enough that you can personally help mitigate the money difference because you can touch more Iowans than, you know, you're running in California for Senate. You're talking about, you know, tens and tens of millions of people, you know, if you've got three million people where you can through force of your tenacity, make yourself seen and heard to so many more percentages of Iowans. Yeah, absolutely. We've got 3.2 million Iowans, we've got 99 counties, it is a big state bigger than what people realize, but I still believe, especially as a state that has had, you know, the Iowa caucuses for all this time, retail politics are still king and Iowans have a unique demand on them, on you as a candidate myself, of they want to see and hear from you directly.

1:05:39But in a unique way that, you know, maybe only a few states you can do this in, I've got the ability through every single day working as hard as I can, doing as many forms as I can, events I can get in front of as many of the 3.2 million Iowans as possible. And what I have learned representing a very, very rural community is if you give me five minutes to get in front of somebody, you know, I'm not going to win them all over, but we're going to trim the margins and all of these votes that I win over are also double votes. It's one at a her column and one in my column. Sure. And in many ways it was the Trump strategy, you know, look, he was very smart to go into cities and say, what have you got to lose? What have they done? For you, you know, to make the case that promises that have been made even by Democrats have not materialized. And I think you're in probably a really good position. Do you feel, you know, good ground and volunteer game? You feel like you got a nice little army behind you? I think we've got a small, which is becoming larger by the day army of volunteers that are going

1:06:39out every single day, knocking doors. We are working as hard as we can every day to get the message out. That means through the old legacy medias of certainly radio as is more farmers are spending time in the combine. We're spending a lot of time with local newspapers because anybody that's still getting a small newspaper, certainly a voter television is still king because this is an older state and then new forms of media, you know, this every evolving landscape with putting out good quality content on Instagram and Facebook and and and TikTok. But I think the message is really resonating. And I think that there is there is something unique about my story, my background, my resume and my politics focusing on the issues that apply to all 3.2 million I ones. This common sense, per a populist message that is really resonating with people all across the political spectrum. And I think that's what's going to help us get across the finish line here. Well, I wish certainly all the best and I won't keep it too long because I know you got you got

1:07:40your work cut out for you. But I really appreciate you spending the time with us today. Josh Turet, who was running for the US Senate in the great SIDAMA. I appreciate my friend. If high interest credit card debt is keeping you up at night, you're not alone. Interest rates as high as 21% APR can do that to you. Rocket mortgage can help. A home equity loan from Rocket Mortgage can cut your interest rate by more than half. So you could wipe out your high interest credit card debt without touching your current mortgage rate. See how much you could save at rocketmortgage.com. Rocket mortgage LLC, license and 50 states, NMLS consumer access.org number 3030 call 804 rocket for full program details. I don't understand how it's close. I really don't either. Name girl. It's fucking blowing. It's blowing. It's blowing my mind.

1:08:40It is so obvious. Yeah. It's literally like so. The ground has turned to feces. And it's raining acid. And no one can go outside all due to the policies of the people in charge right now. So you know, it's about 50 50. We don't know. We're not sure yet. What? No, I know. It's crazy. And it's like the whole time. I'm just like, I can't believe it's close. Like are the people of Iowa aware of what you're saying? Like, I think this is their lived experience. Yeah. It does make you wonder though. Is it a question of what is the information that is being beamed into people's skulls? Because it is. When you lay it out, would like, look, the guys, tariffs have made your lives unaffordable. The Iran War has made getting to the different unaffordable places unaffordable. Yeah. We're going in to try and change that around. He's giving everything that he could possibly give to, you know, the class of people who don't need it.

1:09:47You know, what do you think of that? And you're just like, well, I heard that the CIA was making, you know, you don't know where they're getting their information, what they're, and maybe it is that the money that is being spent is enough to challenge reality. Yeah, or just that. I mean, you think about a state like Iowa where it is geographically like, I was well below the national average on issues like illegal immigration. Even in like having like a foreign born population, Iowa is extremely white. And you see how animated they are by the issue of immigration. It's just untethered from the reality. But it's not like he is a guy who is. No, he's not like defund ICE and open the borders. And also, by the way, talk about a state that relies on low cost. Yeah. Immigrant labor to exploit like, come on people. You can't have it both fucking ways. But that's just,

1:10:49it's just like reality doesn't seem to really play it. Then I feel like that's going to be the legacy that Trump administration has been the reality distortion field that he has been able to create through. I mean, JD Vance even was sort of upfront about it, which is like, hey, man, if I've got a lie, yeah, to get what I need to do that. Well, I think just people said, when they go, you know, they're not actually eating the cats and dogs right, you know that. He's like, does it matter? You can just say shit. Right. You can just say $5,000 if we win the midterms. I guess you can say, I mean, even this like, steal the milk. Yeah. That he announced for 2030. Like, did anything ever happen with the Foxcom plant in Wisconsin? No. Nothing happens within here. But what did he say? We've got $30 trillion of investment coming. And you're like, is that promise? Do you remember there was a great, I thought it was really revelatory about what these pledges are like? Do you remember early on in the Trump administration, there was a dinner where he

1:11:49was sitting with the Titans of tech. It was. Yes. And Zuckerberg was at the table. And they were all talking about the big pledges that they were going to make to this country to do that. And Zuckerberg, and it's on like a hot mic where he turns and he goes, what should I say? 500 billion. What do you want me to say? Yeah. Trump's like, make it a big number. So it's just a good. Gillian. It's made up. Talk about fake fucking news. It's monopoly money. It's like, it doesn't matter. Bastards. What do you got for us, Brittany? All right. We got three this week. John. Oh. John. Oh. Oh. Is this a bad one? I can tell by the giggle that this might actually be a bad one. No, I'm just preparing myself. John, do you think business leaders and politicians consider Trump a stable genius or a useful idiot? Oh, God. I mean, I don't know that they've ever had a more useful idiot. I think again, going back to the statement about how much do you want me to say I'm

1:12:52giving you? And all I have to do is let me get this straight. If I've given you a million dollars for your ballroom, I can have a five billion dollar Pentagon. He is the best investment. Any of these business leaders have ever made quid pro quo corruption. He even said when he came in about foreign business, hey, I don't want it anymore that we can't bribe officials in other countries. He stated it explicitly. I want us to be able to bribe other countries officials. And certainly, if we're going to do it overseas, why shouldn't we be able to bribe officials here? And so it has been the store is open. And if I'm one of those exploitative corporate radar type individuals, this is the greatest thing that has ever happened. Then they've got the money. I mean, that's what's been so crazy to me about this midterm election is like all of the corporate money has been flowing to the president's pack. The president who is

1:13:58term limited, the president who is not on the ballot, this election, like is there anything more obvious than what's going on? And the president who is not look what he's amassing. No one even knows where the Venezuelan gold is. Like no one knows where the oil is going. He is now, you know what he reminds me of a chipmunk. I don't know if you've found I've been I don't want to get into what I've been doing every day or Disney princess over here at the exact same time every day. Instagram knows you lay out far more than any chipmunk. These I don't know if you've ever seen a chipmunk. This is not a lot. This is not this is not a chupacabra. This is they're very, very little. And yet I'm giving them nuts that are bigger than their heads. They come in, they take it, they move it, and they're just store. Are they going to need all those nuts for winter? They are not. I have overpopulated their Fort Knox. But they still hoard it anyway because it's just who they are.

1:15:04Do these Trump people have more than they will ever need in a thousand lifetimes of course, but they keep hoarding it because it is who they keep exploiting. This is the great. They have finally found the golden teeth. And it is us. Yeah. And they keep doing it because they can who's stopping it. Nobody. In fact, the Supreme Court continues to make it easier and easier to suck all upon the golden teeth of the people. Well, they're like, I also have a hoard of acorns that I need. That's right. Listen, everybody, I believe the chipmunk theory is the one that really got you know what? Get Jason Furman back on the show. I want to talk to him about the chipmunk economic theory and let him let him smug me out. All right. Next. John is the downside of Democrats winning back the House and Senate that Schumer and Jeffries will get more airtime. You think I'm. It is it is this important time of Sukkot, which is the Jewish holiday of backyard

1:16:13building. You can take a little love and a look. I think what's going to happen is they're going to have to fucking do something. They're going to have to deliver. They're not going to be able. It will not be sufficient to make their entire personalities opposition to whatever Trump politics are. They're going to have a they're going to have to have a prescription for rebalancing this economy in a smart and urgent way. And that is not I am not confident that that is in their DNA. I'm not confident that it's in Schumer's DNA certainly, which means I'm actually hopeful that he won't be there as the leader that they will come in and say we're not we're not going to go down that corporate path again. We are going to make the changes that the American

1:17:13people are demanding that we make in an urgent way that is not bound by some idealized vision of what the parliamentarian might think is okay. Fuck that. Like if you if you are granted control, if you if they give you the ring, do something with it. God, I hope so. Yeah, yeah, best. It's but in reality, John, they're just going to fuck it up. You know chipmunks when they legislate, they rise to the challenge those chipmunks. All right, last and not least by the way, I have named them. Don't think I haven't. Alvin Felix and Oscar. So the two that come most often, Felix is this. He is the most high functioning chipball. This is what the people want to know. He sounds so insane. He is so smart about how he always comes in. He gets the biggest stuff first, the almond, the pecan, the acorn. He grabs those and then he'll come back and he'll throw a bunch

1:18:18of sunflower seeds ago, but he's got a very prescribed system. He is a gorgeous chipmunk. The stripes on the body are symmetrical. He is a Kardashian of chipmunk. It's beautiful chipmunk. And then fucking Oscar comes in. And Oscar looks like he's been through. And Tracy keeps saying she's like, I think it's because he's coming through the hollies and I'm like, no, I think he's an alcoholic. Like he comes out, his tail's like a little fucked up and he's always got like a little cowl-air can things. And he's just like, what do you got? Do you got some flowers? Is that a sample? Your life together, Oscar. Put one in there, tries to like grab an acorn in his hand. He can't figure it out. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. We were talking about. Go ahead. We have one more questions. All right. John, the NBA season starts next week. So when we get to the end, are you prepared to say it six or six? I will never, I will never, I don't care if they win it.

1:19:20I will not acknowledge it. It will, it will not. Listen, I can be impressed by their off-season work. And by the way, not a franchise known for its good off-season work. Like that is a franchise that is much more known for like, what if we bring in James Harden and Ben Simmons? Those guys got to work great together. Like it's never been a functional franchise in that regard. I mean, trust the process. Like, are we talking about a process like the Iron Age? Like how long is this process? It's become a punchline. That being said, boy, what an impressive off-season. Like the idea that you could turn Paul George into Jalen Brown and LeBron James and add that to Tyrese Maxi and Edgecomb and Embed. Like that is a formidable, you know, that they're they're they're going to be tough. And for us not having Mitch anymore. Yeah. It's I understood some of what you've just said.

1:20:20That's hilarious. That was that was for Oscar, not Felix. Jillian is Oscar. Yes. Fuck yeah. Great show. Brittany, how do they keep in touch with us? Twitter. We are Weekly ShowPod. Instagram threads. TikTok Blue Sky. We are Weekly Show Podcast. And you can like, subscribe and comment on our YouTube channel. The Weekly Show at John Stewart. You can do all those things. Thanks again, our producer, Brittany Mammadavik, producer, Jillian, and spirit video editor and engineer Rob Vitola, audio editor and engineer Nicole Bois, our associate producer, Arabaka Rotenberg, and our executive producer, Chris McShane, Katie Gray. We will see you next week. The Weekly Show with John Stewart is a Comedy Central Podcast is produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy Productions.

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