Hit Me Piggy One More Time

0:00you're listening to The Damage Board. Make sure to follow and rate our show with five stars. Welcome back one and all to the damage worth me John Arola and joining us for this big Thursday show. Yes, is back in town. Yes, many of the kind has a going. Hi, how are you? I'm good. I'm good. We were just chit chat and before the show for a couple of minutes about a bunch of different stuff. And then producer Ashley starts you to the countdown. I was like, oh yeah, the show. What are we talking about? I'm talking about. Oh, the Texas colors for a golf ball. Exactly. I'm the fan of the hot pink ones. Exactly. I got my daughter a little pack of Disney golf balls of different colors with different like mini Mickey, you know, stuff on them and she really likes the pink one. But anyway, yeah. Okay, we do have politics. Politics continues to go on. The campaign continues to draw an eye and we'll be talking about all of that as well as foreign policies. And data centers and Trump coins

1:01and all of that stuff. It's a truly bizarre run down. We'll be checking in on Mitch McConnell. Is he still alive? Stay tuned to find out. And a whole lot more. Before we jump into all that though, yes, in addition to providing awesome commentary in a show, puts out a weekly sub stack. You want to tell people what you've written about this week? Yeah, so I do have a sub stack article. It's called the community. Yeah, so I do have a sub stack article. It's coming out later today and you got it. Yeah, John, you're putting me on the spot. Sorry. I don't have the topic yet. It's going to come. Oh, come. You don't know the topic yet. Yours are so close. No, I don't want it. I thought you did it over the course of four days or something. That is the process. The process is you sit down and write in whatever comes out is what comes out. It's a very specific process. And I'm trying to, this is my effort to just like release, control a little bit. And that's what I've been doing. I do, I do have like a list of topics on my phone that I can

2:02kind of go through if I get stuck. But that is the plan. But it will be out later tonight. So hopefully it will be good. Awesome. She has excited to find out what it will be about as we are. That's awesome. Okay, cool. I did read yours though. That was good. Thank you. Thank you. I'll, we're talking about something relevant later on the show. I'll plug it at that point. But anyway, okay, everybody, thank you for being here. Hit the like button, share the stream, send us your comments, tweet, super chats, review us on Apple Podcast, do all of those things. And let's jump into the news. Texas Republicans are getting increasingly worried, certainly justifiably, that Ken Paxden just doesn't have the juice to beat Tallerico. Unfortunately for them, neither does Trump. Because Trump has sort of gotten involved a little bit in the race. And theoretically, he's trying to help, but as you'll see, it's a running theme throughout today's show. He's really bad at helping when he can even bother to try. Take a look. He's running against Tallerico. And this guy was, you know, he has that name for a reason. He's terrible.

3:02He's radical left. Now he says he loves meat. You know, he does, he eats meat, and he goes outside and he throws up all over the place. Because in Texas, if you don't eat meat, you're in deep trouble. It's not a good thing not to be able to eat meat. Yeah, that's all, that's just made up. That's just, that's based on literally nothing. The idea that he throws up his base to nothing. The idea that he didn't eat meat at all was based on nothing. He just eats meat. He just does. I know that like you want this race to be about identity politics, like meat eaters versus not. No, it's, it's just not. But I'm actually, I'm not mad about the lies. I was initially, I was like, ah, maybe treat your voters with a little bit of respect. Fox News, Ken Pax and Donald Trump. But they're not going to do that. That initially bothered me, but it doesn't anymore. You know why? Because this is the same stupid crap that they've been saying since day one and has it been working for them? No, it hasn't. So sure, keep digging. See if that gets Ken Pax and

4:03out of the hole he's in. Definitionally, I don't see how it could. But at this point, that seems to be about all that Donald Trump is willing to offer for Ken Pax and is repeating the stupid vegan smear or whatever against Alarico because he's certainly not giving out cash. Despite the fact that as we profiled yesterday in the show, his MAGA ink pack has between four and I don't know, 900 billion or million dollars or something like that that he could give out. He's just choosing not to do that. And we will have a little bit more of Trump talking about Pax and later on where he appears to be actively sabotaging his candidacy. But while he's doing basically nothing, Republicans are just screaming for the rooftops for more. What Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana saying to Fox News, we need help from the president. John Thune, the majority leader echoed Kennedy, casting the Texas race as a must-win and saying that we're going to need the president and his team to be engaged there, which is like literally what I say about like my daughter. Like, okay, you can come shopping with me, but you got to stay engaged

5:03and focused, you got to stay with me. That's the standard they have for the president of the United States. On Wednesday, a Fox host even asked Trump's daughter-in-law, Laura Trump, when the president's groups might spend in Texas. Carl Rove recently told the Texas Tribune that the race will depend mightily on whether Trump spends hundreds of millions on the midterms. And you know you got a hell of a candidate when you need a measurable percentage of a billion dollars spent on it. To win in Texas, Jesus. Then finally, Representative Troy Nell's of Texas told Montoraju on CNN that it would quote be incumbent upon Trump to spend some money to try to help Ken Paxton, particularly because it's Donald Trump's fault that the Republicans are stuck with Ken Paxton in the first place. And also their voters fault. There's a lot of fault to go around, but if Donald Trump had just endorsed John Cornyn, then Cornyn might have actually won and then they wouldn't need to spend $200 million to help him win. In any event as of right now,

6:03the polling continues and Tallerigo continues to hold a lead, not necessarily a big lead, but a $24% to 43.6% right now with 12.6% still undecided. So it will come down to those undecideds. Yes, but as our Texas correspondent, what do you make of the state of the race and how it might shift in the future? John, there's a lot going on here in Texas. Okay, so yes, we have gotten stuck with Ken Paxton as our Republican Senate candidate. At the time of the election between John Cornyn who was the incumbent Republican Senator and Ken Paxton, who was our attorney general here in Texas. At the time, John Cornyn actually won the primary, but not by enough, so it went to a runoff and then Ken Paxton advanced to the November election at the runoff. But if you look at the numbers, not even one million people voted for Ken Paxton in that runoff election, and I think during the primary, he had just over a million people. Texas has 32 million residents here who are

7:06who could be voting. So it's really not a representative amount of people that have sent Ken Paxton into this race. That said, on the Democratic side, the numbers are not much better. So only about like two-ish million people voted in both the Republican and Democratic primaries in March. So Texas really needs to get out and vote. That's really what needs to happen. And for better or for worse, I think if we had better numbers, I would feel a lot better about who it is that we're actually sending to Washington. The people of Texas do not vote. It has to be really, really, really bad for the people of Texas to actually get up and want to do something. And I know in, for worse Texas right now, in Tarant County, we're seeing there's some election tampering that I think we're going to get into in just a little bit. And that is, it is seemingly mobilizing the people, getting them out of the house, getting them ready to fight for what they perceive or rights being taken away from them.

8:06And that is exactly what's happening. And again, I know we're going to get to that in just a little bit. But we have 12.6% of Texans undecided between James Talleriko and Ken Paxson. I don't even know what to do with that, John. What I imagine is happening there is there is a contingent of Texas voters, Republican Texas voters, who really can't stomach Ken Paxson. They really wanted John Cornyn to win, because he was a much nicer Republican. He looked kind of like John McCain. He felt kind of like John McCain. He was like a classier dude. Ken Paxson is really terrible. He is crooked. He looks crooked. And he cheats on his wife. And maybe not surprisingly, the cheating on his wife is the thing that has more Texas Republican voters a little hung up right now. So that's what we're dealing with here. It's not logical. It's not sensible. And the fact also that James Talleriko is still pretty neck and neck with Ken Paxson is very worrisome. I want to be excited with the rest of you. I really do with how well James Talleriko seems to be running this campaign.

9:09He is running a wonderful campaign. I will believe it when he is actually elected on election night and not a moment sooner. Well, I would say with the way that elections have gone in America, I would want them to be sworn in before I believe. The election night doesn't have to clinch things anymore. Yeah, no, I don't. I'm not super confident that he's going to win necessarily. I think that the polling is better this way than if he was still trailing by a few points. And it's pathetic that Paxson is doing as well as he is. It is a testament to the fact of how propagandized two conservatives are in Texas, how little standards they have been trained to have four politicians. The fact that they can look past in many cases, not just the blatant cheating that he continues to do. But the corruption, the fact that he was already impeached and his twisted ugly little face. And oh, I don't know the fact that he's committed voter fraud. Oh, and the fact that he owns 15 homes. It's just a part like I love, I love the perfect encapsulation of how voters are manipulated in American politics where they don't want you to acknowledge that Ken Paxson has nothing

10:13to do with your life. He has no, there's no connection between the life he lives in yours on class lines where he owns an entire goddamn neighborhood of homes. But James Talleriko doesn't eat meat. I mean, he does, we're lying to you. But imagine if he did, okay, he's different than you because he doesn't eat meat, even though he does. Ken Paxson owns a city block. He's probably more like you. He probably, it's meat without vomiting all over the place. Well, I looked at his face and I vomited. So I don't know, there's, there's blame to go all around. But that's how people are manipulated in this damn state. And as finally, as you as mentioned, we did cover yesterday in the show in Tarant County. They're closing down 92 election day polling sites. Again, always assign that you were very confident in how you're doing in the election. You're like, we gotta stop people from voting. Stop the vote, stop the vote. The Clarion call for all functional democracies, but that's what they're doing. And they're hoping that basically nobody will vote. And it might work. It might end up that the race is super close.

11:16Maybe Talleriko is even closer than your boy was. I'm blanking on his name now. My brain doesn't work anymore. I'm going to get a better oral orc. And we'll always wonder. Maybe if people were allowed to vote in Texas, it would have gone a different way. But the control of the Senate could come down to that. And that's what they're doing. Talleriko did respond to that finally, I will say, he said the people in power are trying to stop us from holding them accountable. We have to fight back against that with everything we have. That's why we need folks to sign up and volunteer. That's why we need everyone watching right now to check their voter registration to know how they can vote, know where to vote, and make a plan to vote early. That is the best way to overcome this suppression. And it's good that he's organizing around that. I hope that people are invested and involved. I hope that many of you, even if you don't live in Texas, you can still assist in the effort to make sure that people know where to vote and all of that. But we shouldn't have to overcome this sort of stuff. We should just let the goddamn people of America choose their leaders, but the Republicans have long since stopped thinking that that was a good call.

12:16Why in Ted? Yep, it'll piss you off at the time. No, because I respect the fight. And it was actually, it was political genius. Don't worry, we're gonna return to Ted Cruz, politically cocking himself in a second. But we had to pause there because that's just, it's too much. And it's like going quickly through Scott's tauts or something. It's just the cringe, it's too much. No, it didn't make me mad. I loved when this lying bastard ruined my political aspirations and called my wife ugly. And I thought at that time, he's a genius. I hope he punches me in the face again. That's an alpha for you right there, America with Ted Cruz. But the reason he's saying that, the reason he's lying to you about Donald Trump there is Donald Trump is still around. And Ted Cruz has had to hide in a little bunker for the last decade, wondering, will I be able to come out and pretend that I'm a real man?

13:18And he can't do it just yet. At some point, Donald Trump will drop dead and then I'm sure Ted Cruz will be really critical of him. But right now, Ted Cruz is doing the latest step. Strategy has been pursuing since 2016, which is, I just buy my time, get Donald Trump to not attack me anymore. And then I can be president. I think it's a terrible strategy. I don't think it's gonna work. He is laying the ground and work for a 2028 run right now. And we're gonna provide the proof for that. But first, let's hit you with just a little bit more of the Ted Cruz cringe. He's got an instinctual marketing genius. If you look at that race, my biggest strength was people trusted me. People trusted that I believed what I said, that when I said I would do something, I would do it. And that had been my whole record of doing what I said. My intent, it was effective because it literally went to my greatest strength. Like you do martial arts at Jiu-Jitsu, it's using your opponent's strength against him. It was brilliant. And I don't know that he reasons it through as compared to just instinctual, that's how

14:21he's. He's a good instinct guy. You know, or a little Marco or whatever. I mean, that was a little Marco was devastating. And by the way, you remember Marco tried to come back and say at small hands and it just didn't work. But like it. Oh, these are like great moments or locker room talk. Yeah, they're great moments for the party. They're Republicans. It's a healthy political party you've got there with the small hands and a little Marco. So, Ted Cruz wasn't hurt by any of that. Sure, sure Ted. Yeah, we all believe that. And I love that he's sitting there as a guy who was attacked by Trump. And Sean Hannity is sitting there as one of Donald Trump's very reliable subs who's just always going to do what he wants. And both of them are just chatting about, isn't it awesome that Donald Trump just blatantly lies? Like if you believe what Ted Cruz says, I don't, I don't think his strength was that everybody trust him. But let's say that you believe that that's true. And let's say that you believe that Donald Trump, that Ted Cruz is actually trustworthy.

15:23So then according to Ted Cruz, how he tells it, Donald Trump came in and viciously lied to the Republican voters about Ted Cruz. Donald Trump didn't care about what was true, what was real. Just lied and they're both cheering it as a masterstroke of political strategy. Is that not a massive indictment of him as a man? If not as a politician, that in your view, he's a massive goddamn liar. That both of you have been standing for a decade at this point, have some freaking standards. For yourself at least if not Donald Trump stand up for yourself. But Ted Cruz barely did it then and he's not going to do it now. That's that he is busy. He's starting to lay the groundwork for this presidential run. He's putting in legwork in Iowa, hitting the podcast circuit, bringing his trademark charm to that. And embarking on a book tour because we all know millions of people will spend the fall reading a book written by Ted Cruz. And he's also apparently quietly asking people if they would be interested in working on

16:26his 2028 bid. I think people familiar with the request, which is always a good sign for that the demand for you to run for president when you're going out and saying, hey, if I were to run, would you help me out? No, that's not, you're probably not going to win this thing. And I just, I don't think that he will. Yes, I'm curious about your thoughts. I think that he has, I guess, insulated himself against some of the criticisms from Donald Trump by being so submissive to him. But I don't think that you win over a lot of conservatives. I don't think he's built a reputation for either trustworthiness or manliness over the past decade. But what do you think? That's what I was wondering because he called him lying Ted and Ted Cruz sat there and said, you know what, that was so brilliant because it hit me in my strength. Is his strength truthfulness? Is that what he's trying to say? I don't understand. And you know what, John, when I saw on the rundown that we had to talk about Ted Cruz on today's show, I was like, why do they do this to me every time I'm on this show? They made me talk about Ted Cruz. But the real question we should be asking is why is Ted Cruz doing this to all of us?

17:27That is a question, right? We don't even like him here in Texas and he thinks he's going to win a national race. The only place that someone like Ted Cruz could even remotely make any sense is Texas. And we barely like him here. He only keeps getting reelected because he is the Republican on the ticket. Republicans here in Texas who vote for Ted Cruz, they don't like him. They will tell you they don't like him, but they continue to vote for him. So how he's going to extrapolate that to the rest of the country, I don't know. He has tried to run for president a few times before and it has been not just bad. He didn't just lose. He didn't just drop out, but it was embarrassing. It was humiliating, not just for him, but for all the people who've ever, ever really supported that guy. And then to see him go on this podcast circuit now, talking about how brilliant Donald Trump is still 10 years into this. Like come on, he hasn't found a backbone yet. And then he's saying that like, oh, he's so brilliant. He's so on top of things because he comes up with nicknames like a little Marco, like a little Marco. That's not how is that remotely clever?

18:28That is something that an elementary school child could come up with. Your daughter could probably come up with something like that if she really wanted to hurt somebody like like Marco Rubio maybe. So we will see how far he's going to get in his endeavor. Also he does have quite a podcast audience. He gets a lot of downloads every month. I don't know why. I don't know anyone who listens to that podcast, not that I necessarily would. But there are a lot of Republicans here in the state of Texas that I do have to interact with. And none of them that I know have listened to Ted Cruz's podcast. And I don't really trust a lot of the numbers that come out of certain camps. But apparently he has quite an audience there. Yeah, sure. I don't know how much to believe any of that. The idea that somebody would willingly give over their time of listening to Ted Cruz. I mean, I guess I'd do it before I'd listen to Laura Lumer, I suppose, or Candace Owens or something like that. But- You could just not listen. You could just not. Yeah, I could literally just listen to the sound of the neurons firing in my brain. And I would get more enjoyment out of listening to any of that. So I don't know, all their books are best sellers.

19:31And hey, what do you know their podcasts get a lot of listeners? If they fake one, do we really believe they wouldn't fake the other? I don't know. The one thing I do know is I cannot wait for the presidential primary on both sides. It's going to be the most exciting one since 2016. I can't wait to see a bunch of progressives running against all these establishment Democrats. And then when it comes to the right, they are going to be viciously tearing at each other. Like the barrel full of half star vrats that they are. So Cruz has already said recently, JD negotiated the MOU with Iran. That was a terrible deal. They're going to try to hang the Iran War around JD Vance's neck and I can't wait to see it. Now bear in mind that Ted Cruz is also being a pathetic little baby boy because Donald Trump signed it. So would you like to criticize him? No, no, no, no, no. Donald Trump is totally cool to have signed the MOU. JD Vance is bad for agreeing to it. Somehow one is bad and the other is good, even though they both like the same thing. And so that's going to hurt JD. Pete Hegsith is going to have been the head of the military that lost the war with Iran.

20:35Every one of the Republicans is going to tar and feather him with that. And I can't wait to see it. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat, a sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants, the tea is somehow always reached for first. Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and marino wool. Their cashmere sweaters started just 60 bucks. I grabbed one in charcoal a few weeks ago and honestly I've reached for it more than anything else in my closet since. It's that soft and it looks like it costs three times as much. We've also got premium pants, fitted tees, polos and breathable active wear all built to withstand everyday wear. Now that we're finally getting some colder days here in LA I've been wearing my sweater knit fleece full zip jacket. It's warm and soft on the inside with a smooth sweater knit exterior that looks polished and sporty. It's made from 100% recycled polyester so it's good for the environment too. Everything is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical

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22:37He was one of the best in the entire country and that speaks a lot louder than the shoot he's wearing that doesn't look so great. What the hell is happening? I almost like Trump on the show because I cannot stress enough how he did not need to say any of that. You could just say Ken Paxson, hell of an attorney general. You could just tell that lie. You could just pretend that he was a good attorney general that he cares about the law or the Constitution or the 10 Commandments or whatever. You could tell all of those lies about Ken Paxson. You don't have to be like, man, the dude can't dress in that face and tubby belly, not a fit guy and no charisma has interviews suckies the worst. Where was I going with that? Oh yeah, I guess he's a loyalist or whatever. What are you doing, man? I showed earlier on the show him attacking James Tallerico and he was way more vicious and

23:40unrelenting against Ken Paxson than he was. So I don't think overall that's the sort of help that Paxson or the Republicans were asking for. But anyway, let's try to get an idea how enthusiastic he might be about doing more of that sort of campaigning. I'm going to take the final 30 days, maybe a little bit more than that because it's all about 35 races. Some of you guys are leading by so much, please don't make me go to your area. If you're leading by 40 points and you've been there for 25 years, like the speaker, he leads by 42 points and he hasn't made, please don't ask me to come to your area and make a speech, right? But we're going to take that final 30 days, Mr. Speaker. I'm relying on you guys to give me some names where I say, is either tied, or you're winning by a little bit, or you're losing by a little bit. In some cases, you can be losing by a lot and we'll bring you over the line. Okay, again, I just, I love that because it blows massive holes in a couple of foundational

24:44lies about Donald Trump. One, the dude's full of energy. Oh, he's boundless energy. He's like, I just don't want to, don't make me go. I don't want to get on a plane. I don't want to go. So he doesn't have energy. He doesn't want to travel. He doesn't want to work. He doesn't want to do the job. Also the lie that he's like a populist, regular dude, loves America, loves mix it up. Let's go to a barbecue or whatever. He kept saying, don't make me come to your area. He doesn't want to go to pitley little rural areas of America and there's no gold, there's no marble. He doesn't want to see these places and he doesn't want to be surrounded by these people. He's not a populist and he doesn't have energy. He doesn't, by the way, yes. And this is the thing that amazes me. The one thing he used to like about politics was giving speeches and having yokels that he doesn't respect cheer for him. He doesn't even like that anymore. He used to go and do rallies for nothing. There's no campaign.

25:45He does rallies. Now he won't even do a rally when there's a campaign. Let me make a bet. What we've kind of been seeing is that even when he does go to do these rallies, the turnout just is not what it used to be. He's not getting the laughs he used to. He's not getting the attention he used to. So he's not getting the dopamine hit that he used to get from doing those rallies, especially not in places like small town America. We're on top of not being able to rally the crowd that he used to be able to. He's now just like in some town, somewhere in like the Midwest where he has no interest of ever being. And he like at this point, he's not even interested in pretending that he's interested in these people or these places. He's a president of the United States. He is their president. He is there to govern over all of them. A lot of the things that he's doing, especially in the Midwest, is impacting them in a very, very real way. I don't know if he's scared of them because a lot of these people still support him, especially including the farmers who he is making life very, very difficult for the farmers and the

26:45ranchers, I should say. Yeah. And maybe he's just can't be bothered at this point. And yeah, like he's old. Also real quick, he said that Ken Paxson is one of the best attorney generals this country has ever seen. I don't know what that means, John. Maybe the best in Donald Trump's esteem by Donald Trump standards. But Ken Paxson is the most legally embattled attorney general in the entire country, meaning that he has more lawsuits against him as the attorney general than any other attorney general in the country. And just a reminder to everyone, the attorney general is the highest law enforcement agent in any state. So our highest law enforcement agent is himself the most legally embattled in the country. So now he's a terrible attorney general. Yeah. And Trump wants to remember that. And also he has an ugly face, terrible body notion. Also, he's ugly. Yeah, never forget. He's ugly. Look past it, look past it. He is the toughest, most resilient person that I've ever met and nothing was going to

27:52stop him from fighting so hard for the country he loves. When the world needs courage, vision and inspiration, it is still turning to America. There is no challenge Americans can not overcome. No frontier to vast for us to conquer. And our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous and free. That's good because I was worried about inflation, how it's up and that we're in a forever war and all that and how I'm not going to be able to afford a house and my kids won't go to college and all that. And then I heard that the world looks to us for courage. So that's good. I don't have any of those concerns anymore. That was such a specific ad that addressed all of my issues with your presidency. No good. I'm glad sarcasm aside, waste a mountain of money putting out that. You know what that ad is actually designed to do? It is designed to be presented to Trump and he watches it and thinks, yeah, I do look

28:56good in this ad. I gave a speech, someone wrote for me. He likes it. He likes the ad. That's why they make it. It's for him. It's not for the base. It's not going to convince independence to vote for Ken Paxton. If you're already angry, I don't want to see jets flying over a stadium that doesn't solve the actual problem. But he doesn't seem to get it. He doesn't seem to care. It's all about him. Well, okay, we have one ad though. Supposedly does mention some specific policies. Let's jump into this. We gave you no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on social security. The largest tax cuts in American history. The price of eggs is down 60%. I took prescription drugs from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest. We're telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power need so that no one's prices will go up. He's fighting for you every day.

29:58Help him finish the job. Okay, so the no tax on tips, overtime social security, I fact check that before he is either lying or exaggerating massively about all of those. But at least those are like actual things kind of. Look, it is a better strategy for him to reference actual issues. I agree. The issue that I think he's going to run into is that just saying prices are down. First of all, he's been doing that for a long time. And second of all, it was a lie when he did it a while ago, it's a lie now. There's telling people, no, you're wrong actually. You don't spend as much at target as you think you do. I don't think that's particularly persuasive. I don't think that's a masterstroke of campaign rhetoric or whatever. It's better than nothing. I suppose yes, which of these two ads do you think is the better strategy if either is? I don't know what's happening in these ads. I don't know why we're doing this. I don't know what he's trying to say. As far as making everything about himself, yeah, when he utilizes his own father, he made

30:59the eulogy about himself. That's who we're dealing with. That's who we have elected to be our president twice. This is a man who does not think about anything, but himself. These campaign ads are insane. He's not running for president again. I don't know if he's just trying to put some of his Donald Trump shine on all of these candidates who he hasn't really been endorsing. He hasn't been campaigning for their begging him for help, their begging him for money, their begging for some kind of support from this president, but he is so busy doing whatever it is that he's doing. The campaign itself, I'm sorry, the ads themselves, he's just lying. That is not true. I just went grocery shopping. The eggs are not 60% down in price from what they were. They're exactly where they used to be if not higher. So many groceries are so still so expensive. Now we have beef coming in from we don't know where their tariff exempt, they're not being examined at the border. And we don't even know what kind of meat it is anymore. That is the state of this country right now.

32:01We have all kind of pesticides that are being approved for everyday groceries like apples. What American doesn't eat apples? What child doesn't eat apples every day? So there are real issues that are facing the American people. He pretends to care about them, but he does not care about them. We know he doesn't because he has said so at other times that he's just not worried about the affordability crisis. And the thing is even if he manages to bring prices down a little bit right before the election, which is something that he might try to do or do, he might be successful in doing so even if that happens, it shouldn't change how people feel about him because he did all of this to us and he did all of it intentionally and he did all of it because he has something to gain from it. Or his friends did, he keeps talking about these tax cuts. Who felt those tax cuts? Certainly not the majority of Trump voters felt those tax cuts. So all of it is, it's farcical. We should be used to this by now. We should be smarter as far as how to deal with him by now as a country, but we just aren't.

33:04And we haven't learned anything. And on shows like this, and we can tell people, but the thing is like the Republicans in my life that I know personally are not watching this show. They're not listening to me and they will hear things and just not take it into account. All the things about Ken Paxson that can be said here, they just don't hear it. All they know is that he cheated on his wife. So it's really strange. Yeah, I word it differently. He banged his mistress, but yes, that may be mostly true, but his polling is down even amongst Republicans. So they are noticing that it's comforting. That is comforting. Yes. Really quickly give you a little update on another world situation. Let's jump into this. Trump lied to all of us about Iran saying that he'd keep a set of wars if he got back into the presidency. That was obviously a lie. And in the war, he's lied to us about virtually every aspect of it every day for the six months that we've been in it. Hell, even lied about how long it would take. But now his plan seems to have shifted.

34:05Now he wants to tell like a more foundational and opportunistic lie about the war. Just for long enough to drag his bloated carcass across the finish line that is the midterms. Because being reported, the top aides to President Donald Trump are pushing to keep the Iran war from escalating before November's midterm elections in an effort to staunch Republican electoral losses. White House officials will consider ramping up military action after the November 3rd vote. So this is why, even in our time, this is wild. The idea that your military strategy and diplomatic strategy would be so blatantly and opportunistically manipulated for political concerns. We're going to pretend that the war isn't that bad for the next two months knowing that as soon as we get past the midterms, we'll ramp it up again and we'll be cool. So we're going to lie to people effectively, even more about the state of the war. That's the strategy that they're pushing for. And they may go even further with the deception. The newspaper report, this Wall Street Journal reported that Trump has discussed with senior

35:06aides whether to declare the Iran war over and move the president reportedly favors. He believes that maintaining intense economic pressure will eventually force Tehran to either dismantle its nuclear program or collapse. So effectively, mission accomplished, even though mission not accomplished, sort of or moves is not open. The regime is still standing. Oil prices are still high. They're still attacking ships. They're attacking our allies in the region. Let's just pretend the war is over. And then once the midterms are done, then we go back to war. Such a massive gaslighting of the American people. And good luck, by the way, with those plans. Because if he comes out and says the Iran war is over, Iran's leaders are already continuing to periodically strike US and allied Gulf targets, including military bases, vessels and energy infrastructure. If Donald Trump comes out and declares that it's over, they'll have even more incentive to make him look terrible before the midterms. So I almost want him to pursue that strategy because I think it will blow up in his face. And we have even more dishonesty.

36:07He said that while the US is prepared to attack Iran again anytime we want, he doesn't think the renewed campaign will last too long. Well, why won't it? We literally aren't even engaged in diplomacy with them. It will last evidently forever because you're not even attempting to stop it. And he was asked about whether the CIA is still arming or considering arming Iranians and he wouldn't even rule out. Oh, yeah, the war is over. We just might be trying to inspire some sort of civil war in Iran. And bear in mind, Pete Hanksitz just extended mid East deployments into 2027 escalating the strain on troops. So don't tell me the war is over when all the moves you're already making tell me that you expect this to go on a long time. And indeed, I was preparing a bit of this last night woke up. Iran attacked Kuwait in retaliation for recent US bombardments, including against vessels. So good luck with ending the war and the Brent crude oil price is now above $96 per barrel once again following Kuwait being attacked. So he wants to get a handle on this war, not in reality, not in fact, but just in PR.

37:12And he's likely going to fail even in that. Yes, what do you think? Yeah, I think everything that's happening right now in Iran, in the Middle East and with this particular Trump administration, all of it seems very preventable. All of it seems to have never been able to, they were never able to convince the American people that any of this was a good idea. They thought that if they just go out there and play this tough guy act that the American people would fall in line and get on board. Because historically, the American people do. If there's a war, the American people will support it. If a president needs to garner support for himself or for his cause, entering a war, getting involved in some kind of war is usually a great strategy to do that. Unfortunately, if you look back at, say, Iraq when we invaded during the George W. Bush administration, there was an impetus there. There was a reason why the American people saw something happen and then we said, okay, that's why we have to go into the Middle East somewhere.

38:12And then they went to Iraq, which made no sense. But we didn't question it at the time because we really didn't know what was going on at the time. So when this president, when Donald Trump decides that he wants to invade Iran and he fails to ever give a reason to the American people as to why he's doing this, when he tried to convince an entire electorate who voted for him because he said specifically no new wars, I'm going to keep all this American money in the United States and give it back to the people. And he tried to go to war now with Iran. Those people were not on board. They were very much against it. This war has a historically low approval rating and they've never been able to kind of dig themselves out of that. So if he wants to try now and be like, the war is over, we're not escalating anymore. It's not his call anymore. And someone in his cabinet somewhere must know that. It said that Donald Trump himself even favored the idea of just telling the American people that the war is over. I don't know how that's going to go over well, especially when the Iranian people, they

39:15are there very much. It seems the ones in control here. Donald Trump doesn't have a whole lot of leverage. There's all kinds of reports that we are running out of money. We're running out of munitions. We're blowing through our entire stockpiles of ammunition and rockets and things like that. So we're not the ones who are in the power position right now. Yeah, no, I think that's pretty obvious. And I think it's going to be hard to convince the American people otherwise. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat, a sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants, the tea is somehow always reach for first. Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and marino wool. Their cashmere sweaters started just 60 bucks. I grabbed one in charcoal a few weeks ago and honestly I've reached for it more than anything else in my closet since. It's that soft and it looks like it costs three times as much. They've also got premium pants, fitted tees, polos and breathable active wear all built

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41:22real. Just retweeting the fact that at this cadets academy, the Vernon cadets academy in Canada, these teen girls who volunteer, it's not the military. It's just to learn some leadership skills, maybe feel a little bit better about yourself, but P.T. Hegs isn't interested in that. He's a strong man who gets off on cutting teen girls down and mocking their appearance. Apparently, I guess P.T. Hegs doesn't think that those two women are worth attempting to sexually assault following a bar room encounter. Read the news about that. And so he just attacked him. And that's what our Secretary of Defense chose to do, is vile, childish, and dumb. And we criticized him a lot of people did, including even a couple of Republicans. We'll start with Congressman Don Bacon who said this on CNN. It's low brow. I think it's unprofessional. And I'd like to think that our leadership representing us in the Pentagon and in the White House, we should be better than that. And I thought it was a demeaning and uncalled for.

42:26As you know, there were questions about Hegs' death during confirmation hearings, quite hard questions. And yet, Republican senators confirmed him. Should they have seen this coming? I think so. I told a few senators that I would vote no. And I was told by some, and I'll keep them nameless. Don, you're not under all the pressure that we're under to vote for. But I said, I've been under a lot of other pressure and other bills. I still vote no, or vote my conscience. I felt like he was trouble from the beginning. Yeah, and indeed he is. I mean, look, I don't know which is worse. If he's back on the wagon or whatever off the wagon and they're interested at work, he's drunk basically tweeting about Canadian teen girls or if he's doing it sober. Neither's good, neither's good. He sucks. He never should have been in this position. And his social media activity is one of the reasons he's being criticized. It's not the only reason some Republicans are criticizing him. You might have not noticed this, but we're actually in a forever war that we're losing. And it's embarrassing America around the globe. Senator Tom Tillis apparently has an issue with Pete Hegsitt's leadership of the military.

43:30He posted his long message, I won't go into the whole thing, but basically he goes off about how many of those people are now stepping down from top leadership positions in the various branches of our military service or in the Pentagon. They know how to deal with these conflicts. But unfortunately, Pete Hegsitt is sort of driving them away, not leaning on their expertise. In fact, making them no longer feel like the military is a place that they want to work. And so he goes on and on. The one part I want to read is this, where I think my theories at Senator Tom Tillis is having a little bit of fun at Pete Hegsitt's expense. I'm going to read this quote, you tell me if I'm onto something. He says, I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country. He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force. I urge the president to find a new leader in all that. Come on, ginning up culture wars, soberly attending to the vital work.

44:32He's mocking him for being a drunk. That's what he's doing. And I have to say, I think at Senator Tom Tillis is finest hour. I think that's the best thing he's ever done in elected office. And I'm going to vote for him the next opportunity I have. I'm kidding. Anyway, yeah, no, he's terrible and more and more GOP aids. We can get to those graphics too, are coming out against him and they should. He never should have been in this position. And the faster we get him out of it, the better for America. What do you think, yes? Yeah, no, he never should have been in this position in the first place. And what was so frustrating watching him and so many others like him do their senate confirmations is that you know it's all a farce. No matter what comes out in those confirmation hearings, no matter what questions they ask, no matter what kind of decorum they display, no matter what kind of answers they give, they are going to get confirmed because the way our government functions currently, especially during this Trump administration, is they vote in blocks. And the congressperson there, he just said that there are other people who are voting who are under a lot of pressure. They said there are under a lot of pressure to vote for him.

45:32And it's like pressure from who, from the American people because no, it's not from us. They don't care about us. They don't seem to care about their reelection campaigns anymore. And I think a big part of that is our fault because the American people, we just vote for whoever is already in office and we just let them keep doing whatever it is they want to do. They really have to do something so astronomically bad that they finally get voted out of office. For the Republicans, that usually means going against Donald Trump. Hopefully that seems to be shifting a little bit right now. But you know what is interesting though is you kind of never know what it really is that's going to get these people these days, right? You never know what it is that's going to trigger them to actually decide that they don't like someone. And who would have thought that the people supporting this particular administration and this particular president and even this particular secretary of defense would care about the well-being of teenage girls. So like this is a little encouraging in a way to see this backlash and see that it might actually have some kind of impact on him in his position.

46:35But it is also weird that the fact that he is so bad at his job and that he is spending billions of dollars and he's asking for a trillion dollars for this war that has achieved nothing in the last six months, it's weird that that wasn't enough to get him out of position. Yeah, no, 100%. I don't know if Trump is going to get rid of him. I think it would be good for him. But it would kind of be seen as an admission of failure and choosing him, a failure of his leadership of the Iran War. And Trump doesn't want to look like a more of a failure than he already does. So we'll see. The questions surrounding Mitch McConnell like whether he still draws breath or is capable of rational thought, they continue to plague the Kentucky Senator as even those who previously used to sort of carry water for the idea that he's still alive are backing off of that a little bit. The way that they're talking about it isn't quite so certain that he's ever going to leave his house. And Scott Jennings I think is the greatest example of that. So he made news early on in this saga by saying that he spoke to Mitch McConnell on the phone

47:38for about 20 minutes back in early July. Hilariously CNN had to come out later and be like, we're not saying he talked to him on the phone. Scott Jennings couldn't even prove it to his embelloirs. That's how terrible the claim it was. And that was early July. A lot of time has passed. We're now on day 80 of Mitch watch. And even Jennings is questioning the current state of Mitch McConnell as you'll see in this. Does there anything you can share with us about his health? Yeah, I haven't spoken to him for several days just to be clear. If I know is it home, I know he's still doing his recovery. The Senate goes back in on the 14th of September. I know they're fighting to get him back to work. I know he wants to go back to work and I know he wants to finish his term and it's his intention to do so. But there's two weeks between now when the Senate goes back. I look, the man's a fighter. Go for coming polio proves that. And so my thoughts and prayers are with him. I hope he comes back to work. And there's some big issues coming up later this fall. One was the last time you were in contact with him.

48:39It's been several days of couple weeks. Couple weeks. That's a long. Sorry. I'm probably person. It's been a couple weeks since I spoke to him. Do you think that they should be saying more at this point? I think between now and the 14th, they need to tell the people of Kentucky, his intentions on going back to the Senate floor. There's votes on the floor. There'll be votes in committee. I think agriculture committee, maybe the foreign bill. There's things coming up. They're important to the people of Kentucky. So yes, I think between now and the 14th, they need to make clear their intentions about what his capabilities are going to be when the Senate goes back into its session. Yeah, look, the fact that even Scotch Ennings is like, I don't know if he's ever getting back to that Senate floor, that's damning. Because Scotch Ennings entire job, his entire point of being right now is to be a liar that carries water for the Republicans and he's uncomfortable about it. And he should be uncomfortable about it. The Mitch McConnell's rotting corpse has made Scotch Ennings look like a fool, like a God

49:40damn fool, to have pretended that he had a 20 minute conversation with him. When Mitch McConnell has not been capable of having five seconds of conversation with an independent source in literally 80 days, that's how long it's been. He left his rehab weeks and weeks and weeks ago. He was fine to go home. He just had mild pneumonia and a fall. He can't talk for a second to CNN. And I'm mad at Scotch Ennings for how he's lying. I'm also mad at CNN. Fire his ass. He's lying to you and to your viewers. Why are you paying him to lie to everyone to pretend that it makes any sense that Mitch McConnell couldn't do a one minute interview. Couldn't do literally a photo in the last month, has never released a video, has never allowed an independent observer to just come and see him at his house. How? The CNN is continuing to reward him for his demonstrable dishonesty. That's a terrible indictment of Scotch Ennings as a political actor, communicator certainly

50:40as a man. He has no standards for himself, no values whatsoever. He's a reprehensible, tiny little, shriveled little rodent creature. But CNN paying him for being that is an indictment of them too. Yes, what do you think? Yeah, why do CNN keep, am I muted? Yeah, why do CNN keep platforming this guy? Why do people have to listen to this guy? And the fact that he's so uncomfortable with everything he's saying there, visibly, physically uncomfortable is not good for him or his career if he's in talks to be the next press secretary for the Trump administration. He better get it really used to it because that is going to be his entire job. And he's got a lot of practice doing it on CNN. We know what's about to happen over at CNN. We already see what is starting to happen at CNN. They're going to go through a very similar mega makeover, like what we saw over at CBS. And what's concerning about all of that, just speaking outside of Scott Jennings and outside of Mitch McConnell, is that the American people are going to still kind of keep watching these channels because they're used to watching these channels.

51:42The majority of people I think will not just like turn off the news. They're not going to do the work to find alternate news sources. Some of them will, but I think a lot of Americans are going to continue to watch this stuff. Just the way that the American people continue to watch Fox News so so oily. And that was even after they were sued for billions of dollars for defamation, just for lying to the American people. So it is very worrisome. What is happening with these news outlets? Hopefully people come to more independent news outlets. I'm not trying to plug us or anything like that, but I am worried about what is going to happen. If these major right wing sources get control over the news to the point where we can even rely on them to just tell the truth and give us the actual facts. And whenever things are getting reported on, you also have to wonder what is not getting reported on. And unfortunately, if you only watch mainstream news, you don't get a lot of what is going on in this country.