No Country For Animatronic Man

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1:01Gambling problem called 1-800-Gemmar. Welcome back one and all to another episode of The Damage Worth Me, John Arola. And joining me on what was originally going to be a John Solo show. I'm having a little bit of like third difficulties. So he was gracious enough to join us almost at the literal last minute. Jackson White is back. Jackson, how's it going? It's good to be here, man. I'm all right. Today I'm in New York City. I'm in the Bronx, you know what I mean? I'm here hanging out about to eat some lovely Puerto Rican ribs after the show. But it's always good to be here, man. And also I like John Solo. I don't know if you were trying to make that like good or if you did make that, you know, kind of like the audience started saying it a while ago. I like that. It works. We need a T-shirt. We need to do that. Yes, there we go. Good ideas. We off to a good start today. Yeah, let's rip off some more IPs everybody. That's our trajectory recently. But anyway, thank you so much for being here.

2:02Don't feel like you have to wait until the end of the show to start eating the ribs if you want. It's a casual show. You can just lay into them. But anyway, thank you everybody and the audience for being here as well. We have a lot of fun news to get to. Donald Trump is kind of just getting like bad news after bad news and he has no capacity whatsoever to handle it. So that's fun. So we're going to be talking about him reacting to candidates ties to the you and his issue with trade deficits and his issue with the Kennedy Center. And it's just it's all coming crashing down around his head and related to that at the beginning of the aftermath. We're going to have a guest who he was on the show a couple of years ago, I believe. Dr. Vince Greenwood has a book called Puppet on a String talking about his diagnosis of a pretty serious psychological condition for Donald Trump. So that should be a lot of fun that'll be coming up in the aftermath. Before all of that, definitely hit the like button, share the stream, send us your comments or tweets or super chats. And with all that, Jackson, are you ready to do this thing? Yes, sir, let's do it.

3:04Yes, okay, let's jump into it now. Donald Trump could be beginning to realize that he might have bitten off more than he can actually chew in this stupid trade war with Canada after they announced that, okay, if you don't want to be friends with me, we'll be friends with the EU. And the EU is like, that's cool. No, we can do trade and we can be partners and all that. And then Donald Trump's looking at them, having fun and lunch together and he's like, hey, come back. If I can't have Canada or choose not to, nobody else can either. That's almost 100% what he's actually planning to do with Canada as you'll see, take a look. I think it's an all-ahead select. I will put very serious tariffs for stuff trading with Europe with many things. So if they do that, if Europe does that, they bad, it's Jackson. If it's a good intention, that's not. If it's a bad intention, we'll put very heavy tariffs on.

4:08Okay, so you don't want to trade with Canada because they're a bad trading partner, even though they're not, but let's pretend that they are. So isn't it just going to be bad for the EU to trade with them then? They're going to get a raw deal, right? Since those damn Canadians are always screwed over their trading partners. So no, like if they want to trade with each other, what the hell does that have to do with you or with me? But no, he's like, screw you, Canada, I don't need you. No way, come back. Don't talk to those Europeans. They're even shifteer than you. Makes no sense. Look, he gives himself a little bit of an out saying, if they have good intentions, I'll allow these two other sovereign nations to trade. But if they have bad intentions, like what? We're talking about like microwaves being bought. That's what trade is, okay? How are you going to determine their intentions? And bear in mind, when he says, I'll stop trading with them. That's very much like Emperor Palpatine saying, I'm the Senate. Okay, he doesn't trade with them. We trade with them.

5:10We buy things, we sell things. That's what trade actually is. He's saying he will stop you from doing that thing. Initially, he said, okay, big tariffs. I'm going to do even more tariffs again, a reminder to all of our trading partners, particularly the ones in Europe. You did all that negotiating with us last year to lower minimally the new tariffs he put and you're like, okay, finally we have a deal. No, no, no, no, there's no deal with Donald Trump. Any news development can be enough for just sending off with a whole new round of tariffs. Bear that in mind. And so, or maybe he'll just outright be in us from trading with them. You don't get to buy products from France or Sweden or whatever. Isn't it great to live in a free democracy? In any event, he is very mad about the Canada thing in particular. And so he's made yet another move to try to hurt them. He just directed federal agencies to remove Canadian goods from government contracts, executing an earlier threat as tension between the two countries flare. And he said he has a new complaint when it comes to Canada. He put out a presidential member and I'm saying criticizing Canada for its barriers to

6:13US companies seeking access to the Canadian government market through a buy Canadian policy, which is obviously something that he would never do except the time he did it in 2017 when he put out this executive order telling that American companies to buy and hire American and to not buy from including other countries at Canada. He said, I don't like that the Canadian government won't buy products from our businesses. Oh, by the way, here's the executive order I just signed where I'm banning federal agencies from buying Canadian products. So yeah, there's the normal requisite amount of hypocrisy to all of this. And as I've been saying Jackson, none of this helps Canada, none of this helps us. And all of it just drives them away from us and towards places like the EU. But what do you think? I think that Donald Trump is nothing more than a, I think that's more of an appropriate word to call him than just like he's some type of sophisticated liar because he's not.

7:19He just says things and he also doesn't understand how anything works with any level of sophistication. That's why despite the fact that people told him Alterus work, despite the fact that he literally has had to pay back 100, he's paid back 100 billion of the 175 billion, which is a domestic sales tax. So corporations just made extra money for it at the end of the day. He's still throwing these on. And I think that it's pretty clear that Donald Trump's main focus is just enriching himself. Like it's, and obviously we know this. But when he comes out and he's like, well, Canada can't trade with the rest of the world. He just kind of gives off this vibe. He just thought about that the second before. You know what I mean? Because his main focus, this dude is made almost 4,000 stock trades in this term alone. He's made billions of dollars. He's got all these contracts with the Pentagon

8:20and his sons and his youngest son, Baron, and all these gifts he's receiving. And him trying to make this ballroom like that's what he's focused on. So then it's like, oh, I got to come talk about politics. Like, you know, because he's again, he's just a nothing else. 100%. It dev all of these things have the vibe of he best case scenario just a few minutes ago came up with it. Where's case scenario? He came up with it while saying the sentence. He right. He feels like very often. And we'll have more to say. We've talked to Adnauseum. He doesn't understand what a tariff is. He's never going to understand what a tariff is. And nobody in the federal government is allowed to educate him because they will lose their job if they do. So he is a weak little man who is just driven with ignorance and doesn't have the strength of character to even want to learn anything. And that is unfortunate and damaging in this case. So, well, only time we'll tell if Canada choosing to buy Canadian in the way that we buy American

9:24will be a longstanding gripe when it comes to Donald Trump. But let's turn to one of the reasons that he began all of these fights, not just with Canada, but with other countries as well. Let's jump to this. Donald Trump's demonstrable lack of basic understanding of core, like, foundational economic issues across the board has cost the average American taxpayer thousands of dollars every year. That's only going to go up. And he's working now to make sure that that is actually what happens. So let's talk about him at a recent rally he was doing in North Carolina where he begins to talk about our trade with other countries demonstrating no understanding of how literally anything works. Take a look. If we stop trading with every country that we have a deficit with, which is most of them, and what you would be very easy to do would make at least $1.5 trillion a year. We do that because it's almost like a reflex.

10:24Okay, so if we don't trade with countries, which is easy to do, you know, we just don't buy anything that American doesn't make, it's probably fine. I bet America still makes everything these days. That would be very easy to do and we'd make a bunch of money. We'd make a bunch of money. He goes on to talk about this. If we jump graphic four, he says that he can, I guess, in an economic emergency in his mind, ban trade with other countries. You don't get to buy anything that's not from America, which also means by the way you wouldn't be able to buy basically any Trump organization merch, which is interesting. But if you go to graphic five, you'll see he's whining about interest rates. So interest rates went up a quarter point yesterday because inflation's really bad. Inflation is really bad because of his economic policies. But despite him causing the inflation that justifies raising the interest rates, he wants them to lower the interest rates just a little bit like three points or so, which is just he doesn't understand anything about

11:25interest rates, how they work, how the Fed works. What that would do to inflation, that would sit even more on fire than it already is. But let's set aside that he doesn't understand how inflation works or interest rates work. He says our country is booming with new investment. You know, he made up this $20 trillion number. So that's great. If it was not real, if we stop trading with every country we have deficit with, which is most of them, we would make at least $1.5 trillion a year. The word deficit is nothing more than a fancy word for loss. Now, I need you to understand that all the trade deficit is between us and Canada say is how much did we buy from them? Now, much did they buy from us? And if we have a trade deficit, we bought more from them than they bought from us. I mean, from their perspective, it could be the opposite or whatever. But now, leave aside the fact that we are a way bigger country with way more consumers that have more money on average. So we're gonna buy more from them. That is not a sign of weakness by the way.

12:25It's a sign of strength that American consumers have money and a position to buy what we want from Canada, from Madagascar, from Finland, from Vietnam or whatever. I can and buy what will buy whatever I want, whatever Instagram's algorithm has convinced me I desperately need right now. I'm gonna buy that thing. That's how it works. And they don't have as much money as us. So they don't get to buy as much stuff from us. He pitches that as a bad thing. But beyond that, we've already known that he didn't understand how the trade deficit works. He said it's a loss. So if we buy a bunch of stuff from Spain, we lost that money, even though we have the stuff that we bought with his logic, I am operating at a significant trade deficit with my local supermarket. I just keep giving the money and I guess I'm getting nothing. If I just stopped buying groceries, I could make a lot of money. If I bought nothing, I could make tons of money. I mean, I'd be dead,

13:27but I'd have some money along the way. That is literally what he thinks the trade deficit is. And it's really no more complicated than that Jackson. He doesn't think that we get anything for the money we spend abroad when we obviously do. I think that's just an example of how much of a simple minded criminal he really is at the end of the day. He's only focused on how he can benefit the most. And the thing that cracks me up, oh, say hello to Griffin, by the way. This is Griffin. I had to pick him up because he was whining and stuff, but I'll put him back down now. Griffin is a danger. But one of the things that cracks me up the most about what his consistent lines is we've taken in $21 trillion worth of investment for like that is a preposterous amount of money to have taken in. And ultimately again,

14:27talking about tariffs because he doesn't understand that or how trade deficits work. At the end of the day, like the American people are broke. Harley anybody can afford to buy a house. People are defaulting on their car loans, right? But somehow we've spent $20 plus trillion on these tariffs that ultimately he's had to pay back not even $200 billion off. Like he just says things. And none of it makes any sense whatsoever. But the thing that makes him so dangerous is like, there's no coherence with anything that he does. And you can try to make sense out of it, but other than him being a criminal and trying to enrich himself, nothing else does make sense. So who knows if he's going to try to nuke Iran. And that's a serious thing to think about because apparently these conversations are being had. And the reason that he would do something like that or something similar because maybe he won't escalate that far is because of his ego because he feels

15:27like he looks like a loser. So he has to really do something about it. But yeah, that he just, his stupidity is honestly impressive. Because think about how hard you have to try to stay that uneducated about everything. And he has access to all the information in the world. Yeah, not only is he on his phone constantly, like theoretically, he could learn all sorts of dude, loves AI. As chat GPT, what the hell a trade deficit is. They'll tell you. They'll tell you the problem. It's what he says it is. And that's exactly it's what he says it is. Like he can rewrite reality just because of what he would prefer it to be. And it's just it's so pathetic. Like why wouldn't you want to improve? Why wouldn't you want to learn even it? How old is he 300? Like wouldn't you still want to learn something? You don't know better. And you said he like he operates from a position of being scared that he's going to look like a fool or look like a loser. Well,

16:31he does look like a fool and he does look like a loser. But also far more importantly than that, he is a fool and he is a loser in part. If not fully because of the things he does to try to avoid looking that way because he's too stupid to make the right moves. The campaign is a good indication of that. 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 marina 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 to withstand everyday wear. Now that we're finally getting some colder days here in L.A. I've been wearing my sweater knit fleece full zip jacket. It's warm and soft on the inside with a smooth sweater knit

17:34exterior 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 factories and cut off the middlemen. And it's not just clothing. Quince brings that same approach to bedding, bath, kitchen essentials and furniture. They make well-designed pieces for everyday living. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash damage. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's qiuiance.com slash damage. Belltrups obsession with AI or at the very least is obsession with not having any regulations that hamper these AI companies ability to generate fictional profits is actually hurting him. And I don't just mean like in general. I mean specifically among the only people that he kind of cares about, which is his core maga base. Evidently, when he posts about AI on true social,

18:36which he's done a lot recently, the comments are scathing towards it. On truth social, 80% of his supporters that respond to those don't like his position on AI. Again, on truth social, which is like they've already drunk the Kool-Aid. Their vision's already getting blurry and they're still like, yeah, but I don't agree with you on chat GPT that they actually do have a little bit of independence and it's good to see. So the New York Times looked into this. In hundreds of replies to his post this week, commenters criticized his enthusiasm for AI, offering a social media snapshot that mirrors recent polling, which shows that Republicans are increasingly concerned about the technology. So overall, the number of comments disparaging AI and data centers outnumbered those supporting the technology by nearly four to one. Many of the comments criticizing the president came from users whose profile suggested that they were otherwise staunch Trump supporters and members of his maga movement. There were other comments that they didn't include, including hundreds that only included images

19:38or memes. And if you haven't been on true social, you may not know about this. Every single thing the Donald Trump puts up just has dozens of replies of totally unrelated memes designed to get Senpai to notice them. Almost all of them from, I'd say 42 to 54 year old blonde women whose entire personality is just posting at Donald Trump all day long. So yeah, you probably don't need to include that. But the rest of it I'm glad to see is actually critical of him. Now, he's wrong on AI and it's hurting the Republicans. But there are some in the Republican Party that are trying to educate, not just him, but other Republicans about how to talk about this issue because public perception is changing really fast. So Polster Tony Fabrizio is a person who does these deep dives into how people interpret different policies and how you should message around them. And he put out this memo, two page memo to Republicans. He specifically advises candidates not to say quote, I support building more data centers warning it will be clipped and show up in ads.

20:40Instead, he tells Republicans to support AI infrastructure only if developers pay for their own power needs, protect consumers from higher utility bills and safeguard local water and natural resources. And that's probably the guy that got to Paxton and Greg Abbott to get them to pretend briefly that they don't like AI or whatever because they're at least doing that. He says furthermore, first, validate voters concerns about higher utility bills, the power grid and water use, second, draw the line by vowing not to support projects that force families to subsidize them or allow tech companies to harm some surrounding communities. Finally, argue that projects should move forward only if companies provide their own power, protect ratepayers and safeguard local water. Now at the end of all of that, that's just to get people to be okay with the data centers being made. So I don't like this at the end of the day. That said, it's good messaging. So now let's take a look back at the way Donald Trump has been talking about this issue over the past few weeks.

22:02Propagand by our adversary, we cannot be the stupid people that chase them up. You have to convince your community how great these things, you can't fight it, you have to go with it. Or use the advice he can't, he just can't do it. All of it. And by the way, you can look at the full two page memo, stuff like not just blaming opposition on China, not mocking people for having a problem with it. He does literally all of that. He spits in their faces over and over and over. And even on true social, they actually have an issue with it, which I think is promising. It shows that we are winning this war. Jackson, what do you think? Well, I think one of the harder selling points of AI right now is that the general public just

23:05isn't seeing any type of major benefits from it. If it was just like an interesting new technology that didn't require people's utility bills going up, in some cases, people's property taxes going up. And it was just kind of like an interesting new development. Then it wouldn't be such a big deal. But I think for the industry itself, they just oversold it so much. And it's been years now. And at this point, it hasn't been able to completely take over everything that we do with our daily lives. It's not curing cancer, it's not making us more able to pay our bills. It's making a bunch of AI slop content. Now from a beat of beast standpoint perspective, it's more useful for companies who are going through a whole bunch of information, personal assistance stuff like that. But at the end of the day, it's just not yet to a place where it needs to be, to where people even want to deal with it at all. So it's obvious that all these data centers are

24:09going up so quickly because of the corruption and how much money they've donated to different politicians, campaigns. And the public just shouldn't have to put the bill for this experimentation basically. AI at this point, it is very unprofitable, it's very expensive. And it's still relatively new. So that's natural, but they need to figure that out. And so I just don't think that there's much of an effective way to sell to the public that we should just put up with something that overall we don't want, at least until y'all figure out all your issues. Yeah, 100%. And by the way, that memo is like, here's all the stuff not to say or whatever, like the power thing, the water thing, bear in mind, even if they did take care of all of that, there's still a thousand reasons to have an issue with all this. Now, look, first off, the fact that the technology would not exist if they hadn't robbed a spline of all of our creative works and all of that. And they've never paid for that and they should. They are going to try,

25:09they're still trying to replace our jobs. Like if I get fired and replaced by Groc, I don't care if they're subsidizing the electricity, I want my goddamn job. That's what I want. So there's still a lot of big issues. But a couple more things I want to know evidently China has gotten to true social. That's why they're tweeting at him about AI. It's all just propaganda, everyone. You don't have minds. You can't honestly have an issue with something. And also, I want to thank producer Ashley for putting together that mash up because it was very well done. Thank you, producer Ashley. Dot com must be 21 or older to enter participate. Please gamble responsibly.

26:38As amended, as in Ridge, on bail, the clerk will call the wrong. Senator Clobuchar. No. Senator Bennett. No. Senator Smith. No. Senator Durbin. Senator Booker. No. Senator Luhan. No. Senator Warnock. Senator Welch. Senator Federman. No. Senator Schiff. No by proxy. Senator Slotkin. No by proxy. Senator McConnell. Senator McConnell. All right. He got it eventually. Don't worry. All it took was Grimo Wormtongh, whispering in his ear for a little bit to set him on the right path.

27:39A couple of reminders that Mitch Mitch Mitch, Hey, Mitch, Mitch, you're a Mitch. You're still technically kind of Mitch. I the best we got out of him. A little finger thing. And technically he made a sound. I don't know if that was him saying I a death rattle. I don't know exactly what it was. I do know the based on reporters from inside the room, which is too small, by the way. Can we acknowledge that? Get a bigger conference from. Can you imagine what that room smelled like after a couple of hours? Anyway, most of the committee meeting, you know you were thinking it. For most of the committee meeting, McConnell sat quietly. Oh, did he? I'm shocked. His hands mostly clasped in front of him. At one point, Chairman John Boosman leaned over to speak quietly in his ear. He also briefly engaged with his chief of staff who's been his constant shot of during his public appearances this week. And his staff is really trying to keep up with the idea that like don't trust the video you're seeing. Don't trust your eyes. He's on this thing, man.

28:42Look after he got out of that Farm Bill vote. He went online and he wrote a little short story on Twitter saying, I want to commend Chairman Boosman for his work on the Farm Bill. As a member of the Agricultural Committee, I'm going to end there, but you get the idea. No, he didn't. He didn't type. Oh, yeah. Video type him tweeting. I want to see his fingers on the little keyboard or whatever, maybe give him like a razor, get a full keyboard or whatever. I want to see him type up one of those things. I defy you to provide evidence that he wrote any of these tweets. And by the way, we have recently, over the past year, year and a half, been told that what is it? Robo pen? Worst thing ever. Don't robo pen. If you're not capable of doing the job, you got to get out of there. This is a robo senator. He can't do anything. This isn't just about him signing hundreds of bills in a row. He's not even responsible for his vote. His staff is doing that. He's not sending his tweets, not doing anything. Anyway, what he is doing is

29:42still his characteristic occasionally freezing. We have video evidence of that. Take a look. He has never looked more like a turtle than he does now. He looked like somebody was waving lettuce in his field of view. And he's like, hmm, after not moving, his mouth looks so strange these days, stranger than before. I don't Jackson. I don't think he survived that plane crash. There's nothing going on in there. What do you think? I mean, he clearly doesn't know what's going on like at all. And maybe he does, but he just doesn't have the ability to really express it in any type of way. Obviously, this is very reminiscent to Diane Feinstein before she passed away, her being wheeled in. And clearly, I mean,

30:45whether or not they have the wherewithal, they just shouldn't be doing this in this state. I think that in this country, not just because of Donald Trump, I mean, this has been a process that's taken quite some time. But we've completely delegitimized how serious these positions really are. We're in a mindset now that, oh, anybody can do this, but no, not anybody can do it. Not anyone can do it well. You know what I'm saying? I guess anybody can get elected. But at the end of the day, the United States is a massively powerful, sophisticated entity. And elected officials deal with so much complicated information. These people need to be competent. They need to be ready. I mean, hopefully we can get, you know, there's a difference between a politician and a statesman, and you can't always pick and choose that. But at least be there. You know, I just think that

31:46this is, this is sad and not sad in a sense of like, oh, poor Mitch McConnell, because what it, who cares? Like that dude can go, who cares? But just sad in a sense that it's really just also pathetic. Well, what we've come to. Yeah, 100%. And he's, Alex, it finishes term, I guess, with a couple more fingerwrazer, whatever. And I look, even I eventually am going to have to, I guess, move on. But I'm not ready yet. I still think, could he explain what the hell was going on for those 92 days? Yeah, we, we should know. I mean, I think he wasn't doing the damn thing. He wasn't doing nothing. He was just in Baylor. And that's what he's been doing for three months. Right. I don't know how I literally can't suck my mouth in. Because you still have teeth. He took 92 days off with pay. Okay.

32:50Just to deal it out and be like, and let's say that he was sick or whatever. You don't get 92 days off sick. You don't, you don't, I mean, like he does. He literally does. And today's Thursday. Okay, so it's been four days since he got back. How much critical, like have you, like desperate attempts by the media to get answers? Have you seen anything? Like, I understand his staff is keeping like a pretty, like an iron wall between him and the media. But I'm really not seeing anything of anybody questioning that everybody just moved on. Everybody's just like, I'm back. I guess we were wrong. I guess you were being silly. No, no, not silly. I'm kind of silly. About a few things. That's kind of the vibe of the show. But not substantively. You should not get to take three months off and not do one interview, one phone or two photos. That's it. Take it a couple days apart. That's insane. That is insane. And by the way, a reminder that back when

33:52he had a functioning brain and he was in power, he tried to block the extension of paid sick and family leave because you peasants need to get back in the mines, back in the chicken processing plants. If he stubs a toe, he gets to take months off. You know, he gets to catch up on my game of thrones or whatever if he wants to, but you got to get back out there, even if it's in the middle of a goddamn pandemic. 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 activewear all built to withstand everyday wear.

34:56Now 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 factories and cut off the middlemen. And it's not just clothing. Quince brings that same approach to bedding, bath, kitchen essentials and furniture. They make well-designed pieces for everyday living. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash damage. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash damage. So nobody used to think of North Carolina as a dangerous state, criminally dangerous. It was like North Carolina. It was beautiful. It was apopied, right? And now it's one of the most violent and one of the worst in the whole nation. Yeah, as in a nice when the president visits your state to say

36:00that it's crap and that you'll probably be murdered any given second, he's there right then saying it used to be beautiful. You know, beautiful like apple pie. I guess that's the most beautiful thing you could think of. His wife's probably like, what the hell, man? Melania's right there. Not physically, she would never be near him. Apple pie probably was, okay, I guess the comparison made sense. But anyway, like you were going there to be like vote for this Republican candidate. We're on your side. He apparently thinks it's disgusting. It's dangerous. He doesn't want to be there. And weirdly, the crowd doesn't have an issue with that for some reason. They love being insulted by Donald Trump. For some reason, and I'll never understand, but he's a populist. I'm a coastal elitist, I guess. That makes sense for me. In any event, he was there ostensibly campaigning for Michael Watley who's running for governor. I didn't feel like that most of the time that's technically why he was there. So when he wasn't just outright insulting this state, he also

37:02joked about denying them hurricane aid if they don't support Michael Watley. Take a look. Call it from the standpoint of water, the worst hurricane they've ever seen. We spend more than $2 billion in FEMA for funding and you're waiting for some additional money to take care of some of the back and I'm going to get that to you, Michael. Now if Michael loses, I'm not sending it, okay. Now I'm only kidding. You're getting it. You're going to get it, Michael. So he's been bugging me. He's not going to give us the aid unless we support him. He's joking. Except that he means it. 100% means it. You know, I know that because one, why doesn't he just give the aid? But the elections in like two months, what just do it? Do it. Evidently they need it now. You're talking about months from now. Just give them the aid. And again,

38:03they chuckled. They like that stuff. I want to remind everyone that all Trump has rejected aid, including for natural disasters for states that didn't support the last election. I'm not speaking hypothetically when I say that if he doesn't get his way and Republicans don't win, he won't give them aid. That is how he has already acted as president in the first two years of his term. I'm just learning the lessons that he's desperately trying to teach us. In any event, as of right now, Michael Wattley does not seem to be doing too well. If the election was held today in this poll by Elon University, that must be where Musk went. Roy Cooper is up 11 points over Michael Wattley, which is a pretty good sized lead now. Granted, that was before Donald Trump came and told them all that their state sucks. So maybe that'll be the game changer. I'm not sure. But anyway, MSNOW spoke with some Trump supporters to get their thoughts unwattly and they don't seem super convinced by him. I don't like Wattley's ads. I think they're misleading. If not, full of lies.

39:09I don't like what he stands for. He says he's for lower taxes. Everybody can say that, but doing it is another thing. Do you think it's wise for Wattley to attach himself to Trump? Is that going to work for him in the state? It might. I don't think it's wise, but he's still got a lot of people that are connected to him for reasons I don't really understand when his approval ratings are going down. So I was talking to a conservative couple that voted for Trump all three times earlier. And I asked them, are you planning to support Wattley? They both started walking away. The husband said we don't talk politics. The wife privately turned to me and maled no no no to supporting Wattley. Yeah, they don't seem to be super into him, which feels Jackson, like it's real constant across the country. They really have chosen some loser candidates. What do you think? I mean, I think that first and foremost, Donald Trump, we've already seen him do his best to dismantle

40:11FEMA and anything else that's worthwhile in the government, including the Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. So of course, there's definitely something to his words and his threats. But also, I think that people who are attaching themselves to Donald Trump, unless you're in a deeply, deeply red district, then it's just not a good strategy. However, what else are you going to do? If they spoke out against Trump, if they condemned him in any type of way, that could in their campaign just because of the trouble that it would rouse up, Trump could just throw all types of wrenches into everything. And that's one of the broader issues with the Republican establishment right now. It's just completely conformed to one individual. And even if Donald Trump wasn't incredibly ridiculous, the way that he is, that would still be problematic, because people don't live forever and nobody's perfect. But I think that this is something

41:12that, you know, progressives and anybody on the left can really continue to take advantage of. I don't think that whether, I mean, whether they're DSA members or not, I don't think that these candidates are going to stop seeing success and races. Hopefully that can alleviate some of the apathy that people feel. And I think that there's plenty of reason to be encouraged right now, because we're going up against the dumbest people in the country. Powerful, though they may be. 100% yeah, yeah, I am increasingly excited for the 2028 election two more years of this chaos, two more years of people just demanding that literally something anything be done, I think is going to help in 2028. Okay, with that said, we're going to take a short break and then we'll end the first hour of the couple more stories.

42:1329. Enjoy Ralph Barbosis, dry humor on September 18th and 19th. And don't miss Nikki Glacier's unapologetic comedy November 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavata Theatre dot com. Only at Yamavata Resort and Casino celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in must be 21 to enter. Well, we only have a little bit more time for this, so I will remind everyone very quickly. $10 gets you your first month of noble mobile service on T-mobiles 5G network. Plus you get cash back every single month for your unused data and you'd never pay more than $5 a month to begin with to AT.com slash switch for more information. And with that said, let's jump into some more campaign updates. Susan Collins and Ken Paxden are both trailing their democratic rivals and they need some good news. And so I don't have that for them necessarily, which is a real shame. What I do have though are a pair of abortion related stories that are probably not going to do

43:15either of them any favors. Let's start with Susan Collins, who I want you to remember helped give us Brett Kavanaugh, who helped deliver the death of Roe v Wade. If she is remembered at all and I don't think she should be, she should be remembered for that. Well, anyway, she's apparently not done hurting your bodily autonomy because she just broke a tie in the Senate to help advance the nomination of Judge Matthew Byrne. Now Byrne's track record on women's reproductive health is to put it mildly concerning. He has several affiliations with anti-abortion groups, including Ohio right to life, Cincinnati right to life, Warren County right to life, the Center for Christian Virtue and the Federalist Society, all of those are anti-abortion groups, and that is more affiliations than I have with all groups. He just has for the anti-abortion ones, by the way, he's been a very busy boy when it comes to denying women control over their bodies. Now, he elaborated on his beliefs on abortion back in a 2020 judicial candidate survey, noting that he opposed abortion for any reason other than to protect the life of the mother.

44:20Stick a pin in that, we'll return to it. Without any exceptions for rape or incest, he also believed the phrase life of the mother should be strictly defined so as to avoid creating loopholes. And hell, if you gotta let some women die or whatever, that's an omelet he's willing to crack some eggs over, I guess. It's just they're just fully grown adults who cares about them. There's fetuses that we need to consider. That's who he is. And Susan Collins is apparently okay with him moving up to a higher circuit court. So that's cool. Meanwhile, Ken Paxden is being sued. You can see the information right here. There's actually a case that we talked about back of the day. The family of Tara Walker blames Texas's merciless abortion ban for her death and has filed lawsuit targeting both Ken Paxden who was AG during that time and the doctors. Now, to remind you, we have full clips you can go look at. But Tara Walker died from pre-clampsia back in 2024 after she suffered quote seizures, blood clots, and one hypertensive crisis while she was

45:21four months pregnant. She asked multiple times before her death for an abortion, but was told numerous times her baby was fine. But she wasn't. And this is what you get when you only care about the fetus. Now the baby's fine. Now the baby wasn't fine because she died. So the baby died. Just bear that in mind. But they were so concerned about the baby that they let her die. And the family lawyers say they're deliberate indifference, discrimination, and medical mistreatment ultimately caused her horrific and tragic death. As a result, too many pregnant Texans have already died preventable deaths. Yet no one has held them accountable. Bear in mind, this was four months in her pregnancy. So in most civilized states, she would have been able to just go and get an abortion. It would not have been any sort of issue. It was only because she was in Texas under an AG like Ken Paxton, who was vigorously prosecuting any violations of their laws, which will return to. Now in her case, as many as 90 medical professionals were involved with her care, not a single one offered her the possibility of an abortion. Now a single one of 90 could see that

46:26her death was coming and offered the very easy solution that would have saved her life. And also by the way, allowed her to go on to potentially have kids later in her life. Not one of them did. Now interestingly, Texas enacted a law back in 2022 that prohibited almost all abortions, including cases of rape or incest. But interestingly, has exceptions for situations in with the life or health of the patient is at risk. But I ask you, what good did that do Tierra Walker? It's in the bill. It's there, Inc. on paper. Not just the life of the mother, the health of the mother. It's even broader than a strict definition of it. And yet she's dead because you have an AG like Ken Paxton, you could potentially lose your medical license if they believe that it wasn't actually necessary. You just wanted to give her the abortion or whatever. You could face fines of up to $100,000. So when they were proposing this, we would say, I don't know, I kind of feel like

47:30people are going to air on the side of covering their ass, even if it endangers people's lives. And now we know that's exactly what they are doing. And people have died as a result of it. Thank you, Ken Paxton. And thank you, Susan Collins, for putting another judge who uses that paper shield of the life of the mother, which doesn't actually save any lives on a court. Jackson, what do you think? Yeah, I think that ultimately people who are staunchly against abortion rights, it comes from an archaic place and belief that women shouldn't be having sex unless it's specifically relegated to having children. It's just a way to keep women as second class citizens. Because of course that concern for life doesn't extend to people who are victims of our military machine or to people who live in impoverished communities. They don't really have that same type of sentiment. And also I think that it's important to realize, unfortunately, we deal with the

48:37like online gender wars and things like that and people can get really caught up in it. But I think this is an example of the difference between misogyny and misandry and that misogyny is systemic. And it can take just a couple of obviously normally men get in in positions of power and with the stroke of the pen or the bang of a gavu, women's rights can just be taken away. People fought for a very long time rigorously and with great devotion in order to allow women to have more of an equal playing field in the world as men. But with misandry it really can't really go any further past. It may be being in annoying hindrance that you have to deal with when you scroll on TikTok. Women just really will never be in a position to take much of anything away from men. So I think this is why it's really important to realize how dangerous these people in positions of

49:40power can be. And it's just, it's also silly at the end of the day because he's saying people will get abortions if they feel that they need one. Because they're different. If Ken Paxton bangs his mistress, she gets knocked up. You think she's not getting a goddamn abortion if she writes to she's getting an abortion. This is really the lethal confluence of all of their bigotry. So she's a woman, so she has less rights because of that. We also know the doctors typically don't really listen to women or trust them when they're talking about their medical condition and particularly black women are not listened to. So you get the racism in there too. Maybe if she was a blonde white woman, they would have listened or when she's talking about all of her symptoms and maybe then they would have given her the abortion. It's also a lethal consequence of the class war because if she was rich, she could have just left the state. She could have flown in a goddamn helicopter to a civilized state and gotten the abortion that would have saved her life. But unfortunately, all of those different bigotrys conspired to rob us of her. And that's what happened. And Ken Paxton doesn't seem to have any issue with that.

50:48Republicans have ruined the economy so badly that they're now talking about an economy, not ours. They're casting their eyes back to one that we haven't had for literally decades. I mean, I think that I am exaggerating, but I want you to listen to the House majority whip representative Tom Emmer talk about beef. How do you manage the national message versus local issues? Like I don't like the data center now in my backyard or my grocery bill still feels too high. That seems all housing's unaffordable and that's sort of that local issue. How do you balance those? With groceries, for instance, you got to start talking about we still have work to do. There's no question. But eggs are a pre-pandemic crisis. Beef is at less than $2 a pound for ground beef. You got to talk about the things you have done. I think we've got a lot to run on. Yeah. All the Democrats have is something to run against. That's not the way of win elections. Well, the producer actually had the beeps. Was that Mike?

51:49Producer Mike had that. That was very funny. I didn't see that before. Yeah, so he deserved the buzzer because those things are not true. You don't have a lot to run on. That's why you're talking about sherry law constantly. And also beef less than $2 a pound. No, no. You know in the last time beef was less than $2 a pound. We looked it up. It was July of 2003. John Eiterola was a junior at the University of Connecticut. I weighed about 30 pounds less than I do right now. And beef was quite affordable way back then. Right now it's just shy of $7 a pound. So he was only off by 350 percent, I think. I'm not sure. Now look, he is right. Egg prices have gone down significantly for some eggs. Not the fancy pants eggs at Trader Joe's that my wife prefers that we buy. Those are still very expensive. But you can get eggs for $2.27 a dozen down from a high of $6.23 in March of 2025. So that is down, but a lot isn't okay. And I often wonder,

52:54like, is this like a Lucille blues $10 banana thing that he literally doesn't know what the price of anything is because he doesn't buy his own groceries Jackson? Or is this, was he thinking of $2 a gallon gas? And that's what he said. I don't even understand. What do you think? I think he's just lying. I think he's just gone out there saying whatever he needs to say to make Trump look good. And so much of this is from a direct and obvious result of policies put forth by the Trump administration and the Republican Party. When they bring up gas prices under Biden, that wasn't because of Biden. Gas prices under Trump are because of Trump. So it's just, and they're still talking about Biden. The fact that they have to, well, you know, gas prices are high now, but what about when they were high under Biden? You shouldn't care that they're high now because at one point they were high under Biden. But it really is just

53:55a joke. And I don't think that these people have any plan other than to just lie as hard as they can. That's it. I was going to say it seems he's working for them, but then I remember, no, wait, no, I actually isn't. I still don't really have the balls. You're working for Trump's bank account. That's about it. Oh, and Howard Lutnik, the Comer Secretary who has doubled his wealth since Trump took office. He's now worth $7.3 billion. I'm going to take our break after the hour to cool off a little bit. And when we come back, we're going to have an awesome interview. It should be fun. If you're on the podcast, please write and review us and we'll see you in the next one.

54:59Tickets on sale now at Yamavata Theatre.com. Only at Yamavata Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in must be 21 to enter.