The Race for the U.S. Senate

0:00From kickoff to the final whistle, trade the biggest moments in football on Kowshi. America's number one prediction market platform. Atlanta is currently trading at 27% to be Baltimore, meaning a $100 trade pays out $352 if they win. Download Kowshi. Use code FAL to get $25 when you trade $25. KAL SHI. Kowshi. Trade what's next. 18 plus only. Restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading evolves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Kowshi products are not available on jurisdictions. Prices, values and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see kowshi.com slash regulatory. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. The message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything goodness world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpay no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at MintMobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 per three month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required,

1:02introrate for three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra, see full terms at MintMobile.com. Welcome to Real Clear Politics. On the Making Kelly Channel, Syria's XM-111. Welcome to Real Clear Politics on Syria's XM for Tuesday, October 6th. I'm Andy Wallworth. And joining me are our CP co-founder and president Tom Devin and Washington bureau chief Carl Cannon. Well, guys, it is today. We are four weeks out from the midterm and tonight we have two key Senate debates, one in Maine, between incumbent Republican Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson and another in Michigan, between Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sahed and Republican Mike Rogers. Tom, let's start in Michigan where the other news is that former president

2:02Barack Obama has announced that he will campaign with El-Sahed on October 24th, which I believe is the first day of early voting there. Tom, Mike Rogers skipped an earlier debate. He's a little bit behind in the polls. This is a key state. The GOP would like to flip it. What is Roger to do? Well, I'm told Obama is just a streamer from Illinois, so we shouldn't make too much of that. Nobody cares about just a streamer from Illinois. If you saw his interview, he was on Fox News the other day with Martha McCallum and tried to make this argument that him having this debate with this conversation with Martha McCallum was the same as him inviting Hus on Piker to campaign with him in four or five events in Michigan that these were just the same thing. No, he just wants to talk to a lot of people. He just wants to turn the audience. I just want to talk to the people out there. The big news is Obama's all-in, Democrats are all-in on El-Sahed

3:10and their apparently concerns about him are in the rear-view mirror. We'll see. He's leading in the polls. He's leading by, I don't know, two and a half three points, according to our latest Reclor Politics average. This debate, I know Mike Rogers didn't attend an earlier debate. This is big. This is a big moment for this campaign, this race, because Mike Rogers gets to stand on stage and make this case directly against El-Sahed. Make him try and answer questions. El-Sahed is very good, by the way. That dodging and weaving and deflecting. He seems to be pretty quick on his feet verbally. We shall see whether Mike Rogers is able to do anything to improve his position and make the case to Michigan voters that El-Sahed is too far outside the mainstream. Tom, that makes a good point, Carl. I've seen a lot of El-Sahed on the national news. He goes to Fox, he goes to places, he talks, he's very smooth. I haven't seen

4:17as much from Mike Rogers. Yeah, well, that's nationally. Rogers campaigning hard, but the truth of it is, he's, Tom mentioned the polls. Rogers has trailed in every single poll. This would not only be an upset, it would be a polling failure. I mean, the Marist poll, if the Marist poll is right, the Republicans are going to just, Democrats can't just see the Marist poll is not right. Well, if it's shocked if it is, you know, their past track record. If it's right, I mean, all these states are going to go for the Democrat, but they had it plus seven, but you know, Trafalgar had plus two Fox News had it plus one. This, this doesn't seem that close to me. And, you know, it's the surprising thing. I hear Republicans talk about the race, why they still think they have a chance to win it and take a seat from the Democrats, but there are going to come down to how appalling El Cyan is. And I, I don't want to argue that point. I, I think he's, I think

5:21he's pretty radical and I don't, I'm just ingenuous. You know, he's a dual citizen of Egypt to, you know, attacks people who, Jews who support Israel, he's just to me, just a mess. But this is this is a tough environment up there. That states gone for Trump. What two of the three times he's run Tom, but they are narrowly and he's not popular there. The tariffs have heard him there. And El Cyan is running hard. He's going to get Kamal Harris in there. And I, you know, Obama in there. And these, Obama's popular in Detroit. So I, this would be an upset if the Democrats lost it. And, you know, what we can say, whatever we personally think about El Cyan, but he's in the driver's seat. Yeah. How about Maine, Susan Collins is going to debate Troy Jackson there. Jackson got into the race when Graham Plattener dropped out. She is a five term incumbent 73 years old. And this is the first to four debates they're going to have Tom. They're really going to go out and up there and made. Yeah, they're doing one tonight and then another one two nights later on Thursday night. So they

6:22will get plenty of of chances to, you know, beat each other up verbally, of course. And again, this is a close race. I mean, the polls had shifted sort of in Susan Collins favor over the last couple of weeks. Now there's some polls. There's just one that came out that had Jackson up four again, Maris Polz. So that's the one you don't like. Yeah. And, but other polls have had, you know, Collins head by a pointer to race tide, you know, Jackson had by pointer to. So this is, this is really like a true, true toss up. And as you mentioned, any not the best environment for a 73 year old Republican incumbent to be running. However, she is Susan Collins. And with that, she's sort of an institution in Maine and known as a moderate. I know the Democrats are trying to paint her some sort of right wing knuckle dragging radical, which she clearly isn't. And that's the case that she's trying to make to voters. And, and we'll stand on the stage and make to voters tonight and then subsequent debates, which is listen, I, you know, I vote against Trump. I,

7:27when, when, you know, I vote for the interests of, of Maine, more than, more than I do the president or even my party, I'm voting for my constituents. And we'll see whether, you know, how much traction that has and whether she's able to paint Troy Jackson is again, you know, sort of out of the mainstream. And he's obviously going to do his best to paint her as a Donald Trump lackey, which he's pretty, that's the Democrats playbook in every state. This is right. Troy Jackson's like Elsaid. He uses the, you know, Mombani goes around using the word genocide and attacking, you know, criticizing Maine's Jews. And he campaigns, you know, in a loose fitting t-shirt that doesn't hide the fact that he's kind of slavinely and overweight shorts. I mean, he's a, he's a, he's a populist. But having said all that, he's a known quantity in Maine. You know, Graham Platner was leading her in the polls and Troy Jackson isn't. But I never thought Platner was going to be Susan Collins. But Jackson is a person. He reminds me a little bit of Federman. It's not just the close, but when Federman ran in Pennsylvania, people thought he was

8:32too liberal for the, for the state, which sounds funny now. When they're trying to drum him out of Democratic Party, but they thought he was too liberal for the state. But Pennsylvania is new him. And liked him and thought he was authentic. So, you know, Jackson hasn't, he hasn't fired up the base. He had a story. You know, that he hasn't, he hasn't, you know, Platner is to get 1,000 people to his rallies. And this guy gets a couple of hundred. But I think Maine voters are more comfortable with him in the end. And they might have been with Platner. So, again, I think we won't know this till election night. Yeah. Darling Graham, South Carolina. Trafalgar has a poll that had her lead, I think, under two points, one point four, one point seven, something like that. And Axios reported this morning, Tom, that the Republican Senate pack is sending five million bucks down there. This is a state that trump won by 18 points in 2024. She, of course, is, you know, running to replace her brother who died

9:37over the summer. But she's in more trouble, I think, than people would have us, so let me put it this way. People didn't think South Carolina would be in play at all. And it seems to be. Of course not. I mean, however, I mean, in fairness, you remember when Jamie Harrison was running against Lindsey Graham and Democrats kept saying, oh, this is racist close. You know, there was a poll that showed it close and they dumped, I don't know how many tens of millions of dollars into that state to try and get him any, any got his ass kicked. So this might be one of those things where I think Democrats are, you know, it's, it's at the sort of outer end of their, their wish list. And Republicans are being cautious, given what they're seeing in other states that they're going to inject five million bucks to try and make sure that darling Graham gets across the finish line. You know, is it possible she loses? It's possible, but it's not very likely. I don't think even in an environment where Democrats might end up winning in states that trump won by double digits,

10:40South Carolina, even in that kind of a year, South Carolina would be a reach. Well, I take Tom's point, but she is not her brother. I mean, that was, he was running against Lindsey Graham. And this candidate, she's running against attractive women. South Carolina is going to have a female senator no matter who wins. And she's making a case. She's got some charisma. She goes out. She, she, you know, the Graham campaign, the Republicans have tried to portray her a leftist, but she isn't and she was, she may be, but she's not running that way. She's running as a sort of moderate center left sensual person. So I think, and think about this Tom, Andy, I would like to be John Thune. You had to send seven million dollars to Kansas. And now five million to South Carolina. These are not states you expected you even have to think about. Yeah, no, that's a good point. Let's look ahead a little bit to 2028. There is this interesting squabble going on between Texas senator Ted Cruz.

11:42Carl and vice president J.D. Vance. It started last week, although I guess it was going on for some time. Vance said that Cruz was more focused on 2028 than the midterms. Cruz shot back on Saturday told Politico in my experience, people engage in political bomb throwing when they feel insecure. So what's going on here is Cruz, she's showing a little ankle. Trump's spreading. So down does he sense a little blood in the water disturbing thought. Ted Cruz's ankle. Ted Cruz's ankle. Tom, you are so heteronormative. Andy, this is interesting. Look, Cruz ran for president before. He ran against Trump. We've known for eight years or 10 years, but all of yours. He's had presidential ambitions. And maybe they were only shared. They weren't shared outside his immediate family, but widely, but he's an ambitious guy, well spoken. And he,

12:42this, we've thought of this race. Everybody's portrayed it as a two person race between Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance. But everybody knows who knows politics. It is way too early to make those kinds of determinations. That's just forget the polls at this point. We'd have the string of presidents. You never heard of president Howard Dean and other people like that. If the polls were dispositive two years ahead. But your point, I think, is important. One, Andy, I think that some Republicans, Ted Cruz, among them are starting to see if Donald Trump continues to lose altitude. If he gets down there, and he's in the high 30s, if he gets in the mid 30s, the low 30s, well, then the bottom falls out. The American people start stopping attention. It happened to Jimmy Carter. It happened to George W. Bush, who actually was a two term president. You know, you get in the high 20s. You're number there. Well, then the thinking is J.D. Vance is not a shoe in. And maybe even Marco Rubio is tainted by his association with the Trump administration. And maybe then it's

13:44an open, it's a truly open race. I think that's what Ted Cruz is starting to entertain thoughts like that. Tom will think that's a rationalization on Senator Cruz's part. But stranger things have happened. Tom? Yeah. Look, I mean, Ted Cruz has been pretty solidly with Trump. So he'd have, again, I suppose, since he's not part of the administration, he would be able to pivot and criticize Rubio and Vance on Iran and some other things, even though he's argued in favor of those same policies. So you'd have to switch his positions to make those attacks. Cruz clearly, and by the way, you know, you said his ambition wasn't shared by people outside of his family. I mean, if you remember, he stuck it out till May, May 5th, actually, Indiana. That's right. In 2016. Well, he was the last guy standing. He was the last guy standing. Unless you count

14:44John Kasich, and 2016. And that's right. Kasich was there as well. And you know, he went to the convention. You remember, he gave a speech at the convention, and it wasn't a full-throated endorsement. In fact, it wasn't an endorsement at all of Donald Trump. I don't think he mentioned Trump's name, which got a lot of people's attention. And I think put him sort of in the doghouse, which is why he, I think, struggled in 2020 a little bit against Beto or War. Because a lot of the Magah folks were still sort of, you know, pissed about that that Ted Cruz was was holding on to this. I don't know, ambition, animus, whatever against Trump. Now he's since come around. But I don't know that Ted Cruz is, he made, he may still think of himself as presidential material. He may end up running. But I don't think that this time around, I don't see him being a real force in the, in the Republican primary. Well, Tom, you mentioned Robert Francis. Or say that in Texas. But if

15:46suppose Tallarico early, Schmerly, no, we're we're we're we're we're gaining some. Suppose, suppose Tallarico wins over Ken Pax in Texas, he's the center. Then Ted Cruz, three point, you know, eating out a three point win over Beto or work doesn't look as weak as it did. I mean, politicians think along these lines. So you know, well, there was this interesting way, let me just bring you something. Yes, yes. Politico had a peace out. And they called Cruz Ken Paxton's quote, secret weapon. And if you read this article, it's very interesting. And it sort of towards the end, you get this idea that what Cruz is doing is he sees himself as a link between in Texas, between the sort of Mago Republicans and the more conservative base. And he's trying to get that, or I'm traditional conservative base. He's trying to get that conservative base to sort of get excited about Ken Paxton. And you know, you super imposed that on the national election. That sounds like what he might be thinking when he looks

16:49at 2020. So Ken Paxton loses. Cruz is screwed. I think can loss for Ken Paxton is bad for Ted Cruz. Yes. But I think it might be good for Ted Cruz because it makes it. Now, now if he wins and Cruz can take credit for getting Paxton. I have it. Right. And then, you know, maybe it's a bit of a different story. And that idea that there will be a fight within the Republican party after the midterms, if the war continues. And you're going to have, you know, it may be a small rump movement. But there are going to be people outside the White House who are saying, you know, we can't do this again. We can't run JD Vance. We've got to run someone else. And, you know, when you look around, that's absolutely bad. It's not going to be Ted Cruz. Well, maybe it's not. But Andy's absolutely right. If they lose both House of Congress, they're going to blame Trump. And that will be in, they're going to blame the president. And the idea that Rubio was sort of the alternative, that's going to be tougher if he's very involved in the war and everything. So,

17:50anyway, I'm going to talk about one more thing as long as we're looking at 2028. And that is the Washington Post this morning. It was pretty interesting day in the news today. They've got a big article today. Washington Post says this Kamala Harris has the 2028 opening and a 2024 problem. They say the former Democratic standard bear retains considerable respect in the party. But there's an undercurrent of anxiety about her return to the political conversation. Tom, what do you make of this? And, you know, is she's, is she really the front runner for 2028 on the Democratic side? I mean, it's, if you look at the polls, she is. If you look at the betting markets, she's not. And that's the contradiction. That's the undertow, the anxiety. Because even the people who supported Kamala Harris and may like her in respect her, they think she sucks as a candidate. She's weak. And they know that. And so it puts the Democrats in a real conundrum, especially with

18:51South Carolina going first and her having sort of this built in, you know, vote from African-American women that gives her sort of a leg up. Now, they interviewed 18 sort of former staffers and current Democratic strategists to try and get a handle on what they're thinking about Kamala Harris. And some of them were like, you know, she should, she should move on. It's a, you know, we need to get to the new level, new, new younger leaders of the Democratic party. And this would be a step backward. This would be a step back toward Biden toward the establishment away from even though I think she, she's perfectly happy to ride the DSA wave and, and, you know, champion a whole bunch of policies that are, are, you know, left wing. But she is, she's not the sort of the future. So it does. I think, I think this is an interesting, this is why it's always been interesting because she, you know, and she, she says, look, I didn't get a real chance because I had to run a hundred and seven-day campaign. And Biden was acting as president. And so she got a raw deal is the argument. And she gets,

19:56she, she deserves another chance. But the underside to that is that, obviously, you know, when she ran the first time she was so bad that she didn't make the starting line. And people know that they remember that. All the reboots as vice president. I mean, she's just not a very good politician, not a good campaigner. Yeah. Um, the question at the end of the article on, I didn't really get an answer to it was, what is she thinking? Is she, is she thinking of getting in or not? Because so much will, will change if she, when she makes that decision. Yeah, remember Carl, if she gets in, Gavin Newsom is not running, he says, right, where's, just where is he? I think he sure is stuck with that myself. But, um, you know, and we talked about that at the time and either showed him ivalence on part of Gavin Newsom or he has some inside knowledge of it. And she's not running. Well, yeah, was your, yeah, it was the alternate. I'm with, I'm with Tom on the, okay. But the dumbest thing that I've heard a politician say, but here's something, but here's,

20:58um, listen, there's going to be Gavin Newsom may not want to run against her, but there's going to be 10 or 12 Democrats who will, in my, my view, my view of the case is that the Democrats are going to have to have an articulate person who can put to forth a, a liberal agenda, um, and, and answer some, but answer some to have questions. You know, comment Harris, and those hundred and seven days, you never held one press conference. Um, they're going to have to have somebody's not afraid to, I think the winner will be someone who's not afraid of press conferences. That's one of these other candidates or a new and improved Commonwealth Harris. And someone who has to say, forcibly, here's our policy. Here's what we think should be done at the border. Here's our view of transgender education. They're not going to be able to go through on the, the way they are 107 day, the fake campaign with a long primary season without having to say what their policies are. And, and I think that you start to think, well, who could, who can talk about that?

21:58You know, Andy, be sure you can talk about it. The Pete Buttigieg is a good talker. I, and Harris would have to be it. She would have to improve as a candidate. Now, this has happened before. You guys, and Henry also went out on the show, say, oh, you get one window to one for president, but that really isn't true. You know, Reagan ran in 1968. People forget it. And, and he wasn't by, and ran two or three times before he got it. I, I think, I wouldn't rule Harris out. What I'm saying is you'd have to be a different kind of candidate. She had to get rid of the word salads, start speaking to Claire to sentence. This isn't say what her policies are. And then, but she's incapable of doing that. Well, we'll find out. We'd find out. I mean, you could have, you could have stopped right after you said the Democrats need someone articulate. I mean, the crowd is no evidence. Well, there's no evidence that she grew as a, as a campaigner. I mean, that's a thing. Right. You either have it or you don't. And, and some of this stuff can be learned, but, but at the end of the day, you either have it or you don't. And, and Obama had it.

23:01Bill Clinton had it. You can see that. Al Gore did not have it. Hillary Clinton did not have it. Well, I'll go and Hillary Clinton. I will remind you both got one the popular vote. So we, you know, we find we can be. We can be. Hillary. Great. Well, yeah. Well, don't say that. Al Gore said, either he make these great declarative statements. If, if 600 votes have gone different Florida, we wouldn't be talking that way about Al Gore. Yeah. His declarative statements were like, I invented the internet. That's. I was at the love canal. All right. Well, guys, uh, Kerry is telling me we have to take a break. So we take a break right now. And we'll be back with you on the Friday here. Yeah. You're listening to real, little politics on serious XM. I'm Andrew Wallworth. I forgot Tommy Carl with me. Don't go away. We'll be back with more right after these words. Real clear politics. Get more at realclearpolitics.com. And on the serious XMF. This is the Megan Kelly channel on serious XM 111.

24:02This fall, experience playoff baseball for less. With slang, you can stream live MLB playoff games, top sports networks, and your favorite live TV, starting at just 1999 with no long-term contracts. Plus, customize your plan with the sports and channel combos you actually want. And keep watching over 600 free channels when you pause anytime. Sling lets you do that. Baseback required. Learn more at sling.com. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Hayley Bailey. Okay. I need to tell you about something. I just got YouTube Premium. It's got tons of awesome features, like off-line downloads, so I can download my favorite videos before I travel and watch them whenever I don't have Wi-Fi. Because we all know airplane Wi-Fi is the worst. I get ad free, I get backroom play, and there's like a ton more in there. You should try it. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Try it now for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Try a eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. That's a mouthful.

25:28He's there. Supposedly supporting Pete Ricketts, who is facing independent candidate Dan Osburn in the Senate race there. Trump won the braska, but 20 points. But this is what he said last night. Got a lot of attention. Carl, listen to this. Remember, with the works you start official, it's a little bit high. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. This is the best. All rights to pay. He's going to be on the list. So, Carl, that was a strange statement. What do you make about it? What do you think he was really saying? Were people right to react the way they did, meaning that it sounded like interpretation was that he was inviting Iran to take out two California cities. Well, obviously he was joking, but it's just it's not funny and it is shocking, but he wasn't

26:31really inviting Iran to do that. So, the interesting thing about you start parsing present, you sound humorless and I don't mean to be that way. The first thing I thought of when I heard this was Ronald Reagan in 1984 and he was doing a mic check for radio address. I believe he was in the Oval Office, but I'm not sure it was a schedule radio address. No, now that I think of it, he was in California, so he would have been in Santa Barbara as ranch and he said, you just talk about Russian. He said, we'd begin bombing in five minutes, but that was in private. It got out. It leaked by us apologize for it. Trump saying this in public. He's talking about a city of 8 million 10 million people, San Jose and San Diego. What he has against San Diego, I have no idea. When he mentioned San Diego, the joke falls flat. If he says Los Angeles,

27:31but then it goes San Diego, it ruins the joke and San Diego is a Navy town. He's the commander in chief and Steve Hilton is going to have to apologize for it. It's another unforced error by a president who increasingly seems to have no filter. He was always a guy. He would make jokes. He could be funny. He would say irreverent things. He would say politically. Incorrectly. Mean things, bullying things, but now he doesn't seem to have to stop himself and that's a little worrisome. I don't even think he was joking. I think the point he was trying to make it, it's tough with it. I think he was trying to say because he was saying, listen, gas prices are high. It's a temporary thing. It's a small price to pay to keep the world safe. Then he said, let him take out L.A. I think he was saying that's what would happen if we don't do this. If we don't keep them from getting nuclear weapons, they would take out L.A. How would that be? How would we

28:32think about it then? I don't even think he was necessarily trying to be funny about it, but the way that it came out led people to obviously the media portray this as Trump actually wants, is asking for a red to take out L.A. and San Diego and Gavin Newsom, of course, of course. We know he's not doing that. He's not doing that. What was it? Made some statement. I'm just saying the way it came out was sort of odd and allowed for different interpretations, but I don't even think he was really joking. I think he was trying to make the point that we're doing this. It's a small price to pay to keep America safe. If we didn't do that, Iran would have nuclear weapons and they would take out one of our cities. I know. I know. I'd be very serious. Let's do it. I let's do it a bunch of times because I thought it was an interesting formulation. I think what he was saying is, gas prices are high. That's a small price to pay. The people who are complaining about it, that's what's missing. The people who are complaining about it, let's see how you feel if they take out

29:34L.A. or San Diego. I think that's what he was saying. That's what I was just saying. That's like yeah, I wasn't joking. I'm not sure. This is the problem with the weave. I think in that he says these things and he doesn't say that them always is clearly as he'd like. But it's just this other question. That's a great huge investment. He's incoherent. We don't even know if he's serious or not. I'm going to go ahead. Here's my question. Here he is. He's in a state he won by what did I say 18 points, whatever it is. He's trying to help records. Osborne is trying to recover from this Billy Bob comment he made over the weekend. Do you remember that? Or he tacked the Bob Braskin Jane or Mary Jo and blah blah blah. Anyway, but the president sort of, is it in that negative when he goes out and does this because this becomes the story. It's not about why records is a great candidate or why the Republicans have

30:36to win the state. This becomes the story. Does it help or hurt when he goes out and is appearing at this point because there are some people who think Carl Robins among them that they should keep him off the campaign trail. Yeah, I mean, I saw Greg Abbott in Texas was like, had previously scheduled stuff and would not be appearing with Trump, which I was like, oh, well, that's not great. Look, again, I think part of what he's trying to do is in these red states is activate the base because if the base gets activated enough, records is going to win, Marshall's going to win, Darling Graham's going to win because they're just more Republicans and that's what you need. You need your base to turn out. In a state like Michigan, for example, a little less declarative on the Republican side. He's going to activate Democrats and independence of which there are many as many as Republicans. So it might be a net

31:41negative. But in these deep red areas, I think he's a net plus because he's going to have to activate. But Andy's point is this, if he was going in these places and campaigning properly, you'd be right. But he's going to nerd step on on this dick. He's making a fool of himself. All right. Now that you've said that, you better as well tell the Haley Barber story because yes, what Haley, Tom loved this. We were doing the book in 2012. Haley reprised this line. He once used to me about Clayton Williams in Texas. I forget who we were talking about Tom, what candidate. But Haley said, you know, the voters understand you're going to, you're talking all the time every day. You're going to step on your dick once in a while. What they don't want you to do is take it out of your pocket and jump up and down on it. And that's where we are now with Trump. He's not meeting the Haley Barber threshold. All right. Well, I don't know why we had to get

32:42that story. But I guess I'm glad we did. But let's talk about his ads too. He did announce yesterday that he's going to pay for these ads that have been all over cable news and weekend sports. He said this. He said, quote, the radical left is upset with the fact that I am taking ads, which I consider to be a positive promotion for our great USA and paying for them with USA money. So he's got that right. This is a rather standard thing to do. But rather than doing that, nothing will make them happy. I have decided to do the patriotic ads among others and pay for them as sell with money raised maggot ink. There was $20 million dollars. Tom apparently was set aside for these ads. I don't know if he's going to pay all 20 million. I don't know what's going to happen. But are you satisfied now that he's paying for these ads by himself? I think this was the right call. I don't think he should have done it to begin with. And so I think it's one of the rare times where Trump receives received criticism mostly from Democrats, but also from some Republicans,

33:47where he actually instead of doubling down, which is what he normally does, or just insulting, he actually listened to the criticism and decided to change course. And I think that's, I think it was the right decision. And he should have made that decision in the first place. But I'm glad he's doing it better late than never. Yeah. He's not going to pull the ads, Carl, though. Well, yeah, that's fine. If he pays for him, I mean, what's wrong with that? I think the ad that says God made Trump. That's the one that I think was the most problematic. Factually true. Factually true. Fact check true, Carl. Well, Tom's making a theological point than in Tom's point, God made Joe Biden too, but that's not in the ad. Oh, man. All right. Well, meanwhile, Andy, he's picking a fight with Tom Cotton for no good reason. I know you wanted to talk about that. Yeah, I'm going to talk about it. I care about a fight between him and Tom Cotton when they're fighting over daylight savings, which is a good question.

34:54Good question, Andy. And I'm prepared to answer it. Please do. We have not talked much. We talked about it once about the battle to change daylight saving time, which I don't care about one way or the other. And I know you don't either. And I do, but but doxing the chairman, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee by sending your 13 million truth social followers his private cell phone number just makes again, makes Trump look like he's not in control of himself. This was a Republican strategist quoted in the Hill newspaper. The chairman of the select intelligence, select committee on intelligence gets a lot of important calls. I imagine he has said to turn that phone off and contact known associates with a new phone number. It's mind bogglingly stupid of this administration in the midst of disastrous campaign to focus on this. So that's why we're talking about. Well, I see your point. I guess. Tom, Tom's not going to defend that.

35:59I'm sure you're not going to let him pass. I will defend the daylight savings bill lock lock in the clock and that Thune isn't going to get that through. I grew with Trump on that. I would like to see us do away with daylight savings time. Yeah, well, you're a zone in that heart. You know that? Well, we aren't going to have a policy debate on this show. I mean, no, God forbid. Russia, 200 Russian citizens placed under medical observation east and Siberia over the weekend. Following a death of a researcher at a Russian lab, here's Trump talking about that yesterday. Listen to this. Well, we're looking at a very strong, we just heard about it. And they call it pneumonia. And pneumonia, you know, years ago, you could treat pneumonia easier. The microbes in the germs have gotten stronger this proportionately, but we'll help them. Well, help them as much as I know. Carl, you want to help the Russians with this? It's a lab leak. It's a,

37:03concerns failure. Yeah, but you know what? It's just to me, but at least the Russians didn't claim that somebody got it from a polar bear or, you know, a saber-toothed tiger or whatever the Chinese said had happened in COVID. They admitted it was a lab leak. Yeah, yeah, that's right. They admitted it was a lab leak right away. But you know, there's a larger question. And I, why we're fooling around with handling the bubonic plague in a laboratory or inventing new COVID diseases? I, all things seems to me fraught, but look, that other COVID killed what, seven million people were of white or, I mean, estimates have been higher, much higher than that, but almost a million here in the United States. This stuff's no joke. And I, I actually logged the president for saying that he would help Russia. And I, if the Russians need help, I mean, they've had an academy of sciences since before we had a country, so they may not need our help.

38:04But if they do need our help, I'm glad that we're, we'd offer it. I'm going to ask Jake, our video producer, to mark that moment. So I can call it out when I post this later that Carl lauded Donald Trump for his response to this. I want to make sure our viewers and listeners all get that information. So, come as I see him, Tom. Yeah. I don't know. Fair enough. Last Trump item for the day, President Trump proved the execution of a firing squad by firing squad of Army Majoral, Major Nidel Malik Hassan, this is the guy who in 2009 had this shooting rampage rampage at Fort Hoodie killed 13 people wounded 30. This is just came out yesterday saying, yeah, firing squad is okay. This is of course in the wake of that botched execution of Christophe Pike down in Tennessee by lethal injection. Governor down there is called

39:08for a halt in executions, but Tom Trump says let the bullets fly. Carl, do you want to go two for two here? You want to go for two? Yeah, I will. I think I think the Kim and her chief is doing what he should do here. And I think the President Obama wouldn't even call him an act of terrorism. His army secretary said something like, yeah, this was a tragedy. The bigger tragedy is if we question diversity. The Obama and Biden administration treated this like an inconvenient little blip in their DEI plans. And I think that they shouldn't have taken this long. And I think that this was an act of war. The radicalized guy, the FBI, been warned. People have been warned about this guy. Nobody did anything about it. If you're going to have the death penalty, this is the death penalty case. I agree with that. And as we talked about the other day, we were talking about how lethal

40:11injections been botched, the electric transmission botched. I don't know that there's ever been a case where a firing squad has botched the executions. So it's a pretty beautiful way of guaranteeing that this guy is going to be the Italian army. So I'm, again, if you believe in the death penalty, and certainly a lot of people do, particularly for a case like this, then I agree with this decision by the president. 68% according to Pew. Be higher in a case like this. Yes it would. Yeah, it would be higher in the case like this. Hey, guys, can we just stop for a second? Two issues in a row or Carl Cannon agrees with Donald Trump. Cats and dogs are living together. It's pandemonium out there. All right, well, we're going to take a quick break. You're listening to Real-Bel Politics, then, serious exam. I'm Andrew Walworth, I got Tom and Carl with me, and we'll be back with more right after this. Don't go away.

41:13Real clear politics. Get more at RealClearPolitics.com. And on the serious exam app. This is the Megan Kelly channel on serious XM 111. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. It's destroying athlete, creator, and YouTube Maxer. YouTube Premium enhances how I use YouTube with awesome features like offline downloads, so I could download my favorite training videos before I hit the gym. So no Wi-Fi doesn't turn leg day into loading day. Plus, I get ad-free videos, background play, and so much more. YouTube Premium is like YouTube got some extra gains. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Try eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime.

42:19Real clear politics. Real clear politics. A neutral, even-handed arbiter of political data. You're listening to the Megan Kelly channel. On serious XM 111. Series XM. I'm Andrew Walworth, I got Tom Beban, and Carl can and with me, and I want to talk about PlasmaEco, which is a great name for a jam band, by the way, but that's not what we're talking about. It is actually an FBI surveillance effort that was trying to figure out the best time to raid moral logo. This was back in the summer of 2022. And that in turn means what they did was they tapped Suzy Wiles phone, and they tracked the movement of Melania and Baron Trump in order to get the optimal time to go do this raid. Tom, this is just more disturbing news about what

43:22the FBI was up to during that period. And these stories keep coming out. What do you make of this one? Yeah, the administration releases as part of their government transparency, task force, or whatever. And the more we learn, the more I personally am offended by what the FBI was doing, under Merrick Garland under Christopher Ray, and the spying on everybody, basically, from members of Congress to family members, to his chief of staff, his political director at the time, they tapped Suzy Wiles's phone, and they had all these conversations with lawyers and journalists. And I mean, it's kind of outrageous. And I mean, all this was done to figure out when was the best time to serve a warrant at Mar-a-Lago? Really? Is that where we're hoovering up all this

44:22information? Just if you've got a warrant, you go knock on the door and serve the warrant. But even that, it's just the whole thing strikes me as more evidence of the FBI and particularly under the Biden administration, just abusing their power and their privileges here. So, our own Carl? Yeah, Carl, what do you think? Well, the explanation that they wanted to raid Mar-a-Lago when first form, first lady and her son were not home makes sense as far as it goes. But the whole thing, the whole thing, and I felt this way all along, it should never have been a criminal investigation, and all the allegation is that Trump took some amount of cartons of documents with him. We don't know why, presumably to run his memoir or to rebut memoirs written attacking him. You know, some reason he had in mind, he wasn't going to sell these. He's a Russian agent. He was a human, he sold the secrets to the criminal. And this sort of never been a criminal matter.

45:28We still don't know who with the National Archives decided just to throw up their hands in frustration and call the FBI or call the Justice Department. They've kept that under wraps. But this should have been a civil matter. If the National Archives thought that there were documents that belonged in the presidential library, not in Trump's home, maybe they should have gone to court and let a judge decide this. But this idea to treat this as a crime, to me, was problematic from the beginning. And I'm saying that we're finding more about Jackson's investigation. It's coming out in dribs and drafts. But I defended him last week on the show when Tommy were very critical of him. Eric, Senator Schmidt had this bizarre misfire when he went after him for perjury for being at a basketball game, a stupid mistake that he made. But you know, you think about Jackson, but I'm kind of, I think I was easy on him. He said that day at the hearing, I am not a politician. I have no partisan loyalties. And that's just beggars belief. And I noticed

46:31over the weekend, he was, he went to his concert where Springsteen and Dave Grohl and these other people were holding. It wasn't even a concert. It was a political rally with music. And he was wearing a no-kings at T-shirt. There's Springsteen turd, no kings. Now to say I had no partisan loyalties. And then three days later to wear a no-kingsure, it's like he's insulting our intelligence. And I don't know. Or he was lying. Or he testified before Congress. Congress? Well, you can't, you can't charge to a perjury for sitting on a partisan. But the hubris and arrogance of that, it seems to have extended this investigation. That's, I'm agreeing with you, Tom. You agree, Andy? Do you think they want to? Yeah, no, I think it's outrageous. This was the thing that jumped out of me about the coverage. It turns out that there was a memo from Christopher Rae sent Garland, this memo in May, warning that the investigation could potentially be disruptive to the democratic process if publicly disclosed

47:32prior to an election. But then he recommended that he do it anyway. But there was a little handwritten note saying, you know, go for it. So for it. So yeah, I mean, I think the more we learn about this investigation, I thought so at the time, but they're talking about journalists, they're looking at the president's son's schedule. If you don't find that an overreach, I can't help you. But let's talk about the Department of Justice report. They released another report. This two hundred seventy three pages came out, I guess maybe just this morning on how the Biden administration worked to silence parents who were speaking about out at school board meetings about COVID transgender ideology, critical race theory. There was some pushback at the time, Tom. But this report claims that there were 25 investigations opened against parents for doing this,

48:33charging them with or investigating them for domestic terror. That seems to me outrageous and chilling to say the least. Yeah, I mean, this is this is this is more outrageous than than the last door we just talked about, right? This is this is the government, sort of with a full frontal assault on on parents. And you know, the Biden administration, we talked about they had this, you know, they declared sort of white nationalist, the biggest threat to the country that they declared Catholics as, you know, a threat to the country. I mean, they had all of these these groups that they targeted. And with the full force of the government, and you know, to see it released in this way, this report really does it brings it all sort of back and and lays it bare for people. I mean, it was outrageous. It's outrageous that they were trying to silence parents who had, who had questions, concerns, criticisms about some of these issues.

49:40And for them to be investigated is it's it's not American, quite frankly. I don't know why they're even doing it. It's not even legal. And for the, and the reason the FBI, this reports said notice that parents were labeled domestic terrorists or violent protesters. I'm early for expressing opinion, critical of critical race theory or a COVID regulations or DI or transgender policies. The reason the FBI is using that language is because otherwise, they're not supposed to be investigating Americans for free speech. So they have to make it, so they have to make it that it's, they're protecting us from violence. Some of these people aren't violent. And some of the report, the justifications in the report on FBI, I would say that so and so is a gun owner. Well, that's, that's, that's in the Constitution. Tom's right, it's literally un-American to say that someone is a terrorist because they have a gun because, or they reeled against the government, which is, I mean, Tom's Jefferson would be a domestic

50:40terrorist under that definition. The thing, the thing got so far out of hand, what you don't under, what you, what you, and look, there's a lot of great people for the FBI. I know some of you even wash you and meet people and some of them just, they're most wonderful people. But, but the group thinks said in what what what's missing from this report is is FBI agents say, wait a minute, that's not our job. That's, we're not even authorized to do that under the charter of the FBI. That's actually illegal. That's unconstitutional. You didn't see enough of these people pushing back and that worries me. It made me think that the, that the agency is sort of been captured by politics. Well, in the report does say, okay, I just wanted for the record, Corey Aminson, he chief of the DOJ's public integrity section of the criminal division. As on the record saying, the effort was, quote, stupid, stupid, stupid, and Robin Thymon, I'm, I should have got the name right, she's another employee, she said, this is ridiculous. So there was some pushback within the FBI from the rank and file to this sort of thing.

51:45But, but to Karl's point, I mean, we saw this stuff. We saw it in public. We saw it in the meat like, it became, COVID became intensely partisan in part because of whatever Trump was advocating for, that left had to be against in the media, you know, telling people who weren't, you know, rushing to take the vaccine, calling them, you know, telling, calling them for, for them to be refused care and all this stuff. I mean, they were, they were treated as terrorists almost in the media and by some of these folks in the left. But to see it as part of being weaponized inside the government is what's really disturbing because it's one thing to be in sort of, you know, the daily battle with, with the, you know, a debate. It's another thing to have the full force of the government mobilized against you. That is scary stuff. Yeah. And the fact that there were 25 cases too, just is, that's a real number. That is really, I mean, if you're a parent out there, that should never happen to you. Anyway, that's our program for today. If you're listening on the podcast apps or watching on YouTube, be sure to subscribe, like, send us your comments.

52:47We do read them. It's great to hear from you. If you're listening on the Megan Kelly channel on SiriusXM, stick around. She's coming up after this on Andrew Wallworth, Path of Tom Carl. Everyone here are CP. Thanks for joining us. And we will be back here tomorrow one day closer to the election. Don't go away. We'll be back tomorrow. Crazy weather we're having. No, it's not. It's just weather. It is an introvert's dream. Give it a try at minmobile.com slash switch. Up from payment of $45 for three month plan, $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer for three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra.

53:48See minmobile.com. There's a fire inside you. You can't ignore. Stand still. Not a chance. You're a lifelong learner who's come this far. Now we are here to help you keep going further. Capella University, what can't you do? Visit Capella.edu to learn more.