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SplitTicket Ep06 v1: Welcome to Split Ticket. I'm Michael Campanella. I'm Jake Huffaker. So Jake and I were just talking about how we were one of the first people on the scene when it came to the Cornell 7 rape scandal. And how at first, you know, we didn't really know what to think about it. We were kind of like, yeah, like, you know, gang rape sounds bad. We went pretty hard on the feminists last episode. Like, this could be a good thing to talk about, to show that we're kind of moderate and in the middle. And so we're like, yeah, like let's talk about how like men should not gang rape women. Like that's a good thing, you know, for us to talk about, you know, and and show that we're just not always on the guys' side, which we're not. We're truly not. but then it turns out that that was a horrible example because the whole thing was a fucking joke and so much more came out about it. It is just this is crazy. What's what's your revised? Don't worry, it was all legal in text. When you ask them to hang out again, when you tell your friends it was some crazy thing that you had done, when you insist that there was no rape or sexual assault, when the DA who reviewed the case ruled that the whole thing was quote voluntary, conscious, and consensual, when you find out one of the guys was blacked out and she like allegedly like tried to wake him up with sexual acts. Yeah. And you're like, I don't know, sounds like maybe she assaulted him. Like, imagine Goliath calls it the Cornell 8 now. Yeah, the whole thing is crazy. And and like every single new piece of evidence they would trickle in the next day. Like, here's a text message where she says this. There's another one where she says people are gonna grow about this kind of stuff. You know, we're all sexual, whatever. Another where like one of her sorority sisters claims that like She admitted to being a bit of a whore, a bit of a slut, or whatever it was, like turns out the rumors are true, like all this stuff. And so my next view was like, my gosh, this is a hoax, these poor men, these innocent poor men. And then I had another reflection on it. And I had two kind of updates to my thinking. One was it really is you have to give you know the devil its due. And it really is the case that denial is one of the stages of grief. And that it's very common that women who go through terrible, terrible stories like this sometimes kind of main sometimes maintain contact, or even more likely than not, maintain contact with the rapist. They're very likely to kind of downplay it or it's just didn't happen, or in other ways try to like come to terms with it. And so it very, very could be the case that these men did rape her. Like I am not saying that I know for a fact. that it was legal, even though she insists it was legal. The thing is, sometimes women do that. And but but now you have to say like, well what are we gonna do? Like, I'm sorry, I'm not comfortable hanging some guys over well, it's technically possible
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it was still a rape. Like the evidence is pretty solid that it probably wasn't a rape. And I mean look, the way that I've the the thinking that I've kind of come to is there's really not a shadow of doubt in my mind that went what went on in that room was not moral on a variety of fronts. Like there was a lot of immoral activity from both the man and or the the men and Jane Doe. But this is one of those rare and fascinating examples when sometimes the what is moral and what is legal Actually, are in two separate categories. And there's even though you can pretty definitively say a lot of immoral shit went on here, that doesn't mean it was illegal. It doesn't mean that anybody should go to jail over it. And like what you're describing is very true. So I'm a huge fan of Long Order of Special Victims Unit. It's like my comfort show. I know that's really weird, but that's like what I watch to fall to sleep. Like I just love watching me some SVU. And then one of the many reasons why we wonder if you're gay. I just am just gonna there's so many layers to this onion. yes, I love I'm a big, I'm a huge Olivia Benson fan. But you see all the time in the show, and I think the show is you know very accurate, this trauma bonding stuff where, you know, just like all the stuff that you're describing, you know, people maintain contact with their abuser because they don't want to believe that it was rape and stuff like that. and then there's, you know, another concept called tonic immobility, which is where, you know, women often or or just victims, you know, not necessarily women, but more often than not women, will actually freeze, like their body actually goes completely immobile. So then there's this argument of like, why don't you run? Why didn't you get up? And there's actually like a physiological response that makes that not possible. So there's a whole multitude of reasons of why rape cases are extremely difficult to prove and extremely difficult to prosecute. And that doesn't mean that the rape didn't happen. It just means it's really hard to throw somebody in jail. And then if you want to compound all of that already pre-existing difficulty with the fact that there are text messages in which she actually praises what happened and says that she had a good time, it's like what may have happened here is she engaged in a gangbang and then realized that that's actually a really disgusting and perverse thing to do. And she felt really disgusting and perverse upon reflecting on it. And then was like, ooh, like maybe I didn't want that. Maybe that wasn't consensual. It's like, that's actually not how that works. You actually can't do that. And maybe the message here is like, hey, don't have sex with people that you don't know and like. Don't let people that you don't know and like have sex with you. And if we just follow that ethos, this whole situation would have been avoided. And to me, that's the message. Like, don't fuck randoms, don't fuck multiple randoms, don't be disgusting. And then also do not derive. your morality from the law because a lot of the times the law is a lagging indicator and is not a good place to in in my opinion to derive what is moral because there's plenty of things that are legal that are immoral and there are plenty of things that are immoral that are legal. And to me this is one of those examples. Yeah, you have this this it's what happens when you insist that if it was consensual, then it was good. You know, like, you I'm I'm a Christian and sometimes people say all the time, the Christians, why do you care what two people do in the privacy of their own home? You know, why do you care what eight people do in the privacy of their own frat? Like I don't know. I kinda care 'cause it's gross. Like like I'm I'm disgusted by these men. Like I I would not be friends with someone who's doing a ketamine Coke Bang like like this is just gross. And so but the problem is they say, Well well, why do you care? Like if it was consensual and I get that this one, like the it it it honestly is a little bit dicey. Yeah. But like the the the you know, why do you care what two people do in the privacy of their own home? Well, you know, you can't enforce your Christian morality on me. And it's like, okay, I like maybe I can't enforce it on you, but I can like shame you for it because it's wrong. And they say, well, it can't be wrong because it was consensual. If it was consensual, then it's good. But that mean you know, if you have if p then q means if not q, then not p. So if consensual, then good necessitates logically, it must be the case. Then that if it wasn't good, then it wasn't consensual. So that's the framework that this woman has. She says people have to grow up about sexuality, people are gonna realize we're all adults, this stuff is getting more normalized. Like she says all this in text. That's her view. She's a pro sex person and a sex forward, gangbang kind of person. Which means she has the if it's consensual, then it's good. And then as she's getting slut shamed and as she feels in her soul, she feels bad about it, and all of these things, and it's like, I'm sorry, you need a priest. You need like you need spiritual revival to fix this situation. But she decides it wasn't good, therefore it wasn't consensual. And that's not vaguely appropriate. Can we talk about why a guy who's was having sex with a girl would invite a bunch of more dudes? Like we've established that I don't have a lot of male friends. So I'm genuinely asking. I don't I've been friends with predominantly women my whole life. Like I do not have a lot of male friends. So I really don't I I'm I'm really struggling. How is that not gay? Like people want to say that, I'm gay, I'm a little bit quirky. How is it not gay to be mid fucking a girl and then be like, wait, I'm gonna invite a bunch of other guys so they could show up, take off their pants, and then also just like make this turn this into a sausage
party? Like to me that's fucking gay as shit. Like I don't know, am I just am I missing something here? What what what what what happened? I've never like like I'm a straight guy. I've had mostly straight male friends, but I've had female friends. I've had bisexual friends. I've like I'm friends with all kinds of people. Black, white, blue, purple, orange, like yeah. Although most of my friends tend to be straight guys 'cause I'm, you know, a straight guy. It's gay. Like, sorry. Like, like when you're have like like if you had sex with one woman and six men, like you had sex with six men. Like you can't do that and then claim you're straight. Like sorry. But but here's the other thing about this case: the guy who sent the picture and started the thread, that guy probably should go to prison. And here's what I say about that. She very well may have consented to have gangbangs and have sex with two or four or how many of the men were even involved in it seems like it seems that only four of them had sex with her and two of them were Right, the other ones are blowing each other in the corner. Yeah, r right. I don't know. But like it seems that at least two of them had never even touched her. But you know, regardless, like she may have ha consented to have sex with some number of men. But if a woman consents to have sex with, you know, James and Jerry. And then James and Jerry start seek sneaking in Paul. Like, sorry, she didn't consent to have sex with Paul. And so if you start adding Paul in there, you're now a rapist. And now whether or not Paul himself is a rapist, like he may not have known, like he may fully believe that she's involved in the whole thing. But the guy who's like, come pull up, you know, free pussy up here, and you know, you're a disgusting loser guy, and you read in the thread. And you're like, like the guy's hired a prostitute for us, or you know, here's a whore who wants to have sex with all of us or whatever. And it's like you go and join, and you're a disgusting loser and like keep that guy away from me. But the person who is sneaking men into this room without her agreeing to it, like, sorry, if you're tricking a woman into having sex with some guy, you're a rapist. She may have consented to sex with you. And then if you're some gay guy who's like, let's have sex with all my bros as well, like that's not okay. And so like we need the details on exactly what she knew about that text thread. Because I I don't think I I don't think that the actual sex acts themselves were rape. I don't think I certainly don't think at this point you could ever prove any of that. But the invitation for other men to join That I don't think she knew happened, that's not okay. And that man probably needs to go to prison for a very long time. Now, I say this, and we're gonna release this episode in a couple of days, and you know, it may be that it turns out Yeah, she was like out on your phone when you sent that text. Yeah, right? So, like, I don't
know, maybe I'll be eating my words, but you know, like that's the thing about Michael and I is Michael and I will tell you what we think. And if something comes out that shows that we're wrong, we will come back on next episode and we'll talk about it. Like you like you can always know from Michael and I two things. One, you will know what we think. We are not quiet, we are not shy. Two, if we are wrong, we will tell you that we were wrong. We are not ashamed to be wrong. But both of those things means in full cards on the table, we are willing to be wrong. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so we'll s we'll see. We'll see if we end up eating those words. But I completely agree with you. That's that's that's a really strange part of this. Like it's objectively unethical and immoral and it's potentially criminal. And you know, Well, it's gotta be criminal. Like I agreed to have sex with you and then you're trying to like sneak bro in, like, sorry, no. Like no, I didn't consent to that. If that's what happened, then then yeah, that's that's really fucking fucked up and crazy. I mean, so much other stuff has happened too. So that's that on the Cornell. But I mean, we've been gone for a couple of weeks. I was on vacation, so I haven't I haven't you know seen Jake in a while. And it was a fascinating couple of weeks. we had the press secretary for five days. That was like the best that was that was That was like SNL couldn't have done a better job. When she she did the like hot girl in a pres in like a high school presentation thing where she was like reads off the words like I'm so excited to be here and then she looks up and smiles, she's like proud of herself for being able to read. And you're like, like I I like like everyone who's been through high school has seen like the hot chick give this presentation, knowing that the creepy English teacher was gonna give her an A, even though the presentation was not good. And then the nerdy and indie the nerdy Indian guy goes on right after and he's like explaining tectonic plates or whatever and he gets an A- despite his thing being like groundbreaking and she's just like reading her little notes, looking like like you know this is a woman who has failed upward her entire life just because she's pretty. Yes. That's a I mean it was like it was astounding I I it was it was so bad. And then did you see the fucking Sean Hannity interview? Apparently that was set up by Suzy Wiles, who was not consulted on this decision. You know, Trump was like, This is who I want, and he didn't ask Susie her opinion. And Susie was like, All right, like you're the spokesperson for the president, so I guess like, you know, the president should be able to decide. And then she had to step in and was like, okay, so she like set up the Sean Hannity interview. This is all alleged, by the way, this is all from Washington Insiders. I don't know if any of this is true. But apparently that interview was orchestrated by Susie Wiles because she knew that Katie Zachariah was gonna do such a terrible job that she was then going to be promptly fired. That that's the word I call her Republican Kamala Harris. Who's that? Katie Sakaria. Yeah. She like was like, you know, sucking and fucking her way up to the top and dealing with fucking Willie Brown and all that. And it's like you know Nancy Pelosi hated her because like people like Nancy who had like actually worked their ass off and like is an extremely competent, tough as nails. I mean, I hate everything Nancy Pelosi's ever done, but I respect the ability of Nancy Pelosi to get things done. She's And then Kamara Harris is just like out here like you know, getting her career started by Willie Brown and all that. Like, you know, like and that's what Katie Zachariah was. Where like like and like I don't know for certain, but like this person was so unbelievably disqualified for this position. And like how how did she get that role? How did she get this job? I she's not even a lawyer. Like did nobody do any due diligence? Like she's actually not and being she is a lawyer. She's not an attorney because so she graduated law school. She has a J D But then she failed the bar and promptly moved to China. She was like, I don't I could do the work in China without needing to pass the bar, so I guess it's fine. Holy fuck. Which which by the way, being an attorney is not a qualification to be press secretary. But like you're not even what are what are you? And who how did you get here? It's really like it's really turned into quite the clown show, this administration. It's like it's just really fucking funny at this point. Well Trump is just a loser. Like he's just a loser. Like like and the thing is, like, it's ch it's so it it's like if like Babylon B invented a president. Mm-hmm. Where we're like, what if we get the seventy five year old dementia guy who's like declaring war on random countries, hates Canada, and just appointing hot chicks who can't do their job. Like Right. It's Ollie G. Have you seen the Oli G skip? Where he's like, we could solve the immigration problem by only letting in hot women. And so you get to like bring in all the immigrants, you get to have lots of immigration, but they're only hot chicks. So you saw like and he's like he's like, we get to knob two birds with one Connie, like that kind of like idea. And it's a it's a comedy sketch. Cause no one would ever do that, obviously, right? Right? Yeah. Of course not. my god. It's just it's just too much. It's just too much, man. Like I've watched that interview like four times. I've never seen funny. I want to watch it. you have to watch like it's the Ollie G? No no no no not Ollie G. No no the Katie Zachariah interview. that one. it's awesome. it's so awesome. That w that's what that's. I've seen a little bit like a Ollie G is a character played by Sasha Barrett Cohen. It's the same guy who does Borat. Mm-hmm. and he's he's funny, but you don't like don't watch that four times. But I'm
saying like Katie Zachariah, I I've seen that I think three and a half times or so. It's so epic. And you could see that Sean was just like so confused about what was happening because he really wanted her to look good and she just looked So bad. And he was really trying. He was gonna be back, you know, it's not a friendly room out there. Like, what are you gonna do next time? And she was like, I was the first press secretary to break news about a staffing change, and like that is an honor. And he was like, Okay, good luck. And it was so it was so bad. And then she was like, the Daily Mail, like everyone's saying I only I only asked for for I I only took questions from conservative outlets, like But I asked a question I took a question from the Daily Mail and they're really aggressive towards conservatives. And it's like, since since when? Like, I don't know if maybe she got confused with like the Daily Beast. Like maybe she didn't know the difference. she was so fucking stupid. what else? France is on fire. I've been seeing some videos of that. Milan's on fire. Europe is just a fucking hellscape, man. I don't know what the I was just came back from Europe. It's so beautiful. And Italy is is is you know doing better. Like this pla Italy used to be, you riddled with crime. Like I was in Sicily. You can't even you couldn't even go to Sicily for a long time. I actually didn't know this, but my parents told me they're like, You're going to Sicily, like that's a shithole. And I like, No, it's not, it's fucking beautiful. And I just did some research and it was like a gang infested, mob infested hellhole. And then lo and behold, the Italian government cleaned it up through, you know, intense policing measures, and now there's no more, you know, disorganized and organized crime or not nearly as much. but the rest of Europe, I mean France, Spain. I mean there there's are some protests going on right now in Milan, people are burning shit down, like holy shit, like the fuck is going on there. Beautiful place to visit, terrible place to live. Like my God. Yeah, I mean, this is what happens when you take like I mean this is it's it's basically what happens when you have California without like c the constitution and right wing states to hold it in check. Like you know, this is just like free range left wing globalist kumbaya worldview. And it's like sorry, actually, you need policing. You actually need borders. You actually need markets and companies and like like it turns out the things that made Europe great are actually important things. And when you sacrifice them all on the like can't we all be friends kumbaya liberalism, it doesn't work. No, no, it does not. That's that's fucking crazy. all right, so today we're talking about the midterms. We're talking about our country. So the midterms are, you know, by the time we release this episode will be less than two weeks away. They're on Tuesday, November third. so Jake and I are gonna talk about the point of the midterms, what they tend to signal about the incumbent party, the factors currently at play that will influence the outcome, and what to look for as you follow some of these key races. but before we get into that, I just wanted to do a little ex explanation about what the midterms actually are. Kind of like how when we did the Fed episode, I did that explanation. And as always, you know, we want to hear from you guys. I want to know: is this information overly basic and simplistic? Is it stuff you guys already know? Do you appreciate these explainers? So we're a new show, we're learning who our listener base is. So we welcome the feedback. So let me know. all right, classes in session. Here's how this works: there are three branches of government: the legislative, executive, and judicial branch. The executive branch is obviously the presidency. We elect a president every four years, and the president could do stuff such as issue executive orders, he could grant pardons, but if he wants to pass laws, he needs to go to Congress. Congress is the legislative branch of government, which is made up of two chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House introduces and votes on legislations, the House originates revenue bills, and the House has the sole power of impeachment. The Senate votes on legislation, the Senate will Confirm presidential nominees and judges, the Senates will approve treaties, and they also conduct impeachment trials. now why do we have these two branches? Well, George Washington is said to have described the Senate as the saucer that cools the tea. So the idea being that the Senate was designed to slow things down and act as a deliberative check on the House. So the House passes a ton of legislation by a simple majority, and then it goes to the Senate, where it becomes a little bit harder. To pass the legislation and then ultimately turn into law. there are 435 members of the House, there's only a hundred members of the Senate. house seats are proportionate to population. So, for example, New York has 26 house seats, while Wyoming, which is our least populous state, only one house seat. But every state has two senators. And the idea behind that was to balance this notion of population-based representation in the House by giving every state equal representation in the Senate. House members are up for re-election every two years. So they are up for re-election in the presidential election cycle. And then the whole fucking body, all five 435 of them, are up for re-election again halfway through the president's term. Senators are up every six years. So every two years, 33 to 35 senators are on the ballot. The election that takes place in the middle of the presidential term is the one that we're talking about today, and that's called the midterms. So in this midterm, All 435 House members are up for grabs, as well as 35 Senate seats. Right now, Trump has Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate. He
controls both chambers. Control of those chambers are at stake in these tw 2026 midterm elections. so yeah, that's basically how that all works. When you lose control of the legislative branch, it becomes very hard to legislate. And what you can and cannot do as president becomes much more constrained. So it's it's a bad thing if you lose, you know, one chamber, which is very likely most likely gonna lose the ha lose the house. Most presidents lose the house. But if he loses the Senate, he's essentially rendered useless. and he can really essentially do nothing except I guess, drop more bombs in Iran, which he'll probably do. so yeah, that's the story on the midterms. I hope that was helpful for people. you know, let us know, let us know what you think. But yeah, that's enough of me talking. Jake, I'll kick it to you. We'll do a deep dive of some of the most critical races a little bit later in the episode, but for now I want to ask you about some of the factors, some of the dynamics you think are at play here in the midterm elections. What are the issues you that you think are animating the midterm elections and how do you think the night's going to go for Republicans? I mean, Republicans are getting their asses kicked. Like, and the problem is Republicans deserve to lose. But Democrats definitely do not deserve to win. And so, like, we have the kind of a disaster where Republicans they're they've just shat the bed. Like this has just been this has been more bad than I could have possibly imagined. Where like we ran on no new wars and then we've got like the biggest war in, you know, d decades. We ran on like lowered gas prices and deregulation and gas prices are up what, like a buck fifty or something, maybe a buck thirty across the country. We ran on you know, affordability. I just want to be able to afford groceries and, you know, my eggs and like kitchen table issues. Those prices are way up. Tariffs aren't good. War on Iran isn't good. We haven't had the mass deregulation, the mass capitalism push that we thought we were gonna have. We ran on slashing the budget, you know, doge and all that. Spending is higher than it was under Biden. Like like all of the the only thing that we did good on is closing the border. We haven't even done good on deportations. Those aren't happening. Like we we fucking gave up. Like Tim Walls decided to like, you know, kind of wink and nod at some riots, and then Trump was like, my bad, and like quit the whole deportation thing. And so Republicans are incapable of providing any benefit to anyone other than themselves when Baron Trump is, you know, selling cryptocurrencies for billions of dollars. It's like, well, it's gone real well for the Trump family and real bad for the rest of us. We're gonna lose. Yeah. I mean, and just on just on the immigration point, real quick, I mean, you're right that Trump did a good job closing the border, but a record number of Americans now support abolishing IC. And it's like the
president is to blame for that. Like the president took office at a time when people were like, We want mass deportations. We're really mad about what's going on at the border. We want to close the border and we want to Get these people out of the country. He had a mandate and he somehow took that mandate and through incompetency made it so that now the majority of the country wants to abolish ice. Is that true? That's the majority? Yeah, I mean, let me just do a quick fact check. But it's a lot. Well let's see. Let me just do a quick fact check here. Yeah, support for abolishing ICE reaches fifty percent according to you gov. Holy fuck. Like wow. Not not just reform. Not just reform. Abolish. Abolish. Like my god, it's fucking twenty-three percent of Republicans want to abolish ice. Yeah, that's how bad this went, dude. Like people were like it people are actually not okay with with with like, you know, masked Gestapos shooting Americans in the street. Like they're just or they're just not- That didn't happen. That didn't happen. my god. I mean Gestapo was not going around shooting people in the street. Renee Good hit a cop with her car. Like sorry, you're gonna get shot if you start hitting cops with your car. But Jake, you you you have to you have to admit that the optics there were terrible. Like it was terrible. Yeah, and they handled it badly and Christy Noan's another hot chick who's incompetent that Trump put in charge of the most important thing, and you're like, gosh. Like you say that she was hit by her car. Like there was no investigation like we actually don't know that for a fact. I saw it. I watched him get hit by the car. Do you not think that there should have been an investigation into that? Like with Into whether or not what happened on the video is what happened? That that needed to be analyzed forensically, that it shouldn't because like it's not like the car wasn't going at 80 miles per hour into a where it's like, okay, like there's no argument here. Like we needed to do a frame-by-frame analysis of that video. And they did. You could do it yourself. It hit her. It hit him. It hit him. What are we talking about? And then you saw the thing. Like y you know, there there was the Alex Predy situation, which was like, you know, pretty you know, it it's not good. Like what happened was and it not only was it not good, but it actually undermined the efforts of the administration to do good things. Like Well, the biggest thing with the Alex Predi situation the fact that the Trump administration did such a terrible job of handling the riots beforehand. Like the this is the problem with semi enforced law. Like when you allow people to riot and to gra you know Alex Prauddy grabbed the cops arm and you know they're they're they're getting in cops faces, they're doing their best to disrupt the police, they're blocking traffic, they're like when you when you allow people to foment mass lawlessness, sometimes that gets out of hand and escalates. Yeah, I mean the the Trump it was Trump was president during the George Floyd riots. Like this seems to be like he does he he runs as this authoritarian, but he's a pretty bad authoritarian. That's why people like Who are calling Trump an authoritarian like the left? I'm like, if he's an authoritarian, he does a pretty bad job at it because it seems to me that whenever this guy comes into office, just mayhem just fills the streets, and the true authoritarian roll tanks into the streets. Just to touch on some of the other things that you talked about, inflation is at 3.7%, which is nearly double the Fed's target of 2%, according to the September CPI report. The same report shows that gas is up 34.2%, diesel is up 72.2%. Gas is now at $104 a barrel. Trump's approval rating is currently at 33%, which is a record low. For context, Joe Biden's lowest approval rating was 36%. And that was immediately after his disastrous debate in June 2025. So that means more Americans approve of a corpse, of a literal corpse, than they do of Donald Trump. People watch the debate of Joe Biden. Not being able to put a sentence together, his approval fell to 36%. And Donald Trump's approval rating right now is at 33%. Real wages are down 0.7% after adjusting for inflation. 29,000 jobs were added in September. That's really bad for context. The healthy jobs market adds about 150 to 200,000 new jobs per month. 75% of Americans rate the economy negatively. 72% of voters say the country is heading in the wrong direction. I'd love to talk to the other 28%. 71% Who are those people? Please, if you're part of that twenty-eight percent, please come on the podcast. I would love to have a conversation with you. seventy-one percent of Americans say the gas is unaffordable compared to only twenty-eight percent after the Iran war. I mean, how crazy is that? Like gas was actually coming in. I mean, it's crazy to think about that. A year ago, we were actually in a rate cutting environment. Like right now, a 30-year fixed mortgage is 7.5% up from six point three percent last year. Scott Besson has completely lost control of the bond market. The 10 year is over five percent. But like looking at conditions now, it's crazy to think about that we were actually in a rate cutting environment just one year ago. you know, cost of living is up, from housing to groceries to interest rates. You know, Americans are really hurting. Like it the fundamentals are really bad going into this midterm election. They are really, really bad. And one other issue that we haven't talked about that I think is really animating the midterms is corruption. Eighty-eight percent of voters say that they are either worried or very worried about corruption. You have Nick Fuentes, one of the most right-wing figures in political commentary, telling his listeners to vote Democrat in the House elections because he wants the oversight and the investigations into the unprecedented levels of corruption that we're
seeing coming out of the White House. Like, that's crazy. And all of the economic numbers that we just talked about. Most of them are a result of the Iran war. Well, let's talk about the Iran war for a second. Traders are making millions of dollars betting on what's going to happen with the war with 90% accuracy. Every single time Trump makes an announcement about the war, if you look at trading volumes on oil futures and things like that, billions of dollars of volume are in oil futures in the minutes before an announcement on the Iran war. And we saw the same pattern with the tariffs. There's a massive sell-off. Right before the market tanked after Liberation Day. Like the Trump family has invested tens of millions of dollars in military drone companies right before the Iran war. Like, like this is fucking crazy. Like this is some staggering stuff that does need to be investigated. And that is one thing that the Democrats are really good at is they're really good at launching investigations. Like they are like the Democrats know how to put a fucking committee together. Like they're gonna go, Jamie Raskin and and and Shifty Adam Shift, they're all gonna come together and they're gonna make some fucking committees. Letitia James is gonna prosecute your ass. Yeah, Letitia James. my god, have you seen some of the videos of her opponent, Saritha, that Indian girl? She is awesome. No, I haven't. She's so good. She's not gonna win, just because no Republican can win in this environment, let alone and you know, for attorney general in New York City. Like She would a Republican could only win for attorney general in New York City in a environment that's really unfriendly to Democrats, and that's just not this environment. But she's awesome. She's moderate, she served under Obiden. she served Obiden. She served under Obama, she served under Biden. Like she's a really fascinating person. She's, you know, wants to create committees to help get, you know, homeless people off the streets. She's great, definitely worth looking into her. but anyway, yeah, I think that the economy, specifically affordability and corruption. are the main things that are going to be animating the midterm cycle. And both of those things do not bode well for Democrats. I'm sorry, for Republicans. They both they bold good for Democrats, you know, but for for now at least. But they do not bode good for Republicans. okay, so I want to talk about some of the actual specific races. Yeah, they bode so well for Democrats that they decided to run crazy people like El Said. Well that's it you know what? I actually really want to talk to you about that. Because I completely disagree. I completely disagree. I I think that Republicans are completely fucked, but for all the reasons that we just outlined. But I think when it comes to candidate quality, there's no contest. I think that the Democrats are consistently putting up more interesting, more compelling, more qualified, and smarter candidates at every level of politics. And I just want to be really clear. I'm not endorsing the policies of somebody like Al Sayed. I'm not. What I am saying is that he is a way more interesting, well-spoken, compelling, savvy politician than Mike Rogers. And I just this I'm just looking at this objectively here. This is a this is a this is a likable guy. This is a guy who goes on TV and is really interesting. And then you know, another I want to illustrate this with Talerico and Paxton as well, which I think has a similar dynamic. But this isn't just at the Senate race level. This is also like The California mayoral race, for example. Like Karen Bass is incompetent. Karen Bass should not win. Karen Bass has destroyed LA. There was an opportunity there for a really qualified, moderate Republican to come in and run a great campaign. But instead, we got Spencer Pratt. Like, yeah, he was great with social media and he should work for social media campaigns or something like that. He did an amazing, you know, Instagram blitz and his campaigns maybe were some of the best in history. But he was nothing about Spencer Pratt was qualified to be mayor. And if you want to beat Karen Bass, a Democrat, in Los Angeles, like you needed to do better. You needed to fucking do better. And I think that I think that Republicans needed to do better than Mike Rogers. Yeah, better than Pratt. Pratt was unqualified. He had no he was completely unqualified. He was reality TV host. He was a he ran a great campaign. He was not qualified to be mayor. And it's just to me, it goes back to this pandemic quality problem. I mean Pratt was a bad candidate. I think Pratt is a A great candidate, had great policies. Yeah, but you don't think that you don't win an LA mayor. Like but I would argue that Karen Bass was so uniquely bad that if we put up a candidate that was more well suited to win in LA, instead of just like, Yeah, me and you, I could go I could go hang out with Spencer Pratt and be dude, this fuck this fucking guy's awesome. But I'm talking about electability in LA. Like he just wasn't the guy. I think we could have done better. and I think he was exactly the guy. And the fact that we did kind of well is shocking. Like this is mayor of LA. Like, Republicans do not win there. But anyway, let's talk about Telarrico and Paxton. Cause this is an example where I don't even know if you could disagree with this. Like I'll be Like I'm not gonna come on, like please. Like the level of Ken Paxton knows the level of corruption from Ken Paxton knows no bounds. He was indicted by a grand jury for securities fraud. Then to pay the legal fees from the trial, he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from wealthy donors and family friends while he was attorney general. And then you have the Nate Paul bribery scandal. and then he stole a monk a designer Mont Blanc pen from Joe Joplin or something, which is really weird and stupid. But then he cheated on- Stole pen? I didn't
even hear this one. What? So th th this is this this is kind of a niche Kent Paxton scandal. But ba but basically You know you're cooked when you have niche scandals and like Mainstream Familial scandals, he has niche scandals, he has scandals as attorney general. He has so he's this guy is just he's so many scandals. But you know, and this is something that people don't talk about a lot. you know, one of the things that I would qualify as a scandal is that he was caught cheating on his wife and got a divorce. And this is something that we often don't talk about a lot in politics, because people just say, you know, like your character doesn't matter, like, you know, what you do in your personal life actually doesn't matter. And I think that one of the lessons of Trump too. Is that when you elect corrupt people to positions of power, they turn on you? I think that is the lesson of Trump too. Your character does matter. This idea that, like, I like his policies, but I don't like his character, so I'm gonna vote for him anyway. I think that debate was settled because somebody who is corrupt and immoral will lie to you and they will they will deceive you. And they have no moral compass that says, I told this person something, I made a promise to this person, and I have to honor that. And this, by the way, has been known in corporate circles for decades. Like there's a lot of research that shows marital infidelity predicts greater odds of professional misconduct amongst CEOs and financial advisors and stuff like that. So, like if you find out that your financial advisor cheated on his wife, lied to her about it for years, and then got a divorce, like. You you might want to find a different financial advisor. you might not want to work for somebody who can't stay loyal to his wife. Because if he can't stay loyal to his wife, why do you think he's not gonna fuck you over? And like I do think that there's something about that with our politicians that we need to take conversations. But these are all arguments for the primary. These are not arguments for the general. Like the fact that we ran the experiment with Trump and Trump fucking sucks is all like, shit, should have voted for Ted Cruz. shit. Should have voted for Ron DeSantis. shit, should have voted for Marco Rubio. These are not arguments of shit, should have voted for Kamala Harris. And to take the you know the back to the Paxton versus Tal Rico idea, like in the primary, do not run Paxton. Do not do that. Paxton's a bad guy. But the issue is Paxton is going to is going to be an ineffective and pathetic corrupt loser. Yep. Tal Rico is going to be an effective Left wing lunatic. And as when I said that like running crazy people like Sal El Said, I don't mean crazy in the sense that like he's like unlikable. I mean crazy in the sense that his policies are awful. Tal Rico wants a $19 federal minimum wage. Tal Rico wants a $15 federal minimum wage. Like, could you imagine if you were West Virginia and suddenly the federal minimum wage is $15? Like I'm sorry, that's not vaguely appropriate. That is a disgusting policy. Well like well sa as much as I would love to talk to you about that, I I I I don't want this to get derailed too much, but we should talk about I know that you you think there should be no minimum rate, I I would assume. Zero. But like if you're gonna increment it up a little bit, like I c I like a moderate Democrat who says minimum what is it, like seven twenty five federal or something right now. A moderate Democrat who's like, we should make it eight dollars, and we should have a policy that like every five years it goes up this much. Like, like I could talk about this kind of this this moderate progressive situation. I would go the other way where I would make it zero. Trying to make it fifteen dollars. There's nothing about that that's like like I've seen what minimum wage has done to Seattle. It is bad policy. And federally. To make it fifteen everywhere? Like the problem this is the thing, where Taurico does a really good job at kind of pretending he's moderate while pushing for extremely radical policies. I mean, look, personally, I'm not too mad about the $15 minimum wage policy. I also because you're a communist. Right. Like I think that minimum wage should be indexed to to wages and productivity. but anyway, I like that Tal Rico takes no corporate pack money. He raised $70 million from individual donations. I think he's a great messenger. He's pledged not to buy, hold, or trade individual stocks while in office. That's a really big deal for me. And I think that he's a moderate guy, and I think that he has had a great message. He's not over there with El Said, but he's not in the group with Obiden with Biden and and Pelosi. And he's definitely not in the like I know you love Kelly. He's not one of those people. He talks like them and he's so charismatic. And gosh, he's going places because he is a leader amongst men. And he is a he he's an Obama type figure where he just You wanna root for him because gosh, he's just he's so cool. But he was a radical abortionist, he is very left on economics, he is very, very like his policies he's radically shifted a lot of his views more recently to try to pretend he's more moderate. But he's got this Medicare for y'all kind of perspective, which is to try to expand public Medicare options. To everybody, which is one of the things that is bankrupting America, is Medicare right now. And he wants to just make that the default standard. Like, n none of this is is is okay. But this kind of brings me to a broader point about, you know, Democrats versus Republicans that I have a lot of issues with, which is that like I feel like increasingly Democrats have been coming to the table. And articulating things that are wrong with society and showing up with solutions. And we can we can comment on those solutions and and and you and I can debate because I actually like a lot of the solutions
proposed by the Democrats. You hate all of them. I hate some of them and I like others. but what have been some compelling policy proposals coming out of Republican candidates? Like if you look at Ken Paxton, or if you look at Mike Rogers, like Mike Rogers is a is a is a pretty great example. Like he is the embodiment of the national security establishment. He is a neocon. He's part of the intelligence wing of the party that has spent billions upon billions of dollars on wars. He wants to spend more billions of dollars on wars. He has no thoughts on the affordability crisis whatsoever. He has no thoughts on helping young people. He has no thoughts about the national debt. All this guy talks about is his hawkish foreign foreign policy positions and maintaining Post-911 intelligence apparatus that he built during his time as chair of the House Intelligence Committee. And to me, that's just the opposite of what we need right now. So if I look at a candidate like him, and I look at a candidate like El Sayed, who's actually going out and is very eloquently articulating a lot of really serious problems that Americans are facing that resonate with us. It's like, you know, for for for the average voter, like this is why El Sayed's at 70%. This is why Tel Rico and fucking Texas. Ankauchi has a 70% odds of winning. Like, do you know how crazy that is? Like, I've looked at the at the fucking math here for a Democrat to win in Texas. When you look at the math, you're like, it's never gonna happen. It's impossible. The type of person that Tal Rico needs to convince to vote Democrat, it's like that's just never gonna happen. And yet the guys at 70% of the prediction markets, which by the way, the prediction markets are better than any poll. Like you'll never hear me cite another fucking poll. Like I just cite Calci at this point. Like Calci has a way better track record than the polls. Like I hate Calci for a lot of reasons. Like I I don't think that you should spend your money on these fucking, you know, sports betting, pol politics, betting ads. But the shit gets it right. Like, my God. And like I think that that's a consequence of the Republicans not having a coherent policy platform. Like, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean Republicans are really bad at two things. One, proposing policies, two, enacting policies. And you're like, wait a second, isn't that the whole job of a legislator? Like, excuse me. What the fuck? The thing is though, like what Mike Rogers and you can just find this on his website, he does believe in expanding the tax advantage five twenty nine savings accounts, which for the record I actually don't think we should do, but that's somebody probably you would be a huge fan of. like that's probably He wants to allow for on-time rent payments to count towards credit scores, which again another federal policy enacting toward the kind of things that you might like. He's kind of in this like JD Vance, Josh Hawley kind of wing. he wants to allow student loan deferment, like a lot of these like using the state in kind of moderate ways to make housing cheaper and you list that that kind of stuff. Like th those are some of his like Big policies. I wish he would talk about these things. Like I wish Mike Rogers would talk about this instead of just talking about the fucking the intelligence apparatus and neoconservatism. Like I really do. Like these people are just bad messengers. A lot of it comes down to So who do you vote for? You're a Michigan voter. El Said, Rogers, you just protest vote, sta send it out. What do you do? that's a pretty good question. I would not vote for Mike Rogers. So I would either I would have to look at it close more closely, I would potentially vote for El Said or I would not vote. and I would just have to I would have to dig deeper into where El Said sat on some economic policies. Cause he's definitely further to the left than me, but I would have to ascertain how much further to the left than me. but I'm not saying that I wouldn't vote for him. I just haven't dug deep enough into him to officially like endorse or Talarico? Tao Rico, one hundred percent. I'm actively rooting for Tao Rico. I I really hope how Rico wins. and then you know, some of the other races like Susan Collins versus Troy Jackson, I would vote for Susan Collins. I think that Susan Collins has been a very good senator for Maine. and I think she's gonna win, by the way. I do. I think of course you pick Susan Collins like and to be clear, I have the same view. If you're in Maine, vote for Susan Collins. Like, vote for Susan Collins. But Susan Collins is one of the worst Republican senators by huge. Well, hold on a second. She cosplays as this moderate who stands up to Trump's agenda, but she votes with Trump 90 plus percent of the time. It's all lip service to Does she? Doesn't she vote with the Democrats like 24% or something? No, no, no, no. She she she always does this thing where she's like, I'm not gonna vote for it. I'm not gonna vote for it. This is terrible. And then she votes for it all almost all the time. Like, I mean, you can fact check me if you want, just to just to double check, but she She's in lockstep with the with the Republican Party. She's just she's just doing lip service. Well just real quick. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Susan Collins votes for the Republicans eighty three percent of the time and Democrats seventeen. So I said, isn't it like twenty three? Turns out it's it's seventeen. And I said like no it's all right, so yeah, it like kind of in the middle. But still, like, you know, if you look at her rhetoric, you would think that it was significantly lower than that. Like she kind of pretends that she's like this like, you know, super like she that she's in like, you like the Joe Manchin camp or whatever, but like, you know, she's a Republican. Like she is a Republican, to be you know, to be clear. Yeah, you know, but you know, I do think that she has done a good
job for Maine. all right, so you know, just really quick, some other races to keep to keep your eye on for those who are listening and are curious. the races that are going to determine the It was seventy-eight percent in the third quarter of twenty twenty six. So that makes twenty two in a Democrat. So I when I when I said twenty-three, I must have like I must be where I heard it from. Right. The third quarter of twenty twenty-six. She voted seventy-eight percent with the Republicans. Well, because she's been voting with the Democrats pretty consistently, I know against the war and things like that. just like leading up to the midterm, she's probably having to like moderate a little bit. So she can't. The tariffs have been uniquely destructive to to the people of Maine. That's a really big issue there. Is that true? Are they worse for Maine than they are other places? Yes, they're very, very, very bad for Maine. And Susan Collins has spoken at length about that. but all right, before we end this conversation, I just wanted to tell people some other races. So we talked about the race in Texas, we talked about the race in Michigan. The race in Michigan, by the way, folks, that's a defensive race. So Democrats are current. we have a Democratic senator there who has you know retired. so but that's a state that Democrats want to hold on to while all the other ones they want to flip. so you're we're talking Susan Collins. they want to flip in Maine, they want to flip Texas. And then the other ones that have been said are too close to call. we're looking at North Carolina, which is pretty interesting because North Carolina is a state that tends to vote Republican in presidential elections. So it'll see if there's some split ticketing that goes on there to you know give a shout out to the name of our show. that's Roy Cooper versus Michael Watley. so that'll be a pretty interesting one, I think. and then Ohio as well, which is Sherrod Brown versus John Husted. That's also kind of gonna be an interesting example because completely split. That's a great point. Yes. It'll be really interesting to see if Ramaswamy wins in the gubernatorial election. but then if the if the Democrat wins in Ohio, if if Sherrod Brown wins in Ohio on the the the Senate side. I think that Ramaswamy is an exception to the stuff that I was saying about terrible candidate quality. I think that Ramaswamy is a great great candidate. If I was in Ohio, I would probably vote for Ramaswamy for governor and vote for Sherrod Brown for Senate. I I think that that would be highly. really what do you have against John Husted? I really like I really, really like Ramaswamy. I don't have much against John Husted. I actually haven't been following that race too closely. I'm just saying that like I could see because I I've all I've watched I've honestly only watched both of them do like TV clips and I think that they're both like very like moderate, sensible people. So I don't know. I don't know who I'd vote for for Senate. It's plausible that I would vote for Sherrod Brown, but I would definitely vote for Ramaswamy. I think he has run a stellar campaign for governor. and I hope he wins. I think that I think Ramaswamy deserves it. so yeah. So you have you have Texas, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Maine as the five seats to pay attention to in the Senate. Aren't Alaska and Hawaii close too? Yes, Alaska and Hawaii and Iowa. Alaska and Iowa. I don't know why it's Iowa, not Hawaii. Hawaii's not gonna be close. That's so funny. In my head, I like Alaska to Hawaii. Like just like And in my brain, I was like, that's right, that's right. So it's yeah. Alaska, Iowa as well are are worth paying attention to. And then of course, you know, you have the house races. So we haven't talked a lot about that, but you know, essentially with the house, you know, it's like kind of pointless to go through the individual races, but just for your brain, folks listening at home. Republicans currently have 218 seats, Democrats have 214 seats. I think if the Democrats net anything less than six seats, that would be a major Republican overperformance. So if you see like a slim Democratic majority and it's like 219 to 222 or something, that means Republicans had a really good night. I think if Democrats pick up, you know, 10 to 20 seats, that means they did very well. but kind of what we're expecting, I would say 10 to 20 seats is is what you should expect given this environment. And if the Democrats pick up more than twenty seats, then that was a blowout even in this environment. So those are just some numbers to keep in mind as you watch. You know, I always think it's great to watch for ticket splitting. So, you know, see how Ramaswamy's doing versus Sherrod Brown, see how things are going in North Carolina. it's all it's all very interesting, you know, and and one thing is for sure. We'll learn a lot about where voters' heads are and and we'll learn a lot about where the country is and what direction the country is heading as we start to gear up to twenty twenty eight and and see what kind of candidate You know, we should put up on the Republican side and the Democrat side. shall we move on to segments? Let's do it. Let's do it. We've been debating too much. We have we'll have less aggressive segments, hopefully. Yes, exactly. I like this episode. This was a good debatey episode. All right, am I going first or are you going first? I forget. I think maybe I go first. We'll we'll flip a coin. Heads or tails. I'll go heads. Tails. Okay. Wait, we didn't we determine a damage. Alright, alright. Heads you go first, tails I go first. Okay. Ready? Yes. Tails. Okay, you go first. Alright, alright. Here's my segment for ya. The fr a cross All of the decades of the of the 1900s. So you know, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, all down the line. Pick one thing from each decade to bring to now. And so if you're like, I want the fashion of the 30s, or I want the patriotism of the
50s, or I I don't know, whatever it is, I want the president of the nineties, I don't know. But like pick whatever you want from each decade, take one thing from that American era. wow. You get to make it now. I think this would be such a fun thing for me to like think about with some homework, but I'm gonna try to do I'm gonna try to riff as best as I can because it's like, holy shit. I'll have to think about like what defined each decade. Well, first, I'll just do the easy ones first. The ones that I I can do, I think, easily. Nineteen twenties, I would bring back the fashion, I would bring back the glamour, I would bring back the nightlife. I'm a v I dress very flamboyantly. You know, people who know me know this. I like very bold colors. My home, I have a big phonograph behind me. I have an old typewriter right here. I wanna own classic cars. Like I am a flamboyant Gatspian guy. Like I love that shit. So I would bring Brack the fashion, the glamour, and the jazz of the 1920s, the beautiful cocktail bars, art deco, style, and then also that like urban excuse me, that like urban sophistication that you saw. Like I'm a New Yorker, I love New York. So I love that like that that I feel like the 1920s was defined by like this cultural sophistication that I really loved. Then I'll go, I'll skip the 1930s, because I'm not sure I have to think about that more. I'll go to the 1940s and I'll say I would bring back the patriotism of the 1940s. I think the 1940s was a distinctly patriotic era, where we were just kind of united in this notion of shared sacrifice and obligations to the to your fellow citizen, opposed to their partisan identity. I want to say that the nineteen forties. was one of the least polarized decades in American history. If you want, you can fact check me on that, because that I don't I don't know. But that I would I would venture to say that to be true. and if that's true, I I would want to bring back the the patriotism and and the solidarity of the 40s. The 1950s, I would just bring back the middle class. Like I think that the the the affordability of the 1950s, you know, a society in which a normal working family could aspire to a home And the children and echo and have children, multiple children, and have economic mobility. I think that that was that was what defined the 1950s. I I want to bring back the American invention of the middle class from the 1950s. You know, after the war, you know, the middle class was completely decimated. And the United States, you know, people think that the middle class is just kind of like this this this thing that just happens as a consequence of capitalism. It's not true. The the middle classes An invention and it requires effort. And you we we could debate on what that is. We we could debate on what that looks like. But this idea that just like if you have capitalism, you're guaranteed a middle class, I don't think is true. and I think that that the middle class was an invention, and I think that that invention was at its peak in the 1950s. The 1960s, I'd bring back the Kennedys. Like I love that aesthetic, like of like the idealism of like just JFK. And Marilyn Monroe, and I just loved it. There was it was such a fascinating time. You know, going to the moon and shit. You had all this intellectual ambition. You had all this moral courage. and just like an expansion of what I think that that's Sorry, did you just say moral courage and Kennedy in the same sentence? Yeah. With Marilyn Monroe? Like, like I stayed quiet through your whole like socialist in this class rant, but I cannot let you put Kennedy Marilyn Monroe and moral courage in the same sentence. Okay, well, like I I would say that like there are some examples of moral courage from the Kennedy I from from JFK, like, you know, the civil rights movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis, his speech, where you know, he you know, what he there was a a certain speech when when he, you know, argued for a more humane relationship with the Soviet Union. like there I think that there were some some instances of moral courage from JFK. Maryland Moral. Public morality, not the private morality. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. okay. I will I I skipped the 1930s. Like I don't I guess maybe from the 1930s I could say you know, just like obviously like it was a very like ambitious time for the government. Like you saw like you know it like the New Deal stuff. so, you know, obviously like, you know, I have a complicated relationship with the New Deal and what that accomplished. But I just think that like on a broader level, like the idea, like the idea that the government can build enduring institutions and that the government actually can do good stuff, just as a as a as a sentiment, I would bring back. Whether or not the New Deal accomplished that, we could debate. The 70s and the 80s had great Great music and the sixties too. I love like the like the folk music of that era. I'll bring back the music in the 70s then. I prefer the music of the 70s of then of the 80s. And that wasn't like big and tucked that like rock stuff. but anyway, so then what do I bring back in the eighties? I don't know. I think I wish I had more time to think about this. I mean the 80s seemed like a time where like people were very entrepreneurial. So like there was like a lot of dynamism in the nineteen eighties where I feel like that like there was a ton of innovation going on. same thing for the nineties too. So maybe I would maybe I would bring back that. And then the nineties seemed like a pretty shitty decade. Like what the fuck was that? What what was so cool about the nineties? Like, I don't know. Like, like, I guess like, you know, pre-social media, like, you know, but like I wouldn't get rid of social media, but like I think social media is a net good. But like the nineties seemed like kind of cool, you know, that like it was like pre-social media life. And, you know, there was like this idea that like, you
know, we weren't all just like living our lives to showcase it to other people on our stories. but you could say that for all of the the the decades. And then I skipped 1900 and 1910. My knowledge doesn't go that far. Like those are pretty fucked up times and like like fuck. I guess like, you know, just like, you know, building cool shit, like, you know, we built beautiful architecture and like we still cared about beauty. And like we made things for beauty's sake. Like is that going the the aughts or the tens? I'm gonna give that to the nineteen hundreds. Like, you know, we made beautiful libraries and train stations and public spaces. And like it was beautiful. And like we built it not because like it was capitalism and we were mock maximizing for profits. No, like we built it because like it's important to have a train station that's beautiful, not just a train station that's efficient. And like that died somewhere. and that's one of my main criticisms of capitalism. Is that it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't optimize for for beauty, which is something I care deeply about as a conservative. and then nineteen ten, I mean what the fuck happened in nineteen ten? I that was like Teddy Roosevelt, right? Like Teddy Roosevelt is nineteen hundred to nineteen eight. Actually he wasn't elected in nineteen hundred, he was VP, but the guy died really quickly, and so he was through most of that term and then he got elected in nineteen four. So then what the fuck happened in nineteen ten? I mean World War One happened in that era. Yeah. I'm I'm not gonna bring back I'm not gonna bring that back. I don't know whether I I I don't know. I I genuinely have no no idea anything about nineteen ten. I feel like that like I don't know. Maybe that was the progressive era and all that. Trust busting and stuff, right? Like Yeah, we had trust busting, we started the Fed, women could vote now. Okay, I'll br yeah, yeah. But I that's not something I would go back Bring back like women could still vote. Like bring back women being allowed to vote. I don't know what I would bring. Like I guess like, you know, like I I like the fashion of the twenties, but I don't know. I would have to do some more de I'm just gonna have to put a question mark on 1910. And did I say I said 1980s, just like the entrepreneurial dynamism. All right, that's my answer. All right. That was really fun. Replay your list. 1900s, beautiful public spaces, nineteen tens, no clue. Nineteen twenties, fashion. Nineteen thirties government can mentality. Nineteen forties, patriotism, nineteen fifties, middle class, nineteen sixties, Kennedy's morality, nineteen seventies, music, nineteen eighties, entrepreneurship, and nineteen nineties, this sort of live in the moment kind of attitude. Exactly. I like my list. This nineteen thirties is the one I hate the most, but I the rest of it I can get behind mostly. Okay, okay, good, good, good. that was really fun. Mine's not as clever. that was really good. Okay, so mine is actually inspired by debate that we had on Instagram captions or Instagram comments the other day. so there's been a lot of discussion about the death penalty between the box execution of Krista Pike and then the Trump administration briefly announcing a plan to live stream the execution of Nadal Hassan. now a number of conservatives, you know, and specifically conservative Christians, have been questioning for a long time whether capital punishment is compatible with Christianity. notably Erica Kirk, you know, forgave her husband's alleged killer and expressed discomfort with personally advocating for his execution. so I wanted to ask you, as a conservative Christian, you know, when Jesus was being crucified, he famously said, you know, Father, forgive them for they not know what they do. can you explain why you believe the death penalty is compatible with Christianity? And I want you to answer that. And my other question is based on everything we know about Jesus' teachings, do you believe he would support the death penalty if he were alive today, or does that not have any relevance to you in your own determination that it is a good thing to have? yeah. So first of all, that bu that line you said, forgive them father for they don't know what they do. That's my Instagram bio right now. Like I love that quote. one of my favorite bi lines. It's a great quote. Yeah. you know, it's funny, you're this time you're the one Jesus smuggling me. but no, like th th n no can no Christian ever questions whether or not the death penalty can be aligned with Christian ethics and morality. That that's just it's not the case. Catholics don't think a death penalty is prudent right now, given historic modern inventions. And so They call against the death penalty's usage. They do not advocate against the death penalty broadly being immoral. They the Catholic Church that now they hold very strongly to the insistence that their views on faith and morals don't ever change. Now I'm not a Catholic and I I think there are some small things about like ultramontanism and and the conciliatory nature of the Pope and this is not a like super nerdy theology like why does Jake not Catholic? Why is Jake you know high church Protestant Episcopalian? But broadly speaking, Catholics they insist never, I would agree, like 99.9 almost never change their views on faith and morals. The Bible itself is an extremely pro-death penalty document. It happens all the time in the Bible. Like Jesus did not come To remove the law, he comes to fulfill the law. Death penalty exists pre-Jesus in Second Temple Judaism. Death penalty exists in Christian communities directly following Jesus. Death penalty exists all through the modern church, all through the medieval church, the development the church, all of that. It is extremely clear that the death penalty is in line with Christian teachings. In the New Testament. Yes. This is not like you will not find a Christian. Who thinks that the death penalty is against Christian teaching? You will find Christians who think that in an era where we have prisons that no one ever breaks out of, in an era where we have cultural norms that have shifted around the meaning of life and death, in these like all of this stuff that it's no longer prudent to have the death penalty, and therefore you shouldn't do it. But the idea of like forgiving somebody is not an anti-punishment idea. My personal view on death penalty, I go back and forth honestly. I interesting. I am very, very of the belief that certain people deserve to die. Mm-hmm. I am also very, very of the belief that the state is bad at everything. And so you say your night your 1930s government can. I'm like, I don't know, man. And so, on one end, if you do a rape, you deserve to die. If you kill a bunch of children, you deserve to die. If you are this kind of evil monster, you do not deserve to breathe the same air that I breathe. On the other hand, how confident am I that the state is going to correctly identify who did the rape, who killed those kids, who did these stuff. And so I I really I'm really sympathetic to the argument of just put them in prison for life, throw away the key, lock up, and s like, and that's good enough. and more provincial because of the fact that like you can now do that. Whereas back in biblical times, you actually like didn't have these like modern prison states to be able to do that. And so this Catholic idea of like I oppose the death penalty because life is sacred and we no longer have to kill people. And sometimes you'll get it wrong and so you know we'll just like like I I get that idea. And there are days of the week where I might agree with that. Today, kill Okay, very interesting. I I learned a lot there. So I appreciate that. okay guys, thanks so much for tuning in. Like always, please subscribe to our YouTube and follow us wherever you get your podcast. You can stay up to date on new episodes. and we will see you next week, next Wednesday. Thanks everyone for tuning in. Cheers.