Breaking News from Pod Save America - Mitch McConnell Struggles Through Senate Vote in VIRAL Video

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Mitch McConnell’s return to the Senate sparks new scrutiny after a confusing moment during a key vote goes viral. Meanwhile, Joe Rogan and comedian Ron White weigh in on Trump-backed Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton. Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor break down the latest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor,

free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is back at work. Independent journalist, Desiree Townsend, posted this video of McConnell leaving the Senate after a vote. Let's watch. Vote for it, yes? Any other bills you're looking forward to? Oh, yeah.

Are we voting tonight, Senator? When can we expect you back, Senator? Peace. For context. Jesus, screw. McConnell has not seen that. It gets worse. McConnell is 84 years old. He disappeared for about three months due to health issues.

His team tried to cover it up. Remember, they trotted out professional liar, Scott Jennings, to say he'd had a 20-minute, like, Iran policy conversation. Yeah, you can see that's the type of guy with McConnell. You can see he's in a good condition to discuss the finer points of the Strait of Hormuz strategy. Yeah, clearly this man is not up for the job. I mean, what are we doing here? That was wild. It's chilling. And I've seen a few other videos.

there's not one where he's talking. I got a few more for you. Oh, no. Oh, no. Just, again, for context, like, the... First of all, we're glad he's okay. I'm glad he's okay, but like... But there's a lot of people where I'm glad they're okay

and that I don't want to be representing a whole millions of people in the United States Senate. This isn't just a McConnell problem. This is a Senate problem. This is a gerontocracy problem. For what it's worth, CNN says that McConnell briefly spoke with reporters on his... return Monday. He said it's time to get back to work, but he didn't answer questions. He didn't comment on whether he'd been transparent about his health issues and his absence. And then he said, I must admit, after two years, two decades of dodging your questions, I wasn't sure how many of you

would be here today, but I'm glad to see you. So we tried to make a joke. But again, just like, just so you know we're not taking that one clip out of context. Here's another clip from today of McConnell, also posted by an impede journalist Desiree Townsend. Anything fun this weekend, sir? Terry, why did he need help voting yesterday? We missed you, Senator. You have a good weekend, sir. Have fun.

Have fun doing why. The blank stare piece sign makes it so much worse. Are they just going to keep him in that van until Monday? So, like, again, we're not just trying to be mean to Mitch McConnell. The line of succession goes president, vice president, speaker, Senate pro tempore. At the moment, that's Chuck Grassley, who's almost a decade older than Mitch McConnell. And Spry compared to him. Chuck Grassley is like fucking, you know, doing cartwheels.

I'm just flagging for you, John, that there's not a federal statute governing elder abuse, but there is one in D.C. For those. Why not just like retire? Like, just let, I know this is the end of his term, but like, what? I just, again, it's Title 22, Chapter 9A, abuse neglect, and financial exploitation of vulnerable adults and elderly persons if anyone in D.C. wants to look into it. I just, like, again, so people might be thinking, okay, he looks weird in a car, but does this impact his ability to do the job? Let's watch a clip of McConnell at a Senate Agricultural Committee meeting voting on the farm bill. A very big and important piece of legislation.

Oh, boy. Senator Slotkin. No, by proxy. Senator McConnell. No. Senator McConnell. Aye. Senator Hoven.

Aye. There's a 50% chance we'd get that right. So, yeah. He flipped the coin and he got it wrong, and he had to be told by someone else and maybe his staff. I mean, it's just like he looks like a puppet who has his staff running his office, right? Which is what he, I mean, the staff is running his office. Right.

For sure. Whether you think he's a puppet or not. Like the people of Kentucky in the Constitution get a senator that you think is like a working senator. Like who like knows what they're doing. Yeah, you elect someone to represent you and to do it actively. There's a lot of people in Kentucky that could represent the state ably. Also like Scott Jennings was. like doing a victory lap

when McConnell was shown to be alive. Really? Yeah, it was like, see, I told you. Oh my God. You told us what? You told us he had a 20 minute conversation with this man months ago, which no one believed, and they wouldn't put out a video to show that he was able to speak. And he was like,

see, I got you, libs. I just, also, like, this is a huge problem in the Senate historically. Strom Thurmond, a vile racist, served in the Senate until he was 100, years old. And then he died six months after resigning. Feinstein shouldn't have been there. Dian Feinstein. We said this too. Democrat. She should not

have been there either. She was in office until she was 90. Robert Byrd, an amazing senator, a man with an incredible career and sort of an arc to his life in his story, served for 51 years and then died in office at age 92. John, this story was incredible. I was doing some research. There was a senator named Carl Munt, who was a Republican from South Dakota. he had a stroke in 1969, refused to resign, got stripped of his committee assignments, but stayed in office for like four more years

despite barely voting. Why did he do this? Look, the reason this is important, I mean, a host of reasons, but trust in government institutions is at an all-time low. And like this is why? Like shit like this is people are like,

oh, so you can be that old and clearly not all there. And then still have all of this power because the people working for you? I mean, this was, look, like, for all the shit that Joe Biden got and we criticized Joe Biden too,

he was not at that fucking level. His problem was communicating clearly in speeches. There was not a lot of talk about him behind the scenes being like that. That is shocking. But it's, look, and it's not a completely easy problem to solve because you got Bernie Sanders out there who's as spry as ever and sharp as ever.

And so it's like it's hard to make it, just an age limit, but for Christ's sakes, you do need people around you if you're in public office who are going to tell you like, hey, it's probably more important that you step down than stay on the job. Cling forever. And cling forever. I just like, look, these people, being in the Senate becomes your life, it becomes your identity. They're all worried that if they resign, they die.

But a third of the Senate is older than 70 years old. There absolutely has to be an age limit. We spent the whole week talking about artificial intelligence and all these novel a lot better job than that. Like all the fear that, you know, there's the lack of regulation. I'd take the hugging face swarm over that guy. Mitch McConnell's going to regulate AI. He's like, why is he doing a peace sign, too?

Well, yeah, what is the... Did you see some reporter was like, I knew there was a problem because usually he gives the thumbs up. And so the peace sign over the thumbs up. And I was like, okay, well, that's really digging into it. He's been flashing a lot of peace signs. I noticed that. Not really a big peace voter.

Yeah. More of a war voter. Does he think it was like, do you have to go to the bathroom, sir? And he's just like, dude. I mean, that's what it was. And by the way, John, if you like a podcast that will promise you not to stay in these roles until we are in our 80s, please swear out of Pot Save America here on YouTube. We are not as young as we used to be, but we're younger than Mitch McConnell.

And if you want to help us build a progressive counterweight to all the right wing crap, propping up Mitch McConnell. It helps us a lot. So please do. Pod Save America Breaking News is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. with everyday interactions becoming increasingly impersonal. Someone going just one extra step can be huge, like when my doctor takes the time to call me with test results

instead of sending them electronically. They came back positive for gay. It makes me feel like a human being again. If you're hiring, great candidates can also go the extra step and tell you why they're interested in your job on ZipRecruiter as a way to stand out from others in the pool. And ZipRecruiter has a new feature showing you the most interested, qualified candidates first

so you can meet the right people faster. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates quickly. Candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job. So try ZipRecruiter and meet great candidates who will go the extra step for your job. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter

get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free today at ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked. That's zip recruiter. That's ZipRecruiter. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. All right. Switching gears. Joe Rogan, podcaster, very influential,

comedian, et cetera. Folks know what Joe Rogan is. He's been dipping in and out of politics over the last couple years. He helped boost Donald Trump big time in 2024. Yeah, he's also, though, a fan of Texas Senate candidate and Democrat James Taller Rico, which is why these clips from a recent episode of Rogan Show caught our eye. So Rogan is talking with a comedian named Ron White. Ron White is from Texas. He served in the Navy. He does his comedy with like a cigar and drinking hand. He's kind of like an everyman, gruff every man. He was part of the blue collar comedy tour with Jeff

Foxworthy and Larry the cable guy 20 years ago. Wow. Which, which, You would normally sort as like magacoded or Republican. I think Ron White is, he's called himself a never Trump Republican. Regardless, let's watch this back and forth. You know, you really can't put Ken Paxton back in the office in the state of Texas. That guy's just too corrupt. You know, he's just a bad egg and we don't need him around here. He's a criminal, just a piece of shit.

I don't know enough about him, but I do know that they're surprised at Tala Rico is ahead of him in the polls. I'm not. I think that people are sick of what's going on right now in Texas. They've been in control for 30 years. What have they given us? Let somebody else fucking drive. I have very left-wing views on a lot of things. But I also recognize when government is taking over our lives. What we were sold with the Trump administration would be that would end. And, you know, there'd be a drain the swamp. Obviously, it's not been ideal, like in that regard. Yeah, no shit, huh? Get Ron White on the stump, huh? Wow. How about that vote? voice that delivery, everything about him. My first thought watching that was, like, has, uh, is Rogan going to endorse Tala Rico at some point? Because, look, he, he jumped in at the end and endorsed Trump. Yeah.

He was the, one of the first people to interview Tala RICO to, like, or introduce him to a very big national audience in their interview. He seemed like a big fan. Told him like, oh, yeah, you should run for president. Yes. He's got this guy on his show talking about how Ken Paxon's a fucking criminal. Uh, I, I know that, that Joe does all of his own research. So he should go do some Googling on Ken Paxton and fucking endorse Teller Rico. Yeah, I came out of this thinking, Thorns and Roses.

Rose, Ron White, the longer clip, goes really deep into the scandal, knows everything about it, talks about the impeachment. It talks about the vote on the impeachment among Republicans and then how Republicans kept Paxton in office because they didn't want to lose the seat. It was very impressive. He's very well-informed. Thorne, Joe Rogan doesn't know about a highly targeted Senate race in his home state. I know. We're less than two months out. Like, come on, man.

You talk about politics all of the time. And again, featuring someone who you know and like on the Democratic side because you sat and interviewed him for a couple hours. And we're like effusive in your praise. And you hear some of this. I was listening to Longwell's focus groups on this. Like people in Texas really know Ken Paxson and know the scandals and know the corruption. Yeah.

And they maybe don't know all the different scandals, but everyone knows at least one of them because there's been so many. They've heard about the impeachment. They know, like, there's a lot to know about context. Imagine what it takes to get impeached as a Republican by other Texas Republicans. And then there's just the fun ones, like him stealing a guy's pen. What kind of shithead steals a pen? Then him just banging everything the moves, it seems like.

Yeah. And then the most disgusting episode, which is, you know, him intervening so that a convicted pedophile doesn't spend a day in jail. Offered a sweetheart deal to a child rapist and, you know, offered him one day in jail. Yale, he ended up serving 30. Bigger picture, I mean, when you look at the Rogan conversations about politics, I mean, there's definitely been a vibe shift early on in the Trump 2.0. The Manosphere, you know, they were into him. You had football players doing the Trump dance after they scored touchdowns.

That shit is gone. Gone. The vibe shift is complete, I think, at this point. And I think if you ask them to sort of like summarize their feelings on this Trump administration, it's like, well, he got us into war. before that he was covering up Epstein shit. There's a whole bunch of other corruption. He's making a ton of money.

Him and his family, the Epstein thing was a cover up. Now he got us into war and everything's expensive. That's it. That's the whole story. Yep. Speaking of everything's expensive, CNN's always entertaining data and polling chief, Harry Anton did a segment about Donald Trump's ratings on inflation. Let's watch a bit of that. I mean, it literally leaps out of these polls.

Minus 61 points, 61 points underwater. Not only is it the worst that Donald Trump has ever polled on inflation, it is the worst that any president ever has polled on inflation. This is further underwater. If you combine Jacques Cousteau, you combine The Little Mermaid,

Lower than the Titanic itself. Negative, negative, negative. The same inflation that got Joe Biden out of office, put Donald Trump in office, is going to be the inflation that sweeps Republicans out of office and out of power in Washington, D.C., leaving Donald Trump a very lonely,

lonely man indeed. Sometimes it's really difficult to toss up, you know, you gotta get your your eye there's nothing subtle about this. A blind bad in a cave could see these numbers and know that they are bad for the president of the United States. Aaron. How does, how does John Berman? Oh my god, I know. Keep a straight face when Harry's doing that and also is Harry like single-handedly the most exciting person on CNN to try, like keeping the audience there? Yeah, he's the most- I want hair. How do we get Harry? He's hilarious. He's so funny. the most entertaining thing on CNN by far.

I know. I think Berman's eyes say do less, but also I know John Berman and like he's a very funny guy. He's got a great sense of humor. Well, that's why I'm surprised he's so, he would have such a straight face there. Yeah, I think maybe he just decides like, I'm gonna play the straight man on this thing. But yeah. You know, their performance aside, those are some tough numbers. Yeah, oh yeah, those are, they're horrendous numbers.

I mean, I just think it's like, look, there was this whole sort of discussion among the polling nerds that maybe, you know, Democrats tend to do better in these August polls and then the fall comes and then the polls get worse. And the fall has come post-Labor Day and the polls are just getting worse and worse and worse for Republicans and all the switch to likely voter models and a lot of these polls has just been bad

for the Republican candidate. Well, also there was like a day a couple, like a week or so ago where gas prices went up 20 cents or so or like 19 cents overnight. Like all the underlying fundamentals that are leading to this frustration about inflation getting worse. Yeah.

Because, I mean, I don't know if it was timed for the midterms, but I bet it was. I think the IRGC probably told the Houthi rebels like, okay, make your move now. We're going to try to, you know, create even more of a political cost for Trump before the midterms. And they very successfully cut off a ton of Saudi oil supply that is going to lead to a continued spike in oil and gas prices for the foreseeable future. I'm not certain about the outcome of the election. What I am certain about is if Republicans do better than expected, it will be.

very much be like a 2022 midterm situation, but even worse for Trump because Trump's more unpopular than Biden was in 2022. And so like if these Republicans do better than expected, it's because people are like, well, I'm really disappointed with Trump, but I can't vote for a Democrat. But like Donald Trump's approval rating on election day is, it's not getting better. It's not getting better than it is right now. The average price of gas in this country right now is 443. In L.A. It's 604 for regular and 810 gallon for diesel. And diesel, the cost of diesel is going to jack up the cost of everything else because that's transportation or food and all the other shit.

Yep, and all the farmers are going to be pissed. Okay, well, let's hope and pray that these inflation ratings get worse, mostly because we just want to see Harry in and talk about it. Right, that's all. Yeah, no. No, I don't want people to pay more. No, that's right. Well, thanks for watching this episode of Ponte of America here on YouTube. Please subscribe.

We'll talk to you soon.