Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 3/18/26: Trump Says He Will Take Cuba, Ro Khanna VS ADL, Aipac Loses Key Elections, Dem Party Attack On Platner

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

Ryan and Emily discuss Trump says he will take Cuba, Ro Khanna war with the ADL, AIPAC loses key races, Dem Party attack on Graham Platner.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hi, it's Joe Interesting, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And today I'm talking with my dear friend, Krista Williams. It can change you in the best way possible. Dance with the change. Dance with the breakdowns.

The embodiment of Pisces' intuition with Capricorn power moves. So I'm like delusionally proud of my charge. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Ready for a different take on Formula One? Look no further than No Grip, a new podcast tackling the culture of motor racing's most coveted series. Join me, Lily Herman, as we dive into the under-explored pockets of F1, including the story of the woman who last participated in a Formula One race weekend, the recent uptick in F-1 romance novels, and plenty of mishap scandals and sagas that have made Formula One, a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years.

Listen to No Grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him. If I could press a button and rewind it all I would. That's when his life took a disturbing turn. A one-night stand would end in a courtroom. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you.

This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you

every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. When you're a star, they let you do it. Donald Trump has some ideas about Cuba. Here he is in the Oval Office. I think Cuba, in a total way, if you know, tourism and everything else, it's a beautiful island. weather. They're not in a hurricane zone, which is nice for a change, you know. They won't be

asking us for money for hurricanes every week. But I think Cuba's the end. You know, all my life I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba. When will the United States do it? I do believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba. That'd be good honor. That's a big honor. Taking Cuba. Taking Cuba in some form, you know, taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth? They're a very weakened nation right now. They were for a long time.

Very violent, very violent leaders. Castro was a very violent leader. His brother was a very violent leader. Extremely violent. That's how they governed. They governed with violence. But a lot of people would like to go back. What's crazy is that you can sort of see a lot of

people were like, Peter Ducey doesn't have a soul, and yet you see it draining from his body. Peter Ducey has a soul there. He does. Clearly, he lost it right there. What did he say? He was like, take it? Take it? You can just see the life draining from him. He's like, what am I watching right now? We're doing what now? Just take it? I might free it. I might just take it. And it's a kind of toddler approach to the world, but like I'm sure you have it too. You're watching it and you're like, okay, we can't do another day of this. Like, the sun cannot set on another day with this man as the most powerful one in the world. Like, call the manager.

Somebody needs to do something. It's wild stuff. It's wild stuff. This has to be stopped. It's, like, not at all surprising that he's talking like this, but, you know, his, let's, if we, if we steal man, how Trump, if he were sitting here, would defend this. privately. He wouldn't say this publicly. Well, actually, maybe he would say it publicly. He clearly said anything publicly. It's art of the deal, right? He's negotiating. He's putting the uncertainty. He's doing the Kissinger

madman theory. He's injecting uncertainty into the situation as leverage over Cuba. But I think actually, Brian, what we're just seeing him there is he's musing aloud about what could happen in Cuba over the next couple of weeks. After Iran, after Venezuela, so Venezuela goes well from his standard, from his perspective. Although that could certainly blow up at any moment as well. We'll see. Goes on to Iran, and now he's feeling he's going to go on to Cuba. Iran is a situation where he also lacked certainty.

We know this every single day we're learning this. We talked about it earlier in the show. There wasn't some grand 5D chess plan in Iran, and he seems to be perfectly content with how that's working out as a show of American force and power. He clearly doesn't have some grand 5D chess plan in Cuba, he just wants to exert force and let the chips fall where they may. Yeah, and I'm headed to Cuba this weekend, this weekend, headed Miami tomorrow,

and then Cuba Friday for a reporting trip, and so I'll have more on particularly what the Cubans are offering. Presidente Grimm will be installed. That's right. Comrade Grim. CIA is going to install me in power there. And so I'll have more on what the Cubans are offering to get this madman to know. not go to war with Cuba.

The group Progressive International funded some polling that we'll talk about on where Americans stand on that. We'll talk about that in a minute. And I should have more next week when I come back, because what they're offering is quite surprising. And maybe it actually at this point isn't surprising because they're under perhaps more intense pressure than they've ever been under. There is a crime against humanity unfolding right now.

a war crime, an act of war, the U.S. is actively blockading the island from getting oil shipments. They put out some policy, what they claimed was a policy tweak that would allow private companies to import some oil. It's having very little effect and was kind of a policy was kind of always in place. So they're blocking Mexico and everybody else, including Russia and others, from sending oil. And we can put up deep. E2, over the last day or two, that has led to a complete collapse of the power grid. And I was talking to some Cuban officials yesterday who said that significant parts of Havana now have gotten power back on, relying on solar for the most part, some natural gas,

what oil they're able to ration. They've gotten extremely good at rationing over the many decades. that they've been in power, this is leading to nursing homes, hospitals, schools, all reaching collapse. When you deprive an island of some 9 to 11 million people of electricity, that inserts itself into the vulnerabilities of people's lives in ways that can be fatal. You just think about the people that you know in your life, what would happen is. if all of a sudden there's no electricity.

And what things do they need to survive? You know, young people, middle-aged people who are healthy, we can survive. But people who are facing significant disabilities or difficulties can't. Well, and they're also turning to China for solar. Yes. Which the entire Trump administration

is supposed to be, of course, undermining the international power. of China and its foreign policy, or its efforts to make foreign policy inroads, let alone this close to the United States. A lot of the solar support now's Washington Post report, the headline, Trump has choked off Cuba's oil supply. China is stepping in with solar, now coming from Beijing. So many headlines around the world where you're like, who is the good guy, who's the bad guy in this situation? What Trump just said in the Oval Office, when people in the United States, look at Cuba and they look at Cuban propaganda and they say this is ridiculous. I mean, it reminds me

actually of the Mark Carney speech that he gave earlier this year where he said basically the pretense is gone and the pretense was important. It was kind of a muddled message. Right. Trump is, he's proving Mark Carney correct because he's just saying, I do believe I'll have the honor of taking Cuba and, you know, maybe by force. He's just... Maybe I'll free it. Maybe not. Everything that like a Smedley Butler accused the United States. States of, Trump is distilling into sound bites explicitly. He's just coming out and saying, you don't need to get him on tapes like Nixon. He is literally just saying it. And it's proving, like to have the President of the United States talk like that about how maybe you'll just take

this country, it's what their propaganda has been telling them. The United States is doing for years. And it's what people have been fighting and say, no, that's not what the U.S. is doing. This is about the Cuban people. It's about liberating the Cuban people. It's about giving the Cuban people agency, and yet you have the president of the United States, he's not wrong that he has technically the force and the might to just, quote, take Cuba, depending on what he's willing to do, but he's just saying it. Now, whether he could hold it would be an interesting question. I think absolutely they could go in and they could probably, you know, capture the president, but whether or not they could hold it if they actually organized a kind of guerrilla insurgency is a whole other question.

the Cuban president this morning kind of fired back saying that they would that they that they are committed to resisting you know if if the U.S. is committed to using force against them. Now Marco Rubio was asked about this in the in the Oval Office. Let's jump to D4 because I think there's some context of this. So here's Rubio talking about the Cuban economy. The bottom line is their economy doesn't work. It's a non-functional economy. It's an economy that has survived, that for 40, that revolution, it's not even a revolution, that thing they have, has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela. They don't get subsidies anymore, so they're in a lot of trouble. And the people in charge are, they don't know how to

fix it. So they have to get new people in charge. Rubio keeps trying to say that the problems with the Cuban economy, it's the communist regime. But I'd like him to try to do a thought experiment. Let's say that Miami, all of Dade County was an island, and you had warships around it that blocked oil from getting into, all energy from getting into Miami. Now let's say you couldn't use a credit card in Miami because we're calling them state sponsors of terror and we're sanctioning them. First of all, Miami without credit. you would not have a single outy on that island. So trying to run

and so you often see people saying like well, okay, it's only the U.S. that won't trade with them. They can trade with the entire world. No, because we've designated them as state sponsors of terror, any other country that does business with them then can't do business with us. So we block them from doing business with everybody. We just squeezed Mexico.

We just squeezed Mexico. Not giving the oil. Right. And we also even went after their tourist industry from the Europeans used to go to Cuba and significant numbers. And we put in a rule that said, if you're a European and you go to Cuba for vacation, you can no longer have visa-free travel to the United States. If we're so confident that our system is so superior and theirs is so inferior,

why not just let it go and see what happens? Well, that's, I mean, I... How would Miami do if you were told you couldn't have a tourist economy anymore? I was going to say, I feel like one of the reasons that Trump should... And we've seen some, like, detente-style plans. I saw someone referring to it as like Parastroika,

Cuban Parastroika on Acts. That actually don't look bad. They sort of look like Obama-era plans, to be perfectly honest. But one of the reasons that you should pursue something like that is precisely because I'm, fully confident that our system is superior. You and I may disagree on this, but economic system.

Yeah, let them run. That's fine, yeah, let's see what happens. Liberate the Cuban people. But yeah, so this is, the best way to actually undermine the regime might be to let the regime do what you think will undermine it. Yeah, but that's the argument. But, and also allow people some, to have more agency economically and the like. But that's what the plans are on the table right now is basically,

They actually kind of remind me. You were covering it at the time, but they kind of remind me of what we saw out of the Obama administration, like allowing foreign investments to come in or U.S. investments to come in, allowing more tourism, that sort of stuff. Yes, and Trump actually has the trademark for Trump Havana. It lapsed. I checked this. It lapsed in like 2022, but he did trademark it. And that's, again...

I'm going to go get it. You should go get it right now. It's wide open, unless he redid it. But I checked the last week. When I go to Havana, first thing I'm going to do, go down to the... I'm warning you, Trump. I'm going down to the trademark headquarters, and I'm going to patent Trump Havana.

You actually should do this. So put up D3 real quickly. The Cubans are saying, and this is not exactly new, reported is new, it's called new if it helps. They're saying that will allow nationals living abroad, so that's Miami Cubans, basically,

to invest in and own businesses on the island. This is an olive branch to Miami. The problem is, if they do that, they will be sued by other Miami Cubans and taken a federal court and have, and their investment will be seized. So it's, ironically, it's not the Cuban government that is preventing investment by using the state apparatus in Cuba. It is the U.S. We don't allow investment because we say that because of the revolution, because there was property confiscated, if there's a new investment, that is related to the confiscation and then

it's seized. So we're so deeply opposed to confiscation, we confiscate things constantly. So there's some new polling on how Americans feel about this that I wanted to run through the Organization Progressive International, which has helped to organize the reporting trip that I'm going on this weekend, did this polling. And just a couple of key numbers we can put up. When it comes to the U.S. approach to the Cuban government, which is the following comes closer to your view, the U.S. should use force to remove the Cuban government. U.S. should use diplomacy or the Cuban people should decide on their own.

The support for use of force basically non-existent, 8% of Trump voters, I think we should do what Trump wants to do. They're all Cuban. Yes, they're all in Miami and some of them in New Jersey. And God bless them, by the way. God bless them. My in-laws. And 7% of them, 7% of total people. Everyone else is like either if this is up to Cuba or is saying we should use diplomacy.

They also asked, how do you feel about this naval blockade? So you've got 28% of Trump voters are supportive of a blockade. that's a non-trivial number and I think it reflects the kind of hostility that a lot of older people in this country have just towards communism. But a lot of Cubans as well. But still 39% opposed.

So and among the public overall, you know, 56 to 18 opposed. So it's not remotely close. And then finally, you put it the last one. Do you see Cuba as an exchange? extraordinary threat. And 34% of Trump voters see Cuba is an extraordinary threat. That's the highest number of anybody. Thirty-five percent say it's not, and thirty-s say they're not sure. Overall, by a more than two-to-one margin, people say it's not an extraordinary threat. I don't see,

like how, I guess it's, you know, communism. And if you're over 70, you're going to say it's an extraordinary threat. Yeah. Yeah. Like, extraordinary threat of what? Producing, like, cancer cures? Well, the threat at this point might be what we're pushing even further, which is China does have spy stations in Cuba.

That's not like crazy propaganda. That's a thing that exists. And so you can create a threat if you keep pushing Cuba. Manhattan has Chinese spy stations too. Probably in this building. But that's where you can keep pushing Cuba closer, closer to China. and create a more significant for it. Yeah, the Chinese, for the kind of communist international out there,

Chinese have been a real disappointment when it comes to, you know, there was some hope that the Chinese would help the Cubans out. They're doing more than anybody else, but they're not doing much. They're just not, they're not the kind of country that's kind of going out on a limb for people in the way that, say, the Soviet Union used to. And look where the Soviet Union is and look where China is. So, you know. Yeah, well, they learned.

You can't, yeah, can't fault them. And we could put up this final element. This was the, this was the Diaz Canal post that I had talked about earlier. The U.S. publicly threatens Cuba almost daily with overthrowing the constitutional order by force. And it uses an outrageous pretext, the harsh limitations of the weakened economy that they have attacked and sought to isolate for more than six decades. They intend and announce plans to seize the country, its resources, its properties, even the very economy, they seek to strengthen to make us surrender. Only in this way can the fierce economic war be explained,

which is applied as collective punishment against the entire people. In the face of the worst scenario, Cuba is accompanied by certainty. Any external aggressor will clash with an impregnable resistance. Diaz Canal, the president there, is not super popular. And castors are still running the country, right? The family. I don't know. I don't know how much that's true. I think, you know.

Because that's, the New York Times says the Trump plan is to remove Diaz Canal, but continue allowing the Castro family to stay in power, like in Adelsea Rodriguez way. Which is so weird because like Cuba transitioned away from the Castro family. And we want to put them back in now. But again, this is where Trump's language of like, well, I'm just going to take it. I'm going to do what I want.

And then they're orchestrating this plan from Washington about what should happen in Cuba. he's just putting it into words. He's making it explicit. But I'll have more for you next week when I'm back on that point. Looking forward to that. We are doing some interesting, like the oil, Trump is, what was this, in late February, there's just so much news, it's easy to forget about this. But in late February, quote, the Trump administration began allowing U.S. petrol products such as diesel to be sold directly to keep this private sector,

circumventing the long-city 1960 U.S. embargo. That's for a USA Today report about how this is part of a grand plan from Marco Rubio working in tandem with Trump. And that just, again, is Trump going faster than Rubio has this? To the extent, there is a master plan for Cuba. Rubio has it. And Rubio's advisors have it. And this is like, again, it's a generational plan for Cuban Americans.

And so is Trump just going to be like, yep, Cuba's falling? and then undermine this grand strategy, possibly. And you know who one of the leading advocates of Cuban statehood was throughout the years? Jefferson Davis. You can look up his Senate speeches. It was part of his expansion of slavery plan. Yeah, I remember that actually. Go west, but you can also then, he said, go south-east down to Cuba.

Fun fact, he picked up syphilis there. It was fond memories. When after the Civil War, when the Union imprisoned him, he, his syphilis flare up was so bad, it blinded him, which there is not much justice in history. But thinking about Jefferson Davis in a rat infested dungeon blind due to the syphilis that he picked up trying to annex Cuba into a slave colony, a little bit of justice. I saw the Jefferson Davis syphilis infection at Bonnarue like 10 years ago. It was the hell of a shift. show. That's a show. That's a band. I look forward to your screenplay about this, though, because this sounds like something you've... One-man's screenplay?

Just Jefferson Davis in his Blind Dungeon. It's your vagina monologues. The Davis monologues. The syphilis monologs. Love it. Oh, boy. All right, let's... Just cut the show and start writing this. Yes. Oh, wait, no, we have two more segments. Canadian women are looking for more.

More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hi, this is Joe Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life.

And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom-loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius are misunderstood. A son and Venus and Aquarius in her seventh house spark her own. unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses,

and different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want to chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. podcast. Why hasn't a woman formerly participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade? Think about how many skills they have to develop at such a young age. What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels suddenly popping up every year?

He still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wagageddon change the paddock forever? That day is just seared into my memory. I'm culture writer and F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on No Grip, a Formula One culture podcast that dives into the under-explored pockets of the sport. In each episode, a different guest and I will go deeper into the wacky mishap, scandals, and sagas, both on the track and far away from it, that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years. Listen to No Grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Ro Khanna versus APEC and the ADL. Usually when Ro is on the screen, it means we have him in studio. We don't have him in studio today. Just Ro. He's here in spirit. We're going to talk now about E1, put this up on the screen, headline from, well, this is actually the tweet from the Jewish insider writer. And the story who says, Jonathan Greenblat, CEO of the ADL, called out two Democratic lawmakers, Chris Van Hollen and Roe Kana from the main stage of the organizations, never is now conference in Manhattan, accusing them of perpetuating. anti-Semitism, right? If you could tell us about, so Greenblatt, it's not a surprise in any way

whatsoever that these criticisms are being leveled. It's apparently over disagreement, over the, over Roe saying that Israel pushed the United States into war, unclear into war in Iran, that Israel pushed the U.S. into war with Iran. It's unclear whether Jonathan Greenblatt has made similar criticisms of Marco Rubio, or not Speaker Mike Johnson, or perhaps Donald Trump himself, but we could put the next elements up on the screen here. This became an all-out Twitter war yesterday. Roe Kano a week ago posted the assaults on Israeli Americans in San Jose while speaking Hebrew is horrific. This kind of anti-Semitism is no place in our community. I unequivocally condemn these attacks. The assailants must be held accountable and prosecuted.

Someone posted on X literally a week ago. This is what Roe said. We can move on to the next element. Roe replied, facts don't matter to Greenblatt. he is a Trump apologist who attacked Obama's nuclear deal, defends Elon and is basically a show for the Trump administration and Netanyahu, sad to see. He has zero respect among any House Democrats anymore. Ryan, you've covered these types of disputes for many years. What do you make of it?

Rokana is really taking the fight, you know, directly to APEC in a way that, you know, nobody other than say Rashida Talib or Ilan Omar has been willing to do. And they did it because APEC took the fight to them. You know, when they were, like they were elected to Congress in 2018 and APEC literally spun off the organization DMFI explicitly to like just go after Taleb and Omar. Right. So like they, the fight came to them. Whereas Congress and Kana is like taking it to taking it to them. And he's, and he's what he's, and he's, and he's, and he's, and he's, what he's, and he's, and he's, you know, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's,

laying out all the things there, that, uh, they're, uh, they're upset with him about. And he's, he responds, when will APAC and ADL be merging? Greenblat, you've sucked up enough to, uh, the Trump administration, you can probably get the merger approved in this administration. Top rope. Top rope. That is, yeah. So, because the antitrust division at the DOJ has become a complete kind of pay-to-play operation with just a shakedown, a corporate shakedown. You want to merger, you know, you got to, you know, pay the Piper at DOJ. The judge in the Live Nation Ticketmaster Casey seems to think that that's the case and recently told DOJ, hold on to all of your communications, because I might be looking into this. So that's what Rokane is referring to there, that if ADL and APEC

want to merge and just stop the pretense anymore, that there's, that there's a difference between them. They should do that. Because Greenblatt, it is the anti-deformation league. He's supposed to be combating anti-Semitism. That's not what he does. Like he, he, he does basically what APEC does, which APEC, fine. Like, you want to be, you know, you want to support the U.S.-Israel relationship and get fun, you know, and spend money in elections. Like, that's legal. You can do that. Like, that's your goal.

But that's not what Greenblatt is doing. Like, Greenblatt is not doing the assembly. He's doing what APEC is doing. Yeah, I see what you're saying. And I was saying this on Afri the other day, but, like, there are two things that need to be balanced. one is the reasonable, two reasonable concerns that need to be balanced. One is the reasonable concern of Jews, given that, as Roe pointed out the other day, anti-Semitism exists, given that the industrial scale genocide of Jewish people

existed in living memory. Like, it exists in living memory of people who are still here on this earth today. just like Jim Crow is living memory of people who are still in America today. On the other hand, there's the concern for suppression of speech, which this country has a history of, and especially younger Americans, are very sensitive to. And that's reasonable as well, because censorship and suppression are also things that have happened.

And so when you balance both of those things, Greenblatt doesn't... Greenblatt is happy to inflate the definition of anti-Semitism as a cudgel against political enemies to the point that you were just making about acting basically in lockstep with groups that advance the cause of the Israeli government. And that's where you've blown up anti-Semitism to the point, the label anti-Semitism, to the point where it includes people who are just saying what the Secretary of State said about the war. Yeah.

That's really, really not helpful. It is completely counterproductive. And if you actually believe that Rokana is anti-Semitic, you are welcome to that belief. You should not be the head of an organization that is policing the definition of anti-Semitism, because that's, first of all, offensive, but second of all, counterproductive. Because by a matter of fact, he is not an anti-Semite. Right. And it's happening over and over again with people constantly.

And the right is learning what the left has learned for a long time that you were called anti-Semitic, if you're critical of the Israeli government. People on the right, Robert Novak experienced that, Pat Buchanan experienced that for a long time too. But to actually say that somebody has bigotry in their heart is a serious and stigmatized charge in the United States of America, as it should be, because we have spilled a lot of blood, sweat, and tears for victories like Loving v. Virginia. And to have the multiculturalism that actually exists in the United States is historically crazy. We take it for granted how amazing it is sometimes and how quickly so much bigotry fell away over the course of the 20th century.

It's not to say it doesn't still exist, of course it still exists. But to actually insult somebody and say that they believe somebody is lesser than because of their immutable characteristics, because of their race, because of their ethnicity, is a really serious thing. And Roe-Connor's opinions on the Lakud Party do not reflect him thinking that anybody is lesser than

because of their amiable characteristics. Yeah, and this new thing that Greenblatt's doing where he is saying that if you say that Israel drove the U.S. to war with Iran, that is anti-S.-Semitic, even after Marco Rubio himself said that at least the timing was driven by Israel, people are just not going to tolerate that.

And we did this polling at drop site last week I hope not. That found a majority of people believe that, or I think it was 47% or something believe that Israel drove the decision making. Israel drove Trump's decision making. And like 10% believed it would make their life better. So you can't, maybe the ADL can claim that 47% of the public is just driven by an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

Yes, they will. but I don't know how that's helpful to them. Yeah. You can't tell people that they're not allowed to see what they see with their own eyes. Before Charlie Kirk died, he did a focus group at one of the Turning Point USA conferences that people should absolutely go back and watch, especially people on the right, who I think, by the way, as somebody on the right, who was subject to this messaging, bludgeoned by this messaging for years, the way it's used to dismiss the left as like cranks and crazy people as obviously started, we were just talking about this,

obviously started being used on the right. And what's particularly kind of productive on the right at this moment was on full display in that turning point focus group where everyone said, listen, we, like Charlie Kirk, he went to the opening of the embassy in Jerusalem. This guy was not anti-Israel. he became increasingly skeptical of the Israeli government. And when he was talking to these students at the conference, they were saying a lot of their increasing skepticism of Israel

was coming from feeling like they're being told what they can and cannot say. Why might that be? Well, young Americans just went through like a 10-year period where they were constantly being told. If you say X, Y, Z, you're bigoted. And a lot of that was coming from the left. And so if you're Jonathan Greenblatt

and you're looking at this number among even young conservatives who should be pro-Israel, because historically that's been the case for the last several decades, and you're panicking about that, and you're reacting by calling more and more people anti-Semitic and broadening the definition further and being even more intense about those arguments,

again, is totally counterproductive because the thing that people are blanching at and that is making them skeptical of that position is literally what you continue to do at an even faster pace. Right. And so APAC just spent more than $20 million in these Illinois elections, which we'll talk about in a moment, put up E5, which will lead us into that. This is a tweet from Shane Goldmark, a Times reporter, says Jan Schakowski, who is a retiring member of Congress, pulls Donna Miller endorsement in second congressional district over APAC support. This is back in February. And APAC then, you know, quote tweets last night and then what happened.

And what's notable about this is that APAC hit its involvement in its support for Donna Miller. They created this, you know, like Chicago women super PAC because they know that using their name, APAC or United Democracy Project, which is their branded Super PAC, is super PAC, is super damaging to candidates. that they support. And then when shows like this or at Dropside, we do the reporting that says, oh, actually, we've pieced it together. This is APAC money that is being funneled into the campaign. APAC responds, that's anti-Semitic conspiracy theorizing that you're doing.

How dare you suggest that? And then after their candidate wins, they publicly take support for the thing that a day before, they were saying was a conspiracy theory. Anyway, so let's move to... Well, on that, producer Max sent a funny tweet that I want to read on that point. This is from DEI Speedwagon. Shout out to you

on X. We're a couple cycles away from APEC spending ad money, accusing pro-Palestine candidates of getting money from APEC. Right, a couple weeks away. Yeah, the good one. We're laughing, but not out of the realm of possibility. Canadian women are looking for more. More out of themselves,

their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are at them. why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart and I'm Catherine Clark and in this podcast we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians and newsmakers all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hi, this is Joe Wintersstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down

with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius are misunderstood. A son and Venus and Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, and different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want to chartside view into how a leading

artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. podcast. Why hasn't a woman formally participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade? Think about how many skills they have to develop at such a young age. What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels suddenly popping up every year? He still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wagageddon change the paddock forever? That day is just seared into my memory.

I'm culture writer and F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on No Grip, a Formula One culture podcast that dives into the under-explored pockets of the sport. In each episode, a different guests and I will go deeper into the wacky mishaps, scandals and sagas, both on the track and far away from it, that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years. Listen to No Grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We'd start with F4 here. A-PAC spent at least $22 million in four Illinois congressional races that were very closely watched because there was only one race in which they spent openly and acknowledged that they were spending in the race. The other three, they funneled through kind of made-up super PACs, one called Affordable Chicago Now, another one called elect Chicago women. When those got outed as APAC super PACs, they created a new one called Progressive Funds or something, that that they started funneling money through. So let's go through these four races. Let's start with the one that everybody cares about the most, even though arguably it wasn't the most important

one when it comes to the kind of gradients of ideological difference between the candidates. That's District 9, which was Laura Fine, who was the APAC candidate. We knew it. It was clear, even though they were using kind of fake super PACs. Kat Abu Ghazela and Daniel Biss, who's Evanston Mayor. And then you had Boucher Amiwala, who was a local elected official who was running kind of two Kat and Daniel's left, and people kept pushing to kind of drop out. And Doris Kat, that was probably never going to happen. What I would, so Daniel Bis won and won by about 4,500 votes.

Four points. Yeah. One thing I think the left should take away from all of these races is that there should be a deep stigma on candidates who cannot win and refuse to drop out. And I'm not just talking about Bush or I'm talking about across the board. There was a failure to consolidate. And when you combine a failure to consolidate behind a single candidate with millions of dollars in spending for the other candidate, it's very difficult to win and you let then APEC candidates, you know, win with like 30% of the vote. Fine only got 20%, which is pretty interesting.

So fine, just 20% with millions spent on her behalf. I just have to pause for a moment to just think about how completely ridiculous it is, ridiculous it is, that the people of Illinois' 9th district, suburban Chicago, had their race hijacked into a mandate on Middle Eastern foreign policy. Right, except none of the... It's insane. Except none of the actual ads talked about foreign policy. Right.

Even though they were... It's crazy. Yeah. And also, and I kept telling you all this, now you can believe me, Boucher finished sixth. So, like, people were like, no, no, she has a shot, she has a shot, no.

So APEC put money behind Bouchra Ami Walla's campaign, trying to peel votes. away from from Kat and from Biss to try to boost Laura Fine. She finished behind multiple candidates that you've never even heard of. She got a total of 6,000 votes, 5%. Every single one of her votes would have had to go to Kat in order for Kat to win. And there's just no world in which 100% of votes go from one candidate to another. Yeah, a lot of there are protest votes anyway. Yeah, and a lot of her supporters did not like Kat.

Her support was concentrated among South Asian population, which also had problems with Kat for other kind of optical reasons. So Biss, who had the support of J Street and had millions spent against him by APEC, or hundreds of thousands at least, I don't know if it climbed millions against, but millions in total spent by APEC to try to win this race. So Biss ends up winning. Biss had kind of Elizabeth Warren Democrat.

He had Elizabeth Warren's endorsement, like on day one of the campaign. And this is kind of an Elizabeth Warren district. It's kind of a suburban district. So he ends up winning. He'll win in the general. It's not even close. in his victory speech last night, he mentioned J Street and APEC. Let's roll that.

Let me end this simply by saying, APEC found out the hard win. The White District is not for sale. May tonight be the last time I utter their name. This victory belongs to J Street. And they've been a federal to J.C. You can nail against unspeakable odds for that point of view that represents the mainstream in this district and the mainstream of the Jewish community. Yeah.

So the question now, Emily, for the left will be, I think, around organizing BIS and putting pressure on BIS. There is an argument that, and this unfolded in the Malinowski district in New Jersey 11 where Annalia Mejia ended up winning thanks to APEC, you know, smashing Malinowski. So, Malinowski was a former, you know, had been an elected Democrat before. He had worked at the State Department. He had a lot of credibility among Democrats in the House when it came to foreign policy. And so what APEC said publicly was that even though Malinowski was much milder in his criticism of Israel, his mild criticism was more of a threat to them than may he is strong criticism. because they think they can marginalize Mejia and say, well, you don't need to listen to her.

She's crazy squad radical. But Malinowski is harder for them to marginalize. And so that was their either cope or their rationale for why they were actually okay that their preferred candidate lost and they accidentally boosted this squad like candidate. Now, I think they miscalculated. I think Annalia is going to have a lot more power in the house

than they expected. But that was their rationale. That was the same rationale. they used to spend millions to defeat Andy Levin in Michigan. Levin was a synagogue president. And part of the Levin family dynasty, member of Congress, he was redistricted into a race with Haley Stevens, and APEC spent millions to back Stevens over Levin. And they publicly made this argument that it was dangerous to have a guy who called himself a liberal Zionist, who was a synagogue president

who was criticizing Israel who was casting votes against Israel and was supporting Rashida Talib and Ilan Omar when they were being called anti-Semitic. He would show up with them and say they are not. They are my friends. They have legitimate criticisms of Israel and you cannot

you cannot you cannot you cannot weaponize anti-Semitism against them because you disagree with them politically. And the fact that he was a synagogue president made that punch from him land much harder. And so they said we need to get him out of office. And they spent and they got him out of office.

And a similar thing is unfolding with Biss. Biss' mom was Israeli. He's got lots of connections to Israel. He has the support of J Street, which calls itself liberal Zionist. And so to have Biss out there attacking APEC and criticizing Israel and supporting Block the Bombs, which doesn't go far enough,

but it is considered to be existential to Israel and APEC that block the bombs act, they feel like Biss is a significant threat to them. You can see how that would make sense. Yeah, and so for them to, they're now doing this cope like, we beat Kat and we beat Boucherah. We should finish six, get out of, you know,

I'm going to give me, you spent money to support her. You're going to got 21% of the vote. Yeah. And collectively, Biss and Bougazela got well over a majority. and their candidate got 20%. Yeah. So they got washed.

So now what people have to do is organize around this. Yeah. I saw somebody saying yesterday that the kind of anti-Zionist movement needs to have more space for these quote-unquote liberal Zionist critics of Israel because their argument was in the journey from, you know, full-on-a-PAC level, support of Israel to becoming anti-Zionist, it's actually a bigger leap to go from APEC, hardcore, right-wing Zionism to liberal Zionism. Like that is a harder move to make and more dramatic than it is to go from liberal Zionism

to anti-Zionism. Because once you're in the liberal Zionist space and you're starting to talk about apartheid and occupation and genocide, the, the the rationale and the logic just pushes you to anti-Zionism eventually. It's just a question of how long it takes you to move from there to there. So the argument would be the goal now of Katz supporters and Bushra supporters needs to be to pressure BIS to go further. And I think there's also opportunities to do that in the two other districts where APEC 1.

But let's do District 7 next, where APEC caught just a brutal L. The only race where they spent money with their chests and admitted that they were the ones doing the spending, it was like $4 to $5 million they put behind Melissa Conyers-Urvin, who is the comptroller of Chicago, currently under investigation for corruption. Just like comically corrupt.

this was a massively divided field and according to all of the kind of prognosticators, them putting this many millions in the race behind her was going to be enough to just push her over the top, that you just couldn't compete with that avalanche of money. She lost. She finished with 20.5 percent, almost exactly what Laura Fine got. Apex, many millions of dollars got her 19,000 votes, which is 3,000 less than LaShawn Ford. I wonder how much money that was per vote. And that's only the money we know about.

That doesn't count like mailers and like C4 and like all the off the books kind of spending. Incredible. Like you could have gone around and paid $1,000 to every person, like old school Chicago stuff. Literally you could have done that. You could have paid $2,000. We'll give you two grand. please just show up. Oh my gosh.

Instead, they gave it to consultants who were going to buy a boat and lost. Now, the races they won, we saw that they were bragging about Donna Miller. So in District 2, Jan Chakowski endorsed Donna Miller. And then APEC started doing these fake super PACs to support her. And when it was exposed that it was AAPC money, Shikowsky withdrew her endorsement. A PAC now boasting,

ha ha, we won anyway. As we talked about in the last segment, they sort of deny and call it a conspiracy theory that they're the ones behind these super PACs. But then when their candidate wins, they take credit for the victory, which is, there's just, do you get to do that? I don't think you get to do that.

So Donna Miller did win. with 40% of the vote. And this is where we need to stigmatize the lack of consolidation. So 60% of people voted against her, but she's still won. So Jesse Jackson Jr. and Robert Peters split their vote. Jesse Jackson Jr. trying to make a comeback. Peters was kind of like the progressive real hope in that race. But Jesse Jackson Jr. has such a name and a reputation there that,

that he was always going to do quite well. He got almost 30%. Was he vet Brown with 10% pulling another. So those three candidates, one of them needed to, you know, the left needs some mechanism to say, no, this is who we're getting behind. Because if it's just... This was a typical Tea Party conundrum.

Them Tea Party hitting the same snag, yeah. It's tough. The left is not organized enough or ruthless enough. to be able to pull this off. And so the same problem hit them in District 8. Melissa Bean, another former member of Congress. Before that, she was a top JP Morgan banker.

I covered her when she was in Congress last time around. They put her on the Financial Services Committee where she played a very unhelpful role when it came to banking reform. Now she's coming back. APEC spent heavily. And she finished with almost 32% of the vote, very narrowly beat June 8 Ahmed, who had 27% of the vote. So very close race. Ahmed had the support of Justice Democrats.

He was the kind of left-wing candidate. Now there's a group called American Priorities. This is the anti-genocide pack that pro-Palestine pact that spent heavily for NIDA alum in North Carolina. they've raised like $10 plus million and they've pledged that they're going to take on APEC. There was a lot of pressure among progressive electoral folks for them to get into this race and get behind Ahmed. And the argument was like he can do this. Like he's a serious candidate. What I was told is that they have a poll from like January that showed that they didn't think he could win.

And so they didn't. And so they refused to get in the race. They resisted this pressure. Apex spent heavily. And what I think what these results show is that they could have made up 2,500 votes. What is it, 3,500 votes? Maybe not.

You know, maybe a million dollars from them doesn't push shockbed over the top. But I think it does. Like, if the race is that close, then you've got a couple, multiple other candidates had 6% or more. Morrison at 9, Bank, Bank, at 9, Tully at 12.7, like no consolidation, plus the refusal to get behind. The folks behind this new pack are similar to a lot of people who get into politics. We're like, people

before us haven't figured out how to do it, but we figured it out. It's mathematical, it's quantitative. We're going to follow the data. We're going to moneyball it. We're going to moneyball it. Yeah. And it's not quite that simple. Yep. But also emotion ends up playing a role in it. I wonder if, you know, they were outspent by AI and APEC in the NIDALAM race and lost this, like, brutal, very, very close race, a thousand votes or something. Yeah.

And so I bet that emotion ended up playing a role that they were, they were burned and, like, on their heels than coming into Illinois. and so they lacked the confidence to get in for Junaid. So that's a missed opportunity for them. Just to be a little ruthless. Love them, but, you know, that's a miss. Yeah, that is a miss. But now there are two opportunities here, Donna Miller and Melissa Bean. I think Miller represents a stronger opportunity.

Why is that? So she won with APEC support, but it was the secret APEC support. but she knows she only got 40% of the vote. Does she want to face a primary challenger in two years that has consolidated support from the left? Or does she want to publicly announce tomorrow that she will not take APEC money, that she rejects their, she's angry about their support,

she wishes they hadn't. Stay away from me. Do not ever elect me to Congress again. How dare you? Do not come. But that's what Valerie Foucher did. And she's headed back to Congress. And it may have been just enough to keep enough support.

So what I would say to activists in her district, Miller represents an opportunity to basically snatch victory from defeat. That if APEC secretly goes around and spends millions of dollars to elect a candidate, and then you come in and lobby them and turn them. and turn them into your ally, that strips away that tactic from APEC. Because once, look at Max Frost, like down in Orlando,

AAC and DMFI basically made a deal where they would allow, they wouldn't spend against Max Frost if he would back off some of his, you know, criticism of Israel. Once he was in office, he has been a, strident critic of Israel.

And A-PAC is now kind of screwed because he's popular in the district. Yeah. Yeah, okay. I see what you're saying. They can replicate that. So maybe Donna Miller, if she's watching, like, look at Max Frost. You could tell A-PAC,

I'm not taking your Super PAC support ever again. Thank you for helping me get here now. I'm done. Right. And she then, but then she has to do what Fouchet did, which is demonstrate it, sign all the letters that the activists ask you to sign, vote the way that they

want you to vote on these issues. Yeah. And then you'll win enough of them that it drains support for a primary challenge in two years. Because like, it doesn't matter who's in office, really. It's what they do in office that matters to people. So if initially a PAC-backed-back candidate, turns on them, maybe take that win. Interesting. So, hey, just something to think about. Very interesting. And then we've got the, I don't know if you can do that with Melissa Bean,

the J.P. Morgan banker. That's probably really tough. She's pretty right-wing Democrat. But hey, that one you probably want to start organizing for Junet Ahmed, like, today, to challenge her in two years. And this time, consolidate around a single candidate. Right. So we have, I think, and next time, the Super PAC American priorities might not make the same mistake.

They might, they will see that perhaps Bean is more vulnerable. So much going on yesterday. In Illinois, particularly. Yeah. And then we've got this wild Illinois Senate race. You put up F3 here. So this pit, Raja Krashnamurthy, congressman, who raised insane amount of of money from crypto? Like millions. Tens of millions.

Yeah, like 20 million. It was like crazy number. Ungodly amounts of money. Against Juliana Stratton, who was, is J.B. Pritzker's Lieutenant Governor. And she had the support of kind of progressives in the state. She heavily won black voters in the state. She did not really have much vocal support from the Congressional Black Caucus, which is that,

which they should be criticized for and maybe related to the amount of crypto and corporate money that was being spent against her. But Pritzker went in heavy for her and made this kind of a referendum on his own popularity. And she ended up beating him by what, seven points. So fairly convincing victory there. Very, when you have that level of money flooding into the race and you have a seven point win, that's... And they spent, like, the corporate and crypto money went in heavily to support Robin Kelly, who finished third as another black woman running. And their cynical idea was, we're going to split the black vote. Right.

And it didn't, it didn't work. You may have seen Juliana Stratton. She was the one who did the... She had a lot of money, too. F. Trump. Remember that ad? Yes. So clearly F. Trump works in Illinois.

Well, Abu Ghazale was doing that, but I guess... Maybe this, I don't know. But so the amount of crypto money here, this is the political group, Fair Shake. They spent about $9 million, $9 million on ads for... Chris and Murthy's opponents. So they were trying to, yeah, they were trying to have some fun with that. They're just trying to boost him by just smearing. Yeah, nice to see the crypto guys lose. That's something. Yeah. We can take that, right? Yeah, so they were spending for Kelly against

Stratton in the race. Right. They're cynically trying to lift Kelly to pull votes away from Stratton. It was just a crazy amount of money on this. I mean, yeah. Yeah. And to make an obvious point, whatever this was on display yesterday in Illinois, it's not democracy. Like all of these, you know, pro-Israel and corporate and crypto and AI, just dumping money in, but not running on their issues. It'd be one thing. It was like crypto rules.

Like, we should all, like, and you. you ran your campaign on that, but they're not. Like you said, they're doing this cynical stuff of like, oh, we actually support Robin Kelly. She's wonderful. No, you don't. Right. Right.

You're just trying to trick people. Right. Who otherwise would vote for Stratton to vote for Kelly so that Raja wins. Right. That's like that, it's just so gross. Yeah. Bring back the Tammany Hall, Chicago machine stuff. Like, that was much cleaner than this system.

You have more agency in the Temne Hall system. Yeah. But actually, no, I mean, I think there's glass half empty. You just laid that up very well. Glass half full. Voters said no to the crypto. That's true. Like voters saw through it in several of these races.

Yeah. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. I'm Catherine Clark, and in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hi, this is Joe Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom-loving and different perspectives.

And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius are misunderstood. A son and Venus and Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people. sleeping in different rooms, on different houses and different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want to chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Why hasn't a woman formally participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade? Think about how many skills they have to develop at such a young age?

What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels suddenly popping up every year? He still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wag A Geddon change the paddock forever? That day is just seared into my memory. I'm culture writer and F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on No Grip, a Formula One culture podcast that dives into the under-explored pockets of the sport. In each episode, a different guest and I will go deeper into the wacky mishap, scandals and sagas, both on the track and far away from it, that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years.

Listen to No Grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We got to play this Platner ad. We got to play this anti-Platner ad from Janet Mills. This dropped the last couple days. Yeah. Janet Mills, Governor of Maine is trailing Oysterman Fran Platner in every public poll for months now. Governor of Maine with a lot of support from the leadership of the Democratic Party. Yes, from the chairs of the party to the vice chairs of the party.

Her support is very deep. We'll get into that in a second. Let's roll this ad F7. Did you know Graham Platner wrote that women worried about rape need to quote. Now get so f*** up they wind up having sex with someone they don't mean to. It's disgusting. Platner wrote to avoid rape, women should quote. Act like an adult for sake.

Grand Platner, seriously. We blame the victim? That's a horrible thing to say. Disqualifying. I have not seen this. He's a bully. This guy gives off a vibe. Just no way I could vote for you.

No. Graham Platner, the closer you look, the worse it gets. I'm Janet Mills and I approve this message. And so if people are new to that, I highly doubt they are. This was a scandal that emerged many months ago when Platner first ran, where some opposition research uncovered his Reddit posts from years ago. He was a bartender to tune in. And then there he is.

Recovering veteran struggling with PTSD? Yeah. And, you know, so those were his observations at the time as a bartender. Anonymous observations. Which he has, people can find the video. He posted about it. He has said, like, he's embarrassed by them. He distances himself from them now. It's not how he feels today. And he has said that, you know, if you're held to the standard of the worst things you've ever said on the internet, then nobody real can ever run for office. which nobody real gets us to our next element and put up this from the main wire. The conservative main publication.

It looked like Janet Mills had found regular Maine women who were appalled by these comments. The main wire news outlet that you can brief us on in a moment finds that it's Peggy Schaefer, who's a former Maine Democratic vice chair, Lynn Bromley, former Democratic state senator, Jill Barkley-Roy is director of Emerge Action Fund, a Democratic-Aligned group. And Brenda Garand, it's a consultant and a former longtime member of the main public board. Mills couldn't even find actors, I guess. Incredible. So just getting pure kind of a democratic establishment figures to say they don't like the guy who's challenging the Democratic establishment.

interesting also that they went with this rather than the like skull and bones Nazi linked tattoo or some of the other stuff. I mean because it's falling. Maybe they've got more in the canon. I'm sure they do, but it's falling flat on its face because all of the polling coming from this race is showing double digit. Even Mills is polling, if I'm remembering correctly, is showing double digit margins right now for Graham Platte. Some are single digit. So, okay, but significant single digits, I'm assuming like upwards towards, because this is falling on its face. And it's falling on its face for a reason that they're struggling to make an argument against, which is he's trying to say, you know, I have all kinds of quibbles with this argument about identity politics, but he's trying to say that is the wedge that elites are using to divide us. He's correct on that point. He's saying this is a class question.

This is, it's not even, he's not even talking about like affordability in the kind of cringe sense. He's talking about actual nuts and bolts, democratic socialism. And what he thinks the, he has like a pretty coherent vision of what he wants the government to look like, the economy to look like. And Janet Mills is just talking about identity politics as he's running the smartest campaign against identity politics, which is this ad where you have a bunch of politically connected women reading his old Reddit posts. She's not even attacking him at, she could argue.

that she thinks democratic socialism is bad for reason X, Y, and Z. She could. She's welcome to do that. And there's an argument that if, let's say, if he survives this, that he comes out of it a much stronger general election candidate because A, it shows the main public that he's not the choice of the Democratic Party establishment, which being the choice of the Democratic Party establishment in any state, and in particular in Maine,

is something you have to overcome. rather than something that benefits you. Yep. But also there's this interesting dynamic that I'm pretty convinced unfolded in 2015 and 2016 during the Bernie Hillary campaign, which is that when centrist Democrats attack a candidate, whether it's Graham Platner or Bernie Sanders, as being racist and sexist,

what it ends up coding to some moderate or conservative voters, is that, oh, maybe they're not as left-wing as I thought they were. Like, it makes, so I think that Bernie actually ended up getting some conservative Democratic votes because they understood this identity politics charge from Hillary as deeply left-wing coded, left-wing culturally coded, and it made Hillary look left-wing. And it made Sanders look more moderate. Totally. And so to the extent that Platner has problems in the general election, it's probably more connected to him calling himself a communist and like training like paramilitary gun groups, which is hard for the Republicans to hit him on. Well, no. It's kind of cool to train paramilitary, but there's a trans connection. I was going to say, it's the trans stuff that's going to be. This is a problem for Mills too, because Mills has been.

The whole thing is the trans question. I'll see you in court. Yeah, exactly. Mills has staked kind of her political career in this moment against Trump, fighting the Trump administration on bands and like trans athletes and bathrooms and that sort of thing. And so I mean, that is, that will be a hurdle for Platner to overcome because it's not popular. But my argument is that this actually in a way helps him overcome that hurdle. Totally agree. No, I totally agree. The more linked you are to identity politics right now, the more an independent voter thinks you are a far leftist. A hundred percent. Rather than being, you know, a communist and, like, wanting to, like, seize the means of production and raise taxes on the rich. Like, that's, left wing has become code for, you know, lean in 2020 identity politics stuff.

Yep, yep. And so having him attacked for, you know, from the lane of identity politics codes him as, you know, more independent, centrist, and moderate in an unexpected and I think way that most democratic establishment consultants don't understand. Right. But out of this like mishmash, that's what will reach a lot of voters. Totally agree. We're like, oh, I guess he's not that radical.

No, I think that's right. I think that's right. And just playing straight into his hands. Keep it up, Mills? Incredible. Do the Nazi one. Because if you do the Nazi one, they will. People are going to be like, oh, well, he can't.

can't be a communist and a Nazi. He's obviously not a Nazi. And so, but it undercuts the communist charge just when, if you're calling him a Nazi. It brings up different mass murder questions. Right. If they want to accuse him of being a Stalinist or something. We're thinking of. Go ahead. Collins can try to warn that he's going to create gulogs in Maine. That also might not be super successful. But yeah, the Mills campaign, just, it's incredible to watch them play directly into Platner's hands because it's all they have. I mean, it doesn't have to be all they have. She could actually make an argument. She could actually lead. Or she could be like, I'm losing badly and I should just, and it's, I'm like 78, I should just

retire. Yeah, you can't make it really good. Maine's beautiful. Like, just go do something else. Enjoy it. Have some oysters. She knows a guy who can get some fresh ones. He'll give you a deal. Oh, my goodness. All right. Well, that's probably enough for us today. Yeah, I think that should do it. Okay. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in. Premium subscriptions you can get over at breakingpoints.com. We appreciate it. Ryan's going to be in Cuba.

We look forward to a dispatch. Actually, you'll probably be back in studio Wednesday, right? Yes. And we didn't get to cover the micropenus debate that I triggered. That's right. That was you. That's right. I was telling Emily a high school friend posted to a little group chat.

Ryan is now involved in a national micro penis debate. He is. Look that one up. Just Google Ryan Grimm Micropeas. We're not going to talk about it here, but you can go search that. Yeah, just type that in. You know, we could have talked about it in the Greenblatt segment, though, because it's the same. It is.

It's the same concept. Just attacking people for retweeting Ryan, which, listen, when Ryan I first started hosting together, I got it all the time. And you, I'm sure you got it too from me. Indeed. So if you are doing the guilt by association thing when people share legitimate facts, which is all Ryan did in this tweet. It's all I ever do. It's all I ever does. Then you're losing the argument. Okay, that does it for us today. We maybe we'll come on Google it. We could cover it Friday, but you won't be on Friday. I don't think so. All right. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in. Appreciate it. We'll see you on Fridays. Well, Ryan, we're just going in circles here.

Ryan won't see you on Friday. I'll see you Friday. We'll see you next Wednesday. Bye. It's Joe Interesting, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And today I'm talking with my dear friend, Krista Williams. It can change you in the best way possible. Dance with the change.

Dance with the breakdowns. The embodiment of Pisces intuition with Capricorn power moves. So I'm like delusionally proud of my charge. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast, starting on February 24th on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Ready for a different take on Formula One? Look no further than No Grip, a new podcast tackling the culture of motor racing's most coveted series. Join me, Lily Herman, as we dive into the under-explored pockets of F1, including the story of the woman who last participated in a Formula One race weekend, the recent uptick in F-1 romance novels, and plenty of mishap scandals and sagas that have made Formula One. a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years.

Listen to No Grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him. If I could press a button and rewind it all I would. That's when his life took a disturbing turn. A one-night stand would end in a courtroom. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you.

This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.