Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 3/27/25: Full Signal Chat Leaks, Portnoy Demands Waltz Resign, Dems Flip Trump District In PA
Episode Date: March 27, 2025Ryan and Saagar discuss the full signal chat leaks exposing Trump admin lies, Dave Portnoy demand Waltz resignation, Dems flip Trump +16 seat in PA. To become a Breaking Points Premium Member a...nd watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop.
It's Black Music Month and we need to talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone,
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Good morning, everybody.
Happy Thursday.
Have an amazing show.
There it is.
People live for the pound.
Bro show here. Last bro show of the week. It's okay. We're in show. There it is. People live for the pound. Bro show here.
Last bro show of the week.
It's okay.
We're in mourning here.
Just joking.
We're waiting for Crystal to get back from vacation.
We're all excited to actually, you know, we're excited to get back to some debates.
You know what people are really clamoring for?
What?
You and Emily.
Me and Emily?
They just want the unvarnished.
What's the point of that?
They want the unvarnished, like like just raw MAGA, just like celebration.
We could.
In fact, if Emily and I did a show together, we would probably be dunking even more vociferously on MAGA.
And so MAGAs would only get more upset at us.
But that's okay.
That's what we do here.
All right, let's go ahead and get started.
We're going to be covering the fallout from Signalgate.
Ryan and Emily did a great job yesterday.
They broke down some of the new messages.
We're going to fully go through all of them, what they reveal, what the excuses are, what the administration has decided to do.
We'll then get to the fallout section in terms of the politics as this continues to be actually one of the biggest Trump scandals that has yet penetrated.
Current data tells us it is the number one story currently of Trump scandals that has yet penetrated. Current data
tells us it is the number one story currently of the Trump administration that has gone viral to
everybody. Kind of astounding. Some of the political fallout here in Washington, Tulsi Gabbard
and John Ratcliffe in front of Congress there getting pressed about it. We're going to talk
about the Democrats. They were able to flip a Trump district in the Pennsylvania Senate seat.
Super interesting. It's a state Senate,
obviously, but does give us some indication. This was what, Trump plus 15, Trump plus 16
district Democrat there was very narrowly able to win. Could be a sign of what's to come in the
midterms. We're going to talk about some interesting developments in Gaza. There's
been some protests on the ground in Gaza. Some people are saying it's against Hamas,
some against perhaps like the Israeli military campaign. Ryan's going to break that down for us. There have been
continuing arrests of some pro-Palestinian foreign students here in the United States. Ryan's going
to give us an update on that. And then finally, Ryan and I will update NPR and PBS. We're going
to talk about the defund campaign currently happening in Congress and some hilarious footage just no matter what side you fall on that is coming out of Congress.
But with that, let's go ahead and get to the signal text, shall we?
So after the Trump administration spent a better part of a day saying there was no classified information there at all, nothing, don't worry about it, everything was totally above board. Jeffrey Goldberg over at
The Atlantic, against his better nature, Ryan, because he was trying to protect all of us from
all this classified information, he just said, you know what, screw it. I'm going to release
all of them. And you know what? He should have done that from the very beginning, but okay,
here we are. And now we can all see it for ourselves and judge. That's called journalism,
isn't it? Isn't it? So, okay, let's go ahead and put them all up there on the screen.
Let's start with the first one.
Now, what do you notice in that very first text message, Ryan?
What's the very first thing that it says?
M-A-R added.
Michael Waltz added you to the group.
Yeah, there you go.
The second thing is what?
Disappearing message time set to one week.
Okay, my message group with my buddies, it's got a one-day disappearing time.
Right?
So why is it set to one week?
That's crazy.
You know, why do they have a better, you know, like, why do we have better OPSEC, quote-unquote, than this?
It's totally ridiculous.
Now, let's continue, shall we?
We cut out, and we're only including here some of the new text messages for people to see.
But what's fascinating to me is the internal debate here.
Joe Kent, some of you guys might know Joe Kent.
He ran for Congress twice in the state of Washington.
Very, very realist guy.
And here he is as one of Tulsi Gabbard's deputies actually arguing in the chat, saying,
there's nothing time-sensitive that is driving this timeline for the strike against Houthis.
We will have the exact same options in a month. Quote, the Israelis will likely take strikes and therefore ask us for
more support to replenish whatever they use against the Houthis, but that's a minor factor.
I will send you the unclassed data pulled on shipping. He's talking there specifically about
the amount of shipping there. John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, says, We are mobilizing assets to support now, but a delay would not negatively impact us,
and additional time would be used to identify better starting points for coverage on Houthi leadership.
By the way, can we pause on this real quickly?
Because there are a group of people in this country who still care about the Constitution and the War Powers Act
and have insisted that this was an illegal strike
and that you need congressional authorization for it. This proves that it was the case because
the only way you can get around Congress is if you say this was an emergency. That's right.
Because obviously, Commander-in-Chief in an emergency situation doesn't have to let American service members die just because
of paperwork. Right. They are admitting in writing that there is no rush. They're literally saying no
rush. Right. We can do this later. If you can do it later, therefore, constitutionally speaking,
you're required to get congressional authorization. unless it's the 2001 authorization of military
force which i don't even think they tried to use that yeah because that's against al-qaeda and the
houthis fight al-qaeda yeah but ryan they've been updating that thing for a long time right it never
it never matters also it's point the constitution as we will talk about later in this show yeah who
even cares about that yeah anymore but let's continue here with the text messages shall we
because this again we're revealing here a lot both both about how this entire thing was not only not time sensitive,
it didn't work because it didn't actually accomplish its goal of stopping this.
I also think, just had to put this in here, about Mr. Waltz, Mike Waltz here. You can see him here
arguing with J.D. Vance, who is saying, hey, why are we doing this? Only 3%. He's like,
well, actually, the trade figures, we are 15% of global and 30% of container. It's difficult to
break that down to U.S., specific because of the container going through the Red Sea or not.
Whether we pull the plug or not today, European navies do not have the capabilities to defend
the types of sophisticated anti-ship cruise missiles and drones the Houthis are now using.
Let's pause on that, shall we?
So these European nations, let's say Germany, the UK, France,
we're talking about, you know, what, three of the top G7 economies in the world.
Actually, all of them have much more powerful navies than almost any other country in the world,
except for like the US.S. and China.
And so if our national security advisor is saying they don't even have the capability to deal with a group that has been bombed into smithereens for the last 10 years and is using like secondhand
Iranian missiles that they've gotten, you know, via transfer, that's a bit of a problem,
shall we? Can we all just sit there and ruminate on that a little bit?
Luckily for Europe and the UK and France and the rest of them,
Waltz is either a liar or a moron.
Yeah, right.
Because everything you read there is a lie.
Yes.
Like they do have the capacity to shoot missiles at the Houthis.
Or, it's like, or Mike Waltz is saying that we need to do it. Now,
the only reason that we need to do it. He's lying so that we can be the ones to do it. That's right.
And why would we be the ones to do it? Either A, to feel big and tough and to stick it to Iran,
because that definitely worked under Biden, or it's to defend Israel. And as they admit also
in the chat, the fall apart of the ceasefire has direct impacts here, as Joe Kent himself
admitted. Now let's continue here with the text messages and let's see what else that we can,
shall we? So this is the actual update from Pete Hegsath. And I would say this is the one where
you basically got him dead to rights. And let's keep this up here because this, by the way,
America, this is what your government is telling you is not classified. This is before the strike. Team update. Time now, 1144 Eastern Time. Weather is favorable. Just confirmed. We
are a go. 1215, F-18s launch. 1345, trigger-based F-18 strike window starts. Target terrorist is at
his known location, so should be on time. Also, strike drones launch MQ-9s.
14-10, more F-18s launch, second strike package.
14-15, strike drones on target.
This is when the first bombs will definitely drop.
Pending earlier trigger-based targets.
15-36, F-18, second strike targets.
Also, first sea-based Tomahawks launch.
So the Trump administration's argument is that because he said that the target
terrorist is at his location, that there was no classified information that was included there.
Can we all just stop, you know, for a second? Like this level of retardation is honestly just
too much for me. Like you're really going to argue that the known like use of the munitions
and the exact time of an attack was not classified at the time that
you sent it, fine, then tweet it out. If you believe that, if you believe that, then allow
any American service member privy to that information to post it ahead of the attack.
Okay, go ahead. Now, as you and I know, Ryan, the stupidest shit in the world is classified by the
United States government. We have a massive over-classification problem, as you all saw with the JFK files.
So there is genuinely no universe on planet Earth where this was not classified at the time that they sent it.
And then second, what you also can just see here in the sheer stupidity of the way that they are acting.
I know I'm calling for this early.
Put A2 up there on the screen because this was the, you know, quote, unquote, the smoking gun as to whether it was classified.
Look here at what our idiot national security advisor's justification is.
No locations, no sources and methods, no war plans.
Foreign partners had already been notified.
Bottom line,
President Trump is protecting America and our interests. So their response is that actually Pete Hegstead shared attack plans and not war plans. Thus, there was no class-wide information
here whatsoever. It is an insult to all good people's intelligence to argue this. It's just
preposterous. We never got congressional authorization for war.
Therefore, it's not a war. Yeah, there you go. Therefore, there can't be war plans. What are we
doing here? I just, I really cannot stomach this level of stupidity. I cannot. Now let's continue
with the text messages and let's go because there's also more that we reveal here also in
terms of the way that we conduct war and what exactly is a good plan. Here's my
favorite from Pete Hexeth. More to follow. We are currently clean on OPSEC, meaning that there have
been no leaks. Godspeed to our warriors. We are clean, clean as a whistle. All right, let's
continue. And this also shows us, again, how dumb a lot of the people who are in power actually are,
namely Mr. Waltz, who added Jeffrey Goldberg. VP, building collapsed, had multiple positive ID.
JD goes, what?
He goes, typing too fast.
The first target, their top missile guy, we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend's building, and now it's collapsed.
Excellent and a good start there from John Ratcliffe.
So presumptive there.
It's like, oh, so did we kill the girlfriend?
Right?
So what's up with that?
And everyone else in the freaking apartment building?
Yeah, right.
What is J.D. Vance, by the way,
doing dropping excellent on a war crime here?
And who's the thumbs up on the war crime?
Like, that's a war crime.
It's just one of those where, you know,
you rarely get to see the internal, you know,
a way that we even acknowledge this type of stuff.
You're never supposed to put this in writing, right? Whenever you just kill, you know, it way that we even acknowledge this type of stuff. You're never supposed to put
this in writing, right? Whenever you just kill, you know, innocent standby or whatever. And it
also, I can't tell you guys how many times I've been in the Pentagon briefing room and we would
ask things like, so what steps did you take to, they're like, we take every possible step to
minimize civilian casualties. We did this and this and this and this and this.
And here you have the National Security Department,
yeah, he walked into his girlfriend's building,
we just collapsed it.
We're like, what?
Hold on a second, what happened?
The guy they're saying they killed
was a senior official who works in the missile department.
Right.
They have other engineers.
Yes.
Like, this is not osama bin laden this is a guy who is the is like
somebody's boss in a missile program it's also when they kill him and his girlfriend and everyone
else in the apartment they will hire they'll put out a little wreck hey we got a job opening now
for a guy who can run a missile program and ryan you covered drone strikes for years so can you
just tell us like not only the pattern that this strikes with the war machine going all the way back
to the Obama administration, but just for you to be able to nakedly see this. I mean, what is it?
Because as you and I have done, we have heard these claims from the CIA and from the Pentagon
for almost more than a decade now. They're like, listen, you have no idea the amount of steps that we take.
And here's not even a pretense of rules of engagement or any of that.
They're like, yeah, we just killed him.
Okay, got it.
Right, because they think nobody's watching.
It shows how normalized it is to not care about civilian casualties.
Nobody on that thread knows anything about the number of civilians in that
apartment building nobody said wait a minute are we sure that the this apartment building in the
middle of the night was not filled with sleeping people had nothing to do with this do we i'm
assuming you checked you guys checked this right and just and also all the references to God and praying
while you're actively killing innocent people.
Well, they're saying, oh, God bless our troops and all that.
Maybe one thing if I'm actually on the ground.
I pray for victory.
What do you mean you pray for victory?
Victory in what?
This is not a battle.
That's the problem.
You're shooting tomahawks off of a ship.
Right.
We're using bombs, dropping them from very sophisticated airplanes and from guided missile destroyers and acting like we're invading Normandy on D-Day.
And also victory. Guess what? The Red Sea blockade is still going on.
The Red Sea blockade is still going on. There actually was just strikes again yesterday.
Not that anybody's noticing and or doing anything in terms of the effect.
Biden bombed Yemen for over a year.
As you said, he even admitted, yes, the strikes will continue.
Will it work? No.
Okay.
But they will continue.
What are we doing here?
Again, and, you know, there's so much to say here,
both about the stupidity of just feel-good operations like this,
which do nothing, you know, killed some Houthi guy.
Great. Strikes are continuing.
Yeah, maybe.
Maybe.
Right. Not that they even released him. Also, here's some classified information, by the way.
We have positive ID that he's in the apartment building. Right. Okay. There's a chance that
there's some drone that has some imagery. Yeah, he said MQ-9 Reaper drone. There were MQ-9 Reaper
drones. It's not obvious, though, that the MQ-9 Reaper drone was a source of the positive ID that he's in the apartment.
Did they have a human intel on the block that said, hey, he's in there?
Does that mean they have a mole?
Or is it a civilian who's on the block who they're working with?
Now Iran is going to sweep up all the comms from that block and try to snuff out, if there was a mole, a human source.
So did Hegseth give up a human source?
Or Waltz give up a source?
And maybe it was a drone.
I don't know.
But that's why to say that this stuff is unclassified
and you can just post it on Twitter is absurd.
Let's call their bluff.
Fine.
Do it before every attack.
Just post it.
Fine.
I'm fine with that.
I'll actually be useful
because we're like,
okay, here's what we're going to use.
Here's exactly what we're going to use.
Here are the targets.
And then you and I can say,
so did it work?
Right.
Did it hit the target?
I would actually like to know that.
Right.
It'd be nice, wouldn't it?
All right, let's try that.
So I already showed you guys
Mike Waltz's dumb justification.
But, oh man,
the White House line on this,
I just, again, it is,
it insults the intelligence of the viewer and of the entire country. Let's take a listen.
What is it about what Pete Hegseth wrote that makes you say this is not classified?
Well, it's not just me saying that, Peter. It's the Secretary of Defense himself who is saying
this as well. And he put out a very strong statement earlier today
listing all of the things that were not included in that message that he sent to the group.
And again, this message, there was no classified information transmitted. There were no war plans
discussed. Why did the Atlantic downgrade their allegation about war plans to attack plans? They're
now playing word games because they know this was sensationalist spin from a reporter who is well known for doing this. We have said all along no war plans were
discussed, no classified material was sent. You have the Secretary of Defense saying that. You
have the director of the CIA, the director of national intelligence, the FBI director all
testifying to that under oath, and they should be trusted with that. Nobody's texting war plans. I noticed this
morning out came something that doesn't look like war plans. And as a matter of fact,
they even changed the title to attack plans because they know it's not war plans.
Attack plans, not war plans. They are insulting all of our intelligence as if this is an excuse.
You know what a better excuse would be or a better response? Yeah. Our national security advisor, he's an idiot. And he added this person and
we're never supposed to be there and he's being fired yesterday. So we've dealt with the problem.
We're moving on. Instead, they're attacking Jeffrey Goldberg and the Atlantic as if it's
his fault that he, what did, whath say? That his contact was sucked in.
His contact was sucked in.
As much as I despise drug dealers, I ask you all the next time you drug dealers out there get caught to tell the police, oh, their number got sucked in.
Yeah, I don't know.
You ever been in a situation where you have a contact and somebody else's number?
Try telling that to the police.
Use that as a defense in a court of law.
I ask you to do that for my own edification and amusement
to see how it will work out.
Every guy in the country who's been caught texting another woman.
His phone or her number got sucked into my phone.
No guy would even bother to try that.
No one is even dumb even like try that. Nobody.
No one is even dumb enough to try that.
You got to have some other like, oh, my friend sent it to me or whatever.
You know, it was initials.
I didn't know what it was.
Fellas.
Trying to text Jeffrey Goldberg.
Fellas, try that one next time.
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And I'm Mila.
And we're the hosts of the Good Moms
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It's just too much.
The best we've seen yet,
the best actual response here has been from Secretary Rubio.
He's like, look, someone made a big mistake.
Yeah, he's like, that's it.
That's all we can say.
Let's take a listen.
A4.
First question, let me just say on the signal thing.
This thing was set up for purposes of coordinating how everyone was going to call.
You know, when these things happen, I need to call foreign ministers, especially of our close allies.
We need to notify members of Congress.
Other members of the team have different people they need to notify as well.
And that was the purpose of why it was set up.
Obviously, someone made a mistake.
Someone made a big mistake and added a journalist.
Nothing against journalists, but you ain't supposed to be on that thing.
So they got on there and this happened.
I've been, you know, I can speak to myself for my presence on it.
I think my role on it was just speaking for my role.
I contributed to it twice.
I identified my point of contact, which is my chief of staff.
And then later on, I think three hours after the White House's official announcements had been made, I congratulated the members of the team. I've been assured by the Pentagon and everyone involved that none of the information that was
on there, though not intended to be divulged, obviously that was a mistake and that shouldn't
have happened and the White House is looking at it, but that none of the information on there
at any point threatened the operation of the lives of our servicemen.
Somebody made a mistake. Just say it. But you know why you can't say it? Because then you have
to fire the idiot who made a mistake. That's why I'm like, you know, watching Hegseth have to contort himself
into a knot. This is, it's not even his fault. This is Trump. Trump is standing by and just
allowing this idiot to stay in his job. I also want to say this. I think Trump is losing his
edge. In the old days, anyone who flailed like that on television,
you're gone. That's right. That's the crime that Walt committed was being embarrassing on TV.
It was humiliating. You know, anybody, you don't even need like a 60 IQ to watch that and be like,
yeah, this guy is obviously lying. And Trump is not only allowing this, he's beclowning himself by allowing this idiot to keep working for him who's like, oh, it got sucked into my phone.
And now the White House said yesterday that Elon Musk's technical experts are – what technical experts do you need?
Big Paul's is on the case.
We need a forensic chain to look at how this happened?
The guy had the phone number in his phone,
and then he added the wrong number. It's not hard. It's done. Yeah, case closed.
We need an efficient review of this, not Big Ball spending weeks with a committee.
I just can't get, you know, for me, Ryan, you know, I'm watching these National Park Rangers
get fired, and, you know, all these other folks get fired maybe some need to go maybe some don't
whatever but this guy gets a second chance forgiveness you know 14 14 years of impeccable
performance reviews right and and you're fired yes because big balls didn't understand what your job
was and it and it's and it's had something in the word diversity yeah was in it um and so but mike
walsh gets to keep his job. This guy is fine.
Again, it insults the intelligence
of all good people. Next part. Let's go
to this one because this is great.
As you'll all recall, Mike Waltz
said, I have never met
and never communicated with Jeffrey
Goldberg before. Here's a photo
of him and Jeffrey Goldberg.
They're standing right next to each other.
And tell the world where they are because that's even worse.
Yeah, it's actually even better.
They're at the French embassy
where they are attending,
what was it,
some French documentary?
A Q&A with a French filmmaker.
Yeah, that's right.
Some Q&A for a French filmmaker.
He should be in Guantanamo.
I'll tell you,
it is a nice embassy
if we're all being honest.
It's a beautiful place.
It's incredible, yeah.
You know,
that is the heart
of Swamp Washington.
It's just, it's too much.
Again, where the guy says, I've never met and never communicated.
Except at the French Embassy.
Except at the French Embassy.
And here's a photo of me standing right next to him.
What, you think they didn't have a little conversation right before that?
Maybe that's when his number got sucked into his phone right it's just again you know i can say it over and over and then finally a6 let's put it up here
uh mike waltz apparently for some reason his venmo list is public i was talking to the team
this morning i was like bro am i the only guy who's in his private venmo list since i was like
20 years old like what are we doing here? Is Michael Waltz still walking around
with this phone that is known to just suck up random numbers? Yeah, that's right. This is a
dangerous phone. Would you want to get rid of this phone? This is a very, yeah, this is a bad phone.
This phone should be studied. So let's presume here that the CNN journalist and the MSNBC producer
and all these other journalists which were publicly available on Mike Waltz's Venmo also
got sucked into his phone. In terms of how this all shakes out, at this point, Trump has now allowed the
humiliation of this news cycle to continue. He has given congressional Democrats the greatest
blessing to drag out some dumb, long hearing process. Because now, if they don't firewall
so they can try and compel him,
of course, it's not going to happen. He refused executive privilege. The Secretary of Defense
has to testify legally before Congress. I think, what is it, four or five times a year or something
like that. And so they're obviously going to press him. If the Democrats do take the midterms,
what's the easiest, you know, Lewinsky style hearing type of thing to initiate? Classified
hearings, referring things to the day. You just
bought yourself two years of scandal for no reason. And, you know, people might think this is
dumb, but I mentioned this in the intro. Axios did some data analysis. This is the most viral
story of the Trump administration. This is everywhere. Andy Cohen joked about it on Watch
What Happens Live last night. There you go. So Bravo is joking about it.
That's what I mean.
But, okay, even take that out of it.
Go on TikTok or Instagram or any of these.
Everyone is making jokes about the group chat.
Like this has entered the zeitgeist.
Andy Cohen joked about it just talking about Signal as in everyone understands this.
Like didn't need any context.
Bingo.
It's just everyone understands the scandal. The whole country. If you're even like tangentially experiencing pop culture or the news or TV, this show, YouTube, whatever, you've heard about this.
This is a real thing.
Because everyone's made that mistake.
They have.
But nobody has defended it.
And nobody has defended it as stupidly as Mike Walsh.
And so I just keep coming back to this.
You have a guy who literally committed the greatest Washington sin that you can make.
Number one is jeopardize classified information.
Then the second greatest Washington staffer sin is you become the story.
You embarrass your boss.
And now his boss, who is firing tens of thousands of people based on efficiency claims and others and excellence in government and we're getting rid of DEI is keeping this idiot around. It's just shocking.
And the problem that Democrats seem to have here is that they seem hell bent on trying to
use this to get rid of Pete Hegseth. I noticed that. I was going to ask you about that because
I don't get it. They got him dead to rights. He's an idiot. It's done. Closed case.
Hegseth, I mean, look.
Should the guy have been sharing the info?
Waltz is a pro-war Washington creature.
I was going to say.
I think that makes him more.
And Democrats are more comfortable with pro-war Washington creatures who have the support of AIPAC.
Right.
And the pro-Ukraine war types, like that's, Democrats are just more comfortable
with that kind of guy
than with Hegseth,
who is more skeptical of,
I mean,
his signal chats notwithstanding,
like he's not exactly a dove.
He's not a dove.
He's not,
he's got a bad neocon pass,
but he's more MAGA,
let's put it that way.
Whereas,
well,
like you said i mean this guy
was arguing for war with russia like yesterday before he worked for trump he's like actively
trying to undermine right he's like you can see it in the group chat this guy's like no actually
we need to bomb yemen here's why because there's some chat gbt analysis 30 percent of the containers
are who knows where those goods are going and in europe you know they may manufacture some of it
and then other other component parts wind up in here.
So really,
we should go to war
with the entire world.
That's right.
It's like, okay, got it.
Again,
it's just the stupidest
possible move.
And watching the White House
and even J.D.
was attacking Goldberg.
But Democrats could get Waltz
if they would just go for it.
What are we doing?
Democrats just do.
We're attacking Jeffrey Goldberg.
I tweeted something to that rant. You know, what? Making're attacking Jeffrey Goldberg. I tweeted something to that
rant. You know what? Making us defend Jeffrey Goldberg. I hate Jeffrey Goldberg. I hate the
man so much. And I said this, I go, a journo exaggerating his headline, now a bigger problem
than being the national security advisor of the USA, actually adding said journo to the chat and
lying about it. As I said, you need a sub-60 IQ to go along with this.
And the better headline was, you know,
war planners exposed war crime in real time.
There you go.
That's a good headline.
You know what else is a good headline?
And he kept that out.
Right.
That they knocked that apartment building down.
You know, the other thing I can't really understand here about Goldberg
is he's clearly protecting Walsh to some degree because, yes, he burned him.
Because they were buddies before, obviously. But at the same time, if someone wash to some degree because yes, he burned him,
but at the same time, if someone was like, if I leaked something, let's say, and someone was like,
oh, I've never met Saga before. I'd be like, okay, well, here's a photo of the two of us together.
And actually here's whenever you added me and here's all of our past communications, just so
you all know, you know, in terms of. My original tip that they are in contact and that they had
been in contact previously, but he
burned him because he kind of had to.
Because at this point, you've added in, it's a huge
story. You have to burn the guy.
Exactly. Everything
Goldberg has done since then
affirms that original tip
and that original idea because
he has done everything he can. Yes, he burned Waltz,
but he's done everything he can to kind of
divert attention to Hegseth and to not burn Waltz further.
You're exactly right.
Yeah.
He feels guilty about what he did to Waltz.
Why is it up to us internet sleuths to go and find a photo of Goldberg?
If the guy says, I've never met you before, I'd be like, that's just literally not true.
I met you this time, this time, this time.
Goldberg said in his articles that I met him.
Yeah, he even said, I met him before in the article.
And so for Waltz to come out and say he didn't, it's just aggressively stupid. He even said, I met him before in the article. And so for Walsh to come out and say he
didn't, it's like just aggressively stupid. A liar. Yeah. It's just like the public record
and really what they are betting on. And this might be a good bet is that Maga and Trump are
so stupid that they will allow their intelligence to be insulted, to own the Libs and the Atlantic. The only people you're owning are yourselves.
Over the past six years
of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone,
I've learned one thing.
No town is too small for murder.
I'm Katherine Townsend.
I've received hundreds of messages
from people across the country
begging for help with unsolved murders.
I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.
They've never found her.
And it haunts me to this day.
The murderer is still out there.
Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case,
bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator
to ask the questions no one else is asking.
Police really didn't care to even try.
She was still somebody's mother. She was still to even try. She was still somebody's mother.
She was still somebody's daughter.
She was still somebody's sister.
There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for.
If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.
Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever.
I'm Erica.
And I'm Mila.
And we're the hosts of the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday.
Historically, men talk too much.
And women have quietly listened.
And all that stops here.
If you like witty women, then this is your tribe.
With guests like Corinne Stephens.
I've never seen so many women protect predatory men.
And then me too happened.
And then everybody else wanted to get pissed off because the white said it was okay.
Problem.
My oldest daughter, her first day in ninth grade, and I called to ask how I was doing.
She was like, oh dad, all they was doing was talking about your thing in class.
I ruined my baby's first day of high school.
And slumflower.
What turns me on is when a man sends me money.
Like, I feel the moisture between my legs when a man sends me money.
I'm like, oh, my God, it's go time.
You actually sent it?
Listen to the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday
on the Black Effect Podcast Network, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you go to find your podcasts. She was a decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero.
She was stoic, modest, tough, someone who inspired people.
Everyone thought they knew her until they didn't. I remember sitting on her couch
and asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I just couldn't wrap
my head around what kind of person would do that to another person that was getting treatment,
that was, you know, dying. This is a story all about trust
and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh.
I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right?
And I maximized that while I was lying.
Listen to Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Dave Portnoy over at Barstool News, or no, Barstool Sports, not Barstool News.
Call it Barstool News. I guess we could call it Barstool News.
Barstool Sports, Dave Portnoy put out a video and he was like, you know, guys,
Mike Wallace has got to go.
Let's take a listen.
I've seen a lot of people be like, oh, you're mad about this,
but we had a president like Biden with dementia who had the nuclear codes.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
That's exactly it.
That wasn't right then, and this isn't right now.
In this new administration, you want to take accountability.
Trump, you may love Michael Walz.
You love Pete Heskett.
You may love these guys.
Somebody has to go down.
To me, it's Michael Walz. He's the Hesketh. You may love these guys. Somebody has to go down. To me,
it's Michael Waltz. He's the one who added him to this conversation. But you can't have the top of the top security people in the United States with the most sensitive information in the
world adding random editors of a magazine that hates Trump's guts to a group chat talking about an attack before it
happens on a terrorist group. You can't poo-poo it. You can't downplay it. You have to sit up
there and be like, holy shit, this is a fuck up of epic proportions. There will be accountability.
I will get to the bottom of this. And frankly, I think I don't like calling for
people's heads. Michael Waltz, it seems like you're the guy who added him to the group chat.
You have to lose your job. Yeah. Basic. Yes. Basic stuff. You know, it literally says Michael
Waltz added you to the group chat. There's no sucking in. It's over. It's closed. There was
even there. Now the current spin from MAGA is, oh, one of his deputies added him.
Guess what?
They literally said, no, the deputy didn't add him.
I added him.
Okay.
So, I mean, the only way maybe that you could get around it is my deputy sent me the guy's contact.
And that's how the number got sucked into my phone.
Not even trying that.
But even if you did that, then fire the deputy.
Why are we
standing by this do you do you know who his deputy is because i do alex wong oh yeah alex wong been
around this town for a long time all right alex wong laura loomer's coming after a lot as you
should yeah great thank you laura for your service uh alex wong worked for tom cotton's
unreconstructed neocon a hundred percent probably been leaking to Jeffrey Goldberg since the day he came to Washington. This guy's a complete, like, just blob individual. You know, not a surprise that Michael Wallace
hired him. Those of us who track insider personnel have been tracking this guy for a long time. But
that's another thing, you know, for Wallace. Why are you protecting this guy then if it's not his
fault? My only, then I can only surmise, it's not his fault. It's your fault. Yeah, it's like there's the only way that this all went down. And yeah, Trump, for some reason, again, wants this to be the number one story that is surrounding him. I mean there. That is a much better news cycle for Donald Trump. Immigration is his number one
issue right now. Number one. Every single other issue is mostly underwater, according to a lot
of these tracking polls on issues. Now, sure, caveats and all that stuff, et cetera, but that's
where I want to be fighting. My incompetence on a group chat joke,
that's not where you want to be. And underneath that is that you're bombing Yemen because
you failed to end the war in Israel, which has the White House having to respond to Portnoy.
That's right. Whenever Portnoy is being used against Caroline Leavitt in the press room,
you're losing. So let's roll that real quick because it was just kind of funny.
That's right.
Can you just clarify who is investigating, who's leading that?
And also, Dave Portnoy, who endorsed President Trump, said today that he thinks that Mike
Waltz should leave.
Could you respond to that?
Sure.
Great respect for Dave Portnoy, but I just answered that previous question from Jennifer.
As for your original question about who's leading, looking into the messaging thread,
the National Security Council, the White House Counsel's Office, and also, yes, Elon Musk's team.
Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this to figure out how this number was inadvertently added to the chat. Again, to take responsibility and ensure this can never happen again.
Got all the greatest minds trying to figure this out.
Don't worry, Portnoy, we're going to get rid of it.
Are we technical experts?
Ryan, it's too much, man.
So Tulsi, who handled herself okay, you know, some lying two days ago,
was brought back to the Hill.
Let's roll some Tulsi from yesterday.
Because they're just still taking these jumps.
They are just going to take, this is every time you testify for Congress,
you're going to be forced to sit there and eat L after L after.
There's no defending it.
And watch. Let's take a listen.
The time Mr. Witkoff was actually in Russia during this chat discussion, was he not?
I was not aware of that.
Was he on his personal phone at the time?
I don't know.
Well, it's my understanding that he was indeed in Russia.
Director Gabbard, you were also traveling during this discussion, correct?
Yes.
And where were you?
I was traveling through the Asia-Pacific region.
I don't recall which country I was in at that time.
You don't remember the country?
I'd have to go back and look at the schedule.
We do, by the way, have news according to Witkoff.
Yeah, he didn't bring his personal phone.
He did not bring his phone.
So, okay, good.
Yeah.
No, but actually there's two things there going on there.
He goes, you guys, you idiots, you said that this was on my personal phone.
I don't even have my personal phone in Russia. And you're like, okay, but he did just confirm that this was on my personal phone. I don't even have my personal phone in Russia.
And you're like, okay, but you did just confirm
that this was on your personal phone, man.
You just admitted that
this is your personal phone. You're not supposed to do that
in terms of
official government records. They can penetrate your phone
while it's sitting on your bedside table.
And not to be annoying, Ryan, because
I do understand where people are going to take this
the wrong way and be like, oh, are you asking for more inefficiency?
I'd be fine if they used Signal, but you do need to preserve these records.
The reason why you preserve it is because there might be, let's say, a plot to assassinate the president of the United States.
That's never happened before.
And then maybe a guy named Jefferson Morley, 60 years from now, needs to get to the bottom of said stuff and literally
doesn't have access.
You know, some of my favorite books are the reconstructions of very, like, difficult policy
periods.
So, for example, the decision to oil embargo Japan.
It is so useful to go back and to read the internal discussion.
Cordell Hull said this, you know,
in a memorial, and you could see the cables. You had our ambassador being like, don't do it. This
is going to lead to this. Roosevelt, the Minimates in the Oval Office. You can literally watch it all
happen in slow motion. Same thing. Another one of my favorite books is called, it's like this,
no, it's The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam, and specifically a reconstruction of the U.S. decision
to escalate into Vietnam. Same thing. Reading the cables, McGeorge Bundy, Robert McNamara,
this stuff matters. I understand why the people in charge may not want it to be preserved,
but for historical purposes, this is actually important. Someday, some naval historian out there
is going to write about the ability of the Houthis, a non-state actor with limited technology, to fully blockade the entire Red Sea for the global empire.
That's a remarkable event, no?
Right.
Yeah, and we're going to have to rely on, like, Fox News clips.
Right.
We're going to have to rely on tweets and news clips and not be able to look back on it.
And what I'm just saying is not just a norm.
It's actually the law.
Like, you're supposed to have a record of preservation. And for this reason, to be able to go back and
for historical purposes and for subpoena and to make sure that the law is followed.
And, you know, just they're making a mockery not only of that, but really, again, I just keep
coming back to all of our intelligence. So same thing here. Director Ratcliffe from the CIA and Chelsea Gabbard still getting pressed.
And they just have nothing to say.
Let's take a listen.
Did this conversation at some point include information on weapons packages, targets, or timing?
Not that I'm aware of.
Director Gabbard, same question. Same answer and defer to the Department of Defense on that
question. Well, those are two different answers, but you're saying that did not, that was not part
of the conversation. My knowledge. Precise operational issues were not part of this
conversation. Correct. So that was previously, and they said precise operations were not included there. We showed you all the messages, guys. Like, it's pretty obvious.
Director of Ratcliffe for the CIA. Not that I'm aware of. What are you aware of then? You're not
aware of your own group chat? What's happening? I don't read every message in every group chat,
but that seems like an important one. Yeah, neither do I. But yeah, that's probably,
out of all the messages in that chat, that's the only one I'm reading, right? That's the one that
I'm like, okay, got it. Paying attention.
And, you know, maybe you would want to scroll back in your phone and look at it.
Look, I just, again, they are continuing this of their own making.
The easiest thing to do immediately after.
Mike Wiles, we appreciate your service.
Susie Wiles calls him up and says, Mike, listen, man, we all made mistakes.
You added a journalist. You added a journalist.
You added a journalist.
The president needs his resignation letter on his desk right now.
We've got to go.
We'll see you later.
We wish you the best.
And then you move on.
And everyone moves on.
It's a dumb mistake.
Okay.
Yeah, it's a really dumb mistake.
Yeah, there might be one or two things.
But instead, it's a one-day thing now becomes a one-week thing that we've been covering this.
I guarantee you the fallout and all this is going to continue.
Every Republican in Congress is going to get asked about this.
Every Republican or every member of the Trump cabinet, you're going to be pressed about this.
They're not even going to be able to do a press conference now forever.
I mean, Trump, every single – I watched the entire White House press briefing room.
Nine out of 11 questions were about this signal chat.
And she was like, is this all that you guys have to ask about?
And it's like, yeah, because you're lying.
And you just keep saying stupid shit.
Like, we're going to have our technical experts look into this.
This is not going away.
Right.
The press loves when an official says a thing that can be verified.
Oh, 100%.
Same.
And you can verify that it's not true.
Yes.
Like, they love that.
It doesn't matter what it is.
Right.
And, you know, I think the public loves it, too.
Oh, yeah.
Like I said, there's something about the story.
It has penetrated the zeitgeist.
People are loving it.
They're eating it up.
The memes are everywhere.
Real crime, but really stupid.
Yeah, it's the sheer stupidity of it.
And then if we pair that at a major political level, again, if I'm the government, what do I want my narrative to be?
I want it to be about tariffs.
I want it to be about immigration.
That's right.
We haven't even talked about the auto tariffs.
That's right, auto tariffs.
And we haven't decided on putting this show because it's actually kind of unclear what exactly they are. And I want to see the actual effect as they go in,
just in terms of the,
whether it applies to just finished cars or not.
So we'll probably cover it on Monday.
But the point is,
is that you want like news about things that you're doing
to be the thing.
And so again, like I said,
even on the deportations,
look, we can argue about due process
and all that stuff all day long.
At the end of the day,
this stuff is pretty popular, you know, in terms of deportation. I will acknowledge
that. Yeah, it's popular. Like, that's what the ground that I want to be fighting on. Just today,
there was some MS-13 operation. Same thing. That's what you want the news to be about. Now, they can
say, oh, it's your fault because you're not covering it. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. You're the people
who made a colossal national security mistake, and you refused to fire the guy and then beclown yourself for a 72-hour period by attacking the people who reported it as opposed to the people who were responsible for it.
You deserve everything that's coming your way.
So this is the car clown show that reminds me just of 2017, Except then, I think Trump would have had the
good sense to actually fire him. I mean, Scaramucci was fired after, what, 13 days?
Yeah, and they're accidentally buttressing the credibility of The Atlantic and Jeffrey Goldberg.
You're right. I know.
People are going to be like, oh, maybe that wasn't a hoax.
Isn't that the worst part?
That suckers and losers thing.
Isn't that the worst part, that The Atlantic has been getting a bunch more subscribers? It's like,
guys, why do you do this? You know? They need each other. They were failing.
They literally were going their road to bankruptcy before all of this.
And now you just gave them the number one story in the world.
It drove a ton of subscriptions.
I bet you they printed millions just off of this story. Don't they have Bezos' wife's?
No, Laureen Powell Jobs.
Even worse.
Steve Jobs' widow is the person who is bankrupt.
So they were going to be okay.
Yeah, they're always going to be fine.
But yeah, why they even pretend to need to make money is always like a whole lot of,
that's a difficult and different conversation.
Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone,
I've learned one thing.
No town is too small for murder.
I'm Katherine Townsend.
I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country
begging for help with unsolved murders.
I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.
They've never found her.
And it haunts me to this day.
The murderer is still out there.
Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case,
bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.
Police really didn't care to even try.
She was still somebody's mother.
She was still somebody's daughter.
She was still somebody's sister.
There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for.
If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.
Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever.
I'm Erica.
And I'm Mila.
And we're the hosts of the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday.
Historically, men talk too much.
And women have quietly listened.
And all that stops here.
If you like witty women, then this is your tribe.
With guests like Corinne Steffens.
I've never seen so many women protect predatory men.
And then me too happened.
And then everybody else wanted to get pissed off because the white said it was okay.
Problem.
My oldest daughter, her first day in ninth grade grade and i called to ask how i was doing she was like oh dad all he was doing
was talking about your thing in class i ruined my baby's first day of high school and slumflower
what turns me on is when a man sends me money like i feel the moisture between my legs when
a man sends me money i'm like oh my god it God, it's go time. You actually sent it?
Listen to the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network,
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you go to find your podcasts.
She was a decorated veteran,
a Marine who saved her comrades, a hero.
She was stoic, modest, tough.
Someone who inspired people.
Everyone thought they knew her.
Until they didn't.
I remember sitting on her couch and asking her,
Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real?
I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that
to another person that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying.
This is a story all about trust and about a woman named Sarah Kavanaugh.
I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right?
And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
In a special election for state Senate in Pennsylvania,
Democrats flipped a deep red Republican district.
James Malone ended up defeating the Republican candidate by just a few hundred votes. On the other hand,
you only have a few thousand people that end up voting in these races. This is Lancaster County,
the suburbs outside of Lancaster and the more rural areas there. Trump had won it by something like 15
points. Let's roll a little bit of James Malone, very Lancaster man, winning this seat.
There is no safe seat or there's no place that is not available to run.
Hours after polls closed across northern Lancaster County,
Democrat James Malone was projected the winner of Tuesday's special election.
You can certainly imagine that guy being a good time at the tailgate ahead of the birds game.
Can you not saga?
And apparently, so he was running against the chairman of the Lancaster County Commission,
who obviously is a high-profile guy in the area, but not terribly well-liked.
Elon Musk had invested some energy in this race. Obviously, he's a high-profile guy in the area, but not terribly well-liked.
Elon Musk had invested some energy in this race.
You know, he had, you know, a bunch of paid voters throughout the state in his database after, you know, offering, you know, 100 bucks to anybody that would sign his petition and then go out and vote against the law, by the way. But, you know, when you win—
The reason why I think this is so significant is not just the Trump margin, but the registration advantage. So one of the things that was a canary
in the coal mine ahead of the election was the crazy registration numbers coming out of Bucks
County and a few other places. This is something that Scott Pressler, who's one of those Republican
activists, really bragged about, about the ability to have registered Republicans. And that registration figure ended up being obviously a canary in terms of the
Republican advantage in the state of Pennsylvania and actually the flippening of some of these
districts that previously had gone for Biden and went to Trump. So the reason why this is
significant is that in this county, the Republicans actually held a huge registration advantage.
Now the seat opens up because the person who held it
left to go work for Dave McCormick,
that's currently a Republican in the United States Senate
for the state of Pennsylvania.
But the Democrat has not won the seat since 1979.
So like-
18.
Yeah, so look at-
1879.
Oh, it's really?
Yeah, it's like post-reconstruction.
Big deal.
Yeah.
Tally.
And the reason why it all matters is that in Pennsylvania, they're all doing post-Trump
analysis.
What do we even do?
Now, Josh Shapiro recorded a robocall that went to all of the people in the district.
Remember, Shapiro, dramatically more popular than any other Democrat in the entire state.
What is it, 13% approval margin or something like that?
It's crazy.
It might be 19.
You're right.
It might honestly even be higher.
Now, here we see—
I mean, you might be right.
It might even be 1979.
Oh, okay.
All right.
Because that's a Democratic district back then.
Regardless.
It doesn't matter.
Long time.
It's been a while.
18 or 1979.
Same thing.
Same day.
Let's just consider that what we see here is a blessing and a curse for the Democrats.
The blessing is this.
Before the election of 2024, these libs who are registered and want to vote in low turnout elections, they are ready to roll. They're ready to put up their signs and they're ready to vote and they're ready to donate and to get activated.
That's the midterm advantage. Same thing, reason why we saw big midterm gain there for the Democrat.
The problem is, is that in a high turnout election with very low propensity people,
people who have no idea what the state Senate even is, which I get it. If you're just living
your life, you're like, what is the state Senate?
You mean the United States Senate?
For those folks, they are dramatically more pro-Trump this time around.
So we don't want to read too much into this, but it's still obviously very important, especially for the midterms, because midterms is usually lower turnout, which means that the more dedicated people come out, and you just can't
look back at the Obama presidency and not say that 2010 genuinely did change everything.
Right, because they were winning special elections in 09.
Exactly. They were blowing it out in 09. You could see all the Tea Party stuff.
All the script was right there for those of us who are watching.
And Lancaster is a particularly well-organized area for the left. There's a group called Lancaster Stands Up that I've written about in the past, going back to
like 2018. They've been doing a lot of grassroots organizing and door knocking and building up their
local capacity. And so they might be slightly better positioned even in a special election
than in general. But Democrats are looking at this,
and what you saw from a lot of them was,
okay, now on to Wisconsin.
Yes.
Let's talk about that.
Can you break that down for us?
So Wisconsin, there's a Supreme Court race coming up
between the liberal is, or the Democrat.
It's a nonpartisan race.
What, Susan Crawford on that side,
and Brad Schimel is the county judge, former Republican state attorney general. was Susan Crawford on that side,
and Brad Schimel is the county judge,
former Republican state attorney general.
So even though it is a nonpartisan race, everybody in Wisconsin knows if you're Democrat,
you want Crawford.
If you're Republican, you want Schimel.
There are obviously major issues
that will come to the Supreme Court, abortion rights, but also gerrymandering and election laws.
That's what matters on the kind of national level.
Yeah.
Because Wisconsin, of course, will continue to be a battleground state.
Elon Musk, his groups have put in, he has put in something like $17 million so far.
It's like the most that there's been for a Supreme Court campaign already. It's,
what is it, April 1st. So this coming Tuesday is the election. Emily will be there.
Oh, really?
On the ground for the election. Wisconsin native. Democrats, you know, they have money.
They're, you know, they're obviously can't keep up with, you, but they're not going to be completely ignored and blanked off of the airwaves.
Wisconsin's going to have a Supreme Court race every year for the next six years or something, so we're going to potentially see a lot of swings back and forth.
Why do they care so much, though?
Why do they care so much here about the state Supreme Court?
Because of the gerrymandering cases?
The gerrymandering cases, which will influence whether or not, you know, the Republicans, when they took control in 2010 of the state,
redrew the boundaries for the state legislature and also for the federal one so that the House delegation has been imbalanced,
despite it being, people can look it up now, but despite it being a 50-50 state,
far more Republicans getting sent to Washington. So if you can chip away at that,
when you only have a three-seat deficit in the House, it's important to move from there to
retake control of the house for democrats and then
the supreme court decides when you can vote what the mail what the mail voting rules are what the
what the what the rules are around counting you just had this uh executive order from trump
yesterday trying to kind of take federal control of elections, it won't work because the federal government doesn't really have that level of control, especially without congressional action.
He tried to put in something in place that says, you know, ballots that come in after Election Day, which are mostly military ballots, you know, can't be counted.
But that so that's the battleground.
And the battleground is the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Got it.
When Pennsylvania flipped its Supreme Court in 2017, 2018, Republicans see that as a key reason that they lost Pennsylvania in 2020 because then the court opened up, you know, did redistricting and opened up mail voting
in a way that the Trump team thought was, you know, fraudulent and unfair and illegal and all
those things. Because they probably would have, whatever, we'll get into that. It's like, yeah,
you just happen to win the presidency with lower propensity voters next time, but whatever,
doesn't need to go into that. Yeah, as you said,
this election, I was just looking, determines whether you have the 4-3 liberal control. So
this literally will determine the flip ahead of midterms. So that's why it's so important.
And then more so, you actually, looking at some of the data, pretty, honestly, I'd be pretty,
feeling pretty good if I was a Democrat. Nearly 48% more
early ballots have been cast compared to the same point from two years ago. Yeah. I mean, I don't
know if I'm reading too much into that. Right. And this is low propensity because if you're voting in
the Supreme Court election, you care more than the average person. A lot about politics. Yeah. You
have a real, like, you're, no offense, but you're weird. People care a lot about the Wisconsin
Supreme Court. You might end up getting a couple million people turn out.
Yeah, so right now it says more than 345,000 people have returned their ballots, either by mail or by person.
That's crazy compared to 233,000 at this point just two years ago.
What is even the voting population of Wisconsin?
It can't be that many.
So, honestly, good for you guys.
That's pretty high voter participation.
But, I mean, they're also being bombarded with ads.
Apparently more than $81 million has been spent now on a state Supreme Court race, just to show you guys how important that is.
So not just Elon, who is moving in here.
But, you know, this Susan Crawford, she apparently has raised more than $25 million right now for the race so far.
They're not going to be—
They are actual.
They're in the game. million right now for the race to unfold. So they are actual. She's got George Soros apparently
going back, backing her. J.B. Pritzker, who has been doing some rallies and stuff. So they're
blanketing the entire state. And like I said, it's not that big of a state. So you easily could
reach a lot of people with this amount of overall media attention. So super interesting. Just, you know, we're always looking
for what does it mean, all of this, especially for the midterms. Like usually I think the rule
here is that with the midterms, these lower propensity special elections and all that,
you're going to have to really pay attention to them. It also goes to, it's a big test case of
Elon because, you know, there's still a lot of question over how much influence Elon actually had
on the Pennsylvania results because, you know, his people obviously want to be like, yeah, see our registration drive and all that.
I'm not going to downplay it.
But the fact is, is that we saw a national trend.
You know, you can only pay so many people or inspire them to come sign some registration.
And it would be different if Pennsylvania dramatically outperformed the rest of the country, but it kind of didn't you know
The same low propensity figures were across the entire nation from California to Texas
You know to even hear Virginia well the margins for Donald Trump
So you can see even where Elon and his groups had to do it in Virginia
Yeah, they still had a huge run-up right in overall tally. And obviously Trump won the popular vote.
So pretty important.
Right.
Yeah.
So keeping it all together, we're going to watch that, guys.
But the Democratic race, it certainly matters a lot.
And Emily's going to be on the ground.
It's actually fun.
We can get an on the ground report from her. Over the years of making my true crime podcast,
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