Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/21/26: Bessent NO IDEA Why Oil Going Up, Wild Trump Aide Natalie Harp, Van Jones Israel Propaganda, Fishback Bilzerian FL Fallout

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

Emily, Griffin, and Mac break down Treasury Sec Scott Bessent's latest comments about Oil prices and bleak job numbers, a bizarre letter to Trump penned by his unusually close aide Natalie Harp, Van Jones teaming up with Noah Tishby for Israeli propaganda, and finally we speak to FL candidate Aaron Baker who came in third place running against Randy Fine. We ask him why Randy won and what he thinks about the racist comments from other Florida candidates James Fishback and Dan Bilzerian.   Emily: https://www.youtube.com/@AfterPartyEmily Mac: https://www.youtube.com/@GoodPoliticGuy Griffin: https://www.instagram.com/griffinpdavis/      To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and 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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Listen to Pro Society 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 else. 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. Good morning, everyone. It's other breaking points Friday, and I'm here with my two favorite co-hosts on Fridays. We've got one after-party host, Emily Jashinsky, and we've got Mr. Good Politic guy. McCauley Holmes here. What's going on, guys? Happy Friday. appearance. We love it. We love it. Crystal is sending her child to college. Very emotional for her. She's probably in tears right now. And old. Who's old? Who's old? Oh, Crystal's old. Okay. All right. I'm not touching that.

And Ryan, I have no idea where Ryan is. Bless you. I have no idea where Ryan is. Do you guys know where Ryan is? I don't either. I thought he was in San Francisco. He was sending us pictures from San Francisco. So I'm going to go with that's where he is. But it's hard to say. At any given moment, it's hard to say. It's like Carmen San Diego. Where in the world is Ryan San Francisco? So let's get to the show. Big show. More econ news. Those U.S. Treasury bonds that we love to hear about are sliding. Emily's going to talk about that. I personally have been digging deep into a lustful romance, friendship, something more, between one Miss Natalie Harp, the assistant to our beautiful President Donald Trump. excited to get into that. Mac is taking a look at Van Jones, who is out to do some debunking about videos in Gaza. We'll see how well his debunking goes. And finally, Emily, who is our guest that we have here today?

Well, we have Aaron Baker on the show. It's a name you might remember because Aaron joined us last year. He decided to primary Randy Fine from the right. And we're going to talk to him about how that race shook out. He ended up having to run against him. Dan Bolzerian and Randy Fine. But also, we're going to talk to him a bit about his support for James Fishback. So it's going to be, I think it's going to be a somewhat, I don't know, spicy conversation, Griffin, dare I say. Emily went woke. Yeah. Not to spoil too much, but Emily has gone fully woke. Yeah.

That's right. I'm a woke general, woke 3.0. I'll be leading the charge. Mm-hmm. Yes. You're going to discharge Kyle Kalinsky from the position. All right, but let's get to the news. Why don't we start with our favorite econ guy, Scott Besson,

who spoke to the crowd about a spike in oil prices? Let's take a quick listen to that. Yeah, well, look, anything that happens within a 24-hour period is noise. And, you know, I think that once the market understands that we are focusing on fiscal consolidation and that we are trying to bring the market back into equilibrium in a thinly traded market. I think, you know, I'm confident that bonds will continue declining. We've got a spike in oil prices today that I don't really understand. So our announcement is for economic action.

And I think that the economic action will mean that oil prices will come down sooner. So, Emily, what do you make of that? Because obviously, we know the bravest thing that you can do as a man is to admit that you don't know something. Did you see people comparing that to a Parks and Rec moment? We don't really know where the spike is coming from? No, I know. I missed that. The Treasury Secretary. So he was also on CNBC, and I'm just going to read a bit here from the Chief Economics correspondent in the Wall Street Journal's summary of that. He says, Treasury Seventh discussed the decision to make a surprise change to debt management, warning, or he said markets weren't properly pricing fundamentals, warranting a more activist approach. This is what played out yesterday. He also said plans for fiscal consolidation are forthcoming. So this is Besson's quote on CNBC. We're trying to signal that we think this is a thinly traded area of the market, that we're in August,

and there's been a lot of corporate issuance that's influenced the market. And we believe that there are many underlying factors in turn that the market is not looking at. And we're going to make a market in these, we believe that these yields don't reflect the underlying fundamentals. So that's what he's repeating over and over again, goes on to say, people have bad information. I have asymmetric information. So I think the market should think, well, why would we have joined the Japanese in the intervention at this time? Do we know something the market doesn't know that in terms of being willing to do, to do you know what I would call treasury twist? So now we have the treasury twist here in terms of the bond market. What do I know that the market doesn't know

So I think the market's probably gotten a little ahead of itself. A lot of people, not much to do in August. I'm going to read from CNBC here just this morning, looking at Treasury yields rebounding in the headline, wiping out the decline following Besson's intervention. So they say bond yields climbed on Thursday coming back from the pullback. They saw the previous day after the Treasury Department announced an intervention aimed at easing pressure on longer dated government debt. And let's just pause there as well because one of the things we talked to Jeff Stein about, earlier in the week is that Donald Trump, when he did Liberation Day back in April 2025, one of the things that, well, actually the one thing, that had him willing to release some of the

pressure that Liberation Day applied globally was that he saw the bond markets get, quote, a little yippie. So just everyone download that in their mind. Trump does care a lot about this, as he should, and CNBC goes on to say yields on 10-year U.S. Treasuries, the main benchmark for mortgages, auto loans, and credit card debt moved more than five basis points higher to 4.7%. The yield level was above the level it held before the 8.30 a.m. announcement Wednesday that Treasury would be stepping up its bond buyback program. The yield on the 30-year treasury bond, the primary focus of the accelerated buyback, was up more than five basis points at 5.248%. The yield on the two-year treasury note was last seen up less than one basis point at around 4.185%. CUNBC says the moves underscored

the difficulty of market interventions, particularly at a time when U.S. debt faces a slew of factors that have been pressuring yields higher. Now, he announced, made that announcement Wednesday morning that they're going to double the size of the government debt buybacks starting on September 9th and and then running through November 4. You know, this is Scott Besson at his, like this is his favorite thing to do, basically. Like, this is his passion? Is the strategy just to try to gaslight the market into not accepting the fundamentals

of like what's actually underlying the market itself? It sounds like he's just trying to, because you have compounding factors of, you know, U.S. national debt just at $40 trillion. You have the Iran war that's driving, you know, inflation higher than it otherwise would have been. You know, you have the tariffs and the rebounding effects of that. All of this is, like, coinciding with this bond crisis. And he's basically saying, no, no, no, I know things that, like, the market doesn't know.

So just, like, just trust the process. We have this fully under control. Yes. And the debt buyback. I mean, with the debt buyback, he's basically, like, using Klarna at this point, right? to like pay off our American debt, or he's using loans to buy more debt? Well, here's how Peter Schiff reacted. He said, Besson said the free market is mispricing long-term bond yields.

So he wants to use the superior judgment and power of central government planners to correct the mistakes of capitalism. Good thing we didn't elect a Democratic socialist president. So it's an attack on Bessent that from the right saying, listen, what we're going to do is correct the market's pricing from the central government. And so, yeah, you could call it gaslighting or you could call it having access to asymmetric information, Mac, and you are working with the symmetric information. Right, right. So obviously on Thursday, Brent Crude, do we have this tar sheet? Brent Crude went up to 9460 a barrel. That is its highest since July 24th, drop site reported, pulled back down to about $93 a barrel oil drop site reports has now risen for five straight sessions as traders price in. tighter Middle East supply and the risk of further escalation. Yeah, you just saw that on the screen. So, yeah, it was, I was told that the Strait of Hormuz is completely free and open for transit, right? And the 51st state.

And the 51st state that Trump has now taken control of. There was a meme going around. I don't remember. I think it was real. I think someone, oh, yeah, it was that, what was the guy who, like, as soon as Charlie was killed last year, the Bryn? Is that his name, Bryn? Brin Hollihan. Bryn Holleyhand. He was like, if we can rename the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America,

why don't we call it the straight of America? So something could be in the works on that point. We're not sure. Something to there. We've got another clip from Besson here about jobs. Should we play that? Yeah, let's roll. Let's roll that one. All right, because he's, because he's bringing asymmetric warfare to all sorts of the parts of our economy, including the job market. Let's take a listen. You know, I just wanted to get your read on the economy as we see oil prices marching higher again. We have seen tremendous resilience, as you noted, from the consumer, but there are signs that the job market may be cracking a little bit, got a weak job job report last month. I'm curious about your assessment as to how we can handle all of this.

Yeah, I think the jobs numbers are quite noisy. And, again, Sarah, the other thing that's important, too, is like the jobs that we're seeing are going to America. And after the deportations that we've seen during President Trump's administration and the closing of the border, that this unfettered migration, we don't need to produce as many jobs. Okay. Well. From yippie to noisy. I want to just say, like, Scott Besson is obviously a serious person. In what sense? We're kind of clowning on him for these, like, ridiculous quotes.

but in the sense that, like, he's a mastermind behind the scenes. Like, he, this is, you know, he knows a lot of this, like, the back of his hand to the extent anybody can. And so all that is to say, he's a serious person to the extent that, like, he is a deep student of the markets. He understands, you know, to the extent that somebody can, and this is part of the problem, what happens in these spaces. And he is now, I think, having the time of his life, engineering. it from the background. Like, that's what I was saying when, I'm like, this is Scott Besson in his favorite position. Like, he is loving this. I feel like you can see that he is loving this because he gets to play act as like the mastermind behind the scenes. Now, I'm looking at, this is Jeff

Cox writing in CNBC saying that Besson's interventions hasn't worked. We're talking about, let me pose me, we're talking about, if I'm remembering the number correctly here, he can confirmed as much as $4 billion. Let me just pull this up. $4 billion of what? Yeah. So he confirmed that the size of the buybacks could exceed $4 billion. $4 billion.

And so Cox then writes, it's not working. He says basically not all the factors that play are fundamental. They include rising competition from corporate bond issuance, like Besson said, as well as suddenly attractive yields of other sovereigns, including Japan, a correlation with oil prices that in turn increases inflation fears and increasing term premiums or the extra yield investors are demanding. He says to combat those problems, Besant could seek cooperation with the Federal Reserve, because guess who's at the Federal Reserve now, Kevin Warsh, but has said that the two entities, Bessett has said the two entities, quote, would work together in dealing with complications in the bond markets and as the central bank manages its own treasury holdings. He quotes some. somebody who's the chief credit officer at Moody's saying there's also been a structural shift in who buys U.S. government debt as central banks shrink their balance sheets and traditional duration buyers reach the limits of how much additional issuance they can absorb. New buyers, such as leveraged hedge funds, that's Besson's background, running relative value strategies are playing a bigger role. So what they really need, frankly, is an end to the war more than anything else. And that's like the most obvious point.

there are deeper underlying problems. They have, they still have a tariff regime. Lest we forget, yes, the Supreme Court overturned some tariffs, but they do still have a tariff regime in play that is economically, well, I was going to say risky, but it's influential in terms of all of this. But the war itself, with what it's doing to oil prices, is what they need to have an end to, and they have absolutely no end to it. And now people in D.C. are saying, well, Besson is more important than Hegseth. Like, that's the line. I think it was in political playbook yesterday, that Besson is now more important than Hegseth because he's trying to give Trump room to deal with this economic

fallout from his perch at Treasury. And it's like, good luck, because the one thing that you need to do is actually just get back to the pre-war status quo in the Strait of Hormuz. And you will be in a wildly different position. Good luck with that, though, because there's... Iran knows that we have elections coming. up. Iran knows that's important to Trump and Republicans, and you're in this mess of your own making. Yeah, I mean, that's what this all comes down to at the end of the day, right? Is that you have this

memorandum of understanding and then it sort of fell apart. It was sort of like I would consider it to be somewhat of a surrender document, kind of rightfully so, given the fact that we, I think, by any stretch of the imagination, didn't win this war. But they've ended up in a situation now where a couple of days ago, Trump is posting this, you know, image, we control the straight of Hormuz. He says there's no talks with Iran that are even on the table right now. So there is, there's, there's, there's, there's not even a hypothetical off ramp or a long-term resolution to this into the future. And so I'm, I'm looking at Scott Besson and like, you know, he may be knowledgeable on, on what he, on the markets and how they function at a basic level. But like, what is he supposed to do if they've been completely backed into a

corner? And Trump at this point has made the entirety of this war about control. over the Strait of Hormuz and is unwilling to make any of the concessions that would be necessary to actually end the war. I mean, we've been backed into a corner at this point. It just, it reeks of desperation. Yeah. I think desperation is a good word for that. And I think asymmetric is the best word, though, Emily. It is the best word. It is the best word. But what I was going to say is this is why, well, okay, so Besson understands. To Max Point, yeah, Besson understands this world, but he also, again, just to emphasize, Kirstle and I were talking about this with Japan. Like his Japanese intervention, it's something that

had happened before. But with him, I just feel like he really relishes this role of playing like global economic mastermind. And again, like it doesn't matter. I mean, I guess it matters a lot. But until you end the war, you're going to see these. problems ripple throughout the rest of the economy. And it doesn't, that wouldn't make the rest of the problems go away, but it would put us in a situation where you're not seeing this insanity. And yet, that's the one problem. That's the intractable problem in all of this. And so he's trying to work with what he has, but he can't change that. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pesto survive the first bite?

Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.z.a for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived and I've spent my life experience.

exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who lived through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Pro's Society. the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real.

messages inside compelling characters, and that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Well, Emily, you mentioned sanity, which I think leads us to our next segment, because what is more insane than young love. Of course, I'm referring to one miss Natalie Hart. Now, there's been a lot of stuff this week coming out about Trump's aide Natalie Harp and the extent of their relationship.

Some of the hits that have been coming out across the week are that there is a very strong physical proximity to the president from this one Natalie. There has been. been reports that she once slept in a locker room. She spent a summer sleeping in a locker room at Trump's bed minister golf club to remain close to him after she was denied a room. There was another story about her hopping into the trunk of a motorcade car so she could remain near the president. Sort of a loony-tunes amount of action with her chasing after the president. There was another story where they were on a golf course and she wasn't allowed into one of the golf carts. So she ended up jogging feverishly behind to catch up with the golf cart brigade. And there have

also been reports of letters that she leaves the president. She is known as his human printer, the one that actually writes the amazing truth social posts that we all read and report on the show every day. He dictates them out loud. And then she types them up. He does what, Griffin? And sends them. He dictates them out. And so I wanted to give a taste of who this person is from her own words, from some of her time on O-A-N to get a little flavor. And then I want to read one of these letters to the president. Well, and we should just to set this up if people haven't been following this, basically this kicked off because of that Washington Post report that Trump left Air Force One, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the press corps and many of his own staffers because of what we now know, according to the reports, was a piece of Israeli intelligence that a surface-the-air missile on the ground in Ankara

could potentially take down Air Force One. Our intelligence services didn't judge it as serious, a serious threat. Trump, anyway, we don't know if it was because of Secret Service or Trump himself, goes on, leaves Air Force One and takes Natalie Harp with him as one of the few people that were taken from Air Force One onto the catering truck and making the escape. And so that kicked off this latest wave. Senator John Ossoff goes in, gives us big viral speech and says Trump would rather be. Yeah, let's rock it. And while the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks.

So he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar. Wow. Wow. Okay. So then Aosov said this particular, I think Jen Saki pushed him on it. And Assov said this particular aid has been referred to as his security blanket and the like. And the right freaked out. Scott Jennings freaked out and was saying that's like a very unbecoming of a senator. How dare you pick on? Natalie Harp, who is a, she does genuinely attribute Trump to surviving cancer because he did what's called Right to Try in his first administration. Yes. And that did allow her to have access to experimental cancer treatments that can actually change people's lives and can. It's a good thing. Which other doctors have pushed back on saying that those drugs, the drugs that helped her were

actually already available, perhaps, but she has connected it to his right to try. Yeah, I didn't see that. That may be true. I'm not an expert. No, but you're right. She is the one who connects it directly to that. Her brother went on, I think CNN with Aaron Burnett and said that's exactly what it is. She attributes that to Trump. And these rumors about her had been circulating for a while because she is really close to the president.

And we'd heard previously about notes that had found their way, I think, into the presidential bedroom. And so it had been under the surface. But then because of the Washington Post report on leaving Air Force One, it exploded into a major story this week. So with all of that said, Griffin, this little explanation of who Natalie Hart is, she was previously on American News Network, anchor, ended up working in the White House,

has been with Trump ever since. Let's roll it. Let's hear from her own words for a second. We can't talk about winning back the House and Senate in 2022 and the White House in 2024. If we don't act on the fact that we actually did win the White House and the Senate in 2020, We shouldn't be afraid to say that because it's true.

We the people know America, as we know it, could be ending in the next two or four years. Oh, wow. Which is exactly what President Trump is warning of. They think if they can get President Trump, they can get the 75 million people to shut up and stand down. And they were as President Trump said at CPAC yesterday, each of us, if we haven't already, have a decision to make. Not in 2022 at the ballot box, but right here and right now to choose a side. And by the way, sidelines don't count. Sidelines do not count.

Mack, what do you make of this? Can I just make a little quip here? It's like the joke news segment that 30 Rock would run. Like, you know what I mean? It's like if you did a 30-rock cutaway, like making fun of segments like this, it watches exactly like that. OAN definitely always reached to me

as the thing that's on TV in the movie. It's the fake news show in the movie. But Mac, what are we to make of this? is how they first became so connected over the stop-the-steel thing? I mean, the cancer thing that you said makes a lot more sense to me because, and I was talking to Griffin earlier about this, like, she really does come across in the letters that she's put out in the behavior of chasing him down the golf course. Like, she wrote a whole letter apologizing for her behavior.

Like, I'm so sorry if I embarrassed you or whatever. It really is like she's in a cult, and Trump is just her personal. savior. So it does track on the cancer thing if she credits him with like saving her life or whatever, but it's just bizarre, man. Like this is some of the strangest stuff I've ever seen. Because even, even you see it in like the cabinet meetings, right? Like everybody understands that Trump kind of wants everybody to like jerk him off in these cabinet meetings and they go around the table and everybody like praises him in their own little way, Marco Rubio, Pete Hexeth, you're the greatest president ever. You've stopped 800 wars, whatever else. But this is like a true believer.

Like, I don't think necessarily that Marco Rubio believes it when he's sucking up to Trump. This is somebody who was like fully drank the Kool-Aid. This is my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ here. Yeah. Well, Griffin, do we have the letters? Because the Daily Beast says, yeah, pulled these up so people can see exactly what Max's talking about. And Emily, do you have like some sultry piano or maybe like a saxophone you could play while I read this? All right.

You could also just sing. This is the letter. Dear Mr. President, I'm sorry. I thought I was the only one left behind last night and had no idea Margot's car was also pulled over and sent back to the airport. Since I was alone in the van outside customs without my passport, I panicked and should have just called Secret Service instead of you. I also am sorry if I was an embarrassment walking the course in Scotland. The first day I was told there were no carts and people walked, which is why I walked. The second day I was specifically asked by, I forgot who his name was, but one of the main people who worked there if I could continue walking.

and tell any other girls who had head out there to do the same to spare the course any more cards. If there's anything else I've done to cause you trouble, please forgive me. I know that some people have said, I haven't been texting them back. And there have been some international cell issues. John was having technical issues on the plane, too. I want things to always be right between us. I also know that I've been distracted all week, forgetting to eat throughout the days, and even forgetting to sleep, and only catching a couple hours at a time.

I haven't been myself dwelling on the past and the pain of losing my dad, and I started letting the remarks of people who haven't bothered me before get to me, not because I care what others think, but because I see myself being lowered in your eyes and good opinion. That is the fear, you see, because I never want to bring you anything but joy. I'm sorry I lost my focus. You are all that matters to me. I don't want to ever let you down. Thank you for being my guardian and protector in this life.

That's what I wanted to use this card for When you saw me at the cash register And once again did what you didn't have to do And gifted me with the mementos of this trip of a lifetime A Coming of Age I will return a better person I have to sign off now As the cars are leaving

See you soon with all my heart Natalie And did you notice she uses caps I mean the viewers might not be able to see this But she uses capitalizations in a Trumpian style Yeah that's interesting aping him. And I think this reminds me a lot of something that I found, I shouldn't probably say this, but I found this in Mack's stuff directed to Sager. It reminds me of how Mac writes to Sager.

That's true. That's exactly. So those were- My guardian, my protector in this life. Yes, capital P protector. But it reminds me of that woman that was dating the like a basketball, like billionaire guy who's like, I'm his little rabbit. Remember that clip? I'm his little bunny. Not important.

Listen, Griffin, I know you're really big into sports, but yeah, just trying to look like a Dodger's hat on. Well, so let's get into the source sale a little bit here because these were given to Michael Wolf.

And Michael Wolf's reporting ranges from insane, like not true to totally true. He's kind of like an establishment TMZ. worse. He admits to like completely making things up basically that sometimes he dramatizes. Yeah. And that's, if you're purporting to be a journalist, that means that you're often writing fiction. So anyway, all this is to say, this is an actual copy of a letter. And Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman in their book reported on some of these letters as well and said that they were being left in Trump's personal spaces. So from conversations that I have had about all of this, everybody thinks this is

weird. Yeah, everybody circled the wagons around Natalie Harp this week and defended her vociferously. Nobody knows, honestly, nobody knows what's really happening if it's more than just this emotional fawning from Natalie Harp, which I think is perfectly plausible. Like, top aides do get access to the living space at the White House because they're working as soon as the president gets up and probably as the president's going to bed. So it's not unheard of that staff would be in the residence. And that could be. quote-a-quote personal spaces. And it could totally be a one-way love affair, right? Like Trump is, he prizes loyalty. Here you have somebody who's a little weird and has this deep emotional connection to him, credits him with saving their life and knows that he loves loyalty and loves people

who fawn all over him and plays to that and has a perfectly reasonable access to the residents. Or it could be not that, which is the implication. And I honestly have no idea. I don't think that people who are in, like, Trump circles don't have any idea. There's no way that there is a full-blown sexual interaction happening, which some are alleging. I mean, there's no way? I think it's a little bit more like a nurse caretaker situation than a sexual. I mean, there's just no way that Trump, at his current shape and age, can even physically perform. Yeah, I mean, he's a shape that's never been invented before.

Like, I just don't see, there would need to be like a nuclear reactor amount of blue chew to make that happen. So I think it's something a little bit sadder. I think it's, yeah. The nuclear blue chute. Well, what's even sad, the saddest part about this is that there's like a zero percent chance Trump read that letter in the first place. Right? Like, there's no shot. Well, because somehow it got to Michael Wolf, which tells me that someone else intercepted it and was leaking it to the press.

Michael Wolfe has also reported that Melania was not seen on the 2024 campaign race with Trump because she did not like Natalie's proximity. Melania did actually come out yesterday to give a public speech at the White House for the first time. Maybe she's feeling some of the heat from this story. But there was some defenders of Natalie and people who were very aghast at John Ossuff's cruel catty remarks. And I, of course, Mac, want to your reaction to this, our favorite CNN panelists, Scott Jennings, who was challenged on his attacks on Asoff. Let's all take a listen to that. Go ahead and just play it because there's just such a long history of this. Trump punching down,

insulting women. Let's just play it. I've never complaining about it. You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slops, and desks. disgusting animals. But what we want to do is to replenish the security trust fund. You are the worst reporter. No one to see. She and it has no ratings because of people like you.

You know, she's a young woman. I don't think I've ever seen you smile. I've known you for 10 years. I don't think I've ever seen a smile. You know why? Is there something incriminating in the quiet, sir? Quiet, quiet,

Quiet, Piggy. I mean, Scott, Dan's question was pretty straightforward. If you're going to be outraged over traveling on a plane with Natalie, are you going to be outraged over all those things? I do not believe in demeaning women in any way, number one, number two. So did not, so did the president demean women and was that unacceptable? The issue I have with this is. Are you outraged?

They're not about that. The issue I have. The issue I have with this is Natalie Harp is not a public figure. No worries. She has no. She has no ability to be honest. You are not answering the question. You are saying the question again, Scott.

You continue to distract. All right. Well, that's the incredible moderation at CNN where you can't hear a single thing. Mac, is Natalie Harp a private person? I'm so confused by that. Like, what do you mean? She's a top age. She's constantly making public appearances with him.

Like, in what way is she, and she can't defend herself. Like, this is, it's insane. I mean, the hypocrisy angle of it, obviously, like, it's obvious. You don't even really need to make that point. Scott isn't going to, you know, admit any of that at the end of the day. I guess I'm just sort of like, I watched the John Ossoff clip. And if anything, I'm like, he could have gone way harder. Like, what is the outrage meter for Republicans getting upset about this?

because like what was actually offensive about what he said? It was like kind of a vague implication of like maybe there's something going on there. But like, okay, Trump says worse on an average Tuesday. What are we talking about? I think it, so the only thing I would disagree with on that, like it's glaringly hypocritical from Scott Jennings and laughable, all of that. I think it might be a tiny problem for us off in the same way that some of this was a problem for Biden. Not a massive problem, but there's a, I guess a broader issue. if you are campaigning, and this is where actually some of the dark woke gets it right. If you're

campaigning on restoring American civility and norms, and then it's not so much like everyone has low expectations, I think, at this point of the people who defend Trump. But Asaf, if you're trying to like take the, when they go low, we go high route and go above what you say are the bad standards and expectations and then you do stuff like this, it makes people be like, oh, come on, man, like, which one is it? Like, we either have to go gloves off or you have to, like, you can't have it both ways. And I think that's where just politically, not morally, but politically, I think that's a little bit of an issue. Like, you have to choose Elaine. Like, you either have to go full gloves off or, like, who's a good example of somebody that's?

Abdul-L-Said is probably a good example of that. Yeah, he's a good example of that. He's a little sassy. Which example of which side? Of gloves off. I think he's sort of dark woke, yeah, at this point. Right. But I mean, you got to go one way or the other. I get your point, Emily, but I also think there's almost no appetite for the, you know, they go low, we go high attitude anymore with the Democratic voter base.

Like, at this point, it's, you know, everybody's saying, fuck it, you know, whatever. We've had eight years of a Trump presidency, term one, term two. Like, there are no standards anymore. And even, you know, to the return to civility, I don't, that's not something that I personally care about. But like, even if you are quote unquote dark woke or you're a little bit edgy or your gloves off from like a democratic politician's perspective, that's still going to be like infinitely more civility based than what we're getting from the Trump administration. Like it's almost unfathomable to think of a democratic version of Donald Trump that is as brash and

and, you know, up front about just being kind of an asshole all the time. Like, I can't really make a comparison on the left to any major political figure like that. Yeah. There's nobody that will ever be like Donald Trump. Like, that's, there's just no comparison. Nobody who will be on a debate stage being like, only Rosie O'Donnell. This was never going to happen. So, yeah, it's a question of how post-Trump Republicans handle that.

But I do think Assoff, like, when he was going viral, maybe this isn't his fault. Maybe he's not trying that. Well, I don't know. I think he's pretty clearly doing a gentle Obama impression. Oh, yeah. Just like we see Josh Shapiro and those sorts. With Obama at home. Well, and you can see the, you can see all the camera crews with him. He brings like a professional camera crew with him to get all these different angles at every single one of these rallies. It's the lower angle looking up. That's, that's, that's the Osaf shot or whatever. He's documentary. And he's on that, he's on that T. So he's gotten himself all, like, jacked over the last couple of years. Like, he's making a run for it. I guess the question,

for both of you, and maybe Mac in particular, who is a fan of the more Kyle Kalinsky, dark, woke angle is, you know, Trump is so crazy? Is the main Dem electorate going to just want someone that's exceedingly normal now? Go back to normal. Or do they want someone like Abdul, who is going to be Trumpian, but for the things that the left likes? And I guess that is the main question for the Demelectorate. Well, I mean, that's, you know, I don't want to make this sort of like my wishcasting, but I think right now the energy is more in the Abdul lane. I think this is why you're seeing sort of a left insurgency, all these DSA candidates that are winning. And you know, you can see candidates that are outspent, you know, 10 to 1, 20 to 1 in some cases. The media is sort of, you know,

stacked against them. The establishment is stacked against them. And they're still winning some of these races or at least cutting it, you know, extremely close. So the energy right now is definitely in the dark woke camp. The question then is the 2028 Democratic presidential primary roles around are, and I've seen this from, you know, even some of my, like, family and friends who are sort of more like standard liberals or whatever, progressive lids maybe. And I do, like, it, Ossoff makes me a little bit afraid because I hear them and they're like, oh, you know, he's, he's good looking, he's very well-spoken, like he has this calming effect. Like, I could see somebody like that being a real threat to the left.

And he's polling very high, Mac, just to push back on it. Like, he continues to be putting up numbers in the polls and putting out some sort of liberal pheromones that people really can't describe on any specific policy level other than, oh, damn, this guy got on some testosterone. He got jacked up and he's looking good in these low angles. And, you know, I want to feel good about my politician again. And he's, he's, virile in a way that, you know, we had Biden before. So I don't know. That's true. No, it does, It concerns me. I hope the energy stays till 2028, but I'm not fully convinced. It was kind of a problem for Beto against Ted Cruz back in what was that 2018 and that like he tried to be on the one hand, Kennedy-esque, right?

Was like Kennedy maxing. And then on the other hand was trying to go gloves off against Trump. And you just, I think you really do just have to pick a lane. Otherwise people sniff it out. It depends on who you're running against. Like if it's a, if you're up against a weak Republican candidate, or crazy republic, whatever, you can start, or a super MAGA Republican candidate, you can start pulling some of that, that off in a way that's helpful. But I don't know, I think the evolution is to just go fully gloves off.

That seems to me where people are, but that is interesting, Mac, that like people, normies, you know, are watching this and I like, I kind of like that. I like the way things were. And you are going to, it's going to be the same ecosystem in 2028

with the establishment and the media. They're going to pull out the same arguments. Oh, you know, let's say, dual runs. Oh, he's not electable. Like, you know, whatever. He sort of has this energy in the Democratic voter base, but like he couldn't win in a general election. They're going to pull out the same arguments that they did in 2020 and in 2016. It's just going to come down to whether or not the voter base falls for that again. Wasn't Beto's Vanity Fair cover Born to Run? Wasn't that the tag on his cover? I would like to give that tag to Natalie Harp, her chasing after the golf carts.

I think that would be a great tag for her. Born. Run, Miss Natalie. So that's good for Miss Natalie. So undignified. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pasto survive the first bite?

Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

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Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.

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Gaza and how the images are fake. And I will say this video was made in the Year of Our Lord 26, maybe a few years late. Let's take a listen. Explain who Noah Tishby is, by the way. Noah Tishby is a like official Israeli propagandist. She's like worked for Israeli PR and is ignoring my invites to come on the show. Let's take a listen. You're seeing right now did not happen. This also didn't happen. I'm hearing with Van Jones. We now have this world where when you see something on social media, you have to ask yourself the question, is this real?

The people who want to divide, who want to distract, who want to turn people against each other, have super weapons to do so now. Because, you know, somebody looks at their phone. They assume that what they're seeing is real. I think that's why we have to take a lot more seriously, this information. There's a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week battle for the mind.

It's the people who are on Twitch and TikTok and all these other platforms that are you getting literally millions and millions of views. If you care about facts, you're a disadvantage. Even though the fringe media is terrible, you have legacy media that's also terrible. I'm falling for nonsense. For instance, you know, the picture that broke everybody's heart

of the so-called starving maybe turned out to not be a starving child. They cut out the whole image that showed the sibling perfectly fine. That child had a genetic issue. It was not being starved by Israel. So when you have the mainstream media, that is falling for propaganda or promoting propaganda and won't apologize. And then you have this fringe media that's massively bigger. It requires a different approach to the information war.

This is literally about democracies as we know them. We have to make sure that we verify everything that we see online and don't get hooked into this document addiction that is going to damage us all. Thank you so much, Van. Thank you, sister. All right. One note before I get Max's reaction, they're like, so we need to dispel all these rumors about starving children.

children, let's do an inspiring music track. Let's do something like an uplifting, climbing the mountain music track here. So, Mack, let's fact check the fact checkers here. What are they getting wrong here? Now, in terms of the specific story that they were talking about with the piece from the New York Times of the child who was starving, they're getting at that in the initial New York Times piece. They didn't report that the child also had other underlying conditions. I think specifically it was cerebral palsy in this specific case. But what that ignores is that, yeah, when there's a famine, when there's mass starvation or food shortages that are going on, it is going to be the most vulnerable people within

society that suffer initially, that suffer the initial brunt of that famine. And that child in the New York Times piece was malnourished, right? And the data on this has been well reported on, well documented. There was malnourishment in Gaza. There was starvation in Gaza. Israel had an explicit policy of restricting aid from getting in to Gaza from the beginning of the genocide. I mean, they openly declared we're going to cut off the food, the fuel, the water, the electricity. It's an entire population that we're attempting to punish here.

None of this is like a secret. But again, the purpose here in this whole piece from Van Jones is to get you to doubt everything, to mistrust everything. The only people that you can trust are the official lines from the IDF or from Benjamin Netanyahu or from the Trump administration or the Biden administration. when it was happening under him, you know, you can only trust these official sources. Also, you know, we're talking about a guy like Van Jones. This is the same guy who was on Bill Maher making a joke about dead Gaza babies, right, and laughing about it gleefully. So, you know, to some extent, you know, I don't know if it's a money thing. I don't know if it's just like an ideological thing for him, but he is truly a psychopath when it comes to, when it comes to this issue. Yeah.

Griffin, do we have the ideological drift of Van Jones? I think you've got stuff on that. Let's take a look back at 1993 Van Jones for a second here to see where the psychopath starts. Maybe they never, maybe it was always this way. Students can do that in 1960. The students can do that in 1970. The students can do that in 1985-86 in 1993. We have the United States government building a death camp, a concentration camp. Those black people have done nothing wrong against the United States.

and want justice. If all they've done wrong, if we can't close that death kit, if this generation can not present another Japanese American internment in our lifetime, we should all get haircuts and go to get regular jobs and give it up. We should all get haircuts,

get regular jobs, and give it up. So I guess that's what happened. He's being honest. Yeah, it's not a bad point. He, this would have been around 2009, was singled out by Glenn Beck, back in his Fox News days, early Tea Party days, because Obama had hired him, I believe, as a green job czar. And Van Jones's past radical activism came to the forefront so much so that he lost that job in the Obama White House.

And now he's landed at CNN, got a haircut, got a job to Griffin's point. And, you know, the frustrating thing about revisitation of that New York Times story is that nobody really disputes. fair for the New York Times to update the story and say the little boy had cerebral palsy. I think everybody understands that's relevant information, and it just underlines the case Mac laid out, which is that where there are vulnerable populations with people suffering, those people can suffer even worse. They might sometimes bear the brunt. People who are disabled might sometimes or might always bear the brunt when there are food shortages. So that is, as a hill to die on, to create that as your centerpiece to make this case about propaganda,

I think it's really, really sick. It's just a, it's a really gross thing to do. And like there's, like it's also like I said at the beginning of this segment, it's crazy that this is a 2026 video because you could easily see something like this in November of 23 where they could make that case. But if you were trying to actually do good PR for Israel now, it would be, oh, it's that damn BB Netanyahu that we got to get out of here. And then everything will get fixed. Like, don't worry, elections are coming soon. Yeah, Israel did some bad stuff. And we all agree on that. And it's time to get rid of this government. That would be the effective Israeli PR move at this point, which is also rife with, you know, inaccuracies because the majority of the other political leaders in Israel share very similar strategies towards handling Gaza. So I always wonder, like, with Israel that has access to unlimited resources to create PR, why they choose these people like Noah Tishby to do these things? Why do they pick these untalented, dead-eyed people to add this liberal sheen with no facts and sort of just an underlying base of victimization and you should just be on my side? And I think it's because, you know, they see themselves. and people like Noah. Like, they can't fathom what good PR for Israel would be.

They see themselves in these terrible actors. And so those are the people they continue to put out. Your Michael Rappaports, a lot of these disgusting Twitter accounts, like, who's that one guy in New York, Mac, that we always make fun of? E.O. Yacobie. They see themselves in these people. And they view these people as the heroes to push their, movement and it just goes to show how just muddy and confused they are about how the world sees

them now. Well, to your point, Griffin, I think there is an element of it where for, I mean, the vast majority of the last, however many, you know, decades here in the United States, Israel didn't really have to do much work in terms of, you know, propaganda to convince Americans to support them. It was always just sort of like the baseline, right? You just had universal consensus within the upper echelons in Washington, D.C., you know, within Congress, within the media. It didn't become a central thing that a lot of Americans thought about until, you know, post-October 7th and this genocide in Gaza. And post-October 7th, so now you have this new reality where it's a live-streamed genocide. We're getting countless thousands of images, videos that are on

every, especially young people's social media feeds. Like, it's just so overwhelming that there is no talented propagandists who could overcome that. Like there's there's nothing to be done at this point except for the strategies that we've seen Israel use, which is censorship, right? Going after college students trying to blacklist them, you know, sicking the police on them, as we saw under the Biden administration as well in these encampments. You know, so it's censorship. It's these new programs spending millions of dollars to influence chat GPT and how it responds to Israel and flooding the internet with, you know, slop AI written, you know, Israeli propaganda pieces. So, that AI will pick up on that for its information ecosystem.

Like, it's strategies like this. And, you know, as we just saw from Van Jones, trying to get you to doubt everything that you see, because they basically have nothing else that they can reach for at this point. There is no convincing case that can be genuinely made. That may be true, but it is still remarkable to me that they're doubling down as they see the numbers go down. Yeah.

Like, they're not changing one bit of the strategy. that's crazy. Another aspect of it, and I think we've seen this in some of the recent races like with Abdul-Said, is if you guys remember, DropSight News reported, I think it was maybe a year ago or more at this point, that there was like an internal study that was done within Israel where they were looking at what are the most effective ways that we could sort of convince people into a more pro-Israel direction. And the number one thing that they found was increasing Islamophobia, right? That was what they thought was the most effective strategy to sort of win people back to their side was to push Islamophobia to sort of overwhelm the Israel criticism. And I think we have seen a massive, massive

spike in Islamophobia against people like Abdul-Said or just generally in the United States with the Laura Lumer types and the Randy Fine types. You know, that's become significantly amplified over the last couple of years with the emergence of more Israel critical and Muslim candidates across the country. Yeah. And I think, like, not to give the Israeli PR more tips, but like, you know, I said, A, you guys should come out against Nanyahu and B, like, they're not even doing any of the look. We're handing out A, in Gaza. Like, we're doing like any of those, like, propaganda bits either. In fact, there's reporting out there's currently a water crisis happening in Gaza. People are struggling to find drinking water. They're having to choose whether to cook with it,

drink with or bathe with it, and they can only choose one out of the three. So this, like suffering continues. They're still bombing tents on what seems like a weekly basis. And so, yeah, they don't have any video evidence to show that the situation is improving one bit. So we're kind of just frozen in place until these people are, I guess, laughed out of the room. But Van Jones is still in the room. Well, and to your point, one final thing on that, Griffin, the most effective Israeli propaganda right now is the fact that the media is no longer talking about it, right? There is no mainstream media coverage of, you know, the nearly daily attacks that are happening in Gaza. Israel is still bombing Gaza. They're still, you know, they blew up a medical facility just a couple of weeks ago.

You didn't see that on CNN, you didn't see that on MS now, or on Fox News or whatever else. The media has largely just dropped it as an issue, which I think has in some ways, in a dark way, helped Israel because it's not such a central focus for a lot of people anymore. Yeah. All right, well, that'll do it for Van Jones. Get a suit, get a real job. I think that's still my note for Van. He does sound like saga. All right, well, let's move on to my favorite state in the nation, Florida. Well, we wanted to bring you an update in a race that we've been tracking for more than a year.

So we're joined once again by Aaron Baker, who actually decided to primary Randy Fine more than a year ago from the right. Aaron, welcome back. Appreciate you for being here. Always a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me back. Yeah, this was such an interesting race, and Ryan and I interviewed you about a year ago now, just about your decision to get into this race, because there was something very interesting happening on the right. And Florida became a place where not even just your district, but Florida, the entire state during this primary cycle, became a place where some of this was getting hashed out in some responsible ways and some irresponsible ways.

So let's start with your race, because I think you ended up at 13.5% in the race between Randy Fine and Dan Bolzerian, it turned in a little bit of a circus era. So just catch us up, remind viewers why you decided to primary Randy Fine from the right when you launched. The Iran War had not yet happened. So that was a major update. But what were you thinking when you got into the race and what was it like running as a Republican against Randy Fine? Well, I mean, I got into the race because I thought he was a genocidal maniac that needed to be taken out of our government. And I still believe that and that's that's not going to change i mean you don't change the spots on a leopard he's i mean he is who he is and his personality's not going to change i didn't think it was a fit for

this congressional district however the voters thought otherwise and how did that change once bill zarian got into the race what was and you had been running for a while by the time he got into the race and you were making this case against randy finds foreign policy in a fairly reasonable way, Belzerian gets into the race. What happened? Yeah, so if we go back in history a little bit, so I filed my paperwork in April right after Fine won the special election. Dan called me back in December of last year, and we spoke for, you know, a good long while, and he said, you know, after the first of the year, let's catch up, and I'll be more than happy to see what I can do to help you. And that was what I thought was going to be the plan going forward.

And then we were never able to reconnect. And then I get a call in late March or maybe mid-March. And Dan says, well, you didn't raise enough money. And I wanted to say, well, no, duh, you didn't help me. Like you said, you were going to. He said, so I'm going to run myself. And I thought, okay, well, you know, you need to get on a plane and you need to get your butt here right now.

And at that point, I even offered, you know, okay, if you're serious about this, I'll take you around. I know every square inch of this district. I'll take you to every place that you need to go. And if he had wanted to run a serious campaign, you know, clean up your look a little bit, you know, get a haircut, you know, look like you did back in 2013 when you were a movie extra. you know, maybe, okay, you stand a chance. And you've got to realize who your electorate is.

The average Republican voter in this congressional district is 51 years old. So you've really got to tone down what you're saying. You can say, I don't want defensive, or, you know, I don't want offensive weapons, and I don't want any financial aid to Israel, but you can't say that I will take up arms and start exterminating Israelis. that those, you know, you're not going to win a congressional race like that, no matter how much money you have. So, you know, he came in like a bull in a china shop and thought he didn't need to listen

to anyone. No campaign events until the last day of early voting, which was the Saturday, which was last Saturday, and he shows up to a fishback event. And, you know, 30, 40, 50 people there and stands around, hands out free tacos for half an hour. and then disappears. At least on Election Day, show up somewhere. I mean, on Election Day, I was at eight different polling locations, you know, still trying to get voters, talking to voters.

And, you know, because I believed, based on what we had experienced door knocking, and we knocked on about 30,000 doors. Wow. My campaign. And we had a very positive response. I mean, there was a very anti-fying. sentiment out there. It's just a matter of, you know, who has the most money, who sends out the most palm

cards or most postcards in the mailboxes and who, you know, puts out the most television ads. And that seems to be what people listen to. They don't remember, oh, hey, I met this airing guy, you know, three months ago when he came and knocked on my door. They remember, you know, the postcard that they got yesterday. or the TV commercial that they saw this morning on Fox News. So, you know, I would tell anyone that wants to go up against an incumbent,

you better have five, at least $3 million in the bank in order to make a serious run at it. But it also needs to be a consolidated effort. You don't need five people in the race like Leigh had. You know, you need to be able to get behind that one candidate and say, okay, this is our candidate and this is our path going forward. and we're going to attack airways, we're going to attack mailboxes, we're going to knock on doors for one specific candidate. When you start to split the vote, then it just muddies everything up.

And people are like, well, I don't know if I should vote for Dan or if I should vote for Aaron. Well, let me just go with what I know. Let me just vote for Randy, you know, bang, bang, bang. And so, you know, then you get the results that we had. So, Aaron, I do really respect you for taking a. stand against Randy Fines' genocidal rhetoric, his Islamophobia. But with Dan Bolzarian, it seems like the opposite side of the field.

I'm reading a tweet from just July 28th that says, Jews are the problem. Everyone's fear of saying it out loud is what allows it to continue. So when you say that, oh, he just needed a haircut, he needed to look a little bit more like the Hollywood extra. Was that really the main issue? or was this race decided between a candidate that hates Muslims and a candidate that seems to hate Jews? Well, and that's the whole point.

You know, I mean, he needed to, if he were going to get in this race, he needed to not say any of that stupid stuff that he says, but, you know, he just can't help himself. So if you can't help yourself, then you need to get behind one consolidated candidate, which ideally, you know, would have been me because I ran against Fine before. So, I mean, it made sense. Yeah.

What did you make of sort of, you're talking about like the mailers that are going out, advertisements, what did you make of sort of the media ecosystem? What was Randy Fine talking about? What was his campaign running on? And how big of a role do you think that the Iran War and the subsequent inflation and cost of living as a result of that? Israel in general. How big of a role did that play in this election? It didn't play any role at all. I mean, people, at the end of the day, people didn't seem to care. I mean, you have 20 or 30 percent

of the electorate that care about affordability, which is what we talked about nonstop or what I talked about nonstop. So, you know, I mean, there was 43 percent of the electorate that wanted an alternative, but, you know, 43 percent of the electorate is not enough and it needs to be, Like I said, it needs to be a consolidated effort. And Randy Fine placed a victim card the entire time. If you look back to, you know, the picture that he posted of someone who had vandalized one of the signs, spray painted a swastika on it. And the day after that news story came out, I called the supervisor of elections in

Plagler County. And I said, where did this picture come from? This picture cannot exist because I was the one that found the campaign sign. And I was the one that went and got an election official to take the campaign signed down. And so then I was talking to one of the reporters at the Daytona Beach News Journal, which he followed up with the supervisor of elections. Well, it turns out they put the sign back in the ground in order to take a picture to send to rank and find. So, I mean, you know, he's a victim 101. Oh, you know, look at me.

Poor me. Poor me. Look at what they're doing to my campaign signs. and it's staged. Oh, my gosh. That is incredible. What is appealing in any way, shape, or form about Randy Fine in this district? I mean, like, how can a guy like this win an election?

Right. You got me beat on that one. Is it Trump? Is it the Trump endorsement? Yeah, I mean, just the Trump endorsement. I mean, Trump won this district by 30 points. So, you know, Randy Fine has underperformed Trump at every single. stage.

Other than Trump, that's what is his signs say. Trump endorsed. Trump endorsed. Trump endorsed. Trump endorsed. Trump endorsed. Fine for Congress. And that's how he opens every, you know, every speech that he gives. And, you know, he has absolutely zero respect for the people here, which I had a lot of help behind the scenes from elected officials, but the elected officials didn't want to come out and say, oh, Aaron, you know, we'll support you publicly. But, you know, they're like, we can't stand this guy just because of the way he acts. You know, he walks into the building in Flagler County and, you know, snubs his nose at all

of the county commissioners. And they're like, why are we supporting this guy? You know, we'll be more than happy to help you behind the scenes, but no one wants to come out publicly for fear of retribution. And I get it. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. And I guess let's say hypothetically a wave of magic one, you had three to five million dollars running against Randy Fine, and your argument that you were making was amplified. And you had the money to go make this argument to more voters, have the conversation on more TV ads and mailers and that sort of thing. Can you just take us into what those conversations were like? Because you mentioned there is an anti-fine sentiment, but I'm also just curious, as someone from the right, saying, we shouldn't be talking like this. We shouldn't be thinking like this. We shouldn't continue to send all of this aid. Did you find receptive audiences when you're having those conversations in person? Like we're Republican voters.

And I imagine because you've got 13.5% of the vote, some people were like, hell yeah, getting behind you. This is insane. What was that undercurrent? Like, how were people thinking about this on the right? I mean, when I would talk to, when I would speak to an audience, nine times out of 10, And they would say, Aaron, we're behind you 100%. You know, we agree with everything you're saying that, you know, the affordability is a major issue.

We agree that Social Security has to be fixed in the next Congress. And these are things that Randy finds not talking about. He's talking about I'm Trump endorsed. I'm Trump endorsed. I'm Trump endorsed. I'm Trump endorsed. Well, good luck after Trump's not here anymore. I have no idea what he's going to do.

And what about on Israel? It was really kind of a non-issue. And I think from Dan's perspective, it turned off more voters than it helped with him. If he had simply stuck to a message about, you know, kind of down the middle about affordability, you know, and addressed it in a point of foreign aid and, you know, helping seniors with Medicare cost and making sure that seniors get a cost of living increase every year, that would have been a much more receptive message because, you know, that's what I was saying and basically he got about 4% more than me with you know millions of dollars that he spent so you know i was able to do the same the same thing uh trying to run not far right not extreme far other

right uh but you know kind of down the center uh so to your point i think that if i had five million dollars i it would have been a very easy race so aaron you mentioned a little bit of the circus of Dan Bolzarian showing up to a James Fishback campaign event, and I wanted your reaction to that as well. Now, of course, James Fishback is known as the Groyper candidate. He goes around talking to young men about Goyslop. He was referring to his black opponent as Byron, and he was going around attacking only fans creators,

saying that he was going to tax them and give money to teachers. he had what felt like an organic youth movement on the ground. He drew a lot of crowds. But pulling up some of the results here, he got third place. He got about 10.5% of the vote coming in third behind Jay Collins and Byron Donald's, who actually won. What is your reaction to those results? What does that tell you about the Florida electorate?

I did a lot of different events with James. Before James announced, the two of us sat down together at a Starbucks and talked about, you know, his candidacy and my candidacy. And at that time, I was supporting Jay Collins. And, you know, I told him I supported Jay Collins. And, well, you know, if anything changes, you know, keep me in mind. And that's kind of where we left it. And then Jay Collins came out with this nonsense about, you know, you can't say this and you can't say this. And some of his kind of factual things behind the scenes about he has two kids.

Well, he actually has three. Some of those things didn't set well with me. So it was a very easy transition for me to then support James. However, in about April or May, I saw that it was going to be. need to be a consolidated effort against Byron. And I was with Paul Renner at an event in St. Augustine. And, you know, flat out asked Paul. You know, this has to be some type of consolidated effort.

And no one would put on their big boy pants and, you know, take one for the team at that point. They all thought, well, you know, we're just going to run our campaign. And it didn't work. I the only way for to defeat byron donald's in the hundred million dollars or two hundred million dollars or how many ever bazillion dollars he has in the bank now was going to it was it needed to be a consolidated effort and it it wasn't happening yeah outside the consolidation though isn't there a moral character question to these candidates I mean he's being blatantly racist you know you're saying things like goyslop I mean he did have a stance about that was anti-Israel that you know connected to the youth but But did you not have any moral character concerns about either these guys? Not really. I mean, you know, I think that James' heart was in it for the right reasons. And I think certainly Paul Renner's heart was in it for the right reasons.

And, you know, Jay Collins, to a certain extent, you know, his heart was in it for the right reasons. But they needed to all sit down in the room and figure out, you know, okay, I'm going to be governor and I'm going to be lieutenant governor. I'm going to have this role in the administration. So a lot of that rhetoric that happens in campaigns is just that. And, you know, it happens in every campaign. Now, I mean, some a little more extreme than others. Yeah, but, you know, at the same time, I think it shows that Byron's going to have a little bit of a tough time in the general election. I mean, most of the polls right now have him and Jolly virtually tied in a state that, you know,

Governor DeSantis won by 20 points. So we're going to see how all that plays out. I suppose just following up on the fishback point, I see him, you know, he's not Dan Bolzerian, certainly. And I've actually known him. I talked about this on the show earlier this week for a long time and saw like basically a total personality transplant, which I found very odd. Like, I've known him for probably five years.

And as soon as he got into the race, he started, to Griffin's point, talking about Goyslop and Byron and all of those different things. And I guess I sort of see what you're saying about taking down Byron Donald's who's a, you know, not the ideal candidate for conservatives to represent Florida, no question about it. But I guess then it's like at what cost do you try to defeat Byron Donald's and be, you know, potentially David Jolly. Is it worth maybe, is it worth, from my perspective, the answer would be no, like stoking racial resentments and using terms like goyslop. How did you think about that, Aaron? Well, I guess your point would be it's almost a toned down version of Dan, where Dan came in like a wrecking ball and James came in to try to appeal to some of that, you know, over 35.

crowd, if you will. You know, at what point is the argument worth it or is the, you know, the rage, page, click worth it? That's, you know, that's a million-dollar question. I mean, our race between me, Dan, and Randy, certainly turned very ugly at the end. And, you know, that's not something that I'm going to participate in. I'm not going to, you know, say anything that's not true. I'll call you out for saying stupid stuff, and I certainly called Dan out for posting the wrong early boating dates and, you know, just doing stupid stuff and not doing any campaign events or doing scheduling campaign events outside the district.

But I think James tried to craft a message that could possibly appeal to the over 35 crowd, but just really didn't that much. And some people would see that as like sneaky, trying to sneak in bigotry. Did you have those concerns? I just kind of rolled with the punches. And, you know, most of the time, there were certain things that James said along the way. And, you know, I would be sitting in the room. And he was certainly playing to the audience. You know, if you, for example, we were in Tampa and there were, the seating capacity in the room was 600.

and the room was completely full and the fire marshal wouldn't let people in. So I know that there were at least 750 people there. But, you know, I mean, he's really playing to the audience, you know, when he talks about goy slop and all that. And, you know, it's all in good fun. I do think that James has a future in the Republican Party. And I think that, you know, he has a huge following now.

He received 170,000 votes. That's nothing to sneeze. debt. Okay, last, I was going to say last question on that, Aaron. I'm sorry to keep doing the fishback day. It's just when you say it's all in good fun. Is it really fun? Is that like the kind of fun that you want to get behind if it's, again, Byron, trying to play up like racial stereotypes, those sorts of things? Sorry, Emily's our resident woke. I'm, yeah. I think, I think in the end, I did vote for, I did vote for James. In the end, I think James would have made a really good lieutenant governor.

But that lieutenant governor would have had to have been if Paul Renner were at the top of the ticket. I think the two of those were saying the same thing. However, Paul is expert at crafting his message where he was talking about Christian values. I didn't really have, there were some cringe moments where I'm like, this is not. going to go over well for the over 55 crowd. And we saw that. You know, we did an event in the villages where you have 650 people show up on a college campus in Tampa and you have 20 people show up in the villages.

Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. That's like the college for old people. So, Aaron, always exciting stuff happening down in Florida. One of my favorite states. Thank you so much for coming on. and we look forward to seeing where you and the Florida Republican Party go next.

Appreciate it. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Thanks, Aaron. Thanks, Aaron. Okay, let's round out this amazing Friday show with my favorite part, as always, the AMA questions. Now, this first one, let's get spicy right off the top, guys. That's from Matthew C.

Could there be a coherent defund the police and anti-flock coalition? Would Saugger be convinced? Emily, what do you make of that question? Wait, repeat it because my headphones went out briefly. Matthew C is asking, could there be a coherent defund the police plus anti-flock coalition? So I think what they're saying is that it seems like anti-flock is very popular. Could that somehow be parlayed into a conversation about defunding the police? I mean, certainly on like an intellectual level, you can make that case.

That's basically like the libertarian party or like some anarcho-community. Well, maybe some of the anarcho-communists, probably, and they tend to hang in libertarian circles. Already have made that case convincingly, but could you make a coherent case to the public about that? That's a question I would maybe turn back to you guys. Like, in urban areas, could you reinvigorate the defund the police movement with the flock movement as a launching pad? It's not going to bring in a broad coalition of Americans who are generally, supportive of the police, very sensitive about things like flock, very sensitive about militarized policing. You're not going to get, you know, broad support across America,

which has a lot of like, dare I say, libertarian instincts for things like militarized police. That was one of the narratives that came out of the Ferguson protests, is like after Iraq, we're flooding all of these local policing units with military capabilities. But on the other hand, I don't know. Do you think, so I don't think you're ever. going to get like a broad coalition of Americans, but in some cities, could you reinvigorate, defund with flock? I mean, I think so. To me, I've always been a defund the police guy, and I know that it's not like a popular sort of like movement at this point, but I never really understood why it was so controversial. To me, it's the same argument as, you know, why I think we should be defunding the Pentagon,

right? It's that the baseline budget that we have and the baseline equipment that we have, that we have for police in the United States of America. I mean, like, there are some localities or cities in this country that have higher police budgets than most country's military budgets. I mean, it's, it is completely out of control the amount that we're spending on police and on mass surveillance and so-called security. Like, those resources could and should be reallocated towards more effective, I think, like community and social programs. So to me, the argument for defund the police has always been very straightforward and convincing. But in terms of the pushback to flock. What worries me about it is that I think there's a large component of it that people

are upset that it's a private company that's sort of acting as this intermediary. I don't know if there would be the same energy if it was just straight up police cameras that were effectively doing the same. But the threat is the same, like the threat of mass surveillance, the threat of this sort of like pre-crime approach, that's there, whether it's a private company like flock that's contracting with the police or whether it's the police or the government in and of itself. So I hope, I hope that it, you know, we could make some sort of a pairing there. I also, by the way, I've heard online that apparently there's something's happening on Halloween. I'm not going to say too much about it, but what is that?

Apparently, Halloween is the deflock night because people are dressed up in, yes, yes, there's going to be a big, because everybody's dressed up in costumes, and so you have sort of like, you know, crowds of people and everybody's sort of like covering up their identity. So we could see a big de-flok movement in a couple of months here coming up. All right. Keep your eyes on that, everybody. All right. This next one is for Emily.

Wait, where did it go? Okay, this is from Raphael Dimien. Question for our resident religious expert, Ms. J. Sinsky. Donald J. Trump doesn't seem to be a pious man, people are saying, but he has recently made remarks that people interpret as religious. Most notably that grass has life like human.

Grass, it's got life. When you say that? humans? Is he a secret Buddhist? And what are your thoughts on his comments? What is this grass thing? Let me find someone, someone posted the funniest thing about this. He says so many things. I miss some of the best ones. Yeah, there's some incredible ones. Okay, so this guy Logan McMillan on X posted, this is the third time Trump has said that grass has quote, life like humans. He is close to embracing the truth, the Buddha-like nature of all things, and rejecting the false binary of sentience slash incantians.

You know, I'm not sure. Is this because he's fucking up the White House lawn and he's like, oh, it looked better when there was grass there? And he's been thinking about grass a lot because of that, because of the National Mall, which is having grass issues. But he, I don't think this is the well. I don't think Buddhism is the well from which these thoughts spring. I don't think anybody can know the source of Trump's musings on grass.

I am, and I think that's the beauty. of it, right? It remains enigmatic. We'll never get to the bottom of what Trump thinks about anything, frankly. It is funny, though. Like, some of his random, he will just get on a random tear about something. Like, remember when it was Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart? He posted like 10 tweets telling Robert Pattinson to leave Kristen Stewart in like 2012. And he was right to do so, because now they're both much happier. He's right about the grass too, apparently. I think it's one of those late in life things, right, Mac? Like, you know, he's. He's seen the sunset of his life and he's coming in tune with nature.

But it's also weird because he's had previous statements sort of alluding to like heaven and hell, right? That he's not going. That he's not going to heaven, which is also interesting because it's like, well, if you believe in hell, like wouldn't you be like trying to redeem yourself in the final, like, wake of your, or he's just, he's given up at this point. He's set and going to hell. But this is the beauty of it again. It's like, we will never know.

we can talk, we can speculate, but there is no answer. Okay, final one, Mac, this is from Hockey. What if the establishment forces two Zionist candidates upon us for president of 2028? Well, they're definitely going to try to. You know, when you look at the slate of candidates, well, I mean, obviously the Republican candidate is going to be, a Zionist. I don't think that's even in question. I mean, most likely at this point, it's going to be J.D. or Marco Rubio, one of the two.

Or fishback, apparently. Or fishback, or Nick Fuentes or whatever else the universe throws at us. But on the Democratic side, I just, I'm nervous right now because I don't know who could be the real, who has the charisma, who has the sort of energy, the capability to really be an insurgent, like Bernie style or Bernie Lerner. level caliber of candidate. It doesn't seem like it's going to. AOC 20s seems to be circling the drain right now. So I don't think, yeah, it probably won't be AOC.

It could be if Abdul wins, you know, and he really locks in and like focuses on becoming a real national figure over the next couple of years. It could be somebody like Abdul. You got other people like Rokana that are in there. But, you know, Rokana is not even an anti-Zionist. There really are very few anti-Zionists. Truly, like Bernie Sanders is not and anti-Zionists. Like there's very, very few anti-Zionist, you know,

high-level politicians that could run in 2028. So, uh, hockey was his name. Apologies, but, uh, I think that's like,

almost an inevitability. Well, I know, what you said hockey. Sorry. Hockey's the username. The user name. The user name.

The user name. I thought you were giving a cute nickname to Jeffries. No. No, I'm just, I, I think it's almost an inevitability that it will be. Griffin calls him Haktua.

Well, yeah, exactly. I think it, I think it's an inevitability that it will be a, to some extent, a Zionist candidate. But the question then is like, how do politicians like Kamala Harris or, you know, John Ossoff, like, where do they position themselves in regard to Israel? Because you could have a Zionist candidate who also is willing to restrict weaponry to Israel or who is, you know, willing to change the dynamic of that relationship. And I think that's, that's more so

going to be where the test is. Okay. Much to think about, much to look forward to, much to dread, that everybody keep their eyes on grass this weekend. You might find some inspiration in your own life. Everyone go follow AfterParty with Emily Jashinsky. Go check out good Politic Guy. Max Channel. He grinds as well. And the links to that will be in the description. And most importantly, follow me on Instagram.com. Do it. Breaking points. We'll be back on Monday. Thank you all so much. And have a lovely weekend. We'll see you later. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you can. get your podcasts.

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