Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/5/25: Texas California Battle On Gerrymandering, Andrew Shculz Betrayed By Trump On IVF, Cory Booker Refuses Zohran Endorsement

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Ryan and Saagar discuss Texas And California battle on gerrymandering, Andrew Schulz betrayed by Trump on IVF, Cory Booker refuses Zohran endorsement.   Abdul: https://abdulforsenate.com/    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. The Stuff You Should Know guys have made their own summer playlist of their must-listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh, and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff You Should Know summer movie playlist. What Screams Summer? More than a nice, darkened, air-conditioned theater, and a great movie playing right in front of you. Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking, and many more. Listen to the Stuff You Should Know Summer Movie Playlist. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Have you overlooked at a piece of abstract art or music or poetry and thought, that's just a bunch of pretentious nonsense? That's exactly what two bored Australian soldiers set out to prove during World War II when they tricked the literary world with their intentionally bad poetry, setting off a major scandal. We break down the truth, the lies, and the poetry in between on hoax, a new podcast hosted by me, Lizzie Logan, and me, Dana Schwartz. Every episode, Hoax explores an audacious fraud or ruse from history.

Listen to Hoax on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're breaking down SummerSlam, the biggest party of the summer on wrestling with Freddie. From our bold picks to storyline breakdowns, we will discuss who walks out with gold, who shocks the night, and which matches steal the show. We call the winners, the upsets, and the chaos to expect, plus whatever swerves nobody saw coming. Listen to Wrestling with Freddy as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network, available 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.

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All of it kind of starts in Texas, although he can argue about where and when it doesn't, but that was the more most, the high-profile action now so far, Governor Greg Abbott basically accusing other states of accelerating gerrymandering against Republicans. So him saying, no, then we are going to mid-decade redistrict in our state, which would lead to more Republicans. Here's what he had to say. These legislators have been both, they sought money and they offered money to skip the vote,

to leave the legislature to take a legislative act. That would be bribery. And so the facts will have to come out. But I think based upon comments made by legislators themselves, they face a possibility of facing bribery charges, which is a second-degree felony in the state of Texas. There's one way to cure that. And that is if they get back to the state of Texas and make quorum today at a hearing that we have at the 3 o'clock, they can cure themselves of any quid pro quo that would subject them

to potential bribery charges. So all of this stems from the fact that the Texas, the Texas legislative body was going to move forward with these redistricting. Democrats didn't have enough votes to block it. Used to be it would do it every 10 years. Right, exactly. Traditionally, he's done every 10 years. Every time there's a new census, etc., they're doing a mid-level.

The Texas Democrats didn't have the votes to block it, but they did have enough people to deny a quorum. So all the state, all the Texas Democrats left the state. So he's accusing them of taking bribery for leaving the state and for being facilitated by J.B. Pritzker or whatever from Illinois. Okay, so that's what happened. So then there is now a threat. Let's put this up there on the screen. Governor Abbott says that he will remove from office any Democrat who, quote, abandons their duty and refuse to show up to the state capital on August 4th. He says, I will use my full extradition

authority to demand the return to Texas of any potential out-of-state felons. That's how he's referring to here. Now, all of this, as I said, stems from that vote in the legislative body where the Texas House actually locked its doors and then approved the motion. to arrest warrants for Democrats who broke quorum, and here's what happened there. The 85 eyes and six days, the motion prevails. The sergeant in arms and any officers appointed by her are directed to send for all absentees whose attendance is not excused for the purposes of securing and maintaining their attendance, under warrant of arrest, and necessary until the order of the House.

All right, so that led then to now the Texas Democrats who are saying, actually, it's not a felony in the Texas Penal Code for leaving the state, that they're making it up, that they have no legal mechanism. But broadly, Ryan, this is all just about the gerrymandering accusation, which would lead to some five more seats for Republicans in the state. Now, why are Republicans and the White House getting involved even in this? And a lot of this is being directed at the White House, because they have such a narrow margin in the House of Representatives right now. And Texas, obviously under Republican control, especially they increased their margin in the state more recently. They're saying, well, hey, Illinois, Massachusetts, all these other, Democratic states

are gerrymandered to hell in top of California. So why can't we just go ahead and do it with Texas? And by the way, which we'll get to in a little bit, it's kind of true, all right? I mean, to the extent for gerrymandering and one party control of the state. But what's your analysis here? So it is true in places like Massachusetts, there's basically no Republican. I think statewide, although, and then the state votes maybe 65, 35. Right. So if you were going to have representation by proportionality, which we don't have, like we have single district members.

We don't have that anywhere. Then you'd have a couple of Republicans in Massachusetts, but you would actually have to gerrymander the heck out of those districts to make sure that you put all the Republicans in these seats. Like you mentioned at the top of the show, I've been covering this forever now. And it is a case where just, and I'm saying this, objectively speaking, Republicans pushed farther and first on gerrymandering. Like where they controlled, let's say, take Wisconsin, for instance, which is a swing state, yet as when Republicans took it over in 2010, they gerrymandered it to the point where they had almost the entire congressional delegation despite the fact that you'd often have Democratic center. and governors winning, but because they were the first gerrymandered,

and they did some Missouri and other places, the first gerrymandered in Michigan, the state legislatures, and from there they gerrymandered the federal districts. Whereas, and this was a complaint of Democratic voters, that Democrats wouldn't fight back because they were enthrall to this idea of good government. Because liberals really do, and this is a criticism that the left has,

liberals. Liberals value process. They really want the process to be clean, whereas the left and the right care more about the outcomes and power. Whereas liberals see, like, as long as it's fair. And so in New York and California and some other states where Democrats were in control, they set up these commissions that were designed to try to take power away from the politicians and put it into these non-biased commissions that would do it fairly, quote-unquote, fairly.

And so, as a result, you could have had many more Democrats in New York and California in particular than you had over the years. And so now, whereas in Maryland, for instance, they didn't quite do that. They're like, no, we're going to see

if we can figure out how to get eight Democrats. They can't, but they're like at seven to one or something like that. But now, with Texas pushing the envelope constantly and doing these redistrictings in the middle of the 10 years, which used to be like a norm that wasn't like, whoa, you're going to just bust out every two years and like redraw it just to help yourself a little bit. And Texas is an interesting case because not only do you have the shifting politics of different demographics, like, oh, now all of a sudden. Oh, yeah, Latinos in South Texas are Republicans. No, now they're Republicans. So how do we factor that into a gerrymander?

All of these suburbs that are exploding in Texas are these California Republicans that are moving to Texas or are these Midwest folks that are coming down to Texas and they're actually Democrats? And so it's a harder state to gerrymander, which is why they're constantly trying to do it because as they're getting new data coming in from each election. And then you have to guess, like, are we going to have a democratic wave year? Is it going to be like? So it's tricky. But they're trying to do it constantly. And so now, and I don't know if we have this next element up, now California and New York are like, screw it. If Texas is going to push this hard, then we're going to respond by throwing out our commissions.

Yeah, we have that from New York. Yeah, we can put up New York. Let's go and play D6, guys, just to hear from Kathy Oak. Yeah. And I have newsflash for Republicans in Texas. This is no longer the Wild West. We're not going to tolerate our democracy being stole in a modern-day stagecoach hoist

by a bunch of law-breaking cowboys. Americans don't want a system that's stacked against them. They believe in fairness. It's fundamental. Ricking the system is un-American. But here they are flagrally breaking the rules so they can hold on to power. All right.

And at one point in that speech where she seems to be putting on a twang just for the fun of it, she says, I'm sorry to the good government groups, but politics has to be about politics. And that is for a lot of Democratic voters, refreshing to hear because they're over the process stuff. Like now they're in the trenches and they're ready to go toe to toe over this stuff. Yeah, and Gavin Newsom is joining her. And Gavin Newsom is issued a very similar. threat. Let's take a listen to that, please, D5. If we want to still be in this game, we need to disabuse ourselves, disenthrall ourselves

of the status quo in the past. We have got to enter a new mindset, and we've got to get back on this playing field, and we've got to do with the kind of vigor that our kids and grandkids deserve that liberty and freedom deserves this moment. The founding fathers deserve, the principles that define the best of Roman Republic and Greek democracy. That's on the line unless we stand the line and stand guard this democracy. And that means we got to go on offense. No more defense. Go on offense. Fight fire with fire. So you ask me, am I in? I'm all in. You ask me, I'm uncommitted. I'm all in. Committed and resolved. He's all in, Ryan. So Gavin and Kat, I mean, look, New York, California, these two most populous blue states,

right? And so they're obviously, California, the most populous state in the country. And Newsom's saying he's going to call a special election, do the redistricting, and then it kicks to the voters. So the voters would have to approve it. But Newsom and Democratic thinking is that as long as it's, if it's framed in fairness and good government terms, Democratic voters in California, as they've shown in the past, would actually, they're against gerrymandering, like as a principle. But setting the principle aside, if they frame it as this is a fight against Trump. and these bad Texas Republicans, then it's like a 60-40 issue where California voters probably do end up then approving it.

Right. So what they have, right, and so, for example, so Texas would increase its Republican seats by five. Miraculously, Gavin's plan would reduce GOP representation from 9 to 4. Yeah. So it's just one of those where, and then New York, actually, if they join, then they're going to get a couple out of there.

And apparently the vice president will be flying to Indiana in the next two days because Indiana, I think there's one or two seats that they might be able to go. So it's a race to the bottom, you know, now in the whole country. And all of it is about control of the House of Representatives. Ironically, a lot of this is Trump's fault because he appointed so many House members to his cap. And to his government. And so Mike Johnson's margin. Yeah, the Speaker was like, please stop taking people from the House. Because what's the GOP margin? It's a couple of seats now. I mean, it's pretty obvious. They're probably going to lose. So what they're trying to do is at least hang on to the margin that they might be able to in some miraculous scenario win. But, I mean, broadly, I don't know. I mean, it's one of those where it's sad, just the race to the bottom, I guess, on all this. But in a sense, I agree with the right end, the left here. I'm like, power is power, right? I mean, this is what it's all about. It's already, like, let's all stop deluding ourselves that the system is in any way fair or whatever. It never has been in particular in this regard. I guess the last question I have for you is how does the court play into any of this? How does that work?

That's going to be interesting. Like, does, you know, you put this. Because the court has a standard. Yeah, put D7 up there on the screen. The court has thrown out, and they have, they have some standards when it comes to Jeremy. Again, I don't fully understand it. I tried to read into it a little bit, but they have the ability to throw things out as a, like, on the basis of the Voting Rights Act and more on racial grounds, but I'm still not yet clear on what it all means. Right. They can't really throw it out based on partisan grounds. It's more the other stuff. It would be wild if the Supreme Court came in and was like, all right, this Texas one is fine, but not New York and California. Right. We're going to let Texas Republicans draw those

districts, but we're going to draw California and New York. That would be just, you know, the full mass completely off and shredded. I don't expect that yet. Because also, it's not like a Democratic House of Representatives is not an existential threat to the Supreme Court's like right-wing project.

Right, fair enough. They can swallow that. And so with these, yeah, so if everyone's doing the math, then we've got Texas at five for more seats. California will respond by removing five Republican seats.

Indiana is going to go for one or two. New York, you said three or four. Yeah. So actually by my count, the Dems are up right now. Yeah. So I guess, you know, we'll see what the other Republican houses and all that. But, yeah, that is our current state of gerrymandering.

You got to be careful because if you, it's an interesting dial. If you push too hard and make all, if Republicans make in a Democratic year, push a lot of seats to like 52-48 so that they can get as many as they possibly can. That's really fair, actually. Then you can actually lose half of that. Well, I was looking recently, for example, at Sherrod Brown is hiring campaign managers. he's thinking about running in Ohio. And I was talking with some friends, and I was like, you know, like he's got a good shot, right?

I mean, he ran way ahead of Trump. Even though he lost, like he ran, we ran pretty close. People love him. Way ahead of Trump. Represented the state for quite a long time. Ohio probably still a red state. I would probably still bet against him.

But if it's a landslide election, a 2008-year, I mean, you remember 08, there were all kinds of Democrats who had no business. Obama won in the House. Yeah, exactly. One Indiana. Who was that guy? There were all these Democrats who were like, how are you even here?

Like, what are you doing here in Washington? You know, and they were all, it was like a two-year-long project, but they were still here, right? And in that way, that's how you got. I mean, I'm trying to think there were some, who were the Democratic senators? Like Heidi Heikamp, right? People like that. North Dakota, Nebraska. Right.

They had two senators from North Dakota. Yes. Two from South Dakota. Right. Two from Nebraska. Yes. Yeah. Like, it had 60 senators.

If you have landslide years and it just happens to align with some, like, crazy election. or whatever, you can have pretty dramatic results. So that's a very good point that GOP could be shooting itself in the foot. If they do draw all these 52-48s, that's not hard to lose at all, especially in a low turnout, depressed MAGA election. If you put up some like knuckle-dragging freak. Yeah, right. Yeah, you only need, who was that guy's name, Todd Aiken?

You only need an Aiken or two or Roy Moore. And all of a sudden, you know, you've got some Doug Joneses in the U.S. Senate. It can happen. It's happened before. Have you ever looked at a piece of abstract art or music or poetry and thought, that's just a bunch of pretentious nonsense? Well, that's exactly what two bored Australian soldiers set out to prove during World War II. When they pulled off what was either a bold literary hoax or a grand poetic experiment,

publishing over a dozen intentionally bad but highly acclaimed works of expressionist poetry under the name Earn Malley in an incident that caused a media firestorm and even a criminal trial. The Earn Malley episode made fools of believers and critics alike and still fascinates poetry lovers to this day. We break down the truth, the lies, and the poetry in between on hoax, a new podcast hosted by me, Lizzie Logan, and me, Dana Schwartz. Every episode, hoax explores an audacious fraud or ruse from history from forged artworks to the original fake news to try and answer why we believe. Listen to hoax on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Stuff You Should Know guys have made their own summer playlist of their must listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh, and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff You Should Know Summer movie playlist.

What Screams Summer? More than a nice, darkened, air-conditioned theater, and a great movie playing right in front of you. Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking, and many more. Listen to the Stuff You Should Know Summer Movie playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever. you listen to podcasts. It's the biggest party of the summer. WWE SummerSlam is here, and wrestling with Freddie is all over it.

We're talking wild matches, big surprises, and our boldest predictions yet. From celebrity showdowns to the chaos inside a steel cage, we're breaking down every match and calling who we think walks out on top. This card is loaded. From Cody Rhodes, John Sina,

Ria Ripley, and Tiffy, just to name a few, this lineup is ready to tear down the house. We'll give you our unfiltered takes, honest debates, and you already know a ton of laughs along the way. We're covering the upsets, the wild returns, and the championship moments nobody expects. We'll get into the matches that steal the show, the storylines that explode, and those, oh my God, did that just happen moments that make SummerSlam legendary.

Don't miss it. Listen to Wrestling with Freddie as part of the MyCultura podcast network. Find us on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get to the next part here. my old friend Andrew Schultz. Perhaps, you know, we're just covering this, just broadly, some of the podcast guys, continue to break here with Donald Trump. Let's go and put this one up there on the screen. This is from screenshots from Andrew Schultz's Instagram. He says, quote, you don't break your word. Your word breaks you. And this is from a Washington Post article from our friend Jeff Stein. It says Trump promised to mandate IVF care. The White House says there's no plans to do so. He continues talking about some assistance, IVF, assistance grants to a private charity, saying real Donald Trump flip-flop once again on a campaign promise. This was kind of a core issue hit for him because him and his wife had fertility struggles, which he talks openly about in his special, which everybody can go watch. But this

was a good peg just to the actual announcement. Let's go hear from Jeff Stein, who followed up on this in an excellent story over at the Washington Post. It says, the White House does not plan to require health insurers to provide coverage for in vitro fertilization services to people with knowledge of the internal discussion said, even though the idea was one of Donald Trump's key campaign pledges. Last year, he said if he returned to office, the government would either pay for IVF or issue rules requiring insurance companies to cover treatment for it. Pledge came as Trump faced political blowback over the abortion issue. Quote, the government is going to pay for it or we're going to get it will mandate your insurance company to pay for it, which is going to be

great. We're going to do that. He said in August of 2024, we want to produce more babies in this country, right? And if you continue to look here, you know, kind of broadly within all of this, is that you actually had a kind of silent move against IVF by a lot of the most pro-life elements. So, for example, Katie Britt, the senator from Alabama, just last year introduced legislation to withhold Medicaid funding to bar, to any state that bars IVF. after that Alabama law, but nobody has actually introduced legislation for IVF that has any sizable constituency in the Senate. And in fact, they're pointing instead to some of the other things that they had in the

big, beautiful bill for why it will be pro-natalists while walking away from the IVF promise. So, I mean, that is one, I don't know, I'm trying to, Andrew, obviously, it's a very personal issue. So that's part of the reason he's speaking out against it. But I can't help but think that that moderation from Trump did play. some role in him allowing him to win the popular vote on the, even after a midterm election, which had abortion was a massive issue. Right.

Massive issue. Yes. And if the context was that, you mentioned this Alabama Supreme Court ruling, that was just absolutely bananas, you know, that basically was shutting down IVF treatment in Alabama by saying that, you know, every frozen embryo represented some, you know, first-degree murderer of a person. And so Republicans were on their heels there, and Trump responded by saying he's going to be the most pro IVF president in history, and in fact, it's going to be IVF for all, free IVF for everybody. And it's now, if it wasn't obvious at the time, exposed as just ruthlessly cynical, just a complete lie that he told to get over a political, what he saw as a political speed bump.

He just hit the gas, boom, drove right over it without any concern for what that did to raise the hopes of people who, like for those who are trying to conceive and can't, it's a, it's, it's an existential thing. It's spiritually debilitating month after month to go through that. And then you layer on top of that the prohibitive costs of it on top of the like spiritual, emotional turmoil that it. takes, and the toll that it takes. And then to then just say, ah, actually, never mind. Right. You thought it was serious? See, that's why I think in a way, it actually is important at a cultural level, because if it's just same old boss, you know, new boss, same as the old boss, that's not good. The old boss was not popular for Republicans. Trump's political strength was being a, quote, moderating

influence or appearing moderating to a lot of people who are low information. voters who are like, yeah, he was responsible for abortion, but he doesn't read to me like a Christian evangelical or any of that. He said he wants free IVF. That sounds pretty good to me, right? And so then to explicitly, the White House now coming out and saying, actually, we have no plans to require anybody to do it. It would probably require legislation or at the very least he could try and do it through executive order and quietly kind of just let it drift away. I do think it's a problem, especially an ironic, right, whenever you have an administration which is talking about, like, oh, we need more babies. We need to increase fertility. And then the only

example now so far are these Trump baby, which, by the way, my child is eligible for, so I'm going to set mine up soon, my Trump account. Thank you, President Trump, for the $1,000 U.S. dollars. It appears that it will compound to a whopping 3,300 if I invested in the S&P 500. So you can use it to, I mean, with inflation. Buy a book. Yeah. With inflation, you know, buy a science textbook, you know, for college. I'll take free money. All right.

Everybody should. But, you know, not exactly game-changing in terms of having a child or any of that. It belongs to the child. It's not like it covers health care costs or any of that. And what's interesting in the story that Jeff points about is that under the Obamacare exchanges, which covers some 50 million Americans, including yours truly, they have the ability, through rules, to enforce different things that they can and cannot cover. My guess, Ryan, is that they most likely, because they're still committed to a lot of this free market bullshit, is that they realize how much of them increase it would cause in premiums.

And also, as you and I know, at the same time that this is all having a discussion in, double-digit premium hikes are currently expected for a lot of the Obamacare exchanges sometime in the next two years because of the stripping a subsidies. Yeah. So, I mean, that's kind of the news just broadly for the IVF healthcare conversation. But, I mean, listen, I guess it'll just continue to simmer underneath until anybody does anything about it. Currently, they're focused on pharmaceuticals, sending demand letters to Swiss companies. You must lower your drug prices or something like that. And it's like, okay, well, an easier way is to force Medicare, right, you know, to just say, hey, this is what we're going to pay for your drugs, take it or leave it, you know, screw off. But apparently that's not what they want to do.

Right, well, it ain't free to occupy Gaza. Oh, right. Yeah, that's right. We can't really afford to do everything. That's what we need to raise all of our money for. Makes a lot of sense. All right, we've got Abdul El-Sayed standing by. Let's get to it. In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible.

Two young girls had photographed real fairies. But even more extraordinary than the magazine article's claim was the identity of the man who wrote the article, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who wrote Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the man who invented literature's most brilliant, detective was fooled by two girls into thinking fairies were real. How did they do it? And why does it seem like so many smart people keep falling for outlandish tricks? These are the questions we explore in hoax, a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood. And me, Lizzie

Logan. Every episode will explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history, from the fake Shakespeare's to balloon boys and try to answer the question of why we believe what we believe. Listen to hoax on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Stuff You Should Know guys have made their own summer playlist

of their must listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh, and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff You Should Know summer movie playlist. What Screams Summer? More than a nice, darkened, air-conditioned theater in a great movie playing right in front of you. Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women,

disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking, and many more. Listen to the stuff you should know summer movie playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It's the biggest party of the summer. WWE SummerSlam is here, and wrestling with Freddie is all over it.

We're talking wild matches, big surprises, and our boldest predictions yet. From celebrity showdowns to the chaos inside a steel cage, we're breaking down every match and calling who we think walks out on top. This card is loaded. From Cody Rhodes, John Sina, Ria Ripley, and Tiffy, just to name a few, this lineup is ready to tear down the house. We'll give you our unfiltered takes, honest debates,

and you already know a ton of laughs along the way. We're covering the upsets, the wild returns, and the championship moments nobody expects. We'll get into the matches that steal the show, the storylines that explode, and those, oh my God, did that just happen moments that make SummerSlam legend? Don't miss it. Listen to Wrestling with Freddie as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network. Find us on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joining us now is Dr. Abdul Al-Sai. A doctor from Michigan and former gubernatorial candidate. He's now running in the Senate Democratic primary in Michigan. Abdul. Thanks so much for joining us.

Good to see you. It's always a privilege to be with you guys. Thank you for having you. Absolutely. And so I covered your race. back in 2018. I remember this one dearly. This was, you had this bizarre case of Sri Thravena, forget his last name. He's now a member of Congress. We can talk to him. Talk about him in a moment. Was a frontrunner in the race until he completely fell apart, exposed basically for fraud. And Gretchen Whitmer and you were then the kind of remaining viable candidates. And she ends up, winning the race, becoming Michigan governor now kicked around at this national figure. You're coming back in a bid for Senate. What are the differences that you've seen on the ground in, you know, this cycle versus 2018? And, you know, what makes it plausible for you this time?

Yeah, Ryan, I appreciate you covering the race then, and it's great to talk to you again now. I said something at the time that I think in the zeitgeist, folks weren't quite ready to hear, which is that Donald Trump himself is not the disease in our politics. He's just the worst symptom of the disease. And the disease is a system by which corporations and billionaires and would be oligarchs can buy politicians by access to regulation that they basically roll back in ways that empower huge corporations in our lives so that they can suppress the wages we earn and charge us more for the things that we have to buy from them. And I think eight years on, people are a lot more willing to see that, both because Trump got

reelected. So we dealt with the symptom, but it came back roaring because we never dealt with the disease. And also because things have just gotten harder for people, whether it is inflation, whether it is the fact that the economy has made it so that the job you worked yesterday is just less secure for you tomorrow, whether it's the impossibility of ever imagining you could buy a home if you're under the age of 35 or how hard it's been to stay in your home if you're over the age of 65. It's the incredible medical debt that people have accrued $225 billion, which is more than the GDP of the majority of U.S. states, all of that has just made it harder to get by. I've been to 40 some different cities across my state, and no matter of where I go,

people just tell me, look, it just shouldn't be this hard. And I agree, which is why I'm running. So, Dr. I have a question for you about your potential role, if you were to win the primary and to get elected. We had potential future colleague on, Alyssa Slotkin here, on our show, and she would not commit to new leadership in the Democratic Party. I know you've spoken about that with Chuck Schumer. So give us an idea of the type of candidates that you would support for a Democratic leader and why you think that's important. I've got a clear set of things that I want to accomplish for Michiganders and for the American public.

The first is I want money, particularly corporate money and special interest money out of politics. The second is I want to put more money in people's pockets by standing up to big corporations and trusts, making it easier to build and scale a small business, make it easier. to join and form a union, and I want to pass Medicare for all. And whoever it is, who's given me the best commitment to standing for those causes and giving us the best chance at passing that legislation, they're going to earn my vote. Look, I've got a lot of questions about current leadership, but I'm not willing to tell you I'm going this way or the other without knowing who my options are, because if they give me John Federman, I'm certainly not voting for him.

So all of that is to say that I'm going to vote my conscience based on what I'm seeing. The last point here that I also have to call out is the fact that we've got to be honest about how we are misappropriating our money abroad, sending blank checks to fund genocides abroad when we've got hungry kids here at home who deserve so much more and so much better. So rather than starving kids abroad, I want to feed our starving kids here at home. And so I'm going to support leadership that understands that has the moral clarity on those issues. And I'm going to make a choice between the options that I've got for folks who are vying for that leadership. I want to briefly play a clip from Corey Booker speaking about Zoranamondani because I

think that his race in New York plays an interesting role in this Michigan race, and I'll ask about it. First, let's roll this Booker Clip F1. Throughout Mom, Donnie, are you going to support him? I have learned a long time ago. Let New York politics be New York politics. We got enough challenges in Jersey. I got a governor's race. I'm supporting Mikey Sherrill. I got legislative races. That's where my energy is going to go going into November. New York City, I love you. You're my neighbor. You're about 10 miles from where I live. You guys figure out your elections, I'm going to focus on mine.

I mean, normally a Democratic politician asked about the Democratic nominee next door. He says, yeah, of course, I support the Democratic nominee. Hakeem Jeffries has declined to do so. Chuck Schumer, tons of other, you know, top Democrats have declined to do so. When I watch you campaigning out in Michigan, not only on the substance of your campaign, but also on the style of it, it feels similar. Like, you know, you're out there on TikTok and Instagram, you know, kind of some quick, Quick cut edits, you know, talking to people on the ground.

You know, Mom Dani, you know, kind of launched his campaign, just talking to people for several months, asking them, you know, why did you vote for Donald Trump, for instance? What was it that made you do that when you hadn't voted for him in the past? So how has, how do you see yourself in relation to Mom Dani and how has his victory kind of influenced the Michigan race? Ryan, let me give you a perspective from on the ground in Michigan because I've been to 40 plus different cities now done over 100 events in our state. And everywhere I go is this fascinating thing because when I talk to Democrats over the age of 50, they're astounded that they see Democrats under the age of 50 at my events. And they're always like, how'd you do it? How'd you get the young people out? And I'm like, well, I'm talking about the issues that young people are facing

in the language that young people are using about what they'd like to do it. see as solutions. I'm talking about things like Medicare for all. I'm talking about housing affordability. I'm talking about AI coming for their jobs in ways that could indelibly change our economy because of the weird incentives we've created around the system because again, it's driven by corporate greed and corporate profits. And so, yeah, they're coming because they see themselves in our political movement. And one of the interesting things that I think all Democrats should be paying attention to is we've lost young people. It's been a slow trickle and now it's almost like a breaking of a dam

when you look at 2024. So we probably want to pay attention to elections where young people turned out. And the most interesting thing about that New York Democratic primary is that there was an inversion of the usual demographics of the race. You saw young people coming out

and voting at higher rates than their elders. That doesn't usually happen in our politics, particularly in Democratic primary. So I would imagine that any Democrat who's committed to the future of the party would be committed to those people who are living. have the highest stake in that future who are young people and would want to learn a thing or

two or get behind a movement that is including those young people in our politics. We're doing that here. We learned a lot from how they did that in New York. And if young people don't turn out for what you're talking about, you really, really need to think about the sustainability of what you're building. Dr. If you want to win this race, you're going to have to win a state where Donald Trump won by some 1.4% in 2024. What's your diagnosis of what the Democrats did wrong in 2024 to lose to Donald Trump? Look, I'm really thinking about the lessons we can learn. And I think the challenge that we've had too often is that Democrats haven't been willing

to actually go out and talk about the issues that people are facing. I think we tend to think about these elections in terms of left and right. But that's frankly a manufactured lens for the consumption of people who think about politics as a hobby. I don't think about left and right. And I don't think most voters think about left and right. I think about whether or not our politics service the people who have been locked out of the system or they service the people who have locked them out.

And I think what they're seeing in our movement and the reason we're getting such a diverse grouping of people, people who voted for Donald Trump and people who have never voted in their lives at our events, is because we're talking to the people who have been locked out in language that critiques and identifies why they've been locked out and what it means to build a system where they are also included. If we're able to do that, I think we can win. And I hate to say it, Democrats too often have cosplayed the folks who have locked people out. They assiduously avoid issues that are really important to everyday people, but are uncomfortable to talk about. And I hate to say it, when it comes to

Donald Trump, he's usually pretty good at just saying what comes to his mind, however insane and driven by his narcissism that it is, but it doesn't feel like he's trying to lock you out of something, even though his politics have done exactly that. And his policies have been terrible for a lot of these folks who have been locked out. So we've got to go where people are. We've got to speak in language that addresses the challenges that they face. They have to see themselves as part of our movement. And if we do that, we win. And more importantly, we can win the future of our politics, giving people more health care rather than taking away, making sure that the rich, the ultra-rich, pay their fair share rather than being in a situation where they are keeping

more and more of the value that's created by everyday folks who just want to be able to get by. So there haven't been many polls in your race, but the ones that have been conducted seem to have you and Congresswoman Haley Stevens kind of neck and neck. And then you've got a state senator, I think former Media Matters, a person who's down at maybe 10 or 11%. Stevens had the support, a strong support of APAC, an enormous amount of money in her last race to beat a Democrat to get back into Congress. What is your plan if major APEC money comes in to Michigan heading into the primary? So I'll say a couple things about this. First and foremost, I've been clear and I'm not afraid of AAC because to me, my moral integrity means everything. And I think any Democrat today should agree that MAGA billionaire money flooding Democratic primaries should not be what dictates who comes out of Democratic primaries. I want that to be something that everybody agrees to.

Now, I know that others are probably not, but also say this, that on the merits of the issue, we have been watching as our taxpayer dollars have been subsidizing a genocide, perpetrated by the most extreme element of another country who's received blank checks from us for a very long time. I think people look at their kids' schools. They look at their health care centers.

They look at their infrastructure, and they ask, why are we sending money over there to bomb out other people's infrastructures and their schools and kill their kids when we could be invested in our own children here at home? And there's something about the obvious nature of what is being done over there that I think a lot of Democrats ought to pay attention to because here's the thing about it. If you're not willing to see truth for truth and address and ask questions about the enforced language that maga billionaires try and enforce on the Democratic Party, then when you walk around saying that you're going to stand up to corporations and billionaires to make people's lives more affordable, people kind of question

whether or not you actually have the fortitude or the moral clarity to do either of those things. And so I'm willing to go toe to toe on this question because I think it's right. And I'm also willing to go toe to toe on this question because it demonstrates that I don't back down to anybody, whether it's mega billionaires funding their money through APAC on this question or its corporations like pharmaceuticals or insurance companies who want to tell us that we cannot actually have guaranteed health care in America. Those questions are one in the same. And I think we win on the courage of our convictions by stating our values clearly and having conversations with people in their VFW halls or town halls, their living rooms about what we aim to do.

But, doctor, does that include your fellow Democrats? I mean, you can call it mega billionaires. I don't think that's necessarily incorrect. There's a lot of Democrats out there who APAC recipients. In fact, some of them are in Israel right now on an APAC-funded trip. Your potential future colleague, Alyssa Slotkin, was on his show, refused to say the word genocide, waffled a little bit on offensive weapons, who actually attended Colbert. Some of this is going to be uncomfortable. It will require you taking on people in your own party. Is that something that you're willing to do if you're elected?

I mean, I've been willing to do it from day one. To me, it is about what we do to deliver for the people in our state, how we're able to address the fact that their groceries are too expensive, their health care has become unaffordable. It's a principal cause of debt in this country about how we're willing to stand up to the corporations who have rigged our system and yes, the special interest

who have rigged our system. I'm willing to stand up to anybody and everybody and I have taken on my own party on this issue. I'm also glad to see that more of my party is starting to find moral clarity on this, but I want to ask us all a big question here. Imagine rather than in the summer of 2025 all of us were faced with these images

of children whose ribs you could see through their skin and had to confront the reality that we were subsidizing a genocide. Imagine instead of having that moral clarity in the summer of 2025, we had that moral clarity in the summer of 2024. Maybe we would never be in a situation where an extra 10,000, tens of thousands

of innocent people were killed, we wouldn't be watching as food was used as a weapon of war and maybe, just maybe, the clarity on this issue might have changed the outcome of the 2024 election. Look, I endorse Kamala Harris because I knew that Donald Trump would be worse, whether you're talking from the eyes of a child in Detroit or the eyes of a child in Gaza. But it was so frustrating to watch our party fail to take on the obvious issue of a genocide. And I am hoping that we are learning from this mistake and that we are willing to become the party

of peace again. Because look, my second presidential election was I got to vote for a guy named Barack Hussein Obama who bucked his party on the issue of war in Iraq. I think Democrats want peace. I think Democrats want to be on the right side of history. And I know the Democrats that I'm talking to every day, they want that desperately. And that's what we're talking about. And I think we're going to win a race because we're willing to have the moral clarity, whether it is against the pharmaceutical corporations who are raising people's drug prices or it's against the subsidies toward a genocide in Gaza.

And last question for me. Why do you think Trump won the state of Michigan? And what role do you think the genocide did actually play in the final outcome? And in particular, the Democratic support. for it. Look, I hate to say it because it is about moral clarity, it is about integrity, it is about strength. For us to say that we're going to stand up to corporate power, or we're going to stand up to lobbyists, or we're going to stand up to the oligarchs who are rigging and dominating our system, you've got to show that you can both see what the problem is and

that you're willing to have the strength to take it on. But if you can't see a genocide being perpetrated and you don't have the strength to take it on, it forces people to ask whether not you actually have the strength to take on all of the folks who have been rigging the system in ways that have made our lives more affordable. So I do think it played a really important role. And it certainly played an important role here in Michigan. But I think Donald Trump won via a combination of things. I think our party wasn't willing to face up to the fact that for far too long, we didn't have a nominee who could withstand the role of the office, as handling of Gaza demonstrated that. I think we weren't able to mount a campaign that was

true and honest to our convictions. And I think for a lot of people, they were able to ask, they had to ask themselves, who is actually going to unlock the system that has locked me out. I am so terribly sad as somebody who both endorsed Kamala Harris and understands how dangerous Donald Trump has been, even in his first six months, that Donald Trump won that election. And at the same time, the question for Democrats has to be, okay. So how do we go back and get the voters we lost? I think it starts with being 100% honest about, what happened in 2024. It starts with being 100% honest about the ways that we were wrong on policy issues that are so clear. And it starts with being 100% honest about what it will take

to stand up to corporate and oligopoly power that is rendering people's lives on affordable. For us, to me, as someone who wants to be senator from Michigan, the question for me is always, what do we do with our tax dollars? Can we actually rebuild our schools? Can we provide everybody health care. Can we invest in our infrastructure? Can we make it easier for you to afford your basic needs? And that means that our money should be spent here. And it means that we are willing to stand up to power whether those powerful people may agree with us on some issues or they may not. It is about calling it how you see it. And it is about being willing to stand up to the powerful who want to enforce a system that makes you double check or rethink the reality you see with your

own eyes. All right. Well, we'll follow your race with great interest, sir. Thank you for joining us. I appreciate you having me. Thank you so much. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. Ryan and Emily and be on tomorrow. Thank you, Ryan. It's great to see you, man.

And have a great counterpoint show tomorrow. All right. See you later. The stuff you should know guys have made their own summer playlist of their must listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh. And I'd like to welcome you to the same. Stuff You Should Know Summer Summer playlist.

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