Bulwark Takes - Trump-Backed, Racist Republican Just Lost His Primary

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Andy Ogles is officially not returning to Congress after losing his Tennessee Republican primary. Brendan Hartnett and Lauren Egan give their takes on Ogles’ stunning defeat and why Trump’s endorsement wasn’t enough to save him. We break down Ogles’ history of disgusting, racist and homophobic comments, his controversial $25,000 GoFundMe for a memorial garden that never happened, and how Tennessee’s redistricting helped reshape the race. Plus, Brendan and Lauren talk about what Ogles’ defeat means for Democrats hoping to flip the newly redrawn district and whether Trump’s endorsement is still the force it once was in Republican primaries.This episode is sponsored by The New York Times.

Trump's favorite Islamophob is officially not returning to Congress next year. Hey guys, it's Brendan Hartnett with the Bullwork here with Bullwork Takes. I'm joined by Lauren Egan, author of The Opposition Newsletter and our resident Tennessee correspondent. We're here to talk about what happened in a primary in Tennessee last night. But before we do, make sure you smash that like button and subscribe to the Bullwork for more content like this. Before we get to the results, Lauren, set the stage for us. Who is Andy Ogles? I think Andy Ogles is probably the worst member of Congress.

and I recognize that's an incredibly low bar, but I genuinely think he is just objectively, like, a piece of shit. He's essentially a white nationalist. People might have heard of him because earlier this year he was tweeting off a bunch of really Islamophobic and racist things. I wrote a piece about it at the time earlier this spring. For me, I think the most disturbing story about him, have you heard about this gof on me situation with him?

Yes. Insane. Yeah, I think this is worth, like, digging into for a second before we like get into the results. So basically, I think it was like 10 or 12 years ago. I think 2014, Andy Ogil's lost a child, a stillborn child. And he started this GoFundMe account, what she said was going to be to create this garden for other families that have lost kids who have had stillborn kids. Basically this beautiful garden where you can go and remember your child, whatever.

Like great community, nice idea. That's fine. Creates this GoFundMe, raises $25,000. The garden doesn't exist. There's never been a garden created. And Andy Ogles has refused to say what happened to that money. So basically, in my opinion, he just kind of preyed off people's vulnerabilities. And we don't know what happened to this money.

And then he just went on and got elected to Congress. And, yeah, essentially, he's a horrible person. So not that many tears shed for him after last night. Yeah, I mean, he just seems like a scumbag all around and like a uniquely bad one. In fact, he's like even been condemned by some repub. at times in June this year. He fired off a tweet that said homosexuality has no place in America. Happy nuclear family month, which I believe is a reference to Tennessee making June,

not Pride Month, but nuclear family month. Sounds like things are going great down there. Yeah, we have a great parade for it. No, it's like, it's the dumbest thing ever. Like, it's just no one, whatever. It's stupid. But that's entirely his whole personality. Damn.

I mean, he even got shit from Republicans. like who were telling him that like saying this is super fucked up. I think eventually he decided to blame an unnamed staffer, if I recall correctly, saying that they sent it and not him. But I mean, one. It's always good when you're blaming staffers. Like always a good day when you have to blame your staffer. Yeah, I like he doesn't do anything in Congress either.

And, you know, we'll get into the how his district has shifted. But I live just outside of his old district. I really never seen him around the community. He's not present. at all. I genuinely think he just sits there and essentially like drafts up really offensive tweets and just tweets for a living basically. One other one, and you've done some reporting on this is back in March. He said, Muslims don't belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie, which is just like so insane to

me because that's like counter to everything that America's supposed to be about. But you went, he's got actually Muslim, like a real Muslim constituency in, I don't know if it's also his new district, but definitely in his old district, right? And you went there. In the old district, a little Kurdistan, which is this part of Nashville, Nashville has a huge Kurdish population. I think it's the biggest actually in North America. And so there's this neighborhood in Nashville is called Little Kurdistan, great Kurdish restaurants, Kurdish markets, the whole thing. And that fell into his old district. So when he's tweeting these things off earlier this year, he's doing so as he has this huge Muslim constituency and just like does not give a shit. And so I went there when this was all going down earlier this year and talked to a lot of his Muslim constituents who were all just like, yeah, we know that this man is insane. But please don't quote me on the record because I'm really terrified that he's going to like come after me, which is just like a crazy thing to say about the person who is supposed to be

representing you in Congress. Like it was just, you know, for me personally, like I live in, I live in Nashville. is this is my home. It was just frankly, like really, really deeply upsetting. And I just felt so horrible for these people who were like, yeah, I know that my member of Congress wants me to leave this country. I know. It sucks. And I'm scared for my safety here. Jesus. Just horrible. That brings us to Thursday when Tennessee had their primary. And Andy Ogles lost by spectacular seven points to some some guy. I don't even remember his name. I'll let you say more about that. But he was Trump endorsed and yet he fell in a really conservative district. And it seems pretty

crazy to me. Yeah, it was definitely a surprise. I'll make a few points about this. One, Andy Ogles is really fucking lazy. Like, he did not campaign. He basically spent no money. I don't know if he ever held campaign events. I never saw anything. Like, he didn't really try in this race. I think he thought Trump endorsed him and that that was going to be enough. And I will say like Trump's endorsement felt a little half-hearted. It's not like Trump came to the state and campaign for him, but like, why would you? It's a primary, you know, like he should have cruised through this primary. And that's kind of what everyone was thinking going into it.

I think that this was kind of like a natural experiment of whether the Trump endorsement is the only thing you need in Republican politics. If you are an asshole, you raise no money and you are seen as a. is corrupt. And the answer last night clearly is no and that I think is probably a pretty good sign for the country. Again, not like Trump came in campaigned for him. So I think there's some limitations to how we can kind of frame that up. But that's how I'm thinking about what went down last night. And the other example that I think would prove that a Trump endorsement is everything is that if you have a Muslim sounding name as a candidate in Michigan's, I believe,

eighth district did. And despite having Trump's endorsement, whilst to a guy who like already had dropped out of the race but had a super white waspy sounding name. And I like, so yeah, no, I completely agree. Well, Trump took the true social today. And he wrote, last night was a good, another good night for endorsements, eight and one. And one was a person who I remained loyal to, even though he had virtually no chance of winning and was running against a great Trump candidate and former agricultural commissioner of Tennessee named Charlie Hatchner.

Trump wishes him good luck. But like, it's, it is really remarkable now that we're seeing a few different times. endorsement is failing to really, you know, get candidates across the finish line. Yeah. And like him claiming that he had no chance of winning is just obviously not true. The conventional wisdom, even going into the Thursday primary, was that Andy Ogles was going to win this race. Republicans thought that and Democrats thought that. Everyone had kind of, you know, Tennessee's primaries, obviously one of these later primaries in August. So you have to start gaming out general election beforehand. And Democrats and Republicans were,

approaching the November race as if it were going to be Angie Ogles on the ballot. So this was a pretty big surprise to people that live here, to folks on the national stage as well. Like, Trump is just wrong about how he had no chance of winning this. This message is sponsored by the New York Times. On Maga Mondays this week, I talked to Andrew Eger and Will Summer about the declining audience share across the board amongst MAGA media figures. But it was the New York Times, Stuart Thompson, who actually tracked all of those viewership figures and analyze years of audience data to report out that development. Our commentary and analysis

is as only good as the fact-based reporting that it's build time. Every day I'm reading a range of fact-based sources to understand what's actually happening before I ever sit down and hit that record button. That includes the New York Times, as well as the Wall Street Journal notice and some of my favorite reporters on substack, including our own substack, who have deep expertise on their beats. Stewart's piece in the Times is the kind of reporting that takes time. Take sources. It takes real journalistic work to uncover. That's just one example of the result of fact-based reporting. And now you get to decide what to think.

Without fact-based reporting like this, the rest of us are just guessing. So wherever you seek it out, nationally, locally, support fact-based reporting. Interesting. I didn't fully realize that. But yeah, it's a good point. I mean, it was seven points, which is, you know, a real win. It's a big deal. Yeah.

It's been, you know, in a primary, you can make that up, I think. So it's pretty shocking. And I mean, I think what's craziest, too, is that like Andy Ogles is a total cuck to Trump. Like he, I mean, obviously he's an insane person. But, and I believe we have the clip available. He has previously introduced a bill to allow Trump to run for a third term, but also to exclude Obama and George W. From having a third term, which pretty crazy. Let's take a look.

So you're willing to break the Constitution and have President Trump have a third term? Well, actually, I have a little. a bill that amends the Constitution and there's a process by which you can do that. Now let's be honest, that's a tough and long road has to go through the House, has to go through the Senate, it has to be ratified by the state. But I think what it does is it forces a conversation when he juxtaposed the Trump administration, his vision for America versus the failed policies of Joe Biden and what he did to the economy and international trade.

Yeah, I mean, the bill made a big splash when you first launched it. What kind of reception have you gotten from colleagues on that bill? you know, again, it's one of those. It forces a conversation. We'll have a lot of support for how. He's just like so embarrassing. I don't even know what to say. It's just like what a waste of a member of Congress, frankly.

Like it's, you know, and with Charlie Hatcher, he's not, he's very much like more in the traditional vein of Republicans, republicanism in the state of Tennessee. He's obviously going to hug Trump in this election. He did a little bit in his primary. I mean, in his announcement video, he really highlighted the fact that he's this dairy farmer with these beautiful scenes of rural Tennessee. He operates a well-known dairy farm in the state. But he also talked about how he liked President Trump and how he'd be a good ally for him in Congress, the whole thing. But yeah, that video of Ogles is just like, he's just so deeply

unsurious. Like, I have nothing else really to say about it. It's just, it's just a joke. You know, poetic thing is that it seems that Andy Ogles kind of lost a seat by calling for the Tennessee redistricting that we saw where they, you know, made it basically what should be just an all-Republican state for their delegation to Congress. And yet he lost because my understanding is that the redistricting had a big role in him losing, right? Yeah. I mean, Ogles, I feel like more than anyone else kind of got fucked by redistricting because when they redrew the lines, his home base of Murray County was basically split in half. And he gained a lot of the Western part of the state. like think about like Memphis area part of the state that really doesn't know him at all.

And because he's so freaking lazy and didn't spend any money, like it's not like he tried to go out there and like introduce himself to all of these new voters that really don't aren't that familiar with him. So he decided to not campaign. Then he pushes for redistricting, loses his like home base of support or a huge part of it. And then just like gains all these voters that don't know him. So yeah, he kind of like made his own.

in a way, but he is definitely a casualty of this redistricting. Damn. Well, you know, couldn't think of it happening to a better guy. So that's one thing. Yeah. Yeah. Now, here's a question. Did him losing make this race harder for Democrats to flip?

I know it's been on there, I think, red to blue lists. And they've nominated Chas Mulder, who I don't really know much about. But I'm not feeling very confident in Dem's ability to pick up a seat here. Or in Tennessee as a whole. No, and that's totally fair. You're right to be skeptical. This, Chaz's race was one of the, I think it made the very first list of red to blue states that the D-Trip kind of put out. So from very early on, Democrats on the national level were targeting this seat because they thought they were going to be running against Andy Ogles. Him losing makes this a lot, a lot harder for Democrats to flip. Chaz is a good candidate. He's a small town mayor. He was a good recruit. If you are planning to run a sort of, of like, I'm a good family guy and Andy Ogles is the worst person in the world. But you can't run that campaign anymore. That is a way harder argument to make against Charlie Hatcher, who's just like, is also a good family guy. Chas has kind of been playing it safe, I would say. When people are

talking about, you know, moderates can be like a little bit boring and milk toast and squishy, that's kind of the campaign that Chas has been running so far. And I think he could get away with it when it was up against Andy Ogles. You cannot get away with that against a Charlie Hatcher. So I think the big question now is, does that campaign try and shake things up? I don't know if Chas Mulder is that kind of candidate. Everything that I've seen from him so far tells me he's not. So I, you know, I'm very, very skeptical that Democrats can pull off a upset here.

And I know folks are disappointed that they are not going to be facing off against Andy Ogles. Damn. Is there any chance that any of these redrawn districts could result in a dummy mander for Republicans? Is there any, you know, any path for Democrats to pick up a seat here? The Justin Pearson race, which I believe that's Tennessee 9. Do I have that right? All these districts kind of shifted around. But Justin Pearson, who folks might remember as part of the Tennessee 3, he initially was running to primary Steve Cohen and the Memphis seat that obviously got cracked up. And so now it's this R plus 10 district, R plus 9, R plus 10, something like that. Pearson is a really hard worker. He's been working his ass off.

He's an aggressive candidate, but he clearly went into this race prepared to run this sort of like justice Democrat style campaign in a safe district, primarying an older member of Congress. And he hasn't really shown that he's shifted his campaign strategy, even though the makeup of the district has changed dramatically. So I'm very interested in that race. I'm not like ruling that out because I do think he's a much more compelling and dynamic candidate. And I think we're going to get a really interesting experiment with both Chasmolder and Justin Pearson running in very similar districts.

They're both one is R plus nine and one is R plus 10. And they're going to run very different kind of campaign. So we'll get this really good test of what might work in a really rad district like this. And it might be that neither works. We will find out in November. Well, we'll be sure to keep an eye on this race. And obviously, folks, be sure to subscribe to the bulwark and follow Lauren for the opposition newsletter.

It's the best source on Democratic politics as Dems are in the wilderness. Lauren, great chat with you. Until next time, see you guys. Thanks so much. Bye, guys.