Chapo Trap House - 758 - The Iowa State Fair is Decadent and Depraved feat. Rock Hard Caucus (8/14/23)

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

We’re joined by Justin Comer and Evan Jones of the Rock Hard Caucus podcast for their on-the-ground report from this year’s Iowa State Fair. Over the course of two days, Justin & Evan endured the brutal heat and hog stench of the Des Moines fairgrounds to see Mike Pence, Francis Suarez, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Marianne Williamson, RFK Jr. and more, all live and in the flesh. We get their takes on the Iowa political scene, what candidates can convincingly appear to be regular humans, and which of these freaks are worth paying attention to, if any. Find all things Rock Hard Caucus here: https://rockhardcauc.us/ And their Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/rockhardcaucus CANADA: this is your final chance to get tickets to Toronto on 8/17 and Montreal on 8/19! https://www.chapotraphouse.com/live

Music Okay, hello everybody, it's Monday, August 14th. It's Matt Willink-Chris coming to you today, and on this episode we will be discussing one of the most punishing or deals in American politics a grim or deal of which Matt Chris and myself subjected ourselves to on the last go around for the presidential election but for this year we have this elected to send some cannon fodder in our place into this fiery inferno that is the Iowa State Fair. Joining us for today is from the Iowa-based Rube podcast, Rock Hard Caucus. It's our Iowa friends, Evan and Justin. That's us. Hey, thanks Will. Yes sir. Appreciate it. Welcome to the show. So you know, you guys are based in Iowa Iowa state fair

Obviously, you know, it's like it brings brings the national attention to the Des Moines fairgrounds especially during election years You guys took in a lot of the scene there. You saw a lot of the candidates speak and I suppose we'll begin by Just the candidate who unfortunately you didn't get a chance to speak because of for scheduling issues And I'm sure you can fill us in on but certainly the candidate who unfortunately didn't get a chance to speak because of scheduling issues and i'm sure you can fill us in on but certainly the candidate who's uh... presence even when he wasn't there cast the largest and much needed shadow over the iowa state fairgrounds as he leaned forward in his signature style i am of course talking about donald jay trump

and justin what was what was the what was the what was the trump feeling at the iowa state fair even when he was not there? Well, the, every, everyone has Trump as their number one. That's why he's 30 to 40 points ahead of any other candidate. There are, there are weirdos decked out in Maga gear, seeing every other candidate speak, usually not heckling, but there was a bit of that. And I mean, the reason that we didn't end up seeing him is because there was like very little advanced notice of what he was doing or where he was going to be.

So we knew he was going to be there Saturday, but no idea when or where. So Trump's secret show, you had to ask a punk. Yep. Exactly. Yes. And there were plenty of I ones who were also similarly confused and asking us because we were carrying Ron DeSantis fans that we hadn't gotten earlier in the day. So we kind of blended in with the crowd pretty well. The best of the Iowa has to offer, you could say. But yeah, there was a significant number of

people wearing. He actually had a whole group of people wearing hats I guess that his campaign was giving out that said Iowa caucus back-to-back champs 2016 2020 They're green. They look basically like John Deere hats, which is I guess appropriate for that. I was state fair So there is a significant digit. Did it say he won the caucus because he didn't in 2016? Yeah, yeah. I don't think it maybe it wasn't the caucus. Maybe it was just backed back Iowa champ for the whole college. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you see the, the motor, the hover scooter, cruple? Did you

see the husband and wife and the scooters with their trump shirts on that we saw when we were there? That's a big, that's a big problem. It's like the kitten on the baby hanging in their poster. They're almost certainly dead by now. We saw a lot of scooters. And we wish that we had one. There's very jealous. I think I said, I walked like seven miles on Friday. It was very hot.

It was like 90 on Friday, 86 on Saturday. Yeah, that's the only way to take in that kind of place. I mean, for the fur, for those of you who have not attended the Iowa State Fair, I mean, it is quite a scene. It's like the Iowa's the fairgrounds that you're like the middle of Des Moines are like its own city. And during the fair time, it's just like, it is thronged with people. It is just like, it's like an anvil.

It is flat and hot and hammered by the sun. The only thing that got me through it was, of course, the 27th degree beers. You guys apparently did not partake in the 27th degree beers, but that was the only thing that kept my motor running during the ordeal. But did you get a chance to talk to any Trump supporters or what was just the general feel from the Trump crowd? They feel pretty confident, I would imagine. Yeah.

Well, I tried to get press credentials for us and we were denied. I actually said that I was with Choppo Trap House. So just so you know, your name doesn't hold that much weight with the state fair committee. We remember you. Yeah. But yeah, we wanted to try to get some like onsite interviews with the weirdos who are like super into, you know, any of these candidates, but their time was being so monopolized by

the people with the lanyards and the big cameras. So we really only talked directly to like one Maga guy, right? Unless you can remember any other guys, Evan. I mean, I talked to some Maga guys, not as an interview, but the guy that you talked to is definitely the most interesting. He was strange. Yeah, we talked to this guy. His name is Nathaniel, and I believe he told some, he may have been lying to a lot of

reporters, including myself, but I think he said he was from New York, like he just drives all over the country, going to big events like this. And he, I talked to him right after we had seen Mike Pence speak. So my biggest question was like, how do you feel about Mike Pence as somebody who's still a diehard, uh, mauga supporter? And I don't believe that his position is the position of most of the Trump people. He was like, I don't hold anything against Mike Pence for what happened on the sixth as he referred to it, the sixth. He says that Mike Pence has way too much integrity to have done anything to overthrow the election.

And I mean, if we had had, you know, all day to talk to this guy, like, so you believe that what Trump was doing was wrong then, but you still are on board. Like, it's an interesting position that that guy is presenting to reporters. But the reason that he said he is still totally on board for Trump is because he wants to survive. He lives in his car. On SSI. As he tells us anyway.

Yeah, exactly. And all these other candidates are more openly talking about making entitlement programs more sustainable. Is the euphemism, of course. So you would like to survive on like a fixed income and like he does not look into get his social security or embedded care cut? Yeah, no.

And if I was living in my car off of SSI, I'd probably feel the same. I may not come to the conclusion that I need to devote my life to Donald Trump, but I guess that's where we are at this point. It's called covering your bases. You know, like the Democrats always swear they're never going to cut social security. So you got to make sure that you don't get a anti-social security Republican in there.

Of course, the joke is if they feel they got a sort of cut social security, it's getting cut no matter who's in charge, including Donald fucking Trump. Well you mentioned Mike Pence and some of the the fair goers reaction to our former vice president. Now I see here that Mike Pence had a charming anecdote about a cow he met on the campaign trail. Yes, he told us that at some prior event, he had met a cow named

Chippy. And he was very excited to hopefully meet up again with Chippy at the State Fair. So he was, if you were a fan of Tim and Eric Awesome show, he was playing, where's my Chippy at the State Fair? Chippy, I smell you back there. Come on. There's my chippy. I'm sorry. Is he five years old? Chippy is murderous, dude. What are you talking about? These animals are processed and consumed. They're not pets. Especially if their name is Chippy. You're like, you know what's gonna happen to that one? He's going into Chipper. He was reunited with Chippy though.

So he actually, Oh God damn. This is like a child is rewarded. Yeah, Chippy survived. Chippy's like the sole survivor of his claim. So like, so he had met, he had previously met Chippy in Iowa and then he went to the state fair and like put like a like a misconnections or a fake list.

And it was like looking, looking for Holstein. It was like, you know, pattern looks similar to Indonesia. Hit me up. I guess like someone just some, some rancher took pity on him and was like, oh yes, this is Chippy right here. Yeah. That's impressive. rancher took pity on him and was like, oh yes, this is Chippy right here. Or how irritating would it be if like you're some Iowa cattle rancher and the vice president stops at your farm and says, this one, I like this one, save this one.

And then you're like, well, God, now I got to keep this cow around in case the vice president comes back. Yeah. Cause I mean, he's going to be back through. He says that he, his strategy for the Iowa caucus is he's going to visit every county. We have 99 of those. Every pizza ranch, we have probably two, 300 of those and every cases of which we have I think 550 or so.

So you'll see him. If you live in Iowa, you're going to see Mike Pence again. He's doing like the 100% completion run on the Iowa caucus video games. That's right. He's got the thing they love to do. Campaigns that are behind love to promise. I'm going to visit every county. I'm going to suck all of your dicks personally. I care about you, fucking robes. I'm going to, I'm going to sit there and wag my head idiotically while you talk to me about corn. I mean, like the last time we were there, you know, that misstrategy,

like it was up in the air. So it's like that strategy made sense. It was a contested caucus, particularly pretty contested last time we were there. But now, given where the polls are with Donald Trump, yeah, like 30 to 40 points in front of everything, you just got to think of all the wasted man hours being put, dragging Mike Pence's ass to all 99 Iowa counties to what?

Get 3% of the caucus vote in the end. I think he's topping out around what seven Evans been watching the polls more than man. Well, that's a national poll, but I can't imagine that he's that much more popular here than anywhere else, which is seven percent. It's still insane. Now, did you get a chance to see Mike Pence on the stump, you know, press in the flesh, Pitchin, Pitchin is campaign. What is Mike Pence like on the soapbox?

Oh, boring as hell. He surprised me. Yeah. Also, it's fucking annoying that they call it the political soapbox. It's not. It's just a stage. It's the people who are the lies that they tell you. It was Governor Kimberinels' Iowa.

We love her. Everyone loves her. But she was giving fairside chats, which was basically just her lobbying, complete softball questions at the candidates for about 20 minutes. So there wasn't really a whole lot to be gained from that. We didn't, I don't know where, he just disappeared after where it's, he's basically like a living ghost, I think is what I refer to in our podcast. Do you remember, I mean, like, what was his soapbox like, pitch to Iowa?

Because I mean, like, they come there and they, it's like they give a version of their national message, but it's one that they like they tailor certain, certain beats to the Iowa audience, which usually is like, uh, with corn, people love fucking corn. Yeah. Have some more fucking corners of billion dollars to keep growing corn or not growing corn, whatever you people do here. But what was the, what was the Pence pitch? Yeah. So his biggest connection in recent months to the state of Iowa is, there's a school district in, it's called the Linmar school district. It's in a suburb of Cedar Rapids.

And they had a, a gender policy where students could reach out to members of their staff and, and you know and tell them, I want to be referred to with different pronouns than what you were referring to me as before. Yeah, exactly. And they could do this without their parents' knowledge. And so, like, the member of Congress for that district, Ashley Henson went super hard against that and brought Mike Pence out to lobby against that. So he was talking about that with our governor on Friday, how the students in the district could, they couldn't get an ad bill from the school nurse without a parents permission

slip, but they could, they could change genders just willy nilly. Okay, like the next guy I want to talk about uh... from the iowa state fair roster is a guy who i think is like of the not trump people seems to be having his his media moment right now certainly like a little bit of a bump in the polls but he seems to have uh... just a little a little juiced a squeeze and you said he was one of the one of the more interesting uh... presences at the fair and i'm talking about

vivic rom swanay and like the first thing we're talking about is that like he does seem to have a sense of showmanship about him you said that he hired a like a colonial fight and drum style band to follow him around the iowa state fairgrounds like uh... doing yanky doodle dandy or what like what was the what was Vivic like? He was electric. Rama Swami mentioned his role.

Honestly the most charismatic politician we've seen. He's the only one who we opted to. He's all over the place to see twice because we feel that there's something going on there. So he did a fair side chat with our governor and then he did the Des Moines Registered soapbox later that day. And this is kind of how we put the the 5th band connection together because the first time we thought it was a coincidence that this 5th band just happened to be playing right after he finished wrapping it, lose yourself by M&M by the way. And then the the five band played and then she has done before. Yeah, I guess he was a rapper.

Apparently he has a rapper in college. He was like a college libertarian. The fake, the fake was his name. And he, there's clips of him doing the exact same thing when he was in college. I'm sure the Harper crowd loved. Yeah. And then the five band was at the soapbox too. So we realized, oh, he's paying for this to happen all day.

Because he's trying to create a vibe of like 1776. He's trying to appeal to that crowd who's very into the Constitution and the American Revolution. You know, maybe overcomensating for the fact that he is not a white Christian man. Well, yeah, I mean, like, I think the interesting about VVEC is that, like, you know, he's young. He's certainly kind of media savvy. And there is like no shortage of like very rich right wing South Asian tech guys in this country. But I think the problem for him is that there are more right wing people who think Hinduism is like Satan worship. So I mean, like that's a hard circle to square for Vivek.

But like I did also I did also read that he had bought billboards around Des Moines that just said there are two genders. That's the big thing of his. He basically has like a 10 commandments that he goes through when he does this stump speech. And the first one is God is real. The second one is there, too. How many God's are real? Yeah. That's my question. Interesting one.

I guess there are, I don't know a lot about Hinduism, but there are, you know, sects of Hinduism that push a more monotheistic belief system. And he claims that he's that one in order to make, make clear that I do share your values, such as having, believing in one singular God, which is a phrase, a phrase that he did use, one singular God. Jesus is an avatar of Ganesh. It's fine. That does seem like a very difficult proposition to, as part of your campaign for president also convince a broad swath of the Republican electorate that Hinduism and Christianity are basically

the same thing. Yes. I mean, he's saying all the other right stuff though. Like one of the 10 commandments is the 10 commandments of V-Dake is reverse racism is racism. So I think the appeal of a brown man saying that is like, they do love to hear that. That's powerful. That's a powerful appeal to a lot of the folks out there.

Yeah, Larry Elder is doing the same kind of line too. I mean, like obviously like, you know, this is, you know, it's gonna be sort of variations on a theme for any of these Republican candidates. And like the war on woke, the woke mind virus is, is there a main obsession? But it seems like Vivek did that thing way better than Ron DeSantis, who is now having to rebrand. But I did just notice that Vivek is also pivoting because,

you know, like he had, like all his merch had some shit about like stop the woke or whatever. And he's just replaced that with hats that say truth. Truth now. So I think he's gonna say like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, I mean, are you think that you feel that like these Republican candidates are sort of taking a lesson from like DeSantis eating shit and trying to sort of soft pedal this woke stuff or are like, or just find a different way to talk about it.

It doesn't seem like they are the weird woke thing that they're complaining about, you know, like, just by bringing up these issues so often that people don't want to hear about or seem weird. Like, they're trying to find like a new way to pitch that in a way that doesn't make them seem, if not out of touch, then like monomaniacly focused on these like strange cultural war issues

that people feel a little bit alienated by. I think Vivek has pretty broad appeal. He hits all of the things. So I don't know if the woke stuff is really going to be his main focus. He's kind of a shapeshifter. He's basically what people were talking about with like after Trump, there's going to be a more competent Trump sort of guy. And he is very charismatic. He takes questions

from people in the crowd willingly and openly and well. So like, I don't know if you really, I don't recall any of the questions being asked as having anything to do with with any of the the woke stuff. It was more about federal budget stuff, honestly. snooze. Yeah, boring. Yeah, I mean, Evan, when we talked about this the other night, your your theory is that if Vivek were to win the primary, which he surely will not, but he, for the general would pivot very hard the other way, because it seems like he doesn't truly believe anything except for his own ego. I mean, I'm sure he has some really strong beliefs about IQ racial relations. That's probably like a bedrock belief. Everything else is negotiable.

Right. Yeah. One of his weird things is he wants to ban voting under the age of 25, which is a very funny thing if you're like, you know, like his merch has like 1776, he's talking about revolution and stuff. But then he's like, I want a constitutional amendment that basically bans voting if you're under first responder. So he's looking at our first responders, which is good. But one of the most insane proposals I've heard, but the thing is like he's such a smooth talker that you might not even like a lot of the stuff he says, like doesn't even register. He's just captivating. It's like he's really the only one who's really channeling Trump in the same way. Yeah. Like, just for example, it does feel like bomb and invade Mexico is a strong rhetorical raise on Bill the Wall.

Like, you can't just say Bill the Wall because the Trump party said that, you got to raise the ante and drone striking war as definitely does that. Yeah. The DeSantis pushed that pretty hard when he was talking to Kim. Yeah, a lot of the lesser candidates were like, we got to actually finish the wall, and that's boring at this point. You guys, yesterday,

you guys were like, you guys are so pretty. Yeah, yeah. So like, yeah, and Vivek is like, he's talking about, he's like, I'm not for inter-criminal reform, I'm for revolution versus pretty much every other candidate is talking about American decline,

we got a reverse decline, and Vivek is saying, or revolution versus pretty much every other candidate is talking about American decline. We got a reverse decline. And Vivek is saying the decline is not happening. Block that out of your minds, which is way more powerful than any of the, the granda sandwich shit. I did want to talk about one of the other Vivek commandments because it's such a perfect

like conservative thing, which is the, so a thing that I had seen a few times, I actually had to DM Dave Wigel to figure out what the hell this means. But the thing that says there are three branches of government, not four branches of government. When I've, I've seen that burbling up in a few like conservative type memes.

And at first I thought that that was a thing I'll attack on what like the fourth estate, like Journalism stuff. That's exactly what I thought. Literally, we set on our podcast. Or voters, voters, voters, or speech of government. But that's the deep state.

It's like the beer, obviously. It's the deep state. Yeah, the fourth branch is like the administrative state, which is, it's funny to me because it's basically like, you're talking about like Trump, post Trump Trumpism, in that, you know, Vivek basically has to like gentrify the term deep state. Like deep state is too like, noided for the, yes, casual voter, but you say no, no,

no, it's the fourth branch of the fourth branch of government. Yeah, the fourth meal of government. That is, uh, that's overtaking everything. Which you know, there's somewhat of a point there, but uh, good, good looking at some truth to it. Yeah. Yeah. These are people we, we don't elect. It's a classic bait and switch because when you say that people are going to think things like, oh, yeah,

the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, but in practice, it just means like firing a bunch of like energy department like secretaries, you know, like a lot of people who like stamp, like who like authorize people to go to Yellowstone Park at the interior department. like, who like authorized people to go to Yellowstone Park at the interior of Park by ourselves. Like that should end then like the remaining jobs get, you know, contracted out to his buddies and that's war on the administrative state. Yeah, part of what Vivek said at his soapbox beach

ties into that really well. He wants to shut down the FBI and he said specifically that anyone with a desk job in the FBI needs to go get honest work in the private sector and then all field agents can become US marshals and things like that. So he just wants to, I mean, like, yeah, like this is the bait and switch matters talking about because it was like, if the policy was get rid of the FBI and CIA, sure, I'm listening, but it's very clear that he just wants to replace them with like worse versions of what already exists. Like replace the FBI with Rayland Givens. Just

10,000 Rayland Givens standing out across the country. Yeah. Just more sheriff, smart deputies. They're just like, we need, we need a locally based FBI. We don't need federal law enforcement, but we need their equivalent in every American town. But like a subject to the authority of they're equivalent in every American town, but like a subject to the authority of the local cattle barren instead of the federal government. I was so taken by the message of abolishing the FBI that I actually purchased a baseball cap from Perry Johnson.

He's selling a campaign hat that just says abolish the FBI. So I got suckered by that one. I heard you guys talking about this. This is like some kind of scam to get small number, enough small number donations to actually qualify for your Johnson's $1 store. The Perry Johnson dollar store. Yes, yes.

So I think you guys talked about this before, but like Doug Burgham is doing the thing where you can donate a dollar and get $20 back, which seems question legal. Yeah, yeah. Francis Suarez was doing the same thing, gift cards and exchange for donations. He's already met the criteria or 40,000, but he hasn't pulled above 1%. So he might not be on the debate stage. Yeah. And Perry is doing a thing where every single item on his campaign store is $1 free shipping.

So we could fucking bring this guys fortune if we wanted to. Okay, I know we've talked about Doug Bergham on the show in Francis Suarez, Mayor of Miami. I'm one of them must have mentioned Perry Johnson and forgot who the fuck he was, immediately after reading, oh this guy is running for president. Who is Perry Johnson and like, what is his deal? Well, I talked, we talked to Dave Weigel, actually, we were at the fair. He was there reporting for semifor I think is where he's with, but, yes, very nice guy, by the way, he's a very nice guy, but we, we love to, I compared him to, he's basically the Tom Steyer of the Republican nomination this year, except he has about. Oh, guy, a cool guy. Actually, he's our favorite. He's my favorite freak that we witnessed.

He's got like a permanent like Rick Disgrin. He just kind of just like Tom Steyer. Yeah, really. He's happy to be there. He's really jazzed. His scheme to get into the debate was to throw on a big and rich concert where you were allowed to go to the waterworks park in Des Moines. It's like the largest public park maybe in the country. That's right. Yeah. So he basically had this scam to co-see a concert for one dollar. Apparently he got his 40,000 donors and he's like, all right, it's free. We're having a party like anyone could come even for free. Right. A horse. So cowboy. That's unfortunately it's too late. So you missed it if you didn't go, but yeah,

that was nice of him. You mentioned that he's the Tom Steyer of this Republican field. I mean, the big and rich concert. I just had like a flashback to when Tom Steyer got juvenile to fucking play one of his career. Hey, rallies. It was just like, it was just, it wasn't even really a campaign rally. It was just like a personal party for Tom Steyer and his family. Yeah. It was like, you know, I'm going to do a back that ass up. Yeah.

That was awesome. As Will mentioned earlier, like one of the points of the Iowa State Fair for all these politicians is to pitch themselves, you know, slightly adjusted for Iowa specific. But I would say that the other thing that I got the main point of the Iowa State Fair is for candidates to test their ability to perform the visage of normal humanity, of doing their best job of playing the role of normal human. And how does a guy like Perry Johnson, you know, live up to that role that he has to play?

Or really, anyway, these guys, how do they, do they pass the the the the turn? I'm not sure if he does. It's definitely not a normal human. Perry is not a normal human. He does have a charm though. Yeah. Yeah, he had hype guys.

You're like, is anyone want to talk to Perry Johnson, the presidential candidate? Um, there was not many takers. Yeah, there's, I should mention, uh, Doug Bergham, um, at some point during the fair, we saw him walking past us. No one else registered that this was a presidential candidate walking by. And I was like, Hey, it's Doug Bergham. Hey, man. And he did not even look at me. His staff are worried about what the hell, dude? Wow. Big time.

And miss not opportunity to reach out to a young Iowa voter who is supposed to be, oh, that this is supposed to be about retail politics, idiot. I know for real. Like that's the only reason you're here. And the, by the way way the trump guy that I interviewed who lived in his car He said that his second choice is Doug Bergen He's awesome. He said he's awesome too. That was the only reason. Yeah, that was his reasoning. He's awesome Well, I mean Chris brought up the the part of it. I was stay favorite. We'll is yeah like a Peering to be normal among the literal and metaphorical swine of America.

But we got to talk about the candidate who is thus far most like most a-shit on that crucial task for running a good presidency. And that is Ron DeSantis. You said that Ron DeSantis was there basically to be beat up on by everyone. And then Trip had a, even when he wasn't there, he had like a, like a plane flying, like was a message, be likeable Ron. Just cool. Yes. Be normal. Ron cruising by the way, aircrafts. Ron is in the Jeb font with the exclamation point, which is like, oh, beautiful twist on it. Still got it. Yeah, still got it, folks. I mean, I saw footage of Ron, like, just like sort of doling out hard boiled eggs or something.

I was like, wow, that's a big, I'm a fan of a fat and 90 degree day is just here. Have a hard boiled egg. He was growing up. He's... His humanity is definitely under the most scrutiny right now. You know, he's... He's like... He sees himself anyway as the number two the only guy who could possibly overtake the big Don. But he's definitely number two.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he's... He's just such an, like, unlikable dweeb. He's... And, like, you's, he's just such a like, unlikable dweeb. And like, you said like that, like he definitely has the most haters, like among, you know, Democrats, uh, LibBrain people, MAGA people. But you know, Ron, he does have a contingent of a first specific kind of person. Could you talk about like the young dissentist lads that, uh, you were able to observe, um, in his, in his backwash the rob boys. Yeah. Well,

there's a lot more. Well, there's a ton of like younger public in probably works for Cameroon Olds' administration. More so on Friday, I overheard people speaking about lamenting childless adults and complaining about vegan chorizo. It was very strange. With these like college age or teenager kids complaining about childless adults, they were younger than us. That's because that's what they know they're future stories. They've looked into the crystal ball. I'm getting no pussy. I'm going to need a government girl friend, B girlfriend bureau and Ron is the man to get one. Yeah, Ron's face is kind of like the group chats

where the N word comes up, like those are, yeah. Yeah, for sure. There were some protesters also at the Ron DeSantis Fairside Chat. He's the only one who attracted like an organized protest, yeah. What were people protesting about Ron? He sucks. Well, it's just whole way. They were just hecklers protesting about Ron? He sucks.

It's just a way they were just hecklers. They were really protesting. Yeah. I mean, mostly it was like liberals wearing a ray gun t-shirts. You guys have no ray gun. Oh, yeah. Ray gun. No, what's that? It's basically the cringe liberal store in Iowa. The Midwest. Yeah, they make merch. I think they have other locations like Kansas City and Chicago, which is very funny, but it's, it's, sure, it's a lot of liberals where there's a lot of like snarky stuff. Like I bought, we had like a gag gift exchange for Christmas on our podcast and I gave just

an gift that has, as a t-shirt that says, that's Dr. Jill Biden to you. That's a doctor. Oh, these are-shirt that says, that's Dr. Jill Biden to you. That's Dr. O's. These are so good. These are so good. Dr. Firstly, yeah, it's very cringey, but a lot of people like lap it up first. So like people who are protesting Ron, they are like

blowing whistles and ringing bells and shit. And yelling, you motherfucker, Ron is getting bodied by like live wine moms who have wear t-shirts. Like my other car is a delorean or something like that And it's a picture of a delorean like that Joe Biden is driving like You say you were describing that your your other co-host can't be here Natalie was wearing a particularly in Politically insane outfit. Yeah, that was another one that that was an Evan find politically insane outfit. Yeah, that was another one that that was an Evan find.

Yeah, I got a Reagan test print t-shirt, which is just basically all of their graphics printed on the same t-shirt. The only thing on this one is that the sleeve had a saying that said, I'd rather have come on my face, which I'm pretty sure was like, I was supposed to be printed on a mask for COVID. But I ended up on the test print. So yeah, I think it's a little bit of a weird content, but it was Spencer's gifts for it. She also had a, we haven't talked about Ryan Binky. Binky.

Yeah, I'm thinking. I don't really need to know about Ryan Binky. Who is Ryan Binky? Ryan Binky. Ryan Binky. Yeah. A Binkley? Ryan Binky. Ryan Binky. Yeah. A preacher, like even I don't know,

and I just saw the man. He's a mega church guy. Yeah, he's a mega church guy. He's very boring. His shirts, well, so like half the t-shirts and stuff said believe, like very non-descriptive. But then the other stuff he was selling was WTF. It's just a hat that says WTF

on it. And it says underneath way too freedom, which, which is like a pack, he runs or something. Yeah, it's very confusing. And like really, like it has binkly 24 in the back, but you're not going to, you're not going to notice that probably. Yeah. That's the touch on with the WTF. It's very confusing because it's like way to freedom is and hey, this is the way to freedom or way to freedom. Yeah, wait a freedom brother. I don't know

bro. I just really hope he gets in the well, Trump's not going to debate. It's a bummer because I'm just imagining him going, we got Ryan Binky. What is Ryan Binky doing here? Who is Ryan Binky's way to freedom to spelled to T O O. Yeah, that's

much freedom to see that. Yeah way too much freedom. His whole campaign thing is about like reinfigorating our faith in America. It's he's nothing. Don't worry about it. We're gonna we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna revive all those George W. Bush voters. We're gonna go into the Graveyard with the with the

the defibrillator and bring him back to life. All right, gonna go into the graveyards with the, uh, with the, the defibrillator and bring him back to life. All right. What about Miami mayor Francis Suarez? Mr. Mr. crypto, Mr. Miami coin. Was he, was he showing any of his Miami coins in Iowa or I mean, how's he, how's he taking his, his management of the South Florida city of Miami? How's that playing in Des Moines, Iowa?

Not well. Was really not well. It's not going over well with the crowd. In fact, we were, you were like, surfboarding, how about paddleboarding? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, he, so something that Kim Reynolds was doing at these fairside chats, it was all just a very softball type of conversations.

She would ask each candidate the quick three near the end of her conversation with them. The first of which was tell us a funny thing that's happened to you on the campaign trail. And this is how he's relating to the Iowans. This is about being normal people. This is like, oh, got the Voic Compt test. Forever candidates. Yeah, yeah. All right. Look me in the eye. Has anything I'm using ever happened to you in your entire life? And it's going to take like at least half of these guys, like, the gears are going to start burning in their head, you know?

Oh, you're going to love this answer. Well, I was walking through the, uh, the, the sun blasted desolation of the Iowa state fairgrounds. And I saw a turtle on its back struggling to flip itself over and I saw a turtle on its back struggling to flip itself over and I laughed at that. I laughed for our real attention. That was amazing. Yeah. But this is how he's relating to the common I win voter is his funny story, which he

even prefaced by saying, I don't know if this is funny or not. His funny story is that it actually takes him longer to get from campaign events back home to other events and whatever, it takes him longer on his private jet than it does for these other candidates who have rented buses. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh, man. Wait, but this guy's a preacher with a private jet. Jesus Christ. No, this is a swar. Oh, swar. This is a rancis. Yeah. He's the mayor of Miami. What the hell is he doing with a Oh, squar. This is a squar. Yeah.

He's the mayor of Miami. What the hell is he doing with a private jet? What's he doing with a private jet? Yeah. Same question. Yeah. What is he doing with a private jet? It's just, you know, he's making a, making some, I can't be in stops in Bogota.

Yeah. Bogota of Miami. His, his appeal that he told to the again, very old Iowa, Cocker or Iowa State Fair crowd was that he can appeal to young voters, he can appeal to urban voters and he can appeal to Latinos, of which he was the only one that I could see. He's young 45. Yeah.

And also, after the one or the other three fun questions I ask is like, what's your favorite walk out music? Which he's answered with like my part of town, which I don't know what that is, but then he changed it to the streets have no name by you two, which was very funny and very out of touch and Justin he had a little nice moment with Justin because we're like, hell yeah, we're just like you two heads in the crowd. Is there any other people there? Yeah, Francis and I gave a knowing a YouTube nod to each other. Octoon baby. All right.

How about how about a candidate who a lady who I'd like, I would regard like in if Trump had never happened. And like, you know, the the the republican party continued on it's sort of like mid-romb the john mccain uh... jeb uh... trajectory i would regard as being like probably like a front runner or having a good chance of winning the nomination niki hailey what was niki hailey like and what's what's her pitch to voters because i think you see like

sort of like uh... holding that hold was holding down that Neocon brand a little bit. How would you describe Nikki Haley's relationship to Iowa and the fair? Well, I made my first of a few trips to the Port of Pottie during Nikki Haley, so Evan might have more of a memory of this. Yeah, you didn't miss much there. She was very, very boring. She started out talking about how she grew up in South Carolina. They only have two street lights in her town. It's the sort of thing that connects to Iowa. Blah, blah, blah.

She did. You're a bunch of dirt people too, aren't you? Yeah, we are dirt people. So you see, you meant around here. Yeah. She was very boring. She did, yeah, she did get in a little bit more of the national security. Of course, all the candidates were talking about China and all the things they're doing.

Francis Swerves was talking about how they're going to read our emails. But hers was even less specific than that. She was like, they have a code that they've put on government computers that will allow China access to our computer networks, but it's undetectable. So it was like just complete gibberish. I'm sure like if they're tiny years old, it might create the entity. Yeah, they have achieved a singularity. We are way far behind on that technology. And we need to we need to escape up. Here's my campaign manager, Esai Morales. They're gonna do Chinese Y2K to our banking system.

That'll be like Y, year 5,000. This is when the Ron Dessantia Dragon came. Lane started flying around, so I think most people were more captivated by just like, oh, look, there's a plane with a funny banner on it than anything she had to say. Yeah, we were just watching the banner fly by. It's a way more compelling. I can hear them calling hogs in the clear highway air.

I can sniff the fragrant with all the highway roads. You've got highway in your heart. I've got highway in my hair. I've got highway in my your heart. I've got I weigh in my hair. I've got I weigh in my ears and eyes and nose Now, obviously like the Republican field is is like that's where the action is but like let's be forget There's still there's a democratic primary two and you know, Joe Brandon I don't he would he didn't show up at all to the Iowa State Fair, right? No, he's too scared you didn't show up at all to the Iowa State Fair, right? No. He's too scared.

Yeah, that's what it is. But we got Marianne Williamson and RFK Jr. Did you talk a bit about them? Yeah. I mean, Chris, you kind of like hyped up, Marianne a lot. You told me that she's, you've seen her speak live and she was, very captivating, right? We've seen her speak a few times. And yeah, nice saw her at a venue out here in LA in March.

And maybe it was just the venue and maybe it was that, you know, she, she was just starting out, but it was the tone there was pretty electric. Yeah, it's like a, like a preacher deal. Okay. And again, she has like, yeah, her like kind of spiritual, somewhat vaguely social democratic pitch. I mean, when it, when she doesn't have to be specific about it, the good vibes can carry or the positive vibes for the future can carry her. Like at the, I was the soap box last time, she talked about how we needed to slam it. Yes. We do need to. She said the reason that one. Yeah, we need to slow it away. Okay. She said that.

We reason that one. Yeah, she closed with this time around. Oh, yeah, no, that's her move. Yeah, that was one of the best parts. So she did end on a high note. But yeah, my impression was that she's kind of toned down from last time. Like she's really just sort of like doing a watered down Bernie 2016. Like, you know, we've been living under 50 years

of corporate dominance that value profits over safety health and well-being. I mean, she's saying stuff that is like totally agreeable to me, but I was there to see her talking about like the great battle of good versus evil and the dark spirit that has taken over America that needs to be vanquished, you know? Yeah, that's the best stuff when she gets like real Tolkien about it. Yeah, like when she's talking more door. Yes, and that's cool. And that we need like a spiritual revolution of love to overcome the dark forces that

pervade our demonic government, you know. There's a disappointing lack of that. Yeah, she's sort of repressing that now it seems. Oh yeah, you know, she's, she's tackled to the center so that she could, you know, appeal to undecided voters and maybe win this thing. Right. Yeah, it's something helping her to tone down

the only thing that makes her notable. Um, one phrase she used that I really did enjoy was we need to reclaim the rampantiousness of the American spirit. That's something I can believe because we will learn by the pool. We need more rap scallions running around and getting into mischief in shenanigans. We need to resist bad time. And then the other Democrat candidate, RFK Jr., you said that as far as like tailoring his pitch and his general presence to the Iowa crowd, you said RFK Jr. did a quite a good job of that.

Yeah, I feel like the way that I've been talking about this is it appealed to me very strongly. I don't know how well it would play with just people in general, but for me, I'm a Bobby boy now. What was it that Bobby, when you over with? He spent basically his entire speech talking about carbon capture pipelines, which are, you know, being heavily promoted by the Biden administration and are coincidentally charting, yeah, like are proposed to be put right through the heart of our state. It's like polls at like 20% in favor of this. Conservatives hate it because of imminent domain. They're taking farmers' lands away from them to put a carbon capture pipeline. And then left these hate it because

it's like just being supported by the fossil fuel industry as like a stopgap measure so they can keep fracking and drilling. This is like a few subjects that has drawn together a bit of like a left-right alliance among engaged people in our state. And that's what RFK juniors all about. He's all about the wedge issues that are going to hurt Democrats the most. They're most likely to be mad about him talking about. You also said that another pitch on his soapbox speech was the fact that firms like BlackRock

are just buying up all the available property, like land and housing in America. That's a terrifying thing to think about. And I suppose like, yeah, like some political candidate should be talking about that. Yeah. Absolutely. It was BlackRock. And then what were the other firms that, Van Darden, State Street, or the three that he repeatedly mentioned?

Yeah. He was hidden that over and over how there's like a handful of these very small organizations that are strip mining America for their own profits at the expense of everybody else and they own everything and they're just continuing to accumulate more and more of this country and decimating the rest of us. And we can get behind that. I mean, did he go further? Like, did he have a prescription to like, how to deal with the black rocks of, like, you know, of our time, like these Robert Barons and people who are strip-mining America and selling it for parts? That's a good question. No. It was more just telling us what the problem is. I think he's more about just scrambling

people's brains for whatever purpose. It's a very strange thing. It did work on us because it's like, yeah, this are important issues. But yeah, I don't know what RFK is can do about it. He got a lot of points for me for saying the name Bruce Rastetter on a Des Moines Register soap box stage across the street from a farm bureau tent. Bruce Rastetter is like a big figure in industrial agriculture business in Iowa and he used to be on the board of regents that governs the educational institutions in our state simply because he's friends with our former governor

and donated a bunch of money to him. So he's like a huge figure that you can focus all of your hatred of corruption on. And the fact that, you know, RFK knows who that is and set his name in front of a group of people, like that won me over quite a bit. That's, yeah, that's like, that's Iowa bonus point. He's, he's playing him in the crowd. He knows that I wasn't so careful about. Yeah, there was a big crowd as well. He had a good, good, uh, there are people chaining Bobby when he came up. He draws all the Kennedy nostalgia fans. Uh, Bobby, just don't exit through the, uh, the

public, uh, the stick kitchen. Would you have to go with your speech? Yeah, there's a lot. Keep an eye. He brought his own security. Yeah, he brought a dream very prominent, very obvious bodyguards. Uh, we tried talking to you, but they were just giving us a British

royal guard treatment. Yeah, not taking any chances this time. He's well protected. Oh, I guess I, I forgot about one of the Republican candidates. Larry Elder, you mentioned him briefly. Oh, yes. He's another woke warrior. He ran for governor out here in California.

And I guess he's like, you know, he's a resetting to, you know, I guess, raises profile a little bit more running for president. I mean, it's obviously not going anywhere, but like Larry Elder, talk radio host, kind of black conservative. What was any juice there with Larry? No. I mean, he's, I guess when he was running for governor, like some newspaper or something, must have called him the black face of white supremacy,

which is a phrase he used in front of us, and then proceeded to talk about the epidemic of fatherlessness and like FBI, black on black crime statistics. So he's living up to the title. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I just love that he ran for governor on the recall, lost by 30 fucking points and then it's like, next stop the White House. Yeah, it's, I mean, I don't think that these people could be that delusional, right? So what, what is he hoping to gain by? There's no downside, you know? Yeah, if anybody sees you, if, yeah, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, somebody might buy your book or your supplements or give you a job on a TV station, that there's no downside.

You cannot embarrass yourself by writing for president. That's what Trump proved to everybody. So you might as well do it. If you got nothing else going on, go for it. Yeah. And he is a media guy, you know, radio. So, you know, maybe he can just get a Fox News gig out of it. Now, like outside, outside like the political side show, how about just some sort of on the ground with like flavor? Like, what were, were some of the

cooler attractions, like things to see and do at the Iowa State Fair? Like I mean, they're like, we're the shame smokers there again, because they were there when we were. New kids on the block performed. Oh, yeah. The other day was one of the guys from Florida, Georgia, but not both of them. Not sure if it was a Florida Georgia. Just in Florida. Yeah. The chicks, formally Dixie, were there.

Also Jason. Chris, I know he's flying high right now. Yeah, Luda. Yeah. One attraction that I don't think we've talked about on Mike was the seat belt convinced her. That's the state patrol that brought that out. Yeah, it's an Iowa Department of Transportation event

or you know, stand where they had a contraption that would convince you to wear a seatbelt that our friend Justin rode to. Where you convinced. Not fully and I can tell you why. This is basically it simulates a collision at five to ten miles per hour and what it is is like a seat on like a trailer that just tips and then they let the seat go and it slides down slowly and you feel the impact. But they wouldn't let me do it without the seatbelt. That's what really convinced me.

If I understand what happens to me when I don't wear the seatbelt, then with the seatbelt and then I can compare and then I will know I will be convinced one way or the other. Yeah, it's not a proper environment. It was out of A, B. with the seatbelt and then I can compare. And then I will know I will be convinced one way or the other. Yeah, it's not a proper environment. Was that an AB? That's the control. Yeah, yeah. And everyone's me of my experience in like the iOS state

trooper sponsored drug trailer. Where it was like a trailer that you walk into and you're sort of escorted around by an iOS state trooper and it's supposed to be like mimic a teenager's bedroom. And like there are like 50 different places in which you can hide drugs in it. They just go through like, this is what you look for.

Like this is where a bong might be or like, hey, this book, it's like, it's like cut out the pages that I can put like meth and crack in it or whatever. And then we did the like the drunk goggles thing where you have to walk along a line and it's like, this is what it's driving is like after four beers and it was like, it's not for me. Another place we went was the like the animal learning center where they have a bunch of baby animals. We had a child with us at the time. But when we went in there, we noticed that they have a ton of flat screen television panels.

Oh my God. Basically, a sports bar, except it was just showing animal livestock births. It was like... It's not a loop over the water. Generally, very disturbing in addition to all the other animals. They have mother pigs in this cage feeding their little piglets. It was kind of disturbing, honestly. like they have like mother pigs like in this like cage like feeding their little piglets. It was kind of disturbing honestly. This is the ronda sent us propaganda about childless adults. They're like, yeah, let's get our brood mayor is ready. Yeah, just imagine you like, I don't know,

a five-foot screen that everyone can see playing a video of like a goat wandering around in a circle with half of a baby goat hanging out of its back side. And that's very when the baby, the baby, you know, drops a foot and a half to the ground followed by some sack of dark fluid. This is what they were showing to everyone. Children. Yeah. There were many kids watch this.

And this is to promote the pork industry. Is this to promote the food? And then wash it all down with a pork chop on a stick. And this is to promote the pork industry. Is this to promote the food? The food's the blind shot. Then wash it all down with a pork chop on a stick. Yeah. Yeah. This is how the food is made, folks, is where it starts. There were giant, giant mother pigs feeding just piles of baby pigs. And it was harrowing to witness because they the last giant pig we saw looked

way too human like the color of its skin was like this the same as me and it had like dark hair covering its its giant abdomen. Well, I mean, I got asked like I think the the marquee attraction of the Iowa State Fair of course the butter cow how of the Iowa State Fair, of course, the butter cow. How were the butter sculptures this year? I didn't make it over there. We were lost a lot of the time. It's very disconcerting.

It's a lot of walking around there. So the thing with the butter cow is like, once you've seen it, you've seen it, and the thing about it also is that they make the same, they melt the butter that they use a previous year. Like it's reuse butter. Like it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's just your old butter. Good God. I saw, I didn't see this in person, but I saw photos of this.

Caitlin Clark was like the star women's basketball player at the University of Iowa this season. And there was a butter sculpture of her. And I don't, I don't mean to be flattering. I don't mean to be rude to the people who made it, but it's, it's not a very good likeness. It was a sad to look at. See, this is tragic to me that they're reusing old butter, just this disgusting wall of, of rancidness behind a plastic. After they display these things, they should make them new every year,

and then after they display them for a while, they should like roll them out at like some sort of like corn festival or something, and you just like roll the corn cob along like the back of the cow or something, and everybody gets to interact with it by putting some on their fucking corn cobs. Why are they not doing this?

Yeah, exactly. If this is supposed to be a celebration of our state to make us really feel like one big community together, yeah, the expectations should be that we all ingest the butter sculptures. You gotta eat the butter cow. How about this? This is my body.

A, how about Iowa should start doing like a Wicker Man style scenario except with a giant butter cow. And everyone, lucky I win. Yeah. And Doug Burgos is going in the wicker cow. Yeah, whoever loses the straw ball. Yeah, goes in the wicker cow. All the I wins and fair goers,

they just stand around it into big circles, singing songs and just waiting with like a lobster tail in their head. So you can split off songs. Yeah. Yeah. There was one other attraction. This was also it was part of the political circus, but I didn't want it to go unmentioned that Dennis Cucinich was present.

So yeah, RFK's campaign. RFK's campaign. I wrote this. Yeah. You said he held up a piece of paper. Yeah, what is this? Bobby brought him out on stage. He said, Hey, everybody, I'm going to bring Dennis Kucinich out.

And I was excited. I mean, I, we're all excited. We all love Dennis. We love Dennis. I will say he's, he's lost a lot of his, uh, his impish sort of LVish glow that he had when he was a younger man. But he looks like an old jail man, which is kind of what he is. So yeah, the shine has got his, his, his me thrill has been tarnished over the years. But Bobby introduced him as his Vanna white.

Oh, yeah. And had him come out and hold on. Not Cheryl Heinz with the book. Yeah. I know that Cheryl was not looking the book. Yeah. I know. I know. I know. That Cheryl was not there.

We've been looking for her. Yeah. Confinder. Yeah. All these other guys are dragging their wives out on stage. Like if Bobby did the same, he'd be like the pole jump off. Oh, he can't reach pop from that. Yeah.

You can overtake Biden at that point. But yeah, Dennis did not say a word. He was holding a visual aid. A map of Iowa that shows where the carbon capture pipelines go. That was his only role. Now, were the the ray gun wearing lip, lip moms, were they out in present in support of a Bobby or Marianne? Like, is there genuine excitement for these people over Biden? Does it seem or is it more just like, oh, I'll just see this guy speak. No, well, there is an RFK contingent, but it's mostly nostalgia for the Kennedy family.

The it's like boomer liberals who or they're just vaccine weirdos. Maybe he does have he does have a bit of a of a following. But yeah, for the most part, I mean, it's either reporters watching these events or like weirdos like us. Yeah, there were a few Mary Ann like die hards there, which was kind of funny. But yeah, for the most part, you know, people were receptive to it, but there wasn't like, you know, everyone knows what the writing on the wall is. So it's not really too much to get worked up about. And the Democrats aren't even putting Iowa first this year. So it's not nearly as important for them.

I will say one other thing that we did at the fair was talk to the Iowa Libertarian and Communitorial candidate Rick Stewart who ran in 2020. His lieutenant, 22, 22, yeah, his lieutenant governor. Thank you. His lieutenant governor has endorsed RFK junior, which is on Reddit. Like he's on Reddit. That was the announcement. Yeah. Yeah, that was the announcement on the like our slash Iowa sub-rate.

So yeah, those are the kind of people who are into RFK. Yeah. You mentioned that the Democrats are not, they're not putting Iowa first for the caucus this year. I mean, after the debacle in twenty twenty i think they're i mean like it's hard to go back on it to that but like i guess just in overall like the i will caucus as this kind of like the the starting gun for uh... the american presidential elections and

the iowa voter being courted on a national level you guys do an iowa based political podcast your native iowans how How would you describe the Iowa mindset, like the Iowa voter, that these politicians every four years have to cater to and kiss their asses? What's the key to the heart of the Iowa voter? Well, that's a wrap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the caucus is becoming more of a Republican thing now

because the Democrats have changed their schedule as they're punishing us for fucking it up. It was our fault. It wasn't the party meddling and trying to use an app that they weren't ready for. Your average Iowa voter hates all of these people that come through here every four years. What wins us over? I mean, unfortunately, this is becoming, for people who are politically engaged, this is becoming a more and more right wing electorate. So what's winning them over right now is like parental rights over their children.

Like, you don't get to read books at school that I didn't approve of. You don't get to reconcile any sort of gender dissonance between your body and mind without me knowing it and stopping it. They have gone very hard on social issues, anti-LGBT and racial education issues. That's the big thing right now, unfortunately.

Yeah, you say it, wonderful. You said in your RAPA podcast that, like, you know, and I guess my general question is from what you saw this weekend seems to be the future of the Republican party, but yeah, you said on your show that it was a very, and this is obviously something that's been going on for a while and we've been talking about it at length for a long time,

but just how disconcerting it was, how fully adopted and ingested it as like a core part of the Republican constituency, the anti-trans, the gay panic stuff is, that it's like more and more from every candidate you saw like a load bearing part of the ideology of every person who got up on that stump. There's this activist group.

I think it's more of a broader Midwest thing, but it's called moms for liberty and they've been really pushing that. Yeah, it's awful. It's like this is like the wedge issue that they've selected for now. And I know that on your show, you've noted that that kind of backfired on them in the midterms, like your average person nationally thinks that that's like fucking weird to make that such a major part of your message. And it's repulsive to like hate such a small minority of people and scapegoat them in this way. but it's working here as far as I can tell.

Anytime moms get involved in an organized, you know, the gas chambers are not far. Yeah, I mean, they're doing bookbants. There's like a state law here where if a parent complains about a book in a school library, it joins a registry statewide and the legislature has to review the book, whether it's appropriate for school-aged children. What do you need that shit for if you can just watch a cartoon of a wrapping Frederick Douglass on Prager U in your social studies class?

That's right, that's right. That's right. Yeah, Florida and Iowa are on similar trajectories right now, I think. Ron DeSantis like to point that one out. He's like Florida or Iowa is the Florida of the North, which not sure. I thought he was true. That is Pennsylvania. That's where he got his, that's God. He's such a whore. Yeah.

But yeah, I will say the biggest applause line that consistently across every candidate was to polish the abolish the Department of Education. They are really into that. It definitely does tie in with the trans stuff for sure and the wokeness, but you know, the documenting are sort of a sort of a federalist argument that this should not be run by a federal department. It should be up to the states to decide how resources are spread out

and what's allowed to be taught in schools. We also have a private school voucher system now that passed earlier this year. Yeah, I mean, that's the real long term point of all this. It's just get rid of public schools. Yeah, yeah. And or just leave it as like a remnant that is essentially child jail.

And then everybody else gets their flavor of private school. I mean, I, I, I, I mean, I would like to accrue for myself the ability to ban certain books and works of art, but you know, I mean, that's me. And I should be allowed to do that. These moms get the fuck out of here. The fucking giving tree, get out of here. Yeah, books should have to have to make me cry every time. A certain threshold of like entertainment value to be allowed in children's libraries. Clifford, the big red dog,

not in this town, try that in a small town, Clifford. If big ass dog, putting you down for this too big for this small town. All right, Evan and Justin, I want to thank you so much for going to the Iowa State Fair and joining us to share your observations on this, you know, yeah, Wicker Man like Ritual, the American politics. It was a pleasure. Big fan of your show since the early days, so this was a real fun opportunity for me. I will I will recommend Rockark caucus. I check in every every now and then You guys do a good job keeping a keeping an eye on Iowa that has become much more of a fascination for me since we went to the state fair for four years ago Jesus

Did you guys recently like get in a public fight with a local politician on your podcast? Did you guys recently get in a public fight with a local politician on your podcast? It's like we've censored or something. We've had a handful of these big events. Yeah, I mean, for such a specific subject and such a small audience, our show does tend to piss off a certain kind of person person outsized influence in that way. Yeah, there was a County supervisor last summer. Yes. Extremely mad about something that a guest of ours said on a patreon episode At the time we had about I believe 75 subscribers

Well, I as far yeah as far as you can have a praxis as a podcast, I consider a pick pissing off public officials enough that they have to make a statement about your Patreon episodes. That's podcast practice. So I'm a big supporter of the rock hardcock. Thanks, man. Yeah, and we got a local local TV news to say the words rock hardcock is on air. Yes. My mother-in-law saw it live. Yes, sir. Oh, yeah. Well, Evan and Justin, once again,

thanks so much for coming on the show. And everyone, please check out rock hard cockets. We will have links, appropriate links in the show description. Cheers, guys. Right on. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. We're from Iowa. I away. Right on, thank you so much. Thank you so much, have a good one. That's where the top of our core.