IHIP News - Trump Losing The WH? Mike Johnson Panics Over Midterms and Losing His Job

Episode Date: September 12, 2026

The Republican party and MAGA are both in total meltdown but we can't stop fighting. Pre-order Jennifer’s new book Not Today, Fascists today: https://linktr.ee/ivehaditpodcast Follow Us: I've Had It Podcast: @Ivehaditpodcast Jennifer Welch: @mizzwelch Sawyer Hackett: @sawyerhackett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Where some see heroes and others see egos. Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. Okay, joining me today on IHIPP news is political strategist and commentator. You may see him cooking and talking about politics all at the same time in your Instagram feed. It's Sawyer Hackett Sawyer. Thank you for joining me. Great to be with you.

All right. So we are in the final spring. to the midterms. And Trump seems to be accepting that he may lose. Let's play the clip. I didn't have one. But isn't this just as important, Mr. President? I mean, your whole legacy is on the line. It's never as important. Look, I'm campaigning for other people. When you say my legacy, I'll be a block. I'll end up being a blocker. I'll block all their bad stuff for two years. It won't be the same, but I'll be a blocker. What can I tell you? And probably be able to make deals with them. You know, they're going to want some stuff. then we'll get, you'll make deals. I mean, it's one of those things. So it's not as dire.

Maybe it is. Well, I'm just talking about impeachment investigations, that whole routine. They'll try and impeach. Why is that bizarrely comforting? I think it's because, you know, it seemed like for a long time that Donald Trump, you know, actively didn't care if Republicans won the midterms or even competed in the midterms. Now it seems like he's completely come to terms with the fact that he's going to lose both the House and the Senate in November. It's going to be by wide margins. And he's looking at a potential eventually, you know, a united Democratic Congress that's going to hold him accountable and he's starting to panic. And so he's talking about making deals with Democrats like, that's going to be

on the table in the Democratic Congress. You know, I think it's been painfully obvious that he's known this for a long time. He's obviously not spending his money on these Republican candidates. He's not going out there in campaigning yet. He's making that Trumpaloza all about him. He's inserting himself into the middle of this race saying, I am on the ballot. Meanwhile, he doesn't want any of the responsibility if these guys get their asses kicked. So it's it is kind of comforting to watch that because it seems like everyone has come to terms with the fact that the Trump era is is coming to an end. Of course, he's still, you know, in office, he's still going to be extremely dangerous. And we have to do every single thing we can to hold him accountable these next couple years.

But it seems like even he is starting to realize that that his era of power of stranglehold of our politics is ending. Yeah. And then we also have to remember when we watch this, because how many times did we feel in 2016 or in 2020? I go, he's going to get beat and he knows it. Like, I feel like I've felt this before. And so because of that collective PTSD that those of us that are sane and not in a cult share with that, we have to remind our audiences all the time that, like, he may be looking like this, but his base is something that I'm glad he had the Republican convention.

And I saw that rabid, insane enthusiasm because it's a reminder, oh, they're still there. He has a 90% approval rating in the Republican Party because we have a cultural problem in this country and they are the cancer, the deplorables, the trash. Everything that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden called these people, they didn't go far enough. Right. And you're absolutely right. I mean, he's like defied polling and political gravity for his entire political life. I think the difference is this is a midterm race and he is not on the ballot. And those, you know, as much as he can scream that that he is and that, you know, Republicans need to get out there and vote for him, they're not voting for him. He's not on the ballot. They're voting for Republican candidates at a time when they feel like the Republicans

are not kind of living up to their promises of lowering costs, addressing the issues they care about. And so he's doing the one thing that he's always had to revert back to, which is bring it back to me, bring it back to Donald Trump. And, you know, it's very telling the moves that they're making right now because they're entering these like last 50 days with Donald Trump's approval rating at 33%, you know, an all-time low across the board, you know, the generic ballot, Democrats are up 10. points, and enthusiasm is extremely down among Republicans. And so they're doing everything possible to juice that enthusiasm. And that's Donald Trump. That's inserting Donald Trump into everything. It's this Trump a Paloosa. It's promising $5,000. Everything that they're doing is about juicing the

base because they haven't even short that up with 55 days left until the midterms. They have to win over those Republicans who are disillusioned and unenthusiastic about this midterm cycle. And I thought that it was particularly telling that they had that convention in Texas because Ken Paxton embodies that more than anybody. He's at like 80% with Republican voters right now. That is not, you cannot win in Texas with only 80% of the Republican coalition. And so they're doing everything they can to just juice out just a little bit more enthusiasm because they know that that gap between Democrats and Republicans is extremely wide. And, you know, of course they love to go after Hassan Piker, but to me it looked like they were thirst trapping after him at the convention. And also, I think a really important Democratic message right now that I wish the Democrats

would message is these candidates are so bad that even Trump won't give them any of us $400 million. That's how bad these candidates are. He won't even talk about them. The candidates on the ballot are so bad. He had a convention about himself and didn't even talk about these candidates. That's how bad they are. And the Democrats need to sharpen, sharpen, and sharpen at all times. And the Democrats are going to win to spike themselves because I have not seen, I mean,

I see it in Abdul al-Sayed. I mean, he goes after them and goes after their masculinity and all of the stuff that I think is the language that they speak. But I really wish that some people would start making the point that these candidates are so shitty that are stingy-ass old queen president will not give them a cent. That's how shitty these candidates are. And they're in such a shitty position in terms of how they're getting their asses kicked in these races that I'm not even sure that they want Trump's money. I mean, like they don't want him on the campaign trail. They don't him at the center of their campaign issues. They don't want him in ads. They don't want him in their races because he is toxic to them. I mean, you look across the ballot and all of these issues that

he was once very strong on, immigration, the economy. He is now underwater by 10, 20 points. That is dragging down every single Republican in the country. And so, you know, I do think Democrats need to go on the offense a little bit more nationally speaking. I mean, I think a lot of these Democratic nominees are taking on their Republican candidates, but, you know, the national party would be great to have some voices out there kind of talking about the whole field. Just to unite the base and the lead up for voter turnout, there needs to be, I agree, some national messaging from somebody who is rising up.

I always think Bernie Sanders says this really well. He's the one speaking out about AI, but Fox News is on board with Trump's new 5K bribe for the midterm. So things are so bad. The candidates are so shitty. He won't share his money with him, but he is willing to share it taxpayer money with them. And here's what Fox News has to say about this. Play the clip.

And this shows just how creative and rule breaking and out of the box President Trump is. I'm surprised no one's thought of this before. I mean, it's actually a great way, as you say, to sort of get that momentum, push things forward, especially if you're running, you know, as the incumbent in a midterm, you know you're already going to have those headwinds. I think this was. Okay, I've heard enough. I've heard enough. I'm heard enough. I am. so sick of Fox News lying and applying a standard. If Barack Hussein Obama said that he was going to pay every American, if the Democrats won in a midterm, which he got his ass handed to him in midterms too,

that's the way politics are. And he stood there and took it like a man, FYI. But if he said something like that, Fox News would say, see, they're lazy. They would use a bunch of racist tropes about Obama. They would use a bunch of racist tropes about the black support of Obama. And they say they're lazy. They want handouts, blah, blah, blah, blah. But Fox News, and this is something that I just really want to do reputational brand damage to.

The people who watch Fox News are so fragile. They would rather be lied to than face a modicum of truth that's unpleasant for them to hear because they're such fragile little snowflakes. Yeah. I mean, when people ask me, like, why, how has this become a cult? Why do people not see through Donald Trump? Why is this still going on, you know, 10 years in? People are still believing him when he says shit like this.

And it is because of Fox News. I mean, Fox News is a massive propaganda outlet that they exist solely to launder out culture war issues to keep the Democratic, keep the pro-democracy wing of our politics divided and to boost Republican candidates. I mean, and look at who's saying those comments. That's Rachel Campos Duffy. That is the Transportation Secretary's wife who was just featured in a documentary about her life and the life of being the wife of a Transportation Secretary.

And here she is, you know, touting the administration's policies on air as a Fox News paid co-host. And so, I mean, yeah, it's a giant propaganda outlet. And of course, that's why you have that kind of like 30, 35 percent of the country that will just never leave him. Because it is a cult. I mean, these people are cultishly devoted. to him and they'll believe anything he says. I mean, and it's wild that they can't see through the fact that he made that promise for $5,000 to give us Doge checks. He made the promise to give us $2,000 for tariffs checks, $1,000 for the savings from slashing our health care subsidies in the ACA.

And so, you know, if you add up all that money, you're looking at what, 10 grand now of Trump promises that you have not seen. And it's like, that hasn't even not, that doesn't even register with them. They haven't even thought about the fact that that money never materialized in their bank account. And yet he's out here just. making the promises but i'll come back to that point again about like this is base turnout people think that think of this as like oh this is persuasion he's reaching out to people in the middle oh here's a here's a here's a bribe that i can get these people to come out to the polls i don't think that that's true nobody believes this except for the people who are died in the wool trump

supporters they think that that five thousand dollars is going to come to them but i don't think anybody who was wishy-washy about trump anybody who was on the fence is looking at these kind of comments these promises and being like well that's my sign to vote for don't I don't think that's happening. Yeah, no, I agree with you. And here's a montage of some of the other times, and you alluded to this in your answer, that Trump has promised to send Americans checks. A 20% dividend, so to speak.

There could be a distribution or dividend to the people of our country. We're thinking maybe a thousand to two thousand. Really, bronze there. Two thousand dollars is up to middle income people, low income people, everybody with the rich. I mean, this guy is just, he's such a blowheart. He's so full of shit. I understand at this stage, nothing he does or says surprises me. It doesn't.

But I think about all of the Republicans that support him and how much they emasculate themselves. And the ringleader of all of this is little Moses Mike Grindr Johnson. And I call him that, number one, to be petty. But number two, because again, we have to do reputational brand damage to these people. The speaker of the house is such a nut. He monitors his son's porn, lets the son monitor his porn. He went to a purity ball. Probably cuck porn, I would guess.

No shit. He went to a purity ball and married his 13-year-old daughter and said, your virginity is mine, and then I'll give it to your husband. That's some weird-ass shit. I didn't know if I knew that. Yeah. There's a German documentary filmmaker did it. He married, he went, his daughter wore a little dress, he put a ring on her finger,

and she gave her virginity to her dad for him to keep safe until he approved of her husband. That's some weird-ass shit. And then it gets worse from there. Then during the whole, you know, ousting of the former Speaker of the House and the incoming of him, that whole shit show, he stood on camera and said that God woke him up in the middle of the night and said, hey, wait, wake up a little buddy, you're Moses. And Mike goes, me? This is crazy shit. So crazy. He is the speaker of the house.

His testicles are in the front top drawer of the resolute desk. He has all the power in the world and uses none of it. He's putting on a masterclass like all Republican men do of how to be a trad wife. And little grinder here. Here's a video of his message to voters for the midterms. Then I want you to go off. Play the clip. It's easy to promise free things to people, but there is an education component to what we're doing right now in the campaign trail.

You have to explain to the generations come behind us. If the government's large enough to give you everything, it's large enough to take it away as well. And that is always every single time the outcome of experiments in socialism and communism. It never ends well. And they take away freedom and ultimately ends in suffering and death. Sounds like Macon policies ends in suffering and death. I mean, that's what that's what it is. It's projection with these guys.

I mean, that is like such a, first of all, Donald Trump is the most, if we're going by kind of legal definitions of socialism, Donald Trump is the most socialist president we ever had. I mean, even just in this comment, he's talking about sending everybody $5,000 without the power of Congress or any kind of legal oversight, just wants to be able to send people money. That is socialism. And also, you know, and if you don't get socialism, you'll get kind of all of your rights taken away. That's exactly what they're doing in this country right now. Donald Trump is seizing the means of production in 35 different. companies, he's taken a national stake in. You know, these people, they, they, it's entirely kind of big cuck energy. I think, you know, Mike Johnson is, he gets his marching orders and he does what he's told. And this time it's clearly socialism and Hassan Piker. It's kind of back to the, back to the well of like, how can we scapegoat and fearmonger about, about people? Because they have nothing to run on. And, you know, this $5,000 promise to me is so funny because, you know, all of us on the

rational side of the news are watching this happen. And we know that this is ridiculous. But on Fox, there's no conversation about the fact that you inject $5,000 into every single person's wallet. What does that do to inflation, our inflation crisis, that he's already skyrocketed? They want to have it both ways. They want to be able to talk about socialism and the democratic agenda that's caused all this inflation. And yet they want to hand $5,000 to every single American in the country at a time when inflation is already on the rise. It's a joke.

I mean, these guys, like, it is a cult following. They do what Donald Trump says. Mike Johnson gets the talking points and repeats it with that kind of dead weight behind his eyes. It's just nothing there. Let's talk about the hypocrisy of this because I don't think the Democrats do a good enough job, calling out the crazy Christian problem in the Republican Party. Mike Johnson uses his faith to Christian signal. He accuses people like you and me of virtue signaling.

And I accuse him of doing something far, far worse, Christian signaling. He's using a faith that he claims he holds very dear. And in places like where I come from and where he comes from, Louisiana and Oklahoma, A lot of people don't have a lot of culture. And so their church is their main foundational way to socialize and experience friendships and community. And he takes that and he exploits it. And he says, well, the good Lord, you know, said, wake up, buddy, or Moses and all of this stuff.

Meanwhile, he claims to be Titus Ticks with Jesus Christ, who was against the accumulation of wealth, radically empathetic to human suffering. incredibly welcoming to outsiders, immigrants, et cetera, et cetera. And he votes with a man that is an epicenter of a pedophile ring, who is an adjudicated rapist who was banging a porn star while his wife was at home breastfeeding. And we could just go on, 34 felonies. And we could just go on and on and on and all this stuff. Who also doesn't give a shit about any of them.

And nobody calls out the hypocrisy of the Republican Christianity. Because Democrats sometimes just don't have enough bite in it. Like, oh, we can't go after faith. And I'm like, well, the Republicans had no problem inserting themselves into this faith. And we have to call it out. These people are complete hypocrites of the highest order. And they want to enmesh church and state. And I think, you know, most people find that crazier than what Trump is saying.

I mean, I think it's crazier to be, you know, auctioning off your daughter's virginity. or to be monitoring, having your son monitor your porn, or even like saying that God spoke to you directly and said that you're Moses calling you like a disciple of God. I mean, that's just as crazy as anything Donald Trump has ever said. And we don't call it out because I think a lot of people in the Democratic Party are worried about offending Christians, are worried about kind of aligning Christians as a whole,

getting put out of context on Fox News. It's absolutely crazy. And I think, you know, it's a project of, what, 30, 40 years in the making within the Republican Party more than that. Exactly. Right. And the Democrats allow it to continue because they're so scared of calling it out. And that fear that Democrats operate on is what got us into this.

Merrick Garland's fear that it would be bad for the country to prosecute Donald Trump and to prosecute those people in the White House. Coward me. Yeah. Yeah. And we can even take it back. And I can criticize, you know, other presidents, Barack Obama's fear. and that DOJs of investigating the lies that led to the Iraq war and the human rights violations

of Abu Ghraib and waterboarding and all of that. And so there's always this fear of confronting patriarchal bad ideas. And I think we're going to have to have, and we're seeing this pop up in primaries, we're seeing candidates that aren't scared about calling that out. And the through line, is they're not bought and paid for. Right. I think the other through line is kind of the rise of independent media and folks like you who are kind of like speaking to people in a way that's unfiltered through the lens of corporate media overlords

that tell you what is and what isn't acceptable in political debate. And so, you know, I think it's a problem that our party has had to deal with for a long time. I do think that it kind of coincides with the rise of conservative media. And I think Democrats have always been kind of beholden to, they're the only ones bound by any sense of like decorum, civility, but also like reason and logic. They're the only ones held to any kind of account in politics. And Republicans just aren't because they've always had that kind of conservative media apparatus that just spreads their shit no matter what they say.

And I do think like that is that's starting to change. I think it's starting to change both with like I said, the rise of independent media, but also some of these Democratic candidates that aren't, you know, bought by the corporate wing of the party that aren't going to be, you know, shut up by A PAC money or things like that. And so I think we're headed for a big change. And I think this election in particular in 2028 in particular could be a big like lynchpin moment for the party to kind of change the way that we approach these issues because people just do not communicate like that anymore. They don't communicate through stiff ass like talking points and press releases. They don't at all.

And I think that we relate to the independent media ecosystem, but it is the fastest growing thing right now. And I think it's it's and I want to say and I share this. this from my listeners a lot on the right. They're all cannibalizing each other, throwing each under the best. On the left, like, we're all genuine friends that want to help support each other and do podcast trades and guests because we genuinely believe in the movement of saving democracy. But oh, go ahead. I was just going to say, and it feels very reminiscent, like kind of reversed rolls from 2024, 2023 when, you know, Democrats were kind of like putting people like to Rogan at a distance. And it was like, we need to stay away from these kind of toxic media figures. And now

you have the right kind of afraid of the Beltway media, you know, using Hassan Piker as their foil in politics to kind of paint, use him to paint the entire Democratic Party. It really is reminiscent of a party that just doesn't understand how the media landscape has changed. It doesn't really understand how public opinion has changed just within the last year and a half since this idiot's been in office. Totally. Totally. People are rejecting this, like categorically. And that's happening both, I think, at the polls, but it's also happening in their media digest as well. I agree. All right. Let's let's talk. talk about the humiliation kink that exists among Magamon and among billionaires that allow for the

president to humiliate them by making them give him participation trophies in the Oval Office and all sorts of things. Well, Ken Paxton is really into humiliation kinks. And here is Trump's new bit for the candidate that he refuses to give any money to play the clip. carry him. I said, I'm not sure if I like your look. I'm not sure if I like the way you dress. I don't like the way you talk. But you're the greatest attorney general. So therefore, that's the only thing that matters, Jerry, right? He's the best attorney general in the country. He really can't stand that guy. This is my favorite. This is my favorite thing in the, in the midterm race right now. Because it's just so funny that, like, Donald Trump sees Ken Paxton, like, faltering in the polls. he sees that, you know, Trump voters, MAGA voters do not like Ken Paxon, they don't think he can win. And his, like, answer to that is, oh, it must just be because the way he's dressed or the way he talked. He's not attractive. It's not the fact that he's like the most corrupt politician in

American history and has led Texas for decades and has achieved absolutely nothing in office, was indicted by, or, you know, indicted by his own staff and the FBI impeached by Republicans. It's absolutely wild that Trump has kind of picked this as the thing to continue to pile. on Ken Paxson about. But I think it's great because it just like it's one more wrinkle to add to the like, this guy's a fucking doof. Like Ken Paxson is a doof. And I think most people think he's a dof. And that's why what's a doof? He's just like a doofist. Like he's like a loser. He's like, you know, he's this corrupt kind of grifter who steals from from taxpayers and goes on trips with his mistress and like puts on $40,000 watches to go to like campaign speeches with like 20 grandmas in the

middle of Texas. Like, it's ridiculous watching this happen. But it's also just funny because I think Donald Trump, you know, can't help it. He can't help but just like trash this guy's appearance at a time when he's like really struggling. Let's talk about how hilarious this component is. Trump is so shallow and he's so into aesthetics in humans and in, you know, architecture, interior design, et cetera, even though I would say he has a bad eye on the ladder. But that Zoranamdani, who represents everything the MAGA movement is terrified of, not bought and paid for, attractive, Muslim, Democratic socialist. And he rolls up to the White House, and Trump is like, it's okay.

Call me a fascist, I don't care. Do what you want to do, big guy. And then juxtaposed that with somebody who, Ken Paxson, who was just a MAGA thumper, extraordinary, believes in all the same corrupt shit on the planet. And Trump is so shallow. If we hooked him up to a polygraph right now and said, who do you think is a better candidate? Ken Paxton or Zoran Mamdani.

And you went down the list of all of the different Republicans that he's endorsing because he believes in nothing. He's an nihilist to his core. And he likes Zoron because Warren's attractive. Right. And it has a megawatt smile. And it's that simple. That's how transactional. And he likes winners.

Right. I think he would say the same thing about Abdul. I think he would say the same thing about a number of these demagogical. He does like kind of a light melanin. Yeah. He likes the Saudis. Strong.

He was kind of hit, like, look at how hot. It was the Saudi guy. He was like, look at how hot this guy is. He's always talking about how hot men are. It's so funny to be like so obsessed with aesthetics when you're just like this fat slob who like dresses like shit and like wears five inch lifts in your shoes.

Talk about how he dyed his hair for a couple days. Yeah, it was like brown. Like a different person for five days. I saw that and it's just like, Sawyer, sometimes you and I were so in this news cycle all the time. And our listeners are so in the news cycle all the time. But if you really step back from it and let's say you read the news once a week, you come across an article, president dyes his hair to Chestnut Brown. Two days later, it's not.

And then like a week before that he was wearing a wig. Like all of that stuff is stupid and irrelevant. But this is the shit that the. that the Republican Party, if any Democrat, did anything remotely like this, a la Barack Obama's hand suit. Right. It is stage five meltdown the hammer it, hammer it, hammer it, hammer it, hammer it, hammer it, hammer it, hammer it. And this is where I think in order to defeat these people, we need people in the party that talk about big ideas, people. Yeah. But we also need people that really aim lower and speak the language that

these people do because they have injected this MAGA. toxic masculinity rot into the culture. And we need to do reputational brand damage to that. And that movement is worshipping, in my opinion, probably a bisexual man who's in his deathbed confession era, who is, who thirst traps over other men all the time. I mean, it's, it is like, it's Trump's like 101, right? That this, this man has always been obsessed with aesthetics. He's always been obsessed with charisma. I do think the Democratic Party, like, we could take some of these lessons. Like, I think the ideas are always going to be what leads. They're always going to be what actually resonates, what builds a movement, what elects Democrats. That is what's most important.

But I think it's got to be wrapped in a charismatic, personable, you know, telegenic bubble in some of these candidates. And I think, you know, this cycle, Democrats are learning that lesson better than ever before. I mean, not just, you know, obviously Zoron is one of them, but also, you know, Abdul, you have Ossoff, you have guys like Rob Sand in Iowa, like very hand. He was a model once upon time. You know, I think Democrats are picking candidates up and down the ballot this cycle who not only like have the policies that are resonating populist agenda that kind of speaks to the working class troubles, you know, speaks to the affordability crisis,

but also are doing so with excellent communicators, people who look good on TV, who can go on any podcast and show up and perform, can go on any TV show up and perform, can speak to anybody about any issue. that is like a prerequisite for Democratic candidates these days. It has to be because otherwise we can't compete because Republican candidates can do that. I mean, they're bullshit artists. They're absolute, you know, corrupt, morally bankrupt people, but they can go anywhere and talk about anything because they have this conservative media bubble. We just have to step up. We have to have better people.

And we have to do a lot of the fighting for them because the right wing media ecosystem does a lot of the fight in that reputational brand damage of the Democratic Party is done by them. And I think we need to do that to Republicans. But you mentioned her. Asaun a couple of times and Fox News cannot stop talking about him because I have a personal theory. They're all super horny at Fox because all they're talking about is how hot all these liberal candidates are. So pop this up. If you want to see how obsessed Fox News is with Hassan, look at this. According to Archive.org, Fox News, Fox Business has mentioned Hassan the Hun across 398 broadcast in August. That is a higher monthly total across those channels.

than either transgender mentions or illegal immigration mentions. And you know when they are tabling the imaginary trans sports issue and talking about Hassan, I think they're leading with the hormones over there. It's what I think. I think to the Fox producers watching the show, say hi, Sawyer. They watch. Yeah, they'll probably cut this out. Well, they broke Grindr over the weekend.

I mean, I think they put on Hassan on the own. on the big screen and Grindr shut down like a couple hours later. So, I mean, and that seems to, you know, I am not tracked this as closely as others, but grinder outages have tended to track Republican gatherings like over many, many years. And public funerals, yeah. Public funerals. But, you know, I think that that's extremely telling.

I think clearly they have looked at some polling showing that, like, they can, you know, Hassan's views are somewhat toxic within whatever kind of coalition that they're trying to win over. And so they got the marching orders. I mean, Fox got the marching orders. Trump got the marching orders. The entire Republican apparatus got the marching orders that they need to be talking about Hassan. It's not going to work. First of all, the vast majority of people have no idea who that is, have no idea who Sun Biker is. I mean, even a vast majority of Democrats don't know who Hassan Biker is. We, of course, he's a massive media figure and like is speaking to, I think a very kind of disillusioned, tends to be younger, less politically engaged, but interested audience. That's a very important audience. I think they're very politically. engaged. I think listeners are. My son's As following, but I don't think that they have been engaged in the actual party policy. I don't think that they're consistent voters cycle after cycle,

which is a good thing. Those are audiences we absolutely need to be reaching. They clearly looked at something and decided that that was going to be the target, but it's not going to work because again, most people don't know who Asan Piker is. I think vast majority of voters don't find this kind of like cancel culture, rally around a media figure, paint them as the enemy

strategy as resonating with. them whatsoever and more so than any of that it's just like the affordability crisis crowds out all of this and as long as they're having to worry about groceries and gas prices they don't give a fuck about hasan piker they don't give a shit about a YouTuber at all and so i think it's gonna i think it's a failed strategy i think uh you know the socialism element is a failed strategy that you really have nothing to run on they don't and i think the stuff with hasan started during the mayoral uh race in new york uh Andrew Cuomo was standing on stage debating Zoran and he's he said, he won't condemn Hassan Piker.

And he was trying to make Asan Piker like a kitchen table issue in the New York City mayoral race. And he did a rally and he had a poster board of Hassan Piker up. And since then, Hassan's got much, much more mainstream. But at the time, I remember, because I'm friends with Asaunt, him, he was like, can you imagine all the people that are Googling me now that are like, why is Andrew Cuomo? My thought on this is that there are forces in the Democratic Party and this people that wanted Andrew Cuomo, a person who ran twice against Zoron and lost. Well, what did Andrew Cuomo have and what did Zoron have? Andrew Cuomo will prostitute himself. 100% will be a whore for rich people.

Zoran said, I am not going to earn my money on my back. Andrew, I'm going to go out and work for the people. Hassan's message is much more union-oriented, worker-oriented, everybody getting health care. It is a message that is not beholden to the same entities. And then you pile on the fact that Jonathan Greenblatt at the ADL has had a bee in his bonnet about Hassan for a very long time because they realized when they genocided Palestine that it wasn't popular. So they wanted to blame TikTok. And so then Larry Ellison buys up TikTok.

And then they want to blame the Twitch streamer. And so they have been trying to go after him since I think the Andrew Cuomo double defeat. And it continues and it continues. And when you have an organization like Third Way who says we're going to spend millions of dollars trying to cancel Hassan instead of defeating fascism, it confirms Hassan Piker's point that he says to, your ward's not. mind his disillusions listeners that there is a uniparty right that they're all fighting to keep all the corporations protected so all of these people are actually confirming the rhetoric or the stances that hasan takes in his stream and i think it's kind of backfire spectacularly and already is i mean the yeah the democrats condemning him it's absolutely crazy because it's just it's a

misunderstanding of how like communications works i mean and addition right in addition i mean this is just like you are handing, like you're putting Hassan on a pedestal and elevating him to a level of God status within the Democratic coalition every single time you condemn him. And that's why I think it was such a mistake when those kind of, you know, members of Congress, I think it was, they signed on to a letter condemning him recently over comments about 9-11 or something like that. It's just a misunderstanding of how media works these days. And like, you know, that's a classic I've been in communications my entire life. I've worked on five or six different campaigns, presidential and Senate campaigns and House campaigns. I've worked intimately with politicians

over the years. The strategy of like picking a media figure that somebody is close with and maligning them and then painting all of their views onto that candidate, that's a tale as old as time. It's always existed. But I think, you know, and I think it would be wise for some of these candidates not necessarily to bring these people into their campaigns. It's one thing to go on Hassan's show. I think it's always smart to reach an audience that's winnable, and that is a winnable audience, and it's an audience we desperately need to be reaching. It's another thing when you bring them on the campaign trail, and you do kind of get painted with some of their views. And I think, you know, maybe candidates will think twice

about just kind of who they add as kind of a megaphone voice behind their campaigns. But if Abdul wins? Sure. And here's the thing that I want to say that Abdul did, is he brought on Hassan because he was aware the same way that Trump was in 2016, that there is a media ecosystem out there of people that corporate media and status quo politics aren't reaching. And Donald Trump was abundantly aware of that. Fox hated him. The RNC hated him.

All the Republicans hated him. But he knew there was an anti-status quo contingency out there. And I think that that was brilliant on his part. He's pathological liar narcissist, not job, all of that. I think likewise, Abdul al-Said knew that, okay, there is a whole world of voters out there that are on the sofa. I don't want to try to get Republicans to vote for me. I want to get new voters. And that's what Trump did in 2016 and in 2024.

So getting Hassan, because Hassan's super, super popular with the people who know who he is, they came to those rallies. So all of a sudden, he had the optics of having a full rally. So I don't know that I completely buy into the fact that it's bad to take somebody on your campaign trail with you because the MAGA movement has been like, we get to do whatever we want. Consequences be damned. Democrats always start going, okay, we can do this, but we can't do that. We can do this. And the caution comes in again. And if Abdul wins, I think Abdul can say, this is what I believe in.

That's what his listeners believed in. And blah, blah, blah. I don't know that it's that bad that he took him. Well, so like back to it kind of comes back to the original. question we were talking about, which is Fox News, and they have this media apparatus that is a propaganda machine for them. We don't have that. And so we still do, and the media environment is changing, but we still do rely very heavily on traditional legacy media to kind of disseminate our message. Exactly right. And the problem is, is like, everything comes out in the wash with Democrats,

and their political gravity comes for everybody in traditional media. And, you know, it's one thing that you could go on Hassan's show five or six times. You can speak to that audience as much as you want. you can have Hassan hosting his own events for your campaign, but the second you put him on stage with you, political gravity weighs down on him. And it's like, you know, what was a guy, Tony Hinchcliff, he's a comedian. Usually comedians can pretty much say whatever they want about politics and get away with it. It's just the rule of the road. He steps behind a Trump podium and makes a joke about Puerto Rico, all of a sudden that is a national frenzied issue. And it's just, it's the consequences of bringing somebody that close to your orbit. It's like political gravity like is unchanging when it's

comes to legacy media and that is not unfortunately going to be changeable until that media landscape has completely folded over. Good points. All right. And then lastly, to close this out, the bunny boiler. That's Natalie Harp, obviously. Do you know the movie Fatal Attraction? I haven't seen it actually. It's really good. Anyway, this is a crazy lady and she boils a bunny because she's obsessed with a man. But the bunny boiler, her posts are reaching a new level of insanity and we know that the posts are actually Trump's post, but also the funny boilers post. Pop this up. Peter Baker says 60 posts in 10 hours. Yeah, picture.

The rat-a-tat of ever wilder, ever more outrageous social media images each weekend has become a fixture of Trump's second term, seen more and more as a barometer of his mental state. And I am so tired of living in a country where the media, the industry titans, the Republican leaders, the Democratic leaders aren't standing outside the White House saying, we need to impeach this him ever right now. He is bad shit crazy. Right. That they have just normalized that crazy shit that he and the bunny boiler post.

Yeah. And I mean, I think like his transition over to truth social has really kind of buried the insanity from a lot of our feeds. And like I think in the first term, like we really saw the Trump tweets were everywhere and you couldn't escape them. they're all over cable. Now he'll tweet a screed of AI slop about him like murdering people or like changing the name of countries and nobody cares. Like the traditional media doesn't care. They don't cover it. And I think it kind of comes back to that like question about, you know, Mike, whatever is in it,

Mike Johnson. It's kind of this cult following that they have and she's one of them. I mean, like, talk about insane. She believes that God put Donald Trump in her path and saved his, her life. And now she's, you know, cultishly devoted to him and like spends all of her time chasing after his motorcade and sleeping in the locker room to be closer to him. I think that's like as crazy as that sounds, that's the average Trump voter. Yeah. And we have to be really honest about that. They believe that this man is their imperfect vessel and that he was put on this earth. Even though he's done all these horrible fucking things, God was like, this is my imperfect vessel, even though I'm capable of making a perfect one. And he's believed that his whole life. And they think that he's going to make

America a Christian nation. And Natalie Harp, as crazy as she seems to us, I will say, is the average Trump voter. Yeah. I mean, when Trump was considering running, there was that famous quote about, like, I couldn't run as a Democrat. I'd have to run as a Republican because they're a bunch of robs. It's like he knew that, like, he could find this cultish following within the Republican Party, as long as he's saying their tune. Like, they would come along. for the ride. And he's believed that he's this kind of messianic, notable figure of history, his entire life. And so once he's built this kind of political following that is so culturally allegiant to him, you know, 30 to 35 percent of the country that just will never leave him,

he was right when he said he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and they wouldn't walk away from him. Fox News wouldn't walk away from him, I don't think. And so like, you know, it only accelerates, you know, the first term, he had all these people around him who were kind of guardrails around some of the more crazy shit that he was doing. Now he just has people who amplify it times 10. And I think Natalie is the perfect case study of that. And like I was thinking this morning as as you shared some of those topics, it's like, what is to stop him from like going bananas and like dropping a nuke at the end of his administration? Nothing. Nothing. Like is it, is Susie Wiles and Dan Kane are holding us back? Mike Johnson is holding us back from like utter destruction. At the same time,

AI is like, you know, going rogue and trying to hack each other and create biological weapons that like, this is the man. We're putting in charge of all of that. I mean, like, that's how important these midterms are. It's just like, right now there is no check on him. We saw that the Supreme Court essentially said he can do crimes and get away with it. That's what the president can do. He has a cult following in staff. He's a cult following in Congress. It's like, there is no check on him right now. And like, if we come to the end of his term and that check is not there, I just, there's nothing that can stop him from just destroying, burning the country. Like, he is perfectly fine burning the country to the ground as long as he can be president of the

ashes. You're exactly right. Sawyer, I've enjoyed this so much. Thank you for trekking up to New York to do it in person and I hope to have you back soon. Yeah, thanks for having me. Oh, wait, wait, tell everybody how to find you. I'm on, you know, Instagram, TikTok, threads, all the things. At Sawyer Hackett.

I do a little bit of cooking content, a little bit of directed camera stuff. So go check it out. All right. Thanks. This family is on the brink of civil war. On September 18th, Mobland. The hit original series is back on Paramount Plus. We are the Harrogans.

Don't know than it? And Google us. From the underworld of Guy Ritchie. Do you want to step up the ladder? I want combat dead. Starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren. Do I have to do everything myself? You want to want!

I'll give you a... Land. New season hits September 18th on Paramount Plus.