No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Latest results signal impending GOP disaster in midterms
Episode Date: April 12, 2026Republicans’ underperformance in one election in particular signals an impending disaster in midterms. Brian interviews Jamie Raskin, Tommy Vietor and Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola.S...upport Mary Peltola: https://act.link/gi-TQO4YVShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Republicans underperformance in one election in particular signals an impending disaster in midterms.
And I've got three interviews, Jamie Raskin, Tommy Vitor, and Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola.
I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie.
Something pretty amazing got virtually zero coverage because of everything that's happening right now in Iran with gas prices, with Epstein, and on and on.
But on Tuesday, Democrat Chris Taylor flipped a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, expanding the liberal majority from four to three to five.
to two. But the real story is this. Back in 2024, Trump actually won six of the eight congressional
districts in Wisconsin. But this past Tuesday, Chris Taylor won seven of the eight congressional
districts, meaning a flip in support of five seats. The only seat in Wisconsin that didn't have
higher Democratic support is Wisconsin's fifth congressional district. That went from a 22 point
margin in Trump's favor to a nine point margin in Trump's favor, meaning it's a 13 point swing to the
left. And that's a 13-point swing in the reddest district in the state. The biggest swing was
Wisconsin's third district where there was a 28-point swing to the left. And if we see these
kinds of numbers play out nationally, even, you know, the more conservative 13-point swing,
then the House has gone for Republicans. And in fact, Democrats would also take the Senate.
And better news yet, the candidates that Democrats have fielded for the Senate are, you know,
as strong as they come. Roy Cooper in North Carolina is polling between eight and 18 points ahead.
Sherrod Brown in Ohio is polling one to two points ahead.
James Telerico in Texas also polling one to two points ahead.
Mary Peltola, who you'll hear from in a short while, is polling four points ahead.
We've got strong candidates in Maine and Michigan.
And with Trump continuing this unpopular war, with gas prices continuing to rise, with inflation still surging,
it looks like things aren't going to get better for Republicans anytime soon.
And clearly, they're aware.
36 Republicans in the House and seven Republicans in the Senate have,
announced that they're not seeking re-election, which is the most of any point in nearly a century
since the data was compiled starting in 1930. For comparison in the 2018 midterm cycle,
34 House Republicans chose not to run for re-election. That was a cycle that resulted in Democrats
flipping 40 seats. That was the biggest midterm victory in modern American history.
The Republicans' retirements are greater right now in 2026 than even in that cycle in 2018.
And again, it's clear why. Remember, Trump and his party,
ran on a few central promises. Affordability, cheap gas, no foreign wars. And what happened?
The exact opposite on all counts. Grocer prices have risen since Trump took office. Consumer prices
overall are up during Trump's second term. Inflation's now expected to rise beyond 5%, which is
nearly double what it was when inflation public enemy number one, Joe Biden left office. Gas prices
are at their highest point in years. And then, of course, the war in the Middle East is an abject
disaster, leaving us in a position where the U.S. is weaker and Iran is stronger. None of which,
of course, is going to stop Trump from lying about it. But what Democrats learned in 2024 is a lesson
that Trump and Republicans are learning right now, which is you can try and convince people not to believe
their own lying eyes, but grocery bills, utility bills, expenses don't lie. And they're all more
expensive thanks to Trump and the GOP. And here's what almost impossibly makes all of those things
even worse. Trump isn't just hurting Americans financially. He's also enriching himself. He's also enriching
in the process. Like, while we're all paying more, while health care and food assistance are
being gutted, while costs are rising, Trump is just showering himself in gold and crypto out in the
open. He's building himself ballrooms and arches, profiting off the presidency, using his office to
line his own pockets. And he's doing it in broad daylight. And it turns out that people in this
country don't like to be conned, especially by a guy who ran a whole ass campaign decrying con
con artists in the government. And don't take it from me. Trump has lost support from even
in his most vocal allies, Marjorie Taylor Green, Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, Alex Jones,
Candice Owens. But they're making the calculation that their careers are probably going to
last longer than Donald Trump is. And given the way things are going, they're probably right.
So they just have decided that it's more convenient to drop him now, knowing full well that he's
already lost the base the way he's governing. So they're kind of skating to where the puck is
going, not to where it is today. So while the retirements and resignations are already historic,
I'd probably expect more because Trump has made it next to impossible for these Republicans to win as we head toward midterms.
And frankly, the Republicans haven't done themselves any favor with their collective fear of upsetting the God King.
They are a party of despots and cowards.
So it's a real surprise that these people aren't capturing the support of the electorate.
Next up are my interviews with Jamie Raskin, Tommy Vitor, and Mary Peltola.
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I'm joined now by Congressman Jamie Raskin. Congressman, thanks for joining me. Delated to be with you,
Brian. So in light of what we have heard from Donald Trump just over the last 24, 48 hours,
especially as it relates to Iran, can you talk about some new update,
that you have regarding the 25th Amendment?
The update is really just that there was overwhelming popular revulsion and angst about
the president threatening to commit war crimes and potentially genocide in Iran.
And our constitution is definitely not custom built for somebody like Donald Trump.
I mean, it's taken us, you know, two and a half centuries to get to a president who is,
imposing this kind of stress on our constitutional system. But the closest thing we have to deal with
a situation like this is section four of the 25th Amendment. And it's not perfectly congruent with
the needs of the time, but it may be the closest thing, which is why so many people have seized
upon it. And so I'm happy to explain its architecture and then what conceivably could be done.
Yeah, I would like to hear both of those things.
The 25th Amendment is all about continuity and stability in government.
So it was passed in 1967 and section one of it says that the vice president becomes the president of the United States in the event of a vacancy.
That was actually necessary because it was never really clear before that whether the vice president was just an acting president or really was the president.
And so this establishes the vice president becomes the president if there's a vacancy.
the section two of the 25th amendment says if there's a vacancy in the vice presidency the president
nominates a vice president and that person is elected when he or she gets a majority of the vote
in the house and the Senate section three and both of those have been used of course section three
of the 25th amendment is about a temporary disability I like to think of it as the the
colonoscopy provision because it's been used in a number of cases of presidential colonoscopy
where a president goes under for several hours and willingly, voluntarily, and freely
signed something saying the vice president will have the powers of the president as long as I am
under anesthesia and I'm away for this period.
And that's been used multiple times.
Okay.
What everybody's talking about is section for the 25th Amendment.
And what this says is that the vice president in a majority of the cabinet can determine that the president is unable to successfully discharge the powers and duties of office and thereby transfer the powers of the office to the vice president.
Now, the president has the opportunity to challenge that and oppose that, in which case it goes to a vote of the Congress and there needs to be.
a two-thirds vote in order to maintain the transfer of power. Now, here's the wrinkle. The section
for the 25th Amendment says the vice president and majority of the cabinet can initiate this process
or the vice president and the majority of a body set up by Congress for these purposes
can determine that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of office. In 2017,
2020 in the first Trump administration, I introduced legislation to set up this body.
And my argument was it's not just for Donald Trump.
It's a body that will be a standing, continuing body in perpetuity because it could happen
to any president.
We have 535 members of Congress.
We've only got one president.
A lot of things can happen to someone.
So we set up a body that includes former people who served in.
the executive branch of government, former presidents, vice presidents, cabinet members,
and various medical people, physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists.
You can check out that bill online and we may reintroduce that bill to accomplish the purpose
of having a body there in the event of a crisis.
But still, the vice president is a necessary and critical actor.
you don't get anywhere without the vice president acting,
but at least this board could substitute for a cabinet that refuses to deal with a crisis.
And it could be any kind of crisis.
It could be a medical crisis.
It could be an accident.
It could be a psychological breakdown.
It could be a person goes missing.
I mean, who knows, right?
But this board is set up for the purposes of acting along with the vice president.
Well, I think what's clear now is that that kind of.
legislation wouldn't move forward with the signature required being Trump's own signature.
And so I guess the question that I have in the absence of legislation like that is, isn't Trump's
cabinet set up in such a way that the sole qualification for them being there is their
undying slavish devotion to Trump? And so, you know, in these calls to invoke the 25th Amendment,
And again, absent some type of working group that's actually capable of delivering an objective,
an objective opinion on all of this, isn't it kind of a fool's errand to engage in a process
where we have to pin our hopes on people like J.D. Vance and Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr., who,
you know, if nothing else, are only there because they will be undyingly loyal to the guy.
Yeah, that is the paramount qualification for service in the Trump cabinet,
which is why his cabinet meetings are so embarrassing.
It's just people going around in Stalinist fashion
talking about how great the dear leader is.
And so that's why I say this is not a panacea
for what ails us right now.
People were desperate when Trump was making these threats yesterday.
Hard to believe it was yesterday.
It seems like a lifetime ago now,
but he was making these horrific threats.
and people were angst-ridden and looking for a way to deal with it.
Similarly, impeachment, which is for treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors,
is a process that has traditionally taken a long time to get through,
and you need a majority vote in the House, and you need a two-thirds vote to convict in the Senate.
So that also is not an ideal response to the kind of emergency that everybody thought we
were in yesterday.
And so to that end, I mean, look, you know better than anybody, having led the Senate
trial in Trump's impeachment, how difficult it is to get Republicans to vote against Donald
Trump.
And this is an even more obsequious Republican Party than we've had in the past, because
even those people who were independently minded, they've largely been excommunicated from
the Republican Party, except for maybe Thomas Massey.
And so...
And they're working on excommunicating him right now.
Right. And they're leaning in hard on that.
And so for people who look at this, and this is, I guess, a broader question,
but people who look at the rhetoric that was used by Donald Trump in threatening to decimate an entire population
to commit genocide against 93 million people overtly, he may have walked back from, you know,
his most alarming threats, but like, it's still the same guy.
Like, even though he's not saying it today, what he was saying, you know, 24 hours ago, he's still the same person.
We all know what he's capable of because the toothpaste is out of the tube.
And so what do you say to people who recognize the danger of this person, but don't see an avenue to do anything about it and think that, like, our fate is largely in the hands of someone who is dangerous, reckless, and frankly, pretty unhinged.
Well, it's well put.
I mean, I see it the way you see it.
And again, we don't have a constitutional architecture that's designed to deal with this in emergency fashion.
The reason people got on the 25th Amendment was because it was the closest thing.
And all really the Democrats can do is what we did do during the pre-Trump impeachment period after January 6, 2021.
I introduced a resolution calling on Vice President Pence to.
summon the cabinet to invoke Section 4, the 25th Amendment, to transfer power away.
And we passed that in the House of Representatives in non-binding resolution, but as soon as we passed
it within minutes, Vice President Pence issued a statement saying that he would not call the
cabinet together for these purposes.
And this would only deepen the divisions in the country following January 6th.
Then we proceeded to vote to impeach Donald Trump for the high crime and misdemeanor of inciting violent
insurrection against the Republican against the Constitution.
And we moved in fairly record time to try to get this done, but still it took many weeks.
And of course, although we had a 57 to 43 vote in the Senate, which sounds like a resounding
victory, we still fell 10 votes short of the requisite two-thirds to convict. We were, you know,
10 votes down because Mitch McConnell simply refused to do the right thing, although he said
Donald Trump was morally, ethically, practically guilty of what the House managers had charged.
Still, he felt that there was not jurisdiction to try a former president, despite the fact that
that contravened two centuries of precedent.
Yeah. Look, I would also note for folks looking for some solution here is that we have, and I know that it might feel reductive to say or feel like cold comfort right now, but we have elections happening every week in this country where Democrats are overperforming.
You know, in just the last 24 hours, Democrats have been able to win another seat, flip another seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, widening that majority on that court.
and we have midterms coming up.
And, you know, Republicans have to contend with the albatross around their necks.
That is Donald Trump's unpopularity for all of this.
So this is not just happening with no consequence.
People are seeing what's happening.
They're connecting it.
Democrats picked up 20 points in Marjorie Taylor-Green's district.
Yeah.
And she was probably part of that.
I don't know how she voted, but by the guess.
But absolutely, you're right.
I mean, that is going to be the final check here.
Of course, we have to defend the integrity and the security of the election.
against someone who's proven himself to be perfectly willing to try to overthrow the electoral system
in the electoral process in 2021.
There are other internal checks along the way.
I mean, the military has not just the right, but the duty to reject lawless orders, unlawful orders of the president.
And I think despite Secretary Hegseth's determination to purge the military of people who are still doing their jobs, there are still people there who I think would stand by their oath to the Constitution.
And I should note Congressman that even Tucker Carlson said as much.
When he came out, Tucker Carlson was part of this band of right-wingeres, including Marjorie Taylor Green, including Joe Kent, including Alex Jones, who had come out and basically.
basically said exactly that, that if the military is getting this unlawful order, like,
for example, to commit the war crime of decimating an entire population, that according to the
UCMJ, you have to defy an unlawful order. So, you know, that spans the entire political spectrum.
I want to switch gears here.
So just to underscore the point you just made, the First Amendment itself, the right of the people
to speak, to organize across party lines is also a check against this president.
Everybody needs to be speaking out and organizing.
And those of us in the Democratic Party have an obligation to be bringing these people in,
to say we have a home for you, a party that is going to stand up for constitutional democracy
and freedom and the rule of law.
Well said.
I want to switch gears here to Pam Bondi.
The DOJ had come out and basically said that Pam Bondi doesn't have to appear for her sworn
deposition on April 14th because that deposition, that subpoena was for the office.
of the Attorney General was in her capacity as Attorney General.
Now that she's a private citizen, it no longer applies.
Can you talk about the legality of kind of the mental gymnastics
that the DOJ is doing by trying to diffuse responsibility here?
I mean, that's just a question of fact, Brian.
Does the subpoena, subpoena the Attorney General of the United States,
whoever that might be, or does it subpoena and name Pam Bondi?
If it names Pam Bondi, she's got to go.
it's just very simple.
If it said to the Attorney General of the United States,
that would fall presumably then to the acting Attorney General Todd Blanche,
but that's not what it says.
And are they offering Todd Blanche instead?
I mean, there would be a little more credibility to that fallacious position
if they were offering Ms.MDM.
But we know that they are in full-blown cover-up mode.
They've been doing everything in their power.
to try to prevent enforcement of the Epstein File Transparency Act.
That requires them to turn over all of the files, and they've only turned over half of them.
And of the half that they've turned over, there are tens of thousands of redacted pages.
So they are out of compliance with the law, and this just furthers their contempt and their disobedience of the law.
Do you have confidence that Pam Bondi, when she does appear for that deposition,
that's with the Oversight Committee. I know that you're on Judiciary, but just more broadly,
that when she does appear for this sworn deposition with the Oversight Committee, that she doesn't
sit down and the first words out of her mouth when she's asked her first question, which is,
you know, can you state your name for the record, is I'm invoking executive privilege, and I'm
not going to be answering any questions. Well, first of all, I mean, executive privilege would be
off point. I mean, invoking the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination might be more
relevant for someone in her position, that is someone who's participated in a lawless cover-up
and potentially a criminal conspiracy to suppress the truth about what's happened. But it's hard to
see how she, first of all, you can't assert executive privilege on behalf of someone else. The president
would have to assert executive privilege. And it's in very narrow circumstances when, you know,
there is the president receiving advice from someone about a matter that comes within the executive
purview. But that's not relevant to Pam Bondi's testimony to the Judiciary Committee about
her compliance with a federal law that compels her to turn over all this information.
Well, if she tries to claim some type of privilege, even if it's attorney-client privilege,
I don't know if that would actually work, whether you're the Attorney General and your conversations
or your, you know, your relationship with the President of the United States.
I don't know if that's necessarily attorney client, even though the current Attorney General does
just so happen to be the criminal defense attorney of the current president of the United States.
But that notwithstanding, I'm wondering if that's even still valid, considering the fact that
there's not actually any ongoing investigation.
There's not any ongoing prosecution.
All that this is is we're just waiting for the...
the other three million documents in a closed matter, the Epstein Files Transparency Act,
this is a closed matter. We're waiting for these files to be released. And so would any of this,
any claim of privilege, attorney client, executive privilege, whatever it may be, would any
of that apply given the fact that there's not actually any ongoing investigation or prosecution?
First of all, the right person has to be invoking the privilege. Only the president can
invoke executive privilege. You can't invoke the privilege on behalf of the president.
Okay. So that's number one. So the identity of the invoker is wrong there. But secondly, you can only
invoke any privilege with respect to a particular question. Like when you said she sits down and she's
asked her name or what her job is or her position now, she can't invoke the Fifth Amendment
privilege on that because that you only can invoke a Fifth Amendment privilege if you might be
incriminating yourself. And so that's not going to incriminate her. So it's with respect to
particular questions.
And I mean, if she invokes the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination when she's
asked about why she's not turning over certain documents, that in itself is extremely
damning.
It's basically saying we were involved in some kind of criminal conspiracy to suppress particular
kinds of information.
But I don't know that she can get away with that for the vast majority of questions they
want to pose to her.
Last question on that, and that's building off the exact point you made.
if she does indeed invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination, is that something that a future attorney general could look at or a future Department of Justice could look into as some, you know, as part of an investigation in the future into the fact that this law right now is being violated and there is a cover-up happening in real time?
Well, it certainly could lead Congress as well as a future attorney general to wonder what the hell is going on.
It's an extraordinary thing for an attorney general of the United States to invoke a Fifth Amendment privilege.
We saw that when Attorney General Bondi appeared before the House Judiciary Committee,
she essentially refused to answer almost every question posed to her by a Democrat.
But she did get some good burns in.
They were completely irrelevant, immaterial, and non-responsive, as we would.
say. And as a lawyer, she should understand all of those things, as good as she thought the burns
works. But, you know, if she's asked questions directly under oath about what she did,
she can't start talking about the Dow Jones Industrial. She can't start talking about what's
taking place in people's districts.
All of those things are non-responsive questions,
and she could be held in contempt of Congress.
Now, all of that presumes the willingness of Chairman Comer
or a majority of Democrats and Republicans together on the committee
to enforce the law.
I believe that Nancy Mace is very serious about enforcing the subpoena.
We'll see if she can round up a couple other Republicans
who would do the same thing.
we have on the Judiciary Committee, Thomas Massey, who's serious. But we've got to go from having
one Republican who's willing to stand up and tell the truth to having several Republicans. It won't
take many more because their margins are so razor thin in Congress. But we need some more Republicans
to step up. Well, I appreciate your voice on this issue and I appreciate you taking the time today.
Congressman, as always, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Brian.
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I'm joined now by the co-host of POTSafe America, Tommy Vitor.
Tommy, thanks for joining.
Brian, good to see you.
Good to see you.
So we have a little bit of a meltdown by the president now.
It's aimed not toward any Democrats, but his own formerly most vocal supporters.
I'm going to read just a little bit of it right now.
I know why Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact that they were, especially by the fact that...
Yeah, it's incoherent.
It's not on you.
The reading is really hard because it's incoherent.
Especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran, the number one state sponsor of terror, to have nuclear weapons because they have one thing in common, low IQs.
They're stupid people.
They know it.
Their families know it.
And everybody else knows it too.
And he goes in to do personal attacks on each and every one of them,
which actually kind of carry some weight.
But as we see more of these, you know, these high profile Trump supporters or MAGA supporters,
right-wing podcasters speak out against Trump, does this feel like a permanent break or just a speed bump
where, you know, of course, everybody on the right eventually comes home to daddy because
That's where the money is. That's where the attention. That's where the clicks are.
I think in the media space, there's always room to come back.
You know, because you're right.
Like these, look, these folks, Tucker, like, I listened to Tucker Carlson's episode where he, like, firmly broke from Trump because of that Easter tweet where Trump threatened genocide and then said, like, all praise be to Allah.
It was like, open the straight, you fucking bastards.
Standard Eastern stuff.
Yeah, standard Eastern stuff.
Most, you know, important Christian holiday.
The kind of thing you do, treat the F word if you're the president.
Right.
Praise be to Allah. Tucker, I think, was sincerely furious, sincerely offended. I sincerely
worried that Trump is going to use a nuclear weapon in Iran. Like, it was a 45-minute monologue,
like unloading the clip. I also suspect, though, that this is the one of a series of episodes
Tucker has done talking about his opposition to war with Iran. And, you know, he's like us.
Like, he's probably seeing numbers on the back end. He knows where his audience is going. He's
someone who's known to kind of skate to where the puck is going, as Mr. Gratzky once did,
I guess, not said, did.
So, yeah, I mean, I think, like, I think it's a very substantial break.
It's a reshuffling in the party.
They know Trump's a lame duck.
They're trying to figure out, like, what comes next.
That said, you know, a well-time dinner at Mar-a-Lago or the White House could probably
do a lot of fixing.
Yeah, 100%.
I wonder, though, like, what kind of an impact this is going to have on the party more broadly.
I mean, do you think that this has no negative impact because if Trump is a lame duck anyway, that this becomes what the new iteration of the GOP ultimately is?
I mean, I just think that going into the midterms, it's going to be a turnout election.
And if Tucker Carlson is telling his huge audience that Trump is like, it wasn't just that like he disagreed with Trump on policy.
It's like he lied to you. He's actually in a way that is satanic.
And at least for right now, I mean, regardless of what the GOP looks like moving forward, at least for right now, these are.
midterms are going to be a referendum on Trump.
Absolutely. And so, like, you can pretend that it's going to be some, you know, like some
new post-Trump world. But so long as Trump is still in the White House, there is no world
in which these voters don't, don't send a message to Trump by virtue of how they vote in November.
And like normally when there's a war in the first month, there's a rally around the flag effect.
Like George W. Bush got a 14-point bump on average. His father got like a 30-point bump.
Even Jimmy Carter during the first month of the Iran hostage crisis got like a 30-point bump.
Trump's approval rating has gone down four points, right?
Because like Democrats, independents, like normal people are like, why are we at war with Iran?
When you add on top of that, like these kind of MAGA influencers, like you'll see people say, actually, you know, if you look at polls of MAGA voters, they're not moving away from Trump.
Of course they're not.
Like if you're a self-described MAGA voter, you are basically like a Trump fan.
Right.
But if they are hearing from close Trump friends, close Trump allies.
People who have cachet in that world.
Yes.
Like Alex Jones, his quote was, how do we 25th Amendment his ass?
Yeah.
That was what he said on his show.
It's like, that is going to erode Trump support with people he needs to turn out in the midterm to keep the house.
Is there a world where some of these people are actually complete, like even if Tucker is going, skating to where the puck is going and they're kind of seeing the writing on the wall and they're making it easier, you know, giving themselves a permission structure for the GOP for the GOP.
because these people are still Republicans,
for the GOP to, you know, have some post-Trump iteration
where they are still anti-war.
And Megan Kelly and Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens
and Alex Jones can all come out and say,
we oppose Donald Trump.
It's, you know, he isn't reflective of this right-wing movement.
We are.
And so we can still, you know, carry the mantle
as the anti-war party.
Is there a world where still they're going to be shedding
some supporters by virtue of what's happening right now
that, like, even Tucker and Megan and Candace and Alex's efforts
to come.
kind of claw back this moral high ground, that it's still going to, that there's going to be
people in their audiences, that there's going to be people, you know, in this country who voted
for Trump, who are going to say, you know what, like, we've, forget what you guys are trying
to convince me of that you're still anti-war. I'm not buying it.
Yeah, look, I think there are going to be a lot of mega voters who probably hear what Tucker
and Megan and Candace are saying. And they're like, shut up, you know, like, we like Trump.
We trust Trump. You guys told us to trust Trump for like the last 10 years, so we're going to
keep doing it. That group will exist. I think there'll be far more voters who are just like
pissed that gas prices are going up. Yeah. They'll be pissed that they feel lied to. I mean,
that's what's so powerful about these arguments is, again, it's not just like some esoteric foreign
policy thing. They're like, you said you wouldn't do this, then you did it. You lie to us.
And that's bad. And what this really tells me, Ryan, is I think in 2028, there will be a big,
actually isolationist lane in the Republican presidential primary.
And J.D. Vance thinks he can still fill that.
I don't think he can anymore.
I think it's a good chance.
Tucker Carlson is the guy out there on the stump trying to fill that.
So like, stay tuned.
No, I agree.
And in fact, the way that you know J.D. Vance is already going to be trying to do that
is that he and his team have leaked to Politico.
That he's in Iran war skeptic just days ago.
They leaked to the New York Times.
That the lone skeptic in the room is J.D. Vance.
That doesn't happen.
unless he or his team are trying to get some play on this idea.
But Vance is trying to have it both ways.
He's trying to both be the skeptic in the room,
while every time he's confronted with this question,
especially when he's confronted alongside Trump,
he's like, I know what you in the media are trying to do with these gotches.
I'm supportive, you know, 100% of the way with Donald Trump
and you're not going to, you're not going to, you know, cause some internal rift.
And so again, he, I mean, it's just outright disdain for his own supporters
to basically try to have it both ways and think,
that nobody has enough sense to recognize what he's trying to do.
First of all, that New York Times story is Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
It was an excerpt from their book coming up.
I think it's called regime change.
They got like, they got verbatim quotes from like situation room meetings with like eight
or ten people in them that happened a couple months ago.
And the war is still ongoing.
Like, yeah.
They had like verbatim quotes of the chairman of the joint chiefs in a like wildly sensitive
meeting.
It was unbelievable.
And you're right.
On the Vance front, like, Vance were like, he ran as a skeptic of,
wars but then in this piece it's like he knew Trump was for it so we try to advocate for like a
limited military effort but then he figured out Trump really wanted to do it so then he told him to go
all in and like it's like jd vans you've taken every single position and like everyone in that
story they're now trying to get right for history and be like oh we thought it was a bad idea
we thought the Israelis were full of shit but it's like what did you do to stop it when you had a
chance there were 10 of you in the sit room making the call like if you didn't put your foot down
or say something then or make the case then, like, fuck you.
You failed.
And, you know, as far as, as far as Vance is concerned, like, this is actually part of the
course for him because he will take any and every position that he needs to take in order
to advance himself personally.
I mean, he calls Trump America's Hitler.
And now he's the vice president of America's Hitler.
VP Hitler.
Yeah.
And so, I mean, he built his brand off of this idea, you know, that for what was his book,
Hillbilly Elogy and like looking out for the little guy.
and now, you know, his major legislative achievement right now is a tax cut that overwhelmingly favors millionaires and billionaires.
I mean, just every position that J.D. Vance could stake out, he's staked out. He has no longstanding principles other than his own advancement in politics.
And frankly, it's worked for him thus far, but I think, you know, he's going to hit a wall when we get to the point where he tries to claim that he's on the right side of history when it comes to the Iran war.
And every, every tangible example is going to show that that's complete bullshit.
Yeah, at some point he's going to run for president in 2028 and he's going to be on the stage with someone.
It could be Tucker Carlson.
It could be like a Rand Paul.
And they're going to say, I actually voted to oppose this war.
I fought this war before it happened.
You were in the room.
You could have made a difference and you failed.
You didn't get it done.
So let's talk about the specifics of what we're seeing right now.
Obviously, this is all pretty fast moving.
We're recording this on Thursday evening.
But as of right now, the only thing that kind of delayed the total.
annihilation of Iran was was that there was apparently a framework agreed to between Trump and
Iran. And we haven't seen any specifics in the framework other than what Iran has released,
which is like this 10-point plan, nothing from the American side as far as I know. But the Iranian
agreement says that Iran reserves the right to be able to continue enriching uranium, to charge
tolls for ships that go through the Strait of Hormuz, that that, you know, that the U.S. would pay
for repairs.
They want us to lift all sanctions.
Lift all sanctions.
So, you know, I want to talk about two things.
One, what can you read into this based on the fact that that agreement was released,
but we have nothing from the American side?
And two, based on what I'm reading from that agreement, it doesn't seem like the U.S.
actually got anything for all of the lives, wounded, money, global standing that we've
expended by virtue of being there.
Yeah.
So, like, just the kind of like, tale of the tape here was.
was Trump threatened genocide.
He threatened to exterminate Iran's civilization
by blowing up all their power plants and bridges.
And then he got to his own deadline.
And it seems very clear to me that he received a lot of pushback
and did not want to do it.
And they worked with the Pakistanis, the White House,
to figure out this way to like kick the can down the field
for two weeks.
Yeah.
And as part of the statements that came out about that delay,
Trump said that the 10-point plan Iran put forward
was a, quote, workable basis on the,
which to negotiate. And I would imagine that when the Ronians heard that, they were like,
are you kidding me? Like this is the greatest negotiating job we've ever heard of it.
It's a gold mine. But frankly, they could have put anything out because Trump just needed an
excuse to take an off ramp. Trump needed an excuse to not do the crazy shit he said he would do,
right? Because it was literally genocidal. Right. And so right now we're in this place where there's
going to be some talks on Saturday, J.D. Vance, apparently, he's going to lead them.
Fucking Steve Wickev and Jared Kushner will be there as well. Why wouldn't Jared Kushner be there?
But now, like, they have 10 days from that point or whatever to try to negotiate a deal that includes, I mean, you read some of the Iranian wish list.
It's like end all hostilities, guarantee that U.S. and Israel will not attack Iran again.
They want a ceasefire in all the theaters of war, including Lebanon, where the Israelis are still pounding the hell out of Hezbollah.
They want all the sanctions gone.
They want control of the Strait of Hormuz.
They want money for reconstruction.
Like, it is a maximalist list.
Yeah.
And so now the United States, we're going to.
position where, let's think about the core goals of this war, preventing Iran from getting
nuclear weapon. We bombed their sites again, but the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium is still
sitting in Iran, and they are like saying that not only would they not give it up, but that they
reserve the right to keep enriching. Yes, we've sank a lot of their ships and take it out of their
air force and whatnot. But, well, if they're able to charge, you know, this toll, the United
of World Warmoos, then we're basically going to give them, give them a vehicle with which they can
pay to rebuild all of this stuff.
fund their Pentagon budget by like three, four, five exit, you know, like multiple times.
And then the other big issue was their support for proxy groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.
Again, if they have this windfall from putting a toll on ships in the strait or who moves,
they'll be able to give a lot of money to Hezbollah.
So when you like, look at the tail of the tape here and think like, okay, what did we get for this?
We are, Iran is in a stronger geopolitical position now than they were beforehand because they have pulled this lever
on the Strait of Hormuz and they figured out, like, they can control the global economy.
So I want you to put yourself in Trump's shoes right now.
What do you say if you're the White House and you're looking for some way to spin this as a win?
Like how – I mean, I'm looking at this as we have at least 13 service members who've died.
We have 400 wounded.
We have oil prices surging.
I think they're at like – I don't know if they're at like $150 per barrel.
That's in turn going to raise gas prices here at home.
it's also going to raise the cost of everything because now it costs more to transport those things.
We have our global reputation is just in tatters because we're led by a fucking genocidal lunatic.
And so like I don't I don't know how you can spin this.
And Iran now has, with this plan in place, would give them the ability to rebuild their military from new and gain a lot of money.
And so I don't know how you can spin this as a win.
What would Trump call a win here?
Like, truly, I mean, there's nothing he can do at this point that will end up in like an actually better place than we were in before the war started.
I don't think.
Like, maybe he can cut a deal with Iran where they will agree to ship out the highly enriched uranium in return for some huge concession, like getting rid of all sanctions on Iran.
Maybe they'll give up this toll road through the Strait of Hormuz idea for something similar.
But like, again, it's a massive concession.
They will use, they will reap a huge windfall of money.
They'll be able to sell oil again on the global markets.
And then they will be able to rebuild their Navy and their Air Force and their ballistic missile program.
And by the way, if there's a toll that's implemented, won't those costs be passed on to consumers?
Because now there's a brand new expense.
A brand new tax that's being imposed on every single ship that passes through, which will ultimately just raise the cost, just be passed on to those who need it?
It's just a giant tax on the global economy, which I think everyone in the world right now would be willing.
to pay to like get past this acute crisis because we're at a place where I think like a dozen ships
went through the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday. The average is usually 130. There's 400 some odd
ships in a backlog and that means that oil and gas isn't getting through. It means fertilizers
and getting through farmers can't turn on their tractors, let alone plant crops. Like there could be
a global food crisis. So things are going to get dire real fast. Well, adding to the confusion here
is on true social, I'm seeing another post where Trump says there are reports that Iran
is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz straight, they better not be.
And if they are, they better stop now, President Donald J. Trump.
So again, this, you would think that it would be a little bit outside the realm of reason
for him to complain about this when this is already listed in the framework that they publicly
released.
And we have nothing from our end to refute it.
This is what Jonathan Carl from ABC News tweeted yesterday on April 8th that morning.
This morning, I asked President Trump.
if he's okay with the Iranians charging a toll
for all ships that go through the Strait or Fomuz.
He told me there may be a joint
U.S. Iran venture to charge tolls.
Quote, we're thinking of doing it
as a joint venture. It's a way of securing it,
also securing it from lots of other people.
It's a beautiful thing.
Make up your fucking mind, buddy.
Yeah. And also, I'm sure that that'll happen
right around the same time we have our joint
Cybersecurity Task Force with Russia.
Yeah, remember that one. That's a deep cut.
It's going well.
It's like, look, I mean,
no one holds this guy accountable for anything he says
because he just flails around all day long.
But like, when you look at the priorities,
they laid out going into the war
and where we are now, it's a catastrophe.
Never mind the, like, remember when he was going to pretend
to ride to the rescue of the Iranian protesters?
That's not going to happen.
There's a pretty wide gulf between we are here
to make sure that we can free the Iranian people
from the yoke of the Islamic Republic
to we're going to just bomb the entire country
and eradicate Iran from the face of the earth.
Like that's a, that's a,
It's a pretty big leaf there.
Yeah.
Look, Trump didn't take that, like, genocidal step of bombing all the civilian power plants.
And, like, if he had done that, right, like, every hospital doesn't have power.
So everyone, like, on a ventilator or an incubator is just dead.
But, like, they've bombed, like, 30 schools.
They've bombed all kinds of civilian infrastructure.
So, like, now they're leaving the people of Iran with a new supreme leader, who's the son of the old supreme leader, but much more hard line.
And then the IRGC, like the military leadership in Iran, has a much firmer grip.
So these people now live in like a completely decimated country with an even more hardline regime.
Like this is the worst case situation for the Iranian people.
Last question here.
We have seen how Trump went from Venezuela, which was a pretty easy regime change to Iran,
which was a pretty clear failure at this point.
Not going so good.
Yeah.
Not going great.
But he's been pretty clear that he wants Cuba to be next.
This question was asked to me by Alex Wagner on her show just a couple of days ago.
And I want to get your thoughts on this too.
because there are two tracks he can take.
On one hand, he can see that, hey, maybe regime change isn't such a good idea.
It doesn't work out so well.
So maybe I'm just going to like, you know, take the L here and just not fuck up again.
Or does he recognize, damn, my ego got real bruised on this Iran situation.
And so now I need an easy win.
And Cuba is not going to be the same situation as Iran.
So let's try, you know, to end on top here.
I am pretty nervous about what's going to happen in Cuba because he's at Mara Lago all the time.
He's surrounded by a bunch of like, you know, kind of like hardline Cuban Republicans.
Marco Rubio is his Secretary of State, National Security Advisor and like kind of top advisor on foreign policy.
Rubio's primary mission is regime change in Cuba.
Now, like, how exactly that would manifest is not totally clear?
Like, are they just going to continue to starve everyone on the island?
maybe that's their path forward to regime change and then some sort of negotiated thing.
Or will they like decide to tell the Delta Force guys to mount up again and do some commando operation?
I mean, like, the truth in the Venezuela thing is like, I think time will tell if it was a good outcome for the world for the Venezuelan people.
Like Maduro is a terrible guy.
Obviously it was an extraordinary military operation.
But it was this close to going really badly because that lead helicopter pilot took like four bullets in his leg.
And if that guy is killed and that helicopter crashes, like, this thing is remembered very differently.
Right.
It's like, so Trump had been dancing through the raindrops on these military operations until Iran.
There's no guarantee that, like, you know, the Cuban military won't get off a lucky shot
and kill a bunch of service members and something goes really wrong.
So like, God help us all if he thinks it's a good idea.
Well, that seems like the right place to leave off.
God help us all.
Well, look, I think it's especially important as Trump tries to, you know,
collect people who are going to run cover for him as he engages in this genocidal lunacy
to keep elevating the voices of folks who are going to actually do real work and let you know
what's going on. So highly recommend if you're not yet subscribed to Pod Save America,
click the link right here on the screen and also in the post description. Subscribe to Pod Save
America, completely free, but a great way to support their work and make sure these guys get
in the algorithm. Damn right. Algo time. Algo time.
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slash no lie. That's betterhelp.com slash no lie. I'm joined now by candidate for the U.S.
Senate in Alaska. Mary Peltola, thanks so much for joining me. Hi, Brian. Thanks for having us.
So right now there is new polling that's out that shows you leading your Republican opponent,
Dan Sullivan, by about five points. For those people in, you know, who are watching a
Alaska who feel like Alaska is perpetually out of reach. What is your response in light of this new polling?
Well, Alaska is actually 12% Democrats, 25% Republican and over 60% independent, nonpartisan
undeclared. And so that just goes to show you right there. The majority of Alaskans prefer
kind of a nonpartisan conversation. We have unique Alaska challenges. We are constantly looking and
collaborating for Alaska solutions. And I think that if we're, we just keep things plain spoken
and common sense, you can reach anybody. So I want to talk about what you have been saying
on the campaign trail to the voters of Alaska. Can you speak a little bit about your plan to fix the rig
system in D.C.? And I ask this, especially in light of the fact that, you know, a lot of fixing the
system in D.C. or draining the swamp was in large part Donald Trump and Republicans platform in
24. And of course, now we're seeing a situation where Americans are paying more for everything
thanks to a trade war. Gas is more money thanks to the war in Iran, which, by the way,
is a war that Trump promised he would never engage in. And so we've seen this song and dance
before. And so how does that, can you talk a little bit about what you're offering and how that
kind of informs what the voters are expecting.
Yeah, you know, I came up in a system in state politics in the legislature in the late 90s
and the 2000s.
It was a different time.
It was there wasn't social media.
Things weren't nearly as partisan.
People had a much more collaborative outlook at the state legislative level and in Congress.
And so I took a 14-year hiatus.
And so coming back has been just a really.
shock and especially seeing the degree to which partisanship has clobbered up the system to such a
degree we have really a do-nothing Congress. We haven't, the U.S. Congress hasn't passed a budget
since I think 1998. It's been continuing resolutions year after year. And now it's even going
slower than that where there's, we're chunking it out. There's tranches of the budget that we're
doing in sections. Yeah. Or whole sections that aren't getting funded at.
all. This really goes to illustrate what a dysfunctional system we're currently in. And this is not
some kind of partisan jargon. I think everyone to a person across Alaska is feeling that
disconnect between our public servants and our lives. We can all feel directly, even though it's
all, you know, happening in Washington, D.C., clear across the continent, we can feel the degree to which
The shift has been focused to the agendas of the millionaires and billionaires and not the working households.
So I just went out.
I went to six villages on the Bering Sea Coast and the lower Yukon.
And the degree of hardship is just very palpable.
When people are paying $10 a gallon for gas, $10 a gallon for stove oil,
and they're having to decide whether to buy $5 worth of diesel to heat their home or a case of top ramen or cup of noodles to feed their family.
Things are very stark.
And I just think that this feeling of being forgotten and left behind is just now a universal feeling.
Are, you know, I'm sure that in a state like Alaska, which is, which is historically a Republican state, how have those conversations gone with people for whom their partisan affiliation, their political affiliation is kind of intertwined with their identity?
I'm sure there's people there, you know, whose grandparents voted Republican and whose parents voted Republican and they've voted Republican and that's a point of pride.
And it's probably not so easy to just be like, oh, yeah, voted for Republican my whole life.
my family's longtime Republicans. I'm just going to vote for a Democrat. Obviously, times are different now,
but what have those conversations been like for people who are recognizing, you know, the,
what Republican leadership has, has wrought? Well, I think, you know, there's a lot of soul-searching
going on among old-time Republicans, people whose families have been Republicans for generations.
And they look to people like Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt as standard very
or either of the George Bushes even at this point.
And then to where we are now, I think it can be very depressing.
And I do have to say that for those people who have grown up democratic era,
you know, generation after generation and have, you know, role models like JFK or FDR,
you know, these are tough times for for Democrats as well.
And the conversations that I like to think about are with the over 60% of
Alaskans that proudly say, I'm an undeclared, I'm nonpartisan, I vote for the person,
I think is a good person.
I vote for the person who I feel has compassion and understands what we're going
through and is going to work really hard on our behalf.
Those are the people that I'm really encouraged by.
I want to talk a little bit about what specifically you would like to see in the Senate.
Can you talk a little bit about your priorities, issues that you'll be able to champion if you're elected?
Well, you know, I'm always real careful to make sure that I'm not overpromising.
And I am very focused on November 3rd.
I'm obsessed with Election Day.
And I want to make sure that people understand that this is not a foregone conclusion.
We're still 210 days out from the election.
Things can change overnight.
And we just have to make sure that we're disciplined and moving forward every day.
But I also want to illustrate that I've had many, you know, two decades of public service under my belt.
And I have always worked for Alaskan families and Alaskan working families.
And, you know, people who are living.
hand to mouth and always thinking of ways we can diversify our economy, boost our economy,
get more funds to families that are struggling. And just, and this is, I'm not talking about
one socioeconomic bracket. I feel like most of us are in that feeling like we're struggling
and financially we're losing ground every month. But, you know, I think when I talk about
anti-corruption agenda, I am very serious when I say, I find it unbelievable that these things
aren't illegal as it is.
Right.
Things like members being on corporate boards, things like being allowed to do stock trading.
Even after sitting through confidential briefings, having that ability to do stock trades,
it's just really surprising that there is such an ambivalence or just an okay feeling about the
status quo. I think that a lot of folks don't know how much you can personally gain by being
a member. And I think it's worth noting that the incumbent has quadrupled his personal wealth
in the 12 years that he's been there. His agenda really seems.
to be for millionaires and billionaires and not the working people of Alaska.
So I want to point out that in terms of airing commercials and ads in your state, it obviously
is much different from a market like New York or California, you know, Los Angeles, whatever
it may be. And so can you talk a little bit about for people who are considering where to
put their dollars, if they're contributing to campaigns, what it would mean to, you know, to send
10 or 20 bucks to your campaign in Alaska versus another campaign in a major metropolitan market
like Manhattan or Los Angeles or Dallas or whatever it may be?
So Alaska has one of the least expense, I think the least expensive media market in the
country, but we really make up for that in terms of travel costs. And as Alaskans, we were very
spoiled by our federal delegation in the past. We really expect candidates.
We expect our representatives to come to our villages, to come and come to our towns and talk to us face to face.
And that is extremely expensive.
When I was in Congress and running for re-election, I got a phone call from D.C. saying, why is it 800 times more expensive to travel in your district than a standard house district?
And it's just because we're so large and so spread out.
if we were our own country,
we'd be the 18th largest country in the world.
We're really big.
At low tide,
you could foot three Texases within Alaska.
We have more coastline than all of the lower 40 combined.
We are just a vast,
different state.
Really, there are like six states within our state.
And people really do have an expectation of face-to-face communication.
And I find that face-to-face communication is the best.
There's nothing that can replace that.
And I've really enjoyed going out and listening to people.
People have a lot.
They want to get off their chest.
People have a lot that they are juggling and they want to talk about it with someone.
They want to share their ideas for solutions.
So and that takes a lot of money.
It takes a lot of money and time to get even a yard sign out to the hinterlands to a small
village.
It's about $25 per yard sign.
And if you're living in a small village, that is the only.
The only way that you participate in a statewide campaign like this is putting up a yard sign in front of your house.
So it's really important that we have yard signs and are shipping them out.
I want to ask one more question before we wrap, and that is, could you give an example of a moment that's stuck with you from the campaign trail that kind of, you know, serves as a pretty accurate microcosm for what your campaign represents?
Has there been a moment or an anecdote or somebody that you've met that that's really kind of put the whole thing in a perspective here?
Well, I went to a village on the lower Yukon and, you know, it's really hard for people who rely on salmon, not just for their economic household, you know, not just having that kind of foundational food source and that nutrient source.
But really the ability to teach your kids how to be Alaskan, how to be native.
You can't really do that with words or books.
It really is taught through hunting and fishing and sharing all the values that come with that,
learning how to read the weather, respecting your catch, sharing your harvest,
firearm safety, gear safety, all of those things when we're not able to fish,
when a community has been told for seven summers,
they're not allowed to fish.
It's just soul crushing.
It's both very concerning on an economic, everyday level,
but it's also really concerning on, you know,
in terms of wellness, in terms of how, you know,
for so many people across Alaska,
getting outdoors and participating in hunting and fishing
is the bulk of their wellness plan.
And to be able to then be told, you know,
this is not something that you are legally allowed to do.
And if you do it, your gear will be confiscated.
Your firearm will be confiscated.
That is a very tough conversation to have.
And especially if you're in a community where you're not talking to people in charge.
People in charge aren't finding their way to your community to have these tough conversations.
So, you know, and the fact that they're paying $10 a gallon for gas and heating fuel.
And they know it's going to go up when that first bar is.
gets in after breakup, after the ice gets out of the river.
So we, you know, there's just so much concern.
And we are ready for some good news.
And we're ready for people to start working together to help us dig our way out of these concerns.
All right.
Well, that seems like the perfect place to leave off.
So I'm going to leave it there.
Again, for those who are watching right now, you can go to mary peltolla.com.
If you're looking to contribute, it makes a big difference.
I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video.
If you're listening on the podcast, I'm going to put it in the show notes.
Mary, I could not thank you enough for taking the time today.
And best of luck in the campaign trail.
Thank you, Brian. Appreciate it.
Thanks again to Jamie Raskin, Tommy Vitor and Mary Peltola.
That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Wednesday.
You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen.
Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera.
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And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to bryantylercoen.com to learn more.
