Pod Save America - Is It Gay to Flip Texas?

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

After Ken Paxton's victory in the Texas Senate Republican primary runoff, the MAGA faithful set their sights on James Talarico, attempting to disqualify him for being too much of a beta male for Texas. Will it stick? The White House is on the verge of getting Iran to the table to negotiate, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dismisses concerns that the U.S. economy is heading toward stagflation, and Trump accelerates his quest to stamp his image on Washington, covering statues in gold and attempting to create a $250 bill with his own face on it. On the presidential family front: ProPublica reports that the administration funneled millions to a company owned in part by Donald Trump Jr., while Dr. Jill Biden finally speaks candidly about her reaction to her husband's infamous 2024 debate performance. Then, Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for Mississippi's U.S. Senate seat, stops by the studio to talk to Jon about why he believes the deep-red state is in play.

Pod Save America is brought you by SimplySafe between the midterms, the never-ending news cycle and daily personal to-dos. Your brain has too many tabs open. That's why you need the reliability of SimplySafe to help you close the Home Security tab in your crowded mind. They've got it covered. I've set up a SimplySafe, incredibly easy to do. Definitely gives you that piece of mind. You don't have to worry about it. The app is great.

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the fascinating story behind a collection of often overlooked objects, each of which sheds light on key moments in American history. From a gold coin found in a shipwreck that triggered financial panic to a tiny screw that kick started an industrial empire, every week one object will open the door into an extraordinary, often shocking story about who we've been, what we've built and what we've allowed ourselves to forget. New episodes of a history of the United States and 100 objects are released every Tuesday. Find it 99% invisible wherever you get your podcasts. When thirst strikes and your energy begins to fade, one hero rises above the rest. Introducing the superpower smoothie from Zhu Booster. A bright sun-charged burst of mangoes, bananas, and blue

spirulina. An out-of-this-world smoothie, just in time for the new Supergirl movie. Discover your power and channel your inner superhero. Fly into your local Zhu booster and experience it for yourself today. And see Supergirl, only in theaters June 26th. Welcome to POTte of America. I'm John Fabro. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, we're going to talk about the news that U.S. and Iranian negotiators are on the verge of an agreement to keep negotiating.

To also talk about Trump using our money to cover statues in gold and the push to put his face on a new 200. $150 bill. Exciting. Also talk about Republicans losing their minds over James Talarico, Rubio topping Vance

for the first time in a 2028 poll. Sorry. Great stuff. Couldn't help myself. And Jill Biden finally admitting that her husband's

debate performance was so bad she thought he was either having a stroke or on drugs. Deep breaths. Then could Democrats have a chance

at a Senate seat in Mississippi. Democratic nominee Scott Cologne stops by the studio to make his case. Before we start, if you are not a subscriber to Cricket Media right now, what are you doing? You're just listening to all these ads on Pazze of America and Pazze of the World and offline for nothing. You could be listening to ad-free episodes. You could be supporting independent pro-democracy media, which is kind of important to do right now if you've been looking at the news and seeing what Trump's been doing. to the media landscape. And also, we got cool subscriber-only shows like Polarcoaster with Dan.

Today we're going to be talking about James Talerigo versus Ken Paxson. But if you really want to nerd out on that race and hear all about the polls and Dan's take on this, you get to listen to Polar Coaster this week. All right, Dan, another day, another siren emoji, heralding a deal to end the war in Iran that appears to be an agreement to keep talking about the nuclear program that ostensibly led to the war in the first place. That's where we are. Axios reports and other outlets have confirmed that pending final approval from Trump and the Ayatollah

negotiators have agreed to, quote, a memorandum of understanding that says the Strait of Hormuz will reopen for, quote, unrestricted movement by commercial ships in exchange for ending the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports. And then everything else, including sanctions relief and Iran's uranium stockpile, will be the subject of negotiations that will take place over the next 60 days. during which time the ceasefire will be extended, despite the tit-for-tat air strikes between the U.S. and Iran over the last few days. So not off to a great start there. Questions remain. Will Iran go back to enriching uranium?

Will they get pallets of cash? Will they still control the strait? No one knows. But Trump addressed this last question during one of his marathon cabinet meetings on Wednesday. Would you accept a short-term deal that allows Iran and Oman to control the strait? Nobody's going to control it. It's international waters. and Oman will behave just like everybody else

who will have to blow them up. We don't need oil, we don't need the straits, we don't need anything. We don't need anything at all, which is why we're making the deal. And also, we're going to control the straight. No one's going to control the straight. If Oman doesn't let ships through, we're going to blow them up.

It all makes sense. Here's what a senior U.S. official told Axios about the deal. Quote, this is an agreement to get everybody to the table. we will work out the details in negotiations. That's not these negotiations that are leading to the deal that official was referring to. That is the future negotiations that will happen. Trump mouthpiece Scott Jennings responded to the story by dutifully tweeting, the U.S. appears to be getting everything we want.

Is this everything we want, getting people to the table? Well, it's an existential question, John. If you won very little and you get very little, did you get everything you want? Just saying. Very good. Very good. I mean, it's kind of hard to believe that the thing that there's been so much a breathless reporting on so many siren emojis over the last couple weeks was simply an agreement to keep

talking. And I know it says they're going to open the street of four moves for unrestricted commercial traffic. Now, the problem here is there are still mines in unknown places all across the straight of four moves. Some of which our round was laying just this week. They were laying more mines. That's what started the airstrikes again. I wouldn't say the straight is open.

the straight is slightly ajar because obviously some some ships will get through there are these ships that are stranded there that the u.s was pledging to escort which we then abandoned that after like one six hour period so and it is it better that the united states and iran are not bombing each other yes is it better that maybe a couple ships will get through there yes is this the treaty of fucking versa i no this is a very minor it's not even an agreement is you said it's an MOU. So cool. Right. Like, of course it's great to cease hostilities because no one wanted this fucking war in the first place. At least most people in America didn't want it and the rest of the world.

But the questions here are simple. Like, is Iran any further from developing a nuclear weapon than when this war started in February? No. We did nothing to push back the Iranian nuclear program that Trump hadn't done with the first round of strikes last year. So nothing has been achieved on that front. Is the regime any less radical? No. In fact, the regime is now more radical. Are the Iranian people any closer to freedom?

No, they are not. In fact, they are going to be more repressed by an even more radical regime. Is America any safer? No. Is the Middle East any more stable? No. And so what did all of that cost us? Well, 14 American lives, tens of thousands of lives in the Middle East,

at least $50 billion in counting. of taxpayer dollars that have gone to fight this war and an estimated $4 billion in higher fuel costs so far. So that's what we had to pay. Those are the costs that we had to bear for getting abs of fucking lootly nothing, except maybe the straight back open, which it was at the beginning of the war.

And it's also not like Iran was on the cusp of a nuclear weapon when we started this process. The whole thing is so stupid. The whole thing is so fucking stupid. It's like, it's mind-boggling. We've been talking about this for so long that this has happened. because it's so stupid. The enriched uranium they are going to negotiate to figure out what to do with is only there because Donald Trump pulled us out of the Iran deal. So Iran went back to enriching uranium.

All the uranium that's there has been enriched since the end of the Iran deal, which Trump pulled us out, and now. There wouldn't even be more enriched uranium to be talking about if Trump hadn't gotten us out of the Iran deal. The best case scenario here is that we spent billions of millions of dollars. We used up all of our missiles. Five years, five years to rebuild the munitions. That's the estimate. Which I'm sure will be a boon for a bunch of defense companies in which Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. have invested. The American troops have lost their lives. People all across the region have lost their lives.

And for nothing, the best case scenario is we have a deal that is worse than the one Obama cut 12 years ago or whatever it was. And we are very far from best case. And now, like, do we think the Iranians really believe? that if these negotiations over the next 60 days go poorly, that Trump's going to start bombing them again, like what, right before the midterms? No, they know he's not going to do. Actually, he might.

Yeah, maybe, maybe. But I don't think, I don't feel like, I don't think this is a great play in terms of keeping any kind of leverage over the Iranians at this point. So they know they can close the straight whenever they want, so and lay minds whenever they want. So that's what's happening there. I'm sure the deal could be announced any minute now.

Who knows? We'll just look for more siren emojis from Axios and look for Scott Jennings to just sort of regurgitate whatever the administration tells him to because that's what he does. All right. So the White House Press Corps was briefed on the potential deal as well as the latest bad economic news by struggling soybean farmer Scott Besant, which is the administration's resident populist. Besant had to contend with news that inflation has now risen to its highest level in three years. and the GDP grew even slower than previously estimated in the first quarter of this year. Oster Goolsby, the Chicago Federal Reserve President, told the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. economy is moving in a, quote, stagflationary direction, which would be the worst case scenario. Scott Besson's response to all of this? Okay, Dumers.

I believe we've already seen oil prices come down substantially. These are short-term challenges that we will get over. and I think we'll move forward. Is inflation sticky because the PCE was at a three-year high? Well, first of all, PCE today, month or month was point two, which was, we're looking at decimal points, but the estimate was point three. Are you seeing signs that American households are dipping into their savings to pay for the higher cost of things like gas and groceries? And does data like that concern you right now?

So a lower academic literature would tell you, lower savings rate can mean one of two things. the kind of the doom review that you took or that people have more confidence? I'm no economist, but does the literature say when people are dipping into their savings during a global energy crisis that they are confident? They are doing so because they are confident about their finances. They are confident they need to drive their car to work. That's what they're confident. So, you know, we've had a number of auditions since Caroline Levitt has been on parental leave.

We had J.D. Vance. We had Markerubio. And now Scott Besson took a turn to the podium. And let me tell you, I don't know. I don't know if he was the kind of soothing voice that the American people were looking for. Yeah, there's just, I just don't know in this moment in time where, you know, somewhere between two thirds and three quarters of Americans are very mad about the economy. Economic anxiety is at the highest level possible that you want to dismissively arrogant. Wall Street, sent a millionaire, I think he is, to be your spokesperson. You don't want someone

who exudes money coming out of their pores. As Tommy refers to him as a pissy cadaver. It's fair enough. It kind of looks like that. I think question now is, if this deal is signed today,

would it actually help get inflation and growth moving in the right direction again before the midterms? It would lower, oil prices, which will eventually at some point in time lower gas prices because oil futures will come down. But, you know, we're not going to see anywhere near the sort of traffic going through the straight that we had before for six months of the earliest and probably longer.

And even if, and the true economic damage is done here, right? With the growth has been stunted. Inflation is up. It'll take a while for all of that to come down. The Fed is even thinking about possibly raising interest rates again. because of the PCE numbers that Bessett mentioned. But let's just put aside the economics where I feel deeply uncomfortable talking about them. To focus on the politics where I am mildly more comfortable is, look, people's opinions about this economy are pretty set in stone. People's opinions about Donald Trump's handling of this economy are pretty set in stone.

People are going to start voting in a couple months. And even if things do get a little bit better, which seems highly unlikely, we know from years and years of data that people's impression of the economy lags the reality by months. And so even if things got a little bit better, it's unlikely to be to help Republicans this fall. The CNN business reporter, their business reporter, David Goldman was asked about like when, when we might see $3 gas again. Guess which year he said for $3 gas again. It's not going to be 2026, is it, John? 2032. Well, I would say I was going to guess 2030 just because by the way you asked that question, it was going to be far away, but that's even further than I thought. That's what your reaction was similar to CNN's Pam Brown, who also was

like, what did you just say? He's like, yeah, well, by the time, he's like, if you just look at the futures, this is what the futures market say right now, because it would have to be down to, like, I think around $70, oil would have to be $70 a gallon and up $70 a barrel. And, you know, it's like down to hovering around $100 now. So it's not at, where, it was at with like 120, but to get from there to 70, yeah, it takes the straight being fully open for quite a while. And the other thing about the straight is it's not just boats moving through the strait. It's that Gulf country ceased production because they could not get oil through the straight.

And so they have to restart production and that takes time. And that is on top of the facilities that were damaged from the Iranian missiles as part of the war that Trump started. One area of the economy that's undeniably booming, construction firms that Trump has contracted to make the nation's capital looked like one of his failed casinos. The New York Times reports that the no-bid contractor hired to paint the reflecting pool, a tacky or blue, is quote, being paid and inflated an excessive profit margin, you don't say. The Times also reports that the administration has funneled over $60 million worth of National Park admissions fees toward repairing the pool and some of D.C.'s fountains. There's also apparently a $5 million contract

to coat a bunch of equestrian statues by the Lincoln Memorial in gold? What? This is all ahead of America's 250th birthday celebration, which Trump is merging with his own. The president will ring in the big 80 with a UFC fight on the South Lawn, and they've just started to build the arena,

which looks like a Roman Coliseum that's being sponsored by Axe Body Spray. That's what it looks like. It's real. a real eyesore. The White House has also announced a list of musical artists who will allegedly perform for this summer's festivities like Flo Rida, Vanilla Ice, CNC Music Factory, Millie Vanilla, and Young MC. I say allegedly because already Millie Vanilli and Young MC have said they're actually not performing. This is just in, the Commodores also said absolutely not. They were on the list as well. So that list is dwindling, Dan. Did you follow how the young MC and Millie Vanilli things played out? Young MC, I think, did not realize what he was signing up for, so he pulled himself out. Milly Vanilli seems to claim based on a very bizarrely worded statement from the quote-unquote

real Millie Vanillae that the Millie Vanillae that was book was a Millie Vanilla cover band. Now, if you know your 80s history, if you know your old lady's history, yeah, Millie Vanilli is also a cover band of Millie Vanilli. So it's a Russian nesting dolls of cover bands here. Didn't one of them die? I think we only, I don't know if we have Millie or, you think it's only Millie? Millie or Vanilly dead.

Let's see. Okay, I don't know which is which, but one half of the R&B dance duo, Millie Vanilli, Rob Pilates is dead. The other half of the duo, Fab Morvin, is alive. That's what Wikipedia tells me. Okay, well, either way, either way, the Mill Vanillae will not be performing as we can only know them.

For many reasons, for many reasons. If he actually could get the original military to finally perform, that would be impressive. Now, of course, while all this is going on, you know, Trump can't be paying attention to all this. He's focused on what's really important. Let's listen. You have one in particular, a very long lake, we call it, the reflecting lake. Between Lincoln and Washington, you have the longest, like 2,400 feet long. That's longer than the tallest milling in the world if you set it under the side. And we're now covering it with the most beautiful blue.

very thick. You think of it as a very sophisticated form of rubber. No leaks, no problems. And it's beautiful. It's called American Flag Blue. That was the color we chose. Thick rubber doesn't leak. That's the blue. That's the blue that we're going for here. Just covering the reflecting lake. I'm calling it the reflecting late now. It's also what Trump was looking for in his personal brand of Depends. There you go. There you go. So there's also this story today that Trump is pressuring treasury officials, the people who print the money in treasury, to put his face on a special $250 bill in honor of America's 250th and in honor of Trump, of course.

And this may be wonder like, okay, the corruption, huge political problem, the biggest political problem, I'm sure. Obviously, all of this also looks extremely out of touch while the economy is in the shitter. You think people also might feel just a bit uneasy about Trump's messianic rebrand of America here? I mean, it's just like the face is on everything, the name is on everything, there's fucking gold everywhere. It's a little fucking creepy. Okay. So I want to get to that question. Can we dig on the $250 bill for a second? Yes. So Besson was asked about this at the briefing and he pointed out that there is a law that says that you cannot put a living person on money. And that there's a bill before Congress. It's passed in like the 1800s. And

it was after after George Washington, our first president, refused to put his face on currency while he was alive. And so there's a bill before the House and the Senate right now that would lift that restriction for the purposes of allowing Besson to put Trump's face on the money. And my message to, I'm going to speak directly to Mike Johnson, John Thune, and frankly, every congressional Republican immediately, if you do not immediately, go to the Capitol right now and vote on that bill to put Donald Trump's face on our money, then you are traders to the macrocos. You are weak, woke liberals. You have to do this. Vote for it right now. I can think of nothing, no better use of your time. I got a better idea,

Dan. Remember, they all went home before the Memorial Day break because they couldn't come to an agreement on the budget bill that was supposed to fund ICE and all the other bullshit in there, like the $1.8 billion slush fund for January 6 rioters. Democrats have the ability to offer amendments in a voter ramma process. So if I was Chuck Schumer or a Senate Democrat, I might offer an amendment about this. And let's put everyone on the record and see what they think. See what all the Republicans think about Donald Trump's face on the $250 bill. I like that.

That's a great idea. You have really aged into a legislative strategist late in life. So that's great. All right, let's get to the, let's get to the meat of your question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, do I think voters are creeped out and maybe a little scared by Trump basically cosplaying Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, pick your tin pod dictator? Look, I think the biggest political problem here is that Trump is focused on dumb, self-serving

shit instead of lowering people's costs. Like, that is the fundamental thing. you add a side of pretty blatant corruption to it. That's pretty bad. I think people see the, you know, Trump putting his name on everything, his face, and everything. And I think maybe last year they would have seen that as scary. I think this year they think it's stupid because the Trump of 2026 and not the Trump's 2025. 2025, he was single-handedly destroying federal agencies, setting mass agents everywhere.

He was astride the world. He was bizarrely popular. And now he is a deeply unpopular. daughtering old man who can't stay awake in meetings. He is losing wars to Iran. He just looks weak. He seems different. He just seems smaller now.

And you see that in the polling where major, pluralities of people and large majority of independence no longer describe him as strong. They see him as weak and indecisive. And I think, so I think should people be creeped out by it? Absolutely. I think the approach is probably not fear. It's derision. I was going to say, I don't, I probably, I probably articulate.

it wrong. I don't think it's fear like, oh, no scary dictator kind of thing. When I say to uneasy, I feel like people look at it. And first of all, I think part of this is me when the ballroom thing first happened, not thinking that the ballroom was going to be a big deal. And then realizing that the imagery of the East Wing being demolished was more powerful to people than I had imagined. And not just from a corruption angle, because at that point, it was just we're going to knock down the East Wing and I'm going to build the ballroom, right? And it wasn't just like, oh, he's not focusing because we didn't have the war then, right? But it was still like, what are you doing? I think that people have not, there's going to be a lot of focus and a lot of

attention on Washington, D.C. over the next couple months because it's America's 250th anniversary birthday. And there's going to be a lot of activities in D.C. And so those images are going to be broadcast and everywhere. And just like people tuning in to what's happening in D.C. with like Trump's face on the Justice Department and his name on everything and the gold everywhere. I kind of just think it's a small thing, but I think it's just sort of adds to the like, what the fuck is happening right now?

Like it doesn't make you feel, it doesn't make you feel good about America. At a time where people, most people will want to feel somewhat patriotic or happy about America's 250th birthday, making it all about Donald Trump, I do think like cuts to the core of what, like, It bothers people in a like a, fuck, this is not our country.

What is this kind of way? Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's also just people are going to see it and be like, why is this such a high priority? Yeah, like, yeah, what, yeah, and it all combines, I think. It's like, what are you doing? Pod Save America is brought to you by PolicyGenius. This summer, you might be looking forward to taking a break from the never-ending news horrors and spending time with your family, which means you don't want to spend your summer,

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This is sort of your standard issue corruption. According to ProPublica, Trump advisor and family friend Peter Navarro, remember Peter Navarro? He did all the tariffs that everyone's enjoyed so much. And jail time. He did jail time too. Jail time and tariffs, yeah. So it turns out he pulled some strings last year to funnel a $620 million dollar Pentagon loan to a North Carolina startup owned in part by Donald Trump Jr.

What do you think is an early, early wedding present? Like we talk all the time about the crypto schemes and the Qatari jets and all the other like very extravagant and extraordinary corruption. But there really is just a staggering amount of, as you said, mundane corruption, just like funneling contracts to your friends so that they can make money off the taxpayers. And Trump is probably, although not definitely going to pardon his sons before he leaves, maybe Peter Navarro will cross the threshold of people who will get pardoned, you know, because he did serve time for Trump for a while. And he already has a pardon, I believe, or at least a commutation. But the people who actually facilitated this, people who work in the Pentagon, people who work for Peter Navarro, they're not getting pardons.

And they're probably going to see the inside of the jail cell because of it. And that is happening across the board. And like there are a lot of people who think who are serving their maga lords. They're doing what they're told. And they are going, Trump's going to pardon his close friends and his closest aides. And the rest of those people are going to be under tremendous legal jeopardy because of what they're doing. I realize it's easy to become numb to all the stories about corruption and all the numbers. But what happened here is this is a pretty clear cut one.

They set up this office in the Pentagon called the Office of Strategic Capital. And this was set up in the Biden administration. and the idea was the government wants to give out some loans to companies, startup companies that are involved in developing rare earth minerals because we don't want to depend on China for that. We want to depend on the U.S., and so this is good. It's good for the government to sort of help these startups that are doing this. It was a, they had $1 billion lending authority under Biden.

Donald Trump comes in and they increase it from $1 billion to $200 billion. So now it's $200 billion. that the government is handing out to these companies. And in the Biden administration, there's a process. You bid for this if you're one of these companies. You apply. There's a rigorous process. They decide to take you or not.

They reject some companies. They just obviously, we want to give loans to the best possible companies because it's taxpayer dollars that we are giving to these companies. So we want to make sure they're the best ones. Except one company, Vulcan, skirted that entire process. And in fact, didn't even apply. The White House, Peter Navarro, calls the defense department and it was like, you got to give the money to Vulcan. You just got to give the money to Vulcan.

And that is the company, the small company in North Carolina that Don Jr. had just invested in just a couple months before this. And once it got the money, once it got the huge contract, the valuation of the company went from $200 million to $2 billion. A 900% increase. That is how much money Don fucking Jr. because his really good friend, Peter Navarro, the two of them are very tight, called up the fucking Pentagon and said, make this happen for Don Jr.'s company. There's so much like this. There is, you know, just for the other day that they, about, you know, Trump had a big investment and made investment in Dell right before a big

announcement where Dell was going to get a government contract. Same thing with Robin Hood. It's across the board, just everyone is robbing the treasury with two hands at all times. I was going to say it's not, and it's not just like they're using their office. or they're abusing their office and just the fact that they have the office to make money. No, no, no. They're like stealing from you. They are putting their hands in the taxpayer pockets and stealing because this is just taxpayer money that's been handing out.

And with no accountability or oversight whatsoever, is this company going to succeed? Is it a good company? We don't know. Don Jr. Own some of it. That's all we need to know. Money out the door. Taxpayer dollars.

It was only a year ago that the government told us that we cannot afford to keep rural hospitals open. Right. Yeah. But we can give a favorable contract with a huge profit margin with the people who put the weird rubbery paint on the pool. We can give contracts at Don Jr.'s company. We can encase Washington, D.C. base horse statues in gold. Where's Elon?

Where are the Doge Bros? Where's the all-in pod bros with all the fucking, come on, guys? Probably investors in the Donald Trump and the Trump Jr. company. Lots of waste and fraud right here. You guys are saying it's all kinds of waste in the government. You've been pretty quiet about this. Fucking losers. All right.

The moment from Trump's cabinet meeting that actually got the most airtime wasn't the Iran stuff or the thick rubbery coating. It was this. I don't care about the midterms. Look what happened last night. That was the prelude to the midterms. Yeah, man, we noticed. We noticed you don't care about the midterms.

It's coming through, coming through loud and clear. He was referring, of course, to the Texas Senate runoff where Ken Paxton, the deeply corrupt beneficiary of a last-minute Trump endorsement, absolutely crushed incumbent Senator John Cornyn by almost 30 points. When Trump said, look what happened last night, what do you think he thinks Tuesday night demonstrated about the midterms? He's a simple-minded fellow, John, and I think he very simple-mindedly looked and saw that a candidate he supported won a race.

And then he then presumes that candidates that he support will rein similar races in the fall. Now, what Trump is too simple-minded to understand is that, Among the people who voted in that primary in Texas, I imagine Trump had a 85 to 95% approval rating. These are Texas primary voters. When people go to the polls in the fall, Trump will have somewhere between a, I don't know, 42 and 32% approval rating depending on the district and the state, which seems like a slightly different environment for his candidates. Also, I think I just want to say to you like this. Ken Paxton was winning this primary, whether Donald Trump endorsed him or not. He may have won by more, but there were reports in private that private polling had Paxson up 10 points before Trump's endorsement.

We knew from the runoff that even though Cornyn got the plurality of votes, there was a strong majority when you added up Wesley Hunt and Ken Paxson votes. There was a strong majority of Texans who did not want John Cornyn. And when incumbents go to runoffs, they almost always lose because the reason they're in a runoff is there's 50% of people who looked at that incumbent they knew and said, Give me someone else. Yeah, I was going to say, also, the turnout was so much lower. Did you see some of the estimates on turnout? It looks like between the first race and the runoff, Paxton got about 7,000 more votes in the runoff. And Cornyn lost about 400,000 votes between the first race and the runoff.

So it seems like a ton of Cornyn's voters just stayed home and decided not to vote. and then the most engaged, craziest MAGA voters turned out for Ken Paxton. Yeah, which was always sort of the fear. And it's not like this was the only race on the ballot. You also, you had congressional runoffs and you had a very important attorney general runoff as well. So I guess we could talk. Let's talk about how they're going after James Tala Rico, who's now the Democratic nominee in that race. And then we can sort of talk about the race ahead from now until November. It does seem like MAGARWorld is a bit more nervous about Tala Rico than they're letting on, as evidenced by their subtle new strategy of questioning James Tala Rico's masculinity.

It's very subtle. I don't know if you can figure it out. Paxson uses victory speech to call Tala RICO, low-tie Talarico, and six-gender Jimmy. Stephen Miller tweeted that Tala RICO will make history as the first transgender Senate candidate. And here's the gang from Foxes the Five on Wednesday. This baby lotion soft child. He does. He looks pre-pure. He looks pre-pient. The major factor in this race, Greg, is whether Talafriko's vegan. You say you have a girlfriend. Why don't you name her? Are they going to have a coming out party?

Or is she still going to stay the secret girlfriend? And is this totally not fake girlfriend, also a vegan? He looks like such a beta male. He was, he was, Beta O'Rourke was his big brother in the after school program. They'll say, but he's a seminarian. How dare you not? He put the semen in seminarian. What do you think they're trying to tell us?

They dislike his policy agenda? I get it. I get the line of attack. And there is a universe where you can execute that line of attack. Maybe in a way that's somewhat effective. Feels like if you're already calling him a gay pedophile in May, not a lot of runway left. Where are you going?

Where are you going to be in October? I am curious about what is driving this attack. Like, is it in the data? Or are they just echoing the thing that Trump said on Air Force One two weeks ago? I think some of it is like instinct, right? Like they have, okay, the clips of James Tellerico that have been, you know, all over the internet and right wing media are something, something vegan. He's not a vegan, which clearly these people just actually don't know. that he's not a vegan. And they think now he says he eats meat because he's like got caught or something.

But he was never saying he was a vegan. That was not a clip. The clip of him saying that, you know, technically there's six sexes because of chromosome abnormalities with a small fraction of people, which like great. And like a couple other clips like that. And he looks young, right? And so they're like, yeah, he looks like their go-to is he's a beta male. But they can't just say that because there is an element of... They said that. That's exactly what they say. Well, they can't just say that. And like leave it at that

because there's an element of oh shit, we just nominated Ken Paxson and we could lose. So we've got to take everything to 100. Yeah. So I think a couple of things here. One, obviously their strategy, their only way to win is to nuke Tellerico. This is going to be their same strategy

with Grand Platinum. It's a lot of same strategy with whoever wins in Michigan, particularly as Abdul-Said. Like, this is their approach. It's really, it's the only thing they have, right? They basically, this is the weak, woke, and too liberal attack that we talked about a few weeks ago. There are actually two separate things embedded in what they're doing here. There is James Tilarico is a low-t, possibly gay beta male.

They's not man enough for the Senate, which is really quite a thing to say. And then there is James Tala Rico is a liberal elitist extremist who's out of touch with Texas values. That is the god is non-binary. That is the false attack. He's a vegan. Those are two separate things. Obviously, the second one pulls well. Like, we don't even, we know that that's, we know that that is an average act.

I'm not sure the, he's a beta male is a particularly effective attack. I don't, I don't know that they're, I guess I would say I don't know that they're entirely separate because the out of touch, the typical out of touch liberal who is a male is obviously a low T beta male. Like we are also low T beta males because we are libs on the coast

and we're probably vegan. And we probably have pronouns in our bio, you know. That's a pretty deep. It's a very online take. It's a very online take. The other one is a it's a deeply dishonest because it takes a lot of quotes out of context

and edits them some of them quite unfairly. But I think that there is, I'm just not, in presidential politics, strength and toughness matters a lot, right? How you define strength and toughness is very important. You can define it in ways that are much better than sort of like brute force strength that, you know, Trump sort of has tried to swagger his way into the Oval Office. It matters much less in congressional and Senate races, right? You're not, no one sees you as being tasked with staring down the Iranians or taking out

al-Qaeda or stopping crime in the streets. whatever else people associate probably incorrectly with toughness. And so I think that like Trump has sort of sent them on this path. And it is red meat for the Fox base. And so it's one thing of like Jesse Waters and the Yahoo's on the five do it. It was interesting to me that it was such a big part of Paxton's victory speech. I just I just like took note of that. Well, I mean, he is a he is a politician who if not successful will end up being a punted on Fox pretty easily.

So the line is pretty. His speech was interesting because he did, like he, very Trump-esque in that he was very excited in enjoying doing the Tala Rico attacks and responding to the crowd. And then he was reading with no emotion lines about lowering people's costs. Not where his passion lies. His passion lies, of course, in theft. He likes stealing from people. Yeah, that. Sometimes quite literally, he stole someone's pen.

So like a thousand dollar pen someone left lying around. There's like video of him just stealing it, which is. Very friends and neighbors. Right. So Talley goes out there responding to the beta mail line of attack. Here he is at a rally on Wednesday in Houston. This is his first stop on a statewide tour in his first appearance since Paxton won the runoff. In a time when there's so much debate about what it means to be a man, my dad showed me.

Every Saturday morning he would mow our lawn. and then without telling anyone, without anyone asking him, he would go next door and mow our neighbor's lawn. She was elderly, she was a widow. He never talked about it. He just did it. Because that's what a man does. He serves those around him.

He takes responsibility and he does what's right even when no one is watching. So in addition to that, he also did a sit down with CBS with Ed O'Keefe. And, you know, he said that some of his past remarks were cringy and that he would say them differently as well. He's been, you know, there's been plenty of photos that the campaign's been pushing around of him eating barbecue because he said he's eaten barbecue forever. So, you know, it's all of a piece. But if you were consulting on the campaign, how would you advise you? him to push back on this. And I think, more importantly, like, how much time and energy would you be spending on it

if you were on the campaign? Before we do that, I just do want to stipulate that team South Rico has a very, very real chance of winning this race. Yeah. Well, we should talk about that for sure. And I get why everyone is skeptical of Texas. We have been burned so many times. The, you know, but this is our best chance in the generation to win statewide office in Texas.

We have not one of Senate race in Texas. 19 to the 8. We've not one statewide office of consequence in this century. And obviously, the closest that a Democrat has come was better or work losing by 2.6% to Ted Cruz in 2018. But this is a different world. 2018 was a good environment for Democrats. 2026 is a great environment for Democrats, as we sit here today, at least. This is a hard thing for me to say, but Ted Cruz is much more likable and has higher, much higher, much more likely and more popular than Ken Paxton. This blew me away.

In September of 2018, Ted Cruz had a favorability rating that was nine points above water. Yes. Ken Paxton, depending on your poll, is five, seven, ten points below water. And we'll never be above water. That is just he will never see the surface. The most important thing here is that there is a demographic pincer movement happening in Texas in this moment. So in 2016, Hillary Clinton did better in Texas than almost any other states. It's a state where she actually had the largest improvement of Barack Obama in 2012.

It's one of the very few states and maybe the only state where she did better than Obama did in 2012. And the reason that happened is she blew the doors off Latino voters. And Trump won by a decent margin because white voters of all stripes, college educated and working class voted for him in Mass. What has changed since 2016 is those college educated white voters of which there are a ton in Texas, particularly in the cities and suburbs around those big cities, have moved dramatically in Democratic direction. And then, starting in 2020, Latino voters moved towards Trump. And Trump won Latino voters by 10 points in Texas, according the exit polls.

What has changed since then is that those college-educated white voters have stayed exactly where they were before and maybe even more fired up now than they were back in 2024. And Latino voters have moved dramatically away from Trump. Trump's approval rating among Latinos nationally is minus 50. In the generic, Unitos, that's in the New York Times poll, in the United, Unito's U.S. poll of battleground districts around the country, they looked at the battleground districts. There's a poll of Latinos, battleground districts in the southwest, which is mostly

not entirely Texas. Democrats are winning the generic ballot by 38 points. And so if James Tellerico, if he can get Kamala Harris, Joe Biden-style numbers with college-educated white voters and something like Hillary Clinton's 2016 Latino numbers, he wins that race and he wins it by a couple points. Yeah. I saw that I saw that Nate Cohn said something similar and then also said that even if you take the latest Times poll, the national poll, and you match the different, and you match the different. and you match the shifts with the different demographic groups in Texas, if you like make it, then you, then it would tilt blue Texas. Yeah.

Even before you knew the candidates. Right. He has to navigate what we all talked about to get there. But this, like this is not the previous discussion of Texas. It's not like a lot of other red states where we talk about. We're like, we got this popular candidate. Maybe they can persuade a bunch of these voters and maybe we'll get there where there's no route path.

You can, the math tells you that this state is in play if Tala Rico can achieve what should, what should be achievable democratic numbers. So that's that. Okay. Now I was going to say, yeah, now, that's a good setup for what I think the challenge the Tala Rico faces is I've been thinking about sort of Graham Platter in Maine and this, you know, I think there's been no bigger gap between what voters on the ground think of a candidate and what the internet conversation about that candidate is than Plattner.

and the reason I feel more confident about Platner is pretty much because the size of Maine and I think that like Grand Platner may meet most of the voters he needs to meet in Maine and obviously James Sellerico is not going to do that in Texas because no one can do that in Texas because it's a big fucking state and so he does need to make some decisions on like how to puncture the internet caricature of him that a lot of voters are going to come in contact with and also through television ads and other ads from the Paxton campaign and from the Republicans and figure out, you know, like where to spend his time, what to say, what his ad strategy is, and your thoughts on all that.

Yeah. So my thoughts are, I guess the way to think about this is the strategy they're running against Tellerico was the strategy they ran against Kamala Harris in 2024. The goal is to define him before he can divide himself. Like, Telarico very well known among Democrats and very politically engaged people. to the extent that other people even know who he is, they kind of vaguely have the sense that he is like a Democrat who talks about his faith a lot, maybe is as much as they know.

And you know, the general vibes that he's not a typical Democrat. And so that's a vacuum that the right is trying to fill before Taylor could fill himself. So what are the mistakes that Kamala Harris made that led her to be defined? The first is when the attacks came like the infamous they, them ad, she never took them head on. Like, and we can debate the ad strategy around it. know all the discussion from all the people who worked there about, which ads tested good and which ads tested bad.

But as thinking, siloing that conversation in ads is stupid. She wasn't like she was out talking to voters to try to disabuse them of that notion. Like she never took that attack on. So you're going to take these attack odds. I find both, even though I'm less concerned about the masculinity attack than perhaps you or others may be, the fact that he took it all in the first day shows the right instincts. The fact that he sat down for the interview with Ed O'Keefe to take tough questions about the things he said shows the right in things. You have to take them on because if you don't, then voters

are just going to assume that they're true because people are naturally cynical. And the second thing is you cannot allow there to be a vacuum. You have to be everywhere all the time, all at once. You have to be omnipresent in the media, on social media. You have to be like, you know, it's always the worst comparison. You have to be like Mamdani. Like there should be no interview you turned down, no podcast you sure turn down. You should visit every county in Texas or whatever is logistically feasible. A member took better like two years to do that. maybe that's impossible, but do be everywhere so that people see you. Because when people see James Taylorico, they like him.

He is like, he has real appeal with this segment of cornet people who would, who would have voted for John Cornyn over a Democrat, but we might vote for a Democrat over Ken Paxton. And so you got, but you got to be in front of them and you got to do it. There is no, you cannot waste one minute every single minute, minute of every single day, has to be out there communicating. And I think he, he ran his primary. campaign like that. He's run his sort of career like that. So I think that's what they're going to do. But like if you think you're being aggressive, you're probably not being, you should be more aggressive

than that and keep going. I have seen a lot of right wing folks who are quite religious online, make the argument that, you know, James, the idea that James Telerico's faith and, a pension to talk openly about his faith and, you know, being, you know, being a seminarian. is the idea that that's going to help him is like liberals idea of what a person's a person of faith is. And like liberals have no idea because the fact that he is using passages from the Bible to sort of talk about his progressive values is like blasphemy to some on the right. And I think that they have that wrong because like I don't think that James Telerico's view of his faith and the way he talks about his faith is going to win over even. evangelical Christians that are going to vote for Ken Paxton and voted for Donald Trump three times anyway. I don't think that's the point. In fact, I don't even think it's, oh, this guy

preaches and his Christian faith is what's going to do it for me. I think the fact that he speaks from, he speaks in the language of morality is refreshing to people who don't necessarily vote all the time or sometimes switch between the parties. It's all the like the people in the middle that when you hear someone, and especially a Democrat, talking about how their faith has moved them and how it sort of sort of animates their values and their decisions about politics, like, I don't think, at the very least, I don't think it hurts. I think it pushes people away. But I think for some people, they're like, okay, well, this guy has a moral grounding. And even people who aren't religious, necessarily, or don't share his Christian faith, may be like, okay, this guy believes in what he's

saying. It's like, it gives him an authenticity that a game. when you meet him, you realize that that's what it is. He really genuinely believes this and it animates him and it drives him. And I think that that is worth a lot in politics today. These things, these right-wing people are saying are so fucking stupid because if the, a literal meaning of the scripture was why these people voted the way they voted, these evangelical Christians voted the way they voted, they wouldn't have voted for Donald Trump. What I'm going to take an even hackier view than you, like I agree with you obviously the way he talks about from this, he talks about things that I, from a moral framework is refreshing.

The fact that he talks about his faith is a massive, it's authentic to him, which is incredibly important, but it's also a massive signifier that he is a, is different than your typical Democrat. And if he wants to win in Texas, he has to be different than a typical Democrat. That's why it's important. It is not because he's going to get into a theological debate with a three-time Trump-voting evangelical minister and persuade them to his side. It's that he can communicate with people.

He can relate to people whose faith is important to him or their faiths, their faith community is important to them because that is a touchstone to begin a larger conversation about where Texas goes, where the country goes. Like it is a way in with a group of voters. It is not the fact of his faith is not delivering votes among other people of faith. It's just one way in which he can connect to people. I also think there's a way in which Tala Rico has already started framing the race and he did this in a video right after Ken Paxton won, where he is trying to make this about him and everyone. else as outsiders trying to upend a corrupt establishment. And it's about the system, right? And so he

attacks Ken Paxton as corrupt and he calls him those corrupt politician in America, but he said he's part of a corrupt system that James Hilariko wants to change because it is the, and, you know, this is, Asop said the same, says the same thing. This is the reason that you can't afford anything because these people are stealing your money. And making it about voters and about why Ken Paxson would be bad for voters because they are feeling like they can't afford anything and he's going to make it worse because he's a thief just like Donald Trump, I think is a very potent message. I have a greater worry that if it's about, you know, beta male Loti T. Tilarico versus, you know, criminal adulterer Ken Paxton and it's like a character versus character race, that's not one

that he's going to have as much of a chance to win as if he makes it about, you know, side versus, you know, outsiders versus the system, change versus the status quo. He's just got to make it bigger than about him and Paxton. And I do think that, and it's not just for Tel Rico, but it's for all Democrats. Because Paxton gives you so many is a target rich environment because he gives you so much to talk about because he has such a bad record and he's corrupt and stuff like that. It is very easy to turn this into a race about what a bad person Ken Paxton is. And I think it would be a mistake to just talk about Ken Paxton is a bad person.

You've got to talk about how Ken Paxton has fucked over. over the people of Texas when he was Attorney General and how he would continue to do so in the Senate. Like that is where the, that is where you win it, I think. Pod Save America is brought to you by Blinds.com. There's a version of your home you haven't lived in yet where the light behaves, where the rooms feel finished, where you sleep until you decide to wake up.

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Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. All right, a couple last things to cover. Thursday was Marco Rubio's birthday, and his best present came from Emerson, which has a new 2028 poll out showing he's effectively erased J.D. Vance's lead as a top contender for the 28 Republican nomination. In August, he was at 9 percent, and Vance was at 52 percent. this latest poll, Rubio's at 35 and Vance is at 36. One poll, Emerson poll, obviously, grain of salt. Does seem like there's, there's some Markomenum here. Our friend Sarah Longwell

sees it in the focus groups too. A couple different places. What's what's going on here? I think Marco Rubio's greatest asset right now is that he's not shady Vance. I mean, I think that's it. I don't think he has done anything in particular that people love. It's not like he's just been crushing the job of the State Department. It's not like his stewardship of the Iran war is making people happy. It's not like, I think people are deeply dialed into his role as the overseer of the viceroy of Venezuela. I just think he is a Republican who might seem slightly more competent and normal than your average Trump cabinet member and is not as awkward and off-putting as JD Vance. You see that, um, that fun daily mail story. It has sources to say that, um,

Vance is considering abandoning his 2028 bid. Um, and, uh, he feels more isolated than ever now that Tulsi Gabbard's leaving. And it even got his team to respond, saying that it was all made up and everything, of course. I'm sure he and Tulsi were just plotting in the back on how to fail to stop Trump to do bad things. I choose to believe that story might be real. I think that would be fun. He has been very subdued lately.

Yeah, he's off line. Remember, he quit Twitter for Lent? Yes. And then he just, and then afterline, he just says he's kept it off his phone. He says he gets more done now. Good for him. Good for him.

Honestly, offline listener, J.D. Vance. I was going to say if he wants to come on offline, we can talk about it. You see that Gretchen Whitmer ruled out running for president in 2028. She may have partially walked it back. Just weird. See, she sounded in the actual clip. She was pretty clear that she was not running. This does not surprise me.

She has really done none of the things that the people who are obviously running for president are doing. She's not out trying to get a lot of national tension. She's not making herself a foil against Trump. She's not going to all these cattle call events like Al Sharpe does national action. network and some of these other big events. She had, I have not heard of her like meeting with donors, hiring staff, you know, talking to people like the people who are who are running, they're calling other people and they're making sure they know they might be running and, you know, and trying to persuade those people.

We hear from some of them. But so it's not surprising. One thing that I think is I did occur to me when I read this is with Greta, it was presuming Gretchen Whitmer does not run. There are really only two other women who were thinking of running. And that's Kamala Harris and AOC. Oh, yeah. I was going to say, and who else?

Oh, right, Kamala Harris. Yes. And neither of them, I think, are, I think most people would say the odds are against both of them running. Oh. So the point being, you could end up with an all-male feel, but should be kind of gross in 2028. Yeah.

I think, though, for Gretchen Whitmer, it's like good for you. Like, that is the, if you, no one should ever feel pushed into running for president. because you are mentioned as someone who could be president. Like she is someone on paper who seems like absolutely she could run for president. She clearly like doesn't feel the fire in the belly, like doesn't want to go through. And it's like, good. That's the better decision to make than to be like, all right, I'm going to do it. I'm going to put everyone through it.

We're going to go through the whole paces. Like it's a very big decision. It's a life-changing decision. And also you're going to think about the party and the makeup of the field. and like if she doesn't want to do it, then like good for her for bowing out early. All right. Finally, speaking of deciding not to run for president, I want to just quickly take you back to June 27th, 2024, the night of Joe Biden's debate with Donald Trump.

We were there. Not at the debate, but you remember. We were together. We were together. You might remember that right afterward, Joe and Jill Biden dropped by a watch party to thank supporters. and here's what Jill Biden said then. Joe, you did such a great job. You answered every question.

Never gets old. Now, Dr. Biden's out with a memoir, which she promoted in an interview with CBS Sunday morning this weekend. And here's how she recounted actually feeling watching the debate. I don't know what happened. I mean, as I watched it, I thought,

oh, my God, he's having a stroke. And it scared me to death. That's the time of my life. I don't really want to go back to. I mean, I will say I maintain a deep well of anger at the Biden's people around Joe Biden who helped keep him in the race, the people around Joe Biden, who attacked everyone as basically traitors to the cause who thought Joe Biden shouldn't run for president either before or after that debate. Like that still makes me very mad. I have come to the point this many years later that I just have to decide. that I can no longer give a shit about the who knew what, when. Like, obviously she was lying then. She's probably lying now. In fact, quite a few Biden advisors told Alex Thompson that they do believe she's lying because they pointed out if she thought he was having a stroke,

why did she take him to an after party and then go to the Waffle House, which they did after that? I mean, yeah, there are obviously lots of questions. Here's my thing, right? I just, I have made a personal decision that I'm just going to try not to get. That was basically a summer of pure, unadulterated rage the whole time of what was happening. I can remember my blood pressure at the time. Yes, I'm trying not to revisit that period in my life. I, so as I said here today, I care less about what Jill Biden has to say about what happened

that moment. I care less about what Mike Donnellin or all the other people who covered up for Biden have to say about what happened at that moment. What I care about is what happens going forward. And what bothers me the most is not the timeline of events of 2024, but whether Democratic leaders now will ever reckon with the massive breach of trust that came because of how all of that was handled. telling voters that what they saw with arise before the debate was that they shouldn't believe

that and then telling voters what they saw at the debate, they shouldn't believe. And that lack of trust hurts us with our own voters, hurts us with the other voters. And we have to be thinking about at all times about how to rebuild that trust. Like we should optimize strategic decision-making at the highest levels of this party for how do we rebuild trust not just with our voters, but with all voters. And that is, I think, as I try to find a way not just to throw my phone against the wall every time I see stuff like that, that's where I'm trying to direct my positive energy. That was just remarkably disciplined and adult of you. And, you know, now I'm going to, Austin's food. Didn't you already do a YouTube about this? I was going to say, and I'm going to,

yeah, I'm going to take that path as well because if you want to hear me flip out about it and Tommy, we have, we have it on YouTube from this morning when it was fresh. But I, I really, I, I, I completely agree. Was that today? You did that today? It was today. Yeah. Wow. What a fucking day. I know. But I agree with you. And that's the only reason I care about it now, too, because I, and I read that, I think I said it to you too, that tweet from Zaid Jalani, who said like you, like, I think people are underestimating how much the lack of trust people have in the Democratic Party is due to what happened around them. And I do think that, like, you know, you can ask, do you think Biden and what happened with Biden is going to be an issue in 2020? and narrowly know, but I think that the people are going to remember that the Democratic Party, when I say Democratic Party,

I mean the people in the White House, the campaign, plenty of Democratic pundits, plenty of people online who are still fighting that fight, lied to people. And didn't even lie to people in a way that was like,

like lied to people in a pretty obvious, obviously false, transparent way. And so that's like, it's worse than a lie. It's treating people like fucking idiots, which is basically what they did. They told the whole country, that's the bigger thing. They told the whole country like, you know what? You know who the problem is. It's these these fucking DC establishment bedwetters

who think that Joe Biden did bad in the debate. They're the problem. All I'm, we're with all you people. And, you know, we believe that everything was great. We know, we think you believe that too. And they like, I think people are going to believe that. Like, come on. Yeah, there was a level of delusion and deception that was bigger than, like, dismissive. I think dismissive is the right way to put it. Yes. It was bigger than just the Biden's age stuff. It was inflation.

Yep. It was Gaza. Gaza. Yep. And the combination of all of those things have put the Democratic Party in a bad place with its own voters, not to mention everyone else. And we have to be thinking about how we fix it. And that, that's one of the reasons why I got so mad about the DSEC and Chuck Schumer coming in and putting their hand in these races. And in some cases, now putting their thumb on the scale, but not saying they're putting their thumb on the scale by funneling.

by funneling money through Apex SuperPax or these other super PACs in these other states. And I thought you were going to say this is why I got so mad at the Ken Martin thing, too, because that was the same idea. Yes, that's exactly right. That's, that's it too. And that's allowed me to experience the same, many of the same people, because I wrote that message box in two and a half seconds after the autopsy came out, and I really put myself at the front of the line for the people online to come out to say, like, where's the autopsy of your work in 2024 pushing more good men out of jobs but this is and this is

in in the context of going forward i just want the people running in 2028 the people who are going to be talking about the 2028 race like when the biden stuff comes up when the dnc stuff comes up whatever like if people were willing to say totally fucked up i was wrong bad move oh i you know wish i was more honest which i was more transparent like great that's fine But you got to say that. You know, people like, yeah, where's the autopsy of your work? We're fine to say when we fucked up. This whole company was started because of a fuck up.

Because we were so confident that Hillary Clinton was going to win. We were fucking wrong. I wish that we had gone harder Joe Biden earlier than the debate. Said that before, too. You know, like, it's okay. You can say that you were wrong. It's fine. You don't have to issue a, you don't have to issue carefully worded statements that evade the question because, you know what?

People aren't going to trust you. So anyway, good luck on the book tour, Jill. All right. When we come back from the break, you'll hear my conversation with Mississippi Senate candidate, Scott Cologne. Pod Save America is brought you by Bilt. Whether you're renting or paying a mortgage, one of your biggest monthly expenses should be working harder for you. That's where Bilt comes in. Built is the membership that rewards you with points on every housing payment wherever you live.

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It's like having a personal assistant baked into where you live. It's simple. Being a renter and now owning a home is better with Built. Join the membership for where you live at joinbilt.com slash Crooked. that's J-O-I-N-B-I-T dot com slash crooked. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. When thirst strikes and your energy begins to fade, one hero rises above the rest.

Introducing the superpower smoothie from Zhu Booster. A bright sun-charged burst of mangoes, bananas, and blue spirulina. An out-of-this-world smoothie. Just in time for the new Supergirl movie. Discover your power and channel your inner superhero. fly into your local Zhu booster and experience it for yourself today. And see Supergirl, only in theaters June 26. Scott Cologne, welcome to POTSave America.

Thank you so much for having me. You are a district attorney in Mississippi. Your seventh generation, Mississippian. Your mom is the first black woman elected to her region's Chancery Court. Your dad worked for Ronald Reagan before becoming a Democrat. When a Mississippi voter asks why a guy with your resume is running for Senate as a Democrat in 2026, What do you tell them? I tell them that we've got to have a senator that fights for Mississippi.

Somebody understands that the tariffs have been terrible for the farmers, for the small businesses, that it's been terrible for the people going to the grocery store and that are struggling. And I'm not going to D.C. to be the Democratic senator. We're not a state that can afford that, right? You know, Mississippi's got 3 million people. California's got close to 50 million. You guys got two senators. We got two senators.

We have to use that. to bring resources and jobs and opportunities to Mississippi. And our current junior senator, she's betrayed that. She's totally betrayed that. The people of Mississippi know it, and that's why they're going to go in a new direction this November. You are running in a state that Trump just won in 2024 by 23 points. Yeah, yeah.

A lot of people will hear Mississippi Senate race and maybe laugh. Yeah. Make the case to the skeptic. What do you see on the ground that suggests you could become the first Democrat, really the first Senate candidate to win a state the incumbent president just won by 23 points. So, you know, I get this question asked to me a lot, as you can imagine. And I used to

answer it like I was David Axelrod. I would say, well, hold on, guys. You know, in non-presidential years, you know, we get much closer, right? Like our last Democratic candidate for governor got within three points in winning. You know, last year we broke the supermajority in the state Senate. But what I realized I needed to explain to people why I can win, right? And the reality is, when I ran for a district attorney in 2015, I ran against a 30-year incumbent.

I was in a district that people thought I had no chance to win it. But what I realized is that under the right circumstances with the right opponent and the right candidate, you can win a tough race in Mississippi. And those three things are totally at play now, right? I mean, I was with some, I got invited to, on the Gulf Coast, some Mississippians who previously voted Republicans. Okay. Notice I didn't call them Republicans. Mississippians who previously voted Republican. They reached out to my campaign. They said, listen, we love what you're doing on social media.

I was on a podcast, and they were like, we love what you said on the podcast. You're talking about Mississippi values. We want you to come meet with us. They said, maybe two or three people. We'll see how it goes. When I got there was 20 people. Former Republican voters. And they talked to me about how in this particular moment,

they feel like they're getting betrayed by the Trump administration. with $1.7 billion for people that assaulted cops that the president's cronies get to control. And then you look at Senator, our junior senator, right? I call her Cindy high prices because all we got is high prices from her. So, you know, you look at her and she's a part of the corruption. I mean, she's gotten campaign contributions from fertilizer companies that are under investigation for price fixing. Wow, the whole same fertilizer companies are really hurting our farmers. The tariffs heard them.

Now we got fertilizer costs because of the war and I rent up. Price fixing. She's taking money from him. She is, you know, I mean, one of the Republican, former Mississippi Republicans told me, he said, listen, when I heard about her going to Las Vegas, $10,000 campaign contributions to stay at luxury hotel to eat at luxury restaurants, that reminds me of the corruption we're seeing in D.C. And, you know, we got to go in a new direction and just tell us what you're running on. And I'm running on making everybody's life in Mississippi better.

You know, it's... How do you do that? I mean, you got to talk about the issues. The other thing that I think is important. And this is for everybody listening. It's a mistake I think people are making. We're making it too much about the candidates. We're looking for celebrities to do the profile.

Oh, my God, they're great speakers. Me, you know, I think I got a lot of charisma. I think I'm charming. I think I can give a good speech. I think you're charming so far. But I'll tell you this. Going out there campaigning, listening to voters, I ask voters all the time.

What matters to you? The number one answer, someone who does what they said are going to do. It's not about us. It's about them. We have to make sure voters can trust us again. And that has to be not just running 30 second commercials. We can't advertise our way out to this problem. We got to go back and touch voters.

We got to gain their trust. And when we get power again, we have to deliver. We have to make sure people understand that their vote matter, that we make their life better. And so that's a big part of my strategy is I really get out there. I can't pay. Anybody following me, John, I don't. know any Senate campaign that campaign is one of me. I mean, it's three events every on Saturday, and I love voters. I love voters. And I listen to them. You know, I don't just do town halls.

I do town halls. But at some point, you're just talking to people that, you know, her motivated to vote, right? I go to the festivals. I go to the housing projects. I'm going to do a food truck where I pull up at the union halls, go to the plants. We got to go to the voters, and we got to gain their trust. So the former com staffer in me believes you are totally right that you should not give the answer. Like David Axorov would give the answer. That's what we would tell. Yeah. Don't be a pundit.

Yeah. But now I am a pundit. Yeah. So Mike S.B loses by 7.8 in 2018. Yeah. And I remember on that race, consultants on the SB campaign being like, Mississippi, it's going to happen. Talk to S.B. And then Hood lost the governor's race by five.

five in 2019, and then Brandon Presley, you mentioned, lost by only 3.2 in 2023. So it's a narrowing margin. Absolutely. Still a margin. Yeah. Like, what's the theory of the case that you're the one who can actually close it as opposed to being like the next data point where and then Scott got even closer? Yeah.

I mean, some of it's the environment, right? I mean, you look at 2018, the economy was pretty good in Mississippi. You look at the economy now. The tariffs have been terrible. Nobody talks about how the tariffs have hurt Mississippi. You know, I was talking to a woman, a Dollar General Manager, right? And I was shooting a little commercial in there, and I didn't ask her permission first. So, you know, you try to, you know.

What are you doing with those cameras? Let me do it 15 seconds real quick. Get out of here, a director camera real quick. And she noticed me. And she said, what are you doing? I said, well, listen, I'm a Senate candidate. I'm running against Cindy Hath Smith. She had no idea who that was.

And I was like, well, listen, don't worry about her. I'm the guy. And so I started talking to her. I said, listen, how do the customer's doing? And she said, you know, they're struggling. I'm seeing them every month trying to figure out, can they pay for diapers, can they pay for groceries? And prices keep going up. And she was like, I don't know what it is.

I don't know what I can do. I feel helpless. So I asked her, I said, what do you be thinking about the tariffs? It was almost like a bug went off. She was like, yeah, you know what? It is the tariffs. It is a tariff. You're right.

They're bad. And do people that you talk to connect that to the guy they voted for by 23 points? Do they say like tariff, bad, Trump tariff? Like, do they put it all together? You know, I think tariff is a bad word. You know, I don't know that they always do. I mean, there's a lot of voters that say they know it's bad because it became a popular term here recently. But we need to change the name of it.

It's a really is a working class tax. Yeah. It's not a tariff. It's a working class tax. It's a sales tax. I mean, and it's unfair to working people. It's a terrible way to collect revenue because if you make, you know, 15,000 a month or you make 2,000 a month, you're paying the same tax. Yeah.

And so, you know, we're connecting the dots for them, but I'll tell you who's really feeling it, and they understand it, are the farmers. You know, I mean, I can tell you story after story about how farmers are struggling in Mississippi and now the fertilizer costs. And the problem is, you talk about the corruption and how she's allowing the corruption, how she's partaking in it. But then you have to add that what she's totally absent in the state. I mean, she had done a town hall in six years. She does not campaign. I mean, her only strategy is scare tactics. 30 second commercial to scare the voters.

She, yeah, a recent Democratic internal poll had her, I think, at 55% unfavorable. Yeah. It's like 12 points underwater from Trump in her own state. Why do you think she's so much weaker than the brand? Yeah. You've got a senior senator in that state, I'm sure Roger Wicker, that's more popular. than her. Like, what is the specific Hyde Smith problem as opposed to generic Republican problem? You have to think about it this way.

You know, when I was a, this is a great way to really bring the story home. When I was a child, my dad was Republican before he supported Obama in 2008. He actually was Republicans for Obama. Obama switched them. But anyways, when I would go to like Jackson State

football games, at halftime, you would see Thad Cochran or halftime with a $50,000 check going to Jackson State. That's a hard guy to beat. You know what I'm saying? It's hard to get motivated if a guy's bringing $50,000. Yeah. You know, and we actually have a tradition in Mississippi of having senators that understand this position has to bring resources back to Mississippi.

You know, Trett Lott, I don't agree with him on a lot of things, but he did a lot to bring jobs back. I mean, he was a majority leader at one point. The majority leader was from Mississippi. So with her, a big problem is the people, even Republicans are like, excuse me, voters who used to vote Republicans, they are like, she is totally MIA. we can't find anywhere. She doesn't do anything. I don't think we've ever had a sender that's this absent. And she thinks that all she has to do is be 100% MAGA and she can win.

But the reality is I've been out there talking to voters and they want somebody that's 100% Mississippi. Because they understand the stakes. It's not like things are going well. If you ask, I mean, you can ask the most loyal Trump supporter right now are things going well. They ain't saying yes. Right. You know, they ain't saying yes. So if you become senator, you'd be the junior senator for Mississippi.

Seniority in the Senate, you'd rank towards the bottom, like all new senators do. So, like, what do you, you're making the case that she's not bringing home resources to Mississippi. How do you make the case to voters that, like, if you go to the Senate, you'll be able, even though you're one of a hundred and sort of, you know, a junior senator, help bring home resources to Mississippi? Yeah, I mean, one, I'm going to use my vote in my voice to really, to really represent Mississippi. I'm not going there. I keep saying this. I'm not going there to be a celebrity.

I'm going there to deliver for Mississippi. And so that gives me leverage because I'm not, you know, if a Republican offers something that makes sense for Mississippi, I'll support it. If a Democrat offers something that makes sense for Mississippi, I'll support it. Now, of course, you're right. You know, as a junior senator, you've got to be smart.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to find issues that Republicans already support, right? Like economic development is a big thing in Mississippi. How do we bring in industries to, to develop capital to get our state moving in the right direction. I mean, we're not like L.A., where you got to build as, I mean, you know, every, you know, it's really, and we spend it wisely. Well, you know, I'll let y'all control that.

But, you know, but for Mississippi, we need capital. We need economic development. We've got to be, even Republicans, you know, leaders know that. And so that's an area where, you know, I can be impactful that's really bipartisan. In the other areas, we got to find, like for me, I got to find smaller problems that I can help solve. Like, I had a good friend of mine who mentioned to me that dental care is really bad at Mississippi. It's at the bottom. And so, like, that's a problem that I can help solve as a senator from Mississippi.

That's not a partisan thing. So trying to find solutions to practical problems that makes people's life better. And the other thing that I'm going to do, and I've learned this from campaigning so much, is, you know, we can't stop campaigning. I mean, I know once you win, you got to govern, but you also better steal campaign. Because a place like Mississippi, if they feel like you go to D.C. And you're just making money or, you know, just a celebrity, it's not going to work. So for me, we got to have strong anti-corruption legislation that makes clear that we're not in there making money. You know, that's why I support a ban on stock training.

That's why we can't have people become lobbyers right after they become senators. We got to get the corruption and the perception of it because that helps the people that are. openly corrupt. Yeah. Right? Because they can say, the people are like, well, you know,

they're corrupt, but so it's, everybody's corrupt. We got to show them we're not corrupt. We're public service. We're not there to make money. And it's beneficial to me

that, like you said, my mom was a chance to court judge. And I learned my ethics and values for my parents. And so I was, you know, I'm really trying to honor their legacy. That's why, you know,

it's important to me to be transparent and be somebody that people can trust because I want to honor my parents. I also want to honor the ancestors that sacrificed so much for me to even have this opportunity to talk to you. I was just thinking, like, the last Democratic senator from the state that voted by double digits, this many doubled, like in the 20s for Trump, was Joe Manchin. Yeah.

And his model was like cut deals, piss off your party constantly, and then, you know, vote with the president when it suited the state. Is that your model, too? Well, I think Senator Manchin tried to get a little bit more attention to. I'll try to get. You know, I mean. He does love it, 10. You know what I mean? So for me, I'm more going to be trying to use my leverage and voice to cut deals that make sense and benefit Mississippi, but not try to be just somebody making, constantly complaining about things. If, if, if I'm sure you'll hear this

from voters, if they're like, okay, you say you're not going to be a typical Democratic senator, you're going to be a Mississippi senator. Yeah. I don't like the Democrats. I don't like what they've done. Where do you think the Democrats have gone wrong? Where do you break from the party? Where would you be different than a typical Democrat? Yeah, but we got to talk about economic issues. That's the first thing. I mean, because the people, like, I knew this because I had a friend of mine that was a barber. He unfortunately passed away.

Shout out to Jasper Pittman. He was a great political head. And so in 2020 when President Biden won, there was a lot of enthusiasm, there was a lot of enthusiasm. And 2021, 2021, 2022, he was a Democrat. He started getting sour on the party because of inflation. And then what he felt like was, man, we're talking about sending out of the United States. this money to Ukraine. We're talking about foreign stuff. Like, man, my life's not gotten better. Prices are up. Like, we got to start talking about me. We got to start talking about the voters.

And, you know, I was able to convince him that it made sense that we made sure Russia is the Soviet and Putin didn't take over Ukraine. But I was a trusted messenger. And there was too many people that didn't have trusted messengers to help them understand the Democratic Party did care about the fact that inflation was out of control, that we did care about the fact that the border seemed like it was out of control. And, you know, that a lot of people feel like that hurts workers. Yeah. That hurts workers.

And so we got to talk about economic issues. The other thing is that we have to, like, I feel like the last couple of years, we've been trying to figure out, you know, the answer to Trump is, the President Trump wants to make everything about himself. He loves that all their attention is on him. And we've been either making every campaign about him or trying to find somebody that can be as much of a celebrity, right, as him, somebody who can convince these voters.

I think we got to go back and we got to make our campaigns about the voters again. We had to have candidates that not can only go on a podcast and make a case, but they ask why I should be able to be comfortable taking 75 selfies. Yeah. Right? Going to a festival where nobody knows them. You got to like

people. You got to like people. And that's great for me because I love people. And my opponent, she can't stay in Mississippi. I mean, she does not campaign at all. So the challenge for Democrats, as always is, it's like, okay, we want to talk about economic issues. We want to talk about making people's lives better. And then the Republicans don't let you because they make all the attacks about their favorite wet issues. Hyde Smith's campaign manager called you the transgender

defender, said you were handpicked by Schumer, bankroll by Sorrow, soft on crime. All the radical sex changes for children. I just unloaded the clip. All the favorites. Walk me through how you answer that. Like, not for our audience, who knows it's garbage, but like for a voter in Mississippi that will hear those ads 15 times between now and November. So I knew that she was going to do that. I knew exactly all those attacks were coming. Like one play. Yeah, I mean, and so if you look at my campaign announcement ad,

I tried to preempt it, right? So, for example, I know in Mississippi, the way to counter a lot of that stuff is to show people that your life is like theirs, right? So my announcement ad is centered around my family. I've got two daughters. I coach their soccer team. Listen, I mean, come on.

I mean, you think people are going to fall for that. Like, my dream, This is what I tell my daughters. I say, listen, you know, there's not many ways you can disappoint me. But if neither one of you become a basketball player, I am going to be disappointed. Does that work? I mean, the junior one, my youngest ones, is starting to work. Because I say, you know, when you get older, if you ever complain, I'm going to always remind you, I wanted one thing.

You didn't deliver for me. So, I mean, and the other thing is, we got to lead with our values. You know, for me, you know, I do soulful. Sundays where I talk to church faith leaders. And I center them and talk about, you know, there's a lot of, for whatever reason, we've allowed people like Cindy Hyde Smith to trick voters in the thinking that we, Democrats don't believe in faith. Democrats don't believe in family. Like, I have much more in common than to the average Mississippi family than she does. You know, my wife, she makes me drop the kids off of school sometimes. She, Cindy Hyde Smith is never doing that, right? I go to the soccer game,

watching my kids play. She's not doing that. I, My wife who made me go grow up with them. Keep somebody saying my wife makes me do it. As a good partner, it's a good partner. My wife is trying me well. As a good partner, sometimes I have the grocery shop too. And so I'm at the grocery store, talking to people, listening.

You know, my life is like there. So I'm going to cut through that mess by showing them how my life is like theirs, showing them my family, and centering the voters. Because, you know, every Monday I drop a video called Mississippi Matters Monday. And I'm having voters kind of. man on the street style, asking people say what matters to them. All the stuff she's attacked me on, no bolder's every said, that's what matters to them. It's not on their mind.

It's not. So her, you know, for me, if I can raise enough money to counter her lives with the truth and tell the truth about her, we're going to win. I'm telling you, we're going to win. The wins at my back. So what's the message to a donor in California or New York deciding between writing a check to your race and to say North Carolina, Maine? Ohio, even Texas.

Yeah, yeah. That's probably higher on the DSCC list. Yeah, but whoever's making those lists, I mean, what's the results? Right, so. Maybe we need to redo the list a little bit because Mississippi is a cheaper state to compete in. We're a cheaper state to compete in. But, you know, we have Christians. You and I agree.

We have Christianists Pied Mississippi Day. Yeah, this is it, 28th from now on. Now on we're going to talk about Mississippi. And the reality is you can't save American unless you save Mississippi. I mean, we have to matter. When the country has done well, everybody's paid attention to what's going on in Mississippi. We focus on the voters in Mississippi, making sure that they have quality education, quality health care.

We don't let these people that want to take our country back, control everything. And when we got, you know, when we've done poorly is we ignore Mississippi. And there's plenty of examples of Mississippi being ignored, and we've seen the results of that. And to get ourselves out of this mess, what we have to remember is rural America matters. We have to have candidates that understand rural America that are not afraid. to talk to former Republican voters and people that are not scared to talk to folks that don't even know

who their senator is. You know, man, I'm telling you, I'm going to win. People are going to be, other people outside Mississippi are going to be surprised. I'm not going to be surprised. It's been trending that way, as you pointed out, it's been trending that way. But also, we're running a different type of campaign.

We're centering the voters. Not me. You know, if you look at my videos, I have other people talking. I mean, can I tell you a quick story? Yeah. I had a waitress at a restaurant. You know, it was kind of,

like he was star-struck in a moment, right? He's like, oh, is that Scott Colon? Like, oh, my God. I said, listen, I'm not, I'm not celebrity, guys. What's going on? Tell me, what's on your mind? Let me tell me what matters to you. He said, first, I love that you do that. And I've been waiting to give you my answer if I ever saw you. He said, what matters to me is like the drug prices are up because I'm on Medicaid and I had to get worse insurance. Now I'm paying more to get less. I'm struggling. But he told me, listen, I've never voted before. I've never voted before. I'm going to vote for you because you're center voters. He didn't say center voters, right?

He said, I love that you have regular people on your videos. You have the barber. You know, you have two kids just, you know, looking at the camera saying, you know, this is why Bodie matters. I mean, you know, for me, I can feel the momentum and the movement because I am out there listening. And you can do this in Mississippi. You can't do this in every state, but you can do this in Mississippi.

And I'm excited. And, you know, Mississippi matters. We're going to show the country. Mississippi matters. Well, it is not an easy thing to do to run for office. Certainly not an easy thing to do in a state like Mississippi when you're a Democrat. And you are, I really appreciate that you're doing it and doing it so joyfully. Yeah, yeah.

So good luck out there. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on Pod Save America on Pod Save Mississippi Day. Absolutely. Hey, you know, if you want to be a part of the movement, go to Scott Colon.com. We're building something special in Mississippi. I'll come back May 28th next year. We'll be talking about, you know, how I keep my promises.

Yeah, how I'll keep our commitments, how we're delivering. because the good thing about you is you understand. This is not a... I mean, running for office is hard, but running for office and being a leader is also hard. So we can't stop. We got to constantly keep it going. So thank you so much for having me.

Thanks, Scott. All right, appreciate it. That's our show for today. Thanks to Scott Cologne for coming by. I'll be back on Sunday with a conversation with our pal Ben Rhodes. He's got a new book about speeches, American speeches and American identity.

And so we'll be geeking out about speechwriting and talking about America's 250th. So check it out. Bye, everyone. Pots of America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Reed Jirlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill.

Our team includes Matt DeGroate, Ben Hefcoat, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kiral Pellev, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.