Pod Save America - SHOCKING GOP Plan to Fund War with Health Care Cuts

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Congressional Republicans consider massive cuts to federal healthcare spending in order to raise $200 billion to fund Trump's war in Iran. Jon and Lovett discuss how that plan could affect Republicans in the midterms, Trump's ballooning economic crisis, and his desperate attempt to calm the markets by saying negotiations have made "great progress" while simultaneously threatening Iran with war crimes. Then, the guys check in on how the war is playing among young Republicans at CPAC, House Republicans' fight with Senate Republicans over funding DHS, and Trump's real top priority — the construction of his poorly designed ballroom. Then, Josh Turek, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Iowa, stops by the studio to talk to Tommy about "prairie populism" and the president's disdain for disabled Americans.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

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That's simplysafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimplySafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favre. I'm John Lovett. Tommy's off this week. I think he's with his friend Lindsay at Disney World. Yeah.

Lindsay, Lindsay was saying that he wanted to go to Epcot and get the UK and France to take over Morocco. I don't know what that was about. love the countries that I've cut. All right, on today's show, we'll talk about how Trump is touting diplomatic progress with Iran by threatening the country with war crimes, why most experts think we're all underestimating the economic disaster that's coming, and Republicans' new plan to pay for the war by cutting your health care. We'll also talk about the new fight between House and Senate Republicans that's keeping the Department of Homeland Security shut down while Congress takes a two-week vacation. And of course, the critical work of building Trump's

ballroom is about to begin, even though no one wants to be. wants it and the design makes no sense. Then you'll hear Tommy's interview with Iowa Senate candidate Josh Turek. Quick reminder, please consider becoming a crooked media subscriber if you haven't already so that you don't miss out on any of the great content we're putting out for our friends of the pod. Subscribers get our new extra episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America Only Friends. Other subscriber only shows like Polarcoaster with Dan Pfeiffer, access to all of our

excellent substack newsletters like Pod Save America Open tabs, add free episodes of all your favorite cricket pods. And you get to feel good about supporting one of the few independent, proudly pro-democracy media outlets left in Trump's America. So head to cricket.com slash friends and subscribe. All right, let's get to the news. We are now entering the second month of Donald Trump's brief excursion in Iran. 50,000 Americans are now deployed in the Middle East. More than 8,700 people have died.

Tens of thousands are wounded. Millions have been displaced. Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz, which has led to the worst oil shock in history and a global economic crisis that's getting worse by the day. President keeps trying to calm the markets by claiming that there's been, quote, great progress in direct negotiations with Iran, while simultaneously threatening to destroy the entire country's access to electricity and water, which would be a war crime, and something you definitely say when you're on the verge of a diplomatic breakthrough. On Sunday night, after multiple reports that Trump is nearing a decision on sending in ground,

ground troops to take control of the strait and or remove nuclear material from inside Iran. The president talked to reporters on Air Force One about the fateful choice that's weighing heavily on his mind. I did something today. We just got these in from the architects. A lot of people who are talking about how beautiful the ballroom is another view. This is coming from right opposite the Treasury building. Beautiful capital. Beautiful building. It's the finest ballroom of its kind anywhere in the world.

A lot of people are giving it really good reviews. Some are giving it reviews without even seeing the building. Just like we're ahead of schedule on the ballroom, in a much bigger way, we're ahead of schedule with Iran. Are you really well in that negotiation? Are you fucking kidding? You never know with Iran because we negotiate with them

and then we always have to blow them up. I think we'll make a deal with them. I'm pretty sure. whether it's possible or we won't. I think we've had regime change. We can't do much better than that. The regime that was really bad, really evil was the first one that was done. The second was appointed and they're gone.

They're all dead. Jesus. They're really the third group. And the third group of people that seem to be much more reasonable. It truly is regime change. He really did it. He did the State of the Union segue that we always joke about between domestic, and foreign policy, except it was, and as we are ahead of schedule on the ballroom, so are we

ahead of schedule in Iran. It's actually a great metaphor, I think, but maybe we can save that for the ballroom section of the show. Unbelievable. It's an unbelievable. It's like, all right, I got the war going on, the oil shock. There's this DHS shut down. I've got to go back to the press and the plane and Air Force One and just talk to them. I'm going to take some questions. So I got some pictures of the ballroom. That's how he starts. Sorry, guys. I can't focus on the war today. I also got a board meeting at the Kennedy Center. I'm late too. So, Levit, what are your theories about why Trump seems so eager to allege progress in negotiations that no one else has been able to confirm are even happening? So, I actually, I'm sorry,

I actually think it does make sense. So what's happening? He is signaling to markets that the conflict won't escalate with the hopes that that reduces the volatility of the markets. That allows also those who support the conflict to say those who are afraid that it's spiraling out of control, that Trump is actually being quite reasonable. And then when he says the regime's already been changed, the new guys are so reasonable, they're easy to work with. He's suggesting that while maybe in the past they've used negotiation as a cover to murder everyone in the room or do strikes on Iran, that is a new group of people. And you can take my word. that you can trust what I'm saying now because I genuinely want someone in Iran I can work with.

The other side. You mean he's sending that signal to Iran? Yeah. And the other side of it, though, is Trump is trying to kind of put an asbestos blanket on the fire he's started in the markets. That is not just because he wants the consequences of the ongoing conflict to have less of an impact on the U.S. He wants to increase his leverage over Iran. The less pain we're experiencing, the more leverage he has. in the conflict, which frees him up to escalate, which suggests that escalation won't be as big

of a price for the U.S. to pay. And when he says that we're already negotiating, Iran knows whether that's true or not that that's Trump telling the world that if it falls apart, Iran is to blame. So it's, Trump is trying to lower the cost of what happens if he decides to escalate. That, that to me is like, but the only way that makes sense is if Trump is someone who only thinks short term and discounts the cost of everyone thinking he's a liar in the future. But that's what he does. That's, that's, Trump is only a rational actor in the very short term. And so I think that's how you kind of can make sense of the, the threats of escalation and the promise of negotiation. Yeah, I was thinking about this. Like if, so if you're Donald Trump and you have decided privately that, um, you have painted yourself into a corner and that you're kind of fucked and need to get out of this war and you're looking for an off ramp. What are your options for how to communicate that publicly? Because it's true, I mean, no president would really want to do this, but especially. Trump, you're not going to be like, I really want a deal. You're not going to be like come to the table. So you have to act like everything is going wonderfully and they're the ones who are begging for a deal.

And you also bet that no one's going to believe them because they're the Iranian regime. So if they contradict you, then who cares? And so part of this, I think, is to just say, like, yeah, we've dominated them so severely that they are just begging for a deal and things are going well, while, like you said, communicating, I guess, to Iran that you actually do want some negotiations. And we should just know, like, yeah, could there be secret negotiations happening here and there, like, maybe? But, you know, Pakistan has offered to host the negotiations. They already hosted some countries. The United States and Iran were not there.

No representatives were there. The Iranian foreign ministry said today that, like, there's been no talks directly with the United States since the 28th, since February 28th. and that there won't be any talks until the military campaign ends. Also, The New York Times said this piece, too, that it is unclear who's in charge. And this is, like, according to Western and American intelligence officials. And so they don't really know who they're negotiating with or who has the authority to make decisions in Iran right now. Though I noticed this from intelligence officials in the piece, too, says, what's more officials say hardliners within Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have become more influential, exerting more power than the religious. just leadership nominally in charge.

So not a great sign that the IRGC, who are the most hardline, hardliners in the whole country are the ones in charge right now. Yeah, we also just, everyone involved in this is a egomaniac liar. So it's just like impot. Because it's hard to know what's really happening because they're also negotiating in public, right? Like we know some of the states,

the terms of the negotiation, tolls in the strait of Hormuz, uranium enrichment, what have you, right? Like, we've heard. Yeah. But like, that's a good example of what Iran has asked for and what the United States wants in their 15 fucking point plan. They're so far, they're not even negotiating over the same thing. Like Iran's like, yeah, we don't want any more, we don't want U.S. military bases anywhere in the Middle East. Yeah, everyone's, yeah.

Like, it's not, I just think they're, I don't know how they even get kind of close right now. It's like a game of chicken, except we've already ram the cars into each other. It's like, I don't know. What are you? We're just yelling at each other across two blown airbags. It's fuck it. It's really, it's really bad. I mean, Trump also gave an interview to the Financial Times where he said, quote, maybe we take Carg Island. Maybe we don't. And quote, to be honest with you, my favorite thing is to get the oil in Iran. But some stupid people back in the USA, why are you doing that? But they're stupid people. That's a great quote. He's also claiming that Iran's parliamentary speaker has been allowing a few oil tankers. through the straight as a, quote, tribute and a sign of respect to the United States, though that same parliamentary speaker is moving forward in parliament with a plan to institute a permanent toll for all ships passing through Hormuz and then blocking Israel and the

United States completely. The speaker also said, now this is, remember, this is the hottest option. This is the new guy that Trump has said that they're probably negotiating with. He also said that Iranian forces are, quote, waiting for U.S. ground troops to enter the country so they can, quote, set them on fire. Does he seem like someone looking for an off ramp? So just trying to see the other side of this, take the same incentives in reverse. Iran has to say that the U.S. and global markets will pay a very high price for the conflict continuing, that Iran will endure a long-term conflict, and Trump's threats of escalation are not effective leverage. And you would do this while underplaying negotiations while signaling

with actions that you actually do prefer a deal. Because for the same reason, Trump wants to claim negotiations are ongoing in case he escalates. Iran wants to say there are no negotiations. so they can blame Trump if he does decide to go after Karg Island. So I think it is totally possible we are ramping up towards boots on the ground in Iran, right? We have Trump threatening it. We have Trump moving troops into the region while at the same time you have Rubio saying he doesn't believe troops on the ground are necessary, right? That's what we're getting on the record.

The problem with all of this is both assurances to the market and threats. that you don't act on, right? Those both have a clock, right? Like, if the assurances stop working, suddenly Iran's leverage goes up, right? What does Trump do to respond? Does he cave? Does he take a great blow to his personal ego to end the conflict in a way that seems like it redounds to Iran's benefit?

Or does he have to reset the clock by doing something escalatory, right? Like that's what makes us all so dangerous because Trump only thinks one or two days ahead. And so that to me is what makes all of this so alarming. You can see your way to something. Look, look, you're right. They're so far apart. We have no idea what the actual contours of a negotiation would look like. But the truth is both Iran and the United States would benefit from the conflict ending.

That is like the undergirding truth of this entire war that never should have been fought in the first place. But that can often be true while a war escalates and spins out of control. Carolyn Leavitt was asked about all this and sort of Trump's conflicting messages at the briefing. and she's talking about negotiations and who they're negotiating with and she said at one point some of the previous leaders are now no longer on planet Earth

because they lied to the United States and they strung us along in negotiations and that was unacceptable to the president which is why many of the previous leaders were killed. I do not I think if you were one of the current leaders in Iran

I think that I don't know if that gets you to the table these investors negotiate with us or die. Yeah. Yeah. You think that's going to get them, get them to the table, get them into a negotiating mood?

Trump has this, like, belief in this strategic ambiguity. And I'm not imputing secret method and, like, magic to Donald Trump's ability to negotiate. But he absolutely believes that there's value to being ambiguous, that that gives you leverage. But eventually, eventually, you have to actually say what you're for, right? Like, lay out what the actual end game would look like and accept some kind. of a deal or the conflict goes on forever, the, like, threats from the White House press secretary that you're going to kill more people unless you get a deal that has favorable terms. Like all of that is the is the stick.

But like, what is the carrot? What does the deal look like? What would you accept? Right? It can't look like Obama's deal, right? Because that's the dreaded Obama deal. It has to be favorable enough that Iran's willing to accept it. So what does it look like to be a real world actor here?

So he's, you know, there's all these reports over the weekend. We said that so they're thinking of taking Karg Island or some of the other islands so they can control the oil or at least use the, use the control of the islands as a bargaining chip in a negotiation because I think as Trump and the rest of the government recognize that maybe taking Karg Island is easier than holding Karg Island because then you have a bunch of troops on these islands and now the Iranians can just, you know, shoot away at them and try to pick them off. And you've got, you know, holding it is pretty difficult. And the same with the incredibly complicated and dangerous mission of, of going into Iran and getting out the nuclear material. And so you're starting to hear this, you know, Rubio said, maybe we don't need ground troops for the objectives. And they think that maybe in a deal with Iran, you get the Iranians to like go with you to get the nuclear material to take it out

or give it to themselves or whatever else. But then the question is, why would the Iranians voluntarily give the nuclear material to the US or open up the Strait of Hormuz? And maybe Trump thinks, would do it so that they wouldn't have all of their power plants and desalination plants bombed and that the bombing would stop. Although Trump's like, we have about 3,000 targets left and then we're done.

So then what happens when the 3,000 targets are done and the regime is still standing and the straight of Hormuz is still closed and the nuclear materials are still inside Iran? And then from the other side of it. Then you're fucked. Then you have nothing else to do. And then from the other side of it. Which is why he's threatening war crimes for the civilian population because he thinks he's like, well, I need some kind of a leverage. Well, and I don't even like he's just thinking of it as something very hard to rebuild quickly.

something that would exact a great price for the government. But on the other side of it, that's the two sides were incredibly far apart, apparently, before this war, right? There wasn't a deal on the table before this war. And so why would Iran suddenly say, oh, we're going to toll the strait of war moves and here are all these other things we're going to demand? Because they have to anchor this into a negotiation in which there's some cost to the U.S., some benefit to Iran for having endured this war, right? They can't just go back. back to the status quo ante before minus the nuclear program. At least that's what you would, that's what you would do in a negotiation. For them, the regime surviving, even with all this

damage, is a win for them because then they can say and they can show the world, the United States and Israel gave it everything they had and they did not destroy the regime. We're still standing. We were able to control the Strait of Hormuz and now we get, you know, we lost a bunch of our leaders, but like, we're Iran and they're the United States and Israel and we're still standing right now. Yeah. And they also, like, that's a win for, it's not like the biggest win for them, but it's still a win, you know. The other, there's been just all these reports that, oh, wow, the Iranians are actually surprised by how easy it was to secure the straight of her moves, that they've learned something from this conflict that gives them greater leverage in the future. All of this is about making the war a heavy price for the U.S. to have to pay. I noticed that the Rubio did a interview today and I think with Stephanopoulos and then like the State Department was tweeting out some of the clips and the state department's like the objectives of Epic Fury are clear destruction of the Iranian Air Force, destruction of the Navy, diminishing of missile launching capability and destruction of factories. That was it. Those are the objectives. Nothing on the nuclear material. Nothing on obviously we've left behind like the Iranian people rising up and taking over the objectives. Nothing on. Obviously, we've left behind like the Iranian people rising up and taking over the.

their government. We've left that behind too. Not even something on the straight, reopening the straight, which was surprising, although it is kind of ridiculous that now the objective of the war has become undoing a retaliation. Yeah, yeah. But like, is there a scenario where they're just leaving and they're like, well, we'll figure out the straight at some point, but our objectives are very clear. We sunk a bunch of their ships and destroyed a bunch of their missiles and and some factories that build the missiles, and that's it. That's all we wanted. And the goal of the war was to destroy their missile capability,

so that in the event of a war, they wouldn't have the missile capability. Rubio also was, like, actually very clear about this. He said, he said, and it was an aside that after the conflict is over, I'm paraphrasing, but after the conflict is over, then we're going to have to figure out what to do about the Strait of Hormuz. So they've even conceded that this is a problem that's going to be continuing. Because I think if they decide not to go with ground troops, then they're going to want to say, we didn't do the ground troops, big win.

They surrender. They're begging for a deal. And, you know, we're going to do some kind of negotiations, but we're done. We're out. And the rest of the world's going to be like, well, the street of horror moves is still closed. There's still a toll and blah, blah, blah. And they're like, oh, we'll figure that out later. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp, whether you're dealing with anxiety, depression,

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Actual price will depend on product and subscription plan. Let's talk about the economic fallout from the war because that is around's biggest leverage right now. Economists and energy industry experts keep telling reporters that the fallout is only just beginning, even if the war ends soon. Bloomberg talked to more than three dozen of these experts and said that, quote, one message was repeated over and over. The world still hasn't grasped the severity of the situation. Other countries are already dealing with energy shortages, food supply shortages, price shocks. Here's European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, summing up the view that the worst is yet to come

in an interview with the economist. We are facing a real shock that is probably beyond what we can imagine at the moment. Do you think there is just a sort of blind optimism that somehow this is going to be over and the world will go back to normal? Well, maybe they are overly optimistic and determined to stay optimistic.

Too much has already been damaged. And there is no way that it can be restored in a matter of months. Most people are actually talking about years. And I think this is a crisis where we are learning almost bit by bit, day by day, what the actual consequences will be, what countries will be most affected, what of the commodities will be the most in demand. I saw some people comparing this moment to March of 2020, where a lot of the wanks and nerds and public health experts and economists were warning about how bad things we're about to get because of COVID while the public hadn't caught up quite yet. The top of energy advisor for the S&P

called the relatively mild market response so far that we're seeing, quote, irrational optimism. What do you think? Yeah, I think people think about this as oil being affected, but there's helium, which is needed for semiconductor manufacturing and MRI machines. Cutter produces 35% of the world helium, key ingredients for fertilizer like ammonia, urea, sulfur, and phosphates. You have liquid natural gas, aluminum. production in Qatar is down, doubtled its customers, and it was increasing the price of plastic, John.

Thank you for that. It's also... So it's not just... It's hitting the rest of the world, probably even harder than the United States, and we're already seeing that. I'm just going to read you a couple quotes from different world leaders.

South Korea's president today said, quote, the world is in turmoil over the energy crisis. The situation is so serious that it has even kept me up at night. The immediate problem is grave enough, but the outlook ahead seems even more unstable. The situation is worse than expected. Italy's defense minister, of course, I have to make another hit for that. I am forced now to think, I am forced now to know things about what would happen in the coming week and the effects it will have in the economy and our daily lives that no longer allow me to sleep. Not a lot of sleep for foreign leaders all around the world. ways the U.S. might be insulated.

We have a lot. We have a lot of natural gas. And more helium than guitar. But the possibility of a global recession will not spare us. I think this was it. I think this was like a world historic mistake, John. I'm really worried about it.

Okay. I'm glad that. I'm glad that. Anyway, we're taking this seriously. We are taking this. Talk to us. like in a couple of weeks you play back that clip when not yeah yeah we're like 2,000 points in the stock market and there's fucking you know gas lines everywhere no it's really fucking bad it's really bad and we did that to prove a point we were highlighting yeah highlighting the

point and and and if this gets this information in front of more people perhaps that was the goal too yeah and and the destruction also even if you open the straight things will not bounce back there'll be ripple effects for a long time I genuinely think like you see see this with Ruby. He's implying this a lot of the times that he's trying to tell the Europeans and other countries, we need you to open the Strait of Hormuz, because honestly, Iran is so mad at us, but also because it's going to hit you more, because we do actually have more helium. We do have natural gas, right? We are insulated from some of this. But in the long term, the ripple effects of this, the way this will ricochet across all different sectors, all different countries, like, it will

come for us. We will not be spared. We are insulated better than other countries, but we are also more sensitive than other countries because our consumers are pussies it's just like oh a couple cents like no Iran is banking on the fact here

that you know American consumers paying higher gas prices is going to cause a much bigger political problem for Donald Trump relatively speaking

than even some of these much more severe crises in the rest of the world and we're not insulated because you know once there's a if there's a global recession God forbid

like that is going to affect the United States you can't fucking escape And a recession while gas prices are cresting over $5 a gallon, people are already upset about prices. Like that is a worst case scenario politically for Trump and the problem. And again, we're talking with the straight being opened again. But like that attack in Qatar on the natural gas, like, it knocked out roughly 28 million tons of supply from the market this year of liquid natural gas. That represents nearly the entire global supply growth forecast for 2026. It could take. years, this is from the New York Times, years for the flow of liquid natural gas from the

Mideast to return to pre-war levels. And that is just like, forget if the straight open tomorrow. That's just, it's done. It's destroyed. And that might benefit some American fossil fuel companies. That might actually help some stock prices. But we will, consumers will not benefit from that. Consumers will pay for a global change in supply. Also, Trump's jawboning, the him trying to calm the markets with his crazy truths not really working anymore it's our ready start like he did it you know well first of all did you see the um you see the our new guy in iran that we're negotiating with the speaker of parliament trolling trump on twitter now i did see this heads up pre-market so-called news or truth is often just a setup for profit taking basically

it's a reverse indicator do the opposite if they pump it short it if they dump it go long see something tomorrow you know the drill this The idea that we're in a back and forth where you have Trump trying to work the markets to avoid him feeling pressure to end the war and you have Iran trying to work the markets in the opposite direction, just so publicly, so boldly because if the markets don't respond to what Trump is saying, he loses leverage in the negotiation. I mean, maybe honestly, as I'm talking to myself into seeing it as a sign for hope, John. Well, but I think that like when Trump, the latest truth when he, you know, said great progress and stuff like that, it just didn't. It's, it's changing the markets less. Like the markets are responding not as much as they used to. The price of oil right now is still now way above 100.

It was like 110, whatever. I don't remember which firm, but a firm has created a pressure index. So there's a taco index that a financial firm has created. And basically it looks at a couple different indicators to come together, to put them together to suggest the amount of pressure Donald Trump is under, to argue for when he will cave on something important. And the reason I think that matters is because, yeah, you're right. The individual statements aren't causing the same kind of like corrections as we were seeing in the past.

But I do think the underlying problem, and it speaks to what's going on in this conflict, too, is that the markets ultimately expect Trump to respect the markets, right? That the whole kind of irrational optimism of the markets is based on the idea that Donald Trump cares what happens to these markets. And that is like not something that's going to show. ups and downs, but is going to be baked into an overall expectation, right? And the question is, when does that give? Yeah, well, that gives because at some point, Donald Trump caring about the markets isn't enough. Donald Trump respecting the markets or being worried about the markets isn't

enough because if the oil isn't there or the gas isn't there, you know, like, or the fertilizer isn't there, there, there's nothing he can do about it. It stops being a symbolic television fight and it starts being a real world consequences. Which is where you can see from the price of oils and the markets right now, like that is where we're getting to right now, where they realize like, okay, Donald Trump can care all he wants about the stock market and his approval rating all that that said, doesn't matter. He can't stop it. He, like, he doesn't have the only vote here.

One group of people who can't be accused of rational optimism are the maga types who've broken with Trump on Iran. There's a great Twitter exchange on Sunday where Ann Coulter tweeted, quote, this is Ann Coulter. Watching Fox News assure viewers the Iran war is going super well, and Trump is a total stud is like watching the same network assure viewers that the Dominion voting systems rigged the 2020 election and Trump was the winner. To which Marjorie Taylor Green responded, quote, Fox News is now the fake news, brainwashing boomers to support what we voted against.

What a what an exchange. I love it. There's nothing that makes me happier when Republicans get a taste for just a moment of what it feels like to be a Democrat. Like that, it's like they can't, like, what is happening? They're misinforming the public. They're inoculating them against the reality of what's going on on the ground in a way that I find displeasing. Brainwashing the boomers. They just started brainwashing the boomers, apparently. Hey, somebody call the police.

Fox News has begun brainwashing the boomers. Breaking news. Things didn't seem to be going much better over at CPAC, the annual conservative get-together that just wrapped in Texas. Let's take a listen. A ground invasion of Iran will make out. our country poorer and less safe. It will mean higher gas prices, higher food prices, and I'm not sure we would end up killing more terrorists

than we would create. When it comes to Iran, how do you feel about that? I'm not happy. I'm not happy at all. I mean, President Trump ran on no new wars. I do question some of the things when it comes to, are we just gonna bend over everything for Israel, you know? This isn't what I voted for.

What I voted for was domestic policy change at home and realistic foreign policy. I think a lot of people, conservatives, young conservatives right now kind of disillusion with Trump. And I would consider myself one of those. So what could he do to win you back at this point? Not much. What a bunch of lib cucks.

Was that a, was that a DSA meeting or was that? There was somebody. Matt Gates. There was somebody in the Times story said that Maga is dying and that it was like a young person that said they felt like they had more in common at this point with the left than they did with older members of the Republican. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, she was like a 27-year-old Florida strategist. Magga's dying. What a, what a quote. Politico's up with the story full of more quotes like that from young men who attended. And we played this last week on a couple of our YouTube's, but you've probably seen the crowd unexpectedly cheered the mention of articles of impeachment from Matt Schlapp. What do you make of the seeming discrepancy between what the polls are showing in terms of MAGA support for the war and what we are seeing and hearing from both very prominent magotypes and some of the attendees at CPAC.

So if you break up Trump supporters by age, and this is what Politico did as well, that more than two thirds of those over 35 think Trump has a plan when it's less than half of those under 35, two thirds of older MAGA men were willing to sacrifice American lives in Iran compared with less than half of younger MAGA men. If you get your news on television or through Facebook, kind of in the old economy, and the old economy looks a lot like what Marjorie Taylor Green is saying, about Fox, but if you're younger, you're not watching cable the same way young people. Forget MAGA, no young people are watching cable. So where are you getting your news? You're consuming it from digital right wing news, which is much less interventionist,

much more heterodox generally. And so because it's an older coalition, a huge shift amongst younger supporters might not show as big of an impact in the polls, but it does represent where they're headed. And I think the thing that's interesting about what you're seeing here at CPAC, and I think the same can probably be said

about Turning Point USA, is the whole old right-wing media machine that Fox News came out of, radio came out of, it existed to create a space that was in defiance of the mainstream media. And that was the enemy. The enemy was the mainstream media. And you were defying that, that consensus.

But the attitude on whether it's Tucker Carlson or Daily Wire or any of these other or the Rogan kind of independent universe, it's less about defying any one institution or defining yourself against the mainstream media than it more is about just being comfortable with being heterodox and being willing to say when even your own side is wrong. I think that's a genuinely different vibe from Fox as you would find and say like The Daily Wire. And these young people are of that world, which is willing to be like, hey, we didn't vote for this. Like, fuck this. This is not about teams. Yeah. It's also a very anti-institutionalist.

Yeah. And Fox has obviously never really been that maybe when they first started, but like they are the institution, right? I also, like, one of the most common mistakes made in analyzing polls is that they are always, always, always a lagging indicator and that a poll is telling you about what public opinion was two or three, four weeks earlier. I mean, just in the way that the poll was actually fielded, but also in just the way public opinion sort of filters down to folks who aren't paying as close attention to the news, but maybe still answer a poll. So, like, even today, you know, in Nate Silver's average of Trump's approval. He has Trump sub 40, like 39.7 for the first time. This is

average approval rating 39.7. He said his net approval is negative 17.4. That's the approval and the disapproval. Just by comparison, Trump was negative 19.1 after January 6th. So he's 17.4 now. Biden bottomed out at negative 20.5 after the debate. So Trump is like just in the worst territory. that he's ever been and that other presidents have been. And to the point about the base, and Nate goes into this as well, Trump's strong approval, people who approve strongly of Trump, is down to 22.4%, which is its lowest ever. And the strong approval number has declined by more than his overall support,

which means that, like, maybe you're not seeing it in, like, do you like Trump or not like Trump? But the people who really like Trump, the base, the people who are excited about him, are down to 22%? Yeah, it's why you see a lot of reports about CPAC being a bit more space than usual in those ballrooms, that there's not the enthusiasm there was. Yeah, and there was a poll,

I think it was the Harvard poll that came out today that showed more Americans prefer the Biden economy than the Trump economy. There's a lot of people reevaluating the comparison of Biden to Trump right now. Yeah, I mean, and I think that's because at least at the beginning of the Biden economy when the inflation was really bad,

There was like, well, there was COVID. He inherited COVID. And then like, over time, you know, people had less patience for Biden not having fixed inflation. But again, with Trump, the difference is he did this. Like it's been so rare that there's been a crisis like this, like an economic crisis, especially where you're like, not, oh, the president presided over recession and maybe you can blame them for this or that. But like, no, no, no, this is a he did the tariffs. He did the war. He just did him. This doesn't. No one made him do it. He just did it. The like the Trump kind of yo-yo of attention on him leads his approval waiting to fall sub-40, if you're lucky, and then it bounces back to mid-40s thereafter and kind of hovers. I do feel like we're into the more end of the Biden term. He shouldn't be running and we're still mad about inflation or post-Katrina Bush where he's kind of found a floor and there's no way off of it. The people have kind of come to a conclusion about Trump. I think that's where we're at. Yeah. Meanwhile, the Yahoo's who were running.

In the midterms, the Republicans, they seem to be running some kind of experiment on just how unpopular they can make this war with voters in an election year. I give you the following Axios headline from Monday morning that's undoubtedly coming to a message box near you. Quote, GOP weighs health care cuts to pay for Iran war. Amazing. Just Axios puts up that the message box shaped spotlight on the cloud. Dan on spring break. Yeah, Dan's on spring break. He's with his family. He probably just like, what?

What? Should you hear that? He, like, presses three keys on a piano. A little door opens up. He takes the poll down to the message box cave. Apparently, Republicans in Congress are thinking about putting together a big new budget bill that would fund both the war on Iran and ICE paid for in part by cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare. Just one idea. We're just floating the idea.

But, boy, is it a good one. For my question here, I'll just read you, Axios' is why it matters, bullet. New efforts to rain in health programs are sure to be controversial and open the GOP up to electioneer attacks that they're cutting health care to pay for an unpopular war. No shit! You think? There's a Steve's Calise was asked about this,

and he said that they're looking for waste, fraud, and abuse. They always are. It's so galling. It's so galling because it was a year ago when they passed the big, beautiful bill and cut a trillion dollars from health care claiming it was waste, fraud, and abuse. So are we meant to believe, Steve? They didn't get it all. They got to go back in.

Did you leave some behind? They left like the nuclear dust in Iran. Yeah. Like just as some, so like a go bag of waste fraud and abuse that you were going to come back to later. I can't think of a less popular way for them to try to find $200 billion to spend on the war in Iran, but they're getting close. Now, this would be a budget reconciliation bill because they know there's no way they could get 60 votes in the Senate. It would only need 51 votes in the Senate, which Republicans do. technically have. What do you think the chances are they can get to 51? And I should say, I guess, I assume, I said that assuming that the house will pass it, but I don't even know if I assume that the

house will pass it. I don't, I don't assume the house will pass it. They don't have that, they don't have the, uh, that much wiggle room in the house, less and less all the time. Bobert has come out pretty forcefully against any kind of a supplemental. I don't think it gets better when the pay force are health care. But then again, some of these Republicans, even ones that haven't spoken yet, have one of the only places they've been. willing to draw a line is they will not vote for bills that that raise the deficit so it seems like they will need to find some kind of a pay for uh so i i don't know how this thing gets through the house in terms of the senate you got to assume collins is a no not to assume i mean has you imagine it's inconceivable

that she'd be i mean look she's who knows but you assume she's a no you assume rand paul is a no so they can only lose one more Murkowski has expressed skepticism she's a no there's no there's no so then you then that's it then i bet like if she's a no why would dan why would dan sell it BAS because he's running against Mary Poltola. Who just has a new poll ahead. Right. So it's like then you maybe lose Sullivan. You get you're right.

Tillis is there. By the way, if Cornyn gets through this primary, we don't know when this vote will be. But, you know, before the vote, Cornyn's politics are fucked anyway. You slice it. But I would assume if you're in the Senate, what you're saying is we're not going to touch this unless the House passed it. Because I do think it's really hard to figure out how you get this kind of a thing through the house. Maybe they pick up John Fetterman also on the side side, which what a vote for John Fetterman that would be.

We're going to fully fund ICE. We're going to fully fund this war. We're going to cut your health. Now, I bet at the end the health care cuts, if you had to ask them whether they'd rather stomach health care cuts or a bill that raises the deficit in order to fund the war, I think they would go for. I think most Republicans in this caucus would go for the deficit. But doesn't reconciliation, like there are rules of reconciliation that. So they're going to to find some fake way to pay for it. Fake accounting bullshit. Yeah, but look, but then we're talking about parliamentarians again. And you have Republicans in the Senate who are committed to that.

I don't know how this gets down. The politics of this are dog shit. And and Fetterman, Federman aside, got to assume you have not a single Democratic vote for this. Yeah, I don't think you do. I hope that's the same in the House, but you don't know. It's just that they couldn't make the politics of this worse. No, they couldn't.

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Yeah, forget about the job security. It's more about the life security. Yeah, this was just somebody who said, like, hey, I want to make sure, you know, because I was seventh in line and then I was fifth. There were some developments. And I was like, oh, man, it sounds like things are pretty crazy in that country right now. He's like, yeah, it's pretty crazy in this country right now. Paul's genius.

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that the Senate unanimously passed a bill on Friday that would fund all of DHS, including TSA, except for ICE and Border Patrol. But then House Republicans decided to snatch defeat from the Jaws victory by rejecting the Senate's unanimous bipartisan deal, passing a bill instead that would fund all of DHS for another 60 days and then leaving town for a two-week recess. Trump then sided with the House right after signing a likely illegal executive order to pay TSA workers, which I guess is now happening, but raises the question of why didn't he do that weeks ago? Trump also still hasn't given up on coercion Congress to pass the SAVE Act and was asked about all of this on Air Force One.

ICE is vital to the well-being of our country. And they are able to protect us from the animals. I think the Senate is playing in too soft. We're dealing with very sick individuals. The Democrats are sick. There's something wrong. They're like terrorists. The leader, Thun, told me that they do not have the votes to terminate the Philadelphia. I know, but that's part of being a leader.

You have to get the votes. You have confidence in the leader. I mean, I like him so much. He's a high quality person. But that's what being a leader is. You have to get the votes. You have to get the votes. He sounds like an online lefty pundit.

You got to get, you just got, it's leadership. Or righty or right wing pundit too. Go get the votes. Go get the votes. Go get the votes. What do you mean? That's what being the leaders about. You get the votes. Yeah, the, like, the one thing just to note that if Mike Johnson had brought the Senate bill that had passed unanimously to the floor of the House, it would have passed with a huge majority

of Republicans and Democrats, a huge majority. It would have gotten through fine. So he's doing his own politics. He's protecting himself against a few members of his caucus. He's worrying about Trump. That's what's happening here. So now the House Republicans and, like Mike Lee and others in the Senate are trying to say that the Senate Republicans have, quote, buyers remorse over their compromise. That's what Steve Scalese told ABC. And, you know, Mike Lee said the Senate should reconnoisse. convene immediately. How did they fuck this up so badly? And like, do you think that flies? Oh, so, oh, we actually had buyer's remorse. We didn't know. We didn't know that we were cutting a deal with the Democrats to reopen the government. It doesn't matter what they say, how they describe it. They left

DHS shut down and went on vacation. Trump is paying TSA agents because that's what's been getting the worst headlines, but I don't see what the argument would be for why TSA agents should be paid, but not the other 50,000 or 100,000 people that are going without a salary who all also work for the Coast Guard and do other all kinds of vital work that are also working without P-that, but that Americans don't see day to day when they're traveling. It's also retroactive, the EO that Trump signed for TSA. So he's now paid them for the two paychecks they missed. But no one knows what happens as we continue to go on and the shutdown drags on.

Like there's no pool of money to pay them in the future unless the government opens up. So we're sort of going to be right back where we were. So like the lines in the airports are better today. but like what happens a couple weeks from now? Yeah, so let's assume that the filibuster continues to hold. And we don't have a reason to think it won't, though. I could see the Republicans realizing their only way out of this is with Democratic votes. And so they need to start threatening to remove the filibuster to get some Democrats to be more amenable to some kind of compromise.

That's just one path that this could go. But assume the filibuster is holding, Democrats have a pretty simple position. We talked about this with Murphy, Chris Murphy on Friday, Senator from Connecticut. We won't pay for ICE unless they're reform. and we've laid out those reforms. Now, originally when this shutdown began, it was so that there would be a negotiation over what the level of reform would be.

And the reforms necessary are impossible. Funding without the reforms would be unacceptable. So you'd end up with some kind of compromise. There are people on the left that say the agency and some other online warriors that are not ideologically from the left that like any kind of compromise is unacceptable. Meanwhile, because ICE is funded through the big beautiful bill,

the only way of changing ICE is actually through funding it. That's just the reality. So that's what the original contours in negotiation were. But now actually, we're actually trying to extract something else, which is to force ICE to live off the money that it spent on the big, beautiful bill without our votes, right? But Republicans don't seem to be able to pass something without us. So I don't know what happens from here. But again, I don't understand.

They have the, if they do another reconciliation bill, they have the ability per the deal that was passed unanimously in the Senate to fund ICE without the Democrats. because they just need 50 votes in the Senate, 51 votes in the Senate, and they need a majority in the House. So just fucking open the rest of DHS like everyone else voted to do in the Senate, Republicans and Democrats. And then the Democrats can say, like, we didn't vote to fund ICE or to give ICE more money. But if the Republicans really feel so strongly about ICE, they can fund ICE through reconciliation. Yeah, I do think this starts to boil down to how they pay for the $200 billion supplemental plus additional money for ICE. And then we get back to our last conversation about why passing a new budget bill is just so hard. Yeah, I will just say like one hiccup in all of this is if they really can't get to some kind of a deal without Democrats, if the House won't accept anything Democrats will accept and the Senate won't get rid of the failbuster, added political pressure on reconciliation.

If they, how can they possibly do a supplemental for Iran without funding DHS? You're telling me we're not going to fund the Coast Guard, but we're going to buy bombs for a war, nobody voted for it. They think it's going to. And that's probably part of the pressure, too. It's like where, oh, you're going to keep, you're going to keep everything shut down. Maybe they can make the funding bill about DHS and not necessarily the war, which also seems fucking crazy. I mentioned earlier that both the Senate in the House are in a two-week recess. TMZ has become very politicized now, the outlet.

They're hungry for the juicy details of what members of Congress are doing while TSA staff are, quote, according to TMZ, selling their blood to keep a roof over their heads. They caught Lindsay Graham at Disney World and posted some of these photos. with the headline, Lindsay Graham living in fantasy land as government shutdown drags on. TMZ also posted a story about Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia being in Vegas, though Garcia responded

by pointing out that his dad lives in Vegas. And they, quote, Speaker Mike Johnson should have never sent us all home, making it clear that the House could have simply passed the Senate's compromise. Garcia also said, like, call us back. We'll come back. We'll pass it any time, you know.

What do you think about the recess as an additional pain point for Republicans in the politics of all this? And do you think it's enough for Democrats to just say what Garcia did about recess? Republicans, because of a fight between Donald Trump, Senate Republicans, and House Republicans. That's who the fight is between, kept the Department of Homeland Security, right, meant to protect us from all kinds of threats. Which are, you know, rising in a time of war that they started. They have not been able to come to agreement amongst themselves to fund DHS.

There is an agreement with Democrats. We made one. We passed 100 to 0 in the Senate, not a single objection, 100 to 0. passed a bipartisan funding bill to cover DHS and allows ICE to continue to operate, right, according to what Republicans wanted, because ICE has a sitting on tens of billions of dollars from the big, beautiful bill. And in the last moments, Republicans abandoned that and then left the city, just left while that is ongoing.

So, like, we, of course we should be exploiting it. And, yeah, Robert Garcia can go visit Vegas, you know, put a couple. It's going to do whatever they want because it's like, like, you know, you want, Democrats have nothing to do with this at this point. If Democrats went back to D.C. And we're hanging out in Congress, they still can't do anything. Yeah, like, they don't control Congress. They can't figure out, they can't solve the fucking Republicans' problem for them.

We do so much, like, so much of politics now is just like all these kinds of symbolic battles. And like, the truth is, Lindsay Graham being a Disney World is like a symbol is an aesthetically bad thing, right? because he should be in D.C. working. The problem is Congress isn't in session because Republicans don't know what to do anyway and they all want to go do whatever they do on their recess in their districts and on their free time.

For Lindsey Graham, I guess, is to go to Disney World with friends. I said it. I was like, oh, he's there with a nephew or a niece. He was just there with friends. Going on Space Mountain. Apparently, holding a toy for a young girl who was going into the bathroom. I was like, weird.

I don't understand Ledy Graham's life I don't understand it I don't know what brings him joy I'll tell you what brings him joy Space Mountain Dropping bombs dropping bombs and around

brings him joy Yeah yeah I saw him at He was also he had a He was at the buffet At the contemporary At the contemporary hotel I've been at that buffet I've been at the buffet

I've been at the fair On the hour The big mouse comes out Says hi to the kids He's there with my nephew At the time So that's what Lindsay Graham is up to

we should just stop there. Speaking of Homeland Security shutdowns, you see the Washington Examiner's story about how Border Patrol had to shut down several social media accounts that Greg Bravino tried to bring with him into retirement after being booted from Minneapolis

and Trump's good graces? It's a funny story. I did see that. You know, back when L.A. used to make television shows, people would talk about what showrunners would be the hardest people to work for. And inevitably, it was like men in their 50s who just fucking hated their wives in their lives because all they had was their jobs.

And so like even though the show would basically, they'd written the script, it's already done, and they'd be like, we got to keep working. We got to keep going. We've got to power through because they didn't really want to go home. I feel like Greg Bevino maybe doesn't want to go home. Want to keep working? Want to keep posting? Want to post it.

Well, he apparently he'd amassed 850,000 followers on Facebook, Instagram, and X combined. And so when they tried to take those accounts back because they were the government accounts that belonged to whoever the commander is out in fucking California, wherever it was. He said, those are my followers, so I'm taking them with me. Hey, man, Bovino, you want your RSS feed? You got to negotiate that at the top.

So present Todd, I'm keeping it. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. It is funny because when you go to the Twitter account now that used to be Greg Bevino and now it's just like, you know, whatever that central command for Border Patrol is, it looks like an official account

and there's no picture of any person attached to it. But the tweet at the top is, governor Pritzker. Perhaps you'll get a clue and realize illegal aliens, all caps will continue killing Americans until they're removed. Like Stein in NC and Newsom, spelled OME in California. This is your fault.

Thumbs down, thumbs down. Just an official account with a lot of posts calling women's sweetie. Exactly. Yeah, no, it's, yeah. Anyway, good luck, Mark Wayne Mullen, trying to get your arms around that department. All right, one last thing before we go, As you heard a bit earlier, Trump isn't letting the war and the shutdown get in the way of his real priority, building the ballroom, which he explained in great detail to the reporters on Air Force One, even flipping through visual aids that he'd brought along for the occasion. Let's take a look.

These pictures we just made today, we have all bulletproof glass. We have drone-proof roofs, ceilings, everything's drone-proof. There's a view of the columns. And they are going to be made. They're going to be hand carved. And they're beautiful. In top of the line, there'll be Corinthian, which is considered the best, most beautiful by far. This is a view of it from the north,

and that's if you see it, it fits in with the White House. It's almost a twin to the White House. It's something we just wanted to pay tribute to the White House. And so that fits in beautifully. Let me just see another one. Here's another one. I'm excuse me, I thought I do this now because it's easier. I'm so busy that I don't have time to do this.

I'm so busy. But I'm fighting wars and other things. But this is very important because this is going to be with us for a long time. Very important. Times had an incredible piece this weekend titled Trump's Ballroom Design has barely been scrutinized. Architects say it shows. What did you make of their critiques?

I think we have a, we can actually, the Times did it. Very tall. Yoman's work here. Very tall. Very tall. Yeah, you see right there it says very tall. Grand staircase doesn't lead to ballroom. There's another arrow that just says no entrance here.

And then another arrow on the side that says entrance is actually here. One just says unnecessarily big. So, yeah, first of all. man, when you're walking into a building, someone just says, don't worry, it's drone-proof. It doesn't make you feel good. It doesn't make you excited about it. So there's no way to build a, I don't know,

what was, 90,000 square foot ballroom. Without it being a hideous monstrosity, you're adding a Walmart to the White House, so it's going to be ugly. I don't care many Corinthian columns. You throw at the thing. You know, Trump made that, that just as it were ahead of schedule on the ballroom,

we're also ahead of schedule on the war in Iran. I actually do think it's a good announcement. because he knocked down the East Wing and that in a completely capricious and unplanned way only to turn around and quickly kind of based on just sort of sketches approve a massive change to the White House and the second you start peering at it closely raises all kinds of questions questions that nobody seems to have asked because they're all being driven by Donald Trump who only wants to be told yes sir great idea sir taller than ever sir corinthian column sir also the first architect went the way of

the first diatola yeah yeah they they they they shitkan the first architect this is the second one um and they also have like uh fake windows on the north side uh with bathroom stalls behind them apparently this this thing looks like i i had not really um because there's a lot going on um really concentrated on how ugly and stupid this thing looks. But it is really bad. It's vandalism. These people are vandals. The ballroom is more than three times as large as the White House residents.

So there's the West Wing. The White House residence is everything you see, mostly when you look at pictures of the White House. It is three times the size of that. What a fucking eyesore that's going to be. Yeah. So I remember, like, Ryan, remember we, like, made that graph. that show, I couldn't believe what they were saying, that they were really making something

this big. It was that, because if you actually look at the, the footprint that they were talking about before we saw the plans, that can't be. It's so much bigger than the actual White House. But then you look at what they've actually laid out, and that is what it is. And as like these drawings make clear, like, it is going to, it's just going to be a blight in that area. It's going to change all kinds of sites.

It's going to be bigger than the White House. You're going to see it because it's so big. So that's what you'll see. You won't see the White House. It's all you'll see. It's, you know, when we first, talking about this and people were like really angry about it i was like and they're like oh the every democratic candidate who runs for president has to like promise to immediately bulldoze the trump ballroom

and i was like you know at the end of the day it's trump built it but if it's a ballroom that's nice or whatever you know i don't think any president should have put it in i certainly don't think trump would have but like you're really going to bulldoze it that seems like this yeah i think you fucking take this thing down them that's three times the size of the fucking residence i think before we even get there. I do think, like, it's clearly been something that broke through for people. And the idea that we are at a time when people are spending so much for gas, when we're at war, when people feel like the Trump has fundamentally failed to care about the things he said he was going to do, the fact that they are building this monstrosity is just going to be a, like,

beacon of everything that has gone wrong with this administration and we should use it that way. And by the way, like, I don't know how you're going to build something this big as quickly as they claim they're going to build it. He's already behind, right, he already fired one architect to get somebody who's willing to do this. So it is going to be, it is already a debacle, and it will continue to be a debacle. And no, it's not the most important thing in the world that he's doing this. But as a symbol of everything Trump represents this vanity project where he's kind of like vandalizing DC for his own egomaniacal purposes while the world burns, I think is like a fitting tribute. I'll tell you if the approval ratings keep going down and, you know, they lose the midterms and all that. And it's like year seven and eight.

And he's got us in whatever other fucking God knows what wars. And he's sitting at like 25, 30% approval. He's going to be spent most of his days. He's going to be the foreman of the project. He's going to be wandering around this old man in a ballroom. Look at that cornerstone, hard hat on, little light walking around. Like, oh, this was beautiful. This is from, this is Carrara marble, beautiful stuff here.

I chose every toilet. I chose every toilet. They said it couldn't be done to have this kind of a toilet here. I said we could have this kind of a toilet here. Just the smallest possible coterie of AIDS and sycophants around him being like, sir,

the ballroom is going great today. It's amazing. J.D. Vance is in Iowa claiming that he never wanted the war with Turkey and he actually wasn't for it. Oh, all right. Speaking of the midterms, Iowa Senate candidate Josh Turk,

stopped by the Cricket Studios on Friday to talk with Tom. me all about his race. You'll hear that right after the break. Pod Save America is brought you by Act Blue. Act Blue provides Democrats up and down the ballot with the tools they need to run effective campaigns and win. Fundraise, organize, build campaign websites, and donate with solutions that are easy to use. Act Blue has been there through our country's biggest moments. Our partners at Vote Save America create digital fundraising pages on Act Blue platform for initiatives like the anxiety relief program. It's easy to create the

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is right now. Donate, organize, and raise money for candidates and causes you believe in at atcblu.com slash crooked. My guest today is running to be the Democratic nominee in this year's Iowa Senate race. Josh Turrick, great to have you in studio. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. So you and Zach Walls, you're running to be the Democratic nominee. It's an open seat. We've invited Zach to come on to. We're trying to figure that out. The primary is June 2nd. I just want to say at the top, I am very bullish on Iowa this cycle. We have a huge opportunity in Iowa, I think, because we got Rob Sand running for governor. He's a great candidate. You have a wide open Senate race. You have three targeted House races. And you can run in Iowa for just a little less money than Texas, would you say? A lot less money than Texas. We're a cheap date. You're a cheap date. And a state that I think for a lot of structural reasons that we'll get into is primed for a flip. So I just hope people will. who are listening, think about Iowa, invest in Iowa, because it's not the flashiest state right now in terms of like, you know, where the attention is in the media, but I think it's really important.

Let's just start with your story, though. Sure. You represented the United States in four Paralympic games. That's right. You said. You won two gold medals in wheelchair basketball. More amazingly, I think I heard you say you got cut six times before you made the team. I did.

Can you just tell us your story and your experience, like how you got there? Yeah. Well, first, born with my disability, born with a condition called spina bifida, due to my father's exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. So I had my first surgery at one day old. I had 21 surgeries before I was 12, almost all of which took place at Shriners Hospital in Minnesota, because it's the only way that my family could afford it. Yeah, and wheelchair basketball was one of the things that honestly saved me. As a kid, I was bullied really, really badly and actually ended up leaving public school briefly because of how badly I was bullied. And wheelchair basketball really gave me something to fight for and fell in love with it.

Got a scholarship to play at Southwest Minnesota State University. Scored over 4,000 career points there. So just barely, barely beat out Kately and Clark. Casual flex there with a 4,000 points. Something I'm really proud of. And then I had an amazing opportunity of something I didn't even know existed, which was to play professional wheelchair basketball. It doesn't exist here in the States.

And I had the amazing opportunity to play and live in places like Spain and Italy and France in Australia. By the time I was done between club and country, got to live in every continent or at least visit every continent, play basketball in every continent on earth besides Antarctica. Yeah. And then the highlight of my career without a doubt was four Paralympic games, two gold medals. And you were right. I made my very first Paralympic team straight out of college. And that was 2004. And as you know, as a basketball nation, if you don't win, it's basically like gold or failure. And we got knocked out in the quarterfinals.

And then they change coaches. And I say there's a beauty and a beast to represent in the USA in basketball. The beauty is that you're going to have an amazing opportunity to win a gold medal. The beast is there's so many good players that you never know if you're going to have the opportunity to represent again. And they switch coaches. And for six straight years, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. And I just kept coming back and I said, eventually you are not going to take my dream away from me. Eventually, I'm going to get so good that you're going to take me.

And I finally made the team again in 2011, which was the qualifier for the Paralympics. And then in 2012, won a bronze medal in London. I led the team in scoring and rebounding. And that bronze medal means almost as much to me as those gold medals because it represents that hard work and struggle of trying to get back there. And then had the great fortune of being able to end my career, back-to-back gold medals. That was amazing with my brother. And you'd create a real deep brotherhood.

That's incredible. I mean, like, okay, that's gritty as hell. Getting cut twice would probably end me, but six times, and you were just stuck to it. Like, you did, what were you doing with the rest of your time? Were you, like, working and then training? I was playing professionally. Okay, so you were playing professionally training every day there and then trying out for the team and just, like, just couldn't vibe with this coach?

It wasn't a matter of vibe. I mean, I just, you had to get bigger, faster, stronger, better. I mean, you're looking at being one of the 12 best players in the entire country. And but I had that discipline in that, that work ethic of whether it was focusing on my diet or my supplementation or my sleep, I was just willing to do whatever it took to get to that next level. I would go and shoot a thousand shots every single day, rain or shine, hot or cold, go and lift weights every day. Most days, I would end my day with a road push in my everyday wheelchair and I would go for somewhere between seven and four. I mean, I was just willing to do the work, which honestly, I think, was some of the very best preparation for what modern politics has turned into. Like, that discipline and hard work, an ability also to just ignore the external noise and just keep your head down and do the work.

It's really been great preparation for this. I was going to say, most politicians, we can't get them to, like, show up to vote. So I feel like you're a little ahead of the game there. You mentioned Spina Bifida, your dad served in Vietnam. He had Asian Orange exposure, which is linked to spina bifida, caused spina bifida, but also, I think makes you eligible for VA. benefits, correct? That is correct, yeah. So I'm just curious, you know, that is a very different connection to the military and war than most Americans have. And we are at this moment, we're recording this Friday, March 27th, by the time it comes out on Tuesday, we could have troops on the ground

in Iran and yet another crazy, in my opinion, regime change war in the Middle East. I just wondered how your experience of like hearing your father's story and going through the VA can, you process has shaped your views of these issues. Yeah, and we're looking at going into another forever unnecessary conflict that I've seen far too often in my life. It's not just my direct family connection. It's in my time in wheelchair basketball as well. I've played with so many men and women that have come back missing arms, missing legs that are just never the same. And then my dad, he spent 22 months in Vietnam exposed to Agent Orange. And it's reason for my disability.

And these conflicts, they don't just disappear. They have generational consequences. And certainly I'm living proof of that generational consequence. And for example, like a state like Iowa, even though we don't have boots on the ground in Iran, we are already paying a high price for this conflict. We've already lost three Iowans because the base that was hit in Kuwait. those were largely National Guardsmen from Iowa. And we're looking at spending a billion dollars there.

No strategy, no idea what's happening, why we're there. And we've got a state like Iowa where we are dead last for economic growth. One of two states are already in an economic decline. We're closing hospitals and schools, dead last for road quality. We could use that billion dollars a day in a state like Iowa as opposed to another unnecessary forever conflict. Yeah, I mean, there are a bunch of reports. we don't know if they'll actually do this, but that the administration was going to go to Congress

to request $200 billion for the war in Iran. And I just, you know, I think in the beginning there was this sense of like, should Democrats vote for it? Will they be called weak? Will they be told they're not supporting the troops? I hope by now Democrats in Washington

understand that this is an enormous opportunity to show voters that we want to spend that money anywhere else. Correct. Anywhere, schools, roads, bridges, like anything you want in Iowa, like not bombs that. get dropped on, you know, faraway places and people.

We cut a trillion dollars with the big beautiful bill to people's health care. 110,000 Iowans lose their health care benefits. Thousands more lose their food assistance. We don't have money for the ACA subsidies to continue, which is another 117,000 Iowans, looking at premiums doubling or tripling. We've closed in the last 15 years in Iowa, 250 more medical clinics than we've opened. And so we're closing nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities and rural hospitals. all over the state, but we have money for an unnecessary war in Iran.

It's just such a disconnect, and it's not America First. No, it really isn't America First, and you're seeing a lot of Republicans get extremely pissed off and turn away from Trump. Changing gears a bit. So California Governor Gavin Newsom often talks about having dyslexia and, like, sort of the obstacles that's created in his life, how he's overcome them. I think President Trump must have caught an interview with him talking about that, probably in the context of his book tour, and now just attacks,

Gavin Newsom about it constantly. Here's one example I wanted to play for you and sort of get your reaction. Gavin Newscom has admitted that he is learning disabilities. Honestly, I'm all for people with learning disabilities, but not for my president. I think a president should not have learning disabilities, okay? And I know it's highly controversial to say such a horrible thing.

The president of the United States, Gavin Newscombe admitted that he has learning disabilities, dyslexia, everything about him is dumb. So he's an asshole. What message do you think those comments sent to kids in this country with dyslexia or learning disabilities, really any disability? It's gross, it's not the first time he's done it either.

I mean, unfortunately, I've dealt with bullies my whole life and we've got a bully in the Oval Office. And I think my message would be to any disabled person out there, any disabled kids is don't let what is, don't let anyone says to you, including the president of the United States, prevent you from living your best life, or being able to live your dream. And you can look at someone like me. I grew up poor. I grew up disabled, 21 surgeries. I feel like I am the American dream. But I have the American Dream because of something like the American with Disabilities Act, the Father of the American with Disabilities Act,

Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa. And don't let that define you. I think that's my message is that you can ultimately be what you want to, and you can do what you want here in America and do not let anyone stop you or make you feel like you are less, including the president of the United States. Yeah. And unfortunately, I will say that, you know, one of the reasons why I got into politics initially, I got involved in politics for two reasons. One is because the privatization of Medicaid in Iowa, it was driving up rates, denials, and delays a thousand percent since we had privatized. That was hurting the disabled population the most. Second reason why Iran is because there had never been a permanently disabled member in the Iowa legislature. We're a state of 150 years,

governing body of 150 members. We didn't even have a ramp in the capital. It's the people's house. It should be open to the people. And the disabled population, one in five Iowans, blind, death, intellectually disabled, physically disabled, and yet almost no representation. One of the reasons why I'm doing this as well running for the U.S. Senate is I don't think we have enough individuals up in the U.S. Senate, you know, that are disabled that come from my minority group. I think you could make the argument that out of any minority group, we are the most underrepresented at every single level of government. And then additionally, I think we need more people in D.C. from places like Council Bless Iowa with real lived experience, both on the economics and on the health care

side. Because when you have lived it firsthand, you'll have a different level of fight and you'll have a different level of empathy. And that's what we need. We need folks that are going to go up there and fight for the people and fight for our workers and fight for the middle class, fight for the people that can't afford, you know, to make political donations or have a lobbyist. Yeah. It's a remarkable I remember early on, Trump at a rally made fun of a disabled reporter, right? And it was like, it was like a big deal. Yeah, he made fun of this. He was horrible.

He was the church Kovleski. He was actually like, I used to work in the press office on the campaign for Obama and then the White House and he was one of the scariest reporters out there because he was so good. You know, like this guy was like the heaviest hitter and then Trump's like belittling him for something. It's the, you know, he's the worst person in the world. And it's a decade later, he's still pulling this shit. We're kind of like a nerd to it.

But your point about just the total lack of empathy in government and the lack of focus on people who he doesn't understand or who don't have a lobbyist or representation. And the interesting thing is that Iowa actually has this really proud history of having a fighter named Tom Harkin. It was like the greatest champion for a lot of communities. Can you just talk about Tom Harkin and sort of what he means to the state and what he's meant to you?

Yeah, for 30 years, we had the amazing opportunity to have Senator Tom Harkin as our senator from Iowa. He was championing issues like FMLA to make sure that you've got leave. And certainly he is the father of the American with Disabilities Act. And, you know, it's great because I now have a friendship with him. And that, you know, they say never meet your heroes. And he was everything and more. And just an amazing human being.

And I, this is one of the reasons why I'm also running for. this is because for 30 years in Iowa, we had this amazing opportunity to have somebody that was really fighting for the people, fighting for the most vulnerable, the elderly, the disabled, the homeless, the poor, children, you know, the schools, a true prairie populace, the same way that I define myself, looking for a livable wage, affordable housing, affordable health care. That's what he was fighting for. And I think that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity that we have here in Iowa to win his seat back and that we can once again from Iowa having someone that's really fighting for the people.

Yeah, I agree. It's once a generation opportunity. Iowa is a huge ag state. And President Trump seems to be doing everything he can to piss off farmers, to make their lives harder, to destroy their industries in literally decades of work in some cases. There's tariffs. There's Trump pitching a $20 billion bailout for Argentina, where a bunch of farmers are growing soybeans that compete with Iowa farmers literally. Now there's this war with Iran that is preventing fertilizer shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, which is jacking up prices in America and starving people in Southeast Asia, potentially.

What is the impact of Trump's policies been on farmers in your state? And what would you say to a listener who thinks, you know what? You guys talk about this stuff all the time. You act like economic concerns are what move voters. But then, you know, you'll have these farmers who will get mad about some segment on Fox News and they'll vote on some culture thing. It's a real farm crisis, what I'm calling a farmageddon. Our farmers, we now lead the nation in farm foreclosures in Iowa.

It is a massive problem. You're looking at commodities prices being upside down, and that is largely driven because of the tariffs. That's also because of us giving $20 billion to Argentina so the Chinese can buy their soybeans. Meanwhile, our Iowa soybean farmers just left out there. They're hanging. These markets where maybe we'll never come back. You're absolutely right as well. You're looking at fertilizers. You're looking at now somewhere between 25 and 30 percent of Iowa farmers do not have fertilizer. Meanwhile, we're maybe a month or two away from planting season. What does that mean for them? Can they plant their crops if they don't have fertilizer? I mean, the yield will be way down. The yield would be dramatically different. I mean, you're already looking at all these folks being upside down. I mean, our farmers have not made money in a decade. And now their commodities prices are actually. upside down. So they are planting soybeans and they are losing money on that. And this is, and it's not just exclusive to the tariffs. They have been getting beaten up because of consolidation and anti, you know, we've not done anything to break up the monopolies. We're not done anything on

antitrust. And farmers are hurting. And I tell you, everywhere that I'm going all across Iowa, but the place that we are getting the biggest amounts of, of turnouts of Republicans is in rural communities. And the word that we hear the most is betrayal. And these folks will say, we turned out, we voted for Trump. And now look what you've done. And you go in these rural communities and they've lost their, their pharmacies are gone, they've lost their grocery stores, their health care clinics are closing, particularly in the rural areas. Their schools are closing.

We closed 16 schools in the last three years in Iowa, almost all in the rural communities. And you go down their main streets, it looks like a vacuum's come through there. And now we're leading the nation in farm foreclosures. These are folks that are waking up and saying, enough is enough, the state and the country needs change. And I think that they're going to be willing to vote for someone like me, a common sense prairie populist. The other area where I'm seeing a lot of accusations of betrayal is the Maha movement, the Make America Healthy Again movement, which I think sort of kicked off with vaccines and vaccine hesitancy, if not outright sort of an anti-vaccine sentiment. But there's also just like healthy foods and getting dies out of food. There's a lot of it that's like, makes sense, common sense.

But it seems like a recent Trump decision to give immunity from lawsuits to companies that make the weed killer Roundup has infuriated those voters. I know Roundup has ties to cancer, can cause cancer. And I read somewhere recently that the highest concentration of Roundup is in Iowa, which also happens to be part of the cancer belt, which is for the highest concentration of cancer. What is the impact of that ruling on your state? And like, you know, I was talking to Rob Sand when he was in here. And he said every single town hall he has some person in their 30s will say, I have cancer. My friend is cancer. My family is cancer.

And like it didn't used to be that way. That is correct. Yeah, Iowa, we are the only state with a growing cancer rate. We have the second highest rates of cancer behind Kentucky. And we are quickly catching Kentucky. This is an issue that I actually think day by day is growing in terms of there's not a single town hall that I have done where I haven't heard this issue about addressing the cancer rates and addressing the water quality issues. And it is. There is a direct correlation to what we're

seeing with the nitrate levels, with the pesticide levels that is leading unquestionably to the cancer rates. And certainly this is an issue that has touched my life personally. I lost my grandma to pancreatic cancer. My father, because of exposure to Agent Orange, he's dealt with several bouts of cancer. And nearly the day that I launched my campaign, my sister, got diagnosed with stage two breast cancer. Good. Sorry. And to, yeah, she just underwent a double mastectomy about two weeks ago. To tell you how broken the health care system is, her, she has private insurance and her

and basically said, you don't have enough cancer. They said because you, yeah, they said, because you only have stage two breast cancer, not stage three or stage four, we will not cover the PET scan to see if the cancer spread to other parts of your body. That's insane. So we did not know if the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes or any other place. until she went under the knife. I mean, this is what is so fundamentally wrong with the healthcare system

is you're maximizing profits just for the off the backs and most vulnerable. But absolutely, this addressing the cancer rate and addressing the root cause, which is the lack of regulations in place on what we're seeing with the nitrate levels. And there's some common sense things that we can do that the farmers are in favor of doing. We don't have to go up to the farmers. We could put a lot of incentives in place. We could put incentives so that they don't put down fertilizer in the fall. and in the winter.

We can put down incentives so that they put down cover crops or they have land barriers like many other states do. Or we can at least have an EPA that's well funded and with some enforcement mechanisms in place and maybe droplets allowable

with nitrate levels. But it's certainly something that is resonating with all Iowans regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum. Yeah, I think it's a, it crosses across, all families are dealing with,

you know, a crisis of someone. And Iowans are tired of us just looking out for large corporations and billionaires. Well, and giving this, chemical company. I think they've got a national security exemption because some version of Roundup is used as in like white phosphate or something, some military use. It's insane. It's awful. Anyway, so you're in a Democratic Party primary. I realize you are probably Iowa nice, but ultimately,

like, voters are going to have to hear why you're better at the job than Zach Walls would be. What's the pitch? And why do you think you're more likely to win in November? I will be Iowa nice, and I won't say anything disparaging about my, my, My primary opponent, but I will say this. First and foremost, I think this comes down to electability. I represent the Reddest district that is represented by a Democrat that was won on Election Day. The two communities that I represent, Carter Lake Trump won by 18 points. And my hometown of Council Bluffs, Trump won by 10 points.

And I was able to win my district by nearly six points. That is 50% more overperformance than any other Democrat in the state. my opponent comes from a Harris plus 37 has never even run against Republican. So I know that I have proven results of being able to resonate with the 35% of the voters that are independents and also with moderate Republicans. Even though I was so far down ballot, I actually got more raw votes than Kamala Harris did. I know that there's something specific about my story, my background, my resume, that really resonates with independence and with moderate Republicans.

And I know that especially my story, the hard work. focusing on the economic populism, that's going to resonate with a lot of people in rural communities and with farmers. Second, I would say that it's meaningful and important that the people that have left the race, like J.D. Shulton and Nathan Sage, the people that know us best that were out there on the campaign trail with us, have endorsed me. I also think that it's really important that I've got far more endorsements of the people that work up at the Iowa Capitol with me and with Zach that know us the best. I've gotten by far the most amount of endorsements there. I think that that means a lot to me and raise the most money since I've been in the race. And then I also think

that there is an authenticity and a credibility that I think really, really resonates. I come from a working class family, a working class community. I'm the only one in this race. It's not a millionaire. And I think that that's what Iowans are looking for. They're looking for someone that's genuine that is not doing this for the position, for the money, for the fame, but is really doing this because we need people in D.C., not from wealth, not from privilege, but are really going up there to do like what Senator Harkin did and fight for the people of Iowa and fight for small businesses and fight for small family farms and fight for social and economic justice and fight for social safety nets that are being eroded. These social safety nets like Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and

are going to go up there and fight for people's health care and a livable wage. And my state is really, really struggling like no other state. Dead last for economic growth. Yeah. So right now the attentions on like Texas and some of the other states, do we want to, do we want to keep it that way? Do you want people to pay more attention to Iowa? Do you like that the national media is focused elsewhere and you can kind of just run your own race focused on Iowa issues? You know, I don't want this to be siloed. I don't want this to be about I want to get to the U.S. Senate and to heck with everybody else. And so I like the attention being on Iowa. And my message to your viewers would be the very best place to invest this year is in Iowa.

But Iowa, I understand that people on the coast will say Iowa is a red state, but we are not. We are a common sense state that has masqueraded more red than what we are. 30 years, we voted for Senator Harkin, where a state that has voted twice for Obama, three times for Trump. We have more Obama-Trump counties than any other state in the union. But in much more recent history, Trump's last midterm, we won three of the four congressional races. We almost won all four, three points away. And in the last midterm that we had, we were 1.5% away from having three of our six statewide officials, being Democrats. That means your average Iowa voter went and voted for three Dems, three R's. We also

are a state that has bottomed out. And sometimes I think you have to bottom out as a state like Kansas did before people are willing to go a different direction. But we are dead last for economic growth. We're 48th for personal income growth. We're one of two states already in an economic decline. We're basically dead last for every single health care metric, closing health care facilities all over the state. We lead the nation in cancer rates and now we lead the nation in farm foreclosures. We have bottomed out and then we have no power of incumbency. This is the first time since 1968, open governor's race and open Senate race and two open congressional races. Iowa is going to be the center of the political universe.

This is a state that we can legitimately see flipping three congressional races. We can win this open governor's race and we can win this open Senate race. I mean, we had an independent poll that came out that showed myself and Ashley Henson Tide. So that's why I want the national attention in that regard of this isn't just about me. This is about we in Iowa have this once-in-a-generation opportunity where if we go and we're organized and we're coordinated, we not only have the opportunity to change our cities or change our communities, you know, change our counties. We can fundamentally change the state. And the amazing opportunity we've got in Iowa is if we're able to flip these three congressional races, we flip Congress. But then the amazing opportunity, which people would have said was blasphemous to talk about a year ago, which is you need four states to flip the Senate.

maybe North Carolina, maybe Maine, that looks really good. Ohio looks very good with Sherrod Brown, but seat number 51 in the U.S. Senate, majority control. I believe it's Iowa, and we can win this, and we can win it with a candidate like me. I think we should be investing a lot of money in time in Iowa. Amen. If voters want to, if they like what they're hearing,

and they want to help you out, where do they go? Yeah, they go to my website, Turik, T-U-R-E-K, the number four, Iowa. Turik for Iowa.com. We are not taking any corporate pack money. relying off of individual donors. And so if people all around the country hear this, please support, we really can. We can win this race and we can not only change the state of Iowa, we can change this country. And we can once again have in the U.S. Senate, someone from Iowa

that is fighting for the people like we did for so long with my political hero, Senator Tom Harkin. We can do it, folks. Well, Josh, great to meet you. Thank you for coming. Yeah, thank you for having me. Best luck of the campaign. That's our show for today. Thanks to Josh Turk for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production.

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