Pod Save America - Total Eclipse of the Harp

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

MAGA world continues to express outrage over Jon Ossoff's "travel with Natalie" remarks, including an over-the-top rant from Scott Jennings that is being seen as the pundit's shameless audition for the open White House press secretary job. Dan and Jon react to Harp-gate, an MS NOW report that says Harp declined to seek a security clearance, and the New York Times reporting that Pete Hegseth brings his wife to highly sensitive meetings to "keep him out of trouble." They then turn to the midterms to unpack Angie Nixon's surprising defeat of Alexander Vindman in the Florida Democratic Senate primary, Dan Sullivan vs. Dan Sullivan in the Alaska general election, Darline Graham's historically embarrassing debate answer in South Carolina, and the impact the debate over data centers is having on the Ohio Senate election. Then, Josh Turek, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Iowa, stops by the studio to talk to Lovett about Democratic momentum in the Hawkeye State and how he convinced Barack Obama to shoot hoops in his viral endorsement video.Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.To watch this episode with subtitles, click here and turn on closed captions (CC).You can request a transcript by emailing [e-mail]. Include the podcast name, episode title, and air date. Please allow 48 hours for delivery.

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Additions for White House Press Secretary, a big upset in Florida, hard times for resistance candidates, hope in Alaska, and why data centers are dominating the midterm. Then Lubbett sits down with Iowa Senate candidate Josh Turrick to talk about his campaign to flip the seat and help Democrats take back the Senate. But before we get to it all, please consider becoming a paying subscriber to Friends of the Pod. As a subscriber, you will get ad-free episodes of all your favorite crooked pods, subscriber-only content like Pod Save America-only friends, access to our excellent substack newsletters, including open tabs, discounted tickets to CricketCon, and exclusive CricketCon perks. Ooh, I don't know what those are. And of course, it's the best way to support independent pro-democracy media. CricketCon perks.

Actually, I heard it was a, you get like a special, special one-on-one session with Dan Pfeiffer. Every single subscriber. Yeah, you're going to be busy. Yeah. Well, good luck to you. Anything for the team. Head on over to- And democracy.

And democracy, of course. Head on over to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe today. All right. So here are some headlines from this. this week that you would think might catch the president's eye. Oil rises to three-week high. Gas prices could set August record high with no progress seen on Hormuz. Housing market is on track for its worst year since 2011. U.S. workers are paying more for health care, and next year will be worse. Walmart posts slowest sales growth in years as Americans tighten wallets,

U.S. debt hits $40 trillion faster than forecasters expected, and Dow falls 500 points after Treasury plan to tamp down yields fails. Just the last couple of days, Dan, those headlines. Not great, as they say. Unclear if Donald Trump is aware of any of these headlines. I don't know if his human printer has printed them out for him. Natalie Harp, who has become rather famous. but either way, his only public events this week have been an Oval Office greeting with a teenage lifeguard,

an impromptu press tour of his White House renovation projects, new helipad, very exciting, a meeting with crypto leaders, that is, of course, the industry that has made him personally $1 billion richer, and on Thursday, a rare appearance at a Rose Garden event with his wife, where he sat quietly while she spoke.

spoke. Good afternoon. I heard you missed me. Here I am. She did, she did hear that we missed her. Look at that happy couple so in love holding hands. What's their secret? I don't know. It's just, it's just what are the odds at this incredibly heartwarming, not at all awkward photo op was scheduled this week in the middle of Natalie Harpgate? I'm sure it was a complete coincidence. And usually, Donald Trump shows up at events and sits quietly and doesn't speak. Famous for that.

That is. So the John Osaf riff that kicked off a week of hysteria on the right, it began with the senator saying that Trump doesn't want to do the job of being president. He wants to trade stocks and build his ballroom and travel with Natalie. Minus the actual travel part. I kind of think this week proves his point. Yeah. It is watching him this week.

week, it's just a reminder that he is a very, very old, very, very stubborn man who's a complete narcissist. And we've been watching him for a very, very long time now. But even after watching Trump for all these years, it is still stunning to the degree that he cannot even pretend to give a shit about anyone or anything else other than the things at the top of his list, which happened to be helipads, ballrooms, enriching himself. And it's like, obviously the Natalie comments sort of just touched off the drama of the week. But that was the message of Assoff's speech there. And I think why it was so effective is because everyone can look at Donald Trump in everything that he does.

And it's like, well, he seems like he likes getting rich. He likes renovations. And other than that, he pops off and yells at Democrats and people who've crossed him in some way. And other than that, you don't see much of them. That's about it. I guess the whole thing comes down to the fact that Natalie Harp is the one who controls all information that goes to the president, so maybe he's unaware of everything else that's happening in the world. Yes.

But just you would think that anyone who turned on a TV to some channel other than Fox News would see what everyone cares about, what everyone's worried about, what their political city was, and they would try to do something to address it. Instead, he just keeps digging a deeper hole on a daily basis. And one thing we've been learning this week, and some of it had been reported in the past, is that other people in Trump's orbit and in the White House and in the federal government, have been a little concerned at times that Natalie Harp is his main and sometimes only source of information and that if you want him to see a briefing memo or a story or a tweet, you have to text Natalie and she'll print it out.

Which makes the development that MS now reported just yesterday even more interesting and troubling. Natalie Harp apparently declined multiple times over more than a year to seek a routine security clearance required for most White House staffers, let alone the president's closest aid. And this apparently alarmed national security officials, Secret Service, and others. Why do you think so, Dan? I mean, this is studying. I mean, really, if you were to pick the person that you would want to influence as some sort of foreign entity or person with a financial interest in the White House, it would be the person who controls all

information of the president. By some reports, she texts with world leaders on Trump's behalf. So it's not just that she chooses which truths to put in front of him or which tweets to print out or which crazy things from, I don't know, 4chan to put in front of him. It's that she is the conduit to him. That is how you get in touch with him. She decides who he speaks to. She will type on his phone. The fact that this person does not have the same security clearance that a White House intern needs to pass is truly and deeply irresponsible. And I don't think there's any conspiracy to it. I mean, they failed to do security clearances for, it's like a systemic problem in this White House for lots of the White House staff. But it is sloppy as is everything else they do. And especially for people who are that close to the president all the time. I mean, she got on the secret plane with him.

And this is someone who for a year didn't have a security clearance. And again, this is like, you get to the White House, you fill out this form. It's the SF86. They ask about your entire life. The FBI interviews you, like, we've all gone through this. And to just be a top aide to the president, maybe his closest aid and not having done that at all is crazy. And you fill it out before you get to the White House. Yes.

Filling it out is one of the conditions for entering the president. the White House for most people. And she wasn't there in the first term again, right? This isn't like she's a returning character. She was at O-A-N-N. How many ends are there? God damn it. She was at O-A-N-N, and he like first met her in 2019 or 2020 or something. She was at the convention. But anyway, so like, yeah, she came to the White House for the first time in 2025 and just, you know, just started printing tweets for him. Just, and that's it. Nothing else. And nothing else. And writing him notes. that say you are all that matters to me.

I want to get back to that synergy we used to have where we talk about everything and nothing. I want to bring you joy to feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk work. I want things to always be right between us. Those I am just reading from notes that the New York Times obtained themselves.

These are actual notes that Natalie Harp wrote to Donald Trump and left them in his personal space. cases alarming the Secret Service. These are all facts that are known that are out there. Also, once lives in a locker room so she could be closer to him because she didn't have a room at one of the Trump clubs? JVL in his newsletter, he had a good take on this. I think it's like it's somewhat similar to yours, right? Which is he wrote, Maga responded to all this by going into high dudge in and being outraged that Ossoff would dare suggest Trump was banging his human printer. But Asov didn't suggest that.

He was pointing to the much weirder, unstable, and dangerous reality. The president of the United States has an in-house stalker, and he relies on this unhinged woman to an extent that is both hilarious and terrifying. There's been some reports that they refer to her as his human binkie. But I do want to... Maggie Haberman has said that. Which adults shouldn't need binkies. This is now the second episode you and I have talked about, you and I have talked about binkies.

What do we talk? We talked about... We talked about the Max Miller thing. Oh, yes. We talked about the blue bunny. Yes. Comfort items for. But in that case, we were referring to small children, not the president of the United States, the leader of the free world.

The issue here is not that Democrats are suggesting that they're having an affair. Because honestly, do we really think Trump's still in that era? No. Do you think someone of his advanced age and deteriorating physical capacity is not having a lot of sex? No, I don't. No, I don't. I think she's obsessed with him. And I think he really likes her because.

He likes, yes, men and women around him anyway, and she's the ultimate. Like, she will do literally anything for him, including run after his golf cart in Scotland, and then apologize later that she wasn't fast enough. I mean, she's not his girlfriend. She's his nursemaid. That's the point we're making here. Yes, it's true. Believe it or not, the extended Magu Universe has collectively decided to devote most of their energy this week

toward expressing outrage over Asoff's three words. travel with Natalie. That's it. That's all he said about her. Which has absolutely nothing to do with feeling threatened by Assoff's political rise or wanting to be seen by Trump defending Natalie's honor. Here's one Oscar-worthy performance from Scott Jennings. He unleashed a comment so vile against a young Republican woman working in politics that every woman in this country, no matter your ideology,

ought to listen carefully and never forget it. What we are learning from Democratic men right now is that if you're a conservative woman in politics, you are less than human. Oh, they like to bill themselves as the party of women. But is there anything uglier than the party of women explaining to a bunch of clapping seals at a rally how female political staffers are really only good for one thing?

Wink, wink. They talk about Ossoff like he's the next Bill Clinton. Sounds like he shares Clinton's views about women in the workplace. Maybe they're right. What he said devalued every woman who goes to Washington to serve our country. And it sent a signal to every young lady out there who aspires to serve that even in the year of our Lord, 2026, with men like John Ossoff around, you'll never be truly viewed. Is anything other than a sex object? and a political punchline.

Sir, this is a Wendy's. This is travel with Natalie is what he said. The president wants to travel with Natalie. You know, I don't watch a lot of CNN. And if I... That wasn't on CNN. I know. I'm getting there.

And if I'm ever served one of those clips on Instagram or TikTok or Twitter that shows some giant fight on a CNN set, I score my past it. Do not need that in my life. So when did this? the goatee come into play here? You know, it's a great question. I am not a frequent viewer of those CNN clips either. And so it just sort of appeared one day. That was the most offensive part of that whole thing, honestly, to me. That was distracting for you. Yeah, it's hard to focus on the cogent argument.

You're saying that's even more vile than what John Ossoff unleashed on this poor defenseless woman by saying that the president likes to travel with her. It sends a message to every man with a weak chin who heads to Washington. Now, on one of those CNN panels, we could have played this clip, but there were so many Scott Jennings clips this week that, you know, we had to pick and choose. But someone said, oh, I'm so sick of the fake outrage. And he lost his shit. Not quite Adam Mockler, get your fucking hand out of my face losing his shit.

Scott Jennings has done in the past. But was like, how dare you put words in my mouth and say this is fake? This is, I believe this, and I am defending her honor, and this enrages me. Here's a quote from Thursday morning's playbook about Scott Jennings' histrionics. Others in Trump world dubbed Jennings jockeying as a fairly obvious public audition for a White House press secretary job. He's been eyeing since the transition. The clips of Jennings, defending Natalie, made their way around the White House. Wow.

That's amazing. How did they get there? Oh, in part because Jennings sent them to several senior staffers. Oh, okay. So he was so angry and outrage in such a genuine way that he yelled on CNN and on his whatever radio show. I don't know how you get it on the internet. And then got the clips already and then sent them to the people in the White House he hoped would hire him for the job of press. secretary because he's just so genuinely upset about everything.

What do you think, Dan? You think Scotty might get the job? He was number three on my list. We did this last episode. I was going to hold off on this, but I'll do it right now. I know everyone listens to every episode, but for those of you who missed, John and I did a very serious but very fake game where we power rank possible contenders. Trump has not picked the person yet, but you outplayed me in that game.

I did not have Scott Jennings. You picked no one, which is still correct at this moment. And so I pick Marker Rubio as a joke. Still possible, I guess. But you did great. You did excellent in that game. Here's the thing about the job of press your to Donald Trump. It requires you to go on TV, lie, and just generally debase yourself publicly on a daily basis.

Well, check. He's got that. So basically, he wants to do the same job, but presumably with a pay cut, I guess. Yeah. I mean, he's got that part nailed, but his problem is he's a giant pussy. And Caroline Levitt, whatever else you want to say about her, she's pretty unflappable in that job. She's got the lying part, right, that you just mentioned. Like, she's nailed that.

Same thing with, you know, Sarah Hockeyby Sanders. But they are not nearly as emotional as Scott Jones. Jennings is. I mean, he almost cried when Adam Mockler put up his hand on CNN. He loses his shit on panels constantly. And Caroline Levitt never lost her shit in that briefing room. Yeah, I tend to think he probably gets a little bit of a beta, a little bit of a beta. Yeah, a little, yeah, he's a snowflake beta. I think he probably gets plotted for that sort of losing his shit on CNN. That's probably what they're going for. That's why they pay him. But in the White House briefing room, that's just not a particularly effective way of doing your job.

Yeah. I mean, he would be bad at the job. It's worth knowing the guy, I'm pretty sure was like a relatively mid-level staffer from Mitch McConnell for many years before he was elevated into this role of America's heel on television by CNN. He also was like punching way above his weight class here. He was also very much against Trump in 2016. Yeah.

So he was a, he was an early never-trumper that quickly switched. Which is how we got on CNN in the first place. Yeah, I think he was a never-trumper. Then I think he was an anti-anti. and now he's, you know, now he's full trumper. And I'm sure the conversion was totally sincere and done in good faith. It looks like everything he does is sincere. And if you don't believe so, he will send you the clip.

How could a man who considers Mitch McConnell a father figure to him love Donald Trump in such a way? There's another clip of him. I could play another of him on a friend Adam Friedland show where he basically is like, yeah, I like put on a show. It's like wrestling. I do like. And then at one point Adam's like, okay, yeah. I'll give you any topic and you have to argue the topic and you have to argue the position, even if it's not your position and he gives, I forget what it was, but he gives him some liberal

position and it was like frightening watching Scott just like get right into it and argue the position as if he completely believed it. So again, that part is all why he would be a great press secretary for Donald Trump, but I do not think he can handle the pressure because he is a pussy. I have to say heading into this podcast, I did not, my over under on your use of the term, pussy was definitely not too. And in fact, in the nine years we've been doing this podcast, it's maybe the first two times you've used the word pussy on this podcast. It's just, it's the only thing I can think of when I think about Scott Jennings. The word, the word. Yes.

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Order now at drinkwillies.com and use the code Crooked for 20% off your first order, plus free shipping on orders over $95, dollars or use the store locator to find willies on shelves near you like your local total wine specs ABC or local liquor store. There's a notice story that basically says Donald Trump is seriously considering Scott Jennings for this job, that he is calling around. He's doing his thing where he calls around people and asks, what do you think of Scott?

How do you think he's been doing on TV? So this is live that he's thinking about this. But at the very end of, and the notice story, we should say, is basically the headline is like Trump is thinking he wants to pay. a man because he's had a bunch of women in this job. Who is the only man? Oh, Sean Spicer. Sean Spicer. So he's thinking of maybe having a man. Scott Jennings was named. Ari Fleischer was named. God help us.

But at the very end of the notice piece, it ends with this tidbit. Quote, a person close to the White House predicted that all of the attention on the president's close aide Natalie Harp could catapult her into the position. So to be fair, as we said, Harper did do a stint on the right-wing outlet, One American News Network, O-A-N-N, before working for Trump, and where she sounded like a totally normal news anchor. Let's listen. We can't talk about winning back the House and Senate in 2022 and the White House in 2024 if we don't act on the fact that we actually did win the White House and the Senate in 2020. We shouldn't be afraid to say that because it's true.

We the people know America, as we know it, could be ending in the next two or four years, which is exactly what President Trump is warning of. It just shows how desperate the Democrats were to find the votes to make up for President Trump's insurmountable lead. Real. I guess, I mean, not to nitpick here, but I'm not sure she fully clocked what insurmountable meant. Again, I mean, some real North Korea shit there, so she has that down. By definition, the lead was quite. mountable. What do you think, Natalie for press secretary? You think that's how this whole thing

ends? I can't imagine Trump separating himself from his human binkie for several hours a day while she preps for and does the briefing. Or her separating herself from him. Yes, it goes both ways. Yeah, she would, even though it would obviously be a very lucrative position for her in the long run, she would become very famous. She would maybe get to graduate to a network better than OANN, like newsmax. But she would turn it down. because it would require a separation from Trump. And, I mean, to be fair, to her, she has more power right now. She's probably one of the most powerful people in the world.

In the world right now. Why would she want to go be White House press secretary? Yes, she is chippetto to Trump's Pinocchio just moving around one tweet at a time. All right. One more story about women being forced to babysit Trump administration bozos before we move on, because there's two this week. What a segue. Jennifer Hegsef, wife of Pete Hegsef, gets a big story in the New York Times today on Thursday,

where she's described as her husband's most influential advisor and de facto producer, apparently attending highly sensitive meetings, traveling with her husband to, quote, keep him out of trouble, and conducting job interviews at the Pentagon. What did you make of that story, Dan? It seemed a bit odd to me. It's not your normal relationship. But then I tried to think, imagine you or I were. Secretary of Defense or something like it.

Okay. And I know my wife and I know your wife. And so I kind of imagine that in both of those cases, they would be our closest advisors. Yes. Although I would ask, Emily would be like, I don't have time for your boring shit. No, she would.

She would be producing you. She would really. I don't know. I would get into the production part of it. for sure. I don't think she would be interviewing your press secretaries. She would not care about the meeting with the Ukrainian officials with the Intel. No, but she, but, and they would be deeply involved, both Halley and Emily in both cases. That's true. And, and clearly they'd have to be on the road with us to keep us out of trouble.

Because we go on the road, we've done a lot of trouble together over the years. And we're pretty, we're pretty boring. It's fine. Oh, no. One drink and then in bed by 930 so we can read the news. Could stand to get in a little more trouble. All right. Enough of that. Let's talk about the midterms where Democratic primary results

continue to drive the take economy, which is obviously what matters most here. Here's Politico. This is about Tuesday's results. Tuesday's primary results. Hashtag resistance Democrats are flopping in primaries. Here's Axios.

The rise of DSA is killing off Resistance 1.0 Democrats. And most definitively from the Atlantic, quote, the resistance is over. Those headlines, refer in part to Tuesday night's results in Florida, where State Representative Angie Nixon, a relatively unknown DSA candidate, won a massive upset against Alexander Vindman in the U.S. Senate Democratic primary. You might remember Vindman as the former Trump National Security Aid

from the first administration who became a national figure as a key witness during Trump's 2019 impeachment hearings. That's the first impeachment. Extra points, if you can remember what that was about. Vindman was widely expected to win, refused to debate, to even debate Nixon, and outraised her by $15 million. She raised less than a million dollars total for a Senate race in Florida and won the primary. Nixon now advances to the general election where she'll face Senator Ashley Moody, who took Marco Rubio's seat when he was selected as Secretary of State. You wrote a great message box about this results, encouraging other Democrats to learn from Nixon's unexpected win. Tell us about it. How'd you win? How'd you pull it off? What should other dumb to take away?

Sure. Nixon, as you mentioned, is someone who she's a liberal. She joined the DSA during the campaign. But the typical coalition, both historically and in this cycle, for DSA or very progressive members, has been young voters, white college-educated liberals and a failure to make inroads with black voters and more working class voters. Nixon won here because she ran up huge numbers among black voters in Florida. And she won the counties that have the largest segment of black voters. She won by 30 points. Now, she is from Jacksonville in Duval County, which is a huge slice of black voters. But she also did very well in the I4 corridor, which is Tampa and Orlando. She did well in Miami-Dade.

We're also a lot of black voters. And even more importantly and notable, she did really well in what's called the Black Belt in northern Florida, which is the rural areas with large. black communities. She just cleaned up in those counties. She and then and then she took this really impressive number with black voters and then combined it with younger voters, more progressive voters, more college educators to give herself a 13 point win in this primary. This, when you wonder why the more like these progressive candidates fail in frequently presidential primaries, you know, Bernie Sanders, Howard Dean, Gary Hart, Bill Bradley, it's because they can do the

half of the coalition with young and white voters, which can get them through in the old calendar, Iowa and New Hampshire. And then you get to South Carolina in the south, all these black voters. And the only candidate who's been able to put the coalition together that allowed you to win is Obama because he had college educated white liberals, young voters, and black voters at a really high percentage. And so like, as they think about like how a very progressive Democrat could win the Democratic nomination, it is going to look a lot more like what Angie Necky. Nixon did in Florida than Abdul al-Sayed did in Michigan or AOC does in New York or anything like that. It also reminded me of, I mean, in Florida in 2018, that is basically how Andrew Gillum running against DeSantis came so close to winning that state.

He didn't win it, but he was a more progressive candidate, did really, really well with black voters, college-educated voters, younger voters. And that was enough to, what was it, like 18,000 votes or something? Yeah, it's how we beat Gwen Graham in the primary. In the primary. It does seem like Nixon will have quite a bit of an uphill climb, we should say, to win the general election. Some of the forecasters moved it from, one of them moved it from, I think, likely Republican to safe Republican. And just because I think that now I will say, I've seen her now do a couple of interviews post race.

She's very good. She's very good. very good. And if you did not, like, if they did not report that she was DSA, you would never guess that she was DSA. Yeah, she is a work true. This is a lot of, sometimes the DSA candidates, not all of them, but some of them have sort of the, I don't, this is not a fair thing, but this was used to describe Francesca Hong with the faculty, faculty lounge problem, right, where how they talk about things. And that's not actually a fair characterization of Francesca Hong's life, who worked herself up as a restaurant owner and a chef. But Angie Nixon is a working class. She is a long-time

champion of working class voters. She's an organized, a community organizer. And so when she communicates, she communicates like a community organizer, not like some sort of academic who's sort of studying these problems. She's someone who is deeply embedded in trying to actually solve the problems that working class families are dealing with. Well, and also she was very, I mean, so I think Willie Geist asked her, so do you support abolishing persons? She's like, No, no, I don't support abolishing prisons. I support getting rid of for-profit prisons that are being, like, run horribly and costing us a lot of money. But, like, it was just cheap.

She had all the answers. It was very good. I just, so. The challenge here is if there is one state in the country where the DSA label is a problem, in particular, it's Florida because that so much of the Latino vote in that state has roots in Cuba and Venezuela. And the socialism attacks hit much harder there. It's one of the things that has moved Florida to the right in recent years. And again, it's just, it's a gigantic state. So it's super expensive.

And it's not the kind of state where you can say, all right, well, you know, look beyond the label and actually come meet me, you know, because it's just, it's too big for that. So that's why it's going to be tough. Anyway, so Vindman wasn't the only, quote unquote, resistance figure to lose this cycle. Dan Goldman, lead majority council during Trump's 2019 impeachment, represent, representative. of Diana DeGette, a 2021 House impeachment manager, both lost their primaries to left-wing challengers, Harry Dunn, Capitol Police Officer on January 6th, lost his bid for a House seat in Maryland, George Conway, Trump critic, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, Bullwork, came in 5th with just 6% of the vote in the Democratic primary to replace Jerry Nadler.

So this has spawned a lot of resistance's overtakes. What do you think about those takes? Do these losses suggest a real trend to you? Or is the take machine trying a bit too hard here? I mean, the take machine, by definition, is always trying a bit too hard. Fair, fair. But there is something real here. And it's actually, should not be that surprising.

The Trump era began 11 years ago when he started running. Yeah. He won election a decade ago. It's been a very long time. And that decade actually feels longer than an actual 10 years because of the pandemic. And here we are, we are struggling to remember in people who covered it every day what happened in Trump's impeachment in 2019. It really feels like a hundred years ago.

Ukraine, perfect call. Zelensky was involved, but it was before the war. But we didn't even know Zelensky like we know him now. He wasn't even our hero. He was just a guy. He's just a comedian who got a job. And so like that, that's all old and feels like in the past. I think that what has changed is that, and this is a.

good thing for Democrats is we do not identify ourselves entirely as in opposition to Trump. And so standing up and fighting Trump is necessary in a Democratic primary politically, but it's insufficient. You have to be fighting for something bigger than that. You have to find you something as someone who's actually fighting to solve these big problems that I think people over the last year or so have realized they're more than just Trump. Like it's a rigged economy. It's people can't get health care. And Trump has contributed to that. And he's certainly not helping it. But if you're simply focused on Trump, that's a problem. thing that I think defined a lot of these resistance 1.0 characters is they're institutionalists

by nature, right? We were going to bring him down through Robert Mueller. We're going to bring him down through impeachment. And that stuff, I think, feels dated here and doesn't really, it doesn't have this hit in the same way it before. So they're a little, so those folks are sometimes naturally out of touch with what's going on. But then when you look at each of these individual races, it really wasn't about them being resistance figures. Dan Goldman went down because of a huge dispute over Israel. George Conway was a Republican with relatively low name ID running against a really stacked field of local elected officials like Michael Lesher and Alex Boris. That was my problem with this is I just don't think any of the dots connect. Like, yes, what they have in common is they all are, you could

call them all resistance figures, but every single race was different for different reasons. It just, I think it was how in each of the races, Trump was really wasn't that big a deal. Like, he wasn't the dominant figure in the conversation, which wasn't good for the people who became famous for standing up to Trump. Well, and it's also not just how long we've been doing this, which is a long time. Which is a long time. But it's what is coming next, which is like, we are almost at the end of the Trump era. Yeah, you can see the light.

Right. And so if you're, I mean, and this is going to be especially true in the 2028 primaries, but like all of those Democratic candidates that are going to run for president, why would they talk that much about Trump. They'll probably talk about how they're going to fix the damage that Trump has done. But like, it's sort of like, we dealt with this in the campaign in 2007, 2008. It's very similar, where there was a lot of Bush bashing, obviously. But at some point in that primary, I remember, Obama was like, the real question is, like, we know that George Bush isn't coming back as president. And the question is, what's next? Like, what's next for the country and where are we going to go and what's

going to happen. And that's where all these Democratic candidates are going to have to pivot very soon after the midterms. And then we won the nomination and we ran approximately $80 million of ads with a video of John McCain getting into a golf cart with George W. Bush. Well, that'll be, and that will be the campaign against J.D. Vance. Yes. There will be. Or if Marker Rubio somehow makes it out or anyone, if anyone is the nominee connected to the Trump administration, yes. They're going to be in a lot of ads. Then that six months or seven months or whatever the campaign, that will all be about Donald Trump. But in terms of a primary and what you're going to do for the country, it's beyond Trump at that point. So I think that's

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Alaska, unsurprisingly, takes a while to count. There's still some few rural areas coming in. The top four vote getters now advanced to the November runoff election, which is expected to include the other Dan Sullivan, Dan J. Sullivan Jr., a retired school teacher who Republicans maintain entered the election to sabotage the nominee Dan S. Sullivan and whose candidacy is now being probed by Trump's DOJ, who got a grand jury to subpoena witnesses connected to the campaign. Before we get to that, let's start with Poltola's results. what did you make of her outperforming the real Dan Sullivan and what it may or may not portend for

the general election, which will happen in a couple months. It is certainly a good sign because she won by five points, even if you took out, if you gave all of the fake Dan Sullivan's votes to the real Dan Sullivan, she still wins by two and a half points. So that is good. Now, so it's a positive sign. Now, it's worth just noting that about 133,000 people, I think, voted in this primary. the last Senate race had twice that in 2022 and Rikowski was up.

So it would probably even more this time because this would be a more competitive race. So this is only about half the electorate in Alaska voting. But look, a five point lead or a very Republican is 13, a state of Trump on by 13 points is a great place to be in August of the election year. What about Dan J. Sullivan? Do you think he's on the ballot come November or is the DOJ going to intimidate him off the ballot? I know there was already a ruling that he could be on the ballot from, I believe, the state Supreme Court. I think they are going to try to intimidate him off the ballot. Like, why else would they be doing this?

They think if this is a very, very close race, then Dan J. Sullivan could be very bad for Dan S. Sullivan, if I think it did that correctly. You did. But he seems pretty committed to his goal of being senator. And confusing people. I think it's cool. His goal, he wants to serve people Alaska, John. Of course, of course. Don't make the D.J's case for them for them.

I don't want to get a subpoena. I know nothing. You're going to end up in an ad. This is the first I've heard about this. First I've heard about this Dan Sullivan character. I don't know. I'm going to look into it. Maybe he's going to be a great leader for Alaska.

Who knows? Anyway, that's Alaska. On the other side of the country in South Carolina, Congressman Ralph Norman and Darlene Graham will face off in next week's runoff election to decide which of them will replace Senator Lindsay Graham on the November ballot. Darlene, who's currently serving out the remainder of her brother's term, was the top vote getter in the first round of the primary and has Donald Trump's endorsement. He will be campaigning for her in the state on Friday, apparently. But during her one and only debate with Norman this week, she gave one hell of an answer to a question about foreign policy.

Let's listen. I'm sorry. Could you repeat the question? Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States? And if so, why or how? I'm just going to be honest here. I'm not on national security. I'm not that informed on national security, but I do support the military.

My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years, so I will do everything I can to support the military. My dad was in the Army. I'm not a polished politician up here. National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise, but I do support the military. In case I didn't make it clear the first time, I will say a second time that national security is not my thing. And just to be extra clear, I'll say one more time, I am not an expert on national security just to make sure you have all the context you need for the ad and that you don't have to infer anything. Rough, Dan, rough. Right there is exactly why you don't pick people who had no qualifications to be senator just because they're blood relatives of the previous senator.

Yeah. I kind of hope she wins the primary. She wins the general. She wins the special. I think, no, what I'm saying is obviously South Carolina is a long shot here. I do think that Annie Andrews is the Democrat running on the Democratic side. And before Lindsey Graham passed away, there were polls that had her within a couple points. She has raised a lot of money. Again, still a huge long shot. But I think she probably at this point, I think it's an easier race.

I think she has a better chance against Darlene Graham than she does Ralph Norman, even though Ralph Norman is like Freedom Caucus crazy. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. Yeah, 100%. That this is, we just randomly pass the Senate seat along like it's the Iron Throne to the next person, regardless of how unqualified they are. Yes, I think that, like, once again, hard state, we have been quite burned by summer

polls in South Carolina Senate races before. For sure, for sure. Look, in a very democratic year with a very, very bad candidate and a good, Democratic candidate Annie Andrews, anything is potentially on the table. It'll also be interesting to see, you know, Trump's endorsement going to campaign for her. Does that? Like, Trump has now had a couple endorsements that haven't gone well, including Tuesday night. He lost three on Tuesday night.

Three on Tuesday night. And this will be a pretty high profile if she goes down. This is going to be the real to tell the people who can't, with the Democratic Party, can pass the marshmallow test because the short term, one marshmallow benefit is. is we all get to dunk on Trump next Wednesday if she loses. But then they definitely get the Senate seat. If we can delay gratification to November, we might have a shot at an extra Senate seat.

Yeah. Everyone practiced being like, oh, Trump's endorsement still matters. Donald Trump, his grip on the party is still strong. Everyone just practiced that for a little bit. All right. So one issue that does seem to be panicking Republican campaigns all across the country right now is data centers. Earlier this week, Axios reported that the NRSC,

the Republican Senate campaign arm, sent a memo to AI companies warning them that voters' opinions on data centers may lose them the Ohio Senate race. The memo details how Sherrod Brown has made opposition to data centers a, quote, centerpiece of his campaign and warns the companies that if Republican nominee John Houston loses, quote, data centers will get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice, and they will not go near the next one. The NRC goes on to ask the companies to, quote, fix how Ohioans see data centers, I guess by not having them. Though they don't say that. More broadly, data center backlash has forced elected officials and candidates in both parties to recalibrate their messaging. For example, the Republican in Wisconsin's gubernatorial race, Tom Tiffany, is running ads now calling his opponent Data Center David Crowley. First of all, what do you think of the NRC strategy of pleading with AI companies on this one?

What do you think they're up to there? Well, the text is we're pleading with the AI companies to do a better job of PR for data centers. The subtext is we want the AI companies through the leading the future SuperPact that has $120 million or so in the bank to spend money to help make sure that John Houston wins because if John Houstonad loses, everyone will read that as being a lost I would do entirely. data centers, and it'll be very, very bad for the industry's ability to build data centers around the country. Because then every Republican, every Republican will be anti-data center. So it is just basically a fundraising ask to get these super PACs to come in here and help Houston. And I'm just going to throw out a guess here, but if the Super PACs do come in and help Houston, I wonder if they will go the route of APAC and maybe not run ads trying to make data centers

more appealing and defending data centers, but perhaps run ads against Sherrod Brown on unrelated topics that they think they have a better political argument on because that seems to be what Super PACs do these days. If you were a super PAC representing a very, very unpopular interest group, then yes, that's what you're going to do. Yeah. So here's how Sherrod is talking about data centers and his opponent.

Oh, I was electric grid. Big corporations treat it like a game, gobbling up energy to feed their data centers, no matter how much it raises. our prices. It's the latest way they've rigged the system, costing the average Ohioan thousands of dollars with prices still going up. I'm Sherrod Brown. I'll require the data centers pay the full cost of their electricity, not you. They don't get to play games with your energy bill. That's why I approve this message. What do you think of that ad? What do you

think of this debate in general, which is now popping up in, I mean, we mentioned Ohio, but and Wisconsin, but it's happening in races all across the country, gubernatorial races, House races, Senate races, it's everywhere. Just as an organic plug, it's, and it makes it organic, if I say it, that next week, on Monday, we're going to have a whole special on Data Center ads that Brian Tyler Coen and I did on the cricket YouTube channel, so people should check that out, part of our political experts React series. But this is, you're right, this is happening everywhere.

It's a huge issue in Texas where Gina Inahosa and Greg Abbott are competing to see who could be the most anti-data center. She has an incredible ad that Brian and I watch that is where she asks a AI chatbot about why electricity prices are so high when's happening data centers. Just today in Michigan, Mike Rogers came out for one-year moratorium on data centers. Josh Piro, who had been very pro-data center, is now anti-data center. He has an attack at up today criticizing his opponent for being pro-data center. This is, I think, potentially the signature issue of this selection for several reasons. One, It galvanizes Democrats and Republicans.

The polling in here is two-thirds, don't want a data senator in their community. Two-thirds think the data centers are being built too fast. People are very concerned about the impact of AI. And data centers represent several things in one fell suit for people. Fear about AI, fear about an economy that's leaving them behind, a lack of control with these big tech overlords who are making decisions for their lives. a crooked system where they're all giving money to politicians and to Trump and building ballroom so that they can do whatever they want. And most importantly, affordability because the states or the data center issue is the biggest, Texas and Maine in particular, it's around where they

have the highest electricity and utility prices. And so this, like, you're going to see every politician is going to, it's going to be very hard for defining policy issues to be pro data center, other than Donald Trump, who's out there every day talking about why data centers are great. And it's like just an incredible contrast for Democrats because Mike Rogers can be formatorium. Tom Tiffany can sort of lie about his position. But at the end of the day, they are Trump Republicans and Trump wants to build a data center on every corner in America. Democrats have had a couple different positions on those, different Democratic candidates. There is the moratorium.

We want just a moratorium on data centers, no data centers. And then there is, and I think this is where Tom Tiffany thought he had an opening with David Crowley. And Josh Shapiro, similarly with his executive order that he just signed, sort of has this position, which is no data centers unless all of these conditions are met. And so I think in Pennsylvania now, you can't even get a permit from the state for a data center unless it is approved by the local community. And also they have to pay for all of their own costs, all of the higher. electricity rates. It gets into the weeds here. I went down a rabbit hole on this. You can't, you can't have them pay for all of the potential increases in electricity because it's spread across multiple states, right, which is a problem. But there's a big part of the power generation

and the electricity that they can pay for to hold rate payers, to hold everyone else, harmless on this, right, so that you don't have higher rates because of this. There's also, like, they can do stuff about the water issues and the energy issues. Like, and then you, you You can, as opposed to some states that have been giving tax breaks to data centers, which seems crazy to me now. There's states like Virginia, and there was a big story about Loudoun County where there's more data centers than anywhere else, which basically the data centers have to pay so much in tax revenue to the community where they're in that these communities now, like Loudoun County, are becoming, like, you're getting all these property tax cuts and you're building these great schools and giving teachers raises. And so it's like you can you can set out all these conditions for data centers that could help a community and could still get them built. Or you could say no moratorium, that's it. Do you think that a Democrat with a position like Shapiro, like David Crowley, do you think that's still a politically good position to have and still gives you the contrast you need against Republicans?

I think it is a moratorium is a much cleaner position. And I think the way to think about a moratorium is it is not an argument that will never build data centers again. It's that if you want to build a data center, you have to negotiate with the local community. And I'm cribbing from another organic plug, a very excellent conversation you had with Fas Shakir on offline about politics in general, but you dug deep on data centers because more perfect union, his organization has done a lot of work here. The point of the moratorium is says our view is, our view is. no data center. If you want to build the data center, you're going to have to come to us and you're going to have to meet our demands. And here's what our demands are. And what's important is the local community, this is why the tax and centers are so stupid, is the local communities

have the leverage here. Yes. These companies are desperately, desperately, desperately to trying to get the data. These communities are desperately, desperately, desperately, we need these data centers to continue building their large language models to do their work. And so they need it. And if we don't get data centers, they're fucked. And so to use that to make decisions about where it is, how much they're going to pay, what standards are going to be in place, how are they going to protect the community from, you know, bad, you know, harmful environmental impacts, harmful environmental impacts, the increased costs, all of those things. Because there are, there are going to be, this was Crowley's point when I talked about this, which is not,

it was not delivered the most politically savvy way because of the politics here. But there are communities in Wisconsin, other places that are in rural areas that are looking for an economic engine of some kind. And so they're open to this idea. And what the AI companies were doing before. Because originally I was like, but they don't even create that many jobs. Like you, there's jobs building the data center. And then there's like a couple security guards. You know, like that's exaggeration.

But like they don't create a ton of jobs. But the revenue that they could potentially provide that is like a constant stream of. a fuckload of revenue to a community, like that lets the community do quite a bit of good. Previously, I think the AI companies were taking advantage of these communities. And now the communities have gotten organized. They are pushing back. They're getting support from leaders like Shapiro or to any Ivers or others to be able to go into these negotiations and come out ahead. And then make an honest decision.

Is this the right thing for our community, you know, based on our economic needs, our environmental concerns? but at least they have a fighting chance against these companies instead of just them, just essentially bribing the local council and moving in and getting it done before anyone even has a chance to blink. I totally agree with you though,

and I think it's a really smart way to think about it, which is it is much easier and cleaner and more accessible to say, like, yes, I want a data center moratorium. And then when someone says, oh, no data center built forever, then you're like, no, a moratorium unless a whole bunch of conditions are met. And then you can, you know, or less you negotiate with the local community and everyone's conditions are met in the local community where it's going to have the biggest impact, you know, as opposed to saying like, well, I kind of like data centers, but I need this, that, and the other thing, like just for political communication here, I do think it's easier to just talk about a moratorium. Okay.

Up next, you will hear Lovett's interview with Iowa's Democratic Senate nominee Josh Turrick. Pot Save America is brought to you by Bill. Here's a question. Are you getting rewarded for paying your rent or mortgage right now? If the answer is no, you need to check out Built. Becoming a Built member means earning points on every housing payment no matter where you live. Built points can be redeemed for fights, hotels, Lyftrides, Amazon.com purchases, future housing payments, and more. It's great to use it for gift cards.

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And it'll alert you about exclusive member benefits near your home. Download the built app and join the membership for where you live at joinbilt.com. That's j-o-in-b-l-t.com. Slash crooked. Use our link so they know we sent you. So I'd love to talk to you about your endorsement from Barack Obama, which you announced last month with a video. Let's just start with a clip. Well, again.

Who's got next? I got it. You ready for me, Josh? I'm ready. Let's go. Are we playing horse or what? We're playing Iowa. Tell me how things are going out there.

Everywhere we go, urban areas, rural areas. People are ready for change. Oh, I thought I had. That's Iowa right there, buddy. A lot of people have heard me say this. Of all the things I've done in politics, Iowa was my favorite thing. There was just a magic about regular folks

showing up in gyms. Like this? Like this. And just talking out. How do we move our state forward? How to move the country forward? I want to tell you what? People all across Iowa are saying that they're feeling

that hope, that optimism. for the first time in a long time. That's my sense. That's what I think's going to happen. First of all, just how did that video come together and what was it like actually shooting it on that day? Sure. It came together.

I was in Chicago and I ended up meeting with David Axelrod through a colleague of mine in the Iowa legislature and sat down, was trying to convince him on myself on Iowa that this thing is absolutely winnable. We could be seat number 51 in the U.S. Senate. And when we finished, he texted me and said, look, I'd love to be helpful however I can. I said, I've got this crazy idea where we've been including basketball so much and playing Iowa with people going to the YMCA in Des Moines. And I said, I've got this crazy idea where all I need is President Obama just raise his hand five times, just five shots.

And he said, well, let me see what I can do. And 40 hours later, text me back and said, I think he's interested. I think this thing is going to happen. and came together and incredible. I mean, my political hero, it was a surreal moment as I'm shooting and I'm looking over and I'm like, oh my God, I'm playing horse against, or as we're calling it, Iowa against President Obama.

And honestly, a great shooter, really, really good shooter. I will say, my first reaction when I saw the ad was, wow, I am shocked that he agreed to film an ad, that is about him missing shots and ultimately losing the game. He must really want, like he must really want to do this because he's competitive.

And this is like, oh, they're going to show you winning and you're going to show the times where he's like missing shots. Like that must have, he must have been a little reluctant. Well, we didn't know who was going to win. We played a legit.

No, I'm not suggesting it was a rig game. I'm not suggesting it, but he still obviously was going to be, he was going to be shown missing. Yeah. We came out. Here's what I'll say. He came out.

He missed his, first shot or two, I gave him a letter I. He gave me a letter I because I'm having one of those surreal moments of looking over like, oh my God, I'm playing President Obama. I ended up beating him I-O-W-A-to-I, but he was talking trash to me the entire game. He's like, look, I'm not going to let you win. I said, Mr. President, with all due respect, I'm certainly not going to let you win. I have a reputation here. I'm a two-time gold medals. I'm a four-time Paralympian. Like, I'll never hear the end of it if I let you beat me. You're a pro. He's got to go down. That's right. So, on the other hand, I saw a post recently.

So Trump said that you are lazy. Donald Trump has accused you of being lazy. Now, when you were recuperating from 21 surgeries or being bullied by other kids or training for the Paralympics or being cut six times and then winning multiple gold medals or dragging your own wheelchair up the stairs to canvas for votes, do you ever stop to think about how much further you could go in life if you weren't such a lazy piece of shit? I found that one fascinating because so much of my story is overcoming adversity. As you said, grew up in a working class family, working class community where we went to the goodwill for

clothes, shared clothes, 21 surgeries by the age of 12. I had my first surgery at one day old. And then, as you said, I mean, I was cut six straight years from the national team. I kept coming back year after year after year saying, eventually I'm going to get good enough. You can ask any one of my national team, teammates, I was absolutely one of the hardest workers. And to win, I represent the Reddest district that's represented by a Democrat in the Iowa legislature. The two communities I represent, Trump won Carter Lake by 18 points and won council bless by 10 points. I was able to win by 6%, 6%. And I went out every single day, rain or shine, hot or cold, dragging my wheelchair upstairs to have conversations with independence and Republicans, because the math just didn't work any other way.

And so I almost got a chuckle out of saying, you're lazy. It's like, if nothing else, I'm an unbelievably hard worker. And truthfully, I'm really proud of my time in the Iowa legislature. When I first joined the legislature, I was told outright, you'll never get a subcommittee, you'll never get a committee, you'll certainly never get anything signed by the governor. And I said, I refuse. I'm the first permanently physically disabled member of the Iowa legislature. I'm like, you can teach you a monkey to come up here and push the red button over and over.

I've got to get stuff done. And so I did the hard work behind the scenes that nobody ever hear about, building relationships, finding stretch bail fellows where we can disagree on 90% of policy, but we're going to agree on this one thing that's going to really help people. And I was able to be one of the most effective and one of the most bipartisan members of the Iowa legislature. I think that's what people want. Yeah, you recently put out an ad talking about your bipartisan record, including your willingness

to work with Trump if you're elected to the Senate. I just want to understand the voters you're trying to reach. And like, when I see that at, I think, oh, there's a hump you're trying to get people over. There's a bunch of people out there that may be dissatisfied with the state of things in Iowa in the country, but they're a little bit uncomfortable with the idea of voting for a Democrat. And I'm just curious what you're trying to say to those people and what it's like being out talking to those kinds of voters. I believe to my core that more than Republican versus Democrat, I think particularly in Iowa, I think what people want is they want a representative that is going to do the hard work behind the scenes.

That what they want is they want a representative that is going to work to solve people's problems through policy, but through bipartisan policy. And so what I want them to understand about me is I'm not an overt tribalist. I'm a common sense prairie populist. So my political North Star is always what's best for Iowa, what's best for Iowans, what's best for the middle class, what is best for our workers. And I think we've got to get back to this country over party mentality. And so I say, I agree with President Trump that we shouldn't have tax on tips or overtime or that we need to drive private equity out of housing, fight like hell where and when we need to, but also be willing to do the work behind the scenes to provide solutions to people's problems

because I think that's what I want to demand. And so I think that's the purpose of that. So you recently stopped by the Iowa Speedway to talk to voters. Part of what politics is today is the fight on the ground to break through the assumptions people have based on what they're seeing on Fox News, based on what they're seeing on social media, including just getting people to kind of not adopt the tone of what politics has on the internet. And I'm just curious what it's like being on the trail in Iowa, in red places at a NASCAR event where there's going to be a lot of people that are not just independents or moderates or maybe Republicans who are unhappy with Trump, but true diehards for Trump. And if you've had any interesting conversations with some of those people on the campaign trail.

It's been great. My favorite thing about doing this is being, I love people. I love being able to get out there, talk to people, hear their stories, hear what they're going through. and then when you're willing to listen to people is when you can actually think about, well, here's a solution that we could provide to them through policy. I love being able to get all over the state, too, a state that I was born in, raised in. We've got 99 counties. It's a beautiful state.

Really, really good people. There truly is an Iowa nice. I've been all over the country, all over the world. There is a uniqueness to the people of Iowa. But I think that modern politics, the coin of the realm now, is meeting. people about politics in an apolitical fashion. So that's why the Obama video, we include so much basketball, bring them in with the basketball, then talk to him about politics. I did Ragbri. The Des Moines Register's great annual bike ride across Iowa. I did day one. I did 60 miles, the hottest day,

the hillyest day, the humidest day. But there was 40,000 riders out there, being able to talk to people, engage with them. And the same with NASCAR. So part of this for me, is I think that a mistake that too many Democrats have made over the last decade in my state is they have thought about this math problem incorrectly. They've thought we've just got to maximize turnout in the urban areas, Polk County, Johnson County. But ultimately, we're a rural state. And so you've got to be willing to go into the Lionsden. You've got to be willing to go into all 99 counties, every one of these mid-sized small communities, and go in and talk to them. And what I've learned representing a really red district is you won't win every single one of them over, but you will win enough to trim the margins.

And every one of those Republicans that we went over is a double vote. One out of her column and one of my column. But what's it? I'm really actually, okay, those are the people you're getting. And those are the people you want to get to win this race. But, you know, Iowa is a state that sent Tom Harkin to the Senate for 30 years. Barack Obama won it twice, it then shifted to the right and swung very hard to Trump, right? Like, what are you hearing from the people, like, in terms of the long road of kind of getting

people to see either Democrats in a different way or politics in a different way, I'm curious about what those conversations are like with the people you're not going to get, right? Like, you're talking to people, you're not winning them all over. What are those conversations like? What are they missing, right? You're running against somebody that voted to cut health care in Iowa to fund the war in Iran. It's deeply unpopular.

But there are people that are going to be upset about that, but still be unable to vote for you. And I'm curious what that is like. I've had a handful of conversations even with some Republicans when I was on Ragbri, and they said, you know, you don't have my vote, but I've got a whole lot of respect for you. And certainly I appreciate that. But what I'll tell you is, regardless of where I am in the state of Iowa, urban areas, rural areas, I keep hearing the exact same story, which is, Iowans are struggling just to keep food on the table, a roof above their head, pay their electric bill, and now with this war in Iran, be able to put gas in their tank. I think that the couple of things. Iowa is, we basically hit the bottom.

We're one of three states already seeing our economy contract. We're basically dead last for every health care metric. Just since Ashley Henson's been elected, 842 health care entities have closed in Iowa. And she's voting for cuts to health care. I mean, 110,000 Iowans are going to lose their health care outright because her votes. 119,000 Iowans seeing their health care premiums double or triple or horror stories like I've heard, quadruple. We're a state that we were basically the gold standard in public education. We've precipitously dropped down from the gold standard.

now down to the bottom half because of giving private schools public money. We've got a water quality crisis that's not being addressed. We've got a cancer crisis. We're basically the only state with a growing cancer rate, second highest rates behind Kentucky. And now we lead the nation in farm foreclosures, largely driven by the tariffs. But also, I think this war in Iran, which Ashley Henson has voted in favor of continuing six times, four times in favor of the tariffs. It is disproportionately hurt Iowa. We've lost three Iowans in the conflict, and then you're looking at this driving up fuel cost,

fertilizer cost, and diesel costs, which is disproportionately hurting the farm communities. This is a state that is really hurting that is ready for change. Everywhere that we're going, people are saying to me, this is not the Iowa I know, this is not the state that I grew up in. We need change both at the state level and the federal level. And I think that a common sense prairie populace like myself is where there's, willing to park their votes. But it's a state that's ready for change. So your opponent, yes, votes for the big beautiful bill, votes to send more money to the Pentagon, additional

funding for the war in Iran. Also really embraced and just, a lot of Republicans kind of held their nose and thought Doge was kind of okay. They were unsure where to, she's a huge fan of Doge, part of the Doge caucus. Like, it seems like there's, that just seems like bad politics to me, kind of unabashedly so. Is it just about getting Elon Musk to drop money in the state? Is she like, what is the, what is your argument against Ashley Hinson? And why is it that this is somebody running for the Senate in Iowa who seems to be not really even worried about her past positions in the race? It's confusing. She comes out when she announces that she's going to run for the U.S. Senate. She says, I want to be Donald Trump's best ally in the U.S. Senate.

Says nothing about Iowa, nothing about the middle class, a state that is hurting farm economy that's collapsing, cancer rates, et cetera. Yeah, she has voted for cuts to health care, to food assistance, just to give tax breaks to billionaires. It's been a level of essentially naked corruption with her. She has now up to 10 times more wealthy than when she entered Congress, just six years. ago, taking $50,000 of taxpayer money to give herself a luxury DC apartment. I think the calculus was she looks at a state that Trump carries by 12 points. And she says, all I need to do is just get Trump voters to turn out and vote for me. And I'm just going to have a cakewalk to the United States Senate. But this is a fundamentally different state. And I don't think she

was prepared for a common sense prairie populace like myself with proven results of being able to win over independence and moderate Republicans. And we're getting big turnouts, particularly in the rural areas of, you know, 30% of Iowa voters are independents. And so these are the kingmakers. But we're also getting a lot of card-carrying Republicans that have said, voted for Trump, voted for Ernst, voted for Grassley, even voted for Henson. And enough's enough.

We need change. We need change at the state level and the federal level. And I think this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity that we've gotten Iowa to not just change the state. In Trump's first midterm in Iowa, we won three of the four congressional races. We've got an amazing opportunity here to change the country just in Iowa. And I think we're going to come November, we're going to do something really special. It seems like part of what the Republicans are counting on is that not only is this a Trump state,

but that the Democratic brand is so tarnished that they can overwhelm the ways in which you are unique as a candidate to try to kind of ride on the idea that like, oh, people just generally find Democrats, I don't know, annoying, whatever it might be. How much is just being a Democrat a hindrance to you? And what would you like the Democratic, like, if you asked Iowans or the people you're trying to reach, what does the Democratic Party mean to you? What would you like it to be in people's minds? The reason why I'm a Democrat and what the Democratic Party means to me is because I think at its essence, it's fighting for the little guy. And so I'm always reminded of a quote from JFK where it's, you know, why do you align politically the way that you do?

Because I believe in looking forward, not back, because they care about people's wages, their jobs, their health care, their schools, their civil rights. I think that's the essence of why I'm a Democrat. And I think that at our best, that's really who we are and what we stand for. I think that going forward, especially if we're going to win in prairie states like Iowa, it has to be really clear that we are the party of the people, party of the middle class, party of the workers. That's why I define myself as a common sense prairie populist. And that's certainly the way forward.

We can't be the lesser of two evils. We can't just be a corporate version. We've got to go out there with really, really clear ideas. And the other thing that I say, I am just absolutely laser focused on cost corruption kitchen table issues. That's what this election's about. the issues that apply to 3.2 million Iowans. So that's a livable wage, affordable housing, affordable health care, affordable pharmaceuticals, drinkable water, addressing the cancer rates, functioning public schools, infrastructure, and addressing corruption. And that's a corruption in terms of the need for campaign finance reform.

But that's also going out there and talking about the need for ethics reforms, term limits, banning members of Congress from owning and trading stocks because people like my opponent, Ashley Henson, shouldn't be going up to D.C. and in six years becoming 10 times more wealthy. Or putting a provision in place where I believe that every single member of Congress should be forced to have at least one annual town hall because I believe that members of Congress should be accountable to their constituents, to the people, not just to the billionaires, the large corporations, the donors, and the lobbyist. That's what I'm focused on.

And that message is clearly resonating with Iowans. How much money is coming in to the state from outside groups, Like how much you worried about that? And what are you like sort of what are you what are what what can people listening do to kind of help right now? If they want to see us be able to win this U.S. Senate race, if they care about the country, they care about addressing corruption. If they want to have somebody that's going to be in there fighting for the people, not just for the billionaires and large corporations, certainly join us. Go to Turek4.I.I.O.com in chip in a few dollars. because I'm not taking any corporate PAC money in this.

Yeah, Ashley Henson, she's sitting on already $50 million between all the PACs and the Super PAC money. The state's being flooded with it because we've got, you know, congressional races and attorney general race that's going to be a competitive, a competitive gubernatorial race and this Senate race. And it's funny, I was just with my parents the other day and my mom gave me a stack of mailers that she had received. and it's just out of state, super PAC, super PAC, super PAC. So the money is there, but this is a real chance for us to win this and be able to change the state and change the country and have a voice in the United States Senate from Iowa like what we had for so long. For 30 years, we had Senator Tom Harkin, my political hero, the father of the American with Disabilities Act. And I believe that this is our opportunity to have someone in the U.S. Senate that's going to be fighting for the people, fighting for Iowa. Iowa and Iowans in fighting for social and economic justice. And these social safety nets have allowed so many of us to be successful, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And not just like what Ashley Hinson has done, just enriched herself and just looked out for the haves, for the billionaires and the large corporations. That's the opportunity that we've got this year in Iowa.

So I married a Minnesotan. And so I have married into the best state fair in the country. But I would love to hear why the Iowa State Fair is second best. The Iowa State Fair is incredible. And have you been to be? to the Iowa State Fair? No, I've only been to the Minnesota State Fair. Okay, well, then you've got to come to ours before you make a final determination. But I know the people in Minnesota will say, well, we get a few more people in the door than Iowa,

so ours is better. Iowa State Fair is absolutely amazing. You've got animals from every part of the state, so many unique people, unbelievable amounts of crazy food. I mean, I was eating pickled pizza and deep-fried Oreos. I mean, hot dogs, corn dogs.

I had a corn dog with peanut butter and jelly on it, which honestly, pretty decent. And then you've got all these games and just people from all over the state. And it is, it's a beauty and a great energy. I did my Iowa soapbox there. And look, there were some people there with signs that were clearly not in favor of me, but they were respectful. And afterwards, I heard from a lot of people who said, look, Josh, I'm an independent. I didn't think I was going to vote for you.

But I like what you said. I like who you are. I like what you stand for. You got my vote coming November. Here are some of the current items that you can get at the Iowa State Fair. You can get the, these are all on a stick. Bacon, cheeseburger corn dog, hot chito mozzarella corn dog, rattlesnake corn dog, jumbo plumber footlong corn hot dog.

Dilly dog. What's a dilly dog? I don't know what a dilly dog is. Chicken, bacon, ranch waffle on a stick. Star Spangled swine. Why not? That's pork belly with an apple, chipotle rub. bacon, pecan pie on a stick. And finally, and this is, I found mystifying, something called

yummy thing on a stick. No other information provided. Are you aware of what the yummy thing is and what the thing we'd be eating would be? I am not, but I will certainly be back there again a handful of times. And so I will definitely try the yummy thing on a stick. But yeah, anything on a stick and anything that can be deep fried, we've got it there at the Iowa State Fair. It really is. It's just absolutely incredible. I've loved it. And I was also able to clean them out of a few stuffed animals that I ended up given to my wife

with the shooting games, which I was proud of. Coming like a ringer. I will say a little disappointing to see that assay bowls and capraise salad on a stick made it onto the venue. I feel like the socialist must be stopped. But shrimp corn dog was listed as a health food, which I think is actually kind of makes me, that makes me feel America's going to be okay.

Yeah. I did want to ask, you talked about being bullied as a kid. Have any of the people that, to the point where you almost, or you did leave school, or you almost left school? Yeah, in sixth grade,

I left public school and went to a small private school that my aunt was running. It only had a handful of kids in there, eight, nine kids. And then I went back and finished public school. I went back for high school. Have you ever heard from any of the kids that bullied you?

Have you ever seen them again now that you've kind of risen? I've run into a handful of them. Look, when it's tough growing up disabled. It's tough growing up in the kind of economic situation that I grew up in. I have run into a few of them. I don't hold it against them. You know, you're young, your kid. We all make mistakes when we're that young.

They were probably going through a lot. themselves. But I will say this. I certainly would never want to go through again what I went through. I mean, the 21 surgeries by the age of 12. I spent a lot of time up at Shriners Hospital by myself, you know, full body cast. You can imagine a full body cast as a kid in the summer heat in Iowa with the humidity. And we didn't have air conditioning through the whole house. So you're taking a hanger just to try to it yourself. So I went through some really, really tough times. but what I believe is those that come out of that sort of circumstance, I believe that it creates a mental strength and a character that can't be broken.

And I think it has uniquely prepared me well for what this is. I said people all time, they'll say, Josh, thanks for running, thanks for what you're doing, I know how hard this is. And I say, this is really, really difficult. The life of hard things, including winning gold medals. This is harder than winning gold medals. But I say, this is not the hardest thing that I've gone through. And the thing for me is because I have gone through the level of economic struggle and health care struggle, I have a different level of empathy and a different level of fight.

And I think I really do believe to my core that is what is missing in D.C. We've got 73 millionaires in D.C. A lot of people that have come from privilege. You don't have a lot of people that have had to worry about missing a meal, keeping a roof above their head or health care struggles. You know, like, oh, where's my direct care worker going to come from? Medicaid wait list, things like that. And this is what we're missing. And I know I have that fight, that fight for the people because I've gone through that.

I've experienced that same struggle myself. Do you think having spina bifida puts you at an unfair disadvantage for dealing with spineless politicians? I've never heard that one before. It's a new one. You know, I'll say this, that there has been very little representation from the disabled population at every level of government. That's at the local, the state. and certainly at the federal. There are very few with congenital disabilities.

You can imagine if you're blind or deaf, there's a communication barrier that's nearly impossible to overcome. Same with intellectual disabilities. So you're left with a small subset of individuals with physical disabilities. And I'm not up there to represent just the disabled population, but I do believe that my background and experience

of everything that I've gone through makes me a much better legislator, and I think that's what's sorely missing in D.C. And I'm ready to go up there and fight for the people. The people of Iowa and Iowans because everywhere I'm going, people are hurting and they're struggling. And I've felt that struggle. I've felt that pain. And we shouldn't be living in the richest country on earth.

And this unbelievable level of wealth divide that we're experiencing right now where billionaires and people like Elon Musk and the levels of what they're paying on their taxes and things like Social Security, et cetera. There's a whole lot that we can do. Josh Durek, thanks so much for your time. Good to talk to you. Thanks for having me. Good luck. I appreciate it. We've got to go to Turkforaiowa.com.

Help us out. We really do. We've got a once in a generation here opportunity to change the state and change the country. And with everyone's help, we're going to be able to do something really special come November. Thanks to Josh Turk for coming on. Dan will be back on Sunday. You're going to talk to Danielle Butterfield, who's the executive director of Priorities USA. That's the big Democratic Superpack.

And I think you're going to talk to her all about how, Democrats can get their message out to a lot of voters who just don't pay that close attention to politics. Yeah, Danielle's one of the smartest strategists in our party, and they have done deep research on how swing voters, the voters we need most, are actually getting their information and she has a lot of really interesting thoughts about how to get them, get the message to them, and how we can begin to win the fight in the 2028 election right now. I'm really looking forward to that conversation. Everyone check it out and have a good weekend. Bye everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.

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