Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Trump’s Dumb Midterms Strategy and Platner’s Sexting Scandal

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov take a high-level look at the 2026 landscape as Republicans continue centering their messaging almost entirely around Donald Trump. Scott and Jessica examine whether the GOP has developed any coherent platform beyond Trump himself — and whether voters may finally be tiring of the constant culture-war politics and personal attacks. And, as California heads into a major statewide primary election featuring hotly contested races for Gavin Newsom’s successor governor, and for Los Angeles mayor — where former reality star Spencer Pratt has had a surprisingly high appeal with voters. Meanwhile, Graham Platner — the presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate from Maine, who’ll be vying to beat Susan Collins this November— faces more scrutiny, after reports surfaced that he sent explicit texts to other women early in his marriage. Scott and Jessica debate whether political scandals still matter in modern campaigns — or whether voters are more willing than ever to write off “purity tests.” They also unpack growing tension between Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance amid reports Trump privately doubts Vance’s political strength and future as a MAGA successor. Does Marco Rubio really have what it takes to inherit the MAGA movement? And finally, Bernie Sanders goes viral for giving dating advice to young people in the age of screens and social media. For ad-free episodes, exclusive livestreams, and to connect with Scott, Jessica, and the Raging Moderates community, join us at ProfG+ on Substack: https://ragingmoderates.profgmedia.com/ Get The Monday Rage newsletter: https://profgmedia.com/s/monday-rage/ Follow Raging Moderates on IG, Tiktok, and Facebook: https://www.instagram.com/ragingmoderatespod/ https://www.tiktok.com/@ragingmoderates https://www.facebook.com/ragingmoderates Follow Jessica Tarlov on Instagram, Substack, and Bluesky: https://instagram.com/jessicatarlov https://substack.com/@jessietarlov https://bsky.app/profile/jessicatarlov.bsky.social Follow Scott on Instagram, Substack, and Bluesky: https://instagram.com/profgalloway https://substack.com/@profgalloway https://bsky.app/profile/profgalloway.com Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RagingModerates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from Norwegian Cruise Line. A cruise with Norwegian is a vacation you'll never forget, with an onboard experience that makes it easy for the whole family to settle into their own version of vacation. Because on a cruise with Norwegian, choice comes naturally for the whole family, and destinations feel just as effortless. Wander beautiful cities and take in stunning natural scenery. Norwegian Cruise Line.

It's different out here. Visit NCL.com, call your travel advisor, or 1-888-NCL Cruise. Norwegian Cruise Line, Chips Registry, the Bahamas, and USA. Recommendations can't be amazing. I mean, maybe someone recommended that TV show you've been obsessed with lately. But when it comes to home projects, it's different. If you don't like a show, you might lose a few minutes. If you hire a friend of a friend of a friend to fix a leaky ceiling,

you could end up with a flooded kitchen. Maybe I know a guy just isn't enough for your home. That's why Thumbtack works so well. They'll match you with a top-rated local pro, and you can see photos of past work, credentials, and reviews all right in the app. For your next home project, try Thumbtack. Hire the Right Pro today. Support for this show comes from Deal. Let's be honest, most HR platforms are stitched together. That's why AI barely helps.

Deals different. It's a single AI native system for HR, IT, and payroll built from the ground up. That's why AI inside deal can actually run real work, onboarding, compliance, payroll, approvals, all under your rules, whether you're five people or 50,000. Deal scales with you. See it in action at deal.com slash audio. That's D-E-E-E-L.com slash audio. Welcome, Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarleth.

On Wednesday at 2, make sure to tune into our new weekly substack live show, Raging Perspective. Jesse and Friend of the Pot and independent journalist Aaron Parnas will break down the biggest political stories of the week and take your questions live. It all happens at 2 p.m. Eastern this week. You can subscribe now at ragingmoderates. dot profgmedia.com. Again, that's ragingmoderates.com. And while you're at it, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. It's free. It helps us with the algorithm and it's the easiest way to keep up with the show. All right, let's get into it. Jess, we're now just six months out from the midterm elections and it feels like a good time for high. level check-in on where things stand. One thing that jumps out is that Republicans don't seem to have much of a message beyond Trump himself. And one of Trump's favorite themes lately has been trying to brand Democrats as, wait for it, stupid. Here he is speaking over the weekend.

I take the word dumb, take the B off because most people don't know that, you know, dumb ends with the B, but most people don't know. And all I do is I switch the E with the U. And you have a Democrat. And I came up with that by watching Hakeem Jeffreys because he's a dumb person. And I said, he's really dumb. I said, wait a man, he's a Democrat. So I think it works. I don't know that it's going to be as good as Pocahontas or fake news or so many of the others that we've come up with. But I mean, I'm going to just call them Democrats because I don't understand how they can be so stupid. I have out of trust. Can you imagine listening to that and thinking like, that's the guy, right? Like, this is the guy. I should have the nuclear codes. It's got the finger on the pulse

of what's going on in my life. Like, I just filed for personal bankruptcy, but this guy is telling me that nobody knows that there's a B in the word dumb. I have never full... I intellectually understand the poll of Donald Trump.

I have come to terms with 2016, like 2024. Like, I get it. I've self-flagellated. You know, I've done all the things the Democrat is supposed to do, but I still, when you're listening to him, freestyle, and he's so proud of himself.

And he's like, someone pat me on the back and the interviewer who is his daughter-in-law has to just have that, like, fake-caped smile where she's just like, are you really doing this now? Like, we're in a war with Iran. You know, gas is 450 and you're like, I switched to the U and the E or whatever he was saying. And like, I was just going to call him Democrats, which, by the way, is not new. I hate to break it to you also. He did not come up with that. I've been people who call me a Democrat for years now. TDS, Democrat, Lib Tard. Like, it's all been out there, bro.

You know, some of it is, unfortunately, I think the American people have responded to some of this coarseness and some of this name-calling. And, you know, we talk about how just stupid and childish at all is. And it's like, well, okay, then the American public has gotten increasingly stupid and childish because it seems to work.

This brand of, I think America was so sick of this overly politically correct, starch, inauthentic, coming out of Washington, that they were very receptive to a guy who seemed to be authentic, even if his authenticity was just being so coarse and weird and stupid and childlike. You know, this is a guy that compares the Obamas to apes, makes, you know, says quiet piggy to women. And I hate to say it, but, okay, he's president of the United States. So you would have to argue that at some level it was working. So I just hope that Americans gag on this nonsense that they say, okay, let's talk about,

Let's talk about programs and policies that help Americans and not get our sensors tickled on Twitter when they come up with names. But so far, I would argue that the name calling has worked. Your thoughts? Well, yes, obviously in the past. But the name calling always had to be synced up with, frankly, an economy that was working at least decently well. Right. Or an argument that you could make the economy work better for you. The problem right now is that you have.

these two roads colliding. Like he sounds like that and he's coarse and sounds dumb with a bee and the economy isn't working and he personally trashed it. Right. He was handed something that he could just let hum along and he decided to do Liberation Day and now the war with Iran and personally enrich himself and his family to the point that the average American is actually aware of the fact that they're running a criminal enterprise out of the White House. And so I would say that it is not working today. Certainly if you look at any of the polls from its personal approval rating to the fact that Democrats now are very safely at, you know, plus six, plus eight, sometimes even over plus 10 on the generic ballot. The issue remains.

And I don't know if you have come up with something since the last time that we spoke about this is that there's no coherent message, certainly on the part of the Republicans. I want them to keep Kevin Hassett on TV all the time. And so when you say that American consumers are really down in the dumps, what it is is Democrats are in the dumps. Republicans have actually stayed around 80 percent on that survey all the way through. Just keep running that over and over as he tells you how good you have it and how the economy is actually working well. But the Democrats have still yet to come out there with our coherent message beyond like we're going to undo whatever it is that he did. And we want you to have, you know, health care and good schools and these kind of pie in the sky. Of course everyone wants that. That's the American dream.

but what are the tangibles, right? Like, what are the actual policies where you say, I'm going to cut this amount of red tape and build this amount of houses? The Obamacare subsidies aren't enough. We're doing Medicare for all, right? This is how we're going to get that enacted. Like, give it to us still.

Yeah, the word I keep toying with is renewal, renewing the middle class, renewing the alliances between us and our allies overseas, renewing the relationship or the alliance between men and women, I like that word, and there is an interesting play on Trump when he said put America or America first. Like you could say Americans first. So I think there is some interesting messaging or some points that they could better exploit rather than just being indignant all the time and saying, can you believe he said that?

I almost called you over the weekend because I was very curious to get your take on the upcoming elections in California. As voters headed the polls tomorrow for the statewide primary. The key races include governor, attorney general, every state Senate and assembly seat, a slate of house races. And the one race that seems to have captured the media's attention, the Los Angeles mayoral contest. Curious what your thoughts are, you look at the polls, but do you have any predictions for us? Well, first and foremost, when you feel like calling, just call. I would love it. There you go.

You have kids. You're busy. I'm in Chicago at the Soho House here. I got nothing going on, literally. Well, you're on a tour and you have like 90,000 podcasts today. But yes, you were not changing a diaper, which I was doing, which would have made me even more excited to talk to you. So Spencer Pratt was here at Fox last week and did a few shows. And he didn't do a ton of media really until the last few weeks was kind of like head in the sand.

And then he's poked it up. In general, the reaction was that he was, you know, pretty charming. And then he's talking about issues that folks care about. I mean, that's how he's gotten some of these counterculture endorsements, right, that you wouldn't expect to be coming in. The problem is, I think, you know, when it comes down to it, he still makes comments like Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom should be in jail. And I think that that is hard for a left-leaning city to stomach even as bad as it is.

That race is very jammed up, right? they're all kind of getting like 23 to 27%. My guess would be that Pratt and Bass go to a runoff. And then, you know, I really hope that she takes advice from somebody else than she already has in our circle. Maybe that should be us since we talked about the importance of bringing Spencer Pratt into the fold and that you could kind of inoculate him on some of these issues if you said, I'm going to make him deputy mayor for the rebuild.

Or like, I want Spencer Pratt on. our committee to end homelessness and let him flip some tables, right? Like let him piss some people off, you know, who work in NGO world, who have been cashing enormous checks. And, you know, when she boasts about reducing the homeless population by 17 percent, that does not feel good enough to people. They don't, you know, think it's going to be 100 percent. But if you're not over 50 percent or something like that, and I know it was only a few years,

but that's not enough to make people think that you're really competent and good at that. So my expectation is Bass and Pratt to the runoff. On the governor's race, Bacera seems to have really gotten himself into good position. I saw though John Hamm narrated a Tom Steyer ad, which was interesting. It was the kind of first big celebrity thing that I saw in it. And Steve Hilton is still hanging. And that's also bunched up. Sometimes Hilton's on top.

More often than not, I've seen Bacera on top by a little. It will be interesting, though, if Hilton doesn't even make it. to the runoff in their jungle primary system, and it's Becerra versus Steyer. I don't know. Like, Tom Steyer is saying all the right things for a lot of lefties, but he's also spent, what, like $200 million? It feels like Meg Whitman again. I don't just remember that race. Yeah, I do remember that race, but she had no John Hamm. So I don't know. I feel pretty confident saying that Becerra will make it, and then I think it's Hilton and Steyer jockeying around. And I wish, frankly, that people had consolidated.

This is always the case. You know, if you're getting 8, 9 percent, why wouldn't you toss support to somebody else? Maybe try to get a Matt Mayhan, you know, up more in the conversation, someone who's achieved a lot in San Jose, especially on the things that people want to see. So what are you in L.A.? What was the vibe? Oh, it's great. We did, you know, I love the vibe in L.A., but granted, I, you know, my vibe is a bubble there. No, like political vibe, not like how was the salad at Beverly Hills?

Yeah, that's right. The steak tacos at the pool are just fine. Look, I've been shocked at the amount of just rage. People are, it reminds me a little bit. It feels like a minor or kind of a D-League facsimile of 2024, where you have the incumbent Harris, or in this case, Bass, perceived as just incompetent. And in Los Angeles, people are outraged. They're like, I don't care if he owns crystals.

I don't care if he said 9-11 was an inside job. I want just chaos. I want the most different thing from what is currently at work here. People in Los Angeles have just had it. And I would describe the mayoral race as Sophie's choice. I mean, you hear people like, yeah, this is not my, this is not my type. choice, but he's angry and unafraid, and I know he's going to do things differently, so I'm with Spencer Pratt. And these are not, you know, these are reasonable people.

At the same time, I think a lot of people are like, okay, I mean, at what point do we start deciding that people who have this type of background are disqualified from running, you know, a city that has an economy larger than Israel's or larger than New Zealand or larger than Greece? Like, do we really want another reality TV star? So I was shocked. I thought, you would have thought from an outside vantage point that this guy would have no chance. But similar to Trump, he's very good at social media. He's got this certain unafraid anger about him that really resonates with people.

And, you know, I've just been, and I was shocked how many would I, what I would have thought was a group of people that would just disqualify him or just, just like, we need to just, like you said, flip the table upside down. The question I would have for you is you suggested that they co-opt him. Are you suggesting that Mayor Bass say that if she wins, she's going to point him head of X, Y, Z program, or that she do that if she's reelected? Oh, I think she should do it like today. I mean, Cabinet of Rivals is something that has historically appealed. I mean, our politics is so divided at this point that it's.

becomes very difficult. You know, it's basically, if you're a Democrat, you might only consider, like, having a Mitt Romney or a Don Bacon or someone like that that comes into your fold. But why wouldn't you at least acknowledge in a real way that the guy has a point, right? Like, you can read the polls, right? 23 to 27 percent of Angelinos are telling you that they're interested in what he's selling. and she just continues to look like she's living on another planet by dismissing him as someone without experience. People are saying, well, you had a ton of experience and it hasn't gotten us where we want to go at all. So why wouldn't you try everything? And why would it be that bad, right? You can inoculate some of what he's going to do because he has to work within a system, right? You can say you

work with these people that are part of my team or I'm interested in what you have to say, who's someone that you think would be helpful, you know, in the homelessness space or in the rebuild, like Rick Caruso's backing the guy. Rick Caruso, who arguably should have been the choice for mayor the first time around, the amount of people that I know who live there, my sister lives there, basically my godmother, she thinks that Spencer Pratt is going to be the mayor. These were folks who are now saying, we should have voted for Rick Caruso. We would have been in a lot less trouble at this point. And certainly what happened with the fires, the guy knew how to protect his history. doors, right, when the virus came. And you have Recruso backing him. You have smart people

that I think have weighed the implications of this. So why wouldn't you extend an olive branch? Because that also might, there's a chance, I think it's an outside chance, that Nithia Rahman, the councilwoman, the DSA councilwoman, could be in the mix. She's not, she's a point or two behind, right? Because people are thinking, I don't like Karen Bass. I don't want to vote for Spencer Pratt, like he likes Alex Jones too much for me. What about the other person that's on the ballot that at least is part of the same political party and shares my, you know, quote-unquote, liberal values? So I don't know why she wouldn't do that. Don't you think it would be smart? Well, just in terms of positioning, I think if she, I mean, I'd love to be the Pratt campaign.

If she comes out and announces that she's going to appoint Spencer Pratt. If I were his campaign, I basically say, we very much appreciate the endorsement. of our campaign and our ideas. And by the way, we're going to point sheet apps of completely nothing because you've been an incompetent. I would love to run that ad. In addition, I think the deal, if you will, is her bass to go to Nithia and say, I'll make you deputy mayor just drop out and endorse me. I mean, this is when the deal making is supposed to happen. Well, I think before this, but they're too dumb. Yeah, you're probably right. Well, you're right. It's tomorrow, isn't it? Never mind. Yeah, you're right. It's a little bit late. I don't, I would

not advise her to to in any way add any legitimate. I think your idea that I'm going to name the more Trumpy disruptor person fine. I get it. I would absolutely not in any way lend credibility to Pratt. I would try and position him as like, listen, we have issues. We've made mistakes. We're learning. But this guy, I understand you're angry, but don't, don't, you know, don't shoot yourself my foot here. I mean, this is not someone who's like on the cusp of being. in people's good graces. This is someone who they think has been abysmal at the job. Their point.

And I started talking about this weeks ago. You know, it's too late now, right? Like people are going to the polls. But I do think that she was overly cocky and dismissive of someone that was resonant with the people who you need to support you. And have we seen this movie before? We all live in Donald Trump's America now. Mm-hmm.

Right? Like he's won the election twice. and we talked about what a moron he was. No one could take this seriously. He's racist. He's bigoted. You know, he goes bankrupt every 20 minutes. And people saw something in him that you didn't.

I don't know. It just feels like so arrogant. I guess to relegate someone into this bucket where I think, at least in terms of his ability to do the job, the top job, I actually think he should be. I don't see any reason why Spencer Pratt would be a good man. in terms of his background or his competencies. And I think comments he's made, like we talked about with Alex Jones, are just qualifying of any human being. But the voters are the ones who are in charge.

That's how democracy works. And it's a good thing that we have it. Because sometimes the outcomes are really fantastic. And you get a, you know, a president like Barack Obama, right? Because people in Iowa told us that something was going on before we knew about it nationwide. So, I don't know. She should have done more to speak to people's concerns. And I think that does include.

making the tent a little bit wider so that you take on some of Spencer Pratt's ideas. Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-3 at O-D-O-D-O-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-S. Support for this show comes from O-Doo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing O-Doo. It's the only business software you'll ever need.

It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-free at O-D-O-O-O-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-com. AI is moving fast across the enterprise. But without visibility, it's a lot of visibility, it's a lot of the world.

just chaos, different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways. ServiceNow turns that chaos into control. With the AI control tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place, what it's doing, what it's done, and what it's about to do. So you stay in control. To put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. Welcome back. Let's head to the other coast where Maine Democratic Center frontrunner, Graham Platner is facing scrutiny after reports that his wife discovered sexually explicit texts to exchange with multiple women early in their marriage and quietly disclosed them to his campaign. Platner, alongside his wife, Amy, pushed back, calling the coverage gossip.

It's no surprise to me that the establishment media outlets are just going to run gossip instead of wanting to talk about the things that actually matter in this race, which are the material realities that the Mainers are working with. Amy and I have a very loving and very happy marriage. They would very much like to try to rip that apart. We're going to come after us in every awful way that they possibly can. And we're just going to keep talking about the fact that the hospitals are closing, the fact that child care facilities are closing,

the fact that teachers and nurses aren't paid enough, and the fact that everybody down here continues to work harder and longer and get less. But the stories are true, right, about the texts? No, no, this is the amazing part. The Wall Street Journal in New York Times ran stories without any evidence besides the gossip from a former staffer. I'm sorry. That's frankly, journalistic malpractice. So, well, the story is true.

The texts are real. And they had to clarify that. I get it. It was a very good juxtaposition between, like, they want to pit us against each other, but I'm going to keep hammering the issues. And that has worked for him so far. Like that's got him through like a Nazi tattoo situation, right? Because Mainers are like, okay, he's a veteran with PTSD.

He posts a lot online. Some of it he's apologized for. Some of it he lied about. And then eventually, you know, got the thing covered up, et cetera. But like we like his message on health care, corruption, on Israel. And that's what we're going with. But the idea that you want to say, like, that they're making it up is, ludicrous. And that campaign aide who left, that was his political director, who was like there is just too, too many skeletons in the closet for me to say, was the one who leaked them. You know, it came from a real source. It wasn't fabricated. So his odds of winning the seat took a little hit from this. But according to Cal she, still 60% chance of winning. And I'm really, I feel like we haven't talked about this that much. And I really want to hear where you are on it because.

You know, I want that seat really bad, really, really badly. And for me, the tattoo is the big problem, like, that he was sexting. I don't like that he was on that app kick. And it was interesting in the picture. He was covering up the tattoo. So he obviously knew that if you're trying to get laid, people don't like a toten cough, if you happen to know what that is. But where are you on Platner?

So I think the thing that unites me around Plattenor is I really don't like Senator Collins. I think she's just, and there's a lot of them, but I think she's just such a raging narcissist that give me a camera and I'm going to pretend that I'm having a difficult time voting yes for the Supreme Court justice that will likely turn back a woman's rights because I'm a woman. Oh, fuck you. We know how you're voting. I mean, just stop it. And I generally think, you know, obviously I'm biased. I'm a Democrat. Look, his staff has handled this terribly. Terribly. Terribly. I am not a perfect husband. I've had huge errors in judgment. Huge errors in judgment. But my love, my relationship, my grace, my wife's generosity has resulted in an ability for

us to overcome a lot of things, including exceptional examples of poor judgment on my part, to have what is a wonderful marriage. And if you want to focus on that and that's a disqualifier for you, fine, there's nothing I can do about it. But my promise to you is one, you should know I have a wonderful marriage. And two, I'm going to focus on the following issues and try not to get distracted by this. But if you're accusing me of terrible judgment in my marriage in this relationship and other examples of terrible judgment, we're going to need a bigger boat. I'm human. But I've been, I have a wonderful marriage and it's a source of strength for me that gives me the ability to focus on key issues for Mainers, including the following.

But to come out and say it's not true, just acknowledge the issue. There are a lot of people who are going to walk into a voting booth and pull back the curtain and have sent text messages that were probably not a good idea. I mean, there's, you know, everyone, not everyone, but a lot of people are living in glass houses. Okay. I would own it. Have at it. I'm not a perfect husband. Have at it. Have you decided, okay, voting world,

when Democrats do do shit like this, or is that disqualifying, but meanwhile, you're sending people cavorting with pedophiles? I mean, I would just own it. It's not what people fail to realize in crisis management, and they make the same mistake over and over. It's not the crisis. It's your management of it. It's this bullshit denial. Well, it's not true and it's malpractice. Oh, my God. He's just inviting the media and the journalistic community to go, no, this is accurate.

And keep the story alive. Own it. I'm not a perfect husband. If you need that as a qualification for your elected officials, we need to recall about 60% of Congress. Well, certainly the male side. I mean, the result is we could have a lot more women in office if we threw out everyone that was doing this.

I agree on the Moore part, but I oftentimes think that, well, I don't know. Secretary Nome banging her number two on company property. I mean, I think, let me put it this way. I agree with the term more. There's more men who would be recalled, but also, I think we have a tendency to assume all men are predators and weirdos and that all women are nuns. And I think neither of those things are true. No, of course not. I'm just saying like net net when you think about who runs for office.

It's a lot of dudes, yeah, who think like I'm going to set a lot of attacks and I'm going to do a lot of cheating and it won't make a difference. And largely we reward that. Power corrupts. Powerful men have a tendency to engage, in my opinion, to believe they can engage in inappropriate behavior and that they're immune from it. And also, the reality is power attracts opportunity. And anyway, I'm not going to get into male sexuality and the many failings of our powerful men. But what I will say is that these guys, it's so basic. You acknowledge the issue.

You own it. I'm going to try and be a better senator than the current incumbent. That's it. End of story. I'm totally with you. I think especially in this digital age, like nothing is a secret. And this is why also you see so many candidates that don't even share everything with their campaign apparatus, right? Because no one is with you forever, right? Or until the grave. And this leak came from someone who worked for with the

Platner campaign. I was just on Fox, which is why my hair and makeup looks nice. And I was talking about the Plattenor situation. And I said, listen, in a couple of weeks, we're going to be watching Ken Paxton's public divorce trial where his wife left him on biblical grounds. Like, spare us, right? Like stick with the Totenkov, if anything. But I want to, and I know we've got other stuff to get to, but I did want to get your take on kind of like the meta question about candidates like this, because there is a faction of our party, like Sarah Longwell, who you just had on Raging Moderates. And she argues that that being ruthless or wanting to win elections doesn't mean that we're necessarily okay with any candidate that can win that race. And then someone like Tim Miller is like, no.

Like, first of all, it's up to the voters and the people of Maine. They had another option, though arguably Janet Mills was not a great option at 78 years old. And she's also a very unpopular governor. But Jared Golden didn't want to win. Other people wanted other great Maine politicians wanted. to go for other jobs. So you ended up with a situation where you had an unknown guy who was barnstorming and bringing, you know, people together and had this message that was resonating and people are human themselves, which sounds like a stupid thing to say. But when he talks about,

like, I made these comments and I was in a dark place, people see that in themselves, right? Or they know somebody who struggled with addiction or has PTSD, et cetera. And, So I'm curious as to what you think about that. Like, do we want to win at all costs, like at a Ken Paxton level? Or do we still have to hold ourselves to a different kind of standard than the Republicans? It's the former. I think we can, you know, but we have our dignity as women's rights get taken away from them inch by inch. But, you know, this whole, we have our dignity.

We will apply a purity test. We will chase Senator Al Franken, who we will. would have been a powerful voice out of the party because we are pure. Yeah. Yeah, okay, have your six-minute run for president, Senator Jilla Brand. Where does that leave us now? So, no, I'm not for. Look, I think Graham Platner, the ton cough, obviously, you know, look, as a Jew, I don't love that. I think a young man is entitled to make, and as a young woman, you're entitled to make stupid, I hate these purity tests. I hate them. Some things I get it should probably be disqualifying. The guy served his country in the military. He has a message that

kind of resonates. The Democrats need more people who drink beer and have tattoos and have a little bit of like, I don't know, blue collar riz, if you will. You know, so I, he's absolutely not a perfect candidate, but the notion somehow that if we don't endorse him, that we'll have, we'll have our dignity, good sirs, and that'll, oh, fuck that. Get, get Collins out of of office, if you want to actually help the average American, if you want to have a check in power against a president who seems to be senile and mean and stupid all at the same time, no, a purity test, you know, this notion of well, I mean, I will absolutely, and I may even try to get up to help Platner at some point. I might like force you to come with me.

But I don't in any way think that the Democrats, I mean, this is what happens. We end up with an incompetent running against a 9-11 denier because we can't get good people to run for office because people are not perfect. Okay, Barack Obama is pretty close to perfect. There just aren't that many of those people. We have presidents banging their interns. We have presidents, I mean, we've had Democrats constantly. getting in trouble. And guess what? People aren't perfect. And I think you should look at character. I think at some point when everything adds up to being a criminal family, see above Trump,

I would argue that's disqualifying. But a tattoo, I said the same thing about Hexeth. He got in trouble for one of his tattoos. I'm like, a guy who's in the fucking military serving his country who one night goes and gets a tattoo, he gets a hall pass for me. Because the next day, he might be blown up by an IED trying to protect our rights. You can get whatever the fuck tattoo he wants. As long as he shows it's not indicative or emblematic of how he's going to approach governance at this point in his life. If we want to start applying purity tests

around people's marriages and, you know, in private lives, Jesus Christ, who we can end up with is candidates. I mean, this is what you end up with. An incompetent bass and a conspiracy theorist, Pratt. because good candidates in L.A. are like, there's no fucking way I'm running for office. To have all in a digital age, have my kids and my wife and my friends and Fox News or CNN pour over every digital component of my life. So in a digital world, it goes to a larger issue.

I think at a very early age, we've got to tell people and kids, one of the reasons kids aren't mating or having sex and there's a birth earth, is there's cameras everywhere. They don't want to dance. They don't want to get drunk because they're worried about being filmed and looking stupid. They feel as if they're always being watched and everything goes into their permanent record.

And so if we're going to have essentially a surveillance economy where everything is digitized, we better start demonstrating a lot more grace and forgiveness to people or otherwise everyone's just going to sit in their house on their phone on a VPN, afraid to do anything, afraid to take any risks, much less run for office. Anyways, my TED talk is, look, folks, these purity tests where one false move, one incorrect view on a position, and you're out is my

candidate. And the Democratic Party is going to apply an orthodoxy and a purity test to everybody such that we have our dignity as we continue to demonize immigrants, have a shitty economy, and take away women's rights. Fuck that. I think it's insane that we would be this I don't know, this highbrow, this elite, this fucked up. A little anger there, a little anger there. Your thoughts, Jess? Nat, I agree with the conclusion. I would point out that Pete Higgseth's tattoo was a harbinger of maybe Christian nationalist things to come.

Fair enough. Well, you can make that bridge, right? I can attach that to his grand. I can't attach Graham Platner's Tottenkoff to his. to his viewpoints now and his actions. I can't see the connection. Which is why I just wish, and you led with this about the tax messages, just tell the truth when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

Don't lie about, oh, I didn't know what it was because there are Reddit posts that show that you did know what it was. And I think if people did that, we would be a lot better off. I would also add, I don't think John Ossoff has any text. tattoos. So maybe he's the guy. There you go. Grand Platter is going to vote to make lives better for Americans. Susan Collins does not. And whoever the comms director is for for Grand Platter's campaign, it's very simple. I've had huge lapses in judgment. I'm not going to go into specifics. I have a great marriage. How about you? You know, next. And he's canceling a bunch of interviews,

and I don't think he should be doing that. Oh, no. Go on the offense. Yeah. Again, it's not the crisis, it's how you've handled it, and they mishandle it. Let's take one last quick break. Staples Preferred Business Membership, built for busy business owners, because you've got bigger things to think about. With Staples Preferred, get free delivery, no minimums. Staples Preferred unlocks up to 3% back, plus 10% savings on print and exclusive wireless offers. One less thing on your plate.

Actually, a lot less. Visit staples.ca slash preferred. That was easy. Hi, I'm Maria Sharpova, host of the Pretty Tough podcast. Each episode, I sit down with high-achieving women to discuss the pursuit of excellence without apology. This week on the show, clinical psychologist and founder, Dr. Becky Kennedy and I unpack what it really means to raise kids today. I think parenting is the most important job in the world and the one that has the most impact on your world and the world. and the world. It is

nonstop. Check out pretty tough. New episodes on Wednesdays. You can watch it on YouTube or listen in your favorite podcast app. In the span of a decade, Ben Shapiro built the Daily Wire into a conservative media empire. He produced hit podcasts that bit at liberal excesses and documentaries and lectures about the founders, the genders, the Gospels. He peddled polos, hats, candles, provided a home for de-platformed conservative stars like Matt Walsh, and minted stars like Candice Owens. Let's put a pin in that. The Daily Wire even has kids programming, a judgmental puppet named Zoodles. Zoodle! Who shares Shepiro's load-bearing eyebrows. This year, though, the Empire showed signs of collapse. The Daily Wire's YouTube videos are down from millions of views to the low-five figures. Web traffic is plummeting, and recently, Shapiro laid off 13% of his employees. Asked by the Washington Post, what had happened? Shapiro accused other conservatives of click-horing by embracing radical Islam. theorizing about the evils of Winston Churchill and mocking the widow of Charlie Kirk.

The kids still got it. On today, explained, the fall of Ben Shapiro. Today Explain drops every weekday afternoon. Welcome back. Speaking of relationships, let's move on. There seems to be trouble brewing between Trump and his vice president, J.D. Vance. Trump has reportedly been privately questioning whether Vance is fit to be a successor, telling advisors he believes Vance has never won a major election without his help.

Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wendell. I've recently advised Vance to stop starting Twitter fights. I don't ever miss Twitter, except I love the idea of watching Vance in a fight on Twitter. Anyways, Jess, is this more evidence that Trump couldn't care less what happens to the Republican Party? I think it's more about the fact that he has been persuaded into the Rubio camp in the Vance versus Rubio. I mean, Vance was undoubtedly the right person for him to run with in 2024. You know, he's a millennial. His kids liked him. He had an appeal to a very online group. And that's how Trump pulled this off, right? Swinging men over and especially younger voters. But I think basically, Vance has turned out to not be that useful for him. He doesn't give a good speech. He's not funny at all. He's pretty charmless. Like, he has no dude vibe. And Trump likes that. Even though he's, even though he's. in a suit, Trump. He thinks of himself, and a lot of people feel this way, as someone who

gets, like, the cultural zeitgeist, right, and can, you know, be chill and hang. And I have heard from many people who know him incredibly well that he can be in a conversation with anybody, right? Like, he can be talking to the cop on the street, a security guard, you know, a head of state, whatever it is. And that Vance just doesn't, he doesn't have that kind of Riz, as it were, And I think they also know that they're going into a very tough midterms and that Vance isn't giving them a lot. He's gone to do these terrible economic speeches, you know, showing up in states like Iowa and telling people that everything is so great. And that's falling flat. And Marco Rubio, I mean, now it sounds like the latest thing that I saw was that Iran isn't responding to the U.S. anymore.

So I don't know what's going on with the deal. But Marco Rubio is certainly seen as the most competent member of the cabinet. And I feel like Trump thinks like he is a more worthy successor, you know, to his administration than Vance's. So that was my read on it. And then Susie Wiles has very good instincts, right? Like she knows who to rat out when it's the right time, you know, when to say nothing. And clearly she has turned. Yeah, I also think the piece of news that was overlooked.

that actually is going to have more impact than people think is the reason J.D. Vance's vice president is Peter Thiel. And I don't know if you saw this. Peter Thiel announced he's moved to Argentina. Oh, I didn't see that. He claims that America's becoming socialist. So he's either thinking about moving or he's actually moved to Argentina, which I think says more about Peter Thiel than the U.S. But if Peter Thiel is moving to Argentina, is he really going to spend a ton of money and influence to try and get Vance elected? I think without Peter Thiel, Vance is toast. And also my thesis is that Trump just doesn't give a shit about the Republican Party and he's Chernobyl and anybody near him is just going to get radiated politically for the rest of their life. Assume that Rubio becomes the nominee, the amount of statements that Rubio has made that are totally contrary to everything about the foreign policy, the Trump administration, his ability to kind of create a word salad and sound like he sounds for nothing,

he's in debates. I mean, I think Vance is the dream candidate, but I don't think Rubio is going to be a great candidate. I would argue it's going to be neither of them. Again, Trump is political Chernobyl. You're around him long enough. Eventually, eventually you die of political leukemia. He just...

Well, I think you're right that it's going to be a big primary, though. Like, I think Hegsets is going to get in. Ted Cruz is positioning himself. You'll see, like, some never-Trump people. Rand Paul was sniffing around. I think you better. So it'll be a clown car on both sides, probably. And for something a little bit lighter, we have a new dating coach, and that is Senator Bernie Sanders. Here he is giving advice on finding a partner in the screen-filled world we live in.

Do you have any dating advice for young people in this moment? I'm serious. I tell you, it is, the world is changing so fast. At the end of the day, you know what we got? We got human beings. That's all we got. And we got a. Start face-to-face relating to human beings. Back in the day, people actually met people. They met him at work, they met them in social activities or whatever it is. So I think we have got to kind of put down the screens a little bit, you know, and deal with human beings, all the pluses and minuses of who we are as human beings, face-to-paste.

Put yourself out there a little bit more? Put yourself out there. You may get your feelings hurt, right? That's being human. You may get disappointed in love. That's human. I love it. Word.

Yeah, word. Touch grass, touch a body consensually. And Bernie Sanders is such an interesting parallel between how important he is online and how offline he reads as a human being. Right. Like he goes viral no matter what happens. He just stands there. He stare at a space or like the mask with the mittens, right, from the inauguration and all of it. And then you're like, but he's also just like.

my Jewish grandpa from Brooklyn, right? Who's telling me, like, you met anyone nice lately? Ask her out. Yeah, it's hard to argue with. All right, we're all going to get off our phones and go out and touch grass, so to speak. Let's leave it there, Jess. Have a great rest of the week. I'll see you tomorrow. Support for this show comes from Odu.

Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software. you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-3 at O-D-O-O-O-O-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-O-com.

Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if, like What if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.